Late 1916. The RFC introduces non-commissioned Aerial Gunners.
When appropriate, the RFC had been employing its mechanics as de facto observers/gunners since pre-war days but, despite authority having been granted for them to wear a flying ‘O’ in 1915, relatively few of these men had actually been awarded this distinction. Some idea of the numbers can be gained from HQ RFC’s Routine Orders for January and February 1916. During those two months the names of nine NCOs and other ranks were promulgated as having qualified as observers. By comparison, during the same period the qualifications of more than fifty officers were recognised and at least eight more were shot down while still on probation. These figures show that, while the RFC was still content to use non-commissioned aircrew, a ratio of better than 6:1 in favour of officers makes it quite clear where its preference lay.
By April 1916, however, despite HQ RFC’s confident assurance that it had ample numbers of potential officer observers on its waiting list (see pages 34-35), demand was actually beginning to outstrip supply. In that same month, therefore, having reconsidered its manning policy, the War Office instructed HQ VI Bde to begin making arrangements to train sufficient NCOs and men as gunners to fill ‘up to 50% of the establishment’ of two-seat fighter squadrons.1 This amounted to six per squadron, since the establishment of observers was about to be raised from seven to twelve per unit (see Chapter 5, Note 9). In May it was agreed that before going to Hythe to learn about gunnery these men, all of whom were expected to be found among the soldiers serving with the Expeditionary Force, ought to pass through the ground school at Reading alongside officers undergoing their initial aviation training.
It is not known how many soldiers were lucky enough to enjoy the luxury of a prolonged detachment to the UK but it is doubtful whether many (any?) did. Most were simply attached to a squadron where, if the experience of Alfred Koch is anything to go by, little provision had been made for them. Koch, a Canadian infantryman, reported to No 1 Sqn in the early summer of 1916 where he:
‘… was given no briefing by the Adjutant (or anyone else!) as to my testing (and) not a word as to what I should do with myself while waiting. Not a single introduction to anyone, NCO or officer or even airman – and it was a week before a call came to report to Captain Somebody Or Other on the aerodrome. Somebody did take pity on me and provided me with a flying coat, mitts, helmet and goggles and the pilot, standing beside the machine was the first man to take notice of me as a human being!’
Koch’s pilot spent three or four minutes briefing him on what to look for (it was an artillery co-operation sortie) ‘and then it was into the wild blue yonder for the first time.’2
During the summer of 1916 two policy decisions were to aggravate the already serious shortage of manpower, making it increasingly necessary to substitute non-commissioned personnel for officers. In June General Haig requested that the number of squadrons serving with the BEF be virtually doubled to fifty-six.3 This request was duly approved, more or less doubling the number of back-seaters that would be required, bearing in mind that this demand came on top of the recent publication of a revised squadron establishment which had involved a 50% increase in strength to eighteen aircraft per unit.4
Most of the aeroplanes that would have been flown in by the early unbadged air mechanic gunners were BE2cs. This one, 4128, was photographed while on the strength of No 12 Sqn at Avesnes-le-Comte in 1916. (J M Bruce/G S Leslie collection)
Oddly enough, while the latter edict had sanctioned the immediate provision of six additional pilots, bringing the total to eighteen, as previously noted (see page 31), the entitlement to observers had been raised from seven to only twelve. This anomaly may have been due to the fact that the RFC had not yet finished implementing a decision taken in March which would result in the aeroplane types flown by squadrons being standardised. At this stage some units were still operating both single- and two-seaters of which only the latter would have required an observer.
That said, it seems more likely that the failure to provide more observers will have reflected the impending availability of the recently-authorised ‘up to six’ aerial gunners per unit and an intention to use them in addition to, rather than instead of, officers. This conjecture is substantially confirmed by the fact that when the formal establishment of back-seaters was eventually increased to eighteen per unit in September the announcement included the proviso that ‘not more than twelve will be officers, the remainder to be Serjeants.’5 Note that the contemporary use of nomenclature was still rather loose, the published formal establishment (correctly) reflecting the addition of six NCO ‘aerial gunners’ whereas the covering letter referred to them as ‘observers’.
