I didn't help in the slightest... Well, not much anyway.

If you were reading the Blog this time last year, you may have read a post about a project that the MicroDandy had to do for school, all about Britain in the Second World War.

The post was pretty much a list of all the stories that my Dad told us that weren't completely 'appropriate' for a seven year old's school project.  I thought at least a couple of you would be interested in reading what actually did make it into the project.

Or not...

Either way...

Here it is.

-oOo-

My Grandad in the RAF

In 1947 my Grandad Fred, who was 18 years old and training to be an electrician was conscripted into the Royal Air Force.

This meant that he had to leave his job and travel to RAF Innsworth in Gloucestershire to receive Basic Training in being a member of the armed forces.

After eight weeks of training where he learned, amongst other things, how to fire different types of gun and throw hand grenades.  He was one of four men in his group chosen to go to Northern Europe.

He sailed from Harwich to The Hook of Holland on the HMT SS Vienna (Picture below).

He then travelled, by train, up through Holland and Germany, to Hamburg and then to Flensburg, the most northern town in Germany and its Capital at the end of the Second World War, to complete his aircrew training, which meant that he was qualified to be a member of the crew of an aeroplane.

After completing his training he was made a Sergeant (Signals) and assigned to a part of the RAF called Headquarters 46 Group - Transport Command.

Signaller Brevet (Badge)

Sergeant's Stripes (or 'Tapes')

During the next four years he crewed transport aircraft all over the world, visiting places such as Cyprus, Hong Kong, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia and Malta.

One of the largest operations that he took part in was the Berlin Airlift.  Between 1948 and 1949 the Russian army blockaded the city of Berlin in Germany.  This meant that food and fuel could not get in to the people there. So the RAF and the United States Air Force used hundreds of aeroplanes to deliver thousands of tons of supplies every day.

At the busiest times, around 1,500 aeroplanes were landing every day in Berlin, that’s one every minute! The pilots of these aeroplanes had a very difficult job, flying at 150 Miles per Hour, sometimes only 150 meters apart.  Sometimes an aeroplane would crash onto the runway, if this happened it had to be pushed out of the way very quickly by a bulldozer so that the next one could land.

My Grandad remembers that there were times he had to work for 36 hours in a row flying in Avro Yorks and Douglas Dakotas loaded with Coal, Oil, Food and Mail to make sure that the supplies got delivered in time.  Sometimes, on the return trip, his aeroplane was loaded with some of the 11,000 children who were being evacuated out of Berlin to live with families in the West.

Whilst stationed at RAF Jurby on the Isle of Man he was one of the crew that flew training aircraft that were used to train new Navigators, these are the people who tell the Pilot where the aeroplane is and how to get to where he needs to go.

And one of his jobs when stationed at RAF Wunstorf  in Germany was to help fly Mosquito Fighter/Bombers back to RAF Broughton in Wales.  These Mosquitoes had been sold to the Post Office (now Royal Mail) and had been converted to carry mail.

I am really proud of my Grandad and the things he did in the RAF.

-oOo-

On the next few pages are some facts about the aeroplanes that my Grandad flew in and what he thought about them.

Handley Page HP67 Hastings

The HP67 Hastings was a transport aircraft used by the RAF between 1948 and 1977.

At the time it was introduced, it was the largest transport aircraft designed specifically for the RAF.

Its first and most famous job was to transport coal and other cargo into Berlin in Germany during the Berlin Airlift.


My Grandad Says:

‘The lights that told you whether the wheels were down properly when you were landing often didn’t come on… Usually because the bulb had popped, we used to keep a bag of spare bulbs, just in case’

-oOo-

Avro Type 685 York C1

The Avro York was a transport aircraft used by the RAF between 1944 and 1964.

The York was often kitted out as the personal aircraft of VIPs

Famous York included:

‘Ascalon’ The personal aircraft and flying conference room of Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain.

‘Endeavour’ belonging to HRH The Duke of Gloucester.

‘MW102’ Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma and Viceroy of India had his York specially painted light, duck egg green to try and keep it cool in the Indian sun.


My Grandad Says:

‘Once, when we were landing a York at an airfield in Germany, one of the tyres burst… It was pretty scary!’

-oOo-

Douglas C47 Skytrain (Dakota)

The C47 was called the Dakota by the RAF.  It got its name from the acronym "DACoTA" for Douglas Aircraft Company Transport Aircraft.

It was used by over 100 Air Forces all around the world including the RAF and the German Luftwaffe at the same time!

The Dakota first flew in 1941, but the RAF still uses the Dakota now, 70 years later, as a training aircraft for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.


