415 Squadron  Association

HMS Chiddingfold

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                                                                           Chapter 2. On the way

On January 5th 1942, I boarded the train at Cornwall on route to Halifax, Nova Scotia. We stopped at Montreal and then caught a night train leaving Montreal about eight in the evening. We arrived in Halifax in the evening of the 6th of January. On the 8th we heard that we would be on a draft for England, the ship, a Cunard liner the Stratheden, sailed from Halifax on the 11th of January, 1942. It was a small convoy, the Stratheden and a second troopship accompanied by two destroyers . As we pulled out one could see that a major storm was brewing and in the following morning the Stratheden was ploughing through mountainous seas with hurricane force winds that were to last for more than a day. It was my first experience with a heavy sea and although I was not seasick it was mind boggling to watch this giant ship being tossed about on waves that at times seemed to reach fifty feet in height. In these conditions with the ship being tossed from side to side anything movable had to be securely lashed otherwise it could became a dangerous weapon to the unwary. I recall at one stage a piano breaking loose in the area of the bar and starting to slide from side to side. It was eventually halted by the combined strength of perhaps a dozen men before any major damage had occurred and was then securely tied to the floor.
Perhaps the heavy seas added to the convoys safety as we saw no German U-boats which in any event would not likely be able to launch an attack under the given conditions. I should add that not many troops were lost to enemy U-boats when being ferried across the Atlantic during the War years because of the superior speed of most troopships. The former commercial liners were capable of speeds up to 30 knots or more and could outrun the U-boats in use at the time. The troopship was crowded with about 3,000 people on board. We were housed on G deck far down in the hold in the forward starboard section. I still recall the noise of the giant waves banging against the metal plates on the ship’s starboard side as we ploughed through the seas. We slept in hammocks slung to the ceiling over tables at which we ate during meal time. I still have a vision of a stack of plates sliding down the length of the table beneath us only to go crashing off the end of the table on to the floor as the ship rolled in the storm. The hammocks were taken down and stowed during the day and the long tables were used to play cards or other such activities. If we were lucky, we were able to get a seat in one of the overcrowded bars, but a favourite activity was to walk the outer decks when weather permitted, to get away from the stench of vomit which was often present under the crowded conditions and the rolling seas. During the trip over we were routed south down towards the Azores and then north coming up through the Irish Sea and into the Clyde Estuary where we docked on January the 19th.

The Stratheden had been directed into Halifax enroute from the Middle East. On board, before us, were a sizeable number of British non-commissioned veterans of the Middle East Wars who were being brought home to England. They had been on board ship for some weeks and had staked out the main bar as theirs only. They were vastly outnumbered by the Canadian air crew of non-commissioned officers who immediately on coming on board the ship headed for the comfortable bar of the British NCOs. They objected to our presence because of our youth and lack of battle experience. A verbal battle developed during which the British conducting officer sided with the British and called in the Military Police, armed with revolvers, to chase us out. Of course the Canadians left but under protest. Fortunately, Air Vice Marshall Gus Edwards, a senior RCAF officer who was taking over command of the RCAF in England, was also on board and on being approached by our group he interceded and over-ruled the British Army Major and we were allowed back into the main bar for the remainder of the trip, crowded though it was for all.

On January 20th we disembarked from the boat on what we thought to be a substandard troop train but which was merely representative of the railway rolling stock used in carrying troops and were then moved slowly south to Bournemouth in the south of England. On the way we passed through Kilmarnock, Carlisle, Liverpool, Birmingham, Gloucester, Bath and then finally Bournemouth where we arrived on January 21st. Bournemouth is a holiday resort and is filled with hotels of many descriptions. We were housed in one of these, the Arley Glenn, which was a small hotel in nice part of the town quite near the sea coast. The greatest shock to us was probably that although the housing was relatively good, we had no heat whatsoever. While it was not really cold and never frosty in January there was often times when the temperature was in the high forties or low fifties Fahrenheit. We found the food, while sufficient, was very ordinary because of the shortages being experienced in wartime Britain. The other noteworthy feature of life in England was the blackout which was rigorously enforced as a safety measure against marauding enemy aircraft. I recall quite clearly the reaction of passers-by when spotting a home in the early evening where the heavy black drapes had not been pulled. They would rush to the door demanding that the owner look to the blackout. Street lights and outdoor signs of all kinds were turned off and even cars had their lamps painted black with light emanating only from a small cross in the otherwise blackened headlight. There was of course very little private car traffic in the cities largely because of the rigid rationing of the gasoline.

On February 9th we were moved from Bournemouth to Hastings or rather St Leonard's, a suburb to the west of Hastings. We moved across by train and were quartered in a new hotel unused but not yet equipped with elevators. We were housed on the 9th floor and had to climb the 9 stories every time we returned to the building. Once we had moved our kit bags up, which was a trial, we soon got used to the climb. The building in which we were housed, the Marine Court Hotel, was right on the sea coast looking south over the English Channel. As you looked down you could see the beach fortifications strung-out along the south coast. These included pill boxes, heavy cement structures with guns pointing out of embrasures or holes in the cement walls, barb wire, and tank traps that were large blocks of cement positioned every few feet to prevent an unimpeded landing by the Germans.

The town was crawling with soldiers, many of them Canadians who were stationed there to repel any German invasion which of course was not now being planned because of Hitler's current concentration on Russia. Some of the civilian population had been evacuated from the exposed coast. There were many anti-aircraft guns located here and there but during our stay these were rarely fired. There was some evidence of bomb damage but nothing spectacular. It was while we were here that the Germans decided to bring home, through the Straits of Dover, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. These pocket battleships had been used to raid allied convoys in the Atlantic and after an abortive raid had put into St Nazaire on the west coast of France where they were being continuously bombed by the RAF. As these raids were causing damage, the Germans decided to return the battleships home to Germany by sending them up through the English Channel which at Hastings is roughly 30 miles wide. A major battle developed both in the air and sea and although the Germans were successful in getting the ships through they were badly damaged with the most successful allied attacks being from mines dropped by aircraft. Many aircraft were lost during the day both Allied and German. While we did not know of the battle until after the event, I recall hearing the firing of guns and the explosion of bombs at various times during the day. As well there were a number of low flying fighter aircraft coming in from the sea and pulling up just as they reached our building.
Although the British papers were full of criticism of the reaction time of the Navy and Air force in not preventing the escape of the German battleships, the damage caused to them was such as to put them out of contention for many months while they were being repaired.

On February 20th there was a call for volunteers to attend a course on what was termed general reconnaissance which was to start at Blackpool, Lancashire. I volunteered and on the next day we were put on the train and moved to Blackpool. We passed through London on the way and when being transferred from Waterloo Station in the south to Euston Station I recall seeing for the first time Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and many other places. Wartime London in mid-winter was a rather forbidding place with all the bombed out homes and buildings, the rows of sandbags around entrances to some buildings and the ever present balloon barrages. These balloons were put up above the major cities to keep marauding enemy aircraft from making low flying strafing attacks. The balloons were held in place by long wires and of course an aircraft would be afraid to come below the balloons for fear of hitting the wires. The existence of the balloons often gave rise to the expression particularly when one was feeling down on things British- "If they cut the balloon cables the Island would sink into the sea."

We moved into the Grand Hotel in Lytham St Annes a suburb of Blackpool. The hotel provided good accommodation facing west to the Irish Sea but of course the regular beds and furniture of the hotel had been moved out and we slept on regulation army cots. Lytham St Annes was located near the airport at Squires Gate and to get there we would take a commuter train from the hotel to the airport.

The course at Squires Gate lasted for about 4 weeks during which time we studied aircraft and ship recognition signals both wireless and aldis or lamp some navigation and meteorology. There was also some flying as a navigator in trips over the Irish Sea. At the end of the period I was posted to Thornaby, Yorkshire near the city of Middlesborough. Our stay at Blackpool, the Coney Island of Britain, was rather enjoyable because of the entertainment facilities. These we took advantage of as well as frequenting the many bars in the area. It was here that, for the first time, we experienced the friendliness of the Lancashire people . This was often manifested by local people ordering rounds of beer for the group. On March 30th we were allowed to go on leave, to report to Thornaby on the 13th of April.

We went first to London and found accommodation at a Canadian YMCA hostel located at Leinster Square. The cost was two shillings six pence for bed and Breakfast. Here we remained until April 13th visiting such places as Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London, the Houses of Parliament, Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, Madame Tussaud's as well the British and other museums. In most cases these visits were arranged by volunteers at the Beaver Club, a gathering place for Canadian service men and women located in Trafalgar Square near Canada House. In the case of the visit to Westminster Abbey we were escorted by a British Member of Parliament Sir Jocelyn Lucas. The visit took place on Easter Sunday and we were able to attend the Service and sit in the Choir Stalls in the row behind the choir. All of these places were extremely interesting for us particularly if one were interested in history.

On April 13th we reported to Thornaby, but found that the course would not start for another week and so were sent on another week’s leave. This time we decided to go north to Edinburgh. We had decided to step of in Newcastle on the way and were then delayed and arrived in Edinburgh in the blackout at 4:30 in the morning. Here we found everything closed but were able to spend a few hours in the waiting room of the Overseas Club. Later on in the day we got a room at the Royal Hotel on Princess Street that cost 12 shillings and six pence per day.

