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ICM
21st Apr 2017, 15:49
Continuing from the above, if Sanna can send PMs then I too would love to get contact details from him.

I've obtained a section of the 272 Sqn record and it shows that it became known on the squadron on 7 January 1942 that George had been commissioned. This news had presumably been 'in the wind' for some time beforehand so, noting Frank's postwar surprise at this turn of events, I can only surmise that Frank was already a POW by then. (Might we be allowed to know his surname? If he was shot down after 1 November 1941, I might be able to add a little detail.) George himself became a POW almost exactly a month later. Flying with the then CO, Sqn Ldr Hoggarth, he was in one of 4 aircraft tasked against shipping in the Gulf of Sirte on 9 February 1942 - nothing was seen and they attacked a German Repair Unit camp. However, George's aircraft and another did not return and he went on to be an early POW (Serial No 30) in Stalag Luft III. He was a Flt Lt by the time of his release in May 1945 - and it would appear that Frank and he did not come across one another whilst in captivity.

pulse1
21st Apr 2017, 17:07
ICM,

Frank's surname is Southern. He was shot down in 1941.

ICM
21st Apr 2017, 18:17
Excellent, with that known, there's this:

On 26 November 1941, whilst operating Beaufighters from Landing Ground 10 (Ghrwla), 6 crews of 272 Sqn were tasked for a ground attack on Jedabaya, Soluch and roads in the district. WOp/Observer Sgt Southern was with Sgt Price that day. The unit F540 reports: "The aircraft carried out a low flying attack on Jedabaya aerodrome and the roads in the district, Soluch being obscured by cloud and rain. After shooting down a Caproni 311 over the aerodrome, they badly damaged a Ju 87 and four CR 42s on the ground. One machine, "E," Pilot Sgt Price, Observer Sgt Southern, was shot down by AA fire, but they are believed to be taken prisoner. A formation of four CR 42s was in the air over the aerodrome, one of which was damaged by Flt Lt Campbell in the ensuing shambles. Aircraft"A" returned with front hatch open."

Jetset 88
22nd Apr 2017, 00:06
Sannatuu ---- George Sproates:

Please contact ICM via this email : [email protected] (10 Sqn Assoc) It will then be forwarded to him and hopefully you will be able to use normal home emails to converse.
Tks. 60plus (icm's co-writer)

pulse1
22nd Apr 2017, 09:51
ICM,

Frank told me that Sgt Price was badly burned when they crash landed on the airfield that they were attacking. He understood that he was repatriated.

26er
23rd Apr 2017, 09:33
Have I missed something? Is "soldier A" still in prison?

Chugalug2
25th Apr 2017, 22:12
Fellow followers of this great thread, it has slipped to page two of the Military Forum which will not please Danny at all! While he remains incommunicado, awaiting the Kiss of Life to his beloved laptop, I suggest that we might contemplate the aviation "What If's" of WW2, though I will gladly defer to any other better suggestions in order to keep the ball rolling. So it is with a certain amount of diffidence that I offer my great preoccupation with those dangerous years and ask, what the hell was the Deputy Fuhrer of Germany doing bailing out of a long range Bf110 over Eaglesham Moor on the night of 10th May 1941?

Wiki suggests that he was intending a landing at the airstrip of Dungavel House, home of the Duke of Hamilton then serving as an RAF Wing Commander at RAF Turnhouse, and where he was on duty that night. Other sources suggest that the airstrip was lit for some 15 minutes and that there was a party of senior officers there, including some Poles, who rapidly dispersed when their expected visitor failed to land.

Hess was captured, identified himself as Hauptman Alfred Horn and asked to speak to Hamilton. No record of that interview is known of. Hamilton himself reported personally to Churchill who simply said "Hess or no Hess, I'm off to see the Marx Brothers" at a film screening. Hitler seemed unsurprised when informed of Hess's flight but quickly switched to plan B and disowned his action as that of a madman. Stalin saw it as proof that the British were part of the anti Soviet machinations that culminated in Operation Barbarossa. Certainly lead figures in the British establishment were pro Nazi and fervently anti Communist, including the ex-King. Was Hamilton, a pre-war aviator of some note having overflown Mt Everest in a Westland PV-3 in 1933, a part of that clique? He probably met Hess when visiting Germany for the 1936 Olympic Games as the guest of Hermann Goering, though always denied it.

After the war Hess was tried along with the other Nazi elite at Nurnberg. The Soviets wanted him hung, in the event he served 40 years in Spandau prison, where he died as the result of "the only horizontal ligature ever recorded in a suicide" by someone who suspected that he was murdered.

The "what if" is to my mind if he had successfully landed at Dungavel, what was then to happen....?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Hess

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/historian-uncovers-new-account-document-suggests-hitler-knew-of-hess-british-flight-plans-a-765607.html

Danny42C
26th Apr 2017, 17:52
Chugalug,

Danny and his Laptop are glad to be back, both firing on all four cylinders. Thank you for rescuing this, our matchless Thread from the "Slough of Despond" (aka Page 2 of Military Aviation); and it would seem that we are several lengths ahead of the upstart "F-35 cancelled ...." and take our rightful place again as the Thread with the most Posts and hits of any "normal" Thread on this Forum. As I've said more than once: "Cliff Leach (RIP), aka 'Cliffnemo', the 'Onlie Begetter', builded better than he knew" when he started it nine years ago.

As for the Hess affair, it has been a mystery from the outset, and all those who knew the real answers will be dead now. The Wiki article reflects the general opinion at the time. In May, 1941 the B.o.B. had been lost by Hitler, an invasion of Britain was "out of the window"; the "blitz" had not broken our resolve; so he had decided to leave us "on the back burner", while he turned his attention to Russia and started "Barbarossa" in the June.

It would make sense to negotiate a peace with us in the meantime, leaving him free to crush Russia as he'd done with France, by a "blitzkrieg" before General Winter came to aid the Russians. Then he could take up the "unfinshed business" with Britain: any "Peace Agreement" made with us would not be worth the paper it was written on. As it was, it all went pear-shaped, and the rest we know.

All this is "rationalising after the event". The young Danny was sweating his way through ITW in a glorious Cornish summer ... and paying little heed to the momentous events passing over his head.

pulse1
26th Apr 2017, 20:14
Over the years, yes years, this thread has clearly demonstrated its ability to discuss more than one topic at a time. I therefore would love to see those who know far more than I do discuss the following "What if?".

In the mid 30's, Alan Cobham clearly demonstrated the viability of in flight refuelling as a means of extending the range of aircraft. It seemed that the Air Ministry and the leading lights of the RAF were not interested until after the war.

What if the RAF had used the Cobham system to operate a fleet of maritime aircraft to provide air cover over the Mid Atlantic Gap. If they could have been successful, it would certainly have reduced the effectiveness of the U Boat campaigns in the Atlantic and probably have had a much bigger effect than the bombing of German cities. Would navigation systems at that time have been good enough to enable bombers to rendezvous with tankers? Would contemporary large aircraft carry enough fuel for themselves and anyone else or would they have to set up a Black Buck type of operation?

Are there any Coastal Command types in the virtual crew room who could offer an opinion?

ICM
26th Apr 2017, 23:05
P1: I've no Maritime background but, on the nav angle, insofar as it would have affected an ability to rendezvous, I am certainly aware of the Butt Report. Published in mid-1941, it demonstrated that, in general, only one in three Bomber Command aircraft was getting within 5 miles of a target plus a variety of other more dismal conclusions. For Bomber Command, a partial solution was the introduction of Gee - open to jamming - and I don't recall it as having any worthwhile coverage to the west of the UK when using its later versions in the mid-60s.

Chugalug2
27th Apr 2017, 08:06
Danny, great to see you back on thread and, "laptop going well tell the designer chappie". Thank you for having read my post re Hess and the links in it. As you say, young Danny was busy marching up and down again various parts of the Cornish coastline while Hess was talking with the Hitler in the Reich Chancellery mere hours before "going mad" on his demanding flight to enemy shores. In other words, Danny was doing his duty, and no doubt the Deputy Fuhrer was doing his too. My question is what about those waiting to meet him at Dungavel House? Were they doing theirs or were they treating with the enemy, ie committing treason? Was this an official peace attempt authorised by HM Government or, and more likely in my view, an attempt to go behind Churchill's back and facilitate the ill fated attempt by Hitler to "liberate" his lebensraum in the East and enslave the peoples there? We know that Halifax (Foreign Secretary) had led an attempt in cabinet to seek peace with Germany after the fiasco of the "Dunkirk miracle" but failed when Churchill threatened to resign. Now Hess turns up after the Royal Air Force has won the strategically vital battle for day-time Air Superiority over the UK, having missed his arranged reception.

On the face of it all pretty damning, and to cap it all Royal courtiers were dispatched post-haste to recover damning letters from Germany immediately after the war, which have been secured at Windsor Castle ever since. The Duke of Windsor was sent as Governor to fight the war on the Bahamas front. Even so, he had to be closely watched, especially on Wallace's shopping trips to the USA. A bad egg indeed, but any odium that he attracted was more than made up for by the immense effort put in by the King and Queen throughout the war and which probably contributed greatly to the premature death of the former.

I agree that all those then involved in the Hess affair have passed on, but the records haven't. They are still in the main yet to be released but eventually the truth, or much of it, will be known. I would suggest that there is enough smoke blowing around already to indicate a fire. We need to be aware of it, and at least to consider my question. If Hess had landed safely at Dungavel, what then was going to happen?

Fareastdriver
27th Apr 2017, 08:54
What if---the Japanese had restarted the Russo Japanese War and had attacked north from Manchuria and cut off the Russian Far East from Moscow instead of attacking Pearl Harbour.

It would have isolated a large part of the Russian eastern army, pivotal in the Russian winter offensive and could have led to the collapse of the USSR. America would have kept out of the way whilst Japan, as part of the Axis Pact, would have overrun the European possessions in the Far East.

Germany, now having the oil resources and the ability to recruit volunteers from eastern Europe would have pushed South through Persia to the Indian Ocean securing India in a pincer between the German and Japanese forces.

Once the Southern Oceans were secured then the delayed invasion of Great Britain, a country that had lost all its overseas resources, money and probably moral could take place. Mussolini would then be free to re-establish his new Roman Empire and would take over North Africa.

You would then be left with three Empires.

The Third Reich encompassing Europe north of the Alps, Asia east to the Urals and central and southern Africa.

The Empire of the Sun would consist of India, a line northwards around Tibet and the Mongolias to the Bering Straight. Leaving Hawaii and the Philippines alone it would include the South Pacific islands and the Indonesian archipelago and everything in between.

The United States of America would be responsible for North and South America, Hawaii, Philippines and Australasia.

As all three would have their hands pretty full they would probably get along very well with each other and it could well lead to a century of peace.

Chugalug2
27th Apr 2017, 09:39
FED, purely on the basis that the whole point of this thread is one of friendly discussion, I'll bite if I may. I agree that if Japan had invaded the USSR while it was also being invaded by Germany in the west, then a Soviet collapse would have been the likely outcome.

However, Japan's strategic needs and ambitions were being thwarted by Washington rather than Moscow. It needed the raw materials that it was denied by US sanctions and saw that the only way to get them was by force. The US Pacific Fleet stood in the way and hence had to be eliminated, thus Pearl Harbour. That it didn't get the most vital part of the Pacific Fleet, the carriers, was what Macmillan famously called, "Events, dear boy, events!". So I don't think that your scenario of no Pearl Harbour is a likely one, and mounting both an attack on the USSR and seizing the "The Greater East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere" was probably seen as taking on too much too soon for the Empire of Japan. Just as well that they didn't do so for us of course, as it would have been the end of the British Empire not to its indigenous populations but to its enemies, as well as leading to the subjugation of the United Kingdom itself as you rightly point out.

As to the final world order of three global empires living in mutual tranquillity, I very much doubt it. Mankind's history is one of war. When we finally go where no man has been before we will take our weapons with us and won't hesitate to use them. That is our way, so aliens beware!

Care to bite on my what if?

MPN11
27th Apr 2017, 10:03
Not arguing with the 'FED' scenario as such, but would Germany and/or Japan actually have had sufficient manpower and materiel to occupy successfully such huge swathes of territory?

oxenos
27th Apr 2017, 12:01
Are there any Coastal Command types in the virtual crew room who could offer an opinion?
The in-flight refuelling systems used as late as 1950 still relied on the looped hose and grapnel technique. Trying to do this over the North Atlantic at night does not commend itself. Granted, under wartime pressure there may have been faster development, but that said, proposals to use in-flight refuelling for Tiger force still relied on hose and grapnel,
As far as using the system to extend into the North Atlantic gap is concerned, the nav aids available at the time were not up to guaranteeing a rendezvous over the sea. The only system which might have worked would be for a tanker and a maritime aircraft to fly west in formation, do the refuelling, probably in daylight, and then have the maritime aircraft come off task with enough fuel to recover to base without a further refuel. With all the complication, plus the likelihood of the two losing contact outbound in bad weather, it does not seem practical.

Danny42C
27th Apr 2017, 13:47
Chugalug (#10508) has set a hare-and-a-half running here ! I stand in awe of the geopolitcal flights of fancy already mooted, and really cannot add anything useful to the pot.

But it is true that there was a strong undercurrent of "treating with the enemy" in the air during the run-up to, and in the early years of the war. Von Ribbentrop was (according to the popular Press) lionised by London society hostesses (contrary to Wiki's general opinion of him), Edward VII and some members of the aristocracy were known to have been sympathetic to the German cause; and the Chamberlain/Halifax Government would almost certainly have capitulated after what Chugalug called the "Dunkirk Miracle" * but for the intervention of Winston Churchill - for whom the Free World should be eternally grateful.
...damning letters from Germany immediately after the war, which have been secured at Windsor Castle ever since...
A fire at Windsor Castle sounds like a good idea ? .... now I come to think of it ....

* (It is my belief - shared by many at the time - that Hitler allowed the 300,000 to escape [ordering Guderian to halt his tanks to enable them to do so], reasoning that we had no option then but to sue for peace on any terms, and meanwhile he couldn't be bothered to have to house and feed such a large number of prisoners).

A curious sideline: it was suggested that the RAF would never bomb Hanover - because George VI was of the line of Hanoverian Kings ! (in fact, we bombed the place flat, like everywhere else).

My "What If ?"s are on a much smaller scale. What if the Japanese 28th Army Commander in Arakan had set his Oscars on our "boxes" of VVs, which were daily unearthing his defensive bunkers in his '43/'44 retreat ? We wouldn't have stood a chance (all the Hurricane pilots who'd done "fighter affiliation" training exercises with us told us so). ..... bye-bye Danny and "Stew" !

Why didn't he - it was such an obvious thing to do ! But he didn't. .... What if Truman had said "No" to the Hiroshima Bomb ? .... You can go on for ever.

Danny.

PS: Quite off-Thread - but if you're one of the few who've never seen BBC1's "Peter Kay's Car Share", do so on iPlayer ASAP !

Fareastdriver
27th Apr 2017, 15:17
but would Germany and/or Japan actually have had sufficient manpower and materiel to occupy successfully such huge swathes of territory?

They would have done what the British had done so successfully, recruited local manpower. There was a fairly large Indian contingent in the Japanese army in Malaya and , given time they would have expanded this. With an easier time in Burma, because the British having severe troubles in the Middle East owing to the increased volume of German soldiers because of the collapse of the USSR, the Japanese would not have to have been so draconian with the civilian population therefore encouraging them to join an Asian Co-operative Army.

America would have stayed out of it. Roosevelt had assisted the UK effectively as a one man band and as another election was coming up the American population almost certainly would have elected a President who presented a 'no interference America First' policy. Their worries about the Japanese threatening the Philippines would have been settled by an arrangement where the USA became responsible for Australasia.

Then somebody would have invented the atom bomb.

Chugalug2
27th Apr 2017, 21:47
Danny, sorry about the hare. At a word it will be swiftly despatched, skinned, and served up as stew. The fur should come in handy for lining out your boots jungle aircrew as well. As you say geopolitics aren't really our game. I was intending for aviation related what ifs, and pulse 1 got the idea nicely with his maritime refuelling query. It illustrates the limitations of WWII air navigation as well as air refuelling that the air gap was closed not by long range reconnaissance aircraft but rather by short range ones flying from escort carriers.

It was those very same limitations, of navigation and range that makes Hess's flight so remarkable. His aircraft crashed within 12 miles of his intended landing site which was now blacked out, and would have been less if he had not been delayed by the difficulty of abandoning it. He may have been at the top of the Nazi hierarchy, but he must also have been a damned good pilot!

Octane
28th Apr 2017, 05:51
Whatever Hess's intentions were, it seems a travesty of justice to lock him up in Spandau prison for 40 plus years. He had obviously decided to abandon the Reich (High Treason) at great risk to himself and one would have to assume he had some good intentions in mind?Presumably he'd decided by May 1941 things were never going to end well with Hitler running the show and something drastic had to be done..? Shame we'll never know..

FantomZorbin
28th Apr 2017, 08:34
Further to Pulse1's "what if...", AAR would surely have turned the Mitchell(?) raid on Tokyo into the forerunner of the BlackBuck and put mainland Japan in greater jeopardy. However, would this in itself have been enough to sway the tenacity of the Imperial hierarchy to pursue the war come what may?


P.S. Great to have you and your laptop back firing on all four Danny!

Danny42C
28th Apr 2017, 13:56
Chugalug (#10519),

No apology needed for the release of this hare, m'dear chap ! These "hares" have always been the life-blood of this incomparable Thread, and the more of them that are running, the more interesting it gets.

Thank you for the links in your (#19508), particularly for the second "Der Spiegel" article.

As for Hess's flight, and wartime air navigation in general, I've always stood in awe of our Bomber Command navigators, who could fly for hours in all weathers over a blacked-out Europe, with only a sketchy idea of the en-route winds, no external aids (until Gee-H came in late-on), and just a bubble sextant, in an aircraft which was constantly 'weaving' to dodge flak and night-fighters - and still wind up within an average of 5 miles error ! It was a bloomin' miracle every time IMHO.

I get annoyed with the tender-hearted souls who now castigate them for not "confining themselves to military objetives". What does a "military objective" look like over a blacked-out city ? How about a black cat in a coal-hole at midnight ? Their hearts may be in the right place - it's their heads that need looking at.

As for my own navigational abilities, they were no more than would be expected of any good Boy Scout (ie simple D/R and map-reading). The last F.414A (22/9/42 after OCU) had a little rubber stamp: "Has he shown aptitude as a pilot/navigator - yes". Mind you, it also said "Ability in air gunnery - Average" (I hadn't fired a single aimed shot on the Course !) Thereafter nobody seemed to be particularly worried whether I could navigate or not (so long as I could get there and come back).

'''''''''''''''''''''''

Octane (#10520),

I don't think we can take it that Hess was necessarily "running away" from Hitler. More likely he was acting in concert with him to sound out the possibility of an "armistice" with Britain along the lines I suggested in (#10509). As you say, we'll never know.

Cheers, both, Danny.

Danny42C
28th Apr 2017, 15:33
Fantom Zorbin (#10521),

Thank you for welcoming me back into our fraternity !

I wouldn't have thought a "Black Buck" type operation with the Doolittle Raid Mitchells in 1942 was remotely possible. As it was, they couldn't even land back on their carrier and carried on to China, where all were written off and the crews got a mixed reception !

It was a pin-prick as far as the Japs were concerned, but it achieved its objective in boosting US Home morale. The fatal blow to Japan's Pacific ambitions came two months later, when the SBD "Dauntless" dive bombers (advt !) in twenty minutes (or less), totally destroyed the Japanese carrier group at Midway, and thereby irrevocably turned the tide of the Pacific war against Japan.

Revenge was doubly sweet, for this was the carrier group which had done the damage at Pearl Harbor. It was a victory almost as important to the US as the BoB was to Britain, and why "Midway Day" (June 6th) isn't celebrated with equal ceremony over there has always been a mystery to me.
As for your... "However, would this in itself have been enough to sway the tenacity of the Imperial hierarchy to pursue the war come what may?...",
the certain answer was "No". The Japanese did not give in easily !

The Japanese soldier fought till he died (surrender was impossibly shameful for a fighting man), and even the B-29 heavy fire bombing of Tokyo later in the war had no effect on their resolve. It took the overwhelming horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to convince Hirohito and the Imperial Staff that "the game was up" - and only then as they did not know how many more "Lightning Bombs" the US had up its sleeve (I believe the answer was "None", they'd "shot their bolt" - but it was enough).

Danny.

Flash2001
28th Apr 2017, 17:31
Don't think it was none. I understand that a second plutonium core was on its way to Tinian and more were in the pipeline. I think the calculation was this:

Everyone knew that a Uranium bomb would work but it was painfully slow to produce.

Prior to Trinity no one knew if a plutonium bomb would work.

After Nagasaki the Japanese knew that a plutonium bomb worked and that it probably could be produced in quantity. Their thinking changed.

Danny42C
28th Apr 2017, 18:23
Flash2001 (#10524),

Thank you ! (there's always someone on this Thread to put you right - that's one of the beauties of it).

Cheers, Danny.

Chugalug2
28th Apr 2017, 22:18
Danny (10517):-
My "What If ?"s are on a much smaller scale. What if the Japanese 28th Army Commander in Arakan had set his Oscars on our "boxes" of VVs, which were daily unearthing his defensive bunkers in his '43/'44 retreat ? We wouldn't have stood a chance (all the Hurricane pilots who'd done "fighter affiliation" training exercises with us told us so). ..... bye-bye Danny and "Stew" !

It is curious indeed, as the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service was, as its name implies, established to serve the aviation needs of the Army, much as the German Luftwaffe was. The Oscars (Nakajima Ki-43) in Burma were part of the 3rd Air Army, HQ Singapore. As fighters they were primarily for interdiction and one would have thought that allied dive-bombers that were hammering IJA strong points would have been obvious targets for them.

The Japanese armed forces though, rather like their German equivalents, were prone to mutual competition and jealousy. Relations between the Army and the Navy was so bad that the Army had its own fleet of escort carriers to safeguard its troop convoys. If there were any Zeros near Burma they wouldn't have involved themselves in assisting the Army anyway, but the Oscars most certainly should have.

The IJN submarines didn't bother much with the USN supply transports, surely the key to the Pacific War, as they saw their raison d'etre as attacking and sinking US capital ships. Could it be that the Oscars saw their corresponding targets as Allied front line fighters and bombers? Could it be that lumbering dive-bombers and transports did not have the same cachet and brought little honour in their destruction? In short Danny, perhaps you and your colleagues were viewed as beneath contempt and thus left alone to carry on your good work. If so I for one would have savoured such contempt and welcomed it, and suspect you would too. As you say, I doubt we'll ever know. Unless of course there are those better informed who do?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-Eighth_Army_(Japan)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Army_Air_Service

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_Ki-43

FantomZorbin
29th Apr 2017, 07:19
Danny (10523)
You are totally correct. I'm afraid I was looking at the "what if" with tunnel vision.
Sadly, where the enemy has no thought for its own life the 'fight' takes on a wholly different dimension ... as we see today.

Danny42C
29th Apr 2017, 14:14
Chugalug (#10526),

Thanks for the links - and for the masterly research into the background of this strange Jap inaction. We were grateful for it, as you say, but to the very end, we had this Sword of Damocles hanging over us - "it's not 'if', but 'when' " - every time we took off on a sortie. It was almost more nerve-wracking than actually being attacked.

Another "what if" (it was more of a "why", really), was the premature (IMHO) AHQ decision to pull the VVs out of the line on the onset of the '44 monsoon. As I've said on previous Posts, the ostensible reason ("to re-equip with the Mosquito") made no sense at all. The new, fully trained Mossie crews came out with their aircraft at that time, true. But all they wanted was our Squadron names and numbers. The old VVs and their crews (who were all almost on the last year of their India tours anyway), could "get lost" as far as they were concerned !

It looked as if we might have had to be brought back into service in the panic which followed the Mossie self-destruct episode (and I was sent down to Yelahanka to "convert" Mossie drivers into dive-bombers in three easy lessons) but, probably, fortunately for us all, they got the glue problem licked just in time. But at that, I don't think any of the Mossies got into service out there until '45.

Even so, why not use the VVs as well as the Mossies for that one last (but we did not know it then) dry season ? Accom. was no problem, and you can knock up a "kutcha" strip in no time. But as it was, there were winners, Danny spent his last year as the big fish in a tiny pool and was Monarch of All He Surveyed. Heady stuff for a 23 year old !

