I just finished reading "Canadian Squadrons in Coastal Command" by Andrew Hendrie. Apparently 422 Sqn RCAF flew the Lerwick for a time and I`ve heard before that this aircraft had some problems but never heard any details as to what these were. Can anyone shed some light on this subject. More curiosity than anything else. Thanks Warren
Warren , 422 had a handful of Lerwicks at Lough Erne in late 1942 and F/lt Eddie Edwards who had previously flown them with 209 was asked to convert 422 crews to the type. One aircraft landed heavily and lost its tail section , as this was taking place a Sunderland from 423 RCAF which had come over from Oban was waiting to land ( Cook's crew), the aircraft which lost its tail was being flown by Sid Butler. ( SB later sank U-625 in March 44 whilst screening Morton's crew) (This was on 10th Sept. 1942 - the aircraft was L7267). Eddie Edwards hated the Lerwick , it was nothing short of bloody dangerous , the extractor system was prone to sticking and the day before this incident S.Butler and E.Edwards found that with one engine on full power the other failed and they were heading for the shore unable to do anything about it having been committed to taking off - luck was with them and the fault fixed itself before disaster over took them. 422 were fortunate not to have to go operational on the type and it was withdrawn - 422 took on Sunderlands instead. Previously to this they had flown Catalinas over from Canada and then taken them on to Russia. The Lerwick was ordered off the drawing board , it was underpowered , it balanced poorly and was an utter pig to fly , on the water it was prone to porpoising along , the throttle stuck and she was poorly armed. Shes totally unsuited for the job she did but needs drove and that is how she came into service.
Waren , this gives a round up of the aircraft. What I poosted I recalled fom corresponding with Eddie on the Lerwick and from an article about her called "The Flying Pig" from an aviation monthly. RCAF.com : The Aircraft : Saro LERWICK Saro Lerwick - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://www.georgian.net/422sqdrn/18.htm I should have the form 1180 for the accident I mentioned , from memory the findings put it down to extractor system failure and the "vagaries of the type". ( From memory again something tells me F/O. or P/O Hoare was the other pilot along with Sid Butler , wait a minute - this ( if I can find it will tell all). Eddie Edwards said of the type. "I count myself very luck to have survived 200 hours flying "The Flying Pig".....it was a pig to fly and a pig to look at! It was a veryunstable and underpowered aircraft, difficult to fly correctly , difficult and dangerous on take off, and difficlut to lnad at night if you could not see the water - ( one had to do a final checkeven when under a power approach to prevent diving into the water). It vibrated and rattled yopur bones when taking off in the smallest chop, and I'll never forget the take off in Donegal bay.....I though we'd had it. The forced landing was caused by a hydraulic failure in the mixture controls, and finally there was no dual control , which made it very difficult to train pilots. I nearly came to grief with the Candaioans of 422 through hydraulic throttles failing to operate after a bad landing, and we were heading towards Churchill, the Lerwick crashed the next day." When I get hold of the other odds and ends I will add them, should be close to had if I can find them !
The 1180 from the crash. The following comes from Mr R J Webster one of the crew. "I was on the lower deck at the time , I can only tell you how it looked to me. We made a bad landing and it appeared we hit the water with the tail, I was thrown forward to the floor and when I got up we had a gaping hole at the rear of the plane and about a hundred yards behind us the tail section complete was sinking then it sank. The main part of the plane floated and as it was not too far from the slipway boats came out to pick us up, they put floatation bags under the wing and it was towed to the slipway, dragged up and then was broken up and shipped away. No one was really hurt and not all got wet".
James, Missed this thread first time posted and it makes interesting reading as I was not aware that the Lerwick was such a poor aircraft. A most enlightening read. Many thanks. Regards Tom
A disaster Tom , I was fortunate to meet and correspond with Eddie Edwards who probaly had more hours on Lerwicks than most who were unfortunate enough to fly them . Eddie counted himself very lucky to have survived his various times spent on them , having had at least two near fatal incidents. He had to forceland in Donegal bay on one occasion and he really did believe "they had been sent for". It went straight into service from the drawing board and brought with it all its Gremlins. 240 Squadron ORB has instances of Lerwicks chasing after FW-200's - talk about a total mismatch and having to punch beyond your weight....in 1941 Coastal was in terrible shape - few aircraft and most ill suited for the job in hand , which explains why this "Flying Pig" was allowed to see the light of day - there simply was no alternative.
Hello my first post here, you may be interested in this page of my web site, it's about My great uncle and the Saro Lerwick. In Memory Kevboy. p.s you may need to copy and paste the link in to your search engine.
Hello Kevboy, Welcome to the forum and many thanks for posting the most interesting link. Regards Peter
Hello all, Fascinating thread about the Lerwick L7267. I always thought that the landing in Donegal Bay was due to lack of fuel and Sgt Briggs was flying it. This makes me wonder why fuel had to be sent to Bundoran from Beleek. Any one know the rest of the crews names that day 10 April 1941?
I will check on Eddies notes top me as to the reasons why - fuel was certainly trucked down via Belleek from Castle Archdale. I am not sure if I have all the names to be honest. Briggs and Edwards were the Pilots, I will check in copiesof EE logbook if he was secondpilot.
