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

  One of the most significant events during my time on 41 Squadron was my selection to attend The Day Fighter Leader School (DFLS) at the Central Fighter Establishment at West Raynham in Norfolk during 1952. The CinC Fighter Command, Air Marshal Sir Basil Embry, directed that all squadron commanders and flight commanders must complete this course before being confirmed in their appointments. The course involved the most intensive and rigorous fighter flying in the RAF, and was the forerunner of the USAF and USN ‘Top Gun’ schools in the USA formed after the Korean War. The flying on the course was conducted in simulated wartime conditions with little or no flying restrictions, and even under weather conditions that would normally ground the day fighter squadrons. The high standard of flying required made it necessary for the students to have more than just a little experience of jet fighters before attending the course, which some ‘old hands’ found to their cost.

  The low level ground attack sorties had no height restrictions and were normally carried out at around 50 feet in altitude at a speed of 360 knots on the Meteors, and later at 420 knots on the Hunters. This equated to a ground distance covered in still air of 6 or 7 nm per minute to facilitate accurate D/R navigation at low level. The normal height restriction in the RAF for low flying was 250 feet and infringements below this height were subject to disciplinary action, but such a restriction was not feasible under mock combat conditions. The relaxation of the normal low level flying restrictions resulted in a high rate of bird strikes. The air bites shrewdly – it is a nipping and an eager air. I happened to be one of those to collect a bird strike while flying at zero feet and 360 knots, around 420 mph or 670 kph. The gull splattered the whole windscreen of the Meteor and the effect was as if hit by a large raspberry jam puff. The effect of suddenly flying blind at zero feet altitude can be quite disconcerting, especially while looking for landmarks. Fortunately it was no more serious than that as the bullet proof windscreen was tested to withstand the impact of a five-pound chicken fired from a pneumatic cannon at a speed of 500 mph. The many laminations of armoured glass sandwiched with vinyl did their job and although the result was messy it did not prove dangerous: with the number of turkey farms in the area I was glad the turkeys did not fly.

  A bird strike on the windscreen was preferable to one in the engine intake that could cause a turbine failure. The squadron experienced some of these and I was glad to be flying Meteors with twin Derwent engines. The large compressor blades in the centrifugal RR Derwent engine in the Meteor, and the DH Goblin engine in the Vampire, did quite a good job of mincing the birds without throwing a compressor blade. When the axial flow compressors in the Rolls Royce Avon and Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire arrived with the Hunter and when one of the many small blades running the length of the compressor became dislodged, it churned through the many stages of the compressor as it passed through the engine, causing at least an engine fire if not a catastrophic turbine failure.

  The only other worrisome incident I experienced on the course occurred shortly after one take-off when on selecting the cabin pressurization I became enveloped in a white cloud of kerosene mist, which temporarily blinded me shortly after becoming airborne. My wingman reported that I had a cockpit fire but when I turned off the pressurization and motored open the canopy hood the kerosene mist cleared from the cockpit. My oxygen mask protected me from inhaling any fumes and although my eyes were watering and smarting my goggles had kept the kerosene out of my eyes. I flew around for a while to clear the fumes and burn off some fuel and landed without incident. The engineering staff tried to maintain that it was impossible for the fuel to get into the pressurization system but somehow during refuelling the kerosene had entered the airframe and cockpit of the aircraft and the cockpit pressurization had produced a dense white cloud of kerosene mist. I never heard of a similar case but then the pilot may not have returned to report the incident. At that time the RAF and the USAF had different policies regarding the turbine fuel used by jet aircraft. The RAF preferred to use aviation kerosene called Avtur, whereas the USAF used aviation gasoline called Avgas. The Avtur fuel, although more expensive to produce, was a safer fuel and with its higher temperature of combustion offered less of a fire hazard than the high-octane gasoline fuel.

