QUILL, Claire (#185)

Claire Quill (nee Legge)

“Her easily recognisable and calm voice, combined with their faith in her known controlling ability, had in the heat of battle given our pilots that added boost of confidence.”

The Royal Air Force’s first female Wing Commander, Claire worked in fighter control during the war, and was stationed at Tangmere during the Battle of Britain.

No 11 Fighter Group’s Operations Room, Uxbridge by Charles Ernest Cundall (1943) © IWM Art.IWM ART LD 4140

Corporal Claire Legge: Behind the controller’s dais in the ops room there were four cabins which were monitoring the four radio channels. They monitored those channels and recorded what was said by the pilots in the air. The doors of these cabins were open most of the time. That’s how the controller sitting in front of them found out how the battle was going. Once he’d got the men on to the enemy with his directions, it was up to them. What they heard often distressed the girls very badly. They knew the pilots and they heard them screaming and going down.”

Mrs Claire QUILL (née Wq Off LEGGE WRAF): Signed for Lord DOWDING’s FIGHTER COMMAND and its proven CONTROL and REPORTING system and here, in particular, those many WAAF ground control PLOTTERS and FIGHTER CONTROLLERS in and beyond the BATTLE of BRITAIN, often hearing through their headphones the savage cut and thrust of battle and too many final silences.

“During the Battle of Britain the W.A.A.F.’s had undoubtedly proved themselves to be hardworking and efficient and would play an increasingly important part in the workings of the Royal Air Force. It was a kind of emancipation.”

Claire Legge quoted in ‘The Battle of Britain: The True Story of Those Dramatic Four Months in 1940 (1969) by Tom Hutchinson“

Also recalled here is her popular late TEST PILOT husband, Jeffrey QUILL OBE AFC and the outstanding development by the Vickers SUPERMARINE team of designer Reginald MITCHELL (died 1937 at age 42) and then Joe SMITH, of the SPITFIRE.  The power, take off weight and climb rate of the “SPIT” were doubled, with a five fold increase in firepower – the SEAFIRE 47s were the last of a total of 22,890 SPITFIRES produced.

Claire Legge was a key adviser ensuring the 1940 period authenticity, particularly of the WAAFs in 1968/69’s “Battle of Britain” Film.

“From left, standing: P/Os HC Upton, AEA van den Hove d’Éstsenrijk (Belgium), and David Gorrie; seated, from left, P/Os Frank Carey (adjutant) [Signatory 27], F/L J.I. Kilmartin [Signatory 35], S/L George Lott [Signatory 11] [who lost an eye in combat on 9 July 1940], F/L RC Reynell and S/L CB Hull DFC (South African).” Just three hours after this photograph of eight Hurricane pilots from 43 Squadron, ‘relaxing’ outside the Officer’s Mess at RAF Tangmere, was taken, on 7 September 1940 – seven days before Battle of Britain Day – two of them, the Australian Richard Reynell and the South African Caesar Hull – were killed in action. Van Den Hove was in turn lost on the Battle of Britain day itself, and David Gorrie the following April.

Aircraftwoman Claire Legge was at Tangmere during the Battle of Britain

Jeffrey Quill, Claire’s husband

‘a day would come when the aeroplane decided that it was in charge instead of the pilot,
and that would be the last day’

Jeffrey Kindersley Quill, OBE, AFC, FRAeS (1 February 1913 – 20 February 1996) was a British test pilot who served on secondment with the Royal Air Force and Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War. He was also the second man to fly the Supermarine Spitfire after Vickers Aviation’s chief test pilot, Joseph “Mutt” Summers. After succeeding Summers as Vickers’ chief test pilot, Quill test-flew every mark of Spitfire. Quill’s work on the aircraft aided its development from a promising but untried prototype to become, with the Hawker Hurricane, an instrument of the Royal Air Force’s victory in the Battle of Britain. The Spitfire later played a leading role in gaining Allied air superiority over Europe. Quill later wrote two books about the Spitfire.

