Library Reference Number: 237
A Sunderland Pilot With No. 270 Squadron
With present day life-styles in mind, it must be difficult for young people of today to imagine what it was like for their grandparents trying to make choices during the early days of world war two. Germany seemed hell-bent on extending their borders even if this meant invading other European countries, and after many years of freedom even our own shores in Britain appeared to be under threat.
The following account offers a brief insight into how this ‘decision-time’ was handled by a group of five young men living in Edinburgh, and how only two of the five friends lived to tell the tale. One of the survivors relates his experience following his decision to volunteer for RAF service and become a pilot on Sunderland aircraft.
On Saturday 2nd September 1939 the evening before war was declared, I joined my friends in Edinburgh for our usual Saturday evening out. They were Douglas Wilson, Jim Beaton, John Campbell and Charlie Robertson. We always met at the Wellington Monument for an evening at a cinema followed by a coffee at the Westend Café. This evening proved very different, the Westend Café was like a military and naval base and the music was interrupted every so often when draft numbers for reservists were announced and those concerned were instructed to report to their appropriate assembly points.
While walking back to the east end of Princes Street our talk was all about the coming war and in what capacity we would serve. Of the five of us, only Charlie Robertson and myself survived. Douglas Wilson, an air gunner on Whitleys was shot down after three ops over the Ruhr and reported missing presumed dead. John Campbell serving in the Merchant Navy lost his life when torpedoed in an Atlantic convoy, Jim Beaton, a pilot, was shot down in the Indian Ocean, survived in a dinghy for five days but died soon afterwards.
At 11am on Sunday 3rd September 1939 war was declared on Germany, and at 3.30pm I proceeded to the RAF Recruiting Office at Tollcross, Edinburgh, then on Monday 4th September presented myself to the RAF at Central Hall, Edinburgh, and after a medical examination was accepted for service in the Royal Air Force.
Completing my basic training in January 1941 I was posted to RAF Driffield. At that period of the war our Whitley bombers were engaged in dropping leaflets over Germany which did not have the desired result and eventually those leaflets were changed to bombs. The Germans apparently didn’t like this and retaliated by selecting Driffield for their first daylight blitz on a British airfield. When the raid was over we could see the damage that had been done, several buildings and hangars had been reduced to piles of rubble and the airfield had many bomb craters. We immediately set about rescuing the wounded and collecting the dead and when this was completed we started to fill in the bomb craters, and were then granted leave.
While at home I visited Mrs Wilson, my friend Douglas Wilson’s mother and it was obvious that she had not been informed that Douglas was missing. Mrs Wilson had lost her husband in the First World War and now her only son. Shortly after receiving the news of Douglas’s death the shock was so bad that she died of a broken heart.
On completion of the ITW and after assessment I was posted to a grading course at RAF Sywell for a course of twelve hours flying training by which time one had to go solo to stand any chance of being allowed to continue on a pilot’s course. Failure to make the grade would mean you would be offered training as a navigator bomb aimer, wireless operator/air gunner. One never forgets that deep sense of pride as I was fortunate in going solo in only 51/2 hours of instruction and by the end of the 12 hour course had completed 3 hours solo.
Elementary flying training over, our group embarked on the liner ‘Queen Mary’ and arriving in Boston USA, we eventually arrived at Detroit railway station. We were then transported by naval bus to Grosse Ile Naval Air Base.
The course at Grosse Ile Naval Air Base comprehensively covered all aspects of precision flying, including simulated carrier landings by landing fully stalled, tail first in a circle that was only one and half times in diameter the length of the Stearman aircraft. One would approach the circle slightly higher than the perfect glide angle and as approaching the circle loose height by means of an ‘S’ turn or slide slip the aircraft. At this period of training we had to be competent in precision spins, recovering on a predetermined heading, inverted spins and falling leaves (those last two exercises were not normally allowed in RAF training in the UK), finishing with aerobatics and formation flying.
The day before my aerobatic check I was practising a full programme and after 35/40 minutes just as I was coming out of an Immilman turn the engine started to vibrate so severely that I could not read my instruments. I immediately closed the throttle and looked around for a suitable place to make a forced landing. Fortunately I could see that one of our emergency landing fields was within gliding distance.
Phoning the Engineering Officer from the emergency field I was told to run up the engine and do a pre-flight check. Checking all the readings I then reported back to him that all seemed normal but I was not happy with the engine. He then instructed me to run up the engine again and if it run-up correctly to take off and return to base.
I then proceeded to take-off, opening the throttle to the full position, everything was still normal so I completed the take-off run and started to climb. When at approximately 300 feet the engine exploded without warning covering the windshield with oil and it was impossible to return to the emergency landing field. I accepted the obvious that I was going to crash so I turned off the petrol and looking around the windshield I saw a small field ahead with a farmhouse to one side and at the end of the field a row of trees. Immediately in front of the field stood pylons carrying high tension cables. In a split second I had to make up my mind as in my present glide path I would hit the cables. However, remembering practicing side-slipping to landing I immediately did that and lost sufficient height to fly under the high tension cables and touched down just inside the field.
