Castle Bromwich Airfield Archives

An American Airman laid to rest 3500 miles from Home

March 4, 2015 by William Dargue Leave a Comment

His parents’ only child, Raymond Tenney Balch was born in 1894 in Newburyport Massachusetts and fell to his death from a training aircraft over Sutton Park just months before the end of the First World War.

He was educated locally at Newburyport, then in 1912 enrolled at the Phillips Academy, Andover, the oldest (and most prestigious) boarding school in the USA. After a short career in banking in Boston he signed up at the Naval Cadet School of Massachusetts graduating in 1917 as an Ensign. He was assigned to the 9th Deck Division, but was unable to go into active service for medical reasons.

Forced to Enlist in Canada

Disappointed but undeterred, Balch travelled to Toronto where he enlisted with the newly formed Royal Flying Corps Canada, undertaking training at Bayside in Canada and at Fort Worth, Texas, during the winter months.

He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in November of 1917 and in December of that year was sent to Castle Bromwich for further training before joining the Great War on the mainland of Europe.

Joins No.74 Training Squadron

Raymond Balch was assigned to the No.74 Training Squadron at Castle Bromwich aerodrome. In February the next year he won his First-Class Pilot’s licence and was promoted to First Lieutenant on 1st April 1918.

1918 Raymond Balch Royal Aircraft Factory SE5a — A Royal Aircraft Factory SE5a

On 25 May 25 1918, two days before his transfer to the Front, he took his aircraft out for aerial manoeuvres and target practice over Sutton Park. The plane was an RAF SE5a which had come into prominence towards the end of the War.

Balch pulled out of a dive over the park on his way back to Castle Bromwich airfield, the aircraft broke up. Balch was thrown to the ground and killed.

The SE5a was prone to have gear system problems, and it was not unknown for the propeller and sometimes the entire gearbox to break loose from the engine and airframe in flight.

Lieutenant Balch was 23 years old when he was killed and one of 85 students of Phillips Academy who died in service during the First World War.

He was buried in Castle Bromwich graveyard close by the new gate. On 4 August 2014 a vigil took place at Castle Bromwich Church led by Rev Gavin Douglas to commemorate the centenary of the declaration of hostilities between Britain and Germany. The service started at the grave of Lt Raymond Tenney Balch.

Remembered in Massachusetts and Castle Bromwich

‘The Municipal History of Essex County in Massachusetts’ of 1922 lists Balch’s achievements ending with the words, ‘He was of that fine manly type, honourable and devoted to duty, modest in manner, but with the courage to face any test coming in the line of duty. Long may his memory be kept green, this young man who died for others, the supreme test of manhood.’

In 1922 the Phillips Academy in Andover built a memorial tower to commemorate the sacrifice of the students who had given their lives during the First World War. The Honor Roll includes the name of R T Balch. The tower was hung with a carillon of 19 bells cast by John Taylor’s bell foundry in Loughborough.Fitting then, that it will be Taylor’s who are to carry put the restoration work and the casting of two new bells at St Mary & St Margaret’s church just across the road from the grave of the brave lieutenant.

Acknowledgements: This article has been developed from research by Terrie Knibb and the Castle Bromwich Youth & Community Partnership. For more information about the Castle Bromwich Graveyard Project go to http://castlebromwichgraveyard.co.uk/

William Moorwood Staniford

February 25, 2015 by William Dargue Leave a Comment

William Moorwood Staniforth was born in Hackenthorpe near Sheffield in 1884. He had joined the army as a regular soldier before the outbreak of the First World War serving with the Queen’s Own Yorkshire Dragoons Yeomanry based in Sheffield. He rose to the rank of sergeant and was awarded the Long Service medal. When war broke out, he was sent with his regiment to France and Flanders on active service where he served until December 1915. In January 1916 William was enrolled with the Royal Flying Corps to be trained as a pilot with the 28th Reserve Squadron at Castle Bromwich. He was promoted to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant.

Later that year William Staniforth was married. The details of the wedding were reported in the West Yorkshire Post on 1st July 1916. The previous Saturday William had married Gladys Burrows at St Mary’s, the parish church of Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire. The marriage was presided over by Rev A S Commeline, rector of Beaconsfield, coincidentally formerly of York.

