Group Captain Geoffrey Leonard Cheshire,
Baron Cheshire VC, OM, DSO & Two Bars, DFC
(7 September 1917 – 31 July 1992)
Who? Some might ask.
He was an RAF man.
He was awarded the highest honour a military Englishman can aspire to, although I do not know of any who actually did aspire.
The Victoria Cross.
And now, the Ultimate, there is a push to have him elevated to a .....
Saint.
So let me start with the 'push' and then tell more about the man himself.
St Leonard Cheshire?
Diocese launches campaign for war hero’s Cause
A centenary Mass in September will mark the start of formal efforts to promote his possible canonisationThe Diocese of East Anglia is launching a campaign to promote the Cause of Leonard Cheshire, the war hero who founded a worldwide network of homes for disabled people.The campaign will begin with a centenary Mass on September 7 celebrated by Bishop Alan Hopes.
Cheshire, an RAF bomber pilot during the Second World War, was awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest military honour, for his bravery in carrying out over 100 missions.After the war he cared for sick ex-servicemen. It was the faith of one of these men, Arthur Dykes, which inspired him to become a Catholic aged 31.He went on to set up residential homes for disabled people. By the time of his death in 1992 his charity, now known as Leonard Cheshire Disability, operated 270 homes in 49 countries.Fr James Fyfe, who will be promoting the Cause, explained: “It means to begin to try to collect any evidence for sainthood from among the faithful. There is a prayer which invites people to pray to Leonard for a particular reason. If the prayers are answered then evidence is collected, examined and presented. This does not mean that we already think he is a saint – that part is a very long way off and it may be 50 or 100 years hence – it is a discovery process.“Bishop Alan and the Diocese are embarking on the process because Leonard lived in Cavendish. But he is a worldwide figure and many people will be praying for the success of the Cause and we shall reach out to them. However, we shall begin in East Anglia first because there are people here who knew him and remember him and who may have something to tell us.”Cheshire married Sue Ryder, a fellow peer who had set up her own homes for sick, disabled and elderly people, in 1959.
Remarkably, there is already a campaign underway for her Cause.
In Poland, where she worked after the war, she is a national heroine, with schools and public places named in her honour.Polish-born Halina Kent, who was involved in the campaign, told the Herald in 2006 that “almost all of the letters that have started to pour in have said the same thing: why not a joint canonisation of both Leonard Cheshire and Sue Ryder, as...
Again for those, especially not Graced with being English or even British who do not know about him or his good Lady wife, here is the longer and more detailed account. Happily, Wiki provides.a married couple who gave so much to the Church and to humanity, serving God together in the most magnificent way?”Anyone interested in the campaign for the Cause of Leonard Cheshire is invited to contact: Fr James Fyfe, 69 Queen’s Road, Wisbech, PE13 2PH for more information.The Requiem Mass will be held in the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Cavendish, Suffolk, at 7pm.A life of service and inspiration.
Here is a life of initially enforced arduousness, much as any member of the 'Per Ardua Ad Astra' fellows or that era will have endured. War. Constant threat and danger. Death pervading into the crew rooms.
Later it was an arduousness taken up as a Cross, of his own choosing.
Leonard Cheshire was born on 7 September 1917, the son of an Oxford Professor of Law. He was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford, at Stowe School, and at Merton College Oxford where he took a degree in law.
He was commissioned in the reserve of the RAF on joining Oxford University Air Squadron in 1936. He took a regular commission in 1939 and during World War II served almost without interruption in Bomber Command, including taking command of 617 Squadron “the Dambusters”.
Leonard’s record of 100 operational bombing missions was unequalled. He was awarded the DSO - Distinguished Service Order in 1940 (with two bars in 1943 and 1944), the DFC - Distinguished Flying Cross in 1941, and the VC - Victoria Cross in 1944.
He was selected by Winston Churchill as the British observer at the dropping of the atom bomb on Nagasaki in August 1945.
