Formation Flying - 3 (P)AFU RAF South Cerney - Nov. 1942

South Cerney Control Tower

So, seventy three years ago, my Grandfather H. C. Kelsey, was nearing the end of his training course at South Cerney airfield. The training was accomplished in twin engined Airspeed Oxford aircraft and having been trained in this type, the trainee pilot would usually go on to join either a night-fighter or a bomber squadron. My Grandfather had his sights set on night-fighters.

Airspeed Oxfords in starboard echelon

During the second week of Nov. 1942, the training consisted of formation flying. This was a high precision form of flying but it had become an integral part of R.A.F. flying since the First World War, when larger and larger numbers of aircraft started to be sent out over the enemy lines.

From his Log Book, we see that the main formations were Line Astern, Echelon and Advanced Formation. There's also a reference to R.T.A and R.T.A.A., which I'm not sure the meaning of. I presume it's something to two with R/T (Radio Telephony) between aircraft so the formations can be formed and tightened up. The trainees would have to be very proficient flyers to be able to move easily between these formations, but my Grandfather had 1,240 flying hours by this time, so he certainly knew how to handle an aeroplane.

Two Airspeed Oxfords flying in very close formation

I haven't found a lot written about this area of the training course apart from the fact that the trainees were now allowed to fly without instructors on board. Indeed, my Grandfather's Log Book shows that after a flight with P/O Fisher on the 6th and P/O Tattersall on the 7th Nov., he flew the next three formation flights on his own. However, without the presence of an instructor, the exuberance of youth meant that the trainee pilots would often try to show off to each other in the air by attempting to touch wings or frighten the living daylights out of their pals flying with them.

Airspeed Oxfords in Line Astern

A crowded sky with Trainee pilots in formation flying.

Inevitably, mucking about in the air whilst forming up lead to some serious accidents. Here are just a couple that I found, but there must have been many more;

• On 14 September 1941 two RAF Airspeed Oxfords collide during formation flying near RAF South Cerney, one crashed in flames.

• On 19 May 1942 two RAF Airspeed Oxfords collide while formation flying, one aircraft crashes near RAF Driffield.

Thankfully, my Grandfather came through unscathed and on 14th Nov. he was sent to 1519 B.A.T. Flight at R.A.F. Feltwell to take a Beam Approach Course.

At this time in the War, the British forces were still mostly fighting at El Alamein in North Africa. With Operation Torch, the most amazing fact is the British were actually fighting against the French in Morocco. The failure of the French to defend this allied invasion triggered the German occupation of Southern France on 11th November 1942. We now characterise the French forces as Vichy French, but the fact is that they were the French Army and Navy.

The RAF in Europe was at the mercy of the weather, which was apparently ghastly in November 1942, so bombing raids were very rare. At the same time, the Luftwaffe was putting all it's efforts into the Eastern front, leaving Britain relatively unscathed. In fact, until January 1944, the number and intensity of Luftwaffe raids on Britain dropped dramatically and it became known after the War as "The Lull".

Happy 22nd Birthday Grandad - War Still Not Over - October 1942

Pilot's Flying Log Book Oct. 1942

My Grandfather spent his 22nd birthday training at 3(P)AFU RAF South Carney, with two flights in a twin engined airplane called an Airspeed Oxford. His first flight, probably in the morning, was instructed by F/Lt Warren and involved the number 6 cross-country course. There and home the cross-country course took two and a half hours, and with the top speed of an Airspeed Oxford being 192mph, this was approximately a 400 mile round trip.

This course would have relied on the pilot navigating via landmarks, dead reckoning, experience of the area and some luck. All the time the instructor would be noting down your errors and trying to distract you and put you off your calculations. I think the British trainee pilots had an advantage here, compared to the Commonwealth and allied trainee pilots, because they were used to the different and sometimes rapidly changing weather conditions and the more complicated navigational requirements of "patchwork" England.

1942 RAF Map of South Cerney Area

Referring back to Ken Fentons War Blog. that I mentioned in my last blog., Sgt Stephen Johnson gives his recollections of cross-country training.

