Authors: Martin Bowman
Tags: #Bisac Code 1: HIS027140
On 24 May Wing Commander W.E.M. Lowry
DFC
and his navigator, Flying Officer Gerald Stevens of 684 Squadron flew to Tenassetim and Kra via the advanced landing ground at Kyaukpyu to take high-level vertical photographs. Then they dropped to just 50ft for oblique photos of St. Luke, St. Matthew and the Domel Islands. On 28 May Flying Officer Cliff C. Andrews
DFC RNZAF
and Warrant Officer H.S. Painter, a former schoolmaster at Enderby House, Narborough reconnoitred targets in the Siam Valley and covered Don Moang airfield at Bangkok, the waterfront at Sattahib and bridges on the Bangkok-Phnom Penh railway line. A ‘first-sighting’ message was radioed back about shipping observed at Sattahib. As a result, Liberators made attacks on two merchant ships and the port installations on 30 May and 1 June.
In early June the PR Development Flight was formed at Ratmalana in Ceylon with two PR.XVIs and two Oxfords under the command of Flight Lieutenant Henry Lowcock. Before Operation Zipper, the invasion of Malaya, could go ahead in September 684 Squadron had to obtain full coverage of a 10-mile stretch of coastline in the region of Port Swettenham on the east coast of Malaya. A new Mosquito, the PR.34, a VLR version of the PR.XVI, was available and if based on the Cocos Islands, 1,050 miles south-west of Singapore, reconnaissance missions to Kuala Lumpur and Port Swettenham were possible. On 27 March Squadron Leader Kos Newman
DFC
* and Warrant Officer Ray Smith
DFM
returned to England to test the aircraft’s suitability. They flew back in a PR.IX (which they had brought out in December 1943) so it could be inspected by de Havillands to determine how Mosquitoes were coping with tropical conditions. Warrant Officer Ray Smith explains:
We found the PR.34 to be entirely suitable to our requirements and at dusk on the evening of 29 May we took off from Benson for Karachi (in RG185/Z) in company with three other aircraft crewed by UK personnel, refuelling at Cairo West. This flight was to take the form of a race to establish a new England to India record. After we had been airborne for a short time, however our starboard engine started giving trouble and Kos decided that he would have to feather the propeller and return to Benson on one engine. The only problem with that was that we had about three tons of fuel on board, so it was decided to continue until we were over the Channel and jettison the drop tanks. We were over complete cloud cover at the time and my ETA for the Channel coast was slightly out, culminating in our dropping the drop tanks on a farm in Kent. From the farmer’s point of view, it was a pity that the tanks did not remain intact. Kos had never landed a Mosquito at night on two good engines, let alone one. On the final approach to the runway, he asked me to call out the airspeed and altitude for every 50ft of descent, to enable him to give his undivided concentration to the actual flying. I had just uttered the words, “120 and 50ft” when we came into violent contact with the end of the runway but Kos rectified the situation in his own inimitable manner and we were once again safely back on terra firma and so to bed. The following day we received information that the fastest time put up by one of the other three aircraft was 12 hours 27 minutes. The fault on our starboard engine having been rectified, we took off again that evening and did the trip in 12 hours 25 minutes, thus establishing a new England to India record.
The four PR.34s were taken on charge by 684 Squadron, which, on 9 June became part of 347 (PR) Wing, RAF. During June 684 was able to fly only six sorties from Alipore. With their operations restricted by monsoon storms, on 16 June Flight Lieutenants G. Edwards and Jack Irvine flew north to the peak of Makalu in Nepal, then to Mount Everest, 10 miles further west. Edwards circled the mountain for 20 minutes, taking photographs with cameras mounted in wing-tanks. Nepal was a neutral country and the Everest flights
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caused a minor diplomatic upset when details were released to the Press. It was explained that the aircraft were lost due to the extensive cloud cover and were only able to fix their positions by recognising the mountain. On 28 June 1945 the four PR.34s flew from Alipore, via China Bay, to the Cocos Islands, arriving the next day and forming (No.2) Detachment at the recently completed airstrip. No.3 Detachment was established at Chittagong in July but bad weather prevented all except one sortie being flown. On 1 July another flight was made to Mount Everest by two Mosquitoes from Alipore. One aircraft was fitted with cine cameras but heavy cloud and snowstorms prevented a clear view of the mountain.
