Airplane Crazy - 5

CHAPTER 5 — Back home - India

At the end of 1944, after doing four years overseas, I was repatriated to England. I occasionally visited my stepmother and sister on in London. Sometimes at night the air raid sirens would go and they would try to persuade me to go down the Anderson shelter in the garden to shelter from bombs. But of course I was too macho to do that and I used to lie in bed in the house, terrified, while bombs were bursting around.
I spent around about a year back in England and was sent to many different places. I purchased a Triumph 350 motorcycle and used to drive all over the country in it. One of the places I went to was Ossington, near Newark, Lincs, a finishing school where I spent quite a lot of time on tests flights in Lancasters. Then to Blackbush in Surrey, somewhere near Reading I believe. There was a Mosquito Squadron there. To Rigall near Selby, a Sterling unit. To Nuts Corner, Northern Ireland, Lancasters again; then to a place in Wales, Llanber, on the coast near Dolgellau. The CCO was Jo, Jo Peg, an ex Battle of Britain fighter pilot, and he was quite interested in my boxing. From there I had to go to Norfolk, to take part in the Command championships. I luckily won a couple of fights in one night and I won the Fighter Command Welter Weight Championship. Then they asked me to go to Portsmouth where there was an interservices contest, you know army-navy-air force. I went to box there at a place right in on the sea front at Southsea. I had to fight a naval lieutenant; and there was uproar in the house, because you know, there was an officer fighting a ranker… and I managed to win that. I clearly remember that my fight was the last of the night, and we only had a few minutes to get to the station to get the last train back to London. So I had no time to change, I was bundled up with my little blue boxing shorts, and I just had my overcoat on. We got in the train, and I must’ve fallen asleep at one point, because there was an elderly lady sitting in front of me on the other seat, and the coat slipped open revealing bare legs up to the thigh and little blue shorts. She gasped in amazement, I remember that!
Towards the end of ’46, or the beginning of ’47, I was sent back to India, by boat to Bombay. It was called the “Corfu”. From Bombay, I went to Ambala in the Punjab for a few months, and then to Delhi, New Delhi, the airport was called Palam. I was in charge of Lord Mountbatten’s personal aircraft, it was a four engine York, like a civil version of a Lancaster, only carried VIPs, and only flew about once a fortnight, so the maintenance on it was negligible. But I had forty coolies. The aircraft was all silver, the camouflage had been stripped off and each of these collies was issued a tin of Meppo per day, and they polished it. It was a soul destroying job, walking round and round this aircraft telling them to “Bellaja” ,you know, ”get on with it!”. They would make two or three ineffective sweeps for a few minutes and as soon as I disappeared round the other side they would stop.
Whilst there I met Lord Mountbatten’s wife and his daughter, Pamela. They used to serve tea in the canteen, very nice people.
So, the aircraft did very little flying and like I say, there was not a lot of maintenance needed. Whilst there we got a fortnight’s hill leave every year, because it was pretty hot down on the plains and they used to send us for a fortnight up in the foothills of the Himalayas. I went up there, train to Rawalpindi and then another train or bus to a place called Murree. Whilst there you went on an EVT, Educational Vocational Training course, and if you did that you had an extra seven days leave. So I wanted to go to Kashmir which was on the borders of India with the Himalayas. A beautiful place Kashmir, something like the lake district, huge lakes: Dal Lake and Nagin Bagh, where I hired a Shikara, which is like a punt, it was poled along. Two brothers, Habiba and Sultana, I think he was. I spent two or three days with them on this boat. Then with the Himalayas in the background an old idea came to me: I always wanted to go to Tibet. I have always loved mountains and dreamt of the Himalayas.
So I hired an Indian push cycle and set off, with very little equipment, etc. I was just in shorts and bush shirt, and I think I had a blanket rolled up on the bike, and set off to Kashmir, a couple of hundred miles through the Himalayan foothills, Northwest Frontier, etc. Nobody would come with me, they said “You must be raving mad, you’ll get your throat cut!”. Because these Pathan tribes had been a bit wild and they had murdered a few of our lads. Have you ever heard of Gooli Chits? Before WW2, the RAF used to patrol the N.W. Frontier since Pathan tribesmen often attacked out outposts un this region. If they captured downed Airmen, they would cut of their “goolies” (testicles), stuff them in their moths and sew up their lips and leave them in the sun to die! So, the Government issued all Airmen with “Goolie Chits”, letters promising to pay the captors something like 1000 Rupees (a Rupee was then 1 shilling and sixpence) if they returned the Airmen intact. Strange but true!!
However, no problem. I went quite a long way into Kashmir. I got near the Himalayas, and the first pass I came to, the Zotila Pass, I stayed in a cave some time and nearly froze to death. So the next day I had to turn round and come back. I never got to Tibet, next time maybe?!
I was very close to Nanga Parbat a mountain, one of the top three in the world after Everest I think, a fantastic sight. The roads weren’t roads like you and I know them, they were just mud roads covered in stones and the pedal on the push bike kept breaking off, you know where the pedal joins the crank. I would wheel the bike to the next village and the crowd of excited natives would come out and guide me to the local DIY man, who had a little fire and blew on it to get the embers red hot. He would braze the pedal back onto the crank.
You can imagine twenty or thirty natives squatting in a circle round this little fire while the DIY man would try his best to repair it. All chattering away excitedly, a wonderful thing: a white man coming to the natives for their help, wonderful. All the while in the background these huge Himalayan snow peaks. Oh what a sight! If I ever could I would go back there and go further, further into the Himalayas.
After a few miles the pedal would come off again and I ran out of money entirely, so I cured it myself, eventually, with a big rock which I pounded on the peddle and brazed the thing back on again.
I was a bit worried about getting back because I would then be about seven days overdue my leave. But I got to the state where I didn’t care much for what the Air Force thought, I thought they’ve had ten years of my life, you owe me. I’m gonna do my thing now!