‘After some time of flying solo we were passed fit to carry a passenger and used to go up with another pupil pilot to do navigation and cross-country flights. I was extremely lucky in being paired off with Arthur Innes who was the only pupil on that course to be assessed as exceptional in the final classification. I was at the same time placed as above average’

‘There was at that time a great shortage of pilots and the courses were being pushed through just as hard as possible. We were sent off on cross-country flights without wireless on some pretty bad days, with visibility only a mile or two and a very low cloud base. On one occasion we never saw the ground at all for about 2 hours. Luckily when we returned on our dead reckoning course we found a gap in the cloud and pinpointed ourselves not very far from where we expected to be.’

‘Being lost while flying an aeroplane is a most unpleasant feeling. When alone you are apt to panic just at the time when it is most essential to remain calm and try to work out where you are. One of the difficulties is that you can’t stop and look at the map. If it takes you about 5 minutes trying to match what you see on the ground with your map you have to remember to look for somewhere else on the map because even at 120 mph you have gone some ten miles. Luckily the South of England was covered with aerodromes where you could land if truly lost. If you did land as a pupil you were not allowed to take off again until your instructor came and fetched you. This wasn’t at all popular. Before the war and again now it is comparatively easy to fly down low and read the names off a railway station but just to be difficult they covered them up during the war and also filled all likely looking large fields with poles which caused little if any disadvantage to the enemy but a great deal of inconvenience to fledgling pilots.’

The second flight my Grandfather took was again with F/Lt Warren and of 1 hour 10 minute duration, involving a couple of exercises and an Instrument Flight(IF).

This would involve pulling a hood over the trainee pilot to obscure any view out of the cockpit and then relying on the instruments to get you back to the airfield. This would be used in conjunction with more training on the link trainer, to simulate night flying with all lamps off.

Airspeed Oxford instrument panel.

Again, I rely on Sgt. Stephen Johnson to let us know what it was like to fly like this,

‘Instrument flying was an important part of our training. We had started on a link trainer at Perth (EFTS) and at Brize Norton we spent a considerable time in one. This was an excellent machine for simulating the conditions of instrument flying and quite invaluable: but it was not the same as actual flight, for there was no feeling of motion to combat. It is a funny thing, flying an aircraft by instruments when you cannot see out at all. You are faced with two alternatives; either you believe what your instruments tell you or you can believe what your own sense of balance and feeling of movement tell you. If you do the later you are killed almost at once. The reason for this is quite simple. If you blindfold someone and put him on a revolving music stool and start revolving him to the right he will say, ‘l am turning to the right’. If after a few moments you stop he will feel that he is turning to the left. In an aircraft if the pilot believes his feelings he will start turning to the right again to counteract it. I believed the instruments. Some people did not.’

I just hope that after this hazardous birthday, my Grandfather treated himself to a pint or two and a singalong with his pals in the local pub.

Yellow Belly - 3 (P) A.F.U., South Cerney - September 1942

Pilot's Flying Log Book September 1942

After two days leave, on 14th September 1942 my Grandfather, H.C. Kelsey, was posted to No. 3 (Pilot) Advanced Flying Unit (3(P)A.F.U.) at South Cerney, Gloucestershire. This posting would require the mastery of a tricky, twin-engined, aircraft called an Airspeed Oxford. And the new instructor putting him through his "sequence of instruction" paces, as noted in the "Duty" column, was F/Lt. Chance.

Airspeed Oxford with "trainer" paintwork

Furthermore, the posting would mean that he would no longer be an instructor, but instead return to training, in preparation for an operational posting. But did it also mean that my Grandparents would be split up after a year of fairly normal domestic bliss? I can't imagine that Flying Officers were given married quarters during the War. Perhaps my Grandmother had to go back to London and live with her parents? So a lot of changes all at once.

Flying in the Airspeed Oxford, or "Ox-box" as it was fondly known, with it's distinctive yellow-belly trainer markings, was eloquently recounted in his autobiography by F/Lt. Chance, or John Newton Chance as was his full name. He was a novelist who became a flying instructor during the War.

