Our Father's War Read online

  © Julie Thomas and Hal Thomas 2011

  This book has been created as a tribute to my late father, Flight Lft. Hal Thomas, who was a foundation member of 485 New Zealand Spitfire Squadron. He joined the Air Force as a reservist in 1939 and was called up when war was declared, sent to a training camp in Blenheim and taught to fly. He was on war course No.4.

  In August 1940 he set sail for England aboard HMS Akaroa and he wrote of his experiences along the way. Through the rest of 1940 and all of 1941 he sent letters home from England. At the end of 1941 he was posted to the Middle East. When he was eventually brought home in late 1943 there were only three others of his No.4 war course left alive.

  After his death in 1991 I found a box containing over a hundred and fifty letters, both from him and to him, from his family, dating from his school days in the 1930s to the late 1950s. I have long been fascinated by the descriptions in the war letters and have decided to share them. They are one young man’s view of WWII, from the air and on the ground, in his own words.

  CHAPTER ONE

  INTRODUCTION: HAROLD LANE THOMAS

  Hal Thomas was born on October 7th 1917 in Cambridge. He was the eldest son of Harold Tahana Thomas and May Thomas (nee Matthews). My Grandpa was an amazing man; he was the 7th of 14 children and was born in a tent in Houhora in the far north of the North Island of New Zealand in 1891. He was delivered by a Maori midwife, her husband was a Chieftain called Tahana, hence the middle name. He left school at the age of 12 and worked as a carpet seller for a major Auckland retailer, Smith and Caughey, travelling around the countryside on horseback. He married his sweetheart, May Matthews, who worked in the glove department of Smith and Caughey. When he went to WWI in the Army as a private, she was pregnant. She moved to Cambridge (two hours south of Auckland) and stayed with friends to have her first born, a son. She named him Harold after his absent father and Lane, after the couple she was staying with, Lane Taylor. Grandpa was invalided home after recovering from a mustard gas attack and met his son, who was by then 18 months old. He brought him shoes (which I still have) big enough to fit a 6 month old. At the time of these letters Grandpa was the head of a chain of furniture stores called The Maple Furnishing Company, which he had started himself. He was heavily involved in the Rotary movement and in 1959/60 he was World President of Rotary International. He died at 101 in 1992 and outlived his eldest son by a year.

  Dad was educated at Mt Albert Grammar and Waitaki Boys High. He played rugby and tennis and was good at English. He won a nationwide essay competition with an essay on trees. He went to University in Wellington and nearly had a BCom when WWII was declared. He was a reservist so was called up immediately and he joined the Air Force. He trained at Woodburn in Blenheim, war course No.4 with 20 other men, and then sailed for England. After converting to Spitfires he was posted to 258 squadron for a matter of weeks, before being chosen as one of 16 pilots to make up the foundation of the R.A.F.'s "new baby", 485 New Zealand Spitfire Squadron, in March 1941. They flew new machines purchased by the people of New Zealand and his was called "Mission Bay" after the Auckland suburb where he grew up. The letters and later writings describe what that part of his war service was like. There is an obvious contrast between the two because of censorship, but he was able to explain to his parents what a squadron was and he also talks of specific losses. In late 1941 he left England, again by ship, sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, spent a few days in Durban and then boarded the New Amsterdam for the Middle East. His first four months were spent in Sheikh Othman, Aden, instructing and being the adjutant to the station C.O., and then another four doing staff duties in Cairo and flying with 233 Wing in the Western Desert and 1411 Met Flight out of Heliopolis in Egypt.

