This combat had taken place under a full moon and in perfect weather. FO Vesely’s recovery to Cranage was quite remarkable. He had received serious injuries yet was able to make a perfect landing without the aid of the airfield’s floodlight. He was, of course, immediately despatched to hospital.
Other
96 crews saw action that same night. Sgt.’s Taylor and Broughton took off in
Defiant T3954 at 2355 to patrol the Cotton South line at 12,000. While they were
being vectored to the patrol line the air gunner saw a He-111K ‘slightly
crossing’ the Defiant’s track, port to starboard. Guns were brought to
bear but after six rounds were fired the guns jammed!
Here,
both went into cloud. Broughton, undaunted, continued but realising he was in
the Welsh hills he climbed. It was a good move for he missed the hilltops by 60
to 70 feet! The
Sgt.’s Ralls and Waddicar in Defiant N3374 also sighted an enemy aircraft but were unable to enter into combat being unable to chase due to the cloud conditions and the speed of the enemy. But there would still be reason to celebrate come the end of the night.
First
Blood!
During operations on March 12th/13th, Fighter Command flew a total of 178 operational sorties spread across the six groups claiming eleven enemy aircraft destroyed, damaged or probably destroyed. Six He-111’s were either destroyed or damaged, four Ju-88’s destroyed or damaged and an unknown probable. Highest scorer was 604 Squadron with four claims while 264 Squadron made two and there was one each from 151, 219, 264 and 255 Squadrons. 96 Squadron made the final claim.
At
1923 hours He-111 G1+OP of 6 Staffel, Stab II/Kampfgruppe 55 (II/KG55) took off
from Avord in
On
completing its bombing run, Single turned for home flying at around 15,000 feet.
The
night fighter was Hurricane V7752 piloted by Sergeant Robin McNair. He had
earlier taken off from Cranage to patrol
Robin McNair went on to be a career aviator. He completed some 18 months on night fighters, both Hurricane and Defiant, eventually becoming an instructor. He was awarded the DFC in 1942 after achieving 110 operational sorties. Further Hurricane service followed with 87 Squadron thence as Flight Commander with 245 Squadron flying Typhoons at Charmey Down. By 1944 he had attained Squadron Leader rank and commanded 247 Squadron. He became Chief Flying Instructor with 55 OTU in January 1945 at Aston Down. It was here that Typhoon pilots received their final training. He was appointed to 74 Squadron in October that year when, with 616 and 504 Squadron’s, the first Meteor wing was formed.
He
had by now made a decision to leave the service and initially took up a job with
the Ministry of Civil Aviation before joining the newly-formed British European
Airways in July 1946 becoming its station superintendent in Frankfurt and, in
1948, at
As
Robin McNair was to progress his flying career both during and after the war,
for now flying for Hauptmann
More
Action
The
following nights saw 96 get in more much needed flying time. On March 13th,
Squadron Leader Burns led a five aircraft patrol consisting of three Hurricanes
and two Defiant’s over
On the night of the March 14th/15th Vic Verity was patrolling Leek North at 10000 feet in Hurricane N6923. His patrol time was from 2345 until 0055. Sighting anti-aircraft fire some five to six miles east of Wrexham, he went to investigate and encountered a Ju-88 diving from 15000 feet. He followed approaching the Junkers from the stern and below. He overtook and noted the Swastika on the side. At 80 yards distance he gave a four-second burst and saw the shells enter the rear of the aeroplane. There followed a ‘big red flash’ from between the fuselage and port engine and the Ju-88 dived steeply to Verity’s starboard. He followed, firing again into the top of the fuselage. At this point the Wrexham searchlights picked up the aircraft blinding Verity and he lost the enemy. Verity claimed a probable kill.
There
are two possible aircraft that this claim could refer to. Firstly, an aircraft
from I/KG 30 crashed on its return to its home base of
After three consecutive night’s action the weather once again closed in and apart from training sorties little operational flying was undertaken.
Spring
is Sprung
April
1941 started very much as March had finished – with bad weather. April 1st
saw an attempted trip to Speke airport at
The
weather improved significantly on the evening of April 6th/7th
and a total of around 10 hours flying ‘came
as a tonic’. Despite this there was ten-tenths cloud cover at 2500 feet.
The ground homing station, ‘Bramble’, had the chance to shine during this
poor weather and pilots were gaining confidence in its abilities. Sgt. Stan Sim
recalls that lighting at the airfield was minimal and night landings could be
“a little hairy” in low visibility conditions. Canadians added to the Empire
nature of the base by operating this early form of homing beacon. Landings using
‘Bramble’ were very aptly named ‘ZZ Landings’. The barrage balloons in
and around the
Operations
that night were conducted because of enemy activity in the
The following evening Sdn. Ldr. Burns was airborne with PO Smith leading a standing patrol in Defiant N3376 along the Cotton South line together with FO McGlashen and Sgt. Lazell in Defiant N3436 and Sgt.’s Black and Cadman in Defiant T3924. Take off time was spread over two hours from 2140 with Sgt. Black being the last to land at 0020 hours. He had also suffered wireless problems and had to terminate his patrol. Total patrol time was two hours 40 minutes with no contacts. Sgt. McNair and Sgt. McCormack put in a 90-minute patrol on the Leek North patrol line at 10000 feet, also without success.