It is likely that William had met Gladys while in Sheffield. Gladys was the second daughter of Mr and Mrs Sam Burrows, then living in Beaconsfield but formerly of Sheffield.

Short Lived Happiness

Gladys’s happiness was to be short-lived. The next year Gladys’s father died and was buried in Shepherd’s Lane Cemetery just along the road from the parish church where his daughter’s wedding had been celebrated.

And then in March, Gladys’s husband of only 9 months crashed his plane while training at Castle Bromwich aerodrome and was killed outright. He was 32 years old. William Staniforth was buried in Castle Bromwich graveyard with others who had shared the same sad fate.

William Staniforth Memorial Inscription — William Staniforth Memorial

A tablet was erected in William’s memory bearing the words: To the dear memory of Billie, killed while on flying duty in England, Gladys. Gladys also had her husband’s name inscribed on her father’s gravestone at Beaconsfield.

After the war ended Gladys remarried and was last heard with her husband in Southern Rhodesia at the site of a prospective gold mine.

A Sad and Sudden End to a Distinguished Career

February 22, 2015 by William Dargue 2 Comments

On 29th July 1950 Wing Commander Arthur Mobley lost his life at one of the last air shows at Castle Bromwich Airfield. Tragically, his wife and young son were witnesses to the event.

Arthur Mobley was born in 1913. During the Second World War he served with the No.37 squadron at Feltwell in Norfolk, flying Wellington bombers as a Flight Lieutenant. Having joined the RAF in 1937, he was 26 years old when the war started and rose to the rank of Wing Commander in the RAF.

Flying Wellington Bombers

Mobley flew in the Wellington bomber N2980 which was involved in many bombing sorties including the Heligoland Bight raid in December 1939, when over half the 22 Wellingtons were shot down by the Germans. During 1939 and 1940 the plane took part in 14 bombing raids from Feltwell.

Fortunately, Arthur Mobley was not on board the aircraft’s last flight, a training exercise over Loch Ness in on the last day of December in 1940. The plane developed engine trouble and the crew were forced to bail out. All survived except for the tail gunner whose parachute failed to open. The Wellington crashed into the deep waters of the loch.

The photograph show Arthur Mobley (centre back) with the s0 called Loch Ness Wellington N2980 at Feltwell in 1940. — The photograph show Arthur Mobley (centre back) with the so called Loch Ness Wellington N2980 at Feltwell in 1940.

Remarkably, in 1976 the Wellington N2980 was discovered by an American underwater team searching for the Loch Ness monster; it was successfully salvaged in 1985 in a state of surprisingly good preservation. When connected to a battery the aircraft’s lights still worked! The Wellington was taken to the Brooklands Museum in Surrey, the site where it had been manufactured 46 years previously and where it can still be seen.

Becoming an RAF Instructor

After the war Arthur Mobley became an RAF flying instructor and it was in this role that he made his final flight.

Castle Bromwich Airfield (now the site of Castle Vale) had been the venue for the Birmingham air shows from 1927. (The 1950s were to see the last of them.) Arthur Mobley, now 36 and a veteran with some 4000 flying hours to his name, had been appointed as deputy chief flying instructor at No.5 Castle Bromwich Reserve Flying School. It was the beginning of the school holidays and his wife Rita and nine-year-old son Terry had come up from their home in Wallingford, Berkshire to see Arthur take part in the flying displays.

Last Flight in a Tiger Moth

It was towards the end of the day. Rita Mobley was sitting in their car watching the final displays with son Terry when her husband came over to say that he had one more flight to make. He was taking up Flying Officer John Deighton of Handsworth, an RAF pilot serving in the Volunteer Reserve for some practice. Deighton liked to keep his hand in.

A Tiger Moth at Castle Bromwich Aerodrome

Four Tiger Moths took off flying in formation with Mobley as leader. The aircraft then broke away to perform a loop, first diving then ascending sharply. Mobley took the controls from Deighton. As the plane started to climb, it stalled and then spun down to the ground, crashing in a nearby field. Young Terry and his mother witnessed the crash, but did not know until afterwards that it was Arthur who had been the pilot.

Arthur’s pupil, John Deighton, remarkably survived, though badly injured with fractured ribs and a fractured leg. He spent six weeks in hospital and later appeared at the inquest on crutches.

