I would, indeed, have missed out on the course for which I had been selected, and quite possibly on flying altogether, had I not gone to Melbourne when I did. I went to the Air Board offices a day early to make inquiries and it was then discovered that my selection and calling up papers had been filed accidentally with those for the next course, which was due to start in July. As it was, the error was discovered in time, and all was well.

It was not until some months later that I learnt how the error came about. The course being selected at the time of my first interview was the one due to begin on 15^th January, 1930. Although I was rejected for that, I was, unknown to me, earmarked as first reserve in case any of the successful candidates dropped out before that course was called up. One did: he was killed in a private flying accident. At the second interview, I was selected to fill that vacancy, although no one told me so. All the other successful candidates at that interview were being selected for the course beginning in July. Through some faulty staff work, my papers were filed with those of the later course.

When the course assembled, next day, one of the members remarked that I looked very like Charles Lindbergh, and "Lindy" became my nickname from that day onwards. After enlistment formalities and swearing in, we were taken to the government clothing factory where we were measured for our uniforms, and then driven down to Point Cook to begin our training.

Not unexpectedly, we were "initiated" one evening in our second week, in a "ceremony" organised and conducted by the senior cadets, assisted by several officers, who conducted the "brandings", the "medical" examinations, and played the parts of king and a very lewd queen. There was nothing kid gloved about the way the ceremony was conducted, but it was clever and funny, and so well done that we, the victims, agreed afterwards that nothing could have been better calculated to make us feel accepted and at home in our new surroundings.

As RAAF officer cadets, we were, of course, being trained not only as military pilots, but also as officers. I do not intend to give a detailed account of this but must comment on some aspects of it. I will start by saying that our training as officers was excellent. Our training in the ground subjects associated with our flying could hardly have been better; but our flying training was appallingly bad. This had nothing to do with the quality or skill of our flying instructors: it was caused by the curriculum imposed on us all by the Air Board. Our course was made the subject of a training experiment which could only be described as disastrous, and caused us to become the worst trained pilots ever turned out by Point Cook.

To start with, under government pressure to economise, it was decided to limit our flying to 90 hours per pupil for all purposes. That would have been little enough in which to achieve an adequate standard of skill on the two types of aircraft which we had to master, had it all been devoted to the usual dual and solo pure flying exercises and a few cross country flights. However, matters were then made much worse by deciding that we would have to be trained, and pass tests in, the following applied flying tasks, all within the limit of 90 hours:-

Formation flying
Front gunnery
Bombing, as bomb aimer
Oblique photography, as camera operator
Air wireless operator
Mosaic photography as pilot
Army co-operation exercises

Some of this was even done while we were still on our basic trainers.

There was much else that was wrong with our flying training, but I have indicated the main fault.

As for my own training, I very nearly did not make the grade as a pilot. Part of the trouble may have been a lack of aptitude. Having since been a flying instructor myself, I now know that part of the trouble was certainly due to my instructor. He never took his hands and feet off the controls when giving dual, and never let me make the mistakes from which I might have learned something. I had completed 16 hours dual before going for my first solo test with the Chief Flying Instructor (CFI). Inexplicably, because I did not feel nervous, I failed that test dismally, and a second one after four more hours of dual. On test by my Flight Commander, my flying was a bit rough, but quite safe; with the CFI it was just awful.

I failed my last test on the morning of 26^th March. There were two other pupils who had failed to go solo. That afternoon, when we were in ground school, each of the others was summoned before the Station Commander and CFI, were told they had failed the course, and returned disconsolately to the classroom to gather up their books and say goodbye. I was then summoned and quite expected the same fate. I found my Flight Commander and the Chief Ground Instructor (CGI) present, as well as the Station Commander and CFI. A discussion followed, in which the CFI told how bad he had found my flying, the Flight Commander said I was a bit rough but safe, and the CGI said I was doing very well in all gound subjects. The Station Commander than made what I still think was a very courageous decision. He turned to me and asked, "What do you feel about this, Rankin? Do you think you could take up a Moth and land it again, safely, by yourself"? I replied, "Yes, Sir". He then said, "Right! Tomorrow morning, your Flight Commander will take you up for a few minutes, just to see that you are no worse than usual. He will then send you solo. If you break the aeroplane, you will be sacked. If you don't, we will keep you in, at least for the time being".

Next morning, I duly went solo before any other flying started, and almost the whole station gathered on the tarmac to watch. With eyes glued to the nose of the Moth, I took off and climbed for what seemed like ages. When I felt quite sure that I was miles from the aerodrome, and still keeping my eyes on the nose of the Moth, I decided to try a steep turn, which had been one of my bugbears. Around I went and was delighted to feel the little jiggle as I hit my own slipstream on completing the circle, indicating that it had been accurately done. Still concentrating on watching the nose, I then tried another one in the opposite direction, and again felt that satisfying little jiggle. That made me feel confident enough to look downwards, and I found that I was right over the middle of the aerodrome, apparently showing off on my first solo! I then did three nice landings and taxied in, as I had been told to do.

Those three landings were almost the only good ones I ever did on Moths. However, I completed that part of the course safely, sharing bottom marks for flying with another cadet, and earning a "below average" assessment as a pilot.

Our flying on the second part of our course was done on Wapitis, single engined light bombers. I had a very good instructor in Flying Officer Gerrand and was first to go solo. At the end of the course, I shared equal top marks for flying with an airman pilot, was assessed "above average" as a pilot, and proudly put up my wings badge.

While I was at Point Cook, the RAAF received its first Bristol Bulldog fighters. They were based at Point Cook under the command of Flight Lieutenant Scherger, who later became Chief of the Air Staff and, eventually, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In a brochure about the Bulldogs, the Bristol Aeroplane Company claimed that they were so strongly built that it was impossible to damage them by even the most violent aerobatics. Flt. Lt. Scherger told his pilots to put this claim to the test and it was not long before one of them succeeded in tearing the wings off one in a high speed bunt. I thought the Bulldog, with its deep dihedral angle between the upper wings, quite beautiful, and I longed to fly one.

Another beautiful aeroplane to come to Point Cook while I was there was the original Tiger Moth, of which only two were ever built. It was a racing monoplane of about 20 feet wing span, so small that, when in the hangar, it used to be parked under one wing of a Wapiti. It had been bought by an Australian and shipped to Point Cook for assembly and testing by Major Geoffrey De Haviland, who came from England to do the job. Wings, fuselage and undercarriage were all held together by a system of tension bracing, which meant that, if any part of the bracing failed in flight, the whole aeroplane would immediately fall to pieces. Because of this, it was never granted an Australian certificate of airworthiness, but was licensed for restricted flying under certain specified conditions.

During the second part of our course, those of us who were going to England to join the RAF were told that we could travel by any route or ship we liked. All we had to do was tell the Air Board the name of the ship. The Air Board would then book our passages and we would have to repay anything in excess of 92 pounds ten shillings ($185). With virtually every possible route open to me, what did I most want to see on this, my first journey outside Australia? The answer was easy: Pitcairn Island and the Panama Canal; but would it be possible to see both on the one voyage?

At the Shaw Saville and Albion shipping company's office in Melbourne, I found that it would. I would leave Sydney for Wellington, New Zealand, on 9^th January, 1931, in the SS Marama, and transfer to the SS Corinthic immediately on arrival. The Corinthic would sail the same evening, for England via the Panama Canal, and would heave to off Pitcairn Island, weather permitting, to allow the islanders to come aboard for an hour. I notified the Air Board, who arranged first class passages in each ship, with a shared two berth deck cabin in Marama, and a really spacious single berth deck cabin in Corinthic. The cost to me was ten shillings, or one dollar!

Of the other six of us going to England, five elected to travel together in a ship going via Cape Town, and the sixth in another ship going by the same route, all leaving Australia about two weeks after I did.

Before leaving this chapter, I must comment on the staff work at both Air Board and Point Cook, which left much to be desired. I have already told of the misplacing of my call-up papers at the Air Board. At Point Cook, the date of our final departure from the station was known from the day we arrived. It was also known that those of us who were going overseas would have to be vaccinated and inoculated before we left the station, and the inoculations should be given in two injections several days apart. However, this was forgotten until after lunch on our last day, when we were actually loading our bags into the trucks which were to take us off to catch our trains and begin our final leaves. We were then hastily summoned to sick quarters, where we were vaccinated in a horribly crude manner and given double doses of inoculation, all in the space of a few minutes. As a result of this, some of us became very sick for several days, and it was not until more than two months later, as I was sailing up the English Channel, that I was able to leave dressings off the vaccination sore on my arm.

While under training, and up to the date of sailing, our rate of pay was ten shillings a day. Of this, two shillings was deferred and was supposed to be paid to us shortly before embarkation. I was counting on this for spending money on the voyage, but it simply did not arrive, despite frantic phone calls towards the end of my leave. That placed me in the very embarrassing position of setting out on a six week's voyage half way around the world, travelling first class, with only six pounds ($12) in my pocket. The situation was made even worse in Wellington, where the Corinthic arrived late, and I had to find accommodation ashore for two days. I also had to keep some cash in reserve to get myself from Southampton to a hotel in London after arrival in England.

On arrival in London, I was supposed to receive from the RAAF Liaison Officer at Air Ministry, a disembarkation allowance of twenty pounds ($40). When I reported to him, he had received no advice about me and had no funds from which he could pay me anything. However, he lent me ten pounds of his own money.

Back in Australia, the Air Board officials responsible for issuing our deferred pay and providing for the payment of our disembarkation allowances in London had completely ignored, or overlooked, our differing individual itineraries and had timed all the payments to fit in with the movements of the group of five who had elected to travel together.

Before leaving Point Cook, I was informed that I would be discharged from the RAAF on the day my ship sailed for England. I was then required to enter into a civil contract to proceed to England and serve for four years in the Royal Air Force. In that service, I would have the same chance as anyone else of being selected for a permanent commission, or for a medium service commission, which would be for another five years. At the end of any period of non-permanent service, I was to return to Australia within six months and then serve for three years in either the Citizen Air Force or the RAAF Reserve of Officers. If I failed to do this, I would have to repay the cost of my passage to England.

After making a round of farewell visits to Dad and other members of my family, I visited Mother on the day I sailed. She had been committed to a mental hospital while I had been working at Junee. I had visited her from time to time while I was in Sydney, but I don't think those visits meant much to her; most of the time, she was away in some world of her own. On this occasion, however, she was perfectly lucid. She realised clearly all the harm she had done to Dad, and to all of us as a family. She was bitterly repentant and begged me, over and over again, to take her out of the hospital and back to the farm, where she wanted to spend the rest of her life trying to make up for the damage she had done. Perhaps this was only a phase of her madness, I do not know; but it is quite certain that, at that time, she was going through a hell of understanding and remorse. There was simply nothing I could do for her. After a while, I just had to kiss her goodbye and walk away. Mercifully, she died only six months later, of pneumonia.

I think I should say here that I never, at any time in my life, felt any bitterness towards Mother. Anger, at times, yes; but never bitterness. I have long realised that I have a very great deal to thank her for. But for her, I never would have gone to high school, or met Dorrie, and it was only the high school education which enabled me to enter the world of flying. Even her intervention at Richmond, which caused me to leave home, had a beneficial outcome, for it set me on the course which eventually led to flying and to re-union with Dorrie, in England. In other words, it was she who made possible, directly or indirectly, nearly every good thing that has happened in my life.

She was a woman in advance of her time, a competent journalist, speaker and campaigner on political issues such as conscription, prohibition and six o'clock closing of hotel bars. She was never able to resign herself to the traditional roles of wife and mother and so was always at odds with current convention in that respect. From things which I noticed as we grew up, but often did not understand at the time, I think she was never able to resolve the conflict between her Victorian upbringing and her own sexuality, which was that of a normal healthy woman. The occasional surrender to her perfectly natural desires would have been followed by disastrous feelings of shame and guilt, and this may well have been partly the cause of the gradual deterioration in her later years.

Despite the financial embarrassment, which I have already mentioned, the voyage to England was very enjoyable. The Corinthic was fully laden with cargo, and almost empty of passengers. Except for three days of gales in the Caribbean, the seas were calm and the weather perfect. The few passengers were good company. I was elected to run a programme of deck sports and indoor games, which kept me pleasantly busy. We duly called at Pitcairn Island and about ninety of the islanders, descendants of the Bounty mutineers, came aboard in three lifeboats to collect mail and barter handicrafts for articles of clothing. I was able to talk with the head of their community and several others, and learnt much about them. As the last boat pulled clear of the ship on leaving, the crew rested on their oars and the thirty or so occupants sang the old hymn, "In the Sweet By and Bye", in wild and beautiful harmonies. We made our transit of the Panama Canal in daylight and perfect weather, so I had splendid views of the country and the process of working the ship through the locks. Best of all, at Panama, I received a warmly affectionate letter from Dorrie. We had kept in touch ever since she left Australia. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on my part but, during my year at Point Cook, her letters had seemed to indicate a growing closeness, and this one made me particularly happy.

