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“What did you do in the War Daddy?”

“What did you do in the War Daddy?” was a saying which was bandied around in messes, billets and crew rooms around the World where personnel were engaged on boring duties and work which at the time seemed to be having very little input to the general war effort. This is reflected in the following ditty found in a crew room at RAF station Heany, Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia during the dark days of 1943.

A Flying Instructor’s Lament.

What did you do in the War Daddy?
How did you help us to win?
Circuits and bumps, and turns, Laddie
And how to get out of a spin.

Alack-and-a-day, and misery me
As I trundle around in the sky
Instead of machine gunning Nazis
I am teaching young hopefuls to fly

Thus is my service rewarded
My years of experience paid
Never a Hun have I followed down
Nor ever gone out on a raid

As soon as you’ve finished with one course
Like a flash up another one bobs
And there’s four more to show round the cockpit
And four more to try out the knobs

So it’s circuits and bumps from morning to noon
And instrument flying till tea
Hold her off, give her bank, put her undercart down
You’re slipping--you’re skidding---that’s me

Having been in this position myself it may be of interest if I recount some of my experiences mainly away from the sharp end of the action and one or two amusing incidents.

I was called up with my age group in 1941 and having been accepted for air-crew training reported to the Air Crew Reception Centre which was centred around St. John’s Wood in London and actually signed on in the hallowed Pavilion of Lord’s Cricket Ground. The first few weeks were taken up with formalities, medicals, dental inspections etc. whilst awaiting posting to ITW. (Initial Training Wing). London was an interesting place to be at that time as the air raids were decreasing and it was rumoured that some of our colleagues had been there since the early days and had ‘arranged’ for their papers to become mysteriously lost. Our ‘square bashing’ was limited to the march to Regent’s Park Zoo three times a day for meals in the restaurant as the Zoo was closed for the duration and the dangerous animals had been evacuated.

My first posting was to ITW at Cambridge where we were housed in College accommodation as there was very little civilian activity in the University at that time. We received our tuition in the college lecture rooms and our meals in the dining rooms and were even allowed to use the college silverware. ITW headquarters was at Jesus!! We also did guard duties with rifles (no ammunition) at the Bridge of Sighs in the grounds of St. Johns College and more than one professor had a near escape when he failed to respond to the command “Halt who goes there”.

After ITW our course moved to Marshalls Flying school on the outskirts of Cambridge for what we thought was to be EFTS (Elementary Flying Training School). This was only partially correct as we were put on a grading course to determine whether it was worth sending us abroad to be trained under the Empire Air Training Scheme. Whilst here we were alongside another course who were being trained as night fighter pilots and had never flown in daylight. I often wondered how they turned out and how they would cope with an early dawn. After being assessed we then went on short leave to await our next posting. Whilst on leave a friend suggested we should visit the local fortune teller who told me that I was about to go on a long journey to a cold climate. Right I thought we’re off to Canada. What a surprise when I returned from leave to be issued with a regulation topee, KD shirts and shorts and long socks.

Next to Liverpool via a transit camp at Blackpool and then on to the SS Arundel Castle which sailed 7 days later with 6000 troops aboard to join a large convoy which had an escort of 12 destroyers and an aircraft carrier, to dodge U Boats in the North Atlantic. The danger was real and the blackout at night was so severe that even smoking was not allowed on deck. Two weeks later and into Freetown where we anchored offshore for a week and were confined to the ship in extreme heat and humidity. Then two more weeks at sea until our ship parted from the convoy and sailed into Cape Town on the 25th April 1942.

What a relief to reach land, although I have recently learned at an RMARG meeting that unknown to us the channel into Cape Town had been mined shortly before our arrival and that the channel was extremely narrow. The mines had been laid by a vessel which is the subject of a book entitled “A Ship with 5 Names”. She was originally a British freighter, the MV Speybank, and was captured by the Germans in the Indian Ocean and subsequently used for mine laying. On this occasion she sailed from France on the 21st January 1942 and arrived in the Cape Town area on approximately the 12th March. She was under the command of Bernard Rogge and laid about 50 mines in the area which damaged 3 British ships.

