I have been helping Rory Carroll who's grandfather was a St Aloysius teacher late 40s into the 60s. Rory never knew his grandad or what he looked like until I sent him some Class photos with him on them.
Here is an interesting piece about Mr Carroll in WW2.
We are hoping it will be in the Shields Gazette soon.


Joe Carroll, St Aloysius Teacher
Mosquito Navigator, Gestapo Raider, D-Day Veteran
Primary source research briefing prepared by Rory Carroll (grandson) — May 2026
All facts are sourced from primary documents at The National Archives, the London Gazette, and published first-hand accounts.


APPEAL — INCLUDED AT END OF BRIEFING AS A SUGGESTED CTA FOR THE ARTICLE:
We are trying to find the full name and living descendants of Joe Carroll's wartime pilot, known only as A. 'Baron' Humphreys. If any Gazette reader has information, please contact his grandson at rorr2001@hotmail.com.


— WHO WAS JOE CARROLL? —

Joe Carroll was a maths teacher at St Aloysius' College in Hebburn-on-Tyne. He was also a Mosquito navigator who bombed V-weapon sites, helped destroy the Gestapo's Dutch death list, flew on D-Day night, and returned from over forty confirmed combat sorties over occupied Europe. His pupils in the 1950s included Ray Wood (Manchester United and England goalkeeper) and George Armstrong (Arsenal winger). None of them knew what he had done.

Why a Maths Teacher Was the Perfect Navigator
When Joseph Edward Carroll enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve — most likely in 1941 or early 1942 — the service was looking for exactly his type. Educated, numerate, disciplined, physically fit. His service number 1532424 places him in the enlistment block for that period.
His aptitude for mathematics was not incidental to his role — it was the role. A Mosquito navigator at low level over occupied Europe, at night, in bad weather, with landmarks flashing past at four miles per minute, was doing applied mathematics under fire. He calculated courses, drift, wind speed and time-distance continuously. A one-degree error held for ten minutes at 280 miles per hour put the aircraft three miles off course — over enemy territory, in the dark, with anti-aircraft guns below.
Carroll was good at it. Humphreys kept him for every single sortie.

What They Taught Him Before They Sent Him to War
Carroll was posted to No. 13 Operational Training Unit at RAF Bicester in September 1943, joining Course 75. The ground instruction syllabus — recovered from the National Archives — gives an exact picture of what a Mosquito crew was expected to know before going operational. It makes sobering reading.
Intelligence lectures: aircraft recognition; methods of German interrogation of prisoners of war; escape and evasion procedures; POW conduct. These were not abstract topics. They were instructions for what to do if the aircraft went down.
Navigation: dead reckoning; GEE radio navigation; night navigation; operational bomber navigation. Medical: first aid; cold and frostbite; high altitude flying. Armament: the Mk.XIV bombsight; low-level attack procedures; pyrotechnics; gun turret operation.
They were being trained, simultaneously, to hit a specific building from rooftop height and to survive capture if they missed. Joe Carroll, maths teacher, studied all of it.
It was at Bicester that Carroll first flew with A. 'Baron' Humphreys — the pilot who would take him through every combat sortie he flew. The two men crewed together from their first training flight to their last operational entry on 20 August 1944.

The Aircraft — de Havilland Mosquito FB.VI
The Mosquito was built largely of wood — balsa and spruce laminate — at a time when metal was scarce. It was faster than most German fighters when it entered service. The FB.VI variant carried four 20mm cannon, four .303 Browning machine guns, and up to 2,000lbs of bombs. It cruised at over 300 miles per hour.
Pilot and navigator sat side by side — no rear gunner, no separate bomb-aimer. The navigator operated the bomb release himself, managed fuel and engine instruments, maintained radio contact, and called out hazards at low level. The cockpit was not comfortable. The margins were not generous. At treetop height, at night, with one engine out, there was very little room for anything to go wrong.
A fully restored Mosquito FB.VI — the exact mark Carroll flew — can be seen at the de Havilland Aircraft Museum in Hertfordshire. Standing next to it, the cockpit looks impossibly small for the work it was asked to do.

The Operations — From the Pilot's Own Words
What makes Joe Carroll's wartime service unusually well documented is that his pilot, 'Baron' Humphreys, gave detailed first-hand accounts to two aviation historians. Both books name Carroll directly.

