WORLD WAR TWO PHOTO RECONNAISSANCE
70 FLYPAST May 2018
BATTLE INTERLUDE
On September 1, 1939 German
forces invaded Poland and Britain
and France declared war two days
later. It had previously been decided
that should hostilities with Germany
break out, the RAF would send
its light bombers, known as the
Advanced Air Striking Force (AASF),
to operate from French bases.
A day before war was officially
declared, the RAF put its plan into
action and the AASF deployed to
France, with Ring taking his Battle
over to Berry-au-Bac, near Reims.
Flying consisted mainly of practice
bombing runs, but Ring undertook
a number of visual reconnaissance
sorties to the frontier though no
contact with the enemy occurred.
In the last month of 1939, the unit
moved to Amifontaine just a few
miles to the north. The type of flying
was much the same as before albeit
seriously curtailed by the weather.While Ring was based at
Amifontaine he learned that
volunteers were sought for a special
reconnaissance unit. Little was
known except that candidates should
be experienced single or multi-engine
pilots with good navigation abilities.
Bored with the mundane nature of
12 Squadron’s activities, he put his
name forward.FRENCH RECCE
To his surprise, Ring was selected
for consideration, making his
last flight with 12 Squadron on
February 10, 1940. A few days later
he was posted to PDU, by which
time he had accumulated more than
700 hours of single-engine time.
On the 27th Ring made his first
trip in a Spitfire when he flew Mk.I
N3186 on a local orientation flight.
Training sorties followed until he
was declared operational in
mid-March.On March 16, Ring flew to Seclin,
near Lille, in one of the unit’s
Lockheed 12 twins to join 212
Squadron. This unit was formed
on February 10, 1940 as PDU’s
overseas component with ‘A’ Flight
at Seclin and ‘B’ Flight based at
Nancy: Ring was assigned to ‘A’
Flight.Ring had his first ‘op’ on the 19th,
flying Spitfire N3071 to central
Belgium taking survey photographs
for the cartographers of the British
Expeditionary Force (BEF). After 75
minutes, he landed back at Seclin –
unfortunately with no images, thick
cloud having obscured the target
area. He had more success on the
25th, this time in N3117, when
he took photographs of western
Belgium taken from 31,500ft
(9,600m).
During his second sortie of
the day on April 7, Ring hadBATTLE INTERLUDE While Ring was based at
Right
Spencer Ring climbs
into the cockpit of Hind
K5554 of 12 Squadron at
Andover, September 12,- M RING
Right centre
Fg Off Ring inspecting the
engine of a 12 Squadron
Battle. M RINGBelow
Battle K7674 of 12
Squadron in 1938. A very
nonchalant Ring is seated
in the radio operator/air
gunner position. M RING