3 Squadron STORIES

Alan Clark's Lousy Long March...

1.  Steep learning curves and bumpy landings

My daughter Fiona has asked me to write down some of my experiences.  I immediately drew up plans for a saga to rival War and Peace, starting with my first memories at the age of three.  Checking with Fiona as to where would be an appropriate point to start, she gently suggested that it might be better to crawl before I walked and that a somewhat later starting point would be better.  I took her point as, I now realised, it just might be a bit boring and banal to start at such an early point.  I am sure that my wife Avril would concur with her on these matters.  Nevertheless, rather than write only about the Yugoslavia episode, I would like to do the full RAAF experience (groan...).

I grew up in an era when we Commonwealth countries still thought of ourselves as part of the British Empire.  Indeed, when war came in 1939 Australia followed Britain into it as a matter of course, in spite of our remoteness from Europe.  As the war clouds gathered, it became apparent to the planners (by 1937) that a massive training programme for this relatively new form of warfare, i.e. aerial warfare, would have to be devised.  Thus the countries, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Rhodesia got together and drew up a very detailed and comprehensive plan to train aircrews called the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS). 

The logic and farsightedness of this scheme was shown towards the end of WWII when both Germany and Japan ran out of pilots to fly their existing aeroplanes, while the Allies were churning out aircrew well in excess of their needs.  For instance, Australian aircrews (trained either in Australia itself, or in Canada, Rhodesia, Great Britain, New Zealand or the Bahamas) were pouring into Great Britain in such vast numbers that, by mid-1943, difficulties were experienced in both accommodating them and finding immediate gainful operational employment for them. 

I was one such airman arriving in Great Britain in November 1943, aged just 19, and just on a year since my call-up into the RAAF.  As I approached the age of 18 in 1942, the question of my call-up for military service was exercising my mind, as well as my mother’s.  As I was her "one and only", her views were quite different from mine.  At that time I was working in David Jones’ Boys’ Clothing Department and persuaded Mum to let me join the Air Training Corps as a prelude to joining the Air Force.  I guess she saw this as the lesser of several other evils, including the Army or the Navy.

Things weren’t looking too good in 1942, Hitler had overrun most of western Europe, the Balkans and Norway and was at the gates of Moscow and Cairo.  France was defeated and Britain was on her knees.  In the Pacific the Japanese had overrun China, Malaya, Singapore, the Philippines, many Pacific Islands and were halfway across New Guinea.  The Americans were still in some disarray after Pearl Harbour.  Sydney Harbour was penetrated by three midget submarines, and both Rose Bay and Newcastle had been shelled from the mother submarines.  There were even Australian Government contingency plans to retreat and only defend the southern half of the continent.  This was known as the "Brisbane Line" plan. 

It was within this context that I received my call-up to the RAAF on December 5, 1942.  This was the most momentous and exciting day in my relatively short life but I did my best not to make my jubilation apparent to Mum, who was looking rather gloomy that evening.  

Why so excited?  Well as a very naive and unsophisticated 18-year-old, not even able to drive a car, it was the thought that I may have an opportunity to emulate all those heroes of the sky during the Battle of Britain - who had been portrayed in the media as intrepid and gallant gentleman and, in films, as the guys who invariably got the best-looking girls! 

So off I went to start Aircrew training with the rank of Aircraftsman 2nd Class (they don’t come any lower than that) on the princely pay of 6/6d (65 cents) per day.  Training Aircrew was a fairly lengthy, complex and somewhat hazardous business, taking about 12 months in all.  In persuading Mum to give me permission to join the RAAF (and everybody under 21 who was volunteering had to get parental approval) I had stressed this longevity to good effect while not raising the topic of hazard, which, at this stage, I was not really aware of anyway. 

The training programme was structured thus: three months at Initial Training School (ITS), two months at Elementary Flying Training School, (EFTS), four months at Service Flying Training School (SFTS) and, if chosen to go onto 'active service', as distinct from instructing or whatever, two months at an Operational Training Unit (OTU).  So off I went to No.2 ITS Bradfield Park (near Lindfield) to study a number of technical subjects and to be marched around the parade ground for countless boring hours in order to instill 'discipline' into our previously slack and disorderly minds.  Morse Code, by now an almost superseded technology, was drilled into us for many interminable hours until we could receive consistently 20 words per minute. 

At this point I will describe a typical training day.  Reveille (getting up) was at 3.30 am, pitch dark of course.  Ablutions and shave were followed by breakfast in the mess, where a wary eye had to be kept out for the many cockroaches on your plate.  Then, dressed in flying gear, we paraded on the drill square for roll call and inspection by the C.O.  While it was still dark, we marched down the road towards the aerodrome on the other side.  As we approached, the sound of many motors being warmed-up came to us and then as we were about to hop into the planes the sun peeped over the horizon.  This was the best time to fly, as the air was still, so it was easier to control the machine and to fly with more precision.  On the afternoon shift, with the hot air currents and the wind, it was much more difficult to perform well - rather like trying to steer a bucking horse. 

Anyway off we went for an intensive flying session, after which we would land at a distant small field (a satellite 'drome) have lunch, hand over the planes to the afternoon shift and drive the twenty miles back to base where an  afternoon of lectures awaited us.  Very few of us ever managed to stay awake.  My own particular downfall was meteorology.  I never did find out why the rising air condensed into clouds. 