He left the RAF after the war and attempted to set up a community life for ex-servicemen and women, first at Gumley Hall in Leicestershire and then at Le Court in Hampshire, but the scheme failed. In 1948 – still at Le Court – he agreed to look after one of the former members of the community who was dying of cancer and had nowhere else to go: it was contact with this man, Arthur Dykes, which initiated Leonard’s conversion to the Roman Catholic faith.
It was to be an uphill climb.
As Arthur neared death, Leonard was told that a priest ought to be called. He was deeply moved by the simplicity and prayerfulness of the administration of the Sacraments and of the prayers for the dying.
This experience of the Catholic Church in action inspired Leonard; and finding in Her the Truth, Authority and Unity he sought, he was received into the Church on Christmas Eve 1948 and lived his life with Jesus as his focus.
Leonard found others coming to him for help, and so started what was to become the world-wide charity Leonard Cheshire Disability with 80 homes in the UK and over 250 worldwide. His award of the Order of Merit was announced in February 1981 and his elevation to the peerage in June 1991.
In 1957, Leonard contracted TB and was hospitalised for two years. Enforced idleness, however, increased his intense spirituality through hours of silent prayer.
In 1959 Leonard married Sue Ryder whose own international charity, the Sue Ryder Foundation, was already well established helping those in need of relief from persecution and illness. Together, they also established the Ryder-Cheshire Foundation to take on projects for which there was a clear need but which lay outside the scope of their separate foundations. They had two children – a son Jeromy and daughter Elizabeth.
But Leonard developed Motor-Neurone Disease and, becoming increasingly immobile, retired from administration and devoted his time to developing his relationship with Christ.
He died on July 31, 1992, and was buried where he had lived in Cavendish. Lady Ryder died in November 2000.
That's the potted version. His life and trials deserve a far deeper look.
Group Captain Geoffrey Leonard Cheshire, was a highly decorated Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot during the Second World War and later philanthropist.
Among the honours Cheshire received as a pilot was the Victoria Cross,
the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
He was the youngest group captain in the RAF and one of the most highly decorated pilots of the war, but after serving as the British observer on the Nagasaki nuclear attack he resigned from the air force. He founded a hospice that grew into the charity Leonard Cheshire Disability, and he became known for his work in conflict resolution.
He was created Baron Cheshire in 1991
in recognition of his charitable work.
During his university years, Cheshire learned basic piloting skills with the Oxford University Air Squadron, receiving a commission as a pilot officer in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve on 16 November 1937. Following the outbreak of war, Cheshire joined the RAF on 7 October 1939 with a permanent commission. He was sent for training at RAF Hullavington (now Hullavington Airfield).
Promoted to flying officer on 7 April 1940, he was posted that June to 102 Squadron, flying Armstrong Whitworth Whitley medium bombers, from RAF Driffield. In November 1940, Cheshire was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for flying his badly damaged bomber back to base.
In January 1941, Cheshire completed his tour of operations, but then volunteered immediately for a second tour.
He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) in March 1941 and was promoted to the war substantive rank of flight lieutenant on 7 April. He was posted to No. 35 Squadron with the brand new Handley Page Halifax and completed his second tour early in 1942, by then a temporary squadron leader.
Cheshire was promoted to the substantive rank of squadron leader on 1 March. August 1942 saw a return to operations as an acting wing commander and commanding officer of No. 76 Squadron RAF. The squadron had recently suffered high losses operating the Halifax, and Cheshire immediately tackled the low morale of the unit by ordering an improvement in the performance of the squadron aircraft by removing the mid-upper and nose gun turrets along with exhaust covers and other weighty non-essential equipment. This allowed the bombers to fly higher and faster.
Losses soon fell and morale rose accordingly.
Cheshire was amongst the first to note there was very low return rate of Halifax bombers on three engines; furthermore, there were reports the Halifax was unstable in a "corkscrew" which was the manoeuvre used by bomber pilots to escape night fighters. The test pilot Captain Eric Brown, flying uncrewed except for an accompanying flight engineer, undertook risky tests to establish the cause and were told a representative of Bomber Command would fly with them. Brown remembers "We couldn't believe it, it was Cheshire! We were astonished to say the least. I asked him not to touch (the controls) and to his ever lasting credit he never commented at all, he just sat in the second pilot's seat and raised his eye brows at what we were doing!"
