Blenheim Crew (Based on a letter to Ian Maclaren's family in 1997 by, and several transcribed and edited taped conversations later in 1997 with Paddy Stapleton) Ian Maclaren, Paddy Stapleton, and Don Ager September 1941 to August 1943 Introduction and Training I first met Ian in September 1941, at number 2 school of Army Cooperation, Andover, Hampshire. That was when we became an operational light bomber crew, teaming up with Denis Charles Ager, or "Don" as we called him then, as Navigator. Ian was the Pilot, and myself (Paddy Stapleton) as Wireless Operator/Air Gunner. At that time Ian was an Army Captain, but because he seconded to the R.A.F. he suffered a fierce drop in rank, becoming a lowly Flying Officer. Upon completion of our crew training at 42 O.T.U. Andover we were posted to 614 Squadron Army Co-operation at Macmerry, East Lothian, Scotland. The squadron was commanded by Wing Commander Skelton (who was himself recently absorbed into the RAF from the Army), our flight commander was Flight Lt. Lysaght. Macmerry proved to be a very happy airfield, in addition to our fellow crew members we made many friends in and around Tranent and Port Seton (neighboring towns). Edinburgh was quite near and Don and I often ventured there when flying duties permitted. One day we were strolling along Princess Street when I had the good fortune to meet a father Fitzpatrick and Fr. Mulvaney, tutors and mentors of mine from Oblates of Mary Immaculate from whom I had a standing invitation to visit them in Leith, whenever I was at a loose end in the city. This proved to be very helpful on a number of occasions. Our wartime flying commenced in earnest, engaging us in intensive training, Coastal patrols, Cross Country flying, Anti Invasion Standby day and night in very severe weather conditions. One very interesting exercise at this time was a formation flight, led by the Commanding Office (CO) Wind Commander Skelton, in a circular route into the realms of a supposed enemy attack on Dundee. Approaching the city from the North Sea, some of the aircraft dropped flour and soot bags to "ginger up" the civil defense and general public into awareness of possible air attacks, as the enemy was now firmly established in Norway. Another aspect of our activities was gas spraying at very low levels. This included endless exercises with the Army and in different types of aircraft. At the end of 1941 we were detached to Filton in Bristol (the home of Blenheim aircraft) to collect some replacement Blenheims for the squadron. Our return to Scotland was bedeviled by a very severe weather conditions and we were force to divert to Ronaldsway on the Isle of Man (I.O.M.). The Manx people were very welcoming and most hospitable. We were then grounded on the island until the New Year, as the very bad weather prevented us from flying, when we returned to the squadron base at Macmerry. During our enforced stay on the I.O.M. I was given the privilege of "First Footing" at the Walpole Hotel, where we were residing. My claim to this honor was due to my dark and wavy hair, so suitably armed with coal and salt I sallied forth to a very enjoyable experience. Two very interesting detachments occurred at this time. The first was to Bramcote a Polish Squadron airfield, and when not flying we were guests of "Georgie Elliot" one of our "614" types, who before his RAF days was a qualified pharmacist with Boots Laboratories in Leicester where we were made very welcome. The second detachment was to be seconded to 271 squadron in Doncaster, where Ian learned to fly the Handlly Page Harrow, whilst Don and I worked in more spacious sections of the aircraft. Action in Europe More bombing exercises followed our return to 614, with many coastal patrols together with photographic sorties continuing to the early part of 1942 up to May, when, as part of 2 Group Bomber Command the squadron was involved in the first of three 1000 bomber raids on Cologne, Bremen, and Essen. We as a crew found the going quite "hairy" at times, with intensive flak and search lights, not forgetting the constant threat of night fighters. Our main role at this time was night intruder operations, to attack and bomb night fighter airfields and thus tie them down from attacking the main bomber stream. Throughout all this intensive activity Ian was a tower of strength and gave us great confidence with his dexterous and skillful handling of the aircraft (here Ian will no doubt say this is Paddy's Blarney, but my comments are genuinely sincere). For the first one, Cologne, my log say: "First one thousand bomber raid, night intruder, night fighters aerodrome bombed, Cologne, diversion heavy AA and search lights, caught over Amsterdam" We got caught in those search lights and we had to dive in on those and shoot them out - that was pretty hairy that was, I've only sort of gone over this, I've never really told my kids much about it, its just one of those things. I have two grand children and we took them on many visits to the Blenheim Society and I bought them each a little bear and Laura the youngest called hers Maclaren, now that's honest, without any prompting from us at all, but because I've often talked about Ian and she calls this bear Maclaren. When we did our ops (short for War Operations- strikes at the enemy) in Holland we went very very low. We came off the water and crossed the coast line. Of course the Germans had got very canny by now, they had had a bad couple of years of attacks by the RAF, and so they mounted all their flack guns quite high up in the air on "flack towers". So as before, they were firing anti aircraft from the floor, now they were firing from up in the air and they could