Yellow Belly - 3 (P) A.F.U., South Cerney - September 1942

Pilot's Flying Log Book September 1942

After two days leave, on 14th September 1942 my Grandfather, H.C. Kelsey, was posted to No. 3 (Pilot) Advanced Flying Unit (3(P)A.F.U.) at South Cerney, Gloucestershire. This posting would require the mastery of a tricky, twin-engined, aircraft called an Airspeed Oxford. And the new instructor putting him through his "sequence of instruction" paces, as noted in the "Duty" column, was F/Lt. Chance.

Airspeed Oxford with "trainer" paintwork

Furthermore, the posting would mean that he would no longer be an instructor, but instead return to training, in preparation for an operational posting. But did it also mean that my Grandparents would be split up after a year of fairly normal domestic bliss? I can't imagine that Flying Officers were given married quarters during the War. Perhaps my Grandmother had to go back to London and live with her parents? So a lot of changes all at once.

Flying in the Airspeed Oxford, or "Ox-box" as it was fondly known, with it's distinctive yellow-belly trainer markings, was eloquently recounted in his autobiography by F/Lt. Chance, or John Newton Chance as was his full name. He was a novelist who became a flying instructor during the War.

With novelists and pianists as well as poets and artists among the men rubbing shoulders with my Grandfather in the RAF, they must have had a huge influence on this young man's attitude to life. After all, my Grandfather was still only twenty one years old at this time. The War had forced together a very diverse and interesting group of people from all corners of the world and I think this is why that generation seems to have been "special".

So what was it like to fly an Airspeed Oxford? From what I have read, it seems that the first thought many trainee pilots had when first confronted with the large, complicated frightening monster called the Oxford was "I'll never manage THIS!" It certainly was a huge jump from a diminutive Tiger Moth, to the 53 feet 4 inches wingspan of the "Ox-box" with it's two large engines providing 750 horsepower, compared to the Tiger Moth's 130 horses. However, my Grandfather had the advantage of a great deal more flying time than the usual trainee, and knowing him , no doubt he would have been far more excited than frightened. He was a very self-confident man and would probably have started telling the flying instructor how to fly the plane within minutes of starting up!

These recruitment drawings make training in the Airspeed Oxford seem a cozy affair!

In terms of design, the Airspeed Oxford is the first aeroplane that my Grandfather flew which related more to the 2nd World War than to the 1st World War. It had a fully enclosed cockpit for a start, although apparently the glass panes often didn't fit well and a "bracing" breeze could be felt through the gaps! Secondly, the cockpit instruments were arranged well and easily seen, rather than just haphazardly bolted in as an afterthought. However, the "Ox-box" was regarded as tricky to fly well, and deliberately designed so. The theory being that if you could fly the Oxford, then you could fly pretty much any multi-engined aircraft, therefore making it ideal for training. It seems that it was on take-off that the Oxford could have a mind of it's own, as a wartime trainee at 3(P)A.F.U called Stephen Johnson recalls in a blog called Ken Fenton's War;

"After our Tiger Moths, the Oxford seemed a very powerful machine. You had to learn to control the swing on take-off by opening one engine or the other a little more. I had managed to go solo in an Oxford after about two and a half hours dual and felt quite confident about it. We were thrilled by our Oxford’s power when we first started flying them, as they went much faster than Tiger Moths and had all sorts of new gadgets, like retractable wheels which usually went up and down when you pressed a lever and flaps which did likewise."

He continues, 

"There was no electrical intercommunication in Oxfords or Tiger Moths in those days. We used a system akin to those tubes you find in the walls of very old houses. Down these you had to blow at first and this blew a whistle incorporated in a plug at the far end; this in turn summoned a minion from some distant basement. In an Oxford you had a flexible mouthpiece which you tucked into the front of your parachute harness; the other end was plugged into the pupil’s helmet. If you blew into it it made his eardrums pop. This was seldom necessary however as pupils were unlikely to go to sleep while flying.’ 