'''''''''''''''''''

Fantom Zorbin (#10527),

Yes, an enemy with no fear of death is a formidable foe indeed ! And I suppose it explains the utter disgust and contempt they felt when Percival surrendered Singapore to a fighting force half his size in '42. That he did so to spare millions of non-combatants from death by thirst * would cut no ice with them, as they'd demonstrated in China.

* The Japs had got control of the fresh-water supply to the city.

Same goes for any of our troops they captured, and I suppose that it explains (but does not exculpate) their barbaric treatment of prisoners.

Regards to both, Danny.

Chugalug2
29th Apr 2017, 15:09
Danny,
to the very end, we had this Sword of Damocles hanging over us - "it's not 'if', but 'when' " - every time we took off on a sortie. It was almost more nerve-wracking than actually being attacked.


Therein lies the value of this thread and your posts. WWII is now a well rehearsed tale of one thing following another, with all the seeming inevitability that is implied. None of it of course was inevitable, hence my interest in the what if's. If the Oscars had done their job and kept the skies over Burma clear of allied aircraft then that campaign might well have gone in Japan's favour, endangering India to the very end.

Add to that the 20 minutes you direct us to at the Battle of Midway. If the Zeros had remained in their full Combat Air Patrol disposition, they would have made short work of the USN Dive-Bombers. Fortunately they had been otherwise engaged with the Torpedo equipped Devastators. Their sacrifice meant that the Zeros were low, short of ammunition and fuel, and gave the opportunity for the Dive-Bombers to despatch the IJN carriers. Without USN success at Midway, how would the Pacific campaign have gone? Would Tinian (or any other US held airfield within range of Japan) been available for exploiting Trinity?

As you have said, Danny, the what-if's can be pondered upon for ever. They do though have one lesson for us all. The tale may be well rehearsed but it could so easily have been so different. When we feel the urge to pontificate we would do well to remember that.

I'm afraid posting links to Wiki hardly counts as research, but what it says about the 28th Army, the Oscar, and the JIAAS seems to mainly accord with other sites (eerily word for word sometimes!).

MPN11
29th Apr 2017, 18:52
Well, if we are hypothesising, how about what would have happened if ...

The French, with their significantly superior armoured forces, had actually achieved what that superiority SHOULD have achieved against the Panzer thrusts (fast but incredibly lightly armed and armoured in comparison).

The flaw seemed to have been the FR ORBAT/C&C, and distrubution of armour in 'penny packets' to low level formations, instead of concentrating the 'shock and awe' that GE did.

So ... FR halt GE at the Maginot line (or nearby), no Dunkirk disaster, no Phony War ... what then? Does Hitler want a war of attrition in 1940 on the Western Front? Speer says GE was really only geared up to 'Totales Krieg' for 1942. So Herr Hitler, the chancer, gets a bloody nose at the FR border ... and how coukd things have evolved from there?

Forget SEALION, forget BARBAROSSA, ... "Ach, ve haf eine grosse probleme". Where now, Adolf?

Danny42C
29th Apr 2017, 19:39
There is a character (some General or other, IIRC) in "War and Peace", who makes a profound remark to the effect that: "....a General may start a battle , but once he has done so, the battle takes on its own mind and develops in unforseen ways now quite beyond his control ...."

And it is a truism that: "No Battle Plan survives its first contact with the enemy".

Fareastdriver
30th Apr 2017, 10:30
Generals don't start wars. Politicians start wars.

Generals stop them.

MPN11
30th Apr 2017, 10:38
... and Politicians under-fund them ;)

Danny42C
30th Apr 2017, 12:40
Old men start wars. Young men have to fight them.

(How about an Aphorism Competition ?) :=

MPN11
30th Apr 2017, 12:48
Danny ... :ok:



"Is a Just War less violent than a Proper War?"

S. O. Baldrick, Private.

Danny42C
30th Apr 2017, 13:21
As a follow-on to Baldrick:

"Thrice armed is he that hath his quarrel just -
..But four times armed is he that gets his smack in fust !"

Flash2001
30th Apr 2017, 16:39
W.W. Guthrie

The worst of men must fight and the best of men must die.

Danny42C
30th Apr 2017, 16:58
"Each man had to fight the war he was given. You didn't choose your war - it chose you".

(Unknown Poster somewhere in the early days of this Thread)

lasernigel
2nd May 2017, 14:00
Possibly not for this thread, but WW11 anyway.
Could be an interesting read...
The luckiest Lancaster: Bomber that survived 109 missions | Daily Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4465388/The-luckiest-Lancaster-Bomber-survived-109-missions.html)

ancientaviator62
2nd May 2017, 14:58
Danny,
reminds me of the Confederate Cavalry General Nathan B. Forrest's dictum' 'get there fastest with the mostest'. It certainly worked for him.

MPN11
2nd May 2017, 18:54
it worked for Nathan Forrest until the overwhelming industrial power of the North wiped them off the map.

Now, how does the West compare with the Russians?

T-34 by the thousands versus Tiger in the hundreds?
F-35 in the tens versus Mig-35 or Su-T50 in the hundreds?

Mass does tend to overwhelm skill/equipment. Should we worry?

Danny42C
2nd May 2017, 19:19
aa62 (#10540),

Always thought it was General "Stonewall" Jackson. You're right, of course ! (We're never too old to learn).

Danny.

Danny42C
2nd May 2017, 19:29
MPN11 (#10541),

Yup. 10 F-35 can be in ten places at once. The 100 Mig-25s can be in 100 places at once.

Danny.

DHfan
2nd May 2017, 22:48
It worked in Europe in WWII too.
The Sherman was a pretty average tank, although far better than the dross we were building until 1945, but there were thousands of them. I think I read somewhere they built 35,000 of them - but that might have been the T34.
The Tiger and Panther, both armed with the legendary 88mm gun, were much better but fortunately the Germans didn't have enough of them.

Edit: Wiki says just short of 50,000 Shermans and 84,000 T34s.

MPN11
3rd May 2017, 08:02
Any why were there not enough Tigers? One reason what that they were complex, time-consuming and expensive to build, just like the ... [you know what comes next] ;)

ORAC
3rd May 2017, 10:22
F-35 in the tens versus Mig-35 or Su-T50 in the hundreds? The Russian Air Force isn't what it was in the past, they shrank a lot faster than us because their economy collapsed. Slowly adding penny packets of new aircraft - but slowly, and they have a lot of area to cover.......

Russian Air Force Order of Battle (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/av-orbat.htm)

MPN11
3rd May 2017, 10:54
Interesting link, which I followed up with Google Earth.

Yes, lots of spare metal lying around at some of those location!

FantomZorbin
3rd May 2017, 11:43
Mass does tend to overwhelm skill/equipment. Should we worry?


Was it Molotov or Mikoyan who said "quantity has a quality of its own"?

Chugalug2
3rd May 2017, 13:53
FZ:-
Was it Molotov or Mikoyan who said "quantity has a quality of its own"?

The Ancient Greeks it seems, and a founding premise of Communist doctrine as sometimes attributed to Engels and Marx but usually to Stalin re the defeat of the Wehrmacht by the Red Army. However, others point to the 1970's US Defence establishment.

"Yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice". Now who said that....? :E

?Quantity has a quality all its own? | writing notes (http://klangable.com/blog/quantity-has-a-quality-all-its-own/)

jolihokistix
4th May 2017, 07:24
A propos of nothing. Antiques find.


Japanese artist's impression of the air attacks on Port Darwin on 20th and 22nd June 1943. Booklet written by Tojo Hideki in autumn of 1943 found in an antiques stall. Somewhat like a War Picture Library comic from the other side.


If I can post a photograph, and if there is any interest, I will add a translation. If no photograph(s) forthcoming, assume that it failed. Oh, yes, the attack too!

Chugalug2
4th May 2017, 07:58
jolihokistix, welcome to our virtual crewroom. It is not the usual venue available to an international gathering. Forget shiny new Olympic Stadiums or International Exhibitions in striking architecturally state of the art galleries. The corrugated iron construction is beginning to look more like filigree lace, the interior is best described as shabby chic, but the conversation is both friendly and varied. So take a seat and join in.

Your thumbnail picture attached fine, and it looks as though the Zeros (or Oscars?) are having a field day. The corresponding text would be of great interest, so a translation would be greatly appreciated.

Many years ago an attempt was made to ask German pilot veterans to post on this thread, but alas it came to naught. The same invitation goes out to all such veterans, whether they were friend or foe alike in those terrible years. Failing that, artefacts such as yours that portrayed their nation's aspirations and attitudes remind us that there are two sides at least to every conflict. We may not accept them, but we should at least consider them.

jolihokistix
4th May 2017, 08:14
Chugalug2, many thanks for the kind introduction. This place looks good. Forgive that sudden bolt from the blue. I live in Japan and often run across interesting things, but having heard so many stories from friends and relatives, I am too aware of the terrible suffering that many had to go through in those days. For this reason I hesitated to post, but if some of your members would be interested I will translate it. It may take a little time. If anyone objects, please let me know.

Please be assured that I am not an apologist, but a semi-scholar. What I translate is word-for-word from a propaganda booklet, and not my own view or opinion in any way. My first thought was how an artist back in 1943 perceived British fighter planes based in Australia. Naturally I suppose they had to be shown going down in flames.


I was interested to read on this site that early Japanese raids took off from aircraft carriers. As will be seen in this article, their operations base was a secret at the time.

MPN11
4th May 2017, 08:31
Greetings from me too, jolihokistix. All information/translation is useful. I think most of us are old enough and wise enough to understand that those were different times.

BTW, I love your user-name :)

jolihokistix
4th May 2017, 11:19
MPN11, thanks! :} Right, here goes nothing!




(Using an old dictionary here to find outdated characters and expressions, with no-one nearby to consult! Although the pamphlet itself proclaims ‘Minister for the Army,General Tojo Hideki’ as author on the cover, this particular article is signed by one Yoshioka Kenji.)





Army air force attacks Port Darwin for the first time





In the southern Pacific Ocean, our army air force has doubled up with the naval air forces to impressive effect since the start of the war, and now finally their hands have reached the Australian mainland. Port Darwin, the enemy’s greatest base, located in the northwest tip,was subjected to a first great bombing by our ‘army eagles’.


In the early hours of June 20th Showa 18 (1943), a large bomber formation of ‘army eagles’ solemnly assembled and left XX aerodrome, flying over the Arafura Sea below, and proceeded into western lands. At 10:20 in the morning they pounced upon Australia’s frontline Port of Darwin, struggling feverishly to resupply itself under repeated hammer attacks by the naval airforces. At this sudden attack, an enemy force of 40-plus Spitfires came up in angry challenge, and the skies above Port Darwin were enveloped in incredible explosive sounds and flames as a vast aerial battle was set off. Our supreme warbirds took out 27 enemy fighters in no time at all, and we took our leave. At the same time, our bombers left behind what looked like a burning net on the ground of several areas of flaming army barracks; the buildings at the eastern airstrip were also set alight, dealing the enemy a heavy exhaustive blow.


To prove how fierce had been this first attack by the army air forces, two days later on 22 June when a large formation of our fighters made a follow-up attack on Port Darwin, not a single enemy plane was sent up to meet us, and the area was observed to be burnt out and flattened, showing starkly the truth of the matter.”



(Translation guaranteed 97% accurate, jolihokistix, 4 May 2017. The 3% is just to be on the safe side!)

jolihokistix
4th May 2017, 11:29
Close-ups!

Danny42C
4th May 2017, 11:51
jolihokisticks (#10550),

Welcome aboard !

And thanks ! Interesting ! As far as I can see, it represents the artist's idea of a weird two-seat (?) Hurricane (?) (roundels and tail markings wrong, should be blue & white, camo roughly right) being shot down by "Zeros" (or "Oscars"), while a fleet of "Bettys" ("Sallys" ?) sails serenely on. Formations a bit funny -"Close finger five" ? (which never was).

From a single experience, and from what I heard, the Jap always bombed in "Vic", or "Vic of Vics" (with navigation lights even at night), so F/Sgt Pring was able to "get three Bettys for the price of one" inside a minute with his Beaufighter one night over Calcutta). But their formation was Red Arrow standard.

Please let us have the translation ! EDIT: Ta !

Danny.

EDIT: No, not Spitfires (were there any in Oz at that time ?) - the one in plan view does not have a Spitfire wing (not pointy enough).

CoodaShooda
4th May 2017, 11:51
We still commemorate 19 February 1942 here in Darwin. Second to ANZAC Day.

Along with the JAAF contingent, the Imperial Navy task group that had attacked Pearl Harbour came by, dropping a greater tonnage on Darwin than they had at Pearl.

The RAAF had no fighters in place. There were half a dozen USAAF P-40's enroute to the East Indies and a handful of Hudsons and Catalinas that didn't get off the ground.

The air raid sirens didn't sound until the bombs were already falling. A radio warning from the mission on Melville Island did not register with those in command.

It was the first and largest raid on Australia with an official death toll around 236.

The air base, port and town were flattened.

And the censors saw to it that no one heard about it at the time.

And the fighters were Zero's.

jolihokistix
4th May 2017, 12:00
Thanks, Danny, for the welcome, and the background information. (See completed translation in #10554 above) Yes, it's a weird Hurrifire or Spitcane, even though it definitely says 'Spitfires'. Artistic license? :8


CoodaShooda, isn't that strange! I was wondering about these dates, a year later, and whether these (later?) raids may not have been reported in Australia. Or could they be false news propaganda for the Japanese public? (Especially the bit about shooting down so many 'Spitfires'.)

MPN11
4th May 2017, 13:48
I could suggest "Spitfire is famous, P-40 is not". This was for Public consumption, after all, and not an accurate Combat Report! The image is a good combination of all 3 types, though ... P-40 cockpit glazing, Spitfire tail unit and Hurricane wings :)

I could do Propaganda, if paid enough!!

Fareastdriver
4th May 2017, 14:24
and after all that, in 1974 cyclone Tracy did everything the Japanese wanted to do.

Cyclone Tracy, Darwin - Fact sheet 176 ? National Archives of Australia, Australian Government (http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs176.aspx)

jolihokistix
5th May 2017, 02:11
That blue dotted line reminds me of the red one that the Chinese have slung around the south China Sea. Was this the imagined extent of the Greater East Asia Prosperity Zone that the Japanese envisaged, stopping between those large islands and Australia? The remark about Goshu (Australia) being western lands adds to this feeling that Australia was to be 'outside' and not being considered for invasion. Was the mass attack on Darwin to cut supply routes, yes, but primarily to signify to the west to keep out of Indonesia and SW Asia?

CoodaShooda
5th May 2017, 02:33
Darwin has a habit of being flattened.

Particularly with major cyclones in the late 1800's, 1937 and 1974.

Then the Japanese in 1942/43. There were around 70 more raids into northern Australia after the first one. The Japanese also raided Broome and Exmouth to the far west and up to 300km south to Katherine.

The object was to deny the Allies a base in the region.

As I understand it, the Japanese Navy wanted to invade Australia but the Army wasn't so keen. Nevertheless, a fair deal of contingency planning seems to gone into the possible invasion.

A friend of my father was a Lt Col in the occupation forces and once dined with an official who claimed to have been the Mayor-designate of Melbourne had the invasion gone ahead. The chap had a very detailed knowledge of Melbourne, even knowing the number of the tram that ran past the Col's front door at home.

The Spitfires didn't arrive in Darwin until February 1943. Until then, we relied on the USAAF's P-40s for air cover.

The Spits were fairly evenly matched in results with the Zero, with both sides drawing blood. On the occasion the JAAF dropped by with an Oscar escort, several Oscars were lost with no losses for the Spits.

jolihokistix
5th May 2017, 02:48
Hmmm... yes I suppose invasion must have come up as one option.

Just doing some rushed background remedial reading on this whole event. One source claims the Spitfires never arrived and were kept back for use in India.
If this booklet of Tojo's is singing the praises of his army air force's exploits, and the dates of 20 and 22 June 1943 are reliable, this would be after the arrival of the Spitfires that you mention above, CoodaShooda.

Another Japanese source on the net gives a detailed breakdown on the numbers and types of planes involved, lists the June 1943 attacks, and specifically mentions army aircraft and SE Asia J base names.

The booklet above was put out under a joint heading of Naval Air Command and Army Air Command, suggesting an attempt at harmony with possibly a background of intense pride and rivalry.

CoodaShooda
5th May 2017, 03:32
From another site

20th June '43 the JAAF decided to try their luck. 30 bombers and 22 Ki-43 Oscars were met by 46 Spitfires. 9 bombers were destroyed, 8 more damaged, 5 fighters were shot down, 2 damaged without the Wing losing a single Spitfire.

jolihokistix
5th May 2017, 04:50
Ah, thanks, that sounds as if we are zeroing in on the same event!

Danny42C
5th May 2017, 16:42
CoodaShooda (#10557)
We still commemorate 19 February 1942 here in Darwin
CoodaShooda (#10562),
The Spitfires didn't arrive in Darwin until February 1943. Until then, we relied on the USAAF's P-40s for air cover.
...At the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941 Wirraways equipped seven RAAF squadrons: Nos 4, 5, 12, 22, 23, 24 and 25 [Wiki]...
Surely one or more of these could have been sent to the defence of Darwin ?

Danny.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
jolihokisticks (#10563),
...Just doing some rushed background remedial reading on this whole event. One source claims the Spitfires never arrived and were kept back for use in India...
IIRC, India did not get any Spitfires either until late 1943. When I arrived there in December, 1942, fresh from a Spitfire OTU in UK, I was dismayed to find that there were none at all there (I was given a Vultee Vengeance to fly instead - (110 Sqn), and never saw the inside of a Spitfire again for seven years ! :(

Danny.

jolihokistix
6th May 2017, 01:26
Thank you for that Danny. Perhaps it should not be amazing that the records of something as vital as this are so patchy. Their arrival in Malta seems clear enough.

CoodaShooda
6th May 2017, 03:56
Hi Danny
The Wirraway was derived from the Harvard. OK for training and army co-operation but bloody useless as a fighter against the Zero, where even the Spitfire was hard pressed.

There had been a flight of them at Rabaul, part of 24 Sqdn RAAF, which had no chance. The Squadron effectively lasted 7 minutes into the first attack.

When told to send his last, damaged bomber to attack the Japanese task force, the Squadron Leader replied with the Latin phrase for "We who are about to die salute you."

One Wirraway did manage a kill in New Guinea, once. This was originally claimed as a Zero but historians now think it was an Oscar.

The P-40's could survive using diving tactics but could not survive a turning fight

jolihokistix
6th May 2017, 06:47
My father, a pilot on Spitfires during the B of B, took me during the 1970s to the Imperial War Museum where they had a Zero cockpit section hanging from the ceiling. "I remember hearing rumours about the Zero fairly early on. It had a good reputation even back then," he commented.

Chugalug2
6th May 2017, 07:58
CS:-

20th June '43 the JAAF decided to try their luck. 30 bombers and 22 Ki-43 Oscars were met by 46 Spitfires. 9 bombers were destroyed, 8 more damaged, 5 fighters were shot down, 2 damaged without the Wing losing a single Spitfire.

So the 40+ Spitfires in the jolihokistix Japanese propaganda piece was correct, but everything else a blatant lie? 5 Oscars destroyed but not one Spitfire. 9 of the 30 bombers ( the whole point of the raid) destroyed and a further 8 damaged. Scarcely something to celebrate one would have thought, but that of course is when propaganda comes into its own.

"If you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth". Joseph Goebbels may or may not have believed his own lies, but did the inhabitants of Tokyo believe this one?

jolihokistix
6th May 2017, 08:08
Sorry to keep slamming this thread sideways, and in due course I hope it settles back to the conversation into which I butted earlier, but regarding the bombing(s) of Port Darwin and the presence or absence of Spitfires, I found an interesting Japanese web site devoted to WWII aerial discussions, and in this particular case the bombing of 20 June 1943. Apparently for bombers 'Donryu' Helens were used on Darwin for the first and last time.


Anyway, here is the section in question; I will translate the notes too in a little while.
From A2000703.html (http://www.warbirds.jp/ansq/1/A2000703.html)


Showa 18, June 21 (sic) Darwin attack
Flight 61 Squadron........ Type 100 Donryu Helen heavy bombers 18
75 Squadron (part of).... Type 99 twin light props .................... 9
59 Squadron................. Type 1 Nakajima#43 Oscar Fighters.....22
Independent flight 70..... #46 Dinah ........................................ 2


昭和18年6月21日のダーウィン攻撃:
飛行第六一戦隊     百式重爆 18機
七五戦隊(一部)    九九双軽  9機
五九戦隊        一式戦  22機
独立第七十中隊     司偵    2機

爆撃直前46機のスピットファイアの攻撃を受け重爆1(2?)機
、一式戦1機自爆、不時着重爆1機、双軽2機。重爆の多数被弾。

「敵は空中待避し敵機の地上撃破を逸したのは遺憾だが、多数のス
ピットファイア撃墜を報じ~中略~陸軍航空部隊の豪州第一撃とし
て成功と認めらた」と「戦史叢書」にあります。
なお、実際のスピットファイアの損失は2機、地上での戦死3名、
負傷11名。爆撃前に海軍と一悶着あったのですが、それはまた。

余談ですが、この地では反日感情が結構激しいそうです。まぁ、金
ズルですからあからさまには態度に出さないでしょうけども。


And this from Wiki regarding the Helens which for attacks against Port Darwin were only used this once on 20 June 1943.
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%80%E3%80%87%E3%80%87%E5%BC%8F%E9%87%8D%E7%88%86%E6%92 %83%E6%A9%9F


1943年 (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943%E5%B9%B4)(昭和18年)6月20日のポートダーウィン爆撃 (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E3%81%AE%E3%82%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B9%E3%83 %88%E3%83%A9%E3%83%AA%E3%82%A2%E7%A9%BA%E8%A5%B2)では一式戦闘機「隼」 (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%80%E5%BC%8F%E6%88%A6%E9%97%98%E6%A9%9F)の護衛があったとはいえ、出撃 した18機中16機が46機のスピットファイア (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B9%E3%83%BC%E3%83%91%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9E%E3%83%AA%E3%83 %B3_%E3%82%B9%E3%83%94%E3%83%83%E3%83%88%E3%83%95%E3%82%A1%E 3%82%A4%E3%82%A2)隊の攻撃を耐え切って帰還している。そのため、戦闘機との連携が良い状況では、一〇〇式重爆 の防御火力と防弾装備の有効性は高く評価されることもある。しかし実際は帰還した機体の多くが大破しており修理不能として現地で 廃棄され、一〇〇式重爆のポートダーウィン空襲はこの一回きりしか行われなかった。

jolihokistix
6th May 2017, 08:20
(Cont. translation of above website commentary.)


Right before the bombing run they were attacked by 46 Spitfires and one (two?) heavy bombers were lost, one Oscar blew up, one heavy bomber crashed, and two light bombers were lost. Many heavy bombers suffered serious bullet damage.
Actual Spitfire losses were 2. Three people were killed on the ground and eleven wounded. The 戦史叢書 'Senshi Gyosho' report at the time, however, stated that...

jolihokistix
6th May 2017, 08:33
"Waiting enemy fighters attacked and fled; shamefully we did not destroy what enemy planes we saw on the ground. Great numbers of Spitfires were shot down... (skipping)... so it was established that this first attack by the Army Air Force upon Australia was a success."


Below this is a rare comment from one present-day poster:

"This may be inappropriate (to post here) but it is said that there are pretty strong feelings regarding the Japanese there (in the Port Darwin area). Apparently such expressions are forbidden so people hide it, but just saying..."

jolihokistix
6th May 2017, 08:47
Last of the translation. Thanks for sticking with me! If the J Wiki article information is not available in English, here is my translation of their Japanese paragraph above:

"In the 20 June 1943 bombing of Port Darwin, though they were escorted by type 1 Oscars, 16 of these 18 (Helen) heavy bombers which had set out made it back despite the attack of 46 Spitfires. For this reason when combined with the correct fighter escort, they were highly evaluated, both for their defensive firepower and for their bomb loads. In actual fact upon return the majority were so heavily damaged that they were unrepairable and had to be destroyed, so this was the one and only time they were ever used against Port Darwin."


J Wiki, translation, jolihokistix, 6 May 2017

emeritus
6th May 2017, 08:52
jolihokistix,

You might find spitfireassociation.com.au worth a look.

Emeritus

jolihokistix
6th May 2017, 08:55
Many thanks for this, Emeritus. At first glance it looks like a wonderful site where one could spend hours browsing...


