An encounter with an enemy aircraft. No.120 Squadron RAF Coastal Command.

Thought this might be of interest, I put it together some years past its an account of 120 Squadrons involvment in Operation Myrmidon in April 1942. My father was the Flight Engineer on AM924 D/120

In late 1941 early 1942, British intelligence received information that there was a munitions factory in or near Bayonne, which is situated about two miles up steam on the river Adour in south west France approximately thirty miles north on the boarder with Spain. It was suspected that this factory was supplying the German war effort with 20% of the munitions needed. Acting on this information a Combined Operations raid, to be called Operation Myrmidon was planed.

The raid, to be carried out by No.1 and No.6 Commando, was planed for the 5 April 1942. The commandos were to be transported to the area of operations by a small convoy of two Landing Ships escorted by five destroyers and long-range aircraft of Coastal Command. 120 Squadron were tasked with the protection of this convoy, an operation that was code named “SKIPPER”

For 120 Squadron “SKIPPER” started two days earlier on 3 April when two Liberators AM916. L/120 and AM924. D/120 left Nutts Corner for Predannock, where the crews would be rested and the two aircraft refuelled, they would be that much further south to increase their range when they left to escort the convoy on Sunday the 5th. The two Liberators were crewed as follows.

AM916.L/120.................................... AM924D/120.

F/O. Procter. Captain. .................... P/O. Secord. Captain.
F/O. Fitzgerald. Second pilot........... P/O. Dear. Second Pilot.
Sgt. Collinson. Navigator................. P/O. Layton. Navigator.
Cpl. Cotton. Flight Engineer............. Sgt. Clare. Flight Engineer.
Sgt. Binns. Wop/AG........................ Sgt. Watson. Wop/AG.
Sgt. Lea. ......................................... Sgt. Barthorpe. ..
Sgt. Wright. .................................... Sgt. George. .
...................................................... Sgt. Gordon. ..

Normally at the briefing before an operation all crewmembers would attend, but in this case only the pilots, navigators and first wireless operators of each aircraft were to be briefed, the rest of the crews were to be kept in the dark.

At 04:38 hrs on the morning of the 5 April AM924. D/120 became airborne at Predannock on its escort of “SKIPPER”. At 07:29 hrs L/120, which had left Predannock earlier was sighted off Cape Mayor, and was followed until noon. At 07:57 hrs when in 43.36N, 02.07W, and the two aircraft met the convoy, which was on a course of 287 Degrees and steaming at 20 knots. D/120 took up a patrol position on the convoy’s port beam and at 10:13 hrs the aircraft was in 43:47N.03W when a Sunderland joined the escort, it was with the force when last seen at 12:50 hrs, five minutes later when D/120 was in position 44.08N, 04.25W an Arado float plane was sighted on a bearing of 080 Degrees, six miles from the convoy. D/120 gave chase and as the enemy aircraft flashed past in the opposite direction it fire on the Liberator with its 20mm cannon. The Arado scored a lucky hit, one of its shells penetrating one on the Liberators fuel tanks, the exit hole being about 4ins in diameter. The fuel poured out like a bowser, running along the fuselage and out through the rear bomb bay doors spraying the tail like a vapour trail. The flames from the exhaust of the Mk.I Liberator were several feet long, and as a member of the crew said later. “It was a wonder the aircraft didn’t explode in mid air”. The Arado escaped without damage, being more manoverable than a liberator.

At 13:12 hrs L/120 received an ‘OA’ (Enemy air attack) signal from D/120, and requested the SNO of the convoy visually, if he had seen D/120. There was no reply from the SNO.

The MK.1 Liberator carried four 20mm Hispano fixed cannon in a pod under and forward of the front bomb bay, the bomb bay carrying the firing mechanism, plus six American Browning 0.300in calibre machine guns. It was the opinion of the RAF air gunners that the Browning’s were not reliable; jamming after about six rounds had been fired. At the start of this action it was to be Sgt. Georges turn of duty to be in the aircrafts rear gun position, which in the Mk.I Liberator had sliding doors, the gunner opened the doors and then stepped out into the open gun position, installed the Browning’s on their pod and started to fire at the enemy. In his own words George recalls. “It’s a good job we had American guns, on this occasion they jammed after I had fired one round, and as I was being soaked in petrol from the ruptured tank the flash from the guns would have blown the tail off the aircraft and that would have been that”.

