While we couldn’t really expect 2019 to repeat the glitz and glamour of the Royal Air Force’s centenary year, it was still incredibly busy. We saw the first successful deployment of F-35 Lightning on operations; the retirement of the much-loved and unbelievably effective Tornado; the first flights of Poseidon, the RAF’s new multi-mission maritime patrol aircraft; the Typhoon Force continuing to participate in counter-Daesh operations and, for the first time, in air policing operations from Iceland; and, most recently, an RAF A400M supporting search and rescue efforts off the southern coast of Chile. When reflecting on the past year I find it interesting to observe just how important the activities of No 41 Squadron have been to the wider success of the Royal Air Force. That the Typhoon Force could effectively deploy Brimstone (the RAF’s hyper-precision strike munition) on Op SHADER was only made possible by 41 Squadron’s extensive and intensive trial work. Similarly, the retirement of Tornado could only occur after Typhoon could field new air-to-ground mission capabilities; No 41’s delivery of Project CENTURION to the Typhoon Force was truly pivotal to this. Meanwhile, the Squadron’s second home, NAS China Lake in the Mojave Desert, was hit by a devastating 7.1 magnitude earthquake. And yet the Squadron still found time to support a memorial service at RAF Coltishall to celebrate the lives of the personnel from No 41 Squadron who perished during a coach accident in Germany in 1983. Our association has continued to keep former members of the Squadron in touch with each other and, of course, with the Squadron of today. It is with regret that we have seen one of the most active members of the Association, Andy Myers - our founding Chairman, step down from the role to pursue new business opportunities in Saudi Arabia. Andy did a truly brilliant job for us for which we are all immensely grateful. His shoes will be tricky to fill but fill them we must. Please may I encourage anyone with even the slightest interest in taking up this role to contact me for a chat. 2020 will be important for the Royal Air Force. It will see the practical launch of Project ASTRA, a bold initiative to fast track the Royal Air Force towards 2040. ASTRA will accelerate good ideas into service and blend them with a powerful and dynamic vision for our future. There is no doubt in my mind as to the importance of this project in ensuring the ongoing credibility of our air force. Facing new dynamics in defence and security, and a complex blurring of the lines between peace, conflict and crisis, the RAF simply must adapt to the realities of multi-domain operations. ASTRA will ensure that its people, equipment, structures and processes are properly configured to do just that. As we celebrate Christmas and New Year, some 2000 RAF personnel will be supporting 15 missions, on 4 continents, in 22 countries around the world. With very special thoughts to them, their families and the loved ones from whom they are separated, may I take this opportunity to wish you all a happy, peaceful and enjoyable festive season and a prosperous and healthy New Year? As ever, Chris H Sir Christopher Harper KBE Air Marshal Hon President No 41 Squadron Association
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9 December 1941 – A southerly wind of 10-15 mph with 7/10ths cloud at 6,000 feet and 6-8 miles visibility. It was a generally quiet day operationally today, and only two sections of two pilots were airborne. In the first of these, a section undertook an uneventful shipping reconnaissance, 13:25-14:40 (Buckley & Rayner), but it constituted Plt Off John Buckley’s first and in fact only operational sortie with the Squadron. The second was a successful Rhubarb to France by Sgt Plts Arthur Glen (AA902) and Charles Valiquet (W3770). The two pilots were airborne as Blue Section at 14:09 and tasked with attacking ‘Target 57’, a distillery at Le Buc, between Thiétreville and Ypreville, southeast of Fécamp. Traversing the Channel at sea level on a vector of 158° from Merston, the two pilots made landfall in cloud cover at St. Pierre-en-Port, east of Fécamp, and then flew at ground level on a course of about 195° until they reached a tree-lined road between Le Buc and Ypreville. Sighting the distillery about 500 yards to starboard of their position, Glen led Valiquet to the target and they went straight into the attack, first from south to north, Glen strafing the distillery with a two-second burst of cannon