We spent the next five days in Edinburgh climbing Arthur's Seat, a nearby mountain, touring Edinburgh castle and the War Memorial and the Zoo. In the evening we would go to the pubs, to a film or to a dance. In the case of the latter there were always places that were operated for the servicemen who were on leave and away from home. At the end of that week I went with Jerry Walsh, a navigator friend from Cumberland, Ontario, to Liverpool to stay with a sister of his mother. For the next two days, Mrs Mason looked after us, a cup of tea first thing in the morning and then bacon and eggs for breakfast and during the day we were on our own. Like parts of London, we found Liverpool very badly bombed . On the second day we first visited two more uncles of Jerry's and then took a cousin, Joan, to a film with us. The film starred Edward G Robinson " Lone Wolf takes a Chance". We returned to Thornaby on the 21st of April.

                                                                          Chapter 4. Between Tours

On arrival back in England we reported first to Gosport down near Portsmouth. We were immediately sent on two weeks leave with instructions to report to Thornaby, Yorkshire as a crew at the end of that period. The two Canadians Doug Reid and myself started off by going to London where we had arranged for accommodation at The Salvation Army Hostel. On June 9th I went into Royal Canadian Air Force Headquarters in Lincolns Inn Fields and found that my commission had come through and that I had been promoted to a pilot officer effective March 3, 1943. I had had some indication that this was a possibility in March when I had to appear for interviews before the squadron Wing Commander and the Station Commander at Gibraltar.

This meant a change and improvement in lifestyle from a flight sergeant to a commissioned officer and also an increase in pay. I had to be outfitted with new uniforms for which an allowance of £100 was provided. As well Royal Canadian Air Force Headquarters provided me with coupons to take to a tailoring establishment for the purchase of material which of course in wartime London was severely rationed. I went immediately to Bailey and Weatherill, a tailor located on Regent Street next to Austin Reed another well-known clothing store, where I ordered and was measured for uniforms.
Among other changes I now no longer received -- received my pay at what was known as a pay parade- as a commissioned officer my salary was deposited in a bank of my choice which in my case was a Branch of Lloyds Bank located on the Haymarket a street in London. I could write cheques on this account and could have my mess bill paid by drawings from the account. The mess bill covered chiefly drinks at the bar but also pipe tobacco both of which were paid for by signing a bar chit with full payment by cheque at the end of the month. Another change was that as a commissioned officer I could no longer stay at the Salvation Army Hostel but could find comparable accommodation and I moved into the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Club in Grosvenor Square. It was a step up in society for me although the actual accommodation was not too different from that provided by the Salvation Army Hostel. In addition to its location the club, formerly the home of an Italian millionaire, had a gold lined step-in bath tub but not for general use. The cost for the accommodation, merely a cot in a room with many others, was five shillings per night, less than a dollar a day. Meals could be obtained at the club but were extra.

My uniforms were ready on June 12th, three days after the order was placed and the total bill for the two uniforms, greatcoat, two shirts and a forage cap and flat hat came to £55. On the following day, Doug Reid and I attended a concert at the Albert Hall in London- the concert to celebrate the birth of Edvard Grieg and under the patronage of King Hakon of Norway who was also present. The orchestra was the London Philharmonic conducted by Dr Malcolm Sargent and one of the guest artists was Dame Myra Hess one of the leading British pianists of the time. To me the concert was
memorable because it introduced me to The Peer Gynt Suite, perhaps Grieg's most famous composition and long one of my favourite pieces of music.

During this stay in London my diary indicates that there were air raids on June 13th, 14th and 15th with bombs dropped in each case. However there were relatively few aircraft involved and although one could hear the air raid sirens and the anti-aircraft guns, there was no effort made on the part of the populace to go to air raid shelters. On June 15th we went to Coastal Command Headquarters at Northwood near London to enquire about the results of our U-boat attack. This enquiry merely confirmed what we already knew that the drop of depth charges had been an undershoot but we still did not know whether the resulting explosion was near enough to cause damage to the vessel.

Leave at the farm with brothers Gordon, Jack, Wendel and Donald

Casualty Rates:
RAF Coastal Command: 2,060 aircraft lost to all causes, 5,866 Coastal Command personnel were killed in action. Coastal Command flew 240,000 sorties or one death per 41 sorties.

RAF Bomber Command: 55,573 were killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew (a 44.4 percent death rate), a further 8,403 were wounded in action, and 9,838 became prisoners of war. Bomber Command flew 392,000 sorties or one death per 7 sorties.

These figures do not tell the whole story since missions varied greatly in the degree of danger. Doug reports 26 crew losses over the years of the account. Most of them were close friends from training, from home or from operations. Squadrons typically had 10-15 aircraft so at times losses could be very high.

Hugh Douglas MacDermid 1920-2005

I stayed the night in Killin and managed to explore the village and went with a young couple to a local dance in the evening where eightsome reels were being performed. The next morning I was up early and caught the train back to Stirling and then took a bus to Crieff. As an example of the hospitality often shown to service men I mention the following incident. As I was standing waiting for the bus at Stirling an elderly lady came up to me and began to talk to me. She undoubtedly had noticed the Canada flashes on the shoulders of my service tunic. This lady had been out to Canada several times and wished to talk about the country. She got on the bus with me and sat next to me. She was a friendly, motherly soul and insisted on paying my fare from Stirling to Crieff, saying that it would be her good deed for the day. I enjoyed her company and she continued to point out to me the places of interest along the way. When we arrived in Crieff we found that I had 50 minutes before departure of the bus west to Comrie and so she insisted on taking me to a tea room to supply me with tea and cakes at her expense. After saying goodbye and promising to send her a card, I boarded the bus at Crieff and went west to Locherlour, the name of Finlay McDiarmid's farm. I was delighted to meet Finlay and his wife Winnie who were both relatively young.

I again journeyed to Ottawa to spend the day at the recruiting quarters on O'Connor Street. Again the medical examinations were very detailed and I remember accompanied with other candidates spending most of the day, naked and unclothed, shepherded from Doctor to Doctor, being prodded and probed and subjected to different tests, all of which was most unsettling to a local farm-boy and one unused to impersonal and uncaring military procedures . The tests included an electrocardiogram, a new procedure which was given to some thousands of air crew on entry. There were also apparently simple tests of blowing into a tube to determine one's lung capacity and another of holding one's breath for over two minutes. The latter of which, although relatively easy for a young person in good health, presented some difficulty on the initial try. At the end of the day I was told that I had passed all tests with flying colours and was paraded before an officer seated with his hat on under a flag to take the oath of allegiance and to sign papers committing myself to obey the orders of the Royal Canadian Air Force for the duration of hostilities. We were then escorted to stores and there issued with my first Air Force uniform. My civilian clothes were put into a box and mailed home and I, now outfitted in blue, was put on the train to go overnight to Toronto, there to commence my new life at Number 1 Manning Depot.

It was here that I was initiated into service life at the unit located at the Central Canada Exhibition Grounds at Toronto. We were housed in the large area used for general exhibition purposes above which was the area which had been used for the poultry show . Double iron frame bunks had been installed, 1,000 bunks upstairs and 1,000 on the lower floor. Along the end of each bunkroom was a row of washbasins and taps for morning washing. I was housed in the lower bunkroom. It was rarely that the bunkrooms were quiet even at night after lights out there could be and often was an uproar going on. At times it was said that there were as many as 1400 airmen housed in the area. Almost as soon as we got there it was "pants down, shirt up, penis out". Imagine a couple of hundred men standing in a line waiting for a short arm inspection. The reason for the innumerable inspections was the fear of venereal disease that was much more deadly prior to the advent of the wonder drugs of sulpha and penicillin. The first day was taken up with orientation, locating the washrooms, the cafeteria and other landmarks. We were placed in flights with a Corporal or Sergeant in charge. Of course at this time we were classed as Aircraftsmen 2nd class with our pay being $1.10 per day. All clothing was provided as well as sleeping accommodation and meals. We needed money for entertainment only.

At Manning Pool our time seemed to be taken up with marching and squad and rifle drill. We would march down the streets in Toronto to Sunnyside and if it was snowing might well drill in the cattle ring area. The purpose of this was the indoctrination into air force life where you marched everywhere under direction with the Sergeant calling out the time with "Left" "Right". You would march to the medical officer’s quarters to get vaccinations and injections for your protection from every known disease. In the words of Ted Barris in Behind The Glory,2 “the object was to reduce every volunteer to the lowest common denominator so that the Air Force could rebuild you in its own image. In most cases, the architect of this rebuilding was a foul mouthed raspy-voiced unsympathetic senior drill sergeant.”

While on duty we paraded everywhere. No excuse was missed for having another parade. One that I often recall was the pay parade. Usually we would be lined up in alphabetical order in accordance with a listing from the paymaster's office. The paymaster an officer would sit at a small table in the middle of the Hall and we would be marched smartly up in alphabetical order and as our turn arrived would take the last four or five steps to the paymaster under the watchful eye of the drill sergeant, there to give him a smart salute and call out loudly your name and number in my case H. D. MacDermid R82232. The paymaster would then count out your entitlement and ask you to sign in the space provided. After finishing you were expected to stand back and give a second salute and march quickly and smartly away.
It was while at Manning Pool that we experienced an inspection from Air Vice Marshall Billy Bishop which I recall clearly mainly because we had to stand to attention without a move for a lengthy period during which time many of the men were falling out or fainting. In fact, I was one of those to so disgrace myself. It was only later that we learned to stand at attention in a relaxed way so as to avoid the displeasure of the drill sergeant.

