蜜芽传媒

This is the story of Hugh Martin, an RAF mechanic who joined the peacetime service in 1935 and served for every single day of the second world war, seeing combat in both France in 1940 and in the Far East later in the war. His story is one of his outstanding technical ability and a typical veteran鈥檚 modesty about the great and terrible things he experienced during those years.

1. Before the RAF

My Grandfather, Hugh Martin, was born in December 1919 to a large family who lived in a poor district of Liverpool near the Protestant cathedral. His father had fought in the first world war and returned home with injuries that he nursed for the rest of his life. From an early age, great responsibility was placed on him to play an active role in looking after his family 鈥� from 8 years old, he was expected to be fully responsible for bringing his sister back from school everyday. Hugh Martin鈥檚 great passion in life has always been electronics, and especially radio. His exceptional interest and ability was obvious from an early age, when he did a job repairing early transistor radios around Liverpool. For entertainment he would scavenge parts from around the home and construct crude but functioning electronic devices 鈥� one 鈥榚xperiment鈥� involved modifying the electric doorbell to function as a simple morse-code transmitter, allowing him to send signals to a friend listening on the radio a few houses away. The bursts of static interfered with the radio reception of the entire neighbourhood!

Even now, in his 80s, his sharp mind and instinctive understanding of technical matters, especially electronics, is astounding. Growing up today he would have certainly gone on to a top University, but in the 1930s, that option was simply closed to working class families. It was a fairly tough upbringing, and although he got on well with his father, he seems to have been keen to escape home life and join the RAF, a chance to use his skills in an environment where, at least to some degree, ability was more valuable than upbringing.

His ability to quickly understand and solve problems with limited or ad-hoc tools and parts was invaluable during his time in the RAF, and later as a researcher and designer for electronics companies such as Plessey.. His no-frills, make-do attitude to engineering that was reinforced by the demands of wartime machinery is still apparent today. As a child, I bought one of my toys to him to be mended 鈥� a beautiful, white wooden sailing yacht, which had lost one of it鈥檚 shiny brass hooks. In it鈥檚 place my grandfather attached a rusted, oversize hook covered in paint from whatever piece of furniture he had salvaged it from! It wasn鈥檛 pretty, but it certainly did it鈥檚 job and was far tougher than the neat little hooks around it - just what was needed on a war machine of the 1940s.

2. Cranwell

Hugh Martin joined the RAF in 1935 as an apprentice at Cranwell, where he trained as an instruments repairer. His skill in engineering and electronics is still apparent today 鈥� the living room is frequently a jumble of electronics equipment and manals, and he still pursues his passion for amateur radio.

3. After Cranwell

After a long and intensive and quite hard apprenticeship, service life in the RAF began with the army co-operation number 4 Squadron.

4. 4 squadron in France

4 squadron were equipped with the Westland Lysander, a slow but very rugged aircraft designed to work on army co-operation duties. They were assigned to 50 Wing鈥檚, No.14 group and posted to France with the air component of the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) in 1939 to help defend France against an expected German invasion. My grandfather was just 19 at the time, yet the prospect of being attacked by the mighty German military doesn't seem to have fazed him 鈥� he recalls it seeming to be one big adventure to him at the time. As the fighting began, the squadron was posted to various airfields around France and Belgium, such as Abbeville, constantly on the move. The squadron spent some time very close to the areas of Belgium and France that his father had fought in during the First World War 鈥� I often wonder if my great-grandfather felt frustrated at seeing his son fighting the same enemy he had fought against, in the very same place. He must have wondered what his years of service had achieved, or how we had allowed the world to slide into war once again. For his part, my grandfather imagined the coming war as being similar to the previous one, and expected to be fighting along pitched battle lines on the European continent. The manner in which the Allied forces were over-run and driven from France would come as a total shock to all.

There was a genuine worry that German infiltrators would attempt to sabotage or even steal aircraft on the ground, so a guard patrolled the aircraft dispersed across the aerodrome at all times. One night, a guard thought he heard a movement in the cockpit of a De Havilland Dragon Rapide (a small airliner stationed with the unit as a transport aircraft) and, after issuing a challenge, opened fire into the cockpit. The gunfire was heard by another guard on the other side of the aircraft 鈥� who, thinking he was under enemy fire, immediately returned fire. The shots awoke the rest of the airfield, who raced to assist, and soon two groups of men were opening fire on each other, with the rapidly disintegrating aircraft in the middle! My grandfather was firing with the powerful Colt .45 he carried as a sidearm. Recalling this impressive weapon, my grandfather states that he couldn鈥檛 hit anything with it, but that the noise was intimidating enough! Finally, someone realised what was happening, and both sides ceased fire - somehow without any injuries. It was only then that the 鈥榚nemy infiltrator鈥� emerged from the cockpit 鈥� the thoroughly shaken, yet physically unharmed pilot who had been cowering in the cockpit while the aircraft was torn to pieces around him! The aircraft, which had been commandeered from civilian service, was, needless to say, a write-off 鈥� squadron records politely put this loss down to a ruptured fuel tank, the aircraft was burned on the field to keep it out of enemy hands.

