The Rafwaffe nickname sometimes makes people think of cloak-and-dagger work. In reality, No. 1426 Flight’s value was plain and immediate. Recognition and tactics were not academic problems when a split-second identification might decide whether a pair of Spitfires turned inside a Focke-Wulf, or whether a bomber gunner opened fire on the right machine in the right place. The Flight sat at the point where intelligence, test flying, training, and morale met. It gave Allied crews the closest thing to a rehearsal.

What follows is a deep, joined-up history: how the Rafwaffe Flight formed, where it operated, what it flew, how it kept those aircraft serviceable, and what happened on the road.

History of No. 1426 (Enemy Aircraft) Flight RAF – aka the Rafwaffe

A unit born from opportunity

The RAF had been examining enemy aircraft since the early war years, with the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough acting as the main centre for technical evaluation, and the Air Fighting Development Unit running tactical trials. The missing piece was something more direct and more human: a way to put those machines in front of operational crews in a controlled setting, rather than leaving recognition to silhouettes, still photographs, and second-hand tales.

No. 1426 (Enemy Aircraft) Flight was formed at RAF Duxford on 21 November 1941. The choice of Duxford made sense. It was already tied into Fighter Command development and trials work, and it had the sort of infrastructure and local airspace that could support unusual flying without disturbing front-line business.

The Flight’s first line-up was modest and, by later standards, almost quaint: a Heinkel He 111, a Messerschmitt Bf 109, and a Junkers Ju 88 were among the early machines flown in RAF markings (hence becoming aircraft of the Rafwaffe. The job was not to hoard trophies. It was to circulate knowledge. Once a new type had been acquired, repaired, and wrung out for technical and tactical data, it could be handed to 1426 Flight so crews across Britain could see it with their own eyes.

By March 1943 the Flight moved from Duxford to RAF Collyweston, near RAF Wittering, and it is Collyweston that became most closely associated with the “Rafwaffe” in its mature period.

RAF Collyweston was not glamorous. It was useful: a satellite airfield, with room to park an eclectic collection of airframes, and close enough to established RAF infrastructure for support. Local memory has it as Collyweston’s last wartime claim to fame, precisely because German aircraft in RAF markings were not something Stamford villagers expected to see circling overhead.

From capture to classroom

A common misunderstanding is that 1426 Flight did all the serious testing itself. Much of the heavy technical work sat elsewhere. Farnborough in particular remained central for captured aircraft, especially as the war went on and systems such as radar and electronic homing became a battlefield of their own.

There was, broadly, a pipeline.

First came acquisition: forced landings, navigational mistakes, aircraft found abandoned, captures by Allied troops, and occasional defections. Then repair and examination, often with the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough and specialist work at other sites as needed. Tactical trials followed, usually with development units. Finally came demonstration and familiarisation, which is where 1426 Flight made itself useful, operating aircraft in RAF markings and taking them to the stations that needed to see them.

If you could have stood by a dispersal and watched the Rafwaffe Flight arrive, you would have understood its purpose instantly. These were not museum pieces. They were working aeroplanes, gathered so pilots, gunners, and ground staff could inspect the details that mattered in combat: cockpit layout, blind spots, armament positions, undercarriage stance, cooling arrangements, and the small cues that make recognition instinctive.

The airfields: where the Rafwaffe lived and travelled

A Flight that toured by definition left footprints all over the country, but its home bases and regular haunts are clear enough to sketch.

RAF Duxford (1941 to early 1943)

This was the starting point, tied into Fighter Command development flying.

RAF Collyweston (from March 1943)

Collyweston became the operational base for the touring period. It hosted the mixed collection and the maintenance effort that kept the aircraft flyable. It also provided something else: a degree of discretion. A small satellite field was a good place to run unusual aircraft without turning the station into a circus in the modern sense.

Royal Aircraft Establishment Farnborough and associated sites

Even when the Flight’s “address” was elsewhere, Farnborough appears repeatedly in the wider story as the place where captured aircraft were examined, modified, photographed, or used for trials and filming. Some aircraft also spent time at other airfields for specialised work, including night flying and radar trials.

Southern bases during the build-up to D-Day

As the invasion approached, the need for recognition and tactical understanding intensified, especially among units preparing for operations over the Continent. The Flight’s aircraft were used to familiarise Allied units in the south, including by flying past stations and formations so crews could see the silhouettes and attitudes of aircraft in motion.

Tour stops and dispersals

Surviving movement notes for individual aircraft show the touring nature of the job, with visits to a range of RAF and USAAF stations. The aircraft could arrive with friendly fighter escort, both for safety and to prevent fatal misunderstandings.

Tangmere and the end of 1426 Flight

By January 1945 the Flight’s role was winding down. The unit disbanded, and its function and some aircraft passed into the Enemy Aircraft Flight of the Central Fighter Establishment at RAF Tangmere.

The aircraft: the Rafwaffe’s flying collection

The Flight’s strength was never large in conventional terms. What made it remarkable was variety: fighters and bombers, single-engined and twin-engined, early-war and late-war, with oddities that arrived through sheer chance. Some types were famous because they survive today; others came and went, broken up for spares once the RAF had extracted what it could from them.

