Lord's at War

With cricket in the news due to the victorious exploits of the England team in Australia, perhaps now is a good time to write about Lord's Cricket Ground in wartime, then as now headquarters of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), English cricket and surely the spiritual home of the World game, as this was and remains the ground at which every player around the World wants to play.

In 1939, this famous old ground had already been in existence since 1814 and was well established as the home of cricket. The domestic cricket season had already come to an abrupt end on 1st September 1939 - two days before the declaration of war - and the ground was becoming a hive of activity as many of the buildings on the adjoining Nursery Ground were requisitioned by the RAF. This part of the ground was to be used by 903 Squadron Balloon Barrage, part of London's defences against low flying enemy aircraft. At the opposite end of the ground, many of the buildings at the Pavilion End were used as the RAF's No. 1 Aircrew Reception Area, where many new recruits had their first taste of service life with many of them later making the ultimate sacrifice. Today a small unobtrusive bronze plaque on the pavilion records this fact. The ground was also used as Auxiliary Fire Station 11V of the AFS and the excellent Lord's Museum today contains some wonderful photographs of the usual collection of converted London taxis converted into makeshift fire engines parked at the perimeter of the playing area.

Although many test cricketers who had previously graced the hallowed turf such as the Middlesex players Bill Edrich, Jack Robertson and Denis and Leslie Compton as well as other England players like Len Hutton and Hedley Verity of Yorkshire had left their counties to join the fighting services, cricket at Lords still carried on, albeit in a reduced form and with a leaning towards inter service matches. These matches were of huge importance, not just for the morale of the public but also to demonstrate that whatever the Nazis could throw at Great Britain, cricket and cricketers could not and would not be intimidated in the face of tyranny.

One of these inter service matches was tinged with tragedy - a match between the Home Guards of Surrey and Sussex, held on July 23rd 1942 was abandoned when Andrew Ducat, the former Surrey & England cricketer (and England footballer) died at the crease from a heart attack whilst batting for the Surrey Home Guard. He had been retired from cricket since 1931 and was aged 56 at the time of his death. He had become a sports journalist and his tragic record remains that of being the only player in history to die during a match at Lord's.

To counterbalance the sadness of this event, in 1944 came another incident which showed both defiance and humour in equal measure. On July 29th 1944, the Army played the RAF in a representative match and whilst Middlesex and England batsman Jack Robertson was at the wicket batting for the Army, the unmistakeable sound of a V1 Flying Bomb could be heard approaching the ground. To make matters worse, the engine cut out and for a short time it looked as if the missile would land on the cricket ground. The players threw themselves to the turf, with one of them taking shelter behind the stumps! Fortunately for all concerned, the doodlebug fell harmlessly short of the ground in Albert Road, near Regent's Park. Starved of 'live' sport these matches were always well attended by Londoners and off duty service personnel and when play resumed, Jack Robertson hit the second ball after the re-start - a long hop from Bob Wyatt - for six. Not surprisingly, the crowd erupted at this show of defiance from the Middlesex and England opening batsman.

The famous ground was not always immune from damage. On October 16th 1940, at the height of the First Blitz, an Oil Bomb fell onto the outfield at the Nursery End near the sightscreens. When the bomb burst open, it revealed the photograph of a young German officer, across which was written the message 'With Compliments.' The only other direct damage sustained was when one of the houses owned by MCC, 6 Elm Tree Road, which adjoined the ground was destroyed by a direct hit also during 1940.

There were other incidents such as the time when one of the resident barrage balloons went out of control and wrapped it's cable around Old Father Time, bringing the iconic weather vane tumbling down from his lofty perch onto the seats of the Grand Stand. There was also an incident straight from the script of 'Dad's Army' when the local Home Guard was reported to the MCC Committee for using the garden of another of the Club's houses, this time at 2 Grove End Road, for 'bomb throwing practice.'

As the war went on, some of those illustrious names who had graced Lord's before the war made the ultimate sacrifice and were never to return. Kenneth Farnes, a fast bowler of Cambridge University and Essex had first played for England in 1934 but was still only 30 when his plane crashed on a night flying exercise in 1941.

Then, in July 1943 arguably the most famous English sportsman to fall in the Second World War, Hedley Verity of Yorkshire and England was killed whilst serving with the Army in Sicily. Aged 38, he was a Captain in the Green Howards and was leading his men in an assault on a German strongpoint when he was struck in the chest by mortar shell fragments. His men last saw him on the ground, his head being cradled by his batman and murmuring 'Keep going, keep going and get them out of that farmhouse.' He died a few days later on 31st July 1943 in an Italian POW Camp Hospital at Catania - his last words were said to have been 'I think I have played my last innings for Yorkshire.' An excellent off spinner, Verity had a special connection with Lord's, having taken 15 wickets against Australia in the 1934 Ashes test match at the ground, including 14 in one day and dismissing Don Bradman twice in the game, which incidentally was the only time in the 20th Century that England beat Australia in a Lord's test match.

