The Squadron That Died Twice Read online

  Edward Collis de Virac Lart was born in 1902 at Knapp House, Charmouth, Dorset (the house is still there), into a middle class family of French descent. He had two sisters and two brothers. Father, Charles Edmund Lart, served throughout the First World War in the Royal Army Medical Corps and was aged 50 when he came out. He was an author in peacetime, fortunately with private means as his works were not big sellers, with titles such as Huguenot Pedigrees (in two volumes) and The Registers of the Protestant Church at Caen, and we must admire the dedication that produced The Parochial Registers of Saint-Germain-en-Laye - Jacobite Extracts of Births, Marriages and Deaths.

  Elder brother Edmund (Ted) lost a leg with the Dorsetshire Regiment in the Great War; younger brother John would join the RAMC like his father and would be killed in January 1944.

  Edward went to Weymouth College, today a College of Further Education (‘World leaders in Stonemasonry’), then a minor public school, and from his letter home he would appear to be conscious of his own abilities. After St Catharine’s, Cambridge, his time at Cranwell overlapped with that of gregarious millionaire Paddy Bandon but we cannot imagine them leading the same social life. They went their separate ways after graduation; Lart was sent on Empire service, to India and Afghanistan, the North West Frontier, and he was there a long time.

  His flying machine to begin with was the Airco DH9A, a First World War design still in use through the 1920s and into the 1930s as a general-purpose aircraft and light bomber on Imperial duty. Foreseeing the possibility of a landing on unforgiving ground, it was usual for Lart to carry a spare wheel.

  Lart Major of 4B seems to think the school isn’t working him hard enough. The school piano and the music master leave much to be desired, and as if that wasn’t enough, his mother can’t even get the address right to send him his new shirts.

  The DH9A was succeeded by a like-for-like replacement, the Westland Wapiti. It, too, carried a spare wheel, along with 580lb of bombs, at a cruising speed of 110mph. Top speed was 130mph, slightly quicker than the DH9A. In many cases it could be repaired with the RAF’s large stock of DH9A parts, the use of same having been in the design specification.

  It was the first aircraft to fly through the Khyber Pass, in 1929 during the RAF’s evacuation of some 600 non-Afghan civilians from Kabul, an op that Lart must have been on. The British, after an inconclusive small war with the Afghanis, had recognised their independence in 1919 but the King, Amanullah, introduced European reforms such as education for girls. A civil war resulted, making necessary the evacuation.

  Although the last one was built in 1932, the Wapiti was still threading its way through mountain passes in 1940.

  Lart found some personal relationships difficult but still waters can run deep. The more extrovert type could misinterpret his taciturn modesty, and class him as standoffish. His new fellow officers at 82 Squadron certainly thought him a bit of a mystery. The contrast between the two wing commanders, the big, hearty Bandon bear and the slim, ascetic Lart terrier, could hardly have been greater. Knowing Bandon and his reputation, Lart must have been aware of that, but it was not something on which he thought it necessary to comment, nor did he feel the need to recite his history. Consequently, some very odd rumours went about in a bid to explain the sudden arrival of a man who was so different. He must have committed a great indiscretion, or suffered a great personal tragedy, to make him like he was, as if he cared not if he was loved or liked, as if his survival in this war was not a matter of concern.

  At this early stage of hostilities, the chaps in the officers’ mess were all pre-war regulars and experienced reservists, members of a special club of friends and colleagues whose job it was to kill and avoid being killed and who, off duty, would have chosen for the lesson at Sunday service I Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 32: ‘If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’

  Lart could have quoted those lines as well as anyone, but he let nothing get in the way of his mission, to inflict painful wounds on the enemy with a supremely efficient squadron. The airmen he commanded saw a single-minded, fearless and resolute patrician with a sharp tongue who, some writers have said, was intolerant of, and unsympathetic towards, those ordinary mortals who felt fear, and whose resolution could be undermined by the immediate threat of bullets and flames. If he was chilly and ruthless, as Max Hastings wrote in Bomber Command, it was in The Cause. If he was authoritarian, at least he never spared himself from the consequences of his own orders. Of course, those historians never knew him. Here is an extract from a letter to his sister Judith, from his commanding officer overseas, Group Captain Roger Neville MC, a Royal Flying Corps ace with five victories:

  Edward served in my squadron in India and again as my adjutant at North Weald. Not only did he show himself to be an able and gallant officer; he was a charming friend to my family; quiet and unassuming in manner yet full of character; and extremely popular with all the right sort of people.

