Tag Archives: Lincoln

by | August 12, 2021 · 6:17 am

Old Nottinghamian saves the World OR Why no statue? (4)

Thomas Hawksley was born on July 12th 1807 at Arnot Hill House in Arnold, Nottingham, to parents John Hawksley and Sarah Thompson. Arnot Hill House is still there:

John was a worsted woollen manufacturer who co-owned the mill in Arnold. The mill engine’s cooling pond is now the ornamental lake, situated in front of Arnot Hill House. That’s still there too:

Thomas was educated at the Free School, or Grammar School, in Stoney Street, studying under the Headmaster, Dr Robert Wood.

Thomas arrived on May 27th 1821, at the age of 13 years 6 months. His school days were comparatively brief, for in September 1822 he was removed, with a view to practical training.

Thomas was self-taught from the age of 15 but eventually he was articled to an architect and surveyor Mr Edward Staveley, of Nottingham. He soon became a partner, along with Mr Jalland, of “Staveley, Hawksley and Jalland, engineers, architects, &c.” By 1835, Thomas was based at Middle Pavement and Trent Bridge, and “Staveley & Dudley” were based in Stoney Street. Mr Hawksley and Mr Jalland then worked together until 1850 when Jalland left. Thomas then left for London.

During his time in Nottingham, in 1823, aged only 23, Thomas had constructed a new pumping station for the Trent Waterworks Company near Trent Bridge.

Before this, Nottingham’s water was taken from shallow wells or from the Trent or its tributaries. The new pumping station filtered water taken from the Trent through natural beds of sand and gravel. The water was then pumped through a 15 inch main to a reservoir near the General Hospital. The pipes that carried the water were always kept under high pressure, and taps provided water day and night. Thomas eliminated leakage, and ensured an unvarying supply of fresh water. The pressure also meant that germs could not get in. This arrangement provided “Britain’s first constant supply of clean water, whose high pressure prevented contamination.”

In 1832, the young engineer personally turned on the tap. Anybody in Nottingham could now have clean fresh water from the tap in the yard, thanks to Thomas’ pumping station:

Thomas was the first engineer to set up a scheme of this type in a large and generally fairly dirty industrial town, and to make it work. The local plumbers, of course, objected tooth and nail to doing what Thomas told them to do, but his patience and, presumably, the threat of the sack, persuaded them to obey him.

In 1845, Thomas became chief engineer of the newly formed Nottingham Water Company. Five years later he excavated a seven feet wide and 250 foot deep borehole to get at the purest water which was present in the Bunter sandstone below the town:

 

Before long, Thomas was setting up schemes like the one at Nottingham across the length and breadth of England.

In this way, an Old Nottinghamian provided clear fresh water at the turn of a tap for most of the citizens of Barnsley, Barnstaple, Birmingham, Boston, Bridgwater, Brighton & Hove, Bristol, Cambridge, Coventry, Darlington, Derby, Durham, Great Yarmouth, Haslingden, Hinckley, Huddersfield, Leeds, Leicester, Lichfield, Lincoln, Liverpool, Lowestoft, Merthyr Tydfil, Middlesbrough, Newark Newcastle-on-Tyne Northampton, Norwich, Oxford, Rochdale, Southport, Sheffield, Southend, Stockton, Sunderland, Wakefield Waterford, Wexford, Windsor, Worcester and York.

Sunderland seems to have revered Thomas. There is a Thomas Hawkesley Park in Sunderland, full of expensive four and five bedroom houses:

It’s not as beautiful, though, as Hawkesley House:

 

Thomas was also a gas engineer and, applying the same basic principles for gas as for water, he advised about how to set up the supply for large cities. The number of gas-works he built was very large, and included Barnsley, Bishop Auckland, Burton-on-Trent, Cambridge, Chesterfield, Derby, Folkestone, Gosport, Lowestoft, Newark, Normanton, Nottingham, Pilkington, Radcliffe, Sunderland and Bombay.

Thomas also worked hard on sewage treatment and, as with water and gas, he helped a great many places including Aylesbury, Birmingham, Hertford, Whitehaven, Windsor and Worcester. He anticipated modern methods in refusing to discharge raw sewage into rivers and recommended treatment with chemicals. He believed that spreading the resultant mixture on farmland might well render it completely harmless.

