I wrote this today.
Any nominations for whose name should be inserted ?
Poem for (Insert Name Here.......................................................)
Fudge, blur and obfuscate. Dispute and disavow .
Earnestly with gravitas, deny and disallow.
Justify, exonerate, elaborate, explain.
Deceive, delay, prevaricate but never take the blame
Reject, refute, repudiate distort and then disguise
Duplicitous mendacity, but surely never lies
Conspire, contrive, collaborate, disown and then revile.
Connive , collude, and camouflage for plausible denial.
Impune, gainsay and contradict, defer and then distort .
Warp, conceal or falsify while avoiding getting caught
Wangle, wiggle, wrangle, worm ,
weasel words at every turn
Twist and garble, gloss over, hide
terminological in-exactitudes explained and then denied
Pervert and warp , misstate then empathise.
He may mislead or misrepresent but surely never lies.
©David Raines 2011
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Monday, 14 November 2011
Trooper Josh Hammond
Trooper Joshua Hammond
1990 - 2009
In July 2009 I was driving to work lwhen the radio announced the death of Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe MBE, Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, becoming the most senior officer to be killed in conflict since the Falklands war in 1982. He was travelling in a convoy along the Shamalan Canal, near Lashkar Gah, in Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan when an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) exploded under his Viking armoured vehicle. The radio also reported (inaccurately) that a Trooper ‘John’ Hammond also died in the explosion. Later that day when I watched the news the name had changed to Josh Hammond but there were few details of this 18 year old lad from Plymouth.
The news of both deaths saddened me deeply, My own children and a nephew called Josh were almost the same age. I couldn’t stop thinking about his family and girlfrien were feeling out of my mind and I also felt irritated that the radio had at first got Josh’s name wrong. I felt that the death of this young man, with his whole life before him had been eclipsed by the Colonel who died by his side, tragic though that was.
Over the last 25 years I have treated ex-servicemen from almost every major conflict that our armed services have been involved in since WW2. I recalled the veterans of the Falklands and the memories they shared with me of their traumas including the deaths of their comrades, their friends.
I’m not much of a musician but I wrote the following song that night while strumming my guitar.
Every so often I when I can persuade my son (who plays well enough to help cover my basic guitar skills) I play it at an open mic: night. I ask if anyone can remember the name of anyone who died in the Falkland War. Sometimes people give the name of a family member or friend but often they remember the name of Colonel H Jones. I then ask if anyone can remember the name of anyone who died in the Afghanistan War. Many remember Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe and then I play the song.
Each time I play it I think again of Josh, his friends and family and the families of all young men and women lost serving the government’s we elected and who may feel that their loss is not remembered.
Copyright David Raines 2009.
1990 - 2009
In July 2009 I was driving to work lwhen the radio announced the death of Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe MBE, Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, becoming the most senior officer to be killed in conflict since the Falklands war in 1982. He was travelling in a convoy along the Shamalan Canal, near Lashkar Gah, in Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan when an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) exploded under his Viking armoured vehicle. The radio also reported (inaccurately) that a Trooper ‘John’ Hammond also died in the explosion. Later that day when I watched the news the name had changed to Josh Hammond but there were few details of this 18 year old lad from Plymouth.
The news of both deaths saddened me deeply, My own children and a nephew called Josh were almost the same age. I couldn’t stop thinking about his family and girlfrien were feeling out of my mind and I also felt irritated that the radio had at first got Josh’s name wrong. I felt that the death of this young man, with his whole life before him had been eclipsed by the Colonel who died by his side, tragic though that was.
Over the last 25 years I have treated ex-servicemen from almost every major conflict that our armed services have been involved in since WW2. I recalled the veterans of the Falklands and the memories they shared with me of their traumas including the deaths of their comrades, their friends.
I’m not much of a musician but I wrote the following song that night while strumming my guitar.
