Group Captain Thomas Gilbert "Hamish" Mahaddie, (19 March 1911 – 16 January 1997) was a Scotsman who served in the Royal Air Force (RAF). As a youth he was selected for an apprentice programme and was trained as an RAF ground crew "metal rigger". He had earned his wings and reached the rank of sergeant pilot by the outbreak of the Second World War. In his second tour he was selected to be a member of the newly formed "Pathfinder Force" (No. 8 Group RAF). At the end of his second combat tour he was brought onto Air Vice Marshal Don Bennett's Headquarter Staff in the position of "Group Training Inspector". In this position he selected, recruited and trained aircrews to serve in the Pathfinder Force. Following the war he continued to serve in the RAF until 1958. Out of the service he worked as an electronics consultant for the Armed Services, and as an aircraft consultant for the film industry. His most remarkable accomplishment in the film industry was the procurement of aircraft, crews and service personnel for the film Battle of Britain (1969).
Early life
Thomas Gilbert Mahaddie was born in Leith, Scotland, on 19 March 1911. He came from a poor family. His father, Tam Mahaddie, worked whatever jobs he could find after serving with the Gordon Highlanders in the Great War.Group Captain Hamish Mahaddie: Much decorated bomber ace who became known for his ruthless poaching of crews for the Pathfinder Force; The Daily Telegraph; 20 January 1997 His mother was a seamstress, and sewed all his clothes in his younger days, but she died when he was still quite young. He left school at the age of 13 and got a job working for an Edinburgh grocer, but soon became interested in the possibility of being an apprentice craftsman for the fledgling Royal Air Force. He applied for the RAF Halton Aircraft Apprenticeship in 1927, and got it. On 9 January 1928 he was one of 305 boys selected who formed the 17th entry into the program at RAF Halton. It was a three-year program which provided technical training, military training and room and board to the boys, while generating much needed specialist groundcrew for the RAF. In December 1930 he was accepted into the RAF and posted to RAF College Cranwell as a 'metal rigger'. In one year he had attained the rank of leading aircraftman, making him eligible to volunteer for pilot training. He did so, but remained at Cranwell for two more years servicing aircraft. Finally in October 1933 he was given a transfer to RAF Hinaidi in Baghdad, Iraq where he was accepted for aircrew training.
Mahaddie was posted to No. 4 Squadron FTS, Abu Suweir, Egypt in August 1934 and commenced pilot instruction while flying Avro 504Ns. He earned his wings 13 June 1935 and was promoted sergeant pilot. He returned to RAF Hinaidi and joined A Flight No. 55 Squadron flying Westland Wapitis. He remained there for two years. It was at this time that he acquired a horse, a blue roan Arabian which he named "Hamish". His fellow airmen remarked upon a distinct resemblance between the sergeant pilot and the horse, which Mahaddie protested against strongly as being an insult to the horse. They soon were referring to the Scotsman as "Hamish", and the name stuck. In 1937 he returned to England, transferring to No. 77 Squadron.
Flying in the RAF
In 1937 Mahaddie was sent back to England and posted at No. 77 Squadron at Honington. There he flew Whitley bombers from Driffield in Yorkshire. He was commissioned pilot officer 1 April 1937. The following year he was involved in an accident while completing a night flying training exercise. On 24 November Whitley K8963 crashed at the fringe of the Driffield airfield. Mahaddie had been piloting the aircraft, assisted by co-pilot Peter Rodney Wood. The 27-year-old Mahaddie struggled clear of the wrecked aircraft. As it started to burn he attempted to return to reach Wood, and had to be restrained from attempting to rescue his companion. His 22-year-old co-pilot was trapped in the wreckage and died in the fire. Mahaddie was taken to York Military Hospital for treatment of a number of injuries he suffered. An inquest held regarding the accident found no wrongdoing by the pilots.THE DRIFFIELD AIR TRAGEDY – Inquest to be held in a fortnight, Hull Daily Mail, 26 November 1938
The Second World War broke out in September 1939. Initially the bomber force was used in a timid manner. Mahaddie was involved in a number of bombing missions which he termed "ineffective". Two young pilots Mahaddie met while at 77 Squadron who went on to have distinguished careers were Jimmy Marks and Leonard Cheshire. On the first night of the war his squadron was sent to drop leaflets over the Ruhr. Early wartime operations for No. 77 Squadron's Whitleys included reconnaissance flights, leaflet "raids" over Germany and attacks on easily reached coastal targets. On 1 April 1940 he received his commission as an officer. In May 1940 with the German invasion into France Mahaddie flew raids against the advancing German columns, and completed a total of 23 operations during the Dunkirk period between 10 May and 29 June. With the exception of the raid led by Marks against German forces near Rotterdam, the raids had little impact on events, and Mahaddie was disappointed in their effectiveness. The only other mission he felt had been effective early in the war was his group's raid against Stavanger, Norway, where they destroyed a number of hangars the Germans had been making use of at the airfield during the Norway campaign. As Mahaddie recalled, what the group lacked was the ability to navigate accurately enough to reach the target in strength, and the ability to carry the weight of bombs necessary to destroy the target once they got there.
