Gliders

Gliders – I used to feel sorry for the glider pilots who went aloft so that fighter pilots could practice attacks on their gliders. There was a scare that gliders might be used in an invasion of England.

Cannons

Cannons – 610 was the second squadron to receive Spitfires fitted with two Hispano cannons and four Browning machine guns. There was trouble with the cannons at the start as they would stop firing after only four rounds and this was embarrassing when fighting. So upon repair, the armourers asked that the cannons be tested in the air.

Elphin

Elphin – The Squadron’s call signal was “Elphin.” This always amused me when I looked around, and surveyed the angels in “B” Flight.

The Flight headquarters was a tiny room in a Nissen hut and there was a beaten path to a little outhouse nearby where each pilot went to have his nervous one before take-off, or failing this, waited until he could piddle near the rudder of his kite before scrambling into the crowded cockpit.

The Flight hangar for repairing the aeroplanes was a tarpaulin strung between trees in the woods nearby.

Crowley Milling

Crowley Milling – Crowley, our Flight Commander, was shot down along with Billie Raine and Pete Wright early one morning. We didn’t hear what happened to Crowley and we were resigned to thinking that he was missing and presumed dead. Billie and Pete were killed. Several weeks went by. Well, while McWatt and I were playing a game of shove-hapenny in the Flight hut, who should walk through the door but the living ghost, Crowley. He managed to escape when he bailed out over France. He told us of his experiences thinking that they might be of value to anyone who might be shot down and able to escape in the future. He told of sleeping with a big pig in a barn for a number of nights, and he related, “The stench of the pig was horrible but the heat that pig gave off was tremendous.” He mentioned that while on the move in urban areas he rested by standing in queues, and that he stayed in prostitutes’ houses whenever possible. One of the most ingenious actions that he made was when he was walking along a country road and all of a sudden he stumbled onto a Nazi guard post ahead. They spied him, but Milling, always the fast thinker, immediately pulled his trousers down and had a crap right in the middle of the road. Then he progressed in the direction of the guard post incorporating the actions of some local idiot, with the result that the guards would have nothing to do with him and they let him go on his way. (The well organized underground escape system in France was developed later on.)

The not-by-choice entertainer

The not-by-choice entertainer – There always seemed to be a pilot with two-left-feet in a Flight. I was convinced that fate put such a type there for alleviation of tension. The one in “B” Flight was a wonderful character from Wolverhampton, Bloody ‘ell Doley. Nobody ever figured how Doley got as far as he did in the flying environment. Doley was one of those Englishmen whose slicked-down, blonde hair was always falling to the side over one ear, and whose shoes were always two sizes too large.

Bill McWatt & Joe ‘Bloody ‘ell’ Doley

Bill McWatt – Billie was the only pilot known to have survived an outside loop or full bunt (centripetal force) in a Spitfire. (It was not possible to stay, at the least, under a 300mph airspeed in reaching the vertical attitude with a Spit.) Bill was unable to state exactly what happened, but someway or other while he was at 24,000 feet he was spun in a forward motion in the cockpit seat and forced onto the control column. When he came to, and was aware of his contortive condition, he was about 1,000 feet over the Channel. He managed to land relatively safely at Lympne aerodrome. When he, eventually, arrived to our little hospital, we were waiting for him, having brought his personal things to him. Although I had seen, and was yet to see some outrageous physical conditions of human beings, I have never seen a condition comparable to that of Bill’s. Two sacs of blood hung like poultry wattles from below each of his eyes, his eyes were completely red with green pupils, and he had vomited all over his torn flying suit. (About one and a half years later, I went to visit Bill in Southeast Wales. He had returned to flying although he was restricted from flying at very high altitudes. His eyeballs were still completely red. Bill’s wife said that she had recently married the ‘red flyer’. Helen, also, said that the RAF research people had been very interested in Billie’s plight.)

Happy Merriman & Roland Richardson

Happy Merriman – Happy was named such because every time that he was in a scrap with a ME 109 he would holler like mad for somebody to come and save him, yet he always seemed to shoot down the particular enemy aircraft chasing him at the time. For some unknown reason, Happy threw his mattress out of the Cottage window each time he shot down an enemy aircraft. Happy shot down five enemy aircraft in one day (I confirmed one of these for him as the port mainplane snapped on the ME 109) and he hollered the usual gutturalnesses all the way in getting each of them. He threw his mattress out the window five times that day, and the batman, who made up Hap’s bed, was as happy as Happy.

Bill Ballard

Bill Ballard – Bill was a chronic complainer, but he did this in such a manner as to make us laugh. Bill was sitting at lunch one day chuckling away, yet making intelligent cracks about the terrible food (comparatively good food actually), and remarking to us poor sword-carriers that he would be enjoying his coffee while we would be labouring shortly over distant France. (His kite was unserviceable at the time.) Poor Bill, to his chagrin, his Spitfire was put on the line and he had to go with us. The only pilot lost that afternoon was Bill. In spite of things, we had to laugh because we felt sorry for Bill, probably having to search for something to eat in Northern France while we had come home to a not-so-bad dinner.