Another trainee at the time, called Peter Mayhew recounts in this same blog another quirk of the Oxford,

"The Oxford was a good deal more exciting to fly having one or two vices, such as dropping a wing when you stalled it. A week or so after going solo we did our first night flying."

As usual, these men are very understated about the difficulties they experienced in mastering the foibles of the Oxford. In fact stalling an Airspeed Oxford, which, as we know, was part of the training schedule ( See my earlier blog here), was rather hit or miss. Some would stall "straight", whilst others would have a pronounced wing drop, but you would never know for sure which one, so counteracting this before the aircraft started "spinning" required a good deal of pilot skill. Nobody could say flying the Oxford was a "piece of cake", it behaved itself when handled well but tended to bite fools!

Airspeed Oxfords at South Cerney 1942

So with the added difficulties of flying this aircraft, the usual British weather and the relatively busy skies around the airfield, not to mention the fairly frequent raids by the Luftwaffe, the casualties and deaths of young RAF personnel were a serious concern. The average percentage of deaths whilst training was 3%, but this does not include serious, life changing injuries. In the book "Bombing Hitler: One man's war with Bomber Command", T.I. Steel's Grandfather Bernard Steel, was one of the trainers at 3 (P)A.F.U in 1941/2. This passage tells us of his last day at South Cerney;

"As it turned out Bernard's last day at 3 (P) A.F.U. would be 17th October 1942 as he would take a week's well deserved rest before joining his new unit. His final pupil at South Cerney was a Sergeant Heath who, after a fifty minute flight, helped take Bernard's flying time to 832 hours and thirty minutes. Unfortunately October was unable to give the unit a fatal free month. The last man to be killed in a flying accident at 3 (P)A.F.U. while Bernard served there was Sergeant S.F. Smith, who was killed in Oxford AP401 after losing control during a night-time overshoot at Bibury relief landing ground. The aircraft was destroyed by fire after crashing. He was the thirtieth young airman to die at 3 (P) A.F.U. during Bernard's year at South Cerney."

I'm just trying to imagine what it would be like if just one person died where I worked, let alone 30 in one year! And this without getting anywhere near the enemy, just during training. Thirty deaths at just one unit in just one year through occupational accidents... how did they handle this pressure? I know that F/Lt. Chance eventually snapped and had to be invalided out of the service in February 1944.

Airspeed Oxford "Trainer" at Duxford

What of the War in general at this time? Stalingrad is now completely surrounded by the Wehrmacht. Food supplies to the civilians are dwindling and the people are starving to death, with some reports of cannibalism. The fighting is becoming bogged down in house to house attacks, and the casualties on both sides are horrendous. One of the worst battle sites was at Mamayev Kurgan, a strategic high point overlooking the City centre. Originally captured briskly by the Germans on 13th September 1942, the very next day it was the site of a huge Soviet counter-attack from 13th Guards Rifle Division. By September 16th, the Russians had recaptured the hill, but the cost was almost all of the 10,000 Soviet troops who had attacked two days previously. 

BBC The World at War Episode 9 - Stalingrad

"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. 

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

New Year 1942 - High Flying Brothers.

The year 1942 found my Grandfather, Howard Kelsey, in the relatively peaceful pursuit of training new RAF pilots at Booker airfield, Marlow. Meanwhile the War all around was raging on. The RAF operations in Britain mainly concentrated on attacks on German warships and naval facilities in the Atlantic and North Germany. But with the Japanese sweeping through the Far East, many young RAF pilots lost their lives in the retreat from Malaya and Singapore. I still thank all the Heavens that my Grandfather was still not "On Ops" (flying combat operations) at this stage of the War.

My Grandfather's Log Book for January 1942 shows him continuing to put his pupils through their paces. But there is one interesting  entry on Jan 15th, which shows him piloting a Tiger Moth with his brother S/Ldr Kelsey in the Passenger seat!

S/Ldr Richard J Kelsey, later known to me as Uncle Dick, had been commissioned in the RAF in 1936. He joined 213 (Fighter) Squadron at RAF Northolt in 1937, flying Hawker Hurricanes. 

