THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR DODGY MACHINES
Peter Andrews

I was recently accosted (in the nicest meaning of the word) in the village by my two faithful readers (may their tribes increase!). They wanted me to elaborate more on my recent article on the Whitley bomber and the target towing Defiant. A few years before World War 2 the British Air Force were still using planes virtually little different than those of World War 1, still fabric covered and only marginally faster. In 1936 during the Spanish Civil War the Germans joined in so as to try out their latest planes and tactics. This spurred us on to catch up in designs, resulting in the Spitfire and Hurricane, the latter still fabric covered. A highly secret plane the Boulton Paul Defiant was unveiled. This had a gun turret amidships (see picture) which was blanked out when pictured in the newspapers. However, in 1938 a party of German Air Force (Luftwaffe) officers came here and were given a guided tour of the RAF including being shown the "Defiant"! When war broke out the German fighters using their usual tactics of attacking from the rear had a shock when shot down by a fighter firing backwards, well, they did have advanced warning, or should have!

As the "Defiant" was a lot slower and only had two guns firing forward the Germans now attacked below and from the front - result - owing to losses, it was withdrawn and used as a training plane for pilots and airgunners, also as a target towing plane which was the type shot down at Gosport in 1942. The turret was replaced with a winch with which the operator let out a long steel cable attached to a drogue, this is like the windsock at an aerodrome, only a lot bigger.

The Whitley, designed before World War 2 was classified as a "heavy" bomber, but was slow and under-armed, when the Lancaster came on the scene the Whitley was withdrawn and relegated for use by Coastal Command against U-Boats. When the Germans overran France their fighters were sent to bases in the west which resulted in many losses, as in the case of Jim Edwards unfortunate "incident". Another plane, the Fairey Swordfish, designed I believe in about 1934, as usual fabric covered, was used to drop torpedoes. Again, slow and only one gun firing from an open cockpit behind the pilot. Though it did some stirling work, notably when they raided Taranto in Italy and virtually wiped out the main Italian fleet, otherwise they were decimated. I believe there is still one flying at Air Shows. On returning from India in late 1947 I was posted to Beaulieu, remember that hard winter? To my relief, early in 1948 I was posted to Gosport, where they had four Swordfish amongst a few other "modern" planes.

This was an experimental torpedo unit, if any of you were in the Stokes Bay area at the time you may have seen us dropping torpedoes in the Solent, we also had regular trips to Cornwall where we did trials off the Isles of Scilly, using the Royal Naval Air Station at Culdrose. I had many an enjoyable flight in the old "stringbag", though we did lose one which crashed in the sea with loss of the pilot, but luckily there wasn't an observer aboard. Another plane came back in spite of one cylinder head blowing off. These planes were used because they were slow and what's more very stable, ideal for the job. After 3 years and with only a year and a half to go before my discharge, to my horror I was posted to the Canal Zone where they had Vampire jets, it was from the ridiculous to the sublime!!

THE BOULTON PAUL DEFIANT FIGHTER