By the Skin of my Teeth: The Memoirs of an RAF Mustang Pilot in World War II and of Flying Sabres with USAF in Korea

by Colin Downes

  Not all my time at Biggin Hill was duty bound as I enjoyed more leisure time than was the case when I was flying with the auxiliary air force or during my tour as an ADC. It was after my arrival on 41 Squadron that I decided to divest myself of my half share in a four-seat Percival Proctor single-engine monoplane used by the RAF as a light communication aircraft during the war. The RAF had little use for these aircraft after the war and many were sold off as surplus war equipment. During the last year of the war I had a friend who was a flight commander on a communication squadron that flew me to Paris shortly after the liberation. After VJ Day I decided to obtain my civil flying licences. My friend was now commanding an RAF communication squadron at what is now Gatwick International Airport and I accompanied him to one of the war surplus sales, and on a sudden whim we decided to buy a Proctor that was in good condition with low flying hours. We purchased it very cheaply and were able to enlist ‘volunteers’ on the squadron to help service the aircraft; so the upkeep when shared between us was no more expensive than running my sports car. The other incentive was the fact that my friend lived in Jersey and we anticipated that the aircraft would enable us to visit the Channel Islands and France at weekends. The grand prix motor circuit had started up again and we flew to many of the motor races. The process of private civil flying in the immediate post-war years was fairly relaxed and being service pilots enabled us to get away with a lot that would not be possible in later years. My friend used to fly regularly to Jersey to visit his girl friend and I was certainly not utilizing my share of the Proctor, although financially this did not amount to much and I was by then a member of ‘the most expensive private flying club in the world’, No. 601 RAuxAF Squadron! My friend nearly wrecked the Proctor, fortunately without any personal injuries and I decided to sell him my share of the aircraft. We had a lot of fun with the Proctor on some of our jaunts together with a few exciting moments, but I had started to renew my interest in sailing and I could not indulge in both pastimes. As a result of one close call, and as my father thought I should get into less trouble sailing than joyriding around Europe in the Proctor, he generously helped me in the acquisition of a 28 foot Bermuda rigged sloop that I kept moored at the RAF Yacht Club in the Hamble River. Whenever time permitted I spent my time sailing the Solent area and along the west coast, with an occasional trip to France. I got to know the area well and crewed on several larger yachts in the Channel races and during Cowes Week when I joined the Royal London Yacht Club.

