大象传媒

Towards the end of the war, after flying a total of 31 sorties, I had completed my first tour of duty. A tour is normally 30 sorties, but after I had finished my thirtieth flight, I was seen standing around a hanger, as you do, by a flight sergeant who had came along and said 'Who are you?', I told him, he said 'Good,I need a navigator', you are flying with me tommorrow, I said OK.

It was early evening at this time and the Flt Sgt said better get some rest, and I mean 'now' you never know what time we will call you. He was right I got called at 01:00!. It was only for a small target, we were only away for 4 hours. I was back in bed by 06:00. When I got up at mid-day I meet my crew and told them that I had been out on an op that night they did not beleive me, as anybody who has already flown 30, does not in their right mind fly another.I still I have my flight log to prove it.
(Read "Jim Glasspool's Flight Log")
My CO was a bit of an odd ball in that he was one of the few who was not a pilot, he had never flown a plane. I remember that he went out one night over Germany in '45, when his bomber, a Lancaster, received a direct hit, all the crew except for him were killed, he spent the rest of the war in a German POW camp.

I too had a lucky experiance in that, again whilst over Germany a flak shell burst underneath the aircraft, sending a bit of shrapnel straight through my chart table, if I had been leaning over it, it would have taken my head clean off.

After some leave I was posted to RAF Mildenhall, Upon arrival at the railway station 6 miles away, I was picked up by a car from the base. This car dropped me off at the corner of a hanger and the driver said that's your office, 'I said my office?', he said 'Yes, you are the new GH officer, I'll tell you all about it later.'

Anyway, I was later taken to where I was going to work. This was out of the hanger, across the road and into the wood opposite. Here was the group command headquarters, which controlled around 20 airfields. There were plenty of WRAF officers around, with a large ploting table and a similar thing set up against the wall. I was pointed to a chair and told that this was my desk.

On this desk was a compass like thing that was used to set the bearing of the GH beam, there was also a telephone with three large knobs on the to. I had no idea what these knobs were for, or even what I was doing there. Well, the phone rang and a chap on the end said 'Mildenhall?' I said 'Yes', he then went around calling out the names of the other twenty odd stations. Once he had everybody he said 'Scramble'. I did'nt know what the hell he meant, so I called over this WRAF officer and asked her what he meant, she said 'You press the middle and the left buttons', this made everything go gobblygook so that nobody could listern in.

So then they proceeded to give me the target and other information, and then me, at only 20, had to go and brief 2 squadrons on what they had to do. I also had to debrief them all when thay came back and write up all of the reports. I spent about six months doing this, which was when the war came to an end, and that was it.

For those that do not know the G in GH was the radio guidance system that was used to guide the bombers, however towards the latter states of the war once the bombers had crossed the coast the Germans would start jamming it.

Just prior to me going to Mildenhall, I went to the officer training centre, where we were told that we had to group ourselves into seperate flying crews, this meant that we needed two pilots, a bomber, navigator and two gunners. Anyway no sooner had I got up and I was collared by an Aussie crew. We had our crew, so we went to the officers desk to get assigned, as soon as the officer saw me he told the rest of the six, that they could not have me. I said why, and he said you are too good a navigator, I may need you for another crew if the navigator they have got is no good. This really disappointed me as I rather liked this group of Aussies. I got posted to a group nine days later, I did not like them at all.

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