  In 1952 the directing staff on DFLS consisted of experienced wartime senior pilots, some with wartime ‘ace’ status. During my time on the course the CO was Wing Commander Prosser Hanks, DSO, DFC, an ex-Battle of Britain ‘ace’. The senior instructor was Squadron Leader Billy Drake, DSO, DFC, another Battle of Britain pilot, who made a reputation in Desert Air Force as a high scoring fighter ace with 24 German and Italian aircraft claimed destroyed. Billy Drake, a descendent of Francis, was a well-known personality in Fighter Command, and I got to know him well during the fifties. His aggressive character as a fighter pilot carried over into the mess as the enthusiastic instigator of mess games following a dining-in night such as ‘Mess rugby’, ‘High cockalorum’, and ‘Are you there Moriarty?’ These mess games, together with motor cycle accidents, accounted for the majority of orthopaedic cases in the RAF hospitals at Halton, Ely and Wroughton! As an accomplished skier with strong legs, Billy Drake’s speciality was leg wrestling and with his opponent’s reflexes dulled by alcohol, he was seldom bettered at the game. The DFLS course was a wonderful experience and was without question the most intensive and enjoyable flying I had experienced to date. By a function of chance and good luck all my flights went well, especially in leading missions and I graduated with a rare ‘Exceptional’ leadership assessment. I am sure it was this assessment, together with my squadron assessments in flying and gunnery of ‘Above Average’, that was instrumental in my selection at Fighter Command to fly with the USAF fighter squadrons during the last year of the Korean War. In the same way as my flying instructor’s category followed me around, so too did the DFLS assessment follow me two years later for selection to the directing staff of DFLS and the Fighter Combat Wing that replaced it.

  So it was that when Fighter Command called for volunteers to go to Korea towards the end of 1952, my name was put forward by Biggin Hill and in January 1953 I joined a squadron leader and ten other flight lieutenants from the Fighter Command day fighter squadrons on a BOAC Stratocruiser bound for New York on the way to Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada. Only the squadron leader, Max Higson, and I had wartime flying experience as the remainder of the pilots were post-war entrants into the RAF. I was then in my thirtieth year and I recalled the time eleven years previously, when I had sailed to the USA in search of my wings, that three of the cadets in our intake were in their mid to late twenties and married, two having volunteered for pilot training from the police force and one remustering from ground crew. The rest of us regarded them as very elderly, certainly too ancient to be aircrew. Perhaps our more junior companions regarded Max and me in the same light as being too old for active jet operations, but I was to find a few pilots older than us on the 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing (FIW) at K-14, Kimpo, in the ‘Land of the Morning Calm’.

  The history of Fighter Command pilots flying with the USAF during the Korean War originated from Air Marshal Sir Basil Embry, CinC Fighter Command, wanting to send a Meteor squadron to Korea, but was unable to do so. The Royal Australian Air Force was represented in the United Nations forces in Korea by No. 77 Squadron flying P-51 Mustangs. The Australians decided to convert the squadron to Meteors and the Meteor VIIIs arrived from the UK with RAF instructors to assist in the conversion. Subsequently, the RAF provided about 40 per cent of the commissioned pilots on the squadron. Initially, a handful of experienced pilots from the Central Fighter Establishment went to Korea as observers and one, Wing Commander John Baldwin, DSO, DFC, a distinguished wartime Typhoon ground attack pilot, was lost in action. Although a very experienced pilot, Baldwin had limited jet-flying experience when he arrived in Korea. The Commander-in-Chief Fighter Command was anxious that Fighter Command should have jet combat experienced fighter pilots on his squadrons at a time when the ‘Col
d War’ was at its most intense phase. He arranged with the Chief of Staff of the US Air Force that the RAF could send qualified fighter pilots on detachment to the USAF to fly with the USAF fighter squadrons in Korea. In order to ensure that these pilots were suitably prepared to join the US squadrons they would have to attend the same tactical weapons training as the US pilots before joining USAF squadrons in Korea. Training on air-air combat, air-air gunnery, and air-to-ground firing with rocket and bomb attacks was carried out at The USAF Tactical Weapons School at Nellis AFB in the Nevada desert, using F-80 ‘Shooting Star’ and F-86 ‘Sabre Jet’ aircraft. In order to maximize the number of combat experienced pilots in Fighter Command, it would have been more beneficial for the RAF to have a similar arrangement to that agreed by the USAF with the RCAF, in sending fighter pilots to Korea with an abbreviated tour of fifty missions. The USAF would not agree to this and insisted on a full tour of 100 missions for the RAF pilots. Understandably, when the USAF was fully geared up to produce as many jet combat experienced pilots as possible, it was reluctant to support the additional time required for a double intact of RAF pilots at Nellis. Under the new arrangement four more Fighter Command pilots arrived in Korea in 1952, joining the two F-86 Fighter Interceptor Wings. When they returned at the end of 1952 it was decided to send a further twelve pilots from Fighter Command and I was included in that number. The armistice at the end of July 1953 ended any more detachments from the RAF to the USAF in Korea and the RAF and the RCAF had provided twenty fighter pilots from each air force to the USAF fighter squadrons during the Korean War.

