Cambridge Military History

Thru Helen Hiwater: The Story of a 303rd B-17 from RAF Molesworth

There were many bombers lost from the 303^rd Bomb Group (Heavy) stationed at RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire during the Second World War. Today, I’d like to focus on a particular Flying Fortress, a B-17G, tail number 42-39758 built by Lockheed/Vega on license from Boeing and delivered to the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1943. Named Thru Helen Hiwater, she was lost on 22 April 1944 when the aircraft was hit by flak over Germany. Four of the crew were killed and six captured when she crashed. She was flying a mission to bomb the railyards at Hamm, in the Ruhr Valley, Germany.

Before arriving in England, Thru Helen Hiwater became famous, or maybe infamous, for buzzing Yankee Stadium in New York during the opening game of the 1943 Baseball World Series. That evening in October, the New York Yankees were playing the St. Louis Cardinals at the end of the season as four B-17s were flying over New York enroute from a training exercise in Florida to Maine. The bombers would land in Maine to refuel before crossing the Atlantic to England. The first game of the World Series was in the 8^th inning with the Yankees leading the Cardinals 4 to 2 as the lead plane Thru Helen Hiwater, flown by 2LT Jack W. Watson, approached. Watson radioed the other aircraft, “Let’s go down and take a look” as the four bombers flew over up the Hudson River, navigating past Manhattan.

With Lieutenant Watson leading the way, the four bombers buzzed the field and stopped the game play while the excited crowd leapt to their feet thinking it was a scheduled demonstration. The other three bombers climbed back to altitude, but Lieutenant Watson in Thru Helen Hiwater came back for a second pass, just clearing the upper deck’s pennants by 25 feet, a moment immortalized in a photograph. While the crowd loved it, city officials, including Mayor Fiorello La Guardia were furious and let the Army Air Corps know. By the time the four aircraft landed in Maine, the pilots were confined to their quarters pending a court marital. Despite the anger, the bombers and crews were desperately needed in England, so each pilot was fined $75 and given a letter of reprimand and sent on their way. The Thru Helen Hiwater with Jack Watson at the controls, was assigned to the 303^rd Bomb Group’s 358^th Bomb Squadron at RAF Molesworth. He was one of the fortunate pilots to complete 35 missions in June 1944 and returned to the U.S and finished the war as a Captain. Of note, after Watson’s 98^th mission on 11 January 1944, when he landed a heavily damaged B-17 after his crew had all bailed out, Mayor La Guardia sent a telegram from New York. He had read an interview with Watson in the newspapers concerning the flyover of the World Series, and during the interview Watson lamented from England, “I wonder if Mayor La Guardia will ever forgive me…” La Guardia’s telegram let Watson know all was well: “Delighted to get your message. All is forgiven. Congratulations. I hope you never run out of altitude. Happy landings. Will be seeing you soon.”

Through the end of 1943 and into Spring of 1944, Thru Helen Hiwater flew multiple missions over France, the low countries, and Germany, delivering her bombs and returning safely to RAF Molesworth after each mission.

On 22 April 1944, Thru Helen Hiwater with 2LT Roy Larson at the controls, took off on the 303^rd Bomb Group’s 139^th combat mission to Hamm, Germany, joining two flights of heavy bombers escorted by P-51 Mustangs and P-47 Thunderbolts of the 9^th Air Force. Roy Larson was born in Minnesota but grew up in Hesengshals, Pennsylvania. He was 26 years old in April 1944.

Hamm is a city in the northeast of the industrial Ruhr valley, which was a key rail logistics point during the war. It was bombed 55 times during the war, leaving over half of the city destroyed and the railways devastated. On the evening of 22 April, once again, 8^th Air Force heavies were targeting the marshalling yards and rail infrastructure at Hamm, trying to slow the German war machine. This was a very risky mission as the 303^rd was flying its first afternoon mission – leaving England in the afternoon and returning after dark to buy some protection for the bombers.

Thru Helen Hiwater was in the number five position of the lead group, passing over Werl Germany at 1915 hours flying at 23,500 feet. The formation was receiving ground anti-aircraft fire when Thru Helen Hiwater took an unlucky hit from a German anti-aircraft round. She was five minutes from the target, beginning the bomb run. The flak struck the #1 engine on the left wing, the outmost of the two, and engine and fuel tanks erupted in flames. Immediately a massive fire raced across the wing. Lieutenant Larson sounded the alarm bell throughout the aircraft and told the crew over the internal radio, his last words to his men, “Pilot to crew, bail out!”. According to debriefs after the war, Larson stayed at the controls of Thru Helen Hiwater as long as possible, letting the men get.

The B-17 began to spiral out of control. The waist gunners, Sergeants Schinker and Thayer helped Sergeant Brim out of the Ball turret and the three NCOs jumped. As the spinning increased, Staff Sergeant Everett Culp, the radioman, was thrown through the length of the aircraft and was pinned by the rear tail wheel, trapped in torn controlling cables as the aircraft’s spin increased. Then, Thru Helen Hiwater broke in two – the tail section torn from the forward part of the aircraft due to the enormous forces of the spin. Sergeant Culp was able to bail out of the falling tail section, joined by Sergeant Herman Hodge, the tail gunner. Both men landed on the edge of a rocky gulch, but Sergeant Hodge fractured his skull as he was dragged over the rocks by his partially inflated parachute. Captured by the Germans, Sergeant Hodge died the next day of his injuries.

In the front half of the plane, the copilot Lieutenant Duncan later recalled Lieutenant Larson telling him to get out quick as he and Lieutenant Levy rushed to bail out. They were able to get out of the B-17 before the plane broke in two, and both saw the front half of Thru Helen Hiwater explode after the two men jumped. Lieutenant Larson, still at the controls, along with 2LT Milton Feinman, the bombardier and Staff Sergeant Thomas Campbell, the flight engineer died with the front portion of Thru Helen Hiwater exploded.

