How An Eagle Squadron Was Wiped Out In Minutes | My Full Analysis

Every aviation disaster is caused by a series of minute mistakes and unfortunate circumstances. What happened to No 133 Eagle Squadron RAF in September 1942 is no exception. It's become known as the Morlaix disaster.
An entire squadron of 11 Spitfire Mk IXs, then the most advanced British fighter, were shot down while flying low over the most heavily defended city in France. What happened and who was to blame? This is the subject of today's video.
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Welcome to my channel where I share my love of history and aviation. I first fell in love with military aviation when reading Biggles books as a boy, then I studied history at university. I like finding interesting stories and sharing them with others.
I also followed this passion into the real world and managed to get a Private Pilot's Licence on 10th May 2014.
I'll share my gameplay from the IL2 Sturmovik Great Battles series as well as the Cliffs of Dover series and DCS series too, to give my stories drama. Feel free to subscribe, like and comment!
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0:00 intro
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[@CalibanRising]

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[@Bellakelpie]

Tony Gaze, the commander of 64 Squadron and who led the mission on that day, was a relative of mine. We talked about this mission several times before he passed away and it is also mentioned in Tony’s biography, “Almost Unknown” by Stewart Wilson. Tony said that they were sent to escort B17’s. The bomber formation was way off course and it also did not help that no mention was made in the briefing of strong winds at the altitude the Spitfires were flying at, so they were blown further south than they had to be. On the return, when Tony sighted Brest, he told the group not to go down as he had figured out that the sea was on the wrong side of the land to be the English coast. He knew they were still over France. He said that “ the Americans all went down anyway, why, I will never know. They never acknowledged my calls. Of course they flew straight into intense AA fire , with disastrous consequences. And I got blamed for the whole mess.” Tony was given a choice between being transferred to “ flying a desk for the rest of the war, or demotion and staying on flying duties.” He chose demotion. The lead navigator of the B17 formation was also fired. However a few weeks after his demotion, Tony was quietly awarded a Bar to his DFC and a lot of the ground controllers who were on duty that day, suddenly were posted overseas to the Middle East and India. He said that it was quiet acknowledgement as to where the blame actually lay and that his “punishment” was to satisfy the press and also the Americans. However Harry Broadhurst (later Sir Harry Broadhurst) always held the incident against Tony and made his feelings quite clear whenever the 2 met. Tony, being a subordinate, just had to cop it. He said that it was not until after he left the RAF that he was able to finally let Broadhurst know that he had little respect for him either, after the crash of Avro Vulcan XA897, in which Broadhurst was Pilot in Command, on landing approach to Heathrow Airport in October 1956. The 2 never communicated again after that.

[@haroldgodwinson832]

Truth, as they say, is always the first casualty of war. Individuals are of no consequence. Truth is of no consequence. The 'narrative' is everything.

[@Rusty_Gold85]

Thank you for the info. I have been reading on the War for all my life and I am always finding little snippets of US ineptitude.Its not bias as I just don't read snippets from replies about the same from Commonwealth or British Forces. It would fill a book . For example the short story for DDAY B&W stripes on aircraft came from Typhoon sqds getting attacked by Thunderbolt Pilots in blue on blue incidents

[@CalibanRising]

Very interesting stuff. I put Gaze down as CO of 64 squadron at this time, just because of the Spit Mk IXs. Does the biography say it was in fact 133, 401 and 66 squadrons?

[@Bellakelpie]

@@CalibanRising Tony was CO of 64 Squadron at the time of the incident. After his "demotion" he was sent back to 616 Squadron as a Flight Commander before being taken off operations for a rest. His next operational posting was in August 1943 to 129 Squadron and then to 66 Squadron , flying Spitfire V's, also as a Flight Commander. A month later he was shot down near Treport in France, on the coast just north of Amiens, after dog fighting a group of FW190's and successfully downing one. He survived the crash landing and successfully evaded the German troops who were sent to hunt for him. With the aid of the French Resistance, he escaped via Paris to the south of France and then walked over the Pyrenees to Spain. From there he was transported back to England. He still had the forged I.D papers given to him by his Resistance handlers, in amongst his papers and RAF log book when he passed away. (All that is now in the possession of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.) He said that the French told him that the forged ID papers issued as part of the RAF escape kit, were "too neat and perfect and would fool no one." As a footnote, he always thought Harry Broadhurst was behind his "punishment," as Broadhurst had little time for anyone from any of the Commonwealth countries and was not above telling them to their faces. (He said that Broadhurst, Trafford Leigh-Mallory and Sholto Douglas were "as thick as thieves." (: ) Tony an Australian, had enlisted in the RAF in 1940, but finished his pilot training too late to see action in the Battle of Britain. Tony saw operational combat with 610 Squadron ( twice) 616 Squadron ( three times ) 41 Squadron, 64 Squadron, 66 Squadron, 129 Squadron and also 453 Squadron RAAF, (the latter for a month, but in that time the squadron never flew a combat sortie.) He also "unofficially" flew an op a few days after D-Day with 127 Wing RCAF, then commanded by his lifelong friend, J E. "Johnnie" Johnson. Tony flew under an assumed name. Being an escape from France, he was officially forbidden to fly over France until after the liberation of Paris, in case he fell into German hands again, which could have compromised those Resistance members who helped him to escape. Tony never felt any animosity towards the Eagle Squadron Pilots or the B17 Squadron they were sent to escort. From the start he always put the blame squarely at the feet of the Controllers, who he said knew about the winds they encountered, but never passed the information on. "We were all affected by the same conditions, we were all in it together" he said. During the war he made friends with many USAAC pilots, including Paul Tibbets, who was later to pilot the famous B-29, the "Enola Gay." They remained in close contact with each other, until Gen Tibbets passed away. Tony passed away peacefully in the Geelong Hospital, near Melbourne, Australia, in July 2013.