I went to see Dorrie the day after I arrived in London. She took me to a concert in which she was performing both as violinist and singer, and I heard, for the first time, her beautiful soprano singing voice. Sadly for me, she also told me she was again engaged, but we continued to keep in touch.

On 2^nd March, 1931, five days after I arrived in London, I reported to the Air Ministry and was enrolled in the General Duties branch of the Royal Air Force, with the rank of pilot officer. The process was not without amusement. A civil servant sat across a table from me, asking all the prescribed questions and recording my answers on the appropriate form. After recording names, date and place of birth, and so on, he asked my religion. I replied, "None". "Right", he said, "I'll put you down as Church of England"! When I said I objected to that, he named several other religions, asking if I belonged to each and getting a string of negative replies. After a while, I asked why he was so concerned to get me to own to a religion; why could he not simply accept and record the fact that I had no religion? His reply was that the RAF would not know what to do with my body if I got killed unless they knew my religion. He look quite shocked when I told him that, as far as I was concerned, they could tie me on behind a plough and drag me up and down a field until I wore out. Eventually, he asked if he could write down, "Free Thinker". I said he could, if he called that a religion; but I still wonder what kind of burial rites would have been considered appropriate for one of that "religion".

When enrolment formalities had been completed, I was asked what kind of aeroplanes I would like to fly. I asked for light bombers. A few days later, I was notified that I had been posted to No. 12 (Bomber) Squadron, at Andover. The squadron had just completed re-equipping with Hawker Harts, the newest and best light bombers in the service.

At that time, the squadron was commanded by an officer with a distinguished Great War record and a strong prejudice against anyone from the colonies, dominions or protectorates, all of whom he looked down on as "colonials". As I will be writing some harsh things about him, I will simply refer to him as the C.O.

A few days after I began flying in the squadron, I made a slightly bad landing on some rough ground. One wing tip touched the ground, causing slight damage, which took two or three hours to repair. In doing this, I became the first pilot to damage a Hart. The CO immediately reported me as "unsuitable for flying the modern, high speed type of bomber". He recommended that I be given a course of refresher training, and then be posted to a squadron equipped with some older and slower type of aeroplane. Fortunately for me, HQ Wessex Bombing Area, our controlling formation, did not agree with the second part of his recommendation.

A month later, I was posted to No. 2 Flying Training School (FTS) at Digby, in Lincolnshire, for a month of refresher training. When I went to say goodbye to the CO, he, knowing that he had recommended I be posted elsewhere, said, "Well, goodbye, old Rankin, and when you come back to the squadron, I'm sure you will be able to fly the Hart with great skill and precision". (He very often spoke like that).

The refresher course at Digby lasted just four weeks, during which time, I got in 27 hours flying on three different types of aircraft, Avro 504N, Bristol Fighter, and Armstrong Whitworth Atlas. All of it was the pure flying practice which we had so sadly lacked at Point Cook. It was immensely enjoyable and greatly improved my flying skill. At the end of it, I was posted back to 12 Squadron! When I reported to the CO on rejoining, he was obviously displeased and just said, brusquely, "Oh! You're back again. Go back to 'A' Flight".

I had no more trouble with Harts. My flight commander, Flt. Lt. Henry Forrow, then concentrated on getting me trained up to the standard required to enable me to take part in the annual "war" between the fighter and bomber squadrons, at the end of July. I reached that standard, to his satisfaction, and he put my name in as one of his pilots for the very first exercise. It was struck out by the CO, who ruled that I was not to take part, at all, on the grounds that I had not been in the squadron long enough to be allowed to participate in this particularly enjoyable flying; so I just sat on the ground for the two weeks which the "war" lasted.

At the end of the first week in August, the squadron went on leave for four weeks, but it had to leave one officer and a clerk on duty at Andover. I volunteered to be the officer, and got in a few more hours flying on the station Moth in the period.

In the second week in August, I received a letter from Dorrie, who was then working in a concert party at Ilfracombe, in North Devon. She asked if I would like to go down there for a weekend visit, and said that her landlady would be able to put me up. My first inclination was not to go. My feelings for Dorrie were as strong as ever, but I understood that she was engaged, and I simply did not want to be hurt again. However, with the squadron on leave, life at Andover was pretty dull, and I eventually decided to make the visit. I went down to Ilfracombe on the Friday night of that week, arriving in Ilfracombe early on Saturday morning. I found my way to Dorrie's lodgings, where I was welcomed with a kiss. It was just an ordinary kiss of welcome, but it seemed to mark a change in our relationship, for it was the first we had ever exchanged.

Later in the day, when I tried a little gentle wooing, Dorrie suddenly burst into tears and told me that she had a baby daughter a little over two years old, and felt that she had forfeited all right to happiness. I had an instant realisation of all the misery and heartache she must have suffered for the past three years, and all the old longing to comfort and protect her came flooding back. I took her in my arms, told her of my love, and asked her to marry me. She did not give me an answer at once, for there was much to think about. However, I was able to visit her on each of the following two weekends. In that time, she came to feel as I did and we decided to get married as soon as possible. As far as I was concerned, Dorrie's baby was part of herself and would simply be our first child; and that is still my feeling to this day. The baby's name was Dorothy and she was living with Dorrie's cousin in Bristol.

The earliest we could get married would be on Saturday, 17^th October, because of the laws governing marriage without licence. We would each have to publish our banns for three clear weeks before we could marry. Before we could do that, we would each have to have resided for three weeks in the place or district where the banns were to be published.

As Dorrie had not told her family about her baby, we decided not to tell them of our impending marriage either, but to tell them of both immediately afterwards. We knew that both pieces of news would be great shocks to them, but at least they would learn, at the same time, that Dorrie now had the support of a husband. They had known me slightly since our high school days and we hoped that those factors might help to cushion the shock a little. And so it turned out.

The squadron moved to North Coates Fittes (NCF) in Lincolnshire at the beginning of the second week in September, for six weeks of intensive bombing and gunnery practice. That enabled me to establish the residential qualification in the Louth district by Saturday, 27^th September. On that morning, I went to the Louth Registrar's office and duly published my banns, naming Barnstaple, Devon, as the intended place of marriage. After completing all the formalities, I asked the clerk if there was anything else I had to do, or any document I needed to obtain, before I could marry, and he said, "No". I then said to him, "So, on Saturday morning, 17^th October next, without any further ado, I can go, with my fiancee, to the Registrar in Barnstaple, and he will marry us"? and he answered, "Yes". Twice more, in different words, I asked that question, and got the same answer. He assured me that there was absolutely nothing more I had to do or get, and there was absolutely nothing to prevent us getting married on Saturday, 17^th October, so I wrote to Dorrie and gave her that date. She had already published her banns in Barnstaple.

In the six weeks at the practice camp, the CO gave orders that I was not to be allowed to take a normal part in the training practices; the available flying and range times were to be reserved for those who had been longer in the squadron. This ban applied also to the only other "colonial" in the squadron, Rex Kippenberger, who had joined shortly before I did. We could, however, be allowed to take part if and when any range time slot became available, and if an aircraft were available at the time. In this way, I was able to get in a few practices.

I arranged to take leave as soon as the squadron returned to Andover, which it did on 16^th October. I went down to Ilfracombe that evening, not only to be on hand in good time, next morning, but to give Dorrie her engagement ring, which I had had to buy in Grimsby without consulting her. Happily, she loved it. A wedding car, suitably decked out with white ribbons, had been booked to pick us up and take us to the registrar's office in Barnstaple, next morning. Dear Mrs Price, Dorrie's landlady, had laid on a wedding breakfast for us, and she and her husband accompanied us to act as witnesses.

All the arrangements worked smoothly and we duly appeared before the registrar at the appointed time. He then asked me, "May I have your marriage certificate, please, Mr Rankin"? Astonished, I asked, "Isn't that what we came here to get"? He then explained that I should have brought with me a certificate from the registrar at Louth stating that my banns had been displayed for 21 clear days and that no objection had been received. This was called a marriage certificate and, without it, he could not marry us. When he did marry us, he would issue us with a certificate of marriage. I asked if he could phone the registrar at Louth and marry us on his verbal certification and promise that the document would be posted that day. He said the law was such that he had to have the actual certificate in his possession before he could legally marry us. However, he did ring Louth and got a promise that the certificate would be posted that morning. He also made an appointment to marry us on the coming Monday morning.

As may be imagined, there were floods of tears as we took the ribbons off the hired car and returned sadly to Ilfracombe. I could have slaughtered that wretched clerk at Louth!

There was no further hitch and we were duly married on the morning of Monday, 19^th October. In our marriage, we both experienced an intense feeling of utter fusion with one another. It really did seem as if we were the two halves of a single being, which had at last come together, making us one.

At the time of our marriage, we had just £9 ($18) between us. We pooled our resources and spent our honeymoon with Mr and Mrs Price at Ilfracombe. I had my bank account changed to our joint names, to be operated by either of us. It had nothing in it, but would be credited with œ21 ($42) at the end of the month.

At the end of my leave, we returned to Andover and rented two rooms in a house with the delightful address of

"St Ann",
Little Ann,
Abbots Ann,
Andover,
Hants.

When reciting it, one was always tempted to omit the "H" from the county name!

Shortly after we returned to Andover, I learnt that I had been promoted to Flying Officer on 28^th August, having passed the promotion examination earlier in the summer.

A few weeks after our marriage, Dorrie was offered a part in a concert party headed by Ronald Frankau, which was to go to South Africa for a few weeks. The pay offered was good, and Dorrie wanted to continue working as a professional musician for a while, after having spent so many years working towards that goal. We also badly needed the money she would earn, so we agreed that she would accept the offer. The party left England a week before Christmas and was expected to return in February. However, while in South Africa, Frankau was able to obtain other bookings for the party to play in Rhodesia, Mozambique, Tanganyika, Zanzibar and Kenya, and it did not get back to England until late in June. Meanwhile, I lived in mess and managed to save enough money to pay the deposit on our first car, Britain's first and only œ100 car, a two seater Morris Eight. I also began studying for the annual competitive examination for a permanent commission.

Early 1932 saw a great improvement in my relations with the CO. This is how it came about.

One night, at dinner, I found myself seated next to the squadron adjutant, who shall be known only as Bertie. I was feeling particularly fed up with some recent further evidence of the CO's bias against "colonials" and, during the course of the meal, I unburdened myself to Bertie, saying many harshly critical things about him. Because of the noise in the dining room, no one but Bertie could possibly have heard anything I said. When I ran out of steam, and only then, Bertie said, "Rankin, I must ask you to refrain from criticising our Commanding Officer", to which he got a rude answer.

Next morning, I was sent for by the CO, who had on his desk a complete report on everything I had said about him the previous evening. He opened the proceedings by drawing my attention to that passage in King's Regulations which said, in effect, "Thou shalt not criticise thy commanding officer", and asked me was I aware of the regulation. I said I was. He next read out the list of all the things I had said about him and asked if I really had said them. I said I had. He then asked me if, in the light of the regulation he had just shown me, I had anything to say for myself.

By this time, I was quite convinced that I was about to be thrown out of the RAF, so felt I might as well say exactly what I thought about him. I therefore opened by saying, "Sir, I dislike you intensely and you know it. Furthermore, you dislike me just as heartily, and I know it".

At that, the CO expressed very phony surprise and dismay that any of his officers should feel so about him. He asked why I disliked him. I told him it was because he was a bloody hypocrite, and I did say "bloody". Asked to justify that statement, I reminded him of his hypocritical words of farewell to me when I departed for my flying refresher course, knowing that he had recommended that I never return to the squadron. He at once wanted to know how I knew about that. When I told him that I had read his letter in my personal file, he said I had no business reading anything in that file, and ordered me never to look at it again. I flatly defied him and said I would read everything in it whenever I got the chance to do so.

And so it went on, for two solid hours, with me standing stiffly to attention in front of his desk. He went through every item on the list and demanded that I withdraw and apologise for each one. In the course of doing this, he told me a good deal about the service, which I had not known or understood, and which made me realise that some of the things I had said about him were not justified. As he came to each such item, I unhesitatingly did withdraw the remark and apologised for what I had said. Where he could not show me that I was in the wrong, I refused to apologise or withdraw.

By the time we got to the end of the list, it was lunch time. The CO rose and gathered up his cap, gloves and cane, signifying that the interview was over. I politely opened the door of his office to let him precede me; but he put an arm around my shoulder and ushered me out first. As he did so, he said, "Well, old Rankin, I see you are a man of strong principles, and I admire you for them"!

1932 was an exciting year for 12 Squadron. For the first half of the year, it was detailed to investigate the feasibility of making tactical use of cloud cover for day bombing operations. At that time, we had no proper blind flying instruments and very little was known about the insides of clouds, such things as density of visibility, turbulence, structure and icing properties. About the only thing then in print was a statement by Britain's then Chief Meteorologist that icing could only occur in cumulo-nimbus clouds!

To prepare us for the cloud flying trials, a detachment from the Central Flying School (CFS) came to Andover in the second half of January and put all of the squadron pilots through an instrument flying course on Avro 504N aircraft, which were fitted with turn and slip indicators in addition to what was then the normal flight instrumentation of compass, altimeter and air speed indicator. Meanwhile, the squadron's Harts were being equipped with the same instrument.