We were given about 4 days off at Christmas, 1940 and then reported back to find that I had been transferred to the airport at Mountain View, Ontario near the town of Picton. On the 1st of February 1941, we were transferred to the airport at Camp Borden where we were assigned the task of security guards. Here we remained for the next two months marching up and down around the airport both night and day with an unloaded rifle in theory on the lookout for spies or 5th columnists. I do not recall ever seeing anyone around even during the night other than our own non-commissioned officers who sometimes during the depth of night would make an appearance as a check on our watchfulness. I recall one very cold night walking with a rifle over my shoulder nearly freezing when an officer came out with a bottle of gin which was highly relished.
It was here that I was to experience at first hand death by accident when a young pilot practicing take-offs and landings (circuits and bumps) at night, crash-landed a Yale aircraft which caught fire and subsequently exploded, throwing metal parts intermingled with blood and guts in a wide surrounding area.

We lived in H type barrack blocks again in double bunks. Lights would go out at 10.30 or 11pm and after that the barrack block would settle down. I recall one night when getting ready for bed two of the men on a bet going out into the snow to put on an impromptu wrestling match stark-naked.

I remained at Camp Borden until April 22nd when we were moved to #1 Initial Training Unit (ITS) located at the then Hunt Club area just to the north of Eglinton Avenue in Toronto. This was a spit and polish unit. There were daily inspections of barrack blocks and clothing. Shoes had to be expertly polished, pants pressed, buttons polished and clothes cleaned, beds had to be expertly made with hospital corners and without a wrinkle and all possessions had to be stowed away in the one kit bag you were allowed to have. There were places where one had to walk at attention and salute the flag when you came abreast of it. There were daily gatherings on the parade square with inspections by impeccably dressed officers. We were given courses in aircraft recognition, ship recognition, weather, elementary navigation, principles of flight and taught the differences between navy battleships, cruisers, destroyers, corvettes and so on. One other important course was time in the link trainer a device like an airplane which had a fuselage, wings and an open cockpit with all normal controls but it was a simulator that never left the ground. By the 29th of May 1941 upon graduation from ITS we received a pair of cloth propellers to hang up on our sleeves which identified us a leading aircraftsmen. We were also given a white flannel flash to wear in our forage caps that identified us as air crew in training and we received an increase in pay which I think brought us to about $1.50 per day.
From I.T.S in Toronto we were moved to # 7 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS) located near Windsor, Ontario. Here we were to learn to fly and our first aircraft was the Fleet Finch a small biplane that is a plane with two sets of wings one above the other and two open cockpits. The pupil sat in front and the instructor behind. Both had flying controls. Unfortunately my term at Windsor lasted only 11 days. By this time I had flown 7 hours in the air and had decided that that was enough for me. The report by the Medical Interviewer is quoted in part hereunder and is relatively interesting.

"Wished to be a pilot, good results at ITS but at EFTS his instructor first advised him he would be tough and apparently was. Swore at pupil continuously in air and would cuff him over the head. On the ground he was quite a nice chap. Result was that the trainee now has lost all self confidence in himself a s pilot material, likes flying and wishes to remuster as an observer. Summary: Quiet reserved type good motivator and dependable should make a good observer".

A sequel to my experience is a note in the book Behind the Glory by Ted Barris relating to Bob Eaton, the instructor concerned:
"But he hated instructing, remembered his colleague Gus Bennett and didn't hesitate to tell the chief flying instructor or the supervisory officer that he didn't like it, that he wasn't good for his pupils. The C.O. finally posted him out to a bombing and gunnery School to tow drogues (airborne targets) for air gunnery practice. This dreary task was viewed by most pilots as a fate worse than death."

Eleven days saw the end of my term as pilot, perhaps it was just as well as at the time I remember that I was lacking in confidence in my ability to fly. I do recall the handling of the aircraft in the air with some enjoyment, putting it into spins and turns. Perhaps with an instructor who was more willing to give encouragement I might have made a good pilot. However this was not to be and on June 10th, 1941, I found myself on the train to Trenton, Ontario to what was called KTS a holding unit for the training of Air Observers. On June 12th, I went by train to Brandon, Manitoba a Manning Depot much like Toronto. The facilities were the old fair grounds but there was one difference in that the numbers of people in Brandon was much smaller. I remained at Brandon until July 21st and was then posted to #7 Air Observers School at Portage La Prairie. It was here that I was to spend the next three months learning the skills of an air observer or navigator. The subjects that were stressed were dead reckoning a method of navigating based on track, air speed, ground speed and wind direction and speed, dead reckoning with directional finding( written), compasses and instruments, signals, maps and charts, meteorology, photography, and reconnaissance. The course consisted of full days of lectures, interspersed occasionally with some physical exercise and of course some actual navigating in the air. During the three months I was flown 52 hours in an Anson Aircraft in which I was the navigator. There were exams at the end of the period and I received a total of 775 out of 1000 with the remark: "Works hard and is conscientious ... results satisfactory. Very quiet and unassuming. Should make a good observer." My standing in the class was 18 out of 42.

The position of an air observer was considered to be a vital part of any bomber crew. According to Ted Barris in Behind the Glory, the Royal Air Force establishment put a lot of emphasis on the position in its training manuals. The British Air Ministry went as far as to say that:
"In many respects the air observer has the most responsible and exacting task in a bomber aircraft... Mentally he must always be on the alert... he must estimate and plot the course, be able to take snap readings, judge weather conditions, look out for ice and keep alternative objectives and landing grounds in the back of his mind... he must show a marked ability to handle figures, and be sufficiently skilled in signals to take a portion of the work off the wireless operator . Above all he must never make mistakes ... He is a wise and considerate pilot who appreciates the difficulties of his air observer."

We finished the course on the 11th of October 1941 and had a graduation party at the Marlborough Hotel in Winnipeg. I recall we took a taxi into Winnipeg from Portage La Prairie to celebrate.

From Portage la Prairie we were posted to Paulson, Manitoba #7 Bombing and Gunnery School. Here we arrived on the 12th of October 1941. As the title suggests the subjects studied here were bombing and gunnery. In neither of these did I shine. There were lectures on the theory of bombing and gunnery and practice in each field. In the case of gunnery there was even practice in firing a machine gun in the air. The object then was to see how many bullets you could hit into a drogue being towed behind a second aircraft flying a parallel course perhaps a hundred yards to one side. The Vickers machine gun was fired from a fixed pedestal in the aircraft and you operated the gun in a standing position looking out from behind a dome in the top of the aircraft. One's head was outside the aircraft when firing but you were securely tied into the aircraft by means of a G string which was clipped onto a harness which you wore. The object of the harness was to prevent you from floating out of the aircraft in the event the pilot had gone into a dive and the plane fell faster than you.

Thornaby was an Operational Training Unit for Lockheed Hudson aircraft and for RAF Squadron 483 to which I had been posted. The Hudson was an American aircraft built for the British. It carried a crew of four. On our arrival at Thornaby, I was crewed up with three others namely Doug Reid, the pilot from Kingston, Ontario and Bill Hughes and Sam Malherbe, two Australians. Bill a native of Sydney and Sam a native of Blue Sea Lake, Victoria. We remained at Thornaby, from April 20 to July 8, 1942 and did some flying as a crew.

In addition to the flying there were also classes in subjects such as aircraft recognition, navigation, airmanship, armament, signals, photography and intelligence.

A Hudson on the airfield at Gibraltar

During our stay there were several minor air raids and incidents of damage by sabotage. These included the successful attachment of mines to shipping in the harbour in Algeciras Bay. As well, spies were active in Algeciras and La Linea, in particular on the lookout for aircraft carrying VIPs (Very Important Persons). Indeed there were several incidences of British aircraft being intercepted and shot down by German fighters in the Bay of Biscay where it was thought that Germans were on the lookout for the particular plane having been alerted to its passage by sources at Gibraltar. An example of this was the loss of an aircraft carrying Leslie Howard a prominent British film actor who had played a leading role in the American film "Gone With the Wind" and another being General Sikorski, the head of Polish forces in Britain. Late in our stay Winston Churchill arrived to stay one night on his way back from Tunisia to England.

Rumor had it that he was not above appearing at the Guard house to oversee the inspection of all airmen leaving the premises to ensure that they were wearing only regulation dress. This inspection even applied to socks which could only be the regular RCAF issue. Of course your bed and immediate area had to be spotlessly clean and tidy, shoes polished, buttons shined uniform pressed and hair cut military style every two weeks.

