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Most of the other expected Spitfire arrivals that day had been forced through lack of fuel to end their trip at Lisbon airport inevitably to be interned since Portugal was a neutral country. Other pilots, no doubt, had made the decision to chance it and carry on and in doing so had paid with their lives so close was the issue, as it could be seen by the two planes that fell out of the sky so near to the runway.
However with the usual British tenacity the next step had already been taken and that was confirmed almost immediately by the arrival by ship of many very large wooden packing cases each one containing a complete Spitfire ready for assembly. Royal Air Force Spitfire experts then descended on North Front to be quickly organised into a round the clock assembly team and so it went on twenty four hours a day, assemble and ground test each one ready for flying complete with ammunition.
Although little has ever been said the practical and technical problems involved in the planning of such an assembly job such as that must have been enormous as even the removal of the huge packing cases as they became empty had to be dealt with effectively in order to keep the limited space at North Front clear.
The first consignment of those Spitfires thus built were soon aboard an aircraft carrier to be taken as far down the Mediterranean. as war circumstances allowed and then to be flown off for onward flight to Malta. The assembly program continued on until all the most unusual places had been found in which to park a Spitfire without gumming up everything else, even the army parade ground at the border post was full of parked Spitfires. The reason for all those extra Spitfires wasn't apparent until later when no doubt they were all put to good use but none were ever used operationally at Gibraltar.
The only fighter planes ever to fly operationally from Gibraltar were the two Beau fighters belonging to 233 Squadron details of which are written within.
Most of the earlier problems that had beset the endeavours of the first ever Royal Air Force unit to operate modern aircraft from Gibraltar had now faded into the background. The real effect of America being at war as allies was really beginning to tell and since our aircraft were all American the difference was very noticeable. The signs were all around, there at North Front, of a full commitment to a North African campaign and when the new chief of Coastal Command paid us a visit our confidence was boosted by his remark, "that if it was going to take longer than seven days to repair it push it into the sea".

Spare parts had become much more freely available we even now carried a small stock of spare engines. The very first engine change at North Front had already made been made and this was undertaken by Les Ames and myself being completed in three days. The biggest problem experienced with that first engine change had been the removal of the U/S engine from the aircraft and the subsequent lifting back in of the new one. The only lifting tackle then available to do the job had been a set of R.A.F "A" type sheer legs this was a wooden three leg type of structure and was R.A.F standard outside lifting tackle up to World War Two but quite unsuited to modern needs. An order quickly went out for some better lifting gear and we soon had available to us a fully mobile lifting crane.

A major problem cropped up during July-August with oil coolers when for some unknown reason supplies of new coolers became difficult to obtain. Very soon then we had more leaking oil coolers than we could cope with and for a time seemed to do little else but change the things around in order to keep enough Hudson's serviceable. It got the point at one time where it was found necessary to immediately remove the oil coolers from an aircraft that had become due for an inspection in accordance with standard Maintenance Schedule procedure so that they could then be fitted into a plane waiting for new coolers and thus flying hours were maintained. Recently arrived Sgt Castle was at that time responsible for making sure new spares were available and due to his frantic endeavours to get something done finally succeeded in bringing forth the necessary oil coolers.
Sergeant Castle, who still proudly wore his wings from when he was himself a Hudson pilot, had had the misfortune to crash on take off while 233 squadron were operating from Aldergrove in Ulster.
His Hudson had failed to become airborne and had crashed into some airman’s dormitory huts at the end of the runway with the result that although he had just about survived the crash he became unfit for further flying duties and was re-mustered to ground engineering.
Replacement Hudson's that were now coming into service were technically vastly superior in many ways to the old bangers being flown when the squadron was operating from Ulster. Two different makes of engines were also now being fitted and we had about an equal number of each sort with some still using the old nine cylinder Wright Cyclone engine and others with the new to us, Pratt & Whitney fourteen cylinder engine. While from a maintenance point of view it is always better, especially under such conditions as prevailed there at North Front, to rationalize to one make of anything the ground engineers experienced not too many problems by having the two makes of engine to service.
