With Charlie and Chippy in bombed out London on February 5th 1941 and the telegraph message that all was well

On leave , 1941

There is something quite sobering in realizing that events which were still fresh in many people’s memories when I was growing up are now 79 years old.

For my generation the Battle of Britain was still recent history.

I was born soon after it began and I grew up with family stories of watching the vapour trails in the skies over Kent and those old black and while films of “the Few.”

Later still on warm summers evenings we would drive out to the Kent pubs some of which were close to the old RAF stations.

But 75 years is a long time and it is easy to take the events for granted after all they are well known and the significance of those few months in the summer of 1940 can get lost in the bigger picture of a war which involved millions and was spread over the continents of the world.

The Line Book

To do so of course is to lose sight of what those months meant to the people who lived through them from the pilots who fought in the skies, the ground crews tasked with keeping the plane s airworthy and the backroom men and women maintaining the radar stations and plotting the incoming enemy aircraft.

Added to which were the families of all those in the front line, watching from a distance and always prepared for the worst.

It is not easy to get a real sense of what all that meant but sometimes you can get a glimpse.

And this month I have been lent the Line Book of 222 Squadron who fought in the Battle of Britain.  The book which is really a day to day record of what went on belongs to my friend David Harrop who acquired it after it had been found in a skip.

Charlie and Chippy in London......... "B flight holding its end up" 1941

So over the next few weeks I want to share this very human set of stories, but I am beginning with a telegram which comes from February 1941.

By then the battle had been won and 222 squadron after a spell in Scotland was back in the south of England on “offensive duties.”

And on Wednesday February 5th, “Chippy and Charlie” telegraphed F/Lt Van Mintz D.F.C., with  “just a line to let you know B flight is holding its end up in London.”

All I know of the three is that F/Lt Van Mintz D.F.C.,was according to David, "Brian Van-Metz a South African ace known to his mates as jeep jeep," and "Chippy was Sergeant D J Chipping."

In time I might be able to identify all three but for now it is just one of those tiny pieces of the human story.

Chippy and Charlie were on leave from RAF Coltishall but felt the need to touch base and no doubt would soon return and perhaps will appear in the line book.

We shall see.

Picture; telegram dated 1941 from the collection of David Harrop

Knowing your onions in 1940 ........ wartime propaganda with 222 Squadron

Now I am looking forward to seeing the original of this photograph which David tells me comes from New York.

It will be a fitting end to the story which began when he lent me the Line Book for 222 (Natal) Squadron.*

Line Books are rare and this one was nearly lost and only survived because it was found in a skip, which made its way on to the market and in the fullness of time David came across and added to his collection of war time memorabilia.

And it is a wonderful find because Line Books were the unofficial record of RAF squadrons put together by the pilots and kept in the mess.

So here are comments on operations that were flown including bitter sweet reflections on what happened in the air along with pictures poems, and telegrams sent by men on leave.

It covers the period just after the Battle of Britain goes on to record the moment the squadron was equipped with jet fighters in 1945, and its brief time as a missile unit before disbandment in the 1960s.

And while the book was started just after the momentous events of summer 1940, many of the men mentioned will have fought in that battle.

But today it is that picture which I am drawn to and the caption which appeared with it.

I am not sure of the date or which newspaper it appeared in but here is a wonderful piece of war time propaganda, which combines the seriousness of war, and a light bit of banter.

And along with that a tiny bit of factual information offering up that “the Natal Fighter Squadron ........ is paid for by the inhabitants of Natal (South Africa).  Among the pilots are many South Africans and many of the ground staff came from Rhodesia.  Enough money was contributed to Keep a full squadron in the air at all times.”

All of which reminds you that in both world wars there was a huge “voluntary element” which was partly because we were cash strapped but also because getting everyone to make a contribution was a winning piece of propaganda.

So along with war bonds there was of course the Spitfire Fund many other drives for the war effort.**

But I shall finish by returning to the picture and the story, which continues “the Natal Fighter Squadron in England have sown their onions behind barbed wire!  And here are some of them at work on the allotment.  