My Grandad Says:

‘The Dakota was really noisy and uncomfortable, there was a big pipe around the doorway of the cockpit that carried air to the engines, and it made some very strange noises!’

-oOo-

Airspeed AS10 Oxford

The Oxford was mainly used for training aircrew (Bombardiers, Gunners, Navigators and Wireless and Camera Operators).  It was also used as an Air Ambulance.

They were first produced in 1937 and more than 8,500 were made.

On the 5th January 1941, the famous aviatrix Amy Johnson disappeared in an Oxford, never to be seen again!


My Grandad Says:

‘We used the Oxfords as flying taxis.  If someone was stuck at an airbase and needed to be somewhere else quickly, they’d usually go in an Oxford’

-oOo-

Avro Anson

The Anson was mostly used as a training aircraft by the RAF between 1936 and 1968.

In June 1940, a flight of three Coastal Command Anson were attacked by nine Messerschmitt Bf 109s of the German Luftwaffe.  The Anson shot down two and damaged a third before the dogfight ended with no British losses.

In September 1940, two training Anson of the Royal Australian Air Force collided in mid-air and got stuck together.  The two aircraft landed safely, still stuck together!


My Grandad Says:

‘If I could own any of the aeroplanes that I used to fly in, it would be an Anson’

-oOo-

de Havilland DH98 Mosquito

The Mosquito was a Fast Fighter/Bomber made almost completely of wood!

The engines used in the Mosquito were designed in Derby by Rolls-Royce.

It could fly at over 400 Miles per Hour!


My Grandad Says:

‘When we were flying Mosquitos back to Britain over the English Channel we would sometimes fly really low over the waves and try to scare the captains of fishing boats, but don’t tell anybody!’

-oOo-

All the MicroDandy's own work... Gawd's honest truth.  I'm not one of those parents that does their kids' homework for them so as they look more impressive.

Cross my heart, hope to... to... Erm, suddenly I don't feel so good...

*Expires theatrically, stage left*

They came out of the Sun, all Dakka!-Dakka!-Dakka!

Last year, we had a note from the MicroDandy's school, saying that they were doing a project about what Britain was like after the Second World War... Rationing, National Service, stuff like that.  His first thought was to talk to his Grandfather about his experiences, what with him being alive at the time and everything - But because he is almost clinically lazy, the task of listening to his Grandfather's stories fell to me.

So one night, I trudged around to his house, notepad in hand, and asked; 'Dad, what did you do in (the years just after) the War? - The stories he told had to be quite heavily edited for their intended young audience, but I'll tell you pretty much what he told me.

(Note: Yes, this is my Pigeon Exploding Father, just so as you know what to expect.)

-oOo-

Our story starts in 1947 when he was conscripted into National Service (Which we should definitely still have in my opinion), and sent for eight weeks training at RAF Innsworth in Gloucester.

 It was here that he learned to shoot;

'We were all on the range one afternoon, taking pot shots at these targets with Browning 9mils, bloody horrible things they were, used to grab the skin between your thumb and first finger when the hammer came down, really heavy trigger too... Rubbish... Anyway, there was this clot who comes onto the range with a Sten Gun, waving it about, coming the big I Am.  Fired a couple of shots down the range and it jammed, no lubrication you see, you had to keep 'em clean, and he obviously hadn't been.  So he took the magazine out, banged it against his boot, stuck it back in and pulled the slide back, which is something you don't normally have to do, I think this might have confused him.  He fired a couple more rounds holding the barrel, not the magazine like they tell you to and, it got hot, so he moved his hand back and his fingers got caught in the ejector mechanism - took the ends of his fingers clean off, started running about the place screaming and crying and p*ssing blood everywhere.  We couldn't stop laughing long enough to help him.'

He learned to throw grenades;

'Grenadier training was a waste of bloody time, we spent days throwing de-activated Mills bombs into pits then covering our heads and counting to seven, just to make sure we could throw 'em forty feet so as not to blow ourselves up. I wouldn't have trusted half the blokes there to throw a teabag in the bin, nevermind chuck something that could blow their bloody heads off!'

How to use a parachute;

'I didn't get to jump off any of those fancy towers that you see in the documentaries.  My parachute training consisted of sitting on a bench in the back of an open truck with fifteen other blokes, driving at forty miles an hour across a bumpy field with a great bloody ape of a Sergeant kicking us all off the back at ten yard intervals.  You learned how to land properly pretty bloody quickly!'

