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

by Colin Downes

  Sitting and talking on the hill in Cranborne Chase I also learned quite a lot about farming and horses from one farrier whose personal tragedy was particularly harrowing. According to him he had personally assisted in the home delivery of all his children, treating the process much as he did with his horses. Unfortunately, on the last occasion while his wife was near the end of her pregnancy she developed white leg and he applied horse liniment to the unfortunate woman who died in agony. He expressed surprise at the outcome as it always worked all right with his horses!

  The defeat of the Luftwaffe by the RAF during September persuaded Hitler to transfer his attentions from the UK to the USSR, and the German ‘Blitz’ was over by December 1940. By January 1941 it was evident that the threat of invasion was over as the bulk of the Luftwaffe flew eastwards. This was just as well for the Home Guard in the rural and sparsely populated county of Dorset, as the elite German airborne forces available for ‘Operation Sealion’ numbered 8,000 paratroops and glider troops. Battle hardened troops such as these landing around Iwerne Minster would soon mope up any resistance put up by the Home Guard whose only hope was Divine intervention. If General Montgomery, commanding the southern army based at the nearby Blandford Camp, had inspected us in 1940 and witnessed our dilettantish defence of the Realm, he may well have echoed Wellington’s words, ‘I don’t know what effect these men will have on the enemy, but, by God they terrify me!’

  By the time the Home Guard disbanded in 1944, when it became obvious there was no further threat of invasion, the school had supplied more than 300 volunteers for an independent platoon for the Home Guard command at Melbury Abbas: a local civil defence contingent, an air observers post on the roof of the school, and the manning of the village fire services. A splendid American Ahrens-Fox fire engine, borrowed from a local museum in the interests of a national crisis, replaced the village fire engine detached to support the fire services overwhelmed by the Luftwaffe raids on Bristol. This imposing red fire engine, circa 1920, was the flagship of vintage fire engines. It was the perfect prop for a ‘Keystone Cops’ type of movie. Indeed, the only call I recollect in response to a village house fire resulted in an enactment of just such a movie, as we endeavoured to unroll and connect 200 feet of heavy hoses, operate the pumping engine and direct the uncooperative jets of water at the fire while contemplating the erection of the fire ladders attached to the sides of the fire engine and the possibility of an opportunity to wield one of the two six pound axes carried aboard the fire engine. It can safely be said that the school more than played its part in the protection of our noble heritage. Fortunately, it was never put to the task of proving this during a German invasion of our cherished land.

  They were exciting days during the summer of 1940 with aerial dogfights, aircraft shot down and boys being machine-gunned from the air. This was much more exciting than the usual aviation side of my schooling that consisted of helping our maths master get airborne in his Slingsby sail-plane from the local hills. After we had hauled the dismantled aircraft up the hill we reassembled it and fitted bungee cords to the release catch on the nose of the Slingsby. Several of us grasped the bungee cords while others held on to the tail. After a headlong rush down the hill to the full stretch of the cords without falling, those holding the tail would let go and the aircraft catapulted into the air. It usually managed to fly about a mile before landing in a nearby meadow. The goal was to pick up lift from up drafts along the hillside or strong thermals beneath the clouds and soar high above the school before landing on one of the playing fields. However, this was not a popular concept in case an ill judged landing put the sail-plane down on a cricket pitch; for there were memories of one ‘old boy’ flying to the school for the ‘Old Boys’ annual cricket match and dragging his tail-skid across the number one cricket pitch. These were the days before high performance sail-planes and the Slingsby mostly performed as a glider. We never seemed to experience the wind or thermal conditions necessary to achieve much in the way of airborne time or distance. We were always recovering the Slingsby from some field, with an irate farmer armed with his shotgun complaining about the danger to his herd. I always arrived at the glider expecting to find it peppered with number-six shot or the like, although I do not recollect the airplane being damaged in any way. Our maths master, John Simpson, being a pacifist, joined the Friends Ambulance Service, thereby excluding himself from a useful flying contribution to the war effort. The last news I heard of him was driving an ambulance with medical supplies over the Himalayas to China; a far more hazardous occupation. Returning to the school after the war to visit the new chapel I looked at the Clayesmore Roll of Honour. A total of 37 Old Clayesmorians gave their lives during the First World War. In the Second World War, 70 Old Clayesmorians served in the Royal Navy, 130 in the Army and 55 in the Royal Air Force; 43 Old Clayesmorians died in action from 1939 – 45, and of this total 24 died flying with the RAF.

