November 1966 to October 1970
Anticipating that I would have to do a staff job for my next appointment, I was very pleased when I was to be posted to Headquarters Bomber Command as the Senior Personnel Staff Officer at High Wycombe. The post of SPSO was always accepted as a prestigious one, as it involved dealing with the confidential handling of all officers’ postings, assessments, promotions and honours and awards, as well as disciplinary matters of all personnel in the command. It promised to be a very busy job and, as it turned out, much busier than I could have foreseen at the time. I reported for duty at High Wycombe. Eve and I were housed in a very large and grand Type One married quarter among the magnificent Bradenham Beeches, near to the officers’ mess and a five-minute walk through the woods to Headquarters and my office. As well as my normal duties, I was made the secretary of the Bomber Command Association, and had to administer the association and make all the arrangements for its annual reunion. Luckily my secretary Jill was well versed in the necessary action that had to be taken for the reunion, and did all the donkey work. For my first year I wanted to do something special for the assembled members, many of whom had been flying four-engined bombers during the war and at the reunion spent a great deal of their time during their visit to High Wycombe reminiscing about those days. Before going in to their usual formal dinner after touring the operation centre, I arranged for them to assemble on the lawn outside the officers’ mess, where drinks were served. An RAF band was playing in the background, and as the final notes of the Dambusters March died away a new sound arose and all heads turned to the west as the roar of four Rolls-Royce Merlins drowned all else when the Lancaster bomber flew low overhead, rocking its wings in salute before turning north into the gathering dusk. As the beat of its engines died away there was a spontaneous burst of applause from the assembled airmen, no doubt without a dry eye among them. After dinner telegrams were read out from the Queen and from ‘Bomber’ Harris with their good wishes.
My work was always brisk, and I very much valued my close relationship with the Commander-in-Chief, ‘Digger’ Kyle, who was a highly respected commander and a delightful man to work for and with. We had regular meetings to discuss confidential matters concerning officers within the command, including, to my surprise, senior officers, even up to Air rank. These confidential chats between the two of us I valued very highly, being pleased that my opinions were apparently so valued, and it was this that made the job of SPSO so interesting and special.
As often happened in the services, the exigencies were not always in favour of the individual, and our cosy and comfortable life at High Wycombe was soon to be upset. For some time there had been rumours flying around that there was to be a complete review of the Command structure of the Royal Air Force at home. It was decided that Bomber Command and Fighter Command would be amalgamated to form a new Strike Command. This had hardly been put in hand when it was decided that Coastal Command should also be included in Strike Command, so it could be seen that all the personnel matters would now be handled by one SPSO in the new Strike Command. I was the one left to take on this quite considerable task, and although my staff were increased there was still only one SPSO to control the lot, and it was some months before an air commodore was added to the Administration staff. The difficulties of taking on this extra burden were added to by another strange decision, which was to move the Administration staff from High Wycombe to the old offices of Fighter Command at Bentley Priory. For months I had to journey daily from High Wycombe to Bentley Priory, not only because we were still living at Bradenham, but also because the C-in-C remained at High Wycombe and our frequent meetings still took place there. I did not enjoy the daily drives by inept airmen drivers, and it was a relief when the AOA also did the journey and we travelled in a Bristol Sycamore helicopter – a horrid little aeroplane but so much better than those awful and ancient Ford Zephyrs and suicidal drivers.
Having survived the few months I had remaining of my tour I still hoped to get in a bit more flying, but I was far too busy in the office and only flew as a passenger on staff visits in an Anson, Pembroke or Basset, and on one occasion I grabbed a chance to fly in a Whirlwind helicopter to the radar station at Neatishead. After a staff inspection I went on to Coltishall, where I was delighted to meet Mike and Barbara again and spend a very pleasant evening with them, chatting about old times. Mike was now the officer commanding Coltishall.
During my tour at High Wycombe I remembered many happy occasions with the other group captains on the staff and their wives, several of whom I had known previously when they were commanding bomber stations and I was at Lindholme. We often visited each other’s homes for drinks or a meal, but there was always a feeling of tension as during this time the ‘Cold War’ was causing serious concern, and nowhere more than at Bomber Command Headquarters, where, if necessary, a nuclear strike might have to be initiated. Naturally the early warning stations were on constant alert, and communications to the C-in-C Bomber Command and through him to the Cabinet Office had to be kept open, and a vigilant watch maintained, at every hour of the day and night. As part of these precautions, every twenty-four hours a general-duties group captain from the staff was on duty and had to carry the little ‘white box’ wherever he went. This was an important link in the ‘paging’ system, and if the ‘box’ flashed the alarm he had to take immediate action to alert the Commander-in-Chief. Although the group captains took this duty, quite rightly, with all seriousness, it was not unknown to see the ‘box’ being passed surreptitiously through the hedge to the neighbouring married-quarter garden, where another group captain grabbed it to take over temporarily while the first briefly took his wife shopping. Nevertheless we made sure that the guard was never broken, even for a second.