The numbers volunteering from the ranks of the BEF had been nothing like enough to keep pace with this sort of demand and in October the War Office decided to start selecting its own gunners from the pool of soldiers being recruited directly into the RFC at home. This time the requirement was expressed as ‘six gunner observers’ per squadron, all of whom were to be formally trained at Hythe. Furthermore, it was now being envisaged that gunners might fly with squadrons of all types, not just those operating in the fighter role as had originally been intended. It is perhaps worth pointing out that, despite the label that was sometimes rather carelessly applied to these prospective noncommissioned aircrew to begin with, they were not actually intended to be regarded as ‘observers’ and they were not fully trained as such.
Training of RFC men at home eventually began at the end of 1916, the first course, whose members are listed at Figure 9, graduating from Hythe on 22 December on which date they were transferred to the Recruits Depot at Farnborough for onward posting. The increased training commitment which this had imposed upon Hythe meant that a corresponding reduction had to be made in order to accommodate it. The School of Aerial Gunnery6 therefore became a dedicated aircrew training establishment, ceasing to train tradesmen as of 1 January 1917 on which date the RFC School of Armourers was set up at Farnborough. Thenceforth all armourers were to be trained at Farnborough, those selected as prospective gunners then being detached to Hythe for an appropriate course.
This restructuring of the armament trade had evidently created some confusion and the War Office clarified the situation by circulating a summary of the new arrangements in February. This document outlined the responsibilities of the various grades of armourer and stated how many of each were to serve with each type of squadron, and in what ranks.7 Since gunner observers were included in this digest, it would seem that they were initially regarded as armourers who flew, rather than as aviators who operated a gun. This perception was to change over the next few months, however, and these men would eventually come to be regarded as professional aircrew, the first indication of this shift in emphasis coming before the end of February when the term ‘gunner observer’ was officially superseded by that of ‘aerial gunner’.8
1917. Squadron-trained non-commissioned gunners.
Although the RFC had begun to recruit and train its own gunners at home by the beginning of 1917, Hythe had the capacity to handle only ten-man courses to begin with and this was hardly enough to meet the demand. Inevitably, therefore, it proved necessary to sustain the practice of on-the-job training for those men who were still being recruited in France. For the remainder of the year, therefore, two-seater squadrons, particularly those assigned to the (Army) Wings, continued to misemploy some of their own mechanics and to receive a trickle of bombardiers, fusiliers, riflemen, drivers, sappers and so on whom they were supposed to turn into airmen as best they could, using their own resources.
Fig 9. The first group of RFC gunners to be formally trained; they graduated from Hythe on 22 December 1916.
These locally-recruited men did not fall into quite the same category as the professional gunners graduating from Hythe, but they were expected to do the same job. Since quality control was a local problem, it fell to HQ RFC to lay down a qualification standard for its squadron-trained gunners.9 They were to complete one month’s probationary service during which they were required to pass a series of tests which were to be administered (nominally) at brigade level. The tests examined both technical knowledge and practical skill, requiring, for instance: a grasp of the general principles of sighting theory; considerable familiarity with the Lewis gun (including the ability to clear stoppages and to change certain components within set time limits); satisfactory camera-gun work; and assessed live firing exercises, both on the range and air-to-ground. On clearing these hurdles, squadron-trained gunners were certified as being competent and authorised to wear an observers badge.
Rather surprisingly, no formal requirement was laid down as to how much time a gunner needed to spend in the air before being awarded his flying ‘O’. In practice, however, it seems that fifty hours was commonly regarded as the minimum. This figure certainly crops up repeatedly in the memoirs of Arch Whitehouse. Whitehouse was a soldier, an American, with some previous knowledge of machine guns, who transferred to the RFC and was immediately posted to No 22 Sqn as a prospective gunner. Some extracts from one of his books, in which he describes the training he received, provide an interesting comment on the way in which the formally promulgated procedures were actually implemented.10
‘We learned that we were supposed to take certain lectures in our spare time, and we were given more instruction in the Vickers gun as well as in the air-type Lewis. At times we were shown the various aerial cameras and how to use them. Map-reading and some primary instruction in Morse code were also given, but since we were not equipped to carry out artillery shoots, any form of telegraphy was wasted on us. […] Then there was some vague programme of camera-guns and bombs […] above all we were first-class machine gunners. We were blindfolded and placed behind Lewis guns and timed to see how fast we could take them apart and assemble them again. Blindfolded we fingered different types of ammunition until we could tell without looking at the base markings whether we were handling ordinary, tracer or armour-piercing rounds. […] All these periods of instruction were used to grade us. After the tests the results were considered, and when we had put in our fifty hours over the line we could claim our observer’s wing.’