[@CalibanRising]

@@Bellakelpie Thanks for the extra information, appreciate it. What an amazing man!

[@PaulP999]

Remember that Armin Faber landed his quite new Fw-190 by mistake at RAF Pembrey airfield, presenting us with a perfect test machine. (vaguely recall that an officer used a flare pistol to capture him..?)

[@bobsakamanos4469]

There are far too many holes in that story to be a "mistake". Faber knew exactly where he was going. He defected to Pembrey, a little used airfield, likely with cooperation from Brit intelligence.

[@janlindtner305]

Reasonable history interpretation on the basis of valid tracks and references is always refreshing.

[@LeopardIL2]

Definitely.

[@KOMET2006]

Thank you so much for this very enlightening video. In reference to this September 1942 mission, I had read years ago an account that said an unusual weather front came up that day, whose winds drove most of the Americans on that flight deeper into France. This account further stated that only one of the pilots managed to safely land back in the UK while the other pilots came to grief in France due to fuel starvation and the inclement weather.

[@arkboy3]

Yours is a much better elaboration on American Eagle Squadrons/volunteers than that horrible Pearl Harbor movie.

[@raymondyee2008]

At least it doesn’t include Rafe.

[@CalibanRising]

You mean a love interest wouldn't improve it?

[@arkboy3]

@@CalibanRising Heck, it couldn't hurt, but I meant in the sense that US Army Air Corps pilots didn't just transfer to the RAF, even leading British squadrons against Germans particularly BEFORE Pearl Harbor?!

[@haggis525]

@@CalibanRising I think it was Roger Ebert who, in his review of that horrible film, said It is the story of an American love triangle attacked by the Japanese.

[@madhukarjonathanminj2772]

@@haggis525 haha I love Roger Ebert

[@IncogNito-gg6uh]

I recently flew from Frankfurt to the US by commercial airline. There was a solid blanket of cloud across the low countries, the channel, and England. I couldn't help but think of all those WW2 air crews trying to find their way home.

[@CalibanRising]

The weather was a common enemy. I did all my flight training while based in Belgium (near Bastogne) and it would literally have low 10/10 cloud for 6 months of the year.

[@foodguywall]

My father in law is Major General Carroll McColpin. He should have flown that day but he was at the changeover ceremony from the RAF to US forces. All his life he was furious that the raid took place and said that if he had ben there he would have stopped it.

[@greghardy9476]

Silly to blame just one person. There is always a chain of events that cause such a tragedy.

[@maxmoore9955]

I agree,

[@kevinloughrey5135]

Absolutely correct! That has been my real life experience.

[@nellyprice]

Chain of disaster. Some links are easier to catch, hence blame game. Shame is always seems an avoidable sequence of errors that could be predicted and countered before they happen, but everyone an expert that disaster will never happen to them. So what would be the reason for all other aircraft ignoring his signal? It's not miraculous merely unexplained at the moment

[@-Pol-]

This comes up over and over when I follow the Mentour Pilot Channel. Inevitably in aviation it is a chain of events that leads to disaster.

[@greghardy9476]

@@todd3285 Nope. Spent 40 years in aviation, 20 in the US Navy. There is virtually always a chain in every aviation disaster.

[@Jon.Cullen]

Kingcome writes at some length about this in his book "A Willingness to Die". At that time the 133 Squadron Spitfires would still have displayed RAF roundels. Goodson states in his book "Tumult in the Clouds" that he and another American pilot, on transferring to the USAAF flew the very first fighter mission over enemy territory with USAAF marked Spitfires. The American pilots who transferred to the USAAF were allowed to wear their RAF wings on the right breast and their USAAF wings on the left.

[@CalibanRising]

Thanks Jonathan.

[@tieleader7238]

I knew Jimmy for a few years back in the day when I was working the airshow circuit down the east coast. One the things he didn't mention in the books was that on that particular Rhubarb mission the Spits were marked with the Star of David on all the usual postions. Because they were so newly transfered to the 4th the USAAF five point star painting masks were not yet available. Jim's crew chief was Jewish and said he could very quick paint these on as they are just two triangles.I can only image the shock of german troops on the ground being attacked by the Jewish air force. I have many cherished stories and memories from this remarkable man.

[@CafeenMan]

My (American) high school freshman English teacher flew spitfires in WWII. He talked about it several times but never got into details. Don't know the years or where he flew but I believed him. He knew a lot about the plane and aerial combat. I've always been an airplane buff and even at 14 knew enough to know he knew what he was talking about. This was decades before the internet (1977).

[@CalibanRising]

I know what you mean. It's the situation where you wish you had just had the guts to pull out a tape recorder and ask someone some questions. These guys are all almost gone...

[@David-wk6md]

Fantabulous,, Mine fought with a P-38.

[@AbnEngrDan]

My grandfather, Joseph Seymour, was one of these men. Ended up flying in the Pacific with the Navy after the US got into the war.

[@patrickrose1221]

The smallest error that in many other situations would be minor , was compounded by the wind and cloud etc. I think we're past blame now tbh. Cracking vlog , as ever, a couple of stories from Laddie Lucas's book ' Out Of The Blue ' wouldn't go amiss either lol

[@peterbrown6224]

Look at the number of senior pilots, in two-man flight decks of modern airliners, who fall for confirmation bias. Thank you for this very informative video

[@CalibanRising]

Thanks for watching Peter

[@geordiedog1749]

You’ve done an excellent job here, mate. Great analysis. Cutting through the crap and working out the truth.

[@CalibanRising]

Thanks mate. This was an interesting video to research.

[@thelatemickb6927]

Well done, all new, to me and carefully described.

