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There can't be many churches in the UK that have a closer association with an airfield than St Eval's where the village it served was flattened to provide the runways for a massive airfield in WW2. In fact today it is easy to see that the carpark for the church is part of a runway.
St Eval's primary role was to provide anti-submarine and anti-shipping patrols off the south west coast. Aircraft from the airfield were also used for photographic reconnaissance missions, meteorological flights, convoy patrols, air-sea rescue missions and protection of the airfield from the Luftwaffe
One of the most important, and possibly most forgotten, airfields of WW2 was at St Eval. A rare copy of “The memories linger on” tells about its best selling poet, German bombing raids, amazing church and its advanced technology nets in the sky and fog clearing equipment.
This is in line (roughly) with a final approach coming over Mawgan Porth. The outline of the field is caused by flooding a vast network of open pipes with aviation fuel and setting it alight. Thus causing any fog to lift. An amazingly expensive system but one that apparently worked and no doubt saved many lost pilots' lives. Crashing in the sea left crews with very poor chance of survival.
“Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operations” or “Fog, Intensive, Disposal Of". Not sure which is right! You can watch the film here
How a system named after a dog probably saved ten thousand aircrew and was first used in North Cornwall.
Even today with all our flight technology it is not unheard of for flights to be diverted from fog bound airfields. All flights into Heathrow were diverted during heavy fog in March 2016 and only two weeks ago dozens of UK flights were cancelled due to fog.
Put yourself into an aircraft in 1945 trying to find your way home after a long, cold and extremely dangerous flight. Fog covers the whole of the coast and you are flying on very limited instruments.
Even on a summer's day a harr or sea mist can roll in off the sea and blanket everything.
Fog is disorientating and with no points of reference it's easy for pilots and drivers to make mistakes. Drivers on motorways today are known for mistaking their speed in fog and because we judge speed by the contrast in our surroundings seen in our peripheral vision many drivers actually speed up when they think they are slowing down!
The problem of ditching lost aircraft in the sea off the coast of Cornwall became so important to solve that Winston Churchill became involved. An episode of "The Crown" showed him having little inclination to do anything about the fog bound London of the 1950's but he took this much more seriously!
FIDO is mentioned in another of my short articles about RAF St Eval but is explained very clearly in Pathe Newsreel that the screenshots are from.
Just in case you wondered, today if you can see more than 1,000 metres it's called mist, but if it is thicker and the visibility drops below 1,000 metres it's called fog. Mizzle is a term used in Devon and Cornwall for a combination of fine drenching drizzle or extremely fine rain and thick, heavy saturating mist or fog. You can easily get lost in mizzle!
A harr, or sea mist, rolling in to Doyden Castle Port Quin. The folly was built in 1830 and found international fame in the 70's TV version of Poldark as it was used as Dr Ennis's house. Much used in the past for gambling and drinking it is now owned by a more sober National Trust and can be rented. Rental costs were about £1100 a week in 2015 when I took this photo but you will be hard pressed to find a time when it is free...check at http://www.nationaltrustholidays.org.uk/.../doyden.../ . The nearest WW2 airfield to here is the little known Treligga which was part of RNAS St Merryn and from which small aircraft would tow targets for other aircraft and ground crew to practice on!
St Eval’s Church has very close connections with the RAF. Not only because they knocked down the hamlet it served to make way for the WW2 runways but because it has the RAF's motto Per Ardua Ad Astra (Through Adversity to the stars) featured in its main window. The RAF's motto is used by other Commonwealth airforces but was first used by the Royal Flying Corps in 1912 (it's also the motto of Birmingham university incidentally).
It seemed a rather ambitious motto given the Wright Brothers had only taken to the air in 1903 and we all know that they didn't get very far. But then the Apollo program put a man on the moon less than 60 years later in 1969 and we're still going.
St Eval was a leading innovator in flight technologies given that they developed a system of rockets here to put a steel mesh in the sky to stop German bombers flying across the airfield. Also an anti fog system that pumped vast amounts of fuel along the runways to ensure that returning pilots could find St Eval come what may.
John Pudney, squadron intelligence officer at RAF St Eval at this time, became one of the most read poets of his time selling over a quarter of a million copies of his poetry books. One written during an air raid at St Eval became the central part of a major 1945 film staring Michael Redgrave and John Mills. "The Way to the Stars" featured a couple of Pudney's poems including this one:
For Johnny
Do not despair
For Johnny-head-in-air;
He sleeps as sound
As Johnny underground.
Fetch out no shroud
For Johnny-in-the-cloud;
And keep your tears
For him in after years.
