Chapter 17
Fleet Air Arm. Lee on Solent. Ireland. Isle of Man. Jan 45-May 46
The arrangements laid down in the Air Ministry Order for our transfer to the FAA were such that Sergeants would transfer in the rank of Acting Petty Officer and would be upgraded after one year to Petty Officer. Flight Sergeants would be transferred in the rank of Chief Petty Officer. This does not sound too bad, but one had to understand the Navy and at this time we certainly did not! We were all due for our Flight Sergeant promotion but it had not yet been promulgated. This meant we were destined to Navy 'Square Rig' until we could show evidence of our promotion! Square Rig is a sailor’s suit, bell bottom trousers and a sea scout’s hat!
Anyway, the damage was done and we had to make the best of it. We duly arrived at Lee on Solent Naval Barracks to be kitted out and formally entered to the FAA. This was to be the beginning of one of the most hilarious episodes of my service life, apart from the flying, which was quite a different matter. We were directed to a massive great barrack block, built I imagine in the days of Nelson. We were greeted at reception by an old Petty Officer, who must have known Nelson. He could not understand what we were doing there, a group of NCO Pilots from the RAF what the hell did we want. Eventually he was persuaded that he had to accommodate us. "OK" he said “what are you G, T, or UA". One of us replied that Cliff was Catholic and the rest were C of E. We were serious but he did not see the funny side at all. He said "Are you Grog, Tee Total, or under-age". We then learned what it all meant. G meant we wished to have our rum allocation, T indicated temperance thus renouncing one's rum ration, and UA meant under age and not entitled. We decided that we could hardly accept a rum ration whilst flying so opted for the extra sixpence a day on our pay in lieu of rum.
While all this had been going on, Fin had been to have a look inside the barracks sleeping quarters. He came out saying " J… C…. they are hanging from the rafters in there!" Well, we all went in to have a look and sure enough he was not exaggerating, there were hammocks hanging everywhere and double bunks covering almost every bit of floor space, to the extent that in many cases one would have to clamber through someone's bunk to arrive at one's own. There were massive great wooden 'pens' already full of naval kit just thrown in to get them out of the way until they were required. We decided that this was not for us and we would look for 'digs' in town. This we did and found lodgings with some old lady.
We eventually got all our new kit and gave up our RAF uniforms. Looking like three sea scouts we turned up for our first parade in the Navy. We were chatting together on the crowded parade ground when a whistle blew, and as if by magic the whole Navy was lined up smartly in their respective positions EXCEPT you know who! We stood like three Nanas albeit at attention. "What are you three doing' a voice bellowed.” We don't know where to go Sir" "What! What watch are you" “We don't know Sir" "What! You don't know! What division are you"? "We don’t know Sir". "You don't know! Get off my parade ground!
At least this little incident had the effect of getting us noticed and we then made contact with the first person who knew all about us, he was to be our Divisional Officer.
Of course we were none too pleased to be wandering around the town looking like sea cadets but we did have a lot of funny moments. I recall one day sitting to lunch in the mess hall, on a bench, next to a massive great Acting Petty Officer who looked at me in surprise and said, "Wot are you". "A pilot" I replied. He let out a great guffaw of laughter, gave me a gentle shove which almost sent me off the end of the bench and said, "You, a little squirt like you--- A pilot - Ger Off". He, by the way had a funny little badge which 1 thought was a whip but I learned was an ancient badge for sail menders. A needle and thread!
Anyway we eventually got our orders to move on and our first flying posting was to 758 Squadron. Naval Air Instrument Flying School, Hinstock. This was only a six-day course during which I did over eight hour’s instrument flying on Oxfords.