Fig 10. The distribution of non-pilot aircrew serving with RFC squadrons in France at the end of March 1917. Note: that only three qualified NCO observers (indicated by asterisks) remained, compared to a year before when there had been twenty-seven of them; that No 23 Sqn was disposing of its back-seaters on conversion to SPADs; that No 53 Sqn was re-equipping with RE8s; and that the vast majority of aerial gunners were ranked as corporals or below.
Considering that few of the men transferring to the RFC from elsewhere had received any previous instruction of any relevance, the training standard being demanded of them was very high. Furthermore, becoming an aviator could involve a considerable degree of ‘culture shock’, the sudden contrast between being stationary in a trench and travelling at high speed several thousand feet above one proving to be an overwhelmingly disorientating experience for some. As Frank Courtney put it, writing of his experiences while flying 1½ Strutters with No 45 Sqn in 1917: ‘Too often, however, these unsung heroes were airsick in the whirlings of a dogfight, or else they used the gun installation as something to hang onto instead of to shoot with.’11
Under the circumstances, it was hardly surprising that a significant proportion of locally-trained soldier-gunners failed to make the grade. It was only to be expected that, being familiar with aeroplanes, air mechanics would be more successful in adapting to the airborne environment than infantrymen and this proved to be the case. In March 1917, for instance, although only 56% of the gunners on strength (116 of the 206 noted at Figure 10) were RFC men, all but one of the thirty-five who were qualified – a disproportionate 97% – had been internally recruited.12
Thereafter, the numbers of aerial gunners increased only slightly (there were 232 in August13 and 255 in November,14 falling back to 230 by the following January15 – see Figure 13 on page 95). To these figures we must add between two and three times as many commissioned observers so that the total of back-seaters on the strength of the squadrons operating in France during the latter half of 1917 ran at something in excess of 800. Whatever else they did, all of these men acted as aerial gunners and the crucial importance of this activity was eventually recognised in April when a dedicated Branch was set up within the Directorate of Air Organisation to deal with all gunnery-related matters.16
One other point should perhaps be made. As noted above, the letter of 8 September 1916, which had announced the establishment of six gunners per squadron, had specifically stated that they were to be sergeants (see Note 5). This had been an error, however, necessitating the despatch of a second letter stating that ‘although approval is given for these additional Observers (sic) to hold the rank of Serjeant, it does not of necessity follow that they should be of that rank.’17 Nevertheless, when referring to these men generically, there was a tendency to use the term ‘NCO gunner’, creating the impression that many of them wore three stripes. In fact, only a handful of gunners were senior NCOs, the vast majority of them flying as humble privates. Of the 232 non-commissioned gunners serving in France at the end of August 1917, for instance, fewer than a dozen sported three stripes.18 This situation did not change until 1918 when, as explained below, the gunner’s trade was absorbed by that of the non-commissioned observer, all of whom automatically became sergeants on qualification.
An FE2b night bomber, A5478 of No 100 Sqn, loaded with four 25 lb bombs under each wing and a 230 pounder under the nacelle. (J M Bruce/G S Leslie collection)
It is also worth noting that the ‘six per squadron’ allocation was understood to mean six qualified men plus as many on probation as were needed/could reasonably be handled. At the end of August 1917, for instance, the RFC had thirty-three two-seater squadrons in France, representing a notional entitlement to a total of 198 gunners. There were actually 232 on strength only eighty-one of whom were formally qualified, the other 151 still being on probation.
