Suggested question for Wings ground exam:-
Comment on the attitudes of Flt Sgt Lambert, the Padre and Longfellow (the Intelligence Officer) in the following scenario:-
Scene: Main Briefing Room at a Lancaster station in WW2. Crews are leaving the room after a briefing for a raid on an industrial city in the Ruhr. Flt Sgt Lambert is captain of a crew nearing the end of its first tour. He is a fine piilot and captain, but is known to be bolshie. During the briefing he had asked the Station Commander what was the military significance of the target. Flt Sgt Digby is his (Oz) navigator.
"...All over the room men were giving last-minute warnings, greetings, advice and information to friends and strangers.
The Chaplain was a member of the Socialist Party and secretly regarded himself as a rather dangerous reformer. In his opinion this was why his bishop had been so keen to get rid of him into the Air Force. Compulsory church parades, some articulate atheists in the Officers' Mess and an inherited stutter had made his task harder than he'd expected. Still it was his duty to seek out the troubled and he found the man with the lined eyes who'd almost spoiled the whole briefing by disquieting his comrades.
"Are you troubled, Flight Sergeant?" he asked Lambert.
"Why doesn't the Church stop the war, Padre?"
The young chaplain had listened carefully to his archbishop, so, like the Intelligence Officer, he had the answer ready. "The war is due to the sin of mankind, including our own. And so we have got to do it and be penitent while we do it."
"So I'm the right hand of God, am I, Padre? I wonder if the Germans have padres telling them they are."
For one moment the padre's resentment and anxiety almost betrayed him into praying that he would not stutter. He did stutter: "I...I...I...hold the King's commission, Sergeant, and I'll ask you to treat me with the respect my u...u...u...uniform deserves."
"Come on, Skip," called Digby loudly. "We've got some killing to do." The padre glared at them both. Why should these men insult me, he thought; they know I can't stop the war?
"Pay no attention to them, Padre", said Longfellow. "They couldn't care less about decent people's feelings." ...Once Longfellow had hero-worshipped the young aircrew, but that was long ago during the Battle of Britain. That was before he encountered the arrogance that constant danger granted the young. "Intrepid birdmen," he said scornfully after all the birdmen were out of earshot.
From Bomber - Len Deighton. This little vignette was omitted from the excellent BBC radio dramatisation produced for the 50th anniversary of VE Day.
I suppose it is worth noting that the task of RAF padres is harder in some respects than that of RN and Army padres, who can share the dangers of the "sharp end".