New Hawker Typhoon Documentary Film

the 6th of June 1944 one of the most infamous dates of modern history it marks the day when the holiday armies of Britain Canada and the United States set out across the English Channel in one of history's most audacious invasion missions in a bid to free Europe from the grip of Nanci tyranny the landing of Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy remains a haunting example a rule and it's almost without exception that if we think of d-day we picture the soldiers more than any other image of this event it is the army who have come to symbolize the victories fought for in France Normandy remains a place of great reflection and serves as a reminder to those who visit that the freedom we now enjoy has come at a high price for 60 years after the last shots rang out in Normandy we remain fascinated by the events that took place here but despite all the published writings the television documentaries and even Hollywood films there is a part of the d-day landings and the battle for Normandy France that remains overlooked and with it a story untold this is the story of a long-forgotten Air Force and the pivotal role it played in the battle to free France and eventually Europe based on the frontlines flying from air strips carved into the Normandy fields young pilots from as many as 14 different nationalities came together to fly an aircraft of his celebrated by the French in their National Memorial Museum in the City of Khan these men were typhoon pilots this is the untold story of the rocket firing typhoons and the men brave enough to fly them into combat you over the years it's been my good fortune to correspond with often meet and talk over wartime experiences with a large number of typhoons pilots I wouldn't say they're a different breed apart but they certainly are pretty impressive people from the earliest days of typhoon flying when they had to fly across the channel or across the North Sea in a single-engine aircraft with a known unreliable engine to the Normandy campaign and the battle throughout northwest Europe when they had to face the most efficient anti-aircraft fire in the world and they had to face up to that knowing that their chances of survival were not too great the casualty rates are very high indeed and it's quite notable that when there was a shortage of typhoon pilots there weren't an awful lot of volunteers so those who did fly typhoons I think deserve special thought and special admiration before the large media event of the official d-day anniversary a small group of veterans and their families gathered in may 2004 to remember in their own way fallen comrades and the part they themselves played in the liberation of France for many returning to Normandy stairs the memories of sixty years ago our flight commander Kenny gear came in wheels up is because he was damaged he came in very hot as we say instead of coming in at 120 communi but 160 and yes you saw the roadway crossing the runway well the scoop on the tiffy went cruising along the ground it caught the roadway the aircraft flipped over and all that was left of it was the cockpit that Kenny was sitting in and about 5 foot 4 he survived because he was so short oh that's a memory that I have with this place camped out doors with their aircraft and without sufficient protection pilots and ground crew had to endure enemy shell fire almost daily when we arrived we knew the artillery was quite close and so I dug this chance to put my camp bed in it which I did duel in it these two laughter heads off while I was doing it just just in daylight that feels kind it's falling and of course I was down there right and and then they came first came diving in on top of me say then I had to Bonnie no he said was hello Jeff having played a major part in the majority of operations across the European theater of war from 1942 to the capitulation in 1945 it remains an enigma as two-wire weapon as potent as the typhoon has received so little attention in the histories of this conflict almost all the German commanders who were interviewed at the end of the war about the Normandy invasion and the battle through France were unanimous in their view that air part on the Allied side had been absolutely decisive when they all said without airpower the German army might well have been a match for American British armies which i think is probably true we're their part the American and British forces were able to tear the German forces to pieces the heavy-armed photobomber was a very important innovation and it did have very real effects both in the build-up to d-day and on the actual day itself and certainly in a campaign through Normandy in France what the British and Americans were able to to achieve at last was real accuracy on the battlefields which the heavy bombers and medium bombers couldn't really achieve whilst many flying examples of aircraft in the Second World War still remain to this day you won't find a hawker typhoon among them in a matter of months at war's end the typhoon all but disappeared without a trace destroyed and sold as scrap there now remains only one original intact example of this extraordinary aircraft the last typhoon silent reminder of a devastating weapon and the first true fighter bomber conceived as early as 1937 by Sir Sidney camp chief designer for her aircraft the typhoon was one of two designs produced in response to a ministry demands for a new frontline fighter however during an early test flight of the first typhoon structural failure just behind the cockpit almost broke the aircraft into