Quill was born at Littlehampton, Sussex, the youngest of the five children of Arthur Maxwell Quill and Emily Molesworth Kindersley. He was educated at Lancing College, which overlooked Shoreham aerodrome, at that time a small grass field with old hangars and a wooden hut for a flying club. While at Lancing, Quill became Captain of Gibbs House (1930) and Prefect (1931). He played in the Cricket XI (1930–31); Football XI (1929–30); and was Sergeant in the OTC, Cert. A. Long before he left school in 1931, the nearby aerial activity had prompted Quill to seek a non-commissioned career in the Royal Air Force. While still a pupil at Lancing, he attended the famous annual RAF displays at Hendon. Two years later he participated in the event.

At the age of 18, Quill was accepted into the Royal Air Force as an acting pilot officer. He learned to fly on Avro Tutor biplanes at No. 3 Flying Training School at Grantham, and went solo after the short time of 5 hours 20 minutes (9 hours being regarded as the norm). He graduated to Siskin IIIA advanced trainers, and his flying ability was assessed as exceptional. In September 1932 he joined No. 17 Squadron RAF at Upavon, where he began flying Bristol Bulldog fighters. While with 17 Squadron he took part in the Royal Air Force display at Hendon in June 1933, demonstrating low flying in a mock bombing attack. He flew as often as possible to familiarise himself with the aeroplane, practising aerobatics and flying in cloud. He was well aware of the dangers of flying and later wrote:

Unless aerobatics were practised assiduously to the point where one was familiar with every conceivable combination of speed and altitude of which the aircraft was capable, one was not master of the aeroplane. Therefore a day would come when the aeroplane decided that it was in charge instead of the pilot, and that would be the last day. I never had cause to modify that view, and I kept my aerobatics well honed to the day of my last flight as a pilot.

Supermarine Spitfire

In January 1936 Quill applied for release from the RAF and joined Vickers (Aviation) Ltd at Brooklands, as assistant to its chief test pilot, Joseph “Mutt” Summers. His initial task was the testing of the Wellesley bomber, and it was while flying a production Wellesley that Quill had a narrow escape. The 74 ft 7 in-wingspan bomber refused to recover from a spin and at 3,000 ft Quill decided to bail out. As he descended, the spiralling bomber seemed intent on slicing the pilot with its wings, but he landed safely not far from the Kingston bypass.

There was some rivalry between Vickers (Aviation) Ltd and Hawker Aircraft, whose Hurricane had first flown four months earlier. Jeffrey Quill’s long association with the Spitfire began when, aged 23, he made his first flight in the prototype fighter K5054 on 26 March 1936 – Mutt Summers having made the maiden flight three weeks earlier – and his priority was to get the Spitfire cleared for acceptance by the RAF. The Spitfire needed a great deal of work before it was deemed safe for young RAF pilots to fly, and it did not enter squadron service until July 1938. However, developed through many marks and variants, the Spitfire remained a first-line fighter throughout the war.

After transferring full-time to Vickers Supermarine in 1938, Quill took complete charge of Spitfire test flying, working closely with Joseph (Joe) Smith who had taken over as chief designer for Supermarine in 1937, following the death of R.J. Mitchell in the same year.

Second World War

During the Second World War, Quill was in charge of development and production flying at Vickers Supermarine, a job that he took so seriously that he felt he must obtain first-hand combat experience. Following the fall of France in 1940, he was determined to rejoin a fighter squadron. Forestalling opposition from his employers at Vickers Supermarine, he successfully argued the need to gain front-line operational experience and was temporarily released on 5 August 1940 to join No. 65 Squadron at RAF Hornchurch, privately hoping that it would be a permanent appointment. On 16 August he shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 109 and two days later he shared a victory over a Heinkel He 111. His combat days were short-lived because he was recalled after nineteen days to test the Spitfire Mk III, but they made Quill all the more determined to make the Spitfire an even better fighting machine, and his experiences in the Battle of Britain led to two important changes in the Spitfire. At high speed, the stick force from the ailerons had been very heavy, and this was found to be caused by the ballooning of the fabric covering of the ailerons, and so causing a thicker trailing edge section. This was cured by fitting stiffer, metal-covered ailerons. Quill also initiated an improvement in the optical quality of the cockpit side panels. His concerns about rearward vision from the cockpit led to changes and improvements to the canopy and rear fuselage. Later in 1940 he became chief test pilot for Vickers Armstrongs (Supermarine) Works.