[@CalibanRising]

Glad it was helpful!

[@agdgdgwngo]

Brilliant. Entertaining and informative.

[@CalibanRising]

Thanks for watching mate.

[@LeopardIL2]

Another very good account of a war incident. Really good job Sir.

[@CalibanRising]

Thanks for watching.

[@mabbrey]

great vid Cali, your channels gonna take off soon

[@CalibanRising]

Thanks for watching Martin.

[@dominicbuckley8309]

Great video about an incident I had never previously heard about. I couldn't help noticing, however, that the simulator action was taking place over Cherbourg, rather than Brest.

[@CalibanRising]

Good eyes Dominic.

[@dominicbuckley8309]

@@CalibanRising Funnily enough, I initially thought the opening scene was taking place over Plymouth (prominent long breakwater), making the same error as the pilots.

[@DZSabre]

I am intrigued by the photo at 3:20. Why are the Polish checkerbboards seen on the flight suit of one of the pilots?

[@CalibanRising]

The pilot's name is Stanley Michel ‘Mike’ Kolendorsk

[@kennethtaylor5225]

The Officer Pilot - fourth in line and looking into the camera - standing along the wing of the Eagle Squadron 71 Hawker Hurricane is my name sake and my Uncle Kenneth S. Taylor who was killed in action August 19, 1941.

[@CalibanRising]

A brave man to be sure!

[@xxxchaotixxx]

My grandfather was also in Squadron 71 as an Officer Pilot!

[@longtabsigo]

Well done!

[@haggis525]

Very interesting and well put together. This former RCN chap says BZ! My opinion on blame - no one person is responsible (beyond the obvious that the commanding officer is ultimately responsible for anything and everything)... many small things combined et voila! One clusterphuck! Learning from the mistakes is good, though... a few more lines in the various manuals... all written in blood.

[@CalibanRising]

Thanks for watching Christopher! Hats off to your forefathers, they really won the battle of the Atlantic for the Allies.

[@haggis525]

@@CalibanRising Aye... the RCN and RN in western approaches did just that! While I served in the RCN during the cold war... my family served in War 1 on the western front in artillery and infantry (grandfather and uncles), in War 2 in the Pacific theatre (Hong Kong and in the Philippines... for Canada and the USA), i the European theatre (you name the country... one of them was there), in Korea (with the PPCLI) as an infantry Private then Lance Corporal (busted back to Private then back to Lance Jack 🙄) and then me.... during the Cold War. I'm pretty happy that my war was "cold" .... though, as I was navy, sometimes it felt pretty "hot". We were an ASW navy... and we were good at it... tracked and "killed" a lot of Soviet subs back then. They were "games", you understand. My beloved RCN was very, very good at ASW.... learned it well in 1940 - 1945 and got even better after.

[@CMDRFandragon]

Not attending briefing seems like a good start to a fubar mission

[@tinkertailor7385]

No one really knew much about the high altitude Jetstream back in the early part of the war. It would have seemed fanciful to have had a 100+ mile an hour high altitude flow of air. Thus with a 10/10 undercover denying them visual reference on the ground, they were at the mercy of their own confirmation bias and misapprehensions. It was lucky that any of them made it back.

[@airstation2030]

....soldier spy...well we lost lots of planes to the Jetsteam and it was known....just not predictable- we lost flights of Liberators on training mission out of Westover Field on follow the pilot Navigation training at sea flights....we Lost Bombers on the Blue Spruce route - some were lucky enough to land in Nazi territory others are still somewhere out there....we nearly lost all the AEF command staff on a DC-4 one night as they blew right by Scotland...

[@Dav1Gv]

Even after the wr the jetstream was not really understood. A Lancastrian - a civil airliner version of the Lancaster - flew into a glacier in South America to emerge years later. It is thought that the jetstream had slowed them down so they thought they were over the mountains when they were not. Dead reckoning was an imperfect navigation system for both aircraft and ships but what else was there at the time?

[@marktuffield6519]

In Six Aces - Australian Fighter Pilots 1939-45 by Lex McAulay one of the pilots he writes about is Tony Gaze. Gaze, flying over a strip of land that doesn't look like the English coast calls control and asked where radar had the formation and is told 160 miles south of England. 133 Sqn dives through the clouds at this point and Gaze's call to them is too late. He also claims to have assisted Beaty on his return, but I think maybe confused with the pilot lost at sea, do you know who this was? Driven to HQ Fighter Command with Kingcombe, he is greeted by AVM Broadhurst who apparently says "Ah Gaze. I see you are an Australian. I don't like Australians." Gaze appears to blame the duty controller who should have been alerted by the speed with which the formation moved across the radar screens and plotting boards. As you say he received the blame and took a demotion to stay on operations back with 616 Sqn as B Flight Commander.

[@CalibanRising]

Interesting. I'll have to see if I can get a copy of that book. The 401 pilot lost at sea was called P/O Junius Lyman Edward Hokan (J6833) according to my sources.

[@zdenekoldrichmarek2867]

Great book Out of the Blue/Laddie Lucas. I knew Laddie mann in the mid 1950's an ex pat Czech if I remember correctly.Still a good pilot at that time a bit Gung Ho aswell. Be Blessed.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

@CalibanRising >>> Great video...👍

[@asullivan4047]

Interesting and informative. Excellent photography job making it easier for viewers to better understand what the orator was describing. Class A research project. Historians did a very good job presenting actual facts from fiction. Special thanks to all the allied veteran pilots/crews. Fighting/perishing/ surviving fierce combat operations. Knowing certain death/debilitating wounds were often possible..yet still advanced forward regardless of the odds. That's true grit style determination to succeed....

