September 1954
On returning to London in mid-October, my job continued with little to relieve the tedium of not enough to keep me busy. I managed to get two Chipmunk flights at Redhill, and that evening we were asked by our American friends to a farewell party, as they had been posted to Frankfurt. We were invited to cocktails and dinner at Whitfield House, Barbara Hutton’s mansion in Regent’s Park. It was a very happy evening, tinged with regret that Bruce and Betty were leaving London. They, and Joe and Lola, had been such very good friends over quite a long period, and we had become very fond of them. It came as a great shock a few years later when we heard that both the colonels had been killed in two separate air crashes in the United States. Our deep sympathies went out to the two wives who had been so devoted to their men.
At the end of October I managed to get in two more Chipmunk sorties, but the weather to the end of the year was cold and unsettled, and the only Chipmunk flight in December was curtailed, as I was recalled because of a gale warning.
The New Year started off with snow and freezing weather. I was pleased to hear that my old squadron, No. 96, disbanded soon after the end of the war, had been re-formed at Ahlorn in Germany and reverted to its old role as a fighter squadron, now equipped with Meteors. I was relieved to get through my annual medical in the middle of the month, and although I remained quite fit I always had a fear, quite unreasonably, that the medicos would find something to ground me. So I felt free to try and organize some flying, but the weather continued bad. At the end of the month, in fact, snowstorms and gales returned with a vengeance, and there was widespread flooding down the east coast and many people were drowned in Holland and some in East Anglia. The Irish Ferry foundered on its crossing from Stranraer to Larne, and many small boats were lost or damaged around the coasts.
After the early storms February turned out to be a more settled month, and I managed to get in four more flights in the Chipmunks at Redhill, and four more in March, to keep my hand in. After Easter I got the opportunity to renew my love of sailing when my brother-in-law and I chartered a small sailing yacht from Bosham and enjoyed a week’s cruising in the Channel, calling at Lymington, Yarmouth (Isle of Wight), Beaulieu, Cowes and the Hamble. On our last day, as we felt our way back up the Solent in thick fog, to our embarrassment we found ourselves in the middle of the Canadian fleet that was just arriving to take its place in the Royal Naval Review in the following week. In early June I managed to get two seats in the Mall to view the Queen’s Coronation Parade, and I shared the great spectacle with Eve’s cousin. It poured with rain, but this did not spoil the magnificence of the parade made all the more remarkable by the sight of no fewer than four air marshals valiantly struggling to keep their seats on four excited horses towards the end of the parade. The thrill of the day’s events was greatly enhanced by the hot-from-the-press news that Edmund Hillary and his companion Tensing had reached the summit of Everest, the first ever to do so. What a memorable day for the British! A few days later another happy event occurred when our daughter Emma was born.
Shortly afterwards I was lucky enough to be given a berth in SS Braybury to witness the Naval Review, which consisted of many ships from the Commonwealth and friendly nations as well as those of the Royal Navy. The whole of the Solent and Spithead were so full of ships that there did not seem to be room for a single one more. This was a most stirring sight and one to stir even the most cynical landlubber! The last few days had given a wonderful lift to my national pride.
In the middle of July 1953 I realized that I was well into my tour at the Air Ministry, and it was time for me to start thinking about my next posting. By all the rules I should soon be in line for another flying job, and although I had kept in flying practice it was only in light and slow aircraft. I thought I would have a better prospect if I were to be up-to-date on more modern types of aircraft, so to this end I borrowed a Chipmunk from Redhill and flew down to West Malling to see my old friend Peter Walker, with whom I had trained, and who was now commanding this fighter station. Peter kindly arranged for one of his instructors to give me a check ride and then authorize me to fly a Meteor 7 to do one and a half hours’ solo handling. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and soon found the Meteor cockpit becoming quite familiar again. The trip back to Redhill in the Chipmunk was very dull in comparison. This visit was shortly followed by another to West Malling, and this time Peter had an instructor check me out in a Vampire T.11, followed by one hour ten minutes of solo handling flight to familiarize myself with this delightful little single-engined jet fighter.
At the beginning of September I spent a day at the SBAC Air Show at Farnborough, and was detailed to escort a party of German aviation industrialists round the stands and aircraft. I found this very interesting, particularly as I had been away from aircraft for so long, but luckily I had swotted up the details of the new aircraft, so I could provide reasonably intelligent answers to the Germans’ questions, and there were plenty of those.
