Memoirs of a WW II Typhoon pilot - Part 8
Peter Brett mentions his friend Leigh Woodbridge in this extract. They have lost touch but Peter believes he became a commercial airline pilot after the war. Does anyone know what happened to him? TOW>
Flying Training SFTS (Service School)
During the two weeks between EFTS and SFTS we split up and went our various ways. Four of the lads clubbed together and bought a very old model 'A' Ford. They then drove from Quebec down to New York where they had a fabulous and very drunken fortnight. One thing that they all remembered was being pulled over by the police, when driving on what was then known as the 'Dream Parkway' as they approached New York, for driving too slowly!
My friend Leigh Woodbridge and I made our way in a more normal fashion, by train, to Rochester in New York State. Leigh's younger brother had been evacuated to Rochester under a scheme run by the Kodak company. Rochester is the “Kodak town” and Leigh's father was employed by Kodak in England, at Wealdstone, just outside London. We were made very welcome by the foster parents who were looking after Leigh's brother and spent a glorious two weeks being feted by the locals. Nobody had seen an RAF uniform before and, after our arrival had been reported in the 'Rochester Democrat and Chronicle', we were constantly being stopped and made welcome in the streets. Nobody was willing for us to pay for anything and it became a sort of game with us to try to buy something without the vendor refusing to accept any money! Even going to the cinema was an experience. The face of girl on the cash desk registered surprise and confusion when we presented ourselves to buy tickets. Her reaction was to pick up her internal phone and obviously speak to the manager who then appeared and, once again refusing any payment, escorted us personally to the front of the circle. This however was not the end. During the interval between the second and first features the manager appeared on the stage and announced that "We have with us today the two RAF fliers who are spending a furlough in our town": Spotlights on us! We had to stand up and acknowledge the applause of the audience!
This was typical of the general reaction and we received many more invitations than we could possibly have accepted in the two weeks we were there. During the first week we went to a swimming gala at the local baths where Leigh's brother, who was a member of the boy scouts, won his swimming badge. The next day the main headline in the newspaper was "RAF Flyer sees brother win 'Tadpole' swim award".
We were taken around all over the northern part of New York State and one memorable trip was to visit a family in Buffalo. There we were taken out to see Niagara Falls. We left there after dark when the floodlights were turned off for the night. At the meal which we had later with the family I attempted a joke by saying that we left when they turned out the lights and turned the water off. This remark was actually taken seriously at first and our hosts explained at great length that Niagara Falls was a natural phenomena! However the misunderstanding was soon taken care of and normal relations reestablished.
A baseball game was of course a 'must' and we were introduced to the ritual of everybody standing up and massaging their bums between innings. The rock- hard benches were obviously the origin of this!
We had one phone call from a chap who spoke in authentic strong cockney! He had been living in America for many years but had never lost his accent. We found that, if we spoke to each other rather fast with a cockney accent, it was completely unintelligible to the Americans. Even when we spoke normally there were misunderstandings. We once asked a policeman which road was Main Street. His reply was that they didn't have a “Mine Street”.
All too soon it was time to return to Canada and we made sure that we knew all the trains to catch and had the right tickets. We arranged to leave early on the Sunday morning so as to arrive in Montreal at about 10pm in time to get to St.Hubert and book in before our passes expired at midnight. (23.59 hours to be exact).
We left Rochester in the morning and arrived at Utica, where we were to change trains, in good time to catch our connection at 1 o'clock. So much for careful planning. The train to Montreal was due at one o'clock in the morning! We spent a very boring Sunday afternoon and evening walking around the suburbs of Utica which seemed to have closed down. Nothing was open, not even the Station cafe, and, although we still had most of our leave money intact, we could not buy anything. The train eventually arrived on time and we spent a sleepless night worrying about being A.W.O.L.!
Fortunately, when we arrived at St Hubert, we found that we were not the last to return and that the powers that be had deliberately set back everything until the Tuesday morning in order to save a lot of unavoidable paperwork if there were many absentees. Nobody failed to return but the last arrivals were the group with the model 'A' Ford who had finished up driving nonstop from New York in relays in order to get back.