Authors: Jennifer Elkin
Arriving back at a 0400 from the Triklinos drop, the crew debriefed and grabbed some sleep before an evening take-off and a return to Greece with another agent, destined for the LAPWORTH Mission of Captain Wickstead in Pieria. When they arrived over the Katafygion dropping ground, there were no signal fires and they circled overhead for twenty minutes with all eyes straining to see the signals. Suddenly there they were – three fires in a line – followed five minutes later by one large red fire and a correct answer to the letter of the day. The drop was on and, after a dummy run, Tom came round again, lowered the flaps and slowed the aircraft to a shuddering 110 mph. The despatcher shouted ‘Go’ as the green light came on and the agent jumped out. Once on the ground, he flashed an agreed signal back to the crew to say that he was safe and they proceeded to drop the supplies in three further runs. The crew usually gave personnel the option of jumping first before the supplies, or going last on the final run, but the most important thing was to put them down in the right place. A crew member later commented: “You made damn sure you put them down in the right place or they might be a bit niggled when they got back”. No pilot wanted to make life any more hazardous for these plucky men, who sat on the floor of the aircraft and on the signal to ‘Go’, shuffled sideways, swung their legs over the open hatch and dropped out into the black night. With the eight-hour mission safely accomplished, the crew returned to base, with the much-anticipated Squadron concert to look forward to that evening. After catching up on some sleep they headed for the specially-built stage at the fort, carrying their own petrol tins for seats and, as the parachute curtains opened, the footlights (a few borrowed light bulbs) shone on a hugely successful production, earning the organiser, Flying Officer Guest, a rousing cheer of appreciation from the troops.
A couple of days later a detachment of five crews – Fairweather, Harding, Storey, Dunphy and Fortune – accompanied Wing Commander Blackburn to Grottalgie in south-east Italy in an effort to deliver personnel and supplies to Tito’s partisans in Yugoslavia’s northerly dropping grounds. The reduced flying distance would mean less fuel and greater loads, but the downside was that Grottalgie was not set up for operating heavy bombers at night and basic amenities such as fuel, spares and lighting were not in place. This was no problem for the wing commander, whose organising ability and charismatic personality had the base operational within a week, though not without the occasional incident, of the ‘Boy’s Own’ adventure kind. On one particular night, Tom had turned on to the airstrip and was about to take off when the electric runway lights all went out. They sat transfixed as German planes came in and bombed the airfield and the next thing they heard was a loud banging on the door of the aircraft and the wing commander’s voice bellowing: “Get this bloody thing up in the air”. Flight engineer Charlie Keen climbed out and lined them up with a couple of torches and off they went – “Everyone got up that night despite the bomb craters!”
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The men thought very highly of the wing commander, who had far exceeded the number of operations required of an officer in his position and he led by example, insisting on being the first in the air every night, which meant catching up on his admin work into the early hours of the morning. It was said to be personal – James Blackburn’s parents had been caught in Shanghai when the Japanese attacked and his commitment and sense of duty were extraordinary – he was an inspiration to the crews in his Squadron.
It was on the night of the 26
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November 1943, whilst flying from the Grottaglie air base, that my father’s Halifax lost a crew member – Peter Crosland. Comrades were lost on a regular basis, but the loss of Peter was different – he was one of them. They had taken off that night for a supply drop to Slovenia, where Major William Jones, head of the HUNDON Mission
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Station, had sent an urgent request for twenty tons of explosives for his partisans, who were keen to destroy sections of the railway line between Ljubliana and Zagreb. Bad weather had prevented the supply drop two nights earlier and this was a second attempt for Halifax JN888 from the Grottaglie airstrip. On arriving at the Oklinak drop zone, Tom asked Walter Davis to break radio watch and help the despatcher to prepare the internal load and open the aperture doors ready for the drop. Bomb aimer Peter Crosland was feeling unwell, but as the aircraft circled, he remained in position, prone on his stomach, looking down in case the target appeared. They circled for more than an hour, the aperture open in readiness for the drop, and then Crosland, twenty-years-of-age, requested permission to use the Elsan. “Not until we are clear of the target area,” said Tom. Two minutes later Peter said: “I’ll have to go!” at which point he was granted permission and made his way through the aircraft to the rudimentary chemical toilet at the back. Meanwhile Tom, having circled for an hour and forty minutes with no sign of fires, decided to abandon the drop and Walter was ordered back to his radio position to listen for broadcasts from other aircraft. Rear gunner, Jim Hughes requested permission to leave his turret and assist the despatcher and this was granted. Walter made his way back through the aircraft and, as he paused by the heater to warm up, he saw Peter help the despatcher to move the packages forward of the aperture. As he turned away, he caught a blurred movement out of the corner of his eye that made him look back.
