Talk:Battle of Barking Creek

Move
Consider moving to 'Barking Creek incident'? Harland1 (t/c) 13:06, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Under which title is it better known? Drutt (talk) 20:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

P/O Hulton-Harrop - other firsts?
The article mentions he was the first RAF fighter pilot casualty of WWII. Could he also be claimed as the first British service officer casualty as well? I know the Army lost its first man in action (Private Priday, KSLI) in December 1939, I do not know how soon the Royal Navy had their 'first killed'.Cloptonson (talk) 20:33, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The first British officer killed in action was probably Flying Officer Henry Emden, pilot of a 110 Sqn Blenheim IV shot down by flak while attacking German warships at Wilhelmshaven on the afternoon of 4 September 1939. Oddly, the Blenheim crashed into the cruiser Emden, inflicting considerable damage and killing nine Kriegsmarine sailors. Khamba Tendal (talk) 15:34, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Lucking was not OC 56 Squadron
The text "For some unknown reason, the Squadron’s Commanding Officer, Group Captain Lucking, sent up his entire unit" appears all over the web. Someone, somewhere wrote that in a hurry, and the whole world has been copying it ever since.

Did nobody question the assertion that a 1939 fighter squadron was commanded by a Group Captain? Something wasn't right. I dug a bit and found a few facts, but not a history of the day that would stand up in court. So I'm not sure how to go about editing this article.

I'll summarise what I have.

The January 1939 Air Force List gives one officer by the name of Lucking, Wing Commander David Frederick Lucking, in the General Duties Branch but "Qualified at Specialist Engineering Course", commanding No.1 (General Engineering) Wing of No.24 (Training) Group.

The August 1939 Air Force List gives the same David Frederick Lucking as promoted Group Captain w.e.f. 1st April. I have not found anything about what his new posting was.

http://www.raf.mod.uk/modstathan/aboutus/history.cfm contains "On the 6 June 1939 the first two airmen arrived to form the start of No 32 Maintenance Unit. On the 18 September Group Captain V Bettington arrived to Command no 32 MU, and on the 25 September 1939 Group Captain D F Lucking reported to Command 32 MU vice Group Captain Bettington." (Lucking at St Athan is also mentined in Radar Days by E.G.Bowen.)

http://www.rafweb.org/Biographies/Lucking_DF.htm tells us that he was MIMechE and FRAeS, transferred to the Technical Branch in April 1940, and ended up an Air Commodore ... all of which does not point to a fighter commander, except ... it also says he commanded 214 squadron (a newly-formed bomber squadron) from 19 Sept 1935. A bit of "Googling" confirms that (give or take dates of S/Ldr and W/Cdr, and give or take some mis-spelling of his name).

So who was doing what at North Weald on 6 Sept 1939? Well, ...

According to http://www.56sqnfirebirds.org.uk/officerscommanding.htm, 56 Squadron was commanded by Sqn Ldr E.V.Knowles, from 10 Jun 1939 to 26 Jun 1940 (ie he remained in post).

And the following reads perfectly convincingly: it's from "Tiger Cub - The Story of John Freeborn DFC", the book that heads the Wiki article's list of references! "Back at North Weald, the Controller of Sector Operations, Group Captain D.F.Lucking, discovered that a full Squadron was now airborne instead of just one Flight."

So, it appears that (1) Knowles was OC 56 Sqn, (2) Lucking was sector controller, (3) Lucking did NOT order the whole squadron aloft, but (4) he failed to recall them. But then what? Was Knowles arrested for scrambling his while unit? Possibly. Or not. Should the "arrested" bit of the article simply be removed? Was Lucking arrested? Hardly. In fact, without proof positive, I would not believe it. Was the CO relieved of his command? Not according to the squadron history page. Was Lucking transferred? Yes, we know he was sent to St Athan -- but not in disgrace, merely to a more suitable job (and he did go on to reach air rank).

It's all rather indefinite, but the article (and dozens of others) are definitely wrong. But I don't know what should be changed and what should come out altogether. Perhaps the author, or anyone with more experience than I of editing Wiki articles, could fix it? Wyresider (talk) 14:14, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

I've just realised something else ...

The article says that aircraft from five squadrons were scrambled, and that immediately after the incident, three people were put under close arrest: the two pilots from 74 squadron who shot down the friendly aircraft, and the CO of 56 squadron, that came from a different base and was not (from anything in the the article) involved in the attack. Without some explanation of that, it makes no sense. Wyresider (talk) 14:48, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi.
 * I'm sorry that nobody has responded to this, from over 6 months ago. You make some good points...I'm still reading through the article, researching sources, and I've ordered one of the books.
 * I've also asked the good folk of WikiProject Military history for input, so I'm hoping the article can be improved soon. 86.20.193.222 (talk) 00:32, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * article used to be in the external links. (Originally it was http://www.removablemedia.com/northweald/battleof1.htm which isn't online, but I found it elsewhere. No idea if it can be considered at all "reliable", but it could well be where some of the info on the article has come from. 86.20.193.222 (talk) 00:43, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Lucking was sector commander for North Weald so had overall control over all the squadrons based there. The decision to scramble 56 squadron was his but he most certainly wasn't the squadron CO. See Hurricane: Victor of the Battle of Britain by Leo McKinstry for one source.  Sadly many online sources have copied the existing article text over the years including several that should know better. Nthep (talk) 19:26, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * G'day, I've added a few refs that I could find and adjusted the article slightly. Not really a topic I know much about, but I have a copy of Hough and Richards, which has a little bit and Google Books had a few snippet views that seemed helpful. Please feel free to adjust if I got anything wrong. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 21:30, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * A reasonably full account of the action is at Hurricane: Victor of the Battle of Britain by Leo McKinstry (Chapter 4) but difers from the Wikipedia account in some respects. Alansplodge (talk) 09:41, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, gentlemen. I was a bit thick -- I had spotted that Lucking couldn't have been OC 56 Squadron (he was too senior), but didn't register that, in consequence, it was not the CO of 56 squadron who was arrested ... so I thought there were more mistakes than there were. Reading the article after AustralianRupert's correction, the whole thing made sense. I was still slightly troubled by the close arrests (and agreed with the contributor who requested a citation), but only slightly. I am interested that Alansplodge had grounds to delete that sentence, if only temporarily. [Thinks: are we sure that it was a court martial, not an enquiry? The pilots were exonerated, and Lucking's career was harmed little if at all (more on this to follow in a few hours).] It will be very interesting indeed when (if) the papers get released. (Wonder why they have not been?) Finally, a special thanks to 86.20.193.222, who without adding any edits himself made so much happen. Wyresider (talk) 13:34, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Not me who deleted the sentence - I've never edited the article page! Alansplodge (talk) 16:41, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Wyresider (talk) 17:06, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Apologies, Alansplodge. It was Buckshot06 (thanks, Buckshot06).  (I think they call it "a senior moment")

CE
Tidied a bit and added some bibliographic detail, rm dupe links. Keith-264 (talk) 11:51, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Radar
The term Radar wasn't coined until 1940, so is it correct to use its name here, when at the time of the incident, it would have been called something else? AsparagusTips (talk) 18:04, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Spitfire shot down
The last sentence of this graf isn't clear: Hulton-Harrop was the first British pilot killed in the war and his Hurricane was the first aircraft shot down by a Spitfire. A Spitfire was shot down by British anti-aircraft fire.

If we are trying to say that, in addition to this incident of a Spitfire shooting down a British plane, there was another incident in which a Spitfire was shot down by British anti-aircraft fire, it should say so. As is, it's a non sequitur.


 * Matuko (talk) 16:18, 21 December 2019 (UTC)