Easy, the Treasury ensures that the military have neither enough men, enough ammunition or enough free time for plotting to be able to stage a coup.
AHC: Peerless Air Ministry
- Thread starter perfectgeneral
- Start date
Honestly I'm still amazed that no "German" bombs hit the building and leveled it during either World War,
The Treasury cannot, and should not, be expected to have the same appreciation for battlefield conditions and necessities as a career military man. In the same way, a career military man cannot, and should not, be expected to have the same appreciation for the role that the economy and the Treasury play in both peace and wartime. There is a reason for the British referring to the Treasury as the 4th arm of the British Military. Most governments tend to err on the side of the Treasury in peacetime, and that has often contributed to unpreparedness in the event of war. However, ignoring the needs of the economy for the sake of the military was one of the greatest faults of both Japan and Germany in WW2. That's not an example you really want to follow.
Oh I'm well aware of the vital role the treasury plays in the continuing prosperity of a nation
The Luftwaffe would not dare to bomb the 'Treasury' they would never hear the end of it,!!!
On more serious matters ITTL though the UK is doing better than OTL, TTL I hope is not just a Britwank. Britain is still isolated and fighting for survival as in OTL, Just this a few better decisions have been made that mitigate some of the worst deficiencies. The principle of these so far has been better fighters in the BoB, less losses to the RAF. about 10% in number of pilots killed and also wounded in all grade. Aircraft losses about OTL. Night Fighters are at about OUT Late 1942 standard and doing bette against the night blitz. Centimetric radar is about as in OTL, there being no drivers to butterfly an earlier Magnatron. However due to earlier service date for AL and GCI radars the RAF will be better placed to utilise the centimetric radars when they come. As an added bonus theearlier adoption of the commercial chassis has allowed 25cm radar to mature and be in servive ITTL whereas in OTL it was passed over for centimetric radar. Therefore ITL there will be better radar flying six months or more before OTL not quite as good as OTL's Centimetric radar but better than OTL's AI Mk IV.
LRMRA are going to effect the Battle of the Atlantic but until centimetric radar and other OTL systems come on line ITTL the convoys will still suffer harshly from the Wolfpacks.
All in all a measured improvement over OTL but still struggling. Bomber Command has a long way to go and the RAF in general still has some pain full lessons to absorb.
On more serious matters ITTL though the UK is doing better than OTL, TTL I hope is not just a Britwank. Britain is still isolated and fighting for survival as in OTL, Just this a few better decisions have been made that mitigate some of the worst deficiencies. The principle of these so far has been better fighters in the BoB, less losses to the RAF. about 10% in number of pilots killed and also wounded in all grade. Aircraft losses about OTL. Night Fighters are at about OUT Late 1942 standard and doing bette against the night blitz. Centimetric radar is about as in OTL, there being no drivers to butterfly an earlier Magnatron. However due to earlier service date for AL and GCI radars the RAF will be better placed to utilise the centimetric radars when they come. As an added bonus theearlier adoption of the commercial chassis has allowed 25cm radar to mature and be in servive ITTL whereas in OTL it was passed over for centimetric radar. Therefore ITL there will be better radar flying six months or more before OTL not quite as good as OTL's Centimetric radar but better than OTL's AI Mk IV.
LRMRA are going to effect the Battle of the Atlantic but until centimetric radar and other OTL systems come on line ITTL the convoys will still suffer harshly from the Wolfpacks.
All in all a measured improvement over OTL but still struggling. Bomber Command has a long way to go and the RAF in general still has some pain full lessons to absorb.
Indeed they'd go down as the greatest heros in British military history. Hitler would be furious.
Hecatee
Donor
What I wonder with more pilots and planes already better suited for straffing due to having more guns instead of machineguns is the effect this could have on the North African campaign : a more decisive allied air support combined with a German air force in theater weakened from the start could maybe see Compass be even more successfull ? Especially with a weakened Regia Marina and the convoy sunk here by force X ? Or could the increased air presence contribute to even preventing the effective deployement of the Afrika Korps ?
the convoy sunk by force X is as OTL, so no change there. What might change is Operation Compass and the arrival of the Luftwaffe and the Africa Corps. No spoilers but I will get there I hope.