Definitely! :ok:


And now, having done some reading on your excellent site, I would like to say, if any of the articles, photos above are of interest or use to your organization, please feel free.

CoodaShooda
6th May 2017, 11:16
"This may be inappropriate (to post here) but it is said that there are pretty strong feelings regarding the Japanese there (in the Port Darwin area). Apparently such expressions are forbidden so people hide it, but just saying..."

Now that one is definitely garbage. Japanese are as welcome here as anyone else. We judge you on your behaviour, not your appearance. (There's something like 45 different cultures represented here in our 200,000 population, not including the local indigenous tribal groups. )

jolihokistix
6th May 2017, 12:00
Coda, yes I posted it, but it was a comment written by a Japanese on that site. Thank you for the clarification, which even as a European I am very glad to hear.

Fareastdriver
6th May 2017, 12:11
I back up CoodaShooda. Whilst I was there they even accepted Poms as equals.

CoodaShooda
6th May 2017, 12:25
Apologies Jolihokistix

I knew you were quoting another but my cut and paste skills on an iPad are not what they should be.

And I have also failed to thank you for steering this magnificent thread into my backyard for a while.

Our aviation museum has the remains of the first Zero shot down in the first raid. It's a fairly complete rear fuselage through to firewall and wings. What is very obvious is the small size and lightweight construction compared to allied fighters.

Danny42C
6th May 2017, 12:26
jolihokistix (#10571),
...Sorry to keep slamming this thread sideways, and in due course I hope it settles back to the conversation into which I butted earlier...
No problem, jhsx, this Thread revels in being "Butted sideways": it is this which has made it the most popular "normal" Thread on "Military Aviation". Keep on "Butting" to your heart's content !
...bombers 'Donryu' Helens were used on Darwin for the first and last time...
Might've done better with the Type 99 "Betty" or the Ki-21 "Sally".

The "Betty" was the torpedo bomber (although the size of our "Wellington") which saw off our "Prince of Wales" and "Repulse" off Malaya on 10/11/41, and so sealed the fate of Singapore, Malaya, Siam, and Burma (and it was "touch and go" for India as well).

9 "Bettys" bombed us (110 and 45 Sqns) at Khumbirgram (Assam) on 11/11/43. Score: three airmen (110) killed, one of 110's Vengeance Cat 5,, a number damaged, one of 45's VVs up a tree (in haste to get away), aircraft OK, but tree a write-off, and our Flight truck burned out. Oh, and a Works 'n Bricks working elephant went AWOL and was never seen again (this generated more paper than all the rest put together).

Second thought: might've beem 9 "Sallys", but think "Bettys". They sailed off unharmed, as we had nothing to hit them with.

Danny.

jolihokistix
7th May 2017, 05:43
Many thanks for the informative follow-up, Danny.


Nothing to do with the price of fish, but the overkill comment on the Sydney Spitfire Association site yesterday regarding 20 mm cannon on human targets reminded me of something my mother experienced in Burma during the war. Her (first) husband was stationed at a particular airfield and she used to go for walks when the day was not too hot. One day on the edge of the woods at the end of the runway she heard frantic shouting and the roar of engines, and some Japanese 'sharks' swooped down and strafed the airstrip. She said they were so close that for one instant she locked eyes with one of the J pilots.
She had been advised to stand upright and still as many considered that you presented less of a target that way.

Geriaviator
7th May 2017, 10:25
Chug's 'what if' scenario looks as if it will run and run! Now, what if the Germans had been able to drop poison gas on the invasion beaches in the run-up to D-Day? The Daily Mail is running a very well-researched series on how this could have been accomplished:
Nazis killed 40,000 on Alderney 'chemical weapons' island | Daily Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4478574/Nazis-killed-40-000-Alderney-chemical-weapons-island.html?ito=email_share_article-bottom)

Having visited Alderney on several occasions, I was fascinated by its wartime fortifications which are still far more formidable than those on Jersey and Guernsey. The Germans even built a railway to haul materials from the harbour to construction areas. Even then I wondered why, so for me this story has the ring of truth.

Wandering the coastal paths one cannot miss the heavy flak positions, machine-gun posts and bunkers built into residents' houses, while concrete ducts criss-cross many open areas. Even before we learned about its grim past, we both remarked on the eerie atmosphere around the Sylt concentration camp. It was the only place on the Channel Islands where the birds did not sing.

MPN11
7th May 2017, 10:44
The Germans even built a railway to haul materials from the harbour to construction areas.They did here in Jersey too. Started in the Harbour at St Helier and made its way to the West Coast where much of the concrete was laid [St Ouen's Bay = nice beach for invasion, you see].

Very interesting article, even if it is in the DM :)

jolihokistix
7th May 2017, 11:43
Spent a summer on Guernsey many years ago and the heavy concrete gun emplacements and tunnels were quite something too.

Danny42C
7th May 2017, 13:13
jolihokistix (#10582),

Your mother's "sharks" would almost certainly have been "Oscars". Why the Japanese Army Command only used these excellent fighters on these "hit and run" ground raids, instead of putting them up in the sky (where they would've been bad news to us, among others), is one of the mysteries of that conflict.

Whereabouts in Burma was this ? Was she on the Long March North from Malaya ? Did they catch her, or was she able to get to the (relative) safety of India ? There is a good story there which needs the telling.

I was once under ground attack by one of these. A party from the sqdn had been invited over to see a primitive Radar installation which had been set up on a nearby airstrip. We marvelled at this new magic, and stood in awe of the magician, who confidently assured us that there was no air traffic at all within thirty miles.

We thanked him for the hospitality, strolled leisurely out into the sunshine to our truck - and were promptly set upon by a pair of these marauding "Oscars". Standing still did not seem a good option; we dived into a nearby waterlogged ditch and kept our heads down.

There did not seem to be any aimed fire, they just flew low down the strip spraying bullets willy-nilly. But as the resident Spitfires were all well dispersed in the trees, and they didn't bother with our truck, no harm was done. After the one firing pass, they went off somewhere else.

We warily crawled out of the ditch, and spent the next ten minutes de-leeching each other (by getting out the fags and applying the hot end to the leech's bum) They don't like it and drop off. Then we went back, with our trust in the magician and his magic somewhat diminished.

Danny.

MPN11
7th May 2017, 13:26
Ha!! A wise radar operator never states absolutes. "No known/observed traffic" is much safer!

An undortunate introduction to the wondrs of radar, though.

ancientaviator62
7th May 2017, 14:35
You can of course postulate many 'what ifs' about WW2. But if the war in Europe had continued past the testing of the A bomb then Germany may well have been the first unwilling recipient of such a device. After all the Manhattan Project was built around the premise that Germany may be developing such a weapon.

Danny42C
7th May 2017, 14:40
Geriaviator (#10583),

Don't think "nerve agents" in WWII. "Germany did not use nerve agents against Allied targets" [Wiki]. And the "Zyklon B" used in the gas chambers was Prussic acid-soaked granules [Wiki].

For possible use at Alderney, I would have thought "Mustard" (in liquid form) the agent of choice. I have some slight knowledge of the stuff, as my 1340 Flight at Cannanore was set up to bomb and spray the stuff on the test sites of the Chemical Defence Research Establisment, itself a tropical off-shoot of Porton Down (which has been on the telly recently).

I spent my last year in India on that job. A drop of mustard left on the skin for twenty minutes will cause a third degree burn. The calculation after that is: Area of Body affected (in %) x Age = (%) Mortality. (Daughter, who is professionally skilled in these matters).

We dropped the stuff in 65lb tins (which burst open on impact), the Army volunteer "guinea pigs" marched about in the splashed ground to see how long it would take for it to soak through their Army boots (then the boffins developed dubbins to proof the leather). They tried out various designs of gas capes: we sprayed it on them low level. A gas cape was devised for a camel (still used as a draught animal in present Pakistan).

I suppose enough would have vaporised for them to need to wear gas masks (don't know, but should've asked) as I never visited the ranges (40 mi away). The tins (which we carried in the VV bomb bays) leaked a bit at the joints, the fumes came up to the cockpit via the "letter-box" slot in the floor. We always flew with canopies open.

Assad seems to have used "Sarin" on at least one occasion, but "Mustard" mostly.

Danny

Chugalug2
7th May 2017, 14:43
jolihokistix, thank you for translating the various Japanese language websites you link us to. Interesting that the Helen was seen by them as a Heavy Bomber, although only twin engined. Given that their war spread over the far reaches of the Pacific, it is strange that neither the Navy nor Army saw fit to equip themselves with 4 engine bombers. Even the explanation that it was designed for a war against the USSR hardly answers the question, for it was the lack of an operational long range bomber (in any numbers) that stymied the Luftwaffe in their assault on the USSR.

BTW, just as well you did translate the Japanese text. I have just added "Translator for Microsoft Edge" to my PC, and turned it loose on the same sites. It produced utter gobbledegook that makes Yoda's speech seem like the Gettysburg Address!

Geriaviator, your DM link is fascinating. The fortification of the Channel Islands, particularly Alderney, as against the woeful lack of it in most of the rest of "The Atlantic Wall", has always been a mystery. That it would thus deter British attempts to liberate them was self evident, so we didn't until after the garrisons surrendered!

The macabre explanation that it was to disrupt the invasion ports of Weymouth and Plymouth with Sarin armed V1s is persuasive but triggers yet more questions. Would those ports have been targeted in preference to say East Coast ones or Portsmouth, Dover, Folkestone, etc? Were all such South and East coast ports to be bombarded thus? It rather challenges our belief that we convinced Hitler and his High Command that the invasion was to be at the Pas de Calais rather than Normandy if they weren't.

Did we find such V1 sites as this elsewhere that had hardened storage tunnels for chemical warheads? Did we find such Sarin stocks at Alderney, if not how had the isolated Germans there disposed of them? What happens if you drop such warheads into the sea? Over to you Danny, as our resident chemical weapon expert.

ancientaviator62
7th May 2017, 14:59
I suspect that rather like Germany Japan thought it would only be fighting a short 'blitzkreig' war and that any longer range requirements would be covered by the aircraft carrier. Hence the production of medium bombers only.
Another point is they were relying on operating from conquered or 'friendly' territory (eg Siam) so again a medium bomber would suffice.
IMHO the biggest mistake the Japanese made in WW2 (apart from the tactical success but strategic error par excellence, the Pearl Harbour attack) was to allow hubris to set in after the early victories against a hard pressed foe. The caused them to expand beyond their original plans and that well know military disease overstretch contributed to their inevitable defeat.

tow1709
7th May 2017, 15:11
A few years ago I published in this thread the wartime memoirs of Hawker Typhoon pilot Peter Brett of 183 squadron.

Peter's next of kin have passed me the attached photographs which I thought might be of interest to some on here.

The first picture has "Wings Parade 13 SFTS, St Hubert, Montreal" written on the back. Peter is third from the left in the second row.

2225

In the second photo, which unfortunately has no supporting info, Peter is second right in the middle row.

2226

I wonder if anyone can put any names to the other faces.

Danny42C
7th May 2017, 15:35
Chugalug (#10590),

Our Posts must've "crossed in cyberspace": I would not regard myself as an expert on "Sarin", having never handled the stuff (and wouldn't want to !). All I know is what Wiki tells me.

As for V1s full of Sarin to foil invasion, I think we had the measure of the V1, which started in mid June, 1944, fairly quickly with our new "Meteor". And, didn't it need a "ski jump" built-in to align it with its intended target ? How much room is there on a small island like Alderney to build several of these ? And how hard would it have been for the RAF and USAAC to rub them out, given that we had full air supremacy over the Channel at the time ?

Dunno, and had my hands full 5,000 miles away just then, and a bit of unexpected amorous dalliance on the side to "take my eye off the ball". But that is another story !

Cheers, Danny.

jolihokistix
8th May 2017, 02:11
Well, there you go, Danny, a story for a book perhaps? :ok:


To answer all your questions about my mother in Burma I would have to read her book again, between the lines, as it is a more personal account and hard to grasp her movements. She mentions Mandalay, Maymyo, Landaur, Missourie, Mingaladon, Delhi and Rangoon. The book is long out of print, but it was a pretty good read.


Oh, and she did throw herself into ditches, mentioning that the risk of a krait bite was the safer option.

Danny42C
8th May 2017, 12:13
jolihokistix (#10594),

Clearly your mother got out OK, as you list "Delhi". But why "Rangoon" after that ? Did she go back to Burma after the end in August 1945 ?

My "bolt from the blue" bit of good luck is described in: "Military Life on the Malabar Coast in WWII" Thread (on Military Aviation). The whole thing is worth a read (IMHO), but the beef in the sandwich starts in Page 2. #25 et seq.

Cheers, Danny.

Chugalug2
9th May 2017, 07:18
Ancient Aviator, your point about Japanese Naval Aviation being Carrier based is well made, but it was essentially an offensive weapon system. Had they developed long range maritime aircraft similar to those of the RAF and USN they could have better defended their merchant shipping against the focussed USN Pacific submarine campaign on them. Perhaps another feature of the post Pearl Harbour hubris of which you speak?

Danny, we did indeed cross. According to the article, the excavation of the tunnels provided for earthworks that could have acted as foundations for the launch ramps of which you speak, and which were aimed towards both Weymouth and Plymouth. It also claims that the tunnel layouts matched those built on the mainland for V1 sites. What seems arguable though are that the hardened storage chambers therein were for chemical warheads rather than conventional ones.

As Alderney was under SS rather than Luftwaffe control (whose V1's they were), it is possible that this was a one off. Though the Nazis produced both Tabun and Sarin in quantity in the war, neither were used operationally AFAIK. Hitler himself had been gassed in WWI and was notoriously unwilling to invite reprisal in kind if he utilised either offensively. Perhaps the Alderney project was abandoned for that reason, if it was indeed intended for such use?

Fareastdriver
9th May 2017, 08:44
Taking the tunnels at Jersey as a comparison, further evacuation was abandoned because of the requirement to send the labour to Germany to construct their underground factories.

Late 1944 they would have run out of hardware.

MPN11
9th May 2017, 10:06
At which point I would observe that today is Liberation Day in Jersey. There are still many here who lived through those days, or were interned in Germany. Not surprisingly, they attach great significance to the proceedings.

https://www.jersey.com/liberation-day-programme-2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Day_(Jersey)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_of_the_German-occupied_Channel_Islands

BernieC
9th May 2017, 12:01
This lengthy message is prompted by Danny42C’s account (some time ago) of the way in which a small group of Vultee dive-bombers could accurately deliver munitions to a small, hardened target under circumstances where conventional artillery could not be brought to bear. Why did the RAF not make more use of dive bombers and why were those they did have in India/Burmah retired sooner than (perhaps) necessary or sensible?

Some sort of answer to the basic question appears in a book that happened to come my way:
The Development of British Tactical Air Power 1940-1943. Powell, M., London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 261 pp. ISBN 978-1-137-54417-9,

and I will try to summarise some of the relevant issues it describes. This is an academic history, with many references, and I found it slightly heavy going. But it gives a lot of the background history, of which I can give only an inadequate and partial summary. The book’s focus is on Air Army Cooperation and Support (AACS), its history, principles, and doctrine, with little detail about implementation. Note that 14th Army is not indexed, and the Vultee Vengeance gets only a passing mention.

As I understand it, the major practical problems that bedevilled AACS included: Who would issue orders to the airmen and through what channels of communication? How could the air element respond in good time to a call for action? How could ground targets be identified and nearby friendly forces be kept safe? An important factor in solving these problems seems to have been the co-location of Air and Army headquarters at the relevant levels, together with development of the necessary wireless communication systems.

The major political factor that led to weak development of AACS despite its good start in the WW1 period of static trench warfare, seems to have been the fragile state of the RAF’s political and financial existence post-WW1, coupled with the infamous “ten-year rule”. Trenchard and the Air Staff saw the RAF as having a potentially vital, strategic role and thought that this would never develop if the Air was parcelled out to the Army and Navy. Because of this danger AACS was never an RAF priority, although some basic studies and exercises were carried out during the inter-war period. After the Battle of France in 1940, during which AACS had clearly failed, an Air Cooperation Command was reluctantly established, its main remit being to develop ideas and procedures. This Command may not have been what the Army expected or wanted, but was also more than the Air Ministry had hoped to provide. At the same time the war in the North African desert forced the evolution of more successful AACS doctrine and practice so that, by 1943, planning for the invasion of Europe could proceed, what had been learned being incorporated into the foundations of 2nd Tactical Air Force.

Little of the resulting operational doctrine appears to have had a “flying artillery” flavour at first, the emphasis being on Air Observation, which was developed successfully (though limited by available planes) until ground attack by fighter aircraft became practical as the Luftwaffe lost control of the air. As we know, dive bombers did not enter into these developments because the aircraft did not exist; the RAF never wanted them. Intriguingly, it transpires that the Luftwaffe use of the Stuka JU87 dive-bomber has been largely misunderstood. Its main use was not for impromptu AACS but was generally pre-planned to supplement the ground assault immediately before the latter was launched.

It would be interesting to see an historical analysis of AACS in the 14th Army’s area. Were there independent and divergent developments or did the higher direction simply mirror what was happening in Europe and Africa? In any scenario I can envisage the exchange of dive bombers for Mosquitos, even if the latter were rocket-firing, is hard to understand.

If I have misunderstood or mis-reported anything please be kind; I am a biologist, not an historian.

No doubt other readers will expand on the issues raised here and I look forward to reading those posts.

end

pettinger93
9th May 2017, 12:50
During the relief of the first siege of Tobruk, my father , as a 2nd Lieutenant, was involved in the breakout southwards into the desert, to link up (it was hoped) with forces coming west along the coast from Egypt. Initially expected to have to hold their position for 24 hours, they held on for 8 days before the expected meeting eventually occurred. In his memoirs (unpublished) he tells that allied air cover was conspicuous by its rarity, and when it did occur, was only in the form of defence from air attack, and there was no communication, let alone cooperation, with the RAF. He always spoke highly of the RAF, but was always sad that they had not been of more use, although he acknowledged the problems they were faced with. (By the end, the 2 companies of troops had been reduced in strength by over 75 percent, and were using captured weapons and ammunition).

Danny42C
9th May 2017, 15:20
BernieC (#10599),

I was but a very small cog in the machine of the Burma conflict, and can only supply my own personal opinions in answer to the questions asked in your first paragraph.

The RAF had no dedicated true dive bomber. It was conceived as a purely defensive force, and the (land based) dive bomber is only at its best as: "the spearhead of an advancing Army" (Peter C. Smith, "Vengeance!" (Airlife Publishing, 1986 - ISBN13 9780906393659)

EDIT: Correction: .

The success of the "Stuka" early in the War caused a re-think. The French ordered a dive bomber from the US firm of Vultee, then France collapsed and we took over the contract. What we got was a very good dive bomber, but "too clumsy to fight and too slow to run away". If we had used it in the European theatre, it would have been massacred like the "Battles" in France in 1939-40. Then the RAF lost interest in the whole idea, wished it had never bought the things in the first place, and put them as far way out of sight as they could (India, Burma and Australia).

Now some clippings of an old Post of mine (on this Thread):

[I]"The Vengeance was mainly used in Burma as a substitute for artillery. The hilly jungle country made the deployment of of guns difficult, and in any case the 14th Army didn't have enough of them. From the end of '43 onward it was trying to push the Japanese armies back down south in the Arakan, and east on the Assam fronts.

The Jap was a very good defensive fighter, especially skilled in digging-in in strong points from which it was very difficult to dislodge him. He didn't give up when he was tired or wounded. He didn't give up when things were hopeless. He didn't give up if he were sick or starving. He fought till he died. He never surrendered.

This was where we came in handy. From our rough, dry-weather "kutcha" strips 30-40 miles away, we could put up "boxes" of six aircraft, each carrying two 500lb and two 250lb bombs. It adds up to a formidable total of 9,000lb, nearly four tons of high explosive. This we could deliver accurately, on a point, in about 30 seconds.

It was more than a battery of 25-pounders could put down in a morning, even supposing they could bring up so many rounds. Moreover, the concentration of the bombing meant that, even if every Jap were not killed in the strike, the noise and blast would stun him long enough for our forward troops, who would be close nearby, to rush the position and finish off with grenade, rifle and bayonet before he came to his senses.

The difficulty was the "point". From 10,000 ft the jungle is just a bobbly green wooly jumper. The formation leader can map-read into the general area of the target, but needs help to pinpoint it.

We worked an answer out with the Army. The forward troops got smoke bombs for their mortars. They made sure a mortar was zeroed-in on the Jap position, then waited until they could hear and see us coming. With practice they could put the smoke down early enough to alllow the formation leader room to plan his bombing run, but not so soon as to allow the smoke to drift away. This smoke was the key to the whole thing. The formation leader's bombs had to be spot-on, for they kicked up so much dust that you couldn't see the mortar smoke. Each following pilot aimed for the centre of the dust cloud covering the target. Results were surprisingly good. There was often the odd bomb adrift, of course, and as our troops were usually fairly close by, some sad acccidents. But then, there has never been a war in which that hasn't happened (and never will be)".

As for the premature withdrawal of the VVs on the onset of the 1944 Monsoon, I have no idea why ACSEA did it, for we could have have done some good in that last dry season (and nobody knew that it was to be the last). It was a pity. We'll never know now.

''''''''''''''''''''
Chugalug (#10596),

In the matter of the Alderney and Jersey tunnels and V-1 ramps, I would've thought that the Lancasters and B-17s could have taken a morning off to pulverise them, and some rocket-firing Typhoons would help, too. Surely there was no Luftwaffe opposition to speak of by then ? If we'd had any VVs there (which there weren't), they would have been pleased to lend a hand (but a "box" would need a squadron of fighters to escort them if a Me109 was in the sky !)

But then, what do I know ? I was a long way away at the time !

Cheers, both, Danny.

Chugalug2
9th May 2017, 19:54
Danny, I would guess that any bombing or strafing of the Channel Islands would have been very politically sensitive, given that we made no effort to defend them and evacuated those citizens that chose to leave. As long as no direct threat to the UK existed thereafter we seemed happy to leave well alone, rather than endanger those islanders still there from any blue on blue incidents or reprisals. I'm sure we kept a close eye on things, particularly if any suspected V1 works were detected.

It was only with the Allied invasion of Normandy that the Alderney fortifications were shelled (by HMS Rodney from the far side of the Cotentin Peninsular) to protect the D-Day operations. Whether we knew that Alderney was occupied almost solely by the SS and their slave workers I know not, but we certainly knew that there were plenty of British citizens on Jersey and the other islands (Wiki gives the ratio of 2:1 civilians to Germans). Best perhaps to leave both well alone until the latter finally chucked their towels in?

Fareastdriver
10th May 2017, 08:40
and evacuated those citizens that chose to leave.

Some of them who asked to leave changed their minds at the last moment and went back home..............to find all their furniture carpets etc. had been nicked by the neighbours.

MPN11
10th May 2017, 11:20
I discovered a few years ago that I had a great-aunt living here during the Occupation. A cousin of mine sent me a couple of family letters written at the time, describing the rush to the Banks and the Harbour. Not exactly 'panic' but a definite sense of urgency, and some evidence of a lack of courtesy!

pulse1
10th May 2017, 16:47
I too had a great aunt living in Jersey throughout the war. We went to stay with her in 1948 when the effects of the occupation were still very obvious. E.g. the Germans had taken her front gate as scrap metal. It was quite recently I discovered that she had lost all her property rights because her papers were in the hands of her solicitor who was sent to a concentration camp and never came back.

ekinsdc
11th May 2017, 01:18
Padhist's post #2244 -

One amusing incident I recall from the many of those days was...The night Sgt C……. put into action his plan to take his wife up in a Prentice to see the station by night. Now, at the end of the main runway there was an old wartime bunker and it was used frequently by students and instructors during long periods of circuits and landings, they used to nip out of the aircraft, having advised Air Traffic Control, that they were clear of the ‘Peri-track ‘ and have a leak!!...Well the plan was that Mrs. Carlisle would wait behind this bunker all kitted up in flying gear and at some stage Carlisle's student would nip out and she would take his place in the aircraft, do a couple of circuits and return to effect the exchange back.....Now the best laid plans----What in fact happened was that another aircraft stopped and it's student got out, came to the bunker and was happily having his leak when he realised he was not alone!!....However thinking the other GUY was another student he continued with his enjoyment and just entered into a conversation on how the cold affected his ability to find his willy beneath all his flying clothing....Needless to say Mrs. C……. never said a word. But she did eventually get her trip, and did enjoy the sights.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Reading this reminded me of a somewhat similar story.

