Category: Britain

WW2 aviation history book – “A Tale of Ten Spitfires” (Pen & Sword, 2019) – Andrew Critchell – WarScholar written interview 6

Check out the book here.

https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/A-Tale-of-Ten-Spitfires-Hardback/p/15274

Spitfire! The name simply conjures up the thrill and adventure of World War II aerial combat. The planes and their crews certainly handled their fair share of the fighting workload for Great Britain and they have been the subject of the imaginations of many warbird aficianados. To this day they are flown for admiring fans.

However, as with any military platforms, it’s even more interesting to get into the nooks and crannies of this aircraft. It had it’s strengths and its weaknesses and it’s these details that can give readers an even greater understanding of how WWII was fought. These planes had personalities, nicknames, and histories just as as their crews did.

Andrew Critchell has photographed warbirds for quite some time and he’s also written this book about Spitfire and some of its operations during WWII. I interviewed Andrew about the book and learned some of the fascinating things about the plane and WWII air operations which you can also learn about in A Tale of Ten Spitfires.

How did you become interested in studying and writing on the subject of your book?

My father and uncles have been into aviation for as long as I can remember and I always had magazines or books on aviation around. My dad was also a keen photographer and airshow goer and so I was exposed to this as well. For some reason it was the piston powered warbirds and the Second World War that really captivated me and I found the living history aspect of this thoroughly absorbing. I remember walking down to school assemblies in Secondary School pretending that my mates and I were B-17 Fortress crews on their way to a briefing for another hellish mission over the Third Reich.

I was also hell-bent on taking better and better airshow photographs and being published. I had my first image used in a Flypast Magazine Battle of Britain Special in 2000 and spent around 10 years doing airshow reports and articles for them. This then dried up, coinciding with the arrival of my kids, so things quieted down. However, I’d had this idea to do an article on Spitfire Vc AR501 which was owned and flown by the Shuttleworth Collection at Biggleswade in Bedfordshire in the UK. I thought about looking at this aircraft’s history plus the next nine Spitfires on the production line, serials AR502 to AR510. I tried to get it published as an article but didn’t have enough historical images for the word count. Over time the thought grew that if a magazine editor was not going to publish it then why not go for the big one and write it as a book.

What aspect of this subject does your book focus on?

A Tale of Ten Spitfires is focused primarily on the combat histories of the aircraft during their time with operational squadrons which lasted from 1942 to 1944. This time coincided with the introduction into service of the Luftwaffe’s new fighter, the Focke Wulf Fw190.

What are the major themes of this book?

The principal theme is an examination of the legend of the Fw190’s supremacy over the Spitfire V which only ended with the widespread introduction into service of the Spitfire IX in 1943. With my Spitfires serving throughout this period it was an opportunity to see how the Fw190 actually impacted the RAF fighter squadrons on a daily basis. Were they being hacked from the skies whenever they met the Luftwaffe’s ‘Butcher Bird,’ or was the reality much more complex.

What resource materials did you use for your research?

I started the project by looking at the Form 78 Aircraft Movement Cards. These gave an outline of which units each Spitfire was assigned to and when, alongside details of any accidents. These also included details of the engine type and when each airframe was struck off charge, either as a result of being scrapped, lost on operations or through an accident. From here I then went to the Form 540 and Form 541 Squadron Operational Record Books. These unit diaries give a detailed breakdown of which operations the squadrons flew on and which aircraft and pilots were involved plus details of victories and losses. On the whole, these were extremely helpful, although the quality of information provided did vary from unit to unit, with a couple of diarists not recording the aircraft serials. This means that my Spitfires could have been involved with more air combats than I was able to confirm.

From there it was a question of picking significant combat operations and tracking down further information. Combat reports were extremely helpful in several instances. My own reference library was my second major source with books being borrowed from a local library if needed. Finally the internet helped a great deal in following up leads.

What were the more prominent and most interesting documentary archives you came across in the research?

The bread and butter of the research were each Squadron’s Operational Record Books. However, it was the combat reports that brought a lot of the operations to life and enabled events to be pieced together in much more detail.

Did you come across any physical objects associated with these specific planes or associated with any of the book’s events?