11.09. Bombs, Bombers and the Bombed
11.09. Bombs, Bombers and the Bombed
Maud Settle had headed off for the short half mile walk to her night shift in the Coventry Ordinance factory in time to be there for the start of her twelve hour night shift at eight that evening. She left her younger sister Rose sitting at the kitchen table doing her home work and revising hard for her exams. Maud had hardly reached her work bench and started assembling the first of her quoter of six inch shell fuses, when the air raid sirens started their dreadful wailing. With a muttered ‘not again’ Maud quickly replaced her tools in their storage places and headed for the works bomb shelter. Maud hoped it would not be a long raid as she ducked through the blackout screen and into the dank concrete shelter.
Back at the house in Strathmore Avenue Maud’s parents and sister also heard the wail of the siren. Both Rose's parents had only just got home from their shifts her father was an engineers with English Electric and her mother worked in the doping shop making wings for Anson aircraft. Grabbing their things all three headed into the garden, Roses father , listened , not hearing the un-synchronised throb of German bomber engines He suggested to his wife and daughter that they had time to make the public shelter a couple of streets away rather than use the rather damp and unlit Anderson shelter in the garden. As they walked quickly down the avenue they saw the flash of AA fire in the sky to the south off them, something they had not seen in any of the earlier raids on Coventry. Just as they reached the shelter the sky a few miles to the south was illuminated by strings of flares shortly followed by the sudden flash of exploding bombs.
Pausing to watch the explosions Rose glimpsed a string of flashes crossing the sky between her and the flares, as quick as they appeared the flashes were gone, but there remained a faint glow that slowly transformed into a flaming streak that painted a curving course earth-woods. As Her father uttered “that's done for one of the bastards”, Rose watched in fascinated horror as the aircraft with its doomed crew of men probably little older than her, silently prayed that some had got out. With the sound of aircraft engines now clearly audible the family hurriedly entered the shelter and settled down to wait the raid out. All around them were other family groups who were similarly making the best of it.
Rose struggled to concentrate on the textbook she had brought with her. She was not helped by the dimness of the light and the occasional tremor from an exploding bomb transmitted through the earth . She was thankful that tonight at least there were no bombs falling close enough to their shelter to really shake. Being only half a mile from the city centre and in a area surrounded by war industries , railways and of course the major London road made here feel very vulnerable. Despite this fear Rose later fell asleep and only woke when her mother shook her and told her that the ARP wardens had announced that the all clear was sounding. Exiting the shelter in the predawn dark Rose noticed the glow of a couple of fires to the north near the city centre. Turning the other way to look south there were more indications of bomb damage but it all looked fairly small compared to the fires they had seen in Birmingham to the west just a couple of weeks earlier. Heading home to try and grab a couple of hours proper sleep before she had to go to the Grammar school, she new the boys would be full of all the nights alarms and explosions.
Some miles to the south as that dawn broke the men at the QF sites finally stood down, Most had spent the night in their shelters but some had had to venture out out to set fires on adjust the fuel supply to make more or less flames. Others were watching for marker flares and then trying to mimic them with the ones they had ready. One man laughed at the dark humour expressed by his “Oppo” in that very few other people considered that the more bombs that fell on them the better their work had been! By that measure they had had a very successful night as every where they looked was pockmarked with craters of the black scars on incendiary bombs, A copse adjacent to the QF site had been half flattened evidence of one of the large Luft-miens the Luftwaffe were using.
Not far away on the other side of the copse was an AA battery that had also had a busy night. There they were counting their blessing as thy stacked the empty shell cases that the Luftmein had been no closer, as it was the site had been buffeted hard by the blast. That blast wave had caused the RDF boffins to carefully check their aerials and equipment for damage. ‘Taffy Bowen might have banned his fellow scientists from flying trials, only permitting more junior technicians to do so and only if the equipment used had already been replicated. This was to prevent the loss of vital and possibly unique prototypes and of essential scientific personnel. When test flights were permitted then only a single observer and maybe a junior scientist were authorised. However on the ground there were no such restriction and on this night a team from TRE, who being based at Cheltenham did not have far to travel had arrived by arrangement at the AA site the day befor with a lorry fitted with a new version of the twenty five centimetre tracking and ranging RDF units bur more importantly as far as Bernard Lovell was concerned was the fact that the unit was fitted with the latest of his parabolic, and cheese slice aerials. By setting up close to the Batteries RDF unit they would be able to directly compare the effectiveness of this new system with the Batteries existing one point five meter wave length one. By having scientist observing both sets of RDF instruments, taking notes and talking to each other by headsets much data was gathered. Getting some of the Batteries RDF operators to use the new system under operational conditions was a really important part of the exercise and had been proposed by the Operational Research Team when they first got an inkling that Lovell was going into the ‘Field’ so to speak. At TRE the expression “going into the field” had special meaning, as it was not just a statement of fact but of expectation, as it harked back to the successful Daventry experiment early in 1935 from which all RDF development had sprung.