  His last year, from August 1942 to August 1943, was spent as Flight Commander for 123 Squadron in South Persia (now Iran) and the Western Desert. The fascinating thing for me is that I never knew about this year. All the conversations I have ever heard about my Dad's war were about the eight months with 485 and since his death, Mum and I have gone to annual 485 reunions. He was extremely proud of having been a foundation member. But when I started to really read the letters chronologically and to examine the lists and comments he had made in preparation for writing his own memoires, I discovered a "hidden war". Twelve months of service he never spoke about. And I believe there are two main reasons for that. The censorship from the Middle East was savage. Any mention of what he was actually doing and the letters, sporadic enough to start with, simply didn't get through. The Squadron was posted all over the desert, South Persia and Cyrenaica, and often mail was not forwarded. He went months without hearing from home and at one point he describes letter writing as "futile". He wrote home when he was on leave, from places such as Alexandria and Cairo, a long letter on two weeks leave in Palestine and Syria, and the impression created was that his Middle Eastern service was one long holiday. I found a letter from Grandpa back to him that says that he knows the truth; that the air war rages in that part of the world and he knows there is "much left unsaid."

  Secondly, sadly, the reality is, no one asked. Dad was a modest man and, when he came home, he did nothing to correct the misconception his letters had created. He didn’t talk about 123 Squadron, apart from one newspaper interview for The Auckland Star, which thankfully Nana kept. In fact there are many tattered and faded newspaper clippings and, apart from the foundation 485 ones, they are all about other flyers, except for one piece of journalistic gold dust.

  He came home and met my mother, Thelma Browne (a Cambridge born, farm girl, who was a W.A.A.F in the RNZAF stationed in Rotorua) six weeks later. Three months after that they were married and it lasted 48 years until his death in July 1991. They had three sons and a daughter, who between them produced eight granddaughters and two grandsons. There are (to date) seven great-granddaughters and six great-grandsons.

  Of the people mentioned in the letters, some were important in all our lives. My eldest brother was named Richard, after Dickie Bullen, whom you will read about later. 'Pip' is the wonderful late Phillip Coney (the father of well know cricketer, Jeremy Coney). He and Dad started school the same day at the age of 5 and were close friends all their lives. They roomed together in Wellington, trained at Woodburn together, travelled to England together and stayed in touch throughout the war. Pip flew bombers and Dad flew Spits. After the war Pip, Val and their kids were a part of our lives. When Dad died Pip sent a letter to Mum and said he couldn’t come north to the funeral, not because Dad meant too little, but because he meant too much.

  John Frecklington, or "Freck" as we knew him, was Dad's constant companion in the Middle East. He was a sheep farmer from Fielding and a lovely man; he came home earlier than Dad because he was injured. Gus Taylor was Fergus Taylor, the dentist, a large part of our lives when I was growing up. His eldest son, Digby, was a yachtsman and his daughter, Libby, was a year behind me at school. Peggy Coote and Clive Hulme (VC) were both distant cousins of Dad's. Peggy's parents lived just out of Oxford and she was a nurse. Clive was awarded the VC in Crete. Bill Crawford-Compton stayed in the RAF after the war, married an English girl and rose to the rank of Air Vice Marshall. I remember his glamorous wife wore wigs and he had bright blue eyes, a broken nose, a laughing smile and he brought me books. He was the most charismatic man I ever met as a child. When I started going to the UK their home in Yapton was my bolt hole and they looked after me, as friends of my Grandparents had looked after Dad during the war. They were due to come to NZ again and Dad was playing golf when Bill's relative called to say he'd died in Jersey. When Dad came home I had to tell him. I remember him going out into the conservatory and sitting by himself, to remember.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Prolog
ue: Night Flying in a Spitfire

  Four pilots were assigned for night operations during fighter nights and flew to Church Fenton which was a night operational station. When enemy aircraft were plotted, one pilot was scrambled and we normally drew lots for order of take-off. The flight could last two hours and two operations would be the normal maximum per night. The fighter nights were arranged during a period of raids on Hull and on three consecutive nights the city was on fire as raids were mounted each night.