Hawker Hurricane

In December 1941 he was promoted to Squadron Leader (Temporary) and the following January found himself being bounced around the sky by his baby brother!

The "Duty" column for their first flight together shows the number 19, which when I refer back to my blog "Sequence of Instruction"(Link) means "Instrument Flying". This was to simulate night flying and was accomplished by pulling a canopy over the pupil so they were in the dark and could only fly using their instrument panel. Obviously the trainer could still see and would avert possible crashes if necessary!

Tiger Moth with night flying hood

I really have no idea why my Grandfather was putting his brother through this test, but perhaps Uncle Dick was learning how to do it, so he could train his own squadron? I do know that he became Chief Flying Instructor at No. 2 EFTS.

The second flight they took has "FSF" in the "Duty" column. Having scoured the RAF acronym websites, I cannot find what this means. Perhaps "Fighter Squadron Ferry", or maybe "Flying Simulator Flight"? If anyone knows, I would be very interested to find out the meaning.

S/Ldr R J Kelsey

Uncle Dick had trouble with his eyesight during the War and had to have special corrective goggles made to enable him to continue in the service. He was involved in a Hurricane crash in March 1939 (Link) and there is a sad piece about him from the Daily Express in August 1939 written by Victor Ricketts - Daily Express Air Reporter;

"SOMEWHERE in Westland I stood at sunset with an R.A.F. fighter pilot who four years ago was passing into the sixth form at a public school. Over us circled a flight of three Hurricanes silhouetted blackly, against the sunset. Inside each of the rumbling fighters sat a war-wise youngster ready to slam his throttle wide open in pursuit of raiding bombers. We two stood and looked up at the fighters, that between them carried enough bullets to kill 10,000 men and the young man with silver wings on his chest said quietly, "No! I am not flying tonight. You see I am going blind." 

It was evening, with dew on the airfield grass, camouflaged planes ranged out, a mobile field kitchen with the fragrant smell of hot coffee, and far away, now, the drone of the patrolling fighters. I said, "Oh," rather stupidly. 

"They've just taken me off flying," I heard him say. "Both my eyes are going a bit dim. I'll be able to see a bit I think, but flying's finished for me. "I had a Rugger accident a few years ago, got a kick on the back of the head. That started it I think." 

You hear things, quietly like that, that beat the films. This same boy was until a little while ago a pilot in a crack fighter squadron. It was his life and very nearly his death. Roaring along on night manoeuvres he had the real-life nightmare of all who fly in the dark—instantaneous and complete breakdown of his engine. At five miles a minute his engine started coming to pieces. Beneath were no lights, only darkness hiding trees hedges, walls, rivers; all the necessary-things to break his neck trying-to land three tons of steel at ninety m.p.h. He took the only way out, through the sliding roof of the dropping fighter . . . with a kick to carry himself clear as he fell into space. Then the moment of suspense, wondering if the silken shrouds of the parachute would open. They did, with a jerk that knocked the breath out of his plummeting body. "Don't you believe that stuff about coming down like thistledown," he grinned. "You hit the ground with a wallop." The fighters were out of sight and we went to a hangar to collect my own parachute ready to take off when our-patrol time came."

Later in the war Uncle Dick was posted to Joint Services Staff college in Haifa, after which he became Officer Commanding RAF station Gaza and then to Air Staff at HQ Middle East in Cairo until the end of the War. 

Uncle Dick on the right with his wife, Rose, in the centre.

After the war, Uncle Dick was promoted to Wing Commander and finally retired from the Air Force in 1959. He passed away in February 2010 in Suffolk and I was very pleased to have met up with him again before he died.

Instructor RAF Booker November 1941

In November 1941 my Grandfather, H. C. Kelsey, transferred to RAF Booker, Marlow, Bucks. (RAF Booker Wiki link) He continued training student pilots in Tiger Moths for 21 E.F.T.S. (Elementary Flying Training School), but it seems that someone else started filling in his Log Book as the handwriting is different and the names of his pupils are now included.

