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Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II

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Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II

Old 15th Sep 2012, 19:48
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For Fred.

Another possibility: has he changed his e-mail address? If he has then I think he will have to re-register. (Actually that's wrong. You can alter your e-mail address, once logged in, by going to the 'User CP' on the left of the top yellow row of links)

If not, he could, on the log-in page, type in his name and then click the red 'forgotten password' phrase. He will then be sent his password by e-mail.

Last edited by Hipper; 15th Sep 2012 at 19:54. Reason: Wrong info: can alter e-mail address
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Old 15th Sep 2012, 20:07
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Whilst I was flying in the Solomon Islands in 2006 a cache of mustard gas was found on a small island. It had almost certainly been left behind by the Japanese in 1942/3. A disposal team was flown in courtesy of the USAF in a C5; all seven of them. The aircraft got stuck, nose first, on the apron of Honiara International and whilst it was there it was the largest man made structure in Guadacanal. There was nothing on the island big enough to tow it and the Pentagon would not authorise them to use reverse thrust.

They had to fly in a C17 with a towing unit.
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Old 16th Sep 2012, 13:39
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The Japanese tested bubonic plague and anthrax against chinese civilians during the war. A delivery system was developed using a ceramic container that was air detonated to ensure maximum spread of the bubonic plague spores. Because of an argument between the senior service and the airforce the planned deployment of the weapon using super subs against LA and SFO never happened.
Think that there were hundreds of thousand Chinese fatalities.
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Old 16th Sep 2012, 13:43
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Dann42c, Chugalu2 and many others

Thank you for all your help, chaps. We seemed to have solved the problem. My wonderful daughter bought me an I-Pad, thinking it would be much easier for me to handle than my 16" Laptop. It is wonderful but appears to be the cause of my problem.
I am now back in business using Windows 7 for Pprune.
Now the last item I saw was a reference to "Gus" Walker, whom I met twice, the last time when he refereed "Barbarians" versus Leicester Tigers, on the Boxing Day match, 50 years ago.
Nothing like team work.
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Old 16th Sep 2012, 14:24
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Fred's back !

Fred,

You're as welcome as the flowers in spring ! Leave these I-Pads and similar mini-miracles, which do everything bar making the tea - and they're working on that - to the nippers who understand them.

All honour to your daughter for a wonderful gift, but we old wrinklies should stick with things we (vaguely) understand.

Every cloud, etc......I can now send an e-mail without getting snarled-up (mostly)

I'm pleased to have been the first one to welcome you back, and I join you in your thanks to all those who responded to my appeal on your behalf,

Cheerio and God bless,

Danny.

Last edited by Danny42C; 16th Sep 2012 at 14:26.
 
Old 16th Sep 2012, 18:50
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Poison Gases

Chugalug,

It's great to have Fred back isn't it ? Let's hope he may possibly be able to put a bit more of his wonderful story on Post, but only if he feels up to it.

You're quite right about the gas stocks and our readiness to deploy. I believe German Intelligence was well aware of this, and so a de facto early state of MAD ensured that it was never used in Europe.

In Burma (and if need be in Japan), the Jap was so determined to go down fighting that he would have used gas (or anything else) without a moment's hesitation if he thought it militarily advantageous, regardless of the consequences to his own people. We had no information at Cannanore about any offensive capability we might have, and still less about possible tactics for its deployment.

Our rôle was strictly defensive; but, as I shall shortly tell, the stuff was supplied to the CDRE only in simple transit packaging. If we had any gas bombs, I would have expected to have seen some supplied to us to test. Did we have any artillery shells ? - I don't know.

Yes, it was exhilarating to be "Master of my fate and Captain of my soul" for the first time in the RAF. Looking back, I still marvel at the extent of the autonomy I enjoyed. On my own authority, I could fly the length and breadth of the subcontinent, put in anywhere for fuel, stay on any RAF Station and never be questioned. Those few who knew of the existence of the CDRE were aware of the high-security factor, and would not expect any detail from me (the Official Secrets Act, old chap, don'cher know),

Danny.
*****


Blind Pew,

I did not know of the anthrax and plague experiments you mention, but it all fits into the Japanese concept of Total War. It is a good thing that they didn't think of filling the ceramic containers with the stuff and using the balloons (some of which did get to the west coast of the US) to carry them in.