After our instrument flying course, we practiced cloud flying, individually at first, then in formations of two, followed by formations of three in flight V, and, finally in squadron formations of nine aircraft.

Mr H.W. Pick was sent from the Meteorological Office to live with us at Andover. His task was to direct us in the collection of information which the Met. Office wanted about clouds, and to collate all the information we brought in. He also ran a normal Met. Office, producing two weather maps daily and acting as our friendly adviser about all sorts of things. He was a great asset to both the squadron and the station.

At that time, we had no means of locating a target from within or above cloud, and we had to be able to see a target in order to aim bombs at it. Thus, the general aim of our trials was to find out if it was possible for a squadron to navigate to a target while flying in formation in or above clouds, descend below cloud base, find and bomb the target visually, then return safely to base in or above cloud again, our only external navigational aid being two or three direction finding ground stations.

Once we got to the stage of cloud flying in squadron formations, things often became quite exciting, and sometimes downright dangerous. The visibility in some clouds was only a few feet, and often very variable. Often, when tucked in tightly in formation, one would be chasing just the barest shadow of the next machine's interplane strut, less than thirty feet away, when suddenly, even that would disappear. If the disappearance were only momentary, formation was held; but, if it lasted for more than a very few seconds, danger became acute, and very careful dispersal drills had to be devised to cope with this situation. Despite this hazard, there was only one collision in the several months of the trials, and no one was seriously injured.

The trials involved a lot of photography which was designed to show such things as cloud types, visibility in different types of cloud, ice accretion, and how the various dispersal drills affected the squadron by the time it emerged above the cloud layer. I was ordered to take over the squadron photographic section as the trials were beginning, and usually flew the photographic machine when any air photography was required.

In the middle of August, the squadron moved to North Coates Fittes again for eight weeks, during which it had to carry out pattern bombing trials. The object of the trials was to develop tactics and equipment which would ensure that any vital target would be hit by at least one bomb in any attack. To assess the effectiveness of the tactics and/or the new equipment being tested, it was absolutely necessary to get vertical photographs of every pattern of bomb bursts, and the photos must include every bomb in each pattern. If even one bomb burst was missing from a photo, that whole exercise was a failure and had to be repeated. If a vertical camera was mounted in a Hart, it was impossible to use the bomb sight. It was, therefore, necessary for a separate photographic machine to closely accompany every pattern bombing sortie, whether it was by a single machine or a flight or squadron formation, its duty being to photograph the pattern of bomb bursts of every salvo dropped.

I was still in charge of the squadron photographic section and had had a lot of success with it in the cloud flying trials, so I assumed I would be doing most of the photography for the pattern bombing trials. I was, therefore, dismayed when other pilots were detailed for the job and I was not allowed to do any of it. Neither was I allowed to take a normal part in the bombing and gunnery training. All I could do was ensure that the section produced good quality prints quickly from every plate brought in, and this I did.

In the first two weeks of the trials, every sortie made was wasted because some part of every pattern was missed from every photo. This was a very serious waste of time and effort. If allowed to continue, it would reflect badly on the capability of the CO, in the eyes of his superiors. At this stage, he sent for me and quite unjustly accused me and my photographic section of responsibility for the failures. It really was a quite stupid thing to do. I had to point out that the section was turning out good, clear prints of all the photos taken, and that the fault lay with the camera operators in the air. He then grumpily asked me what I proposed to do about it. I said I could do nothing at all unless he let me do the photographic flying, assisted when necessary by a crew of my choosing. If he would do that, I would accept responsibility for any future failures, and I stuck my neck out by saying I did not think there would be many. He reluctantly agreed to let me do it my way. I chose my camera operator and assistant crew, and we never again failed to cover every pattern completely. From then on, for the next six weeks, no exercise ever had to be repeated because of any photographic failure.

Dorrie returned from Africa in late June, but we had only a little time together, as Frankau had secured a booking for the concert party at Weston Super Mare for the summer, which really meant until well into October. Thanks to our little car, I was able to go to see her fairly often at weekends.

The squadron returned to Andover in early October. As soon as the concert party closed down, Dorrie and I collected our baby from Bristol and returned to Andover, where we settled into our old lodging at "St.Ann", etc.

On 25^th October, I started on a three months air pilotage course which, fortunately, was held at Andover, and that kept me busy until the end of January, 1933. Air pilotage was only another name for navigation, a subject about which I was keen to learn as much as possible. The course was designed to produce squadron navigation officers, who would then be responsible for the navigation training of squadron pilots and air gunners, superintending the regular swinging of aircraft compasses, and managing the squadron's stock of maps.

During the course, one incident occurred which did away with the belief, long held in the RAF, that compass swinging had to be done in the middle of the aerodrome in order to avoid significant interference from external magnetic sources.

In a lecture on magnetism, our chief instructor told us that the strength of a magnetic field varied inversely as the square of the distance from its source. Considering that we were dealing with quite tiny magnetic forces, and the fact that the only metal in our hangars at Andover was in the doors at each end, I asked would it not be possible to lay out a compass swinging base inside each hangar. The chief instructor ridiculed the very idea, and me for suggesting it. However, that same afternoon, he and an assistant were seen to be investigating the possibility. They quickly found a large area inside the 12 squadron hangar which was free of magnetic influence. A compass swinging base was marked out there next day and was used by the squadron from then onwards.

I suffered dreadfully from air sickness when flying as pupil navigator in the cabin of the Victoria aircraft used by the Air Pilotage School. I was unable to complete some of the exercises because of this, and lost marks accordingly. However, thanks to a lot of help from Dorrie, I managed to top the course with 92% of the possible marks.

I returned to the squadron at the end of January, 1933, took up my duties as squadron air pilotage officer, and also became OC "B" Flight for four months. In the spring, we moved into a furnished cottage in the village of Monxton, quite near the aerodrome.

At the end of April, the squadron moved to Tangmere, a fighter station, for a week of exercises with 43 (Fighter) Squadron. Next day, I had to return to Andover for something and, while there, received a phone message to bring back with me the golf clubs of Flying Officer Skinner, who was temporarily absent on some kind of course. When I got back to Tangmere, I was greeted by the news that a 12 aside golf match had been arranged between 12 and 43 Squadrons, and that I was in the 12 Squadron team. I had never played golf in my life, and said so.

"That does not matter, old boy; you are in the team".

"But I have no clubs".

"Yes, you have, Skinner's clubs are for you".

"But I am a left hander, and Skinner's clubs are right handed".

"That doesn't matter; you are going to play".

"But I have never even been on a golf course and haven't a clue about what to do".

"No matter. Nelson will take you out tomorrow afternoon and show you".

The match was to be played on the beautiful Goodwood course. I went out with Nelson, one of the squadron's better players, next afternoon. As we were walking out to the first tee, he suggested that we play nine holes as if it were a match, and that he would give me a stroke a hole handicap. I refused the handicap, saying that, as he was only showing me what to do, we would play level, which we did, and I beat him! Although I could not get any force into my strokes playing right handed, the ball rarely travelling more than a hundred yards, I was sending it fairly accurately down the fairway, and Nelson was well off form.

Having won the second hole, I was due to drive off from the third tee. The third hole was about 180 yards, with the tee high on a hillside overlooking the green at the bottom of the valley. There was an elderly foursome on the green, but that did not deter me, because I knew I could not possibly hit a ball that far, so I teed up and drove off. Need I say it? This time I made a beautifully accurate and perfect stroke. The ball went sailing out over the valley and fell with a resounding plop onto the green, right in front of an elderly gentleman who was in the act of putting!

On the day of the match, I was paired with another Australian, Dick Reynell, who was reputed to be quite a good player, but who was just then paying the penalty for six months' absence from the game. That day, we were both so bad that, at the fifth hole, we agreed between ourselves not to count clean misses as strokes! On that basis, I beat him three up and two to play. We were the last pair to finish and our result made the match a six all draw, an eminently satisfactory result for a match between such friendly squadrons.

Earlier in the year, Sir Phillip Sassoon donated a permanent trophy for a photographic competition between stations. On a given date, each competing station would be allotted a specific area of country, of which a photographic mosaic was required as soon as possible. The photography was to be done by one of the squadrons on the station, and the station photographic section then was responsible for printing the photos, mounting the mosaic and getting the finished product to its destination. Marks were awarded for accuracy, speed and quality of production. Andover station entered for the first competition and I was detailed to do the flying. I chose Corporal Clemo, the leading air gunner in my flight, as camera operator. We were lucky with weather and completed the flying task on the morning the competition opened. The station photographic section did a splendid job of producing the mosaic and, between us, we won the trophy for that year.

The squadron closed down for annual leave at the end of September. As we were then living so close to the aerodrome. I again volunteered to be the squadron duty officer for the leave period. Only a very few days later a group of airmen from my flight were watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace when a car drove straight into the crowd, killing several people, including three of my airmen, and seriously injuring others. Amongst the injured was Corporal Clemo, who had to have both legs amputated between knee and ankle. News of the accident was quickly phoned to me at Andover and I raced up to London, to St George's Hospital, where I had to identify the bodies of my airmen and then meet the shocked and grieving parents as they began to arrive. The driver of the car was a known epileptic, who had not disclosed his condition when applying for his driver's licence. Whilst driving along Constitution Hill (which is not a hill but a street), he had suffered an epileptic fit which had caused him to go rigid and lose consciousness, with his food hard down on the accelerator pedal.

During the year, I applied to sit for the examination which, if passed, would entitle me to be considered for a permanent commission. I was turned down by the selectors at Air Ministry because I was married. I had also applied to be considered for a medium service commission, for which no examination was required. That would normally have led to a flying instructors' course at the Central Flying School, something which I very much wanted. I was turned down for that, also. All the armed services at that time wanted their officers to remain single until at least age 30, and actively discouraged earlier marriages.

On learning of my rejection, I applied for transfer to a night bomber squadron for the remainder of my service (about 18 months) so that I could gain experience on heavy, twin engined aircraft and in night flying, with a view to going into civil aviation at the end of my service. This request was granted and I was posted to No. 58 (Bomber) Squadron at Worthy Down, near Winchester, on 22^nd November, 1933. The squadron was equipped with twin engined Vickers Virginias, a type which had come into service shortly after the Great War.

Our first son, Michael, was born at Ilfracombe on 7^th November, 1933. As soon as I had brought Dorrie back to Andover after his birth, we set about house hunting in the Winchester area. This was to be my last posting. In a little over 15 months, I would be looking for a job in civil aviation. We found two suitable houses, one furnished, in Winchester, and one, unfurnished, in South Wonston, a tiny village on the northern edge of Worthy Down aerodrome. If we bought furniture on the never never, the rent for the unfurnished house, plus the instalments on the furniture, would almost exactly equal the rent for the furnished house, so we chose the unfurnished one and bought the furniture. That way, we reasoned, we would have something to show for our money at the end of my service. Man proposes........!

We went to the Times Furnishing Company in London and, for a down payment of œ10 and three years to pay off the balance, bought œ100 worth of furniture. For that sum, we received the following items, delivered to the house at South Wonston:

I had expected to find Virginias very dull to fly, after Harts. To my surprise, I found I liked them. They were big and slow, but their controls were nicely balanced and they were wonderfully easy to land nicely. In this jet age, a few figures about them might be interesting. Cruising speed was 75 miles per hour, with a possible maximum of about 90. On one occasion, when flying into a stiff head wind, we had a ground speed of nine mph and traffic on the roads below was fairly speeding past us. I do not remember the Virginia's exact landing speed; but, at night, we used an L shaped flare path only 250 yards long, and one had to be able consistently to land and finish the landing run within that limit before being allowed to go solo. I should add that the 250 yard flare path was the only ground lighting we had, apart from obstruction lights. There was no boundary or approach lighting, and glide path indicator lights were still a few years away in the future. Another difference from modern practice was that all approaches were done with throttles fully closed. If a rumble became necessary, one had to go around again.

About a week before Christmas, the squadron closed down for three weeks, but was required to have two crews available, at their homes, for possible emergencies. I volunteered for this duty, as co-pilot and navigator, since I had not yet qualified as captain. I think it was on 2^nd January, 1934, that both crews were suddenly called out to fly what we were told was a very urgent, very secret mission, so secret that it could not be mentioned on the phone. A high powered civilian was being sent down from Air Ministry to brief us and would be bringing with him the cargo we were to carry and the maps we would need. And so began one of the less glorious RAF operations.

The two crews were quickly assembled and the two aircraft readied by the time the great man and the cargo arrived. All he would tell us was that we were to fly the cargo non-stop from Worthy Down to Istres, near Marseilles, where it would be collected by someone authorised to do so. Despite the RAF markings on our aircraft, we were to fly as civilians, using civil aviation call signs. The British government was in touch with the French, and we were to go as soon as possible after clearance of the flight had been arranged. We were not allowed to know what we were carrying, but were told that, if we had to answer any questions about it, we were to say just that it was "munitions".

