大象传媒

Continuation from Chapter 1

鈥淟es, Skip calling, could the bomb have fallen and not exploded?鈥� 鈥淣o chance Skip, but keep the bomb doors open, I鈥檒l lift the floor panel and look at the release mechanism.鈥� A few minutes passed in silence and then, 鈥淪kip, It鈥檚 still with us!鈥� Closing the bomb doors I heaved a sigh, and we returned to our orbiting spot near base and called control. 鈥渇f187 calling, extremely sorry but all your bombs have gone except the live one.鈥� You could almost hear the groan and feel the tension at the news, and I had a mental picture of the anguished, haunted look on the armament officers face at the loss of a complete set of training bombs without a worthwhile gain, poor chap

Silence reigned and I could imagine the heated discussion going
on. Suddenly the intercom burst into life.
鈥淐apt. you must order your crew to bale out, and then land the aircraft at the grass satellite drome. We will have all the necessary equipment waiting for you鈥�. Necessary equipment, what did that mean? Fire tender and ambulance, I suppose. I hope they send a crew wagon! Oh well, let鈥檚 get cracking. I was getting fed up with this damned bomb; I had a strong feeling it was going to lower our passing out grading. I also had the feeling, because we had given it such a rough time, that it was firmly stuck. However, I suppose I could be wrong so let鈥檚 follow orders.
鈥淐apt. to crew, Abracadabera (special code word to leave aircraft in emergency) prepare to abandon aircraft鈥�. There was complete silence on the intercom and no movement of bods. Hm, that鈥檚 funny it鈥檚 a straight forward command, I had better repeat it. After the second order Scottie said, 鈥淐ould we noo stop with you skip?鈥�

I felt a sudden inner glow, my gosh what a superb crew spirit. I glanced around to give them the thumbs up, only to see pairs of big St. Bernard eyes looking at me. What in the heck is the matter with them, what are they worried about?

I turned around and glanced down at the landscape below, and suddenly it seemed full of tall spiky trees, barbed wire fences, deep streams, stone buildings, hard concrete runways, and the North sea looked very cold, very grey and very near. The only green grass was the size of a postage stamp! All became clear.,

Now, could I as captain disobey a direct order from control. Well yes I think so, the intercom was very crackly.
鈥淥.k crew, take up crash positions. We will keep together, but I don鈥檛 think there鈥檚 much danger. I鈥檓 going to float this old crate down like a piece of gossamer.鈥�

We made our approach to what seemed to be a deserted drone. However
as we gently brushed the grass to one side, touched down, and rolled to a halt, a fire engine emerged from behind the hangar and slowly headed in our direction.
鈥淩ighto, chaps disembark.鈥�
鈥淟es will you stand by the bomb bay doors and I鈥檒l open them step by step. Give me a wave when you can see the confounded bomb and I鈥檒l come down.鈥�

The bomb doors inched open and a few minutes later we were glaring at our problem. We didn鈥檛 attempt to touch it but it looked pretty safe to me.

The fire tender gave us a lift to the hangar and eventually a crew wagon took us back to base for a long debriefing.

We never completed our 鈥榖ig drop鈥�. I think the 鈥榩owers that be鈥� thought that 鈥榚nough is enough鈥� but we did complete our commanding officers flight test and finished with a grading of average plus which in the RAF is not bad.

If I might digress for a moment it is to mention that I never gained a rapport with the bombing leader, which was a pity, because he was a decent chap and we had six more five to six hour night cross country flights in the flying programme to finish our O.T.U training. On each of these night trips, on the last leg of a triangular route, as we approached base we were detailed to request a Q.F.E. (barometric pressure reading) from Flying Control, reset our altimeters to read accurately and then, using small practise bombs, demolish(?) a flare target positioned in the centre of the grass satellite drome. We then had to decrease height and fly fairly low over the North Sea to an excluded zone, for the rear gunner to blast of f his four brownings and for the bomb aimer to poop off the twin nose guns. Ammunition belts at that time were made up of four types of .303 bullet solid ball, tracer, armour piercing and incendiary in repetitive order. When you remember each gun could fire 1150 rounds per minute there was quite a lot of bullets on the move when the six guns were firing. Normally this shooting practise and gun manipulation took place about 3 am, but although pitch dark we could usually see the white, fluorescent wave tops just below the aircraft.

