Walter's alarming description of his conversion to the Beaufighter is supported by my latest book, Night Fighter over Germany by Graham White (Kindle Books, only 99p). White provides his own delightful illustrations such as the one above showing the abandonment procedure and the hatch upon which the student pilot had to stand. He mixes dry humour on the absurdities of Service life with gripping detail. Here's his take on Beaufighter instruction:
I stood behind the instructor-pilot, peering over his shoulder trying to see how he flew the thing. Actually you could see the square root of sod-all, but you were standing on the escape hatch, which bore a remarkable resemblance to a hangman’s trap-door. So not surprisingly you spent the trip remembering that he operated the lever that opened it, and trying very hard not to annoy him. After that you read up the technical notes on the plane, then took off and flew it on your own – the first time that you had handled the controls – while the rest of the aircrew watched at the end of the runway, making ribald comments about your incompetence to your new and nervous navigator.
His OTU at Charterhall in the Scottish borders was soon renamed Slaughterhall, and with good reason.
Eighty-four Mark II Beaufighters were sent to Charterhall. Thirty-nine of them (that is forty-six per cent) crashed, eighteen of them during take-off, landing, or overshooting. Four force-landed, six plunged into the sea, five into the ground, four caught fire in the air, and two simply disappeared off the face of the earth.
If you read this thread, you'll love this book. How about this account of a Mosquito intruder trip over Germany …
It was late at night, Christmas was coming up and maybe we weren’t keeping quite as sharp an electronic eye open as we should have. Suddenly, a Scottish burr in our earphones snapped out a challenge, ‘Bogey, bogey! Turn starboard!’ ‘Bogey’ meant unidentified aircraft, and this was a warning call. A free-ranger like ourselves was behind an unknown aircraft close by and making a final check before opening fire. Aircraft hearing this would immediately turn sharp right, showing that it was British. A couple of dozen planes must have hurriedly, and simultaneously, turned right in response to the challenge. So how did we know that it was us he was behind? Because, momentarily surprised, I turned left.
Our earphones crackled with Caledonian indignation: ‘I said “Starboard”, you prat!’ ‘Sorry!’ I hurriedly turned in the opposite direction. ‘Okay!’ he called, ‘Happy Christmas!’ and went on his way. Or presumably he did – we saw nothing from start to finish.