In August 1944, Maurice Turnbull, who was a fine all round sportsman, captain of Glamorgan, an England cricketer and who had played rugby, hockey and squash for Wales, was killed instantly by a sniper's bullet at Montchamp in Normandy, aged 33 and with probably many more years of international cricket ahead of him after the war had fate not intervened.

In May 1945, when victory in Europe was won, the Secretary of MCC, Sir Pelham Warner arranged what became known as the five 'Victory Tests' - not test matches in the conventional sense - but three day matches, England v Australia, three of which were played at Lord's - the others were at Bramall Lane, Sheffield and at Old Trafford, Manchester. These matches were played in front of huge crowds who had been starved of cricket and who were treated to a festival of attacking, open cricket, played in a tremendous spirit. The series was drawn two matches each, with one drawn match and the exuberant play seemed to reflect the joy and relief that the players and spectators alike felt on emerging from the war into a hopeful peace. Cricket had survived and for those players who had served in the war, the game was put into perspective by the great Australian all-rounder Keith Miller, who had served on operations over Germany as a Mosquito pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force and who once when asked about the pressures of playing test cricket famously replied 'I'll tell you about pressure. Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse, playing cricket is not!'

Published Sources:

The Lost Seasons: Cricket in Wartime 1939-45 - Eric Midwinter, Methuen 1987
Double Century, The Story of MCC and Cricket - Tony Lewis, Guild Publishing 1987
Wisden at Lord's - edited by Graeme Wright - John Wisden & Co/MCC 2005

Dr Johnson's House and The Second Great Fire of London

This week's guest blogger is Blitz historian and fellow Blitzwalker Neil Bright.

Christmas 1940 had passed without incident. However, Hitler had spent the Yuletide with his senior staff in Boulogne questioning why Britain had not come to the peace table following the Blitz on British cities, particularly London during the autumn and winter months of 1940.

The less than festive atmosphere in Boulogne prompted the now famous attack on the City of London carried out by aircraft of Luftflotte 3 and Luftflotte 2 which was to become known as the “Second Great Fire of London.” It is well documented that the Thames was subject to a neap tide and because of the Christmas break and with the attack being carried out on a weekend, there was a skeleton fire-watching staff across the capital.

Some 136 bombers were involved in the raid and approximately ten and a half thousand incendiary bombs rained down on the City in the opening of the attack and by the time the last bomb was dropped some one hundred fires were raging on both sides of the Thames. The wind was particularly high whipping sparks from building to building and temperatures of the fires reached 1,000 degrees. Fortunately bad weather made any further raiding that night impossible.

Many of the City’s famous and historic buildings were razed to the ground or severely damaged. Among the casualties were nine livery company halls including the Haberdashers, Coachmakers, Girdlers and Barbers Halls. Among the City churches, St Giles was gutted along with St Lawrence Jewry and St Alban Wood Street to name but a few. The historic Guildhall lost its Courtroom, the statues of Gog and Magog were lost along with some 25,000 books from the Library. The book industry around Paternoster Square was devastated.

One famous building which has a remarkable story to tell was Dr Johnson’s House in Gough Square. Dr Samuel Johnson was the renowned compiler of the famous dictionary as well as playwright, author and wit. Phyllis Rowell was the curator of the house, which had been restored and re-invigorated by the Harmsworth family some years before.

Mrs. Rowell opened the house as a rest centre for the Fire Services and as Harry Stone, one of the firefighters to benefit recalled, Mrs. Rowell “was never without a tea-pot in here hand, providing practical comfort to her local firemen.”

Musical evenings, concerts and readings were arranged. There was even a string quartet (pictured) formed by members of the service who had been members of the London Symphony Orchestra. On numerous occasions there was standing room only as the music of Dvorak and Mozart seeped into the rafters. The quartet even performed at 10 Downing Street, although their esteemed host nodded off during the performance. Celebrated poet and firefighter, Stephen Spender also gave a stirring talk on Scandinavian poets and the actor Felix Aylmer reminisced on his long career. One of the Fire Fighters, Edward Gathergood, even married Mrs. Rowell’s daughter, Betty.

Dr Johnson’s House had come through the Blitz unscathed until 29 December 1940. but now Phyllis Rowell recalled how “all Hell let loose around 6.15pm as incendiaries rained down.”

Their cottage next to the house received the first strikes of incendiary bombs just as her family was sitting down to dinner. Betty busied herself by climbing a ladder and pushing off the bombs with a broom, but many had lodged in unreachable places. Gough Square was now ablaze, but Dr Johnson’s House had not yet been hit.

The water main had been struck and it was apparent that the area had to be evacuated with the family being ordered to the Daily Mirror Shelter in Fetter Lane. The family collected up Dr Johnson’s letters from the house together with part of the china plus some personal effects.

The journey was fraught with danger as masonry and other debris was falling at a rapid rate, plus the air was full of sparks. To make matters worse, Mrs. Rowell’s mother had a mild heart attack during the hazardous journey.

A rumour went around that Dr Johnson’s house was in flames, but fortunately the firefighters had found a large water tank in the area from which water was transported in canvass tanks to Gough Square and a jet of water was directed on to the roof of the house and more water was relayed up the stairway into the attic. Oil from a nearby factory had earlier compounded the situation.