  He wrote to me at the beginning of the war, asking whether I could help him to get back from Iraq into an operational squadron. I advised him to wait his turn and told him it would come, I thought, with Italy’s entrance to the war. He is entirely without fear, as far as his brother officers could ever judge, and very determined.

  Edward Lart never married but was an excellent substitute elder brother to his CO’s son, Christopher (later Air Commodore Neville): ‘We spent some memorable holidays together, and my son, who is shortly to enter the RAF himself, has held Edward in the highest esteem as a playmate and companion since they first combined to flout nursery authority fourteen years ago in Kohat.’ (Kohat is in modern Pakistan, not far from the Afghan border and the Khyber Pass.)

  Relatives who knew Edward Lart describe him as a warm and sociable person; one fellow officer at 82 Squadron had him as austere and uncommunicative. Different people saw different sides of this complex character but there can be no doubting his total commitment to reinventing the squadron after its heart had been ripped out in May, and to defeating Germany at whatever the cost to himself.

  Lart came back to Blighty from Iraq as the Germans were smashing their way through the Low Countries and France, seemingly unstoppable. His experience flying biplanes against rebellious tribesmen was not going to contribute much to this war, despite his two mentions in despatches, so he quickly learned to fly Blenheims and went on several ops with another squadron before turning up at No. 82 as the new boss.

  Perhaps he felt a little underqualified to be leading these battle-scarred fellows who were flying at the enemy in daylight and suffering losses. Or, more likely, he knew that some of them would think him underqualified, in which case he needed to set an example, to show that he was more than up to it, to earn their respect.

  On his second day at the office, twelve of the squadron’s Blenheims set off for various industrial targets in Germany; ten came back because there was no cloud cover. One bombed an aerodrome at Gorinchem, east of Rotterdam. Another, tasked with one of the great horror targets of the war, the Dortmund–Ems canal, failed to return, FTR for short. Lart would find out later that his flight commander, Squadron Leader Hurll Fontayne Chester and crew, had hardly crossed the Dutch coast when they were shot down and buried where they fell, at Heerhugowaard, north-east of Alkmaar.

  Next day another six went for aerodromes in France and four came back for the usual reason. The two who pressed on to bomb would have been noted by their new CO as made of the right stuff. That Lart himself was constructed of adamantine materials was proved conclusively after a few days of not much happening, when he picked Sgt Beeby to join him in leading another German op. Twelve crews set off to attack industrial targets. There was no cloud cover. Ten turned back, of whom one hit some invasion barges at Rotterdam on the way home. One didn’t turn back soon enough and was shot down, while Lart kept going and attacked the aerodrome at Eschwege, ‘scoring many hits on aircraft and tarm
ac’.

  This was remarkable for several reasons. Eschwege was a transport and supplies airbase almost exactly in the middle of Germany, about 250 miles from the Dutch coast. All the captains on this mission had had different targets, given as industrial, so presumably Lart was going for something else in central Germany, failed to find it and did the aerodrome instead. He must also have been the only captain to decide that there was sufficient cloud cover to get him there, or perhaps he didn’t bother about cloud cover. He couldn’t countermand the orders from above, so he could not stop the others from aborting, but he could damn well make his own mind up about pressing on and hope that at least some of the others would get the message.

  Gus Beeby in the turret, on his first op since his crash in France less than a month before, and observer F/Sgt Robertson must have wondered if the wingco was always going to want them to fly with him. For Robertson, although it lasted through July, the relationship fortunately for him didn’t turn out to be permanent; but Beeby became a fixture.