After some 9.15 hours of torture, Smith surprisingly hopped out of the plane and said, “OK, take it off.”  Such excitement!  The takeoff was OK, but how was I going to land it?  Could I remember how to do it?  Could I gauge the correct levelling-off height?  And what would happen if I couldn’t?  (Bear in mind that we had been witness to some pretty hairy performances.)  Somehow I remembered the myriad of actions necessary for me to get the plane back on the ground in one piece and without freezing at the controls.  This latter action was known in the flying trade as "handing over to J.C."

I rumbled to a stop, Smith came over and silently shook my hand - he seemed almost human at that moment. 

Lots more flying, both dual and solo, refining our skills and learning all sorts of new ones such as steep turns, aerobatics, flying on instruments alone and flying at night. 

Mid-course we got a few days leave, so back to Sydney where I went in to DJs to visit my old workmates and show off a bit.  My old boss in the Blazer Department, Judy O’Meagher, asked me how I was getting on.  “Great!” I said, “I’ve got 24 hours up solo now.”

“You mean with an instructor, don’t you?” she said.

“No, by myself.”

She looked at me, a very immature 18, in disbelief.  “You mean to say to me that there is no-one in the plane with you?”

“No.”  

She said no more, but her sceptical look suggested that she thanked God that we had an Army!  Poor old Judy (at least 30) - her husband had, not so long before, been reported as killed in the Middle East. 

Back to more flying - getting a little cocky by now.  I clearly remember doing a loop over the centre of Wagga Wagga with my straps undone.  All this rather silly piece of bravado meant was that, if I hadn’t executed the loop correctly, then I would have fallen out of the plane!  About now, Number 32 course graduated, including Peter Grose’s brother Ken.  Ken was proving to be a first-rate pilot and achieved an above-average rating.  Later he was to go on to Lancaster bombers in England and was killed over Germany. 

The week days were spent flying and learning such things as navigation, meteorology, engine function and maintenance, theory of flight etc.  Weekends were spent either in Narrandera or Leeton, the latter preferred as it was more modern and lively.  This usually meant a dance and a movie and a checking out of the local sheilas.  As you might expect, these girls were well-versed in the art of handling gauche young trainee pilots.  Actually I seldom went; simply because I couldn’t afford it, as I had allotted 3/- of my 10/6 per day to Mum.  So I often spent the weekend darning socks, washing “goonskins” or writing letters. 

Soon, Number 33 course graduated and we became the senior course.  We wasted no time in patronising the two courses behind us, who naturally thought that we were the font of all flying wisdom!  Eventually the big day of our final tests arrived and I was placed with one of the senior instructors, a Flight Lieutenant, for this nerve-wracking exercise.  This bloke really put me through the wringer: rolls, loops, cross-wind landing and simulated engine failure etc.  Fortunately it was one of my better days - I could do no wrong until just at the end I failed to keep a proper lookout while making my last turn to land, so reducing my assessment to Average Plus.  Nevertheless I was thrilled that I had achieved a rating beyond my previous wildest dreams. 

Our next posting was to an SFTS [Service Flying Training School] but what sort?  Single engines or multis?  Fighters or bombers?  Whichever path was chosen for you meant, in the first place, a splitting up of friends; and second, a choice that may well have not been your preferred one.  I found out that my posting was, along with my good mates Greg Jones, David Hall and Fred Clark, to No. 5 SFTS, Uranquinty, near Wagga Wagga.  My other good friend Arthur Howell, one of Sydney Boys High School’s most brilliant students, was posted onto multis up at Bundaberg and I  was not to see him again until the war ended, at which time he was suffering from severe depression and ended up dying in hospital - a great loss. 

We were given a few days' leave but, as our posting was not far away, we were told not to leave the area and were not given a leave pass to Sydney.  A few of us decided to risk it and caught the night train - at considerable risk if we got caught, as we were AWL and could potentially incur some rather dire penalties. 

Train travel in those days was crowded, uncomfortable and very tedious.  Our carriage was of the ‘dog box’ type, eight persons per box, with no corridor and no lights.  This all proved to be to our advantage, as we had not paid our fare.  Nobody bothered us and when the train stopped at Strathfield next morning, we got out, walked over to a suburban train, went to Central and just walked through the barrier.  - Not so lucky on the way back to Wagga as the train was of the corridor type and we got nabbed by the inspector and had to pay up.  Luckily, nobody asked us for our leave passes. 

Number 5 SFTS was a much bigger unit than those we had previously experienced.  We were now to make what seemed to us a huge leap in terms of aeroplane size, power and sophistication.  The planes we were to fly were Wirraways, huge and daunting compared to the light and simple Tigers we had first learnt on.  They were much heavier, of course, with a large radial engine of seemingly immense power, brakes, retractable undercarriage, hydraulic systems, three-bladed variable pitch propeller (which was much too big to be started by any WAAF, no matter how powerful) and myriads of dials and instruments. 

The courses ahead of us were hard at it, but hanging around forlornly were those who had been ‘scrubbed’ and were waiting for another posting.  Among these were several old schoolmates, including Dave Failes, assigned to teaching the Link Trainer (more of which later).  One other in particular, Rex Loton, shocked me when I ran into him and learned that he too had been scrubbed.  Rex was a hero of mine; captain of SBHS in the year ahead of mine, a fine sportsman, inspirational leader and one of the most universally respected people I have ever known.  Concealing his disappointment, Rex spent many hours with me going over the systems and cockpit drills involved in flying a Wirraway.  This was a great help to me when we got down to business several days later.  