From Cape Town it was a journey of 2 days and nights by train to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia where we arrived at No 2 ITW expecting to continue our training. Wrong again and in spite of our protests we had to spend another 12 weeks re-doing the ITW course. On this course we were joined by an intake which consisted partly of ex Liverpool policemen straight from the horrors of the Blitz and partly of long serving RAF tradesmen who were not keen on ‘hostility only’ personnel. Having been brought up in a quiet country town my education was rapidly developed.

ITW completed it was then a short journey up along the one railway line to No 26 EFTS Guinea Fowl at the small bush town of Gwelo. At last we were again able to get to grips with attempting to fly some very old Tiger Moths. My instructor was a typical South African who used to scare the daylights out of me on the days when we returned to base after low flying exercises with leaves around the struts. However we both survived and I moved on to the next stage. Whilst at Guinea Fowl we had several impromptu concerts organised by Max Jaffa (ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝ Palm Court) if your memory goes back that far.

The next move was to No. 23 SFTS (Service Flying Training School) at Heany, Bulawayo, where we were introduced to the Airspeed Oxford which was a twin engined aircraft with retractable undercarriage and used for Service training. It was of wooden construction, similar to the Mosquito but with 2 Armstrong Siddeley Cheetah radial engines of some 375hp each. The Oxford was much more complicated than the Tiger Moth and the cockpit layout more in line with an operational aircraft. It was apparently designed to be slightly difficult to fly which was considered to be an essential requirement for a training aircraft.. This course of flying and ground studies lasted approximately 4 months after which my log book was endorsed “Qualified for the award of flying badge” in other words I had at last won my “Wings”. We all then continued with the flying exercises to await our posting, which we thought was to be to an OTU (Operational Training Unit) back in the UK.

Wrong again. My posting was to No. 33 FIS (Flying Instructors School) at Norton, Salisbury (now Harare) still in Southern Rhodesia. Here we flew Airspeed Oxfords and Mk 11 Harvards and practiced the instructor’s patter until we were deemed safe to return to an SFTS to impart what knowledge we had accrued to the endless stream of potential pilots now leaving the EFTS’S.

My posting this time was to No. 21 SFTS Kumalo which was situated at the edge of Bulawayo and as it turned out, quite a pleasant place to be. Here we settled down to try to do our bit for the war effort and passed a fresh course of trainees through our system every 3/4 months. They were a fine bunch of lads and I often wonder how many survived. I did hear later that some of them were remustered as glider pilots and I hope they gave the troops a decent landing.

For our part we all felt guilty being in Rhodesia and living in peace time conditions with no rationing or blackout and various schemes were talked about to attempt to get a UK posting. Two of our instructors hatched, what they thought was a good plot to get posted but it unfortunately backfired. They took off one day in two Oxfords and proceeded to beat up the town of Bulawayo. They flew at rooftop level up the main streets and did mock attacks on the Town Hall. This upset the locals but even more the Station Commander. Their scheme was of course doomed to failure for if it had succeeded it would have opened the floodgates. They did however get posted - to the Airgunners school at Moffat, Gwelo - where they finished their tours flying Avro Ansons and towing drogues for the air gunners to fire at.

