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This story appears under my name, FidelityDove, but in reality it was written by my uncle-in-law, Robert Hall. I just copy-typed it into the computer!

An Erk’s Life, chapter 1

by Robert M. P. Hall 1040286

Abbreviations

Chiefy Flight Sergeant
Erk Ground crew
WO Warrant officer
WO Wireless operator
SP Service policeman
LAC Leading aircraftsman
RTO Railway transport officer
RTO Radio telephone operator
DI Daily inspections
Cookie 4,000lb bomb
AWOL Absent without leave
WAAF Women’s Auxiliary Air Force

Where I went:
Padgate 27-2-41
Bridgenorth
Bournemouth
Henlow
Ouston - Catterick
Scorton
Fairlop - Hornchurch
Sdgn; 122 MT.
City of Bombay
Rufforth
Telephones
Wickenby
12 and 626 Sdgn;
PH. UM.
Nth Killinghome [®®Killingholme?]
550 Sdgn; BQ.
Elsham Base
Catering.
Cardington
��ѿ��ý on B release after 4 years 10 months service.

I joined up at Padgate on 27th February 1941. I was fitted out with a uniform, kit bag, spare clothing, a gas mask and a number. I was AC2, general duties airman no 1040286. This number, 50 years on, is still impressed upon my brain, because when I paraded for my pay I had to shout out the last three numbers - eg Hall 286 -- then salute the officer, to receive the princely sum of fourteen shillings which had to last you a fortnight. In addition seven shillings a week was forwarded to my dependent, who was my mother.

I made friends with Tom Bates who worked as an electrician on the trolley buses in Newcastle and John Walker, also from Newcastle. I met them both in the queue as we collected our gear. At bed time I picked the top bunk leaving the bottom one for John, I then noticed he had not undressed and he explained that he had never undressed in front of anyone before. Anyway after a chat he got undressed. It struck me then that having been in the scouts was a help in this respect. He then said he always said his prayers, I thought well so do I, but to myself, but why broadcast it? However, I said “Come on then” and knelt down with him. No one made any remarks about this. To be truthful I cannot remember him after these incidents.

We were then moved to Bridgenorth and after a few days there we heard that the camp was going to be an intake camp for WAAFS. “Smashing” we thought, but alas we were all moved out to Bournemouth. We travelled there by train and on arrival we were marched with our kit bags to the end of the street where we were going to lodge and told “You and you knock on such and such a number, the people there are putting you up”. Tom and I contrived to lodge in the same house. We were treated very well here, in fact as part of the family, which comprised father, mother, son and daughter. These people who took in airmen got very little recompense and some of the lads were treated shabbily. We paraded in a nearby public park in what was known as square bashing. We were soon knocked into shape, or so we thought.

Jerry often came over Bournemouth, machine gunning the shoppers in the main street and of course us. After only a few weeks in the forces, and so with little training, no one broke ranks until we were told to disperse and lie down. One day it began to rain so the corporal dismissed us and told us to go back to the billets. Tom and I went to the YMCA and were playing billiards when two SPs walked in and “Report back to your corporal and tell him to put you both on a charge as this place is out of bounds until evening”. I could not play billiards and this was the first time I had played in my life. Billiards was one of Baden-Powell’s hates. This we did and our corporal admonished us saying “When I say go back to your billets -- go there, don’t wander about”.

This particular intake was then posted to various stations. Quite a few of the intake had been civilian police, so became service police. Tom and I were posted to Henlow to start an electrical course. While waiting to begin the course we were put on fatigues. This day we were gardening when an SP came along and ordered two of us to go and put on our greatcoats and webbing belt and report to the guard room. We were then issued with a rifle each and told to escort a prisoner. The corporal SP led, then the other airman with the rifle, followed by the prisoner who was carrying his kit bag under one arm and his mugs and irons in the other hand; I brought up the rear. The poor lad was limping so I tapped him on the shoulder and said “Give me the kit bag?” Imagine what the corporal had to say when we halted at an office and he saw me carrying the kit bag -- I nearly ended up as a prisoner. It came to light that the prisoner was a bit of a desperado and while he was AWOL he had tried to escape from the SPs at a railway station. They had taken a shot at him and wounded him in the leg.