Every so often I when I can persuade my son (who plays well enough to help cover my basic guitar skills) I play it at an open mic: night. I ask if anyone can remember the name of anyone who died in the Falkland War. Sometimes people give the name of a family member or friend but often they remember the name of Colonel H Jones. I then ask if anyone can remember the name of anyone who died in the Afghanistan War. Many remember Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe and then I play the song.
Each time I play it I think again of Josh, his friends and family and the families of all young men and women lost serving the government’s we elected and who may feel that their loss is not remembered.
Trooper Josh Hammond
Trooper Josh Hammond is late on parade,
On a road down in Helmand there’s been a delay
Our boys in the regiments have been this way before
We lost some back then, now were losing some more
Chorus There’s an army assembled on the North West Frontier
Echoes of empire roll down the years.
Acceptable losses a shilling of pay
a soldiers life was ever this way.
Column inches now fewer as the casualty list grows
and we’re hardened to the cost of the conflict that’s sown.
Trooper Josh Hammond has now joined the list
The caskets been lowered, the colours were dipped
Chorus
Of all of the fallen in that cold islands war
a colonel’s name is remembered, can you name one more?
Khaki falls quietly when it answers the call
but brass makes more noise when it falls.
There’s an army assembled on the North West Frontier
Echoes of empire roll down the years.
Acceptable losses a shilling of pay
a soldiers life was ever this way.
At 18 Josh Hammond slipped from his bonds
to gather with comrades in green fields beyond.
Stepping from childhood into the man
and then lost in the tears of Afghanistan.
Copyright David Raines 2009.
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
The Anonymous Airman & The Man Who Put the Fire in the Spitfire.
This is the story of an unsung hero of the second world war. A man who perhaps more than any other individual was responsible for making sure that the fire was put in the Spitfire. A man who was sidelined by history after fighting for the rights of British pilots stationed in Canada.
On June 18, 1940 Winston Churchill made his “Finest Hour” speech and announced to Parliament that the Battle of France had finished and The Battle of Britain was about to begin. That morning The Times published an anonymous letter from a young bomber pilot to be sent to his mother in the event of his death. The letter was found by the airman’s commanding officer Group Captain C. H. Keith, who was so moved by it that he contacted the pilot’s mother and with her permission it was published. In the first few days after publication The Times was inundated with over 10,000 requests for copies and in August it was published as a book. By the end of the year over 500,000 copies had been sold in the U.K. and it was reprinted 12 times in the USA .
Perhaps it was inevitable that rumours suggesting the letter was fictitious started to circulate. The pilot was eventually identified as Flying Officer Vivian Rosewarne and his death notice was finally published on 23 December 1940. In 1941 Michael Powell released a short documentary style propaganda film An Airman's Letter to His Mother featuring the voice of John Gielgud. The most famous portrait painter of the day, Frank Salisbury used photographs provided by his mother for a painting which was unveiled on 18 September 1941, although his mother attended, she wished to remain anonymous desiring to be known only as "the mother of the young unknown warrior". A copy of the painting hangs in the RAF College at Cranwell and his letter is reproduced in the RAF book ‘Leadership’. Group Captain Keith died in 1966 and linked with Flying Officer Rosewarne’s letter became a footnote in history. The story of the Commanding Officer who was at the centre of the RAF’s preparations for war and helped to ensure that our Spitfires and Hurricanes went into the Battle of Britain with the right weapons. A man who, perhaps more than any other individual can be said to have ‘ put the fire in the Spitfire’. A man who was sidelined and prematurely retired after fighting for the rights of RAF personnel in Canada with questions asked in Parliament.
