Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II

[kookabat]

an hour was the limit in a turret, as no one can keep the concentration of searching for longer than that

Now that's interesting. Bomber Command gunners, as far as I can tell, remained in their turrets for the duration of their operations - 10 hours or more in some cases. That must have taken some stamina!

[Wiley]

WOP/AG Peter Jensen. Instalment 9

During the next month, we did only one operation, on 26th August, lasting 12 hours 50 minutes, then, on 3rd September, another op. on another crew’s aircraft that had just come out of the hangar after major maintenance work. However, due to a broken H/T plug, (probably broken during maintenance), the op. was aborted and we returned to base after 4 hours 20 minutes.

For the next week, we did some fighter affiliation with Beaufighters and Mosquitoes, and went to Wig Bay and ferried a new Sunderland back to the squadron. Then, on 10th September, we flew an op. that lasted 9 hours 25 minutes, being recalled early due to weather.

On 14th September, we took over our new aircraft No. EK578, letter ‘2E’.

‘E’ was a lovely aircraft, with absolutely no vices. She was five knots faster than ‘U’. We were very happy with her, but unfortunately, as with ‘U’, she was very sparse on frontal armament, which we didn’t like one little bit. The FN4 tail turret with 4 Brownings and 1,000 rounds for each gun was the main armament, and was very good apart from a long and vulnerable hydraulic pipeline from one engine which powered the turret and gun-firing mechanism. The mid-upper with 2 Brownings was a problem as it had a nasty gremlin - the links of the disintegrating ammunition belt had a habit of jamming in the chute and stopping the guns. We worked on this problem and hoped we had fixed it. The nose turret still had the single Vickers G.0. gun with 100 round pans, the changing of which was a slow and laborious task.

We decided something had to be done. We installed an American .300 Browning in a ball mount under the nose turret. It was a nice little gun, belt-fed with a 1,000 round magazine and a good rate of fire, but very limited in its field of fire. A G.0. gun was put at each galley hatch, and - (Dudley’s idea) - another G.0. gun at the first pilots’ window. This was only a scare gun and the pan was filled with 100% tracer.

16th September 1943
Another T3 patrol, a first light takeoff, down to Spain, plenty of cloud - (that meant life insurance). Spirits were high. An uneventful coast crawl, then at Finisterre, a request from the skipper to the navigator: “Course for home,” - always a welcome sound over the intercom. However, as we progressed the cloud began to dissipate, then finally disappeared. Our high spirits also disappeared, as we had a long way to go, and all in tiger country.

I had been on the set since takeoff and was relieved by Bob Webster. I went down to the galley. I’d had nothing to eat since our aircrew breakfast before takeoff and was hungry as a hunter. Pierre Bamber, the rigger, had cooked a big dish of baked beans and there was still a lot left, even though I was last to have lunch - so I ate the lot!

I looked on the roster and saw that Bunny Sidney in the tail was due for a break, (an hour was the limit in a turret, as no one can keep the concentration of searching for longer than that), so I went down and relieved him.

I commenced searching, and before long, located something dead astern, slightly above the horizon. It was, I estimated, 17 miles. You can see an aircraft as a dot at about 10 to 11 miles. Beyond that, you just “know” – it’s hard to explain. I reported to control and George Done, (the navigator), hopped up to the astrodome, but couldn’t see it. I was instructed to keep an eye on it and report. Gradually, a dot became visible, then it split in two, then three, four, five, and finally 6 dots were clearly visible dead astern.

Dudley looked for cloud, there wasn’t any, so he opened the throttles and began to climb. We had a saying when things looked dicey: “What we need is more height.” Slowly but surely the dots got bigger and bigger, became aircraft, and eventually I was positively able to identify them as what we knew they would be – Ju88s.

The 88’s began to divide. Four started coming up on our starboard and two on our port. I noticed also that the leader on the starboard had a glass nose, obviously the fighter controller. This meant that they were not just a group of fighters looking for easy pickings, but obviously a well trained and experienced group. (We’d been told that recently the Germans had declared the Atlantic number one priority and were bringing some of their best squadrons from Russia.)

We prepared for battle. The depth charges were run out and jettisoned; Pierre went up to the .300 in the nose; the two galley guns were installed and manned by Bunny and Ivor Peatty, and Jimmy put in his scatter gun.

We checked everything over and over - guns, ammunition, turrets, sights - as the 88’s flew alongside about 1,000 yards out. We sized them up; they sized us up. I followed the four on the starboard with my turret until they were gone from view, then I calculated that the first attack would obviously come from the starboard. We would turn into it, and the attacker would break away from the starboard quarter, so I sat and waited.

I didn’t have long to wait, I heard George over the intercom: “They will start from starboard skip. Ready to turn starboard... ready to turn starboard... - GO!” A wild diving turn. I heard cannon shells raking the fuselage, and there he was, as I predicted, receding into the starboard quarter, his engines puffing black smoke as he throttled back, a perfect no deflection shot, an air gunner’s dream.

I said: “Dead Junkers 88,” and lined up the turret. At least I tried to line up the turret, but it was dead as a dodo. What luck! The hydraulic line to the turret had been severed in the first attack! By this time the others were attacking. The sky was full of white puff balls from the self-destroying shells which had missed us, black crosses flashing across my line of vision, our aircraft twisting and turning to George’s instructions from the astrodome. I had a small handle with which I could rotate the turret, so I did this as best I could and by firing the guns by hand. I sprayed tracer around the sky every time I saw a black cross, but it was pretty hopeless.

Suddenly there was a lull. The 88’s pulled back and took stock. It seemed that the scatter gun had them a bit perplexed, something they hadn’t struck before. George came on the intercom: “All positions report.”

“Tail to Control. Turret U/S.”

“Mid upper to Control. Both guns stopped.”

“Nose to Control. All OK.”

“Thank God for that!” said George.

Bubbles in the mid upper managed to get one gun cleared. Then it was on again.

