Wing Commander Joe Kayll, DSO, OBE,
DFC, was born on April 12, 1914. He
died on March 3 aged 85
I n the spring of 1940, Joe Kayll shot down
nine enemy aircraft and won a DSO and a
DFC before the Battle of Britain had even
started. He was commanding officer of
No 615 Squadron, Royal Auxiliary Air
Force, in France, and his squadron was in the thick of the air fighting during the Blitzkrieg, as a handful of RAF squadrons gave battle to an enemy assailing them in overwhelming numbers.
When the storm of steel and explosive burst on the Western Front on May 10, 1940, No 615 - like its sister Royal Auxiliary Air Force squadron, No 607, in which Kayll had previously served - was in the process of exchanging its biplane Gladiators for Hurricanes. The German assault caught them in the middle of re-equipping, but nevertheless, flying this mixture of aircraft types, the squadron gave a formidable account of itself under Kayll's leadership.
Flying sometimes six or seven sorties in a
day, Kayll and his men inflicted damage on
the Luftwaffe of an order that quickly earned the respect of its pilots - even if
Goering persisted in underrating the
capacities of RAF Fighter Command.
Born in 1914, and educated at Aysgarth
and Stowe, Joseph Robert Kayll worked in
the family timber business in Sunderland
after leaving school. In 1934 he was
commissioned into the Royal Auxiliary Air
Force and began flying with 607 "County of
Durham" Squadron. At that time 607 was a
bomber squadron, operating biplane
Wapitis and Harts, but by the time it went to
France in the autumn of 1939 as part of the
Air Component of the British Expeditionary
Force, it had become a fighter unit,
operating Gladiators.
Two months before the Battle of France
began, Kayll was moved to command 615
Squadron. For him the Wehrmacht's
assault of May 10, 1940, was to begin six
months of intensive combat flying which
took him and his squadron from the Battle
of France through the skirmishes over the
Channel of June and July to the end of the
Battle of Britain. Kayll's personal combat
victories and tactical successes came so
thick and fast that when he returned to Eng-
land he had to have the DSO and DFC
pinned on him by King George VI on the
same day.
Kayll's first victories against the Luftwaffe came on May 15, when he shot down two Me110 twin-engined fighters. And although
his squadron was continually on the retreat
as the German Army overran its forward
airfields, and it had frequently to escape by the skin of its teeth, he continued to add to this score at an astonishing rate. In late
May, with not one airfield left available to it in northern France, the squadron was
evacuated to Kenley, south of London.
But this did not spell rest and recuperation
for the exhausted pilots. After Dunkirk, the
Luftwaffe kept up the pressure with its
attacks on Channel convoys, and the
squadron was constantly in the air and
engaged in conflict, Kayll himself shooting
down further aircraft in June and July. With
the opening of the Battle of Britain proper in mid-August Kenley, as a sector station, was a centre of frantic activity, with squadrons being scrambled throughout the long
daylight hours, as well as being a target for German bombers. Kayll led 615 right
through the battle, until it was moved to
Turnhouse in Scotland for a rest at the end
of September, having shot down 97 enemy
aircraft.
In December Kayll himself was rested from
operations and posted to the staff at HQ
Fighter Command for a few months. But by
June 1941 he was back in action, promoted
to command the famous Hornchurch Wing.
Fighter Command was now on the offensive - though it was an offensive that proved expensive in aircraft.
When Kayll arrived, the wing was involved
in operations which were intended to
prevent the Germans from sending more
fighter squadrons to Russia. Three
bombers would attack a not-too-distant
target in northern France, escorted by two
or three squadrons, the aim being to bring
the German fighters to battle. Kayll flew on
several of these operations, successfully
repelling attacks, although the problem of
having speedy Spitfires escort bombers as
slow as Blenheims was never satisfactorily
solved.
On a daylight sortie which was to escort
three Halifaxes to bomb Lille railway station on June 25, 1941, the station commander, Group Captain Harry Broadhurst (later Air Chief Marshal) decided, to Kayll's dismay, to lead the wing himself. With some
misgivings, Kayll flew in an unaccustomed
role as No 2. As the raid turned for home
his section was attacked by Me109s near
St Omer. His engine was hit by cannon
shells and stopped.
Kayll managed to glide his Spitfire down to
a perfect wheels-up landing in a small pea
field between two canals, and after getting
out of the cockpit he took refuge in an
adjacent wheat crop. It took only 15
minutes for a German patrol to locate him,
however, and he was marched to an
interrogation centre, an occurrence
captured on film by a French woman who
managed to conceal what she was doing
from Kayll's captors.
After being held at various camps he was
sent to Stalag Luft III at Sargan in Silesia.
There, as escape officer, he continued his
war against the Germans "by other means".
Besides making two escape attempts
himself, after one of which he was at liberty for a week, he famously organised the
Wooden Horse breakout in which three
men escaped to Sweden and England via
the Baltic port of Stettin. He organised a
number of short-term breakouts after that,
but all activity ceased after the Great
Escape in 1944, when 50 escapers were
shot on Hitler's orders.
Finally, in 1945, with the Russians
approaching from the East, he and his
fellow inmates were marched westwards
and, at the war's end, overcame their
guards at a farm near Lübeck and settled
down to wait for the British Army to arrive.
Kayll was appointed OBE in 1945 for his
escape work in the camps.
Kayll was demobilised in 1946 but
continued his association with the RAF
when he reformed and commanded his old
Squadron, No 607, RAAuxF.
He rejoined the family timber firm after the
war, continuing to put in an appearance at
the office on most mornings long after he
had given over the running of the company
to his sons.
In his native Durham he played a substantial
role in the public life of the county, as both a deputy lieutenant and JP. He was also a keen yachtsman (founding the Sunderland
Yacht Club) and was a for- mer president of
the Wear Boating Association.
Joe Kayll is survived by his wife Annette,
and by two sons.
Salute!
Sisu
