No.
214 (Federated Malay States) Squadron
Royal Air Force
Sgt
Gerhard 'Harry' Heilig
Gerhard's
car. Look at the registration mark!
Sgt
Gerhard 'Harry' Heilig, 1892246, Special Operator, Royal Air Force, Nationality
: Austrian
SEE
CREWS AND LOSSES for Flying Fortress (model unknown) SR386 BU-N
Born 19 April 1925
Born in Budapest, Hungary
Son of Bruno and Hilda Heilig
Author of:
Circuits and Bumps: A Pilot's Experiences in War and Peace with the RAF and
Civil Airlines 1943-1964
ISBN: 1-903953-57-X
The Cry of the Nightjar
ISBN 1-903953-81-2
Around the world in 80 beds: a bawdy romp without any four letter words.
ISBN 1-903953-82-0
All published by Woodfield Publishing, Babsham Lane, Bognor Regis, West Sussex,
England
www.woodfieldpublishing.com
Source
: Gerhard Heilig
Date record last updated : 10 March 2008
HOW
I JOINED THE RAF
One Saturday afternoon, it was the 9 January 1943, I happened to be walking along
the Euston Road when I spotted a recruiting office. For quite some time now it
had been my ambition to fly and on the spur of the moment I decided to go in and
make inquiries. A kind and solicitous army Sergeant politely inquired what he
might do for me.
"I want to volunteer for air crew duties with the RAF."
"You've come to the right place, sign here."
"I don't think it's going to be as simple as that. You see, I am Austrian,
technically an enemy alien. Is there any chance of being accepted for flying?"
"Oh yes. You'll have to make a special application stating your case and
it will be considered on its merits. This will take about six weeks. Now if you'll
sign here and take a preliminary medical, don't worry, if your application should
be turned down you won't have to join up in any other capacity, for being technically
an enemy alien you can't be called up at all. Thank you, good luck."
I stopped at the next phone box and called my father.
"Hullo, would you mind sitting down? Never mind why, are you comfortable?
Good. I just wanted to tell you that I have volunteered for flying duties."
My father agreed that it had been a good idea to have made him sit down before
telling him my news. I'd been worried how he would react to my decision but he
didn't bat an eyelid. He helped me to formulate my letter and later on he told
me that he had also written one himself in support of my application. He wasn't
in fact all that taken with the idea but very sensibly took the attitude that
it was really my life, to do with as I thought fit. We had become very close since
I had come to live with him in London. He never asked any questions but was always
very interested in anything I wished to tell him. I enjoyed these talks and his
quiet confidence in me produced a natural urge to communicate my doings to him.
I might leave out the details, later on at any rate, for at this time there were
no details worth talking about, but I found myself desisting from doing things
I might have been ashamed to mention. I was an absolute innocent at the time,
for some time to come in fact, but I am sure that my father's attitude helped
considerably to keep me out of trouble. If in doubt I used to ask myself: could
I tell dad about this? If the answer was no I would desist. There must have been
numerous occasions when I was being over-scrupulous, a habit which I fortunately
lost later on, but it was better being safe than sorry. Even if a surfeit of safety
sometimes resulted in some matters to be taken to a less than satisfactory conclusion.
He was more than a father, he was a friend and comrade as well, and both his and
my mother's example have ever been good guiding lights throughout my varied life.
A number of well meaning people scolded me for attempting to play the little hero
when in fact I could not have been called up for active or any other kind of service,
but there was nothing heroic about my action whatsoever. My motivation was twofold.
First of all I had been smitten by an overwhelming desire to fly. Not only was
this the sole means available in order to achieve my ambition, but it could also
be done at someone else's expense. Secondly, I was only too aware that Britain
had undoubtedly saved my life and I would not have been happy to take advantage
of my situation and let others do the dirty work. I had found not only safety
but also a great deal of happiness and contentment in England, intended to stay
in the country after the war and saw this as a good way of paying my way. No heroics,
simply combining personal ambition with a desire to do the decent thing.
But I also countered my well-meaning critics by questioning the so-called safety
of the civilian life I had chosen to leave behind me. Had not more than enough
civilians been killed or hurt through enemy action? Were air raids not still a
regular occurrence? Even in peacetime one did not have to venture far abroad to
risk injury or death, enough housewives suffer injury and worse in their own kitchens.
There was no guarantee that I would be involved in action or hear a single shot
fired in anger. And if I did, I would not necessarily get hurt in the process
and the possible permutations were endless. This was simply what I wanted to do
and all my instincts told me that I was doing the right thing. Many years later
I came across a saying: If there is something you really want to do, go ahead
and do it. This was the spirit which had moved me, a guiding principle which has
never failed me throughout my life.
About this time I got my first political education. I had always been aware of
my father's communist leanings and he now indoctrinated me with Marxist theory.
It was all so utterly logical that I found it impossible not to believe the truth
it implied. But fortunately I had far more exciting things to occupy my mind so
I just tucked it all away in the innermost recesses of my mental filing tray and
left it at that. But it did not take me long to discover that this apparently
wonderful ideology had left out one tiny but all-important factor - the human
one. I then dug out the dusty file, added this human factor - and discovered communism
to be the biggest and most dangerous confidence trick of all time.
Eleven days after volunteering for the RAF I passed my aircrew medical and two
months after my first visit to the recruiting office, on the 9 March, a letter
from the Air Ministry informed me that I had been accepted. On 12 March I passed
my aptitude tests and appeared before the aircrew selection board.
Not unnaturally I wanted to become a pilot, preferably a fighter pilot, and if
at all possible flying Spitfires. I was soon brought down a peg or two, they wouldn't
have me as a driver, airframes. Just as well as I was to discover later. More
pilots had survived than expected and there were already more trainees in the
pipeline than the system could easily digest. Only very few applicants were being
accepted for the PNB (pilot, navigator, bomb-aimer) category, generally from lads
with long service in the Air Training Corps. Had they taken me, I may not have
finished my training before the war ended, finished up doing a variety of jobs
on the ground or at best playing air attendant with Transport Command, though
still classed as air crew.
They did not actually tell me all this but merely intimated that nowadays the
key person on a bomber was the flight engineer. I remained unconvinced, expressed
my appreciation of modern needs but stubbornly stuck to my guns. Disfavoured or
not, and I could not help noticing that they all wore the mark of this downgraded
category of aircrew, pilot's wings, I wanted to be a pilot. After a while I was
sent out of the room while the board conferred. A few minutes later they called
me back and told me that a further scrutiny of my aptitude tests had revealed
that I had the makings of a first class radio operator. If I wanted to fly, this
was the ideal job for me. If not ...? I did not believe a word they said but realized
that for some reason or other it was this or nothing. At least I would be flying
and some day perhaps I would be able to use this as a stepping-stone to achieve
my ultimate ambition, and so I accepted. As a parting shot I asked whether I might
have a chance of pilot training once I had completed a tour as a wireless operator.
"Oh, certainly," they said, "you'd be the very type we would be
looking for!" I actually believed them.
The next day I was attested and became officially an aircrew cadet on deferred
service pending my call-up. I was given the King's Shilling, twelve of them in
fact as befitted a budding bold aviator. It was the Ides of March, near enough,
and all but five years to the day since Hitler had marched into Austria.
The minimum age for the commencement of aircrew training was 18 years and 3 months
and, in order to fill in the intervening time usefully, I joined the ATC. By June
I had reached a Morse proficiency of 6 words per minute and I thought I was very
clever. I did not know what I was in for. On the 2 June I received my call-up
papers with instructions to report on the 28 June to the Air Crew Reception Centre,
or ACRC, at Lords' Cricket Ground in St. John's Wood.
TOP OF PAGE
AIR
CREW TRAINING 1943
- 1944
I was documented,
kitted out, billeted and inoculated. A few days before joining up I had taken
the precaution to visit a barber. On one of our first parades in uniform our corporal
inspected the backs of our heads and I was horrified when, along with many others,
he tapped me on the back growling "haircut".
"But I've just had a haircut Corporal," I gasped.
"Never mind, haircut!"
It's not for us to reason why ...
I spent three weeks at St. John's Wood going through the various motions of being
absorbed into the service and getting generally acclimatized. After working hours
and at weekends, being generously provided with passes, I frequently visited my
father, the club or met my friends and proudly wore my uniform with the white
cap flash of the aircrew cadet. On 17 July my intake was posted to the Initial
Training Wing (ITW) at Bridgnorth in Shropshire.
I spent six weeks at ITW doing general things such as square bashing, rifle drill
and particular training such as aircraft recognition (just as well to know which
side that plane's on!), dinghy drill (how to survive in the drink, not the kind
for internal use), Morse and other suitable subjects. It was glorious weather
and a grand station. Two occurrences remained vividly in my memory.
One day we were doing rifle drill, formed up in a hollow square with the drill
corporal at the open end. It was one of those days when nothing would go right
and the instructor threatened to keep us at it all day if necessary if we didn't
pull our fingers out. At long last we managed to go through the motions from order
arms through slope arms to present arms and back again without major mishap.
"Alright you miserable shower, do it once more and you can beat it to the
cookhouse for your dinner. Sloooope Harms!"
I flung up my rifle and held out my hands to catch it, but my frantic fingers
clutched at empty air and there was a resounding crash as the weapon hit the ground.
There was a deathly silence, then the parade dissolved in uncontrollable hysterics
and the corporal admitted defeat and dismissed us.
Our flight commander was a youngish Pilot Officer. He was strict as strict could
be, but absolutely fair and we adored him. Frequently he would come to our hut,
sit on one of the beds and chat with us, the very milk of human kindness. One
day, one of the lads asked him what he'd been doing before being commissioned.
He hummed and hawed, it was nothing that could possibly be of interest to us,
it really was of no importance or consequence, why don't we talk about something
else. The more he prevaricated, the more insistent we became. We loved him and
there was nothing so insignificant about him that we did not wish to know.
"Alright you chaps, I'll tell you. I was in the service police."
