RAF killadeas

Robert,

Excellent accounts. Thank you for posting.

Regards
Tom

 

I have the site plans for Killadeas upstairs unfortunately too big to scan - would have to look to locate "Sandras" - Castle Archdale did have them .

Thanks for the info Robert - I will make a point of adding some on Eddy later tomorrow.
An example of the connections- He did a course in Blackpool - Seward who was killed in the first Catalina op from Lough Erne was in the group photo as was Vic Furlong later of 240 , 423 and 422 RCAF.
John Iverach ( I posted a number of his photos) was later to come across Seward - they didn't get on Seward kept trying to tell him how to navigate Iverach was an NCO at the time and he didn't take kindly to Seward's attitude and his pulling rank - all the more so as he was not a member of the crew and was only along to observe.
Furlong also turned up as skipper to a several men who later went on to form the bedrock of Al. Bishops crew in 423 - and George Holly's crew in 422 RCAF - they were shot down by Lang's gun crew on U921 - as you say Robert when the dots start to joint up connects which are quite unexpected are made.

 

Some info which I received from Eddy Edwards - I have quoted from correspondence that which I can link to certain incidents and that which is specific to the OTU.

"I wonder if the Sunderland you mentioned as lost (422 or 423 Squadron) was the one I searched for in Donegal Bay. It sent out a Mayday , but was never found.This was on 13th November 43; I rec'd a call from CA seeking help, so with a skeleton crew in Cat VA722 I was in the area within an hour of the call.There was a full gale blowing and the sea was very rough. After a three hour search in what I consider a hopeless situation I aborted ; there was no way a FB could land in that sea and survive.....it would have disinteegrated on impact".

The Sunderland Eddy refers to is a 423 aircraft DD863
Crew ;
Brazenor , A.F. (Fl/lt).
Brockway ,S.G. (F/sgt)
Money ,R.J. (Sgt)
Fell ,H.W. (Sgt)
Attwood ,H.E.E.(Sgt)
Flynn ,M.F. (Sgt),
Bigmore, D. (Sgt),
Morgan,L.(Sgt),
Stiff ,R.W. (F/sgt).

Wilson , R.H. (P/Off.) RCAF.
Pharis , H.B. (F/Off.) RCAF.

Some wreckage was later washed ashore but of the crew not a trace.

I am rather annoyed at this point as I should have a photograph to post here showing several of the crew- it was loaned to one who will remain nameless and was lost.
In return I managed to get some material which was not mine - who owns it - I have no idea.

Moving on........

Eddy's first training course ended badly.

"Re the two Cats lost on 30 Dec.42, the one which crashed at Stranraer was piloted by Sgt Tullock; I think there were two survivors. Both Cats were on OFEs ( Operational Flying Exercises). There were four Sgt Pilots on the first recognised course , the other two were Palmer and Tattersall. They were given 72 hours flying training, and during that time would combine with their chosen crew , who were also being trained in their trade i.e. navigator, WOPs, fitters and riggers...also receiving Air Gunner training.
The purpose was to train a complete crew so that on joining a squadron they would be able to commence ops immediately. In my day we flew as 2nd pilot and received "on the job" training from the skipper.
The COTU had a CI and two subordinates CFI and CGI. The CI ( W/C Lynwood) would know a lot more about the overall running of the OTU than I would.It was my job to organise the flying training , to check out pilots , administer and develope that side to the best of my ability. Prior to the start of the first course I tyrained specialist crews of other squadrons and a number of W/C's and S/ldrs about to take command of newly formed Cat. Squadrons.
You can imagine how I felt on that cold snow-driven day of 30th December 42 when the first course was a write off.....the other two didn't pass the course!
I don't recall precisely what happened what happened that day , except its finality and how IU could prevent a re-occurance. Well that's how I came to develop the new radar decent through cloud procedure , which I am glad to say was most successful."

 

Great stuff james. I know what you mean about the size of the airfield plans. I have some of Ballyhalbert and Kirkistown and you could paper your walls with them.

