SpitfireSpares.com - warbird Reference

We are featuring Aircrew and veterans of WW2 in memory of their great bravery and sacrifice.

If you have a story to tell Please forward it to us and we will put it on the website.

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 association.
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.

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.

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.

21st November 2011

�S� for �Sugar� Martin Willoughby Barnes Wallis and Bomber Harris

What follows is the unique and amazing story of a valued customer and friend Martin Willoughby who met some of the legends of Great Britain, Sir Barnes Wallis most famous for designing the Bouncing bomb and Sir Author Bomber Harris who took the war to the enemy in a time when Bombing was the only way for Britain to wage war against the Nazi war machine. His father played a major role in the preservation and restoration of the famous S for Sugar Lancaster.

Above a Young Martin with Sir Barnes Wallis holding a picture of himself with Sir Author Bomber Harris.

I have been asked to tell the story behind my interest in RAF Bomber Command and in particular my connection with the Avro Lancaster now on display at the RAF Museum, Hendon.

It all started in 1969, when I went on a journey with my dad to RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire. The purpose was to identify the Lancaster which resided there as gate guardian. I was 4 years of age and did not really understand why we were there at the time, but for my dad it was to be the end of many years of searching for his old aircraft. My dad�s introduction to aviation was at the age of 14 when he worked at the Short Seaplane works at Rochester, building radial engine cowlings. He naturally went on to join the RAF in 1939, and served as an engine fitter on 463/467 Sqns at Bottesford (and later on at Waddington, when the squadrons moved there in 1942). Dad�s Lancaster was the 27th built and was originally laid down as an Avro Manchester. It was produced at t he Metropolitan Vickers Works, Mosley Road, Trafford Park, Manchester and was delivered to 83 Sqn at Scampton in 1942 where the code letters OL-Q were applied.

It was later transferred to 467 Sqn at Waddington and my dad was there to receive it when it was delivered by the ferry pilot (who told him that it was finished, fit only for the scrap heap!). However, this was not to be, and from then on until the end of the war my dad was responsible for maintaining and repairing its engines, and is one of a very few people to have had constant contact with the aircraft as crews came and went.

The code letters PO-S were applied to the fuselage and the aircraft became affectionately known as S �Sugar� - the nose art at delivery depicted a red devil dancing in flames and thumbing his nose, with the motto "Devils of the Air" beneath it (the devil was �Mestophelise� to whom Faust sold his soul in German legend). This was later painted out and replaced with the image of a naked lady holding and about to drop a bomb.

Losses were high during the war, the worst years being 1943/44, and by the end of the Second World War over 55,000 airmen had lost their lives on Bomber Command alone. To put that figure into context it is now greater than the operational strength of the RAF today, in 2011.

As time went on people began to get a feeling that this was no ordinary aircraft. The bombing missions began to mount up and �Sugar� seemed indestructible. She had a bomb that was being loaded on to her accidentally dropped and it did not blow up, and when she collided over Berlin with another Lancaster she made it home. On another occasion, when during evasive action in the attempt to get away from a night fighter the pilot had to push the aircraft to the limits of its endurance, the crew heard what they believed to be machine gun fire - it was in fact hundreds of pop rivets being torn from their mountings!

Because the propaganda machine began to recognize the value of such an aircraft the naked lady nose art had to go and was replaced by one bomb for each operation completed. At that time my dad had been reading a �Readers Digest� and saw a quotation by Hermann Georing in which he said to the German people "NO ENEMY PLANE WILL FLY OVER THE REICH TERRITORY�.

He requested that he be allowed to apply this to the nose art signed with the authors name and got his wish; however my dad spelt �Hermann� with only one �n� - a mistake that remains to this day. Lancaster �S � Sugar� at the RAF Museum, Hendon

By Martin Willoughby

William Joyce alias Lord Haw-Haw (who was later hanged for broadcasting German propaganda) broadcasted that when the notorious German Army marches through Great Britain that the airman responsible for this outrage �will pay� for his actions. �Sugar� went on to become the first bomber to reach 100 ops, surviving a sustained attack by two Ju88 night fighters. Upon her return a scaffold was erected alongside the cockpit on which the seven man crew (captained by Fg Off Schofield) stood and were toasted by the Squadron. �Sugar� also went nine times to Berlin;

Crews begged to fly in her and the in joke was that she did not need a navigator because she knew her own way home. She dropped her last bombs on Czechoslovakia completing an incredible 137 operational sorties.

With the war over my dad went back to civvy street and that should have been the end of the story. As the years went, on my dad began to wonder what had happened to �Sugar� and whether or not she had been broken up without thought. He had made several fruitless enquiries and was about to give up when he was informed that there was a Lancaster at the gate at RAF Scampton. However he was told that it had the wrong code letters on it to be �Sugar� which brings me back to the start of the story my journey to Lincolnshire - you see my dad had decided that it was worth a trip to see this mysterious Lancaster anyway.

