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

[Danny42C]

Danny finds a Place for us to Live.

Once ensconced in GK, and my baggage having finally caught up with me, my first task was obviously to organise somewhere to bring my family out to join me. Very few (senior) officers were fortunate enough to be able to walk into a quarter on the Station. All junior ones (with exceptions like M.O.s) had to go through a very well established three-stage system.

First you spent a few weeks (I think two months in our case) in what were laughingly called "flats" in Holland. They were really "digs" with Dutch families. In theory there was nothing to stop having them in Germany, but I never heard of any such. Our "flat" consisted of a lounge, a kitchen and bathroom, and a bedroom in the large house of a Mynheer and Mynfrow Verhayden an elderly couple in Heerlen, about five miles in from the frontier which was literally on the boundary with RAF GK.

These arrangements may have started off as private deals, but now seemed to be similar to the "hiring" system at home, for I cannot recall paying Mr.V. any rent in any currency. (There was nothing, of course, to stop you renting your own place privately). It followed that one incoming RAF family succeded another as the first was allotted a house in the second stage in the procedure.

These houses were in the "Volkspark" in Cologne (or Köln, to taste), fifty miles from GK. The history was interesting. In the early days at the end of the war, Germany was in ruins and the local administration non-existent. Each of the Allies (USA, Britain, France and Russia) had been allotted (in the Potsdam Agreement) a share ("Zone") of the former Reich to administer. For this purpose, we had set up the Control Commission (Germany) to govern our share (the northern slice of the Western "half").

This was a civilian organisation (although there were naturally many ex-service officers appointed to it), and they saw no reason why they should not live in some style as being the ruling power in the land (at least, pro tem). Accordingly they had had (at German expense) a large enclave of "executive housing" built in the pleasant environs of a former large park in the south of Cologne.

These places were enormous - far more space than we could possibly use - but each service family got an entire house. However, some foresight had gone into the design. From the outset they had been planned for later conversion into two flats: all the necessary extra plumbing and cable runs were in place to make this easy.

And that is enough about the Volkspark for now, as we shall return to it later. Meanwhile I must pick up the story of our new life in Heerlen.

Goodnight, all,

Danny42C.


There's no place like Home.