Tom Moulson - The Millionaires Squadron

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright Tom Moulson 2014

ISBN 978 1 78346 339 8

eISBN 9781473838475

The right of Tom Moulson to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

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Acknowledgements

S everal quotations are made in the text and the publishers wish to thank the following for permission to use them: the Controller of Her Majestys Stationery Office, for permission to quote Crown Copyright material in the form of extracts from 601 Squadrons official diary and combat reports; Bill Matheson for permission to quote from A Mallee Kid With The Flying Sword , published by W. M. Matheson; Flypast magazine for permission to quote from Desert Encounter about Ray Sherk; Penguin Books for permission to quote from Geoffrey Wellums book First Light , and The United States Naval Institute Press for permission to quote from John Frane Turners book, Fight for the Air . Quotations are also made and acknowledged from sources that can no longer be traced: William Heinemann Ltd for the second volume of Assignment to Catastrophe by Major-General Sir Edward Spears; and Hutchinson & Co. for Gran Chaco Adventure by T. Wewege Smith.

The author is indebted to all those who helped bring this books predecessor, The Flying Sword (1964) to fruition. Fred Tomlinson, formerly news editor of The Observer , graciously gave the author a wealth of notes on the pre-war era, which he had gathered for an abandoned book. Brian Thynne, a polished raconteur, in his Sussex mansion and over several enjoyable lunches in London gave me a clear sense of the squadrons brand of professionalism and mischief in the pre-war days. Sir Archibald Hope in his directors office at Napiers was able to recall vividly details of the Battle of Britain with names, dates and anecdotes. Sir Max Aitken in his chairmans office at the Beaverbrook Press in Fleet Street furnished much of the story until the end of the Battle of Britain, and generously lent me his log book. Whitney Straight, at the time Deputy Chairman of Rolls-Royce, was at first unwilling to turn back the clock, but after relenting couldnt possibly have been more helpful, talking freely and lending me his contemporaneous diary of events from Norway to France, captivity, and escape. John Bisdee, who took weeks to track down, was occupying the chairmans office of a Unilever company in Londons West End, two hundred yards away from his old Intelligence Officer, Ken Carew-Gibbs, whom he hadnt seen since North Africa, and who was equally unaware of this proximity; he also lent me his log book. Sir Dermot Boyle; Viscount (George) Ward; John Parkes; Aidan Crawley and his wife Virginia Cowles; Lady Perkins, widow of Sir Nigel Norman; Flight Lieutenant Marshall; Loel Guinness, and many others gave invaluable help. All these people impressed me with their openness, modesty, and obvious affection for what we called the Legion, and the only reason they would give so such time to a novice author was that he had been a Legionnaire himself.

More recently, sincere thanks for helping with this updated, enlarged, and renamed edition are extended to Brian Thynnes daughters Georgina, Harriet, and Ulrica Thynne and Penelope Charteris for Thynnes fascinating unpublished manuscript, My Years In 601 ; to Paul Doulton for his recollections and his mother Carols moving letter to her father in America during the Battle of Britain; to Billy Clydes daughters June, Alicia, and Gail for their mother Barbros letters; to Paul Harnden for permission to quote from his grandfather Flight Sergeant Gilbert Henry Harndens diary; to Harold Browns family and Trevor Hipperson for permission to quote from Harold Browns diary; and to my long-time squadron oppo Denis Shrosbree for his post-war recollections, or perhaps confessions. Jennifer Schwartz in America, who is conducting research on Roger Bushell, put me right on several points in my draft. As one of the longest survivors of The Few, Jack Riddle contributed oral and written reminiscences of life before and during the Battle of Britain, in the air and on the ground, shortly before he died in 2009.

Far from least, three people must be mentioned without whose urging this updated and enlarged edition of the former book would not even have been attempted, and without whose research efforts it would not have been possible. John Wheeler and Jamie Ivers, Americans who became interested in the story of 601 Squadron, created a website around it which served as a magnet for relatives of the squadrons past members and which contains a marvellous collection of photographs.

Much of their material originated with Ed McManus, an aviation enthusiast and private pilot in the UK who served on the committee for the Battle of Britain Monument unveiled on Londons Victoria Embankment in 2005. Eds responsibility for gathering 2,937 names to be engraved on the memorial put him into touch with members of 601 worldwide still alive and with the families of those who no longer are.

Sincere acknowledgments and thanks are extended to Laura Hirst, Pen and Sword Books Aviation Imprint Administrator, who coordinated the manuscript, photographs, jacket design and editing and shepherded the project through to finality; to Jon Wilkinson, the jacket designer, who took note of my ideas; and to Ting Baker, editor, who patiently fielded countless running changes. Jacket photograph by courtesy of the RAF Museum.

NOTE: Two paragraphs in about Roger Bushell are also to be found in Simon Pearsons excellent 2013 book, The Great Escaper . In fact they were quoted from this books 1964 predecessor, The Flying Sword , with attribution to Tom Moulson mistakenly omitted.

Preface

So This is How it is!

Its better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than in the air wishing you were on the ground.

Aviation proverb

O n the Sunday afternoon of 23 March 1952 the south of England lay moist under drizzle and cloud packed from eight hundred up to twenty thousand feet. Six DH Vampires sat at the end of runway at North Weald, Essex, their jet engines connected to external battery trolleys. The pilots were on standby for an air defence exercise and, miserable though the day was, for one of them it would soon become a lot more so. Blips to the east appeared on the controllers green radar screens and the message to scramble came through. At a sign from the flight leader the ground crew switched on the battery accumulators. The engines came to life in a rising polyphonic whine, ground crew pulled the chocks away, and our aircraft rolled onto the runway in pairs, gathered speed while straightening out for take-off. I was number two, eyes fixed on the leader as we lifted from the runway, raised our undercarriages, and were quickly swallowed by the overcast, breaking cloud into brilliant sunshine twenty minutes later, some fifty miles out over the North Sea. The controller directed us onto a formation of incoming Dutch twin jet Gloster Meteors and we were just beginning our gun-camera attacks when my Vampires nose dropped abruptly and all sound stopped. My body almost exploded with instant decompression. I looked with disbelief at the rev counter, rapidly unwinding to zero. Sure enough, I had flamed out.