  So the early months of the War passed and in 1941 after four happy years spent at Clayesmore; although I failed to impress their Lordships at the Admiralty; I managed to acquire sufficient academic qualifications to enter university. I left as a school prefect having represented the school in the 1st XI at cricket, the 1st XV at rugby football and the school athletic and boxing teams. I became an undergraduate at Peterhouse, Cambridge, reading engineering, and I joined the University Air Squadron so that I could learn to fly and be accepted by their ‘Airships’ at the Air Ministry for pilot training in the RAFVR. The University Air Squadron operated de Havilland Tiger Moths provided by the RAF with RAF instructors. The Squadron flew from the grass airfield of Marshall’s Flying Training School, outside the city on the Newmarket road. The Tiger Moth was a delight to fly in calm weather but it was very sensitive to rough air and gusty wind conditions. The aircraft was a well-tried training and sports biplane dating from the early thirties and powered by an inline 142 hp Gypsy engine. It had a maximum speed of 108 mph, a service ceiling of 14,000 feet and a range of 300 miles. Light in structure and basic in design it was relatively easy to fly but not easy to fly well. It had characteristics that required full attention and could prove unforgiving to the careless or inattentive pilot. The ailerons, elevators and rudder needed coordination in all manoeuvres, especially during aerobatics when well-executed slow rolls required full and strong application of all three controls. Lockable slats on the leading edge of the upper wing improved low speed handling with a reduced stalling speed. However, the slats required locking during aerobatics and spinning manoeuvres to assist recovery. The RAF Tiger Moths had ventral fillets attached to the upper fuselage at the tail to provide a more effective keel surface area in recovering from a spin. The fuel system in the Tiger Moth was very basic. The fuel was gravity fed from a tank in the upper wing above the front cockpit. When flying the Tiger Moth inverted the engine had no negative G trap in the fuel system and the engine would stop after a few seconds. Restarting the engine in flight required the aircraft to dive sufficiently steeply to turn the propeller and start the engine. Starting the engine on the ground required the propeller to be hand swung with chocks against the wheels as there were no wheel brakes.

  Landings were one of the most problematical features of the Tiger Moth as the undercarriage was narrow with no wheel brakes. The aircraft used a tail skid and turning on the ground was achieved by the use of throttle to apply slipstream against the rudder to turn. The closely spaced wheels without brakes for stopping or directional control on the ground often caused the aircraft to swing in cross winds. This resulted in a ground loop with a wing tip striking the ground. Sometimes, in strong winds even the full use of rudder and power was insufficient to stop the swing. It was thus not easy to achieve a true three point landing in which the wheels and tail skid touched the ground together in anything but calm conditions. The easier option was to touch down wheels first holding the aircraft straight with power and rudder, but any attempt to land in this manner elicited abuse from our instructors assigned from the RAF. D
rift in cross wind landings is always a problem, even with large and heavy aircraft where the correction technique turns the aircraft towards the wind, crabbing it before skidding it straight at touch-down. In light aircraft such as the Tiger Moth a more effective technique is to lower the wing into the wind and side slip to counter the drift, levelling the wings at touch-down. It is of course possible to combine both techniques. With the narrow width undercarriage I was to find landings in a Tiger required similar techniques to landing a Spitfire, and it was a question of pride when viewed by critical fellow pilots that the landing be a ‘three-pointer’ with ‘wheelers’ being greeted with derision.

