The move to Topcliffe was made in early September and if you were lucky you found a spot in one of the aircraft flying over, otherwise it was a journey by sea and rail/road.
Topcliffe was a pre-war station so most of the buildings were of brick construction and the sergeants mess had live in accommodation with rooms for 2 so you only had to walk downstairs for the dining and ante rooms. Sheer luxury.
The job was much the same as at Jurby but in addition to the Ansons the unit was supplied with Wellingtons which were used for longer trips of up to 6 hours.
Like all flying establishments, Topcliffe had its share of accidents and there was one bad period of 2 months when we had 5 mishaps. First a Wimpey crashed just after take off, it went into a steep climb until it stalled and dived straight into the ground. 3 of the crew 4 were killed and the 2nd pilot baled out and survived.
This was followed by 2 Wimpeys colliding in midair over the airfield with the loss of 4 crew in each aircraft. Then another Wimpey overshot and came down in a field, the pilot was injured and the plane was a write off. Shortly afterwords one came down in the North Sea with no casualties and another took off on a night detail and disappeared with the loss of all 4 crew.
Around this time someone in the Air Ministry had a brainstorm and new aircrew ranks of Aircrew 1,2,3,4 and Master were introduced to replace Sgt F/Sgt and WO. Most of the Staff Aircrew became either Pilot 2 or Sig 2 even those who were WOs and many of whom were decorated and had a tour of ops behind them. Not a very popular move. None of us ever wore the new badges of rank.
I remained flying at Topcliffe until my demob date came up at the beginning of January 48..
All the official demob parties were over and on the evening before proceeding to the demob centre two of my fellow W/ops( who were also going for demob the next day ) and I decided to go into Ripon for a few beers.Coming back to base suitably lubricated one of us suggested that it would be nice to have a last flight, we knew that there was night x country laid on that night due to take off at midnight so made our way to the crew room where we persuaded 3 of the W/ops on the detail that they would be better off in bed. They did not need much persuading so off we flew in 3 separate aircraft.
Around 0530 I picked up a wt message from Topcliffe to the effect that we were diverted to Lakenheath as the weather had closed in. Panic stations at the navigators table and a call from the pilot “Jock come up here and read these pundits” but by this time I could hardly tell a dot from a dash. We landed safely at Lakenheath to find the other two Wimpeys containing my 2 miscreant friends sitting on the tarmac.
After a couple of hours sleep we phoned the Signals Leader at Topcliffe whose comment was “ what the hell are you doing there” or words to that effect.
Topcliffe remained closed in for a week and when we got back you can imagine the reception we got from a very cheesed off Admin Officer.
The outcome was we were not demobbed for another 2 months when we flew practically every day. Perhaps the RAF way of punishment.
Not quite the end