TOW 1709 Excellent, keep going. Reading your posts brings back many memories , such as A.C.R.C No 1 at St Johns Wood. Our mess was about half a mile from the billets, not at Regents Park, but elsewhere in a large basement. Wakey, Wakey, wash and shave, fall in out side ‘free fick you silly little men ’ and march the half mile. Pitch black morning, pouring with rain, every thing ‘blacked out’ wearing capes (ground sheets), an airman in the front carrying a white hurricane lamp (paraffin) , the last man with a red hurricane lamp. Oh happy days.
Speakers corner on a Sunday morning, listening to such things as one gentleman trying to persuade us to storm the Cumberland Hotel ,opposite and drag a Mr Churchill out and string him up.
I have found a letter I must have written and sent to my home from Canada, so produce below to show how we kept in touch with our folk. We were given a form, which when completed was converted to microfilm and on reaching the U.K was presumably printed on the form below. (Can any one remember the name of this form ?)
TOW1709
A picture of a Canadian Tiger Moth showing the added perspex canopy. Not a Fleet Finch, but may show the type of canopy the Canadians added for the comfort of the pupils, or was it for instructors ?
AL R sent me a P.M re his ex father-in-law, John, who was a rear gunner D.F.M ? . He flew a tour and a bit on Wimpeys, Sterlings, and Lancs: He could possibly tell us if the flying life of a rear gunner was about fourteen hours in the early part of the war. I seem to remember that the rear gunners on Wimpeys were ’potted off’’ first leaving the aircraft virtually defenseless . I asked him to contribute but haven’t heard any thing yet. Try and persuade him to join in Al , we are all waiting.(see ICARE’S request for more ‘trades’ to help us keep this going. He also mentioned he was high tone deaf, who isn’t?