With novelists and pianists as well as poets and artists among the men rubbing shoulders with my Grandfather in the RAF, they must have had a huge influence on this young man's attitude to life. After all, my Grandfather was still only twenty one years old at this time. The War had forced together a very diverse and interesting group of people from all corners of the world and I think this is why that generation seems to have been "special".

So what was it like to fly an Airspeed Oxford? From what I have read, it seems that the first thought many trainee pilots had when first confronted with the large, complicated frightening monster called the Oxford was "I'll never manage THIS!" It certainly was a huge jump from a diminutive Tiger Moth, to the 53 feet 4 inches wingspan of the "Ox-box" with it's two large engines providing 750 horsepower, compared to the Tiger Moth's 130 horses. However, my Grandfather had the advantage of a great deal more flying time than the usual trainee, and knowing him , no doubt he would have been far more excited than frightened. He was a very self-confident man and would probably have started telling the flying instructor how to fly the plane within minutes of starting up!

These recruitment drawings make training in the Airspeed Oxford seem a cozy affair!

In terms of design, the Airspeed Oxford is the first aeroplane that my Grandfather flew which related more to the 2nd World War than to the 1st World War. It had a fully enclosed cockpit for a start, although apparently the glass panes often didn't fit well and a "bracing" breeze could be felt through the gaps! Secondly, the cockpit instruments were arranged well and easily seen, rather than just haphazardly bolted in as an afterthought. However, the "Ox-box" was regarded as tricky to fly well, and deliberately designed so. The theory being that if you could fly the Oxford, then you could fly pretty much any multi-engined aircraft, therefore making it ideal for training. It seems that it was on take-off that the Oxford could have a mind of it's own, as a wartime trainee at 3(P)A.F.U called Stephen Johnson recalls in a blog called Ken Fenton's War;

"After our Tiger Moths, the Oxford seemed a very powerful machine. You had to learn to control the swing on take-off by opening one engine or the other a little more. I had managed to go solo in an Oxford after about two and a half hours dual and felt quite confident about it. We were thrilled by our Oxford’s power when we first started flying them, as they went much faster than Tiger Moths and had all sorts of new gadgets, like retractable wheels which usually went up and down when you pressed a lever and flaps which did likewise."

He continues, 

"There was no electrical intercommunication in Oxfords or Tiger Moths in those days. We used a system akin to those tubes you find in the walls of very old houses. Down these you had to blow at first and this blew a whistle incorporated in a plug at the far end; this in turn summoned a minion from some distant basement. In an Oxford you had a flexible mouthpiece which you tucked into the front of your parachute harness; the other end was plugged into the pupil’s helmet. If you blew into it it made his eardrums pop. This was seldom necessary however as pupils were unlikely to go to sleep while flying.’ 

Another trainee at the time, called Peter Mayhew recounts in this same blog another quirk of the Oxford,

"The Oxford was a good deal more exciting to fly having one or two vices, such as dropping a wing when you stalled it. A week or so after going solo we did our first night flying."

As usual, these men are very understated about the difficulties they experienced in mastering the foibles of the Oxford. In fact stalling an Airspeed Oxford, which, as we know, was part of the training schedule ( See my earlier blog here), was rather hit or miss. Some would stall "straight", whilst others would have a pronounced wing drop, but you would never know for sure which one, so counteracting this before the aircraft started "spinning" required a good deal of pilot skill. Nobody could say flying the Oxford was a "piece of cake", it behaved itself when handled well but tended to bite fools!

Airspeed Oxfords at South Cerney 1942

So with the added difficulties of flying this aircraft, the usual British weather and the relatively busy skies around the airfield, not to mention the fairly frequent raids by the Luftwaffe, the casualties and deaths of young RAF personnel were a serious concern. The average percentage of deaths whilst training was 3%, but this does not include serious, life changing injuries. In the book "Bombing Hitler: One man's war with Bomber Command", T.I. Steel's Grandfather Bernard Steel, was one of the trainers at 3 (P)A.F.U in 1941/2. This passage tells us of his last day at South Cerney;

"As it turned out Bernard's last day at 3 (P) A.F.U. would be 17th October 1942 as he would take a week's well deserved rest before joining his new unit. His final pupil at South Cerney was a Sergeant Heath who, after a fifty minute flight, helped take Bernard's flying time to 832 hours and thirty minutes. Unfortunately October was unable to give the unit a fatal free month. The last man to be killed in a flying accident at 3 (P)A.F.U. while Bernard served there was Sergeant S.F. Smith, who was killed in Oxford AP401 after losing control during a night-time overshoot at Bibury relief landing ground. The aircraft was destroyed by fire after crashing. He was the thirtieth young airman to die at 3 (P) A.F.U. during Bernard's year at South Cerney."

