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    At the Foot of Our Stairs: The History and Crews of Handley Page Halifax Jd314
    At the Foot of Our Stairs: The History and Crews of Handley Page Halifax Jd314
    At the Foot of Our Stairs: The History and Crews of Handley Page Halifax Jd314
    Ebook208 pages1 hour

    At the Foot of Our Stairs: The History and Crews of Handley Page Halifax Jd314

    By Paul Skelly

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXlibris UK
    Release dateDec 16, 2011
    ISBN9781469139739
    At the Foot of Our Stairs: The History and Crews of Handley Page Halifax Jd314

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      Book preview

      At the Foot of Our Stairs - Paul Skelly

      Copyright © 2011 by Paul Skelly.

      Library of Congress Control Number:       2011962846

      ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4691-3972-2

                         Softcover                                 978-1-4653-0712-5

                         Ebook                                      978-1-4691-3973-9

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

      This book was printed in the United States of America.

      To order additional copies of this book, contact:

      Xlibris Corporation

      0-800-644-6988

      www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

      Orders@xlibrispublishing.co.uk

      302965

      The following is the story of seven men who perished on the night of Wednesday 29th December 1943 over half way through the conflict which was the Second World War. The reason why I have chosen to write about this particular crew is because my Mothers husband Phillip Greenmon was on this aircraft doing his duty in saving this country from the Nazi tyranny, and paid, along with a lot of others with his life. Without this sacrifice I would not have been born, along probably with a lot of others also.

      It started as a young boy in the family home every morning and evening walking upstairs and downstairs to and from my bed seeing a picture of a young airman along with a Commemorative Scroll that he gave his life for his country. Eventually I left home and one day asked what had happened to Phillip. My Mothers reply was he left for a bombing operation and did not come back. The only information she had was that his crew were buried near Zwolle in Holland.

      The thing Mother did find odd was the date I asked her was the 29th December 1983, forty years to the day since he was killed. My immediate thought was that I must do something about this, and so began the quest which has taken me half my life to complete and put into words.

      For me the most saddening part is not being able to find anything on one particular crew member P/O Stanley Webb who went to the squadron the same day as Phillip on the 24th March 1943 and managed 24 operations to his credit before going for a Burton or Chop, RAF term for killed in action. They thought that the most dangerous period in any tour of operations is the first and the last five for any Air Crew.

      Image6317.JPG

      Sergeant P J Greenmons Air Gunner badge

      CONTENTS

      BOMBER COMMAND STRUCTURE

      NO 10 SQUADRON

      THE HANDLEY PAGE HALIFAX

      THE SPECIFICATION OF HALIFAX JD314

      SERGEANT PHILLIP JOHN GREENMON RAFVR

      INTRODUCTION OF NEW AIR-CREW CATEGORIES

      DUTIES OF AIR-CREW CATEGORIES

      HEAVY CONVERSION UNIT TRAINING

      OPERATIONAL FLYING

      BOMB TYPES

      PILOT OFFICER STANLEY WEBB

      ARRIVAL OF HALIFAX II SERIES 1A JD 314

      PATELEY BRIDGE CRASH

      HALIFAX  JD314 OPERATIONS

      THE BATTLE OF BERLIN

      WEDNESDAY 29TH DECEMBER 1943, AIRCRAFT SHOT DOWN BY NIGHTFIGHTERS

      BIBLIOGRAPHY

      During World War II Bomber Command lost the following personnel from September 1939 to May1945 which were about 125000 airmen in total, a lot under training. During this period over 389,000 sorties were flown from 101 operational airfields, and dozens of others airfields were earmarked for training or under Maintenance.

