1945 - DAF AT "ISH", A SECOND DSO, AND THE END
1945
No.71 OTU Ismailia / RAF School of Air Support, Old Sarum
Wreckage, Old Sarum
As 1945 opened, Tony Lovell had just taken up his appointment as Chief Instructor at 71 OTU, RAF Ismailia. This permanent station, with its lively and companionable officers' mess which made such a contrast to the tented facilities with which the Desert Air Force was more familiar, was equipped with Harvard trainers, a few Hurricanes, and Spitfire Vs (which had just replaced most of the Hurricanes, and may have been one reason for Tony’s posting as a Spitfire expert).
Tony’s command consisted of three initial training squadrons, each of two flights, and a gunnery squadron, staffed by a lively bunch of ‘resting’ pilots, many of them from 601 Sqdn / 244 Wing.
His arrival at “Ish”, to replace the easygoing and now-posted W/Cdr Will Sizer [1], had been awaited with some trepidation by what was essentially a merry crowd. The new C.I.’s record had gone before him; he was known to be a strict teetotaller on squadron, and the Chief Flying Instructor, John Nicholls, was prepared for him to be “all stiff and starchy”.
The first impression of F/O John Tilston and his fellow flying instructors was indeed that the new C.I. was rather formal. His early enquiry as to the whereabouts of the Roman Catholic padre may also have sent a warning tremor through the team, and it was reported that he turned the priest out of bed at 6am each day until he was “given the keys” - presumably to the chapel - and told to get on with it himself. [2]
There were no restrictions on eating and drinking at Ismailia; the staff considered that they ate well, drank well, and flew hard; so they were therefore somewhat relieved when on his first evening in post, Tony accepted their invitation to drinks and a meal out. Thereafter, as one instructor said, Tony joined in all the fun that was going.
There were three clubs in town: the United Services - where everyone went to swim in the afternoon - the Greek Club, and the more up-market French Club. It was probably to the last that everyone went out that first evening; it was on the Canal, and a cut above the Greek Club.
The team soon found that life was not going to be as relaxed as they hoped. Tony, said one, “didn’t half lead us a dance”. There was Tony Lovell the disciplinarian, organising a fitness test for the whole aerodrome and posting the names of those who didn’t turn up; and there was the meticulously responsible and regulations-minded Tony Lovell who would not allow his C.F.I. to perform aerobatics at less than 1000ft.
Then there was Tony Lovell the Good Egg, who was present at the French Club one evening when a few of the brighter sparks (including Johnny Ashton, the S/Ldr Air Gunnery) attempted to climb the curtains which ran the length of the clubroom. Down came the soft furnishings, massive nausea on the part of the management, everyone out on their ear and in front of ‘Groupie’ Bain the following morning, with Tony waiting in the corridor outside.
The C.O. having had his say, Tony shepherded the offenders back to the C.I’s office for a dressing down of his own; this was not received with much solemnity by the others, who had some difficulty in keeping a straight face throughout the proceedings.
There was also Tony Lovell the flier, with his specially-lightened clipped-wing three-bladed-prop personal Spitfire V, the paint stripped off and the metal polished to a bright finish. “Instructors and pupils practising battle formations had better beware a bounce by this clipped-wing silver Spit”, said Eric Moore, whose job was to test-fly every aircraft that came out of the hangars after a major overhaul or rebuild (unless the aircraft concerned was a Mustang, when Tony pulled rank and commandeered it).
Tony Lovell the aerobat gave displays which were something to behold; like Duncan Smith, Eric Moore had never seen better: “All low level and quite astonishing.... as an aerobatic pilot he was quite extraordinary..... if the engine had coughed or spluttered he’d have gone in, he was so very close to the margin.” He still remembers Tony’s loop with a tumble at the top just short of a spin, and recovery within feet of the ground - “and when they started night flying, we got the same procedure in the dark”.
Of particular significance, given the events of the following August (see below), was the episode witnessed by Moore on the airfield one hot afternoon. There was seldom any flying after lunch at Ismailia; it was too hot, and there was too much turbulence, so it was with some surprise that the test pilot saw the Chief Instructor’s silver Spitfire lined up at the end of the runway.
