Our Father's Generation. F. M. Worden
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thousand feet, I banked right and headed south. Climbing all the time, I was out over water in a few minutes. I put on the oxygen mask at twelve thousand feet, and flattened out, all the time watching for enemy aircraft. None, I never saw any all the time I was out when I figured I was out about twenty miles, I put her through some aerobatics.
WOW, what an aircraft this was! If I had done some of the same stuff in the old biplanes in the air shows, I wouldn’t be here, this plane could take it. Loops, rolls, spins, she climbed like crazy. I had never flown a plane like this before, I was having a ball, what fun! When I checked my instruments, I only had a few minutes fuel left. The gauge was clicking on “E.” I was at fifteen thousand feet, I rolled her over and went into a steep dive.
WHOA! The Hurricane began to shudder and kept in the dive, I was pulling back on the stick with all my strength, I was sweating like a run-a-way horse. She pulled out at one thousand feet, Whew! Hooray, I was about to relieve myself—pee in my pants.
Back at the airfield, I sat her down as gentle as a baby buggy. Smithy helped me out of the cockpit. “How ya like her?” he asked.
“This is a real aircraft.”
He grinned and shook his head yes.
A lorry pulled up next to the Hurricane, a young female in a blue uniform got out and started to unload cartons of 303 ammo. I asked Smithy about her.
“She’s a WAAF, we have lots of girls like her, and they do everything for us. Drive lorries, tractors, you may see them with a shovel filling bomb craters after a raid, mostly they work on the tracking tables.”
“Tracking tables?” I asked.
“Yeah, they track the enemy as soon as they take off in France; track our fighters as they intercept them. You will have to go see, it’s something to see, we can’t do without them, they’re wonderful.” He introduced me to the WAAF, her name was Sarah. I learned more every day, about Fighter Command.
I walked past the dispersal area, there sat eight pilots waiting for the call to scramble. They were lounging in lawn chairs, one got up and introduced himself. “My name is Patty,” he said as he shook my hand. He told me the seven other chaps’ names. “How do we call you? We give nick names to everybody.”
“My name is Tom. I’m called Tommy at home.”
“Tommy is an English Bloke, we need one better.”
One of the pilots chimed in. “Let’s call him Yank.”
“That’s okay by me. “
“Yank you are,” Patty said. “The CO wants to see you.”
“See you chaps later.” I walked over and entered the dispersal hut, there were three pilots and Officer Martin sitting around a table.
“Come on in,” Officer Martin said. “How was your flight?”
“Great, that’s the most powerful aircraft I’ve ever flown.”
“Did you have any trouble at all?” he asked.
“She was a little hard to take out of a steep dive.”
“Ha, ha,” Martin said laughing. “You forgot to trim. Many first timers pull the same thing, you won’t forget again.”
I assured him I wouldn’t.
“Two critical moves you must make when you dive in a Hurricane trim her and don’t forget to switch on the firing button when you go into combat. Also, you only have nineteen seconds of ammo. Try to use two second bursts, watch your tracers, they will tell you where your hitting. We recommend starting firing at two hundred and fifty yards from the target. We use the Hurricane for the bombers; let the Spits take on the German fighters. Our tactics as of now are to dive from above, out of the sun if possible. Try to pass thru the enemy formation, firing as you pass by. Climb as soon as you can and get in position to make another pass. I know it sounds simple, it’s not. Most of all, you will have to train yourself. We all do, we don’t have the time to train to shoot. Most of the pilots never shoot their guns until they go into combat.”
“I understand, I’ll try not to spend ammo.”
Major Martin then introduced the three pilots, all three where NCO’s. “These men are your bunk mates. Flight Sergeant Adolf Lyseek, he’s Polish” He was a rather short husky individual, with a ruddy face, balding head and a strong hand shake, my hand will never be the same. He spoke good English when he welcomed me to the squadron. Officer Martin told me Sgt. Lyseek’s story. He had come over to Great Britain a year ago with five other pilots from Poland. Sgt. Lyseek interrupted the Major.
“Yes, we came to England as we saw the Germans marching; my country’s aircraft were obsolete, we could not fight the Germans with them.”
Officer Martin continued, “He was with us in France, his wife and two young sons were killed in the bombing of Warsaw.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I felt sadness for him.
Sgt Lyseek said, “She would not come to England with me, I should have made her. She did not want to leave her parents.” He bowed his head as he spoke.
I really felt sorry for him to lose his family that way.
“This fine fellow is from South Africa, Flight Sergeant Lee Rolland.” Sgt Rolland came and shook my hand.
“Glad to have you aboard, Old Chap, Please call me Lee, I like the name.” He laughed saying his name.
Lee was another good looking young guy. Looked to be six feet tall, brown neatly combed hair, brown eyes, weighed about one-seventy or -eighty pounds. Looked like the kind you would want to be your friend.
The last NCO was standing next to Lee. He looked young, maybe seventeen or eighteen.
“My name is J.W. Allison, call me JW.” He was very handsome, reminded me of the American movie star Tyrone Power, I could see he was full of himself. You have to be that way to be a fighter pilot. He shook my hand. “Glad to meet you.”
Officer Martin said, “Your gear and kit are in your hut, these men will show you where. The NCO mess is open all the time, If you have any questions, feel free to come and ask. You will not fly until tomorrow morning, we rise at four a.m., be ready to scramble by five a.m.”
The three Sergeants led me to our hut. The hut was primitive to say the least; it had four cots, a wall locker for each, a clothes hanger, four chairs and a small writing desk. A small lamp hung over each cot.
I had letters from Allie and Mother lying on my cot. I waited a while to open them.
We four sat and talked awhile, I wanted to get to know these men. I asked Lyseek about his time in France. He wanted to talk, he told of the fighting in France, he was hit by ground fire and had to bail out, he landed in a field near a road that was being used by hundreds of refugees. He told of the German aircraft bombing and strafing the road. There were people and animals killed all along the road, it was pure slaughter. “I was lucky not to have been killed. It took two days to get back to my airfield, I shall never forget that time.” He showed a lot of anger in himself. Who could blame him?
The pilots left and went out to the dispersal area as they might have had to fly at any time.
I was alone and got to read my letters. Allie said all was good at home, the baby was growing like a weed. She enclosed two pictures, I would not have recognized our little girl. Mother said Popie had been sick with the flu and Uncle Bob was getting bad with cancer. They were worried about Frank, they had no word from him in weeks. Boy, oh boy, I hoped he was all right. The last they heard he was somewhere in Europe trying to get to Italy.
I spent the last hour before mess writing letters. After mess, we all returned to our hut. As I was finishing my letters, my wing man, Flight Officer Tim, came by and asked if anyone wanted to go to a pub. J.W. was ready so I decided to go along. Tim said we would be back by ten p.m.
Tim has an English Ford four-door