hawkers chief test pilot Philip Lucas was awarded the George medal for his skill and courage in bringing the aircraft back to earth in one piece but the Typhoon's tail problems were not solved before it had entered service despite near catastrophe the typhoon won the race between the two designs mainly due to its unorthodox but immensely powerful napier Sabre engine this one-ton twenty four cylinder monster remains the most powerful aero engine of its kind ever to be mass-produced the size of the engine it's being very compact highs the fact that it produces in the region of two and a half thousand horsepower twice as powerful as current engines such as the rolls-royce Merlin the Sabre was groundbreaking for his time the engines for there are in fact two joined together lay one above the other and are horizontally opposed with six in-line cylinders each side but the heart of the typhoon would also prove to be as Achilles heel early on in 1941 the very first type foon's had been delivered with all their gremlins to their first operational squadron previously on hurricanes 56 squadron now had to get to grips with the typhoon and its many idiosyncrasies which included just getting it started bill kotti was one of the first people to work with a new Sabre engine at hawkers headquarters in Langley when you got in first of all you pumped up the carburetor primer you then got hold of the sin of primer and so many pumps with a cylinder primer depending on the temperature of the day the engine was started by firing an explosive charge similar to a shotgun cartridge when you fire the cartridge you press two bands of booster coil and the cartridge on firing one of the five cartridges in the magazine the gas produced passed to a piston and Bendix Drive in order to give the engine a quick twist of in the region of one and a half revolutions of that top crankshaft pilots that have been used to the simple push-button electric starters on hurricanes and Spitfires would often over prime the Sabre engine if it didn't start for the first time and then you really got into trouble you could go on pumping fuel in and wood and fuel running out underneath until there's a colossal backfire and the there was a flames in the air intake and then the chap you have run up with a fire extinguisher and put the fire station down the air intake which didn't help fires on startup were not uncommon for some pilots starting the typhoon was to prove just as hazardous as flanked into combat I saw these Airmen arrive with a dozen fire extinguishers so what are they for they said all this one always catches fire yes I said now now that rubbish you see so I made a mental note of that and didn't prime it as much as I would have done my particular airplane anyway sure enough when I press the start button there were flames everywhere see coming round and the spiral round the cockpit with the ground crew shouting fire and signaling cut engine I'm saying no leave me alone leave me alone and open up the throttle across then you blow all the flames out and it was alright but they've got par extinguishers like they're going out of fashion 19 year old Roy crane was one of many young pilots who looked forward to the chance of flying the new fighter but his first encounter with the aircraft was not what he could have foreseen when we got to Mill fjord we expected to see typhoons and we arrived in a coach and we certainly did because somebody shouted look up there and we looked up into the sky and there was a typhoon spinning and it continued spinning down until it hit the airfield and blew up and the violet was killed the grass had been caused by the tail breaking off in midair another problem is now emerging to add to the list carbon monoxide poisoning fumes leaking from the engine into the cockpit had at least on one occasion as fixated the pilot causing him to crash the only practical solution to the problem in the end was for typhoon pilots to be on oxygen from the moment they started their engines to the moment they shut them down but the typhoons still had its admirers well I thought actually it sound good because it was it had what I was looking for in an airplane but then I hadn't become an expert but I had flown the things here and there once or twice and the old hurricane needs to more or less go along sedately like a elderly past although it did chuck itself around if he pushed it and I could push him but the baby's got to a typhoon it is a bit of a brute but it had done 2,500 horsepower under bonnet in my left hand and I really felt that then it was like being hit in the back of the sledgehammer when you open throttle having been warned that it would swing violently to the right and managed to get off the ground I think it was something like 1500 feet before I worked out I will take the undercarriage at Douglas Cox head gave my crane his first introduction at 180 squadron he was told to take me out and show me the controls so I put the parachute on plus the Didion got into the cockpit and Daly looked over and said well it boy you dick you've read the book you know everything is good luck and push the Dottie because at that time the type in had doors the car door design was unpopular with all typing as it's cumbersome design may baling out in an emergency all the more difficult I found it very claustrophobic and women that we switched over to having bodies with the teardrop canopy oh that was marvelous it's like sitting outside it all round vision as was the standard with most Aria fighter aircraft of the period the early typhoon named the a1 was equipped with the