RAF Observers
 

Could anybody please help clarify what the role of an Observer was with the RAF during WW2 ? I get the impression it was a combination of Navigator plus other functions, dependant on aircraft type. It’s something that has been puzzling me for quite some time. Any info greatly appreciated with thanks in advance.

Try the following book:

Observers and Navigators and Other Non-Pilot Aircrew in the RFC, RNAS and RAF
by Wing Commander C. G. Jefford


Part I traces the rise of the first generation of non-pilot aircrew, the observers, aerial gunners/gunlayers and kite balloon observers who flew with the RFC, RNAS and latterly the RAF between 1914 and 1919.

Part II examines the way in which the peacetime RAF rapidly dispensed with its observer officers and spent the next fifteen years attempting to make do by misemploying airmen as air gunners on a part-time basis. This inadequate practice is contrasted with the very positive attitude towards non-pilots that prevailed within the Royal Navy. The story continues with the reinstatement of observers in 1934, albeit still as part-time corporals until 1939. Wartime experience soon revealed that the omnipotence of pilots was a myth and by the summer of 1940 all observers and gunners were at least sergeants and increasing numbers were being commissioned. Part II goes on to examine the proliferation of non-pilot aircrew categories until 1942 when the system was substantially reorganised, the observer being supplanted by the air bomber and a variety of specialised types of navigator. This section ends with a summary of wartime training.

Part III covers the rest of the century, including the last two years of WW II and the ill-conceived '1946 Aircrew Scheme'. Following the latter's demise in 1950, the RAF adopted an all-officer policy for its pilots and navigators, the fact that they were to have equal career prospects having been announced as early as 1948. Part III examines the way in which this policy of equality has actually been applied while continuing to trace the rises and falls in the fortunes of all non-pilot categories to date.

What emerges, along with a much clearer impression of the crucial importance of non-pilots to the RAF, is a discriminatory attitude towards them. The author demonstrates that this attitude had its roots in the RFC where it became so institutionalised that its effects are still detectable today.

Initially, the observer was just that - a lookout who was later armed. The pilot was responsible for all aspects of flight including navigation. As aircraft became more complex, the air gunner was added to the crew with the observer assisting the pilot with his navigation (pointing out landmatks etc).

This situation carried on into WW2 with aircraft such as the Hampden carrying an observer and two gunners, one of whom manned the radio. Once again, the pilot was responsible for the safe navigation of the aircraft. The observer also acted as the bomb aimer. Sometimes, a second pilot (usually a new pilot) acted as the observer to gain experience. There are many stories of the pilot being wounded and the observer pilot taking control.

However, with the advent of night bombing, a dedicated crew member was required to plot the aircraft position and later to use the new electronic navigation aids. Given his own plotting table in the heavies, the navigator (as he was now called) was required to move into the nose to act as bomb aimer over the target. This was not practical, so on raids such as Augsburg, Nettleton carried an extra navigator for this role. This crew member eventually became the Bomb Aimer and replaced the nose gunner.

'Twas a little more complicated than this, but time and space limit the answer.

Then of course there were the Radar Observers (RO) who flew in the Meteors and Javelins.

RAF Observers
 

...the last one I remember meeting was the boss of 204 Sqn at Ballykelly on 1967/68? - O.G. Williams. A nice, if slightly old fashioned, chap. So I have no doubt there were others still floating about at that time.

The Ancient Mariner

Google is your friend as they say, but only if you put the right question in! The attached link might be of interest which is from the RAFCommands.com site and is a thread covering the differences between the old Air Observer and Air Navigation schools whilst they were running concurrently in the early 1940s.

Difference between Air Observer School and Air Naviation School?

A little later there was a senior officer at one of the nav schools who still wore the Observer brevet (quite unofficially I am sure). It may be recalled that the 'O' brevet was often referred to "the flying a---hole" and it was generally agreed that the description was very appropriate in his case.

