STAVANGER - SEPTEMBER 1942.
"Perhaps this long range strike was prompted by… a pilot who was flying Mustangs with 309 Squadron"-from "P-51 Bomber Escort" by William Hess.
The spools of tape in my memory bank start whirling and the old pictures reappear on the screen of my mind. Indeed, that is how it was.
We were an Army Cooperation squadron, flying Lysanders in Scotland, and learning ourselves and teaching others to cooperate with the ground forces of the Scottish Command, which included units of the Polish Army. There was plenty of work, and thanks to our excellent mechanics we were able to fly more hours than any other squadron in the Army Cooperation Command. For the pilots the work was quite exacting, as apart from the actual piloting they had to shoot, bomb, photograph, navigate and also learn to send and receive coded messages by Morse.
Nevertheless it was realised that Lysanders were completely unsuitable for these tasks in the circumstances of real war, and we hoped and prayed for re-equipment with faster and better armed planes. In this atmosphere tales were rife and scarcely a week passed without news of new and wonderful planes with which our squadron was about to be re-equipped.
In the spring of 1942, I was asked by the Chief Pilot whether I would like to go on a course to fly Mustangs. Although my heart cried with joy I refused to volunteer, but said that certainly I would like to go if ordered.
I must put in here a long aside about volunteering. We have a saying in Poland: "Volunteers perish", and when I was saying good-bye to my mother when leaving home for the war, almost her last words were (and she was an ardent patriot) "Do your duty, but do not volunteer."
In 309 squadron, fed up with the phoney war in Scotland, two of the most experienced and excellent pilots, F/O Kornel Stefanus and F/O Bronek Baster asked to be transferred to bomber squadrons, which were at that time carrying out bombing missions over Europe. Their request was granted. Kornel was killed on the ground whilst still in an Operational Training Unit; during night flying an aircraft swung into a group of people at the end of the run and he was the only one killed. Bronek actually joined a bomber squadron but on his first operational flight he had to turn back because of engine trouble. The next day he was testing his aircraft after repairs and went into a dive which finished in the ground.
Volunteering or not, I was sent on the course and found myself on the 14th of April 1942 in Old Sarum near Salisbury, together with Jerzy Golko - the first two pilots of our squadron, who were later to become flight commanders. After Lysanders, which had a fixed undercarriage, two-pitch propeller and automatic slots and flaps we had to learn the use of a retractible undercarriage, hydraulically operated flaps and a variable pitch propeller, with all their advantages and pitfalls. The intermediate aircraft was the two-seater Harvard, in which we were properly taught the cockpit drill by instructors before being allowed to fly solo. For Mustangs we used a nearby satellite airfield, as Old Sarum was too small for them. My first flight in a Mustang took place on the 30th of April and my first landing certainly put all kangaroos to shame.
I must admit (quite shamelessly) that I fell in love with the Mustang straight away. Very quickly I learned its behaviour and reactions to the controls in the air, and I studied the written description of the aircraft with such meticulous attention that soon I knew more about its minor details than our instructors. At the first opportunity I paid a visit to the representatives of the makers, North American, in London and together with other information I got from them a little booklet giving the Mustang's fuel consumption for various levels of flight, air speeds and volumes of fuel in the tanks at the most economical setting of boost and revolutions. I found them fascinating.
The course finished and we returned to our squadron which still flew Lysanders, but in the last week of May we were attached to the 26th squadron stationed then at Gatwick. They flew short reconnaissance and attack missions under the code name of "rhubarb" across the Channel to France and with them I made my first operational flight on the 27th of May 1942. The usual technique was to cross the Channel at wave top level in complete radio silence, attack any suitable target in the allotted area and return either at low level or taking advantage of cloud cover. The English coast was always crossed at 2000 ft. with the IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe, a magic box showing on radar screens the allegiance of the aircraft),
switched on. In our case we stuck to the standard technique, flew to the Boulogne area and were reasonably lucky as regards the quality and quantity of our targets on road and rail. As a matter of interest this was also the only operational flight during the whole war from which I brought back a hole in my plane. In these circumstances it is impossible to be sure, but, from the position and direction of this hole it looked very probable that it was inflicted by my own No.3, (I was No.2), who followed me at tree top level and might have got a bit careless hedge-hopping and shooting at the same time. (Who said.:"Please God defend me from my friends and from my enemies I'll defend myself!"?)
The booklet of the fuel consumption gave me no peace. I realised the potential operational range of the Mustang, started to study the maps in the Operations Room and came to the conclusion that the true range of the Mustang would make possible even operations from Scotland to Norway.
