大象传媒

PART 2

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Stella Howe of the 大象传媒 Radio Sheffield Action Desk on behalf of Mr Lewis Abbott, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

TRAVELS WITH A SPITFIRE or No 242 (Fighter) Squadron 鈥� 1942 to 1144

Volunteers Introduction

This story was written 30 years ago when the writer was still serving in the RAF. During the war the author was a Sergeant Fitter with the responsibility of servicing and maintaining Spitfires. Born in Sidmouth, Devon he followed his 3 older brothers into the RAF in 1933. He completed his Mechanic鈥檚 Engineering training in 1938. Before the war he was stationed outside Swansea and also Bath. He served in the RAF long after the war. At one point he was stationed at Norton and returned to live in the vicinity many years later.

Part 2

Another memory of Milazzo is seeing a large three engines Italian Air Force aircraft land bringing a V.I.P. delegation to negotiate Italy鈥檚 withdrawal from the war. Soon we were actively engaged in fitting large ninety gallon over-load tanks to our aircraft for long distance patrols over the sea to Italy鈥檚 mainland.

A few days went by, then, 鈥淧ack up, on the wagons,鈥� this time to spot where we could once more embark upon an L.S.T. and off we sailed in a northerly direction. What we didn鈥檛 know was that we were heading for the Salerno beachhead. By the time we reached a point near the shore, the beachhead was still under attack by German artillery in the surrounding hills. It was with mixed feelings that, on the one hand we could see H.M.S. Warspite a little way up the coast belting out broadsides with gay abandon, and on the other, watching great plumes of water shoot up from shells exploding in the water near our L.S.T. We landed on the beach in quite good order, remarkably enough without a single casualty in our squadron, and were soon operating from the airstrip on the beachhead itself. In the fullness of time, the breakout from Salerno was achieved by the army and we moved inland to what was left of a little village called Battipaglia. There, we found comparatively comfortable billets in buildings that had escaped severe damage and which were once used for drying the local tobacco crop. It was here that we suffered four casualties in a most curious way. There was a most violent thunderstorm, which swept down upon us without warning. Four of the lads dived under a truck for shelter; it was struck by lightening and only one airman survived.

Shortly after this, I found myself detailed once more to be on an advance party heading north. We were making for the civilian airfield just above the city of Naples, rejoicing in the name of Capadacino. I remember that as we approached the southern edge of the city, the German rear-guard was just pulling out and the whole place was literally a stinking shambles. Never the most salubrious cities in Southern Europe, Naples at that time, with the pervading stench of dead bodies hanging like a cloud in the streets, was not a pleasant spot to be in. As if to add her voce to the protest, Mount Vesuvius, just across the bay, kept growling away adding to the general unease, especially at night. Our advance party reached our destination all right and had just about completed our preparations in one corner of the airfield to receive the aircraft when out of the blue came the order to return to Battipaglia. Imagine our feelings on re-joining the squadron when we were given instructions to drive inland and in a south-westerly direction. We eventually reached up at an airfield very near the port of Bari, and were then told that we were being taken off operations for a few weeks鈥� for a rest.

This respite, however, did not last long. Our wing had by this time, been overseas for about a year and we began asking ourselves, 鈥淲hat now?鈥� We were to learn soon enough and what we learnt did not make us feel any happier. Two of the four squadrons in our wing of Spitfires were packed up, and in a very short time had been placed on a troopship destined, so rumour had it (and this time quite correct), for the Far East. The two squadrons that remained, including my own, were joined by another squadron to make up a fresh wing. We were ordered down to Toranto docks, on to an old ancient troopship (the Neuralia I think it was), and into the Mediterranean we sailed. We quickly established that we were sailing east, but to where? Port Said on the Suez Canal was reached without incident and there, to our amazement we were ordered to disembark. Onto a troop-train, down along the Canal, into a tented transit camp; what now?

There followed a few days of kicking our heels (in the sand), then one fine dark night we clambered aboard yet another troop train. This time, it was a case of travelling in the old traditional way of moving military men 鈥� in cattle trucks. (Shades of an earlier campaign, 鈥�40 hommes or 8 chevaux鈥�). We were confounded, to find that we were travelling north. We stopped at predetermined points where the army, warned of our movements, had prepared meals in convenient railway sidings.