We then went to R.N.A.S. Crimond for conversion training to Barracuda's with 717 Squadron. We did about thirty five hours flying by day and by night and generally learned how to handle the beast. A beast it was. It was generally understood to be the result of an Admiralty committee who wanted an aircraft capable of landing on a deck, having a three man crew of pilot, navigator and air gunner and able to carry bombs, torpedoes flares etc. All this with one engine. Fortunately, the Rolls Royce Merlin and later the Griffen. I must say having flown with these engines throughout my Navy flying and for many years following, I never had one let me down
Our next posting was to Easthaven, on the East coast of Scotland in April 1945. This was quite an intensive course which although was less than thirty hours flying in one month, involved me in forty sorties, one hundred and twenty nine landings, high dive bombing by day and by night and eight landings on the aircraft carrier HMS SMITER. Although scared silly by this high dive bombing stuff, I seemed to have got the hang of it because I had an above average assessment.
The carrier landings were naturally the high light of the course and we had waited impatiently for a couple of days for low cloud to clear so at least we could see the ship. At last we were off. I was leading the second flight of three aircraft in vic formation under a cloud base of about one thousand feet. The ship was just off the Firth of Forth and I must say I was glad my first sight of her was from a low altitude. She already looked tiny from our height. However, we pressed on and it became my turn to enter the circuit having already instructed my wing men to take up their circuit positions, remember three aircraft were ahead of me and were already being struck down forward of the crash barriers. There was a twenty five knot wind over the deck, which was very helpful. Soon after turning in on my final approach I caught sight of the Batsman and was committed to his commands. It is a serious offence to ignore the batsman once you are under his control. ...Left a bit, left wing down, steady... steady, too fast … steady... Crikey doesn't it look small and the whole deck appears to be cluttered. I have aircraft in front of me albeit on the far side of the crash barrier and the control island rushing up on my right and the Batsman flapping like a mad thing at me, he indicates CUT... I chop the throttles… There is a deathly pause as I hang in the air then...Thump... bang... wallop I am down. Have I got a wire? ..Yeees I'm dragged to a sudden halt and I haven't hit the barrier... You can if you catch the last wire, known as the Jesus Christ wire. Little men like gnomes urge me forward over the barriers now lying flat, to park close behind the three-parked aircraft. There is already another aircraft being batted-in behind me and I am conscience of the need to hurry…. I'm too close.... My prop is chewing a lump out of the wing of the lead aircraft! I stop the engine and hear a voice over the Loud Hailer... "Send that pilot up to the bridge” I crawl out, slink down the oleo leg, slide across the deck and slither up the stairs, sorry I mean gangway, passed the Commander Flying who is busy controlling the flying and ushered into the presence. The six foot something Naval boat driver is looking straight ahead ignoring me for some minutes, then says "Why" How do you answer that, the urge was to say I only did it for a joke, but he did not look the humorous type. I was sent below to complete a crash report and by the time I had completed mine I was giving instruction to the queue behind me, when I went back up on deck I realised my little effort was as nothing compared to some of the others.
All carrier landings in those days were dicey; the number of accidents incredible, we had no angled deck, the length of the ship was 492 feet only two thirds of that landing area. The aircraft were underpowered and the Batsmen - well what would you be like if you were a pilot on punishment duty? Taking off was equally hazardous if you were in the first aircraft off, a large part of the deck was taken up by the rest of the aircraft, thus leaving you less take off run and that with an under powered aircraft was no fun.
However, we had passed the course! Once again we asked to go on Captains Requestmen to have our rank made up to Chief Petty Officer. This always caused a stir. Captains could not understand how we could expect to be promoted from Acting Petty Officers to Chief Petty Officers. Of course, without the necessary Fleet Orders we had no chance anyway.
An overseas posting!! Well almost. The Isle of Man: Ronaldsway on the southern tip of the island. 713 Squadron. This is where we get crewed up and is the final course before our draft to do battle with the Japs. We were introduced to a Lt Cdr who was to be our leader from now on. The theory was that following this course we continue our squadron work-up on route to the Far East by carrier. We were expected to be operational on arrival. This was the first time I had had a crew of my own to fly with and I was looking forward to it. But what a drip of a navigator I was landed with. His work was OK but his attitude abysmal. Maybe it was not really his fault, more that of the Navy. You see he was an Officer and I was a Rating. It must be understood that the Air Arm was not geared to accommodate non-officer pilots. To give just one example of this, on one occasion the night flying orders were displayed in the Officers Mess only. We were unaware of them so did not arrive for flying. After that they tried without success to invite us to tea in their mess so that we could receive Night flying briefing Navy style.
