Flying the Vultee Vengance

[Ascent]

Part 21

There were no bomb craters worthy of the name. The Jap had used a lot of small (50lb) anti-personnel bombs. They did the same in their night raids on Calcutta, and this puzzled us. They didn't use large bombs. I suppose one reason might be that ten 50lb bombs can easily be manhandled, but one 500lb can't, and they were short of lifting gear, but had plenty of labour.

(On second thoughts now, maybe there was some sense in it. You only need big bombs to bring down proper buildings or destroy something solid. Against people and aircraft well spaced out in the open, with no protection from above ("soft targets"), ten small bombs give you a much wider "spread", and a better chance of hitting something or somebody, than one big one. And to be sure of a chap in a slit trench, you need almost to put the bomb in beside him, and then a 50 will do just as well as a 500).

Our aircraft looked all right at first glance, but several of the tyres had been shot out by low flying fragments (the strike was "off" !) Other than that, one had been terminally damaged by a piece of bomb casing which had cut an engine bearer (beyond our capacity to repair). On its way to do its worst, the fragment had punched through the artwork on an engine panel. Poor "Butch" (a Disney "Silly Symphony" cartoon dog with Stetson and cowboy "chaps") had got it straight through the eye.

Two other losses were significant. The Flight 30-cwt truck, our only transport, was blazing merrily, we couldn't save it. This was serious. Until we could get another "gharry", we should have to walk between our Messes and the Flights. This was no hardship in the cool mornings, walking down the path through the tea gardens, but a bit of a pain climbing up again at the end of a long, hot day.

The other loss was a valuable item of Government property. I've said that new concrete tracks were being laid. Before you pour concrete, you have to put in hardcore and ram it down. They had no steamrollers, but a Works and Bricks elephant made a very good substitute. Jumbo "marked time" ponderously, helping himself to any edible vegetation within trunk reach. His "mahout" (keeper) moved him a few feet from time to time as the job required.

All was calm and content. Jumbo much preferred this to hauling heavy logs in the forest, and his mahout had nothing to do except smoke his malodorous "bidi" (this was the local "roll-your-own"; the filling was a matter of conjecture: obviously vegetable in origin, but "processed" by some animal - camel seemed the most likely).

By the way, it might interest you to know that there's a standard elephant "language" of commands, just as with sheepdogs. If you learn it, so that you can "drive" one trained elephant, then you can "drive" any other. The mahout backed up his orders with an "ankh", a very unpleasant looking iron rod some two feet long, curved at the end, with a nasty spike at the tip (there is no point - no pun intended - in whacking an elephant with a stick). It sounds barbarous, but I suppose it was no worse than the rowels on a spur.........(just thought you'd like to know!)

Then the air raid warning came. The mahout ran for it, leaving Jumbo to his own devices. In all fairness, there wasn't much he could do (imagine digging a slit trench to hold an elephant, and then persuading him into it). The bombs came down and Jumbo vanished. We found no bloodstains and concluded that he had been stung by a piece of hot shrapnel. Whatever had hit him did not impede his locomotion. He was seen by "B" Flight (untouched by the raid on the far side of the runway), galloping along it with trunk, ears and tail outstretched, and roaring with indignation. He went trumpeting off the end into the hills and was never seen again. A tracker party found no body and assumed that he had decided to give civilisation a miss. And who could blame him?

But that wan't the end of it. This was no common or garden elephant. He was Government property, registered and on inventory. His loss must be investigated; there was an endless Court of Enquiry in which we were involved as witnesses. Indian bureaucracy is a wondrous thing. It rather seemed that they regarded the loss of their precious elephant as our fault, and thought that the RAF should pay for it. What became of it in the end, I do not know, for shortly afterwards Stew and I, with three other crews, were posted to "beef-up" No. 8 Sqdn, IAF. They had recently been equipped with the Vengeance, and were somewhere back over on the other side of the Bay.

But before I leave K and the delicious, all pervading scent of tea which would stay long in my memory, here are two little vignettes to lighten what has been a sombre tale so far. "Topper" had got hold of a miniature dachshund (or at least, I think it was "Topper"), Over at "B" Flight (why would he be there - was he acting C.O.? ), among the trees, he had this dog with him. Jumbo had occasion to visit the Flight, to pull a tree down to make more room, or something like that.

The tiny dog took exception to this, and valiantly tried to defend his master's property by barking and nipping at this monster's toes. Jumbo looked indulgently down on the angry little animal, and gently shooed him away with his trunk, although he could have stamped him flat in a moment, or used his trunk as Tiger Woods uses a driver - and the dog wouldn't have touched down for 200 yards or so. We marvelled at his forebearance - truly the patience of an elephant!. Of course he was a great favoutite of all,

And for a day or two during our time there, the bread ration was "off"; we had to make do with ship's biscuits (same as the ones Dr. Pete Latcham had found for us on the first morning at Chittagong). Now it so happened that our tables in the (ex-planter's bungalow) Mess were graced with spotless linen cloths. The woven-in embroidery was of a Grecian rectangular design. Now you select a rectangle about 2 in square, and whack a biscuit down on it. Out came those weevils which hadn't been holding tight.

With luck you'd get three or four in the square. Now we could run a "sweep". You each put up a rupee ("chip"), and picked your weevil. First weevil to reach a boundary was the winner, his patron got the lot. You selected your weevil, it was no use picking the one nearest an edge , for he might well start to march away from it. You had to keep a sharp eye on him to maintain your ownership. Luckily they didn't move very fast; it was considered unsporting to "steer" your beast with a matchstick. (The biscuit was eaten after dunking to soften; the extra bit of protein was all to the good - the weevils ate nothing but biscuit - "man ist was man isst", - after all !)

We packed our kit, said our farewells and set out on the return trip - 500 miles back to where we'd started from a month ago. But not by air! 110 were cross enough at having been robbed of their crews, they weren't going to deliver them to the robbers as well! Our new Squadron made no attempt to come and collect us (in fact, they weren't making much of a attempt to do anything). So it was back on the train again. This would be quite an odyssey.

End of part 21

 

[Ascent]

Part 22

You might be interested to know what the well-dressed aircrew wore for operations over Burma. Much of it was a matter of personal choice, but we had to consider that we might have a long trek home if we had to bale out over jungle (hopefully evading capture). Therefore a bush jacket (preferable as more pockets) or long sleeve shirt (both cellular) and khaki drill slacks were a must for mosquito protection after dark (underclothes? - don't be silly).

What we had on our feet was most important; we would have to hike over rough terrain, and through rivers and streams. While in the States, I'd bought a pair of basketball boots. I didn't play the game much, but the boots came in handy now. They were ideal for the job, canvas with thick sponge rubber soles and ankle pads. (The Japanese soldier wore a similar thing, I believe, with a separate compartment for his big toe). Mine were very light and comfortable, they'd keep out the leeches and it didn't matter if they got wet. And they gave me a much more delicate touch on the rudder pedals!

I'd been issued with a .38 Smith & Wesson and a box of 18 rounds at Madhaiganj, together with blue webbing belt, shoulder strap, ammo pouch, holster and lanyard to go with it. Hung on the other side for balance, I had a fierce looking kukri (the Ghurkha knife). I'd picked this up in some bazaar or other with no intention of engaging in Errol Flynn heroics; the thing was for the purpose of cutting through undergrowth (who was Errol Flynn, Granddad?)

This ensemble was completed by a RAF side pack beside the kukri, and the other shoulder strap to go with it. The side pack carried a first-aid kit, a jungle survival outfit (water purification tablets, fish hooks and line etc, I suppose there must have been a compass), and a spare pair of socks.

It also held leaflets in Burmese, for villagers you might meet and whose help would be vital. In translation they read, so I was told, something like this:

"Dear Friend",

"The bearer of this letter is a British soldier come to save you from the hated Japanese who have caused so much sorrow in your land. If you treat him well, hide him from the Japanese, and help him to reach the British Army, you will be very well rewarded by Government".

This was all very well as far as it went, (and the Burmese were generally well disposed to us, particularly the Naga and Kachin tribes in the north), but I couldn't help feeling that if I floated down in or near a village that we'd just blown off the map, it wouldn't go down too well with "Dear Friend" - always supposing I could find one who could read.

You might think that all this was quite enough to carry, and you would be right. But the ever-solicitous RAF had one more treat in store for us. To back-up the ingratiating letter, the Intelligence Officer doled out a cotton money- belt apiece. This had sewn into it sixty Indian rupee coins, which were still legal tender in Burma (the Jap hadn't bothered to print any occupation currency; he didn't need to; he took what he wanted at bayonet point. This was a serious error on his part, it alienated a populace which might otherwise have decided to throw in its lot with him as a welcome change from us).