The most physical object is of course AR501, the Spitfire that inspired the whole book. This aircraft, owned and flown by The Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden in the UK, was a regular at Shuttleworth airshows until 2005 when the aircraft was grounded so that its engine could be examined as it had been showing a drop in oil pressure. The Collection’s engineers then decided to give AR501 an overhaul, which then turned into a major restoration that was completed in early 2018. The Spitfire took to the air for its first post-restoration flight on 20 March just a few months before the book was finished. I first saw AR501 after her restoration on May 6 at Shuttleworth’s first airshow of the 2018 season, although unfortunately for me, it would be October before I saw AR501 flying again. That was a great sight to see and was also the day I first met Ian Lamaran who was the main man responsible for AR501’s restoration.

Did you develop a strong understanding of the engineering of the Spitfire, its engine and/or its weaponry?

Certainly I know a lot more about the various variants of the Spitfire MkV than I did before! It was also interesting to find out about the later conversion of many Spitfire Vs to LFV status which meant the aircraft were optimised for the best performance at low-level. This led to the nickname ‘clipped, cropped and clapped,’ referring to the clipped wings and cropped supercharger impeller. The clapped reference harder to explain, possibly due to the age of the Spitfires, which would already have been on operations before conversion, or the fact that performance fell off considerably above 12,000 feet. Ironically, I have a much better appreciation of the engineering of the Spitfire since I met Ian!

Is there anything about the physical structure of the Spitfire that you like and alternatively, that you thought wasn’t engineered very well?

I don’t have the engineering background to fully answer this but the Spitfire certainly just looked right from the beginning with its curving lines and elliptical wing.  Even with the addition of the 2,000hp Rolls Royce Griffon on the later marks it still looked good, just a lot more aggressive! I have also recently had the privilege of seeing some Spitfires being restored and, at every level, they are basically works of art from the fuselage frames to the wing spars to the engines. Of course, with any technology, especially one being pushed into service under the imminent threat of war, there were limitations. Certainly the undercarriage was always a problem for the Seafire variants, while things like having a liquid cooled engine made you a lot more vulnerable to battle damage. The Spitfires’ metal skinned fuselage was also less tolerant of damage compared to the fabric covered frame structure of the Hurricane.

Did you get the chance to visit any of the places associated with the events you write about in the book?

I know Belgium quite well as my wife is from Bruges so reading about missions, for example, to the coke ovens at Ghent, or when AR509 went on the rampage across Belgium and France crossing the coast at Oost Duinkerke to strafe barges and trains before being shot down by a flak train near Bethune, made it all the more real.

What part of the research process was most enjoyable for you?

The most exciting aspect was finding out that one of my Spitfires had been involved in an aerial combat and shot down or damaged an enemy aircraft. For example, I discovered that AR505 was flown by Canadian Ace John Davidson ‘Mitch’ Mitchner with several of his victories scored in that aircraft. I was able to find the combat reports for these and describe them in the book alongside extracts from letters home that Mitch had written during his training.

What did you discover in your research that most surprised you?

I think the most surprising aspect of my research was seeing how many aircraft and pilots were lost to non-operational causes, engine failures being a particular problem. Out of the ten Spitfires in my sample, only four survived their operational use. Four were lost to accidents or mechanical failures and only two to actual enemy action, one being shot down by an Fw190 and one by flak.

Was there anything you discovered that moved you?

All of the stories I discovered were moving, heroic, and often tragic. For example, one of my early focuses was on AR502 which was shot down by an Fw190 making a single pass as the Spitfires headed back across the Channel after an uneventful escort mission. The Spitfire is powered by a liquid-cooled Rolls Royce Merlin engine. Unlike an air-cooled radial, such as found in the P-47 Thunderbolt, any hit to the coolant system on a liquid-cooled power-plant is usually terminal with the pilot only having minutes until the engine overheats and fails. AR502’s pilot at the time was Czech-born Flying Officer Jan Doucha and, although he was not injured in the attack, his engine was. Doucha was still 25 miles from the nearest land when he was forced to bale out into the chilling waters of the Channel (the time being November). Doucha never made it into his dingy and, despite his Mae West lifejacket inflating, he perished in the water, his body being washed ashore a month later. He was just 28 years old at the time of his death. Another poignant piece of my research was discovering that at least twelve of the pilots who had flown in my Spitfires at some point in their service were then killed in accidents or combat later in the war.

What was the most difficult issue to research?