The damage was remarkably little; some paintings were water-damaged and some furniture was destroyed.

Further damage was sustained later in the War by flying bombs landing in the proximity and sadly the Firemens’ rest centre had to be closed down.

Today, the House is open Monday to Saturdays and it is very much worth a visit, with a very knowledgeable and friendly staff. There is also an excellent gift shop.

Published Sources:

The Blitz Then and Now Vol. 2 - editor Winston Ramsey, After the Battle 1988
Dr Johnson’s House and the National Fire Service during the War - Harry Stone
Dr Johnson’s House during the War - Phyllis Rowell

Oil painting by Reginald Mills by kind permission of Dr Johnson’s House

The Angel of Cable Street

This week's blog is guest written by my fellow Blitzwalker, Neil Bright, who tells us about one of the heroines of the Blitz.

Barnet and Millie Billig were a young Orthodox Jewish couple who had escaped the Pogroms which occurred in Russia and other parts of Europe at the turn of the late 19th century and having fled to England, settled above a newsagent’s in Hanbury Street in London’s East End. Not long after their arrival the first of the couple’s children, Esther was born. There followed Levi, Hannah, David, Miriam and Rebecca. Two further children died at a very young age.

Barnet worked extremely hard to provide for his young family; initially as a Newsagent and later as a cigarette and a cigar maker. Barnet was keen that his children study hard and it was evident at an early age that the children were gifted. Barnet bought many books for his family and in no time the living room resembled a library. The Billig children were not allowed to play out in the street with the other children of the area but instead they were encouraged to read. Barnet’s insistence that the children diligently adhered to their books and studies paid off. Four of the children became doctors - Hannah, David, Miriam and Rebecca.

Hannah was born on 4 October 1901. In 1912 at the age of 11 she won a scholarship at Myrdle Road Central School. Her hard work at the school brought her a scholarship to London University. Following graduation she went on to the Royal Free Hospital where she qualified as a doctor in 1925. This type of profession for a woman was still very much scoffed at in the 1920s as it was thought to be a waste of time for a woman to put in a great deal of work only to give it up only to get married and have children. However Hannah was offered a position at the Jewish Maternity Hospital in Underwood Street.

After two years at the hospital, Hannah thought it was time to strike out on her own and she opened a small surgery at Watney Street in Shadwell, where her caring nature made her extremely popular with her patients. It must be remembered that there was no National Health Service in the 1920s and 1930s and therefore patients had to pay for treatment and medicines. Hannah treated everyone who came to her whether they could pay or not. She would often be seen riding around Wapping and Shadwell on her bicycle late into the evening to go and see housebound patients. Often she would pick up a prescription herself and ride back to the patient’s house with it.

She moved to a bigger surgery at 198 Cable Street in Shadwell in 1935 and about this time her rounds were also made easier by the purchase of a Morris Cowley. Hannah’s popularity increased as the years passed, particularly with children, who she would often take for a ride in her car when picking up prescriptions. In addition to her long surgery hours, which started early in the morning and finished often at 10 o’clock in the evening, she was on call as a Police Doctor.

As war broke out in 1939 Hannah became busier and busier. She was in charge of all the air-raid shelters in Wapping. Her bravery was unsurpassed as she would go out to tend her patients as the bombs were dropping.

Hannah was called out to tend to the injured at a blast at Orient Wharf in Wapping on 13 March 1941. As she was working another blast blew her off the steps of the shelter. As she tried to get up she realised that one of her ankles was badly injured. Unperturbed she bandaged it and carried on tending to the injured. She carried on for four hours until all of the injured were taken hospital. One further bomb only landed twenty yards from her. It was only later that it was discovered that the ankle was broken. For her bravery at Orient Wharf, Hannah was awarded the George Medal by King George VI. She was a local heroine and it was now the people of Wapping and Shadwell gave her the title of “The Angel of Cable Street.”

In 1942 Hannah joined the Indian Army Medical Corps with the rank of Captain. She spent much of the early part of her time in Assam treating the wounded and sick soldiers who had retreated following the Japanese Army’s advances in Burma. As well as wounds there were diseases such as Malaria and Typhoid to be dealt with. She didn’t only devote her time to the Army, but also to the local victims of the war and the multitude of refugees fleeing the conflict. One respite for Hannah was that she was able to meet up with brother David and sister Rebecca who were also both with the RAMC in India.

One of the tragedies caused by the war in this part of the world was a rice crop failure in 1944. The local farmers would sell their rice crops without keeping any back for themselves. The failure meant that the government had no reserve stock and the people starved. Hannah and her medical colleagues worked tirelessly with the many illnesses that the starvation brought

Hannah was awarded the MBE in the 1945 honours list. She wrote to the Palace explaining that she was too busy to come along and collect the award and asked that they post it to her.

Hannah returned to her practice in Cable Street in 1946. Times were still hard with rationing still in force. However the birth of the National Health Service in 1948 did bring some relief to the long-suffering poor of the country.

