Reagle, how could I refuse? You wish is my command etc... From long ago written notes that no publisher thought anyone would ever be interested in.
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In 1967, there were still a number of World War 2 veterans in the RAAF. Among the officers at least, most of these veterans fitted into two very distinct categories.
The first were those minor gods - (to eighteen year old Cadets Aircrew at least) - senior officers with two and sometimes three rows of medals and campaign ribbons under the coveted wings on their chests. Some wore the golden eagle of a Pathfinder, a man who had flown in one of the expert squadrons of Bomber Command, and had survived at least two tours over Germany. Over a beer in the bar it was sometimes whispered that Wing Commander Blunt, that rather ordinary looking Commanding Officer of Base Squadron, had flown Spitfires, and had shot down two Messerschmitts before being shot down himself and escaping through France. He had even spent some time during his escape with the French Resistance,
(gasps of wonder!) while Group Captain Evenblunter over there had flown Mosquitoes on some of the precision low-level raids in Europe.
(Wow!)
This first category presented us Cadets with something of a problem. We’d seen all those black and white World War 2 English movies starring Richard Todd or Kenneth Moore. All the pilots had been dashing heroes who had no time for the ‘blunties’ – i.e., all those boring people in the Air Force who were over 25 years of age and did not fly (or aspire to fly) high performance aircraft. There had always been the token Australian in those films - and he was always a hard-drinking, outrageous extrovert who could outdo anyone at anything, (just as we all imagined –
knew - we were).
Looking back, I seem to remember the token Australian and his crew usually died in a flaming bomber towards the end of the movie just so the ‘terribly terribly’ English leading man could give our dead Colonial’s grieving English girlfriend a shoulder (or considerably more) to cry on, or failing that, be seen to write a touching personal letter to Sheila –
(she was always called Sheila) - back in Oz.
“England and the Empire will never forget his sacrifice.” Just try as an Australian to get through Immigration at Heathrow today to see how the English have remembered all those sacrifices for the Empire!
These senior officers just did not fit the mould, for to a man, they seemed remarkably like the old ‘blunt’ RAF-types those very heroes treated so disdainfully in those stirring, stiff upper lip films. It seemed hard to believe that they had ever been as young as we were, and unthinkable to imagine that we might one day be as old as they were.
The second category was the old Flight Lieutenants and Flight Sergeants, all of them by then far too old to be still in the General Duties - (the flying) - Branch of the Service. They were now working as Operations Officers or Air Traffic Controllers, however they sported the coveted pilot’s brevet on their chests over impressive rows of faded, mulitcoloured ribbons. They were
nothing like the senior blunties. Few of them were as romantic as the movie heroes, but they were
characters, almost to a man. When one of them got an audience in the bar late on Friday night, it was not just their stories that were entertaining. It was the offhand asides sometimes made during these yarns that made us realise that some of these men had really been there, done that - and in most cases, got considerably more than the T-shirt.
Their stories were always funny, and never heroic or serious. What these veterans spoke of was the humour of war, but more often just of
flying. Sometimes that humour was terribly black, and to a civilian, might seem horribly callous.
These men had flown aeroplanes - (that’s what we called them then, not
airplanes) - and they had flown not just aeroplanes, (which would have been enough for us), but the
classics: Spitfires and Hurricanes, Mosquitoes and Lancasters, Beaufighters, Mustangs and Kittyhawks - the aeroplanes which had probably originally stirred the imagination of many of us to want to fly in the first place.
We would drink in as much lore as they would offer. Sometimes the conversation would turn to life on a squadron - something we all looked forward to at the end of our Pilot’s Course. This was a mystery to most of us, and any information offered we grasped eagerly. Guarded tales were muttered of traps for young players, and tales were told of this or that fellow’s demise after infringing some unwritten taboo, his career forever blighted. “Yeah, poor bastard ended up as Officer in Charge of goose-neck flares at Meekatharra.” (Meekatharra is about as close to the end of the earth as man has yet settled, and in the Sixties at least, a place seldom visited by outsiders. ‘Officer in Charge Goose Neck Flares at Meekatharra’ was a mythical posting reserved for a man who had erred mightily within the Service, either professionally or socially. Being caught in bed with his CO’s wife was the sort of thing that might win a young officer such a posting. (It’s happened, and more than once!) OiC Beach Umbrellas at Heard Island (near Antarctica) was another variation.)
So, one Friday night, one such visitor to the Cadets’ Club leaned back, elbows on the bar, and said to his attentive audience “Of course, you’ve all heard the story of the oldest Pilot Officer in the Air Force.”
The chorus of wide-eyed Cadets replied “No-o.”
And so, beer replenished, he began his story:
THE OLDEST PILOT OFFICER IN THE AIR FORCE
“Back in the very early days of the Battle of Britain, pilots on immediate standby had to sit strapped into their cockpits for hours on end awaiting a German raid. On cool days, they would have to run their engine for a short time every half hour or so to keep the oil warm enough to allow an immediate takeoff should they be scrambled.
“Anyone who has had to sit on a parachute bum pack for any length of time will attest that this is an exquisite form of torture. Our man - we’ll call him Pilot Officer Bloggs - possessed one item no other pilot on the Station had - a living, breathing pet chimpanzee. With the co-operation of his fitter, he had the perfect system worked out. Dressed in a uniform jacket and flying helmet and goggles, the chimp would sit in P/O Bloggs’ aircraft, the fitter climbing up onto the wing and starting the engine whenever the oil required warming. P/O Bloggs meanwhile would sit in his canvas easy chair in the shade of a tree behind the aircraft. Should the squadron be scrambled, the fitter would leap up, start the engine and grab the chimp as Bloggs struggled into his parachute and climbed into the cockpit. He was usually the last airborne, but in the heat of a scramble, none of the heavies ever noticed. Few of his fellow pilots begrudged him his comfort. Most only wished they had thought of it themselves.
“On the fateful day, P/O Bloggs felt a pressing call of nature that could not be attended to against a tree. The fitter was up on the wing giving the engine a run, so he was reassured that the chimp was in good hands. While he was attending to this call, the scramble bell rang. Trying to button his fly while sprinting back to his aircraft, he was horrified to see his aircraft taxiing at high speed across the grass with the rest of the squadron, its tail already lifting, as his aircraft - and chimp - took off to do battle with the enemy.”
By the time the storyteller had reached this point, most listeners at the bar were in gales of laughter. The storyteller knew his audience though. He knew that there would have to be one amongst the listeners who would ask that question.
Pausing, he looked around the circle over his raised glass, and had probably picked his patsy before the question was asked. The little voice piped up to ask as the laughter died down: “But what happened to the chimp?”
This was the cue for the real punch line to the story: “Well-l, d’you see that Group Captain over there...”