Guy Gibson: Legend of the Dam Busters - Celebrating A British Flying Legend

Guy Gibson: Legend of the Dam Busters by Richard Edwards is a new ebook that tells the dramatic story of a renowned British flying legend and his leadership of Bomber Command's infamous raid on the Ruhr dams in May 1943.

The book looks at the development of the bouncing bomb and the intense wrangling within the RAF that almost stopped it from getting off the drawing board. It also reveals the truth behind the mysterious air crash that one year later cost Gibson his life, including why the RAF chose to keep the actual cause of the crash a secret.

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Wing Commander Guy Gibson was one of the RAF's most experienced airmen. During the Second World War he completed two tours of duty with Bomber Command and a third with Fighter Command. He was awarded numerous decorations for his bravery, not least of all the Victoria Cross for his leadership of the Dambuster raid.

Guy Gibson: Legend of the Dam Busters was released to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the extraordinary and daring Dambuster raid on 16 May 1943, providing a fitting and timely tribute to a truly extraordinary and courageous aviator.

This title, which is around the length of a short-story, is the first chapter of a new book British Flying Legends from Richard Edwards. Each chapter will be released individually, each chronicling the life and achievements of one of Britain's greatest flying legends. A single volume of all the chapters will also be available for those wishing to read the whole collection. Future releases will include the inside story of the birth of civil aviation, the triumphs and disasters of the world's first commercial jet airliner and the race to find and sink the Bismarck. Details of new releases available soon.

Also from Richard Edwards

Heroes and Landmarks of British Aviation by Richard and Peter Edwards is published by Pen and Sword. Read the first chapter at Amazon's Kindle store. The book tells the dramatic story of Britain's aviation industry from the earliest pioneers to the government nationalisations that fashioned its destiny. The heroes are Britain's most innovative aviators, those who persevered to be the first into the air, to fly the highest, the fastest and the furthest.

The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Imperial Naval Air Service is published by Pen and Sword. Read the first chapter at Amazon's Kindle store. Through vivid accounts of the air and sea battles that raged across the Pacific the book provides an in-depth history of the Japanese Imperial Naval Air Service. Aviation News said; "New material previously unpublished is included, within an extremely well-written narrative history."

A Day of Infamy - US Declares War on Japan

On 8 December 1941 US President Franklin D Roosevelt declared war against the Empire of Japan following their unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

The Japanese had intended for their attack to take place thirty minutes after they planned to notify the United States that they had withdrawn from the on-going peace negotiations. However, the attack came before any such notification was made and the Japanese took the United States by surprise.

Roosevelt made his announcement to the US Senate with his famous 'Day of Infamy' speech. An annotated copy is pictured on the left. The declaration of war that he then signed read as follows:

"JOINT RESOLUTION Declaring that a state of war exists between the Imperial Government of Japan and the Government and the people of the United States and making provisions to prosecute the same.

Whereas the Imperial Government of Japan has committed unprovoked acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America:

Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between the United States and the Imperial Government of Japan which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial Government of Japan; and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States."

 

 

 

For more information on military conflict in the Pacific in the first half of the twentieth century take a look at The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Imperial Naval Sir Service by Peter Edwards.

The book is published by Pen and Sword Books (Aviation) and is currently available in hardback, priced at £25.00. The ISBN reference number is 9781848843073. Click here to order your copy.

For more information on British airships and other British aviation heroes and landmarks take a look at Heroes and Landmarks of British Aviation by Richard and Peter Edwards.

The book is published by Pen and Sword Books (Aviation) and is currently available in hardback, priced at £19.99. The ISBN reference number is 9781848846456. Click here to order your copy.

 

Japanese Learn from British for Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941

The Japanese learnt valuable tactical lessons from the British Fleet Air Arm for their attack on Pearl Harbor.

In early 1941 a group of Japanese naval officers on diplomatic duty in Berlin were escorted by the German Abwehr on a liaison visit to Italy. In Rome the Japanese were introduced to the Italian naval authorities and asked if they could investigate the secrets of the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm attack of November 1940 on the Italian battleships in Taranto Harbour.

A double agent working for the British MI6 secret service acquired the intelligence from a conversation with his Abwehr control officer whilst visiting Lisbon. Unbeknown to the West the Japanese Navy was planning an attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Imperial Navy’s Combined Fleet, had advised his Navy Minister on 7 January 1941 that a decisive strike crippling the US fleet would bring about the subsequent defeat of the British and Allied forces south of the Philippine Islands. The Japanese knew that if they were to succeed the secrets of Taranto had to be unlocked.

