Michael Renaut DFC RAFVR
OC 103 Squadron 7th August 1945 to 26th November 1945.
Distinguished WW2 bomber pilot and author of Terror by Night which is an excellent bio of the genre and well worth a read.
103 Squadron Renaut
Renault was born 29 September 1920 and joined the RAF in 1940.
After Initial Training he was posted to Scotland to complete his pilot training with the classification of above average. He converted to the Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys which he found to be a viceless and gentle aircraft and soloed on the type in 2 and a half hours
On the 18 July 1941 he was posted to 78 Squadron at RAF MIddleton St George and completed a tour of 35 operations on Whitleys.
Armstrong Whitworth Whitley Mk V 78 Sqn 1941
Following completion of this tour he was awarded a DFC gazetted on 11th August 1942, the citation for which reads.. "F/Lt Renaut is an outstanding captain of aircraft. His sorties include attacks on such targets as Frankfurt, Kiel, Cologne, Brest, Stettin and Essen he dew with distinction in both the night raids on the German naval base at Trondheim on April 27 and 28, 1942. This officer has constantly been selected for special operations necessitating a high degree of skill and reliability; he has never failed to reach the highest expectations. His leadership and courage have been of a high order."
In December 1942 he was posted to 28 Halifax Conversion Course at RAF Leconfield to fly the Handley Page Halifax.
He was then posted to 76 Squadron at this time at based at RAF Linton on Ouse. On the 10/11 April 1942 in a raid on Essen Renaut and his crew dropped the first RAF 8,000 lb bomb in anger.
Handley Page Halifax I 76 Squadron
A detachment from the Squadron was then transferred to the Middle East in July 42 and Renaut flew operations to Tubruk and other targets in the region until returning home in the spring of 1943
At this point he was posted to RAF Marston Moor in Yorkshire to 1652 Heavy Conversion Unit and was quickly reposted to a similar unit, 1663 HCU at RAF Rufforth also in Yorkshire at the request of Group Captain Young. Here Renaut became a deputy Flight Commander with the rank of F/L
After an eventful 15 months at Rufforth he was again posted, this time to 100 Group in Norfolk engaged in Special duties and Bomber Support. Here he was promoted W/C and made OC of the newly formed 171 Squadron at RAF North Creake. 100 Group was primarily involved in electronic warfare and countermeasures and 171 was equipped with the Short Stirling II and Handley Page Halifax III aircraft.
Handley Page Halifax BIII
Post war on disbandment of 171 Squadron at North Creake he was posted in to No 1 Group in Lincolnshire to command 103 Squadron at Elsham Wolds.
103 Squadron Officer Group at summer 1945 Renaut seated middle
He recalls - " The squadron was equipped with Lancasters which I hadn't yet flown so I had to do a quick conversion course at Lindhome for five days before taking over command. The Lancaster proved to be easy to handle and I soon felt at home in the aeroplane. It it was gentle and much more responsive than the Halifax but as I have said before, it wouldn't stand up to so much punishment as the Halifax in battle.
Elsham Wolds proved to be a very pleasant station and was under the command of Group Captain Ronnie Baxter, DFC, and he and I were similar types and hit it off immediately. I liked Group Captain Baxter and he was a most efficient station commander, a great disciplinarian who would stand no nonsense but a man with a great sense of humour. I took up my command on a Friday evening and arrived in the mess in the middle of a party. As I walked in the front door of the officers' mess two officers were being carried out feet first by a cheering crowd of officers and these turned out to be the Dental Officer and the Medical Officer! Both were completely sloshed and I wondered what sort of a unit I had taken over. God help anyone who was taken ill with toothache or tummyache, I thought!
Our squadron's main task at Elsham Wolds was the repatriation of troops from Italy — rather dull work, really, after all the excite-ment of war, but it was gratifying to see the troops' happiness on landing back in England. Several of them used to lie down and hug the earth they were so pleased to be home! We used to get about twenty troops in the fuselage; it was an uncomfortable trip for them really but we never had any complaints. For some of them it had been four years since they saw England. It was strange for me in many ways of giving up all my roots in 171 Squadron in Norfolk and getting to know new faces at Elsham Wolds, but I had taken over a famous squadron and it was at least running as an efficient unit.