This course lasted about sixteen weeks, with very little time off and classes every day, both practical and theoretical. Near the end of the course a list of names was given out to report to the medical section for inoculations etc in preparation for an overseas posting. Tom and I were among them. We were all given a number of jabs and told to take 24 hours off duty to rest. Tom and I went to Bedford and hired a rowing boat for the afternoon. We then had to be examined by the medical officer who took me off the overseas posting through my eyesight, remarking that if I lost my glasses I could wander into the German lines if in the desert. Wasn’t I pleased. Tom ended up in Egypt.

After the course we all got fourteen days leave which was the first since joining up six months ago. We filled in a form to state where we would like to be posted. I put down Usworth (which needless to say I was never posted to). Whilst on leave I received a letter enclosing a railway warrant to Newcastle and saying I was posted to 122 Squadron Ouston. I had never heard of Ouston; it turned out to be near Stamfordham, Northumberland. That would have suited Tom as he lived to the west of Newcastle. I duly arrived at Newcastle station and reported to the RTO. Transport was arranged for three of us; the other two were air crew. Fifty years on I tried to find the place and discovered it is now an army camp.

The squadron consisted of one flight; another flight was being formed at Turnhouse, Edinburgh. I reported to Chiefy and was told I was the first electrician to arrive at the squadron and the Royal Engineers from an army camp at Otterburn had been doing the daily inspections. He told me there was a Hurricane outside which needed a between-flight inspection and he wanted me to do it. Knowing the squadron I had joined was comprised of Spitfires, and having never seen a Spitfire or a Hurricane, I ascertained the odd one out must be the Hurricane, and so I did my first electrical inspection on an aircraft in the RAF.

Now I knew there was going to be a busy time ahead with daily inspections to be done, batteries to charge and repairs reported by pilots and so on. Another electrician arrived, Bill Heron from Glasgow. We got on well together as in civvie street he had been an officer in the Boys’ Brigade and I had been a Rover Scout and a cub master. I was now due for a day off and arranged to meet my girlfriend Alice (later to become my wife) at Newcastle station. However, at the last moment I had to go on duty, so I rang my pal Tom who was on embarkation leave and asked him to meet Alice at the station and explain matters. Later they both admitted this had been an embarrassing evening. (I was risking things wasn’t I?)

The pilots like us were all new recruits so there was plenty of flying practice. One night they were doing circuits and bumps, which meant repeatedly flying a circuit of a drome and then landing, which resulted in a bump. I was duty electrician, so stood at the caravan at the end of the runway with the officer who was controlling the flying with an Aldis. One aircraft came in too low and crashed into the gun post at the end of the runway over the perimeter. I was first on the scene. By then the soldiers in the gunpit had scrambled out. We pulled the pilot out but he was dead. His head had been damaged by the armour plating the back of the cockpit. Later, during an early breakfast at the mess, I met an old pal, Phil Hann, who had been in my section at the Red Cross detachment at home, getting his breakfast. Neither of us realised the other was in the RAF and stationed there. He was in the medical preparing the pilot’s body for burial. When I said I had helped to pull him out of the aircraft he said “Come along and see him”. He was putting horse hair round his head to make him look presentable. I can still remember this as it was my first sight of a casualty of war. He was a young Canadian who had never been on operations.

Soon after we were deemed ready for operational flying so with the flight from Turnhouse we were posted to Catterick aerodrome. The crew flew there in their respective Spitfires and the ground crew went by coach. One of the airmen sitting at the back of the coach was jumping up and down and split his head open on the luggage rack. I was called for, as by then my reputation as a first-aider had spread. I bandaged him with my own bandage which was kept in the inside pocket of one’s jacket. I discovered at the next kit inspection that this had been a mistake. These inspections entailed laying everything on your bed and an officer and flight sergeant examining them. The office told the flight sergeant to put me on a charge as one of my bandages was missing. He would not accept my explanation. However, as it was Chiefy who had called for me to attend to the injured airman he later took me off the charge, and advised me in future to use the patient’s bandage rather than my own. However, most airmen did not carry their bandage as it spoilt the line of their jacket (we were a vain lot).

