Night Fighter

382, [2] pages. Frontis illustration. Illustrations. Map. Foreword by John Cunningham. DJ has wear, tears, soiling, and is price clipped. Some endpaper and page discoloration. Flight Lieutenant Cecil Frederick "Jimmy" Rawnsley DSO, DFC, DFM & Bar (16 March 1904 - 12 February 1965) was a Royal Air Force night fighter observer radar operator and gunner during the Second World War. He flew many of his sorties with John "Cat's Eyes" Cunningham who was credited with 20 kills, of which 19 were claimed at night, and 17 of which were achieved with Rawnsley. On 4 April 1941 he was awarded a Distinguished Flying Medal (DFM) to which he added a Bar on 23 May of the same year. With mounting success he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) on 19 September 1941. In January 1943, Rawnsley transferred to No. 85 Squadron RAF along with Cunningham. Rawnsley published (with Robert Wright) a memoir detailing his wartime career in the book Night Fighter. Covering his partnership with Cunningham, it gives a clear insight into the methods the pair used to find and down enemy aircraft. Robert Wright (1906 - 1992) was a historian and biographer of Hugh Dowding, the RAF's commanding officer in the Battle of Britain. Wright served as Dowding's personal assistant during the Battle. In his book Dowding and the Battle of Britain (1969) Wright was one of the early proponents of the Big Wing conspiracy theory that blamed Trafford Leigh-Mallory and the British Air Ministry for Dowding's removal from command at the end of the battle. No. 604 Squadron RAF was a squadron of the Royal Air Force noted for its pioneering role the development of radar-controlled night-fighter operations. The squadron was established in March 1930 at RAF Hendon as a day-bomber squadron of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. Shortly after the commencement of World War II in 1939, the squadron was reassigned to a night-fighter role in late 1939. By May 1940, the squadron had moved to RAF Manston. During the squadron's stay at RAF Manston that Flying Officer Alistair Hunter and Sergeant Gordon Thomas shot down a Luftwaffe Heinkel 115 floatplane shortly after midnight on 18 June 1940, during the first major night raid over the United Kingdom. In early summer 1940, squadron aircraft were fitted with VHF radiotelephone equipment and Mark III Airborne interception (AI) radar. The former was part of RAF Fighter Command policy, and greatly improved air-to-air and air-to ground communication. The AI equipment was fitted to assist the night fighter crews in locating German bombers at night. A new technological development, AI was not particularly reliable at this stage, and needed a third crew member to operate. The external antennas slowed down aircraft that were already considered of low performance for their role. Most AI operators were inexperienced and were forced to learn on the job, translating the information provided on the AI screens into instructions to enable their pilot to get close enough to visually locate and shoot down an enemy bomber. Late in September 1940 the squadron received its first Bristol Beaufighter, equipped with four 20-mm Hispano-Suiza HS.404 cannon under the nose and improved Mark IV AI radio-location equipment. As one of the few squadrons thus equipped, 604 Squadron provided night defense over the UK during the Blitz from late 1940 until mid May 1941, when most Luftwaffe bomber units departed for involvement in the invasion of Russia. By this time 50 air victories had been claimed by the squadron—fourteen by F/L John Cunningham. In early 1943 the squadron began to switch over to night intruder operations. In February 1944, the squadron was allocated to the 2nd Tactical Air Force and began conversion to the de Havilland Mosquito. Operations from Normandy began in August but the following month the unit returned to the UK, returning to the continent once again in January 1945. Some 127 air victories had been claimed by the Squadron during the war, 41 since. …