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This story was submitted by Don Eaves, and has been added to the website with his permission by the staff of Blackpool Central Library.

I was 16 when the War started in 1939 and I was born on June 30th 1923. I was working in our own motor vehicle repair business in Blackpool with my two older brothers. In 1941 our business was taken over by the National Fire Service (NFS) to repair auxiliary water pumps (towed trailers) that had been used in the Liverpool and Manchester blitz. My eldest brother (Bob) and I were redirected to Brooklands Aviation Ltd at Squires Gate Airport (Blackpool), where they serviced the aircraft belonging to No. 3 School of General Reconnaissance RAF . Brooklands Aviation relocated to Blackpool because of possible bombing at Shoreham, their peacetime aerodrome, on the South Coast. We were there from 1941 to when the contract ended in 1945.

When we started working for Brooklands all their aircraft were grounded with seized engines due to sand from the seashore and sandhills at Squires Gate entering the engine valve mechanisms. Sleeve valves are unheard of today and are very complex, with very close sliding surfaces. These valves were fitted to the Botha engines. As a result sand caused havoc internally leading to engine seizure. This entailed changing all engines and the new ones were fitted with Desert Air Filters that stopped the ingress of sand. There were other mechanical problems on Blackburn Botha aircraft 鈥� propellers broke up in mid air and we also had a spell of tyres bursting on take-off or landing, which led to pilots and air crew not wanting to fly in them. It must be said that none of these problems were anything to do with the aircraft makers (Blackburn鈥檚). Unfortunately, these aircraft were considered unsuitable and were withdrawn from service and replaced with the Avro Anson, an ancient but reliable aircraft, in 1942. These school aircraft (and there were in the region of 60 of them) were flying twice daily, weather permitting, on morning and afternoon programmes. Generally the crew consisted of a pilot, who was on a rest period from active service, and two pupil navigators who were assigned to that aircraft for the day. The experienced pilot was able to correct any routes and compass settings given to him from the pupil navigators. This is clearly the reason why the course had to be flown over the sea, because it meant that the pupils had no landmarks. It was also why Shoreham, in the English Channel, was an unsuitable location.

Blackburn Botha aircraft fitted with Bristol Perseus engines of 9 cylinders radial were contracted to be torpedo bombers built for use with coastal command anti-submarine use etc. As these aircraft were underpowered, the contract was given to Bristol Aircraft Company who built the Beaufort to the same specification, except that they fitted a much more powerful engine (a 14 cylinder Taurus) and so were successful. The Blackburn Botha went to training units due to its having up to date operational equipment. The Avro Anson had none of this, but was favoured by aircrews.

The firm of Brooklands Aviation had a very high standard of serviceability. The company was informed just before the end of the War that their aircraft had flown many thousands of hours altogether without a single breakdown due to maintenance. I, with many other aero engine fitters, had many flying hours with the job. Each job of work carried out on planes had to be checked and test flown on completion, and the pilot who tested the aircraft had to sign whether or not it was serviceable and an engine fitter had to fill out on a pad of paper an engine performance report, along with readings from the pilot鈥檚 instruments. So workers from the ground trades generally got a 鈥渇lip鈥�. Some of these flights were entertaining, such as the occasion when a pilot was being posted back on to Sunderland flying boats. As these were assembled and tested on Lake Windermere that particular test flight was flown to Windermere to let the pilot see the flying boats close up, and enable him to show them to those of us flying with him. A thrill for all.

At the time of the Botha problems I did a test flight with a Botha to satisfy Squadron Leader Lewis (the O.C. Flying) that this aircraft could be flown back to the aerodrome on one engine where necessary. He climbed and dived and did numerous turns and banks with one engine shut down to satisfy himself that any pilot in this position must try to bring the aircraft back to base and make a normal landing, rather than abandon it (easier said than done). He considered that too many aircraft were being abandoned. It proved to be a hair-raising flight especially as he had banged his head quite hard joining me in the cockpit before we set out. Everything went well with this flight and so he put out a staff notice for all his pilots to read . After the Brooklands contract ended in late 1945 they finished at Squires Gate and all civilian staff were dismissed and the civilian unit closed. Brooklands relocated to another aerodrome at Sywell in Nottinghamshire, where they had a maintenance unit already working.