[@CalibanRising]

Thanks for watching

[@kenstallings1811]

Exceptionally fine narrative. I had never before heard of this incident and I thought I was actually pretty well versed on the Eagle Squadrons and the overall ETO air war. In my opinion as someone with about 30 years in the USAF as a navigator and then pilot, plus another 1,200 hours as a civilian pilot, this was clearly a "wind bust," which is the term applied when the forecasted winds are radically different than the actual winds. It would present challenging circumstances during the later decades with much better navigation aids than were available to the pilots of this Spitfire formation. Honestly, when you are piloting an aircraft with a notoriously short range (which was among the Spitfire's few true vices) when you are expecting a 35 mph headwind and instead are unbeknownst flying with a 100 mph tailwind, and you have zero sight of the ground, you are trapped in a deadly situation before even knowing it. A Spitfire Mark 9 had a max range of only 450 miles, and a flight endurance at about 15,000 feet of just 1 hour and 40 minutes at its cruise speed of 220 mph. This means it had an effective combat radius of just 200 miles. If after just 30 minutes aloft you think you are, based upon expected winds, only about 100 miles into the flight, but are in fact due to that 100 mph tailwind, are actually about 160 miles from your home base, then you are in serious trouble well before you have any chance to make a good abort decision. You see, the worst part is that if after that 30 minutes the leader ordered a return home, his unit would fight against a 100 mph headwind, reducing the flight's ground speed to just 120 mph. So, being 160 miles away, you are really now about one hour and 15 minutes away from home. Combined, that is now 1 hour and 45 minutes of flight time, and your airplane's endurance is 1 hour and 40 minutes. You see, after just 30 minutes flying away from your home base, you are already in a position where you don't have enough fuel to get back unless you get out of that horrible headwind! For anyone who flies a plane, 30 minutes in the air is barely enough time to get to altitude, set up your initial course and check to ensure everyone's in formation. People need to appreciate how dire the winds really were for them. Had their leader not descended them down through that small break in the clouds, and they remained at 20,000 feet, they would have remained above the overcast layer below them, and run out of fuel at about the Dover coastline! Again, that's assuming an abort and RTB decision was made at the 30 minute point, or earlier! Worse, if you descend out of the headwind, you have just increased your rate of fuel burn at lower altitude. So, there is not as much benefit as one might think. This is why the Spitfire could only edge into the northern coast of France and spend ten minutes over the enemy, and go home to land on fuel reserves.

[@jamesrogers5783]

lets see, no GPS? no LORAN? unexpected tail wind? seems this happened to some b-24s over north africa . sort of a flight 19 deal. i would hazzard a guess that the leader not having enough experience and the ground control was a bit--loopy. GC could have warned them that they overflew the target . its a number of small errors that lead to a disaster like this.

[@sandgrownun66]

But those B-24's were at least flying in the right direction. They just miscalculated where the North African coast was, and flew on into the Sahara Desert, running out of fuel, and belly-flopping in the sand. With these Spitfires, they weren't even above the right country's coast!

[@bobsakamanos4469]

What was the cloud base when 133 Sqn broke through over Brest?

[@williamthompson2941]

many thanks from USA

[@garyarmstrong9542]

It was a combination of unfortunate events. I don't think even if their top officer had been there this could've been prevented. The phenomanon of the jetstream was new at that time. Neither the pilots nor the people on the ground would've known the criteria to watch for so they didn't blunder into this disaster. Just a humble opinion. Great video!

[@CalibanRising]

Thanks for watching Gary

[@whateverjones5473]

What a mess. Of course, someone has to be blamed. I hate that. All of these men did what they could, and if they weren't perfect, the commanders, sitting in their posh offices, would let them know that they were below par.

[@whateverjones5473]

@@alasdairmmorrison74 I stand corrected.

[@HetzerTheTutel]

oh wow how does your game run so good while looking so good my pc has rtx 2060 and intel i7 9700k and 16gb ram but normandy map laggs and crashes and yea can you maybe tell me your graphics settings? the big problem for me is that the distant horizon is low quality and blurry but worst is that when i fly near trees a halftone effect appears around the leaves and a aliasing effect too (white holes in a certain distance) wich is sooo immersion breaking.

[@CalibanRising]

To be honest I'm not overly happy with how the game runs on my machine. I've got a RTX 2070 at the moment but hoping to upgrade in the new year. I started getting a bit of lag too when I play in VR, but for filming on the monitor it seems to be Ok. As for graphics, I think I had everything turned up on the 'Ultra" settings.

[@alyciamarrison2916]

What an interesting (& tragic) story. But I'm suremultiple hiccups could easily happen, but especially with such an extreme tailwind & 10/10's cloud cover & I suppose from abouve the topography could look very similar. What a tragic tail! - But at least maybe many lessons were learned form this.

[@ariveitz1941]

As per usual two or three factors in play not just human tactical error

[@charlesaucoin9541]

Andy Mamedoff from my home town was a member of eagle Squadron Killed in a bad weather crash

[@stevemarriott7984]

Ex 609 Sqn BoB. My last Sqn before I retired in 2001. I was lucky enough to read some of the original hand written air combat reports. A very humbling experience.

[@HetzerTheTutel]

Merry christmas!

[@CalibanRising]

And a happy new year!

[@billmmckelvie5188]

#Bellakelpie, Thanks for the info. Far be it from me to judge, as I don't what was going through people's mind at the time. However what are the lessons we can learn from this? 1. There is a guarantee that if you think something is going to be easy you may miss something with your leisurely approach on your checks which will be vital during the task execution. 2 Learn to listen to your gut instinct it is more accurate than your head. 3. Voice your concerns to others that they could be in the wrong and it is doesn't feel right.

