June 1949 to January 1950
The month of June brought the annual CFE Convention again and the chance to meet old friends and see flying demonstrations of new fighter aircraft. Exercise Foil followed a week later, involving our participation in interception trials. In July testing of aircraft performance in both Meteors and Vampires continued, with Meteor night-flying and the evaluation of the new airfield approach and runway lighting at USAF Lakenheath. With memories of the old wartime glim lamps as runway markers, and no approach lighting at all, I was amazed at the modern lighting now available for night approaches and landings. Certainly a great deal of stress had been removed from the conclusion of each night flight, and in some ways the comprehensive lighting layout made night approaches and landings easier than in daytime. I also carried out trials on the new electric artificial horizon in the Vampire. This instrument had the advantage over the old design in that it would not ‘topple’ during aerobatics or violent manoeuvres, and added greatly to the safety of instrument flying in all conditions. In August I did a similar trial with this horizon fitted in the Meteor. On a very hot day in the same week I flew a Vampire in a cockpit cooling trial, for it had become very clear that the aircraft could never be operated in desert conditions without some form of air conditioning. This became very evident to me in later years when I commanded a Venom wing in Iraq, where we were most grateful for the cooling in our cockpits.
In the middle of September a party from de Havilland visited, and Mr Blithe allowed me to fly their de Havilland Dove on a familiarization flight. In the meantime the technicians in the party discussed the progress of the several trials currently in progress on the Vampire. At the end of the month trials were carried out with the Meteor towing a ten-foot sleeve on the end of a 600-yard tow line for use as a target for air firing. On the first attempt it broke free at 260 knots, but in subsequent flights it was successfully flown out to the ranges and brought back to the airfield, where it was safely dropped and recovered. On 27 October I flew several members of the squadron on a liaison visit in the Anson, when we went from Raynham to Bovingdon and thence to Defford, Old Sarum and back to Bovingdon, where we discussed new techniques and exchanged views on the current trials before returning to Raynham.
At this time two events occurred that upset my normal routine. Firstly an officer, who shall remain nameless, was put under close arrest for apparently misusing service funds. This meant that an officer of equal rank (squadron leader) must remain with him at all times in his room in the officers’ mess. This duty seemed to come round all too frequently, and I found it intensely frustrating and a dreadful waste of my time when I had so much to do. The other irritant was the advent of promotion exams for squadron leaders, which meant a lot of swotting in preparation for them, a situation that I thought I had left behind when I left school. Somehow it seemed rather undignified to see a clutch of squadron leaders huddled together in a corner of the mess anteroom, struggling with problems of Air Force law and administration.
On the last day of August I received the tragic news of the sudden death of my mother in Cheltenham. I found it most upsetting, as for some time I had meant to make greater efforts to see more of her. Even though much of my time was taken up by my flying duties, I realized that it had been very remiss of me not to make a greater effort to get away to visit her. And now it was too late, and it made me sad and ashamed as well. For some time after her funeral my life seemed to be full of melancholy and regrets.
Early in September the clutch of squadron leaders descended on Bing Cross, who commanded Horsham St Faith airfield, and were secreted away for the promotion exams. With these over at last I could soon return to work, and after a few days back at West Raynham I collected a Meteor 7 from Farnborough and did a comprehensive acceptance air test before it was taken on strength at CFE. In the middle of December after landing from the last of a series of Vampire and Meteor high-speed, high-altitude, head-on attacks on the B-29s, I was told that I was to attend a Staff College course. While this was good news from a career point of view, it meant the end of my rewarding research job at the Air Fighting Development Squadron at the Central Fighter Establishment. I would certainly leave that with considerable regret.
However, I was not to go until the following June, and I would get a lot more jet flying before then. And indeed I did so, with more hours on high-level interception trials and bombing and rocket trials with the Vampire. But what was shortly to follow must surely mark the brightest light of my flying career, and it occurred with little warning and quite unexpectedly.
The King and Queen with their family were in residence at Sandringham, a few miles down the road from West Raynham. They were clearly well aware of the jet flying going on from the airfield, and they suddenly decided that they would like to see the aircraft at close quarters and meet the pilots who flew them. Accordingly the commandant was asked (or perhaps commanded) to provide facilities for a private visit to the establishment. It is doubtful whether a royal visit could be called private, but as it turned out it was very informal.
On 23 January the King and Queen arrived with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret and an ADC, and were escorted straight down to the hangar without any honour guard, where they were shown round the Meteor, Vampire and the other fighter aircraft, and met officers, airmen and airwomen of the Servicing Squadron. They were then escorted out onto the airfield, where the aircrews were introduced to them. There were only two pilots in flying overalls – George Baldwin, a Fleet Air Arm lieutenant-commander, who stood in front of a Vampire, and me standing in front of the Meteor. The two of us had the honour of being selected to carry out demonstration flights for the royal party.