Benard Lovell and A.D. Blumlein were not the only TRE people busy that night. Down at Staverton airfield earlier that evening a team had been fussing around an unusual black painted aircraft. It was not just its tricycle undercarriage that made it different from the other night fighters on test there.The G for Guard painted on its’ matt black fuselage marked it out as something special. The Aircraft was a North American Havock, originally ordered by the French as a medium bomber but taken over by the RAF when France fell. One problem with these early Havok ones was that being ordered by and built for the French Armee D L Aire, all their instruments were in metric units and their throttle levers were reversed, so that the pilot pulled them back for more power. The TRE test flight had in this case solved that problem by simply using a Polish pilot who had flown in France. The fact that prewar “Ski” as he was known had been a wireless technician was helpful as well. It was however one of the technical people from TRE ,a lover of Shakespeare, who had named the aircraft ‘Wardog’ which was now proudly painted on both sides of the nose. It was the nose that really made this aircraft special for it housed behind a Plexiglas dome the first airborne axially scanning antenna on a twenty five centre meter waveband AI set. Nestling in the bomb bay with their barrels passing either side of the front undercarriage were the four 20 mm cannons with which the aircraft was armed. Alongside the RDF sets in the fuselage was the aircraft's truly secret weapon, a receiver designed and built to locate the X-Gerait beams. This receiver was on loan from 80 Wing and came complete with its own operator. The plans was to sortie when 80 Wing found an active beam and fly out over the Channel, there the Ventnor Chain Home would talk them onto the Luftwaffe bombers as they approached the beam line. Being able to follow the beam line using their of X-Gerait receiver the plan was that the twenty five centre meter would then be able to pick up and guide them onto an enemy bomber in the bomber stream. an important addition to the aircraft's electronic suite was a IFF receiver that should prevent them from attacking one of their own night fighters. All the PPI stations had been briefed about “Wardogs” flight plan were therefore aware that if they got a second ‘Crown of thorns’ on their PPI screens closing on one of their own night fighters then they would need to warn the crew of “Wardog” or the other fighter as necessary. One of the objects of the nights test flight was to investigate if this was a viable tactic for getting more night fighters into the bomber stream than could be sustained by the GCI/PPI system on its own. The Pilot of “Wardog” had named this tactic ‘Widdog’ which in his native Polish translated as ‘dziki pies’ which to his English comrades sound like he was saying “dizzypies” so that was the term they used for this sortie type.
Analysis of the RDF traces and of “Wardogs” crews debriefing and flight records showed that they detected no less than five potential targets in the stream once they had got into and were embedded in the bomber stream, They had fired on two contacts, one hastily as the target bomber had fired at them, the other was a more deliberate attack and hits were claimed but no visible evidence of damage done was observed. Two of the other contacts were persuade but lost and one was broken of when Cricklade GCI/PPI informed them that they appeared to be stalking one of their own fighters. Real positives from the nights efforts were the range at which the twenty five centimetre set was able to lock onto the targets aircraft, the minim range was also better than the one point five meter AI Mark IV.The real star of the night had been the cloned X-Gerait receiver that had enabled the Eighty Wing technician to bring them into the bomber stream time and time again without outside assistance.
Though much damage had been done to Coventry, there was no wholesale destruction or great fire as there had been in the east end of London. The Historic old city centre had got off lightly with some important buildings destroyed by bombs. The Cathedral had some of its ancient stained glass windows blown in by a Luft Mien that landed a couple streets away. Luckily no incendiaries actually landed on the Cathedral and those that did land within the precinct were dealt with by ARP Wardens and the Auxiliary Fire-brigade who stayed on fire watch throughout the raid. Civilian casualties had been unfortunately high due to a direct hit on a street shelter.
Back at their house in Strathmore Avenue, Rose was getting ready to walk to the Grammar school as her parents were getting ready to leave together for their shifts. Maud had not come home yet and Rose surmised that she was doing some overtime to try and help recoup some of the production lost due to the air raids.
Maud Settle had headed off for the short half mile walk to her night shift in the Coventry Ordinance factory in time to be there for the start of her twelve hour night shift at eight that evening. She left her younger sister Rose sitting at the kitchen table doing her home work and revising hard for her exams. Maud had hardly reached her work bench and started assembling the first of her quoter of six inch shell fuses, when the air raid sirens started their dreadful wailing. With a muttered ‘not again’ Maud quickly replaced her tools in their storage places and headed for the works bomb shelter. Maud hoped it would not be a long raid as she ducked through the blackout screen and into the dank concrete shelter.
