´óÏó´«Ã½

CONNIE BALES OUT AND JOINS THE CATERPILLAR CLUB, THE WOODPECKERS GET SPITFIRES AND CONNIE AND JOHNNY RUDLING ARE DECORATED!

DECEMBER 1942

THE C.O. IS LOST!

In a state of extreme alert over Christmas as it was well known that the Japanese would probably attack during the holiday period, the Woodpecker squadron went over to the offensive in a small way. One day the C.O. Tony Ridler and Ian Adamson went out on a dawn recce with the rest being scrambled to cover them on their way home. On landing they were aghast to learn that the C.O. was missing having crashed into the sea several miles behind enemy lines. Joe Edwards from Canada was the senior Flight Commander and so assumed command. Eric Brown had recently taken over ‘B’ Flight Guy Marsland being posted away and Connie was now Joe’s deputy. Connie then reluctantly took the order fro Joe to carry out ‘The Committee of Adjustment’ upon the C.O.’s effects in the New Year. — a thankless task.

1943 promised to be an eventful year.

FRANK CAREY SHOWS OFF!

For the new campaign the bomber forces were equipped with Blenheims, Vengeance dive-bombers and Wellingtons, the former two being based at Dohazari across the river and at two more airstrips to the north. The Fighter Force vaied from 8 to 10 Squadrons, initially The Woodpeclkers shared Chittagong with another Hurricane outfit 67 Squadron almost entirely from New Zealand who had first fought in Buffalos in Malaya.. The Woodpeckers flew from an all-weather strip with two runways, the others being based at dirt strips further south, these at different times being 79,135, 258,261, 607 and 615 Squadrons. Jimmy Elsdon was now commanding two Mohawk Squadrons 5 and 155 ( whom Connie later commanded in 1945) at Feni and Argatala.

Frank Carey now took the post of Wing Leader again. Under his guidance the Squadrons had become tight fighting units. To watch Frank Carey fly was an education. As Connie would say, he could make an aircraft talk. It was his practice to fly the last sortie of the day and the word would go round 'The show's on!' Frank would conclude his show in the same fashion every evening, flying in low in a series of neat rollsand then an upward roll from which he came in very low and fast downwind over the runway still in use. He would pull up vertically, roll until he almost stalled and half-rolling onto his back as he selected wheels and flaps down. From this inverted position he would fish-tail almost vertically to eae out just in time for a perfect 3-pointer. It was a show that nightly brought out all the other pilots to watch in admiration and disbelief!!

THE .C.O. RETURNS!

1943 did indeed start auspiciously. One day Tony Ridler strolled into dispersal: he had survived his crash into the sea and being a strong swimmer had swum for the shore. After many hair=raising episodes behind the Japanese enemy lines, he was brought to safety hidden in a sampan. Connie was not a little embarrassed upon Tony’s return as he had carried out the redistribution of his belongings and had checked through the personal belongings as ordered. Not knowing anything of his UK life, but knowing that he had a beautiful girlfriend in Calcutta, Connie had destroyed her photographs. Ridler was not impressed!
However, he was deemed a compromised person having been helped to escape and so was banned from flying in that area. Last seen, he was o his way to a rendezvous in Calcutta — presumably to meet his muse!

CONNIE BALES OUT! SEPTEMBER 1943

In August came the news that Dizzy Mendizabel, who you remember had escaped with several others by basically tying together an old aeroplane and flying it by the skin of their teeth, had been killed in a flying accident. He had gone to Frank Carey’s Air Fighting School and demonstrating attacks on low-flying bombers who flew so low, that he got caught in their turbulence and hit the ground…

Connie was sent to this school for the first 3 weeks of September 1943 to learn advanced air fighting tactics and gunnery and to become the Squadron gunnery instructor. Carey was the C.O. and Barry Sutton, (who since Cairo when he had commandeered Connie’s flying kit had been wearing Connie’s flying jacket and he, Barry Sutton’s,) was the Chief Instructor.