There was in the RAAF in 1938 a young pilot, FLT LT Ken Ekins. He was attached to HMAS Sydney as pilot of the ship's Walrus (Seagull V in RAAF service). While in dock in Hobart the admiral of the fleet was piped aboard for a tour of inspection. As he walked up the companionway with the captain of the Sydney he could not help but see a fishing rod poking out of an open porthole. Almost apoplectic, the admiral demanded of the captain an explanation. I am sorry to say, sir, that on the other end of that fishing rod is Flight Lieutenant Ekins of the Royal Australian Air Force. He seems to have a poor attitude to naval discipline or orders. He said to one of my officers this morning, that he intended to catch the admiral a bucket of bream.


Ken Ekins, during that Hobart visit, attended a Bachelor and Spinster's ball. There he met his future wife, Eileen, a long time resident of the village of Richmond, Tasmania. After their marriage they lived for a while in married quarters on the RAAF base at Richmond, NSW. I had the story from Mrs Ekins that one night she made her way to a far corner of the aerodrome so as to wait for the Walrus with which Ken would take his bride for her first flight. This duly happened. She added to her story by saying, with a blush, that after they landed, taxied and shut down in the same spot, Ken became rather amorous. Mrs Ekins believed that their first child was conceived that night.

Both the Ekins are deceased, so if anyone queries the accuracy of this story,
I will have to say it's a FOAF (Friend of a Friend).

My daughter is presently 'going out' with a grandson of the Ekins. He had no idea about his grandfather's service in the RAAF.

Somewhere I have filed away a good photo of Ken taken in Sydney Harbour in 1938. He is sitting on the top wing of a Walrus as the Shagbat is being winched aboard a warship. I shall post it here when I find it.



1935: Seagull V , A2-2, arrives at Portsmouth for HMAS SYDNEY , seen waiting to receive it - (Photo RAN Historical).

https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6148/5935474118_4615cabf02_b.jpg (https://www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/5935474118/)

I am the son of Ken Ekins. Would be interested in any photos of Ken with Walrus or Catalina.

Chugalug2
11th May 2017, 11:11
ekinsdc, welcome to PPRuNe, the Military Forum, and in particular this very select thread. I hope that the varied and informed knowledge and experience crammed into our cyberspace crew room can come up with some answers for you and maybe even pics of your father.

In the meantime the picture that you posted seems to raise more questions than answers itself. If A2-2 was flown and recovered to HMAS Sidney off Lee-on-Solent, what is it doing off it again in Portsmouth Harbour? The Seagull V itself seems to be perched rather precariously above the side of a ship (HMAS Australia?), or dangling from it, or what?

Please excuse the lack of Naval terminology, but we do have such expertise to hand who will no doubt severely take me to task. At least I didn't call them boats, though I suppose the aircraft is a flying one albeit amphibian. It appears to be anyway! :ok:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/5935474118/

MPN11
11th May 2017, 17:15
Possibly dangling from a dockyard crane, to then be floated and towed actoss to the ship? I'm not familiar with the territory.

Delivered by road (wings folded?) ... why not just fly in and pull up alongside? They were complicated times ;)

Ddraig Goch
12th May 2017, 16:31
Can I jump in and ask this august band of brothers if I would have been able to see Sunderlands moored off Seleter between December 1959 to December 1961 when I was there as a sprog. My memory seems to say yes but I'm not so sure!

Also a steer towards an autobiography I've been reading by Tony Cunnane about life in the RAF from the 1950s onward which is superbly done. I hope it hasn't been mentioned before but if it has there may new joiners who will find it very interesting. It can be downloaded as a .mobi file for Kindle and is free ( but it's worth far more than that! )

The link to his web site is: Tony Cunnane's Autobiography (http://tonycunnane.uk/)

ps Download Kindle to your Computer to read if you can't transfer it to your Kindle reader

Fareastdriver
12th May 2017, 17:59
Sunderlands were based at Seletar in the fifties. The ramp where they were pulled onshore is visible on Google Earth on the N/E boundary.

MPN11
12th May 2017, 18:40
It was on May 15th 1959 the last two Sunderlands took off from the Straits of Johore to conduct an around the island formation flight. Then, it was back to Seletar for the finale, a very low pass over that famous jetty, Papa, ML797 and Whiskey, PP198, and round for a final landing; although Sunderlands don’t actually land, they alight.

Seletar's Sunderlands - RAF Seletar - Singapore (http://www.rafseletar.co.uk/flying-squadrons/seletars-sunderlands/)

How long after that they bobbed around on a buoy is a different question.

Warmtoast
12th May 2017, 21:08
Ddraig Goch

Re Seletar's Sunderlands and MPN11's comment that Papa ML797 and Whisky PP198 were the last two RAF Sunderland's. My photos of DP198 alighting at RAF China Bay in 1957 and ML797 moored at Gan in 1958, below.
Also my photos of the RAF Seletar Sunderland 'graveyard' taken in late 1957.


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/thawes/RAF%20China%20Bay/ChinaBay1957-SunderlandWAlighting.jpg




http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/thawes/GAN/RAFGanSunderlandP-ML757-July1958.jpg


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/thawes/RAF%20Changi%20%20and%20Seletar/Image2.jpg


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/thawes/RAF%20Changi%20%20and%20Seletar/Image5_zps3926937e.jpg

oxenos
12th May 2017, 21:39
although Sunderlands don’t actually land, they alight.

I, too, had always thought that was the case. However I bought a facsimile copy of the R.A.F Pilots Notes for the Catalina, ( the non amphibious version - the R.A.F. operated very few of the amphibians) and they refer throughout to "landing" on water.

Fareastdriver
13th May 2017, 09:11
When I was 8/9 years old I lived on the airfield at RAF Aldergrove. One of my pastimes with a friend was to crawl over the aircraft in the dump on the eastern side. Amongst the Lancasters, Halifaxs and Spitfires was a Sunderland. The floats were off and we were thinking of ways to convert them into boats but decided against it because it would have been too difficult to get them to Lough Neagh.

I can only think that this Sunderland must have landed at Aldergrove. Even if there was a flying boat base in the Lough it would have been impractical, if not impossible to get it to Aldlergrove there being small roads flanked by trees.

There was no apparent damage to it as far as I can remember so maybe it just got lost and used the BABS at Aldergrove just as it ran out of fuel.

MPN11
13th May 2017, 09:38
Perhaps it was one of those mentioned in Wikipedia?During the Second World War, a number of severely damaged aircraft were deliberately landed on grass airfields ashore. In at least one case, an aircraft that made a grass landing was repaired to fly again.[9]
There appears to be one coming up on Google (search = "Sunderland landing on grass at RAF Aldergrove") but I'm not logging in/signing up to pinterest to find out!

But I did manage to read a photo caption "The masterly landing was made on the grass, without injury to the crew, piloted by Gordon Singleton. Although eventually recovered Sunderland T9114 never flew again." Annoyingly, it's not your aircraft! >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZfVEoZmt-c

Ddraig Goch
13th May 2017, 09:49
Thanks to all who responded for the information especially the link to the Seletar website.

Danny42C
13th May 2017, 12:29
Warmtoast (#10602),

What a marvellous subject your last pic would make for "CapCom" ! (Sample):

"No, Hoskins - I told you that there are no wheels on these things !" ........

Lovely photos in lovely sunshine - we could do with a bit of that now here in the NE.

Danny.

Fareastdriver
13th May 2017, 12:51
Things that might have been...............

In the fifties the RAF Chaplain Branch used to run summer camps, (boys only, this was the fifties) for sons of serving RAF personnel. I went to one at Calshot where we stayed in old wartime accommodation.

We would go on lots of visits to broaden our minds; Fawley refinery, Southampton Docks and Portsmouth to see how the Navy worked. Also included was a wander about the two Princess flying boats that were cocooned on the slipway. Two massive grey monsters waiting for some miracle to get going again.

It never came.

Danny42C
13th May 2017, 15:48
On
Tech Log> A no automation Zero Zero Landing with finesse> Page 2 (#36), I recently told Centaurus (Page 1, #1):
... Yet the old "seat of the pants" method still has its uses. I did my first 60 hours on the "Arnold Scheme" with the US Army Air Corps in Florida. The ASIs had been taken out of our Stearman (back) cockpits. We were taught to fly by feel and Attitude alone. As most of us had never been off the ground in our young lives, we felt no pain. Did any other Air Forces do this ? Does the USAF do it now ? Never occurred to me to ask, will do so on "Pilot's Brevet" shortly...
All right, I'm asking now. If the USAF stopped, when did they stop and why ?

Danny.

Chugalug2
15th May 2017, 10:39
Danny, it seems that some schools went beyond removing/taping over the ASI:-

By 1943, there were 18 schools in the CFTC
using the PT-19 including two British Flying
Training Schools and the Women Air Force
Service Pilots training activity at Avenger Field in
Sweetwater, Texas. The instrument panel included
an air speed indicator, altimeter, clock, vertical
speed indicator, and turn and bank indicator,
though one former cadet that trained at Chickasha,
Okla., remembered that all instruments except the
oil pressure and cylinder temperature gauge were
taped over in order to learn to fly “by the seat of
one’s pants.”

This is from "USAAF Primary Trainers" :-

United States Army Air Forces Primary Trainers, 1939-1945 | Stephen Craft - Academia.edu (http://www.academia.edu/10363686/United_States_Army_Air_Forces_Primary_Trainers_1939-1945)

Danny42C
15th May 2017, 16:07
Chugalug,

I think that would've been "Overkill" !

Thanks for the info - but could not raise the link (seems my systems are all out of date !) Have gone to the desperate measure of enrolling on gmail (under another name), no joy, and now so far out of my depth that I can go no further - will have to backtrack.

Could you quote me the answer to my question in a nutshell on here, please ? Or if is too long and detailed, copy the relevant parts onto an email to me, but only if it is not too much trouble.

I would like to know the answer !

Cheers, Danny.

Chugalug2
15th May 2017, 21:50
Danny, the piece I quoted from was mainly about the aircraft rather than the training syllabus. It was a single unnamed ex-student's recollection anyway, so hardly the final word I'd suggest. What the article does mention is the preference for the Stearman by many instructors as a basic trainer, rather than the more "slippery" Ryan and Fairchild monoplanes that many students preferred as being closer in design to the fighters that they hoped eventually to fly. So is it possible that the "seat of the pants" philosophy was coming from the civilian instructors who had flown bi-planes throughout their careers rather than an official USAAC requirement?

If the quote is only half right it would seem that being denied only the ASI meant that you got off relatively lightly, yet gained valuable insight into extracting a desired IAS from your attitude and an appropriate power setting as well as the ability to suspect the ASI if it didn't correlate accordingly. High performance WWII operational aircraft would not be very forgiving of such a routine, or perhaps even the advanced trainers. If the custom lingered on I doubt it outlasted the Stearmans, though they did continue on into the early post war years:-

The PT-19 has been wrongly described as
being THE primary trainer of WWII. It was the Stearman,
which also saw service during the early Cold War years and
helped to train some of the country’s future astronauts

None of which gives a definitive answer to your question. I'll keep up the search, and I invite others to do likewise. :ok:

Danny42C
16th May 2017, 12:02
Chugalug (#10622),

Thanks for the prompt reply ! My general impression (admittedly 75 years old) was that the civilian flying schools taken over by the Army Air Corps were under tight rein from the South-East Air Corps Flying Training Center; and the (junior) Army officers appointed to each place were tasked to ensure that only the AAC Syllabus was taught there. I can hardly imagine that they would allow our (civilian) instructors at the Embry-Riddle School of Aviation at Carlstrom Field to teach the "No ASI" method unless it was AAC Policy.

The British Flying Training Schools, on the other hand, which were under RAF Command, would teach only the RAF Syllabus (although at the beginning using US civilian instructors, but later by their own or Arnold Scheme "creamies").

Overall Command was in the benevolent person of Major General "Hap" Arnold, who had been taught to fly by the Wright Brothers and had a colourful career, although it would seem that he and President Roosevelt did not get on too well (Wiki knows the full story).

As for the Stearman, I have never been a QFI (not good enough !), or a TP, but yet: "The Toad Beneath the Harrow knows......." I did 60 hours on the Stearman as a stood, and later at Thornaby much the same on TMs doing Air Experience Flights and some (unofficial) instructing.

I would say that both Tiger and Stearman were excellent primary trainers, but the Stearman had the edge IMHO, as being bigger, heavier and more rugged and powerful. The Stearman has been in the news over the past year or two, because of one ("The Spirit of Artemis") in the hands of "The Bird in a Biplane" (full, entertaining story on Private Flying Forum, "Tracey Curtis-Taylor" Thread). As for the two monoplane US trainers, I would suppose that they were in the same league as our Miles Magister. Never flew any of 'em.

Your: "...High performance WWII operational aircraft would not be very forgiving of such a routine..." Oddly enough, Peter C. Smith, somewhere in his authoritative "Vengeance!", tells a story by a "Red" McInnis (RCAF), who got airborne in a VV, only to find that he had no ASI :eek: (I suppose a fat bug had set up home in the pitot tube). But he was on an 'op', and so all he had to do out and back was to keep station in the "box", the ASI is irrelevant in the dive, and when they broke for landing, used attitude and normal power settings. Easy-Peasy ! :ok:

"Red", btw, was in 110 with me, and I took over 1340 Flight from him when he went back to Canada in April, 1945. ...... Which brings me to a further appeal for help from the brethren.

Peter Smith is trying to trace "Red"s full Christian Names for a projected new edition of "Vengeance!". We know: "J.17891 F/Lt V.B. McInnis, RCAF" already. With that, it should be easy to get hold of a copy of his service records, right ?

Wrong ! Peter has had no success in getting this from the R.C.A.F. It is not that he is an idle gawker off the street - he is a well respected Aviation historian, and is asking for a legitimate purpose.

????????

Cheers, Danny. :confused:

Molemot
16th May 2017, 12:38
A bit of Googling produced Course 42 at Moncton. Feb 27 1942...amongst whom was V. B. McInnes, who came from Barrie, Ontario. More Googling shows there are still McInnes living in Barrie.....might help, for what it's worth.

Danny42C
16th May 2017, 15:37
Molemot (#10624),

It might be worth a lot, for you may have put the finger on it. Was it McInnes or McInnis ? If we have been barking up the wrong tree, whatever Search Engine we've been using wouldn't recognise it. I'll tell Peter that and let him follow up. Thanks !

Seems "Red" and I had more in common than I thought. He was on Course 42 at Moncton, New Brunswick and (graduated ?) 27/2/42. I was on the Arnold Course 42C and graduated 6/3/42 (a week later) at Craig Field, Selma, Ala. We might have had our hammocks hung side by side over a mess deck of the troopship back to UK !

Small world !

Danny.

Chugalug2
16th May 2017, 22:08
Molemot, well done Sir! Hopefully the transposition of a single letter has cracked Danny's (and Peter Smith's!) search for Red's details.

Danny, your tale of a Vengeance continuing to the target, dive-bombing it, and then returning to base, all without an ASI perhaps points up the appropriateness of your no ASI basic training. It would be interesting if Red had experienced that same facet of basic training.

I seem to recall my own training included "partial panel" exercises whereby the artificial horizon was covered, leaving the turn and slip, compass, ASI, VSI, and Altimeter only.

Danny explodes, "Partial panel? That was our full one!" For some reason the lad pushing his delivery bike up a steep hill in the Hovis ad comes to mind. Can't think why! :E

Danny, I'm sorry that you can't open the link in my #10620 and I seem to recall similar problems previously. I doubt it has much to do with the age of your laptop. I would suspect your browser and it might be worthwhile downloading another. If you do a Google search for, say, Google Chrome, click on the first offering and then on the 32 bit download. It will take awhile doing so but you should be able to open it then (if you can't find it, it should be in "downloads"). Having opened it, get through all the "welcome" tosh ASAP, and then search for "PPRuNe" and navigate to this thread. Try opening my link again. Hopefully it will work. You will be rewarded with a full colour picture of a Stearman (fleet number 45) resplendent in full blue and yellow plumage overflying the Carlstrom "circle". I think the pic dates from 1942/43.

If those more tech savvy than I spot any howlers in the above please declare them now (or forever hold....). I'm not sure of your operating system, Danny. If it's XP then maybe it will no longer be compatible with a Chrome download. No problem if so, it can easily be deleted.

Up to you of course, but perhaps someone can try for you if you don't fancy trying it yourself?

Molemot
17th May 2017, 09:39
Sorry chaps...duff gen. I blame my fingers! It was, indeed, McInnis....I slipped the wrong vowel in there.... Still, those sort of errors can work both ways, and looking for McInnes might yet find something(!)

Danny42C
17th May 2017, 11:16
Chugalug (#10626),

Thank you for lending a hand ! Don't worry about my not being able to open your link - you've told me the gist of it already. I've passed on Molemot's idea to Peter Smith, we'll see what happens. Browserwise, my situation is that my box of tricks, bought some six years ago, came with Windows 7 Home Premium in the package. I've made some half-hearted attempts to upgrade to Windows 10, but all came to naught - I'm just too stupid. But from what I hear, it is just as well, as Windows 7 does all I need, although I often get sniffy notes telling me I'm using an obsolete browser. (I use Internet Explorer).

In a "fit of absence of mind" (there's no other word for it), I got Google Chrome as well (don't ask me how I did that), and sailed along happily enough with those two ever since. Generally, I keep PPRuNe on IEx, do all my drafting on NotePad files, and email on GCh, but when one sulks, sometimes have to swap over. (In this way, found I could copy a pic on GCh from a post or Wiki, but not paste it - but it'd paste on IEx !)

Tried to bring your Link up, but neither would play, so at their (which ?) suggestion, tried to update (what ? how ?), blundered on hopelessly till I finished up with a new gmail address which I would fain be rid of, but don't know how. Have closed my eyes to that, left it alone, and hope that when I open them again it will have gone away.

You see what a mess the Sorcerer's Apprentice can get into when he really puts his mind to it ?

"...but perhaps someone can try for you..." .... Please Don't, folks - I'm in a state of Utter Invincible Ignorance in these matters, I cannot be helped, I'm beyond help !

Now, to talk about things I do know something about. Your:
...It would be interesting if Red had experienced that same facet of basic training...
I don't think the RCAF (or anyone else ?) taught it (that's what we'd like to know). But it is interesting that it would work as well with a Vengeance as a Stearman. In principle, it would work with anything, provided the pilot was thoroughly familiar with his beast !

Note my remarks (somewhere ages ago) about "Red" being "one of the old Blenheim brigade (on 110)". Seems not, he was my exact contemporary - probably had done a Hurricane OCU in UK, then shanghai'd to Bombay (like me).

My "Starwriter" (which died - again - the other week) due back today. Repairs have now cost far more than a fully reconditioned one would have done at the beginning. I never learn. I once had a new Renault 16 (of evil memory); engine repairs in the end added up to more than the cost of a new engine (it was out of its measly six month's warranty, which was all they gave you in those days).

Oldest Inhabitant (in full Victor Meldrew mode) subsides mumbling into his ale.

Cheers, Danny.

EDIT: Molemot (#10628),

Not to worry - it'll "all come out in the wash !"

Danny,

Geriaviator
17th May 2017, 17:45
Another birthday gallops towards me next month, and I'm coming to understand that early memory becomes clearer as I go into the store and forget what I've gone for. After seven decades I can look back with experienced eye, and understand why my dear mother told me that she acquired her first grey hairs at the age of 34, a week after the cobra incident described shortly. I invite you to accompany us as we rejoin my father at RAF Poona in 1946, where five-year-old Geriaviator is finding his way around this strange new world. ALREADY obsessed with aircraft and mechanical things, I've learned that Sgt James next door acquired his motorcycle from the Pongos, though I have not yet discovered who these mysterious Pongos might be. I hope they can find a spare motorbike for me too as I'm getting taller every day as Mummy tells me when we go to the Indian tailor for another pair of khaki shorts, I'm engrossed as he sits cross-legged using his toes to sew as well as his hands.

I have yet to learn Olde Anglo-Saxon so I assume the Hindi word for naughty motorcycle is “yoo ********* ****”. I know this because that's what Sgt James called his machine when it would not start and kicked it onto its side. Mummy says this is very naughty and I agree that the motorcycle very naughty because it would not start. She rolls her eyes in despair. Of course this makes my new phrase all the more attractive, and I repeat its rhythmic cadence like a mantra. Indeed it will remain useful many years later, when I remove my knuckles along a row of razor-sharp cylinder fins, or the scalpel-sharp end of locking wire goes under my fingernail, even 70 years on when some youngster in a call centre screws up the most simple transaction.

Sgt James and I have become good friends since he fell off his motorcycle and broke his leg, so he has to wear a big white boot. We sit together on his verandah most afternoons while he puts his leg on a box and takes his special walking medicine, which comes in a big bottle labelled with a picture of a man with a stick. Sgt James spells out the name Johnny Walker for me, and he says Mr. Walker's medicine makes his sore leg feel better.

Daddy is very cross today because he has to go to church parade on Sunday. Sgt James does not go because of his sore leg, but he says he will give Daddy a glass of his medicine to help him walk up and down the church. Daddy cheers up as he takes the golden medicine but says it's the third time he's been caught this year and he's brassed off with damn parades. Mummy says mustn't say damn, I remark, but Daddy pays no attention.

Yoo ********* ****, I say sympathetically. Out of the mouth of babes … says Sgt James and they both start laughing, but I've no idea what they are talking about.

TOMORROW: Geriaviator (5) meets the Padre. What could possibly go wrong?

Danny42C
17th May 2017, 20:56
Geriaviator (#10629),
...we go to the Indian tailor for another pair of khaki shorts, I'm engrossed as he sits cross-legged using his toes to sew as well as his hands...
What memories that resurrects ! In every bazaar in the subcontinent, there would be one or more dherzis, tailors who would run you up a shirt or bush jacket (usually in absorbent khaki cellular material), or a uniform jacket, slacks or shorts (in non-absorbent khaki drill).

Delivery was always "next morning, Sahib" after measurement and order. The tailoring was dirt-cheap, never more than a rupee a garment (about 1/4 in old money, perhaps a jacket (which needs more tailoring) would be two rupees. To this would be added the cost of the cloth.

In wartime, in most larger towns, there would be a RIASC "Officers' Shop", where they would sell high quality khaki drill, 54 inches wide at Rs1 As8 (Rs1½) a yard. From 2½ yards, your dherzi would make a uniform jacket and slacks. For a jacket (which would have brass buttons) the buttons would not be sewn on but a small hole would be embroidered through which the shank could pass. The button was then secured by a small brass split pin.

Reason: they had to be removed before the jacket went to the laundry ("Dhobi"). Likewise your (cloth) ribbon bar and wings were on little press studs. For the stuff that went to the daily "dhobi" had to stand rough treatment. Essentially, they were taken down to the river and the dirt and sweat flogged out by the womenfolk on a flat stone under running water. Only the best quality drill ("Elgin Mills" of Ahmehabad was the acknowledged standard) ccould stand up to this for any length of time.

The tropical kit issued to us in UK was rubbish. The fit was lousy, the khaki faded to a dirty yellow after a dhobi or two, the stitching gave way and the hems shredded. The first thing the new arrival did was to chuck this lot away, and get some proper kit tailored by the nearest dherzi.

I digress: armed with your 2½ yards of drill, (Rs3) you took it to the dherzi and his Victorian heirloom sewing machine, he expertly cut out all the panels and next morning your bearer would lay out a new uniform (total cost Rs4-5, say 7/6). This, of course, was "parade" gear, which you hardly ever wore. Normally you just had an "Aertex" type bush jacket or shirt by day, and drill shorts; after dark it would be long-sleeved shirt or bush jacket and khaki drill slacks (the mossie goes for wrist and ankle).

The airmen's issue kit out there was local Indian purchase, the quality not bad, but the fit "hit and miss". Most people went to the dherzi.

It weren't 'arf 'ot, Mum !

Danny.

PS: 84 Sqdn had a F/O called "Hartnell". He was a sprig of the Norman Hartnell family, the then Queen's Dressmakers. When this became known, he was "dherzi" Hartnell for ever after !

Geriaviator
17th May 2017, 21:53
Oh yes Danny, I remember the dhobi-wallah and even now a piece is being penned for your perusal! It's only five-year-old Geriaviator's introduction to the laundry and of course nothing could go wrong ...

DHfan
17th May 2017, 23:44
...(the mossie goes for wrist and ankle).