Back at the house in Strathmore Avenue Maud’s parents and sister also heard the wail of the siren. Both Rose's parents had only just got home from their shifts her father was an engineers with English Electric and her mother worked in the doping shop making wings for Anson aircraft. Grabbing their things all three headed into the garden, Roses father , listened , not hearing the un-synchronised throb of German bomber engines He suggested to his wife and daughter that they had time to make the public shelter a couple of streets away rather than use the rather damp and unlit Anderson shelter in the garden. As they walked quickly down the avenue they saw the flash of AA fire in the sky to the south off them, something they had not seen in any of the earlier raids on Coventry. Just as they reached the shelter the sky a few miles to the south was illuminated by strings of flares shortly followed by the sudden flash of exploding bombs.
Pausing to watch the explosions Rose glimpsed a string of flashes crossing the sky between her and the flares, as quick as they appeared the flashes were gone, but there remained a faint glow that slowly transformed into a flaming streak that painted a curving course earth-woods. As Her father uttered “that's done for one of the bastards”, Rose watched in fascinated horror as the aircraft with its doomed crew of men probably little older than her, silently prayed that some had got out. With the sound of aircraft engines now clearly audible the family hurriedly entered the shelter and settled down to wait the raid out. All around them were other family groups who were similarly making the best of it.
Rose struggled to concentrate on the textbook she had brought with her. She was not helped by the dimness of the light and the occasional tremor from an exploding bomb transmitted through the earth . She was thankful that tonight at least there were no bombs falling close enough to their shelter to really shake. Being only half a mile from the city centre and in a area surrounded by war industries , railways and of course the major London road made here feel very vulnerable. Despite this fear Rose later fell asleep and only woke when her mother shook her and told her that the ARP wardens had announced that the all clear was sounding. Exiting the shelter in the predawn dark Rose noticed the glow of a couple of fires to the north near the city centre. Turning the other way to look south there were more indications of bomb damage but it all looked fairly small compared to the fires they had seen in Birmingham to the west just a couple of weeks earlier. Heading home to try and grab a couple of hours proper sleep before she had to go to the Grammar school, she new the boys would be full of all the nights alarms and explosions.
Some miles to the south as that dawn broke the men at the QF sites finally stood down, Most had spent the night in their shelters but some had had to venture out out to set fires on adjust the fuel supply to make more or less flames. Others were watching for marker flares and then trying to mimic them with the ones they had ready. One man laughed at the dark humour expressed by his “Oppo” in that very few other people considered that the more bombs that fell on them the better their work had been! By that measure they had had a very successful night as every where they looked was pockmarked with craters of the black scars on incendiary bombs, A copse adjacent to the QF site had been half flattened evidence of one of the large Luft-miens the Luftwaffe were using.
Not far away on the other side of the copse was an AA battery that had also had a busy night. There they were counting their blessing as thy stacked the empty shell cases that the Luftmein had been no closer, as it was the site had been buffeted hard by the blast. That blast wave had caused the RDF boffins to carefully check their aerials and equipment for damage. ‘Taffy Bowen might have banned his fellow scientists from flying trials, only permitting more junior technicians to do so and only if the equipment used had already been replicated. This was to prevent the loss of vital and possibly unique prototypes and of essential scientific personnel. When test flights were permitted then only a single observer and maybe a junior scientist were authorised. However on the ground there were no such restriction and on this night a team from TRE, who being based at Cheltenham did not have far to travel had arrived by arrangement at the AA site the day befor with a lorry fitted with a new version of the twenty five centimetre tracking and ranging RDF units bur more importantly as far as Bernard Lovell was concerned was the fact that the unit was fitted with the latest of his parabolic, and cheese slice aerials. By setting up close to the Batteries RDF unit they would be able to directly compare the effectiveness of this new system with the Batteries existing one point five meter wave length one. By having scientist observing both sets of RDF instruments, taking notes and talking to each other by headsets much data was gathered. Getting some of the Batteries RDF operators to use the new system under operational conditions was a really important part of the exercise and had been proposed by the Operational Research Team when they first got an inkling that Lovell was going into the ‘Field’ so to speak. At TRE the expression “going into the field” had special meaning, as it was not just a statement of fact but of expectation, as it harked back to the successful Daventry experiment early in 1935 from which all RDF development had sprung.
