RAF100 | The RAF Centenary, 10 Squadron (Updated April 4, 2018)

This Handley Page Halifax B III was flown in 1944-45,
a high-performing plane, as good as the Lancaster.

April 1, 2018 (Updated April 4, 2018 with Postscript below) – The Royal Air Force (RAF) celebrates its 100th Anniversary starting this month.

A public event will be held at Buckingham Palace on July 10.

The RAF was formed on April 1, 1918 by the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), so that it stood as a coequal branch of the armed forces.

The Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) was created at the same time to provide female mechanics to free up men for service in World War I. An unexpectedly large number of women volunteered. WRAF ended in 1920 and was recreated in 1949 as the new name of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, founded in 1939. As more women joined the RAF staff, WRAF formally merged into the RAF in 1994.

Successes of the RAF's Predecessors in WWI

In April 1911, an air battalion of the British army’s Royal Engineers was formed at Larkhill in Wiltshire, including aircraft, airship, balloon, and man-carrying kite companies. It was less than a decade after Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first flight of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft, at Kitty Hawk, on North Carolina's Outer Banks.

The predecessor Halifax B II Bomber was deployed until 1944
by RAF's 10 Squadron, from Melbourne, Yorkshire. This
shows the inside of the plane. A model is on display at the
Yorkshire Air Museum. Note rounder tail fins than on the III.

In December 1911, the British navy formed its Flying School at Eastchurch, Kent.

The following May, the army's air battalion and the navy's flying school were absorbed into the newly created RFC, which established a new flying school at Upavon, Wiltshire, and formed new airplane squadrons.

In July 1914, navy needs led to the creation of RNAS. A month later, on August 4, Britain declared war on Germany and entered World War I. At the time, the RFC had 84 aircraft, and the RNAS had 71 aircraft and seven airships. Four RFC squadrons were deployed to France to support the British Expeditionary Force.

Germany dominated the air at first, with superior weapons like the manually directable machine gun. Britain suffered from bombing on the ground and defeat in the skies against German flying aces such as Manfred von Richthofen, “The Red Baron.” The British military responded with a separate air ministry, committed to retaliate against Germany with strategic bombing.

By war’s end, November 1918, the newly created RAF had gained air superiority on the western front, with nearly 300,000 officers and airmen, and more than 22,000 aircraft.

The RAF in WWII

In September 1939, RAF strength had fallen to about 2,000 aircraft, when Hitler shocked the world by invading Poland. World War II was on.

On May 10, 1940, Hitler invaded Holland, despite having promised to allow it to remain neutral. After he carpet-bombed Rotterdam, the Netherlands surrendered and was occupied by the Wehrmacht and (much worse) the SS police, as the Nazis continued their advance through Belgium to France.

In June 1940, Britain was alone in Europe in its resistance to Nazi Germany. Hitler planned to invade Britain and prepared maps of British cities and factory centers showing strategic sites. In July 1940 he ordered his air force, the Luftwaffe, to soften up Britain by destroying their ports, as he did in Holland. However, this time the outnumbered RAF fliers put up a fierce resistance in the Battle of Britain.

Luftwaffe commanders then made it their priority to destroy the British air fleet. The Germans intended to wipe out the RAF during the summer, and invade Britain in the autumn. During the next three months, however, the RAF resisted the massive German air attacks, relying on radar technology, more maneuverable aircraft, and sheer, exceptional bravery. For every British plane shot down, two Luftwaffe planes were destroyed.

In October, Hitler postponed the planned invasion. In May 1941 he opted to save his planes for the Eastern Front, and the invasion was off the table. The Battle of Britain ended. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said of the RAF pilots: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” I was required had to write out this sentence many, many times when pronounced guilty of an infraction against school rules as a pupil in Gilling Castle and Junior House, the younger classes of Ampleforth College near York.

By war’s end in 1945, the RAF employed a staff of nearly one million. After the war, as in the United States, British military personnel strength was drastically reduced and RAF staff stabilized at about 150,000 men and women.