From Paulson, we were transferred to the Astro Navigation School at Rivers, Manitoba. Here there were two main subjects, astro navigation (that is navigation by the use of bearings on stars) and plotting. While at Rivers we flew eleven times, seven of these at night navigating by the stars. Our total flying time at Rivers was 32 hours, 17 of which were at night. Our stay at Rivers coincided with a period of extremely cold weather and I recall that cold hands and fingers in the poorly heated cabin of the Anson aircraft made it difficult to adjust the sextant to get readings on various stars, including our favourite Polaris (used to determine latitude). The actual sightings were taken through the astrodome, a glass dome on the upper side of the aircraft in which you stood, while flying over the dark but snow covered and bitterly cold landscape of western Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan. In the examination at the end of the course I received 127 marks out of 150 for what was termed plotting and 50 out of 100 in the written part. In the total assessment I received 335 marks out of 500 and ranked 20th out of 40 in the class. I was given a pass as an average navigator with the notation" possibly officer material at a later date." I graduated from Rivers on December 22nd 1941 and promoted to the rank of Sergeant, and assigned for overseas duty.

This period of training in Western Canada provided me with my first opportunity to visit relatives in Winnipeg and Saskatoon. On the weekend of our graduation party in Winnipeg I had spent the Saturday evening and Sunday with my father's sister Alice Stanley, and her husband Jack. Also present was Fred Stanley, at that time single and a salesman in the area. Then during my stay at Rivers, Manitoba I was able to get a weekend pass to go to Saskatoon to visit three brothers of my father . This was particularly interesting for me as I was meeting many relatives for the first time. On my arrival I was met by a cousin, Gordon MacDermid, who had also joined the Air Force but at that time was in Ground Crew. I spent most of the Saturday with uncle Hugh MacDermid but stayed overnight with uncle Fred MacDermid. On Saturday evening, Fred and Margie invited me to join them at a cocktail party and as a twenty-one year old trained sergeant observer aircrew member on my way to Europe, I found myself experiencing a rather heady situation to which I was by no means accustomed. There were present much of the Society of Saskatoon before whom I was displayed much to the enjoyment of Fred MacDermid. The weekend concluded with Sunday dinner at uncle Jack MacDermid's although Jack himself, then a Colonel in the army, was absent and after which I was put on the train to return to Rivers.

My training over, I proceeded on embarkation leave that came with the Christmas season. In the period since I had joined the service two momentous events had taken place that would have an effect on the remaining years of the war. The first of these events was the decision by Hitler to attack Russia which he initiated in mid-June 1941. No longer was the British Empire the only opponent of Hitler. Although his unprovoked attack against Stalinist Russia seemed to be succeeding at first, gradually the German attack wore itself out in the cold of late 1941 and the immense distances of Russia. By the time I finished my training in Canada it looked as if Hitler's campaign had stalled. The other event of major importance was the attack by Japan against the United States which was commenced by the deadly assault against Pearl Harbour on December 7th, 1941. With the might of Russia and the United States on the side of Britain and the Empire it soon became clear that the Allies would win and the only question was how long would this take. In the event it was not until 1945 that the conflagration was to end with both Germany and Japan brought to their knees before the victorious Allies.

The farm itself was impressive in size 3,500 acres much of it mountains fit only for forestry and large scale sheep operations. There was also some five hundred acres of agricultural or arable land. The farm rented by Finlay was
Finlay and Winnie McDiarmid at Locherlaur part of a large Estate owned by Sir William Murray who lived on an impressive location overlooking a man-made lake. His home or mansion was named Auchtertyre. Finlay's house, a large quarried stone structure was also in an imposing location on the side of the hills quite high up and looking south. There were mountains behind which gradually rose to a height of 3,000 feet in Ben Chonzie, to the west of Loch Turret near the north end of the property. The buildings were all of stone, the house and even the barn and an innovation was a large water wheel run by penstock from a small lake located some distance up the mountainside above the barn. This wheel was used to provide power for threshing, grinding of grain and other farm uses. Finlay was much of a gentleman farmer with five or more farm helpers including shepherds, ploughmen and other workers. The agricultural workers were housed in good accommodation scattered on sites about the farm. Winnie also had a maid who then lived in a little cottage across the road from the entrance to the main driveway.
I had arrived there about lunch and after eating I went in to Crieff with Winnie to meet Finlay's mother. We returned to the farm for tea in the afternoon and then Finlay took me into Crieff to catch the bus back to Stirling. The reason for the shortness of the trip was that I had made arrangements to go to a home on Loch Goil through the Lady Riders Association. Jack Scissons a friend from Saskatoon had made the arrangements but when the time came he was unable to get away from Thornaby so I went on my own. I went from Stirling to Glasgow where I stayed overnight and then in the afternoon of July 9th took the train from Glasgow to Arrochar where I was met by Mrs Forman my hostess for the next two days. That evening I went out fishing with an elderly Scotchman in Loch Gail, a salt water arm of the sea.
The Lodge, the Forman's House, was a spacious place with very well kept lawns and gardens sloping down to the Loch.4 My hostess was a friendly motherly soul about fifty years of age. Her husband was in the army and at that time stationed in the Orkneys. She had one son in the Navy and three girls all away in various branches of the service. Early next morning she took me out in a sail boat on Loch Goil where we had to compete for space with a submarine that was doing trial dives in the salt water Loch.

Bombing training was done through the use of a bombsight installed in the glass nose of the Fairey Battle aircraft . When the target came into view between parallel lines in the bombsight you released the bomb which was slung on the underside of the aircraft. Of course in the run-up to the target the bomb-aimer had to direct the aircraft to the right or left by instructing the pilot. It was also necessary to make allowance for the speed and direction of the wind. We used eleven and a half pound practice bombs that gave off smoke on impact. The Station Commander at the time was a stern disciplinarian who believed that spit and polish was a virtue and that strict conformity to the code of discipline and dress was a necessity.

RAF Sqn 48 crew Canadians Doug MacDermid and Doug Reid at the front, Australians Bill Hughes and Sam Malherbe behind

It was towards the end of our tour at Gibraltar when they commenced converting the Hudson aircraft to carrying rockets. These were small rockets, six or eight in number placed in pods affixed on the underside of each of the aircraft wings. They could be dropped by aiming the aircraft at a ship or submarine and if correctly aimed would enter the water then level out and penetrate a sub and possibly go through it. By the time we left some of the crews had converted to aircraft with rockets and were successful in attacks on submarines. One of our last trips was made on May 22nd, 1943 when we were sent out to escort a small convoy off Cape St Vincent which had been attacked the night before by a large German aircraft, a Focke-Wulf Condor. When we arrived we found one of the escort vessels circling the damaged vessel which was still in the water. A tug was on the way to tow the stricken vessel into port but in the meantime it was our job to ensure that the vessel was not attacked by a submarine.

My diary indicates that on May 29th we lost four aircraft all from accidents, one of which was attached to our squadron. On June 2nd I made my last trip, a creeping line ahead in the Atlantic just west of the Straits of Gibraltar. This was a particular form of search designed to prevent submarines getting into the Mediterranean. When we landed we were met by our Squadron leader to say that we had finished after flying 86 trips and a total of 503 hours.

The following day we heard that we were posted back to England and would leave as soon as we could get a flight. Our turn came on June 6 when we left Gibraltar at 10 in the evening in a Dakota Transport Aircraft. Like our trip out, the return was quiet and uneventful. Immediately after takeoff we climbed to 10,000 feet flew through the Straits and then continued west to turn north on the West side of Cape St Vincent and then north along the Portuguese Coast and across the Bay of Biscay to make a landfall at the Scilly Isles in Cornwall and then on to land at Hendon, then a small airport at the north of London.

Lockheed “Hudson” coded OY - K 48 Sqn RAF, based in Wick, on patrol to search for submarines off the coast of Scotland in 1942.

Fairy Battle being used for gunnery training

Loch Goil probably with Mrs Forman

On November 2nd a number of squadron crews took advantage of the presence of two British destroyers in Port at Sollum Voe, located at the north end of the Shetlands. We went by bus along the east shore past Lerwick and went aboard one of the destroyers, the HMS Chiddingfold. We were shown around the ship and had tea with some of the crew who were very hospitable to us. It was interesting for us to see life as it was on a destroyer, to see the close proximity in which the men had to live and work, to see the engines, the radio equipment, the depth charges and the large guns. After dinner on the ship we were driven back to Sumburgh, a three hour journey from Sollum Voe. The following day we heard that the charge had been dropped against Sam who greatly relieved immediately got ready to leave for his return to Australia.

Our two Australian crew members were now replaced by two English wireless air gunners, Arthur Best, a delightful young man from Sunderland, Durham Co. and Peter Revel, a young man who had been raised in the lap of luxury and while intelligent and a member of the old school tie set, was overbearing, immature and filled with his own importance. On November 6, Doug Reid, Arthur Best and I went over to a radio location station located near the airport. This station was used to locate precisely German aircraft and shipping and also of course British aircraft in the event of an emergency. Although we relied entirely on my own navigational skills to ensure that we followed the designated track. In the event of our equipment going unserviceable it was always possible but frowned upon to break radio silence and ask for a radio course to base. I recall doing this only once during my service career.
On November 9th we heard that two of the Wellington aircraft that were replacing us were lost on trips. We made our last operational trip from Sumburgh on November 9th, a trip North east towards Norway but returned home early because of high seas and low clouds and deteriorating weather conditions at base. One of the aircraft out that day was forced down into the sea and two crew members were lost, the remainder, although suffering from exposure, were picked up by a rescue vessel.
On November 12th we heard that we were finally going to leave Sumburgh with the suggestion being that we would go overseas to Africa or Asia. The following day we cleared the airport and managed to get a flight from Sumburgh to Dyce and then took the train south to Gosport in the south of England.

