大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site at Surrey History Centre on behalf of F/Lt J, Petrie-Andrews DFC DFM 155220. It has been added to the site with the author鈥檚 permission, and he fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

In 1940 it was the 鈥淏attle of Britain鈥�, and oh how I would like to be involved! I had managed to get into the Local Defence Volunteers 鈥淗ome Guard鈥� on the river patrol guarding Shepperton Lock. I would cycle over from Sunbury to Shepperton and pick up my companion 鈥淭ommy Atkins鈥�, the manager of Wasley鈥檚 Butchers shop. We would carry on to the hut at Shepperton Lock, book in, and then do our patrol along the river bank, return to our hut on the lock, book in again and report 鈥渁lls well鈥�. By this time the river patrol would have done their patrol in their 30 foot cabin cruisers and be moored up at the lock having made their report.

One night the owner, a haulage contractor from Hounslow, 鈥淒iamond Tread鈥� I believe, asked if we wanted a trip up to the London docks next day, we both agreed. It took us quite a time to get to Teddington Lock, where an officious Army Major asked how many were needed in the boat to manage it. The owner replied at least 3, so Tommy and I had to leave, I remember he had to pay my bus fare home! Had we been allowed to stay we would have been at Dunkirk the next morning.

I was not doing very well at Hampton Grammar School, and one day went into the local recruiting office at Hounslow with a friend Vic Mendelski. In due course we were sent a railway warrant to Cardington near Bedford. I seemed to do fairly well but I didn鈥檛 seem to be getting on too well with a Squadron Leader who wore First World War medals and an observers badge. One thing he asked me was what I had observed on the bus from Bedford to Cardington. Having left the house at 6am I confessed I was asleep. I don鈥檛 think he was impressed and said that he would recommend me for wireless operator/air gunner. I thanked him and told him I didn鈥檛 want to be an air gunner.

A month or so later I tried another recruiting office and was sent to Uxbridge, a charming S/LDR pilot DFC o/c the board said he thought I would be a likely lad but then asked how old I was, I told him 18, he replied you needed to be 19 to start pilot training. I think he saw my disappointment and said that I probably wouldn鈥檛 be called up for 6 months and by that time I would be 19 in fact I was called up in 1940 and was only 16 and was sent to ITW (initial training wing) at Scarborough.

Three months training, navigation, radio, air force law, etc and then up to Greenock, boarded a huge luxury liner, 鈥淏ritanic鈥�, all stripped out with about 7000 potential pilots all crowded into every part. We left the following morning with the Rodney and Renown and two destroyers Ajax and Achiles, it seemed great. The next morning the two battle ships had gone and the morning after the two destroyers had disappeared over night. They had all gone to chase the 鈥淕raf Spree鈥� and we were being shaken to pieces by the engine going flat out.

We arrived in Canada, then to Toronto and in due course were issued with Grey Flannel suits and were told we were going to the USA. Three days in a very old train and we were in South Carolina.

We were the first cadets to be trained by the US air corps, class 42A which meant we were the first class to graduate in 42. It was a good flying training course, we did 200 hours as opposed to 120 that we would have had in the RAF, but we knew more about navigation and meteorology than the instructors.

All went well until the very end of the course where when flying at 6am one morning Pease, Phillips, Self and Robieson were all reported by an instructor for doing unauthorised aerobatics and we were all 鈥渨ashed out鈥�. Fortunately an ex Battle of Britain Pilot W/C Rampling was over there and explained that we were needed in the UK, punish us as much as possible but no 鈥渨ash out鈥�. We all got below average assessments, after that all my assessments were above average and I even got an exceptional.

Well of course by this time the Battle of Britain was over. I started training as a night fighter pilot, at the end of that I was trained as a median bomber pilot, Blenheims, that was cancelled on completion and I had to fly Whitleys. That really had very little to do with flying aeroplanes, and so much to my disappointment I went on to heavy bombers. It was said that if you volunteered for 60 trips on Pathfinder you could have a preferential posting. I did 10 ops on main force and then 60 on Pathfinders, only to get sent as an instructor at an operation training unit.

I was very fortunate and had a wonderful area. Without exception we were soon selected for Pathfinders and then we were soon picked for both visual and as primary blind markers.

We had many exciting trips and I was awarded two immediate decorations and I was decorated by George VI at the Palace. April 20 1943 we were in a low level 3-400 feet across Holland and were coned for some several minutes. Explosions in the cock pit injured the navigator and wireless operator, they both decided to carry on despite having lost the airspeed indicator and all air pressure. No brakes! We bombed Stettin, near Berlin, on time plus or minus 2 minutes and managed to land on a standard runway 2000 yds at night with no A51 or brakes.