I have just joined the forum and seen the discussion of the Lerwick. My father joined the RAF in 1931 and retired as W/C Arthur William Southall DSO DFC AFC in 1958. Throughout WW2 he was in Coastal Command and was based at Carew Cheriton from 7 Dec 1940 to 31 Jan 1942 with Flight 1417. He was intially P/O within Flight 1417 of the Coastal Command Development Unit. During that time he flew in Lerwick L 7252 4 times between 19 and 24 March 1941. I believe these flights were from Pembroke Dock. Unusually my father's log book does not mention the landing and take-off stations for these fights - just the duties performed. The work being carried during these flights was with the Flying Boat Blind Approach System (FBBA) which was a development of the Blind Approach Beacon System (BABS) used for Land based aircraft. Since BABS was not available for flying boats the development unit was given the task of working out a flying boat blind approach system (FFBA). This system used the VHF direction finding for obtaining alignment for landing. Two Lorenz beam beacons were used as ILS to provide inner and outer markers. Practices on this system took place on 28 Feb 1941. It was whilst testing carrying out the final tests for this system on 24 March 1941 that flying boat (Lerwick 2752) was forced to ditch in the open sea. This was because the system was not adequate to cope with bad weather which prevailed on the day. It ditched in the Bristol Channel at 1405 on 24th March, as it was coming to rest it hit hard against a swell and the starboard engine came adrift from its top two mountings, pivoted on the bottom two, and the propeller, still turning, cut a hole in the hull. The boat sank in 25 minutes. The crew took to the dinghy, and shortly after this, the weather being still very bad, heard the engines of what sounded like a German bomber flying from East to West. Nothing more was heard until after dark at about 8pm when the Captain of the flying boat, Sqdn Ldr Banks, heard engines and the 2 star cartridge was fired off but the sound of the engines disappeared. After the event it was discovered that the the Captian of the RAF launch based at Tenby had seen the distress signal, but had returned to Tenby for more fuel. The weather was still bad on the morning of the 25th but eventually the crew were fortunate to enough to see 3 ships on the horizon. Their last pyrotechnic signal was fired and the ships went past and started to disappear, however one of the ships eventually turned round and came back to pick them up. The three ships were Exeter and two destroyers escroting her northwards for repair after the Battle of the River Plate. The Exeter saw the signal and informed the other two ships that "the submarine on port bow is friendly". Fortunately for the crew the Captain of one of the destroyers, Lt Cdr Jonas of HMS Jackal has served in submarines and said he had never seen a signal like that, and asked permission to investigate. The crew was picked up at 1235 hrs on 25 March after 22 1/2 hys in the dinghy. They returned to dry at Plymouth the same day. My father had a wry sense of humour - the log book entry reads "Test of Dinghy - 22hrs 30mins" (see attached log book scan). Other tests in this period at CCDU were on various special altimeters and these are recorder in the log book. The capacity altimeter was a device which measured the capacitance change between electrodes at the front and the rear of the aircraft. Tests were recorded on June 12, 23 and July 22 and 26 1941. The can altimeter was a can with a detonator in the base, the can was thrown out and timed until the detonator went off - the time gave a direct interpretation of height. Another system for use over water was to drop a torch and time until the light went out, it is referred to on Oct 16, 1941. The spotlight altimeter system tested on 16 and 28th July used a spotlight in the nose and tail set to achieve a predetermined height when the spots were coincident. Initially the spots were balls but this system gave no indication if the aircraft was too high or too low, so it was developed into two bars - one across the axis of the aircraft - the other in line, when a perfect cross was formed the predetermined height was achieved and the crew could determine from the crossed bar pattern whether they were too high or to low at any time. It is believed that this cross presentation system was used by the Dambusters." P/O Southall went on to be S/L 179 Sqdn (at Chivenor, Wick, Gibraltar and back to Chivenor) using Leigh Light Wellingtons which used The ASV radar to locate U-boats at night (on the surface recharging batteries). The U-boat was lined up using radar and then the target illuminated with the Leigh Light for the final attack. He made at least 6 attacks on U-boats in this way mainly from Gibraltar off Majorca, Madeira, Oran and SE Spain. This system was also developed by CCDU at Carew Cheriton led by the then S/L Greswell also in flight 1417 later 172 Sqdn. Attached are L7252 in production, log book pages showing the flights and ditching/pickup, Newspaper articles and pick up photos, missing and found safe telegrams.
A good question , but not that I am aware off , locating any would be difficult. I know the one which came to grief on Lough Erne was recovered , is the tail section still in the water , it might well be. Any time I have been over to Scotland on the ferry I always wonder what is on the bottom on the way into Stranraer Harbour.
Nice to see some new info coming out, having looked in many books and magazine articles and now getting some first person stories, I do find conflicts of what happened to the 21 aircraft. Like L7252 that obviously sunk, but I have read in one magazine it was on static display till May 1941, now that must be wrong. On my site I have things in grey, as not sure. So if any of you know the answer to the grey items let me know please. Thanks, Kevboy. In Memory
Found this photo last night , it came to me via a friend who used to live in Oban. I will add a photo of his book later today. In the meantime some views of a Lerwick which I believe was taken at Oban, a 209 aircraft. Sadly, it has to be said there is nothing beautiful about the aircraft at best she looks like a badly constructed airfix kit.
