Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The highly important Great War ‘Airships’ A.F.C. group of ten awarded to Air Chief Marshal The Honourable Sir Ralph ‘Cocky’ Cochrane, [G.B.E., K.C.B.] Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force. A pilot who had worked with Barnes Wallis during the Great War, flying his experimental airships and testing the world’s first airship mooring mast, which Wallis had designed.

Cochrane’s ability was recognised early in his career, and after some sound advice from ‘Boom’ Trenchard - “Young man, you’re wasting your time. Go and learn to fly an aeroplane’, he joined the Royal Air Force. A rising star, Cochrane was seconded to the New Zealand Government to advise on air defence, shortly after which became the first Chief of Air Staff of the Royal New Zealand Air Force in April 1937. With the outbreak of the Second War, a string of important appointments followed - AOC No. 3 (Bomber) Group, September 1942 - February 1943, and AOC No. 5 (Bomber) Group, February 1943 - February 1945. Under the aegis of the latter Cochrane was to preside over, and plan, some of the most important air operations of the war.

Just two days after being installed as AOC No. 5 Group, Cochrane was tasked by ‘Bomber’ Harris with the planning of Operation Chastise - the Dams Raid. Cochrane ‘had perhaps the most incisive brain in the RAF... His god was efficiency and he sought it so uncompromisingly.’ What was to follow was the recruitment of Guy Gibson, the painstaking formation of ‘X’ or 617 Squadron, and the legendary raid itself.

After the success of the Dams Raid, Cochrane went on to play a pivotal role in the development of 617 Squadron as a specialist precision bombing squadron. A brilliant and meticulous planner of raids, he oversaw the transition of leadership of the Squadron from Gibson to Leonard Cheshire whilst all the time identifying new possible targets for attack. For the remainder of the war Cochrane worked closely with both Barnes Wallis and Cheshire (and subsequently Willie Tait), helping to develop special target marking techniques, and incorporating the huge ground penetrating bombs - ‘Tallboy’ and ‘Grand Slam’ into 617 Squadron’s precision bombing role.

Leonard Cheshire, V.C. later paid tribute to him thus: ‘In tracing the evolution of our low-level bombing technique don’t underestimate the contribution of Cochrane. He is the only senior officer with a really clear, unbiased brain that I have met. He followed our course with great attention to detail, was remarkably quick to grasp the fundamentals and was seldom hoodwinked. If I ever asked for anything and he refused, he always gave me clearly his reasons.

If we ever needed anything we usually got it immediately. I used to think that if I asked him for an elephant I’d get it by return of post....

It was much the same with everything else, and we should have been lost without someone as strong and critical as Cochrane behind us. He is, of course, a strict disciplinarian, ruthless in dealing with inefficiency, and there is no doubt that he was the key figure behind all that 617 achieved.’

Cochrane struck up a similar relationship with Willie Tait, and together they masterminded the eventual sinking of the German battleship Tirpitz in 1944

Air Force Cross, G.V.R.; 1914-15 Star (Sub. Lt. R. A. Cochrane. R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Flt. Cr. R. A. Cochrane. R.N.A.S.); General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Kurdistan (F/L. Hon. R. A. R. A. Cochrane. R.A.F.); 1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Coronation 1937, mounted for display, generally nearly very fine or better (10) £6,000-£8,000

G.B.E. London Gazette 8 June 1950.

K.B.E. London Gazette 1 January 1945.

C.B.E. London Gazette 2 January 1939.

K.C.B. London Gazette 10 June 1948.

C.B. London Gazette 1 January 1943.

A.F.C. London Gazette 1 January 1919.

The Honourable Sir Ralph Alexander Cochrane was born in Springfield, Fife, in February 1895, and was the youngest son of Thomas Cochrane, 1st Baron of Cults. Cochrane was educated at Osborne and Dartmouth before being commissioned Midshipman in the Royal Navy, 15 September 1912. He advanced to Flight Sub-Lieutenant and transferred to the newly formed Airship branch in 1915. Having carried out the relevant training, Cochrane served as an Airship Pilot at Folkestone, Kingsnorth and Pulham during the Great War.

Cochrane advanced to Flight Commander in June 1917, and transferred as Temporary Captain in the Royal Air Force in April 1918. He served as Acting Major, before receiving a permanent commission in the rank of Flight Lieutenant in September 1919. Cochrane stayed on Airships until 1921, when he met Trenchard, with the latter advising him:

“Young man, you’re wasting your time. Go and learn to fly an aeroplane.”