The only person I brought with me was Squadron Leader Robertson for he was a first-class officer and a very likable Scotsman. He took over one of the flights on 103 Squadron. We shared the aerodrome with 100 Squadron commanded by Wing Commander Davis a squat, cheery Welshman considerably older than I was. With the war over we had considerably more leisure hours and a good deal of our time was spent exploring the local pubs. We held a mess dance and my wife Yvonne came down and spent the night at the hotel in Brigg where she changed into evening dress. We had a wonderful party and drank far too much to be good for us and I remember driving back to the hotel at a very late hour in the morning.
The only 'black' at the party was the sudden disappearance of a padre! Group Captain Baxter and I organised a search and the naughty man was found in bed with a ginger-haired maid from the officers mess! I noticed she was missing during the party and should have put two and two together but I didn't. Baxter was horrified and promptly had the unfortunate man posted elsewhere.
Whenever I wanted to visit Yvonne in Market Weighton I used to borrow Robbie's Morris 8 and drive to the New Holland/Hull ferry and I could be home in an hour and a half. The war over, I was naturally allowed to live out but I only used to spend occasional nights away as I felt that my place was with the squadron.
Ronnie Baxter was a bachelor and consequently he was always on hand. Whenever he went on leave I used to take command of the station (some 1500 men and women) and once he asked me if I would take the church parade on Sunday morning. Unfortunately I had a thick night on the Saturday night and overslept. I was awoken at five to eight with my adjutant's voice over the telephone saying: 'We're all ready for you, Sir.' I panicked as I was still in pyjamas but hastily pulled on RAF trousers and my greatcoat buttoned up to the neck and rushed out to my car to take the parade at eight a.m. The sight of 1,500 people lined up on the main runway was a somewhat awe-inspiring sight and if they'd know that I had pyjamas on under my greatcoat they would have been very surprised. I felt awfully unshaven but luckily there was no one near enough to notice. The dentist at Elsham Wolds was a mad keen golfer and asked me if I played; when I said 'No' he said, 'Come on and I'll teach you.' We went across to the little nine hole course near the aerodrome and he started showing me how to play iron shots. We stood alongside the first green and he was clouting balls back towards the clubhouse 160 yards away. He handed me a No 5 iron, teed up a ball for me and suggested I try a shot. I'd never played golf before but had strong hands, wrists and forearms and I hit the ball with all my might. It went like a rocket towards the clubhouse and landed on the corrugated iron roof with a gigantic bang. Members came streaming out to see what was going on and my poor Dental Officer was covered in embarrassment. I can still hit a 5 iron 180 yards but I regret that my handicap is a modest twelve as I can't guarantee direction! During September I lost one of my best crews in tragic circum-stances.
I had briefed ten crews to fly to Pomigliano, near Naples, on repatriation but the meteorological report was lousy, with violent electrical storms forecast in the Mediterranean, and I told the crews frankly that I didn't think they'd go.
Group however over-ruled me and despite the dangerous weather they decided that our aircraft would go. I told Group HQ that I thought they were crazy and Mediterranean storms were highly dangerous, but my protest counted for nothing and ten Lancasters took off. One aircraft with a full crew and twenty nursing sisters on board (including my gunnery leader, Squadron Leader Whymark, who'd done eighty-five operations disintegrated in an electrical storm and crashed in the Mediterranean.