The RAF's 10 Squadron

My uncle, Willem van Stockum, was a pilot for the 10 Squadron of the RAF in World War II. He piloted a 10 Squadron Halifax bomber on six missions during the ten days surrounding D-Day. Leaving from Melbourne, Yorkshire, his plane was downed over Laval, France.

A Dutchman, born to a Dutch Navy Captain (Abraham van Stockum) who married one of the six daughters of the publisher of the main newspaper (the Algemeen Handelsblad) in Amsterdam, Willem earned a B.A. and M.A. in mathematics from Trinity College, Dublin, winning a large gold medal. He went on to obtain a doctorate in mathematics from Edinburgh University. He won a position at Einstein's Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, NJ and was the first person to write in English about the potential for time travel suggested by the "time-like curves" implicit in Einstein's equations for Special Relativity. (His "van Stockum dust" theory is considered the beginning of scientific time-travel speculation.) He was teaching mathematics at the University of Maryland when Hitler invaded Holland.

Outraged by the invasion of his native country, van Stockum went to Canada to volunteer to fight Hitler. For months he taught navigation and the physical principles of flight to pilot trainees in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Then he asked to be sent to the RAF to fly bombers. He qualified as a flying officer himself, although older than most pilots, and went on six missions during the ten days around D-Day. On June 10, ten RAF Halifax B III planes went out from Melbourne. Eight returned. The missing two were downed by German anti-aircraft fire.

Dutchman Willem van Stockum piloted one of these planes. A book has been written about him by US army major Dr Robert Wack, Time Bomber. Six other crew members killed in the crash of the plane in a pear orchard in Entrammes, near Laval in the Mayenne.

The other was piloted by an Australian and crashed nearby. The son of this pilot, Rex Henderson, visited Laval at the same time as I did and on the 70th anniversary of V-E Day we drove together through Normandy with my wife Alice and his wife Deborah.

Two memorials were erected by a local French group at the ceremony that we attended, organized by Souvenir Français representative Jean-Louis Cholet. Details on the mission are here: http://aircrewremembered.com/stockum-willem-jacob-van.html

My wife Alice and I are visiting York on April 20-21, 2018 and intend to visit what is left of the base in Melbourne and speaking with anyone with a shared interest in No. 10 Squadron in WW2. If we have time, we would like to see the Halifax bomber on display, and the War Museum. I have sent a note to the 10 Squadron Association (10sqnass.co.uk). Willem's 10 Squadron, part of No 4 Group in December 1941, moved from its original location in Leeming in August 1942 to Melbourne. In 1942-1944 it deployed the Handley Page Halifax B II bomber; starting March 1944 through August 6, 1945 (when disbanded) it used the Handley Page Halifax B III.

A book by Jon Lake, Halifax Squadrons of World War II covers its role as a front line bomber, and other topics.

For more, see http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/10_wwII.html and
http://aircrewremembered.com/stockum-willem-jacob-van.html

Postscript, April 4, 2018

I received the following email this morning from the man who started, in 1988, the annual commemoration on V-E Day (May 8) of the sacrifice of the crews of the two planes that were downed in the Laval area, Jean-Louis Cholet. He gives credit for the monuments or steles to Jean-Luc Peslier, a French Air Force veteran.

Dear American friend,  

Thank you for your message and documents attached. You know how much I am attached to the memory of your uncle and his comrades. I am not alone in the realization of the steles recalling the fall of the Halifax bombers. The realization of the steles was possible only thanks to the work of Mr. Jean-Luc Peslier president at the time of the Amicale Mayennaise of the Ancients [Veterans] of the French Air Force. Without him, nothing could have happened. We will think a lot about you and them on May 8th. 

Very cordially,

Jean Louis Cholet

WW2 | Mark II Halifax Bomber

A Mark II Series 1 Halifax bomber operating out of the 10th
Squadron in Melbourne, Yorks., UK.

