大象传媒

When I volunteered for air crew duties in RAF Bomber Command my first posting was to Blackpool for electrical and Morse training in a class of 50 men from all parts of the country and on the first week end break the majority hitch hiked home what ever the distance. I was not prepared to take the risk of not getting back I time.

My second posting was to Yatesbury in Wiltshire to No 1 Electrical and Wireless School, a vast area of 50 man barrack blocks miles from nowhere and again on the first 48 hour break several hundred men set off for all parts of the country, this time including me, destination Woodlands
4 miles north of Doncaster, over 200 miles away.

I was `Senior Man` of Hut Z44 and one of my squad, a veteran hitcher, offered to get me to Finchley where there was a Transport Caf茅 for lorries going North. Our first lift was by an RAF van which had to drop us off in the Hammersmith area because of an air raid warning , but after a series of hitches and walks, partly through an area just bombed leaving serious devastation, fires, craters, burst water mains etc.and guided through some areas by ARP Wardens we eventually arrived at the Transport Caf茅. I remember the stark reality that what I had seen was what I was training to do myself.

My `guide` was on his way quite quickly but it took me some time to get a willing driver who was going north to Leeds up the Great North Road 鈥� the old A1, now the A1(M). We set off in the black-out, I did not know what our load was since it was tarpaulin covered but we trundled through the night. I gave the driver my chocolate and cigarette rations ( I was a non smoker anyway) but it was difficult to talk as it was very noisy in the driver`s cab. In the early morning he pulled off the A1 somewhere near Retford and went into a house saying he would be half an hour which turned out to be an hour, however , he gave me a slice of bread and jam and we proceeded on our journey, it was now getting light.

At the time I lived with my wife and her parents at The Park, Woodlands, abutting the Great North Road directly opposite the Woodlands Cinema.
The driver dropped me off there, I climbed over the wall on to our garden path, I was home !!

I had enjoyed help getting home on this first hitch hiking occasion but I worried about the return journey, however my `guide` had given me some tips and they paid off. I needed to set off for my return journey no later than 6pm Sunday to get back to Camp by 12 noon on Monday ,another hitch in the black-out. I had been advised that the way to get vehicles to stop in the blackout was to open your greatcoat and shine a torch on your tunic buttons and after taking up a vantage spot the trick was successful after about fifteen minutes but when I climbed into the drivers cab he yelled above the noisy engine 鈥淚 thought you were a bloody policeman鈥滻 apologised and asked if he was going down the A1. He gave me an ungracious 鈥淵es鈥�. but he turned out to be quite talkative and I thought, a good sort !

In spite of the January weather and the blackout we made good time and he dropped me outside a Tube station from where I got a train to Paddington. As I arrived there an Air Raid siren sounded and a Warden directed me to a Shelter where I stayed for some time. A train journey and a lift in a private car got me to the Camp gates at 11am.

My next posting took me to Cromarty Firth in the North of Scotland for 6 weeks Gunnery course 鈥� no hitch hiking from there. Next, as a Sergeant I was posted to Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire for Bomber operational training from where I enjoyed another lucky hitch home.

The `veterans` advised me to get to Rugby where there was a good chance of getting something going North, this time in daylight and I had only just taken up my stand when a big chauffer driven car pulled up and the passenger announced that they were going to Leeds. What luck !.
I was dropped off , again, at the Woodlands Cinema where I jumped over the wall and was home !!. I returned to Camp by train.

On April 13th 1942 I enjoyed my first `hitch` by air, I was a Sgt Wireless Operator with 49 Squadron at RAF Scampton and my Flight Commander, when he signed my leave pass , offered to drop me off at Doncaster airfield, which he did at 13.15 hours.. On landing he told me to report to the Flying Control and then took off. I did so, giving the required details but the Flying Control Officer was livid, saying the landing had not been authorised. That was the Pilot`s responsibity anyway but I remember the landing 鈥� we flew low over the Racecourse and came down on the grass airfield just over the A1. I was soon home once again.

My final `hitching` was by air again. At the time I was a senior Flight Lieutenant aircrew signals instructor at RAF Long Marston, near Stratford on Avon and on 11th July 1944 I had received a telephone call that my wife had given birth to our second son and when I applied for a 48 hour pass my Sqdn Ldr Unit commander instructed a Pilot on a cross country exercise the next day, in a Wellington bomber, to drop me off at RAF Finningley. I was soon home again to see my new son Raymond, incidentally now 61 years of age and a Chief Scientist in California.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.