WOP/AG Peter Jensen. (final) Instalment 18
Alness was a large, busy station and (naturally) conditions were rough compared with an operational squadron. I was billeted in a fibro building called ‘the Annex’. There was a bathroom, but with about a dozen other residents, it was usually more convenient to go to an ablutions block nearby. When we arrived, they had run out of wood for the hot water system, so I dispensed with the unnecessary convention of a shower for a couple of days, but finally, had to do something, so I had a cold shower. Even though it was Spring, it was still quite cold – (snow was still on the ground) – and a bitter wind blew through the shower block. It was not the most comfortable shower I have ever had.
However, my old roommate Smithy had also finished his tour and arrived, so we again shared a room and he managed to scrounge a small electric heater. So we used it to warm up a bucket of water and had a ‘bath in a bucket’ on alternate days until the hot water system started up again.
The Officer in Charge of Signals Training was a Squadron Leader Osborne, and because of my rank, (now a Flight Lieutenant), he saw a way of cutting down on his work by splitting his department into two and creating a ‘Signals Flying Training’ and putting me in charge. I was given a pokey little office near the slipway and a staff that varied between six and twelve. My job was to allocate signals instructors for the aircraft that were flying each day.
To make life a bit difficult, I was also put in charge of distributing to the Australians on the station, goodies sent by the Australian Red Cross. (This didn’t entail much work, as we didn’t get many goodies, usually just cigarettes and tobacco.) I was also put in charge of a group of huts holding trainee NCOs. I had to inspect them regularly. However, life wasn’t bad.
It was a rule at the station that when an instructor flew, he had to have 12 hours off before he could be detailed again to fly. Sometimes, if the weather was good, I had trouble finding someone who hadn’t had the required 12 hours off since he’d last flown, so quite often, I had to allocate myself for flying.
One day, I started to allocate two instructors for an early morning takeoff the next day, but no one was available. I put it to the staff for someone to volunteer, but no one wanted to go, and after a bit of cajoling, a Canadian volunteered. He had just been advised that he was about to fly back to Canada in a few days and was waiting for the posting. I said to him that one aircraft would take off just ahead of the other and which one would he like? I would take the other one. He said he didn’t care, so I allocated him No 1 and I took No 2.
Next morning, still dark, the two aircraft taxied to the flare path, No 1 requested permission for takeoff, which they received. I heard them report they were airborne, then I requested permission for takeoff and we were down the flare path and into the air. I hear the pilot report that there was a fire ahead. I went to the bridge and saw a bright fire on the ground.
We completed our exercise, and on return, learned what we had feared – the No 1 aircraft had pranged, with all on board killed.
I often think of that poor family. Their son had finished his operational flying and would be home in a few days, then to get the dreaded news. Again, my luck had held. Why hadn’t I allocated myself to the No 1 aircraft?
The summer came to Scotland. Smithy and I used spend one day a week off (usually Sunday) riding our push bikes around the countryside admiring the scenery. Then one day, we thought up a scheme to improve our rations. (The food in the Mess was very poor, and portions very small.) We peddalled out of town and called in on a number of farm houses, asking if they could sell us some eggs. We ended the day with a couple of dozen eggs and were the envy of the Officers Mess. We gave a few away and used the others by having them cooked in the Mess and added to our normal breakfast.
Next Sunday, we set off again, but decided to be more selective. The previous Sunday, we’d had a very good reception at one of the farms called ‘Achnaclough’, Gaelic for ‘Valley of the Stone’ – (it was set in a valley that had a monstrous rock in the middle of it). So we decided to make it our first port of call. To our delight, we were greeted like old friends and invited into the house for tea which included piklets – (which they called Scotch pancakes) – with butter and jam. When we left, they gave us a box containing four dozen eggs! We insisted on paying for them, which we managed to do after much protesting.
From then on, we visited them on most of our free days. They were a very friendly and generous family, consisting of an old couple – the man was crippled by rheumatism and sat by the fuel stove all day – and a son Duncan and daughter Flora, both in their mid thirties. They had a few black-faced sheep, some poultry, and grew a few acres of wheat.
We enjoyed going there; it was a home away from home. We sometimes did a bit of work – chopping wood, fixing broken doors etc., and one day, helped stacking the stooks, but mostly, we would borrow their shotgun and tramp around the area shooting at anything that moved – ducks, wood pigeons, pheasants, but mostly rabbits. One day, when we returned with a couple of rabbits, they made us a rabbit pie. Scrumptious!
Knowing these people made life liveable and there was little we could do in return. Sometimes we would secrete a small bottle on our person and go to the bar in the Officers Mess and order double whiskeys each, then surreptitiously pour the whisky into the bottle and order more until the bottle was filled and take it to them. (This was strictly against mess rules.)
