They Spread Their Wings

by Alastair Goodrum

  October 1950 was a varied month for the crew. Operation No 6, made in RN277 ‘D’, was a ten-hour air surveillance patrol along the Korean coast and the Tsushima Strait. While the Sunderland crews were rotated on ops, the ‘resting’ crews picked up a number of odd jobs. For example, on the 6th, Flt Lt Hunter and crew in ML745 were ordered to do the one-hour transit to Sasebo (the US Navy Fleet’s base) to collect some VIPs: C-in-C Far East Station Admiral Sir Patrick Brind and his staff. Alan’s crew was briefed to fly Sir Patrick to Yokosuka then return to Iwakuni with twenty-seven US Navy ratings. After that interlude it was ML745’s turn to go on ops again. With Alan on wireless and radar, op No 7 was an air surveillance patrol to the Wonsan area of Korea, during which the aircraft stood guard over the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Leyte, part of TF–77, circling it while it was being refuelled at sea. Op No 8 was a special transit trip in ML745 carrying a certain Captain Bauer of the US Navy from Iwakuni to Chinghai Bay in Korea and back.

  Alan flew operation No 9 as WOp/Radar in ML745 ‘B’ with Flt Lt Sims in command for the first time and Fg Off Boston as co-pilot. Take-off was at 06.10 on 15 October and involved a ten hour twenty minute recco from Iwakuni to Area Fox and back via Inchon and Taegu. Op No 10 came a couple of days later when Alan carried out air gunner and radar duty in ML745 flown by Flt Lts Sims and Laidlay. They flew to Area Fox again with a prowl down the west coast of Korea on the lookout for floating mines. On the 19th it was back to Kai Tak in PP155 ‘P’, where Alan took some would-be flying boat air gunners up for a couple of hours’ turret gunnery instruction and firing on splash targets out in the bay. By the end of October 1950, Alan had logged 101 hours on Korean ops and worked for a while at Kai Tak before he was sent back to Seletar on 21 November for a couple of weeks’ leave; he made the ten-hour air trip via Saigon in a RNZAF Dakota, NZ3543, flown by Fg Off Innes. On 4 December he made the long trek back to Kai Tak in Sunderland NJ272 ‘A’ and it was 22 January 1951 before he returned to Iwakuni for his next (eleventh) operational flight. This was on the 24th as signaller and air gunner in ML745 ‘B’ once again. With Flt Lt Hunter in command they made an air surveillance patrol to the Wonsan area and also gave top cover to a US Navy refuelling operation. Four days later, on the night of the 28/29th, the crew, with Alan on ASV radar duty, carried out a mundane night weather and ‘met’ recco along the Korean east coast.

  February and March 1951 were busy months for the flying boats and Flt Lt Hunter’s crew completed op Nos 13 to 21 before being relieved. The Korean winter weather was pretty severe and during this mixture of day and night-time flying the Sunderland encountered icing conditions on several occasions. Alan carried out a combination of ASV radar, signaller and air gunner duties on these ops:

  Number Date Aircraft Purpose Duration

  (hrs & mins)

  Op 13 7 Feb ML745 Weather recco, east coast, severe icing 8h 15m

  Op 14 8 Feb ML745 ASP, cover refuelling, radar u/s, bad icing 10h 0m

  Op 15 10 Feb ML882 ‘G’ ASP Tsushima Strait, turbulent conditions 11h 0m

  Op 16 16 Feb RN282 ‘C’ ASP Tsushima Strait, recalled, bad weather 8h 55m

  Op 17 19 Feb ML882 ASP west coast, top cover HMS Theseus 13h 10m

  Op 18 24 Feb ML882 Weather recco, east coast, radar homing, GCA 9h 15m

  Op 19 3 Mar PP155 ‘F’ ASP Tsushima Strait aborted in ML882 11h 40m

  Op 20 6 Mar ML882 ASP Tsushima Strait, recall, bad weather base 12h 25m

  Op 21 8 Mar ML882 Night weather recco, east coast Korea 8h 30m

  Flt Lt Hunter’s crew left for Kai Tak on 10 March 1951 in ML882 and spent the next three months at this base, honing the crew’s skills in each of their trades during comparatively short sorties. In Alan’s case, he manned the ASV radar, practised radio homings and fired on splash and towed targets with the beam. 50in guns while the turret gunners did likewise. Flt Lt Hunter and the navigator practised bombing routines – all of this seemed to signify that their efforts might soon be directed towards Malayan operations.