After three days I was declared fit to resume flying duties and then prepared for my aerobatic check which because of the crash had been put on hold. I was told later, that the crash had been no fault of mine and the reason the engine had exploded was because of a broken crankshaft.
Before moving on to the Flying Boats we required more ground school studies which included seamanship, and astro navigation. Also included was another course of meteorology and all aspects of the environment concerned with the safety of operating aircraft far out to sea where landmarks are completely absent.
Our next exercise was to sail a P2Y on water practising mooring up, sailing on busy waterways and beaching the flying boat. After being competent in taking off and landing the P2Y we were considered ready to be introduced to the PBY3 known to us as the ‘Catalina’ and already in operational service with the U.S. Navy and R.A.F.
Having successfully completed all the courses at Pensacola I was now ready to receive my Wings. I had flown almost one hundred hours in primary aircraft about forty hours in intermediate planes and thirty-five hours on flying-boats making a total of one hundred and seventy-five flying hours in six months. I was now ready to return to the U.K. and put all my training into practice.
The crossing on the liner Mauritania was uneventful except for one occasion when a periscope was observed. The Mauritania changed course and outran the submarine. After six days we landed at Liverpool then proceeded to Harrogate. Shortly afterwards I was posted to R.A.F. Little Risington the home of 617 Squadron famed for the Dambusters and Bill Reid the Scottish VC who since the war became a caring and firm friend of mine, we met once per month at the Scottish Branch of the Aircrew Association where I was Secretary for several years.
It was at Windrush a satellite of Little Risington that I completed advanced flying under conditions of war with lots of night flying in black-out conditions. From Windrush I was posted to No.4 (Coastal) Operational Training Unit at RAF Alness on the Cromarty Firth for conversion to Sunderland Flying Boats.
On being introduced to the Sunderland, when beached, I was most impressed. Although having experience of Catalinas and I thought they were large, the Sunderland was enormous by comparison. The mainplane spanned 112 feet 91/2 inches and the length of the hull 85 feet 4inches. The maximum all up weight was 56,000lbs or 251/2 tons. There were two decks to the front half of the hull and a single deck on the rear half. We were crewed up at Alness, myself and eleven others making a total of twelve members of crew.
The depth charges that were carried on racks electrically wound on to each wing, four depth charges to each side and ready for attack. A stock of depth charges and armour piercing bombs were stored in the bomb bay and used to recharge the racks. Depth charges weighed 250lbs and had to be released from fifty feet measured from the mainplane making the height from the water to the lowest part of the hull only thirty feet.
After many hours of practice we became very accurate straddling the target while making another allowance for the distance the target travelled during the depth charges release. Our flare path for night flying consisted of three paraffin flares attached to buoys one mile apart. The time had now come for practice operations in the North Atlantic and I was very conscious that this, at last, was the purpose of my long comprehensive training.
During a number of anti-submarine patrols we observed several blips on the radar screen which could have been periscope sightings, but in each case when barely a mile away the blips disappeared but I could still see a cigar shape under the surface, therefore at the appropriate moment I released four depth charges but had no further contact. We were later told that the Germans had developed an instrument which could enable a submarine on the surface to detect when they had been picked up on our radar.
Shortly after, the British responded to the German search receiver with a modified version of the highly successful H2S equipment as used in Bomber Command. Not only did it defy detection by the enemy but it greatly reduced our response rate.
Suddenly there was a marked improvement in the RAF success rate and it was about now that Admiral Donitz received a setback. For the first time since the beginning of the war he lost more U-boats than the merchant ships sunk. His action was to withdraw most of his U-boats from the North Atlantic and deploy them off the West African coast and South Atlantic. By this time I was a full operational member of No.270 Squadron, and to strengthen the air cover on the West African coast Sunderland squadrons were stationed at Gibraltar, Bathurst, Freetown and Lagos. 270 Squadron was based at Lagos but sometimes on certain occasions we would operate off the coast of Freetown and refuel there before proceeding out into the Atlantic.
After several uneventful operational trips, reports came through that several merchant ships had been sunk on their way north of Capetown. I was ordered to fly to the position of the last sinking. We took off from Freetown the next morning at 4 am to continue the search and when about six hundred miles northwest of Freetown we picked up a radar blip large enough to be a submarine and immediately homed on to it.
When three miles from the radar position I reduced height to fifty feet and alerted the crew for action. As I approached the U-boat it made no effort to submerge and as I was flying straight and level for the attack I was a perfect target for their guns as soon as we came in range when they opened fire and we were hit several times.
Suddenly all thoughts of fear vanished as I reacted automatically to the circumstances and proceeded to carry out the attack in the manner I had been trained to do. However, I manage to straddle the U-boat with four depth charges and in preparing for a second attack I felt the aircraft was not handling as it should but continued with the attack dropping another four depth charges. My rear gunner reported seeing an oil slick coming from the submarine. While reloading our bomb racks for third and fourth attacks the U-boat suddenly dived leaving their gunners to fend for themselves in the sea.