The money-belts were to reward helpful villagers, as you would have no cash of your own. Figuratively speaking, you must go naked into battle. Nothing personal can go with you. Cash, wallet and everything else in your pockets (except a watch) has to be put in an envelope, sealed and left with the I.O. for safe keeping until (if) you come back.

The money-belt idea was sound enough, but a disturbing rumour arose that a bad mistake had been made in the filling of the first batches of these belts. They had been filled with newly minted 1942 rupees. There shouldn't be any 1942 rupee coins in Burma - the Japanese had taken the country early in the year before any of these coins had been put into circulation. All the Jap had to do now was to offer ten rupees for every bright new rupee handed in, and he'd be hot on the trail of any escaper! We were assured that all such belts had been withdrawn, and the contents replaced with worn coins, but the doubts lingered.

So now you get the picture. Your bush-jacketed, bush-hatted and khaki- slacked young man first tied this belt round his middle. Then he buckled himself into his webbing, ending with crossed shoulder straps, holster and pistol on his left hip, lanyard (on shoulder under epaulette flap, NOT round his neck), On his right hip lay the the kukri and side pack. (The webbing belt was buckled over the money belt).

Thus encumbered, he climbed up into the cockpit, scorching after hours in the tropic sun, sat down on his hot parachute seat cushion (hotter still if he hadn't folded the back over it when he last climbed out), fastened the shoulder and leg straps tight (or his chance of posterity might, after bale-out, be negligible), then clipped the four ends of the seat harness in the quick-release box and tightened that over all. Thank Heavens, all our trips were over land, so we didn't have to wear "Mae Wests", or sit on the lumpy, abominably uncomfortable "K" dinghy pack!

By the time we'd donned flying helmet (tropical, cotton), and goggles over our fevered brows, we were damned glad to get the big fan in front working. That first long blast of air (hot as it was !) was pure bliss. Our canopies were always left open, In the climb, temperature drops at the rate of three Fahrenheit per thousand feet, so at 10,000 it was 30 deg cooler and we shivered. But by then we'd be running in to our targets, closing our canopies, and would be down in the hot-air oven again very soon.

I can feel for the poor squaddie in Helmand today, with body armour and all his kit in 40+ C. (My Grandfather was out there 130 years ago; I have somewhere his India General Service Medal with clasps for Mohmand and Kandahar. Nothing changes!)

What happened to all my armament? Well, the Smith & Wesson and its 18 rounds was handed back intact when I left India. I hadn't fired a single shot. I never heard of anyone using his pistol in anger, but on VE day some wild colonial boys were reputed to have fired feux-de-joie through their Mess basha roof - a practice greatly deprecated by their seniors
The kukri was a most imposing piece of hardware, with its silver-banded grip, and the kit of two small skinning knives fitted into a silver-mounted scabbard. It came home with me, and on my return I ran into "Bert" Andrews, my pre-war line manager (and an ex-Captain in the RFC, flying Sopwith Camels). He'd climbed two rungs on the Civil Service ladder while I'd been away, and was now an S.E.O. in another Department.

Before the war, he'd kept me spellbound with tales of his adventures, and when I went into the RAF gave me one of his old RFC tunic buttons for good luck. This has the same crown and eagle as an RAF button but with a "rope" design round the rim. I kept it for long enough, but somewhere it had got lost. Never mind, I'd had all the luck I could reasonably hope for.

Bert had a teenage son who was an avid collector of exotic swords and knives. I passed the kukri on to him. There wasn't much call for them in Southport then. (Nowadays we'd have the Armed Response Squad round within the hour!)

The money-belts? We had to turn them back in to the I.O. after each trip. We were very honest; he didn't need to count the "bumps" in each one

Endof part 22

 

[Ascent]

Part 23

Danny is on his way from 110 Sqn. in Khumbirgram to 8 Sqn. IAF (but where might that be?)

I had to abandon my DIY bed, but of course stripped off the webbing and put it in my bedroll, so that I could easily rebuild it at the other end. All our previous trips to and fro the "sharp end" had been self-flown, so this one was a bit of an eye-opener.

A bumpy truck ride took us to the railhead at Silchar (the end of the line into our corner of Assam). Then it was a train to some God-forsaken hole in the middle of the Sunderbans (the name "Narayanganj" seems familiar). There we embarked in a stern-wheel paddle steamer (quite a comfortable cabin for the night). This threaded its way through innumerable islands and waterways (I could see where the "dug-out canoe" yarn, told us at Worli, might have come from). Disembarked somewhere in the morning, back on a train to Calcutta - Howrah station again!

This time we did not bed down there for the night! A good dinner, bed and breakfast in the "Grand", and back on the train for Chaara (I have absolutely no idea where that was), except that it was somewhere in Orissa. On a standard strip-cum-basha camp (indistinguishable from fifty others in the district) was the brand new No. 8 Squadron of the Indian (for a brief period the Royal Indian) Air Force. Or at least the outline of a Squadron.

I think it was a political thing. Independence was in the air, and we wanted to hand over a "going concern", with all three Services up and running after the war. There had been a Royal Indian Navy for years, and an Indian Army from the days of the Mutiny. We had an Indian C.O. (Sqn.Ldr. N. Prasad). He struck me as a very reserved, scholarly, intellectual type, far better suited as a Staff officer than in the rough-and-tumble of Squadron life (he did, IIRC, reach air rank in the postwar IAF).

He was replaced some time in February '44 by Sqn.Ldr. Ira K. Sutherland, a tough New Zealander with a hard reputation as a martinet. The Indian "A" Flight Commander, Flt.Lt. "Pop" Chopra, was the exact opposite of S/Ldr Prasad. A mustachioed, cheerful extrovert, he was the life and soul of the party and very popular with everyone. The British "B" Flight Commander was Flt.Lt. "Bill" Boyd Berry (no hyphen), an excellent Flight leader and well liked. His crews were a mixture of British and all the Dominions, all of them from one or other of the four original ex-Blenheim squadrons.

I can only recall two of the Indian pilots, (F/Os Dhillon and Chakravarthy), and there were two or three Sikhs. They were all good chaps, but most had come straight from the OTU in Peshawar. How much bombing practice they had had there, I don't know, but it can have been nothing like the four months' intensive work we'd been able to put in on the Damodar range early in the year. The Indian ground crews were very inexperienced, and needed close supervision by RAF NCOs and airmen trawled, like us, from the squadrons.

This Indian nucleus had had their aircraft for some weeks before we arrived, but they had done little with them. Certainly they had done no bombing (AFAIK, there wasn't even a range). Much more to the point, they hadn't swung any compasses, or belted-up a single round of ammunition for their guns.

(Since first writing this, I find that you can Google: "Officers and Flight Crew List - 8 Squadron IAF (1939-47)" and go straight to a most useful Nominal Roll in BHARAT RAKSHAK. It seems that on 26 Nov '43, 20 RAF aircrew joined 8 Sqdn - many names familiar to me, my own included!, and a further 39 before hostilities ended. (But they converted from VVs to Spit XIVs later in '44, so many of the later pilots would have been on the Spits.......D.).

Even so, the plain fact was that ten VV crews were "transfused" into 8 Sqdn, which is almost a whole squadron, so what we had was pretty well a RAF Squadron with an Indian component. For this two of the RAF units were now three trained crews short, the others two short each.

Our location at the time we arrived is stated as "Phaphamau" . I thought I knew India, but had to go to Google for this. It's near Allahabad, half way to Delhi, at least 400 miles away! But 8 Sqn had spent some time there before we came on the scene; we did not meet them until later in Chaara; it seems that for some reason we were "put on the books" of the earlier place.

Now is as good a time as any to broach the subject which has been the Elephant in the Room so far: How did we and our new Indian squadron colleagues get on together ? Now I must think hard, and choose my words carefully, so as (on the one hand) not to give offence and (on the other) to tell as honest an account as my memory allows.

First: were our relations cordial? Answer: No.............Were they hostile? Answer: No........ I would say that we were in a state of mutual voluntary apartheit, eyeing each other warily, like two strange dogs meeting. There was no suggestion that IAF squadrons in general were in any way less efficient than their RAF counterparts. There were excellent IAF Hurricane squadrons; one close nearby, commanded by the redoubtable S/Ldr Arjan Singh, who would go on to become the CinC of the IAF after Independence. (There was, I am sorry to say, an unjustified and unpardonable slur heard from time to time: "The Indian Air Farce ", from people who did not know what they were talking about).

