Sea Survival Training — Still Taught to RAF Aircrew?
Back in 1962 as a member of 99 Sqn (R.A.F. Lyneham — Britannias) I and the rest of my crew together with a crew from 511 Sqn, also Britannias, were sent on a sea survival training course at RAF Mountbatten.
A two-day course - day-one theory and techniques, day-two was practical. On day-two we donned service overalls and a Mae-west and boarded an ASR Launch at the breakwater to be taken out to Plymouth Sound. Once there we were tossed into the flippin-cold oggin, climbed one-by-one into an already inflated 12-man dinghy, zipped-up the dinghy entrance flap and were left for what seemed hours to get warm, but was probably not more than 45-minutes, but enough time to feel thoroughly queasy as the dinghy was tossed around by the waves.
One of the crew was manning the dinghy’s entrance flap and eventually the ASR helicopter (a Whirlwind?) appeared. We were then winched up into the helicopter one by one. With all aboard we were then winched one-by-one down onto the ASR launch nearby and once safely down on deck were then offered a noggin of Rum and eventually taken back to Mountbatten. The whole exercise was then repeated for the crew from 511.
Quite instructive and useful if we were ever forced to ditch so this event is something that sticks in one’s memory — even after 54-years!
This exercise probably took place around the 11th July 1962 because it coincided with the first live television transmission from the US via the Telstar satellite in orbit over the Atlantic and we, and most of the UK TV audience were engrossed enough to stay up late to watch this momentous event live. ISTR the first transmission early in the morning was a disappointment, but later, or the next day perhaps, more acceptable TV was transmitted. Mountbatten’s Mess must have made a fortune that night because we were drinking into the early hours to watch this event.
The ‘Lyneham Globe’ published an article about this training in the 17th August 1962 edition as can be seen from the photo in the cutting attached. I don’t appear in the photo, but believe the person shown climbing into the dinghy was an US Major on exchange posting to 511 Sqn.
On the way down to Plymouth from Lyneham we [the 99 Sqn crew] travelled in two cars and the car I was in was driven by our Flight Engineer. He for some reason knew the West Country and its pubs fairly well and we agreed to RV with the other car and stop for lunch in Ilchester at the ‘Ilchester Arms’. I still have fond memories of this lunch as being one of the best pub lunches I’ve ever had.
So enough of my memories, does the R.A.F. still do such courses for aircrew?