Note from Vicki Sorensen
Marinus Sorensen, Frank’s father, wrote letters. It was after he had received a letter from the squadron leader A.L. Winskill after his son Frank was shot down.
Saturday, May 1, 1943
This morning I have a letter from his Squadron Leader. It is dated 22nd April and it reads:
“Dear Mr. Sorensen:
Before you receive this letter you will have been informed by the Air Ministry of the fact that your son, No. J15811, P/O C.F. Sorensen, is missing from operations.
Unfortunately, at present I am unable to give you any definite information but it would be unfair to raise any false hopes as to his being alive and, while there is no definite proof of his death, the circumstances in which he failed to return from operations, I regret to say, are such that there is virtually very little hope of his being alive.
At the time your son was reported missing we were in contact with the enemy, fighting was taking place everywhere and nobody saw exactly what happened to him. As soon as any further information is received, I will see that you are immediately advised.
May I now express the great sympathy which I, and all his friends and colleagues in the Squadron feel with you in your anxiety.
All his personal effects will be taken care of by the Standing Committee of Adjustment who will get in touch with you, and if there is anything I can do or any further information which you would like to hear, please write me and I shall be glad to help you all I can.
A.L. Winskill
Squadron Leader, Commanding
No. 232 Squadron”
I shall of course write to him and thank him for his letter. When I hear about Frank’s personal effects I shall ask to have them sent on to Kingston, for I am crowded as it is and if I receive them here I might not be allowed to send them out of the country, at least not before the war is over.
I see Frank everywhere. There is a young pilot of Frank’s stature crossing the square. I must wait and see him turn around to get his profile. He looks so tall and smart, just like Frank, so smart in his new officer’s uniform. Here comes a young sergeant lugging along with his kitbags and packs as I saw Frank coming and going on his leaves.
I see so many things on the square. Here comes a little boy along with his Daddy, hand in hand, chatting and enquiring about the things about him. He is about the size of Frank when he and Eric unfailingly saw me off and met me at the station in Glostrup, as did you and Bennie and Wilfred in Roskilde. And I pass a young mother with her baby in a pram, a nice round baby face and fat little hands. Yes, there was a time, when Frank was a baby. There was a time, too, when death was near, when your mother could not sleep for fear. But one morning a little hand grasped a tiny toy elephant, his eyes could see us again and he recovered and could smile anew. From the first he was your defender, whenever we pretended that it was all wrong about you being a girl, and though you were so much younger, yet I know, that the young girls he met were criticized to your standard. How much more could a brother admire a sister?
I have always been so grateful that we moved when we did, that things shaped themselves so that we could get away. But now I ask myself would Frank have been spared had we stayed? What a gracious thing it is that we cannot know. We have been spared and Frank had to be the prize, the sacrifice. He went to this task eager and happy, he felt the grave responsibility of it and he shirked it not, but he longed to get it over and he longed to get back to you all again, to his home, and to fit himself for a career after the war.
Sunday May 2, 1943
It is so nice to get around to Sunday when my Good Companion is with me all the day. She should have been over with her father and sister Min today, but I don’t think she likes to leave me more than necessary to brood alone over Frank. I was lucky to get kippers yesterday. We have not had that for many a month. Perhaps mother will say that you have not had it for years. And I got a mackerel too and that is going to be our dinner. Miss Hall is in my room preparing it and I am in her room writing. It is a dull day and cold and I have the geosphere lit to temper the room. I listen in to all the news bulletins eagerly for news of safe arrival of a fresh Canadian contingent, which may carry Eric. I wish he was not coming, but I long to have him here just the same. He has had a hard spell of training and I fear he has a hard time ahead of him. Pray God that he may be spared for us, that he may see the time when men shall “beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” May it be Dennis’s, Bennie’s and Wilfred’s lot not to have to learn war. I believe in this better New Order that is coming, it will be your inheritance, but I hope that my eyes shall see the beginning of it, for it will, naturally take time to unfold itself, it cannot come about night over. I try to anticipate where we shall be when the war is over – Canada or Denmark, but I fear that Russia is complicating matters so much. They are helping to overcome Germany now, but what then? Since we are not prepared to accept their way of life, will they accept ours? I think we will probably come into a period of armistice, not real peace and then there will be a final war with Russia, a war not of our seeking or planning, a war, which will be an even greater surprise for us, a war, which will be settled in the Holy Land. So it may be a good while before real peace comes, and even with peace, who says that we can just go back to the old stands and carry on?