[@414Mustang1]

The pilots of the Eagle Squadrons did, in fact, lose their citizenship because of their time in the RAF, in spite of the change in the pledge made for their convenience. They lost it, not for the pledge of loyalty to another country, but for violating the US's strict Rules of Neutrality. McColpin, after completing his career in the Air Force was denied a passport because of his lack of citizenship. This was eventually corrected in Congress, and the men had their full citizenship restored. The only pilot to escape this trap was Spiros Pisanos, the Greek immigrant from New Jersey, who managed to EARN his citizenship while in England! The AVG Flying Tigers, many of whom resigned their American Military commissions to join, had the blessing of the Government and, therefore, did not suffer the same fate. BTW, all 3 of the Eagle Squadrons did take part in Operation Jubilee, the raid on Dieppe that would provide information needed to make the D-Day landings such a success. That was the only time they did work together. It was 133 Squadron's success in that operation that led to their being issued the first (and, in fact, only) Mk IXs any Eagle Squadron received (the very planes lost on the mission in this video). The Mk Vs they had been using transferred over to the USAAF with their pilots.

[@CalibanRising]

Thanks for those clarifications and corrections Dave.

[@msgfrmdaactionman3000]

As my uncle Max would say, Missed it by that much.

[@johncashwell1024]

Interestingly, the 334th, 335th & 336th Fighter Squadrons have remained active (except briefly in 1945/1946) since their inception and always under command of the 4th (Variously Named) Group/Wing [Including the 4th Fighter Group, 4th Tactical Fighter Wing, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing and, currently, the 4th Operations Groupto name just a few]. They currently fly the F-15E Strike Eagle and have done since 1989.

[@raymondyee2008]

Wow interesting.

[@CalibanRising]

Very!

[@richardstone3473]

Kept reminding me of the loss of Flight 19 Avengers . Also a little personal story. Was in the boy scouts oh 40 years ago.Orienteering , fog came down causing zero vis.. Reached a marker point. (an old cairn on top of a big hill))Rested. As a group we went back (totally by mistake) the way we came until we arrived by accident and surprise at our start point.. We were supposed to have carried on to the other side of the hill.. Big lesson. People die on hills for lesser errors.

[@charlieross-BRM]

Reminds me of offering my 17 acres of bush in Ontario to our small community group of teenagers for a camping weekend. It was late fall and Friday afternoon brought unexpected very cold temperatures and drizzle with snow coming. We'd be going 3 hours north of that. I suggested calling it off because that wasn't in the plans. We didn't have the gear for it. The oldest of the teenagers wanted us to carry on saying it would be a 'learning experience'. Screw that; this isn't Outward Bound. Hypothermia is one of the most overlooked killers in Ontario at the best of times. We stayed in the city and I took them to see the first "Alien" film in the local theatre. Wow!

[@jonathanstein1783]

It seems to me several errors and omissions led up to this disaster, but the failure to forward the information about the winds to the pilots by the controllers was a major contributing factor. If the pilots had been in possession of that information, I think it's very likely they would have known to turn back, at least after not finding the B-17's when expected. But, as is said, hindsight is 20/20, and I'm just an armchair warrior.

[@robertmonk2346]

Did the air traffic controllers know about the jet stream?

[@jonathanstein1783]

@@robertmonk2346 I'm not sure if the controllers were aware of the jet stream at that time, but they certainly knew about the 100 mph tailwind. That fact was mentioned in the video as I recall.

[@thevictoryoverhimself7298]

4:38 is that the cinemasins ending credits guy?

[@davidmaloney1339]

Is that epic voice guy at 4:40? Lol

[@AxelPoliti]

Witchhunts are the ordinary lot, but slipstreams were unknown. So General Weather was the main, component, supported by a chain of concurrent errors of GC and commanders. Sad story

[@dadofamadhouse4194]

Is that the Honest Movie Trailers Guy that I hear occasionally in this video doing the quotes?

[@CalibanRising]

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[@dsan8742]

Need a movie just on how in gods name that fellow Robert E. Smith managed to walk from Brest to Spain and escape German captivity.

[@CalibanRising]

I'd watch that movie! If you want something similar, there's a book called 'Coffin Corner Boys'. It's about a B-17 crew who did something very similar. It basically down to random acts of kindness.

[@RemusKingOfRome]

You should investigate 141 Sqn, newly formed with strange Defiant turreted fighters, sent to hawkinge airfield to counter enemy fighters as a vanguard .. what a setup.. what a prepared massacre. 164 Sqn had time to sync gunner and pilot, as well as develop tactics, 141 Sqn had none of this. To place them at Hawkinge was murder.

[@CalibanRising]

I have heard about some sort of conspiracy set up by Dowding and Park against the defiant, is this what you are getting at? Very interesting.

[@RemusKingOfRome]

@@CalibanRising not sure but there was those who disliked the turreted fighter concept. But to send a sqn to it's death was insane. Defiants should have been held back to defend London only, against bombers, that's what they were designed for.

[@timothylyons5686]

My friend's grandfather was on Defiants with 264 Squadron during the Battle of Britain. Squadron Leader Phillip Hunter did phone the Squadron Leader of 141 and suggested sending his grandfather to help go through tactics 264 had used successfully after the Battle of France in which 264 lost 5 Defiants in one morning including his grandfathers aircraft. He bailed out but his rear gunner is still listed as missing presumed dead. The offer was refused as the pilots of 141 thought they knew better. They soon found out they were wrong. The grandfather's name was P/O S.R.Thomas later W/C Thomas DFC, AFC.

[@CalibanRising]

@@timothylyons5686 Interesting. I was reading up on 264 sq for an upcoming video. They did quite well over Dunkirk.