Another account from RAF Killadeas:-




John Edge:- Account Killadeas
　
Killadees in Northern Ireland was another operational training unit but mostly Catalinas rather than Sunderlands. So that's when my greatest adventure started. I left from a boat in Glasgow, overnight on the boat, up early in the morning to see my first sight of Northern Ireland. Off course Id seen it from the air before. We got into Belfast, and got a train up to Killadeas on Lough Erne. Well the train stopped at Enniskillen and they picked you up and took you out to the station. We were billeted in Nissan huts, cold as anything especially in the winter. When the stove was on, if you stood on the table and reached the ceiling it was lovely and warm. I had seven blankets on my bed, two underneath and five on top.


Started for the first time on Catalinas. There were two RAF navigators in the hut with me and one of 'em was Welsh. You know, when he had come back from leave, the first thing he asked was, "What's the time?" in Welsh, he'd do that every time. The only two phrases of Welsh I knew was 'nos dar,' goodnight and 'yack-ee dar' good health. I was coming back from London in the train and most people had got off. There was two young girls in the same compartment and I knew they were talking about me, they'd look at me and giggle, they were about sixteen or seventeen year old and they were talking Welsh of course. They got out before me and as they got up and got to the door I called out to them 'nos dar." Well you should've seen the looks on their faces, you could see, they looked at each other, looked at me. I suppose to this day they don't know whether I understood what they were saying but that was a little joke I played on them.
Shortly after we arrived at Killadeas i applied for some leave,went down to Belfast and booked into a hostel in Royal Avenue in the main street. There was one other guy there, I didn't know him from the course but we decided one night to go to a dance. I was looking at the local paper and for dance halls and I said to him, "We're in Ulster, so we should go to the Ulster Hall." One of the women at the hostel said, "Oh goodness, don't go there, that's a terrible place," she said, "Albert Whyte's is the loveliest ballroom in Belfast," So we went to Albert Whytes. After I got in there a while I saw this lovely dark haired girl surrounded by quite a lot of people. And I thought, "Gee, you know, she's nice," but I didn't feel like I should intrude and go over. She was dancing with everybody every dance. So I admired her from afar and then a young fair haired girl in a ladies choice got up and asked my mate, the bloke I was with, for a dance. When we were finished he called me over, he said, "Jack, meet Norma"- the usual line, I said, "You haven't got a sister here by any chance have you?" She pointed over to the dark haired girl, she said, "that's my sister." I said, "Bring her over." So Eileen came over, we were introduced formally, and we went out on dates after that.


I was then posted over to East Fortune on what they call a ground instructors course for a while before returning to Killadeas . When I was over there I bought the engagement ring and came back and she said, "Yes." I just couldn't believe it, this most beautiful girl I'd ever met said yes. So I used to try and get as much leave as I could. She was just a lovely looking girl , fascinating accents. There was at the hostel I was staying in a dry cleaners next door and I used to go down just to talk to the girl just to hear her talk. It was a beautiful accent.

I returned to Killadeas in the middle of the coldest winter that they'd had for years. Lough Erne froze over for the first time in living memory. It was the only time you could walk out to a flying boat still at its moorings, on foot. Tremendously cold. So we arranged for our wedding on the 19th of February. Now Eileen lived in Belfast.
We got married in a little church in County Down. Four of the crew came, Ernie Harris was our best man and the other, Terry Paget was groomsman. So we got married. We went down to Dublin on our honeymoon and I got paid in five, Bank of, Barclay Bank five pound notes.

