Women of Intelligence: Winning the Second World War with Air Photos (27 page)

Shirley described RAF Medmenham as a ‘bunch of nuts’ – they were all distinctive characters and individualists. She recalled that Charlotte Bonham Carter, carrying her trademark umbrella and breakfast remnants, used to take a shortcut to work across the playing fields to avoid having to walk up the long drive. One day the groundsman confronted her and told her that she was wearing out the grass. Charlotte replied that she paid her RAF Medmenham station sports’ subscription but never played games, so walking on the grass was the way she got value for her expenditure.

The possibility of enemy gas attacks on civilians was one of the earliest concerns of the British authorities, stemming from the terrible effects of the use of gas in the First World War. It was believed that the enemy could release gas in some form from aircraft over the civilian population. Consequently, at the outbreak of war everyone was issued with a gas mask in a case, which had to be carried at all times no matter where the individual was. Gas tests were part of basic training for armed forces personnel, followed by regular practices.

The procedure was that a group went into a sealed room and put their gas capes and masks on, after which a gas pellet was released and the order was given to remove masks. The occupants had to hold their breath and move outside in an orderly fashion to the fresh air where everyone did lots of coughing. Pamela Howie disliked the practice as it brought on her asthma. Pat Peat had a nastier experience during a test when she was hidden behind a tall man in the sealed room and the pellet was released before she had her mask on correctly. As a result of the gas spraying her face she lost her sight for six months and spent that time in hospital having autohaemotherapy – fortunately she recovered.

The gas practices at Medmenham were carried out monthly at 8.30 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Squadron Leader Geoffrey Dimbleby was responsible for observing and checking that everything went according to plan on these practices and that all personnel conformed to the rules. On one occasion he saw what appeared to be an animated gas cape making its way across the parade ground, when everyone was supposed to be in the shelters. He wondered who it was, and then saw that it was carrying a little wicker shopping basket!

Notes

  
1
. Saffery, John, Squadron Leader DSO, from a paper, undated but written while he still in PRU (Medmenham Collection).

  
2
. IWM 4009 96/4/1 The papers of Mrs Pamela Brisley-Wilson (
née
Howie), held by the Department of Documents at the Imperial War Museum. The author was unable to locate the copyright holder.

  
3
. Gilbert, Martin, ‘Winston S. Churchill, Companion’, Volume V, Part 3,
The Coming of War 1936–1939
, Heinemann, 1982.

  
4
. O’Neil (
née
Peat), Pat, recorded interviews.

  
5
. Lawton (
née
Laws), Millicent, conversation.

  
6
. Sowry (
née
Adams), Jeanne, memoirs.

  
7
. Leaf, Edward,
Above All Unseen
,
Appendix D (Patrick Stephens Ltd, 1997).

  
8
. Horne (
née
Macallister), Elspeth, memoirs.

  
9
. Hurley (
née
Price), Margaret, correspondence.

10
. Komrower (
née
Eadon), Shirley, audio recording made for the Medmenham Collection, 2001/2.

11
. Babington Smith, Constance,
Evidence in Camera
,
pp.110–1.

12
. Komrower (
née
Eadon), Shirley, document DC 76/46, undated, held by RAF Museum.

The Bombers

Whenever I see them ride on high

Gleaming and proud in the morning sky

Or lying awake in bed at night

I hear them pass on their outward flight

I feel the mass of metal and guns

Delicate instruments, deadweight tons

Awkward, slow, bomb racks full

Straining away from the downward pull

Straining away from home and base

And I try to see the pilot’s face.

I imagine a boy who’s just left school

On whose quick-learnt skill and courage cool

Depend the lives of the men in his crew

And success of the job they have to do.

And something happens to me inside

That is deeper than grief, greater than pride

And though there is nothing I can say

I always look up as they go their way

And care and pray for every one,

And steel my heart to say,

‘Thy will be done’.
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Sixty-three minutes after war was declared, a Blenheim reconnaissance aircraft and a small bomber force took off from RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire to carry out Bomber Command’s first photographic sortie of the Second World War. The Blenheim was the first British aircraft of the war to cross the German coast. The brief was to confirm the location of enemy warships north of Wilhelmshaven, which had been photographed the day before by one of Sidney Cotton’s pilots. The aircraft returned 4 hours later with excellent quality photographs confirming the numbers and location of the ships. The subsequent loss rate of the Blenheims, however, when carrying out further photographic sorties from Wyton, and later in France, proved conclusively that they were too slow and unresponsive for effective reconnaissance purposes.

