St Edward's, 150 Years

Chapter 6 / St Edward’s and the Wars

Of Adrian Warburton ‘A brave and modest man, serving and dying with men who appreciated his worth to the full.’

Farleft:Painting(byRobertSwan,paintedposthumously)and medals of Arthur Banks (E, 1937–42). Below is his half sister, Margaret Castle. Left: Arthur Banks, c. 1942.

– Chronicle obituary, March 1945.

An OSE, Richard Redmayne Turral (G, 1951–6), wrote a post-war article about Banks’ dreadful ordeal in the hands of the Germans and Italians. In the archives is a copy of the transcript of the trial for war crimes of one German and 20 Italians in March 1946 under the heading of ‘The Torture and Killing of No. 1607992, Sergeant Banks, RAF, at Mesola and Adria in December 1944.’ He would give nothing except his name, rank and number and refused to reveal the names of the Boccato members that the enemy wanted. He maintained his silence over six days of increasingly terrible torture. The Germans handed him over to the Italian Black Brigade, who continued the torture. He was eventually thrown into the River Po when his torturers thought him dead, with a boulder tied to his leg. He managed to free himself from the boulder and swam for the bank, but it was the wrong bank, next to the Italian barracks, and he was picked up by the patrol who had thrown him in the river. An Italian officer then shot him in the back of his head and he was buried in the communal dung heap. Later his body was moved to Argenta Gap, where men from the Royal East Kent Regiment (the Buffs) were buried. When the details of this almost unbelievable story came out he was awarded the George Cross posthumously. The Prosecuting Counsel at the war crimes trial said that‘Men like Banks,evenhavingsufferedallthathehadsuffered,donotdieeasily.’ HisGeorgeCrosscitationstatedthat‘SergeantBanksendured much suffering with stoicism, withholding information, which would have been of vital interest to the enemy. His courage and endurance were such that they impressed even the captors.’ His portrait, reproduced here, was painted posthumously by Robert Swan and now hangs in the Old Library. ARTHUR BANKS

Adrian Warburton (B, 1932–5), centre, in Malta with the USAAF, April 1943.

due to the raid on the Mohne, Eder and Sorpe dams in the Ruhr. His leadership on the Dambusters raid was outstanding: his bombing was accurate, and he offered his own aircraft as a target in order to protect others. By this stage he had completed over 170 sorties and 600 hours operational flying. In September 1944 the awful news arrived of Wing Commander Guy Gibson’s death at the age of 26: he had crashed in Holland in a Mosquito aircraft with his navigator, having been the master bomber in a raid on Rheydt. He should not in fact have been on this sortie at all, as he had already fulfilled his quota of missions and flying hours, but had requested the Air Ministry to allow him to continue. Churchill, who had sent him, early in the war, to America as an air attaché because his example of what Britain could offer was so impressive, wrote personally to his widow after his death. Adrian Warburton (B, 1932–5) was a Wing Commander with the RAF Reconnaissance Section, a less conspicuous role than that of fighter pilots, but he was nevertheless a dashing figure. He appeared to be without fear in his sorties at extremely low altitude to photograph key enemy ships, ports and strongpoint installations. He was awarded a DSO and Bar, DFC and two Bars and the American DFC. He was a much more swashbuckling character than Gibson or Bader, being based in Malta, not conforming to rules and regulations, and frequently appearing accompanied by his dancer girlfriend. He would return again to targets if an

earlier mission had not produced perfect results. The last time he was heard from was in April 1944, and he was believed to have crashed. In 1945 he was listed as ‘presumed killed’ at the age of 27, just a year older than Gibson . The crash site was not finally discovered until 2003: it was in a Bavarian field, with his body still in the plane about two metres under the ground. The plane had flipped over prior to impact and the propellers had dug out a deep hole in the ground. He was finally buried two miles from the crash site at the Durnbach Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery. A contemporary pointed out that neither Bader, Warburton, nor Gibson courted popularity or set out to win friends – which makes their resilience and determination all the more admirable. The extraordinary heroism shown by these three tends to make us forget others. For example, Flying Officer Gordon Sampson Clear (G, 1926–30) received a DFC for leading his squadron in an attack on the Molybdenum Plant at Knabon in Norway. This was a particularly dangerous mission as the target was hidden in a mountainous area with very treacherous air currents, but he was successful. He was, very sadly, killed soon afterwards. There are very many tales to tell of extraordinary bravery which we unfortunately cannot cover in this book. An interesting story is that of Theodor Abrahamsen (D, 1933–9), a Norwegian national who had become Head of School. He joined the Norwegian resistance while still

at university and distributed illegal newsheets and British newspapers, operating hidden radios and upsetting German communications. In 1943 he was arrested and sent to Buchenwald Concentration Camp, which he survived, he thinks, due to his fair hair and blues eyes, admired by the Nazis as ‘Aryan’. While his treatment was harsh it was not nearly as bad as for others with him, who were Jews or Russians. After a year in the camp he was moved to Hamburg and then in 1945 to a hospital in Sweden. An altogether different type of heroism from that of dangerous missions in the air was the experience of one young man on the ‘Missing’ list, Sergeant-Pilot Arthur Banks RAF (E, 1937–42), who in 1945 had not been heard from since being shot down over Italy in August 1944. He had been in a Mustang aircraft hit by flak and had made a forced landing, after which he was seen setting fire to his aircraft. We now know that local farmers then hid him until he was able to contact the Italian ‘Boccato’ partisans, which he soon did. For three months he worked with them in planning and carrying out actions against the enemy. In December 1944 his group was betrayed, and captured. He was immediately handed over to the local German Commander for interrogation.

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