  Flying the Tiger Moth at any time of the year required us to dress as was the custom during the First World War, and flying in the draughty open cockpit with no means of heating could be a very cold affair. We dressed in quilted lined Sidcot flying overalls, virtually unchanged for the previous twenty years. In addition, we wore heavy sheepskin boots and double lined gauntlets. Our instructors flew in much envied and desired leather sheepskin jackets that were not available to us neophytes until we became authentic pilots. Our flying outfit included flying goggles and a leather flying helmet to which we attached flexible rubber tubing to plug into the Gosport speaking tube. This worked very much as a chauffeur’s speaking tube and required considerable lung power to convey any information above the sound of the engine and the wind. A personal parachute completed our outfit and periodically we pulled it in front of the packer to reassure ourselves that it would open when required.

  The basic theories of flight revolve around the principles devised by a Swiss mathematician and physicist, Jacob Bernoulli, who calculated that as the velocity of a fluid increased there was a resulting decrease in pressure. Hard though it may be for some to accept, air is a fluid, although unlike water it can be compressed, and Bernoulli’s theories and the Bernoulli Effect in particular are the explanations of how aircraft fly. For sustained flight an aircraft requires both lift and propulsion, which is achieved by moving the aerofoil or wing swiftly through the air by means of an engine-driven propeller or jet thrust. Lift would not occur on uniformly shaped wings, but by curving the upper surface of the wing convexly, with the lower surface straight or even slightly concave, lift is achieved. This results from the upper and lower air flows over the wing section arriving at the trailing edge at the same time, and as the air flow over the upper surface has farther to travel due to the convex shape than the air flow over the lower surface it travels faster producing a reduction in pressure on the upper surface of the airfoil than the lower surface, thus producing lift to the wing. This is not the end of the design of the wing as, like the birds of the air, aircraft have differing requirements of flight such as lift capability, manoeuvrability, speed, range and endurance. Nature evolved this over aeons of evolution to meet the needs of fast swimming fish and the various requirements of birds. Such factors will govern the design of the aircraft wing to meet the differing operating roles and requirements, and determine whether a thick short wing or a long thin high aspect ratio wing is required.

  Following an introduction to Bernoulli’s theorems and the revelation that air has similar properties to water, we launched ourselves into the practical application of the effects and further effects of the controls of the Tiger Moth. Stalls, spins and some aerobatics such as loops and slow rolls followed. We then concentrated on circuits and landings, or ‘bumps’. The old chestnut that any landing one walked away from was a good landing was often the case when learning to fly with the RFC in the First World War. This was not the view of our instructors from the RAF, who quickly made us aware that flying may be natural for birds, but such was not the case with us. They emphasized that flying was an art and that we take pride in its achievement; to this end the difference between an arrival and a landing was a three-point touchdown. My instructor was a Sergeant Murphy, referred to behind his back as ‘Spud’. He had a refreshing Irish sense of humour and, although nothing appeared to faze him, he displayed a strict purist approach to flying. Any sloppy performance or infringement of the principles of flight resulted in a stream of invective shouted down the Gosport tube that was quite a revelation. Transgressions often resulted in violent gyrations ending in inverted flight and the shouted instruction, ‘Right then, it’s all yours. You have control!’ Often in the early phase of instruction, the waving of arms with the control stick in one hand accompanied this instruction. This was quite effective in raising the heart rate until one realized that he carried a spare in the cockpit for just such an impression. Sergeant Murphy had an obsession for precise flying, immaculate landings and a desire to put cocky undergraduates in their place. Any attempt at a wheels first, tail up landing resulted in the full application of power and the shouted instruction to go around and stop leaping over the grass like a demented leprechaun. I got on well with Murphy but then I usually do with the Irish owing to a similar sense of humour and a dash of Irish blood in my mixture. I liked him as an instructor and he was a good pilot. As a result, during my fifth hour of flying and having completed a couple of fairly presentable circuits and landings, on taxiing back for another take-off Murphy got out of the aircraft taking his parachute with him. He fastened his front seat harness, slapped me on the shoulder and shouted, ‘Right then; do me a good circuit and landing and bring it back in one piece.’ Trying not to appear surprised I waved airily and proceeded to do just that.

