A View from the Back: The Recollections of a Fleet Air Arm Observer 1941-1946 by Tony Inman (Part 6 of 14)

A View from the Back: The Recollections of a Fleet Air Arm Observer 1941-1946 by Tony Inman Part 6 of 14 (Jun-Sep 43)

Chapter 5: The Med
I see from my log book that that was on the 26 May and the next flight entered was the 26 June, but the next flight was in North Africa, so there was probably a bit of the usual "hurry up and wait". In that time we had some leave and then we were ordered to report to, probably, Flag Officer i/c Gibraltar, and to take passage from Falmouth. On the journey down to Falmouth, I found out that we were to sail in the Prince Leopold which was a Belgian ship which had run between Harwich and Ostend. It was named after one of the members of the royal family (Dutch or Belgian). It was equipped as a landing ship and it had infantry landing barges slung in davits on each side about 4 each side. It wasn't until you got to sea you realised that this made the ship top heavy and while it was perfectly good for crossing the North Sea, going across the Bay of Biscay was a different kettle of fish. We didn't sail straight away and, during the few days we had at Falmouth, Betty came down and we stayed at a bed and breakfast in Falmouth which cost us 12/6d a night. When we did sail, we joined a convoy and plodded down, round the corner and across the Bay of Biscay where we met a southwesterly gale. This top-heavy ship rolled (according to the bridge inclinometer) 45% from the vertical each way. As we were aircrew they made us air lookouts so we used to toddle up onto the bridge, and although it was bright sunshine the wind was pretty cold so we wore our outer flying gear (Sidcot) and tucked into one of the big side pockets was a tin into which you could be sick if you needed to be. I was seasick for a bit. Our cabin was on deck level and at sea the cabin doors were permanently open in case they buckled and jammed in the event of an explosion. Laying on the bunk I could see the horizon go from the top of the door to the bottom as this thing rolled its way across. I don't know how long it took us, it was probably about 1200-1400 miles by the time we had made a big loop round Biscay and Northern Spain and the only item of note was that one day on the bridge I reported a Sunderland approaching, to which a subbie said “No, it’s not, it’s a Catalina”. So we had a little high ding-dong about the aircraft and I said "It's clearly got 4 engines", but he said "No, no, it's only got 2", then we discovered there was both a Sunderland and a Catalina and we were looking at different ones! The voyage was uneventful, although a convoy going the other way had been heavily attacked.

When we arrived at Gibraltar we were quartered in Nissen huts somewhere near the airfield and at midday each day a siren sounded when we had to leave the huts to go into a brick building with a solid roof. This was because they were still blasting holes in the Rock of Gibraltar, making places to put guns and defences, and lumps of rock were liable to come flying about and the Nissen hut was not rock proof. The runway had to run across the neck of land that joins Gib to La Linear in Spain. I suppose it was on our side of the border because the Spaniards were then - as now - a bit funny about the border crossing. So it ran into the sea in both directions and in the middle were the hangars. We saw an RAF Spitfire doing a fancy take off by selecting the undercarriage up before he was airborne and only part way down the runway, so as soon as the weight came off the wheels the undercarriage would retract. Unfortunately his aircraft only bounced about 2 feet and then came back down again but by this time the wheels were going up and it sank onto the runway and he skidded along.

I am not sure how long we stayed in Gibraltar, enough to go up to the top and see the monkeys, and I think I visited my mother's uncle John, but whilst I am pretty sure I did I can remember nothing about it. Finally we flew in a Dakota to Oran. From the logbook, the aerodrome was called La Seinga but how close to Oran that was I don't know. We were headed for 813 Squadron based at Tafaraoui not far from Oran (20-30 miles) so presumably we did the rest by truck.

The airfield was shared by the Fleet Air Arm, RAF, American Air Force and the French Air Force. The Americans had a fighter squadron which flew the Bell Aero Cobra which was a single engine fighter with the engine behind the pilot and the propeller was driven by a long shaft which ran under the pilot and out through the nose. Not a very successful plane. We were walking along the perimeter track when we saw an American sign which said "No smoking within 400 yards of this notice". So the smokers amongst us ignored it and after a while we came to a French notice which said the same thing in French. Bit further was a brick building with a note pinned to the door saying "RAF Bomb Dump" which amused me anyway.