[@timothylyons5686]

@@CalibanRising my friend's grandfather was credited with 2 JU 87s confirmed and an ME 109 probable. His aircraft was then shot down, his rear gunner killed and he returned to England via ship. His hands were burned in the incedent which meant time off front line flying, this was during the time 264 began to work out their tactics for dealing with 109s. That was why he was offered to 141 to assist them in the tactics 264 had worked out.

[@melanieb7903]

Well Jim Goodson was my step father and he mostly blamed the weather forecast ie 10 10 cloud meant no bombers could have dropped hence no point going. A tragedy either way. He never forgot walking into their rooms, left as when they went out, fully intending to be back for tea and carrying on.

[@CalibanRising]

Thanks for the comment Melanie. It must have been an eerie experience indeed.

[@HetzerTheTutel]

what do you mean with ultra can you maybe post a picture of your graphics settings since setting it to ultra doesnt change the other setting somehow atleast for me haha

[@johnleney9541]

Sources for the jet stream explanation? I thought that the jet stream generally flows west-east rather than north-south.

[@CalibanRising]

Kingcome brought it up in his interview, and honestly I just took him at his word.

[@alganhar1]

Yes, generally. That's the thing, generally. Its fairly rare for it to hook north - south, but it does happen.

[@johnleney9541]

@@CalibanRising Sorry I was a bit blunt there - also, asking for refs when I just cited myself was a bit crap

[@florianmeier3186]

The jet stream on average is west-east as it is caused by the temperature gradient of the polar front and coriolis force. However, the polar front shows many waves, wave amplification and even breaking waves and therefore some parts of the jet can be directed in each direction in extreme case even east-westward and rather often with some north-south component. Even if the basic understanding of extratropical lows and fronts at that time was already rather accurate, there was a lack of good observations (no satellites at that time, almost no commercial airliners' observations, no numerical weather prediction, no GPS positioning and therefore weather forecasting was much more challenging and random than today. Nobody is to blame for that. Bad weather is often a big factor in aviation desasters even up to now.

[@ngauruhoezodiac3143]

The jetstream splits around Britain with one branch going northeast and the other west to southwest.

[@johnlaccohee-joslin4477]

I think that just moving the original officer in charge of these plane and substituting someone who is seems really was not up to the job , should have been talked about at the time, but honestly i have also to say that really there are very few people who knowledge wise who can comment on this, my feelings are ones of pity for these fellows, who it seems had very little help to set them on the right course.

[@markholmphotography]

I think the attitude of it being a easy mission - in war - anything can go wrong. Not taking it deadly seriously, cause it to become the worst possible outcome.

[@GosWardHen98]

In the fog of war as they say there seemed to be quite a few things going against this sorte. Nobody turned up for the brief that needed to, the Yanks obviously a bit peeves a Limey was on charge & lack of RT co-ordination with control. Maybe it was just coincidental as British pilots didn't actually do full Bomber escort duty in large parts. Just thunk based on the documentary its a bit disorganised.

[@secretagent86]

sounds like the man who was there is the best to answer, and he did

[@andrewmorse4324]

German flak became more and more lethal. There's a famous picture of a B17 taking a direct hit while bombing a synthetic oil plant. JG26 and 2 were at their zenith.. Wurmheller shot down 7 spitfires in one day at Dieppe. The Luftwaffe fighter pilots were excellent at using the rotte and Schwarm system . Molders developed it in the Spanish civil war. The 109F outscored the Spitfire by a considerable margin initially when the "lean into Europe first occurred. When the FW190 and 109G got into service in their early incarnations depending they were 400mph fighters... As bomber destroyers with extra guns, armour ,rockets etc they were being shredded by Thunderbolts in 1943-44 ... trying to outdive them As for the twin engined fighters sent up against the 8th airforce... Catastrophic losses also. Very few Luftwaffe pilots were successful on all fronts and survived the war. For instance Hans Philip 200 kills on the Russian Front shit down and killed by Robert Johnson P47 pilot who was very fortunate to survive his encounter with Egon Mayer... In no small part to the rugged airframe of that plane.

[@andrewmorse4324]

Some typos! It's been a long day!

[@graemewilce3057]

A well made video I reckon , I 'd love to see more of these too . Get the message ?????

[@milanprica7513]

Blame the command for relaxed attitude for the mission. There're no "milk runs" in actual combat zone. Everything can go south very quickly. Never ever let inexperienced lead. That's a recipe for disaster. Clostermann in n his autobiography novel described an event in which 6 out of 8 Tempests got shot down by just 3 FW-190s due to them being led by inexperienced new wing commander... and they had an ace like Clostermann in the same flight, but not as a commander. Bollocks

[@douglasjones2570]

Shouldn’t they have just turned back when they were running low on fuel? Also, in bad cloud cover and on instruments, shouldn’t the squadron leader have occasionally ducked below the cloud base to confirm location?

[@electricalmayhem]

They were at 20,000ft, the tops of the clouds could be far below, and the bottoms could be at just a few thousand or even on the ground. You would be putting yourself in range of flack, plus the fuel use on the climb back up each time would leave you in trouble. Also if just one plane went down they likely wouldn’t be able to find the squadron again.

[@whiskey_tango_foxtrot__]

Complacency kills.

[@kiwikeith7633]

It may interest you, that Brian Kingcome is given highest praise by WW2 pilot Jeffery Wellum. By the story I have seen, he was competent enough to survive the war. Good management or dumb luck? you decide.

[@IncogNito-gg6uh]

I read "Boy" Wellum's book. He had the highest respect and admiration for Brian Kingcome.

[@kiwikeith7633]

@@IncogNito-gg6uh Yes, by Wellum's account, he put himself on the line with his pilots and was a great leader. You might also like the video "First Light" which is / was on YT.

[@IncogNito-gg6uh]

@@kiwikeith7633 I watched the film immediately after seeing your comment. It was very well done! Thanks.