The captured enlisted men spent the rest of the war in the Luftwaffe’s Stalag XVII-B in Austria. The officers went to Stalag VII-A in Bavaria, the largest POW camp of the war. It was only after the war, when the men could all compare their notes that the story of the last moments of Thru Helen Hiwater were pieced together.

On her last mission, the crew of Thru Helen Hiwater were:

2LT Roy A. Larson, pilot, killed in action, it was his 15^th mission, he had flow 14 missions with his copilot 2LT Ronald Duncan. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.

2LT Ronald H. Duncan, copilot, bailed out and became a POW, survived the war.

2LT Milton Feinman, bombardier, killed in action as Thru Helen Hiwater exploded 22 April 1944. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.

2LT Herbert E. Levy, Jr., navigator, bailed out and became a POW, survived the war.

S/Sgt Thomas J. Campbell, engineer, killed in action as Thru Helen Hiwater exploded 22 April 1944. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.

S/Sgt Everett E. Culp, radioman, bailed out became a POW, survived the war.

Sgt Arthur W. Schinker, left-wing gunner, bailed out became a POW, flew all 15 missions with 2LT Larson, survived the war.

Sgt Lee Ray Brim, ball turret gunner, bailed out and became a POW on 22 April 1944, survived the war.

Sgt Duane P. Thayer, right wing gunner, bailed out and became a POW on 22 April 1944, survived the war.

Sgt Herman L. Hodge, tail gunner, bailed out and was captured. He died of his wounds on 23 April 1944 and is buried in the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, the Netherlands. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.

I decided to write this post because of the picture at the beginning, the crew of Thru Helen Hiwater loading onto a truck at the conclusion of their penultimate mission on 20 April 1944. The men look so happy, glad to be back at Molesworth, and ready to go to the debriefing tent to meet with the S-2 officers. Sadly, their next mission would lead to four of their deaths and the remaining six spending the remainder of the war in German POW camps. I decided to find the “frying pan”, the hardstand area where the photo on 20 April 1944 was taken, and it was easy to pin down based on old maps of RAF Molesworth and a marker placed by the 501st Combat Support Wing’s historian. here is the same spot where Thru Helen Hiwater had taxied to, a photo taken 82 years later:

The Round Church: A Crusader Legacy in Cambridge

On 15 July 1099, Jerusalem fell to the armies of the First Crusade. Their stated goal, as the soldiers poured into the city set on murder, rape, and pillage was to wrest the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and other holy places from the Armies of Islam and establish a Christian Kingdom with its capital at Jerusalem. These Crusader States would stumble on but effectively ended in 1291 when the Kingdom of Jerusalem fell after the siege of Acre. The last stronghold of Outremer (the term used by the Frankish knights, simply French for overseas), Acre fell to the Mamluks and despite numerous additional Crusades, the Levant would remain in the control of a succession of Islamic States until seized by the British and French from the Ottoman Turks in the Great War.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built in the early 4^th Century during the reign of Constantine the Great. According to tradition, it contains both Golgotha, the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, and the tomb in which he was buried and rose from the dead. It underwent both Byzantine and Crusader modifications and changes, but its round design was established and known by the Middle Ages across Europe.

After the First Crusade, newly established religious orders such as the Knights Templar (Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon) and the Knights Hospitaller (Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem), along with pilgrims who had visited Jerusalem, returned to Europe and built churches which emulated the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Mimicking the circular shape seen in Jerusalem, a handful of Round Churches were built across England recalling the site in Jerusalem of Christ’s passion and resurrection.

Between 1114 and 1131, only 15 years after the fall of Jerusalem, the Round Church in Cambridge was founded by an obscure group which we know little about which called itself The Fraternity of the Holy Sepulchre. In fact, there is no other record of this group except from this one project, and it was likely formed for the sole purpose of building the Round Church in Cambridge. The Fraternity claimed that the construction was “in honour of God and the Holy Sepulchre”. Consecrated as “The Church of the Holy Sepulchre”, it has been commonly called “St. Sepulchre’s” or simply, “The Round Church” since the 13^th Century. This predates Cambridge University by almost a hundred years.

The first vicar of the Round Church was recorded as Geoffrey of Alderhethe in 1272. He was the Master of the Hospital of St. John the Evangelist, a religious hospital which resided across Bridge Street from the Round Church. (Bridge Street today is the old Roman Road, the via Devana, which ran from Huntingdon to Cambridge, crossed the Cam, and passed the Roman Fort of Duroliponte which is now Castle Hill.) The medieval Hospital is now St. John’s College, part of the University of Cambridge.

Expansions and extensions occurred over the next centuries, including a crenelated, multi-story tower which was added to the centre of the church in the 15^th Century. At the same time, the Norman windows were replaced with larger, arched gothic windows. The church remained mostly undisturbed until 3 January 1644, when the Puritan officer and notorious iconoclast William Dowsing, known as “Smasher Dowsing”, arrived. Following the Parliamentary Ordinance of 28 August 1643 that “all monuments of Superstition and idolatry should be removed and abolished”, he and his soldiers destroyed fourteen pictures in the Round Church during the Civil War.

In August 1841, the 15^th Century tower collapsed, damaging the original structure and threatening the entire church’s existence. A subscription for public support occurred and money raised for the church to be returned to its former glory. In October 1843, with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in attendance, the church was reopened after its reconstruction, returning it much to its original form. The upper portions of the church were returned to their Romanesque origins, the Georgian box pews were removed, and the gothic windows were restored to their original design. However, the reconstruction was not without controversy. The Camden Society, which coordinated the reconstruction, had a stone Altar and Credence Table placed in the nave, which was seen as too High Church, popish and Catholic. A general outcry led to a well-publicized court case and in January 1845 the altar and table were ordered removed and replaced by more humble, wooden tables which can still be seen today.

