Pilot Officer David Usher Barnwell DFC

  General Notes:

Pilot Officer DAVID USHER BARNWELL D F C
61052, 607 Sqdn., Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.


Pilot Officer David Usher BARNWELL DFC, 61052, Hurricane pilot, with 185 Squadron at Hal Far, early July 1941. A member of the Malta Night Fighter Unit when it was formed at Ta Kali in July 1941. Shot down and crashed into the sea, 14th October 1941. His voice was heard by Fighter Control saying that he was baling out over the sea, then silence. His body was never found. He was 19 years old, the last of three sons in the Royal Air Force, of Captain Frank Barnwell, Chief Designer of the Bristol Aircraft Company, responsible for the Blenheim and Beaufort aircraft. Remembered on the Commonwealth Air Forces Memorial in Floriana.

http://website.lineone.net/~remosliema/airmen191570.htm


ALLIED NIGHT ACES
World War II

NAME VICTORIES UNIT
Barnwell, David Usher 3 [2+1] MNFU

http://aces.safarikovi.org/victories/ww2-allied-night.html

Officially an 'Ace', credited with 5.7 victories in total (607 & 185 Squadrons).

http://aces.safarikovi.org/victories/gb-ww2.html or
http://users.accesscomm.ca/magnusfamily/ww2gb.htm


Biplane fighter aces - Italy

The 9o Gruppo returned from the desert and was re-equipped with Macchi MC.200s. In July they re-equipped again with MC.202s and were they were sent to Sicily, arriving in the end of September 1941, to take part in the operations against Malta.

Early in the morning of 14 October, six low-flying MC.202s of the 9o Gruppo strafed Luqa. They attacked in two pairs of three and it seems that they didn't inflict any damage to the airfield or its aircraft.

Five MNFU Hurricanes took off to intercept, led by Flight Lieutenant Cassidy. Three each from 185 and 249 Squadrons followed them. 19-year-old Pilot Officer David Barnwell (RAF no. 61052) (Hurricane Z3512) of the MNFU was reported to claim one enemy fighter shot down but then failed to return. A rescue launch and aircraft searched all day until dark, but found no trace of the pilot.

It would seem that the Macchi attacked by Barnwell was flown by Sottotenente Emanuele Annoni, but despite two cannon shell strikes in the fuselage, he was able to fly it back to Comiso. Sottotenente Bruno Paolazzi and Maresciallo Manlio Olivetti made claims for two Hurricanes while Capitano Ezio Viglione Borghese claimed a damaged Hurricane. Sergente Maggiore Luigi Taroni and Sergente Minelli also claimed a probable jointly.

http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/italy_minelli.htm


Defence of Malta

The Hurricane played a significant role in the defence of Malta. When Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940, Malta's air defence rested on four Gloster Gladiators (after the first one was lost, the remaining were named "Faith, Hope and Charity") which managed to hold out against vastly superior numbers of the Italian air force during the following three weeks. Four Hurricanes joined them at the end of June, and together they faced attacks throughout July from the 200 enemy aircraft based in Sicily, with the loss of one Gladiator and one Hurricane. Further reinforcements arrived on 2 August in the form of 12 more Hurricanes and two Blackburn Skuas.

The increasing number of British planes on the island, at last, prompted the Italians to employ German Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers to try and destroy the airfields. Finally, in an attempt to overcome the stiff resistance put up by these few aircraft, the Luftwaffe took up base on the Sicilian airfields only to find that Malta was not an easy target. After numerous attacks on the island over the following months, and the arrival of an extra 23 Hurricanes at the end of April 1941, and a further delivery a month later, the Luftwaffe left Sicily for the Russian Front in June that year.

As Malta was situated on the increasingly important sea supply route for the North African campaign, the Luftwaffe returned with a vengeance for a second assault on the island at the beginning of 1942.

It wasn't until March, when the onslaught was at its highest, that 15 Spitfires flew in off the carrier HMS Eagle to join with the Hurricanes already stationed there and bolster the defence, but many of the new aircraft were lost on the ground and it was again the Hurricane that bore the brunt of the early fighting until further reinforcements arrived. In relation to this second intensive assault on Malta, Wing Commander P.B. "Laddie" Lucas is quoted as saying:

"For weeks a handful of Hurricane IIs, aided by Group Captain A.B. Woodhall's masterly controlling, had been meeting, against all the odds, the rising crescendo of Field Marshal Kesselring's relentless attacks on Grand Harbour and the airfields. Outnumbered, usually, by 12 or 14 to one and, later \endash with the arrival of the Me 109Fs in Sicily \endash outperformed, the pilots of the few old aircraft which the ground crews struggled valiantly to keep serviceable, went on pressing their attacks, ploughing their way through the German fighter screens, and our flak, to close in with the Ju 87s and 88s as they dived for their targets."