After the attack, Sgt. Clare, the flight engineer, immediately started to transfer fuel from the holed tank, which was not self-sealing, to the other, this took time and a great deal of was lost, he then computed as to how long the remaining fuel would last, and found that the Liberator was in trouble, it was possible they would not reach Predannock before the fuel ran out.

In view of the situation, P/O. Dear suggested they land in occupied France, Secord would not hear of it, and in consultation with the engineer decided that as they were losing fuel so fast that he, Secord should open up the aircraft and climb as fast as they could to give a margin to work with if they didn’t make it back to Predannock. Secord levelled the Liberator off at 17,000ft and found that flying with a tail down attitude the fuel leak stopped. An emergency message was sent to base saying that the aircraft had sustained battle damage and the operation had been aborted.

The navigator, Layton, worked on his plots head down working out the most economical course for home; Gordon decided to make some coffee in the galley and take him a cup, he made the hot drink and carried it back to the navigator and handed it to him, Layton tried to drink it, then turning to Gordon with a smile on his lips which were blue with the cold, turned the cup upside down, the coffee was frozen solid.

At 14:30 hrs when D/120 was in position 47.35N, 05.10W a message was sent to base with their estimated time of arrival.

Liberator AM924. D/120 landed safely at Predannock at 15:59 hrs.

Meanwhile, L/120 was also seeing action. Shortly after its request to the SNO for information on D/120, the Liberator was engaged by three JU88s, the action lasted just over 30 minutes finishing at 15:30 hrs. Neither L/120 nor the enemy aircraft sustained damage. At 15:31 hrs two Sunderland’s joined the escort. Bombs were also seen to be dropped on the convoy but to no effect.

AM916. L/120 landed at Predannock at 19:04 hrs.

As with the operation of D/120, the commando raid was also aborted.

 

Hello my is Jamie. Greetings from Montreal.
I appreciate this very interesting account you have posted.
In particular I had a question about one of the Flight Officers mentioned: F/O Procter. I am extremely interested in any information about him i.e. his full name, whether he went on to serve in 272 Squadron, his service #, nationality, anything. He played a key roll (if this is the right individual) on the day my great uncle Frederick A Duquette perished on a return flight from Heliopolis Egypt to Malta on May 8th, 1943. If you have any information I would be happy to elaborate. Sincerely yours, Jamie

 

Hello Jamie,

Welcome to the forum.

I don't think your F/O. Proctor is the same as the one that served in 120 Squadron.

The officer in 120 Squadron was F/O. J R E. Proctor, he was promoted to F/L. 30-3-42 and by May 1943 was a S/L.

S/L. J R E. Proctor, flying Liberator I AM919/P120 out of Reykjavik, Iceland sank the U 258 on 20 May 1943.

Wishing you luck with your research.

Regards
Peter

 

Hi Peter thank you for your prompt reply. I have placed a generic post in the geneology forum yesterday regarding my great uncle Frederick A Duquette with more specific details. If you have any questions or comments please pass them on. Thank you very much Cheers, Jamie

 

Peter
Great post thanks for sharing with us.

 

The tail down attitude , desperate measures to get home , an amazingly unlucky hit , thanks Peter.

 

Peter,

That is a terrific post to read.

Were any medals awarded as a result of the action?

Regards
Tom

 

Peter

Thanks for sharing, do you know how much flying time they had left when they touched down?

Nick

 

Tom, Nick,

As far as I'm aware, no awards were made after this incident and as for remaining flying time, all I can say is that it was a pretty close call.

My father was the Flight Engineer on AM924D/120, the stricken aircraft.

