April 1951 to May 1954
On 1 May 1950 I reported to RAF Andover to join the No. 8 Staff College Course. While Andover lacked the prestige of the Bracknell Staff College, it was much more fun and had the advantage of including among its students officers from several foreign air forces, thus giving a far more interesting cross-section of opinions on many relevant subjects, as well as interesting insights into the affairs in other countries. It had the other advantage that there was never any shortage of off-duty parties, as there was nearly always some special national day to celebrate from one or other of the nations represented. A very happy relationship built up among the students as a result, and many friendships were made. There were representatives from Greece, Argentina, America, Portugal, Sweden, India. Pakistan, Finland, Norway, Ireland and several others. We were particularly fortunate in having on the course two very agreeable American colonels with charming and friendly wives who loved being in England, and we were constant visitors to each others’ homes.
As the course began, our son Charles was born on 3 May in Manchester, and the family were all together in a charming little cottage at Appleshaw near Andover by the 27th. As the course progressed it became clear that between lectures and doing exams there were often gaps when students were supposed to be studying, but the time could equally be used for keeping in flying practice. So I soon made contact with the OC Station Flight at RAF Andover, and I had already flown three sorties in their Tiger Moth and three in the twin-engined Dominie by the time the family arrived. Several senior officers and leaders from the aircraft industry came to lecture the course, and to add to the interest, external visits were made to places of relevance to our studies. A day was spent aboard HMS Theseus, when we had the experience of being submerged under the waters of the Channel for several hours, and on another occasion the course was taken on a tour of the Port of London. In the middle of June the Station Flight pulled an ancient Spitfire out of the back of the hangar and managed to get it serviceable for an air test, which I did with great pleasure. They also produced a Proctor in which I did several sorties, giving another of the students dual instruction. Jack was a navigator, but often hankered after a pilot’s course. and while the Proctor had dual controls it was not a very good aircraft for instructional purposes, but Jack enjoyed the flying and made steady progress, although there was little prospect of him going solo. When 4 July came around, Joe and Bruce, our Americans, gave a splendid Independence Day party in the mess, and at the end in rollicking good humour we all did our best to render some ten different national anthems.
The rugby season had not yet got under way, but I was taking up tennis again. I hadn’t played seriously since school days, when we were lucky enough to have our own court at my home. Weekend tennis parties there were very popular, and I remembered how my father led the way with a demon of a serve that somehow managed to curve well out of reach of his opponent, which everyone thought was most unfair. At Andover there were several keen players, and the courts were busy out of working hours. The commandant was also very keen, and was working up a team to play in the Inter-Command Cup competition. The finals took place at Amport House, and I was picked to play, rather as an afterthought, for I had to admit that I was not up to the standard of the rest of the team. As in several sports I had moments of brilliance but was seldom consistent. The competition, when it finally took place, dragged on a bit, and as the evening sun was throwing heavy shadows across the courts honours remained even right up to the final game When the commandant came onto the court and looked for his ace partner, he was told to his horror that he had already gone home. And guess what? I was the only player available to join the commandant on court. On this occasion, happily, my moment of brilliance came to the fore, and my senior partner and I walked off with the cup, to the delight of the commandant and my surprise. Thus, rather by accident, I qualified for my command sports badge, but I never had the face to wear it on my blazer.
The next away visit for the course was to Saunders Roe at Cowes, and a few days later to the Malgam Steelworks situated in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales. After the bank holiday that followed, the members of the course were sent off on a month’s leave. Before going away, Eve and I had Captain Robertsen from Norway to dinner at the cottage, and the next day I flew him in the Dominie to Ouston to catch his ship to Norway from Newcastle for his leave.
After a few days’ holiday on the Gower coast of South Wales with my brother, I returned to Andover in time to go with the course to the SBAC Show at Farnborough, which I enjoyed as usual and managed to get a lunch in one of the companies’ entertainment tents. The middle of September saw the beginning of the rugby season, when we had our first practice match. The next day I was delighted to hear that the Station Flight had acquired a splendid Spitfire XXII. This was one of the top of the range, with a very powerful Griffon engine, and quite a handful to fly near the ground. In a few days it would be Battle of Britain Anniversary Day, and the airfield at Andover would be staging a flying display for the public. The Spitfire would clearly be on display, so I was asked to give it a thorough air test. I got away at the end of afternoon lectures and spent a glorious hour of uninhibited flying, getting all I could out of this magnificent flying machine. Finally returning to the airfield, my exuberance overcame my normal caution and I dived down and flew very low and fast over the officers’ mess. Grinning to myself, I thought there would be quite a few upset teacups down there. But it turned out to be even more embarrassing, as my beat-up took me directly over the tennis court, where the commandant was poised to deliver one of his ace serves to clinch his game. Needless to say, he was not amused, and while still in his white flannels he telephoned the deputy commandant and told him to deal sternly with the ‘show-off’‘ in the Spitfire!