4 squadron claimed the first British kill of the war when a Lysander bought down a He111, but the Lysander was a slow, vulnerable aircraft, and the squadron soon began suffering heavy losses. At the height of the fighting, the squadron was suffering an average loss rate of one aircraft 鈥� two men 鈥� every single day. It was a dark time, as it became obvious that the BEF and their French Allies were collapsing in the face of the lightning German offensive. One piece of footage often seen on history programmes shows a Lysander spiralling nose-first into the sea off France 鈥� I often wonder if my Grandfather knew the men who died in the clip, played to fill the gaps in a television documentary.

The stress placed on the squadron by such losses must have been immense. It鈥檚 another credit to the bravery and professionalism of the RAF that they would keep mounting sorties day after day, performing the reconnaissance missions the Army desperately needed. My grandfather recalls one horrific day where a Lysander, returning to the airfield, crashed on landing and burst into flames. He was in the air gunners position but fortunately as one wingtip hit the ground he was thrown clear and away from the aircraft. Helpless to rescue the pilot, he and the groundcrew could only stand and watch as the pilot was burned alive in the blazing wreckage, his screams heard by all around. Like many people of his age, my grandfather isn鈥檛 forthcoming with his emotions. So, when he describes something as 鈥溾� bloody awful business鈥� and rubs his face for a second, you know he is describing something truly terrible.

To this day my grandfather still removes his car seatbelt just as we approach our destination, as he did to his strap in that Lysander on that fateful day, just before the crash. We never say anything, but we know why he does it.

Withdrawal to Dunkirk.

As it became obvious that the war in France was lost, preparation for the expected invasion of Britain began, and it was clear that a functioning RAF was needed. Hence the withdrawal of British forces began. A journey to Dunkirk was hampered by attacking German aircraft. Their indiscriminate firing took a heavy toll on the local people as they fled the invaders. The lorry that my grandfather travelled in was straffed by a Messerschmitt, its bullets sparking off the road as the remnants 4 Squadron jumped for cover. Their arrival at Dunkirk in late May led to evacuation by destroyer, probably on 24th.

5. Back in Britain

Back in Britain, there was little time for the survivors of 4 squadron to rest 鈥� even with the unexpectedly successful evacuation of Dunkirk, the British Army was badly weakened and German invasion seemed imminent.

In the desperate struggle for survival against a German invasion, the most desperate measures would have been taken to drive off the assault. Had the invasion come, 4 Squadron would have been tasked with the most dangerous and distasteful of missions 鈥� to drop poison gas on German troop concentrations as they landed. The aircraft would have flown in low to spray gas along the length of the invasion beaches, no doubt suffering terrible losses as they did so.

My grandfather remembers handling these deadly gas canisters and practising arming Lysanders with them. The handling did not always go smoothly. In one incident, another electrician working on the bomb release mechanism on a Lysander accidentally wired the left bomb release to the right bomb rack, and vice versa. While testing the aircraft on the ground, an attempt to release the empty rack on one side caused a poison gas canister to drop off the other wing and start leaking, much to the alarm of those present. There were several incidents where gas was spilt, though no-one was hurt. Although the preparations to drop gas were kept secret until very recently, my grandfather has openly discussed them for years. One documentary which 鈥榙ramatically revealed鈥� RAF plans to deploy gas against the Germans was watched with some amusement by my grandfather. Some of the airfields he worked on still have patches of bare soil where gas was spilt or disposed of, and he believes he could quite easily show authorities some others! The very concept of poison gas seems frightening to us today, and yet my Grandfather seems to have taken it in his stride, like so much else that he saw and experienced as such a young man. The preparations to deploy what was then the most potent weapon of mass destruction available shows just how ruthlessly we were prepared to fight had the battle come to British soil.

6. Burma

In contrast to the fields of northern France the next theatre of war was to be experienced aa for a longer period. In May 1942 my grandfather sailed on the Strathaird from Scotland, calling in at Freetown before dropping off the troops on board at Durban. The sunny, colourful environment there, with no rationing, seemed a world away from the gloom and despair of the UK. Just two weeks later the journey to Karachi was complete. There work began on the servicing and equipping of aircraft flown and delivered into the SE Asia conflict. A period in Assam and Burma with 31 Squadron saw close contact with the Japanese. Close enough to hear threats of death being announced on speakers from the jungle. A brief trip to Ceylon to develop ways of dropping delicate instruments without parachutes met with success.

7. 蜜芽传媒coming & after the war
Return to the UK saw the imposition of strict military life with marches and seemingly pointles activities as the war draw to a close. I think my grandfather feels somewhat sad about the lack of reward he received for an arduous and dangerous time abroad. Still, he doesn鈥檛 talk about that, as many of the experiences he went through. However a less demanding time was spent later in his RAF career with the Central Trade Test Board. He is now 85 and we still feel he has many, many more stories to tell. Sadly this account is merely the tip of an iceberg.

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