Stapme

The Biography of Squadron Leader Basil Gerald Stapleton DFC, Dutch Flying Cross

David A Ross

• Publisher: Grub Street Publishing
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781902304984
• eBook ISBN: 9781909166691
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

This biography of the WWII flying ace recounts his legendary career in the RAF, his time as a POW and his postwar life as a beloved public figure. One of the most famous fighter pilots of the Second World War, Basil Gerald "Stapme" Stapleton achieved flying ace status in the Battle of Britain and was immortalized in Richard Hillary's classic wartime memoir The Last Enemy. Born in Durban, South Africa, Stapleton joined the Royal Air Force in 1939 and flew Spitfires with 603 Squadron. His legendary escapades during the Battle of Britain account for nearly twenty enemy aircraft destroyed, probably destroyed or damaged. Stapleton later became flight commander of 257 Squadron and a gunnery instructor at RAF Kenley and Central Gunnery School, Catfoss. He returned to combat in 1944, flying Typhoons as commander of 247 Squadron. For his courageous combat during the Battle of Arnhem, he received the Dutch Flying Cross. In December of 1944, he was forced to land inside German lines and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner in Stalag Luft I on the Baltic coast. Nicknamed 'Stapme' after a phrase used in his favorite cartoon 'Just Jake', Stapleton was a larger-than-life character who became a beloved public figure in his postwar life. With his handlebar mustache and good-humored bravado, he became for many the quintessential ace fighter pilot. In this authoritative and intimate volume, Stapleton tells his full story to historian David Ross, author of the acclaimed biography Richard Hillary.

CHAPTER ONE

‘BAAAASIL!’

Basil Gerald Stapleton was born in Durban, South Africa on 12 May 1920. One of three children; older brother, Deryck (later Air Vice-Marshal Deryck C. Stapleton CB, CBE, DFC, AFC, RAF (Ret’d)*, and younger sister Marjorie. His grandfather owned a local brewery producing Stapleton’s Pale Ales and his great uncle, Richard Valentine Stapleton, was one of the partners of a solicitors in Broad Street, Stamford, Lincs. Today, his name still appears on the frontage of the premises. Gerald’s father, John Rouse Stapleton OBE, always known as ‘Jack’, was born in Thurlby, near Stamford on 4 February 1885, and had a distinguished career in marine radio service and broadcasting. He trained at the South London Telegraph Training College from 1901 to 1903 when he joined the Marconi Company in July of that year and was at sea as a radio officer from 1910 until 1912. From 1912 to 1919 Jack Stapleton was in charge of the Government Wireless Station at Welikado, Ceylon, and during WWI was a senior officer of the Ceylon Engineer Corps. In 1920, with the birth of Gerald imminent, his wife stayed with her parents in Durban whilst Jack Stapleton travelled to India where he was involved with early wireless and broadcasting experiments. Stapme’s earliest memory was of being on his father’s desk in Calcutta aged three. His father’s two claims to fame are that he was responsible for the establishment of radio broadcasting in India and for the installation of the Marconi radio set in the RMS Titanic. As history records, it functioned perfectly but failed to bring about immediate assistance when the White Star liner sunk with the loss of over 1,500 lives after glancing off an iceberg on 15 April 1912. In 1928 he was appointed director of the Indian Broadcasting Company and in 1930 director of the Calcutta Station for the Government of India. Jack Stapleton was awarded the OBE in the King’s Birthday Honours List of 1941, and at the time of his retirement was director of All India Radio in Calcutta and manager for the Marconi International Marine Communication Company Limited and the British Wireless Marine Service. Gerald remembers: ‘Later in life he suffered from cataracts, which also afflicted me. Whilst working on his car he had trouble seeing and used to swear loudly in Hindustani, so the rest of us wouldn’t understand!’ Jack Stapleton made his home in Sarnia in Natal in December 1946 and opened a small leather goods shop in Pinetown, near Durban.

Gerald’s mother, Myrtle Natal Borland, was born in Natal on 21 December 1886, and was the artistic member of the family who had a great influence on the young Gerald. She was awarded a Gold Medal for Piano and Singing at the Royal Academy of Music. A talented pianist and experienced piano tutor, she attempted to teach Gerald to play. Unfortunately, his own artistic inclination was to play by ear rather than by learning to read music. This frustrated the instincts and went against the classical training of his mother and Gerald was told to: ‘. . . stop being provocative!’

Gerald was only at his first school a short time before being moved to another in Norbury, south London, where he ‘won a pen knife for winning the egg and spoon or sack race, I can’t remember exactly which.’ During one of his school holidays he went to stay with an ‘uncle’ in Lincolnshire where he earned some pocket money assisting the local milkman on his round.

