December 1942 to May 1943
On 2 December, No. 96 Squadron was withdrawn from operations and was to receive special training. What this was to consist of was not clear, but rumour had it that we were destined for overseas. Our first task was to strip the black paint off our Beaufighters, a job that all the aircrews had to put their hands to. The aircraft were then sprayed with desert brown and grey camouflage paint, which seemed to confirm our future location as being somewhere in the desert.
While I was being kitted out with tropical gear Becky had been sent up to Wrexham in anticipation of a happy event. I flew up there for a day, only to discover that Becky had produced just one puppy, which sadly died after only a few days. Back at Honiley the squadron crews were being given armed combat, ground defence and weapons training and lectures on tropical medicine and desert diseases. I was able to fly up and spend Christmas Day with the family at Wrexham, but unfortunately was marooned there on Boxing Day by fog and only managed to fly back for duty on the 27th and over the New Year holiday. In the New Year I organized a party for my flight at the Phantom Coach Inn near Coventry, where 1943 was celebrated in fine style, as was the AOC’s signal of congratulations on my Mention in Dispatches. The next day all the squadron aircrews attended what was called a Battle Inoculation course on an Army range near Warwick, where we were required to keep our heads down in slit trenches while tanks were driven over the top, followed by a fusillade of live Bren gun bullets fired a few inches over our heads. We were then given live hand-grenades and told to remove the safety-pin, wait five seconds and then throw the grenade out as far away as possible and duck down into the trench. It sounded pretty easy, but it was surprising how nervous one suddenly was of fumbling with the lethal thing. Luckily no one did fumble, as they really went off with a horrible bang.
After a week or two the squadron’s warning for overseas seemed to have been postponed, and with some renewed enemy bombing of London we were once more required to have aircraft on operational readiness each night. On one night George and I were scrambled and I was flying my new Beaufighter with the modified dihedral tailplane. This made the aircraft a steadier gun platform, and I thought perhaps on this flight he might at last have a chance to prove it by having something hostile at which to shoot. The Comberton controller gave us a good interception steer, and George picked up a contact on his radar at a range of four miles. We closed in rapidly with hopeful anticipation, only for me to get a visual on two Lancasters. My fingers still hovered over the firing button but I resisted the temptation. On 9 February I took to my bed with a violent dose of flu, but I was up the next day because I received the distressing news that my deputy flight commander had been killed in a flying accident. Two days later my other flight managed to crash a Beaufighter on the runway, where it burst into flames. I happened to be on hand, and grabbing a fire extinguisher almost managed to douse the flames before the fire truck arrived, but unfortunately the aircraft was subsequently a write-off.
On 20 February I led a formation of five Beaufighters and three Spitfires over Birmingham to celebrate, of all things, Red Army Day. The Spitfires were from Castle Bromwich, and were led by the Rolls-Royce test pilot, Alex Henshaw, who had flown more Spitfires than any other pilot at the time. He subsequently wrote a delightful book called Sigh for a Merlin. At the time we were full of admiration for the bravery of the Russian troops who were fighting with incredible courage before Stalingrad and Moscow, and so our salute over Castle Bromwich was not entirely inappropriate.
At the beginning of March I took my flight on detachment to Tangmere for Exercise Spartan. Night interception exercises were carried out with a mobile radar unit, and night operational patrols with searchlights were tried, but on this occasion too many friendly fighters saturated the night sky, and identification became impossible. After leading my flight back from Tangmere and landing at Honiley after the exercise, I received a signal posting me to a staff job at Fighter Command Bentley Priory. The next day I packed up my kit, stuffed it into the Riley and set off south to Bentley Priory and another non-flying post, but even then I was determined to keep in flying practice. As it turned out, I got in as much flying as I would have done on a squadron, and in several different types of aircraft.
Bentley Priory was, of course, the very centre of all Fighter Command activities, and several of my colleagues were there on the Air Staff, and most of the fighter squadron commanders gravitated there from time to time on visits and conferences, so my staff job would have its compensations. The Communication Squadron was based at Northolt, and I did not waste time in making contact with its commanding officer. There were quite a few different types of aircraft on the squadron, and after a few days to settle into the office I took a Spitfire from Northolt to visit my old squadron at Honiley. I had a flight lieutenant radar operator on my staff, and we usually went together on visits to squadrons, so it was not often that a Spitfire was appropriate. Consequently, on the next visit to Church Fenton, Usworth, Cranfield and Twinwood Farm, to accommodate my colleague I took a Vega Gull, which was a small low-wing cabin aircraft with four seats and reasonable blind-flying instruments, a useful little communications aircraft that I used quite often. The following week I flew my group captain boss in an Oxford on a staff visit to three more fighter stations. On 27 April I heard the sad news that Eddie, Maisie’s brother, had been killed in North Africa. He was an armourer, and was apparently one of a party of airmen loading a Blenheim with 500 lb bombs when there was a premature explosion. There was considerable pressure on the ground crews servicing the bombers and fighters supporting the Eighth Army in the Desert, which was now advancing at great speed, and the Air Force units were also having to move to advance landing grounds at short notice and quite often having to improvise on the use of equipment and methods, thereby increasing the possibility of accidents. Eddie’s death was a very sad loss, particularly at that time, when his father had been taken ill at Newbury, where they had rented a house.