There was a deathly hush, this was utterly unbelievable. Then someone said in
a small voice: "You can't have been sir, you're so nice."
Pilot Office Palmer (I think that was his name) laughed. "Well, I didn't
want to tell you but you insisted. I fully appreciate that SP's can't hope to
get far in a popularity poll, but they are necessary and in fact fulfil a very
useful function. Perhaps now you'll realize that some of them at least can be
quite human."
He lost nothing in popularity through this confession of his murky past, but it
did nothing to reduce our dislike and distrust of the representatives of Service
law and order. Nothing could eradicate their stigma of potential censure or punishment
in the eyes of an humble airman. They were not friend and helper like their civilian
counterparts but representatives of stern and unwinking authority, spectres to
be avoided whenever possible.
On 8 September we heard that Italy had capitulated. My mother and brother had
been interned on Italy's entry into the war but occasional letters had indicated
they were not badly off. Now German troops were flooding the country and I wondered
with anxiety what would become of them.
Ten days later I finished my initial training and received orders to proceed to
Number 4 Radio School at Madley near Hereford after the ten days leave now due
to me.
I reported to Madley on 30 September for my six months course as a wireless operator.
It was a sprawling camp with the various living and working sites widely dispersed
around the airfield. Our accommodation consisted of wooden huts divided into rooms,
each containing two double bunks. The sole facilities on the sleeping site were
lavatories, and in order to wash and shave we had to walk a mile to the messing
site. I found myself sharing a room with Tom Harvey and we soon became an inseparable
pair. The other two, Ernie Philips and Ted Sissons also chummed up and the four
of us formed a close quartet.
Life at Madley was hard and sombre and we all soon wished ourselves far away from
this dismal place. In fact, someone had composed our own station song to the tune
of Blaze Away: "This is Stalag Bullshit, and we're the Bullshit Fusiliers!"
The Noble Duke of York's men had had it easy, they'd merely had to march up the
hill and down again; we were footslogging it day after weary day, more often than
not retracing our steps at least once in the process. I enjoyed the technical
lectures and quickly mastered radio theory and allied subjects, but the average
of four hours Morse instruction, six days a week, were sheer hard grind. Our corporal
technical instructor was a charming man and excellent at his job, but all the
other NCO's left little impression apart from dull to downright unfriendly. I
suppose it was unavoidable, teaching Morse was sheer routine allowing no scope
to present a scintillating personality, and the ones responsible for good order
and discipline had a thankless task and were merely doing their jobs.
In the evenings we would forgather in the NAAFI for a while before tramping back
to our huts to bull up our boots and buttons before turning in to rest our weary
bones. On Sunday mornings we were spared the blaring of the Tannoy with its relentless
urging to rise and shine and we could luxuriate in our spartan beds. In the afternoons
we usually took the station bus into Hereford where we could indulge ourselves
in the fleshpots of the local Sally-Ann and Toc-H or go to the pictures.
We were given leave from the 18-26 December and on the last day of the year I
had my first experience of making like a bird. Our flying classroom was a Dominie,
the Service version of the De Havilland Dragon Rapide, accommodating, apart from
the pilot, about four pupils, each with his own wireless and an instructor with
the unenviable task of helping us establish our first tentative radio contacts.
My stomach did not exactly rebel at being heaved aloft but it was, despite my
thrill at being airborne at last, distinctly queasy. However, this was the only
time I ever felt any discomfort whatsoever, henceforth I gloried in every minute
of flying.
A week later I had my second flight but now the weather closed in and severely
restricted operations. The previous entry was struggling to get its airtime in
and I did not get my third and, as it turned out final flight on the Dominie,
until the end of January. The course stipulated a number of trips under supervision
in the flying classrooms followed by solo exercises in a Percival Proctor, but
as the weeks passed we had to be content with practice in Harwell Boxes, small
cabins containing standard aircraft radio stations, built to simulate live conditions
including engine noise. These, as also the Proctors, contained the latest in aircraft
equipment, but the Dominies had ancient sets, little removed from the old cat's
whiskers. Our course was due to finish at the end of March but it had become obvious
that we would never be able to complete our flight training by this time. There
also appeared to be a bottleneck further up the line, the entry but one before
ours which had completed the course was still awaiting a posting and our chances
of escape from Madley looked very remote indeed. But life was about to take an
unexpected turn.
TOP OF PAGE
OPS
IN A FORTRESS 1944
Six
months earlier we had been treated as the crème de la crème of budding
aircrew at Initial Training Wing at Bridgnorth in Shropshire, a well laid out
station where the sun shone all day in a glorious late summer. Then, at the beginning
of October, we had found ourselves at Number 4 Radio School Madley near Hereford.
After the first few days of sweltering in greatcoats (regulations demanded that
these be worn from 1 October regardless of the weather), the skies turned grey
and bleak and our body temperatures dropped below boiling point. At the first
parade our flight commander, himself a 'penguin', told us in his welcoming address
that we had no cause whatsoever to consider ourselves as anything special. In
his opinion, aircrew were no more than a necessary evil in the Royal Air Force!
The physical conditions of the camp were no picnic either. We had to walk a mile
from our sleeping site fully equipped for the day's work before we could wash
and shave at the messing site. Then interminable marches from one working site
to the next with a fiendish system of constantly retracing our steps from one
instructional site to the next with a dash back to the messing site for our midday
meal. We were not a very happy band, and when 'Flight' announced one morning that
anyone with a knowledge of German was to put down his name in the flight office,
several of us fell out with glee at the vague chance of escape from this depressing
life.
But the weeks stretched into months and there was no letup in the treadmill. Then
one Saturday, it was the 11th March, we were having our evening meal when our
corporal came into the mess hall and shouted for Johnny and I to report to the
flight office immediately. This could only mean trouble, but for once neither
of us had a guilty conscience. One thing was certain, someone was out to sabotage
our one day off in the week. We were puzzled and relieved when, instead of being
detailed for some unpleasant duty, we were ordered to report with flying kit to
the airfield the next morning. Due to bad weather our intake had barely started
flight training and even the flight instructors could not tell us why an exception
should have been made for just the two of us. Being airborne as a crewmember certainly
more than made up for our lost day off.
Lacking definitive orders, we paraded as usual on the Monday morning for normal
duties. As we were about to march off, 'Flight' came rushing out of the office
shouting: "Heilig, Herzog, why the hell aren't you at the airfield?"
Well, no one had told us to and we weren't sorry to make a quick escape from the
usual drudgery.
Having lugged our flying kit miles to the aerodrome, we were told that due to
bad weather there was to be no flying that day anyway. However, the Chief Instructor
wanted to see us, so off we went to add yet some more mileage to our peregrinations.
On arrival we found another dozen or so cadets waiting to see him, having been
ordered unexpectedly from their various classes. We were filled with apprehension
and foreboding about our impending fate. Seeing no reason for preferment, it could
only mean trouble. Then I had a brainwave. "Do any of you speak German?"
I asked. They all could. No one said a word, but by the expressions on their faces
it was obvious that all had the same vision of little figures dangling on the
end of parachutes on sinister and dangerous missions behind the enemy lines.
Before I had time to collect my shattered wits, Johnny and I were ordered into
the Chief Instructor's office. "You two are required for immediate posting
to a squadron. I do not know why. Can you get your tests and flying finished by
Wednesday?" We were not due to complete our course for another three weeks,
in fact it would take longer than that to finish our flying and there was a bottleneck
on further postings and the thought of facing the ordeal of our final examinations
had not even crossed our minds. But here was an opportunity to pack all that into
the next 48 hours and, while we had no doubts about our ability to pass the tests,
it's always a good thing to have the instructors on your side. We were being offered
a short cut to - what? But the long way round is not necessarily safer, in fact,
usually fraught with more uncertainties. All this flashed through our minds and
we answered with a firm "Yes Sir!"
"Alright then. There's no flying today so go and get your exams done right
away. Report tomorrow morning at the airfield for flying."
We did not have to stand and wait. The instructors pounced on us like a flock
of vultures and by mid-afternoon we had passed all our tests. We then wallowed
in the luxury of quietly ambling back for tea as almost free men while the rest
of our intake had their noses well and truly strapped to the grindstone.
The next day was no different. No sooner had we poked our noses into the flight
office, we were whisked off for our first flight of the day. While cadets from
previous intakes sat around getting bored, we were up and down like yo-yo's and
finished the day with our air qualifications in our pockets.
On Wednesday morning we ambled along to breakfast in our own good time and then
paid a visit to our flight commander. He handed us our signaller's wings and sergeant's
stripes, wished us luck and told us to get cleared and collect our marching orders
for our secret destination. The date was the 15th, the Ides of March. Six years
to the day since my father had been arrested by the Gestapo in Vienna. Ominous
- but for whom? Well, I'm still alive and kicking, more than 50 years later. But
our first thought was a visit to the tailor to get the visible signs of our new-found
glory sewn on our uniforms. So far everything had worked like greased lightning,
but now bureaucracy reared its ugly head. It took us until Thursday afternoon
to get through all the bumph and be issued with our travel warrants for Fakenham
in Norfolk - to report to 214 Squadron at Sculthorpe.
However, our time was spent quite pleasantly. There was no one to chivvy us and
everyone was very polite. The weather was mild and we luxuriated in no longer
having to wear a greatcoat buttoned up to the neck and hump our small kit around
all day. Passing Service Police no longer held terrors for us. To their smart
"Good morning Sergeant," we replied with a gracious "Good morning
Corporal." We were really very, very pleased with ourselves.
Johnny and I arrived very late one night at Fakenham station, wondering what we'd
let ourselves in for. It was Friday 17 March 1944 and we'd been humping our kit
since early morning on a wartime train journey in fits and starts across country.
