1944 - WING LEADER, DAF
1944
322 Wing leader, Corsica , Italy / 1MORU / 244 Wing leader
American DFC. 'Dutch' Hugo obscured.
On 19th February 1944, 322 Wing arrived at 22PTC Almaza (Egypt) from Aleppo, and at Ajaccio in Corsica on 3th March. On 7th April it was at Alto, and on 11th April, comprising nos 154, 232, 242 and 243 Sqdns, came to rest at Poretta under the aegis of 87th Wing, XII Tactical Air Command - the American equivalent of the Desert Air Force. [1]
During a sweep on 3rd May with 154 and/or 249 Sqdn (it was 249 Sqdn who usually looked after Tony‘s aircraft, as it had done at Krendi) a bunch of 10-15 Fw190s was spotted, with Tony as W/C Flying shooting down one - his 17th victory in the air - and damaging another. He is also said (by Shores and Cull [2]) to have destroyed an unidentified aircraft on May 6th.
On 12th May, during the fourth and final Allied offensive (“Diadem”) on Monte Cassino and the Gustav Line, 322 Wing destroyed a total of 57 enemy vehicles, with Tony himself flying four sorties during the day. Three days later he destroyed an Me.109 during a sweep in the Vilitbo area with 154 Sqdn, closing to within 50ft of the aircraft before it burst into flames.
In the ground attack role Tony made three sorties on 3rd June 1944 against the Hermann Goering Division, the wing destroying 23 vehicles on their way up to the battle in the face of particularly heavy anti-aircraft fire.
On 4th June the Allies entered Rome, and shortly afterwards Tony, in company with Bam Bamberger and the Wing’s Dominican padre David Lewis, made the journey from Corsica and stayed there for 10 days in the Dominican priory. All three had a private audience with the Pope. [3]
On 15th June, 30 miles west of Parma, Tony destroyed his last enemy aircraft while leading eight Spitfires from 243 Sqdn. He identified it as a Macchi fighter, a C.202, but the aircraft was actually a Fiat G55, no.MM 91087 of 3a Sq. - “Ace of Clubs” - of 1o Gruppo Caccia, flown by S.Ten Morettin, who baled out but died later of his wounds. [4]
Around this time Tony, while driving a jeep along a narrow high-hedged Italian lane, was in collision with a goods train on a level-crossing. It was only a small train, of the Puffing Billy sort, and with its load of trucks it was moving quite slowly; nevertheless it managed to push the jeep broadside-on for a distance of 20 yards before nudging it off to one side of the track.
According to the Northern Ireland newspapers [5], “the driver, amazingly, suffered only cuts and bruises. Next day the wing commander was flying on operations, glad to be back in the air after his experience on the ground”. The papers quoted Tony as saying that driving a Jeep was a more risky business than flying a Spitfire, adding that he had 19 victories to his credit.
By 15th June Tony’s tally had increased to three aircraft destroyed and one damaged for the current tour, and by the time this had come to an end in mid-August he had flown nearly 100 sorties, many of them strafing attacks against heavily-defended road targets.
His C.O., Group Captain Petrus “Dutch” Hugo (who had taken command of 41 Sqdn in November 1941, shortly after Tony had left) recommended him for a Bar to his DSO and wrote, on 15 December 1944:
In his combats he displayed as high a degree of flying and tactical skill as determination.....He never allowed his greater responsibility to diminish his own operational effort at all, and especially at critical times, he threw himself into the battle with the greatest energy....
His enthusiasm has been reflected in the successes of the Wing as a whole. During the period he has been Wing Leader, the pilots of No.322 Wing have been credited with destroying over 30 enemy aircraft and over 1,000 enemy vehicles.
In addition, 50 trains have been damaged during ground strafing operations. In this they have made a notable contribution to the war effort and to the advance of our troops on the ground.
There is no doubt that this result is in large measure due to the leadership of Wing Commander LOVELL and to the personal example which he invariably set.
His courage, his flying ability and his tactical knowledge have been an inspiration to all who have flown with him and of a quality seldom, if ever, equalled.
His record is an outstanding one both in the total number of operational sorties which he has made and in the achievements for which they stand. Without question, he stands very high in the ranks of those who as pilots and leaders, have exerted so great an influence on operations, both in the air and on the ground.
The Group Captain commanding 202 Group endorsed the recommendation:
“Wg.Cdr. Lovell has a very fine record and much of the success of 322 Wing during his period as Wing Leader is due to his example & inspiration.”
So too did the C-in-C RAF MEDME, Sir John Slessor:
I know from first-hand knowledge the very valuable influence exerted by this officer’s magnificent example on no.322 Wing, and think his fine record over the past 18 months well deserves a bar to the DSO.
The Americans felt the same. With G/Capt Hugo, Tony received the American DFC from Brigadier General Thomas C. d’Arcy for
extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flights from Corsica under American command from April till June 1944.
Tony had flown a total of 900 sorties and 804 operational hours, 242 of the latter since the original award of the DSO in October 1942. He had been responsible for the confirmed destruction of 21 enemy aircraft since the beginning of the war, not counting the doubtfuls and the damaged. [6]
On 14th August 1944 he was appointed deputy section commander with no.1 Mobile Operations Room Unit, Mediterranean Allied Air Force [7]. He returned to flying on 11th November when he was posted to 244 Wing as Wing Leader in succession to W/Cdr Hugh “Cocky” Dundas, promoted to follow G/Capt. Brian Kingcombe in command of the wing.
In a UK context at that time a wing leader, besides being second in command of the wing itself, would have expected to have all his squadrons - between three and five - in the air at one time, and would have led them all on operations. The role of wing leader in the Desert Air Force was however somewhat different; here the operational emphasis was on ground support, which meant that not all the squadrons of the wing were necessarily airborne simultaneously.
