A FEW NIGHTS AGO, while rummaging through a stack of old manuscripts and other relics of the past, I came across a notebook in which I had once jotted down my personal and frank opinion about the fifty cadets in the Anson Term.
It is almost exactly twenty years since I was their Term Officer at Dartmouth, so you can imagine the interest with which I settled down to compare my opinions of the adolescent cadets of 1929 with the war-decorated commanders whom I know today.
How often I was wrong. Bad hats, for whom I had predicted no great future, had earned early ‘brass hats’ in later years; leading lights who had shone on the playing fields of Dartmouth had faded into obscurity in the more exacting game of life.
But fortunately—as those who knew Peter Medd in later life will bear me out—I had had my brighter moments. Against Peter’s name I found written:
‘I like this one a lot. Quiet and unassuming and always to the fore without ever being an ‘eyeserver’. Goes flat out at everything and always ready to laugh. A certain bet for Cadet Captain here and odds on for a first-class N.O. later. Very keen on flying and have promised to roar him round the sky at the first opportunity. A few more like this in naval flying, and there’ll be no holding us.’
And—thank heavens—there were a few more like Peter Medd, as the war was going to prove.
Perhaps I should explain the term ‘eyeserver’. I am not sure whether it was a general term at the time or just one of my own, but as far as I was concerned it meant one who set out to catch the selector’s eye. One who in a game of rugger let the rest of the scrum do the shoving while he waited for the break-away; who in the classroom seized every opportunity to ask a question; and who after working hours used the flimsiest excuse to knock at my cabin door.
Peter was never one of those. He pushed like mad in the scrum; never asked questions unless he definitely didn’t understand; and was a more than welcome guest on the rare occasions when he came to me for advice.
And yet, although he never made himself conspicuous, his influence over the other cadets was quite staggering. As a Cadet Captain he never shouted, but they loved and respected him. When he won a sailing race (which he did frequently) he had the gift of giving the credit to the other members of his crew—and meaning it.
In the Anson Term band Peter and I both played the banjo, I provided the showmanship, Peter the melody.
Peter always provided the melody in everything he did. And it was invariably accompanied by a quiet dignity and superb good manners.
I notice that John Hayes says in his introduction that it was I who influenced Peter to specialise in naval aviation. On looking back now and realising that naval flying was responsible both for his long imprisonment and untimely death, I might be expected to have some regrets. Apart from the fact that I would give anything to see Peter’s smiling face again, I have none. He volunteered for the youngest and most exciting branch of naval warfare with his eyes wide open and revelled in the thrill of speed amongst the clouds just as much as he adored the quiet of the countryside below. He was only to be allowed a short span, but he got the very utmost out of it.
In one of our last conversations Peter was bubbling over with enthusiasm about a scheme for interesting schoolboys in naval aviation. Unfortunately he was not to be spared to put his scheme into practice, but I trust that this book will in some way make amends by being widely read by the younger generation of today. They will find a fascinating story written in simple but moving language by one who loved life and was acutely conscious of the beauties around him. They will find the delight of Peter’s personality in every page.
So if it encourages but a few adventurous spirits to follow in his footsteps, this book will have achieved what he would have longed for above all else.
As I said of Peter twenty years ago:
‘A few more like this in naval flying, and there’ll be no holding us.’
Captain Anthony Kimmins, O.B.E., R.N. (Retd.)