On our arrival approaching Scampton�s gates from the south the Lancaster came into view and the disappointing code letters OL-Q could be seen. However, as we turned into the gate the familiar nose art with the bombs and the Georing quotation were apparent and on gaining entry my dad went straight to the tail number which identified the aircraft beyond doubt - it read R5868.

My dad could not believe his eyes! His Lancaster had survived everything, even the scrap yard, which when you consider it was just one of over 7000 Lancaster's built seemed unbelievable. We later discovered that 83 Sqn were at Waddington flying Vulcan's, and when they was realized that �Sugar� had started her career on 83 Sqn the old OL-Q code letters were reapplied hence the confusion over her identity. We went onboard and were met with a scene of decay and neglect, all of the internal components had been removed for PA474 (the only flying example at that time), and �Sugar� was in poor condition.

Permission was gained for my dad to carry out a restoration project on the aircraft and many trips were made to work on her and obtain missing parts. My dad had his heart set on �Sugar� going into the new RAF Museum at Reception following the 100th sortie A famous wartime publicity photograph: �100 Not Out�

�S� for �Sugar� suggestion to the MOD. After many months of wrangling he was contacted by Dr John Tanner, the new Museum�s top man, who informed him his wish would come true. Before �Sugar� was dismantled in 1970, the Station Commander asked if he could do anything for my dad to show his appreciation.

My dad requested an entire squadron of Vulcan's to fly low over �Sugar� for a photo opportunity. The Station Commander was not amused and dismissed the request pointing out the massive cost of such a task. After a few days had passed, my dad was contacted and told he could, however, have one Vulcan for the purpose. �Sugar� was then transported to Hendon via Bicester and Northolt and after many years of spending long weekends manufacturing parts, scratch rebuilding, fitting and collecting parts with my dad, it still brings a tear to my eye when I turn the corner and see �Sugar� proudly dominating the entrance to Bomber Command Hall in all her glory.

Her restoration was complete and she remains at Hendon for all to see and hopefully for all to remember the sacrifice made by all in that bombing campaign of many years ago.

Some of the more memorable moments for me over those years were from meeting famous people that are still to this day icons within the aviation community. I was lucky to come into contact with people such as �Bomber� Harris, Barnes Wallis, Bob Stanford Tuck, and Nicholas Alkomade (who jumped out of a burning Lancaster at 18000 ft without a parachute and survived).

During the numerous reunions to which I was invited I often met Sir Arthur �Bomber� Harris, MRAF. He took a shine to the young Willoughby and made me promise that I would one day join the RAF - hence you know who to blame! I can recall he also asked me to reply to a question by post - the question was �what's the difference between a man of Kent and a Kentish man?� The answer of course is that they live on opposite sides of the river Medway. I sent the letter and was sent by return of post an autographed war time photo of him.

He jokingly told my dad if I ever came up for adoption he would adopt me. Surprised I was! I saw him as a mild mannered old gentleman. Who held the total commitment and loyalty of the men and women under his command.

They affectionately referred to him as �Butch� during the dark days of the Second World War and to this day I have yet to meet a veteran who does not vigorously defend his actions in respect of the bombing offensive. A painting of me with Bomber Harris was commissioned and presented at the Grosvenor Hotel, Park Lane, London.

My dad also made the acquaintance and later worked with Sir Barnes Wallis. He built the Mk2 catapult with which Sir Barnes launched models of his hypersonic aircraft down his garden. On my many visits to his house Lady Mary Wallis would stuff me with chocolates in front of their open fire and regale me of stories of the war.

At the age of ten I can recall my first meeting with Sir Barnes and can remember saying to my dad that he seemed such a nice person that I felt sorry for him. I think his personality made him seem vulnerable in some way and, as depicted in the Dambuster film, I can imagine his torment over the loss of the crews that took part in the Dams raid. Following his death I was invited to the requiem mass that took place in St Paul's and remember sitting only a few seats away from his other biggest supporter, Prince Charles.

It never ceases to amaze me that people still seem as interested in this subject now as they were in the 1970�s, and the older I get the more I seem to get involved. I was recently asked to give an hour long talk on the history and restoration of �Sugar� by the Museum at RAF Welford (USAF).

I was given such a warm welcome and the interest was so great that they have invited me back. It�s nice to see what a good job they have done in preserving the memory of our heritage for future generations to see, and because of my dad�s efforts in respect of preservation this is of great importance to me. So now you know why I am so interested in that era and why I am always happy to be a part of an Honour Guard, and why I will always have time for the 624 Sqn veterans. Simply because I have been lucky enough to have had a unique insight into that period of history, as well as much personal contact with the aircraft, the aircrew and ground crews of the most famous Lancaster of them all - �S for Sugar�. SAC Martin WILLOUGHBY

I am hugely grateful to Martin for allowing me to publish his story on the website.

Graham Adlam Spitfire Spares owner