大象传媒

I wish I had a large block of pad paper on which to write a few notes or episodes on my quite sporadic Airforce flying experience. Perhaps having read an autobiography by Capt W.E. Johns has led to this conclusion quite as much as W/C Bill Simpson's request that ex Air Crew should accompany their flying log books with a few photos and perhaps some written work in depositing them in an appropriate Air Force Museum. So here goes.
This is in no way to be taken as a history or autobiography of my rather lack lustre career to equal some of the long list of quite stirring stories already published and hiding on dusty library shelves world wide, but rather to point out my own particular episodes which may be of some interest to my own family and friends and anyone else who cares to wade through them.
As a boy at primary school I began an interest in flyers and aeroplanes for a variety of reasons. To start with, my dentist (and all our teeth lacked floride) in Timaru, New Zealand was Hal Don, a friend of my parents, had been a fighter pilot in the 1914-18 War and I once went to an air 'pagent' at Saltwater Creek Airport, Timaru, where he and several old timers including Tony White had a race around some markers. The contestants had to ride children's tricycles to their machines, swing the prop themselves, take off and complete the course. The planes were moths of some variety and I always thought that the use of tricyles Tony White with an unfair advantage!
Timaru was not the centre of New Zealand aviation at this time, but there was quite a large hangar at the Levels where there resided quite a few solid looking Boeing aircraft (ex war) until they were disposed of when their place was taken by a flock of traction engines which at this time were very common sights as they chugged about South Canterbury's roads towing Clayton and Shuttleworth wooden mills used to thresh wheat oats and the other corns in use at that time. In the process their passing usually destroyed the road beds of our country roads and also structurally damaged a lot of the Australian hardwood timber bridges over the numerous rivers. I never actually saw a plane fly from the Levels Aerodrome, but once heard one reving up to check it's engine.
My first sight of a flying plane came at christmas 1926 when my very excited Grandfather threw down his garden hose at Nile Street, Timaru to show his grandchildren the passage of a Bristol Fighter, probably from Wigram, which droned over Waimattaitai on it's way home.
Also a further interest in aviation was that several of my maternal ancestors had been early settlers in South Canterbury and some had farmed near Hanging Rock and Kakahu, where Richard Pearse had built his strange looking pioneer aircraft and some folk had actually met Pearse.
Copies of his planes which I have seen in such places as Motat, look as if they would never fly under any conditions, but one can not be quite certain of this, or what might happen when a full scale northwestern gale roared down from big Mt Somers off to the north west!
Some time in 1928 a great aviation event came to Canterbury with the arrival of the Sothern Cross with Kingsford Smith in Command. All those pupils capable of walking the mile from Rosewell School to Baikies Rosewell dairy farm were invited to hear the newly installed radio broadcast of the arrival of the great plane at Wigram. For most of us this was a red letter day event because it was the first time we had listened to radio and also we had a school photo taken, inclding our beloved sole teacher, Miss Lawry, who came out from Timaru daily in her 'T' model Ford to teach the whole school.
A few years later the Southern Cross came back to Timaru and ran sightseeing trips from Saltwater Creek which shows what a great pilot Kingsford Smith was, as using Saltwater Creek aerodrome was like landing a multi engined plane in the back yard of a few houses bounding a miniture public park and a lagoon running into the creek alongside. I was most annoyed that the farther of my childhood appo next door to us at Waimataitai paid for his son to ride in the great plane - father was editor of Timaru's 'Evening Post' and I think it was one pound for that objectional child to upstage me.
I did achieve something on this occasion, however, and this was a somewhat terse interview with Kingsford Smith aided by the local police sergeant. I, in company with sundry other lads about the place, had trespassed into the inner sanctums of the Southern Cross whilst the machine had been left alone while its owners and guardians went to lunch. We were surprised by the early arrival of the official party back to the plane and we were dispatched with a few choice bits of Aussie advice and I got the markings of a sore ear from police sergeant contribution.
The early death of my poor father after a hard lifetime of soldiering and farming an uneconomic soldier's farm unit - which he lost in 1932 and went goldmining through the bitter weather of Otago Central in 1932, to some extent influenced my actions when the inevitable war in Europe broke out in 1939 and I had just started work in Wellington.
Mother had gone back to school teaching in mostly isolated parts of the Wararapa and showed no interest in allowing me to join the RNZAF as a pilot trainee for which I had been selected - so I joined the Territorial Army in 1940 and did not get back to the Airforce until 2 years later, by which time our new American Allies had seen off the Japanese invasion threat and RNZAF by now had enough pilot trainees to see out the likely war duration. Hence I arrived in Manitoba, Canada mid 1943 to train as a Navigator at Portage La Prairie. Following our 'Wings' parade we had a spot of leave in New York visiting the usual sights, including Billie Rose's Diamond Horseshoe - Statue of Liberty, etc.
