The following article was far to good an opportunity to miss for inclusion in the Flying Machines series, especially as we covered the Skymaster in Issue 9. We do have a little bit of feedback on the Valetta, Memory Banks 1 and the Anson Mk X is listed as being on the books briefly in August 1944. It will be the turn of the DC3 in the next issue, so without further ado, it’s the C-54.

Inside Churchill’s flying palace

The plane came from America an empty shell, was built into the most luxurious aircraft in the world and ended on a scrap heap

[This article was published in John Bull, 28th April 1951, as the last of four in which “NORMAN PHILLIPS concludes his series on the passengers and pilots of V.I.P. SQUADRON”]

THE IDEA that Very Important Personages (or V.I.P.s) should have their own personal aircraft probably originated with the late President Roosevelt. The President adopted for his own use a four-engined C-54 transport, a Skymaster, which he aptly named The Sacred Cow.

The Sacred Cow remained the biggest thing in personal planes until Winston Churchill obtained a C-54 himself. Some say Roosevelt presented the Prime Minister with this aircraft; others claim it was wangled on the highest level “old boy” network. Whatever its origins, the transaction became part of Lend-Lease, and British aircraft furnishers transformed the American-built machine into the most luxurious aircraft the world has seen. It was named after an Athenian galley that was kept in a continuous state of readiness for the exclusive use of Greek statesmen who wished to row over to Egypt to consult the oracle at the oasis of Ammon.

The aircraft was also kept in a continual state of readiness by the R.A.F. 24 Squadron, a unit which specialised in the transport of V.I.P.s. The official name for the plane was never used ? partly for security reasons and partly because the crew found it simpler to refer to it as the “Old Man’s Skymaster.”

“Make It Look British” It arrived in Britain in the summer of 1944 as an empty shell. Its transformation into what was later described as a “flying palace worth more than a king’s ransom” was the work of 24 Squadron, the Ministry of Aircraft Production, the General Electric Company, the L. A. Rumbold aircraft furnishing firm and Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Company.

An American columnist, whose eyes popped when he first saw the interior of the Churchill Skymaster, declared the interior was “decorated like the drawing-room of an English castle with walls finished in dark-brown panelling.” The tribute indicates that the designers had been able to achieve the Churchillian directive to “make it look British.”

Churchill had one other specific request, and that was for a second berth in his stateroom in case his wife should accompany him on any of his flights. The berth was fitted over the Prime Minister’s desk and built to conform with the bedroom’s colour scheme of pale beige and grey Wilton carpet, leather upholstery, and leather wall covering. The woodwork was sycamore. The curtains and bedspreads were in turquoise. Beds were furnished with sheets costing twenty-four guineas a pair. The room had a private oxygen tank and the sound-proofing was so effective that the Prime Minister complained that the ticking of the bedside clock kept him awake. The clock, an exceptionally quiet model, had to be sent back to the factory and further insulated so as not to disturb Churchill’s slumbers. The stateroom was big enough to accommodate two swivelling and sliding chairs, bookshelves and a built-in wardrobe with a full-length mirror.

What the columnist considered the drawing-room of an English castle was, in fact, the conference room. The colour scheme there was walnut woodwork, nigger brown curtains and a light beige roof. The eight chairs were upholstered in blue leather and could slide back and forward or revolve. The table itself was cunningly constructed of walnut veneer so as to look like solid and handsomely carved wood. It was eleven feet long, three feet wide and appeared to have solid, five-inch thick legs. Actually, it was lighter than if it had been made from the plastics and light tubing which are usually used in aircraft furnishing.

Nightcap For The Guests - The conference room was also used for dinner parties and there was a serving hatch connecting it to the galley. The kitchen was the preserve of Jock Duncan, an Edinburgh chef, who had at his disposal an electric stove, an electric griller, numerous hot plates, a huge refrigerator and a cocktail cabinet in case the guests should wish for a cocktail, which, according to Duncan, was not unusual. The plane’s wine stocks even ran to iced champagne, as well as the more usual drinks. As flights usually started after dark, a nightcap was always provided before the guests retired.

In the galley was a signal control panel for the guests to summon the stewards; a two-compartment hot cupboard; a lightweight kettle for the specific purpose of heating the soup Churchill frequently requested in the middle of the night; and a two-gallon lightweight urn for heating the dishwater. The urn, like the stove, refrigerator and numerous other refinements known to the trade as “electrical comfortisation,” were designed by G.E.C. specially for the Churchill Skymaster.