The only real inconsistency I found surrounded the missions recorded by the Czech Spitfire Squadron diaries for November 7, 1942. Two operations were recorded that day escorting US 8th Air Force bombers to Brest (Doucha being shot down in the first.) According to most sources only one bombing mission was flown with a time over target of 12.30 to 12.39. However, the Czech Spitfires record a second mission to the same target later in the afternoon escorting a force of B-24s. This links with a narrative account from the 93rd Bomb Group which describes the bombers returning to Exeter as it would have been too dark to land by the time they reached their home base of Alconbury. One B-24 was also claimed by a Luftwaffe pilot from 8/JG2 at 5.02pm again tying in with a later mission. Even with valuable help from the US Air Force Historical Support Division I was unable to resolve this.

What do you hope the book will do for readers?

I hope the book will put readers into the cockpit of a Spitfire Vc and show them what it was like to fly and fight during a crucial part of the air war over northern Europe. I also hope it will show the human side, for I have tried to tell a story rather than just run through the facts and figures. It was humbling and eye-opening for me to find out about the day to day realities these men faced and I hope it will be so for readers.

Did you have any difficulties in finishing the book and publishing it and if so, how did you overcome those?

The main difficulty was in finishing the text to a standard I was happy with. I knew that I had to be one hundred percent sure of each fact and assertion that I made. In terms of getting the book published I was fairly lucky in that Pen & Sword were interested in the concept from the very beginning and so getting the contract was fairly straightforward. At that point I was about two-thirds of the way through and, to be honest, I think that was when the hard work really started!

What is your next writing project?  Are there other planes you might not have been as enthusiastic about but which this research did you make you enthusiastic about?

Unfortunately I’m a bit of a writing magpie with lots of ideas and projects on the go at once. I would love to do something similar for the Hawker Typhoon for example, but it really depends on how well ‘A Tale of Ten Spitfires’ is received. I have also been photographing warbirds for a very long time and would love to do a book project combining that with my writing. On top of this, I also have several articles on the go. It’s finding the time to get them done that is my biggest challenge!

Do you have any online accounts where people can find more of your work?

Readers can keep up to date with my latest projects, aviation pictures and musings via facebook.com/warbirdphotos and www.aviationphoto.co.uk

Author Biography

Andrew Critchell

Aviation author, historian and photographer.

His main interest is in the air battles of the Second World War.

Author of A Tale of Ten Spitfires.

Check out the book here.

https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/A-Tale-of-Ten-Spitfires-Hardback/p/15274

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Cold War military history book – “Divided Allies” (Cornell University Press, 2019) – Thomas Robb interview

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Dr. Thomas Robb is a historian who studies and teaches British and US military history. We spoke about his latest co-authored book on how the ANZUS and SEATO treaties were developed. Check out the book here.

0:44 – Thomas Robb talks about how he got into writing on Cold War Asia-Pacific military relations.

4:03 – Thomas talks about how he begins the book with WWII and moves into the Cold War chronologically.

6:38 – Thomas talks about Australia’s strong concern about tPacific regional security.

8:25 – Thomas discusses France’s decline and Japan’s importance.

8:48 – Thomas talks about West’s concern with Japan’s resurgence economically.

10:04 – Thomas discusses China’s role in the region.

11:50 – Thomas talks about the Soviet role in the Pacific region.

14:12 – Thomas mentions Soviet pilots in the Korean War.

14:52 – Thomas talks about economic versus national needs of the four nations involved.

16:26 – Thomas mentions complaints about ANZUS.

18:38 – Thomas talks about the approach to nuclear weapons.

21:21 – Thomas discusses the US need for the treaty.

22:03 – Thomas talks about the relative military strengths of the four nations negotiating the treaties.

22:27 – Thomas says NZ and Australia were diplomatically punching above their weight.

22:45 – The Philippines not included in ANZUS.

24:57 – Thomas talks about how each nation could militarily contribute to the alliance.

26:01 – A cordon defense would go nuclear.

27:59 – Thomas talks about western concerns that Japan would become communist.

29:05 – Japanese reparations are discussed.

29:45 – Japanese strategic value was shown.

30:59 – Thomas talks about the payment of German reparations after WWI and compares that to the idea of having Japan pay reparations.

32:55 – Thomas talks about British strategic goals and aliances.

34:00 – The US prodded Britain to drop japan as an ally.

34:57 – Thomas talks about Churchill’s sentimentality.

35:54 – Thomas talks about how domestic politics impacted these treaty negotiations.

37:12 – The public used an excuse to not legitimize some treaty negotiations.