In the early 1970’s Group Captain C. H. Keith’s widow gave up her little antique shop in Romsey and on his last visit she gave a package to the slightly nerdy teenager who visited her shop after school. Saying, “ I know you will look after them”, The parcel contained a carved wooden crest for RAF Worthy Down, a copy of her husband’s book, his pilot’s handbook for the Cairo to Baghdad route and two small books, an English and an American copy of “An Airman’s Letter to His Mother”. The books included newspaper clippings about the story, three photographs of a young airman and one contains a handwritten note “To his Commanding Officer Group Captain C. H. Keith. With much appreciation of all he has done in connection with this letter. From the
Airman’s Mother, 21 August 1940”.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Dearest Mother:
Though I feel no premonition at all, events are moving rapidly and I have instructed that this letter be forwarded to you should I fail to return from one of the raids that we shall shortly be called upon to undertake. You must hope on for a month, but at the end of that time you must accept the fact that I have handed my task over to the extremely capable hands of my comrades of the Royal Air Force, as so many splendid fellows have already done.
First, it will comfort you to know that my role in this war has been of the greatest importance. Our patrols far out over the North Sea have helped to keep the trade routes clear for our convoys and supply ships, and on one occasion our information was instrumental in saving the lives of the men in a crippled lighthouse relief ship. Though it will be difficult for you, you will disappoint me if you do not at least try to accept the facts dispassionately, for I shall have done my duty to the utmost of my ability. No man can do more, and no one calling himself a man could do less.
I have always admired your amazing courage in the face of continual setbacks; in the way you have given me as good an education and background as anyone in the country: and always kept up appearances without ever losing faith in the future. My death would not mean that your struggle has been in vain. Far from it. It means that your sacrifice is as great as mine. Those who serve England must expect nothing from her; we debase ourselves if we regard our country as merely a place in which to eat and sleep.
History resounds with illustrious names who have given all; yet their sacrifice has resulted in the British Empire where there is a measure of peace, justice and freedom for all, and where a higher standard of civilization has evolved, and is still evolving, than anywhere else. But this is not only concerning our own land. Today we are faced with the greatest organized challenge to Christianity and civilization that the world has ever seen, and I count myself lucky and honoured to be the right age and fully trained to throw my full weight into the scale. For this I have to thank you. Yet there is more work for you to do. The home front will still have to stand united for years after the war is won. For all that can be said against it, I still maintain that this war is a very good thing: every individual is having the chance to give and dare all for his principle like the martyrs of old. However long the time may be, one thing can never be altered - I shall have lived and died an Englishman. Nothing else matters one jot nor can anything ever change it.
You must not grieve for me, for if you really believe in religion and all that it entails that would be hypocrisy. I have no fear of death; only a queer elation ... I would have it no other way. The universe is so vast and so ageless that the life of one man can only be justified by the measure of his sacrifice. We are sent to this world to acquire a personality and a character to take with us that can never be taken from us. Those who just eat and sleep, prosper and procreate, are no better than animals if all their lives they are at peace.
I firmly believe that evil things are sent into the world to try us; they are sent deliberately by our Creator to test our mettle because He knows what is good for us. The Bible is full of cases where the easy way out has been discarded for moral principles.
I count myself fortunate in that I have seen the whole country and known men of every calling. But with the final test of war I consider my character fully developed. Thus at my early age my earthly mission is already fulfilled and I am prepared to die with just one regret: that I could not devote myself to making your declining years more happy by being with you; but you will live in peace and freedom and I shall have directly contributed to that, so here again my life will not have been in vain.
Your loving son
I was that teenage boy who sat and chatted with Mrs Keith about a war that didn’t feel like ‘history’ to me , it was the story of my parent’s early lives, something recent, tangible and real that touched and shaped my family. As a child I imagined myself in a Spitfire as I sped down the road on my bike, splashing through the holiday surf with my brothers we stormed imaginary beaches. We set ambushes in the woods before going home to make Airfix models that were destined to make their last raid just after the bangers went on sale for bonfire night.