Elementary Flying School Tiger Moth

This new posting was interesting because as well as training RAF students, he also started to become involved in the training of Glider Pilot Regiment Pilots. These Glider Pilot students were army personnel and they were being trained in preparation for allied landings in Europe. (Glider Pilot Regiment Wiki link)

RAF Booker Air Training Gliders 

During November and December 1941 my Grandfather trained the following RAF pupils to fly;

L.A.C. Bailey

L.A.C. Barnes

L.A.C. Buxton

L.A.C. Campion

L.A.C. Waldron

L.A.C. Warnes

L.A.C. Bunday

L.A.C. Walker.

Of these pupils, Bailey, Bunday, Walker and Warnes were taken on for further intensive training, which included some night flying.

I don't know anything much about what happened to these men after they gained their wings, but L.A.C. Campion was awarded the George Cross for bravery in helping the crew of a crashed Blenheim. He later died in a Flying Fortress crash in the Azores 1943. ( Michael Patrick Campion GC). If you think you are related to one of these men, I would be happy to send a scan of the Log Book to you.

December 1941 was a pivotal month in the 2nd World War. On the "Home Front", things were getting pretty desperate. With so many men being occupied on war work, the Government decided to implement Women's Conscription (BBC, Women at War). At first, only single women aged 20-30 were called up, but by mid-1943, almost 90 per cent of single women and 80 per cent of married women were employed in essential work for the war effort. 

On the Eastern Front, the Germans abandoned the attack on Moscow, after being bogged down in the snow. Perhaps a history lesson from another little dictator would have shown the folly of not being ready for a Russian Winter! On 6th December, the Russians launched a huge counter attack around Moscow and this was the first major defeat of the Wehrmacht. This news and the fact that on 15 Nov 1941 - The de Havilland Mosquito light bomber enters service with No. 105 Sqn at RAF Swanton Morley, Norfolk, would have been of great interest to my Grandfather!

Then, on 7th December 1941, the Japanese launch an attack on Pearl Harbour, in Hawaii, USA.

USS Arizona after the attack by the Japanese

Instructor RAF Hatfield 1941

Let us return to my Grandfather's Log Book. After passing out as a flying instructor on 25th June 1941, he is commissioned as a Pilot Officer and posted to 21 EFTS (Elementary Flying Training School) at RAF Hatfield. For the next five months he continues to fly Tiger Moths but just lists "Pupils" in the '2nd Pilot' column. He also continues to accrue more valuable flying time hours.

I must say that I find it amazing that my Grandfather became a flying instructor, because his attempts to instruct anyone in his own family were usually disastrous. Firstly, whilst teaching me how to steer a boat on the Norfolk Broads when I was about 7 years old, his increasingly loud instructions totally confused me and nearly caused us to collide with a rather expensive looking cruiser. Secondly, I think his attempt to help my Grandmother to learn to drive was so bad that she never dared sit in the drivers' seat of a car again for the rest of her life! So I imagine that his wartime flying "pupils" must have had very thick skins...

To my surprise I have found a recollection of one of my Grandfather's pupils on the BBC WW2 People's Story site (here's a link) Arthur Lowndes was training in Tiger Moths in 1941 and his story goes thus;

  "When being trained by Flying Officer Kelsey at Hatfield, he often used to ask pupils to practice a forced landing in a field as if your engine had failed. He did this with me twice, but we found he had an ulterior motive: when we had landed in the field, he jumped out of the Tiger Moth and said `follow me'. I taxied the aircraft round the field to take off again and he would be walking along picking mushrooms. He was very fond of mushrooms and took them back to the mess for his breakfast!!"

This is a lovely story and really shows how my Grandfather loved nature and food! 