38:50 – The Eisenhower library just released a bunch of previously classified documents.

39:42 – Thomas talks about the archives he used for his research including various Presidential libraries.

42:23 – Thomas talks about going to the Truman library.

43:52 – The UK was angry that Australia and New Zealand went off without them and joined the US.

47:54 – Thomas talks about the interplay of racial ideas influenced policy.

50:44 – Thomas talks about how some of the American negotiators had very intense military ideas.

51:25 – Some of the Americans seemed bonkers to the Australians in their goals.

53:47 – The British met with press barons to impugn the character of a foreign minister over ANZUS negotiations.

1:00:19 – Thomas talks about a new project to study the political economy of the US Civil War.

Links of interest

Check out the book here.

https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501741845/divided-allies/#bookTabs=3

https://twitter.com/obucoldwarrior

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me at www.warscholar.org, on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar. Or subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify

Guests: Thomas Robb

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, asia-pacific, australia, new zealand, cold war, wwii, world war two, great britain, united states, united kingdom, japan, france, communism, china, NATO, korean war, ANZUS, nuclear weapons, macarthur, truman, philippines, okinawa, malay, SEATO, dean acheson, Russian Empire, Churchill, france, Dulles, US Civil War

20th C Naval Warfare history book – “The Dawn of Carrier Strike” (Seaforth Publishing, 2019) – David Hobbs- WarScholar written interview 5

Check out the book here.

https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Dawn-of-Carrier-Strike-Hardback/p/15667

When it comes to modern naval warfare, aircraft carriers have a huge hold on popular imagination. Giant behemoths sailing across vast expanses and sending off squadrons of deadly aircraft taking the fight to the enemy. But how often do people think about what it took to develop such formidable fighting machines?

The United States Navy was very successful in utilizing aircraft carriers in World War II and so might it be said were the Japanese except for the fact that they had to fight the Americans. Unfortunately, the work of the British Royal Navy in developing the aircraft carrier before WWII is not often considered. Their efforts are not as widely discussed.

David Hobbs is making the effort to remind us all of British aircraft carrier development and operations with his new book on the subject. I spoke with him about his book The Dawn of Carrier Strike and their struggle to ensure victory in the next great war that was expected to follow WWI.

How did you become interested in studying and writing on the subject of your book?

I have always been fascinated by the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm and have written extensively about its history. This book fills the gap between my earlier books on The British Pacific Fleet (Seaforth, 2011 and further editions) and The Royal Navy’s Air Service (Seaforth, 2017). Other titles in the series include The British Carrier Strike Fleet after 1945 (Seaforth, 2015), British Aircraft Carriers (Seaforth, 2013) and A Century of Carrier Aviation (Seaforth, 2009). I am working on the next book in the series which will cover the attack on the Italian Fleet at Taranto in 1940 by RN Swordfish torpedo-bombers and naval air warfare in the Mediterranean from 1940 to 1944.

What are the major themes of this book?

I describe the continuing development of naval aviation between 1918 and 1940, culminating in the first carrier strike operations ever carried out by any navy and use, as an example, the naval career of Lieutenant William Paulet (Bill) Lucy DSO RN. He was the first British fighter ‘ace’ of the Second World War and led the first air attack to sink a major enemy warship, the German cruiser Konigsberg.

After WWI, how much emphasis did the British government put on supporting the advancement of carrier operations and technology? Was there any post WWI war weariness that affected the Royal Navy’s development of new tactics and techniques?

WW1 war weariness had no discernible effect on RN tactics and techniques as they evolved from 1919 onwards. The Admiralty had invested heavily in aircraft prior to the Armistice as a means of taking the fight to the enemy in his harbours, locating enemy ships at sea and countering the U-boat threat. After the war the Admiralty wanted to go on developing aircraft as a means of maintaining its edge over any navy that might pose a potential threat to the British Empire. The problem was the existence of the newly independent air force which was seen by the Government as the focal point on all air matters but which had no interest in naval warfare and opposed every Admiralty attempt to increase the number of aircraft that could be embarked in His Majesty’s ships as well as the uses to which they could be put. The problem was not resolved until 1937 when the Minister for Defence Co-ordination returned full control of aircraft embarked in ships and their support facilities ashore to the Admiralty.