browning point 303 machine gun for two each wing the decision to eventually fit typhoons with cannons would later prove an important factor in the use of the typhoon as a ground attack aircraft and a cannon to go through a wall and into an airplane out the other side machine guns just cause damage but you hit something with a cannon nine times out of ten it's gonna blow up by 1942 a new problem was facing the RAF in the form of the latest Luftwaffe aircraft the brilliant Fokker Wulf 190 too fast for existing aircraft to catch this fighter bomb would roam in under RAF radar and strike coastal targets at will before fleeing back across the channel that is until typhoon squadrons were assigned to the problem we could take off I've been scrambled right over your head hitting the big olds etc as we took off and catchiest aircraft up halfway across the channel and I had a list with the couple of nine whom I got into a fight with right on the day and he tightened up and he turned so much so that he flicked a high-speed stall and flipped the other way and went into the drink I couldn't get inside him to fire a shot the growing typhoon force was now spread out along the south coast of England flying mostly defensive fighter patrols it would be the endeavours of 23 year old Squadron Leader Dennis Crowley milling to prove the aircraft in the ground attack role formed in late 1942 won 8-1 was the first fighter bomber squadron and 119 year old pilot in particular remembers his commanding officers attitude to the task dead keen he'd had lots of experience I mean he'd been to France you know before Dunkirk the typhoons before d-day had a number of important tasks to to perform one of them of course was to solve a German radar chain which was recently affected not completely effective radars very difficult equipment to knock out entirely even with overwhelming air power they were also directly Forsett other vulnerable communications targets to science military targets they had a very important part to to play and of course could now attack these targets with the kind of accuracy that heavy bombers could never achieve compared to the slow high-flying bombers the typhoons could get in close to their targets ensuring precision strikes with cannon or bombs by 1943 more typhoon squadrons were making the transition to ground attack operations with the Typhoon's payload steadily increasing and carrying two 250 pound bombs up two to one thousand pound bombs the equivalent weight of carrying a modern family car under each wing what we used to do is fly at sea level across the channel and then about a mile out from the French coast climb up to 10,000 feet who's to fly just past the target so the tiger was at 120 degrees - you left all right Co would would go down on the target count three and then number two so every T seconds you an aircraft peeled over that puts you into about a sixty degree dive the bombs were not your fused until you are actually ready to drop them flies remember just you threw a switch and you release the bombs by pressing button on the throttle maybe a clonk clonk as they came off you coming out very fast and you have to judge when to release the bomb and pull out without being blown up by own bombs 2,000 feet you start to press the tip it was about about 1500 feet he was done to pull out a lot to be out the way diving onto a target at speeds reaching over 500 miles an hour typhoon pilots still face the unnerving possibility of their bombs failing to drop with live bombs still attached the pilots would try to shake them loose over the channel if you had what to call a hang-up once you'd fuse the bombs then there was the danger when you care and came back that they might drop off at least on one occasion chap had his bombs drop off and blew up on the airfield in 1943 a new weapon appeared on the scene the rocket projectile as it was known they were carried initially by swordfish in hurricane aircraft both of which were very slow the typhoon proved to be the ideal launching platform for these weapons it was very fast and it was very stable it could get in and make its attack and get out very quickly and the speed of the aircraft built up during the dive up to say five hundred miles an hour added to the speed of the rocket of course the typhoon was the first aircraft to carry and use rockets as a standard armament the platform of four twenty millimeter cannon denied rockets equivalent to an eight gun broadside from a six-inch Cruiser they say is a colossal firepower for one one aircraft the first attack with rockets have been made by 181 squadron on the 25th of October 1943 but if the six aircraft that went into the attack only three returned an airplane if it's flying perfectly without any slip or skid then you'll probably get a very accurate shot aiming the Rockets was very different from that of dive-bombing as flight lieutenant Ian mallas of 174 squadron remembers the old reflector gunsight head up dot in the center it had a circle of an orange circle and then it had two lines which you could adjust for the range but with the rocket typhoon they changed the gun side and the lower point you've got to get the tip of that bar coming up from the bottom on the target experienced pilots could deliver the rockets with astonishing precision able to fire all the rockets either in a salvo or fire them in pairs having pounded the coastal radar stations in preparation for d-day typhoons now turn their attention to major supply routes and ports softening up key targets around the proposed invasion area was now the Typhoon's main role these