The Air Ministry turned to Sidney Cotton, and the Heston Special Flight was quickly formed. Using the fast, manoeuvrable Spitfires for reconnaissance sorties enabled pilots to reach the target in the shortest possible time, take the required photographs and out-fly enemy aircraft on returning to base. Although the photography the Spitfires brought back was small scale and could not be examined with the conventional apparatus available at that time, the single Wild A-5 survey machine at the Aircraft Operating Company was able to exploit it and Wembley soon became the central point for photographic interpretation services. HQ Bomber Command retained its own separate Interpretation Section, however, and the first female PIs of the Second World War, who had been recruited and trained at Heston, moved there and soon afterwards were enrolled into the WAAF. They were soon to be involved in a contentious interpretation event that was, unfortunately, the forerunner of other similar incidents.

Early bombing strategies were an inexact science, lacking the advantages of the navigational aids and target sighting devices that improved accuracy later on. A few hours after a bombing raid, a reconnaissance aircraft flew over the area and the photographs obtained were analysed to establish the accuracy of the bomber’s navigation to the target area, and the overall effectiveness of the raid in achieving strategic target bombing priorities. The difficulties experienced in achieving accurate navigation, the camouflage and decoys that could mislead air crews, and the enemy ground and air defences, often resulted in bombs missing the target by a wide margin, and sometimes being dropped in the wrong area altogether.

During the six months of the so-called Phoney War, when President Roosevelt’s bombing truce prevented any bombing on mainland Europe, only one British attack took place on German territory. In March 1940 Bomber Command was ordered to carry out a reprisal raid for a German attack a few days earlier on Royal Navy vessels at anchor in Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands. During that attack, enemy bombs had been dropped on land, killing one civilian and wounding seven others. On 19–20 March, forty British bombers attacked the chosen target of Hornum, a seaplane base on the German island of Sylt. The air crews returned from the raid reporting a completely successful operation, and an overjoyed government and press immediately publicised the total destruction of the enemy base. However, when the post-attack photographs were examined at Bomber Command a few hours later, the PIs could find no sign of damage and not even one bomb crater. The reaction was total disbelief by all those who, understandably, needed to show that Britain had the capacity to inflict damage on the enemy. After all, the air crew had reported having seen the bombs falling, followed by fires and widespread damage and surely that was proof enough. Some reports state that orders were then given that the PIs be locked in their room with the photographs until they did ‘find’ the claimed destruction. The press were clamouring for photographs but the report remained the same – no bomb damage was to be seen. Even after PIs at the Air Ministry confirmed their colleagues’ reports, the recriminations and anger against them continued. It was not until a further photographic sortie was flown several days later, and the new photographs analysed, that it was found that the bombs had fallen on a Danish island many miles away and the actual target had been missed completely.
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Stella Ogle, a WAAF officer at Bomber Command, wrote:

We were constantly being pressurized by the Station Commander to publish glowing reports of glorious successes. If the interpreters found no trace of damage or craters, they were accused of minimising the results, and our unfortunate officer in charge received hell – no one believed our reports, and our reputation was nil. The worst of it was, so often no damage existed, and bomber crews had to be told the truth. Can you imagine our feelings?

To begin with, they hated taking night photographs as operating the cameras meant just one more headache during a period of great danger, and they always had the thought of carrying with them in the aircraft a large amount of flammable material in the form of film, which they would be unable to discharge in an emergency. The photographic flash was the responsibility of the bomb aimer, and the method of launching the flash was primitive. They might have to consult outdated maps of, for example, miles and miles of featureless Dutch polder-country made up of interminable canals, and trace their position by some group of willows, or a kink in a dyke, and desperately try to plot craters by the bomb flashes. Half the time they were lost, as navigational aids and bomb aiming devices were of the crudest. It was tragic when they managed to stagger back with dead or wounded only to be told that they had been nowhere near the target by what they considered to be a bunch of idiots. We longed to be able to see successful results and hear their relieved and excited remarks.
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Stella Ogle and an RAF colleague at Pinetree assess the extent of bomb damage after a raid.

In September 1941 the small group of male and female interpreters who worked at HQ Bomber Command moved to RAF Medmenham to set up a new Third-Phase Damage Assessment Section, which was identified by the letter ‘K’. Its function was to identify, assess and calculate the extent of the damage caused to the enemy by each bombing raid. Subsidiary to this was assistance in establishing the accuracy of navigation of the aircraft and assessment of the disruption caused to German industrial output permanently or temporarily. Even a short-term closure was worthwhile if it disrupted the production of essential equipment. The Industry Section, which monitored manufacturing rates of output, was also supplied with an accurate appraisal of the time required for the enemy to restore normal production.

Stella Ogle and Pat Donald met on their PI training course and joined ‘K’ Section together, remaining life-long friends. Pat said:

I had done a secretarial course before joining the WAAF in 1941. After basic training I was posted as a clerk (general duties) to RAF Kinloss, a Coastal Command station on the Moray Firth, in Scotland. I was then posted to RAF Medmenham as a clerk/typist and fell foul of an obnoxious WAAF corporal who once put me on a charge for being late on duty. However, soon afterwards I was recommended for a commission and PI training and was quietly pleased to note that the corporal remained a corporal!
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