and machine-gun fire and Valiquet expending a one-and-a-half-second burst. Both pilots registered strikes but noticed no other effect of their fire. Making a circuit of the target, they repeated their first attack from south to north, both firing and striking the distillery again, but on this occasion eliciting grey-green and ‘reddish’ smoke. They made a full circuit again, and came in a third time from south to north. On this occasion, Glen was unable to position himself correctly for an attack and therefore did not open fire. Following 300 yards behind, Valiquet took his lead and also did not fire. By now, however, “volumes of heavy smoke”(1) were pouring from the top of the distillery. Now trying a new tactic, Glen banked around and made a long run over the fields from north to south, this time opening fire from 300 yards and aiming low. He later reported: “I continued firing until forced to break off to avoid running into the Still. Very concentrated hits were seen at the base of the Still and a terrific sheet of flame enveloped the whole building. I made one or two circuits of the target before leaving and when I came away the whole Still was burning very fiercely with flames issuing from all windows and through the roof. The flames were 200 to 300 feet high.”(2) It is not clear whether Valiquet fired on the fourth run, but he does state in his Combat Report that he took pictures of the target on each of his attacks with his cinegun camera. However, they do not appear to have survived amongst those in the Imperial War Museum’s collection. On the way back out, the pair shot up a moving Army lorry in the same vicinity, but no results of their attack were observed as they darted over the top of it on the deck. They stayed as low as possible as they made for the coast, which they crossed two miles west of St. Pierre-en-Port. Setting a course of 340°, the two pilots headed quickly back across the Channel to make landfall on the English coast at Shoreham. They landed at 15:12, and Glen claimed the distillery destroyed, reasoning in his Combat Report that, “In view of the fierceness of the fire and the rapid hold it gained it would be impossible to save the Still and I claim this target as destroyed.”(3) He shared the victory with Valiquet. At some stage during the attacks, however, they had come under light machine gun fire from the ground near the distillery, and one of the two Spitfires sustained slight damage to its wing. The ORB makes no mention of it, but as Glen does not mention it in his comment on the operation in his logbook, it may have been Valiquet’s aircraft that sustained the damage. In any case, neither pilot was injured. Separately today, three Dutch pilots were posted to the Squadron from 57 OTU at Hawarden: 26-year-old Plt Off Leendert C. M. ‘Kees’ van Eendenburg, 25-year-old Plt Off Albert ‘Peter’ van Rood, and 26-year-old Fg Off Bram ‘Bob’ van der Stok. They were not only the first Dutch to ever serve on the Squadron, but also the first of many pilots from the Continent that would join the Squadron before the cessation of hostilities. NOTES TO TEXT: (1), (2) & (3) Combat Report for Sgt Plt Arthur A. Glen, No. 230, 9 December 1941, TNA AIR 50/18. SIDE NOTES: 1. Sgt Plt Arthur ‘Pinky’ Glen would go on to command 41 Sqn, a role he held from January to May 1944. 2. Bram van der Stok would later become one of only three men to make a ‘home run’ from the March 1944 ‘Great escape’. [Excerpt from Steve Brew’s "Blood, Sweat and Courage" (Fonthill, 2014). Sharing permitted, but no reproduction, please, without prior permission.] Men and Woman of the Armed Forces have been recognised for their public service in the Armed Forces Operational Honours List.
The RAF home page carries key news and stories from units deployed all over the world, but it also has some very useful links for serving members and their families. The RAF Families Federation website has links to information regarding service accomodation, entitlements, employment opportunities for spouses, relationship counselling and transition out of the service. The RAF Benevolent Fund is the RAF's leading welfare charity with a proud tradition of looking after its own. They are there for all serving and former members of the RAF as well as their partners and dependent children. The RAF Association is the charity that actively looks after the welfare of the RAF family, giving help in times of need to everyone who serves in the RAF, and their dependants, past and present, now and always.