[regle]

Gun turrets

Yes, Kookabat, ten hours was possible but my two longest were Milan and Cannes, (Marshalling yards), both around nine and a half hours. Berlin was always between eight hours to eight and a half, Hanover six and the Ruhr, five and a half hours. I think that the horrendous "headwinds" raid on Nurenberg in 1944 would have been well over the ten hours mark but over ninety of our bombers would not have completed it. The gunners would remain in their turrets for the duration of the flight without any question. "The price of safety is eternal vigilance".
I have been enjoying the rest that has been given me by the rivetting descriptions of other fields of warfare. How fortunate we are to be able to read them. Thank you all, they are read with such interest and my admiration for the quiet courage shown is unbounded. Regle

[Tabby Badger]

Black Friday - The Nuremberg Raid.

Friday March 31st 1944 The Nuremberg Raid - South African Military History Society - Journal TB

[kookabat]

My great uncle (467 Sqn navigator) was on that Nuremburg raid - his logbook records 8.35hrs for the trip.

His pilot (S/Ldr DPS Smith) counted 30 burning aircraft between Aachen and the target!

His longest trip was to Munich 24 April 1944 - 10.05hrs. I believe this one routed via Italy to keep the defences guessing - he records 1900 miles as the distance flown.

[Wiley]

WOP/AG Peter Jensen. Instalment 10

I lost all track of time. Dudley was throwing the aircraft around like a Spitfire. My ammunition bins hadn’t been designed for such treatment. They broke away from their mountings and the tops burst open with the force of the ammunition being thrown up. As a result, the belts twisted and stopped the guns. I kept clearing the guns and turning the turret as best I could, hoping the 88’s wouldn’t realise the turret was U/S. Once they did they would begin stern attacks and that would be it.

The poor old kite started to show signs of wear. Practically every attack we collected a few shells and bullets. (Each 88 had one 37mm and 2 x 20mm cannon and 2 machine guns.) We lost the port inner engine and poor Pierre in the nose collected a 37mm shell that blew him and his gun back into the wardroom. It also put the nose turret out of action, and Dick Criddle lifted Pierre on to a bunk and attempted to dress his wounds.

However, it wasn’t all one-sided. Fortunately, Bubbles was able to keep his gun going and used it to telling effect. I saw one 88 smoking badly and losing height rapidly. I’m sure he never made home.

I never thought it possible that a Sunderland could survive the evasive action Dudley put it through. My ammunition belts were twisting and squirming around the turret like snakes. It had got to the stage where I could not clear a gun. Then our port outer was hit.

The klaxon went for ditching. I centralised my turret, swung out into the body of the aircraft and in accordance with correct procedure - (tail is always first to report). I reported: “Tail to control. Vacating turret,” and was about to unplug my intercom when Dudley’s voice came on: “Stay there. I can hold height.”

What a quandary! It is impossible to get yourself into the FN4 turret. Someone has to push the door shut behind you. Anyway, all my guns were stopped and the turret U/S, and what’s more, I was a long, long way from my crash position, so I disobeyed the order and set off on the long walk.

What a shambles! The hull was like a colander – full of holes – and there was oil everywhere from busted hydraulic lines. Everything movable was being tossed hither and yon, and a lot of fixtures and stowed equipment had broken loose and was being tossed around as well.

I made my way down the catwalk being thrown from side to side, then up in the air, then down with a bump. I climbed up the steps at the mid upper, where Bubbles was still hammering away with his one gun. I remember being surprised that he still had ammunition left, but he was conserving his ammunition and making every shot count. The 88’s were armoured like a Sherman tank, but he was still beating off their attacks. By this time his was the only gun left operating out of the eleven we started with.

I remember crawling past the turret on my way to the bulkhead which led to the bridge when I began to fly up towards the roof. I grabbed at something, anything, which happened to be an engine inspection ladder, which was lying loose. The ladder and I floated around for about three seconds, then were dashed to the floor.

I finally made it to the bridge. Bob Webster had lost half his nose – he had blood all over his face. He yelled at me that he had screwed the key down. I looked at the gauges on the transmitter - it was dead. I gave him a thumbs up and sat down in my crash position. I wondered why it was so draughty and noisy and looked up. Apparently when the klaxon had gone to ditch, George had jettisoned the astrodome, as it was also the escape hatch, and he was now head and shoulders out in the slipstream calling instructions to Dudley. I don’t know how he wasn’t thrown out.


(The following photographs were taken by the crew of the command Ju88 of the Luftwaffe squadron that shot down E/461.)


E/461 on very short finals, about to ditch. Cannon shells, apparently (very accurately) aimed at the one remaining operating engine, can be seen impacting the water immediately in front of the starboard wing.

Finally, even the skipper had to admit defeat. We lost the starboard outer engine, and no way could even our wonderful 'E' hold height on one engine. The klaxon went again, Bubbles vacated his turret, Pierre was passed up to the top deck, we all jammed into our crash positions and held our heads and braced for a shock that didn't come. Dudley put it down as lightly as a moth on a petal. Unfortunately, our port float was only hanging on by one strut, and it was wiped off. The wing tip dug in and the kite heeled over with the nose dug in and the port wing under water to the inner engine.

We went through the ditching procedures that we had practiced so often. Nose gunner out first, then Pierre gently passed up through the hatch, a couple more, then all our gear, dinghies, radio, pigeons, cans of water, pyrotechnics, rations, first aid kit, etc. etc. Then one by one, we took our turn up and out on to the wing, all under the critical eye of Dudley, who was watching as if it was just another exercise.

Every now and then the kite would give a lurch as if it was about to turn turtle. We called on Dudley to come up, but no, he made a last inspection of his aircraft, checking that we had everything, looking for anything else that could be done. He appeared once at the astro hatch and passed up half a loaf of bread he had found in the galley. "You missed some food," he said sternly. Then he was gone again.

"Come up skip," we called. "She’s going under."

But still he continued his inspection. Then, when he had convinced himself that everything that could be done had been done, he finally and reluctantly abandoned his ship.

[angels]

Wow!

Some more of Dad's stuff follows. No attacks, thank heavens!

Going overseas

Soon after release from hospital, I went on embarkation leave and then had to report back to Morecambe. We were put out into boarding houses with rather sparse furniture and our landlady could only cook baked beans!

We spent a week or so there, We had inoculations against many diseases, including Scrub Typhus. We were issued with tropical kit, complete with a 'Bombay bowler', this was a large helmet, rather like the ones that the Royal Marines bandsmen wear.