Hannah harboured no secret of her desire to retire to her spiritual home, Israel. Brother David had retired there and having bought a plot of land in Caesarea, Hannah retired there herself in 1964. This followed a farewell party for Hannah at the Bernhard Baron Settlement on 24 March 1964 and the presentation of a cheque to spend in her new country.

Once settled in Israel Hannah became restless and started work at the clinic at Baka-el-Garbiya near her home; treating Arabs and Jews alike. She worked on for another twenty years before ill health caught up with her. Hannah died peacefully in a retirement home on 11 July 1987. She is buried in Hadera Cemetery.

Published Sources:

Hannah Billig, The Angel of Cable Street, Rosemary Taylor - Privately Published 1996
British Medical Journal - Volume 295
Hackney Gazette - numerous issues
East London Advertiser - numerous issues

London Transport Carried On

The current cold snap that we are experiencing brings to mind last year's snow which paralysed public transport in London and led to hysterical headlines in some of the tabloids that a few centimetres of snow had achieved what Hermann Goering had failed to do in 1940 - i.e. to stop London's buses!

Taking aside the usual hysteria associated with certain parts of the tabloid press, on this occasion they did have a point, because during the entire period of the Blitz, the Luftwaffe never managed to completely stop London's transport system, although naturally on occasions severe dislocation and disruption did take place.

In 1940, public transport in London was administered and operated by London Transport, a nationalised body responsible for London's buses, tubes, trams and trolleybuses. The suburban railways were run by the so called 'Big Four' railway companies - the Southern, Great Western, London Midland & Scottish and London and Northeastern Railway Companies - although in wartime they were effectively nationalised under the Railway Executive Committee's aegis. For the purposes of this article, we shall concentrate on the services operated by London Transport and how they were affected by enemy action and how they rose to the challenges posed by the war.

The first precautions taken actually came during the Munich Crisis of 1938 when minds were quickly concentrated by the prospect of war and the danger posed by enemy bombing. It was quickly realised that the tube tunnels under the River Thames were vulnerable to bombs and that a single lucky hit on any one of these tunnels could flood half of the Underground system. As a result of this realisation, a network of flood gates was designed and installed at all of the strategically placed tunnels under the Thames and were in place in time for the commencement of the Blitz in September 1940. These gates could be operated manually from each of the actual locations but were more normally controlled from a Central Control Room at Leicester Square Station, from where it was also possible to monitor the state of the tides so that it was not always necessary to close all of the gates when an alert sounded. When the gates were closed during an alert, signals were automatically changed to danger to stop trains being trapped and a replacement bus service was operated wherever possible to link the cross river sections closed off. During the entire war, only one of the under river tunnels was breached by a German bomb and this was a disused tunnel on the Hampstead Branch of the Northern Line at Charing Cross. Fortunately, nothing had been left to chance and this particular tunnel had been sealed with concrete before war was declared.

Despite their depth, even the tubes were not invulnerable to bombing and we have covered the use of London's Tube stations as shelters within a previous article on this blog but suffice to say that Bank, Balham, Bounds Green, Moorgate and Sloane Square Stations were severely damaged with serious loss of life. On many other occasions, stations were near missed and lines were blocked but despite the damage and loss of life, services were always restored, sometimes within hours, sometimes within weeks but even in these extreme cases, alternatives were always available and disruption was kept to a minimum.

All of this seems improbable in today's health and safety obsessed culture, when even a light snowfall can cause all of London's buses to be taken off the road, so perhaps it seems even more improbable to observers seventy years on to note that during Air Raid alerts in 1940, it was left to the bus or tram driver's discretion whether to carry on or not. What would normally happen when the Alert sounded was that the driver would give his passengers the opportunity to disembark but would then normally continue unless the bombing became very adjacent, at which time he would stop at the nearest public shelter to disgorge his passengers until the bombers had passed. Occasionally though, the drivers would heroically press on regardless of the bombing and one of these occasions was reported by Stan Collins, a tram driver who recounted his experiences in his book 'The Wheels Used to Talk To Us.'

"We were at Kennington on the 18s when bang went the sirens, so I stopped the tram and turned around and said 'Ladies and Gentlemen, the sirens are going. Anyone who wants to go down the shelter, there's one just up the road.' One old boy asked me if I was going down the shelter. 'I am not,' I said, 'I am going to fight my way home.' 'Good, the driver's going on, the driver's going on.' he told everyone. He was ever so excited, just like a little schoolboy. Nobody got off, so we tootled along Brixton Road, dropping them off, dropping them off. When I stopped at the bottom of Brixton Hill, the old chap asked me if he could get out of the front door. He wasn't supposed to in the blackout but the tram was still full and he couldn't get through the back, so I opened the air door and let him off the at the front. Just as he's getting off he puts a pound in my hand and says 'There you are driver, this is for a drink and thank you for getting me home.' When we were reversing at the end of the journey, I told Alf (my conductor) and gave him half but Alf told me that the old chap had run around the back and given him a pound as well. They used to be pleased to get home."

Despite this effort, Collins also recounted another occasion when things didn't go quite so smoothly when he was driving a tram during another air raid in the Battersea and Clapham areas.

