Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II

[Danny42C]

Danny has Close Encounter (but with what ?)

"There's a radial engine fighter about two miles behind us".....
　
I didn't like the sound of that. There were two such aircraft in the area which would fit the description: the Japanese "Oscar" and our "Mohawk". They were very similar in size and general appearance (but not in performance; an "Oscar" would have a "Mohawk" for breakfast, any day).

But there was a useful difference. The (US P-36) Mohawk's wheels retracted back-and-twist, so it had "knobs" on the leading edges of the wings. The Oscar didn't.

"Can you see the knuckles, Stew?"...."Can't be sure, wish I'd a pair of binoculars". I wished myself far away. It was most unlikely that a 5 Sqdn. Mohawk would be swanning around so deep into Burma (and where was his wingman? - he wouldn't be alone, fighters always operate in pairs).

The odds were on an Oscar. We're well below him, so he probably can't see me as long as I stick to the jungle covered hillside, and keep away from the bare paddy fields on the valley floor, where my camouflage would be no use. (Over jungle it was excellent, as I knew from the DIY training sessions in which I'd played the "fighter").

If it is an Oscar, and he spots us, we're cold meat. Infinitely more agile, 100 mph faster and more heavily armed, he'll cut us to ribbons - (IIRC, starting with 2 x 0.30 guns, they'd moved up to 2 x 0.50, and some had 2 x 20mm cannon). Much as I respected Stew, he'd done little or no live firing since his days in a Blenheim turret eighteen months before. We'd go down with all guns firing, but the only thing Stew was likely to hit was our own tail.

The unwelcome stranger stayed with us, still a couple of miles astern and some 1500 ft above. The minutes passed very slowly, it was his move now. I fancied I could read his mind. He's seen the dust of the attack on the town, thought he'd glimpsed an aircraft heading away North up one of the valleys, but isn't sure which one. He'll keep going to see if something pops up.

What I mustn't do is to climb over a ridge, for then he's spot me on the skyline straight away. But as he was making no attempt to close the range, I became more confident that he wasn't following me - he was simply following his hunch. (It's just possible that his guns were empty, but that's hardly likely in a war zone). As I'm in his twelve o'clock position, and below him, what he was looking for was (literally) "under his nose", but he couldn't see it.

So I'm stuck, flying North up this valley. It would be fatal to try to turn round - he'd have me at once. It was stalemate. This must have gone on for five or ten minutes.. It felt like eternity, and I had to review my options. I'd flown off the northern edge of my map and now there was nothing in front of me but China two or three hundred miles ahead.

My remaining fuel might have got me there, but luckily it wasn't necessary to try. For at last he must have decided his eyes had been playing him tricks, and he cleared away to the east. We were very glad to see him go. I waited a few minutes more to let him get well away, hopped over the ridge and set off back.

I must have run a good 40 miles north of target with him sitting on my tail, so I had to guess a rough heading for base. Keeping climb power on the engine, I steamed along over the endless mountain ridges, feeling very lonely and insignificant in a very wide world.

Half an hour later, I spotted five dots on the horizon, dead ahead. It was the rest of the formation, dawdling along to let me catch up, and wondering where I'd got to. And I'd run straight up behind them! Stew was amazed (so was I) and bored the Sgts. Mess rigid when we got back, bragging about the navigational genius he'd got for a pilot (I didn't disillusion him!)

The photographs were duly developed and didn't show much. I think there was still too much dust over the target to get a clear picture. But you couldn't expect an aircraft which had just bombed to wait around in the vicinity for a quarter of an hour to get a better one. (221) Group had second thoughts, and dropped the whole idea - to general satiisfaction. Let the specialists take the snaps. And the stranger? Nobody knew or cared.

As to whether the strike had achieved much - or anything - we never heard. We had agents in Burma, but information seemed to take a long time to come out and filter down to a Squadron.

With Army Close Support it was different, and on one of my last strikes from K, a pat on the back came my way. The target was "2 Stockade" - wherever that was - (it's in my log, but I don't know if it was a "Goodie" or a "Baddy"), The Army problem was that the Jap was able to supply and reinforce the particular place that was giving us trouble over a single road. If the road were destroyed, it would make life much harder for him. A sortie went out; the Army reported that all the bombs were close, but the last man down had put three of his four into the road, with the desired result. I'd been in my (usual) 6 position, so it had to be me. (Pure luck, of course).

Just as we had nicely settled ourselves in K for the dry season of '43/'44, all the RAF VV Sqdns. were raided to supply experienced air and ground crews to build up the two new IAF VV units (7 and 8 Sqdns) which had recently been re-equipped with the type. I think 110's share was three or four crews; we were one of them. It wasn't very flattering - if you were a squadron commander, would you send your best people? (I've already mentioned that the gullible nav who'd got the Flight lost on its way to war the previous May was among us).

I believe it was a political thing. Independence was in the air, and I think we wanted to hand over a "going concern", with all three Services up and running, to our successors. At that time Partition was hardly considered as an option, we hoped and planned for a united India which would replace the Raj. Sadly it was not to be, and millions would die in the communal riots which accompanied that failure.

But before we left K, the place was bombed by the Japs - for the first and only time (AFAIK). And that will, I hope, make for an interesting Post indeed.

Time for bed, now.

Danny42C
　
All in the day's work.

will happen....Postscript: Attempted to Post this last night (after pasting across from Wordpad): laptop went ape - chaos ! - during struggle half the entire thread self-selected itself on to Post (1806 hrs 21 Jun), took me half hour to delete and restore status quo. Sorry, Danny. Will try again now - God knows what D.