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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

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Old 18th Oct 2016, 09:45
  #9561 (permalink)  
Danny42C
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The things you learn on this Thread ! Spent nearly four years in India/Burma in WWII, and never knew there were any RAF Regt out there at all - until now. Even when I left UK in '42, we vaguely thought that the Regt manned Bofors guns at major airfields, but that was all.

But when it came to the hand to hand stuff, we were 'on our own'. The story was that, when it was first mooted that that airfields should be protected by the Army against paratroop attack, Churchill exploded: "Send one lot of able-bodied men to defend another lot of able-bodied men ? I think not !

So we had Station Defence Days (and Nights). One Day I particularly remember, at Hullavington, I was slithering about on the wet grass chucking half-bricks (pretend grenades) at a Bren gun carrier (pretend tank), when I suffered a grievous loss. My favourite of all time fountain pen (2/3d and two "Typhoo Tips" box tops - and for that you got a 14k gold nib) must have slipped out of my battledress blouse pocket, never found it.

Later, at OTU at Hawarden, they did not want to interrupt the flying programme, so we had a Night one. Somewhere on my earlier Posts, I tell the tale of a miserable little group of LACs in the middle of the night, shivering in their groundsheets from the pelting rain, manning their Post (what with ? - not even pick-helves) against (what ?)

Couldn't desert your Post (Orderly Officer came round in his van every hour or so to check), even if you could, couldn't get back to your billet (S.P.s posted). Found shelter in a newly assembled "Wellington", parked nearby on the grass (which is why I know that some had a crew door half way back on the port side - and a nice little canvas bunk inside).

Must've called it off at first light, so that the studes could get some kip before climbing into their Spits next morning. Charging with fixed bayonets (what were they ?) on the end of rifles (never had any). Not this child !

Which leads to another story....

Danny.
 
Old 20th Oct 2016, 11:26
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BEagle
Much the same when the GAF visited the secret airbase in Shropshire when we attempted the Horst Wessel ... much to the distress and distraction of the poor PMC!!
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Old 20th Oct 2016, 17:45
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Fl Lt John Dunbar DFC (RIP) Five into four won't go

Taken from three tapes

With General Messervey it was always “ Right Ginger, 3Brigade are going in at 2o'clock at ….... I'd like to go and watch” “You know damn well sir, I cannot fly you over the battlefield”
“Oh it's all right Ginger, it'll be all right” I have told you before when 'Norris the nose' took him up when I was not available. I will never forget his words when he got back “Ginger, you're not going to like this.” Jimmy thought 'the General has spoken – I had better do as asked' This was the sort of army we had out there. It was a joy to work with them. Jimmy got his nickname when he put his face into the dashboard when crashing on take off on one of those silly jobs.

As you know, we dropped the order of battle every morning to the advanced units of 4Corps and we would bring information back as to where they had got to. I remember Joe Edwards
coming back and saying “I've boo boobed. I dropped the mail and the japs have captured it. I circled round and realised that I had dropped it in the wrong place. They have loaded it on to an elephant and it has charged off into the Japanese side.” This is the whole battle of order for the army. I said”Oh my God!”and rushed into G ops and they got hold of Major Gibson, a most wonderful guy. If anyone said the RAF and Army can't get on... We never had a disagreement on anything. “ You tell me what you want Ginger and we will do what we can” We went through the whole war without a cross word.

In Gibby's tent I said “ For God's sake Gibby, we've boobed” “ Oh “he said, “ I must get hold of the General right away” General Messervey came running back. We were both stood to attention saying “I'm sorry Sir, we have dropped the order of battle on an elephant and it has charged off and there is nothing anyone can do about it, nothing at all” Messervey was very calm and said to tell Joe to go back and have a look. Joe was away for about an hour. When he landed
he just looked at us and said “ The elephant is back, they've got the elephant back” The elephant had somehow made it's way onto our side of the line. The war in our part of Burma hung in the balance at that moment because we would have blown the complete gaff, these were the sort of things that happened.

