Training

Life as a regular       Harry Jones

'Ever since I was a boy I wanted to fly, just to get my feet off the ground. I wasn't well-educated enough to go in as a pilot so I had to start at the bottom and work my way up. I was an aircraft hand on general duties until they started training me and my training went on right through my life in the airforce.

I qualified as a rigger looking after the air frame, but they asked for volunteers and I qualified as an air gunner. I went for an aircrew interview and it was pointed out that most of the people who got their feet off the ground were the other side, the blue bloods. Most of the pilots in those days were ex-public school and it was only in 1937and 1938 that they started bringing in observers who had been through apprentice school as a fitter or rigger. I was never one of the elite. I had to go the long way round.'

Harry Jones,
Bomber Command gunner

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A tough training       Memoir of a young New Zealander, 1939

'Since we were destined for Bomber Command, night flying practices began early in the training programme. On our first night detail we had just turned into wind on the flare-dotted grass runway when Bob Whitehead, who was acting as first pilot, gave a horrified shout. At the far end of the runway there was an intense burst of flames. The aircraft that had taken off ahead of us had crashed on take-off. We were instructed by Flying Control to abort the sortie and return to dispersal.

When events were pieced together it appeared that the trainee pilot of the crashed Wellington, who was short of stature, may have put down the aircraft's nose as he stretched down for the lever that retracted the undercarriage. He also caused the aircraft to swerve when only a few feet from the ground and it hit another aircraft dispersed on the airfield boundary. When the Wellington crashed and burst into flames the fuselage ruptured on one side allowing one member of the crew who was sitting at the rest-bed position to escape. But the remainder were incinerated, and l had witnessed the end of the first member of our New Zealand course to become a casualty. It was the gentle and happy Maori, 19-year-old Doug Rewa.

As the war progressed and training casualties mounted, funerals became commonplace, but I can recall accompanying Doug's bier along the road to the cemetery on the outskirts of Bassingbourn village. His coffin on its carriage was piled high with wreaths and, in the warmth of a summer's afternoon, the pervasive scent of the flowers accompanied the sad procession for the length of the journey. He was the third serviceman to be buried there, but now there are six long rows of graves, all with the neat headstones provided by the Imperial War Graves Commission, to indicate mutely the toll exacted during final training.

Finally we were detached to Jurby in the Isle of Man for air-gunnery and bombing training. On our last night there we strolled to the smoky local inn for a final visit. There was little laughter on that occasion and a tendency to stare into our beer with a contemplative look for, without a word on the subject being said, we knew that the time was imminent for all our training to be put to the acid test.'

Memoir of a young New Zealander in Bomber Command, 1939

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A Canadian training       Wilkie Wanless

'There was a great response in Western Canada to the British Empire Air Training scheme. All the flying schools in Canada became training centres under the supervision of the airforce. There was a big manning pool opened in Edmonton where I lived. We stayed there a few weeks, but they didn't have any stores or uniforms. We finally got kitted out and we had to go to different stations on what they called Tarmac Duty, or guard duty. I went to a service flying school in southern Alberta, where I was driving a tractor Then they opened an Initial Training School at Saskatoon and we went over there on one of the coldest days of the winter. I had not been issued with a great coat, and we had to march 2 or 3 miles up the road to the training station.

Most of the navigation instructors were ex-schoolteachers, recruited from schools. Some of us who didn't have as great an education as others had to learn logarithms and so forth. We were billeted in this old school and there were blackboards up all over the place. At night those who understood navigation and logarithms, and I didn't know a logarithm from a hole, taught us our classes. One was a mathematical genius, and he used to stand up and pound the blackboard because we were all so dumb. "Don't you guys get it?" he would say and he would bang the board until chalk came out of the cracks. That is where we were selected as pilot or navigator or wireless operator.'