Better by far
For Johnny-the-bright-star,
To keep your head
And see his children fed.
The busy airfield was hit a number of times in the summer of 1940 and early 1941. This caused considerable damage and casualties with the Germans carrying out further raids in May 1942, causing damage to buildings and the destruction of aircraft.
RAF ST EVAL/ 1939-1959/ IN MEMORY/ of those who served and the 974 gallant aircrew who lost their lives. Also the 22 airmen and WAAFs who were killed in bombing raids.
I was wondering how many airfields have a saint in their names but it must be quite a few as the next door neighbour airfield is called St Mawgan... and the one on the other side is St Merryn come to think of it!
By the end of the war the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service were combined to form the Royal Air Force. The new service occupied 301 airfields, including airship and fighter stations, and training depots.
St Eval with St Merryn to the north
Dec 2021
Starry, Starry nights. Well hopefully we'll get some soon.
I'm reposting this picture of the lights of St Eval I took a few years ago because a friend reminded me of one of the most important events of our lifetimes, as far as a way to the stars is concerned, is happening this week.
The James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to launch on 18th Dec. It's the successor to the incredible Hubble telescope that's been revealing the story of our universe for some time now, but it will be many times more powerful.
Who knows what wonders it will reveal.
St Eval during WW2 partly provided the inspiration for the movie "The Way to the Stars" which is sometimes assumed to have been taken from the Latin motto of the RAF, Per ardua ad astra. However, the literal translation of the RAF motto is "Through adversity to the stars". Kind of appropriate for the James Webb Telescope which was almost cancelled in 2011.
If none of this seems to be very important then I recommend Prof Brian Cox's Universe series on BBC iplayer.
These are the lights at St Eval attached to the radio masts as seen from across the Camel Estuary at Pentire Point on a clear winter's night. St Eval highlands were used in WW2 as a decoy for the 3 main airfields in the area and in the dark you might think these lights today were at St Mawgan airfield beyond. RAF St Mawgan is currently home to Defence Survival Training Organisation (DSTO), which is a tri-service unit that teaches 'Survive, Evade, Resist, Extract' (SERE) methods for the Armed Forces in support of operations and training. St Eval's Norman church is visible (fifth light in from the right). The tower was used by The RAF in WW2 as an observation post and navigation mark but the village itself was mostly flattened for the building of the runways. The busy airfield was hit a number of times in the summer of 1940 and early 1941. This caused considerable damage and casualties with the Germans carrying out further raids in May 1942, causing damage to buildings and the destruction of aircraft. St Eval was equipped with a green box barrage rocket device which sent a steel wire curtain into the air to descend on parachutes. This was intended to enmesh enemy aircraft and cause them to crash, but the device was unsuccessful. The site today is home to a high frequency transmitter station forming part of the Defence High Frequency Communications Service, whose lights you see at night for miles around.
John Sleigh Pudney (19 January 1909 – 10 November 1977) a British poet, journalist and author served as squadron intelligence officer at RAF St Eval where he wrote one of the best-known poems of the war...For Johnny. Written during an air raid, it was published first in the News Chronicle and (with Missing, another poem by Pudney) later featured significantly in the 1945 classic film "The Way to the Stars" starring Michael Redgrave, John Mills, Rosamund John, and Stanley Holloway.
Two poems supposedly written by one of the main characters, Squadron Leader David Archdale, are used in The Way to the Stars. Archdale is portrayed reciting Missing to his wife shortly before their marriage, after a close friend is killed in action. Archdale tells his wife that "I try and say things I feel that way sometimes. Sort of hobby" and tells her she's the only one who knows he writes poetry.
Missing
Less said the better.
The bill unpaid, the dead letter,
No roses at the end,
Of Smith, my friend.
Last words don't matter,
And there are none to flatter
Words will not fill the post
Of Smith, the ghost.
For Smith, our brother,
Only son of loving mother,
The ocean lifted, stirred
Leaving no word.
For Johnny is depicted in The Way to the Stars as having been found by a close friend on a piece of paper after David Archdale's death on a raid. He gives it to Archdale's widow, who later in the film gives it to an American flyer to read after another American friend of hers is killed.
For Johnny
Do not despair
For Johnny-head-in-air;
He sleeps as sound
As Johnny underground.
Fetch out no shroud
For Johnny-in-the-cloud;
And keep your tears
For him in after years.
Better by far
For Johnny-the-bright-star,
To keep your head
And see his children fed.
Pudney published several collections of poetry during the war, including Dispersal Point (1942) and South of Forty (1943), the latter describing his experiences in North Africa. Both collections sold over 250,000 copies between them.
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