One would have thought there would be no more war damage to the Round Church after the iconoclasm of 1644, but on 28 July 1942 a single German bomber dropped its ordnance of high explosives and incendiaries on Cambridge. The bombs did extensive damage along Bridge and Sidney Streets, killing three people and wounding seven. One bomb struck the Cambridge Union Society Building, which had been built on the Church’s former graveyard, causing the medieval stained glass in the East Window to be blown out and destroyed. After the war, the window was beautifully replaced with new stained glass showing Christ’s Resurrection, which occurred on the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

Inside, the church strikes a visitor as both beautiful and small, focused more on the center of the Round Church than the altar which rests in the nave, surrounded by the raised ambulatory. Eight thick Norman columns with round arches break the ambulatory and the nave and hold up an upper floor. Much of the stained glass is from the Victorian era restoration and from the 1946 window which repaired the German war damage. The tiled floor, which includes Queen Victoria’s coat of arms, dates from the 1841 restoration.

The Round Church Cambridge is one of four remaining medieval round churches in England. The others are the Temple Church in London, The Holy Sepulchre Church in Northhampton, and the Church of St. John the Baptist in Little Maplestead – all beautiful with a fascinating history and worth a visit.

To find out more about the Round Church’s visiting times, walking tours, and events see https://roundchurchcambridge.org/

To learn about its architecture and its evolution over the years, visit: https://drawingmatter.org/the-future-of-the-past/

To learn more about the church’s restoration, see Chris Miele’s “The Restoration of the Round Church, Cambridge”, English Heritage, Historical Analysis & Research Team Reports and Papers (First Series, 5), 1996.

To learn more about the bombing raids on Cambridge during World War II, visit Cambridge Historian: https://cambridgehistorian.blogspot.com/2012/07/world-war-2-air-attacks-on-cambridge.html

361st Fighter Group Wall Art Preserved at RAF Molesworth

The Eighth Wall Art Conservation Society was an active group in Cambridgeshire in the 1980s. The EWACS, as they styled themselves, saved many works of art from the Second World War from derelict buildings on abandoned airfields. They preserved these works for us today, and while some are available to be viewed by the public, others have been hidden away and forgotten.

At the Bottisham Airfield Museum, one can view a mural of the RMS Queen Mary which was saved by EWACS in the 1980s. The men of the 361^st Fighter Group sailed on the Queen Mary from the United States to England in 1943 and one of the airmen painted an image of the ship directly on the brick walls of one of the airfield’s buildings. This mural eventually found its way to the museum to be appreciated by all.

Originally prepared in 1940 as a satellite of RAF Waterbeach, RAF Bottisham was at first a grass relief field for the Cambridge based de Havilland Tiger Moths of No.22 Elementary Flying Training School. As the war went on, several other RAF aircraft would fly from the field which gradually grew and expanded. In 1943, Bottisham was turned over to the U.S. Army Air Forces’ 361^st Fighter Group. The 361^st Fighter Group’s squadrons first flew the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt but transitioned to the North American P-51 Mustang in May 1944. The fighters from the 361^st Fighter Group, recognizable with their yellow painted engine cowlings, escorted the bombers of the 8^th Air Force to their targets in occupied Europe, including the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 303^rd Bomb Group based at RAF Molesworth.

This may seem a winding thread: the EWACS, RAF Bottisham, the 361^st Fighter Group, and RAF Molesworth – but in the March 1983, the EWACS volunteers, supported by U.S. airmen stationed in the area, rescued several paintings from the old enlisted men’s club at RAF Bottisham before the building’s demolition. At the time, the Bottisham Airfield Museum did not exist and these volunteer conservators sought out a home for this saved art and turned to a growing U.S. Air Force base in the area: RAF Molesworth.

At Molesworth, in a small break room, the EWACS installed three saved pieces of wall art from RAF Bottisham: a mural of a B-17 with a Messerschmitt Bf-109 diving in pursuit, two glasses of wine coming together in a cheer, and a slogan painted in cursive. The slogan, painted across the bricks reads: “Here’s a toast to those who love the vastness of the sky.” Sadly, these murals can only be seen regularly by the men and women stationed at RAF Molesworth as part of the U.S. Visiting Forces and are not regularly available to the public.

One of EWACS saved wall paintings ended up at the Imperial War Museum branch at RAF Duxford in Cambridgeshire. At Duxford, the wall mural “Poddington Big Picture” is displayed in Hangar No. 3, it displays a expertly detailed B-17 from the 92^nd Bomb Group which flew from RAF Podington in Bedfordshire. One of the few signed pieces of wall art, we know the “Poddington Big Picture” was painted by George C. Waldschmidt. A few additional saved murals were shipped to the 8^th Air Force Museum at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, USA. Others are dispersed in museums and displayed throughout East Anglia.

While it is a pity that these beautiful murals at RAF Molesworth are not available for the public to view, we are thankful for the volunteers of the EWACS who worked to save and conserve these beautiful pieces of Cambridgeshire’s aviation history almost forty years ago. In 1983, Dick Nimmo, Bill Espie, and Brian Cook, all volunteers with EWACS removed and brought these works of art to RAF Molesworth before the derelict enlisted club at RAF Bottisham was demolished. We owe them a debt.

To read more about wall art from the Second World War: https://heritagecalling.com/2019/05/17/war-art-military-and-civilian-murals-from-the-second-world-war/

The Guardian published an article in May 2014 regarding USAAF art from the war with some excellent pictures: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/may/17/art-usa

The Airfield Museum at RAF Bottisham houses the mural of the Queen Mary and many other fascinating items, for more information about the museum: https://www.bottishamairfieldmuseum.org.uk/

To learn more about the USAAF at RAF Bottisham during the Second World War, visit: https://www.americanairmuseum.com/archive/place/bottisham

For more information on RAF Molesworth, visit: https://www.americanairmuseum.com/archive/place/molesworth

For more information on RAF Waterbeach’s museum, which is certainly worth a visit: http://www.waterbeachmilitarymuseum.org.uk/index.html

For the murals at the 8^th Air Force Museum in Louisiana, a few photos are available at their website: https://8afmuseum.com/

Norman Cross: Prisoner Art from the Napoleonic Wars

West of Peterborough, along the Great North Road in Cambridgeshire, the first purpose-built prisoner of war camp was constructed near the hamlet of Norman Cross in 1796. Designed to hold prisoners from the French Revolutionary Wars, and later Napoleonic Wars, Norman Cross Depot averaged interring around 5,500 prisoners from across Europe before it was demolished in 1816. The site covered almost 15 hectares, surrounded by brick walls and guard towers. The prisoners lived in wooden barracks crowded throughout the site, at one time holding almost 7,000. Conditions were not grim, but it was a prison.

