Chapter Twenty-two

With the coming of spring we had completed sixteen ops as a crew and Wilbur asked me one day what I intended doing.

‘Go through and finish this tour, of course. Then with fifty-two under my belt I can claim two tours. It might get me home.’

‘It’s okay with me,’ he replied, ‘but if you’re going to stop on why don’t you apply for a commission? You’d get it easily enough.’

I had never hankered to be an officer. Possibly some perverse streak in me subconsciously made me an officer-hater. My early air force impressions were of officers – some of them anyway – crawling like hell to get their commission. I put him off by saying I was losing so much money at poker, I couldn’t afford to get a commission. ‘Wait till I get a couple of hundred quid back’, I temporised, ‘then I’ll have a go.’

A few days later I was called in before the adjutant. We had a pleasant chat on what I had done in civvy life. I don’t know if he thought I was shooting a line when I explained that I had been a sales manager and earned about a thousand quid a year, but it certainly impressed him. I discovered he had been a school teacher on about five quid a week.1

He suggested I should apply for a commission as I was the only non-commissioned officer in our crew which, because of seniority and experience, must take a leading position on the squadron.

Also, my operational record marked me as a logical gunnery leader. He said Smithy, who had returned to the squadron that day after the extraction of various splinters from his person, was applying. Also, even though it wasn’t official, the crew had been recommended for decorations.

I said I would think it over. That night I saw Smithy. He was thinner and there were dark shadows under his eyes. We went into the mess after tea and discussed the position. He said he had not given a definite answer. Like me, he felt no pleasure in leaving the happy-go-lucky atmosphere of the sergeants’ mess.

Events were moving that were to change our respective minds. We received a group of reinforcements, the pilots and observers coming from the EATS in Canada. These new bods stood out as they wandered like lost souls in their new environment.

One day just after lunch I was going down to the village. At the main gate an altercation was going on and I found two of our ground crew boys being berated by a ginger-headed Australian flight lieutenant for not saluting. Coming to the rescue of the erks and seeking to put this sprog right, I butted in and told him that there was no saluting on an operational squadron; even the Groupy didn’t ask for it.

At this interruption he swung around, looked me up and down and said, ‘I suppose, sergeant, you would know your KRs?’

‘I might,’ I replied flippantly.

‘Well,’ he replied, ‘do you know that section XYZ states when an officer salutes a subordinate, the latter must reply?’

‘Ah! Wake up to yourself! You’re not in some OTU in Canada. You’re on an operational squadron, and no-one worries about such bullsh.’

‘They don’t? Well here’s something for you,’ he said, and flung me a humdinger, vibrating salute.

‘Ah, go to hell!’, I replied, and started to walk off.

The events of the next few minutes were unexpected and shattering. ‘Guards, arrest this man for insubordination!’

The guards from the watch-house, who had gathered to listen to the back-chat, grinning broadly behind his back, suddenly snapped to attention at this unexpected turn of events.

‘You’re bloody mad,’ I said. ‘You can’t do it.’

The sergeant came out from the inner office. ‘What’s the trouble?’, he asked.

‘Sergeant,’ stated the flight loot, ‘I order you to arrest this man for insubordination.’

The sergeant goggled. ‘But he’s aircrew,’ he said. ‘Been on the station a long time.’

‘You know your duty,’ was the reply.

The sergeant came across. ‘Sorry, Flight,’ he whispered, ‘but he’s got the drop on us.’

With a guard on either side, I was marched into the guard-house and placed in a cell. I was so astonished I hardly said anything. Then, as the door clanged behind me, I erupted. ‘Get me Flying Officer Cronin,’ I raged. ‘I’ll soon see if this bastard can do this to me.’2

Quite unperturbed, my adversary had the charge prepared, signed it and with a contemptuous glance in my direction, stalked out. When he was gone, the sergeant was most apologetic. ‘He’s a flight loot,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, but what the hell could I do?’

‘Get me Cronin and let me talk to him.’

It took some time to find Wilbur. When they let me out to the phone he was incredulous. ‘What the hell have you been up to? It’s only two. You can’t be full yet.’

It took a while to get my message across. He was inclined to treat it as a leg-pull. Finally, when I convinced him it was no joke, he said needlessly, ‘Wait there and I’ll be down.’

In a matter of minutes the three crew members arrived and collapsed in hopeless laughter at my plight. When they got over their mirth, Wilbur asked, ‘Is it true, sergeant, that my air gunner has been arrested for not saluting?’

‘Yes,’ replied that worthy. ‘Here’s the charge.’

Wilbur read it and said, ‘See if you can get the Group Captain, will you?’

Luckily he was in his office. I heard Wilbur explaining the position. It must have tickled them both, for there was a lot of laughter. The Groupy asked to be put on to the sergeant, his instructions being to release the prisoner and to bring the charge sheet, witnesses and officer laying the charge immediately to his office.

It was a quick trial. The charge was read, then the Groupy delivered some very terse words of advice to a very red-faced officer to the effect that if he had wanted to get the tempo and atmosphere of an operational squadron he would have found saluting was dispensed with; also that he had brought an unnecessary charge against an aircrew member who had been with the squadron since its inception and before that had done a number of operations in Bomber Command. His decision was that the charge be dismissed. He also advised the thoroughly discomfited officer to pack his bags as he was being transferred from the squadron in the morning. Dismissing everyone else, he said, ‘You stay, Beede.’

For a while he busied himself with papers and then, looking up, said, ‘It’s your own fault, Flight. Here are some papers. Take them up to the adjutant and fill them in,’ and that’s how I came to make my application for a commission. What I didn’t know at the time was that the RAF wheels, like those of justice, grind slowly. After my forms were completed I thought, ‘If I’m going to get my cash back I’ll have to move fast.’3

But a lot of things were to happen before I put up my thin blue ring. The games still continued nearly every night and I was still placating Claude with promises of a night out and getting sandwiches and teas for the boys, plus a few extras from the kitchen for myself.

Then the news came that we were to be shifted from the gilded halls of Beltwell to a smaller satellite drome some five miles away. The Vents were in disgrace. They weren’t fast or destructive enough. Their losses were too high and it took too many fighters to protect them. The truth was they should never have been used in the European sphere against frontline fighters like the 190s and improved 109s. Our drome was to go to a more important squadron.

This shift was in the nature of a demotion but the boys took it philosophically. Smithy and I were sorry to leave the pleasures of married quarters in one sense, but happy in another, for the place seemed to be peopled with the ghosts of Hally, Blondie, Hedge and others; everything reminded us of some event in which they had participated.