Frank C. Blackmore

Donald Fraser described Blackie as “a pilot I trusted absolutely” and “a permanent RAF type with considerable flying experience, especially with the CCDU [Coastal Command Development Unit], and I felt completely safe with him in the pilot’s seat, or at least, as safe as one could ever feel in a heavy kite in wartime”.

In April of 1943 he was promoted to Flight Lieutenant.

He survived an emergency landing on Sanna beach just north of Ardnamurchan Point Lighthouse, Kilchoan, Scotland in 1943. The remote beach, extraordinarily, had a working red telephone box on the road that led to it from Kilchoan from which he phoned for help. It was so remote that reportedly he and his crew had to be rescued by sea. He was awarded the Air Force Cross, approved by the King on January 1st, 1944.  To date I’ve been unable to verify what squadron he was serving with at the time and what kind of aircraft it was.

On October 26th, 1945, he re-married, to Eva Margaret Maude Johnson (1918 – 1986).  They had three children, two sons and one daughter.

In August 1947 he was promoted to Squadron Leader, commanding 206 Squadron. 206 Squadron is believed to have been re-activated in November of 1947, flying Avro Yorks (a transport version of the Lancaster Bomber), which was later used during the Berlin Airlift from June of 1948 to May of 1949, but Blackmore had been replaced by then.

His obituary continued: “Having worked for the air ministry in London and then for a time in France with Nato, he retired as a wing commander in 1959. His final posting was at the British embassy in Beirut, where, as well as being air attaché and interpreter, Blackmore had some clandestine duties. He later spoke of his task of recording, by means of holes drilled in the wall, conversations in the neighbouring apartment, which was occupied by Russian embassy staff.

Returning to London, in 1960 he joined the Transport and Road Research Laboratory, where he quickly developed a keen interest in junction design. His interest became an obsession, and family holidays were regularly punctuated with stops at intersections while he took photos from every possible vantage point. These trips were documented with photographs, not of his children or beauty spots, but of cars, junctions and road signs. In Paris, he even climbed the steps of the Arc de Triomphe (which stands in the middle of an early roundabout) for a view of the traffic, not the city. He came up with a system for photographing an entire junction in a single frame by using a camera mounted on a crane and pointing up into a concave mirror.

Frank was considered a maverick and campaigned to secure priority from the right at conventional roundabouts from 1966. He then worked on the idea of a roundabout with no central island in his own time, knowing it would not be taken seriously. But, after a long struggle, he finally got the first mini-roundabout introduced in Peterborough in 1969, stationing himself there with a loud-hailer to tell motorists what to do when they met it.

He and his second wife Eva divorced in 1969. From 1970 until she died in April 2008, his partner was Eliane Lavallée, whom he had known since adolescence in Algeria.

Blackmore was motivated by a desire to see an end to choked-up junctions, which he found frustrating and unnecessary. Eventually, he elaborated on his original idea by developing multiple roundabouts. Two of his projects are the so-called magic roundabout in Swindon (1972) and the multi-ring junction in Hemel Hempstead (1973), which, love them or loathe them, are cunningly effective ways of moving traffic. He was also keen to improve road safety, and the mini-roundabout has indeed proved much safer than traffic lights.

Blackmore's pioneering work at TRRL led to the introduction of modern roundabouts in countries as diverse as France, Belgium, Iraq, Jordan and Thailand. He lectured on junction problems and roundabout design internationally, and traffic experts credit him with preventing thousands of deaths and injuries all over the world.” 

Blackmore received the Wolfe award for his ‘outstanding contribution to research on junction design’ in 1976 and was appointed OBE in 1977.

On a personal side, he was described as “shy and self-effacing, but could be great fun.  He was kind, hospitable, and generous, but ‘also had very much his own way of doing things [and] could be argumentative, stubborn and difficult’.  For years he lived in Finchampstead, Berkshire.  He suffered a stroke while in France in 2002.  In his last years, when afflicted with dementia, he resided at Kensington Nursing Home, Ladbroke Grove, London.  After fracturing a hip in a fall, he died from heart failure at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on 5 June 2008 at the age of 92.  He was cremated at the West London crematorium on 14 June 2008 and is buried in Colchester”

One thing that occurred to me after reading about his engineering and design work with the TRRL is that he was a meticulous planner and quite a perfectionist. That may help explain why he never scored a success with 172 Squadron. All of his attacks had the same common denominator; not being in the ideal position to attack, and taking the time to go around for another try. In each case, the U-Boat had time to crash-dive and escape (they could do so in 30 seconds).

The element of surprise was the key factor in a successful Leigh Light attack. It’s one of the reasons the light was only flipped on about 10 seconds before drop.

To be fair, Blackie wasn’t the only pilot to find himself in a poor position to attack, but by striving to get the perfect approach he lost out on sinking or even damaging a U-Boat and was 0 for 3; U-162 and Enrico Tazzoli in June of 1942 and U-336 in January of 1943, book-ending his career with 172 Squadron.

His flying skills and attention to detail, however, made him an excellent mentor for Alex.