Benard Lovell and A.D. Blumlein were not the only TRE people busy that night. Down at Staverton airfield earlier that evening a team had been fussing around an unusual black painted aircraft. It was not just its tricycle undercarriage that made it different from the other night fighters on test there.The G for Guard painted on its’ matt black fuselage marked it out as something special. The Aircraft was a North American Havock, originally ordered by the French as a medium bomber but taken over by the RAF when France fell. One problem with these early Havok ones was that being ordered by and built for the French Armee D L Aire, all their instruments were in metric units and their throttle levers were reversed, so that the pilot pulled them back for more power. The TRE test flight had in this case solved that problem by simply using a Polish pilot who had flown in France. The fact that prewar “Ski” as he was known had been a wireless technician was helpful as well. It was however one of the technical people from TRE ,a lover of Shakespeare, who had named the aircraft ‘Wardog’ which was now proudly painted on both sides of the nose. It was the nose that really made this aircraft special for it housed behind a Plexiglas dome the first airborne axially scanning antenna on a twenty five centre meter waveband AI set. Nestling in the bomb bay with their barrels passing either side of the front undercarriage were the four 20 mm cannons with which the aircraft was armed. Alongside the RDF sets in the fuselage was the aircraft's truly secret weapon, a receiver designed and built to locate the X-Gerait beams. This receiver was on loan from 80 Wing and came complete with its own operator. The plans was to sortie when 80 Wing found an active beam and fly out over the Channel, there the Ventnor Chain Home would talk them onto the Luftwaffe bombers as they approached the beam line. Being able to follow the beam line using their of X-Gerait receiver the plan was that the twenty five centre meter would then be able to pick up and guide them onto an enemy bomber in the bomber stream. an important addition to the aircraft's electronic suite was a IFF receiver that should prevent them from attacking one of their own night fighters. All the PPI stations had been briefed about “Wardogs” flight plan were therefore aware that if they got a second ‘Crown of thorns’ on their PPI screens closing on one of their own night fighters then they would need to warn the crew of “Wardog” or the other fighter as necessary. One of the objects of the nights test flight was to investigate if this was a viable tactic for getting more night fighters into the bomber stream than could be sustained by the GCI/PPI system on its own. The Pilot of “Wardog” had named this tactic ‘Widdog’ which in his native Polish translated as ‘dziki pies’ which to his English comrades sound like he was saying “dizzypies” so that was the term they used for this sortie type.
Analysis of the RDF traces and of “Wardogs” crews debriefing and flight records showed that they detected no less than five potential targets in the stream once they had got into and were embedded in the bomber stream, They had fired on two contacts, one hastily as the target bomber had fired at them, the other was a more deliberate attack and hits were claimed but no visible evidence of damage done was observed. Two of the other contacts were persuade but lost and one was broken of when Cricklade GCI/PPI informed them that they appeared to be stalking one of their own fighters. Real positives from the nights efforts were the range at which the twenty five centimetre set was able to lock onto the targets aircraft, the minim range was also better than the one point five meter AI Mark IV.The real star of the night had been the cloned X-Gerait receiver that had enabled the Eighty Wing technician to bring them into the bomber stream time and time again without outside assistance.
Though much damage had been done to Coventry, there was no wholesale destruction or great fire as there had been in the east end of London. The Historic old city centre had got off lightly with some important buildings destroyed by bombs. The Cathedral had some of its ancient stained glass windows blown in by a Luft Mien that landed a couple streets away. Luckily no incendiaries actually landed on the Cathedral and those that did land within the precinct were dealt with by ARP Wardens and the Auxiliary Fire-brigade who stayed on fire watch throughout the raid. Civilian casualties had been unfortunately high due to a direct hit on a street shelter.
Back at their house in Strathmore Avenue, Rose was getting ready to walk to the Grammar school as her parents were getting ready to leave together for their shifts. Maud had not come home yet and Rose surmised that she was doing some overtime to try and help recoup some of the production lost due to the air raids.
Nice chapter, I like the multiple viewpoints of the same attack. Ominous ending though.
Havock is the traditional British spelling (hence several HMS Havock up to the H Class destroyer in WW2)
However, Havoc is the more usual modern spelling .., especially in the USA...
and AFAIK was used for the DB/7 in British service
In fact, before the USAAF even adopted the plane.