Cochrane served in Egypt and Iraq, 1920-23, and was employed as a Flight Commander with 45 Squadron (Vimys and Vernons) in Helwan, Iraq, from January 1922. He was appointed to serve as Officer Commanding 3 Squadron, Boy’s Wing, R.A.F. Cranwell in January 1924 (M.I.D. and advanced to Squadron Leader in July the following year). Cochrane attended R.A.F. Staff College, and was appointed Staff Officer at HQ No. 7 Group in 1926. He served on the Air Staff, HQ Aden Command, 1928-29, before being appointed to the command of 8 Squadron in February 1929. The latter were employed on patrol duties in Aden, and Cochrane remained with them until the end of the year when he returned to the UK.

Over the next four years, Cochrane advanced to Wing Commander and was employed on the Directing Staff at Andover, the Air Ministry, and attended the Imperial Defence College. He was seconded to the New Zealand Government to advise on air defence and became the first Chief of Air Staff of the Royal New Zealand Air Force in April 1937. Having advanced to Group Captain, Cochrane served as ADC to the King, September 1939 - December 1940. He was appointed Temporary Air Commodore, and served as AOC No. 7 (Bomber) Group, Operational Training Units from July 1940. Cochrane was appointed Director of Flying Training in October of the same year, and advanced to Temporary Air Vice-Marshal in December 1941 (M.I.D.).

Cochrane served as AOC No. 3 (Bomber) Group from September 1942, and as AOC No. 5 (Bomber) Group from February 1943. Cochrane had built up a reputation as a perfectionist and was a keen advocate of precision bombing. One of his first tasks in his new role with No. 5 Group was the planning and execution of Operation Chastise - the Dams Raid.

Operation Chastise - the Dams Raid

Despite being initially unpopular with R.A.F. command, the concept of the raid was accepted after the success of the first trials held at Chesil Beach in January 1943. The work of Barnes Wallis was viewed on film by Air Chief Marshal Charles Portal, and orders for Sir Arthur Harris to provide 30 Lancasters from his command were given. The mission date was set for May:

‘At his headquarters in the wood Sir Arthur Harris (’Bert’ to his friends and ‘Bomber’ to the public) had been pondering how the attack should be made - and who should make it. On 15 March he sent for Air Vice-Marshal the Honourable Ralph Cochrane, who two days before had become Air Officer Commanding No. 5 (Bomber) Group.

‘I’ve got a job for you, Cocky,’ Harris said and told him about Wallis’s weird bomb and what he proposed to do with it. At the end he said: ‘I know it sounds far-fetched, but I think it has a good chance.’

Cochrane said: ‘Well, sir, I’ve known Wallis for twenty-five years. He’s a wonderful engineer and I’ve never known him not to produce what he says he will.’

‘I hope he does it again now,’ Harris said. ‘You know how he works. I want you to organise the raid. Ask for anything you want, as long as it’s reasonable.’

Cochrane thought for a moment.

‘It’s going to need some good aircrews,’ he said. ‘I think I’d better screen one of my squadrons right away and start them on intensive training.’

‘I don’t want to do that,’ Harris said. ‘I don’t want to take a single squadron out of the line if I can help it, or interfere with any of the main force. What I have in mind is a new squadron, say, of experienced people who’re just finishing a tour. Some of the keen chaps won’t mind doing another trip. Can you find enough in your group?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Cochrane asked Harris if he wanted anyone in particular to command the new squadron, and Harris said: ‘Yes, Gibson.’

Cochrane nodded in satisfaction, and ten minutes later, deep in thought, he was driving back to the old Victorian mansion outside Grantham that was 5 Group Headquarters. There probably could have been no better choice than Cochrane for planning the raid. A spare man with a lean face, his manner was crisp and decisive, perfectly reflecting his mind. The third son of a noble Scottish family, he was climbing to the top on his own ability; he had perhaps the most incisive brain in the RAF - and that is no diplomatic exaggeration. His god was efficiency and he sought it so uncompromisingly - almost ruthlessly according to some of his men, who were afraid of him, but his aircrews would do anything he asked, knowing that it would be meticulously planned.

