The Tangmere Logbook Magazine of the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum Summer 2009 Tangmere in 1929-1930, Conclusion Lancaster SR-U • A Dead-Stick Landing Escape to Switzerland Tangmere Military Aviation Museum Trust Company Patron: The Duke of Richmond and Gordon Hon. President: Duncan Simpson, OBE Council of Trustees Chairman: Group Captain David Baron, OBE Peter Allison Keith Arnold Alan Bower Terry Bryant Bill Toozs-Hobson Phil Isaac Ken Shepherd Joyce Warren Officers of the Company Hon. Treasurer: Ken Shepherd Hon. Secretary: Joyce Warren Management Team Director: Alan Bower Curator: David Coxon Works Manager: Keith Arnold Marketing Manager: Peter Allison 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 The Tangmere Logbook The Tangmere Logbook Magazine of the Tangmere Military AviationMuseum Summer 2009 Notes from My Logbook 4 Part 4 of an autobiographical memoir, Royal Air Force Tangmere, 1929-1930 Air Marshal Sir Anthony Selway, KCB DFC Our Brother’s Lancaster 11 The historical and personal story behind the Museum’s model of Lancaster SR-U David and Colin Burleigh RAF Smash Tank Lair in France 15 A Lancaster makes a dead-stick landing at Tangmere Bob Wingrove Too Late on Target 20 A crashed Lancaster and a 200-mile walk to Switzerland Raymond Barlow Letters, Notes, and Queries 26 Bombs and scissors, The Far East by Dakota, Running for the RAF, Up a mountain, Geoffrey Page’s embarrassing prang, and Photo Quiz 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 opposite, or by e-mail at [email protected] Copyright © 2009 by the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum Trust Company All rights reserved. ISSN 1756-0039 Notes from My Logbook Part 4 of an autobiographical memoir, Royal Air Force Tangmere, 1929-1930 Air Marshal Sir Anthony Selway, KCB DFC Social climber Well in those days a tail suit was de And now I see the entry for July 17th is rigeur for all officers. We wore the that I did a Battle Flight Climb to 20,000 boiled shirt and stand-up collar with feet in 18 minutes. That of course by our mess kit and the dinner jacket was modern standards is very slow, only as yet hardly the thing. So I replied, slightly better than l,000 feet a minute. “Yes. Why?” And he answered, “You One got very cold and bored doing this are to dine with Lord Russell of Liver- and as soon as the required height was pool on Thursday next; he will send his reached, down went the nose and away Rolls to collect you.” you went to a warmer level. If you At last! Recognition at last! My went down too fast you got a headache climb up the social ladder had com- or, at least, I did. menced. Obviously his Lordship had Then during that week a minor so- found out who and where I was and cial event occured which gave me some had insisted that I should go and dine amusement. As I entered the mess one with him. Perhaps quite soon I should day the Mess Secretary was lying in be appearing in the Tatler, photo- wait for me. “Ah, Selway,” he said, graphed with beautiful young ladies “have you got a tail suit with you?” and holding a glass of champagne. 4 The Tangmere Logbook This was quite agreeable to me and I not to know, or at least, not to know made further enquiries. I was dashed very well. to find that Lord Russell of Liverpool The dinner turned out to be for four; really hadn’t the faintest idea who I was His Lordship and his Lady, myself and and had merely got his secretary to a very pretty girl. We sat down at din- phone up the mess and order one offi- ner to make rather stilted conversation. cer for dinner. Rather like getting a taxi I was not yet 20 and inexperienced with from the rank. I don’t know whether it it. My summing up was that for some is still done today but at the time of reason they wanted me to get along which I write it was the custom in the with the pretty girl so I made a rather country to use Army and RAF messes ham beginning which seemed to attract as pools of dining manpower. They some fierce looks from Lord R. And as also came in handy for tennis parties. we left for the ball, which was at Pet- Local hostesses, finding themselves worth, it dawned on me that it was the short of a man or two, would place an pretty girl who was for His Lordship order with the local Mess Secretary who and Lady R. was for me. I didn’t mind would send the cleanest and most intel- as she was herself beautiful and charm- ligent ones he could find. If lucky, they ing. But it became obvious to me dur- got handsome charming young part- ing the dancing — all of which I did ners for their countless daughters; if with Lady Russell — that she was unlucky, they got irresponsible but bored with me but kindly, and also that cheerful young men who spent all their she was in the depths of some secret time at the bar talking to each other sorrow which she could not share with about flying. As far as the men were me. As time wore on it was plain that concerned it was, one would have there was trouble here and that my role thought, an opportunity to meet rich, was just to go on dancing (and I was a beautiful, single young ladies with poor dancer) and comforting this whom they could start a liaison possi- charming lady. bly leading to a brilliant marriage (for I must say that when the evening him) and a life of ease thereafter. But it drew to an end, I found myself wishing didn’t seem to quite work out like this. fervently that I was just a bit older, five Hostesses were very careful to keep the years would do, so that I could have rich and pretty ones out of sight and carried the whole thing off with a bit one found one’s self inevitably directed more style. And what was worse, from towards the plain Janes sitting round the looks Lord R. was giving me from the walls. After about an hour of this it time to time, it appeared that he too was not surprising that the young men would have wished for someone a little were inclined to cheer themselves up at older to fit in with the whole affair. It is the bar and as the refreshment was bet- a sad thing to find yourself “too old” to ter than our usual fare and, moreover, it be able to do what you like to do, but to was free, it was even less than surpris- be “too young” for a situation like this, ing that over patronage of the bar led to which brings a particular embarrassed occasional complications. agony that only the young can under- But this was different. An invitation stand. Luckily being “too young” to dine first and then I gathered we doesn’t last very long. Being “too old” were going on to a ball. I began to look lasts forever! forward to this evening and when it Later on in the week I went round to came I was seen off in the chauffeur- the Russells’ house and, as was the cus- driven Rolls 40/50 by a window-full of tom, dropped my card. I had hoped to rather ribald friends whom I affected see my pretty friend again but, alas, she Summer 2009 5 was out. Perhaps just as well. Many lot of these volunteers in later days and years later I found in a reference book some of them became my greatest that Lord R. had been married four friends. times. My diagnosis of the event per- haps hadn’t been too wrong. “Hit on the head with tools” Auxiliaries come to visit A mystery entry in my logbook tells me that I was “hit on the head with tools” On the second of August, No. 600 during a Siskin flight. For a moment I Squadron arrived for their annual have a vision of an ill-wisher concealing camp. No. 600 Squadron was one of the himself somewhere behind my seat and Auxiliary squadrons stationed at popping out later to hit me over the Tangmere. These squadrons were head with a spanner. Now my memory known to the press as the “weekend returns and I recall doing aerobatics airmen” for they were volunteers who and during a slow roll a couple of had jobs in the City and who preferred spanners which had been left in the gun to spend their spare time, which in- trough by my fitter floated away and cluded the weekends, being taught to got themselves caught in the slipstream. fly by the Royal Air Force. As soon as They flew along the top of the fuselage they had qualified they became part of and hit me quite a painful wallop on the squadron and led a squadron life the head which made me suspend what which included using up their summer I was doing for a few moments.