The main airfield at Kumalo became very congested with so many aircraft on ‘circuits and bumps’ so several grass fields out in the bundu (bush) were utilized and to which instructors and pupils flew to early in the morning. There was always competition to be the first aircraft to arrive at the relief ground because the first arrival had the excuse to fly in at low level and ‘beat up’ the strip to chase away the ostriches. The Station M.O. was a Major McNeight who was one of the ‘old school’, very keen on discipline and even insisted that during his inspections of the wards his patients should ‘lie at attention’. One of his duties was to inspect the facilities at the relief landing grounds and it usually fell to one of the instructors to ferry him out in the station Tiger Moth, a job which everyone tried to avoid because he would try to pull rank and insist that he could fly the Tiger. He was at the time past the first flush of youth but nevertheless we strived to keep him happy. This all came to an end however when on one occasion whilst attempting to take off he violently pushed the stick forward and put the Tiger on its back. The Major was completely undaunted and whilst upside down and still strapped in commenced to check the response time of the crash tender completely unaware of the oil and fuel which was dripping around him. It was always regarded as a perk for the instructor to be able to fly the aircraft himself on the return journey from the relief field and the joy of being able to practice a few stall turns and other manoeuvres such as diving through the cottonwool cumulus clouds in the relatively empty air space was immense. Inevitably some abused this privilege and went to the extreme and subjected our tired old Oxfords to inverted loading by performing slow rolls which were forbidden by the regulations. These were the aircraft to be avoided as the airframes became suspect and the wing mountings very slack. Others who did not help with maintaining the serviceability of our Oxfords were an intake of Greek trainees who had the habit of parking machines on their nose or without wheels at the end of the runway and then returning to the crew room to announce “She’s a broke’’ in broken English.

We had one very distressing incident whilst I was at Kumalo. Two advanced pupils took off from the airfield in an Oxford to carry out a routine cross country exercise. At the end of the day they had not returned and it was thought that they might have become lost and landed at another of the Group’s airstrips. The Oxfords in use at the time were not equipped with radio and by nightfall as no message had been received by landline we all became very concerned. The next morning all serviceable aircraft were made available, crews briefed and ‘square searches’ commenced and it was not until late in the day that the missing aircraft was located, having run out of fuel and landed on the bed of a dried up salt lake. Fuel was later flown in and the aircraft safely flown out. Unfortunately however there was no sign of the two crew members and the matter was then put in the hands of the BSAP (British South Africa Police). Enquiries were commenced and it was eventually revealed, after fragments of clothing etc. and other items had been discovered, that the two crew members had been killed by the natives living in grass huts near the lake. The natives were not normally hostile but on this occasion the crew had arrived at a time when they had recently been hunting and killing for food a protected species of the local buck and they feared that they would be arrested. A very sad incident indeed.

At the end of 1944 I received my notice of posting which was back to the UK. This was via Cape Town again and aboard the RMS Andes. We were by this time aware that the Afrikaner section of the local population were not sympathetic to our cause and were not surprised to see several fires burning on the slopes of Table Mountain when we sailed out. Luckily there were not any U Boats in the vicinity as we were unescorted until we arrived off the UK two weeks later and were then escorted into Liverpool by two destroyers.

After a very short disembarkation leave I arrived at No 6 PAFU, Little Rissington for a rehabilitation course, which was necessary to acclimatize us to the far more exacting flying conditions than those we had been accustomed to in Rhodesia. Navigation also became much more important because over there the salient point to remember was whether you were north or south of the one railway line which ran diagonally across the Country, and then to backtrack to the railway and go down to check up with a station nameboard. This course was quite intensive and lasted approximately 2 months. It involved a lot of instrument and night flying and it was in the Little Rissington mess that I found myself on VE night the 8th of May 1945. We had just finished our course and understood that as we had considerable twin engine experience we should probably be posted to a Mosquito Squadron. As hostilities in Europe had now ceased however this would surely be to the Far East.

Wrong again! On the 9th May ‘45 I was posted to No. 242 Squadron at Stoney Cross in the New Forest and found myself getting into an aeroplane which was about as far removed from a 3 ton Oxford as you could be. This plane was a Mk V Short Stirling of some 35 tons and was attached to Transport Command. The Mk V was the last version of the Stirling to be produced having the turrets and all armament removed and adapted for freight transport and passenger and troop carrying. The Squadron was engaged in the task of moving personnel and supplies from the UK to India in support of the war effort in the Far East. My duties were at first as co-pilot in which role I completed several trips to Calcutta and then I was regraded as First Pilot and continued to fly the India route with my own crew. I have to admit that my first few flights with my new crew were quite daunting as my navigator and wireless opp. were both ex Bomber Command and with two tours behind them and I was the rookie with no operations or 4 engine experience but quite a few flying hours. However they soon accepted me and we built up a good working and off duty relationship.