Those models were of aircraft that my Dad and Uncle Edwin had flown, that Uncle’s Fred & Bill had serviced and repaired. They were the planes that rumbled over my Mothers Huntingdon home on their way to Berlin or the Ruhr. The black and white films and war documentaries had not been prematurely aged by Technicolor and were followed by black and white episodes of Dr Who. My own daughter when very young talked about “black & white days” believing that there was a time long ago when there was no colour in the world. I learnt to read with the Victor comic and then leapt to Ministry of Information books about the War. My interest was rewarded with gifts of badges, medals and more books, each with a personal story. The Polish Air Force ‘wings’ given to Auntie Flo from the Polish airman billeted to her home. The Royal Observer Corp button from Uncle Roy who watched from a warship as the D. Day landings took place. The Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers cap badge from Uncle Alan whose gruesome task involved recovering damaged Sherman tanks, nicknamed ‘Ronson’s’ (after the cigarette lighter) by its crews and ‘Tommy cooker’ by the Germans because they burst into flames when hit. I remember the shock as I turned the pages of the last volume of “The War in Pictures 1945” to see the mass graves at Belsen and started to understand what it was that they had been fighting for or perhaps, what we had been fighting against.
Seen through modern eyes, with its references to religion and empire the Airman’s Letter to his Mother seems dated, for some its themes of duty, sacrifice and patriotism are distant relics of “black & white days”.
The nerdy teenagers fascination with war subsided and it became an interest among others. Apart from occasional ‘Gollum’ like moments poring over the ‘precious’, the books remained on the shelf until recently. Somehow I had missed the other half of the story. I had read the books and missed the importance of Claude Keith in the critical preparations for war ensuring the RAF was equipped with the right equipment to win the Battle of Britain.
Claude H. Keith was born in Canada in 1884 and trained as an electrical engineer with the Marconi Telegraph Company. In 1909 he witnessed Louis Bleriot land in Dover after the first air crossing of the British Channel. After joining the RNAS as an electrical engineer he transferred to aircrew in 1916 and qualified on seaplanes. Shortly afterwards he was charged with “endangering one of His Majesty’s aircraft” by looping the loop, a year later he was teaching young pilot’s aerobatics as part of basic training. After the war he transferred to the RAF and specialised in navigation and gunnery and was appointed chief instructor of the first Royal Air Force armament school in 1925.
He served in Iraq between 1926-1930 as a squadron leader in 70 bomber squadron then 6 Fighter squadron and took part in the Trans Oman Expedition of 1927. During his work in Iraq, 6 squadron achieved the first 100% of bullets on target with congratulations to the squadron from the Chief of Air Staff.
From 1930 to 1937 he was intimately involved in the RAF’s preparation for war at the Ordnance Board and then the Air Ministry as Assistant Director of Armament Research and Development .In July 1934 he organised an informal conference to consider air gunnery which led to the formation of the ‘Air Fighting Committee’. Keith and his team showed that future aircraft should carry eight machine guns capable of firing at least 1,000 rounds per minute. Both the number of guns and the rate of fire was seen as revolutionary but with the support of Air Vice Marshall Tedder the decision was made. Further input from Keith and his team led the RAF to replace the English Vickers machine gun with the more reliable American Browning machine guns which became the main armament for Spitfires and Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain. These guns used the same bullets as a rifle and it was soon realised that a more powerful weapon was needed.
Keith played a key role in the decision to introduce the French designed Hispano 20 mm cannon after a visit to France in 1936. The Hispano cannon was first used in 1940 but early trials in Hurricanes and Spitfires found that the gun could jam during combat. After modifications it became standard armament and one of the most used aircraft guns of the 20th Century allowing Spitfires and Hurricanes to make effective attacks on ground targets and enemy shipping. Keith also played a part in the introduction of the power-driven gun turret that became standard equipment in British bombers.
He was station commander at RAF Worthy Down in 1936 and for the first year of the war he was Commander at RAF Marham, a heavy bomber station where the young Wellington Bomber pilot Vivian Rosewarne was based.