No one will ever know the death toll of Chinese civilians in the late thirties and in WW2

AFAIK, we only worked with Mustard, Lewisite would be a possible alternative, but I have no recollection of using it. As we were concerned only with liquids, phosgene would not be of interest to us. Nerve gases were well in the future for the UK (but Hitler had got them),

Danny.
*****

Fareastdriver,

You must be psychic ! Very soon will appear a story very close to your tale of the unfortunate C5. We dumped all our gas stocks in the sea at the end,

Danny.
*****

Thank you all for your interesting comment and extra detail,

Goodnight,

Danny42C.
 
Old 17th Sep 2012, 00:19
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Danny, some local History and the Deep Trench Latrine.

The little town of Cannanore dozed by the shores of the Arabian Sea. Wholly untouched by the war, it dreamed of its sixteenth-century past as a Portugese colonial possession in the great days of Afonso d'Albuquerque. To ward off European trading competitors, they built a substantial Fort St. Angelo, whose ruins still guard Moplah Bay to the south (this would be the only landing point). It was old Portugese missionary territory from Goa south down the coast.

Later the town was ceded to the British, unlike Goa, which during the war remaimed neutral as a Portugese colony. When we flew up to Bombay, we were supposed to dog-leg fifteen miles out to sea to avoid Goa (and so compromising its neutrality): a rule "honoured more in the breach than in the observance" .

Cannanore briefly resurfaced in history in 1799, when a General Stuart chose it as the landing point for his contingent of the East India Company's Bombay Army. From there he marched inland to join Wellesley (the future Iron Duke) in the defeat of Tippoo Sahib of Mysore at Seringapatam.

In the 1920s a small British army garrison was stationed at Cannanore after the Moplah Revolt, a local, long forgotten insurrection (but Wiki knows all about it): the two-mile stretch of sand to the south was still called "Moplah Bay".

The Garrison Engineers of the time used the local laterite rock to build a small permanent "cantonment" (a camp with family quarters). This camp was long disused until the CDRE chose it as their base during WW2. Cannanore was conveniently on the rail line running west from Coimbatore and then north up the coast, but the main attraction must have been these old permanent buildings.

More to the point, they were built beside the town "maidan" ( a large open space, think of an English park without the trees). There the townsfolk strolled to enjoy the sea breezes in the cool of the evenings, played cricket and held their festivals. The CDRE looked at this Maidan, and thought "runway". If you are testing defences against gas attacks on your troops, it is no use doing it on a blackboard. You have to put the stuff down on the ground, using all the means available to your enemy, then try out your ideas on real men exposed to real gas. The most likely way the Jap might use gas was from the air. So we needed aircraft to bomb or spray it onto trial sites, in order to recreate actual battle conditions.

1340 (Special Duty) Flight was established for this task, and the Maidan looked as if it might provide an airstrip for them. Otherwise they would have to fly from Cochin (Willingdon Island) or Coimbatore (Sulur), each involving more than 300 mile round trips. A single runway was laid out, surfaced with crushed and rolled laterite. It was not ideal.

Space was at a premium. The best they could do was about 3,000 ft, roughly NE/SW. One end went over the cliff (40 ft) into the sea, the other was hard up against a road, trees, electricity cables and the local bazaar. This end was a favourite spot of the townsfolk, who would gather there for the doubtful pleasure of seeing seven tons of Vengeance come to a shuddering stop just short of breaking through the fence at them.

The very solid ruins of the Fort crowned the clifftop a stone's throw from the seaward end of the strip. Monsoon drains (small ditches) had been dug along the sides for part of its length; these could easily rip the undercarriage off any aircraft which strayed into them. The obstacles at the town end dictated that we had to take off towards the sea (hoping to get airborne before the cliff edge), and land from it - regardless of wind - and then stay on the runway, or else !

There was always a long and thoughtful silence when a new pilot was briefed on this strip. Remarkably, we never had an accident (nor in the time of my predecessor, Flt.Lt. "Red" McInnis, RCAF, (whom we have met before). This may have been mainly luck, but I think it was because we all made a point of being extra careful. It was just as well, for our only crash tender was an old "WOT1", * with no speed and very limited foam-making capacity.


(Note *: "War Office Transport No. 1". This heavy fire engine on a Fordson WOT1/1A girder chassis was propelled only by a Ford V-8 engine of (perhaps) 85 bhp. It was hopelessly underpowered: I remember seeing an incident at Driffield after the war: a Meteor slid off the wet runway on landing, and the crash crew turned out. Their WOT1 made heavy going of it over the wet grass; people were actually running past it ! Luckily it wasn't needed).