Connie’s first sortie on returning from the school as a qualified Air Fighting Instructor was eventful, to say the least. Connie and Maurice Cuthbert had gone down to dispersal where two other members of the Squadron, bored by the inactivity invited them to deputise whilst they went for lunch. Connie took over Ting Bunting’s aircraft together with Ting’s helmet and parachute and just a few minutes later they were scrambled to investigate an unknown plot on the radar approaching Calcutta. It sounded like a Japanese recce and they shot off to 32000 feet eagerly. To their disappointment the plot turned friendly and they turned on their backs and half-rolled through to lose height quickly. Whilst in a vertical dive the hood of Connie’s Hurricane came off and jammed the tailplane so that he could not ease out of the dive. Failing to get the joystick back, he trimmed the elevators forward and bunted through in an outward loop at high speed. He rolled level as the horizon came round but the bunting action continued. Connie knew that he would have to bale out; the negative G was forcing him out of his seat and his head and shoulders were out of the cockpit. He could no longer reach the throttle and he pulled out the harness locking pin but he was stuck! His foot was jammed and in a split second he realized what TO DO. Somehow he put the pin back in, pulled himself in and manually unhooked his foot, pulled the pin for the second time and whoosh! He was ejected out from the cockpit hitting his ankle on something hard, miraculously not colliding with the Hurricane. He floated down in his Irwin parachute in total quiet until he heard voices of some villagers below. He landed without grace and no skill on his shoulder in a paddy field in the village of Uttar Debitpur, four miles north of Basirhat. He could see the village women watching from their doorways whilst the men and small boys gave him milk and palm-leaf cigarettes which tasted terrible! A small boy rushed off and returned with a chilren’s ABC book and by pointing Connie managed to convey that he had fallen out of an aeroplane! In pouring rain, wrapped in his parachute he was carried through the jungle by four of the villagers to the nearest WOP ( Wireless Observation Post) where they knew the nearest white man to be. This fine figure of the RAF obligingly shared his meager whisky ration with Connie until Bob Wasey from The Woodpeckers collected him in the old Dodge Scout car and took him to the bar to give his fellow pilots time to replace his redistributed clothes, such as they were!!

Connie was now a fully fledged member of the Caterpillar Club. The manufacturer of both the pilots' flying jackets and their silk parachutes was Irvin, an English firm. The boss had come up with the bright idea of forming The Caterpillar Club with an exclusive membership of pilots who had saved their lives by baling out and saving themselves with the help of the Irvin parachute. Several weeks later a tiny parcel arrived in the jungle for Connie. It was a small gold caterpillar brooch with ruby eyes with his rank and name engraved on the back. After the war he gave it to my mother Enid which she wore with great pride fro many years.

136 SQUADRON IS EQUIPPED WITH SPITFIRES! OCTOBER 1943

By the time Connie was declared fit enough to fly again The Woodpeckers had been re-equipped. Three squadrons in all had been chosen to have the new Spitfires in the Burma theatre of war: 136, 607 and 615. these were the delightful Spitfire Mark Vc armed with 2 x 20mm cannon and 4 x 0.303 machine guns which could be fired selectively or all together. Connie flew his first sortie on 17th October 1943 and declared it ‘a beautiful aeroplane!’

The Squadron spent the rest of October acquainting themselves with their new fighting machines and flying away their faithful old Hurricanes which they had collected from Allahabad seven months previously. Connie flew Alfie Bayne’s Hurricane ‘J’ to the grass strip on the Calcutta Maidan south of Chittagong and two days later several of the squadron flew the rest of them to the dirt strip at Chiringa where Buck Courtney was operating his 261 Squadron throughout the terrible monsoon conditions. This was only possible due to something called Somerfield tracking, laid straight onto the paddyfields thus enabling the weight to be spread out and the aeroplanes to operate in such conditions.

CONNIE IS PROMOTED! NOVEMBER 1943

The return to Burma was nigh and at the beginning of November 1943 Connie’s great friend Joe Edwards was repatriated to Canada. (Connie and Joe continued their lifelong friendship and were reunited again after the War in the UK and again in 1991 on the auspicious occasion of the celebrations marking the 50th Anniversary of the inauguration of 136 Fighter Squadron — The Woodpeckers.)

Constantine made Connie ‘A’ Flight Commander in Joe’s place and they flew as a squadron to Frank Carey’s establishment at Amarda Road where he had done his AFI Course. For three weeks they concentrated on airborne gunnery and combat under expert tuition, all performances being analysed afterwards through viewing the film taken by the camera guns mounted on the Spitfires. They flew several practice sorties against Liberator bombers and these were to prove crucial in the forthcoming weeks. Nobby Clarke from New Zealand crashed after engine-failure one day but escaped with minor injuries.

CONNIE IS DECORATED WITH THE D.F.C.! NOVEMBER 1943

On the 18th November 1943 several of the pilots went over to meet the mail plane. The C.O. took the bundle of official mail, perused it briefly and handed Connie a penciled note from Bob Wasey the Adjutant; it was a copy of a signal from the Air Officer Commanding Bengal, congratulating Connie on his being awarded the D.F.C. ( The Distinguished Flying Cross) and Johnny Rudling on being awarded the D.F.M. (The Distinguished Flying Medal). As you can imagine there was a very lively party that night and the following morning Frank Carey invited Connie over to his bungalow where he presented Connie with a small piece of D.F.C. ribbon.

Preparing to move forward the Squadron was scrambled in strength as the Japanese launched the first of their post-monsoon raids on Calcutta but they turned away and bombed Feni instead. On 1st December., five months after leaving the Arakan, the Woodpeckers flew back to the grass strip at Ramu; the game was about to begin again…

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.