A Spitfire Pilot. Part 4.
Brough, Flying Training, February 1941 – First solo in March – May 1941
Finally, at the end of Feb 1941 my posting came through and in company with some forty others we collected all our gear and a train for Brough. It was like entering another world, apart from actually being on an airfield and seeing planes, in our case Tiger Moths, the whole atmosphere was that of a holiday camp. Brough used to be a private flying club base, and the mess and sleeping accommodation were absolutely first class. The food was excellent and we relaxed in comfortable surroundings. Compared with what we’d had at Torquay, discipline was very, very lax. We had a flight sergeant, a sergeant and a corporal and their one idea was to sit the war out without upsetting anybody or getting caught out doing anything. The idea was don’t worry us and we won’t worry you. One good thing was that we were allowed to wear shoes instead of boots and consequently there was terrific rush into Hull to the shoe shops and denude them of shoes. But it made such a difference to the feel of life in general to walk about in shoes, as opposed to clod-hopping round in boots.
Once we’d started the actual course there was a certain amount of tightening up. We’d begin the ground work at 8am usually finishing about 6pm with lunch and tea-breaks in between, trying to fathom the intricacies of Nav and maps while listening to the senior flight spending most of their time airborne. We had a civilian instructor for Nav, he wasn’t a particularly good teacher. He was miserable to boot. For some reason or other, he seemed very anti-pilot, I think he wanted everyone to be a navigator. I found it very hard to get on with him, but at least I managed to get reasonable pass marks so I was not too worried. We had the usual intermediate tests to see if it was worthwhile continuing to push theory into us while our minds were out on the aerodrome. One test produced some classic failures. A chum of mine, Dickie Charman, ex-Bedford College lad who knew Brian Kingcome, was completely hopeless at some things and navigation was one of them. He made a complete cobblers of one of the tests and the navigation officer was fed up with him and sent him off to the CFI (Chief Flying Instructor) for a final farewell before being shoved off into the army or some backwater in the RAF. Anyway, Dickie was told by the CFI that he wasn’t up to standard and was being taken off the course. Now Dickie was an LAC (Leading Aircraftsman) at the time, so he stood in front of the CFI, argued at some length and he finally said,
“You can’t do that, I’m a keen type!”
Anyway, believe it or not, we were more than surprised when he came back to us in the mess having convinced the CFI that he might be a decent bloke after all.
In actual fact he finished up in Hurricanes in North Africa. I met him in Gibraltar and he was just the same slap-happy character I knew in 1941. He was shot down whilst on a recce and he managed to talk some a-rabs into getting him back by waving his revolver at them. He got a DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross) later on.
It was quite funny, really, because the CFI Squadron Leader had just been given the AFC (Air Force Cross) for the good work he’d done at Brough, but he rather spoiled his record by having a couple of bad crashes, one of which involved one of our chaps colliding with the CFI in mid-air. The CFI managed to bring his aircraft down, but got a beautiful black eye. The student spun in and was killed.
Half way through the course we became the senior flight and did more flying than groundwork, which suited us to a tee. The snag was, the weather was grim and there’d be gaps of four or five days between flights, which didn’t help when you were just beginning to get the hang of things. On the other hand, on good days you could fly four or five times, so it straightened itself out. Five pupils were allocated to one instructor and we were more than fortunate with ours. He was Sergeant Tommy Ellis ex-92 Sqn. He took a tremendous interest in each of us and became more of a chum than an instructor. He lived out with his wife and used to invite us out to his house where his wife would do food and beer, and spend the evening listening to tales of squadron life and reading his logbook. He’d got two confirmed and some damaged in the B of B (The Battle of Britain, June 1940 – October 1940) then got taken off for a rest.
Of our five pupils under him, two were to be allocated to fighters and the others to bombers, and as well all wanted fighters the competition became a bit fierce. We were all anxious to go solo in as short a time as possible and, bless our instructor, he was a cautious chap, and what with the weather often not good enough for pupils to go aloft on their own, I took eight hours and fifty minutes before he sent me off on my own. That, I must admit, was probably one of the greatest moments in my life. I see from my log book that the great day March 23rd 1941, nearly 44 years ago and yet it almost seems like yesterday.
I took off with Sgt Ellis, we just did one circuit, landed, taxied back and he said,
“Stay there”.
He got out and tied his straps together, then just said,
“Take her up, do a circuit and come in and land.”
Now up till that time, with an instructor flying with you, your main interest is handling the aircraft when it’s in the air, you’re not madly worried about taking it off the ground and that you take it your instructor knows what he is doing. He can see all the aircraft coming in and taking off and there is no panic. But suddenly, when you are sitting in a cockpit on your own, you suddenly realise what there is to do.
So I turned round, at right angles to the take-off path, scoured the sky for other aircraft … appreciate there must have been dozens, hopping in and hopping out, going round and round. Having made sure that all was well I turned into the wind, opened up the throttle, and shot off to the other side of the aerodrome. Now fortunately, everything went absolutely beautifully. I sailed over the railway track, which bordered one side of the aerodrome, climbed up to 1000’, turned left, came down the downwind side, keeping an eye open for other aircraft all the time, turned across wind, still looking everywhere, throttled back, trimmed the aircraft and hoped that all was going to be well. I floated into the aerodrome and I must admit, it was probably the best landing I’ve ever made in my life. It absolutely curtsied itself onto the grass and I trundled to the far end of the aerodrome, feeling absolutely marvellous and very relieved. I turned round at the end and taxied back and thought “Thank God for that!” I’d soloed, all is well and now I can get out! As I stopped, Sergeant Ellis came round the wing, hung on to the side of the cockpit and said
“Very good, now go and do it again.”
Well, feeling a little more confident than I had been the first time, I took off, made another circuit, came in and made another, touch wood, very good landing, much to my delight. This time Sergeant Ellis patted me on the back, said “Congratulations” and I was allowed to get out. That was the end of my flying for the day. After that we did almost as much solo flying as we did dual and I must say the Moth is a beautiful aircraft. If you get enough altitude, you can do almost any kind of aerobatic apart from an upward roll, because you could never get enough speed up for it. We practised loops, spins and slow rolls and eventually we became fairly proficient, or so we thought.