Night Fighter Training - No.1 Sqn, 51OTU - RAF Twinwood Farm - Jan. 1943

Bristol Blenheim Mk1

After nearly four years of knocking lumps out of each other, Britain and Germany were still at War in January 1943. So far the War had lasted longer than the First World War with seemingly no end in sight. My Grandfather, Flying Officer H. C. Kelsey, was still learning his trade in the RAF, but he was itching to "do his bit" to help end the War as soon as possible.


To this end, after a blissful month on leave with my Grandmother in London, my Grandfather was posted to 51 OTU (Operational Training Unit) at RAF Twinwood Farm, Bedfordshire in preparation for eventually joining an Operational Unit. 51 OTU originally formed at Debden, Essex in 1941 before moving to Cranfield and Twinwood Farm, Bedfordshire in August 1941, specifically to train nightfighter crews. By January 1943, training was undertaken in Bristol Blenheims and Bristol Beaufighters, neither of which my grandfather had flown before. But he was now flying a proper combat aeroplane and would be under even more intense pressure of testing and scrutiny to assess whether he could "make the grade" as a combat pilot.

Scan of Log Book H.C. Kelsey Jan. 1943

From a scan of my Grandfather's Log Book, his first two weeks at the Unit were spent going through various "exercises" in Blenheim V and Bisley aircraft. I have to thank another blog., "Broody's War" for an explanation of what these "exercises" or "Ex" were as noted in my Grandfather's Log Book. They refer to Gunnery Practise,

From "Broody's War"

And A.I (Airborne Interception) Exercises

Also from "Broody's War"

On 15th Jan 1943 he was in the air for 1 hour 30 minutes with F/O Frenkel going through "Ex 1&2" which I assume was gunnery exercises as it was during daylight. Over the following two weeks these gunnery exercises continued with the occasional solo flight, until 29th Jan when my Grandfather was accompanied by F/Lt Young to go through "Ex 8"(Dual Quarter - Cine). This must have given a filmed record of how close the trainee's shooting was to the target? All guess-work I'm afraid.

Bristol Blenheim MkV/Bisley

Then, on 5th Feb. 1943, he navigated a Blenheim Mk1 to ferry F/Lt Bird to RAF Hullavingdon and returned solo. These ferry trips were often given to the most accomplished trainees, after all, you didn't want unnecessary crashes or injured pilots.

Bristol Blenheim MK1 in flight

On the 7th Feb. he was back in a Bisley for 45 minutes of night fighter training tutored by F/Lt Bamber. Then, on 11th Feb. he had three flights in a third Blenheim variant, a Blenheim MkIV. The first was detailed as a "N.F.T.", which meant a Night Flying Test, in which the pilot spent a twenty minutes checking over, in daylight, the aircraft he was detailed to fly that night. I'm not sure what the figure "4" after "N.F.T" means, so would be delighted if anyone can help me there? Then, that night he had two solo flights, totalling nearly 5 hours, stooging around in the freezing February night.

Bristol Blenheim Mk IV

Cockpit Drill Certificate Blenheim Aircraft 1943

Interspersed with these flights was 8 more hours of practise on the link trainer with some new exercises which I assume are different night flight patterns, as I cannot find any explanation of their meaning online. Can anyone help?

Link Trainer Exercises

The Bristol Blenheim came into service as a light, twin engined, fighter/bomber which, when first introduced in 1935, was faster than any other fighter aircraft in the RAF. But by the onset of War in 1939, it was shown to be hopelessly outclassed by the aircraft the Luftwaffe were equipped with.

As we can see, the Bristol Blenheim seems to have undergone quite a few adaptations, mostly in the nose end, to accommodate a bomb aimer/navigator, or to increase it's firepower. Sadly these often either didn't work very well, or added extra weight which reduced the Blenheim's effectiveness.

1937 Advertisement

The Blenheim was sent on many early bombing raids which proved to be almost suicidal, including a daylight raid on Aalborg, Denmark, in August 1940 in which 11 of the 12 aircraft of 82 squadron were shot down. This was the second time that 82 Squadron had been almost wiped out in Blenheims.

The Blenheim was then adapted for use as the first night fighter during the London Blitz of 1939 and 1940. But, initially, it was not equipped with radar and so, due to it's lack of speed and small machine guns, as well as problems of locating the enemy at night, was almost useless. It was as late as 21/22nd July 1940 that the first Blenheim Mk1F of FIU (Fighter Interception Unit) made a successful night-time interception using airborne radar, shooting down a Dornier Do17. However the Blenheim was too slow to make a successful night fighter - some of the German bombers were actually faster, and long, fruitless stern chases back across the channel were common.

Eventually, the Blenheim was withdrawn from frontline bombing after incurring huge losses. Indeed, ground crews joked that the Blenheim rarely needed to go through an inspection as it didn't survive long enough! Yet again I think my Grandfather was a lucky man to have avoided the early disasters of the RAF, which claimed the lives of many of the full-time pre-War RAF personnel. 

Although sidelined from frontline action, the Blenheim was now shunted off to Training Units, especially for night fighter training, to allow new recruits to get a feel for flying a twin engined fighter/bomber. As a result they were usually fairly bashed up and antiquated examples and renowned for being really cold to fly  with a biting wind often whistling through various ill-fitting hatches and windows. The Blenheim V was favoured by instructors despite being slower and heavier than the other variants due entirely to the fact it had a heated cockpit. All Blenheims apparently had a bewildering array of dials and switches positioned in a haphazard and often bizarre configuration, as Doug Gregory recounts in his book "Aeroaddict";

"The propellers (on Blenheims) could be set to fine pitch or coarse. Fine for take off and landing and coarse for cruise, where economy played a part and for higher speeds....It was necessary to change into coarse pitch by groping behind the seat to pull two mushroom-shaped knobs.....With both hands searching for knobs and levers, it was easy to forget that the aircraft still had to be flown and at night it could be quite a problem. All marks of Blenheim suffered with these strange arrangements of controls, whose positions were learned slowly and painfully,"

The Bisley was originally designed as a heavily armoured, ground attack aircraft, with a solid nose. Later on a bomb aimer window was added and it was renamed Blenheim V. Although it was outclassed in the European campaign, it still saw extended service in North Africa, the Far East and India. It seems from my Grandfather's Log Book that he was differentiating between a Blenheim V and a Bisley, but I cannot find out what the difference is between them. 

Bristol Bisley of 113 Sqn. Asansol, India

January 1943 is notable as the first time the RAF make use of Target Indicator marker bombs on a raid on Berlin, in an attempt to improve the precision of it's bombing operations. Also, in February 1943, the Casablanca Directive, was issued by the joint Chiefs of Staff in an effort to weld together the bomber forces of the RAF and the USAAF to make one mighty air arm to crush the German industrial, military and economic system. However, the biggest War news outside Britain  was the German surrender at Stalingrad. The history of the Battle for Stalingrad was so extraordinary in many ways, including over 800,000 German and Axis casualties and over a million Soviets killed or injured, but the biggest morale boost for the allies, was the first surrender of a German Field Marshal in history. 

Hitler had hoped that Von Paulus would commit suicide before he was captured.

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Meanwhile, my Grandfather was comfortably stationed at RAF Cranfield and may have been entertained by a pantomime version of "Babes in the Woods" which was performed there at the time. With the wicked Uncle/Sheriff "baddie" being portrayed as Hitler.

Babes In the Wood Pantomime 1943