In April 1941 Keith became the first Commanding Officer of Picton Gunnery School. The Commonwealth Air Training Plan provided Canadian and RAF personnel with training bases away from the dangers and restrictions of training in Britain. Unlike the members of the RAF, Royal Canadian Air Force personnel paid the lower Canadian rate of tax and were let of all tax if they flew more than average time each year. This and other “ hardships”, produced “bitterness” and “dissatisfaction” among the RAF personnel serving in Canada. Keith presented a list of “20 points of hardship” which he felt should be removed. He managed to get six of the twenty points cleared up before being unexpectedly recalled to England in April of 1942, despite the Canadian Chief of Air Staff requesting that he be allowed to remain.
He was assigned to command the RAF Central Gunnery School at Sutton Bridge but after a short period of sickness and a recommendation from the medical officer that he should serve in the South of England he was listed as “supernumerary” at the age of 53.
In Parliament on 3rd February 1943 Tom Driberg, M.P asked why Keith had been recalled and why it was proposed to retire him, saying; “is it not a fact that this officer was brought back from Canada after serving eight months, although it had been laid down that he should serve not less than 18 months, and that he was given the highest tributes, officially and unofficially, for his efficiency? “. The Secretary of State for Air replied that a policy had been in place since “the summer of 1941, under which senior officers must give way to younger men when circumstances so require” and “deplored” that individual officers were named. Driberg responded by saying “Is it not more deplorable that they should be treated unjustly? “ Keith reported first hearing of this after receiving a copy of Hansard in the post. Within a few months he retired and subsequently took a post with the BBC as an announcer.
His insistence that hardships for RAF staff in Canada be removed led to two meetings of the Air Council and to a final concession of all the “20 points of hardships” he had raised.
“I Hold My Aim “ is the motto of the Air Gunnery School and also the title of Group Captain Keith’s book published in 1946 where he writes:-
“I ran my Station commands as a dictator –a benevolent one, I hope –and I built the efficiency of my units through the happy, hard work of my airmen. They knew I should bite them when they deserved it, and fight like hell for them when they merited it. I have always refused to be a ‘Yes Man’ when it affected my doing what I thought to be right for those under me. That is probably why I am in plain clothes, as I write this book.”
Sidelined from the official history except as the Commanding Officer of an anonymous young pilot Group Captain Keith died in 1966 and was survived by his wife Gwen (nee Dunkerley).
The 70th Anniversary of the battle of Britain prompted me to look again at the books and to search the Internet, though little was to be found. I have created a Wikipedia entry for Group Captain Keith, up-dated the entries for 58 squadron and ‘An Airman’s Letter to his Mother’ including copies of the photographs of Viviane Rosewarne from the books given to Group Captain Keith.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Hilton_Keith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Airman%27s_Letter_to_His_Mother
This is the story of an unsung hero of the second world war. A man who perhaps more than any other individual was responsible for making sure that the fire was put in the Spitfire. A man who was sidelined by history after fighting for the rights of British pilots stationed in Canada.
On June 18, 1940 Winston Churchill made his “Finest Hour” speech and announced to Parliament that the Battle of France had finished and The Battle of Britain was about to begin. That morning The Times published an anonymous letter from a young bomber pilot to be sent to his mother in the event of his death. The letter was found by the airman’s commanding officer Group Captain C. H. Keith, who was so moved by it that he contacted the pilot’s mother and with her permission it was published. In the first few days after publication The Times was inundated with over 10,000 requests for copies and in August it was published as a book. By the end of the year over 500,000 copies had been sold in the U.K. and it was reprinted 12 times in the USA .
