keep it going Cliff
 

This is great - please continue it Cliff. Nothing like hearing this first hand.

AIDU, please have some respect. Without the efforts of Cliff and his colleagues none of us might be here today.
I am thoroughly enjoying this. My father was also from Liverpool, joined the RAF as a Sergeant Pilot and would have been 86 last year so it is great to hear from someone of the same era.
Cliff, did you attend Project Propeller at Old Warden this year?

Nothing like hearing this first hand.
 

AIDU - Cliff writes it so well that I hear his voice as I read it.

Cliff and Harry - fascinating stuff. Please do keep posting!

Thanks for this Cliff. Was the banter the same in those days?...cos you were a jug-eared bugger on the phot etc!!!

Joking aside, please continue.
What, at that time were you led to believe you were fighting for and in actuality what did you think? I ask that because that is one thing I never asked my grandfather so I could maybe correlate reason and put today's to-doings into perspective. He ain't around to ask now.

Edit: Did you feel a purpose?

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/j...rneyIsland.jpgHave just received an email from Jack Youens who was trained at 6 B.F.T.S.
Hope a copy of his email will attach here. Also, am using pic of his "mossy" to practice reducing size of pic.
http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/j...ach/NEG073.jpg

Email from Jack >
"Have been a member of 6BFTS association for years. but have never managed to go on any of the annual dos'.Did you come across a Laurie Youens my younger brother ? he was anavigator in 692 Pathfinder Squadron, like me was in the Merchant navy first and also his ship the Athelaird was torpedoed and he was in a lifeboat for 10 days. We both said sod this and transfered to the RAF. What were you flying? I know there is 6 years between us. were you at Ponca City? best wishes Jack ">
-------------------------------------------------
Here's hoping I get some help from Jack who was a pathfinder on mosquitos.
At least his brother was floating around in a life boat and not in the "drink" in a Mae West, blowing his Acme whistle that was attached to the top clip on his battle dress blouse.

Hope to resume my trip down to Oklahoma soon
CLIFF.

Email Address For Harym
 

There is a way to email me. (I THINK)
Top orange row click on user C.P
Click on send new message
Enter your user name.
I will try the same to you.
One of us might hit the target.
Clff.

Cliff - no picture of a Mosquito deserves to be that small! Not sure what you use to re-size pictures, but I'd suggest that 700 x 500 (if landscape) is about right. The one you have posted is only 320 wide.

Keep it up - it's great.

640X480 any better?
 

Fabtastic :ok:

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/j...ach/img021.jpg

Above my home until 1941.


Hi x213
Keep joking thats what kept us going." He's gone for a Burton, Gone for a s**t etc meant no disrepect but helped to prevent any one getting emotional
With regard to banter never about the ears, but all the time ,such as when I did a "ground loop" Or when I developed a method of flying straight and level under the hood. I decided an easier way was to use the rate of climb indicator instead of "needle:ball, airspeed". Didn't know there was a two second time lag before it registered a climb or descent. Never heard the end of it.particularly from my instructor.

Your question did we feel a purpose.(See pic above) Well , at the recruiting office the first question always asked was why do you want to be a pilot. I believe the text book answer was something like to propel a bomb or bullet to a predetermined position, but Geof Davies (K.I.A Beaufighters ) and I (young and daft )said to stop Germans flattening our houses. Seemed that was nearly as good , and a lot better than "it's the uniform init",

Also quite a lot of things happened before we went to the recruiting office, which I thought I would leave out. Especially a my old aunt Kate would have said " Thoos being ower dramatic lad", I have posted a picture of my home in 41, from a newspaper cutting. Not very good but the you may notice the trees with no leaves on.

Would be quite happy to get off the train to Ponca and enlarge on why Geoff and I were a bit annoyed.

Cliff,

A marvellous thread and much appreciated as you can see.

Your pic would be good in 800x600 which we try to encourage - wider goes off the edge - but that size is good.

Keep the stuff coming if you have the time for it.

Best wishes,

PPP

To The Boss
 

THANKS.
Roger. Wilco ,out.
Cliff

Thanks Cliff!

Keep it up:ok:

THE TRAIN JOURNEY Or How to get your wings in over 40hrs
 

On the train to Ponca City, we had very little to do other than watch the country side go past; play cards, or revise from our school notebooks. We had no radios and only occasionally had access to news papers. The food was good, and we didn't need the coke stoves as it was warm. So we revised.
using our notebooks , written in pencil, instructions on how to allow for compass deviation on acceleration, or deceleration of the aircraft; variation, `liquid swirl, angle of dip. The gyro compass and how it preset every ten minutes. Meteorology. height of clouds, and icing possibility in various clouds, orographic clouds, the geostrophic scale, warm fronts, cold fronts, isobars. Armaments, gravity drop. deflection, gun sights, aircraft recognition , their wing spans , and max speed. Pen and ink drawings (no biros then) of the internals of altimeters and air speed incicators. Engines and the Otto cycle. The list is endless , at this stage we were being taught, how to navigate, to operate machine guns, use the bomb sight, operate the radio,etc, and drill for fifteen minutes with only one word of command. At that time no one was able to decide what type of aircraft we would eventually fly . I only mention the above as maybe the odd reader may think that all we did , was to jump in a kite and learn how to pull and push a few levers and pedals. By this time about 1943 the R.A.F educational system was faultless, I for one think it was not only thorough and superb ,but the best education I ever had.