  Some of my most enjoyable sailing during my tour at Biggin Hill was with a friend who was flying with the auxiliaries. We crewed for his younger sister in her International Dragon Class yacht and competed in several of the races at the Royal Beaumaris Yacht Club in North Wales, where my friend lived. He was the only son of an extensive estate along the shores of the Menai Straight, and as the only member of his family to break with tradition and blot the family escutcheon by joining one of the services other than the Army, he liked to have some RAF support when visiting the family. My initial visit had perceptions of ‘Brideshead Revisited’ as the family residence was an impressive stately home. The baronet, the epitome of his class during a different era, had a resemblance to the actor C. Aubrey Smith in one of his military roles. At my first meeting with him I felt very much as I did in the presence of my headmaster at school. However, he proved to be very approachable, and with a mutual interest in guns, shooting and fishing, as well as being well versed in battle tales by my father, I established a good rapport with him. The general had served with distinction in the infantry during and after the First World War and I encouraged him to talk of his experiences in The Great War, much to the feigned chagrin of the family having listened to them many times before. I recounted some of my father’s exploits while serving with the Scottish Rifles at the Battle of Loos and the Battle of the Somme. He was particularly interested to hear how my father as a very junior subaltern platoon commander endeavoured to deceive the Germans that he had a Lewis machine-gun in his section of the line when they were in very short supply. He mounted a dozen rifles on each of two wooden frames placed on top of the parapet of the trench with the triggers tripped to fire the rifles in quick succession. The firing of the rifles sounded as two quick bursts of fire from a machine-gun and he hoped by this to persuade the Germans to do their probing raids elsewhere. The distance between the opposing front line trenches in the coalfields around Loos was often less than 200 yards and at night both sides carried out patrols and the repair of the barbed-wire in no-man’s-land. In order to deter this activity on his company front he modified a Stokes 3 inch trench mortar into a cannon to fire grapeshot. The cannon, primed with two mortar charges and filled with various scraps of metal – bullets, shot, shrapnel and nails – was placed on top of the parapet of a forward sap and lined up on the barbed-wire in no-man’s-land. Sandbags placed on top, at the sides and the rear of the mortar protected the gunner. On a dark night with no moon, when wiring parties and reconnaissance patrols were anticipated, my father took up position behind his cannon, while a brave volunteer crawled out through the barbed-wire pulling a length of wire behind him. Out in the barbed-wire he went to ground in a shell-hole and taking up the slack on the wire with signalling tugs to my father holding the other end, he waited for the Germans to come within range of the cannon’s lethal charge. The signal came to hand and my father fired the cannon. The resultant bang sounded to those on ‘stand-to’ in the trench as if a mortar bomb had exploded in the sap as the mortar disintegrated with the barrel becoming a serrated funnel – As cannons overcharged with double cracks. My father regained consciousness on the far side of the trench with nothing more than a broken shoulder and punctured ear drums. Cries from the barbed-wire indicated that at least some pieces of metal had found human targets and the cries brought rifle fire to bear under the light of Very flares. The brave scout out in no-man’s-land, although considerably shaken, survived the hail of fire and returned to his front line intact before dawn. My father was taken to hospital and given ‘Blighty’ leave and the experiment was not repeated.

  One of the many problems confronting the troops in the front line trenches came from snipers, and these skilled sharpshooters using special Mauser rifles with telescopic sights caused many casualties to any of the troops exposing themselves above the trenches. The snipers, adept and ingenious in concealment, and changing their hides frequently, proved to be difficult to locate and harder to kill with the standard .303 Lee Enfield rifle. My father, while on leave in London following his discharge from hospital and visiting some of the famous London gunsmiths, came across a second-hand Jeffrey big-game double-barrelled rifle. There not being much demand at the time for such a rifle, my father was able to buy it very cheaply. The rifle chambered for the 0.600 nitro-express cartridge was intended to bring down a charging elephant, rhinoceros or buffalo at short range and had a considerable bullet drop at longer ranges. Nevertheless, the close proximity of the opposing front-line trenches made the rifle, when fitted with a telescopic sight, a feasible counter to the sniper threat operating from a hide. One sergeant in his company had been a gillie in the Highlands before joining the army and was expert in detecting a sniper’s hide. After setting up a decoy, my father firing from a forward sap would place several of the big and heavy slugs into or around the detected or suspected hide. Although he made no claim of kills with the rifle, it proved an effective deterrent with a subsequent uplift in company morale, and he became in demand within the battalion to take care of snipers.

  My Welsh friend’s sister was an attractive and athletic girl who handled her Dragon very competently, and I had an immediate, restrained and unrequited crush on her. I looked forward to my visits to Wales when I would borrow a Meteor jet from the squadron and fly to RAF Valley in Anglesey to be met by my friend’s sister. This privilege was traditional in the RAF during stand-downs, and regarded by the RAF as useful flying practice. The Army was not so accommodating in the loan of their tanks or the Royal Navy
with their ships on such occasions. Although our presence was required for dinner and breakfast, my friend preferred that we stayed on the small island belonging to the estate in the Menai Straight, where a fishing lodge overlooked fish traps to catch salmon heading for Welsh rivers. I have very pleasant memories of this island retreat where, after some evening fishing, we sat on the terrace or in front of a log fire in the lodge for lengthy nightcaps before retiring, to be lulled to sleep if not by alcohol by the sound of water flowing over the fish weir. Arising early we would fish again before joining the family for breakfast. The general would brief us on sailing tactics and boat handling for the race before we sailed the Dragon across the Straight to Beaumaris. Our skipper was a demanding sailing master but we never managed to win a race for her. Following the race the general, who always followed the race from the clubhouse balcony through a telescope, would hold a post-mortem examination on our tactics, handling and mistakes. Our skipper obviously inured to this procedure would take it patiently and stoically, but afterwards would vent her displeasure on her crew. I imagined the general holding similar debriefings in his command following military manoeuvres. These idyllic days of summer in Wales were regrettably short and few in number but the memory would return frequently over the years, especially when abroad. Sadly, after I departed the UK for the US and then Korea, my friend was killed in a motorcar accident. The grim reaper was to deprive me of my two best friends in the RAF during my absence from the UK.

