Forgotten pilots or flights...

[FD2]

Commander Allan Tarver GM

Of particular significance to CharlieOneSix

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/ ... very-navy/

[CharlieOneSix]

Sad to see that but it comes to us all. 10 May 1966 remains vivid in my failing memory.

[FD2]

Rear Admiral Ray Rawbone, naval pilot who saw action over France, Greece, Burma and Sumatra – obituary

He flew more than 40 types of aircraft but however fast or advanced none gave ‘that feeling of joie de vivre’ of the early marks of Seafire
By Telegraph Obituaries 7 April 2023 • 6:26pm


Rear Admiral Ray Rawbone, who has died aged 99, was shot down over southern France and later led a Fleet Air Arm squadron in the Suez Campaign.

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In October 1943, 20 years old and recently promoted from midshipman, Rawbone joined 809 Naval Air Squadron, flying the Seafire Mark LIIc under the command of Major AL Wright RM, in the carrier Stalker. Wright, Rawbone later recalled, was “a smart, rather strict disciplinarian, which was probably just as well as we were a fair mixture of high-spirited Commonwealth officers”.

After escort duties in Atlantic convoys, in May 1945 Rawbone and his aircraft and others from 809 were lent to 208 RAF in Italy, flying two and sometimes three sorties a day from improvised airfields on armed reconnaissance, or spotting for the Army’s heavy guns.

Then in August he took part in Operation Dragoon, the Allied landings in the south of France. In the absence of enemy aircraft, Rawbone strafed and bombed German vehicle columns, and spotted for the guns of the US battleship Nevada.

However, on the morning of August 24, north-west of Nimes, while diving to strafe a German staff car, he was hit by flak, his engine and instruments failed, and, unable to climb above 800 ft, he was forced to land in a field.

Rawbone set fire to his aircraft and, seeing German troops approach, ran off, hoping to find Maquis resistance fighters. He was taken in by French farmers near Dions in the Gard region, and with his new friends cycled into the newly liberated city of Nîmes, where he met Major Lancelot Hartley-Sharpe, leader of a Jedburgh clandestine team which been operating behind the lines. He then joined the Allied forces advancing on Uzès.

He was anxious to get back to my ship as soon as possible “because I knew that my drama was being shared by my wife who was expecting our first child”. At Salon-de-Provence he found a lift in a small plane to Naples, and from there he hitched several more lifts to rejoin Stalker, which by now was in Alexandria. Just two weeks after having been shot down, he was airborne and operational again.

He was Mentioned in Despatches.

Rawbone remained with 809 NAS until the end of 1945, seeing further action over Greece and later Burma, Sumatra and Malaya. Though he had no more accidents, there were many Seafire and pilot losses, not least due to landing accidents on Stalker’s short and narrow flightdeck. By the end of the war he was the squadron senior pilot.


Alfred Raymond Rawbone was born on April 19 1923 at Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire, where his father, who had flown in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War, was an engineer.

Ray volunteered for the Fleet Air Arm in 1941 aged 18. His initial training, at the former Butlin’s holiday camp at Skegness, was overseen by Ted Briggs (one of only three survivors from the loss of the battlecruiser Hood in May that year) and then by Chief Petty Officer Wilmott, a celebrated instructor and father-figure, at HMS St Vincent, Gosport.

Rawbone learnt to fly at Elmdon, now Birmingham international airport, in the de Havilland Tiger Moth, and, crossing the Atlantic in RMS Queen Mary, at Kingston, Ontario.

Post-war, he became an instructor at the RAF’s Central Flying School where in 1950 he was awarded the King’s Commendation for Valuable Services in the Air, and in 1951 the Air Force Cross.

Back in the Fleet Air Arm, Rawbone flew the Navy’s first operational jet, the Attacker, from the carrier Eagle, before commanding 736 training squadron.

In 1956, during the Suez Crisis, Rawbone commanded 897 Naval Air Squadron flying Sea Hawk jets from Eagle in the day-fighter/ground-attack role. Ten of his 14 pilots were straight from flying school, and “we knew that the Egyptian aircraft were superior to ours, so, to save ourselves a lot of grief, we planned to take out the airfields at first light on the first day.” Rawbone trained his novice pilots in night operations and they responded with “skill and great spirit”.

