My grandfather was one of the war’s forgotten heroes *

My grandfather, Alastair Panton, was an RAF reconnaissance pilot flying Bristol Blenheims during the six week Battle of France in the summer of 1940.  His role was to provide photographs to help commanders planning defence and attack. During those fateful weeks, his life was filled with extraordinary drama.  Alastair witnessed much of which human beings are capable – including atrocity and despair but also hope, courage and even laughter – and he showed no small measure of courage himself.  He was shot down four times.

I know this not because Alastair spoke of it, but because afterwards he wrote an account called Six Weeks of Blenheim Summer.  Despite many discussions about the war, my father never told me about the horrors which his father, Alastair, experienced.  There is pain and sadness in Blenheim Summer, which I think is why my father hid this account away.   I found it amongst my father’s wartime model aeroplanes shortly after he died in August 2012.  

After reading the transcript I felt compelled to get it published, to remember Alastair and also as a mark of gratitude to the many brave and courageous men who served with him.   The Battle of France exacted a heavy toll for all countries involved, including Germany, which lost nearly 30,000 men before seizing victory.  Losses for France were greater still.  The outlook was so perilous that within days of becoming prime minister, Winston Churchill ordered the troops to evacuate.  When the Battle of France ended on 22nd June (the date France surrendered), Britain had lost some 10,000 men.  

Photo-reconnaissance required accurate flying for long periods, maintaining constant height and air speed.  While the Blenheim met these requirements admirably, it made it an easy target for enemy fighters, as Alastair explained before one sortie: “I could not help but be filled with apprehension because the day before three out of six aircraft in our flight, all engaged on the same photographic tasks as ourselves, had not returned.”  The apprehension was justified – later that day his Blenheim was attacked by six Messerschmitt 109s and Alastair was forced to crash land after gunfire shattered his instrument panel and his starboard engine exploded. 

Alastair was undoubtedly brave but he would be the first to say his conduct was not exceptional.  In Six Weeks of Blenheim Summer he reflects, too, on the importance of trust and companionship with comrades.  Bully beef sandwiches, sweet tea, a sense of humour and personal hygiene were as important as the octane that fuelled his Blenheim.

My grandfather also recalled in this diary the kindness, sadness and desperation of the French people, many of whom were refugees.  One on occasion, he recounts how his camp tent became a delivery suite for a young woman who gave birth on his flying jacket.  On another, in the streets of Chartres in the early hours of the morning, he entered the city’s cathedral for a moment of calm.  To his amazement, he found himself gazing at thousands of candles, lit as far as the eye could see, and hundreds of refugees gently worshipping.  Alastair wrote: “I felt growing in me a hope of eventual peace and of right prevailing in the end.”

Alastair wanted his comrades to be remembered but feared that history would eclipse the Battle of France because it was a story of ‘failure.’  Even less well known is an event that occurred on 17th June 1940, that is the sinking of the troopship the Lancastria.  This tragedy was the largest single loss of life for British forces in the war.  It is not known precisely how many perished that day, but estimates suggest it was at least 4,000 – British troops, and French and Belgian refugees.

Alastair was captured by the Germans after being shot down a fourth time on 14th July, 1940.  He was a prisoner for the remainder of the war. 

The Battle of Britain had begun just a few days earlier.  Mercifully, its outcome was very different.  In spite of terrible losses, British strength and determination overcame the enemy.  However, this year as we commemorate the 80thanniversary of the end of the Second World War, we should also remember the Battle of France, and those who fought as courageously as my Grandfather, and those who died on Lancastria.  

They deserve nothing less.  We will Remember Them.

*article written by Victoria Panton Bacon in March 2015, published in the Daily Telegraph, marking the publication of ‘Six Weeks of Blenheim Summer’ by Alastair Panton.  First printed in hardback by Biteback publishing, now as a Penguin paperback – www.penguin.co.uk/books/309187/six-weeks-of-blenheim-summer-by-panton-alastair/9781405936743