But as usual with us Brits, it's even more complicated than that
The basic DB7 was called a Boston in RAF service but only when used as a bomber (with a glass nose)
It was only christened Havoc when adapted for attack or night fighter usually with a metal nose and LOTS of guns
Except for a few that were further adapted as a (failed) experiment as a flying searchlight when they were called Turbinlite
(why I don't know. Not after the inventors ..Cotton & Howell IIRC. A code name perhaps)
BTW the USAAF called their night fighter version P70 not Havoc or DB/7
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AlanJWhite, nice summery, thank you my bad got my makers mixed up writing from memory. Yes it is the Douglas Havock, ITTL the actual aircraft in question was named 'Wardog' , so the missions were called 'Wilddogs'. There will be no 'Turbolight' Havocks ITTL.
YAVW ... and thanks for creating and continuing the TL
BTW while investigating the origin and spellings of the word "havoc/havock"
I found that it was older and more specifically defined that I had previously understood
from the well-known. trope in Shakespeare
In the 1380s (and possibly earlier) "Havoc" was a recognised command to English forces on both land and sea
only given when the serious fighting was done
which released the individual soldiers to pillage whatever they could from the enemy.
As such it was forbidden to Cry Havoc inappropriately
.. an offence actually written into a contemporary treatise but spelt "HAVOK" just to add to the fun!
It's a good day when you learn something that surprising 👍
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I know it was a little obtuse but I could not resist referencing Shakespeare, "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war".
IMHO you should have gone for the extra points
and given your Polish Pilot nickname Ski, the forename "Marek"
and the anonymous TRE tech who was a Bard fan "Tony"
(but maybe that would be piling Ossa upon Pellion )
Either way, it was not obtuse (in either sense) but was perhaps a little abstruse
Seems to me you may be suffering a bit from the type of editor spelling "help" my eldest girl refers to as "auto incorrect"
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11.10 Training and Preperation or even the lack there off
11.10 Training and Preperation or even the lack there off.
Next on the agenda for aircraft allocation was Training Command. Here again they reviewed the aircraft currently being used, what future requirements might be and how to fulfil them.
Current training aircraft composed the following single engine types (in the UK)
De Haviland Tiger Moth abinitio
Miles Magister abnitio
Miles Master, advanced trainer
Miles Kestral, Advanced trainer, fighter.
Twin engine training aircraft.
Airspeed Oxford, Twin engine trainer, navigation, radio and bomb aiming
Avro Anson, Twin engine trainer, gunnery, observer, radio, Army co-operation and OTU’s.
Ansons were currently being shipped to Canada for the Empire training scheme but a note on the file stated that construction in Canada was being set up and he first aircraft from this new production source should be ready by early 1941.
North American Harvard trainers were being supplied from the USA for the Empire Training schools in
Canada, thereby replacing the demand from the UK for the Miles Master. The question of which aircraft to send to South Africa and Rhodisia as an advanced trainer was a bone of contention. Miles at Miles aircraft candidly stated when asked, that production of \miles Masters and derivatives from it for UK usage would use up all the production capcity they had. Exporting masters to Africa would probably result in the need to ship Harvards to the UK in their place. Also Miles stated that until trials were conducted he was no able to confirm if the wooden structure of the Miles Master was suitable for use in the climate of South Africa and Rhodesia. Based on these observations and after talks with the Ministery of Supply the decision was made to ship Harvards directly to South Africa and thence on wards to Rhodesia as required.
Progress had been made since the start of the war with all the ad-hoc and obsolete aircraft types pressed into service during the period of rapid expansion prewar having now been replaced with purpose built training aircraft.
However there was still a shortage of aircraft and the further transfer of obsolescent aircraft to Training Command would be a way of alleviating those shortages in the short term.
The last few months had seen a great expansion in the number of OTU units, Particularly in Bomber Command where the new four engine aircraft and their larger crews had been putting a strain on the operational Squadrons as they had found themselves having to supply ‘on the job training’ to the new crews joining them. This insistence on more OTU’s by Ludlow Hewitt as AOC Bomber Command had not been well received by Churchill. Careful briefing by Sir Phillp as AM and now Sir Hugh as CAS was beginning to bring the Prime Minister around to the fact that this investment in the future of Bomber Command was a necessity would bear fruit in time.
It was just not Pilot training that had expanded rapidly, aircraft were required for Navigation training, Bomb aiming, Air to air Gunnery, and many other skills. Training Command was also responsible for ground training of aircrew and all other trades within the RAF. Training Command additional had the task of providing the training for Sixty Group, which meant accommodating a whole new branch of training. Here an additional problem was the secrecy surrounding RDF and the tendency in the early days of RDF for recruiters to tour the various Training Command electronic and radio schools and siphon off the very best pupils! With suitably pragmatic approach from Sir Hugh Dowding SAO of Fighter Command an accommodation had been reached beweent Training Command and Sixty Group that smoothed 'ruffled feathers' and in future avoided ‘Toes being stood on’.
