Squadron Leader Tony Farrell, pilot – obituary

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2018/07/23/squadron-leader-tony-farrell-pilot-obituary/

Tony Farrell's targets in his Mosquito included Hitler's Eagles Nest in Bavaria

Squadron Leader Tony Farrell, who has died aged 100, flew Mosquitos with Bomber Command’s Pathfinder Force and was awarded the DFC. In civilian life he was a flying instructor and amassed more than 16,000 flying hours.

Farrell joined 105 Squadron in July 1944, one of two squadrons equipped with the new radar bombing aid named “Oboe”. This allowed the Mosquito crew to “mark” the target with flares, which the main bomber force used as aiming points.

Farrell joined No 105 during the Normandy campaign, attacking the V-1 sites in the Pas de Calais and the road and rail networks in northern France to hinder the movement of German reinforcements to the battle area. The Channel ports of Le Havre and Calais were crucial for the re-supply of the advancing Allied armies but they were heavily defended. Farrell attacked them a number of times when he “marked” them for the follow-up bomber force.

During the late months of 1944, Bomber Command resumed its campaign against industrial cities, in particular the German oil installations, and Farrell marked many of them with Oboe. At the end of October he marked the gun batteries on Walcheren Island. The raid was a success and allowed Allied shipping to reach the key port of Antwerp.

Following the surprise German offensive in the Ardennes in December 1944, Farrell flew operations to support the ground forces but bad weather hindered the Allied bomber operations. On Christmas Eve, he took off in fog and found his way to the target, but it was obscured. On return, his airfield was still covered in fog and he had difficulty finding an alternative airfield where he could land.

On Boxing Day he was one of only three aircraft to find and bomb German armour massed at St Vith. Fog again prevented him landing at his base and he headed for Graveley, near Cambridge, one of the few airfields equipped with the fog-dispersing aid Fido (Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation). In a private memoir he wrote: “It was fantastically surreal coming down on to the runway with smoke and flames on each side and the roar of the burners audible over the sound of the engines.”

Farrell continued to attack targets in Germany, his longest operation being a daylight attack on April 25 1945, when Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden in Bavaria was the target. He flew one of eight Oboe Mosquitos ordered to mark it.

As the war drew to a close, a large pocket of western Holland was still occupied and the Dutch population was approaching starvation. On April 29, Bomber Command launched Operation Manna, in which Farrell and his colleagues marked selected areas and bombers dropped food and aid.

Farrell flew four sorties marking airfields and racecourses. On his final sortie he descended to low level. “It was so moving a scene watching the hungry but jubilant Dutch swarming into the dropping zone and waving like mad,” he recorded in his logbook. He left No 105 Squadron in August 1945, having flown 80 operations, and he was awarded the DFC for his “outstanding courage and determination”.

Anthony White Farrell was born on November 5 1917 at Hampstead in London and educated at Malvern College. On leaving school he worked as a clerk for General Merchants and Coal Exporters in London. Passionate about flying, he began lessons in 1936 and had accumulated almost 200 hours before he left for the Cape Verde Islands to work as a coaling clerk for the company.

When war broke out he returned home and joined the RAF to train as a pilot. He excelled and was appointed to be an instructor. Over the next three years he taught pilots to fly and later commanded No  1 Blind Approach School, teaching pilots to fly on instruments and make precision approaches to airfields.

By March 1944 he had accumulated 2,600 flying hours and been awarded the AFC. He left to convert to the Mosquito before joining 105 Squadron.

After the war, Farrell embarked on a long career as a flying instructor, initially at an RAF Reserve School, before joining Arthur Marshall’s aviation company in Cambridge. In addition to instructing, he flew many charter flights for the company.

In October 1949, Farrell began a period of 11 years with Air Service Training at Hamble before moving to the College of Air Training. He spent 12 years teaching future BOAC and BEA pilots, retiring as a flying instructor in 1981. He took the controls of a Cessna and landed unaided aged 97.

On his 100th birthday he was made a Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur.

Tony Farrell married his childhood sweetheart, Jean Jacob, in August 1941. She died in 2012. Their three sons and a daughter survive him.

Tony Farrell, born November 5 1917, died June 17 2018