Memoirs of a Typhoon pilot - Part 3
The flying bits come soon! In Part 1 Peter wrote that his first ever flight was in a Percival Proctor, but as the prototype of that aircraft did not fly until October 1939, (source Wikipedia) I think Peter is mistaken - or else he is telling his story out of sequence. I will check this out next time I speak to him. Anyway, here is Part 3.
In the next three weeks I was given seven hours and five minutes dual instruction in a DeHavilland 'Tiger Moth' aircraft. This was mostly in short trips of about 20 minutes or so, and was, in effect, the first few instructional exercises of a full pilot's course. The most advanced thing, which I only did once at this time, was 'spinning'. It is something which every pilot had to do, usually on every aircraft he flew, except of course larger multi-engined types. The first spin is a frightening experience although, in comparison with most of the other aircraft I flew, the Tiger Moth was very gentle. Very much later, after the war when I became an instructor on Tiger Moths myself, I came to really enjoy spinning them and being able to pull out of the spin in a pre-determined direction. That was the trouble with the Tiger Moth, it was too safe. Unless you applied full rudder, the aircraft merely gently dipped a wing and went into a spiral dive. In fact, if you made it spin and then let go of the controls the aircraft pulled itself out of the spin. It then went into a dive until the airspeed built up, when it then also began to pull out of the dive too. At the time I did not, of course, have much familiarity with the behaviour of the aircraft and did not particularly enjoy the experience. However, after doing my seven hours dual, the powers that be evidently decided that it was worth the risk of trying to train me as a pilot and gave me 7 days leave prior to posting me on.
The posting-on was to ACDC Heaton Park, Manchester. I think ACDC stood for Air Crew Dispersal Centre. Arriving there on the 21st February 1942, I then spent three weeks doing practically nothing except listen to the innumerable rumours which were circulating. It was pretty certain that we were going to be sent abroad for training and the possibilities ranged from Canada and America, via Rhodesia and South Africa to Australia! When the time came and we were shipped out we were still not told our destination. We were first sent by train, at night, for what seemed a long journey with many stops, and we hadn’t a clue where we were. At daybreak found ourselves in a large seaport. It didn't take long for some of the lads to recognise their home town of Liverpool.
The train had pulled into a siding in the docks and we were shephered up a gangway to board a ship flying the American flag. This was one of the new, all-welded construction, 'Liberty’ ships. She was called the "George F.Elliott". This vessel was fitted out as a troopship with bunks in every available space below decks. My bunk was right up forward and four decks down so it was probably below the waterline. It was so far forward in the bows that the deck space was triangular. The bunks were three high and quite comfortable. The dining area was off the main deck and was a stand-up area where the 'tables' were long shelves with vertical tubular supports from deck to 'ceiling' at intervals. The food, which was excellent, was served onto stainless steel compartmented trays, the first time most of us had seen this. Also the fact that at least once a day we had ice-cream made us realise that this was not England any more! Some of us were detailed for kitchen duty and, at first we thought we were hard done by. However, after the first day we realised how lucky we were. Washing-up gave us our first introduction to an automated dishwasher, unheard of in the U.K. at that time, and we were even more impressed with the duty of 'spud bashing' since this was performed with the aid of a large potato peeling machine !
The American crew were very friendly and there was much good natured joshing by them at our weird accents. We were part of a large convoy, and we could see usually about seven or eight other merchant ships, plus a couple of escort destroyers, whenever it was possible to see any distance at all from the deck. The weather was filthy: it rained and there were strong winds most of the time and the sea was very rough. Even the ship’s crew admitted that it was 'not very calm'. On the few occasions we were allowed on deck it was somewhat frightening, but at the same time exhilarating, to realise that you were having to look UP at quite an angle to see the sea. The next moment you were looking down from what seemed to be three or four floors height to the trough of the wave. The ship did not roll too much but the pitching was really violent. The bows were often swamped and we were forbidden to go up on the forecastle, since anyone would have been swept overboard from there. The effect of this violent pitching, up in the bows where I was situated, was that, as the bows dropped into the trough of the wave, you felt as though you were about to float off the floor. This was followed by a booming sound, as the bows struck the next swell followed by a sudden increase in weight which made your knees buckle if you were not prepared for it.
Luckily I have always been a good sailor and have never suffered from any form of travel sickness, but this continual movement was obviously not good for those who were poor sailors amongst us, and consequently the toilets were no place for the squeamish. These were 'open plan', consisting of a long trough with seats at intervals, under which was pumped a constant flow of sea water. The practical jokers soon found that floating a piece of lighted newspaper down the trough caused a very satisfactory outburst of profanity.
It took thirteen days to cross the Atlantic. It was not until we were quite close in to land that we suddenly recognised the skyline that a lot of us had seen in books and films – New York!
More soon...