Wartime Memories (story 6 part 1)

STORY 6
R.A.F.STATIONS, STRANRAER [SOMETIMES CALLED WIG BAY],
INVERGORDON AND ALNESS
My meanderings as an AC2, AC1, LAC and Pilot Officer were soon to come to
an end on my posting to Invergordon with the object of finding for me as permanent
a billet as one could ever hope to get in the Royal Air Force. I was to be introduced
to a Station of flying boats, accommodated in the Cromarty Firth, mainly
Sunderlands and Catalinas. These were to be the centre-piece of my war-time work
until I left the R.A.F. and returned to civilian life.
I must explain that while I write of Invergordon and Alness as if they were 2
separate Stations, in actual fact the latter grew out of the former. When I arrived at
Invergordon in response to my posting, I was to find that the Officers’ Mess was to
be in a rather fine mansion-house called Dalmore House at Alness, and that I had to
have a bicycle to propel myself backwards and forwards to the few huts which
formed the headquarters of the R.A.F. Station at Invergordon. The new Station was
in course of construction at Alness and, in the fullness of time, the Station settled
there in new hutted encampments, the W.A.A.F.’s being detached from the Airmen
in their own camp in a woodland setting. The Officers, of course, had their own
Mansion House for accommodation and dining. As the number of Officers,
including those Officer Pilots providing instruction and being instructed, exceeded
the available accommodation in the House, there were numbers of adjacent huts
providing sleeping accommodation for the overflow. It was in one these huts that I
slept during my early days at the Station. There was a coke-burning stove in the
centre of the room, designed to heat 4 of us in beds at the corners, and I remember
how I used to lie awake at night catching glimpses of the outside frosty and snowy
conditions through the spaces in the woodwork. It was the tail-end of winter, 1941-
42, when I had arrived.
While it had been a long train journey from West Hartlepool to the north of
Scotland, where I thought that I was going to find a semi-permanent home with the
R.A.F., I was soon to learn that I was to move to the south-west corner of Scotland
at Stranraer to help in setting up a new Training Unit as a Detachment, as it was
called, of the major northern Station. I spent several months there acting as the
Administration Officer assisting in establishing the new off-shoot. A number of
Officers were accommodated in the George Hotel, with the Mess being in the Nor-
West Castle Hotel, it being the centre for socialising and provision of meals. The
George Hotel was not the modern re-furbished Hotel which, I understand, it is today.
I spent a long time trying to catch the mice which plagued my room and indeed had a
chart on the wall indicating my captures. The mice were gaining access mainly
through holes adjacent to the pipes coming through the flooring near the wash-hand
basin and other apertures at the skirting which gave the little creatures freedom of
entry to my small room near the top of the building.
On the lighter side, I never, in all my war-time service, came across a Catering
Officer who provided such magnificent fare as we enjoyed at Stranraer. How he
managed to produce such appetising food, day after day, is a mystery. There was
no indication of war-time shortages. To my liking, it was a great pleasure to come
along to a meal based on lobster or some other attractive delicacy. The Pilots did
their flying training as they were obliged to do, but I’m sure that they relished
returning in the evenings to enjoy the good food and fellowship in the Nor-West
Castle.
It was really ‘hard going’ to be involved in setting up a new Station. So many
things are either not available or have not yet come forward from central stores,
calling for a great deal of improvisation. Still, my responsibilities were not as great as
those of the air-crews. How the detachment unit came into existence, I do not know.
I would guess that it was to increase the number of trained flying-boat crews as
rapidly as possible to help in countering the u-boat menace which was growing and
causing much damage to merchant shipping, the u-boats slipping up the North Sea
from their bases in the Baltic Sea, fairly near the Norwegian coast, then round the
north of Scotland, and into the Atlantic where they were free to attack convoys.
While at Alness later, our Training Station was converted for some time into an
Operational Station to enable our flying-boats to join in the search for u-boats going
up the North Sea. At least one of our crews’ efforts was marked by success when
they returned to claim a u-boat ‘kill’ and were able to provide sufficient evidence to
substantiate their claim, with the consequent award of ‘gongs’.
I occasionally joined the air-crews on their practice flights — ‘circuits and
bumps’ as they were called, i.e. take-offs and landings, and soon learned that it was
an entirely different experience to be in an aircraft which landed on water from one
which landed on the solid ground. The main body of the craft brought it quickly to a
standstill while the floats, one at the end of each wing, prevented it from tipping
over. The water was a very effective brake.
