My Way - Chapter 7 - OTU

Chapter 7 O.T.U.{Operation Training Unit}

After AFU we first went on leave, but we were advised to bring back a bicycle for use at OTU since the distance from the accommodation buildings to the flight locations would be very considerable. At the Bomber Command O.T.U near Edgehill, one of the first jobs was to form us into crews. So twelve pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, wireless operators, and rear gunners were put together in a room to form ourselves into crews. It was rather embarrassing having to go up to other men, mostly strangers and say’will you have me in your crew’ however we all managed to sort ourselves out. My skipper was to be a well built chap called Eadie.

The planes were Wellington Bombers so we had to learn all about them. The entrance was under the nose so we had to use a ladder to climb aboard. The escape hatch was a door in the side towards the rear and to get out one would have to lay on the floor and roll out. The procedure was that first of all the crew would spend about 16 hours getting used to the new aircraft mostly circuits and bumps i.e. take offs and landings. A further 4 hours were spent on high level bombing practice as I had to get used to a more advanced bombsight. It had a glass sight with parallel lines which could be tilted back so that the aircraft could be lined up with the target from a distance. Then the aircraft could be guided to keep the target between the lines to the dropping point. The lines were fixed wires on earlier models. During the pilot instruction the instructor occupied the seat next to the pilot so I had nowhere to sit during takeoffs and landings. One of the things he was practising was stalled turns which involved letting the air speed fall to stalling point then at the moment of stalling do the first 180 degrees of a spin and then pick up speed and the turn is complete. If you watched through the astrodome you could see as the speed neared stalling point the tail of the plane was wagging furiously caused by the turbulence.

Unfortunately the skipper had been trained in England and had no night flying experience so he just could not land a Wellington at night. He failed to qualify. Without a pilot the rest of the crew had to wait for new postings. I was attached to an office which dealt with matters concerning the bomb aimers schedules etc just to keep me out of the way I suppose. About that time a crew crashed and all were killed. We got the job of disposing of the coffins. The first one we had to load onto a lorry and take it to the railway station and put it on a train as his family wanted his funeral at home. We had to ride in the back of the lorry with the body. We all felt very subdued. Somebody pulled out a packet of cigarettes but one of us said we shouldn’t smoke but Alf the cockney rear gunner said ‘I don’t think he will mind will you cock?’ that broke the ice and we all felt more at ease. Another one was being buried locally so we were required to be the pall bearers. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the crew members I suppose an undertaker must have collected them. We later heard that the aircraft was coming in to land and the pilot announced ‘shape deck tare over shooting’ followed with ’christ what have you done now’. I think that as the flaps lever, which alters the shape of the wings reducing the stalling speed, and is similar to the under carriage lever, which raises the wheels. Both levers are side by side between the two seats. If the flap lever had been raised instead of the under carriage lever it would have caused the plane to stall. It was while we were waiting for another posting that the war in Europe ended. Everybody had a 48 hours leave.

Then I was posted to an O.T.U near Shrewsbury called O.R.T.U Wethersfield. I don’t know where the rest of the crew ended up. First thing was to choose a crew. We all stood around chatting for a while then I said to the chap I was talking to “shouldn’t we get ourselves picked”
He said, “ask Johnny he won't mind.” Johnny was sitting on a raised up seat and talking to other pilots. All were pilot officers. He just agreed and that was that.

The course was much more extensive than the bomber command O.T.U though I did not realise that at the time. At first we didn’t fly together as a crew. I trained with instructors on map reading exercises and 4 trips on navigation and clocked up 28 hours two of which were night exercises. Then we started flying together as a crew, on Wellington bombers again. The crew consisted of Johnny the pilot, Jimmy the navigator, Fred the wireless operator, Jordie the flight engineer, and me.The program consisted of day and night navigation, high level bombing and we also spent about 10 night hours on solo circuits and bumps. The skipper it seemed was a very experienced pilot. On many of the cross-country navigation exercises the target could be just a five bared gateway into a field and I had to take a photograph as we passed directly over. The camera was fixed directly under the plane and pointed straight down. So I had to position the plane to pass exactly over the target by giving the pilot instructions, which were either left —left or right and steady. Then at the moment the plane was exactly passing over the target I had to press the bomb release button which operated the camera.

One trip we were given a full roll of film and briefed to fly over the Ruhr and take as many photographs as we could. First of all we came to Cologne. It was a most amazing sight. The whole city was in ruin except for the cathedral, which was left standing. All the bridges across the river were down. Next we flew over Arnham. The place where an unsuccessful troop drop took place. The intention had been to make a bridgehead behind the German lines. On the first day our 298 squadron towed in about 5 or 6 gliders and, no doubt, dropped some parachutists and supplies. I could see the burnt out shapes of the gliders and the zig-zags of the slit trenches alongside the gliders where the troops had dug themselves in. Unfortunately it seems that the weather closed in for the next few days and further supplies and troops could not be sent in to re-enforce the lads so they must have had to surrender. I had been told that I could have copies of the photos but when I asked the photographic section they said that the camera had not worked. Next we were given a one-week course of night vision. First of all we reported to a shed that was in complete darkness. We were lined up at one end and told that there were a number of obstacles like skittles on the floor. We had to try to walk across the room and avoid knocking them over. Of course we failed. Then they explained that eyes have things called rods and cones one of these is in the centre of the retina and used for daylight seeing and the others are round the outside for night vision. The effect of this is that we see objects a few inches to one side at night compared to in daylight. We had to wear dark goggles at lunch time to keep our eyes accustomed to the dark and we were shown films of night scenes to try to get used to the difference that darkness had on map reading etc. At the end of the week we were sent on a night flight to a place in Germany. My job was, after take off, to sit in the nose and try to read the map, but after we left the airfield, as it was a moonless night I could see very little. When we passed over the English Channel I could see a glint of water, then after that, nothing all the time we were over the continent. It was about this time that a radar beacon with a range of about 50 miles that was placed 20 yards along side the runways. Each airfield had its own two letters flashed in morse code which enabled us to identify the airfield if we passed near and home in on to the one we wanted.

About this time, August 1945, the USA dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki which brought about the end of the second world war. Everybody went home for a few days to celebrate. My wife was convalescing, I suppose the war work had taken its toll, so I arranged for her to come and stay in Shrewsbury for a while. We stayed in a boarding house and I cycled to and fro between flights. One night we were due for a briefing for a night flight and as I peddled back to base two girls were cycling towards town and just as they came alongside me one of them just fell to the ground. I now think that she must have been epileptic but at the time I didn’t know that. As she was squirming about it seemed serious so I tried to flag down a car, with petrol strictly rationed, there were few cars about. I tried to stop several but without success and as it was already time for the briefing I had to leave her. I missed the briefing but when I explained the matter was dropped.

One day we were doing a night exercise but the weather forced us to take refuge at Doncaster and we returned to base the next morning.

When the course was over I had put in 110 hours flying. I expect the usual indefinite leave was the order of the day.

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