We lost several aircraft in this game because we were trying to land in silly places. If we had two hundred yards cut out that was as much as we could hope for. This went on all the way to the Irrawady crossing which was one of the great experiences when I flew General Messervey. There is a book called 'The Spearhead General' which is a book written about him. He was the only General in the British Army who was operational on 3rd September '39 and was on the VJ hand over in Rangoon at the end of the war and the only General to be captured by the Germans and to escape. I flew him every other day.

To be continued
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Old 20th Oct 2016, 21:31
  #9564 (permalink)  
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Danny has competition - a Fairey Battle survivor

Just found references to this gentleman S/Ldr Rupert Parkhouse on FBook recently celebrating his 70th Wedding Anniversary to his wife Rosemary

WW2 pilot celebrates 70 years of marriage to his Wren (From Bournemouth Echo)

Shot down in 1940 flying a Fairey Battle over France (5 years a PoW) then a post war Sunderland pilot involved in the Berlin Airlift

Oh to get his memories posted on this thread

PZU - Out of Africa (Retired)
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Old 20th Oct 2016, 22:07
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JD (c/o BB):-
“I'm sorry Sir, we have dropped the order of battle on an elephant and it has charged off and there is nothing anyone can do about it, nothing at all”
OK BB, you'll just have to run this past me again as I've not quite got it. Were the OoD's free drops or were they attached to small (SEAC) chutes? If the latter then I can well imagine the scene of elephant suddenly festooned with pack, rigging lines, and canopy (high viz colour?) taking great offence at the liberty and charging off into the boondock in protest. If the former then it doesn't quite tally that the pack was still on its back when it finally returned (or perhaps it held it triumphally in its trunk?).

General Messervey is obviously someone to read much more about. He sounds like a soldier's soldier, leading from the front and seemingly unrestrained by his staff officers.

RAF VSO's please take note. I once sent an AQM up to 38 Group for an AOC's commissioning interview as the boss had endorsed my recommendation as O i/c AQMs. "What did he talk about?", I asked on his return, thinking it would be all about officer qualities, etc. "He wanted to know what was going on here", he replied. "He said his staff don't tell him anything and keep him stuck in the office". A bit apocryphal no doubt, but as it was Micky Martin he was probably making a point about RAF bureaucracy. I don't expect General Messervey had much cause to make such comments...
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Old 21st Oct 2016, 07:52
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The OoD were free drops Chug. The japs had placed it on the elephant. John often mentioned this story ( with a chuckle!) and always said that the elephant charged off of it's own accord
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Old 21st Oct 2016, 08:33
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Way back in 1966 a the squadron QHI, a character called Chunky Lord (RIP) , was checking me out on low level downwind engine offs.

(200 ft. downwind, engine pulled, full flare down to 45 knots, wrack it around on your ear into wind, maintain 40 knots and cushion touchdown with lever) quite simple really.

I did a couple and then Chunky said he would have a go. Unfortunately he turned left at the end of the flare as opposed to right which for various aerodynamic reasons doesn't result the same effect so we ended up at about 100 ft. with no airspeed and lots of downward arrows.

The landing was somewhat, actually very, untidy and we departed the aircraft by climbing upwards out of the port cockpit windows.

As we stood there wondering what to tell the Board of Inquiry we were joined by AVM Micky Martin who had ran from 38Gp HQ some 100 yards from our exhibition and he was the first to arrive. He was very concerned about our health and when the blood wagon arrived he returned to his HQ of four days.

Danny may remember my describing the AVM and I passing through Leconfield one day; the person wearing my Cold Weather Flying Jacket saga. I also, in Germany, refreshed him with a low level trip across the Eider Dam.