We were eventually told we were approaching Ponca and prepare to disembark. As we entered the suburbs it was early on a sunlit morning, (about 103 f in the shade) and we were absolutely amazed to see whole families asleep on camp beds in their gardens. On disembarking we found a few 4X4 3 ton Chevrolet trucks waiting to load us and our kit and take us to the airfield. On the way we noticed the wide clean main street with cars parked at right angles to the kerb, and we were surprised to see that the streets only ran North; South; East, or West.

We eventually arrived at the The Darr School of Aeronautics and shown into the billets, they were immaculate, light and airy, complete with gas central heating, and grids at each window, down witch water trickled, to trap the dust produced by the aircraft taking off.

But now our biggest shock, we were told Oklahoma was south of the Mason-Dixon line, and it was a dry state. No pubs, and it was illegal to walk through the town with a bottle of spirits when the seal was broken. and theoretically nowhere to buy it from. However Erks then were as , I am sure they still are ,very resourceful . Tell you about it next time, when I hope to tell you about the flying training, classrooms. and of course the birds.
Will probably now refer to my oppos as kaydets rather than erks. Suppose I should really have called them leading aircraft men.

Get yer air cut.

Thanks
 

Firstly thanks for your wartime service.

Please keep up the story, with as much detail as possible.

My grandfather was a slightly earlier generation, joining march 1938, and subsequently serving until 1968. After instructing, he survived two tours on Beaufighters, with 7 kills DFC etc. He is a quiet, modest man who will only talk about his wartime service in terms of brief amusing anecdotes etc.

My most prized posession is the Luftwaffe escape compass which the crew of a downed He111 gave to my grandad in north africa in 1943. My daughters are fairly young, and it is not easy for me to try and convey to them what you guys did. Accounts about the day to day issues make the history come to life.

I look fowards to reading more info, when you have the time.

I want to add that this is a wonderful thread. Please keep it going. It's prune at its best. :ok:

Fantastic. We need to hear more about this and other stories similar to it. There is no doubt that reading of the derring-do of the dog fights, bombing missions, etc. is interesting and important, but so is finding out about the "ordinary" things that happened at the time. History is made up of many parts, not just the big events.

Can I safely assume I'm not the only one to get an aviation hard on (laced with absolute envy) when I look at the pic of those (very) young men in front of the Mosquito? That is a seriously horny aeroplane.

(Tin hats on, everyone. War-ie to follow.)

When I first joined the RAAF (yep, the double-A one), we had an old Flight Sergeant fireman - (he probably wasn’t even 40, but to us then, older than God) - who told us a story of when he first joined the Service in the early 50s. He and a dozen other teenage Airmen were issued axes and sent off to chop through the main spars of twenty or thirty Mosquitoes before they were to be sold for scrap. (Believe it or not, some farmers used the plywood fuselages as hay stores!)

He said an officer had to be present to witness and sign off that each aircraft had been rendered unairworthy (an axe through the wooden main spar tends to do that!) and the officer in question was a Flight Lieutenant pilot with four rows of WW2 medals, who, they discovered, had flown Mosquitoes on operations. He and all his teenage mates were agog to see this officer with tears streaming down his face as he watched them swing their axes. Reading Cliff and Harry’s stories, I think just about all of us today would have some inkling of how he felt.

(harrym, check your private messages - top right of the page, where you sign in.)

To Aaaa recurring
 

Many thanks for your contribution. Appreciated .
However, a caveat, (in fun of course, should that be "joshing"?). The words real prune were not as complementary "in my day" .

Here is the reason. All aircrew U/T received copies of a magazine called T.M an acronym for Training Magazine. Quite amusing, but very instructive. The main character being one P.O (pilot officer) Prune (the main reason I discovered this forum) He made every mistake possible, and is the one who supposedly set his compass red on black and bombed Ireland. Stories about the bomb aimer with his ,left left, steady steady. whoa back a bit. So then being called P/O Prune was the same as being called a clot,

Nice to hear from the U.S of A. I have many complimentary things to say so Stay tooned (sic) in.

Thanks
 

Thanks for your encouragement.
To Jonathan 68 your grandfather was one of the REAL pilots, how I envy him.