They'd been most helpful in seeing us on our train in Hereford. We'd had to fend
for ourselves during the interminable changes to our destination and here we were,
surrounded by our kit on a deserted platform. However, a phone call to the station
soon had us bouncing along deserted lanes in a transport to our new home. We were
bursting with curiosity, but all we could get out of our driver was: "It's
all very secret, you'll have to find out for yourselves." He would not even
tell us what type of aircraft the squadron was equipped with in case we turned
out to be German spies in disguise.
Our quarters were in a hut accommodating about two dozen NCO aircrew in one long
undivided space. To reach the two vacant beds at the far end we had to run the
gauntlet of our new companions who eyed us with undisguised curiosity. We had
heard tales of scruffy, devil-may-care aircrew, but what we saw here out of the
corners of our timid eyes were immaculate uniforms of Warrant Officers, Flight
Sergeants and the odd Sergeant, nearly all sporting the 1939-43 Star and some
even the DFM. We felt very small indeed.
"Just been posted in?" said a voice.
"Yes."
"Where have you come from?"
"Radio School."
"Been instructing?"
"No. Just passed out."
There was a deathly silence.
"How many hours have you got?"
"Ten and a half," said Johnny. "Eleven," said I.
Another deathly silence. We felt like crawling away into a hole.
"Ah well, never mind. You'll soon get into the swim of it. Better kip down
for the night and we'll show you around in the morning."
One of the lads took us to the Sergeants Mess for breakfast next morning and told
us to check in with the PMC, then report to the Adjutant. We had no idea who or
what a PMC was, so he enlightened us that he was the bloke who ran the mess and
if we wanted feeding we had better go and say hello to him. The Adjutant proved
the efficiency of the system by expressing great surprise at our arrival. But
being a man of infinite resource, as well as of a generous nature, he promptly
sent us on seven days leave. That very same Saturday evening saw us wallowing
in the flesh and other pots of London.
However, someone or other had evidently tumbled to the fact that our posting to
the Squadron had been of a very urgent nature and on the Tuesday we received an
immediate recall to duty. This time they were ready for us. We were informed that
the sole object of the Squadron was to carry special operators like ourselves
along in the main bomber stream and that it would be our duty to find, identify
and jam enemy fighter control transmissions, causing havoc and confusion to their
defences. The whole thing was so secret that not even the Commanding Officer knew
what it was all about.
No time was wasted in getting us trained on our equipment. It consisted of a control
unit with a cathode ray tube scanning the German fighter frequency band and any
transmissions would show up as blips on the screen. We would then tune our receiver
to the transmission by moving a strobe spot onto it, identify the transmission
as genuine (this was where our knowledge of the language came in as the Germans
were expected to come up with phoney instructions in order to divert our jammers),
then tune our transmitter to the frequency and blast off with a cacophony of sound
which in retrospect would put today's pop music to utter shame.
The transmitters were standard T1154 mf/hf transmitters modified to operate on
38-42.5 mc/s. Later on, specially designed equipment was to be used. The Squadron
was not yet operational, having recently been converted from Stirlings. The B17
Fortress had been chosen for the job, later to be followed by B24 Liberators for
223 Squadron, as the American type bomb bay was better suited for the installation
of the planned equipment than the British underfloor bays. As there were not enough
special operators to go round, we were allocated to whoever happened to be flying
until our establishment would be complete and allow permanent crewing up.
We soon made friends and found our favourite crews. The old hands, a number on
their second tour, made us welcome and we soon lost the feeling of being intruding
greenhorns. Training went on apace and we all felt it could not be long now before
we became fully operational.
One day Johnnie and I were called to the adjutant's office. He advised us that
our German names would put us at considerable risk in the event of being captured
by the enemy and that arrangements could easily be made to change them to something
more innocuous. Johnnie took him up on his suggestion, promptly opting for the
innocent sounding one of Hereford, but I was not so sure. What were the options?
First of all, they would have to shoot me down. Secondly, I would have to survive
and thirdly they would have to catch me. My innate optimism, or more likely ignorance,
told me that none of this may ever arise. But supposing it did and I was captured,
might it not be just my luck to be interrogated by some former school fellow who
would recognize me and brand me as a spy sailing under false colours? On the other
hand, we had been told that under the Geneva Convention all we were required to
reveal, and in fact obliged to do, was number, rank and name, and so long as we
did this with a correct military bearing, the Germans were not likely to press
for more.
What finally decided me was my father's example. When the crunch came at the time
of the Anschluss he unhesitatingly decided to face the music - and, though sorely
tried, got away with it. Of course, luck had also played its part but when does
it not, and does not fortune favour the brave, at least part of the time? One
day, during his time in concentration camp, the head of the Gestapo and SS, Himmler,
had come on a tour of inspection and had all the prominent politicals from Vienna
paraded for his particular attention. Amongst others, he stopped to address my
father.
"What were you," he asked.
"Journalist."
"Do you know where the publisher of the Stimme is?"
"I last saw him at the Gestapo headquarters in Vienna."
After Himmler had passed on, my father realized how that man's ignorance had saved
him from a difficult, if not potentially fatal situation. The publisher is only
the business head of a newspaper, the man Himmler had been looking for was the
editor, the man responsible for what was actually written - and he himself had
been the editor! It had been a close shave.
Another instance of facing things boldly came to mind. In the early twenties my
father worked in the editorial office of a Budapest paper and this frequently
involved a lonely walk home in the early hours of the morning. The direct route
home would take him past the headquarters of the Arrow Cross party, an anti-Semitic
and fascist-oriented organization, which, being a Jew, could well involve him
in an unpleasant and perhaps even downright dangerous situation. The alternative
was a lengthy detour which he was averse to taking at the end of exhausting working
day, or rather, night. There were invariably a pair of sentries in front of the
house and his first instinct was to slink past in the shadows on the opposite
side of the street. But they would hardly fail to notice his surreptitious passage
and, if only to relieve the boredom of their stint, hail him if only to amuse
themselves at his expense. No, he decided to put a bold face upon it all and march
past under their very noses as if they did not even exist, though inwardly he
quaked. To his utter amazement, they not only allowed him unhindered passage,
but jumped to attention and gave a smart salute as he passed. This happened on
each subsequent occasion and it was only very much later that he discovered the
reason for this unexpected mark of respect. He bore a superficial resemblance
to one of the senior members of the party and his bold approach had convinced
the sentries that it must indeed be he. Had they taken a closer look at the shadowy
form across the road it would have been a different story.
No, I would not change my name. I had calculated the risks and decided to follow
my father's example. He had borne his name with honour and not deviated from his
true course; I would do no less and place my trust in providence.
Johnny and I had been on the Squadron a month when someone had the kind thought
that, being now fully trained, a spot of overdue leave would not come amiss. It
was the afternoon of the 20th April and we were getting our things together when
we were called to report to our section immediately. There we were told that we
had been selected, along with two others, to take part in the Squadron's first
operational flight in its new role before proceeding on leave the next day as
planned. Some of my special chums were flying that night and I had the pleasure
of getting teamed up with Canadian Jake Walters and his crew. Forty-one years
later I would be in touch with them again, but that's another story.
The target was the railway marshalling yard of La Chapelle in Paris. We did not
know it at the time, but strikes against focal points of transport were part of
the prelude to the Normandy landings. I had celebrated my 19th birthday on the
day before and today was another birthday, Hitler's. I thought it rather appropriate
that I should have the opportunity to start settling a personal account by helping
to deliver an appropriate gift to That Man.
We had an uneventful trip and after a few hours sleep Johnny and I caught the
train to London for our week's leave. As the train rolled south carrying two very
self-satisfied young airmen, a travelling companion remarked with a knowing smile:
"You boys had a busy night last night!" For a moment we were horrorstruck.
How on earth could he have known that we'd been on ops last night? Then we realized
that he meant the RAF generally and not ourselves in particular. "Ah yes,"
was our noncommittal reply. "We try to keep the ball rolling."
I can't remember many details about my time with 214 Squadron but I have deep
and lasting impressions of a happy unit with a high morale and a great sense of
professionalism. Survival in war is largely a matter of luck, but it has always
seemed to me that the high standard of airmanship on 214 must have had something
to do with the fact that of the twenty-odd crews I knew, only four were lost.
214 Squadron has certainly always had a very special meaning for me.
The Squadron moved to Oulton on 16 May. One of our specialities was spoof raids,
small groups of aircraft shovelling out great quantities of Window (aluminium
foil strips) to simulate a bomber stream. Following the pattern of attacks on
French railway marshalling yards, several of these had been flown over France
giving the real raids to Germany a clear run while the German night fighters were
chasing Window. Then one night we flew a spoof to the Dutch coast while the real
attack consisted of a force of Mosquito night fighters over France. The Germans
fell for it and flew straight into the waiting guns of our Mossies. Another spoof
was in support of the D-Day landings. Months later I was told that in the late
autumn of '44 some twelve aircraft of 214 and 223 had stood by for 48 hours, waiting
for some particularly nasty weather over Germany. Due to our intruder raids, German
aircraft were not allowed to approach their airfields without prior clearance
as all unidentified aircraft were immediately fired on and they had instructions
to bale out if they failed to get permission to land. The spoof force flew a Cook's
Tour of enemy territory and the threat forced their night fighters up into the
murk. Our aircraft returned unscathed, while many of the enemy either came to
grief in the filthy weather or had to abandon ship as we fouled up their communications.
On one of my leaves I had lunch with my father at a Czech émigré's
club in Bayswater. Amongst the group of his friends there was a WAAF sergeant
and I made polite conversation with her. To my opening questions she replied that
her work was so secret that she could not even tell me where she was stationed.
However, before many minutes had passed, I knew that her job was my own counterpart
on the ground with 100 Group. When I started to grin, she told me indignantly
that it was nothing to laugh about, it was all terribly important, but she was
mollified when I told her that I was in the same racket. She then told me the
following story.
