Issue No 21 THE AVIATION HISTORIAN 35
for the day-to-day operation, maintenance and
crewing of the RFS. Only ferry crews, important
civil servants and official freight and mail were
permitted on the flights.
Of the three Liberator Is allocated to the RFS,
AM915 was delayed into service until August
as its tailplane had been removed and fitted to
AM260, owing to considerable cracking found
in the tail of the latter in May 1941; AM918 was
flown from Gander to Prestwick on the night of
May 13–14, 1941, by Wg Cdr John Francis, and
AM920 was delivered the same night. The latter
two were allocated to Scottish Aviation Ltd at
Prestwick, which modified the aircraft for their
transport role.
The Middle East route
The first RFS flight for Atfero by AM918 was
made on May 26, 1941, the aircraft flying
regularly until it and one of the LB-30As, AM263,
were withdrawn from the RFS for special service
on a direct route from Hurn on the English South
Coast to Cairo, Egypt, in January 1942. Both were
added to the British civil register, as G-AGDR
and G-AGDS respectively. The war situation in
North Africa at the time was that Auchinleck
had pushed Rommel back and Tobruk, Benghazi,
Bardia and Halfaya had been retaken, although
on January 21 Rommel counter-attacked. The
purpose of the Hurn—Cairo flight has not been
conclusively identified, but it appears to have
been the first of what was to be a regular service.
Damaged by an engine fire at Prestwick on
December 12, 1941, AM263 took some time to be
repaired and was withdrawn from the service,
its civil registration lapsing, leaving just AM918.
The latter’s Certificate of Airworthiness as
G-AGDR was issued on January 5, 1942, but the
aircraft was unable to proceed to Hurn owing to
fuel system problems. It was not until January 24
that Capt R. Humphrey Page was able to ferry
the aircraft to Hurn, where it was prepared for
the onward flight.
On the night of January 25–26, 1942, G-AGDR
departed Hurn on the initial proving flight to
Cairo West (also known as LG224 Kilo 26) via a
circuitous route, the latter devised to minimise
the chance of fighter interception, and arrived
11hr 15min later. On January 27, in preparation
for the return flight, planned for that evening,
No 44 Group sent the following secret signal:
“Liberators on UK/ME [Middle East] route to
burn ‘resin’ lights or fly below 5,000ft [1,500m]
when over land on approach or leaving UK.”
It is at this point that the flight back to the UK
begins to unravel. It is hinted in BOAC’s official
report that on arrival at Cairo West, G-AGDR
was at the limit of its endurance. This seems odd,
as a Liberator could comfortably fly for 13hr, and
Qantas and the RAF would later frequently fly
Liberators for 16–20hr; some flights of 22–24hr
were even recorded. Given G-AGDR’s proposed
TAS (true air speed) of 200kt (the longer flights
probably operating at 150kt), it still fails to ring
true. Nevertheless, this has been offered as the
reason why Capt Page put forward a revised
route for the return flight.
Several days of forecast strong headwinds
caused the return flight to be repeatedly delayed.
A conference was held on February 6 with the
HQ Middle East RAF Operations Controller at
RAF Almaza (LG245), in which Page proposed
an alternative route which was practically the
rhumb-line track direct from Cairo to Hurn.
[Rhumb line: an arc crossing all meridians of
longitude at the same angle; a path with constantABOVE It appears that Liberator I AM918/G-AGDR was somewhat camera-shy in the ten months between its
arrival in the UK in May 1941 and its loss in February the following year. It was one of a batch of 20 LB-30B/
Liberator Is, also including AM922, as seen here, which joined No 120 Sqn at Nutts Corner in June 1941.
AUTHOR’S COLLECTION