鈥淎h well,鈥� we thought, 鈥淧alestine is now a nice long way from the war in any direction 鈥� it will be nice to have a rest cure.鈥� However, this idea was quickly dispelled when the train kept going north, on and on and on. By the by, have you ever thought of the predicament that could arise with troops travelling in cattle trucks and who may be feeling the effects of 鈥楪yppo Tum鈥�, as most of us were? You may take my word for it that it can be a harrowing experience, hanging out of a fat moving train relying solely on the strong arms of your travelling companions.

But I digress. On and on we went until grinding to a halt one night we found ourselves in Aleppo in Syria. Off the train and into lorries and still north we went until on Christmas Eve 1943, we arrived at a very lonely airfield, just short of the Turkish border. Surprise, surprise, our Spitfires were already waiting for us. There we sat, destined to sit twiddling our thumbs until the following February waiting for Turkey to declare war on Germany, which of course never happened. So then our journeying started all over again in the reverse direction. First to Aleppo, on to that train but this time only as far as Ramat David in Palestine. There, to everyone鈥檚 delight, we lost our Spitfire Mk 5鈥檚 and were re-equipped with Mk 9鈥檚. We then thought we were the Bee鈥檚 Knees, we would show them, but where? The nearest action was hundreds of miles away. We were not left in suspense much longer. On to that infamous train yet again, back down south to that same transit camp in the desert, back up the treaty road beside the Suez Canal to Port Said, and onto the troopship once more. This time she was the Circassia, a hell ship if I ever sailed one. Conditions below decks were so bad, that most of us, against all regulations, used to creep up on deck after dark to sleep under the stars.

We found ourselves travelling west. Were we really going home at last? After yet another completely uneventful sea voyage, we awoke one morning a few days later to find ourselves anchored in a strange harbour that no one could recognise. Where had we finished up this time? It turned out to be Augusta in Sicily, on the west coast. But, stranger things were about to happen. Later that day a large grey warship sailed into the harbour, we were ordered on to lighters and transhipped across the water to the new arrival. This ship turned out to be the 鈥淰ille D鈥橭ran鈥�, a Free French armed cruiser, into which we were packed like sardines. The wildest rumours all sounded creditable enough, especially when we left Augusta without an escort of any kind and at very high speed. Even the whiz kids amongst us could make no sense of the direction in which we were heading. My memory fails me at this point as to the actual duration of this voyage, but packed in as we were, could not have lasted too long.

Soon enough, we sailed into yet another strange harbour, where of all places but Ajaccio on the southwest coast of Corsica. This time, we disembarked, feeling very glad to be on dry land once more, loaded onto trucks that were waiting, and off we set through the mountainous roads leading inland, onto yet another unspecified destination. It turned out to be a very small airstrip on the east coast, south of Bastia. This airstrip, was one of many from which our wing of Spitfires were to cover the Allied advance on Rome straight across the water. What I do recollect most vividly about this nameless place (in addition to the continuous hard grating from dawn to dusk) was the squadron鈥檚 first experience of being on the receiving end of clusters of fragmentation bombs dropped by enemy aircraft operating from Italy. Ribbed like a hand grenade, these small bombs exploded on impact with the ground and reduced many a poor Spitfire鈥檚 fuselage to a pepper pot. It was here too, that I had one of my own personal 鈥榗lose things鈥�. They counted at least fourteen pieces of fragmentation bomb that they took out of a corporal who lay right beside me in one raid. But he survived to tell the tale, as did many of us. Incidentally, the worst raids of the Corsican airstrips occurred on the very night before the Allies鈥� big push on Rome 鈥� which proved something about the enemy intelligence at that time.

However, the front in Italy gradually moved northward and then the oft-heard order came again, 鈥淧ack up, on the wagons.鈥� Again on the move, we crossed the island to another airstrip up in the north-west of Corsica near to the town of Calvi. It was now mid-summer, 1944, the Second Front in Europe was either in the offing or had just been launched, and we did not have to be told that our wing was also headed for France or Northern Italy. This time I found myself in charge or the rear party with enough supplies and equipment for only a few days. We were briefed that we would only operate for a very short time before re-joining the main body of the squadron. What went wrong, I never did find out, but those few days stretched to about two weeks, by which time my rear party was just about driven into the ground maintaining aircraft, which were carrying out constant long distance patrols between Corsica and France. However, we caught up with the rest of the squadron in time to load aboard the ubiquitous L.S.T.鈥檚 and off we went heading north.