We were transported to Liverpool Docks where we embarked on the 'S.S. Stratheden'. It was a modern 'P&O' liner.



We sailed that evening up to the River Clyde. Over the next day we were
formed into a large convoy. We sailed north of Ireland and out into the Atlantic Ocean for about a week.

The officers, nurses and sergeants all had the cabins. We were stationed on '0' deck. It was below the water line, just level with the door to the airlock in the engine room. Every once in a while the door would open and a Lascar (??) would come out, with a devasting blast of hot air.

There were large fixed tables, with twelve airmen at each, six on each side, on fixed forms. There was a plate rack on the wall at the end. Every night we had to tie up our hammocks on hooks in the ceiling. It was so arranged that they were interlaced. The whole area was completely covered with hammocks, all packed like sardines in a tin.

The widest part of the hammock was level with the two narrow ends of other hammocks on each side. So we ate and slept in very limited and dim surroundings. There would have been no chance if we had been hit.

German submarines were a hazard. No lights were shown at night. It was said that a cigarette glow could be seen at two miles. Rubbish was tipped overboard once a day, so that the track of the ship could not be followed.

We were detailed off for work in the mornings. I was lucky and was one of four people drafted as a baggage handler. We were responsible to the Purser. There was a little office, down in the depths of the ship, right in the prow. You could feel the crash as the boat hit the waves. All the officers cases were stacked there, but in fact no one wanted their deep-sea baggage.

We did the paperwork for the Purser and he was very happy to sit with us, drink tea and recount his yarns. Then, one day a nursing sister arnved and wanted her bag; we were all most surprised. Luckily it was on the top.


In the afternoons, we had Urdu classes and after that there would be Bingo at threepence a go. There was also a raffle to guess how far the ship would travel that day, it would have been between 250 and 280 miles.

One day the Atlantic was extraordinarily calm, it was just like the surface of a mirror and there were shoals of flying fish leaping out of the water. During that night we sailed at speed through the Straits of Gibraltar and into the
Mediterranean Sea.

We sailed straight through the Mediterranean Sea, we passed near to Malta but did not call in. We arrived at Port Said and waited until a convoy of ships was ready to sail south.

Egyptian hawkers in bum-boats came up to the side of the ship and were trying to sell handbags and leather goods, They operated a bucket system whereby money was lowered, the goods were put in the bucket and it was pulled up.

We then went through the Suez Canal. There were some dhows, but there was just sand on either side. Along the way were a few landing-stages, there was one at El Qantara and another at El Ballah, then there was one at Isnrniliya.

There was considerable activity there as we passed at about midday. There were people in the swimming-pools and it was quite a little holiday resort. Ismalliya is about half-way through the canal, that then opens into Lake Timsah and then it continues through the Bitter Lakes, we carried on through to Suez.

After a brief stop, we went on down the Red Sea and round the corner to Aden. Aden was a staging-post for shipping going to India and the Far East. We tied up there for a couple of days, but could not leave the boat -- not that one would want to.

In the bay there was just a quay and a few warehouses. There was a road that went at an angle, straight up the hill to some bungalows at the top. It was about the most desolate place on earth. There were spiky, barren mountains in the distance. At the time, I thought that that was how the surface of the moon would be.

We took on fuel and supplies and continued to Bombay.

By now it was getting rather hot and there were strict instructions about acquiring a tan and avoiding sunburn. We spent a lot of time on deck or leaning on the ship's rail watching the sea go by. This was our fourth week at sea and we were anticipating landing.

When we arrived at Bombay, we had to queue for hours with all our kit, just shuffling along towards the gangway. Whilst we had been at sea the wind was quite cooling, but when I got off and stood on the quayside, the heat was unbelieveable.

For several days we were at the transit camp at Worli. It is on the coast on the outskirts of Bombay. Whilst there I used to go off to see the sights, including the Gateway to India, This was a large stone arch built to honour King George V. and Queen Mary, on the occasion of their visit in 1935. It looked rather like the Menin Gate at Ypres.

In the evenings, we would visit a local open-air restaurant. We had egg, chips, steak and onions, This was really scrumptious after the meagre rations on the boat. Although the evenings were relatively cool, the pong from the sea was really awful.

I was then posted to Calcutta. We left by special troop-train from the main station in Bombay. It was very primitive accommodation, the seats were wooden racks, as were the pull-down beds; the windows had slatted shutters, to let the air in and keep marauders out.

[forget]

Brilliant stuff.

Every once in a while the door would open and a Lascar (??) would come out....

Lascar, though rarely used now, was once the name used to describe a sailor or militiaman from the Indian subcontinent or other countries east of the Cape of Good Hope, employed on European ships from the 16th century until the beginning of the 20th century.

[angels]

Forget - Thanks for that. Never heard of them.

I assumed it was the OCR mucking up!

[regle]

Stratheden & Lascars

Lascars was a very common word to be heard all around Liverpool in the the "Thirties". It was by no means derogatory but described the multitude of Indian seamen to be found around Liverpool. They were all referred to as Lascars irrespective of race or creed. I am sure that Cliff has heard the expression many times. Apropos "expressions", I remember that the Liverpool thirties equivalent of "cool" was "Gear.". Does anyone remember that. ? "That's a gear belt that youse got". To give an example.

Ah ! The "Stratheden" ! What memories that brings back ! I have already told the story, in an earlier thread, of when I was flying for Air India in 1948. I was in a nice boarding house in Bombay on New Years Eve 1948 with my pregnant wife and two small children and we were all having a drink with the other guests which included the Captain of the "Stratheden". He used to leave his Wife in Bombay when he called there on the way to Australia and then would pick her up from our Pension when he returned on the return voyage. Remember Alex Guinness in "The Captain's Paradise ?" He said that he was leaving for England the following day and I said " I wish that we were going with you ". It was the time of the partition of India and it was virtually impossible to get a place on a boat to England as so many were fleeing the country. The Captain said to me "If you mean that I can take you tomorrow." That was it ! It was just before midnight. I cleared everyone out ; we started packing feverishly. The next morning I sold my beloved Packard convertible for £50, bought three huge tin trunks in Colaba causeway and we were all on the "Stratheden" when it sailed on New Years day from Bombay. It was the last word in luxury and the children were spoiled rotten by the crew and passengers. We ate like Royalty after all the wartime rationing and a year of curries and we have never forgotten the "Stratheden" and the fortnight that we spent aboard before docking in a miserable , cold, grey Gravesend and East End of London.
It was straight on to the "Berlin Air Lift " for me. Those were stirring times. Regle

[Wiley]

WOP/AG Peter Jensen. Instalment 11

All this time the five remaining JU88's had been circling and watching. They had scattered a few cannon shells in the water around us just as we ditched, but had then pulled off and circled. (We found out later that under the Luftwaffe scoring system, the last pilot to hit a downed aircraft is credited with the kill, so each of them kept shooting at us in turn right up to the point we ditched, as each pilot wanted to be credited with the kill.)