G.E.C.’s masterpiece was found in Churchill’s washroom. This compartment was fitted with a half-gallon water heater for washing and a lavatory which was the first in the world to have an electrically heated seat installed. This was added immediately following the Yalta conference. After returning from this meeting, which took place in the Crimea during the mid-winter of 1945, Flight Lieutenant “Jack” Payne, the Skymaster’s engineer officer, called the General Electric Company and asked cryptically whether they could provide a “hotseat for the Old Man.” G.E.C. could. The firm’s designers inserted a sheathed wire element, using fifty watts at twenty-four volts, into the lavatory lid. When the lid was down, a plunger switch was turned on and the seat kept warm. When the lid was opened, the current was switched off automatically.

There were three other washrooms aboard, one for the crew and two, fitted with electric razors, for passengers. Inspection of these washrooms was one of the duties that fell to Payne, a thin, wiry man of medium height with sharp features and inclined to be dapper. Payne is responsible for the story of the admiral’s false teeth ? a story which Churchill later helped spread through the Admiralty. The scene was in one of the Skymaster washrooms, which were fitted with opaque plastic glasses. One of the stewards, while tidying up, emptied a glass without noticing its contents. A few minutes later, an admiral bustled in and in somewhat slurred tones, asked if anyone had seen his set of dentures.

Recovery of the admiral’s false teeth was carried out with the tact and expedition to be expected from 24 Squadron. The incident might have been closed had it not come to the attention of the Prime Minister, who subsequently repeated it to his naval cronies.

To fit out the Skymaster to Churchill’s requirements, the entire layout of the plane had to be rearranged, the ventilating system modified, the radio and electrical systems altered and the oxygen supply extended. Partitions were installed to change the interior from its original purpose as a transport capable of carrying forty-four to sixty passengers. From nose to tail, the sections were: pilots’ compartment, crew’s quarters, passenger compartments and toilets, then the conference room amidships, and, at the rear, Churchill’s stateroom and toilet. More than three tons of special fittings and furnishings were added to the plane, along with half a ton of emergency equipment and catering appliances. The soft furnishings alone were valued at £10,000.

Churchill Showed Off To Stalin - The Skymaster was stationed at Northolt, and Churchill occasionally dropped in on his way to or from Chequers just to cast a loving eye over his personal aircraft. He liked to show off his Olympian scale toys and, during his flight to Moscow in October 1944, even persuaded Stalin to come down to Moscow Central Airport and look over the York Ascalon which was the forerunner of the Skymaster and also luxuriously equipped. Stalin boarded the York and eyed the comforts on board rather sternly. Previously, the Russians had photographed every inch of the plane’s interior and exterior, but still the crew expected Stalin might be suitably impressed by the luxurious fittings. “I think,” says one of the pilots, “ Stalin thought it all rather sissy.”

President Roosevelt’s staff, however, was quite awed by the interior of the Skymaster, and readily admitted that it outdid the President’s Sacred Cow in design and appointments. Roosevelt’s and Churchill‘s personal Skymasters first appeared together in an aerial cavalcade that left Malta in January 1945, picked up an escort of fighter planes over Rhodes and landed at Saki in the Crimea. The occasion was the Yalta conference, and, to impress their Russian hosts, the British and American crews flew at precise intervals so that the guard of honour had no sooner saluted one group of V.I.P.s than the next planeload touched down. The planes came in exactly two minutes apart and in the same order that they left Malta. When

The Vodka Flowed - The conference place was a two- or three-hour drive through the mountains, and the Russians mobilised 2,000 sweepers to keep the road open to the airport. The weather was so bad that, rather than leave Churchill’s cherished Skymaster out in the open, the crew flew it back to Cairo, where they waited for Churchill’s summons.

When the Skymaster’s crew was at Saki, the Red Air Force gave a party for visiting American and British airmen. Seats at this gargantuan banquet were arranged so that there was a Russian, then a Briton, then an American. In front of each place was a bottle of Russian champagne and a bottle of vodka. After the third toast, the lack of interpreters went unnoticed, medals and insignia were exchanged, and some of 24 Squadron’s men returned home with the Order of the Red Banner pinned to their chests. The Yalta conference was attended in force by 24 Squadron Yorks and Dakotas as well as the Skymaster. Because of the large number of V.I.P.s attending the meeting, several aircraft had to be detailed to do nothing but carry luggage. One British unit was even sent in by ship to organise a base camp for the delegates and their staffs.