Here is Thomas in later life:

Thomas became the first president of the Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers (1863), President of the Institution of Civil Engineers (1872), President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and of the Institution of Gas Engineers (1876) and Fellow of the Royal Society (1878). And he was not a one-trick-pony. In 1885 he received a gold medal for the invention of an instrument for the assistance of the deaf.

Thomas died on September 15th 1893 at 14 Phillimore Gardens in Kensington. London.

In 1907, Thomas’ son, Charles, established the Thomas Hawksley Fund on the centenary of his father’s birth on July 12th 1907. In 1913 Charles initiated the Thomas Hawksley lectures. The first was given by Edward B Ellington, an expert in hydraulic engineering, talking about “Water as a Mechanical Agent”. The lecture was presented at the headquarters of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and then given again in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and Nottingham. Subsequent speakers have included H L Callendar (published the first steam tables), F W Lanchester, (the car engine), Harry Ricardo (an engine designer) and Sir Noel Ashbridge (broadcasting). Hawksley lectures still take place today.

 

 

photo of lake courtesy of geogreph

 

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by | February 27, 2019 · 8:03 am

Fred goes to Lincoln Cathedral

Towards the early part of his career in the Royal Air Force, probably in the winter of 1941-1942, Fred was stationed for a short period at Cranwell, the RAF College. Cranwell is a very imposing place:

This episode took place at the very start of his stay there, when, in his first period of free time, Fred decided to go out on a visit somewhere.

It was a glorious, cold, clear, bright blue, frosty day, and Fred went out of the front gate of the camp accompanied by a friend. It’s difficult to miss the gates at Cranwell:

Seeing a local man pushing his bike along the road, Fred asked him the way to Lincoln, but instead of offering directions, the man just stretched out his arm and pointed along the road, which was a Roman one, and absolutely straight, to the distinctive shape of the cathedral, silhouetted sharply against the bright light of the sky. Lincoln Cathedral is on a high hill, surrounded by a flat landscape, so it is fairly difficult to miss:

The man said not a single word but just carried on trudging along with his bicycle. Fred and his friend, armed with the usual 24 hour pass, set off cycling along the road to Lincoln.

This initially unnamed friend may well have been Joe Fielding, a highly educated man who had studied, among other things, Latin at Oxford University.  The two young airmen were taken around the cathedral by one of the amateur guides, who had many interesting things to explain to them. When they reached the shrine to St Hugh, at the eastern end of the cathedral, near the altar, the guide told them all about the life of the saint, and his pet swan, but he confessed that, as a modestly educated working class man, he was unable to translate the Latin inscription on one of the metal tablets near the altar. Joe, however, with his degree level knowledge of Latin, proceeded to translate the inscription fluently.

The guide though seemed to be really, really, upset. Fred felt that, while Joe’s behaviour was perhaps the product of innocent helpfulness, he should rather just have kept his mouth shut, and let the guide remain the expert. Fred was certainly highly embarrassed by the whole affair.

As one of the coincidences that fill all our lives, Fred was to pass away on the very same day that I myself took a party of schoolboys to visit Lincoln Cathedral. I was able with ease to find that single plaque written in Latin, unchanged in the sixty or so years between the two events.

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by | June 7, 2016 · 3:35 am

A few days after D-Day (1)

Frank Leonard Corner attended the High School just  a few years before before the Second World War. He spent at least one season as the young scorer for the School’s First XI cricket team:

P1300886 1938

Of the three cricketers behind young Frank Corner, the one on the extreme right is George Brown. Playing for the School cricket team, George was a real asset with his “devastating fast in-swinging yorker on the leg stump”. On a forgotten Saturday in July 1944, however, now Lieutenant Brown, he was killed in action during the aftermath of the D-Day landings. He was just 24 years of age. Lieutenant Brown was in the 2nd Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment (3rd Infantry Division) and on that day, the blast of an exploding German mortar shell was even more devastating than his “devastating fast in-swinging yorker on the leg stump”.

Young Frank Corner, though, left the High School and its cricket team, on the faintly ominous date of July 31st 1939. First of all, he worked briefly for the Notts War Agricultural Committee. Around this time, he had also played rugby for the Old Nottinghamians’ Wartime XV.

Frank, though, like so many hundreds of thousands of other young men, was soon to feel the “Call of the Skies”. He joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and was soon promoted to be Flight Sergeant Corner.

