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Wilbur and Orville's European Tour More Famous Fighters • Worthing Wilbur and Orville’s European Tour More Famous Fighters • Worthing Raids Dr Willey’s Fate • St Andrew’s Churchyard Tangmere Military Aviation Museum Trust Company Patron: The Duke of Richmond and Gordon Hon. President: Duncan Simpson, OBE Hon. Life Vice-President: Alan Bower Council of Trustees Chairman: Group Captain David Baron, OBE Reginald Byron David Coxon Dudley Hooley Phil Isaac Ken Shepherd Mike Stanton Phil Stokes Joyce Warren Officers of the Company Hon. Treasurer: Ken Shepherd Hon. Secretary: Joyce Warren Management Team Director: Dudley Hooley Curator: David Coxon General Manager and Chief Engineer: Phil Stokes Events Manager: David Burleigh, MBE Publicity Manager: Cherry Greveson Staffing Manager: Mike Wieland Treasurer: Ken Shepherd Works Manager: Mike Stanton Shop Manager: Sheila Shepherd Registered in England and Wales as a Charity Charity Commission Registration Number 299327 Registered Office: Tangmere, near Chichester, West Sussex PO20 2ES, England Telephone: 01243 790090 Fax: 01243 789490 Website: www.tangmere-museum.org.uk E-mail: [email protected] 2 What Became of the Gallant Dr Willey? 4 Caught in the fall of Singapore, he cared for his fellow PoWs Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork The Wright Flyer in France, 1909 10 Rare photographs of an historic event that led to Blériot’s famous feat Mike Jones Butcher Birds over Worthing 14 Two little-known tip-and-run Luftwaffe attacks on the town in 1943 Tony Gardiner The Origins of the Second Wave 20 of Remarkable Second World War Fighters Part One: The Hawker Typhoon-Tempest and the Focke-Wulf 190 Matt Wright St Andrew’s Churchyard, a Last Resting Place 28 Part 2 of an occasional series George Galazka Published by the Society of Friends of the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum, Tangmere, near Chichester, West Sussex PO20 2ES, England Edited by Dr Reginald Byron, who may be contacted care of the Museum at the postal address given above, or by e-mail at [email protected] Copyright © 2012 by the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum Trust Company All rights reserved. ISSN 1756-0039 What Became of the Gallant Dr Willey? Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork MBE Just after midday on 16 August 1940, a At Tangmere the Tannoy alerted large attacking force was detected everyone to take cover and Dr Court- heading towards the Portsmouth area. ney Willey, the station medical officer Five fighter squadrons were scrambled and the only doctor at Tangmere, im- from Tangmere to intercept. The en- mediately transferred ten of his patients emy force was reported as 50 to 100 from the sick bay to an air raid shelter. Junkers Ju87 Stuka dive-bombers es- An ambulance with two orderlies re- corted by a small number of fighters. mained on the airfield. In the mean- 4 time, No. 601 Squadron had dived on tary Cross “for his gallant conduct”. an enemy formation heading for the airfield and, although they inflicted some losses, a number of the dive- bombers arrived over Tangmere and delivered a devastating attack against the airfield. Two hangars were destroyed and the three others damaged. Station workshops and an air raid shelter re- ceived a direct hit and the fire hydrant pump house was destroyed and the electricity supply was cut off. Three Blenheims were destroyed and a fur- ther three, together with seven Hurri- canes, were badly damaged. Amongst the badly damaged buildings was the station sick quarters where Dr Willey had remained on duty. As the bombs wrecked the sick quar- ters, Willey, who had just put on his tin hat, was buried up to his waist as the Dr Willey remained at Tangmere chimney breast collapsed on him. into the autumn of 1940 and then Whilst still under attack, he managed to served at a number of Fighter Com- free himself and, ignoring his own inju- mand stations including Croydon, ries, he organised parties to reach the Gravesend and Biggin Hill. He was many casualties as he set up an emer- promoted to Flight Lieutenant in April gency sick bay and started to treat the 1941. Later in the year, and with very most seriously injured. little notice, he was sent to Singapore in Just as the attack started, a lone Hur- the place of a doctor who had been ricane arrived trailing smoke and crash- taken ill with jaundice. He sailed from landed on the airfield. The ambulance Largs Bay on August 30 and arrived at raced to the scene to rescue the pilot, RAF Seletar on November 7. Having Pilot Officer Billy Fiske, from the burn- arrived from war-torn Britain, he was ing aircraft and immediately headed for surprised to discover how unprepared what remained of the sick quarters the island appeared with no inland de- where Willey met them. He