Bomber Support - RAF Wittering - May 1943

Crome Court Estate - RAF Defford - Worcestershire

During May 1943, 141 Squadron continued to equip their Beaufighters with the new Airborne Interception device codenamed "Serrate". This required them to ferry the squadron 'Beaus' from their base at RAF Wittering to RAF Defford, the home of the Top Secret Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE). Here, amongst many other top 'boffins' in the field of electronics, such names as Bernard Lovell, who went on to pioneer radio astronomy at Jodrell Bank, John Cockroft, who later won a Nobel Prize and helped develop the UK's first nuclear weapons and Maurice Wilkes, who, after the war built the first general purpose stored-program computer at Cambridge, were all cutting their teeth on early radar systems.

In this film, Bernard Lovell explains the cavity magnetron for use in Air Interception in World War 2.

W.J. "Sticks" Gregory

Although my Grandfather's Log Book looks relatively quiet in May 1943 in terms of 'Ops' he flew, there was a good deal of behind the scenes preparation for the future Bomber Support activities of the squadron. The idea of Bomber Support was to escort the allied bombers on their raids over enemy territory and intercept the German night fighters before they had a chance of shooting down the bombers.  In this way the RAF hoped to reduce the bomber losses that were beginning to rise again due to the advances in technology in the German anti-aircraft and Luftwaffe forces.

Bob Braham's navigator, W. J."Sticks" Gregory explains more about this in reel 3 of his "Oral History" held at the Imperial War Museum. (Please click the link in the text)







The C.O. of 141 Squadron, W/Cdr "Bob" Braham , along with his Intelligence Officer, P/O 'Buster' Reynolds, flew back and forth to HQ Bomber Command and Nos. 5 and 8 Group headquarters to discuss how the squadron was to operate in amongst the bomber stream. Much concern was expressed that the allied bomber crews would target their Beaufighters at night in the heat of battle, mistaking them for the enemy, also that one squadron wasn't really enough to make much of a difference. But Braham assured them that his crews understood the risks of 'friendly fire' and were prepared to carry on regardless. He thought even one squadron could sow confusion for the enemy ground radar and create fear and uncertainty amongst the attacking luftwaffe nightfighters which could force them to abort attacks on the plodding, overladen bombers. Plus, if successful, hopefully other squadrons would be detailed for similar operations. This was the forerunner of 100 Group.

H.C. Kelsey Log book - May 1943

My grandfather, F/O H. C. Kelsey, seemed to spend quite a few days ferrying other RAF personnel and aircraft around this month, either to and from Predannack, or to and from TRE at Defford. A couple of times in the month he had the dubious pleasure of crewing the Station Commander, Sq/Ldr Vale, in a Master III to a local destination. Sq/Ldr Vale would introduce himself to new crews at briefings as "Vale The Bastard", so I presume that he would have chosen one of the better pilots to accompany him on these jaunts!

Miles Master III

Other training exercises my Grandfather and the squadron undertook this month were Ground Control Interceptions (GCI), air firing with cine gun cameras to check gunnery accuracy, lectures, clay pigeon shooting, Link Trainer and Morse training. In essence, the squadron was making full use of this time to hone their skills. The Beaufighters that were not equipped with 'Serrate" were still occasionally being sent on "Ranger" patrols over both Holland and Germany, looking for ground targets mostly such as trains or airfields to shoot up. My grandfather was scheduled for a "Ranger" patrol on 19th May but it was cancelled, probably due to adverse weather. Later in the month he started ferrying passengers to and from Defford to pick up "Serrate" equipped Beaufighters. On 31st May he ferried F/S Robertson and F/S Gillam to Defford, this crew were shot down by return fire from a Heinkel HE177 over France in August 1943 and ended up as POWs and members of the escape committee at Stalag IV B until the end of the war.

Heinkel HE177

There was however another tragedy for the squadron when Beaufighter IF V8370 crashed and burned up whilst coming in to land after a NFT. (Night Flight Test). The pilot, F/Sgt R. Judge and Nav/Rad Sgt F. D. Blower were both killed, they had been with the squadron since late 1942. The Operations Record Book gives details in an entry for 11th May 1943:

“Further cross country and navigation exercises... Weather still closing down of a night and at 21:30 F/Sgt Judge with Sgt Blower as Nav/Rad took off for NFT [night flying training] and Weather Test. At 21:45 the aircraft appeared to be making a perfect approach coming in to land. It suddenly swung to starboard and crashed into Burghley Park. Both aircrew were killed”.

Frederick Blower's death was registered at Peterborough. His body was returned to Great Crosby near Liverpool, the home of his wife, and was buried in St Luke’s Churchyard Section E grave 592. I cannot find out what became of F/Sgt. R. Judge.

Meanwhile in the night skies over Germany, Luftwaffe ace Lt Robert Denzel was busy picking off British bombers at an ever increasing rate. On the night of 12/13 May 1943 the German city of Duisburg came under attack. Duisberg was a major logistical centre for the Ruhr area and a location of chemical, steel and iron industries. With good marking the force of 577 bombers destroyed the old town with 1,599 tons of bombs. An estimated 96,000 people were made homeless. 38 British aircraft didn't make it back to base. Robert Denzel was part of the Luftwaffe night fighting force of 12 Nachtjagd 1 waiting for the returning bombers. That one night he shot down a Lancaster W4762 of 50 Squadron, a Stirling BK705 of 218 Squadron and a Wellington HE398 of 196 Squadron for his 7th, 8th and 9th 'victories'. Rather shockingly, all the stricken crews were either killed or reported missing.

Crew of Lancaster W4762, including Pilot, P/O F. H. Huntley DFM - Aircrew Remembered

WW2 NJG 1 - Nachtjagdgeshwader 1 military patch

Events in the rest of the World, now that the Desert War had been won in Africa, were focussing on liberating Europe. The third Washington Conference (1943), attended by Churchill, Roosevelt and various heads of staff, was called to draw up the future strategy for Sicily, Normandy and the Pacific. Hitler on the other hand was building up weapons, troops and supplies for yet another attack on the Russians at Kursk. In a sign that the Battle of the Atlantic was being won by the allies, Admiral Donitz withdraws his U-boats from the Atlantic, due to unsustainable losses through advances in detection (Sonar) and attack by the allies.