French, Spanish, Dutch, Italians, Germans, and Poles all ended up in the camp, guarded by local Cambridgeshire militia. Many of the prisoners were French, Spanish, and Dutch sailors, captured from Royal Navy victories on the high seas. Administered by the Admiralty, it may not surprise you that the Royal Navy recruited sailors from the Norman Cross Depot, seeing an opportunity to address manning shortfalls with knowledgeable seamen – and many of the captives were happy to leave. However, most of the prisoners stayed for years in the camp seeking ways to pass the time, keep busy, and possibly make some money. During its twenty years of existence, the prisoners of Norman Cross made beautiful art, mainly from the soup bones, straw, baleen, and wood they could find or acquire around the prison or from locals. These men, to pass the time and to make art which they could sell, created magnificent pieces which are highly prized today. This artwork, a type of scrimshaw or an early version of trench art can be seen at various museums and in private collections from the United Kingdom to the United States.

Although I have wanted to write about the artwork made at Norman Cross for several years, many outstanding examples of this craft found their way to the United States in the late 19^th Century, with important pieces ending up at the U.S. Naval Academy in Anapolis, Maryland. It was only recently that I was able to visit the Museum at the U.S. Naval Academy where I could see these works – and the treasured masterpiece which emerged from the skilled hands several French sailors – the model of HMS Victory which holds pride of place in Annapolis.

The Art.

The prisoners carved and sculpted with materials on hand: bones, straw, wood, turning these everyday items into fabulous pieces of art. The prisoners carved what they knew, or remembered of their home and ships they sailed on, with an aim of selling their artworks in a local market which became popular around the camp. Sailors carved bones into ships, often with their yardarms shortened so that the models would fit nicely on a mantlepiece. Rigging was made from memory, often incorrectly and sometimes even overly complicated to show off the intricacies of their craftmanship. Straw and wood were split and dyed, then glued into exquisite marquetry. Scaffolds with guillotines, dollhouses, games, and even automatons were created and then sold. This flourishing of prisoner art came to an abrupt end after Waterloo in 1815, when the prisoners were sent home and the camp demolished a year later and returned to farmland.

HMS Victory.

As mentioned before, the largest, most exquisite item created at Norman Cross Depot is undoubtedly the model of HMS Victory. According to the curators of the US Naval Academy Museum, after the defeat of the combined French and Spanish Navies at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, fifteen French prisoners of war began the model of Nelson’s triple-decked flagship. It took them two years to complete the ship, aided only by prints from newspapers and their own memories of general ship’s design. In 1807, the model was complete and at several feet tall was seen as a wonder at the time. The Lords of the Admiralty organised the purchase of the model from the French prisoners, the amount paid is forgotten, and then presented the model to HM George III. The King then had the model placed on top of Nelson’s tomb – the hero of Trafalgar who died onboard HMS Victory – in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, where it sat for 27 years, before it was removed and cleaned in 1834. Once it was removed, it was never returned to Nelson’s crypt. In 1915, during the height of the First World War, an American millionaire financier and sailing enthusiast, Edward Francis Hutton, purchased the model and brought it to the United States where it set in his private collection. In 1980, the model was in the posession of the Maitland family which gave HMS Victory to the U.S. Naval Academy where it now resides.

How to visit the old prisoner of war camp:

The site of the Prisoner of War Camp lies about six miles west of Peterborough. Exit the A1(M) on the A15 and head east toward Yaxley. At the southwest corner of the old camp, there is a large column, the Norman Cross Monument, crested by a bronze Napoleonic Eagle. Built and sited in 1914 by the Entente Cordiale Society, the monument was sadly toppled and the eagle stolen in 1990. An appeal was made, and the column was repaired and moved due to the A1 being expanded in the late 1990s. Now rebuilt, a bronze replica of the Napoleonic eagle was restored to the column. His Grace, the Duke of Wellington, unveiled the monument on 31 October 1998. The monument is dedicated to the 1,770 prisoners who died at the camp between 1796 and 1816. In the winter of 1800 to 1801, a typhoid epidemic swept through the camp, leading to the death of 1,020 prisoners, and several hundred others would pass away over the years the camp was open. This monument honors these men’s demise. There is parking available as well as an information board at the column.

To the North and East of the old camp, now agricultural land, were burial sites for the prisoners who died at Norman Cross. In 2009, Wessex Archeology joined with the archeologists of Channel 4’s Time Team, led by Tony Robinson, to dig at Norman Cross. The team of archeologists discovered graves, carved items, and even a set of dominos. The episode titled “Death and Dominoes: The First POW Camp” aired on 3 October 2010 and is worth watching. The Wessex Archaeology report can be viewed here as well.

Part of the brick prison wall still stands nearby but is incorporated into the private property of residents.

To view the prisoner’s artwork:

Visit the Peterborough City Museum, Priestgate, Peterborough PE1 1LF. There is no parking at the museum, so I’d recommend parking at the Queen’s Gate shopping center’s car park and walking. Navigate to: PE1 2AA. The Museum is also an easy walk from the Peterborough train station. For more information, see their website: https://peterboroughmuseum.org.uk/. The museum is free and has a fine collection.

If you are in Annapolis, Maryland, in the United States, the U.S. Naval Academy’s Preble Hall is the location of the museum, one of the world’s great naval collections. The prisoner’s artwork is located on the top floor. For more information, see their website: https://www.usna.edu/Museum/index.php where several other pieces of prisoner art can be viewed. The museum is free.