Some four months later, when I was a newly-graduated Sergeant Pilot proudly flaunting my wings around the City, I ran into Rex at the Hotel Australia.  He was then a newly-graduated navigator and, as one would expect, a Pilot Officer rather than a Sergeant which meant that he was an “officer and gentleman” whereas I was merely an “other rank”.  In spite of this difference in rank, Rex could not keep the envy out of his eyes when they alighted on my pilot’s wings.  Poor old Rex was destined to be lost over the Bay of Bengal, navigating a Liberator bomber. 

Perhaps at this point, I should try and explain the RAAF’s system of granting a rank.  As far as I know, since time immemorial, all military establishments in all countries have had two categories of participants, officers (the leaders) and other ranks (the followers).  Over the centuries this system of a privileged caste leading a mass of put-upon foot soldiers seems to have worked, as it is still in widespread use today.  However the advent of the aeroplane with its unique requirements in skills and ambience required some modification of the time-honoured system.  For instance, for pilots a blend of leadership and flying skills were just some of the requirements to achieve success.  How then to rank the aircrew graduates from the many diverse flying schools?  The USA and South Africa opted for a system of granting Commissions to all graduate pilots and to some other aircrew as well, mostly navigators.  The British, with so many centuries of well-delineated class distinction, opted for a system of partial commissioning, with such factors as family background, type of schooling, accent etc. being more important than flying skills.  (More complicated than that, of course, but these were very important elements.)  It was this system that Australia and Canada, in the main, followed. 

So, when we graduated at the end of SFTS, out of some 60 or so, about six received commissions and the rest of us became Sergeants, i.e. we were non-commissioned personnel.  Included in the officer group were my good friends David Hall and Greg Jones, both of whom then went on to OTU at Mildura and then onto Operations on Kittyhawks (P40s) in the Pacific theatre of war.  Once you missed out on a "commission off course", it was very difficult to subsequently get one.  As you know, I got lucky and got one at the tail-end of the war, but worthy pilots such as Lew Ranger, Fred Clark and Peter Kurts remained non-commissioned to the end.  Mind you, it is ironic to think that today Kurtsy could just about buy the whole bloody Air Force! 

Being an officer had many advantages - you travelled first class and stayed at good hotels, rather than being sardined into the hold of a ship and living in a leaky tent.  You had stewards and waiters, and sometimes even a batman, you ate superior food and you didn’t have to wash up, other ranks were supposed to salute you.  I tell you, it was Total War for those officers! 

There were, of course, many anomalies in this system - for instance it was not uncommon for the captain of a bomber with a crew of seven to be a sergeant pilot, while several of the crew could be officers.  When they landed after a mission they perforce split up into two different social and organisational groups.  On my own squadron, No.3 RAAF, it was not uncommon for an experienced NCO (non-commissioned officer) to lead a mission of 12 aircraft.  The USAAF had a much fairer and more rational system. 

Back to Uranquinty, where we were preparing to start the actual flying, after familiarization procedures and learning the protocols of cockpit drills (a sequence of checks that had to be made before taking off), I was very fortunate to be allotted to an instructor, F/O Lundberg, who was a man of gentle and tolerant nature - the antithesis of Screamer Smith. 

Of course I was unaware of this fact until my first flight on May 13, 1943.  As we taxied out to the runway he showed me how to control the steering while taxiing.  He said for me to have a go.  Although not a difficult manoeuvre when you get the knack, it can be troublesome at first try.  I ran off the tarmac onto the grass where I went round in circles.  Try as I might I could not get the plane back onto the tarmac.  Sweating profusely, I awaited the expected volley of abuse.   None came.  There was complete silence as it gradually dawned on me that I alone would have to get that plane out onto the runway, and eventually I did. 

Lundberg took the plane off, retracted the wheels, climbed, throttled back, turned, levelled off, flew downwind, put the wheels down, turned again with wheels and flaps down, then glided in to make a perfect landing, all the while calmly explaining his actions and procedures.  We taxied back to the beginning of the runway to do another “circuit and bump” as they were called and he said, “Right, take off!” 

I was flabbergasted.  Take off?  I wasn’t ready for this - I thought that another few hours familiarization were in order before undertaking such a complicated manoeuvre!  No way out, so I opened up the throttle and hurled this monstrous machine down the runway, managed to get it into the air and proceed around the circuit without forgetting any of the seemingly endless tasks necessary to ensure our survival.  On the downwind leg, Lundberg said, “OK, land it!”.

Land it?  Holy cow I couldn’t possibly do that, I’m too young to die!  But I did, we survived and proceeded to repeat all this a few more times.  My Log Book tells me that we did three sessions, totalling 2 hours 20 minutes, flying the gamut of pilot skills from take-offs, landings, turns, spins, gliding etc. at which point Lundberg said I was ready to go solo, but that he would require a verification check by a more senior Instructor.  I must say that, after so little time in the air, his confidence in me was misplaced - in my humble opinion.

Nevertheless, off I went on a solo check with the senior instructor lasting 35 minutes at which point he got out and said, “Off you go!” - and so I did as I was told.  Out of all our course (34) I was the first to go solo by a long way and I think my dual pre-solo hours of 2.55 was a record for the EATS.  Naturally I was rather pleased with myself but lapsed at various times subsequently into periods of complacency where some of my flying was rather sub-standard. 