I was glad I served my time on Catalinas. They were a lot smaller compared to the Sunderland. There was two pilots, engineer, wireless operator, etc... not as many as a Sunderland. We used to go up on what we call fighter affiliation, you know, the local aerodrome would send up a fighter attack and you had to learn to direct the captain which way to dive and turn and so forth. One day I was up and this fella, a wing commander, but he'd served all his time out in West Africa. The Miles Mariner, wasn't a top line fighter plane, more of a trainer and it'd come into attack and I'd say, "Dive port, dive starboard or corkscrew," and he'd just do this little gentle turn. And I said to him, "Look, it's not steep enough, we're gone!" I don't think he, I a warrant officer at the time, appreciated a warrant officer telling him how to fly his plane. So come in again, "Righto, dive port," and he put it into a tremendous dive, and the blister things fell open. Now if I hadn't grabbed the mounting of the machine gun, and we didn't carry parachutes, I reckon I would've floated out. He said, "Is that steep enough?" and I said, "Yes."
When you took 'em up on a gunnery exercise, you said, "Now if you get a stoppage, make sure the gun is pointing outwards." So I'm helping one fellow on the port blister and I looked round I saw the other bloke, he had a stop... he was bringing the gun inboard. I kicked it with my foot and as I kicked it out, it went off. A lot of people were killed that way. With a point five, when it stopped firing, the round was up the spout as we called it. In the 303 RAF ones, it was a rear seal that held the breach block back. So the round wasn't in the barrel. So that if they fired a lot of rounds, there was enough heat left in the barrel to explode the cartridge, and it would fire. I've heard of cases of, say a Flying Fortress would land, and one of the (UNCLEAR) lieutenants walked up to look at the gun and "bingo".

I enjoyed being an instructor but at first when you had to get up and talk at a briefing I was a bit nervous and so forth, but still the crews were coming through. Talking about things going off, depth charges you know, they were set on 'safe'. Well on their last trip the OTU [Operational Training Unit] boys, went out to dry drop live depth charges. They'd pick a thing, something as a target. Now when you dropped your charge, in both Sunderlands and Catalinas or any other aircraft, as soon as it was dropped the pilot did a steep turn, mainly, usually to port, so the navigator could take photographs of the U-Boat in most cases. They turned round straight away and the depth charges went off on impact and they threw up this great wall of water which the plane flew through... they never came back.
Normally it took twenty-five feet of water pressure to send them off, because twenty-five feet, they reckoned that was just about the bottom of the U-Boat and as it went off they could blow a hole in the hull. We were stationed on Lough Erne in Northern Ireland but Donegal which was the free state was on the coast, so they granted a corridor for us to fly through, so all the exercises were held out in the Atlantic somewhere west of Ireland. So you didn't have to be on operations to get killed. In fact in the air force I think there'd be nearly as many people killed in training as there was on operations.

Because there was so many deaths in the air force over that period, was there a mentality within the guys that today might be the last day, let's go and live because we might not be here tomorrow. Some of 'em drank you know to cope, they'd go out and get drunk, come home staggering and all the rest of it. Whether that was a part of it or not I don't know. But most of 'em , you just, as I said, you did your job and you left it to fate.

 

The Donegal corridor taken from the top turret of a 221 Squadron Wellington from RAF Limavady 1941.

 

Robert,

Excellent imput from both James and your goodself.

Regards
Tom

 

The Donegal corridor taken from the top turret of a 221 Squadron Wellington from RAF Limavady 1941.



Is that Lough Foyle in the Background there?

 

The two Catalinas - one crashed near Omagh , and the other near Stranraer.
Crew details, and a memorial stone erected at Reaghan / Knockmoyle area of Omagh to mark the crash of the Catalina from Killadeas.
Sgt Orr was a past pupil of Omagh Academy , his name is on the school war memorial to past pupils.

The attached , an unknown crew at Killadeas circa summer of 1944.

 

Robert,

Could the books description be wrong with this caption stating that the photo is shot from the top turret of a Wellington.

It really looks like a Sunderland to me due to its shape and 4 machine guns in the rear turret.

Besides the Wellington had no top turret as far as I am aware.

Regards
Tom

 

Hi Smudger jnr.

I think it is a Wellington of 172 Squadron Limavady although the date mentioned 1941 is wrong. There was no date attached with this photo.

On this photo you can see aircrew looking out of the top of a Wellington. Dont think its a turret more a lookout point.