It should be remembered that the first Indian officer in the (British) Indian Army was commissioned in only relatively recent times, and in the R.I.N. even more recently. In both cases the introduction was small-scale and progressive. (A number of Indian officers served with distinction in the wartime RAF, and in the other Services in Europe, of course). But from the outset the Indian Air Force seems to have been conceived as an independent, wholly Indian manned body. It is quite understandable that there would be resentment when the RAF "took over" a Unit, an impression confirmed when S/Ldr Prasad was so soon replaced by S/Ldr Sutherland.

Even on an RAF squadron, there is a slight gulf between the two Flights; this was obviously intensified in a "mixed" squadron. There were the obvious cultural differences: separate Messes to accomdate the different diets, and although I think the anterooms of both Officers' and Sergeants' Messes were shared, there wasn't much cross-socialisation in them. In fact, I do not know of any other such squadron, and it is difficult to see what was the purpose of creating this one. On their part the Indian attitude to us, quite understandbly, can best be summed up in a phrase culled from another Thread (in an entirely different context): "They needed us - but they didn't really want us". The day of the Sahib was nearly over.

Do not get too hot under the collar about this if you hold strong views - I have good support from the other side - as will next appear. Wait a bit.

End of part 23

 

[Ascent]

Part 24

Bharat-Rakshak records a very full and interesting: "Memories of No. 8 Squadron, IAF" by a S/Ldr T.J. Thomas IAF (Retd.). He was then a Cpl. (electrician) on the Squadron, and I cannot do better than quote from his memoir (submitted to B-S in 1981 by his son, W/Cdr. Joseph Thomas, IAF).

"The atmosphere in the Squadron was not all that good. There was intense anti-British feeling. The period was 1943-44. The turmoil in Indian politics kept this hatred alive. By this time a New Zealander (name I don't remember) took over command of the Squadron and we had as adjutant a Bengali Flying Officer. They were at loggerheads, we knew. Though no love was lost between the RAF and IAF elements, when it came to a question of keeping the aircraft flying, both elements put in their best"..........

(I would say that that is a very fair summary of things: I would not alter a word of it......D).

(Do not be confused by the name; "Thomas", though an English surname, almost certainly denotes a member of the Anglo-Indian community - just as there are many "deSousa's", "DaCosta's" and other Portugese names in Goa and the rest of India).

It was clear that at that time the IAF simply did not have the trained aircrew (and groundcrew) needed to form two separate Vengeance squadrons. They had been able to form one (7 Sqn), which AFAIK, had no RAF component; but even that needed time to "work up", and they did not get into action with the Vengeance until moving to Uderbund (near Khumbirgram) until 28.3.44., being taken off operations to Ranchi at the beginning of June '44, on the onset of the Monsoon.

So they were in action for roughly two months only (they converted to Hurricanes in October '44), whereas 8 Sqn managed six months in the Arakan, (assuming that they would stop at the same time as 7, as it was a Command decision to end all Vengeance operations at the end of the season). (I am indebted to Bharat-Rakshak for the 7 Sqn dates).

I had some difficulty in "fixing" the date when 8 Sqdn pulled out of the Arakan to move back about 2,000 miles to Samungli (near Quetta, in Baluchistan, right on the Afghan border), but again B-R came to the rescue in a roundabout way. S/Ldr Thomas (whom we have just met) relates that an RAF crew crashed and were killed on arrival at the new base (Samungli). The B-R "Officers and Flight Crew" list shows a RAF pilot and wop/ag killed on 6.8.44. It is the only "double" casualty during the summer, so there's my date. Why didn't I know about that? For reason I can't now remember, I was on the rail party to Quetta, and that trip took sixteen days (not ten, as S/Ldr. Thomas recalls), so our chaps were dead and buried long before I got there. The names ? B-R has them, but I can't put faces to them now.

But we've only just got to Chaara, as I write. You must remember that our Flight there was composed of people from all the four RAF Sqdns; they weren't all our "old pals". Apart from Stew, my gunner, there was George Davies and Bud Yeates (and their gunners); there was no one else of our "old brigade". By now, almost all the old RAF SNCO aircrew had been commissioned. There were no SNCO Pilots on "B" (RAF) Flight of 8 Sqn, although there were still some Navs and Wop/Ags.

But we had been posted in to "get this show on the road"; the first job would be to compass-swing all the aircraft, and belt-up the ammo for their guns, before we could even think of moving forward. I imagine compass swinging is a thing of the past with today's sophisticated Heading Instruments, so I shall give an account of how it was.

An aircrew had to do the job (as only a qualified pilot is allowed to move an aircraft under its own power). The crewman armed himself with a "landing compass" - a hand held bearing compass - and the aircraft was taxied to a Compass Swinging Platform on a far corner of the airfield well away from stray magnetic influences.

There a large basic compass rose was marked out on a wide circle of tarmac. The pilot positioned his aircraft in the centre of this; his crewman hopped out with the compass and took up position to walk round ten paces behind the tail. The pilot worked the aircraft round the cardinal points one by one (he didn't need to be too precise). His mate walked round behind, and took bearings on the centre line of the aircraft each time his pilot stopped.

There are adjustment magnets built in under the cockpit compass. On each point therefore, the crewman climbed up to the cockpit and told his pilot the heading he'd just read. The pilot compared this with his (much less acccurate) compass, Out with a screwdriver, and the rule was: take out all the error on the cockpit compass on North and East, then half the remaining error on South and West. Then go round all the points again on a check swing, record the remaining error on each point on a little adjustment card which is dated and kept with the cockpit compass. Sounds simple.

But turning an aircraft on a point needs a lot of power and one-wheel braking. The crewman, choking in gales of hot dust, had to go back on each point and climb up to report the reading. With the best will in the world, the pilot couldn't keep the aircraft on centre for long, and would have to taxi in a circle to position his aircraft again.

The job was not popular, and so having to do someone else's backlog of work caused a lot of growling. But this paled into insignificance compared with the ammo. problem. You might suppose that machine-gun ammunition would come in belts ready for use. So it does, I suppose, for ground use when it is all one kind. But we had three "flavours" - ball, incendiary and tracer - and the "mix" was up to the user.

Our chosen sequence was ball-incendiary-ball-incendiary-tracer. This recipe had to be made up by hand - our hands - from single rounds. To complicate matters still further, we had two different calibres, .300 (US) rounds for the front guns and .303 (British) for the rear.

The stated reason for this was that the US .300 guns had been found so unreliable in service that they had to be replaced by UK .303s for our rear defence, where there was at least a possibility that they might have to be used. There was little chance of needing the front ones. Air combat in a VV was out of the question. Strafing was a possibility, I suppose, but the business of a dive bomber was to bomb and get away. The Hurricane and the Beaufighter were far better for ground attack work, in any case.

As to the reliability, it may not have been all the gun's fault. I suspect a lot of the .300 ammo would be WW1 stock; there would be a lot of duds in it; we could not cock the guns from the cockpit; so a dud round meant a stopped gun. In war films we've all seen cotton ammo belts jerking their way through the guns. There's no room for yards of empty belt in a wing gun bay.

Spring steel clips are the answer; when the guns are fired these go out with the spent cases. Each clip anchors one round to the next. You have to push the rounds into the clips by hand. It's a tight fit, the spring steel is sharp edged. Bloody fingers and thumbs were the order of the day (and we loaded 400 rounds per gun). Next you had to run the assembled belts through an aligning machine to ensure accuracy. One of our Indian (supposed) armourers put a .300 (fractionally longer than a .303) round into a .303 belt and forced it through the machine. (He bent the cartridge - luckily it didn't go off in his face!).

Curiously, a few months ago I saw on TV a clip of some RFC pilots in WW1. They sat in a companionable ring (like a sewing bee!), loading their Lewis drums with ammo. Nothing changes !

There was no ammo belted up, so all ranks had to turn to and get on with the job ("the gentlemen must draw (haul) with the mariners", said Drake). We were only there from 18th November '43 (although Bharat Rakshak shows us as on charge from the 26th) until we moved up to Double Moorings on 12th December. We went into action on the 17th and then followed an intense three months of operations until 24th February '44.

Then a forced landing after an engine failure put me "hors de combat" for a couple of months, and when I came back, all Vengeance units had stopped operating for the monsoon and would never start again. The game was up for them. They really operated for only one full ('43/'44) dry season, and had done a bit in '42/'43, but that was all they ever did in ACSEA (the RAAF did some work with them in New Guinea, but IK).

