A Spitfire Pilot. Part 3.
This one is a bit lengthy, sorry about that. Next instalments will be later in the week, I am away for a bit without email - apologies
Initial Training Wing (ITW), Babbacombe, Torquay, August 1940 – February 1941
Once more, back home to wait. At last a letter arrived with a warrant for Babbacombe in August 1940. Away I went, complete with gas mask, civilian, in a cardboard box, with a great feeling of relief at finally being on the way to becoming, I’d hoped, a fighter pilot.
We only spent a fortnight in Babbacombe, doing fairly easy tests in maths, geometry, aircraft recognition and being kitted out. We weren’t kitted out all in one go, but bit by bit. We’d get caps and boots one day, webbing equipment another and so on. We were supposed to wear whatever we were given and consequently there were some strange sights; we had a couple of chaps who wore plus fours, who put on their caps and boots and paraded with them. Turned out like a musical hall turn, so the corporal relented and said we were excused the odd bits until completely kitted out. Actually it was quite fun at Babbacombe, the weather was good and we were a decent bunch of chaps and everyone seemed to think, you know, that we were getting somewhere at last. We did bags of PT and drill, marched miles round the Devon countryside.
During one of these marches a Ju88 flew over us at about 100’, smoke coming out of its starboard engine. Naturally, being semi-civilians, discipline went for a Burton and we all came to a grinding halt and stood and watched the Ju88, despite the corporals’ blasphemous tirade. “What did we think we were doing? Suppose the aircraft started firing? We’d be massacred”, and so on. In those days it hardly seemed real, but later in the war you wouldn’t have seen us for dust if a similar situation had arisen.
A couple of Hurricanes flew over a minute or so later, so I doubt very much if the 88 got home.
We had a few air-raid warnings whilst we were at Babbacombe and we were told not to be on the streets whilst the warning was in progress, take cover at once. That was great if you happened to be in the town and in a pub and some of us had a couple of pints. Otherwise it meant sitting in some air-raid shelter until the All Clear went, then going back to the hotel. During one air-raid warning some bombs fell not too far from us, so at the next free period we decided we’d go and have a look. They’d fallen in a field and when we got there the field was already crowded with people, just staring at the holes in the ground. No damage had been done to any property or anything else and it seems a bit strange now to look back and wonder what the fascination was with these holes.
I met some smashing chaps when I was in training and one of them you’ve probably heard me mention before, Dickie Hughband (?) Mum and I kept in touch with him for years and I’ll probably mention again later on. Whilst at Babbacombe we were given various injections, some of which caused enormous lumps to come up on our arms. In some cases chaps completely passed out, but we all managed to survive.
At the end of a fortnight we were all marched smartly, in uniform, to No 5 ITW at Torquay for what was supposed to be ten weeks of intensive ground studies, drill and PT. This was later reduced to eight weeks and it became a bit more intense, but at least we seemed to be getting somewhere. We’d start lectures at 8am and probably finish at 7pm and then do revision until quite late. We still managed to find our way into the town for the odd beer and game of darts, but at 2/- (10p) a day we could hardly go mad! We also had guard duty to carry out. On one occasion I was made guard commander which meant you didn’t actually mount guard outside, but had to keep awake to see the changing of the guard every two hours, a right bind. The following morning we were doing maths and I just fell asleep at the desk, to be woken by the Flt Lt trying to box at me! So I tried to explain that I hadn’t slept all night, he wasn’t impressed and I became Rip Van Winkle to him for the rest of my stay in Torquay.
As usual there were more medicals. They seemed to give us medicals every time we had five minutes spare. I presented myself to the dentist and after he’d checked the number of teeth I had and prodded round, he said,
“You haven’t got enough teeth!”
He was right, I had no teeth at the back. Anyway, I made some bright remark about not biting the Germans to death, but he wasn’t particularly impressed and said I must have the requisite number of teeth, so he would fit me with a plate, which he did. I said,
“Well I probably won’t wear them.”
“It doesn’t matter” he said, “You’ve got them.”
Anyway they duly pitched up and I brought them home and put them in a tobacco tin and screwed the lid on. The tin got stuck away with the rest of my junk and it wasn’t until years later that Mum and I were going through some of my stuff, sorting out this and that, Mum came across this tin, took the lid off and jumped a mile. I wondered what the hell had happened and there were these teeth staring at her! So we dumped them.
We kept having tests on the ground work, they seemed to come every five minutes. I can’t remember anyone actually failing although there were one or two who were put back a course. The instructors were about average, some good, some not so good and some useless, but we had one particularly good navigation officer who was quite a character, great drinker, great dart-player and general bon viveur. One day we got down to Torquay Town Hall, where we used to have our lectures and he marched in, threw his gas-mask on top of the cupboard, turned round and said “Lock the door”. Of course we had visions of some earth-shattering announcement for our attention. One of our lads came from Yorkshire and had an accent you could cut with a blunt knife. He was called to the front and handed some sheets of paper. “Read that”, said the officer and in a broad Yorkshire accent came the tale of Eskimo Nell. We were absolutely rolling in the aisles, I can picture the scene to this day, but we still managed to do well in Nav.
I must admit that with all the drill and marching and PT I became about as fit as I’d ever been or ever likely to be. We had a Norwegian corporal XXX in charge of PT. According to him, he’d been in the Olympic Games, flown seaplanes in Norway and was just a couple of minutes away from being taken into the Air Force as a pilot. A bigger load of rubbish we’d never heard.
I’d played a lot of water-polo before the war and the corporal in charge of swimming was an ex-member of Penguin, which you may or may not know is a well known swimming club. He asked, or rather commanded, that I should play for our ITW. We had a very good team and slaughtered the other ITWs and any other team we met. I was enjoying myself no end until the time came in October for our posting to EFTS. We were due to be posted on the Saturday and on the previous Tuesday we were playing polo in a competition. My opposing centre hit me in the left eye, a bit painful. I suffered a fair amount of damage, but apart from the blood vessels bursting, I’d damaged the eye muscles and I couldn’t open my eye. Anyway an ambulance took me to Torquay Hospital where I lay on my back for two days, until I was allowed to sit up for a while. The only good thing was I had a room to myself and was allowed to smoke, which was some small compensation after losing my chance of posting. Anyway, after a fortnight and various tests, I was given a two weeks sick leave and sent home.
Now I know leave is pleasant when you’re A1, but it’s a right bind when you wander around in dark glasses being unable to move one eye more than halfway. I came back to Torquay for more tests and more sick leave. The snag was that the muscles were so badly damaged that the eye couldn’t move properly and I had double vision, which was most uncomfortable.
Eventually in January 1941 I was declared fit, but by this time all my chums had been posted and all I heard was how great it was to fly and how well they were doing. There were a few compensations, however. There were five of us who had been held up for some reason or another and as we’d completed the course, no one really wanted to take five misfits on each day. So when the flights assembled we used to attach ourselves to the rear rank, march smartly off to the Town Hall in Torquay, where we were supposed to have lectures. We’d follow the flight in, march straight through and out the other side and go into town. We spent the day looking round, going on the front, visiting all the cinemas and generally pottering about. Never once did we get caught by anyone in authority and life became fairly passable.