On 14 June Wing Commander Michael H. Constable-Maxwell
DSO DFC
was appointed CO of 84 Squadron, which was now based at Chakulia. Constable-Maxwell, who had eight victories in Europe, was on his fourth tour. He brought with him to India his navigator Flight Lieutenant John Quinton
DFC
who participated in the destruction of at least three enemy aircraft and others damaged whilst serving on 604 Squadron in 1944 but the war with Japan ended before they saw any further action.
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At the end of June the Squadron moved to St. Thomas Mount, Madras, with a detachment moving to Guindy. Constable-Maxwell insisted that the squadron carry out dive-bombing sorties with the Mosquito and practice dives commenced on the ranges in the Madras area. However, dive-bombing was cancelled after a fatal crash of one of the Squadron’s Mosquito on 22 July when the crew made an error of judgement and hit the water after a practice dive.
Meanwhile, on 3 July a PR.34 flown by Wing Commander W.E.M. Lowry
DFC
and Flight Sergeant Stan Pateman made that model’s first reconnaissance sortie from Cocos Island, to Point Pinto via Morib and Port Swettenham area via Gedong and, finally, Sumatra. Next day seven runs were made by Kos Newman and Ray Smith over airfields at Kuala Lumpur and Port Swettenham and on the return flight, Fort de Rock airfield, north of Padang in Sumatra. Ray Smith remembers:
The trips from the Cocos Islands were usually in the region of nine hours’ duration. We used to make for Suncling Island off the coast of Sumatra, 613 miles from Cocos and then set course to the particular area we were required to cover. The idea was that if an aircraft had to ditch the ASR Catalina in the Cocos and crewed by a Dutch crew would know along which track to search for survivors.
By the end of July seven PR.34s of No 2 Detachment from Cocos Island
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had completed twenty-five sorties and a further thirteen more were flown by VJ-Day. No operations at all were flown during the first week of August, however because of bad weather
en route
to Malaya. Indeed, some of the proposed invasion beaches were never photographed because of high tides. The photos were only useful if taken at low tide. Operation Zipper never went ahead because Japan unconditionally surrendered on 14 August following the dropping of the two atomic bombs on the 6th and 9th on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The surrender brought added responsibilities for the PR Mosquitoes, which were required to bring back further information on PoW camps and Japanese dispositions in Malaya. On 12 August 47 Squadron flew its last sortie of the war before its Mosquitoes were taken out of service to have rocket projectiles fitted. (These were used late in 1945 against Indonesian insurgents in the Dutch East Indies.) With the unconditional Japanese surrender on 14 August 1945, the Mosquitoes were sent to reconnoitre the oilfields at Palembang in Sumatra and Japanese dispositions and PoW camps in Malaya.
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Some of the flights, which included reconnaissance of Penang and Taiping in northern Malaya, lasted over 9 hours. The oilfields at Palembang on Sumatra were also photographed.
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On 20 August eight FB.VIs of 110 Squadron were used to dislodge Japanese troops at Tikedo, east of the Sittang River, who had refused to surrender. It was the final RAF operation of the Second World War. Ironically, 110 Squadron had also flown the first operation of the war, when equipped with Blenheims in France. A more contrite band of Japanese soldiers welcomed the crew of a 684 Squadron PR.34, which put down at Kallang on Singapore Island with engine trouble on 31 August following a photographic reconnaissance of the Palembang oil refineries, rather than risk the long overwater flight back to Cocos Island. Amid great excitement Squadron Leader Cliff C. Andrews
RNZAF
and Warrant Officer H.S. Painter disembarked wearing their .45 revolvers. As they opened the inner hatch to disembark, the Japanese ground staff opened the outer. The two aircrew were helped to disembark but were not disarmed. In fact the Japanese, including officers with swords, courteously greeted them and there was much bowing and heel clicking. They were taken to the mess and were dined after the Japanese who arranged for some RAF PoWs in Changi jail to repair the faulty engine. The crew were the first Britons, apart from a British medical officer parachuted into the country to attend to PoWs the previous day, to arrive in Singapore since the surrender. On 12 September General Itazaki, Japanese Southern Area Commander, formally surrendered to Vice-Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten in Singapore, thus ending the war with Japan. The official history had this to say. ‘PR in SE Asia was of greater importance than in other theatres, owing to the comparatively meagre ground intelligence available and for the RAF’s purposes alone it provided an indispensable factor in the maintenance of Allied air superiority, a vital factor in the defeat of the Japanese forces.’