But for the moment we were still at Chaara. I think I only flew one (admin) flight to Ranchi and return. Don't know what for. The rest of the time we seem to have spent on compass swinging and the miserable belting up chore. That task was made all the more exasperating as we knew the .300 guns were practically useless (and in fact were never used), but it doesn't make any sense to go into action with your guns empty. Eventually we were as ready for action as we would ever be.

End of part 24

 

[Ascent]

Part 25

Early in December, they decided to get some value from their new Squadron. A signal came in to move to Double Moorings. "Double Moorings?"........"Never heard of it !".......A lat & long was given, we plotted it..... "It's Chittagong !"... .."No, it isn't".....The fix was a couple of miles away, between Chittagong and the sea. Most of us knew the area well..... "There's nothing there !"........ It was pointless, we'll just have to go and see. If we can't find anything at the spot, we'll land at Chittagong and take it from there.

The RAF (B) Flight took the lead in this bemused frame of mind, crossed straight over the Bay and reached the coast just off the position. Our Flight Commander, "Bill" Boyd Berry (henceforth "BBB") took our box round in a wide sweep. It really did look as if there was nothing there. We were in loose formation, spread out so that everyone could have a good look.

I spotted it first - or thought I did; the outline of a strip seemed to swim out of the bare paddy fields like a figure in a Ishihara plate.* I was on BBB's wing, I waggled and pointed downwards. He signalled me to take over the lead, and the rest strung out behind; I sincerely hoped that I was right. BBB hung some way back, ready to overshoot with the rest if I rolled myself into a ball on touchdown.

* Used to test for colour blindness: if you're colour blind, you can't see the numeral which is "hidden" among other colours.

But I was right. There was a strip there, but only recently bulldozed out of the paddy bunds, never been used, unworn and so perfectly camouflaged. The rest trundled in after me, and we surveyed our new home. It didn't amount to much, and we didn't stay there long, moving very soon down to the "forward" strips inland and south of Cox's Bazar. We moved several times, Joari was one, and I think Ramu II was my last place (but S/Ldr Thomas seems sure we started at a place called Mumbir - never heard of it! - which is not to say that he wasn't right, and that was where we first moved).

In fact, Double Moorings would hardly rate a mention, were it not for a Good Deed I did there one night, and these were so rare that the memory has stuck with me for a lifetime. The circumstances were unusual. At Chittagong there was a Hurricane squadron. Two or three pairs were detailed for a night attack on Akyab airfield. But on return, for some reason, they were to land back with us, and recover their aircraft back to Chittagong the following morning.

So far so strange, but perhaps they were going to do some quick, urgent repair to their runway in the rest of the night after their chaps had taken off. It was a nuisance to us; we would have to find and lay a gooseneck flarepath along our strip, whereas Chittagong had proper lighting on its runway. Still, there had to be a reason, even if we didn't know it.

What made no sense at all, was that they were also to leave the pilots with us for the rest of the night after they got back after midnight. (They'd only need a 15 cwt truck to pick them all up, and it was only a two-mile trip back to their bashas in Chittagong.....Why ?) And we had no spare accomodation - we'd have to "double-bunk"; there was only one charpoy per head. People would have to sleep on the floor.

To cut a long story short, after a short struggle with my conscience, noblesse oblige-d; my chap could have my de-luxe DIY bed (Mk.2); I would kip on the woven palm matting floor. The bearer made up my bed for the stranger, I found a spare mossie net, wrapped it round me and settled down, trying not to think of the "long-leggity beasties" of the night.

My houseguest came in about 0100, and lit the hurricane lamp. "How did you get on?".........."I gave Akyab a 'jao' - Akyab gave me a 'jao' ". I deduced that there had been an inconclusive exchange of fire, but little more. He was very grateful for the bed, I struggled off to sleep in a warm glow of quixotic nobility (didn't last).

(Jao is the imperative of Jana - is that right? - "to go"). Col. John Masters ("Bhowani Junction" - "Bugles and a Tiger") scathingly notes that most of us British out there learned only the imperative case of any verb ("Jai Hind" - "Quit India" - was a bit of graffiti (directed at us) often seen on walls, etc. in the last years of the Raj).

However, we started operating at Double Moorings - I see from my log that we flew in on the 12th December, I flew my first 'op' with 8 on the 17th from there, and we stayed until the 22nd January, when we moved to Mumbir (?)

Nearly all our 'ops' are entered in my log as 'A.S.C.' (Army Support Close), and I was a bit curious to read on three consecutive days: ASC "as on 10th" (January '44). Looking back to the 10th, I find "Kyathwengyaungwya" (think I mentioned that before), so writing it out once had been enough! (It was said that everywhere in Burma ended in 'bong, chaung or dong': it was not far from the truth).

At last we had our teeth into the job that the Vengeance might have been designed for. And now I'm going to abandon (for the time being) my chronological tale to revert to my "Jottings" format: two essays, one on "Vengeance in Offence". and the other (not surprisingly). "Vengeance in Defence".

End of part 25

 

[rank amateur]

I really have to say, excellent writing.

 

[Ascent]

He has a very good style, I found it very compelling the first time I read it.

On with the story, not a lot left to go.

Part 26

CORRECTION:

After repeatedly saying that the RAF Flight on 8 IAF Sqdn. was "B" Flight (trusting to memory), it occurred to me to look at my log...... It was "A" - at least I say so, and all my Squadron and Flight Commanders seem to agree. ( I shall now stand in the corner with the Dunce's cap on.....D)

(Note: As a typical Vultee Vengeance sortie has been described in detail in an earlier Post there is no need to include any further description here......D.)

The Vengeance was mainly used in Burma as a substitue for artillery. The hilly jungle country made the deployment of of guns difficult, and in any case the 14th Army didn't have enough of them. From the end of '43 onward it was trying to push the Japanese armies back down south in the Arakan, and east on the Assam fronts.

The Jap was a very good defensive fighter, especially skilled in digging-in in strong points from which it was very difficult to dislodge him. He didn't give up when he was tired or wounded. He didn't give up when things were hopeless. He didn't give up if he were sick or starving. He fought till he died. He never surrendered. If you want to know what it was like to be a British soldier facing him in the Burma jungle, read "Quartered Safe Out Here" by George Macdonald Frazer (the "Flashman" author), who fought out there with the 14th Army.

This was where we came in handy. From our rough, dry-weather "kutcha" strips 30-40 miles away, we could put up "boxes" of six aircraft, each carrying two 500lb and two 250lb bombs. It adds up to a formidable total of 9,000lb, nearly four tons of high explosive. This we could deliver accurately, on a point, in about 30 seconds.

It was more than a battery of 25-pounders could put down in a morning, even supposing they could bring up so many rounds. Moreover, the concentration of the bombing meant that, even if every Jap were not killed in the strike, the noise and blast would stun him long enough for our forward troops, who would be close nearby, to rush the position and finish off with grenade, rifle and bayonet before he came to his senses.

The difficulty was the "point". From 10,000 ft the jungle is just a bobbly green wooly jumper. The formation leader can map-read into the general area of the target, but needs help to pinpoint it. This was obvious to us but not always to the Army. I recall one incident, when we were being briefed by a new Army liaison officer (we had one with us most of the time). Having described the target, our Captain ended with some helpful words: "You'll have no difficulty in finding this place - there are two very tall trees just to the north of the positiion". To our eternal credit, the whole briefing tent took this in boot-faced silence. No one giggled or batted an eyelid. But , "Two tall trees" passed into folklore !

We worked an answer out with the Army. The forward troops got smoke bombs for their mortars. They made sure a mortar was zeroed-in on the Jap position, then waited until they could hear and see us coming. With practice they could put the smoke down early enough to alllow the formation leader room to plan his bombing run, but not so soon as to allow the smoke to drift away. This smoke was the key to the whole thing. The formation leader's bombs had to be spot-on, for they kicked up so much dust that you couldn't see the mortar smoke. Each following pilot aimed for the centre of the dust cloud covering the target. Results were surprisingly good. There was often the odd bomb adrift, of course, and as our troops were usually fairly close by, some sad acccidents. But then, there has never been a war in which that hasn't happened (and never will be).

The Jap reacted quickly to this tactic. He'd lob a smoke bomb at us the moment he saw aircraft coming, and there'd be two lots of smoke. This was ineffective, for if the line ran east-west, you'd obviously go for the southern smoke. He could have finessed by putting his smoke further south behind him, to draw the bombs down there (at risk to his own people). But before this became a problem, the Army got coloured smokes, and a colour was agreed for each strike. This was too much trouble for the Jap, and he never bothered to counter it.

