Vickers Valiant B1, XD826 of No 7 Squadron Honington, in which Fg Off Alan Summerson flew many sorties as AEO in Sqn Ldr Fallas’s crew during 1957. (Tony Clark Collection)
In August 1958 Alan was sent off to RAF Hullavington to attend an advanced signals course at No 1 Air Electronics School and upon completion was promoted to flying officer and confirmed as an AEO in the General Duties Branch of the RAF. He returned to No 7 Squadron at RAF Honington until posted in June 1959 to No 232 OCU at RAF Gaydon to convert to the Handley Page Victor. At the end of this course Alan joined No 57 Squadron, which operated the Victor B1 from RAF Honington, before moving to RAF Cottesmore in September 1959. It was with the Victor aircraft that Alan would be associated for the remainder of his RAF career and he became widely known in the RAF as the man who trained many of the AEOs that served in the Victor fleet.
In October 1960, now a flight lieutenant with No 57 Squadron, Alan became involved with the aftermath of the 350th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, Virginia, as the AEO in Flt Lt E. Matthews’ crew; celebrations had taken place during 1957 on both sides of the Atlantic. On 4 October 1960 Flt Lt Matthews and his crew were on a routine training detachment, with an overnight stop at Goose Bay in Labrador, Canada, to Offutt US Air Force Base in Nebraska. Upon arrival they were asked to carry back to England three plaques commemorating John Smith (the colony’s founder) from the Jamestown Foundation, for distribution to places in Lincolnshire (he was born in Willoughby in the county) and London. The London-bound plaque was to be inset in a new statue of Smith, in Cheapside, due to be unveiled by the Queen Mother on Monday 31 October 1960. For the return flight on the 7th and 8th, Victor B1, XH645 was routed via Goose Bay to RAF Mildenhall, where it landed in a violent rainstorm, having completed the final leg of 2,200 miles in four and three-quarter hours. Others in the crew were Flt Lts A.G. Farlam, co-pilot; S.G. Templeman, navigator; and P.R. Bentley, radar operator.
Another event that caught the eye of the media occurred while Alan was with No 543 Squadron at RAF Wyton, to which he had been posted in August 1966. The Victor SR2 as operated by No 543 Squadron was a formidable reconnaissance aeroplane that could carry an impressive array of cameras, photo-flares/flashes and fuel in its modified bomb bay. Its superior performance brought a photographic coverage capability twice that of the PR Vickers Valiant. It was able to photograph, by conventional camera or radar, some 400,000 square miles in eight hours. In two hours it could cover an area the size of the UK and four SR2s could cover the whole of the North Atlantic in six hours. Radar reconnaissance equipment allowed it to operate by day or night and the services of the squadron were called for all over the world.
Flying as AEO in Victor SR Mk2 XM715, Alan Summerson was part of the crew, captained by Sqn Ldr ‘Red’ Harrington, with ACM Sir Wallace Kyle AOC-in-C Bomber Command on board as co-pilot, that made a non-stop flight from Piarco in Trinidad to Wyton on 20 February 1967. The flight of 3,896 miles, made in seven hours and thirty minutes at an average speed of 592mph, was an unofficial speed record. This was the culmination of a short association with ACM Sir Wallace Kyle that began when his hand-picked crew from No 543 Squadron – with Sqn Ldr ‘Red’ Harrington in command and Alan as AEO – were airborne from Wyton on 19 September 1966 in XL193 to give the AOC-in-C his first taste of handling a Victor bomber. It was in preparation for the AOC’s whistle-stop visits first to Offutt USAF base in Nebraska and then to Malta. This trip set off on 4 October in XH672 with the same crew taking ACM Kyle via Goose Bay to Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, returning on the 9th direct to the UK, where bad weather caused a diversion to Lossiemouth, finally recovering to Wyton on the 10th. On the 13th the AOC and his crew were off again, this time out to Luqa in Malta and returning the next day to Wyton. It was February 1967 before the AOC-in-C used the same crew for another short tour of US bases. ACM Kyle brushed up on the Victor with a flight to Leuchars in XM715 on 7 February; they then set off on 13 February via Goose Bay to Maxwell AFB, Alabama, then Carswell AFB, Texas, and thence to Piarco in Trinidad, where they arrived on 17 February. It was from here that they departed on 20 February for the record flight back to Wyton.
