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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Annette Evans, a volunteer from Hayling Island on behalf of Frank James (Jim) Masters and has been added to the site with his permission.

Frank James (Jim) Masters' Fleet Air Arm Service 1940 — 1943

In 1940 I heard a radio appeal for volunteers to join the Fleet Air Arm for aircrew training, and applied immediately. I was accepted to be trained in Observer duties and on 23 September 1940, just short of my 20th birthday, I joined the Royal Navy at HMS St.Vincent, Gosport.

For two months we were taught basic seamanship skills as well as receiving instruction on navigation, Morse code, radio transmission, and rowing cutters up and down Portsmouth harbour. This was followed by two weeks of gunnery at HMS Excellent and two months at the Signal School at RNB, Portsmouth.

At the end of January 1941, fifty of us embarked on the liner Georgic at Liverpool and sailed to Bermuda where we transferred to a Canadian river steamer to take us to Trinidad to join HMS Goshawk for our flying training. On the airfield at Piarco we finally saw aeroplanes: Proctors, a Shark and a Swordfish. Over the next five months we developed the various skills we required in our roles as Observers.

On returning to England we were sent on leave and a letter of my appointment as a Probationary Temporary Acting Sub Lieutenant (A) RNVR, instructed me to report to 811 Squadron at HMS Daedalus for temporary duties as an Observer (qualified in air WT), pending passage to join HMS Grebe at Alexandria. At the end of August 1941, I embarked on the liner Empress of Australia to travel in convoy to South Africa, celebrating my 21st birthday in Durban with colleagues before transferring to the Dilwara to take us on to Egypt.

At HMS Grebe we went into the pool to ‘fill dead man’s shoes’ and, apart from sampling the delights of Alexandria, passed our time doing practice torpedo drops from Swordfish, coastal anti-submarine patrols in a Walrus, high altitude exercises in a Roc, and ferrying personnel to locations along the coast.

However, Christmas 1941 at HMS Grebe was quite an eventful one. I was on 24-hr duty and 6am on Christmas morning I was advised that due to heavy rain, the fighter defence squadron of Hurricanes from Port Suez were about to make a landing. Now the location of HMS Grebe was next to the sea: there was the tarmac runway, then a ditch, then a sea wall. The first of the Hurricanes came in and due to the amount of water on the runway, was unable to pull up in time and landed up in the ditch. The following landings, however, were fine and before long they were all lined up ready to scramble. I then noticed a Wellington circling the base firing distress flares and needing to make an emergency landing. I had visions of it ploughing through the Hurricanes - fortunately it missed them but landed up going over the sea wall and into the Mediterranean. At 11am I was relieved from my duty and made my way to the mess to have breakfast. It was a long walk and by the time I arrived there, breakfast was off, but the bar was open, so I had a liquid meal instead! At 1pm the rum was issued (we all had extras as we had saved our rations for Christmas), so we were all pretty happy by this time. Then a couple of New Zealanders in our group wanted to go to the P.O.’s mess at the main camp and asked if anyone could drive. As I was the only one amongst them who could, I volunteered my services. Now it just so happens that the car (a Pontiac no less!) belonging to the Captain of the Station was parked outside, so we ‘borrowed’ it and I managed to drive to the mess, negotiating a checkpoint with a chicane en route. A few bevvies later and I was in no fit state to drive, but the New Zealanders decided to drive the Pontiac back, even though neither of them knew how to! It was some while later that I walked back and saw the car wrapped round barbed wire with two ‘bodies’ inside. I never did hear what the outcome was!

A couple of days later, I reported to the Commander (Flying) and was introduced to a pilot, S/L RS Nathan (Dickie) and TAG L/A SV Coulter (Sam) to form the crew of an Albacore. After ‘boxing’ the compasses and doing a couple of navigation exercises, we flew to Bu Amud, near Tobruk, and joined 826 Squadron.

New Year’s Eve 1941 and we were at an RAF landing strip at Timimi, with a tented mess and Arabs going about their daily business with their animals. Now the Arabs love tea and someone had bought 3 lambs for a 1lb of tea, so we dined on stewed lamb washed down with copious amounts of Chianti (Benghazi had fallen the week before and a store of Chianti had been found and brought to the mess!). The following day, we went off on our first operational flight, a night bombing attack on enemy transport near Al Ugayah. As we approached the target, flying at about 2000 ft., we were picked up by searchlights and tracers came floating by. We continued on over ‘Marble Arch’ and carried out our attack on the dispersal area, with 6 x 250lb bombs, before heading home. Thanks to the Chianti, it was the best navigation I ever did!

During January and February we carried out anti-shipping and submarine patrols along the coast and a flare dropping mission for Wellingtons bombing an airfield. Sand storms and heavy low cloud restricted our flying operations at times. We slept in tents erected over 3ft. trenches dug in the ground and surrounded by walls of empty petrol cans filled with the excavated earth. Our rations consisted mostly of hard biscuits with tinned corned beef, NZ cheese and apricot jam, washed down with tea made with water which was very often brackish and chlorinated. Any empty bottles were dropped on the enemy!

On the late afternoon of 9 March 1942, we took off from Sidi Barrani and were flying at about 1500 ft. along the ‘safe corridor’ to Fort Madalena on the Egypt/Libya border, when we were attacked by two BF109f’s. We dodged several attacks and then I saw petrol dripping on the cockpit floor. Dickie managed to land the plane, although badly injured, and we scrambled clear before a final burst of fire set the plane alight.

Fortunately the attack was seen by some troops who were travelling across the desert by lorry. We had all been seriously injured and they took us to a Casualty Clearing Station. After hospital treatment in Alexandria and Durban, I arrived back in England by hospital ship in October 1942. With the loss of my left hand and various other injuries, I was assessed as 100% disabled and invalided from the Navy on 31 March 1943.

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