Posted on 09/28/2001 6:40:34 PM PDT by dighton
GROUP CAPTAIN CHARLES GREEN, who has died aged 88, led a wing of rocket-firing Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers which helped to destroy vital German armour in the Falaise Pocket in August 1944.
Green played an important role in overcoming the Typhoon's teething problems in 1942. He later mastered low-level flying ("hedge-hopping") and took out tanks, transport and troop concentrations that were holding up the Allied advance from the Normandy beachheads into north-west Europe.
Previously, Green had questioned the proposal to fit the Hawker Hurricane fighter with rockets, and won his argument that the Typhoon not only performed better but also had a superior gun platform and was thus better suited for rockets.
In the event his brilliant leadership of No 121 Wing (comprising Nos 174, 175 and 245 Squadrons) and later No 124 Wing (Nos 181, 182 and 247 Squadrons) resulted in the destruction of ammunition dumps and helped to smash or demoralise enemy formations and positions.
On August 7, following a German counter-attack by two Panzer divisions, Green returned from a reconnaissance of the battle area to report that 300 enemy tanks were in the vicinity.
Going into action with other elements of the 2nd Tactical Air Force (2nd TAF), Green's 121 Wing halted a column of 60 tanks and 200 vehicles by attacking the lead and rear vehicles before setting about those in between.
Green ran a "shuttle service" of Typhoons, with a squadron airborne every 20 minutes. By dusk, after some 300 sorties had been flown, it was reckoned that 119 tanks and 50 transport vehicles had been destroyed. Green later recalled: "At 50 ft over the fleeing columns I was so low that I could see not only the black crosses on the vehicles but also the square heads of the drivers."
This action set the pattern for the battle in which Allied forces encircled the German 7th Army in the Falaise Pocket. In mid-August Green's and other 2nd TAF Typhoons devastated an enemy trapped in Normandy's narrow lanes, but at the cost of 151 pilots.
As the offensive in northern France and Holland continued, Green - by now promoted group captain - commanded No 124 Wing with Wing Commander Kit North-Lewis as his wing leader.
On Boxing Day 1944 Green announced that he was flying a weather recce (group captains were discouraged from flying on operations) and took the opportunity to report a build-up of enemy tanks before going in to attack them. His canopy was shot off, the Typhoon caught fire, and Green baled out, despite his perilously low altitude.
After being roughed up by SS captors he was taken to Stalag Luft 1, a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany, where he was reunited with Squadron Leader "Stapme" Stapleton, a South African Battle of Britain veteran who was one of his squadron commanders. In early May the Russians advanced on the camp, and the Germans retreated. Green and Stapleton swapped some Red Cross parcels for a small car and drove along the north German coast until they encountered Canadian troops, who arranged for them to be flown home.
Charles Llewellyn Green was born on September 23 1912 at Marandellas in Southern Rhodesia, and educated at Umtali High School. After a brief period farming with his father, he joined Imperial Airways as a clerk, serving at various southern Africa stations until he was appointed ground superintendent at Beira in Mozambique.
The RAF granted him a short service commission in 1938, and in November 1940 he was posted to No 500 (County of Kent), an Auxiliary Air Force Squadron in Coastal Command equipped with Avro Anson general reconnaissance aircraft. In early 1941 Green joined No 235, a Bristol Blenheim squadron, also in Coastal Command and operating against enemy shipping in the North Sea from Bircham Newton in Norfolk.
After completing 51 sorties he was promoted flight lieutenant and posted to No 266 (Rhodesia) Squadron, which included a number of other Rhodesian pilots and was equipped with Spitfires.
Taking part in sweeps over northern France and in anti-shipping strikes off Holland, as well as intercepting German aircraft intruding over RAF airfields, Green developed skills which were to build his reputation as a pilot of exceptional courage and determination.
After a year, Green moved with No 266 to Duxford, near Cambridge, where the Battle of Britain ace Hugh "Cocky" Dundas familiarised Green and his fellow pilots with the Typhoon.
After being promoted squadron leader and receiving command of No 266 Squadron, Green led it alongside No 56 in offensive sweeps by the Duxford Wing. All the while he was learning how best to handle a difficult type of aircraft. Meanwhile the Duxford squadrons shot down 11 enemy aircraft.
Green was mentioned in despatches and awarded a DFC in 1943 for his "outstanding leadership and intense desire to engage the enemy". He then moved on to No 59 Operational Training Unit (OTU) as chief flying instructor in the rank of wing commander.
In January 1944 he was appointed Wing Commander (Flying) of No 121 Wing, and was involved in attacking V-1 "doodlebug" launch sites and softening-up operations in the run-up to the D Day landings. In the same year he was awarded the DSO and Bar.
Following his Normandy exploits and the short spell as a PoW, Green returned to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and created a tobacco, maize and cattle farm from virgin soil south-east of the capital, Salisbury.
In 1961, as a group captain, he became the first post-war commanding officer of the Royal Rhodesian Air Force Volunteer Reserve. In this period farming became less profitable and Green entered the tobacco trade.
The Transcontinental Tobacco Company recognised his talents and sent him to Formosa (now Taiwan), and he continued to travel extensively to areas with substantial tobacco interests.
In 1977 Green retired and moved in the following year to Devon; but after six years in Britain he decided he would prefer life in South Africa and settled in Durban, where he joined the Virginia Wings flying club; after Green's death the club organised a flypast in his honour, during which his ashes were scattered on the airfield.
He married, in May 1943 while serving at Duxford, Betty Jean Bowden, a Waaf leading aircraftwoman. They had two sons, the second of whom died in infancy, and three daughters.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2001.
With Utmost Respect for Group Captain Green
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Probably landed in some bundles of straw.
-- Fowler's Modern English Usage, Second Edition.
I am very familiar with the Spitfire. It had a Rolls Royce engine that was used in the P51 Mustang (though my knowledge of aviation may be faulty).
Pingin' them wot might 'elp.
I don't recall ever seeing "bale out" in military histories, of which I have read many. Perhaps it's British.
It revolves around an ace by the last name of Tuck, but also has Bader, several other famous pilots, and I beleive this guy was in it too.
(If memory serves me, his nick name was "Pinky".)
The OED justifies its jingoistic orthographic preference unconvincingly, by analogizing the aeronautical leave-taking "as if the action were that of letting a bundle through a trapdoor; but also as bail (esp. U.S.) as bail, as if a use of bail v.4, to lade out." This derivation seems somewhat fanciful, seeing that no such "bundle-through-trapdoor" usage of bale out is cited.
Why the OED chooses to disregard bail v.2 II.3, "to procure the liberation of (any one) from prison or arrest" is a mystery to me. It's true that the aeronautical "bail" contains no suggestion of a bond or surety, but the OED is replete with citations of bail out in a figurative, not narrowly legalistic, sense. These date back to at least 1592: "Sirrah, see if your picklocks will serve the turn to bail you hence."
The OED is not persuasive; I'm sticking with bail.
May your last flight be a "High Flight"
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
-John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
"Bail" for me too. Thanks so much for the research.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.