| Thanks, Kiran, for this. Several interesting points for discussion:
1] To what extent was the Battle's losses the fault of the aircraft, rather than the tasks it was expected to do? Was there any day bomber of the early part of WW2 which did not suffer horrendous losses when attacked by enemy fighters, or to AA when attacking targets at low level? The Blenheim, the Skua, the TBD Devastator, the Lockheed Ventura, the Ju87 Stuka, the Potez 63, the Tupolev SB2, all suffered high casualty rates where operated in areas where they did not have air superiority. Later in the war, the Mosquito got away with it because it was genuinely faster than the opposition, and the US day bombers such as the B25 succeeded by partly having a heavy defensive armament but more importantly by having a strong fighter escorts.
2] The VC awards to Garland and Gray: this is the only time that a pilot and navigator (Observer, to be precise) of one aircraft were both awarded VCs, The controversy here is not so much that the observer was awarded the VC but that the air gunner was not. But the assumption was that Gray must have navigated under extreme pressure, but Reynolds was not in a position to make any contribution to the actual bombing attack or to be part of the decision process. It could be described as quite progressive thinking to acknowledge that an aircraft had more than just a pilot on board to exercise courage, but I imagine that in later instances it was felt that the award would be cheapened by being approved for more than one of the crew, and when the pilot was awarded a VC it was as a representative of his crew, in same way as a ship's captain was. The pilot, or Captain, makes the decision to attack. But the first account I ever read of this action was in John Frayn Turner's book "VCs of the Air", which I read when I was about twelve: this book doesn't even mention Reynold's presence; it was only much later that I realised the aircraft even had an A/G.
3] Note that the 1937 Flight article seems to assume a two-man crew, with the observer acting as gunner as well as navigating, bomb-aiming and operating the wireless. Presumably these roles were separated out later.
4] The prone bomb-aimer's position must have been very cramped given that the centre-section spar must have carried through in this area. Pity they don't show just how he fitted in. The diagram in pdf 7 gives some clue, but I would have liked more on this. Sadly there are no complete Battles in existence to examine.
5] re.: the article on pdf 8 on the Zurich Air Race. Note that the Me 109, as flown by a certain Colonel Udet, is not refered to as a Messerschmidt, but as a BFW, which presumably stands for Bayerisch Flugzeug-Werke [Bavarian Aircraft Factory]. Was this in fact always the correct designation? |