Page 29 - issue05.04.2019

Royal Air Force News Friday, April 5, 2019 P21

Feature
Pure escapism

Simon Mander How an eccentric Royal Flying
SCAPING the enemy and
evading capture in hostile
territory are core skills Corps veteran helped establish
Etaught to aircrew and
others by expert instructors at
RAF St Mawgan.
But, remarkably, getting home modern day SERE techniques
to fight another day wasn’t always a
priority of military training.
While stories of heroic
endurance behind enemy lines
abound – from the World War II
‘Late Arrivals’ club who trekked
hundreds of miles through the ESCAPE KIT: Everyday items such
Western Desert following crash as buttons and chess pieces had tiny
landings, to the ill-fated extraction compasses hidden within them
of SAS call sign Bravo Two Zero
during Operation Desert Storm in Keith Park organised a local rescue
1991 – survival techniques are a service with light naval craft, RAF
relatively modern skill. launches and Lysander aircraft
A British-inspired capability in borrowed from Army Cooperation
which the RAF has played a key Command.
role, realistically SERE – Survival The value of this organisation
Evasion Resistance and Extraction was soon apparent, and on August
training – has its origins at the 22 AVM Arthur Travers Harris
end of WWI, and even then the established a skeleton Sea Rescue
recovery of downed crews was not Organisation. However, the
fully recognised as being key to recovery rate of ditched air crew
long-term victory. was still no better than one in five.
Author Phil Froom has written So, in 1941, the Directorate of Air
a definitive history of Evasion & Sea Rescue was initiated with two
Escape devices produced by MI9, Aeronautical Rescue Coordination
MIS-X and the Special Operations Centres (ARCC) at Plymouth and
Executive during WWII and the Edinburgh – as a result rescues
origins of survival training. increased significantly, but still only
He traces how, in 1939, two reached 35 per cent.
veteran officers conducted studies In May 1943 the RAF established
on establishing an organisation to FLARE FOR SURVIVAL: the School of Air/Sea Rescue,
oversee all aspects of prisoner of SERE training session located close to RAF Squire Gate in
war wellbeing including training Lancashire.
them how to return to their units. The School taught RAF and
The Joint Services organisation camps. MI9 also conducted the first was carried out at operational groups across occupied Europe, USAAF air crews rescue procedures
given the job became a new section interrogations of those who made it airfields and some special return home. and familiarisation with aircraft
within the Directorate of Military home to glean valuable intelligence operations units. Their development was led by a emergency equipment. It relocated
Intelligence, named MI9. to support future break-outs. WWI Royal Flying Corps veteran to RAF Calshot in Hampshire in
Its remit was to train British Throughout 1940 and into late team of eclectic veterans called Christopher Clayton Hutton 1945 before finally moving to RAF
and Allied personnel to avoid 1941 both sides expanded their A (many WWI POWs or evaders – an eccentric with a passion for Thorney Island in West Sussex in
capture, providing ration boxes Evasion, Escape and Interrogation themselves) and scientists began to escapology. 1946, and was disbanded in April
to enable downed air crew to capabilities, which led to the produce escape devices necessary Due to the horrendous losses of 1949.
sustain themselves and basic tools formation of Intelligence School to enable downed air crew and ditching air crew early in the war,
–compasses and maps – to escape 9 in London to teach Officers and Special Operations troops to evade at the end of July 1940, with Navy efore 2006, SERE training was
quickly if interned in Axis POW Senior NCOs, while local training and, with the support of resistance support, AOC 11 Group AVM Bcarried out by all three Services
with HMS Sultan and RAF
St Mawgan delivering
Survival, Evasion and
Extraction training, whilst
the Army’s 4 Conduct After
Capture Company (4 CAC
Coy) taught Resistance to
Interrogation techniques.
The Defence SERE
Training Organisation
(DSTO) brought them
together and in late 2008
formed a single site
organisation at RAF St
Mawgan in Cornwall,
where it continues to
deliver Joint Services SERE
training.
With more than 380
pages and 700 photographs,
Phil Froom’s book is
available on Amazon and
all good bookshops at
amazon.co.uk/Evasion-
Escape-Devices-Produced-
IN AT THE DEEP END: Sea landing exercise near RAF St Mawgan HUNGER FOR HOME: Eking out meagre survival ration pack food on the North Yorks Moors MIS-X/dp/0764348396.