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HONG KONG VIA WW2FROM HALTON TO

After leaving Halton I joined 102 Squadron at Driffield in Yorkshire, where I was mainly employed to repair enemy damage to Whitley aircraft and looking after the C.O'S Magister. Apart from regularly sweeping the snow off the runways,nothing very exciting happened until we were visited by some Heinkels,who dropped their bombs on us. I helped to tow two Whitleys from a blazing hangar, for which I was "Mentioned in Despatches" We then moved to Leeming in Yorkshire, and I also spent some time on detachments to Kinloss and Lechonfield. In the Summer of 1940, I became a Corporal and was posted to 42 Squadron, at Wick working on Beaufort torpedoe bombers. With this Squadron I had attachments to Thorney Island and Leuchars.

In May 1941,I was press-ganged into becoming a Flight Engineer. After a short course at Dumfries on the Vickers gun and a few flights in the rear turret of a Whitley doing air to air gunnery,I manged the majestic score of 33 hits from 1200 rounds fired. As I was still warm and breathing,I was re-mustered as a Sergeant Flight Engineer and was posted to 209 Squadron at Lough Erne in N.Ireland. I arrived there in time to see the last of the Lerwicks depart, and I joined the crew of a Catalina.

My first trip was to escort a convoy,which we found in the dark. They welcomed us by opening fire, and the subsequent firework display made me wish I had remained as ground-staff. I took part in the capture of a German U-Boat,which had been damaged by a Hudson. We flew round it all night and next day until the Royal Navy arrived to board it,and accept it's surrender. I also escorted Winston Churchill on his trip in the "Prince of Wales" During my tour with 209,I served at Reykjavik,Gibraltar and Pembroke Dock. Whilst at Gibraltar we were scrambled on a sub-hunt, as the "Ark Royal" had been torpedoed,we circled round it all night and watched it quietly sink,but saw no sign of the offending U-boat.

Early in 1942,we set off for Singapore with some "Brass Hat" passengers,but only reached Malta, before Singapore was falling to the Japs. After a few days of Malta Air Raids,we were very pleased to slip moorings and return to Britain.

The remainder of my tour with 209 was fairly uneventful,apart from one attack on a U-boat,it was mainly convoy escorts and anti- sub sweeps ,with the weather being our worst enemy. In March 1942, I lost the end of a finger in a tussle with a drogue rope and after a few weeks in St Athen's Hospital, I returned to Pembroke Dock to find my Squandron had gone overseas. I was then posted to Greenock to test fly Catalinas, after major inspections. As this was not a full-time job,I became a Technical Warrant Officer in charge of major inspections,which was quite a cushy number whilst it lasted.

In September 1943, I was posted to 190 Squadron (later becoming 210 Squadron) in Sullom Voe, still as a Flight Engineer Leader. Flying on Catalinas, I was commissoned early in 1944 and also became a Flight engineer. Flying from sullom voe was the usual ani-sub patrols and escorting convoys to Russia, apart from finding a dead German in a dinghy, nothing exciting happened. After V.E day, we flew out with some "Brass Hats" to Norway to accept the surrender of some German fighter Squadrons at Bodo and Scattora, and supervised the removal of propellors to render the aircraft u/s. We flew over Narvick to see the results of the destroyer battle, had a tour of the submarine pens in Bergen and went on to Tromso, where I had the pleasure of walking and peeing on the bottom of the Tirpitz, whilst it was lying upside down in the fiord.

I was then due for a rest, so went home on leave, only to receive on the following day a telegram to report to London for overseas medical and the appropriate jabs, I guess they needed some "ex-brats" to sort out the Japs. Within in a week, I was in Mombassa, back with 209 Squadron, but this time with Sunderland VS. The Squadron was preparing to move to Kogalla in Ceylon and I was given the job as Engineer Officer, responsible for getting the last few aircraft servicable and flown off. Eventually I arrived in Ceylon, but soon after the Japs surrendered and the Squadron flew off to Hong Kong, leaving me once again to tidy up. One of our Sunderlands had forced-landed near Rangoon, with engine trouble and I was given the task of sorting it out. My Halton training as a scrounger helped me obtain a new "Twin Wasp" from a Dakota Squadron, which was fitted to the Sunderland with a few unofficial modifications and was successfully flown off to Hong Kong. It was a tricky job working with shear legs from a pontoon on a fast flowing tidal river. I remained at Hong Kong until April 1946 when I was de-mobbed.

A unique feature of serving on a flying boat Squadron was that we often lived on our aircraft, we were often diverted to another base for weather or operational reasons and we had to sleep and eat on board and keep the aircraft servicable, doing minor inspections etc. This called for teamwork and camaraderie, and we became an almost independant unti. We were proud of our aircraft and when not on flying duties, we would give it a clean-out. Flying boat crews could be identified by the condition of their brass buttons, which were quite tarnished with the effects of sea spray. Some were even reputed to have webbed feet.

In retrospect, I feel that I did not make the best of the opportunities, that my travels would have allowed. Apart from my flying duties, which I took very seriously, I failed to explore the district outside the base. It was not too easy to summon up the energy to explore the the enviroment after about 24 hours on flying duty, a similar amount of sleep and then back on standby or training. After being bombed by JU 88s at Driffield in 1940 and being fired on by our own ships, when flying over a convoy on my first operational sortie, I still consider my worst enemy to be the weather., rain, hail, snow, icing, storms, gales, clouds and fog, which one meets all of the time when flying.

I don't seem to have achieved much, nor have I any hilarious episodes to relate. Looking back, I enjoyed it and have no regrets.

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