  An activity over the English Channel that occupied us at Biggin Hill was air firing exercises. This was carried out initially on drogue targets towed over the sea a few miles off the coast. Flat banner targets replaced the drogue targets that gave a better sighting target and were easier to score with the cannon shell tips marked with different colours. This routine training was followed once a year by a detachment to the Fighter Command armament practice camp at Acklington on the Northumberland coast, that was close to the wartime Spitfire OTU I attended at Eschott. We stayed at Acklington for two weeks of concentrated air – air firing exercises. An amusing episode with revealing social mores occurred on one particular armament practice detachment when the squadron CO was ill and I was acting CO. We had an excellent two weeks firing on banner targets with the innovation of some towed glider targets. It was not possible to score the hits on these targets in the same manner as the banner targets as the hits were not clearly defined and one shell might indicate more than one hole. An audio wire recorder in the glider registered the sound of the hits and gave a good indication of the extent of the hits made. The main advantage of the glider target was that it resembled an aircraft and made the pilot range his sight while tracking the target.

  There were no incidents during our stay and at the end of our detachment we decided to give the squadron ground crew a party at a local pub in Acklington village, paid for out of the ‘pilots’ fund’, which normally took care of expenses for amenities in the pilots’ crew room. The process of this fund was very democratic with the subscriptions determined by needs and rank. On leaving the pub at closing time, most of the squadron moved next door to the village hall for the monthly village dance, for which there was an extension of the drinking licence. On entering the hall we saw a few men gathered around the bar and a few couples dancing to a local band. However, seated all around the dance floor against the wall were dozens of hopeful women and girls in the proverbial wallflower situation. To enliven the proceedings, I offered to donate a bottle of scotch to the winner of a mandatory pilots’ dancing contest to be judged by the two flight commanders and myself. The winner would be the pilot dancing with the most unprepossessing partner. As a result, that particular monthly dance was probably the most successful dance in the village hall since the departure of the Americans in 1945. The outcome of our socializing occurred the following morning when the squadron adjutant informed me that I had a rare ‘orderly room’ for hearing one of the squadron airmen charged by the RAF police of being improperly dressed after curfew and for conduct prejudicial to the good order and discipline of the Service. A service policeman gave evidence that the airman charged was caught creeping into camp in the early hours dressed only in his shirt and socks. The airman explained that after the dance at the village hall one of the women invited him back to her home. Acklington was a small mining village situated over a coal field that extended far out under the North Sea. The airman’s ‘date’ was married to a miner working on the night shift but unfortunately he returned home unexpectedly due to a mishap at the mine. In the general panic of escaping out of the window the airman either could not find his clothes and shoes thrown out in the dark after him, or else he abandoned them as he legged it back to camp, The airman was clearly guilty as charged, but in mitigation I considered that the squadron bore some responsibility for the offence in placing him at the scene of the crime. That being the case there was the squadron’s reputation to consider and in such matters the course of justice must be seen to be done. There was also the question of safeguarding the physical well being of the airman concerned. I found the airman guilty with a warning as to his future conduct and confinement to camp for the duration of our stay; and the cost of the items missing from his service kit during the offence to be deducted from his pay. However, the airman’s punishment was not onerous as he was put on the advance party returning to Biggin Hill the following day. We flew out of Acklington two days later and the pilots’ fund reimbursed him for the missing items of service kit. Our two weeks of intensive flying and gunnery resulted in the squadron achieving the highest air firing scores in Fighter Command. It was interesting to see the coast of Northumberland again, although much had changed in the years since I fulfilled my ambition to fly Spitfires and experienced at Eschott the thrill and joy of flying the aircraft. Our tormenting Canadians had returned home, to the regret of many of the local girls, taking some of them home as wives. The airfield had returned to nature and only a few abandoned, riddled and leaking Nissan huts were left as a remembrance of things past. On the Boulmer airfield further up the coast there were no snarling Spitfires, only a few dispersed Bloodhound guided missile sites patiently waiting to sniff out any attacking Soviet ‘Badger’ bombers should they come from the East.