1917. Social problems arising from the introduction of Aerial Gunners and crews of mixed status.
Apart from the difficulty of finding enough of them, there was another problem associated with the introduction of noncommissioned gunners which should not be overlooked. The comparatively relaxed atmosphere which prevailed within the RFC, along with a gradual erosion of social distinctions brought about by the shared experience of war, had been insufficient to overcome entirely the ingrained class consciousness of the era. As a result, some of the more Edwardian- (even Victorian-) minded among the officers found it difficult to accept the presence of NCOs, let alone private soldiers, on anything like equal terms. Nevertheless, operating as it did at the leading edge of contemporary technology, the RFC was as liberal as any branch of the Services in recognising and exploiting potential, as was clearly demonstrated by the long-established practice of squadrons encouraging their groundcrew to fly. For a pilot, however, there was a world of difference between flying with a familiar and respected mechanic of proven ability and entrusting his life to a total stranger whose level of proficiency had been certified by some remote higher authority whose own competence was sometimes regarded as being questionable. Some idea of the perceived limitations of gunners can be gleaned from the recollections of Flt Lt M Moore, writing of his experiences with No 45 Sqn.19
‘Officer observers were very scarce (in early 1917) and increasing use was made of air gunners. Though some of these were very efficient they were unable to ‘mother’ fresh pilots in their work as could the experienced observer, and consequently they were at a disadvantage in a fight. The use of these inexperienced personnel cost us dearly and heavy losses were not without effect on the morale of newcomers. Short of curtailing operations, however, it is difficult to see how it could have been avoided.’
Moore was certainly not alone in expressing reservations about the value of the new breed of aviator. Seventy years after reporting to No 100 Sqn as an observer in mid-1917, (then Lt) J A Stedman was to recall his Flight Commander’s initial briefing. Capt H D Harman’s inspiring message reportedly ran along the lines of, ‘We’ve got some Aerial Gunners here and they’re no bloody good – might as well carry a couple of sandbags as ballast, now you my lad have got to earn your keep.’20
The back-seater (of, in this case, a DH 4) often had to stand up in order to bring his gun to bear. Lacking a safety harness, he was clearly at risk of being thrown out of the aircraft by a violent or unexpected manoeuvre. It was very difficult to communicate in a combat situation, so a great deal depended upon the level of trust and understanding which existed between the members of a crew. It was difficult to establish the necessary degree of mutual confidence if they lived on different sides of a rigid social divide. (Sqn Ldr H Cockerall via W H Wiggins)
There were three factors which made it almost inevitable that gunners would be held in relatively low esteem – at least to begin with. First, they were an innovation and, as such, regarded with suspicion by the more conservative members of the community. Secondly, their training was restricted in scope, compared to that of a fully qualified observer and, finally, the deference which a non-commissioned gunner was obliged to show an officer pilot could make it difficult to work in close harmony, which was essential if a crew, especially a fighter crew, was to be successful.
There is some evidence to suggest that this lack of regard was reciprocated. If the testimony of Arch Whitehouse is to be accepted, it would appear that some officer observers were not above putting pressure on gunners to take their place on patrols. Furthermore, there was a perception among non-commissioned gunners that officers had an easy ride, as most of them were shipped home to become pilots after accumulating relatively few flying hours, whereas gunners had to resign themselves to flying ‘for as long as we last.’21 It is doubtful whether the first of these practices was very widespread but, although some gunners were commissioned and/or became pilots, there may have been some truth in the second allegation.
To minimise the social problems, gunners were often paired with NCO pilots but the extent to which this could be achieved was very limited. Operational sergeant pilots were a comparative rarity in the RFC, whereas non-commissioned gunners became quite numerous so the majority of them had to fly with officers. There was a lot more to being a crew than simply flying and fighting together, however; ideally, its members also played together, lived together, often sharing a hut or tent, and they ate and drank in the same mess. Almost every aspect of their lives was conducted in close proximity and on quite intimate terms, all of which could contribute to a successful partnership in the air.
To put some of this into the words of one who was actually there, consider the writings of Lt Walter Noble, who flew with No 20 Sqn in 1918:22
‘Nothing is worse for an Observer’s nerves than to fly with a varied assortment of Pilots – good, bad and indifferent. Co-operation between the occupants of a fighting-plane is essential, if their names are not to adorn the list of Missing.’ And ‘… every useful Observer paired off with a pilot with whom he would invariably fly. Not only that, but in many cases they would become like David and Jonathan, inseparable during the intervals of flying. Thus they got to know one another intimately, and as a result became very dependable and useful.’23
Noble was referring to all-officer crews, of course, but there were, perforce, many crews of mixed status. Since officers and NCOs had separate messes and private soldiers were quartered elsewhere, it was virtually impossible for a mixed crew to share their off-duty hours. As a result, they cannot have experienced the essential intimacy which Noble describes and the consequent lack of mutual understanding must inevitably have degraded their effectiveness in combat. This problem will have been compounded in units where non-commissioned personnel were not even permanently assigned to a particular pilot, their names merely appearing on a roster when they were required for flying.
