I came across these amazing pictures in a book – tipping a V1

No problem

Hi JDK,

No problem:) but newspaper journalists may not even take any time to identify a Spitfire, from a Tempest or a Mosquito as they are possibly to many of them (not all I must add) are just another vintage ‘relic’ aircraft.

Forgetting as journalists of course that they (and us) continue to think, speak and write in English as our predominant language thanks to the thousands who flew these aircraft and their Great War (predecessor) aircraft in ultra tough conditions and maintained our freedom and the sovereignty of this still great island nation. Each aircraft had it’s strengths and weaknesses and weren’t all a simple ‘job lot’ of metal on a journalists shorthand scribble pad.

I too have not found a reference for a Mosquito doing any tipping of V1s.

nJayM – no problem, the onus wasn’t on you to back up or deny that article, and thanks for sharing it! However it is a(nother) good reminder to read the papers carefully. I’m pretty sure that’s another example of a military pilot’s achievement muddled by ignorant reporting. But I’m interested in further data.

That sounds highly unlikely, and I’ve never heard of Mosquitos being used for ‘tipping’ V-1s. I suspect – unless anyone has better info than one of the foaming tabloid’s articles – that we have a classic case of muddling the rare but fascinating event of the V-1 tipping technique beloved of the media with the actual proper intercepts by fighters using guns.

Remember once the Anti-Diver measures were properly worked out, running out of ammunition and aiming to tip a V-1 was effectively a confession of failing to do the job as intended. In the early days while tactics were being developed and it was a free for all, using all your ammunition and having another go made some sense.

Big thanks to Peter V for his firsthand Mosquito experience – and very interesting Coastal discussion, too!

Regards,

Hi JDK
All I have done is given a short direct extract from the newspaper article. I cannot confirm the statements in the newspaper article.

As young apprentice back in the 70’s my fitter/master was a polish guy who said that he worked on Spitfires tuning them to chase and shoot down Buzz-bombs anybody got any info on special tuning for buz-bomb chasing?

Been watching quite a bit of gun camera footage of “Pilotless A/C” or “Flying Bomb” being shot down by various squadrons.

A couple of clips even showed the trails from a V2 disappearing up into the heavens…

Film #
11186….P/O Weller….1….21/11/44…. 1400….Spitfire….V2 Vapour Trail….camera only
11187….FS Brown….91….21/11/44….1500….Spitfire….V2 Rockets

Thanks for your reply Peter, it seems then that the threat of rockets and missiles was put in low order in the early post-war years, which seems surprising given the damage that they actually caused the UK during the late war period.

“…Peter Middleton later served as an RAF fighter pilot who used the wing tips of his Mosquito warplane to divert deadly German ‘doodlebug’ flying bombs away from London.

That sounds highly unlikely, and I’ve never heard of Mosquitos being used for ‘tipping’ V-1s. I suspect – unless anyone has better info than one of the foaming tabloid’s articles – that we have a classic case of muddling the rare but fascinating event of the V-1 tipping technique beloved of the media with the actual proper intercepts by fighters using guns.

Remember once the Anti-Diver measures were properly worked out, running out of ammunition and aiming to tip a V-1 was effectively a confession of failing to do the job as intended. In the early days while tactics were being developed and it was a free for all, using all your ammunition and having another go made some sense.

Big thanks to Peter V for his firsthand Mosquito experience – and very interesting Coastal discussion, too!

Regards,

…Rawnsley and Wrights book “Night Fighter” covers the subject excellently…

Thank you! I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of the book I’ve been quoting!

Kate’s grandad, the doodlebug nudger

Kate’s grandad, the doodlebug nudger: Newlywed royal pays tribute to pilot who knocked V1 missiles off course with his plane’s win

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384740/Kate-Middleton-pays-tribute-pilot-knocked-V1-missiles-course-planes-wing.html#ixzz1YFbujBlW

“…Peter Middleton later served as an RAF fighter pilot who used the wing tips of his Mosquito warplane to divert deadly German ‘doodlebug’ flying bombs away from London.
Kate was close to her grandfather and after his death at the age of 90 last winter, she delayed the announcement of her engagement to Prince William by several days….”

Please scroll down in the article (URL above) albeit “The Daily Mail”:) and the pics of V1 tipping are slightly bigger than I posted originally.

To answer Pagens point about training. I went through the NF OCU late 1951 to early 1952 and missiles etc were never mentioned. The AI Mk 10 then in use had quite a limited range, about 6 miles on another Mosquito and perhaps 10 on a Lincoln. But range could be seriously compromised by ground returns so the fighter needed ideally to be flying at a lower level than the target, to aim the radar down flooded the screens and made picking out the target much more difficult.

If you are interested I wrote the attached for the mossie.org website. The first two sections cover my training and then AI Mk 10
http://www.mossie.org/stories/Peter_Verney_2.htm

Some interesting, to me at least, learnings about British night-fighter operations whilst reading this afternoon.

First, regarding my question about Fighter Command influence in the tactics, page 5 of this USMC report notes that RAF night-fighter pilots were drawn from all the Commands including Bomber and Coastal, basically high-time older pilots with lots of instrument time:

Night Fighter operations in Great Britain

so perhaps less of a Fighter influence than I suspected.

Second, I haven’t yet substantiated this claim but it seems that at least one FAA Firefly crew had a go at blind-firing on a radar contact while hunting He 111s:

Firefly NF.1

Good lads!

It was a Coastal policy pushed-through by Group Captain Richardson in 1943 on the basis that the Nav had better situational awareness ( through charting, radar and the fact that he was often the only chap awake on long flights ) and was therefore by default the crewman in command, since he was the one giving the instructions and waking the pilot to make course changes.