Our stay in the Shetlands had been interesting but of course the weather was one of the dismal factors that we would long remember. In mid-November the sun rose about 9 o'clock and had set by 3 or 3:30 in the afternoon. There was some snow although never an accumulation on the ground during our stay there.

The Shetlands are composed of about 100 wind swept treeless Islands, the ground nearly everywhere covered with grasses or gorse and of course is excellent for sheep rearing which together with the fishing are the mainstays of the economy. Perhaps the phenomenon that will always remain with me was the violence of the wind storms and the height of the waves in the nearby sea. A second event that has remained with me has to do with takeoffs in early morning. I recall seeing on a number of occasions, as we gathered speed going down the runway, any rabbits that had been dozing on the pavement perhaps because of its radiating warmth during the night, frantically leaping in every direction to get out of the way of the on-coming aircraft. Quite often we would take-off on the north south runway and as we lifted off the ground had to ensure that our angle of climb was sufficient to take us up and over a hill of about one hundred feet at the southern-most point of the Island. Throughout the area there are ruins of many old forts, castles, and houses including some identified as Viking homes and farms, remnants of the Norse rule which continued until about the year 1469.

Navigation north of the Shetlands was largely by what was known as dead reckoning. You would arrange a course with the wind direction and speed obtained from the Operations room prior to departure. With this and your known cruising speed, about 110 knots per hour with the Hudson, a course could be computed. If the wind direction and speed were accurate and the pilot held a steady speed, in theory you should remain on track providing you had taken account of variation in magnetic fields and compass deviation within the aircraft. Once aloft you could check the wind direction and speed by the drift and wind lane method. Under this procedure you simply took a sighting along the wind lanes over the sea with a hand compass and by plotting on a Mercator chart one could determine the actual wind direction and speed. However if the wind was very high and much stronger than your plotted speed, one could easily find that you were miles off course. There were ways of checking your position by radio loop bearings and of course by visual sightings of land providing you could identify the your land point. We always flew below the clouds for purposes of visibility and as the area was nearly always cloud covered particularly in the fall of the year, our height was nearly always below a thousand feet. Bearing in mind that there were mountains in the area that were above one thousand feet and the tops were often shrouded in clouds, flying in the clouds was hazardous, particularly when approaching base. While we were stationed at Wick these hazards were brought to mind by the accidental death of the Duke of Kent, a brother of King George VI, whose plane had crashed against a mountain in the neighbouring county of Rosshire.

On November 18th we caught the six o'clock night train out of Aberdeen for London where we arrived at 8:30 the next morning. There seemed to be no urgency as to the time of our arrival in Gosport so we decided to take two days off in London. I recall our first task in London was to ride our bicycles, which we had brought with us on the train, from King’s Cross to Waterloo Station across the Thames, not very far but to the novices that we were, an exciting experience. We spent the 18th and 19th attending films and sampling the pub life in London and then left for Gosport on November 20th. When we arrived there we found that there was no urgency and we found ourselves waiting in the barracks with no known departure date. Finally on November 26th we were asked to ferry a Hudson aircraft from Gosport north to Wick. We got away later that day but due to atrocious weather we landed first at an airport near Peterborough to remain overnight and then went on to Thornaby, in Yorkshire where we again had to put down. It was not until December 1st that the weather improved sufficiently to allow us to continue on with our trip to Wick, where we delivered the aircraft. The return trip was by train through London was uneventful but took a full day and a night.

On arrival back at Gosport there was still no word of our departure and so we went on leave again to London where we remained until December 13th. Much of the time we spent in attending films and shows and enjoying the entertaining aspects of pub life. On December 18th we heard finally that we would be leaving on the following Monday but our destination still not revealed to us. However, in view of the fact that we were issued with tropical kit- and two Khaki battle dress uniforms, including shorts, it was clear that we were going south to warmer climates. On December 20th we flew from Gosport to Portreath, an airport near a small town of the same name located in the south western tip of the county of Cornwall.
Here we waited for two days and finally, on December 22nd we heard that we would be called at 12:30 in the morning for take-off to Gibraltar. We went to bed about 9 pm and as expected we were called at 12:30, had breakfast and then went to the Operations room to get briefed for the trip. We finally lifted off at 3:40 am. The take-off was slow and not without some danger because we were about two thousand pounds over-

weight due to the extra fuel we carried in special tanks within the body of the aircraft. This fuel was needed because the distance from Portreath to Gibraltar was well beyond the normal flying range of the Hudson. To reduce the chances of interception by German fighters we were routed well out to sea when crossing the Bay of Biscay. This lengthened the trip but increased our chances of arriving safely. I recall that the night was beautifully clear and we flew at 10,000 feet, much higher than usual and near our maximum height without oxygen. By 7:30 am the north west tip of Spain came into view and we then continued on down the west coast of Spain and Portugal and turned east at Cape St Vincent to go through the Strait of Gibraltar and landed at the airport at 12:05 noon in bright sunshine and nice warm weather.

The airport at Gibraltar was necessarily small with the one runway running from the Mediterranean westward across the narrow Isthmus to the Bay of Algeciras. On the west side the runway had been extended out into the Bay and when we were there it was constantly being lengthened further with rock and other debris. The airport was located at the north end of the Rock where the ground was flat and level. The rock itself was slightly over 1,400 feet in height and went up perpendicular at the north end. We lived in Nissen huts located in the level area at the north end of the rock where they continued to blast rock daily. All the traffic from Spain to the Rock had to cross over the runway which was still the case when we visited the area in the winter of 1992. At the north end of the airport was Spanish territory which during our stay was guarded by Spanish troops with gun emplacements and barbed wire. At the time, of course, General Franco the Spanish Dictator was pro-German though officially neutral and if we strayed over Spanish territory while in the air we would certainly be fired on by Spanish Forces.

The warm Mediterranean weather provided a nice change for us but did not suggest the Christmas season which was upon us two days after our arrival. Our Christmas dinner consisted of chicken, pork, peas, dressing, apple sauce, a pint of beer and plum pudding, capped off with oranges and some nuts. On December 26th and 28th we were out flying east into the Mediterranean looking for submarines. On the 29th of December we were out again this time doing a search for lifeboats, all that remained of a ship that had been sunk by a German submarine. We found four lifeboats with people in them and were able to direct them to a destroyer which was in the area. We continued the search looking for a dinghy but without success. The sea was quite rough in the area of the sinking but by the end of our flight it was calming and on our arrival home the weather had turned for the better. In the afternoon we went in swimming on the east side of the rock a short distance from our Nissen hut. We finished the year with a further flight on December 31st, this time looking for submarines east in the Mediterranean near the city of Algiers.8 The weather was bad but we were able to remain out our scheduled time of six hours.
Our arrival at Gibraltar had coincided with the build-up of the British, American, Free French and later Canadian Armies to continue the war in Africa and later in Sicily and finally in Italy itself.9 Gibraltar was perhaps the most important stop for aircraft as well as navy and merchant shipping on the way to supply the landed forces. Although there was only one runway and space was at a premium, there were many hundreds perhaps even thousands of aircraft being flown through there from Britain and thence on to North Africa. The total distance from the Rock to the Spanish border lined with barbed wire entanglements and fixed gun positions with barrels pointing at us was perhaps no more than five hundred yards and its width about the same. Into this space was crammed living quarters, aircraft maintenance facilities and parked aircraft. While in the air we were very careful not to stray over the Spanish border for that inevitably invited fire from their guns. I recall American fighter bombers called Lightnings or P-38s passing through. It was absolutely necessary that they land for refueling as even the trip from England to Gibraltar could only be made with extra fuel tanks. In one or two of these cases where there was a whole squadron of aircraft arriving shepherded by one aircraft that carried a navigator, the American fighters roamed far over the Spanish border while waiting to land but were not fired on. Although the Spanish at the time were pro-German they may well have been overwhelmed by the number and strength of the American display.

Our stay at Gibraltar although uncertain as there were rumours that we would be moved to Africa, was to continue from the 23rd of December 1942 until June 7, 1943. During this period we did a lot of flying, out every second or third day on trips with air time of from six to seven hours. When not flying we would be on standby to take off on short notice if we were needed. We would often arrive on convoy protection at daybreak and so we were up long before first light to eat, to get our instructions and then to prepare for flight. On other days we would join a convoy in mid-afternoon and remain with it until it was completely dark and only then return home to base for A Hudson on the airfield at Gibraltar debriefing and finally to end the day with a late meal. Our trips would be east in the Mediterranean or west in the Atlantic, in the latter case flying down along the Moroccan coast or due west along the Spanish or Portuguese coasts out into the Atlantic. On a number of trips when flying east in the Mediterranean we landed to refuel at bases in Africa such as Tafaroui near Oran, and Blida near Algiers and then returned home either later that day or the next morning. On a number of occasions we were fired on by Spanish batteries when we strayed too close to the Spanish shore. On more than one occasion we could hear the flak bursts but never knew for certain whether the shots were merely warnings or the result of poor marksmanship.