Stayed at or near the NZ Forces Club run by marvellous woman reporter from Wellington's "Freelance" weekly illustrated paper, Nola Luxford.
Then we reported to Halifax depot to await transport to UK on the 'new' Mauretania, arriving at Liverpool just before Christmas 1943. In getting by train down to Brighton, we experienced one of the last series of German air raids that the UK was to endure except for the Buzz Bombs and V2 Rockets that came with the allied invasion of europe. My memories of Canada reain clear - the great trains of CNR and CPR - the Mounties usually 'getting their man' including some of ours! The vastness of the Rockies - and the plains - roads at 1 mile centres (very handy for the map reader as they ran north, east, south and west. No standing up in bars - young Canadian ladies in uniform (particularly at Lake of the Woods). Ice hockey game vs Australia on skates! (neither team could afford a goalee who could stand up on skates!). The vast distances from Manitoba to the sea - most people asked frequently what the sea looked like! Winnipeg sponsored a ship like 'Compass Rose' and the Canadian navy nearly got it to Winnipeg up the vast network of rivers, lakes and canals for a Civic reception to the ship. When winter came its harshness surprised me; trucks miles out on iced lakes cutting blocks of ice for CPR refreshment cars coolers. Snow blanketing the recently planted wheat crops - thus ensuring a good 'take' of snow warmed plants.
Brighton on England's southern coast was to be our NZ and Australian base for aircrew awaiting further postings to training units or operational squadrons. It was here we made the conscious decision to go on to Bomber Command or sideways to other units like Mosquitos or Coastal Command types. Most of our course chose Bombers and eventually we sallied forth into their advanced training process.
In the meantime the local Airforce continued training and made use of nearby service units where appropriate courses were used to partly fill in waiting time and prevent boredom - the scourge of active service life. Among the neighbouring service units were a Marine Commands group who specialised in sadistic gymnasium classes and brutal games. Also HMS King Alfred a Royal Naval College, who offered things like ship recognition and signalling. From this source I got to know the relatively useless fact that the seven masts of a schooner, like the Herogin Cecile, were named Fore, Main, Mizzen, Jigger, Sparker, Rigger and one other which at last I have forgotten. The airforce had its usual fare plus Air Sea Rescue drills in cold 'tepid' water baths, plus shooting at clay birds on the waterfront to help airgunners. At this I didn't excell, in fact I was so bad that when instructed to 'miss one in front' I actually hit 4 in a row. The Sgt. ordered immediate 'cease fire' - I had passed the course and was on no account to carry on and miss one and prove him wrong!.
A welcome break in the Airforce life came through being sent on leave to a western (Hereford) stately home of Capt. and Mrs Green at a village called Lyonshall, farmers over near the Welsh Border. They were so hospitable that I went often on leaves, therafter to the homestead known as the 'Whittern'. Mrs Green had aquired an earlier guest airman from my eventual squadron (No 44 Rhodesia) and he was F/Lt Tristan Edward Salazaar and his father was at that time dictator of Portugal, but unfortunately I never met him as he had been lost on earlier operations.
Eventually we moved away from Brighton to an advanced flying unit in SW Scotland at West Freugh. Impressions of this station included more night flying on Ansons dodging Scotlands rocky peaks, the freezing cold of winter in the gunnery ranges, crowded evil smelling troops trains. Dodging out of clouds over the Western islands and making sure to keep well clear of the guns of lurking battleships who regarded us as fair practice targets.
Onwards to ervice OTU's in the English Midlands. At one place Luttterworth, I saw a jet propelled Wellington - a rare aircraft indeed acting as a test bed for one of Frank Whittles propelled Wellington - a rare aircraft indeed acting as a testbad for one Frank Whittles new creations. On briefly to a HCU where ewe aquired a flight engineer and flew Stirlings, including an actual battle below us, plus spotting the vast 'Mulberry' Harbour Works (on radar) that as we turned off for home base O swear the whole crew, except me, went soundly to sleep and our Stirling pluinged vertically down. My screams alerted our gallant Captain who brilliantly ceased this activivity and we flew off sedately to Swinderby in Lincoln. One last move to Lancaster finishing school near Nottinham and we were cleared as a crew doe operations, helped no doubt by a few visits to Nottingham's famous 'Trip to Jerusalem' where the Crusaders had been reputed to have drunk their beer before departing on the Crusades.
At this stage of the war Air Marshall Harris had sometimes to give up his command of the bomber force to USA General Eisenhauer, but when he resumed in charge, continued the massive attack on Germany. More bombs tonnage dropped resulted from this period of the war than hitherto. We attacked targets all over the 3rd Reich and some in Scandinavia and East Prusia throughout the cold war winter of 1944-45. Also did quite a few ops involving sowing sea mines, known as 'vegetables' mostly around the Baltic Sea coasts.