In due course, Flight Sergeant Corner joined 106 Squadron, stationed at Metheringham, in Lincolnshire, just south east of Lincoln itself. Here is the old gymnasium, still left after all these years:

Metheringham_Gymnaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Here is the building used to practice dropping bombs accurately:

Bombing_Trainxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxer

And here is the beautifully maintained Memorial Garden:

1280px-RAF_Metheringham_Memorial_Garden

Frank was the Flight Engineer in an Avro Lancaster Mark III. Its squadron letters were Z-NH and its serial number was NE150.
Operating in the direct aftermath of D-Day the bomber took off from Metheringham at twenty five minutes past midnight on June 7th 1944. It was tasked with bombing Coutances, a beautiful little town just south west of Caen in Normandy.

Just give you an idea of the numbers involved, the “The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book” by Chris Everitt and Martin Middlebrook reveals that:

“there was a total of 1,065 aircraft, made up of 589 Lancasters, 418 Halifaxes, and 58 Mosquitos.  They were to bomb the lines of communication behind the D-Day battle area. All of the targets were in or near French towns. 3,488 tons of bombs were dropped on targets at Achères, Argentan, Caen, Châteaudun, Conde sur Noireau, Coutances, St Lô, Lisieux and Vire. Every effort was made to bomb accurately but casualties to the French civilians were inevitable. Cloud affected the accuracy of the bombing at many of the targets and, at Achères, the Master Bomber ordered the raid to be abandoned because of cloud and no bombs were dropped. 10 Lancasters and 1 Halifax were lost in these raids; 6 of the Lancasters were lost in the No 5 Group raid at Caen, where the main force of bombers had to wait for the target to be properly marked and then fly over an area full of German units and guns at bombing heights below 3,000ft. Some details are available of the effects of the bombing. At Argentan, Châteaudun and Lisieux, much damage was done to railways, although the towns, Lisieux in particular, were hit by many bombs. Important bridges at Coutances were badly damaged and the town centres of Caen, Condé sur Noireau, St-Lô and Vire were all badly bombed and most of the roads through those towns were blocked.
….19 aircraft were minelaying in the Brest area, and 26 aircraft on Resistance operations. No aircraft lost.

Total effort for the night: 1,160 sorties, 11 aircraft (0.9 per cent) lost.”

lanc crash

Alas, young Frank Corner was one of that minuscule 0.9%. His bomber was shot down and crashed near the tiny village of St Jean de Daye:

dAYE

On June 11th 1944, the Wing Commander of 106 Squadron actually sent a report to the Air Ministry, explaining that the crew of Z-NH had been told to bomb bridges in Caen. This is thought possibly to explain why the aircraft finally came down near St Jean de Daye. They had been hit by anti-aircraft fire over Lison, where a worker at the railway yard remembers how the German gunners celebrated the fact that they had shot down a bomber.

Frank was just twenty one years old when he died. His service number was 222039 and his parents were Captain Leonard Leslie Corner and Florence Edna Corner, of Whiston, Yorkshire.

Frank is buried in the War Cemetery in Bayeux, in Calvados, Normandy, France along with 3,805 other war casualties. He has paid with his young life the price of our freedom:

ddday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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by | April 11, 2016 · 3:13 pm

Look out ! It’s a tornado !! Hang on to your hat !!!

So far I have looked at how Nottingham has been affected by too much water, not enough water, weather that was too cold and weather that was too hot. There have never been any earthquakes or tsunamis here, thank goodness. That is not to say, though, that Nottingham has never been troubled by high winds. All right, it cannot rival Texas or Oklahoma. Neither Dorothy nor Toto ever lived here, and we just cannot  compete with things like this:

But we do try our hardest. We do our bit. Or at least we did do, way back in the sixteenth century. Just to continue with our policy of showing you the clothes and the costumes, so that you can work out what time period we are talking about, here are some of my favourite people from the era in question, having a game of bowls while they wait for a decision about the Armada from the European Court of Justice:

005

Back to the story….