His father was sent to work in India, initially unaccompanied, but later his wife joined him once the boys had settled in to boarding school. Gerald recalls his early life:

We had been living in West Croydon for a couple of years when Dad was sent to India with the Marconi Company, as director of the Indian Broadcasting Company. My mother and father decided to put my brother and me into an English school before he departed. Our first school had been Ellaland, on the south-east coast, when I was six, but this closed soon after and we were sent to Norbury College and then King Edward VI School in Totnes. My father then left for India. There, I received my education from about nine years old until the school leaving age. One of the deciding factors for sending us to a school in that part of the country was because my brother had been suffering from double pneumonia and pleurisy and the doctors had advised my parents to send him to a more suitable climate to aid his recovery. Devon was perfect. As it happened, he made a full recovery and he retired from the RAF as an Air Vice-Marshal.

My mother initially stayed locally in a cottage in Torbay called ‘Seacroft’ and we were week-day borders at King Edward VI School. We enjoyed our weekends at home. Eventually, when my brother was fully recovered she went back to Croydon, before joining my father in India – some three years after my father was first posted overseas. She used to come over from India to visit and, if I remember correctly, she did something like eleven trips across from India to England and back between the wars. Eventually, she went to live in Clarens, Switzerland, where my sister, Marjorie, went to Le Chatelarde school for girls. My brother and I joined our mother and sister for a number of the school holidays. We travelled out by boat and train. It was while I was in Switzerland that I learnt to speak French. Because Dad only took leave once every four years, we really didn’t see much of him.

Nicknames were a typical part of school (and service) life and Gerald and his colleagues were no exception. However, on one occasion the older lads called him by his first name but directed it at him in a sheep-like ‘Baaaasil’. He responded by punching the nearest senior on the nose. Apart from his immediate family, he was known as Gerald from then on and didn’t experience any other problems while at school in Devon:

We had a very good house mistress called Crawshaw. We had another who we nicknamed ‘Hottentot’ (I can’t recall her real name). We used to have a master who was first-class and we used to call him ‘Ghandi’ because he was a little fella with a sharp nose and glasses. He gained an MA at Oxford and eventually became a headmaster. I have a photo taken in 1936 of the football team when my brother was captain. I’m standing there as a fifteen or sixteen year old. I didn’t have my colours at that time. When you got your colours you got a cap with a tassel and you wore a shirt with light blue/dark blue quarters. If you didn’t have your colours you wore a striped jersey, so on the field you could tell who had been awarded their colours for football. My brother became school sports captain. We didn’t really see each other, he seemed to live in a different world; the ‘big boys’ as we called them.

Gerald initially had little understanding of algebra and trigonometry and received extra tuition from his teacher Mr Foster, known as ‘Plush’. Although he gained his Oxford Schools Certificate for many subjects including arithmetic, he failed the algebra and trig: ‘I really excelled at geography, history, English and later French, passing the Oxford Schools Certificates in each. I loved the required reading.’ His strengths lay in his sporting ability, including rowing but in particular football and rugby:

I was captain of both teams. We had ‘fives’, .22 shooting, Boy Scouts, tennis, swimming and rowing. I was in the coxless fours. We actually beat Dartmouth once on the River Dart. We competed about fifteen miles up-river from the estuary. The year before, the team went down to Dartmouth where we found the river was particularly rough. I never remember the surface being rough at Totnes. During the race our shell sank and as the naval cadets had a little raised gunwale running around the top edge of their shell, not so much water got in. By the following year our school had made the same modification to our shell and we went down and beat them.

As a senior, Gerald won the cricket 1st XI batting prize: ‘Previous winners had received a new bat but I was presented with a leather-bound copy of James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans. I was furious!’

Sport brought Gerald plenty of enjoyment during his school years, but as a senior he was given an opportunity which was to prove so thrilling, it was to provide a career on leaving school and, ultimately, a place in the history records. Alan Cobham (later Sir Alan Cobham) toured the country from 1932-35 with his National Aviation Day ‘flying circus’ offering the public the opportunity of what became known as ‘the five-bob flip’. He became famous in the twenties and thirties for making epic long distance flights and later for pioneering the development of in-flight refuelling. Gerald recalls:

My first flight was in an Avro Mongoose in 1935, with the now legendary Ernst Udet, who was then flying with the Alan Cobham Flying Circus. They came down to our part of the country and from a grass field on the outskirts of Totnes I experienced my first taste of flying. From that moment on I knew what I wanted to do. Stoneham, who was also a pilot with the circus, finished up at White Waltham, arriving as an instructor while I was there learning to fly.