It was not until late on the 4^th that we got our clearance, but the French had forbidden us to fly over France by night, so it was not until 0700 on the morning of the 5^th that we took off. The expedition was led by one of our flight commanders and I flew as co-pilot and navigator in the second machine, which was flown by the squadron adjutant. We were to cross the French coast at Cap Gris Nez and then fly via Paris, Dijon and Lyons to Istres. The weather forecast was for clear conditions all the way, and the flight was expected to take about ten hours.

All went well until we were about half way between Cap Gris Nez and Paris. There, we ran into thick cloud and rain and promptly lost touch with the leader. My skipper carried on and, in due course, we sighted Dijon through a lucky break in the low cloud. Weather reports coming in from Istres indicated perfect weather in the south of France. The sensible thing would have been to continue on the prescribed route, navigating by D/F fixes, until we ran into clear weather. However, the skipper decided that he must find Dijon aerodrome and land. We spiralled down through the break in the cloud, only to find the cloud base right on the ground. The skipper made two or three unsuccessful and very dangerous attempts to reach the Dijon airfield and then decided to return to Paris, which we duly found under a cloud base somewhat higher than at Dijon. We landed at Le Bourget at 1510 GMT and learnt that the leader had landed safely at Troyes, about 90 miles south-east of Paris.

We were fog bound at Le Bourget all next day, but got away just before noon on the 7^th, with instructions now to fly direct to Istres. Once again, we were promised clear weather all the way. This time, we found the country covered with an unbroken sheet of low cloud for the first two hundred miles or so. Flying above this, the only possible way of navigating was by getting D/F fixes from time to time and I started doing this at half hourly intervals. As I was about to call for my third fix, the skipper ordered me not to. In vain, I pointed out that we had no other way of checking position. He simply said that they (the ground stations) would think we were being a nuisance.

When we eventually flew off the edge of the cloud sheet, we found we were also right off the maps which we had been given. Of course, we could have called for homing bearings from Istres, which was still reporting perfect weather, but the skipper forbade that. Instead, we turned eastwards, believing that we would certainly sight the Rhone River. What we actually sighted were some huge radio masts, which we knew to be at Lyons, sticking up above dense fog, which was covering the city and the whole country for many miles around. The skipper decided that we must find Lyons airport and land, so down we went into the fog and it was not until two brick chimneys just missed our starboard wing tip that sanity returned. We then climbed above the fog and cloud again and set course for Istres. After about 30 miles, we flew off the edge of the cloud sheet again and saw the airfield of St Rambert d'Albon below us. As it was now too late to reach Istres before dark and the ban on night flying was still in force, we landed there just as the sun was setting - and remained there, solidly fog bound, for the next two days!

Whilst at St Rambert, we found that the French newspapers had begun to report the progress (or lack of it) of the two British RAF aircraft which were carrying a cargo of tear gas and gas masks to Marseilles for the Palestine government! So much for secrecy!

We finally arrived at Istres on the morning of 10^th January, handed our cargo over to the French commandant, and learnt that our leader was still fog bound at Troyes.

We left for home next morning, with a 55 mph tail wind behind us, fairly fled up the Rhone Valley to Lyons, where we landed for a route forecast, stopped again at Le Bourget for the night, and got back to Worthy Down in the afternoon of the 12^th. On the way in from the coast, we passed ten miles to the south of a small, grassy airfield, not then in regular use, named Gatwick.

The leader got off from Troyes early on the day we left Istres and had to battle southwards against the same strong wind which had given us such a boost on our way home. At the end of a long day, he had to land at Orange, still about 40 miles short of Istres, having covered less than 300 miles. He completed his delivery next day and got back to Worthy Down a day or so after that.

We eventually learnt the reason for this expedition. At that time, Palestine (now Israel) was governed by the British on a mandate from the League of Nations. Then, as now, there was much unrest in the country. Some kind of trouble was known to be brewing for January, 1934 and the Palestine authorities asked the British government to provide tear gas and masks to deal with it, instead of the usual bullets. The British government delayed making a decision until the last ship which could have got the supplies out to Palestine in time had left England. It then agreed to the request and decided to fly the supplies to Marseilles to intercept the ship there. By the time the flight could be arranged, we had less than 24 hours in which to make the interception. The ship which eventually picked up the gas was one which left England about a week after we did and, of course, the gas got to Palestine long after the event for which it had been wanted.

After returning from that expedition, I continued with the conversion training on Virginias, which I completed on 5^th March, when I qualified as lst pilot. A few days later, I had been detailed in the night flying programme to make my first night flight as lst pilot (captain), when a signal arrived ordering my immediate posting to HQ Air Defence of Great Britain (HQ ADGB). This was a stunning blow to me, as it was going to deprive me of the experience I needed for entry into civil aviation, to gain which I had been posted to 58 Squadron. The posting also seemed to be quite extraordinary, for several reasons. Postings were normally for about 2 ½ years, and I had slightly less than a year's service left. Also, the posting was to a staff job, for which a short service officer would normally never be considered. It seemed that a mistake may have been made. Squadron and station commanders intervened to try to get the posting cancelled, but the only reply was a peremptory order for me to move forthwith. As a result, although I had qualified as lst pilot, night, I never did get in a night flight on Virginias as captain.

HQ ADGB, located at Hillingdon, was the formation which, through the subordinate commands of Wessex Bombing Area and Fighting Area, controlled all the bomber and fighter squadrons based in Britain, including the Auxiliary Air Force and Special Reserve squadrons.

It was not until after I got to HQ ADGB that I discovered the reason for this posting. It was that a new post of assistant to the Navigation Staff Officer had recently been created, and the specification for the post called for a flying officer who must have passed the Air Pilotage Course and be qualified on both day and night bombers. Apparently, I was the only one in the RAF who met that specification.

This posting was a financial blow to us. As I was under 30 years of age, the RAF would pay only my personal removal expenses, which amounted to little more than rail fare. We, therefore, had to pay for the removal of our furniture from South Wonston to our new home in Hillingdon, a western suburb of London. That put us so far into the red that we could no longer keep up payments on the car and had to surrender it.

The new job at HQ ADGB proved to be very enjoyable and full of interest. In fact, it was easily the best job I had had in the RAF up to that time. One of the things which helped to make it so was that my new boss, Squadron Leader P.E. Maitland, after telling me what he wanted me to do, left me to organise the work, myself, and get on with it in my own way.

During the spring and summer months, I spent a lot of time visiting bomber, auxiliary and special reserve squadrons. In the bomber squadrons, I was mainly concerned to show them how to improve their navigation by better co-operation between the navigator and other crew members, and by making full use of whatever helpful peculiarities their aeroplanes might have. The best example of this was in the Heyford, in which the ventral gun turret, alias the dust bin, could very easily be converted into an almost ideal drift sight from which the gunner could keep the navigator continuously informed of drift angle. In the auxiliary and special reserve squadrons, I had to teach elementary navigation and organise and superintend simple navigation competitions.

Visits to the auxiliary squadrons were made at week ends, since that was when their pilots were able to do their flying. I mostly flew to their stations for these visits; but, one late summer week end, I hired a beautiful new Daimler car and took Dorrie and the two children with me on a visit to the auxiliary squadrons at Durham and Edinburgh, staying at a hotel in Sunderland, and at the Hawes Inn, almost under the south end of the Forth Bridge. It was a very happy occasion for all of us. In those days, one could hire these lovely cars from Daimler Hire, in Knightsbridge, for one pound ($2) a day. Petrol was cheap - one shilling and sixpence (about 8p or 15 cents) per gallon - and most of our expenses were covered by my travelling allowances.

In the autumn months, I had to spend a week at a time on each fighter station, putting the pilots through short air pilotage courses and encouraging them to swing their compasses more frequently by laying out compass swinging bases for them in their hangers.

All of this involved plenty of flying on a nice variety of aircraft, varying in size from Moths and Tomtits to Heyfords. It included the Furies and the Bulldogs of the fighter squadrons. Sad to relate, the Bulldogs, which had so attracted me at Point Cook, were a great disappointment; I found them heavy and dull.

One flying episode in this period deserves special mention. The annual ADGB exercise that year was the defence of London by the fighter squadrons against day and night attacks by the bombers. This necessitated liaison with the civil aviation control at Croydon during night operations, as Croydon was then London's airport, and I was appointed the liaison officer. My job was to be in the Croydon control tower before sunset until operations finished each night, to act as a link between civil and military controllers should any rapid communication become necessary.

On the last day of the exercise, I flew from Northolt to Croydon in a Moth which had been fitted with navigation lights and wing tip flares. All civil flying had finished for the night by the time the ADGB exercise ended. I then arranged with the civil controller to let me do some night landings in my Moth. There was no runway lighting at that time, but the boundary of the aerodrome was very clearly lit, and the field was floodlit, as required, for incoming aircraft. As I had no radio, it was arranged before I took off that I would first do two landings by floodlight, after which the floodlight was to be switched off and I would do two more landings using my wing tip flares for illumination and then come in.

Off I went and, after a quick look at the lights of London, I did my two landings by floodlight. I then took off again for the two flare landings and the floodlight was switched off, as arranged. When nearing the airfield boundary on my next approach, I pressed the button to ignite the first flare, and nothing happened. I then remembered that, before I left Northolt, an electrician had reminded me that the electrical wires had not been connected to the flares, and that I would have to connect them before I took off at night. I had no means of asking for the floodlights to be switched on, so I just had to land with nothing but the boundary lights as a guide. It was not difficult. At the end of the landing run, I got out and connected the flares, then did my two flare assisted landings. One Gipsy Moth practising night landings on London's airport!

In the spring of that year, (1934), parliament approved the creation of five new squadrons and a big increase in training facilities for the RAF.

During the year, I sat for the appropriate examination and obtained my commercial pilot's licence.

Late in the year, I was informed that my short service commission had been extended to medium service, which would extend my service by five years, to 1940, and that I was to start a flying instructors' course at the Central Flying School (CFS), at the beginning of December. This announcement came as a complete surprise, as I had been turned down for just this in the previous year, and had not made any fresh application since. It was great news.

I think, now, that the decision to give me this extension may have been made at the time of my abrupt posting to HQ ADGB, provided only that I made good on the new job.

The flying instructors' course was a great step forward in my flying education. It greatly increased my skill and confidence as a pilot. I had a superb instructor in Flying Officer John Glen, who had been six months junior to me at Point Cook. However, about half way through the course, I began to realise that I was not cut out to be an instructor and asked to be taken off the course. This was a great disappointment to me as it was something on which I had long set my heart. My request was refused and I was assured by my instructor, and others, that I would love the work once I began working with my own pupils. I did not believe them, but carried on and surprised myself by passing out top of the course.

Notable family events during 1934; Dodes (Dorothy) turned five years of age and began school, at Hillingdon.

Following the instructors' course, I was posted to No 3 Flying Training School at Grantham. We moved up there at the end of March, 1935, and I began giving ab initio instruction to a new entry of short service pupils on 3^rd April. All went well for a time. I got my own pupils off solo without difficulty, and was also successful with one or two problem pupils passed on to me by other instructors. I found the work deeply satisfying in some ways. We were dealing with splendid young men. We were teaching them not only to fly, but to be good officers, as well. They were tremendously keen to absorb everything we could teach them, and they had a strong and flattering tendency to model themselves on their flying instructors.

Despite this, and for reasons which I still do not understand, I found myself gradually becoming reluctant to fly. I don't think the quality of my instruction deteriorated, and was not aware of any lessening of my flying skill until one day in June, when I allowed a pupil to damage the aeroplane we were flying, through a gross error of judgment on my part. A week later, while at the controls myself, I damaged the aircraft through an identical error of judgment, in identical circumstances. The accidents were not serious in themselves, but they indicated a serious deterioration in my normal flying skill. Realising this, I asked to be taken off instructor duties after the first accident, but was persuaded to carry on, because of the great shortage of instructors to meet the growing needs of the expansion which was taking place in the RAF. After the second incident, I had to insist on being taken off, as my flying was abviously becoming dangerous.

There followed a series of medical examinations and medical boards in which no physical or psychological condition could be found to account for my state. A month's sick leave was prescribed, with the advice to get right away from flying for a while. I agreed. I also felt that some kind of hard physical work and mental shock treatment was needed. The mother of one of my pupils lived in Aberdeen and, according to the pupil, knew just about everybody in the trawling industry. At my request, he wrote to her and asked if she knew any skipper who would be willing to take me on as an unpaid hand for a short trip. She wrote back at once and invited me to come up to Aberdeen right away, which I did.

It was on this visit that I began to discover the real joke about mean Aberdonians. I have rarely met such generous hospitality anywhere. Mrs Kendrick met my train and took me to her home for breakfast. It quickly transpired that she knew nobody at all in the trawling industry, but she did know a chandler who supplied many of the trawlers. Later in the morning, she introduced me to him, explaining that I would like to make a short trip in one. He immediately left his shop in the care of his assistant and took Mrs Kendrick and me on a sight seeing tour of Aberdeen, finishing at the fish dock. There, he introduced me to a skipper named John Buchan, who was preparing to sail that afternoon. He at once agreed to take me with him, told me the name of his ship, showed me where she would be lying later in the day, and told me to come aboard at 2.00 pm.