However, a considerable amount of debate went on amongst our pilots concerning the virtues of Hudson's fitted with one engine as compared to the other. The issue was soon settled when a report was submitted heavily in favour of Hudson's fitted with the Wright Cyclone engine as giving the best all round performance for the requirements at Gibraltar.

So highly esteemed had this 233 Squadron by now become that anything it requested, so it seemed, would be quickly forthcoming so that almost over night the change to aircraft with only the Wright Cyclone engines was completed.
On any war time aerodrome flying accidents seemed to be part of the life and I can recall vividly several that I witnessed or had been in close proximity to during my war time experience with the R.A.F. Just to mention one or two, there was the time early 1941 at Alder grove, Northern Ireland a power diving Beaufort brought us all quickly to the hanger doors just in time to see the aircraft catch the top of the flag pole on the parade ground and then to go on to slither across the flat roofs of some buildings on our side of the perimeter road to continue on across the road and straight through the single storey brick built N.A.A.F.I. As the Beaufort went into the building it exploded setting the place on fire and all that came out the other side was a tangled ball of metal. Two things caught my eye as I went towards the point of impact, one was the position of the billiard table in_ the upper part of the building that was now hanging half off the floor and then as I went over the road on to the rough grass land that surrounded the building there was this aircrew body lying face up, dressed immaculately for flying duties with not a violent mark to be seen on him dead as a dodo, and yet amazingly we spent hours looking for the rest of the crew members whose bodies were in a terrible mess. After the fire had been put out eleven N.A.A.F.I. girls’ bodies were recovered from the remains.
At Leuchars in Fife shire late 1940 where we were still doing a lot of circuits and bumps training exercises the sprawling remains of a Hudson and crew after a stalling mishap.
St Mawgan, Cornwall a Wellington bomber over runs a vehicle full of W.A.A.F. personnel the propeller chopping them up to mincemeat. What a mess, several killed outright.
Still at St Mawgan an American Flying Fortress comes to rest at dispersal and as the propeller ceases to turn a sergeant ground engineer makes the fatal mistake of passing under the blades which at the same moment decide to do one more revolution with the result that one airman is rendered headless and the local girl he was to have married the following day becomes a widow before the wedding. This type of mishap of bodies tangling with propellers was not by any means an uncommon one.
A Wellington passenger-carrying version takes off at night from St Mawgan with several V.I.P’s aboard and crashes into the sea. One week later a body is released from the wreck and washed ashore on Wipserdery beach. He was a very large gentleman and after being lashed to a stretcher had to be carried very painstakingly step-by-step up that narrow cliff path.
There was one with a happy ending at St Mawgan as one evening a Mosquito, diverted there because of hydraulic failure, made a miraculous safe landing without brakes. I watched from flying control as the aircraft touched down on one runway and then the pilot somehow contrived to manoeuvre his craft in a wide arc so that as he met the intersection of number two runway he was thus able to finish the run down that runway, some pilot!!
My first trip in a Hudson was also not without it's share of the unexpected and could easily have ended in disaster had it not been for the very able pilot we had at the controls. It was while 233 Squadron were operating from Northern Ireland that a Hudson, after having just undergone a long major overhaul, was pushed from the hanger and made ready for flight-testing which had been arranged for early that evening after tea. Three fitters agreed to do all that was necessary and then to hop in for the test flight, they were, Bill Walton, myself and one other whose name escapes me now. A Flying Officer Whiting turned up to fly the aircraft and after the normal pre flight ground check decided all was in order and moved away for take off.
As we became airborne our pilot could see right away that he was in some trouble as neither air speed nor altitude indicator was working and to land back on without that important information would require a considerable skill. At the pilot's request I went down into the nose compartment to check if anything could be done to right the fault but found it impossible. Without alerting ground control as to our problem our pilot decided to sweat it out and go for a landing which he literally then proceeded to do. Not being at that time as fully aware of the danger as I might have been I was puzzled when I happened to glance at the pilot to see beads of perspiration covering his face and forehead but since becoming more enlightened I now understand the intense concentration necessary to physically judge the flying speed and altitude to land a Hudson safely.
