Tag Archives: No. 10 Squadron

The Nickel Boys

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Some 85 years ago this week.

The crew of a twin-engine RAF Armstrong Whitworth (AW.38) Whitley Mk III medium bomber, likely of No. 4 Group, enjoy an YMCA tea car in attendance, 10 January 1941. This variant of the bomber used a four-man crew: First Pilot, 2nd Pilot/Navigator, Bomb Aimer/forward gunner, and Rear Gunner. Only 80 Mark IIIs, with their powered Nash & Thompson nose turret and powered retractable twin ventral “dustbin” turret, were made.

IWM (HU 104642)

The Whitley is all but forgotten as a WWII bomber, even though 1,814 were made across seven variants, with the stretched fuselage/Rolls-Royce Merlin-powered Mk VII being the most common with 1,465 constructed.

Originally built to the design of a transport, the Whitley had a 177-mile cruising speed and a 1,315-mile range in its Mark III variant, powered by twin 795 hp Armstrong Siddeley Tiger Mk IX engines.

These low-powered engines, coupled with the bomber’s rear stabilizer, earned it the name the “flying barn door” but allowed it to land at speeds of just 60mph, and would serve it well in night bombing.

When WWII began in 1939, the RAF had seven operational Whitley squadrons, six of those (Nos. 10, 51, 58, 77, 78, and 102) in No. 4 Group, the only standing night bomber force in the world at the time. Of those six squadrons, three flew Mark IIIs.

The group’s first operation was on the night of 3 September 1939, just 11 hours after Britain declared war on Germany, when 10 Whitley Mk.IIIs of Nos. 51 and 58 Squadrons took off on a leaflet-dropping (“Nickelling”) sortie in the Ruhr and over Hamburg and Bremen.

This leaflet was Britain’s first propaganda effort of World War II. It is printed on both sides by “His Majesty’s Stationery Office” and was dropped by aircraft on September 3-4, 1939. In part, it warns German citizens that the German government has forced a war on Britain, which promises to involve mankind in a greater calamity than World War I. The Führer’s assertions of peaceful intentions have proven as worthless as his claims that: “We have no more territorial claims to make in Europe.” “British Propaganda Leaflet Dropped on Germans” (1939). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2019.2.149. https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1513

By the end of September, the RAF had dropped around 18 million leaflets over Germany. So much toilet paper.

Operating forward from Villeneuve airfield in France in January 1940, Whitleys of 4Gp’s 77 Squadron dropped leaflets over Prague and Vienna, penetrating deep into the Reich.

Switching from paper to iron, 4Gp’s Whitleys rained bombs on the Kriegsmarine seaplane base at Hornum on 20 March 1940, on Operation Haddock– the first RAF bombing raid on Italy– in June, and then, during the Battle of Britain in August/September 1940, took part in eight raids over Germany stretching as far as Berlin.

Whitley Bombers Over Berlin by Margaret Nash IWM ART LD 827

After April 1941, 4Gp began transitioning from Whitleys to more advanced Vickers Wellington medium and Handley Page Halifax heavy bombers, with the shift done by May 1942. The last raid by Whitleys was done by 58 Squadron on the night of 29/30 April against occupied Ostend in Belgium.

In all, Whitleys flew 8,996 sorties with Bomber Command 1939-42, dropped 9,845 tons of bombs, millions of psyops leaflets, and suffered 269 aircraft lost in action.

Coastal Command Mk VII variants, with longer legs, remained in front-line service until early 1943.

The type finished the war in more secondary line and auxiliary support roles (training, freighter, glider tugs, SOE support drops, etc.), then unceremoniously discarded afterward.

No complete Whitley remains.

16,800 flight hours later

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First flown in 1959, some 757 P-3 Orions were made by Lockheed and Kawasaki by 1990. The Royal Australian Air Force got into the P-3 biz in 1968, one of the first non-U.S. users, when No 11 Squadron started flying the type. In all, 10 P-3C Update II Orions replaced No 10 Squadron’s aging SP2H Neptunes in 1978 while 11 Squadron’s P-3Bs were in turn phased out by 10 P-3C Update II.5 Orions in 1984–85.

Nov. 1982: Australian, NZ and U.S. aircraft on a ramp during exercise Sandgroper ’82. Visible are seven Dassault Mirage IIIO and one Mirage IIID of No. 77 Squadron RAAF, two P-3C Orions of No. 10 Squadron RAAF, one Lockheed P-3B Orion of No. 5 Squadron RNZAF, and two P-3B (BuNos 152733 and 153418) of Patrol Squadron VP-1 Screaming Eagles, USN. The location is RAAF Base Pearce, north of Perth in Western Australia. DOD Photo DF-ST-83-07228

In 1997, 18 of the legacy P-3C models were upgraded to the country’s unique AP-3C Orion variants, which have continued to operate. In all, the type put in an impressive 50 years in Cold War ASW keeping tabs on Soviet subs, long-range SAR (two wrecked yachtsmen in the Vendee Globe race were located 1,200 miles from shore in 1996 by a P-3), and support missions all over the Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

The RAAF is replacing the type with 12 Boeing P-8 Poseidon (8 of which have been delivered) and as many as 8 MQ-4C Triton UAVs.

One survivor, AP-3C Orion #A9-659, is slated to be handed over to the Australian War Memorial in flying condition to preserve.

RAAF 659

Built in 1985, it took its final flight on 28 June 2018, having accumulated 16,800 flight hours. 659 spent three solid decades undertaking operations with the RAAF, including during the Cold War and in East Timor. In 2003 it was one of the first aircraft to deploy to Afghanistan as part of Operation Slipper.

It also conducted the first Australian P-3C operational combat mission over Iraq during Operation Falconer on 16 March 2003. The craft also took part in the 2014 search for Malaysian Airlines MH370, the largest and longest-range airborne maritime search operation ever conducted.

P-3s are still flown by Australia’s neighbor, New Zealand (who is set to fly them through 2025) as well as 15 other countries. The U.S. Navy continues to fly increasingly limited numbers of P-3C Baseline III Orions until Poseidon is fully fielded.