On March 1st we were sent west through the Straits of Gibraltar against a very strong head wind which calmed down somewhat as we approached the west side of Portugal but then found ourselves in the midst of a number of heavy cumulonimbus clouds, or thunderstorms. In one particular cloud the vertical currents became very violent tossing us up and down and in one case sending the nose of the airplane up with the result that the airspeed dropped off radically so that the aircraft nearly stalled. In the case of a stall the aircraft loses flying capability and will drop like a stone. Although badly shaken by the incident, when we got below the cloud Doug Reid got the aircraft nose down and the aircraft picked up speed and resumed normal flight. In all, the day’s trip was not too bad, except for the rough weather.

On March 4th we were given a tour through the tunnels which had been made in the Rock. I recall entering the tunnel through an opening in the north east corner of the Rock. Near this entrance, in a long narrow passage way, were three flame throwers which would no doubt serve their purpose in any attempted invasion. Higher up on the north side of the Rock there were openings from the tunnels to the north side of the rock in which were installed 4 inch guns or cannons all pointing to the Spanish border. We were told that there was enough tunneled space to house all of the defenders with rations for more than two months. The living quarters, not then being used, were probably satisfactory though undoubtedly damp. There was water dripping from the rock ceiling in many places. Of course there were large gun emplacements in other places but most noticeably at the south end of the Rock facing the North African coast, there to attack enemy shipping going between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.10
During the months of March and April we were bugged continuously by engine cuts or engine failures. The cuts were rather strange in that usually the engine would ignite again after priming. A cut of one engine could be dealt with providing you had sufficient height but a cut of the two engines at the same time could be disastrous. Because of the number and the general nature of the engine failures, specialists were flown in from the United States to try and locate the cause but when we left in June there seemed to be no certain answer for the problem. Many thought that the problem may have been merely condensation in the fuel lines. Since the cuts were widespread they could have been the cause of two of the losses we had during the period.

On April 11th, while on convoy duty off the African coast we attacked a U-boat on the surface of the sea heading towards a convoy that we were escorting. The U-boat dived as soon as it saw us diving on it and although we thought that our depth charges had straddled the hull, we could see no debris to indicate a certain kill. The few seconds after the sighting was an exciting time for me for in addition to notifying Doug Reid the pilot who had to make the attack it was my job to set the fuses on the depth charges and to start the camera that would automatically make a photographic record of the attack. We immediately notified the troopship by radio and by aldis lamp and also notified an accompanying navy destroyer which continued the search. Unfortunately when the film was developed on our return it revealed that our drop was somewhat short which was preferable to overshooting but not as good as a straddle.

Weather was of course a factor at Gibraltar and was the cause of a number of losses. As an example, on March 12th three aircraft took off, one turned back shortly after departure and the other two were lost, one at sea and the other crashing into a mountain along the Spanish coast.

Another incident that I will mention included a day when after returning from a long trip, Peter Revel, our air gunner, when leaving the rear gun turret forgot to put the guns to the safe position. This meant that anyone getting into the turret might accidentally set off two machine guns each firing at about 700 rounds per minute . Unfortunately, the aircraft had been parked with the turret facing the Spanish border and when the armourer got in to check it for the flight next day he touched the firing button and set off the turret firing towards the manned Spanish border. The Spanish guards sprang into action but fortunately no one was hurt and they withheld fire perhaps coming to the conclusion as to the cause. An apology was hastily sent over. The sequel was that the aircrew were again admonished to ensure that the gun turret was left on safe when leaving the aircraft.

Our free time was filled with swimming, very occasionally football, walks around the area, tours of the Rock and lectures on the history of the Rock, its defenses and of course refresher talks on our own concerns including detailed examination of each navigation log. One lecture that I recall was given by the Governor of Gibraltar, Lieutenant- General Sir Mason Noel McFarlane, on his experiences on the British Military Mission to Moscow soon after Russia was attacked by the Germans. Other lectures that I recall were on the subject of sabotage and lectures on German ships, and aircraft types.
It was at Gibraltar that I was in attendance at a funeral at sea. The funeral followed from the death of a crew by accident at the airport. Because of shortage of burial space it was the practice to bury the crew at sea. I was one of a party selected to help carry the crew to a small ship and then after moving well out to sea in the Mediterranean a short service was conducted by the Anglican Padre at the end of which the stretchers one by one were raised so as to allow the bodies weighted down to slide off the stretcher from under the Union Jack and to sink into the depths of the sea. In this particular case I knew the crew members, one of them being a native of Saskatoon.
I

n a different vein was an ancient ceremony that was performed in a small square just inside the defensive wall which ran from the rock down and into Algeciras Bay. The ceremony was known as the ceremony of the Keys. There would be a band in attendance with ceremonial guard of soldiers, and finally the Governor himself or his representative. The Honour Guard would march smartly into the square performing intricate squad turns. At an appropriate time a huge set of keys would be brought out by the officer of the Guard and the guard would proceed to close and lock the gates with one of the keys. At a certain point the presiding sergeant major would call out “Whose Keys” and the answer would come back "the King’s Keys". When performed well it was a stirring performance which would bring some relief to the boring tedium of life on the rock. On one occasion however when the call came for “Whose Keys the reply came back "Macconachies". This was considered an insult to the Governor or through him to His Majesty and of course the local Army Police went streaming after the offender. Macconachies was a much despised Brand of canned food which though basically nutritious was often tasteless and generally spurned by servicemen. It was consisted of both meat and potatoes in the same can. The ceremony was not unlike the changing of the Guard as performed each summer on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

Our service uniform at Gibraltar was khaki shorts with short sleeved khaki shirt with rank displayed on your right sleeve. This was rounded out with oxford type shoes and knee length wool stockings. A large tropical hat was also provided and when flying we always carried a revolver slung in a pouch in a waist belt. This was the only place that I carried a revolver and in this case it was issued for protection in the event of forced landings in North Africa. We also carried an identification card in Arabic designed again for our protection in north Africa.

The Lodge in 1943. See the Endnote for its current use.

RCAF Sqn 415 & RAF Sqn 524 Wellington crew May 15, 1944 - January 29, 1945
Front L-R Tony Paczkowski, Alf Bennett and Art Drohan
Back L-R: R.F. Petts? (co-pilot, RAF), Doug MacDermid (navigator), George Shapiro, Jack Schofield (pilot)

It was during this period that I returned to the area of London surrounding St Paul's Cathedral to take pictures of the bomb damage that had taken place during the bombing raids in 1940 and 1941. Some of the photos were taken from the dome of St Paul's to reveal widespread damage in the neighbourhood. The cathedral itself still bore signs of the attack caused by a bomb that fell through the roof of the building to explode inside the cathedral to the left of the choir. This area of the Cathedral was blocked off from sightseers during the war years.
On June 16th I took the train from King’s Cross, one of the major train stations in London, north to Edinburgh where I got a room in the Overseas Club, good accommodation overlooking Edinburgh Castle. The following day I continued on to Stirling and then to Crieff to visit Finlay and Winnie McDiarmid where I remained for the next five days. Here I found a Mrs Wand, a first cousin of Finlay who was living with them at the time as her husband was a prisoner of war with the Japanese. At that time Winnie's mother, Mrs Stalker lived in a little house on the edge of the farm. She was still teaching and was employed at the small school just off the edge of the farm.

The road from Arrocher to Glasgow was and still was in the 1970s a scenic narrow winding road running along the west side of Loch Lommond. When one looked east you could see Ben Lommond on the other side of the Loch.
From Glasgow I caught a train to Edinburgh where I arrived about 3:30 and got a room in the Cockburn Hotel which was in the area of Princess Street. Here I met Doug Reid and Sam Malherbe, one of our Aussie air gunners.
On Thursday I went down to the Central records office in Edinburgh to see if it would be possible to look up MacDermid records but was told that the Killin records had been moved out of the city for safekeeping and could not be examined. During the day I met Allister Urquhart a member of the Urquhart family of Martintown who lived on the Line road just south of the our farm at Martintown. Allister had also been making unsuccessful inquiries into the origins of his Urquhart family. During the same day I also met Warren McWhinnie with whom I had gone to high school and who was in England with the Army.
In the evening we boarded the train in Edinburgh and went slowly north overnight to Inverness where we arrived in the morning and then went north again along the North Sea to Wick where we arrived about 2:30 in the afternoon. After getting settled we went to the Mess to hear about a crew headed by Bill Bailey, a former instructor of Loch Goil probably with Mrs Forman, Doug Reid's at Thornaby, who had crewed up with Jim Riddel, a Scots lawyer, and two English air gunners. On their first trip they had gone across to Norway on a reconnaissance flight where they had been attacked by two Focke-Wulf 190 fighters6 but escaped by the superb piloting of Bill Bailey though the aircraft was badly damaged and the two air gunners wounded. Bailey himself was lucky to escape as he later found that a pair of binoculars hanging about his neck had a bullet embedded in the case. The German fighters tried their best to destroy the Hudson but were thwarted by the pilot’s skills. Bailey was a master at manoeuvre and made the maximum use of what cloud cover there was to outwit and outfly the attackers. The enemy aircraft chased the Hudson until they had used up all of their ammunition and then harmless had flown beside the Hudson Aircraft to wag their wings as if to wish them the best. The incident brought home to me and to the others in our crew that our experience here could be interesting indeed.