Accidental Death Verdict

Deighton testified at the inquest that Mobley had taken over the controls before the breakaway. At the end of the dive, Deighton had blacked-out. When he came to the plane was spinning towards the earth.

Testimony was also given by Squadron Leader Ronald Chalmers, the chief flying instructor of the Flying School. In a very recent medical check Mobley had been pronounced A1 fit. In the light of the steepness of the climb and Deighton’s black-out, he assumed that Mobley too had blacked-out and was then unable to regain control of the aircraft.

In his summing up, Birmingham Coroner Dr W H Davison said that Flight Lieutenant Mobley had been shown to be a skilled and experienced pilot and that it was reasonable to assume that a black-out had been the cause of his fatal crash. The jury recorded a verdict of accidental death.

Castle Bromwich Airfield (Part Four)

June 30, 2014 by William Dargue Leave a Comment

With the prospect of war with Germany becoming certain rather than possible, the British government began to make military preparations.

Early in 1938 the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain appointed Sir Kingsley Wood as Secretary of State for Air. Before his appointment the output of planes for military use was 80 a month. Under Kingsley Wood the output rose to 546 a month and by the outbreak of war Britain’s aircraft production was on a par with that of Germany.

Second World War
One of the most technically advanced designs of the time was the Spitfire fighter. It had been ordered as early as 1936 but two years later not one plane had been produced. So Wood approached Lord Nuffield, the owner of Morris Motors, to set up a new purpose-built factory at Castle Bromwich to produce the plane for the RAF.

Apparently Nuffield had boasted that he could produce fifty Spitfires a week, but by 1940 during the Battle of Britain all Spitfires involved had been built at Southampton; not a single Spitfire had yet left the Castle Bromwich factory. That month Prime Minister Winston Churchill appointed Lord Beaverbrook as Minister of Aircraft Production and he gave control of the factory to Vickers, who were manufacturing Spitfires in Southampton.

The Castle Bromwich factory was the largest of its kind in the country covering some 140 hectares and employing over 12,000 people. Once production was under way the target of 50 a week was often achieved and by the end of the war almost 12 000 Spitfires were made here, more than half of the total number produced. From 1941 the factory also manufactued over 300 Lancaster bombers.

044 1914 CB airfield 1941 First Lancaster Bomber — The first Lancaster bomber to leave the production line at Castle Bromwich

The factory was naturally a target for the German air force. Indeed the first raid on Birmingham took place in August 1940, when a single bomber, unable to find the Castle Bromwich plant, dropped its bombs over Erdington. This was followed by three weeks of attacks on the east side of the Birmingham. The factory was badlyat this time damaged with 7 killed and 41 injured. The Nuffield factory at Witton was also bombed and 187 houses were damaged. By the war’s end the factory had been hit by over 200 bombs causing eleven fatalities.

The site of the factory had been chosen because of its proximity to the Castle Bromwich airfield. Finished aircraft were towed across the Chester Road to be flight tested before being delivered to their squadrons. The airfield and factory received a number of distinguished visitors including Winston Churchill Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, the first lady of the USA and the King of Norway.

The Airfield in Peacetime
After the war the airfield was again in use as an RAF training station. By now there were two tarmac runways, although grass runways were still in use, and a number of hangars on the site notably at the Minworth end. After the war open days and air displays were held at Castle Bromwich airfield to commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the last of which took place in 1957.

The airfield was again also used for civilian flights, including the world’s first scheduled helicopter service for passengers which flew passengers from Harrods’ sports grounds at Barnes near London to the British Industries Fair at Castle Bromwich in 1950.

The Castle Bromwich aeroplane factory closed at the end of the war to become a car factory.

Closure of the Airfield
In 1958 the airfield was closed and in 1960 the site and that of the British Industries Fair was sold to Birmingham City Council for housing. The building of Castle Vale estate started in 1964 and was complete by 1969.

The roads on the new estate were almost all given the names of World War 2 airfields or names associated with aircraft. Some of the remaining aircraft hangars continued to be used for industrial purposes, though these have all now been replaced. Some late RAF houses still stand along the Chester Road opposite the former aircraft factory. St Cuthbert’s church has a memorial to the 605 (County of Warwick) Squadron, Royal Auxiliary Air Force, which was based here. Original buildings from the Spitfire factory are still in use by Jaguar and a Birmingham Civic Society blue plaque commemorates the factory’s role in Spitfire production.