After Yalta, the Skymaster’s next important flight was taking Mr. and Mrs. Churchill to Brussels in March. The Prime Minister then loaned the aircraft to his wife for a trip to Moscow, where she was honoured for her work as head of the Aid to Russia Fund.

The Skymaster went back to Moscow at the beginning of May to bring Mrs. Churchill home, and the crew found themselves in the midst of the Russian victory celebrations. “Bill” Fraser, the Skymaster’s captain, and Mitchell, the navigator, had wandered into Red Square on the Russian VDay when they were recognised. by the crowd. “The excited Muscovites threw us in the air,” Fraser recalls. “It was all good fun but it was rather frightening. We made our escape as soon as we could and hailed a lorry flying a Union Jack. It took us to the Embassy.”

At the Press office, the two airmen told their adventures to the B.B.C. correspondent, who happened to be desperately in need of a broadcast subject. “That’s just the thing,” he told Fraser and Mitchell, “You go back and do it again while I record the scene.” Neither took kindly to the suggestion, but agreed on condition that a car would be standing by to rescue them after one toss in the air.

“We went back,” Fraser says, “but the crowd seemed more interested in the Dean of Canterbury, who was being chaired around the square. It was some time before we were recognized. Then the fun began again. The B.B.C. man told us to say something in Russian, which is not the easiest thing in the world to do while you are being lifted off your feet. They tossed us up five times before we escaped.”

Valet Left The Medals Behind - The Skymaster returned Mrs. Churchill to Northolt, and, just before the elections in 1945, took the Prime Minister to the south of France for a holiday. From Bordeaux it flew Churchill to Berlin for the Victory Parade and the Potsdam meetings, a flight that was made memorable by the fact that the unfortunate valet left the Churchillian collection of medal ribbons behind.

Potsdam was the occasion of a reunion with one section of 24 Squadron which had split off and gone east to join Lord Mountbatten’s command. This flight was built up around Mountbatten’s personal York, which was fitted as a flying office rather than as one of Churchill’s flying yachts. Mountbatten’s pilot was Squadron Leader Matthews, veteran of the Malta Shuttle.

The most remarkable feature of the Mountbatten York was its colour, a delicate duck-egg green. Matthews had it painted in that shade, instead of the usual tropical camouflage, and as a result the aircraft was ten degrees cooler while standing on the ground. Mountbatten’s duck-egg green aircraft carried him from South-East Asia to Berlin’s Gatow Airport for the Potsdam conference, and there the S.E.A.C. commander learned that the atom bomb was going to be dropped on Japan, a fact that Mountbatten discovered before MacArthur,

After Potsdam the next big international conference was the Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Moscow during December 1945. To keep the British delegation in close contact with London, 24 Squadron flew a daily non-stop courier service between Russia and Britain. During this period, Soviet navigators and wireless operators were attached to the squadron. The Russians insisted that one of their navigators be in charge of the flights over Soviet territory.

While the Lancastrians were keeping the Moscow mail flying, the rest of the squadron at Hendon was enjoying a Christmas pantomime. The star was a large and amiable walrus of a pilot named James Keith O’Neill Edwards. A London critic was a guest at the show, and he told Edwards he could make a living out of being funny. The forecast proved correct, as any listener to Take It From Here can testify.

Jimmy Edwards’s Disreputable Tunic - “They never let me fly any V.I.P.s,” says Jimmy Edwards, who actually was a brilliant pilot. “They put me on the Belfast mail run. I was the only man who refused to carry the mail four days running.” Edwards cancelled the run because of unusually bad weather. The record also shows that he was entrusted with the safety of such distinguished passengers as the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. What Edwards did rebel against was a squadron order compelling aircrew to wear their best blue uniforms while flying V,I.P.s According to his R.A.F. pals, Jimmy’s best blues were the most disreputable in the squadron, and there wasn’t a button on his tunic that did not dangle from a single thread.

Since the war, 24 Squadron has left Hendon and Northolt for more spacious accommodation, Princess Margaret made her first journey by air in one of the postwar squadron’s Dakotas2. She flew to Belfast in October 1947 and was only prevented from taking a turn at the controls by the fact that an equerry was afraid she might soil the dress in which she had to inspect the guard of honor. Viscount Montgomery is probably the squadron’s most regular customer. He has been flown by 24 Squadron crews since June 1945. Monty’s personal aircraft, KN628, was characteristically decorated with 8th Army and 21 Army Group patches, the Union Jack on nose and tail, five stars on the tail to denote a field marshal and a flagstaff projecting through the roof.