Trench Art: Christmas 1917 and the Machine Gun Corps

It was October or November 1917, a British soldier in the Machine Gun Corps took some scraps of wood, possibly duckboards or pieces of an ammunition container, and crafted them into a money box for his son back home in England. He found a way, and time, to cut the wood, screw the pieces together, sand and varnish the box, and then hammered an English and French coin to the top, flanking the slot he chiseled out. He then took an extra collar badge of the Machine Gun Corps, the organization of which he was undoubtedly proud to belong, and softly hammered it into the wood on the front of the box – the hammer taps are still visible in the bronze. Finally, after the varnish had finally set in the cold and wet of the Western Front – one imagines the box in a place of honour, drying by a stove in the muck and mire of a dugout – he turned the box around and hammered a note to his son with a nail point: “To ALFIE from DAD XMAS 1917”. He sent it off in the post, hopefully to arrive safely by Christmas for his son Alfie in England.

Alfie’s father was a member of the Machine Gun Corps. This prestigious force was formed in late 1915 with the aim to improve the effectiveness of the use of crew-operated machine guns in support of Allied infantry and cavalry units on all fronts. In 1914, each infantry battalion or cavalry regiment went to war with two machine guns embedded in the unit, this was quickly raised to four. By 1915, the Army realised that machine guns were being employed in a sub-optimal fashion, and a correction was in order. The Machine Gun Corps was formed in October 1915 by taking the Maxim and Vickers gun sections from all infantry regiments and consolidating the force to provide specialized training and specific marksmanship to crews to improve the use the machine guns on the front. By 1916, the Machine Gun Corps was divided into four branches: infantry, cavalry, motorized, and heavy. Most machine gunners were trained on the grounds of Belton House, a stately home just north of Cambridgeshire, near Grantham in Lincolnshire and would go on to support the infantry.

Life in the Machine Gun Corps was not easy – its members served on all fronts in the Great War – and the force was nicknamed “the suicide club” due to its heavy casualties. The enemy, observing the importance of the machine gun sections to both defensive and offensive operations, specifically targeted machine gun positions, mainly through artillery fires. By the war’s end, 170,500 officers and men served in the Machine Gun Corps, 62,049 became casualties, just over 36 percent of total strength. 12,498 members of the Machine Gun Corps died during the war. Seven members of the Machine Gun Corps were awarded the Victoria Cross, two posthumously. The machine gunner’s grit and bravery was unquestioned.

The Machine Gun Corps was short lived. It was disbanded in 1922 to save money after the war, but its legacy lives on in the Royal Tank Regiment. The heavy branch of the Machine Gun Corps was the first to operate tanks in combat on the Western Front, forming the Tank Corps when seperated from the Machine Gun Corps in July 1917. This force became the Royal Tank Corps in 1923 and now forms the Royal Tank Regiment.

This box, this gift from a father to his son at a time when at least one of the two realised they might not meet again, is the most precious and sentimental type of trench art. It was a gift to a family member made with what was available and at hand at the time. It leads to more questions than it answers: did the father make it home by the next Christmas, in 1918, after the war ended? Did Alfie, who received the box 107 Christmases ago, keep and cherish this gift from his father? Did Alfie ever learn of the experiences, the suffering, the pain that his father must have experienced while in France with the Machine Gun Corps? What became of the box after the Christmas of 1917?

I can answer some of the last question. The box was obviously used to save coins for a long time, the slot on top is worn from the rough edges of many coins dropped through. The screws on the bottom – the old-fashioned slotted or flat head screws that one sees in Victorian or Edwardian furniture – have been taken out and screwed back many, many times. It was the only way for Alfie, or others, to retrieve the money they had saved.

What about the father? I assume he was commissioned, for the collar badge is an officer’s: it is bronze. Besides that, there is very little to learn of him.

The box eventually ended up in an antique store in Tewkesbury, a market town in Gloucestershire, and came to me for a few pounds. It now sits proudly on my shelf, as I am certain it once did on Alfie’s.

Recently, as my family was decorating for Christmas, I found myself hoping once more that Alfie’s father made it home from France a year after he made this box and was rejoined safely with his family. I hope that Alfie, and his father, shared many Christmases together in later years. Maybe a bit sentimentally, I wonder if 107 years ago, as this box was being assembled in the cold and misery of France in 1917, if its maker could have imagined it would be cared for and kept by a different family in England over a century later?

While a box like this will always spur more questions than it answers, I would like to tell you how I appreciate the questions and comments you send my way through the year, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

RAF Little Staughton: Home of the Pathfinders of No. 109 and No. 582 Squadrons

During the Second World War a large Royal Air Force Station operated several types of aircraft and served both the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Corps near the village of Little Staughton, on the border between Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. In 1942, RAF Little Staughton was designed as a Class A airfield, able to support the heavies — multi-engine bombers such as Boeing B-17s, Consolidated B-24s, and Avro Lancasters. Once complete, the airfield was set aside as a depot, more specifically, the 2^nd Advance Air Depot of the US Army Air Corps, under the 1^st Bomb Wing at RAF Brampton Grange (see my posting about this headquarters). B-17s, damaged or in need of maintenance that could not be provided at their home station were flown to RAF Little Staughton for repairs.

On 1 March 1944, the U.S. Air Force returned the facility to RAF use, and it became the home of two squadrons of Pathfinder Force Group 8 – No. 109 Squadron flying the de Havilland Mosquito XVIs, and No. 582 Squadron flying Avro Lancaster Mark Is and IIIs.

In the last year of the war, the Pathfinders flew 2,100 sorties from RAF Little Staughton in 165 separate missions against Germany and occupied Europe. Over 120 medals for courage and gallantry were awarded to the officers and men flying from RAF Little Staughton, along with two Victoria Crosses: Squadron Leader Robert A. M. Palmer, VC DFC with Bar and Captain Edwin “Ted” Swales, VC DFC. The two men were close friends and both pilots in 582 Squadron.