  This op was something of an old boys’ reunion, as Sq/Ldr Paddy Delap took with him Sgt Carbutt, 17 May veteran and recent evader, and Sgt Thomas, who had crossed France after 17 May to get home. For Delap it was his last op with 82; he was posted away to head office as wing commander, then group captain. New flight commanders came in. Carbutt and Thomas carried on.

  During the month of July, as it became clear that there was indeed a Battle of Britain, the weather prevented the destruction by 2 Group of a great many aircraft on the ground, and the enemy certainly didn’t withdraw. The Battle is popularly and rightly seen as a major defensive action, heroically conducted against superior forces by the pilots of Fighter Command, but there was also an offensive side to it, as Bomber Command attacked airfields and invasion preparations, frequently at massive cost.

  One date often put forward as the real start of the Battle, although Blenheims had been bombing airfields since mid-June, is 10 July, mainly because it marked the beginning of the Luftwaffe offensive against shipping, when twenty Dornier bombers escorted by forty fighters attacked a convoy off Dover. Five squadrons of Fighter Command set upon them and shot down thirteen at a cost of six (only one pilot killed). There was also a modest raid on Falmouth and Swansea by a flight of Junkers Ju88s without fighter escort, which bombed and returned unmolested.

  The less often quoted reason for picking that date was the result of one raid by 2 Group. Six Blenheims of 107 Squadron headed for the aerodrome at Amiens and, as 82 Squadron had experienced back in May, met a ferocious anti-aircraft barrage that hit some and split up the others, ready for attacks by fighters. Five out of the six went down, three crews killed outright, two crews taken prisoner. The flight commander, F/ Lt Harold Pleasance, chased by a flock of Me109s, dived to zero feet and zig-zagged for his life across land, dived again over the cliffs to wave-top level, and earned the admiration of the last two following Me109 pilots who waved him a cheery salute as they turned for home.

  Meanwhile, Wingco Lart was making his mark. Six went for aerodromes on the 8th; three turned back according to their instructions, Lart and two others did not. The CO was flying almost every op, not including solo weather reccos, but even he turned back on the next one. One machine of the twelve failed to return, P/O Palmer’s, crew taken prisoner.

  Five out of nine made sure of returning by aborting their venture into Germany on 13 July, one of which was crewed by Earl Hale, George Oliver and Alf Boland on their first trip together, not that such a routine matter would have seemed important at the time. Sergeant Ralston George Oliver joined 82 Squadron as an observer at the end of May 1940 and flew his first op with P/O Percival on the 31st, a dawn raid led by Paddy Bandon to Vleteren and the Pervijze-Diksmuide road. In June he married Joyce and flew nine ops, mostly with P/O Percival. Five more ops with Percival were followed by six with Earl Hale, with Sgt Boland in the turret.

  Alf Boland was a jolly sort, the life and soul, keen on dancing and always ready to spend money rather than save it. He did have a regular girlfriend, Mabel, quite a bit younger than him, whom he’d met at a church hall dance. In a telephone call, 12 August 1940, they decided to marry, and they would do that on his next leave.

  Earl Robert Hale, farmer’s son from Saskatchewan, was born in 1910. Working on the farm stopped being a viable career for a young man during the Depression of the 1930s and he headed west taking any job he could find. He sold sheet music for a while, and worked as a freelance journalist before applying for officer training with the Royal Air Force. By the time war broke out, he was in training in England. He told his local Saskatchewan newspaper that he wasn’t sorry he’d come over. ‘I’m just another little pin in a little wheel in a big machine and so the best I can do is try not to shear off.’

  Posted to 104 training squadron on Blenheims, he came back from a night flight and ran into the bomb dump. The machine was wrecked, two crew had only minor injuries but Hale had a fractured skull and a massive wound across his face. After a spell in hospital he completed his training and joined 82 Squadron in July 1940, where he crewed up with Oliver and Boland, both older 82 Squadron hands by several weeks.

