蜜芽传媒

At the time we left North Africa I felt no nostalgia. In fact it was quite a relief to leave the heat, incessant desert flies and occasion sandstorms though the flies in Sicily were almost as bad. Going back one moment to the desert days the Germans and Italians finally surrendered in Tunis on 13 May 1943. Five days later we flew back to Cairo in our Hudson with the two Generals: the German general Von Arnim who had replaced Rommel; and Field Marshal Mease, the Italian. Before take off the Generals boarded the aircraft with the armed guards. The German, in a plain grey battle dress with no medal ribbons and only his rank showing, just glared at us whilst the Italian - with medal ribbons on both breasts and gold around his peaked cap - was crying. I thought this really defined the difference in the two races. We delivered them to Cairo to spend the rest of the war in captivity. This flight is mentioned in my flying logbook.

Whilst based at Catania, Sicily, we participated in the landings at Salerno, south of Naples "Salerno 鈥� Operation Avalanche", 9 September 1943. This was the first invasion of Italy, again in support of the 8th Army. The squadron then left Sicily and operated from Bari on the east coast of southern Italy, from 2nd October 1943, again supporting the 8th army and our fighter squadrons. After a month at Bari our C.O. told us that the squadron would be leaving Middle East command. Optimistically we hoped it would be back to the UK. The next day we were preparing to leave for Cairo so knew that our destination would be the Far East. Each aircraft was landed up and on the 30th October we flew via Mabbaniya (Baghdad), Sharja, and onto Karachi, India. The next day we flew to Rawalpindi, India where the squadron was based on a new airstrip called Dhamial to prepare for the Chindit operations behind the Japanese lines in Burma. Our training involved formation flying and the dropping of containers on dummy targets and then to night flying, the first of which being on a Sunday. This disturbed the church service in Rawalpindi. The vicar sent a letter of protest to our C.O. who responded by saying 鈥� didn鈥檛 the congregation know there happened to be a war on?鈥� We learned later that our C.O. got a rap over the knuckles for not being more diplomatic which we knew would not upset Bill Coles too much.

This leads to an amusing incident involving my pal Bill Buttle and myself. On the odd day off from flying we used to go horse riding from stables just outside the town. Then came the day when the owner/manager asked if we would exercise a couple of his race horses as there had been an out break of flu amongst his stable lads. Of course we jumped at this opportunity. He warned us to take it easy and not to get the horses lathered up. What an experience. All the difference between driving a Bentley and a Morris Minor. These horses really champing at the bit and prancing along sideways until we reached the Ride 鈥� like Rotten Row in Hyde Park, London. Despite a regulation that riding beyond a gentle trot or canter was forbidden the temptation was too great and we let them have their heads. At a full gallop, side-by-side, we rounded a bend. Trotting sedately in the opposite direction proved to be a retired General of the Indian Army one of the Pukha Sahibs of the district whom we showered with muck. A few days later the Squadron Adjutant said we had to report to the C.O. He had a letter of complaint and asked if we were the guilty riders, which of course we had to admit to. He told us not to repeat the incident as he had already been criticised about our night flying. He closed the reprimand by saying 鈥渨hat is it like on a race horse?鈥�

The C.O obtained permission for any of us who volunteered to do a jump. It was actually easier for us to volunteer than not but first we had to go through the paratroopers ground course at Chaklala near Rawalpindi. This involved swinging on ropes and learning to control the guidelines on dummy parachutes and how to fall by jumping off a 12-foot wall. We succeeded in doing this without injury. Although being used to wearing a parachute harness and always having the chute at hand it was a bit of a shock when boarding the aircraft to realise that I was not going to be landing in it. Approaching the dropping zone and carrying out the drill I did wonder about the parachute packing which we had previously watched with a certain interest. Then came the moment. The jumpmaster tapped me on the shoulder and out I went. I vaguely remembered being buffeted by the slipstream before the violent shock as the parachute deployed. In those days we had no reserve chute which in any case would not have been of any use as we jumped from less that 1,000 ft 鈥� the requirement for operational parachuting in similar clearings in Burma. It was quite an exhilarating experience as I drifted down towards terra firma controlling my fall with the guidelines with the droning sound of the aircraft鈥檚 engines disappearing in the distance.

During our training with the Parachute Brigade I had a couple of unfortunate experiences. On a training exercise with our paratroops who were a mixture of Gurkhas and Indians, on reaching the target area I gave the command for the men to hook up to the main static line. With them lined up and me in contact with the cockpit by intercom. I waited for the red light to come on showing about 5 seconds to go. Then, with the green light on, ordered them to jump by touching each on the shoulder. In training it was essential that they jumped as quickly as possible as in Burma it was essential to get them down in the jungle clearing and not get hooked up in the trees thus being sitting targets for the enemy. As far as we knew everything had gone according to plan. Landing back at base our C.O. with the paratroops C.O. came up to the aircraft and asked what had gone wrong. What happened was that in the middle of the 鈥渟tick鈥� the rigging lines of numbers 7 and 8 became entangled, both chutes collapsing resulting in both being killed. This tragedy did not result in any changing of the drill, as it was an accepted risk that was often taken in wartime.