This was an invasion, which for us, was a real piece of cake. We landed on the French coast at Frejus on a pitch-black night. Although chaos did not reign supreme on this occasion, things did not turn out to be all that simple. I had been detailed to drive the squadron鈥檚 cook-house wagon, a beat up old Ford Truck, and I very successfully missed the white guide tapes on the beachhead to wind up in the middle of a mine field. But, that too, is another story, sufficient to say that the Army did a first class job of rescuing me and my mobile cookhouse all in one piece. So, after an interval of just over four years, I found myself back on the mainland of France once more (on the previous occasion, I had left in rather a hurry and very ignominiously in June, 1940).

After a pause near the coast to get ourselves organised, we followed the hastily retreating German army of occupation up the country until we reached an airfield outside the town of Montelimar (where THE nougat comes from). Came the great anti-climax. It was here that, as an experienced operational flight wing, we received what we considered was a humiliating blow. The advance had gone so well and quickly, that the Army could not cope with the supply of aviation fuel for our fighters. The result was that our one complete wing was grounded and given the task of supplying the fuel to our sister wing which had gone forward as far as Lyons. All available trucks were pressed into this task, running a shuttle service from Marsailles to Montelimar and from thence up to Lyons. Nevertheless, our faces were looking to the north and every move would bring us that much closer to home. Soon came our next move, this time to Istres which, since then, has become very well known to many in the R.A.F. as a staging post.

It was at Istres that within the space of a week there came three items of unexpected news. Firstly, after being in charge of my flight since 1943, I had been promoted to acting Flight Sergeant. Secondly, I was told that I had been officially mentioned in dispatches. But thirdly, and here the heavens fell in, our wing of Spitfires was to be disbanded. We were being returned to out transit centre for re-posting within the Mediterranean Theatre. With morale at rock bottom, and for the last time, we packed up, got on the wagons, and off we went southward. Down to Marseilles, on to an L.S.T going where? Of all the places to return to, it was back to Naples and then a transit camp on the outskirts of the city. There we finally lost sight of our squadron equipment and were housed in a very old disused macaroni factory, what an anti-climax. Most of us had then been together for just over two years, but it was going to be well over another year before the majority of us saw England again. When our postings came through at last, we all dispersed to all points of the compass and I finished up in an engine repair workshop of a maintenance unit just north of Naples. But that, as they say, is yet another story.

Well, for over two years our squadron had played its part in the Mediterranean Theatre. In all that time we worked seven days a week and had no official leave at all. There were the odd slack periods when we got an occasional day off, but these were few and far between. Always on the move, never sure of our ultimate destination or what might lie in store for us when we got there.

To close this tale, it may be of some interest to describe some aspects of our squadron life 鈥榠n the field鈥�. Our normal working day was from dawn to dusk (thank God our Spitfires were never required to fly at night). For most of the time we lived in tents, which were pitched at a discrete and prudent distance from the airstrip. Our tents were 180 pounders, the airmen living eight to ten to a tent, then the N.C.O.鈥檚, six, and the officers two. There was no such thing as an issue of beds or sheets: if you could not improvise, then you slept on the ground. I well remember that my bed for two years was some sacking material stretched between two old tent-poles and supported at each corner by a four gallon petrol tin. However, whenever we moved, space on the squadron wagons was always at a premium and if the crunch came (and it did quite often), our 鈥榖eds鈥� were amongst the first load to be dumped. Water, too, was usually in short supply, coming from a bowser trailer filled from the nearest source, and then purified. For the most part, our food rations came out of tins 鈥� oh, the eternal variations of bully beef, Machonicies鈥� M & V, tinned herrings, tinned cheese and hard biscuits. Every week without fail, and I never remember missing out even when things were really bad, we were given a free issue of either 50 cigarettes or 2 ounces of tobacco. It does not require much imagination to visualise how rarely mail from the U.K caught up with a squadron as mobile as ours. But, it did, sometimes in the most unexpected places.

My two years with No 242 Squadron left me with an affection for the Spitfire aircraft, which still remains with me to this day. Let no one kid you, it was a lovely aircraft to keep serviceable, surviving brutal treatment from friend and foe alike. It fully deserves its place of honour in the history of the Royal Air Force.

My tale is done, a worm鈥檚 eye view of squadron life overseas on active service some thirty odd years ago. I hope it has been of interest to the reader 鈥� it all seems so very long ago now.

Originally written ca 1975

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