On July 15th, our first full day with the squadron, we met the Commanding Officer, Wing Commander and other Squadron Commanders and staff. Thereafter we spent the day getting genned up on our new job, touring the operations room and the command room from which we would take our orders. In the evening we went to a show in the station cinema and after getting out learned that an aircraft piloted by Squadron Leader Pearson of our Squadron with two Aussies and a Canadian navigator had this day not returned from a trip along the Norwegian Coast. This third incident was another chilling reminder of the dangers of our new lifestyle. We had arrived at Wick when the aircrew losses were becoming unacceptably high because of the German introduction into the Bergen area of Norway of Focke-Wulf 190 fighters, one of the newest German fighter aircraft. This aircraft far outperformed the Hudson both in speed and armament. It carried 4 20 millimeter cannon and in the hands of a capable pilot was a deadly and fearsome opponent. Although we did not know it at the time, a decision had been made to replace the Hudson in its former role of shipping strikes by faster and better armed aircraft such as the British and Canadian built Beaufighters and Mosquitos. While the Hudson had been used with some success during 1941 and the first half of 1942, the successes were becoming more and more costly in the loss of crews and aircraft. The Hudson was gradually replaced by more modern aircraft or was shifted to less dangerous operations.

                                                           Chapter 3. Active Service with RAF Sqn 48

On July 18th we made our first trip, a familiarization run down to Leuchars, just outside Dundee. The purpose was to ferry nine squadron members to Leuchars and to bring back eleven others. Our next trip was a homing exercise on another squadron aircraft whose navigator, Andy Rollefson, was a friend of mine. On the 21st our pilot Doug Reid went up on a convoy patrol with Bill Bailey to gain experience while the rest of the crew went out into the North sea on a small craft to practice gunnery on a moving target. We got back to the airport where there was great excitement because of a burning aircraft on the airdrome. The aircraft, piloted by an Australian named Kanauer, had crash landed because of fog and the aircraft had caught fire. It was loaded with depth charges that exploded with a mighty fireball across the airdrome blowing the siding off the hangars near where we were standing. I think that the crew had sufficient time to escape before the explosion. Bill Bailey and Doug Reid were in the air at the time but were able to land safely at Skitten, a nearby airport.

                                                                                          Chapter 1. Training.
I entered my last year at Williamstown High School, Glengarry County at the age of nineteen in early September 1939. It was a time when momentous events were taking place, the time when Hitler, the German Dictator, by his unprovoked attack against his eastern neighbour Poland, set events in motion that resulted in the commencement of the second world war.
Ahead of me was my last year in high school, a time when one would ordinarily try to decide what you would do in the years to come. While I had thought and hoped that I would be able to go to University, I was now forced to recognize that my finances and that of my family were such that this path was not open to me even if my marks were at a level to command a small bursary.
As the year advanced, the so-called “phony war,” a period before armed hostilities began, seemed an anti-climax to all the fears that had erupted with the declaration of war in early September. The British and French marched their armies up to the German, Dutch and Belgium borders and remained there behind the fixed fortifications of the Maginot Line and other fortifications which the French had erected as a protection against German militarism. At the end of the fighting in defeated Poland, there seemed to be a stalemate with only minor skirmishes on land and of course the beginning of the air and sea wars.

As the year wore on, the build-up of British and French forces in Northern France, soon to be augmented with great fanfare by the arrival of the 1st Canadian Army Division in England, suggested that perhaps the war would be over before Canada would get a part of the action. During this year I had decided that I would not try to go to University and instead would go to Ottawa to take teacher’s training in the fall of 1940.

The international situation had radically changed by the end of the school year. Following his rapid victory in overrunning Denmark and Norway, Hitler released his armoured columns against the British and French in Northern France in May of 1940. As I was writing my final examinations, France, Holland and Belgium had been knocked out of the war by an end run around the much vaunted Maginot Line and the British had been thrown out of Northern France to be rescued at Dunkirk by the Navy supported by a small but tenacious Air Force. The summer months of July and August saw the Battle of Britain when only the Royal Air Force with its Spitfire and Hurricane planes seemed to be able to take on the German might.

I spent the months of July and August helping on the farm with my elderly Aunt and Uncle, Margaret and William Ross with whom I had lived for the preceding five years while attending secondary school. In September, rather than go on for teacher’s training, the pressure of events made me decide to join the Air Force . Why the Air Force? Perhaps there was present in me an element of the fear and revulsion which had swept the western world against the horrors of trench warfare in the 1914- 1918 War in France. War in the air, I thought, would be exciting and without the miseries of trench warfare. But a more cogent factor was the talk about the need for aircrew to sustain Britain now being brought to everyone's attention by the developing British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

In early September I travelled to Ottawa to volunteer to join the Royal Canadian Air Force air crew. I recall spending a day at the recruiting quarters on O'Connor Street undergoing a host of medical tests to determine whether I was of the caliber for acceptance into air crew. My educational level of Ontario Senior Matriculation and my age of 20 years were to my advantage and the medical test proved that with 20-20 vision and good health I was in and would be accepted for training as an air crew, pilot or observer. At the end of the day I was told to return home and that I would be listed and called up when my name was reached. I returned home to Rosses expecting to be called almost immediately but heard nothing until early December when I was asked to appear in Ottawa on the 11th of that month.

At the end of the period there were examinations and the record indicates that I graduated with an overall average of 70 percent with the recommendation an average NCO and air observer. While there we flew 60 hours mostly in Hudson aircraft, 15 hours of which was at night. The flying was primarily in the North sea and in one case we flew north along the east coast of Britain to the Shetlands. The course was finished on July 2, 1942 and our crew was posted to Wick in Northern Scotland with instructions to arrive there on the 14th of the month. At that time Wick was the main operational base for RAF Squadron 48. We had experienced much friendliness from the Yorkshire people of the area perhaps because we became known in a neighbouring pub frequented by a good crowd.

From Thornaby, on the 6th of July I took the train to Edinburgh along with a number of other class members and on arrival there took a room at the Adelphi Hotel on Princess Street. I had decided to go to Killin where I knew my ancestor, Finlay McDiarmid, had come from and so after making enquiries I moved over to Stirling and then took a train up though the Highlands past Loch Earn and Balquhidder and on to Killin. As I travelled alone I recalled quite vividly the description of the area by Robert Louis Stevenson in the novel Kidnapped. It was through this area that the hero David Balfour with his new found friend Alan Breck were to pass on their trek from the site of the Campbell murder to the home of David's uncle Ebenezer Shaw who lived in the lowlands. In Killin I was able to obtain a room in a good hotel on the main street. I was put in touch with a Mr Gentile, the local dentist, who was said to know something about the McDiarmids. Mr Gentile had the key to a house owned by a Mr John McDiarmid whose name I had been given by my uncle Hugh MacDermid in Saskatoon. Mr Gentile informed me that John McDiarmid, then an old man of about ninety, had lived there but had recently gone to live with his daughter in Ayr, south of Glasgow. Since he was looking after the house which at that time was empty, he offered to take me through it. It was a large stone house facing south on the main street and had once been a tailors shop. In the back section of the house there was a tailor's bench which was merely a raised section of the room on which the tailor worked. The house still stands (1990s) but is now a small hotel with a large pub and restaurant attached. Mr Gentile told me that John McDiarmid had a nephew, Finlay McDiarmid, who farmed some distance away and not far from Crieff, Perthshire. He offered to get in touch with him on the telephone and I talked to Finlay who invited me to come and stay with them.

During the month of July we made two additional operational trips on July 26th we went way north of the Shetland Islands to about the 66th parallel of latitude looking for German shipping aircraft or submarines. We repeated the exercise on July 29th by flying north west to Iceland and passing within sight of the Faroe Islands. These are a rocky group of Islands about midway between Scotland and Iceland. We kept our distance from them on the way out as they were shrouded in clouds. On our return we were able to get a better view of their topography. These flights were designed to prevent German capital ships or submarines from getting out undetected into the Atlantic shipping lanes.7

During the month of August our Hudson aircraft were again pressed into doing reconnaissance trips into the Skagerack [the entrance to the Baltic Sea] and north along the Norwegian coast. On August 10th we were scheduled for a trip over Norway but it was cancelled because of poor weather. Two other squadron crews who had earlier been diverted to Lossiemouth, a nearby airport, were dispatched from there and were subsequently lost over Norway. Early in the month we were given a 48 hour pass and flew to Dyce near Aberdeen. We took a hotel room in Aberdeen and after buying bicycles we explored the city . In the evening we went skating in an ice rink. We rode the bicycles out to the airport and after storing them we returned to Aberdeen to stay and in the evening went into a large dance hall for service people. When we went out to the airport the following morning we found that our trip had been extended because of fog at Wick.