Receiver operators passed Luftwaffe radio traffic to a controller who then issued
co-ordinated false instructions to transmitter operators designed to cause confusion
to the enemy. One night there was nothing happening whatsoever. Then the controller
was roused from his torpor by repeated calls for a homing, which evidently remained
unanswered. Mainly in order to relieve the utter boredom of a routine watch, he
decided to give the lost sheep a course to steer - to Woodbridge airfield in Essex.
The German pilot had been faced with the prospect of having to abandon his aircraft
and was going to buy everyone concerned a beer on his return to base. He came
down safely - to find himself a prisoner and could hardly be expected to keep
his promise to stand drinks all round. The aircraft was a Ju 88, stuffed with
the latest German equipment, quite a catch for Intelligence. The capture of this
aircraft was made public at the time, but not how it had all come about.
I did three more trips with Jake Walters, the last of which finished his tour.
Meanwhile I had also flown with other crews and had got very pally with F/O Jackson's.
In mid-July we had reached our full complement of special operators, which enabled
us to be crewed up permanently and I joined Jacko's. We had all done the same
number of trips and I could expect to finish my tour with him. His mid-upper gunner
was Dave Hardie, a nephew of the actor Leslie Howard, to whom he had quite a marked
resemblance. We did our tenth op on July 17 and two days later I was told that
I had been posted to 101 Squadron of 1 Group along with Johnny and an Australian
whose name I believe was Bluey Glick. 101 had pioneered airborne jamming and had
continued the job as a sideline, they were short of specials and for some reason
had priority over 214. Three of us had to go and the powers that be had decided
on us. I protested and pleaded to no avail, I had to pack my bags and leave my
cherished friends to finish my tour with strangers. In fact, this probably saved
my life. Jackson and his crew were lost some weeks later.
July 22 saw me airborne in a Fortress for the last time when F/Lt Bray took us
to fly on Lancasters at Ludford Magna in Lincolnshire.
TOP OF PAGE
LANCASTERS AND OTHER PEREGRINATIONS 1944 - 1945
The
last chapter had originally been written as a story complete in itself and, as
it seemed to be a nicely rounded tale of this period of my life, I decided to
leave it as it was. There is little else to tell about this period apart from
one significant event.
On 25 April I got news that my mother and brother were safe in a displaced person's
camp behind the British lines. I went along to the squadron adjutant, explained
the situation and asked if it might be possible to transfer an allowance from
my pay to my mother through some local service channel. This was quickly arranged
and so I was able to provide her with some comforts. It wasn't very much in the
way of cash, but it turned out to be of far greater value than could be expressed
in mere monetary terms as I would hear some years later.
When Italy had capitulated some six months previously, the authorities of the
camp where my mother was being held threw open the gates and told the inmates
that they were free. They could stay on if they wished, but German troops were
on their way to take control and it was up to each individual to do what they
thought best. Mother did not fancy being caught up in the approaching Nazi maelstrom
and so she packed a few essentials, and together with my brother made her way
south towards the Allied lines. They hid where they could and eventually, as the
Germans retreated, they went to ground in a hayloft and waited for the battle
to pass them by. When things had quietened down they emerged from their hideout
to find themselves safe behind the British lines. They made themselves known and
were taken to a displaced persons' camp where they were provided for.
A little while later she received a note advising her that an allowance from her
son was awaiting collection at the local RAF station and she went along to pick
it up. At first she was looked upon with askance as another DP on the scrounge.
But when she explained her purpose she was given a family welcome - as the mum
of one of our boys! She got more than just my modest money, she was given all
sorts of comforts and some of the lads would visit her with titbits she could
never have obtained otherwise. This warmed her heart and when she told me about
it made me more convinced than ever that I had done the right thing in joining
up. If anyone concerned should ever read these lines, let me express my heartfelt
thanks for their kindness to a courageous lady.
About this time I started to spend part of my leaves in Bournemouth, in Southbourne
to be exact, where two cousins of mine were living. The elder, Gerti, was married
to a Czech who was serving in the army. He was a baker by trade, had established
a bakery and they were now setting up the Czech Restaurant in Boscombe which was
to prove a well known and flourishing establishment. The younger cousin Susi,
only a couple of months older than myself, was at this time living with her and
we became very close friends. She later became a schoolteacher, married a Welshman
working at a radar establishment at Highcliffe near Christchurch, and made her
home there.
My time with 214 Squadron had left such a mark on me that I had been less than
happy about my involuntary transfer to 101. I made no real friends with the crews
but this may well have been my own fault. I had not wanted to go there, but this
posting had probably saved my life. I spent most of my time with the radio mechanics
and one of these, Ken Bradshaw, became a close friend. He introduced me to Mrs
Knott, a middle-aged lady living in a lovely house on the fringes of Louth. Her
husband was away in the army and I became a frequent visitor to her home. I had
become a keen theatre goer and she gave me an old leather bound volume of Shakespeare's
plays which her brother, a merchant navy engineer, had carried all over the world
on his travels. It is still one of my treasured possessions.
Another souvenir of my time with 101 are two small pieces of German anti-aircraft
shell and a one-inch square piece of cladding which had been punched out of the
fuselage about a yard from where I had been sitting. Altogether my aircraft was
hit by flak on three occasions, but I cannot recall which of these my mementos
are a reminder of. The first time was on 18 August over Sterkrade in the Ruhr,
which put the starboard outer engine out of action. The second time was on 5 September
over Le Havre and the third was on 12 September over Frankfurt when the Starboard
inner engine packed up.
On 6 September our target was the German pocket of resistance in Le Havre. Bombing
had to be extremely accurate lest we hit our own troops who were only a few hundred
yards away from the enemy lines and due to bad visibility we had had to abandon
our mission. Jettisoning our load was out of the question over the Channel crowded
with allied shipping and so we brought our bombs home. Back over England my duties
were finished and I emerged from my post to enjoy the scenery from behind the
pilot's seat. Our heavily laden state proved too much for the pneumatic system
of the Lancaster and we had brake failure on landing. As the end of the runway
loomed up at an alarming speed, I saw the twisted wreckage of another aircraft
beyond and we were about to join it. I curled up in a ball and waited for the
imminent crash. As we overshot the runway the pilot pulled up the undercarriage
and we slid to rest on our belly. I shot aft to the door and followed on the heels
of my crew, running until we had reached what we considered a safe distance before
the plane blew up. Well, it didn't.
I found myself clutching two parachutes and two helmets, my own and the navigator's,
and I realized at what utter speed my mind had been working in the seconds following
the crash. When I had picked myself up my first thought was to get out quick,
abandoning my personal equipment, which would be no trouble to get written off.
Or would it? There would be no questions, but there would be forms to be filled
in and the nuisance of going to stores and drawing replacements. I had never been
a believer in unnecessary effort so why not take it along? On my way I decided
to grab the navigator's 'chute and helmet as well, why not save a friend some
bother? I had thought it all out quite logically but it could not have taken more
than a split second, for I could not have got out of the aircraft any faster without
climbing over someone's back - and that would have been another unnecessary effort
to say the least. It was an amazing experience of how fast a human mind can work.
Ludford Magna was one of the airfields equipped with FIDO (Fog Investigation and
Dispersal Operation), a method of clearing fog by means of petrol burners along
the sides of the runway. The piping along the main runway was only too obvious
for all to see but no one seemed to know what it was all about. In the small hours
of 5 October, soon after we had crossed the English coast on our return from a
raid to Saarbrücken, we saw the glow of a fire up ahead. As we got closer
we realized that its source must be at, or very close to, our own base and we
feared the worst, thinking that Ludford or one of its neighbours must have been
the victim of a massive enemy strike. When we joined the circuit our relief was
great that this had not been the case and we marvelled at the sight which presented
itself to our eyes. I had closed down my equipment after crossing the English
coast and, as was my usual habit, had taken up my stance behind the pilot for
a final look around.
Within the blanket of fog which covered the countryside for miles around was a
gaping hole, cut straight as with a knife on the upwind side of the gently moving
air and billowing in a great curve on the other, the parallel lines of flaming
petrol below and a billowing cloud of cumulus above like some monstrous bonnet.
It was an eerie feeling as we made our approach, it was like a headlong plunge
into a flaming furnace, but all went perfectly smoothly and along with many others
we made a safe landing, albeit with no little relief.
Many years later a fellow ex-refugee, George Clare, asked me how I had felt up
there, not only about the chances of being shot down and possibly killed, but
also about the risks of one of my background being captured. The latter I have
already dealt with and as for the former, it's difficult to say. How does a soldier
feel in the heat of battle, or a sailor in U-boat infested waters? Of course we
were scared, and there were constant reminders when on waking we saw the vacant
beds of those who had failed to return. In general we resorted to the time-honoured
belief that 'this sort of thing only happens to others but never to oneself' and
lived from one day to the next and the devil take the hindmost. While on actual
operations, however, it was different. There was a job to be done which demanded
all our concentration and vigilance and, although it was a very much of a gamble
(is it not the same for a soldier or a sailor?), our chances of survival also
depended very much on our keeping our wits about us in order to help us cope with
untoward and unpleasant occurrences. There was fear and apprehension of course
when called upon to brave the enemy's skies and we brazenly called it 'dicing
with death', but we hoped not only for good fortune but also on our own skill
in cheating the grim reaper at his deadly game of cards by keeping our wits about
us. The story about my reactions during the crash landing I had been involved
in is perhaps an illustration of this theme.
Just as a curiosity, the nearest I came to coming a cropper myself was when a
V2 exploded prematurely a few hundred feet directly over my head - on my very
doorstep while on leave in London.
At some time my father had taken a course as a turner at one of the government
training centres and had then gone to work in a factory producing components for
tanks. It must have been in early 1944 when he got a job with OSS (the U.S. Office
of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA) in their propaganda department.
