Obituaries

[vikingBerserker]

[gepp]

Group Captain Herbert M. Pinfold - Passed away 19th October 2009
Battle of Britain Pilot with 56 Squadron,flying Hurricanes, he also flew with 6, 64, 502, 603, Squadrons.
"Born on February 5 1913 Pinfold joined the RAF on a short service commission in mid-September 1934. On the 29th he was posted to 5 FTS, Sealand and with training completed, he went to 6 Squadron at Ismalia, Egypt on September 5 1935. Back in the UK Pinfold was posted to 64 Squadron at Martlesham Heath on March 19 1936 and on July 16 1938 he joined 502 Squadron Aux AF as Flying Instructor and Adjutant.

Pinfold went to 3 FTS, South Cerney on July 2 1940, as an instructor. He arrived at 5 OTU, Aston Down on August 11 for a refresher course. After converting to Hurricanes, he took command of 56 Squadron at North Weald on the 25th, remaining with it until January 29 1941, when he was posted to 10 FTS, Tern Hill, as an instructor.

From January 2 to July 16 1945 Pinfold was at Staff College, after which he was on the staff at Air HQ Kandy, Ceylon and later Singapore. He retired from the RAF on October 1 1958, as a Group Captain."

APO 14.9.34
PO 14.9.35
FO 14.3.37
FL 14.3.39
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WC 1.9.42
WC 1.10.46
GC 1.7.53
only kill i could find was he shot down a DO 215 im sure there would of been more.

[RabidAlien]

[gepp]

R.I.P Ulrich Steinhilper (formerly of 3/JG 52) - passed away last night.Ulrich Steinhilper has written three autobiographical books - Spitfire On My Tail, Ten Minutes To Buffalo, and Full Circle.

[Gnomey]

[vikingBerserker]

[Wayne Little]

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[Maximowitz]

R.I.P Ulrich Steinhilper (formerly of 3/JG 52) - passed away last night.Ulrich Steinhilper has written three autobiographical books - Spitfire On My Tail, Ten Minutes To Buffalo, and Full Circle.

I'm very sorry to hear this. I have a copy of "Spitfire On My Tail" and found it a very interesting and objective account of his adventures during the Battle of Britain.

Rest easy Ulrich.

[syscom3]

Wing Commander Douglas Benham

Douglas Benham received a daunting introduction to air combat in August 1942, as a flight commander with 242 Squadron over Dieppe where the RAF suffered heavily at the hands of the Luftwaffe. When the squadron was sent that November to North Africa in support of the Anglo-US Torch landings, the intensity of the air combat continued as the Germans poured aircraft into Tunisian air bases, in a desperate attempt to stem the Allied advance from Algeria.

Operating from a forward airfield at Bone, 300 miles east of Algiers, 242 and Benham were constantly in the thick of the action and by February 1943 he had been awarded the first of his two Distinguished Flying Crosses. The second was to come near the war’s end, in April 1945, as he led 41 Squadron in ground attack and air superiority sweeps in support of the Allied advance in North West Europe.

In between he had been awarded the Air Force Cross, while being rested from operations, for his work in radically increasing the efficiency of an operational training unit (OTU) in the Midlands — and cutting down its losses in aircraft and pilots.

Douglas Ian Benham was born in 1917 and educated at Southend Grammar School. In September 1938 he joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve and began flying training on Tiger Moths. When war broke out in September 1939 he was called up, completed flying training and was posted in May 1941 as a sergeant pilot to 607 Squadron then based mainly on air defence duties over the Fleet at Scapa Flow with its Hawker Hurricanes.

After a further period as an instructor to 59 OTU, in April 1942 he was posted to 242 “Canadian” Squadron (which the legless ace Douglas Bader had commanded in the Battle of Britain). The squadron’s Canadian connection — it had been formed in 1939 with predominantly Canadian personnel — was to be continued when it was one of those chosen to accompany the Dieppe Raid of August 19, 1942, most of the troops for which were provided by the Canadian 2nd Division. Most of the casualties from this military disaster were also Canadians.

Besides providing fighter cover for the assault troops the RAF aimed to draw into battle above the beachhead the entire strength of the Luftwaffe in Northern France. Although the RAF was successful in the former aim, the air battle went in the Luftwaffe’s favour on a ratio of 2-1, with the RAF losing 105 aircraft in a single day. Benham was credited with an Me109 damaged.

When 242 was sent to Algiers on November 8, 1942, the day of Operation Torch, its first task was the interception of German bombers seeking to disrupt allied shipping supporting the landings. Benham had his first combat victory the following day when he and his wingman shot down a Ju88 between them.

When the squadron later moved to Bone much nearer the airfields of German-held Tunis and Bizerta, the action increased in intensity, and within a few weeks Benham was an ace (five kills) counting Ju87s, Me109s and Fw190s among his victims. In his desire to be at grips with the enemy on one occasion he overboosted his Spitfire’s engine while pursuing a posse of Fw190s. The Merlin blew up but he made a successful belly landing, returning to his base on a donkey. When he was awarded his first DFC, in February 1943, his tally was six combat victories and several more shared.

In June 1943 he was appointed chief flying instructor at 61 OTU at Rednal near Birmingham. There he reorganised the air traffic control and improved servicing and refuelling arrangements. The result was a marked reduction in crashes involving inexperienced Spitfire pilots (and consequent loss of aircraft), a substantial increase in training hours flown and a boost to morale. For his remarkable exertions he was awarded the AFC. In August 1944 he returned to the front line as CO of 41 Squadron, which was operating the fast and powerful Spitfire 14 on daylight bomber escorts. Later in the year it moved to the Netherlands as part of the 2nd Tactical Air Force, flying ground attack sorties and fighter sweeps. On January 23 the squadron spotted a number of Fw190s while on patrol over Münster in Lower Saxony. In the ensuing dogfight Benham added another two combat victories to his tally. The citation to the Bar to his DFC, awarded in April 1945, credited him with ten enemy aircraft destroyed.

