Lawrence Mabey, Wellington Tail Gunner /Pilot

[baronbeeza]

I have just heard from the Editor. They have realised things don't stack up and are looking at their options.

The problem is they are approaching deadline for this weekend.

I am now confident we may see a more factual account at some stage.

[baronbeeza]

He says his father was a good air gunner who trained at Ōhakea and, by 1940, was a tail gunner in bombers supporting the British Expeditionary Force in France.

If the Akaroa arrived in London on 9 May 1940 and Dunkirk was 26 May to 4 June 1940 it seems to be very little time to see action in France.

Just 3 weeks off the boat to get operationally trained on type and then posted to an operational unit. Not just posted in but be involved in air operations.

I am guessing that action never happened either and Mr Mabey was more likely still training at an OTU most of that summer.

[Dave Homewood]

I have received the following in an email from Michael Mabey, and he's asked me to post it here:

Hi Dave

This is in response to some of the articles published on your sight from your researchers. They’re contesting the story that has been written by Malcom Hopwood. I wish to inform you that many of the statements they had commented about like where the plane had been shot down over; Wilhelmshaven and another researcher had stated that the plane had been located somewhere else; sadly, these researchers are using information that is incorrect. One of the main statements that was quoted was how many hours my father had flown. This information was correct; he had only flown one bombing operation. One must remember that when Lawrence returned to New Zealand; he wasn’t well; he did not wish to go into detail about all the raids and missions and sortys he had flown. After getting back from WW11 and being discharged, he reenlisted in 1947. That is where you’ll find the number of flying hours he had reported to have flown. That is 70 hours flying, 5 hours training, and 65 hours combat.

I have from the Imperial War Museum in Auckland, place of capture; LF Mabey was Kiel Canal. (see attachment).

The copy of 70 hours flying was received from personal archives Upper Hutt NZ. I have also spent the time over the years employing researchers in England. One was able to give me my father’s documentation papers that were filled in when he was freed from the German POW camps; where it states on the documentation he was participating in an escape attempt. I also have in possession full copies of 149 squadrons bombing sheets which has every crew member listed on and plane they were part of. This is for the purpose of continued research to be able to match the planes and the crew that were part of this mission and be able to read their debriefing notes on return. I also have in possession a copy of the bomber command loses from the Imperial War Museum in Auckland on what they believed happened, and that is they were attacked by BF110s over Holland. I also have in possession the media release that one of the crew had dive bombed the dock yards of Kiel at 800 feet; this was the landing lights of my father. I had stated that the Kiel fire department had filmed the landing. If yous would be nice enough to contact Television NZ and ask them to give you a copy or play the documentary on articulated fire trucks in Europe, that has the film footage of a bomber crash landing on the roadway of Kiel Canal, as the fire department is fighting the fire on the dockyards; you will see the dock workers and the fire department pulling ST LF Mabey out of the bomber. You will then see him sitting crouched up against the building. The camera man zoomed in on his arm badge and you will see for yourself the badge of 149 Squadron Royal NZ Air-force. I have purposely given permission to use that badge so yous can identify it with the film footage.

If you wish to go one step further, you can look at the film footage from Wigram Airforce Base Museum Christchurch NZ called “We were there too”, here you will see the escort planes landing at Milden Hall, to refuel and escort 75 squadron on the operation. As they were filming, two New Zealanders were talking about the operation and one of them went over to clean the gun tarot. The atmosphere changed in an instant when a young fellow came running back yelling “you should see his badge, he’s a Kiwi”. This film footage does two things, it states that the tail gunner of the lead bomber was a Kiwi and it also confirms that the Kiwi’s badge was on the outside of his jacket. If we go one step further, you will find in the movie Target for tonight, Charles Pickard that oversaw the making of the film, with regular service men from the 149 squadron, by putting on the noticeboard “N for Nuts” had a cross by it, indicating to me that they never made it back and also in this film, the camera zoomed in on the New Zealand Maori Tiki which was on the side of the bomber F for Freddy. There was a few seconds of silence; I believe they were paying respect to the Kiwi tail gunner ST LF Mabey. In the book Wires and Wall, it has another version of the Wilhelmshaven bombing raid, but it also has who the crew were and their positions on the plane. St LF Mabey was listed as a Maori rear gunner.

My personal opinion is, Wilhelmshaven was a cover story because they were going after the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, that were harbouring in Kiel.

What I’m surprised about is that no one has commented on the signatures on the back of the picture; the picture is a graduation photograph taken after the graduation at the training facility in Levin. It was signed by many if not all the Ohakea volunteers from 1939. I’m also surprised that no one has commented about the badge either; for there is a description of this badge in an orange coloured book which has the history of the Royal NZ Airforce in it, and they state that none of these badges had survived the war, but my father’s did and it is part of our family collection.

