Celebrities from the Air Works?
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rbp71854
PTO Solomons ,PTO Rising Sun, ETO Expansion
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Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British novelist, short story writer and screenwriter, born in Wales of Norwegian parents. After service in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace, he rose to prominence in the 1940s with works for both children and adults, and became one of the world's bestselling authors. His short stories are known for their unexpected endings, and his children's books for their unsentimental, often very dark humour. Some of his most popular books include The Twits, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Witches and The BFG.
In August 1939, as World War II impended, plans were made to round up the hundreds of Germans in Dar-es-Salaam. Dahl was made an officer in the King's African Rifles, commanding a platoon of askaris, indigenous troops serving in the colonial army.
In November 1939, Dahl joined the Royal Air Force. After a 600-mile (970 km) car journey from Dar-es-Salaam to Nairobi, he was accepted for flight training with 20 other men, and was one of only three who survived the war, as the other 17 died in combat. With seven hours and 40 minutes experience in a De Havilland Tiger Moth, he flew solo; Dahl enjoyed watching the wildlife of Kenya during his flights. He continued on to advanced flying training in Iraq, at RAF Habbaniya, 50 miles (80 km) west of Baghdad. Following six months training on Hawker Harts, Dahl was made a Pilot Officer.
He was assigned to No. 80 Squadron RAF, flying obsolete Gloster Gladiators, the last biplane fighter plane used by the RAF. Dahl was surprised to find that he would not receive any specialised training in aerial combat, or in regard to flying Gladiators. On 19 September 1940, Dahl was ordered to fly his Gladiator from Abu Sueir in Egypt, on to Amiriya to refuel, and again to Fouka in Libya for a second refuelling. From there he would fly to 80 Squadron's forward airstrip 30 miles (48 km) south of Mersa Matruh. On the final leg, he could not find the airstrip and, running low on fuel and with night approaching, he was forced to attempt a landing in the desert. The undercarriage hit a boulder and the plane crashed, fracturing his skull, smashing his nose, and temporarily blinding him. He managed to drag himself away from the blazing wreckage and passed out. Later, he wrote about the crash for his first published work.
Dahl was rescued and taken to a first-aid post in Mersa Matruh, where he regained consciousness, but not his sight, and was then taken by train to the Royal Navy hospital in Alexandria. There he fell in and out of love with a nurse, Mary Welland. Dahl had fallen in love with her voice while he was blind, but once he regained his sight, he decided that he no longer loved her. An RAF inquiry into the crash revealed that the location he had been told to fly to was completely wrong, and he had mistakenly been sent instead to the no man's land between the Allied and Italian forces.[3]
In February 1941, Dahl was discharged and passed fully fit for flying duties. By this time, 80 Squadron had been transferred to the Greek campaign and based at Eleusina, near Athens. The squadron was now equipped with Hawker Hurricanes. Dahl flew a replacement Hurricane across the Mediterranean Sea in April 1941, after seven hours flying Hurricanes. By this stage in the Greek campaign, the RAF had only 18 combat planes in Greece: 14 Hurricanes and four Bristol Blenheim light bombers. Dahl saw his first aerial combat on 15 April 1941, while flying alone over the city of Chalcis. He attacked six Junkers Ju-88s that were bombing ships and shot one down. On 16 April in another air battle, he shot down another Ju-88.
On 20 April 1941 Dahl took part in the "Battle of Athens", alongside the highest-scoring British Commonwealth ace of World War II, Pat Pattle and Dahl's friend David Coke. Of 12 Hurricanes involved, five were shot down and four of their pilots killed, including Pattle. Greek observers on the ground counted 22 German aircraft downed, but none of the pilots knew who they shot down due to the carnage of the aerial engagement. Roald Dahl described it as "an endless blur of enemy fighters whizzing towards me from every side."