I'm just trying to imagine what it would be like if just one person died where I worked, let alone 30 in one year! And this without getting anywhere near the enemy, just during training. Thirty deaths at just one unit in just one year through occupational accidents... how did they handle this pressure? I know that F/Lt. Chance eventually snapped and had to be invalided out of the service in February 1944.

Airspeed Oxford "Trainer" at Duxford

What of the War in general at this time? Stalingrad is now completely surrounded by the Wehrmacht. Food supplies to the civilians are dwindling and the people are starving to death, with some reports of cannibalism. The fighting is becoming bogged down in house to house attacks, and the casualties on both sides are horrendous. One of the worst battle sites was at Mamayev Kurgan, a strategic high point overlooking the City centre. Originally captured briskly by the Germans on 13th September 1942, the very next day it was the site of a huge Soviet counter-attack from 13th Guards Rifle Division. By September 16th, the Russians had recaptured the hill, but the cost was almost all of the 10,000 Soviet troops who had attacked two days previously. 

BBC The World at War Episode 9 - Stalingrad

The End of the Beginning - September 1942

Since putting in a request for a transfer to "nightfighters" in June 1942, the wheels at the M.O.D. had been slowly turning and by September 1942, it looks like my Grandfather would be moving to pastures new. From his Log Book, I see that the last day my Grandfather, F/O H.C. Kelsey, served as a Flying Instructor at 21 E.F.T.S., Booker, Marlow, was 11th September 1942. On that day he flew a 'solo' test in a Miles Magister R6445 for thirty minutes, followed by a training flight in a Tiger Moth T7845 with LAC Kidd for an hour and that was that.  

Tiger Moth taxying at Booker

In his final assessment, after a year and three months service, his C.O., S/Ldr A.J."Jackie" Hicks commented that my Grandfather was of "Average" proficiency as a Pilot and "Inclined to over-confidence". I think that we can sense that there may not have been a great deal of love lost between these two men! I'm not sure how seriously these comments would be taken by his future Commanding Officer, but I do know that many fledgling pilot's careers where blighted by comments made in their Log Book.

However, I have read many recollections from RAF pilots of their early days as a flying trainee and nearly all of them echo this sentiment from LAC Stephen Johnson in his book "A Kriegie's Log";

‘Everybody has a tremendous respect for the man who teaches him to fly an aeroplane. You have a lasting sense of gratitude and admiration for your first Flying Instructor. It is unlikely that you will forget entirely your first girlfriend but you don’t remember her with anything like the same affection and respect as you do the man who says, ‘Well off you go,’ on your first solo flight.’

My Grandfather would have been really proud of all the trainees he had helped to "go solo". He would also have enjoyed meeting people from all walks of life, both in the RAF and the Army, as well as volunteers from Commonwealth Countries such as Canada and South Africa. I don't know how many of these men would have survived the war, but of the names on this scan of his Log Book alone I know that F/Lt Appleby was killed in a bombing raid over Berlin in 1944 and Corporals Potts and Saunders flew a glider in the capture of the bridge over the River Orne on D-Day.

But most importantly he had mastered the controls of two different aircraft and amassed 1094.15 valuable flying hours. Through many hours of practise, he was becoming a very good pilot. On his final moments in a Tiger Moth, in full view of the control tower, he would have performed some aerobatics, closed the throttles and glided towards the airfield in text-book manner. By side slipping expertly to reduce speed and judging the effect of the wind to perfection, he would softly land in the first third of the airfield, taxy smartly across to the hangars, switch off, jump out and not look back. A 'Piece of Cake'!