On Monday, July 7th 1558, Nottingham was struck by a tornado. All of the ordinary houses within a mile of the city were destroyed. Sir Richard Baker reported in his now forgotten but once extremely popular “Chronicle of the Kings of England from the Time of the Romans’ Government unto the Death of King James”:

“On the 7th of July, this year, within a mile of Nottingham was a grievous tempest with thunder, which, as it came through beat down all the houses and churches, cast the bells to the outside of the church-yards, and twisted the sheets of lead like a pair of leather gloves and threw them four hundred foot into the field. The River Trent, running between the two towns, the water, with the mud in the bottom, was carried a quarter of a mile, and thrown against trees, with the violence whereof the trees were torn up by the roots, and cast twelve score yards off:

After%20the%20Storm_2012-10_uprooted%20tree
A child was taken out of a woman’s arms, and carried up into the air then let fall, had its arm broke and died.  Also, a child was taken forth of a man’s hand and carried two spear’s length high, and then let fall two hundred feet off, of which fall it died.

Five or six men thereabouts were killed yet had neither flesh nor skin hurt. They were slain by the storm, during which, hailstones fell measuring fifteen inches in circumference.”

The “two towns” are thought to have been the villages of Wilford and Lenton which at the time were rural, agricultural villages of roughly similarly size, separated from the main town of Nottingham.

Elsewhere in the East Midlands, on an unknown date in July 1558, in Northamptonshire, there was a storm with immense hailstones some fifteen inches around:

ice
I do not know if these two events were connected or not. Overall in England, it was a very hot summer in 1558 with long periods of drought throughout the whole year. In March of 1558 the country had already seen the “most destructive hurricane in England”, although I have been unable to locate the precise whereabouts of this occurrence, and Nottingham seems to have been unaffected.

Eighty or so years later, on Wednesday, October 13th 1666, there was a similarly violent storm just a little further north. Called a whirlwind at the time, it actually seems to have done enough damage to warrant being called a tornado. How fashion tastes change in only a hundred years:

Cavaliersxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

This account comes from “A General Chronological History of Air, Weather, Seasons, Meteors in Sultry Places and Different Times”, which was written by Thomas Short, and published in London in 1749:

“In Lincolnshire, there was a dreadful storm of thunder, accompanied with hail, the stones as large as pigeon or even pullet eggs, followed by a storm or tempest, attended with a strange noise. It came with such violence and force, that at Welbourn, it levelled most of the houses to the ground. It broke down some trees and tore up other trees by the roots. It scattered abroad much corn and hay. One boy only was killed. It went on to Willingmore (Wellingore?) , where it overthrew some houses and killed two children in them. Thence it passed on and touched the skirts of Nanby (Navenby?) and ruined a few houses. Keeping its course to the next town, where it dashed the church steeple in pieces, furiously damaging the church itself, both stone and timber work. It left little of either standing, only the body of the steeple. It threw down many trees and houses. It moved in a channel, not a great breadth. Otherwise it would have ruined a great part of the country. It moved in a circle and looked like fire. It went through Nottinghamshire, where the hailstones were nine inches about. The whirlwind was about 60 yards broad. On Nottingham Forest, it broke down and tore up at least 1,000 trees, overthrew many windmills, overturned boats on the River Trent. In a village of fifty houses, it left only seven standing.”

The original place names are given as Welbourn, Willingmore and Nanby. I have taken a quick look at the map and I think that Thomas was writing down the names of the places from a person who was talking to him. I can just imagine a local peasant of the time calling Wellingore, Willingmore and another slack jawed local pronouncing Navenby as Na’nby. As always, look for the orange arrow:

Untitledmap

Here is St Chad’s Church in Welbourn, which survived the tornado more or less intact:

St.Chad's church, Welbourn

Here is the road near Welbourn:

nar welbourn

That road takes you to Willingmore AKA Wellingore. Here is All Saints Church on a nice day and then on a Meteorological Office Severe Weather Tornado Risk Warning Day:

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If Na’nby was Navenby, then this is St Peter’s church:

navenby_st_peter

The “next town”, and I am merely guessing here, may have been Boothby Graffoe, which has its own ruined castle:

lincoln-somerton-castle-boothby-graffoe-engraved-print-1770-13812-p

….and a church which over the course of the last 350 years seems to have recovered from what must have been, judging by Thomas’ account, a very bad hair day:

Boothby Graffoe St Andrew

Here is a slightly better overview of the area to refresh your memory. All of my three best guess place names of Welbourn, Willingmore, and Navenby are in a nice, more or less straight line, as the tornado flies. It would be possible to argue that, if the fourth location is a genuine town sized town, then it might be Waddington, or even (less likely perhaps), the county capital of Lincoln. Boothby Graffoe, though, is a lovely village name. Perhaps not as striking as Norton Disney, but cute nevertheless.