On 10 November 1940 Glenn Martin Maryland reconnaissance bombers of 431 Flight, flying from RAF Malta, photographed the roads and harbour of the Italian naval base at Taranto and revealed the presence of six battleships and miscellaneous naval vessels. The decision was immediately taken by the British Admiralty to attack.

The following day HMS Illustrious, under the command of Rear Admiral Lumley Lyster, escorted by four cruisers from the 3rd Cruiser Squadron and four destroyers from the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla, launched aircraft from forty miles south-west of the island of Cephalonia and 170 miles south-east of Taranto. The first strike of twelve  torpedo bombers took off at 8.57 p.m. under the command of Lieutenant Commander Williamson of 815 Squadron. Six of the aircraft were armed with torpedoes, four with bombs and two with flares and bombs. The aircraft, with open cockpits and unescorted, flew at a height of 8,000 feet. Taranto Harbour was guarded by balloon barrages, guard ships, shore batteries and anti-aircraft sound detectors, whilst the Italian warships were protected by torpedo nets.

At 11.00 p.m. flares were dropped over the eastern side of the outer harbour, the Mare Grande. The torpedo bombers dived down to 4,000 feet, then to a height of 30 feet over the harbour to make their torpedo runs. Meanwhile, the Swordfish aircraft armed with bombs attacked and destroyed the cruisers in the inner harbour, the Mare Piccolo, as well as the port installations. A second strike of nine Swordfish aircraft under the command of Lieutenant Commander JW Hale RN of 819 Squadron comprised five aircraft armed with torpedoes, two armed with bombs and two with flares and bombs. Once again, the same method of attack was used as the Italian naval forces put up a heavy curtain of anti-aircraft fire.

As the low-level attack proceeded anti-aircraft shells from the Italian batteries crashed into ships and harbour facilities as the gunners trained their weapons on the low-flying torpedo bombers. Later photographic reconnaissance of the harbour showed the battleship Littorio disabled with three torpedo hits and probably out of action for at least a year. The battleship Caio Duilio beached having received one torpedo hit and the Conte di Cavour sunk in shallow water after being struck by one torpedo. The heavy cruiser Trento had been hit by a heavy bomb, whilst the destroyers, the seaplane base and the harbour fuel tanks had sustained heavy damage.

Overnight the strategic balance in heavy capital ships in the Eastern Mediterranean had changed in favour of the Royal Navy. Allied convoys could now sail from Gibraltar to Alexandria without interference. The Japanese officers carefully evaluated the tactics used by the Royal Navy during the course of their successful attack and took their findings back to Tokyo with them.

At 0749 on 7th December 1941 Commander Fuchida HIJMN with the first wave arrived over the target area, gave the command to attack and signalled Admiral Nagumo in the flag ship with the coded word ‘to, to, to’, which were the first syllables of the Japanese Totsugeki meaning charge! This word was used to indicate ‘the first wave attacking.’ Thus America was brought into the Great Pacific War.

On the 8th December 1941, the United States declared war on Japan. The British Prime Minister, Mr. Winston S. Churchill, when informed in London that the Japanese had attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbour, is reputed to have said ‘that he slept the sleep of the thankful - and saved!’

For more information on military conflict in the Pacific in the first half of the twentieth century take a look at The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Imperial Naval Sir Service by Peter Edwards.

The book is published by Pen and Sword Books (Aviation) and is currently available in hardback, priced at £25.00. The ISBN reference number is 9781848843073. Click here to order your copy.

For more information on British airships and other British aviation heroes and landmarks take a look at Heroes and Landmarks of British Aviation by Richard and Peter Edwards.

The book is published by Pen and Sword Books (Aviation) and is currently available in hardback, priced at £19.99. The ISBN reference number is 9781848846456. Click here to order your copy.

 

Flying Radlett to Paris for £25

In 1919 the government lifted restrictions on civil flying in Britain and aircraft manufacturer Frederick Handley Page decided to establish his own fledgling airline, Handley Page Transport Limited, which was equipped with converted wartime surplus bombers.

On 25 August 1919 Aircraft Travel & Transport Limited (AT&T) started the world’s first sustained international commercial air service, which flew between London and Paris. Eight days later, on 2 September 1919, Handley Page Transport inaugurated their Paris service, flying from Radlett Aerodrome.

The flight would set you back £25 for a single ticket, or £40 for a return, not a great deal compared to today’s low cost airlines, but a small fortune almost a century ago.