Yes and this policy survived through Coastal Commands’ existence and into the Nimrod era, certainly in the early 2000s, when my last flight was with a Nav as crew Captain.
This is essentially because the mission is controlled by the Nav (usually TACNAV), the pilots are there to ensure the aircraft in the right place and doing the right thing.

Was there any continued immediate post-war training for interceptor pilots/navs specifically to counter missiles and flying bombs?
Or was the threat essentially non existent until later into the 1960s?

I’ll push in my tuppence worth.
AI Mk10 was just coming into general use at the time but tactics were only just being devised. In any case the coverage of Mk 10 would preclude satisfactory interceptions of fast head on targets, which were also well below. It was much easier for the pilot to chase the jet flame, and as has already been stated, misjudge the range. Rawnsley and Wrights book “Night Fighter” covers the subject excellently.
It is difficult I guess for the layman to comprehend the difficulties faced by the nav/rad. He was not looking at a TV type display, but two screens which had to be cross interpreted.
There is also the question of captaincy, also discussed here, and pilots were most definitely in charge. It was very difficult for many to accept orders from a nav/rad to do things which seemed to be against reason.

I wonder how widespread that became? Ivan Southall of 461 Sqn RAAF was certainly captain of his aircraft, and he flew mid to war’s end. And IIRC, in Maritime is Number Ten, the story of 10 Sqn RAAF, there’s no mention of Navs as Captain – but I wasn’t looking for that, so I may’ve missed it. Certainly both RAAF Squadrons operated under RAF Coastal direction and operational requirements.

Back on topic, the development of night fighter crew workload took some development, and was (pre-Mosquito) hobbled by the unreliability of the early AI, leaving the operator very spare and frustrated.

Bear in mind it was only a year or two earlier (pre-war) that pilots were almost all the qualified full time aircrew in the Commonwealth’s air forces, other roles being undertaken by pilots seconded, or ground-crew co-opted or volunteering – either way, they were very part time as bomb aimers gunners/WOPs etc, let alone more dedicated technical roles that developed. I could go on (the development of the Flight Engineer role, the recognition that ‘seat of the pants flying’ was not effective etc. etc.)

Regards,

Where do you get that from? Certainly 10 Sqn and 461 Sqn RAAF (Sunderlands) that was never the case throughout W.W.II based in the UK. I’ve interviewed one 10 Sqn pilot, who was very much ‘Skipper’ and in charge of the aircraft – his Coastal Command flying starting in September 1939.
Regards,

Hi again,

It was a Coastal policy pushed-through by Group Captain Richardson in 1943 on the basis that the Nav had better situational awareness ( through charting, radar and the fact that he was often the only chap awake on long flights ) and was therefore by default the crewman in command, since he was the one giving the instructions and waking the pilot to make course changes. Yet despite that responsibility of command the pilot remained the Captain.. Richardson determined that had to change.

The first non-pilot Captain in the RAF was Flight Lieutenant Bob Irving ( of later orchestral fame ) who passed the No 111 OTU course in the Bahamas. After that, Coastal accepted that Navs could and should be Captains.

Anyway my original pondering was whether night-fighter tactics were dictated by the pilot doing traditional fightert-piloty things whereas the Nav had the big-picture.

Glad it was of interest!

I wonder what tactics would have been used if the Coastal Command acceptance of Navigator as captain of the aircraft had been applied in Fighter Command and the pilot reduced to driver…

Where do you get that from? Certainly 10 Sqn and 461 Sqn RAAF (Sunderlands) that was never the case throughout W.W.II based in the UK. I’ve interviewed one 10 Sqn pilot, who was very much ‘Skipper’ and in charge of the aircraft – his Coastal Command flying starting in September 1939.

AFAIK, the German Naval Air Service of W.W.I was unusual in that the two-seaters the observer was the officer and in charge, and the pilot a ‘chauffeur’. I’d be interested in other examples where pilots were given a more junior role.

Regards,

Just to elaborate, the visual identification before attack was required to position for an effective attack and also, critically, to ensure that the target wasn’t ‘friendly’. Sadly, even so, there were numerous cases of allied aircraft being attacked and shot down – IFF was not, like the AI radar itself, reliable enough to be assumed to be working, even without combat damage.

Secondly this was predicated on single bombers or a ‘bomber stream’ and vectoring by ground control was vital, the sky being mostly empty, and AI having short, directed range. The V-1s on the other hand were coming in a ‘corridor’ at high speed, but straight and mostly between known heights, and trailing a long flame. ‘Gatekeeping’ above would be more effective than trying to use ground control which would regularly be swamped by batches of V-1s.

Here’s a video of the Planes of Fame JB-1 ‘Loon’ (US built copy of the V-1) engine in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCsKs2NhdWg&feature=related

Regards,

I wonder what tactics would have been used if the Coastal Command acceptance of Navigator as captain of the aircraft had been applied in Fighter Command and the pilot reduced to driver…

When did this apply? Never heard of CC navigators being captains of their aircraft before.

As JDK correctly says radar in night-fighters was never used to engage the target; that was done entirely visually. Radar, both ground control and on the fighter, was only used to find the target. Night-fighter radar of this period was very limited in range; perhaps only a mile or two under good conditions.

Very interesting, thanks to both CD and JDK. This was quite a revelation to me, as I had assumed that the AI would have been the primary means of executing for the attack.

More reading required for me but I did find this account that indeed highlights the passing-off from radar approach to visual attack

Mosquito vs Me 410

After four minutes, range was 1,000ft and I obtained an indistinct visual of a twin engined a/c, which, on closing to 300ft, I believed to be a Ju88.

I wonder what tactics would have been used if the Coastal Command acceptance of Navigator as captain of the aircraft had been applied in Fighter Command and the pilot reduced to driver…