The wing returned back to Elevsis. Later on in the day, the aerodrome was strafed by Bf 109s, but none of them hit any of the Hawker Hurricanes. The Hurricanes were then evacuated to a small, secret airfield near Megara, a small village on 21 April 1941, where the pilots hid. Approximately 50 miles (80 km) north half of the Luftwaffe were searching for the remaining Hurricanes. By approximately 6 or 7 A.M., about thirty Bf-109s and Stuka dive-bombers flew over the seven pilots who were hiding. The Stukas dived bombed a tanker in the Bay of Athens, and sank it. Dahl and his comrades were only 500 yards (460 m) away from the incident. Surprisingly, none of the bombers nor the fighters were able to spot the Hurricanes parked in the nearby field. Sometime in the afternoon, an Air Commodore arrived in a car to the airfield and asked if one of the seven could volunteer to fly and deliver a package to a man named Carter at Elevsis. Roald Dahl was the only one who volunteered to do it. The contents of the package were of vital importance, and Dahl was told that if he was shot down, or captured, he should burn the package immediately, so it would not fall into enemy hands, and once he had handed over the package, he was to fly to Argos, an airfield, with the rest of the seven pilots in the squadron.
For the rest of April, the situation was horrible for the RAF in Greece. If the Luftwaffe destroyed the remaining seven planes, they would then have complete control of the skies in Greece. They intended to wipe them out. If the squadron were to be found, it would mean the worst. According to Dahl's report, at about 4:30 P.M. a Bf 110 swooped over the airfield at Argos, and found them. The pilots discussed that it would take the 110 roughly half an hour to return to base, and then another half hour for the whole enemy squadron to get ready for take-off, and then another half hour for them to reach Argos. They had roughly an hour and thirty minutes until they would be strafed by enemy aircraft. However, instead of having the remaining seven pilots airborne and intercepting the 110s an hour ahead, the CO ordered them to escort ships evacuating their army in Greece at 6:00. The seven planes got up into the air, but the formation was quickly disorganized as the radios were not working. Dahl and Coke found themselves separated from the rest of the wing. They could not communicate with the rest of the wing, so they continued on flying, looking for the ships to escort. Eventually they ran out of fuel and returned back to Argos, where they found the entire airfield in smoke and flames, with tents flamed, ammunition destroyed, etc.; however there were few casualties. What happened was that while Roald Dahl and David Coke took off, three other aircraft in the wing somehow managed to get away. The sixth pilot who was taking off was strafed by the enemy and killed. The seventh pilot managed to bail out. Everybody else in the camp was hiding in the slit trenches. Immediately after Dahl and Coke figured out what was going on, the squadron was sent to Crete. A month later they were evacuated to Egypt.
As the Germans were pressing on Athens, Dahl was evacuated to Egypt. His squadron was reassembled in Haifa. From there, Dahl flew missions every day for a period of four weeks, downing a Vichy French Air Force Potez 63 on 8 June and another Ju-88 on 15 June, but he then began to get severe headaches that caused him to black out. He was invalided home to Britain; at this time his rank was Flight Lieutenant.
Dahl began writing in 1942, after he was transferred to Washington, D.C. as Assistant Air Attaché. His first published work, in the 1 August 1942 issue of the Saturday Evening Post was "Shot Down Over Libya", describing the crash of his Gloster Gladiator. C. S. Forester had asked Dahl to write down some RAF anecdotes so that he could shape them into a story. After Forester sat down to read what Dahl had given him, he decided to publish it exactly as it was. The original title of the article was A Piece of Cake — the title was changed to sound more dramatic, despite the fact that the he was not "shot down".[3]
During the war, Forester worked for the British Information Service and was writing propaganda for the Allied cause, mainly for American consumption.[4] This work introduced Dahl to espionage and the activities of the Canadian spymaster William Stephenson, known by the codename "Intrepid". During the war, Dahl supplied intelligence from Washington to Stephenson and his organization, which was known as British Security Coordination. Dahl was sent back to Britain, for supposed misconduct by British Embassy officials: "I got booted out by the big boys," he said. Stephenson sent him back to Washington — with a promotion.[5] After the war Dahl wrote some of the history of the secret organization and he and Stephenson remained friends for decades after the war.[6]
He ended the war as a Wing Commander. His record of five aerial victories, qualifying him as a flying ace, has been confirmed by post-war research and cross-referenced in Axis records, although it is most likely that he scored more than that during 20 April 1941 where 22 German aircraft were downed.[7]
He was also revealed in the 1980s to have been a clandestine agent for MI-6, the British Foreign Intelligence Service, serving in the United States to help promote Britain's interests and message in the United States and combat the "America First" movement, working with other well known men including Ian Fleming and David Ogilvy.[8]
Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British novelist, short story writer and screenwriter, born in Wales of Norwegian parents. After service in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace, he rose to prominence in the 1940s with works for both children and adults, and became one of the world's bestselling authors. His short stories are known for their unexpected endings, and his children's books for their unsentimental, often very dark humour. Some of his most popular books include The Twits, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Witches and The BFG.