I did a major demolition job on my right ankle 35 or so years ago - I've got eight screws in there to this day. The consultant said wrists and ankles were the slowest to heal as there was very little flesh over them.
Presumably the aforementioned mossies already knew this and the blood vessels are easier to find.

Fareastdriver
18th May 2017, 09:10
Much the same in Changi, Seletar and Tengah in Singapore.

On posting to the Far East officers could draw a 'tropical kit allowance'. The unwise, like me and uncountable others would purchase their kit from Gieves, Moss Bros. and RE City. This was invariably a copy of standard RAF tropical issue with 'Singapore Tops' (two straps that buckled each side of the waist). On arrival one found it was heavy and uncomfortable.

To the rescue came Clothing Stores who would flog you a roll of decent light cloth that a Changi village tailor would turn into a full set of comfortable attire overnight.

One evening I was to attend a Formal Dinner Night complete with tropical mess kit. Whilst preparing for this my Amah pointed out that my trousers had been irrecoverably damaged during a game of mess rugby on the previous occasion.

A phone call to my tailor who had made the mess kit in the first place. En-route to the mess in mess jacket, bow tie and shorts I put on a brand new pair of trousers in his shop.

MPN11
18th May 2017, 11:30
I too remember the amazing speed of production of clothing items. The tailor in Tengah Village ran up all my necessary uniform items during my week's "acclimatisation" leave on arrival: shirts/shorts, bush jacket/slacks and a rather nice white Mess Dress jacket and 'lightweight' blue trousers.

Subsequent orders included raw silk civvy shirts, and 'dress' civvy shorts and slacks. The prices were staggeringly low, even though he had a captive audience and was, IIRC, the only tailor in the village.

For other more complex items (DJ, suit etc.] I used Wai Cheong in North Bridge Road (the DJ survives to this day, albeit a bit snug!]. And from a cobbler down near Alexandra BMH I purchased a made-to-measure pair of full-length Dress Boots, in beautiful German chrome leather that bulled up like glass* ... and they're still going strong, 50 years on! IIRC the boots cost £7 :D

Danny42C
18th May 2017, 13:19
Geriaviator (#10631),

Knowing your precocious talent for creating mayhem where none previously existed, I look forward to your next offerings and fear for the mental stability of Padre Ashe (was it?) !

'''''''''''

DHfan (nem.con.) (#10632),

Now that anopheles has taken the stage here, I recall that, five years ago, almost to the day, I wrote on this Thread:

"It was a rule that ankles and wrists must be covered after dark; they are the favourite points of attack for the malaria mossie; I suppose that the superficial veins there are easier for the beastie to dig down to. Even with all the precautions and the daily mepacrine tablet, everybody got malaria at least once, and some several times, while out there. It was regarded as no more serious than (and felt like) a bad dose of 'Flu. It put you on your back for a fortnight, and you weren't much use for a week or two after that".
And:
"But we had been stationary for hours at a time, often at night. Now there are all sorts of malaria, but in our day there were simply two: "Benign Tertian", and "Malign Tertian" (BT & MT). The first is bad, the second worse. BT is usually treatable in SSQ (or even in your own basha). This time I had MT and it put me on my back in a military hospital in Quetta. I honestly thought I'd "had it". (There is also a rare "Cerebral" malaria, with a high mortality rate, and another insect-borne disease: "Dengue" fever, a sort of "Malaria-lite", much milder, which lasts about a week)".
Just thought I'd mention it.

''''''''''

FED (#10633),

That's what I call "cutting it fine" (I trust you were unaccompanied by any lady other than your wife ?)

Cheers, all, Danny.

Fareastdriver
18th May 2017, 14:43
Come on Danny; your memory is fading. A 'Formal Dinner Night' or Dining In night, was for mess members only, now including WRAF members.

Not being privy to the modern Royal Air Force I would assume that the after dinner recreation in my time has now been banned or considered racialist or homophonic. 'Hold him down, you Zulu warrior' is probably unknown now.

The days of the call; "six pints please"; "Red Barrel or Courage?". "Courage, it's not for drinking, it's for throwing. have gone.

Geriaviator
18th May 2017, 14:59
THE POONA PADRE COMES TO CALL

WE'RE preparing for tiffin when a car draws up outside and something very strange happens. Daddy looks out, he mutters something and says 'It's the bloody padre, I'm off to Jack's house' and disappears through the back door. Mummy says he's cross because he doesn't want to arrange another church parade.

Getting out of his car is a plump officer in a strange uniform, he doesn't wear a collar and tie but instead has a curious white collar like a dog, and I'm horrified to hear that he wants me to go to Sunday School. As if weekday school isn't enough, for the one cloud on my horizon is the RAF school, where I'm disgusted to find that there are no lessons on aeroplanes as I expected, just reading and writing, and there are lots of kids there. As the padre's syllabus includes neither aircraft nor motorcycles I decline politely but Mummy says yes of course, and the padre says he will return with some books for me.

A few days later I'm on the verandah studying the aircraft recognition cards which Daddy brought me when the car arrives again and the padre asks me to call Mummy, who is inside the house. Mummy, mummy, it's the bloody padre, I announce. Mummy's face goes bright red, and the padre is looking at me with a shocked expression. Grown-ups are hard to understand sometimes, I only did as I was asked.

Next instalment: Geriaviator (age 5) assists with the dhobi-wallah's indelible ink. What could possibly go wrong?

MPN11
18th May 2017, 15:00
...

The days of the call; "six pints please"; "Red Barrel or Courage?". "Courage, it's not for drinking, it's for throwing. have gone.
Ha-Ha ... the tiled-floor Pigs Bar at Tengah was notorious for throwing beer.

Indeed, one would ask the barman for a pint of throwing beer, which was duly dispensed [at no charge] from the slops tray underneath the taps of frothing Tiger.

Fareastdriver
18th May 2017, 15:57
We had a task in the mid seventies to go to Catterick Barracks to do some training with the, IIRC, the 15th Light Gun Regiment. This task, for about three days, involved lifting the troops and their howitzers over the Catterick ranges for their annual aviation training.

As usual I telephoned the unit to tie up the loose ends, where to land and accommodation requirements. This was sorted and in passing they mentioned that they dressed for dinner on Tuesdays. We were there through Monday to Wednesday and I was being accompanied by the Squadrons Crewman Leader who, in the Support helicopter world, was a Flight Lieutenant.

I, having been involved with Pongos from my days in Borneo, knew that 'dressing for dinner' meant mess kits so I arranged with Paddy for us to take our mess kits with us. We did the days tasking during which I claimed the World's Speed Record for a 105mm. Howitzer at 135 knots, (cheating bit because it didn't have a blast plate on) and in the evening came time for nosh.

Paddy and I, in full kit minus gongs walked through the door and there were all the resident officers--------------------wait for it.
















In full Regimental Mess Dress.

The reception was overwhelming. The last thing they thought was that two RAF officers on a short training detachment being prepared to honour their long standing tradition was totally unexpected.

My presence was enough. As with all the my FTSs, squadrons, stations, wars etc.; the Regiment folded within a couple of years.

Danny42C
18th May 2017, 20:32
FED (#10636),


"... your memory is fading..." All too true ! Like my "Get up and go", it's Got up and gone.

À propos nothing at all, in the process of a chuck-out today, found the (full size) gold lace wings that came with my 1950 No.1 SD Jacket (of evil memory). The idea was to replace the wartime jacket and the prewar Mess jacket with this dual purpose garment. It would serve as a parade jacket by day, and at night would form a Mess jacket (with white shirt, black bow and a cummerbund). It was emphasised that this was the future, there would no going back.

A few timorous souls (inc your humble correspondent) fell for it and bought the damned thing. Then, of course, the uproar of execration rose to such a level that the AM keeled over. They went back to the wartime jacket plus prewar Mess kit. One change remained, the wartime four-button jacket lost a button. Conversion to three-button was not difficult.

I binned my 1950 job and was well out of pocket. Must've stashed the gold lace wings away and forgotten them.

Danny.

Danny42C
18th May 2017, 20:40
Geriaviator (#10637),

Leaving a scandalised Padre in his wake, our junior terrorist turns his attention to the humble dhobi. What devilment is he contemplating ?

ancientaviator62
19th May 2017, 06:52
Danny,
your mess kit story reminds me of the cummerbund/waistcoat saga many of us went through. Nothing changes but the date.

Wander00
19th May 2017, 09:02
I hate snakes, even our inoffensive whip snakes, but I am waiting with baited breath for the cobra story.....

MPN11
19th May 2017, 10:58
Danny,
your mess kit story reminds me of the cummerbund/waistcoat saga many of us went through. Nothing changes but the date.Be grateful you're not ex-WRAF, with the numerous [disastrous] iterations their Mess Dress went through. The Assistant Director of Clothing Requirements and Procurement, appropriately abbreviated to ADCRAP, had much to answer for.


That hideous flared knee-length blue-grey item of distant memory.
The 'blue tube' that looked awful on all but the most-lightly built, and was not able to be either washed OR dry-cleaned. One drip of soup, and go and buy a new one.
The 'blue tube Mk2', in a slightly different style and with better material.
The 'proper' one [top similar to the male version] in c. 1993/94.*



* It was rumoured that a certain VSO wanted that with the skirt split up the side to above the knee, but was eventually persuaded otherwise.

Danny42C
19th May 2017, 12:14
MPN11,
*... It was rumoured that a certain VSO wanted that with the skirt split up the side to above the knee, but was eventually persuaded otherwise...
How far above, is the $64 question ! (the prospect of a cheongsam is pleasing - brings a gleam to the rheumy old eye - but nothing else, damnit).

Ah well, keep taking the tablets. ....

Danny42C
19th May 2017, 12:45
...Mummy says he's cross because he doesn't want to arrange another church parade. For newcomers and others who haven't read it, try Geriaviator's Post Page 178, #3558 here - I chuckle every time I think of it !..

Danny42C
19th May 2017, 13:37
MPN11,

Not really the place to ask, but following the BBC News this morning, looked up:
Ground & Other Ops Forums > ATC Issues > LCY Remote Tower.

Interesting ? How feasible is this ? When on my last tour at Leeming, it occurred to me that it was wasteful having an AR-1 on all (most ?) the flying training stations in the Vale of York, when one centrally placed (not necessarily on a Station) had all the range and upper air lobe coverage to provide Approach Control for the lot. Indeed, we had helped Teesside Airport out on occasion when their puny ACR-7D was no use. But Local Control ? - sounds dicey to me.

Should've put a suggestion forward, I suppose (on a no-career contract you're completely bullet-proof !), but couldn't be bothered.

Remembered your Synthetic Mock at Shawbury. Like to know what you think about this idea (no, not mine - the LCY Tower controlled by Swanwick ?)

Where will it all end, one asks oneself ? If one, why not the lot ? (the Final Triumph of Area Radar ?)

MPN11
19th May 2017, 14:07
Dear Danny42C, the digital era is with us ... and we can sometimes keep up with it! Even back in the 70s we were sharing radar data in the Area world, and both ATC and FC expanded that capability in the subsequent decades. Swanwick (London Centre) took matters much further, and that's where Heathrow Approach now lives/works! The concept of shared radar data, from different sources and combined on-screen, is well established in the en-route world.

The concept is also rolling out in RAF Terminal ATC, with the intention of having 'Clutch' towers doing search and precision radar remoted in as required, with just a VCR at the lesser units. The LCY Visual concept is just one step further along the same sort of road.

It all seems pretty robust, from a Tech POV.

Personally, I always preferred the nuances you could gather from an analogue radar display, especially if you could fiddle with a gain control. But digital adds immense flexibility, at lower cost. When I was working on LATCC Comms at NATS in the 80's, we were going digital. That enabled ANY landline/frequency to be configured on to ANY control position with a few strokes on a keyboard. Having 'universal radar' means any task can be carried out anywhere, so tasks can be split, or combined, according to workload [or tech failure on a control console].

Having been the instigator of the Visual Simulator at Shawbury, I don't see any great intellectual difficulty in doing 'Local' from a remote location using a digital visual display. It's just a bit 'different' :)

Come and have a cup of tea in the Dinosaurs' Corner ... :D

Warmtoast
19th May 2017, 16:43
Wander00
I hate snakes, even our inoffensive whip snakes, but I am waiting with baited breath for the cobra story.....
I'll await Danny's reply. Meanwhile although I crossed paths with Cobras in Ceylon during my RAF service, they sort of didn't go for you (unless one trod on them). Similarly I had to contend with Puff Adders at 5FTS (Thornhill S. Rhodesia) and Green Vipers at RAF Katunayke (Negombo).
More details on the latter here:
http://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/580986-raf-fighter-command-vhf-df-fixer-net-early-1950-s-2.html#post9435871
Post #39


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/thawes/PuffAdder_zps819984d4.jpg




http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/thawes/RAF%20Negombo%20Katunayake/Green%20Viper_zpsiyfxhgzb.jpg

Geriaviator
19th May 2017, 16:58
THE DHOBI-WALLAH

I can just about remember Mondays being washing day at home in County Antrim, with Mummy being too tired to take me for a walk after hours at the sink. But RAF Poona is well served by the dhobi-wallahs who frequently call to offer their services. With so many identical uniform garments, Mummy shows me how each customer has their own special mark, placed inside each garment using a special black pen which won't come off. Our mark looks like the letter :X: with two dots on each side.

Next day we visit the dhobi-ghat, which Mummy says would be called a laundry at home. The clothing arrives in big baskets, and is tipped into a huge tank of hot water heated by a fire beneath. I watch as the dhobi-wallahs and their wives lift out the garments and beat them against a big flat stone, rubbing dirty patches with another stone dipped in soapy water. After a rinse, the rows of khaki shirts, shorts and tunics, sheets and pillowcases are laid out on stones to dry in the sun, before being dipped into something called starch and pressed flat until they resemble sheets of cardboard. My shirt and shorts come back so stiff that they rub my skin red, so Mummy tells the dhobi-wallah not to starch them. When off duty Daddy and Sgt James next door wear a dhoti, which is a big skirt like Mummy's and looks very funny and I laugh until Daddy says he'll tell the dhobi-wallah to starch my shorts again and see how I like that.

Suitably impressed after our visit, I inspect Daddy's uniform trousers and am concerned that our dhobi mark is missing. It would never do to have them go astray, so I find the special pen that Mummy showed me and make a passable if shaky copy upon the left leg. I'm not too good on measurements yet so it's about six inches high. There, I think, now the dhobi-wallah will easily find Daddy's trousers.

But when he gets home Daddy is very cross, he says I have ruined his Number Two slacks and sends me off to bed, where I sit disconsolately on my charpoy. Yoo ********* ****, I say to myself, there's no pleasing some people.

Next instalment: Geriaviator (aged 5) continues his memories of RAF Poona 1946 with the arrival of the Indian monsoon.

Danny42C
19th May 2017, 18:00
MPN11 (#10648),

M'dear Chap,

..."The concept is also rolling out in RAF Terminal ATC, with the intention of having 'Clutch' towers doing search and precision radar remoted in as required"...

Not all that far away from my Leeming Pipe Dream of 45 years ago, eh ? (Great Minds Think Alike ?)

The Battery Hens inherit the (ATC) Earth ! (muted applause).

All very fine - until the elastic breaks ! (ie Kerry Bogtrotter puts pick through mains cable somewhere, and it all goes belly-up).

See you in the Dinosaurs'Corner ! (milk 'n two sugars, pl, if you get there first). Your turn to pay !

Danny.

MPN11
19th May 2017, 18:06
Thanks, Geriaviator for your lovely tales! :ok:

Our Mess dhobi at Tengah was marked with small stitches of coloured cotton in the inside label/collar/etc. ISTR my colour was a simple, single, red stitch. I never inspected anyone else's laundry ti see how complex the codes got, but with c. 50 of us living in it must have been a task ... unless each Batman had his own dhobi-wallah for HIS Sahibs.
I was just grateful that it all worked, seamlessly.

Fareastdriver
19th May 2017, 18:20
We had a similar mass dhobi system in Belize. It was a two day service; out in the morning and back two mornings later. Should you take a walk around the local area one would not be surprised to see the dhobi lady's boyfriend wearing one of your shirts for the day.

Danny42C
19th May 2017, 18:32
FED (#10649),

Ah, the little world of Susie Wong ? Cheongsam relatively demure. And a playful gust of wind can happen to any girl - famously to Marilyn Monroe. And who remembers that lucky photoshot on a CapCom long ago - you know, the one with the granite-faced Commissar at the top of the aircraft steps glaring down at the trembling local apparatchicks below. And the Aeroflot hostie doing the bye-byes up there - until a momentary puff of air revealed .... (and she'd just had a Brazilian, too).

Set me up till next BoB day, it did !

Danny42C
19th May 2017, 18:44
Warmtoast (#10650),

Your fearsome photographs give me the willies ! In 3½ years in India, the only snakes I ever saw were the snake-charmer's (supposedly fang-less) cobras in their little baskets in the Bazaar.

Would not keep one as a pet, though !

Never wait for me - press on regardless

Danny.

Danny42C
19th May 2017, 19:06
MPN11 and Geriaviator,

Dunno how my bearers did it - but I always got my right kit back ! Hot water ? and Soap ?

Soap costs money, so that's out for a start. River water as it comes is fine - you just have to wallop the dhobi on the stone longer and harder.

Geri, not sure about a dhoti. If it was just a tube of cloth tucked round the waist as you'd tuck a towel, it was a lunghi (most people wore them in preference to pyjamas).
Little starch, as I recall.

Great stuff - standing by for more !

Danny.

Warmtoast
19th May 2017, 20:07
Danny
you know, the one with the granite-faced Commissar at the top of the aircraft steps glaring down at the trembling local apparatchicks below. And the Aeroflot hostie doing the bye-byes up there - until a momentary puff of air revealed .... (and she'd just had a Brazilian, too).
This one?


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/thawes/Windy_zpsfuakluq3.jpg

MPN11
20th May 2017, 09:08
Ah, the Gully-Gully Man :)

Snakes? No problem! :)

http://i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm468/atco5473/PPRuNe%20ATC/img118.jpg

Danny42C
20th May 2017, 12:35
Warmtoast (#10657),

Curiously, no. This is a similar set-up, but in the CapCom one (long since taken down), there was only one girl, the intimidating Commissar was the only one on the stairs, and the subject was even more revealing !

I imagine this combination of circumstances is so common that the paparazzi lie in wait for all arrivals when a gusty wind is blowing. One would think that this hazard is so well known to hosties that "precautions" are taken - at least to the extent of making sure that full kit is worn. But then, I suppose .....

Geriaviator
20th May 2017, 12:50
Glad you like the stories, folks, more to come as it seems the more I place on paper the more memories are triggered.
Soap costs money, so that's out for a start.Danny, you remind me that my grandmother was widowed at 43 leaving her three girls to support. The Freemasons helped her to raise the family for in the 1920s there was no State benefits. Until leaving Binbrook for Khormaksar in 1951 soap tablets were used until wafer-thin, after which my mother collected them in a jar for melting down for recasting into new multi-coloured soap. We weren't the only family to do this. The dhobi-wallah collected soap from the OMQ but I doubt he got much from the Patch!

Unquestionably the same garment, but we called it dhoti in Poona and later in Aden, my father found it much more comfortable than khaki drill. And no, Padre Ashe was still to come in Khormaksar five years hence. I can't remember the name of Poona's padre as five-year-old G. did not see him again as he and padre disagreed following a profound theological discussion. A report on this discussion will appear later, after we've got to the snakes, but it involved the infant G's introduction of the Lord Shiva into the Sunday School proceedings. As a result it was suggested to Mummy that it might be better if young G. did not attend again, a suggestion with which he happily agreed :D

Danny42C
20th May 2017, 12:53
MPN11 (#10660),

Nice pics of a slithery subject ! I particularly like the last two - the children looking at the display with justifiable suspicion; and the lady at table (is she actually eating one ?) I suppose it would taste much like eel (never tried those, either).

Danny42C
20th May 2017, 13:10
Geriaviator (#10661),

To the end, we collected the slivers of soap and squeezed them together, and so ad infinitum .... "Waste not, want not" was the watchword of our Respectable Working Class in those days

Geriaviator
20th May 2017, 15:43
THE MONSOON ARRIVES

The weather has changed over recent weeks, the air feels heavy, the sky is leaden and Pop our bearer says that something called the monsoon is due. One evening the sky turns black, the kitehawks picket themselves down in the palm trees, the heavens open, and even I can tell that the monsoon has arrived.

I watch from the verandah as rivulets coursing between the stilts supporting our bungalow merge into streams, while the strange flickering and deep rumblings around the horizon come closer and closer. Suddenly the sky is torn in two by a colossal flash, my ears ring from the thunderous explosion, torrential rain streams through the palm leaves which form our verandah roof. First awed, then revelling in nature's fireworks display, I dance around the verandah, heedless of the leaks and yelling with joy even though I can't hear myself above the thunderclaps which have become almost continuous.

Mummy and Daddy come out just in time for the climax, a bluish-white pillar which momentarily links earth to seething sky before projecting a wall of thunder. “Yoo ********* ****” I yell in exhilaration before Daddy seizes me by the scruff of the neck and carries me off to bed.

As the bedroom door closes I hear them both laughing. Grown-ups are hard to fathom at times, I tell myself as I fall sound asleep, heedless of the cacophony outside.

Next instalment: Geriaviator (5) continues his memories of RAF Poona 1946 and meets a new friend in Arthat the mongoose.

MPN11
20th May 2017, 16:33
Danny42C ... no, not snake! looking at the furniture, that looks like we (that's my first wife on the right) are eating Chili Crab at a waterside establishment whose name eludes me just now. (The Seaside Hotel?)
So does the identity of the other couple, sadly, although her face is familiar.

Wander00
21st May 2017, 09:29
I recall my mother had a device called a "soap saver" - wire cage about 2"x3"x3" on a wire handle. Odd ends of bars of soap go in the cage that had a wire "lid" that clipped shut, then shake the thing in water to get soapy water

Danny42C
21st May 2017, 13:22
Geriaviator (#10663),

How can anyone, who has not had the experience, possibly imagine the ferocity of an Asian Monsoon ? My first was the 1943 one in Chittagong (in present Bangladesh), and I well remember the last few weeks of gradually increasing heat, tension and growing humidity; the black clouds massing, evermore menacing - then "Crash" as the Monsoon "breaks", the rain comes down in a solid wall for a week or so, and there is a blessed coolness as the temperature drops .....

All our "kutcha" strips are flooded and put out of action immediately, but we are on tarmac where we are. 110 has flown its last (and my third) sortie (of the "dry season") on the 14th May (to Bume Radio Stn, Akyab). I see that we flew across the Bay of Bengal to Digri (W.Bengal) on June 4th. Digri was another paved airfield, (I think the Liberators (159) operated from there), to sit out the Monsoon.

I cannot recall the exact date ours "broke", but it would be a day or two later than in Calcutta: there it would've started (promptly, every year, so they said) on May 15th. It is the SW Monsoon, guess 17th would be about right for it to cross the Bay to us.

What an excitement for a small boy ! Snag is, it stirs up all sorts of other things: snakes come out of their holes (not that I saw any); all manner of nasty looking invertrebrates start running around ..... Worst of all, there is standing water all over the place: anopheles (the malaria mossie) has a field day.

We think we had it bad ? How would we like it as a 14th Army lad , fighting in the jungle with no cover, night or day ? Count your blessings !

More, more, chota Sahib !

Danny.

Danny42C
21st May 2017, 16:14
Geri,

Interesting bits on RAF KHORMKSAR here - but after your (youthful) time, I'm afraid !

Danny.

MPN11
21st May 2017, 18:44
IIRC we never had 'monsoon' in Singapore. It just rained a lot in (October? Or was that Jamaica?).

Fareastdriver
21st May 2017, 19:56
During the building boom in China in the nineties the biggest problem during the typhoon season wasn't the wind or the rain; it was sheets of corrugated iron flying down the street at head height.

kookabat
22nd May 2017, 06:48
On the 'remote tower' thing (on the last page I think), Airservices was looking at such a system for some of their more remote towers a couple of years ago. There's a bit about it here (http://www.futureairport.com/features/featureremote-control-the-remote-tower-concept-4157951/). They actually trialed it for a few months, with the 'tower on a stick' located at Alice Springs and controllers in a room in Adelaide, 1500km away, shadowing the on-site controllers in Alice Tower.

The technology exists and it works, but I seem to recall hearing that the results weren't up to the same standard as having controllers on-site (surprise!) and it was abandoned.

