Going Solo

I haven’t written to you since my one and only letter some weeks ago, chiefly because the doctors said that it wasn’t good for me. As a matter of fact I’ve been progressing very slowly. As I told you in my telegram I did start getting up, but they soon popped me back to bed again because I got such terrific headaches. A week ago I was moved back into this private room, and I have just completed a whole long 7 days lying flat on my back in semi darkness doing absolutely nothing – not even allowed to lift a finger to wash myself. Well, that’s over, and I’m sitting up today, (its 8 o’clock in the evening actually) and writing this and incidentally feeling fine. Tomorrow I think they are going to give me intravenal saline and pituatory injections & make me drink gallons of water – its another stunt to get rid of the headaches. You needn’t be alarmed – there’s nothing very wrong with me, I’ve merely had an extremely serious concussion. They say I certainly won’t fly for about 6 months, and last week were going to invalid me home on the next convoy. But somehow I didn’t want to – once invalided home, I knew I’d never get on to flying again, and who wants to be invalided home anyway. When I go I want to go normally …

After four months in hospital I was allowed out of bed, and I used to stand for hours in my dressing-gown looking out of my window at the view. The only view I had was the courtyard of the hospital, and that wasn’t much to look at, but directly across the courtyard I could see through a huge window into a long wide corridor. On morning I saw a medical orderly coming down this corridor carrying a very large tray with a white cloth over it. Walking in the opposite direction towards the orderly, was a middle-aged woman, probably somebody from the hospital clerical staff. When the orderly came level with the woman, he suddenly whipped away the cloth from the tray and pushed the tray towards the woman’s face. On the tray there lay the entire quite naked amputated leg of a soldier. I saw the poor woman reel backwards. I saw the foul orderly roar with laughter and replace the cloth and walk on. I saw the woman stagger to the window-sill and lean forward with her head in her hands, then she pulled herself together and went on her way. I have never forgotten that little illustration of man’s repulsive behaviour towards woman.

I was finally discharged from hospital in February 1941, five months after I was admitted. I was given four weeks’ convalescence which I spent in Alexandria living in total luxury in the magnificent house of a charming and very wealthy English family called Peel. Dorothy Peel was a regular hospital visitor at the Anglo-Swiss, and when she heard that I was soon to be allowed out, she said, ‘Come and stay with us.’ So I did, and I was a lucky fellow to have found such a splendid place among such kind people in which to gather myself together for the next round.

After four weeks with the Peels, I reported to the RAF medical examiners in Cairo, and it was a great day for me when I was once again passed fully fit for flying duties.

But where were my old squadron now?

Eighty Squadron, as it turned out, were no longer in the Western Desert. They were far across the water in Greece, where for some weeks they had been flying valiantly against the Italian invaders. But now the German armies and air forces had joined the Italians in Greece and were rapidly over-running the little country. It was obvious to everybody, even then, that the tiny token British Expeditionary Force and the handful of RAF planes in Greece were not going to be able to last long against the German juggernaut.

Where did they want me to go? I asked.

To Greece, of course, they said. They told me that 80 Squadron were no longer flying Gladiators. They were now equipped with Mark 1 Hurricanes. I must learn very quickly to fly a Hurricane and then I must take it to Greece and rejoin the squadron.

When I got this news I was in Ismailia, a large RAF aerodrome on the Suez Canal. A Flight-Lieutenant pointed to a Hurricane standing on the tarmac and said, ‘You can have a couple of days to learn how to fly it, then you take it to Greece.’

‘Fly that to Greece?’ I said.

‘Of course.’

‘Where do I stop to refuel?’

‘You don’t,’ he said. ‘You go non-stop.’

‘How long will it take?’

‘About four and a half hours,’ he said.

Even I knew that a Hurricane had fuel for only one and a half hours’ flying, and I pointed this out to the Flight-Lieutenant. ‘Don’t worry about that,’ he said. ‘We’re fitting extra fuel tanks under the wings.’

‘Do they work?’

‘Sometimes they work,’ he said, smirking. ‘You press a little button and if you’re lucky a pump pumps petrol from the wing-tanks into the main tank.’

‘What happens if the pump doesn’t work?’

‘You bale out into the Med and swim,’ he said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Be serious. Who picks me up?’

‘Nobody,’ he said. ‘It’s a chance you have to take.’

This, I told myself, is a waste of manpower and machinery. I had no experience at all in flying against the enemy. I had never been in an operational squadron. And now they wanted me to jump into a plane I had never flown before and fly it to Greece to fight against a highly efficient air force that outnumbered us by a hundred to one.

I was petrified as I strapped myself into the Hurricane for the first time. It was the first monoplane I had ever flown. It was without a doubt the first modern plane I had ever flown. It was many times more powerful and speedy and tricky than anything I had ever seen. I had never flown a plane with a retractable undercarriage before. I had never flown a plane with wing-flaps which had to be used to slow down your landing speed. I had never flown a plane with a variable pitch propeller or one that had eight machine-guns in its wings. I had never flown anything like it. Somehow I managed to get the thing off the ground and back down again without smashing it up, but for me it was like riding a bucking horse. I was just beginning t

o learn where most of the knobs were located and what they were used for when my two days were up and I had to leave for Greece.

Ismailia

12 April 1941

Dear Mama,

A very short note to say that I’m going north across the sea almost at once to join my squadron. I telegraphed this to you today & told you where to send my letters. You may not hear much from me for quite a long while so don’t worry …

Baling out into the Mediterranean didn’t worry me nearly as much as the thought of spending four and a half hours squashed into that tiny metal cockpit. I was six feet six inches tall, and when I sat in a Hurricane I had the posture of an unborn baby in the womb, with my knees almost touching my chin. I was able to put up with that for short flights, but four and a half hours clear across the sea from Egypt to Greece was something else again. I wasn’t quite sure I could do it.