Peter Brett's memoirs - Fighter Leaders school
This is the complete 12th chapter of Peter Brett's memoirs.
On 27th February 1945 I was flown, once again in a trusty old Anson, back home to the UK. I was taken to Tangmere first where I dumped my kit and then on to Northolt for a few days leave. During this leave I took part, with Wg Cdr Bill Brown and my foster brother Eric in a large ATC parade where a new Squadron flag was presented to 101 ATC squadron. This was quite an impressive public display and was reported, with photographs, in our local newspaper the Harrow Observer. After an enjoyable leave, I returned to Tangmere in time to start the Fighter Leaders course on 4th March 1945.
The course lasted seven weeks and consisted of all the usual ingredients such as air-to-air firing, dive bombing, rocket firing, and a large number of exercises. All these exercises had names ranging from 'Buster and 'Bluebeard' to 'Whatsit' and 'Winkle'. Mostly they were navigational and map-reading exercises but there were two that I remember near the end of the course called 'Roundabout' and 'Interdiction'.
‘Roundabout’ was a sort of treasure hunt. We were each given a set of eight sealed envelopes and sent off at five minute intervals. We had to open the first envelope whilst orbiting base at 2000 feet. The first one said something like "Fly a true course of 048 degrees for three minutes at 380 True airspeed and look for a large country house in a park near a lake". The next envelope read "Count the windows on the South and East sides of the house and multiply by seven to give you the true track to fly for eight minutes at 290 mph groundspeed"
These sort of clues continued for the next six envelopes when the last instruction was to read the large white letters displayed on the ground. Of the twenty or so pilots on the course only two managed to come up with the right answer. I was not one of them. I evidently made an error on the last but one clue and finished up heading for the centre of London which was obviously wrong since on that particular leg the instructions had told me to fly BELOW 500 feet!!
Still, I did better than some of the others, one of whom ran out of land when he headed off on a reciprocal course, which took him out over Lands End! The actual final destination should have been Gatwick airfield, as it was then, with the letters GW on the flying control area.
I was much more successful with exercise 'Interdiction' where we again were sent off individually to try to attack Corfe Castle without being 'bounced' by several sections of Spitfires which were patrolling the area. We were given 'carte blanche' as to how we did it. Most of the chaps tried coming in from the sea at very low level and dodging round the Isle of Wight. I studied the contour maps very carefully and came in from the North West.
Down on the deck, probably about fifty feet above the ground I followed a little river (the Piddle!) which I picked up at Puddletown. Following it past Burleston, Tolpuddle, Affpuddle and Briantspuddle (yes, they are real places) then past Lane End, I arrived behind Trigon Hill and continued to follow the river to Wareham. At Wareham I picked up the main Swanage road and still keeping as low as I could, I approached Corfe Castle below the hilltop and eased up to take camera gun pictures as I climbed up towards the castle. As I pulled up over the castle and banked hard left I found myself right behind a section of four Spitfires who were patrolling West to East just South of the castle. Pure chance of course, but I took more camera-gun shots and subsequently claimed to have 'shot' at least one down. Not only was I one of the only four aircraft to attack the castle without being intercepted, but I was the only one to claim having 'shot down' one of the defenders!
The 'instructors' were all veteran fighter pilots, most of whom had fought in the 'Battle of Britain'. The Station Commander was Air Commodore Atcherley, known to all as 'Batchy Atchy'. How he ever reached the exalted rank of Air Commodore was a puzzle to all of us. Even if half the tales told about him were true they would surely have meant that he would have been the oldest Pilot Officer in the air force!
One tale that was probably true, is that he once flew a Spitfire through a hangar, having previously arranged for both end sets of doors to be opened. It was also rumoured that he had once done a 'touch and go' landing in a Magister trainer on an aircraft carrier anchored in the Solent.
One of my fellow students on the course was the only other amputee pilot in the RAF. This was Colin 'Hoppy' Hodgkinson. He had one leg amputated above the knee and one below. He was flying Spitfires and I had a few drinks with him. One evening he and I went out to a local dance in his car, either a Morgan or an MG, I'm not now sure which, that he drove fast and expertly. About a year ago, [from the original time of writing], I spoke to him by phone. He had married a French girl and was living in the Dordogne in southern France.
During the course we all had an opportunity to fly the various other aircraft types on the station. Thus I flew a Tempest V a few times and also had a half hour trip flying a Spitfire IX. Having done so many hours on the Typhoon, some 350 at that time, I found the Spitfire rather odd. The main thing I noticed was the relative lack of vibration. It felt, and sounded, like a quiet sewing-machine after the rant and bellow of the Tiffie. However I was not so happy with the controls. The Typhoon was very light on the ailerons and fairly heavy on the elevators. The Spitfire was the complete opposite and required some getting used to. It was obvious that pulling a high G turn was easy but I was disappointed with the rate of roll and the effort required to get on 'full stick' in the roll. No doubt those Spitfire pilots who flew the Typhoon felt as if they were driving a tank. It was all a question of familiarity.
There was one aircraft on the station, a Tempest V, which had been stripped of all external bomb and rocket racks, The paint had been removed and the metal skin polished. It was known as the 'Silver Bullet' and was reckoned to be the fastest prop driven aircraft in the world at the time. Everybody had at least one flight in it and I did an exercise called 'Tracker' so I got to fly it for about 1˝ hours!
At the end of the course a party was held in Chichester and my leave acquaintance Wg Cdr Bill Brown came down to attend it. The next day one of the instructors asked me where I had met him and how long I had known him. I explained that I had met him a couple of years ago and had seen him a few times while on leave. I said that he had told me that he was doing some sort of 'Special Ops' secret work so I had never asked any questions. More of him later!
On 1st May I reported to Lasham airfield and was flown once more by Anson to B103 at Plantlünne where I took up my new post as Flight Commander of 'B' Flight 164 Squadron. Still with many of the same blokes I had been with before, since 164 was also in the same 123 Wing as 183 Squadron.
More soon ==TOW
Last edited by tow1709; 18th Nov 2010 at 19:13.
Reason: Edited to remove references to particular instructors - see comment by allan125 and my reply further on in this thread.