After another visit to West Malling, when I was able to fly another two hours ten minutes in the Vampire, I then felt confident enough to go and see Bob Hodges at Air Ministry Postings and enquire about my next posting. As is the habit of officers in the Postings job, he was very cagey, but said he would arrange an Instrument Flying refresher course for me in the meantime. Accordingly, before the end of the month, I was attached to No. 10 Advanced Flying Training School at Pershore for a concentrated Instrument Flying course on Oxfords. Here I did eighteen hours ‘under the hood’, using the method of ‘two-stage amber’, whereby the aircraft’s windows were covered in amber screens through which the instructor could see as though through tinted glasses, but the pupil wore amber goggles, which turned the windows black but still allowed him to see his instruments. The flying involved take-offs, approaches, landings and recovery from unusual flight positions thought up by the instructor, all on instruments only, a stressful exercise needing great and unrelenting concentration. However, after a while, confidence returned and I drove away from Pershore with my ‘green card’ again tucked away in my logbook.
After a period of leave I returned to my ‘mahogany bomber’ in the Air Ministry, and life continued in its previous boring manner, with only an occasional Chipmunk sortie to relieve the tedium. The new year of 1954 brought snow and very cold weather, and at one point we all joined in skating on the St James’s Park lake. Another visit to the Personnel Postings staff came up with the offer of a job as Air Attaché in Lisbon. This sounded very attractive, but I was advised that it would probably be a bit of a dead end, and not favourable for my future career. However, in a few days I was given the very welcome news that I was to take over a Venom fighter wing at Habbaniyah, in Iraq, a posting that suited me in every respect, and I started my preparations in high spirits. I would have to do several refresher courses in different places and spread over several weeks, so I decided to buy a caravan to accommodate the family and myself. On 3 April, I completed my allotted term of three years at the Air Ministry almost to the day,and my relief arrived to take over. With my bowler hat clutched in my hand I marched down to Westminster Bridge and tried to lob it down the funnel of a passing tug. This was a traditional act by RAF officers on completion of their staff tour in London. A few days later the caravan arrived, and after piling in all our belongings and the family we set off for a couple of months like a family of gypsies.
With a few days to spare before my first course began, I accepted an offer from the station commander at Thorney Island to park our caravan on a remote dispersal on the far side of his airfield. From here we could enjoy a few days visiting some of the delightful places on the south coast, like Dell Quay, Bosham, Birdham, and Hayling Island. I also took the opportunity to go sailing with the station commander in his sailing dinghy.
At the end of this little holiday we packed up everything into the Vanguard and caravan, and set off from Thorney Island with the intention of travelling by night to avoid the worst of the traffic. Just before midnight disaster struck when a wheel on the caravan collapsed and the tyre burst. Luckily this occurred almost outside a country hostelry where the family could be accommodated for the night while I went off in search of a garage. Again we were lucky when I found a treasure of a young mechanic who turned out with surprising enthusiasm at midnight, and within a couple of hours he had welded the wheel and found a tyre to fit at very reasonable cost. After a welcome breakfast with the family in the pub, we were able to set off again for Weston Zoyland, the Royal Air Force station situated on the Somerset Levels to the east of the Polden hills, with Sedgemoor close by. After settling the family in the rather scruffy caravan site, I reported to No. 209 Advance Flying School. On my first day of duty the weather was poor, with drizzle and low cloud adding little to this rather dreary part of Britain. However, I was able to start my refresher flying on the Meteor, and was soon feeling familiar with the aircraft again, and thoroughly enjoying the thrill of ‘real’ flying once more. I was doing one or two sorties a day on aerobatics, instrument flying, simulated single-engine approaches and landings, as well as navigation exercises. Towards the end of the course I met up with several old friends and got to know a few new ones during a get-together at the local pub and restaurant. My old boss from Singapore, Richard, and his wife Imogen were there, and we spent several enjoyable occasions over drinks and dinner, talking about old times at Changi. I was also pleased to meet Peter Ellis, who was to be one of my squadron commanders in Iraq. Here began a very firm friendship that was to last many years.
