大象传媒

I was the second of 4 brothers, and we all ended up in the RAF during the War. My Father was a country Vicar in E devon, and in July 1934 I was told by the Village Scoutmaster during her Reception that she was leaving the area and that she had talked it over with the boys, and it had been decided that I would take over! I had just left School, and was about to start University to train as a Doctor, so I had to run the Troop by post in termtime for the next 6 years! I qualified in June 1940, and had 2 weeks off before starting work in a London Children's Hospital, so I went home. The Village Policeman came to see me and said that I had to arrange to have 2 Scouts camping on the cliff-top every night. We were to get up an hour before dawn, and if there was any sign that the Germans were trying to land we had to run to the nearest farm, 1/2 mile away, and the Farmer would put 2 carts across the road and defend them with shotguns! At this
time my younger brother was in the Devon Regiment, and had been given a platoon of 20 men to defend Brighton Beach! One afternoon he was sitting in a deck chair when a lone German bomber dropped a bomb a few feet away from him, and it didn't go off!

I spent the next 6 months in the Evelina Hospital in Southwark, and we were bombed every night until Christmas. One night a bomb landed in the basement where we were all sheltering, but luckily, at the far end. At night I slept on a table in the basement, with the Matron, 3 sisters and 4 nurses in cots all around me!

The job ended in January, and, as I knew that I would be called up fairly soon I got
a temporary job as a Locum in a Practice in Exmouth. Most of the work was involved with evacuees of course. There weren't any defences there, and the Germans used to send a bomber over most days, which dropped its bombs on the town. I was called up into the RAF in May, and posted to Upper Heyford, which was a Bomber Operational Training Station, flying Hampdens. Sadly, we used to get an average of one crash a week, and the crew were usually killed. When I got a message that there had been a crash, it wasn't easy to find where it was, so, after a time I got hold of an aircraft radio, and got one of the other aircraft to circle the crash site and direct me to it. This started the provision of radios in ambulances, so I can at least take the credit for that!

After 6 months I was posted to North Luffenham, where 2 Hampden bomber Squdrons were stationed. There was one Australian and one New Zealand Squadron. Finding my way there at a time when there weren't any signposts on the roads wasn't easy. The Squadrons went on bombing raids about 4 nights a week, and I had to be on duty when they were taking off and landing. One or two were lost on most nights. One of my jobs was to keep a list of every Pilot's Operational Trips with the result. If he had a series of problems with the magneto or too much cloud to be able to navigate successfully or similar things, it meant that he was losing his nerve, and he needed a rest from Operations. The Senior Medical Officer on a Station was a S/Ldr, which gave him sufficient rank to be able to recommend a particular course of action of that sort to the CO, who normally always accepted it. The "Tour" of Operations was 30 trips, after which the crew were rested for about 6 months. The greatest risk of going missing was the first few and the last 3.

I always tried to go flying as often as possible, as I wanted to give the Pilots the feeling that I had confidence in them.
We had a rookery on the camp, and one day the CO said that he would love to have an egg for breakfast, so I got hold of one of the Pilots and asked him to climb up the trees with me to get some eggs. The CO was very impressed! The following day the Pilot asked if I would like to go flying with him. The Hampdens had a perspex nose that the bomb aimer lay in, and he put me into it and then went chasing rabbits! When we landed he said "that was to pay you back for scaring me stiff climbing those trees yesterday"!

After I had been at North Luffenham for 6 months, it was decided to post the 2 Squadrons to Leuchars, near Dundee, and convert them to torpedo bombers to attack shipping off the Norwegian coast. There was still a small petrol ration, so I drove up there. As before it wasn't at all easy to find the way but I made it. It was the nicest Station that I landed up on, and there was a bird sanctuary nearby, so on my second evening I changed out of uniform and went to visit it. There was a clanging of gongs, and a patrol of Polish soldiers arrived and arrested me, as, being on the East coast, it was a potential invasion area. Ther fixed bayonets, and put me into a van and took me to their HQ where I tried to explain that I was the new RAF MO. The officer rang my Sick Quarters and asked the F/lt Sgt if the new MO wore glasses (which I did), but he had only seen me fleetingly and said no! I was bundled into the van again, and driven to the Police Station, where the F/lt Sgt came and bailed me out! There was very little shipping to be found, and the torpedoes ended up with almost as many "flying hours" as the crews, which wasn't at all good for morale.

During August a Russian Convoy (PQ17) was almost wiped out, so Air Ministry decided to send our 2 Torpedo Squadrons and a Catalina Squadron to Murmansk to try to protect the next one. I went as MO, flying out in a Catalina from Sullom Voe in Shetland, which took 22 hours, me sitting on a box in the gangway! The Hampdens had to fly across Norway and Finland, and we lost 4 on the way. The German front line was only just across the Kola Inlet and we had an air raid every day. The Russian observation posts were able to see the planes taking off, and would give us 5 minutes warning of the raid. Afterwards they would announce that 22 or so German aircraft had been shot down, for the loss of 1 or 2 Russian ones. One day there wasn't a raid but the casualties were the same! The Catalinas were operating from the Kola Inlet and Lake Lakhta near Arkhangel, so I went to and fro between the 2. It was quite warm, and we used to swim in the lake, but the day before my A/C left to come home, it started to snow. The last A/C had engine trouble and by the time, 3 days later, that it was fixed, the lake had frozen over and it had to be handed over to the Russians. The Convoy that we had been protecting got through relatively unscathed, thank goodness. In my A/C we brought home a man who had been British Consul in Moscow, and 2 years later I met him again as British Consul in Liberia! I never discovered what he had done to be demoted that far!