However, the most obvious memorial is Sentinel, a large steel sculpture by Tim Tolkien made in the year 2000 which stands on the roundabout at the junction of the Chester Road and Tangmere Drive. The roundabout is now known as Spitfire Island.

A Spitfire, known as a gate guardian, stood at the entrance of the airfield from 1954 to 1958. Made at the aircraft factory in 1944 the Spirfire had seen active service with the RAF. When the airfield closed it was transferred to the Birmingham Museum of Science & Industry and then to the Thinktank in 2000 where it is still on display.

044 1914 CB airfield 1940 BBMF P7350 wikip — Spitfire P7350 now of the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight built in 1940 at Castle Bromwich

There are over 50 Spitfires around the world still in airworthy condition. Of the aircraft operated by the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Spitfire P7350 is the only one surviving from the Battle of Britain in 1940 still to be flying. It was one of the first to be built at Castle Bromwich.

Castle Bromwich Airfield (Part Three)

June 30, 2014 by William Dargue Leave a Comment

The Years between the Wars –
an airfield of dual use: military and civil.

044 1914 CB airfield 1922 britain from above — Castle Bromwich airfield in 1922. Castle Bromwich railway station can be seen to the right of the Chester Road bridge; behind it are the building of the Britosh Industries Fair, and beyond it the airfield. This image from the Britain from Above website is used in accordance with the sites terms and conditions – http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw007488.

The First World War came to an end on 11th November 1918 leaving large stocks of aircraft engines and other parts in the hangars at Castle Bromwich, including numbers of Handley-Page 0/400s biplane bombers built in and around Birmingham. These had been checked and tested and made ready to be flown to their receiving squadron.

After the war some were retained by the RAF while the surplus was bought by the Handley-Page company who converted them into passenger planes mostly for a London-Paris service.

In 1919 the War Office (under Winston Churchill) decided to retain Castle Bromwich airfield permanently for use by the RAF, later licensing it to the Midland Aero Club. However, some land, buildings and railway sidings were returned to the Drainage Board.

A Base for the AAF
In December 1926 Castle Bromwich was as set up as one of the bases for the newly-formed Auxiliary Air Force. This was (and is) a voluntary reserve whose purpose was to provide reinforcement for the regular force. New facilities including hangars were built on site to accommodate the reserves who trained here at weekends and during their holidays.

Badge of the 605 Squadron (County of Warwick)

The 605 Squadron is associated with Castle Bromwich. Formed in 1926 as a bomber unit, part of the AAF, it was known as the County of Warwick squadron and recruited largely in the Birmingham area.In 1939 the 605 was designated a fighter squadron and moved to Tangmere near Chichester; during the Battle of Britain it operated from RAF Northolt.

By the outbreak of the Second World War there were some 40 full-time RAF personnel posted here and 15 aircraft. With fewer flying hours and a higher level of skill available in flying and maintaining aircraft, the number of accidents decreased dramatically. Nonetheless accidents including fatalities still occurred and appear to have been equally balanced between pilot error and mechanical failure.

The British Industries Fairs
In 1920 the British Industries Fair opened a Midlands offshoot of its London exhibition, initially in disused hangars at Castle Bromwich adjacent to the railway and with the entrance on the Chester Road next to the station. Over the years, a series of buildings were constructed with trade exhibitions held there from 1920 until 1956. The intention was to present a shop window of British goods to overseas buyers. However, the exhibitions were also extremely popular with the general public.

044 1914 CB airfield 1930 ish-1 — Castle Bromwich airfield in the 1930s

There were soon initiatives to establish Castle Bromwich airfield for commercial use. The first of these unfortunately was the victim of the weather. An air service was run during the 1922 British Industries Fair from London to Birmingham, but suffered cancellations and saw limited use due to high winds and above average rainfall that year. The service was more successful the following year, although it did not immediately lead to regular services.