Just as Sir Hugh Dowding took over as CAS another urgent training issue occurred and that was for RAF Bomb Disposal officers. The primary organisation for the defusing of un-exploded bombs were the Army's Sappers but both the RAF and the Navy required their own Bomb Disposal Teams, The RAF were principally responsible for bombs that fell on airfields and those left on crashed aircraft, the Navy tackled bombs on ships and Admiralty installations as well as mines (whether or not they were on land) with everything else left to the Sappers. The pressing nature of the problem was brought home to both Sir Phillip and Sir Hugh when they were informed that in September 1940 no less than two thousand un-exploded enemy bombs were reported in the first twenty days of September. Such numbers totally overwhelmed the existing Bomb Disposal teams of all three services and rapid expansion was necessary. Also with at this time the life expectancy of a Bomb Disposal Officers in the field was a scant ten weeks replacement were always required.
The need for better training and equipment was manifest and urgent. Here Training Command had helped to fill the breach by instructing Sappers in bomb disposal at No1 Air Armament School, RAF Mamby in Lincolnshire. Between the formation of the first twenty, Sapper bomb disposal sections in May of 1940 these had grown exponentially to two hundred and twenty sections by the end of July. All these men needed, not only training and equipment but also organisation into Company units of ten sections, each section consisting of, an officer a Sargent and fourteen other ranks. Sir Hugh had admitted to himself that as the Air Minister he had failed to appreciate the necessity for a properly trained organisation to deal with un-exploded bombs or UXB’s as they were called. All the indicators had been there in the reports coming back from Spain, where it was estimated that one in ten bombs did not explode . Sir Phillip had remarked to his permanent sectary that if one tenth of the preparations made for a gas attack had been spent on Bomb disposal then there would not have been such a panic.
The disruption to production transport and daily life was in many ways greater due to un-exploded bombs than that caused by the ones that did exploded. Since the early days of the war one of the most feared un-exploded bombs was the Luftmine.
On the 17th of November after attending meetings at Castle Bromwich Sir Phillip had stopped in Coventry to see the damage for himself. Whilst there he had also visited a Bomb Disposal unit at work. Walking past the large UXB sign at the end of the street had sent a shiver down his spine but that was nothing to the effect of the large black mass of the Luftmine hanging off the gable end of a half ruined house, that he observed through a pair of binoculars from what was deemed to be safe distant. The sight of the Naval Bomb Disposal Officer calmly removing the fuse from the one ton mine, left Sir Phillip speechless with admiration. Looking around Sir Phillip had noted that the Army Bomb Disposal teams trucks carried the legend ; Inspectorate of Fortifications and Directorate of Bomb Disposal, shown as IF&DBD painted on the vehicle doors. It was from this that the army bomb disposal teams got their nickname of the ‘Ifs and Buts’ .
Sir Philips last stop of the day was at the QF site and AA battery to the south of the city. There sight of the blasted wood left little to the imagination regarding the destructive power of the large German Luftmines.
Next on the agenda for aircraft allocation was Training Command. Here again they reviewed the aircraft currently being used, what future requirements might be and how to fulfil them.
Current training aircraft composed the following single engine types (in the UK)
De Haviland Tiger Moth abinitio
Miles Magister abnitio
Miles Master, advanced trainer
Miles Kestral, Advanced trainer, fighter.
Twin engine training aircraft.
Airspeed Oxford, Twin engine trainer, navigation, radio and bomb aiming
Avro Anson, Twin engine trainer, gunnery, observer, radio, Army co-operation and OTU’s.
Ansons were currently being shipped to Canada for the Empire training scheme but a note on the file stated that construction in Canada was being set up and he first aircraft from this new production source should be ready by early 1941.
North American Harvard trainers were being supplied from the USA for the Empire Training schools in
Canada, thereby replacing the demand from the UK for the Miles Master. The question of which aircraft to send to South Africa and Rhodisia as an advanced trainer was a bone of contention. Miles at Miles aircraft candidly stated when asked, that production of \miles Masters and derivatives from it for UK usage would use up all the production capcity they had. Exporting masters to Africa would probably result in the need to ship Harvards to the UK in their place. Also Miles stated that until trials were conducted he was no able to confirm if the wooden structure of the Miles Master was suitable for use in the climate of South Africa and Rhodesia. Based on these observations and after talks with the Ministery of Supply the decision was made to ship Harvards directly to South Africa and thence on wards to Rhodesia as required.
