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I was 17 years 8 months old when war was declared against Germany on 3rd. September 1939 and the call up age for the armed forces was 21, however they would take volunteers at the age of 18 years. As my brother, who was two years older than me, had joined the Royal Air Force on a long term contract I was anxious to join the same service for the duration of the war. Therefore, as soon as I was 18, I volunteered and was accepted in March 1940.
Initial training consisted of intelligence testing and square bashing, of course, at Uxbridge followed by a further spell at RAF Catfoss in east Yorkshire.
Of the options available at this time I elected to take the flight mechanics course at the School of Technical Training in Blackpool. This lasted from May until October 1940 which was followed by a posting to 44 Maintenance Unit , Angus in Scotland, but in December I was posted to RAF Khormaksar in Aden.
This involved a month long journey on HM troopship Duchess of Richmond, accompanied by a naval escort. Amid several alarms caused by enemy submarine activity, we went via Freetown, the Cape and Durban. Aden was a featureless place with much sand, a salt works and a few camels. These so-called “Ships of the desert” were used by local natives to level the landing ground by pulling huge baulks of timber behind them. Whilst there I worked on engine maintenance of Bristol Blenheims and we were accommodated in comfortable blocks and slept on charpoys whose legs had to be set in tins of paraffin to deter the bugs! Incidentally, one was put on a charge in the event of becoming sunburned or suffering from sunstroke so suitable headgear had to be worn, topees,etc.
I have press pictures of a camel at work , a worker shovelling salt and a photograph of the interior of a barrack block showing a line of charpoys.
A year later Daily Routine Orders asked for volunteers for pilot training and I was pleased to be accepted so left Aden for Southern Rhodesia in February 1942 aboard HM troopship Highland Monarch. Stopping at Durban, we were welcomed at the quayside by the famous “Lady in White” who sang us ashore and arranged for us to visit local homes before going to Clairwood Camp to await orders for the next stage.
I arrived at Hillside Initial Training Wing in Bulawayo on 1st. March and whilst there was able to visit the Livingstone Game Park to see lots of wild animals including zebras, giraffes, warthogs, monkeys and wildebeest, all of which wandered quite happily alongside us as we drove through.
After this we saw the Victoria Falls - what a stupendous sight - together with the smaller Rainbow Fall and Devil’s Cateract nearby. Then, finally, a canoe trip on the river Zambezi with a South African friend and a visit to Rhodes’ grave at Matopos.
Now for the serious stuff at 26 Elementary Flying Training School Guinea Fowl for the first flying lessons on Tiger Moths. This included all the relevant safety rules plus various manoevres including aerobatics, spinning, flying under a hood on instruments and emergency landings, etc. There is a list of 29 requirements for the complete training programme on page 3. My first solo flight came after 8.45 hours of dual instruction and I completed the course after 80 flying hours (32 hours solo).
Then on to SFTS at Thornhill to fly Harvards with a similar programme as before, but with a faster service type aircraft. On one occasion I managed to get lost on a cross-country exercise when I was supposed to locate a small building out in the wilds of the savannah; I missed it! When fuel began to get low I had to look for somewhere to make an emergency landing. Fortunately I spotted a small native village in the scrub part of the savannah and after making several circuits to select a possible
landing area managed to get down safely on a slope amidst some small bushes. By this time several excited tribesmen had gathered around and I asked them to act as guards on the plane.
As it happened, a colonial officer was resident in the village and he arranged for me to telephone my base and then invited me to share lunch with him and his wife.
Pilot’s wings were awarded to me on 9th. January 1943 after logging 170 hours flying (77 hours solo).
As a qualified pilot, it was now time to tackle the rigours of flying warplanes in preparation for combat service.