The navy of course has to be different - their navs are still called observers, I believe. Also in the navy a pilot is someone who tries to prevent the captain steering his ship onto the rocks - with varying degrees of success ;)

Fondly called lookers, because apart from that they don't do much ;)

Group Captain Harry King, RAF Gaydon 1966-69, a lawyer who wrote the MAFL

The navy of course has to be different - their navs are still called observers, I believe. - TTN

Fondly called lookers, because apart from that they don't do much. - AA

..... whilst better still, in ships of the Royal Navy, the navigator is fondly called .... "Pilot" and just look where that led!:ok:

Jack

In the 1950's and 60's it was not unusual to see aircrew of more advanced years sporting the 'O' brevet. I assumed it was because they were proud of having qualified as an Observer and wanted nothing to do with any new fangled 'N' brevet.

I bet there are are some WSO's who have declined the new badge and continue to wear their 'N' and 'AE' brevets. Same thing, really.

Incidentally, Jeff Jeffords book, mentioned in the initial post reply, is a thoroughly researched and definitive work on the subject. An excellent read.

Immediately post war my father flew in Lancasters and was described as 'Air Bomber/NAV II'. I presume therefore that there was a 'NAV I'. What did each do?

Later in the 1950s flying in the V-Bombers there was a Nav/Plotter and Nav/Radar.

When 617 Sqdn was reformed, with Vulcans, at RAF Scampton in '58 the CO was Wing Commander Bower. He wore an Observers brevet. One of the old school and an absolute gent.

RAF Observers
 

I've been observing the RAF for some time now and am becoming increasingly worried about its health. Were it on an intensive care unit obs would be carried out every 15 minutes. Just a thought

This was his rank. In order to serarate the ground NCOs from the NCA of the time, a new rank structure was developed together with new rank badges and independent messes.

The rank had classes plus the aircrew position. (eg Pilot 1; Navigator II etc). Aircrew started as Aircrew Cadet then moved on to Aircrew 1/II (Corporal); Aircrew III (Sgt); Aircrew IV (FS) then Master Aircrew (WO). Only the latter remains in regular RAF - the others were abolished in 1949(?)

ps. If anyone has one of the old NCA rank badges (except Master) the Waddington Heritage centre could do with some examples! Please pm me.

Wensleydale - In 30 years of dealing I had about two examples of these badges pass through my hands. Saw a full set at a collectors fair at least ten years back with an eye-watering three-figure price-tag. Good luck to the Waddington Heritage Centre!

Incidentally Whopity, the officer about whom I made some less than complimentary remarks was not the Gp Capt King you refer to - never ran across him. My man had better remain anonymous!

My fellow nav (plotter) on my first Vulcan crew (101 Sqn, 68-70), who had won his DFC and Croix de Guerre avec Palme before I was born, wore an Observer's brevet on his mess kit. He was also a very " nice, if slightly old-fashioned" chap.

IIRC Gaydon's CO IN 1966, Group Captain King, retired from the service to be ordained as a priest in the Church of England.

Lots of good stuff posted, thanks to all concerned I have a much better picture now and a much expanded view; for instance, I never knew there was any such animal as a Radar Observer. I remember in my time as "an 'orrible boy entrant" at St. Athan there was a Squadron Leader medical officer in sick quarters (a rather temperamental gentleman) who wore an observer’s brevet and, I also remember once when transiting Sharjah sighting a Trucial Oman Scouts officer sporting similar. I have a hazy recollection of seeing a couple of others, but the details evade me now. Fantastic response – PPRuNe showing a good face. :ok:

The Stn Cdr at Gatow in 1974 also sported an "O" - Jack Wilson ISTR, lovely guy.

Sorry, guys - brain fade due to claret excess setting in. Group Captain Knight was the Gaydon stn cdr who later became ordained; King was his successor.

OC Admin at Watton '67-'68 ish wore an "O" brevet. Cannot remeber his name. Big chap, and a few years later worked with his son when I was at Marshall of Cambridge and he was at CIBA - trying to make bonded noise attenuation panels for the carbon-fanned RB 211.