Now flying regularly in Sqn Ldr Harrington’s crew, Alan began another overseas trip on 5 May 1967 in XH674 out to RAF Muharraq in Bahrain and spent a couple of days on an aerial photo detail before returning to Wyton via Luqa on 10 May. June 1967 was spent flying training sorties over the UK in preparation for carrying out an aerial survey of Denmark for mapping purposes. For some unknown reason Denmark had not been mapped accurately and its government financed the RAF to carry out on its behalf a comprehensive aerial photo survey in July 1967. Under an RAF code name of Fair Focus, Sqn Ldr ‘Red’ Harrington’s crew made three six-hour sorties in Victor SR2, XL165, over Denmark on 13, 17 and 23 July, and made a further fourteen sorties, lasting between four and six hours each, under the banner of Fair Focus up to the end of that September.
During June 1968 ACM Sir Wallace Kyle called once more for ‘his’ crew to carry him out to inspect some of his Middle East ‘patch’ and to visit Australia. The routine was slightly different from before: Sqn Ldr Harrington, Alan and the usual crew accompanied ACM Kyle to Leuchars and back on 6 June in SR2 XL718 while he re-familiarised himself with the handling of the Victor. The AOC-in-C then made his way out to the Middle East independently before meeting up with Red Harrington and the crew at Tengah, Singapore. Harrington captained a B2R, XL188, from RAF Wittering on 11 June via Akrotiri, Muharraq and Gan to Tengah. On the 19th, ACM Kyle took the co-pilot’s seat and off they went to visit Pearce RAAF air base just north of Perth, returning to Tengah with the AOC on the 25th.
Flt Lt Alan Summerson (third from left) with No 543 Squadron. He was AEO in ACM Sir Wallace Kyle’s (right) crew after the record flight in Victor XM718 from Trinidad to Wyton in September 1967. Sqn Ldr Harrington is second from the right. (Sybil Summerson)
Alan Summerson’s logbook entries relating to ACM Sir Wallace Kyle’s tour of South East Asia and Australia in June 1968. (Sybil Summerson)
Handley Page Victor K2, XL188 of No 55 Squadron Marham. Alan Summerson flew as AEO in this aircraft when, as a B2R version, it was used by ACM Sir Wallace Kyle on his Far East and Australia tour in June 1968. (Author’s Collection)
Alan was involved in more aerial surveying later in 1968 when No 543 photographed Libya that November. His last major long-distance flight came in February 1969 when Sqn Ldr Harrington and crew took SR2, XH674, three-quarters of the way round the world then back again. The Victor left Wyton on 18 February 1969 and routed: Goose Bay; McClellan AFB, near Sacramento, California; Hickam AFB, Honolulu; Wake Island; Anderson AFB on Guam (crossing the International Date Line); and finally reaching Tengah, Singapore, on the 25th. Then, after a few days’ rest, the crew of XH674 turned round and went back the same way, re-crossing the date line and landing at RAF Wyton on 6 March.
In 1973, now with the rank of squadron leader, Alan’s last posting was to No 55, the Victor air-refuelling squadron at RAF Marham in Norfolk, where he spent the last two years of his service as senior operations officer; essentially a ground-based post, it was one that also made him available to fly and instruct if required. He and his wife Sybil had made their home near Stamford and he commuted daily to Marham – a long drive but he still loved driving and it allowed him to observe the wildlife of the countryside through which he motored. From his youth he had had a keen interest in wildlife, and birds in particular, and it was his ambition to pursue a career in wildlife conservation when he retired from the RAF.
Highly regarded as an expert in his air electronics field, Sqn Ldr Alan Summerson MID* retired in January 1975 after an RAF career spanning almost forty years, during which he had logged 7,768 flying hours from biplanes to V-bombers. Sadly his retirement was short-lived, as he died suddenly of natural causes in 1976, just a few days before his fifty-seventh birthday. Memories of Alan’s gallant service in the RAF were revived with pride when, in 2009, Cllr Bryan Robinson made a
n eloquent plea to members of Donington Parish Council during a debate about naming streets in a new housing development in Alan’s home town. So persuasive was Cllr Robinson’s case that it was unanimously decided to name one of the new streets Summerson Close. The street name sign was unveiled in April 2012, a fitting tribute indeed to Alan ‘Zoom’ Summerson’s memory and to his extraordinary flying career.
