On with a little bit more...
England in 1943 was a veritable Island Aircraft Carrier. I always maintained that at an altitude of 5,000 feet, anywhere from Newcastle, down to Dover in a straight line , you could cut all your engines and make a dead stick landing on an aerodrome. I never tried it in case I was told to go round again as another aircraft was on the approach.
There was a very good RAF magazine , issued by Training Command , called TEE EMM (Training Manual.) It carried a monthly award of "The Most HIghly Derogatory Order of the Irremoveable Digit". It was awarded , each month, for the worst "Black". I should have been the recipient one month. 4 Group, to which I belonged, had three Heavy Conversion Units, Riccall, Rufforth and Marston Moor all quite close to each other. Our job as Instructors was to take the crews as they came to us, probably with a certain amount of time on aircraft such as Oxfords and convert them, as crews, on to Halifaxes prior to their postings to Operational Squadrons within the group. We had also to try and make sure that they were beginning to interact as crews as it was very unlikely that they had ever flown together before. After some satisfactory circuits and bumps had been performed they had to be checked for night flying. The procedure was that the Instructor went up and watched the Captain perform one or two satisfactory landings and then get out and let him do three or four landings on his own and with his crew for the first time. I watched, with approval, one night, as my pupil took off and landed perfectly for two landings. "O.K." I said "Taxi to the Control Tower, I'll get out and you can do do four more by yourself". When I got in the Control Tower I didn't recognise any of the personnel. We had taken off from Marston Moor and landed at Rufforth. Not only that but my pupil had taken off again and landed at Marston Moor. The Control Officer told me that it was happening all the time. When I telephoned Marston Moor and asked for transport I was told by the O.C. Flying to "Bloody well walk back !
The Station Commander of an R.A.F Station, usually with the rank of Group Captain, always had a Tiger Moth at his disposal for "communicating " with other Stations in the Group. The "Tee Emm" award was given, one month, to Group Captain X (They never gave names, happily ) for landing his Tiger Moth at an airfield and studiously avoiding all conversation until he had the chance to see D.R.O's (Daily Routine Orders) on the Mess notice board to find out where he was. The next month "Tee Emm" acknowledged receipt from four Group Captains asking them how the hell they had found out. That's my lot for now. I hope that you have'nt heard all the somewhat aged stories. Trouble is I am only able to remember the older things and can't remember all that I did yesterday. Anyway some of the things are so old most of you won't have known of them. As I said to Orville "You'll never get this thing off the ground ". Reg
Last edited by regle; 25th Feb 2009 at 21:22.