  On the first night Bill Middleton flew the first take-off and he was scrambled at about 2100 hours. Just as we heard his engine open up for take-off the phone rang and the controller asked us to stop him taking off as a Whitley aircraft had crash landed on the runway with a full bomb load. We were not able to stop Bill and we waited for the impact should he hit the Whitley. He was just airborne when we heard the crash and his aircraft ploughed into the bomber, scattering bombs and petrol as his Spitfire broke its back. We jumped on to the fire wagon and arrived at the scene at the same time as the ambulance. Fortunately there was no fire and Bill was conscious. He was taken to York Hospital and only suffered a broken knee cap. He rejoined the squadron two weeks later and was shot down over the channel on his second operational flight.

  My turn came two nights later and I was sent off at about the same time. The runway lights were very dim and visible only under 250 feet. There was no margin to line up the nose of the aircraft and the most difficult problem to overcome was the exhaust flame on each side of the cockpit. The Spitfire was totally unsuited for night flying because of the high nose, lack of visibility forward when landing and the fragile undercarriage.

  I entered cloud immediately on take-off and climbed on instruments through 6000 feet of what seemed like thick black cotton wool. On breaking out of the cloud I was overcome by a feeling of loneliness that is hard to describe. Beneath me was a white sea of cloud and above, a clear sky with a brilliant moon and stars. The only other sign of human existence was apparent in my shadow tracing my flight path across the sea of clouds. I climbed to 20,000 feet and levelled off at a point 100 miles out over the North Sea. The controller called me up on the radio and gave me a compass heading to fly to intercept what he described as 90 plus Bandits (enemy aircraft). At this range from the nearest German airfield they could only be bombers heading for a raid on one of the major cities in the Northern part of England. The only hope of seeing them would be to pick up the red exhaust gases from their engines as we had not got interception radar, as carried by later aircraft designed for night operations. It is not possible to describe the feeling of being completely cut off from any contact with another person; the sheer overpowering feeling of absolute solitude was an experience I will never forget. I imagine Charles Lindbergh felt the same way when crossing the Atlantic on his solo flight. He faced thirty-three hours compared to my two hours, although I had 90 plus enemy aircraft in my vicinity that would see my exhaust flames well before I could pick up theirs. They carried special fittings to reduce the glare. Our later fighters were fitted with “fish tail” covers on the exhaust outlets to achieve the same thing.

  In the event I was not able to locate the bombers and was ordered to return to base. During the next half hour I was completely in the hands of the controller who would provide me with the necessary course in order to avoid balloons which were concentrated in the industrial areas. I was given a course to fly which would bring me over a location 30 miles from the aerodrome. Should my radio become unserviceable, I was under orders to fly due west until I estimated I was across the coastline and bail out. That was a prospect which was regarded with concern by every pilot, bailing out at night was more frightening than bailing out in daylight. However the alternative didn’t exist as the whole countryside was blacked out, navigation wasn’t possible without a navigator (as carried by bombers) and the danger of hitting balloons was very real. The controller directed me to the map location where a truck was positioned with a flashing light, turned on when I was overhead at 3000 feet. The beacon flashed in Morse, two letters at set intervals. Every evening the truck was driven to a different location and the flashing letters were changed. In that manner enemy aircraft were not able to locate the aerodrome should they pick up the lights flashing.

  Five minutes of flying a known course at a given speed would bring me over the aerodrome at 2000 feet, and then the controller gave me a course to fly and reduce my speed and height, to line me up on a lighting system. This would produce a tunnel down which I would fly to approach the runway. The lights on the runway were visible only below 250 feet and I’d be over the place before I could see the flare path to land on. The tunnel, known as the Drem Landing System, consisted of several 40 gallon drums holding lights, spaced in an inverted cone pattern and at a fixed distance apart for a mile from the runway. I was flying down wind at the mouth of the tunnel (at its widest point) and once they were turned on, I turned across wind and knew that I had to fly directly down the tunnel, losing height at 300 feet for each light. I had lined up at 1500 feet and, as there were four lights on each side, I should be at 300 feet on the aerodrome boundary. At that time the dim lamps of runway lights would be turned on and I could land. Should enemy aircraft be in the vicinity when we arrived over the aerodrome, the lights would not be turned on and we would be instructed to climb to 5000 feet and bail out. The success of such a delicate operation, bringing a single engined fighter home from a spot, 20,000 feet up and 100 miles out to sea, is dependent on the pilot having complete confidence in the ability of the controller to provide the correct courses. These came from the plots of the aircraft given to him by the plotting stations using radar.

