Shooting Down Enemy Aircraft Catapult Ship signed M A Birrell Battle of Britain & Capt G C Baldwin,WW11 Pilots
3 Aug 81 BFPS
1751 40th Anniv. of the 1st Shooting Down of an Enemy Aircraft from Catapult
Ship Maplin by Hurricane Fighter Cdr M A .Birrell.
Personally signed
by Cdr M A .Birrell 79 Sqn,Battle of Britain Pilot, Later 1st
pilot shot from Catapult Ship 1941 shooting down Enemy Aircraft. ..
In response to
Churchill’s request to the Admiralty for pilots Birrell was one of those loaned
to the RAF in Mid – June 1940. After conversion to Hurricanes he joined 79 Sqn
at Biggin Hill. When the Squadron was rested he was posted to 804 ( FAA )
Squadron at Hatston. After a short spell with 802 Squadron he returned to 804
Sqn when it become a Catapult Fighter unit.
Birrell was the
first pilot to be catapulted from a CAM ship. He sailed in the Michael E on 28th
1941 bound for New York. Five days out from Belfast they were torpedoed
by a U Boat and Birrell was among the survivors picked up after 20 hours in the
boats. His next ship was the Ariganuam. On 26th August he was shot off in a
Fulmar to deal with a FW Condor. He fired one burst before it vanished into
cloud. Later the Ariganuam was sunk by U Boat.
also Signed by Capt
G C Baldwin, CBE DSC RN Hurricane pilot Fleet Air Arm
His wings in January 1940 and,after deck landings practice in the carrier Argus off Hyeres in southern France, joined 801 Naval Air Squadron.
Captain George Baldwin, who has died aged 84, was a wartime hero and post-war
pioneer of naval aviation. Aged 21, in July 1942, Baldwin become senior pilot of
807, the first naval air squadron to be equipped with the unproven Seafire.
In October 1943 he took over the squadron, and when it was incorporated with
three other squadrons the next year he took commandof the 4th Naval Fighter
Wing.
The Seafire was a delicate aircraft,
which suffered more through accidents than from enemy action - its
undercarriage was prone to collapse,or it would pitch forward and bend its
propeller. In Baldwin's hands, however, it became a first-class fighter and
Army support aircraft.
Flying from the fleet carrier Furious
during the Allied landings in North Africa, Baldwin was involved in a vicious
dogfight
with two Vichy French Dewoitine 520 fighters, and made the first air-to-air
kill by a Seafire. 807 squadron Seafires shot down
two more Dw 520s and destroyed 20 aircraft on the ground.
In September 1943 Baldwin embarked in the
small escort carrier Battler as part of Force V under the under the command of
Admiral Philip Vian.
Force V was meant to cover the landings at Salerno on September 9 for a few
days until major airfields were captured inland; but the Germans resisted
strongly, and when the American General Mark Clark signalled that "air
conditions were critical".
Vian replied: "My carriers will stay here if we have to row back."
To make his aircraft fly faster, Baldwin
waxed the wings with furniture polish, removed the exhaust manifolds, and had
shipwrights saw nine inches off the propeller blades. By September 12 he
was operating from an improvised airstrip cut into a tomato field at Paestum, it
was within range of the enemy's guns, and he had to use flints to open the
cowling for maintenance. Eventually, only 30 out of the 180
Seafires in Force V were serviceable, but on September 16 the Germans began to
withdraw. In October Baldwin took command of 807 Squadron and sent his
less experienced pilots to practise dive-bombing against the retreating
Germans.
In August 1944 his wing took part in
Operation Dragoon, the landings in southern France between St Raphael and
Frejus.Baldwin continued in command when 807 merged into the 4th Fighter Wing
during Operations Outing, Cablegram and Contempt against German forces in the
Greek islands, and he was awarded a bar to the DSC he had won in 1941.His wing
was rested in Egypt before re-embarking in the carriers Hunter and Stalker to
join the East Indies Fleet.He witnessed the Japanese surrender of Singapore,
and by November 1945 he had reluctantly disbanded one of the Navy's finest and
most experienced flying formations.
During the Norway Campaign, Baldwin's
squadron embarked in the carrier Ark Royal, and he flew the Skua dive-bomber
against the invading German forces. Baldwin continued operations against the
Germans from Sumburgh and then, during the Blitzkrieg against the Low Countries
and France, from RAF Detling. He was promoted to acting sub-lieutenant in
July 1940 and awarded his first DSC the following year.In late 1945, after five
years' continuous flying operations, Baldwin accepted a permanent commission in
the Navy,retaining his rank of acting lieutenant commander. In 1946-47 he
qualified as an Empire Test Pilot before being appointed
to the Carrier Trials Unit in 1948, and, a year later, to the Central Flying
School. In 1952 he commanded 800 Squadron,where he introduced the Navy's
first operational jet fighter, the Supermarine Attacker, embarking in the
carrier Eagle.
In the same year he undertook the first trials of the British-designed
angled-flight deck onboard the USN carrier Antietam,and on June 19 1958, flying
a USN Crusader, became one of the first British pilots to exceed 1,000 mph in
level flight.
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