****************

Extra Title: Danny and matters scatologigal: - The Deep Trench Latrine.

In response to a total lack of interest in the subject, but having a while back promised an article on this indelicate (but quite essential) component of our daily life in the forward areas now behind us, here is my recollection - (and those who remember Louis de Bernières' novel: "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" may remember a similar, amusing description of Italian troops).

I cannot do better by way of description than to recount an enduring sad tale that I must have heard a score of times - but never with exact details of time or place - (I believe it was current in the Middle East, too).

First, to set the stage: In a basha is dug a narrow trench, straddled by a long narrow timber box, This has an open bottom and is provided with a row of suitable holes on top. There are no doors or partitions - such civilised conventions have long been discarded in our life at the sharp end.*

Of course the normal military distinctions still had to be observed: separate DTLs for Officers and ORs (British), another set (of modified design) for the Indian Officers and ranks. (How did they manage with the Muslim/Hindu divide, and the Caste problems with the latter ? - No idea - Anglo-Indians ? I think they counted as British for this purpose.

Consequently, these places hosted convivial gatherings. Here was a forum for the discussion of important military matters; the latest rumours were disseminated (hence the term: "Latrinogram"), and the topics of the day given a good airing (no pun intended). Hinged lids were provided to try to abate the fly nuisance. Pretty well every visitor (even non-smokers) took a cigarette in with him (as a deodoriser - now you can see the advantage to "Stew" Mobsby of losing his sense of smell !) It was forbidden to throw a lighted butt down the hole, but there was always someone who forgot.

Our hero was one such. He picked himself up some fifty feet away, with a badly scorched bottom, surrounded with shattered timbers and covered all over with - well, not exactly with "sweet violets" ! He was not alone, his companions (in a like state) were not well pleased with him, and were making the fact loudly and abundantly clear. The "netty", "dunny", call it what you will, had (to use a common expression in "babu" English): "Gone from that place".

What had happened ? Methane in the trench had built up to the point where, mingled with air, it had reached the "stoichiometric ratio" at which the mixture became explosive. The dog-end provided the detonator.

Is the story true ? Well, it could have happened, couldn't it ?

Note *: And not only at the sharp end. In the Basic and Advanced flying schools of the US Army Air Corps (which were 100% military units), I recall the same companiable arrangement with rows of gleaming mahogany and porcelain thrones in the washrooms (so there was no chance of a quiet break with cigarette and newspaper). Primary Schools were basically civilian-run: more customary standards prevailed there).

I promise you that is the last word on the subject.

Goodnight once more,

Danny42C


Ah, well.
 
Old 17th Sep 2012, 08:27
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Chopping board

Danny, didn't you ever see this great clip that was doing the rounds a short time ago?

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Old 17th Sep 2012, 08:41
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It is still all there on Google Earth. The city is now called Kannur and the St Angelo Fort is still called St Angelo. You can see the remains of the runway by the barracks. Only a short section, 333ft., but the end is 3,600 ft from the cliff on a bearing of 340 degrees.
At Strategic Air Command Headquarters at Offut, Nebraska in 1962 they still had a row of porcelin johns with no partitions or doors.

Last edited by Fareastdriver; 17th Sep 2012 at 11:32. Reason: Change from QDM to QDR
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Old 17th Sep 2012, 10:53
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Angel

Danny,
Fantastic stuff, history lessons et al. You should publish these memories as a book.
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Old 17th Sep 2012, 11:18
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There were similar communal toilet arrangements in the bus station in Chicago in 1978....more effective than Imodium, given one's fellow travellers...
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Old 17th Sep 2012, 12:49
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Oh dear. Please allow me to recall the tale told by an old shipbuilder from the Govan Shipyard in Scotland.

They had similar lavatory arrangements to those described above but, being engineering types they rigged it up so that it was tilted at a slight angle and constant running water was used to sluice peoples' waste away.

The guy that rigged all this up would occasionally stand at the end where the channel began, attach oily rags to a model boat and then set it all alight.

The boat would then serenely drift its way down the channel with the rags blazing away merrily -- with the inevitable affect on the bums above.

Our hero would chuckle away merrily as people rushed out of the latrine in great disarray!

Er, sorry, off topic. Great to see you back Fred!

Last edited by angels; 17th Sep 2012 at 12:50.
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Old 17th Sep 2012, 18:13
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Communal loos, I-pads and Cannanore.