Chugalug2
22nd May 2017, 07:47
Geriaviator, once again you succeed in turning the clock back for us. Back to the post war years and in a part of the world that we may not be familiar with, but also back to a time that we have all experienced when we were young children. You capture perfectly that period when the only reserve is that discovered when we break boundaries imposed by grown ups (usually parents and teachers) or by our own ability to scare ourselves witless.

I only experienced the ITCZ as it passed through Singapore, as regular as clockwork, when Changi changed runway from 02 to 20 or vice-versa and the CBs, towering sometimes to some 50,000 feet, produced the fireworks that impress 5 year olds but convince pilots to become old rather than bold. Traversing the ITCZ over the Indian Ocean at night in a Hastings (at approx. 10,000 feet) required turning down all cockpit lighting, peering out ahead over the coaming to spot where the lightning displayed the cell centres and the outline of their respective Cb's, and looking for a way through between them. That could require going some 50 nm's out of your way and shows the respect that this wall of weather evoked in us.

All this of course preceded the technology that later pinned down the exact position and extent of the zone. It was then the job of the co-pilot to record weather data en route (W/V, OAT, etc) on one side of an AIREP (the other recording the prescribed routine position reporting data for ATC by HF radio) in which his artistic talents could flourish. In columns that matched those of the position reports on the reverse side, he drew the extent and nature of clouds below, at, or above the aircraft's level. On arrival at destination (especially island ones such as Gan) this was duly handed in at debrief to the Met Office.

I remember well when this all became somewhat surplus to requirements. It was at Gan when the forecaster politely thanked us, but laid the form aside without the usual questioning to fill out his appreciation of what we had seen and he had not. "Don't you want to know some more?", we asked, suspecting that a preceding crew had stolen our thunder (sorry, just seen what I did there!). "We've got these now", he responded, pushing some A4 size photographic prints towards us. They were the first satellite photos I had ever seen. It was the mid 60's...

Geriaviator
22nd May 2017, 09:16
Thanks Chugalug, I can imagine you peering over the coaming and I'm very glad it was you and not me! Another childhood memory was being shown a 617 Sqn Lincoln at Binbrook in 1950 after return from the annual Shalluffa exercises with my father's 9 Sqn. The port fuselage side was corrugated like a Ju52 after encountering a Cb near the Pyrenees, another 617 machine was lost around that period.

Thirty-two years later my fiance and I were on our way to the Algarve in our Arrow, night-stopping at San Sebastien as usual. The met man was quite animated, I learned the apt Spanish word for Cb is tormenta, and there were tormenta aplenta all the way across Spain. Immediately the Lincoln writeoff came to mind. We nipped back to Biarritz for a sunny day on the beach, booked another night in the comfy Hotel Alcazar (dbb £21 for two), and enjoyed a smooth trip to Faro next day with nary a wrinkle on airframe or driver. Mind you, driver has made up his wrinkle stock since ...

Danny42C
22nd May 2017, 12:14
kookabat (#10670),

I reckon that the Mark I Eyeball on the spot will always do a better job !

Danny.

Danny42C
22nd May 2017, 12:55
Chugalug (#10671),

Your "Actions in the Event of Getting Into a CumuloNimblyBumbly" differed from ours. We were taught to:

1. Turn up Cockpit Lights to Max (to reduce possibility of being temporarily blinded by the flash). [no use to us as we had no lights].

2. Reduce to penetration speed (What was it ? - suppose as slow as poss, without approaching stall).

3. Lower seat to the bottom, tighten straps (to avoid being thrown up against canopy rails and knocking yourself out).

4. On no account attempt to turn round to get back out of it: you will be 99% certain of losing control and becoming disoriented.

5. Make sure Canopy is fully closed (or you will get wet).

6. Prayer helps.

We found that, however hard it is belting down, there is usually a 500 ft gap between cloud base and ground you can use (but your pax might not like that). Trouble was that vis was about as far as the prop (luckily India is mostly flat !)

But they were great days !

Cheers, Danny.

Danny42C
22nd May 2017, 15:49
Geriaviator (#10672),
...The port fuselage side was corrugated like a Ju52 after encountering a Cb...
The Cb that would corrugate a VV ain't been hatched yet ! You need the human element - I managed to reduce one to bite-sized lumps - and even then we were dragged out alive !
...Thirty-two years later my fiancée and I were on our way to the Algarve in our Arrow...
Is it possible for a man to be luckier than that ?
...the Spanish word for a Cb is "tormenta"...
Olè - they can say that again !

Standing by for next instalment of juvenile delinquency !

Danny.

Geriaviator
22nd May 2017, 16:17
ARTHAT THE MONGOOSE

NEXT day we hear a great commotion outside where the bearers are running around with lathi sticks. Pop our bearer explains that the monsoon floods have driven the snakes from their burrows, and RAF Poona's mongoose-wallah has been sent for.

I'm captivated when Arthat the mongoose arrives, he's the 747 version of the meerkat, he's three feet long like myself and we take to one another at once as the owner drapes him round my shoulders. Staggering under his weight, I take him in to meet Mummy but she turns pale and shouts 'Get that damn thing out of here, put it back where you found it!'

Apologising to the mongoose for Mummy's bad manners, we sit down on the verandah steps while Pop makes chai for the owner. As I stroke my new friend he closes his beady eyes in pleasure while I consider ways to smuggle him into my bedroom. Inspecting his wicked fangs, I tell him he musn't eat my other friend Lithard, the green and orange lizard who lives in the thatch above my bed.

But Arthat has work to do, and his owner lifts him gently away and sends him under the spaces beneath our bungalows. He drives out a snake which is battered by the bearers, to the dismay of Pop who as a Hindu will not harm any living creature. They also pull out a dead snake, and I'm impressed to see that Arthat has bitten through its neck.

Job done, the owner gives Arthat back to me while Pop brews another pot of chai. The mongoose follows me around like a dog and delights in being stroked, but all too soon it's time to go. I don't want to part from my new friend and yell the place down as the owner takes Arthat away in a bag over his shoulder. But I have a plan to get him back.

Next instalment: Geriaviator (aged 5) has the closest escape he will ever have in his life.

MPN11
22nd May 2017, 17:03
awww :)

When I was at boarding school in Jamaica, one of my close friends had (somehow) a pet mongoose. On the downside, he also had a Black Widow spider with loads of spiderlings. As he was from a circus family in Florida, I guess he didn't find it strange at all :)

harrym
22nd May 2017, 17:27
Geriaviator, ref your #10672 a hazard of hail is its invisibility unless falling fairly heavily, while the size of the stones is not necessarily related to the intensity of the fall; this was brought home to me many years ago dodging storms over Cyrenaica while en route Fayid-Malta.

Flying in clear air beneath a cb's overhanging anvil we were startled by a sound similar to intermittent (and loud) pistol shots, followed in short order by a couple of star-shaped cracks appearing on my windscreen. Fingering one of them, I was somewhat alarmed to find I could push the glass outwards and then feel it come back again as I released it. Given that the York's windscreen frame was of wood construction and thus unlikely to cope with the panel's complete disintegration, I decided to head at reduced speed towards Benina (airfield for Benghazi) that fortunately was close by, where we passed a few days waiting for a spare.

We were lucky to suffer no other damage, for only a few months before another squadron aircraft had a much more serious hail encounter over the Nile delta. In this case the actual hail was visible but still possible to see through, so that the pilot mistook it for rain - result being his windscreen was so severely damaged he had to switch to the right seat for landing (no trained co-pilot in those days, only an unqualified '2nd dicky'). Additionally the centre tail fin was completely carried away, and all four engines had their radiators so badly bashed in that they started to overheat – indeed their temperature readings were off the clock by the time they got back to Fayid.

Geriaviator
22nd May 2017, 17:28
Is it possible for a man to be luckier than that ?Don't think so, Danny, and I include the cobra incident coming next. Just to rub it in we had one wet day out of 14 on our folding bikes with a different malt to try every night :ok:

Harrym, you have scared the daylights out of me even though I don't fly P1 any more!

https://s20.postimg.org/azetaqvu5/Skye_postimage_1983.jpg

Danny42C
22nd May 2017, 17:28
Geri (#10676),

"Who hath been our saviour - let us know his name ...."
(sang the birds)
"It is Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, with the eyes of flame !" (Kipling)

So Arthat enters the lists against your snakes. The only animal who can beat a King Cobra to the draw. They make very affectionate pets (I'm told), and their value in places like India and Aden is obvious. I'm told they all have red eyes (did Arthat ?)
Never knew there was a profession of itinerant Mongoose Snake Killer, but it makes sense. How was he paid (per visit or "on piecework" - so much per snake killed ?) do you know ?

Would Lithard been in any danger ? 'Fraid so. According to Wiki: "...Mongooses mostly feed on insects, crabs, earthworms, lizards, birds, and rodents..." You would've done well to keep him out of Arthat's way - I don't think he'd have listened to you ! They specialise in cobras. As Kipling writes:

"Ha, the hooded death has missed. Woe to thee, Nag !"

Pity your Mother greeted him so inhospitably - she might've hurt his feelings !

Danny.

JW411
22nd May 2017, 17:35
Geriaviator:

I love the mongoose story. Keep them coming please.

MPN 11:

You have raised the subject of gully-gully men. In 1976 I was happily ensconced in the left seat of Mrs Windsor's Belfasts when the AOC (who was a fighter boy) decided that he he didn't need us any more so I was suddenly out of a job as a result of the Defence Cuts. A lot of us were suddenly out of work.

A couple of weeks later, I was found in our favourite pub in Bampton village by a very nice Wg Cdr (Ops) at Upavon at 1600 on a Friday afternoon. He "asked" me if I could go out to Colombo (Sri Lanka as it is now) immediately, if not sooner, to be the RAF Liaison Officer for a couple of weeks because the incumbent had gone "long-term sick". I had nothing better to do, so off I went.

Gan had closed but although Sri Lanka was officially a "non-aligned country" arrangements had been made to allow the Queen's Hair Dryer (VC-10) to transit between Bahrain and Singapore every day.

So, getting back to gully-gully men; I and the two Ch Tech Engineers lived in the Pegasus Reef Hotel on the beach near Negombo. Every Thursday night we were entertained in the hotel by the local gully-gully man. He came with the usual baskets of cobras etc but his big trick was the mango bush trick.

He had a carpet bag from which two pieces of cloth (about 3 foot square) appeared. One was laid on the wooden floor. He then dug out some handfulls of soil from the bag and made a cone about 6 inches tall. He then produced a mango bean which was passed round the audience for all to see and inspect.

The bean was duly planted in the top of the cone, some water was poured and the other piece of cloth was placed over the top while said gully-gully man put his hands underneath and a great deal of magical muttering ensued.

After a few moments, he took the top cloth off and there for all to see, was the shoot of a mango plant! This process went on until he had a perfect two foot tall growing mango bush!

Every Thursday the three of us sat in different parts of the room trying to see how he could manage to disguise a mango bush but we never cracked it. Do any of you out there know how it is done?

Danny42C
22nd May 2017, 18:03
harrym (#10679),

So that's that made all the row ! I snuggled happily behind my inch-thick panel of armoured glass (it'd bounce off the angled side panels). Engine not bothered - cowlings paintwork battered a bit.

A frightening experience in your York ! Similar thing happened to me in a car: out of the blue came a loud crack and the screen crazed. Crawled to nearest Halfords, got celluloid sheet (then in demand for sport car and sidecar windows), about 9x7 in, pushed big hole in screen outwards easily, covered it with the clear sheet and secured with Sellotape. Drove over the Pennines to York on a snowy Christmas night ('62, I think). Luckily it didn't snow any more, as I couldn't use the wipers. Traffic almost nil.

Got in all right !

Glad to see you back - now how about some York stories ?

Geriaviator
23rd May 2017, 09:51
Yes indeed Harry, what was the York like to fly, did it bear resemblance to its much-loved military sister the Lancaster? Did you like it? It does seem to figure quite often in accident reports … I saw one at Bombay on our way home in 1947 and another flew over Binbrook about 1950 but neither myself nor father ever was close to one.

I have asked in this matchless thread for memories of icing, one brush was enough for me and I know that many WW2 aircraft were lost because of it, but we would all welcome memories of post-war aviation when experienced crews still battled with limited equipment and the same old weather.

Further to the discussion on instrument panels, Capt. A A Fresson's book Air Road to the Isles recalls operating DH89 Rapides on the Scottish island services, with no artificial horizon or DI on some aircraft. He did have ADF radio compass and an early radio altimeter – the radio had a 200ft aerial which was wound in for landing except in bad weather. The radio op would keep one hand on the cable and tell the pilot when he felt it brush the surface. As the aerial had a 7lb lead weight on the end wise groundlubbers stayed inside during the procedure.

ICM
23rd May 2017, 14:53
My first airborne hours were in one of those Rapides, circa 1943, flying from Renfrew (then Glasgow's airfield) to South Uist. And 70+ years later, I still recall reaching for the Sick Bag as we battled with the 'air pockets'! Seeing as that would have been in the days of "Is your journey really necessary?", I can only assume that some family crisis took my Dad and me on such an adventurous (and expensive?) journey.

Fareastdriver
23rd May 2017, 15:22
My first flight was in a Rapide at Aldergrove during Empire Air Day. The last York I saw was a Dan Air York that arrived in Honington in 1963 to take Victor spares for the detachment in Singapore.

According to the reports I heard they had a 45 Gallon drum of engine oil inside but it got there in the end.

As an example of how old pistons were used in the civilian world I looked over a Constellation in Belize. The mainwheels were soaked in oil and I was invited inside by the flight engineer who proceeded to run No 4 so I asked him if he was worried about the engine.

His reply was that No 3 was the dodgy one and after takeoff they would feather it immediately so as to make sure they had five minutes out of it on the approach.

No 4 only had a 300 rpm mag drop----not a big problem.

Danny42C
23rd May 2017, 18:24
Fareastdriver (#10685),
...According to the reports I heard they had a 45 Gallon drum of engine oil inside but it got there in the end...
We had an old Minx Staff Car. Drove it from N.Yorks to Hampshire with a 2-gallon tin of oil in the boot. Used it all - couldn't see out the back for smoke - but arrived !

Danny.

MPN11
23rd May 2017, 19:00
At Shawbury in my student days was a £5 Alvis with a V8 engine that did 200 mpg of oil. You could see it going from miles away.

Sold on from Course to Course, of course. :)

ian16th
23rd May 2017, 20:58
Actually worked on a civilian York, once.

It diverted into Istres with a snag. It was un-officially fixed, for a small contribution to the unit bar funds.

Chugalug2
24th May 2017, 09:37
There are two surviving Yorks; at Cosford and Duxford. The one at IWM Duxford is ex-Dan Air G-ANTK that saw RAF service as MW232 from 1946 and flew on the Berlin Airlift. It now belongs to the Duxford Aviation Society along with 11 other airliners including Ambassador G-ALZO and Comet 4 G-APYD, both also ex-Dan Air.

There are moves afoot to redevelop the part of Duxford that the DAS flight line occupies to WWII appearance. That means that the flight line, together with the DAS workshops and offices, would be on the move. Hopefully that would be elsewhere at Duxford, but these are early days.

http://das.org.uk/

artee
24th May 2017, 10:31
Yes indeed Harry, what was the York like to fly, did it bear resemblance to its much-loved military sister the Lancaster? Did you like it? It does seem to figure quite often in accident reports … I saw one at Bombay on our way home in 1947 and another flew over Binbrook about 1950 but neither myself nor father ever was close to one.

I have asked in this matchless thread for memories of icing, one brush was enough for me and I know that many WW2 aircraft were lost because of it, but we would all welcome memories of post-war aviation when experienced crews still battled with limited equipment and the same old weather.

Further to the discussion on instrument panels, Capt. A A Fresson's book Air Road to the Isles recalls operating DH89 Rapides on the Scottish island services, with no artificial horizon or DI on some aircraft. He did have ADF radio compass and an early radio altimeter – the radio had a 200ft aerial which was wound in for landing except in bad weather. The radio op would keep one hand on the cable and tell the pilot when he felt it brush the surface. As the aerial had a 7lb lead weight on the end wise groundlubbers stayed inside during the procedure.
Geriaviator - You're right - they did seem to be accident prone. In the mid-50s as a child I flew from London to Tehran on a Persian Air Services York ("Dog Easy" - EP-ADE).
I don't know how many PAS started with, but they managed to write 3 off (including Dog Easy).

JW411
24th May 2017, 11:11
When I was a lad, Scottish Aviation started to drag ex-RAF Yorks out of the MU at Silloth in order to refurbish them for my local airline, Scottish Airlines. They were to be used on trooping contracts.

Eight aircraft arrived at Prestwick in total. Seven of them entered service but no less than five of them were written off in a period of about 3 years! Sadly, two of them involved fatalaties.

harrym
24th May 2017, 14:31
Re #10682 – Sorry Danny, my 800-odd hours on the York during 1949-50 were largely passed in plodding uneventfully between UK, Singapore and (occasionally) Aden so no excitements – which is, after all, how I preferred my flying! Despite its later indifferent safety record in the civilian world, I had only one engine shut-down and that was for a glycol leak.

Re 10691 – The York was of course necessarily operated at less than Group A standards and thus, like all large (and rather underpowered) aircraft of that period having the third wheel at the wrong end, suffered from a 'safety gap' between some unspecified speed during the take-off roll and attainment of 3-engine safety speed after airborne – usually about 25k above unstick speed. Thus, loss of an engine during that gap was an almost sure guarantee of disaster (indeed, at higher weights and/or temperature a dead cert).

Re 10638 – Apologies Geriavator I never flew the Lanc so can make no comparison, though I would imagine given its boxy, slab-sided fuselage the York handled less pleasantly than its progenitor. I recall it flew quite neutrally with no vices, although never seemed to warrant the praise I heard lavished on the Lanc. One minor feature that always annoyed me was the poor design of the spectacle-mounted brake lever, almost sure to cause a blistered left index finger if a long taxy had to be undertaken on a windy day.

Although obviously encountering ice from time to time over the years, I don't recall ever having had any problems; guess I was just lucky, although to balance the picture lightning gave me the odd jolt now & then!

JW411
24th May 2017, 14:45
I have an old friend at Shoreham who flew the York for Skyways. He tells a story about losing an engine just after take off from Khartoum. The highest they got in the subsequent circuit was about 150 feet. As you say, certainly not to Performance A standards but at least they didn't crash! He also reckons that having the throttles in the roof was less than instinctive until you got used to the idea.

Geriaviator
24th May 2017, 17:17
THE COBRA

The RAF married quarter bungalows rest on stilts with a three-foot space beneath, and I have already explored this inviting cave before the monsoon. I decide that if I can find a snake or two they will bring Arthat back to deal with them and maybe he can stay longer this time. In fact, why doesn't he stay with me and I can provide a local snake disposal service?

Underneath the bungalows it's cool and quiet if rather mucky, and soon I'm covered in red mud left by the monsoon rains. As I'm crawling under Sgt James's house next door I sense rather than see something move from between the stilts, and I'm suddenly seized by utter terror as a diamond-shaped silhouette rises and sways not five feet away from me. I know it's a snake and some basic instinct screams to me that I'm in terrible danger.

I reverse into the sunlight yelling in fear, plastered in red mud and calling in English and in Hindi words picked up from our friendly bearers. Sneep, burra sneep, jeldi jeldi, mongoose-wallah karo! Snake, big snake, quick quick get the mongoose-wallah! Sgt James hobbles down the steps on his broken leg, Indian bearers run from the other bungalows, one with a hooked pole drags out a snake and they beat it to death.

They call that it's a cobra and hold it up so I can see its body is taller than I am but I dare not go near it. Mummy is very upset and Daddy is called home from work. I've had such a fright that I am scared to come down the verandah steps for the next week, even with kindly Pop our bearer as escort.

Next instalment: Arthat the mongoose tells Geriaviator (aged 5) that the cobra is a very bad snake - Koborrah sneep bahut burraburra hai, for mongooses don't speak English) – and it's best to leave the snakes to him because he is protected by the Lord Shiva. Which will lead to an interesting theological discussion with the padre …

Danny42C
24th May 2017, 17:59
harrym (#10692)
...Re #10682 – Sorry Danny, my 800-odd hours on the York during 1949-50 were largely passed in plodding uneventfully between UK and ...
No, harry, you can't bow out as easily as that ! The devil is in the detail - and all the funny bits, too. As has been often said on this Prince of Threads: "A Funny Thing happened to me on the way to the Theatre tonight" - the stand-by entry gag of the old end-of-pier comedians - and it was usually the best part of the Show. Think back over your whole service (what happened to you after you finished training in Canada ?) .... Give ! - we are all waiting round the stove in our cybercrewroom.

Has been asked before, is it true that the York (and Hastings and Valletta) had to be tail-draggers so that the Army could load them out of the back of a three-ton truck ?

Danny.

Fareastdriver
24th May 2017, 18:36
I think that nosewheels were a bit Avant garde for British designers. Their main concern was the weight of the assembly plus all the hydraulics required. Considering that at that time the USAF large aircraft were almost entirely nosewheel equipped apart from the B17, a mid thirties design.

They got it right with the Gloster e28/39 and then the Meteor but Supermarine fouled it up with the Attacker. The RAF threw it away and the Navy persevered with it for a short time. According to Wiki when it took off on grass it left a furrow that three men could lie down in.

This allergy to nosewheels continued with the Hastings, Valletta and Shackleton; it wasn't until the fifties that all new aircraft had a nosewheel undercarriage.

Chugalug2
24th May 2017, 20:14
It wasn't the technical difficulty of providing a nosewheel that had the Hastings sitting on its rear end and waddling around like a duck on the ground, for its contemporary in the civil field was the Hermes. Same company, same aircraft almost, but with a nosewheel. LGW had one grounded just outside the old control tower as a rescue trainer. Up front inside it was almost identical to the Hastings, same throttle quadrant, same seats, same layout.

Danny, you are right, it was the Army that demanded it be a tail dragger, but not for the convenience of loading (ask anyone who has manoeuvred a vehicle on the specially required loading ramp and then had to bounce it though the doubled freight door opening so that it was aligned fore and aft with the aircraft, before pushing it up the one in whatever hill, chocking all the way, until tied down in the required position).

The same hill meant lots of height between a/c underside and ground so that a gun and limber etc, together with parachute packs, could be slung from a beam between the main undercarriages. The beam in turn could be released by a WC flush like handle above the co-pilot. As has been pointed out, an engine failure between V1 (ie you could no longer stop on the runway) and safety speed (ie you could now continue in sustained flight) meant that it was left to the pilot to exercise his discretion as to what action was appropriate ("all crew to i/c and say after me...."). Thus, so loaded, the take-off was deadly quiet, for if anyone so much as cleared his throat the co-pilot would immediately pull on the handle sending gun, limber, etc, south at 32'/sec squared. By 200' safety speed should have been attained, even with this ungainly appendage, and Hastie, crew, and encumbrance could continue on their official occasions to the DZ (a hastily revised one no doubt).

Fareastdriver
24th May 2017, 20:40
The same hill meant lots of height between a/c underside and ground so that a gun and limber etc, together with parachute packs, could be slung from a beam between the main undercarriages.

I cannot fathom the reason for insisting on a tailwheel undercarriage for this purpose. The gun and limber have to be mounted underneath the aircraft at about the C of G. On a tailwheel the gear is slightly ahead of the C of G, nosewheel slightly behind. It doesn't matter what you have if the main oleos are the same length because the aircraft's C of G will be at a similar height.

I cannot see how mounting the limber from the rear in the attitude that it is going to fly at can be more difficult than the performance of loading it at an angle.

Being a cynic I think that that might be an old wives tale.

Chugalug2
24th May 2017, 21:08
FED:-
Being a cynic I think that that might be an old wives tale.

While I cannot admit to first hand knowledge (this and glider towing, for which the release ring could still be seen in the tail lamp cluster, were mercifully no longer a part of the OCU syllabus at Thorney Island in 1963), I have googled this pic of at least one Jeep/Land Rover (and gun?) underslung on a Hastings in flight. I offer it as Exhibit A m'lud:-

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x199/chugalug2/Jeep3_zpsuzjb1hxt.jpg

Fareastdriver
25th May 2017, 08:51
I.ve seen that picture before so I am in no doubt that it was done. Looking at that picture one can imagine the lack of space to manoeuvre the limber on the ground with the tail hanging down plus the propellers getting in the way.

'The old wives tale' was not whether it happened but an Army requirement was an excuse as to why Handley Page were unable to think of putting a nosewheel undercarriage on until they tried to build a DC4 lookalike.

