Cotton
Churchill was glowering furiously. Portal glanced sideways at him, the slightest smile on his lips, a smile he was very careful to hide from the PM. He's not going to win this one.
Little did he know that the game had changed while he was not looking.
The Air Commodore's recitation was as dry and dusty as an ancient tome. That was deliberate, of course.
Why, you could hear the punctuation!
He started his brief.
"In the late 1930s, Cotton ran a photographic business and lived in London. He was a skilled pilot who had flown combat missions with the Royal Naval Air Service in World War I.
Between the wars, Cotton ran an aerial seal-spotting operation in Newfoundland and developed a colour film process.
It was in Newfoundland that he took his first aerial photographs - using his knees to hold the control column and manhandling a large plate camera over the aircraft's side.
Cotton counted among his close friends yourself, Prime Minister, Mr Ian Fleming of the Special Operations area, and Kodak boss George Eastman, among others. He was also on very close personal terms with top-ranking Nazis.
As Cotton had legitimate reasons for going to Germany, the Air Intelligence branch of the Secret Intelligence Service asked if he would be prepared to take pictures from the air. He agreed.
MI6 bought him the Lockheed Electra and had the aircraft modified to hide cameras in the floor. They were F24 cameras; one faced down and the other two were at a 45-degree angle.
The cabin was heated and warm air flowed over the camera lenses so they did not freeze. At 20,000ft the cameras could cover an area about nine miles wide.
The hole in the floor was covered with a sliding panel flush with the aircraft's skin. A car windscreen wiper motor operated the panel and a button under the pilot's seat activated the cameras.
The aircraft also carried in the wings small Leica Reporter cameras with 250 exposures. Cotton had the Lockheed painted pale blue so it was all but invisible at altitude.
His secretary always accompanied him to reload the cameras and take pictures using hand-held equipment. Cotton never flew in a straight line but a flight path that meandered over important installations such as the Luftwaffe test centre at Rechelin.
Cotton's cameras took photographs of everything the Germans wished to hide - munitions factories, airfields, troop concentrations and anti-aircraft batteries.
On one trip to Berlin, Cotton photographed the naval base at Wilhelmshaven and even took pictures of Hitler's personal yacht.
He posed as a businessman, an archaeologist or a film producer looking for locations for a movie. His most audacious act was to take Luftwaffe senior officer Albert Kesselring - now one of Hitler's outstanding commanders - on a flight while taking photographs.
Cotton offered to take Kesselring on a flight along the Rhine, saying he had a maiden aunt who lived there.
After the Lockheed was airborne and Kesselring was at the controls, Cotton reached under the seat and switched on the hidden cameras, photographing fortifications and airfields. Kesselring was not aware the photographs were being taken, or that there was no maiden aunt.
A week before the war started, Cotton flew to Berlin on his own initiative to collect Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering and fly him to England for talks with the British government.
However, Hitler refused to allow Goering to make the trip. Cotton was told to return to England and not to divert from his flight plan or he would be shot down. Cotton claims the Lockheed was the last civilian aircraft to leave Berlin before the war began.
Cotton's work with MI6 led to him being given his own clandestine photographic unit. He was appointed a squadron leader and empowered to hire civilians or military members.
The unit quickly became known as Cotton's Club or, more unkindly, Cotton's Crooks. Cotton even had a special badge struck bearing the initials CC-11 that signified the 11th commandment - 'Thou shalt not be found out'.
The unit was initially equipped with modified Bristol Blenheims, but they had a mediocre speed and ceiling and were unsuited to aerial reconnaissance.
Cotton wheedled two Supermarine Spitfires out of Fighter Command and had them fitted with cameras instead of guns.
The Spitfires ranged over Germany flying fast and high. The Photographic Development Unit he commanded later is now the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit, which employs some 2000 pilots, photographers and photographic interpreters.
He is a maverick and a buccaneer who was and remains unsuitable for employment in a uniformed service.
Before metropolitan France fell, Cotton was ordered to fly the Lockheed Electra to Paris to evacuate British agents and secret papers. When he arrived he found many Frenchmen were trying to escape to England. Among them was Marcel Boussac, the head of the Christian Dior garment and perfume empire.
Boussac was carrying a briefcase full of thousand franc notes, so Cotton agreed to fly him to England - at a price. He was a uniformed member of the RAF and this was too much for the Air Ministry. Cotton was relieved of his command.
He received a letter from the Air Ministry thanking him for the 'great gifts of imagination and inventive thought which he had brought to bear on the development of aerial photography'. He was also awarded the Order of the British Empire."
The Air Commodore snapped the older shut, and left the room.
He must have had the cardboard cover starched, thought Churchill vindictively.
