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.