Please understand that this an ongoing research and some of the story may not have been told how I would have liked it.

I can be contacted via email: [e-mail]

Regards

Michael Mabey

[rodm]

OK,

a quick response for Michael regarding the photographs of 149 Squadron Wellington OJ-N.

Your father's Wellington (P9272) indeed carried the squadron code OJ-N for a time in 1940 and was photographed by renowned aviation photographer Charles E Brown that same year.

However, 149 Squadron changed Wellington P9272's letter code to 'A' after Wellington R3280 OJ-A was written off in a crash-landing on the night of 16-17 August 1940. When F/L Vaillant took off with your father on the night of 27-28 August 1940, Wellington P9272 was coded OJ-A. The aircraft serial (i.e. P9272) was immutable, but squadrons changed aircraft letters/callsigns (i.e. A-Ack or N-Nuts) whenever they needed to.

Wellington P9247 was coded OJ-N at the time your father failed to return. Wellington P9247 eventually failed to return from a mission in February 1941 after it was recoded as OJ-M.

The two photos of a Wellington aircraft:

The top one is coded OJ-N but no aircraft serial is visible. Since many Wellington bombers carried the OJ-N code during the war, I see no direct evidence confirming the aircraft shown is P9272.

As you know, the second photo is a close-up of the side of the Wellington bomber used during filming the movie 'Target for Tonight' circa April-June 1941, as evidenced by the style, size and position of Hei Tiki nose art. Thus, it has nothing to do with Wellington P9272. Since your father's aircraft was not coded N-Nuts when lost, the movie does not pay homage to P9272 as claimed.

No one has ever said Wilhelmshaven was the primary target. As evidenced by the No. 3 Group Forms B for the raid, crews were assigned primary and secondary targets (the latter to be used if they could not bomb the primary). Paul Vaillant apparently stated before he died that he could not find a suitable place to bomb at Kiel so he set course for Wilhelmshaven to try his luck there.

Regarding the "Badge". There is significant confusion about this. A 2009 newspaper article quotes you as saying its an "Ohakea Volunteer's Badge" and captions your faux 149 Squadron badge in the accompanying photo as this "Ohakea Volunteer's Badge". In the amended 2019 article, you are quoted as calling it "the badge of the 149 Squadron Royal New Zealand Airforce".

I'm sorry to inform you the badge you have is not a genuine or official badge at all. There is and never has been an unit named 149 Squadron in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. 149 Squadron was a flying unit of the Royal Air Force and a quick Google search will reveal the real official crest. The badge you have was never approved or issued by the Royal Air Force or Royal New Zealand Air Force.

Regards

Rod Mackenzie

[baronbeeza]

The ORB shows that P9272 was coded OJ-A for the night in question.

Thanks for posting Mikes email and Mike for sending it.
It does show the dangers of a little knowledge however and assumptions can often lead to something completely wrong.

The target was Kiel and may not be the point of capture. But if we assume he did get captured there can I ask Mike how the crippled aircraft got from where it was damaged to Berlin and then to Kiel. This is heartland enemy territory and the aircraft was defenseless and with no navigation aids.
I am sure we have questions about the bomb release also, one man would have his hands full flying an aircraft for the first time and do navigator and bomb-aimer jobs.

I am also curious about the 2009 comment about the ship being sunk between NZ and Australia in early 1940, and by a Japanese submarine.



This is almost 2 years before we were at war with Japan and the Darwin bombings etc.

This is not a story with just one inconsistency, it has about as much substance as a Commando comic.

One major difference though is that when you look at the comic again after a few months the story is much the same, indeed unchanged.

*** EDIT ***
I said sunk. That may have been a false assumption.
The ship may have just been torpedoed and damaged, killing the crewman in the vicinity.

It should still have been well know of course.

[errolmartyn]

May 10, 2019 23:13:25 GMT 12 baronbeeza said:

The ORB shows that P9272 was coded OJ-A for the night in question.

Thanks for posting Mikes email and Mike for sending it.
It does show the dangers of a little knowledge however and assumptions can often lead to something completely wrong.

The target was Kiel and may not be the point of capture. But if we assume he did get captured there can I ask Mike how the crippled aircraft got from where it was damaged to Berlin and then to Kiel. This is heartland enemy territory and the aircraft was defenseless and with no navigation aids.
I am sure we have questions about the bomb release also, one man would have his hands full flying an aircraft for the first time and do navigator and bomb-aimer jobs.

I am also curious about the 2009 comment about the ship being sunk between NZ and Australia in early 1940, and by a Japanese submarine.



