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This has to be one of the most heroic missions flown during WW2


Peter Roberts

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I am currently working my way through ‘The Secret War’ by Max Hastings and came across this anecdote which I thought worth repeating here for the sheer courage and bravery. Hastings describes it as the most heroic flying mission of the war. See what you think.

 

Various efforts were made by the allies to identify the radar emissions from Luftwaffe nightfighters. One approach involved aircraft flying at night off the British coast in search of these emissions, but they had no success. It was finally determined that an aircraft would have to join a bomber stream so a Wellington from 1473 Wireless Investigation Flight did just that on the night of 2-3 December, 1943. The pilot of the all-Canadian crew was Ted Paulton and on board was an electronic specialist, Harold Jordan. It was Jordans job to monitor and record radar frequencies of 490 megacycles. At 4:30 am, just west of Mainz, Jordan identified such emissions and monitored them becoming stronger as the nightfighter approached. He shouted a warning of an imminent attack when they swamped his headphones, and almost immediately the Wellington was hit by cannon fire. The rear gunner returned fire but was wounded and had his turret disabled. As Poulton did his best to avoid the attacker Jordon continued monitor and make notes, despite having been hit in the shoulder. Their attacker, a Ju88, continued to rake the Wellington and Jordan was again hit in the jaw and eye. Throughout the ordeal the radio operator, F/Sgt Bigoray, had transmitted reports from Jordan and had also suffered significant leg wounds. Amazingly, the attacks stopped leaving the Wellington badly damaged; the port engine throttle had been destroyed, the starboard engine throttle was jammed on full power, an aileron was wrecked, most of the instruments were destroyed and there were no hydraulics. They finally made the English coast at 7:15 am. Paulton decided to ditch the aircraft but as Bigorays leg injuries were so bad they put him in a parachute and he bailed out over Ramsgate with Jordans report. Paulton then ditched the aircraft two hundred yards off Deal where they found the dinghy had been destroyed by gunfire, so had to cling to the wreck until local fishermen rescued them. Jordan lost his eye but did get a DSO. Paulton got a DFC, Bigoray a DFM, and RAF scientific intelligence got further insight into the Luftwaffe night defences.

 

The MOST heroic mission flown? Personally I baulk when I hear things described with the ‘the greatest ever’ tag, and I suspect there were a huge number of incredibly brave missions flown during WW2. Nevertheless, I do agree that this one surely has to rank up there as one of the most dangerous missions of the war. I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like as those radar emissions were picked up, and got louder and stronger as the Ju88 closed in for the kill, and then the chaos as the Wellington was raked over and over by cannon fire, then the struggle to get back to England with that report. While Bigoray had been transmitting information before and during the attack, by the time his reports were acknowledged their receiver had been destroyed. Heroic? Somehow that word doesn’t seem adequate.

 

Lest we forget.

Edited by Peter Roberts
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Heroic, yes! Superlative? 

Read his books: Air Vice Marshal Donald Clifford Tyndall Bennett, CB, CBE, DSO

Give you much more insight in this matter!

Happy modelling

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I thought so when I read this a while back. To actually make yourself a target and attract attention to get the information on frequencies etc is just mind blowing. 
 

I tried to get more info such as aircraft codes. If I recall ( my papers are in storage) I got the aircraft serial but not the squadron codes. I was hoping to get enough info to model it

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5 hours ago, JohnT said:

I thought so when I read this a while back. To actually make yourself a target and attract attention to get the information on frequencies etc is just mind blowing. 
 

I tried to get more info such as aircraft codes. If I recall ( my papers are in storage) I got the aircraft serial but not the squadron codes. I was hoping to get enough info to model it

 Had the same thought - would be interested in your findings.

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8 minutes ago, Peter Roberts said:

 Had the same thought - would be interested in your findings.

I’ll see what I can find. It may be a while as the stash and the library at the back of a shipping container where they been for 2 years while a house got built!

 

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A few notes

1474 Flight not 1473. They became 192 Sqn within weeks of this operation.

There were three Wellingtons fitted up for the task DV819 as above, X3566 (Mk III) and DV892 (another Ic). They took off at intervals to have different positions in the bomber stream.

They asked for Mosquitos which was agreed (eventually) but they turned up too late for investigation of Emil-Emil (as the radar was coded).

Believed to be the only incident where every crew member was decorated.

The aerial fit-out of the three Wellingtons was the same - "special dipole aerials mounted in bollards on each side of the aircraft, which had been tuned to cover the target frequency (490 hz) and they were connected, by jack plugs, to the receiving equipment mounted on a bench on the starboard side of the aircraft." The later Wellington Mk X carried 14 external aerials so may be able to work out what they might have been by subtraction.

Edited by Ed Russell
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Thanks Ed - great info. I did notice reference to both 1474 and 1473 Flights in my (so far limited) investigations, but figured they were different Flights.

 

Do you have a source for that info? Photos (of either of the Wellies?)?

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The National Archives at Kew seem to have three files on this mission

 

 

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C590442

 

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C590441

 

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7161911

 

Oddly R1359 was a Wellington 1c but the archive reference must be type number of a type of ground radar (both from internet searches)

 

Unfortunately my days of being able to pop down to Kew for an hour are long gone it's now a full days journey.

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I have never seen a photograph of the early Wellingtons of what became 192 Sqn although photos exist of some of their aircraft.

 

This is a later Wellington X and probably represents the best guess at what the early ones looked like. There is a vertically polarised aerial between the D and the T and a horizontally polarised one on the roundel. They look a bit like smaller versions of the familar ASV antennae. The mark at the bottom of the D is an artefact and the blister and two ventral aerials were definitely not there on the 3 early Wellingtons. The beam approach aerial may have been there.

 

51366672671_235b21bf68_b.jpg

 

Source - RAF Museum Collection

 

There are many books containg information. A short primer list might be

The Aircraft of 100 Group by Martin. Streetly

Confound and Destroy: by Martin Streetly

The History of Air Intercept Radar by Ian White

Confounding the Reich by Martin W. Bowman & Tom Cushing

Nachtjagd, Defenders of the Reich, 1940 – 1943 by Martin W. Bowman

The Reich Intruders :by Martin W. Bowman

 

1473 Flight is somewhat of a mystery, being described as 1473 (SD) Flt and 1473 (RCM) Flt. it is variously described as being subsumed within 192 or 199 Sqns.

 

Edit - 1473 Flt was tasked with picking up radio traffic from Europe and only operated over Britain.

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I was sent this picture which may be a photo of DV819. It came with the information that the three Wellington sorties listed above were numbers 15, 16 and 17 in the efforts to track the emission details. They were 1, 2 and 3 to actually go with the bomber stream.

 

51371298913_5ec4b0a1d3_w.jpg

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The description of the action in the OP and other accounts is pretty detailed and the waist gunner(s) are not mentioned so I would guess they did not. The Wellington X carried a lot more SD equipment so, again, I would guess no waist guns. In the picture above the window is open but it looks like a face in the opening rather than a gun.

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