Wilkie Wanless,
Bomber Command rear gunner

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Night flying       Charles Patterson

'My total night flying training was one solo circuit in an Oxford. Six months later at Upwood l had to night-fly a Blenheim with no dual. I was told to take a Blenheim up with my air-gunner and take off at dusk and keep going round and round until it was dark. I had to do this on the basis of one solo circuit. You are in a completely strange and alien environment, doing everything entirely by instruments. Your whole technique of approach and landing is entirely different with a flarepath.

The next night my entire crew were sent off round England at night time. We had to do two cross-countries, come back to a beacon and then do another one. We were up for about 2 hours and then the instructions were that we circled, found a flashing beacon and then flew 2 minutes on a certain course before we saw the flarepath. I did this and it was just black after 2 minutes. Back to the beacon and try again. When I'd done this about six times I was getting quite desperate. I thought I'd gone mad or must be doing something wrong. Then suddenly the flarepath came on. They had been telling us from the ground what was happening but we were not receiving it. There were German intruders and that was why they had put the flarepath out.

I got down and landed, immensely relieved, and so were my crew because they were stuck with this pupil pilot who'd never done any night flying before. The one after came in and crashed on the flarepath and burst into flames. That caused panic and uproar. The ones that were still up were told to go and circle the beacon and wait for further instructions. At the end of the night, out of the six of us who'd gone flying that night, three were written off and one of the other three, who'd been told to go and circle the beacon after the crash, was forgotten about in the panic and he went round and round the beacon till he ran out of petrol and killed himself. Of the 2l crews on our OTU course, six were written off before we even got on a squadron.'

Charles Patterson,
Bomber Command pilot

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A chance of survival       John Gee

' I came back after training in Rhodesia in summer skies on single-engined aircraft. I got posted in the winter in total blackout to a heavy bomber Operational Training Unit. I was scared stiff. We used to taxi around, particularly at night time, literally praying that we hadn't forgotten some essential part of the cockpit. There was no real system of instruction: Take off, go round and land, and the same thing again and again. In the three or four weeks I was at that 0TU, 22 Wellingtons crashed due to the inexperience of the pilots and engine failure. If you passed through the OTU training you were bound to get through operations.

I arrived on 99 Squadron at Waterbeach. I met the Commanding Officer and my Flight Commander. They were quizzing me about how much flying I'd done. I had a total of 230 hours flying, of which only 50 were on twin-engined aircraft. That was all on the Wellington. I hadn't flown any other twin-engined aircraft before, and only 15 hours had been done at night, and here I was posted on to a heavy bomber night squadron. I could see the look on their faces and I wasn't a bit surprised when we left their offices and the adjutant said to me, "John, have you made your will?" I said that I hadn't, and he said, "Right, we'll soon sort that out for you." He sent for one of the pilots who was a solicitor by profession and within 10 minutes we made my will. I think my estate consisted of one bicycle and a cricket bat, so it didn't take long to do. But they thought my chances of getting through were virtually nil.'

John Gee,
Bomber Command pilot

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Swinging a transfer       Charles Patterson

'While I was at Lyneham an aeroplane came in and landed and stopped its engines, a twin-engined aeroplane. The pilot came out through the roof and I thought it was the most charismatic and glamorous thing I'd ever seen and I asked what it was and they said it was a Mark IV Blenheim. I decided from that moment that's what I was going to fly, and while I finished my intermediate training on twin-engined Oxfords at Brize Norton and got my wings I'd been pestering my instructor all the way through to get me on to Blenheims.