This is almost 2 years before we were at war with Japan and the Darwin bombings etc.

This is not a story with just one inconsistency, it has about as much substance as a Commando comic.

One major difference though is that when you look at the comic again after a few months the story is much the same, indeed unchanged.

The Akaroa that Mabey sailed on left Lyttelton on 23 Mar 40. It sailed from there to Pitcairn Island then on to the Panama Canal. It did not cross the Tasman, nor did it have on board any Aussies. If she was sunk during the war this would have been news indeed to the workers in Antwerp charged with reducing her to scrap in 1954.

Errol

[rodm]

Again for Michael -

you say:

I wish to inform you that many of the statements they had commented about like where the plane had been shot down over; Wilhelmshaven and another researcher had stated that the plane had been located somewhere else; sadly, these researchers are using information that is incorrect.

Excuse Me! This thread is full of bona fide information from original British and German archival sources (and the archival references are quoted in many cases). Many outraged researchers have now spent many hours going though original archival material (for free I might add) to set the record straight.

This thread is unequivocal - Paul Vaillant stated he was flying towards Wilhelmshaven when shot down and ALL original German documentary sources show the aircraft crashed 1 kilometre North-East of Freschluneberg, near Wesermünde. Freschluneberg is roughly 44 kilometres ESE of Wilhelmshaven.

You also say:

I also have in possession a copy of the bomber command loses from the Imperial War Museum in Auckland on what they believed happened, and that is they were attacked by BF110s over Holland

Well, I have a copy of a 2019 newspaper article that states an Air Gunner flew an aircraft solo to Berlin... Unless you can provide the provenance of the original sources used in the "copy of the bomber command loses from the Imperial War Museum in Auckland", it has no historical value.

Regards

Rod Mackenzie

[delticman]

To add a little more to Errol's posting.

No it was another ship that sunk, that why he was on the "Akaroa" with the Aussies, I see the ship was in dock in May 1940 and was made ready for see the Dunkirk evacuation but was not needed. She was refitted in 1947 and was replaced by the "Southern Cross."

When I read this story in the paper, I thought that's really interesting. Well I didn't but there was all these details that were joined together. It was like a patchwork quilt and with interest I have watched forum members slowly unpick it.

But it goes on, the Imperial War Museum in Auckland. I've never heard that before.

[angelsonefive]

"...you will see for yourself the badge of 149 Squadron Royal NZ Air-force."

I very much doubt that a British airman on a wartime operational flight would be wearing any badge identifying his unit. This information, along with bases, was strictly secret.

Name, rank, and service no. only was the rule. If captured by the enemy no other information was to be given to them.

[baronbeeza]

I was thinking he may have made the badge while in captivity and then had those same concerns. I thought it may have been possible to do all the needlework but leave the 149 part off. I need to see a better pic of the badge, I was not convinced it had 149 and RNZAF. Naturally no such unit exists anyway.





I am wondering if Lawrence had the certificate and small lapel badge

[rodm]

Without any evidence to the contrary, I'm open to the possibility that the RNZAF badge was "trench art" made up by a group of Air Gunners before sailing from New Zealand or before arriving in the United Kingdom. However, what can also be reasonably concluded if it was such a badge:


1. It was never an official badge issued by the RNZAF (or RAF).

2. It was illegal to wear this badge on any item of air force uniform and was thus a punishable offense.

3. If it is indeed a badge made up by a group of air gunners from Ohakea then the "149 SQD" must have been added to the badge at a later date.

What can be stated with near certainty is that Lou Mabey was not authorised to wear this badge on clothing when shot down over Germany because it clearly broke RAF/RNZAF dress regulations and likely broke RAF security regulations prohibiting sensitive material (i.e. a badge identifying the squadron) being taken over enemy territory.

I have seen and translated an original German Interrogators report from 29 August 1940 before the Vaillant crew went to Dulag Luft in Frankfurt. The Interrogator did not identify the squadron in his report and made no mention of any identifying badges worn by the crew, including Lou Mabey.

Cheers

Rod

PS - obviously ex-mil here on the board are well aware of dress regulations, but for the uninitiated, here are direct quotations from 'Air Ministry Dress Regulations for Officers of the Royal Air Force' (Air Publication 1358, 2nd (Abridged) Edition, December 1939 (I have his on hand and will suffice in lieu of the corresponding regulations for other ranks):

Section 1. General Instructions.

Para 1. Authorised Patterns to be adhered to. - A C.O. is forbidden to introduce, or sanction the use of, any unauthorised deviation from the sealed patterns of dress, badges or accoutrements.

