An Upkeep update and some other matters

Leo Lane's wartime diaries normally contain little information other than the places where he went for Highball and Upkeep trials, where he attended meetings and the times he left home and arrived back!

1st week of January 1945 however includes an update concerning the status of the Upkeep (Dambuster) Lancasters and stores. Col Haugen and "Speedee" which was the code word for the fitting of Highball on a USAAF Douglas Invader, which after initial trials in UK went to the USA where it was lost on trials . Thereafter the USAAF lost interest in Highball. Also noted in the diary are the aircraft accidents involving well known test/trials pilots Bob Handesyde, Mutt Summers and Shorty Longbottom.

I can't stop thinking how joyous it must be for Lt Cdr Lane's family to have such exciting memorabilia of his Service. I have some bits and pieces of my Father's time in India with the Royal Horse Artillery, but nothing with so much detail.

This is truly amazing!

The diaries cover 1943 to 1945 and there is also some correspondence post war with Barnes Wallis. A lot of the Upkeep/Highball information in "Bouncing-Bomb Man" by Iain Murray is based on some of Leo's papers that were donated to The National Archives. His son and I believe that Leo may have been planning a book about his service (like his colleagues Gerald Pawle "The Secret War 1939-45" and "Admiralty Brief" by Edward Terrell), when some of the wartime projects were removed from the official secrets lists. However Leo unfortunately died of lung cancer in 1967.

Have recently found out that Leo Lane's elder brother was a senior FAA pilot on HMS Dasher, the aircraft carrier which blew up in the Firth of Clyde under circumstances which are not clear and was one of the small number of survivors-but then that is another story!

Will post any other items of interest.

Upkeep at Newark today, 27 March 2016

Some data from: Flower, Stephen, 2004. Barnes Wallis' Bombs. Tempus Publishing

Upkeep casing production at Vickers (Barrow, Elswick, Newcastle on Tyne).

Torpex filling at ROF Chorley. Inert filling by ROF Woolwich.

• 60 live bombs ordered, plus 60 inert.
• 20 inert sent to Manston for trials
• 60 live, plus 40 inert to Scampton.

May 1943: Dams Raid.
August 1943: Upkeep tests on land targets at Ashley Walk
April 1944: Ten 'Upkeep' Lancasters, plus a quantity of weapons sent to Metheringham for storage. They were never used and they would be later dumped at sea and the aircraft scrapped - including Gibson's ED932G.
December 1944: Remaining ten Woodhall's modified Lancasters sent to 41 Group for storage. Remaining Upkeeps also left - but had to be available at one week's notice.
23 March 1945: Three Lancasters brought back into service - used to drop all remaining live Upkeeps into the Atlantic (unfused).

Following Peter's suggestion in post 2 i have borrowed Leo Lane's wartime diaries again and I am in the process of transcribing them into Word. The entries are in Leo's shorthand and include code words, timings, personnel and place names etc. I have found my copy of "Bouncing - Bomb Man" by Iain Murray particularly useful in figuring out what is going on, as well as various UK maps including at one point a Glasgow street map. I am steadily making way through the diaries but have been unable to decipher one particular entry.

I need some suggestions (polite ones please!) as to the wording of an entry in his 1943 diary. At the time Leo was at Rothesay/Loch Striven organising Highball trials. The Dambusters raid took place on 16/17 May 1943, hence the comment "News of Dams"on 18 May. My question is what is the first word on 17 May, "Noching", is it a place, a code word? See attachment.