Eric Ravilious 1942

The wider World War held some brighter news for a change for the allies. During the Battle of Alam el Halfa, RAF air superiority helps to hold back Rommel's final attempt to encircle the British 8th Army under the command of Montgomery. In South-East Asia, the Japanese land forces suffer their first defeat at the Battle of Milne Bay, when Australian and U.S. forces combined to push them back, easing the threat to Australia. However, darker news was coming in from Russia with the start of the Battle of Stalingrad, heralding some of the worst hand-to-hand fighting of the war as well as the starvation of many Russian civilians. The RAF was still sending large numbers of bombers over to bomb Germany. On 10th September 1942, they target Dusseldorf, with 360 aircraft dropping 700 tons of incendiaries and using a Pathfinder target marking force. This caused terrible fires and massive damage. Many German civilians were killed and 30 RAF bombers didn't make it back.

Aerial photo over the centre of Dusseldorf Sept. 1942, showing ack-ack tracer and smoke from the fires caused.

"Brylcreem Boys" training the "Brown Jobs" - July 1942

Despite putting in a transfer request to "nightfighters", the summer months of 1942 found my Grandfather, H. C. Kelsey, still training pilots in Tiger Moths and Miles Magisters for 21 E.F.T.S. at Booker, Marlow. However, the eagle eyed amongst you will have seen something interesting in this scan of his Log Book....

In brackets after the name 'Brown' is the word (Cpl). Cpl refers to Corporal and there wasn't and still isn't a rank of Corporal in the RAF. So what's going on?

Well, this is all about a new initiative in warfare for the British army. Following the Germans' airborne attack on Crete with Parachutists and Gliders, Churchill decided to copy the idea and set up a British Army Air Corps. One part of this Army Corps was the Glider pilot regiment, which was inaugurated on 24th February 1942 and made use of the RAF (Brylcreem Boys) to train army recruits (Brown Jobs) to fly. 

So it looks like my Grandfather was caught up in this new idea and for the next few months he put the following army personnel through their paces:-

Cpl Brown    Cpl Flodman    Cpl Percy    Cpl Owen     Cpl Bence  
Cpl Wood     Cpl Prince     Cpl Urquhart Cpl McMillen 2/Lt Cairns
Cpl Potts    Lt Anderson    Cpl May      Cpl Watson   Cpl Bland
Cpl Evans    Cpl Berry      Cpl Tilling  Cpl Binnington 
Cpl Wright   Cpl Travis     Sgt Sinclair Cpl Purcell  Cpl Martin
Cpl Ryans    Cpl Baglin     

Here's a group photo I found on Google of a Glider Pilot force being trained at 21 EFTS in July 1942, but there are no names attached, unfortunately.

Initially, these squaddies were delighted to be part of this new Regiment, with one recruit, Staff Sgt Victor Miller, writing in his book "Nothing is Impossible", that the food was excellent compared to normal army food, time off was given ungrudgingly and most weekends were free. On top of that, being trained at 21 EFTS at Booker was "easygoing and fascinating" as well as being the closest to the London nightspots of all the training aerodromes.

The motto of this Regiment was "Nothing is Impossible", but the trainees that were under my grandfather's tutelage were destined for a very tough war. Of the men in the list above, I have discovered that Lt Cairns was awarded a posthumous VC in the Second Chindit Expedition. Having landed by glider behind the Japanese lines in Burma in 1944, Lt Cairns was involved in a hand-to-hand battle on "Pagoda Hill" when, despite having his arm hacked off by a Japanese officer, he shot his attacker at point blank range, picked up the sword which had severed his arm and leading his men on, proceeded to slash at every Japanese soldier in reach. The other men in the list whom I have found mention of on the internet are Cpl Binnington and Cpl Bland, who took part in Operation Market Garden, the famous 'Bridge Too Far' balls-up at Arnhem in May 1945. The Glider Pilot Regiment suffered 90% casualties at Arnhem, so you can imagine that not many of the trainees my Grandfather dealt with made it through to the end of the war.