I successfully completed my Meteor refresher course on 20th June, and set off from Weston Zoyland having renewed my instrument-rating green card again. I had a few days at Old Sarum on a Weapons Demonstration and Army Liaison course, and there were enough of my old cronies also on the course to make up a very enjoyable get-together at the Rose and Crown in Salisbury. Back at Weston Zoyland I now planned to take the family in the caravan to my brother’s home at Minchinhampton for a day or two, as this would be on the way to my next duty in South Wales. But again disaster struck, when, in the Avon Gorge, a violent gust of wind took the skylight off the roof of the caravan and it was lost for ever in the muddy brown waters of the river; and then, a few miles further on, when the same caravan wheel fractured, appropriately enough, at a place called Old Sodbury. Here we were very lucky, as we were just getting up a good speed to tackle a steep hill that we could see ahead, when Eve noticed that we were pretty low on fuel and suggested that we call at the garage at the foot of the hill for petrol. As I reluctantly pulled in to the forecourt we were surprised to see the proprietor staring at the back wheel of the caravan with a look of horror on his face And no wonder, for the wheel had split and the tyre’s inner tube had come out like a huge red balloon as big as a football. A few more yards up the hill and we could have been in real trouble. As we were not very far from my brother’s house, the family were able to move in there while I spent the remainder of the day searching for a wheel and tyre that would fit the caravan.
Before moving on we had a few days’ leave to spend with my brother, and the opportunity to revisit my old haunts in the Cotswolds, which brought back so many happy memories of my school days. Games of cricket against Wycliffe College in their lovely grounds at Stonehouse, riding an old hack with Suzette through the splendid woods at Cranham or the family race to the top of May Hill to count the Scotch pines on the summit again, to confirm that there were still a hundred there. I discovered that Gp Capt Gilson was now commanding Royal Air Force South Cerney just down the road, so we arranged to meet him and Sylvia at the Highwayman Pub on the Fosse Way for a pub lunch, and for them to meet my brother and sister and her husband, who lived just up the road in the lovely village of Brimscombe. It was soon time to move on, and having lost confidence in our poor overloaded caravan we decided to give the job of towing it down to South Wales to an expert hire company. Consequently I set off with our dog Ben, temporarily leaving the family at Minchinhampton, and drove on down to Wales over the Brecon Beacons and through Llandovery to Pembrey, situated just inland from Pendine Sands, where in the old days attempts were made to beat the land speed record. As far as I could recall, it was Sir Malcolm Campbell in his car Bluebird that finally achieved this aim.
Pembrey was primarily a Gunnery School, and on arrival I was billeted out in a small hotel in Llanelly, as there was no room in the officers’ mess. As soon as I had reported to the headquarters of No. 233 Operational Conversion Unit, I was airborne in a Vampire again and, as always, enjoying the experience. On the third sortie I managed to fly over Minchinhampton on a navigation exercise, and was able to check that the caravan was no longer in my brother’s front garden but presumably on its way to Wales. Two days later I was able to pick up my family at Llanelly railway station, and we were able to move into our caravan. The station commander had been good enough to let us park it on one of the remote dispersal hardstandings, which we thought would be a nice quiet spot where the children could play in peace. However, we soon discovered that it was not always so peaceful. At weekends the Air Cadets would be flying their gliders with their winches only a hundred yards or so from our caravan, or if the wind was from the other direction, the gliders would approach to land very low over our camp. Not only that, however, as during the weekdays our dispersal would be used to arm up the Vampires with live rockets, much to our young daughter’s interest and her mother’s alarm. However, we were very content to be there, although, being on the other side of the airfield, we had to wait for a green light from the air traffic tower before we could cross the runway on our way to the NAAFI, as there were Vampires taking off and landing regularly throughout the day.
There followed a period of rain, as was not unusual in those parts, although the flying continued, but it was only when the sun came out at last that the family discovered the wonderful sandy beach a few minutes’ walk from the caravan. On sunny days this was a delight for the family, and at weekends some of the pilots, led by Peter, would drag a long net through the surf to catch the odd flounder or flat fish. It was also a favourite place for Peter to practise his golf drives.