Messerschmitt Bf 109s: the spine of the collection

The Bf 109 was central because it remained the Luftwaffe’s standard single-seat fighter for much of the war. The Flight operated both early and later variants, giving RAF and Allied pilots a chance to compare what they were meeting in the air.

One early example was an E-model, a type closely associated with 1940. It offered something immediate: a chance to see the aircraft that had fought the Spitfire and Hurricane at close quarters, to understand how compact it was, how the cockpit sat, how the undercarriage legs gave it that particular stance on the ground, and how its systems were laid out.

The later G-models mattered in a different way. They were more powerful and often more heavily armed, and they appeared in a wide range of theatres. One well-documented aircraft in RAF hands was rebuilt from wrecked airframes and parts, then assembled and brought back to life in Britain. Its service with the “Rafwaffe” included comparative trials and mock combat against a range of Allied fighters. Those exercises were not parlour tricks. They were about knowing what an enemy fighter could do in a turn, in a dive, on the climb, and how quickly it could change direction.

The touring programme built around such aircraft combined ground inspection with flying display. It is easy to imagine the effect on a young pilot who had only seen a Bf 109 as a black dot or a gun-camera flash. Seeing it land, taxi, and park in front of him made the threat real, but also measurable.

Focke-Wulf Fw 190s: the hard lessons of 1942

The Fw 190 had given the RAF a rude shock when it appeared. It rolled quickly, hit hard, and for a period it outclassed many RAF fighters in certain manoeuvres and heights. Captured examples therefore had immediate value.

The RAF acquired Fw 190s through a mixture of forced landings, navigational mistakes, and battlefield recovery. Some were flown for trials and later used for familiarisation, including at Collyweston. At least one later Fw 190 in RAF hands arrived after a pilot became lost on a night operation and landed at an RAF airfield by mistake. That sort of accidental capture was typical of the “Rafwaffe” story. Chance delivered the aircraft, but organisation turned chance into training value.

Junkers Ju 88s: the bomber and the night fighter

No enemy type better fits the “enemy aircraft” concept than the Ju 88, because it came in so many forms: bomber, reconnaissance platform, torpedo aircraft, and night fighter. For 1426 Flight, it offered the big, unmistakeable twin-engined silhouette that bomber crews needed to recognise at a glance.

One Ju 88 in Rafwaffe hands came via a navigational error after a night raid, landing on a British airfield and being quietly absorbed into the evaluation system. Another, more famous, was a night fighter that ended up on British soil with advanced radar equipment. That aircraft was of great intelligence value. It went through technical evaluation and specialist trials before later joining the 1426 Flight “circus”, where it was used for familiarisation in the run-up to the invasion of Europe. In the summer of 1944, it was also used for film work, reflecting the way captured aircraft fed into training and instructional material.

Heinkel He 111: an early prize, and a grim reminder

The Heinkel He 111 had been a symbol of the air war over Britain in 1940. Captured examples therefore had obvious training value. But operating ageing enemy bombers was not safe. The history of the “Rafwaffe” includes fatal accidents, including the loss of a He 111 on a flight that killed the pilot and several passengers. It is a reminder that this work, though often described as a circus, carried hazards every time the wheels left the ground.

Messerschmitt Bf 110: the twin-engined fighter

Captured Bf 110s served both for recognition and for studying the handling of twin-engined fighters. They were useful for showing bomber crews what a twin-engined attacker looked like in different attitudes, and for examining features that distinguished it from similar silhouettes at range.

Henschel Hs 129: rare and worth showing

The Hs 129 was a specialised ground-attack aircraft, armoured and purpose-built. It was not common in the west, which made any captured example worth examining and worth showing. Its inclusion in the “Rafwaffe” story speaks to the Flight’s remit: not simply to familiarise crews with the most common enemy types, but also to give them a chance to see the oddities that might appear as the war shifted theatres and roles.

Messerschmitt Me 410: speed and sting

The Me 410 was a fast twin with the potential to be dangerous as a bomber destroyer and reconnaissance platform. Having one in RAF hands helped fill out the recognition picture and gave a basis for understanding an aircraft that could be misidentified at speed if you did not know what to look for.

Fiat CR.42 Falco: a biplane in the modern war

One of the most curious stories in the enemy aircraft programme is the Italian Fiat CR.42, a biplane fighter that ended up in RAF hands after a forced landing. It was repaired, examined, and flown in British tests, including mock combat. In the context of 1426 Flight, it serves as a reminder that “enemy aircraft” was broader than Germany alone, and that the RAF was willing to extract lessons even from types that seemed out of date.

The support aircraft: the unglamorous backbone

You cannot run a touring Flight on captured machines alone. Aircraft had to be ferried, spares collected, people moved, and the day-to-day practicalities handled. A small pool of RAF types provided that backbone, doing the work that never makes the photographs: the errands, the liaison trips, the transport of specialists, and the routine movement that kept the “circus” on the road.

How the touring programme worked

A 1426 Flight visit was an organised show-and-tell.

The aircraft would arrive, sometimes escorted by friendly fighters. That escort had a practical purpose. German silhouettes in British skies were a recipe for confusion, and nobody wanted a training sortie ending in a friendly engagement. Escort also helped with the optics on the ground: it reassured everyone watching that what they were seeing was controlled.

