Peter Brett's memoirs continue...
The war ends...
Arriving at Plantlünne I found that there was very little operational flying going on. I did a couple of flights on 2nd May: a sector recco and practice formation leading.
Next day, the squadron flew over to B150 where we took off for an armed shipping recce over Neustadt Bay. On arrival we found that we had been beaten to it by 198 Squadron who had attacked the SS Bremen (?) and left it on fire. We managed to find a small coastal vessel which we attacked without any spectacular results and then returned to B150 and later flew back to Plantlünne.
On arrival there in the late afternoon we were told that the Germans in northern Germany and Holland had surrendered! As far as I remember everybody had a drunken evening and I notice that nobody flew the next day. However on the 5th May I led some local formation flying and then on 7th we were sent off in two groups of four to fly low over Emden for an hour or so to 'show the flag' and confirm to the inhabitants that we had freedom of the sky without being fired at!
Next day, May 8th, saw the official surrender of Germany and 'Larry' (I can't remember his surname but he was the 'A' flight commander and one of the two South Africans on the squadron), and I celebrated by doing a one hour low level cross-country flight up to the North coast and back.
No flying the next day but then on the 10th we started three days of Wing formation practice. This meant getting 48 aircraft up into a formation of four sets of twelve. Each set of twelve consisted of three fours, with each four in line astern. The three fours formed a 'V' and the four 'V's formed up one behind each other.
The Wing Commander led the whole lot and started off by flying a very wide circle round the airfield at about 4000 feet. Each squadron then took off and formed up in their 'V' when the leader of the squadron had to judge distances, rate of climb and steepness of turn to join up with the existing formation as quickly as possible without asking his following aircraft to do impossible turns or accelerations! For some reason I had to lead 164 squadron and, as soon as we had formed up I started a gradual climbing turn trying to aim to join up in the right place as I reached the right height.
Luckily everything worked out well and, although we were the 'tail end' squadron, I managed to slot us into position without any violent manoeuvres. In fact the Wingco commented on the smooth join-up. We repeated this practice five times in the next two days and then on 15th and 16th May we took part in Group fly-pasts. First round Holland and next day round North Germany. It was quite an impressive sight since there were well over 200 aircraft in the formation consisting of Spitfires and Mustangs and Tempests as well as Typhoons.
May 18th saw me doing an air test and then on the 19th two more Group fly-pasts. It was during the second of these when conditions were a bit bumpy that I suddenly felt an odd vibration through my rudder pedals. It stopped almost immediately and I dismissed it from my mind. However, on landing, Flight Sergeant Mackintosh came up and told me that he had 'touched' my rudder with his propeller when in close line astern. An examination of the tail plane of my aircraft revealed a narrow 'V' shaped slice out of the rudder about 9 inches deep! A few inches further forward and it would have sliced through the lower rudder hinge with somewhat unpredictable results! Fortunately this was the last close formation flying that we did and my next two flights, an air test and a weather check went off without incident.
On the 27th I did a cross-country to Wünsdorf and return, obviously to find out where it was because next day the wing moved there. This was the first time we had been in purpose built accommodation in Germany. The station had been an Officer training school and was very well equipped. The airfield had two runways and the Mess was a modern building. The entrance hall was most impressive having a mosaic tiled floor in the form of a German Eagle. Unfortunately the effect was ruined by a very amateurish and most unpleasant anti-Jewish mural which took up the whole of the wall facing the entrance. The first thing the Station Commander did was to have this mural painted out and replaced with a much more professional picture of a Typhoon.
Other than the unpleasant mural, the building was very well appointed. It had three bowling Alleys in the basement and a very modern bar. There was one item of equipment in the toilets which caused us some puzzlement at first. I was a large circular trough surrounded on the inner face with various chromium taps, handles, and levers. Its purpose was not obvious until, one evening, one of the lads who had imbibed not wisely but too well, tottered into the toilet feeling very sick. Without thinking he leant forward over the circular trough to find that his hands automatically found purchase on a couple of handles. His head went forward and his forehead made contact with a flat lever which caused water to flush into the trough.
Having rid himself of the unwanted booze he felt very much better and lost no time in informing the rest of us of his discovery. It would seem that the German idea was to drink until you were sick, repair to the toilet, offload the excess and the return to the fray. The one or two people who had to make use of this facility were full of praise for the system which more or less obviated a bad hangover!
Our arrival at Wünsdorf was not auspicious since two aircraft crashed on landing, fortunately both without injury. Flt/Lt Chase ran off the end of the runway and flipped over, and Jack Lee-Warner had to pull up his undercarriage to stop shooting off the end of the runway. I now think that, knowing that the war was over, and that it was now unlikely that one would be killed tomorrow, a relaxing attitude had taken over, with the result that flying became extremely sloppy.
On the 31st May, I was doing some local flying when one of the other wing aircraft, call sign Baltic 15, reported that his airspeed indicator was not functioning and he was orbiting base wondering how to get down! I called him up and then asked him to formate on me and I would lead him in reading off the airspeeds as we went. I told him I would call each manoeuvre (Wheels Down , Flaps Down etc.) twice and asked him to carry out the operation after the second command on the instruction NOW. Everything worked out fine. On the downwind leg I called 'Airspeed 180, Wheels Down, Wheels Down, NOW' and put my wheels down a fraction of a second or so late to ensure that he would start to slow down before I did. The same thing with flaps down, fully fine pitch, etc. As we crossed the runway threshold I called 'Close throttle, Close throttle, NOW' and we did a perfect formation landing.
It appeared that some small insect had decided to build a nest in his pitot tube which effectively blocked it and stopped his ASI from registering! In common with many single engine pilots he did not consult the ASI until after liftoff and then only to check the airspeed for raising the takeoff flap displacement. He was somewhat disconcerted to find that he was climbing away from the airfield with zero airspeed!
We were at Wünsdorf for almost a month but did very little flying. The war was over and it wasn't worth wasting petrol doing useless things. We all spent a lot of time firing off captured weapons, anything from small automatics through Lugers to Schmeisser sub-machine guns. Looking back, it was highly dangerous since there was very little range discipline. Luckily nobody was hurt, although several chaps had near misses with stray rounds.
My log book tells me that I only flew once more from Wünsdorf and that was a twenty minute local air test .Then on 21st June we were flown back to U.K., without our aircraft, to Turnhouse just outside Edinburgh, where we were re-equipped with Spitfire IX's.
More soon... TOW
Last edited by tow1709; 21st Nov 2010 at 09:09.
Reason: ID of ship attacked is not certain. (?) added