The Bullet in the Windscreen — 4 February 1944
The most vivid account comes from Humphreys himself, published in Martin Bowman's De Havilland Mosquito (Crowood Aviation Series). The crew were on a Noball mission — a low-level daylight attack on V-weapon launch sites in the Pas de Calais, the hidden infrastructure behind Hitler's campaign to bomb London with flying bombs and rockets:
"I suppose few people will have had the sight I had of a bullet hanging in mid-air in front of my face, fortunately stopped dead (but thankfully I wasn't) by, and partly buried in, my laminated windscreen. It happened on 4 February 1944. I was piloting a FB.VI. My observer was F/Sgt Joe Carroll. We were just climbing over the cliffs of northern France on a low-level Noball attack in the Pas de Calais. The snag was that the whole windscreen was starred so that we had no forward visibility — not very nice at 260mph [420kph] and just above the ground."
Source: Warrant Officer A. 'Baron' Humphreys, 613 Squadron, quoted in Martin W. Bowman, De Havilland Mosquito (Crowood Aviation Series)
Humphreys goes on to describe flying the damaged aircraft back across the Channel with almost no forward visibility at low level, watching the other aircraft through the port window, easing back on the stick to climb as he crossed the coast — and feeling the violent jerk that told him the controls were going. He brought the aircraft straight in rather than joining the circuit.
"I dropped the wheels and flaps when I could hold her more easily. Nevertheless, it was still a 'dicey' do."
The crew flew eight Noball sorties in total. Humphreys summarised the campaign in Neillands and De Normann's D-Day 1944: Voices from Normandy:
"We were then on 'No Ball' ops, daylight low-level attacks on V1 rocket launching sites in the Pas de Calais. Joe and I did eight of these, collecting a bullet which starred the windscreen and on another trip a very tattered tailplane."
Source: Warrant Officer A. 'Baron' Humphreys, quoted in Neillands and De Normann, D-Day 1944: Voices from Normandy
Eight sorties. Two damaged aircraft. No casualties. They kept going.

The Hague, 11 April 1944 — Destroying the Gestapo's Death List
This is the operation that defines 613 Squadron's war, and Joe Carroll was part of it.
The Gestapo had raided the Dutch population register and was using the data — names, addresses, family connections — to systematically identify Jews for deportation and resistance members for arrest. The records were stored at the Kunstzaal Kleykamp art gallery in the centre of The Hague. The Dutch resistance appealed for them to be destroyed.
Six Mosquitos from 613 Squadron attacked the building at rooftop height, in broad daylight, in the middle of a city. The approach was made at extremely low level across the North Sea. The 613 Squadron ORB records the formation taking off at 1305, climbing to 6,000 feet, crossing the coast at Overflakkee, then descending for the final approach via Lake Gouda and Delft. Navigation was made difficult by flooding across the countryside. The last four aircraft made one orbit over the target to allow the first aircraft's delayed-action bombs time to detonate before diving in.
Joe Carroll navigated one of the six Mosquitos. The April 1944 ORB page, held at the National Archives under AIR 27/2117/30, records the operation in detail.
The Kleykamp building was destroyed. The records were gone.
Six Mosquitos. Rooftop height. A city centre. The target: the Gestapo's list of Dutch Jews and resistance members. The building was destroyed.
Source: 613 Squadron ORB, April 1944, AIR 27/2117/30, The National Archives, Kew

D-Day Night, 5/6 June 1944 — Last Aircraft Back Before the Beaches
This is the most important entry in Joe Carroll's wartime record.
Three days before 5 June, the crews of 613 Squadron were given their briefing and confined to camp. Humphreys recorded the moment in D-Day 1944: Voices from Normandy:
"About three days before 5 June we were given details of the invasion plan and a pep talk by Air Marshal Cunningham. After that we were confined to camp. 2 Group's task for the night of 5/6th June was to search for and attack enemy ground movement in a patrol area inland from the beaches; 613 Squadron had the area roughly bounded by the towns St Lô, Argentan, Caen and Vire, with each aircraft in turn doing a spell of half to three-quarters of an hour over the land. At briefing I saw that my name was last on the list, due to return just before daylight on 6 June, as the Army boys went ashore."
Source: Warrant Officer A. 'Baron' Humphreys, quoted in Neillands and De Normann, D-Day 1944: Voices from Normandy
Humphreys and Carroll were the last crew on the list. As 156,000 Allied troops were crossing the Channel below them, they were flying their patrol over the St Lô–Argentan–Caen–Vire corridor — the exact area through which German reinforcements would need to move to contain the landings. Their job was to keep those roads and railways closed.
The 613 Squadron ORB for June 1944 (AIR 27/2117/34) records the D-Day entry. Aircraft NB.987, crew F/S J.H. Carroll and F/S A. Humphreys, took off at 0337 and landed at 0555 — after the invasion had begun. The task recorded: a rail road crossing bombed.
The maths teacher from Hebburn was one of the last RAF crews back before dawn on D-Day.
"At briefing I saw that my name was last on the list, due to return just before daylight on 6 June, as the Army boys went ashore." — Warrant Officer 'Baron' Humphreys

The Summer Campaign — June to August 1944
D-Day was not the end. Through June, July and August 1944, Carroll and Humphreys flew a sustained series of night intruder operations over occupied France — hunting German communications, transport convoys, railway junctions and river crossings as the Allied armies fought their way through Normandy.
The July ORB alone records them flying on: 2 July, 4 July, 7 July, 8 July, 12 July, 15 July, 18 July, 19 July, 22 July, 23 July, 25 July, 26 July, 27 July, and 28 July. Fourteen sorties in a single month. Each one at low level, at night, over enemy-held territory, with anti-aircraft guns below and the constant possibility of collision in the dark.
Individual entries capture the texture of what they did. On 9/10 June: "Bombed road at edge of wood T5252. Glow seen after bombing. Cannoned marshalling station at Th.225; strikes observed." On 12 July: the Caen, Herridon and Vire area, 4×500lb bombs. On 27 July: sixteen aircraft harassed the enemy in support of the American First Army.
The last ORB entry for Carroll and Humphreys is dated 20 August 1944. Aircraft HR492. Bombing and harassing the Seine crossings. A number of barges destroyed. Flak encountered.
After that date, their names disappear from the 613 Squadron record.

