A Strange War

In 1891 family of Dorset farmers welcomed a new son into the world. His name was Louis Strange. Educated at St Edward's school he joined its yeomanry regiment. During manoeuvres with this unit, in 1912, at the age of 21, Louis saw something in the air. It was the British airship Beta 1. Imagine if you will the idea of never having seen anything larger than a bird in the air, then seeing a 31 meter long airship hanging in the sky, and the effect such an imposing bulk would have had. Later in the exercise he saw a few of the Royal Flying Corps aircraft puttering about above the troops. From this point onwards Louis decided he was going to fly. By October 1913 Strange had managed to qualify for the RFC, and in April 1914 he was listed as one of only five pilots to be members of the "upside down club", which was pilots who had flown a loop. Just a few months later the First World War broke out and Strange was posted to France.

Louis Strange

Strange was one of the first pilots to up gun his aircraft by mounting a Lewis gun on it. However his first attempt at using it was utterly unsuccessful. Three enemy aircraft were flying at 5000 feet, and his plane loaded with the extra weight of the gun was unable to climb to meet them. This mounting was Strange’s idea, and he soon came up with another, a type of incendiary bomb filled with petrol, which he used against a column of Germans on the 28th of August. Strange continued to work on his inventions, next came a strap that when worn by the observer allowed the observer to stand up and fire a machine gun through a much increased arc. Equally a machine gun was dangled from a crossbar fitted under the upper wing of his Avro 504. The standing observer could then point the gun in any direction, even directly behind. So armed Strange and his observer forced down a German Aviatik, on 22nd of November, who made a safe landing. Strange then tried fitting a bomb chute to his plane, the idea being that small bombs could be dropped with more accuracy. On the first operation a live bomb jammed in the chute. Strange conducted an emergency landing in a corn field, with a live bomb sticking out the bottom of the chute. By a stroke of luck the rough landing ripped the fuse and detonator from the bomb without triggering it.

In February 1915 Strange was promoted to Captain, and sent to 6 Squadron, and had a new plane to fly a Bristol BE.2c. His first mission was with another new bombing aid, a set of racks slung under his plane carrying several bombs. At a height of 46 meters he came barrelling towards Courtrai railway station. Around it were a large number of Germans soldiers, who sent up a storm of rifle fire. Cpt Strange's low level bombing raid knocked the station out of service for three days and caused 75 casualties, for which he won a Military Cross.

Cpt Lanoe Hawker

 While Louis was able to come up with ideas he wasn't an mechanically minded or an engineer. However while at 6 Squadron he met someone who was. Cpt Lanoe Hawker was a officer of the Royal Engineers who had been attached to the RFC. Hawker's previous claims to fame was an attack on a German airship shed with hand grenades. During which he had used a barrage balloon to shield him from ground fire while he made repeated attacks lobbing mills bombs at the Zeppelins. Later on Cpt Hawker was wounded in the foot. He refused to be grounded until the major battle he was fighting over had finished and had to be carried to and from his aircraft for each sortie.

So we have two very inventive minds, and one of whom is a dedicated engineer, faced with lots of problems. For example one of Cpt Hawkers later, joint, inventions was the double deck Lewis gun drum, which at a stroke doubled the amount of firepower the Lewis gun had. Lewis guns were the subject of this pairs next invention. Between them they created a mount which placed the Lewis gun beside the cockpit at an angle, allowing the pilots to fire forward(ish) and even aim to an extent.

 

On the tenth of May 1915, Cpt Strange took his Martinsyde S1 up, fitted with one of the Forward facing Lewis guns. The S1 was a horrible plane unreliable and underpowered, to the extent the total number built was only 60. During his patrol he spotted an Aviatik two seater and launched an attack on the German. After several passes Cpt Strange's drum was empty, and he reached up to change the drum. However the drum was jammed, having become cross threaded. Gripping the stick between his knees, Cpt Strange placed both hands on the drum he gave it a good hard twist, at which point the S1 stalled, flipped upside down and dove for the ground.

Cpt Strange was now hanging from the Lewis gun drum in a dive from 8500 feet, and hoping that the drum hadn't been loosened. Cpt Strange began to kick wildly trying to regain his cockpit as he did so his flailing legs smashed all the instruments. Suddenly he had a foot over the edge of the cockpit. Hauling his body towards the cockpit he felt the stick between his legs again, and managed to flip the craft upright, allowing him to clamber into the cockpit. Taking it under full control Cpt Strange pulled up and levelled off just a few hundred feet above the ground. His commanding officer was later to complain about Cpt Strange's actions causing unnecessary damage. The Germans were also reportedly unhappy, as they claimed him as shot down, and spent the whole day frantically searching the area for his crashed plane.

