Danny tells some Funny Stories
Now we have ignored GK for quite long enough. There was, in fact, little to write about. There was very little "Approach" work, in the true sense of the word. Both the Canberra and the Javelin carried Navigators: I suppose these would consider any attempt by their pilots to seek outside help in finding their way home as a slur on their competence.
But with two squadrons of pilots, many wanting to upgrade their Instrument Ratings, the CPN-4 had a steady stream of business all the time, so that kept us in practice. But I've no more stirring tales to tell on a par with the Night of the Laarbruch Canberra.
So I must fall back on Funny Things which Happened. And these are sometimes Funny-Comic, and some Funny-Tragic. And in both cases there is a difficulty. Did I see this with my own eyes ? Or was I just told about it by a good witness ? Or was it something that happened Before My Time ? (always a good cop-out), and therefore more or less Legendary ? And what about the frailty of memories after 50 years ?
Bearing all this in mind, let's start with three Funny Things which Happened to Javelins. The first story is soon told: Chap comes in on 27 with P.N.s speed plus five knots for the wife and five for the pension. Brakes none too good, runway wet and slippery, goes off the end, punches through a wire chain-link fence and comes to rest a few yards further on (no arrester-barriers then). Crew climb out, become only case in recorded history of a crew to land in one country (Germany) and jump down in another (Holland).
Next (rather more interesting) one. Javelin over N. German plain one dark night. Very loud bang, all engine dials on one side drop to zero. But ship still answers helm, and other engine running smoothly. So they bring it back and park on the line. W/Cdr (Tech) and his Adj standing by with two stepladders and torches. Each climbs up one end and peers in. They find themselves looking at one another - everything has disappeared. "Dr Livingstone, I presume", said the Adj (and was roundly rebuked for levity). The Sapphire was, of course, in bits over a square mile or so of territory, but no casualty was reported of man or beast.
The third story is so improbable that I can only describe it as an enduring legend in RAF(G). This is as it was told to me (and I take no responsibility for any of it). Again a Javelin was airborne one dark night. There was a massive electrical failure which put all the cockpit lighting out, and disabled all the electrical instruments. Apparently this scatterbrained crew had not thought to include any torches in their kit, so they could not read the E2 compass, either.
To make a bad situation worse, the radios failed as well (now credulity is really being strained). They had been heading South (more or less) before the disasters struck, and in the original turmoil had not being paying much heed to what the aircraft was doing. What it had been doing was to turn onto East(ish).
They had a faint horizon, but high cloud cover, and could not see any stars. In this condition, they crossed into the no-man's land (I forget what it was called) which served as a buffer between the two opposing Zones. And out of the far side into the Russian Zone !
End of Javelin, end of crew, and end of story (you might suppose). But now a suspicion that all might not be well arose in the Nav. He cast his mind back to his Scouting days and advised his pilot to climb up to clear sky on top, and there Ursa Major and Polaris shone for all to see - out to the left ! They did a Rate-4 turn and "poured the coal on".
Our sector radars had been watching this drama unfold with horror, and I can only suppose that their Russian counterparts had concluded that they had a defector coming over, and stayed their hand. But when it turned tail, they reacted. The Russian Battle Flight was just ten miles behind our pair as they fled over the border back into the Western Zone.
Now the curious reader will be wondering: how did they get down at all ? (otherwise there would be no story). I don't know. Did they fly the triangles ? (Was that system even in operation then ?) I have no idea of the date of all this, could have been any time the Javelins had been out there. Perhaps they got a "shepherd" on to them. Perhaps they stumbled on a lit airfield and took a chance. Perhaps they banged-out. Who knows ?
And that's the story. Believe it or not as you wish