All these heroics are in the future, strange to think of 1944/5 as the future, but in Summer 1942 my Grandfather knew nothing of the death and carnage that was about to hit his trainees. Although his life as a pilot trainer was not without hazard. Indeed, casualties at all British RAF airfields during training were running at about 3%, this included both trainees and flying tutors. However, RAF Booker seems to have escaped relatively lightly. That's not to say there were no casualties and it seems that Cpl Brown, who lead me into this story of RAF and Army co-operation, was not to survive his time training at 21 EFTS. On the 4th Sept 1942, whilst "going solo",  Corporal P. E. Brown's Tiger Moth swung on take-off, stalled and spun into the ground, killing the pilot. The date is marked in my Grandfather's Log Book with just a break of two days, by 7th Sept. everyone at the base was back to work as usual. "Keep Calm and Carry On"

1942 was another bad year for the British and her allies. With the retreat in the face of the Japanese and the fall of Singapore, the fall of Sevastopol and the loss of Tobruk, combined with the shortages due to sinking of ships of the Atlantic convoys, the Brits at home would have been forgiven for thinking they may not win this War. In fact, on July 2nd, Churchill faced a vote of "no confidence" in the Commons due to his handling of the War. He only survived this vote by talking up the "steady resistance" of the Russians.

But July 1942 was also an important date for the War, when on the 4th July, United States Army Air Force (USAAF) bomber crews, flying RAF Boston aircraft from RAF Swanton Morley, took part in operations in Europe for the first time attacking enemy airfields in Holland. 

Promotion to Flying Officer 112445 - June 1942

By June 1942, my Grandfather, H. C. Kelsey, had been training pilots at 21 E.F.T.S. R.A.F. Booker for a year and he was starting to get itchy feet. Although he undoubtedly appreciated the regularity of his work and was able to spend his early married life with my Grandmother, not in some distant posting, the war was still not going well for the allies and he wanted to help it to it's conclusion. So he drafted this note to his Commanding Officer, S/Ldr A. J. "Jackie" Hicks, and hoped for the best.

Any request for a transfer usually didn't go down well with a C.O., and this note would have undoubtedly created a stir among the trainers at Booker. But my Grandfather was always one for taking on authority and he wanted to move on.

Speaking of authority, after 16th June 1942 it looks like, from his Log Book, my Grandfather went on leave. Then on 25/6/1942, he was promoted to Flying Officer and given the new service number 112445.

In his later years, he had a very ambivalent relationship to authority, especially the military and the police, but I'm sure as a young man, this promotion would have added an extra swagger to his step!

Newly promoted, becoming very proficient as a pilot, steadily gaining valuable flying hours, happily married and ambitious, my Grandfather's life was on the up. But the war was still not going well for the allies. Despite advances in technology such as the introduction of Gee (navigation), attacks at night by the R.A.F. were still pretty hit or miss affairs. After the first 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne (Bomber Command link)in May 1942, the second 1,000 bomber raid on Essen in June 1942 was seen as a failure as many bombers hit the wrong cities.

One result of these large concentrations of bombers sent in to action was that crew losses began to be represented not as individuals, but as percentages. Anything below 10% losses were deemed "tolerable". The people being bombed were no longer identified as human either, but instead just targets. The dehumanising effect of the use of technology in war was really starting to kick in.

Night-time Circuits and Bumps - February 1942

February 1942 found my Grandfather, Howard Kelsey, taking on a very busy training schedule of both day and night training flights on the same date. Indeed, on the 4th Feb., P/O Street had to endure two hours of "circuits and bumps" with my Grandfather, in the open cockpit of a Tiger Moth, on a freezing February night! I just hope he passed this section of his training.

The day flying hours were indicated in the Log book in black ink and the night hours were in red ink. I'm not sure if this sudden increase in night-flying was due to my Grandfather's future ambitions, or due to the fact that the RAF was undertaking far more night operations at this phase of the war, due to the high levels of daylight casualties among RAF crews. Either way, it must have been incredibly uncomfortable and highly dangerous trying to take off and landing in complete darkness.