Despite cloud cover of ten tenths at 2000 feet April 9th saw eleven hours flying undertaken six of which were for training purposes. No contact with enemy aircraft was made but training flights centred on practice interceptions, searchlight co-operation and learning more about Bramble. Verity was inevitably involved in these exercises acting as ‘enemy bomber’ while Sgt. Taylor, a fellow New Zealander adopted the role of fighter.
During
this exercise Sgt. Taylor was attacked by an unknown aircraft spotted by his air
gunner as it bore down on them.
The
following night, April 10th, saw the squadron operating from RAF Tern
Hill on the border of Shropshire and Staffordshire to assist in the air defence
of
Two
of the Defiant’s to make the trip to Tern Hill were N3436 flown by FO McNair
and N3452 flown by FO Raphael. The former aircraft was involved in a taxiing
accident while Raphael crashed on landing. However, two aircraft 96 Squadron
aircraft succeeded in recording three patrol hours over
More
flying was undertaken on April 15th as the weather improved once
again. There were 18 air-firing exercises undertaken plus a further ten night
flying, nine of which were on operations. There was more activity the following
day when Sgt.'s Angell and Goldsmith sighted an enemy aircraft. They chased the
aircraft but lost it in cloud. Meanwhile Sgt. Smithson on Leek North patrol line
hoped for contact with three enemy aircraft sighted in his sector. He was unable
to sight any of these planes.
Once
more the weather closed in restricting operations to local daytime flights.
However, on April 24th, one of these training flights became an
operational one when enemy aircraft were reported circling Cranage’s
‘Bramble’ beacon. The intruders ran south pursued by the Defiant of Sgt.’s
Black and Cadman. The ORB records this action thus:
‘Sgt.
Black was on patrol on Cotton South at 9000 feet. Before he had been there long,
he was brought back to base, first at 6000 feet, then at 7500 feet and finally
at 11000 feet.
‘An
enemy aircraft was reported as being in the neighbourhood of Cranage Landmark
Beacon [‘Bramble’],
and to be orbiting. When the E/A moved off south, Sgt. Black was vectored on to
the Hun and followed him for some distance southwards. Eventually the Defiant
was ordered to pancake. Looking north the visibility was very good, but looking
south it was very indifferent.’
The
month concluded with the loss of another Defiant, N3376, through mechanical
failure. This loss has been mentioned earlier but is worthy of extended comment
here. After the crew baled out the aircraft crashed in
‘At
approximately 2230 hours on the night of April 30th, 1941 I took off
as air gunner to Sgt. Ralls to carry out practice interceptions with the
commanding officer, Squadron Leader Burns taking the part of the bandit.
‘Owing
to discussion we had had the previous night re: the signal for baling out, Sgt.
Ralls shouted over the intercom “Don’t forget, Philpy, dots on the upper
recognition light mean ‘baling out’”, to which I answered “Yes”, with
no more than a passing thought on the subject although I did note at the time
that we were at 10,000 feet.
‘About
four to five minutes later it became apparent to me that all was not well with
the engine, which had commenced to splutter and finally stopped altogether.
‘I
heard Rally shout “Bale out, Philpy” and I vaguely remember shouting
“Okay” while through my mind raced the command “Don’t think. Get out!”
which I thought I obeyed and swung my guns around to face starboard. Then I
opened the cupola doors, and with a little manoeuvring managed to get into a
sitting position on the back of the turret with my feet on the seat.
‘At
this moment Rally said, “Hang on, Philpy” to which I again mechanically
replied “Okay”. I noticed that the engine had started again, only to hear it
stop almost immediately, to hear Rally’s voice again order “Bale out!”
‘I
went! I flung myself over backwards forgetting to undo my intercom and oxygen
tube and I felt a slight tug as they took the strain and gave and I remember a
delicious sensation of falling onto the softest of feather beds, a feeling that
no doubt accounts for the fact that I didn’t pull the ripcord until I had
dropped approximately 2000 feet!
‘Then
I pulled. Once and nothing happened except that the handle came out to about
opposite my right shoulder. Twice and the whole handle came right out of the
suit and in a split second my groins had received a jerk that must surely have
split me in two but for the straps around my body which immediately took the
strain and weight.
