Many innovative and ingenious ideas were conceived in the months prior to the invasion of Europe, some major in scope others relatively minor. Best known were probably the Mulberry harbours, and to a lesser degree some of "Hobart's funnies," such as the Crab, or flail tank. For all the ideas that were accepted there were as many, probably more, that were not, either because they were impractical or, when the time came to use them, were found unnecessary. The project with which I was involved fell into the latter category.
In the early autumn of 1943 someone in the planning team suggested that, in the event transport aircraft were not available when needed, fighter squadrons could haul their own spare pilots, ground crew and supplies to France, using their own fighter aircraft as tugs. The feasibility of the idea had to be tested, and 401 Sqn was chosen for the experiment.
On Oct 27th FSgts Morrisey and Maybee, F/0 Bob Hayward, (later S/L, DSO, DFC) and I travelled by train to Netheravon to take a glider course. Netheravon was a WWI grass field, and like so many old Royal Flying Corps airfields it was built like an inverted saucer. My main recollection of the place, as ITom Koch and myself. Hayward was heavily loaded with 10 armourers and their kit; I don't know what Koch was carrying. Sitting behind me I had Don Laubman, later LGen Laubman, an old friend from guard duty days three-and-a-half years earlier. Apart from that my logbook just reads "To Digby with 412's junk," so I presume I was loaded with spare pilots and/or their stuff. After one hour and 20 minutes the Spitfires had to refuel, so we landed at Digby. Hayward was the first to take-off for the last leg and had reached about 300 feet when the tow rope broke. Helped probably by his 1,500 hours as an instructor, he did a masterful job of getting back into the field in one piece. A new rope appeared from somewhere and all three gliders were soon on the way again, albeit with 10 nervous armourers.
We unloaded at Hutton Cranswick and spent the night there, returning to Biggin with the empty gliders the following morning. When word got out about the broken rope, we received a lot of questions from the ground crews along the lines, "What happens if the rope breaks over the Channel?" to which we probably answered facetiously: "Better learn to swim." But seriously, this episode told us, should we ever use these things operationally, not to put all one trade in one glider.
Having proven the scheme was practical, and that with a full complement of 12 gliders it was possible to move the Wing, we were now given the go-ahead to check out the rest of the Wing. Using the same approach that we had received, we proceeded to expose a few of the 411 and 412 Sqn pilots to the Hotspur, and then they could continue to check out the rest. We were fortunate to com-
plete the program without an accident, until the very end, although I came close on one occasion. By the time we had completed a circuit the Spit would have dropped the rope and it would have been dragged back into position for another lift.
The "erks" were complaining that we were landing too long, giving them a lot of work dragging the glider back to the end of the runway. The south-east end of the main Biggin runway ended at a perimeter track, closely bordered by a high chain-link fence. Immediately beyond the fence the escarpment on which Biggin is built drops off sharply into a deep valley; approaching, you faced the steeply rising side of the escarpment, topped with the fence. While checking out another pilot I decided to see how short I could get down. At the
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