  Before leaving for the US we were equipped with a vast amount of arctic clothing and flying kit, including the new RAF G-suit. As it turned out this large bag of luggage was largely excess and redundant ballast as I preferred, apart from a useful arctic parka, to use the USAF equipment. We embarked on a BOAC Stratocruiser for New York and after the usual round of sightseeing flew on to Washington, DC. In the US capital we had briefings at the British Embassy with some further sightseeing before flying on to Las Vegas via Chicago and Denver, Colorado.

  Nellis Air Force Base lies a few miles out of Las Vegas in the Nevada Desert. We were a little surprised to find that jet pilots were segregated to the extent of having their own Bachelor Officer Quarters and a mess dining hall for ‘Jet pilots only’. Although the tactical weapons course was divided into two phases, the first on the F-80 and the second on the F-86, as experienced jet fighter pilots we were exempted from the first phase apart from some day and night navigational exercises and instrument flying without a cloud in sight during the whole of our stay. The Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star was a good handling aircraft with an equivalent performance to that of the Meteor VIII. Powered by an Allison J-33 turbojet engine of 5,000 lb.s.t, it had a maximum speed of Mach 0.8; and a rate of climb close to 7,000 ft./min. Wing tip overload tanks gave the F-80 a very useful range of 1,300 nautical miles. The two-seat trainer version of the F-80, the T-33, was the nicest weekend aircraft I ever flew and I envy those who have the means to buy a civil registered version as a personal aircraft.

  Moving on to No. 97 Squadron for the F-86 phase of our course we joined, as far as the RAF was concerned, a still quite select group of pilots to experience the envelope of transonic flight and break through the popular misconception of the ‘sound barrier’. With but a nodding acquaintance of Dr Mach and compressibility problems during my Mustang flying, any near approach to this invisible ‘barrier’ in the Meteor was accompanied by much buffeting with strange airframe convulsions and noises of protest from the engines. This was to be the real thing at last and after a familiarization flight I carried out my first ‘Mach run’ and delivered the expected sonic boom at the base as evidence of joining the then fairly exclusive club of those exceeding the speed of sound.

  The single engine F-86 Sabre is one of the great fighter aircraft in the history of aviation, and a very different fighter to the twin engine Meteor I had flown during the past two years. As I climbed into the F-86 cockpit for the first time I felt very much as I had done all those years ago when leaving my Spitfire and climbing into the Mustang cockpit for the first time. The F-86 cockpit was more cluttered and complicated than the Meteor or any other aircraft I had flown up to that time. There were different concepts in an American designed fighter than an RAF one, such as controls, systems and instrumentation, with some innovations that were new to me. The biggest and most important difference in concept and design being in the hydraulic system that controlled the flight controls, air brakes, flaps, wheel brakes and the operation of the undercarriage. In support of this system was an auxiliary emergency system enabling the aircraft still to fly and be controllable even with the engine flamed-out, as long as the turbine was able to windmill and supply sufficient limited hydraulic power, with electrical backup supplied by the emergency battery. The cockpit although not spacious was nevertheless comfortable, with excellent all-round visibility through the bubble canopy. Reassuringly, it had an ejection seat and this differed in design from the RAF Martin Baker ejection seat. Whereas the British ejection seat was fired by pulling a blind over the face, the US ejection seat was fired by pulling handles at the side of the seat. I personally favoured the British design as I considered it offered better chances of escaping injury on ejection. The US ejection seat, however, had the advantage of being able to be fired while experiencing extreme negative G conditions, when it may have been difficult if not impossible to reach up and fire the Martin Baker seat. The F-86 had a very efficient pressurized and air conditioned cockpit that was the best I had experienced up until that time. The pressurization control had two settings; one for normal high altitude flying when the 11 psi pressure produced a cockpit altitude of around 10,000 feet, and the other being a combat setting of 5.5 psi that reduced the effect of sudden decompression in the event of failure, allowing the pressure demand oxygen system to automatically supply increased flow under pressure into the face mask. The pilot was protected from battle damage by two armoured panels fitted fore and aft of the cockpit, in addition to the heated armoured glass windscreen panel. Demisting and de-icing of the windscreen and cockpit canopy was very effectively cleared by high-pressure hot air blasts from nozzles around the windscreen and canopy, controlled by a trombone type slide lever on the left side of the canopy.