Despite the heavy work load imposed on me by the expansion of Strike Command, I left wholly satisfied with my personal achievements there. We were dined out in great style, and it was with considerable regret that we packed up our married quarter among the beeches of Bradenham woods. I was at the threshold of my last post in the service, and I made it clear to the Posters that I did not want to be put away on a dusty shelf of some backwater, but would prefer to be given some job that would still offer an interesting challenge. Group Captain Organization at Headquarters Training Command came out of the hat, a post that might be almost as busy as the SPSO job at Command and would certainly keep me fully occupied. And so it turned out, but I enjoyed the different atmosphere among the ‘trainers’, in contrast to the operational commands that I had served in up to that time. Eve and I had now settled in a delightful old farmhouse in Suffolk where we could enjoy a peaceful retirement in delightful countryside. We also had quite a large acreage of pasture where Emma, who had always been interested in Arab horses, could now raise them. She became very knowledgeable, edited the magazine of the Breed Association and bred several leading young Arabs, including a national champion. For a time we all became involved and excited in showing her horses at the yearly Arab shows, until later on she married and moved away from her green pastures and beautiful Arabs in Suffolk.
On arriving at HQ Training Command I was fortunate in having as my boss an exceptionally nice Air Commodore Administration and an AOC who always had time to associate with his staff officers, both on duty and socially. My satisfaction was heightened by having on my staff an old friend from Bomber Command, Jack Gilvey, who was a very smart administrative officer. I gave him the job of heading the Establishment Committee, which had the unenviable task of going round each unit in the command and cutting back its establishment of personnel wherever possible, as part of the current ‘cut-back’ in the services as a whole. Poor Jack was not a popular officer, particularly when he even managed to relieve the Royal Air Force College Cranwell of two of its senior staff officers.
Training Command Headquarters was at Brampton near Huntingdon, and Jack and I used to relieve the tedium of staff work with a game of golf at St Neots whenever we were off duty. Together we attended a management course at Bristol University as part of our resettlement programme, as we were coming up to retirement in a few months’ time. Regrettably we both dozed in the back row of the class during the course, agreeing that we had learned more about management in the Royal Air Force than the university could teach us. The best of our stay in Bristol were the evenings spent together down in the Harvey’s cellar tasting the port and sherries.
Before I finally left the service I was determined to get into the air again, as I had not flown for many months, and I was feeling the deprivation. At the end of May 1970 I joined Flt Lt Brindle in an Andover at Oakington, and we flew down to RNAS Brawdy. While I was there I managed to fly with Sqn Ldr Stevens in a Whirlwind helicopter to do a reconnaissance of St Davids, Haverfordwest and Milford Haven. The next day Sqn Ldr Chandler and I took a Varsity to return to Oakington, when I took my turn at the controls. In June I did a dual check in a Chipmunk and had a glorious hour of aerobatics, forced-landing practice and approaches and landings in that delightful little aeroplane. In July 1970 I had my last-ever flight while still serving when I persuaded the CFI at Waddington to let me fly as second pilot in Dominie XF 739, and I had an hour handling this delightful aeroplane, finally completing three ILS/GCA approaches and landings back at Waddington. While I very much appreciated the flight, it was not what I would have chosen to mark my parting, and I yearned to have one more flight in a Meteor or Vampire to do full justice to my last sortie, with red, white and blue roundels on my wings. I was given a splendid farewell dinner in the Brampton officers’ mess, and a few days later Eve and I were invited to the Mess Summer Ball, which was a grand affair, and the Commander-in-Chief kindly made a special point of saying farewell and wishing us well for the future.
So now the time had come to pack my bags and move out of Brampton and the Royal Air Force. With my blue Alfa Romeo packed to the gunwales with luggage, I drove out of Brampton’s gate for the last time and turned east. I cruised slowly along as though reluctant to leave, and for a moment I felt a chill run down my spine, and I was shocked to experience a feeling of acute depression and loneliness. More than thirty years of comradeship, loyalty and a wealth of wonderful flying suddenly all gone, and no sign of what the future might hold. No wonder I felt so deeply depressed. And then I managed to pull myself together, and a warm feeling came over me with the prospect of a new and exciting challenge ahead. I slipped the Alfa into third gear and shot off like a rocket, scattering the autumn leaves and scaring a couple of cyclists as I swerved around them. I drove like the wind, not wishing to waste a moment in reaching our delightful new home deep in the Suffolk countryside, where the horses and Labradors would be waiting, and most importantly, my wife and family would be there to share what I hoped would be a new and exciting life together.