On arrival, crews could inspect the aircraft at close range. Pilots asked about cockpit ergonomics, visibility, engine response, and handling quirks. Gunners looked at gun positions and arcs of fire, and tried to understand how an enemy aircraft might manoeuvre to get its weapons on target or to escape. Ground staff looked at access panels, servicing points, and the way systems were packaged. These things were all tactical knowledge, just expressed through metal rather than a lecture.

Flying demonstrations followed. Nothing taught recognition like seeing an enemy type approach in a shallow dive, pull up, and bank away, showing its upper surface, its planform, and its underwing details in a sequence that resembled combat. The Flight’s aircraft also fed into training films and instructional work, because film could reach units that the “circus” could not.

The programme was not purely RAF-facing. Britain was full of USAAF units by 1943 and 1944, and American crews benefited from being able to inspect and watch the enemy aircraft they would meet over Europe.

Maintenance: the unglamorous miracle

The most impressive part of the “Rafwaffe” story may not be the flying at all. It is that the flying happened.

Maintaining captured aircraft was a constant fight. There was no smooth supply chain. Parts were often scarce, documentation incomplete, and the aircraft themselves were sometimes patched together from multiple examples. Some were rebuilt from wrecks, repaired with improvised components, and kept alive by ground crew who had to learn on the job with limited references.

Snags were constant: ignition problems, fuel system quirks, magneto issues, vibration, canopy and sealing troubles, and the peculiarities of German engineering when serviced by RAF methods and materials. A captured fighter might fly beautifully one day and refuse to behave the next. A captured bomber might need days of work for every hour in the air. Each sortie was therefore not only a training mission but also a maintenance gamble.

Even paint schemes were part of safety. These aircraft needed to be unmistakable. They wore RAF serials and markings, and sometimes additional high-visibility identifiers, because the only thing worse than confusing a captured aircraft with an enemy was doing so at the wrong moment.

Notable events, episodes, and losses

A history of 1426 Flight is incomplete if it only lists serials and airfields. The unit’s defining moments show why it mattered and what it cost.

Intelligence turns into training

The capture of advanced enemy equipment, particularly radar-fitted night fighters, created immediate intelligence opportunities. Technical specialists stripped those aircraft for information, tested the systems, and learned how the enemy was detecting and intercepting Allied aircraft at night. But the story did not end in a laboratory. Some of those same aircraft later toured to give aircrew a better sense of what they might face, and how to recognise it.

The spring 1944 “circus” tempo

The run-up to D-Day brought urgency. Units needed to be sharp on recognition and confident in their tactical understanding. The “Rafwaffe” tours at that time combined demonstrations with comparative flying, showing what an enemy aircraft could do when pushed, and what its limitations were when an Allied pilot made the right choices.

Accidents and the price of unusual flying

Enemy aircraft flying carried risks beyond the normal. Spare parts were scarce, systems were unfamiliar, and some aircraft were already old or worn by the time they entered RAF hands. Fatal accidents occurred, and the deaths of pilots and passengers underline a point that is too easily forgotten when we look back at the photographs: this was dangerous operational work, not showmanship.

One particularly painful loss involved a pilot killed when flying a captured Fw 190 that suffered an engine fire. That sort of death also stripped the Flight of experience. The men who could fly these aircraft well, and could talk about them clearly to operational crews, were specialists. They were not easily replaced.

Why it mattered

If you strip away the oddity of German aircraft wearing RAF roundels, 1426 Flight’s purpose was simple: reduce surprise.

Recognition training is about speed and confidence. A silhouette chart can teach shape, but it cannot teach scale as it looks through Perspex at 300 mph. It cannot teach the sound of an engine, or how a twin’s undercarriage sits when it is half-down, or what a fighter looks like when it rolls hard and shows its belly. A touring Flight could.

The Rafwaffe also did something subtler. It pulled the enemy down to size. Seeing a Ju 88 parked on your own station, climbing into its cockpit, asking a pilot what it felt like on approach, turns “the enemy bomber” into an aeroplane with strengths and weaknesses. That demystification matters when crews are about to cross the Channel.

The end of the road and the surviving legacy

By early 1945 the strategic situation had changed. The Luftwaffe was weakened, Allied forces were established on the Continent, and captured aircraft were no longer rare prizes. The Flight’s wartime role declined, and it disbanded, with its function passing into post-war structures that handled enemy aircraft within the Central Fighter Establishment.

What remained were the artefacts and the paper trails. Several “Rafwaffe” aircraft survive today in museum care, and the survival of those airframes has shaped modern understanding of the unit. They are tangible reminders of an unusual wartime practice: flying the enemy’s machines, not for bravado, but to teach people how to beat them.

The post The Rafwaffe: A History of No. 1426 (Enemy Aircraft) Flight RAF appeared first on WW2 Airfield Control Towers & Aviation History.

It is an episode that sits neatly at the junction of three wartime stories that do not often meet in the same paragraph: Orkney’s very practical home defence, the Royal Navy’s growing air arm, and an American-built fighter scoring what is widely described as its first combat victory in the European theatre.