  Indeed, the next phase of Alan Summerson’s flying career – it might even be regarded as only an ‘interlude’ in his Korean ops – came on 15 June 1951 when No 88 Squadron moved from Kai Tak to Seletar to begin air operations in support of the British Army fighting a counter-insurgency campaign in the Malayan jungle against communist terrorists (CT). This campaign was known as Operation Firedog, and since these sorties were classed as ‘operations’, Alan’s number of combat ‘ops’ began to mount up once more. Sortie briefings were given by an army liaison officer who, acting on intelligence material, allotted a specific target area of about 5 or 10 square miles in which the aim was to disrupt terrorist movements. The general idea was for the army to loosely encircle a suspected CT area with troops who would liaise by radio with the RAF. The area might be ‘softened up’ first by Avro Lincolns dropping 500-pounders or Bristol Brigands bombing or firing rocket projectiles (RPs). The Sunderland would transit to the designated area, with the signallers such as Alan in contact with the ground, then fly a pattern up and down dropping bombs from about 1,700ft, or a bit lower depending on the cloud base, and laying down gunfire until ground troops closed in to take up the fight. The flying boats carried up to 260 x 20lb HE fragmentation bombs fitted with proximity fuses. The bombing method was an ‘interesting’ procedure (to say the least!).

  Explosive bedfellows! Crates of 20lb bombs aboard a Sunderland, Operation Firedog, 1951. (V.M. Reeve via John Evans & Pembroke Dock Sunderland Trust)

  Before take-off, the moveable universal carriers on the four bomb rails – two each side – which could take sixteen of the 20lb bombs, were loaded. Once that first stick had been dropped conventionally by the navigator from the bomb-aimer’s position, the process of reloading the racks in flight was found so awkward, time-consuming and fatiguing in the hot climate that the crews adopted a ‘local method’ of dropping the remainder of their lethal cargo by hand. The ‘reloads’ of 20-pounders were therefore stored in wooden crates, tucked into any spare space on the floor of the bomb room and the galley, and then dropped out of one side hatch of the bomb room or the galley hatch by hand, as instructed by the navigator. He stood on the flight deck with a stopwatch, target photo and bombing pattern and gave orders over the intercom when to start and stop bombing. Two or three of the crew would organise a human chain so that a bomb was picked up, its arming pin removed, handed to the ‘dropper’, who on the command ‘start bombing’ would let it go. The ‘dropper’ then continued to throw out a bomb every two or three seconds until ordered to ‘stop bombing’. The pilot would bring the aircraft round on to a new bombing track and the process was repeated until all the designated area had been covered and all the bombs dispensed. The number of bombs to be carried and the drop interval required was carefully worked out by the navigator prior to the sortie. Primitive but effective! The bombing element of the sortie usually lasted about two hours and this was followed by an hour of low-level strafing by all the guns with the exception of the four fixed. 303s – the angle was too flat for those – while flying at around 100ft above the dense jungle canopy.

  For Flt Lt Hunter’s crew, with Alan as signaller and air gunner, the first Firedog sortie began at 08.55 on the morning of 19 June 1951. Sunderland V, ML882 ‘A’ took off from the sheltered waters of Seletar for a sortie lasting seven hours ten minutes to an area east of Ipoh, 40 miles inland from the Malayan coast and about 700 miles north of base. Over the target area a total of 120 x 20lb HE bombs were dropped into the jungle canopy before the flying boat turned for home. Firedog (FD) ops 2 to 4 came at two-day intervals during the rest of the month, with Nos 2 and 3 being shorter, three-hour sorties during which 120 x 20lb HE bombs were dropped on targets in the Johore district. Alan also came into his own during these sorties with the opportunity to exercise his air to ground gunnery skills. The three air gunners on board managed to fire off a total of 6,000 rounds between them during the second sortie and 4,500 on the third. On 26 June the fourth sortie took ML
882 back to Ipoh where the usual bomb load was dropped and 4,000 rounds fired.

  The next day it was ‘all change’, and Alan’s crew flew back to Kai Tak. While there, Alan had several opportunities to display his other skills at the ASV radar with some successful interceptions on RN surface vessels and a submarine. There was no time for complacency, though, and ML882 winged its way back to Seletar on 6 July. In the days between 10 July and 2 August ML882, captained by Flt Lt Hunter, took Alan and the crew on Firedog op Nos 5 to 14. These sorties of between three and seven hours all had similar profiles and took them to targets in the Raub, Ipoh, Malacca, Perak, Rompin, Pahang and Johore Baeru areas. Bomb loads were usually 160, 232, 240 or 264 x 20lb HE – larger quantities being carried on shorter sorties – and in those ten sorties 2,140 x 20lb bombs were deposited on the jungle, while the turret air gunners, with Alan manning one of the beam. 50s, had plenty of firing practice by loosing off a total of 45,000 rounds on to the heads of the insurgents.

