Soon, it was time to return to Blighty and we
were told to crate all our equipment, including our khaki drills as we would be
flying home from RAF Fayed. However fate
intervened and our places were taken by some wounded soldiers. We were sent all the way down the Sudan to
Eritrea where we handed in our guns to the army and moved on to Asmara in
transit to Port Masawa for the arriving troop ship.
One day two of the lads and I went into town
and I suggested a drink but they pointed to a sign saying the place was for
Officers only. But we were in civvies so
who would know? We were just enjoying a
beer when two MPs came in, swinging their batons. I told the lads to keep mum and as the MPs
came near I shouted:
“Garcon! Trois bieres,s’il vous plait!”
“Bloody Froggies!” one of them said and went
to the next table.
We were taken to Port Masawa to board the
troop ship and we boarded under loud cheers from the blokes already on board;
presumably they had come from Aden.
Whilst we were under way, it was announced that the King had died.
All went well on the journey until we entered
the Suez Canal. There seemed to be some
problem as the doctor would not medically clear the ship and the pilot would
not come aboard. Without him we could
not pass through the canal and so some of the ship’s Officers went ashore and
must have persuaded them to co-operate.
As we went through the Bitter Lakes it became clear that there was a
problem; probably with Egypt, Britain and France as a lot of ships were at
anchor in the Lakes, unable to proceed.
We were also refused permission to take on
water and so we had to wash in salt water with special soap until we reached
Malta. We docked at Malta under the
cheers from local girls who were hanging out of their windows. We were allowed ashore and I went into
Valletta and had a haircut for a shilling (5p).
We had an easy journey and the Irish Sea was
as flat as a pancake. We were destined
for Liverpool and disembarkation took a long time due to immigration clearance,
railway warrants to be issued and telegrams to be sent to families to tell them
when we would arrive. In my case this
was at Euston Station.
My pen pal Olive, and her father were waiting
for me; this was lucky as I would have
nowhere to go except the Union Jack Club.
We arrived in West Ealing where Olive’s mum had the Union Jack hanging
out of the window. She was a lovely lady
(later to become my Mother-in-Law) They
only had a small flat but they managed to put me up whilst I was on leave. That went by very quickly as I was posted to
RAF Debden near Saffron Walden, Essex.
On leave before last posting to
RAF Debden, Essex, 1952
There were many young Pilot Officers and we
were told not to salute them, just Officers carrying higher ranks. It was quite funny really because many of
them came into my workshop and saluted me, probably because of the dust coat I
was wearing.
I liked Debden with its tree lined roads and
I could, more or less, do what I wanted; nobody interfered with my daily work,
I just got on with it. I liked it even
more when I got promoted to corporal; I had a lovely room with parquet flooring
and central heating and the buildings were all brick – a far cry from those
wooden huts I had been used to.
“You take it back.”
Discipline was at stake, in front of all the
other lads, and I had to put him on a charge.
On the Monday, I was called to see the Group Captain and he asked me to
withdraw the charge as the boy’s father was an MP and had requested it. I refused because my authority would go to
rock bottom and so the boy was posted to another station to complete his
National Service.
My Wing Commander was a super guy and as long
as I carried out all my jobs, he would just let me get on with things. One day I had a request from the boss to make
a wrought iron fire tidy for the Officers’ Mess. All I had to do was buy a little brush. I bought several and, having made one, I got
orders from other Officers so I made a bit of money on the side.
I also collected the empty 5 gallon oil
drums, cut off the ends, flattened and stored them until the young Officers
with old cars needed a silencer repairing or a running board
strengthening. More beer money for the
NAAFI! I also did a good trade in
mottled copper kettles, brass coal scuttles, sailing boat table lamps, wishing
wells and turned wooden fruit bowls – all very profitable and enjoyable.
On a more official level, the Wing Commander
would come in and say that he had a job that even I couldn’t do (he knew I
liked a challenge). We had a luxury
fitted ambulance to be used only in case the Duke of Edinburgh crashed during
his flying lessons. However, a motor
transport driver used it to take an urgent case to Ely Hospital but he drove
under a low bridge and smashed in the whole roof including the ventilators.
There were no drawings to make the air
ventilators, so he arranged for Fred and I to be flown to RAF Benson, in
Oxfordshire, to make drawings of their ambulance. I had to cut away the whole of the roof and
make a new one. I had to fit the air
ventilators and rivet the whole thing back in place; not an easy job, I must
admit, and every day the Wing Commander would ask me how it was going
Between the roof and the inner lining was a
lot of glass wool (very itchy stuff to work with) and then there was a load of
sealant and red oxide paint to apply. I
sprayed the roof Air Force blue and painted on the Red Cross logo – job
done! An A.I.S. inspector came to pass
the job and he was mildly surprised to find it as good as new. I was quite chuffed and the Wing Commander
was very happy.
Of course there were very serious jobs to be
done. One weekend in 1953, when I stayed
in camp, I was awoken by the sirens going hell for leather at 5am and the
loudspeakers ordered us to parade on the Camp square. I thought it was World War 3 but we were
ordered to kit up with rubber boots, warm clothing and spades.
We were taken to the Essex coast and, to our
horror, we saw enormous breaks in the sea defences. We saw dead cattle floating in the flooded
meadows and we were ordered to fill those breaks in the sea wall. It was a very big job but there were
thousands of Army, Navy and Air Force personnel to deal with this task. This was known as Operation King Canute
Civilians and Military rebuilding sea defences, Essex 1953
The weather was terrible and very cold; the
first day we only had half a cup of tea and half a sandwich and we spent the
night on the concrete floor of the village hall at Southminster. The next day a naval Officer came in with a
boat and handed out rum, which was more than welcome.
More rebuilding work on the sea wall, Essex 1953
In Holland the floods were very bad and
several thousand people lost their lives.
I was very glad to return to Debden after two weeks of very hard work
and soak in a hot bath. After that I did
two more weeks on the coastal defences.
Some of the worst things we had to deal with
were the air crashes. A Canberra nose
dived into the ground on a playing field in Bishops Stortford. Coming down at very high speed, it had just
disintegrated and buried itself into the ground. We had to camp out on a very cold night to
guard the scene and, in the morning, we had the traumatic job of digging to
find any human remains. We did manage to
find some remains of these poor devils.
The crew were P/O John Leonard Hoyle (pilot) and F/O Michael Harry
Webber (navigator). The aircraft had
taken off from RAF Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire on 11th January
1954 and had trouble starting one of the engines but the cause of the crash was
unknown.
Just over a year earlier, we had been
preparing for a Battle of Britain open day when two of our Avro Ansons
collided. The pilots, F/Lt Jarvis and
F/Lt Sheriff, were both killed but the show had to go on. We had Lincolns doing
bombing runs and ground crews blowing up explosives to entertain the crowd
which included my pen pal and her parents.
In 1955, I was
interviewed by a career officer who offered me another four years as I was
about to be promoted to sergeant.
However, I decided to leave the RAF and take up a civilian job. I went to RAF Kenley to sign on for my four
years on the reserve and to collect my demob suit and left the RAF in May
1955. Because of my qualifications and
experience I had a job with British European Airways (now part of British
Airways) even though I had no home to go to.
The Wing Commander's Final Reference
Another tribute for services rendered
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