E/461 crew inflate dinghies immediately after ditching

It seemed as if they had been waiting for Dudley's appearance, because as he got up on the wing, Mr. Glass-nose peeled off and bored in towards us. We all looked up at him and Dudley said: "Sorry, I can't do anything more for you, boys. All I can say is, if he shoots, jump."

I reckoned this was good advice, so I stood at the leading edge of the wing between the fuselage and inner engine and watched him. If I saw gun flashes, I was going to jump. But there were no gun flashes. He swooped low over us, waggled his wings in salute, and then they were all gone, with only a small sea bird flying around us crying in such a mournful tone. I looked at my watch. It was 55 minutes from the start of combat. I estimated that the combat had lasted 40 to 45 minutes.

It had seemed like an eternity.

We organised ourselves on the top of the aircraft and the steeply sloping wing as best we could and counted our blessings. The fact that no-one had been killed was amazing luck, and we had all our emergency gear and three dinghies intact. The adrenalin was still pumping through our systems and we all went through a period of high elation and (I suppose) temporary madness. I started it – I shook my fist at the departing Ju88s in mock bravado and shouted “Come back you cowards and fight like a man!”

Much laughter, and one of the crew said “Cut it out, Pete, he might hear you and come back.”

And so it went on for ten minutes or so. Then Ivor Peatty said: “Look at this, chaps – I nearly got my DSO.”

We looked. Across the front of his trousers was a deep cut from a piece of shrapnel, straight and clean as if it had been cut by a pair of scissors.

“DSO?” was asked, perplexed.

“Yes,” he said, “Dickie shot off!”

More loud laughter.


E/461 listing

The skipper sized up the heavy seas and the slowly sinking aircraft and decided to abandon the poor shattered carcass of the old kite. One of the small dinghies was launched with most of the gear, then the other small one with Pierre, Jimmy Leigh, and Ivor Peatty, plus some more gear. Then the big 6-man dinghy was launched, and the rest of us jumped into the sea and clambered into the dinghy. We tied the three dinghies together and drifted rapidly away from the aircraft.

We had hardly been drifting more than ten or fifteen minutes when a muffled report came from our store dinghy and it deflated. We frantically pulled it in by the rope, but most of the stores were lost. We searched the casing for the puncture and found a rip about three feet long, obviously a cut by a piece of shrapnel. It was impossible to repair, so we let it go after rescuing what gear we could. We had only just absorbed that tragedy when the other small dinghy deflated. Another long, unrepairable rip, and it also was abandoned. Pierre, Ivor and Jimmy were helped into our dinghy. Pierre's wound dressings, which had been kept dry in the small dinghy, were now saturated. The salt water in his wounds must have been causing excruciating pain.

Our elation had gone - only one dinghy left. How long would it last, we wondered? We checked what gear we had left - some 2 star red pyrotechnics, a flame float; a can of water and packet of emergency rations each; a case of Verey cartridges - (but the pistol had been lost, so they were jettisoned). We still had the dinghy radio (Gibson Girl) with the aerial, the kite for flying the aerial, the rocket for sending the kite up, the pistol for shooting the rocket. However, no cartridges for the pistol. It seemed we had lost almost every critical thing we needed.

I found one of the pigeon containers, opened it up and pulled out the pigeon. It had drowned. I was about to throw it away when Dudley said: "Keep it. We'll eat it later."

I looked at the poor bedraggled creature and wished I hadn't had so many baked beans for lunch - then promptly brought them all up. I put the pigeon under my feet.

[Andu]

Peter Jensen mentions the the U-boats using 'self-destroying shells' set for a particular range. Does anyone know, was this a development that preceded proximity fuses? Did the Germans later use proximity fuses on their AAA? I seem to recall that they came into use on the Allied side around 1942. (Among the first times they were used, the battle for Guadacanal?)

[angels]

Oh! Calcutta

The journey to Calcutta took four days and we did not get off the train. It was about one thousand two hundred miles. I remember that I commandeered a large tin of beetroot that I kept under the seat.

We were issued with wheat-crackers and I used to get out the tin and fork out a beetroot to eat with them. I was quite upset because as we left one station, a small boy ran alongside the train for quite a distance, in the hope that I would throw him a biscuit and I couldn't.

We went through Nagpur -- about half-way. Every time that the train came to an incline, the engine would conk out, we would wait about twenty minutes while it belched out plumes of black smoke and when it had got up steam again, we would proceed.

When I arrived at Calcutta, I was drafted onto a civilian maintenance unit, No.4 C.M.U. at Dum-Dum. It was a very strange posting. Dum-Dum was an aerodrome used by U.S. transport aircraft.

Dakotas would fly daily six- hour trips ‘over the hump’ to Chungking, carrying vital supplies to China.

Also on the site were two hangars and these belonged to the
Tata Aircraft Company. Inside, civilians were rebuilding Spitfire wreckage. In one corner of the yard there was a selection of old Spitfire wings and fuselages. In the other hangar they were reconditioning Rolls-Royce Merlin engines.

There was a sort of production line going, but for various reasons each rebuild proceeded at a different rate. I did not really know what I was supposed to do, the Indians worked on the aircraft. I did fit a rudder one day, although I was an engine-fitter.

There was an Indian AID inspector (Air Inspection Directorate). He asked me for advice continuously, that was fair enough,though he was supposed to know all these things.

I said earlier that I thought my examination after the fitter’s-course was a ‘fix’. If I had got 80% I would automatically have been made a corporal instructor, but they did not want any more instructors, so I was given 78%.
I was still top of the Entry and this could be why I was sent to 4 C.M.U.. I could look after the R.A.F’s interests, check the quality of the work and watch for any faults.

