SpitfireSpares.com - warbird Reference

Churchstanton later known as Culmhead in Somerset UK was an operational fighter station throughout the second world war.
On one of my many visits to this airfield I found a rusty piece of metal sticking out of the ground. As I picked it up I noticed a name painted on it in remarkably good condition. The name was Flt Lft Glaser, I was amazed this had survived for 50 years and wondered about the Pilot behind the name. When I returned home, using the power of the internet I sent an email to Douglas Tidy of 74sq Flying Tigers {Author of the book." I Fear No Man" History of 74 sq}and asked him if he had heard of a pilot called Glaser. Amazingly he had heard of a PO E D Glaser who flew with 65sq in 1940.I then looked at the Battle of Britain roll which also listed PO E.D Glaser of 65sq.
Jim Corbett from Newcastle sent me a list of sqs that served at Culmhead. However there was no mention of 65sq ever having been there. Not giving up Jim looked through his books to see if ED Glaser had ever been shot down and came up with the following." Flight Lieutenant E.D Glaser of 234sq flying Spitfire BL427,combat with JU88 off Falmouth. Baled out into the sea, rescued by minesweeper. Jim then checked the sq list and found that 234 was at Culmhead from 24.6.43 to 8.7.43.
Doug Tidy then told me that Sdr Ldr E.D Glaser was a member of the Battle of Britain Fighter association in 1999.After a few phone calls I managed to get a letter forwarded to Sdr Ldr Glaser via the Fighter asssociation.
A few days later I had a phone call from a very real Sdr Ldr Glaser. He was as amazed as I was and told me that he had only been at Culmhead for two weeks. While there he was flying with a ninety gallon drop tank attached to his Spitfire. In his log book is recorded a flight of 5hrs 10mins.
I asked him about the action with the JU 88.He was attacking this aircraft at 0 feet as it attacked a minesweeper. Lining up his site he was took several hits not from the 88.He looked all around for an escorting fighter but none was visible. His engine then stopped dead and he pulled back on the stick as his airspeed rapidly dropped. Flt Lft Glaser decided it was time to leave. He bailed out and his chute filled as he hit the water. The chute then came down on his head and threatened to drag him under. He struggled to free himself and finally got clear. Soon after the Minesweeper pulled up and full of apologies pulled him onboard. It seemed that as they shot at the bomber they had hit the Spitfire.
Sdr Ldr Glaser D.F.C came to visit me with his wife Roddy. We visited Churchstanton and I was amazed at his youthful appearance and fitness. This was the first time I had ever met a fighter pilot. I was enthralled by his experiences, he is a most modest and honourable man with a great sense of humour and the vigour of a 20 year old. I will add his full operational history shortly.
Graham

This picture is of Pilot Officer Dave Glaser taking off on the 12th of August 1940 in a 65 Sdr Spitfire. This picture hangs over my fire place.

SQUADRON LEADER DAVE GLASER, who has died aged 80, was an RAF pilot mistakenly shot down off Plymouth, Devon, by a British warship during the Battle of Britain.

Struggling to free himself from his parachute, which had enveloped his head, Glaser had all but given up hope when the chute floated away and he was rescued. Aged 19, Glaser had joined No 65 Squadron at Hornchurch on July 13 1940, just three days after the date regarded as the beginning of the Battle of Britain, which raged overhead until October 31, when the RAF's supremacy ended the threat of German invasion.

Ernest Derek Glaser, always known as Dave, was born on April 20 1921. In the First World War his father had been a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. After attending Lancing House and Bloxham schools young Dave was accepted, in April 1939, for flying training in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.

Glaser had been inspired to become a pilot some years earlier after meeting Jeffrey Quill who, in 1936, as a Supermarine test pilot, had flown R J Mitchell's Spitfire prototype and earliest production aircraft. Quill had been a frequent visitor to The Bugle, Glaser's father's pub on the Hamble in Hampshire.

In 1940, Quill was temporarily attached to No 65 Squadron for - as he put it - "a spot of practical" in order to recommend modifications in the light of combat experience. Glaser was delighted, on his arrival, to find himself flying No 2 to his boyhood hero.