"I took it very steady. I'd got the wind up, little butterflies in my stomach and very gently we came around the curve (into Cedars Road.) We took it very gently up Cedars Road in case the switches blew out and onto the level. I said to old Alf, 'Thats it, we're in the clear now' but halfway along Long Road, we came up behind a string of trams, about ten of them, right upto Clapham, so we were stuck. There was nothing we could do, we couldn't go back, we'd have to see it out. I could have cried. Anyway, we walked along this line of trams but couldn't see any drivers or conductors until we came to the cafe at the Plough which was open all night. By then it was getting on for 2 a.m. and we were stuck there until the All Clear went at about 5 a.m. that morning."

There were countless similar stories both above and below ground level, some heroic and some more mundane but all of them showed London Transport's workers, both male and female to be truly dedicated towards helping keeping London moving despite the worst that could be thrown at them. London Transport truly carried on.

Published Sources:

London Transport at War 1939-45 - Charles Graves, Almark Publishing 1974
The Wheels Used to Talk To Us - Stan Collins and Terence Cooper, Tallis Publishing 1977
Routes to Recovery - Ken Glazier, Capital Transport, 2000

A Perfect Lady

On 6th March 1936 a small patchwork painted fighter aeroplane took off from Eastleigh Aerodrome in Hampshire for its first short test flight. At the controls that day was test pilot Joseph ‘Mutt’ Summers. When he landed the pretty little fighter after just fifteen minutes flying, he taxied it over towards the hangar, climbed out of the cockpit and said to those assembled “I don’t want anything touched.” This comment has subsequently become misinterpreted over the years, because as good as this fighter later proved to be, what Summers really meant was that the first flight had been a success and that there were no faults apparent which needed correcting before his next flight.

This little fighter numbered K5054 was the prototype Supermarine Spitfire and following this first tentative test flight, many months of further testing were to follow before the design was put into production in 1938, ultimately becoming the RAF’s standard fighter aircraft during the Second World War.

Much of this gruelling programme of test flying was done by Jeffrey Quill, another of Supermarine’s test pilots. Quill recalled in his book ‘Spitfire – A Test Pilot’s Story’

“’Here’, I thought to myself, ‘is a real lady.’”

The Spitfire was designed by RJ Mitchell, Chief Designer at Supermarine, in response to the Air Ministry specification F36/34, later modified to F10/35 which was written around the prototype. The original Air Ministry specification also covered the Hawker Hurricane, designed by Sydney Camm but whilst the Hurricane was of a traditional wooden framed, fabric covered design, the Spitfire was something altogether different, being of a then radical all metal design. This led to problems - the Hurricane was much simpler to produce and easier to repair and indeed, during the Battle of Britain, there were far more Hurricanes in Fighter Command’s service than there were Spitfires but the design of the Spitfire meant that it could be developed almost infinitely, with larger engines, bigger armaments and many other refinements added over the years of production. Indeed, the Spitfire was the only Allied fighter of the War to be in production from the first day of the war to the last, with the last of the 20,351 aircraft to be built not rolling off the production line until February 1948. This last Spitfire, the Mark 24 was a very different creature to the prototype, being capable of a top speed of 452 mph as opposed to the 348 of the prototype and being armed with four 20mm Hispano cannons instead of eight Browning .303” machine guns and powered by a Rolls Royce Griffon engine rather than the original Merlin. The Mark 24 was also twice the weight of the prototype, which truly demonstrates the genius and potential of the original design.

However, we are jumping ahead in time too quickly and should return to the events of 1936. Mitchell’s design was a logical development of his work on the various Supermarine floatplane entrants for the Schneider Trophy during the late 1920s and early 30s, culminating in the brilliant S6B of 1931 which also broke the World air speed record in reaching 407.5 mph. These aircraft were powered by various marks of Rolls Royce ‘R’ engines, which would ultimately be developed into the famous Merlin engine.

When Mitchell started work on the fighter that was to become the Spitfire, it was originally titled somewhat unimaginatively, ‘The Supermarine Fighter’ and was at one stage destined to become the ‘Shrew’ before the name ‘Spitfire’ was given to the new fighter. The name was reputedly given by Sir Robert McLean, the Chairman of Vickers Supermarine and when told about it, Mitchell, never an emotional man simply replied that it was “Just the sort of bloody silly name they would give it!”

By this stage, Mitchell was a very sick man who was dying from cancer. When this happened in June 1937, his erstwhile Chief Draughtsman, Joe Smith was promoted and under his guidance, the Spitfire was seen into production, development and evolution that would last throughout the War and beyond.

The Spitfire had an immediate impact and effect upon all who flew it. Pilots found it a wonderful aircraft to fly with no obvious vices and it is interesting to compare the views of three of the RAF’s Battle of Britain ‘aces’ with regard to their experiences with the fighter. Firstly, ‘Sailor’ Malan:

“The Spitfire had style and was obviously a killer….Moreover, she was a perfect lady. She had no vices. She was beautifully responsive. You could dive until your eyes were popping out of your head, she would still answer to a touch.”

Like Jeffrey Quill and ‘Sailor’ Malan, Bob Stanford-Tuck also saw the Spitfire as undoubtedly female and recalling his first flight, wrote:

"If it comes to war, this is the girl for me!"