There was also an airframe-fitter and when the wings had to be joined to the fuselage he would ream the bolt-holes and fit the tapered-bolts himself, because it was so important.

Coolies sat in the shade of the hangar-doors, but would come in to lift the wings when required. When the aircraft were pushed out onto the tarmac, I would give them a very thorough inspection and I would list all the things that were faulty. I would not sign for them until they had been corrected.

There were several aircraft out on the tarmac waiting to be put right. The ignition-harness was connected to the wrong plugs on one engine. There was a crossed olive (??) in the pipework of another.

I was not very popular, but our pilots would have to fly them. (In conversation, Dad told me he came under intense pressure to pass crap aeroplanes as serviceable. He knew they were desperately needed, but he refused to compromise on safety.)

The camp where we lived was across the main road from the hangars. There were a few ‘bashas’ just like the ones in, ‘It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum’, on the TV. They were beside two rather stagnant ponds and some palm trees.

We had wooden-framed beds with sisal-string woven across, they were called ‘charpoys’. We also had mosquito-nets to sleep under; there were little harmless geckos that lived on the walls; they ate any insects that were about.

The inside of the hut was always clean and tidy, there was a sweeper who came round regularly. The ‘dhobi wallah’ took our clothes to be washed; the ‘char wallah’ brought his urn round with morning tea. The ‘moochi’ mended our shoes. There was a little cookhouse where the ‘babu’ would fry eggs and put them in a bread-roll for our supper when we came back at night. We were always smartly dressed in khaki-drill trousers and a khaki-drill
jacket despite the heat of the day.

The main road outside went down to Calcutta. There were always huge carts, heavily laden with jute and drawn by two oxen, proceeding slowly down the road to the mills. Anywhere where an animal had died by the roadside, a great cluster of vultures would spend several days devouring it.

About two hundred yards down the road were the H.M.V. recording studios. Several of us were allowed to play there in the evening. There was sheet-music and instruments. We formed a small orchestra and the C.O. supported us. Luckily, the studio was heavily soundproofed with thick red velvet curtains! We always cleared up very carefully and always said ‘goodnight’ and
‘thanks’, to the ‘chokidar’, when he locked up.

On my day off, I would go down into Calcutta, I used to walk along the main street, known as Chowringee, go into Firpo’s restaurant and have a large glass of lemonade with a ball of ice-cream in it. It was heaven!

I also went to the art-shop round the corner in Dhurumtolla St., I bought a sketch-book and pencils there and later used them! (Quite a few of Dad's sketches have survived, they haven't been scanned yet.)

Trams carried people up and down the road, all hanging on where possible, there were rickshaws, crowds and traffic, it was chaos. On the other side was a park and to the right there were Government buildings. There was a plaque on the wall at the site of the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’. I also visited the Botanical Gardens. They were on the other side of the Hoogly river.

A ferry-boat went down the river, there was a landing-stage at the gardens. There they had the largest banyan tree in the world. It covered about two hundred square yards.

Although we always ate thick-skinned fruit and washed it in ‘pinki pani’, (that was permanganate of potash crystals dissolved in water), I caught dysentry. I was sent to the 47 Indian General Hospital in Calcutta. There I had to have a rather undignified examination and I was then put on a medicine
containing bismuth and iodine.

After about a fortnight, things improved and I was sent for convalescence to the Loretto Convent. When I ultimately returned to 4 C.M.U. I discovered that in my absence I had been posted to 124 R.S.U. (Repair and Salvage Unit) at Imphal.

It did not bother me excessively. I would not liked to have stayed at Dum-Dum for a long while although it was an interesting experience.

[angels]

Up the Jungle!

My journey up into Burma started at Howrah railway station in Calcutta. The troop-train left in the late afternoon and it went north up the Ganges delta. Much of the land was flooded paddy-fields. The railway then turned to the right and went along the north bank of the Brahmaputra river until somewhere near Sylhet. The track then ended and we all got off.

By now it was about midday on the next day and we were taken across the river by a ferry-boat to join another train. There was no station, the track just came down across the red sand to near the water’s edge. There was a train waiting, we boarded it and off we went on the last stage of the Assam Railway journey to Dimapur.

We spent the night at the transit camp there. The next day we continued by 3 ton lorry to Kohima; the road from Dimapur to Kohima climbed over 5,000 ft. Each road-section to Imnphal was about 90 miles and was a day’s journey. After staying the night at Kohima, we went on to Imphal the next morning. As we left, we stopped and walked up Garrison Hill to see the site where the
Japanese advance was finally halted.

The battle for Kohima took place in the mountain rain-forest around the town and ended at the District Commissioner’s tennis court. The road to Imphal was cut and our troops there were surrounded in a box. The Japanese committed a whole division to take Kohima and make for the railhead.

Their lines of communication were too stretched, they had no food and hoped to capture some on the way. Kohima was defended by about 500 men of the Royal West Kent regiment supported by an Indian artillery unit to the rear. They were besieged for about a fortnight.

Around the District Commissioner’s bungalow there was open trench warfare and hand-to-hand fighting. It was as bad as the Battle of the Somme in the First World War. The bungalow was demolished and the combatants lobbed hand-grenades at each other across the tennis-court. Finally a tank was winched up the hill and this was the deciding factor. The Japanese retreated and the road to Imphal was reopened.

I have gone into some detail about the battle of Kohima but it was the turning point of the war and that is where the War Memorial is now. On the epitaph it says, ‘WHEN YOU GO HOME, TELL THEM OF US AND SAY, FOR YOUR TOMORROW WE GAVE OUR TODAY’.




As we walked up the hill a mongoose ran across the road, it is the only one that I have ever seen. There was debris, mud and shallow graves. The trees were all blasted-off with shattered trunks about two-feet high. It looked like a battlefield of the 1914-18 War.

I arrived at Imphal and joined 124 R.S.U. It was a tented camp beside an airstrip. Once again, an American unit were operating C47, Dakotas, flying supplies to the war-zone in Burma and on to Chungking, in China.

The American unit had an open-air cinema and a P.X. shop where I used to buy Chesterfield cigarettes. The town of Imphal was just a crossroads with a few corrugated-iron buildings and an open air market.