Training crews at Kinloss After surviving his first tour in July 1940 Mahaddie was assigned officer instructor at RAF Kinloss in Scotland. He served with No. 19 Operational Training Unit RAF, still flying the Whitely. The goal at Kinloss was to take pilots, navigators, wireless operators, bombardiers and air-gunners, all arriving from their respective basic training stations, and sort themselves out into crews of five, before starting their 12 to 14 weeks course of operational training. Mahaddie worked to meld them together into functioning crews. He proved to be excellent at training crews, and over the next two years he rose to the rank of squadron leader. Frustrated in no longer flying combat missions, pilots who returned to visit whom he had trained gave him the sense that things in the operational squadrons had changed since he had last been flying ops. For his service at Kinloss he was awarded the Air Force Cross (AFC), a non-combat award that Mahaddie sarcastically referred to as his "Avoiding Flak Cross."
With the Pathfinders
In August 1942 Mahaddie finally was granted his request to transfer to an operational squadron. For his second combat tour he was chosen to join a newly formed group called the Pathfinder Force. Normally Bomber Command crews were considered to complete a tour of combat flying after completing 30 sorties. In the Pathfinder Force crews initially were required to complete 60 sorties to complete a tour. With only 30 percent of crews reaching the end of their tours alive after 30 sorties, the Pathfinder Force was asking for a marked commitment from those who joined them. Made up entirely of experienced pilots, Mahaddie was one of the most experienced among them. Since he had been flying for four years before the outbreak of the war, he had 3,000 flying hours under his belt, along with 36 combat sorties from his first tour. He was assigned to No. 7 Squadron at Oakington. Mahaddie's second tour of operations began on the night of 17/18 August 1942, flying the huge four-engined Stirling in a raid against Flensburg.
The Pathfinder Force was made up of all experienced crews. The primary purpose was to navigate successfully to the target and mark it in advance of the main bomber force. There had been a significant amount of resistance within Bomber Command against the formation of the Pathfinder Force. Commanders such as Harris were adamant that there should be no elite unit inside Bomber Command, but proponents such as Group Captain Sidney Bufton prevailed. Harris argued that if a Target Finding Force was formed, each group should have their own squadron, but with the intervention of Air Chief Marshal Charles Portal, the Chief of the Air Staff, and the direct involvement of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, this idea was rejected as well. The five Groups of bomber command were each required to contribute a squadron of aircraft with crews to make up the PFF. The contributions of the bomber groups were as follows: No. 3 Group gave No. 7 Squadron flying Stirlings, No. 4 Group gave No. 35 Squadron flying Halifaxes, No. 5 Group gave No. 83 Squadron in Avro Lancasters while No. 1 Group gave No. 156 Squadron flying the Vickers Wellington. The fifth squadron, No. 109 Squadron was a special duty Wireless Intelligence unit which flew a mixture of aircraft and was given the task of jamming of German radio beams and developing wireless and navigational aides for Bomber Command. Thus the PFF initially comprised a mixture of aircraft types, with resultant operational difficulties.
Initially the four squadron force was sent out to attack targets just as any other bomber force. The group began true Pathfinder raids, dropping marking flares for the main bomber force, in October 1942. The first marker raid was to Krefeld on 2 October 1942. On a number of these raids Mahaddie was the lead bomber, tasked with dropping the first flares over the target. Mahaddie was twice Mentioned in Despatches in 1942. On 1 December 1942 Mahaddie was promoted to wing commander. By the Frankfurt raid on 3 December Mahaddie had completed his fiftieth operation. Over a period of the next eight weeks he was awarded the AFC, a Distinguished Service Order, the Czechoslovak War Cross 1939 and the Distinguished Flying Cross. Each had to be wetted by his squadron mates in typical RAF fashion, all on Mahaddie's tab. The various citations included phrases such as, "consistently attacked heavily defended targets with coolness and determination often in adverse weather", "powers of leadership of a very high order", and, "unflagging enthusiasm has had an inspiring effect on his comrades". It is likely that four awards in eight weeks was an RAF record. Mahaddie called it "the most expensive period of my career."