Chugalug2
25th May 2017, 09:42
FED. If you read up on the HP Hermes, it was supposed to enter service before the Hastings. It did not do so because the prototype crashed and also because of the urgent demands of the Berlin Airlift (though admittedly it flew with a tailwheel as did the second prototype. The nosewheel production version flew in 1948). The "old wives" who told me about the Hastings tailwheel configuration were clear that it was at the Army's insistence. I take your point about the headroom clearance between the main gear structures being the same in tail or nose wheel configs. The problem wasn't the load in situ but the getting of it there.

From the picture you can see that the load has been prep'd for airdrop, including compressible platforms rigged beneath the wheels for cushioning impact loads. It thus had to be presented to the aircraft on a low loader, which was backed into position from the front where there was greatly increased clearance. The Army would be aware from WWII experience that loading tail draggers (bombers, as well as transport external loads) was greatly facilitated by this increase in headroom. Speed of preparation and loading is an important part of airborne operations, especially in the mass formations then envisaged (and possible!). There was of course the enormous stockpile of components surplus from wartime production. Many of those in the Hastings were originally for the Halifax (the main wheels being the most obvious external items). Exploiting this was plain economic common sense. That it coincided with the main customer's wishes merely made it a no brainer.

BTW, once airborne the HP Hastings could outhaul and out range the DC4, and served RAF MRT requirements long after its rival left similar USAF service.

Fareastdriver
25th May 2017, 14:46
I surrender! Please don't shoot me.

Danny42C
25th May 2017, 15:01
FED and Chugalug,

Listening in awe to you two Hastings experts (and what a wonderful pic of that heavily burdened Hastings, Chugalug), I can only add my paean of praise to that Finest Invention Since Sliced Bread - the Nosewheel !

In my p.166, #3310, I said:

"My first ride in the Meteor was a revelation. This was simply a different order of aviation from anything my previous experience had prepared me for. For the first time I could see where I was going on the ground - this was luxury indeed. Up to now, taxying had been a matter of peeking around a big nose, like an engine driver in his cab, getting mouthfuls of hot, acrid exhaust fumes, and having to zig-zag to make sure the way ahead was clear. Now it was like driving a car. The soft u/c suspension rode the concrete joints in the taxyway like a Rolls-Royce. There was no vibration and the engine noise was smooth and muted. It was like a magically driven glider. This was the way to go flying !"

And in p.167 #3340:

"...and now the biggest change in my flying experience in nearly ten years. Throttles closed in good time (engines take much longer to wind down). You didn't land aeroplanes any more, it seemed. You just flew them onto the runway. An orang-utan could do it. I could do it.

Of course this was my first nosewheel landing. "Just do a wheeler", said Willis, and demonstrated. Now he had to put the nosewheel down. I watched in horror as the nose went down.....down.... down. The wheel's still up ! The nose's going in ! - (and me with it !) Then the comforting thump as rubber met tarmac.

Now I'm in a dream aeroplane. It couldn't ground-loop - it would run true. It wouldn't float off, even if you'd come in too fast. It wouldn't bounce - it would break first (so I was told - never tried it). You could clap the brakes on as hard as you liked - you couldn't put the nose in. What more could a man want ? To stop the damn' thing before it went haring off the far end, of course! Thank God for Mr. Dunlop ! I'm afraid he was cruelly misused in our early days..."

Just thought I'd mention it. Carry on, chaps !

Danny.

Chugalug2
25th May 2017, 15:21
Danny and FED, a useful exchange in my view. There is a tendency to see all the tailwheel aircraft of that era as old fashioned and all the nosewheel ones as being superior. In the case of the Hermes and Hastings you have both contemporaneous types side by side, identical designs other than in their u/c layouts. It was an excellent example of how form should follow function. Of course, from the drivers point of view, the Hermes was preferable, but for the military requirements of the time the Hastings had the edge. Even if a mid life upgrade (after exterior loads and glider tugs were no longer on the Army wish list) could have changed the Hastings to the Hermes config, that would have then probably sacrificed the "bomb aimers" position into which the nav descended to start his "left, left, LEFT!" harangues on the run in to the DZ.

FED, no call for surrender. A discussion amongst friends as are all those in our cyber crewroom. Here's your sword back. :ok:

Fareastdriver
25th May 2017, 16:05
You could clap the brakes on as hard as you liked

My father took me along for a brake bed detail in a Halifax at Aldergrove in 1948. He and I were the only two in the aircraft, me being in the nose. Three runs went fine but on the fourth heading along the northerly runway there was a total brake failure.

There was no room to stop so my father opened up No 4 which caused the aircraft to partially groundloop to the left into 202's parking spectacles. There were no other aircraft around but we mowed down a few fire extinguishers before we stopped.

I don't know if my father was ballocked for not having me in the landing/crash position but it didn't effect him. They still sent him off to CFS.

MPN11
25th May 2017, 16:06
Danny42C ... ah, if only my flying grading had been with a nosewheel, on which I already had a PPL (as many here know). That "nose in the air, seeing bu66er all, wait until you can see the individual blades of grass out of side" stopped me stone dead in my tracks!!

But thousands managed ... I just wish I could have joined them!!

Fareastdriver
25th May 2017, 16:11
I started on the Provost T1 with the Alvis Leonides nine cylinder radial. That was much as Danny described and having 550 h.p. it was a slightly different ab-initio than a Tiger Moth or a Stinson.

Good fun though.

JW411
25th May 2017, 16:19
Hastings Heavy Drop:

Perhaps it might be useful if I were to add what I wrote on the subject in my book about 53 Squadron:

"In March 1952, two crews were sent to Abingdon to carry out heavy drops of jeeps and guns. A heavy beam was fixed to strong points underneath the fuselage of the Hastings and to this was attached either, two jeeps or one jeep and a field gun, fitted with parachutes. Having this sort of load hanging underneath did absolutely nothing for the performance of the aircraft and an engine failure on take-off would have had catastrophic consequences. It is interesting to note that it was this requirement to carry external loads on the heavy beam and the space needed to load them underneath the aircraft, that dictated the extremely nose-high attitude which the Hastings adopted when stationary. In fact the cockpit was over twenty two feet above the tarmac. This made doing a decent landing in a Hastings a rather demanding exercise, as anyone who has ever seen one make a series of quite spectacular bounces would willingly testify!

Three crews were sent out to Kasfareet in the Canal Zone on 3 May with aircraft fitted with heavy beams to join other Hastings and Valetta aircraft (note: there is only one "L" in Valetta unlike the capital of Malta) taking part in Operation Leapyear. This involved flying at night from Kasfareet in formation and making dawn drops at Mafraq in Jordan. Formation flying and supply-dropping was still flown in vic formation at this time. Keeping station in a vic formation at night was one thing, but managing to do it with the additional handicap of having two jeeps hanging underneath was another. W/C Jimmy Brodie MBE AFC once made the observation that when power was applied to catch up, the aircraft responded like a dead donkey and when it was necessary to slow down, it behaved like a young stallion after a mare! Kasfareet airfield had to be closed for repairs after the exercise. Extensive ruts had been made in the tarmac and runways by the heavy aircraft which had taken part in the operation".

Then we move on to Suez:

"A few Hastings fitted with heavy beams had been provided but the normal fighting vehicle used by the Parachute Regiment at the time was the Austin Champ and the Hastings could only carry jeeps. This meant that the troops had to go into battle with war-surplus vehicles and with which they were unfamiliar. The French forces on the other hand, were supported by rear-loading Nord Noratlas aircraft and were supplied with all of the equipment that they needed".

Finally, I have (hopefully) attached two photographs of F/L Alistair MacLean and some of his crew contemplating the enormity of what they are about to do!

Ian Burgess-Barber
25th May 2017, 16:31
Well...... as we all seem to like nosewheels, let us remember the chap who gave this boon to us. I raise my glass, (any excuse), to the late, great American engineer Mr Fred Weick (1899-1993) First he designed the NACA low drag engine cowling for air-cooled radial engines. Later his experimental W-1 aircraft design was the first to employ a steerable tricycle landing gear which he later gave to his 1937 Ercoupe design (thousands still flying).
In 1957 he joined Piper Aircraft where as Chief Engineer he created the Piper PA-25 Pawnee Ag. plane series, and, with John Thorp, he co-designed the PA-28 Cherokee line of aircraft which started in 1960 and are still in production today.
I say Cheers! for Mr Weick and all his works.

Ian BB

JW411
25th May 2017, 16:46
Finally, for today anyway, I'm sure many of you out there might remember the apocryphal tale of the Hastings parked at Clark Field in the Phillipines?

Alongside is a smart USAF C-54 (DC-4).

The Hastings F/E (he is a Master who hails from Scotland) is doing his walk round when he is approached by some curious Americans.

He tells them how far and how fast they can fly. "Gee, that's great but why the hell do you land on your ass?"

"Have ye ever seen a burd land on its bloody beak?"

There really is no answer to that.

harrym
25th May 2017, 17:22
Danny I really have nothing further to say about my York time, and in fact have already given on this thread the story of my post-Canada days up to demob in late '46. I have no further narrative as such 'in store', however I have written up various episodes in my later flying career and might consider posting some of them if the demand is there (hate being a bore). A brief sample is appended below, chronologically well out of sequence I fear but as there has been discussion recently on weather-related matters it might be of interest.

As for tail v nose wheels, if only because the latter makes any aircraft easier (and thus safer) to fly it has to be a better set-up. A nightmare with large tail draggers, especially those fitted with that dreadful differential brake system, was taxying them in strong wind conditions when a tail wind could lock the rudder hard over despite the pilots' (yes, both of them!) best efforts. If it was then locked over in the direction opposite to that which one wished to apply brake to keep straight, there was a problem!

harrym


EXCITEMENT OVER BRIZE NORTON, Feb. 1967



Passage of a cold front had been predicted for later in the evening, but so far conditions had not been too bad; good visibility beneath the 3000ft. overcast, and a light to moderate NW wind. True, I had observed some distant flashing off to the NW during the initial part of our training detail, but could not be absolutely certain about its origins; now, as we neared the Brize NDB to commence an ILS approach into Fairford, it was pretty well out of my mind on this dark April night.

I was therefore slightly surprised when we ran into a ragged cloud base on approaching the overhead, accompanied by some moderate turbulence; perhaps the front was closer than predicted? The ghostly flicker of St. Elmo's fire played across the windscreen panels, followed by occasional forking of what appeared to be miniature lightning. As these phenomena increased I suddenly noticed a ball of intense blue light, about the size of a small apple, perched on the ice detector probe just outside my direct vision panel. I was in the act of drawing the co-pilot's attention to this curious object, when there was a blinding flash accompanied by a most tremendous bang that left us all dazed and totally blinded.

For a short while I remained unsighted, and my head rang like a bell; then, very gradually, sight returned in odd reddish-blue hues similar to those seen through the spectacles issued to viewers of early, experimental 3-D films. Fortunately we had been on auto-pilot, and this continued to function as if nothing had happened; a check with the rest of the crew found them also scared witless but otherwise OK, with all systems functioning normally. A demoralised voice from the tower requested a radio check, saying they had received a lightning strike; "so have we" responded the co-pilot somewhat brusquely, thus terminating that particular conversation. I decided to land and have the aircraft checked over - surely such a massive strike must have caused some damage?

Miraculously, our VC10 was totally unharmed, not even a wick discharger burned off. Static electricity is a strange beast; I have known comparatively mild strikes cause significant damage, yet this terrifying zap had left no trace whatever. A ground observer later stated he had seen a great stab of lightning from our aircraft's nose as we passed overhead Brize; for my part, I think that we were probably victims of that mysterious, seldom seen and little understood phenomenon known as ball lightning. If so we had been especially fortunate, as it is quite unpredictable in its behaviour and capable of causing damage should the ball "explode", as it apparently had done in this instance.

We were Fairford-based at the time, Brize being closed for installation of new runway lighting.

Geriaviator
25th May 2017, 17:38
Harry, this is just the sort of story we were hoping for! Thanks for the comments on the York, a machine which always interested me.
Chug's photo of the jeep-pregnant Hastings is a stunner. I knew the Hermes quite well because it staged through Khormaksar in the 50s and seemed popular with BOAC passengers. As well as the nosewheel, of course, it was pressurised too.

BOAC also used the Argonaut, a DC-4 with Merlin engines for an extra 40 mph. Unfortunately the mighty Merlin snarl drove the passengers scatty, for the Pratt & Whitney radials had (I think) turbochargers which dampened the exhaust noise.

Danny42C
25th May 2017, 21:12
What a stunning flourish of Posts - just like old times. Settled down to comment, but went to sleep instead (happens at this time of day). No matter, pick up the threads ......

FED (#10705),
I know things were rather slack in '48, but how old were you ? Was the Boss happy with the family arrangement ? (Did he even know ?) Hostage to Fortune, I would've said !

MPN11 (#10706),
Said it before, say it again: they gave you a raw deal IMHO. Tailwheel to Nosewheel - fine ! Nosewheel to Tailwheel - NOT fine.

FED (#10707),
Provost T1. as a primary trainer ? Bit hairy ! On a par with the US BT-13 (which I'm still trying to forget). But at least we'd had 60 hours on the Stearman as a lead-in. Against a Tiger Moth ? No comparison.

JW411 (#10708),
"... (note: there is only one "L" in Valetta unlike the capital of Malta) ..."
Touché - I stand corrected (it's a fair cop, Guv !) Thanks !

harrym (#10711),
"...I have written up various episodes in my later flying career and might consider posting some of them if the demand is there (hate being a bore)..."
Consider no longer, please, Harry (it's later than you think). The demand IS there, believe me. You are NOT a bore ! As Geriaviator has said "Harry, this is just the sort of story we were hoping for!"

More of the same soon, please !

Geriaviator (#10712),
IMHO, the Pratt & whitney "Wasp" family were all much smoother than the Wright Cyclones, and their sound was more "sonorous" (can't think of a better word for it). Pity the pax didn't like four Merlins synchronised "on song". But on the overrun when the throttles were closed for landing, the popping, f##ting and banging might well alarm the faint-hearted.

Salaams to you all, Danny.

Chugalug2
25th May 2017, 22:17
harrym, ball lightning is an almost mystical affair, described as an unexplained atmospheric phenomenon by wiki. Reported throughout history it, manifesting itself in WWII by pilots as "foo fighters". Various airliners have encountered it in the passenger cabin, such as this report by RC Jenson of the University of Kent Electronic Laboratory:-

I was seated near the front of the passenger cabin of an all-metal airliner (Eastern Airlines Flight EA 539) on a late night flight from New York to Washington. The aircraft encountered an electrical storm during which it was enveloped in a sudden bright and loud electrical discharge (0005 h EST, March 19, 1963). Some seconds after this a glowing sphere a little more than 20 cm in diameter emerged from the pilot's cabin and passed down the aisle of the aircraft approximately 50 cm from me, maintaining the same height and course for the whole distance over which it could be observed

I've not observed it (I'm glad to say). It seems you are part of the 5% of the Earth's population who have. As Geriaviator says, we demand more please, and in any order that suits you.

JW411, it would be interesting to learn more of the Hastings external load system. My knowledge is only third hand and most probably wrong in many ways. Anything that you can add about the beams, release system, drop height, parachutes etc would be greatly appreciated. We have now learned that jeep meant jeep, and no other. What about the gun? Was it the 105mm recoilless favoured by the paras? Presumably it was relatively lightweight. As far as you know, was the Hastings ever used as a glider tug at all? I suspect that capability was already redundant when it entered service.

ian16th
26th May 2017, 08:49
MPN11 (#10706),
Said it before, say it again: they gave you a raw deal IMHO. Tailwheel to Nosewheel - fine ! Nosewheel to Tailwheel - NOT fine.

Salaams to you all, Danny.

Is this not the reason why the RAF BBMF have a couple of Chipmunks?

All of the current a/c types in service with the RAF have a nose wheel.

Most RAF pilots have never flown a type with a tail wheel.

Fareastdriver
26th May 2017, 09:14
Danny; I was eight at the time. We lived on an extension to the WAAF officer quarters by the road from the officer's mess to the perimeter track. It is now a car park.
Through the windows I had a grandstand view of all the going ons on the airfield. Spitfires nosing over, Mosquitos swinging off and a Halifax that had an argument with the BABS van which retaliated by removing the port mainwheel. The ensuing landing was a stopping off point for the dump.

The Sunderland that I mentioned before predated my tenure.

Ormeside28
26th May 2017, 10:15
I was a lowly co pilot on 47 Squadron at Topcliffe from February1952 until October 1952. Then it was to Coastal until 1964. My first trip was to collect the Queens staff from Mombasa. The first R.A.F. Duty for the new Queen. Our Hastings still had a hook in the tail to tow Gliders, but by that time gliders were " out" , and parachutes in. In April I went to Abingdon for three days to be briefed on carrying jeeps and trailers on a beam attached to the aircraft, in our case, if I remember correctly, underneath the pilots position, and well forward of the picture shown? The load was dropped by the navigator from the bay, again underneath the pilots. We went again to Abingdon on the 18th and did two heavy drops, each of two jeeps. 28th and 29th to do a parachute drop of troops. On 3rd May we flew to Luq with 18 paras, next day to Kasfareet. We had three days of formation flying then on the 8th we did a drop of 2 jeeps and 10 paras. May 12th Exercise Leap Year 1 started and we dropped Two jeeps, from the beam and 10 Paras and 6 containers out of the main door. On the 13th we dropped a jeep and a trailer and 10 Paras. I watched the next drop from the ground. Then we went up to Mafraq in Jordan for an exercise with the Arab Legion, but no drops. All very interesting. I was to be the co- pilot on a supply drop operating out of Thule to the British North Greenland Expedition, but as I was only a Sergeant at that time, and the Americans insisting on Pilots and Navigators being commissioned, I didn't go. The Hastings crashed on the drop and the crew were brought out by a U.S. Albatross which landed on the ice, used RATOG and brought the crew back to Thule. I hope all this is relevant!!

Danny42C
26th May 2017, 11:03
FED (#10705),

"...I don't know if my father was ballocked for not having me in the landing/crash position..." So it was all right to have you aboard a moving aircraft at all ? If you'd been (unfortunately) written-off in an incident, what would they tell the Coroner ?

Even in the war, it was quite a hassle getting authorisation to carry a civilian - and even then he/she had to sign a "blood chit", absolving the RAF from any responsibility to you, or to your heirs or successors, for any mishap which might happen !

Autre Temps, Autre Moeurs !

Danny.

Fareastdriver
26th May 2017, 13:37
I don't remember asking for blood chits from the uncountable number of locals in Borneo that we would give a lift to. Fifteen minutes in a straight line at 90 knots was a day's walking for them.

The main discussion in the crewroom was whether to keep a heavy load of chickens in their cages or whether to keep them airborne in the back if you were short of power to get airborne.

Danny42C
26th May 2017, 13:38
Today (1425 BST),

On "Military Aviation" page, my latest Post is annotated in the LH Margin thus:
<alt="You have 2415 post(s) in this thread, last 26th May 2017" border="" /> Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II>

Clearly this is a message fom the Moderators, but I cannot interpret it. Anybody ? - Please !

Danny. :confused:

(1432) It's gone now (as you were ?)

Danny42C
26th May 2017, 14:11
FED (#10719),

Point taken ! In those circumstances .........

My Logbook shows that, on 6th December, 1945, I flew a "Miss Thompson" from Cannanore to Yelahanka & back. (No, not the damsel of another name you may have in mind - if you'd read my storY !) My faint recollection is of a lady closely resembling the "Miss Prism" of the glorious "Importance of Being Ernest" film a few years back. Think she was a Scientific Officer in C.D.R.E. and it was all completely above board. But my deeply and sadly missed Mrs D. (RIP) harboured doubts about that.

Anyway, the paperwork was a real "bind".

Rather taken by the conundrum of the free-ranged chickens. Would it not be analogous to "hoisting oneself up by one's own bootstraps" ? Is there an aerodynamicist in the House ?

Danny.

JW411
26th May 2017, 15:46
Chugalug2:

I'm sorry, I have exhausted my knowledge of the Hastings heavy beam. I will see what I can find. Perhaps one of my Hastings spies who helped me 25-30 years ago is still above ground? In the meantime, I did a quick Google search and came with:

https://paradata.org.uk/media/12912?mediaSection=Photos

This site seems to have some more photographs and some dialogue on the subject.

I have never seen a photograph of a Hastings towing a glider but that is not to say that it didn't happen at some time.

Ball lightning:

I had one event over the Massif at night in an Argosy. My memory is of an orange ball, smaller than a football, appearing in the cockpit with a bit of a bang. It disappeared downstairs and covered the length of the passenger cabin/freight bay before vanishing out of the back of the aircraft.

The loadmaster swore afterwards that he saw the ball coming down the starboard wing before visiting the interior. There was no damage to us or the aeroplane. What I do remember is that the dust and general detritus that had been hiding behind instrument panels etc for years was now in suspension and some of us were sneezing!

Geriaviator
26th May 2017, 17:19
I hope all this is relevant!!
Ormeside, it's meat and drink to the denizens of this virtual crewroom, more please!
I note that our much revered senior member has just posted #10720, 11k on the way I hope.

harrym
26th May 2017, 17:24
Yes JW411, the York's throttle positioning was unusual (though I believe the Catalina's was similar) but was dictated by the aircraft's front end design; for with the pilots being seated high in the nose, with a sort of chasm between them, there was no other option. Given the standard Transport Command policy of engineer-operated throttles, setting them according to the pilot's command, this made life complicated (and potentially hazardous) for flight engineers who had to balance themselves with one foot beneath the captain's seat and the other wedged somehow under the navigator's table with no means of restraint provided. Whether or not the civil world used the same dangerous system I don't know, I rather doubt it as throttle setting by either pilot was perfectly possible if perhaps rather awkward as compared with the the vast majority of other aircraft.

I had personal experience one day of the RAF's dangerous SOP when detailed to act as engineer on a short-notice internal flight, no qualified engineer being available. Given my 6ft 4 inch frame it was quite a job lodging myself in the approved position, but all went well until arrival at destination where the runway was out of use for repair and we had to land on the grass alongside. Whether or not this put the pilot off I don't know, but he made such a hard landing that my knees gave way beneath me and I fell backwards into the gangway several feet below, mercifully without injury - I was indeed most fortunate, no bruises or cuts and I did not even bang my head!

It has always seem odd to me that that this dangerous practice was tolerated by a system that also rigidly enforced the use of full harness on take-off and landing for other crew members - but then, as we know, the RAF could at times be rather short on logic!

Chugalug2
26th May 2017, 20:12
Wow, what a plenitude of posts to savour!

JW411, much thanks for the link which produces a veritable feast of Hastings photos and videos! Most relevant to current discussion is one clearly showing a beam hanging jeep and gun combo. The jeep facing backwards (presumably so that the heavy engine pitches it downwards on release) with a gun behind which seems to have a vane attached to the trail (as a rudder to prevent it rotating on release to spear the fuselage?). Oddly a para stick is already exiting the aircraft. Was it not SOP to drop heavy loads first and then the troops and not vice versa to prevent being hit by the former (especially in the case of a maldrop? Perhaps the vehicles were going to an alternative DZ?

So, another 5% man. Isn't there a tie (obvious motif, flaming balls!) for you chaps? Sounds as though you all have a good case to sue the Faraday estate, I'd say.

Ormeside, thanks for your Hastings memories also. It sounds as though the position and/or the length of the beam could be adjusted to accommodate the load in question? It also seems that Jeeps with or without trailers featured more in the Para wish list than guns. I seem to remember that the lack of vehicles at Arnhem together with the distance of the DZs from the bridge posed great tactical problems in seizing the latter and holding it (yes, the odd SS battalion and fog in the UK didn't help, I'll grant).

I've seen a pic of the Greenland Hastie before. Fate moves in mysterious ways her wonders to perform does she not? Having said that all survived unscathed I think. Free dropping from 50' tricky enough. Over ice and snow in a whiteout? Not a good idea!

I fully support Danny and Geriaviator's calls to arms. If you look in the bottom of your tankard you should see one of Her Majesty's shillings!

Danny, blood chits were one RAF tradition that spanned the decades. I was glad to sign one to be allowed a ride in the BBMF Lanc's rear turret. I was now a civvie but Jacko allowed me on board for the 20mins flight of a lifetime!