The aircraft was being held on the brakes as the revs were increased, and so took a little longer than usual to start rolling. Then off went the brakes, up went the wheels, up went the nose, and the Spitfire was into a slow roll. Moore “had never seen the like before” - and he’d been with 601 Sqdn from the desert via Malta and Sicily to Italy, and had seen some sights in his time.
Meanwhile the night flying programme was put into operation on 29th January, when (according to the ORB) “the Chief Instructor, the Chief Flying Instructor and a member (sic) of instructors carried out dusk landings and local flying....” Up to five hours night flying per pupil was envisaged.
Nine days later Tony took temporary command of RAF Ismailia during the two-day absence of G/Capt. R.E. Bain. This coincided with - and may have been caused by - the ceremonial presentation to King Farouk by Sir Keith Park of an Anson aircraft on 7th February. It was Park’s last act as AOC Middle East before quitting Cairo for London and then Kandy as the new Allied Air Commander-in-Chief, South-East Asia. [3]
The Bar to Tony's DSO came through in February. The citation read:
"He has led his wing on many low-level attacks against road targets, in face of intense enemy fire. His enthusiasm and fine leadership have been reflected in the successes achieved by the wing since April 1944, which has destroyed thirty enemy aircraft and over 1000 enemy vehicles, besides damaging fifty enemy locomotives. Both in the air and on the ground Wing Commander Lovell has set an inspiring example of courage, skill and devotion to duty." [4]
On 1st March responsibility for the administration of all training units in Egypt passed from the now-defunct 203 Training Group of Middle East Command to the Command’s Air HQ, Eastern Mediterranean. On the 5th of the month the OTU’s first Mustang was delivered; Tony took it up for its first outing:
This marks the fourth operational aircraft used in the training of pupils. The Unit has come a long way since the Tomahawk days of 1941
remarked the operations record book.
March at Ismailia was a month of change. G/Capt. M.W.B. Knight took over command of the unit from G/Capt. Bain on the 9th of the month, and on the 20th Tony took on a new responsibility - that of deciding which pilots should train on Mustangs. Until now, pilots forwarded by the aircrew reception centre had come complete with a direction as to type of training; now it was down to the Chief Instructor to determine.
Training now tended to emphasise dive bombing and strafing “as air combat is a diminishing requirement in Italy where most of our pilots go”, wrote G/Capt. Knight in his monthly summary for March. But a week later the writing was already on the wall for 71 OTU, with the notification that no.77 course, just about to begin, had been re-routed to the OTU at Fayid. [5]
April brought an outbreak of bubonic plague in Ismailia itself, and cinemas, cafés and taxis were all put out of bounds. To add to the medical confusion, a WAAF had to be hospitalised with smallpox - luckily not of the virulent sort.
How many sleepless nights Tony Lovell had been having because of flying accidents (“an aspect of flying which cannot be divorced from training” - G/Capt. Knight) is not recorded, but the station commander in his monthly summary noted that the Chief Instructor was being caused fewer of them. The loss of no.77 course was no doubt mainly responsible.
And then the European war was at an end. On Tuesday 8th May the station celebrated with a dance in the ‘Beer garden’. A two-day holiday was announced, and the following day most of the personnel went swimming. Transport was laid on to the Blue Lagoon from 9 in the morning, and picnic hampers were sent down to the revellers at lunchtime.
The ORB reported sadly that adverse weather on the 10th “destroyed what would have been an interesting afternoon’s donkey and camel racing.... heavy rain brought proceedings to an abrupt end”; nevertheless, a fancy dress dance was held in the evening. Overall, “beer supplies were sorely strained”.
By 20th May, training as such at RAF Ismailia had ceased to exist. “Thus ends 71 Operational Training Unit.....”, and on 4th June 1945 W/Cdr. A.D.J. Lovell left for HQ Middle East, being posted on the 7th to no.1 Personnel Despatch Centre.
After what must have been some weeks of leave, Tony was posted supernumerary on 23rd July to the School of Air Support at Old Sarum, and on 6th August 1945, three days before his 26th birthday, was posted as one of three RAF instructors to the Offensive Support Wing there. [6]
The wing had a joint services group of nine instructors all told, who considered themselves the authorities on the tactical aspects of air/ground support - with some justice, as their students ranged from lowly squadron leaders to army commanders (including Montgomery). Fellow-instructor W/Cdr Tom Neil saw his new colleague as
a distinguished officer and gentleman.... I always thought of him as Bob Cherry, one of the famous five in the Greyfriars Annual of my youth.....in temperament he was quiet and retiring, though fairly mercurial and physically active....
