The USSR's Military Intervention in the Egyptian-Israeli Conflict Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez Gideon Remez writes: Reading about 41 Squadron's operation of F-4 Phantoms, I thought Association members might be interested in this new book that I co-authored with my "better half," Isabella Ginor. One of the book's main themes is the head-on clash between Israel's newly acquired F-4s and Soviet-manned SAMs -- see the attached painting from the museum of Russia's Air Defense Corps. This duel largely determined the outcome of the Egyptian-Israeli War of Attrition (1969-70) and Yom Kippur War (1973). The book also quotes several dispatches that my father, former 41 Sqn pilot Aharon Remez, sent from his post as Israel's ambassador the the UK, 1965-1970. Isabella and I will be presenting the book at Oxford University's Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies on 18 May and at the South Hampstead Synagogue, London, on 22 May -- see the hyperlinks for details. We'd be delighted to welcome 41 Sqn veterans! Update: Total now reached - Thank you!41 Squadron has now raised £456 for a replacement memorial plaque to go at the military cemetery at Scottow for the 6 servicemen who lost their lives in a coach accident at Sasbachwalden on the 21st May 1983. They were serving with 41(F) Squadron RAF on exchange with 421 Squadron RCAF. 5 of those lost were from a complete cross section of the Squadron: a SNCO Avionics, a Rigger, a FLM, MT driver and a safety equipper. The 6th serviceman was from II Sqn RIC at Laarbruch. Sgt Brian Roe J/T Michael Messenger SAC Paul Armstrong SAC Peter Fox SAC Derrick Swash SAC Stuart Winship Details of this year's memorial servicewww.spiritofcoltishall.com/
This year's memorial will be held at the Scottow Cemetery on the 18th May with serving personnel and Standards on parade. There will also be a dedication service of another new plaque from 41Sqn at the RAF Coltishall Memorial Garden after the service at Scottow. If you wish to attend please arrive at Scottow Cemetery by 10.45 for the service to begin at 11.00. Medals must be worn. This entry has been made possible by Willie Felger, who was on the Squadron during the changeover from the Bloodhound missile to the Phantom. 41(F) Squadron We knew from the beginning that Dink Lemon was destined to form a new squadron but nobody knew officially exactly what form it would take. Early in 1972 we heard that it was indeed to be No 41(F) Squadron under the command of Wg Cdr Brian “Dink” Lemon. In due course several crews, including Tony and me, we were released from our units and gathered in a brand new hangar (now occupied by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight) to re-form this famous squadron. At the same time NCOs and airmen arrived from other units and assembled under the tender mercies of Warrant Officer Arthur Mulvana. The new hangar had empty rooms and offices with bare walls, basic furniture but no budget for decorations, so we had to set to and build our own. We scrounged timber and found the old copper top from the officers mess bar which had recently been replaced, and built our own crew room. We all mucked in and were well on the way to becoming a close-knit team. Similarly WO Mulvana set to knocking the ground crews into shape, starting with early morning parades. The story goes when first interviewed by the Boss – Mr Mulvana said the he knew nothing about Phantoms, but a lot about airmen, so if the boss would please look after the aircraft and the officers, he would sort out the troops – maybe one of his victims could elaborate. On the assumption that nobody would have willingly given up their best people WO Mulvana and the Engineering Officers did a superb job and the sqns reputation soon soared. The squadron’s role was currently held by a Bloodhound anti-aircraft missile squadron at West Raynham in Norfolk, and we were duly despatched for a hand-over ceremony to transfer the squadron Standard to our base at Coningsby. Having done it before I had the honour of being the Standard Bearer – a duty I carried out with respect, enthusiasm and, having been trained at Laarbruch by the RAF Regiment Queen’s Colour Squadron, no small amount of bullshit! With the Standard came boxes of memorabilia which were carefully secured in an empty room until much could be displayed around the squadron. The troops had a huge cross of St Omer fashioned out of railway sleepers and this was painted red and conspicuously fixed to the side of the hangar along with a large name plate. The squadron was famous for being in the thick of the Battle of Britain flying Spitfires out of Hornchurch in Essex. Many of its pilots were Polish and their hatred of the Luftwaffe showed in the results they achieved. Their wartime combat report originals were carefully kept in arch files by the Intelligence officer, who was Flt Lt the Lord Guisborough – apparently known as “Gizzy”! Some of the pilots had quite thick files whilst others, sadly, had only one or two entries. Forty-one was a unique squadron because it had two operational roles at the same time – and was declared to NATO as dual role in reconnaissance and ground attack. This was huge fun but tricky to do as it was quite demanding to stay current both by day and night.
