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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0260.PDF
258 FLIGHT HANDLEY PAGE 0/100 and 0/400 . .. . Sablon, Kaiserslautern, Courcelles, Ehrang, Saarbriicken and Frescaty aerodrome. Nine of the 40 had to return with engine trouble, one force-landed in our lines and three failed to return. Small though these raids may seem in comparison with Boiyber Command's massive attacks of the recent war, they were extremely damaging to the morale of the workers in the factories which pro vided the majority of this first strategic air force's targets. One of the raids which made the deepest impression was carried out by only two 0/400S of No. 215 Squadron on the night of August 25th- 26th, 1918, when they attacked the Badische works at Mannheim from a low altitude and added to the havoc of their bombs by skilful use of their Lewis guns. As was fitting, the last raid of the Independent Force was made by No. 216 Squadron: on the night of November ioth-nth, 1918, two of its Handley Pages attacked Metz-Sablon and Frescaty aerodrome. During the German offensive of March 1918, considerable use was made of the 0/400S to attack the enemy's communications. No. 7 (Naval) and 14 (Naval) Squadrons were diverted to this duty from their allotted task of bombing Bruges. On the night of March 26th, 1918, five machines from each squadron set out to attack Valenciennes, and the seven which reached the objective dropped four 250 lb and seventy-six 112 lb bombs on the packed railway junction: the other three machines attacked other railway stations. These squadrons were augmented for a few weeks by Nos. 100 and 216, which were transferred to Villeseneux on April 1st, 1918, for attacks on enemy railways in the Chalons-sur- Marnc area. These units were under French command, but returned to the VIII Brigade on May 9th, after having made six raids in which n tons of bombs were dropped on the stations at Juniville, Chaulnes, Roye, Amagne-Lucquy, Mohon and Asfeld. An 0/400 could carry as many as sixteen 112 lb bombs and there was provision for two more bombs on external racks under the fuselage, but the usual load consisted of twelve 112-pounders. Roughly equivalent weights of heavier bombs were carried, includ ing three 520 lb "light-case" or three 550 lb "heavy-case" bombs. Captain C. H. Darley of No. 214 Squadron made good use of his three 520-pounders on May 28th, 1918, when, gliding in over Bruges with engines silent, he dropped the bombs on the locks there. Towards the end of the war large bombs of 1,650 lb came into use and were delivered to the enemy by the Handley Pages. One of No. 21 Squadron's last recorded exploits of the war was the dropping of one of these bombs on the railway sidings at Melle: it struck an ammunition train and caused enormous damage. The bombs were usually aimed by the nose gunner, who had an H.A.ia bomb sight mounted externally on a bracket in front of his cockpit. Only one 0/400 was used operationally outside France. In July 1918, Brig-Gen. A. E. Borton and Major A. S. C. Maclaren flew one from England to Palestine, where it was attached to No. 67 Squadron (No. 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps). By Sep tember, Col. T. E. Lawrence found his activities were greatly impeded by the aerial activity of the enemy around Der'a. The chief difficulty lay in transporting supplies for such fighting aircraft as might be sent to help Lawrence, but this was overcome by using the 0/400 as a transport. Two Bristol Fighters and a D.H.9 were sent to Lawrence's aid, and the 0/400 carried a ton of petrol, oil, supplies and mail. The first landing at Umm-es-Surab, was made by Captain Ross Smith of No. 67 Squadron, and later the 0/400 reverted to its normal role by making night attacks on Mafraq and Der'a. On the eve of Allenby's offensive this machine struck a vital blow against the enemy by wrecking the Turkish G.H.Q.'s telegraph and telephone exchange. It was this same 0/400 which later flew from Cairo to Calcutta via Damascus, Baghdad and Karachi. In America production of the 0/400 was undertaken by the Standard Aircraft Corporation, the first American-built machine being delivered in September 1918. The engines were the 350 h.p. Liberty 12-N, and 1,500 0/400S were ordered. Only 107 were delivered, for the remainder were cancelled because of the Armistice. The fate of most of the American-built Handley Pages is obscure: on June 30th, 1919, only four were in commission and a further 20 were stored. The o/4co's good weight-lifting capacity offered prospects of useful payloads in post-war commercial service, and it was used at home and abroad for passenger and freight^transport, erther«1 its original form or as the 0/7, 0/10 or 0/11 with fuel