I well remember us larking about one afternoon in the main Offensive Support Wing office and one of the Transport Support chaps throwing a thunderflash through our window. As we all cringed waiting for the monstrous bang to come, Tony ran forward and picking it up, threw it outside. A very brave and spontaneous act, indeed, as had it gone off, he would probably have lost half his hand.
He describes Tony at that time as "a very handsome boy, slim, of middle height, with a Boys Own Paper personality - fresh-faced, squeaky clean, and full of dash and courage." [7]
Tony Lovell was killed late in the morning of 17th August 1945, two days after VJ-Day, when the Spitfire XII he was flying crashed just after take-off and broke up on the slopes of Old Sarum Castle, an iron-age fort just beyond the south-west perimeter of the airfield.
Minutes later W/Cdr Neil flew in to Old Sarum in a comms flight Beechcraft, bringing commandant AVM "Bingo" Brown back from a trip to Gutersloh in Germany: [8]
I was met as I stepped out of my aircraft by Group Captain Peter Donkin with his car, who told me that Tony had just been killed in Spitfire EN 234 - I remember his exact words: "Have you heard that Tony Lovell's just killed himself? Did a slow roll off the deck and flew straight into Old Sarum Castle, the silly bugger!" [9]
Tony's mother must have been notified of his fatal accident by the RAF without delay, but there was apparently no immediate discussion as to how his body was to be brought home for burial. On this subject she consulted her near neighbour Mr Bell, the manager of Portrush Gas Works, one of whose sons had been killed in a crash near Moreton-in-Marsh eight months before. [10]
Mr Bell no doubt explained to Clare Lovell that that the local RAF station - Coastal Command's air-sea rescue base at Portrush - would make all the necessary arrangements, and so it turned out. On the day following the accident - 18th August - the body of Tony Lovell was flown from Old Sarum to Swiresgate in Dominie NR 733 of the station's communications flight, crewed by W/Cdr Minifie of the Transport Support Wing and the comms flight’s NCO Pilot, John “Stan” Pollard.
W/Cdr Minifie attended the funeral in Portrush, and returned in the Dominie with Stan Pollard on 21st/22nd August, staging Wolverhampton overnight because there was no runway lighting at Old Sarum. [11]
It is not known whether any other RAF personnel were at the funeral; none of Tony’s close colleagues from the School of Air Support seems to have attended, and there was no report of the funeral in the local Coleraine paper [12]. Tony was buried in the Roman Catholic section of Portrush cemetery, section F, in the O’Neill plot no.1153.
Tony Lovell’s crash was the subject of a Court of Inquiry convened at Old Sarum on 22nd August 1945, with W/Cdr Beaumont, the investigating officer, making his report the following day.
W/Cdr Beaumont was a puzzled man.
“In view of the pilot's exceptional ability and being a brilliant and distinguished operational pilot, the reasons for this accident are all the more inexplicable,” he wrote, concluding that “the reaction of coming from a state of war to a state of peace, to an officer of this calibre, must have caused a momentary aberration of the flying rules [sic] and a sudden urge to overconfidence, with fatal results to himself.”
But while this view was endorsed by the C.O. and by the A.O.C 11 Group, the A.O.C-in-C. Fighter Command wanted none of it.
“This accident was due to an error of judgement on the part of the pilot whilst performing aerobatics at low altitude in contravention of K.R. & A.C.I. para 717 clause 2,” bluntly noted Air Vice Marshal Vincent on his behalf. “There is no evidence to support the Investigating Officer’s conclusions that certain reaction must have caused momentary aberration [sic].”
The loss of Spitfire EN234 was duly entered in RAF records on a plain filing card.
In 1995 Tony Lovell’s grave in Ballywillan Cemetery was the focal point of an service organised by RAF Aldergrove to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. The service opened with these words :
Fifty years ago today, Wing Commander Anthony Desmond Joseph Lovell died in an aircraft accident. He was one of Northern Ireland's top fighter pilots, if not the top fighter pilot, during the war. He was decorated both at home and in the United States of America. Today, we remember him and all Ulstermen and women who died as a result of the war, as well as those people from south of the border who volunteered and gave their lives for the same cause....