Progress had been made since the start of the war with all the ad-hoc and obsolete aircraft types pressed into service during the period of rapid expansion prewar having now been replaced with purpose built training aircraft.
However there was still a shortage of aircraft and the further transfer of obsolescent aircraft to Training Command would be a way of alleviating those shortages in the short term.
The last few months had seen a great expansion in the number of OTU units, Particularly in Bomber Command where the new four engine aircraft and their larger crews had been putting a strain on the operational Squadrons as they had found themselves having to supply ‘on the job training’ to the new crews joining them. This insistence on more OTU’s by Ludlow Hewitt as AOC Bomber Command had not been well received by Churchill. Careful briefing by Sir Phillp as AM and now Sir Hugh as CAS was beginning to bring the Prime Minister around to the fact that this investment in the future of Bomber Command was a necessity would bear fruit in time.
It was just not Pilot training that had expanded rapidly, aircraft were required for Navigation training, Bomb aiming, Air to air Gunnery, and many other skills. Training Command was also responsible for ground training of aircrew and all other trades within the RAF. Training Command additional had the task of providing the training for Sixty Group, which meant accommodating a whole new branch of training. Here an additional problem was the secrecy surrounding RDF and the tendency in the early days of RDF for recruiters to tour the various Training Command electronic and radio schools and siphon off the very best pupils! With suitably pragmatic approach from Sir Hugh Dowding SAO of Fighter Command an accommodation had been reached beweent Training Command and Sixty Group that smoothed 'ruffled feathers' and in future avoided ‘Toes being stood on’.
Just as Sir Hugh Dowding took over as CAS another urgent training issue occurred and that was for RAF Bomb Disposal officers. The primary organisation for the defusing of un-exploded bombs were the Army's Sappers but both the RAF and the Navy required their own Bomb Disposal Teams, The RAF were principally responsible for bombs that fell on airfields and those left on crashed aircraft, the Navy tackled bombs on ships and Admiralty installations as well as mines (whether or not they were on land) with everything else left to the Sappers. The pressing nature of the problem was brought home to both Sir Phillip and Sir Hugh when they were informed that in September 1940 no less than two thousand un-exploded enemy bombs were reported in the first twenty days of September. Such numbers totally overwhelmed the existing Bomb Disposal teams of all three services and rapid expansion was necessary. Also with at this time the life expectancy of a Bomb Disposal Officers in the field was a scant ten weeks replacement were always required.
The need for better training and equipment was manifest and urgent. Here Training Command had helped to fill the breach by instructing Sappers in bomb disposal at No1 Air Armament School, RAF Mamby in Lincolnshire. Between the formation of the first twenty, Sapper bomb disposal sections in May of 1940 these had grown exponentially to two hundred and twenty sections by the end of July. All these men needed, not only training and equipment but also organisation into Company units of ten sections, each section consisting of, an officer a Sargent and fourteen other ranks. Sir Hugh had admitted to himself that as the Air Minister he had failed to appreciate the necessity for a properly trained organisation to deal with un-exploded bombs or UXB’s as they were called. All the indicators had been there in the reports coming back from Spain, where it was estimated that one in ten bombs did not explode . Sir Phillip had remarked to his permanent sectary that if one tenth of the preparations made for a gas attack had been spent on Bomb disposal then there would not have been such a panic.
The disruption to production transport and daily life was in many ways greater due to un-exploded bombs than that caused by the ones that did exploded. Since the early days of the war one of the most feared un-exploded bombs was the Luftmine.
On the 17th of November after attending meetings at Castle Bromwich Sir Phillip had stopped in Coventry to see the damage for himself. Whilst there he had also visited a Bomb Disposal unit at work. Walking past the large UXB sign at the end of the street had sent a shiver down his spine but that was nothing to the effect of the large black mass of the Luftmine hanging off the gable end of a half ruined house, that he observed through a pair of binoculars from what was deemed to be safe distant. The sight of the Naval Bomb Disposal Officer calmly removing the fuse from the one ton mine, left Sir Phillip speechless with admiration. Looking around Sir Phillip had noted that the Army Bomb Disposal teams trucks carried the legend ; Inspectorate of Fortifications and Directorate of Bomb Disposal, shown as IF&DBD painted on the vehicle doors. It was from this that the army bomb disposal teams got their nickname of the ‘Ifs and Buts’ .
Sir Philips last stop of the day was at the QF site and AA battery to the south of the city. There sight of the blasted wood left little to the imagination regarding the destructive power of the large German Luftmines.