大象传媒

I volunteered to join the RAF before the war because I wanted to be a pilot. When they tested my eyes, I so desperately wanted to fly I cheated, saying I could see the pencil as it came towards my nose, but it came right to my nose so they wouldn鈥檛 let me fly as my vision was not good enough. (I would have had difficulty landing the aircraft.)

Unable to be a pilot, as soon as war was declared, I was called up as a navigator and was sent to Prestwick in January 1940 for six months to be trained. During training we flew Fokker and Anson aircraft. We learnt map-reading and how to find the effects of the wind on the aircraft by multiple drift. The aircraft was positioned at an angle and we tested how much we needed to allow for drift so I could tell the pilot how much to allow for the wind speed and direction. On one of the training flights, my pilot flew through high tension cables, it was quite frightening and we were very lucky to be alright. All aircrew had to do gunner and bomb-aiming training so on completion of my navigational training I underwent three months bomb- aiming training in a Blenheim.

Having finished my training I was given 48 hours embarkation leave before going overseas. I was engaged and said to my fianc茅 that either we married straight away or we wouldn't know when we would be able to get married. In that short space of time we were married in church with a reception in Runnymede. One of the guests had even managed to get hold of a bottle of whiskey to help with the celebrations.

I was posted to the desert in North Africa along the Eastern Mediterranean. My main base was at Fuka, in the Western Desert not far from Tobruk, where I stayed for 14 months,flying in Blenheims. At first we were bombing strategic targets along the coast that were occupied by the Germans. Later in 1942 we were doing sea sweeps over the central Mediterranean looking for battleships and merchant vessels supplying the Germans in occupied Crete.

Once an enemy vessel was sited I would get down into the nose of the Blenheim and lying on my stomach, with a good view of what was below us, I was able over the intercom to direct the pilot. As the target approached I took aim and pressed the lever to drop the bombs. If there was poor visibility we sometimes couldn鈥檛 see if we had hit the ship.

Sandstorms made flying difficult and we had to wait until they were over before we could fly. If we were returning from an operation we would, if we could, stay airborne until we had sufficient sight to land. If not we had to find an alternative airstrip or safe place to land. The sand often got into the engines and had to be cleaned out. The aeroplane would have to have a test flight before it could fly in another operation.

Life in the desert was very different from Prestwick, the airstrip and the base had been constructed and occupied by New Zealand troops and we lived in tents with some quarters dug underground. We got used to the heat and just put up with it. We ate in a large mess tent and the food was generally OK. There was no piped water to wash so we stripped off and washed in a bowl. During one sandstorm we couldn鈥檛 even see the mess tent. I did contract dysentery while I was based in the desert. During the time I was ill, the aeroplane in which I usually flew came down whilst on an operation.

When I left the Western Desert I thought that I was going to be posted to Singapore, but ended up in Basra. I also served in the Sudan and Nigeria before returning to England to RAF Leconfield. Here I joined 640 Squadron flying in Halifaxes and flew bombing raids over the Ruhr and German ports.

At the end of the war I was back in Prestwick and on VE day we were all confined to barracks. They kept us all in camp,I thought that was a bit hard.

(Jack Dowsett flew 54 operations and was awarded the DFC.)

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