Union Jack and
Jason Burry,
Thank you for the kind words and for bumping our incomparable Thread back to the head of the column (where it belongs!)...........D.
Now that they have shuffled off into the wings of history, it falls to me to say a few more words about the Vengeance and the last days of Cannanore before we lower the final curtain on India.
As to the aircraft itself, I can only urge any new reader to look up the wonderful "YouTube" clip found by Chugalug (# 2549 p. 128), and the Camden Museum story started by mmitch (#2626 p.132) which just went on and on; everybody (it seemed) put in their two cents' worth; there was still a mention in #2690 p.135. Curiously, Wiki now lists the Camden Museum specimen as a
Mk. IV, the sole surviving Vengeance in the world. Did the Museum Directors ''fess-up", or did Wiki rely on us (was that wise?) There is good stuff about the IAF, too, (they ran two VV Sqdns, 7 & 8), see (
www.bharat-rackshak.com/IAF).
Unwanted in the beginning, the Vengeances would now go to their graves "unhonoured and unsung"; they had been virtually unknown outside India in their heyday and are now completely forgotten. Yet in their time they had "
done the State some service, and they know it". They had even aroused a modicum of affection. I am indebted to Peter C. Smith's "Vengeance" for these valedictory words from a 82 (?) Sqdn pilot:
"You always were an ugly brute,
Of that there can be no dispute.
From you an angry Elephant
Would take the Palm for Elegance.
But yet you'd always give the Boost
To bring us safely home to Roost"
I will not say that I shed a tear, but I allowed myself one backward glance as we walked away, we'd been through a lot together.
And could have been through more. I have always thought that withdrawing them from operations on the onset of the '44 monsoon was a mistake: we could have been useful for another dry season up to the end. "
BBC - WW2 People's War - Army Days" (which I have mentioned a few Posts ago, lost, and which Union Jack has kindly found again for me) contains a gripping account by an infantryman (Percy Bowpitt) of his time in India and Burma.
In our southward push after the break-out from Imphal - Kohima, the Jap reverted to the dig-in-and-hold tactic he always used in retreat. On one occasion, Percy recounts how his unit was held up in an advance over an old rifle range. The Jap was well dug-in in the butts at the far end, a frontal attack over the open range would have been very expensive.
They called in an air strike. First, a pair of US Lockheed "Lightnings" turned up, assessed the situation, chose the wrong end and (in all good faith) shot-up Percy and his pals. (Why weren't they marking the target with a mortar smoke bomb, surely the Army would have them ?) Fortunately, the Lightnings' aim was so poor that they only killed a couple of mules.
Hurricane IICs did better next time, at least they attacked the right way, but their bombs would be far less accurate than ours, they'd only carry two apiece, and, entering at a much shallower angle than ours, much of the blast would be harmlessly up into the air. Dug-in, Johnnie Jap kept his head down and laughed at the cannon.
I sighed on reading this: a "box" of VVs would have removed the butts
in toto and everything in them in one fell swoop.* Sadly, they'd been pensioned off by then.
EDIT : *
Provided it was late enough in the year for dive bombing - Wiki says Imphal/Kohima finished end of June '44. (Percy is not good on dates).
The game was over: we were a subdued little group in the Nagpur Mess that evening. Next morning, on the train for the 600-odd miles back to Cannanore. It was a two-day trip.
Bedtime now, Goodnight, chaps,
Danny42C.
Ninety-one today !
Ninety-one today,
They've taken away the key of the door,
Never been ninety-one before !.................D.