The Russian trip had been fascinating, and I was very grateful to have had the chance to go on it. Surprisingly 50 years later I received Russian medals which had been struck to commemorate the 40th and 50th Anniversaries of the end of the "Great Patriotic War". How they had tracked me down I have no idea.

After I had been at Leuchars for a year I was posted to Tiree in the Hebrides. My YOungest brother was working in the Intelligence Dept at Air Ministry with W/Cmdr Cholmondeley, who was a family friend. We had, of course, no idea what his job was. He had a week's leave and came to stay with my wife and me for it. We were out swimming one afternoon, and when we got back there was a message to say that he had been recalled to Air Ministry, and that they had sent an aircraft to collect him. It had gone on to Stornoway and was coming to collect him on its way back. Just before it reached the mainland an enging caught fire, and it crashed into the sea, killing everyone on board.

My younger brother, who had been in the Devons, had volunteered for pilot training after Dunkirk, and was at this time, in North India training Indian pilots to fly Mustangs. One day he had engine failure, and had to make a forced landing. He was flying over paddy fields which were full of irrigation ditches, which he couldn't see through the foliage, and suddenly had the feeling that our youngest brother was guiding him in to land. He made a safe landing, to be met by a very irate Sgt Major, who said that he had just spent a fortnight making sure that Jap aircraft couldn't land there! Some weeks later he heard that Martin (the youngest brother) had been killed, and realised that it was at the time that he had been guiding him into land! They could both have been killed the same day.

It wasn't until many years later that we were told that Martin had been working on "The Man who never was" with W/Cdr Cholmondeley, and as the body had been called Major Martin, we thought that it was his body that had been used, but were told that they had had a body on ice since before the battle of Alamein, (for a Deception Plan for the invasion of Sicily! at a time when we were in danger of being thrown out of N Africa!)

After a year in Tiree I was posted to West Africa, landing up at Apapa, the Port area of Lagos. My main job there was Malaria control, which centred on draining the, mainly tidal, swamps in the area. I managed to persuade the Ministry of Overseas Development to let me have enough money to employ 1000 labourers, and, using a variety of schemes, drained around 3000 acres in the 9 months that I was there. When I arrived there had been 100 cases a month, but in the final month, when I left 9 months later, we had only one.

I spent the next 5 months in Sierra Leone, where I was also responsible for Liberia, and then 5 months in the Gambia. At this time it was still called "The White Man's Grave", and the expectation of life of a Bishop of the Gambia was 5 years, so it wasn't very reassuring to find that the aerodrome was called RAF Half Die. The Ward in Europe was almost over by now, and I was entitled to 10 days leave. One of the other Officers had visited the French Sudan and said how interesting it was, so I decided to try to get to Timbucktoo. I got a lift on a French Military aircraft to Niamey on the far side of the Niger bend, almost 1500 miles inland, and thought that I could hitch hike up the river. I was told that a lorry wasgoing up at 6.30 next morning, so I waited in the town square until 8.30, when a man came along to say that they had lost the starting handle! We got going at about 9.30 and had some 15 punctures by tea time, all of which had to be mended on the roadside of course, and then, at about 5pm the fanbelt came off, and we were stranded for the night. At about 3am I saw lights coming up the track, and I flagged down a car which had 2 Syrians and an African driver.
They agreed to take me to Gao, the next place up the river, but some 5 miles short, the car ran out of petrol. The driver was told to go to Gao to get a can full, but said that he would have to wait until it was light or he might get eaten by a lion! We finally arrived in mid morning, and I booked into the Transatlantic Hotel! I was having lunch when I got a message telling me to report to the Chief of Police. He asked me what I was doing there and said that I was in a Military Zone without a permit, and couldn't stay. This was pretty stupid, as the European War was just about over and I was in a S/Ldrs uniform anyway. However I had to report to the Governor, who gave me a free pass on the Trans Sahara Bus which left the next day. It was extremely hot but we travelled at night and reached Mopti, where I had to catch a Post bus to the rail head. Unfortunately the bus had caught fire and we had to wait for a replacement, and we reached Bamako 24 hours late, missing the weekly vegetable plane to the coast so I had to carry on by train. This was fine for the first 24 hours, but during the next night it stopped, and I was told that the engine had blown up! A replacement eventually arrived, and took me to the nearest point to the Gambia River, from where I was able to get a lift to the ferry across to my Camp. Altogether a most interesting, if fraught, leave. I did eventually get to Timbucktoo 20 years later.

I was responsible for an RAF Detachment in Dakar, and had to visit them weekly. On my next visit I got the morning paper, which announced the end of the European War, which we duly celebrated, and when I got back to the Gambia next day, I found that, the French had jumped the gun and announced the end of the War a day early, so I had a second celebration at Half Die!

Soon after this I was posted home and spent a year at Moreton in Marsh before being demobbed. I arrived back the day before my daughter's first birthday.

My eldest brother was also an RAF MO and was sent to the Middle East as an ENT Consultant, having a quiet War. This was our Family story, and we all ended up in completely different parts of the world, and I had a very interesting and reasonably "safe" 6 years.

Dr. Grimaldi MBE

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