I933 saw the beginnings of an air service between Birmingham, Cardiff, Plymouth, run by the Great Western Railway. Passengers were bussed from Snow Hill Station to Castle Bromwich Aerodrome and flew to Plymouth via Cardiff, Teignmouth and Torquay in a Westland Wessex 6-seater. It took just over an hour to get to Cardiff, 2 hours to Plymouth at a single fare of £2 and £3 respectively, twice the rail fare. The route was very soon extended to Liverpool, London and Brighton.

It 1934 Imperial Airways and a number of railway companies set up Railway Air Services which flew de Havilland DH86 biplanes over a route linking Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester, Castle Bromwich and Croydon. Tickets could be bought at any railway station. Planes left Glasgow daily at 8.45 am, stopped at Castle Bromwich for Birmingham at 12.15 pm and arrived at Croydon at 1.05 pm. The return flight left Croydon two hours later.

The King’s Cup
The King’s Cup Race is an annual event inaugurated by King George V to encourage the development of the light aircraft industry in Britain and was originally open only to British and Commonwealth competitors. The first contest took place in September 1922 with a course from Croydon to Glasgow and back with a first stop at Castle Bromwich. (The race continues to this day with a break only from 1939-1945 during the Second World War). However, the race did not attract much public interest or enthusiasm in Birmingham. In the ten years since Bentfield Hucks had performed his breath-taking loop-the-loop at the airfield the sight of an aircraft over Birmingham had become commonplace.

The Birmingham Air Pageant
Indifference was changed to enthusiasm by the Birmingham Air Pageant, the largest in the country outside RAF Hendon. The two-day show in July 1927 attracted over 100,000 people, most paying to watch from the one shilling enclosure. The Air League Cup Race started from Castle Bromwich and there were RAF display teams performing aerobatics and mock warfare. Imperial Airways showed off their new Argosy, renamed ‘City of Birmingham’, a deluxe airliner which could carry 20 passengers in style between London and Paris. The Lord Mayor, Alderman A. H. James flew over Birmingham in the plane.

044 1914 CB airfield 1927 Lord Mayor in Argosy City of Birmingham — The Lord Mayor about to emplane on the Argosy ‘City of Birmingham’. Image from the FlightGlobal website used in accordance with their terms and conditions.

A Municipal Aerodrome
During the late 1920s there was national campaigning by air transport enthusiasts for a network of municipal aerodromes to be built and there was intense civic rivalry as to which city should be the first. Manchester won the race in 1928 with an air strip laid out at Barton to the west of the city. Castle Bromwich was put forward as an obvious choice, being an airfield already. Sites at Shirley and Elmdon were also proposed.

However, with the coming to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany in 1933 and the increasing threat of conflict in Europe, the Air Ministry decided the following year that Castle Bromwich could not be used for civil or commercial purposes. More hangars were built and the airfield became a squadron headquarters.

Even without the Air Ministry’s intervention, it is doubtful that Castle Bromwich would have become Birmingham Airport. The litany of accidents caused or exacerbated by the location of the site is testimony to that. In a letter to the Birmingham Mail in 1929 a writer who tagged himself ‘The Lost Horizon’ described his own experiences of flying at the airfield. Due to the fog and smoke blown from the city’s industries towards Castle Bromwich, the writer maintained that flying between October and April was all but impossible. On the day of writing visibility at the airfield was down to 200 yards while on the west and south sides of the city it was 20 miles and more. He hoped that all other possible sites would be be explored before money was wasted creating a municipal aerodrome at ‘Castle Fogwich’.

Housing
In 1920 Birmingham City Council took over the former barracks known as hutments on the airfield, some on Park Lane, to help alleviate the City’s severe housing shortage. Some of the occupants were ex-servicemen, some were workers at the nearby Dunlop factory.

044 1914 CB airfield 1929 Park Lane No 15 Shed Phil BHF — No.15 Shed, Park Lane. Image posted by Phil on the Birmingham History Forum website

In 1933 questions were asked of the Health Minister in the House of Commons regarding flooding in some of the dwellings. The hutments had been built as temporary accommodation for servicemen in the first place and were only intended by the City Council to be occupied temporarily. However, the so-called ‘Bungalow Town’ for some one hundred families remained in use until 1935 when the wooden buildings were demolished, that may have had more to do with the expanding use of the site by the RAF in the face of the possible German threat.

For part 4, click here.