After a few days, I was organised to go on detatchment to Tanzu. It was an airstrip just across the Burma border and about eight miles from the Japanese lines.

Again, we set off in a three tonner. On our previous journeys we always had Indian Army drivers and maintenance crews, this time we had R.A.F. drivers. The first part of the journey was across the Imphal Plain, about 28 miles to Palel, then the hill country started.

The Chin Hills were completely covered in forest, the road was extremely dangerous, cut into the contour lines, down into one valley and up and over the next range of hills, for about sixty miles.

There was no edge to the road and some lorries came off and ended up 2,000 ft. below. We could see the wreckage down in the valleys as we drove along. Tank and boat transporters also used the road, What an awful line of communication to fight a war!

Tamu was a cleared stretch of jungle. There was a grass runway and a small clearing, where the aircraft were parked that needed repair. In the trees nearby was the fuel dump. There were many 50 gallon drums of 100 octane petrol. I used to wash my jungle green clothes in petrol!

Also on the strip was an R&R unit, (Refuel and Rearm). They dealt with the incoming planes. We lived in tents amongst the trees, between the runway and a stream. Along the side of the strip were anti-aircraft guns, manned by Indian soldiers.

About this time the Hurncane 2Bs. were replaced with Thunderbolt 2s. Unfortunately they could not bomb the enemy positions accurately enough, though they were a good strong fighter, with so much room in the cockpit.

The tactics were that our troops would call up the aircraft to bomb a Japanese position and then immediately rush it. The Thunderbolts had to be allowed too much distance and the enemy could recover before the attack.
The immediate view forward in a Thunderbolt was restricted by the large radial engine in the front.

So, out came all the Hurricanes again and some had to be made airworthy.

The first job that I was directed to was a Hurricane that had had one of the two engine-blocks replaced; there were six cylinders in each block. The engine would start, but it would not go faster than 800 RPM. I suspected that the valve-timing had been wrongly set, so I readjusted the drive-shaft and it then went up to its full power, 2,450 RPM. The corporal was not happy that I was right and that I had fixed it straight away!

Another job that I remember, was dealing with the filler-cap on a drop-tank full of petrol and still on the aircraft. It was cross-threaded, jammed completely. I had to hammer it, keeping my fingers crossed all the time!

One day a Hurricane landed that had its engine sump completely shot away. It was red-hot because it had lost all the oil, but the engine was still going. We got the pilot out, he was from No.1 Indian Air Force Squadron, based at Palel. We waited for the engine to cool before we moved it away.

On another day a Thunderbolt landed with its brakes on; it immediately turned over as soon as it touched the ground. We rushed to it to extricate the pilot, he already had his pistol out of its holster, ready to shoot himself if the aircraft had caught fire.



[lasernigel]

Angels I have been in contact with Regle, as my Uncle Fred was a Blackpool lad and I thought he might have remembered him from 177 ATC sqn at Squires gate.
He did join up as a pilot and did his initial training in Canada on Havards, then on to South Africa for Hurricane conversion. Obviously later than some of the other contributors to this thread.
As your Fathers story is now approaching Burma that is where he met his untimely end to a short life as most brave young servicemen did at 21yrs old.
He was with 42 Sqn based at Tuliha, the Sqn was there from July to November 1944. He was shot down on a mission to bomb a bridge on the 21st Oct 1944.
His parents were told the usual, missing, missing presumed dead and finally after the war presumed dead.
His remains were not found until 1956 by the War Graves commission searching in the jungles of Burma.
His is buried in Taukkyan war cemetery. RIP

Everyone keep up the stories it makes better reading than most books on the subject.

[regle]

December and a diversion.

I was sitting at my computer with Dover Castle looking me straight in the face and I thought back to a similar grey day in December 1956 when I was a Captain in Sabena and flying in the European Sector. I was qualified on D.C.3's, Convair 240 and 440, D.C.4 and D.C.6's, all of which were flying in different capacities in the sector. It was quite a problem as when you were "En Reserve", you were practically certain to be called out as not everyone was qualified on all the types. The situation was very unpopular as you had to keep up with all the different emergencies and, indeed, it was of the utmost importance that you remembered which type of aircraft you were flying if an emergency did come up. The situation was soon phased out but it was probable that you were still called upon to have at least two different types on your licence at the same time. I mention all this just to give you something to compare with things as they are now.

Anyway it was Dec 22nd. 1956 and I was scheduled to go to London in the afternoon on a D.C.6., turn around there and then back to Brussels. As this was my first flight as a Captain on D.C.6's I was being "Lache'd" on the route by my Chief Pilot, Peter Dils. Lache (I can't find any accents , grave or acute on this keyboard ) was the term meaning released or checked on that particular route but it is pronounced "lashay" and means "let loose. ". The weather was very dicey and there was fog already at London. By the time that we had done all our checks and were going out to the aircraft , Heathrow had closed down completely as had all the alternatives except Manston. I said to Peter that it was certain that we would have to divert so was it worth going ,as Brussels was also closing in rapidly and there was no hope of picking up the return load of passengers from Heathrow.? "Press on " was the reply. "All these passengers are hoping to get home for Xmas and Manston will stay open and anyway they've still probably got Fido !". This I very much doubted but he was the Big Chief so off we went into the wild blue yonder.

By the time we got over Dover there was a stack over every available beacon and it was dark by the time that we got down having been numbered about twenty three to land when we arrived overhead. To say that it was chaotic would be the understatement of the year. We were told to taxi to the nearest dispersal point available and to cut our engines and await further instructions. There were aeroplanes from every company in Europe going in opposite directions and no way of getting passengers off aircraft and no "Groups" available for ground power.

We found a vacant dispersal and cut our engines and we waited and waited and waited.. The batteries were nearly flat and I was standing with Peter Dils at the open rear door when he said "Right, Reg. You stay here and I am going to go down the emergency rope and see what I can do to get these passengers off." With that he got the rope out of it's compartment , threw it out then grasped it and disappeared out into the pitch black night. There was a muffled thud and then the scent of roasting flesh wafted up to the plane and that was the last that I saw of him for two hours.