"So," he rumbled, "he's a maverick, an Australian, a buccaneer, and he tweaked your noses by being absolutely right when you were wrong, and getting results where you could not."
Portal began to protest. A raised hand silenced him.
"No, let us have this out and let me summarise. You appointed as a Squadron Leader and honorary Wing Commander on 22 September 1939, in the same period, Cotton was recruited to head up the fledgling RAF 1 Photographic Development Unit at Heston Aerodrome. This unit provided important intelligence leading to successful air raids on key enemy installations. With his experience and knowledge gained over Germany and other overflights, Cotton greatly improved your photo reconnaissance capabilities. The PDU was originally equipped with Bristol Blenheims, but Cotton considered these quite unsuitable, being far too slow, and he consequently 'wheedled' a couple of Supermarine Spitfires. These Spitfires, augmented by de Havilland Mosquitos, were steadily adapted to fly higher and faster, with a highly-polished surface, a special blue camouflage scheme developed by Cotton himself, and a series of modifications to the engines to produce more power at high altitudes. In 1940, Cotton also personally made another important reconnaissance flight with his Lockheed Electra Junior over Azerbaijan via Iraq. Under his leadership, the 1 PDU acquired the nicknames, 'Cotton's Club' or the less flattering 'Cotton's Crooks': mainly due to Cotton's propensity to flout regulations I have to admit. Cotton revelled in his reputation as unorthodox, and even had a special badge struck bearing the initials 'CC-11' that signified the 11th commandment - 'Thou shalt not be found out.' Cotton's aerial photographs were far in advance of the state of the art and together with other members of the 1 PDU, he pioneered the techniques of high-altitude, high-speed stereoscopic photography that are now instrumental in revealing the locations of many crucial military and intelligence targets. Cotton is also working on ideas such as an airborne searchlight for night-fighters, a prototype specialist reconnaissance aircraft and further refinements of photographic equipment. Following several efforts to be reinstated, even involving me weighing in on his side, he has been forced to resign his commission and is now acting as an unofficial consultant to the Admiralty."
Portal was shocked. Churchill was referring to a piece of paper. What was going on?
"I also note that he waived his patent royalty rights to the Sidcot flying suit away back at the end of the last war. So not only is he a patriot, gentlemen, he's a selfless patriot."
He puffed furiously on his cigar for a moment.
"Well, you have indeed won, Portal. But there is a cost. For reasons I cannot disclose to you or the Air Ministry, his voluntary waiver of his patent rights to the Sidcot flying suit has been rescinded. The Air Ministry is to commence paying him a modest royalty for each, effective of the date on this instruction."
Churchill directed a formidable glare at Portal. "There are things you will not be told. Do not fight this, Sir. That might well cost you your Commission. This is signed by the King, and it is signed by him for vital reasons of State. Should you wish to repair some of the damage the Air Ministry has inflicted upon itself here, a significant gratuity paid for his services and for free use of his patents for over twenty years might be in order."
Portal, shocked speechless, merely nodded acknowledgement. The King's involved? How? But above all else, why? What is it I don't know?
Churchill vented a gusty sigh, and turned to the quiet man seated unobtrusively in the corner. "High Commissioner, you know the thorny bargain you are getting?"
At once Portal recognised the man, Stanley Melbourne Bruce, the Australian High Commissioner. Indeed, a former Prime Minister of that Dominion.
"Yes, I do. And to be frank I cannot believe you are letting a treasure beyond price like Cotton go. He might be a self-assured, arrogant, abrasive bastard, but he gets results and that makes him my kind of self-assured, arrogant, abrasive bastard. We'll take him with glad hosannas, Sir, and as you know, the proof is in the pudding."
Churchill nodded: it was indeed. "And in the hams."
The High Commissioner laughed. "My dear Prime Minister, you might put Portal out of his misery, he'll never get the joke!"
"Oh, very well," he grumbled, "although I am not much in the mood for it."
He ordered his thoughts. Some things could not be said, after all. Even Portal was too junior.
"This started as you know. But it took a twist at the Oxford and Cambridge Club, where the High Commissioner was discussing Australian developments in optical glass manufacture. They have succeeded in producing exceptionally superior optical glass, indeed more of it than they can use. We are perennially short of it as it is quite difficult to make and the ingredients are difficult to find. This got back to Cotton, who has his own sources, and he offered to move it from Australia in Cottonised aircraft. Obviously we were interested, and the end result was that he set up a small freight airline using five specially modified Avro Yorks. He provided the expertise, we provided the aircraft. So not only are we receiving 500lb of the best quality optical glass a month, the Commonwealth is also sending us 3,000lb a week of the finest quality glass making sand in the world, and 2,000lb a month of exceptionally fine calcite."