I have to thank another RAF pilot, Dudley Steynor, who was also a flying trainer for 21 EFTS at the same time as my Grandfather,  for writing a blog with his reminiscences of his time at RAF Booker. This blog includes some more great stories and also gives further evidence of the high calibre of person that would be influencing the behaviour of my Grandfather who was still a very young, impressionable man. Dudley Steynor was not only an RAF pilot, but also an accomplished pianist. It seems that many of the RAF trainers  had more than one string to their bow. From his blog I learned some more of the daily life of a Pilot trainer at RAF Booker;

"Booker airfield was all grass in those days, and we took off and landed into wind.  We commenced flying at 8.00am and flew until 12.30 or 1.00, had some lunch in the mess and returned to our flying at about 2.00pm.  At 6.00pm we left the flying to the night boys.  Those of us who were flying that night would finish day flying a bit early or might go straight on to night flying and have the following morning off.  A busy life but I loved it.  There were plenty of challenges to be mastered for we flew in all weathers compatible with the aircraft we flew, Tiger Moths and Magisters.  I think most of us became extremely good pilots – as Cecil (Sagittarius Rising) Lewis wrote in his book “All my Yesterdays” ‘There is nothing like instructing for improving one’s flying’."

I also learned from Dudley's blog the rudimentary way that trainee pilots were taught night flying;

"I had many good pupils and rarely failed to get them up to solo flying. I remember one interesting case of a pupil I had to fail on account of his night flying.  The glide indicator at the beginning of the approach used three lights – green, amber or red. If you were too high you saw Amber, if you were too low you saw Red and Green was the correct one.  The Amber meant closing the throttle to lose some height.  The Red meant open the throttle further until you could see Green. This pupil consistently closed the throttle when the red light appeared and I am pretty sure he had no suicide tendencies. He passed all tests for colour blindness. Once when we were three miles away over the valley above Wycombe and the red light showed I had time to ask him ‘What colour do you see?’  He answered ‘Red’.  ‘And what does that mean?’  ‘We are too low’ and he opened the throttle a little which I immediately increase to full throttle and hoped I was not too late!"

I'm not sure what he means by "glide indicator", whether this was a light on the instrument panel, or a light shone from the ground. If you know, I would be interested to hear from you.

From my Grandfather's Log book, during a busy January and February 1942, the following pupils were trained by him in Tiger Moths;

LAC Bunday      LAC Warnes     LAC Walker    LAC Bailey

P/O Arnell      LAC Osborn     LAC Reeve     LAC Waters

LAC Thornton    LAC Warmsley   LAC Dorsie    LAC Bubb

LAC Charman     LAC Crighton   LAC Nash      LAC Robinson

LAC Ault        LAC Wigley     P/O Street    F/Lt Riddell

P/O Barlow      LAC Gray       LAC Geeson    LAC Johnston

LAC McCarthy    F/O Wheatley   P/O Arts.

If you think any of these young men are your relatives, I would be happy to send you a scan of their page from the Log Book.

The war at this time heralded more bad news for Britain with the fall of Singapore to the Japanese resulting in the capture of over 60,000 allied prisoners. We know now how unlikely it was that they would survive the Japanese POW camps. Also the Japanese bombed Darwin, Australia. 

Meanwhile the war in Europe was taking a sinister turn when the "Area Bombing Directive" of 14th February 1942 allowed the RAF to start bombing industrial towns and "dehousing" the German population. In other words, bombing women and children. So much for the moral high ground!

Finally, terrible news was filtering through of atrocities being carried out on Russian prisoners of war by the Wehrmacht, following Operation Barbarossa. Of over 3.6 million Soviet Prisoners of War taken in late 1941 to early 1942, nearly all of them were dead. The attempted annihilation of Bolshevism, and ethnic cleansing of "Asiatics" and "Transcaucasians" by order from Nazi high command meant that prisoners were starved, left out in the snow to freeze to death , or simply shot in huge numbers.

Russian POW's 1941

New Year 1942 - High Flying Brothers.

The year 1942 found my Grandfather, Howard Kelsey, in the relatively peaceful pursuit of training new RAF pilots at Booker airfield, Marlow. Meanwhile the War all around was raging on. The RAF operations in Britain mainly concentrated on attacks on German warships and naval facilities in the Atlantic and North Germany. But with the Japanese sweeping through the Far East, many young RAF pilots lost their lives in the retreat from Malaya and Singapore. I still thank all the Heavens that my Grandfather was still not "On Ops" (flying combat operations) at this stage of the War.