But, we were a small team and we worked hard, led by an outstanding boss in Dink Lemon. He was calm and never lost his cool, but it was very plain when he was displeased and the culprit was made to feel ashamed that he had let the side down. It did not happen very often. He was a natural leader with a great sense of fun. Above all, he was utterly professional in his approach to the serious business of being the best. I remember one disgruntled OCU instructor muttering that he hated elites. “Yes, they are a real bastard” one of us replied – “particularly when you’re not part of it”! The squadron navigators became expert at using the Inertial Navigation and Attack System (INAS) which had been a rather inconvenient aid to basic navigation on our course. However, we now studied the beast and learned to use many of its facilities to good effect and became good at the black art of flying at low-level at night and in cloud – quite challenging and not inherently safe! Crew cooperation and trust in each other’s ability was paramount and it was a real act of faith by our pilots to fly accurately on instruments when we could sense high ground to the side and above us! Perhaps surprisingly, there was not a single accident. Night low-level – sometimes at very high speeds to test the ability of our recce sensors, particularly the Infra Red Line Scan, to cope - was exciting even over flat ground and I remember very clearly Tony and I flying up to 600 knots at 400 then 200 feet at night! A huge benefit was that we could display the INAS target on the Low Map facility of the radar and the 25 mile scale coincided well with a 1:250,000 topo map. Nevertheless, we navs still used a 1:50,000 OS Map for target runs. Route flying was done in multiples of 60 knots groundspeed so that timing was kept as simple as possible; 360 knots = 6 miles per minute, 420 = 7, 480 = 8 and so on but we were really guzzling fuel by then. RAF Wattisham Our second visit to The Wattisham Museum was prompted by an invitation from Maggie Aggiss to be interviewed for a documentary about the base and the people surrounding it. She wanted to include my father’s story as it had had a major impact on the people of the village of Ringshall. Photo of Maggie Aggiss and Lt Cdr (Ret), Robby Silk who is a benefactor helping produce the documentary which is called “From Both Sides of the Fence”. Finding the photo of the plaque about my father led us to the museum at Wattisham in 2010. During the first visit in 2010 we met with several men that knew my father and were able to tell personal stories about him. The photos show Maggie and I, the Javelin model in 41 Sqd, markings which they have nickname “Earl” after my father. I am being interviewed by David Ellery of Viewpoint Products for the independently produced documentary that should be completed early this year (2017) . The photos of the Moat Farm field are where the crash occurred. My wife Sandi and I much appreciate Maggie for keeping the memory of my father alive. Trailer for "Wattisham: Both sides of the fence" RAF Coningsby 41 Sqd. has included my father Capt. Earl Taylor USAF as one of their own. We had been gracously invited to visit the squadron at Coningsby. We stayed at the Petwood Hotel, which served as the Officers Mess for 617 Sqd. the “Dam Busters”. Even more special was the fact that we were able to meet Bill Hustwayte who had flown with my father and he had his log book with the entry of the flight. Also on the Visit was Steve Bond and his wife Heather. Steve was doing research for a book about the “Javelin Boys” .
