Chapter Six

Late that afternoon the chosen dozen said goodbye to the rest of the gunners and entrained for a station somewhere in Norfolk. We travelled to London, arriving early in the morning, and then had to wait till 4.30 pm before our train left.

Night travelling in England was a nerve-wracking experience. All stations were blacked-out and, except for a shaded light over the name-board, there was no indication of where we were. At some stations, a voice speaking the dialect of whatever area we happened to be in called the name; as we were unable to understand these blurred and unintelligible announcements, they might as well have been calling in Chinese or Czech.1 If no-one in the carriage knew the locality, it entailed someone getting out and racing along to see just where we were. As the train stopped only a minute or so, this could be hard on the nerves, particularly if the scout came panting back to announce, ‘This is it!’ As our train stopped at every station it was 11 pm when we finally arrived.

We were met by an English flight sergeant and the usual RAF blitz­wagon and driven to the station. It was so dark we were unable to see what kind of place it was. A supper was waiting and after this was consumed we were conducted to an igloo hut with a promise that accommodation would be sorted out in the morning.

One very obvious feature of the place was the almost continuous roar of plane engines. Like lions roaring, the stillness of the night would be shattered by the sudden starting up of a motor, closely followed by a second. These would run in unison on a gradually increasing note, fall away, and start again, then sometimes splutter to a stop. We soon found that this was a diapason that was to become a part of our lives, sometimes muted, sometimes ear-shattering, day and night.

We were so tired that despite the lack of luxury we slept like logs. In the early grey morning we woke to the din of returning planes. Mac querulously complained, ‘Can’t they show some consideration and cut out some of the bloody racket?’

That morning we were paraded first before the adjutant, a dapper, middle-aged squadron leader who welcomed us to the squadron and informed us that it had a long and illustrious history, having been formed during the First World War, and he felt sure we would worthily uphold its traditions. He further stated that the aircraft we were to fly in were Wellingtons and that on the previous night the squadron had been on a strike into Germany. Preliminary checks had shown it to be a successful one.2

He then handed us over to a gunnery officer, a thin-faced flight lieutenant with a DFC. He didn’t prove as matey as the adjutant and informed us, in no uncertain terms, what was expected of us and even made an inspection in which he made several biting criticisms as to our general military appearance. Blondie growled, ‘I don’t think I’m going to like this bastard.’

Smithy, Hally, Blondie, Mac and myself found quarters in a Nissen hut.3 At lunch-time some of the crews that had been on the previous night’s operations appeared. They looked a tousle-haired, taciturn group, eating their meal in silence, although now and then one would make a remark regarding the night’s operation.

‘Glum lot of bastards,’ said Hally.

It was not till later we realised the reason for the silence – four planes had failed to return and two dozen faces had disappeared from the mess.

After lunch, five of us cadged a ride and went out to the hangars to look at the planes in which we were to fly. They appeared to be solid kites in comparison to the ones in which we had previously flown – twin-engined black-fuselaged monsters that squatted in their bays like huge black crows. The Wellington was an unusual bomber; its structure was termed ‘geodetic’, that is, its fuselage was made of ribbed latticed duralumin covered by a tough fabric. Its crew consisted of six men: pilot, co-pilot, navigator, wireless operator, front and rear gunners.

We palled up with some ground crew who were working on one of the planes in the hangar and they let us look it over, first warning us to be careful not to step off the catwalk leading down to the rear turret as one misstep would mean a foot through the cloth covering and this was a chargeable offence.

Next morning we were allocated to crews. Kiwi and I were told we were flying with a Flight Sergeant Snowden. Blondie and Hally, like ourselves, were lucky enough to be together, but the rest were placed singly. We were amused to find there was some competition to obtain our services due to the idea that because we came from Australia, the land of great open spaces, we must all be crack shots. One WAG informed Hally and Blondie that they would make ‘top-hole gunners with all the practice they had had shooting wallabies and kangaroos’. We thought he was being facetious but found that this was a generally accepted idea.

After lunch in the mess a tall, fair-haired pilot came up, introduced himself as Peter Snowden and said, ‘I believe you’re in my crew.’ He had a clipped, incisive speech, his handshake was firm and I liked him from the start. I called Kiwi over and after introductions he said, ‘You’d better come and meet the rest of the crew.’ He led us to a group of three airmen and said, ‘This is Williams our dickey pilot4, Stan Jones our WAG, and Bill Ninnes, our navigator.’

Williams was a Welshman with a big-toothed grin, Jones was a little sharp-faced Cockney, and Ninnes a tall, thin bloke, almost as dark as our Skipper was fair. He spoke the same good English. We found the Skipper was a solicitor and Ninnes was doing an engineering course at Oxford. He and the Skipper had been close friends in civvy life and were inseparable companions in the squadron. There was an awkward air of reserve between the six of us, mainly because we didn’t seem able to find a common subject of interest. Jones broke the ice a little by suggesting a trip out to see our kite, S for Sugar.

