A Happy New Year to all who are still frequenting this ancient Crew Room. Now that the stove is going full blast again (thanks, Geriaviator!) it is at last losing some of its less than endearing mustiness. Ronald Homes has got off to a cracking start, hasn't he? I can empathise with him to the extent that, as skipper, he was the lowest ranked commissioned officer in his crew. As a Hastings captain I too shared that fate, albeit as an F/O against his P/O. Both my co-pilot and navigator were Flt Lt's, the rest of the 6 man crew being of Sgt, Flt Sgt, or Master Aircrew (W/O equivalent) ranks. The real divider though was that most of them were also married men, therefore drawing Marriage Allowance! The Co-Pilot kept our Form 6663's (pay and allowances) up to date as we proceeded on our itinerary for days, sometimes weeks. Those in the know would scan these forms and have a fair idea of the extent of the monthly pay involved. As a single liver-in, I would in vain point out the glaring pay discrepancies and that subbing in for the beers, or even the food, when we were out and about as a crew should reflect the imbalance more. I was pooh-poohed! Ingrates all!
Crewing up in WWII Bomber Command was very arbitrary, but sadly until death did them part in too many instances. At an OTU (Operational Training Unit, such as Bicester) the various aircrew, already trained up elsewhere as pilots, navs, WOp's, A/Gs, would be driven to a hangar, on the floor of which they were instructed to sort themselves out into crews for training together (on Blenheims in this case), before going on to an HCU (Heavy Conversion Unit) for training on their operational type, ie Lanc, Halifax, Stirling, etc, where they would be joined by their F/E's (who had a longer technical course), thence joining their assigned squadrons as a fully operational crew. This concept of crewing up died off post war, in Transport Command at least, but Sqn Cdrs still had enough discretionary power to invoke it if they chose. One of my bosses did, so that I flew as Captain with the same crew, albeit with swaps and changes due leave, sickness, etc, for most of the time I was in his Squadron. By the time that the Hercules had succeeded the Hastings, that became a thing of the past (along with training co-pilots up to first pilot status due lack of a tiller on the RHS of the Hercules flight deck).
Well enough rambling, but I have rather indulged myself in the sincere hope that the tradition of meandering off into the leafy lanes of reminiscence, so encouraged by Danny, was still our standard operating procedure.
Last edited by Chugalug2; 1st Jan 2024 at 14:55.