大象传媒

During the war, operational service was split into active service that is on a
squadron, or other duties, usually training. This was to give a rest, or at least a
respite, and to benefit new crews with your experience. Therefore it would be in
the same command which in my case was coastal.
I was posted to Squires Gate at Lytham St. Anns, Blackpool to fly Anson
aircraft as a staff pilot at No 3 School of General Reconnaissance. The Anson was
a two engined monoplane and very good for the particular role of training pilot
navigators. It had a cabin that resembled a greenhouse and therefore good vision.
Its other great claim to fame was its undercarriage- that must have been designed
by a bicycle loving masochist- and had to be wound up and down with a handle
which in turn operated chains. I can't remember how many turns of the handle it
took but more to get the wheels up" weight and dynamics" than down.
I spent March to the end of June stooging around the Irish sea. The
programme was similar to South Africa without the barbecues and the singing but
I do remember Dixon playing the organ in the Tower.
At the end of June I was given a Commission and became a Pilot Officer.
The consequence was a posting to Limavady, back to the puffing billies and the
ferries. I ought to have had my head examined losing the sinecure of Blackpool. I
put it all down to "The Magnet" and Frank Wharton, my mother was quite right to
doubt my sanity.
I was put on the conversion flight doing mainly circuits and bumps and so it
was now my turn to wait for the first solo to land and return to the flight office.
The aeroplanes had improved as well or at least some were Mark 10 with the
Hercules engine, more powerful and a full feathering propeller. It meant actually
practising single engined landings.
In October I went on a flying instructor's course at Lulsgate Bottom,
Bristol. I think of all the courses I have taken, military and civil, this was the best.
My Co pupil was a chief flying instructor and our mentor a flight commander. The
standard was superb, and their experience extremely valuable to me. Fifty hours on
Oxfords and to think I was paid to do it.
Back to Limavady and instructing, however times were changing and it was
decided to amalgamate the three coastal command operational training units into
one which was to be in Palestine (now Israel). So in January 1944 back to the
Middle East, a new country and a new airfield at Ein Shemer around the Haifa
area.
It was the usual shambles at first, staffed by the Middle East Command and
Coastal Command. There were too many instructors and too few pupils. We had
time on our hands and unlike the U.K. with its establishment of motor transport
drivers, we were expected to drive our own flight vehicles. After about a thousand
hours flying I learnt to drive on a Chevrolet truck. We were expected to
outperform the normal drivers as the Warrant Officer in charge of motor transport
did the final check.
Even though it was wartime and Germany was the common enemy, there
was a Jewish organisation in Palestine that regarded the British as the enemy and
carried out attacks on service personnel. We had to be careful where we went.
They were helped by some Palestinian Arabs. I think it is rather ironic in hindsight
that we are blamed by the Arabs for the State of Israel. The revelations of the
Holocaust by the Germans would have made them strange bed fellows for the
Stern gang as it was known.
The first of May was my twenty first birthday, the age of majority then, and
I was surprised in the mess at tea time with a convoy of kitchen staff, mostly
Italian prisoners of war carrying the biggest cake I had ever seen, beautifully
decorated. It had been organised by my colleagues and I was very touched.
However by the middle of the month via a transit camp in Cairo I had my first ride
on a civilian aeroplane as a passenger. I note that my logbook records the
aeroplane type as a Hudson although I now know that it was my first trip on a
Lodestar. Aden and a famine relief flight was to be my home for the next two
months.
It is quite a surprise to realise that during a World War involving every sea
and continent that resources could still be made available to carry out humane
responsibilities, and this was such a case. Aden Province stretches from the port of
Aden along the southern coast of Arabia for some five, and inland for about two,
hundred kilometres. It is barren but about one hundred kilometres inland from the
small port of Mukalla, itself half way along the coast, and is the home of the
Hadramauti people. To support their home land and way of life required the people
to seek resources away. In their case it was the Malaysian peninsular. There was a
regular traffic of dhows and people to and from Mukalla. With their wealth it
supported an extensive camel caravan route, bringing in from the Far East their
quite fabulous belongings, overland to their towns in the Wadi Hadramaut . But of
course the occupation by the Japanese of Malaya and the war generally had closed
all that down. It meant that the camels could not be fed, and in turn, the people.
This was brought to the attention of the British by an European "Arab romantic", a
description given to a small band of Europeans that had adopted an Arab way of
life, probably the most notable was T E Lawrence ( of Arabia ). We were based in
Riyan with a detachment of soldiers from the R.A.S.C. to load the aeroplanes with
bags of grain, dates and tins of condensed milk to take up to an emergency field,
carved out of the dried up Wadi between the two principle towns of Shibam and
Say`un. As well as our crew we had two or three squaddies at the back to offload.
The Wellington was not really the best aeroplane for this sort of work, its
normal load was concentrated and carried in the bomb bay which had no access
from inside. We were now loading, wherever there was space with no regard of
weight Because there were no refuelling facilities there had to be sufficient fuel
on board for the round trip, again more weight. The inevitable happened and an
undercarriage on one of our aircraft collapsed out at the desert strip. In a second
incident my own undercarriage collapsed back at Riyan. Its a nasty moment when
it happens, a sudden deceleration, a lot of things breaking, sand and muck like a
storm, and a fear of fire. Fortunately in the Wellington the emergency exit is just
above your head and as there was no fire we had no further problems.
As I was the Commanding Officer( fortunately not in the setting up of the
unit) I had a lot of paperwork to do on both the accidents. There were lots of red
faces all over the Aden command as well as ourselves as we realised we hadn't
done our homework about weight and distribution very well. The upshot seemed
to be left there. We continued the relief flights but instead of landing in the Wadi
we flew as slow and low as we could and the load was thrown out by the
unfortunate squaddies. It meant they were rather isolated at the rear, but it was the
best we could do. Amazingly the operation was very successful and breakage and
pilferage minima I was sent from Aden to a transit camp in Heliopolis near Cairo to await
the next assignment. As an officer you get all sorts of odd jobs to keep you
occupied. Part of the camp contained a holding centre for people awaiting courts
martial and whenever an officer had permission to leave the centre it was a
requirement to have another of similar rank as an escort. I had several of these
duties and it was very poignant to realise that life and its difficulties went on
outside the service. One such officer was waiting, with whom I had been with at
I.T.W. in Torquay in 1940. I don't know why, or for what offence but I can
remember now feeling very sad.

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