GANNET FAN

Marvellous clip ! - No, I'd never seen it (had no idea what an I-pad was until daughter told me !),

Thanks, Danny.
****************

Fareastdriver,
Yes, I have seen the Google maps (so even poor little Cannanore couldn't escape the renaming frenzy). Looks like a very substantial military establishment now covers most of the maidan. Note the little harbour built onto the Fort promontory with the other side wall (pier) running out from Moplah Bay. This is all new from my time.

Your bearing of 340 (from where ?) has me puzzled. That's more or less the (true) heading of the coastline. Could it be 240 - that would be about right for my runway heading ?

Some years ago had a look on daughter's laptop, thought I saw very faint lines which might be the last traces of the east end of the old runway. Buildings and trees now cover most of where it used to be.

The old look I mentioned showed weird things on the military site. They'd got hold of a job lot of bright blue paint and were painting all sorts of things with it. One was a strange dagger shape: I zoomed in as far as possible - 80% sure it was a jet fighter. Old Mig-21 for instructional purposes? Could be (it's gone now). How did it get there (couldn't have flown in).

And are the small (possibly) naval vessels (MTB size) moored just offshore from the camp still there. Remember those, they will link up with my tale much further on.

Many thanks for the research effort,

Danny.
******

Taphappy,

Much appreciate the generous praise, but can't be bothered now. Market for war books just about saturated anyway.

Now let's have some more of your stuff - it's every bit as entertaining as mine !

Danny.
******

Molemot and angels,

We're piling Pelion on Ossa now ! (have I got it right ?). This practice seems to have been more extensive than I thought.

angels,

If the shipyard maties had got hold of the culprit, I would fear for his survival. All sorts of things beside ships end up floating in the river.

Danny.
******

Thank you all for the support. General plea: someone pop in on thread (even just to say "hello") every time we drop out of the bold type on Page 1 of "Military Aircrew". That way we'll keep up the interest, and may ensnare other old timers (got me in didn't it ?). On second thoughts, this is probably verboten by PPRuNe Pop, bad idea.

Danny42C.
 
Old 19th Sep 2012, 12:56
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Hello Gentlemen,

Just a quick Hello to bump this back onto page 1 and to express my continuing interest in these stories and my admiration of those of you who are sharing your experiences. I wish I'd been able to hear more first hand stories such as you gents are telling from my grandfather while he was still alive... A Newfoundlander who fought in N. Africa and Italy.

J
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Old 19th Sep 2012, 17:54
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Jason Burry,

Thanks ! (Next instalment coming tonight, I hope),

Cheers,

Danny.
 
Old 19th Sep 2012, 21:47
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Danny, Rats, Goats, Kitehawks and stuck Liberators.

Before I start, I must correct a mistake. A week ago (#3024 p.151 12.9.12.) I airily said: "One of (now) my Vengeances flew in to pick me up". I 've just had a look at my log. It was AN832 - which I'd flown myself four days previously - with Freddie as a passenger! It was a 1580 Flight aircraft, so they must have kindly flown me over. (The pilot, W/O Waltham, surely had a few qualms when he saw what he'd got to land on at the other end !)

A point which I really should have included in my description of Cannanore (I have no truck with "Kannur") concerns the Laccacdive Islands, an archipelago lying about 150 miles West in the Arabian Sea. Geologically, they must be much the same as the Maldives, and it has always seemed to me that the Indian tourist organisation had missed a valuable commercial opportuniy in not developing them in the same way. (Wiki tells me that they have now made a start).

We knew they were there, of course, but it would have been criminally irresponsible to go out to take a look, as this would have involved a 300 mile trip over the sea in a single-engined aircraft; there was no airstrip there in our day and not much to see anyway. Now back to our "runway"............

Taking off over the cliff edge was rather like what take-off from a carrier must have been. We should have been wearing "Mae Wests", and sitting on K-class dingies, for there were no Air-Sea rescue boats; one day someone must finish up in the sea. It's strange, but for the life of me I can't remember whether we did wear life-jackets all the time. (I was the C.O., what was I doing about this ?) Were there no Station Flying Orders ? (come to that, I can't remember any S.F.O.s anywhere in India).

We certainly wore them sometimes, for I remember one trip down to Cochin - it was probably an airmen's pay run - but when I taxied up to the flight line there no marshaller was in sight. No matter, a big B-24 "Liberator" was right out at the end. I parked alongside not paying much attention to it. They were common enough, they flew long anti-submarine sorties over the Indian ocean from Ceylon, and often came up North.