Squadron Leader Palmer was 24 years old on 23 December 1944 when he was the Master Bomber – in command of the lead bomber on a raid of 30 aircraft – over Cologne, Germany. Despite heavy clouds and several losses enroute to the target, Palmer continued the run despite an order having gone out to break up the formation and for the bombers to drop their ordnance visually. His Lancaster damaged by German anti-aircraft fire, with two engines erupting in flames, Palmer stayed on target and dropped his bombs as the lead plane, fulfilling his role as a Pathfinder, before his aircraft spiralled out of control. Only the tail gunner escaped from Palmer’s Lancaster. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. Six of the 30 RAF aircraft on the 23 December 1944 raid on Cologne were lost.

Captain Swales, a South African pilot, was 29 years old on 23 February 1945 when he was the Master Bomber in a Lancaster leading a bombing raid on Pforzheim, Germany of 367 Lancasters and 13 Mosquitos. Swales successfully found the target and marked it for the several hundred bombers following his lead. After dropping his bomb load, Swales’ Lancaster was critically damaged by a Messerschmidt Bf-110. With the fuel tanks ruptured and two engines lost, Swales held the plane in the air as his crew all successfully bailed out over France. He attempted to bring down the Lancaster over friendly territory, but it stalled and crashed near Valenciennes. Like his friend Palmer, Swales was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. His Lancaster was one of 12 lost in the raid.

28 Lancasters from No. 582 Squadron would be lost from April 1944 until VE day. 23 Mosquitos of No. 109 Squadron were lost during the same period. The sacrifices of these men, working to protect their nation and liberate Europe, in such a short period of time is stunning.

In September 1945, RAF Little Staughton was put into a care and maintenance status. However, its days as a flying airfield were not finished. In the 1950s, the U.S. Air Force expanded and lengthened the main runway to 3,000 yards so that RAF Little Staughton could serve as a divert for RAF Alconbury’s North American B-45 Tornado multi-engine jet bombers and the Douglas B-66 Destroyer light bombers which were then flown by the 85^th Bombardment Squadron.

Today, light industry dots the former airfield and many of the original buildings, storage areas, hangars, and the control tower still stand. A solar power farm covers much of the land which once was the Royal Air Force station. Overgrown and scattered around the site are several old blast shelters, bomb dumps, petrol storage tanks and more. Hangars and barracks are still used by small businesses. Light, general aviation craft fly from the old runways. Maybe, best of all in terms of preservation, the World War II control tower still stands and is in excellent shape, it is now a private residence. In fact, RAF Little Staughton is one of the best-preserved airfields I’ve visited, not that it has been kept as a museum, but its ongoing use has maintained the facility in an impressive state of repair after almost a century.

A mile or so from the former air station lies the Parish Church of All Saints, Little Staughton. Interestingly, the church lies a bit distant from the village, as the original village was abandoned after a bought of bubonic plague and the survivors farther away from its original location in the Middle Ages. A memorial in the Church on the south wall honours the men from 109 and 582 Pathfinder Squadrons who lost their lives, and the airfield’s Roll of Honour is on display as well. (Although the church is open on Saturdays and Sundays in the summer, you can ring ahead and arrange a time to visit throughout the year, just check the parish website.)

Located near the end of the runway is the RAF Little Staughton Airfield Memorial, obviously well cared for by the village. It recognized the sacrifice of the airmen who once flew from this field and lies on the cracked concrete which once made up the runway.

1648: The Battle of St Neots

It has been brought to my attention several times that Cambridgeshire has seen few battles and holds no remembered battlefields – a real problem for a historical blog on the military history of Cambridgeshire. Some argue that for all the fighting which has occurred in England, from the Romans to the Danes, through the Civil War, Cambridgeshire has remained an area of relative peace. While there have been consequential battles near Cambridgeshire – one thinks of Naseby (1645) in Northamptonshire or the Battle of Fornham St Genevieve (1173) near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk – they have all occurred outside the borders of the county. The conventional wisdom is that Cambridgeshire has been spared the war and bloodshed which has been sadly common in English history. This is not true! Allow me to write about one example:

Towards the end of the English Civil War, in July 1648, a battle occurred first along the River Great Ouse and then spilled into the market square of St Neots in Cambridgeshire. Now, you are certainly thinking that the Civil War had concluded with the defeat of King Charles I’s army in May 1646 and that the period between the Spring of 1646 and Charles’ execution at the Banqueting House in London at the end of January 1649 was one of relative peace. Again, not true! After the defeat of the Royalists, England settled into a period of uneasy peace with the restive New Model Army under the leadership of Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell and the more moderate parliamentarians trying to find a way to maintain the monarchy and negotiating with Charles I. As negotiations broke down, it became obvious that Charles and his advisors were playing for time to seek assistance from Scotland. The Second English Civil War began as uprisings in England and Wales allowed the Scots to rise and invade from the North. During this time, a royalist cavalry troop of several hundred men under Colonel John Dalbier, a German mercenary who had fought with parliament before changing sides, arrived near St Neots after a failed attack on London. The Royalists had two confidants of Charles I in their party: Henry Rich, the Earl of Holland, and George Villiers, the 2^nd Duke of Buckingham, both also escaping the recent fighting near London. The approximately 300 Royalists were tired, demoralized and fleeing their failure outside London, chased by parliamentarian dragoons. Once arriving at St Neots on 9 July, Colonel Dalbier posted a few guards at the bridge over the River Great Ouse while his men pitched camp and slept within St Neots’ Market Square. The Earl of Holland and Duke of Buckingham found rooms at an Inn and stayed apart from the men.

Having defeated the royalist force near London, the leadership of the New Model Army sent parliamentarian Colonel Adrian Scrope with a mounted force of approximately 100 dragoons and foot soldiers to chase and intercept the royalists fleeing London. Having caught up to the royalists at the River Great Ouse, Colonel Scrope’s men waited until the early morning hours to engage. At 2am on the morning of 10 July 1648, the parliamentarians attacked the few awake men of Colonel Dalbier first at the bridge, and then in a moving battle into the heart of St Neots – the Market Square. Colonel Dalbier died near the bridge along with several of his men, some of whom drowned in the Ouse trying to swim away in the dark. The Earl of Holland roused his men and fought the parliamentarians in the Market Square, but as his resistance buckled, he fled into the Inn where he had billeted for the night and barricaded himself within. The Inn’s gate was broken down by the attacking soldiers. The parliamentarians stormed the Inn and cornered the Earl in his room, sword drawn, back against the wall. He surrendered once he had received the soldiers’ promise that his life would be spared. He was brought to Colonel Scrope, who had him chained along with five other captured royalist officers and imprisoned in St Mary’s Parish Church. They were taken to Warwick Castle the next day under armed guard.