In 1995-6 a new study of the crash at Old Sarum was made by this writer, prompted by the unwillingness of Tony Lovell’s contemporaries (including the late Al Deere and the late Jeffrey Quill) to accept the verdict of the Court of Inquiry at face value. The Air Accident Investigation Branch also participated.
The results of the study were published in Aeroplane magazine of August 1996 and were also forwarded to the then Chief of Air Staff. The RAF has since added a note to its records drawing attention to the probability of mechanical failure as the real cause of the accident. [13] Publication of the Aeroplane article also resulted in eye-witness accounts (see above) of Tony’s Lovell’s exceptional ability as an aerobatic pilot while Chief Instructor at RAF Ismailia in the first half of 1945.
NOTES
1. “W/C Sizer has spent about 15 months on the Unit and was leaving to attend the Empire Flying Training Course in England.” (Operations Record Book, 26 November 1944).
2. Staff included Johnny Ashton as S/Ldr Air Gunnery, Dr Richard Castle, S/Ldr Daniels, Hoot Connolly from Australia (who married a WAAF at Ismailia), Ronnie Dench, Johnny Halstead as Training Wing adjutant. Ex-601 Sqdn types on the instructing staff also included a group comprising Eric Moore (and his “little WAAF of Czech origin”), F/O John Tilston, Wilf Raybould, and Guy Wood from the US.
3. By one of the curious coincidences of war, the job of Air C-in-C SEAC had first gone to Park’s rival Leigh Mallory, but the latter was killed in an air accident on his way to take up the posting.
4. As quoted in the Londonderry Sentinel, 22 February 1945.
5. Air HQ letter EM/1113/P.2 of 16th March refers.
6. The other RAF instructors on the Ground Support Wing at Old Sarum were W/Cdr Tom Neil DFC and S/Ldr Bob Rutter DFC (then on leave), who like Tony Lovell had been shot down over South Essex on the afternoon of 5th September 1940. Instructors from other services were “Harrington” and Mike Fell (W/Cdr Neil, pers. comm).
7. W/Cdr Neil was a former member of 249 Sqdn, and he disputes Tony Lovell's claim to a share in the Ju.88 destroyed on 8th July 1940.
8. AVM Brown had been making a 24-hour whistle-stop tour of bases in Germany - a sort of consolation prize for being posted to Old Sarum instead of being allowed to finish the war as AOC 84 Group, according to his son Robin.
9. G/Capt. Pete Donkin headed the Offensive Support Wing. “A very miserable sort of a chap”, said one source (?Rutter). “Not a diplomat” (Tom Neil). “Not the happiest of men” (Air Marshal Sir Edward Gordon Jones, deputy commandant, School of Air Support, 1946-49). A propos of Tony Lovell’s posting to Old Sarum, Sir Edward points out that the commandant, AVM Brown, had “a fair say” on who he wanted on his staff; Robin Brown says that his father hand-picked his staff (pers. comm).
10. John Bell (pers. comm.). The Bells lived in Ballywillan Road.
11. The funeral must have been held late in the day for the Dominie to become benighted at Wolverhampton .
12. Hugh McGrattan , senior editor (pers. comm.) We do know that Albert Rawlings went to the funeral, as did the Bells from Ballywillan Road; and there was an obituary in the Belfast Telegraph of 18th August, on p.2 (transcribed by Michael Clarke):
"Wing Commander Anthony Desmond Joseph Lovell, DSO and Bar, whose death occurred yesterday as a result of a flying accident, was the younger son of the late Stuart Lovell, Ceylon, and Mrs Lovell, Ballywillan Road, Portrush. Born in Ceylon in 1919, he was educated at Ampleforth College and received his Commission in 1937, and in July 1938 was posted to his first squadron, with which he served in the Battle of Britain. He was awarded the DSO in 1944, and a Bar to the DSO in 1945. In December 1944 he was awarded the United States DFC for 'extraordinary achievements in flights from Corsica under US command'. He was one of the highest-scoring pilots in the Mediterranean theatre of war."
13. G/Capt. D.A. Haward OBE, personal assistant to the Chief of Air Staff (pers. comm.).