fire down on you. If we were low flying they fired their 88 millimetres from above you, you couldn't see them at night on these big gantries very high up, we called them "flack towers" and of course batteries of searchlights. One of the stunts the Germans used to do was this: we would be flying along and then you would notice that searchlights weren't trying to get you, they were just pointing straight up in the air and it didn't take us long to cotton on to the fact that they were leading to the night fighters, they were leading us down a funnel, you see, and if you kept away from the searchlights you would be going into this funnel, then the night fighters would come down the line and pick you off from behind, but of course, very fortunately, we very soon cottoned on to that and we took evasive action. The time we were doing that circuit over Twente, the night fighter airfield, we had not to commit ourselves because our main object was to get these Gerries and prevent them from re-fueling and prevent them taking off again, which was what they were up to. Ian's very bold, he puts his landing lights on we were in the circuits and then Don and I both spotted, almost simultaneously, the fact that they had put the lights out, underneath the aircraft, and we had to flick ours off and then Don said "We had better reveal ourselves, because you know they were getting a bit suspicious". Anyway we dived on the airfield just as one character was coming into land, the flare path was all lit up, bom bom bom we went machine guns blazing away at hangers and that as we went through. Of course they had put all the lights on, remember we were very low and had to come up quickly - we had to get up to a safe height because there were flack towers all around, anyway we got back safely. When we got back to the UK there was a lump missing out of our port wing. I remembered that as we were coming out, you know how when you're stuck at night, you're looking for landmarks and we knew about a certain railway, so we flew up the railway lines and of course we picked ourselves up and as we turned off we got a sort of a lift coming up and I said to Ian, I said "Jeez we've just hit a signal gantry". But we hadn't, but it did feel like it - we got this sudden lift, but it was a blast from flack, I'm sure. Anyway we got back to the UK as I said. We used to get some very close shaves like that. When we were going across the north sea we had to go very low because of the German radar. Now they used to tell us in England that their radar was down to about 30 degrees, but in actual fact it was down much lower than that. We realised that and we used get right down. Some of the lads used to come back and say that they could even see the spay coming off the sea when they were flying across low, so that will give you some idea of how low we were. So we went across there and then we saw the silver sand of Holland as we went across the coastline, it was night, well getting really dusk, because we'd take off at about six o'clock in the evening and we'd get there at about eight thirty. By then it would be dark as we went across Holland, and some of the Dutch opened windows to let the light out and we use to see the V's, they used to have a V cut in their blackout, so that the V lit up was giving us the V sign, V for Victory, you know "Well done". At first we used to think, misguidedly perhaps, "Oh, good". But later in the war we read in reports, that they were actually signaling the night fighters that the allies were coming across at this point of the coast. But that was what the intelligence people ascertained later. But in the beginning we were quite pleased to see these because we thought "Oh good, there are our friends down there", but we found out later. Well it didn't affect us, thank God, we were lucky. But we still ran into an awful lot of opposition because the Germans were cute, they got ships off the coast that looked like little, I won't say little fishing smacks, but they looked like innocent little boats. They were actually flack platforms and they never moved. They were photographed by intelligence and they were there all the time. They were made to look like a boat. And of course they used to pummel away at us coming in low coming across the coast. We had predetermined places, often when we came in we were north of Amsterdam, a place called Imoiden, north of what was then the Zeider Zee, now the Isselsee or Isselmeer, we would go across north of that and then in. We all had salient points to branch off to the various targets that we were doing. Of course we ran into an awful lot of flack and searchlights and then we had the added trouble of night fighters. There was IFF (Identification Friend or Foe), its a apparatus that every British aircraft had and it was on a certain frequency. The thing was to make sure our gunners on the coast wouldn't have a crack at us. The Germans had got the frequency of the damn things and of course the night fighters used to home in on us and so we were warned to have it switched off when we were over enemy country. Some people started off by reckoning that if we had them on over the enemy lines, it would upset their radar, but this was all theory and it didn't work. The heavy bombers were getting such a pasting, that they got very concerned about this business with the German night fighters. However they were always vectoring onto the bomber stream, so the boffins came up with a great scheme. They put microphones in the four engines, the Halifax and Lancasters had four engines and the Stirling the same, imagine four microphones onto that frequency and of course if the Germans are homing in all they get is