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This story was submitted by Allen Buckroyd, who compiled 鈥楪reat Baddow Oral History鈥�, published in December 2003. The book contained this contribution from John Jackson and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the terms and conditions.

John Jackson 鈥� Repairing Aircraft Engines in India

I had six months training on aircraft engines at RAF Cosford after 鈥渟quare bashing鈥�. They had instructors from Rolls Royce, as Merlin engines were used on about 50% of RAF planes, on Spitfires, Hurricanes and Lancasters. We did not have many aircraft with radial engines, unlike the Americans, who did not have many inline engines. I can鈥檛 think why we preferred inline engines, as they are more susceptible to damage. I鈥檝e known an American engine come in with one cylinder hanging off, but still running on seven cylinders. A bullet had gone through one cylinder and locked the piston. This broke the con-rod off and that broke the cylinder off.

After training I went to South Africa then India. I was only about two months in Africa, waiting for a ship and based in a transit camp in Durban. We were supposed to be going up to Egypt, but this was the time the Japanese were trying to get into India. They were on the Burmese border, so rather than send us to Egypt, where that war was nearly over, they thought they would send us to India. I was then sent to a posting in India 1,000 miles from the sea. I was three and a half years in India and Pakistan 鈥� 1 year Bombay, 1 year Karachi, 1.5 years in Cawnpore.

The aircraft I worked on were mainly Dakotas plus occasionally Hurricanes and Spitfires. One aircraft we worked on was called a Vultee Vengeance, which was a dive-bomber. We were the only squadron in the Royal Air Force with dive-bombers. The Royal Indian Air Force tried to copy the German Stuka pilots. We used to see them practising over the desert, and sometimes they wouldn鈥檛 pull out of the dive. There would just be a big hole in the sand. The Australians also had one or two squadrons as well.

In India there were about 100,000 British Army and Airforce, roughly half-and-half. We were there to repel the Japanese. Hitler wanted to come down through Egypt via Suez; the Japanese wanted to come from Burma and meet up with Hitler in the middle of India. Thankfully it didn鈥檛 work out quite that way.

There was trouble with the Indians; they wanted independence, they weren鈥檛 much interested in us, yet they were helpful, and the Indian airforce was a very good airforce. So together we stopped the Germans and the Japanese doing what they intended, which was to encircle us. If they had joined up that would have been just where I was stationed. We were stationed with the Americans on Dakotas, mainly flying supplies to Burma. The Americans were 鈥済oing over the hump鈥� to China. (Presumably this means they were going over the Himalayas). We serviced American aircraft, and we had US specialists from Pratt and Whitney and specialists from Wright Cyclone . We also had Australians and New Zealanders on the base. The Indian airforce was quite a big airforce. At the height of the war there were 300,000 service people of which 200,000 were Indian. They included a lot of Sikh pilots, who were very good. The Indians were very helpful, so presumably we were joined together in a common aim. They did not want the Japanese to succeed any more than we did.

I was there until the end of the war. The Japanese war ended in August 1945, the European war having ended in May of the same year. That鈥檚 when the atom bomb was dropped. Lucky for me, as I was just about to be posted to an aircraft carrier. I was in Bombay then, clearing up after the war. There was talk of us going onto an aircraft carrier with the Fleet Air Arm. I didn鈥檛 think much of that, as it meant going out to the Pacific. When they dropped the A-bomb it all finished and I didn鈥檛 go east.

There were one or two interesting stories relating to my time in India.
There were some brand new surplus engines in the stores, which after the war ended were taken out into Bombay harbour and sunk. They used landing craft to transport them, and I think it went on for weeks. They were brand new eighteen cylinder Cyclone engines, in two banks of nine. They were wrapped in cellophane, and greased. They were worth 拢3,000 each in those days, worth 拢300,000 or more now. They took them out, three or four at a time and dumped them.

A large variety of items including complete aircraft were thrown away, and I could never understand why. Perhaps it had something to do with the commercial market; they did not want to flood the market with cheap war surplus. No doubt Dakota parts would have been very handy for civil aircraft. After all, Dakotas or DC3s are still flying.

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