6
Guest of the Gestapo
Warrant Officer Arthur ‘Joe’ Edgley
What was it like to go on ‘ops’ to the maelstrom that RAF bomber crews euphemistically called ‘Happy Valley’? Lincolnshire man Arthur Edgley had more reason than most to remember his last op there. It will be recalled that earlier we heard of Alan Summerson’s evasion experiences at the beginning of hostilities, but now we will hear how it was done at the height of the air war over Germany itself.
Arthur, who preferred to be called ‘Joe’ during his RAF service, was born in the village of Gedney Dawsmere in south Lincolnshire, where he grew up within sight and sound of the Holbeach Marsh bombing and gunnery range and the former RAF station at Sutton Bridge. Born in 1921, from childhood he was fascinated by anything to do with aeroplanes and was always among the first to go and see those that came to grief for one reason or another while operating over and around the range. He left school in 1935 and found employment on Dennis Clifton’s farm at Gedney Marsh, where he remained until he volunteered for the RAF in 1940. Like thousands of young men of his time, the outbreak of the Second World War presented him with the opportunity to fulfil a boyhood dream and fly – and as he was quick to point out: ‘at His Majesty’s expense, too!’ He applied for training as a pilot but because he was a farm worker and thus in a reserved category of employment, his application was turned down. The Air Ministry did not reckon with Arthur’s determination, however, and after making five separate attempts officialdom finally relented and he was selected for pilot training. After the usual induction process Arthur was posted in late 1941 to No 12 Initial Training Wing (12 ITW) located in St Andrews in Scotland. It was here in May 1941 that the RAF had set up one of its many ground schools for would-be pilots. Arthur spent six months absorbing the theory of subjects such as airmanship, flying and navigation, together with brushing up his maths and learning the customs and regulations that ruled life in the RAF, before graduating successfully. He was posted to No 15 Elementary Flying Training School (15 EFTS) at RAF Carlisle, where his flying capability was assessed and he received basic flying training to solo standard in the Miles Magister aeroplane. Arthur soloed in Magister R1853 on 21 April 1942 and after a few more flights on his own found himself selected to train overseas under the British Commonwealth Air Training Programme (BCATP). This programme was the outcome of an agreement, originally made between the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in December 1939. It was strategically important because it made available airfields for flying training that were beyond the practical reach of enemy aircraft; the training programmes were run to a common system and the scheme formed the basis for a pooling of Commonwealth air resources.
Arthur was sent by ship to Canada where his group went to No 31 Personnel Depot in Moncton, New Brunswick. There followed a five-day train journey via Montreal, Winnipeg, Brandon and Regina before he and seventy-nine fellow airmen arrived in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, home to No 32 Service Flying Training School (SFTS), in the middle of June 1942. Here Arthur was assigned to No 34 EFTS for flying training at Assiniboia, a new airfield located 65 miles south of Moose Jaw. He was delighted when he discovered he was to be flown there in a Tiger Moth by one of the instructors, who let Arthur pilot the aircraft for the whole of the trip.
Assiniboia was one of seven BCATP schools in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and it was staffed and administered jointly by the RAF and Canadian civilians. It opened officially when No 34 (RAF) EFTS was formed on 11 February 1942 and was joined on 6 July 1942 by No 25 (RCAF) EFTS, a unit that was run by a civilian organisation called the Central Manitoba Flying Training School Ltd. Airfield facilities such as runways were not fully operational when Arthur arrived in mid-July 1942, so his training flights were made from strips mown out of the wheat fields in the prairies that surrounded the airfield. Having gone solo, Arthur looked forward eagerly to building up his hours on the DH Tiger Moth but, having put in some solo trips, he and the rest of his course were called together one day to be given stunning news out of the blue that, due to an oversupply of pilots, only the top thirty out of the eighty airmen would be retained to complete their pilot training to ‘Wings’ standard. To his great disappointment, Arthur was not in that top thirty and found himself posted out to Trenton, Ontario – another three-day train journey with a stopover in Toronto.