Why Scapa Flow mattered, and why the Luftwaffe kept coming back

By late 1940 the Home Fleet’s anchorage at Scapa Flow was still one of the Royal Navy’s key assets and, therefore, a recurring problem for German planners. Orkney’s wartime defences were layered, ranging from anti-aircraft batteries and barrage balloons to coordinated fire plans and fighter cover from airfields in the islands and on the mainland.

This was not theoretical. The islands had already seen air attack and loss. A well-known early-war incident saw anti-aircraft guns on Hoy hit a Ju 88, often described locally as the first German aircraft shot down on British soil by anti-aircraft fire (there is also the Humbie Heinkel to consider here). Raids in March and April 1940 underlined that Orkney was not too far north to be touched, and that the defences would be tested repeatedly.

By Christmas 1940, the Luftwaffe’s need was not only to strike Scapa Flow but to look at it: to photograph, to assess changes, to learn where guns, balloons, nets and boom defences were placed, and to see what ships were present. 

The Junkers Ju 88: fast enough to get there, vulnerable once caught

Online sources record that a Junkers Ju 88 was shot down at Sandwick on 25 December 1940 while on a reconnaissance mission connected with Scapa Flow’s defences.

The aircraft brought down is usually identified in loss records as a Ju 88A-5 coded 4N+AL, with a Werknummer given in Luftwaffe compilations, assigned to 3.(F)/22, part of Aufklärungsgruppe 22. That unit operated Ju 88 reconnaissance aircraft from bases in Norway, making northern Scotland and Orkney reachable across the North Sea.

Whatever the exact track that day, the broad shape of the mission is consistent across Orkney and squadron-focused accounts: a lone Junkers Ju 88, engaged in photo-reconnaissance off the north of Scotland, was detected and fighters were sent up to deal with it.

The intercept: six Martlets scrambled, two got in

The most detailed narrative attached to named airmen describes a little after 2pm as the key moment. Six Grumman Martlets of 804 Squadron were scrambled over Orkney to pursue the Ju 88. Two pilots, Sub-Lt (A) T. R. V. Parke and Lt (FAA) Rodney H. P. Carver, made the interception and put rounds into the German aircraft.

The damage described is telling because it reads like a fight that was decided by systems and aerodynamics rather than instant destruction: the starboard radiator was hit; a port engine oil pipe was damaged; the tailplane took strikes. With cooling compromised, oil leaking, and the airframe no longer clean, the Ju 88 was forced into a crash landing rather than being able to run for the sea.

Crash-site summaries place the landing near Flotterson, just south of Loch Skaill in Sandwick. The air gunner is described as badly wounded, which matches the aircrew accounts.

There is an important point here that gets lost when people retell it as a neat “shot down” story. This was not a mid-air break-up and a smoking plunge into the sea. It ended with a survivable forced landing on farmland, which is why the next part of the story belongs to local men on the ground as much as to pilots in the air.

On the ground: stopping the burn, taking prisoners

German crews were trained to deny the enemy intelligence and equipment where they could. A Ju 88 sitting intact on a Scottish field was both a prize and a risk: a prize for anyone wanting cameras, films, maps, radio gear, and codes; a risk if the crew managed to set it alight.

The account most often repeated in connection with this crash is that armed local farmers, Thomas Harcus and his son Leslie, both in the Home Guard, prevented the crew from setting fire to the aircraft. The Germans were then taken into custody, with the wounded man receiving treatment, before the survivors were moved on for interrogation.

The crew was:

• Lt K. Schipp (pilot)
• Fw H. Schreiber
• Uffz H. Spörtl (the name is sometimes rendered Johann or Johannes in compilations)
• Obgefr K. Rotter (the wounded gunner)

Loss records broadly support the outline: the aircraft was lost at Sandwick on 25 December 1940, the crew were taken prisoner, and Rotter was wounded.

The Martlet angle: an American-built fighter makes its mark over Britain

There’s more to the story though. Yes, it was Christmas Day, a solitary intruder, and a clean outcome that leaves a crashed aircraft on British ground with prisoners beside it.

However, it also carries a technical footnote that has grown into a popular “first”. The Grumman Martlet, the British name for early Wildcats, was an American-built fighter. It is widely believed to be a US aircraft’s first combat victory in the European theatre when a British pilot in an American Martlet destroyed the Junkers Ju 88 over Scapa Flow. 

We can assume this to be the first combat victory by a US-built fighter in British service during the war.

Who were Parke and Carver, and what happened next

Rodney Harold Power Carver was a pre-war naval officer who had lived through the Fleet Air Arm’s shifting arrangements with the RAF and was with 804 Squadron at RNAS Hatston from late 1939, becoming ‘A’ Flight Commander in 1940. After Orkney he went on to command another fighter squadron and was awarded the DSC for his part in Operation Pedestal, later receiving a CBE and retiring as a Captain.

Thomas Robert Verner Parke’s story is shorter. He entered the Air Branch of the Royal Navy in May 1939, joined 804 Squadron at RNAS Hatston in July 1940, and was killed on 7 July 1941 when his Fulmar failed to return after being launched from HMS Pegasus in poor weather, crashing into high ground on the Mull of Kintyre.