Flying at dawn on November 1 over Inchas, Rawbone recalled, “there were several craters from RAF bombs but no damage to runways or hangars”, so he led his squadron down to strafe and rocket rows of parked aircraft. Later that day he sank a barge which was being towed into the Canal.

Confident that the Egyptian air force had been put of action, over the next few days the Fleet Air Arm turned to Army targets and bridges “but most targets were so lightly defended that one had an uneasy, almost guilty, feeling”. Only on November 3, over Almaza, was there intense and accurate flak, but all aircraft returned safely.

In the days before the campaign, Rawbone had passed on his knowledge of escape and evasion, teaching his young pilots to sew compasses and maps into their clothing and to carry sidearms. Only Lieutenant Donald Mills, shot down on November 6 100 miles into the desert, was obliged to make use of this knowledge, and he, unlike Rawbone in 1944, was rescued by helicopter.

Next Rawbone commanded the frigate Loch Killisport (1959-60) in the Gulf, and was Commander (Air) at the Royal Naval Air Station, Lossiemouth, and then in the fleet carrier Ark Royal in 1961-63. From 1963 to 1968 he held senior staff appointments ashore, before commanding the frigate Dido (1968-69) and Royal Naval Air Station, Yeovilton (1970-72), where he oversaw the arrival of the first Sea Harriers.

Next he commanded the guided missile destroyer Kent (1972-73), and when he was promoted to rear-admiral he was appointed to Nato headquarters at SHAPE (1974-76).

Rawbone flew more than 40 types of aircraft including most marks of Seafire: he reflected that the later models “were faster and more advanced but, in my view, none allowed that feeling of joie de vivre so apparent in the early marks.”

In 1976 he joined a family-owned car franchise in the South West.

Ray Rawbone married, during a brief leave in 1943, his teenage sweetheart Iris Willshaw. Both needed their parents’ consent, and after a two-day honeymoon they only saw each other once in the next year. Iris survives him, with their daughter; a son predeceased him.

Ray Rawbone, born April 19 1923, died March 12 2023

[OneHungLow]

Geraldyn M. Cobb (March 5, 1931 – March 18, 2019), commonly known as Jerrie Cobb, was an American aviator. She was also part of the Mercury 13, a group of women who underwent physiological screening tests at the same time as the original Mercury Seven astronauts. She was the first to complete each of the tests.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman

Jerrie Cobb.JPG (55.42 KiB) Viewed 359 times

Women have had, and still do have, to put with so much c%*p.

[OneHungLow]

A bit like the contemporary mythical ace, the Grey Ghost of Kiev, Tomb seems to have been an artefact of wishful thinking, or a psychological crutch, or at least a chimera, summoned up by amalgamating the exploits of a number of pilots as part of a popular mass delusion, likely fostered by propagandists who wanted, or more likely, needed a hero, mythical or otherwise, that a hard pressed opulace, and pilots themselves, could hang onto at a time of personal, martial and national stress!

That some USAF pilots actually believed Tomb was real is a tribute to the effectiveness of the myth itself, wherever it emerged from!

Colonel Tomb

The story of the epic aerial combat duel between North Vietnamese MiG-17 pilot Colonel Tomb and the American F-4 crew of Lt. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Lt.(jg) William P. Driscoll was popularly featured with CGI-based reenactment of the battle scenes on The History Channel in the premiere episode of the 2006 television series Dogfights.

"I could see a Gomer leather helmet, Gomer goggles, Gomer scarf...and his intent Gomer expression... I began to feel numb. My stomach grabbed at me in knots. There was no fear in this guy's eyes as we zoomed some 8000 feet straight up."

— Lt. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, describing his canopy-to-canopy encounter with Colonel Tomb in the pilot episode of Dogfights and in his combat memoirs of May 10, 1972

[OneHungLow]

The creator of this interesting video, a usually reliable commentator, gives some interesting insights into the basis for the Colonel Tomb fable...



Even without "Colonel Tomb" , North Vietnamese aces did exist and the North Vietnamese Air Force was a credible and often effective adversary!


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_V ... lying_aces

[OneHungLow]

Nguyễn Văn Cốc

I guess his name was no laughing matter....



The video is irritating for the speed with which it moves from caption to caption (clearly from a book), but worth freezing to read them.