I was disentangling myself from my harness and about to climb out, when the Duty Flight Corporal came dashing up indignantly in full Traffic Warden mode: "You can't leave that there 'ere !". I clearly remember shrugging my Mae West off one shoulder to show my rank cuff. It made little difference: "You can't leave that there 'ere, SIR !"

Why not ? For answer he pointed wordlessly at the Liberator, and I saw that the lower half of the main wheels had sunk through the tarmac. It was down to the axles already, and how they were ever going to get it out, Heaven only knows (like Fareastdriver's C5 at Honiara a few Posts ago).

It seemed that the local contractor who built the airfield had skimped on this patch, there was no foundation - nothing but sand under a thin skin of tarmac ! My Corporal was worried that the same might happen to me. I reassured him: it was very unlikely as I was only staying an hour or so, whereas the Lib had taken a night and a day to get into that state.

At lunch in the Mess, it was a major topic of conversation, and many were the solutions on offer. One of the better ones was: as the Far East war was over and it was a Lend-Lease aircraft, we should invite the Americans to come and take it away - if they could. Otherwise we'd put a low chain fence round it, leave it and declare it a War Memorial !

(In later years, I often used this story to add a bit of colour to my afternoon lectures on: "Load Classification Numbers" and "Runway Bearing Strengths"; for some reason, the subject always had a greater power to induce sleep in my ATC students)

But the point of this story is that we did wear Mae Wests, although our only danger point was the take-off. After that we would hug the shoreline all the way, there were plenty of empty beaches to force-land on if necessary. But we certainly didn't use dinghies. And I would have remembered that, for they were terribly uncomfortable to sit on, all hard and knobbly - there was one particularly nasty bump on top where the sadistic designer had chosen the very worst place to house the gas inflation bottle.

(The dinghies fitted on top of your chute in place of the usual sponge rubber seat cushion. It was just possible, if you extended the chute leg straps almost as far as they would go, to thread the groin loop through both the dinghy and a seat cushion as well, but then you wobbled about so precariously perched on top of that lot that it wasn't really safe).

I said that the runway was surfaced with crushed laterite (a soft volcanic rock). A colony of rats found this stuff much to their liking. It was soft enough to dig out for their burrows, and they went at it with a will. The ratholes were no problem, but the excavated mounds of spoil were a hazard. We regularly had to send a chap out with a shovel to fill them in. The rats would dig them out again the next night. Like moles in a lawn, we never could get rid of them.

And at any time you might find a herd of goats on the runway. These would scatter before an aircraft taking off, but before landing you had to "buzz" them off, and then fly a very quick circuit to get down before they drifted back. This animal-on-runway business was a hazard all over India, goats were no problem, but a water buffalo or an elephant would be more difficult to shift. Fortunately we didn't have any of those.

Then there was the constant flying hazard of "kitehawks" (their more polite name), a sort of small, scruffy vulture, all over the subcontinent. These birds were esteemed, and I believe protected by law, for their value as scavengers (the same service as our crows provide by cleaning up road kills). Valuable or not, they were a nuisance. They quickly got used to us, and would wait to the very last moment before hopping or flapping out of the way, much as our crows do on the roads today.

Some were too slow. Our Thunderbolt caught one on the side of a wheel while taking off, ripped a big piece of tyrewall rubber off, and was very lucky to land (very gently) without a blow-out. I got Group to put a Green Endorsement in the (South African) pilot's logbook (he was loaned to us with the aircraft). I was away on leave when this happened, but reproved my second-in-command gently when I got back, for not sending him off (he was full of fuel) to Yelahanka to do his worst there.

You'll remember they were running a T/Bolt conversion, they would have had all the spares and technicians to fix one if things went wrong on touchdown, and if they went very wrong, well, their crash facilities were far better than mine: he would stand a better chance of survival: they could clear the wreckage off their runway more easily than I could off mine. (I do not suppose they would see it quite that way, but there you go).

And one day I was charging down the runway on take-off, way past V1, when there was a heavy thud and a cloud of feathers flew out of the engine cowl gills and shot past my cockpit. I'd taken a bird in between the cylinders. The engine seemed not to notice, I flew a quick circuit and put it down. The bird was fished out (stone dead), and found to be nearly plucked (wind blast) and part-cooked (engine heat). But it wasn't drawn, and in any case inedible, so we couldn't take advantage of the windfall.