Gerald left school in the summer of 1938. Initially, his ambition had been to pursue his growing love of languages and study Modern Languages at Oxford: ‘I held back going to Brasenose College because of the Munich situation. It seemed clear that war was inevitable and I wanted to be part of it.’ However, this decision infuriated his father who was deeply disappointed because he was determined Gerald should go to Oxford. Even though his father put pressure on him, hoping he would at least start his course, Gerald remained resolute and on 23 January 1939, he applied for a Short Service Commission for four years active service in the RAF. By that time his brother had already joined the RAF, perhaps adding to Gerald’s determination to join up. While he was waiting to hear if he had been accepted, he met Joan Cox, from Chislehurst (now Greater London), whom he later married at Montrose.

Gerald was eventually accepted by the RAF and sent to No.13 Elementary and Reserve Flying Training School (E&RFTS) at the Civil Flying School, White Waltham, Berks, which was privately run by de Havilland. Here he underwent three months ab initio flying training (in September 1939, it was redesignated No.13 Elementary and Flying Training School – E&FTS). Gerald lodged with twenty other student pilots in a house (also used as their Mess) in Cherry Tree Lane, which led down to the airfield some 300 yards away. He recalls being paid 16s 6d [82¹/2p] a day during that initial period of training but when his training at White Waltham came to a close his daily wage dropped to 11s 6d [57¹/2p]. He initially learnt to fly the de Havilland Tiger Moth I & II and the Monarch. To this day the Moth is one of his favourite aircraft: ‘. . . because the wind was in your face.’

Another young pilot that Gerald remembers being on the same course and who later made a name for himself, was Roland Beamont (later Wing Commander R.P. Beamont CBE, DFC*, DL, FRAeS).

The evening before their Air Proficiency Flying Test, Gerald drove into London with two colleagues for a night out. At 02.00 hours the following morning, during the return journey, Gerald lost control of the car and crashed into a telegraph pole. Whilst he and one of his colleagues escaped injury the other was knocked unconscious, receiving a severe cut to the head in the process. He regained consciousness at the scene and, concussed and confused, his first words were: ‘Thank God I don’t have to take my flying test tomorrow.’ ‘Oh, but you are.’ Gerald quickly informed him. His colleague was left with a scar on his head which was visible for many years. Gerald recalls with amusement:

The car was my mother’s and it was written-off. She received £30 in exchange for the wreck and bought a fur coat. When she returned to India to see my father, he asked her where she got it from!

At the end of the training course, Gerald was ‘granted a Short Service Commission for 4 years Active Service as Acting Pilot Officer, General Duties Branch, Royal Air Force, with effect from 23.1.39.’ At White Waltham he had accumulated approximately 28 hours flying dual and 25 solo. RAF No.41879, he was sent to No.1 Depot, Uxbridge, ‘Supernumerary Disciplinary Course’ on 1 April 1939 and then to 13 Flying Training School (FTS) at Drem, East Lothian, for flying training on the 15th:

At 13 FTS we flew the Audax, Hart Trainer, Hart, Oxford I & II and Anson. My chief memory of Drem is that it was so very busy. I was already familiar with the aerodrome when I later returned there with 603 Squadron.

The trainee bomber pilots progressed to flying Airspeed Oxfords whilst the potential fighter pilots remained on single-seat aircraft. In May, Squadron Leader John Grandy (later, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Grandy, GCB, KCB, CB, KBE, DSO) was posted to 13 FTS to take over as Chief Flying Instructor. Gerald reflects on his time there:

While at Drem I met a South African from Pietermaritzburg. He tried to do a loop in a Hart. Unfortunately, he was too low to the ground, crashed and was killed. His family back home were very well-known. I remember flying down to Southampton to box for the RAF against the Navy. I flew down in an Oxford with a chap called McGillivrey He was an ex-professional boxer who taught me quite a lot. He was a middleweight, I was heavyweight. We went down to Southampton where we were told ‘Sorry, we’ve got no opponents for you.’ So we went ‘out on the town,’ totally unaware that we had been duped. The next morning we were awoken at eight o’clock and told we now had opponents. McGillivrey won his fight easily, but I climbed into the ring with a twenty stone marine. Each time I hit him I seemed to go backwards. In the third round I couldn’t keep my guard up, I’d had it. Out I went, although I have to say, it wasn’t unpleasant.

Gerald later fought in an elimination contest which would have brought him up against very much tougher opposition in the next round. Unfortunately, he missed out: ‘I tripped into a left-hook and my jaw was broken!’

