LOST AIRFIELDS | EPISODE 19 • RAF WARBOYS 156 SQUADRON "WE LIGHT THE WAY" PATHFINDER FORCE

RAF WARBOYS RAF Warboys, nestled in heart of Cambridgeshire, was built as a satellite station to support nearby RAF Upwood. It seen a variety of bomber aircraft from training units to the Pathfinder Force. Warboys saw much combat on bomber missions, many took off from the runways here, many never seen them again. The station was built in 1941 with concrete Class-A triangular runways. The main runway was a generous 6,290 feet (1,920 m) and first to use the runways was a detachment of XV Squadron with Short Stirlings. But their stay was just for a few months and left to make way for the Bristol Blenheims of ’D’ Flight of 17 OTU who arrived on the 15th January 1941. 17 OTU trained airmen and crew until August of 1942 when the first fully operational squadron arrived, No. 156 Squadron and were operating the twin engine Vickers Wellington bomber. Their squadron code was GT. Once settled, 156 went on to carry out their first bombing missions. Although their first sorties were aborted due to weather conditions, on the 11th of August 1942, their first mission would see 10 of their Wellingtons take off around 2245 for a raid over Mainz, Germany. The mission was successful and the highly spirited crew were making their way home, but back at Warboys, only seven returned, three failed to return. X3798, flown by Flt.Sgt. F. Harker was shot down over Belgium, Harker and his Wireless Operator Lenover, were lost whilst 3 of the crew survived and became PoW. Z1595 flown by Sqn. Ldr. J. Beavis with a crew of 6 were shot down over Belgium and BJ603 which was flown by P/O. C. Taylor with a crew of 5 were also shot down over the Netherlands, all 11 sadly perished. These were the first losses of RAF Warboys. On the same day as the Dusseldorf raid, a new direction and future was being created for 156 Squadron with the formation of the Path Finder Force. Bombing was becoming inaccurate, due to bad weather, confusion of target locations, strong winds blowing aircraft way off course, human error and simply missing targets, especially the challenges of the dark skies, bombing by night. With all that, Flak and Night fighters were also playing their part to make the bombing even harder. Accuracy was improved, especially for German bombers who were using navigational systems to accurately bomb at night and even in poor visibility, using the Knickerbein, X-Gerat and Y-Gerat, which was developed from a Blind landing aids. The RAF soon followed this approach on using landing and navigational aids to be used for targets, rather than landing on a runway to accurate keep on course on the centre line, the centre line and runway were now the target. But having these navigational aids were not as easy as fitting every single aircraft with GEE radar. The PFF, used a system to illuminate targets so that the main bomber force could see the targets illuminated, thus making the bombing of targets accurate. The PFF used a navigational aid using GEE-H which was developed from the GEE radar navigation system (later the OBOE system was used). The PFF would then drop flares on the targets called ‘Target Indicators’ or T/I, for the bomber force behind the PFF aircraft to drop their bombs on the illuminated target. The idea was to make bombing more accurate and in the cover of darkness. But they did encounter teething issues such as losing their way, which was remedied by creating a flight of ‘illuminators’ who drop flares on the vectors at intervals on route to the target and the classic primitive method of countermeasures by simply either putting the indicator flares out or by using decoy flares. There were various colour flares and it is possible that different colours were used to counter back the decoy ones. In the new year of 1943, Warboys started the year with a new aircraft, the legendary four-engine heavy bomber, the Avro Lancaster and and a new group of bomber command was created for the PFF, number 8 Group. And on the 26th January, 4 Lancasters of 156 took part in a PFF mission to bomb Lorient and the following night, the same Lancasters with different crews went on another raid on Dusseldorf. Both raids saw the same four Lancasters return, all 8 crews returned safely. The Lancaster was beginning to a better aircraft for 156 Squadron. Over the battlefield skies, 16 Wellingtons and 83 Lancasters never returned from missions from RAF Warboys…this does not include the crashes during training and the loss of life of those training to make the ultimate sacrifice. #ww2 #rafbombercommand #pathfinderforce #156squadron #history #warboys IMAGE REFERENCE 7:02 KING VI & QUEEN ELIZABETH VISIT RAF WARBOYS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_War... RAMSEY MODEL AERO CLUB Special thanks to Andy & Ben https://www.ramseymac.com NX611 JUST JANE https://www.lincsaviation.co.uk