      Killed in action or died whilst prisoners of war 47,268

      Flying or ground accidents 8,195

      Killed ground-battle action 37

      Total fatalities to aircrew 55,573

      Prisoners of war, including many wounded 9,838

      Wounded in aircraft which returned from operations 4,200

      Wounded in flying or ground accidents in U. K. 4,203

      Total wounded, other than prisoners of war 8,403

      Total aircrew casualties 73,741

      The nationalities of the consisted of the following:

      Royal Air Force 38,462

      Royal Canadian Air Force 9,919

      Royal Australian Air Force 4,050

      Royal New Zealand Air Force 1,679

      Polish Air Force 929

      Other Allied Air Forces 473

      South African Air Force 34

      Others 27

      BOMBER COMMAND

      STRUCTURE

      302965-SKEL-layout-low.pdf302965-SKEL-layout-low.pdf

      No 4 Group Bomber Command, for whom no Group badge was ever authorised, was formed on April the 1st 1937 at Mildenhall, Suffolk and it’s first commander was the future Bomber Command leader Arthur Harris. By 1940 it had moved its Headquarters to Heslington Hall near York, where they were to remain for the rest of the war. The airfields were mainly in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

      At the outbreak of war, the Group consisted of just six Whitley squadrons, five of which were operational, with one as a reserve.

      In early 1941 the Whitley’s of the Group started to give way to the four-engine Halifax bombers, which by the end of the war would equip all of 4 Group’s eleven squadrons.

      In May 1942 Bomber Command, by then under the leadership of Air Chief Marshall Harris sent 1,000 bombers to Cologne, as part of Operation Millennium. 4 Group contributed 154 aircraft toward this total, and just a few nights later when again 1,000 plus aircraft were sent to Essen, the Group managed to contribute 142 aircraft.

      During 1943 during the Battle of the Ruhr 2339 sorties were flown between March and July 1943 costing a total of 138 bomber aircraft.

      1943 saw a total of 11,607 sorties, costing the No 4 Group, 485 Halifax bombers which Failed to Return (FTR).

      In all 61577 sorties were flown and over 200,000 tons of bombs were dropped and 7,000 sea mines were laid but at a cost of 1,509 aircraft lost, with Halifax’s accounting for 1,124 of these losses, which equated to a 2.6% loss rate.

      Image6468.jpg

      The Airfields of No4 Group RAF

      Image6474.JPG

      Heslington Hall No 4 Group Headquarters

      4 Group Statistics aircraft

      NO 10 SQUADRON

      No 10 Squadron was formed, as part of the Royal Flying Corps, on 1st January 1915 at Farnborough airfield in Hampshire with the motto in Latin Rem acu tangere which is translated to English as To hit the mark. The Squadron served on the Western Front in France in the Artillery spotting and bombing roles with a variety of aircraft types. It was disbanded on 31st December 1919 following the end of the World War I

      It was reformed as a night bomber Squadron with Hyderabad’s at Upper Helford on 3rd January 1928 and moved to Boscombe Down in 1931. Its next move was to RAF Dishforth in 1937 to form part of the newly created No 4 Group under the command of Arthur Harris, the future leader of Bomber Command.

      The winged arrow badge was approved by King George VI in September 1937, and was designed by Wing Commander Whitelock whilst watching archery practice in Oxfordshire. He thought the bomb was the modern equivalent of the arrow, and the wings were added to indicate great speed.

      During this time, the unit operated a variety of types of aircraft, including Virginias, Hinaidis and the Handley Page Helford beginning the Second World War as the first unit equipped with the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bomber. The squadron continued as part of No. 4 Group throughout the war, moving to RAF Leeming on 8th July 1940 before re-equipping with the Handley Page Halifax in December 1941.The final move of the Second World War was to RAF Melbourne, Yorkshire on the 19th Aug 1942.

      Image6480.jpg

      Between 1st September 1939 and 8th May 1945 No 10 squadron earned 523 awards, which included 9 Distinguished Service Orders, 333 Distinguished Flying Crosses and 173 Distinguished Flying Medals.

      Melbourne Airfield was built on the East Common and was some twelve miles east of York, offering a good site for a satellite landing ground, when these were anxiously being sought during 1940.Just a little preparation was required to convert the flat area of meadowland east of Foss Dike into an airfield.

      Melbourne was first considered as a satellite for the new bomber station at RAF Pocklington being 4½ miles to the north. The drawing below shows the runways along with aircraft hard standing positions doted around the airfield in case of enemy attack.

      The main runway 06/24 was then increased to 1900 yards and the 15/33 to 1400 yards, before the airfield was opened. The technical site lay

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