Just take a look at this second map, showing clearly the path of the tornado through the three villages. I  rest my case, as they say:

navenby

From my point of view, of course, the most interesting detail is the fact that:

“On Nottingham Forest, it broke down and tore up at least 1,000 trees.”

I have already written about the Forest Recreation Ground in Nottingham in a blogpost about a highwayman being executed on the gallows near St Andrew’s Church. Here is a map:

forest

How do I know that this is the same place as Nottingham Forest? I know because of what used to be situated on Forest Road East, to the south of the green area marked “Forest Recreation Ground”. Here is an old, and no doubt, valuable oil painting of them. These are clearly what Richard was talking about when he mentioned that the whirlwind “overthrew many windmills”:

(c) Nottinghamshire Archives; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Enormous damage was occasioned in Nottingham:

“On Nottingham Forest, it broke down and tore up at least 1,000 trees, overthrew many windmills, overturned boats on the River Trent. In a village of fifty houses, it left only seven standing.”

In my opinion, this was because the tornado came from the south west, travelled, broadly speaking, to the north east, and was therefore much stronger in Nottingham than it was in Lincolnshire. This weather event may even be the reason that the Forest Recreation Ground was initially created. Having so many trees cut down together in what was then a heavily wooded part of Sherwood Forest itself, may have been the first step towards the vast open space that we all enjoy today. This map shows the general north easterly path of the tornado. The orange arrow points towards the Lincolnshire Three:

big navenby

It is always difficult to prove a negative, but this map shows why mention of the tornado came only from Nottingham and the three small villages in Lincolnshire. Even now, 350 years later, there are comparatively few people living between the two localities to tell the story. And equally, there would have been, centuries ago, virtually nobody to tell it to.

Could somebody in England have recognised a tornado in 1666? Well, yes, he could, if he described the storm he saw as “attended with a strange noise”, as well as being “in a channel, not a great breadth”, “about 60 yards broad” and, most convincing of all,  “It moved in a circle and looked like fire.” And don’t forget, it is always very difficult for a human being to describe something which is not within his terms of reference or his own personal experience.

Just compare those three hundred and fifty year old descriptions with this:

And watch out for Dorothy and Toto:

Dorothy-And-Toto-

 

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by | March 10, 2016 · 3:17 pm

John David Fletcher: Part One

John David Fletcher entered the High School on September 17th 1931. He was born on March 22nd 1920. He was eleven years old. His father was John Fletcher, a Captain in the Royal Artillery Reserve who lived at 16, Edingley Avenue in Sherwood, Nottingham.

Edingley Avenue is just a brisk ten minute walk from where I sit now, drinking coffee and eating biscuits. John Fletcher left the High School in December 1936:

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Young John Fletcher was yet another Old Nottinghamian to answer the “Call of the Skies” when the Second World War broke out. Initially, like so many others, he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, but he soon progressed to an active squadron, namely 97 (Straits Settlements) Squadron. Here is their badge:

badge

97 Squadron operated Avro Lancaster B.Is and B.IIIs at Coningsby in Lincolnshire.  Here is one of their aircraft, bearing the squadron letter, “E-Elizabeth”:

elizabeth 97 sq

By April 1943, they had become a Pathfinder Force squadron, tasked with using flares to mark targets for the rest of the bombers. By now, John was Flight Lieutenant Fletcher, serving as a Rear Gunner on a number of raids over both France and Germany.

In actual fact, John made a very promising start to his career as a rear gunner, a “tail end charlie”, one of the most dangerous jobs in any armed force during World War Two. At one point, there was a life expectancy on active service of a mere four operations, or perhaps two weeks, for every Rear Gunner.

A search through the Operations Book for 97 Squadron shows what he did in terms of operations. He was involved mostly in bombing communications targets in France to prevent the Germans moving troops to oppose the D-Day landings.

I have transcribed the Operations Book more or less intact, so you might need a dictionary:

3 May 1944 — Mailly-Le-Camp

ND346O  Up 2204  Down 0343.
6 clusters 7” flares, 8 x 1000lb MC, 3 x 4.5” flares.  Very slight haze, nil cloud, vis good.  RSFs seen on target.  Original Oboe marker wide, then one RSF dropped on aiming point; this was backed up by more RSFs.  Early bombing was wide but later improved and sticks were seen to burst across the RSFs.  Bombing on whole very successful and two definite areas of fire resulted.