Of course, when the time came I found I was posted to Kinloss up in the north of Scotland to a Whitley operational training unit. My heart sank at the news, but when I actually saw them in action I was appalled. I'd never seen such a dreadful, boring looking thing - nose down, going at what looked like about 50 miles an hour. As soon as I arrived at the OTU I had an interview with the Wing Commander. I said could he get me posted away on to Blenheims, and he said no... So I started to fly this Whitley and I found that flying it was exactly what I'd dreaded; it was slow and cumbersome and heavy and unresponsive. And then after having had one or two dual-control circuits, I hit upon a wonderful scheme. I'd fly it around all right, do the approach all right and then when I got to about 50 or 60 feet above the ground I'd suddenly go all helpless and say it was all too big and heavy and I couldn't pull the stick back properly or use the rudders properly. The instructor at first thought it was quite genuine and tried to get it right, then he got very angry and told me to bloody well get on with it. He had a talk with the Wing Commander and said this chap is a menace. The Wing Commander said to me, "Well, you're to be posted to a Blenheim OTU and leave the Station as quickly as possible. You're quite mad," he said, "You realise that they operate in daylight and have horrendous casualties?"

My overriding wish and desire to fly Blenheims took precedence over everything and I was delighted... The moment I got in a Blenheim with the instructor and he told me to take off and I opened the throttles and felt this surge of power and the taking off - the lightness - I knew it was for me, absolutely my plane."

Charles Patterson,
Bomber Command pilot

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Between peace
& war

Between peace
and war

Joining the WAAFs

A WAAFs day

A difficult night duty

An American invasion

Between peace & war

Between peace and war       Wing Commander Rod Rodley DSO DFC AE

'I don't think anyone in history has been required to fight such a war as the Bomber Command crewman. He was fighting, but he didn't see the effect of his blows, he seldom felt the effects of his enemy's blows, or if he did it was sudden death. Then in the morning you all break up with the coming of dawn, go back to your airfields and say, "Well, that's it for another night".

You would report to your aircrew station, go to bed, get up about 11 o'clock and report into flights about 2 o'clock. If you were lucky enough you had that evening off. We used to do about two on, two off or two on, one off. If you were on again it was just a repeat of the previous night's routine, but if you were off then you got your little banger out, or your friend's banger and went down to Cambridge and reinserted yourself into civilian life. It was a strange atmosphere. I often wonder how the civilians looked upon us because we used to make sure that we enjoyed ourselves. It wasn't worth saving money. What was the use of a roll of banknotes in your back pocket if you were going off again tomorrow night? You spent and drank.

There were one or two saints among us, but not many. To the civilians standing alongside us at the bar we must have looked a very strange bunch. Many of them said they envied us the camaraderie we had. We also used to meet American 8th Air Force crew in the local bars in Cambridge. We had a little harmless enmity between us. They would, of course, have the best-looking girls because they had the most money but we had the best-looking aircraft. We made sure on the next day on the night flying test that we went over towards the American fields until you could find a Fortress in the air somewhere. You would stalk it, make sure you had about 5,000 feet above him and then you would dive past him making sure that you feathered an engine on his side so that he would be chugging along in his Fortress and see a Lancaster go sailing past with one engine feathered on his side. That was great fun.'

Wing Commander,
Rod Rodley DSO DFC AE

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Joining the WAAFS       Eileen Richards, WAAF

'I saw WAAFs driving in convoy one morning. You didn't see many women drivers in those days, so it seemed very exciting to me. I thought I'd like to have a go at driving heavy lorries. I put my age on a list. I was getting on for 17, but when I first thought about joining I was 15. I don't know if it was easy for most girls to get in under age but I managed it. I liked wearing uniform, apart from the hat. I was on a few charges for not wearing a hat. All kinds joined. There was a chorus girl, one was a farmer's daughter... The first day we arrived there were hundreds of girls with suitcases and civilian clothes. They sent trucks to pick us up and we all paraded in a hall. Then one of the WAAF officers came in and said we all had to strip. Then we all paraded and someone looked for nits in your hair. That was the worst thing. It shocked most of us... The first night we were all in beds which had to be stacked in threes in the morning. I could hear some of the girls in the night crying.'

Eileen Richards,
WAAF in Bomber Command

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A WAAF's day       Eileen Richards, WAAF

'We were asked to drive anything and everything. We had a licence to drive vehicles up to 3 tons. We did crew coaches, taking the crews out to the aircraft. I was an ambulance driver for some of the time. Sometimes we would be asked to drive a staff car with a high-ranking officer, sometimes the ration wagon, when you drove round to all the different Messes. We did a lot of crew coaches, which we all liked because we would chat to the fellas.

