Pathfinder Cranswick: 50th Anniversary Edition

282 Pages·2012·6.74 MB·English

by  Michael Cumming

By the Same Author
The Powerless Ones: Gliding in Peace and War
The Starkey Sacrifice: The Allied Bombing of Le Portel, 1943
Beam Bombers: The Secret War of No. 109 Squadron
Radar Reflections: The Secret Life of Air Force Radar Mechanics
in World War Two
Pathfinder Cranswick was first published in 1962
by William Kimber and Co. Ltd.
Condensed as a Fleetway Colourback in 1963
by arrangement with the publishers of the original edition.
Paperback edition first published in 2006
by Exposure Publishing, an imprint of Meadow Books
of Burgess Hill, West Sussex, with a revised second edition
in March 2008.
Published in 2012 by Fighting High Ltd,
23 Hitchin Road, Stotfold, Hitchin, Herts, 5 4
SG HP
www.fightinghigh.com
Copyright design and layout © Fighting High Ltd, 2012
Copyright text © Michael Cumming 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publisher and copyright holder.
The rights of Michael Cumming to be identified as the
author of this book are asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Patents and Designs Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data.
A CIP record for this title is available from the
British Library.
ISBN – 13: 9780956269676
EPUB ISBN: 9780957116399
Designed and typeset in Monotype Baskerville
11/14pt by Michael Lindley www.truthstudio.co.uk
Printed and bound by Toppan Printing Co. (UK) Ltd.
Front cover design by Michael Lindley
Dedicated to
Alexander Parr Cranswick
So that he may
know his father better
Contents
Foreword to the Original Book
Preface
Prologue
1. Mission at Midnight
2. Groomed for Gallantry
3. School for Heroes
4. Enthusiast with Wings
5. Bombers over the Desert
6. Posted to Path Finder Force
7. Trail-blazing to Glory
8. Captain Courageous
9. Bull’s Eyes out of the Sky
10. Pathway to Romance
11. The Last Command
Postscript
Appendix:
1. Alec Cranswick: The Name Lives On
2. A Dummy Airfield and a Near-fatal Crash
3. Remembering Fallen Comrades: No. 35 Squadron and Path Finder Force
4. End of a Life – End of a Riddle
5. Assessment
Notes
Index
Foreword to the Original Book
Air Vice-Marshal D. C. T. Bennett CB, CBE, DSO (RETD)
To look back at a boy-man so simply courageous and so selfless in his sacrifice
as was Squadron Leader Cranswick is an inspiration which, in this bitter stupid
world of early 1962, is both rare and elevating. He fought for the country and the
people he loved and for their principles of freedom and justice.
He was not a flamboyant roistering character but simply a quiet honest
Englishman. He hated war, but more he hated the tyranny and injustice which
was Germany itself and he fought them with his all. He was not one of the lucky
fearless ones – his courage was far greater, for he overcame real fear, as many
did – and his sacrifice was therefore a thousand deaths before death itself.
Freedom and justice are not vague or empty ideals. They are real and
practical – but we have lost a great deal of freedom, and justice is impoverished
and fitful. Have the Cranswicks who saved us in war, lost in fact in peace? We
who live on have a duty to see that the petty tyrants who have arisen in our
community are denounced and removed.
Alec Cranswick paid the supreme sacrifice for us; to honour him, we can do
nothing less than to work to make the country he loved a truly great and noble
one.
Don Bennett (1962)
Preface
It was back in the late 1950s when I first came across the name of Alec
Cranswick and, urged on by curiosity – being a journalist on a London evening
newspaper at the time – I launched into absorbing research that produced two
entirely unexpected results. One was that I became so engrossed in Cranswick’s
story that I was able to turn it first into a feature series for my paper, The Star,
then into a hardback book; the other was that it fostered an increasing interest in
wartime aviation to such an extent that four more titles have followed Pathfinder
Cranswick onto the specialist bookshelves.
Why was it that the initial awareness of Alec Cranswick’s name set me off
on such a route? In truth, it really was curiosity (though I prefer to call it a finely
tuned ‘news sense’!) that prompted me to contact Air Vice-Marshal Don
Bennett, the founder of RAF Bomber Command’s Path Finder Force, and to ask
him why it was to Squadron Leader A. P. Cranswick, DSO, DFC, that he had
dedicated his own book, Pathfinder, which I had just been reviewing for my
paper. It turned out that Cranswick was a pilot – a member of PFF from its early
days – whose career distinction was that, as a bomber pilot, he apparently flew
the largest number of operations. The use of ‘apparently’ is mine, despite
Bennett’s own enquiries having reached that landmark conclusion and my own
subsequent research echoing it. Many years on, with no one having ever
challenged this contention with me (or even, to my knowledge, queried it), I am
confident we can regard the publication of this 50th Anniversary Edition of
Pathfinder Cranswick as the defining moment when we can confirm that –
certainly among ops crews flying the Blenheim, Hampden, Whitley, Wellington
and Manchester twin-engined bombers and later the four-engined Stirlings,
Halifaxes and Lancasters – Cranswick’s record is no longer ‘apparent’: it has
stood the test of time; it is beyond dispute.