When I got back to Rawalpindi, it coincided with the time when India and Pakistan got independence, they were partitioned. There were hundreds and thousands murdered there by both sides: Hindus killing Moslems and vice versa. I was on the train back to Delhi and every time the train would stop, there would be hundreds and hundreds of Moslems shrieking and crying blood and brandishing knives. They pulled a lot of Hindus off the train and massacred them. I had a rifle with me, but when I picked the gun up an Indian in the same compartment said: “No, no Sahib. You, you too”. He drew his fingers across his throat “you too will get your throat cut!” . so I had to sit down and forget it.
So I got back to Delhi. Still the same old job polishing this aeroplane, which sickened me, and I wrote to the Air Ministry and said “well what am I doing here? Supervising polishing planes. It’s not my job at all!”. We had a weekly service with York aircraft flying mail from Britain out to India. I thought “I’m going to get on one of these planes, stow away and get back to Blighty, walk into the Air Ministry, put my cards on the table and say look I’m supposed to be three thousand miles away in India but I’ve had enough, I want out!”. I found a space in the end of the fuselage of a York, there is a bulkhead partition with a small door, which goes into the last four or five feet of the aeroplane body, inside which there are only control wires to the rudder and elevators, etc. So I got my small kitbag and put some warmer clothes in, because I was only in shorts and bush shirt, I’ll need some warmer clothes when I get back to England, I thought!. I got inside there and I took a drill with, I think, a three sixteenth or a quarter drill bit, and I drilled a row of holes through the bulkhead so I could see what was going on up front. In the back of the aircraft there was also a connection for oxygen. I had my flying helmet, so I could plug into the intercom and hear what the crew were saying. Well I got on board the plane very early, at about five o’ clock in the morning, hid behind the door, in this dark compartment. Just before the aircraft took off, I didn’t know this would happen, but the flight engineer, a young Sergeant, opened the door and flashed his torch around just to see everything was clear, shut the door and went up front, the plane took off. I remember listening in on the intercom and the pilot saying; “you know there’s a hell of a lot of drag on the tail here” and I thought somebody would come back to investigate, but they didn’t. and we got to Karachi after a couple of hours and landed, and I waited until the crew got out, and I followed them and the ground staff looked up at me and I said “would you check the magneto on the port inner, it’s missing a lot.” and they accepted I was part of the crew. So I got out of the plane and stayed the night in a billet, I’d met some friends I’d came out from England with, stationed at this place, they gave me a bed for the night. Next morning up very early, five o’clock, stowed away again with my kit behind the door and this time the Flight Engineer got on board, and he opened the door and it banged against my knee and he realized there was something impeding it. So he got his service revolver out and I noticed his hands were shaking and he said “come out, come out who ever it is in there”. I think he thought I was, I don’t know, a German prisoner of war or something, and I staggered out of this place and he said “you must be crazy!” he said “you’d never get away with it, I check this compartment every day!” I said “well I’ve come about two thousand miles from the other side of India and you never saw me. “He said “not in this aircraft you didn’t”, I said “oh yes I did!”. He said “well look!” he said “you’re an NCO, you’ve got a good row of medal ribbons” he says “disappear, go away and I’ll forget about it!”. So I got my kit out of the back and walked across the tarmac. There was a plane going to Australia, and another one going somewhere else and I thought: “which one shall I get on”. Then a jeep screamed down full of Military Police and this young Sergeant was with them and he says “look!” he says “I’m very sorry, but I had to report you otherwise my job would have been in jeopardy”. But all the crew gave me their lunch baskets, and I was whisked away into the jail at Karachi, where I spent two or three days. Then my commanding officer flew down in a Dakota from Delhi to pick me up and take me back. I told him the story and he was very sympathetic, he let me fly the Dakota back part of the way. When we got back I went in front of the CO. I told him I was fed up with the air force and I was having difficulty because I was becoming increasingly deaf and I was a joke among all the boys, you know “oh here’s the deaf mute coming”. I thought this was certainly due to the time I spent tuning engines in Africa, and of course in those days they had no ear pads or muffs or anything. I think the noise had caused this deafness.
So the commanding officer said “well, how would a posting back to the UK suit you?” and I said “well, that would do for a start, Sir!” So back to England I came. I can’t remember whether I flew back or came by ship, Bombay, Suez, I can’t remember. However I got back.
Not long after returning home, I received a letter from the Ministry of Pensions telling me to present myself at the Ministry of Pensions in Leeds on a certain day. I was quite enraged about this, I thought “me a young fellow, talking about pensions?” I was quite annoyed. So I turned up at this place and I remember we were in the waiting room, a dozen fellows being called in one by one to the doctors’ panel, and they all limped in or whatever. My turn came and I walked briskly in and they were three or four tired doctors sitting there with their heads cupped in their hands leaning on the desk. One of them said “well, what’s your trouble?”, I said “I haven’t got any trouble” and they looked up and said “Well what are you doing here?”. I said “I don’t know, you sent for me, I didn’t want to come here!”. “Oh well, sit down let’s have a look at you”. I was only in there about five minutes and stalked out in a rage for being classified as a pensioner. A week later along came the pension book, 20% War Disability Pension which I’ve had ever since.
That’s my story. I joined the RAF to fly, but never made Pilot. So, many years after the war I spent most of my hard-earned capital (2-3,000 pounds) learning to fly in a Cessna at Cleveland Flying School. I managed 2 or 3 solo flights but had to stop since I had difficulty hearing Air Traffic Controllers and this could have had disastrous consequences. However, I have been alone in the sky in command of an aeroplane and it was wonderful!

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