The course was very intensive and after one solo trip to suss out the area I was flying with my crew on anti submarine bombing practice. I think on this course I carried out the most dangerous flying I have ever done. We carried out night high dive-bombing exercises when we used to climb to ten thousand feet, find the target by radar, drop a 4.5” white flare to light the target then wing over in an almost vertical dive… Of course this caused the gyro's to topple... so after releasing the bomb and pulling out of the dive we were on primary instruments and no night vision, having looked at the reflected light from the flare. Another dicey little exercise was low level night formation flying over the oggin. With no navigation lights just little blue fairy lights on the wingtips and tail.
Life was not all hell though; we used to take the Pash Wagon (Train) to Douglas every Saturday afternoon. The Pubs were open all day so there was no need to rush. So why did we. We would eat, drink and be generally stupid until it was time to return on the last train home. The first class compartments were locked to keep the riff-raff out. They had a habit of-crawling along the outside of the train searching for accommodating WRENS. On one occasion, Cliff and I returned sober. We swore we would never make that mistake again, it was sheer hell.
We had a brainwave once. We decided to opt for our rum ration because our drinking was becoming too expensive. We thought that if we had a good tot of rum before setting out for the city, we would not have to buy so much grog in town. What a mistake that was, we were tippled from start to finish, spent more than usual and got up to all sorts of mischief.
One morning our Divisional Officer called us to report for Captains Requestmen. The long awaited Admiralty Fleet Order had at last caught up with us and we were duly promoted to Chief Petty Officers. Not though, without some doubts from the Captain who had never before witnessed Acting Petty Officers move up to Chiefs and certainly not at our young ages… Anyway, Chiefs we were and typical of the service we had to move into the Chiefs Quarters right away. We had had our new uniforms ready for this moment since Lee on Solent. I must say the transition to the Chefs mess was an unforgettable experience. To start with there are very few Chiefs on a ship and they are what their title says they are: they run the ship. Of course our case was different, we had the title because we were pilots and not because of our experience in running things. But this group of' Oldies' really had the Navy sewn up; I have never been as comfortable and as well looked after since, even in Officers messes.
At the end of the course there was to be a course party and some commissions were to be announced. Cliff; Fin and I were pretty confident that we would be among these because we had all done well at all stages of the course and the Divisional Officer had hinted as much. In the event however, I was not selected and a chap by the name of J.......... was. This chap had put up a really poor showing on the course and we had all been surprised that he got through it at all. The Squadron Commander called me to one side very embarrassed and told me there had been a mistake and Jefferies name had been made in error, it should have been mine. I was not to worry, on return from our embarkation leave the matter would be put right. ... During our embarkation leave the Bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, so we did not embark! !
Now we were in a real pickle. ..No more war. ..No more service. ..What do you do with a drunken sailor!!
We decided to go to Admiralty House and face them with the problem! What a laugh that was. I don't think it had ever happened before. There we were three Chiefs - Pilots, asking them what they had in mind for us and whatever it was it had to be flying. I think they had the last laugh. We were posted to Eglinton. Northern lreland. ..Target towing on Martinet's - 194 Squadron.
This was a six-month holiday camp with flying thrown in. I flew about eighty hours and apart from that we were 1eft entirely to ourselves. Of course we got up to a lot of mischief, we had access to a lot of ammunition. 303 rounds and point 5 cannon shells, we used to open these up and make rockets using aluminium tubing, and at times slipping a 303 into the crew room stove and making ourselves scarce before it exploded scattering hot coal dust everywhere.