Some strongpoints had been hit so often that we had no difficulty in finding them. I remember one hill which had all the vegetation blown off the top. In the morning sun, this bald peak shone like a big brown breakfast egg sticking up out of the jungle. You couldn't miss it. (EDIT: I have been reading up Google/Wiki on the "Battle of the Admin Box"; they describe a Point 551 which had been hammered to such effect that its height AMSL was reduced by five feet. This might well be our hill).

This kind of work was our bread-and-butter. But a change is as good as a rest. We went further afield, but not too far on account of our limited range. Fuel consumption is high with a loaded bomber in formation, and our radius of action was no more than 200 miles. There was a story that locally made long range tanks had been tried on the Vengeance, but the extra weight and drag of these rough and ready bolt-ons needed so much extra power (and therefore fuel) that you got no further with the things on than you did before without them.

The range we had was enough was enough for us to reach Akyab from Chittagong and the Cox's Bazar strips. From Khumbirgram in Assam we could get over the hills into the upper Chindwin valley. But generally our ASC sorties only lasted an hour or so in the Arakan, two hours in Assam.

As soon as a sortie lands back, the "turnround" starts. The aircraft have to be checked, refuelled and re-armed (in our case bombed-up) ready for the next trip. Quick turnround is the mark of an efficient Squadron. You have only limited resources in the shape of fuel bowsers, bomb trolleys, bomb winches and men - particularly armourers. The trick is to use every short cut you can think of (Ryanair and Easyjet wrestle with the same problem today).

A fighting airforce concentrates on turnaround, for in effect it multiplies its strength. If you can fly twice as many sorties in a given time, you're twice the size. This factor was crucial in the Arab/Israeli 1967 "Six Day's War". IIRC, Arab intelligence estimated that the Israelis could turn round their Phantoms five times between dawn and dusk. They managed eight on the day!

On "A" Flight, we had our own "secret weapon". Bombing-up is a slow business. The bomb trolley has to be manhandled under a wing station or bomb bay. Take the case of a wing: with the trolley positioned under the rack, a winch is mounted on top, and the cable passed through the wing. Then the rack is disconnected from below the wing, attached to the cable and lowered for attachment to the bomb. With electrical connectons made, fusing links fitted to the bomb, and the steadying clamps tightened, rack plus bomb has to be slowly winched up (by hand) back up to the wing and secured. Then the winch and cable have to be removed. All this can take up to a good quarter of an hour.

We had "Hatch", a New Zealand farmer of huge size and strength (and as mild and aimiable a chap as you'd hope to meet), now Flying Officer Hatchett of the RNZAF. We didn't need a winch for our wing bombs. A rack was disconnected and clamped onto its 250lb bomb. We folded a couple of empty sacks for padding on Hatch's back, he bent down under the bomb station, four lads lifted the bomb onto his back, and guided it as he straightened up and forced it into position under the wing. Twenty seconds of effort saved ten minutes on each wing of each aircraft. (EDIT: Curiously, neither F/O Hatchett (nor any similar name) appears on the Bharat-Rakshak List of 8 Sqn personnel, but I can assure you that he was there).

Of course he could lift only the wing bombs, the internal 500lb ones still had to be winched up into the bays, but even so we saved a third of the time bombing-up would otherwise have taken. There was no difficulty with the air crews, as we were so close to the fighting areas, our sorties rarely lasted much more than an hour. An hour's rest and a glass of "char" from the char-wallah after debriefing, and we were ready to go again. By then the ground crew would have our aircraft ready and waiting for us.

It looks as though we are back in business now!

End of part 26

 

[Ascent]

Part 27

Being so close to the "sharp end" had its advantages. We were almost entirely spared the usual time-wasting visits by high-ranking notables from Calcutta or Delhi, keen to get in a bit of "front line" time to boast about when they got back. Not entirely, one such party came down to have a look at us in early '44, keen to see how this mixed squadron was getting on. As both flights were furiously busy just then, we gave an impression of rather more harmony than in fact existed, and our visitors were duly impressed. They stayed the night.

At breakfast one asked: "What was that clanking noise we heard during the night?"........"Fifteen Division's tanks moving up" "How far away are the Japs?"......."About thirty miles"......Nothing was said, but our visitors disappeared with the speed of light. I grimly recalled my school Shakespeare (Henry IV Part 1), and the young Percy's scornful words: "Came there a certain Lord, neat and trim'ly dressed" - the epitome of the red-tabbed Staff Officer through the ages. (Nagged by this individual to hand over his prisoners, the weary warrior: "I, all smarting with my wounds being cold, answ'd him roundly, I know not what" - but we can guess!)

We lived in luxury compared with the P.B.I. in the jungle. In bamboo bashas, with mosquito nets and camp beds (in my case, my DIY travelling bed), we were quite comfortable and reasonably well fed, although a lot of bully beef was on the menu - (our Hindu colleagues had to turn a blind eye). The cooks could generally find something to curry; rice was no problem in Burma, and you could always get hold of eggs and the odd scrawny chicken. Nobody starved.

It was unwise to bring the odd cold chicken leg back to your basha for a midnight snack; the scent would attract baboons and you might awake to find a ferocious squabble going on over the titbit by your bedside. The thing to do was not to interfere, but let them get on with it; the beasts had fearsome teeth and were quite ready to use them. As with most wild creatures, they were no trouble if you left them alone.

There was nothing to distinguish one ASC job from another, just another puff of white smoke against another dark green background, a dive and another big cloud of dust and smoke. One trip (by 82 Sqn at Dohazari?) gave particular satisfaction. The Army had a small clearing up front in the Box from which they evacuated their badly wounded in (I think) Stinson "Reliants". Somehow the Jap had managed to get a small mountain gun into range and was causing a problem. We got a "fix" on this gun, (Lord knows how), put in a strike, the gun was no more, the gunners went to join the ancestors and the Army was well pleased.

IIRC, the drill was that the "Reliant" took the casualties back to one of the Cox's Bazar strips; if they were in extremis the MFH at Cox's would patch them up; otherwise the empty 'Daks' coming back from air-drops to the Admin Box landed on some strip and took them on to Calcutta (or up to Chandina, near, it seems, a big hospital in Comilla). The 'Reliant' went back for more. (All this I was told - in the MFH? - any medic from those days who can confirm/deny?)

Not all our sorties were trouble-free. One morning George Davies was hit in the hydraulics over the target (sounds a bit painful), and pulled out of the dive with just enough fluid to get his brakes in before the hydraulic power failed. One undercarriage leg was dangling. He couldn't do anything about it, or close his bomb doors, and it slowed him down a lot.

By arrangement, the front three carried on home by themselves. I'd been No.4 - ("in-the-box"), but now we back three reformed to put George in the lead, with one of us each side so that our gunners could offer him a little extra protection from an attacker coming in from either quarter. We had a Hurricane escort that day, two pairs. One pair went on with the front three, the other stayed with us, sweeping side to side a mile astern to give us some rear cover.

In this configuration we limped home without further incident. Paddy Lamb and I landed; George worked on his problem, but try as he might, he couldn't get the other wheel down or the first one up. They'd tried everything without success. It was obvious that any any attempt to land must write-off the aircraft and probably them with it. They headed it out to sea and abandoned it. Both floated down unhurt on land and the aircraft splashed down in the Bay. That was about the only case where the loss of a Vengeance could certainly be put down to ground fire, although there would be others (such as mine) where it was strongly suspected.

It was a common enough story in itself, but there was an unusual twist to it. S/Ldr Thomas (whom we know well), tells a remarkably similar story of a VV which developed a hydraulic fault shortly after take-off, and had to be abandoned in the same way. In his version, the empty aircraft turns back and circles round, threatening one of the parachutes at each pass (very much like my story of the dropped Form 1 at Carlstrom Field long ago).

I never heard of this occurrence, and wonder if we are hearing a much embroidered version of the George Davies affair (could it be? - remember that S/Ldr. Thomas's reminiscences were written 40 years after the event). If that is the case, it is strange (and typical of the IAF "chippiness") that it is told without a single mention that a British crew were involved !

End of part 27

 

[Ascent]

Part 28

I shall take this opportunity to tell the full disconcerting tale about our front guns. Whether they were really as unreliable as generally believed, I do not know, for no one tried to fire them for long (and most people didn't try at all). There was a reason for this. The gun fixings in the wings were apt to work loose with the vibration of firing. The first indication that this was taking place was the unwelcome appearance of the alloy "blast tubes", slowly sliding forward out of the leading edge of the wing, as the rounds deviated sufficently to "clip" the sides of the tube on their way out.