The Night Operations Training Unit was due for a visit, so I flew up to Charter Hall in a Spitfire a few days later. The unit was still suffering from a bad record of flying accidents. Charter Hall was just north of the Tweed, and until then night training for pilots had been initially on the Oxford. And then after a flying demonstration by an instructor on the Beaufighter II they would be sent solo in this type.
The Oxford was a comparatively light and docile aircraft, but as I have already mentioned, the Beaufighter II was a much more rugged and heavy aircraft that could be quite a handful on one engine, even for an experienced pilot. The accident rate at the OTU had become unacceptably high, and the object of my visit was to fly and evaluate the Bristol Beaufort as a step in the training programme. The Beaufort was designed and used as a torpedo-bomber and was very similar to the Beaufighter – in fact its rear half came from the same jigs. I thought the aircraft handled well, and that when fitted with dual controls it should prove to be a good transitional trainer. Its Bristol engines were more reliable than the Beaufighter’s Rolls-Royces and the aircraft was easier to handle. Their great advantage was, of course, that they were fitted with dual controls.
The de Havilland Mosquito was now coming into service with the night-fighter squadrons, and I considered that as a good staff officer I should familiarize myself with the new aircraft being flown by the Command’s night-fighter squadrons. I therefore took the Vega Gull to Cranfield and borrowed a Mosquito III for an hour’s trial flight. The fighter version of the Mosquito was fitted with the one-handed control column, which was a temptation to try some gentle aerobatics, which I did, but I was conscious of the seat beside me and was resigned to the thought that this was no single-seater, although it handled like one. It was with great reluctance that after a glorious hour and a half I had to land and return to my humble Vega Gull.
In the next week or two I was busy carrying out staff visits to the fighter squadrons in either the Spitfire or Vega Gull. On 29 May I flew the Spitfire to Predannack in Cornwall and met my brother at the Caerthillion Hotel at the the Lizard. The next day, while walking on the beach of extensive sands, by a strange coincidence we met, walking on her own, miles from anywhere, a WAAF officer with whom I worked at Headquarters 9 Group, where she was the assistant adjutant.
On the way back from Predannack I landed at Colerne to visit my old squadron commander, who was now commanding a Mosquito night-fighter squadron, and took the opportunity of quizzing him on night operations in the Mossie. On 9 June I flew some staff officers to Honiley and while there was able to borrow a Leopard Moth for a trial flight. On return to Fighter Command HQ I was told that I had been selected to fly to North Africa to carry out a liaison visit to the night-fighter squadrons operating with the Middle East Air Force. Arrangements were made for me to fly out with the Americans, so to get to their base in Scotland I took an Oxford from Bovingdon to Ayr and thence by road to Prestwick. The next day aboard an American DC-4 Skymaster we took off at dusk heading south-east over Ireland until we reached 12º West and thence South, making landfall in Morocco at 07.30 and landing at Marrakesh after ten hours’ flying from Prestwick.
Then I boarded an American DC-3 Dakota and flew to Casablanca and on to Oran. The intention was to reach Algiers that night, but bad weather over the Atlas Mountains made us turn back to Oran. The following day the weather improved, and we landed at Algiers (Maison Blanche) in time for lunch. I visited the headquarters of Coastal Air Force for a presentation and went on to see the night-fighter squadron at Maison Blanche. The next day I met General Pete Quesada of the USAF in North Africa and went on to visit the American squadron at its airfield at Reghaia. The following night I had dinner at the AOC’s villa outside Algiers with several senior officers and COs of the squadrons, and then some of us met up at the Coastal Club. After a bleary start the next morning I visited another squadron and met George, my old radar operator and Becky’s friend.
We all assembled at the Rest House at Secouf on the beach and had a party, followed by a bathe in the Mediterranean and a night spent in a tent on the shore. The next day I borrowed a Hurricane from the local squadron and flew eastwards to Constantine to give another presentation of night-fighter tactics and operating methods. At this time the squadrons under the African Coastal Air Force were already operating well to the east of Bone and were having very good results with their Beaufighters. My old squadron, No. 600 City of London, had already amassed a total of fifty-five enemy aircraft destroyed, and when Rommel had eventually been driven out of Africa and the squadron moved, first to Malta, then Sicily and finally Italy itself, its score exceeded a century. As well as Junkers and Heinkels, their victories also included several Piaggios, Savoias and other Italian aircraft. After discussions with SASO, General Spatz, and other staff about the squadrons’ operations, I returned to Maison Blanche in the Hurricane via Reghaia. Before landing I could not resist the temptation to carry out a few aerobatics, but quickly regretted it as when I was inverted during a slow roll a great deal of sand from the cockpit floor enveloped me and took time to settle before I could see clearly. However, the landing at Algiers was without further incident. After being seen off by AOC Coastal Air Force, I was given a car to Maison Blanche and boarded an American DC-3 for Gibraltar via Blida and Oran. I then took the right-hand seat and flew as second pilot in a British Dakota flown by a Czech pilot from Gibraltar to Hendon.
I reported to Headquarters Fighter Command at Bentley Priory at ten o’clock the next morning to learn that I had been posted to No. 54 Operational Training Unit. This was the night-fighter training station at Charter Hall just north of the Tweed near to Coldstream, which I knew quite well, having visited it when a staff officer, and I was to be Wing Commander Flying. I barely had time to complete my report on my North Africa visit when I was winging my way in an Oxford northwards once more to Scotland.