  Sunderland GR5, NJ272 ‘U’ of No 88 Squadron over the Malayan jungle during Operation Firedog, 1951. (V.M. Reeve via John Evans & Pembroke Dock Sunderland Trust)

  No sooner had they returned to Seletar after op No 14 – with seventy-four hours on Firedog operations to Alan’s name – than Flt Lt Hunter was ordered to transit ML882 to China Bay, Trincomalee, in Ceylon to participate in Fleet Exercises. The twelve-hour transit flight was made on 5 August and soon Alan was engrossed in two weeks of radar interceptions and shadowing exercises with surface vessels from the Royal Navy and Royal Indian Navy. On 18 August they were back in Seletar, bringing a ‘new’ Sunderland, RN303, up to top line ready for Korean ops. There was a small, pleasurable diversion for Alan and his colleagues when, on 1 September 1951, they were part of the splendid sight of no fewer than nine Sunderlands in a formation flypast over Kallang, Singapore. Next day, with Alan in the crew, Flt Lt Hunter made the two-day, eighteen-hour transit to Iwakuni via Manilla in the Philippines.

  The crew’s second phase of Korean ops began on 4 September 1951. On op No 22 Alan was signaller on the nine hour forty minute, dusk/night weather recco over the Yellow Sea. There was a little light relief when, nearing a US Navy carrier in the darkness, RN303 was intercepted and investigated by a jet night-fighter launched by the carrier. A few days later, while on op No 23 – an air surveillance patrol in the Tsushima Straits – they came across a suspected blockade runner. It was signalled visually to stop but seemed reluctant to oblige. Alan was told to man the front gun turret and fire across the bows of the vessel to encourage it to stop and, as he noted in his logbook: ‘He did!’ Op No 24 was a similar but uneventful eleven-hour patrol on the 9th, then it was another ‘all change’ and back to Seletar via Kai Tak for a spell of Firedog operations – no rest for the wicked!

  Airborne at 09.00, Alan’s Firedog op No 15 was a nine-hour shipping recco patrol on 19 September that took ML882 up the Malayan coast as far as the Thai border with Indochina, then back to Seletar. Two days later, Firedog No 16 deposited 240 bombs and 6,000 rounds into an area of Bahau, but a little light relief was provided – literally – during the following evening when Alan helped man the bomb room of ML882, as the squadron put on an airborne pyrotechnics display, tossing out 4in flares and firing off assorted other pyrotechnics while flying over Singapore to mark its City Day celebrations.

  Alan was allowed to let his gunnery skills have free rein over the jungle during October when Firedog ops 16 to 25 were flown, including one on the 20th when they took the Senior Air Staff Officer (SASO) from HQ Far East along for the ride. During these ten ops a total of 1,974 x 20lb HE was dropped and 43,000 rounds of. 303in and. 50in calibre ammunition were sprayed on the CTs during repeat visits to the Cherok, Raub and Fraser’s Hill areas – but it was rare indeed for the crew to detect any visual result of their efforts. In the middle of November 1951 it was back to Kai Tak, then a VIP ferry trip to Iwakuni, before going back on Korean ops with the joys of winter weather to look forward to.

  Alan’s Korean op Nos 25 and 26 were quiet, ten-hour ASPs in the Tsushima Strait; No 27 was a night-time combined weather recco and ASP up the east coast of Korea, but again there was nothing of note to report. As November drew to a close, No 28 was a long, eleven-and-a-half-hour ASP sortie but it included providing an escort to three ‘chicks’ – a group of Army Co-operation Austers – making the over-water leg of a transit flight from Ashiya, near Osaka, to Pusan, South Korea. Alan’s final Korean op, No 29, came on 30 November 1951 as radar operator on an ASP and convoy escort which actually turned out to be his longest sortie to date: thirteen hours and ten minutes – perhaps accounted for by the terse comment ‘wrong convoy’ against his logbook entry.

  On 2 December the crew returned to Seletar via Kai Tak with VIPs on board: Maj Gen K.F. Mackay-Lewis, Director of Royal Artillery at the War Office, and his entourage, who were returning from a tour of British Army artillery units in action in Korea. The crew of ML882 managed three weeks’ leave this month and also flew with a new skipper, Flt Lt Houtheuson, but there were only two Firedog ops – Nos 26 and 27 to Ipoh and Grik – completed on 29 and 31 December. Alan flew these as gunner and sigs/gunner respectively.