If you carried on firing, things grew worse, with the rounds popping out all over the leading edge. Nobody wanted a sort of runaway buzz-saw chewing away inside the wing. So after several episodes of this (on test and on attempts to harmonise the things), and efforts at curing it proving unsuccessful, it was generally agreed that the guns were more trouble than they were worth, and best left alone. The armourers heartily approved of this, for it was a devil of a job to clean them, buried as they were well back in the wing structure. Accordingly, the first belts we had painfully put together at Chaara stayed untouched, AFAIK, for the life of the aircraft !

I must emphasise that this may only have affected the .300 guns I would hope that the .50s in the Mk.IVs were better anchored down. For now the 4-degree incidence the MkIVs had would have made strafing easier, as they could see where they were going and what they were aiming at, and that always helps. (It helped even more that the Mk. IVs never fired at anything, to my knowledge - possibly in Aus?).

Conclusion.

Looking back, with a lifetime's hindsight, it has always seemed to me that the heart of the Air Ministry (and by extension, that of ACSEA and AHQ Delhi) was never in this Vultee Vengeance business. I think they had been panicked into the original order by a sort of "Stuka effect", and now regretted it when they saw the thing in the metal and realised how useless it would be to them in Europe. "Sweep it under the carpet" - and we were the carpet.

Having said that, '42 and early '43 were desperate days out there and we had no excuse for not wringing every ounce of use out of what little we had to work with. Two months' really intensive bombing and formation practice, and I'm sure that all four RAF squadrons could have moved up to Assam or the Arakan in March '43, and done ten week's useful work before the onset of that monsoon, instead of just the 2-3 they actually did.

The next year was better, as we'd all got into our stride, but why discard the Vengeance at the end of the season? (particularly as it was now demonstrating its full potential). Even our early comers had not come out until mid - '42, they were not due for repat until mid - '45. The aircraft were there, we knew how to use them, we had the people. So why not keep going for one more ('44 - '45) season ? (It would be the last as well, but we didn't know that then).

Yes, the Mossies were coming out (not without problems) in mid - '44. So? Form four new Squadrons with them and leave us alone! I'm sure there was plenty of work (and room) for everyone, The Arakan was honeycombed with two years' worth of 'kutcha' strips which would now have dried out and be ready for use again.

It was not to be - the axe came down in summer '44 - all water under the bridge now, of course.

Next time we'll start on Defence,

End of part 28

 

[Ascent]

Part 29

As for the Jap defences, it was an article of faith among us that no AA gunner ever hit anything except by the purest chance, and you can't provide against that. What we couldn't understand was why the Jap never tried to intercept us - for as far as I know, he never did. But we had to live with the thought "there's always a first time" - it was at the back of our minds on every sortie. Every raw recruit must think of that first day:

"When the hugly bullets come a' peckin' up the dust,
And no beggar wants to face 'em, but every beggar must"............ (Kipling).

It was such an obvious thing for him to do. To start with, he had the aircraft, the Nakajima "Oscar", a small but very good fighter mounting 2 x .50 guns (later ones 2 x 20mm cannon). He didn't have many, but two would do. Of course Burma is a big place; there were no radar or any other early warning systems. The chances of running into each other were remote.

But our attacks on their Army positions were so regular that you'd think it worth their while to put up a standing patrol for a couple of hours a day over the area. They'd draw blank for a few days and then get lucky. It was a very real possibility. So what form of defence should we try?

We could forget about the dive. No one could touch us there. At the bottom, we would be scattered, low down, and going very fast. Our camouflage was excellent against the jungle. At worst, the Oscars might get one down there. Nothing could be done about that. Far and away their best bet would be to catch a box on the way to the target, and this is what we expected.

The danger was recognised, of course, and we were sometimes given an escort of two pairs of Hurricanes: one pair for top cover and the other sweeping a mile behind. It was a kind thought, but the Hurricane was so inferior to the Oscar in almost all respects apart from its ability to absorb punishment, that our escort would have had its work cut out defending itself, never mind us. This escort appeared only randomly, and we could never see any particular reason for it - perhaps when they had nothing more important to do.

The accepted tactic was that a formation should stand and fight. There were exhortatory posters. I recall: "STRAGGLERS DIE"......... "BIRDS OF A FEATHER, STICK TOGETHER"........... and "SHOULDER TO SHOULDER TO SHOULDER MEANS CONCENTRATED FIRE - STAY IN FORMATION AND THE JAP WILL SOON TIRE"........ (that raised a few eyebrows, the Jap didn't "do" tired).

These were heroic sentiments, fully in accordance with the declared view of our contemporary Admiral Tom Philips out there that: "a properly handled capital ship can always beat off air attack". Japanese torpedo bombers proved him wrong off the coast of Malaya. He went down in "Prince of Wales" (one of our newest battleships), and with him the old "Repulse" and some 1500 men. It was one of our worst naval disasters of the war, and sealed the fate of Singapore, Malaya and Burma.

It was decided that we would stay in formation and use the 12 rear guns in defence. We had done some "fighter affiliation" exercises with the Hurricanes during training, and tried a DIY version with a VV as "fighter" - a task which fell to me on account of my fighter OCU experience. This was not a good substitute, but better than nothing, I suppose. The main impression on me was the excellence of our camouflage - if I took my eye off the "box", it had simply disappeared.

I thought then, and think now, that the whole idea was absurd. The only result would be to give the Oscars a six-times bigger target for their guns. "He who fights and runs away"............would have made much more sense. We could have devised a "bomb burst" (like the Red Arrows), where we fanned-out, rolled over, dived and scooted for home individually. At worst the Oscars might get one instead of the lot, which would be the likely outcome if we all stayed together.

I would think that many people were secretly of the same opinion, but no one dared voice it. Were we not heirs to the glorious "Few"? Were we not supposed to "press on regardless"? It seemed dishonourable even to think of such a thing. But a dead hero is no use to himself and very little use to anyone else. ("Who hath honour"? asked old Sir John Falstaff "him that died o' Wednesday") In the event, there was never an interception (nor, I think, with the Aussies in New Guinea), so we'll never know what might have happened.

At this point, I must put it on record that our Vengeance operations must rank among the safest ones in all the War. They did not even carry the risks of the so-called "nursery ops" back home (these were attacks on relatively unimportant and poorly defended targets on which new Bomber Command crews might (if lucky) be sent to "cut their teeth" before the more serious work to come).

Nearly all our people flew all their sorties over a two-year period without a scratch. The Jap fighters never tried to intercept us and their AA was largely ineffective. Very few of our losses could be put down to them with any certainty. Almost all were due to flying accidents, as ever the result of carelessness, stupidity, weather or sheer bad luck.

End of part 29

 

[Ascent]

Part 30

On 24th February '44, Stew Mobsby and I took off on our 53rd sortie, flying No. 3 to BBB. We were going some way down south (Donbaik?), and the formation was climbing more slowly than usual, as we had plenty of time to get up to our bombing height. I think we took off from Ramu II, but cannot be sure - there were so many places, we were moving all the time and they all looked the same.

So quite soon after taking off we passed over the battle area (the Second Arakan campaign was reaching its climax) fairly low. Johnny Jap would take a pot at us, of course, but then he had a go every time we came back from a sortie and did no serious damage, although it was not unusual for aircraft to land back with small arms hits. On this occasion, I felt and heard nothing out of the ordinary, and neither did Stew. Twenty minutes into the climb, I had a look round the instruments. Oil pressure was zero.

Engines don't run long without oil, and I didn't fancy life as a Japanese prisoner. I signalled BBB (drew my hand across my throat, and pointed to the engine!), and started back. I warned Stew to be ready to bale out, we were at 3,000 ft and could easily manage it. The next few minutes were nail-biting, but then we were back over friendly territory again.

I was thankful, but starting to have doubts. The engine was still running smoothly. What was more, neither oil nor cylinder head temperatures were rising. I began to think that all I had was a dud oil gauge. With every mile my suspicion grew. By the time base was in sight (there was nowhere closer to land), I'd convinced myself. My screen was clear of oil, so the prop can't be throwing it out. Stew said we weren't making smoke, so we can't be burning it through the engine. The two temperature needles hadn't shifted. It had to be the oil pressure gauge, and I felt a bit of a fool.

Even so, I might have put it down off a straight-in approach, but these were awkward and difficult in a Vengeance because of the very poor forward view at low speeds. So we normally flew circuits. As there seemed to be no hurry, I did so now. Bad mistake! Downwind, I dropped the wheels and started my checks. The engine seized.

It had shown no sign of distress. Now there was just dead silence and a stationary propeller blade staring at me. The Vengeance was a poor flying machine and no glider at all. It went down like a sash weight. It was doing just that from a thousand feet - too low to bale out and no time even to think of dumping bombs. I took a last look at the runway, but it would have been suicide to try to get in from where we were with no power.