When Skipper Buchan agreed to take me with him, nothing was said about what my status on board would be. As I was not paying anything, I expected to bunk in the focsle, be treated as a deck hand, and take part in the normal work of the crew, as far as my ignorance and inexperience would allow. When I dropped down onto the deck at 2.00 pm, a deck hand took my bag and led me down to the skipper's cabin. He said he had orders to put me in there and that the skipper had taken over the hole in the wall bunk of the second mate in the saloon, relegating the second mate to the focsle. I was quite embarrassed by this treatment. When I met the skipper, I protested and tried to insist that I should be the one to bunk in the focsle and let him and the second mate return to their normal places. The only reply I got was, "Young man, while you are in my ship, you will do as you are told"!

I was miserably sea sick for the first two days, during which time the second mate, who was the oldest man on board, went out of his way to look after me with astonishing concern and gentleness. Thereafter, I did whatever I could to help with the work and began to learn something about the incredibly harsh life the trawler men live.

We fished around the north coast of Scotland, going as far out into the Atlantic as the Flannan Isles. I think I must have been a Jonah for we caught very few fish and damaged the trawls on hidden snags on many occasions. Repairing the trawls called for net making skills, which I did not have, but the skipper did. On one such occasion, he asked if I thought I could steer the ship so that he could leave the wheel and help with repairs. I took over the wheel and held the course we were on without much difficulty. After watching me for a few minutes, the skipper told me to turn on to course "south west by west half west". The compass in the hanging binnacle was marked in quarter points and I had learnt to "box the compass" as a Navy League sea cadet, so I understood the order and quickly brought the ship on to the required course, but I forgot to do one other thing which I should have done. After an astonished, "You knew what I meant"! from the skipper, came a sharp, "When I give you an order, you repeat it back to me"! From then onwards, I spent a great deal of time at the wheel, freeing others for tasks for which I simply had not the necessary skills.

Towards the end of our voyage, we moved back into the North Sea, to a fishing ground not far from the Orkney Islands. As we began fishing on this new ground, the weather began to deteriorate. The evening weather forecast told of a small depression off the Hebrides moving quickly north east and producing gale force winds, etc. About 10.00 pm, conditions became too rough for trawling, but the skipper decided to hold his position in the expectation that the conditions would soon pass. I turned in about that time, noting the barometer reading and setting the cursor before doing so. The skipper remained in the wheel house, alternately steaming slowly into wind and then letting the ship drift back down wind.

About 04.00 next morning, the skipper paid me the compliment of coming to the cabin and asking me what I thought the weather was going to do. When I checked and found that neither the wind speed and direction nor the barometer reading had changed during the night, I concluded that the depression had moved into the North Sea and had become stationary to the north of us. This was a fairly common occurrence. If that were so, I said, the wind would maintain its direction but slowly die down over the next two or three days as the depression gradually weakened. The skipper said he did not really understand my line of reasoning, but he had been watching the clouds and the behaviour of the sea birds, and he felt we were in for two or three more days of strong winds and rough seas, which would make trawling impossible. In our different ways, we had both reached the same conclusion, which subsequent events proved to be correct.

After mulling it over for some time, during which I had dressed and gone up to the wheel house with him, he decided to return to Aberdeen. With no land in sight, and not having had a fix since the previous afternoon, without consulting any chart, the skipper gave me a course to steer. I held that course until about four o'clock that afternoon, at which time we were just off the mouth of Aberdeen harbour.

On these trips, the skipper and mate were not paid any wages or salary, but shared in any profits. All hands paid a messing charge to cover their food. The trip on which I went made a loss, so the skipper and mate would receive nothing. Despite this, they tried to prevent me paying for my share of the food. Mean Aberdonians?

The shock treatment provided by this trawling episode did me a lot of good mentally but, at the end of my sick leave, I still felt an invincible aversion to instructing and was posted to HQ 23 Group for Air Staff duties. There, I shared a room with an officer whose current job was rewriting the Flying Training Manual, Part 1, which dealt with the basics of flying and on which our training as flying instructors was based. We were both qualified flying instructors and there were times when he wanted to discuss with me the exact wording to be used on some of the passages dealing with ab initio instruction. I always responded as helpfully as I could, but I found myself mentally cringing away from the subject every time.

After three months, my condition in this respect had not improved and another medical board then downgraded my medical category to A2B, which meant "fit for restricted flying duties" and the restriction specified was "no instructing".

To this day, I do not understand why I cracked up, as I did. I had wanted to teach flying and had complete and justifiable confidence in my ability to do so. The flying instructors' course had given me complete confidence in my ability to cope with anything a pupil might do, so I never felt any strain or anxiety when a pupil was flying the aeroplane.

No. 23 Group controlled all the flying training schools and CFS. I was promoted to flight lieutenant only two weeks later and, for a few months, I became heavily involved in the building of new flying training schools at Shawbury and Tern Hill and the selection of practice forced landing fields for them, earning some very appreciative remarks from the Air Officer Commanding (AOC) in the process. During this time, Air Ministry invited applications for permanent commissions from officers who, like myself, had previously been turned down. I applied and was assured by my immediate boss, the Senior Air Staff Officer (SASO), that I would certainly be selected, because of the good work I had been doing. However, the AOC thought otherwise and turned me down, simply saying that he did not consider I was the type of officer the RAF wanted for a permanent commission.

In September, the RAF staged a mobilisation exercise in which I became involved. At one stage of the exercise, I had to lead an advance party and establish a camp on a small grass airfield then occupied by the Fairey Aviation Company, alongside the Bath Road, just west of London. Its name was Heathrow.

Early in January, 1936, I received notice of posting to the School of Air Navigation at Manston, as a student on No. 1 General Reconnaissance Course, due to start on 27^th January. I flew down to Manston at once and was quickly able to find us a very pleasant furnished cottage in the village of Cliffsend, only about a hundred yards from the shore of Pegwell Bay. My job at HQ 23 Group was taken over by two squadron leaders and a flight lieutenant and we moved to Cliffsend on the day King George V. died. This move, the fourth in a little over two years, compelled us to sell our furniture, as we could not afford the cost of moving it.

The move from Grantham to Cliffsend was quite an operation. We now had three young children, one a babe in arms, and would have a lot of baggage which would have to accompany us. We had decided to sell our furniture and had arranged for that to be collected and taken to an auction mart on the morning of our departure. We felt the only sensible way to make the move would be by car, so I booked a Daimler from Daimler Hire for the required date, well in advance.

As often happens in January, the weather turned very bad, with much snow and ice on the roads, and freezing fog. On the day before we were due to move, the RAC described road conditions as the worst they had ever known, and even the heavy, long distance lorry traffic on the Great North Road had ceased. The evening weather forecast on the evening of that day said that these conditions were expected to continue indefinitely. About 20.00 hrs that evening I rang Daimler Hire, cancelled the car booking, and we resigned ourselves to the prospect of moving by taxis and rail.

Only two and half hours later, I looked outside and discovered that it was raining steadily and thawing so rapidly that roads would obviously be quite trafficable by some time next morning. I again rang Daimler Hire, who told me that conditions in London were similar, so I reinstated the booking, which was for 0800 next morning. Dorrie and I then began reconsidering all that we would have to do next day and I soon realised that I would need to be back in Grantham, with the car, by that time. There was then just time to catch the only train to London which would enable me to do this. It left Grantham at 0100 and arrived in London a little over two hours later. I rang Daimler Hire from Kings Cross station, told them I wanted the car in about 20 minutes and asked them to have everything ready for me when I arrived. When I got there, I found all the papers ready for me to sign; even the receipt for my deposit was already made out. The car was standing on the ramp, with engine running, fully warmed up and with headlights switched on, all ready to drive away. I had my deposit ready and had nothing to do but sign the contract, pocket the receipt, step into the car and drive away. I was on the way again in about two minutes.

The roads were still a bit icy in places, but I was back in Grantham well before 0800 and the move then went according to plan. I do not remember just when we left Grantham, but we were passing through Waltham Abbey in the early afternoon when we saw all flags at half mast and realised that the King had just died. We bypassed the centre of London by using the Blackwall tunnel under the Thames and arrived at Cliffsend about dusk, tired but happy. It had been a very long day for both Dorrie and me.

Noteworthy family events which occurred at Grantham:

Daughter Kathleen was born 7^th June, 1935.

Dorrie learned to ride a bike.

Michael, aged about two, returned from an outing one afternoon, yelling, "Bugger, bugger, bugger", over and over again, at the top of his voice. He obviously thought it was a splendid word!

The so called general reconnaissance (GR) course was mainly another navigation course, with emphasis on navigation over the sea, and naval co-operation. It was the specialised training for all Coastal Command squadrons. All the air exercises on that first course were carried out in Saro Cloud amphibians. This time, I had no trouble with air sickness and again did well on the course. On completion, I was posted to No. 48 Squadron, which was just forming at Manston to provide for the expanding flying needs of the School of Air Navigation. It was equipping with Ansons, then just coming into service as stop-gap equipment for the Coastal Command land based squadrons, pending the production of an aeroplane specially designed for the maritime reconnaissance role, and with real military capability.

I was very happy to be back in a squadron with the prospect of plenty of flying; but that posting did not last for very long. Only three weeks after joining the squadron, I was posted back to the School of Air Navigation as an instructor, and was put in charge of odd numbered GR courses. Apart from generally supervising and directing the training of each odd numbered course, my specific dutes were to teach navigation and certain related subjects, and to set and mark the examination papers in those subjects. I was also able to do a good deal of flying, as pilot, with the students of the GR courses on their air exercises. Altogether, it was a nicely challenging and interesting job, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

During the year, I obtained my civil second class navigators' licence. The satisfactory completion of the GR course exempted me from all of the civil examinations for this except those in international law and visual signalling with lamp and semaphore, which I had to sit in London.

Soon after we moved to Manston, I caught German measles (Rubella). It was a very mild infection, absolutely the only symptom which I experienced being the appearance of a few pink spots on my chest. Dorrie, poor girl, caught the infection from me and had a very bad time, being driven frantic by terrible itching as the spots began to heal. It was a very anxious and worrying time for both of us, as she was then pregnant. Happily, daughter Jacqueline was born a few months later, unharmed.

After Jacqueline's birth, Dorrie and I did a lot of exploring on our bicycles, going as far afield as Lympne, about 30 miles away, on one occasion, to watch a flying display. On a later expedition, we were riding down hill into Dover, when the front wheel of Dorrie's bike caught in a tram line and she fell heavily, breaking her left wrist right at the joint. When it eventually set, the joint was almost rigid. This was a great blow to Dorrie, as it seriously affected her ability to play the violin. By dint of much practice, she eventually learnt to overcome that handicap to a considerable extent, but was always conscious of it, and was never again really happy with her playing.

I had not been at Manston very long before I fell foul of the squadron leader in charge of administration on the station, always called the S. Ad. O. We were living about two miles from the station and, to get to and from work, I rode a bicycle with dropped handle bars. The S. Ad. O. thought this was very undignified for an officer, and told me so in quite strong terms. I disagreed with him and continued to use the bike, which caused him to take an openly expressed dislike to me. Later on, when I was being given dual instruction on an Anson, my instructor, flying from the right hand seat, badly overshot a landing, ran across a public road and up into the station sports ground, nearly hitting the S. Ad. O. in the process. He saw me in the pilot's seat, assumed that I was the culprit, sent for me and, without asking any questions, gave me a dressing down for the incident. His embarrassment, when I told him coldly that I had not been flying the machine, did nothing to endear me to him.

About the end of the year, the S. Ad. O. discovered my medical category and persuaded the station commander to recommend that I be posted away from the station, on the grounds of unsuitability for my posting. The letter pointed out that I was being employed as an instructor although my medical category was "A2B - no instructing". The events leading to that restriction clearly indicated that it meant "no flying instructing", but that had not been specified. That recommendation was quite out of order, as the School of Air Navigation was a lodger unit on the station, with its own channels of communication to higher authority. However, the recommendation was accepted by Air Ministry and, on 25^th February, 1937, I was posted to No. 269 (GR) Squadron, which had just begun to form at Abbots Inch, near Glasgow.

There was a sequel to this petty dispute with the S. Ad. O. almost twelve years later, which I shall relate in due course.

About the middle of 1936, the RAF adopted some fairly big dress reforms. By far the most popular was the abolition of breeches and puttees (field boots for squadron leaders and above) as parade dress, in favour of slacks. We also changed from white to blue shirts, threw away our canes, adopted the jaunty fore and aft caps for working dress, and there were changes in mess dress, as well.

The principal family events while we were at Manston were:

Daughter Jacqueline was born at Ramsgate 13^th July, 1936.
Daughter Dorothy learned to ride a bike.
Dorrie broke her left wrist and was never again able to play the violin to her own satisfaction.

Nationally, the principal event was the British constitutional crisis which culminated in the abdication of King Edward VIII.

When I joined the RAF, and up to late 1934, promotion for officers was very slow. Flying officers became eligible for promotion after four years in the rank, but were usually having to wait for another year. Flight lieutenants were also eligible for promotion after four years, but even those with the highest qualifications were serving at least ten years in the rank before being promoted to squadron leader. Promotions above that rank were so few that it had become the ceiling for many permanent officers. Promotions in the higher ranks were very chancy, indeed.