  January 1952 opened with Flt Lt Hunter back in command of the crew of ML882, making its first night-time Firedog sortie with Wing Commander McKenzie going along for the ride. This was Alan’s FD op No 28, with the usual bombing and gunnery profile over a designated area, but this time the tracks were made as timed runs from vertical searchlights operated by troops on the ground. For a change, Alan was one of the bomb-handling ‘bods’ on this sortie and he manned a. 50in calibre on the next one: No 29 to Klawang on the 26th. In between these last sorties they had to make a seven-hour each way transport flight, carrying a football team from Seletar to Sandakan in Borneo – but he did not say how the match went! On 31 January Alan again helped to dispense bombs during Firedog No 30 to the Kuala Lipis area.

  Whether there was a flap on is not clear but every day from 4 to 10 February, Flt Lt Hunter’s crew flew a Firedog operation. Nos 31 to 37 had Alan back at his signals desk while ML882 covered Klawang, Butterworth, Bentong, Telok Anson and Pahang in sorties lasting between four and seven hours and depositing the usual load of ordnance upon the heads of the CT. And then it was all over – at least as far as Alan and the Far East was concerned. On 9 March he flew out of Seletar for the last time, arriving in England on 11 April, at which point he took some well-earned leave before starting his next posting.

  ‘Zoom’ Summerson returned to England in April 1952 with the rank of master signaller and a total of 2,645 flying hours to his name. In addition to his seven operational sorties with about twelve combat hours total during the Second World War, Alan had flown twenty-nine Korean and thirty-nine Malayan Firedog operational sorties, with 341 hours and 234 hours respectively – a total of seventy-five operational sorties and 587 operational hours. He had also received a second Mention in Despatches, gazetted on 29 August 1952, for distinguished service during the Malayan campaign, to add to that awarded for his exploits in France. The Korean War ended in July 1953, by which time the three FEFBW squadrons had between them flown 1,100 operational sorties and 12,500 operational hours. The final Malayan Firedog sortie by RAF flying boats was flown on 17 September 1954, by which time 400 sorties had been completed, with No 88 Squadron having contributed 165 of these.

  * * *

  In the period between June 1952 and November 1953 Alan was posted to No 1 Air Signallers School, based at RAF Swanton Morley, as a Radio and Radar Instructor. During this time he still had plenty of opportunity to increase his time in the air by accompanying signals students in the back of Avro Anson Mks XIX and XXII aircraft. Then, in February 1954 he was sent on a one-month course at No 1 Maritime Reconnaissance School at RAF St Mawgan. Here he studied the theory and practice of air-sea warfare related to his role as a signals and radar operator. The course included flights in Lancaster GR3s while practising sono-buoy attacks against a submarine in co-op
eration with surface escort vessels. At the end of this course Alan found himself back on Sunderlands with a posting to the Flying Boat Training Squadron in Pembroke Dock, where he was the signals leader. Three months later Alan was posted to No 201 Squadron – still on the Sunderland at Pembroke Dock – and for the next two years flew mainly navigation exercises and anti-sub exercises of all shapes, sizes and durations from Rockall to Malta and all points in between!

  In May 1956 Alan Summerson’s rise through the RAF took another significant change of direction when he was selected for training as an officer cadet at RAF Jurby on the Isle of Man. He was 36 years old upon completion of his course in August of that year and commissioned as a pilot officer in the Air Signals Branch. Alan was now to begin a long association with jet bombers and his first posting was to No 232 Operational Conversion Unit (OCU) at RAF Gaydon, Warwickshire, to fly in the Vickers Valiant B1, the first of the RAF’s jet-engine V-bombers. At this unit he would acquire new skills in the field of air electronic systems that would become common with the advent of the new V-bomber force. It was here in October 1956 that ‘Zoom’ Summerson teamed up with Sqn Ldr Fallas and became a regular member of his crew. After completion of the conversion course Alan was posted, with Sqn Ldr Fallas, to No 7 Squadron at RAF Honington, where he flew regularly as an air electronics officer (AEO) in the latter’s crew, often in XD826, until June 1959.

  Officer Cadet Alan Summerson stands ramrod-straight in the foreground on the end of the row, while inspected by HRH Duchess of Kent, RAF Jurby, Isle of Man, 1956. (John Summerson)