The landing was excellent and without further ado our pilot took the Hudson back to the hanger, leaving us without a word he went on his way as if nothing had happened. Later to become Squadron Leader Whiting and one of our flight commanders he was amongst some of the first to fly from North Front, Gibraltar and played a major role in that battle.
Thus having outlined just some of the flying mishaps that would be happening on the properly constructed and managed airfields throughout the British Isles so it can be imagined that the number of flying accidents that we as residents would have witnessed during that first years flying at North Front, 1941-1942, were many. Indeed as the year wore on and many other aircraft of all sorts were using the strip so the accident rate increased to the point where we reckoned on one or two every day.
The strip, hastily constructed, too small and crowded for the job expected of it became so busy at the height of the North African campaign that at times the only space free of aircraft was the space used for landing and take off. An unusual location for an airstrip not put there out of choice but because the sheer necessity of war had decreed that a landing place for aircraft had to be there and always the other nearest friendly landing place in those times was a thousand miles away making any thought of diversion impossible.
Who would want to seek to build a runway at the foot of such a great towering rook and running only East to West with the Eastern end fully exposed to the Mediterranean while at the other end a straight line of approach was precluded by the fact that it would have meant flying across Spanish territory as well as trying to avoid the hills overlooking Algerciras. Taking off from the Mediterranean. end meant a turn to port as the aircraft became airborne to take it out of the bay or if landing from the Algerciras Bay end it was necessary after turning into the Bay to make a further turn to starboard to bring the plane into line with the runway.
The run down the runway from the Mediterranean. end spelt trouble for many would be take off's as for some reason that was never explained there was a distinct tendency to veer off to port so much so that over reaction by the pilot would now and again cause the plane to crash. All types of aircraft seemed prone to this veering off and even on some landings it happened as when on one very busy day with both sides of the strip lined with planes a Wellington bomber made it's landing and in veering off literally wrecked nine other craft as it went amongst them.
A Spitfire taking off on flight test veered off so much as to be well within our dispersal area as it was becoming airborne and as it passed over one of the Hispano gun emplacements the undercarriage badly tangled with the cannon. As I watched I expected it to crash but amazingly it just seemed to hang in mid air for a split second and then slowly moved forward and away again. Unfortunately however, although that pilot got away with his dodgy take off his luck didn't hold as the entanglement had wrecked the Spit's undercarriage on one side which meant he was unable to land back on leaving him with no other alternative than to bale out over the sea and we heard later that in doing so he had collided with the tail unit of the Spitfire and had been picked up with serious head injuries.
Curiously enough that left side run off only happened when an aircraft was moving down the strip from the Mediterranean end and I never once saw such a thing happen from the Bay end. Whether it W8.S due to changes in wind direction or air currents or just that some pilots were a bit over anxious about the turn out of the Bay was never made clear but I do know that as residents and when the occasion involved working close to the rum-my we instinctively kept a sharp look out for any aircraft that would be taking off or landing.
Before a permanent dispersal area had been cleared for 233 squadron we would often find ourselves in the vulnerable position near the edge of the runway and one day about six of us were doing a scheduled sixty-hour inspection when some of our Hudson's were taking off. As usual all were keeping a crafty watch out of the corner of one eye and as ZS "A" came down the strip from the Mediterranean end we quickly became aware that it was heading in a direct line for where we were working. In about three seconds flat five airmen had made it to the cemetery wall, which was at the tail end, and gone over the top. As I was working astride the port engine at the time it took a little longer to get down but fortunately ZS "A" had just about cleared the plane we were working on and by the time I had reached the ground it had already swung around which caused the undercarriage to collapse on to one side with the inevitable fire as a result.
Moving towards the burning aircraft I could see that the crew were getting out so to assist their escape I held the door which was swinging shut because the craft was down on the opposite wing and since the door of a Hudson also contained the inflatable rubber dinghy for use' when ditching, some force was needed in order to keep it open. As soon as all the crew had got out everybody then moved clear and we knew from past experience that the thing would go on burning until all that was left would be the tail plane with it's twin rudder fin.
Several of our Hudson's were lost in that manner during our time at North Front but fortunately all crew members had escaped unhurt which was remarkable really considering the spectacular way in which some of them had crashed.

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