Knowing that does not change what happened over Sandwick, but it does change the tone. The Christmas Day fight was not a neat “first” in a display case. It was a moment in the working life of two young naval aviators doing an unglamorous job: guarding an anchorage at the edge of the map.

A short note on why this little story lasts

People remember it because it has shape. A dark winter, a holiday, a lone aircraft crossing the sea, a scramble, damage that forces a landing rather than a disappearance, and then farmers with rifles stopping the crew from torching the evidence.

It is also a reminder that “defending Scapa Flow” was not just concrete, guns and paperwork. It was pilots at short notice, Home Guard on wet ground, and a strand of American industry arriving in British service months before the United States entered the war.

The post Christmas Day Intruder: The Ju 88 Shot Down at Sandwick, Orkney  appeared first on WW2 Airfield Control Towers & Aviation History.

Tragically Gleed did not live out the war to see the Allied victory he contributed to. When he was killed in action in April 1943, he left behind a record that combined combat success, leadership, and an unusually reflective written account of air fighting.

Ian Richard Gleed

Early life and the road to the RAF

Ian Richard Gleed was born on 3 July 1916 in Finchley, north London. He went to Tenterden Preparatory School and later at Epsom College. Like many young men of his generation, he grew up in the shadow of the First World War and tale of aviation bravery could be what drew him to flight. 

He learned to fly privately before joining the Royal Air Force, making his first solo flight in November 1935 at Hatfield. This matters because he joined the RAF not as an untested volunteer but as a man already comfortable in the air.

He joined the RAF on a short service commission in March 1936. After training, he was posted on Christmas Day 1936 to No. 46 Squadron, then flying the Gloster Gauntlet. These were the RAF’s last biplane fighters, already obsolescent by European standards, but the squadron provided Gleed with something more valuable than speed: time. He learned his trade in a peacetime air force that emphasised formation discipline, navigation, and the unglamorous routines of service flying.

The move to Spitfires and a narrow escape

In September 1939, shortly after the outbreak of war, pilot Ian Gleed was posted as a flight commander to No. 266 Squadron, which was reforming at RAF Sutton Bridge to fly the new Supermarine Spitfire. It should have been a straightforward progression, but in February 1940 he came close to being killed before ever facing the enemy.

On 18 February 1940, while testing a Spitfire, the aircraft broke up in mid-air. Gleed was thrown clear, lost consciousness, then recovered just in time to pull his parachute ripcord. He survived but was grounded for several weeks and initially restricted to dual flying only. For many pilots, such an accident ended a flying career. Ian Gleed returned to operations.

France 1940: baptism of fire

On 14 May 1940, just days into the German offensive in the west, Gleed regained full flying status and was posted to No. 87 Squadron in France as commander of “A” Flight. The situation was already deteriorating. RAF fighter squadrons were flying multiple sorties a day, often from airfields under attack, against a Luftwaffe that enjoyed numerical and tactical advantages.

In the space of three days, between 18 and 20 May, pilot Ian Gleed was credited with multiple victories against German fighters and bombers. These claims must be read in the context of the time. Air combat was fast, confused, and often fought at low altitude. Confirmation standards were uneven. What matters is not the exact arithmetic but the pattern. Gleed arrived in a battered squadron and quickly established himself as an effective combat leader.

No. 87 Squadron was withdrawn to Britain shortly afterwards. France was lost, but for Ian Gleed the experience proved formative. He had seen what modern air war looked like when things went wrong, and he had learned quickly.

The Battle of Britain and Hurricane operations

During the Battle of Britain, No. 87 Squadron operated primarily from airfields in the west and south-west of England, including RAF Exeter. This was 10 Group’s war, different in character from the better-known fighting over Kent and Sussex. Interceptions were often rushed, warning times short, and formations scattered by geography and weather.

Gleed flew the Hawker Hurricane, the RAF’s workhorse fighter of 1940. He became closely associated with one particular aircraft marked with a cartoon of “Figaro the Cat” on the fuselage, an image that has since become inseparable from his story. In fact, one of the most iconic photos of him features this Hurricane with him sat in the cockpit at RAF Ibsley. Such personal markings were not trivial. They signalled ownership, pride, and a bond between pilot and groundcrew.

As the daylight battle merged into the Blitz, Ian Gleed also took part in night fighting and intruder operations. This was among the most demanding work a fighter pilot could do in 1940 and 1941. Aircraft lacked airborne radar, navigation aids were basic, and interception relied on searchlights, ground control, and a good deal of luck. Gleed scored victories at night during this period, a testament not only to skill but to nerve.

On 13 September 1940 he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. The citation language was typical of the time, but the award reflected both courage and sustained operational effort during the most dangerous phase of the air war over Britain.

Squadron command and offensive operations

On Christmas Eve 1940, Gleed took command of No. 87 Squadron. He was just 24 years old. Youthful squadron commanders were not unknown in wartime, but the appointment still spoke to confidence in his judgement and temperament.