Eventually an R.A.F. truck, complete with ladders and helpful airmen (Manston was still an R.A.F Station.) armed with torches managed to get the passengers off , no mean task with elderly people being carried down ladders. The baggage was left until a further contingent of RAF took it all to one of the Hangars where everyone, hundreds of them, were gathered. Customs had given up. They purchased the entire bar from one of the Air France planes then locked themselves in and left everyone to sort out the baggage. This had been dumped into the center of the Hangar with very little attempt to keep it in it's seperate stacks. There were no trolleys and people were picking up their suitcases and trundling them away and waiting by the roadside for the buses and taxis that were eventually coming out to the scene of chaos.

There was a representative eventually from Sabena there and we were talking when there was an announcement from a chap who was using a "Loud Hailer" as a means of getting some information over. "Would any one from the Sabena aircraft please go at once to the Guard room"
I managed to find my way there where there were two S.P.'s waiting. " We found this chap wandering around the Airfield" they said and there, lo and behold , was Peter Dils cut, still bleeding and very dazed and barely comprehensible. " He says he's a Sabena Chief pilot." said one of the S.P.'s "Can you identify him ?" I was sorely tempted, but it was not the time for Brirish humour. He obviously needed medical attention. What had happened, we later found out was that the D.C.6 had recently undergone one of it's normal ground checks and one of the ground crew had zealously greased the brand new and rather stiff "escape rope" that had been installed...hence the scent of Roast meat. Peter had been knocked unconscious and had come round not knowing where he was and had been wandering around Manston for two hours.
We were taken to London by car next day and the whole crew flew back in a D.C.4 as passengers and I was told that I was "Lache"..on London . Not one complaint was received from any of the sixty odd passengers and Peter and I remained good friends. And Manston did not have Fido any more. Regle.

[johnfairr]

A Spitfire Pilot - Intermission.

This thread has become an instant "page-turner" and I feel it would be best if I left any further instalments from my father until after we have heard how the WOp/AG from Wiley eventually makes dry land and how the father of Angels sorts out the Hurri-Bombers and Thunderbolts in SEAC.

I hope most readers will understand that continuity is key to any story-telling.

[Army Mover]

A Suggestion

I've found every one of these posts absolutely fascinating, it is almost as if I was there with them. It would be nice to think that anybody with an interest in military aviation could read them in the years ahead; any chance that the central story threads could be grouped together in the History & Nostalgia section?

To all of the posters, thank you.

[Wiley]

Peter Jensen, instalment 12

We organised ourselves as best as eleven men can in a six man dinghy. We sat alternately on the edge and inside the ring with our legs and feet bunched up in the middle, trying to keep Pierre's poor shattered leg on top. Pierre sat inside stoically, occasionally coughing up blood. Then he started complaining - about his watch, which had got water into it and stopped. "I paid a tenner for it," he said, "and look at it - not worth two bob now."

After a while I could not stand it any longer so I said: "Pierre, if you cut out your whingeing, I'll buy you a new watch when we get back to base."

He looked pleasantly surprised at this, and I must admit that later he kept me to my promise. Anyway no further mention was made of his watch.

I looked across at the man opposite me and was surprised to see a strange face, also that he had a pale blue RAF battle dress on. He noticed my perplexed look and solemnly held out his hand. "John Eshelby," he said.

I took his hand. "Peter Jensen."

I remembered then that our engineer, Lance Woodland, had gone to hospital for a minor operation and obviously John had been detailed to replace him. He had not come to briefing with us, but had gone straight to the aircraft and had been sitting in the engineer’s position all the trip. He had just joined the squadron and this was his first trip. What an initiation! I then introduced him to the rest of crew.

I must admit that the incongruity of the situation did not dawn on any of us until some time later.

My watch was the only one that was still going, and one of the crew, I can't remember who, kept asking me the time (as if it was of any consequence). After about the sixth or seventh time I began to get annoyed, and at the last request I said somewhat brusquely: "It's exactly five minutes after the last time you asked."

Dudley, who was sitting next to me dug me in the ribs. I came to my senses and carried on in a changed tone: "I can assure you the pubs will be closed by now," and hoped that no-one had noticed my aberration.

So we sat, as immobile as possible, frightened to move in case the fabric of the dinghy was damaged and our last link with life would go. The wind blew the waves into whitecaps. We were tossed up on top, then down into the troughs. Every now and then a wave would curl over us then drop on top, filling the dinghy. I welcomed this in a way as I had a small plastic beaker and was in a ‘leaning-forward’ position. I would scoop water out from between the mass of legs and feet on the bottom of the dinghy and pass it to someone in an upright position who would empty it out and pass it back. By the time I had the dinghy fairly empty, another wave would break over us and so I was kept busy and did not have time to think.

Dudley tried hard to keep our spirits up. At one stage, he called on George to sing. I can still see George, sitting on the edge of the dinghy, a huge foam-capped wave behind him, giving out a rollicking "Oh, a life on the ocean wave, a life on the rolling sea!" in his magnificent baritone voice.

Darkness came.

"George," said Dudley, "Give us a lecture on astro-navigation."

Again, George complied, but somehow none of us could concentrate too well.

The moon came up and with it the wind dropped. The sea became a gleaming, greasy series of rolling hills. I suppose I hallucinated a bit, for at times I was convinced that I was on the moon. I found it hard to grasp that we must only have been a mile or two from where we had ditched.

Time became meaningless, we could only wait until daylight to try to fly the aerial kite, so we sat and waited.

It was the longest night I have ever known.

Suddenly, it must have been about 4 a.m., we heard an aircraft. George fished a 2 star red out of the bag that hung over the side and handed it to Dudley. Dudley pulled out the pin - and nothing happened. Obviously the water had got into it. The engine noise faded away and our hopes with it.

"Give me another one George", said Dudley. "I'll keep it ready."

George handed over another 2 star red.

A few minutes later another aircraft, or maybe the same one and he was investigating something, maybe us. We all had switched on our Mae West lights, but they were very dim. Anyway, it was an aircraft, and Dudley unscrewed the cap of the pyrotechnic and pulled the pin while we all held our breaths. What a sight! Two beautiful red stars shot to the heavens and we cheered.

The aircraft turned and swooped towards us, we could see the outline of a Catalina against the sky. He came down almost to wave-top height and switched on a searchlight. He was a ‘Leigh-light Cat’ that hunted the U-boats at night.