[@johnjephcote7636]

He is much mentioned in Stanford Tuck's 'Fly for your Life'. I read it in the 1950s but cannot afford its present price!.

[@rimshot2270]

Did the Allies ever find out why the Americans didn't obey Gaze's instructions? Many of them would have made it back to Great Britain. Dominic "Don" Gentile missed going on that mission by a twist of fate. He went on to become one of the leading American aces in the ETO.

[@sandgrownun66]

An obvious question. Did those aircraft lost, have compasses to give some indication, as to over whose coast they were? The French coastline having a different orientation to the English one.

[@CalibanRising]

If you look at the coastline around Brest as you approach it from the south, it does look a lot like the south west coast of England, especially if visibility was bad as it was on that day. This mission had been rescheduled several times due to bad weather, and probably should have been cancelled again.

[@sandgrownun66]

@@CalibanRising I am new to this incident. I am trying to visualize the dispositions of the coastlines of England and France. Off SW England England, you would be flying approximately East to West, or the reverse of that. Off Brest, the coast runs approximately North to South and vice versa. Surely, a compass would have shown up the difference. The leader of the two squadrons who made it back to blighty, was the one who had his wits about him.

[@CalibanRising]

@@sandgrownun66 No worries, I had to check out a map too when first reading about it. Brest is actually on the southern side of part of the Brittiany peninsular, and there is a sort of channel leading into the area from the Atlantic. This part has an east-west orientation.

[@sandgrownun66]

@@CalibanRising I don't want to get too hung up on this, but there's a lot of details to be digested here. It is true, that the port of Brest, is on the northern side of the Penfeld River estuary. If it was the south coast of England, there would be no land to the south, only sea. However, the general direction of the coastline of France in this area, is approximately, north to south. Spitfires had an excellent compass, and maybe those pilots who were shot down, should have paid more attention to it, rather than just what they assumed was below?

[@rebeccawarren2976]

3:19 The 3rd man from left is Polish (symbols on his uniform in knee area).

[@CalibanRising]

His name was Stanley Michel ‘Mike’ Kolendorski, a son of Polish immigrants. More information here: www.americanairmuseum.com/archive/person/stanley-michel-kolendorski

[@RedcoatsReturn]

Its clear that a number of things were to blame…not showing up to the briefing, the weather forecast was completely wrong, the radio contact was not maintained and vigilance of air control was negligent, the flight sr. officer should have voiced his disagreement for the Eagle formation to descend. Knowing where you are…is….everything and knowing that you are lost is the first thing to recognize. As the RAF changed a number of procedures after the incident….their admission is clear that many functions and people were to blame.

[@milanprica7513]

Seems Americans had some poor luck with Spitfires. Wasn't one entire USAAF squadron equipped with Spitfires lost somewhere in Alps, again due to wind? I believe they were stationed in MTO...

[@jasons44]

Each party gains from this

[@pup1008]

As I'm in the process of buying a Kia Ceed, I immediately took the *"KIA"* designation over the planes in the thumbnail to indicate that they have been manufactured by the South Korean company! 😁

[@CalibanRising]

lol.

[@SoloRenegade]

I don't think it's right to blame any one person. but, when things go wrong the top person in charge is to be held accountable, as ultimately it is their failure. Combination of complacency, inexperienced leaders and controllers, leaders not taking adequate responsibility and command, failure of navigation and decision making, and trouble of conducting combined operations with multiple nationalities at the same time.

[@pobinr]

Good vid. Would've been good if you'd dubbed on Merlin sound instead of irritating music

[@CalibanRising]

Thanks for watching and the useful feedback!

[@pbysome]

I erected the monument to the eagle squadren in Grosvenor sq in London.

[@CalibanRising]

Really? Lucas mentioned that in his interview. Apparently the security was crazy that day.

[@pbysome]

@@CalibanRising it wasn't a day it took best part of a week from memory, a column with an eagle on the top. I had to accompany the bare stones to a carver in Woolwich to make sure they didn't get damaged and when they where delivered too site there where repairs all over Them, in grey body filler, most disappointing.do a search on it, it's not the black granite one that is more recent.

[@CB-ei6ez]

How did fighter pilots relieve themselves on these long missions

[@CalibanRising]

Some aircraft were fitted with relief tubes, but as the Great Bud Anderson once said, he was a young man so he just held it until he landed.

[@eliassolomou980]

I think the responsibility clearly lays with the Luftwaffe. Everything else is guestimation.

[@tjr7424]

Bad comm and a lack of leadership look like the most easily preventable of mistakes. The difference in wind direction was a root cause. They flew farther than calculated and faced a stiff head wind on the return leg, burning an apparently unaccounted for amount of fuel. Meteorological aircraft were flown by both sides. Were there none in skies or was it simply another example of poor command, control and communication?

[@airstation2030]

did we not see this in the movie Zerohour?

[@CalibanRising]

I'll have to check that one out.

[@kirbyculp3449]

Surely, you can't be serious.

[@airstation2030]

@@kirbyculp3449 it was a flight lost letting down in the clouds over Mach Grande

[@allyup3404]

The fog of war 🤷‍♂️

[@beachboy0505]

Jetstream

[@Fredders88]

But no Irish squadrons? (But there were a number of pilots from both the Irish Free State and the north of Ireland.

[@mckaypaterson2519]

Often such disasters happen from a series of human and systemic errors. Could hubris have been the chief culprit?

[@robertbolding4182]

The whole wold was watching

[@13stalag13]

I'd say it was the fault of the weatherman.

[@kimeldiin1930]

The only thing bugging me as a aero engineer are the good design work but atrocious understanding of what happens to an airplane loosing parts of its lifting surfaces !!

[@CalibanRising]

the game footage you mean? Yeah, the flight models aren't perfect to be sure.