The second incident involved one of our Gurkha paratroops. He refused to carry out my order to prepare to jump 鈥� he was frozen with fear. After liaising with the Captain I gave him three chances to 鈥渉ook up鈥� as we circled the target and advised him through his Gurkha officer that he could be court marshalled. This was because being a qualified paratrooper having been presented with his 鈥渨ings鈥� after the fifth qualifying jump and then refusing, was tantamount to cowardice in the face of the enemy. He was arrested and some time later I attended his court marshal as a major witness to give evidence. He was sentenced by the Colonel to 98 days in detention before returning to his unit in disgrace. That this should happen to a Gurkha was terrible, as his whole family would be affected by the disgrace. After sentencing him the Colonel told me, as most of the proceedings had been carried out in Nepalese, that when asked why he refused to jump he simply said that in a dream the previous night he dreamt that if he jumped he would be killed, so he didn鈥檛 jump. This for a Gurkha was very unusual 鈥� most would rather die than live in disgrace for the rest of their lives. The Gurkha soldiers were marvellous fighters which, in the Burma jungle the Japanese found out to their cost.

On one occasion we did a non-operational flight to a Japanese Prisoner of War camp sited in the Sind Desert near Jodhpur. Few Japanese surrendered preferring death. As we were being shown around the camp several of the POWs ran up to the barbed wire and spat at us and hurled abuse. Our escort told us that a few days before three Japanese officers having smuggled some cooking fat from the cookhouse spread it over their charpoys (beds) and set themselves on fire.

Another incident that occurred in the Sind desert involved another squadron crew. Their aircraft was caught in some nasty monsoon weather, the gyros all toppled in the horrendous turbulence and the pilot just managed to get the aircraft on an even keel when they hit the sand dunes. The crew suffered no serious injuries and after sheltering form the sun under the wrecked aircraft an Indian camel train rescued them. But each crew member, riding a camel and with the heat beating down on their heads, were all violently sea sick before reaching a village from which they were rescued by a R.A.F. party.

Towards the end of all the training, to prepare for 鈥淥peration Thursday鈥� our crew were detailed to an area in central India called Gwalior an area that closely resembled the jungle areas of Burma where we, plus our own ground crew of fitters and riggers to keep our aircraft serviceable, worked with paratroop brigade, us supplying them by air.

Going back to our first base in India at Dharmial, near Rawalpindi, we had only been there a very short time when one night we four in the crew fast asleep in our tent awoke after dawn to find the tent had been stripped bare of all our kit including flying gear and personal effects. The only items left being our charpoys, with us in them. The police with their tracker dogs lost the tracks and the scent of the gang when they reached a river. They told us that the gang comprised probably four men - their bare footprints left in the dirt floor of the tent - and that if they had disturbed any of us four we would probably have had our throats slit. None of our kit was ever recovered.

The other incident whilst at Dharmial involved a small spaniel like puppy that wandered by our tent. He was mainly black in colour with one or two white spots so I called him Blackie. He had probably strayed from an Indian army residence in nearby Rawalpindi. He was an intelligent and affectionate little thing and we frequently let him into the cockpit, unofficially of course. Then came the time we had to leave him behind as we were to be away for a few days. On our return we found he had been attacked by some viscious wild dogs and was badly bitten in the throat. Our squadron medical officer treated him against possible poisoning. It could of course have been rabies, which was fairly rife out east in those days. He seemed to recovered we took him with us when we flew out to Gualior for several weeks. But after a few days not eating and his neck beginning to swell up it was obvious that blood poisoning had set in and that he would have to be put down. I could not do it but our gunner took him out into some bushes and shot him. Near the airstrip was a tree that was almost black with bats (flying foxes) and we disturbed their daylight siestas by firing our Smith and Wesson revolvers into the tree. It was quite a sight seeing hundreds of them flying out of the tree.

When we had the occasional day off from flying the paratroop brigade adjutant arranged for us to have a small truck and driver and issued each of us with a Lee Enfield rifle and ammunition. We spent on each occasion most of the day out hunting for deer 鈥� Sambok - to supplement the monotonous food in the army mess. The four of us left the driver by the truck and we set off singly in north, south, east and west directions. In the event of trouble three rapid shots would get help. Although we saw no tigers they did exist in that part of central India at that time.

During the three safaris we had some success. Two of the others bagged a sambok apiece and I resting under the shade of a tree 鈥� the temperature probably being over 100 degrees fahrenheit 鈥� saw a herd of deer the other side of the ravine. I took careful aim on the large stag and fired. Of course they all disappeared into the bushes. It took me at least half an hour to scramble down the ravine and up the other side where I saw some blood on the ground but no sign of the stag. I wasn鈥檛 very happy knowing I had wounded him. A little later making my way back to our rendezvous point I saw him behind a tree only about 20 yards away. He started to charge me but I saw he had a shattered hind leg although I had aimed at his chest at about 200 yards range. I am sure my father, a sniper in WW1 would have been much more accurate. I killed him with a bullet to the head so put him out of his misery thank goodness. After some difficulty he being almost as large as a horse we managed to load him onto the truck and back to our army quarters where he provided venison for us all for some time. I was given the antlers as my trophy. They had a span of about 5 or 6 feet but after taking them with me on numerous squadron moves I finally gave them away. I have several rather poor photographs in my wartime photo album of our big game hunting.

Then came our last hunting expedition. Our navigator Bert Mercer had until then failed to bag a deer. We claimed he couldn鈥檛 hit a barn door at 5 yards. Shortly before arriving back at the rendezvous point, somewhat exhausted in the heat and having finished off our water bottles, Bert and I met up when suddenly about 100 yards away we saw a flock of peacocks. Bert fired his rifle and killed one stone dead, the bullet going right through his neck. As the peacock is a holy bird in India we kept him out of sight before handing him over to the army cooks. We had him for lunch several times, much richer than chicken or turkey.

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