Don Bennett

Donald Bennett was born the youngest son of a grazier and business agent in Toowoomba, Queensland. He attended Brisbane Grammar School. After some time working in his father's business, he joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1930,[1] qualifying at RAAF Point Cook as a pilot on the DH Moth and Westland Wapiti.[2] He transferred to the Royal Air Force a year later.[3] Starting with the flying boats of 210 Squadron.[4] Bennett developed a passion for accurate flying and precise navigation that would never leave him. After a period as an instructor at RAF Calshot, he left the service in 1935 (retaining a reserve commission) to join Imperial Airways. Over the next five years, Bennett specialised in long-distance flights, breaking a number of records and pioneering techniques which would later become commonplace, notably air-to-air refuelling. In 1936 he wrote the first edition of his The complete air navigator: covering the syllabus for the flight navigator's licence (Pitman, London) which he updated several times up to the seventh edition in 1967. In July 1938 he piloted the Mercury part of the Short Mayo Composite flying-boat across the Atlantic; this flight earned him the Oswald Watt Gold Medal for that year.

During 1940 Bennett's long-distance expertise was set to work setting up the Atlantic Ferry Organization tasked with the wartime delivery of thousands of aircraft manufactured in the United States and Canada to the United Kingdom. At that time, a transatlantic flight was a significant event, but the Atlantic Ferry project proved remarkably successful and demonstrated that with suitable training even inexperienced pilots could safely deliver new aircraft across the North Atlantic.

Bennett was recommissioned in 1941 in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve as a squadron leader. His first task was to oversee the formation of the Elementary Air Navigation School, Eastbourne, for the initial training of observers (later navigators). However he was promoted to wing commander, and appointed to the command of No. 77 Squadron, based at RAF Leeming and flying Whitleys in 4 Group, Bomber Command, on 7 December 1941.

In April 1942, No. 77 Squadron was transferred to Coastal Command and Bennett was given command of No. 10 Squadron (Handley Page Halifax) and shortly afterwards led a raid on the German battleship Tirpitz. Shot down during that raid, he evaded capture and escaped to Sweden, from where he was able to return to Britain; he and his copilot were awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) on 16 June 1942.[5]

Despite the unquestioned achievements of No. 8 Group, at the end of the war Bennett was the only bomber group commander not to be knighted. He resigned his commission in the RAF,[10] and returned to private life to pursue a variety of activities. He became a director of British South American Airways, and designed and built both cars (Fairthorpes) and light aircraft.

One of his darkest hours after the war came on 12 March 1950, when an aircraft operated on charter by his airline Fairflight crashed at Llandow in Wales.

Bennett became one of the shortest-serving Members of Parliament (MPs) of the 20th century when he was elected at a by-election in 1945[11] as Liberal MP for Middlesbrough West. He was defeated soon afterwards in the 1945 general election — his parliamentary career having lasted all of 73 days. He had previously attempted to be selected as a Conservative candidate for Macclesfield in February 1944. One of his fellow candidates was Guy Gibson; Gibson was selected instead.[12]

Attempts to return to the House of Commons for Croydon North at a by-election in 1948 and in Norwich North at the 1950 general election were unsuccessful. A later attempt at the 1967 Nuneaton by-election, standing for the obscure National Party, resulted in his losing his deposit. He continued his support for far-right fringe parties during the 1970s as a patron of the National Independence Party.[13] At the February 1974 general election, he stood against the incumbent Conservative prime minister Ted Heath in Sidcup, under the banner "Anti-EEC" (in opposition to Britain's membership of the European Economic Community). He came last, winning just 1.5% of the vote.[14]

In 1958, an autobiography entitled Pathfinder, detailing his experiences throughout the war, was published by Frederick Muller Ltd.

After the closure of Blackbushe Airport in 1960 by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Bennett purchased three-quarters of the Aerodrome from the Calthorpe Estate and set about reopening the airport as a general aviation facility. He was successful and Blackbushe reopened on 6 October 1962. Bennett fought a planning battle with local councils to develop Blackbushe with new hangar facilities. At the time he faced a lot of opposition from local residents, councils, and the ministry. Ultimately many of the efforts to establish modern facilities at Blackbushe were unsuccessful, and he subsequently sold the airport to Doug Arnold.

Bennett died at the age of 76 on Battle of Britain Day, 15 September 1986.

• List of United Kingdom MPs with the shortest service

Notes

Bibliography

• Air of Authority – A History of RAF Organisation – AVM Bennett
• D.C.T. Bennett, Pathfinder; a war autobiography, London, Muller, 1958 (re-imp. Goodall paperback, 1988, ISBN 0-907579-57-4)
• Fly With the Stars, A History of British South American Airways, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7509-4448-9
• Bramson, Alan, Master Airman; a biography of Air Vice-Marshal Donald Bennett, CB., CBE., DSO., Airlife, 1985, ISBN 0-906393-45-0
• Maynard, John Bennett and the Pathfinders Arms and Armour London 1996 ISBN 1-85409-258-8

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Don Bennett.

• The Pathfinder, BBC Radio 4, 27 April 2012
• Imperial War Museum Interview from 1986
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMB2TgD5guQ Late 1940s Movietone News public address by AVM Bennett.
• RAF Interview from 1980
• Newspaper clippings about Don Bennett in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW