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  #21  
Old 24th November 2005, 00:23
Martin Gleeson Martin Gleeson is offline
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Re: WWII Clandestine Photo Reconnaissance

Hallo Dave,

Thanks for your help and the input from Jill Cotton. It adds to my knowledge of his activities here insofar as previously I knew of only one flight (to Dublin) for sure.

The 1939 flights are interesting. Next year when I have the opportunity I will check in our Military Archives to see if they have any file on the matter. However I have not come across one to date.

My E-mail address is as follows; mandkgleesonATeircomDOTnet.

My area of research are the stories of the Allied and German airmen whose aircraft crashed or force-landed in or off neutral Ireland during WW2. Plus any related aerial activities such as shipping attacks, civil air operations, etc. A great friend of mine, Tony Kearns, who often appears on TOCH is working on a book which will hopefully cover most or all of the above. I have been helping him in this endevour, but don't hold your breath !

Sincere thanks again,

Martin Gleeson.
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  #22  
Old 4th December 2005, 16:01
wise62 wise62 is offline
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Re: WWII Clandestine Photo Reconnaissance

hi,

only for information : there is a very interesting book about air reconnaissances :

All above unseen
The RAF's photographic reconnaissances units : 1939/1945
Edward Leaf
Patrick Stephens ltd publications

you may read that the 2 firsts pru spit were N3069 et N3071
N3071 is pictured when in Nancy french airfield 12/1939
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  #23  
Old 4th December 2005, 22:12
Dave Lefurgey Dave Lefurgey is offline
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Re: WWII Clandestine Photo Reconnaissance

To Wise62:
Yup. Have that book already, but thanks for letting me know. If you're interested, I've found about 28 books so far that talk about Cotton and my uncle. Have found a couple of references, but am still looking for any that give more than a brief mention of Ian Fleming and nothing yet on Sir William Stehenson. Cotton and Fleming remained friends after the war and it was Cotton who referred Fleming to his own heart specialist. Fleming later died of a heart attack. If anyone is interested, the following are books I've found on Cotton & my uncle, so far:
- 'Air Spy' by Constance Babington Smith (she was a photo interpreter in the unit Cotton started for that purpose)
- 'Above All Unseen' by Edward Leaf
- 'Aviator Extraordinary' by Sidney Cotton as told to Ralph Barker
- 'Evidence In Camera' by Constance Babington Smith
- 'Eyes of the RAF; A History of Photo Reconnaissance' by Roy Conyers Nesbitt
- 'History of the RAF' by Chaz Bowyer
- 'JARIC: History' booklet by the Joint Aerial Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre
- 'MI6' by Stephen Dorril
- 'MI6; British Secret Intelligence Service Operations 1909-45' by Nigel West
- 'One of the Few' by Group Captain J.A. Kent (personal friend of Bob Niven's)
- 'Photo Reconnaissance' by Andrew J. Brookes
- 'RAF Squadrons' by Wing Commader C.G. Jefford MBE RAF
- 'Secret and Personal' by F.W. Winterbotham (he was the RAF/SIS/MI6 agent who officially recruited Cotton and my uncle)
- 'Seek and Strike: The Lockheed Hudson in WWII' by Andrew Hendrie
- 'Spies In the Sky' by John Taylor and David Monday
- 'Targeting the Reich; Allied Photo Reconnaissance Over Europe, 1939-45' by Dr. Alfred Price
- 'The Bruneval Raid' by George Millar
- 'The Eye of Intelligence' by Ursula Powys-Lybbe
- 'The Last Plane Out of Berlin' by Jeffrey Watson (Australia)
- 'The Life of Ian Fleming' by John Pearson
- 'The Nazi Connection' by F.W. Winterbotham
- 'The Ultra Secret' by F.W. Winterbotham (the book that first brought the ENIGMA Project into public awareness)
- 'The Ultra Spy' by F.W. Winterbotham
- 'Top Secret Tales of WWII' by William B. Breuer
- 'The Secret War' by Charles Fraser-Smith
- 'Very Special Intelligence; The Story of the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre 1939-1945' by Patrick Beesley
- 'Wings Over Calgary' by Bruce Gowans (about Niven on his home scene, not Cotton)
- WWII Photo Intelligence' by Colonel Roy M. Stanley II, USAF
There are probably more that I haven't come across yet, but most of these name both Cotton and Niven.
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  #24  
Old 15th December 2005, 12:53
wise62 wise62 is offline
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Re: WWII Clandestine Photo Reconnaissance