The fault was in the Halifax's rudder design and Cheshire became enraged when Handley Page at first declined to make modifications so as not to disrupt production.
During his time as the commanding officer of No. 76 Squadron at RAF Linton-on-Ouse, Cheshire
took the trouble to learn the name of, and recognize every single man on the base.
He was determined to increase the efficiency of his squadron and improve the chances of survival of its crews, to this end he constantly lectured crews on the skills needed to achieve those aims. The crews knew he was devoted to their interests and when, on an operation to Nuremberg, they were told to cross the French coast at 2,000 ft (the most dangerous height for light flak) Cheshire simply refused, stating they would fly at 200 ft or 20,000 ft. Typically, Cheshire inspired such loyalty and respect that the ground crews of 76 Squadron were proud to chorus "We are Cheshire cats!".
In 1943, Cheshire published an account of his first tour of operations in his book, Bomber Pilot which tells of his posting to RAF Driffield and the story of flying his badly damaged bomber ("N for Nuts") back to base. In the book, Cheshire fails to mention being awarded the DSO for this, but does describe the bravery of a badly burnt member of his crew.
In March 1943, by now an acting group captain, Cheshire became station commander of RAF Marston Moor as the youngest group captain in the RAF, although the job was never to his liking, and he pushed for a return to an operational command. In April, he was awarded a bar to his DSO. His efforts paid off with a posting as Commander of the legendary 617 "Dambusters" Squadron in September.
While with 617, Cheshire helped pioneer a new method of marking enemy targets for Bomber Command's 5 Group, flying in at a very low level in the face of strong defences, using first, the versatile de Havilland Mosquito, then a North American Mustang fighter.
On the morning before a planned raid by 617 Squadron to Siracourt, a crated Mustang turned up at Woodhall Spa,
a gift for Cheshire from his admirers in the US 8th Air Force.
Cheshire had the aircraft assembled and the engine tested as he was determined to test the possibilities of the fighter as a marker aircraft. He took off, in what was his first flight in the aircraft, and caught up with 617's Lancasters before they reached the target. Cheshire then proceeded to accurately mark the target (a V-1 storage depot) for the heavies which landed three Tallboys on it. He then flew back and landed the Mustang in the dark.
This development work in target marking was the subject of some severe intra-service politics; Cheshire was encouraged by his 5 Group Commander Air Vice-Marshal Ralph Cochrane, although the 8 Group Pathfinder AOC Air Vice-Marshal Don Bennett saw this work as impinging on the responsibilities of his own command.
Cheshire was nearing the end of his fourth tour of duty in July 1944, having completed a total of 102 missions, when he was awarded the Victoria Cross. His citation remarked on the entirety of his operation career, noting:
In four years of fighting against the bitterest opposition he maintained a standard of outstanding personal achievement, his successful operations being the result of careful planning, brilliant execution and supreme contempt for danger – for example, on one occasion he flew his Mustang in slow 'figures of eight' above a target obscured by low cloud, to act as a bomb-aiming mark for his squadron. Cheshire displayed the courage and determination of an exceptional leader.
It also gave special mention to a raid against Munich on 24/25 April 1944, in which he had marked a target while flying a Mosquito at low level against "withering fire".
When Cheshire went to Buckingham Palace to receive his VC from King George VI, he was accompanied by Norman Jackson who was also due to receive his award on that day. Cheshire insisted that despite the difference in rank (group captain and warrant officer), they should approach the King together. Jackson remembers that Cheshire said to the King,
"This chap stuck his neck out more than I did – he should get his VC first!"
The King had to keep to protocol, but Jackson commented he would "never forget what Cheshire said.
One of Cheshire's missions was to use new 5,400 kilograms (12,000 lb) "Tallboy" deep-penetration bombs to destroy V3 long-range cannons located in underground bunkers near Mimoyecques in the Pas-de-Calais region of Northern France. These were powerful guns able to fire a 500 lb shell into London every minute. They were protected by a concrete layer. The raid was planned so the bombs hit the ground next to the concrete to destroy the guns from underneath. Although considered successful at the time, later evaluations confirmed that the raids were largely ineffectual.