Goodnight everyone,

Danny42C.


All's well that ends well.

Last edited by Danny42C; 19th Sep 2012 at 21:52.
 
Old 19th Sep 2012, 23:40
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Fred, great to see you back on thread! Now don't go away again, will you?
Danny, your vivid exposition upon the communal conveniences of the Sub-Continent and elsewhere inexorably brings to mind the programme on TV by Lucinda Lambton which she entitled, if I have it right, "On the Throne". Yours though would seem to have had a more traditionally rural nature than the glass walled aquarium cisterns in the Victorian Gentlemen's Water Closets of her treatise. I too have witnessed the communal arrangements in US Military Establishments and passed quickly by, like you.
I have zoomed in on Kannur as advised by FED, but on Google Maps rather than Earth, and I think I can see his rectangular strip running approx 340, which has a helicopter "H" emblazoned on it beguilingly labelled "Helipad at Kannur Cantonment". It's just crying out to be the remains of your runway, but clearly cannot be, given your clear description of 240 deg, 'twixt cliffs and road. That I think must be to the south. There one finds a sort of Padang (or Maidan if you will) running in your required direction, that is now the Army sports ground. If that is where your runway was, and the road running from Fort to City is the same as in your day, then you had less of a runway and more of a launching pad, that a STOL Harrier might have flinched at! Fun and games indeed, no wonder you became such a local spectator sport. I wonder if any of the original cantonment buildings still exist?
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Old 20th Sep 2012, 08:13
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Danny - The Govan shipyard worker with the flaming rags was Jimmy Reid, who ended up running the place during the work-in the 70s!!

Re Mae Wests, I remember mny Dad saying how awkward they were and that he didn't bother with them as pax.

The longer trips he did over water (Burma-Ceylon ws one) were in Daks where he said you could just grab one if any trouble occurred or in Catalinas or Sunderlands whcih were quite capable of landing on water should trouble occur!!
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Old 20th Sep 2012, 12:59
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a big B-24 "Liberator"
they flew long anti-submarine sorties over the Indian ocean
The last Liberator I saw flying was an Indian Navy example approaching Juhu airfield in Bombay in 1963.
May have still been doing the same thing.
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Old 20th Sep 2012, 17:21
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Cannanore, aka "Kannur"'

Chugalug,

I must have another look at the Google Sat-map to see if I can find this runway 34 and "H" pad. For a military establishment of this size it would certainly make much sense to have a small strip to cater for VIPs in Auster-sized things. And 16/34 is parallel to the shoreline, so it couldn't be a bit of my old one.

So I must stick to my estimate of somewhere between 05/23 and 07/25 (didn't we know ?). In my log I have a couple of very poor prints shot by a "Box Brownie" ?, from turning-in on finals position (will put them on Post if I can ever work out how to do it - and yes, I still keep safe the excellent instructions you sent me months ago).

These shots show the strip normal to the cliff edge, tucked-in close to the Fort. There are clearly two white lines across the strip, I would guess 1000 ft from each end. What on earth were they ? I have no recollection of ever seeing them before (the Carlstrom Field syndrome again !)

My only guess: they indicated the limits of the monsoon drains at the sides - after landing you had to pass the line before turning off. Sounds reasonable ? So what use was the one at the West end, when we never landed that way ?

The old cantonment buildings from the 20s were solid laterite and will last for ever. I don't doubt that they have been incorporated in the present much enlarged layout. Most of the maidan has been swallowed up by sports field and trees.

I agree with you about the sparrows-on-a-line sanitary arragements, but when you've no option........!

Danny.
*****

angels,

Yes, Jimmie Reid was quite a colourful character, but he ran a fine line playing that trick on his Govan workmates ! (I bet he never confessed to it until he was safely in the House of Commons).

I never found a Mae West hard to put on, but it was hot under your harness. If I'd been your Dad, I'd do the same over water in a Dak - but I'd keep it in arm's reach all the time !

Danny.
******

Fareastdriver,

I didn't know the Indian Navy kept the B-24s going as long as that. Whose subs could they have been looking for then - Pakistan's ? (The Russians would have been on-side then).

I vaguely remember Juhu (Santa Cruz ?). Didn't it have a sea wall, and didn't something (a Constellation ?) plough into it one time ?

Danny.
*****

Thank you all for the interest which is the lifeblood of this Thread.

Danny42C
 

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