Nothing for it but crash-land straight ahead. I yelled "Brace" at Stew, lifted the wheels and cut the main switch, to stop the fuel pumps and avoid sparks. I can only remember thinking "I must keep 150 on the clock to have any hope of rounding-out at the bottom". Then my mind goes blank.

A mile or so away was an RAF Repair and Salvage Unit. I would think that most of its trade was in salvage. They did not have to go far to collect mine. As far as they could see, I was making for their clearing, but sank into trees before I got there. I must have rounded-out all right, for the aircraft survived touchdown to go skidding through the jungle. They told me that the tail unit came off first, then trees removed both wings. So far things may have been tolerable inside, if a bit bumpy, for we were having a ride in a sort of high-speed tank. Then the engine broke out.

Deprived of its battering-ram, the relatively light remaining structure hit something hard, broke apart just aft of the gunner's cockpit, and stopped abruptly in the shape of an inverted "V". The front fuselage and cockpits remained intact, the bombs stayed good as gold and the fuel did not go up. Thank Heaven for the brick-built Vengeance! (anything else would have disintegrated and killed us!)

End of part 30

 

[Ascent]

Part 31

We'd had a lifetime's entitlement of luck in the last few seconds, but were in no position to appreciate it, both knocked out in the crash. My luck had stretched even further. I'd been wearing my "Ray-Bans" under my helmet, with my goggles pushed up on my head. When we hit the final obstacle, the cable retaining my shoulder harness snapped and I went face first into the instrument panel.*

By rights, the glass lenses should have shattered into my eyes and blinded me. But, as far as we could make out, the goggles had taken the first impact, in the next millisecond the lenses must have jerked out of the frame and away from my eyes. The frame buckled, scooped the bridge off my nose and ploughed into my forehead and left cheek. And that was the extent of my injuries !

* (The P-40 recently found in the Saraha has the "Needle&Ball" glass smashed. It's dead centre of the panel: it's the only broken instrument glass - every picture tells a story.
Stew had been facing forward, braced head down on his navigation table. He broke a bone in his left wrist and got a bang on the nose, leaving him with an odd disability - he couldn't smell! This was no great loss out there and he got scant sympathy on that account, but it earned him a nice lttle lump sum from the War Pensions people later.

The RSU people ran over to pull us out; watchers at the base had seen us go down and sent the ambulance. I came to briefly as they were loading me on a stretcher, and remember the hot sun on my face. I couldn't see as my eyes were full of drying blood. "How's Stew?" - "He's all right". I looked a lot worse than I actually was, and that had an amusing sequel.

I came to fully in a Mobile Field Hospital at Cox's Bazar. They'd had mostly malaria and dysentery cases, and were quite chuffed at getting two proper "battle" casualties. Stew got a big cast on his arm and his nose shrank to normal size over the next few weeks. The enthusiastic medics sewed up my face and made up a new bridge for nose out of a patch from my thigh. Kept in place by a "saddle" of dental plastic, this wasn't perfect, but has done very well.

We were looked after quite efficiently by a staff of RAF nursing orderlies, for the three (I think) RAF wards. (The Army, of course, had the lion's share of the Field Hospital: it was an army surgeon who did my job). We must have spent about a month there, then "threw away our crutches" (Stew's cast and my nose 'saddle'), and prepared to go off to Calcutta on convalescent leave.

First task would be to secure our belongings. The ambulance crew had reported back to the Squadron what they'd seen when they'd picked us up, but of course it had taken them some time to reach us and I'd been bleeding all over everything in the meanwhile. So the tale they told was pretty gruesome; the general opinion was that they'd seen the last of me.

No use my kit going to waste. My DIY bed was a prize legacy, they had a draw for that. The rest was shared out among the others; there was no use trying to send stuff after me, it wasn't worth it and the chances were that it wouldn't reach me if they did. (This was standard procedure - anything personal or of value would, of course, be secured for safe keeping by the Adj. or I.O. - we are talking about clothing, bedding and towels etc., which you could quickly and cheaply replace).

Six weeks later the bad penny turned up. A shamefaced procession turned up with various items of my kit: "Sorry about this, old man - didn't think you'd be needing it any more!" And of course I recovered my bed - not that I would need it for long, for all the VV Squadrons were ordered to cease operations in June, and we would shortly be moving out (as it happened, never to return).

That done, we went off to "Cal" for our leave (transport no problem, you could always cadge a ride on the many 'Daks' which were continually shuttling Cal-Chittagong-all points-east. I will not describe our leave now, as I plan to make a separate Post out of Calcutta; it is worth a Post on its own

End of part 31

 

[Ascent]

Part 32

Back on the squadron, the engineers debated. The engine troubles which had plagued the Vengeance the year before had mostly been cured, and the most likely explanation for the failure was a lucky shot hitting an oil tank or line. But in the condition I left the aircraft, it might have been hit by a 3.7 AA shell and look no worse. They returned an open verdict.

In an earlier Post I have worked out that the Sqdn finally moved to Samungli (Quetta) on 6.8.44, so it stayed on in the Arakan doing nothing much for three monsoon months. Early In that time it must have left whatever kutcha strip it was on and fallen back on a paved strip (I think Chittagong or Dohazari) or they would never have got the aircraft out of the mud to fly away. And both these places were rail points,from which the ground party could move. I have only vague memories of that time, but I flew a couple of times (non-op) in July, and I think I was loaned to 244 Group in Chittagong to do some paperwork, so I wasn't altogether idle!

Once the decision had been taken to stop VV operations, there was absolutely no reason to leave us in the Arakan a day longer. For although there were dozens of kutcha strips, there were relatively few with a paved runway and drainage: these should have been left for the Hurricanes, Beaufighters and Mohawks who could still do useful work even in monsoon conditions. We were just cluttering up the place.

We became entitled to a "Wound Stripe" apiece. This daft and short-lived thing may have been peculiar to India. I never heard of it after I came back. The idea was similar to the American "Purple Heart", at which we poked much fun (it was said that you could get it for being nicked by the camp barber!) But it was entered on our records, and I seem to remember that I had an inch-long gold lace stripe to sew on my khaki tunic sleeve. As we never wore tunics (only bush jackets or shirts), it didn't seem worth bothering with.

Stew and I had been amazingly lucky: we both knew we'd live the rest of our lives on borrowed time. It's a pity that no photographs were AFAIK, taken of the wreck - it would have been quite a memento in my logbook. But then, after all, over the years I've had a reminder every time I've looked in a mirror!

(He and I parted soon after this, as I was posted away from Samungli, but were reunited the following year, when he rejoined me as my "Adjutant" in Cannanore. Having come out to India much earlier, he went home earlier. I looked him up once (in Southend) after the war, but then, I'm sorry to say, we lost contact.

Many years later I watched a TV documentary about some oil sheikh's new racecourse complex in the Gulf. The architect was mentioned. There couldn't be two of that name! He appeared. Incredulous, I looked at this little, bald, fat chap - a far cry from the wiry young man with the Byronic looks I remembered. (Ah, the ravages of time !)

There is a present-day slant on the tale of my crash. In any forced landing a pilot has to make the best of a bad job. He can do no other. In two cases which have hit the headlines in the last year or so ( the 777 which just managed to flop over the fence into Heathrow and the Airbus ditched in the Hudson river), the pilots concerned have been surprised to find themselves publicy feted as 'heroes'.

My case was the same as theirs (in kind, though much smaller in degree). Naked self-preservation was the name of the game. Three questions arise: Did I do a good job? - Yes! Was I incredibly (in the true sense of that much abused word) lucky? - Yes! Was I a "hero", in any sense? - Sorry folks, but No! I did what had to be done, and so did they, and we all got away with it, and there's no more to be said.

End of part 32

 

[Ascent]

Part 33

In comparison with some of the early Posts on this Thread, it must be admitted that my operational experiences must rank as rather humdrum and tame. Yet in the wake of the shining knights at the head of any column, there must always trudge the files of humble men-at-arms, the "spear carriers"; their contribution to the battle is every bit as vital. Some recent Posts ago I read a phrase which stuck in my mind: "We each had to fight the War we were given". (I wish I'd thought of that myself) .

This is so profoundly true that it invites a good look at the implications. Every one of us was given a different War to begin with. The War you started with may very well turn into something quite different. Hard Wars can turn soft, and vice versa. At every step, you are at the mercy of blind chance. There is little point in trying to arrange your future, and in any case the old adage is doubly true: "Be careful of what you wish for - you might get it!". I have always found it better just to "go with the flow" and take what the morrow brings.