climbed fences and everyone behaving as if the into the back of the ambulance to find war was far away. that the pilot was alive, but had been Willey had difficulty understanding very badly burned, and gave him a shot why the lessons learnt on the fighter of morphine before he was rushed to stations in Britain had quite obviously Chichester Hospital. not been implemented. The RAF’s Thirteen people were killed during main Maintenance Unit was in a con- the attack on Tangmere and twenty centrated area on the airfield and the others injured. For their actions in res- sick quarters were adjacent to it. All the cuing the injured pilot, Corporal families remained in married quarters George Jones and AC2 Cyril Faulkner on the base and the obvious lethargy were awarded the Military Medal. caused him to comment “it seemed all Courtney Willey was awarded the Mili- wrong to one who had been impressed 5 with the importance of dispersal during and the RAF’s bombers and some fight- the Battle of Britain”. Willey had little ers started to redeploy to airfields confidence in a successful outcome if around Palembang in Sumatra, where hostilities were to begin. the fighters could continue to provide Amongst the workforce at Seletar some cover over Singapore. were some 600 members of the Special On January 30, Willey accompanied Technical Corps (STC), native-born Wing Commander Crowley, the RAF’s Chinese, Malays, Sikhs and Eurasians Deputy Principal Medical Officer, and with a good command of technical boarded the SS Takliwa, a British India skills and of the English language. Steam Navigation Company transport There were also 1,400 Tamil coolies of 8,000 tons, which had arrived at Sin- who lived in the camp in the Asiatic gapore with the 44th Indian Infantry Lines. Willey was put in charge of the Brigade reinforcements five days ear- lier. The ship had been converted as a Asiatic Sick Quarters, which he ran un- hospital ship and sailed for Palembang til the end of January with the assis- with the sick and wounded. tance of two Indian dressers who gave excellent service. Four weeks after Willey’s arrival, the Japanese invaded Malaya and within twenty-four hours the first bombs dropped on Singapore when the airfield at Seletar was one of the targets. The initial bombing was completely unex- pected to the majority of station per- sonnel although the movement of a Japanese convoy towards Malaya had been known for at least two days. The accuracy of the bombing from high level at night was ominous. Further- After reviewing the facilities in Su- more, the British prestige with the Asi- matra, Crowley and Willey left for atics, who believed that the RAF was Bandoeng in Java to negotiate with the invincible, suffered badly as a result of Dutch Army medical authorities for this attack. supplies to be sent to the Sumatra sta- During the first daylight raid, when tions. On February 13, Willey set off to anti-personnel fragmentation bombs return to Palembang but as he arrived were dropped, the coolies suffered a at Oosthaven, a port two hundred miles number of casualties and evacuated the south of the airfields, he learnt that station for good and their absence Japanese paratroopers had landed at markedly diminished the rate of repair Palembang and captured the main air- work. The STC continued to give good field. work but morale suffered as casualties The following day, Singapore fell. began to pour in from up-country Ma- For the next three days, Willey and his laya and as the Japanese continued medical colleagues were able to evacu- their bombing attacks against Singa- ate the wounded, most of who had re- pore. Despite the increasing problems ceived surgical attention before being with the water and sewage systems put on a train to Oosthaven where they which had been damaged by bombs, transferred to ships to cross the Sunda the medical arrangements functioned Straits to Java. The fit travelled with well. However, by the end of January them and the last of the casualties left 1942, the situation began to deteriorate on February 16 to be transferred to 6 hospitals in Batavia. these were sent by train and road to a On returning to Java, Willey was former Dutch military hospital at Tji- posted to the Air Headquarters at mahi some ten miles away, while the Soekaboemi, which was amalgamated remainder, almost 400, were marched with the Dutch and American HQs in three miles with all they could carry to Bandoeng to become ABDAIR (Ameri- an old school. All the hospital equip- can-British-Dutch-Australian Air Op- ment and large quantities of drugs were erational Command) on February 22. confiscated. Willey and an Australian No. 2 Casualty Clearing Station of the doctor worked in the hospital where Australian Infantry Force had set up dysentery was the main problem.
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