They find it a change from the routine work of “bagging” German planes.

A flight-lieutenant from South Africa has seven Nazi planes to his credit with a probable five more ....... he certainly knows his onions!”

Today it is easy to be cynical at the style of the propaganda and even back then I suspect there will be some who pointed fun at its jokey delivery but this was all in earnest and those men in the picture were doing the real thing.

So I am pleased that the Line Book is now in David’s possession who I know will look after it and will refer to it in his current exhibition on the Battle of Britain in the Remembrance Lodge at Southern Cemetery.




Pictures; news clipping, of pilots from 222 (Natal) Squadron, date and source unknown from the Lone Book of 222 (Natal) Squadron, courtesy of David Harrop

*The Natal 222 Squadron, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Natal%20222%20Squadron

**The Spitfire Fund, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/remembering-battle-of-britain-part-2.html

Remembering the Battle of Britain ................ part 1 stories from 222 Squadron

The Battle of Britain

January 1 1941

Now the event has slipped into history and today that battle which began 80 years ago is now far enough away to be the subject of serious historical debate.

A generation of historians who were not born when the “Few” took to the skies have looked at the event with that mix of hindsight and a knowledge of the bigger picture and inevitably some have viewed it differently from how it was portrayed in 1940 and indeed how I saw the event as a boy growing up in the 1950s.

For them events like the invasion of the Soviet Union and Pearl Harbour maybe more significant and a re-evaluation of the Battle might suggest that the the final outcome turned on the decision by the Germans to switch to bombing our cities.

And this month one historian writing in the BBC History Magazine explored the strengths of the two air forces, their logistical support and the key decisions taken by the  RAF command concluding that the Luftwaffe was more at a disadvantage than some interpretations would suggest.*

But as valid as all that is, it doesn’t detract from the heroism and sacrifice of the men and women who were involved, from the pilots who took to the sky, the ground crews who kept the planes flying and those in radar stations across the south of England.

And so over the summer I want to focus on some of those people drawing on the things they said at the time and widening the scope to include many of those who lived through the events.

Of all the material I could have drawn on it is the Line Book for 222 Squadron which will start the series.

This was the unofficial record of the squadron kept in the Officier’s Mess and is made up of those little snippets which meant something to the men at the time and were no doubt read over a pint and passed round the room.

"MY ENGINE CUT JUST OVER THE HEDGE" circa December 1940

222 Squadron fought in the battle although the book was begun a month or so after it ended.

But that said many of the men who made contributions to the book or read the jokes, telegrams and pictures will have participated.

They are a mix of ghoulish humour, light knock about fun and just the records of men taking time off from the serious business of fighting.

In time I want to explore their stories, but for now I shall dip at random into the book drawing on the comments left by those men.

"PLEASE SIR ARE WE GOING TO PANKARR AT CALAIS?" circa 1940

I have David Harrop to thank for letting use the Line Book.  He acquired it after it had been thrown away and it now sits amongst his collection of memorabilia from the Battle.

But what makes it just that bit more important is that it stretches from November 1940 through to July 1961, covering the squadron’s operations through the war, the moment it switched to Gloucester Meteors which were the RAF’s first jet fighters to its eventual redeployment to a rocket base and there near the end is a simple entry ‘30th September 1957 “The Air Council – No222 Squadron is to disband.”’

And in between there is a whole history of one RAF unit which offers up a fascinating and seamless story but above all draws me a little closer to those men who we know as the "Few."

Like the  anonymous comment "HEARD AT HORSHAM B-the Group Captain! Don't you understand that fighter pilots have to be off the ground within thirty-five seconds.!"

Pictures; from 222 (Natal) Squadron 'Line' Book, 1940-1961 from the collection of David Harrop

*James Holland offers a fresh perspective on the events of the 1940 Battle of Britain BBC History Magazine July 2 2019