page_title: Royal Air Force Special Duties Service
section_title: RAF Tangmere
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Air Force Special Duties Service / Airfields / RAF Tangmere
caption_attribution_description: English: A Spitfire Mark IIA of No. 65 Squadron RAF parked on the ground at Tangmere, Sussex, 1940
context_page_description: The Royal Air Force Special Duties Service was a secret air service created to provide air transport to support the resistance movement in Axis controlled territories. The service helped develop and support the resistance by bringing in agents, wireless operators and supplies. Parachute drop was the primary method by which the Special Duties units delivered supplies and most of the agents to the occupied countries. They also developed an air taxi service to pick up agents, political leaders and special communications from occupied Europe and bring them to England. On the outward flight the air taxi service also delivered agents and high value packages to France. Special Duties flights flew to target fields in Vichy France, Occupied France, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Greece. By the end of the war Special Duties units were also operating in the Far East. The air units were controlled by the Royal Air Force, and worked closely with the SOE and the SIS.
context_section_description: RAF Tangmere was 100 miles south of RAF Tempsford, on the southern coast of England. It was primarily a fighter squadron base, but during the moon periods the Lysanders and their ground crews would come down to Tangmere. This placed them closer to the target field and allowed the Lysanders to extend their range over France. For much of its wartime life two Spitfire squadrons were based at Tangmere. As such Tangmere airfield attracted the attention of the Luftwaffe. After Flight 419's second successful pick-up operation Gordon Scotter returned to Tangmere to find the airfield under attack. He was obliged to orbit about while the attack was in progress, and received the ire of the base commander when he brought his Lysander in without lights after the German attack was over.
  When at Tangmere the Lysanders were parked off by themselves. The pilots were billeted and did their flight planning at a local home known as the Tangmere Cottage. The cottage was partially hidden from view by large hedges that had been allowed to grow up. Located opposite the main entrance to the base, Tangmere Cottage was also used by the SOE to do final checks on the outgoing agents, and to give returning agents a meal prior to taking them to London for debriefing. During the day the Lysander pilots would cross the field and take meals at the normal RAF officer's mess.
  The 161 pilots would fly out to Tangmere two weeks at a time during the "moon period", which was a week before and a week after the full moon. The cover story for the Lysanders given to the RAF squadrons stationed at Tangmere was that the planes were used to do "photographic reconnaissance by night, using special flash flares". The torpedo like extra fuel cylinder slung in-between the wheels of the undercarriage was said to contain special nighttime cameras. Jimmy McCairns, a Lysander pilot with 161, had accepted this story without a thought earlier in his career when he was stationed at Tangmere while flying Spitfires with Douglas Bader's 601 Squadron.
  Fog over England was a major hazard when attempting to locate and set down on their return flights. More special duties aircrew lives were lost from aircraft accidents due to fog over England than to any other reason. On the night of 16/17 December 1943 poor weather caused five of the Tempsford SD aircraft to be lost. 138 Squadron lost three of its Halifaxes. One was lost over the sea, one crash landed along the coast, and the crew of the third, unable to land their plane, bailed out. On the same night fog claimed two of 161 Squadron's Lysanders. Though Lysander pilots had parachutes, the passengers they were carrying did not. If they were carrying passengers the pilots were committed to trying to land the aircraft. One crashed short of the field while trying to set down at RAF Tangmere. The pilot was trapped in the aircraft when it started to burn, but his two passengers were able to get free and survived. The other had been diverted from Tangmere to nearby RAF Ford, but the pilot had become disoriented in the fog and crashed into a hillside. There were no survivors from this flight.
caption: A Spitfire stands amidst the midday rain and fog of RAF Tangmere, winter 1940
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