A Very Unusual Air War (38 page)

1 March
: This was my first flight in a B25, known in the RAF as the Mitchell. A twin-engined light bomber with a fair turn of speed and good bomb-carrying capacity, 208 had been equipped with a 75mm gun, taking the length of the fuselage and loaded from a position at the rear. It was intended for use as a tank buster. Before it could prove its worth, it was overtaken by the use of rockets. When fired from the Mitchell the recoil was almost enough to stall the aircraft.

F/Lt ‘Cappy’ Lane was an Australian, seconded to AFDU almost entirely for Mitchell trials. He remained in England after the war; a qualified solicitor, he became an assistant to the Public Prosecutor at Scotland Yard. He was one of those who attended my farewell party in 1948.

4 March
: Great care had to be taken when changing from main to drop tanks on the Typhoon. Wrong action could produce an air lock, causing the engine to cut out. It was sometimes difficult to effect a restart. I did not enjoy these tests or fancy the possibility of having to force-land a Tiffie with a dead engine.

5 March
: I do not remember that there were any remarkable differences between a Mk VII and a Mk IX. At the higher altitudes, the extra wing area of the VII may have given a better turning circle.

7 March
: With four 20mm cannons, the VC was essentially a ground attack machine so it made sense to reduce speed in the dive. The dive brakes were flap-like panels on top and bottom of the wings, which could be extended in the dive.

19 March
: During my flight on the 18th, I was still not happy with the BMW 810 engine of the 190 so, after adjustments, I carried out an air test. Shortly after take-off the engine died and I was lucky enough to be able to force-land successfully on the airfield.

13 April
: Hooray! Hooray! I’m 24 today!

17 April
: The memory of this young man will live with me always; Roy Hussey was young, tall, handsome and so full of life. After a few weeks with us, resting from operations, he was returned to a squadron, posted to Italy and, almost immediately shot down and killed.

21 April
: Another first in my logbook, courtesy of NAFDU. The Hellcat was a descendant of the Grumman Martlet. With its powerful Wright double-row Cyclone radial engine, it proved a very formidable fighting machine. With the Corsair it transformed the position in the Far East against the Japanese.

23 April
: On one of the Mustang trials, in company with a Spitfire XIV flown by Susie, we checked the operational ceiling and the maximum ceiling. We both reached somewhere in the region of 41,000 to 44,500 feet. At that height the cold was intense and we both went into steep dives to get down into warmer climes.

Flying the Mustang, I half rolled and pulled back into an almost vertical dive. An American test pilot had done this manoeuvre and was believed to have hit the sound barrier; he failed to recover from the dive and was killed. Forewarned, I started my pull-out in time but must have hit a speed close to 700 mph.

Sutton Bridge was one of the WREN Fleet Air Arm units, which manned the dive screens in and near The Wash bombing ranges. ‘Zip’ Zobel was a Canadian and many years later we made contact through his seeing a particular photograph in
Aeroplane
magazine. We corresponded until his death in the 1980s.

27 April
: To extend the range of fighters in general and Spitfires in particular, they were fitted with external fuel tanks that could be jettisoned. The tanks were torpedo-shaped under each wing and/or shipped under the belly. The latter were shaped to follow the profile of the aircraft. We did tests to ensure that, when released, they fell clear and did not cause any engine cut.

MH415 is the Spitfire that survived the war and later was bought by Connie Edwards, a West Texas cattle rancher. After my daughter, Penny, who also lives in Texas, tracked him down, he invited us to pay him a visit in January 1998 to see MH415 and the other aircraft in his collection, ME 109s, Mustangs and others. I spent the day stroking my old plane and taking loads of photographs and was able to sit in the cockpit again. How the memories flooded back. The story of my trip was told in the Redditch local and British national daily papers in February 1998.

28 April
: Firefly, another first for my logbook, courtesy of NAFDU. A Fleet Air Arm machine made by Fairey Aviation and powered by a Rolls-Royce Griffon engine, it was a powerful addition to our carrier-borne strike and reconnaissance force.

Target for gyro. The Gyro gunsight replaced the manually adjustable sight which provided a fixed red dot aiming point and which had been in use since the war started. The Gyro sight dot was pulled by the gyros in reaction to ‘G’ applied. It transformed the art of air fighting by constant correction to deflection and turned ordinary shots (like me) into aces.