Sometimes supported the Allied Armies, with some attacks in daylight raids heavily protected by huge fighter groups and repelled the German offensive at Battle of the Bulge, when they advanced through the Ardennes. We attacked a German Cruiser in Oslo Fiord on a moonlit night with deep snow marking out the land and sea edges. Must have been the shortest war time raid ever when, in daylight, we bombed a massive German naval gun on the sea wall at Walcheran, a Dutch island which was preventing the opening up of the Port of Antwerp. On this operation we were assisting two RN capital ships, Warspite and a 16" gun monitor, either Erubus or Terror, who were bombarding inland enemy forces.
Some of the above comes from a lazy memory refreshed by log book details, which show that I was present as Navigator on 32 Ops. involving 26 sorties at night, and 6 in daytime, taking 210.15 hours flying time, all of which were captained by Geoff Daggett, who was awarded a DFC for his perseverance, and usually Hindley, Navigator, Sharpe, Bombaimer, Simpson, F/Engineer, Chinook, W/Op., Simpson,M/UG., and rear gunner, Fred Barry. We were in two squadrons, 630 at East Kirkby, Dunholme Lodge and finally for the main part of our tour in B Flight of 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron at Spilby, all in Lincolnshire and our (unofficial) aircraft was KMB No. ND631 which by a rare coincidence is the same aircraft named on the pocket badge of my Scottish woven blue jersy purchased after the war. Also it was the last recorded aircraft which fell to enemy action from 44 Squadron in May 1945 and the spare bod 'Navigator was from New Zealand'.
On completion of our tour, the pilot and I went back as training staff to the Swinderby HCU where we sometimes flew together again, but the rest of the crew went elsewhere, some to India, and I never saw them again, but have had at least one Xmas card or letter over the years.
Training flying carried on until VJ Day, which saw the end of my Airforce flying career, but did include one 'Cooks Tour' of Germany, when with a makeup crew we saw some of the bomb damage inflicted on the more prominent targets. Also on VE day I was roped into a 44 Squadron crew to fly to Europe to bring back 24 prisoners of war to London in time for the celebrations. In quieter moments I joined a local RAF Station cricket team, which regularly played in a field in Newark on Trent. Round this field was a hedge which had some of its many holes blocked by old machinery, including an old mobile mill just like the ones used during my Rosewill childhood - so I had to examine it closely and explain it's workings to my fellow team mates. One of these fellows pointed out to me that there was an iron tablet screwed onto the chassis which read Clayton and Shuttleworth, Newark on Trent, England. Finally we were sent off back to Brighton to await repatriation to New Zealand, with our grubby uniforms now sporting our bright new war service medals alongside our brevets and at last sometime in October 1945 we trained off to Portsmouth to board the liner Andes, which sailed out past the partly stripped Warspite bound for Australia and New Zealand.
Although the Navagator is suppossed to be so engrossed with his paperwork that he doesn't see too much of what's going on outside, there were a few incidents which impressed me mightily at the time and might be of interest to any reader of this story.
The first concerns a loaded Lancaster which 'swung' on take off. At Spilsby we returned from a later daylight operation to find a scene of indescribable destruction caused by a Lancaster which failed to get airbourne, but behind us at take off on it's swing to port which, was the usual tendency, it had first passed through a large but relatively empty Nissen hut, then through two parked Halifax aircraft from a northern Canadian group, and finally settled down to explode somewhat too close to a hangar and nearby control tower. Nearly all the machines and buildings affected were burnt out and the casualties numbers are not known. A story round our bars had it that the Irish labourer who was sleeping his dayshift in the Nissan hut was the most impressed.
The second incident was caused by a administrative fault by our seniors. It eas common practice in our group to state at briefing that the local bombing ranges could be used as positons to jettison unwanted bombs on return to base if required for landing. Our nearest range was at Wainfleet Sands, quite close to the coast at Spilsby, to which drome our Squadron had recently moved. On coming in to get to the aerodrome circuit at quite a low level on a dark morning return, we were astounded to see something akin to the sun arising beneath us. Now it is not possible to not live fuse a 4000lb cooky due to the fagility of its casing, so even if the aircraft which dropped it was at a safe height those of our Squadron who were airbourne in the area concerned, were at least most buffeted and annoyed at this error in briefing detail.
Then there was the time we returned from leave to find that our technical people had installed in every aircraft a new American radar navigation aid called Loran. Believe it or not, all our navigators could, without aid, or any parts books or instructions from anyone, use this device within a few days, even if a few went to some unusual places in the process. This set was somewhat like our marvellous Gee sets, but had a much grater range and .......continued...........

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