Para 5. Unauthorised Emblems. - No unauthorised ornament or emblem will be worn on uniform. Any officer when not on duty may, however, wear the national flower or emblem in the headdress on St. George's Day (Rose), St. Andrew's Day (Thistle), St. David's Day (Leek) and St. Patrick's Day (Shamrock), according to nationality, and the poppy on Remembrance Day.

I'm sure that RNZAF Dress Regulations would closely mirror RAF Regulations.

May 11, 2019 8:22:04 GMT 12 baronbeeza said:

I was thinking he may have made the badge while in captivity and then had those same concerns. I thought it may have been possible to do all the needlework but leave the 149 part off. I need to see a better pic of the badge, I was not convinced it had 149 and RNZAF. Naturally no such unit exists anyway.





I am wondering if Lawrence had the certificate and small lapel badge

[baronbeeza]

King of the Wild Frontier

[errolmartyn]

May 11, 2019 13:46:32 GMT 12 baronbeeza said:

King of the Wild Frontier

More likely Walter Mitty than Davy Crockett!

Errol

[Dave Homewood]

Pathfinder missions? They were not even formed then.

[baronbeeza]

The problem we are facing here is trying to get a factual account to replace the fantasy currently on the Stuff website.
Several here have done considerable research, apparently more than a couple of reporters may have done.
It is very difficult going and you can soon sense why the media just isn't interested in correctness or attention to detail. While they may report some ramblings along with some fluff added by the reporter there is certainly a reluctance to accept any other viewpoint.

We can all see the obvious flaws that are being unearthed here but to others some of the comments here may be hurtful or nitpicking.

Even worse, it may expose the errors on the original article and that (heavens forbid) could involve a correction, possibly a retraction, and along with that a loss of face.

Much easier to just let it die a natural, it doesn't really matter if a Google is now going to bring up the story of the brave NZ'er who was never appreciated for his WWII heroics, no mention and no decorations.

There will be many in NZ who already believe the airman was wronged.

In reality it appears Mr Mabey was more interested in talking about his life as a POW.

The irony is that particular portion of his wartime experiences has been completely ignored. The man lost his best years, from 18 to 22, interned.

The rest of his war must have seemed almost irrelevant, a few months of training followed by the disappointment of being shot down on his first mission.

He may have spent 4 or 5 years trying to forget it.



This is what the Auckland Star reported in July 1941

Sergeant Mabey offered his services on the outbreak of war, and went into the ground training school at Levin on December 18, 1939. Then he went on to the R.N.Z.A.F. station at Ohakea to learn his gunnery. By March, 1940, when only 18 years of age, he was on his way to England. In August, when out on a bombing operation, he had to bale out, and became a prisoner of war. He spent his nineteenth birthday as a prisoner, last March.

rnzaf.proboards.com/thread/24230/sit

[baronbeeza]

[errolmartyn]

May 11, 2019 19:28:07 GMT 12 baronbeeza said:

In January 1940 he would have been posted with the others on his course to No. 1 Air Observers School at Ohakea, though only undertaking the gunnery part of the course rather than staying on for the full Air Observers course.

The Wigram reference relates to where he reported and was held until embarkation on the Akaroa on 23 March 1940. Cliff Emeny, who was on the same course, apparently spent four days there prior to sailing.

Errol

[waynem]

I had a look for the documentary mentioned above.
Found this after a search;

www.amazon.co.uk/Strike-Force-Wellington-VHS/dp/B00004CPQO

Cheers,
Wayne.

[baronbeeza]

Yes, I did see the mention of the video but not any footage.
I noted the video was released in 2003, VHS Release Date: 8 July 2003.
I don't recall seeing it on TV but it difficult to keep track of the ever changing story. I think we were being told they watched it on ANZAC week 2003 and on NZ TV.
Once again it is just dates and names being thrown together..... in a completely haphazard manner.

Almost every name and date is incorrect. In the 2009 obituary it said that he enlisted as a 16 year old, in Dec 1939. The dates of birth and death were an the top of the page. Born March 1922.
There is simply no accuracy in any of the reporting. It is just a story.

[rodm]

Lo and Behold:

www.stuff.co.nz/national/112062102/kiwi-flies-bomber-solo-to-strike-at-berlin-during-world-war-ii-mission-gone-awry

"This story is unavailable"

2019-05-13 07:08:17
The story "Son of Kiwi World War II gunner piecing together bombing raid over Germany" did not meet Stuff's editorial standards and has been removed.


Cheers

Rod

PS - if Michael Mabey reads this, I know you are disappointed. When you go to the United Kingdom in search for more information, I strongly recommend visiting The National Archives at Kew in London. They hold the recently-declassified Air Ministry P4 Casualty File and it contains a wealth of valuable information about your late father's last flight, including originals of a trove of captured German documents about the incident. The file reference is:

AIR 81/2850