Tony Lovell therefore, although still involved in organising, supervising and leading the flying of 244 Wing, carried out his job as his predecessor had done, by flying with each squadron in turn to keep in touch and to maintain a watchful eye on everything.
Dundas, in his autobiography Flying Start, writes that a day or two after Kingcombe's departure - which he dates as 11th November - he was summoned to see Air Vice Marshal Dickson, commander of the Desert Air Force, who like Kingcombe had been posted back to the UK. Over a glass of whisky, Dundas was told that the AVM
was determined... to get Air Ministry approval for my appointment as commanding officer to succeed Kingcombe, with the acting rank of Group Captain... And who did I want as my wing commander flying?”
But the decision seems already to have been taken, even if the appointment had not yet percolated through to the DAF. Dundas makes no further mention of a choice being available to him, or of any candidate who he personally would have wanted. He writes instead that, as the new CO,
In theory I should have hung up my flying boots, taken up station in the caravan which served as my office and watched the replacement wing leader get on with the conduct of flying operations. In practice it did not work out that way - for two reasons. The first reason was that Wing Commander Pete Lovell, who was posted from MORU on 21 November to take over as wing commander flying, was posted away again only nine days later. We had to wait until the end of December for the arrival of his replacement...
Interestingly enough, the Desert Air Force did contain a Pete Lovell at that time - a squadron leader whose DFC was gazetted on the same day as Tony Lovell’s second DSO (on 23 February 1945) - but Dundas's reference to MORU seems to leave little doubt that Tony Lovell was the man in question, even if the dates do not totally coincide. Their paths had briefly crossed in England in the early war years, but the two had not served together before. However Tony’s reputation went before him, and Dundas “was very happy when I knew he was coming as my Wing Commander (Flying)....” [8]
But barely had Tony arrived than he was off again, posted on 7th December to no. 56 PTC Mediterranean Allied Air Force, and three days later to HQ RAFME, and on 22nd/23rd December as Chief Instructor at 71 OTU Ismailia. He had finally been beached - and the award of the bar to his DSO was no doubt an acknowledgement of the fact. The posting to 244 Wing was almost certainly a lack of joined-up thinking in the personnel department.
In any event, at Ismailia the station operations record book reported:
22.12.44 W/Cmdr A.J. Lovell D.S.O., D.F.C. and Bar arrived from 203 Group to assume the duties of Chief Instructor.
Tony took post just in time for the station’s Christmas dinner: tomato soup, turkey and pork, pud with brandy sauce, lemonade and BEER... [8a]
G/Capt. Wilfred Duncan Smith, a famous Desert Air Force type (who first met Tony at Hornchurch in 1940, q.v.) also knew Tony at this time, and said of him:
He was a brilliant pilot - absolutely brilliant. The best aerobatic pilot I’ve ever seen.
I flew with him on several occasions, and was amazed at his intuition. He seemed to know exactly what the enemy would do. He’d call up on the R/T saying Breaking right, breaking right, breaking right.... and there would be half a dozen wretched Germans swooping down on our tails, and none of us had seen them...
(Duncan Smith was Church of Scotland, but before his marriage to his wife Pam, wondered whether or not to become, as she was, a Roman Catholic. He consulted Tony Lovell on the matter, and received the reply “Oh my dear chap, you’d make the most frightful of mistakes”.)
Tony does not seem to have been totally at ease with informality, perhaps reflecting his pre-war RAF upbringing on a very pukka squadron.
S/Ldr Bam Bamberger remembers that although as a fellow Catholic he would accompany Tony on religious occasions, this did not prevent Tony “bawling him out” if the need arose; nor would the then F/Lt Bamberger have contemplated addressing Tony by his Christian name.
Nonetheless Tony did seem to have the knack of leadership. Two of his NCOs on 145 Sqdn speak approvingly of him as CO in 1941/2, and pilot Clem Jones of 185 Sqdn - which with 145, 417 and 601 Sqdns made up 244 Wing - saw him as
a fairly inspiring Wing Co, and he introduced all sorts of competitions among the Sqdns for fastest scrambles, of which we held (the record) at 40 seconds to be airborne. Neatest take-off in two’s, return formations, and of course 3 Pointers on return, so all in all the competition was pretty hot, I can tell you.
NOTES
1. The American XII Tactical Air Command was tasked with providing close air support for the U.S. Fifth Army as it advanced up the west coast of Italy.
2. Shores and Cull (Aces High 2) identify Tony's Spitfire as 'ADL', showing that he was following the tradition of a W/Cdr wing leader in having his initials as identifier for his aircraft - an early personalised numberplate scheme.
3. S/Ldr Bam Bamberger (pers. comm).
4. 322 Wing ORB (PRO AIR 26/425; Air War Italy 1944-45, Beale and others, Airlife 1996).
5. Londonderry Sentinel of 27/07/44, Belfast Telegraph or Newsletter of similar date.
6. The citation for his second DSO identifies the FW.190 shot down on 3/05/44 as his 17th victory, but it is now known that the Me.109 which he claimed on 01/10/40 as only damaged actually crashed near Ashford. The tally is therefore now 18, to which add the three destroyed on 6th and 15th of May, and 15th June. Total destroyed: 21.
7. No.1 MORU had gone ashore at Salerno in September 1943 (The Desert Air War 1939-1945, Richard Bickers).
8. G/Capt. Sir Hugh Dundas (pers. comm.)
8a. Coincidentally, the menu for this dinner, signed by the stationmaster, G/Capt. Bain, was on display at the 41 Sqdn open day at RAF Coningsby in 2011.
9. G/Capt. W. Duncan Smith (pers. comm).