In January 1923 the British government, under the Conservative Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law, was anxious to seek advice on the ideal way for the country to continue to subsidise air transport. Sir Samuel Hoare, the Secretary of State for Air, appointed Sir Herbert Hambling, the deputy chairman of Barclays Bank, as chairman of the Civil Aviation Subsidies Committee, also known as the Hambling Committee.

The committee recommended creating a nationalised airline and on 1 April 1924 Imperial Airways was formed by the merger of the air transport business carried out by the civil airlines Handley Page Transport, Instone Air Line, Daimler Airway and British Marine Air Navigation Company.

Imperial Airways flew its first passenger service between Croydon Aerodrome, just south of London, and Le Bourget, near Paris, on 26 April 1924. Interestingly the new airline’s first departure was delayed due to a pilots’ strike.

This three panel triptych cover was carried around the world in 1939. The intrepid  passenger took-off on 24 June from New York and flew to Shediac, Botwood, Foynes, Southampton, Cairo, Karachi, Singapore, Hong Kong, Manila, Guam, Wake Island, Midway Island, Honolulu and San Francisco, before returning to New York on 28 July.

The flight was completed on a Pan American Airways Boeing 314 Clipper, an Imperial Airways Short S23 flying boat and a Foreign Air Mail (FAM) northern route. FAM routes were allocated by the US Postal Service to US airlines to enable them to carry mail between the United States and foreign countries.

Rapid growth in the civil aviation industry quickly followed and many new smaller airlines were formed. On 30 September 1935 the Whitehall Securities Corporation, owned by the Honourable Clive Pearson, established Allied British Airways by merging the public company Hillmans Airways with their privately owned companies Spartan Air Lines, British Continental Airways and United Airways. Within a month the new company had become simply British Airways and on 11 December 1935 it became a publicly listed company. The acquisition of Highland Airways and Northern and Scottish Airways followed shortly afterwards. Major J Ronald McCrindle was appointed the managing director and Alan Campbell-Orde, who had been with AT&T, was appointed the operations manager.

The new British Airways became the main competitor for Imperial Airways and the two companies remained in stiff competition with each other for several years. In 1938 the government established the Cadman Committee of Inquiry to investigate the best way to develop British civil aviation and their report recommended the merger of the two company’s operations. The following year Imperial Airways and British Airways were merged to form the state-owned British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC).

In 1971 BOAC was merged with another state-owned airline, British European Airways (BEA), along with Cardiff-based Cambrian Airways and Newcastle-upon-Tyne based Northeast Airlines, to form the British Airways Board. Three years later all four companies were dissolved and merged into one state-owned business. In February 1987 British Airways was privatized by the Conservative government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

For more information on Frederick Handley Page and other British aviation heroes and landmarks take a look at Heroes and Landmarks of British Aviation by Richard and Peter Edwards.

The book is published by Pen and Sword Books (Aviation) and is currently available in hardback, priced at £19.99. The ISBN reference number is 9781848846456. Click here to order your copy.

 

Geoffrey de Havilland and the Race to Australia

By far Geoffrey de Havilland's most important pre-war aircraft design concept was the DH88 Comet twin-engined racing monoplane, not only because this machine won the 1934 MacRobertson England to Australia air race but also because it was the inspiration for the Mosquito.

In 1934 the Lord Mayor of Melbourne proposed organizing an air race from England to Australia as part of the centenary celebrations marking the founding of the State of Victoria. Australian confectionery magnate Sir MacPherson Robertson agreed to offer a prize fund of $75,000 AUD providing that the race was named after his company. The race was organized by the Royal Aero Club and the course covered some 11,300 miles from RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk to the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Victoria.

de Havilland was determined to win the race and set about designing a revolutionary new aircraft. The result was the de Havilland DH88 Comet racing plane. In just nine months on 9 October 1934 the new plane received its certificate of airworthiness.

A total of three machines of this type were manufactured and all three competed in the race. The first was Comet G-ACSR, which was built for Bernard Rubin and painted green. It was piloted by Owen Cathcart-Jones and Ken Waller. The second Comet was G-ACSP, which was named Black Magic and was painted black and gold. It was piloted by its owners Amy and Jim Mollison. The third was Comet G-ACSS, which was ordered by Mr AO Edwards, the managing director of the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane, London. It was painted a distinctive scarlet and was aptly named Grosvenor House. The pilots were Charles Scott, the former record holder for the route, and Tom Campbell-Black.

