England, home and beauty.
My time in the States ended in March 1942, and I went back to Canada with my pair of USAAC silver wings. We bypassed Toronto, ending up in a transit camp (where else?) in Moncton, where we waited for a ship back to Britain. They issued us with our first pair of RAF wings - come to think of it, it was the only pair of issue wings I ever got, you had to buy your own after that, and at 5/6 a pair (say £11 in todays' money) it wasn't funny.
Needless to say, sewing them on (using your "hussif") was a first priority, and you did that yourself, too. We'd have sewn them on our pyjamas if we could! These wings may have been very old stock, differing from the later pattern: they were deeper and more arched. It would have been nice to report that I held on to this first pair through thick and thin, and in fact I managed to do so for quite a long time before they disappeared. Of course the USAAC wings could not be worn with RAF uniform, and were kept as mementos.
They also gave us a brand new pair of sergeants' stripes to sew on the creased and scruffy uniforms we got at Babbacombe when we first joined (and which had spent six months stuffed in a kitbag). They would need some pressing to make them half way presentable.
We'd risen a long way in the RAF hierarchy. We were remustered from Trade Group IV as Aircrafthand (General Duties) - the bottom rung on the airman's ladder - to Group I (Pilot), top of the tree, and promoted to Sergeant. The pay was 13/6 a day (£27 today, seven days a week and "all found"). We were better off by far than any newly commissioned Pilot Officer.
It was here that the selections for commissions were notified. I wasn't among them. I think that only a few were granted to our bunch of thirty-odd, and they went to the older (and hopefully more mature) men. There was a Selection Board, but I wasn't invited to attend. I suppose there was a thinning-out process before that, and most of us were thinned-out.
I remember hearing of one chap who did go before this Board. He was a pukka public-school type and was expected to be a "shoo-in". He was asked the inevitable question: "Why do you want a Commission?" (always followed up by: "Why do you think you should have a Commission?). But before he came to the second question, he dealt with the first. Instead of spouting the usual flannel about wishing to extend his capabilities in the service of his country, blah, blah, he replied insouciantly (and probably truthfully): "So as to get to wear a decently fitting pair of slacks, Sir". His candour did not impress the Board - they threw him out. The rest of us did not nurse any grievance, it was the luck of the draw, and if we were interested there'd always be another day.
A ship came in - I forget its name - and we were packed on board. No cabin for me this time, just a hammock on a mess deck. They're quite comfortable once you've worked out how to get into them. You must have a "spacer" - a strip of wood about 15 inches long to hold the top ropes apart where your pillow is going to go. As to getting in, my memory is that there was some form of handhold on the deckhead between the hammock hooks. You grabbed hold of this and hoisted yourself up into the fold of the hammock. An RN rating could give you a better description, but all I can say is that I did not fall out and slept like a log. The hammocks had to be taken down each morning ("lash up and stow"), and stowed against the ship's side, out of the way of the mess deck tables where you ate and spent most of your day. They'd also absorb the steel splinters which would be flying about if the ship were hit by gunfire.
We spent a week at sea, our convoy playing hide-and-seek with the U-boats, and docked on the Clyde. I think we got a fortnight's disembarkation leave. I have only the haziest recollection of that time, but a single incident stays bright in my memory.
At that stage of the War, the RAF enjoyed enormous prestige. Only eighteen months before, against all the odds, it had won the Battle of Britain and saved the country from invasion. "I do not say that the French cannot come", old Admiral St.Vincent had said a century and a half before, "I only say they cannot come by sea". To this we had added: "Or by air".
Moreover, we were the only Service fully on the offensive. Bomber Command was hitting back, night after night, far harder, but in exactly the same way, as the enemy had bombed (and were still bombing) us in the "Blitz". Nobody felt the slightest guilt about it at the time - that was a luxury we could allow ourselves post-war, long after the danger was past.
The other two Services simply could not compete in the glamour stakes. The Army had been routed and chased out of France at Dunkirk. There was a body of opinion that Hitler had deliberately let it escape, reasoning that Britain would soon sue for peace anyway, and meanwhile he couldn't be bothered having to feed and house 300,000 prisoners. If he had thought along those lines, he mightn't have been all that far wrong. The Chamberlain/Halifax government might well have run up the white flag. Luckily for Britain: "Came the Hour, Came the Man" - Winston Churchill !
Until 1944, the Home Army could do little but re-equip and train. The Desert Rats were keeping up the Nation's spirits, but North Africa was really only a sideshow. (I think the Germans had some half dozen divisions out there: they had 130 on the Russian Front). And in 1942, the less said about our military prowess in the Far East, the better.
The Navy had its back to the wall, keeping our sea lanes open, but theirs was essentially a defensive war against the U-boat, and we were far from winning it. (It is arguable that but for Ultra we would have lost it). It didn't make headlines. With hindsight, we should be thankful that Hitler hadn't learned the lesson of WW1, and didn't put far more resources into his U-boat campaign. It is clear from both wars that this was (and still is) the way in which this country can be brought to its knees. Kipling put it into verse a century ago:
The sweets that you suck and the joints that you carve
Are brought to you daily by all us big steamers,
And if anyone hinders our coming, you'll starve!
The Navy was engaged in a life-or-death struggle, but with them it was a case of: "No news is good news". Theirs was a mundane day-in day-out slog that didn't catch the public imagination in the same way as the more flamboyant deeds of the "Brylcreem Boys".
And we were the "blue-eyed boys". A little of it rubbed off on me one morning. I was trotting along in Liverpool with my new wings and sergeant's stripes. I can remember exactly where I was - by the side of Lewis's, opposite the Adelphi. A dear little old lady buttonholed me: "GOD BLESS YOU, MY BOY", she quavered (surprisingly loudly). Passers-by murmured approval. Liverpudlians wouldn't see all that many aircrew at that stage of the war, so I suppose I stuck out a bit. Naturally shy, I was dumb with embarrassment, but managed to stammer a few words of thanks. I hadn't even flown my first "op", but Liverpool had taken two year's battering from the Luftwaffe, so I suppose I looked like a possible St.George for their dragon. I'll never forget that day.
I was posted to Bournemouth, another Transit Camp, in a seaside hotel - had been a rather swish one, I think, but can't recall the name. Here the natives were well used to seeing aircrew and old ladies did not greet you with little glad cries - nor young ones either, come to that, (the Yanks were in town).
Got the bit between my teeth tonight, I'm afraid.
Danny 42C
Tallest on the left, shortest on the right.
Last edited by Danny42C; 7th Mar 2012 at 00:25.