"From Botany Bay's aeolian deposits and from George's Plains near Bathurst, respectively, your optical glass industry has been able to noticeably improve general quality as a result." Said the High Commissioner helpfully. "He also carries military mails."
"And, being a rogue, buccaneer and maverick, very fine hams," chuckled Churchill.
"Which he does not sell…"
"It pays not to look too closely at that issue, Stanley!" interjected Churchill with mock primness.
"Well… what can I say… yes, but he does distribute them liberally about the capital, mostly through Australia House. Certainly, the King and Queen like the ones I give to them with the compliments of our Government!" laughed Bruce.
"And I like the ones you so kindly give to Downing Street."
Portal looked at each man, and silently shook his head. "Prime Minister, High Commissioner, if I may speak frankly, Cotton is a menace. He does get results, but for them to become solid military outcomes which we can build a military capability on, a trustworthy capability, well, there is a point at which he is no longer useful."
Bruce looked at him seriously. "Sir, I have the MM and the Croix de Guerre, and I was invalided out due to wounds in 1917. I was a very successful businessman in the 20s and my country's Prime Minister in the 30s. You want a government outcome: conformable, comfortable, and to a degree, stifling of innovation. I understand that. So I understand how a businessman will be seen as a maverick. He will look and be abrasive, self-assured, and with no time for blanco, bull, drill and doing it by the bureaucratic book. He does not fit."
He stood, strode to the window, and looked out at the pale first light of dawn.
"We have the Japanese with their hands around our throats, and it is taking everything we have to keep them from throttling the life out of us. Our Navy has been destroyed. Our Air Force is rung to its last extremity. Our Army is scattered. They are bombing our cities, sinking our ships off our own coast, landing commandoes who wipe out small coastal towns… and they just might be able to invade - certainly we cannot stop them in the north should they choose that. If we lose Port Moresby we are in desperate straits. The way the Empire has rallied to our need has rallied and galvanised the nation, and we have not forgotten you, here, we have rallied to your need, we are maintaining most of a Corps here, at your disposal. We are also maintaining the flow of aircrew under EATS, except for pilots we have been forced to throw into the Hurricanes you provide us to fight the Japanese."
He turned and faced Portal. "We need results, right now. We must know where the enemy is and what he is doing in his base areas, and conventional methods are failing. 100 Squadron sent our last two reconnaissance Beauforts over Rabaul a week ago, to get photographs. They went into the void."
He paused for a moment of thought. "I know the bargain we are getting. Cotton will have honorary rank as a RAAF Group Captain, but it is his new aviation company that will fly these missions. He and his people will be civilian personnel with honourary rank, flying in uniform."
He snorted. "Not that it means a damn thing if they are captured by the Nips!"
"We will attach RAAF and other military men to it, support it, and pay for it as a commercial service and capability development service. They will develop the ideas and fly them, we will develop capability from them. We will pass it all back to you, too. That will hide it inside a commercial company while allowing us to develop our own abilities. Cotton will, in that way, be liberated from military conformity and bureaucracy - we want his ideas, and will build a PRU capability within the RAAF using them, but at arms length purely to allow for the free development of his concepts."
Churchill was hiding a grin.
Stealing a B.20
"We have 16 of these things. Just 16. Of those, 10 are normally in operation at any given time. And I am to hand over one of them to you?"
Cotton had no sympathy in his eyes. "Yes. As that piece of paper says - and you are free to ring the Minister if you want to, to validate what I say. In fact, I ask you to. And I have no use for a hangar queen either. My company will also be using your maintenance hangar for a time to modify it and your people will have no access to it for that time, although I will get the use of any of your people I need. You will not get the aircraft back, either."
The bitterness in the Wing Commander's eyes only intensified. His brand-new base at Rathmines was his pride and joy. To be bruited about it like a menial was far beyond galling.
Cottonising Abaddon
The gleaming aircraft attracted every eye as it was rolled out into the early morning. The Wing Commander eyed it with grudging respect. Cotton eyed him speculatively. He had obviously hated every second of the last ten days, yet he had provided unstinting assistance, help and support at all hours of the night and day.
"I have to say, Mr Cotton, that your men have worked like Trojans. Now, what the hell have you done with that B.20?"
He paused briefly. "I know that you cannot tell me the whole story, but weight stripping, very special fuel indeed and cameras adds up to only one thing. Besides, one of my pilots is from Coastal Command and tells me that you are something of a legend for getting pictures of the Channel ports in a civil-registered Electra back in '40 - with your secretary operating the camera!"