300px-Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command,_1942-1945__C5083

7-8 May 1944 – Tours Airfield

ND452S  Up 0040  Down 0517.
6 x 7” cluster flares, 8 x TI RSF, 3 x 4.5” reco flares.  Weather and identification as above.  Two first RSF were on aiming point but just off the hangars at 0250 hours.  Ordered to back this up and out own fires were seen to fall right on hangar buildings.  Other backers up well placed but one slightly undershot.  Most of bombing very accurate.  Some explosions seen, one appeared to be a fuel dump.

10-11 May 1944 – Lille

ND452S  Up 2204  Down 0104.
6 x 7” clusters, 1 x 4000lb HC, 8 x 500lb MC, 3 x 4.5” reco flares.  Weather over Lille – cloud, vis moderate.  Target located by RSFs.  Flares down on time.  RSF obscured at time of bombing.  Only one message heard

A_Lancaster_Mk_III_of_N

19/20 May 1944 – Amiens

ND346T  Up 2316  Down 0255.
11 x 7” clusters, 3 x 1000lb MC, 3 x 4.5” reco flares.  Located target by flares and RSF through 8-9/10ths cloud.  First run, one or two RSF near target.  Flares scattered.  Yellow markers not seen.  Glow seen through cloud only.  Identified target on second run.  No spot fires at all.  Raid called off 0125 hours.  Gee faded out at enemy coast until re-crossing on return journey.

22/23 May 1944 – Brunswick

ND346T  Up 2251  Down 0257.
12 x 7” flares, 1 x 2000lb HC.  Gee u/s after 3 degrees east at 2347 hours.  Icing experienced in very thivk cumulus 5217N 0121E, 2316 hours, 6,000’.  Endeavoured unsuccessfully to avoid; late at enemy coast, crossed at 12,000’, got off track, ran in to large belt of searchlights, lost 30-40 minutes trying to break through and decided too late to reach target in time to bomb anywhere near H-hour, so decided to return to base.  Soon afterwards, Bomb Aimer found unconscious.  Navigator took over H2S and soon discovered correct position.  Gee came in again at 0209, thence plotted on Gee.  Bomb Aimer still in complete daze when aircraft landed at base.

Avro_Lancaster_B_Mk_II_ExCC

24/25 May 1944 – Eindhoven (Phillips Works)

NE625O  Up 2256  Down 0218.
12 x 7” clusters, 2 x 1000lb MC, 3 x 4.5” reco flares.  Received orders to abandon exercise 0038 hours on VHF.  Confirmed by W/T at 0039 hours.

27/28 May 1944 – St Valery-en-Caux

ME625O Up 2357  Down 0301.
12 x 7 x 4.5” clusters, 2 x 1000lb MC, 3 x 4.5 reco flares.  Slight ground haze.  Target identified by Gee.  First flares dropped about ¾ mile west of town. Two minutes later more flares called for, which fell over town;  RSF then put down.  At 0145 hours, VHF order and two red verey cancelled.  At 0153 ordered to bomb on or near RSF.  Appeared very good attack.

3/4 June 1944 – Ferme D’Urville

A small but important wireless station just south east of the Cherbourg Peninsula.

ME625O  Up 2307  Down 0241.
9 x TI Green No 23, 1 x TI Green No 16, 2 x TI Yellow No 16, 1 x 4000lb HC, 2 x 500lb MC.  Weather clear, visibility good.  Target identified by red and green TI.  On arrival aircraft was too close to make accurate run on first red TI (down at 0058.18 hours).  So made second run and backed up green TI with bombs because Controller said marking was okay, so third run was unnecessary.  Only one backing up wave was requested or needed.  Second Oboe TI red fell at 0059 hours.  First red was on target and second to north of it.  Green TIs covered whole target area between red TIs and Main Force bombing almost obliterated first marker, so aircraft actually bombed second red TI.  Target disappeared under smoke and bomb flashes.  One or two bombs fell in sea but concentration appeared good and accurate.  No wind correction was necessary;   Controller appeared satisfied from the start though no assessment was heard.  No second backing up wave requested.