One day a pilot returned from convoy duties over the North Sea saying he had shot down an enemy aircraft. It came out later he had shot down one of our own bombers. Another day within sight of the flight bays one of the Spitfires crashed in the field at the other side of the road which was the A1, which ran adjacent to the drome, but we could not get to it as the camp was heavily ringed with barbed wire; we used to call in camp Stalag V11B as one just could not get out of it except through the guard room and only after obtaining a chit signed by Chiefy. Whilst here a fitter asked his pal to fill up his aircraft with fuel when the petrol bowser arrived and he would sign the DI that this was done as the bus taking airmen for meals had arrived (this bus ran a circular route at intervals). The pal unfortunately forgot to do this. The pilot signed the DI without checking, Chiefy signed, the pilot took off and crashed shortly afterwards. Luckily he was OK. He was reprimanded and Chiefy lost his crown and was posted, but the poor fitter got six months in the glass house, the dreaded service prison. When he did return to the squadron he refused to sign any of the inspection forms so he was demoted to general duties and posted. He remarked that he would rather die than go back in the glass house. Later I bumped into the sergeant at Darlington Railway Station and he had got his crown back.

A satellite aerodrome had been built at Scorton nearby and we were moved there. Being a wartime station everything was scattered in case of air raids. Our billets were at Bolton-on-Swale one mile down the road, the dining hall was in the village of Scorton and the flying field on the road to the railway station. So it was quite an exercise first to go to breakfast, then to the aerodrome and returning for meals etc. Despite all this walking about the locals ignored us; this was the only place I came across where this was the case. In Scorton there was a Catholic hospice called St John’s of Scorton: they were marvellous, inviting us to have a bath any time we wished. They appreciated it if we talked to the patients and also played draughts and dominoes with them. They certainly put the locals to shame. I got very friendly with one monk, who had escaped from France.

Whilst there I arranged for Alice to come and visit me on her day off, having arranged to meet her at Scorton railway station. I had impressed on her if she did not catch the train at the time I told her to not to catch another one as she would not be able to get back home. I waited for this train but she was not on it, so as it was my day off I caught the returning train to Darlington. Returning to my billet in the evening, everyone asleep and a parcel on my bed containing books and socks. Gosh I thought, Alice has been, so now wondering what had happened. Next morning I was ribbed by everyone. They had all met Alice but me. An armourer explained that Alice had stopped them and asked if they knew me, they said yes, but he is on his day off. After explanations they said we will go to the local pub and see what could be done. At any rate, a farmer said he would take Alice to Richmond where she could get a bus to Darlington then a train back home. All the way in his car he kept saying never trust an airman to keep a date whilst Alice tried to explain we were engaged. However, I was worried, so after doing my allotted DIs asked Bill the other electrician to cover for me. I felt this was safe as I could be anywhere doing repairs. The drome was not far from the A1 at Catterick Bridge so I hitchhiked home; this was risky as at “The Cock of the North” Red Caps were stationed stopping lorries carrying service people. So the procedure airmen took, if a red cap was spotted the airman ducked down and the driver put his foot down and put you off at Chester-le-Street instead of “The Cock of the North”.

Another day I was hitching on the back of a Queen Mary which was being driven by the RAF (an articulated low loader for carrying crashed aircraft). The Red Caps stopped it and took off about six soldiers who were getting a lift. Being an airman I said I was with the crashed aircraft and the driver confirmed this. An old pal of mine, Arthur Lamb, was taken off a lorry, taken down to Durham Jail and the next morning was escorted back to the A1 so he never got home that time. However, I was luckier, reached Sunderland and made straight for Alice’s home. She answered the door and whispered to me “Don’t tell Mother I didn’t see you yesterday as she would worry”, so the family must have thought we were a very lovesick couple. She did tell her sister-in-law Irene. Any rate I managed to get back to camp without getting caught or missed.

End of chapter 1

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