Under his command the squadron undertook a mixture of defensive patrols, night intruder sorties, and offensive operations over occupied Europe. These included attacks on enemy airfields in northern France, where aircraft could be destroyed on the ground. Such missions were hazardous and often unpopular, particularly at night, but they reflected a growing RAF emphasis on taking the fight back across the Channel.

Gleed continued to fly operationally as commanding officer. He was not a desk-bound leader. This mattered to the men he commanded, especially in a period when fatigue and loss were constant companions.

Wing leader and tactical influence

In November 1941 Gleed was promoted to wing commander and appointed wing leader, first at RAF Middle Wallop and later at RAF Ibsley. This marked a shift in his role. As wing leader, he was responsible not just for his own flying but for coordinating multiple squadrons, often flying Spitfires on fighter sweeps and bomber escort missions over northern France.

This was the era of offensive operations, when Fighter Command sought to draw the Luftwaffe into combat and maintain pressure over occupied territory. It was also a period when discipline mattered as much as aggression. Ian Gleed was known for emphasising the importance of staying with escorted bombers rather than breaking formation to pursue enemy fighters. It was sound advice, though not always popular with pilots eager for combat.

For his leadership and fighting spirit he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1942. By then, he was recognised not just as an accomplished pilot but as a thinker about air combat, someone capable of shaping how others fought.

Writing the war: Arise to Conquer

In 1942 Gleed published ‘Arise to Conquer’, a personal account of his experiences as a fighter pilot. It stands out among wartime memoirs for its clarity and restraint. Gleed wrote about fear, responsibility, and the mental strain of combat without sliding into melodrama. He did not pretend that air fighting was glamorous, nor did he reduce it to statistics.

The book was written under wartime constraints, both official and social. Like many public figures of the period, aspects of his private life were shaped for public consumption. Even so, the work remains valuable because it captures how a thoughtful, experienced pilot understood his job while the war was still being fought.

Headquarters work and the pull of operations

By mid-1942, Gleed was posted to headquarters roles at Fighter Command, serving as Wing Commander Tactics and later Wing Commander Operations. It was the sort of appointment often given to men expected to influence doctrine and training. For someone of his experience, it made sense.

It did not satisfy him for long. Like many combat leaders, Gleed wanted to return to operations. When the opportunity arose to serve in the Middle East, he took it.

The Mediterranean and 244 Wing

Gleed arrived in the Middle East on 1 January 1943. After a short period gaining desert operational experience with No. 145 Squadron, he was appointed wing leader of 244 Wing on 31 January. The context was very different from the air war over Britain.

By early 1943, Axis forces in North Africa were being squeezed into Tunisia. Air fighting focused increasingly on disrupting evacuation efforts and transport routes, particularly around the Cape Bon peninsula. Gleed flew Supermarine Spitfire Mk VBs, leading his wing on patrols and interception missions against German and Italian aircraft attempting to withdraw men and supplies.

This phase of the war was fast-moving and unforgiving. The Luftwaffe, though weakened, still fought hard, and losses continued on both sides.

Death over Cape Bon

On 16 April 1943, while leading a patrol over the Cape Bon area, Ian Gleed was shot down and killed. He had attempted to reach the coast, but his Spitfire crashed on sand dunes near the sea. 

He was initially buried at Tazoghrane and later reburied at Enfidaville War Cemetery. He was 26 years old.

As with many air combat losses, the precise circumstances are difficult to establish beyond doubt. Attribution of his loss to a specific enemy pilot has been suggested but remains uncertain. What is clear is that he was killed while leading operations at the height of his powers.

Achievements and assessment

Pilot Ian Gleed is generally credited with 13 confirmed aerial victories, along with additional probable and damaged enemy aircraft. As with all such tallies, the number should be treated as indicative rather than absolute. His success is better measured by its consistency across different theatres and roles.

He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), and held the rank of wing commander by the age of 25. He commanded both a squadron and a wing, wrote a significant wartime memoir, and influenced tactics at Fighter Command level.

Legacy

Gleed’s grave lies at Enfidaville War Cemetery in Tunisia. His headstone bears a line that reflects both resilience and humility: 

“One who held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake.”

Beyond the formal record, his legacy rests in three places. First, in the memory of those who flew with him and under him, who saw him as a leader willing to share risk. 

Second, in ‘Arise to Conquer’, which remains one of the more thoughtful personal accounts of the RAF fighter war. 

Third, in the enduring image of a Hurricane with a cartoon cat on its side, a reminder that behind the ranks and statistics were individuals with humour, fear, and resolve.

The post Ian Gleed (DSO, DFC) – The Life & Times of a RAF Fighter Pilot appeared first on WW2 Airfield Control Towers & Aviation History.

That reputation isn’t built on thin air. In late summer 1943, within roughly a fortnight, two Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys struck the control tower/watch office during night training. The second collision killed not only aircrew but also WAAFs working inside the building. You don’t need a taste for ghost stories to understand why a site like that would gather folklore around it.

RAF Sleap airfield history

RAF Sleap opened in April 1943 as a satellite to RAF Tilstock, roughly eight and half miles away. Its job was training: getting crews through a hard, repetitive syllabus, often at night, often in weather that would make today’s flying clubs cancel.