I would like to thank Wg Cdr Berry, Sqd Ldr Richard Tuer, Flt Lts Alastair McFarland, Laura Frowen and Jim Roughton and Mr Steve Brew for their time and acceptance, especially being it was the first day everyone was back from the US. The twelfth entry in this series marks the centenary of 41 Squadron's first pilot killed in action and has been made possible by Mary Cody-Cowdery. Samuel Franklin Cody Samuel Franklin Leslie Cody was born 07th September 1895 in Basel, Switzerland to parents, (touring Europe as performers,) S.F. Cody and ‘Lela Marie Cody’ real name being Mrs Elizabeth Mary King nee Davis. They were not married to each other. From an early age ‘Frankie’ was no stranger to limelight having appeared in his parents ‘trick shooting and riding acts in the circus as well as onstage in one of his father’s melodrama plays ‘Viva, A Woman of War’. Frankie first attended a boy’s school [private] at Forest Hill House, Sydenham, South East London before attending a Grammar school in Farnborough, Hants when his father was invited by the army to further his Man Lifting Kites as well as later to develop and build his aeroplane at Farnborough in Hampshire and thus become the first man to fly in England. Needless to say ‘Frankie’ must have been the envy of every school boy growing up in the UK to have such a famous father as ‘Col’ S.F. Cody. April 1913 S.F.L. Cody, aged 17 years and employed as an aeroplane mechanic, married Maude Helier Cody. (A shock to both of his parents as neither of them knew that it was taking place). In August of that year, his father was killed in an air crash. Following his father’s death, Frankie was employed as an Assurance Inspector. His son Samuel Franklyn Cody was born October 1913. In 1914 soon after his 19th birthday, Frankie like so many thousands of men in the country enlisted into King’s Royal Rifle Corp at Blackdown, ( 9th Service) Military Battalion, later he transferred to Motor Machine Guns. 31st October [his son’s first birthday] transferred to The Royal Field Artillery before finally transferring on the 19th June 1915 to The Royal Flying Corp. Pilot’s licence number 1797 issued on 28th September 1915. Certificate was taken on a Maurice Farman Biplane at The British Flying School, Le Crotoy, France. 0n 1st March 1916 Frankie was promoted to Corporal. Three months later on 1st June 1916 he was promoted to Sergeant. He was posted to No 6 Reserve Squadron on the 17th August 1916, 3 years after his father’s fatal air crash. On 10th October 1916 he was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant on the General List P17479/Appointed Flying Officer in The Royal Flying Corps Special Reserve on 2nd September 1916 just 5 days before his 21st birthday when he was posted to 41 Squadron. S F L Cody of No 41 Squadron RFC was killed in action while flying FE8 7613 on 23 January 1917. He left Abeele aerodrome at 14:24 and was seen in combat with four enemy aeroplanes (Albatros and Roland) east of Boesinghe, after which he spiralled down in a nose dive. Lnt Walter von Bülow-Bothkamp of Jasta 18 was credited with a victory over a "Vickers" which crashed near Bixschoote; it was the 6th of his eventual 28 victories before his death in action on 6 January 1918. From an enquiry, which was dropped over enemy lines, reliable sources confirmed that his body was found at Houthulst G.C. 20.P.13.b.3.7. German grave number 826A. Images from the remembrance service in Belgium 23 Jan 2017
The eleventh article in this series has been made possible by a submission from Mr John Matthews. This text also forms part of an exhibit at the RAF Museum recollecting his time at Biggin Hill.