November 11 1943 a small raid on Cannes at low level. We lost an engine near the target and would have been unable to gain enough height to fly home over the Pyrenese, dropped our markers and on the second run to drop the bomb load were shot up by a ship in the harbour, all we could do was to make for Sardinia on two engines. In order to maintain height we had to fly at makers 5 minute operational emergency, after 50 minutes a third engine quit. I had to pull back power on the remaining starboard motor to retain direction and down we went the crew only just got back into the rest position, between the main spars. After nearly one km of screaming engines everything was deathly quiet. I had a great deal of trouble opening my cockpit hatch and finally from the cockpit roof could see that they hadn鈥檛 been able to release the crew dinghy so I went back and got my parachute which had a small dinghy in it.

The wing by this time was under 12鈥� of water and the engineer had the emergency axe and was trying to find the Perspex cover in order to operate the manual dinghy release. Meantime the 2nd navigator p/o Backhouse had gone back into the fuselage to obtain some of the parachute dinghies. He was found later, on his back in the fuselage, unconscious and floating on his back, overcome by petrol fumes. I had to re enter the fuselage which was now almost half full of water and petrol from the 1000 gallon overload tank that had split in the front bay on ditching so that I could push him up through the small escape hatch. After a struggle the dinghy popped out and we all climbed in, in seconds up came the tail and the aircraft slid under water, it was so quiet! I didn鈥檛 know how long it was before we started talking. Backhouse was still unconscious and somebody was smacking his face, somebody said loosen his tie, when this was done he coughed and came round.

It was so quiet and peaceful we didn鈥檛 talk for quite a long time. Then somebody said what is that floating near by. Next time it was on the other side. Taffy the engineer had received quite a nasty cut on his hand when releasing the dinghy. I didn鈥檛 think anybody knew there were sharks in the Med!

We wound away on the radio many times but it was only a transmitter. We rigged up my parachute up on the radio aerial, the wind was light S.E., which was where we were making for, Sardinia. Then the weather deteriorated large waves tipped us over twice, two of the crew were unwell but we kept together. We lost the radio and some of the water cans but it was raining heavily so we didn鈥檛 miss the water. On the morning of the third day it cleared and we could see land in the distance, and it was the direction we were drifting with our makeshift sail. By mid-day we were close, a mile or so, but then the current started taking us E. between Sardinia and Corsica. I thought about swimming but was not all that fit. In the afternoon there appeared a huge vessel, guess was it was a cruiser, we could see sailors on deck we waved and when it was very close fired a distress flare. I told the crew they probably couldn鈥檛 stop and would send somebody back, but they hadn鈥檛 seen us. Later that afternoon we were getting very close to Sardinia and could see a light on a headland. We fired our last red and were paddling like crazy with our hand held canvas paddles. It was after dark when got ashore squeezing between great rocks and then we could see a light coming down the rocks. We had no idea of the nationality. At briefing we had been told that Sardinia was in our hands but there were still patches of resistance. I told the crew to take cover behind the rocks as I was the only one with a 45mm automatic. When they got close I decided that they were not unfriendly although I did not recognise the language and stepped out from my rock and said hello! Well they ran! I called out 鈥榓migo comrad鈥� and all the men joined in, but they wouldn鈥檛 stop and ran straight back up the cliffs. We had a hell of a job following up the cliffs in the dark, all unsteady on our feet, and one fellow had to be carried all the way.

Captain Conte an Italian merchant navy commanded the post with four of his crew, they had lost their ship previously and were wonderfully helpful. They produced an enormous pot of stew! At least their weeks ration, but it was so greasy no one could eat it, strangely enough nobody was hungry just thirsty.

For at least a week we spent all day winding away on the telephone as soon as we got a reply we called one of the Italians but they were unable to give us any news. Once or twice someone spoke English but they seemed to be cut off immediately.

However, one day we saw two 鈥淔iat鈥� cars coming across the field and when they stopped two naval ratings got out and asked if we were the survivors, and gave us seven lots of survivors kit! Wellingtons, white socks and roll neck sweaters and boiler suits. We were instructed to be at the small local port the following morning. We waited from early morning and about midday a fishing boat anchored off shore and a dinghy came ashore, we were being saved. After several trips we were aboard a fishing vessel from the Bristol Channel, commandeered as part of the R(AUX)N and the owner was captain.

It was quite small very little room on deck and we were asked to stay in the cabin as much as possible. They had lots of Gin and tinned potatoes and we were told to help ourselves. In due course we arrived in Corsica at a port called Adjaccio and the first thing we saw at this naval base was an RAF air/sea rescue unit. We asked them why they hadn鈥檛 been looking for us and they replied they knew nothing about us. Our radio distress signal to UK had been acknowledged?

The navy gave us a great welcome and we all dined in the Officers mess, some of the crews were NCOs, much appreciated from the senior service. A few days later we were transported to the local airfield where an American Dakota was due to land at 9am and take us to N Africa, it didn鈥檛 turn up due to action by three ME109s, but next day another one took us to Blida in North Africa.

This story continues in:
F/Lt J.R.Petrie-Andrews DFC DFM 155220 Part 2

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