TRIBUTE TO SQN LDR C PATTERSON
It was with sadness that the Royal Air Force Charitable Trust Enterprises (RAFCTE) has learned of the death of Squadron Leader Charles Patterson DSO DFC.
Patterson, who lived in Wotton-under-Edge, was among the guests who helped launch the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford in 2005.
Though a quiet and unassuming man, Patterson’s career with the Royal Air Force was anything but, taking part in many daylight low-level bombing raids, including three of the most audacious of the war.
He started the Second World War as a bomber pilot but ended it flying reconnaissance missions as part of the first ever fully-operational Mosquito squadron in the RAF.
Born in Edinburgh in 1919, Patterson went to school in Canford in Dorset before studying Estate Management at the Royal Agriculture College in Cirencester. After passing the theoretical part of his land agency exam in 1938 he travelled to Ireland in the spring of 1939 for some practical experience in preparation for exams that autumn. He never sat them.
On September 3, 1939, war was declared and nine days later, Patterson enlisted in the RAF. After training in Tiger Moths and Oxfords, he spent a short period flying Whitleys before switching to Blenheims in 1940. It was whilst flying these aircraft with 114 Squadron on anti-shipping operations over Norway that Patterson honed his incredible low-level flying skills.
After a period instructing, he briefly flew Bostons before transferring to 105 Squadron, the first to be equipped with the Mosquito. On September 26, 1942, Patterson flew a daylight weather reconnaissance sortie requested by Air Marshal Harris who intended launching a large raid with heavy bombers that night. The sortie lasted four hours and 1,200 miles. On landing, Patterson was told that throughout the afternoon the RAF listening posts had intercepted numerous German broadcasts scrambling fighters to engage the Mosquito before giving it up for lost.
In November of that year, Patterson’s squadron was involved in an intense series of low-level exercises. Unknown to the crews, military air chiefs were planning the most ambitious low-level daylight operation of the war – ‘Operation Oyster’ – the daylight attack against the Philips radio and valve works at Eindhoven.
During the training period, Patterson was selected to fly a specialist reconnaissance task using a cine-camera mounted in the nose of his Mosquito. He was to fly down the Scheldt estuary to the German fighter airfield at Woensdrecht taking film that would be used to brief crews taking part in the forthcoming attack. To create the correct perspective, he would have to fly at 400ft, which would give the German radars ample warning of his approach. Despite this, Patterson completed his mission, in an unarmed Mosquito, within two hours.
The following month saw the Philips factory attacked. It was Patterson’s role to fly at the rear of 12 Mosquitos and film the raid as he dropped his 500lb bombs. Although the losses were high, the mission was a great success and the factory did not return to full production for almost six months.
“It wasn’t terribly dangerous,” Patterson said of the raid. “Just into Holland and back.”
Shortly after the raid, Patterson was told that he would be the RAF Film Unit’s pilot and on February 13, 1943 he took off on his first operation, following on behind the main attack force to record the results of the raid on Lorient.
During the remainder of this year, 105 Squadron embarked on a mixture of low-level bombing raids and high level nuisance raids which, on April 20, saw Patterson flying over Berlin with intentions to make Hitler’s birthday an explosive affair.
“It was a present,” said Patterson during the Air Tattoo’s launch in 2005. “Hitler had said before the war that no British bombers would fly over Germany and we wanted to prove him wrong.”
The following month, he took part in a raid on the Zeiss optical factory and Schott glassworks at Jena -the final such attack ever to be carried out in daylight. Mosquito aircraft from 105 and 139 Squadrons set out on a long-range low-level penetration of Occupied Europe to attack the Zeiss optics factory and a glassworks at Jena. The targets were bombed with great accuracy, but five aircraft were lost, two to a mid-air collision.
On August 16, 1943, Patterson followed 40 Bostons on a raid to attack a large steelworks at Denain in northern France. His film showed spectacular damage and was widely used by the newsreels. It also convinced Air Officer Commanding, 2 Group, Air Vice-Marshal Basil Embury of the value of such cine-camera equipped Mosquitos. As a result, Patterson was to spend much of the rest of his operational career in the same role.
In September 1943 he converted 3 Ventura Squadrons to Mosquitoes under Group Captain Pickard. In total he completed an unprecedented three tours on Mosquitoes, his final tour being with 487 Squadron (New Zealand) mainly on strikes against V1 sites. Shortly after D-Day he flew the film unit Mosquito across the Channel to take film of the first Spitfire Squadron to land in Normandy.
Patterson left the RAF at the age of 25 having flown on some of the most hazardous operations of the war. He had survived a full tour on a low-level daylight Blenheim Squadron; he had taken part in three famous low-level missions: Knapsack, Eindhoven and Jena, and achieved outstanding results as the film unit pilot flying his Mosquito.
In addition to receiving the DFC, Patterson had the rare distinction of being awarded a DSO for his record as a junior officer.
After the war, Sqn Ldr Charles Patterson worked in London, first in civil aviation, and then at a precision engineering company he set up. He then became successful as a bloodstock agent before retiring to Wickwar in Gloucestershire in 1979. He supported Gloucestershire County Cricket Club and greatly enjoyed his visits to the Cheltenham Festival.
Patterson, who died on March 2, was unmarried and had no children.