Cpt Hawker's Bristol Scout C, with the experimental mounting.

 On the 25th of July Cpt’s Strange and Hawker hatched a new plan. Louis was to fly along as a decoy, and await to be attacked. Meanwhile Cpt Hawker would loiter with intent In a Bristol Scout C, fitted with a forward firing Lewis gun. Then, when the Germans attacked Strange, Hawker could get the drop on them. During the next sortie, three Germans attacked Strange, and Hawker shot all three down. This feet won Hawker the Victoria cross.

Hawker would not survive the War however. In 1916 he met Von Richthofen. Despite the Germans superior plane Hawker led him on a merry dance for some time, until he began to run low on fuel. Von Richthofen had fired some 900 odd bullets at Hawker and his guns were running hot. As Hawker tried to break off Von Richthofen fired another burst, but his guns jammed. The final bullet of the burst hit Hawker in the head killing him instantly.

Strange was promoted through the ranks after a spell in the UK he returned to the front and finished the war commanding a wing of Aircraft. In-between the wars he settled on a farm, for a period. Or was otherwise involved in small aircraft companies.

Strange in RAF uniform

Strange returned to service for the Second World War. At the time he was aged 49, but was sent to the RAF's only transport squadron. They were immediately sent to France to the aerodrome at Merville. Their mission there was to retrieve what equipment and planes they could from the abandoned airfield. During the few hours they were there they managed to get two Hurricanes flying again, and promptly stuck unhorsed RAF pilots in them to get them back to the UK. Then a Soldier from the Durham Light Infantry sprinted onto the airfield. He had been a lookout at the nearby church steeple. He reported that the Germans were about 500 yards away and about to arrive. The remains of the squadron evacuated, apart from Strange. There was a single battered hurricane left. It was flyable, technically. But was missing minor things such as all its guns and instruments. There was also the minor point that Strange had never ever flown in a Hurricane.

Strange got it off the ground before the Germans arrived, and set course for home. He had to climb to 8000 feet near St, Omer when fired upon by AA fire. The AA fire had however attracted the attention of a nearby flight of Germans, who dived on Strange. The first aircraft made a pass, with a burst of gunfire which surprised Strange who had been engrossed in trying to learn how to fly this new craft. The next five Germans overshot his plane all missing. Strange took the only course he could, he dove. He flew so low he described it as "flying along the main street and through the chateau front door", however the Germans stuck with him, each trying to hit him with a burst of fire. Ducking over the Chateau, he followed a wooded valley twisting and turning as he went with the contours of the valley, the pack of Germans snapping at his heels. Suddenly a band of sand dunes flashed past him and he was over the Sea, with no cover. Strange spotted a British warship and turned towards it. The pack of Germans right on his tail. Luckily the Warship saw what was happening and put up a barrage of flak, which scattered the German pursuit. From there Strange made it back to the UK safely.

Louis showing off another invention, a jet powered grass drying machine on a farm in Dorset.

After this escapade Strange was then sent to setup the Central Landing School, which trained parachute landings, by war's end this school would train some 60,000 pupils from the RAF and Army on how to land in a parachute, this total included a number of the Para's dropped during D-day. However Strange was busy elsewhere, inventing, testing, and creating a school for CAM ship pilots.

Stranges' final wartime activities were to run several of the airfields in the Normandy Bridgehead, before being posted to SHAEF before demobbing in 1945. Louis Strange died on 15 November 1966 in Poole, Dorset.

Image Credits:

www.northlincsweb.net and www.dorsetlife.co.uk

First Battle

It is fair to say the Fairey Battle has a horrible reputation, and it’s easy to see why. For the first few days of the Battle of France the Battle ran at a staggering 50% loss rate. With such numbers it's place in history was fixed as a terrible aircraft. But before the Battle of France the Battle had another claim to fame, and its tied into the fortunes of Jagdgeschwader 152, equipped with the Bf 109.  

While the Battle did badly it might have been more to do with how it was used. Before the war it was seen as sturdy light bomber that was very easy to fly with a roomy comfortable cockpit. It was able to carry considerably more bomb load than a Bristol Blenhiem, and be almost as fast. It lacked the Blenheim’s defensive fire-power however. When thrown against the advancing German spearheads unescorted it was doomed to die, any bomber would have been. But what about before the fall of France during the Phoney War?