‘I
looked up and there above me was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen, for
above me was the canopy, white and lovely in the moonlight and all the cords
coming down to me. A hell of a pain in each groin brought me, metaphorically
speaking only, of course, back to earth, and I began to look around me. I
estimated that I was about 2000 feet above the clouds and the moon, though
rather weak, showed small gaps in the clouds and through them to a dark void
below.
‘At
this moment I noticed an explosion on the ground then a small fire through one
of the gaps and I thought very abstractedly to myself: “There goes poor old
‘E’.” [Defiant
N3376 coded ZJ-E]
‘For
what seemed an age I floated along in almost unbearable pain which I tried to
alleviate by pulling on one side of the ‘chute and taking my weight off one of
my groins. This only served to make me sway from side to side pendulum fashion
and having heard of chaps being sick, I decided to try and forget the pain and
think of other things. To convince myself I was quite normal I looked at my
watch and saw the minute finger pointing to ‘25’ so I thought it must be 25
to 12 [sic].
Something had gone amiss, however, as I had not taken off till 25 past and had
been up for about 25 minutes.
‘At
this time I was impressed with the silence that reigned up there – not a sound
of any description and when my canopy flapped in the wind it sounded like arty
fire.
‘I
was now on the tips of the cloud and gradually sank into the damp clammy
blackness feeling perhaps for the first time during the jump that I was actually
going down.
‘I
stuck in the clouds for 8 to 10 minutes – then pitch darkness but no cloud. I
was beneath them now and as I knew from my take off approximately 2000 feet up.
‘I
started to wonder all kind of things. Where was I? Would I land in water? How
did that damn quick release work? A hundred questions must have popped through
my mind at the time but as I sank lower I could see white streaks in the
blackness which I took to be roads. This answered perhaps the most urgent of my
questions, as I had no Mae West, had I landed in water. The streaks or roads
were in great profusion, so I knew that I was in a town or village and when
about 200 feet up, I observed a light crawling along a road that was directly
below me. It was a bicycle lamp and I could see the rider silhouetted against
his light. I shouted to him and he looked around, saw nothing and cycled on. I
shouted again, all the time dropping lower and again he looked round and, again
seeing nothing, he noticeably increased his speed and shot away up the road.
‘Crash!
Watching this man, I had not noticed where I was landing and after getting my
breath again, for I had fallen on my stomach, I had a look round. I was on the
second roof of a school, with my canopy over the top roof and held taut by the
ridge tiles. I started to shout: “anyone about? Anyone about?” I received no
reply and adopted the more dramatic and far more novelistic “Help! Help!”
After a few minutes this brought some action, as I heard a bedroom window rattle
up across the street and a voice shout “Hullo – what’s the matter?” In a
few terse words I explained the situation and in a very short time people
appeared from all over the place and I became the gossip in Hale, Cheshire [Altrincham].
I made an entry through a bedroom window, much to the delight of some evacuee
kiddies whose dormitory I passed through.
‘I
was taken to a house across the road where a gallant gentleman offered me
whisky, beer or sherry, of which I chose whisky, and received a tumbler of it
for luck. I phoned the camp immediately, and received the blessings of the
Adjutant who told me that Rolly had landed OK in a spot one mile from me and
that they would send an ambulance for me as soon as possible.
‘In
the hour that passed while I waited I sank another tumbler of whisky, one pint
of beer and some cake.
‘Then
in came FO Toll [the
Adjutant?] with the Station Medical
Officer. I then walked to the waiting ambulance, where Rolly was on a stretcher
and climbed on to another stretcher and was whizzed away back to camp and put to
bed for the night in the Station Sick Quarters.
‘That
ended a somewhat unusual night for me but a few impressions which I gained are
recorded here.
‘The
lack or absence of nervousness as shown by the fact of having to pull the
ripcord twice didn’t worry me. The abstract thinking from the moment I
received the order to bale out until the moment I landed. The pain in my groins
which passed almost as quickly as it came, being unnoticeable the next day.
Doubtless,
Sgt. Phillips received his gold badge from GQ a few days later.
Final
Cranage Combat Actions
As
in early March, early May saw more Luftwaffe raids over
Verity’s
kill, a Ju-88A-6 (Werk no. 3381) B3+EC was from II/KG54 crashed to earth at 2345
hours at Park Farm, Lostock Gralam, one of the parishes bordering Cranage. Two
German officers who died in this action were Leutnant Johann Glanzinger and
Unteroffizer Gerhard Harmgart, who was just 19 years of age, when their
parachutes failed to open. These officers were buried at Byley churchyard in the
village next to Cranage. When local residents discovered this there was
considerable outrage that two German aviators were to be buried with full
military honours in their village. Eventually, the Germans were buried with the,
local police present to prevent any disruption, in unmarked graves where they
remained until May 1962. At this time their bodies were exhumed and re-interred
at the
The following night Verity claimed another kill when he shot down a He-111 of II/KG53 near Morpeth and, later in the evening claimed another Ju-88.
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