Branch Secretary : Alan V. J. Eley
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John Cunningham made a brief return to Hatfield on 2nd February 1941 at the request of his former boss Sir Geoffrey de Havilland to fly his new machine the DH.98 Mosquito and make a judgment on its suitability as a night-fighter. He was only the third person to fly the elegant prototype W4050 (the others being the test-pilots Geoffrey de Havilland Junior and George Gibbins) and John was the first service pilot to do so, beating the A and AEE staff at Boscombe Down, who were itching to try out ‘The Wooden Wonder’. John’s report was a glowing one : he went on to fly the Mosquito night-fighter prototype W4052 in May 1941 and then flew ‘Mossies’ on operations with 85 Sqn much later in the war.As John’s score mounted, the story was spread that his success owed much to a hearty consumption of carrots, which were said to sharpen the eyesight and henceforth he was known as “Cat’s Eyes” Cunningham (a name that he hated). This deception was aimed at the enemy, who were losing more and more of their aircraft on night intruder and bombing missions over Britain (604 Sqn destroyed 30 in one two-month period). It also helped the Food Minister Lord Woolton to impress on the general public the value of vegetables, particularly Vitamin A-rich carrots in the rationed wartime diet. No reference was made to radar as the primary reason for Cunningham’s success, which was soon replicated among the other night fighter units. He himself said it was a major team effort of scientists, ground controllers, pilots and radar operators that eventually brought results. In March 1941 he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.On 15th April 1941 after many disappointments the team effort put John and Jimmy up over southern England, where they managed to dispatch three German raiders in one night (for this feat John was awarded the Distinguished Service Order/DSO and Jimmy the Distinguished Flying Medal/DFM awarded to NCOs). This was followed soon after by a Royal visit to the squadron at Middle Wallop with King George VI eager to see the unit in action. As the King looked up into the dark night sky he witnessed an interception leading to a Heinkel 111 crashing in flames. This Royal Command Performance was John’s twelfth victory. Sadly while John was away meeting with Fighter Command chiefs the next day, another crew took his favourite Beaufighter R2101/R for Robert up in the early hours, only to be shot down by return fire from a German rear-gunner : both aircraft crashed in flames and John was given a replacement aircraft T4625. In midsummer 1941 the Germans changed their tactics, flying mine-laying missions over the East Coast and sending roving enemy night-fighters over the RAF bomber bases in East Anglia. To counter these attacks, many of them at very low level by fast nimble Ju 88s, John was ordered to take B flight of 604 Sqn to Coltishall in Norfolk. After a few unsuccessful weeks in East Anglia he was glad to return to Middle Wallop, to be told of his promotion to Wing Commander in charge of the squadron. He was now called away from training his crews to give ‘pep’ talks at local factories : John disliked these public relations exercises as he was always introduced as “that famous night flying ace ‘Cat’s Eyes’ Cunningham”. He always discouraged adulation and hero-worship, feeling that he was simply there to get the job done and that he would naturally do it to the best of his ability. He remained intensely modest all his life. Jimmy Rawnsley had now become the squadron’s Navigator Leader and was given a long-overdue commission as a Flight Lieutenant. He began flying with each crew in turn, standing behind the pilot and watching interceptions pre-arranged with target aircraft of the RAF. This helped him to establish a standard ‘patter’ as the radar operator passed on details of height, range and bearing. Jimmy and John were now in regular contact with the secret establishments such as A and AEE at Boscombe Down, the RAE at Farnborough, the Telecommunications Research Establishment (later to be called the Radar Research Establishment) at Malvern and the associated airfield a few miles away at Defford, where all the new radio and radar devices were fitted to aircraft for testing. One of the most important developments was the 4-inch UHF radar which reduced dramatically the ground clutter that spoiled the radar picture at low level. The radar technicians and boffins welcomed an input from crews with real operational experience as they tried to perfect the equipment. Operational trials on experimental sets were carried out by the Fighter Interception Unit at Ford in Sussex, with hand-picked night-fighter crews who were resting from operational flying. John and Jimmy had been together for almost three years when told in late 1941 that they were to be rested. Theirs had been a very long tour of operations (fighter pilots were lucky to remain with a unit for 18 months before being posted, and in Bomber Command crews were stood down after 30 missions (if they managed to stay alive that long – in one disastrous night over Germany in 1943 around 500 aircrew were killed, more than in the entire Battle of Britain). John’s new job was to direct the work of all the night-flying OTUs of Fighter Command and Jimmy was promoted to Squadron Leader in charge of navigator training at 62 OTU, Usworth, Sunderland. At this point John ‘pulled a few strings’ and Jimmy was able to join him at 81 Group Headquarters, at Avening, Gloucestershire. Just before leaving Middle Wallop John was awarded a bar to his DSO and Jimmy a bar to his DFM and a DFC. John felt stifled doing a desk job and longed for some personal contact with the OTUs, which were at Cranfield, Beds; at Charterhall near the Scottish border ; and at East Fortune, near Edinburgh. He was delighted to be allowed to fly out on inspection visits and pass on some of his night-fighting skills, initially flying an Airspeed Oxford, but later in his beloved Beaufighter on loan from 604. In January 1943 John broke the news to Jimmy that he had been given command of 85 Sqn, with Jimmy as the squadron’s Navigator Leader. The unit was at Hunsdon, Hertfordshire and was equipped with Mosquito Mk IIs. He was taking