After that bit of homespun philosophy, and before I retire to the back areas, I shall relate some odd stories which have drifted to the surface of my memory in the past few weeks (I hope I haven't told them already - if so, skip 'em and tell me).

Danny Falls off the Wing.
I've already stressed the small risk involved in Vengance air operations . Indeed, one wag declared that the greatest danger we were exposed to was of breaking an ankle, jumping down from the aircraft after a sortie. Curiously that very nearly happened to me one day.

The aircraft was being refuelled, and I was standing on the wing, chatting to the refuellers. I was directly behind the filler cap, they overfilled the tank and several gallons of petrol sloshed back round my feet I'd been wearing a pair of the very popular sambhur skin Desert Boots, with about an inch of sponge rubber on the soles.

Somewhere in the world there may be a researcher who wants to know the Coefficient of Friction between sponge rubber and petrol-soaked alloy sheet. I can tell him - it is Nil ! Still erect, I slid down and off the wing to land in an untidy heap on the pool of petrol on the ground below. The ground crew fell about laughing, but it was some time before I was able to see the funny side of it.
===========

A clever Doggie,
The Engineer Officer, Flt. Lt. Steele, had a dog, mostly bull terrier, called Scruffy (and never was an animal so aptly named). Scruff had been given a juicy bone from the kitchen, and had settled down in front of the Mess veranda to enjoy it.

But a passing kite-hawk had designs on this bone too, and adopted the same tactics as the birds at Worli on my first Christmas out there. It flew a tight left-hand circuit round the basha, swooping down and making a grab at the bone each time round.

The indignant dog dropped the bone and made a grab at the bird every time, but it was too quick to catch. This went on for some time; it was stalemate; the bird couldn't get the bone and the dog couldn't get the bird. We watched this in growing amusement.

Then something clicked in the dog's brain. Instead of chasing after the bird, he ran clockwise back to the corner, jumped in the air and met his tormentor almost head-on. There was a roar of rage, a clash of teeth, a cloud of feathers and an anguished squawk. The bird flew unsteadily off minus most of its tail feathers and bothered him no more, Scruff swaggered back to his bone, "dusting his paws off". Applause all round !

End of part 33

 

[Ascent]

Part 34

It was at Chittagong one afternoon and we had a solo Vengeance about to leave for Calcutta. Time was tight, there was only just enough to get there before dusk. At the very last moment, the phone rang in the Flight Office. There was an Army officer on his way home on urgent compassionate leave. He was too late for the last Dak shuttle, could we give him a lift? It would save him a day on the train. Of course !

By now, our pilot had the engine running; we held the aircraft intil a jeep screeched up with our man - and his big steel uniform case! (aka tin box). It was too big to go in the back with him, so while we found a 'chute and were strapping him in, two of our chaps would load this thing in the bomb bay. The pilot did not want to shut down and lose more time, so they had to do it with hydraulic pressure in the system.

The pilot half-opened the doors and held them open with the cockpit control on a knife-edge (the bomb doors are double-folding - see the Camden Vengeance pics (#2627 p. 132). This was highly dangerous (and strictly forbidden), the control might slip and the doors crush an arm flat in a moment.

Struggling in the hot and dusty propwash under the aircraft, pushing it in with bits of stick, they had got the box over the lip of one door - and the control slipped. There was a nasty crunch. Bomb doors are stronger than tin trunks. Desperately, they signalled the pilot to open up again, pushed the sorry remnants of our passenger's worldly goods in, flagged the pilot to close up, gave him the thumbs-up and away he went.

I never did hear the end of the story. It wouldn't be a total loss unless he had a bottle of ink (or Welfare Scotch) inside. Uniforms would only need a good press, and you could get these tin uniform cases in any bazaar for Rs.30 - not that he'd be doing much shopping on his rush home !

Maintenance Hiccup,

I went across to Dispersal one morning to check on my aircraft. By now the (largely Indian) ground staff should be finishing the D.I.s. The last item would be an engine test run. One of the basic rules was: "Do not try to take any serious power out of (any) engine until the oil temperature has risen 15 (C)". Normally this happens very quickly, but there are rare chilly winter mornings and this was one of them. The engine mechanic had decided to speed things up with a very fast tickover.

He'd overdone it; an oil line or joint had blown. The stuff was pouring out of the bottom, but as he was concentrating on the other cockpit checks, and the engine noise blotted out the shouts and waves of the onlookers, it was not until two chaps grabbed the wingtips and violently see-sawed (oil was being blown all over the lower fuselage and tail), that they got his attention and he shut the engine down.

Now the rest of the 21 gallons was forming a quickly growing circular pool under the aircraft. It was at this point that I came on the scene, and never in my life have I seen a look of such utter misery as that on the little chap in the cockpit. I think his name was Subramanian (?), which is a Tamil name from South India. Naturally darker-skinned than his northern counterparts, he looked almost blacker with grief and apprehension.

Well he might, for the (RAF) "Chiefy" had arrived, incandescent with fury. Not wishing to become a witness in a case of an airman about to be assaulted by a SNCO, I tactfully withdrew. Someone recovered our parachutes (which we left in the seats most of the time), without too much oil on them, and I transferred to another aircraft. But I shall never forget that face!

The aircraft would be u/s for a while, everything forward of the firewall would be smothered in oil, the rear fuselage was covered in it, and I suppose there'd be so much oil on the tyres after they pushed the thing out clear of the pool that the covers would have to be scrapped (the individual dispersal pen wasn't much good, either).

What happened to him? Can't remember, but if S/Ldr Sutherland had taken over from S/Ldr Prasad by then, I wouldn't give much for his chances !

Primitive Radar in Arakan.

During our time in the Arakan in '44, Radar was in its infancy out there (I think we might have still have been calling it "Radiolocation"). But there was a small radar unit not far from where we were. I am not sure whether it was purely experimental, or intended to work with the Spitfires which were then in action in the theatre. A small group of us who were not doing anything in particular that morning took a 15cwt and went over to see this Wonder of the Age in action. It was on a kutcha strip with a flight of the Spitfires on it.

The Radar people were housed in a large basha, I forget what sort of aerial array they had, but it was small, low and not very impressive. Inside it was very hot and stuffy, and very noisy too from the row from the diesel generator truck outside. We had not got round to a rotating timebase yet (the "Plan Position Indicator"), they were still working on the linear timebases which we had used in 1940. We gazed in awe at these mysterious "spikes" which, we were assured, meant aircraft; the distance along the line denoted the distance away. I suppose the array would rotate (manually).

Suitably impressed, we enjoyed a glass of "char", and checked with the operators before leaving. We were solemnly assured that there was no aircraft activity within thirty miles. We could relax on the way back. We thanked our hosts, and were walking back to the truck. Half way to it we heard the sound of unfamiliar engines and then the rattle of gunfire: a pair of hit-and-run Oscars came through on a firing pass down the runway. They didn't hit any of the Spits, which were all well dispersed in the trees.

We'd dived into a handy ditch beside the track, there was stagnant water in the bottom as we'd recently had a light shower (the much smaller North-East monsoon). In this were the usual leeches: we were all in shorts and rolled up sleeves: they thought Chrismas had come. There followed a five-minute session with puffed cigarettes - you put the hot end to the leech's bum, he lets go (wouldn't you?) and drops off. You must not try to brush him or pull him off, he'll come off all right but leave his mouth-parts in the wound, the result being a very nasty, festering sore.

Our faith in the Marvels of Science somewhat dented, we accepted the apologies of the technicians - apparently the Japs had come in "under the radar" - an excuse I would often hear in the years to come !

End of part 34

 

[Ascent]

And that's the end of Danny's time flying the Vengeance. I hope it's been as gripping for everyone else as it was for me and that it's been worth posting.

If the interest is there he has written a lot about learning to fly on the Arnold scheme which I'd be willing to post up as well.

 

[buffnut453]

Thank you for sharing these details. This is great writing. The Vengeance is one of my favourite aircraft...just love the look of it. I had the privilege of corresponding with the former CO of 84 Sqn many moons ago who also held the Vengeance in high regard.

I probably missed it but what is Danny's full name?

 

[KiwiBiggles]

I've held off commenting on this thread until now, so as not to break the flow of the story. But now it's finished, I want to say what a treat it's been. This has simply been one of the best things I've read all year. The content aside, it's been a pleasure reading blocks of well-written prose, with correct spelling, grammar and punctuation; a lamentable rarity.

These stories are going to be disappearing fast, now, and it's so important that we capture accounts of the everyday aspects of the war, especially from the lesser-known theatres.