WOP/AG Peter Jensen. Instalment 3
From the Wireless School, we went to Gunnery School at a small town on the shores of Lake Winnipeg called Portage La Prairie. This was great fun, flying in Fairey Battles shooting at drogues towed by other aircraft, or at splash targets, and when the pilot got bored, we’d fly low over the shoreline, sending up ducks by the thousand. We would fire into the masses of them – you could even see tracer flying everywhere – but the ducks would fly on unconcerned. Only once did I knock a few feathers out of one of them, but it didn’t seem to worry it. It was a sobering realisation of how difficult air to air gunnery really is.
Sometimes, when the pilots really got their blood up, they would indulge in some violent aerobatics. It was great!
I really enjoyed Gunnery School, and, again to my amazement, I did well and actually topped the course. Came the great day on 29th September 1941, I was presented with an AG wing and promoted to Sergeant.
Next day, we packed our kit, and, armed with a rail warrant, set off for the Embarkation Depot at Halifax. We were allowed an extra couple of days to get there, so my mate Bill Hughes and I stopped off at Toronto, Montreal and Niagara Falls and eventually arrived at Halifax on a cold dark wet day. Winter was on the way and the warm sunny happy days of Winnipeg were well in the past.
The day after arriving at Halifax, I learned that I had been commissioned along with three others – Alan Marriott, Keith Anderson and Tom Joseph – so we left our mates and moved to the Officers’ Mess. I was sad to leave the others, but soon found out how lucky I was. A few days later, we were lined up on the parade ground and marched to the wharves and on to an Armed Merchant Cruiser named ‘Wolfe’. The ship had originally been French, and named ‘Montcalm’, but was commandeered by the British on the fall of France. (General Wolfe defeated General Montcalm on the heights of Quebec.)
The plan was that ‘Wolfe’, together with two other armed merchant cruisers, would cross the Atlantic together, but what a trip! I suddenly realised that the fun was over and that there was a war on!
The ship was Spartan, stripped for action, and while I had a cabin, as did the other Pilot Officers, the rest of the boys were in the hold sleeping on the floor! We spent most of the night hours at boat stations, continual U-Boat alarms. One of the other ships was hit by a torpedo, but we didn’t stop. Next morning, he was only a smudge of smoke on the horizon. They told us later that he limped into Belfast.
We arrived eventually in Greenock, Scotland, in a harbour full of shipping, commercial and military, with a Catalina practising circuits and splashes amongst it all!! We were marched off the ship and on to a train. After the immense Canadian trains, it appeared so tiny that it looked like a toy. It was getting on to dark, drizzling with rain, cold, miserable and gloomy – how we missed the bright lights of Winnipeg!
We were not told our destination. (We were to find out later that it was Bournemouth, but it was kept secret, as the King and Queen were visiting the ‘Empire Troops’ there that day. We cursed our luck by missing them by one day.) We rattled on all night and as dawn rose, we arrived in London, a short stop and on to Bournemouth. We had our first view of bombed out houses, even though we had seen pictures of bomb damage in newspapers and newsreels, but seeing the real thing for the first time was quite traumatic.
I can’t remember how long I had in Bournemouth, two or three weeks or thereabouts. I visited a tailor, (Austin Reed of Regent Street), and was measured for uniforms, greatcoat, caps, and purchased shoes, shirts etc and eventually looked like an officer (but didn’t feel like one). Time was spent usually at lectures in the mornings and aimlessly wandering about the town in the afternoons. I also went to London twice and each time, spent two days there. I found it a fascinating place.
About the beginning of January 1942, I finally received a posting to the No. 1 RAF base in England – Cranwell. This was an immense organisation like a small city. It housed a couple of flying training schools, a Cadet College, Officers Training College, Signals School, heaps of administrative buildings, shopping areas and God knows what else. I only saw a small part of it. About 20 of us – Aussies, NZers and Canucks were posted there to the Signals School. I think they were appalled at our lack of skill and decided we needed brushing up.
We flew in Percival Proctors, pretty looking single engine monoplanes with spatted undercarriage, and flown by Polish pilots on rest from fighter squadrons. They resented being taken off operational flying and their flying reflected this!
Christmas came and with it, the coldest winter for years. In line with the old Air Force tradition, the officers waited on the airmen for Christmas dinner. My main recollection of this event is that we poured beer for the airmen from jugs which also contained raisins! I have never seen that before or since.
Last edited by Wiley; 1st Feb 2010 at 00:11.
Reason: Typos, new info from PJ