Avro_Lancaster_Mk_1_ExCC

5/6 June 1944 – La Peanelle (in conjunction with 83 Sq

ME625O  Up 2228  Down 0356
10 x TI green No 16, 4 x 1000lb MC.  7/10ths cloud at two layers at 10,000’ and 5,000’.  Visibility fair.  Located target by red TI.  Oboe marker could not be seen, aircraft orbited and as it was 13 minutes late on run, dropped bombs on green TI, backing up green TI adjacent to two red TIs which had previously given out.  Stood off awaiting instructions from Controller who had stopped bombing just after aircraft had released.  Bombing appeared inaccurate, some sticks a few miles south, some out to sea, possibly due to cloud layer.  Illuminating flares poor.

6/7 June 1944 – Argentan

ME625O  Up 2332  Down 0326.
9 x 7 x 4.5” clusters, 6 x 500lb MC, 3 x 4.5” reco flares.  Target Argentan, northern aiming point, tops 8,500’, 6,000’ base.  Haze below.  Located by markers.  Flares (which we were only to drop on order) not needed.  Target marked with RSF assessed as 40 yards/360 from aiming point.  Ordered to bomb 0132.5 hours.  Bombing seemed excellent although target very smoky.

9/10 June 1944 – Etampes

Up 2157  Down 0209.
9 x 7” flares, 7 x 500lb MC, 2 x 500lb MC (LD), 3 x reco flares.  10/10ths cloud, base 7,500’.  Slight haze below.  Location by markers.  First flares released on Oboe.  heard over VHF at 0001 hours, also on W/T (same time).  Ordered to bomb most easterly green with 200 yards under shoot at 0011 hours, after target had been re-marked.  Green in bomb sight and a RSF beyond it further east with another green west of green bombed.  Unable to assess attack owing to smoke.

12/13 June 1944 – Poitiers

ND625O  Up 2232  Down 0431.
9 x 7” clusters, 1 x 1000lb TI red, 1 x 1000lb MC, 4 reco flares.  Sky patchy, thin stratus, some haze.  Identified target by markers.  Over target marking flare run, Controller asked Backer 1 (0142.5 hours) to drop red TI on aiming point west of RSF already down.  Position as described by Controller was two RSF in line with green TI between slightly nearer most north-easterly RSF, all three being in line along direction of railway but on easterly side of it.  Our marker assessed as 40 yards west of aiming point (0148 hours).  Instructions for bombing followed immediately.  Further flares cancelled.  Own run for MC bombs okay.  Bombing appeared very successful.  A few sticks fell exceptionally wide in centre of town.  Controller assessed quickly and accurately.

By Friday, June 23rd 1944, young Flight Lieutenant Fletcher was becoming quite a veteran with twelve “ops” behind him, a commendable total for a rear gunner. That afternoon though, between half past three and four, he was killed, not in action over Germany, but practicing close formation flying with five other Lancasters over Deeping Fen in quiet, rural Cambridgeshire. John was just twenty-four years of age:

cambrigde vity cem

Needless to say, as I was not a witness to all of these dreadful events, this article could not have been written without using the series of excellent books by W.R.Chorley, and a number of other websites.

Part Two to follow in the near future.

 

 

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by | November 30, 2015 · 12:20 pm

The Avro Lincoln at RAF Cosford

During a recent visit to the museum at RAF Cosford, I was able, as a confirmed fan of the Avro Lancaster, to view its successor, the Avro Lincoln:

cosford c xxxxxxxxxxx

The Avro Lincoln flew for the first time in June 1944, just a few days after the Normandy landings. The first examples of the new bomber were actually called the Lancaster Mark IV and the Lancaster Mark V, but they were eventually rechristened the Lincoln Mark I and the Lincoln Mark II. The new aircraft was the last bomber in the RAF with good old-fashioned piston engines and proper propellers:

lincoln_rf570_heritage_centre

The theory was that the Lincoln would be used in “Tiger Force”, Bomber Command’s contribution to a potentially catastrophic invasion of Japan in 1946. The bombers would have acted, presumably, as the RAF’s equivalent of the B-29 Superfortress or the much less well known Consolidated B-32 Dominator. Here is a B-29, “Fifi”, sadly the only example left flying from the 3,790 constructed:

fifi xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

This is the little known B-32, the aircraft which actually flew the last combat mission of World War 2. Only 1156 of these bombers were ever built:

b32-main

At the time of “Tiger Force”, my Dad had already had all his medical injections for this next phase of the war, and the squadron’s Lancasters were all being crated up to be transported out to the Far East. Then suddenly, the Americans dropped their two atomic bombs and the war finally came to an end.
The Lincoln was certainly an improvement on the Lancaster, but the performance figures given in Wikipedia are not particularly startling, with bomb loads, aircraft size and speeds all roughly similar.  Here is the capacious bomb bay:

cosford b xxxxxxxx

The range of the Lincoln was greater than its predecessor, and the maximum speed was an improvement, with the aircraft able to cruise happily at 215 mph.  Similarly, the service ceiling and the rate of climb were better than the Lancaster.
Eventually, more than six hundred Lincolns were to be manufactured, with a further 73 in Australia where it was the largest aircraft ever to be built there.