De Havilland Tiger Moth with full canopy, as used by BCATP flying schools in Canada to cope with severe winter weather. (Author’s Collection)
At Trenton the authorities offered Arthur a choice: he could be discharged from the service and return home as a civilian or he could re-muster for training from scratch in another trade. Making the best of his misfortune, still very keen to fly and quite liking the idea of handling weapons too, Arthur re- mustered as an air gunner – and harboured no regrets about doing so. As a keen game- and wildfowl-shooter back on the farm, he had been used to handling guns and felt going for air gunner was a good move. It took about a month for the new paperwork to be sorted out and then – sometime around September 1942 – he was posted with eight others to No 9 Bombing & Gunnery School at the RCAF station Mont-Joli close to the bank of the St Lawrence Seaway in eastern Quebec. Mont-Joli was one of eleven bombing and gunnery schools in Canada that operated the Fairey Battle IT, a variation of the Mks I, II and V with its glasshouse cockpit reduced in length and a rotating Bristol gun turret mounted in the vacant space. Of the 739 Battles used by the RCAF, 212 were converted in this way for aerial-gunnery training because the original open gunner position was unsuited to the severe Canadian winter climate. The course lasted about six weeks and divided into two phases: theory and practice. Ground tuition concentrated on the maintenance and operation of Browning machine guns and Bristol turrets, as well as aircraft recognition. Gun turret handling was practised both on the ground and in the air. The budding air gunner spent between fifteen and twenty hours in the air, shooting at towed targets and taking part in other exercises, such as firing at targets along the river shore.
Trainee air gunners of Class 12, Course 38A, No 9 Bombing & Gunnery School, Mont-Joli, Canada, in April 1942, in front of a Fairey Battle IT. Arthur Edgley is in the back row, third from the right. (Arthur Edgley)
Newly qualified, LAC Arthur Edgley proudly wears his air gunner flying badge in 1942. (Arthur Edgley via John Reid, Stirling Bomber Research Society)
Promoted to sergeant on completion of his gunnery training – he passed out second in his course – Arthur was sent back to Moncton in preparation for a return to England. Two or three weeks later he was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for embarkation on the Queen Elizabeth, and four and a half days later he docked in the Clyde. Arthur was sent immediately to Harrogate RAF receiving centre where he was given leave. Ever since he had joined up, he had been corresponding with Joan Lawson, his childhood sweetheart from his own locality, and he spent his leave with Joan and her family. As always, his father let him borrow his car for the duration of his leave and this was a happy time for both Arthur and Joan. It was December 1942; the war soon beckoned once more and all too soon he was summoned to report to No 12 Operational Training Unit (12 OTU) at Chipping Warden in Oxfordshire.
Chipping Warden was a Wellington OTU; a place where embryo bomber crews were formed and received flying training that would prepare them for operations with front-line squadrons. Arthur recalled that ‘crewing up’ was a pretty informal process:
They put bomb aimers, air gunners, navigators, wireless operators and pilots – about eighty of us – all in one hut, closed the doors and said ‘sort yourselves out’. I, not being backward in coming forw
ard, mated up pretty quickly with a bomb aimer from Holt in Norfolk. Then I shouted: ‘does anyone want a bomb aimer and a rear gunner?’ This good-looking Aussie pilot walked over and said: ‘You two look OK to me.’ We all shook hands and that was three of the five sorted. We then picked out a wireless operator from London and finally the pilot said: ‘I’m going off to the officer’s mess to get a navigator.’ He came back after a little while and said we were all complete now.
That crew was:
Pilot: Sgt Jack Oliphant Wilson from Sydney, Australia.
Navigator: Plt Off Brian Cooper from Chile.
Bomb aimer: Sgt Patrick Arnott, from Holt, Norfolk.
Wireless operator: Sgt Sidney J. (‘Maxie’) Maxted from London.
Rear gunner: Sgt Arthur Edgley from Gedney Drove End, Lincolnshire.
‘Tail End Charlie’, a Stirling rear gunner. (Author’s Collection)
Dressed for action. Arthur Edgley, on the right, with his crew (from left to right): Maxted, Arnott, Wilson (pilot) and Cooper, of No 12 OTU, Turweston, February 1943. (Arthur Edgley)
The new crew left Chipping Warden for its satellite airfield at Turweston in Northamptonshire where they were introduced to the Vickers Wellington Mk III, the version powered by two 1,675hp Bristol Hercules radial engines: ‘They never let us down,’ recalled Arthur. Initially their training consisted of daylight ‘circuits and bumps’ with an instructor pilot alongside Sgt Wilson to show him the ropes. Then Jack went solo and the process was repeated in darkness until again, in quick time, Jack Wilson was adjudged competent enough to go solo at night with his crew. In Arthur’s opinion, 20-year-old Wilson was ‘a wonderful pilot’. Arthur, at the grand age of 22, was the oldest among the crew:
They Spread Their Wings Page 23