Sub Lieutenant, RNVR (A). Bill Fenwick Smith MiD

Obituary by Peter Hore:

Bill Fenwick Smith, who has died aged 88, was a Fleet Air Arm fighter and farmer.

In January 1945 Fenwick Smith was serving in 1844 Naval Air Squadron, embarked in the carrier Indomitable, which flew strikes on Japanese oil refineries in Sumatra during, Operation Lentil. On January 24 the formation he was escorting was attacked by Japanese fighters, and in a vicious dogfight, Fenwick Smith followed an enemy down to low level, firing several bursts until his opponent billowed smoke and oil. When he turned back, however, there was not another aircraft in sight. Fenwick Smith skimmed over a Japanese airfield, and climbing up over a mountain range asked for a vector to return to “mother”, arriving overhead Indomitable just as the rest of his squadron returned from its successful mission.

In March and April, 1945 during Operation Iceberg, Fenwick Smith took part in attacks on the Sakishima Gunto islands and patrols over Formosa, in support of American landings on Okinawa.

Then on April 12, 1945, Fenwick Smith found himself with his flight leader, Lieutenant Commander Mike Godson, at 10,000 ft when they intercepted six suicide bombers heading towards the British carriers. In a dogfight which lasted fifteen minutes Godson and Fenwick Smith claimed three enemy planes and another damaged.

However on April 16 at the end of a four hour long patrol, his flight commander, ‘Sammy’ Langdon, led an attack on an airfield and was shot down, as Fenwick Smith flew through the flak he felt that he was enjoying one of his many cat’s lives.

Fenwick Smith was mentioned in despatches for his part in these busy months of flying.

William Fenwick Smith was born on April 2, 1922 at Whitely Bay, the son of the managing director of ropemakers Hood Haggie. He was educated at the Quaker school, Bootham, in York, where he was good at sports, maths and especially swimming. He most enjoyed the swimming club’s Christmas Day swim in the North Sea.

In 1938 Fenwick Smith worked as a general hand on a cargo ship between Immingham and Vancouver, but was learning to farm when the war broke out. He could have stayed in a reserved occupation but volunteered for the Fleet Air Arm in early 1940. Obliged to wait several months before being called up, he joined the Local Defence Volunteers, where he enjoyed his first life by surviving a bayonetting.

In late 1940 he joined number 32 pilot’s course at HMS St Vincent, known as “Wilmot’s place” after the petty officer who taught the young Naval Airmen, 2nd Class. Many of his fellow student pilots were New Zealanders.

He learned to fly at Elmdon, now Birmingham airport, in a Tiger Moth: when his first attempts proved ham-fisted, his RAF sergeant instructor insisted on him learning to fly in bare feet. After a few hours, he found flying the biplane “like a toy.”

Continuation flying training for Fenwick Smith took place in the clear air of Canada in the Harvard, sometimes overflying the Niagara Falls, and often navigating his way home by following the railway tracks. Fenwick Smith was selected as a fighter pilot and commissioned, aged 20, as a Sub Lieutenant, RNVR (A).

He learned decklandings in the obsolete Fulmar on the training carrier Argus in Lamlash Bay, learned night flying the Airspeed Oxford, and his fighting in the Sea Hurricane.

Next Fenwick Smith flew a variety of aircraft in 771 Naval Air Squadron at Twatt on Orkney, where he had his second life when he suffered an engine seizure in a Miles Martinet over the sea and just managed to return over the cliffs and make a wheels-up landing.
In late 1943 he converted to fly his first purpose-built naval aircraft, the rugged, American-built Grumman Wildcat. Travelling out to Ceylon in the cruiser London (which he found very pukka), he joined 890 Naval Air Squadron. His boss, Lieutenant Commander ‘Boots’ Bartlett, was the only career officer, and the squadron embarked in the ‘Woolworths’ escort carrier Atheling to train for operations against the Japanese in Burma.
Soon, however, after a brief conversion to fly the even more powerful Hellcat (in which the Americans had incorporated the lessons of the war in the Pacific, and which Fenwick Smith e found to be “a lovely aircraft.”), he was sent to join 1844 Naval Air Squadron.
Postwar Fenwick Smith worked for Hood Haggie until the company was taken over by British Ropes in 1952, and he then bought a farm at Chiddingfold, West Sussex. In the 1970s he took semi-retirement, and became a JP on the Guildford bench.
Fenwick Smith, who died on December 18, 2010, married first Barbara Campbell in 1945, and divorced in 1971, and second Tina Shepherd nee Fermor in 1972. Both survive him with the two sons of his first marriage.