"Cobber" Kain

Trying to remember where I read this, one of the Hurricance books I think?

It speculated that the crash was a cumulation of his fatique, and the fact that he was told to fly back to the UK in that tired old airframe with the watts prop, and he probably just momentarily forgot the difference in the performance enevelope between these older aircraft and the later generation replacement aircraft which he had got used to over the previous months.

I agree about being a great story for a film/TV, but only ever likely if NZ TV or film industry will fund as hollywood wouldn’t want to know as it wouldn’t involve any americans……. :rolleyes:

In Alan Mitchell’s book he noted that when they’d first met, Cobber was a very fit, large man.

Rules out Tom Cruise, then;) – Nermal

Thanks Laurie, another eyewitness account. Very interesting. Flick rolls and slow rolls are, are they not, two different manouvres? Perhaps for the Doctor that Mitchell talked to, it all happened in slow motion.

It almost sounds like Cobber was totally burned out, which is understandable. He apparently had been very keen to get back to the UK and become an instructor for a rest.

I have read that Noel Monks’ book ‘Fighter Squadrons’ is dedicated to Cobber Kain, but I have not yet seen a copy of the book.

As for his story getting a Hollywood make-over, I perish the thought. They’d no doubt want to cast that idiot Russell Crowe simply because he’s a Kiwi, rather than find an actor that would suit the part. No, I am certain this is a job for New Zealand filmmakers. They are, after all, among the best.

I can think of one star that would be perfect however, Sir Tim Wallis’s Hurricane P3351. It served with Cobber Kain on 73 Sqn, and was one of the aircraft that did a flyover at his funeral!

Flick and slow rolls are different manouvres and, as you mention, the burn out is very understandable after the events of the previous weeks.

Can’t help on the rank issue, I’m afraid. Although, at the time, acting ranks were granted because of the prevailing circumstances and could well have been dropped as replacement Flt/Sqn commanders became available.

BR

Laurie.

Here is another odd thing, he is always credited as Flying Officer. He had been in the RAF since 1936, joining up already a trained pilot, and after a bit of RAF training he was made a Pilot Officer.

The Cambridge newspaper report I have from 18 Novemebr 1939 refers twice to him as an Acting Squadron Leader. But he was back to Flying Officer when he died 7 months later. Would Act. S/L be a temporary rank when, say, he is filling in as CO while a replacement came? Did Cobber command No. 73 Sqn temporarilly?

And what about Flight Lieutenant – the rank in between. Is this purely a mistake by the local newspaper? Or did he go up and then back down the ranks, by either fair or foul means?

Did he perhaps get busted? You’d think someone as publicly loved and followed as he was would be well liked by the top brass. He got results, and was well known for his skill. So why, after almost four years in the RAF, did he end on the lowly rank he did? A bit odd.

I’m not in a position to comment on the accuracy or otherwise of the earlier comments, but “Fighter Pilot” by Paul Richey does allude to “Cobber” Kain etc and his untimely death. A good read IMHO.

Thanks Laurie, another eyewitness account. Very interesting. Flick rolls and slow rolls are, are they not, two different manouvres? Perhaps for the Doctor that Mitchell talked to, it all happened in slow motion.

It almost sounds like Cobber was totally burned out, which is understandable. He apparently had been very keen to get back to the UK and become an instructor for a rest.

I have read that Noel Monks’ book ‘Fighter Squadrons’ is dedicated to Cobber Kain, but I have not yet seen a copy of the book.

As for his story getting a Hollywood make-over, I perish the thought. They’d no doubt want to cast that idiot Russell Crowe simply because he’s a Kiwi, rather than find an actor that would suit the part. No, I am certain this is a job for New Zealand filmmakers. They are, after all, among the best.

I can think of one star that would be perfect however, Sir Tim Wallis’s Hurricane P3351. It served with Cobber Kain on 73 Sqn, and was one of the aircraft that did a flyover at his funeral!

Dave,

I have just finished reading “Fighter Boys” by Patrick Bishop. It is a relatively new book about the BoB and the events in France that preceded it. It is well researched and told. Excellent book, I thought.

It mentions Kain on several occassions. There is one passage that deals with an encounter with Kain by a pilot of 1 Sqn, Paul Richey. Richey had been recuperating in Paris after being wounded earlier.