One might have expected this state of affairs to have a stimulating effect on the performance of middle ranking officers: that they would be keen to develop and demonstrate their qualities of leadership and initiative as evidence of their fitness for higher rank. Instead, it had the opposite effect. Many officers, in all ranks, became so afraid of making mistakes which might harm their careers, that they were refusing to make decisions on matters which were rightly their responsibility, and quite trivial matters were being referred right up to Air Ministry for decisions. "I'm covered" became the all too prevalent slogan. It was not a healthy state of affairs for a fighting service.

As I have related, expansion to meet the growing German threat began in 1934, with the creation of five new sqadrons. Two more, which had hitherto been no more than the flying components of two experimental establishments, were also reactivated as real squadrons. Expansion of the training organisation was also begun and, by the end of that year, a very refreshing change started to permeate the service as promotions began to be speeded up to fill all the new posts being created. By early 1937, most promotions were being made immediately on completion of minumum qualifying periods and young officers were being given responsibilities and commands at ages which would have been quite unthinkable only two years earlier. For those of us anywhere near my seniority in the service, it was a time of exhilarating challenge.

Such was the state of affairs when I arrived at Abbots Inch. I found that I was the senior officer in the newly forming squadron and automatically became its commander for the time being. Its commander designate still had to do the GR course, and would not be joining until the end of May. I had strong views on what a squadron should be, and here was a wonderful opportunity to form a brand new one, and to train and mould it into the kind of unit I knew the RAF needed. I had magnificent material to work with. At 28, I was the oldest officer in the squadron. The only other flight lieutenant in the squadron had about the same length of service as myself. Apart from him, practically all the officers and NCO pilots were in their very early twenties, most of them fresh from their flying training schools or the School of Air Navigation. All of them seemed keenly aware of the opportunity they had to build up a first class unit and were eager to respond to any leadership which would show them how. Ground staff were just as keen and ready to respond.

When I joined it, the squadron consisted of one flight of eight Ansons, partly equipped, and about the same number of crews, partly trained. As new aircraft were allotted to us, we collected them from the makers. They were bare of all service equipment, such as bomb racks, bomb sights, guns, radios, and so on. We had to draw all this equipment from RAF stores and install it ourselves. As aircraft numbers grew, I formed two new flights, appointing young flying officers as flight commanders, giving them whatever guidance they needed, but encouraging them to think and act for themselves within the guide lines which we had discussed. They responded splendidly to their new responsibilities. In this way, in the next three months, I got the squadron built up to its full establishment of aircraft and crews. Most of the pilots posted to the squadron during this period had never flown Ansons, or any other twin engined aircraft, so I turned instructor again and gave them all the necessary conversion training.

Less than four weeks after joining, I was asked by HQ Coastal Command if the squadron was in a fit state to take part in an exercise over the English Channel. I said we would take part; I was not going to miss this opportunity to give both air and ground crews their first taste of functioning as a squadron. We had to move to Boscombe Down for the exercise. We were to intercept and make mock attacks on the ships of the Home Fleet as it returned to Britain from its spring cruise. At that time, only two of our aircraft were equipped with radio and we were not supposed to fly over the sea without it. I stretched the rules a bit and, without telling Command of our shortage, put up two flights, each led by one of the radio-equipped machines. We found the fleet and made our attacks, thereby earning a complimentary signal from Command. The only other squadron taking part was older than 269, fully formed and equipped, and led by its proper commanding officer. It failed to find the fleet. This little triumph gave the whole squadron a feeling of pride in itself.

Back at Abbots Inch, while continuing with the building and training of the squadron, I also went to several shipping firms in Glasgow and enlisted their co-operation in an ongoing programme of interception of their inward bound ships, and exchange of lamp signals with them. This was particularly valuable training for us. In war time, interception of, and visual communication with, HM ships would be an important part of our work; but, in peace time, we had very few opportunities to practice it with them.

When the commander designate, Squadron Leader Norman Allinson, arrived to take up his command, I was able to hand over a fully formed and equipped squadron, in a good state of training, and with its tail well in the air. After thoroughly checking over his new command, he found there was nothing which he wanted to change, and was good enough to say so. It had been a wonderfully challenging and deeply satisfying three months for me.

After handing over the squadron to its new commanding officer, I took over "C" Flight and became squadron training officer. In that capacity, I continued to give a lot of dual instruction to incoming pilots who had never flown twin engined aircraft. I found I was taking this in my stride, with no trace of any harmful effects. After a while, I asked to have the "no instructing" restriction on my medical category removed, and this was done.

On 10^th June, the squadron moved to Harwell to train for the Hendon Display. It had been decided to stage a massed fly past by 250 aircraft in formation, plus another squadron of ten aircraft, which would be flying above the main formation, carrying the controller of the whole operation. The formation was to consist of five columns flying in line abreast. Each column was to consist of ten flights in line astern, and each flight of five aircraft in V formation. The Anson squadrons of Coastal Command were to form the centre column, and it would be flanked by two columns of fighters and two of day bombers. One bomber column was to fly from Abingdon and the other from Upper Heyford, while the two fighter columns were to fly from stations around London. To get the whole formation assembled, the Anson column, after taking off and assembling itself in the vicinity of Harwell, would fly past Abingdon and Upper Heyford, where each of the bomber columns would form on it, in turn. It would then turn towards Hendon and pick up the fighter columns at designated rendezvous points along the way. A lot of organisation was going to be necessary to do all this and bring the formation over Hendon at the exact time specified in the programme.

After a series of rehearsals and conferences, all difficulties were overcome and a very precise timetable worked out in terms of "H" hour, plus or minus so many minutes. "H" hour would be announced by the leader of the Anson column on the day, in the light of the weather and wind conditions then prevailing. Both the leader and navigator of the Anson column were specialist navigators as well as pilots. As very accurate timing was essential, both were provided with deck watches, about as accurate as chronometers. It was agreed that watches would normally be set and synchronised on BBC time signals, but a special radio link with Uxbridge was also provided, from which time signals could be obtained, very quickly, at any time.

On the morning of the great day, a conference was held, at which "H" hour was announced and all watches were synchronised on a BBC time signal. In the Anson column, 269 Squadron was providing Nos. 7 and 8 flights, led by Squadron Leader Allinson and myself, respectively. Soon after lunch, and just as the programme was about to begin, Squadron Leader Allinson asked me to take his camera onto the top of a hangar and get a picture of the aircraft assembled on the ground. My co-pilot would get my machine started up and I would just have time to get back aboard in time to taxi out. I did this, but was puzzled and worried when the orders to taxi out and take off each came exactly two minutes late by my watch. Although I did not discover what had happened until after the flight, I will relate it here, for the sake of continuity.

Shortly after boarding their aircraft, the column leader and his navigator discovered that their two super accurate deck watches differed by four minutes. My mind still boggles at what happened next. With over a hundred other watches around them, all of which had been checked and set less than four hours before, and with the radio link to Uxbridge instantly available, a simple radio call would have shown which of their deck watches was correct. However, without making any checks whatever, these two specialists decided to split the difference between the two deck watches, called up all centre column aircraft and ordered all watches put back two minutes! And, of course, there was no way they could let the other four columns, then getting under way on other stations, know what they had done. The leader may have had second thoughts about the wisdom of his action, for he presently called on the radio and asked for anyone in the centre line to give him a time check! However, all watches had been altered on his own orders, and nobody could give him the correct time.

Well, we were two minutes late taking off and two minutes late arriving at each of the rendezvous points, finding empty skies at each. About the time we reached the last rendezvous, we all heard controller calling our leader, asking where we were and telling us that the other four columns were in company with him and giving his position, which was several miles ahead. There followed a short and stupid argument, in which our leader insisted that we were on time and everybody else running early. Controller quickly stopped this with a peremptory order for us to open up to maximum speed and catch up with him. We did this and soon caught up, finding that the other four columns were already in their correct relative positions, leaving space for us in the middle. In the rush to catch up, our column had strung out considerably and when the leader throttled back to the correct speed, we concertinaed rather badly. With Hendon already clearly in sight and rapidly getting nearer, the centre column was almost a vertical one, with flights stacked from cruising height almost down to the tree tops, and at least one flight well ahead of the leader. It seemed that the centre column, at least, would arrive at Hendon in a disgraceful and disorderly gaggle, and I felt positively sick at the prospect. However, by a superlative effort, we all managed to regain our proper positions just in time to pass over Hendon in the tightest and best formation we had ever achieved. As we were doing this, I switched my radio to a BBC channel, just in time to hear the noise made by our 260 aeroplanes as we passed over the aerodrome. It sounded very impressive.

After his coronation, in 1937, King George VI paid ceremonial visits to some of the bigger cities, including Edinburgh and Glasgow. The ceremonies at each visit included processions in which local units of the armed services were always represented. RAF Station Donibristle had to provide a suitable officer to train and lead it, so I was sent over from Abbots Inch, at very short notice, to do the job. With no squadrons on the station, the contingent was made up of cooks, clerks, storemen, etc., many of whom had done very little drill since their basic training days. I had a lot of help from one or two very good NCOs and we managed to bring their marching and arms drill up to a satisfactory standard and make them feel proud of their performance. I rehearsed them in the sequence of events and the orders which I would be giving at each stage. On the day, they acquitted themselves splendidly, never missing a command from me on the march even though, in the very noisy prevailing conditions, those farthest from me often could not hear my voice. About a fortnight later, I led the Abbots Inch contingent in the Glasgow procession, under easier conditions.

For these activities I received the coronation medal. In fact, I very nearly received two, as I was recommended for it by both Donibristle and Abbots Inch, and both recommendations were approved before the duplication was discovered!

The tempo of training increased as the year went on. Exercises were organised by Coastal Command to take advantage of every movement of warships around the coast, and these sometimes meant moving temporarily to other stations. New pilots kept on arriving in the squadron, often fresh from flying training schools, and it was part of my job to convert them all onto Ansons. In the middle of September, we moved to Leuchars for our annual armament training. While demonstrating landings to three new pilots there, one morning, I landed with the undercarriage retracted.

The Anson was the first aeroplane with a retractable undercarriage which any of us had flown. I think it was the first in the RAF, and its introduction was soon followed by a spate of wheels-up landings, which had caused a lot of concern. A badly designed indicator system was partly responsible; two green balls popped up on the dash board when the undercarriage was fully down, but there was nothing to warn or remind pilots when it was up. We had often discussed this in 269 Squadron and I had always maintained that, despite the lack of any warning signal or positive indicator, there could be no excuse for this kind of accident. I felt that it should be part of the professionalism of all pilots always to remember and put into practice, the procedures and checks appropriate to whatever aircraft they were flying. I had trained all the squadron pilots rigorously on these lines, and I had their full support. Now I had committed the inexcusable error, myself. I made no excuses and still said it was inexcusable. The squadron, from the commanding officer down, paid me the compliment of expressing stunned disbelief that I could make such a mistake and some of them even tried to make excuses for me when talking about the accident. Bless them for their support!

About mid October, we had to begin night flying training. With the exception of the CO, I was the only one who had ever flown at night, so I had everyone to train. Up to that time, I had had less than seven hours solo at night, myself, and it was over three years since my last night flight, which had been the Moth episode at Croydon. I started the programme by giving myself an hour of landing practice, starting at dusk and working through into darkness, doing half of the landings from the right hand seat. Finding that I had no difficulty in either seat, I started giving dual later the same evening and continued doing so on every fit night until well into November. The squadron closed down for about three weeks over the Christmas and New Year period.

When I first moved to Abbots Inch, I had to leave Dorrie and the children at Cliffsend until I could find suitable accommodation for them in Scotland. The best I could find was the ground floor of a big stone house, called "Croft en Righ", in Renfrew, about two miles from Abbots Inch. It was spacious, comfortable and well furnished, and stood in quite large grounds. We moved into it just after Easter and soon found someone to help Dorrie with the housework and the children. Her name was Greta. She was a housewife of about our own age, with young children of her own, and we found her utterly trustworthy and reliable.

Dorrie was pregnant at the time and this fact was not hidden from the children. They all seemed excited at the prospect of having a new brother or sister. They became intensely interested as the baby developed and they were invited to put their hands on Mummy's tummy and feel its movement. The baby, whom we named Frederick Jon, was born at home, on 6^th October. The children loved him at once, and spent a lot of time talking to him and playing with him as he grew. Under their influence, he developed very quickly and, by the end of the year, was more advanced than any of the others had been at the same age. He was a happy, healthy baby and was loved by all of us.

During the year, I became eligible to sit for the examination for promotion to squadron leader. This written examination was held twice a year, in April and October. It extended over three or four days and covered seven or eight subjects. If one failed in one subject, one need take and pass that subject only, at the next examination; failure in two or more subjects meant taking the whole examination again. In the lead-up to the exam which I was to take, I was unable to obtain the text books covering the prescribed reading for two of the subjects. Without those text books, I was certain to fail in those two subjects. As that would mean failing the whole examination, there was no point in taking it, at all. I therefore asked to be allowed to withdraw, clearly explaining why, but was refused. It was a silly decision from any point of view. Not only would it be a waste of time, but there was also the old proverb about leading a horse to water.

