Hamish Mahaddie(1911-1997)
- Additional Crew
Born in Leith in March 1911 in Leith in Scotland, Thomas Gilbert
Mahaddie joined the British Royal Air Force (RAF) on 9th January 1928
training as a metal rigger. He then was then able to volunteer for
pilot training and gained his wings in 1935. It was during this period
he gained the nickname "Hamish" which was to stick for the rest of his
life. Hamish Mahaddie was a bomber pilot and took part in many bombing
operations between September 1939 and July 1940 when he was rested and
commissioned as an officer. Mahaddie was an instructor until August
1942 when he returned to operations with the elite Pathfinder force,
the RAF's target finders for night bombing operations. Hamish was taken
off operations in March 1943 with the rank of Group Captain and given
the task of recruiting aircrew for the Pathfinder force, and this was
followed in July 1944 with the appointment of command of RAF Warboys,
where the Pathfinder Force training unit was. This unit trained aircrew
on the Avro Lancaster and the De Haviland Mosquito. Hamish Mahaddie
continued his post war career in the RAF until March 1958 when he
retired with the rank of Group Captain and the DSO, DFC and AFC to his
credit. However Mahaddie found that he could no longer keep his family
in the manor to which they had been accustomed and became a consultant
to the film industry. His memoirs "Hamish" published in 1989 only give
vague details of which films he was involved in, but the first was the
1964 Mirisch release "633 Squadron" about an RAF Mosquito squadron
launching a suicidal raid on a Nazi installation in Norway. Mahaddie
with his Mosquito experience was well placed to advise the producers.
The film used some recently retired target tug Mosquito's, and one
example B35, serial number RS712 was bought by Mahaddie on completion
of filming. He is thought to have used the aircraft as a personal
transport between film sets. "633 Squadron" credits Mahaddie with his
real name of T.G Mahaddie, which causes confusion on the IMDB as he is
billed as Hamish Mahaddie on the credits of 1969's "Battle Of Britain".
In his memoirs Mahaddie recalls he was involved with the 1965 Michael
Anderson film "Operation Crossbow" and he was definitely the aviation
consultant to the James Bond series, albeit uncredited. It was Mahaddie
who recruited Wing Commander Ken Wallis and his auto gyro to the Bond
film "You Only Live Twice", and the source for this is Wing Commander
Wallis himself who remains to this day a delightful raconteur. Wallis
recalled that he took his auto gyro to Pinewood Studios and took off
from a small piece of land in front of Messrs Broccoli and Saltzman.
Hamish Mahaddie told Wallis after wards that when he took off from that
restricted area he was instantly in a James Bond film ! Mahaddie's
finest hour came in 1968 when he was recruited by Harry Saltzman to
find as many second world war vintage aircraft as possible for the
aviation epic "Battle Of Britain". The producers had realised that with
the film being made in colour, using wartime footage and models was not
acceptable. Hamish Mahaddie managed to persuade the RAF to lend many of
its aircraft as static airfield dressing and in addition to this found
9 airworthy Spitfires and 3 airworthy Hurricanes. Mahaddie's big coup
was finding the Spanish air force were still using licence built
Heinkel 111 bombers and Messerschmitt 109 fighters, ironically with
Rolls-Royce engines. He persuaded the Spanish air force to co-operate
in the filming of "Battle Of Britain". This enabled the film to have
its spectacular dogfight sequences, using real aircraft in a real sky,
something that CGI effects cannot match. During the filming of "Battle
Of Britain", Mahaddie lent his Mosquito bomber to Mirisch for their
film "Mosquito Squadron", a lame "sequel" to "633 Squadron" that
re-used many scenes from the earlier film. The Mosquito RS712 was
eventually sold by Mahaddie in 1972 and now resides in Florida, its
flying days apparently over. Mahaddie was also advisor to the short
lived British TV series "The Pathfinders". After this the trail goes
cold, as related earlier Mahaddie did not detail the films he was
involved with in his memoirs. Group Captain Hamish Mahaddie died on
16th January 1997.