This work was well suited for his experience as a journalist. We usually carried
bundles of leaflets which were scattered when the bomb doors were opened over
the target and I had always pinched a few samples to show to my father. It turned
out that some of these had been written by himself, a nice example of father and
son co-operation. Some weeks after the D-Day landings my father's office was transferred
to France in the wake of the Allied progress and he was given a uniform, without
military rank but with officer status. Later on he took some part at the Nuremberg
trials, then in summer 1947 he left the American service and returned to his old
stamping grounds to edit a paper in East Berlin. Although a dedicated communist,
he remained as outspoken as ever and did not hesitate to criticize where he felt
that this was due, and as a result he was relieved of his duties in August 1952.
But even here he was lucky, he was merely silenced and put on ice. For the rest
of his life, he died in 1968 aged 80, he made a fair living doing translations
from Hungarian.
I completed my tour of thirty operational flights on 25 October, safely and without
major excitements. I had been granted my wish to deliver my full quota of nails
to Hitler's coffin, I had done my utmost that each should be well and truly driven
home, but I had done it without malice. For me, fighting the Germans had merely
been the sole available means of striking at Hitler, his kind and all they stood
for, but for Johnnie the enemy had been the German nation as such. He had been
less than happy at subsequently being posted to the control commission and his
early letters had made plain his distaste at having to rub shoulders with the
members of that hated nation: "keeping them strictly at arm's length!"
I had been amused as he discovered that "the odd one is quite human",
then: "some of them are quite decent", "I've found some really
good fellows amongst them" and "they're not so different from the likes
of us, bound to have some black sheep anywhere!" After a while he ceased
to elucidate and I all but laughed out loud when, on my return home for demobilization,
I discovered that he had got engaged to a German girl and would be bringing his
bride to be to London. QED!
After my end of tour leave I briefly returned to the Squadron to get cleared before
proceeding on indefinite leave pending further posting. On the very next day I
went down with mumps, a dangerous illness for an adult male. I blew up like a
balloon in more places than one, but fortunately the swellings subsided in due
course and I was left with no lasting after-effects.
About this time my father was about to leave for the continent and we gave up
our rooms in the basement of Windsor Court. We had made the acquaintance of a
Mrs Dunn who had a flat on the first floor and she now offered me a room for use
during my leaves. Her son was a Hurricane pilot in Burma and she had her daughter,
whose husband was a prisoner of war in Japanese hands, and her children living
with her. This was to prove a long family friendship.
The beginning of January saw me at Brackla near Nairn in Invernesshire. It was
the hutted camp of ACAC, Air Crew Allocation Centre, a clearing house for tour
expired aircrew. In spite of heavy losses, far more of us had survived than could
be used for further flying duties and it was quite a problem finding suitable
niches for all.
It was a pleasant time and I met up with a number of people from my old squadrons
as well as making new friends. Apart from having to submit to a number of tests
and interviews designed to determine our future employment, we were pretty well
left to our own devices. We spent the weekends in Inverness and on my first Saturday
there I met a bonnie lassie by the name of Mona MacKenzie at the local hop. As
frequently on such occasions, I was invited to her home and, together with an
Australian chum, I became a frequent visitor to the MacKenzie home for the rest
of my stay in those parts. Mona had two brothers serving in the forces and on
my last weekend there she got Fred and myself to don their kilts and have our
photos taken. I still have a snapshot of Fred and myself in front of Flora MacDonald's
statue at Inverness Castle but the one showing the two of us in kilts has regrettably
gone astray. It did not seem to matter at the time but as, many years later, the
Garb of Old Gaul was to become a frequently used garment, it would have been nice
to have this memento of my first attempt at being a braw laddie.
At the final interview we were given a long list of available vacancies, all ground
jobs, and invited to give three choices in order of preference. I did not want
to be grounded and asked for a flying job, only to be told that there was nothing
doing in that line. But I was determined to remain airborne and insisted on putting
my name down for pilot training, Transport Command and, as the next best thing
to flying, Link Trainer instructor. "If I can't have any of these you can
do with me as you please," was my final comment. With a shaking of heads
at my stubbornness I was dismissed and sent home on indefinite leave.
A week later I got my posting to 109 OTU (Operational Training Unit) of Transport
Command. Although I had failed to get my first choice of pilot training, my pigheadedness
had paid dividends and I was going to remain airborne with the prospect of lots
of flying ahead. On 5 February I reported to Crosby-on-Eden near Carlisle for
my introduction to the Dakota, the Service version of the legendary Douglas DC
3.
At the beginning of April I was promoted to the rank of Flight Sergeant. A few
days later I had arranged to meet a chum in Carlisle for an evening's outing but
when I was about to set out for town I suddenly felt weak as a kitten. Eventually
I managed to drag myself along to keep our tryst, but I wasn't up to it and went
straight back to collapse on my bed. I was no better the following morning. Even
getting dressed proved to be a major effort and I had to take a rest between putting
on each item of clothing. I dragged myself along to the mess for breakfast, but
all I could face was some neat tea and I decided that I was definitely a case
for the doctor.
For some obscure reason, sick parade was timed for an unearthly hour well before
the usual time for reveille, and as I could not face the long drag to the guardroom
for the regulation special sick report I went straight to the sick quarters and
demanded to see the medical officer in charge. This non-standard procedure made
me anything but popular, but I pointed out that sick quarters were for the sick
and that I was under the circumstances undoubtedly one of these. The MO took a
look at me but he failed to discover anything definite which might have helped
him to diagnose my case. Temperature, pulse, in fact everything appeared to be
perfectly normal. As a last resort he asked whether I had been in the tropics
or other outlandish places, but I hadn't and so he couldn't even put it down to
some obscure disease. He must have thought I was malingering, prescribed a tonic
and sent me on my way.
My health did not improve and I dragged myself around in a state of utter lassitude.
Each day I presented myself at sick quarters only to be sent away after being
given another tonic. I celebrated my birthday by being sick as a dog during a
night cross country exercise, the only time I have ever suffered this malaise
during flight. This was it. About mid-morning the next day I packed my 'small
kit' and once more made my way to the sick quarters.
"You again?"
"Yes, and this time I've come to stay. You can start making up my bed. There's
something radically wrong with me and I'm not leaving again until I'm cured of
whatever it might be."
The medical orderly was horrified and fled to inform the MO of my impertinence.
That worthy was as puzzled as ever but had a sudden inspiration. He summoned the
Dental Officer who took one cursory look at me, said "jaundice," and
returned to his chamber of horrors, muttering to himself. I got my bed. The following
day I was so yellow all over that it could have put any Chinaman to shame.
I had been put on a fat free diet but this was easier said than done, for wartime
restrictions had caused suitable nourishment to be at a premium. Fresh fruit would
have been ideal, but this was almost unobtainable. Then one fine day the station
got an allocation of oranges - for aircrew only and no more than a couple apiece.
"The very thing" I cried, "get me more, lots more!" I might
as well have asked for the moon but I got them, a huge bag full.
It was a dull and boring time. I felt perfectly well as long as I remained horizontal
and the days dragged interminably. There were never more that three or four of
us in the ward, none of us serious cases, and I helped to pass the time by inventing
an imaginary dog under my bed for whose delectation I demanded bones and other
titbits to the exasperation of the nursing staff. Especially so where the senior
nurse was concerned, a bit of a humourless dragon who spent half her time chasing
real or imaginary specks of dust and other intruders on clinical hygiene. To complete
her ideas of immaculate perfection she insisted on our blankets being tightly
tucked into the mattress so as not to show even the tiniest crease. I found this
straightjacket-like imprisonment most uncomfortable and, no sooner having been
tucked in, kicked myself free again to enjoy the comforts of loose bedding. She
struggled against my rebellious nature for a while but had to give up in the end.
The junior nurse was much more amenable and in fact gave every sign of having
taken quite a fancy to me and I flirted with her outrageously. With hindsight
it was only too obvious that 'all systems were on go', but I was too young and
inexperienced at the time to realize this and make the best of the opportunities
on offer.
I was well on my way to recovery when the war in Europe came to its close and
the CO sent round a bottle of beer per man to enable us to at least make a gesture
while everyone else celebrated madly. Beer was of course poison for a man suffering
from jaundice, but the doctor relented to my desperate pleas and allowed me just
one sip. Of course it did not remain at that, and when later on that night there
was a knock on the window and our pals handed in a whole crate of the stuff there
was no holding us. The following day my fellow inmates were tight and I had turned
a bright orange! Back to square one!
It was the middle of June before I was well enough to leave the sick bay for three
weeks convalescent leave which I spent in London and Bournemouth. Johnnie, my
pal from Madley, 214 and 101 Squadrons had been posted to the Disarmament Commission
in Germany and I visited Ernie Philips, my erstwhile room mate from Madley at
his home in Birmingham. Early July saw me back at Crosby to resume my interrupted
training for Transport Command.
While rummaging through papers, log books and brief diary notes to help me reconstruct
my experiences I came across two short essays I had written at this period. I
had clean forgotten about these and was surprised to find that after all these
years they were still readable and so I decided to include them in my story. Here
they are, for what they are worth.
I have seen
those empty 'dromes. I saw one not a hundred yards from the railway when I came
on leave from Carlisle. I saw it again just now on my way to Birmingham and
I shall see it again on Monday when I go back to London. It was empty, stark
staring empty. Runways, perimeters, dispersals, with not one aircraft on them,
hangars and workshops silent of the clamour of mechanics. Flying control, station
headquarters, but none of the wearers of braid and ribbon. They have gone. In
the mess the last morsels have long ago been eaten by the mice. Yes, even the
mice have gone. And the quarters, once neat and inhabited by those proud possessors
of pin-ups and noisy radios? They too are empty, the floors dull, the windows
dirty and broken, the walls hung with cobwebs. Empty.
But it had not always been like this. It must have been on my way to Inverness,
only last January, when I saw those silver Fortresses on it and heard the air
alive with the hum of planes. Those days were different. Shortly after passing
that 'drome the guard had come along the corridors drawing the blackout blinds
and reminding the passengers to do likewise. The war was on then. The war against
Japan is still on but the one against Germany is over. The Americans must have
been on that 'drome, as on many others, for some time now. Their flyers had
fought the Hun, some had been killed, others gone back home. Some perhaps are
fighting again, only this time in the Pacific. Their ground crews too, those
men who slaved night and day to keep the men and planes flying and the Hun cursing.
