The memoirs of Sqn Ldr Rupert Parkhouse, recorded in 1995 – Part 10. The first post in this series is #9775 on page 489 of this thread.
Rupert recalls that “when we arrived I thought the old hands were rather subdued”. They had good reason: this is Battle P2332 PH-F of 12 Sqn, shot down by flak while attacking the Maastricht bridges on May 12 1940, the raid on which two crewmen won VCs. The pilot, Flying Officer Norman Thomas, and his two-man crew survived and spent the rest of the war in captivity, ending up like Rupert in Stalag Luft 3. All the attacking aircraft were shot down.
WE JOINED 12 Sqn just as the news came through of the two VCs for Flying Officer Garland and his observer Sgt Tom Gray, who were killed on May 12 while attacking a bridge over the Albert Canal in Belgium. Pilot Officer Davy was the only pilot survivor. His Battle was set on fire, his observer and gunner baled out, and he managed to fly the aircraft back after the fire went out. One other pilot shot down became a POW, he was Pilot Officer Digger McIntosh and I later met him in the prison camp.
When we arrived on that Saturday I thought the old hands were rather subdued. We were billeted with an emaciated old widow and Brian Moss and I shared a double bed with an enormous feather mattress but not the widow, I hasten to add.
Next day we were stood down so we aircrew took some bread and tins of pilchards and sat in the sun on the side of a river, and on the Monday I was interviewed by Wing Commander Thackeray in his caravan parked in the farmyard. I can't remember what he said but he seemed a little bit shattered, as I suppose all the old hands were, by what had happened. Then I went to see Sqn Ldr Lowe, the OC Flying, and my flight commander, a chap called Drinkwater who was wearing a Cambridge Blue tie which I thought a little unusual. He took me to the crew room, which was the dining room of a rather fly-blown estaminet in the village. It had a telephone connecting us with the ops room and the flights.
Next morning I went down to the dispersal points and was surprised when a rather wizened flight sergeant wearing WW1 medals and RFC wings came up and asked me if I would air-test a Battle for him. Well, I was dying to get back in the air again so I walked to the machine with my parachute and was amazed when he came along with a flying helmet and jumped into the back, a remarkable show of confidence in this greenhorn pilot.
I had never flown a Battle with bombs on before, and I guessed that its takeoff run would be longer, so I taxied to the far end of the field, opened up and cleared the far hedge with height to spare and climbed to 5000ft, where I tried one or two manoeuvres including a half-hearted stall turn. I hadn't made any allowance for the extra 1000lb weight of the bombs and I was amazed when the aircraft flicked over onto its back. I recovered quite quickly, took the aircraft back in to land, misjudged the approach and had to come in with an awful lot of engine on. What the poor flight sergeant in the back thought of all this I was to find out later. Anyway we landed with a thump, the brakes were good and we stopped before the line of aircraft at the other end of the field.
I got out and signed the authorisation book in the flight commander's tent where I couldn't help overhearing the flight sergeant in the maintenance tent alongside. He was expostulating about 'That bloody Pilot Officer Parkhouse, I'm never going to fly with that bugger again!' and frankly I didn't blame him because the ammunition pan for the Vickers machine-gun had come off and hit him on the head.
NEXT POST: Rupert goes to war at last. All he has to do is to find the Germans ...