"Ah yes - I remember it well"
Through the good offices of our mutual friend Petet, who is well known on this Thread, I've been able to gain sight of copies of the whole wartime F.540 (Operational Record Book) for No. 1340 (Special Duty) Flight, Cannanore. This includes the ACSEA Formation Order No.256 on 6.10.44 until my final entry on 1.3.46. In that I wrote: "Wing Commander Edmondes, on his return from Delhi, made it definite that the Flight's work was finished, and it is anticipated that withdrawal or disbandment will occur in the very near future......the future of Cannanore airstrip is unknown".
You may recall that I've Posted an account of my time there from my appointment in March '45 (p.154 #3071) to the end on 31.3.46.,when I handed over to Flt.Lt. N.A.Bury. ("...The time frame needs some working out now. I must have left in the first few days of May..." p.162 #3237).
Naturally, the first thing I did was to compare the account of what I'd written 70 years before (for most of the F.540 is in my own hand - including the six months before I took over - my predecessor, "Red" McInnis, hadn't bothered !) with what I've Posted here, and the result is shocking ! Not that anything contradicts my Posts - but rather huge gaps have clearly opened up in my memory. For a single example, I've simply Posted that, during the '45 monsoon, we were detached to and flew from the RNAS Sulur (Coimbatore), as it had tarmac airfield surfaces - nothing more.
It now appears that, for several weeks before and after my arrival, the first plan had been to detach us to RAF Madura (now "Madurai"), which is 400 miles SE of the Porkal/Kumbla test sites CDRE used (on the Malabar Coast). This makes absolutely no sense to me. Perhaps they thought that the CDRE would not require our services at all until the dry weather in November. In fact (as it happened) there were plenty of dry days in September and October when we could have worked at Porkal (but not from Cannanore, as that was still waterlogged). If we'd been at Madura, we would have been far out of range, and would have had to refuel (both ways) at Sulur, to reach the Porkal ranges.
But the point is that I had known (and written) all about this at the time, and my log shows a "Madura and return" on 5th May (obviously a recce), but even now I have no recollection of this plan or the flight - and cannot bring any details to mind. It is as if the whole thing has been blocked out of memory, and cannot be recovered, even with the evidence (in my own handrwriting) staring me in the face ! In short the dreaded "Carlstrom Syndrome" (Chugalug will remember) strikes again. And there are several other experiences of a similar nature.
Conversely, many of the things I know had happened are not recorded there at all. Of course, items like our unofficial (and illicit !) self-"conversions" onto the P-47 Thunderbolt (which we only had on loan - and Lord help me if anything had gone wrong !) would not be put in writing. But other interesting bits (like the Bomb Scow [and Chain] saga, our [narrowly averted] attempt to head-butt Fort St.Angelo with our Mosquito, and the s/hawk I took in the engine on take-off) do not appear. But in these cases, there is nothing wrong with my memory. Rather, it would seem that our (all right, my) attitude to the F.540 was: "write a few lines and send the damn' thing off - we can't be bothered with it !"
Reverting to my "Carlstrom Syndrome", do others suffer from this memory block ? Remember, it's not a case of just forgetting, but of a complete inability to recall, even when presented with a photograph (or written or other incontrovertible evidence) of an event. It as if most of the past has been totally erased from memory, and what we fondly recall of our memories is not a continuum, but rather a succession of bright "flashes" against an inpenetrable black background, rather like the "snapshots" in an old album of a summer holiday long ago.
Danny42C.