Glaser soon had examples of combat himself. On August 12 he was preparing to take off from Manston when a formation of low-flying Dornier 17s attacked the airfield at low level, damaging hangars and cratering the flight-path. Glaser recalled: "Everybody just opened up their throttles and went hell for leather."

Awaiting the scramble bell during the Battle of Britain Glaser had occupied himself by fashioning a lucky talisman representing The Laughing Cavalier. Glaser reckoned that, together with a cavalier which he had had painted on his Spitfire (in an example of what was known as nose art), it helped to see him through the war.

In this period he was promoted flight lieutenant and was serving as a No 234 Squadron flight commander when he was shot down into the Channel off Plymouth in Devon. Vowing to be more circumspect in the vicinity of the Royal Navy, Glaser resumed operations with Group Captain (subsequently Air Chief Marshal Sir Harry) Broadhurst's Spitfire wing based at Hornchurch, Essex, but frequently operated from Manston, the Kent coastal airfield, and other south-east England No 11 Group airfields.

Following the Battle of Britain, in 1941 Glaser became an instructor at No 53 Operational Training Unit until August, when he joined No 234, a Spitfire squadron carrying out offensive sweeps over northern France. In 1943, Glaser was posted to Australia to form and command No 549, a Spitfire squadron stationed at Darwin in the Northern Territory.

In the New Year of 1945 he received command of No 548, a Spitfire squadron similarly charged with defending Darwin against Japanese air attack. After two years he returned home, was granted a permanent commission and posted to Linton-on-Ouse, Yorkshire. There he was flight commander of No 64, a half-strength Hornet fighter squadron.

Glaser was delighted in 1949 when he was selected to qualify as a test pilot, again following his hero Jeffrey Quill. Glaser attended No 8 Course at the Empire Test Pilots' School, then situated at Farnborough, Hants (and now based at Boscombe Down, Wiltshire).

In 1950, Glaser was employed as an RAF experimental test pilot at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, until 1953, when he joined Vickers Armstrong at Hurn, Bournemouth, Hants. Becoming chief production test pilot, Glaser was involved with the Varsity. This was a post-war replacement for the trainer version of the two-engine Wellington bomber. He also tested the world's first turbine-powered four-engine airliner, Sir George Edwards's Viscount - a plane then described as "a jump into the future".

But his chief contribution was his exhaustive production testing of the Valiant, the first of the RAF's four-jet bombers, which preceded the Vulcan and Victor in Britain's V-bomber nuclear force. Glaser was also involved with the BAC 1-11s, one of Britain's best selling airliners. When, in 1963, he first flew the jet, he handled it like a Spitfire and was apt to fly over Hurn airfield so low that onlookers were put in mind of a Flymo.

In 1979 Glaser was appointed flight operations manager and test pilot instructor of Rombac, an arrangement under which BAC 1-11s were built under licence in Romania, where his robust airmanship was much admired his pupils. Glaser retired in 1983 from British Aerospace - as Vickers, BAC and other merged aircraft manufacturers had become - and worked as an aviation consultant, while deriving much pleasure from sailing.

He was also invited to join a roadshow of British, American and German Second World War pilots, which toured American theatres under the billing A Gathering of Eagles. Glaser received the DFC in 1942 and Air Efficiency award in 1946. He was awarded Queen's Commendations for Valuable Service in the Air in 1953 for military, and in 1968 for civil, test flying.

Glaser married, first, in 1949, Coral Gillie, an Australian. They had a son and a daughter. He married, second, in 1965, Diana Stewart-Smith, and, third, in 1985, Rodica Ghita, a Romanian.

Dave is a Combat veteran of the aerial battle of WWII he has kindly written this report of one of his missions and supplied the pictures. We all owe these brave souls the freedom we enjoy today and my grateful thanks go out to Dave and all the other aircrew who sacrificed so much on our behalf.

From a lithograph of a painting by aviation artist Robert Karr, it sells on the internet for $75.00.