To Sland yes I have no tales of digging my way out of Stalag whatsit, with my knife: fork ; mug, and spoon. or being chased by an ME 109, doing an Immelman and then waiting until I am only 200 yds behind (waiting to see the whites of their eyes) before opening fire. If only.

To Whiley , yes I know the feeling well, When I was waiting for demob I was stationed at R.A.F Burtonwood, saw fortresses being flown in, and then lifted by crane onto a big heap, but there was one consolation, plenty of souvenirs , nuff said (hope no one from the Air Ministry is logged in)

GET THAT LIGHT OUT.

To Dx Wombat
 

No I didn't go to Project Propeller , don't go far these days, been there.

However I did visit Elvington with the Liverpool branch of the aircrew association a great bunch of vets, to view the roll out of th finished (non flying) Halifax.I sometimes visit the Great Orme on a sunny day in my beach buggy.

Beach buggy ?????? Yes it reminds me of flying a tiger moth, or driving a Willy's Jeep , very nostalgic.

Hey Uncle Cliff, this is very cool. I want to know all about everything. We go on a trip to Eden Camp tomorrow and I have taken your photos in to school, everyone very impressed. I will read more later, now I have registered, I will put you in my favourites and come back later.

Love George xx

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/j...h/img023-1.jpgJust looking through my photos for suitable pics for Publication. Found this one. Hope to use others to illustrate my stay at Ponca City. Will try and obtain an optimum size in future. The board reads "Gulf Coast air force training center" On the left my oppo Hardy Albrecht from Atkins Iowa, and self at the camp gates. I am now in American summer issue, but still with "hats , field service, airmen for the use of" and black tie. More about Hardy later, and why we had American cadets on our course.

September 09 experimenting to see if picture can be replaced.
http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/j...IECLIFF267.jpg

While you were at Moncton, was one of your instructors Max Ward by any chance?

Thanks Cliff, for the stories and for what you did 65 years ago.

Keep it coming.

And as you mentioned Fg Off Wales; why is it Wales? That's not his name, that's his Dad's job. Sorry to go off on a tangent but I wasn't Sgt Warehouse-Manager so why is he Fg Off Wales?

I've just finished reading harrym's very well written account of his trip across the Atlantic and his training in Canada and have urged him to share it here with all Pprune readers, as an addendum to Cliff's entertaining reminisces.

Having done a similar course 25 years after Harry, much of what he went through was instantly recognisable to me, (although I have to admit that his description of the Canadian winter convinced me that I had it easy, enduring 'only' a Melbourne winter during mine [which was *** cold enough for me!!!]).

I suspect students currently on course in any military flying training school would find much they too would recognise in Harry's tale if he decides to share it with us all.

Harry, I hope you decide to do so.

Perhaps he likes singing! Now back to the subject please.

Replies
 

To Wiley
Harrym is more than welcome. You seem to know enough about computers. Perhaps you, or one of his young relatives may know a way to scan his twenty pages. transfer to photobucket , or other host and print a readable copy on this link Think there are quite a lot of youngsters (any one below 65) who would like to know what it was like to live on stewed prunes, bully beef and cheese on toast: and when you had to fly at least half way across the North sea to qualify for a breakfast of egg and bacon. Seems to me that for some time the school syllabus has ignored recent history, but are now taking an interest. I suspect we have quite a few youngsters reading this, who now want to know. (see young George contribution above). So "get weaving" Wiley

With regard to cold in Canada, I aint got to that yet, but I can assure you that when we returned to Canada in mid winter we stripped put on our silk padded inner flying suits first and uniforms on top didn't take them off until we returned to god's country.

To Richatom. Sorry , didn't know him , we only had ground staff instructors at Moncton.

To J.A.F.O
You naughty boy, what makes you think this has anything to do with a certain F/O ? so pass. next question.
Does any one know if there are any computers in The Tower?

Joke, What's your number ? number? When I joined we didn't have numbers , every one new each other.

I hope to take a neighbour flying tomorrow. He trained with the RAF in Canada and got his wings just as the war against Hitler finished. He then trained on Liberators for the Far East and that war finished before he got there. All his attempts to fly after that were doomed by one thing or another, except for some UAS flying in Tiger Moths.

I hope that he is going to be able to get in and out of a Condor as, for once, the weather looks good.

He tells me that, during his training on Liberators, they were on a formation bombing mission near Seattle and were fired on by the Americans (nothing changes!). The leader, an ex Lancaster pilot with many missions over Germany, saw the AA guns in some sand dunes and dived down and dropped his bombs very close to them. The American high command apparently agreed that that was fair retribution for the stupidity of their AA gunners and no action was taken against him.

Hi Cliff!