The unit most closely tied to Sleap’s worst week was No. 81 Operational Training Unit, part of Bomber Command. 81 OTU operated Whitleys from the area, and later (during 1944) Sleap was used for Horsa glider training too. By November 1944, Wellingtons replaced the Whitleys for the remaining months of the war.

The Whitley itself was already sliding towards obsolescence by 1943. It had been a front-line bomber earlier in the war, but training units used it hard, and night exercises asked a lot of airframes and trainees alike. NAVEXes (night navigational exercises) were meant to build routine. In practice they could turn brittle: a dark runway, fatigue, heavy aircraft, a slight swing on take-off or landing, and suddenly there is not much time to recover.

RAF Sleap’s control tower sat at the centre of that system: a working building, not a monument. The words used are interchangeable: “control tower”, or “watch office”, but the idea is the same: the hub where flying control staff watched, timed, and managed aircraft movements.

The first Whitley: LA937, 26 August 1943

On 26 August 1943, Whitley V LA937 of 81 OTU took off from RAF Sleap at 20:50 for a routine night navigational exercise.

The details that survive in accessible summaries point to a nasty combination on return: a double engine failure as the aircraft touched down at the end of the night sortie, followed by a runway excursion and impact with the watch office/control building at RAF Sleap.

Accounts of the incident describe the Whitley (LA937) losing control on landing at night, running off the runway and crashing into the control tower. Three crew members in the front of the aircraft were killed, while others on board survived. The tower was damaged, but the station resumed normal operations the next day.

Some casualty listings tie the crash to the double engine failure and record named aircrew losses, including Sgt Thomas Reginald Armstrong (RCAF) and Fg Off Keith Nesbitt Laing (RCAF).

Even if you strip away everything except those hard points (date, aircraft serial, unit, night training, mechanical failure on landing, a building hit) the shape of it is familiar to anyone who has read through OTU losses. Training is meant to prevent operational deaths. In wartime, it creates its own.

And RAF Sleap carried on. It had to.

The second Whitley: BD257, 7 September 1943 – and the WAAFs in the control tower

Twelve days later on 7 September 1943, RAF Sleap suffered the accident that fixed the control tower in local memory and folklore.

Whitley BD257 (squadron code “N”) lost control on take-off, swung off the runway, and collided with the air traffic control tower/watch office. Accounts describe the aircraft bursting into flames on impact.

This time, the dead were not confined to the aircraft.

Two WAAFs on duty in the control tower were killed: Aircraftwoman 2nd Class Vera Hughes and Aircraftwoman 2nd Class Kitty Ffoulkes. Corporal N.W. Peate (male) was also killed in the building. Two other WAAFs were injured and survived. They were Leading Aircraftwoman. A B. Jowett, and Aircraftwoman H. Hall WAAF. 

It’s worth pausing on the simple fact of where those women were. WAAFs served across roles that kept stations functioning including in operations rooms, communications, plotting, admin, meteorology, signals, and more. In the control tower at RAF Sleap they were not “near” flying operations; they were part of them. When the tower was hit, they were trapped in the place they were meant to keep safe for others.

On the Whitley, four of the five crew were killed. The fatalities were F/O. R W. Browne, F/O. E L. Ware RCAF, Sgt. W D. Kershaw, Sgt. E. Young. Sgt. S. Williams survived.

What it did to a station

It’s easy, with training accidents, to talk in the language of procedure and probability. A runway excursion. A swing. A loss of control. A building struck. But RAF stations were communities, and OTUs were built out of people under strain: instructors repeating the same lessons, pupils desperate not to wash out, groundcrew working long shifts, and flying control staff watching aircraft vanish into black skies then counting them home.

RAF Sleap resumed normal operations the day after the first control tower crash. That detail reads as both practical and chilling. The tower was damaged, men had died, and the airfield still flew.

After the second impact, it would have been impossible to keep the same emotional distance. Even if procedures changed, and it is reasonable to suspect that a serious internal review followed, as was standard after fatal accidents, readily available summaries don’t spell out what alterations were made locally. 

What is clear is that the control tower became more than a working building at RAF Sleap. It became a scar you could point to.

After the war: the airfield keeps being used

RAF Sleap’s history did not end when the war did. Its later life helps explain why the tower stayed in public sight long enough for stories to gather.

During 1944 it served as a main training base for Horsa gliders, towed by Whitleys and Stirlings; later that year, Wellingtons replaced Whitleys in the training role.

Post-war, RAF Sleap continued as an active station with a major role in training air traffic controllers, with early jets among the visitors. By 1955, Shropshire Aero Club had been founded, and the site became a civilian airfield which is today described by the club as the only civilian licensed airfield remaining in Shropshire. There is also a small on-site museum run by volunteers.

So, the control tower did not vanish into a fenced-off ruin on a forgotten perimeter track. People kept coming here. Aircraft kept taking off and landing. That continuity matters, because it means the wartime past was never wholly sealed away. It sat alongside the ordinary business of flying.

The ghost stories: what people report, and what they might mean

“Haunted” can mean a lot of things. Sometimes it’s a literal claim: someone saw a figure, heard a voice, felt a touch. Sometimes it’s a shorthand: a place feels heavy because you know what happened there.