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“Where’s Peter?” he called out. In the cockpit, Tom, and Engineer Charlie Keen, had felt a sudden change of pressure in the aircraft and knew straight away that something, or someone, had gone out of the plane. A search of the aircraft was carried out but there was no trace of Peter, who had fallen out of the hatch wearing his life vest and parachute harness, but not the pack. The crew desperately checked the parachute packs, unable to believe what had happened, but all seven were accounted for and their worst fears were confirmed. Peter had hurtled out into the night from 1500 feet with no hope of survival.
His body lay where it fell, on a mountainside in the District of Cabar, on the Slovenia-Croatia border, for more than three years before it was finally found by a forest worker who removed his identity tags and buried him respectfully on the hillside. After the war, one of the RAF’s MRES
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searcher parties, operating in that area of Yugoslavia, was approached by the forester who had found the remains. He had kept the articles that identified the body and came running up to them saying: “I knew that one day the English would come back”. He proudly handed over the tags and Peter’s body was re-interred in the Belgrade War Cemetery.
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The Government of the time felt that our fallen should not be left in isolated cemeteries, but should rest in special War cemeteries, carefully chosen for their natural beauty and peace.
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On that dark night in November, the crew only knew that he was gone and returned to base with their full load and heavy hearts – the entry in that night’s log book DNCO (did not complete operation). Back in the billet, Peter’s bed, with his gramophone and two records neatly stacked alongside, was empty. Empty beds the morning after operations could mean that a crew had ditched but were safe somewhere, or had run out of fuel and landed away from base, but in the case of Peter Crosland, aged 20, they knew he would not be back. He had fallen to his death on a filthy November night on to a cold mountain side. One of his two gramophone records was the song ‘Goodbye’ from the operetta The White Horse Inn,
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and the crew had always laughed and sung along with the line: ‘Where the desert sand is handy, we’ll all be full of grit and you won’t see our heels for the dust’. But now the song echoed with the hollow sound of loss:
‘My heart is broken but what care I
Such pride inside me has woken
I’ll try my best not to cry by and by
When the final farewells must be spoken’
The crew were devastated, but grateful that Squadron etiquette demanded that such incidents were not discussed with other crews, which eased their grief. The despatcher was affected particularly badly and was looked after by Tom throughout the remainder of their first tour of duty. He then declined an immediate second tour with the other members of the crew. Walter Davis commented that it was later forbidden to volunteer for an immediate second tour as crews were becoming mentally disturbed by further duties.
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A couple of nights after the tragedy, the crew were back in the skies for an attempt to drop five personnel to the SWIFTER Mission
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in southern Albania, and although signal fires were seen at the drop zone, they were not in the pattern as briefed to the pilot before take-off, and with no reply seen to the flashed letter of the day, Tom decided that it was not safe to drop the personnel, and flew on to their secondary target of Koritsa to drop leaflets, after which they returned to the primary target. Eight fires were now lit, but still not in the shape of a cross, as briefed. They were sufficiently confident to drop the supplies as the topography matched the pinpoint, but the agents were returned to base.
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It was hazardous enough being dropped into a remote mountain region at night, but to drop without correct signals being received was too risky, as the fires were sometimes discovered and lit by the Germans in order to lure the aircraft in. Only the exchange of correct signals was acceptable for dropping personnel. Except that, on this occasion, the well-intentioned decision to return them to Tocra led indirectly to their deaths. Forty-eight hours later five personnel climbed into a Halifax of 624 Squadron, piloted by Flight Sergeant Dennis Howlett, and headed back to the SWIFTER Mission in Albania. Nothing more was heard of the aircraft, until the news began to trickle in that it had crashed in flames in Greece, killing all seven crew and the five agents.