In June we returned to our parent squadron in Scotland, gradually collected our new planes, retrained our pilots and after a few moves found ourselves as a detached flight on Dalcross aerodrome near Inverness. In the meantime I came to realise that while the form of the tables produced by North American might have been alright for flight planning on the ground, it certainly was not suitable for use in the air. For this a form of graph was necessary which would supply all information at a glance. Basically it had to indicate the settings of boost and revolutions for any required air speed and flight level which would result in the lowest usage of fuel and also show the resultant consumption.
I should add here that my training in Civil Engineering, (in which I qualified before the war), conditioned me to the use and design of graphs. With a lot of thought and several trials the problem of packing all the necessary information in a reasonably small space in an easily understood fashion was solved, and, after two months
of calculation and drawing in my own time, a graph was produced to a large scale in two parts, photographed in the squadron's photographic section and the curves on the prints coloured. The prints were then glued back to back, resulting in a single two-sided graph of a size that could be conveniently taken and read in the aircraft. This was tried out in our squadron and no difficulties were found in actual use (although there were no other civil engineers amongst us), and the resulting fuel saving was of the order of 20 to 30%.
Being satisfied with the practical results I thought it worthwhile to allow other squadrons of the Army Cooperation Command to profit from my work and on the 24th of July I wrote a suitable letter to my Group (for passing it to the Command), enclosing the prints of my graph and explaining its use and obvious advantages. This letter was never answered. But as the period of waiting for an answer extended,so the idea crystalised in my mind that the only way to shake the authorities from their complacent slumber was to prove my theories in an operational flight of such a range that it would make them take note of the opportunities existing and not yet taken.
I do not remember by now where I "scrounged" the navigational map of the area. It was a 1:1,000,000 Mercator projection plotting map used in Bomber Command. It had very few details, but this was the only map I could lay my hands on. Its study confirmed the feasibility of an operational flight over Norway from a base in Scotland and indicated that the most interesting target for a "rhubarb" was the Stavanger area.
Whilst our daily training flights were being carried out I could not, of course, rebel and run away from my appointed tasks. But an opportunity arose when a big party was due to take place at our squadron's headquarters at Dunino near St. Andrews and most of our pilots were flying there to attend. I volunteered to hold the fort and was left in charge of what was left of the flight. The hour of destiny had struck!
The 26th of September was spent on frantic checking and rechecking of the basic planning, deciding on details and so on. Nevertheless I managed to attend an ENSA concert in the evening.
"Perhaps this long range strike was prompted by… a pilot who was flying Mustangs with 309 Squadron"-from "P-51 Bomber Escort" by William Hess.
The spools of tape in my memory bank start whirling and the old pictures reappear on the screen of my mind. Indeed, that is how it was.
We were an Army Cooperation squadron, flying Lysanders in Scotland, and learning ourselves and teaching others to cooperate with the ground forces of the Scottish Command, which included units of the Polish Army. There was plenty of work, and thanks to our excellent mechanics we were able to fly more hours than any other squadron in the Army Cooperation Command. For the pilots the work was quite exacting, as apart from the actual piloting they had to shoot, bomb, photograph, navigate and also learn to send and receive coded messages by Morse.
Nevertheless it was realised that Lysanders were completely unsuitable for these tasks in the circumstances of real war, and we hoped and prayed for re-equipment with faster and better armed planes. In this atmosphere tales were rife and scarcely a week passed without news of new and wonderful planes with which our squadron was about to be re-equipped.
In the spring of 1942, I was asked by the Chief Pilot whether I would like to go on a course to fly Mustangs. Although my heart cried with joy I refused to volunteer, but said that certainly I would like to go if ordered.
I must put in here a long aside about volunteering. We have a saying in Poland: "Volunteers perish", and when I was saying good-bye to my mother when leaving home for the war, almost her last words were (and she was an ardent patriot) "Do your duty, but do not volunteer."
In 309 squadron, fed up with the phoney war in Scotland, two of the most experienced and excellent pilots, F/O Kornel Stefanus and F/O Bronek Baster asked to be transferred to bomber squadrons, which were at that time carrying out bombing missions over Europe. Their request was granted. Kornel was killed on the ground whilst still in an Operational Training Unit; during night flying an aircraft swung into a group of people at the end of the run and he was the only one killed. Bronek actually joined a bomber squadron but on his first operational flight he had to turn back because of engine trouble. The next day he was testing his aircraft after repairs and went into a dive which finished in the ground.