Just to add a little detail they wore an 'RO' brevet, frequently misidentified as "Radio Operator/Officer" on the lists of militaria dealers.

Just an observation (excuse the pun!), but it would appear that more AEOp/AEOs have switched to the new WSO brevet than Navs - why is this? The only N-breveted navs that I know that sport the WSO brevet are the ones that thought it might be good for their career :ugh:

Also, I think it is dreadful that RAF stores no longer keep the older brevets in stock. I've heard of Navs going on e-bay to buy their brevets. In 1952 did they cease stocking King's Crown Pilot's brevets - I doubt it!

If you read the book in post #2 (there's a copy in the RAF Club library) there is a big section on the new WSO brevet. Originally, it was planned to be a 2-winged brevet for Navs that flew in the boot of Tornado, Phantom and Buccaneer. But when some of the other fleets got wind of it (Nimrod, E3 and Truckies) they wanted 'in' and so it went back to the current debacle. I know a Nav who went from Tornado to E3 at the time of the change of brevet - he said that it was madness that he had flown 12 years as a Nav on a Tornado with weapons and now he was a Weapons Systems Officer (Nav) he flew the E3 with no weapons!!! :ugh:

Finally, ACM Sir Simon Bryant was a Nav and he never changed to the new WSO brevet. He was the first, and probably only, 4 star Nav.

LJ

PS. The older brevets are here: RAF Flying Badges_U

And the current ones are here: RAF Flying Badges_U

What is really odd is that we have, since the instigation of WSO brevets, invented new ones for Image Analysts to go with Airborne Techs and Fighter Controllers (or Air Battlespace Managers as they are now known) - what a cluster!

72 Sqn's SEngO mid-90's sported a pair of pilot wings, but I am ashamed to say that for the life of me I cannot remember his name.

4 star Nav's
 

I'll get in first! ACM Sir Stuart Peach is another.

3P:ok:

The Fighter Control and Airborne Technicians wing are no longer "brevets" - they are termed as "flying badges". As an aside, the first FC to be awarded his badge was on AEW Shackletons. A Scottish reporter at his graduation was heard to comment "I thought that FC Brevet was an Italian football team".

I was one of those Navs who continued to wear the old badge rather than WSO. I had been awarded that badge after much sweat and tears - I was not going to give it up for something different! (The AE bretheren probably want to wear something with more taste - hence the larger uptake of the WSO/WSOp badge for them).

Barksdale Boy
 

I was reaching to log-in to correct you until I noticed you had rectified your post.
I was 'naving' once, down in Oz I think, when a Group Captain appeared on the flight deck and lo and behold it was Grp Capt Knight sporting a dog collar.
I believe the sequence of Stn Cdrs' names at 2ANS was Chamberlain,Knight,King.
I vaguely recall several O badges being sported at Gaydon, not sure if Harry King's was one of them.
I guess he was the Harry King who was the only survivor of Flt Lord's Dakota crew at Arnhem. He parachuted from the burning aircraft and was captured.After repatriation he made his report and Lord was posthumously awarded the VC.

obnoxio
 

30 Sqn had 2 engineers doing co-pilot tours; including training they must have been at least 4 years away from their 'trade'.

IIRC they were Bob Katon and ???? Dennett.

We also had 2 former WIWOLS as co-pilots, Chris Horsley and Chris Cureton - both very nice guys...for ex-single seaters:ok::ok:

Threeputt

Good spot, me old, I'd forgotten about Peachy and the 4-star Jt Force Comd job. :ok:

I'm guessing that Osby might be in with a shout in the future? A man that could lead and inspire me to almost anything.

LJ

Leon,

Regarding the relative take up of the new WSO brevet by the old trades of Nav and AEO, I'll offer a few comments. Some are facts, some my own opinion, and some possibly contentious....