Meanwhile some of my colleagues were having trouble mastering all the necessary skills to solo and the threat of the dreaded “scrub” was beginning to loom, indeed did loom and it was sad to see a number of our friends leave to be posted to other flying disciplines.  One of our group was scrubbed for “lack of moral fibre”, a terrible indictment, implying cowardice, when his problem was merely air-sickness which, with a little perseverance he may have been able to overcome, as indeed I had done at EFTS.  Strangely, I had no such problems flying Wirraways but much later, in England and the Middle East did have some rather embarrassing bouts of air-sickness. 

Here I should mention a bit about the Station that we were on.  As a fairly large establishment it was commanded by a Group Captain named Max Watson who was a cousin of Mum’s.  "Here’s a chance for a bit of nepotism!"  I thought, as well as a chance to big-note myself with my mates.  It was not to be though, as Watson (whom I had never met) had been posted elsewhere, leaving behind a regime of Spartan-like discipline, deliberately primitive accommodation and a training programme any sadist would be proud of.  Just as well that I hadn’t got round to telling my mates about the familial connection! 

We were allotted a hut; absolutely bare, no beds, no furniture and gaps in the floorboards half an inch wide.  Given empty hessian sacks, we were sent to a barn to fill these with hay.  These we were to use for four months, getting thinner by the day (the sacks I mean), while the wind whistling through the cracks in the floor grew ever colder as we progressed through a very severe winter.  I might add that we had absolutely no suitable work clothing, just our now six-months-old and shrunken “goonskins” made of cotton. 

My good friend and fellow trainee, Fred Clark, reminds me that every week we had to remove all our bedding and chattels, scrub and squeegee the hut, and then replace the gear.  Often the floor was still wet when we went to bed.  The ground staff and the administration, of course, all had proper beds and numerous other amenities as well as the right to walk around the station.  We Aircrew Trainees on the other hand had to run everywhere once we set foot outside any building until we reached the shelter of our destination. 

Apart from the Pavlovian aspects of all this, we, as aircrew, when later travelling hither and thither around the globe, found a not-too-dissimilar attitude existed towards us at most RAF stations.  That is, as we were virtual nomads and wouldn’t be staying long, we could put up with some discomfort, whereas the permanent staff, poor devils, were stuck there for a seeming eternity and thus deserved more creature comforts. 

Our new Commanding Officer, a Group Captain Knox-Knight, arrived and was duly horrified with the plight of the trainees.  He was of the opposite opinion to that of Watson, believing that the trainees (who, after all, were off to the war) deserved better conditions.  So he set about rectifying whatever was in his power to achieve.  He had come straight from an operational command in UK where Aircrew had been taking a pretty heavy beating and thus was sympathetic to our situation. 

He immediately endeared himself to us when he first addressed us all, crowded into the station theatre.  After looking around to ensure that no WAAFs were present, he said, in his cultured voice, “Gentlemen, I want you to concentrate on your training and remember you shouldn’t try and emulate the sparrow, you can’t fuck and fly!” 

Although we didn’t ever get beds, we were at least treated with some respect and not subjected to unnecessary and mindless discipline.  In fact, the pendulum swung the other way and the ground staff disciplinary authorities complained that they couldn’t punish us for anything!  Knox-Knight encouraged us to set up, build and organise our own sporting facilities with material and tools supplied, albeit grudgingly, by the ground staff.  We did this with enthusiasm and renewed morale, for he was our hero and patron.  We soon had facilities for boxing, rugby, tennis and basketball to use at weekends or whenever we had any spare time.

As well we had a cinema and a whole lot of WAAFs, but I was much too shy to chat them up, even though two of them were local Vaucluse girls.  I can still vividly recall the movie “The Great Waltz” with the Hungarian soprano, Militza Coyez, singing Tales from the Vienna Woods.  We went round for days whistling all the melodies. 

Flying training and navigation lectures went on and we became a bit more skilful.  The weather became much colder and most mornings we had to scrub the ice off the wings before we could fly.  We proceeded with aerobatics, cross country flights, low level and night flying.  The latter was a rather hair-raising task at best, let alone with the primitive equipment at our disposal.  Two of our course were killed at it and two others got lost, panicked, flew a reciprocal course and ended up landing by car lights somewhere West of Mildura. 

For this feat, the two heroes were awarded the Prune Medal, which is known as ‘The Highly Derogatory Order of the Irremovable Digit’ and whose emblem is a raised thumb with a halo around it!  These medals were presented with great ceremony before a parade of the whole station and the two recipients were required to wear them for the rest of the course. 

Navigating a single-seater plane is quite a difficult business, as you have to do it all yourself while still having to control the plane.  Airspeed, wind speed and direction, groundspeed and course to steer all have to be determined and set ASAP.  To do this quickly we were issued with a computer which was strapped to one knee.  This computer was nothing like the electronic marvels that you moderns are familiar with, but merely a mechanical device to aid the solution of arithmetical and geometric problems as quickly as possible. 

Traditional navigation methods (evolved for sailing ships over the centuries) were of little use in fast-moving aircraft, because by the time you had laboriously worked out where you were, you were no longer there!  To do the necessary sums you twiddled this computer while trying to fly with the other hand and see where you were headed.  It’s a big country out west and naturally a lot of us got lost from time to time. 

Which, to digress for a moment, reminds me of a story told to me by Clark Cornell when, much later, we were in Yugoslavia together.  It seems that during his (US equivalent) SFTS  in Texas, some Women’s Army Corps girls arrived on the base to take over the radio telephone communications set-up.  As a consequence, swearing over the R/T became a Court Martial offence.  One of the trainee pilots on a cross-country exercise got lost and the following dialogue took place between the trainee and the control tower.  Trainee: “Hello base, for Christ’s sake give me a course to steer - I’m all fucked up.”