Perhaps there was a pretty WAC nurse, an English wife, perhaps more than just
one.
This 'drome had probably belonged to the RAF before the Yanks came. They were
very much the same kind of people, only they wore blue instead of khaki, and
though they spoke the same language it was with a different accent. They didn't
have Fortresses but perhaps Wellingtons, Hampdens or Blenheims. But they had
fought that same Hun. They too were flyers and ground crews. They also had pretty
nurses and English wives. They also fought and died, went home and fought again
in the Pacific.
All these people have gone but they are not forgotten. Just ask the landlord
of the little village pub or the proprietor of the cafe at the corner or the
parson at the church. They'll remember. But now the field is empty, silent and
decaying. No, not silent, for its thousand voices are crying out. What of the
future? Think of those men who have gone. You'll need them again. If not for
armour bristling bombers then for comfortable liners, but you'll need them again.
The fight's not over yet. There is peace and prosperity to be won. The real
fight is only just beginning.
A newspaper flutters by in the wind. "Tomorrow is polling day," it
says. Think of those men, you'll need them.
Summer 1945
I'd just
arrived in Birmingham and was finishing my tea in a cafe when two women sat
down opposite me. They were thoroughly disgusted with the chipped state of their
cups.
"They could replace them now the war's over and they ought to. It's a disgrace"
they said.
I felt tempted to say something but didn't. The war's over indeed. The boys
in Burma would have an answer ready for that. A chipped cup will hold tea as
well as any, but a chipped roof wouldn't keep the rain out. And there are many
chipped roofs. Let us replace them first. Yes, as Mr Andropus said in The Skin
of our Teeth last night, "War is easy, you have something to fight and
you can fight it, but peace is different. You cannot solve its problems as easily
as you can drop a bomb."
It's funny, those are the very words I said myself only a few days ago. And
how true they are. It is easy to kill a man, it can be done in a split second
with a squeeze of a trigger. How much harder it is to make a man. It takes about
twenty years of hard work.
The elections will be here in a few days. I wonder if the new government will
realize the promises made during the campaign? It should be remembered on polling
day that it was the people who fought and gave their blood, and that it is they
who are entitled to life. Summer 1945
Social
life was very pleasant at Crosby. I would go along to various local hops and
at one of these I had my first experience of an eightsome reel. For me at that
time it was merely a mad melee, in later years I was to revel in these and other
cantrips. There was a large lake nearby, Talkin Tarn, and during the summer
I would frequently cycle there for a swim and a romp. One of the characters
on my course was Warrant Office Sammy Cronshaw from Oswaldtwistle and I would
meet up with him again in Singapore. Another one was an elderly sergeant instructor
who used to spend his time walking aimlessly around the camp. One day he appeared
unexpectedly in our classroom.
"Your instructor is detained elsewhere and I've been detailed to take his
place. I'm no good at instructing so I'll tell you a few stories from my life
instead. I used to be a radio officer on flying boats with BOAC. It was the
radio officer's duty to slip the buoy when the aircraft was ready to taxi out
and the captain gave the signal to do so by blowing a silver whistle. I'd been
out on the binge and as I hung out of the hatch the following morning I was
still suffering from the very granddad of a hangover. Sir came aboard with a
boy trotting along behind carrying his briefcase and he settled himself into
his seat and put on his white kid gloves.
"Ready to start engines Number One?"
"Ready to start engines Sir."
"Start engines Mr. Engineer."
"... Number 1 running Sir."
"At this critical point of the proceedings my shaking hands slipped on
the rope and our aircraft started to drift away from its moorings. What was
I to do? I could think of nothing except shouting: 'Hey skipper, you'd better
blow your bloody whistle - we're off!'
"The captain was not amused. The next day I handed in my BOAC uniform and
the day after that I was issued with the one I'm wearing now. Transport Command
was the obvious posting and that's how I came here. I had to fill in the usual
arrival form and in the appropriate space put down my flying experience - some
10.000 hours. When they saw that they decided that I could not possibly be a
pupil and made me an instructor instead. But as I said, I'm no good at instructing
and so I pass the time as best I can. All right chaps, time's up. Off you go."
I met him again years later at Croydon where he was flying for Morton Air Services
as far as I can remember.
I was finally crewed up with 'Mac' Buchanan, a New Zealander. On the 13 August
we finished the course, got our posting to India and left Crosby-on-Eden for
two weeks embarkation leave.
One of my stamping grounds in London was the Stage Door Canteen, run I believe
by the acting fraternity, which provided not only refreshments suited to the
pockets of servicemen on the loose but also laid on dances. At one of these
I met an attractive young ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service, the precursor
to the Womens Royal Army Corps) girl and quickly became very enamoured of her.
Her name was Evelyn, she was stationed in London and we spent a lot of time
together during the rest of my leave. The days passed far too quickly and the
end of the month saw me at Morecambe to draw tropical kit and receive my final
marching orders.
There I met old pals from my squadrons and we had a rare old time together.
Discipline was lax and I managed to scrounge a 48 hour pass which I spent with
Evelyn who was home on leave with her mother in a small village in Warwickshire.
Eros scored a bull's eye and I revelled in having a girl to leave behind me.
I often wondered whether I might not have dodged that fatal arrow if I had not
been on the point of leaving for far distant places with little prospect of
an adequate and satisfactory social life, but then some other missile might
have found its mark - sooner or later anyway. It certainly felt good to leave
some tangible roots behind.
I got my orders on the 8 September and left for London on route for Lyneham
in Wiltshire, my starting point for the Far East, where the turmoils of war
had also lately ended.
TOP OF PAGE
ORIENTAL
ESCAPADES 1945 - 1947
We left
Lyneham on the 10 September on board a Liberator bomber bound for Malta. The aircraft
had no seats and the half dozen or so passengers had to doss down in the bare
fuselage as best they could on blankets and assorted pieces of baggage. We stayed
in Malta until the 16th when we flew to Cairo, filling in our time sightseeing
including an assortment of aircraft wreckage scattered around Luqa airfield from
the days of the siege. The next day took us on to Shaibah in Iraq and we were
promptly treated to a sample of the famous Shaibah Blues in the shape of a sandstorm
which reduced visibility to nil. When we discovered that our aircraft had decided
to go unserviceable in this little bit of heaven we sent up a forlorn plea of
roll on that blooming boat! Some guardian angel must have taken pity on us, for
later on that evening a Stirling bomber, equally bare and uncomfortable, took
us on to our destination Karachi.
When we opened the door of the aircraft on arrival at Mauripur airfield in the
small hours of the morning, we were met by a blast of hot air as from a furnace
and were taken to a tented transit camp on the fringes of the station to await
our further fate. Our first move was to visit the clothing stores in order to
exchange our UK version of tropical kit for Indian issue. In place of the traditional
pith helmets, which had been found impractical and useless, we received Australian
type bush hats. The old-fashioned and bulky Bombay Bloomers were replaced by comfortable
shorts of local manufacture and we drew snake boots, smart and serviceable suede
half-wellingtons.
We made the acquaintance of the char wallah, the local one-man version of the
NAAFI van who supplied tea and buns commonly known as char and wads, and the fruit
wallah who delighted us with long forgotten luxuries such as bananas. We learned
the local lingo: a servant was a bearer, if you wanted to call anyone you shouted
ither ao, an essential expression in the bazaar was jao or 'buzz off', the mid-day
meal was tiffin, the evening one khana, the laundry a dhobi and we did our utmost
to get our knees brown in order to avoid the deprecating remarks from the old
sweats to 'get some service in!' Last but not least we made our acquaintance with
a charpoy, the Indian wooden-framed bed with a string mattress, and the favourite
tropical pastime of 'charpoy bashing'!
At long last we got our posting, to 1334 TSCU (Transport Support Conversion Unit)
at Baroda in the north of Bombay Province. There we were to be indoctrinated in
Far Eastern flying conditions and the gentle art of supply dropping. A Dakota
took us there on the 8 October and it turned out to be quite a comfortable station
where we were housed in bashas, huts, and another word had been added to our expanding
local vocabulary. For our outings to the town of Baroda we would use a gharry,
a carriage drawn by an emaciated horse and for shorter journeys a tonga, a tricycle
rickshaw. One day we were invited to visit the Maharajah of Baroda's palace where
we were shown around the state apartments, the gardens and given a ride on an
elephant. Only the bibi-gurh, the womens' house, remained hidden from our curious
eyes, much to our regret. Our course lasted some six weeks and 24 November saw
us on the next stage of our journey, to Rangoon for further disposal.
There we were housed in a somewhat soggy tented camp near Mingaladon airfield
and in the shadow of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda with its huge dome covered in gold
leaf. While there I got the news that Ted Sissons, my former roommate at Radio
School, had been killed flying over Burma on the 6 September. So near and yet
so far. We soon got our posting and three days after our arrival, on 27 November,
we were airborne for our final destination of 215 Squadron at Singapore. We arrived
there the following day after a nightstop at Penang and a landing at Kuala Lumpur.
I had been very fortunate with my posting. With the end of the hostilities many
of the transport squadrons had become surplus to requirements and were being disbanded
one by one. Along with a few others such as 31 at Batavia (since renamed Jakarta),
52 at Rangoon and 110 at Hong Kong, 215 had been assigned to carry out passenger
and freight operations in the area pending the re-establishment of regular air
line services. My flying days were secure and I had every prospect of gaining
precisely the kind of experience I required for a future in civil aviation, the
career I was by now firmly resolved upon.
We were based at the old Kallang airport by the harbour and billeted in a nearby
residential area. The sergeants' mess was in a two-storeyed building and we were
quartered in adjoining bungalows with several men to a room and some sleeping
out on the veranda, anything but a hardship in these sultry climes. The accommodation
was of the simplest. Each man had a charpoy with a mosquito net, our belongings
in a trunk or two underneath, the odd table and chair but otherwise devoid of
furnishings. It was quite comfortable however and when not otherwise occupied
we indulged in the gentle oriental art of charpoy-bashing.
