大象传媒

Fleet Air Arm

Story of Tom Combe recorded by Keith Atkinson.

After my service with the Home Guard I was called up again in August 1944 and reported to HMS Arthur at Skegness, here we spent most of our time farming. From this enjoyable summer occupation we were transferred to HMS St Vincent at Gosport to start training as a Telegraph Air Gunner. From here we were transferred to Scotland and joined HMS Waxwing a shore base on the Clyde, my dry-land sailor days were soon to be over, as we transferred to RMS Queen Mary on 21st December at Aberdour on the Clyde, we sailed from the Clyde escorted by two destroyers, in addition to our Navy personnel who were on their way for training in Canada, there were 3000 wounded American Soldiers being repatriated, some of them were in a bad way, and being mid winter the liner headed south to try to find a calmer passage.
Every dawn and dusk when there was the greatest danger from U-Boats, the ship went onto full speed ahead, charging forward at 35 knots, the destroyers could not keep up, and lagged behind. Even further South the weather was very bad and she was crashing through huge seas with the bow rising out of the sea the bow could be 100 feet up and then crashing back in again. This was very uncomfortable for all aboard.
We were billeted in the cocktail lounge, a vast room, bunks were bolted to the floor and five high. The Queen could tale 10,000 men on a full load but this trip was only 3000. We took watches as lookouts and on the anti aircraft batteries, four on each side three inch quick firing. When we were off the Azores, a four engine plane was spotted, all the ack ack guns were on actions stations, the plane was getting closer, and you could hear each battery getting cocked by the gunner leading back to automatically bring them ready to fire, it was thought the plane was a long range German condor a reconnaisance plane, all it would take was one to start firing and it would have been bedlam, but the plane was finally identified as a American Liberator, the plane was saved but only just in time, by its twin tail fins and we stood down.
Christmas Day was spent in the middle of the Atlantic.
Menu
Breakfast
Rolled Oats, Grilled American Bacon, Boiled Eggs, Bread Butter preserves and Coffee
Dinner

Tea

We landed at New York and were transferred to Hobohen Station, it was freezing cold, at the station there were civilian women the American equivalent of WRVS, they served us with food, and hot drinks the temperature was 19 degrees below freezing. We headed North by train to Montreal, we went into a department store, shopping for items to take home for our girlfriends, stockings were in short supply back home, we didn鈥檛 know what size or type to wear, and got the young shop assistants to model the merchandise for us in a fashion parade, hitching the their skirts up, well 鈥渂oys will be boys鈥� and we did eventually make some purchases.
Then it was on to Windsor Junction,there were two huge steam engines baked up, it shouuld have atken 24 hours to get there, a desolate place the station platform was on a fork on the railway line, we disembarked and headed off the platform to a little waiting room between the tracks, it was only big enough for one third of the ratings on the train so we had to take it in turns tomwarm up and from there to Yarmouth. On the journey to Windsor Junction the train would get stopped by the deep snow drifts and have to reverse back a two miles or more and then steam at full speed to get through the drifts, this was a slow process, the journey took thirty six hours on bench seating, we stared off with turkey and pork but due to the dealys our rations went down to corned beef, even with double glazing the carraiges were freezing. There were negro assistants on the train, we had white sheets, they made up our beds and served us all our meals.
The system seat was one bunk and the back rest raised up for another, and above a third lowered down, this was first class travel in a pulman carraige.
We were training to be aircrew, but after three months they decided that they did not want any more aircrew, and we were shipped back to England on the Louis Pasteur of the French line.
We arrived at Lee on Solent and started our studies again, we were examined and one hundred of us passed a written test, to train as air traffic controllers. The air traffic control on Naval Air Stations had up until now been done by the RAF, however this was to be taken over by Naval personnel, we were therfore the first ever Naval air traffic control to be trained, and deployed relieving the RAF personnel on the Air Stations.
We finished training on tenth of March 1945 and were posted to HMS Didelas my best mate Arthur Dales from Yorkshire was also posted there. I loved being an air traffic controller, there were banks of Eddystone Radios, HF (High Frequency), VHF (very high frequency). There were several floors in the control tower, ours was the top floor where four of us were on shifts around the clock
From here we were drafted to HMS Raven at Southampton Airport, while iI was based here I remember the American Lawyers and Attorneys arriving they came across the Atlantic on the SS America, and came to HMS Raven to be flown to Frankfurt for the Nurenberg War Trials.
From Southampton we were transferred to HMS Gannet at Londonderry. One morning there was negative flying because of very thick fog, a flag was flown which was yellow with five black crosses, which signified no flying, but how could anybody see it in the fog?
At about eleven o鈥檆lock the fog lifted and the crash tender was sent out to take up its position at the end of the runway, as always when it sent out the crew were hanging on the back, as it went over the grass, three fell off. It was found that they were all drunk, investigation found out that the Irish had an illegal still on the base, which is where the got the liquor.
During the winter of 1947 it was freezing, we had a Norton 500cc motor bike(16H) with a sidecar, the crash tender had been hosing down hydraulic fluid which had come out of a Baricuda plane, the water froze immediately and created a huge skating rink, hitting this ice on the motor bike we spun like a top, but no injuries sustained.

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