WW2 100 - 17 June 1940 - A Casualty of Operation Ariel: Aircraftman 1st Class James William Cooper (1920-40), Royal Air Force, 98 Squadron
Continued from 8 June 1940
Victim of a cover-up? Lieutenant Cyril Howlett (1913-40)
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/11/ww275-8-june-1940-victim-of-cover-up.html
It wasn't easy to find out more about J.W. Cooper, especially as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, where the deaths of so many victims of WW2 are recorded, made no mention of Budleigh. And the Devon Heritage website, oddly, lists him as ‘Not yet confirmed’. So, many thanks to Facebook’s Budleigh – Past and Present group member Jan Farrant for helping to identify him.
James William Cooper had strong local roots. He was born in Budleigh Salterton in 1920 to William James Cooper and May Cooper, and was the eldest of seven children. I’ve been told that the family were living in Boyne Road. So it is possible that his siblings are still alive and in this area, and might even be able to provide a photo of James.
James William’s father was born in Sidmouth in 1894, served in WW1 and became a gardener in Budleigh. Going back to further generations, research shows that this was very much an East Devon family: James William’s grandfather, James Cooper, was a general labourer born in 1867, with roots in the hamlets of Stoneyford and Hawkerland, near the village of Colaton Raleigh. James Cooper’s wife, Louisa, is described as an agricultural labourer and lacemaker, whose father, Thomas Cooper, was born in 1799 at Newton Poppleford.
Photo of 98 Squadron in September 1939, courtesy of www.rafjever.org
At the outbreak of war in
September 1939, James seems to have been a member of the RAF’s 98 Squadron and
at the time of his death on 17 June 1940 held the rank of Aircraftman 1st
Class. His service number was 633627. Perhaps he is somewhere in the above photo.
Badge of 98 Squadron
The Squadron has a distinguished
history, having been formed in August 1917 as part of the Royal Flying Corps
(RFC), the RAF’s predecessor. During WW1,
in April 1918, it moved to Northern France, immediately seeing action during
the Battle of the Lys, and then during the Second Battle of the Marne and the
Battle of Amiens. The Squadron claims to have barred the way (front and rear)
during the German retreat in 1918 and so considered Cerberus, as the watchdog
of Hades, a suitable badge.
Fairey Battles in formation over
France, circa 1940. Image credit: S.A. Devon (Royal Air Force official
photographer. Photograph C 447 from the collections of the Imperial War
Museums.
For the first nine months of WW2 it served as a reserve squadron, but in April 1940 it moved to France again, being based at Nantes, 50 kilometres from the Atlantic coast. However this time it flew no combat missions during the period. The Squadron had been re-equipped with the Fairey Battle, a single-engine light bomber that was designed and manufactured by the Fairey Aviation Company during the mid-1930s for the RAF.
Mechanics service the Rolls Royce Merlin engine of a Fairey Battle c. 1939–1940. Image credit: S.A. Devon (Royal Air Force official photographer. Photograph C 393 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums
The Battle was powered by the same
high-performance Rolls-Royce Merlin piston engine that powered various
contemporary British fighters like the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine
Spitfire, but it was much heavier, with its three-man crew and bomb load.
Though a great improvement over the aircraft that preceded it, the Battle was
relatively slow and limited in range.
A sergeant air gunner mans his .303 Vickers
K-type gas-operated machine gun from the rear cockpit of a Fairey Battle,
France, 1940. Image credit: S.A. Devon (Royal Air Force official photographer.
Photograph C 1653 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums (collection
no. 4700-11)
With only two .303 machine guns as defensive
armament, it was found to be highly vulnerable to enemy fighters and
anti-aircraft fire.
Wreckage of a Fairey Battle shot down by the German Wehrmacht, France, May 1940 Image credit: Josef Gierse
During May 1940, the Fairey Battles in use by
other squadrons suffered many losses, frequently in excess of 50 percent of
aircraft sorties per mission. By the end of 1940 the type would be withdrawn
from front-line service.
News of Hitler’s success with the German invasion of France and the Low Countries and the Allied retreat must have been bitter and frustrating for James Cooper and 98 Squadron, especially as no combat missions had been undertaken. On 26 May, Operation Dynamo was launched to evacuate British, French and Belgian troops, taking them to safety across the Channel. A total of 338,226 soldiers were saved, in what has become known as the ‘Miracle of Dunkirk’.
For James and 98 Squadron, hope of rescue was in the form of Operation Ariel, which took place between 15 and 25 June. It aimed to repeat the success of the ‘Miracle of Dunkirk’ by evacuating Allied forces from ports on the north-west coast of France. However, the Luftwaffe, with complete domination of the French skies, was determined to prevent more Allied evacuations after German forces had failed to prevent the Dunkirk evacuation. On 9 and 10 June, the ports of Cherbourg and Le Havre were subjected to repeated bombings which sank many tonnes of Allied shipping.
RAF personnel crowd the deck of a steam packet
during the evacuation of British forces from Brest during Operation Ariel. Image credit: S.A. Devon, Royal Air Force
official photographer. Photograph C 1742 from the collections of the Imperial
War Museums.
British and Allied ships were covered from French bases by five RAF fighter squadrons and assisted by aircraft based in England, to lift British, Polish and Czech troops, civilians and equipment from Atlantic ports, particularly from Nantes and St Nazaire.