In August 1939, as World War II impended, plans were made to round up the hundreds of Germans in Dar-es-Salaam. Dahl was made an officer in the King's African Rifles, commanding a platoon of askaris, indigenous troops serving in the colonial army.
In November 1939, Dahl joined the Royal Air Force. After a 600-mile (970 km) car journey from Dar-es-Salaam to Nairobi, he was accepted for flight training with 20 other men, and was one of only three who survived the war, as the other 17 died in combat. With seven hours and 40 minutes experience in a De Havilland Tiger Moth, he flew solo; Dahl enjoyed watching the wildlife of Kenya during his flights. He continued on to advanced flying training in Iraq, at RAF Habbaniya, 50 miles (80 km) west of Baghdad. Following six months training on Hawker Harts, Dahl was made a Pilot Officer.
He was assigned to No. 80 Squadron RAF, flying obsolete Gloster Gladiators, the last biplane fighter plane used by the RAF. Dahl was surprised to find that he would not receive any specialised training in aerial combat, or in regard to flying Gladiators. On 19 September 1940, Dahl was ordered to fly his Gladiator from Abu Sueir in Egypt, on to Amiriya to refuel, and again to Fouka in Libya for a second refuelling. From there he would fly to 80 Squadron's forward airstrip 30 miles (48 km) south of Mersa Matruh. On the final leg, he could not find the airstrip and, running low on fuel and with night approaching, he was forced to attempt a landing in the desert. The undercarriage hit a boulder and the plane crashed, fracturing his skull, smashing his nose, and temporarily blinding him. He managed to drag himself away from the blazing wreckage and passed out. Later, he wrote about the crash for his first published work.
Dahl was rescued and taken to a first-aid post in Mersa Matruh, where he regained consciousness, but not his sight, and was then taken by train to the Royal Navy hospital in Alexandria. There he fell in and out of love with a nurse, Mary Welland. Dahl had fallen in love with her voice while he was blind, but once he regained his sight, he decided that he no longer loved her. An RAF inquiry into the crash revealed that the location he had been told to fly to was completely wrong, and he had mistakenly been sent instead to the no man's land between the Allied and Italian forces.[3]
In February 1941, Dahl was discharged and passed fully fit for flying duties. By this time, 80 Squadron had been transferred to the Greek campaign and based at Eleusina, near Athens. The squadron was now equipped with Hawker Hurricanes. Dahl flew a replacement Hurricane across the Mediterranean Sea in April 1941, after seven hours flying Hurricanes. By this stage in the Greek campaign, the RAF had only 18 combat planes in Greece: 14 Hurricanes and four Bristol Blenheim light bombers. Dahl saw his first aerial combat on 15 April 1941, while flying alone over the city of Chalcis. He attacked six Junkers Ju-88s that were bombing ships and shot one down. On 16 April in another air battle, he shot down another Ju-88.
On 20 April 1941 Dahl took part in the "Battle of Athens", alongside the highest-scoring British Commonwealth ace of World War II, Pat Pattle and Dahl's friend David Coke. Of 12 Hurricanes involved, five were shot down and four of their pilots killed, including Pattle. Greek observers on the ground counted 22 German aircraft downed, but none of the pilots knew who they shot down due to the carnage of the aerial engagement. Roald Dahl described it as "an endless blur of enemy fighters whizzing towards me from every side."