  

The day before Britain declared war on the 3rd of September the Advanced Air Striking Force was dispatched to France, in it were ten squadrons of Fairey Battles. During the Phoney War one of the missions that the Battle undertook was photo reconnaissance. For these missions three aircraft would take off, conduct their mission and return. On the 20th of September three Fairey Battles took off from Mourmelon-Le-Grand at 1000. These planes belonged to 88 Squadron. Their target was a reconnaissance mission near Aachen. Things started to go wrong before the flight had crossed the border. French AA guns began to fire at them. Then after completing their mission they were attacked by three Bf 109's from JG 152. The first German attacked and its target went down in flames, then the situation was repeated on the second Battle. In the last Battle Sgt L.H. Letchford stood up in the rear of his aircraft and manned the single .303 Vickers K gun. A Bf 109 hurtled towards him and he opened fire. The 109 peeled away and crashed. This was the first claimed kill during the Second World War by the RAF, and it went to the Fairey Battle. At the time there was no confirmation on it, but later on French sources confirmed it. Or did they?  

But first we should look at the second Battle to be shot down in this incident. It was flown by Pilot Officer Reginald Cubitt Graveley. After being hit, the ruggedness of the Battle came into play and PO Gravely managed to set the stricken plane down. Somewhere along the line the plane had burst into flames. PO Graveley struggled out of the plane, very badly burnt. However, he found that the rest of the crew were still trapped inside. He then raced back to the burning plane and rescued the rear gunner and dragged his burnt body to safety. Then he returned for the third crewman. PO Graveley found his recumbent form and struggled to free him, all the while the plane was burning around him. Unable to free the crew man, and determining he was dead PO Graveley got out of the plane. It took him seven months before he was released from hospital. For his actions PO Graveley received the George Cross. 

A week later another three Fairey Battles, this time from 103 Squadron, took off for a similar mission. The airfield of departure was Challerange and the time was 1220. The exact story of events is conflicting. About 1330 just as the planes were finishing their reconnaissance a flight of three Curtis H-75's belonging to the French Air Force attacked the Battles. A volley of recognition signals was fired and the French planes broke off. Shortly afterwards four German Bf 109's from JG 152 attacked. One of the Battles dove steeply pursued by one of the Bf 109's who had just shot down one of the other Battles. The gunner, Leading Aircraftman John Ernest Summers, held his fire until the last possible moment when the Bf 109 was as close as possible, before opening fire, shooting the German down. The Battle had not survived unscathed though. One of the crew was wounded and the engine was spluttering. Spotting an airfield, the pilot put the Battle down immediately and the wounded crewman was rushed to hospital, although he was to die later.  

While standing next to their damaged aircraft a French policeman approached and pointed to a pillar of smoke in the distance and said that was the 109 they had been attacked by. 

However, did you notice the similarities between both incidents? Three Battles attacked by JG 152's 109's, and French confirmation of kills after the event. Some sources say there was no loss on the 20th to JG 152, although I haven't been able to confirm this. The fight on the 27th is much more detailed and confirmed however. Equally on the 20th only three German planes are reported, normally the Germans flew in fours. While it’s not easy to make a count while getting shot at its a discrepancy. Could the reports have been muddled somewhere in history? Maybe even at the time with the French later confirming through channels that a Battle shot down a JG 152 plane, and both squadrons believing it was theirs? 

Either way the first RAF victory of World War Two was claimed by the Fairey Battle. 

Stopgap

In the years after the Second World War the British were worried by the thickness of the armour Russian tanks were carrying. The obvious answer to this was of course bigger guns, however the financial situation was very much against the army, with budgets slashed and a shrinking army. The cost issue meant that it was impossible to bring out new tanks, equally the time frame involved with producing new tanks meant that a war could break out before the UK had its new bigger gun tank in service. To give you an idea, since the end of the war most British armament projects have taken about 10 years. A few have been shorter, but many more have been longer, sometimes by a considerable margin (FRES/Ajax, I'm looking at you, and face the wall!). To this end the British Army took the sensible step of designing a quick and dirty stopgap to carry the bigger gun, one which could be produced right now with minimal work, and was normally based on the chassis of a current in-service tank. It might not be perfect, but it'd get the gun to the front in a very short time. These tanks were the FV4004 Conway and the FV4005. There was also another tank that fits the bill, the FV4101 Charioteer, which uniquely did see service. 

