Danny at Sulur.
I got down to Sulur all right but I didn't have Stew with me. It must have been one of my lads on the flight. In that case I hope he enjoyed the ride, assuming I'd got everything under perfect control (ignorance is bliss !)
So where was Stew ? He last appears on the 11th May, when we flew to Kolar and back from Cannanore. What for ? - no idea. And he never appears again. It must have been about this time that he left to go home "tour-expired": we'd said our last goodbye. If the trip had been Yelahanka, I would have probably have been putting him on the main line to Bombay (to save him a day on the train). But Kolar ? (it's well over to the east of Bangalore).
On 28th May I flew a gas-drop at the Kumbla range - only 45 minutes - so I must still have been at Cannanore. And then nothing in June. Three flights in July, starting 5th, all admin to Cochin. Five in August, three to the Porkal range flown from Sulur (2hr 30min trips). Four in September (all admin).
October 9th, I flew back to Cannanore. So now we have the dates for Sulur: around May 29 to October 9, over four months. That's the end of the boring bit.
So what did we find when we got there? We found the Navy already in residence, to be exact the Wavy Navy, in the person of Lt. Cdr T. Neville Stack, RNVR (as were all his officers). He was a pre-war long distance record-pilot of some renown. (He had a son of some renown, too: Air Chief Marshal (Retd) Sir Thomas Neville Stack, RAF). Neville Stack senior ran a communications squadron with Beechcraft "Expeditors", nice little light twins, to ferry Admirals and their Staffs round Ceylon and South India.
Carrier aircraft came in from the sea from time to time; one day a "Barracuda" flew in in a rainstorm, skidded off the wet runway and skated across a patch of flooded grass into one of my correctly parked VVs. Both aircraft were write-offs, but there were no casualties. I see from my log that we still had three when we went back to Cannanore, so they must have given me a replacement pretty quickly. Mk. IIIs were ten-a-penny anyhow.
I celebrated my arrival by immediately going down with my third (and last !) dose of malaria. The rains had left puddles all over the place, and anopheles had had a field day. That year's nouveux vintage of mosquitos had gone looking for new blood, and found mine. I spent a fortnight in the Navy's Sick Bay - the food was very good indeed.
As I've said, we didn't do much flying apart from the regular pay run to Cochin and other admin jobs. The weather must have dried up a bit in early August, for on 7th, 10th and 11th, I flew three gas dropping trips back over the hills to the Porkal range with a Major Truelove as passenger. (Where did we get the mustard from ? - we certainly didn't take any down with us, the CDRE must have sent the stuff by road).
These trips were a bit hairy, what with the rain, low cloud and hills, so there must have been some special reason for them. Perhaps CDRE wanted to know what the effectiveness of gas might be on rain-soaked fields.
On the last of these runs we had a bit of excitement. The engine began running rough (dirty plugs ?) as we were coming back over the Ghats above solid cloud. I couldn't clear it by increasing or decreasing RPM, playing with the mixture and changing tanks. With fifty miles to go and nowhere to put it down, I warned Truelove to be ready to bale out if the thing stopped.
We tightened up our leg straps (going out with them loose may seriously curtail your chances of progeny), but the engine kept going, although noisier and noisier. We got back into the circuit at Sulur where the clangour caused some alarm. ("I wouldn't sign for that !", said Corporal (Fitter) Reavill, as I clattered round on finals). Investigation found a weld crack in the exhaust collector ring.
This happened on 11th August. Four days later the war was over - so there was no urgent need for the flight in any case, but of course we hadn't the faintest inking beforehand. In early October, Cannanore had dried out and we went back.
Next time we'll consider some aspects of that last year of war as it affected us.
Goodnight to all our faithful readers,
Danny42C.
Heigh-ho.
Last edited by Danny42C; 8th Oct 2012 at 00:21.
Reason: Typo.