Peter Vaughan-Fowler

Peter Vaughan-Fowler, (18 January 1923 – 24 April 1994) was an officer who served in the Royal Air Force.

He is best known for his work as a "special duties" pilot, supporting the SOE and the SIS, carrying agents to and from occupied France.

Vaughan-Fowler was born in Lahore, in what was then India on 18 January 1923.

He came from a family of aviators.

His father, Guy Vaughan-Fowler, had been a naval aviator during The Great War, attaining the rank of Group Captain.

He had taken Peter up in an Avro 504 biplane for his first flight when he was still a young boy.

Peter's older brother had also been a pilot.

On the outbreak of the Second World War he was a 17 year old still at school at the Imperial Service College.

A year later he enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve at Cranwell, where he earned the rating of Leading Aircraftman.

While there he volunteered for pilot training.

The youngest pilot in his squadron, he was regarded by his fellow pilots as having exceptional aircraft handling skills.

On 15 November 1941 he was made Pilot Officer.

After completing pilot training Vaughan-Fowler was assigned to 161 (Special Duties) Squadron.

The posting was quite unusual, for the squadron was a secret unit that flew insertion missions at night into occupied France.

The pilots were required to be experienced and have logged at least 250 hours of night flying.

Vaughan-Fowler was a new pilot, whose total flying experience was only 250 hours, none of which had been completed at night.

Apparently the flying discipline and control he demonstrated in flying school earned him the recommendation to 161 Squadron, who elected to try to train him to be a pick-up pilot.

At the time he was only 19 years old.

161 Squadron had formed just two months earlier by hiving off the Lysander flight from the original Royal Air Force Special Duties Service unit, 138 Squadron.

The clandestine squadron had the role of delivering SOE and SIS agents, wireless operators, wireless equipment and weapons to assist the resistance.

The squadron was commanded by Edward Fielden, an experienced pilot who had been the CO of the King's Flight.

161 Squadron's 'A Flight' was made up of 6 Lysanders, with Guy Lockhart as its commanding officer.

'A Flight' undertook the pick-up operations.

At the time Vaughan-Fowler joined the squadron in April 1942 the squadron had just moved to the secret airfield at Tempsford, located in the Bedfordshire countryside.

The squadron was building up its capability, training new pilots and new agents to manage the fields in France.

These special agents were known as 'operators'.

The primary aircraft used in these operations was the Lysander.

The aircraft's exceptional short-field performance made it the ideal aircraft for landing on small, unimproved airstrips behind enemy lines to perform pick-up operations.

This flying of aircraft at night to small fields in France with no navigational aid was a new undertaking, fraught with danger.

They had to fly to a small field in the middle of a darkened countryside.

If they found the field, then the field's operator would exchange an agreed to code letter in Morse.

If correct the operator would direct his team to light three small flashlights.

These did not illuminate the ground, but gave the pilot an idea where he was to put the aircraft down.

As the pilot got close to the ground he would illuminate his landing light.

There was always the fear of the Gestapo arriving and capturing the pilot and operator's crew while the aircraft was on the ground, or worse, landing and finding the Gestapo waiting rather than the Resistance.

Vaughan-Fowler practiced navigational flying over England without radio assistance or navigational aid, initially by day and then by night.

He also trained in night landings, using the tiny indicator lights.

Pilots and operators were trained at the false airfield at "RAF Somersham".

There they would practice signaling to each other in Morse code.

The operators would lay out a flare path and the pilots would bring their Lysander down to land, change passengers and take off in the dark.