A View from the Back: The Recollections of a Fleet Air Arm Observer 1941-1946 by Tony Inman (Part 4 of 14)

A View from the Back: The Recollections of a Fleet Air Arm Observer 1941-1946 by Tony Inman Part 4 of 14 (Sep 42 - Mar 43)

Arbroath is fairly close to Balmoral and Glamis castle, the royal palaces and things like that, and we were forbidden to fly within 5 miles of them whether the King was there or not. The other thing that was close was the town of Kirriemuir with the infamous ballroom which I never visited so whether all those things really happened there I couldn't say. When we flew we either took the part of the observer and navigated or the air gunner and dealt with the radio. We used the normal Q code which was 3 letters starting with Q which had an equivalent message which was in a book. It was not secret, just an abbreviated way of sending standard messages. For safety we had to communicate every 15 minutes with the ground station to let them know we were OK. We flew initially over land where we did our first wind finding exercises and then after a while we started to fly out to sea because Arbroath is of course on the coast. The wind finding exercise at sea comprised dropping a smoke float which was like a bomb which poured out smoke and when you
dropped it you knew how long it would take to hit the sea based on your height, then you had to do a turn so that it was going in entirely the opposite direction - a 180 degree turn. 3 minutes after you started the turn you turned back again on your original course which meant that if there had been no wind 3 minutes later you would have been back on your smoke float. Inevitably you were not. The direction of the wind was easy to calculate because you just used your
compass and aimed it at the smoke float and that was it, the problem was how fast was it blowing. That required more calculations which I don't remember any more, so you took a bearing of the float and took the time when you were opposite the float (90 degrees) and then you did a transfer fix, a technical term I shall not go into.

I see that my first 3 flights were in 3 different aircraft: first a Swordfish, then a Walrus, then a Lysander. For the Walrus flights we used to go by bus down to Dundee which was about 25 miles away. The Walrus' were there on the river Tay up on a slipway. You then taxied down into the water, retracted the wheels and then took off like the flying boat the Walrus was - quite an experience the first time. Once or twice we took off from the river and when we came back it was too rough so down came the wheels and we landed at Arbroath at the normal place.

The Lysander was normally a 2 seater but they had adapted it to make it into a 3 seater so you could get the navigator and the air gunner in. The air gunner’s position was exceedingly cramped. The pilots were mostly reservists who were too old for operational flying - quite a few bald heads amongst them - and I suppose, since I was about 20 then they probably looked a bit ancient even if they were only 40. There were one or two new boys there, Midshipman de Frys was a lad who wanted to do all sorts of mad things if you would let him and you had to remind him that you were supposed to be training.

Our navigational exercises were generally out to sea, and departure point was designated “position DKRM”. This was a swimming pool on the sea front, which wasn’t used when I was there and as it was bright blue and empty it was easy enough to see. The idea was that you flew off, found your wind, flew your courses (given by your instructor) and then in an ideal world you found your way back to DKRM at the appropriate moment. Well this very seldom happened. Afterwards, in the next ground school session, you had to go over your plot and find out what you had done wrong, perhaps you had marked your course a degree or 2 wrong, easy enough to do in the air with these parallel rulers but more usually because your calculation of the wind hadn't been any good.

Out to sea, about 25 miles, is the famous Bell Rock lighthouse which was again a useful navigation point for bearings so we could see how near we should have been. I see from the log book that although we didn’t fly every day we flew most days, sometimes twice a day. This was Scotland in approaching winter so it didn’t get light until half past nine or ten o’clock, and it was dark again by five. As the winter got on, the light got less and less and we started night flying at half past 5 in the afternoon. The trips were not particularly long, one to two hours usually, but it got very, very cold indeed. If you are in the back of the open cockpit of a Swordfish when there is snow on the ground, the freezing level is at about 500 feet and you are swanning along at 1500 to 2000 feet - we rarely went very high - it can be very, very cold despite 3 pairs of gloves, 2 Sidcots and as many pairs of scarves and sweaters you could beg borrow or steal to put on underneath all your flying kit.

In the Swordfish the cockpit was open, so to stop you falling out fixed to the floor was a long canvas strap which had a clip on the end which you attached to a D ring on the bottom of your parachute harness. This was known as a monkey tail and that stopped you falling over the side if the idiot in the front seat decided to turn the aircraft upside down, which I am pleased to say they didn't do when I was flying with them anyway.

Food was reasonable although we went to the NAAFI some days for a meal and that is where we were introduced to the delights of pink custard. It looked disgusting and tasted even more disgusting. The best food was on the nights we were night flying because, as most of the night flying was done early evening, we had to order suppers which would be kept back for us and one of the cooks would be on duty in the cookhouse to keep it warm. I think the usual method was to order 20 suppers if only 10 of us were night flying so we could have big helpings of kidneys and chips for example. Not very hot, but all very welcome anyway.

