I suppose several of us here spent our childhood hearing about experiences on the Halifax.
My father
may have been the navigator ("now then, you worked at the bank, you'll be good with mathematics, nav position for you ...") but the descriptions of issues along the way mainly concerned others.
Failure of the guns became an issue as winter advanced, which on subsequent testing turned out to be fine, although a lot of engineering time was wasted trying to sort it out. Finally traced during an air test where he stood behind the gunner, to the chaps wearing new issue thick gloves, the air freezing, the trigger being a bit small and fiddly .... you can guess the rest.
Although the base (RAF Topcliffe, Yorkshire) was not a training base they did circuits there and some of the chaps from conversion were really not ready yet, so there were several low speed crack-ups. This was appreciated (though not by the CO) as spares were in short supply and an aircraft that could be robbed was valuable and soon stripped.
Speaking of the CO, King George VI came to visit the base. Everything polished to the nth degree. All Halifaxes in straight lines with props perfectly balanced. King is walked around, comments on everything being perfectly tidy. CO is chuffed. King continues "... how do you have time for this, don't you have a f...ing war to fight" (yes, quite literally apparently). CO goes scarlet and says nothing for the rest of the visit.
Must have been cold up there in the winter, especially on the way home with flak holes in the fuselage. On one occasion his moustache froze and broke off - a story he loved to tell in later years.
I still have his RAF issue hammer, which was used to whack many fuses into bombs in its time. It is going to be used to do some repairs on my garden fence later today. Apart from a little split at the end of the wooden handle still in perfect condition.