January 1948 to May 1949
My posting to the Central Fighter Establishment was confirmed, and I reported to West Raynham on 19 January, and was delighted to hear that my immediate boss was to be a Battle of Britain survivor Ras Berry, who soon became a firm friend. It did not take me long to get into the routine of an RAF station at home, with a ‘dining-in’ night in the mess at regular intervals, a parade on Saturday mornings, a weekend holiday each month and occasionally a long weekend. I was soon flying every day, and I started my tour in the Air Fighter Development Squadron (AFDS) with two more flights in the Meteor III before starting regular flights in the Meteor IV. The project assigned to me was an assessment of the aircraft as an interceptor fighter, with wide-ranging trials on optimum climbs to altitude, fuel consumption at all levels, flying for best range and radius of action at variable power settings, general handling under different configurations and loadings, and finally carrying out trials to ascertain the best tactics for intercepting and attacking heavy bombers with cannon, as represented by American B-29s. As can be imagined, this was quite a demanding task, involving a good deal of accurate and meticulous flying and the preparation of a comprehensive report at the end of the programme. The former I revelled in, but the report writing I found a tedious chore, though this came much later, when most of the flying was done.
Even though I was doing two or three Meteor sorties a day when weather permitted, I still found time to fly other types, of which there was a wide choice at West Raynham. In the first month, as well as the Meteor IV I had flights in the Auster, Hornet I, Vampires I and III and the Oxford, the latter for instrument-flying practice.
In my second and third month the emphasis was on formation tactical trials, often involving my leading a finger-four formation of Meteors through cloud up to 40,000 feet – their highest practical altitude for air fighting. Flying trials also involved maximum-rate turns at various altitudes and Mach numbers, and these were done at that time without the benefit of pressure suits, which had not yet come into use. On 7 May I flew Meteor EE 549 down to its birthplace at Glosters, Moreton Valence, for repainting and generally tarting up. This aircraft had previously held the speed record, for which it had been specially prepared and had been painted royal blue. When it was returned to West Raynham I had flown it as a demonstration aircraft on several occasions. On the 8th I took several passengers down to Hendon in the Anson for a weekend in London.
At this time my painful divorce proceedings were concluded, and Maisie and I parted company. To my deep regret she was given custody of our daughter Sue, whom I had not seen since she was four years old, and it was still some years before we met again. But that is another story, and an unusual and happy one.
The CFE Annual Tactical Convention began on 25 May, and many old friends assembled at West Raynham. On the second day the air display took place with demonstrations of new aircraft by their company test pilots. John Cunningham flew the Ghost-engined Vampire in which he shortly was to beat the world altitude record when he reached a few feet short of 60,000 feet. The DH 108 delta-wing research aircraft with an uprated Goblin engine was then flown by John Derry. The previous month this aircraft and pilot had been in the news with a world air speed record of 605 mph. John was the first British pilot to fly faster than sound, and he was later to be killed when demonstrating a Mach 1 dive over Farnborough. Mike Lithgow then flew the Attacker, and Paddy Lynch flew in the rear seat of a modified Meteor to demonstrate the Martin Baker ejection seat. A Lancaster was also demonstrated with a Rolls-Royce Nene jet engine fitted in its bomb bay. This gave an impressive flypast, with the Nene gently throttled back and all four Merlins feathered, and only the windscreen wipers visibly working!
At the beginning of June, although the loss of my acting wing commander rank still rankled, I was pleased to hear that I had been granted a permanent commission. Several of my squadron leader friends and I were now studying madly for the newly introduced promotion exams, and the anxiety of these hanging over us made it feel like schooldays again. It was difficult for me to give these studies much priority when my trials report took up most of the time when I was not flying. I was doing night-flying practice in Meteors at the end of the month, and on an instrument training exercise I had an engine failure in the Oxford, necessitating an emergency landing. The following week I had to take my green card instrument rating test in the same Oxford after engine repairs, and all went well. On the 20th I flew a Spitfire XXIV on a camera recorder trial, and finished the month with more Meteor sorties on fuel-consumption trials.
In August AFDS started simulated attacks on B-29 bombers of the US Air Force as part of our air fighting trials with the Meteor. After some tentative attacks from the quarters and astern, it was decided to try the feasibility of head-on attacks, using ground radar controllers to turn the fighters onto our targets far enough ahead to give us time to line up, get our sights on and fire an effective burst of cannon. Head-on attacks could be very effective, as the bombers were very vulnerable from this direction, but they presented only a very small target. Quite a lot of practice was needed, both for the radar operators at the ground radar stations and for the fighter pilots. With a closing speed of some 900 knots, some very accurate flying was called for, and camera gun films showed that only about a three-second burst of cannon fire was possible. The attacks were fun for us Meteor boys, but pretty frightening for the bomber crews, and recorder cameras showed our Meteors were passing only about twelve feet above the high fins and rudders of the B-29s as we broke away after each attack. Not a popular exercise for the Yanks, but they stood up to it well and kept coming back for more as the trials progressed.