The rules for the conduct of these examinations prescribed that a candidate must attend each session, must stay in the examination room for at least half an hour after the examination papers were issued, and must hand in an answer book bearing the name of the subject and the candidate's examination identity number. I did all those things, and handed in five blank answer books. For the other two subjects, I amused myself by seeing how much of the question papers I could answer in half an hour. In one of these, with tongue in cheek, I had a dig at the examiner about a badly worded question. In it, he asked us to say what we knew about Christmas Island, without specifying which of the two well known islands of that name he meant. From having done the prescribed reading on this subject, I knew that he was referring to the Pacific Island. However, I started my answer rather snootily by writing, "Actually, there are two Christmas Islands, one in the Indian Ocean and one in the Pacific. I cannot imagine that the examiner is concerned with the Indian Ocean Island, as the last time it figured in the news was in 1923, when it served as a base for a party of scientists, who went there to observe a total eclipse of the sun". (This was true). I then went on to write what was expected of us about the Pacific Island.

In his subsequent report on the examination, I was tickled to see that the examiner had had a dig back at me. He began his discussion about the anser to this question by writing, "Actually, there are three Christmas Islands....", and he did not give me the satisfaction of telling me where the third one was to be found. Many years later, I found a third one in the Bay of Bengal and, later still, a fourth one somewhere on the east coast of Canada, so perhaps I am still one up on him!

Two or three months later, I received a letter from the Air Ministry, asking me to explain why I had handed in no less than five blank answer books at the examination. I explained, as I had done when I asked to be allowed to withdraw from the examination, that I had been totally unable to prepare for two of the subjects and was therefore certain to fail the whole examination, no matter how well I did in the other subjects. That being so, I could see no point whatever in making any effort to pass in those other subjects, and had acted accordingly. I got back a reply which simply said that my "explanation had been noted". Translated, that really meant, "Well, OK; but you had better not do it again".

Tragedy struck on the first day of the new year. An Air Force friend had lent Dorrie and me his car, a little open two seater, for a few days. Leaving the children in Greta's good care, Dorrie and I went for a drive up through the western highlands, as far as Ballachulish, on Loch Leven. As we were leaving, we looked at Frederick, who was in his cot, lying partly on his side and wrapped securely so that he could not possibly roll over any further.

We returned late in the afternoon to a terrible situation. Not long after we left, Greta went to check on Frederick in his cot, and found him lying on his stomach, desperately trying to hold his face up off the pillow to breathe. He was blue in the face and in great distress. A doctor was called at once and got him over the anoxia, but could do more than that. No one knew what had happened, but, from the results of various tests carried out over the next few days, it was concluded that he had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and that this had caused a spasm violent enough to throw him over onto his face. Whatever it was, it destroyed every trace of intelligence. He did not even know how to suck. It took many days of pouring food into his mouth with a spoon before he again began to respond to the feel of a teat in his mouth. Once he began feeding again, he soon began to thrive, physically, but never again showed the slightest sign of awareness of anything, except, occasionally, of pain. We could not even determine whether he could see. As may be imagined, we were all very distressed, Dorrie, of course, most so.

Poor Greta did not turn up on the morning after this sad event. When I went to her home to find out why, she said she felt we might think she was in some way responsible for what had happened and would not want to see her again. I was able to convince her that none of us thought any such thing, and that we really needed her. We had all become fond of her, the children especially so, and Dorrie badly needed the help and support of another woman.

In the middle of January, the squadron moved to Eastleigh, midway between Winchester and Southampton. It was the civil airport for the area, not a RAF station. Squadron training went on a pace, with navigation and naval co-operation exercises, and I continued with my job of training the seemingly endless flow of new pilots arriving in the squadron.

One night, while giving some night flying instruction, I saw a magnificent display of red aurora borealis consisting of a great bow stretching between the north-western and north-eastern horizons, and covering about half the northern sky. It went on for so long that I was eventually able to phone Dorrie, in Scotland, where the sky was also clear, and she was able to watch it, too. At one stage, a single narrow, brilliant yellow bar appeared, rising up from the northern horizon to the top edge of the great bow.

I had occasion to visit Lee-on-Solent during this period and was greatly taken by this little seaside town, which seemed so bright and sunny and welcoming. Our home at Renfrew was comfortable enough, but it was very dark and gloomy, and in a very depressed industrial area. None of us liked it and the climate was atrocious. We did not know how long the squadron would remain at Eastleigh. We knew that the squadron would be moving about, and that I would be away from home a lot, after we did leave, so Dorrie and I decided to move the family down there for the summer. A typical seaside cottage was soon found, rather ramshackle, but very comfortable, and well equippped with furniture that was not likely to come to much harm from boisterous young children.

Frederick was continuing to thrive physically, but still showed absolutely no sign of any intelligence. Caring for him and agonising over him was beginning to have a bad effect on Dorrie's health. On medical advice, we put him into the children's hospital in Southampton, to give Dorrie a rest. Very shortly after doing that, I received a telephone message at Eastleigh to the effect that, if I wished to see Dorrie again, still alive, I had better get home as quickly as possible. A squadron friend drove me to Lee-on-Solent at once, and there I found Dorrie in bed, awaiting transportation to hospital, with a diagnosis of acute nephritis. I saw her off in the ambulance, but had to stay and look after the children.

Happily, Dorrie's condition proved to be not as serious as had been thought, but she was going to have to stay in hospital for some time.

Next morning, I asked the local labour exchange to find me a girl or woman to run the house and look after the children. It was not long before a nice, intelligent looking girl arrived on her bicycle, in response to my request. After asking her the usual sort of questions, I gave her the job. Her name was Davida Holmes, the daughter of a RAF sergeant tool setter. She proved to be very capable and reliable. When Dorrie came out of hospital, she and Davida took a great liking to one another and soon became like sisters.

With the care of the children settled, I had to deal immediately with two other urgent problems. We were desperately short of money by now, and were faced with the prospect of fairly heavy medical bills. Also, I had again entered for promotion examination "C" and again had been unable to prepare for it, but I knew I must succeed in passing it, this time.

To cope with the money problem, Dorrie decided to sell her violin. It had been presented to her by friends and well wishers in her home district. She had almost given up playing it because of the damage to her left wrist, but it must have been a wrench for her to part with it. She had a standing offer from her old teacher at the Royal College of Music to buy it if she ever wanted to sell, and she asked me to take it up to London and sell it to him. I did so on the day before the promotion examination was to begin. Coming back in the train, I felt very bad about what I had just done, and began mentally reviewing our marriage. I wanted, so much, to shield Dorrie from all hurt and hardship, and to keep her happy. We had shared great happiness, but it seemed to me that I had failed her badly as a protector.

That evening, I had to begin preparing for next day's promotion exam. I had been able to assemble the books which covered the required reading, but had not had time to look inside the covers of any of them. I could skip much of the reading for the law and administration paper, as I had a fair working knowledge of those subjects, and we were allowed to use Kings Regulations and the Manual of Law in the examination room. I was also confident that I could pass the examination in military geography without further reading; but I would have to get through every bit of the prescribed reading for the other five subjects if I were to stand a chance of passing in them.

There was only one way to do that. That first evening, I took the text books covering next day's subjects to bed with me and started reading. To get through them, I just had to read the prescribed chapters and sections once through, as fast as I could, with no time to pause and consider, memorise, or make notes. Even this took me most of the night. I kept on falling asleep over the books and waking up again, a few minutes later, to carry on. I just had to hope that enough of what I read would come to the surface of my memory when I saw the question papers; and that is what happened. I never took any of the books with me to the examination venue for last minute reading, as did many of the candidates. This, combined with my unworried appearance, led some of them to believe that I must have been particularly well prepared!

As the week wore on, I felt confident that I had done reasonably well, and so it proved. When the results were published, a few weeks later, I found that I had passed in all subjects.

The sale of Dorrie's violin seemed to mark a turning point in circumstances, which improved from then onwards. As just related, I passed the promotion examination, which began next day. Dorrie's health began to improve rapidly. The money received for the violin tided us over our financial crisis. I turned 30 in June, thereby becoming "qualified married", and began receiving 14 shillings a day living out allowance. This increased our income by more than fifty percent. On 1^st December, I was promoted to squadron leader, with another good increase in pay, and we never again had any serious worries about money, although we always had to be careful with it.

Mercifully, but sadly, Frederick died at Easter, while still in hospital. We had his body cremated and scattered his ashes in the sea.

When the squadron returned to Abbots Inch, I left Dorrie and the children at Lee-on-Solent to enjoy the summer. Dorrie had learnt to drive a car when we had the little Morris 8 at Andover. Some time during the summer, we bought a three years old Morris Ten saloon, which Dorrie kept at Lee.

All through the summer, the squadron was very busy with training as a unit, and with the individual training of new pilots. We made several moves to other stations to take part in various exercises. Hitler was making ever nastier noises in Europe and we all felt that war was becoming inevitable.

I took some leave in August and brought Dorrie up to Scotland in the car to begin hunting for our next home. We found a suitable furnished house at Kilmacolm, in Renfrewshire. It was occupied by a young couple, who were moving to Glasgow at the end of the month.

Back at Lee-on-Solent, we asked Davida if she would come to Scotland with us and continue to help Dorrie with the children, while living with us as one of the family, and she agreed to do so. We moved up in the third week of August, sending the bulk of our belongings by Pickfords. We stacked the folding luggage rack on the back of the car roof high with those things we had to carry with us, then packed ourselves, (three adults and four children) into the car, and drove the 500 miles (800 km) to Kilmacolm in one day. We then had to wait three days for our heavy baggage to arrive before we could do much about settling into the new house. The weather was perfect, so we packed a picnic basket and went up onto the moors behind Greenock. We found a tiny meadow beside comparatively deep water in the bend of a little burn, well away from any road, and went nudist for the day, dipping into the burn whenever we felt hot. As the weather continued to be perfect, we did the same on the next two days. It was an idyllic little interlude.

At the end of September, RAF squadrons were ordered to their war stations, and 269 Squadron moved to Thornaby, near Middlesborough, on the 30^th. This was the day on which Mr Chamberlain and M. Daladier signed the infamous Munich Treaty with Hitler, after which Mr Chamberlain returned to London, waved his umbrella as he stepped out of his aeroplane, and said he had brought home peace with honour.

Make no mistake here; I am not trying to deride or belittle Mr Chamberlain. I was not one of those who believed that he was a weakling. He knew, better than most, what the realities of war would be. He knew that many unnecessary wars had been fought in the past simply because national leaders, standing on their imagined dignity, had refused to discuss any solutions but their own in their international disputes. He was determined not to make this mistake himself, and had the courage to stand against a torrent of abuse and criticism while he tried to reach an honourable agreement with Hitler.

Mr Chamberlain was no fool. He knew just how unprepared for war Britain was. Despite his very public statement about peace with honour, he did not believe that Hitler would honour the Munich treaty. He immediately began doing everything possible to speed up Britain's military preparations. When, as expected, Hitler broke his word and ordered the occupation of Czechoslovakia only a few months after Munich, it was Mr Chamberlain, with the backing of Parliament, who publicly proclaimed that, if the Germans invaded any other European country, they would at once find themselves at war with Britain. This was the warning which Hitler, on the advice of Ribbentrop, chose to disbelieve, when he ordered the invasion of Poland, and so ushered in the Second World War.

The move to war stations, and the preparations which we had to make there for going to war, were a valuable exercise. Many weaknesses of organisation and shortages of supplies were brought to light or emphasised, and we were given the chance to do something about them before we finally had to go to war, almost twelve months later.

About this time, one of the squadron pilots lost control while flying in cloud and dived vertically into the ground at high speed, smashing the aeroplane and all aboard to pieces, literally. Local people removed the bodies, or as much of them as could be found, before anyone from the squadron arrived on the scene. Next day, I took a working party to remove the debris and clean up the site, which was on private property. It was a gruesome job. We burnt as much of the wreckage as we could on the spot. As we were gathering up the smaller pieces, and breaking down the larger ones to manageable size, white faced airmen kept coming to me with pieces of flesh and bone and asking what they should do with them. I could only say, "Throw them into the fire". A young policeman arrived to collect certain information about the crash while this was going on. We were standing on a slippery, muddy hillside, about twenty yards from the crash, and he was writing in his note book, when he slipped and nearly fell. On looking down to find a more secure footing, we both saw that what he had slipped off was an intact liver.

About this time also, we learnt that the production of the Blackburn Botha aeroplane, which had been specially designed for maritime reconnaissance work, had lagged so badly that a stop-gap replacement for the Anson, this time with real military capability, had had to be ordered. This was the Lockheed Hudson, a well revised design based on the Lockheed 14 passenger aeroplane. The Hudsons were to start coming into service in the spring of 1939. This news caused a lot of adverse criticism amongst the Anson pilots, who had all been eagerly looking forward to receiving an aeroplane specially designed for their work. In their minds, nothing could possibly be as good as that. There were many derogatory speculations that these American aeroplanes would be "just like their tinny American engineering. I only smiled at these remarks, for we had mostly American cars in Australia and I knew them for the well engineered machines which they were.