  A prominent feature in front of the pilot and above the main instrument panel was the radar ranging and tracking gun-sight. The throttle, air brakes, flaps and undercarriage controls were conveniently placed for the pilot’s left hand. The flight and navigational instruments followed a conventional layout, with the associated engine instruments to the right of the flight instruments. Below the main instrument panel in front of the pilot was a panel for the control of armament and ordnance. The radio panels were along the right side of the cockpit. Among the innovations in instrumentation was a tachometer calibrated in percentage power instead of precise rpm. This was a better and more logical interpretation of the power from the turbine, rather than a read out of the very high rpm involved, bearing in mind that 90 per cent of the available engine thrust occurs in the last 10 per cent of the rpm range. Another innovation was the provision of a G-suit. Although the Americans had used G-suits towards the end of the Second World War, the RAF did not equip their fighters with this combat convenience until the arrival of the Hunter into service in 1954. The F-86 used nose-wheel steering for taxiing by depressing a button on front of the control stick. This was an improvement on the RAF system of taxiing by differential braking. Also situated on top of the stick, and conveniently placed for the pilot’s right thumb, was a ‘coolie hat’ shaped button for the aircraft’s pitch and roll trim, replacing the manually controlled trim wheels on the left side of the cockpit. Yet another innovation was the use of an integrated flying and crash helmet to protect the pilot, with a moveable sun visor. The flying crash helmet was not adopted by the RAF for general pilot’s use until 1954. In Korea we removed the sun visor in preference to regular detachabl
e flying goggles, as the visor tended to restrict or obscure vision while in combat.

  Unlike the Meteor, that used a battery trolley accumulator for starting the engine, the F-86 in typical US fashion used a Houchin, Ford V-8 engine powered, 24 volt starter generator, producing 1,000 amps for start-up power. Selection of the low and high pressure fuel cocks required careful advance of the throttle to prevent the jet pipe temperature exceeding a maximum of 600 degrees Centigrade until the engine ran up to idling rpm. In flying the F-86 with its single axial flow turbine engine, the initial acceleration on take-off was slower than the Meteor with its twin centrifugal turbine engines, but after a nose-up take-off run of 10 – 15 degrees with an unstick airspeed of 115 knots, the rate of climb built up until it was faster than that of the Meteor. The F-86Es at Nellis had recently replaced the F-86As and were a big improvement on the original aircraft. Although the E model was similar in appearance to the A model it had the important difference of featuring an ‘all-flying’ tail, that greatly improved the control and handling of the aircraft at sonic speeds. The introduction of duplicated hydraulic powered flying controls on the F-86A with irreversible control surfaces successfully helped to counter the undesirable side effects of compressibility but the elevator, as in previous fighter designs, controlled the longitudinal attitude in flight with some instability at sonic speeds. The ‘all-flying’ tailplane moved the horizontal stabilizer in conjunction with the irreversible elevator and the result was greatly improved control as the aircraft went sonic in a dive and then transonic coming out of the dive to subsonic flight. The design of the hydraulic system on the F-86 was far more complex than hitherto had been the case of current fighters; and it is not surprising that the designer of the hydraulic system with its emergency back-up system was rumoured to have suffered a mental breakdown as a result. It would be some years before the UK designed fighters started to catch up in the design of hydraulic control systems. The F-86E was powered by one General Electric J47-GE-13 turbojet engine producing 5,200 lb.s.t. The maximum speed at sea level was 590 knots or Mach 0.9, and 520 knots or Mach 0.88 at 30,000 feet. The aircraft had a rate of climb of 7,250 ft/min and a service ceiling of 47,000 feet. An internal fuel capacity of 437 US gallons gave it a combat radius of 280 nautical miles. The armament consisted of six 0.5 inch M-3 machine-guns with 267 rounds per gun and a firing time of 15 seconds at 1,100 rounds per minute.