Cheshire was, in his day, both the youngest group captain in the service and, following his VC, the most decorated. In his book, Bomber Command (2010), Sir Max Hastings states
"Cheshire was a legend in Bomber Command, a remarkable man with an almost mystical air about him, as if he somehow inhabited a different planet from those about him, but without affectation or pretension".
Cheshire would always fly on the most dangerous operations, he never took the easy option of just flying on the less risky ops to France, a habit which caused some commanding officers to be referred to derisively as "François" by their men. Cheshire had no crew but would fly as "second dickey", with the new and nervous to give them confidence.
Cheshire had strong feelings on any crew refusing to fly (commonly called Lack of Moral Fibre in the RAF) when subject to the combat stress of Bomber Command's sorties (many of which had loss rates of 50% or more). Even as a brilliant and sympathetic leader, he wrote "I was ruthless with LMF, I had to be. We were airmen not psychiatrists. Of course we had concern for any individual whose internal tensions meant that he could no longer go on but there was a worry that one really frightened man could affect others around him.
There was no time to be as compassionate as I would like to have been."
Thus Cheshire transferred LMF cases out of his squadron almost instantaneously (as every other RAF squadron did at the time). This was also because he argued that a man who thought he was doomed would collapse or bail out when his aircraft was hit, whereas Cheshire thought if he could survive the initial shock of finding his aircraft damaged, he had more of a chance of survival.
On his 103rd mission, Cheshire and William Penney were official British observers of the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki.
His vantage point was in the support B-29 Big Stink. He did not witness the event as close up as anticipated due to aircraft commander James Hopkins' failure to link up with the other B-29s. Hopkins was meant to join with the others over Yakushima, but he circled at 39,000 ft instead of the agreed height of 30,000 ft. He tried to justify this by the need to keep the VIP passengers out of danger, but Cheshire thought that Hopkins was "overwrought".
"Many assumed that it was Nagasaki which emptied him; as Cheshire kept pointing out, however, it was the war as a whole. Like Britain herself, he had been fighting or training for fighting since 1939."
He was earlier quoted as saying: "...
then I for one hold little brief for the future of civilisation".
Following the end of the war, Cheshire retired from the RAF on medical grounds on 22 January 1946, retaining his final rank of group captain. Cheshire had been brought up a Christian in the Church of England, but had lapsed.
In 1945, in the Vanity Fair club in Mayfair, he joined a conversation about religion.
"It was absurd," he said, "to imagine that God existed, except as a convenient figure of speech. Man had invented God to explain the voice of conscience, but it was doubtful whether right or wrong existed outside the human mind. They were words affixed like labels to customs and laws which man had also invented to keep social order."
To Cheshire's surprise, as he sat back, "pleased with his worldly wisdom," he was roundly rebuked for "talking such rot" by a woman friend who "was one of the last persons on earth he would have credited with" religious convictions.
After the war, Joan Botting (widow of Dambusters pilot Norman Botting) lived with Cheshire at the "VIP (for Vade in Pacem – Go in Peace) Colony" he established for veterans and war widows at Gumley Hall, Leicestershire – one of several new ventures he started after leaving the RAF in 1946. Joan followed him to Le Court, near Petersfield, Hampshire (a mansion which Cheshire had bought from his aunt) where, with three children of her own, Joan took charge of the nursery (Joan is not mentioned by name in The Face of Victory).
Cheshire and Joan Botting subsequently investigated many religions, from Seventh-day Adventist to Methodist to "High Anglo-Catholic" –
but none of them provided the answers they were looking for.
Cheshire's aim in establishing the VIP Colony was to provide an opportunity for ex-servicemen and women and their families to live together, each contributing to the community what they could, to help their transition back into civilian life.
He hoped that training, prosperity and fulfilment would result from united effort and mutual support. He saw the community as one way of continuing to work towards world peace. The community, however, did not prosper and the project came to an end in 1947.