Volunteering or not, I was sent on the course and found myself on the 14th of April 1942 in Old Sarum near Salisbury, together with Jerzy Golko - the first two pilots of our squadron, who were later to become flight commanders. After Lysanders, which had a fixed undercarriage, two-pitch propeller and automatic slots and flaps we had to learn the use of a retractible undercarriage, hydraulically operated flaps and a variable pitch propeller, with all their advantages and pitfalls. The intermediate aircraft was the two-seater Harvard, in which we were properly taught the cockpit drill by instructors before being allowed to fly solo. For Mustangs we used a nearby satellite airfield, as Old Sarum was too small for them. My first flight in a Mustang took place on the 30th of April and my first landing certainly put all kangaroos to shame.
I must admit (quite shamelessly) that I fell in love with the Mustang straight away. Very quickly I learned its behaviour and reactions to the controls in the air, and I studied the written description of the aircraft with such meticulous attention that soon I knew more about its minor details than our instructors. At the first opportunity I paid a visit to the representatives of the makers, North American, in London and together with other information I got from them a little booklet giving the Mustang's fuel consumption for various levels of flight, air speeds and volumes of fuel in the tanks at the most economical setting of boost and revolutions. I found them fascinating.
The course finished and we returned to our squadron which still flew Lysanders, but in the last week of May we were attached to the 26th squadron stationed then at Gatwick. They flew short reconnaissance and attack missions under the code name of "rhubarb" across the Channel to France and with them I made my first operational flight on the 27th of May 1942. The usual technique was to cross the Channel at wave top level in complete radio silence, attack any suitable target in the allotted area and return either at low level or taking advantage of cloud cover. The English coast was always crossed at 2000 ft. with the IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe, a magic box showing on radar screens the allegiance of the aircraft),
switched on. In our case we stuck to the standard technique, flew to the Boulogne area and were reasonably lucky as regards the quality and quantity of our targets on road and rail. As a matter of interest this was also the only operational flight during the whole war from which I brought back a hole in my plane. In these circumstances it is impossible to be sure, but, from the position and direction of this hole it looked very probable that it was inflicted by my own No.3, (I was No.2), who followed me at tree top level and might have got a bit careless hedge-hopping and shooting at the same time. (Who said.:"Please God defend me from my friends and from my enemies I'll defend myself!"?)
The booklet of the fuel consumption gave me no peace. I realised the potential operational range of the Mustang, started to study the maps in the Operations Room and came to the conclusion that the true range of the Mustang would make possible even operations from Scotland to Norway.
In June we returned to our parent squadron in Scotland, gradually collected our new planes, retrained our pilots and after a few moves found ourselves as a detached flight on Dalcross aerodrome near Inverness. In the meantime I came to realise that while the form of the tables produced by North American might have been alright for flight planning on the ground, it certainly was not suitable for use in the air. For this a form of graph was necessary which would supply all information at a glance. Basically it had to indicate the settings of boost and revolutions for any required air speed and flight level which would result in the lowest usage of fuel and also show the resultant consumption.
I should add here that my training in Civil Engineering, (in which I qualified before the war), conditioned me to the use and design of graphs. With a lot of thought and several trials the problem of packing all the necessary information in a reasonably small space in an easily understood fashion was solved, and, after two months
of calculation and drawing in my own time, a graph was produced to a large scale in two parts, photographed in the squadron's photographic section and the curves on the prints coloured. The prints were then glued back to back, resulting in a single two-sided graph of a size that could be conveniently taken and read in the aircraft. This was tried out in our squadron and no difficulties were found in actual use (although there were no other civil engineers amongst us), and the resulting fuel saving was of the order of 20 to 30%.
Being satisfied with the practical results I thought it worthwhile to allow other squadrons of the Army Cooperation Command to profit from my work and on the 24th of July I wrote a suitable letter to my Group (for passing it to the Command), enclosing the prints of my graph and explaining its use and obvious advantages. This letter was never answered. But as the period of waiting for an answer extended,so the idea crystalised in my mind that the only way to shake the authorities from their complacent slumber was to prove my theories in an operational flight of such a range that it would make them take note of the opportunities existing and not yet taken.
I do not remember by now where I "scrounged" the navigational map of the area. It was a 1:1,000,000 Mercator projection plotting map used in Bomber Command. It had very few details, but this was the only map I could lay my hands on. Its study confirmed the feasibility of an operational flight over Norway from a base in Scotland and indicated that the most interesting target for a "rhubarb" was the Stavanger area.
Whilst our daily training flights were being carried out I could not, of course, rebel and run away from my appointed tasks. But an opportunity arose when a big party was due to take place at our squadron's headquarters at Dunino near St. Andrews and most of our pilots were flying there to attend. I volunteered to hold the fort and was left in charge of what was left of the flight. The hour of destiny had struck!
The 26th of September was spent on frantic checking and rechecking of the basic planning, deciding on details and so on. Nevertheless I managed to attend an ENSA concert in the evening.