Even if they had wanted to, it would have been quite impractical, for instance, for a sergeant (let alone a private) to try to introduce an officer into his own social group on informal terms or vice versa. Apart from embarrassing his colleagues, such behaviour would have flown in the face of normal Service protocol to such an extent that any CO would have felt obliged to curtail it on the grounds that it was prejudicial to discipline and good conduct.
The inevitable sense of separateness did little to foster a close working relationship, as later described by No 6 Sqn’s Sgt G Eddington:24
‘I knew what time I was going up but I didn’t even know what job I was on until the observer came out – always an officer in my case. I said, ‘Good morning, Sir’ and we got on with our job. When we came down he got out and went to make his report. He did all the reporting – what he’d found, what he’d seen, what he’d photographed. I went to the sergeants mess and I had no further contact.’
Eddington was a pilot, but the air of detachment and lack of involvement that he recalled would have been much the same for a gunner. Unfortunately, the sense of alienation could extend beyond the working environment as, in contrast to the officers mess, where most of the members were aircrew, the sergeants mess and the billets of other ranks were inhabited largely by technical and administrative personnel. Where only a handful of aviators was involved, the scarcity of colleagues with similar interests and with whom to share mutual experiences could heighten the feeling of isolation.
The authorities were certainly aware of this problem but it was symptomatic of the general antipathy towards back-seaters that their plight failed to provoke any positive action. It was not until the last few months of the war that any serious consideration was given to the provision of messes exclusively for the use of NCO aircrew, and only then because (as discussed later) it was anticipated that there would be a substantial influx of sergeant pilots. Where NCO observers were present, they too were entitled to use these facilities, but no instructions were ever issued to provide messes for back-seaters alone. In the event, few of these dedicated messes were ever established. Most non-commissioned aircrew were obliged to use the mess appropriate to their rank and when they represented only a small proportion of its membership it could be a very lonely existence. George Eddington again:24
‘I couldn’t make friends. I had nothing in common – I didn’t have access to the officers mess; I didn’t know what they thought. In the sergeants mess they were all fitters and riggers – I wasn’t in their world any more than they were in mine.’
None of these difficulties should be overstated – but neither should they be ignored. While the officer/NCO/other ranks relationship could be awkward, this did not have to be the case if the situation was handled with a little tact and understanding. Mixed status crews were certainly not universally regarded as being a problem; if they had been the system would simply have become unworkable. Most of the problems eased with the passage of time. Growing numbers made the gunners seem progressively less strange, the newcomers gradually merging into the background to become familiar and unremarkable members of the aircrew community. Furthermore, the quality of gunnery training improved significantly during 1917, making it quite clear that marksmanship had nothing whatever to do with rank.
Even the differences which were rooted in class prejudice eased as the war dragged on. Having largely exhausted the nation’s supply of Public School boys, it became increasingly necessary to recruit officers from much lower layers of the social strata and to commission large numbers of men from the ranks, both trends further serving to dilute the old distinctions.
Before leaving this topic, there is one other aspect of contemporary social mores of which we should, perhaps, remind ourselves, and that concerns attitudes towards discipline. In an age of the ‘officer and gentleman’ there was some scope for handling infringements of behavioural codes, and even the law, by members of the officers mess with some degree of discretion. It would appear, however, that a more robust approach could sometimes be adopted when dealing with the military proletariat, as described by Sir John Slessor, recalling an incident that occurred on No 5 Sqn in 1917 involving a character called Morris who was:25
‘…the only NCO gunner in the squadron as far as I remember. He was […] moody and withdrawn and subject to sudden tempers. In one such he suddenly became mutinous and violently abusive, for which he collected a dose of Field Punishment No 1, which included several hours a day strapped to the wheel of a limber in the open.’
Sir John goes on to acknowledge that this was ‘a stupid and grossly undignified form of punishment that would not be tolerated […] today’ (ie in 1969). How true! But while it is, of course, a little disturbing to discover that the British military establishment was still using its own version of the pillory in WW I, this writer was surprised to learn that such treatment was being meted out to aviators. One wonders whether any pilots were ever strapped to a gun carriage and left out in the rain …
________________________
1 AIR1/1169/204/5/1291. War Office letter FS/444(MA1) dated 26 April 1916.
2 Quoted by Norman Franks and Mike O’Connor in Number One in Peace and War (2000), pp10-11.
3 AIR1/520/16/12/1. GHQ letter OB/679 dated 15 June 1916.
4 AIR1/1291/204/11/83. War Office letter 87/6023(AO1) dated 1 June 1916 covered the revised establishment for an eighteen-aircraft squadron.