Perhaps it was inevitable that rumours suggesting the letter was fictitious started to circulate. The pilot was eventually identified as Flying Officer Vivian Rosewarne and his death notice was finally published on 23 December 1940. In 1941 Michael Powell released a short documentary style propaganda film An Airman's Letter to His Mother featuring the voice of John Gielgud. The most famous portrait painter of the day, Frank Salisbury used photographs provided by his mother for a painting which was unveiled on 18 September 1941, although his mother attended, she wished to remain anonymous desiring to be known only as "the mother of the young unknown warrior". A copy of the painting hangs in the RAF College at Cranwell and his letter is reproduced in the RAF book ‘Leadership’. Group Captain Keith died in 1966 and linked with Flying Officer Rosewarne’s letter became a footnote in history. The story of the Commanding Officer who was at the centre of the RAF’s preparations for war and helped to ensure that our Spitfires and Hurricanes went into the Battle of Britain with the right weapons. A man who, perhaps more than any other individual can be said to have ‘ put the fire in the Spitfire’. A man who was sidelined and prematurely retired after fighting for the rights of RAF personnel in Canada with questions asked in Parliament.In the early 1970’s Group Captain C. H. Keith’s widow gave up her little antique shop in Romsey and on his last visit she gave a package to the slightly nerdy teenager who visited her shop after school. Saying, “ I know you will look after them”, The parcel contained a carved wooden crest for RAF Worthy Down, a copy of her husband’s book, his pilot’s handbook for the Cairo to Baghdad route and two small books, an English and an American copy of “An Airman’s Letter to His Mother”. The books included newspaper clippings about the story, three photographs of a young airman and one contains a handwritten note “To his Commanding Officer Group Captain C. H. Keith. With much appreciation of all he has done in connection with this letter. From the
Airman’s Mother, 21 August 1940”.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Dearest Mother:
Though I feel no premonition at all, events are moving rapidly and I have instructed that this letter be forwarded to you should I fail to return from one of the raids that we shall shortly be called upon to undertake. You must hope on for a month, but at the end of that time you must accept the fact that I have handed my task over to the extremely capable hands of my comrades of the Royal Air Force, as so many splendid fellows have already done.
First, it will comfort you to know that my role in this war has been of the greatest importance. Our patrols far out over the North Sea have helped to keep the trade routes clear for our convoys and supply ships, and on one occasion our information was instrumental in saving the lives of the men in a crippled lighthouse relief ship. Though it will be difficult for you, you will disappoint me if you do not at least try to accept the facts dispassionately, for I shall have done my duty to the utmost of my ability. No man can do more, and no one calling himself a man could do less.
I have always admired your amazing courage in the face of continual setbacks; in the way you have given me as good an education and background as anyone in the country: and always kept up appearances without ever losing faith in the future. My death would not mean that your struggle has been in vain. Far from it. It means that your sacrifice is as great as mine. Those who serve England must expect nothing from her; we debase ourselves if we regard our country as merely a place in which to eat and sleep.
History resounds with illustrious names who have given all; yet their sacrifice has resulted in the British Empire where there is a measure of peace, justice and freedom for all, and where a higher standard of civilization has evolved, and is still evolving, than anywhere else. But this is not only concerning our own land. Today we are faced with the greatest organized challenge to Christianity and civilization that the world has ever seen, and I count myself lucky and honoured to be the right age and fully trained to throw my full weight into the scale. For this I have to thank you. Yet there is more work for you to do. The home front will still have to stand united for years after the war is won. For all that can be said against it, I still maintain that this war is a very good thing: every individual is having the chance to give and dare all for his principle like the martyrs of old. However long the time may be, one thing can never be altered - I shall have lived and died an Englishman. Nothing else matters one jot nor can anything ever change it.
You must not grieve for me, for if you really believe in religion and all that it entails that would be hypocrisy. I have no fear of death; only a queer elation ... I would have it no other way. The universe is so vast and so ageless that the life of one man can only be justified by the measure of his sacrifice. We are sent to this world to acquire a personality and a character to take with us that can never be taken from us. Those who just eat and sleep, prosper and procreate, are no better than animals if all their lives they are at peace.
I firmly believe that evil things are sent into the world to try us; they are sent deliberately by our Creator to test our mettle because He knows what is good for us. The Bible is full of cases where the easy way out has been discarded for moral principles.