Speaking of the BBMF, I seem to remember a few years ago an interview with a later BBMF O i/c explaining the help he had received from a visiting veteran Lanc pilot. Having heard the trouble they were having trying to three point theirs in cross-winds he was told, "We never did a three pointer in a x-wind, but wheeled it on and only lowered the tail as rudder control was lost". I could have told them that! I don't know if they were just being polite, but a lot of such info that is passed on verbally from instructors to trainees tends to be the first thing lost.

Danny42C
26th May 2017, 20:37
Chugalug (#10725),

"We never did a three pointer in a x-wind, but wheeled it on and only lowered the tail as rudder control was lost". I could have told them that!"

Didn't everybody with a tail-dragger ? How else was disaster to be averted ? Stands to reason

Shows that we old duffers can still help out on occasion !

Now when I were a lad .....................

Danny.

Ormeside28
26th May 2017, 23:07
When I returned from 1 BFTS in Terrell, Texas in June 1944, I fondly imagined that I would be flying Mustangs or Spitfires. Not so, and after the debacle at Arnhem, the Glider Pilot Regiment was virtually non- operational. Volunteers from we, awaiting further training, were asked to volunteer for secondment to the Regiment. Few volunteered so we were read the riot act at the pool in Harrogate. We were told that unless we volunteered we would be sent to the infantry or down the mines. So we were voluntary conscripts!! We were taught to fly Hotspur, Horsas and Hadrians and were incorporated into the Regiment. They taught us to become infantrymen and to be able to help with anything which we would take into action -- the Regiment didn't have passengers. I was lucky enough to take part in the Rhine Crossing and survive. On one exercise we did carry 26 members of the Parachute Regiment in the Horsa. They were not impressed and said that they would rather jump. Of course, we didn't carry parachutes. I was on embarkation leave for the Far East when, luckily the. Bomb was dropped. I left the RAF in 1947 .. I rejoined the RAF in 1951 and after a year ended up on 47 Squadron at Topcliffe. So I was very interested in seeing airborne ops from the comfort of the Hastings.
I do not tnink that the Hastings ever towed a glider, and by this time the Glider Pilot Regiment had been incorporated into the Army Air Corps. From 47 I was posted to Coastal at St Mawgan. I was hoping to go to Sunderlands, but by the time I had finished OCTU, Calshot had closed and Sunderlands were a closed shop.
I was posted to Kinloss and given the choice of Neptunes or Shackletons. I chose Neptunes, and ended up on 203 Squadron , back at Topcliffe, now a Coastal base.
The Neptune was a lovely aircraft. At that time it was equipped with two 20mm cannon in the Noe and tail and twin .5 machine guns in the mid upper turret. We also could carry 16 rockets under the wings and a couple of depth charges and the Lindholm asr gear in the bomb bay. We had the APS radar underneath the flight deck, the APS 31 attack radar in one wing tip fuel tank, and a 75 million candlepower searchlight in the other. It had two 3500 hip Wright turbo compound engines . A press button on the pedestal could synchronise the engines and we could speak to each other on the flight deck without the intercom. The poor old engineer sat on a wooden chair at the entrance to the flight deck where he could see the the enormous switchboard by his left shoulder and operate the very clever cross feeds under a cover by his feet
We had lift spoilers on the wings so steep turn were a doddle. There was a varicam button on the control column which allowed an electric motor to activate the tail plane which would help the elevators i.e. No varicam, no roundout. Then the captain would shout "stick", the co pilot would push the stick forward and the captain would engage reverse gear and transfer his left hand to the wheel for the nose wheel steering. When we lost our turrets and were fitted with the MAD tail, we had to have an hydraulic varicam as the electric motor interfered with the MAD. In 1200 hours on the Neptune I only had to feather once in anger,, had to ditch the wing tips ( not popular!)
We lost one Neptune from Topcliffe when it hit the Mull of Kintyre on an exercise from the Joint Anti- Submarine School, operating out of Ballykelly. Fair amoun of controversy over that!!

pulse1
27th May 2017, 08:30
The book about the Greenland expedition describes the Hastings crash. Apparently, the stunned silence after the crash was broken by the sound of Lt Cdr Brett Knowles tearing down a glacier on skis and armed with a screwdriver to start stealing any useful parts from the wreckage. A few years later Brett Knowles sent me solo as an ATC cadet in a Mk3 glider. We were all encouraged to buy the book to help pay for another expedition he was trying to set up.

Fareastdriver
27th May 2017, 09:47
A question about spinners for Hastings drivers.

On almost Pratt & Whitney and Wright radials there is only the propeller mechanism which is shrouded, again on Bristol and Alvis. The pictures of the Hastings vary; most have a big spinner that covers most of the first cylinder bank and the Viking and Valetta were similar.

Occasionally pictures show up of them flying with the spinners removed. It could not have been a tropical requirement or all the aircraft in FEAF would have flown without them.

Two reasons for spinners come to my mind. One is to streamline the nacelle and the second is to stop the engine being overcooled. My little experience on American radials; CH57 Mojave; which had little aerodynamic cooling, showed that on the whole the gills were only fully opened in the hover so I wouldn't have thought that overcooling was a problem. On the Hercules was there was a penalty for the lack of finning because of the sleeves?

They look pretty but why did they come along so late in the radial engine era.

JW411
27th May 2017, 10:39
Chugalug2:

The Icecap Hastings did produce one injury; the signaller hit his head on one of the radios and needed some attention. We did not carry a signaller on the Argosy but we had a Station AEO. When I got to Benson in 1962 the incumbent was M Sig Frankie Burke who was the casualty as described above. He was a most amusing chap and he had some great tales to tell.

Geriaviator
27th May 2017, 11:28
Great stories Ormeside, more please! Sixty years ago we spent summer holidays in the little harbour at Ballintoy, on the north Antrim coast (now very popular after its use in Game of Thrones). I recall seeing the Neptunes rumbling home to Ballykelly at about 500ft and exchanging waves with crewmen sitting in the open door which was on the port side if I remember correctly. British a/c such as Lancaster, Lincoln, Wellington etc had the rear door on the starboard side. Maybe it was something to do with the odd US practice of left-hand drive :)

Danny42C
27th May 2017, 11:45
Ormeside28 (#10727),

".... On one exercise we did carry 26 members of the Parachute Regiment in the Horsa. They were not impressed and said that they would rather jump ....."

Long ago I told of a weekend occasion somewhere near Shawbury. The RAF Parachutist Display Team ("Red Devils" ?) was being ferried to or from an engagement in their "Dominie" (aka Dragon Rapide). An engine failed. Loaded, the thing could not maintain height. The pilot appealed to his pax to do the decent thing. They readily complied and floated down over Shopshire. Unencumbered, the Domine made it safely into Shawbury (?)

SDO Shawbury spent the rest of the afternoon organising transport to rescue the castaways from the various low taverns into which they had taken refuge.

'''''''''''''''''

"...They were not impressed..."

Don't blame 'em. Did a (very little) Club gliding myself at Geilenkirchen 1960. Every landing a forced landing (apart from winched circuits) - and no Flying Pay ? (only joking- I enjoyed it !

"...I left the RAF in 1947 .. I rejoined the RAF in 1951 and after a year ended up on 47 Squadron at Topcliffe..."

I left in 1946, rejoined in 1949, and a year later was posted to 20 Sqdn, after a conversion onto Meteors. They gave me a Vampire (which I'd never seen) and a Spitfire (which I'd trained on seven years before) to fly. It figures !

Never a dull moment !

Danny.

Danny42C
27th May 2017, 12:44
pulse1 (#10728),

"...armed with a screwdriver to start stealing any useful parts from the wreckage..."

In my day, it was always the clock which went first, as they were wind-up jobs, attached to the panel with only four bolts, and would easily transfer to the dash of your old banger.

Danny.

Danny42C
27th May 2017, 13:58
Fareastdriver (#10729),

"...Two reasons for spinners come to my mind. One is to streamline the nacelle and the second is to stop the engine being overcooled. My little experience on American radials; CH57 Mojave; which had little aerodynamic cooling, showed that on the whole the gills were only fully opened in the hover ..."

I can see the sense of that in a helicopter. And even in fixed wing, in India, with twin-row US radials, we always took-off with cowl gills full open. As for spinners, I always thought that they were only cosmetic. The old "Battle", which was really a handsome aircraft, would have looked more complete with a spinner. But I can't see how a spinner would increase the cooling much.

But having the two-postion (Valiant), or constant-speed mechanism (Harvard) in full view from the side after start-up, enabled many a stude to understand how a "Wasp's" worked better than any lecture. (What was it btw ?)

Our Hamilton Standard props on the VV had a simple "dome" front, much neater, and didn't need a Spinner.

Danny.

harrym
27th May 2017, 16:52
This was always a bit of a mystery, as throughout the Hastings' life spinners seemed to come and go for no apparent reason. I vaguely recall that in the very early days they carried fans as well, although the blades were soon removed never to return.

Whether with or without the fan, or removed entirely, there seemed to be no discernible effect on performance or engine temperatures either. For much of its life the majority of the fleet was spinner-less although a few kept them; the Mk IV my crew and I operated from Changi in the early 1950s was one, retaining them for our entire 2 1/2 year tour.

The aircraft certainly looked better with them fitted, their removal exposing a rather ugly metal disc that looked rather like an enlarged colander.

Geriaviator
27th May 2017, 17:05
Continued from #10694 page 535, the adventures of a five-year-old in RAF Poona, 1946

About a week later Pop our Indian bearer calls me outside, he says someone wants to talk to me. To my delight it's Pop's friend the mongoose-wallah, and my furry friend Arthat. As he settles down across my lap Pop says he will interpret because Arthat doesn't speak English, and he puts his ear down to the mongoose.

Namaste, chota sahib, says the mongoose. Greetings, young sir. Namaste Arthat sahib, I reply. Arthat, in the voice of Pop, tells me that snake hunting is best left to the mongoose like him. Koborrah sneep bahut burraburra hai, he says, the cobra snake is very bad. If he bites you it will be very sore, but he can't hurt me because I am protected by the good Lord Shiva. Would the Lord Shiva protect me as well? I ask the mongoose. Pop listens intently, and replies that Arthat is sure Lord Shiva will look after me too, but he can't watch everybody at once and he might not see me under the bungalow next time.

I assure the mongoose that I will never go looking for snakes again, and the kindly owner lets me play with him until it's time for tiffin. Mummy even lets me take him into the house, and she thanks Pop and the mongoose-wallah for bringing him to visit.

Shortly afterwards, we leave for Daddy's next posting in Karachi. I have never seen, still less handled, a mongoose again but neither I nor family will ever forgot Pop's thoughtful and kindly warning to a little boy.

Next instalment: Geriaviator (aged 5) attempts to introduce multiculturalism to the Church of England, RAF Poona branch. Alas, his efforts do not go down well with the padre ...

Danny42C
27th May 2017, 18:19
Geri (#10763),

"...neither I nor family will ever forgot Pop's thoughtful and kindly warning to a little boy..."

A heartwarming story indeed. From my Page 11, #219 on the "Wg Cdr Arthur Gill OBE DFC" Thread:

"...One small point: "Bearer" is translated as "waiter" and that is correct. You would use the word to call a waiter in a restaurant. But a single officer would have one to himself, and an Other Rank a share of one, as his "batman" (personal servant and factotum), his "Jeeves". A good bearer was worth his weight in rupees: in my time the going rate was Rs20 a month (£1/10/- or $6 'over the pond').

Somewhere in the past I have Posted a rather nice little story. A young officer fresh out of Sandhurst had been posted to a British battalion going out for a "tour". An equally young local was engaged as his "bearer". He learned very fast, and the two got on very well together for the three years. Then the Lieutenant went home and thought no more about it. Exceptionally, he did not go out again for twenty years, and then (a Lieutenant-Colonel) returned to India to take command of his battalion.

Waiting for him at the foot of the gangplank in Bombay was his old bearer, ready to take charge of his kit. He had heard (in some mysterious way) of his old Sahib's impending return, and travelled a thousand miles from his village (probably on top of, or hanging on to, a train), confident that they could pick up where they left off. It was so, and they went on together to the Colonel's posting, the bearer now in the comfort of the bearer's compartment at the back of his Sahib's first-class carriage. So the story (true, I'm told) ends..."

And I am sure that Wander00 will not mind my copying his #220 (which directly followed my story):

"...Danny - your story reminds me that when I rejoined the RAF in 1980, after an 11 year gap, I turned up at Cranwell and parked at the back of SHQ, As I opened the car door it was "taken" from me and as I stepped out I was greeted by my Batman from cadet days, Pop Amies. "Good morning, Sir. I hear you were returning and I thought it only right that I should welcome you back". How he knew I do not know, but I walked into SHQ with a huge lump in my throat. Bless you, Pop..."

Such people are the salt of the land !

Danny.

BernieC
27th May 2017, 21:05
In 10733 Danny recalled:

In my day, it was always the clock which went first, as they were wind-up jobs, attached to the panel with only four bolts, and would easily transfer to the dash of your old banger.

Which gives me the cue for a warning message. I too "acquired" an aircraft "glow-in-the-dark" dashboard clock ca. 1957 (I have forgotten what RAF plane it came from) which stayed with me as a treasured possession until I became a postgraduate student in Genetics in the University of Edinburgh, where it sat on my newly-acquired desk in my little labspace, in a room shared with several others. One of the others had started to work with radio-isotopic tracers and had a Geiger Counter, which he found was going nuts all the time.

Of course the radium paint on the numerals of my clock were to blame, emitting lots of hard (penetrating) Gamma-radiation. Sadly, the clock was immediately consigned to the radioactive waste disposal system and buried somewhere. Safety-first!

Wander00
28th May 2017, 08:40
Danny, you save my repeating that little story, which still gives me misty eyes.

ancientaviator62
28th May 2017, 09:15
I have been away for a very pleasant week on a River Seine cruise and am now just catching up with the wonderful posts. The story of the cobra under the bungalow had the hairs up on the back of my neck. When I was on 48 at Changi with the C130 we would sometimes get large swamp monitors up the nosewheel bay. The SOP was to send for pop the Chinese 'caretaker' to get it down. It probably ended up in the lunchtime curry!
We had a lightning strike in the C130 abeam Brno and I saw the ball of lightning roll down the fuselage. As we could hear a banging on the fuselage we diverted there. The strike had broken the HF Ae at the fin attachment and it was thrashing over the wing. The G/E disconnected it at the other end, rolled it up and stowed it in the a/c. It was not until we got back to Lyneham that a small exit hole was discovered high up on the fin.
Crossing the Indian Ocean and seeing the cu nims clib faster than you could and they were always bang on your track.
Chugalug's description of the problems involved in loading the Hastings reminds me what a benefit the arrival of the Hercules was for the Loadmaster and the movers.
I went to the Palm Springs Aviation Museum and was fortunate to be able to chat with some of the old boys and get a look around the B17 there. They started it up to move it across the airfield. However one outboard would not start but they moved anyway. Sure enough as they turned cross wind it weathercocked and they were stuck.
My only taildragger experience was with my Super Cub, but it would always want to swap ends in any croswind ! You could only relax once the chocks were in and you were outside admiring it. Great fun though.

JW411
28th May 2017, 09:45
harrym:

Your story about loose flight engineers on the York rang a distant bell. This is what I wrote on the subject with reference to the Beverley:

"June (1959) also saw the arrival of flight engineers on No.53. It had originally been thought that there would be no need for a flight engineer on a Beverley crew since only short-haul flying was envisaged and that his duties could easily be performed by the two pilots. However, flights of ten hours and more had become common and among other duties, the co-pilot often had to dash off to hand-pump fresh oil into the thirsty Centaurus engines during flight. It was often said that Beverley crews navigated outbound and then followed the oil slick home! It should be noted that no autopilots were fitted for the first two years of the Beverley's life so the two pilots were kept busy. As an interim measure, a "director's (fold-up) chair" such as would be found in a film studio, was provided for the flight engineer to sit on. One wit even had the name "Shirley Temple" painted on the back of his chair. After a year or so, a folding jump-seat was fitted behind and between the two pilots".

26er
28th May 2017, 09:59
Climbing out of Cologne one day in a BAC1-11 with the cockpit door open, at about three thousand feet there was a large bang and a ball of energy slowly left the flightdeck and made it's way down the aisle to finally disappear near the tail. The stewardess, a very pretty girl with a shortish hairstyle, unstrapped herself from her seat in the galley and came into the flightdeck "asking what was that?" not realising that her hair was now standing upright like a field of corn. Oh how we laughed!

Fantome
28th May 2017, 10:11
It might have been Ian Mackersey's book "Rescue Below Zero" published first in 1954 that first told the story of the Hastings stranded on the Greenland ice-cap.

The detailed recall of some of the others here is amazing. To remember what people said when you were five, equally so. All I can contribute along those lines is knowing what an Avro York was when aged five. My cousin, five years older than me, lived downstairs with our grandmother. One day in their kitchen, Richard, the cousin, was playing with a model plane on the floor. It was a die-cast model of a silver coloured York with the registration in big black block letters right cross the upper surface of the wings. The G- part has stayed with me down the years. But when seeing Richard again after the passage of some fifty years, he had no memory at all of the occasion or even ever owning a die-cast model plane. (In my case, I left school, then went on to work my way up the ladder of civil aviation in Australia, enjoying every moment of a sometimes pretty colourful - and hairy - flying life. Poor Richard, for his entire working life, worked for a produce store in the country.)

The late Ian Mackersey, by the way, when he had finished his biography of Charles Kingsford Smith, asked me to read his draft and make any comment or suggestion i felt warranted. It was an honour, I thought to be so asked. The only correction I suggested was that in Australia there are no 'ranches', as in the States , but stations, as in cattle station or sheep station. Meentheena was the name of such a station in the Pilbara of Western Australia. Smithy wrote to his mum in 1922, saying "Nice girl at Meentheena" Their wedding and subsequent reception, (or monumental piss-up) in the Ironclad Hotel in Marble Bar, lasted for two days and two nights. An affair Ian Mackersey described with characteristic verve and aplomb. Forty years on from that doomed marriage, I'd overnight in the Ironclad, while flying for an earth-mover with plant all over W.A. The publican was 'Smokey' Dawson. His Pekinese spent half his life on the bar. He'd lap up the beer slops from a big old battered brass ash tray that was his at the end of the bar. I'd turn in, imagining I could hear Smithy, singing a raunchy song to his ukulele, a skill he perfected during his time in the RFC in the war.

Danny42C
28th May 2017, 11:23
26er (#10762),

I don't wish to be "hogging" this noble Thread, but in my Page 124, #2462, I relate:
"...There was an amusing (for the bystanders) incident in which this Spit was involved. An armourer was tinkering with the firing button in the cockpit. A second airman walked past right in front of the aircraft when the guns unexpectedly fired. As he was exactly in line with the nose, the rounds passed harmlessly either side of him and off to the Welsh hills. The gun camera (in the port wing root) still had film in it, it worked and this was developed. Seemingly, the prints clearly showed his hair standing on end!..."
So it's not an old wives' tale ! If I were ever confronted by ball lightning (or an erect Cobra), I don't think that that would have been by only physiological reaction !

Danny.

Fantome
28th May 2017, 16:35
NO SIREE. . . . . the main pain is usually the laundry bill.

There was a security man in Melbourne once on his 2 am patrol He told the story of entering at the building of a big corporation on Collins Street. On muffled feet he climbing several flights of the internal staircase till emerging at say the sixth level he was aware of the faint flickering of torch light. He stood at he door of the MD's office, wide open, watching a man rifling through a filing cabinet drawer. Barry stood there watching the invader for minutes. Finally the man, as it turned out a high ranking executive of a rival firm, turned round and saw Barry. "He closed the draw " said Barry " a small selection of files tucked under his arm, saw me, and filled his pants."

Whenever there is talk of the BAC1-11 I think of the story when the VIP squadron of the RAAF (No 34) based at Canberra pensioned off its last BAC1-11. The CO brought the aircraft back to base, sans passengers, immediately before it was made ready for despatch to an oversea buyer. That skipper's name was Terrell, from memory. He requested a run down the runway at 3000 feet agl. At the best moment for display he hawled the nose up into a climbing turn which merged into a graceful barrel roll, a la Tex Johnson of 707 fame. (Done by Tex in Seattle and again over Port Philip Bay, Melbourne. And by Alex Henshaw at Castle Bromwich in a Lanc on a test flight. Delightfully recounted in "Sigh for a Merlin",)

Geriaviator
28th May 2017, 17:48
I don't wish to be "hogging" this noble Thread
Perish the thought, Danny, you're its mainspring! And long may your clock continue to tick. Your postings bring smiles to all our faces, as they have done for years.

Fareastdriver
28th May 2017, 19:12
All aircraft will do barrel rolls with sufficient speed and power. A rolling turn with sufficient pitch up is enough as the aeroplane has no idea which way is up. The thing to remember is NOT to push the stick forward when you are upside down.

oxenos
28th May 2017, 22:01
Supermarine fouled it up with the Attacker.

In the second half of the War,Supermarine had put a lot of time and effort into a Spitfire "replacement" with a re-designed wing with a higher critical Mach number, the Spiteful.
When this was overtaken by the development of the jet, they used the wing, married to a new fuselage with a jet engine, and this became the Attacker. The wing had been designed with the main wheels forward, to go with a tailwheel (perhaps to give ground clearance for a big prop?). Re designing the wing to move the main wheels aft to go with a nosewheel would have involved an unacceptable time delay.

Geriaviator
29th May 2017, 12:27
Continued from #10736 page 537, the adventures of a five-year-old in RAF Poona, 1946

POP, our Indian bearer, is a wonderful story-teller. Sometimes Mummy and Sgt James next door listen too as Pop tells how the Lord Shiva fought lots of battles, the monkey god Hanuman gets up to all sorts of mischief, and the elephant god Ganesh gave me a ride on his back when we went to the circus in Poona.

Pop shows us pictures when he tells the stories, one god is a very cross lady sticking out her tongue which I'm not allowed to do, she has lots of arms so she looks like a spider. Pop says she is called Kali and she is a friend of Lord Shiva. The Indians have lots of gods but the padre tells us in Sunday School that we have only one god, so we seem to be missing out.

My close escape from the cobra causes a stir in our little European community, and at the RAF school the headmaster calls us all together to warn that Indian snakes are very dangerous, if we see one we should keep well away and call a teacher. In Sunday School the padre says that the Lord must have been looking after me, so today we are going to have a lesson about the serpent. He says the god put two people called Adam and Eve in a garden with a serpent. We all ask what is a serpent and the padre replies that it is a snake. Now I get it, I say, Mannassa the snake god put the people there and didn't bite them, but the padre says there is no snake god, the Lord protected you from the cobra. Relieved, I agree that the Lord Shiva protects me as long as I don't go under the bungalows where he can't see me.

No no no, says the smiling padre, Shiva is an Indian god, it's our good Lord who protected you from the cobra. But the Lord Shiva stopped the snake from biting me, he was a very bad snake, koborrah sneep bahut burraburra hai. I figure that I'd better throw in some Hindi just in case Lord Shiva is listening and feels left out of the discussion. We speak in English here, says the padre, now you're being a little naughty. For Lord Shiva's information, I translate naughty: yoo ********* ****.

The padre's eyes widen, the Sunday School teacher turns pale, I'm seated in the corner until Mummy arrives to collect me, the padre speaks to Mummy in low tones and her face turns red before she hustles me homewards and bedwards. You're a very bad boy and you can't go back to Sunday School again, she says. Thank you Lord Shiva, I say as my bedroom door closes, and I fall happily and deeply into sleep.

Next instalment: Geriaviator ( aged 5) concludes his memories of RAF Poona 1946 with the day he was bitten by the aviation bug. Alas, 70 years later, he has never recovered.

MPN11
29th May 2017, 14:44
Oh that gave me a joyful 'LOL' on a wet, dismal, Bank Holiday afternoon. Nice one, Geriaviator, you naughty little ****** *** :)

Danny42C
29th May 2017, 17:01
Geri.

Another howler ! Poor padre, he must've felt he was on a hiding to nothing with you in his Sunday School !

Of course "****" is the last Taboo that even the BBC cannot break - but it calls to mind another apocryphal story which used to be well known in the RAF in my day.

The scenario: the airmen are filing into Church on a Church Parade. One chap has forgotten to take off his beret as he mounts the steps . "Take yer 'at off in the 'Ouse of Gawd, XXXX !" bawls the Sergeant. ......

À propos of Church Parades, Geriaviator (Jnr), in a later environment, has told a tale to chill the bones of any padre, and no doubt he will tell it again in due course, but of course I would not dream of "shooting his fox !"

Danny.