With training complete Gerald had by that time accumulated approximately 62 hours flying dual and 105 hours solo (day and night). On 21 October 1939, he was posted to recently reformed (4 October) 219 Squadron flying the Blenheim I. Six days after he left Drem 13 FTS was absorbed by 8, 14, and 15 Service Flying Training Schools (SFTS). 219 Squadron was based at Catterick with detached units at Scorton, Leeming and Redhill. Gerald was sent to the latter at Redhill, Surrey, but has no recollection of being there. However, he was not required and the next day was sent to 11 Group Pool (attached) at St Athan for Operational Training where he converted from Hart bi-planes to Harvard monoplanes, and then to Hurricanes, before being sent to a squadron. Gerald was with 11 Group Pool until 20 November 1939, when he was posted to 32 Squadron at Biggin Hill for a brief period of flying duties before being posted to 603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron, AuxAF, on 16 December. By that time he had added a further six hours flying dual and 60 hours solo bringing his total of hours flown to 233. One aspect that does not appear on his Service Record was recounted by Gerald:

Following conversion to Hurricanes at St Athan, I was posted to 32 Squadron, a frontline operational squadron equipped with Hurricanes. Although I can clearly recall my time there, it does not appear on my record of service. Nevertheless, with hindsight I was lucky to have flown both the Hurricane and Spitfire.

When landing the Spitfire you put down the undercarriage and flaps to slow the aircraft, it was so sleek, whereas with the Hurricane you just closed the throttle. The Spitfire and Hurricane swung to the left on take-off and, with a bit of practice, could be corrected by use of the rudder; you didn’t even know you were doing it, it just became habit. However, during my later experience when flying the Typhoon, I found it swung the opposite way and of course that was trouble because you were in the habit of putting rudder hard on one way when now it was needed on the other. It was quite something because you never used the controls in any ham-fisted way, but gently. With the Typhoon you had to get used to really putting rudder hard-on to counteract the swing. Up to an altitude of 8-10,000 feet the Typhoon was faster than anything the RAF had at that time – I had 400mph on the clock at low level in a Typhoon – beyond that altitude its performance fell away. The Typhoon really was a low-level ground attack aircraft. It was about twice the weight and twice the size of the Spitfire 1a. The Napier Sabre engine had 24 cylinders with 48 plugs and when one required changing, all 48 had to be changed!

I was not with 32 Squadron very long before I was sent to 603 Squadron at Turnhouse in December 1939, when it was decided to send a number of experienced, full-time pilots to the auxiliary squadrons to complete their establishment of pilots. By the time I arrived, there were a number of newcomers.

Gerald is of the opinion that a particular incident led to his name being included for such a posting. On a circuit of the airfield, during a practice flight, he had found that he had a problem with his flaps. The subsequent landing had been fast and deliberately crabwise in order to slow down the Hurricane. Although he managed to get the aircraft down safely he had broken the rule of landing with the canopy shut and his Flight Commander at that time, Flying Officer Michael Crossley* gave him a severe telling off. The next thing he remembers was receiving the news that he was being posted to 603 Squadron. He was later to gain further experience flying Hurricanes which ultimately left him in the position of being able to compare and assess the characteristics of both the Hurricane and the Spitfire.

__________________________________

*See his autobiography Winged Promises published by the RAF Benevolent Fund.

*Later, Wing Commander Michael Crossley DFC, DSO. By the end of the war Crossley had been credited with: 20 enemy aircraft confirmed destroyed, one unconfirmed, two shared destroyed and one damaged.

CHAPTER TWO

SPITFIRE SQUADRON

After reporting to Station Headquarters at Turnhouse, Gerald was immediately sent to Prestwick with the rest of the Squadron which was there to provide protection for the troopships arriving in the Clyde from Canada:

We were never at Turnhouse for any length of time. We always seemed to be moving somewhere. On arrival at Turnhouse we were sent to Prestwick. From there we were sent (west coast to east coast) to Montrose and Dyce. From there we went to Drem before returning to Turnhouse then off to Dyce and Montrose again before returning to Turnhouse prior to moving south!

Gerald was allocated to B Flight with Flying Officer Fred ‘Rusty’ Rushmer as Flight Commander. His equally experienced deputy, Flying Officer Laurie Cunningham, who had been with the Squadron since 1935, was in charge when Gerald arrived but handed the reins back to Rushmer o...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Prologue
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1: 'Baaaasil!'
• Chapter 2: Spitfire Squadron
• Chapter 3: 'Stap-me what a filly!'
• Chapter 4: 'Night and Day, you are the One'
• Chapter 5: After the Battle
• Chapter 6: Flight Commander & Gunnery Instructor
• Chapter 7: Flying Command
• Chapter 8: Operation Market Garden and a DFC (Dutch)
• Chapter 9: 'Enjoy today, for tomorrow we die!'
• Chapter 10: 'Unt how is Squadron Leader Stapleton, unt how is 247 Squadron?'
• Chapter 11: Stalag Luft I, Barth
• Chapter 12: 'Hamba Gashle/Sahla Gashle'
• Chapter 13: 'God's own' Botswana
• Chapter 14: 'Will you sign this please Squadron Leader Stapleton?'
• A: Record of Service
• Bibliography
• Index of Personalities