We had Chinese amahs to do our washing and cleaning, there were some quite good
local eating places just up the road in the Katong Road, and from there we could
take a bus to the multifarious attractions of the city of Singapore with its shops,
restaurants and the amusement parks of the New, Great and Happy World. It had
not been many weeks since the British had re-occupied Singapore but things were
already ticking quite merrily. The sole hardship was the chronic shortage of beer.
Due to transport difficulties we were strictly rationed to one can of beer per
man per week. In time the local brewery got going with Tiger Cub, a weak but nevertheless
welcome concoction. But they were trying hard, and placards displaying a tiger
cub flexing its muscles assured us that Tiger Cub is getting stronger every day!
The Squadron's route network comprised Rangoon, Bangkok, Saigon and Hong Kong
to the north and Sumatra and Batavia on Java to the south. At the latter we were
able to supplement our alcoholic supplies with the Javanese version of port and
sherry and no aircraft ever failed to bring back at least one crate of these after
the regular nightstop in Batavia. Soon after our arrival, a crew who had come
with us from Baroda was posted away to 31 Squadron and we decided to hold a farewell
party. We had saved up two weeks beer ration for our opening gambit, then polished
off a couple of dozen of Javanese port. Having run dry, we proceeded to drink
the mess dry of whisky and whatever other spirits might be available. At this
stage my memory ceased to function properly but I remember one of the boys thumping
the piano with myself beating time on the lid with a couple of wooden sticks.
Suddenly he stopped dead in mid-tune and exclaimed horrorstruck: "I can't
play without music!" Then carried on with utmost equanimity.
In due course I decided that it was high time for me to beat a discrete retreat
to the safety of my charpoy. The route to my bungalow was through the kitchen
to the back door, across a narrow plank spanning a wide monsoon ditch, then along
a footpath with impenetrable reeds to one side and a slimy pond on the other,
to the lawn surrounding my bungalow. This was somewhat tricky at the best of times,
but on this occasion I negotiated it all with the supreme confidence of a drunk.
But as I approached the wide expanse of the veranda fate played me a scurvy trick
- without any warning it quietly slipped away to one side to disappear into the
dark of the night. In the best manner of good airmanship I initiated a missed
approach procedure, did a circuit to the left and lined up for another run in.
Once again the veranda did a snide disappearing trick to the side. After several
more attempts I finally made it, negotiated all obstacles in the shape of trunks,
chairs and charpoys, neatly stowed my clothes, climbed into my bed, tucked in
the mosquito netting - and was violently sick!
Singapore and Malaya were quiet, but Burma was a hotbed of dacoits (local bandits).
The Dutch had re-occupied Indonesia but the Indonesians were doing their utmost
to get them out again and the French were having troubles in Indo-China. As a
result we were classed as being on active service and we carried revolvers on
our flights to which I added a kukri as part of my survival equipment. It now
adorns the wall in my home. As a result I soon qualified for the General Service
Medal to add to my 1939-45 and Aircrew Europe Stars and the War Medal.
We had enjoyed good weather during our stay in Baroda with hardly a cloud in the
sky. But now, a mere ninety nautical miles from the Equator and criss-crossing
it on our journeys to the south, we found ourselves regularly faced with tropical
storms. In the earlier days of the Burma campaign these had caused a number of
aircraft to disintegrate in mid-air caused by stresses they had never been designed
for until trial and error taught pilots how to deal with these phenomena. There
are powerful vertical air currents within and around thunderstorms, strong enough
to lift or depress an aircraft a thousand feet or more within seconds and fighting
against these could overstrain the structure and cause it to break up. It's like
being caught by a gust in a sailing boat when too rigid a resistance against its
force can cause the mast to break. So with an aircraft in a thunderstorm. Riding
it out with only moderate pressure on the controls, allowing it to carry you up
or down as it will, results in a very uncomfortable but safe passage. With only
one proviso, that you maintain an adequate clearance to the ground. And the shortest
way through a thunderstorm is straight ahead - unless of course you are flying
along a line of them, and even then one can usually find a suitable route through
the worst of it. I have flown through many a thunderstorm in my time when avoidance
would have been impractical, without any trouble apart from the discomfort and
the inability of enjoying a cup of tea during the passage. But never in a light-hearted
manner and never through a typhoon or similar phenomena.
The Rangoon run was the least popular of our network and I was only too happy
to be spared many of these trips. It involved a nightstop, and although the station
still boasted the old peacetime brick buildings, it was devoid of other comforts
and facilities. Most of my trips in the earlier months were to Indonesia, either
on the direct run to Batavia and back in one day, but more usually via Medan in
the north of Sumatra, Padang on the west coast, Palembang in the south and back
the next day. We put up in the bungalows of the transit mess near the centre of
Batavia where our personal, but not too personal, needs were taken care of by
a bevy of Indonesian beauties. There was a picturesque canal running through the
town where the idyllic scene of femininity bathing and doing their laundry was
only spoiled by passers-by dropping their excrement into the waters - usually
just upstream of the frolicking maidens. There was some quite good shopping available
and I still have some brightly coloured sarongs I had bought there, not only attractive
but cool and most comfortable garments for leisure wear in those parts. And we
never failed to stock up on Javanese port and sherry, at least until Tiger Cub
beer got sufficiently strong and plentiful.
In mid-January the squadron was renumbered 48 in the course of the post war run-down,
the policy being to keep the more senior numbers active and re-allocating them
where necessary to units which were being kept intact or happened to be in the
right place for current requirements. Although many of us had not been on the
squadron very long, we were anything but happy about having to give up our old
number. I was perhaps particularly conscious of this change, with 215 being so
to speak the next-door neighbour to my first squadron of happy memory.
At the end of March I had my first flight to Hong Kong. It was a four-day trip
via Saigon, each with a single five-hour leg and terminating in time for a late
lunch. We would stay overnight in Saigon, where the Hotel Majestic in the city
centre had been turned into a transit mess, and but for the attractive Vietnamese
women and other local inhabitants one might have been in a tropical version of
the French Riviera. Hong Kong was sheer excitement. The approach to runway 13
began with the port wing tip all but scraping Dragon Rock, then all but brushing
the rooftops of tall buildings before finally touching down on the old airfield
of Kai Tak on the bay shore with the magnificent rocks towering to the north.
The transit mess was in a block of flats off the Nathan Road, I believe it was
in Park Road, in Kowloon and only some five minutes walk from the ferry. In those
days Hong Kong was not the teeming beehive it is today, but even then it was buzzing
quite merrily.
We had all afternoon and evening and the two following days free to go exploring,
shopping and enjoying the fleshpots. In all these places the officers had vastly
superior facilities. Not only did they get much better overseas allowances, but
their clubs were better equipped and they were in a more advantageous position
to make contact with, and be entertained by local society, than the non-commissioned
and other ranks. These remarks are not in the way of complaint but simply a statement
of fact. After all, what's the good of having greater responsibility if there
are no commensurate perks attached? No one can be expected to carry the can if
he gets nothing for it.
I did manage to get some social contact in Hong Kong in the shape of an attractive
girl I got chatting with while browsing around the shops in Kowloon. She was half
Chinese and half Philipino, and on a couple of occasions I was invited to her
home. Her brother had been in the Hong Kong Militia and had spent the war as a
prisoner of the Japanese after they had captured the place. He told me, and I
do not think that it was by way of a polite compliment, that the British prisoners
had stood up best to the rigours of their captivity. The Chinese had fared worst,
something had been taken away from them which had not belonged to them in the
first place. The Americans did little better, they'd been licked by a people who
had been held to ridicule in the past and they didn't understand what had hit
them. The British took it as an extremely unpleasant but passing interlude, they
were used to losing all but the last battle and could see no reason why it should
be different this time. This may all sound like some gross oversimplification
but there is something in it. The strong roots of a long tradition do help both
society and the individual to bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
At the end of May Ernie Philips, my old room-mate from Radio School, turned up
in Hong Kong having been posted to the locally based Dakota squadron. In fact
I kept running into quite a number of fellows from my old units and many a cud
was chewed over a beer.
The airfield of Hong Kong as it was then, and would remain until the new runway
had been built out into the bay, is worth a detailed description. There are supposed
to be 'dangerous airports' where one is exposed to special risks. I have always
held this to be nonsense and I have, after all, some 18.000 flying hours as radio
operator and pilot to my credit. Airports have of course their peculiarities including
obstructions, sometimes very considerable ones, which have to be avoided. But
there are approach charts for each, describing approach and departure routes and
listing any hazards. Also, there are laid-down minima for cloudbase and visibility
suitable for the locality and as long as these are adhered to I can see no difference
between the so-called safe and dangerous ones. In fact Hong Kong, supposedly amongst
the most 'hazardous' of all, has a safety record to be envied.
The initial approach is to Cheung Chow radio beacon where the safety height is
3000 feet for 100 miles around. There one can descend to 1000 feet, then, provided
one is below cloud and with adequate forward visibility, continue north-eastward
and descend to 500 feet until crossing the coast west of the airfield. At this
point a right turn has to be initiated then, edging as close as possible to Dragon
Rock (1740 feet) and, low over the roof tops of the buildings, the landing is
made out of the turn. If at any time before crossing the coast, forward visibility
or ground contact is lost, break off to the west, climb to a safe height (3000
feet) and diversion for another airfield would then be necessary. The nearest
alternate is a long way away and adequate fuel reserves have of course to be carried.