  A London Particular. During my last year at Biggin Hill in 1952 the yellow fog that rubs its back upon the windowpanes of London was a killer fog and a notable catastrophe that brought disruption and death despite frequent warnings to the government in the past for the need of a Clean Air Act. The worst of these fogs occurred during the autumn and early winter months. It was estimated that by the end of the year as many as 12,000 people had died from respiratory complaints, mostly among the elderly. It appeared that the low lying areas of London along the Thames Valley created natural fogs, and when this occurred with a low level temperature inversion and no wind to disperse the fog, it mixed with the dense London smoke pollution from coal burning boilers and domestic fires to form a thick blanket of dense yellow smog like some monstrous catarrh. The dense smog stayed at ground level enveloping everything and making movement in the city almost impossible. Biggin Hill, sited on the escarpment of the South Downs a few hundred feet above sea level, escaped most of the effects of the smog and we were still able to fly. Flying over the yellow sea that covered London presented an incredible sight with the belching smoke stacks sticking out above the thick yellow blanket of smog. As the smoke emissions curled back down towards the ground, the smog blanket grew denser day by day until the weather factor changed with a wind to disperse the smog. Through this blanket covering the city I could still see church steeples poking out into a clear blue sky. The worst of these fogs lasted for as much as a week, before the inversion lifted and the wind dispersed the smog. I experienced the effects and difficulties of travelling in London when caught out in the city. The choking yellow smog reduced visibility to a few yards and just crossing a street was both a difficult and dangerous navigation exercise. Driving a car was well nigh impossible and the effect o
f the smog was plain to see as shirt collars and cuffs became quickly blackened by the soot. Thick, filthy yellow-black mucus blocked the nose and throat making it difficult to breathe; and in clearing the nose the filth was clearly evident in the handkerchief.

  As an occasional sufferer of asthma I was very glad to be out of the smog area at Biggin Hill that remained mostly in the clear with only occasional patches of mist or fog. Similarly, my mother living at Hampstead above the smog level remained in the clear though unable to travel. Those that travelled by the London Underground system were no better off as the smog penetrated into some tunnels and stations, and the passengers on reaching ground level became as immobile as the rest. After the killer smog of late 1952 and early 1953, the government finally passed the Clean Air Act that at last brought an end to the ‘Pea Soup’ fogs of London and made even ‘a foggy day in London Town’ a rarity and an exception to a previous frequent occurrence. There is no better description of a London Particular than that written nearly 100 years earlier by Charles Dickens in ‘Our Mutual Friend’ – Animate London, with smarting eyes and irritated lungs, was blinking, wheezing, and choking. Divided in purpose between being visible and invisible, and so being wholly neither. Even in the surrounding country it was a foggy day, but there the fog was grey, whereas in London it was at about the boundary line, dark yellow, and a little within it brown, and then browner, and then browner, until at the heart of the City it was rusty-black.