Bob Doe was a little more unemotional, but his love for the aircraft was still evident when he spoke to Stephen Bungay:

“It became a part of you, it was an absolute joy.”

So we can see then, that the Spitfire very quickly won over all those who came into contact with her – certainly on the British side and there were also some Germans who wanted her as well. Adolf Galland famously fell foul of Hermann Goring when he replied to the Reichsmarschall’s question as to what he could provide to help Galland and his pilots win the Battle of Britain. He simply answered “I should like an outfit of Spitfires for my squadron.”

Although this statement was somewhat misunderstood when it became public – Galland was simply requesting that a more agile German fighter be available – his comments showed the deep respect with which the Luftwaffe held the Spitfire – and the men that flew them.

In 1941 with the Battle of Britain safely won, RAF Fighter Command, under a new commander, William Sholto Douglas, could afford the luxury of a more aggressive policy than had been possible during the Battle, using their new Spitfire Mark Vs on fighter sweeps over occupied France known as ‘Rhubarbs.’ In hindsight, the wisdom of these sweeps has been questioned as many aircraft were lost, as were their pilots, many of whom had previously survived the Battle of Britain. This was a curious reversal of fortune for the RAF, who now found themselves in the same situation as the Luftwaffe in 1940 – being shot down over enemy territory and with every chance that the surviving pilots would fall into captivity. It was also during these fighter sweeps that a new adversary emerged for the Spitfire, in the form of the FW190 which outclassed the Spitfire V in almost every way. It was now that the Spitfire’s almost infinite capability for development became apparent with the appearance of the Mark IX with the new two-stage supercharged Merlin 61 engine which transformed the fighter's performance and made it capable of taking on the best of Luftwaffe’s fighters once again. The Mark IX had the advantage of being almost indistinguishable from the earlier Mark V to the Germans, thus making every Spitfire they saw a potential Mark IX and deserving of appropriate respect.

So it continued for the Spitfire – as well as the classic interceptor fighter role, they were used as ground attack aircraft, ‘tropicalised’ for use in the desert and the Far East, high altitude interceptors, carrier borne as the Seafire and for photo reconnaissance purposes (PR) at high altitude. It was PR Spitfires that discovered the "Bismarck", provided the first photographs of the German ’Freya’ and ‘Wurzburg’ radars at Bruneval, uncovered the V-1 launch sites in France and Holland and found the vital evidence of the German V-2s at Peenemunde. It seemed that there was almost nothing that the Spitfire couldn’t do and that they would continue forever.

However, it was not to be – the advent of the jet engine saw to that and with the war nine years over, it was on 1st April 1954 that the last operational Spitfire flight was undertaken by a PR Mark 19 (the RAF had changed from Roman to Arabic numerals in 1948) from RAF Seletar in Singapore and the last non-operational flight was flown by another PR Mark 19 of the Temperature and Humidity Flight based at RAF Woodvale, near Southport on 9th June 1957.

Thanks to the work of the RAF’s Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and many private preservationists, we can still see and hear the Spitfire flying today at air shows and flypasts and are able to witness for ourselves the perfect lady in her true element.

Published Sources:

Fly For Your Life: The Story of Bob Stanford Tuck - Larry Forester, Cerberus Publishing 2002
The Most Dangerous Enemy - Stephen Bungay, Aurum Books 2000
Spitfire: A Test Pilot's Story - Jeffrey Quill OBE, AFC, FRAeS, Arrow Books 1983

The Defender of London

Last week, on Battle of Britain Day, a statue of Sir Keith Park was unveiled in London, finally ensuring belated recognition for the man the Germans called ‘The Defender of London.’

Keith Rodney Park was born in Thames, on the North Island of New Zealand on 15^th June 1892, the son of a Scottish geologist. He was educated at King’s College, Auckland and later Otago Boys’ High School, Dunedin, where he also served in the Cadet Force. He later joined the New Zealand Territorial Army in the Field Artillery but in 1911 at the age of 19, joined the Merchant Navy as a Purser.

On the outbreak of war in 1914, he left the Merchant Navy and joined his Artillery Battalion, serving at Gallipoli, going ashore at Anzac Cove in April 1915. In July of that year, he was advanced to Second Lieutenant and was involved in the attack on Suvla Bay in August 1915. At about this time, he took the unusual decision to transfer to the British Army, joining the Royal Horse Artillery. Park was evacuated from Gallipoli in January 1916 and was both physically and mentally exhausted by the experience. However, the ANZAC commander, Sir William Birdwood had made a great impression on Park, who admired his leadership style and attention to detail.

After Gallipoli, Park’s battalion was shipped to France, where he took part in the Somme Offensive. It was here that Park first became aware of the value of the aeroplane, noting how German aircraft were used for reconnaissance purposes to spot Allied artillery positions. It was on 21^st October 1916 that Park was wounded after having been blown off his horse. He was evacuated back to the UK and was pronounced ‘unfit for active service.’ After a period recuperating at Woolwich Barracks in London, he decided to transfer to the Royal Flying Corps in December 1916.