  The absolute loneliness of the pilot of a single engined fighter at night is something experienced by very few during the war. The daylight flights were always flown in squadrons and in sections of at least two. Other pilots were visible and we could talk to each other by radio. Bomber crews had company during the night flights and this was a very real factor in providing confidence in each other and allowing them to face danger. Later night fighters were two engined and carried two airmen, a pilot and a navigator/radar wireless operator.

  The operations described above were, to me, some of the most incredible experiences of my five years of flying in the war, I still look back with astonishment. I flew for 500 miles at night, in complete black-out, up to 20,000 feet and returned to an aerodrome which was also in complete darkness and landed on a runway with a flame path visible only under 250 feet. Added to the above problems was the fact that the Spitfire was never meant to be landed at night because of its design, whereas the Hurricane, with perfect forward vision and a strong wide undercarriage, was made for night flying. But we flew what we had to, where we had to, with what we had.

  CHAPTER THREE

  All at Sea

  I’m sending this diary back to New Zealand by a steward who will post it for me in Auckland sometime before Christmas; that’s if the old Akaroa is not held up enroute and makes it safely back. I have no doubt that most of my previous letters home were censored but this missive should be safe enough so I will try to describe our trip in some detail.

  August 10th 1940

  The Akaroa left Lyttleton at 6am, this morning, Sunday August 10th 1940 and it was with mixed feelings that we watched the shores of New Zealand disappear over the horizon. For many it was a sudden moment of truth, saying goodbye to weeping loved ones and not knowing if, or when, we would see them again. There was not a great deal said during that last hour as we stood on the deck in the chilly mist and rain, all eyes glued to the fast receding hills of Lyttleton harbour. Although we are excited by the adventure that lies ahead and keen to get on with the job awaiting us in England, we all feel that the greatest thrill of all will be the day when our homeland is sighted again on the horizon. I have settled in very well and am delighted to find several of the chaps I went to school and Varsity with are here. Some are bound for Spitfires, some for Lancasters and some for Fleet Air Ar
m.

  August 17th 1940

  The ship was ploughing through a storm for the first five days and the Captain told us that such weather invariably puts 75% of the passengers to bed. However not one pilot was ill and there was no sign of a meal missed, much to the steward’s amazement. There was a severe system of fines for missing meals at our table and that may have had something to do with our outstanding sea legs! Shipboard life is a doddle compared to the exhausting eight months we’ve spent in camp at Blenheim, months of continuous flying and difficult exams, and we all agree that this is probably why the time at sea passes very slowly. We may have needed a bit of a rest but we’re also fit young men on our way to fight a war. I spend much time up on the bridge and have taken several shots at the sun with a sextant; this marine navigation is as fascinating as our own aerial branch of the subject.

  August 21st 1940

  Pip, Bob and I were in the chart room just before Pitcairn Island appeared this morning and it was a memorable sight to see this little rock, just a mile square, appear right over the nose of the ship after steaming for eleven days and covering 3500 long miles. What can I say about Pitcairn? I sent a letter home just for the novelty of using the Pitcairn envelope I’d purchased from a native for seven pence. The island is a desolate spot with little apparent vegetation, although the oranges grown there are simply delicious. The natives barter their carved wooden ornaments, fruit, walking sticks and other goods for money or anything you’ll exchange with them. I bought a curious walking stick for Grandpa and some oranges. We all found it most amusing to see natives paddling out to the ship wearing pullovers and scarves made of Air Force Blue and knitted by none other than Mrs Caldwell and her lady friends in Blenheim. She used to give all the pilots pullovers and scarves and of course the boys who’ve gone ahead of us by this route have apparently traded their surplus woollies for fruit.