Fly Past

42 RAF CENTENARY CELEBRATION BOMBERS

HANDLEY PAGE HAMPDEN

1938 TO 1944

HANDLEY PAGE

HAMPDENHAMPDEN

L

essons came thick and fast for

Bomber Command in the first

month of the war, September

1939. Equipped with the Hampden
      medium bomber, which was almost
      as fast as the Bristol Blenheim, the
      crews of 144 Squadron at Hemswell
      were in confident mood. The mid-
      morning of September 29 changed
      all that.
      The target was warships in the
      waters between the island of
      Heligoland and the Elbe estuary off
      the northwest German coast. Two
      flights of six Hampdens set out; one
      of the first batch had to turn back
      with engine trouble.
      Both elements should have arrived
      around the same time, entering the
      target area from the south and the
      north to ensure separation. The
      southerly section – with six aircraft

• arrived early and attacked two
  destroyers, but with no visible results.
  As this group pulled out, the others
  arrived at around 10:00 hours. Alerted
  to the raid, Messerschmitt Bf 109s

were racing to the area, the fighters

having climbed out of Jever, west

of Bremerhaven, and just 44 miles

(70km) away from Heligoland. The

navigation couldn’t have been easier:

the island was due north of the base.

It took less than ten minutes

to dispatch all five Hampdens.

Fifteen men died in the water, one

succumbed to his injuries after being

picked up and four became prisoners

of war. Among the dead was 144’s

commanding officer, Wg Cdr J C

Cunningham.

German radio was quick to crow

about the destruction of an entire

flight of British bombers. The

broadcast declared that the RAF

had “stirred up a hornets’ nest” and

paid the penalty. It is perhaps as well

that the announcer was not aware of

144 Squadron’s motto, approved in

March 1938: ‘Who Shall Stop Us’.

By the end of September, Bomber

Command dramatically reduced

sorties while its tactics were

reassessed. When the Hampdens

returned to operations, their single

dorsal and ventral guns had been

replaced by twin guns, while armour

plating had been introduced in an

attempt to make them more resilient.

But they remained terribly vulnerable

to a frontal attack.

FLYING SUITCASE

Its deep fuselage tapering abruptly

into a tail boom led to the

Hampden being nicknamed ‘Flying

Suitcase’ and ‘Flying Panhandle’ –

while the Luftwaffe referred to it

as the ‘Tadpole’. The origin of its

proper name came from townships

in Canada or New Zealand; the

RAF was coy as to which took the

honour.

The Hampden was a combination

of simplicity – shunning power-

operated turrets – and aerodynamic

elegance. It was the fastest of the

trio of medium bombers with which

the RAF entered the war: 70mph

(112km/h) ahead of the Armstrong

Whitworth Whitley and 19mph

Above

English Electric-built

AE148 of 16 Operational

Training Unit, Upper

Heyford, in 1940. From

mid-1940 to mid-1942,

when Wellingtons

arrived, 16 OTU

operated a fl eet of up

to 40 Hampdens.

Below

Hampden AE257 took

off from 44 Squadron’s

base at Waddington on

the early evening of

October 21, 1941, bound

for the German city

of Bremen – it never

returned. It’s assumed

the bomber came down

in the North Sea. The

bodies of two of the

crew were recovered

and buried in Germany;

the other two are

commemorated at the

Air Forces Memorial

at Runnymede.

PETE WEST

1918 2018