bentley priory - Spink

September 6, 2012 - LONDON
Air Vice-Marshal R.N. Bateson receiving his Dutch D.F.C. from Prince Bernhard
is believed to be one of the first strikes by an Allied Squadron
against the Italians. During the Libyan Campaign he rose to
the command of No.113 Squadron and was blown up by a
booby trap, suffering corrosive acid burns to his face. At the
end of 1941 he was appointed to the command of No.211
Squadron then destined for Singapore, but, when the island
fell to the Japanese in February 1942, he commanded it
instead at Sumatra until that too was overrun. Bateson then
escaped via Australia, and in June 1942 was appointed to the
command of No.11 Squadron in Ceylon. By the time he
returned to the U.K. in 1943, the Mosquito had emerged as
one of the fastest and most formidable weapons of the war,
and after a stint at 13 O.T.U. he was promoted Wing
Commander and given command of No.613 (City of
Manchester) Squadron, equipped with Mosquitos at RAF
Lasham. As part of No.2 Group, 2nd T.A.F., the Squadron
under Bateson’s command opened 1944 with repeated lowlevel
precision attacks in the ‘Noball’ offensive against V1
Flying Bomb sites in Northern France. On the 24th January
he was holed by flak, and four days later he was holed in four
places. By March 1944 he was frequently engaged in various
Night Intruder Operations and a Day Ranger Sweep against
Northern European targets.
‘Bang Through the Front Door’
The most spectacular of all No. 613 Squadron’s Mosquito
operations was undoubtedly the precision daylight raid made
on the 11th April 1944 when Bateson, leading six aircraft,
succeeded in destroying the Gestapo archives housed in the
Kunstzaal Kleizcamp in the Hague. The operational
requirement was for the destruction of the archive alone
without harming the surrounding buildings, a feat which was
virtually achieved by Bateson’s bombing run alone.
Describing the celebrated raid for The Times he said: ‘l came
down, and we went in on what was virtually a perfect practice
bombing run. The building was a five storey affair - I should
say about 90 feet high. We bombed from below the height of
the building at about 50 feet. I was a bit worried about my
port wing catching the spire of the Peace Palace. I could not
see what happened myself, but my Number Two told me that
he could follow my bombs all the way down, and that two
went bang through the front door and the other two went
through the two big windows on each side of the doorway. I
was a bit worried about the two wing bombs: if any of us had
been the least bit too much to port or starboard we should
have hit one of the next door houses. We all bombed dead
on, and the incendiaries did their stuff beautifully. Actually,
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