Shortly before the end of the war he was posted to command the Air Ministry Manpower Research Unit. He would have preferred to stay airborne, but such an appointment was a recognition of his analytical and organisational qualities. An overriding concern was the operational efficiency of the greatly reduced postwar RAF not least of its non-flying branches, in all of which objectives he played a big role.

In 1949 he was back to flying, converting to jets and being appointed Wing Commander Day Training at Fighter Command in 1951. His last appointment was as Wing Commander (Operations) in Aden in 1954. The breaking of the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the pressures on the deployment of RAF air power it involved in this far-flung region led to an extension of this tour. For his role he was appointed OBE.

Benham retired from the RAF in 1957, settled in Pembrokeshire and became an executive in the independent television station TWW based in Cardiff. He was also chairman of the Spitfire Society (Wales) until 1999.

There were two children of his marriage in 1939 to Silvia Carpenter, who died in 1957. He married in 1963 Rosalind Woollard. There were two children of this marriage which was dissolved in 1975. He married in 1985 Jill Dean, a cousin and well-known Pembrokeshire artist. She died in 1992. The son of his first marriage predeceased him. He is survived by the daughter of his first marriage and the son and daughter of his second.

Wing Commander Douglas Benham, OBE, DFC and Bar, AFC, wartime fighter pilot, was born on December 30, 1917. He died on October 28, 2009, aged 91

[syscom3]

A prewar RAFVR pilot, Jim Rosser was called up on September 1, 1939, two days before the outbreak of war. In November 1940 he was posted to 72 (Spitfire) Squadron with which he carried out fighter sweeps over northern France in 1941, when Fighter Command went on the offensive in the aftermath of the Battle of Britain.

He then took part in the intensive air battles which were fought out over the disastrous Dieppe Raid of August 1942, in which British and Commonwealth losses both on the ground where the Canadians suffered heavy casualties, and in the air where the RAF lost many more aircraft than the Luftwaffe, were grievous.

After that Rosser spent some time as a test pilot flying Spitfires at Vickers Armstrong as part of Alex Henshaw’s team before returning to the front line as a flight commander in Normandy after the D-Day landings of June 1944.

Flying in support of Operation Market Garden, the unsuccessful Arnhem airborne operation in September that year, he was hit by flak over the battle area but managed to bring his Spitfire in to a forced landing.

After many vicissitudes and help from the Dutch Underground he regained his liberty and was able to return to Britain to a test pilot post at Vickers, where he remained until January 1946, when he was demobilised. The citation for his Distinguished Flying Cross credited him with two enemy aircraft destroyed and four damaged.

Walter James (Jim) Rosser was born in 1917 and educated at Northampton Grammar School, after which he studied architecture. He had enlisted in the RAF Volunteer Reserve in October 1938, learnt to fly and was called up on September 1, 1939.

Commissioned after joining 72 Squadron as a sergeant pilot, he took part in regular daylight sweeps over the formidable “hornets’ nest”, the German fighter base at St Omer that presented such a menace to the RAF’s sorties over northern France.

He also flew as one of the fighter escort to the bombers that dropped Douglas Bader’s spare artificial legs, after the legendary fighter ace’s Spitfire was in collision with an enemy aircraft on a sweep over the Pas de Calais in August 1941, and had to bale out, leaving one of his tin legs trapped in the cockpit. On this errand of mercy Rosser’s squadron had to fight its way in and out of northern France, losing several good pilots in the process.

He was posted to 130 Squadron as a flight commander in April 1942. Based at Perranporth, Cornwall, the Spitfires of No 130 were involved in sweeps over northwest France, convoy patrols off Cornwall and Devon and local air defence duties.

On one occasion he found himself over the sea with insufficient fuel to return to Perranporth. He calculated that he might just make Ireland although that would mean internment for the duration of the war. There was no option, and he succeeded in reaching an Irish airfield and landed safely.

He was escorted fom his aircraft to an official who informed him that, regrettably, he would indeed be interned. However, as he was refreshing himself alone at the bar he noticed that his Spitfire was in fact being refuelled. No one intervened as he walked out, climbed onboard and took off, to return to Perranporth. In June 1942 he was awarded the DFC.

On September 26, 1944, flying in support of the airborne operation that was intended to outflank the German defensive line and establish a bridgehead across the lower Rhine at Arnhem, his Spitfire was hit by flak and he crash-landed. He was hidden by the Dutch Underground, who advised him to wait for the Allies to advance rather than try and make his way back. But when the Germans discovered he was in the area and threatened to shoot a number of locals unless he gave himself up, he surrendered to a Waffen SS unit.

He subsequently escaped by overpowering a guard and returned to the Resistance, who sheltered him until advance units of the British Army arrived in the area.

After demobilisation he worked as an estate agent in Northampton until the outbreak of the Korean War, when he rejoined the RAF as a pilot. But it was found that he was suffering from high-tone deafness (or “Merlin ear”) and he thereafter transferred to the Secretarial Branch until retirement from the RAF in 1972.

In final retirement after a few more years with a civil engineering practice in Newcastle upon Tyne, he and his wife (formerly in the WRAF) lived first in Lot-et-Garonne, France, and later in Hampshire to share a house with their daughter and her family.

Rosser is survived by his wife, Denise, two sons and two daughters.

Flight Lieutenant Jim Rosser, DFC, wartime fighter pilot, was born on February 18, 1917. He died on October 13, 2009, aged 92

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[Wayne Little]