As the spectators took their places on the top of the control tower, George took off in the Vampire and did his usual polished display of aerobatics, finishing with a very fast low pass over the tower. Even as the strident note of the Vampire still hung in the air, the watching crowd’s attention was drawn to the Meteor as it roared down the runway with a very proud me at the controls. I held the aircraft down close to the runway as the wheels retracted, and when I had built up adequate speed I pulled the Meteor up into a vertical climb and completed a half loop and roll-out immediately overhead. Admittedly both George and I had had two days to polish up our display, but all agreed that we did a display fit for a King. After completing my display, and not to be outdone by George, I flew close alongside the control tower very fast and very low, finally disappearing behind the higher ground to the east of the airfield. I waited until the royal party were walking across to the mess for tea before I came in quietly to do a short landing and put the Meteor in the hangar.
At tea all the royal party were full of praise and enthusiasm, and chatted away with everyone there in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. Princess Elizabeth, who had been wearing a becoming hat with a jaunty pheasant’s feather, in the course of conversation with me said, ‘I found your last flypast very thrilling. I thought you were going to knock off my feather.’ Clearly they were all enjoying the occasion, and long overstayed their schedule. The King finally turned to the commandant, expressing his thanks, and said, ‘We must go home. Where are our girls?’ Margaret was missing, and when I went out to see that the royal cars were ready, I found her in the entrance hall sitting on the sofa with the ADC, Peter Townsend! So ended a most remarkable and enjoyable day. A few days later, when I recalled Princess Elizabeth’s remark about the feather, I could not help thinking the unthinkable, that not many people would find themselves in my situation, where they might have so easily knocked the head off a future Queen of England! Perish the thought!
The night following this thrilling royal visit, the commandant, David Atcherley, was dined out on his appointment to SASO at Fighter Command, but I was still not finished with the Development Squadron. After flying some trials with the Meteor towing a 16-foot glider and the Vampire fitted with the new Ferranti electric horizon instrument, I was dispatched to the Canal Zone to talk to the squadrons there about recent developments in jet fighter flying. With two colleagues we flew in a York to Fayid via Luqa. At Fayid, the next day, a khamsin, (a horrible hot gale) was blowing, lifting the sand in clouds and reducing visibility to almost nil. However, we managed to get to No. 205 Group Headquarters, where we gave a lecture and showed our film, followed by a welcome swim at the officers’ club. The next day we drove up to No. 324 Wing at Deversoir, which flew Vampires. After a lecture and discussions with the squadron pilots, I borrowed a Vampire from Crowley Milling, who was commanding 6 Squadron, and enjoyed a very interesting reconnaissance of Suez and the canal area, with a few aerobatics thrown in before landing. The next day we took an Anson 19 from Deversoir to Fayid, and then across to Nicosia in Cyprus. Here we lectured to No. 32 Squadron and showed our film. That night we stayed at the officers’ club and were taken out to see the cabaret at the Ambassadore’s, where we made the acquaintance of ‘Black Helen’. We flew back to Fayid and took the York back to Lyneham, refuelling at Luqa (Malta).
On my return to West Raynham to make my final clearance, I was very pleased to see that the commandant had given me another ‘Exceptional’ assessment in my logbook. A very satisfactory way to go; but I still had two more sorties to do before my departure. The first was another trial assessing the stability of the Vampire while dropping bombs, and the second was a gratuitous flight in a Meteor, when I was given freedom to do as I pleased. I took off and climbed on a northwesterly heading to 43,000 feet. Here I throttled back and in what seemed almost complete silence within my pressurized cockpit I surveyed the fantastic panorama below. Looking north beyond the Wash I could see the Humber with Spurn Head curling below it. Looking west over the murky conurbation of the Midlands I could just make out the glorious dales of Yorkshire. Beyond Liverpool and Manchester, both swathed in smoke, I could just make out the muddy waters of the river Mersey, down which I had sailed out to the Pacific War all those years ago. I was amazed how easily the memories came flooding back. North Wales, the Dee estuary and Snowdon with its last remaining fringe of snow stood out clearly in the spring sunshine. The scene unfolded below me as I cruised at that high altitude: the Welsh mountains, the Brecon Beacons and then the Severn with Gloucester at its head. My birthplace, and where I had first enjoyed the magic of flight. Down the Bristol Channel to Bristol and Filton, the airfield just to the west, where I had done my initial training. I could follow down the coast to Devon, the Valley of the Rocks, my mother’s favourite spot, and then Cornwall, tapering off to the end of the land. And around to where I could just pick out the smudge of land that was France, becoming clearer as my gaze moved up the Pas de Calais. And more directly below, the English south coast, standing out as clear as could be all the way from Weymouth to Folkestone. Just behind stood Hawkinge, the airfield where my first squadron had been based, and where, as a sergeant pilot, I had flown the fantastic Fury, even now comparable with the magic Meteor from which I now surveyed the country below and relived the memories that came flooding back as the scenes unfolded. With great reluctance I put down the nose of the Meteor, extended the dive brakes and, as though in a dream, made my way back to West Raynham to land there for the last time. But even as I approached the runway, the warm feeling of elation that had accompanied my ‘command performance’ a few days ago came over me, and I revelled in the feel of the responsive aircraft under my hands. I slipped the Meteor in over the hedge, taxied up to the hangar and switched off the fuel cocks, and as the engines died sighed deeply as I slid back the hood to face reality again.