I was duly summoned to the deputy commandant’s office at nine o’clock the next morning, where Giles, who was a good friend, had me on the mat and administered a mild reprimand and said, ‘Not again’. With a grin he then said, ‘You can relax now because Sylvia and I would like you and Eve to join us for drinks this evening when a few friends are coming to celebrate the Battle of Britain.’ At his home towards the end of that evening, Giles came across to me, and taking me on one side said with a grin, ‘By the way, the commandant has agreed to my suggestion that you should fly the Spitfire on Saturday to do an aerobatic show. He has also agreed that you should fly the Spitfire in the handicap air race that I am organizing.’ So all was forgiven, and Saturday was a most exciting day for me. The Spitfire show was to be aerobatics ‘on request’, when I was required to carry out the various rolls, loops, stall-turns, etc. sent up to me by radio by enthusiastic youngsters in the air traffic tower. Working out the handicapping for the air race was quite a problem, as the Spitfire was about three times as fast as the slowest competitor, the Tiger Moth. Between these two were the Dominie, the Proctor, the Oxford and a visiting Anson. On the day all these aircraft were lined up on the airfield with engines running, and were flagged off in turn. Long after the sound of all the other aircraft’s engines had faded away, my Spitfire was still awaiting the flag. The large Griffon engine was not at all happy at being at tick-over for so long, and the temperature of the engine coolant started to rise alarmingly. Eventually I had to insist on being allowed to go, or I would have to shut down altogether. So I was flagged off early, regardless of handicap, and with great relief I roared off in pursuit of the others, but reluctantly limiting my speed a little to be fair. After screeching around the three turning points I straightened up on the final run into the airfield and could see the gaggle of aircraft ahead. The Tiger Moth seemed to be almost at the airfield, so I opened up the Griffon to full power and dived for the finishing line. It must have been a thrilling and beautiful sound for the spectators as I pulled up the Spitfire into a vertical climb over the finishing line, but the Tiger won by a short head.
On my birthday on 1 October we had a party in our cottage at Appleshaw for the Americans and their wives, and several of the other foreign officers with their partners. A few days later I played rugby against Basingstoke, and in the course of the game I was badly trampled in a ruck and came out of it with a very painful chest. I managed to struggle on for the rest of the game, and was relieved to get home, only to be told that we had been invited out to supper that night. The food was good and the company delightful, but just sitting still was agony. The next day I was driven to Tidworth for an X-ray at the Army hospital, and two cracked ribs were evident. Having been strapped up I was told to take things easily for a day or two. Not much sympathy was shown, and it was two weeks before I was really comfortable again. For two days running I had to sit through long lectures, one by Basil Embrey and the second by Pete Wickham-Barnes on his operations in Korea. They were very good talks and the discussions that followed were of great interest, but I still suffered and found it difficult to concentrate.
There followed a very interesting visit to Germany. The course assembled at the Hotel de France in Dover, and the next day took the ferry to Dunkirk, where we had a lecture on that momentous evacuation of the majority of the British forces from France in May 1940, when thousands were plucked off the beaches and ferried home by every available craft that could make the journey across the Channel, including privately owned little yachts and motor boats. This was an operation of great skill, courage and determination, but it was brought about, it should be remembered, by an ignominious defeat and retreat.
From Dunkirk we went on to Brussels, where, after visiting a night club, we booked into the Palace Hotel at 3 a.m. The next day we went to Cologne, where we were accommodated at Royal Air Force Butzweilerhof for the night. On the following day we were taken round Cologne in a coach to see the results of the Allied bombing during the war, and were later asked to make our own assessment of its effect on the course of the war. Our coach then took the autobahn to Essen. After lunch at the Black Diamond Club we toured the great factories of Krupps, where production recovery already seemed well under way, thanks to American dollars from the Marshall Plan. Thus is the idiocy of war revealed! When we talked to Germans on the spot, although they were surprisingly friendly, they considered it only just that as the Allies had knocked the factories down in their bombing campaign they should pay for their reconstruction! On 14 November 1950 the course visited the headquarters of BAAFO at Bad Eilsen, where we were given a talk by the Commander-in-Chief, and after lunch taken on a tour of Wünsdorf. A train from Hanover took us to Hamburg, where we were given a tour of the city by coach and launch. The bomb damage we saw was appalling, mainly caused by the fire storm that followed the incendiary attack, and it left us wondering whether the effects of such desecration on the national will could possibly justify such dreadful devastation and casualties. The argument is set about by so many imponderables that there is still no clear-cut answer today. That night in the Regina in Hamburg many opinions were offered and discussed, some with passionate intensity, well into the small hours of the morning. The next day we went on to Düsseldorf by rail, where we had dinner at the Yacht Club, and afterwards were the guests of both the sergeants’ and officers’ messes, and went late to bed. But the next day was an early start to tour Düsseldorf city and then to move on to Brussels for an early night and a chance to catch up on some sleep. Leaving Brussels early the next morning to catch the ferry to Dover, the course arrived safely and intact in London by early evening.
Back at Andover our course continued with a visit to London Airport, Heathrow, and I managed to get in another flight in the Dominie before the end of the month. With the approach of the Christmas holiday there was a noticeable increase in the number of parties and dinner nights. Joe and Lola, the Americans, invited several of the course instructors and students to dinner in Salisbury, and on the 22nd Eve and I threw a large party in our little cottage, with hot punch, and all the guests, including Portuguese, Greek, Indian, Americans, Scandinavians and other representatives from the course joining in carols round the Christmas tree. A really lovely party, long to be remembered. On the 31st the course instructors gave a New Year’s party in the mess with all present, and once again this was a roaring success, starting the New Year with an attempt to render all the national anthems, one after the other in no particular order of precedence, for no one dared to rule on the matter.
In February the course was taken on an industrial tour in the north, starting with the steelworks at Corby. Next, we all put on hard hats and went down the coalmine at Donisthorpe, spending two very interesting hours underground. We barely had time to wash down and get rid of the coal dust on reaching the surface, before we were whisked off by coach to see the charming ballet Coppelia in the Leicester Theatre. Its charm was in stark contrast to the gloom and grime of the recently abandoned coalmine. It was only at the last moment that we remembered to remove the hard hats and leave them in the coach!
Back at Andover, on returning from a flight to St Athan in the Dominie, I was told the bad but not unexpected news that my next posting was to the Air Ministry, London.