This photograph comes from a splendid Australian website where you can learn, more or less, to fly a Lincoln, especially the long nosed version, the Mark 31. Every single one also contains two or three  of the author’s laugh-out-loud feelings about life. My favourite one is:

“Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian, any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.”

 

australian mark 31
Just one single Avro Lincoln was constructed in Canada. Here it is:

canadian _Lincoln_ExCC

With the RAF, the Lincoln was used in the 1950s to oppose the Mau Mau terrorists/freedom fighters in Kenya. You can read the story for yourself, but I do love the British evaluation of the Mau Mau by Dr. John Colin Carothers as

“an irrational force of evil, dominated by bestial impulses and influenced by world communism”

I also enjoyed the description of the traitorous Africans who continued to support the nasty British as:

“the running dogs of British Imperialism”

Very Mao Tse-Tung. And here is the Great Man, ordering five beers:

Chairman-Mao-Zedong-007
The Avro Lincoln was also employed against terrorists/freedom fighters who operated in Malaya (now Malaysia). They too were influenced by world communism, although they were unable to import any running dogs of British Imperialism because of the rather strict customs regulations in force at the time.

All of that history is fairly predictable, except for the sad story of the single Avro Lincoln (RF531 “C”) which was shot down by the Soviet Air Force.  The bomber was attacked by a MiG-15 fighter on its way to Berlin on March 12th 1953. This is a MiG-15:

mig15takeoff05 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Lincoln was being flown by members of the Central Gunnery School at Leconfield in Yorkshire, and all seven of the crew were killed. The whole very sad, rather ghastly tale, is told on the Spyflight website. What a sad, sick waste of young men’s lives that was. There was just no need for it.

A lot further south, the use of the Avro Lincoln by the Argentine Air Force, the Fuerza Aérea Argentina is quite interesting:

Avroaregenrtine 2Lincoln_B-010_0084_2006-0

These Lincolns (and indeed, Lancasters) were initially employed by the I Grupo de Bombardeo to bomb the rebels, during a military coup in September 1951.  Four years later, the British aircraft were obviously highly thought of, because, in what seems to have been another rather over-vigorous political argument, they were used by the government to bomb the rebels, and by the rebels to bomb the government. Here is the paint scheme of the rebels, apparently influenced, if only slightly, by world communism:

rebel lincoln

This was, of course, the Revolución Libertadora which ousted Juan Peron and his wife Madonna.

(“She plays Evita with a poignant weariness and has more than just a bit of star quality. Love or hate Madonna-Eva, she is a magnet for all eyes.”)

Some things I just cannot resist. Nobody could:

One interesting feature about these ageing South American bombers was that both the Lancasters and the Lincolns in Argentina were serviced, and kept viable, for many, many, years, by ex-Luftwaffe engineers.  For some unknown reason, they had all decided to leave the Fatherland in 1945 to live out the rest of their sad lives in South America:

lincoln argentine

I was fascinated to read as well that Avro Lincolns were used to support the Argentinian bases in the Antarctic. One aircraft therefore, was flown back to Avro in England. Engineers there added a civilian nose and tail, removed all armament, and put in generous extra fuel tanks. Registered as a civil airliner called the Cruz del Sur, the aircraft dropped supplies to the Antarctic San Martín Base from December 1951 onwards:

crfuz del sud
Sixty or so years later, the Argentinians still have two Avro Lincolns preserved. You have already seen two photographs of one of them. Here is another:

argen best picture

The Australians have one of their Lincolns in storage for restoration in the future, and there is also the aircraft that we all saw at RAF Cosford, with its rather disconcerting blue bosses to the propellers:

cosford a xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

And, as far as I know, that’s it! What a wonderful regard we have for preserving RAF aircraft. Are we embarrassed that we were ever forced to use them in anger?

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