The race included five compulsory stops at Baghdad, Allahabad, Singapore, Darwin and Charleville. In addition to these the organizers had prepared a further twenty-two refuelling stops. By the time the race was due to start on 20 October 1934 an ambitious array of some sixty entrants had been cut to a mere twenty.

Despite their engine problems Scott and Campbell-Black developed a commanding lead and crossed the finish line at Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, at 3.33 p.m. on 23 October 1934, with a total elapsed time of 71 hours, some 18 hours 47 minutes ahead of the DC-2. G-ACSS Grosvenor House qualified for both the fastest time and handicap prizes. Unfortunately, the race rules only allowed one prize per aircraft and so G-ACSS was only awarded the fastest time.

Owen Cathcart-Jones and Ken Waller in G-ACSR arrived safely, crossing the finish line in fourth place. Shortly after touching down they were loaded with newsreel footage of the race and took off again for RAF Mildenhall. Their return journey set a new record for a round-trip, completing the whole journey in a little over thirteen days.

G-ACSS was restored for the Festival of Great Britain in 1951 by de Havilland apprentices, where it was put on display hanging from the roof. The aircraft was given to the Shuttleworth Collection in 1965 and following an appeal for funds it was restored to full flying condition. It flew for the first time in forty-nine years on Sunday 17 May 1987.

Captain Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, OM, CBE, AFC, RDI, FRAeS was born on 27 July 1882, near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, the second son of Alice and Reverend Charles de Havilland. His elder brother, Ivon was born three years earlier. The family moved to a parish in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, where de Havilland’s sisters Ione and Gladys and younger brother, Hereward were born.

The de Havilland Engine Company was established in 1944 and was based at Leavesden, near Watford in Hertfordshire. Originally the company was the engine division of the de Havilland Aircraft Company and was responsible for the de Havilland Gipsy engines. The company was merged into Bristol Siddeley Engines in 1961, which was sold to Rolls-Royce in 1966. The factory is now the location of Leavesden Film Studios, home to many major film productions, including the Harry Potter series of films.

For more information on the DH88 and other aviation heroes and landmarks take a look at Heroes and Landmarks of British Aviation by Richard and Peter Edwards.

The book is published by Pen and Sword Books (Aviation) and is currently available in hardback, priced at £19.99. The ISBN reference number is 9781848846456. Click here to order your copy.

 

Remarkable War Hero Related to British Airways and Sherlock Holmes

The Second World War fighter ace Wing Commander Alan Geoffrey Page DSO, OBE, DFC and Bar is without doubt a remarkable man.

After being shot down during the Battle of Britain in 1940 he became the founding member of the infamous Guinea Pig Club, made up of severely burnt servicemen who benefited from pioneering reconstructive surgery during the Second World War.

He was also the nephew of Frederick Handley Page, the aviation pioneer whose company Handley Page Transport established a scheduled passenger service from Radlett Aerodrome to Paris in 1919. The company merged with four others in 1929 to establish Imperial Airways, which subsequently evolved into today's British Airways.

In 1946, Page married Pauline Bruce, the daughter of the British actor Nigel Bruce, who co-starred with Basil Rathbone in numerous Sherlock Holmes films as well as the classic 1938 film Dawn Patrol with Errol Flynn and David Niven. The Hollywood legend, actor C. Aubrey Smith, was Page’s best man at the wedding.

During 1940 Page was posted to 56 Squadron of the RAF as a Hurricane pilot. He was shot down during the Battle of Britain on 12 August 1940, while attacking a formation of Dornier Do 17 bombers.

During the attack the fuel tank in front of Page was hit and it sprayed burning aircraft fuel into the cockpit. He received horrific burns to most of his front side, in particular his hands and face. Despite his appalling injuries he managed to bale out and was later picked up from the English Channel.

He received treatment at the Burns Unit at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, West Sussex, from the noted plastic surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe. It was during his recuperation in hospital that Page established the Guinea Pig Club, with other badly burnt servicemen. Sir Archibald was elected the club’s life president, while Page was the first to take the role of chairman.

Despite his injuries, and fifteen operations, Page was determined to return to active service. Astonishingly, by 1942 he had regained full operational status with the RAF.

On 29 June 1943 Page, along with Wing Commander James MacLachlan, who had lost an arm two years earlier, brought down six enemy aircraft in just ten minutes, while flying south of Paris. Sadly, MacLachlan was killed in action the following month.

 

New book promotional video on YouTube

Take a look at the latest book promotional video for Heroes and Landmarks of British Aviation