I flew Mickey, Sir for short, innumerable times and he was one of, if not the nicest of, all the VSOs and VIPs I flew around in the sixties and seventies.
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Old 21st Oct 2016, 09:06
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I agree with the comments in respect of the great 'Mickey Martin'. We had just reformed 47 Sqn at Fairford with the Hercules when he , as AOC, paid us a visit.
We were gathered in the crewroom when he arrived. He shook off his 'attendants' walked up to those at the coffee bar and immediately started chatting. He had huge presence.
I never met another VSO with that kind of rapport with the troops.
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Old 21st Oct 2016, 16:17
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Another VSO from an earlier era who was well liked and respected by his men was Air Marshal the Earl of Bandon. Photo of him with some of his men in my post here:
http://www.pprune.org/military-aviat...ml#post9346387
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Old 21st Oct 2016, 16:32
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Four-footed Friend !

BB (#9564),
...“ The elephant is back, they've got the elephant back” The elephant had somehow made it's way onto our side of the line...
Sagacious beast ! On such tiny threads do the fate of armies depend !

Another elephant story worth the retelling:
...The other loss was a valuable item of Government property. I've said that new concrete tracks were being laid. Before you pour concrete, you have to put in hardcore and ram it down. They had no steamrollers, but a Works and Bricks elephant made a very good substitute. Jumbo "marked time" ponderously, helping himself to any edible vegetation within trunk reach. His "mahout" (keeper) moved him a few feet from time to time as the job required.

All was calm and content. Jumbo much preferred this to hauling heavy logs in the forest, and his mahout had nothing to do except smoke his malodorous "bidi" (this was the local "roll-your-own"; the filling was a matter of conjecture: obviously vegetable in origin, but "processed" by some animal - camel seemed the most likely).

By the way, it might interest you to know that there's a standard elephant "language" of commands, just as with sheepdogs. If you learn it, so that you can "drive" one trained elephant, then you can "drive" any other. The mahout backed up his orders with an "ankh", a very unpleasant looking iron rod some two feet long, curved at the end, with a nasty spike at the tip (there is no point - no pun intended - in whacking an elephant with a stick). It sounds barbarous, but I suppose it was no worse than the rowels on a spur.........(just thought you'd like to know!)

Then the air raid warning came. The mahout ran for it, leaving Jumbo to his own devices. In all fairness, there wasn't much he could do (imagine digging a slit trench to hold an elephant, and then persuading him into it). The bombs came down and Jumbo vanished. We found no bloodstains and concluded that he had been stung by a piece of hot shrapnel.

Whatever had hit him did not impede his locomotion. He was seen by "B" Flight (untouched by the raid on the far side of the runway), galloping along it with trunk, ears and tail outstretched, and roaring with indignation. He went trumpeting off the end into the hills and was never seen again. A tracker party found no body and assumed that he had decided to give civilisation a miss. And who could blame him?

But that wan't the end of it. This was no common or garden elephant. He was Government property, registered and on inventory. His loss must be investigated; there was an endless Court of Enquiry in which we were involved as witnesses. Indian bureaucracy is a wondrous thing. It rather seemed that they regarded the loss of their precious elephant as our fault, and thought that the RAF should pay for it.

What became of it in the end, I do not know, for shortly afterwards Stew and I, with three other crews, were posted to "beef-up" No. 8 Sqdn, IAF. They had recently been equipped with the Vengeance, and were somewhere back over on the other side of the Bay.

But before I leave K and the delicious, all pervading scent of tea which would stay long in my memory, here are two little vignettes to lighten what has been a sombre tale so far. "Topper" had got hold of a miniature dachshund (or at least, I think it was "Topper"), Over at "B" Flight (why would he be there - was he acting C.O.? ), among the trees, he had this dog with him. Jumbo had occasion to visit the Flight, to pull a tree down to make more room, or something like that.

The tiny dog took exception to this, and valiantly tried to defend his master's property by barking and nipping at this monster's toes. Jumbo looked indulgently down on the angry little animal, and gently shooed him away with his trunk, although he could have stamped him flat in a moment, or used his trunk as Tiger Woods uses a driver - and the dog wouldn't have touched down for 200 yards or so. We marvelled at his forebearance - truly the patience of an elephant!. Of course he was a great favoutite of all...
Just thought I'd mention it.