Air Chief Marshal Tedder has frequently flown with the squadron and has been known to come on board accompanied by a group of high-ranking air officers and cheerfully tell, the pilot: “Better not prang today. There’d be too many promotions if this load of passengers were lost.” Tedder, according to 24 Squadron pilots, always tries to remember faces of even the lowliest airmen. Once he has spoken to a man, he will greet him on the next occasion and do his best to recall where they first met. Soon after the war Tedder flew overseas investigating conditions of service at R.A.F. stations. This mission meant inspecting three or four stations a day. Everything went without incident until the party arrived at a Palestinian unit. The Air Chief Marshal went off to inspect the guard of honour. The navigator of his personal plane went into the station office to check some information.

While the navigator was looking over some local maps, the inspection party arrived. The navigator stood to attention. To his surprise, the Air Chief Marshal came up to him and asked, “Why, how are you? How long have you been here and where did I last see you?” The navigator gulped and finally stammered, “I—I brought you here, sir.” Tedder blinked and then broke into laughter at his own discomfiture.

Clement Attlee is another distinguished passenger who has been somewhat startled by a 24 Squadron pilot. It was during a flight to the Paris Peace Conference in 1946 that the captain of a Dakota was obliged to tell the Prime Minister to put his pipe in his pocket. On this day, 24 Squadron had sent an aircraft to Paris to pick up Attlee. The plane took off from Paris at 8 a.m. and landed the Prime Minister at ten thirty, in time for him to attend a Cabinet meeting and speak in the House of Commons. By 2 p.m., Attlee was back at Northolt. He boarded the Dakota and pulled out his pipe.

The flights had been organized at such short notice that the pilot had been unable to obtain from Transport Command the customary release from the order that no smoking is permitted on board service aircraft. The captain spoke to the Prime Minister and the pipe went back in his pocket. “Halfway through the flight,” the pilot says, “I felt rather badly about it and went back and told Mr. Attlee he could light up. And he did.” At four thirty, the Prime Minister was back in Paris and at six he was speaking at the Peace Conference. It was probably the longest and hardest day a Prime Minister has ever spent. The Squadron also flew Ernest Bevin to the Paris conferences when be was Foreign Secretary. He was reported to be a cheerful passenger, but the pilot noticed that when Bevin changed his seat from one side of the Dakota to the other, it was necessary to retrim the controls.

The Minister of Civil Aviation, Lord Pakenham, has been a frequent passenger in 24 Squadron aircraft. A very devout man, he frequently studies a breviary while in the air. “It is something of a surprise,” says one of the men who has flown him, because it looks as if the first thing Lord Pakenham does on boarding a plane is to open a Bible. Actually, he is a very easy passenger, and his reading has nothing to do with the flight.”

Most of the Squadron’s flying today is done in Yorks and Dakotas. The last of the Skymasters were returned to America by the R.A.F. at the end of Lend-Lease. The luxurious EW999, Churchill’s personal Skymaster, was last used by him to go to the Potsdam conference. Before Churchill s defeat at the polls in 1945, it had been decided to send the plane to California, where the Douglas Aircraft Company had offered to overhaul it, remove the long-range fuel tanks from the fuselage and install them in the wings. It was a major repair job that could not be done in Britain at the time.

Attlee Refused To Pay - The election resulted in the choice of Attlee as Prime Minister. The aircraft companies said the price of the overhaul job would be 100,000 dollars. The Government decided that the dollars could be spent to better advantage in aiding national recovery rather than in maintaining the most luxurious personal aircraft in the world. The Churchill Skymaster had been classified as Lease-Lend material and, as such, returned to the United States Government, The Americans overhauled it at Wilmington, Delaware, and flew it to Washington. There, invitations were sent to every aircraft manufacturer and every airline operator in the United States to visit it and see how expert and comfortable were British standards of aircraft furnishing.

Then General George C. Marshall took the plane and flew in it on his mission to China. There, it was involved in a minor accident. The flying palace was a cripple. There were so many surplus Skymasters that the Americans did not consider it worthwhile repairing EW999. They left it on a Chinese scrap heap. THE END 1Bassingbourn 2Monty’s KN628, with W/O Buckingham as AQM