Reply to Inspector Clueless
I think that some of your questions to me , may interest everyone so will endeavour to answer here.
Were there ever times when you were convinced that your end had come ? No, never. In an emergency you are always too concerned about what you must do to think of the consequences. It all happens very quickly. When the trees were coming through the windscreen of my crashing Mosquito a brief "I hope that my watch doesn't break" flashed into my mind" but was put away. Upside down in a Halifax over a burning Mannheim . " Do an Immelman and half roll out." In a Halifax with a runaway engine hurtling down the runway towards the bomb dump. "How can I stop. Pull the U/C up , you idiot. ". No time to think. Act. Here's where experience is invaluable.. "Been there,(or something similar) done it, got away with it . " cannot be taught but will get one out of nasty spots so many times because it enables you to keep calm and act. It is only when an emergency is coupled with a long drawn series of consequent actions and then you must put that right to the back of
of your mind that you may not survive and concentrate on the right course of actions. Above all you must have and show to your Crew the willpower and the determination that you and they are going to survive, whilst taking all the possible and, sometimes, impossible, actions to ensure this. I refer to such possibilities as a long drawn out return over the sea with engines out and/or crew injuries or even a Hijacking. I have met people
who were convinced that their names were on a certain bullet or even target and that their " number would be up " on a certain day. There is not much that you can do about this except make certain that he is not in your crew or it can spread like wildfire. I believe like Gary Player that "the more practice the luckier you get " with the important proviso that you can practice all the time but you have to be lucky as well.
There was a dreadful superstition that reared it's ugly head on many Bomber Command Stations that "Going out with a certain WAAF "was tantamount to suicide for the whole crew. They were nicknamed "Calamity Kate" and became so unbearable for the unfortunate girl that she was often discharged or, at least, posted to a non operational station. It was , of course, inevitable that such things would happen when losses were running so high but the reality was that the crew would be very upset about any member seeing such an unfortunate girl and would do their utmost to stop it.
Regarding the question of L.M.F. Like Inspector Clueless, we would rather die than "Let the school down". For "School" read Crew, Sqdn. Country, Wife, Children, Self and even "Butcher Harris". and you have it That or those were the reasons that we carried on and I , too regarded the First World War with an absolute horror of the Trenches, Going over the Top and the Gas Warfare, but the terrors of the Area Bombing, the Holocaust and the Concentration camps brought the realities of War and what it means and does to all civilisation and was not confined to the Armed Services.
Steve, I will answer you soon. Regle