First of all, I am a Nav, with a similar outlook to Wensleydale. Why should I wear a brevet (WSO) that I am not entitled to? I haven't done any training that qualifies me as a WSO - are they just giving away the WSO brevet now? I attended an Air Navigation School, where, as part of a particular Air Navigation Course, I qualified as an "Air Navigator" (that's what it says on the certificate in my log book). Like Wensleydale I put considerable time (how long is the AEO training course?) and effort into the qualifying process. I keep wearing the old Nav brevet not out of nostalgia or loyalty but because I consider I am entitled to - personally I would feel a fraud wearing a WSO brevet.

As for AEOs, well here comes the contentious bit. In my opinion, by embracing the WSO brevet the AEO branch got a boost in status, by bringing themselves up to the equivalent of nav (what was the highest ever ranking AEO? Gp Capt?). This opened up new career opportunities for AEOs (now able to do jobs previously "nav" annotated as opposed to limited to the small pool of AEO jobs), and also improved their financial status....

People may question my last comment. Well, when Nav and AEO were separate branches they topped out on the PA payspine two levels apart. By creating the WSO branch PA AEOs (whatever brevet they chose to wear) eventually benefited by about £2,000 a year.

Thus I believe AEOs were much more likely to embrace the WSO concept in all aspects, including wearing the brevet.

It is often difficult to judge the tone of a written piece. If the above sounds like sour grapes, or me having a dig at the AEO branch, it was not so intended. My own thoughts and feeling reference wearing the nav brevet are just that. My relative comments on AEOs are my own opinions, but I have tried to keep them dispassionate and explain how I reached them. I count myself lucky to have had the privilege of of working with some good AEOs over the years, fine operators and decent human beings.

Biggus

Regarding AEOs, I think you're probably "on the money" - they were my thoughts as well, but I was apprehensive to air the same views!

LJ

Ahem!
 

...as a very old former AEO may I add that the most senior were Alan Hicks and Mike Butler both whom were Air Commodores. Both were squadron commanders in the maritime force, (42 and 120 respectively).

I actually passed on my No6 and a not-much-worn No1 to a newly commissioned AEOp before he set off on his first commissioned tour. He was well pleased that they both had the AE brevet.

I didn't realise that there was a potential financial penalty in sticking with the brevet one was initially qualified to wear.

I was always very pee'd off that AEOs were shut out out of the back seat of the Bucc - I'd have loved that job. When, many years later, I did get a backseat ride from Lossie with a large red haired flt cdr (who did his damndest to make me throw up) I remarked to the squadron boss afterwards that "that's what I should have been doing for the last 25 years". I loved it!

The Ancient Mariner

BIGGUS

.... few points about your comments to Leon.

1. The AEO course was 13 months - ie longer than the pilot and nav courses

2. Pilots, Navs and AEOs were not separate branches but were aircrew categories within the GD flying Branch. All, in theory, had the same career prospects and were paid the same. Are you saying that the system changed and that commissioned aircrew in the three categories were once on different pay scales?

3. '....bring themselves up to the status of navs' !!! BIGGUS, tell me it's a put on, PLEASE

4. '..... working with some good AEOs, fine operators and DECENT HUMAN BEINGS. Phew! that must have been a relief. I know it's well meant, BIGGUS but you shouldn't patronise

Ahem, the Pilot course elementary, basic and advanced is ~2 years and the Navs is about 2 months short of that - best case not including OCU! So 24 months and 22 months versus 13 months; no wonder you are an AEO/AEOp! :ok:

We tried some AEOs in Tornado in the early days. Yes, they could work the kit, but they did not have the skills to do the planning and airborne navigating. Yes, you could have trained them, but why bother when they would need to do the bulk of the Navs course. In fact, some AEO/AEOps did a Pilot or Nav crossover and turned into very fine aviators indeed; as have Navs doing a Pilot crossover. There are also many experienced Navs that have whooped qualified Pilots in ACT in either a twin-sticker or Hawk in the past.

So I guess it comes down to training and/or experience. After "you can teach monkeys to fly better than that!" :ok:

iRaven

Ron,

Point 1 - Incorrect, as has already been pointed out!

Point 2 - Yes, on the PA spine they were paid different amounts, in that they had different ceilings on the pay spine that they could reach, so their pay topped out at different amounts.