We were sure that we had damaged the U-boat but we could not produce sufficient evidence and it was officially recorded as possibly damaged. We discovered our aircraft had also been damaged and the nearest port with a suitable waterway for landing and refuelling was Port Etienne just below the south coast of Spanish Sahara. Our flight engineer found two cylinders had reduced compression and had to be replaced. For emergencies like this and other damages requiring repair, the Sunderland had a workshop in the hull towards the tail unit complete with a stock of spares including cylinders and pistons.
On another operation about two hundred miles south east of Lagos everything appeared to be going fine and then without warning the inboard port propeller detached itself and flew off forward and sideways cutting through the hull just behind the blind flying panel and also the lower deck. The hull was beyond temporary repair so I decided to return to Lagos and advised them of my position and requested the crash crew to stand by. On being beached for repairs it was revealed that the airscrew could have been damaged by enemy fire when attacking a U-boat north of Freetown.
Operational duties continued until May 1945 when after completing an operation in the Atlantic five hundred miles off the coast of Bathurst I returned to Freetown for refuelling only to be informed that the war in Europe was over and I had to return to Lagos at 4am.
Landing at Lagos I was instructed to report to the commanding officer when I was told to prepare my aircraft for return to the United Kingdom next day and to supervise the weighing of all air and ground crews together with all the luggage and kitbags to the maximum all up weight including the flying boat of 56,000lb or 25 tons. That was the maximum weight that the flying boat could lift off the water.
Only serviceable aircraft were to be used for returning to UK and all unserviceable aircraft were to be towed together with spares well out into the Atlantic and sunk together with all surplus ammunition.
All squadrons on the West African coast were returning to UK and early on the morning of 7th May 1945 I took off from Lagos to Freetown on the first leg of the journey home. As each squadron arrived at Plymouth they would be cleared by customs and fly to Wigtown Bay, near Newton Stewart, where flying boats would be handed over to the Ministry of Supply. For two hours they checked all instruments, all spares and every piece of equipment before the Sunderland was finally taken off my charge.
After ten days leave I received a letter from Air Ministry instructing me to report to BOAC head office in Croydon.
Because of my flying experience off the coast of West Africa I was seconded to BOAC to fly a civil version of the Sunderland from Calshot to Lagos calling at Gibraltar, Bathurst, and Freetown almost like a bus service for the next four months. I was then offered a post with BOAC if I signed on for five years with no guarantee I would remain all of the five years with BOAC. I declined this offer and next day I was on my way to RAF Uxbridge in London to complete my release from Royal Air Force service.
I considered later that I made the right decision as a colleague had also been seconded to BOAC and signed on for a further five years. He was recalled from BOAC to rejoin the RAF during those five years to fly Sunderlands during the Korean War when several Sunderlands were posted there. This would have been a stage too far in my way of thinking, as I felt I had experienced enough operational flying while serving during World War Two.
The joy brought about by the ending of world war two and return to civilian life was tinged with sadness at the thought of so many human lives lost. As mentioned at the beginning of this account, of the five good friends who last met in Edinburgh the day before war was declared, only two remained - Charlie Robertson and myself.
During a post-war reunion visit to the U.S. Naval Base at Pensacola, there was the opening of a U.S. Naval Aviation Museum which included a section devoted to British Pensacola Veterans, and I am proud that my name appears on the role of honour along with other RAF and Royal Navy Pilots.
Serving in a Sunderland flying-boat was a unique experience and those of us who were involved in any way with this splendid aircraft will always regret the day that it had to be withdrawn from service. It has now become a distant nostalgic memory for the chosen few and for the less fortunate simply a museum piece.
The needs for the majority today demand progress hence the constant struggle for greater speeds, heavier loads and space-age technology reliability. With all the automated systems and crowded airways that seem to dominate aviation, has the true pleasure of flying been lost? Certainly there are not many pilots about today who have had the opportunity to sail their aircraft as well as fly them.
Coastal Command has not had the apparent glamour enjoyed by Fighter and Bomber Commands but still produced a most important contribution to the success of the war while operating over the ocean and in some cases thousands of miles from any land.
Under threat from an enemy in wartime the country’s very survival depended on adequate protection being given to her ships when they were transporting not only food but also the military materials and equipment needed for the effective conduct of the war. Although we had heavy losses an adequate amount of food and war materials were able to get through, had the U-boats achieved their objective we would not have been in a position to continue the war. For our success there was a price to pay and although Coastal Command was considerably smaller than Fighter and Bomber Commands their losses were, by comparison, very heavy. From 1939 to 1945 over 10,000 airmen in Coastal Command lost their lives and it is a sacrifice we must never forget.
Note: The above is an abridged version of personal memoirs of W.J.L. Hall, Scottish Saltire Aircrew Association.