And hand-to-hand combat;

'We shared the base with a load of bloody Rock Apes (Note: this is a derogatory term for members of the Royal Air Force Regiment, although this term wasn't in use at the time, my father never misses an opportunity to be offensive to people he considers inferior as new insults become available.) who did the guarding duties, general rule was, if you wanted to join the RAF they asked you three questions - Can you breathe through your nose? Can you spell your own name? Do you know who your Father was? - If you answered yes, you got into the RAF, if you said no, you got put in The Regiment.  I said this to one on the main gate one night as we were coming back to barracks, he didn't take kindly to it, I got some lumps that night...'

After this training was complete, he got transferred to Flensburg in Northern Germany, promoted to Sergeant, and joined Transport Command as a Radio Operator.  He spent the next few years flying all over the world. Cyprus, Hong Kong, Iraq, Libya, Malta and Malaysia were all popular destinations for him and his crew.

He also did a number of 36 hour shifts during the Berlin Airlift (Of which there is ample information on t'Internet, so I'm not going to go into the whys and wherefores of it here.) And tells many similar stories about flying cargos of coal and food and mail into Berlin, refuelling then turning around and flying back to base, but these two stick in my mind.

'We were coming in to land behind this Dakota (an American transport aircraft), we were packed in about 200 yards behind him and still about 500 feet up.  We'd just cleared the fence at Tempelhof airport when he lost control and dropped onto the deck, We'd already commited to landing and the pilot was just about to grab a handful of throttle and yank the stick back when a couple of bulldozers appeared from the side of the runway and pushed the wreckage out of the way, we just cleared it - I needed to requisition a new pair of trousers when we got back to base that afternoon.'

And;

'We'd just landed and taxied over to the hard-standing where the groundcrew were going to unload us when this Penguin (an officer with no flying experience) waddles over with a clipboard and says "Right lads, need you to stay on board while they juice you, you're taking fragile cargo back so try not to shake it about too much."  Then this truck backs up right to the cargo doors, some sheets go up and we feel the plane shaking about.  We get the all clear and take off back home.  When we landed, all these ambulances turned up and all these kids got out of the back of the plane and were whisked away.  Turns out we were transporting German evacuees.'

And as you can imagine, he had a fair old repertoire of things going wrong.

'We had a heavy landing with this York at RAF Uetersen, so heavy in fact that one of the tyres blew and we swerved off the runway and into the weeds, never had an entire aircrew simultaneously s*it themselves before, it smelled like the Elsan (Chemical toilet) had exploded!'

'There was this CO at one of the airbases we were visiting who was keeping his hours up (If you wanted to still call yourself aircrew, you had to do a certain amount of flying time every year.) when we needed to get something signed, he was just doing laps of the airfield, about 200 feet up in an Oxford, or maybe an Anson.  So we got a cuppa and went and sat outside NAAFI to wait for him to finish.  He was coming in to land when he got hit with a crosswind, our pilot had commented on it as we came in the previous day, but it caught his plane and flipped it on its side.  The tip of one of hit wings just clipped the ground and he cartwheeled across the runway and bust into flames, poor bugger never stood a chance...'

But his favourite story, about his favourite plane, which he never tired of telling, and never tired of embellishing  as old soldiers often do, was this one.

'Towards the end of my time, the RAF had done a deal with the Post Office.  The P.O. were taking surplus Mosquito fighter-bombers, painting them red, and using them to carry mail.  Our crew got the job of flying loads of them from Germany back to the UK, then cadging a lift back and doing it all over again.  All this flying over The Channel got very boring after a while, and to make it more exciting the pilot would see how low he could fly, or how fast, or see how long he could fly on a knife edge (with the plane tipped at 90 degrees to the surface of the water) or any combination of the three.  There was this one time when the navigator spotted a fishing boat on the horizon right in front of us, so the pilot dropped us down to the deck and throttled up to about 300Mph, at the last moment, we popped up, flipped onto a knife edge and flew in between the derricks on the deck.  Then we buggered off sharpish, hoping they were too busy s*itting themselves and hadn't seen our squadron markings.'

-oOo-

Just thought I'd let you know about some of the wonderful things that people have type into Google and managed to find the Blog this month:

How much does Les Invalides weigh? - I presume they meant 'L'Hotel National des Invalides' Which is a set of museums in Paris, why anyone would want to know how much they weigh is beyond me I'm afraid

Post a comment on Vital Organs Blog - Nope, no idea...

And the ever popular Swing away Merrill - This is now the all-time most popular search, with seven incidents.

OK team, that's it for today, maybe there'll be more Steampunk in the mix tomorrow