The meeting took place in a cafe on the Champs Elysees the evening before Kain’s death. At that time he (Kain) was with the Daily Express journalist, Noel Monks. Richey describes Kain on that evening as ‘young enough to still have acne, but his spirit was frayed’. Richey also noticed that Kain was nervous and preoccupied and kept breaking matches savagely in one hand whilst glowering into the middle distance.

The next paragraph in the book deals with Kains death the next day. He had taken off from the Sqn base at Echemines, southwest of Paris and started perfoming rolls very close to the ground. The incident, according to the book, was witnessed by Sergeant Maurice Leng, a 27 year old RAFVR pilot from London, who was one of the first VR pilots posted to a fighter unit to replace casualties. Leng states, ‘he’d taken off in…. the last original surviving Hurricane of 73 Sqn with a fixed-pitch, two bladed propellor’ Leng goes on to say ‘He took off and came across the airfield, did a couple of flick rolls and hit the deck. That was it’.

I must admit, I don’t know a great deal of Kain but his story certainly seems to be an interesting one and probably worthy of telling on either TV or film. Hopefully, if it was told, it would not be “souped up” to appeal to the Hollywood clique.

BR,

Laurie.

Piece of Cake is the only dramatised programme I’ve seen about the Battle of France, and the film Dunkirk is the only movie I know about that covers that interesting part of the war. Both contain a mix of fiction with fact. I think it would be great to do a purely factual dramatisation that showed the battle as it really was, seen through the story of the Battle’s most famous warrior, Cobber Kain. He’s perfect for such afilm or TV drama.

I think because the Battle of France was such a farcical defeat for the British and French, the media’s previous love for Kain disappeared with his death. The media at large has only looked back on the Battle of France with negative memories, and all the heroic and positive things done in the battle, by many, was quickly forgotten and overshadowed by the heroism of the Dunkirk withdrawal, and the susequent victorious defence of Britain. So the Allies’ withdrawal is remembered, it’s previous victories forgotten, melted into the defeat.

No, Spitfires weren’t based in France.

Incidentally the director of Dunkirk was a Kiwi and I saw him interviewed some years ago when he returned for a visit to NZ. He said that no Allied footage of the Dunkirk withdrawal existed, because the one man who’d been with a film unit and filmed it all had then been orded to throw the cans into the sea to lighten the boat! He said every documentary you see with black and white film taken from an Allied point of view is actually taken on his film set!!

Co-incidentally I was looking up something totally unrelated today at the museum in old 1939 locl newspapers, and I found that Cobber Kain had visited Cambridge in 1935, and stayed with the family of Don Taylor, who himself went onto become a Spitfire pilot with 485 (NZ) Sqn. He too died by hitting the ground during a low manouvre in 1945, when he was strafing a railway yard and hit a lamppost!

Ant, that bit about him drinking the night before was something I’d forgotten. In Alan Mitchell’s book he noted that when they’d first met, Cobber was a very fit, large man. This all the photos and newsreel proves. But Mitchell said on their final meeting many months later Cobber was thin and tired and drawn, due to the lack of meals and long combat hours. I guess by then alcohol went to his head much more, without him realising he shouldn’t drink so much. He may not have even had that much to drink, but it may have been too much for his frail frame.

These things become legendary after a while and it becomes difficult to separate myth and fact. All that said, I’m with you Dave – it is a great story and of course being a Kiwi gnome I’m in total agreement with you 😉

I’m also wondering (not necessarily supported by facts here) whether this is a relatively under-storied part of the war. There are plenty of stories about the Allies’ shall we say “successes” (BoB, Bismark and assorted other brave naval or merchant marine stuff), RAF and USAAF bomber crews, North Africa, spying and the resistance etc.). But (I think, may be my own biases over time) not a lot of attention on the time when everything was going Germany’s way – and the Allies were fighting a losing rearguard action. I can only think of that Spitfire squadron in France TV series (were there Spitfires in France 1940?). That losing/rearguard feel would be another perspective to add to what you note above.

It could be a great drama indeed.

As I remember it,Kain had just recieved a posting to a new unit and had therefore spent the previous night drinking until the early hours at his leaving bash. The theory goes that he was still under the influence when he took off next morning,and crashed while attempting some farewell aerobatics.A shocking waste of a great pilot and by all accounts a good bloke.
Don’t drink and drive…