I suppose that I should be very grateful that I can carry on here in the mean time, but when I remember the ease and the lack of thought and consideration for others, with which I was repeatedly exposed to the dangers of the Atlantic and other journeys, then I am afraid that I am embittered and hardened a bit, knowing that it was only their own convenience that was considered. Their minds were servile to a senior whom they were not prepared to argue with and reason with, I mean the Vice President, Mr. Stephen (of the CPR that is).
And now I know that you will all strive to be a comfort to mother and to ease her day and I hope too, that the grief, which is in all hearts, will compel us to sweeten the day and the task for each other, make love and tolerance and understanding grow, such as Frank would rejoice to see it. There are good fights for us to fight, with ourselves and in our home. Frank fought his good fight and fought it well. Perhaps he is carrying on the fight right now, flying with Michael, his Patron! One day Michael and his host will overcome our enemies for us.
Now I will close, Miss Hall sends her love and deepest sympathy to you all, for she loved him too. And love and thoughts and longings from Dad.
More on the Squadron Leader A.L. Winskill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Winskill
https://www.rafweb.org/Biographies/Winskill_AL.htm
http://www.bbm.org.uk/airmen/as-winskill.htm
Archie Little Winskill was born in Penrith, Cumberland on 24th January 1917 and educated at Penrith and Carlisle Grammar Schools. He joined the RAFVR in April 1937 as an Airman u/t Pilot and was called to full-time service at the outbreak of war.
From September 1939 to June 1940 Winskill was a staff pilot at B&GS Catfoss. Commissioned in August, he arrived at 7 OTU Hawarden on the 25th and after converting to Spitfires joined 54 Squadron at Catterick on 16th September 1940.
He was posted to 72 Squadron at Biggin Hill on 3rd October, moving to 603 Squadron at Hornchurch on the 17th. Winskill claimed a Me109 probably destroyed on the 28th, shared a He111 on 21st November and destroyed two CR42’s on the 23rd.
On 6th January 1941 Winskill was posted to 41 Squadron at Hornchurch and later became a Flight Commander. He destroyed a Me109 on 14th August but on the same day he was shot down near Calais in Spitfire Vb W3447.
He baled out and a French farmer immediately hid him in a cornfield until nightfall. The farmer’s son then took him to the farmhouse where he was fed.
Winskill spent the next few days in a barn, where the farmer’s son visited him with food each day. After two weeks in a safe house Winskill, dressed as a farmworker, was passed to various houses by bicycle before being put on a train for Paris. Due to the necessary secrecy he was not aware that he was being passed down the ‘Pat O’Leary’ Line, one of the most successful escape lines through occupied France. Two other evaders had joined him and they were taken first to Marseille and then to Aix-le-Therme at the foot of the Pyrenees.
On the night of 3rd October they were passed to an Andorran guide who took them over the mountains. After an arduous night-climb they managed to reach Andorra before travelling to Barcelona where the British Consul-General arranged to send them to Gibraltar via Madrid. Three months after being shot down, Winskill arrived back in England.
Fifty-seven years later, Winskill returned to France to meet Felix Caron, the boy who had helped him to escape, the Frenchman still had Winskill’s flying helmet, discarded by him as he hid in the cornfield.
Winskill was awarded the DFC (gazetted 6th January 1942), being then credited with at least three enemy aircraft destroyed.
No longer allowed to fly over France, because of his knowledge of French escape routes, Winskill formed 165 Squadron at Ayr on 6th April 1942 and commanded it until August. He then took command of 222 Squadron at Drem until September, when he became CO of 232 Squadron at Turnhouse. Winskill took the squadron to North Africa in November.
On a sweep over the Mateur area on 18th January 1943, he was shot down, probably by Fw190’s, after ditching in the sea he swam ashore.
Winskill destroyed a Ju87 and shared another on 7th April, damaged a Fw190 on the 27th, destroyed a Ju88 and a Me109 on the ground at La Sebala airfield on 7th May and damaged a Me323 on the ground on the 8th.
With his tour completed, Winskill was awarded a Bar to the DFC (gazetted 27th July 1943) and returned to the UK.
He commanded CGS Catfoss from September 1943 to December 1944. He then went to the Army Staff College, Camberley for a course, after which he was posted to a staff job at the Air Ministry in June 1945.
He was in Japan in 1947, commanding 17 Squadron, serving with the Occupation Forces.
Winskill was made a CBE (gazetted 11th June 1960) and in 1963 he became Air Attache in Paris. He retired from the RAF on 18th December 1968 as an Air Commodore.
He was Captain of the Queen’s Flight from 1968 to 1972 and was created a KCVO in 1980 (CVO 1973).
In 1972 Winskill arranged for the body of the Duke of Windsor to be flown from France to Benson in Oxfordshire, where it lay in state in the station’s church.
He died on 9th August 2005.
Flight Lieutenant Frank Sorensen 