My National Service Experience I was a deferred electrical apprentice and having been an ATC cadet for six years with the rank of F/Sgt. I was called up to do my National Service ( 1954 -1956) and with my cadet experience I entered the RAF and proceeded with the Cardington procedure as the majority of us did in those days. For my square bashing I was posted to Wilmslow (we had the company of WAAF entrants as it was their main square bashing station too which made life interesting). Being an ex ATC cadet my service number began with a `3` and having attended an ATC DI`s course at RAF Chigwell I was well prepared for what was ahead, needless to say I was soon appointed Senior Man not just of the billet but the entire intake I had to march them to the parade ground and hand over to the DI`s for our days drill. During this time we had various trade interviews and told to select three options, each time I selected the same and only one and informed the interviewer I only wanted to be an Elect. Mech. and in the end I won the day. I was then posted to Melksham and after twenty weeks I had reached the dizzy heights of LAC Elect. Mech. (Air) and was given my final posting to RAF Biggin Hill, the famous Battle of Britain station, to join their Air Servicing Flight. At Biggin Hill there was 41 sqdn. as the regular sqdn. flying Hawker Hunters and two auxiliary sqdns, 600 ( the late Queen Mothers sqnd.) and 615 ( Sir Winston Churchill`s sqdn.) flying Gloster Meteors. As the Hunters were new in service various manufactures modifications were needed and as I was promoted to SAC and having had drawing office experience and able to read electrical diagrams the Electrical Officer (P/O Riley) put me in charge of the modification team. One day in 1956 while in the workshop and on `duty crew` heard the unusual sound of piston engines and going out onto the hanger apron saw a Hurricane and a Spitfire taxing over towards us and being piloted by the Stn./Cmdr. W/Cmdr. Smallwood (splinters) and our O/C Flying . Sqdn/Ldr Thompson, These two aircraft were to form the Historical Flight and later the BBMF. And these two aircraft are still with them today and I had the privilege of sitting in their cockpits to carryout post and pre-flight checks on them. On a Friday afternoon I had to report to the flight office and a corporal and myself were informed we were to be `duty crew` for the next day as there was a special chartered civil aircraft arriving to pick up a VIP. On the Saturday morning we were issued with white overalls and awaited the arrival of the our guests, then a convoy of cars arrived carrying Sir Winston Churchill and his family, they were flying to Germany to see his racehorse take part in a race there. The aircraft duly arrived but as the weather was wet and windy we had to check with his doctor ( Lord Moran) for the safest altitude he could fly at due to his heart condition, the resolved, they all boarded and took off and we had to wait his return later that evening. When he disembarked from the plane Sir Winston called us over and thanked us for being there and gave us ten shillings each. We also had the late King Husain of Jordan come to the station every day for a fortnight as he was having flying lessons in a Vampire and we would have to strap him etc. On a sad note I attended five military funerals in the time I was at Biggin Hill for pilots killed in air accidents. Our electrical officer (F/O H. Riley) and myself were involved in the unveiling of the stained glass windows in the Battle of Britain Memorial Chapel at Biggin Hill, we arranged electrical releases at each of the twelve windows so all the drapes opened at the same time. Whilst we all remember our experiences good and bad in our national service days we should never forget those airman who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country which little is mentioned in our great magazine. John Matthews 3144639 Nat. Serv. R.A.F. Assc. (List 13) The tenth entry in this series has been made possible by Bill Hustwayte, a Javelin Navigator (See: http://www.seekanddestroy.info/videos.html): No 41 Squadron, Royal Air Force, Wattisham 1958 – A recollection. A notable member of the squadron in 1958 was Flight Lieutenant Nicky Varanand who, as the squadron members were to discover, was a Thai prince and a member of the Siamese royal family and a cousin of Prince Bira the well known racing driver of that era. He didn’t boast about this fact and only that he was enormously wealthy did one realize his background. Personal number plates were unknown during this time but Nicky had 5 – NV1, NV2, NV3, NV4 and NV5 this being a Vespa scooter on which he rode to the squadron; the remainder were expensive vehicles in the “roller’ class. He joined the RAF in 1942 and his seniority enabled him and his wife, Pamela, to move directly into a married quarter. During ‘Halyard’ over Christmas 1958 he invited the night standby crews to lunch at his home. Upon knocking, the door was opened by his butler, who had come from the family home in Surrey especially to serve drinks and canapés!! In 1965. whilst serving on No 48 Squadron at Changi, I had a sortie to Bangkok. Whilst there I remembered that Nicky had retired from the RAF and returned to Thailand to fly commercially with Thai Airlines and then attempt to form Varanand Air and later Air Siam. The receptionist at the hotel, after a lot of heel clicking and bowing, arranged a phone call to Nicky. A long chat enabled me to catch up with his news and was disappointed to hear that he had divorced his wife and now had a Thai bride. Nicky died in 1990 aged just 68. (Seen in the Times Obituary column.) More info on Prince Varanand came be found on Wikipedia under VARANDA DHAVAJ. The ninth article in this series has been made possible by a submission from our Honorary Historian, Mr Steve Brew. A Rare Breed