My Grandfather's Log Book for January 1942 shows him continuing to put his pupils through their paces. But there is one interesting  entry on Jan 15th, which shows him piloting a Tiger Moth with his brother S/Ldr Kelsey in the Passenger seat!

S/Ldr Richard J Kelsey, later known to me as Uncle Dick, had been commissioned in the RAF in 1936. He joined 213 (Fighter) Squadron at RAF Northolt in 1937, flying Hawker Hurricanes. 

Hawker Hurricane

In December 1941 he was promoted to Squadron Leader (Temporary) and the following January found himself being bounced around the sky by his baby brother!

The "Duty" column for their first flight together shows the number 19, which when I refer back to my blog "Sequence of Instruction"(Link) means "Instrument Flying". This was to simulate night flying and was accomplished by pulling a canopy over the pupil so they were in the dark and could only fly using their instrument panel. Obviously the trainer could still see and would avert possible crashes if necessary!

Tiger Moth with night flying hood

I really have no idea why my Grandfather was putting his brother through this test, but perhaps Uncle Dick was learning how to do it, so he could train his own squadron? I do know that he became Chief Flying Instructor at No. 2 EFTS.

The second flight they took has "FSF" in the "Duty" column. Having scoured the RAF acronym websites, I cannot find what this means. Perhaps "Fighter Squadron Ferry", or maybe "Flying Simulator Flight"? If anyone knows, I would be very interested to find out the meaning.

S/Ldr R J Kelsey

Uncle Dick had trouble with his eyesight during the War and had to have special corrective goggles made to enable him to continue in the service. He was involved in a Hurricane crash in March 1939 (Link) and there is a sad piece about him from the Daily Express in August 1939 written by Victor Ricketts - Daily Express Air Reporter;

"SOMEWHERE in Westland I stood at sunset with an R.A.F. fighter pilot who four years ago was passing into the sixth form at a public school. Over us circled a flight of three Hurricanes silhouetted blackly, against the sunset. Inside each of the rumbling fighters sat a war-wise youngster ready to slam his throttle wide open in pursuit of raiding bombers. We two stood and looked up at the fighters, that between them carried enough bullets to kill 10,000 men and the young man with silver wings on his chest said quietly, "No! I am not flying tonight. You see I am going blind." 

It was evening, with dew on the airfield grass, camouflaged planes ranged out, a mobile field kitchen with the fragrant smell of hot coffee, and far away, now, the drone of the patrolling fighters. I said, "Oh," rather stupidly. 

"They've just taken me off flying," I heard him say. "Both my eyes are going a bit dim. I'll be able to see a bit I think, but flying's finished for me. "I had a Rugger accident a few years ago, got a kick on the back of the head. That started it I think." 

You hear things, quietly like that, that beat the films. This same boy was until a little while ago a pilot in a crack fighter squadron. It was his life and very nearly his death. Roaring along on night manoeuvres he had the real-life nightmare of all who fly in the dark—instantaneous and complete breakdown of his engine. At five miles a minute his engine started coming to pieces. Beneath were no lights, only darkness hiding trees hedges, walls, rivers; all the necessary-things to break his neck trying-to land three tons of steel at ninety m.p.h. He took the only way out, through the sliding roof of the dropping fighter . . . with a kick to carry himself clear as he fell into space. Then the moment of suspense, wondering if the silken shrouds of the parachute would open. They did, with a jerk that knocked the breath out of his plummeting body. "Don't you believe that stuff about coming down like thistledown," he grinned. "You hit the ground with a wallop." The fighters were out of sight and we went to a hangar to collect my own parachute ready to take off when our-patrol time came."

Later in the war Uncle Dick was posted to Joint Services Staff college in Haifa, after which he became Officer Commanding RAF station Gaza and then to Air Staff at HQ Middle East in Cairo until the end of the War. 

Uncle Dick on the right with his wife, Rose, in the centre.

After the war, Uncle Dick was promoted to Wing Commander and finally retired from the Air Force in 1959. He passed away in February 2010 in Suffolk and I was very pleased to have met up with him again before he died.