missions each had their own cone name rhubarb's ramrods Rangers and roadsters were just a few of the names given to different operations taking in targets of opportunity but in 1943 one target in particular was dreaded by typhoon pilots and with good reason I preferred quite honestly say that if I went to briefing this was prized in vegetables and shurberg came up on the screen as the target one and was not exactly shaking them you knew that you were going to have a hell of a time share bugs flak defenses included the infamous 88 millimeter anti-aircraft batteries which use radar controlled range-finding to automatically track incoming targets the fat war was going up the chasers and it just looked like driving through thick rain in a car and it was the only time that I can remember that my feet hammered on the rudder tells us that they were shaking so much there were these colored balls coming up and they were sort of curving in towards the aircraft and you felt well if they look as if they're gonna hit me I've only got to move over a little bit and they'll go past before you can do anything they go in there past the cockpit there was only one recognised technique for avoiding plaque and wave like hell that is the thing didn't fly straight and level for more than two ticks above important to tick because they'd line up on you and they were very accurate flak was the concern of every pilot as Harry peers recalls in my case I was lucky it only damaged the hydraulics pipes and so on and also grazed my right leg just below the knee and then that the piece went under my other leg damaged the tried of the aeroplane but on the way through he took a bit of my trouser leg on the way in you'll climb to 10,000 feet from sea level and the big starting 88 follow you in June as you come down the in the dive course you get 40 millimeter 30 millimetres 20 millimeter a nine millimeter fire which is very packed sort of a thing the big stuff more dangerous if it was very close to you but that was not worrying it's when you go through all the small stuff at the bottom of the dive for about the last say 3,000 feet and of course coming away from the target that it really is dangerous but you're wound up your general in the flow flowing you've got there you gone down into a dive plot over 500 miles an hour for pulling out your screaming down the s3 at that speed who cares about flat it's not your worry however on one of his first sorties to attack shipping in the seine history john shell adds typhoon was badly damaged and he would have to make a forced landing back one of the big fears was with the huge radiator we had under the nose and the largest propeller of any fighter in the world 14 feet diameter that propeller would hit the ground before the aircraft and would can't wheel it which would be pretty fatal so we all decided the way to do it was to bring the airplane in and try and three-point it but as soon as it touched shove the stick right forward and sort of crush the airplane into the deck and that's what I did there was no trouble switch the petrol after need initial Dawson before you actually hit the ground and is skidded along for a couple hundred yards it started to burn that was yummy trouble he still had petrol in the tanks and that drifted in and the things started to get a bit hot oh yeah I was at Fort Stockton we dive down sir and came out the clouds to see wink among the pew oh my god inflames and brazing up he had caught a direct hit from flat I remember this Tom pew he he said to us before he was retiring the next day because he's been made up with squad leader to wing commander I flew with him busy number two like that and as we broke through the cloudy caught a direct hit from the air cap and blew him up bombs at all I never thought is going to divert is a damn good Chapman a good leader d-day brought with it a spectacle that few who witnessed it have forgotten to this day it looked me if the other wife had being towed out to sea honestly you had this all these ships round it and all of this big stream going to war Normandy and it just looked lifted filling the Ireland with them we were going to bomb the headquarters at they are the geometric watch which we did successfully the typhoons also knocked out the radar controlled coastal guns and coupled with strikes on enemy transport they also prevented proper reinforcement of the beach heads one of the priorities after d-day was to develop air strips for which they could operate and other RAF aircraft and in fact the first Titans flew into these strips on the 13th of June just seven days after the invasion air strips were now being laid out by the Royal Engineers these were constructed from mesh and perforated sheet metal known as Sommerfeld tracking within another three or four days the typhoon squadrons moved in to base themselves actually in France although it was somewhat hazardous at this point due to the shelling from the Germans who knew very well where the airfields were and we're not too far away you

Channel: Typhoon Pilots

Views: 1,056,731

Rating: 4.7520938 out of 5

Keywords: RAF, Tank, Buster, Typhoon, Attack, Rockets, Second, World, War, Veterans, Normandy, Typhoons, Rocket, Firing, Napier, Sabre, Sydney, Camm, Tiffy, Ground, Fighter, Bomber, Invasion, Hawker, typhoon, fighter, bomber, TyphoonBomber, invasion, D-Day, WW2, Landings, II, TYPHOON, 1B, Helicopter, Flying, Aviation, Plane, Air, Airplane, Aircraft, Youtube, Mp4, Eurofighter Typhoon, Royal Air Force

Id: qexMo-2ZLos

Length: 30min 47sec (1847 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 28 2011