大象传媒

The only story I have heard about my father's war first-hand was from Group Captain Moreton Pinfold, now 91, who during the war was squadron leader at 56 Hurricane Squadron based at Boscombe Down.

My father, who was then 40, was adjutant of 56 Squadron. Part of his job was to look after the welfare of the young pilots and keep up their morale.

It seemed that Sq Ldr Pinfold and my father took off by car one day to find a mascot for the squadron, which had recently been in the thick of the Battle of Britain.

Passing a zoo, my father told Pinfold to stop and leapt out of the car. Minutes later he returned triumphantly with a monkey. Back at 56 Squadron the monkey was nick-named ME109.

As the evening progressed and more beer was consumed, the pilots came up with the idea that the monkey could be trained to sit in the Hurricane behind the pilot, facing backwards. Whenever it saw a German ME109 it would tap the pilot on the shoulder. Brilliant but fatally flawed.

By this time of course the pilots were in high spirits and so was the monkey. That night, when everyone had gone to bed, the monkey - not surprisingly - went on a destructive rampage and took off to nearby woods. The next day it was returned to the zoo. It never got airborne. The squadron eventually settled for a dog.

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