15th September - Battle of Britain Day

[Smithy]

 

[PADDY]

Remembered. Never Forgotten.

 

[aswatland]

I celebrated Battle of Britain Day last Saturday when I met six RAF vets at a book signing at Duxford. Here are the gentleman I met along with a little information on each.

Tony Iveson
Tony was born and raised in Yorkshire in 1919 and learned to fly in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve before the war. In 1940, he flew with 616 and 92 Fighter Squadrons, Fighter Command and survived ditching a Spitfire in the North Sea after a combat with a Junkers 88. After qualifying at the RAF’s Central Flying School in 1941, he went on to be a flying instructor in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. On returning to Britain, he was directed to Bomber Command and was posted to No.617 “Dam Busters” Squadron in 1944 flying Lancasters. He was later appointed a Flight Commander. Amongst other operations, he flew on all 3 attacks that the Squadron made on the German battleship “Tirpitz”. He retired from the RAF in 1949. Aged 89 he returned to the skies, becoming the oldest man to fly a Lancaster bomber: “Well, I got out of that aeroplane and looked at it and it and thought how did we do it?” he says. “I know it was a long time ago and I was young and fit and a professional flier. But I thought about some of my friends who had been lost and it was an emotional experience.”

Squadron Leader Nigel Rose.
Joined 602 Squadron at Drem in Scotland in June 1940 aged 20, just as the Battle of Britain was about to begin. ‘We were very new and raw,’ he recalls. ‘On my third day with the squadron I had my first engagement, when Germans were spotted coming in. I’d never seen a German aircraft before, not one, and here were 100 or so. I got my baptism of fire then, I really did.’ After the war, he went back to his job as a quantity surveyor and married Pamela Anding, whom he met at a squash club near his air base. They had a daughter, who became the novelist Barbara Erskine. Now a widower, Mr Rose lives in Essex.


Geoffrey Wellum DFC.
The youngest Battle of Britain fighter pilot, he flew Spitfires with 92 Squadron aged 18 and was officially credited with three enemy aircraft destroyed, four probables and several damaged. Suffered an emotional breakdown in 1942 which he detailed in his acclaimed memoir, First Light, published in 2002. Now lives in a Cornish village. He says: ‘The Battle of Britain made me want to put a value on life. I decided that if I survived, I wanted to be allowed to relish it. Now I have a life of deep tranquillity.’


Flying Officer Ken Wilkinson.
Flew Spitfires with 616 Squadron under the command of legendary RAF ace Sir Douglas Bader. ‘He was a leader,’ Mr Wilkinson recalls. ‘I was very junior at the time, so apart from gawping a little bit and calling him “Sir”, naturally I didn’t speak to him much. Even with my own legs I couldn’t fly like him.’ He added: ‘We were cocky. Stupidly cocky, if you like. We just didn’t envisage defeat. Some people may have been killed, but we knew we were going to win.’

Flight Lieutenant Terry Clark DFM.
An air-gunner with 76 Squadron, his abiding memory is of bitter nights spent on cold floors waiting for the order to scramble. ‘All we had was a small blanket to keep us warm, but they used to keep us going with 6in-thick sandwiches as we whiled away the time playing cards.’

Wing Commander Terence Kane.
A member of 234 Squadron, he recalls abandoning his Spitfire over the Channel after a dogfight in which – aged 19 – he shot down a German plane. ‘My engine stopped and I decided the only thing was to bale out.’ But he couldn’t release his oxygen mask and had to climb back into the aircraft to free himself. ‘I reached for the parachute ripcord and couldn’t find it. Panic set in. I was falling through cloud . . . if I’d been three seconds later pulling the ripcord, I wouldn’t be here. The Germans fished me out and I spent the rest of the war as a PoW.’ He stayed in the RAF after the war and was posted to Germany and Libya. Had three daughters with wife Willoughby, who died in 1993.

 

[Spitfire]

Photos from The Battle of Britain Monument, Capel la Ferne this summer.

LEST WE FORGET!