Hello,

about Cotton :
Anthony Cave Brown (the secret war- part I) writes about Cotton and Ultra:
(p 55 ):

"MI6 London sent Sidney COTTON with a Lockheed a/c to pick up the polish LEWINSKI,his wife and all the material about Ultra in Orly airport , France (with a spitfires escort) . LEWINSKI is one of the men who gave the secret of ULTRA to allied countries. In Orly he met Dunderdale (a MI6 man) and Lewinski family.
But a very fortunate frenchman who wanted to go over proposed a lot of money to Dundernale to be picked up. Dunderdale refused, but the same man proposed the same deal to Cotton who accepted.
In a hurry Dunderdale had to phone to London MI6 which ordered Cotton to take off whitout delay with the Lewinski and Dunderdale only".

the upper is the translation of what Anthony Cave Brown has wrote about this particular event in the story of ULTRA.

Wise62
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  #25  
Old 17th December 2005, 01:35
Dave Lefurgey Dave Lefurgey is offline
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Re: WWII Clandestine Photo Reconnaissance

To Wise62:
I'm familiar with the story. Fred Winterbotham talks about it in his books and so does Cotton in his own autobiography, 'Aviator Extraordinary'. I'm highly suspicious of some of the story. I don't doubt that some sort of incident happened as described, but I'm very doubtful about the part of Cotton selling seats on the aircraft. That is something a common thief or con man would do, and Cotton was anything but common. I believe my uncle was with Cotton at the time. Cotton had patents on his inventions, like the teardrop window and the Sidcot flying suit, but refused to take royalties for them since he said he didn't feel that would be right with the war on. Why would he not take money for his patented inventions, yet sell seats on his aircraft? Doesn't sound right to me. The gentleman involved in supposedly offering money to Cotton was Marcel Boussac (later founded Dupont, I think) and was a friend of Cotton's. In fact, Cotton had flown to Boussac's chateau around this time to see if Boussac had gotten out of France okay. Boussac was also a contact of Cotton's within the French gov't while he was running the PDU in France.
I'm highly suspicious of the story of Cotton considering taking money for seats on the aircraft. Remember, there were elements within the Royal Air Force that hated Cotton because of his unconventional style, success with the PDU as he embarrassed them on many occassions. They said it couldn't be done and Cotton did it. There was a group that trumped up false espionage charges against Cotton and it took the personal intervention of Churchill to stop it, but even Churchill couldn't stop everything. After Cotton left the PDU he was involved in other activities with the Ministry of Aircraft Production and obtained an aircraft and modified it. Some unknown person in an RAF pilot's uniform went to the hanger and pulled the landing gear lever while the aircraft was on the ground and caused severe damage. The aircraft was repaired and placed at a different airfield. Then exactly the same thing happened a second time. Later in the war, Cotton tried to leave England and discovered that the RAF Air Ministry had put a ban on him and he wasn't allowed to leave the country. Churchill phoned and told the Air Ministry they had exactly 15 minutes to remove the ban. They did. With these kind of things happening and the extreme bureaucratic revenge being attempted on Cotton, it doesn't stretch the imagination to think that whoever was after Cotton also planted false stories and lies about him. Other lies had been planted, but were disproved. Maybe the story of him accepting money for aircraft rides out of France was another one of those lies.
I can see Cotton perhaps giving a ride to a business friend and using that in future business deals, but to take a handful of cash for a seat doesn't seem anything like his style.
Fred Winterbotham, who was Cotton's commanding officer during the SIS pre-war spy flights was very angry at Cotton, too. When war started and the RAF took over their spy unit, Winterbotham was replaced by Cotton as the commander. A few weeks earlier Cotton had bypassed Winterbotham on another mission and Winterbotham was very angry about that. It wasn't until a while after the war that Winterbotham and Cotton would speak to each other and became friends again.
Thank you for the input. I will get hold of a copy of the book you mentioned by Anthony Cave Brown and see what it has to say.
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  #26  
Old 21st December 2005, 02:19
dp_burke dp_burke is offline
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Re: WWII Clandestine Photo Reconnaissance