813 was equipped with Swordfish but their aircraft were getting very old and would not go very high, so getting out to sea past the coastal mountains meant finding a pass low enough for our aircraft to progress. Luckily there was such a pass quite handy.

We did some local flying and this part of the world is noted for its salt pans so we flew around and looked at things and went out over the coast. Between the sea and us were the Atlas Mountains which were a few thousand feet high and we had to get over those. One day we went on a convoy escort - my first action against the enemy. We didn't see anything of course, but we had perhaps just begun to justify all our training. 3 days later we did another one and then a few days later we did a night anti submarine patrol. We were supposed to patrol ahead of a convoy that was coming through the straits of Gib and through into the eastern Med. As we were flying along I picked an echo up on the radar, so I told my pilot I had a "ping" and gave him the direction and asked him to start an attack. The attack system was that you had to fly as close as possible then drop a flare and turn away from the flare into the wind. You then flew into the wind in a diving circle down to sea level so that when you got to sea level and finished your turn you were aimed straight at the flare which, having drifted away directly downwind would have silhouetted the target nicely. My brave pilot looked over the side into the thick sea mist below us and his reply to me was "If you think I'm diving down through that bloody lot you're mistaken". So we dropped a couple of flares and the blip disappeared so that if it was a submarine we had done our job and made it dive out of the way. We got back and it was getting light and as we approached we saw the sun rising. As we taxied along the runway we saw it rise all over again this time over the mountains.

On this trip we didn’t even find the convoy and this occasioned much friction and name calling when we reported back to the RAF Ops room. Remarks were made about blind sailors countered by suggestions that the RAF were afraid of the dark! Belatedly someone found a signal that said the sailing of this convoy had been delayed so there was nothing for us to find. This gave us the opportunity to question the efficiency of the RAF Signals section.

After another one of the convoy escorts, due to my ace navigation, when we came back to the airfield it wasn't there, so I didn't know what to do and we flew back out to the coast and along it trying to find somewhere we could recognise. Luckily we came across a wreck which I had marked on my chart and we found our way back after all.

Evening entertainment, if you didn't want to stay in the Mess boozing, was tombola and the cinema. Tombola is now called by the American name bingo and was held in the outdoor cinema till it got dark and then the film started. There was a big screen but the seats were mostly tree trunks (not very comfortable), but we used to watch the films and shout rude comments at the projectionist when the film broke down as it invariably did, frequently. After the abuse, a hand would come out of the projection hole and a rude gesture made in form of a reply.

We were only there about 3 weeks before we were bundled into a Dakota which hopped from aerodrome to aerodrome down to Monastir on the coast of Tunisia east of Tunis. We stopped at various airstrips which had been carved out as part of the North African campaign, one of which was near a famous battlefield of Mejez el Bab and whilst they refuelled we had a drink from an American waterskin which hung outside the hut. The outside was canvas and wet and the evaporation kept the contents cool. We never stopped for long and I see one of them was only for about 10 minutes, perhaps just to let someone get off.

I have no idea why we went to Monastir. We didn't fly there; we lived in a tent and shared the airfield with an RAF Beaufighter squadron. I went to the beach one day. Monastir was a small walled town which was out of bounds and we only went to the beach. After a few days we were ordered to take an Albacore back to Gibraltar for maintenance. There must therefore have been some sort of Naval activity there, but we never got involved with it except to take this plane back for repair. It had an oil leak and some hydraulic leak which presumably they could not mend and it had to go back to base. It was flyable so we took off one morning and flew to Bone. It has a different name now. The airstrip was typical of those I saw throughout the war with a metal runway - rolls of metal. They were not very wide and with the dodgy hydraulics and brakes we ran off into the soft sand up to the axles. We had no RT in the plane and I was selected to go down to the control tower and ask them to send a tractor. Of course the tower was at the other end of the runway. It must have been about half past one - the hottest part of the day. We got it dragged out, had a meal and made our way on this time to Bleida where we stopped for fuel and some more oil. I had to get out and hang onto the wing to help turn the aircraft because of the difficulties with the controls.

