Lieutenant-Commander Brian Patterson, MBE, DFC

AFTER a hectic war with the Fleet Air Arm, in which he participated in the Battle of Britain, was involved in the air defence of the Pedestal convoy to Malta and was sunk twice, Brian Paterson converted to helicopters and commanded a squadron of them during the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s. This was the first conflict in which British helicopters played a major role, initially in casualty evacuation. But they were soon to reveal their worth in transporting troops and supplies in a campaign in which mobility was all, up and down a 400-mile-long peninsula which was for the most part covered by thick jungle, where the communist insurgents might strike at will and without warning.

In January 1954 Paterson took over command Of 848 Squadron, whose Westland Whirlwinds (Sikorsky S55s) had been a vital reinforcement to the RAF's hard-pressed and much smaller Dragonflies when they arrived in Singapore in June the previous year. Apart from lifting troops and stores, one of the helicopters' most important roles was to insert small parties of the SAS deep into the jungle. This was part of a "hearts and minds" campaign aimed at winning over local tribes, and convincing them that they were protected from the vengeance of the communists.

By the time 848 Squadron was with-drawn from the Malaya theatre in December 1956, it had lifted 41,000 troops in four years of constant operations under tropical conditions, and had transported more than 370,000kg (814,0001b) of stores. Paterson, who commanded the squadron until March 1955, was awarded the DFC that year for his pioneering contribution to this early use of helicopters in a theatre of war, which prefigured the transformation of airbome operations. But Paterson was already no stranger to helicopter operations.  Their immense usefulness had been brought home to him several years earlier, in the chaotic conditions which prevailed in the aftermath of the Ionian Islands earthquake of 1953.

Brian Paterson was born in 1919 and educated at St Lawrence College, Ramsgate, from where he joined the insurance brokers Willis Faber and Dumas. He also learnt to fly with the RAFVR, but when control of the Fleet Air Arm was restored to the Royal Navy by the Inskip Award of 1938 he transferred to the RN. When, in November 1939, the nucleus of a new Fleet Air Arm squadron, No 804, operating the Gladiator, carne into existence at Hatston in Orkney under the command of Captain R. T. Partridge, Royal Marines, Paterson was one of the earliest pilots to join the fledgling unit.

Though the biplane Gladiator’s technology owed more to the First World War than the Second, No 804 was soon to find itself pitted against the modem machines of the Luftwaffe, as the Germans probed the air defences of the Home Fleet’s anchorage at Scapa Flow. On Mardi 16, 1940, Scapa was raided by a force of Ju88s which scored a direct hit on the cruiser Norfolk, but the aircraft of No 804, given only six minutes' warning, were unable to intervene. In any event, the Gladiator was a good 50mph slower than the Ju88 bomber it was meant to intercept.                    '

A second attack by Ju88s and He111s on Home Fleet ships escorting a convoy south of Orkney, on April 19, was, however, intercepted and two Heinkels were claimed destroyed. Shortly afterwards   the   squadron   was embarked in the aircraft carrier Glorious to provide fighter patrols during the ferrying of 269 Squadron of RAF Gladiators to Norway. May 1, 1940, was a particularly heavy day as the Gladiators of 804 beat off enemy attacks, and Paterson was constantly involved in combat.  After taking part in further combat air patrols, No 804 transferred to HMS Furious at Cambeltown in early May 1940 and then returned to Hatston. In June, with the Battle of Britain beginning to get under way, No 804 played its part alongside the RAF in the air defence of the UK. But there was to be no dog-fighting over the Channel for Paterson and his fellow pilots in their Gladiators. Instead they remained on harbour defence duties at Hatston: less glamorous, but necessary work, since the Luftwaffe was still interested in attacking the British fleet at Scapa from its bases in Norway and Den-mark. Paterson, like other pilots of 804, qualified for the Battle of Britain clasp.

Paterson's next assignment was an unenviable posting to a fighter catapult ship, Springbank. Until the first escort carriers were ready, catapult ships were a desperate stopgap measure for defending convoys against air attack, particularly that from the long-range Fw200. If an air threat developed, a fighter was catapulted from a short ramp installed on the merchant ship's fo'c's'le.  After its mission, successful or otherwise, the pilot could only ditch in the sea, whence (theoretically) he would be retrieved by one of the ships of the convoy. In the event Springbank was torpedoed in September 1941, while escorting the convoy HG73. Paterson was among the lucky ones rescued on a day in which one officer and 31 ratings were drowned.