No. 12 Commando and ‘Operation Airthief’

By 1942 the Luftwaffe’s Focke-Wulf Fw 190 was gaining the edge over Allied fighters, and it was an urgent priority to capture an airworthy example. For a while Quill was on standby to be taken to France to hijack a Fw 190 back to England. His friend Captain Philip Pinckney, a Commando officer, had prepared a daring proposal for approval by Combined Operations Headquarters, with the code name ‘Operation Airthief’, proposing that the two of them penetrate an airfield in occupied France. Privately, Quill did not rate their chances of survival very highly. Fortunately, on 23 June 1942 – coinciding with the submission of the paper to Combined Operations – a disoriented German pilot, Oberleutnant Armin Faber, mistook the Bristol Channel for the English Channel and landed an Fw 190 A-3 at RAF Pembrey in south Wales. Not long afterwards, Quill flew the captured German aircraft at Farnborough

Fleet Air Arm

In January 1943 Quill was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. From November 1943 to April 1944 he served with the Fleet Air Arm, as a lieutenant commander, helping to develop better carrier-deck-landings with the Supermarine Seafire, the naval version of the Spitfire. With the introduction of the Seafire, the Fleet Air Arm had suffered serious losses in deck-landing accidents. After a deck-landing course at Easthaven, Quill served on the training carrier HMS Ravager, and then the escort carrier HMS Attacker, which had two Seafire squadrons (No.s 879 and 886) on board. He flew with both squadrons and was later attached to 1837 (Fighter) squadron, which was shore-based. During his time with the Navy he made more than 75 deck landings. The distinguished naval test pilot Eric Brown [Signatory 42] later wrote:

“Jeffrey was an inspired choice, as he had the analytical mind of a superb test pilot, trained to find answers to any flight problem.”

By the time Quill returned to Supermarine he knew the problems thoroughly, having deck-landed all the British and American carrier types, with the exception of the Fairey Firefly. By the end of the war he had personally test-flown all variants of the Spitfire and Seafire.” (Gratefully extracted from Wikipedia)

Royal Aeronautical Society interview with Jeffrey Quill

‘one of the most articulate test pilots I ever encountered; and to him goes much of the credit for turning Mitchell’s brilliant concept into a great fighting machine’

“Vickers-Supermarine Spitfire test pilot Jeffrey Quill FRAeS discusses his career in aviation, the highlight of which was making the first flights and masterminded the development and production test flying of all 52 variants of the Spitfire.

Described by Sir George Edwards as “was one of the most articulate test pilots I ever encountered; and to him goes much of the credit for turning Mitchell’s brilliant concept into a great fighting machine”, he joined the RAF before hearing that Vickers needed a hand with their demanding flight test programme in 1936. A secondment led to him joining Vickers-Supermarine in 1938. During the Second World War he re-joined the RAF, flying Spitfires in the Battle of Britain and, later in the war, joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR), helping to develop better carrier deck-landing with the Supermarine Seafire, the naval version of the Spitfire. Quill also talks of the test pilots and designers he had word with over the years and before discussing his move to become the man charged with marketing the SEPECAT Jaguar and MRCA Tornado.

This interview recorded in 1973 was conducted by Gordon Wansbrough-White as a basis for an unpublished article in Aerospace magazine.

Edited for podcast by Mike Stanberry FRAeS, the digitisation of the recording was funded through the Royal Aeronautical Society Foundation.

The Royal Aeronautical Society would like to thank Sarah Quill and Virginia Stevens for their permission to release the podcast of this interview.”