Open Writing

My posting was to 152 Squadron that had served well during the Battle of Britain and then had gone to North Cornwall for daylight sweeps over France. These low-flying attacks were probably as much to demonstrate to the French that the war was far from over, and the actual damage caused was limited, although there were useful targets such as trains and German soldiers in military cars.

The squadron was now going into Eglinton in Northern Ireland. Eglinton was outside Londonderry in the extreme north. It was not exactly a combat posting. Our main exercises were training and formation flying round the hilltops.

Our Flight Commander was Flight Lieutenant Wilf Syzer who had been training me at Hawarden. He had a distinguished Battle of Britain record and later became squadron leader and led the squadron in Sicily.

We did lots of exercises, including gunnery, formation flying (particularly down the valleys between the Northern Ireland mountains), firing at targets in the sea, and also at a drogue, which was towed behind a Spitfire. Once again I had to take my turn towing the drogue.

One day I was sent up for an altitude exercise with an American colleague, Watson. I was flying Number Two, to him and when we got to something over 20,000 feet he started doing the most incredible manoeuvres, including stall turns. I called him up on the radio to find out what he was up to and could get no reply. Finally, the exercises were so erratic that I broke off and left him to it, calling him up several times, since I feared that he had forgotten to switch on his oxygen.

This was indeed the case, and he was very lucky to regain full consciousness at about 8,000 feet. The problem with oxygen starvation is that one did not realise it, and there was a sense of over-confidence and a total loss of skills. It taught me a lesson to check my oxygen every time before flying.

On another day I went up with a colleague for some formation flying, and we decided that we would practise some aerobatics in formation above cloud, with the intention of coming back to the airfield and ‘beating up’ flight dispersal with a spot of low-flying aerobatics in formation. Our CO did not approve of low flying showing off unless it was something really good, and we resolved to put on a fine performance.

Using the top of the clouds as our earth, we decided to slow roll in formation. We repeated this exercise several times. It was comforting to pretend the top of clouds was the earth because if you misjudged it, nothing very serious could happen.

Finally our moment of reality arrived, and we performed our formation slow roll over the flight dispersal with success. Since the CO said nothing, we realised that he had approved the exercise. However, it scared the living daylights out of me because I was not good enough to have tried it out, and I never attempted anything like it again. How stupid can overconfident youngsters become!

Occasionally we would all be checked out by Squadron Leader Bird Wilson flying as his Number Two. It was always necessary to get right close to him as he low-flew down the valleys. I suppose our main purpose was the defence of Belfast and Londonderry against intruder aircraft.

On one occasion we got very close to a JU88, which had come in to Belfast on a reconnaissance mission. However, we were climbing up to him from below and never got within firing range, as he was going flat out after doing his Belfast reconnaissance.

The other purpose of our time there was escorting in the first trips of the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, which were being used to bring across US troops, who were coming to UK following the attack of Pearl Harbour by the Japanese in November 1941. The German attack on Russia and the Japanese attack on United States were two of the actions making the ultimate defeat of Germany reasonably certain. To bring in the two largest and most powerful nations as enemies was not political sense.

The two large liners came across the Atlantic at top speed and alone. Our job was to start at our maximum range to meet them and protect them against marauding aircraft. These ships were really loaded with troops, who came onto the deck and waved happily to us as we flew round and round them.

When they came ashore they were all proudly wearing medals indicating prowess at different aspects of their training. However, when they realised that none of the British troops, some of whom had seen action in France at Dunkirk, nor the airmen, who had been involved in Battle of Britain, were wearing any medals, they soon put their medals away in their kit bags.

The next training was army cooperation exercises, when we would provide fairly realistic strafing for troops. After one of these army operation exercises we returned to base and landed, with one exception. That was Bill Creed, who looked exactly like one of the best-known film star of the time, Tyrone Power. He knew it and behaved as if he was Tyrone Power.

Bill Creed got over our airfield and found that his control column was jammed. He remained in a permanent left-hand turn. The CO got to the control radio and spoke with him. All sorts of action was suggested and tried, and it was finally believed that a spent cartridge had caught in the ailerons. There was no way he could release them.

The suggestion was that he should try and fly inverted, but those instructions were soon cancelled when it was realised that he had little control of his aircraft. After a while he was told to climb to about 10,000 feet, point the aircraft out to sea and bail out.

This was the first time I had seen anyone escape from a plane by parachute. It enabled our Tyrone Power to be one-up on the rest of us, and it also enabled me to realise what a valuable emergency aid was the parachute, and I always looked after mine with great care.

I was also conscious how fortunate we were that we were not flying in the First World War with the Royal Flying Corps. By 1917 the parachute had been developed, and was shown to be a successful method of escape from an aircraft. However, the Air Council/Ministry of the time gave instructions that parachutes were not to be provided for pilots and observers because it could encourage them to abandon their aircraft when damaged, instead of bringing it home for repair.

Statistics also showed that a considerable number of accidents occurred at takeoff or landing, when parachutes would be useless anyway. It was only when the Germans issued parachutes to their airmen that the Air Ministry finally came round to it, although they did not reach the flyers until after the end of the war in 1918.

The social part of life was dances on a Saturday night, and at that time I was not conscious of the problems that existed between the Protestant and Catholic parts of the Northern Ireland society. During the War friction really did not exist and many male Northern Irelanders who joined the services were there as Britons, and no one was aware of whether they were Protestants or Catholics. From Eire there was a higher rate of volunteers for the British Forces than from UK. Lord Haw Haw was an aberration.