At RAF Sleap, the local legend is now openly acknowledged in modern heritage summaries, which link the haunting directly to the victims of those nights in 1943.

A great many of the specific modern anecdotes circulate through ghost-hunting groups and event listings rather than through formal history. That doesn’t make them worthless, but it does tell you what they are: contemporary stories told in the present tense, shaped for an audience that wants atmosphere.

One commonly repeated cluster of reports focuses on RAF Sleap’s control tower itself: footsteps on stairs or in empty rooms, doors opening and closing on their own, and the general sense of activity in spaces that are supposed to be still.

Another strand is looser, more like hangar talk. Aviation forums and local conversations sometimes mention RAF Sleap as haunted by a “woman pilot”. It’s a good example of how folklore moves: a place-name, a vague figure, and a story looking for a shape to settle into.

There are two cautions worth keeping in view.

First, the control tower deaths at RAF Sleap included two WAAFs on duty in the building, not a “woman pilot” in the usual sense. That doesn’t stop later retellings from blurring categories – WAAF becomes “woman aircrew”, then “woman pilot” – but it does matter if you’re trying to keep faith with the dead.

Second, the very features that make a derelict or semi-derelict tower eerie, such as wind through broken frames, settling concrete, sharp temperature shifts, the acoustics of empty rooms – also make it easy to misread ordinary sounds and sensations. None of that disproves anyone’s experience. It just means a historian has to separate the record of the crashes from the record of the stories told afterwards.

What’s more interesting, and more human, is how tightly the stories cling to the right object. RAF Sleap’s history of wartime tragedies did not happen in a distant field. They happened in the station’s nerve centre. The tower is where people watched aircraft come and go, where WAAFs and RAF personnel worked shifts, where routine was meant to hold the chaos at bay. When the tower itself was hit – twice – routine failed in the most physical way possible.

So, it makes sense that, in the post-war decades, the tower would become the focal point for talk about presence: footsteps on stairs, doors that move, the feeling that you are not alone. Those are the sorts of details people reach for when they try to put language around a place that holds more than it should.

Why WW2 airfield control towers become magnets for memory

WW2 airfields are full of vanishing things. Temporary huts. Dispersal pans reclaimed by scrub. Runway edges softened by grass. Even the big hangars are often rebuilt, repurposed, re-skinned.

WW2 airfield control towers are different. They are designed to be seen. They sit up, keep watch, and outlast the traffic that once justified them. If something violent happens to one, the damage feels like an affront: the watching eye struck blind.

At RAF Sleap, the “haunted” reputation is not a random gothic add-on. It grows from specific facts: two Whitleys from 81 OTU hitting the control tower/watch office during night training in 1943; the second incident killing WAAFs in the building (Vera Hughes and Kitty Ffoulkes); the airfield continuing in use long enough for those facts to be retold, simplified, embroidered, and passed on.

If you like wartime aviation folklore, RAF Sleap’s history offers the familiar ingredients: a surviving structure, a tight timeline of tragedy, and a community of visitors primed to feel something in an old tower at night. But the better story – because it stays honest – starts with the training station itself. Young aircrew learning to fly in darkness. Flying control staff doing their jobs. Two nights when the margin ran out. And the building left behind, still catching the weather, still catching the imagination.

Sleap doesn’t need exaggeration. The record is heavy enough.

The post RAF Sleap’s Tragic History: Does it have a Haunted Control Tower? appeared first on WW2 Airfield Control Towers & Aviation History.

We are delighted to announce that our plan to restore RAF Ibsley Watch Office in Hampshire has reached a new milestone.

The now-dilapidated RAF Ibsley Watch Office is a rare surviving example of a Second World War control tower. Our plans can proceed now we have signed a long lease on the building. This point has only been reached through close working with the RAF Ibsley Airfield Heritage Trust and we are grateful for their enthusiasm and support.

Landmark hopes to restore the Watch Office to its 1940s glory while at the same time adapting it as self-catering holiday accommodation for up to eight guests. This would enable public access and protect the building and its significance in perpetuity. Our restoration will combine environmental sustainability and accessibility, and seek to draw out the special atmosphere of this remarkable place.

A fundraising appeal will be launched this summer. If the money can be raised, holidaying guests – together with visitors to free public open days – will be able to experience the thought-provoking site and enjoy the surrounding nature reserve that the former airfield has become. It is hoped work could begin in 2024 for an opening in 2025, which marks 80 years since the end of the Second World War and the year of Landmark’s 60th anniversary.

The now-dilapidated RAF Ibsley Watch Office is a rare surviving example of a World War II control station. It was constructed between 1941-2 and saw active service, including the D-Day invasion, for both the RAF and US Air Force. The building’s exceptional significance lies in the part it played during a period of great peril in our national history, when young pilots defended Britain with such courage and at such personal cost. Ibsley was used as the location for the wartime film ‘The First of the Few’. We aspire to save it from further dilapidation and vandalism, so that Landmark guests can experience this thought-provoking setting and enjoy the surrounding nature reserve that has displaced the former airfield.

The post The Landmark Trust Announce a Plan to Restore the RAF Ibsley Watch Office appeared first on WW2 Airfield Control Towers & Aviation History.