We would get up about 7am, unless we had been on night duty. Over to the Mess for breakfast and then to your Motor Transport section. If you had a vehicle allotted to you, you would then have an inspection. We also had to do 500 and 1,000 mile inspections. I don't know how I got through that. I used to get one of the chaps to help me.

We used to get leave, but we were always glad to get back. I used to get bored after a while. We had ten days leave four times a year and I always wanted to go back after five days seeing the family and being home. We were really like a lot of kids. We were all very young. Most of us were teenagers. There was a dark side of it. When you picked up crews and took them out you never discussed where they were going They were very good at hiding their feelings, and we all tried to take our cue from them. We didn't want to admit that this was life and death. I think they would not have shown anything but it must have been there, the fear. I always found that if you picked them up after they had been over they were very quiet. They were very tired but so quiet. I look back now and I feel so, I can cry now about things more than I did then.'

Eileen Richards,
Bomber Command WAAF

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A difficult night duty       Mollie Nielson, WAAF

'The night of this raid, I was on duty (as wireless operator) and of course I knew the letter of the kite was L for Love and when it came through followed by a few letters everything went blank. I took off my headphones and said to the duty officer "That was Allan's plane" and was promptly told to put my headphones back on. I was in a state when I came of duty at 8am and went back to my billet. No way could I go to bed and decided to go for a coffee at the NAAFI. As I stepped out of the door, Allan came riding up the pathway on his bike. Now WAAF Billets were totally out of bounds to all males and the first thing I said to Allan was "You are not allowed here". Allan's reply was unprintable but a big hug put it right. We then went off to sick quarters to have the perspex splinters removed from his eyelids. Only people who actually worked on an operational aerodrome knew the fun and laughter we had together and also the terrible sadness and tears that we shed. We often stood at the side of the runway and watched those heavy aircraft thundering down the runway to take off for a raid and as we waved them off we wondered how many would return. No one can imagine the bravery of those young men knowing as they flew into the night that it could be their last night alive'.

Mollie Nielson
WAAF RT Operator

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An American invasion       Pip Beck, WAAF

'The Americans arrived in Flying Fortresses! Forty-nine of them. They were diverted to Barford on their way back from a daylight operation because their base at Podington in Northants was closed in bad weather. It was an incredible sight as one after another the B-17s came in. I thought they were never going to stop. Eventually, they were dispersed all around the airfield... I was making tea, so started giving cups of tea to the Americans as they came up, feeling that they must need it. But soon I ran out of tea and could do no more. The Met girls from downstairs produced another supply but that was rapidly exhausted. There were Americans crowding out Control, in the Met Office, sitting wearily on the stairs, and sitting outside, men in leather jackets and flying boots, hung about with flying gear. There were nearly 500 men... I asked the pilot of one if we could go and look at their aircraft. Several of them said they'd be happy to "show us around" and we went to look at, and in, it. It was named after a popular song of the 1930s "I'll get by".

We were given handfuls of candies and gum - each of the crew gave us the remainder of their candy rations, and pockets and hands were filled. Another of the crew - the tall navigator - took out a Met Report card, and got the rest of the crew to autograph it. He wrote, "A swell bunch of people, you English - thanks for everything".

Next day trucks with their own ground crew arrived, and they swarmed around the B-17s, getting them ready for departure. Later their aircrews were driven out to their aircraft and soon, one by one, they lined to take off. This was another enthralling spectacle as the first big aircraft became airborne, then the next - and the next - and the next - all 49.

When they had all departed, the ground crews left and the station, from heaving and buzzing with activity and noise, was strangely quiet. Everything was rather flat after our American invasion'.

Pip Beck, Bomber Command WAAF
(from A WAAF in Bomber Command, Goodall
Publications, London, 1989, pplS 9-60)