The Dog Tag
Joe Carroll was commissioned as a Pilot Officer on 29 November 1944. His officer number — 189393 — appears in the London Gazette of 2 February 1945 (Supplement 36923).
His dog tag survives in the family's possession. It reads:
J.E. CARROLL / OFFR / R.C. / 189393 / R.A.F.V.R.
OFFR: Officer. R.C.: Roman Catholic. R.A.F.V.R.: Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. A piece of stamped vulcanised fibre, small enough to sit in a palm. The officer number on the tag matches the Gazette entry exactly. It is a direct physical link to the man who wore it over occupied Europe.

50,000 Welshmen Singing
One story captures the man behind the service record.
Sometime during the war, while his squadron was training in Wales, a Group Captain walked into the mess and asked if anyone played rugby. Three or four men said they did. Carroll was one of them.
"Right. You have a game on Saturday in Cardiff against some Welshmen. We'll get a full team from other squadrons."
A bus to Cardiff. New teammates. Then the Arms Park — not the local ground they had expected. As they changed, they heard what Carroll's son Roger remembers as "this amazing din." Fifty thousand Welshmen singing in the stands. It turned out they were the official RAF team, playing the official Welsh national side — miners, steelworkers, policemen, dockers.
Joe Carroll played. He told the story for the rest of his life. His son Roger noticed, much later, that he never once mentioned the score.
"He never mentioned the score." — Roger Carroll

Coming Home
After the European war ended, Carroll served in Burma and India, returning home in 1946. He was reunited with his wife Mary — a Tipperary farmer's daughter he had met when St Aloysius was evacuated to Trimdon — and their son Roger, who had spent the war at Clohera, near Bansha in County Tipperary.
The family settled at Clifford Street, Blaydon. Joe returned to his teaching post at St Aloysius in Hebburn. Among his pupils in the 1950s were Ray Wood (Manchester United and England goalkeeper) and George Armstrong (Arsenal).
He never spoke about the war. None of his pupils knew.
Joe Carroll died on 21 May 1972 at Ancoats Hospital, Manchester, aged 61. His wife Mary — born in Bansha on 29 December 1900 — outlived him by exactly 21 years, dying on 21 May 1993.



Suggested Call to Action for the Article
Throughout Joe Carroll's service with 613 Squadron, his pilot was A. 'Baron' Humphreys — named directly in two published books and confirmed in every ORB entry across ten months of operations. His nickname was 'Baron.' His initial was 'A.' That is all we know.
Despite extensive research through the London Gazette, National Archives, RAF service records, and correspondence with specialist researchers, his full first name and postwar life remain unconfirmed. We have two strong candidates from service records but have not yet been able to identify which man was flying with Joe Carroll.
Suggested text for the article:

CAN YOU HELP? We are trying to find the full name and living descendants of Joe Carroll's wartime pilot — A. 'Baron' Humphreys of 613 Squadron RAF, who flew with Carroll on over forty Mosquito operations over occupied Europe in 1943–44, including the famous Gestapo raid on The Hague and D-Day night. 'Baron' is known to have survived the war and is referred to as 'RAF Retired' in a 1990s aviation book. If you have any information about him — his first name, where he was from, what happened to him after the war — please contact his grandson at rorr2001@hotmail.com.

Any information about Humphreys would help complete the record of one of the most thoroughly documented Mosquito crews of the entire war.



Primary Sources
• 613 Squadron Operational Record Books — AIR 27/2117, The National Archives, Kew — confirms all operations listed above
• 13 OTU ORB, October 1943, Appendix 'C' (AIR 28 series, Kew) — confirms Carroll/Humphreys posting to 613 Squadron, 25 October 1943
• 13 OTU Ground Instruction Syllabus (AIR 28 series, Kew) — the training curriculum quoted above
• London Gazette, 2 February 1945 (Supplement 36923) — Carroll's commissioning as Pilot Officer, officer number 189393
• Martin W. Bowman, De Havilland Mosquito (Crowood Aviation Series) — Humphreys' first-hand account, naming Carroll
• Robin Neillands and Roderick De Normann, D-Day 1944: Voices from Normandy — Humphreys' D-Day account, naming Carroll
• Joe Carroll's identity disc — family possession; confirms officer number 189393, RAFVR, Roman Catholic
• GRO death certificate — confirmed cause of death and address
• Family testimony — Roger Carroll (son)