On August 12th two of our crews were again sent off on a reconnaissance over Norway and both returned . About mid-month we had been directed to look for a group of fishing vessels said to be about mid-way out in the North sea due east of Thornaby. We went out and after a rather long search found the group. The day before a similar Hudson aircraft had located the group and when looking them over had been attacked by a German Junkers 88, a powerfully armed but not particularly fast German aircraft. The Hudson escaped. On instructions from base we directed the ships to steer to England by signaling in Morse Code with an Aldis lamp and to put some force behind our orders, we fired our rear turret of four Browning .303 machine guns. The following day we went out again with two Catalina flying boats and three Beaufighter aircraft the former to put down on the water and take off some of the crews and the latter to give protection from German fighters. When we arrived we found the sea was too rough for the Catalinas to put down and the whole expedition was put off. The following day the exercise was repeated without us but this time with the navy and the Danish ships were brought into port in England. The event was reported on radio and in the newspapers.

Throughout the month of August we did a total of forty-five hours of operational flying time . Much of this was in long trips north or in two cases north east towards the Norwegian coast looking for German shipping or submarines. These trips were generally very lonely with nothing but the sea below you. Usually it was cloudy with the cloud base about 1,000 feet above the sea and of course we had to be below the clouds to carry out our work. We were always under wireless silence to prevent the Germans from discovering our presence . This instruction was for two reasons firstly there was the element of our own safety and secondly our silence denied to the Germans knowledge of our activities, which could in some circumstances be of use to them. It will be remembered that a great effort was made by both the Germans and ourselves to record aircraft messages both for their content and at the same time to log the position of the enemy. With the enemies position known it would then be possible to send out an aircraft to attempt to intercept and shoot down the intruder.

The radio receiver was generally on and could be heard through the aircraft intercom. Our base would send out a signal every half hour and I recall some comfort in hearing the base signal which in our case was in Morse Code with the Code Number being S 5 K. Anyone knowing the Morse Code will recognize the call sign as dot-dot-dot dot-dot-dot-dot-dot dash-dot-dash. Hearing the signal was a source of comfort in the knowledge that we were receiving and could be in touch with base and could be in direct contact with them by breaking silence in the event this became necessary. If we encountered the enemy, wireless silence would be broken but generally only in coded form. It was my job as the navigator to make up the message, to transform or code it and of course to provide our flight position. In my navigation bag there was always a coding book that was highly secret and loaded with lead so that in the event of an accident it would sink into the sea. The pigeons which we carried were a secondary method of getting away a message. When flying we always wore our "Mae West "a life preserver and always carried a parachute though it was not worn. Since our flights were almost always over a very cold sea, it is unlikely that the parachute would ever be used as most preferred to come down with the aircraft and to use the inflatable dinghy carried in the door of the craft.

The month of September 1942 saw us move from Wick in Northern Scotland to Sumburgh at the southern tip of the Shetland Islands. A small group of three planes and crews moved at the same time to Iceland where they were to patrol primarily for submarines. The Sumburgh airport was small and two of the runways ran from sea to sea that is from one side of the Island to the other. The move was arranged to accommodate the more modern aircraft that were being brought to Wick, a permanent station to carry out strikes against German shipping along the Norwegian Coast.

During the month we continued flying carrying out nine trips totaling 54 hours flying time all north west past the Faroes to Iceland and North east along the West Coast of Norway. During this period there were a number of submarine sightings and some bombing attacks but none by our crew. One of the crews which had gone to Iceland had the unfortunate experience of losing power on take-off and ditched in the sea . Only the navigator, a friend of mine, Chuck Wild, survived the accident, the other three crew died from exposure.

Operational aircrew were entitled to one week off every six weeks. Sunday was like any other day in that weather permitting, flying schedules were maintained. On the 21st of the month we flew back to Wick where we caught the train south. From Edinburgh I took the train to Crieff to spend a full week with Finlay and Winnie McDiarmid. I recall getting off the bus at Locherlour with Finlay's mother who by chance was coming out for a day visit. At the farm there was a complete household with the maid, Finlay and Winnie, a Mr Finlay a relative and a retired jute broker from Dundee. Winnie's mother, Mrs Stalker, lived in another house on the farm and was a teacher at the local school located on the edge of the farm. I spent the week taking trips to places like Stirling where Finlay was attending a sheep sale while Winnie and I walked north to nearby
Bridge of Allen to climb the Wallace Memorial built by the Scots to proclaim his victory over Edward II at Bannockburn. At home on the farm I helped with the haying and harvesting and on one morning left early to go north to gather sheep from the hills to bring them in for dipping, a procedure used to ward off infection. On that particular day I climbed Ben Chonzie at a height of 3,047 feet to gather sheep and bring them down to a sheep corral near Loch Turret. At that time, life at Locherlour was a busy with farm work and also Winnie's participation in entertaining soldiers who were located in an army camp at the nearby village of Comrie.

After leaving Crieff, I continued south to London where I met the other members of our crew. We remained in London for about five days visiting places like Kew Gardens, Hampton Court and of course meeting other Canadian air crew whom we had known in training. During this stay I also saw two plays "My Gal Sal "and Robert Morley's "The Man Who Came to Dinner. " On October 4 we returned to Edinburgh and then continued on to Wick where we had to wait two days for a ride to the Shetlands.

In October it became more apparent that our stay in the North of Scotland was winding down. There was little flying done because of the atrocious weather. Nice days were rare but on one of these we went for a long walk from the airport at Sumburgh past Garths Ness to a mountain top named Fitful. On the way back, as the sun was shining and the weather calm and warm, we went for a swim, a noteworthy event in the North sea at latitude 60 degrees. It was here, in January, 1993 that the large tanker Braer was driven ashore by a violent windstorm, wrecked and lost 100 million litres of crude oil to foul the beach and do unknown damage to wildlife. I recall a similar storm when we were there when the wind blew at about one hundred miles per hour for the full day. Seen from the entrance to our Nissen hut, the sea spray seemed to blow across the width of the Island which at that point was something less than half a mile. Of course there was no flying and if one ventured outside there was a danger of being blown down. While we did carry out three long trips in October these were largely uneventful. On one of them, on October 16th, at the very north end of the trip we saw a Blohm and Voss Bv 138, a large German aircraft. It was a large slow seaplane designed for long distance flights and used by the Germans to spot Allied Convoys in the North Atlantic. We followed the plane for a short period but we were not anxious to tangle with it knowing that it was likely to be reasonably well-armed, probably more than a match for our Hudson aircraft. The problem was solved when the aircraft saw us and quickly headed for cloud cover to disappear from our view.

Our departure from Sumburgh began on October 21st when we were ordered to ferry eight of our Hudsons down to the south of England. We were one of the crews selected to fly one of the aircraft and made the long trip from Sumburgh to Gosport near Southampton. When we arrived at Gosport we found that we would be returned to Sumburgh on Friday some four days later. Having very little to do in the interim we went into London, where we saw two films "Coastal Command" and "Holiday Inn" the latter starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. We returned to Sumburgh by Harrow aircraft, a large transport stopping on the way for lunch at Leuchars in southern Scotland.

On the day following our return, Bill Hughes and Sam Malherbe, our Australian crew members, heard they were being returned to Australia to take part in the war against the Japanese. Our last trip with them was on November 2nd when just after take-off on a trip towards Norway, Sam reported that the rear gun turret housing four Browning machine guns, was inoperable. Doug Reid decided that it was foolhardy to go without guns and so we returned to base . On landing, the armourers climbed into the aircraft and after inspection decided that there was nothing wrong with the turret. The flight commander considered that Sam had reported the turret unserviceable so that the trip could be cancelled. Sam of course argued that it did not work for him while in the air. I was inclined to accept Sam's story and was sorry that so much was being made of the incident. In the end it looked as if Sam would be charged with an offense for dereliction of duty.

On July 24th we were up at 2:20 am to have a big breakfast and then over to the Operations room to learn we were on our first trip as an escort for a coastal convoy. We took off a 4:50 am as scheduled after getting loaded with camera and pigeons that were carried in a net type crate to be used to send a message to base in the event we were forced down in the sea. We escorted the convoy north along the North Sea which then turned into the Pentland Firth where it was joined by a destroyer and other merchant ships. We remained with the convoy until about nine in the morning and then returned to base after we had been relieved by another aircraft. The purpose of the trip was to watch for submarines or German aircraft sent out to attack the convoy.

In the afternoon we climbed Ben Cruach a mountain of 1,989 feet. The climb took us about one hour and a half while the descent took only about 30 minutes. As always in mountain climbing the view at the top was marvelous.
The following morning July 11th, I went over to the nearby village and then rowed across the Loch. There was another sub in the Loch doing trials, this time a sub
18
bearing a Dutch Flag. In the afternoon I went swimming in a nearby burn or creek and then in the evening went fishing with an elderly man by the name of McLauchlin. I recall catching 4 relatively small fish which Mr McLauchlin said were cod and which I gave to Mrs Forman who was glad to accept them because of the rationing. During the evening we were pestered by small insects known as nits. Knowing my name was MacDermid, which he knew was a sept of the Campbell Clan, he told me the story that people in Argyle were bothered with two kinds of pests "The Campbells and the nits.

​

On July 12th I decided that I should return to Edinburgh as my leave was getting short and I had to report to Wick on the 14th. Mrs Forman took me to a bus stop along the road where I got onto a very crowded bus and had to stand all the way to Glasgow. On the way I found on the bus a New Zealander whom I knew who told me about a mutual friend named, Morden, who was lost on his third trip on Blenheims5 in Coastal Command, a chilling reminder of what was ahead of me.