My mother's brother Willem van Stockum died during the week of D-day, June 1944,  in a crash of a Handley-Page Halifax Mark II bomber. 

He was one of seven crew members on the plane, and it was one of two planes that crashed the same night.

Uncle Willem knew the plane well because he had been a flight instructor for this plane for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) before he became a pilot.

Naturally I have been curious about the   plane he flew in and how it fared during the war:

• Was this a good plane? Where did it rank in the hierarchy of the air? 
• How many sorties were made in this plane?
• What was the experience of 10th RAF Squadron, flying out of Melbourne, Yorkshire?
• What was the experience of all of the RAF Halifaxes during June 1944?

I have some answers to these questions. Some of these answers come from my own counting and are therefore new.

The Halifax Bomber

The Lancaster bomber had a somewhat better reputation, but in June 1944 the Halifax was second only to it. It was a plane of preference. That is, the Mark II version did. The Mark I version had a dangerous tendency to go into an uncontrollable tailspin occasionally under extreme conditions. The tail was improved and the Mark II shook this problem.

The Bomber Command Museum of Canada, provides excellent data on Halifax Sorties and Losses in WWII (1941-1945). It reports that of those who flew for the bomber command at the beginning of WWII, only 10 percent survived. Willem van Stockum, as a mathematician and a flight instructor, would have been intimately familiar with these numbers, as is pointed out in Robert Wack's Time Bomber. Here is what the Museum says about the Halifax  bomber crews:

Of every 100 airmen who joined Bomber Command, 45 were killed, 6 were seriously wounded, 8 became Prisoners of War, and only 41 escaped unscathed (at least physically). Of the 120,000 who served, 55,573 were killed, including more than 10,000 Canadians. 

Of those flying at the beginning of the war, only ten percent survived. It is a loss rate comparable only to the worst slaughter of the First World War trenches. Only the Nazi U-Boat force suffered a higher casualty rate. 

On a single night (the night that Willem van Stockum was downed, June 10, 1944), Bomber Command suffered more losses than did Fighter Command during the entire Battle of Britain. 

The loss rate varied greatly as the war progressed and was considerably lower as the end of the war approached in late 1944 and early 1945. For most of the war, the majority of those who entered Bomber Command did not survive. During the RCAF's Halifax operations between March 1943 and February 1944, the average loss rate was 6 percent, producing a mere 16 percent survival rate for a tour of 30 operations.

Yet despite the chilling odds, the flow of volunteers never faltered. The price was known to be enormous, but it was a price which continued to be paid with unquestioning courage. If today it represents a debt which can never be repaid, it is at least a debt which must never be forgotten.

Canadian pilot and author Murray Peden said:

The crews faced formidable odds, odds seldom appreciated outside the Command. At times in the great offensives of 1943 and 1944 the short-term statistics foretold that fewer  than 25 out of each 100 crews would survive their first tour of 30 operations. [...] Yet the crews buckled on their chutes and set out with unshakeable resolution night after night. They fell prey to the hazards of icing, lightning, storm and structural failure, and they perished amidst the bursting shells of the flak batteries. But by far the greater number died in desperately unequal combat under the overwhelming firepower of the tenacious German night fighter defenders. [Emphasis added.]

More Data on Sorties

Dates are based on what the date was at 12:01 a.m. So the night of June 1-2 would be recorded as June 2.

Data on Halifax Bomber Losses, June 1944

Night and Losses

June 2 - 1 down

3 - 15 down out of 105 out (Trappes); none were lost on 119 sorties to coastal batteries

6 - 2 down out of 412 attacking Normandy batteries

7 - 1 down out of 418 attacking French roads and rail

8 - 11 down out of 195 attacking French roads and rail (as Willem predicted, the Germans got wise and were more prepared the next night)

10 - 2 down out of 175 attacking French airfields (the two were shot down over Laval in Mayenne). 

Total of 32 down in ten days. For the whole month of June it would be 105 planes down.