When I remonstrated with Group HQ I was politely told that they expected a 1 per cent casualty rate on the job we were doing. I thought and think to this day, that this was a tragic waste of human lives on a task that wasn't vitally urgent. On 11 October I took off for Berlin with twenty-one crew (including ten army officers) on a sightseeing tour. We landed at Potsdam, just outside Berlin, after 21/2 hours in the air and it seemed very strange to us to go across Germany without being shot at! We were billeted at a barrack in Potsdam and were given a lorry to go into Berlin. I was shattered at the damage wrought by Bomber Command and Russian shelling — the whole of the centre of the town was destroyed and in the Potsdamer Platz there wasn't a complete building standing. I took my navigator with me into the Russian sector to have a look at• the Chancellery and we spent an hour looking around Hitler's and other offices. I dug about in the rubble and found two or three Iron Crosses, and went to Hitler's bureau drawer and pinched a handful of his personal notepaper! It was most interesting; the whole area was deserted and only guarded by a Russian soldier with a tommy gun who couldn't have been more than fifteen! I couldn't speak any Russian and he didn't know a word of English but we got along well with a sort of sign language. Later we visited the Brandenburg Gate and watched the bartering going on with Russian and Allied soldiers and German civilians. Binoculars, cameras, watches and diamond rings were kAng traded for cigarettes and chocolate. One of my crew got himself a Leica camera worth £200 for 1,000' Woodbine cigarettes. The first evening we all went to a night club on the outskirts of Berlin and there were six of us at the table ordering the most sumptuous meal and drinking champagne. There was an aura( live blonde German singer with the band and we had her over at our table singing songs to our requests and the whole evening cost ten Players, so we couldn't grumble. Berlin was in a frightful mess, particularly the outskirts, and there were still hundreds of dead bodies alongside the roads the stench was frightful but no one seemed to have the will to clean up the mess. There was an underground tube station in the centre of the city which had been hit by a 12,000 lb. bomb and there were over four hundred bodies down there of people who had been sheltering when the bomb fell and penetrated to about 100 feet. This was four months after the end of the war in Europe and yet it had still not been cleared up. There was a sort of lethargy about everyone we met, a sort of forlorn helplessness and people were wandering about the city in a dream. There were no shops in the centre of Berlin every building was roofless — but there were one or two barter centres open. The principle was that one could buy a pound of coffee in exchange for a pair of Wellington boots size 9! One could buy a pair of size 9 shoes for a dozen eggs. Life was very simple in the city and people were living in shacks built out of the fallen masonry. I didn't find the people antagonistic towards the British but there was undoubtedly a hatred of the Russians.The people were kind and helpful, and being able to speak the language was a great help to me. Some of the tube trains were running, even though stations where the dead were still lying where they died, were closed. The visit to Berlin was altogether a sickening experience but it served its purpose in enabling us aircrew to witness the damage caused by concentrated area bombing. We flew back home after couple of days and practically every member of my crew and the passengers had some piece of loot or another! There were cameras, watches, binoculars, jewellery, fountain pens and even jerry cans of petrol (because of petrol rationing in Britain); we landed at the recognised customs aerodrome in UK at Tibbenham near Cambridge and I was asked by the customs officer to detail one member of my crew to stay with the Lancaster while a search was made. I picked Flight Lieutenant Blamires, my navigator, with my tongue in my cheek because I knew he had more loot than anyone. A thorough search of the aircraft, undercarriage nacelles, turrets, drawers and cubby holes was made but yielded precisely nothing and when I saw Blamires I asked him how on earth he had managed to get away with it. He pointed out a large panel behind the wireless operator's seat which he had unscrewed and therein had secreted all the loot. Only one member of my crew had declared a Leica camera and had been stung heavily for duty so honesty was not, apparently, the best policy.
On 3 December 1945 after the disbandment of 103 Squadron I was posted to Scampton to command No 57 Squadron. Scampton, in Lincolnshire, was only a few miles from Lincoln and was a permanent station.”
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In 1946 Renaut was awarded a MID and Distinguished Flying Cross (United States).
Post war he left the RAF and returned to civilian life. He did not settle to this new routine and his wartime experiences had taken a heavy toll. Sadly he suffered a nervous breakdown in the early 1960s followed by another soon after. Renaut died in 1964 at the young age of 44.
His friend and former OC G/C David Young said of Renaut.
'This man gave the whole of his abundant courage to his Country during six years of war. There was nothing left'
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Michael Renaut wrote his RAF WW2 memoirs and these were published in 1982 by William Kimber entitled Terror by Night. It is a quite excellent book and probably the best Bomber Command bio I have read. Much of the content for this article and the Renaut photos came from that. The aircraft photos are courtesy of WWP
Compiled by David Fell
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