Great photo!
As promised some anecdotes and a photo from the David Beaty book I linked to earlier. This first one relates to the weather ships that were stationed across the Atlantic and how their crews got a bit lonely.
One night, the veteran BOAC Captain, O.P. Jones, was approaching the weather ship and picked up his microphone to make contact. However, a sailor was having a conversation with the stewardess on the American aircraft ahead, and all he could hear through the headphones was ... 'I'm twenty two, five feet four inches, thirty-five, twenty-two, thirty-five, blonde hair, blue eyes. My flat is in 16 Brooklyn Park, telephone 5652...' 'Jesus honey, we're practically neighbours. Can you cook!'... 'Everybody says my apple pie...' 'Honey, I'll be right over. That is in three weeks and two days and five hours time.' Eventually there was a break in the conversation and Captain Jones spoke: 'This is Speedbird Easy Love ... I'm fifty-one years old, five feet nine inches tall, forty-two, thirty-two, thirty-five, blue eyes, a torpedo beard ... I'm interested in breeding bull terriers and I live in Sussex, England. My cooking is well known. Do you want my telephone number?' There was an astonished silence before the one word ... 'No-o-o.' 'Then can I,' said Captain Jones, 'have the wind at 19,000 feet?'
This reference gives some idea of the Captain's status:
... the first of their five trans-Atlantic Constellations, Bristol II, would leave London at 22.00 hours on on 1st July 1946, under the command of Captain O.P. Jones, well known for his piercing blue eyes and torpedo beard, who had been in Imperial Airways from the beginning and was already the Grand Old Man of British Civil Aviation.
Weird things certainly used to happen - and people would act strangely. Round here, Lindbergh suddenly became conscious of ghostly shapes coming aboard the Spirit of St.Louis. Nor far away, a First Officer, wishing to adjust the automatic pilot controls on a Liberator, inadvertently pulled the master ignition switch. All four engines immediately cut. Captain O.P. Jones was in the Engineer's position, writing up the log book. As the aircraft glided several thousands of feet towards the sea, he closed the log book, laid his pen beside it, turned to the Engineer and remarked, 'Strangely quiet, isn't it, Mr Stack?' before striding forward to remedy the mishap and bring the engines back to life again.
This last story is very similar to the one in my first post. It may have changed a bit in retelling but as the contributor to my website who sent it to me mentions David Beaty as well, as a friend of his father, I don't doubt that there is a basis of truth in it.