As an aside, I also think this posting was lucky, both for him and for the generations of his family that came after him, because it kept him off operations while the RAF improved their aircraft and efficiency. The RAF was, at this time in 1941, the only way we had of hitting back at Germany directly. But the aircraft and technology the RAF used were very primitive. The Blenheims and Stirlings that were used to bomb Germany were very ponderous and trying to navigate and bomb German targets at night was almost impossible. So, many daylight raids were attempted, and the casualty rate was horrendous. On 4th July 1941, a low level daylight raid on Bremen by 15 Blenheims of Nos. 105 and 107 squadrons resulted in a Victoria Cross being awarded to Wing Commander H. I. Edwards. However, four Blenheims and their crews were lost, all the others were damaged and the target was barely scratched. Another mission on the night of 12th/13th October 1941 went badly wrong when 152 aircraft were sent to bomb Nuremberg. Due to weather and navigation error, some crews bombed villages almost 100 miles away from the target. However, on the plus side, a new navigational aid called Gee (wikipedia Gee navigation) was starting to be used and this and other advances in radar would make the RAF start to become more effective as the War progressed.

Sequence of Instruction

Throughout April and into May 1941, my Grandfather continued training in D.H. 82 Tiger Moths, with endless circuits and 'bumps' (landing and take off), as well as a bewildering series of numbered activities. By now, these numbers were so mundane that my Grandfather no longer bothered to fill in what the numbers referred to in the "Duty" column. So following some investigation, I have found out the following 'Sequence of Instruction';

1. Air experience 
1A. Familiarity with cockpit layout 
2. Effect of controls 
3. Taxying 
4. Straight and level flying 
5. Climbing, gliding and stalling (includes stall off steep turn. High speed stall) 
6. Medium turns 
7. Taking off into wind 
8. Powered approach and landing 
9. Gliding approach and landing 
10. Spinning (with instructor only) 
11. First solo 
12. Sideslipping 
13. Precautionary landing 
14. Low flying (with instructor only) 
15. Steep turns 
16. Climbing turns 
17. Forced landings 
18. Action in event of fire (with instructor only) (including abandoning an aircraft to be given on the ground) 
19. Instrument flying 
20. Taking off and landing out of wind 
21. Aerobatics 
22. Air navigation 
23. Air navigation test 
24. Night flying (record number of landings) 
25. Formation flying

I guess that the more often repeated activities were the ones that had not quite been mastered satisfactorily. 

One of the strangest things to happen in the War occurred in May 1941. While the Luftwaffe was making one last effort to bomb London into submission, a lone Me 110 was flying to Scotland. The pilot baled out and upon being apprehended, announced himself as Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party. There is more about this on the World War 2 Today Website .

Proficiency as Pilot - Average

After a further 20 hours flying training, which included aerobatics, climbing turns, spinning, sideslipping, forced landings, x. country flights, both solo and under instruction, as well as 6 hours 30 minutes instrument flying, L.A.C. Kelsey passed his Elementary flying training on 18/4/1941. He was graded as "Average".

Now came the time for him to be assessed for the next posting in his R.A.F. career. In order to help work out where best to utilise this fledgling pilot, my Grandfather was posted to 22 E.F.T.S Cambridge.

R.A.F. Cambridge was located on the eastern outskirts of the historic University City, next to the village of Teversham. It was approximately 40 miles east of Sywell, and also utilised a large expanse of grass as a landing strip. The training at 22 E.F.T.S. was still in D.H.82 dual control Tiger Moths. These grass landing strips were often the nice soft saviour of many a bumpy landing!

The trainee pilots were billeted in Nissen huts on the northern edge of the airfield, which may explain my Grandfather's love affair with these structures! After retirement, in the 1980's, he spent many laborious hours in his garden in Norfolk turning one of these Nissen huts into a Nuclear Bomb shelter for himself and his nearest and dearest. The wartime billets were heated by one cast iron boiler in the centre and renowned for being freezing in the winter and boiling in the summer. 

After his 47 hours in the air, I wonder if he was a bit put-out to only get a grading of average. If so, he needn't have worried as almost all the other pilots I have read about achieved the same grade.

The news of the war in April 1941 was going from bad to worse for the allies. German forces invaded both Greece and Yugoslavia simultaneously. Yugoslavia capitulated on the 18th April and on 27th German forces entered Athens. 

