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when everyone felt the close camaraderie of a combat squadron. We felt comfort by being part of this tightly knit group and any nervousness was covered up by a lot of horseplay. It wasn’t too bad for Graham and I because we were next off, but some of the crews would wait for two or three hours. Steele's plane left the ground and he immediately extinguished his navigation lights. We stood in a group until the sound of the engines died. He was gone, hopefully to return in about five hours. Graham and I went into the I.O. tent for last minute information. A signal had been received confirming that the Ulster Queen was on station and waiting for us. The latest meteorological information was good. The forecast was for a clear, starlit night with almost a full moon. We got the latest wind speed and direction and worked out a course to the western tip of Crete and I wrote it down on a scrap of paper. This was the extent of our formal navigation, as Graham had not been trained as a navigator in the truest sense of the word. Nevertheless, once we neared land, he was able to map read by using his radar. Also, I could call on the R/T when returning to our base and be given a course to fly to get us home. This worked well providing all of our equipment kept working properly! (Toward the end of the war, I was in Transport Command and my new navigator had been in a Pathfinder Squadron of Bomber Command. He was used to very precise navigation where the timing of course or altitude changes were calculated in seconds. He was appalled at the haphazard way I approached getting from A to B!) Tonight we’d fly at our economical altitude of 6000 feet until we were about 75 miles from the enemy coast. We would then descend to 50 feet in order to try and stay under enemy radar. The I.O. and Joe Irwin wished us good luck and said they would be waiting for our return. We told the I.O. to have the brandy ready, for it was his custom to have a glass ready for returning crews during the debriefing. (Was this the start of “Cheeeriooo!! No 46. First today!”?) (No-it is from WW1 –Ed) I signed the Form 700 and we made our way out to the dispersal area. There was a group of ground crew waiting for us at our plane and we started our preparations for take-off. Graham climbed up a hatch located halfway down the fuselage into the radar compartment and started checking the equipment. I walked around the plane with a flashlight and made sure all the locks on the moveable control surfaces and the pitot head cover had been removed. . I looked at the tires to see if they had moved on the wheel rims (there was a yellow mark painted across the tire and the rim. If they did not line up, it indicated, “tire creep”, which could cause a blowout). Next, I checked the engine nacelles for traces of oil leakage. The last check on the outside was to ensure that the gun ports in the nose and along the wings were sealed over with aircraft fabric to avoid sand getting into the gun mechanism on take-off. The first round on the cartridge belt was always non-explosive because it would break through the cover without causing damage to the plane when the guns were fired. On night fighter squadrons our main firepower was explosive shells. We did not use tracer ammunition because it destroyed the pilot's night vision. One of the senior NCO's, Flt./Sgt. Clark, who was in charge of the ground crew, was there to see that everything was in order. He was his usual boisterous self and we knew that he would love to come on this intruder raid… he flew as a passenger at every opportunity. Clark was very efficient and popular with the aircrew. He had recently managed return to the squadron from one of our planes that had crash-landed in the desert, many miles from our base. As was customary in the RAF, for finding his way back to base on foot, he was presented with the Flying Boot (a silver badge in the shape of a flying boot with wings). Both the aircrew had been killed in this incident. Satisfied, I climbed up the hatch under the nose, gripped the bars positioned on either side above the seat and swung myself over the seat back onto the parachute that was already in place on the seat pan. Flt./Sgt. Clark followed me up the hatch and as I pulled the lever to elevate the seat back, he handed the safety belt straps over my shoulders. I pulled the remaining straps up between my legs and pushed all four into the retaining ring and inserted the locking pin. I then strained forward as far as I could to be sure that my head would not hit the gun sight that was located immediately behind the windshield. I turned on the instrument panel lights, put on my helmet, switched on the radio and spoke to Graham on the intercom to make sure it was working. Satisfied, I gave the thumbs-up sign to Nobby Clark who stepped down and slammed the hatch shut. |
