I obviously can’t remember what happened on each trip to Pomigliano, but I do remember certain incidents, not necessarily in chronological order, which happened. One such incident was when Paddy , our navigator and I, hitch hiked to Salerno We wanted to view the beautiful vista along the Amalfi coast, and Capri, then have an evening on the vino. When we arrived we found we had spent all our money, on cameos , wine, and fruit, all of which were packed away in four gallon petrol tins and left in our hotel. The ever enterprising Paddy had a solution. When the next street urchin approached with the usual “Hey Johnny you sell English pound notes ?” Paddy told him we had none, but he was willing to sell him his vest. The deal was done, Paddy removed his vest, received more than enough Liras for a night out, which would include a few bottles of vino , and a large Italian omelette.
On another trip, our skipper came to some arrangement ( a weeks holiday package deal ?)with an army lieutenant ,who was on leave in Naples. The deal was to take him to Hemswell , and one week later to return him to Pomigliano. Unfortunately we had a ‘clamp on’ for two days, and could not take off.We had to hide and feed him for the two days, which was not too difficult as every thing was ‘easy come , easy go’ after V.E Day. A very worried army officer was eventually returned , and was slightly happier at being A.W.O.L in the right country, rather than A.W.O.L in the wrong country.
Whilst returning on another day , we were half way across the Med, when I sensed I slight change in engine noise , and though It was not time to check gauges , I decided to check. The gauges for one Merlin showed the temperature was rising and the oil pressure dropping, so I advised the skipper that we should shut it down and feather the prop. This was done and I increased boost and revs to maintain the original air speed. Then followed a long discussion,( I wouldn’t call it an argument). The rules were , less than half way turn back, more than half way , carry on and we were well short of halfway Unfortunately we had a skipper who had just met a beautiful ‘popsy’ in Gainsboro and a navigator who wanted to stick by the rules. The skipper had a date that night, and thought that if he didn’t turn up then **********? While the discussion progressed , much to your disgust, I decided to ‘work a flanker’. When calculating fuel consumption the method is to calculate consumption on one engine taking into consideration , boost, and revs, then multiply by four. I made a ’mistake’ and instead of multiplying the increased consumption on three engines , multiplied by four. Proving we did not have enough fuel to reach Glatton. I gave my pad containing the figures to the skipper, and he approved them and decided to fly the reciprocal.
On the approach to Pomigliano, I could imagine the skipper thinking about our recent training on three engine landings , and the advice that it was better to hit the end of the airfield , rather than the beginning. We came in fast, faster than the normal one hundred and forty five knots , prior to funnels, then seventy five knots stall out just at the beginning of the runway. (The navigator always read out the airspeed so all could hear, when we were on the approach). We were still airborne a quarter of the way down the runway, when the skipper decided to touch down, we then shot back up again, about fifty feet, which repeated three times with ever reducing height. The skipper then applied full brake, and the Lancaster decided to shoot of the runway towards an airfield control mobile cabin. I can still remember the occupant jumping out and running fast enough to win a gold medal. We did stop just a few feet away from the cabin Amazingly our twenty soldiers happily disembarked , but one of them remarked to me he didn’t realise how bumpy landing was.
Just remembered we must have stayed below seven thousand feet as the soldiers were not provided with oxygen.
Paddy and Cliff on a kerb edge in Salerno (minus vest ?)