Regards
Peter

 

Great posting fascinating read!
Dee

 

This months Flypast has an item on RAF Liberators as U-Boat hunters (RAF? Surely Coastal Command?). Unfortunately I dont have the pennies for ANY magazines this month so I cannot tell you if there is anything of interest in it.

 

Seems AM924 had quite a history with 120 Squadron. The first aircraft to start operations and also involved in 120 Squadrons first action of the war. it was shot down by a bf109 near Norway in 1942, 4 out of seven crew survived.
Thanks for posting Peter great reading.
Regards Robert.

 

That one shot , the Jerry probably never knew how close he came to bringing them down.
It must have been flying on fumes when they hit base.......very lucky and unlucky at the same time.

 

URGENT !!

I 'm need whole documents about flights' performance in first phase of airborne from AL and AM . i had documents from Consolidated Aircraft Corp ( archive ) thats are test flying of AL -503 and AL-504 , other test documents are from Caltech , but in ALL documents I didn't found dates ( details ) of :

1./ Length of runway to airborne point (depedence on total aircrafts'weight )

2./ Acceleration of aircraft to that airborne point ( ground point )

In pilots memoires more part of them wrote , lenghts of runway with

55 000 lbs are MINIMUM 1600 yards .

By the way I need ANY information about Lib AL series which was in

services at 511 Sqn and BOAC . Most important are aircrafts at 511 Sqn.

Anybody can help me ?? With best regards - Mike

 

URGENT !!

I 'm need whole documents about flights' performance in first phase of airborne from AL and AM . i had documents from Consolidated Aircraft Corp ( archive ) thats are test flying of AL -503 and AL-504 , other test documents are from Caltech , but in ALL documents I didn't found dates ( details ) of :
Most important are aircrafts at 511 Sqn.

Anybody can help me ?? With best regards - Mike

Have you tried putting a thread on rafcommands.com? Peter will no doubt be able to help but there may be someone on there too who will have info...
Dee

 

Have you tried putting a thread on rafcommands.com? Peter will no doubt be able to help but there may be someone on there too who will have info...
Dee

Dee,

I have emailed Mike with the relevant paperwork which covers the acceptance trials for Liberator I AM910

 

You are rightly a legendary member!
Dee

 

Peter now I know why the Lib stands for your Avatar, thank you for sharing. if you mention in your Fathers journals an Ar 196 then it was armed with two 7.9mm mg's one in each wing with a rearward firing single 7.9mm. No matter if equipped with possible HE rounds it will look and feel like 2cm cannon anyway.

I find it pretty audacious of the LW crew to take on the larger a/c in such an undertaking and with a haphazard A/C that the Ar 196 was in the first place it relagating to the recon sphere only and must assume this was one of the rare instances of a recon mission turning into an operative "fighter" op if you will.

thanks

E ~

 

Great posting fascinating read!
Dee
Peter, Your account of the Liberators over Adour estuary made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I was the mid-upper gunner in Sunderland W4004 "Z" of 10 Sqdn. R.A.A.F.
Our Captain was the late Fl/t David Vernon D.S.D. The other Sunderland in the "Skipper" operation was W3994 "Z " also of 10 Sqdn. Skippered by Pilot Officer Terry Brown D.F.C.
At the briefing David was told we had to do "Fighter Escort " over the Transports & Escorts.
He politely tried to correct the Wing Commander suggesting he meant Recco Escort, only to be told very firmly it was"Fighter Escort". In hind sight what a joke, but not at the time.
Due to an incorrect fix from one of the destroyers ( Poor bastard, like us he had no idea of where he was in that foul weather ) we flew at one thousand feet over Brest with its barrage balloons & almighty flack. At the time i wondered why i was seeing reflected street lights . David was in the ward room at the time having spent 8 hours in the left hand seat & when i told him i could see street lights he levitated up to the Bridge.
We landed at Mt. Batten after 1305 hours in the air & little in the tanks.

 

Hello Tom, welcome to the forum and many thanks for your input to the story of 'Skipper' eye witness accounts are always appreciated.

Regards
Peter