Roger Dunsford - Three in Thirteen: The Story of a Mosquito Night Fighter Ace

The Story of a Mosquito Night Fighter Ace

Roger Dunsford

with
Geoff Coughlin

Oxford & Philadelphia

Published in Great Britain and

the United States of America in 2017 by

CASEMATE PUBLISHERS

The Old Music Hall, 106108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE, UK

and

1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083, USA

Roger Dunsford and Geoff Coughlin 2017

Hardcover Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-440-2

Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-441-9

Mobi Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-441-9

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

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Email:

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I met Joe Singleton, briefly, in the early nineties when I went with his son, Pete, and our wives to Joe and Theresas home in Weston Turville on the edge of the Chilterns. My memory is of a charming, quietly spoken gentleman in the truest sense of that word. Our conversation centred on his genuine curiosity about my experiences as a pilot in the (then) present day air force. I was vaguely aware, from previous conversations with Pete, that he had been a Mosquito pilot and had a pretty distinguished war record, but that was about all and, somehow, we never got around to talking about that very much. The Singletons were and are a pretty self-effacing lot. Joe died in December 1996 and I now very much regret my lack of curiosity at our only meeting oh, how I now wish I had talked to Joe about his experiences.

I first met Pete Singleton in the late seventies when we were both Flight Lieutenants posted as Flight Commanders on the staff of Initial Officer Training Wing of the Royal Air Force College at Cranwell. I had arrived there after completing a Vulcan captains tour on 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron at RAF Waddington and Pete was at a similar stage of his career as a Fighter Controller. So, he had come from the defensive and I from the offensive side of the RAFs role in the Cold War, which was then at its height. The chances of the career path of a bomber pilot crossing that of a Fighter Controller were small enough. That it should instantly lead to a friendship, still going strong after 36 years, is rare indeed. Another curiosity is that one of Petes students back then was a certain callow youth called Chris Goss. He is now a leading expert and writer of great scholarship on WWII aviation, particularly from a Luftwaffe perspective. He has been a great help in correlating Joes encounters with, literally, the other side of the story; thank you, Chris. Such serendipity is a persistent thread running through this book.

Pete and I both regard that tour teaching the future leaders of the RAF about, well, leadership as a privilege and quite possibly the most enjoyable of all tours. To this day we reminisce with much affection and belly laughs at the escapades of both staff and students during our time at Cranwell. Our respective careers diverged permanently after that, but we kept in regular touch, visited and holidayed together; our respective wives Prue and Sandi also became firm friends. After Pete and Sandi both retired as Wing Commanders, they eventually fulfilled a long held dream to buy land and build themselves a home in Cyprus. Needless to say, Prue and I were eager to be on the waiting list to visit them as soon as (actually before) their beautiful spread in foothills of the Troodos Mountains was finished. It was only when, during those first few visits to Cyprus and I saw Joes boxed medals (DSO, DFC, AFC, plus campaign medals) proudly displayed on their wall alongside Chris Stothards Two Down, One to Go picture, that I realized Joes was no ordinary war record. Gradually, after many sultry evenings and brandy sours, I prised out of Pete what he knew of Joes wartime exploits. When Petes memory needed refreshing on some parts of his Dads story, he would disappear into the garage and delve into one of several large boxes of Joes own collection of memorabilia, which Pete had had shipped out along with his medals. One day, I suggested to Pete that a significant story was hidden in these boxes and should be preserved for posterity. I cajoled him to go through the contents, which included his logbooks, combat reports, photographs, newspaper cuttings, correspondence etc. and piece together his wartime journey. I found it astonishing that, aside from the occasional mention in magazines and always just the Three in Thirteen Minutes headline, the bulk of his story was largely unknown and untold. Pete wholeheartedly agreed, said he had been meaning to do it for some time and promised to get it sorted for our next visit. Several more visits came and went and still the unopened boxes lay accusingly in the corner of his garage; still Pete promised and prevaricated.

Eventually, I made a tentative enquiry as to whether he would like me to sort through the boxes on his behalf. To my surprise and delight, Pete was only too willing to accept my offer. So it was that, a month or so later, two large and heavy boxes, with contents barely touched for at least six years, arrived at the door of our home in Lincolnshire.

As will become evident, the approach I took to unravelling the plethora of jumbled information in this treasure trove was to stay on familiar ground for me his logbooks. They provide his Service Record from the start and charted, in detail, his progress from his very first flight to the night of the 19th March 1944 and beyond (another unwritten story). It also, through often cryptic and subtle annotations made by Joe, provides insight into his private thoughts. Having specialized in night flying, wrestling with a rudimentary Terrain Following Radar, (for participation in the one and only Vulcan Night Red Flag Exercise in 1979), I had a particular interest in, and empathy with, Joes struggles with the very earliest Air Interception Radars, when fighting in the dark.

The more I uncovered and researched Joes journey from junior manager at Leyland Paints and Varnishes to his three kills in thirteen minutes, the more I came to appreciate that every feat of arms, such as Joes, is the unique product of an intricate web of chance. The valour is self-evident and that is what creates the headlines. The training, skill, teamwork and technology required for success are also relatively straightforward to grasp. But the interactions of coincidences, providence, destiny, fate, fortuity whatever you want to call it which culminate in a man like Joe Singleton being there that night and capable of facing and achieving what he did, are barely fathomable and certainly bewitching. There are countless tales of derring-do such as Joes already told; there are countless others either waiting to be unravelled, or hidden forever because the participants didnt make it back, physically or mentally. My sincere wish is that I have done justice to Joe Singletons remarkable story.