STOURBRIDGE OLD EDWARDIAN CLUB

ED-WORDS NEWSLETTER SUMMER 2024

The splendid meal was enjoyed by all and thanks were given to the stewards for their efforts.

Thank you all for your forbearance and I look forward to seeing you at Arnold Homer's lunchtime talk on Friday 6th September.

I wish you all a happy summer break.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS are visible on our Events Calendar>>. That section has been updated to clearly identify those occasions that are open to Club Members. Please phone the Club directly on 01384 395635 for details of any event (do not respond to this email as responses will not be monitored).

A comprehensive list of all bookings (including venue hire) may be downloaded HERE>> .

PAST EVENTS write ups are on the website HERE>> but specifically the following are worth a mention since the last newsletter:

LUNCHTIME TALKS WITH BUFFET: Mike Aston's hugely successful initiative of a programme of talks followed by buffet will resume in Autumn and over the Winter months. These are as identified in our EVENTS CALENDAR>>  with the next event from Arnold Homer "The door wherein I went" on September 6th.

Mr R. L. Chambers, former headmaster of the School, researched and wrote the following piece:

The portrait of King Edward VI hanging in the club is a contemporary portrait commissioned by the club and painted by Mr. A .T. Rogers, Senior Art Master at the School, in June 1977.  Today, the original is held at the College and is a fine piece of Tudor iconography and a rare treasure.

Only two of the many King Edward VI schools possess an original portrait of their royal founder.  The Stourbridge portrait was painted in 1552-3 by Edward’s court painter, the Fleming Guillim Streets, also known as Scrots.  He was the artist of seven others, including the full length portrait of Edward VI at Hampton Court.

The School archives show that the Stourbridge portrait was given to a former vicar of Kidderminster by a Lord Foley, patron of the living, who had bought it at the sale of Cannons, the famous Middlesex home of the first Duke of Chandos, in 1748, when he acquired other fittings to embellish Witley Church.  How “Princely Chandos” came by the portrait is not known, so that there is a considerable gap in our knowledge of its history.

The portrait hung in the vestry of Kidderminster parish church for generations, until in 1875 the then vicar, the Reverend G.D. Doyle, agreed to sell it to the School for £20 to help his restoration fund.

A list shows that the purchase price was provided by 29 subscribers and the portrait was presented on their behalf to the School governors on 21 September 1875 by Mr. Thomas of the Kidderminster and Stourbridge Banking Company and Mr. T.F. Bland of High Street.

David Burrows

About 30 years ago, I lent my late father-in-law, Ken Oakley (whom a number of you will remember as a loyal member of the Club), a book about D-Day. To my surprise, he told me that one of the characters mentioned in the book was a school friend of his and a fellow Old Edwardian by the name of John (“Jack”) Alfred Ainsworth - “Mad Ainy we used to call him” was Ken’s recollection. He had joined a group of under-age motor-cycle “nuts” who tore round a field next to Ken’s home in Iverley on old bikes they had scrounged or bought from the scrapyard for a few shillings.

Jack was born on 24^th November 1919 at his parents’ home 41, Oxford Street, Kidderminster, and his father’s occupation is given as an ex-Army Dental Operator.

According to the 1921 Census, Jack was living with his mother at the Star Hotel, Worcester; the circumstances of his father at that time are not known, but we do know that, prior to Jack being registered at the Grammar School, his mother had re-married a Mr. Charles Dowding, an insurance agent, and their home address was given as 42, Hagley Road, Stourbridge (later they moved to No. 38).

According to the School Register, Jack was admitted on 4^th October 1929 and remained there until 5^th April 1935 when he was in Form V2A. The Register contains a note that his step-father, Mr. Dowding, requested that he left the School and moved to Lawrence’s College, Birmingham (which taught commercial subjects, including shorthand and typing).

Prior to joining the Grammar School Jack attended Alexandra House School, Enville Street, and during his time at the Grammar School he became a member of the School Cadet Corps.

He played rugby for the School in the 3^rd XV and was also a member of a local rugby club.

We now pick up Jack’s war-time story looking closely at the part he played in the D-Day Landings.

In March 1942, he had joined the Glider Pilot Regiment and had qualified as a pilot (more of that to follow in a future Newsletter).