The squadron commander, who happened to be in the tower at the time and possessed a very distinctive southern accent, picked up the microphone and said, “Mister, what is your name and serial number?”

There was a long silence, then came, “I ain’t that fucked up!” 

Interspersed with the flying and the lectures was time spent in the Link Trainer.  This was a simulator in which we learned to fly on instruments alone - "blind flying" in other words.  You were placed in the cockpit, the lid was slammed shut and there you were, confronted with all the instruments needed for such an activity.  Instruments such as artificial horizon, turn and bank indicator, directional gyro, compass, altimeter, rate of climb indicator and airspeed indicator are all absolutely essential to perform blind flying for, deprived of the use of one’s visual senses, it is impossible to know whether you are flying right-side-up or inverted.  This mode of flying required immense amounts of concentration and a one-hour session was quite draining.  To make matters worse, your whole performance was recorded by a trace on a huge sheet of graph paper, to be dissected and analysed by the instructor.  It was, of course, essential to master these skills, for without them you would certainly die the first time you flew through cloud.  My own performances, it seems, were adequate but barely so - one of the first of many subsequent examples of getting there by the skin of my teeth! 

As we entered the last two months of our course we were initiated into the skills of dive-bombing, machine gunning and formation flying.  Air to ground radio communication was also provided but, compared with later overseas equipment, it was very primitive.  The machine guns that we used were also very crude - relics of WWI, I suspect - in that they were mounted to fire between the blades of the propeller and if the cam mechanism was faulty, you likely as not shot holes in your prop!  They were also very prone to jam and it was the devil’s own job to free them up while you were still trying to fly the plane. 

Notwithstanding, we pressed on regardless and on my 19th birthday I passed my final flying test, received my wings two days later and attained the rank of Sergeant Pilot.  Postings were then read out and we all dispersed to our allotted tasks.  Some, including my particular friends Greg Jones and Dave Hall, went to Operational Training Units (OTUs), most of them to Mildura and thence, after two months, onto operational squadrons in New Guinea and the Islands.  Others were made instructors and still others were sent to Canada for further training.  Others, including Errol Ingram, Fred Clark and myself were made Staff Pilots, which was considered by most to be an inferior appointment. 

Staff Pilots, unlike Instructors, were merely required to fly other trainees around (usually trainee Air Gunners or Wireless Air Gunners) while they went about their business - a rather soulless and boring task.  Fred was sent to Evans Head, while Errol and I went to No. 2 WAGS at Parkes. 

At home on leave, as a newly-graduated Sergeant Pilot.

No. 2 Wireless Air Gunner School was commanded by what was known to us pilots as a “shiny bum”, that is a ground staff administrator with no flying or combat experience, and hence looked down upon by us superior beings!  Squadron Leader Reynolds ran the Station with all the rigour and discipline that an archaic military organisation would allow.  Every morning we spent nearly two hours on drills and roll-calling, while it seemed to me that we should have been up in the air, doing the job we were there for. 

The planes that we were flying were Wacketts; Australian in design and construction.  Two-seaters with the pilot in the front seat and the trainee in the rear, the latter tapping out his Morse Code as we flew along very steadily so that there was less chance that the poor bugger became airsick.  In order to facilitate the transmission of his signalling, the trainee was also required to unwind, once we were well and truly airborne, a long trailing-wire aerial, with a large lump of lead on the end to stabilize it in flight.  He (and it was always “he” in those sexist days) was also required to haul the wire in before we landed, so that the whole apparatus was not ripped off on the landing-ground fence.   However, it was the pilot’s responsibility to tell him to do so.  Any damage resulting from not so doing rested with the pilot, who then faced a substantial fine (two weeks' pay). 

Although some of us were only Sergeant Pilots, the trainees were required to call us “Sir”.  This was fairly heady stuff for 19-year-olds (it is easy to understand how politicians become so pompous).  The pilots themselves were a mixed bunch, some, like Errol and I, shiny, new and inexperienced, some with about six months' experience and some old hands with incredible overseas experience and adventures, plus one or two bona fide no-hopers serving out their time with as little involvement as possible.  Naturally I enjoyed the flying, even though it was a bit boring, as we were commanded to fly straight and level all the time that the trainee was sending or receiving his Morse Code. 

In fact we pilots were required to sign a document in which it was stated that we promised, on our honour, to fly in this way and never do any more than a 'Rate 2' turn, which is the sort of gentle turn that you experience in jumbo jets.  All this was to lead me, in the not very distant future, into a whole heap of potential trouble, from which I extricated myself with a bit of luck, together with some animal cunning. 

The conversion to the Wackett aircraft was fairly simple, a minimum of instruments and a non-retractable undercarriage and we were soon flying the trainees around as though we were veterans. 

Wandering around this large station I ran into an old friend, Bill Fallon, who used to live in Laguna Street.  Bill was there as a new trainee WAG, having just been scrubbed from his Pilot’s course.  He was, of course, desperately unhappy with his lot and, although I looked forward to the possibility of flying him around, he deliberately scrubbed himself and was posted straight to a Gunnery school which only required one month's training.  Straight gunnery was regarded widely as being the lousiest, most uncomfortable and most dangerous job in aircrew, but it got you into operations much quicker, as at that stage of the war (1943) Bomber Command in Europe was building up an enormous offensive against Germany with very high losses in aircrew, especially in rear-gunners. 

