The Airmen's Stories - P/O E Farnes

Eric Farnes joined the RAF in February 1940 with a direct-entry commission as an Air Gunner. He was serving with 141 Squadron at Turnhouse by early July and went south with it to West Malling on the 12th.

Above image courtesy of Andrew Long.

On the morning of 19th July twelve Defiants were ordered forward to Hawkinge. At 1223 they were ordered off to patrol twenty miles south of Folkestone but three dropped out with engine trouble. At about 1245 they were surprised by Me109s of III/JG51 attacking from a higher altitude out of the sun.

Farnes' Defiant, L7001, was badly damaged and crashed near Hawkinge due to engine failure with the pilot, F/Lt. MJ Loudon, suffering a dislocated shoulder and shock. He was taken to the Kent and Canterbury Hospital in Canterbury.

Farnes had baled out and was rescued from the sea by the Ramsgate lifeboat, uninjured.

Only two of the nine aircraft got safely back to base. The squadron was withdrawn to Prestwick.

Loudon and Farnes were aloft from Turnhouse on an operational patrol in the early hours of 27th August 1940. On returning, Defiant L7011 overshot on landing and crashed into a barbed wire fence.

Both men were unhurt.

On 5th May 1941, while serving with 255 Squadron, S/Ldr. RL Smith and Farnes in N3378 shot down a Ju88 off Donna Nook at night.

His subsequent service is currently undocumented until 1947 when Farnes was released from the RAF as a Squadron Leader.

He was awarded a Mention in Dispatches in 1946.

He died on 23rd September 1985 in Winchester.

********************************

Postscript by Andy Saunders November 2023.

The discovery of buried objects like coins and buttons in the average garden flowerbed is hardly a surprising occurrence. Sometimes, though, finds fall into a slightly more unusual category and when a gardener was digging his vegetable plot during the early 1980’s the gleam of a gold badge marked this out as something a little more special than an old Victorian penny or lost blazer button! Indeed, this was certainly something more than just unusual. Rather, this was a truly historic discovery.

Aircrew baling out of the restricted turret space of, for example, the Boulton & Paul Defiant would have been severely impeded by the standard seat or back pack ‘chutes then available and for this reason the GQ Parachute Company ( Gerald Quilter Parachute Company and later GQ Defence Equipment Ltd) designed the GQ Parasuit.

In effect, this was a one-piece flight overall that incorporated a parachute within its design – a standard 24ft diameter ‘chute folded in a relatively flat configuration at the back. Within the suit was a built in Mae West life jacket and the parachute harness itself, with the entire piece of flight equipment encompassing the whole torso down to the upper thighs.

In the event of having to abandon the aircraft the gunner was able, with this kit, to extricate himself via the confined doors of the turret. It was during just such an emergency evacuation of a Defiant turret during the Battle of Britain that the first operational use of a GQ Parasuit was made, by P/O Farnes as documented above.

In common with their competitors The Irvin Air Chute Company, who issued gold caterpillar badges to successful users of the Irvin Parachute, GQ also implemented a badge award system for surviving users of the GQ Parasuit and parachutes.

As such, Eric Farnes became entitled to the first such badge ever issued by the company although, when issued, it was stamped on the reverse “No.2” and carried the inscription “P/O E Farnes 19th July 1940”. It was this badge, with this inscription, that caught the eye of a gardener in his Oxfordshire garden at Headington.

Above: a sample colour shot and below, the actual badge.

Whilst the badge was, chronologically, the first that should have been issued badge number one was issued, in fact, to LAC H Laws for a parachute descent from a Miles Master aircraft on 7th September 1940.

Eric Farnes’ badge number two was, however, seemingly lost by him some while shortly afterwards and on 21st September 1942 he was issued with another badge.

So far as is known, this was simply a replacement for the lost badge and not issued for another use of GQ’s product!

How he came to have lost it in an Oxfordshire garden is unclear. Maybe he once lived there, or was billeted there? Either way, a real piece of history emerged from the newly dug potatoes and enabled its fascinating story to be researched and told here.

(Currently, the badge is in a private collection.).