To ensure the successful landings along the Normandy coastline, a bridgehead inland had to be created, and to protect this bridgehead from enemy attack the flanks needed to be secured.

Of the five beaches designated for the invasion force, three were British & Canadian, with “Sword” Beach on the left of the invasion, in the east. The boundary of the bridgehead was formed by the River Orne and the Caen Canal which ran a few hundred yards apart. Key bridges over the river and the canal had to be secured before troops started landing on Sword Beach at 07.30.hrs. The bridge over the Caen Canal, locally known as Bénouville Bridge, was subsequently to become known as Pegasus Bridge after the insignia of the Airborne Division.

A “Coup de Main”, code-named “Operation Deadstick”, was to land six gliders and 180 men in the fields around the bridges, capture and hold the bridges until relieved by troops landing by parachute and those advancing from the beach.

The six gliders carried infantrymen, engineers and a doctor. The operation was under the command of Major John Howard who was in Glider No. 1, the first to land on French soil. Major Howard had given the pilots instructions to land as close to the perimeter fencing around the bridge as possible. A German garrison with an anti-aircraft gun protected the bridge. Both bridges were believed to have been wired with explosives and their capture intact was vital.

Major Howard’s Glider No.1 was piloted by two of the Glider Pilot Regiment’s senior pilots S/Sgt. Jim Wallwork and S/Sgt. Jack Ainsworth M.M. The landing ground was not best suited for gliders as it lay in the narrow strip of boggy marsh land between the river and the canal. Furthermore, the Germans had been erecting anti-glider poles (known as “Rommel’s Asparagus”), connected to explosive devices, designed to break up gliders on landing. This work had been ongoing and it was not known whether poles had been installed on the proposed landing sites.

At 22.56.hours on the evening of 5^th June, at one minute intervals, six RAF Halifax bombers, each towing an Airspeed Horsa glider and carrying 30 men, took off from the RAF station at Tarrant Rushton, Dorset, on the start of the mission. On board the gliders were men made up of ‘D’ Company (extended from 4 to 6 platoons) of 2^nd Battalion Ox & Bucks Light Infantry including 30 sappers of No. 2. Platoon 249^th Field Company Royal Engineers whose job it was to disarm the bridges of the explosives.

After an hour and a quarter at an altitude of 6,000ft., as they approached the French coastline the gliders were released from their tugs. The Halifax bombers then went on to bomb targets around Caen to make it appear like a normal bombing raid.

In Glider No.1., pilots Wallwork and Ainsworth could start to consider the landing. Jim Wallwork had promised Major Howard that he would land his glider against the embankment of the bridge with its nose through the wire defences. Unknown to Howard, the glider, despite a last-minute reduction in equipment and ammunition carried, was still overloaded. Both Wallwork and Ainsworth were well aware of this, and, in consequence, both of them expected to suffer broken legs on landing. Wallwork later commented “We had settled for the broken legs before take-off and considered ourselves lucky.”

As they passed over the French coast, the Halifax tug released the towing cable. The glider was now in free flight and the two pilots had the immense responsibility of landing it safely, and the lives of the 30 men depended         upon the skills the pilots were about to engage. In the run-up to D-Day, the manoeuvre they were about to undertake had been rehearsed at least 40 times (according to Ainsworth’s Pilot’s Flying Log Book). This same Log Book further shows that Ainsworth and Wallwork had alternated between 1^st and 2^nd pilot. It was finally decided that Wallwork would take the first pilot’s role at the controls while Ainsworth with stop-watch and compass, and one eye on the altimeter, with only the moonlight and torch to see by, gave instruction to Wallwork when to make the two 90^o turns.

Despite this well-rehearsed precision flying by the two pilots, the intense concentration did cause some tension in the cockpit. Wallwork was looking out of the window for landmarks and desperately searching for the large forest of Bois de Bavent without success. It has been recorded that Ainsworth snapped: “For God’s sake, it is the biggest place in Normandy, Pay attention”. On instruments alone, the glider was brought through the two starboard turns, dropping to 500ft., and there, ahead of them, were the two silver streaks of the Caen Canal and the River Orne. Wallwork spotted the landing zone which confirmed he was precisely on course. Ainsworth’s navigation had ensured they were right on target.