Dear All, I’m sorry to inform you that I won’t be able to continue as the Chairman of the association as I’m moving to the Middle East in the next few weeks. The last few months have been pretty hectic for my family and I and it is pretty clear that I won’t be able to effectively discharge the role. I’ll be very happy to contribute from the desert and hope to see some pictures from the forthcoming Cenotaph parade in due course. Thank you very much for the support the committee has given me, in particular Al McFarland and Steve Brew who’ve been brilliant at keeping the website fresh and providing material. Kindest Regards Andy The Royal Air Force and Virgin Orbit have selected the RAF pilot to be seconded to the company’s ground-breaking small satellite launch programme.
The partnership between the RAF and Virgin Orbit was unveiled at the Air and Space Power conference in July and following a tough selection process, Flight Lieutenant Mathew ‘Stanny’ Stannard has been selected. Flight Lieutenant Stannard is currently a Typhoon pilot with one of the RAF’s test and evaluation squadrons and is scheduled to join the pioneering Virgin Orbit programme next year, pending final US and UK regulatory approvals. Read more: http://bit.ly/RAFVOPilot Retired WW2 Hurricane and Spitfire Pilot, Peter “Percy” Proctor has recently passed away.
Peter had recently had his 97th Birthday. Peter’s funeral will take place at 12.30on 23rd September at: Marshside Road Methodist Church 1, Marshside Road Southport PR9 9TL He is pictured here receiving an Award from RAFA with ACM Sir Mike Graydon at the XI Annual Association Reunion in 2017. For anyone interested, Peter’s memories of flying Spitfires and Hurricanes can be read here. The Battle of Britain: On this day in 1940, the Luftwaffe mounted its biggest daylight attack on London, conducting 1,020 sorties over the skies of Britain. In response, Fighter Command launched 705 sorties, claiming 56 Luftwaffe aircraft. Although the Battle of Britain would continue, this day proved to be decisive and convinced the German High Command that reports of ‘Fighter Command’s impending demise had been greatly exaggerated’. For detailed analysis and narratives on the events of the Battle of Britain, read the RAF CASPS Battle of Britain Special Edition Air Power Review. https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/centre-for-air-and-space-power-studies/documents1/air-power-review-vol-18-no-2-battle-of-britain-75th-anniversary-special-edition/ Pictures: © IWM (HU 49253); © IWM (CH 1561); UK CROWN COPYRIGHT / MOD. Courtesy of Air Historical Branch (Royal Air Force). In a mere four months, eleven pilots of 41 Sqn would not survive the conflict. Here we recognise the Squadron aircrew, EngO and IntO from the Battle of Britain alongside others of note during the War.
RAFBF Information:For partners of people serving in the RAF, there can be several challenges from dealing with deployments and frequent moves to paying for childcare and planning for the future. Through research we have carried out, we're aware that the most significant barriers to partners moving forward are not a lack of experience or qualifications, or writing CVs or interview skills, but identifying what they want to achieve and the routes to do this. Our new programme, Thrive, aims to help partners overcome these barriers and aims to also:
Workshop coursesThe workshops at RAF Leeming, RAF Halton and RAF Benson will focus on the following:
Sign up to ThriveTo apply to take part in our Thrive programme, simply fill in our online form. We recommend attending all five workshops in the series in order to gain the maximum benefit from the programme. However, each workshop will be stand-alone if you prefer to attend just one.
Each workshop will last for two hours, which includes a break, with an additional hour of informal networking and coffee afterwards. The workshops are free to attend, and childcare will be arranged or provided for those that need it. If you would like more information about our Thrive programme, please contact Damian Pinel, RAF Projects Manager on 020 7303 3434 or 07702883641 or email damian.pinel@rafbf.org.uk. Images from: https://twitter.com/ChrisPerkins53
Further information: http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/scottow/scottow.htm |
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Rich Cooper/COAP Association BlogUpdates and news direct from the Committee Archives
May 2020
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