Martin W. Bowman - The Path Finder Force

First Published in Great Britain in 2016 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Copyright Pen & Sword Books 2016
ISBN: 9781473837713.
PDF ISBN: 9781473881174.
EPUB ISBN: 9781473881167.
PRC ISBN: 9781473881150.

The right of Martin W Bowman to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Contents

Wing Commander Bill Anderson OBE DFC AFC

Wing Commander Bill Anderson OBE DFC AFC

Frank Leatherdale DFC

Squadron Leader Frank Leatherdale DFC collection

Prelude

On the night of 14 November 1940 the Luftwaffe devastated the city centre of Coventry. Plans of the large-scale attack were known in advance because of Ultra intelligence but the knowledge had to be kept secret from the Germans so no additional measures were taken to repel the raid. The raid was the most severe to hit Coventry during the war. It was carried out by 515 German bombers of Luftflotte 3 and the pathfinders of Kampfgruppe 100. The attack, code-named Operation Mondscheinsonate (Moonlight Sonata), was intended to destroy Coventrys factories and industrial infrastructure, although it was clear that damage to the rest of the city, including monuments and residential areas, would be considerable. At around 2000 hours Coventry Cathedral (dedicated to Saint Michael) was set on fire for the first time. The volunteer fire-fighters managed to put out the first fire but other direct hits followed and soon new fires in the cathedral, accelerated by firestorm, were out of control. During the same period, fires were started in nearly every street in the city centre. An estimated 568 people were killed in the raid with another 863 badly injured and 393 sustaining lesser injuries.

Faced with exactly the same problems as the RAF, the Luftwaffe had developed radio aids that were widely used during The Blitz of 1940/41. Lacking enough equipment to install in all their aircraft, a single experimental group, Kampfgruppe 100, was given all available receivers and trained extensively on their use. KGr 100 would fly over their target using these systems and drop flares, which the following aircraft would then bomb on. On rare occasions KGr 100 was used as a pure bombing force, demonstrating the ability to drop bombs within 150 yards of their targets in any weather. The KGr 100 unit itself would, in mid-December 1941, be redesignated I.Gruppe/Kampfgeschwader 100, as the basis for a new Luftwaffe bomber wing, or Kampfgeschwader (literally battle formation) that bore the same unit number.

Dim as muck! Joe said, chuckling and shaking his blond curls.

I gave her half a dollar for a packet of Players, a box of matches and a bar of chocolate and she gave me one-and-tuppence back! She's a piece of cake! After that, in the NAAFI, the boys used to wait to be served by Daisy. She didn't always make a mistake, of course and when she did it wasn't always in the boys' favour. (A shout very quickly went up when that happened!) But quite a few of them got away with a copper or two here and there and one was lucky enough to be given change out of a pound note when he had handed over only a ten shilling one. Daisy was too easy. A piece of cake.

Daisy was about 35, small, dark, with big, innocent, cow-like eyes and big, rather prominent teeth which she showed at all times in a wide and vacant smile. She was always harassed and bewildered; always, with little shuffling steps, darting about behind the long counter, more often than not in the wrong direction, falling over things and bumping into the other girls; always untidy, as if she had dressed hurriedly in utter darkness, hat awry, strands of dank black hair sticking out from under it, collar rumpled, overall never completely buttoned; always mumbling to herself, counting and recounting the money she received and the money she handed back; always unsure of herself, always in a whirl, a maze, like a lost dog among a crowd of shouting strangers; and always smiling that big, soft smile of hers and lifting those big, soft, cow-like eyes to each airman's face in a long look that bordered on adoration.

The boys ragged her unmercifully. They asked for things they knew the NAAFI didn't stock. One of them would order four teas and then, when she had filled the cups, change the order to one tea, a coffee, a beer and a glass of fizzy lemonade. Half a dozen of them would all, at the same time, shout for something different, making believe they were in a great hurry, urging her to get a jerk on, telling her she was likely, with her dilly-dallying, to get them into serious trouble, confusing the poor girl even more than she was normally confused and getting a great deal of amusement out of it all.

No one could blame them. There wasn't much to amuse the five or six hundred men who had been thrown together on this west coast airfield ten miles or so from the nearest one-cinema town. Daisy didn't blame them. Ignorant of the fact that they were making fun of her she wasn't aware that there was anything to blame them for.

One Saturday evening when most of the boys were in town or working late and the NAAFI was fairly quiet I stood at the counter sipping tea and chatting to Daisy. I asked her how long she had been in this place.

It'll soon be two years now she said.

I almost dropped the cup. Good Lord! I said. Two years? I haven't been here two months yet and I've had more than enough of it. Give me somewhere within reach of civilization! What do you do in your time off?

She shrugged her shoulders. I have half a day off a week she said. In the summer, on days like to-day, I usually go for a walk along the beach. I like the sea. I could look at the sea for hours. I do sometimes. Just look at it. I don't think of anything special. It might seem funny to you.

You have leave of course? She nodded. You go home then, I suppose?

No she said.

No?

I haven't got a home she said simply. I had a home. In Coventry.

The Blitz?

The second one. I was lucky. Only a broken arm. All the rest, Mum and Dad, my younger sister and her baby......

All killed?

All killed she said.

She had not taken her big, innocent eyes from my face. I didn't know what to do, she said. I wanted to do something. I had to do something, didn't I! I wanted to help with bombs and aeroplanes, do something towards sending them out over Germany. They wouldn't have me in the WAAF. So I went to the NAAFI people and asked them to send me to an airfield and I came here. I wanted to be where I could see the bombers go off loaded and come back empty. I sit at my bedroom window and watch them. I sit waiting for hours sometimes.