The Stirling was quite a pilot friendly aircraft to fly and more manoeuvrable than it appeared although Short’s marine influence was evident in quite a few respects. The very tall undercarriage came about through a request by the Air Ministry for an increase of 3 degrees in the wing incidence after production had started to accommodate a greater all up take off weight. Also the undercarriage itself was rather weird being operated by electric screw jacks rather than hydraulics of conventional aircraft. One of the Wireless Ops. duties was to stand by before landing and if necessary to give the jack relays a belt with the fire axe to get the undercart down. I had a brief encounter with Grove Airfield during our conversion training as it was an active American base at the time and was still operating a ‘Radio Range’ blind approach system. This was the equivalent of the British SBA (Standard Beam Approach) system and was used for locating the airfield and final approach down to a few hundred feet in conditions of poor visibility. Our reason for gaining experience of this system was that there were still quite a few airfields through the middle and far east which were being operated by the Americans and which we could take advantage of in case of emergency. We did several dummy approaches on Nov. 6th and 7th in Stirling LK555.

My first overseas trip with a Stirling was to take engine spares to Bordeaux and this involved a night landing. Everything went fine until after touch down but then our speed along the runway seemed to be excessive and the tail would not come down. Eventually with over use of the brakes the situation was controlled and I gained the impression that although the correct amount of flap had been selected the flaps had not extended to the correct degree. This I duly reported and on collecting the aircraft the following morning enquired what action had been taken. Oh no problem I was told, the flap gauge was faulty and we’ve bent the hand to give the correct reading!!! On another occasion I landed at Waterbeach (USAF) and was approached in the Mess by an American who said, “Say buddy what’s that four fan ship parked on the tarmac”, I replied “That’s a Short Stirling”, “Gosh” he answered, “I wouldn’t like to see a long one”. The Stirling although being a very strong aircraft was not popular with the operational crews because of its limited ability to gain altitude. This arose from a bad decision by the Air Ministry. The original proposal embraced a wing similar to the Sunderland spanning 112 feet but the AM decreed that it should not exceed 100 feet to conform with existing hangar dimensions and this was another nail in the Stirling’s coffin. This inability to climb had an effect on one of our trips to India when we attempted to leave Habbaniya (Iraq) bound for Mauripur (Karachi) fully loaded, on a very hot night at midnight. At 1000 feet the engines started to overheat so we throttled back and every time we increased the throttle opening to attempt to climb away the temperatures rose rapidly. After several attempts we had no alternative but to reduce our landing weight by jettisoning 1500 gallons of fuel back to the desert from whence it came and to return to Habbaniya to have some of our load removed and to try again the following night. Back at Stoney Cross the airfield in the New Forest was quite isolated in those days and there were no Customs on duty only a section which was known as ‘Passenger and Freight’. Consequently there developed quite a trade in Indian carpets from Karachi. It was not uncommon to note that most Stirlings arriving back from India would proceed normally to the end of the runway, turn right and after a short distance would stop briefly and then proceed. This was to quickly unload the carpets into the long grass to be retrieved later under cover of darkness. Some crews however became too greedy and when they advertised Indian carpets for sale in the Southampton Echo the cat was out of the bag.