The machine literally glistened. It now boasted polished metal upper surfaces - that alone had taken
all the metal polish in Newcastle to achieve - and one thin coat of pale blue on the undersides. It still had roundels on the upper surfaces and side, but not
underneath the wings. The turrets were gone, fairings replaced them. He had been over it, inside. It was stripped. Even the paint had been carefully
removed from the inside. It now had only a three man crew, pilot, co-pilot/navigator and flight engineer/radio operator. Even some perspex panels had been
removed and replaced with metal fairings to save weight. The most puzzling thing was the very small 'CC-11 Air Line' logo painted in pale grey on the
nose. So lightly had the paint been applied that it was more a diminishing of the gleaming aluminium surface than a layer of paint.
The RAAF officer looked unconfortable as he looked at the name. In a soft voice he asked, "Why that name? Why the dark Angel of the Abyss?"
Cotton grinned. "I can tell you a few things, but not too many. This is very hush-hush. Come on. It might be dawn but it's really the end of a very long day. Let's have a beer."
They headed towards the bar.
5 January 1943
The pictures were flawless. Highly detailed and crisp, they showed something he had simply never expected to see.
The first set showed Rabaul. Obviously taken from medium altitude, they showed the airfield complex, radar sites, road network, marching troops, storage areas, AA batteries, port facilities and ships.
But the second set…
"Let me get this straight," Nimitz said, the disbelief in his voice obvious, "you got some…. some maniac to fly a mile past the goddamned Combined Fleet as it lay in its own anchorage at Truk?"
The exhausted, dishevelled RAN officer was no man's fool - and he had been sent with the briefcase full of pictures by Rupert Long himself. He smiled tiredly, "Sir, not that far. I believe it was just under 500 yards."
"You are joking. No, I can tell you are not joking, and I do not know what worries me more!"
Nimitz grinned like a thief as he bent again to examine the breathtaking images. "So these are their new super battleships. Strange looking beasts. The second one with all the repair ships alongside look like it took one hell of a beating."
Yes, Sir. Quite a few months in dock for her, we think. Of even more interest, we have identified the repair ship moored to her port bow there. Don't know what the Japs call her, but she used to be a Chinese Customs ship. And she was built in the UK…"
"… we have a reliable way to measure this monster, but not to work out her displacement" finished Nimitz.
"Sir."
"Tell me, how did you guys do this?"
"Well, Sir, that was taken by a 'Cottonised' B.20 Night Angel which Cotton himself flew. The thing was moving at over 350mph at sea level when he took that. Umm... his secretary was operating the camera, she insisted on accompanying that particular flight."
"His secretary?"
"Yes, Sir. Bunty. She's 18."
"What? She?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Has your air force gone mad?"
There was a pregnant pause and slow smiles appeared on the faces of the USN personnel as the Australian slowly stroked his chin. He appeared to be carefully considering this question. His response was very… hesitant.
"Well. I dunno. Sir, I think I'd say that most of the time, I'd think that generally the Navy has relatively few doubts about the general level of sanity in the Royal Australian Air Force."
Nimitz's grin turned to a roar of laughter. "But not the specific, eh!"
"No, sir. Never that. Too many brown-hatters and not enough rum. They only provided the aircraft, racing fuel, the original plane, a hangar for Cotton and his crew to work in, gear like that. The actual operation was a private venture by CC-11 Air Lines and how they do their thing is up to them. They can ask our Air Force to provide pilots and crew, they can do it themselves, they can employ baboons with purple backsides, we don't care. Sid Cotton did these first few to prove the point that he bloody well delivers what he is asked to deliver. See the back of the photo, Sir?"
Nimitz turned the photo in his hands over.
"You are kidding," he muttered, "I'll read this out: 'Another fine product of CC-11 Air Lines. If this product meets your requirements and you have others, contact CC-11 Air Lines via Melbourne 85472. Ask for Sid. All rates negotiable.'; you guys are crazy. You have to be."
"No, Sir, trust us on this. It works. Cotton is a buccaneer, a rogue, and is damned good at what he does. He is building us a very advanced photographic reconnaissance capability, but…" he hesitated a little.
"Spit it out."
"Well, Sir, he just does not fit into any sort of military structure."
"Ah. That explains much." Nimitz looked at the extraordinary images on the table. "But he delivers."
"Oh, yes, Sir. He delivers. It costs, but he sure as hell delivers."
"What else does he do?"
"Well, Sir, if you have freight that absolutely has to get there fast. He's your man. But lock up your daughters."
"Really?"
"Oh, yes Sir."
"Good Lord."
And stealing for victory is permissable as I have advocated this form of procurement for AH scenarios myself.