Found the following on the Wellington:-

Mk III
The Mk III saw another change of engine, to the 1,590 hp Hercules XI. The new engine helped maintain the performance of the Wellington as its weight slowly increased. The prototype Mk III first flew on 19 May 1939, only two months after the first flight of the Mk II, but it took rather longer to enter service, not reaching the front line until June 1941. Other changes made to the Mk III included the fitting of de-icing equipment, and the capacity to tow gliders. The Mk III also saw the rear turret changed from the two gun FN-10 to the four gun FN-20, although this still used the .303 in machine guns, limiting the effectiveness of the increase in the number of guns. The Mk III remained in Bomber Command service until October 1943. Many of the surviving aircraft were then transferred to training units. In total 1,519 Mk IIIs were constructed.

 

Yes, if it is a Wellington? its definitely 221 or 172 Squadrons Limavady overflying the Donegal Corridor.

Thanks Robert

 

Robert I am inclined to agree with Tom , the size of the hull and the tail surfaces and the layout of the guns , it looks like an early model Sunderland to me.

 

Thanks James and Tom Im sure your right. Thanks for the correction guys. Much appreciated.

 

Catalina FP194.
Again from Eddy E.
"F/lt. Duffield was instructing on Cat FP194 on the night of 9th May 1943. Duffy joined my staff and was to give night flight instructions. It was my practice to take up all new instructors day and night , because as an instructor they would have to fly in the unfamiliar 2nd pilot's seat. After checking Duffy he said he was happy and I retired to the pinnace. On the first landing the pupil hit the water with the nose too far down, and it sank to the level of the top of the main plane. All were rescued, so I cancelled night flying and took the submerged Cat under tow. It was a slow haul back to Killadeas , where it was dragged up on the slipway and I think it was written off."

The form 1180 states - "Aircraft landed with drift , port float submerged.
CO Instructors first dual night instruction.
AO/C Full report."
Time of crash is given as 01.30 hours pilots are listed as F/O WS Duffield.
F/O. IS Stockwelland P/O EC Lawrence.
One member of the crew was injured , his name is not recorded, the training had last 2hours 50 mins. up to the point of the crash landing.
The aircraft was written off.

FP110 - "Australian historian F/O John Herrington crashed and was seriously injured. He transferred to Halton RAF Hospital and eventually married his nurse!"

The 1180 for this states - "Aircraft crashed into water- C of I : Port wing dropped on approach at ASI 70 knots.
Cause not known . Impression Acident would have been avoided if port engine had responded to throttle - no instructor fitter on board , inexpereinced fitter at panel. Engine probably allowed to cool excessively. Consider Pilkot acted competently.
AOC evidence confused - further sitting - cause probably flying eror of pilot.
AOC I/C concur.

The accident took place near Innismakill Island which is just off Castle Archdale on the main flare path.

LAC Stanley Shaw was drowned and is buried in Lancashire . (Skerton Cemetery).

( I have an account of this accident somewhere and will add it later on).

 

Wedding photo of John Edge and his new bride as described in earlier Killadeas account.

 

This is from an original ww2 map of Northern Ireland i have.
You can see Lough Erne on which the stations Castle Archdale, Killadeas and St Angelo are all marked. Also the Donegal corridor and Donegal Bay.
This is exactly the type of map crews would have been using to navigate by.

 

Another map from Castle Archdale showing the Northernly upwards route crews would have to take to get out into the atlantic and the western route flown when using the Donegal corridor. As you can see much fuel and time was saved.

 

that pic of the Sunderland looks like its taking the northern route. It really does look like Lough Foyle

 

Hi Gotthard, might have got the aircraft type wrong but it is defitinely the Dogenal corridor. Too narrow for Lough Foyle.

X marks the spot.

 

Robert ,that is great map - if only eBay would surrender one like it to me , one can but dream .
Thanks for placing it on.

Attached the approach plans for the base at Castle Archdale - this dive tails with the Dernacross beacon which was operated near Belleek, it brought them right in on the nose and put them right down on the flare path.

If i could refer back to the Catalina crash mentioned earlier - Innishmakill and Gay Island can be seen in the diagram of the mooring / flare path area


Attached a photo of the school war memorial in Omagh Academy - Sgt Orr is named on it , I have some more info on this crew which I will post in the next day or two.
1944 was a terrible year for the OTU and for me one crash sums it all up the crew which was lost near Ely Lodge in November 1944.
Some more to be added directly.