  One of the apocryphal rules of the air states that although every take-off is optional, every landing is mandatory. It has been said that flying is the second greatest thrill known to man; in which case landing has to be the first! Certainly, the first solo flight has a special thrill matched by few other things in life unrelated to flying. I thought I had done Murphy and myself credit but when I returned to where he was sitting on his parachute he shouted, ‘Don’t waste my time. Do another and get it right this time’. Whether by luck or intimidation the second effort met with his approval, and I was then in my own estimation an incipient fighter pilot heading for wings and glory.

  That evening I telephoned my father to give him the news and he appeared genuinely pleased and I hoped my failure with the Royal Navy was a matter of the past. To celebrate my solo flight I invited Sergeant Murphy to dine at college. Peterhouse, the oldest and one of the smaller colleges, had the enviable reputation of the best dining and, wining in Cambridge. As such, invitations to dine were much desired and being in great demand, very limited and despite the wartime restrictions the college seemed to fare very much as it did before rationing. My gyp – a Cantabrigian valet – who took great care of me in college also served in hall and he made sure my instructor had a memorable dinner. It appeared to me that Sergeant Murphy’s attitude towards undergraduates, or maybe just me, softened a little after this and certainly he no longer shouted obscure Irish epithets at me. It was with sadness I learned some years later that Warrant Officer Murphy DFM, lost his life while piloting a Lancaster bomber over Berlin in 1944.

  The next five hours of my flying training I spent polishing up my flying on aerobatics, forced landings and instrument flying under a hood. I now started to feel confident that I had command of the Tiger and not vice versa. We also practised engine failures and forced landings, when Murphy would indulge in some very low flying, which was not a good example to set an ab initio pilot. However, this impressed me enormously and I looked forward to the day I would skim low level across the countryside. Low flying had an attraction that often proved fatal, and unauthorized low flying was a very serious offence with severe disciplinary consequences. This was necessary to stop the wastage of aircrew and aircraft for more effective use against the Germans. During my last term at school in 1940 the roar of engines overhead disturbed us when a Hampden bomber ‘beat-up’ the school as it flew very low over the rooftops. In turning around a covert on the school estate to return to the school buildings, the aircraft stalled and crashed into the wood exploding in a ball of fire. We rushed to the crash
site but it was impossible to save the crew, and little was recognizable or salvageable of the bomber. It transpired that the two recently graduated and commissioned pilots were on a navigational training exercise with the two pilots exchanging the piloting and navigation. A third member of the crew was an aircraftman air gunner. It was impossible to establish who was at the controls when the bomber crashed, but one of the pilots was an old boy from the school and the assumption was that he was flying the aircraft. Such a waste, but wastage was very much the fate of the Hampden bomber during the early stages of the war. Despite this salutary lesson I, like the rest of my contemporaries, had a sense of infallibility and that such a fate could never happen to us. It was hard to resist the forbidden fruit of low flying despite repeated warnings of the old adage – There are old pilots and there are bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots. To us a low level ‘beat-up’ was a way to impress friends and relatives. While practising forced landings with Murphy, he would select fields that experience told him offered the best prospects for mushroom picking, and we carried a parachute bag with us to collect them. There was one particular wide avenue of tall elm trees that had a great attraction for Murphy as he flew down the avenue between the trees with his wheels a few feet off the ground. I logged all this information in my memory for reference during solo flying, and by the time I had accumulated the grand total of twenty hours I began to feel I was an accomplished aviator.