Unofficial Aircrew - WW2
An book has recently come into my possession on line which describes the life of a young man who joined the RAF in 1940 and was initially trained as an aircraft mechanic. His first job was as ground crew on Hampden bombers based at Scampton.
At the time, the RAF did not have enough aircrew to meet their commitments and this guy was "volunteered" to act as lower gunner. He was given some training on the Browning .303 and provided with a Sergeant's shirt in case he became a POW. He went on several raids, mostly dropping leaflets, until his aircraft was shot down while on the approach to land back at Scampton. He was the only survivor and only had minor injuries, one of which was to his hearing. Because his aircrew role was unofficial his injured status became somewhat of an embarrassment to the RAF. He found that he couldn't tolerate the noise involved in his main role as a mechanic and, although he kept the mechanics rating, he spent the rest of the war in a variety of non-jobs. In one job he was posted to an as yet non existent Station and lived in digs in the village for several months.
He has written the book mainly to give to his family, not for general release, so I do not feel free to divulge too much detail at this stage but I had never heard of ground crew becoming unofficial aircrew before. I wondered if this was a common practice and anyone here knows anything about it.