Thanks mate, very well explained might I add.

So, when the RAF did daylight raids, did they also adopt the tight box tactics? I guess it made sense.

Thanks for that, I didn’t think they would have used lights on the exterior (even though they had them).

Ah, so each individual navigator plotted their own course as such to the target, rather than all following the leader and dropping bombs when he dropped (as alluded to in Memphis Belle).

I’d forgotten about the exhausts, that would indeed be a visual aid. I’d have though the instrument lighting in the cockpit would also show up?

Thanks Ian,

Yes, Nigel Park was the chap. I was confused about his relationship to Sir Keith Park.

Freyberg I don’t know, but Monty was (while no coward) a definite rear echelon commander. Couldn’t get his caravans in the trenches perhaps!

Another issue was the risk of valuable and knowlege filled senior officers getting captured by the enemy; so any seniour RAF commanders flying over occupied territory were not encouraged. Churchill was flowen over Normandy in a captured Storch by AVM Harry Broadhurst…

Actually thinking about it James, you’re right about Monty. I was getting confused there. He was a smashing General though, wherever he lead from (despite what all the Yank films say!!)

General Sir Bernard Freyberg VC was a London-born but NZ-bred-from-age-of-two Kiwi who lead the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force in WWII, and was NZ’s greatest army leader ever. Having worked in the NZ Army in both NZ and Britain, by wartime he had much sway in military circles and was one of Churchill’s best mates. He became one of the top Allied commanders in the North African and Italy campaigns, leading the New Zealand Division who were a substantial portion of the 8th Army.

Freyberg did lead from the front, right in the trenches and foxholes down with the privates, etc. In fact the junior generals used to get peed off at him for advancing too fast, or disappearing off for a shoot up! He was gung ho but with a brilliant mind for tactics. Once Churchill, his lifelong mate, asked how many scars he had (accrued during both wars) and Freyberg apparently showed him over 50 shrapnel and bullet wounds!

He later became the Governor General of NZ, and a statue of him is in central Auckland. Amazingly no statue to Keith Park though!!

I do know that several pilots that had been promoted to wing leader and station comander levels still flew sweeps over Europe. Aces Al Deere, Johnny Checketts and Bill Wells included. Bill was commanding Kenley (from memory) but he would fly sweeps with 485 (NZ) Sqn – his old Sqn – and an Aussie Spitfire sqn too. He told me that after these sweeps the Kiwis were often astonished how the Aussie squadron made claims for kills that simply hadn’t occurred – they’d met no enemy on these occasions but the Aussie pilots claimed kills he said. hmmm

Another chap I know lost his bomber crew because the crew was borrowed by the station commander who had to do a bomb raid once a month, and they were shot down. So it seems it wasn’t unusual at that rank level.

But as James says, higher ranking officers in the Air Staff ranks were too valuable and knew too much. It’s lucky Keith Park escaped the attack in Malta.

Didn’t fighter station commanders regularly do the odd sweep with the wing though?

There’s a difference between a station commander (usually a Wing Commander or Group Captain) and Air Staff (Air Commodore and above) going operational though. Air Staff are too valuable, aren’t they?

Mind you, the best generals, like Monty and Freyberg fought right up with their men I guess.