In the RFC, Park learned to fly and became an instructor from March until June 1917, when he was posted to France and joined 48 Squadron flying the newly introduced Bristol Fighter. It was not long before he enjoyed success in shooting down two German aircraft and was awarded the Military Cross for this deed in August 1917 and promoted to Captain shortly afterwards, in September 1917. After a break from flying, he returned to France to command 48 Squadron in the rank of Major and by the war’s end, his final ‘tally’ was 5 destroyed and 14 shared. He had also been shot down himself twice during this period. The end of the war found Park physically exhausted but he found time to marry London socialite Dorothy Parish, forever known to Park as ‘Doll.’

The interwar period saw Park offered a permanent commission in the newly formed Royal Air Force as a Captain, which when the specialised RAF ranks were introduced in 1919 translated to Flight Lieutenant. He served as a flight commander in 25 Squadron from 1919 to 1920 before being selected to attend the RAF Staff College in 1922. Following this, he commanded various RAF Stations and was an instructor before being promoted to the rank of Air Commodore and an appointment as Senior Air Staff Officer (SASO) to Air Chief Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding at Fighter Command in 1938.

This was the beginning of the partnership that was to reap such rewards during the Battle of Britain and which was also, due to petty jealousies within certain quarters of the service, to lead to both men’s dismissal shortly after the Battle had been won.

Promoted to the rank of Air Vice Marshal, Park was appointed to command 11 Group of Fighter Command in April 1940 and as such was responsible for the defence of London and the Southeast of England, during which his command bore the brunt of the Luftwaffe’s attacks.

Keith Park was an astute commander who believed in deploying his squadrons carefully in pairs in order to meet the enemy well forward of their target rather than the ‘Big Wing’ tactics favoured by his fellow group commander, Trafford Leigh-Mallory at 12 Group. Leigh Mallory was somewhat jealous of Park’s command and wanted it himself, together with a share of the glory. It is fair to say that if Leigh Mallory’s tactics had been used by 11 Group during the Battle, then the outcome would have been disastrously different. These large formations took too long to organise, so that by the time they were ready, the target airfields of 11 Group would have been pulverised. Unfortunately, in the long run, Leigh Mallory had friends in the Air Ministry who ensured that Park and Dowding were removed just as the Battle had been won.

To sum up Park’s contribution to the Battle of Britain, I can do no better than to quote directly from Stephen Bungay’s excellent book, ‘The Most Dangerous Enemy:’

“Park’s performance was extraordinary. In the way in which he anticipated and countered every move of his opponent, it has many parallels with Wellington’s at Waterloo; but whereas Wellington sustained his concentration and bore the strain for some five hours, Park ran the Battle for five months. He consistently showed complete mastery of his weapon, of events and of his opponent. Even today, with hours of leisure to ponder decisions he took in minutes, and with full knowledge of hindsight and what was happening on the other side, it is difficult to find ways of improving on his conduct of operations.”

Following his removal from 11 Group in December 1940, Park was posted to Flying Training Command and gave this operation a thorough shake up before again being posted in July 1942 - this time to Malta, which at that time was an island under siege and being bombed day and night by the Luftwaffe. He again faced one of his old opponents in the form of Albert Kesselring and gave him another beating, using the same tactics that had served him so well during the Battle of Britain, using pairs of squadrons to intercept the enemy well forward. Within a fortnight of Park’s arrival, the bombing of Malta had stopped and by November, the first unmolested convoy reached the Island and the siege was over. From this time, Park took the offensive in supporting the Allied landings in Sicily, where the Allies established air superiority.

He served in Egypt for another spell but when his old rival Leigh Mallory was killed en route to taking up his position as Air Officer Commanding of South East Asia Command in 1944, Park was appointed in his stead and was a resounding success in this role, being present when Mountbatten accepted the formal Japanese surrender in September 1945.

He was retired from the RAF in 1946, when Arthur Tedder, the new Chief of the Air Staff informed him that there was no suitable position for him in the peacetime RAF. He went home to New Zealand with Doll, where he embarked on a career in civil aviation, before eventually passing away in 1975.

However, Tedder made amends when in 1947 he made a speech at the annual dinner of the New Zealand Society in London in which he said:

“If ever any one man won the Battle of Britain, he did. I do not believe it is realised how much that one man, with his leadership, his calm judgement and his skill, did not only to save this country, but the world.”

Praise indeed and justifiably so but perhaps the final word should go to a German appraisal of some of their opponents, obtained by the Air Ministry in 1944. Park, they said, was regarded as efficient with staff work but was also a courageous man of action. He had earned, they said, the title ‘The Defender of London.’

Never have truer words been spoken.