Danny.
 
Old 21st Oct 2016, 18:39
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I have been following this thread from its inception but not having had anything valid to add (until now and now not too much admittedly), I would like to add to your picture collection. just returned from a trip to Bengaluru (Bangalore in old money) and visited the HAL Aerospace and heritage Museum. Two of the many old photographs were of the Vultee in India and I'm unsure if they have already been posted elsewhere but here they are nonetheless.



[/URL]
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Old 21st Oct 2016, 18:43
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Old 21st Oct 2016, 19:04
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Now there's an addition to the tale of Vengeance!!

Although the 2nd picture raises a question ... what is that airframe serial number? And what's a Vultee 12D when it's at home?


DR DH DA .. I'm, not getting a cross-reference from Bruce Robertson's 'British Military Aircraft serials'
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Old 21st Oct 2016, 19:50
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Looks like a Curtis Hawk 75 to me ?.
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Old 21st Oct 2016, 19:51
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BB:-
The OoD were free drops Chug. The japs had placed it on the elephant.
Thanks for the info, BB, but why would they do such a bizarre thing? The orders would not have consisted of much more than a pad or two of paper. You'd have thought that they would have been placed into the custody of the senior officer present, who would admittedly have wanted to pass them up the CoC ASAP. But by elephant? If that decision and the outcome of that decision was learned by their CoC, heads would have rolled (literally in the case of the Imperial Japanese Army!). As you say Danny, thank goodness that the fickle finger of fate pointed in our favour. I hope that the elephant earned an appropriate reward for such duplicitous behaviour towards its former owners!
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Old 21st Oct 2016, 21:50
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I tend to agree with zetec2.
I'm pretty sure that's not a Vultee 12D.
The clues lead me to think it's a product of Curtiss rather than Vultee - as suggested, a Hawk 75.
Anybody want to argue?


Danny,
Thanks for re-posting your description of the elephant who got stung in the bum with
a hot piece of shrapnel - whereupon "he decided to give civilisation a miss".
I'm still giggling. Thank you.

.

Last edited by Stanwell; 21st Oct 2016 at 22:41.
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Old 22nd Oct 2016, 07:55
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The self same type appears (at 19 mins) in a colour video that I posted a link to in #9517. Seems the Curtiss 75's were, like the Vengeance Mk1, a French order that became surplus to requirement for certain well known reasons:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBwkYRGnd0s

No Vengeances, Danny, sorry! But an even rarer RAF steed at 19mins in, also an ex-French order bought by the UK Purchasing Commission. Variously ID'd as a Curtiss 75 Mohawk and a P36. Were they one and the same?
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Old 22nd Oct 2016, 09:49
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Wiki shows the complexity of Curtis P-36 Marks/variations. I'm still puzzled by the airframe serial number, though. Surely the ones produced in India (Hawk 75A-5) would still have used RAF serials?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_P-36_Hawk
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Old 22nd Oct 2016, 11:09
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MPN11:-
I'm still puzzled by the airframe serial number
On the video the second one taxiing out past the camera at 20:19 has the first letter of the serial number partially obscured by the squadron letter ("O"). It could be a D, and the second letter appears to be K. Would that combination fit in anywhere in your listings? I couldn't make out the figure group that would have followed though.
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Old 22nd Oct 2016, 11:41
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According to UK Serials Resource Centre there was a batch of DR allocated to Mohawks.

DR761 to DR807 Mohawk
The picture is of DR 7**

From Wiki;

French orders were taken up by British Commonwealth air forces, and saw combat with both the South African Air Force (SAAF) against Italian forces in East Africa, and with the RAF over Burma. Within the Commonwealth, the type was usually referred to as the Curtiss Mohawk

Last edited by Fareastdriver; 22nd Oct 2016 at 11:59.
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