Eugene Emile "Tubby" Vielle

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(29 April 1913 – 2 April 2015) was a

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

(RAF) officer who was involved in the development of new navigation and bombing systems during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Vielle believed that his ideas for the "Vielle Bombing System" with a television camera in the nose, developed after the war, was the basis of the development of the

cruise missile A cruise missile is an unmanned self-propelled guided missile that sustains flight through aerodynamic lift for most of its flight path. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large payload over long distances with high precision. Modern cru ...

. It was reported by the ''Wiltshire Times'' that he flew as many as 150 different types of aircraft during his career.

Early life

Eugene Emile Vielle was born on 29 April 1913 in the

Lambeth Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, which today also gives its name to the (much larger) London Borough of Lambeth. Lambeth itself was an ancient parish in the county of Surrey. It is situated 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Charin ...

district of London. His early education was at

Dulwich College Dulwich College is a 2-18 private, day and boarding school for boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a public school, it began as the College of God's Gift, founded in 1619 by Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, with the original purpose of ...

.Group Captain Eugene 'Tubby' Vielle - obituary.
''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are often names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * The Telegraph (Adelaide), ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaid ...

'', 31 May 2015. Retrieved 19 June 2015.

Royal Air Force

Vielle was admitted to the

Royal Air Force College Cranwell The Royal Air Force College (RAFC) is the Royal Air Force academy which provides initial training to all RAF personnel who are preparing to become commissioned officers. The College also provides initial training to aircrew cadets and is resp ...

in 1932 by a Prize Cadetship awarded by the British

Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force and civil aviation that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the ...

. He received his commission in 1934 from

King George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. George was born during the reign of his pa ...

.RAF veteran’s 100th birthday celebrated at Westbury.
''

Wiltshire Times The ''Wiltshire Times'' is a weekly newspaper published in Trowbridge, Wiltshire in South West England. The paper serves the western Wiltshire towns of Bradford on Avon, Trowbridge, Corsham, Chippenham, Warminster, Westbury and Melksham, and the ...

'', 16 May 2013. Retrieved 26 June 2015. His first appointment was to 32 Squadron at

Biggin Hill Biggin Hill is a town in the London Borough of Bromley, about south-southeast of Charing Cross. It is separated from London's built-up area by the Metropolitan green belt and is located adjacent to the Greater London boundary with Kent and ...

where he flew

Bristol Bulldog The Bristol Bulldog is a British Royal Air Force single-seat biplane Fighter aircraft, fighter designed during the 1920s by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. More than 400 Bulldogs were produced for the RAF and overseas customers, and it was one ...

fighters. In September 1935 he was sent to the

Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is the naval aviation component of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy (RN). The FAA is one of five :Fighting Arms of the Royal Navy, RN fighting arms. it is a primarily helicopter force, though also operating the Lockhee ...

where he flew from the aircraft carrier HMS ''Courageous'' in the Mediterranean Sea. The ship had been converted from a

battlecruiser The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of att ...

to an aircraft carrier as a result of the

Washington Naval Treaty The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was signed during 1922 among the major Allies of World War I, Allies of World War I, which agreed to prevent an arms race by limiting Navy, naval construction. It was negotiated at ...

. In August 1937, Vielle joined the Ferry Flight at

RAF Cardington The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of the Royal Flying Corps ( ...

where he had the chance to fly many different types of aircraft and began to develop his interest in

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the motion, movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navig ...

and flying by instruments. He attended the air force's Specialist Navigation Course in 1939 and joined the Instrument Department of the

Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...

at Farnborough the same year. The German

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...

had already occurred during September 1939, so Vielle's flight plan specified a more circuitous route. Rather than taking a dangerous direct line crossing mainland Europe, he flew along the north African

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

coast, finally vectoring to the north at Gibraltar and then to Britain along the Portuguese, Spanish, and French

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

coasts. At the time, Britain was retrieving far-flung aircraft—- both military and civilian—- from distant bases and airfields for the looming war against

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

that would begin in earnest in June 1940 with the

Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain () was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force ...

. During World War II he was involved in the development of new navigation and bombing systems and came to believe that three of his colleagues at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough were Soviet agents, conspiring to hamper the British war effort. During 1950, he took his ideas for the "Vielle Bombing System", with a television camera in the nose, to the United States and he believed that his system was the basis for the development of the

. Vielle retired from the Royal Air Force in 1957 as a group captain. In May 2013, the ''Wiltshire Times'' reported that he flew in 150 different types of aircraft during his career.

Life after the RAF

After his retirement from the RAF, Vielle initiated an avionics company, Avel Corporation, to develop an aircraft anti-collision system and began to write novels. He also began to write his memoirs in 1962 but did not publish them until 2013, as ''Almost a Boffin'', as he felt too much of the content was confidential.Westbury 100-year-old ex-RAF pilot pens true story of wartime intrigue.
''This is Wiltshire'', 19 July 2013. Retrieved 26 June 2015. Vielle was a member of the

Royal Aeronautical Society The Royal Aeronautical Society, also known as the RAeS, is a British multi-disciplinary professional institution dedicated to the global aerospace community. Founded in 1866, it is the oldest Aeronautics, aeronautical society in the world. Memb ...

and a fellow of the

Royal Institute of Navigation The Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN) is a learned society and a professional body for navigation. The RIN was founded in 1947 as a forum for mariners, pilots, engineers and academics to compare their experiences and exchange information. Toda ...

Family

In 1935, Vielle married Marjorie "Bunny" Barnard (died 1990). The couple had three daughters.

Death

Vielle died on 2 April 2015. He was survived by his daughters.

Selected publications

*''Village Of Stars''. With David Beaty. (As Paul Stanton). 1960. *''Star-Raker''. With Donald Payne.

Hodder & Stoughton Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette.H ...

, London, 1961. *''Flight of the Bat''. With Donald Payne. (As Donald Gordon). 1964. *''The Golden Oyster''. Morrow, New York, 1968. *''No Subway''. Collins, London, 1968. *''Leap in the Dark''. Morrow, New York, 1971. (U.K. paperback 1972 as Donald Gordon) *''The Shadow of Kuril: A novel''. Collins, London, 1971. *''Almost a Boffin''. Dolman Scott, 2013. Memoirs.

References

External links

Bombs away: Tubby's mission to expose the third man sabotaging the RAFSabotage in the RAF - WW2. ISFDB
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vielle, Eugene 1913 births 2015 deaths Royal Air Force group captains Members of the Order of the British Empire People from Lambeth People educated at Dulwich College Royal Aeronautical Society English men centenarians Graduates of the Royal Air Force College Cranwell