The Duke of Buckingham escaped, fleeing into the night with some portion of the cavalry in the direction of Huntingdon. Eventually he would make his way to the Netherlands and would rise to great power during the restoration of Charles II.

After the battle, captured royalist forces were held overnight in St Mary’s Parish Church, though several fled into the dark and dispersed. As mentioned, the Earl of Holland was taken to Warwick Castle the next day where he was held for the next six months. He had already been pardoned once in 1643 when he changed sides during the Civil War, deserting his friend the King to join parliament, before rejoining the royalist cause. Detested by the more extreme parliament of 1649 and by Colonel Scrope in particular, his machinations finally caught up with him, the Earl of Holland was held for six months before being tried for treason and executed on 9 March, shortly after Charles I.

Colonel Scrope went on to sign Charles I’s death warrant as one of the 59 commissioners and served as the head of security during the King’s trial. He was promised clemency during the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, but was arrested as a regicide and hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross, London on 12 October 1660.

Today, the St Neots Market Square where the royalist forces camped and most of the fighting occurred is still the centre of the town and easy to visit with ample parking. The St Neots Museum is a few steps away along New Street and worth a visit. Sadly, the 17^th Century stone bridge where Colonel Dalbier stood watch was torn down and replaced in 1964. St. Mary the Virgin Parish Church, which has been called the Cathedral of Huntingdonshire, is stunning. Built mostly during the 15^th Century, though there are earlier sections, the church is beautiful and worth a visit to appreciate its late medieval architecture and 128-foot tower; however, I was unable to find any memories of the royalist soldiers, their officers, and the Earl of Holland who were held there in 1648 after the Battle of St Neots.

For more information, visit the St Neots Museum, which is open Tuesday through Saturday each week. The Museum is located at The Old Court, 8 New Street, St Neots, PE19 1AE. 01480214163.

As is the case with most churches in Cambridgeshire, St Mary’s Parish Church is open daily for visits.

Trench Art: Hand Worked Shell Vase from 1917

I have been fascinated by Trench Art for several years. I was first exposed to numerous examples of decorated shells, paperweights, desktop items, and trinkets made in the areas around Mons and Ypres, Belgium where we lived some time ago. Some of these items I acquired and began a small collection. First though, what is Trench Art? At its most basic level, it is handcrafted artwork made by soldiers and sailors who find themselves with free time and materials to create original works of art. This was often men stuck in the trenches of the First World War, or in Prisoner of War (POW) camps from the Napoleonic Wars through World War II. Items were made as souvenirs to post home or carry back on leave, to trade, or to simply occupy time in a dangerous and horrifying situation. One feels that a soldier felt very little control over his circumstances and fate, surrounded by destruction, but could find a release through an act of creation. There are numerous items one can find: decorated brass shell casings are common, but also letter openers, desk items, regimental items, matchbook holders, ash trays, models of ships, aeroplanes, ships, and so on. The beauty of Trench Art is in its originality, its story, the story of its materials, who might have made it, and why?

According to Nicholas Saunders, who has written on the history and variety of Trench Art, there are four real categories of the craft: items made by soldiers in war; items made by POWs; items made by civilians at the front with access to materials; and finally, purely commercial items. The first three categories are the most interesting to me; however, around Belgium one often finds examples of the fourth category. Often one finds decorated shells made to sell to families traveling to Flanders in the 1920s – the Menin Gate or some other poignant memorial often is depicted on these items.

We are currently traveling in southern France on holiday. While exploring a local marché aux puces, a flea market, I found a decorated French 75-millimetre brass shell, with 1917 hammered into the lower part of the vase below a stylized cornflower. The cornflower in light blue is the symbol for remembrance in France, like the red poppy in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth Nations, or the gold star or yellow ribbon in the United States. The base of the shell reads: “75 DE C, C. 793 L. 17 C”. As time has gone by, these markings have become harder to decipher, but the “75 DE C” means 75 canon de compagne, or the 75mm quick-firing field gun, which is the gun for which the shell was made. The “C. 793 L.” is the munitions manufacturer and the lot number, so C is for Castelsarrasin, Tarn-et-Garrone, which was the location of a major armaments factory in southwest France under the Compagnie Française des Métaux (CFM) concern. This shell in particular was part of that facilities’ 793^rd lot of 1917. The “17” is the year of manufacture, 1917. The final “C” is the initial for the foundry which made the brass for the shell, also CFM’s Castelsarrasin factory in this case.

I find it interesting to delve into the history of these decorated items, these mementos made during such awful times. What makes this piece of Trench Art fascinating is that after this shell was manufactured and fired in 1917, a French soldier likely took the time to hammer a cornflower and the year into the brass, then blued the indentations. He almost certainly made this piece of art in 1917 soon after the shell was fired since the brass casings of fired rounds were collected, recycled and reforged by French armaments manufacturers desperate for raw materials late in the war. The shell vase was then kept for 107 years until it came into my possession at a French flea market this week. There are many questions which are unanswerable: where on the Front was this 75mm shell fired? At whom or what? Who made this specific piece of Trench Art? Did he survive the war? Was it a gift for a wife, a sweetheart, or family member? Maybe he made it to trade or to sell? Who kept it, cherished it, and preserved it for over a century? One question I can answer, the cost in 2024? 107 years after it was made on the Western Front, lovingly preserved, and eventually forgotten, it made it into a box of old bits of metal and cost me 8 Euros on a hot Saturday in southwest France.