From Thornhill I travelled northwards by rail on a posting to Cairo and on the way swam in Lake Tanganyika before crossing it from Albertville to Kigoma. Then a brief stop at Tabora station where natives were carving ebony gifts, so I bought two. At Mwanza we boarded a boat for the journey across Lake Victoria to Kisumu where we were due to two weeks’ leave at a transit camp. My friend
knew a family who lived there and owned the local hotel so we were made most welcome. Then, by way of Khartoum, to the Kasfareet transit camp in Cairo where I met an old school friend serving in the Royal Engineers, whose address had been sent to me from home, and we spent a couple of hours chatting together.
Whilst awaiting the move to 73 Operational Training Unit at Abu Sueir I joined a group of 30 servicemen for a guided tour of Ismailia, Jerusalem and Bethlehem. In Jerusalem we saw parts of the city, the Wailing Wall, Garden of Gethsemane and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where I was given a certificate of pilgrimage, signed by the Archimandrite Kyriakos , Guardian and Superior of the Church. After that, we had a group photograph taken on Mt. Scopus overlooking Jerusalem. At Bethlehem we were shown into Rachel’s Tomb and also entered the Church of the Nativity through the very low entrance where ‘Even a King may bow his head’ and saw the shrine over the site where Jesus was born.
Now the new course was due to start at Abu Sueir where we were to fly Tomahawks, which had a bad reputation for tending to swing on landing. After four hours I proved it by making a slightly heavy landing and it did indeed swing off the metal strip into soft sand and, of course, up on to its nose! As a result of this I had an eye check and it was found that there had been some sight deterioration from living in very hot climates for three and a half years. As I had progressed so far to this stage, corrected flying goggles were ordered for me to resume training and whilst waiting for them to be made up I acted as Link Trainer instructor. Eventually, training continued but now flying Kittihawks which was the aircraft I would be expected to fly on the squadron. All the preparations for squadron tactics were taught here, including the main tasks of battle formation, dive bombing, ground attack and also the ‘Cab rank’ system which gave two-way communication between air and ground forces who would identify targets of importance to them. Here there was a ground syllabus of 68 items ending with exams. in four subjects. It was as a result of this delay that I met a fellow pilot who has proved to be a long term friend and who, eventually, was the best man at my wedding. At this time we were both posted to 260 Squadron in Italy.
We travelled by way of Tunis to Naples and on 20th.March witnessed the remarkable sight of the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. According to the press reports in the ‘Stars and Stripes’ newspaper, which I have, a great wall of fiery lava 90ft. deep and up to a quarter of a mile wide threatened the villages of San Sebastiano and Massa di Somma.Three days later clouds of smoke and ash, up to 20000ft., still rose from the crest and it was reported that it had cost the lives of 21 persons in Salerno province. At least the devastation could not compare with the deadly eruption in 79AD which buried Pompeii. I was able to visit the ruins of that later. Whilst in Naples I was fortunate to visit the San Carlo Opera House on two occasions.
It was now time to join 260 Squadron, which was part of the Desert Air Force, and face up to the real business of war! They were now equipped with Mustangs, which pleased me immensely, because they were fitted with the excellent Rolls Royce engine. After three familiarisation trips in the Mustang I flew my first operation which was an armed attack on a bridge, using two 500lb. bombs, then looking for other suitable ground targets. The anti-aircraft fire was described as intense. We had a Spitfire escort for that and the following three operations which were all attacks on bridges at different locations. This set the pattern for the future operations where we carried a bomb under each wing, usually 500lbs. although occasionally 1000lbs. for special targets and we approached the target in ‘boxed six’ formation at 8000ft. before peeling off and diving to 1200ft. to release the bombs. After this we were free to search and destroy ground targets at low level. Ground fire was encountered, of course, as well as high level stuff so it was not unusual to suffer some occasional damage to the aircraft. Most sorties were greeted with the black puffs from bursting 88mm shells at high level and during the dive onto the selected target there was usually plenty of 40mm and 20mm fire followed by ground fire. On one occasion my fitter pointed out a bullet hole in my cockpit cover just a few inches from where my head was and this must have been fired from a rifle on the ground.
