Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II

[Wiley]

WOP/AG Peter Jensen. Instalment 17

It was sad experience to leave the squadron which had been my home for only 20 months, but which had delivered such experiences as I would never have thought possible, to still be alive when so many others had not been so lucky - (some on their first patrol!) – seemed somehow unfair. But you closed your mind and wondered if you would be next. My recollections of the long lonely patrols gradually faded, to be replaced by the photographic-like memories of sudden unexpected events, like once, we came upon a windjammer in full sail! We went down for a good look – it was obviously old and in poor condition. The sails were yellow and patched and it had an air of sadness about it. We took photos, and when we reported it, the Intelligence people were surprised and intrigued. Nobody else had seen it!

I often wondered who it was. Where from? Where to? Could it have been the Flying Dutchman - or Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner? (Pull yourself together!!)

Another time, on the infamous T3 patrol, we were doing a coast crawl up the coast of Spain. We were three miles out from the coast in accordance with international law. I was in the nose turret doing my search for U-boats and aircraft, (knowing that the Spaniards would be reporting everything to the Germans), and I noticed that ahead was a neck of land sticking out from the coast perhaps half a mile or so. Naturally, I expected us to follow the coastline out to sea, but to my surprise, we kept course and cut across the invisible line, putting us within the three mile limit. When we had progressed for a short distance, I heard the first pilot (then Jimmy Leigh), who had been scanning the coast with binoculars, say over the intercom to Dudley: “There’s a great big gun on that point – and it’s pointed at us.”

How funny. What a joke, pointing a coastal gun at an aircraft!

I swung my turret over to starboard to look in that direction just in time to see a puff of white smoke emanate from the gun’s position, then, to my horror, I saw in the middle of the smoke, a small black dot, and as I watched, the dot gradually became larger and faster as it headed in our direction, then it suddenly flashed past only a few feet ahead and slightly above us. I don’t know if it was my imagination, or did I really hear the ‘swish’ as it passed us?

I had been mesmerised as I watched the shell coming at us, but then, as it passed, I came to life. (I didn’t have my helmet on at the time, but was wearing ear phones with a mouthpiece dangling in front of me.) I frantically groped for the mouthpiece, finally found it, switched it on and yelled: “They’re shooting at us!”

This woke everyone up and the skipper turned out to sea as fast as he could.

I often thought what good shooting that was. Fancy hitting an aircraft with a coastal gun – and how disappointed the gun crew must have been that they had missed.

We continued our patrol, and a few miles north, we passed a Halifax flying south well within the three mile limit. I wonder if they had a shot at him too?

The flight to Alness was uneventful, except that while we were airborne, the weather closed in and we were diverted to Oban, where we were stuck for four days until the weather cleared at Alness. My main recollection of Oban was a notice on the Officers Mess noticeboard which read: ‘The meteorology officer would like to advise all those persons who have inquired that the large yellow object seen in the sky last Tuesday was a natural phenomenon known as ‘the sun’.

We left Oban on 23rd March 1944 and flew up the Caledonian Canal (strictly forbidden, but a lovely scenic flight) and after a 45 minute flight, landed at Alness.