Terry Spencer was a remarkable man. The things he achieved in his lifetime are so incredible that one could be forgiven for believing he was an invented character in some brilliant thriller. Terry’s life was certainly exciting – the very stuff of ‘Boys Own’ annuals – but it was no work of fiction. So many clichéd phrases come to mind – decorated fighter pilot, respected leader, daring escapee, world record holder, bold adventurer, and celebrated photo-journalist, to name just a few – but these words barely scratch the surface and do him no justice. The eighth article in this series has been made possible by Gideon Remez, Aharon's son: My father, Aharon Remez, was born in the then-new city of Tel Aviv in 1919. While still in high school he became active in a Zionist youth movement, and in 1939 was sent to the United States as an emissary to the counterpart movement there. His mission was also to learn to fly, in anticipation that the Jewish community in Palestine -- then under British mandate -- would someday need and air force. Close to the airfield in New Jersey where he took flying lessons, the movement had an agricultural-training farm -- where he met my mother, one of the trainees. Stranded in America by the outbreak of war, he volunteered for the RAF and was sent for flight training in Canada. He married my mother before shipping out to Britain. My father's "diary" begins in America; I have excerpted and translated here the entries following his assignment to 41 Squadron in early 1945. The book was evidently collated from my father's letters home by his father David Remez, who was a leader of the Jewish labor-union federation and Labor Party in Palestine. It was published by the party as Mi-Yomano shel Tayyas (Hebrew: From a Pilot's Journal) as part of a book series, "From the Front Lines." Though undated, it apparently came out before V-E day as the entries stop just before that date. The text reflects the tension felt by my father, like tens of thousands of Palestinian-Jewish servicemen who volunteered for British forces in World War II, between their commitment to Britain's struggle against Nazism and their opposition to the almost-total restrictions that Britain imposed on Jewish immigration to Palestine, at the very time when the Holocaust made it most vital. Returning to Palestine upon his discharge in the summer of 1946, he took part in the establishment of Israel's fledgling air force and commanded it during the country's War of Independence in 1948. My father never forgot and always cherished the friendship and support of his RAF mates. Among his later positions, he felt especially honored to serve as Israel's ambassador in London (1965-1970), when he had the opportunity to reunite with several of them. The articles in this series have been made possible through content shared by our members. If you wish to broadcast a picture/article or short story to our membership via this blog then please send it to the secretary email address (41sqn.association.secretary@gmail.com) and I will post it here.
Please indicate if you wish to include your email for any further contact from those who may know something of the same era. The seventh article in this series has been made possible by Steve Brew, our Association Historian:
These are the memories from Sgt Robert Scrimshaw, which he allowed me to reproduce in "Blood, Sweat and Courage" Lipstick and Picnics AC1 Robert Scrimshaw recalled the laid back lifestyle at on 41 Squadron at Catterick in the early days, remembering with amusement that one particular day, One of the Riggers had called us over to have a look at his aircraft. He had cause to remove one of the belly panels immediately under the cockpit and to his amazement he found cigarette ends. Not only cigarette ends, but cigarette ends with lipstick on them! For the next couple of days, the ground crew carefully scrutinised their pilot for any signs of make-up. The mystery was soon solved. Conditions at Catterick were still very similar to those of pre-war, where married quarters were still occupied and, on occasions, on a beautiful day, and we were on standby, the pilots’ wives, who still had access to the airfield, would bring a picnic along for their husbands, and they would sit and chat amongst themselves. When it came time for take-off, a quick kiss and a cuddle, and the pilots climbed into their cockpits. In those days, lipstick wasn’t kiss-proof, but nearly everyone smoked. |
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Rich Cooper/COAP Association BlogUpdates and news direct from the Committee Archives
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