over a famous squadron (formed in 1917, it counted Billy Bishop and Mick Mannock, both VC holders, in its numbers). The new CO sensed an atmosphere in the Officers Mess when he arrived. One of the youngest pilots there, dressed up in his best blue, came up and offered to fetch him a drink. John Cunningham’s answer “Thank you, I would like a half of bitter” broke the ice ; he discovered the previous CO had strongly disapproved of drinking ! After a few familiarization flights in daylight, John and Jimmy took their Mosquito up at night to do some practice interceptions and get used to the equipment in a far more cramped cockpit then the Beaufighter they were used to. The Mosquito had water-cooled Merlin engines which were extremely noisy, but made conditions noticeably warmer for the crew – no need for full flying kit. With four 20 mm cannon under the floor and a powerful AI Mk V radar in the nose of his aircraft, John felt he now had the means to seek out the enemy and destroy any raiders over London. The performance of the De Havilland Mosquito was a revelation (it was used as an unarmed low-level bomber, achieving the lowest casualty rates of any Bomber Command aircraft, despite doing Pathfinder missions low over the Ruhr and other well-defended areas). John was surprised to find that the target aircraft for practice interceptions were always at 10,000 ft, so one day he climbed to 20,000 ft and waited for the Ground Radar Controller to react. The squadron was soon shaken out its complacency and things soon began to improve. As crews were posted away John managed to locate good crews from the OTUs and other well-tried men from his 604 Sqn days. He needed the best talent he could find to intercept the lone raiders (often the fast Do 217s) that were shooting across the North Sea, dropping their bombs on dense population centres and then high-tailing it back to Germany. In March 1943 John had selected as his personal aircraft the first of the Mosquito NF.XIIs, DZ302 – it had the latest AI radar the Mk VII with a single large and clear cathode-ray display in the cockpit. In May of that year John and his squadron moved to West Malling in Kent, a grass airfield amidst apple-orchards and hop-fields. From here they were called out more and more frequently to combat lone Focke-Wulf 190s carrying a single huge bomb as they dashed across the Channel and headed for centres of population. John was able to demonstrate his technique a few weeks later by intercepting and bringing down an FW190 within sight of all the West Malling air and ground crews. One of his pilots described him thus : “A man of rare personal qualities that are a combination of great strength of character, integrity and sense of purpose, along with a warm and responsive humour. His sincerity is to be found in the nature of his voice and his way of speaking……. The only change - and it is a remarkable one - comes when he is at the controls of an aircraft. Then, as a pilot, his voice becomes crisp, impersonal and firm, revealing how much he is master of the situation……..But most of all there is the easy and natural charm with which he has always treated everybody in his contacts with them.” John Cunningham never admitted to suffering from nervous tension or had any apparent inner fears or anxieties, he was an exceptional pilot who could out fly and outwit the enemy before shooting him down in cold blood. He had proved this in May 1942 when he stalked a Heinkel flown by the Commanding Officer of the celebrated Kampfgruppe 100, tracking it over Hampshire and then destroying it almost two hours later in what was later called ‘A great duel in the clouds’. John said of his task : “One day followed another and I was totally occupied with what I was doing. There was no time to reflect on such matters and neither was there any reason, as far as I was concerned. We met each day as it came. That was it.” John lost many comrades during the war, but he never dwelt on these deaths. He became inured to such casualties and knew he had to get up next day and carry on with the job. He was not heartless, just realistic. The Luftwaffe soon discovered that Britain’s night-fighter defences were rather too good at their job : the single-seat FW190 was fast but had no rearward-facing guns and its pilot would have no warning of a Mosquito on its tail until too late. The Messerschmitt 210 (and later the 410) was a new, very fast and manoeuvrable two-seat fighter-bomber. Its gunner-navigator controlled two heavy machine-guns mounted in blisters on either side of the rear fuselage : it was a formidable machine with performance to match the Mosquito. Later it was to have a tail-warning radar fitted, enabling its crew to take evasive action. With increasing numbers of Allied aircraft in the night skies, 85 Squadron was ordered to make a positive visual identification of targets, using Ross binoculars with high light-gathering power. On the day Italy surrendered on 8th September 1943, John chalked up his 19th kill, all but one had been achieved at night. However flying wreckage from the 190 that he had just destroyed pierced the port radiator of the Mosquito, leading to an engine failure and smoke in the cockpit. It was only with great difficulty that John nursed his aircraft back to base for a safe landing. Another dangerous moment came in October when John and Jimmy came up against one of the new Junkers 188s, whose gunner fired back at them, shattering the perspex windscreen panels and leading to a swift return to base A short time later Jimmy Rawnsley became the first radar navigator to be awarded the DSO, next to the VC the top British award for military gallantry. In January 1944 John had his 20th victory when he brought down an Me 410, firing just ten rounds per gun after patiently stalking the enemy aircraft across the Channel and using a boost device that injected nitrous oxide into the RR Merlins for a few minutes’ extra speed. Soon after this John was posted to a staff job at HQ 11 Group at Uxbridge, becoming a Group Captain at 26, one of the youngest in the RAF. Jimmy Rawnsley was invited to crew up with another 85 Sqn pilot but he chose instead to accept a posting to the Fighter Interception Unit at Ford. Their departure from 85 Sqn was celebrated with a day-long party !