How much tension and how much cooperation was there between the RAF and the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm in developing flight technology and operations? I imagine resources were limited in the period between 1918 and 1940 and the two services might have been very competitive in the political arena.

The period of dual control which afflicted the Fleet Air Arm between 1918 and 1937 severely limited the development of aviation for naval purposes. The US and Japanese navies suffered no similar restriction and although they were far behind Britain in capability in 1919, both drew well ahead by 1939. The RAF concentration on strategic bombing was a disastrous policy that led to near defeat in 1940 when British forces were opposed in Norway, Belgium and France by German air units trained to give tactical support to their army and RAF bombers made no effective contribution to the war. It was not so much that the two services were competing for resources, more that the Government accepted every theory put forward by the RAF without realising that it needed to be tested. More could have been achieved with less had it not been for theoretical RAF dogma. Note the absurdity of RN pilots having to have RAF ranks, which were often not the same as their RN rank, whereas observers, who were not recognised as aircrew by the RAF did not.

Who were the major leaders in the Royal Navy as far as pushing the advancement of carrier operations forward?

All of them to a certain extent. If I had to single out any by name who were exceptional they would be:
Admiral Chatfield, the First Sea Lord who won back full control of the Fleet Air Arm for the RN in 1937.
Admiral J D Cunningham, Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff who helped Chatfield in his fight to regain full control of the Fleet Air Arm. Later became First Sea Lord himself.
Admiral Bell Davies VC, a veteran of the RNAS and the first pilot in the world to land on and take off from an aircraft carrier, he served in the Admiralty between the wars and was Rear Admiral Naval Air Stations when the Admiralty resumed full control from 1937.
Admiral Henderson, Rear Admiral Aircraft Carriers and the Third Sea Lord/Controller, who re-organised the Fleet Air Arm into the system of squadrons still in use today and was later responsible for the armoured carriers of the Illustrious class – the world’s biggest aircraft carrier construction programme in 1939.
Admiral Lyster, Rear Admiral Aircraft Carriers Mediterranean, the visionary behind the strike on the Italian Fleet at its harbour in Taranto.
Captain Boyd, another visionary who believed in naval aviation and commanded HMS Illustrious during the Taranto attack.
Admiral de Robeck, C-in-C Mediterranean in the early 1920s who first pointed out the failure of the RAF to provide the aircraft the navy needed to do its job.

The whole RN believed implicitly in the use of aircraft in sea warfare and agreed that it was let down by the RAF and successive Governments that failed either to recognise the problem or do anything to remedy it.

Are you able to touch on the major engineering changes that occurred in both the aircraft and with the carriers (landing area configurations, landing gear, locations of the island, elevators, etc.) during this period and how effective these changes were?

Changes in aircraft technology included brakes which allowed aircraft to run up to full power before starting a take-off roll, thus shortening it, and to taxi out of a densely-packed range aft, effectively increasing the number of aircraft that could be launched at any one time. Night/blind flying instrumentation that allowed aircraft to operate at night or in bad weather. Aircraft engines in the 1,000 horse power class not only enabled higher speeds but greatly increased the load-carrying capacity of naval aircraft. Aircraft of all-metal, monoplane construction proved to be faster and more robust than their biplane predecessors.

Aircraft armament improved dramatically in this period although here, too, the pedestrian policies followed by the RAF were of little value. Airborne torpedoes with explosive warheads designed specifically for them proved to be the best ship-killing weapons of the war. Armour-piercing bombs dropped by dive bombers (which the RAF said would never work) also proved effective. 20mm cannon replaced rifle-calibre machine guns in the air-to-air role and proved far more effective. Early depth charges specified by the RAF proved to be of little value and were replaced by Admiralty-designed weapons that proved far more effective in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Aircraft carrier developments included the safety barrier that protected aircraft that had just landed from those landing after them and allowed much quicker landing times by larger numbers of aircraft. The deck landing control officer or ‘batsman’ produced more accurate landings and helped to speed up landings by large numbers of aircraft. The starboard-side island proved a great success as did special flight deck lighting which allowed aircraft to take-off and land safely in the dark. Development of catapults for use in battleships and cruisers as well as aircraft carriers was carried forward successfully between the wars and the Admiralty invested heavily in the former to use aircraft for reconnaissance as well as correcting the gunfire of battleships and cruisers in surface actions. The 6 armoured carriers of the Illustrious class were a great technological achievement. Armoured flight decks saved at least two ships from probable destruction when hit by enemy dive-bombers in the Mediterranean and kamikazes in the Pacific and minimized damage to others.