For more information on Trench Art, I’d recommend an excellent book on the subject: Nicholas J. Saunders, Trench Art: A Brief History and Guide, 1914-1939. 2^nd Ed., (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Books, 2011).

UPDATE: Aircraft Archeology: Mosquito Crash Site in the Dutch Countryside

A few years ago, I wrote about the night of 27 April 1944, when an RAF Mosquito, P for Pete, was shot down along the Dutch-German border: you can read my original posting here. P for Pete was flown by Flight Sergeant Royston John Edward Adey with Flight Sergeant K. J. Pinnell as his navigator and co-pilot. The De Havilland Mosquito, a high-speed, two-engine, multi-role aircraft, mainly made of wood, was an exceptional aircraft during the war. During this evening, it was making a low-altitude, intruder bombing and strafing mission on Vliegbasis Twenthe (Dutch: Twente Airbase), a German fighter base in the eastern occupied Netherlands.

Both Flight Sergeant Adey and Flight Sergeant Pinnell were killed when their airplane crashed in the Haagse Bos (Dutch: Haagse Woods). After the crash, local Dutch farmers removed their bodies and they were both buried in a corner of the Enschede cemetery nearby, the Oosterbegraafplaats Enschede. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) maintains the two men’s graves in a quiet corner of the cemetery. As I wrote a few years ago, Flight Sergeant R. J. E. Adey was 21 years old at the time of his death. His parents were Ronald John Edward Adey and Edith Rose Mary Adey, still living in their family home at Winshill, Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire. In Winshill, at St. Mark’s Parish Church there are two memorials marking the names of men from the village who fell in the First and Second World Wars, Flight Sergeant Adey’s name is honoured there.

Recently, I received an email from a family member of Flight Sergeant Adey, Lt Colonel Mike Southworth, whose mother was Rosemary Adey, Flight Sergeant Adey’s sister. Colonel Southworth had several items relating to the loss of Flight Sergeant Adey during 1944, and kindly provided those important documents to be posted here in his memory. A special thanks to Colonel Southworth and his niece Claire for letting me share these precious items with you.

HMT Cambridgeshire (FY-142), an Armed Trawler during the Second World War

While several Royal Navy vessels throughout history have been named after the City of Cambridge and people from the area, there has only been one ship named after the entire county: His Majesties Trawler Cambridgeshire, a submarine chaser from the Second World War. Laid down as a 442-ton fishing vessel and launched in 1935, she was requisitioned by the Royal Navy in August 1939. Her conversion into a warship occurred in the desperate months of rapid military expansion before the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. She was converted by the Royal Navy into an anti-submarine role by removing her fishing gear and converting her storage holds into crew berthing and a magazine, adding a 4-inch deck gun forward, and installing depth charge racks to drop explosives off the stern of the ship. She was armed with a navy crew. By the end of the war, over 200 armed trawlers like HMT Cambridgeshire would be hunting submarines, laying and sweeping mines, and patrolling the approaches to the United Kingdom and the waters around Europe. A dangerous but important role was played by these small vessels: the Royal Navy lost 72 Armed Trawlers during the war and hundreds of sailors were lost.

HMT Cambridgeshire would likely be remembered only as one of the many capable but largely forgotten small combatants from the Second World War except for her experience on 17 June 1940, when she rescued over 800 civilians and soldiers from the RMS Lancastria, sunk by the German Luftwaffe during the desperation evacuation of France.

The RMS Lancastria, a passenger liner which had been converted into a troop ship, loaded several thousand fleeing civilians and soldiers in her hold, throughout her interior, and along her weather decks as part of Operation AERIAL – the evacuation of remaining Allied military personnel from Western France. The panic in St. Nazaire, France, as the Nazis rapidly approached and the French Government was capitulating led to a frenzied loading of all available ships for evacuation to England. RMS Lancastria, designed to hold 2,180 passengers and 330 crew was part of this evacuation. Her Captain felt the ship could hold up to 3,000, but in the desperation to load and depart St. Nazaire an estimated 5,500 and 7,200 people were brought onboard – no ships manifest was recorded, time was too short. The RMS Lancastria set sail and was almost immediately under attack by German Ju 88 bombers. She was hit by several bombs and sunk within 20 minutes. It is still unknown, but somewhere between 4,000-7,000 refugees, military personnel, and crew may have died in the sinking. The overloading of the ship ensured people could not escape. There were not enough lifeboats, there were far too few life preservers. The loss of the RMS Lancastria is the worst maritime catastrophe in the history of the United Kingdom.

Thankfully, 2,477 men, women, and children were rescued by local ships coming to the rescue, with HMT Cambridgeshire saving more than any other. She brought between 800 to 900 survivors out of the cold waters and choking fuel, bringing them onboard over several hours under fire. Captain W. G. Euston, the Cambridgeshire’s Commanding Officer, maneuvered the ship while under machine gun fire from strafing German aircraft. He later recommended many of his sailors for decorations, specifically Stanley Kingett, who kept maneuvering the ship’s launch away from enemy planes to save hundreds of lives, and William Perrin who maintained machine gun fire on low-flying German planes, buying time for the Cambridgeshire’s rescue efforts. In fact, the ship’s machine gunners later claimed to have shot down one German aircraft during the rescue. Later that evening, still covered in discarded clothing, bunker fuel, and the discarded items of the hundreds she had rescued, HMT Cambridgeshire returned to St. Nazaire to take the Commander of the British Expeditionary Force, Lieutenant General Alan Brooke, and his staff from France.

HMT Cambridgeshire would later participate in Operation NEPTUNE, the naval portion of the D-Day landings in June 1944. She hunted for submarines as the British, Canadian, American, and Free French forces landed across Normandy, assisting in the return of British forces to France whom she had helped evacuate just four years earlier.

After Victory in Europe Day, the Royal Navy sold HMT Cambridgeshire at the end of 1945, and she converted back to a humble fishing ship. The proud warship’s name was changed to the Kingston Sapphire. She fished the North Sea and Atlantic until she was finally scrapped in Brugges, Belgium in 1954.