 

[Smithy]

I celebrated Battle of Britain Day last Saturday when I met six RAF vets at a book signing at Duxford. Here are the gentleman I met along with a little information on each.

Tony Iveson
Tony was born and raised in Yorkshire in 1919 and learned to fly in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve before the war. In 1940, he flew with 616 and 92 Fighter Squadrons, Fighter Command and survived ditching a Spitfire in the North Sea after a combat with a Junkers 88. After qualifying at the RAF’s Central Flying School in 1941, he went on to be a flying instructor in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. On returning to Britain, he was directed to Bomber Command and was posted to No.617 “Dam Busters” Squadron in 1944 flying Lancasters. He was later appointed a Flight Commander. Amongst other operations, he flew on all 3 attacks that the Squadron made on the German battleship “Tirpitz”. He retired from the RAF in 1949. Aged 89 he returned to the skies, becoming the oldest man to fly a Lancaster bomber: “Well, I got out of that aeroplane and looked at it and it and thought how did we do it?” he says. “I know it was a long time ago and I was young and fit and a professional flier. But I thought about some of my friends who had been lost and it was an emotional experience.”

Squadron Leader Nigel Rose.
Joined 602 Squadron at Drem in Scotland in June 1940 aged 20, just as the Battle of Britain was about to begin. ‘We were very new and raw,’ he recalls. ‘On my third day with the squadron I had my first engagement, when Germans were spotted coming in. I’d never seen a German aircraft before, not one, and here were 100 or so. I got my baptism of fire then, I really did.’ After the war, he went back to his job as a quantity surveyor and married Pamela Anding, whom he met at a squash club near his air base. They had a daughter, who became the novelist Barbara Erskine. Now a widower, Mr Rose lives in Essex.


Geoffrey Wellum DFC.
The youngest Battle of Britain fighter pilot, he flew Spitfires with 92 Squadron aged 18 and was officially credited with three enemy aircraft destroyed, four probables and several damaged. Suffered an emotional breakdown in 1942 which he detailed in his acclaimed memoir, First Light, published in 2002. Now lives in a Cornish village. He says: ‘The Battle of Britain made me want to put a value on life. I decided that if I survived, I wanted to be allowed to relish it. Now I have a life of deep tranquillity.’


Flying Officer Ken Wilkinson.
Flew Spitfires with 616 Squadron under the command of legendary RAF ace Sir Douglas Bader. ‘He was a leader,’ Mr Wilkinson recalls. ‘I was very junior at the time, so apart from gawping a little bit and calling him “Sir”, naturally I didn’t speak to him much. Even with my own legs I couldn’t fly like him.’ He added: ‘We were cocky. Stupidly cocky, if you like. We just didn’t envisage defeat. Some people may have been killed, but we knew we were going to win.’

Flight Lieutenant Terry Clark DFM.
An air-gunner with 76 Squadron, his abiding memory is of bitter nights spent on cold floors waiting for the order to scramble. ‘All we had was a small blanket to keep us warm, but they used to keep us going with 6in-thick sandwiches as we whiled away the time playing cards.’

Wing Commander Terence Kane.
A member of 234 Squadron, he recalls abandoning his Spitfire over the Channel after a dogfight in which – aged 19 – he shot down a German plane. ‘My engine stopped and I decided the only thing was to bale out.’ But he couldn’t release his oxygen mask and had to climb back into the aircraft to free himself. ‘I reached for the parachute ripcord and couldn’t find it. Panic set in. I was falling through cloud . . . if I’d been three seconds later pulling the ripcord, I wouldn’t be here. The Germans fished me out and I spent the rest of the war as a PoW.’ He stayed in the RAF after the war and was posted to Germany and Libya. Had three daughters with wife Willoughby, who died in 1993.

That will be something you'll cherish for years to come Andrew.

I've been lucky over the last few years to have been corresponding with a few of the Few through my research of one of my relatives who was one of them. They are a fantastic group of men, the likes of which will probably never be seen again.

By the way, you should have invited Geoff "Boy" Wellum for a pint or a G&T as apparently he likes a wee whistle wetter!

Lovely pics Søren!