As they approached the landing-zone. Wallwork realised his approach speed was too fast and instructed Ainsworth to deploy the arrester parachute to slow down the glider and then, after two seconds, release it. Nevertheless, the landing speed was assessed to be around 90mph.

The first wire entanglement 50 yards from the bridge broke off the nose-wheel and the glider skidded along the ground on its steel protection plate. This caused sparks to fly as it hit stones on the ground. Seeing these sparks in the darkness, Major Howard thought they were under enemy fire. The three gliders designated to land near to the canal bridge and two of the three gliders to land on fields near to the river bridge, in fact landed unheard and unseen by the enemy. The sixth glider, due to navigation error, landed 5 miles away.

The force of the impact against the embankment ejected Wallwork and Ainsworth through the perspex canopy of the wooden glider and they were temporarily trapped under its wreckage. Thankfully, the prospect of broken legs did not materialise, although Jack Ainsworth did sustain a broken ankle and two sprained knees and both pilots suffered head injuries.

Many years later, Jim Wallwork recalled: “The outstanding thing was how bloody good we were at night. With a slight bit of moon, we could put a glider anywhere you wanted, simply because of practice. In my youthful enthusiasm, I went as far in as I could but hit the embankment rather hard and the nose of the glider collapsed. The others were a bit shaken up but the only people injured in the arrival were me and my co-pilot, Johnny Ainsworth. He couldn’t walk, so I dragged him from the wreckage and shoved him in a ditch out of danger and out of sight”. Wallwork suffered a blow to the head which bled profusely, but he was able to continue with his duty of unloading ammunition from the glider.

The time was sixteen minutes past midnight, 6^th June 1944.

The operation was a total success and both bridges were captured and held. Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory stated shortly afterwards, that it was “the greatest feat of flying of the second world war”.

There was one other Stourbridge man on Glider No.1. He was Major Howard’s platoon leader Lt. Den Brotheridge. Den was sadly killed by a bullet wound to the neck while crossing Pegasus Bridge, being the first Allied soldier to be killed by enemy action on D-Day. He is buried at nearby Ranville churchyard. Den was married to Margaret who was pregnant with their first child. Also called Margaret, she was born just 19 days after her father’s death. Some of the ladies of members may remember her as she attended Stourbridge Girls High School.

Jack was finally patched-up and eventually found himself back in a UK hospital recovering from his injuries.

It would not be long after that he had made sufficient recovery to return to operational duties.

Tail-Piece – More to Follow

• Jack had an action-packed time in the Army, both before and after D-Day. His full story (other than D-Day) will be told in the next Newsletter, and includes:
• Rescued from Dunkirk – May 1940
• Joined the Commandos – March 1941
• Sent to North Africa with The Glider Pilot Regiment – Early 1943
• Joined Popski’s Private Army – Summer 1943
• Took part in the Sicily Landings, for which he was awarded the  Military Medal – July 1943
• Took part in the Arnhem Landings – September 1944
• Sent to India, but did he make it ? – December 1944

Jack was truly a remarkable man who lived his life to the full during the Second World War, but who shunned publicity and limelight. I am delighted to be able to have the opportunity to record his story.

Kenneth Wright
Club Archivist

Our venue hire bookings continue to grow thanks to the excellent catering facilities provided by our stewards Tim and Tracey.

Contact Tim or Tracey if you know of any organisations who would gain from booking the Club.

In order for you to keep abreast of the news of KEVI College Stourbridge, then rather than ask them for specific articles to spoon feed to you,  we have thought it is best for you to explore their latest missives directly as relevant. Their website is included at the foot of this email but for convenience CLICK HERE>>  .

This is another  reminder that some months ago, we  have responded to the request to make it easier to get in touch with the Committee and have issues addressed.

Please consult the CONTACT section of the website where you will see clear directions of which electronic from to complete under which circumstances to get responses addressed in the fastest and most efficient way. In particular, ensure any issues affecting membership (fees, fobs, applications etc) are addressed by completing the Membership Issues form and they will be sent directly to the personal email box of the Hon. Membership Secretary for prompt response.

Likewise, any issues which you want addressed by the General Committee should be sent via the "Feedback Questions" form.