At the beginning of 1948, Cheshire heard about the case of Arthur Dykes, who had been one of Cheshire's original "VIP" community at Le Court, and was suffering from cancer. Dykes asked Cheshire to give him some land to park a caravan until he recovered, but Cheshire discovered that Dykes was terminally ill and that this diagnosis was concealed from him.
He told Dykes the real position and invited him to stay at Le Court. Cheshire learned nursing skills and was soon approached to take in a second patient, the 94-year-old bedridden wife of a man who had just been taken off to hospital after suffering a stroke.
She was followed by others, some coming to stay and others to help. Although Le Court had no financial support, and his situation was financially perilous most of the time, money somehow always seemed to arrive in the nick of time to stave off disaster. Dykes died in August 1948.
After completing the arrangements for his funeral, Cheshire idly picked up a book a friend had sent him. It was One Lord, One Faith by Vernon Johnson, a former High Anglican clergyman who, against every cherished instinct and prejudice, had converted to Roman Catholicism because, as he put it,
"I could not resist the claim of the Catholic Church to be the one true Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ to guard and teach the truth ... She alone possesses the authority and unity necessary for such a Divine vocation."
In the meantime, Joan Botting had converted to Jehovah's Witnesses.
On Christmas Eve, 1948, Cheshire was received into the Catholic Church.
In 1948, Cheshire founded the charity now named Leonard Cheshire Disability, which provides support to disabled people throughout the world. At the beginning of 1949, eight patients were staying at Le Court. Six months later, there were 28. Cheshire dedicated the rest of his life to supporting disabled people, combining this with lecturing on conflict resolution.
Other organisations set up by Leonard Cheshire are:
• The Ryder-Cheshire Foundation, set up by Leonard Cheshire and his wife Sue Ryder at the time of their marriage in 1959. It now mainly operates in two fields: the rehabilitation of disabled people, through ENRYCH and the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis, through Target Tuberculosis.
In 1953, Cheshire founded the Raphael Pilgrimage
to enable sick and disabled people to travel to Lourdes.
In 1990, Cheshire founded the UK charity the Memorial Fund for Disaster Relief. Cheshire is acknowledged on the album The Wall – Live in Berlin by former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters. The concert launched and benefited the charity.
Cheshire opened this concert by blowing a Second World War whistle.
Cheshire was also concerned about future remembrance and was influential in the concept of the National Memorial Arboretum, founded by David Childs.
The amphitheatre at the Arboretum is dedicated to the memory of Leonard Cheshire.
• Cheshire was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1960 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in central London.
• On 17 July 1991, Cheshire was created a life peer as Baron Cheshire of Woodhall in the County of Lincolnshire, sitting as a cross-bencher.
• Queen Elizabeth II paid personal tribute to him in her Royal Christmas Message in December 1992.
• In the 2002 BBC poll to find the 100 Greatest Britons, Cheshire attained position number 31. His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Imperial War Museum, London.
• A house at Xavier College, a leading private school in Melbourne, Australia, is named after Cheshire. St Ignatius College, a private school in Sydney, Australia, also has a house named after Cheshire.
It was announced in 2017 that the Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia will promote Leonard Cheshire's cause for canonisation as a saint.
What else can I say. I am far more humbled today than usual. He was a Great Man. His valour was not simply as a warrior, but Spiritual.
He will make a Great Saint.
The customers joined me in raising our glasses to him, as I hope you will.
Pax.
Fortuitously, I had some leftover English ale from the barley loaf I baked this afternoon, so I've been able to join you in raising a glass to this fine man. May he and his wife intercede for us!
ReplyDeleteThank you Mishka. An English Ale is a good think to keep in your cupboard to toast fine Saintly people. God Bless.
DeleteDoes he need to be venerated first or can he go straight to sainthood?
ReplyDeleteThe procedure is long and involved and has several stages. It will take a while as 'evidence' is gathered and the Devil's Advocate is called in to rubbish it all. Then it has to go to a vote from the guys in the Tavern.
Delete