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of the hatch. I was so stiff after sitting in one position for 5 hours that it was hard to do and Nobby helped me to get to the ground. Graham was already out and was surrounded by a group wanting to hear an account of our trip. Sonny Steele appeared out of the darkness grabbed me in a bear hug and wanted to know if we had been lucky. When I told him that we had gotten three he couldn't believe it. He said they had chased a lot of bogeys but had not got close enough to attack. I must admit the thought went through my mind that his lack of success could be due to not having time to practice with W/O Clay because they were both very experienced aircrew …a good example why crews stayed together. Joe Irwin was also there waiting for us, as we knew he would be. He already knew something had happened because of the excitement around the plane. When I told him the news it was like a tonic to him because the squadron had not had any success in many months. I broke Graham away from his group that were now discussing “radar”, (the usual subject when more than one radar/navigator got together) and went to report to the I.O. We were given a small glass of brandy and started the debriefing. The information in this account came from these intelligence reports that were saved exactly as the I.O.wrote them. They were obtained from the Public Records Office, London, released to the public after a period of thirty years. By the time we were finished it was 2:45 a.m. We heard that W/O Phelan and Flt./Sgt. Baldwin had just landed at El Adam due to Gambut now being unserviceable because of a ground mist. There was more excitement…they had shot down another Junker 52! The total was mounting. We went back to the dispersal area where the ground crews were finishing servicing our plane. Nobby Clark told me I must have been pretty low at times because the windshield had dried salt spray on it. I told him not to tell Graham…he wouldn't fly with me any more! By now we were both feeling very fatigued and went off to our tent to try and sleep. The next thing we knew it was daylight and there was a crowd of people outside the tent. I got up and looked and it was Terry Phelan and Denis Hammond with their navigators. They had both been diverted to El Adam and had just flown in from there. It felt like the middle of the night, but it was 10:00 a.m. We quickly dressed and went to the Mess tent to get breakfast and compare notes. As we had heard, Phelan had destroyed one plane and Hammond had chased one but it had gotten away. The total score for the night was 4 aircraft destroyed. On September 27th, we spent the day trying to catch up on sleep. We were not flying that evening, so after dinner we relaxed and had a couple of Egyptian beers. There were four planes going again tonight and we went to the dispersal to see the first two off. The first one went at 6:55 p.m. and there was the usual boisterous group giving advice! F/O.Kirk was flying our plane of last night and we asked him not to scratch it. The ground crew had already painted three swastikas on the side of the cockpit. We didn't stay up to see them return and we found out the next morning that the score had increased. F/O. Kirk and Flt./Sgt. Carr got a Junker 52 land plane and Flt./Sgt. Chapman and W/O. Briginshaw also destroyed a Junkers 52 and damaged another. The Squadron score was now 6 aircraft destroyed and 1 damaged. On the morning of the 28th, Squadron Leader Robbie Robertson flew in from Idku in a Hurricane. He asked to see Graham and me. We presented ourselves to him and saluted. He shook hands with us and told us that His Majesty King George VI had graciously awarded each of us the Distinguished Flying Cross. We were unprepared for this and at a loss for words. We managed to stammer our thanks and I thought it would be appropriate to salute again, so I did. When we thought about this afterwards we would burst out laughing. It was such an unlikely situation…standing virtually in the middle of the desert being presented with a gong, and all sorts of saluting going on while the sand swirled around us! After having a night off, it was our turn to fly again. We went into the flight tent and found that we were scheduled to fly #ND 243 again. We were going to be last off tonight, leaving around 10:30 p.m. Our takeoff time would depend upon the crews before us being on time because we had to be 1½ hours apart in order not to have more than one plane at a time in the target area. Our plane was not ready for us to do our NFT, so we waited around the dispersal area. Even though we had always prided ourselves on having good morale in our squadron it was amazing what a little success had done. There was a different air about everybody and it was wonderful to be a part of it. |