After VJ-Day 684 Squadron’s PR.34s flew a high-speed courier service throughout the Far East, while small detachments at Mingaladon in Burma, Batavia in Indonesia and Labuan in North Borneo carried out survey work in the region. Navigator Flight Lieutenant Bill McLintock who with his skipper Flight Lieutenant K. ‘Sam’ Rawcliffe, arrived in Alipore in a PR.34 from the UK on 5 October, recounts:
Of all the detachments, the most memorable was probably Labaun. We were accommodated in tents and shared the site with a small signals unit. Crews would fly out from Singapore carrying out a survey
en route
and landing at Labaun. Some surveys would be carried out from the island and on the return flight to Singapore a survey of Sarawak was included. On one memorable trip Warrant Officers McDonald and Radford left Seletar and ran into a typhoon over Borneo, leaving them with insufficient fuel to return to Singapore and they crash-landed in a rice field in Borneo. It took about ten days to get then back to the squadron.
By 16 October the China Bay detachment was withdrawn to Indo-China where a revolt against the French had broken out. On the 19th three of 684 Squadron’s PR.34s and Spitfires of 273 Squadron flew a demonstration over Dalat, 130 miles to the north-east, where Annamite rebels had taken control. On the 21st six PR.34s left Alipore for Tan Son Nhut, near Saigon, to provide PR and survey support. Bill McLintock recalls:
The weather was bad and at the briefing we were told not to return to Alipore. We climbed through cloud before emerging into clear skies at about 23,000ft. After about two-and-a-half hours we got a glimpse of the ground and found that we were very far off course heading south-east and eventually picked up our position over Siam. I suggested a diversion to Bangkok, but Sam decided to press on, although I pointed out that if we encountered more bad weather our fuel position would be precarious. After about 5 hours we reached Saigon, with the gauges reading almost zero. We were met by Squadron Leader Newman and were very surprised to find that we were the first to land. After a period of waiting, a signal arrived stating that three Mossies had diverted to Bangkok. A later signal confirmed that Wing Commander W.E.M. Lowry
DFC
with Gerald Stevens as his navigator had crashed at Mingaladon on course but with a seized-up starboard engine and associated problems. Unfortunately, the Mosquito crewed by Flight Lieutenant Mike Workman and Warrant Officer Jimmy Fawkner was missing and was never located. It was later assumed that the plane had crashed into the Bay of Bengal. PR sorties were flown during the subsequent weeks to establish the location and disposition of Annamite rebel forces in the area.
Early in November 1945 the seven PR.34s on Cocos Island flew to Seletar, Singapore for survey work in Malaya and the East Indies. Wing Commander Lowry
DFC
and Flight Lieutenant George Jones in a PR.34 were lost during the long transit flight and the newly-promoted Wing Commander Kos Newman
DFC
* assumed command of 684 Squadron. At the end of January 1946 684 Squadron moved to Don Muang to take up more survey duties. The Seletar detachment stayed until early March when it too moved to Don Muang. In April Wing Commander John Merrifield
DSO DFC
* assumed command. In May a detachment was sent to Kemajoran in Java where a bloody civil war with Indonesian rebels was in progress. No.684 Squadron’s main task was to make a four-month topographical survey of Java before the Netherlands East Indies Army finally took over from the British. In late August 684 Squadron moved to Seletar where on 1 September it disbanded by renumbering as 81 Squadron. On 1 August 1947 Spitfires were transferred to the unit, which became the sole PR asset in FEAF and took on the responsibility of PR and aerial survey work for the entire region.
The last RAF Mosquitoes to see RAF service anywhere were the PR.34As of 81 Squadron at Seletar. In 1946-47 the unit had carried out an aerial survey of the country. A state of emergency in Malaya was declared on 17 June 1948 when a full-scale communist uprising began and 81 Squadron’s Mosquitoes reverted to their PR role as part of Operation Firedog, which began in July 1949. By the end of 1952 the unit had flown over 4,000 sorties and photographed 34,000 square miles. No.81 Squadron flew no less than 6,619 sorties during its eight years of operations in Malaya, with the honour of flying the RAF’s very last Mosquito sortie, on 15 December 1955, going to RG314 and Flying Officers A.J. ‘Collie’ Knox and A.B. ‘Tommy’ Thompson. The crew successfully completed a Firedog reconnaissance sortie against two terrorist camps in Malaya.