Once we invited Flora and Duncan to a Mess function – can’t remember what it was for, but it was a happy affair. Duncan eagerly got stuck into the whisky and later in the evening, he declared to all and sundry that he was going to rise for Bonnie Prince Charlie: “Light the fiery beacon on the hill,” he called, “and throw the Sassenachs back over the border!”
I can’t remember how we got them back to the farm, but next morning, we cycled to the farm wondering what sort of reception we would get from the old lady. However, she was friendly as ever – but she didn’t know where Duncan was. We finally found him sleeping it off in a hayloft above one of the outbuildings.
Time passed; winter approached; the temperature dropped. The winter of 1944/5 turned out to be a particularly cold one. We obtained more blankets for our beds. I had five blankets under me, seven on top, then my dressing gown, rain coat, greatcoat and bedspread. I would wake up in the morning aching with the weight of the bedclothes. Riding a pushbike on the frozen roads was difficult. Even trying to steer could start a wheel-slip, which invariably led to an ignominious spill.
One day, I said to myself: “What the hell am I doing here?” So I applied to return to Australia.
With my job was the authority to allow my staff 24 hours leave – but no more. One of the English chaps, a Londoner, was always at me to let him go to London for a couple of days, but I wouldn’t let him. Finally, as the weather was so bad that there was very little flying, I said OK, but arranged it so that after a couple of days, I would send a telegram “Extension of leave granted”, which might (or might not) fool the Military Police.
Unexpectedly, my posting home came only a week or so after my application, so with great glee, I started packing up my gear and made arrangements to travel to Brighton, the embarkation depot. Before I could leave the station, I had to visit every department and have them sign that I had handed back every piece of equipment that I had on loan.
I was doing the rounds of the station getting all the signatures when I came across someone I knew slightly and he said: “They’ve been calling you on the Tannoy to go to the Guard House.”
I said: “Do you know why?”
He said: “No, but there was a mention about a bloke that the MPs have picked up in London without a leave pass.”
I said: “Did they, by golly!”
I then raced around, got the final signatures, raced back to my room, collected my gear, raced to the railway station, hopped on the train and kept all my fingers crossed until I reached Brighton. I never did hear why I was wanted at the Guard House, and what’s more, I don’t want to know.
I arrived in Brighton, found my hotel and was there about a week before embarking on the ‘RMS Rangitiki’ for the voyage home. The ship was crowded and conditions were bad, but apart from being quarantined at Colon (Panama Canal) because some children on board had measles – (we had some wives and children on board) – the trip was uneventful.
We were allowed ashore in Wellington NZ, our first time ashore since leaving England, and arrived in Sydney Harbour on 25th March 1945, to find that during the trip, I had been promoted to Squadron Leader.
We went first to Bradfield Park and then were sent on indefinite leave – all we had to do was go to Bradfield Park once a week to pick up a ration of beer and cigarettes or tobacco. The latter I gave to Dad and my brother.
After a few weeks, so many airmen had returned to Sydney, they had to get rid of some of us and I was posted to Ballarat for a so-called ‘refresher course’ – re-labelled by the cynics a ‘refreshment course’, which was not wrong. The base was full of ex-operational aircrew with nothing to do except party all night and nurse hangovers all day. I was there only two or three weeks and returned to Sydney for discharge.
My four years overseas was perhaps the most memorable and dramatic period of my life. Many memories come back so clearly it’s as if they happened yesterday, like the heart-clogging fear as tracer and 20mm puffballs come arcing towards you, or when the ground comes rushing at you and you know there is no flying speed left in the old kite to avoid a prang.
On the other hand, a lot of memories seem so unimportant, but somehow have impressed themselves on your brain forever, like a first light takeoff, still dark when we board a Fairmile to take us out to Angle Bay where our boat is moored. Another crew is with us, the two aircraft to take off one after the other; it is summer time, the weather quite balmy, and we all stayed on deck. As we left the wharf, the first golden finger of sunlight peeped over the horizon. One of the other crew was lying back on a hatch cover and quietly, in a soft, pleasant voice, he started singing:
Beyond the blue horizon
Waits a beautiful day.
Goodbye to things that bore me
Joy is waiting for me.
I see a new horizon
My life has only begun.
Beyond the blue horizon
Lies a rising sun.
We all listened to the song, accompanied by the muted throb of the engine, in silence. The whole scene seemed to fit the circumstances and our mood. At Angle Bay, we transferred to dinghies, then on to the aircraft, and as we prepared the boat for takeoff, and during the patrol, the tune kept running around in my head.
Four years. Not much out of a lifetime, but as someone said at a reunion: “I couldn’t do it again, but I wouldn’t have missed it for quids.”
Last edited by Wiley; 1st Feb 2010 at 01:04.
Reason: Typos, new info from PJ