I had 2 very interesting experiences at Stranraer which are worth recapturing
among these reminiscences. On the first occasion, which is often in my mind, I had
joined a much-decorated pair of Pilots on a local refresher flight in a Sunderland.
They decided to ‘put the aircraft through its paces’. Whether it was part of their
refresher course or sheer devil-may-care bravado, I never got to know. They
decided to make the aircraft a dive bomber, and, having gained a fair height, they put
it into a nose-dive towards the sea. I did not like the experience because the plane
was travelling at a great deal more than its regular knot-rate and, in my edginess I
began to see the wings and other body-parts disintegrating. With some new-found
courage, I did not show my concern lest I should lose face with my colleagues, but
for me it was all very unpleasant.
The other noteworthy, and certainly more pleasant, occasion was when I
accompanied a crew on a visit to our home Station at the Cromarty Firth. We flew in
a ‘London’ Flying-boat, setting off early one morning. Fortunately, it was a lovely
crisp dry day. We halted at Oban on the way north. Somebody had to transact
business with the Operational Squadron located there. Then we pressed on, skirting
Ben Nevis where the snow-line round the mountain was clearly defined. Next we
proceeded up the Great Glen, above Loch Ness, over Inverness and the Black Isle,
and landed at our destination in the Cromarty Firth. Whatever business had to be
done was apparently satisfactorily accomplished and after receiving the expected
welcome and hospitality from the Station personnel — our colleagues — in the early
evening we set out to return to Stranraer. During the course of this part of the
journey, I was given the opportunity of piloting the flying-boat, and at once learned
how, by finger-tip control, one could manoeuvre the plane. I was effectively given
my first lesson in flying training and it was quite a thrill for me. I recall being told to
‘keep my nose up’. It is seemingly a fault with new ‘drivers’ that they allow the nose
of the aircraft to dip, probably in a desire to see the sea or some other point ahead.
The whole journey was a memorable experience, and it added to my then limited
background of ‘circuits and bumps’.
My spell at Stranraer covered the occasion when I was given a few days’
leave to get married to Mary Gault in Fallin Parish Church on 25th November, 1942,
the officiating Minister being the Rev. Mr. Malcolm, who was one of the Ministers
much involved in promoting the work of the Iona Community. He was indeed a good
friend to us when we had the opportunity to go to his Church, and in helping with
the arrangements for our marriage. After the ceremony, we had a meal with about 50
members of the families and guests in Millar’s Restaurant, Stirling, and finally Mary
and I set off for a 3-day break in London, staying at the Regent Palace Hotel. We
trekked about for seemingly countless miles seeing sights which we had never had
the chance of seeing before and found London to be peaceful, still as yet apparently
unaffected by hostile attack.
While we had selected the date for our nuptials, there was some confusion as
to whether I would be given leave, because the date was conflicting with that on
which I was expected to return to Invergordon. The Commanding Officer, Group
Captain Gordon, came to my rescue and I received a helpful telephone call to the
effect that I was awarded 9 days’ leave from 24th November. I sent an immediate
telegram to Mary to put her mind at rest.
At the conclusion of the marriage leave, I returned to the north. It was to be the
third part of my involvement with Alness, the Operational Training Unit for Flying
Boats [mainly involving the work-horses Sunderlands and Catalinas]. The first I
regarded as those early days when I cycled back and forward between Dalmore
House and Invergordon’s hutted Station. The second part was my recent
detachment to Stranraer. The third part was the current posting back as Adjutant of
the Maintenance Wing at the slipway near the mouth of the River Alness, or Averon
as it was otherwise called, and the fourth part was to be my taking over the
responsibilities of Station Adjutant which lay in the future.
The slipway was where the flying boats were pulled ashore after a wheel
apparatus had been attached to each side of the hull at the water’s edge to enable
them to be wheeled up a concrete ramp. Then with the aid of a very powerful towing
vehicle, they were brought up on to a hard standing for such work as was required
to be done on them. I enjoyed the pleasant walk back and forth to the slipway along
the banks of the Averon where, at the weir or small water-fall, one regularly saw
salmon leaping and making strenuous efforts to gain the upper reaches of the river
to spawn their next generation. It amounted to a 10-minutes stroll to reach my room
in what one regarded as the Maintenance Wing Headquarters hut near the row of
aircraft, now on wheels, having new engines or propellers fitted, or extensive repairs
carried out , or major servicing, all of which operations were too difficult to do while
afloat on the Firth. There was one unsatisfactory feature which, I was aware,
displeased many of the Airmen Fitters and Riggers and that was their fairly regular
need to work beside civilian personnel who were drafted in from the manufacturers
to undertake various operations. These people were paid at a much higher rate than
the Airmen and while the latter could not mount a formal protest, I know that there
was an underlying feeling of resentment that the maintenance arrangements had to
be organised in this way.