Early in September AFDS pilots were called on to provide a small fighter force of Vampires and Meteors for Exercise Dagger. On returning from the first scramble, and after intercepting four B-29 bombers at 32,000 feet, my No. 2 noticed that the nose-wheel of my Meteor was jammed, and instead of coming down straight it was lying athwart the aircraft’s centre line, so that unless it straightened up on touching the runway there might be a spectacular landing. After a low pass over the control tower I decided to land with it as it was, and not to try to retract it, as it might well cause further damage. I did a normal landing and held the nose-wheel off the ground as long as possible, and fortunately the shock of finally touching the runway turned the wheel fore and aft and a normal landing run ensued, but they were an anxious few moments. We did several more scrambles, some in Meteors and some in Vampires, but on the final day of the exercise as we sat waiting beside our aircraft reading novels in the sun we had the ignominy of being ‘beaten up’ by a squadron of Hornets that swooped down unannounced out of the blue and caught us on the ground. That took some living down, for were we not supposed to be the experts in air fighting?
It was now the rugby season again, and I was pleased to be selected to play for the West Raynham first team, who were good and contenders for the Fighter Command Cup. I had two games during the week, and in the second I broke my own rule and carried out a half-hearted tackle and received someone’s boot in my face, subsequently requiring two stitches. Luckily this did not stop me flying, as two days later I was pleased to be asked to do an aerobatic display at the Royal Air Force College on the occasion of a Battle of Britain commemoration parade. I took the smart blue Meteor, the record breaker, which itself was much admired, and did a fifteen-minute aerobatic routine over Cranwell’s parade ground before returning to West Raynham. The next day, a Sunday, I took the Anson up to York to pick up the commandant, Air Cdre Atcherley, after he had taken the salute at a Battle of Britain church parade at the cathedral, and we returned to West Raynham VFR on a beautiful afternoon. Returning to his office, Atcherley received a nice message from the commandant at Cranwell thanking those concerned for the aerobatic display of the previous day, which had been well acclaimed.
On the 25th two of my AFDS colleagues flew up to Manchester in the Anson and joined relatives and friends at a reception at the Manchester Midland Hotel, to mark the occasion of my marriage to Eve, my erstwhile air observer in Hong Kong. After a happy honeymoon in the Lake District we returned to duty in time for a dance in the West Raynham officers’ mess. Back at work the next day, I again led a ‘finger four’ of Meteors up to 40,000 feet to carry out head-on attacks on B-29 bombers There was a conference at the Radar Establishment at Malvern a few days later, and I flew down with several colleagues to attend. This was followed by a visit to Manby to give a lecture to the senior course at the Flying College.
On 11 November after a Remembrance parade, we borrowed a service 30 cwt lorry and moved all our belongings into a married quarter on the now deserted airfield at Great Massingham. It was only a glorified brick hut, but it was our first home, and after cleaning it up and moving in our few belongings it seemed like a mansion.
In early December all the aircrew from the Central Fighter Establishment were required to take part in an escape and evasion exercise. We were driven out into the open Norfolk countryside, some fifteen miles in a covered lorry, and dropped off, one at a time, at intervals and told to find our way home without being caught by the opposition, in the shape of Army patrols or RAF police. I reckoned I walked or ran about twenty-five miles and waded through an icy stream up to my middle, but I still got home first, undetected, as the sun was setting, and I could see the welcoming lights outside the guardroom. But I was arrested by my own service police, as the rules stipulated that station security had to be breached and I had to reach the Intelligence office without being detected. A bit unfair, I thought, but it served me right and I should have given attention to the small print in the rules.