He was next flying a Sea Hurricane from the aircraft carrier Victorious, in defence of the Pedestal convoy which was fought through the Mediterranean to relieve Malta in the second week of August, 1942. Of the three carriers escorting the convoy, one, Eagle, was sunk by a U-boat and the second, Indomitable, had her flight deck put out of action by three bomb hits. All undamaged aircraft were transferred to Victorious, which became the prime target of the enemy's air assault As wave after wave of German and Italian aircraft attacked, first from bases in Sardinia then, as the convoy proceeded eastwards, from Sicily, Paterson and his fellow pilots of885 Squadron were under fearful pressure, sometimes being launched from Victorious's flight deck four times a day. But the effort was worth it.  Though only 5 of the 14 merchantmen which had originally left the Clyde made it through to Malta, one was the tanker Ohio, which entered Grand Harbour with her decks virtually awash. Her precious cargo, which included aviation spirit, enabled air strikes to be recommenced from Malta against Rommel’s supply lines just as he was preparing the offensive that was intended to drive the Allies from Egypt. Paterson was mentioned in dispatches for his part in chasing enemy bombers away from the convoy.

The following year he was drafted to the carrier Dasher, one of the new American-built escort vessels which, it was hoped, would help to turn the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic. But in ' Mardi 1943 — the convoys' blackest month, with merchant ship sinkings at unacceptable levels and Allied supply lines across the Atlantic on the verge of rupture — Dasher blew up and sank m the Clyde in one of the Navy's worst catastrophes in home waters

She was returning from a day's fly-mg exercises, her captain had announced leave over the loud-speaker, and many of her crew were below washing and shaving in preparation for a run ashore, when suddenly there was a massive explosion below decks which hurled the aircraft lift which weighed two tons, 60ft into the' air. Fires broke out, detonating the ships anti-aircraft ammunition and tearing rents m her hull.  Within three minutes she had sunk. Paterson who was m a forward part of the ship, well dear of the explosion, managed to jump overboard and stay alive lone enough in the freezing waters of the Clyde to be picked up. Many others did not.  Of Dasher’s ship's company, 379 out of 528 either died in the explosion, went down with the ship or perished before they could be picked up. 

The explosion, caused by igniting aviation spirit, remained a source of disagreement between the Admiralty and the American Navy Department.  The former's board of inquiry concluded that safety arrangements in the escort carriers for the handling of aircraft fuel were “practically non-existent” by British standards, while the Americans contended that British officers lacked experience in handling this volatile fuel.

Paterson was next posted to the No 2 naval fighter school, and towards the end of the war he was at the school of naval air warfare. In January 1947 he was involved in the start-up of HMS Seahawk, the Royal Naval Air Station at Culdrose, Cornwall.

When the helicopter came to the Royal Navy after the war, first with the loan of some US Navy Sikorsky S51s for search and rescue during the Korean war, then with its manufacture under licence by Westland as the Dragonfly, Paterson decided to specialise in rotary-wing aviation. He converted to helicopters with 705 Squadron in 1952.

He was at Malta, on the staff of the Royal Naval Air Station Hal Far, when on August 13, 1953, an earth-quake struck the lonian Islands 400 miles away, wrecking Cephallonia and causing widespread damage and casualties in the other islands. At Paterson's instigation, the cruiser Bermuda embarked two helicopters, one of which, since a ship of that vintage had no helipad, operated from the top of one of the cruiser's six-inch gun turrets. Bermuda steamed to the disaster site at maximum cruising speed, and for the next three weeks Paterson was continually occupied, surveying the islands' shattered communities and reporting back on where aid was most urgently needed. He also flew some aid in himself and evacuated a number of the injured, as well as acting as chauffeur to the Greek general who was nominally in charge of what was a massive international relief effort. Paterson was appointed MBE and personally thanked by Earl Mountbatten of Burma, then Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean.

Paterson retired from the Navy as a lieutenant-commander in 1958. There-after he was a technical adviser on films, was landlord of a Sussex pub and ran a company which manufactured metal and plastic labels.

His wife Joyce, whom he married when she was serving in the WRNS, died in 1989. He is survived by two sons.

Lieutenant-Commander Brian Paterson, MBE, DFC, Fleet Air Ann pilot was born on March21,1919.  He died on July 12, 2004, aged 85.

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