Bernard Lovell - Don Bennett and the RAF Pathfinder Force (29/108)

To listen to more of Bernard Lovell’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Bernard Lovell (Astronomer)   Bernard Lovell (1913-2012), British radio astronomer and founder of the Jodrell Bank Observatory, received an OBE in 1946 for his work on radar, and was knighted in 1961. His steerable radio telescope tracked Sputnik and is now named the Lovell telescope. [Listeners: Alastair Gunn and Megan Argo; date recorded: 2007] TRANSCRIPT: At the same time Bomber Command had... instead of being a unified command had decided to set up a Pathfinder force. Now, I don't think Harris liked that... Bomber Harris liked that because he indicated that there were a couple of... a few squadrons who were superior to the rest. Anyhow, this path finder force was put under Don Bennett, an Australian, a remarkable person who held first class certificates in every conceivable discipline, navigation, engineering, flying and so on, and he flew the first heavy aircraft across the Atlantic from America to Britain during the war. He'd been shot down over a raid on Tronheim and had escaped through icy conditions into Sweden and I think he had already married a Swedish girl and anyhow, he was repatriated. He got back to England, and it was Don Bennett who was put in charge of the Pathfinder for us, and that's how I met Don Bennett and he believed the best time to fly was either after midnight or before 6.00 o'clock in the morning, and so we spent most of the night flying and the rest of the day trying to make the equipment work.