On my third operational trip I had to land with a ‘hang up’ as one bomb had failed to release. Needless to say, I made as gentle a landing as I could to prevent it being dislodged and exploding. Later, my aircraft was damaged by anti-aircraft fire twice in two days which necessitated repair.Some places were more heavily defended than others so we were met with quite intense fire throughout the operation although on occasion there was little opposition.
Ground targets included roads, railways, bridges, trains, airfields, transport of any sort and anything else requested by our ground forces through the very effective cab rank system.
The area of operations ranged from just north of Naples up the length and breadth of Italy as far as Venice, including an attack on shipping in the Gulf of Trieste. Communications between important towns such as Pescara Terni Ancona Florence Rimini Bologna and Venice were particularly important as targets., Whilst on the squadron and between sorties my friend and I borrowed a 15cwt. truck and set up an ‘egg run’, visiting farms in the area to augment the rations in the pilots’ mess. Later on we also had the use of the truck for a short spell of leave at the Aircrew Rest Camp (Hotel Minerva) in Sorrento. What luxury!
Our use of the Cab-rank system proved to be very effective and the cuttings I have, from the Eighth Army news, were full of praise when reporting some of our operations.
A different type of operation occurred on 15th August 1944 when we were ordered to provide top cover for the glider force on D-day for the south of France invasion This entailed a round trip of 4 hours, for which we carried long range tanks, and were told to expect 50%.casualties. In the event, it was not a bad time, arriving over the area at 7.55am.and patrolling the area from Les Adrets to Bagnols until the C47s (60 plus) arrived with the gliders at 9am.We escorted them to the landing area and back to the coast and there was a lot of air activity with kites all over the place. Fortunately, there did not appear to be much opposition and it turned out to be a successful operation.
I was lucky to survive 119 operations with the squadron, (of which I have details), with a total of 195 hours, this being the normal span for a tour of operations. We had used 7 airfields in Italy, starting at Cutella and ending up at Iesi near Ancona. Unfortunately, my friend was unable to leave at the same time as he was in hospital as a result of a shrapnel wound in his shoulder but we did meet up again later.
Next stop for me was England and a ‘rest’ tour as an instructor on operational procedures at OTUs at Rednal, Montford Bridge and finally Keevil in Wiltshire, all equipped with Mustangs, although we also converted to Spitfires because the Mustangs were shortly to be disposed of, due to lack of spare parts.The conversion procedure to a different aircraft is simplicity itself “There she is in dispersal, read the pilot’s notes, hop in and take it up, fly it around for a while and bring it back”!.This was the Vb mark and I thoroughly enjoyed a 55minute trip to be able to put it through its paces and compare it to the Mustang. I also flew the Vc and finally the mark XVI .
Two last bits of excitement. Firstly, I was asked to carry out a flight test on a Mustang and the engine cut out at about 600ft., there being a large wood directly.ahead. Fortunately, as I lowered the nose to maintain flying speed the engine spluttered and picked up, but only briefly. I made a quick circuit on a stop/start basis and was glad to hand the aircraft back to the maintenance team.
Soon after this I married, on 15th. September 1945, and my wife and I were able to live out at Westbury, from where I cycled the 7 miles to Keevil on most days, until I was demobilized on 2nd March 1946, having completed six years service in the RAF and having logged 651 flying hours on six different types of aircraft.
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MPT

REQUIREMENTS FOR ELEMENTARY FLYING TRAINING SCHOOL

1 Air Experience 2 Familiarity with cockpit layout 3 Effect of controls 4 Taxying 5 Straight and level flight 6 Climbing, Gliding and Stalling 7 Medium Turns 8 Taking off into wind 9 Powered Approach and Landing 10 Gliding Approach and Landing 11 Spinning 12 First Solo 13 Side slipping 14 Precautionary Landings 15 Low Flying 16 Steep Turns 17 Climbing Turns
18 Forced Landings 19 Action in the event of fire 20 Instrument flying 21 Taking off and landing out of wind 22 Restarting engine in flight 23 Aerobatics 24 Air Navigation 25 Cross country test 26 Night flying 27 Formation flying 28 Height test 29 Passenger test.

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