Why we were all so keen to get into operations with all the concomitant risks is a bit of a mystery, but Bill did just that.  He completed his gunnery course, got his Air Gunner’s wing, was sent to Britain, was posted to a bomber squadron, survived 30 missions and was given a Commission in the middle of his tour (a rare honour and one rarely extended to such lowly people as rear gunners).  I mention Bill Fallon particularly, as he was one of nature’s true gentlemen.  After the war he became a successful pharmacist in Cardiff, where he was highly respected by all who knew him.  He learned to fly and promptly left his flourishing business to spend the next three years flying, without pay, for the Jesuits in New Guinea.  Subsequently he came back, married (belatedly) and resumed his profession.  He was a great friend to myself, Peter Kurts, Tom Nolan and Doug Hann.  He died after his second failed open-heart surgery many years ago now and we all still miss him. 

My log book tells me that on September 30, I flew two trainee trips.  These were to be my last jobs at No.2 WAGS, as most of the pilots, including Lew Ranger, Errol Ingram and myself, had just received notice of a posting to No.2 ED (Embarkation Depot) to proceed overseas - we knew not where. 

My last flight, however, turned out to be a lot less boring than all its predecessors.  With the trainee busy sending Morse Code in the back seat, we were stooging along somewhere close to Narromine, where another Tiger Moth EFTS was stationed.  Quite a few Tigers were around, going about their routine training, when they obviously spotted this intruding Wackett, broke off their training and came belting over to me for a spot of “dogfighting”.  Forgetting all about my pledge to fly straight and level, I immediately engaged about five Tigers in spectacular aerial combat but as the Tigers outnumbered me and could turn in smaller circles than I was able to do, they were soon on my tail.  Time to go home, so I broke off the conflict and headed towards Parkes with my possibly terrified passenger.  One of the Tigers persisted however; he got up above and behind me and made another classic fighter attack.  Diving down fast onto my tail he shot past just below me, but very close.  There was a loud "thump" and then he dwindled earthwards.  “Shit!”, I thought, “He's hit my bloody fixed undercart and knocked it off.”  

What to do?  Very difficult to land without wheels, even more difficult to land with only one wheel.  My first brilliant solution was to climb up to the nearest big cumulus cloud, position myself between the cloud and the sun, fly towards the cloud and see if I could get a silhouette of my undercart (if any) against it.  No such luck, so I flew home and made a very tentative landing, without incident. 

As we didn’t have the means to communicate in the air, it wasn’t until we got back to the hangers that the trainee could say, “Sir, we have lost the trailing aerial.”  Oh shit!  That was it.  Having forgotten all about the blessed thing in the heat of battle it was obvious that the Tiger had got the aerial caught round his prop.  No wonder he dwindled!  It turns out also that he crashed - but more of that later. 

Next day the whole group of those posted to ED left the Station to go to Lindfield, where we were given some leave.  I was looking forward to taking out a very pretty girl, Jill Calman, whom I had met on a previous leave.  I was not, it seems, entirely alone in this ambition, as she had been going out with an old schoolmate of mine, both at Double Bay Primary and Sydney High School.  His name was Harry King, a very fine athlete with whom, over the years I had had many a friendly tussle.  Harry was also a pilot, an instructor and, it turns out, stationed at that time at Narromine.  He too, by coincidence, got some leave at this time and wasted no time in taking Jill out.  He narrated to her this terrible story about a mad pilot in a Wackett, who nearly killed one of his mates!  She, of course, told me and I recounted the true version as recorded above.

When the leave was over we all reported to No.2 ED.  After several days I was summoned to the Admin. Office and presented with a huge pile of documents which, on closer examination, turned out to be the proceedings of a Court of Enquiry into the crash of the aforesaid Tiger Moth.  I froze to the floor.  As I read, the sheer solemnity apparent in the lexicon and style of the Court reminded me strongly of the trial of Anne Boleyn by the Star Chamber court of Henry VIII.  At least a Court Martial, or possibly a firing squad, seemed to be my likely fate as I read the testimony of those five Tiger Moth pilots who, to a man, claimed that they had been diligently going about their lawful business when they were viciously attacked by a Wackett aircraft which behaved in such an aggressive fashion that one of their group somehow had his propeller ripped off, thereby causing this diligent and blameless aircrew to crash. 

My heart sank before all this corroboratory testimony against me, but two witnesses were to give me a bit of support.  The first was the pupil in the Tiger that crashed.  

President of the Court: “Did you see a Wackett aircraft attack you?" 

“No sir.”

“Did you see any other aircraft at all around you at the time?“

"No sir.”

“How many flying hours experience have you had?"

“Two sir, I was airsick at the time!”

The second was my trainee, whose name I have never known, but I sure hope he survived the war.  He testified that we were flying along, minding our own business, when we were attacked by five Tiger Moths before the incident happened.

This was better news, so I hastily dictated a statement confirming his evidence and next day got on the boat for foreign climes.  

Chapter 2.  The Long Way to War via Sardine Express       

The “boat” turned out to be the well-known luxury ocean liner, the Mariposa.  Pre-war this ship (to use the correct terminology) and its sister ship, the Monterey, used to ply the Pacific with about 300 wealthy tourists.  Now it was a troopship converted to transport, in sardine-like fashion, some 3000 Aircrew, some 400 or so War Brides and numerous other odd bods.

Pre-war postcard showing the Mariposa

There were still some vestiges of pre-war opulence: the lifts; the stairwells; some of the first class lounges (where we mere ‘other-ranks’ were not allowed to tread) retained their Art Deco splendour.