105 lost in 5095 sorties was a 2.06 percent loss rate

Since each plane had a crew of 7, that meant 735 dead 

Loss Rates for Halifax vs. Other Planes

Lancaster losses can be found here, Halifax losses can be found here. The record of losses for both planes was tragic, but the Halifax seems to have done slightly better than the Lancaster. 

For example, in June 1944 the loss rates were:
Mossie (Mosquito) - 7 lost in 1487 sorties for a 0.47% loss rate
Lancaster - 182 lost in 8614 sorties for a 2.11 percent loss rate
Halifax - 105 lost in 5095 sorties for a 2.06 percent loss rate

Since the Lancaster was considered a superior plane, it may have taken more risks...

It would be interesting to have the numbers for the U.S. B-25. We do have:
American heavy bomber, ETO - 520 lost in 28,925 sorties for a loss rate 1.8 percent (ref AAFSD) 

WW2 | D-Day Gravesites, 70 Years On

Map 1. Normandy Invasion. Utah-Omaha Beaches, where U.S.
troops took heavy losses. Also shows Bayeux, Caen, Honfleur.

In the week of D-Day (June 6) 1944, every available pilot was put to use.

So many RAF pilots were killed by anti-aircraft fire in their missions over France that every available pilot was put to use.

They were needed to destroy railways, bridges and roads so as to prevent Nazi troops from the south to prevent them from joining in the battles in Normandy.

My mother's younger brother, Willem van Stockum, was given a Halifax bomber to fly with six in crew.

He was an experienced pilot, with a Ph.D. in mathematics and months spent as an instructor to other pilots, way overqualified. He was 33 years old and ordinarily would have been given light duty. He was an instructor with the RCAF in Canada when he volunteered to fly for the RAF. He was posted to 10th Squadron in Melbourne. He flew six missions in the days before and after D-Day.

Monument to the crew of the plane piloted by Willem
van Stockum from the RCAF, shot down over
Entrammes, near Laval.

In a second plane  on the same mission of ten bombers was another pilot who was older than average, Thomas Henderson. He was also a Commonwealth volunteer, an Australian, Thomas Henderson. His plane and van Stockum's were shot down on June 10, 1944.

On June 7-8 2014, just prior to the 70th anniversary of D-Day, Alice and I had the pleasure of visiting memorial sites in and near Normandy, with Thomas Henderson's son Rex and his wife Deb Henderson.

It was a poignant week. We came from the United States and the Hendersons came from Australia. We were all there because  the citizens of Laval, to the south of Normandy, were about to unveil a monument to RAF airmen at Entrammes and St. Berthevin.

Monument to Thomas Henderson, the Australian pilot
of the second plane that was shot down in the early hours
of June 10, 1944, over Berthevin.

We drove north from Laval through Normandy, using routes E401 and E46. On Saturday, June 7 we went via Caen and Bayeux to Honfleur, stopping at Bayeux to see the tapestry. Honfleur is an historic gem of a port village; we stayed at la Closerie. Sunday, June 8 we went to the Normandy beaches, WW2 museum and cemetery at Omaha Beach.

June 9-10, Laval Area

Led by Jean-Louis Cholet of "Souvenir Francais" (in the Mayenne branch, the department to the south that includes Laval), Jean-Luc Peslier of the Association of the Mayenne Airmen (AMAA) and other hosts from the Town of Laval and other groups, the families of the 14 downed airmen were escorted to key spots.

The airmen were flying two Handley-Page Halifax bombers (MZ 684 and MZ 532) out of the 10th Squadron RAF station in Melbourne, Yorkshire, and were shot down over Entrammes and St. Berthevin, southeast and west of Laval, on June 10, 1944.

They are buried in a special section of the communal cemetery in Laval - photos are posted here.

