Today was the Victoire holiday in France where Peter now lives. Peter is one of the very few British members of the Anciens Combattants, an association of former servicemen in France. He was invited, along with a few other local former French servicemen from WW2 to a small ceremony in his local village.
The Mayor of Liernais (pictured here with PB) gave a very nice speech in which she said they were very proud to have a former member of the RAF present, and thanked Peter for his contribution to the liberation of Europe from fascism, which drew a big round of applause. Lots of free drinks in the Town Hall followed, and Peter had a thoroughly nice time.
I don't know what will happen once I press submit. I hope the pic itself will appear. On the preview only the link shows.
http://i585.photobucket.com/albums/s...g?t=1273346950
Peter' story continues...
On the 8th February [1944] I flew four times in one day. This was unusual since normally we would only fly two operations in any one day. This day however the first two flights were air tests of 10 minutes each, followed by two dive bombing operations against 'No-ball' targets. One was on the Cherbourg peninsula and the second at Cap de la Hague. I noted that the first target had 'a bit of flak' with fair bombing whilst the second stated 'no flak, very good show'.
These dive bombing attacks on 'No-ball' targets were by now getting to be routine affairs and the German AA gunners were becoming wary of any formations of aircraft approaching their area. Consequently the flak was gradually becoming heavier and more accurate. We tended to try to confuse the issue as much as possible by varying the methods of attack. One method we found most effective was not to change formation as we approached the target. Obviously the German gunners were aware that, as soon as they saw a formation changing to echelon, we were preparing to dive bomb someone!
Sqn/Ldr Dring, our C.O. came up with an idea for diving on a target from the normal 'Finger Four' formation. He would fly past the target, call 'Ready, Steady, Go' and, on the word 'Go' would do a half roll into a loop to pull out on the bombing dive angle. He would be immediately followed by the rest of his own four in the order 3,4,2. As soon as the leader of the second four saw the C.O.s number 2 start his roll he would follow with his four in the same order.
We practiced this many times before we tried it on operations and we found we could get all eight aircraft in the dive at the same time within six or seven seconds. This meant that the gunners had little chance of concentrating on any one aircraft and just had to rely on putting up a barrage, when it was just pure luck if they hit anyone. The fact that the aircraft were diving closely behind each other did not affect the bombing accuracy since we were all doing the same speed at the same angle of dive and could safely ignore the other aircraft whilst we aimed our bombs. All you had to make sure of then, was that you did not start your pull-out before the chap in front of you since, if you did, he could then have pulled out into you!
We used this tactic on our next operation which was again a 'No-ball' target at St.Omer. There was quite a bit of cloud and, since we did not change formation prior to bombing we obviously caught the defences by surprise and there was very little flak. We tried the same thing on the same target the next day, February 10th, but were unable to bomb since the cloud cover was 10/10ths over the target.
For the next ten days I was engaged in practicing formation leading and doing an exercise called 'Savvy', of which I can now recall nothing! Obviously it was a rather boring job.
On the 21st and 22nd February I took part in two long range shipping recce's. On neither of these did we see any ships and in both cases it was just a long low level flight over the sea. These long low-level flights were very tiring and, as you relaxed on the way back, it was often very difficult to stay alert. The squadron Doc heard about this and gave us a short talk on staying alert. One thing he recommended was to turn up the oxygen supply.
This definitely worked! The only thing he forgot to mention was that, as well as making you feel alert, it also greatly increased your awareness of all the small annoyances which had been numbed by the long flight. The most immediate sensation was to feel as if you were sitting on ball bearings since the dinghy pack, which formed the cushion on which we sat, contained a CO2 bottle for inflation. This bottle formed a slightly harder part to the 'cushion' but was normally unnoticeable. The extra oxygen supply however made all your senses more responsive and every discomfort was greatly exaggerated. Consequently many of the pilots preferred to stay drowsy and dangerous rather than alert and anguished!
On Feb 24th we did an unusual operation in that we provided escort cover for some American Mitchells which were bombing. It was good weather and we sat up above the Mitchells and watched them bombing. There was no opposition and the target was thoroughly plastered.
Three days rest followed and then it was back to dive bombing 'No-ball' targets again. On the 28th Feb it was near Abbeville. This was a routine show with only light flak and nobody was damaged. The only thing of note was that we were nearly attacked by both Spitfires and Thunderbolts. The Typhoon was still at this time not too familiar to most fighter pilots and, unfortunately, from some angles looked remarkably like a Focke Wolf 190. We were therefore very wary of any other formations of friendly aircraft we saw and, if they showed signs of attacking, we would break formation and frantically waggle our wings until the 'friendly' aircraft decided to be just that!
The morning of 29th Feb saw us again on a 'No-ball' target, this time near Londinieres. The weather was lousy with low broken cloud and heavy rain. We managed to bomb well and had very little flak. The German gunners were probably sheltering from the downpour when the alarm was sounded. I was leading the second four on this operation. By now I was getting very used to pulling out of the dive with the maximum tolerable 'G' force and this time, due to the very low cloud, I shot up through the overcast and the second layer, only to find that the rest of the squadron had levelled of between the cloud layers and were not to be seen. I therefore headed for home and luckily the rest of the squadron then appeared through the cloud below and in front of me. I opened up a little in order to catch up only to hear on the R/T. "Bandit six o'clock.- Break", and to see the squadron do a battle breakaway and scatter. I was about to follow suit when I realised that I was the 'Bandit'. I called up "Red Leader this is Red Four. I think I am the reported bandit" and I waggled my wings. The squadron then reformed and my other three joined up on me. My number two was later subjected to a deal of joshing over the fact that he had reported his own leader as an enemy!
In the afternoon I did two short trips which I noted in my log book as 'Observing experimental bombs for F/O Harbutt. I think that in this case Eric Harbutt was testing a new angle of dive indicator but I have no real recollection of the occasion. I remember Eric well however. He was a very likeable and ebullient type who was the life and soul of any party. It was some time before I found out that he was the son of the founder of 'Harbutt's Plasticene'. Harbutts was a household name in the field of childrens’ playthings and general modelling. I found out one evening at a party in the mess, when he had a few too many and tried to give me some shares in the company. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, I was more sober and refused them! We kept in touch after the war, but unfortunately he died at the early age of about 35 around about 1957.
The next two months saw major changes, both in the aircraft itself and in a whole new concept of ground attack.
We did very few fighter-escort operations, which, in retrospect, was probably a good thing. The Typhoon was not a good fighter and tended to wallow around at any altitude above 15000 ft. It was however a superb low level ground-attack aircraft being very stable at high speed and, being very heavy, was not unduly disturbed by the buffeting which lighter aircraft experienced when flying very near the ground. When I first flew a Typhoon they weighed around seven tons. As the war progressed and they were modified more and more for their low level ground attack role they became heavier. They finished up as the nearest thing ever to a flying tank with armour plating around the cockpit and more and heavier armament. Fortunately the engine also continued to be modified and, as the weight increased so did the engine power so the performance remained more or less constant.