Moreover, Cochrane knew Wallis well; had worked with him in the Royal Naval Air Service in World War I, flying his experimental airships and testing the world’s first airship mooring mast, which Wallis had designed. Ever since then Cochrane had had a quick sympathy for the scientific approach. (The Dam Busters, P. Brickhill refers)

‘Recruiting’ Guy Gibson

Guy Gibson records his first meeting with Cochrane in Enemy Coast Ahead (shortly after completing his 173rd sortie and his ‘rush’ posting to No. 5 Group - he had been expecting a rest!):

‘Next day I went to Grantham. Now Group Headquarters in particular, or any headquarters in general, are funny places. There is an air of quiet, cold efficiency about the whole place. Waafs keep running in an out with cups of tea. Tired men walk through the corridors with red files under their arms. The yellow lights over the AOC and SASO’s doors are almost always on, showing that they are engaged. Great decisions are being taken the whole time. There is not much time off and I found it quite difficult to settle down.

I had been there one or two days... when the AOC sent for me... the new Air Vice-Marshal was the Honourable Ralph Cochrane, a man with a lot of brain and organising ability. In one breath he congratulated me on my bar to the D.S.O., in the next he suddenly said: “How would you like the idea of doing one more trip?”

I gulped. More flak, more fighters; but said aloud:

“What kind of trip, sir?”

“A pretty important one, perhaps one of the most devastating of all time. I can’t tell you any more now. Do you want to do it?”

I said I thought I did, trying to remember where I had left my flying kit. He seemed to be in such a hurry that I got the idea it was a case of take-off tonight.

But two days went by and nothing happened. On the third he sent for me again. In his office was another man, one of the youngest Base commanders in the Group, Air Commodore Charles Whitworth. The Air Vice-Marshal was very amiable. He told me to sit down, offered me a Chesterfield and began to talk.

“I asked the other day if you would care to do another raid. You said you would, but I have to warn you that this is no ordinary sortie. In fact it can’t be done for at least two months.”

(I thought, hell, it’s the Tirpitz. What on earth did I say “Yes” for?)

“Moreover,” he went on, “the training for the raid is of such importance that the Commander-in-Chief has decided that a special squadron is to be formed for the job. I want you to form that squadron. As you know, I believe in efficiency, so I want you to do it well. I think you had better use Whitworth’s main base at Scampton. As far as air crews are concerned, I want the best - you can choose them. W/C Smith, the SOA, will help you pick ground crews. Each squadron will be forced to cough up men to build your unit up to strength.

“Now there’s a lot of urgency in this, because you haven’t got long to train. Training will be the important thing, so get going right away. Remember you are working to a strict timetable and I want to see your aircraft flying in four days’ time. Now you go upstairs to hand in the names of your crews to Cartwright; he will give you all the help you want.”

“But what sort of training, sir? And the target? I can’t do a thing -”

“I am afraid I can’t tell you any more just for the moment. All you have to do is to pick your crews, get them ready to fly, then I will come and see you and tell you more.”

“How about aircraft and equipment?”

“S/L. May, the Group Equipment Officer, will do all that. All right, Gibson.”

He bent down to his work abruptly. This was the signal for me to go. There was a big raid to be organised that night. As I was closing the door, he looked up again. “Let me know when you are ready, and remember, not a word to anyone, this is just an ordinary new squadron. Secrecy is vital.”

As we closed the door, “See you at Scampton,” said Charles. “If you come over in a couple of days I’ll get everything fixed up for you. How many chaps are you going to bring?”

“About seven hundred.”

I was left standing feeling very bewildered. Charles went back to Scampton and I went upstairs to see various men who, though unknown to the general public, are the very life-blood of the Royal Air Force. These men, most of them too old to fly themselves, deal in such things as equipment, bodies, erks, aircrews.’

The fruits and labour of above were to produce Gibson’s ‘X’ Squadron (later 617 Squadron). Cochrane kept Gibson and his men guessing throughout training as to what their eventual target would be. Instructing them to fly at low level, photograph lakes in England and Wales, with Cochrane eventually informing Gibson of the target:

‘Just now I want you to have a look at models of your targets.’ He waved a hand at three packing cases in a corner of his office and Gibson eyed them curiously. ‘You can’t train your men properly unless you know what they are, so I am letting you know now, but you’ll be the only man in the squadron to know. Keep it that way.....’