Vampire training continued with battle formation tactics, practice rocket attacks, high and low interception practices and instrument approaches and landings, including one to Weston Zoyland and return. Our pending departure overseas was foreshadowed when Pete and I were summoned to the Medical Centre to have our innoculations. Before our departure we had Peter and the station commander over to our caravan for farewell drinks, and we were lucky in managing to re-rent our caravan to a squadron leader at Pembrey. Our other worry had been what we were going to do with Benny, our well-loved spaniel, when we went abroad, but this problem was solved in a most satisfactory way. Even though we had been situated on the far side of the airfield, the postman came over every day with our mail, and Benny took a great liking to him and greeted him every time he came with much fuss. Clearly this liking was reciprocated, and it was agreed that on our departure Benny would go to the postman. Both parties were delighted that they would be together, and after we left we received several postcards from the postman to say how delighted he was with Benny and assuring us that our dear dog was completely content.
At the completion of the course I had done twenty-three hours on the Vampire and was looking forward to getting my hands on the Venom, which I would be flying in Iraq. To this end Peter and I borrowed an Oxford and set off for Benson, where Digger McGill was trying to arrange for us to ferry out two Venoms to Iraq. The weather was awful, with very low cloud, but Pete and I elected to fly visual flight rules to Benson, as it was only a short distance and we hoped to wriggle in under the overcast. But our endeavours were very nearly cut short when a Viking civil airliner descending into Cardiff over Porthcawl passed very close to our Oxford, so close, in fact, that we experienced severe turbulence as we flew through its propeller wash. We reported the air miss to our control radar and continued on our way, landing safely at Benson with a radar-controlled approach. After lunch, when the weather had lifted a bit, we boarded our Oxford and flew on to Hatfield, the home of de Havilland, where we were given a lecture on the Venom systems and engine handling, and we discussed with their test pilots the handling and performance details of the aircraft. I was able to meet John Cunningham again, and asked him about his very busy life as de Havilland’s chief test pilot. He was currently occupied with delivering Vampires to Switzerland and lecturing their pilots and engineers about the aircraft He was also very busy with development flights on the Comet, which he had first flown in 1949 on his birthday, 27 July. He reported that up to a few weeks previously the Comet had been hailed as a great achievement as the first jet-propelled civil airliner, and it was already flying with several airlines. But then a BOAC Comet taking off from Rome Ciampino had to abort the take-off and was damaged beyond repair, luckily without casualties. But some months later a Canadian Pacific Airline’s Comet on its delivery flight to Australia suffered an exact repetition of the Rome accident at Karachi, but with fatal results when the aircraft was destroyed. After the Rome accident John told me that he carried out exhaustive trials on Comet take-offs, during which he discovered that if the nose-wheel was lifted off the runway too early in the take-off the aircraft was reluctant to accelerate, and in extreme cases the aircraft would not lift off before the end of the runway. John immediately issued a warning to all Comet pilots, and introduced the first concept of the critical ‘rotation’ speed now adopted worldwide. The captain of the Karachi Comet had done a full conversion course at Hatfield, and the importance of ‘rotation’ speed had been drummed into him, as well as being demonstrated. He had considerable experience as an airline captain, but little experience of jet-powered aircraft, and on this occasion was doing a night take-off, with ground haze obscuring the horizon and a fully fuelled aircraft for a non-stop flight to Rangoon. From tyre scuff marks and tail bumper marks investigators were able to prove that the captain had raised the nose of the Comet too high and too soon, and the aircraft had ceased to accelerate and had struck a wall at the end of the runway and burst into flames. After these two accidents the Comet was modified with drooped leading edges, and with John’s specific briefing there were no further accidents of this nature. At this time John had just returned from beating his own speed record between Hatfield and Cairo, this time flying the Comet 2. He had so many interesting tales to tell me, and I was reluctant to leave Hatfield. But we had another visit to make, and flew on to the Central Fighter Establishment at West Raynham, where my old squadron was able to lend me a Venom for a short handling and evaluation flight. After landing and refuelling, Peter was able to do a similar flight in the same aircraft. Feeling that we had achieved a very satisfactory day, we had a few drinks in the mess and retired early to bed in a room in the mess kindly provided by the PMC. The next day Peter and I flew back to Pembrey in the Oxford, and spent an evening celebrating the successful conclusion of our course with the CO and instructors.