(I wondered why there were 20 names listed in the cemetery, six more than the number of airmen who crashed and the number of tombstones in the cemetery in the airmen's section - Section E, Sub-section D, row 1. The answer is that five soldiers and one airman from the British Commonwealth are buried in a different part of the cemetery - in section A, sub-section A, row 28. The airman is Flying Officer Kenneth John Trask from the Royal Australian Air Force, who died November 11, 1943; grave #42500. The five soldiers are named Clark, Hunt, Morgan, Sharratt, and Stokes.)

For me it was important closure. When my mother first came to the gravesite of her brother Willem in 1954 she found that all of the other 13 airmen had gravestones. Her brother only had a wooden marker. She was deeply upset. She told me that one possible explanation was that her brother was an atheist and therefore wasn't allowed to have a Christian marker.

That, of course, was highly improbable, but my mother was a convert to Catholicism (her parents were agnostic although born to religious Dutch Reform families) and it surely reflected her state of mind. The family trip around Europe was billed as pilgrimage and we deliberately stopped at places like Lourdes and Santiago de Compostela (the end of the Camino Santiago).

In fact, the problem was that her brother died a Dutch citizen, although he was in the process of applying for U.S. citizenship - he was a young faculty member in mathematics at the University of Maryland when the war broke out. The Dutch, with many other challenges on their hands, had not yet delivered the special Dutch tombstone for Willem, whereas the RAF had managed by 1954 to get the 13 other gravestones in place.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Map 2. Normandy and Pays-de-la-Loire. Shows Laval,
Le Mans, Caen, Honfleur

10 am - Brunch in Laval at the Brasserie Chez Marcel, impasse Barbé; before the roundabout route to Le Mans on 57 RD from Laval.
12 Noon - Lunch at Le Parc Gourmand in Conlie.
1:30 pm - Visit to the WW2 Museum, guided by Mr. Roger Bellon, a self-taught wood-carver who accompanied his relics of the war with depictions of what happened.

Map 3. Shows Laval, Ernée, Entrammes, St. Berthevin.

6:30 pm - Ernée, dinner with the musicians of the Army Air Force, at Grand Cerf.
7:50 pm - Clair de Lune Hall by car or on foot. Seating in the concert hall reserved for family, AMAA and VIPs.
8:45 pm - Concert by the brass band, Music of the Paris Air Force.
10:30 pm - Drinks with the conductor and musicians.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

9 am - Laval, RV esplanade "Ch Nine" for guided tour in English of Old Laval, starting with the old castle. Guide is Helene.

Map 4. Shows Laval, Conlie, Ernée

10:30 am - Laval, Vaufleury Cemetery - Graveside Ceremony at the Airmen's Square with a brief ecumenical service, speeches, RAF Anthem and wreath-laying.
11:30 am - Laval, Official reception at City Hall.
12:30 pm -  Laval, Lunch at Relais Champetre ("Country Stage Stop"), near the Airport.

2:30 pm - Entrammes, Pear Farm (outside the village on the road to Maisoncelles ), ceremony following unveiling of the monument to Halifax bomber MZ 684. Laying of wreaths/flowers in the presence of the Mayor of Entrammes and other local officials, with anthem and flag bearers. This is the plane that was piloted by flying officer van Stockum, about whom a science-fiction novel called Time Bomber was published in 2014.
3:15 p.m. - On to the Lycée Agricole, "Chateau Blancherie", remembrance of MZ 532 with testimony and comments on the mission. For a photo of the MZ 532 crew and a British presentation in 2013 in honor of the 10th Squadron based in Melbourne, Yorks., go here: Halifax Crew MZ 532.

4:45 pm - St. Berthevin, in Pont-Alain. Unveiling of the monument to Halifax bomber MZ 532 with wreath-laying in presence of the Mayor of Berthevin and other officials, and flag-bearers.
5:45 pm - Meeting Centre of the City of St. Berthevin, northwest of Laval. Welcome and toasts in memory of the downed airmen.
7 pm - Welcome by staff of the AMAA, restaurant "Maine".
7:45 p.m. - Farewell dinner, presentation of mission maps for the nights of June 9-10, 1944 (Melbourne/Laval) and gift souvenir of the monument for families.