  Earl Hale was recruited by the BBC Overseas Service to broadcast on a programme featuring forces personnel from the Empire and Dominions. He sent a telegram home telling his family to be sure to listen in on 11 August. They did listen, and heard the announcer saying that a pilot from Sakatchewan had been due to be on the programme but sorry, he was unavailable.

  He was indeed. He was training for a high-level attack on Ålborg.

  Of the four who pressed on on 13 July, Lart found his oil refinery and bombed it from 1,000 feet. Sq/Ldr Wardell got lost and arrived home six hours after taking off. One machine was shot down over the sea near the German/Dutch border, one body washed ashore, two never seen again. The other got a little further before also being shot down, WOp/AG killed aged 18, pilot and observer taken prisoner.

  A pilot is reported as saying in the mess that he was sick of all this turning back. A colleague pointed out that the ones who didn’t turn back tended not to come back at all.

  Twelve crews stood by on the 16th to attack aerodromes. Lart took off, presumably too soon to hear the forecast of bad weather that stopped the other eleven, or ignoring it. He, Robertson and Beeby went on their own to St Inglevert, near Calais, where the squadron had been bombing panzers a few weeks before, but now the target was the aerodrome. F/Sgt Robertson got him there but they could see very little through thick mist. Lart had to come in so low to spot any kind of target that he could not release his 250-pounders for fear of blowing himself out of the sky, but he was going to cause some damage, whatever. Dropping a few 40-pounders still ripped some holes in his aircraft. This was the first time that the ground crews had had to repair Lart’s self-inflicted wounds, but it would not be the last.

  There was a similar story on the 18th, a dawn raid on invasion barges in Dutch waters. Three out of six turned back, one couldn’t find the target, and two – including Lart, of course – did what they had gone for.

  Over the next few days, 82 Squadron’s war consisted mainly of individual flights towards the enemy coast, classed as weather reconnaissances ‘with bombing if possible’. On one such recco, a two-hour trip on 23 July, flew a new all-sergeant crew on their first with 82, a team that would eventually have a most remarkable story to tell. Following that recco, they had three turns-back owing to lack of cloud cover and one high-level raid rendered a complete waste of time by too much cloud cover; but their last op was as eventful as it could get. They were Don Blair, pilot, Bill Magrath, observer, Bill Greenwood, WOp/AG.

  Wingco Lart didn’t go on these weather-recco trips, but as soon as orders came in to attack Germany he was there. The policy was still to give each crew a separate target, with the usual instructions not to carry on without cloud cover.

  With hindsight, we can ask what was the point? They rarely found these targets even if they did carry on. If they did bomb, th
ey caused little damage, so the net result of 82 Squadron’s efforts in July 1940 was almost no pain inflicted on the enemy for the loss of six aircraft and crews. That it was not seven was down to the flying skills of Edward Lart and, we can suggest, the gunnery of Gus Beeby.

  Four Blenheims had set off for industrial targets in Germany. Three turned back. Lart, as ever, found it almost impossible to leave an operation without trying to do something useful, so he bombed Leeuwarden aerodrome. As he headed for home he was attacked by four Me109s. ORB: ‘He shook them off and returned to Watton, his port undercarriage collapsing on landing. There were several bullet holes in his machine. The crew were uninjured.’

  They were away again four days later, twelve Blenheims with their thousand-pound loads, all with individual targets in Germany. Just three got there, skippers Ellen, Hale and Wellings, and bombed. Three including Lart bombed shipping and an aerodrome in The Netherlands on the way back, five turned back, and one, skipper F/Lt Keighley, didn’t come back at all.

  Next day they were after the aerodromes in France, Belgium and Holland. Fordham, with Carbutt and Thomas, was chased by several Me109s that shot up the port engine and put bullet holes in many places, but Sgt Thomas claimed one Messerschmitt down before they escaped into cloud and limped home. Lart, naturally, ‘bombed his target successfully’ and only three out of the twelve found the cloud cover so insufficient that they turned back. Was there a Lart Effect?