THE PARKHOUSE MEMOIRS Final Part 24
The memoirs of Sqn Ldr Rupert Parkhouse, recorded in 1995 Part 24. First post in this series is #9775 on page 489 of this thread.
ON JOINING 201 Sqn I was very inexperienced, most of my flight lieutenants had many more hours than I had, but they were very kind and tolerant and I had an excellent wing commander (flying) in Stan Baggott and a sympathetic station commander, Dick Shenton.
With the admin duties and being transferred to ops rooms for exercises I found it very difficult to get as much flying as I wanted. On July 26 I had to take off heavily loaded on a special exercise at night when I hit my aircraft's float on a buoy, the float collapsed into the port aileron, and we had quite a dicy time sorting out the aeroplane. I sometimes wonder
if I had not had the very experienced Canadian Flt Lt Hutchinson with me to sort out the aircraft, I was so shocked that I didn't know what the hell to do.
I don't remember doing it, but at the moment of impact I must have pulled the throttles back. The engineer in the back, Flt Lt Barclay, shouted that the revs were down and we might be near the stall. Hutchinson, who was in the right (second pilot's) seat, came on the intercom and said 'Christ, who pulled those throttles back?' We immediately opened the engines again and we were all right. I eventually landed the aircraft but had I not had an experienced crew who virtually told me what to do we could have been in a very sorry state.
Rupert's recordings finish at this point. His son told me that the Sunderland incident resulted in a Court of Inquiry, after which had a pretty torrid time. The fact that he made such a fundamental error of throttling back after they hit the buoy meant he lost his nerve for flying duties and he transferred to the Admin Branch - where his uniform bedecked with wings did not sit well with the "admin wallahs" he was working with - he was neither fish nor fowl!
Rupert's last flight as a pilot was in a Sunderland, taking his log book to 913 hrs 20 min. It seems that he found staff work much more to his liking, especially his early posting to the US where he made many friends and perhaps achieved more via social contacts than can sometimes be achieved through formal diplomatic channels. The irreverent colonials of Washington re-titled him as Parking Leader Squawkhurst.
On return to the UK in 1956 Rupert held various SAdO appointments at stations such as MoD, Kenley, Biggin Hill (aircrew selection), Bomber Command at High Wycombe, El Adem in Libya (1963). He left the RAF early in about 1974 and then worked for the Business Equipment Trade Association and George Wimpey, the builders, where he finished his working life as an architectural administrator. He retired in about 1987 and, aged 95, lives in a Bournemouth nursing home with his wife Rosemary.
It has been a privilege to prepare this long series from Rupert's recordings, for it is clear that he was scarred for life by his experiences. His son says that in latter years he called himself a "passed over two and a half" and that is where he stayed. He was very disappointed in his career, but the one benefit of his vascular dementia is that he has been released from all his historical baggage and is as happy as he has ever been.