Beaufighter - 51OTU - RAF Cranfield

My Grandfather was the last person to boast in an effort to "Keep up with the Joneses". In fact his anti-snob antenna was so acute that he often lectured us about wasting our money on buying "the latest thing" if we arrived at his house with a shiny new gadget. But I can tell you a secret that he never told me, during the War he drove a Rolls-Royce, actually not one, but two!  

I am referring to the two Rolls Royce Merlin engines that were to power my Grandfather in his Bristol Beaufighter through the night sky. I have to admit I had never even heard of a Beaufighter until I started looking through my Grandfather's Log Books, it seems the Spitfire has taken all the glory!

The Bristol Beaufighter or "Beau" as it was called was the first purpose-built nightfighter for the RAF.  By fighter standards, the Beaufighter was rather heavy and slow, weighing in at over 10 tons, with a top speed of 335mph at 16,800feet. However, it was faster than the German light bombers of the time and they were it's quarry.  It was stealth and good manoeuvrability, rather than speed that the night-fighter needed, as well as being able to pack a serious punch when required. The Beaufighter had all this in spades. Many crews loved the "Beau" for it's rugged construction, powerful canon, in-built radar and air cooled Merlin radial engines which didn't have problems of coolant loss and overheating if hit by enemy fire.

Bristol Beaufighter NF Mark II -  Imperial War Museum

Many of the great RAF pilots were to make their names in Beaufighters. The most well known was John "Cats Eyes" Cunningham who became legendary for his ability to see so well in the dark due to his consumption of carrots! The real fact was that he and his crew Jimmy Rawnsley where amongst the first to make use of airborne interception radar, claiming their first victory on 19th November 1940, bringing down a JU88. But radar was so hush-hush that the Air Ministry, in need of a hero to boost morale, explained Cunningham's success at shooting down so many Luftwaffe bombers to his extra-ordinary "cat-like" eyes. His abilities were supposed to have been enhanced by vitamin A in carrots, a pseudo-science fact that survives to this day. Later on Cunningham grew to regret all the press coverage he received, but the need to convince the public that the RAF was fighting back against the Blitz was urgent.

Wartime poster promoting carrots

My Grandfather, F/O H.C. Kelsey was introduced to this metal monster in March 1943. Although the training arm "Beaus" of 51 OTU were older models, they would have seemed absolutely pristine to him after all the ancient Blenheims he had been flying so far. It was also enormous, twice the size of a Blenheim and obviously deadly with it's four 20 mm canon below the nose and six .303 calibre machine guns set in the wings. And what was that strange arrow like aerial sticking out of the front? More of that later...

My Grandfather's Pilot's Log Book March 1943

From my Grandfather's Log Book, it appears he had a "Demonstration" of Beaufighter 2189 for an hour and five minutes by F/O Dixon on 11th March. This would have consisted of standing behind the pilot, braced against the fuselage, trying to see what was happening in the cockpit. Then he went solo that same day to test his landing abilities, which he seemed to survive. This was no mean feat because although the "Beau" was not a difficult aircraft to fly, it was very powerful and needed your attention at all times. As Ralph Woodgate, a Radar technician writes in his memoir of his wartime work at 51 OTU,'One Man's Radar', "We had one or two crashes and murmurs started among the aircrew, who were changing over from other much less sophisticated aircraft, that it was a dangerous plane. One rumour, which began to be voiced openly on our three squadrons, was that these aircraft could not be manoeuvred or landed on one engine". To combat this, one afternoon all aircrew were ordered on parade outside one of the hangars. He continues, "After a few minutes a single Beaufighter roared in low over the horizon. It came over the field a few feet from the ground climbed almost vertically and performed every aerobatic stunt in the book. The pilot then shut off one engine, feathered the propeller and repeated all the previous manoeuvres with one propeller stationary. The plane landed, also on one engine, taxied around the perimeter track and stopped close up in front of the assembled aircrews. The engine was shut down and the pilot climbed down the ladder from the plane. The pilot was the only person in the plane, a very young woman, with her blonde hair blowing in the breeze as she walked over to report to the control tower. Not a word was spoken and the Squadron Commander dismissed the assembled aircrew. No one ever complained again regarding the performance of the Beaufighter."

Joy Lofthouse ATA Pilot

Not much is known of the work women pilots of the ATA did, they are becoming more celebrated as this link to an Air Transport exhibition commemorates.

Although the women pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary never went into combat, with thousands of hours of flying behind them, they became very proficient at the controls. There is a nice blog. about them called 'beauties-and-their-bombers', which is well worth a read.

Women of the ATA

Indeed, women were to become more and more numerous on airbases as they took on roles as flight mechanics, radar technicians, truck drivers, Ground Control operators and almost everything else apart from actual fighting. 

Going from an "all male" environment to a "mixed" one was easier for some to accept than others, but I have had fun reading some of these women's wartime reminiscences in what can only be described as a more innocent time.

Back to my Grandfather's Log Book, he spent the rest of March 1943 in "Beaus" either solo or with his Nav/Rad crew Sgt E.M. "Smithy" Smith, going through cine gun, G. C. I. (Ground Control Interception) BABS (Beam Approach Beacon System) or A. I. (Air Interception) practice. These advances in technology are far better explained in the links in the text than I could ever do.

There is a mysterious flight to and from Newark-on-Trent in a Magister on 15th March, perhaps to be interviewed by a selection board for his new squadron? Or perhaps personal reasons, to visit his wife who was now fairly heavily pregnant? Who knows.

On 22nd March he had his first night flight in a Beaufighter testing his landings again and then he was up with "Smithy" to try out their air interception skills for the first time in the dark. Another huge milestone.

Events for the British Army at this time were still concentrated in North Africa around the Mareth Line. The Russians, still basking in the victory at Stalingrad, were starting to come under intense pressure after the Spring thaw. In what was the be the Wehrmacht's last victory, Kharkov was re-taken from the Russian Army. At this point Stalin agitates for a second front in Europe, which falls on deaf ears. The RAF continued to bomb targets in Europe, but were confronted with a new and strange threat from the Luftwaffe, which they coined the "tip and run raiders". These attacks on South coast towns had no discernible military purpose and recent evidence seems to suggest that the raids were carried out simply because the German pilots enjoyed the thrill of them.