These were active months for the infiltration of agents into the Balkans, many of whom were recruited from the armed services, the ‘old-boy network’ or were nationals of the countries into which they were dropped. Once recruited, some of them underwent training in sabotage and survival in the incongruous setting of an English country house, followed by paramilitary training in the wild, empty spaces of Scotland, and finally parachute training. This was essential because they would be dropped into their assigned country under cover of darkness and usually at a remote and inaccessible location. A few went in ‘blind’ and would need to be completely self-sufficient and familiar with the terrain to get by, but the majority were dropped to a ‘reception’ group waiting on the ground. A handshake and a pat on the back must have been reassuring after jumping from an aircraft at night. Some didn’t survive the descent and others disappeared altogether and were never heard of again. It was a dangerous business and these were not tough SAS types, but, for the most part, regular soldiers, patriots and idealists who had volunteered or were recruited for their specialist expertise, language skills or knowledge of the country involved. The task for personnel, once infiltrated, was to liaise with the most effective resistance groups and provide them with money, radios, leaders and weaponry. There was usually also a political dimension, unique to each country, which made their task very difficult. The British Cabinet were keen to ensure that Greece, whose King was in London, remained within the British sphere of influence after the war, and this was tricky for the agents in the field since only a minority in Greece wanted the King back at all and the groups most effectively fighting the enemy were republican or communist. Yugoslavia’s King Peter was also in exile in London, and initially British missions were sent to support both Tito’s communist and Mikhailovic’s nationalist resistance fighters in that country. As 1943 drew to a close and with Churchill’s direct emissary to Tito, Fitzroy Maclean, sending back positive reports of partisan effectiveness, it was decided that Tito would henceforth be the sole recipient of aid, and all further supplies were withdrawn from Mikhailovic, who, at best displayed a reluctance to attack German forces because of the inevitable reprisals on the community, and at worst was suspected of collaborating with the Germans.
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“I can assure the House that every effort in our power will be made to aid and sustain Marshal Tito and his gallant band. The Marshal sent me a message during my illness, and I have since been in constant and agreeable correspondence with him. We intend to back him with all the strength we can draw, having regard to our other main obligations.”(Churchill)
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At the end of November 1943, their first month of special-duty operations, the Storey crew had undertaken twelve sorties, of which five had been fully successful on primary targets. Weather conditions and lack of signals accounted for the failures, though leaflets were successfully dropped on most secondary targets, which didn’t require the accuracy of a supply or agent drop. It was often the missions that were not completed (DNCO) that proved the most testing because they often involved circling over a target at low altitude for a long time before deciding to abort. The weather conditions in Europe during that winter of 1943/44 were terrible, and this put enormous strain on the young crews and also their aircraft. Three crew members in these early flights, Walter Davis, Charlie Keen and Jim Hughes had met at 10 Operational Training Unit in Abingdon, where, early in training, they were given the opportunity to ‘crew up’. This was a fairly informal process during which they chose who to fly with and Walter remembered how he met Tom Storey and came to join the crew: “A very tall sergeant approached me to ask if I would be his wireless operator and could I pick out a good navigator. I said I knew just the man.” Charlie Keen recalled many years later that, having agreed to join the crew as flight engineer, they went off to the cinema. When they came out of the show, Tom took hold of Charlie’s arm and said: “I can’t see a thing in the dark!” Charlie was taken aback, thinking – “What kind of mistake have I made here? I’ve crewed up with a pilot who has no night vision.” But then Tom laughed and he realised it was a joke. In fact Charlie always maintained that Tom’s landings were better at night than during the day, and since he flew forty-two operations with him, he was well qualified to judge! Team spirit was everything and the ex-policeman, the sheet-metal worker, the office clerk and the shop assistant not only flew together, but spent their off-duty hours together as well, forming a solid team. Now, at the end of November 1943, a month in which the men of 148 Squadron had given hope and practical support to resistance fighters throughout the Balkans, they began to make plans for the festive season. A committee, led by the ever resourceful Flying Officer Guest, was formed to make arrangements for the Christmas celebrations. They might be a long way from home, but a spirited approach to this traditional family time boosted morale.