Flying kit and Bristol Freighters
Hi Cliff,
Fascinated to read of your trip to HCU with the amount of kit you had to cope with. It prompted a question: somewhere along the way, bomber crews must have been issued with their personal flying kit, which they hung on to 'permanently'. I just wondered when that might have been - do you recall?
And did your kit also contain the famous white rollneck woolly jumper?!
Also intrigued by your carting around the revolver. I seem to have heard a number of different things about aircrew and pistols. One version has it that pistols were only drawn from the squadron armoury immediately prior to an operation (if the qualifying aircrew actually wanted to be bothered with one) and the other is that pistols were issued for longer periods; but if so, how long?
Most interested in you experiences on that one.
(I was told a tale by an infantry officer that he lost his cleaning rod, so he indented for the usual 'pistol, 380, rod, cleaning'. Must have been a trainee in the armoury that day as a new pistol arrived in the post...)
I too had a flight in a Bristol Freighter from Limp-Knee; when I was nine, and it switched me on to flying. (But I enjoyed the trip in an Anson much more a few years later...the tail shook so much I thought it would fall off.)
Cheers,
Dave