5 AIR1/405/15/231/46. Approval for an increase in the overall establishment of observers from twelve to eighteen per squadron was notified by War Office letter 87/RFC/37(AO1a) dated 8 September 1916.
6 To reflect its increasing involvement with aircrew training, the Machine Gun School at Hythe had been upgraded in status and restyled the School of Aerial Gunnery on 13 September 1916, Lt-Col L A Strange being appointed as its first Commandant. Although its role did not change substantially after it had become an exclusively aircrew training facility in January 1917, it was to be redesignated twice more before the Armistice (see Chapter 12, Note 3). Later COs were, from 6 February 1917, Lt-Col H E Chaney, and Lt-Col G R Moser from 1 August 1917 until 9 March 1918, by which time Hythe had ceased to be the sole gunnery training centre and had become just one of a growing number of tactical training schools.
7 AIR1/1266/204/9/64. The revised arrangements for personnel employed as armourers were contained in AO 323 dated 1 February 1917. While this document had been intended to clarify the situation, in one respect it may actually have added to the confusion. As a result of its having been carelessly expressed, the section dealing with assignments had allocated six gunner observer sergeants to all squadrons, specifically including those flying single-seaters. Fortunately, this error was not reflected in subsequent formal amendments to unit establishments.
8 AIR1/997/204/5/1241. The term ‘aerial gunner’ was introduced to identify the professional non-commissioned machine gunners serving on two-seater squadrons by AO 336 dated 13 February 1917.
9 AIR1/1135/204/5/22224. The qualification standards to be achieved by locally-trained gunners were notified to all five Brigade Headquarters by Brig-Gen P W Game in HQ RFC letter 2047G dated 16 March 1917.
10 Arch Whitehouse, The Fledgling (1965), pp130-131.
11 Frank T Courtney. Flight Path (1972), p102.
12 AIR1/1297/204/11/139. Nominal rolls of officers and non-commissioned aircrew serving with the RFC overseas in March 1917.
13 AIR1/1301/204/11/158. Nominal roll of officers and non-commissioned aircrew serving with the RFC overseas in August 1917.
14 AIR1/1302/204/11/162. Nominal roll of officers and non-commissioned aircrew serving with the RFC overseas in November 1917.
15 AIR1/1214/204/5/2630. Nominal roll of officers and non-commissioned aircrew serving with the RFC overseas in January 1918.
16 AIR1/390/15/231/13. AO 415 of 24 April 1917 announced the establishment of the post of AO(G) to deal with gunnery-related policy within the Directorate of Air Organisation and, within the Air Equipment Directorate, the post of AE(G) to handle associated provisioning and supply aspects.
17 AIR1/1291/204/11/83. War Office letter 87/RFC/37(AO1a) dated 8 September 1916.
18 AIR1/1301/204/11/158. Nominal roll of officers and non-commissioned aircrew serving with the RFC overseas in August 1917.
19 This extract is taken from the first edition of The Hawk, published in 1928.
20 As told to Trevor Foreman and reported in an article describing Stedman’s wartime experiences published in 1989 in Cross & Cockade International Journal, Vol 20, No 2.
21 Arch Whitehouse, op cit, p129.
22 W Noble. With a Bristol Fighter Squadron (1920), pp41-42.
23 It is assumed that Noble’s comparing the relationship between a pilot and his observer to that of David and Jonathan, and invoking an image of consequent intimacy, was overly graphic and that it should not be interpreted as implying some form of biblical homoeroticism.
24 George Wirth Eddington (958) was a pre-war RFC air mechanics (he had enlisted in November 1913) who subsequently became an operational pilot; although decorated with the MM he was never commissioned. His personal recollections are in the Sound Archives of the Imperial War Museum, the extracts presented here being taken from passages reproduced in Nigel Steel’s and Peter Hart’s Tumult in the Clouds (1997), p302.
25 Sir John Slessor. These Remain (1969), p71. ‘Morris’ was actually 1AM Arthur Morley.