On Monday, 14 October 1940 the aircraft (12) of RAF 139 Squadron took off at 11.00 a for a bombing raid (raid B.H. 581) in the north of Amsterdam in the Netherlands from a station (airfield) at Horsham St. Faith (from 1963, Norwich International Airport).
Sergeant David Neill RAF (976437) age 19 from Blairgowrie flew as a wireless operator and air-gunner in a Bristol Blenheim IV, R3671, ?-XD His last operational mission and that of the other crew members was on Monday, 14 October 1940.
The other crew members were:
Sergeant Allister Smith Ogilvy RAFVR (754920) age 20 from Edinburgh (Pilot)
Sergeant Bernard Walker RAF (581250) age 22 from Leeds, England.
Sergeant David Neill RAF was the elder son of James Yeaman Neill and Grace McLagan Neill, of Glenkilrie, Emma Street, Blairgowrie. David enlisted voluntarily in December of 1939. He was born in Rattray, educated at Fetteresso House, Mackie Academy in Stonehaven and Blairgowrie High School. He was attending the Dundee Wireless College, Crescent House, 40 Windsor Street, Dundee when he joined up. James was a keen cricketer, a member of St. Mary’s Church choir and the local boy scouts.
David Neill is buried in Blairgowrie Cemetery; his body was recovered from the North Sea. Last tributes to Sergeant David Neill were paid at his funeral, attending was a large party of the Home Guard, soldiers’ home on leave and a party of senior boys and teachers from Blairgowrie High School. This was the second funeral of a Blairgowrie airman that week.
Notes:
Two days prior, 12 October 1940, the German invasion of the UK is postponed until the spring of 1941. On 14 October 1940 was the Balham Underground station disaster. German bomb pierces 32 feet underground killing 66 people. At 20:02 on 14 October 1940, a 1400 kg semi-armor piercing fragmentation bomb fell on the road above the northern end of the platform tunnels, creating a large crater into which a double-decker bus then crashed, although no one aboard the bus was killed. The dramatic spectacle of the trapped bus was to become emblematic of the dangers of the Blitz, a series of pictures of it appeared in publications around the world.
RAF 139 Squadron entered World War Two with the Frank Barnwell designed Bristol Blenheim Mk.I and Mk. IV. They hold the honour of being the first squadron to fly the first sortie of the war. It was an armed reconnaissance mission from RAF Wyton into German airspace on Sunday 3 September 1939. The purpose of the mission was to take photographs of the German Fleet at Heligoland Bight. More specifically, around the Schillig Roads near Wilhelmshaven. The approaches to the Bay and Willhelmshaven are known in English as the Schillig Roads.
RAF 139 Squadron were already in the air towards Germany when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on 3 September 1939 at 11.15am made his famous broadcast by radio to the British public, ‘I am speaking to you from the cabinet room at 10 Downing Street. This morning the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.’
Having lost most of its aircraft in France, 139 Squadron was in dire need of re-equipping. A campaign called ‘The Bombers for Britain Fund’ raised enough to buy 12 Blenheim’s by 1941. 139 Squadrons donations were led by the Jamaican newspaper, ‘The Gleaner’. On the 26 June 1941, 139 Squadron was renamed RAF 139 (Jamaica) Squadron in recognition of the important part Jamaica had played in re-equipping the squadron.
RAF 139 Squadron saw continuous service in one theatre or another throughout the war and carried out the most bombing raids of any squadron in RAF No. 2 Group.
Captain Frank Sowter Barnwell OBE AFC FRAeS BSc (23 November 1880 – 2 August 1938), was born in Lewsiham, London but the family moved to Glasgow one year later. In 1907 the Barnwell brothers established the Grampian Motors & Engineering Company at Causewayhead, (just outside Stirling University) in partnership with his brother Harold. In 1910 they won a prize for the first flight of over a mile in Scotland on 30 January 1911 at Causewayhead, under the Wallace Monument. Harold was killed in an aircraft accident in 1917 and Frank was killed in an aircraft accident in 1938. Frank’s three sons were killed flying in the RAF during the second world war.