We, however, were placed on the open deck outside the cabins, where three tiers of canvas stretchers were situated for sleeping.  Our gear, such as it was, was strewn around the nearby deck.  That was it, apart from the eating arrangements.  Ah, the eating arrangements!  We were about to sample some of good old American efficiency.  As there were so many aboard it seemed that we could only be fed twice per day.

This was accomplished on E deck.  We were billeted on A deck and an orderly queue was arranged, four abreast, to wind down the beautiful main staircase to E deck.  On average, about an hour elapsed after joining the queue until you arrived there.  As you slowly shuffled downstairs the air became increasingly fetid with the smell of what turned out to be cooking American Army style.  The smell is difficult to characterise; perhaps dominated by rancid hot dogs and stale boiled cabbage.

In any event I seldom made it to E deck without rushing up the stairs to vomit over the side.  If you did manage to reach the Mess, you were confronted by row after row of chest-high tables running right across the width of the ship.  This, of course, enabled them to "pack ‘em in" in plenty, you couldn’t possibly elevate your elbows and the sight of hundreds of men eating standing up and swaying in unison to the ship’s rolling motion was bizarre to say the least.  The food itself was served on those large indented trays for which the American Army is deservedly famous.

We set off through Sydney Heads unescorted and at full speed, zigging and zagging every three minutes.  This, we suspected, was to spoil the aim of any potential torpedo-firing submarines.  Unbeknown to us “sardines”, the waters off the coast of NSW were infested with Japanese submarines, as well as large numbers of mines.  This knowledge only became known to us after the war, which is probably just as well - ignorance, in this case, being particularly blissful.  

Apart from the discomfort, the journey to San Francisco was uneventful, taking about three weeks as we passed south of New Zealand.  There were various duties that we were assigned periodically.  On the night before landfall at S.F., I was appointed to take charge of and guard the two prisoners in the ship’s brig, which was situated right in the bow of the ship.  These two prisoners were young American sailors, perhaps even younger than most of us and one of them was going home to serve a life sentence for “Statutory Rape”.  He looked a most unlikely rapist, but he told me that during a leave in Perth he met this mature-looking girl at a dance hall, took her out, and, as sailors are prone to do, seduced her.  It turned out that she was only fourteen, her parents complained, so here he was looking towards a lifetime of penal servitude.  All this was told to me while we three sat at a table outside the cell playing cards. 

I had a shotgun beside me, with which I was supposed to guard these hardened criminals, but as I had never used a shotgun nor, indeed, knew how to use one, I don’t think that I posed much of a threat to any escape attempt.  My guarding philosophy was simply based on the fact that other than jumping overboard, the inmates of the cell had few escape options.  Hijacking the Captain, taking over the ship and heading for Alaska also seemed an unlikely scenario.  As the night wore on, the following ocean swells were getting bigger and I started to get squeamish.  Being right up at the sharp end, the up-and-down motion was magnified, accompanied by lots of metallic groans as the ship’s hull protested against the power of the sea.  At length I could leave it no longer, left the shotgun on the table, and raced up the gangway to chunder over the side.  The prisoners were still playing when I returned.

In the morning we entered the magnificent San Francisco Bay, sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge and anchored in the middle of the bay.  We were not fed that morning as we were due to depart, by lighter, to the shore.  This done, we were placed on a large ferry in the early afternoon and there we remained until 10 o’clock that night - no food, no water and no word from the authorities as to what was going on, or whether we had been entirely forgotten.  I, having lost my last lot of food over the side, had had virtually no food for two days!  At 10 we motored off and were taken to one of the islands in the bay quite close to Alcatraz, where we were at last given a meal.  It was Army pap, but anything was OK by then.

After several days on the island, we were taken to a very long train which was to take us right across the U.S.A.  For young, naive Aussies, unused to foreign sights or other peoples’ social mores, it was a wonderful journey.  It took five days, we did not get off that train during that time and, unlike any long train trips I had had in Australia, was very comfortable.

I shared a Pulman compartment with Ron Chaseling and Lofty Essex; four seats around a table in the daytime which converted into a double bed below and a single up above, made up by the black porter.

Very nifty!  Both Ron and Lofty were at Parkes as staff pilots, and had been there much longer than Lew and I.  When we got to New York, their Commissions came through, so thereafter we saw them not, as they, of course, moved up to first class.  Ron and I were particularly good mates as we were both ex-SBHS and members of the swimming team.  He survived Bomber Command but died several years ago.  I don’t know what happened to Lofty.

[RAAF records show that Adrian Essex died over Germany on 19 March 1945 serving with 103 Sqn. RAF.  He has no known grave.]

We traversed California, the deserts of Nevada, the magnificent Sierra Nevada, seeing, in most cases for the first time, real snow and lots of it.  Comfortably ensconced in our steam-heated apartment, the cold did not worry us at all.  On through Utah, more desert and then an immensely long trestle bridge right across the Great Salt Lake to Salt Lake City, where the Mormons looked rather like everybody else, in spite of their unusual beliefs!  Then into the Rockies, through Colorado to Denver, then Nebraska and the prairies of Iowa and on to that “toddling town”, Chicago.  What an experience it all was - nothing to do but look at the sights, play cards and eat our three meals a day as we travelled.