A 1927 postcard of RMS Lancastria Image credit Wikipedia/Flickr and Odin Rosenvinge
At St Nazaire, 98 Squadron’s personnel of 14 officers and 230 other ranks were embarked on the Cunard liner RMS Lancastria, which had been requisitioned by the British government.
Operation Ariel was a long and slow process. Troops were ferried out to Lancastria and the other larger ships by destroyers, tugs, fishing boats and other small craft, a round trip of three or four hours, sometimes being machine-gunned by German aircraft. By the mid-afternoon of 17 June the ship had embarked an unknown number of troops and RAF personnel. Estimates range from 4,000 up to 9,000. There were also civilian refugees, including embassy staff and employees of Fairey Aviation of Belgium with their families. People were crowded into whatever spaces were available including the large cargo holds.
At 13:50, during an air-raid, the nearby Oronsay, a 20,000-ton Orient Liner, was hit on the bridge by a German bomb. Lancastria was free to depart and the captain of the British destroyer HMS Havelock advised her to do so. But without a destroyer escort as defence against possible submarine attack, the Lancastria’s Captain Sharp decided to wait for Oronsay before leaving.
The sinking of the Lancastria off Saint-Nazaire as seen from a rescue ship Photograph HU 3325 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums.
A fresh air raid began at 15:50 by Junkers Ju 88
bomber aircraft. Lancastria was hit by three or possibly four bombs. A
number of survivors reported that one bomb had gone down the ship's single
funnel which is most likely, given the speed with which the ship sank – about
15 to 20 minutes. As the ship began to list to starboard, orders were given for
the men on deck to move to the port side in an effort to counteract it, but
this caused a list to port which could not be corrected. The ship was equipped
with sixteen lifeboats and 2,500 life jackets, but many of the boats could not
be launched because they had been damaged in the bombing or because of the
angle of the hull. The first boat away was filled with women and children but
it capsized on landing in the water and a second had to be lowered for them. A
third boat had its bottom stove in by landing too fast. A large number of men
who jumped over the side were killed by hitting the side of the hull or had
their necks broken by their life jackets on impact with the water. As Lancastria
began to capsize, some of those who were still on board managed to scramble
onto the ship's underside. The ship sank
at 16:12, within twenty minutes of being hit, which gave little time for other
vessels to respond. Many of those in the water drowned because there were
insufficient life jackets, or died from hypothermia, or were choked by fuel oil.
According to Jonathan Fenby in his novel The Sinking of the Lancastria, the
German aircraft strafed survivors in the water.
There were 2,477 survivors, but James Cooper was not among them and was listed as missing, presumed killed. 98 Squadron lost 75 airmen and probably another fifteen, who were reported missing.
It is estimated that as many as 6,500 people perished, the largest loss of life in British maritime history and the largest loss of life from a single engagement for British forces in WW2. But it is a largely forgotten episode in British history, a fact that leaves survivors and relatives aggrieved. Following the sinking of the Lancastria, a media blackout was imposed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who feared what news of the disaster would do for British morale in the midst of its darkest hour.
The Lancastria Memorial Window at the church of
St Katharine Cree in London’s Leadenhall Street. The Window was unveiled on 16 June
1963 in a ceremony attended by Admiral
of the Fleet, Lord Fraser of North Cape Image credit: Francis Mullan/IWM
After the war, the Lancastria Survivors
Association was founded by Major Peter Petit, and reformed in 1981 as The HMT
Lancastria Association. It continues the tradition of a parade and remembrance
service at the Church of St Katharine Cree in the City of London, where there
is a memorial stained glass window. The
Lancastria Association of Scotland was formed in 2005 and holds its annual
service at St George's West Church in Edinburgh. It organises the largest
memorial service for the victims in the UK. The service, which is attended by
survivors and relatives of both victims and survivors together with
representatives of the French and Scottish Governments and a number of veterans
organisations and is held on the Saturday closest to the anniversary of 17 June
each year at St. George's West Church, Edinburgh.
In June 2008, the first batch of commemorative medals were presented to survivors and relatives of victims and survivors; the HMT Lancastria Commemorative Medal, which represented ‘official Scottish Government recognition’ of the Lancastria disaster. In June 2010 to mark the 70th anniversary of the sinking, special ceremonies and services of remembrance were held in Edinburgh and St. Nazaire.
In October 2011, the Lancastria Association of Scotland erected a memorial to the victims on the site where the ship was built, the former Dalmuir shipyard at Clydebank, Glasgow, now the grounds of the Golden Jubilee Hospital.
In September 2013, this plaque was unveiled at
Liverpool's Pier Head by Lord Mayor Gary Millar commemorating the loss of the
ship Image credit: Wikipedia
The site of Lancastria's wreck lies in French territorial waters and is therefore ineligible for protection under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986; however, at the request of the British Government, in 2006 the French authorities gave the site legal protection as a war grave.
James’s name, on Panel 25, is among those of other RAF war dead on the Runnymede Air Forces Memorial near Englefield Green, Surrey.
The next post is for PILOT OFFICER DAVID SPENCER COX (1921-40) RAF, 149 Squadron, killed in action on 19 September 1940 over the English Channel off the Normandy coast.
You can read about him at
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/11/ww2-75-19-september-1940-to-war-in.html
Memorial, but have not been identified. Their first names,
date of death and service numbers are not known.
They are recorded on the Devon Heritage website as
'Not yet confirmed’
If you know anything which would help to identify them,
please contact Michael Downes on 01395 446407.
F.E. Newcombe
P. Pritchard
F.J. Watts
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