With the smell of cordite drifting into the cockpit, the sense of speed because we were low down, the hammering of the guns and the spectacle of streams of tracers and incendiaries hitting the waves, some disappearing, but others bouncing of f in all directions, I found it really exhilarating, and really sorry we were not blasting a German F boat, or a U boat sneaking up the channel on the surface.

Certainly I was always reluctant to call it a day and return to the base for debriefing, egg and bacon fry up and kip.

A final digression. Our most important and last cross country flight. Incidentally I often wondered why the trips were labelled cross country when we spent a lot of time over the sea.

All cross country trips were triangular in shape, and on the first and most important leg of this flight we had to fly virtually due west from Kinloss, plot our last pinpoint using the lower outer Hebride island of North Uist and then make our way to an outcrop of rock approximately 320 miles into the North Atlantic using D.R or Dead Reckoning navigation. Our brief, to take a night photograph of 鈥淩OCTCALL鈥�, one of the last outposts of the British
鈥� Empjre!
Our aircraft was fitted with the same set up used by bomber command on their nightly raids, a photo flash linked to a camera and the bomb release button to obtain a photograph of the target and the bomb pattern. All training crews on this flight had just the one photo flash, one chance to get it right.

We were lucky that night, because as we droned west the build up of cumulus clouds over the Scottish mountains gradually dispersed and we were able to take astro shots which helped us to confirm our position, and as the clouds thinned it also revealed a thin, melon slice section of the moon. We were able to fly towards the moonlight, dim though it was, and silhouette Rockall in all it鈥檚 craggy glory.

We made our bombing or photograph run, Les pressed the button and we had that solid lump of rock plumb in the middle of the frame. It was very good team work.

From Rockall we headed south of east for Mull island and back to base for the final flare target bombing and the north sea shoot out. For that trip we were awarded full marks and each member of the crew received a photograph of Rockall. I still have mine, somewhere!

That was the last time we flew from Kinloss as a trainee crew. We completed the station commanders test, and then we were fully qualified for bomber command, Would it be Lancasters or Halifaxs? Our grading was quite good and we felt confident it would be Lancs. the ultimate in our view. However, in the R.&.F you were never sure what would be printed on the D.R.O鈥檚 (Daily Routine and posting Orders). Like all the other crews we had to wait and see and keep our fingers crossed.

After a few days the postings came through and we thought 鈥渁 deadloss鈥� until we met the men of the first airbourne. Although fully qualified for bomber command, being typically British, the 鈥減owers that be鈥� decided that our group of 24 crews would be essential to develop 38 group, the rapidly expanding Airbourne Division.

Unfortunately the new training squadrons were fully manned, so we would have to wait our turn and instead of doing the sensible thing and sending us home on indefinite leave!! we were posted to the Driffield Battle School in Yorkshire to train for three solid months, (1st November 鈥� 26th January) With the Commando and Airbourne divisions. (I thought it was much longer than that but those dates are in my log book.)

We thought we were fit until we met the 1st Airbourne, then we found out we were not very fit at all. Mind you three months later, things had changed. We were fit, a young commando captain had made sure of that (the first human dynamo I had ever met) in fact you could say without any exaggeration that we were very, very fit, with muscles that bulged in every direction. We could toss tree trunks around, climb sheer quarry walls, absail down cliffs, cover rocky ground on elbows and knees with controlled machine gun fire to keep our heads down, and thunder flashes to liven things up. We had to admit whether we liked it or not, the airbourne had done their best to make us feel at home and mould us into one of them. we wished on many occasions that they hadn鈥檛 been so damned keen.

But that鈥檚 another story.

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