I was a squadron leader with the 322nd squadron, 91st Bomb Group of the Eighth AF, flying out of Bassingbourn, just southwest of Cambridge.

We departed at just about sunrise, our target was the oil refinery at Merseberg. I was flying my own plane "Hikin' for Home", leading the high squadron of the low group.

The target was clouded over when we arrived, the Group Leader's "Mickey" system went out as we approached the target, that meant we couldn't bomb through the clouds. A secondary target, just a few miles away, was selected, as we crossed over the Merseberg/Leipzig area hundreds of flak guns cut loose.

Here is a picture, to show what the air over a target like Merseberg looks like when we were being shot at.

When those shells exploded you could hear them, then see a red explosion, then smell the black, oily smoke. It was scary because you never knew where the shells would burst next, German fighters were bad enough, but at least you could see them to shoot at, flak was a different story.

One large fragment from an exploding shell bounced off my windshield, other pieces hit my #2 engine and put it out of operation, I feathered it, was lucky there was no fire since raw gas was pouring onto the hot cylinders. This was almost a one way trip for me, one of the red hot fragments from the flak shell went through the aluminium skin of the plane, it was headed straight for my stomach when it hit a metal plate just twelve inches from me. I reached down and picked it up, quickly dropping it because it was red hot. If that piece had not hit that plate I wouldn't be writing this today.

Later I did get that fragment, still have it today, here are a couple of pictures of it, and of the patch on the side of the plane, where the ground crew covered the hole.

Grateful thanks to Dave for this report .

Warrant Officer Ernest Murray West

The youngest son of four boys Ernest (Tink) learned to fly at the age of 15 in the club�s DH Gypsy Moth. He was indirectly responsible for his father purchasing their own aeroplane after he did a beat-up on the farmhouse of a close friend flying one of the aero club�s machines and the incident was reported. The grim faced club officials banned him from using their aeroplanes so his father bought the Piper Cub to enable him to continue flying. He was a very accomplished private pilot by the time he applied for and was accepted into the Fleet Air Arm. When the call-up papers arrived he was away in camp with the Army Territories. His Father had already lost two sons in the war and he concealed the letter from him. Concerned about the delay, Tink quizzed the FAA as to the situation; he was told that the course was already under way and that he would have to wait for the next intake. Undeterred he applied to the RNZAF, flying solo on their terms on June 2 1943 in DH 82 Warrant Officer E M West.

Tiger Moth sn 846 after 3 hours 10 minutes total time. He was posted to Swift Current, Canada, in September 1943 for multi engine training on Oxford�s, then in 1944 to the UK for a short stint at No. 86 Squadron Coastal Command flying liberators. Tink didn�t talk about his experiences that often but he did relay this event, two days after arriving in England the �new lads� were taken to a loch to be shown low level bombing by a squadron of Fairy Battles. After several runs one poor blighter commenced his dive doing all things correctly and right over the lake the wings departed from the airframe and the fuselage together with the two crew members went straight to the bottom. W/O West (pilot) third from the left

He said it disturbed him for quite some time after.

At 11 OTU RAF Oakley (Bucks) he converted to Wellington MK X�s. The squadron hack was a MK II Hurricane and Tink was told to �go do some circuits� which he did with some serious enthusiasm, �somewhat quicker than the 50 hp Cub!� he said.

For him personally, the only real incident of the war happened while on a night flying exercise, the Wellington he was landing ran out of brakes before the end of the runway arrived and they careered off the end to be violently stopped when the main wheels dropped into a perimeter defence trench. He suffered a broken finger that stayed bent for the rest of his life.

His final posting was to 1576 H.C.U. at Abu-Sueir Egypt for conversion to Liberators. The squadron was being readied to support the American effort in South East Asia when the balloon went up and they shipped the boys home via Australia.

After the war he kept his license current and qualified as a commercial pilot with the intention of immigrating to Canada to apply his skills. Luckily for me my mother turned his head and he followed his heart, joining his father�s architectural practice and stayed local. Wildly passionate about racing motorbikes he won a number of national titles for circuit racing and trials riding. He continued with his PPL flying until the family owned Piper J3 was sold in 1960.