Hello Dave, others
I have been watching this thread at a little distance.
I think the details below might be related. BAsically on July 29th 1945, a Lockheed R3O-2 (12-A Electra Junior) BuAer 2947 (c/n 1287) crash landed near Rehins, Ballina County Mayo in Ireland.
On board were the following people according to the Irish Army G2 file in Dublin Military Archives:
"1/Lt Charles C. Dodd (US Navy)
Sgt. Hale (US Navy)
Wing/Comm. TS Cotton
Mr. Janessen (Norweigen Individual)
The names are hand written in the file and thus hard to get the correct names. There is a news paper article which gives certain spellings.
It is also stated that the two passengers Cotton and Janessen were guests of a member of the irish senate for the previous weekend, Senator Quirke. The aircraft was enroute Dublin to Northern Ireland.
Would you in your research have come accross anyone of the Name Janessen opr similar in relation to the W/C Cotton you are reserching. I am only making a guess that this is the same Cotton, the initials in the G2 File certainly do not match I understand.
Theres a bit of back ground on the link below but I've not updated it since viewing the file.
Thanks for you time
http://www.skynet.ie/~dan/WAR/r3o2947.htm
www.skynet.ie/~dan/war/crashes.htm
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  #27  
Old 22nd December 2005, 06:59
Dave Lefurgey Dave Lefurgey is offline
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Re: WWII Clandestine Photo Reconnaissance

To D P Burke:
The message you just left me is numbered #26 at the top right. You should read post #21. Looks like someone may be looking at the same thing you are. That would be Martin Gleeson.
I see the name you have is Wing Commander TS Cotton. The Cotton I am researching was a W/Comm in the RAF, but his initials were FS instead of TS. That's pretty close for just a coincidence. Martin Gleeson was looking for information on Cotton's flight to Dublin in July-August 1945. Sound familiar? I think maybe you should contact him. he put his e-mail address in Post #21 as well.
No. None of the other names you mentioned sound familiar to me. Let me know what you find out (even if it's a year or so from now) and if you send a message to Martin, let him know you were chatting with me. I'll send him an e-mail to look up your post.
Take care, Dave
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  #28  
Old 23rd December 2005, 03:06
dp_burke dp_burke is offline
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Re: WWII Clandestine Photo Reconnaissance

HEllo Dave,
thanks for the reply. I know Martin also, he will have no doubt seen the same file as myself. I thought I'd run it past you anyway, see if you could ID the people.

Not to worry, it's late and I've just spent night wrapping presents and packing. Off home for the next 2 weeks so merry Christmas all, and have a Happy New Year!

Dennis
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  #29  
Old 23rd December 2005, 05:03
Dave Lefurgey Dave Lefurgey is offline
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Re: WWII Clandestine Photo Reconnaissance

Dennis:
Merry Christmas to you and yours too. Glad to see not everyone has gotten too silly with the political correctness going around now.
Glad to hear you know Martin. I tried to e-mail him and I guess he isn't using the e-mail address he gave me anymore, so I can't contact him. That's ok. Mine is still valid and he can contact me.
Give regards to Martin when you talk to him. Oh. Meant to ask. To satisfy my own curiosity, what is your interest in all this Cotton stuff?

Dave
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  #30  
Old 23rd December 2005, 05:20
Dave Lefurgey Dave Lefurgey is offline
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Re: WWII Clandestine Photo Reconnaissance

Dennis:
You said that the names were hand written and hard to decipher. Could the name of Janessen possibly be Eugene Jorgensen? If that's a possibility, then I have an interesting and intriguing postcard from March 1939 I can send you by e-mail attachment if you give me your e-mail address. Mine is still dwblefurgeyAhotmailDOTcom
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