Early the next morning, I took off in a Meteor on a sortie to measure G forces during low-level high-speed flights. But there was no indication of the impending catastrophe that was to follow. As I got airborne the undercarriage retracted normally and locked up with a reassuring ‘clunk’, and the warning lights went out. I flew out to the low-flying route and carried out two runs at 250 feet AGL, increasing speed up to 460 knots while recording the G meter readings on my kneepad. Turbulence was considerable and the ride very uncomfortable, but I steeled myself to do one more run. As I reached maximum speed the red warning light for the port wheel indicator flashed on, and almost simultaneously the port undercarriage leg came down with an almighty bang, and the aircraft pitched up and swung to port uncontrollably. As soon as I had managed to get the dive brakes out and slow the aircraft and get it under control, I realized that the undercarriage leg would be damaged and would never lock down. The Meteor had received a nasty ‘tweak’, but apart from the undercarriage it did not seem to have suffered other damage. But after Birdie-Wilson’s similar experience at high speed and at low level, when the Meteor broke up and left him sitting in his ejector seat, I was very cautious and limped back to Raynham to do a low, slow pass over the tower. They confirmed that the port wheel was dangling down, but could not see any other damage, so I decided to make a two-wheel landing on the grass to the left of the runway. I approached as slowly as possible with safety and gently touched the starboard wheel on the grass and kept the port wing up for as long as possible with full aileron while closing down both engines. The nose-wheel touched at the same time as the wing dropped and the port engine nacelle ploughed through the grass, and the aircraft entered a gentle swing to port. By now the speed had dropped off, and the aircraft came to a halt, happily not requiring the aid of the approaching ambulance and fire tenders. It suffered surprisingly little damage and was flying again in a few weeks’ time. That same afternoon I flew a speed trial in a Vampire at all heights between 20,000 feet and sea level, and happily these went off without incident. The rest of December was taken up with Vampire trials, except for one Meteor flight to ascertain fuel consumption during a powerless glide down from 40,000 feet to landing and switch-off at dispersal.
In the New Year performance trials on both types continued, but at the end of the month I carried out some Vampire flying for a film company making a Royal Air Force recruiting film. On the 27th I drove down through London to give a lecture to No. 500 Auxiliary Squadron at Maidstone. On my return to West Raynham there was an ominous atmosphere of gloom in the mess, and I was shocked to hear that Neville, one of our most experienced pilots, had been killed when his aircraft had crashed into high ground when descending through low cloud.
In February, representatives from Flight magazine visited with their photographer, and while I led a squadron formation of Meteors and Vampires the photographer took shots from various positions from a Martinet flying in company. The next day John Cunningham came over from de Havilland to discuss cannon- and rocket-firing trials from the Vampire. We agreed to fit these trials into the busy flying programme towards the end of March, when I did four Vampire flights over the Holbeach ranges, firing sixteen rockets, the last releases being filmed by de Havilland. During the month I was thrilled to get the opportunity of a flight in a Spitfire XVIII on air test. At the beginning of April I did two Vampire flights to work out an aerobatic routine before going to Ireland, where we had been asked to carry out demonstration flights over several Ulster cities. I was never told the purpose of these flights, but on the 6th I flew a Vampire to Aldergrove, and from there did demonstration flights over Belfast, Larne, Bangor and Newtownards. The following day I repeated the programme over Londonderry, Strabane and Belfast again, and from there returned to West Raynham, a 35-minute flight. On the 11th I took an Anson to Valley and Aldergrove with six passengers to a meeting to discuss the impact of the ‘showing-the-flag’ flights that we had done a few days before. While all mine were well received, unfortunately Bill, who had done similar demonstration flights over other towns, had flown into some electric cables when pulling away from one town, which was situated in a natural bowl surrounded by higher ground. Luckily the aircraft was not badly damaged and he returned safely to Aldergrove, but there were a number of very disgruntled local Irishmen knocking back their Guinness by candlelight that night.
The next day I went down to RAF Newton to play in the finals of the rugby Fighter Command Cup. Age was now beginning to tell, and I now played at full back. It was a very hard-fought game that we unfortunately lost to RAF Pembrey. I returned to West Raynham in the Oxford with the commandant and his deputy, who had watched the game. I recalled this game because the previous day the commandant had had me into his office and congratulated me on another ‘Exceptional’ assessment as a fighter pilot. In the closing moments of the game the opposing wing three-quarter, who had already scored three tries, was well on his way to a fourth, hurtling down the touchline, when I was able to make a super flying tackle and we both finished up in a tangle on the touchline among the spectators. As I struggled to my feet, I looked up to see the commandant gazing down at me in amazement and saying, ‘Well tackled, old chap’, then a pause and, ‘Dashed if I knew you played rugby too!’
On the 27th I dined in with the C-in-C, Basil Embrey, and we had cocktails beforehand with the deputy commandant, Edwards-Jones. They were both interested in the results of our head-on attacks on the B-29 bombers, and I explained that the trials were still at an early stage and would be continuing to the end of the month, and well into May.
As a change from the current trials that AFDS were engaged in, I was tasked by Bristol University to carry out cosmic ray investigation trials at maximum altitude. For this purpose I was provided with a large, sealed thermos flask, containing I knew not what, and took it in the Meteor up to 40,000 feet to let it soak there for a minimum of twenty minutes. After landing, an official of the university checked the seals on the flask and whisked it off, presumably to the laboratories at the university. This trial was repeated to the same ritual on 2 June, and a week or two later I received a letter of thanks from the University of Bristol, together with the same thermos and an invitation to keep it with their compliments. It was now unsealed, of course, but I never knew what it had contained and never had the courage to use it for our own drinks.