FV4101 Charioteer

This last vehicle was technically a tank, as it had a turret mounted machine gun, which to British thinking of the time classifies it as such (as self-propelled AT guns didn't have the machine gun). It was created for the need to get more 20 pounders to front line service. All things considered it was a pretty dire vehicle though. It managed to break the old engineering adage "if it looks right it is right", for the tank does look good, with sloped armour on the turret and a Cromwell's hull. However, the turret armour was only 38mm thick and all the 20 lb rounds were stored in clips on the turret walls. The protection was just for proof against .50 machine gun fire and shrapnel from a 25 lb airbust. To achieve the balance of the turret the trunnions for the gun were mounted as far back as possible in the turret. In addition, a new 64" turret ring was fitted to the Cromwell, increasing the diameter from 57.5 inches.  

When firing at targets under 1500 yards the gun blast obscured the fall of shot, making adjustments to fire pretty difficult. The crew consisted of three, which meant a two-man turret. The stopgap work around to this was to use the vacant hull machine gunners position to carry a fourth man. This allowed the tank commander to dismount, let the 4th man take over gunner’s duties, while the commander shifted some distance to the side and was able to command the tank and observe the fall of shot without the hindrance of the muzzle blast. Of course this would leave him exposed to enemy action such as artillery and left the tank as more of a fixed emplacement lacking the ability to use its mobility.  

Fv4004 Conway

At about the same time as the Charioteer was issued to units (1952), the Director Royal Armoured Corps announced that the FV4004 Conway was ready to be produced, although it was not intended to do so at this time. This was a Centurion chassis, with a large box turret to mount the L1 120mm gun. The reasoning behind the tank was that a Centurion’s maximum all up weight was 50 tons, and so the tank had to be designed to that level, limiting the total level of protection that could be fitted along with the gun. Sensibly the reduction in armour was applied to the turret sides. 

The turret on the Conway was a massive box and one can see a resemblance to the FV4101. This monstrosity was dumped on top of a poor unsuspecting Centurion chassis. Although unlike the Charioteer it did have more protection, 132mm sloped at 19 degrees. On top of that was a gun mantlet  which was 140mm in thickness, originally it was quite a small mantlet,however on the prototype the mantlet was extended to cover the machine gun as well. The ammo was much more sensibly arranged, with eleven ready rounds, but only five cartridges in the turret. The rest were stored as fighting rounds in the hull. Luckily the crew was back up to a sensible four, and it had a single coaxial machine gun. Originally a ARV cupola was fitted however this was discarded in favour of a selection of episcopes. The gun recoiled into the bustle where there was a hatch to throw out spent cases, it was planned as the tank developed to include an automatic ejection system. It was also planned ot develop a lower less high profile turret as well as the Conway's service life went on.

Fv4005 Stage 1

The final stopgap was the FV4005. The requirement for it first appeared in November 1950, with a design in place by January 1951. If need be it was considered it could be in production within 18 months. It was an interim measure on the Centurion chassis, mounting the massive 183mm L4 gun. It was to be on standby until the FV215 arrived in service, from the start it was to be a limited traverse mount. It may have had a "C" name like many British tanks. One document, out of many that I have seen on it, refers to it as "Centaur". Now this could have been a typo, for Centurion, or the Vickers project name, as the document isn't an official government one bet was from Vickers. Like the FV4004 it was limited by its upper weight of 50 tons. So with a much more massive gun and ammunition its turret armour was just 14mm to provide protection against small arms fire. 

The decision was taken not to produce the tank in early 1951, however three prototypes were to be constructed. One was an entirely experimental vehicle to test the gun mounting, and the recoil forces involved and how they affect the stability of the vehicle. Then with data gathered two second prototypes were to be constructed. The experimental vehicle, known as Scheme 1, or Stage 1, had a gun mounted that could traverse all the way around the tank, although firing was restricted to a small arc to the fore or rear of the tank.

Scheme 2 however was to be the real prototypes. The gun sight was to be a modified German TZF-12A sight, which was most famously mounted in the Panther tank. The loading system for two gunners was worked out and was described as: "A very simple form of hand loading which can be operated by two men has been evolved for use in this vehicle." 

In use, the Stage 1 developed some problems with its concentric recoil system, however as the Stage 2 used hydro-pneumatic recoil no problems were encountered and the tanks fired over 150 rounds without any problems. In late 1952 the prototypes were tested at Ridsdale gun range by Vickers, and some modifications were found to be needed.

By 1957 the idea of the 183mm gun had fallen out of favour and the three prototypes were sent to various locations. The Stage 1 was sent to Shoeburyness Proof and Experimental Establishment, and the Centurion hull returned to active service. One Stage 2 was offered to the Royal Military College for Science, and the final stage 2 was kept by FVDRE. 

Image Credits:

www.tanks-encyclopedia.com