"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