Shortly after this I got my call up papers to do my National Service. I had in mind to get into practice for civvy street and the garage work which I had left in 1941 (and hoped to be going back to). So I chose the army, hoping to work with motor vehicles instead of aircraft. I had initial army training at Squires Gate, this time at the holiday camp. This only lasted 3 weeks before the camp closed, and although we had been housed in chalets the wash basins only had a cold water tap and no heating. Shaving at 5 o鈥� clock in the morning in November and December was a bit of a shock. At least the War had finished, and so we had to consider ourselves very lucky. After serving at various holding units I got posted to Carlisle in REME to work in a LAD workshop for a few months during which time my wife and I got married on 13th April 1946 during a period of leave. So next April 2006 we will have been married for 60 years and hope to celebrate with family and friends.

In 1946 the forces were generally demobbing at a terrific rate, as naturally everyone who had been in through the War rightly wanted to get out as soon as possible. Unfortunately for the Army they were losing supervisory staff from their workshops all over the world. Myself and another lad at this army unit at Carlisle were sent for an interview to Chester with the possibility of going on a Staff Sergeants鈥� course. If you were considered suitable you were to be sent to REME school at Arborfield near Wokingham on passing out from the course, which entailed training and exams with weapons and military training. You became a workshop foreman and so didn鈥檛 get much practice on motor vehicles. I was posted from there to Warminster in Wiltshire at a command workshop for 7 months. Then I went on to the Fighting Vehicle Proving Establishment at Chertsey, a workshop unit with its own railway station a half hour outside London on an electric train that was to be my fastest way home. However, I only stayed 7 or 8 weeks because another Staff Sergeant at Bicester, near Oxford, got a compassionate posting, which meant we were swapped over. That was the end of my quick weekends home.

My next move came out of the blue. I had some knowledge of forklift trucks, having had a workshop full of these for repair at Warminster. Everyone now knows what these things are and what you can do with them, especially in a store or factory. When the Yanks went back home, after the fighting had stopped, they left dozens of these behind. They called them 鈥淪tackers鈥�. Our army said 鈥淭hanks very much鈥� and started working the trucks to death in all our ordnance depots all over the country. But when anything wore out, or the vehicle broke down, the army found that there were apparently no spare parts. This is where my final army posting came in. I was told to report to a Colonel at Chillwell near Nottingham, where the HQ of British Ordnance was, and this chap said they had found a store holding for these parts at a depot at Boughton near Ollerton. So they thought their troubles were over. But no! The Yanks, when they left, had relabelled all the boxes, whether as a joke or not, but there seemed to be hundreds of crates. By the time we had opened a few of them there seemed to be nothing of the contents stated on the labels. You can imagine the panic. We needed a new cylinder head for a vehicle, and the crate that had 鈥淐ylinder heads鈥� marked on it might have back axles inside it. So I took charge of a small unit of M/V fitters to open all the crates and re-label them. There were no British forklift trucks made at the time. These had been made in America at a firm called Clarks. I believe there were about 6 different models, each with differing lifting capacity. What is more, Britain was unable to buy from America at that time because of 鈥渓ease lend鈥�. I had to search for urgently-wanted parts and, if there were none, they had to be made to order in the UK. I know a lot of things had to be done this way, as there was no other way of keeping the trucks on the road.

Getting home at the weekend was a priority for me, travelling via Worksop, Sheffield, Manchester, Preston and then home to Blackpool. Fortunately I got some help from the Colonel at Chillwell, who said if I would forgo my privilege leave of 10 days until the job was done he would let me leave anytime on Friday to catch a suitable train, and return anytime on Monday. The job took about 4 months to complete and no medals were awarded. I went from there to Catterick and was demobbed in March 1948. I was in the army for 2 years and 4 months.

My brother Bill Eaves was the first foreman to be in charge of Warton aerodrome (near Blackpool) in 1947 when it was taken over by BAC, and he became Superintendant of Experimental Aircraft up to his retirement in the 1980s having worked on all makes that English Electric (BAC) built wartime and post-war up to the Tornado.

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