The wing returned back to Elevsis. Later on in the day, the aerodrome was strafed by Bf 109s, but none of them hit any of the Hawker Hurricanes. The Hurricanes were then evacuated to a small, secret airfield near Megara, a small village on 21 April 1941, where the pilots hid. Approximately 50 miles (80 km) north half of the Luftwaffe were searching for the remaining Hurricanes. By approximately 6 or 7 A.M., about thirty Bf-109s and Stuka dive-bombers flew over the seven pilots who were hiding. The Stukas dived bombed a tanker in the Bay of Athens, and sank it. Dahl and his comrades were only 500 yards (460 m) away from the incident. Surprisingly, none of the bombers nor the fighters were able to spot the Hurricanes parked in the nearby field. Sometime in the afternoon, an Air Commodore arrived in a car to the airfield and asked if one of the seven could volunteer to fly and deliver a package to a man named Carter at Elevsis. Roald Dahl was the only one who volunteered to do it. The contents of the package were of vital importance, and Dahl was told that if he was shot down, or captured, he should burn the package immediately, so it would not fall into enemy hands, and once he had handed over the package, he was to fly to Argos, an airfield, with the rest of the seven pilots in the squadron.
For the rest of April, the situation was horrible for the RAF in Greece. If the Luftwaffe destroyed the remaining seven planes, they would then have complete control of the skies in Greece. They intended to wipe them out. If the squadron were to be found, it would mean the worst. According to Dahl's report, at about 4:30 P.M. a Bf 110 swooped over the airfield at Argos, and found them. The pilots discussed that it would take the 110 roughly half an hour to return to base, and then another half hour for the whole enemy squadron to get ready for take-off, and then another half hour for them to reach Argos. They had roughly an hour and thirty minutes until they would be strafed by enemy aircraft. However, instead of having the remaining seven pilots airborne and intercepting the 110s an hour ahead, the CO ordered them to escort ships evacuating their army in Greece at 6:00. The seven planes got up into the air, but the formation was quickly disorganized as the radios were not working. Dahl and Coke found themselves separated from the rest of the wing. They could not communicate with the rest of the wing, so they continued on flying, looking for the ships to escort. Eventually they ran out of fuel and returned back to Argos, where they found the entire airfield in smoke and flames, with tents flamed, ammunition destroyed, etc.; however there were few casualties. What happened was that while Roald Dahl and David Coke took off, three other aircraft in the wing somehow managed to get away. The sixth pilot who was taking off was strafed by the enemy and killed. The seventh pilot managed to bail out. Everybody else in the camp was hiding in the slit trenches. Immediately after Dahl and Coke figured out what was going on, the squadron was sent to Crete. A month later they were evacuated to Egypt.
As the Germans were pressing on Athens, Dahl was evacuated to Egypt. His squadron was reassembled in Haifa. From there, Dahl flew missions every day for a period of four weeks, downing a Vichy French Air Force Potez 63 on 8 June and another Ju-88 on 15 June, but he then began to get severe headaches that caused him to black out. He was invalided home to Britain; at this time his rank was Flight Lieutenant.
Dahl began writing in 1942, after he was transferred to Washington, D.C. as Assistant Air Attaché. His first published work, in the 1 August 1942 issue of the Saturday Evening Post was "Shot Down Over Libya", describing the crash of his Gloster Gladiator. C. S. Forester had asked Dahl to write down some RAF anecdotes so that he could shape them into a story. After Forester sat down to read what Dahl had given him, he decided to publish it exactly as it was. The original title of the article was A Piece of Cake — the title was changed to sound more dramatic, despite the fact that the he was not "shot down".[3]
During the war, Forester worked for the British Information Service and was writing propaganda for the Allied cause, mainly for American consumption.[4] This work introduced Dahl to espionage and the activities of the Canadian spymaster William Stephenson, known by the codename "Intrepid". During the war, Dahl supplied intelligence from Washington to Stephenson and his organization, which was known as British Security Coordination. Dahl was sent back to Britain, for supposed misconduct by British Embassy officials: "I got booted out by the big boys," he said. Stephenson sent him back to Washington — with a promotion.[5] After the war Dahl wrote some of the history of the secret organization and he and Stephenson remained friends for decades after the war.[6]
He ended the war as a Wing Commander. His record of five aerial victories, qualifying him as a flying ace, has been confirmed by post-war research and cross-referenced in Axis records, although it is most likely that he scored more than that during 20 April 1941 where 22 German aircraft were downed.[7]
He was also revealed in the 1980s to have been a clandestine agent for MI-6, the British Foreign Intelligence Service, serving in the United States to help promote Britain's interests and message in the United States and combat the "America First" movement, working with other well known men including Ian Fleming and David Ogilvy.[8]
Sorry, been away/busy... Wikipedia has at least a little on Pleasence, Attenborough and Burton.
