On
the Monday after we finished the RBRR, we returned home to Howard’s place. And
after unloading all the gear from the car, we decided to pay a visit to the
nearby Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden.
Turned
out that the BBC were shooting a documentary on Leonard Ratcliff, D.S.O.,
D.F.C., A.F.C. that day. He is the last surviving squadron leader from the top
secret RAF Tempsford aerodrome who actually flew into occupied Europe during
WW2, to deliver and collect resistance fighters flying a Westland Lysander.
Still alert and full of life at 91, he was interviewed by Sir John Allison Air Marshall (retired) before we were treated to
a private air display with the Westland Lysander. Sir John is one of the regular
Old Warden display pilots and after the Lysander was towed to the airstrip, he
treated us to a superb impromptu display.
Although
the Lysander might look like a lumbering airplane whilst on the ground, in the
air it becomes quite elegant and alive. Almost agile!
After
this private display the ground crew allowed us to photograph Howard’s TR7 with
their precious plane. A very unexpected and humbling privilege!
Wing
Commander Leonard Ratcliff, an obituary
DSO,
DFC and Bar, pilot;
Born:
27 July, 1919, in Essex;
Died:
1 April, 2016, in Essex, aged 96.
Leonard
Ratcliff was the last survivor of the RAF’s secret Special Duties No. 161
Squadron that delivered spies and clandestine supplies to Nazi-occupied Europe
during the Second World War. The
squadron’s long, dangerous missions, flown low to avoid detection over hostile
terrain, and carried out by moonlight so as to distinguish landing-grounds at
dead of night, ranged as far as Norway, France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark and
Poland.“During
the siege of Warsaw we were dropping supplies to the resistance just 20 yards
from enemy lines,” Ratcliff recalled, of his part in the Allied effort to
support the Polish Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. No. 161’s
complement of about 200 had to be replaced three times over in the course of
the war: it lost 600 men. “I suppose you could say I’m lucky to be alive,” he
reflected. Using Lysander, Halifax, and Stirling bombers, he piloted more than
70 missions over Europe with his crew.
Ratcliff,
it is recorded, “landed in farm fields to drop and pick up agents and
equipment, illuminated by the flashlights of resistance fighters”. He had as
his navigator a Free French airman, Squadron Leader Philippe Livry, and also
worked with a Norwegian, Per Hysindahl. “We trained agents to lay out runways
using four bicycle torches and to avoid ploughed fields, cables or trees in the
flightpath,” he explained. “We trained them well as our lives depended on it.”
No. 161 flew from Tempsford aerodrome in Bedfordshire, which the authorities
took care to disguise as “Gibraltar Farm”.
It
was Ratcliff who on the night of 22 August 1943 dropped, at a destination north
of Bordeaux, the SOE agent Yvonne Cormeau, code-named “Annette”. She is said to
have been the inspiration for the fictional Scotswoman Charlotte Gray, heroine
of the novel of that name by Sebastian Faulks. A film starring Cate Blanchett
as Gray was made in 2001.
He
married, in 1939, Bet Stewart, a sea-captain’s daughter who sprang from the
Stewarts of Appin. They would have three sons and a daughter: Rupert, Clive,
Robin and Tessa. Bet died in 1987. He married, in 1989, Dorothy Radford, who
with his children and a sister, Cynthia, survives him.
Leonard
Fitch Ratcliff was born at Maldon, Essex, the son of a farmer, and educated at
Felsted School, Dunmow, Essex. He was one of six siblings, three boys and three
girls. In childhood he admired Manfred von Richthofen, the “Red Baron”, and
devoured tales of the German aviator’s daring and chivalry.
Named
Leonard – and known as “Len” – after an uncle who had died of wounds sustained
in the First World War, Ratcliff joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve in 1939. A
diminutive figure, he had physical training from the British champion
heavyweight boxer and RAF corporal Eddie Phillips. He reached aircraft controls
by having engineers fix wooden blocks to the rudder pedals, and by asking his
flight mechanic to push him forward so that his hand made the levers reach
their extremity as he opened the throttle on take-off.
He
flew solo after six and a half hours’ dual training, then practised for 51
hours in a Tiger Moth. He came “above average” in his examinations, and gained
his wings in July 1941. As Flying Officer he skippered crews flying Handley
Page Hampden bombers with No 49 Squadron from Scampton in Lincolnshire. On one
night raid in December 1941 he bombed a synthetic rubber plant at Hűls in the
Rhineland under bright moonlight, having fended off two enemy fighters. The
citation for his DFC, awarded in June 1942, records of this raid that he
“skilfully evaded his attackers”.
He
was promoted Flight Lieutenant in 1942, won the Air Force Cross in June 1943
and later the same month arrived at Tempsford to take command of 10 Handley
Page Halifax bombers, two Douglas Havocs, and three Lockheed Hudsons. Within
months he had won a Bar to his DFC for successes including reaching a target on
an important mission even though his aircraft’s engine gave trouble over the
enemy coast; he managed to land safely in North Africa. He was noted for his
fine leadership and for keeping the morale of his crews high.
Ratcliff
was awarded the DSO in July 1944. In October that year he joined the Air
Ministry Intelligence Department in London, being privy to exchanges between
Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, and reporting personally to the Chiefs of
Staff. At the war’s end 161 Squadron was dissolved, and he left the RAF in the
rank of Wing Commander. France awarded him the Croix de Guerre avec Palme, and
in 2010 would also make him a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur.
He
set up a grain merchant’s business, Newman & Clarke, in Essex, and never
piloted an aircraft again. “It’s a terrifying experience going up”, he said,
“and if you’re not scared out of your wits, then you jolly well ought to be.”
Edit 2020-10-03; using Howard’s private diary, and an obituary from “The
Scotsman” by Anne Keleny.
Also (again) reprocessed the original digital
negatives and added a few extra pictures.