tanks restored to their original position behind the engines, and passenger seats installed in the space thus cleared in the fuselage Additional windows were fitted along the fuselage sides and_ the internal bracing was modified by fitting vee-struts in place of the athwart- Shl|LTmsS-commercial o/ 4oos were the eight which were used by the R.A.F. Communication Wing in 1919 for^the transport: ot mail and passengers between London and Pans during the Peace Conference. Modified to accommodate six passengers, they averaged 3 hr 17 min for the journey, and their best time was 2 hr 26 min. The 0/400 was in at the birth of Civil Aviation m Britain on May 1st, 1919. On that day the official ban on ciyfl flying was lifted, and Lt.-Col. W. Sholto Douglas (now Lord Douglas of Kirtleside) flew an 0/400 with 10 passengers from Cricklewood to Didsbury, Manchester, the distance of 165 rrules being covered against a 30 m.p.h. head-wind in 3 hr 4° min. five days later this machine flew from Manchester to Aberdeen with five passengers and a consignment of newspapers, 315 miles non stop in 4 hr 25 min. On August 25th, 1919, an 0/400 of Handley Page Transport, Ltd., flew to Paris, and a regular service between Cricklewood and the French capital began on September 2nd. The company's Brussels service was inaugurated on September 24th. . . -. - Overseas, at least one 0/7 went to South Africa, where it was used by Handley Page (S.A.) Transport, Ltd. at Capetown, and several Handley Pages went to China in 1920. Air-mail transporta tion was pioneered in China by these machines, the first expen- - mental flight being made from Tientsin to Peking in May 1920. At least one of the Chinese Handley Pages was used for military purposes against rebels, but it caught fire in the air and was destroyed. A giant in war, a pioneer of air transport in peace, and above all the distinguished ancestor of an unbroken line of Handley Page heavy bombers and civilian transport machines; such was the 0/400. By virtue of its majestic size it gave rise to a popular generic term which for many years was indiscriminately applied by the layman to all large aeroplanes: "Handley Page" still appears in the Concise Oxford Dictionary as a noun, meaning "Type of large aeroplane." Lawrence's Arabs at Umm-es-Surab admiringly and rightly appraised it when they said, "Indeed, and at last, they have sent us THE aeroplane." H.P. 0/100 AND 0/400 DATA Dimensions.—Span (upper), 100ft; span (lower), 70ft; length, 62ft iojin; height, 22ft; wing area, 1,648 sq ft. Power plant.—0/100: two 275 h.p. Rolls-Royce; two 275 h.p. Sun beam Maori; four 200 h.p. Hispano-Suiza (experimental). 0/400: two 275 h.p. Rolls-Royce Eagle II (prototype); two Rolls-Royce Eagle IVj two 375 h.p. Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII; two 200 h.p. Sunbeam Arab (six machines only); two 275 h.p. Sunbeam Maori; two 320 h.p. Sunbeam Cossack; two 300 h.p. Fiat A.i2bis; two 350 h.p. Liberty 12-N. Manufacturers.—Handley Page Ltd., Cricklewood, London: six contracts for 336 0/400 aircraft, serial numbers B.9446-B.9451 (Sunbeam Arab engines), C.3381-C.3480, C.9636-C.9785, D.8301-D.8350, F.3748- F.3767, F.7134-F.7143 (Eagle, Maori or Liberty engines). Sub-contractors.—The Birmingham Carriage Co., two contracts for 70 aircraft, serial numbers D.5401-0.5450 and F.301-F.320 (Eagles); Clayton and Shutdeworth, Lincoln, one contract for 50 aircraft, serial numbers D.9681-D.9730 (Eagles); The Metropolitan Waggon Co., Birmingham, one contract for 100 aircraft, serial numbers D.4561-D.4660 (Eagle or Liberty engines specified); National Aircraft Factory No. 1, one contract for 100 aircraft, serial numbers F.5349-F.5448 (Liberty engines specified); Royal Aircraft Factory, Farnborough, two contracts for 24 aircraft, serial numbers C.3487-C.3498 and B.8802-B.8813 (Eagles). There were other, later, 0/400S with serial numbers in the J range. Production and Allocation.—Forty o/ioos were built. Approxi mately 700 0/400S were ordered, and about 400 were built before the Armistice. During 1918, 71 0/400S were delivered to the Expeditionary Force, 103 to the Independent Force, 18 to the 5th Group, 96 to Training Units and two to the Middle East Brigade. On October 31st, 1918, the R.A.F. had 258 0/40OS on charge. Of these, 42 were with the Expedition ary Force, 84 were with the squadrons of the Independent Force, two were with the Middle East Brigade, 24 were at Training Units, and 31 were at Aircraft Acceptance Parks and/or contractors. The remainder Three of the Hand- ley Page Transport fleet at Crickle wood, whence ser vices were Pawn to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam.B.E.A.'s present chairman, Lord Douglas, was one of the pilots.
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