I count myself fortunate in that I have seen the whole country and known men of every calling. But with the final test of war I consider my character fully developed. Thus at my early age my earthly mission is already fulfilled and I am prepared to die with just one regret: that I could not devote myself to making your declining years more happy by being with you; but you will live in peace and freedom and I shall have directly contributed to that, so here again my life will not have been in vain.
Your loving son
I was that teenage boy who sat and chatted with Mrs Keith about a war that didn’t feel like ‘history’ to me , it was the story of my parent’s early lives, something recent, tangible and real that touched and shaped my family. As a child I imagined myself in a Spitfire as I sped down the road on my bike, splashing through the holiday surf with my brothers we stormed imaginary beaches. We set ambushes in the woods before going home to make Airfix models that were destined to make their last raid just after the bangers went on sale for bonfire night.
Those models were of aircraft that my Dad and Uncle Edwin had flown, that Uncle’s Fred & Bill had serviced and repaired. They were the planes that rumbled over my Mothers Huntingdon home on their way to Berlin or the Ruhr. The black and white films and war documentaries had not been prematurely aged by Technicolor and were followed by black and white episodes of Dr Who. My own daughter when very young talked about “black & white days” believing that there was a time long ago when there was no colour in the world. I learnt to read with the Victor comic and then leapt to Ministry of Information books about the War. My interest was rewarded with gifts of badges, medals and more books, each with a personal story. The Polish Air Force ‘wings’ given to Auntie Flo from the Polish airman billeted to her home. The Royal Observer Corp button from Uncle Roy who watched from a warship as the D. Day landings took place. The Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers cap badge from Uncle Alan whose gruesome task involved recovering damaged Sherman tanks, nicknamed ‘Ronson’s’ (after the cigarette lighter) by its crews and ‘Tommy cooker’ by the Germans because they burst into flames when hit. I remember the shock as I turned the pages of the last volume of “The War in Pictures 1945” to see the mass graves at Belsen and started to understand what it was that they had been fighting for or perhaps, what we had been fighting against.
Seen through modern eyes, with its references to religion and empire the Airman’s Letter to his Mother seems dated, for some its themes of duty, sacrifice and patriotism are distant relics of “black & white days”.
The nerdy teenagers fascination with war subsided and it became an interest among others. Apart from occasional ‘Gollum’ like moments poring over the ‘precious’, the books remained on the shelf until recently. Somehow I had missed the other half of the story. I had read the books and missed the importance of Claude Keith in the critical preparations for war ensuring the RAF was equipped with the right equipment to win the Battle of Britain.
Claude H. Keith was born in Canada in 1884 and trained as an electrical engineer with the Marconi Telegraph Company. In 1909 he witnessed Louis Bleriot land in Dover after the first air crossing of the British Channel. After joining the RNAS as an electrical engineer he transferred to aircrew in 1916 and qualified on seaplanes. Shortly afterwards he was charged with “endangering one of His Majesty’s aircraft” by looping the loop, a year later he was teaching young pilot’s aerobatics as part of basic training. After the war he transferred to the RAF and specialised in navigation and gunnery and was appointed chief instructor of the first Royal Air Force armament school in 1925.
He served in Iraq between 1926-1930 as a squadron leader in 70 bomber squadron then 6 Fighter squadron and took part in the Trans Oman Expedition of 1927. During his work in Iraq, 6 squadron achieved the first 100% of bullets on target with congratulations to the squadron from the Chief of Air Staff.
From 1930 to 1937 he was intimately involved in the RAF’s preparation for war at the Ordnance Board and then the Air Ministry as Assistant Director of Armament Research and Development .In July 1934 he organised an informal conference to consider air gunnery which led to the formation of the ‘Air Fighting Committee’. Keith and his team showed that future aircraft should carry eight machine guns capable of firing at least 1,000 rounds per minute. Both the number of guns and the rate of fire was seen as revolutionary but with the support of Air Vice Marshall Tedder the decision was made. Further input from Keith and his team led the RAF to replace the English Vickers machine gun with the more reliable American Browning machine guns which became the main armament for Spitfires and Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain. These guns used the same bullets as a rifle and it was soon realised that a more powerful weapon was needed.