Re. Pleasence, the relevant part is:
Can't find much about Burton except that he was a navigator, and served from 1944-47. Hard to find much about Attenborough too - he was assigned to the RAF film unit for at least some of the time but definitely did fly too.
On a related note, I don't know how carefully researched it is, but http://www.military-quotes.com/forum/movie-stars-ww2-t72364.html was interesting too.
Re. Pleasence, the relevant part is:
Wikipedia said:
Can't find much about Burton except that he was a navigator, and served from 1944-47. Hard to find much about Attenborough too - he was assigned to the RAF film unit for at least some of the time but definitely did fly too.
On a related note, I don't know how carefully researched it is, but http://www.military-quotes.com/forum/movie-stars-ww2-t72364.html was interesting too.
3
3/7charlie
Guest
Jimmy Stewart-Drove bombers wartime,actor(duh) went on to hold Brigadeer rank in SAC, postwar
Stocky Edwards- Kittyhawks in North Africa, several kills, on to the ETO, made it through, stayed in the RCAF, planned and led the first wing strength Saber crossing of the atlantic, rather a big deal in the early fifties. one of my Grandfathers chums at the jasper place legion branch(Granddad served in north africa,TORCH,HUSKY,OVERLORD,on into the '60's). Gave my mum her first job as a civilian employee at CFB Namiao , where she met my dad( TDY, SAC,KC-97 Det.) Drove tankers for Conair,( where I served 11 years as a field AME) retired to Comox, my home town, and is still active with the Air Force museum there. Maybe not really famous, but a significant figure in my history.
"Its a small world. But I wouldn't want to paint it."- Steven Wright
3/7charlie
Stocky Edwards- Kittyhawks in North Africa, several kills, on to the ETO, made it through, stayed in the RCAF, planned and led the first wing strength Saber crossing of the atlantic, rather a big deal in the early fifties. one of my Grandfathers chums at the jasper place legion branch(Granddad served in north africa,TORCH,HUSKY,OVERLORD,on into the '60's). Gave my mum her first job as a civilian employee at CFB Namiao , where she met my dad( TDY, SAC,KC-97 Det.) Drove tankers for Conair,( where I served 11 years as a field AME) retired to Comox, my home town, and is still active with the Air Force museum there. Maybe not really famous, but a significant figure in my history.
"Its a small world. But I wouldn't want to paint it."- Steven Wright
3/7charlie
W
Wildfowler
Guest
Further to the above it must be mentioned that some famous British people also did junior service in the Air Training Corp. For example
Jimmy Saville
Richard Burton
Sebastion Coe
Max Bygraves
Jim Davidson
To name a few
Jimmy Saville
Richard Burton
Sebastion Coe
Max Bygraves
Jim Davidson
To name a few
Capt. Winters
Charter Member
Hi Guys,
on a slight side note, one of the suggested pilots I mentioned in my earlier post, Charles (Bud) Tingwell
PR Spit and PR Mossie pilot. Med, Italy.
Passed away on the 15th of May 2009, yet another gone beyond the Vail.
http://www.thecourier.com.au/content/lifestyle/1254592/
click on the media tab and you'll hear a nice tribute to him with photos of his life.
Lest we forget.
regards Rob.
on a slight side note, one of the suggested pilots I mentioned in my earlier post, Charles (Bud) Tingwell
PR Spit and PR Mossie pilot. Med, Italy.
Passed away on the 15th of May 2009, yet another gone beyond the Vail.
http://www.thecourier.com.au/content/lifestyle/1254592/
click on the media tab and you'll hear a nice tribute to him with photos of his life.
Lest we forget.
regards Rob.