At Stoney Cross we shared the airfield with No 46 Squadron also attached to Transport Command. In December 1945 however our Squadron No 242 was moved to Merryfield near Ilminster in Somerset, a small airfield which is now operated by the Royal Navy. At this time we converted to Avro Yorks - Mk C1. The Avro York was a development of the Lancaster bomber and designed to fill a gap after the war until new civil aircraft could be produced. The design incorporated the wings, engines, undercarriage and tail assembly of the Lancaster but with a wider low slung fuselage more suited to passenger carrying. It was also necessary to add a third tail fin to give sufficient lateral stability. The York also fulfilled the need for VIP transport at the time and the third prototype, named “Ascalon”, was allocated to Winston Churchill as his personal flying conference room. Most of our aircraft were the composite type i.e. passenger/freighter. As the weather in the UK at this time of the year was, as usual, cloudy and dull we were instructed to take one of the Yorks with three other crews to Cairo West to log up some night hours and night landings before resuming passenger carrying. This was a mistake as on the first night we experienced the worst sand storm for months and not having the correct engine covers with us two of our engines became full of sand and this necessitated replacement engines being flown out from the UK.

On our return to the Squadron we continued to run a scheduled service from the UK to Calcutta via the Middle East and the Persian Gulf staging posts. We established the ‘slip crew’ system whereby one crew took the aircraft via Luqa (Malta) or Castle Benito (Tripoli) to Almaza (Cairo) and after refueling the crew from the previous night took it on to Mauipur (India-now Pakistan) via Shaibah (Iraq) and thence to Palam (Delhi) and then on to Dum Dum (Calcutta).

I recall one or two incidents which stand out from the ordinary. On one occasion during the flight between Shaibah and Castel Benito I happened to look closely at the starboard outer engine and to my amazement fuel was pouring out from a leak and getting dangerously near to the exhaust stubs. I quickly stopped the engine, feathered the prop and waited for the panic call from my engineer to advise me that the pressure and temperature of the engine were falling rapidly. As the York would not ‘go round again’ on three engines with a full load the landing had to be right first time and fortunately it was. The open exhaust stubs on the Merlin engines sometimes caused concern to passengers on night landings when the throttles were closed quickly just prior to touchdown and the engines would backfire and flames would emit from the stubs.

On another occasion during the passage between Mauripur and Shaibah we received a request to divert to Sharjah to airlift a casualty to hospital. As it was night time and the runway was short it involved a ‘precautionary landing’ i.e. low final approach, full flap and lots of power and then drop it in on the throttle. This worked alright and we went to the Mess to await loading and refuelling. We then had great difficulty in getting clearance because some mysterious engine fault had been discovered. Eventually clearance was given and on reflection we wondered if the fact that a section of our passenger list contained pregnant WRNS being sent home had any bearing on the engine trouble. There were also some memorable sights on the flights such as the glimpse of Mount Everest whilst dodging Cu Nimb on the run down to Calcutta and the view of the Taj Mahal by moonlight. There was also the large consignment of white mice going out for medical research which unfortunately did not survive, possibly due to altitude and/or heat.

My last trip was to Lagens in the Azores as the personnel serving there were being evacuated. On this occasion we had a freighter aircraft with only basic accommodation to enable us to bring back as many as possible. When I checked the fuel load however I discovered that it had been cut to the bare minimum as a good tail wind was forecast. With all that water between Lagens and the UK I was not happy and insisted on more fuel and less payload which was reluctantly agreed. This proved to be the right decision as on the flight there was a 180Âş wind shift which considerably extended our flight time. On this trip I had the pleasure of the company of a S/Ldr H B Martin as supernumerary crew who came along for route experience. Shortly after my release which was in September 1946 I saw the face of the same S/Ldr Martin in the Daily Telegraph together with his Mosquito having beaten the record time for the flight from London to Cape Town by 10hr 50min covering the 6,717 miles in 21hr 31min.

The Squadron however continued to operate from Oakington and played a major part, two years later in the Berlin Airlift. Most of the RAF Yorks were retired after the end of the Airlift and many of them were broken up because of corrosion due to the nature of their cargoes and the hard work inflicted on them. One of the last Yorks to fly was a 242 Squadron aircraft MW 232 which was then being operated by DanAir under civilian registration G-ANTK. This aircraft is now at Duxford undergoing a prolonged restoration.

John G Wellman

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