Then it was perhaps down to the NAAFI for a drink or two or perhaps back to the hut to write letters or just read or talk. Occasionally we went into Arbroath which was some miles away by bus, but it was a very small place without much to do unless you wanted to go round the pubs which was never my cup of tea even if I could have afforded it. We were, of course, receiving flying pay and we had been promoted to acting leading airman (equivalent to an Army corporal) from naval airman second class, so the money went up a bit anyway.

The flying was fairly uneventful but some of us were struck - or at least our aerials were struck - by lightning. The wireless sets needed a trailing aerial which was a wire with a weight on the end which you unwound once you were airborne so this aerial dangled down below the aircraft. If you let it go too fast, it would stop with a jerk at the end and the weight of the lead would be enough to snap it off, leaving you with an aerial which was blowing all over the place. You were not supposed to let it out with a rush and you had to remember to wind it in again before you came into land or it could do all sorts of damage to itself or somebody. We did some air to air firing because in the back seat of the Swordfish there was a single machine gun. We would go out to sea and some other aircraft towing a drogue would make passes along the side, high, low and across the back, and you fired - but you had to be careful when doing under-the-tail firing to avoid shooting holes in you own tailplane. I think all of us came back at one time or another with holes in our own tailplanes if none in the drogue, and I was no exception.

We did some firing practice using a camera gun. We did one and were waiting for a Seafire to come, but there was melting snow on the ground and when this chap took off - he was below us - we immediately lost him against the ground because he had the brown and green camouflage on his top wing. We never saw him till he came up behind us from somewhere, so I expect that would have been an easy kill as far as he was concerned.

Flying from Dundee one day, we landed on the river and were taxiing up towards the slipway on a falling tide, and against the tide and the current of the river it was fairly hard going and unfortunately the pilot managed to stall the engine. So there we were in an engineless Walrus being swept out to sea. The drill was that the 2 of us - not the pilot but the 2 observers - climbed out of the window up onto the wing clutching a starting handle, went round to the side of the engine and inserted this starting handle and began winding. It was one of those inertia starters, you used to wind up a flywheel and when the flywheel was going at sufficient speed you let in the clutch and hopefully the engine would start. The snag about all this was that we were bobbing up and down on the waves and being swept out to sea and, because the Walrus has a pusher engine, there was always the possibility if you weren't damn careful that if the pilot managed to start the engine you would go flying backwards straight into the propeller. That is why 2 of you got out - one wound the handle and the other wrapped his arms around the other one and a strut. We managed to get it started and taxied up to the slipway eventually. Sometimes we had to moor at a buoy which meant creeping along inside the hull up to the front where there was a hatch which you opened and leaned out with a rope and hooked onto a buoy. That was usually if there was going to be some delay before you could come up to the slipway.

I was flying one day with a bearded colleague - he was a London policeman. We had been out for some time and he decided he would have to have a Jimmy-Riddle. So he did it into a tin and then decided that he would have to throw it out so he slid open the window and, not thinking, threw it forward. The wind just blew it straight back into his face! He looked rather amusing with it dripping off his beard, I must say.

Getting the Walrus airborne if the water was very choppy could be difficult. The plane would charge along over (but mostly through the waves) attempting to get up enough speed to get up onto the step and then eventually into the air. It could be a bit frightening bumping along the water with waves coming right over the bow and sloshing on the windscreen. Not spray but solid water!

We were coming to the end of the course when we had exams in all the subjects we had been doing. And when we became the senior course, two or three of those departing from what had been the senior course, said that they had decided that - as we (our little gang) seemed to be the biggest skates - they would tell us where the exam papers were kept. So when the exams came round, three or four of us went off in the night to the hut in which the papers were kept - it was a training hut or something and there was no-one in it at night especially because it was February or March. One guard at one end, one at the other and the other 2 went into the office to find the exam papers using torches and to write down rapidly the questions. I think we cheated at everything but navigation and Morse - you couldn't cheat at Morse and there was no point at cheating at navigation because your life would depend on it and you just had to be able to do it. But photography and meteorology and wireless theory we didn't think were too important, so we went into the exam equipped with some of the answers which we didn't make too obviously good so no-one would suspect. So your old chap is not the pillar of virtue you might think.

Anyway the exams came and then the results and I think we all passed somehow, or perhaps they were going to pass us all anyway. We were then entitled to our wings. There was no wings ceremony - they don't seem to have them in the Navy. I don't know whether we were disappointed or not, but anyway the tailors arrived from the various uniform specialists, Gieves and Austin Reeds and others to measure us and we ordered the uniforms - we had an allowance of a certain amount of money. No 1 uniform was barathea, No 2 serge uniform and cap and a splendid overcoat (it really was a beautiful overcoat), shoes and shirts and things and of course the coveted wings which I was very proud of indeed. Then it was off on leave until such time as we would be sent somewhere else. I suppose we all swanked on our first leave in our officer's uniform looking for people to salute us and be shown off by wives and girlfriends and mums and dads.

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