Jim Renvoize served in one of only two squadrons that flew biplanes on air defence operations during the Battle of Britain. This was No 247, whose Gladiators were charged with the defence of Plymouth naval base and dockyard in the summer and autumn of 1940.
Regarded to some extent as a “forgotten” squadron, since it was somewhat on the fringes of the battle, No 247 nevertheless had a tough time as its aircraft, whose technology belonged more to the First World War than to the Second, attempted to engage enemy bombers which were considerably faster than the biplane fighters sent out to shoot them down.
No 247 shared these tribulations with the other Battle of Britain Gladiator squadron — No 804, Fleet Air Arm. This was based at the other end of Britain, at Hatston, Orkney, where its task was the defence of the Home Fleet base at Scapa Flow. Those members of 804 and 247 who survived were entitled to the Battle of Britain Clasp.
Renvoize later went on to air-sea rescue operations, a branch of wartime aviation which, though it has inevitably lived in the shadow of the more spectacular exploits of Fighter and Bomber Command, required great skill and courage from its pilots. Air-sea rescue performed a vital function in retrieving 1,300 downed airmen, many of whom were able to return to combat. Such rescues were accomplished by the frail and ungainly biplane Walrus, an amphibian with a single “pusher” engine which performed miracles amid heavy swells and constant threat of attack from marauding Messerschmitt 109s.
James Verdun Renvoize was born of Huguenot ancestry in North London in 1916. After leaving school in Palmer’s Green he worked in a commercial office in the City of London. With war impending, in December 1938 he enlisted in the RAFVR and after basic courses undertook pilot training in the summer of the following year. In August 1940, with the Battle of Britain already raging, he was posted as a sergeant pilot to 247 Squadron, based at Roborough, near Plymouth. From there the squadron flew Channel patrols and convoy escorts, as well as being scrambled to counter the intermittent raids to which the city and dockyard were subjected from the outset of the Battle of Britain.
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In the new year, 247’s Gladiators were at last retired, to be replaced by Hurricanes, Renvoize being one of the first pilots in the squadron to fly one. The bombing of Plymouth increased in intensity. Some of the worst raids came in April 1941, with 72 killed when an air raid shelter was hit. Renvoize was commissioned later that year. In February 1942 he was posted to No 276 (air-sea rescue) Squadron, as commander of its A Flight based at Wormwell in Dorset. A Flight covered the South Coast from, roughly, Start Point to Brighton.
Air-sea rescue operations were combined search-and-succour affairs. Using Army co-operation, Lysanders which had been redundant in that role since the fall of France, Defiant fighters which had become obsolete or Spitfire IICs, the pilots of 276 would aim to spot a downed airman and then vector a launch or Walrus to the spot.
Though he occasionally flew these search missions, Renvoize generally piloted a Walrus for the rescue phase, for which his great skills ideally fitted him.
Renvoize’s most extraordinary rescue took place when he set out in his Walrus to pick up a Spitfire pilot, Sergeant Wright, who had come down in the Channel 40 miles south of Bournemouth after being hit by flak over France. He arrivedto be confronted by 15ft swells whose tops were 40 yards apart. On his first attempt to land, the aircraft bounced off one crest and was in danger of stalling from only 60ft. Renvoize went around again and this time, after three hard bounces, got the Walrus down without breaking anything.
After retrieving Wright, Renvoize realised it would be impossible to take off, and elected to taxi back to the nearest land, the Isle of Wight. Shortly afterwards a rescue launch appeared. But in the rough seas, and with Wright now only semi-conscious, Renvoize judged that a transfer attempt would be far too dangerous. Instead the launch made itself useful by going ahead of the Walrus, which was able to taxi in the smoother water created in its wake.
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After four hours, Renvoize was able to deliver his charge to the safety of Yarmouth, Isle of Wight. He later recalled: “All the time we were expecting a flock of Me 109s to arrive and blast us and the boat out of the water.” After recovering from his injuries, Sergeant Wright wrote a letter of heartfelt thanks to 276 Squadron, praising Renvoize’s skill.
Renvoize continued with 276 almost to the end of the war. Among his subsequent rescues were the crew of a Lancaster that had ditched off Bolt Head, south Devon. As he approached the still-floating bomber, a swell swept his Walrus onto the muzzles of the guns protruding from its forward turret, puncturing the hull of the aircraft. A hasty application of rags was necessary to stop the inrush of water which threatened to sink the Walrus. Thereafter the Lancaster’s crew were brought to safety.
During the Normandy landings Renvoize flew search and rescue sorties in support of the massive air effort which covered them. Then, as the Allied advance liberated the French and Belgian littoral, No 276 went overseas and was based variously at St Croix, Bruges, Ghent and Knocke.
At Knocke he was driving up to the airfield for dawn readiness when a large wave of Me 109s startled him by roaring overhead. It was January 1, 1945, the day of the Luftwaffe’s last major offensive in the West.
Renvoize was demobilised as a flight lieutenant in January 1946 and returned to civilian life. He moved to Newquay in Cornwall, where he ran a photography and fishing tackle business. He was a good jazz pianist and a group of which he was a member became a fixture on the Cornish circuit.
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Renvoize’s first marriage, to Greta, was dissolved. His second wife, Audrey, died in 1989. The daughter of his first marriage died in 1995. He is survived by a stepson and stepdaughter from his second marriage.
Jim Renvoize, wartime fighter and air-sea rescue pilot, was born on March 15, 1916. He died on August 6, 2004, aged 88.