Gibson gently prised the lids loose and lifted the battens. He stood looking down at the models, and his first reaction was a feeling of tremendous relief. Thank God, it wasn’t the Tirpitz! It took him a couple of seconds after that to realise they were dams. One was the Moehne, and the other two the Eder and the Sorpe, handsome models that showed not only the dams but the countryside in detail for miles around, as though photographs had taken on a third dimension. There were the flat surfaces of the lakes, the hills, winding rivers and the mosaic of fields and hedges. And in the middle the dams. Gibson stood looking for a long time and then Cochrane laid the lids back over them.

“Now you’ve seen what you’ve got to attack,’ he said. ‘Go and see Wallis again and come and see me when you get back.’ (The Dam Busters, P. Brickhill refers)

Waiting with Wallis

Cochrane meticulously continued to plan, maintain secrecy, and problem solve throughout the training process for the raid. On the night of 16 May 1943, he gathered with Harris and Wallis at Grantham to listen to the plan being executed by Gibson and his Squadron:

‘In the ops. room of 5 Group HQ at Grantham, Cochrane was walking with Barnes Wallis up and down, trying to comfort him. Wallis was like an expectant father, fidgety and jittery, and Cochrane was talking of anything but the bomb, trying to get Wallis’s mind off it, but Wallis could think of nothing else.

‘Just think what a wonderful job you made of the Wellington,’ Cochrane said encouragingly. ‘It’s a magnificent machine; been our mainstay for over three years.’

‘Oh dear, no,’ lamented the disconcerting scientist. ‘Do you know, every time I pass one I wonder how I could have designed anything so crude.’

A black Bentley rushed up the gravelled drive outside, pulled up by the door and the sentries snapped rigidly to attention as Harris himself jumped briskly out. He came into the ops. room. ‘How’s it going, Cocky?’

‘All right so far, sir,’ Cochrane said. ‘Nothing to report yet.’ They walked up and down the long room between the wall where the aircraft blackboards were and the long desks that ran down the other side, where men were sitting. Satterly was there, ‘The Gremlin’, the intelligence man and Dunn, chief signals officer, sitting by a telephone plugged in to the radio in the signals cabin outside. He would get all the Morse from the aircraft there; it was too far for low-flying planes to get through by ordinary speech.

Harris and Cochrane talked quietly, and Wallis was walking miserably with them but not talking, breaking away every now and then to look at the big operations map on the end wall. The track lines had been pencilled in and he was counting off the miles they should be travelling. It was 10.35 when Cochrane looked at his watch and said, ‘They ought to be coming up to the Dutch coast now......’

At Grantham a long silence had followed the flak warning at Huls, and then Dunn’s phone rang sharply, and in the dead silence they all heard the Morse crackling in the receiver. It was quite slow and Cochrane, bending near, could read it. ‘Goner,’ he said. ‘From G George.’ ‘Goner’ was the code word that meant Gibson had exploded his bomb in the right place.

‘I’d hoped one bomb might do it,’ Wallis said gloomily.

‘It’s probably weakened it,’ Cochrane soothed him. Harris looked noncommittal. There was no more from ‘G George’, and they went on walking. A long silence. Nothing came through when Hopgood crashed. The phone rang, ‘Goner’ from ‘P Popsie’. Another dragging silence. ‘Goner’ from ‘A Apple’. Wallis swears even today that there was half an hour between each signal, but the log shows only about five minutes. ‘Goner’ from ‘J Johnny’. That was Maltby, and the aura of gloom settled deeper over Wallis.

A minute later the phone rang again and the Morse crackled so fast the others could not read it. Dunn printed it letter by letter on a signals pad and let out a cry, ‘Nigger. It’s Nigger. It’s gone.’

Wallis threw his arms over his head and went dancing round the room. The austere face of Cochrane cracked into a grin, he grabbed one of Wallis’s hands and started congratulating him. Harris, with the first grin on his face that Wallis had ever seen, grabbed the other hand and said:

‘Wallis, I didn’t believe a word you said about this damn bomb, but you could sell me a pink elephant now.’ (Ibid)

Choosing Leonard Cheshire

After the success of the Dams Raid, Cochrane went on to play his part in the development of 617 Squadron as a specialist precision bombing squadron. A brilliant and meticulous planner of raids, he oversaw the transition of leadership of the Squadron from Gibson to Leonard Cheshire whilst all the time identifying new possible targets for attack. For the remainder of the war Cochrane worked closely with both Barnes Wallis and Cheshire (and subsequently Willie Tait), helping to develop special target marking techniques, and incorporating the huge ground penetrating bombs - ‘Tallboy’ and ‘Grand Slam’ into 617 Squadron’s precision bombing role.