Published Sources:

The Most Dangerous Enemy – Stephen Bungay, Aurum Books 2000

Park: The Biography of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park, GCB, KBE, MC, DFC, DCL – Vincent Orange, Grub Street 2001

Dowding of Fighter Command: Victor of The Battle of Britain – Vincent Orange, Grub Street 2008

The Narrow Margin – Derek Wood with Derek Dempster - Hutchinson 1961

Black Saturday and the first day of The Blitz

Saturday 7th September 1940 was a beautiful late summer's day, sunny with some haze but the sort of day that Londoners would try and make the most of because autumn was on it's way and with it, the threat coming from the now occupied continent across the English Channel. As always, most Londoners tried to get on with their lives. There was even football for those that were interested. Although the regular leagues had been abandoned on the outbreak of war a year ago, there was an emergency wartime league and on September 7th, West Ham were playing Spurs at Upton Park. At about 4.30pm, with Spurs winning 4-1, the sirens sounded and the referee, in accordance with standing instructions, blew his whistle and abandoned the match. As the crowds began to drift home, they could hear the sound of approaching aircraft.

This was the first time that London had been subject to a mass raid. London had first been bombed in this war on August 24th, when due to a navigational error a squadron had mistakenly dropped their bombs on the City of London instead of on Thameshaven. This error, was in part the reason why the Germans were coming back in force today. Churchill had ordered a retaliatory raid on Berlin and although the damage and casualties caused by this incursion had been light, the loss of face amongst the Nazi leadership had been huge. After all, Goering had boasted that "No enemy aircraft shall fly over Reich territory" so with characteristic fury, Hitler had ordered the Luftwaffe to switch it's attacks from the RAF's airfields and the Channel convoys to London.

So it was on this sunny afternoon that the first wave of German bombers headed in from the Channel towards the Thames Estuary. Some dropped their bombs on the oil refineries at Thameshaven and re-stoked the fires already burning there but the vast majority of the force pressed on, following the Thames and heading towards London. Their targets were the docks north and south of the river, Woolwich Arsenal, Beckton Gasworks and the various power stations and industries strung out along either bank of this then busy artery. The bombs began to fall, not just on these targets but on the rows of houses and tenements that surrounded them. Vast areas of Poplar, Woolwich, Limehouse, Millwall, Stepney, Rotherhithe and many other areas soon became a raging inferno - none more so than the area surrounding the Surrey Docks, centre of London's timber trade, where over a million tons of hard and softwoods literally went up in smoke overnight. "Send all the bloody pumps you've got, the whole bloody World's on fire!" was the message sent out by Station Officer "Gerry" Knight of the London Fire Brigade to his controller when faced with this hellish scene at Quebec Yard. Twenty four hours later, Knight would be dead too - all that was found of him was his boots and some smouldering remains. This was truly a baptism of fire for the London Fire Brigade and most of all for the Auxiliaries. Most of these AFS men had had no experience of fighting any sort of fire, let alone anything on this scale and no amount of training could have prepared them for it.

Up above, the RAF were trying their hardest to tear into the daylight raiders and the Germans certainly didn't have everything their own way. Air Vice Marshall Leigh-Mallory's 'Big Wing' tactics had been the subject of much criticism from Keith Park and other senior RAF commanders but on this day, the Duxford Wing led by Douglas Bader in 242 Squadron had shot down several raiders, as had 303 Squadron, the Poles based at RAF Northolt, who had waded into a formation of forty Dorniers and shot down or badly damaged about a quarter of them.

But as darkness fell on this Saturday evening, the next waves of bombers were already heading in - more or less unhindered by the RAF as their night fighting capability at this time was negligable. Their task was easy, just aim for the already raging fires and drop their bombs. By midnight, the London Fire Brigade had nine fires raging in the capital that required a hundred pumps and there were several notices pinned to incidents stating that the fire was out of control. In these night raids 247 bombers dropped 330 tons of High Explosive Bombs and 440 incendiaries. Many areas, especially in the East End were reduced to rubble and in some cases wiped from the map. To add to the confusion, many thought that the invasion had come and the code word 'Cromwell' was issued at 8pm - this signified that the invasion had begun and many church bells were rung to announce this to the already terrified population. The Home Guard erected road blocks and patrolled the countryside around the south and south east of London with loaded rifles.

When dawn came and the all clear eventually sounded, there had been no invasion but over 430 Londoners were dead, 1,300 more seriously injured and vast swathes of the East End rendered uninhabitable. Three of London's main line railway termini - London Bridge, Waterloo and Victoria were out of commission and as Londoners picked their way through the rubble they would see the rescuers still hard at work and the Fire Brigade still tackling the many fires that were raging. This was London's first and last major daylight raid by the Luftwaffe - the price they had to pay for these operations was too high - but it was the first of 57 consecutive nights when the capital would be bombed and this period, known as the First Blitz or Night Blitz would last right through until May 10th/11th 1941 when Hitler would at last turn his attentions eastwards towards the Russians. In the meantime, a long winter and spring lay ahead for Londoners.

Published Sources:

Backs to the Wall - Leonard Mosley, Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1971

Carry on London! - Ritchie Calder, English Universities Press 1941

London at War - Philip Ziegler, Sinclair Stevenson 1995

The Narrow Margin - Derek Wood with Derek Dempster, Hutchinson 1961

The London Blitz, A Fireman's Tale - Cyril Demarne OBE, After the Battle 1980

The Shelter of the Tubes - John Gregg, Capital Transport 2001

Unpublished Sources:

Author's family recollections