In December, I was asked to nominate an officer pilot to go to British Airways, at Heston, for training on Lockheed 14s, and then undertake the training of the squadron and flight commanders in the squadrons receiving the Hudsons, as they were introduced. I was keen to learn about the new aeroplane and I knew that the training of new pilots on it would be very important. I was the only officer on the station with the necessary qualifications for this task, so I nominated myself, and got the job.

I went to Heston early in January. I was very pleased to find Flight Sergeant Holdway had also been sent to do this course and would be my assistant in the subsequent training work in the squadron. We had joined 12 Squadron in the same month, fresh from our flying training schools, and had served together for two and a half years. Later, we had shared the same flying instructors course at CFS and we liked and respected one another.

The intention of Air Ministry and Coastal Command was that we should do a conversion course on Lockheed 14s with British Airways, after which we would be competent to fly the Hudsons. As the squadrons started to get their Hudsons, we would visit each squadron in turn and teach the flight commanders and commanding officers to fly them. Those officers would then be responsible for teaching their own pilots. This had always been the way of introducing new aircraft into the service, and that is what Holdway and I were expecting to do, when we arrived at Heston to begin our own training.

We first did a very thorough ground course, which lasted over two weeks and covered all the technical aspects of the new aircraft. Most of these were entirely new to us. We realised that every pilot would have to be taught them just as thoroughly as we had been, for any failure to understand and operate them correctly would greatly impair the operational efficiency of the aircraft and could seriously endanger both aircraft and crews.

When we eventually took to the air, we found that we had to learn an entirely new flying technique. Holdway and I each required over six hours dual from a very good instructor before we were fit for first solo on the type. We really needed a good deal more solo and progress dual before we could consider ourselves fully trained; but British Airways needed all their aircraft for their regular services, and our first solo was also our last flight on Lockheed 14s.

Holdway and I collaborated very closely on this course, spending many hours in mutual coaching and discussion sessions in my room at the airport hotel. Before the course ended, we had come to the conclusion that it would be inviting disaster to introduce these aircraft into the service by the traditional method. They were not inherently difficult to fly, but everything about them was utterly different from anything any of us in the RAF had ever known. All pilots being converted onto them would have a great deal to learn. If they did not learn it thoroughly, or if they ever neglected to practice what they were taught, they would, at best, greatly reduce the operational capabilities of the aircraft. At worst, they could kill themselves in droves.

We felt there was a grave danger, indeed a virtual certainty, that some of the flight commanders would fail to understand fully the importance of what we taught them and that the training ultimately received by their pilots would become dangerously defective. We estimated that it would take an average of ten hours dual to convert pilots safely, regardless of previous flying experience. We concluded that the only safe way to handle the conversions would be for a small group of instructors, trained by British Airways and ourselves and supervised by us, to visit each squadron and train every pilot in it. We would need another five experienced pilots, who could be of any rank and need not be qualified flying instructors.

Once we reached that conclusion, I went to HQ Coastal Command to discuss the matter with the staff officer in charge of training, Wing Commander Allinson who, until three months previously, had been commanding 269 Squadron. When I told him what Holdway and I had concluded, and why, I found it quite impossible to be convincing because I had to talk about things totally unknown to any RAF officer (except myself) at that time. However, Wing Commander Allinson said he had complete faith in my judgment, but I would have to be the one to go to Air Ministry and sell the idea to the Director of Training.

The Director, naturally enough, questioned me sharply about why I thought the traditional method of converting squadrons to new aircraft would not work with Hudsons. I explained as clearly as I could, but was met with blank incomprehension, for reasons which I have already mentioned. He also flatly refused to believe that any experienced pilot could possibly need ten hours dual simply to learn to fly a new aeroplane. I assured him that that was just our best estimate, based on our own very short experience and that we would certainly not be giving any more dual than we thought absolutely necessary. He remained unconvinced and kept on asking "Why"?, even though he could not understand my answers. Eventually, I just had to remind him that he had had me sent to British Airways to become the expert on the new machines. If he was not now prepared to accept what I was telling him about them, he should go to British Airways and do the conversion course himself.

That was the end of the interview. I left, thinking that my mission had failed. However, when reporting on our meeting to his Air Staff superior, the director wrote that, while I had not really convinced him, he felt he must accept my advice, and I got my little team, which quickly became known as the Hudson Training Circus. They went to British Airways and did the ground course, but got no flying there. Flight Sergeant Holdway and I taught them to fly the Hudson later.

After the course at Heston, I spent some time at the Lockheed assembly plant at Speke airport, Liverpool, where I was able to learn a great deal about the Hudson by watching the assembly processes, talking with engineers and test pilots and studying the excellent manuals which were being supplied with every aeroplane. I then returned to 269 Squadron and resumed normal squadron duties for about a month while waiting for the first Hudsons to be delivered to the RAF.

Of the first six Hudsons delivered, two went to the Central Flying School, which had the task of producing the official handling notes for the type. Four went to the Aircraft and Armament Experimental Establishment (A & AEE) at Martlesham Heath for evaluation and acceptance trials. I went to Martlesham Heath for a fortnight in April to take part in these trials. There I met Mr Kelly Johnston, who had designed the Hudson, and Mr Al Doe, from Curtis Wright, the makers of the Hudson's engines, from both of whom I was able to gather more and very valuable information. They and one of the test pilots from Speke were there to observe and take part in the trials.

In their contract with the Air Ministry, Lockheed had guaranteed certain performance figures for the Hudson. The acceptance trials were carried out with four aeroplanes flying in reasonably tight formation. In the course of a six hour flight, the aircraft were put through a number of carefully controlled tests and all four equalled or bettered the guaranteed figures in every test. There was no doubt that the Hudson was a very good machine indeed.

After these tests, I took a Hudson on a visit to all the squadrons which were going to be equipped with them, to let the pilots see what they were soon to get. They were all very impressed with the engineering and equipment of the machines and became very eager to get them. I never again heard any references to "tinny" American aircraft.

I was still only detached from 269 Squadron, which meant that no one could be posted to the squadron in my place. The squadrons to be converted onto Hudsons were located at Abbots Inch and Leuchars in Scotland, Thornaby in Yorkshire, Bircham Newton in Norfolk, and Tangmere in Sussex. Converting them was expected to take at least a year. It was therefore necessary that I be posted out of 269 Squadron so that a replacement could be posted in. I would have to live on each station while conversion of its squadrons was going on and would only be able to get home occasionally at weekends and holidays. From the family point of view, it was therefore desirable that I be based as centrally as possible on one of the above-named stations. I asked to be posted to Bircham Newton for the duration of the conversion programme. This would enable 269 Squadron to get a replacement for its missing flight commander. It would also give me a fair chance of getting home occasionally at weekends, and would enable me to live at home while converting the two Bircham Newton squadrons. My request was granted and I was posted there on 17^th April. Dorrie and I drove down to Hunstanton and quickly found a nice old house in about two acres of ground, in the village of Ringstead. We moved the family there from Kilmacolm at the Whitsun weekend. Son Christopher was born at Hunstanton on 23^rd July.

The Hudson Circus assembled at Leuchars in mid May to begin converting 224 Squadron. I first tested all members of the circus on their flying and instructing capabilities and their knowledge of the Hudson and found them all quite satisfactory. They all well understood the importance of all they had learnt and there was no danger that any of them would fail in their duties as instructors. Never the less, I ruled that all squadron pilots were to be treated by either Holdway or myself before first solo and on completion of the conversion course.

I have used the term "first solo", but we never actually sent any pilot solo in a Hudson. The pilots always flew in pairs. The one in the left hand seat flew the aeroplane and acted as captain while he occupied that seat, but both pilots were required to carry out all pre-take-off and pre-landing checks independently before every take-off and landing.

We trained the squadron in day flying only as there was nothing about the Hudson which necessitated additional training at night for pilots who already had night flying experience on other types. Provided that they had properly absorbed our day training, flight commanders could quite well train any new pilots in night flying.

Because of many teething troubles connected with the introduction of the new aircraft, we did not complete the training of 224 Squadron until the end of August, only a day or so before the Germans invaded Poland. From memory, I believe the average amount of dual given was five and a half hours. At the end of his training, each pilot satisfied either Holdway or me that he could fly the Hudson quite safely in the way he had been shown, which, of course, included everything he needed to know to get the best performance from it under all operational conditions. Holdway and I both feared that some of the pilots did not really believe in what they had been taught and might revert to their old flying methods once they escaped from our control. We knew that both the commanding officer and his deputy were sceptical and could not be relied upon to supervise their pilots and enforce observance of the training we had given. We seriously considered giving double the amount of dual, just for emphasis, but decided against doing so because of the imminence of war and the urgency of the need to get the Coastal Command Anson squadrons re-equipped. We had to press on with the training of the next squadron, No 233. We would still be on the same station and all members of the circus would be continuously available to give help and advice at any time.

Our worst fears were quickly confirmed. In the three weeks which it took us to convert 233 Squadron, shocking dereliction of duty and leadership by both the 224 Squadron Commander and his deputy led to a series of crashes in which 26 squadron members were killed. In every case, we were able to determine the cause of the crash, and in every case it was caused by the pilot doing something which he had been told specifically not to do, or failing to do something which he had been taught specifically that he should do.

These crashes and their demonstrable causes had a salutary effect on 233 Squadron. The pilots completed their training with almost exactly the same average amount of dual as had 224 Squadron. They also had adequate leadership and supervision, and had a good safety record after completing their conversion.

The Hudston Circus moved to Thornaby late in September to begin training 220 Squadron. By early October it had become apparent that we would have to increase considerably the amount of dual instruction given to all pilots. All pilots in 224 and 231 Squadrons had demonstrated, on test by Holdway or me, that they could fly their aircraft safely in the manner we had taught them, and that they knew how to operate the engines correctly to get the best range and endurance performance of which the machines were capable. However, there was now mounting evidence that many of them were either forgetting or ignoring what they had been taught, with results which varied only between bad and disastrous.

There was the horrifying series of fatal crashes in 224 Squadron, which I have already mentioned. After we moved to Thornaby, I began hearing stories of very disappointing range and endurance performances by the Hudsons at Leuchars. I had carried out so many performance tests of various kinds, on so many different Hudsons, always equalling or bettering the figures promised by the makers, that I knew these failures could only be caused by incorrect operation. Late in October, in response to a demand by the station commander, I flew up top Leuchars to investigate.

The station commander, Group Captain B.E. Baker, angrily accused me of having taught a lot of rubbish. He claimed that, whereas I had said that the Hudson had a safe endurance of ten and a half hours, none of the squadron pilots could keep them in the air for more than about six hours; neither could they get anything like the range which I had promised. Without any argument, I invited him to nominate the worst performing Hudson on the station and then come up with me while I put it through any performance test he cared to name. He declined this invitation, which was a pity.

I then questioned squadron and flight commanders, every squadron pilot I could find, about what performance they were getting and what power settings (combinations of engine revs, boost and mixture strength) they were using in the various relevant conditions. With one exception, every pilot reported seriously reduced range and endurance and disclosed that he was regularly using wildly incorrect power settings. The one exception was one of the youngest and least experienced pilots. He always used the exact power settings he had been taught and always got the promised results.

I could only report what I had found to the station and squadron commanders and emphasise the importance of using the exact power settings prescribed for their various operating conditions. These settings had been clearly taught to all pilots on their conversion courses, both in preliminary ground instruction and in the air, and all pilots had demonstrated that they knew how to apply them. They were also clearly set out in the pilot's instruction manual supplied with every Hudson, and in the printed notes which I had prepared and given to every pilot, including the commanding officers and their deputies. It was the responsibility of those officers to ensure that their pilots operated their aircraft correctly, as they had been taught, and they were simply not doing so.

All of this indicated that pilots, including the squadron and flight commanders, were either not really absorbing some of the things we were teaching, or disbelieved them. We therefore began giving more air and ground instruction, and placing more emphasis, on these points of weakness.

The outbreak of war brought about big changes in our intended conversion programme. Some of the squadrons were moved to different stations and the East Coast of Britain became the front line for Coastal Command. Squadrons could no longer carry out night flying training in this area and the need to get the Anson squadrons equipped and trained on their Hudsons became very urgent. For these and other reasons, higher authority decided to move all training activities to somewhere in the western part of the country.

In October, I was asked to look at the aerodrome at Silloth, on the Solway Firth, and to report on its suitability for Hudson training. I found it very suitable in all but one respect: it had no runways and its grassy surface was very soggy. With the rain which could be expected during the coming winter, and the heavy take off and landing traffic which training would impose on it, it would quickly cut up and become unusable. I duly reported this but was told that it had an excellent sub-surface drainage system which would prevent it cutting up. As I had reported it satisfactory in all other respects, Coastal Command would concentrate all land plane pilot training there in a unit to be called Coastal Command Pool. On 13^th November, I was appointed Chief Flying Instructor (CFI) of the new unit and moved over to Silloth the next day, leaving the other members of the Circus to finish off the training of 220 Squadron.