Having personally chosen Cheshire to lead 617 Squadron:

‘A bond was developing between the two men. Cochrane did not have an easy personality and few of the hundreds who were daunted by him ever realised that underneath the crisp almost ruthless front he was shy, with rigid control over his emotions. His precise brain dwelt on operational efficiency. He watched his men from close quarters and visited them constantly. He never, for instance, missed attending a squadron dance, so that he could know them and gauge their temper (and so that they could gauge him). Yet the reserve that covered his shyness made him wary of the embarrassments of easy-going familiarity that might lessen his unswerving concentration. Cheshire was brilliant in a more erratic way, and Cochrane’s relentless logic was a brake on this occasional waywardness. They were an ideal combination. Cheshire was a natural tactician in personal relationships, gentle and unobtrusive but with a quiet confidence and the charm that comes from treating everyone, high or low, as a real person and not as a Thing.’ (Ibid)

After being intrinsically involved with Cheshire and all of his 617 Squadron led raids, Cochrane recommended the former for the award of his Victoria Cross. He also decided to replace Cheshire with Willie Tait, after Cheshire had completed 100 operational sorties. Cheshire later reflected:

‘In tracing the evolution of our low-level bombing technique don’t underestimate the contribution of Cochrane. He is the only senior officer with a really clear, unbiased brain that I have met. He followed our course with great attention to detail, was remarkably quick to grasp the fundamentals and was seldom hoodwinked. If I ever asked for anything and he refused, he always gave me clearly his reasons.

If we ever needed anything we usually got it immediately. I used to think that if I asked him for an elephant I’d get it by return of post. As a matter of fact I once did ask him for an elephant because the tractors kept getting bogged in the mud, but the mud dried up and he said we didn’t need the elephant then.

One day I asked him for two Lancasters fitted with nitrogen tanks (a guard against fire) for the leading high-level crews. He hadn’t a hope on earth of getting them officially because they were all booked up months in advance by the Pathfinders, who, though they didn’t need them as badly as we did, had the highest priority of all. Cochrane merely called up the makers, asked them to let us have the first two that came off the line without letting anyone know, and we got them three days later.

It was much the same with everything else, and we should have been lost without someone as strong and critical as Cochrane behind us. He is, of course, a strict disciplinarian, ruthless in dealing with inefficiency, and there is no doubt that he was the key figure behind all that 617 achieved.’

Willie Tait and the Tirpitz

Cochrane masterminded the three raids which eventually sunk the German battleship Tirpitz in November 1944:

‘It might be said that the fate of the battleship was finally sealed in the bath of Air Vice-Marshal the Honourable Ralph Cochrance. In his waking moments work was rarely absent from his mind; he had been thinking of the Tirpitz for a long time, and it was in his bath one morning that he finally made up his mind to get permission for 617 to sink her. He climbed out, dried, dressed and flew down to see Harris, and Harris said yes.’ (The Dam Busters, P. Brickhill refers)

What followed were three carefully adjusted attempts to sink the German ship, through Russia and Scotland. Success was finally achieved by Cochrane and Tait, 12 November 1944. The sinking of the Tirpitz was to be Tait’s last major success with the Squadron, and once again Cochrane was tasked with finding a replacement. This time he chose a Canadian - Johnnie Fauquier.

Cochrane oversaw the initial use of Barnes Wallis’s monster ‘Grand Slam’ bombs, before finally being appointed the AOC in Chief of Transport Command in February 1945. He subsequently served as AOC in Chief of Flying Training Command, 1947-1950, and as Air ADC to the King, 1949-1952, and in the same capacity to the Queen from her coronation. Cochrane advanced to Air Chief Marshal in March 1949, and was appointed Vice Chief of the Air Staff in March 1950.

Air Chief Marshal Cochrane retired in 1952, and was subsequently employed as the Managing Director of both the Atlantic Shipbuilding Company and of Rolls Royce Ltd. He resided at Grove Farmhouse, Shipton-under-Wychwood, Oxford, and died in December 1977.

A post-war photograph shows recipient wearing Defence and War Medal ribands only, as such Second War Stars unconfirmed.