My ‘boss’ was Squadron Leader Robbins — a promoted ‘regular’ Engineer,
who appeared to be imbued with the traditional need to maintain a high standard of
discipline in his ‘little empire’. As one of the interviewers said to me when I was
being assessed for my commission — ‘Scotsmen were not really cut out to make good
Officers’, probably implying that they were not good disciplinarians. In my make-up,
I rather resent the radical way of disciplining from a hard ‘power-base’, such as
would be expected from a ‘regular’ Officer. I had never been trained as a ‘hard man’
demanding respect, such as in the case of the Pilot Officer at Yatesbury, who put me
on a ‘charge’ for failing to salute him. This was very much against the grain in my
case. I prefer friendly co-operation and getting the best out of people by adopting a
less antagonistic approach.
Squadron Leader Robbins and I got on well, however, although I feel he
sensed my slightly different attitude to discipline. One day, when he was
particularly annoyed with a squad of Airmen on the Unit, for what reason I cannot
remember, he ordered me to give them a special drill ‘to instil some discipline into
them’. I couldn’t protest. I had to carry out the order. I assembled the lads near the
Headquarters hut and marched them off to the farthest point of the slipway from the
Headquarters. I gave them a few right, left, and about turns, recalling which step to
give the command on from the many hours spent on the Blackpool promenade. I had
not done any drilling since then, and I didn’t feel inclined to become involved in it
again. I was quickly and thoroughly ‘fed up’ with the role which had been given to
me and, having stood the squad at ease, I told them that if they were unhappy at the
position in which they had been placed, so was I, and that it was of no pleasure for
me to carry out the Squadron Leader’s order to lead this so-called punishment drill. I
appealed to them to eliminate the need for any further such parades by doing what
they were supposed to do to the satisfaction of the Squadron Leader and also avoid
me getting into this predicament again. I’m sure my talk was of value because we
never had any further occasion to have such a parade. It did occur to me that a
‘regular’ Officer would have handled the matter differently.
I enjoyed seeing all the work going on around me at the slipway and began to
appreciate the skills of the technically-qualified Airmen, many of whom would only,
relatively recently, have come from civilian life. Now they were carrying out major —
almost structural — repairs to Sunderlands and Catalinas, with the lives of air crews
dependant on their ability to perform the tasks efficiently. My respect and
admiration for the lads grew when I learned that when a violent storm was imminent
in the Cromarty Firth area, some of them were formed into skeleton crews to be on
board aircraft for the purpose of starting up their engines to ease the force of the
wind pulling at their anchoring gear. On at least one occasion, an aircraft was
detached from its moorings and disappeared without trace during a stormy night, the
loss being discovered at daybreak.
In January, 1943, I was promoted to the rank of Flying Officer and in July, 1943,
to the rank of Flight Lieutenant, these promotions, coming so soon after my
marriage, with their accompanying increases in pay, being particularly welcome.
By skilful planning of week-end passes, leave periods, and permissions to live
out, mainly in the Commercial Hotel, Alness, when Mary was free to visit me for a
few days at a time, I was able to see her regularly from the beginning of 1943. This
was a welcome change from the Dalmore House routine. The first opportunity to
take advantage of this new pattern of living was from 31st December, 1942, to 4th
January, 1943, when we booked in at the local Hotel.
My administrative duties at the Maintenance Wing did not cause me any
stress, although my duties had to be interrupted occasionally for various odd
reasons such as one is unlikely to come across in civilian life. I would like to give
one example. In June, 1943, I was ordered to participate, along with many others, in
an elaborate mock attack on Evanton Airport, to find out how effective our assault
would be and how their defences would withstand it. This was thoroughly prepared
in the ‘orders of the day’ which laid out, in considerable detail, how the attack was to
be carried out. I’m afraid that I made a somewhat inadequate contribution because,
at an early stage in the proceedings, one of the judges told me that I had been
‘killed’, probably because I had stumbled into a hidden trap. I felt quite well
notwithstanding my calamity, but a bit annoyed that I had not made a success of my
part in the fray.

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