Flt. Lt John Dunbar DFC Five into four won't go 1
Taken from two tape recordings. John never thought the story of his pilots or a rescue from the Burmese jungle would ever be told. I was able to have an edited version published in Aeroplane during 2005.
John began his training at No26 EFTS at Theale, Berks on December 31st 1941. The course was interrupted when he was posted to No 31 EFTS in Alberta Canada followed by No38 SFTS at Estevan.
" At Estevan we started our training on Mk1 Ansons that had been used operationally in the UK, but soon progressed to the Canadian built Mk1V. No more winding the undercarriage up. On one occasion the chief flying instructor organised 2hrs of night flying for each student while he partied in the mess. This was my second night solo and I took off at midnight to do circuits and bumps. We could hear sounds from the mess and could tell the party was in full swing - we were left to our own devices.
On my first downwind leg problems arose. It was standard practice to at 1,000 ft to throttle back both engines to check the stall warning device was working, then open up and complete the rest of the checks. On opening up all went quiet! All I could do was turn towards the airfield and point the aircraft at the ground. It was pitch black and I struck the ground quite hard. The aircraft broke into a thousand pieces leaving me sitting in what remained of the cockpit, without a scratch. I got out but not a soul stirred or came near, so I began the long walk to dispersal. When I reached the flight office the duty NCO, Flt Sgt Long, looked at me and I'll never forget the look of disbelief on his face, before we went out to look at the wreckage. After an expletive, I was told to go and get a cup of tea, and trudged yet another mile to the cookhouse. Here I was met by another NCO who hated Long and refused to let me have a cup of tea unless I had a chit. Yet another slog back to Long resulted in him exploding and insisting I accompany him back to the cookhouse whereupon the two NCO's set about fighting each other. By this time I had had enough. No one had told me of their feud. It was four in the morning so I left them to it and went to bed. Amazingly, although a new Anson had been written off, no officer was involved and no-one said a word."
John was presented with his wings on September 10 1942, aged 19years and 3 months.
" Fifty four of us passed out on the SFTS course. You can imagine my feelings upon discovering that I was to be retained as a flying instructor. Not knowing that I had come top of the course I stormed into the Group Captain and said what a disgraceful decision it was, that I was the youngest on the course, that I was totally ill-equipped to be a flying instructor, and wanted to go on operations. He sat there and then said 'You are our choice and are going To No1 Flying Instructors School at Arnprior'. At this I again refused to go. He then said that if I still refused, I had the alternative of going to a radio operators' school at Winnipeg. where I would spend the rest of the war flying Tiger Moths on circuits and bumps with trainee radio operators in the back. Needless to say, I became a flying instructor for two years"
To be continued