Point 3 - Compare rank ceilings, job opportunities, etc of Navs vs AEOs. In the latest round of redundancies they were looking for 2 Wg Cdr AEOs. There were currently 8, yes 8, in the RAF. How many Wg Cdr Navs in the RAF? It's not a pi**ing contest, but the Nav branch was much bigger, offered a wider range of opportunities and the prospect of greater advancement. In an RAF generally run by FJ pilots, most of whom had never ever met an AEO, the Nav branch had more impact, visibility, and effectively status. Officer aircrew were generally labelled as pilot, nav and rearcrew officer, the latter term encompassing commissioned LM, AEs and AEOs in one group. I'm not boasting, simply telling it as it was - live with it!

Point 4 - I'll try not to patronize if you try to get your facts right (see points 1-3 above)

Have a nice day!




Edited to add - My comments were (I would like to think obviously so) in relation to the relative proportions of Navs/AEOs who changed to the WSO brevet. We are therefore talking about the situation pertaining in approx. 2002, and the people who were in the RAF at the time. Lengths of training courses in the 40's, 50's and 60's are therefore irrelvant, as nobody of the that vintage (well there may have been the odd one from the late 60's) was still in to make the maintain/change brevet decision. Lengths of training course in the 70's and beyond would be relevant.

My Dad was a Flight Leiutenant at the time.

iRaven

Length of Nav course.

On another current thread (58 Nav course), ICM posted that the Nav course 'was all done inside 12 months'. He gave as an example No 72 course at Hullavington which ran from Jan to Dec 1965.

I have just called a nav chum from those days who dug out his records. They showed that his nav course ran from 1 Sep 59 to 30 Aug 60. I make that 12 months. So if these two navs are right, the nav course was one month shorter than the AEO course. I'm checking the pilots course duration in the early 60's

I think the discrepancy lies in the different eras involved. My comments about course length clearly referred to the 1960s when the AEO course was extant. You, I imagine, are talking about more recent times.

As for your attempt at a little dig at the end - well, I'm tempted, but I am far too old to get involved in a PPRuNe type slanging match.

I started Nav trg at Finningley in early Sep and finished late Feb in the 2nd year - no holds or fails, so that is 18 months. Plus then I needed the Fast Jet lead in at Brawdy that was a further 4 months including groundschool, single seat sea survival and then the 14 trips or so. Total 22 months prior to starting the Tornado OCU.

My mates going through Pilot trg that I went through officer trg joined me on the Sqn about 2-4 months later.

Sorry, me old, but Nav trg in the 80s/90s for Group 1 Fast Jet was a lot longer than your chaps in the 60s.

iRaven

These days it takes 103 weeks to train a FJ Pilot to the input standard for a FJ OCU. For a WSOp Linguist it takes 95 weeks (including the 72 week language school), 40 weeks for a Multi-Eng Crewman and 65 weeks for a Rotary-Wing Crewman - all graduate as WSOps and go direct to OCU after these times.

So in aircrew trg time, the Pilots take 30-40 weeks longer than most WSOps and even WSOp Linguists who have to complete a 72 week Defence Language School course as part of their 95 weeks.

As Biggus said earlier, it takes longer to train "front end" crew than "rear end" crew - sadly the "front end" navs are now drying up and I suspect that at some point in the future we will relearn the exceptional value of a 2-man crew in a high-end threat saturated combat environment. But for now we are going back towards single seat ops on our FJ fleets for the foreseeable future.

LJ

H, the rank structure that I described was for NCA (Non-commissioned aircrew) - the officers' ranks were unchanged.

However, if I may correct myself, I got the equivalences wrong in my earlier posts... in fact Aircrew I was the FS rank while Aircrew IV was for the corporal. The confusion comes from the number of stars in the rank badge. Aircrew 4 has one star while aircrew III has 2 stars and aircrew II has 3 stars. Aircrew 1 has a crown over the 3 stars. In effect, the stars replaced the ground trades chevrons... no wonder it didn't catch on!