Keith played a key role in the decision to introduce the French designed Hispano 20 mm cannon after a visit to France in 1936. The Hispano cannon was first used in 1940 but early trials in Hurricanes and Spitfires found that the gun could jam during combat. After modifications it became standard armament and one of the most used aircraft guns of the 20th Century allowing Spitfires and Hurricanes to make effective attacks on ground targets and enemy shipping. Keith also played a part in the introduction of the power-driven gun turret that became standard equipment in British bombers.
He was station commander at RAF Worthy Down in 1936 and for the first year of the war he was Commander at RAF Marham, a heavy bomber station where the young Wellington Bomber pilot Vivian Rosewarne was based.
In April 1941 Keith became the first Commanding Officer of Picton Gunnery School. The Commonwealth Air Training Plan provided Canadian and RAF personnel with training bases away from the dangers and restrictions of training in Britain. Unlike the members of the RAF, Royal Canadian Air Force personnel paid the lower Canadian rate of tax and were let of all tax if they flew more than average time each year. This and other “ hardships”, produced “bitterness” and “dissatisfaction” among the RAF personnel serving in Canada. Keith presented a list of “20 points of hardship” which he felt should be removed. He managed to get six of the twenty points cleared up before being unexpectedly recalled to England in April of 1942, despite the Canadian Chief of Air Staff requesting that he be allowed to remain.
He was assigned to command the RAF Central Gunnery School at Sutton Bridge but after a short period of sickness and a recommendation from the medical officer that he should serve in the South of England he was listed as “supernumerary” at the age of 53.
In Parliament on 3rd February 1943 Tom Driberg, M.P asked why Keith had been recalled and why it was proposed to retire him, saying; “is it not a fact that this officer was brought back from Canada after serving eight months, although it had been laid down that he should serve not less than 18 months, and that he was given the highest tributes, officially and unofficially, for his efficiency? “. The Secretary of State for Air replied that a policy had been in place since “the summer of 1941, under which senior officers must give way to younger men when circumstances so require” and “deplored” that individual officers were named. Driberg responded by saying “Is it not more deplorable that they should be treated unjustly? “ Keith reported first hearing of this after receiving a copy of Hansard in the post. Within a few months he retired and subsequently took a post with the BBC as an announcer.
His insistence that hardships for RAF staff in Canada be removed led to two meetings of the Air Council and to a final concession of all the “20 points of hardships” he had raised.
“I Hold My Aim “ is the motto of the Air Gunnery School and also the title of Group Captain Keith’s book published in 1946 where he writes:-
“I ran my Station commands as a dictator –a benevolent one, I hope –and I built the efficiency of my units through the happy, hard work of my airmen. They knew I should bite them when they deserved it, and fight like hell for them when they merited it. I have always refused to be a ‘Yes Man’ when it affected my doing what I thought to be right for those under me. That is probably why I am in plain clothes, as I write this book.”
Sidelined from the official history except as the Commanding Officer of an anonymous young pilot Group Captain Keith died in 1966 and was survived by his wife Gwen (nee Dunkerley).
The 70th Anniversary of the battle of Britain prompted me to look again at the books and to search the Internet, though little was to be found. I have created a Wikipedia entry for Group Captain Keith, up-dated the entries for 58 squadron and ‘An Airman’s Letter to his Mother’ including copies of the photographs of Viviane Rosewarne from the books given to Group Captain Keith.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Hilton_Keith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Airman%27s_Letter_to_His_Mother
Sunday, 6 November 2011
From little acorns come small squirrel snacks
No mighty oaks here, just the confused ramblings of a middle aged man and I am sure that when it comes to a list of things requiring my (or your)attention this comes a long way down. However, I hope that you, like me, might find in this blog something to distract you from the less enjoyable activities you should be getting on with.
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