Who were the major enemies that the Royal Navy was most worried about and how did that affect how they approached carrier operations? How did these worries change during the inter-war period?

Until Nazi Germany started to re-arm after 1933, Japan was seen as the most likely enemy since it coveted the oil and mineral wealth controlled by Great Britain and the Netherlands in the Far East. From 1935, Germany became the most likely enemy although Italy was seen as a major threat after the Abyssinian Crisis in 1935. The possibility of war with all three had to be accepted as a real possibility when British re-armament began in 1936. RAF bombers proved to be of no help to the RN in operations against Italy or Japan and of only marginal maritime use against Germany.

What resource materials did you use for your research?

I have an extensive library and archive of books, documents and images built up over many decades of research. The Lucy family made a number of invaluable documents and photographs available for which I was most grateful. The list of primary and secondary source material fills 5 pages in the book’s Bibliography, much of it researched from the collections in the National Archive at Kew, the Ministry of Defence Archive formerly at Hayes, the Naval Historical Branch at Portsmouth and the Fleet Air Arm Museum.

What part of the research process was most enjoyable for you?

I find all reading and research into the subject enjoyable.

Was there anything that you discovered that moved you?

Having access to the Lucy family archive meant a great deal. The letters written to Bill Lucy’s father after he was killed in action over Norway in May 1940 moved me. They ranged from His Majesty King George VI, through Admirals and Captains to the men of 803 Naval Air Squadron that he led so successfully in action from RNAS Hatston and the aircraft carriers Glorious and Ark Royal.

What do you hope the book will do for readers?

I hope it will inform the public how much was achieved by the Royal Navy’s air arm. Many people think that the leader in carrier aviation was the US Navy. However, much of the development was carried out by the Royal Navy and later adopted by the USN. There is also a mistaken view that the RAF carried out every air combat but I show that it was the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm that had to fight in the sky over Norway in the Spring of 1940. In the final chapters I explain that the German Luftwaffe deployed about 800 combat aircraft to this campaign. They were opposed by a handful of gallant RN carrier-borne aircrew with about 30 Blackburn Skua fighters which were actually slower in level flight than every enemy aircraft but for several weeks it was the Skuas that had the best of every airborne fight. Not only did they deter enemy bombers from attacking ships and the Allied troops ashore, the same aircraft and aircrew attacked enemy airfields, ships and forces on the ground with bombs. Their story deserves to be widely understood and remembered. More than half of them were killed in action, including Bill Lucy and his observer Lieutenant Michael Hanson DSC RN.

What is your next writing project?

My next writing project follows logically on from ‘The Dawn of Carrier Strike’ and describes the attack by Swordfish aircraft from HMS Illustrious on the Italian Fleet at Taranto in November 1940 and naval air warfare in the Mediterranean between 1940 and 1945. The manuscript is to be with Seaforth publishing in late 2020 for publication early in 2021.

Author Biography
Name Commander David Hobbs MBE RN (Retired)
Position Independent naval historian
Biography Mr. Hobbs served in the Royal Navy from 1964 to 1997 and retired with the rank of Commander. During that time he qualified as both a fixed and rotary-wing pilot and his log book contains 2,300 flying hours and over 800 deck landings. During one appointment in the Ministry of Defence he developed carrier operating techniques for the Invincible class light carriers including the operation of Sea Harriers at night and in bad weather which were facilitated by the Deck Approach Projector Sight, a concept he drove forward. For three years he was the RN representative in an Information Exchange Programme with the US Navy, through which he was closely involved with AV-8A Harrier trials at sea.

After retiring from the Royal Navy Mr. Hobbs was the Curator of the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton for eight years and is now a full-time independent historian. He has written books and articles for journals over a number of years, winning the Aerospace Journalist of the Year, Best Defence Submission in Paris in 2005 and the Navy League of Australia Essay prize in 2008. He lectures on naval subjects world-wide, including on cruise ships, and has appeared on radio and television in several countries. his first book was published in 1982 while he was still serving in the RN and since then he has written many more.

Work being discussed THE DAWN OF CARRIER STRIKE
and the world of Lieutenant W P Lucy DSO RN
Seaforth Publishing – Barnsley – 2019

Check out the book here.

https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Dawn-of-Carrier-Strike-Hardback/p/15667