The take-off from Kai Tak was almost as hairy as the landing. Runway 13 was the
only one which could be used as the reverse direction, 31, would have taken the
aircraft midway through the buildings at the far end. But there was a hill 400
feet high at the far end of 13 and one had to turn right towards the bay immediately
after lift-off in order not to transform the aircraft into a would-be tunnelling
machine. One could then either continue straight ahead through the south-east
gap between the island and mainland, head for the White Painted Cliffs, then climb
away on course; or continue the right turn, climb to the Kowloon radio beacon
and set course from there. But once one of these variants had been decided upon
it was imperative to stick to it, for there was no room left for a change of mind.
One day I noticed on my arrival at Kallang that something special was going on.
There was a parked York aircraft on the tarmac, beyond it a guard of honour and
by all appearances some VIP must have just arrived. I happened to have a camera
with me and, curious, I strolled over to see what it was all about. The VIP, Air
Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Barratt, followed by a group of officers all in their
best uniforms, was about to inspect the guard and I decided to follow in their
wake to take some photos. There was I, without a cap, wearing creased and sweat-soaked
jungle-greens and with a revolver on my belt, fully expected to be challenged
as to what I might be doing there. But no one took the slightest bit of notice
as I strolled along, making my snaps, including a close-up from only feet of the
great man, before finally departing with a wide grin on my face. Perhaps they
thought that I was a representative of some important newspaper and no one had
thought that some unimportant NCO could possibly have the cheek for such a venture.
At the end of April I was promoted to Warrant Officer, my skipper Mac Buchanan
left for home and I joined Flight Lieutenant Housby's crew. The Squadron moved
its operations to Changi at the eastern tip of the island but we remained at Katong
as the new billets at the base were not yet ready.
In July I had my first trip to Bangkok, another favourite run. We were usually
there by mid-afternoon and, although officially at the transit mess on the airfield,
we usually stayed the night in town at our own, though extremely modest expense
consisting of a couple of tins of cigarettes. Bangkok is a beautiful city and
the Thais a most pleasant people, their mentality seemingly closer to and better
understood by a European than that of their neighbours, the Burmese, Indochinese
and Malays. Our favourite stamping ground was the Piccadilly restaurant and dance
hall, an airy place open on three sides to whatever breeze there might be, at
the end of the six-lane road in the centre of the city and opposite to the Ratnakasindr
Hotel where we usually stayed. The Thai girls were most accommodating and seemed
to enjoy the proceedings, in contrast to the Chinese and Malays to whom it was
just business, to be got over and done with as speedily and impersonally as possible.
There was good shopping too in Bangkok and the enamelled Thai silver work was
a great favourite.
It must have been about this time that we had a VIP on board and as far as I can
recall it was the Bishop of Singapore on his way to Rangoon. He was wearing a
snow-white tropical suit and before boarding the aircraft we advised him to empty
his fountain pen. "Oh no," he said, "my pen is of the best and
the reduced air pressure cannot affect it." When he disembarked he had a
bright blue badge on his breast pocket.
On 21 August we had Air Commodore Earle on board for a tour of inspection through
Sumatra and Jakarta. As we were about to board our aircraft for our departure
from Padang on the west coast of Sumatra, a Jeep carrying an armed party arrived
to inform us that some unfriendly locals had been reported near the take-off end
of the runway and that they were going out there to give us covering fire. We
got airborne and away without incident, but later heard that we had indeed been
fired upon, though fortunately without effect.
At the end of August we were moved to temporary quarters at the Crescent Flats
near the Singapore Swimming Club which had already been available to us and, being
only just up the road, now became even more popular. We only stayed there a month,
and at the end of September we moved into our new quarters at Changi.
Our accommodation there consisted of a number of long wooden huts right by the
beach and was pleasant and airy. About twenty minutes walk through the bundu would
take us to Changi village with its shops, cafes and restaurants and the beach
nearby was ideal for bathing. One night Stan Mellor, a particular pal of mine
with whom I am in contact to this day, and I were walking across the empty stretch
for a meal in the village. We always carried torches to light us the way, making
periodic flashes ahead to check that nothing was obstructing our path. In one
of these we suddenly espied something large and sinister looking and we strove
apart to avoid it. Meeting up again on the further side we shone our torches back
to see what this object might be and discovered it to be a large python, curled
up and peacefully asleep. We preferred not to think how it might have reacted
had we stepped on it. Later, on our way beck from our excursion, we were particularly
alert but there was no sign of it any more.
As the year wore on I had some trips to Calcutta where I walked down Chowringhee
and sampled the smells and attractions of an Indian Bazaar.
Christmas 1946 turned out to be a memorable occasion. The first WAAF (Womens'
Auxiliary Air Force) girls had arrived some weeks before and had brought with
them new standards of social life. Most of them were snapped up by the officers,
but not a few of them remained available for the likes of us. Stan Mellor had
lately spent some leave at a rest camp near Kuala Lumpur and had established contact
with one of these desirable creatures. This of course led to other contacts and
on Christmas Eve we made up a party with his crew, each of us of course with a
suitable appendage. We had a slap up dinner in Changi village, then retired to
the moonlit beach to indulge in beer and other pleasant pastimes. The girls returned
the compliment by inviting us to their mess for Christmas Dinner the following
day and we reciprocated once more by escorting them to our own mess in the evening
for yet another Yule feast.
My social life was only just beginning to take real shape when, in the third week
of February, it was rudely interrupted by being sent on detachment with some other
crews to Rangoon, where we were to join similar ones from other squadrons in order
to take part in a mission of mercy. The Karen tribe, who had particularly distinguished
themselves in their resistance to the Japanese invaders, were suffering a famine
and we were to fly supplies of rice to some of their villages. For a month we
were based at Mingaladon airfield and on each operational morning did the hour's
trip to the operating base of Toungoo to the north, returning to Mingaladon in
the afternoon. At Toungoo we would load up for the short hop to the dropping zones,
doing about half a dozen sorties per day. The local dignitaries expressed their
appreciation by inviting us all to a lantern illuminated al fresco slap-up Burmese
dinner at the end of the exercise which turned out to be a most enjoyable occasion.
At Mingaladon we were housed in brick bungalows with three or four of us sharing
a room. It was not unusual to hear the evening's or night's stillness disturbed
by the sound of firing within the camp's environs, as groups of dacoits tried
to supplement their supplies by raiding one or other of the station's stores.
It was therefore our usual practice to sleep with a loaded revolver under our
pillow in case we should receive an unwelcome visitor. One night I had to get
up to attend a call of nature. I crept out on tiptoe so as not to disturb my roommates,
and as I crept back in a similar fashion there was a gasp from one of the beds.
"Christ, I nearly shot you. I thought you were one of those worthy gentlemen
trying to do the dirty on us!" On another night I awoke to find some shadowy
creature moving stealthily about the room. I took my revolver from under my pillow
and tried to get a bead on the intruder. It turned out to be Pete returning from
a mission to satisfy a call of nature, and I had all but fired at the lad who
had had me in his sights but a few nights before. Phew!
We delivered our final load on 9 March, the control tower, a Jeep trailer, was
loaded onto one of the aircraft and we returned in formation to Rangoon. As we
parked our aircraft, some loose Bythess, a kind of heavy tarred paper to cover
the frequently soggy ground, was caught up in our slipstream and damaged the tail
cone and starboard elevator of our aircraft, making it unserviceable and leaving
us stranded there until the necessary repairs could be completed.
When I returned to Changi on the 21 March I found myself posted home for release
from the Service. A week later I was cleared from the Squadron and sent to the
transit camp at Tengah, another Singapore airfield situated near the centre of
the island. This was a dismal place with decrepit and leaking tents in a soggy
field. Here I again met up with Ernie Philips who had come down from Hong Kong
and we were to travel home together. We were pretty free to come and go as we
pleased as long as we remained contactable and we spent a good part of our time
in Singapore and with my friends at Changi. After only a week at Tengah we embarked
on the SS Otranto homeward bound.
Our mess deck was a little above the waterline and consisted of a bare hall with
rows and rows of long tables and a minimum of space for our belongings. Our food,
which was not particularly appetizing and never seemed sufficient to meet the
demands of healthy young men, was brought to us in containers from the galley.
During the day we could roam the decks and at night we played sardines in hammocks
slung from the ceiling. The Indian Ocean was calm as a millpond and on 13 April
we entered Bombay harbour for a three-day stay.
The following afternoon Ernie and I donned our best KD (khaki drill) and went
ashore to do the town. In the evening we discovered a services club and went in
for a beer, a luxury, for the ship was as usual dry. Here they had the real stuff.
After many months on Tiger Cub (still getting stronger every day!) a couple of
bottles of Bass Export had us floored and with some difficulty we finally managed
to find our way back to our floating doss-house. When we awoke the next morning
with a stinking hangover there was a small parrot sitting on the end of Ernie's
hammock.
"Where the hell did that bloody thing come from," he moaned.
"You bloody well insisted on buying it from some wallah on the docks last
night, said you'd always wanted one", I replied.
"Well, I'd better get rid of the thing before someone sees it or there'll
be trouble," he said, and proceeded to shoo the poor little thing out of
the porthole.
Two days later, as the troopship was leaving Bombay harbour bound for dear Blighty
Shore she was met by a gentle swell. There was an immediate rush for the railings
and for the first time of our journey I was able to eat my fill. On the 19th I
celebrated my 21st birthday with a bottle of South African sherry I had smuggled
on board, the following day we passed Aden and another five saw us through the
Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean. All was well until we reached the Bay of
Biscay but then this unquiet corner of the Atlantic Ocean truly lived up to its
turbulent reputation. A granddaddy of a storm made the vessel plunge wildly as
it headed into the foaming seas and left very few passengers on their feet. I
revelled in these capers and, well protected against the rain and blowing spume,
walked the heaving decks with gay abandon. Not only could I eat my fill, I was
able to pick and choose the best titbits (relatively speaking as far as troopship
catering was concerned) and still leave mountains of eschewed victuals to spare.
We docked at Southampton on 3 May. I had been overseas for some eighteen months
and it was good to see the green fields of England again. In a few days I would
be returning to civilian life to set about making my career in civil aviation.
TOP OF PAGE