[@kimeldiin1930]

@@CalibanRising when loosing as lifting surface the remaining lifting surface induce a an often violent spin as it still has all of it's lifting force...to a certain extent opposite aileron will ameliorate this...the A10 is actually built with this in mind and is better than most when loosing aerodynamic surfaces..

[@airstation2030]

Well firstly it was not the eagle squadrons who had the bigger chip on their shoulder a friend of mine got his Army air Corps wings chucked across the desk From an officer who in process them without even looking up from his papers and typewriter Unless you've stood on the runway of an old air station in the cold squalls looking up at 25,000 feet of solid overcast knowing that your aircraft has almost no navigation capability do you get an idea of what you're facing And unlike the heavies you do not have the ability to call Darkey on 4342 kilocycles and get a steer let alone join the arrivals into link with the SCR 51 system which will bring you down two a runway lit up with flames…… That's not for you you don't have that when your stuffed into the cockpit I was flaming runways and approach light systems that were very goodbye the way that's not how you're going to get home Additionally you don't have celestial when you're stuffed into a cockpit of a plan that small and the sun angles aren't going to help that time of day much anyway What atmospherics we try and with it would be normal for an American pilot to think well we just have some sky issues on the radio because we used low frequency communications so it would stand figure that going out of radio range of the British VHF would not give you a clue as to range

[@airstation2030]

At that point it's just dead reckoning with an increasing size circle of error probable and landfall intercept recovery So it will be normal to tack through a hole in the clouds form up into our friendly recognize formation and proceed It would be normal in the f first few minutes under the clouds to try and get bearings and figure out where the hell we are over landscape that doesn't look that much different from the south coast of England as you're probing through the haze trying to get a bearing nice paragraph I only once you realize it doesn't look right do you realize that the German radar which is excellent has you on a collision course withRapidfire radar controlled guns and Luftwaffe reception

[@airstation2030]

when coming through the clouds like that sometimes the ceilings are so damn low that you had to do it over the ocean and take an oblique angle so you didn't slam into a cliff hit a boat or worse yet a wire from a barrage balloon that looked over every harbor… I recall friend of mine coming home that way with no gas on board and that was a thing you were always struggling with how to guess how much gas you had

[@airstation2030]

Now that last comment is very important because when you are lost we used a bracket last recovery point system and the first thing you would do is slow down and save gas if you weren't quite sure of where you were now the last thing you wanna doWhen you're down low flying tactical over the continent was to slow down because now if you get jumped or tracked by a gun crew you were a dead duck It is convenient to blame the RAF Flight leader but here are two questions To properly site norden bombsights We flew a double draft and vicinity of the initial point and previous so Army air Corps had plenty of weather ships ranging out as dead RAF COASTAL COMMAND / Bomber command also did the same with even moreweather ships This information was flashed directly to command and was known question number one who got this information and was it passed along in briefing Question number two the RT units We're across tuned And so somebody upstairs would've heard the communications from the low section We don't see much in the reports about what they exactly heard and what they did about it nor Do we see much attention paid to the fact that three squadrons were upstairs the guys were clearly all lost as to their position it would've been normal to direct one of the groups to go down for a looksee So question number two is why is everybody so quick to crucify this flight leader and yay even glad he was shot in the great escape

[@rimshot2270]

Most of the Eagle Squadrons' pilots were not very good. The best ones like Blakeslee and Harder stayed with their Brish and Canadian units. Blakeslee transferred to the USAAF in 1942 and was an invaluable asset.

[@DJpepmar]

you cant really say that a flight demo squadron is on the same level as actual fighter pilots

[@hadleymanmusic]

Shot by friendly fire?

[@terrancestodolka4829]

Nice and informative, but without the knowledge of the English / French countryside, or maps to detail of where and when they were shot down. For the audience is as blind as pilots above clouds... Yes, succinct information on the squadrons and the leaders but so little information on where or detailed timeline of events on/133 squadrons' predicament and actual flying positioning and after-action breakdown analysis.

[@CalibanRising]

Thanks for the feedback!

[@slartybartfarst55]

I understand the blaming, but zooming into people in the control room, who were possibly not there that day is completely reprehensible

[@AudieHolland]

I didn't think it possible that pilots would not attend their mission briefing with even senior commanders thinking the mission was joke. At the end, noone was laughing. Was the demoted Squadron Leader the overall commander (I missed that bit, about to go to bed)? So yes, then it's logical that he was punished, even if he didn't have a direct hand in the whole debacle. After losing an entire squadron, you can't continue in the same command as if nothing had happened. And we all know Dowding was dismissed after winning the Battle of Britain, simply because his superiors and his peers (Sholto Douglas...). So I'd take it even higher up and have Douglas kicked out but that's just my personal dislike for this ambitious villain of a man.

[@CalibanRising]

Yes, Tony Gaze was given command of the wing as he had attended the briefing even though W/C Kingcome was the senior man and supposed to lead. I've been emailing with Gaze's relative, and he said that he took the demotion to keep on Ops rather than taking a desk job.

[@AudieHolland]

@@CalibanRising Thank you for the additional info. Understandable.

[@whiskey_tango_foxtrot__]

The Germans on the ground behind their 88 flak guns... Are you kidding me?

[@T.S.Birkby]

A proper Cake & Arse Party

[@haggis525]

Is that British for "clusterphuck"? 🤔

[@T.S.Birkby]

@@haggis525 Indeed, old military parlance

[@princesssolace4337]

Probably the Americans not use to RHD🤭

[@whydoyougottahavthis]

Nobody is to blame as it's an accident wrong place wrong time, if they ran into a building from being off course it would be the sameeeee also I blame the IX I mean what chances did they have really 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 fw fanboi