We then learnt each aeroplane on a squadron had a particular letter of the alphabet which coincided with some well-known word, i.e., A for Apple, F for Freddie, C for Charlie, S for Sugar etc. Jones explained the crew had only done one operation, a pamphlet run over France. This was a way of breaking crews in before sending them on the hazardous German trips. Generally they were uneventful ops in which, apart from some flak, nothing much happened. However, on this journey a surprise burst had severely wounded the rear gunner who was still in hospital. The front gunner had broken a leg the previous week in a game of football, hence the two replacements.

S for Sugar was a comparatively new machine, her paper run into France having been her first trip. ‘Not that they last too bloody long,’ said Jones. ‘There isn’t one kite on the squadron with more than twenty ops up.’5

‘Why don’t they do more than twenty ops?’, Kiwi enquired in all innocence.

‘They get “the chop”,’ our companion said grimly.

It was soon evident we were not going to get on with the gunnery leader. Our first difference of opinion arose the following day when we were told we were to go to Group Headquarters some twenty miles away for a week’s schooling. We mustered after lunch with our personal effects at the flight.

The day was raw and cold, a biting wind blowing in from the North Sea, with sharp intermittent showers. ‘If this is spring I wouldn’t like to see what winter’s like,’ someone commented. As we waited, a wagon with a covered top but open sides arrived to take us to our destination.

‘Christ! They don’t expect us to travel in that, do they?’, said Smithy. ‘We’ll freeze to death.’

Someone suggested that perhaps it was to take our baggage. Hally checked with the WAAF driver, a Lancashire lass, who said it was transport for gear and bods. Just then the gunnery leader arrived and barked, ‘All aboard’.

Acting as spokesman, Hally said, ‘I don’t think we should have to travel in that truck, sir. Several of these men, including myself, have colds and we’ll freeze.’

For a second he looked as though he couldn’t believe his ears, then shouted, ‘I’ll give the orders around here. Get aboard that truck or I’ll place you all on a charge.’

The boys jacked up, and eventually the exasperated officer, after a lot of bluster and threats, obtained a bus. There were three English gunners with us who were also doing the course. These blokes were flabbergasted at this flouting of authority. Gunners, it seemed, just didn’t do these things.

Training headquarters was situated in a permanent station; our quarters were large, dormitory-like affairs; the mess and surrounding buildings all had the appearance of a well-run club.

‘Here, Bournemouth apart, is where I could fight this war from,’ was Mac’s reaction.

Next morning we marched to our classroom where we were met by a rather scruffy-looking Warrant Officer with a DFM who set the ball rolling by remarking that he understood we were troublemakers and we might as well know from the beginning where we stood with him. He added that gunners were known as ‘the shit’ of the air force and had a flying life-expectancy of one hour. He added sourly, ‘Most of you will be hosed out of your turrets before you’re much older.’

Hally said he hadn’t come twelve thousand miles to be referred to as ‘shit’ and was immediately backed up by the rest of us. Happy then kept the water boiling by adding fuel to the fire.

‘You state we have a life expectancy of one hour. What’s the average duration of an operation?’

The W/O didn’t see the trap. ‘Seven to eight hours,’ he replied.

‘That means,’ said Happy, ‘most gunners don’t live to see the enemy coast.’

The instructor must have complained to his superiors, for next morning Hally, Happy and myself were told to report to the chief gunnery officer. He proved to be a conciliatory flight lieutenant who told us we were here to fight the Nazis, not our instructor, and, after a five-minute talk on co-operation, dismissed us.

The course was a rehash of the previous one, although we were given some instruction on night fighter tactics. This lost value when we found that our instructor had never done a night operation!

The W/O, after our initial difference, proved not a bad type. We reckoned he’d been so used to putting the boot in without resistance that it shattered him when he ran into some opposition. In this respect we found the average English aircrew took all that was handed out to them without complaining. The Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians, however, kicked hard against injustice.

On this course we did air-to-air firing, four flights of half-an-hour each for a total of twelve hundred rounds. At the end of the course, Happy and Mac complained bitterly that we had learned nothing new and we still hadn’t done any practical night flying or fighter affiliation.

On our return to the station, Happy, Hally and myself were again paraded before the Wingco, a middle-aged chap with cold grey eyes and a thin strip of a mouth. We had decided in advance that we would make an issue of our dispute with the instructor and not the bus incident. When he stated that he understood we had caused trouble with our instructors, Happy said that we objected to being referred to as ‘shit’. This forthright statement shocked both the adjutant, who was present, and the Wingco. ‘What do you, ahem, mean by that, flight sergeant?’, he demanded.

Happy elaborated, advising how the dispute had arisen, adding that he personally objected to being referred to in this manner and he spoke for the rest of the contingent.

The Wingco then said there was certain air force jargon which though strange to our ears was nevertheless universal in the RAF. His manner implied he could not understand why we had taken umbrage at an appellation that had common usage on all squadrons.6

Happy then declared he was not having this description applied to himself and, if necessary he would take the matter to our Australian headquarters at Kodak House. This we found was a trump card, as no CO likes tangling with headquarters, particularly an overseas one, so after a lecture on discipline and co-operation we were dismissed. We afterwards heard, but were never able to substantiate, that an order was issued to instructors that air gunners in future were not to be referred to as excreta.