[CharlieOneSix]

Well, I hope he's not a forgotten pilot - Flight Lieutenant John Cruickshank VC of Aberdeen will be 103 on May 20th.
.

Cruickshank VC.jpg (33.61 KiB) Viewed 264 times

On 17 July 1944 an RAF Catalina flying-boat with a ten-man crew took off from Sullom Voe in the Shetland Islands. Its role was to assist in providing anti-submarine cover for ships involved in Operation Mascot, an unsuccessful attempt by carrier-based aircraft to destroy the German battleship Tirpitz moored in the Altafjord near Norway’s North Cape. The U-boat that the aircraft attacked and sank was U361 not U347 as once thought. When the Pilot Flying Officer J A Cruickshank collapsed because of his wounds and loss of blood, Flight Sergeant J S Garnett, the Second Pilot, took over the controls of the plane. Garnett was awarded the DFM.

London Gazette Citation for the award of the Victoria Cross to John Cruickshank:

This officer was the captain and pilot of a Catalina flying boat which was recently engaged on an anti-submarine patrol over northern waters. When a U-boat was sighted on the surface, Flying Officer Cruickshank at once turned to the attack. In the face of fierce anti-aircraft fire he manoeuvred into position and ran in to release his depth charges. Unfortunately they failed to drop. Flying Officer Cruickshank knew that the failure of this attack had deprived him of the advantage of surprise and that his aircraft offered a good target to the enemy’s determined and now heartened gunners. Without hesitation, he climbed and turned to come in again. The Catalina was met by intense and accurate fire and was repeatedly hit. The navigator/bomb aimer was killed. The second pilot and two other members of the crew were injured. Flying Officer Cruickshank was struck in seventy-two places, receiving two serious wounds in the lungs and ten penetrating wounds in the lower limbs. His aircraft was badly damaged and filled with the fumes of exploding shells. But he did not falter. He pressed home his attack, and released the depth charges himself, straddling the submarine perfectly. The U-boat was sunk. He then collapsed and the second pilot took over the controls. He recovered shortly afterwards and, though bleeding profusely, insisted on resuming command and retaining it until he was satisfied that the damaged aircraft was under control, that a course had been set for base and that all the necessary signals had been sent. Only then would he consent to receive medical aid and have his wounds attended to. He refused morphia in case it might prevent him from carrying on. During the next five and half hours of the return flight he several times lapsed into unconsciousness owing to loss of blood. When he came to, his first thought on each occasion was for the safety of his aircraft and crew. The damaged aircraft eventually reached base but it was clear that an immediate landing would be a hazardous task for the wounded and less experienced second pilot. Although able to breathe only with the greatest difficulty, Flying Officer Cruickshank insisted on being carried forward and propped up in the second pilot’s seat. For a full hour, in spite of his agony and ever-increasing weakness, he gave orders as necessary, refusing to allow the aircraft to be brought down until the conditions of light and sea made this possible without undue risk. With his assistance the aircraft was safely landed on the water. He then directed the taxying and beaching of the aircraft so that it could easily be salvaged. When the medical officer went on board, Flying Officer Cruickshank collapsed and he had to be given a blood transfusion before he could be removed to hospital. By pressing home the second attack in his gravely wounded condition and continuing his exertions on the return journey with his strength failing all the time, he seriously prejudiced his chance of survival even if the aircraft safely reached its base. Throughout, he set an example of determination, fortitude and devotion to duty in keeping with the highest traditions of the Service.

[Karearea]

I happened to read this death notice in the NZ Herald:

DAVENPORT, Ernest. Born 4 January 1923. Warrant Officer in the Pathfinder Force. Pilot, Bomb-Aimer, Sailor, Engineer, Artist. POW 1943-1945. Beloved father of [etc] On the 3rd May 2023, Ernest peacefully took his final flight after 100 years and four months. ...

and investigated.

Audio of a 20 minute interview with transcript:

https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.u ... ent/10768

and a 53min. interview on video which I found well-worth seeing:

https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/memori ... port-2015

from a Radio NZ article earlier this year, https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/481 ... turns-100

He led a fruitful life of building a family and a career as an electrical engineer in New Zealand.
He said it was his love of sailing that pulled him to New Zealand in the 1950s.
"And before you know where you are, 100 years have gone," he said.