Taking Off into Wind

Well I suppose I'd better get back to my Grandfather's Pilot's Flying Log Book and also back to the War.

Training to fly in a D. H. 82 with P/O R.T.Dew instructing, March 1941

What was it like to learn to fly in a De Havilland 82 Tiger Moth? Well I'm afraid that I shall have to refer to other sources for this information because by the time I was born, my Grandfather had completely turned his back on his days in the RAF. Luckily for me though, another pilot who flew in the same squadron at the same time as my Grandfather has written a self-published book about his recollections.

Doug Gregory DFC was a pilot in 141 Squadron and his book Aeroaddict is well worth a read. He displays some of the same "have-a-go", yet self effacing attitude that my Grandfather had. This an excerpt from his book about his training in Tiger Moths;

 "Up until now my instructions from the front seat were "Keep your feet on the floor and keep your hands to yourself until I tell you differently." Into wind we turned, off down the field we ran, into the air we climbed. My idea of bliss. Not for long. The voice from the front said, "Now, place your feet on the rudder pedals and now hold the stick with your right hand. Let the aeroplane fly straight and level." The aeroplane flew itself. Even after this first air experience exercise, the Tiger made a better job of flying itself than with my interference. This was going to be easy."

I'm sure it was harder than he describes. Doug Gregory went on to become a test pilot so he was obviously a man of natural flying gifts.

My Grandfather was also having to spend afternoons at 6EFTS in the classroom, learning the theory of his 'trade'. So much to learn and do, and yet the war still raged on all fronts. 

From the RAF Timeline 1941

31 Mar 1941 - The German Afrika Korps start an offensive to recapture Tobruk. Because of the need for aircraft on other campaigns (particularly in Greece), only three squadrons of Hurricanes and one of Blenheims remained in defence of the port. Within two weeks, the port was surrounded and Axis forces had crossed the Egyptian border.

Straight & Level Flight

1st page of H.C. Kelsey's RAF Log Book

The first page of my Grandfather's RAF Pilot's Flying Log Book shows him going up in a D.H.82 (De Havilland Tiger Moth) N642 with F/L Brunton as the trainer in August 1940. It's incredible to think that pilots were still training in bi-planes, but it must have also been very exhilarating, yet frightening to be flying in an open cockpit.

D.H.82 Type used by 6EFTS Sywell in 1940

Here's an early film giving an instruction on how to fly a Tiger Moth

August 1940 was a pivotal month for the RAF as outlined on the RAF website history timeline

24/25 Aug 1940 - German bombs fall on central London for the first time. The following night, 43 aircraft from Bomber Command retaliate by bombing Berlin.

So Leading Aircraftsman H.C.Kelsey knew that the war was hotting up and he had better get trained and operational as soon as possible.

Early days

Europe in the 1930s, when my Grandfather was growing up, was a turbulent place. The economic crises of 'the Crash' and 'the Depression' had caused liberal democracies to become undermined and allowed the rise of extremist groups. With the resurgence of Fascism in Germany, Spain and Italy, there came a counter ideology, Socialism, to combat these Dictatorships.

My grandfather, therefore grew up in a hotbed of political struggles and he and many of his school chums at Rutlish Grammar School, were convinced by the arguments of Marxism and Socialism. So much so that a couple of his friends went to fight against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. 

One summer, whilst cycling across Germany with some friends, my Grandfather was thrown out of a cafe and had stones thrown at him for "looking too Jewish". This convinced him that Fascism and intolerance was to be combated and it could only be stopped by War.

By the time War was declared, Richard (Dick), my Grandfather's older brother, was already in the R.A.F. (R. J. Kelsey R.A.F. Officer). I think this spurred him to join up himself, and so his journey began when he volunteered to join the RAF at Bristol in 1940. After Initial Training Wing in Newquay, he was given the service number 1191586 and posted for pilot training on Tiger Moths to No. 6EFTS (Elementary Flying Training School) at Sywell, Northants run by Brooklands Aviation