NigG (your #80),
Thank you for the very interesting extracts from your late Father's Logbook, and your comments on them. Of course this generates still more questions and so
ad infinitum..... - but that is the nature of the "crewroom natter" which is the essence of PPRuNe.
So, I start with:
...why it was he signed your log book in late April '43. The Squadron had recently moved down to Ceylon...
But he was certainly still behind in Madhaiganj (Bengal) ! Perhaps there was some very urgent business that had to be wrapped up before he followed them down to Ceylon. We shall never know now (unless it's in the Squadron ORB). Otherwise one of the countless unsolved mysteries of war !
...I appreciate you're busy in the 'Pilot's Brevet' Thread...
We-ll no, not really. It is very quiet now and has slipped into the Slough of Despond (aka Page 2 of "Military Aircrew"), and there is only one stalwart (Walter603) keeping the flag aloft at the moment.
...the somewhat unwelcome task of needing to trawl through and finding a page reference for me to view...
Would be a lot easier if PPRuNe's "Search" facility worked ! Time again it says "sorry, no match" (or words to that effect), I try Google with the same cue words and it does the business, so much so that it's now my first port of call.
No ! No need ! If you choose to Post on one Thread - or several at a time - you have brought on your own head the task of sorting out the replies you get.
...while the long range ones in support of the Chindits were 2.5 to 3.5 hours...
IMHO, 3 hours is pushing it, and frankly, 3.5 hours is "not on". The sum is simlple: with full bomb load, in formation, and climbing to your target on the way out, you cannot hope for better than 65 (US) galls/hr overall. You have 220 galls (US) on board....Certainly they must have refuelled
somewhere on the way home. I never clocked more than 2hrs 20 on any one flight, and any total time over 3 hrs involved a refuel.
...29 February Bomb attack on Jap village of Metkalet. 12 Vengeances. Highly successful. Strafed target with front and rear guns...
It looks as if my doubts over "12 in hand" were not valid ! Perhaps it was a combined effort with 110 - six from each. Strafed with front guns ? Our early experiences on 110 with the front 0.300 US Brownings were dire: they were so unreliable as not to be worth bothering with. (Don't remember ours having ever been harmonised). I only used them once, in the last few moments of a dive on Akyab (yes,
after the chap ahead had pulled away !), merely in the hope making any flak gunners keep their heads down rather than on any particular target. Got a bollocking for it as (a) the chances of hitting anything were remote and (b) the Armourers would now have to clean the four guns, they had enough to do, and that was a job they could do without !
The rear (UK) 0.303s were much better: the back seat men loosed off at any opportinity Jap target when we were coming back low over Jap-occupied Burma.
...15 April AASC target. Led 24 Vengeances on attack on ridge, NE of Imphal. Large number of Japs dug-in. All bombs in target area. [Note adds:] Report from 4 Corps stated that Gurkha troops ‘went-in’ immediately after bombing and occupied the whole area with little opposition. Over 450 dead Japs counted...
Setting aside the "24 VVs", which would imply a maximum effort from both Squadrons (or did 7 [IAF] Squadron lend a hand from nearby Uderbund ?); this illustrates the Vengeance doing the job it might have been designed for. Any surviving Jap would be so stunned by noise and blast after the arrival of 96 bombs (some 16 tons of HE), that he would be incapable of putting up much resistance to a Gurkha !
...but I think these days of aerial warfare counted for the most remarkable of his life...
How true ! I should think we all felt that. Of course we were young and impressionable then, but even so those days, often dangerous, sometimes boring and uncomfortable , but always with a sense of purpose, were the high point of many lives. I always thought of my five war years as being the university to which I could never otherwise have aspired.
Too long, already - will continue later,
Danny.
PS:
MPN11 (#81),
...My eye was also caught by:
"P/O Gabrielson thrown out of aircraft ‘U’ " (I assume from the rear cockpit?)
"... ordered F/O Ellis, gunner, to standby to bale-out."
Given the minimalist armament in the back of the VV, this seems an expensive way of manning it. Would Danny42C elaborate on that aspect, please?...
Next time, certainly !
Danny.