I had a sudden panic, as often in these circumstances, in the excitement of finding survivors in a dinghy, the crew in the aircraft forget to wind up the trailing aerial and the survivors end up being killed by the aerial weights. I yelled "Hold your heads!" But I needn't have worried. They had wound in their aerial.

The Cat stayed with us until dawn, circling, losing us, searching, finding us again. As dawn came we saw that there was no cloud cover and our hearts sank. Tiger country was no place for Catalinas in broad daylight. With no cloud cover, the 88's would have had him for breakfast, so we naturally expected him to leave. But to our eternal gratitude, he stayed, still circling and obviously homing something on to us - but what?

At about 9 o'clock he signalled us with his Aldis Lamp: "Must go, short of fuel; help coming at 1000." Then he turned away and was soon lost to sight, and once again we were alone except for the same small sea bird that had been with us from the time we had ditched.

Our spirits dropped to zero.

[angels]

Our food was Australian dehydrated mince, carrots and vegetables; this came in very large tins and was dropped by air;it was then reconstituted in boiling water, We were also given small purple pineapples, these were inedible.
(For my Dad to say something was inedible, it must have been inedible!)

At night we used to light a brazier and open tins of Heinz soups, which we would warm up and eat with biscuits. Whenever I open a tin of Heinz soup now, the memories come back to me.

Breakfast was porridge, bread and marmalade, with oleo margarine, almost liquid because of the heat. We were frequently issued with a large mug of rum and a tin of 50 Players cigarettes.

We used to wash and bathe in the stream that we had dammed up. Judging by the large footprints that were left overnight, we knew that a very large cat also used it; we thought it was probably a jaguar.

When we washed there we got covered with leeches. They would stick onto the skin and swell up as they sucked your blood. They were removed by holding a burning cigarette near to them, they would then fall off without leaving their little tube in the skin.

Nevertheless, where that did happen, they quickly became infected ulcers and when they healed they left scar tissue on the ankles. One of our party would rub metal polish into his ulcers, so that when they were bad, he would try for medical repatriation.

I have subsequently suffered with ulcerated ankles all my life. (Both Dad's were covered with scar tissue up to the knee. His ankles, as he says, were ulcerated and gave him particular trouble until the day he died. He only complained very rarely.))

One airman was repatriated, it was the result of a distressing accident that I actually witnessed. That afternoon, I was working on a Spitfire, replacing a rocker-box cover. There was another Spitfire, about twenty feet away, that had had work done on it, but the engine would not start.

A group of people gathered round it. Suddenly it did start and it immediately went straight up to take-off power. The throttle-control had a pin left out and it could not be shut down. The aircraft was on its chocks, the tail went up and the nose dipped down.

As the wooden propellor hit the ground, the blades started to break up and the engine went even faster. The fitter jumped out of the cockpit and slid down the wing. A large splinter of broken propellor went into his leg. He should have flicked the switches down to cut the engine, but it was all over in about twenty seconds. The shock upset him mentally and he was repatriated.

The R&R unit and the anti-aircraft guns had already been moved forward to Kalewa. We repaired the aircraft that were left and dumped any wreckage in a clearing that we called 'the graveyard'. Dacoits (bandits) set fire to the remains of the fuel dump.

While I was at Tamu, I always had my Sten gun at the ready. It had a clip on magazine with about 30, 9mm. bullets in it. It could be fired from the hip or shoulder, as a machine-gun or on single shot. I used to go into the jungle, to practise firing it; it was a more useful weapon than a rifle in those conditions.

About the second week of March 1945, we returned to Imphal. We spent a few days at Imphal and because I was an engine fitter, I had to spend the evenings minding the 'Meadows'. This was a lorry that had a car engine driving a generator in the back. It supplied a rather dim electric light to each of the tents.

A week later we were sent as a small detatchment to Thazi. This was an abandoned airstrip past Tamu.

Off we went again with the lorries loaded with tents and tools, down the dangerous road and up over the mountain ranges. When we arrived there, there were four aircraft parked near the end of the runway, I can only remember the Mosquito and a Beaufighter because I worked on them.

I changed the oil-cooler on the port engine of the Beaufighter. The Mosquito had a damaged elevator and after a replacement had been fitted, I used to 'run up' the engines. The thermometer in the cockpit read 140°F, inside temperature and 120°F outside, that was hot!

You could feel the hot air in your lungs as you breathed, that was a few weeks before the onset of the monsoon. Because it was so hot, we used to work from six o'clock in morning to 2 p.m.. We would then rest on our beds for the afternoon.

I kept the felt around my water bottle damp, so that the evaporation would cool the water inside. We always had to put sterilising tablets in the water before we drank it. We also had to take Mepacrine tablets to prevent
malaria. One day a small scorpion was behind my case lid, when I
shut the case, it stung my hand, but it was not serious.

Thazi was a more open area, there was no thick jungle and there was a village nearby, with houses built on stilts to avoid the monsoon flooding. There were several temples and the Burmese walked about quite freely.

One day a badly burned airman was brought in from Kalewa, there was a nursing orderly with him and they stayed overnight until a plane took him out the next morning.

What had happened was that he had to drain the water condensation from the bottom of the fuel tanks on a Warwick. It was a transport aircraft and there were little taps under the wings. It was dark, so he took a hurricane lamp to see what he was doing.

It was a disaster, he opened a tap and the whole aircraft caught fire. I have recently read of another Warwick being burnt out. Did the same thing happen? It is very rare for aircraft to catch fire on the ground.

A pilot came to fly out the Beaufighter. He did one circuit and landed again. The propellor constant-speed unit needed adjustment, then while it was standing at the end of the runway, the heat of the sun caused the inflatable raft to burst out of the wing and it had to be repacked. It eventually got away.

We went down to the Meiktila area on the 18th. of May 1945. There were two, three-ton lorries and a wrecker; that was a lorry on which there was a crane and winch. Unfortunately we only had one qualified driver, so two people had to learn pretty quickly.

We went south, down the road to Kalewa. That section of road was covered in bitumen and we moved along at a good speed. We stopped to look at the burnt out Warwick and then crossed the River Chindwin on the Bailey bridge.