John’s main job at 11 Group was to organise the night-fighter force in the run-up to the invasion of France on D-Day. This involved a lot of personal inspection of the squadrons, requiring a Mosquito and a navigator, so after a few strings were pulled John and Jimmy were able to renew their partnership. They even flew over the invasion beaches of Northern France on the night of D+4. As the Allied forces swept across Europe John was making trips at home and across the Continent visiting squadrons and seeing for himself what was going on. The reward for all John and Jimmy’s dedication in building up the night-fighter tradition was now to be seen as the Luftwaffe was gradually driven from the skies in the last year of the war. John and Jimmy had tested and promoted the advances in technical developments and the latest Mosquitoes were equipped with AI Mk 10 interception radar that was a far cry from what John had experienced in his early Blenheims and Beaufighters. John’s rank and position at Fighter Command gave him the opportunity to continue his flying and to meet a wide range of people in the aircraft industry. When not flying with Jimmy he often used Spitfires on his visits and thought it was lovely aircraft to fly. John want to press on - he dismissed any idea of rest or recuperation as meaningless. Soon after VE Day he was sent on attachment to India, flying a new Mosquito on delivery to continue the fight against the Japanese. Fortunately the end of the war in the Far East came before John was required to fly in combat. He returned to the UK in a far more comfortable aircraft, the personal VIP DC-4 of Air Marshal Sir Ralph Cochrane, who was then the C in C of Transport Command. John was offered a permanent commission in the RAF, but he was also aware that de Havillands wanted him back as a test-pilot to fly the Vampire and other new jet aircraft. If he stayed in the RAF as a senior officer he knew he would become more involved in administrative duties, running Staff Courses and serving on committees rather than doing what he most enjoyed, which was flying. He decided very quickly to return to civilian life. (Part 2 next month)
I have listed below the trips that the West Midlands Branch is organising for its members (in heavy print) in the next couple of months, plus a selection of other airshows, fly-ins etc that may be of interest. A very good place to check on aviation events in Great Britain is the Royal Aero Club’s web-site : royalaeroclub.org/calendar of events Let me know in good time which of our branch trips you want to go on. Branch trips are generally by car to keep the costs down and often include stops en route at extra ‘targets of opportunity’ : farm-strips, gliding-sites etc. No foreign day-trips are listed here at the moment, but we expect to announce these shortly.
Just over 100 aircraft booked in so far. Public access is presumably at the normal rates at Airbase - we are using the North side of the airport (not the old passenger terminal as for the Navigator's AGM 2 years ago).
In next month’s newsletter Business aircraft in India – a real alternative ? More on the De Havilland Comet and its early operators. plus an interview with aviation photographer Geoffrey Lee who worked for Hawker-Siddeley and BAE for 18 years, taking aerial pictures from seven transport, nine helicopter and fifteen fast-jet types and the second part of the amazing John Cunningham story. Also a profile of the F-22 Raptor as the last of 187 is handed over to the US Air Force. We’re approaching the best time of year for getting out and about - enjoy the hobby ! Alan. Directory: app -> download download -> Pupil bulletin week beginning monday 15th December 2014 download -> ‘Stronger Together’ download -> Mobile Computer Repair Price List (2014) download -> 2015 Commercial Space Industry Snapshot as seen through the eyes of the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ispcs) download -> - download -> Android-Lint Plugin download -> End2end ci/cd pipeline with Bamboo and Atlassian tools download -> Summer art workshops at City Lights Art Gallery Thanks to a Henderson Loves the Arts download -> 100 years of john wayne bryan, michael Download 409.4 Kb. Share with your friends:
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