What were inter-service relationships like in those days? How did the airforce view the navy/army etc? Was there the same good hearted rivalry as today, the banter etc?

What was the aircraft licensing in those days? If you wished to fly civvy side could you or was it same as today-having to go via CAA route etc?

To Pulse1
 

Reminds me of dropping toilet rolls on a Japanese prisoner or war camp in Oklahoma. Quite effective when they unroll.

Reply To X213a
 

Hi X2,
Don't know much about inter-services relationships, other than when in the pub, amongst sailors and soldiers, we all sang together songs such as "When this blinking war is over, oh I happy I will be" together . Think that one ended with "and we will tell the Squadron to stuff his 'Spitfire *********"
Banter friendly rivalry , yes. Particularly with our American friends when we sang "We were flying Avro Lancasters at zero zero feet ,with no ammunition and a bloody big bomb" the last line being "flying flying fortresses at 30,000 ft with tons of ammunition and a teeny-weeny bomb"

However when I was at Battlestead Hill Norh of Burton on Trent we found they had black nights and white nights for the Americans. If they were allowed to go into town on the same night , there was trouble . After V.J day we ferried troops to and from Naples on Python leave, with a day off in Naples. We only had to be waiting to cross the road , with no thumbs up, and the first army 3 tonner or Jeep would stop , ask us where we wanted to go. They were the happiest group of men I have ever met. Understandable , as they had fought their way up to Naples, from N. Africa.

Don't know much about flying civvy aircraft. Think most of us where only too happy to be home., in a "Land fit for heroes to live in" as the politicians promised. After all I had been given £80, a trilby hat,an overcoat, and a demob suit. Plus a FREE railway warrant home. As far as I know we were only qualified to fly his Majesty's aircraft.

I did receive a few letters from the Air Ministry after demob, saying that if I had not settled in "civvy street" I could go back, and that i was still in the V.R. Don't remember ever receiving one saying I was no longer "in"

Cheers Cliff,

What was £80 then in today's terms?

I guess the run ashore that followed was a good 'un!

X312a
 

Not as good as V.J night!!**!!

..... depends how you want to calculate it!

The are 5 or 6 generally accepted calculations, which can factor in a sum's relationship to GDP, or average earnings or GDP per capita, but these would over-inflate (pun intended) the figure.

In terms of "how good a run ashore would it fund", it would be best to use either the RPI calculation or the GDP Deflator (Nominal GDP/Real GDP), which are not dissimilar.

RPI calculation would give: £2372.62

GDP Deflator calculation would give: £2487.72 both figures in 2006 GBPs...

So a good, useful answer would be:

Edited to add:

From other sources, a pint cost 1/- (5p) in 1945, so the £80 would have bought 1600 pints, so for "beer inflation" it would be well over £3k.

Ciggies (Churchman's to be precise) were 2/6d (12.5p) for 20. One is a non-smoker so cannot translate this.

My first job in "civvy street paid £7 per week.This would be above a tradesman's wage. I would describe it as lower management. An ex R.A.F friend who before entry into the R.A.F was employed by Priestman Excavators Ltd, was re-emloyed as a representative at the same wage. £80 would equate to eleven weeks wages . Which would be near or similar to your calcuations.

Cliff

Thanks for this thread and defending our Country.

I like your writing style, and would love to hear all the details about your experiences. This is great stuff, and your ending One-liners make me chuckle too!

Can't wait to read more. :ok:

Thanks for your thanks, Mr Out of Trim. That's what keeps me going.
Cliff

Replacing Pt17
 

Pic disappeared so trying to replace it.
http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/j...ach/img025.jpg

This is thea P.T 17 Boeing Stearman trainer which I hope to tell you about soon, on which we flew one hundred hours on our primary course.
It had a Lycoming radial engine, with inertia starter. 32' wingspan, production ended in 1945 after 10,000 had been built.
Although I have said cameras were verboten in the R.A.F during the war, rules were more relaxed in the U.S.A, so I took this picture with a five bob ( 25P) camera.
The instructor sat in the front cockpit and the cadet in the rear. A hood was pulled over the rear cockpit for blind flying , or instrument flying instruction. I can't remember what method the instructor used to communicate with the student. But if it was like the Tiger moth then it would be a simple . Speak into a funnel ? , long copper tube to the students earpieces and vice versa for the student. On the Tiger Moth it was known as a Gosport tube , and was primitive, but quite effective. The words tail dragger were not used at that time, could have been "three pointer" Usually as in three point landing.Will now consult my Canadian pilot's log book, and hope to describe some of my first lessons.soon.
------------------
We were , taught the rules we learned the rules and then we were tested on the rules , and tested again, ad infinitum, In the end a voice said sotto voce~ "Rules are made for the obedience of fools, and the guidance of wise men"
---------------
Hope I have got the picture the correct size. Still learning.