We flew on to Tafaraoui and got to the Mess at about 9 or 10 o'clock. I know we had our socks rolled down and were wearing the normal Fleet Air Arm flying gear of khaki shorts, shirts and shoes, we were tired and grubby. We had been on the go for 10 hours and flying for over 7, so we went into the bar for a drink where we met the Wing Commander in charge of the British element of the station and he was not impressed by our appearance. He, of course, looked very smart, and we got a fair old dressing down. I don't think we cared very much what he said to us - we just wanted to have a drink and go to bed. From my log book we stayed there a couple of days before we flew on, probably so that the aircraft could be patched up enough to get us across to Gibraltar which was a 2 ½ hour flight around 200 miles. We flew right over the Rock and that was the first time I have seen the big reservoirs they have on the top and we handed over the kite to the mechanics to get it back into full working order.

After 2 nights there we caught the old Dakota back to Monastir - it took us 2 days and we stayed at Maison Blanche airfield. One more night in the tents and Monastir and then we flew up to Tunis and then the following day we went on to Malta. The aerodrome for Tunis was at La Goulette, reputedly the site of Carthage. The Luftwaffe had used the aerodrome and there were still numerous wrecked planes there, many of their enormous powered troop carrying gliders. I forget how many engines they had but, when operating, they had to be tugged into the air, engines going full blast, and once safely airborne the engines had enough power to keep them going though they had proved easy meat to Beaufighters. We spend the night on the marble floor of one of the colonial houses. Before we flew off to Luga in Malta we had to get on the scales and I weighed 75 kgs which is a fraction under 12 stones - oh dear, what I was like in those sylph-like days. So we landed at Luga but the squadron we were joining (826) was at Takali which was on the south side of the island. We were living in quarters just outside Rabat, an old walled Moorish town which we didn't have much chance to visit because we were not there all that long. Our lodgings were rather decrepit and although the food was reasonable we had to live in tents using mosquito nets that harboured hundreds of bed bugs. We used to get in the CO’s car to drive down to Takali and he never seemed to go at less than 80mph.

The aerodrome was run by the RAF, so there was a lot of saluting and we soon got fed up of that, and the drill was that you didn't have your cap on indoors because one of the better naval traditions was that in those circumstances you didn't have to salute. Did a bit of local flying one evening and then we were sent on a convoy escort. After a bit we had to come back because the radar was unserviceable, so we transferred to another aircraft and took off about an hour later. We never found this convoy, my logbook says it was probably scattered by enemy action. There was still some bombing going on of Malta, but they didn't much come to us - it was mostly bombing of Valetta. One night one of our chaps was out on some trip and there was a raid on Valetta and when he came back they refused to put the landing lights on for him, so he called them up and told them that he was coming in over the south coast and warn the guns not to fire and he proceeded to land in the dark. He said he could just about distinguish the runway as being a different colour from the rest of the countryside.

Back to our trip. On our way back from this fruitless search for the convoy I was navigating on the radar and we had Malta nice and strong on it. Then I was fiddling about in the cockpit I looked back to the radar set to find there was nothing on it - Malta had disappeared. There were several moments of panic before I realised that we had not been approaching Malta directly but just to the north or south and as the radar was directional it had gone out of the way of the beam, so we performed a gentle circle and found we were just north of Gozo so back we went and got home all right.

This was the first occasion in this squadron when we had come into contact with RT. It wasn't fully fledged but they had some sets in the aircraft and we were issued with the necessary microphones, throat microphones which were a good idea, and we were able to talk generally OK. One night there was an air raid and we had to go off into some caves which were half a mile or so from the aerodrome and watch the fireworks from the cave entrance. We were only there for a few days and then they said, “We don't really know why you have come to join the squadron because we are going home!”

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