The track taken was by no means direct to our ultimate destination, which turned out to be New York City, but we all enjoyed the comfort and the interesting scenery.  The direct cross-country routes were probably kept for more important cargos than us.  Pressing on towards Canada we passed through Toledo, Cleveland and on to Buffalo where we actually crossed into Canada at Niagara Falls.  There the train actually skirts the falls so closely that it was wet by the spray.  Then on through New York State to be deposited on Governor’s Island in NY Harbour.

What can I say about being let loose in New York for six days?

To any young person who went to the movies, read books and magazines and had aspirations to a hedonistic lifestyle (and who didn’t?), New York , especially Manhattan, was a Mecca.  In our distinctive blue uniforms, we also attracted attention from the locals, who feted and entertained us with great enthusiasm and generosity.

We were invited to very swanky parties, complete with butlers and maids, in NY mansions where, in ordinary circumstances, none of us would have got in through the tradesman’s entrance.  Visits to night clubs (one had Tommy Dorsey playing there), the Empire State and Rockerfeller Centre, Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians at midnight after a party, the Jewish USO for dancing with pretty girls but, alas, impossible to get them away from their ever- vigilant parents!  (Other times, other mores!)  Back home I had been an enthusiastic collector of Jazz and Swing records so a visit to the Columbia Cinema was of especial interest to me.  First there was a rather pathetic Red Skelton movie but it was followed by an hour or so of Woody Herman’s big band playing, live, all his most famous numbers: Golden Wedding, The Woodchopper’s Ball etc. Marion Hutton, sister of Betty, the famous actress, was doing the vocals.  I was absolutely transfixed.

In hindsight though, I really was too young, immature and naive to fully enjoy the intellectual and social delights of Manhattan.  I didn’t drink for instance; indeed did not do so for the whole three years in the RAAF.  While this, no doubt, was a good thing in many ways, it did limit one’s social horizons somewhat.  The reason for adopting this stance and adhering to it so long came from witnessing the sad and embarrassing effects that alcohol had had on my father on the few occasions that I saw him.  His visits were fleeting and then only, I suspect, when he needed money.  I don’t suppose they amounted to more than a dozen in my lifetime.

On the last night, Errol Ingram and I went to another party, stayed up all night, had breakfast at an all night cafe and then returned to camp where we were straight away taken down to the docks to board the Queen Mary.  What a sight, all 84,000 tons of her.  Back in 1941, when I was still at school, both the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth called in to Sydney Harbour to take our troops to the Middle East.  Painted battleship grey they were the biggest ships we had ever seen, too big indeed to fit under the Bridge, so they anchored in Athol Bight.  I managed to borrow Don Ritchie’s VJ [sailing dinghy] and sailed up for a closer look.  You couldn’t get really close as a navy launch, complete with machine gun, was patrolling around it, but even so it was an impressive sight. 

The loading of the QM was a lot different from our rather furtive departure from Sydney.  This time there were brass bands, huge crowds waving flags and the Red Cross dispensing hot coffee and doughnuts.  A stirring scene as they saw us all off to the war.  I use the word “all” advisedly: first there was a whole division of the US Army (15,000 personnel at least), about 2000 of us RAAF, mostly aircrew, several thousand odd-bods of various nationalities and martial duties and, of course, the crew - among whom, as a ships engineer, was Diana Daly’s father.  (I only found out this latter fact when I met him at a picnic many, many years later.)

Needless to say, it was very crowded.  This time I was in a six-berth cabin somewhere in the bowels of this enormous ship and obviously well below the waterline.  Later, when out to sea and the siren would sound for lifeboat drill, it took us 45 minutes to get up to the open deck due to all those thousands of Yanks stationed above us pouring up the narrow passageways.  The QM was unescorted, relying on its 30-knot speed and the usual zigging and zagging to avoid the ever present U-boats. 

Actually, on previous trips to UK , the QM was escorted by a fast Cruiser of the Royal Navy (HMS Curacoa) but due to an error in the zigging and zagging routine, the Cruiser was cut in half by the QM and sank with the loss of some 240 odd men.  The QM, whose bow was barely dented, was not permitted to stop and pick survivors due to the presence of U-boats and the fact that it was as heavily laden with troops as we were.  There were, as well, numerous other mighty ships such as the Queen Elizabeth (slightly bigger than the Mary), the Aquitania, the Mauritania etc. 

Although unaware of it at the time (late 1943), all this massive movement of troops to the UK was part of the build-up for the invasion of Western Europe which eventually took place on June 6, 1944.

Although, of course, the crew of the QM were British, we never saw them.  All we saw were Yanks - you couldn’t move without bumping into an American.  The feeding arrangements were conducted with the usual American efficiency; in the enormous dining rooms long queues plied their way continually, 24 hours a day, to the exhortations of the queue controllers: “Let’s go fellers, keep it moving, you goddam Limeys couldn’t build a ship like this one!”

For one’s pains, one got fed twice in that 24-hour period.  We went for our first feed as the ship left New York, during which time the many watertight doors were all closed.  This meant that we couldn’t find our way back to our billets.  After some hours fruitlessly wandering around this gargantuan vessel we ran into an RAAF officer who said confidently “follow me” and promptly got lost too!  It was a bit like the Hampton Court maze only more complicated.  Maybe we should have dropped pebbles but that wouldn’t have helped as all the doors had been closed. 

The trip took four or five days, through a ripper of an Atlantic gale, and when we arrived in the Firth of Clyde we still weren’t sure of the ship’s geography.

 

Chapter 3.  Poms, Bombs, Sheilas and Huns

3 Squadron STORIES