a terrific clatter of static and it used to disrupt their old night fighter stuff. So this was one of those little achievements that came out later. It was very hairy, the searchlights were the worst thing because once the lights gets on you, its a sort of a blue white light and its intense, what you do is get your visor right down and that was so dense you could see right through to the beam, then of course you could shoot right down the beam, so that's what you did. Mac became very adept at that and used to get us out of some very tight corners. He was very quick on the up take. I was with Ian and Don once on an op over Europe when we had a hang up, this was when we were on Blenheim IVs, under the wing they had racks and they put smaller bombs on there, anti personnel bombs, and on one particular job we did, I don't remember which place it was, but one of the bombs stuck there. I remember Don sweating on top line because he's up in the nose, he can see what I can't see - you could see this bomb and its hanging by... well you'd have to see them, you'd have to know about bombs, in the front of this bomb there's a thing called the fork. The idea of the fork is that it stopped the plunger from setting the detonator off and the fork didn't come out of that rack, so it was hanging by the fork. So obviously the fork came against the wing, but the bomb is swinging away. But remember not only is it fused at the nose, but the damn thing is fused at the tail too. So if it hit anything off it goes. Anyway there's the thing swinging away like that, so Ian says "The only thing I can do is climb a bit and see if it will fall off." You see the bomb fork is only held by a very tiny bit of Bowden cable, like you'd have on a bicycle for a gear. Of course the thing did eventually snap because the stress of the bomb - the bomb weighed about 80 lbs. and it was hanging on this very thin little bit of wire and eventually it just fell off, so that was all right, "Bombs gone". That was a dicey thing, these are things that come back to you. Only since I've been talking to you have I thought about that, but you get a lot of instances like that. Dieppe Our next major involvement with the enemy was the Dieppe raid, in August 1942. We laid smoke screens over enemy guns and bombed them to enable the invading forces to secure a foothold on the Dieppe coast. We went in very low and flew over the Royal Navy ships, who had been wrongly told to shoot out of the sky anything under two thousand feet, and they shot down one of our aircraft, we then flew into German flack ships. This led to a lot of bitterness between the Navy and ourselves later. During the mission our formation leader Flight Lieutenant J. E. Scott was severely wounded and was forced to crash at Dungeness, his wireless operator was killed outright, and his navigator died from burns following the crash. Ian took over the formation and led it back to base at Thruxton. Many moons later, Ian confided in me, when in North Africa, that when Scotty came back and joined us, he'd lost his nerve following Dieppe and subsequent hospitalization. Ian told me on the side. I didn't realise then, Ian never let on at the time, but that damn Dieppe raid. But this character refused to go on certain ops.. He knew how to pick and choose his ops. He got a big write up in the Hawick Newspaper Gazette, of course we were in Scotland then, so we were able to get hold of it. He was quite a hero at the time. But Ian took over the formation after the mission, after Scotty got shot up. He said he was going to abort the mission or something like that. In actual fact he got as far as Dungeness where he piled up. After Ian got the formation back to Thruxton he flew over to the hospital to see him. And actually when he got there the navigator was still alive but he was badly burned. The gunner had been killed obviously when we were on the op. My personal opinion of the Dieppe operation was that it not only proved disastrous for the Army, but went far to showing the Blenheim aircraft's limited use in further European sorties. Ian was promoted to Flight Lieutenant at this time. North Africa The Bristol aircraft company brought out the mark five version of the Blenheim, to be known as the "Bisley" and specifically earmarked for overseas operations, although we did not become aware of this until some time later. Familiarization and handling training, for the Bisley, began almost immediately following Dieppe. During our intensive training many patrols and bombing sorties ensued, with much night flying and cross country flights from late August until the end of October 1942 when we flew down to Portreath in Cornwall. At 03.30 am on the 17th of November in a Bisley BA109 we flew out from the UK en route for Gibraltar. This took us over the Bay of Biscay, northern Spain, Portugal, Cape Trafalgar, and finally Gibraltar. One of my lasting memories of this operation was the impact of the sunrise over the Pyrenees, with the peeks glistening in the early mist and when the sun rose looked just like icing sugar on a cake. Upon arrival in Gibraltar we felt the effects of "tropical" heat, as when we left the UK we were booted and spurred with plenty of warm clothing, silk linings and Irvin Jackets. The weather was very wintry when we left, particularly in November and especially in the early hours of the morning; there was the driving rain and sleet when we took off. Our stay on the Rock was very short lived and the following day found us outward bound for Blida airfield in Algiers. The allied landings in North Africa had by this time secured a foothold and the airfield was supposedly friendly, nonetheless we felt very vulnerable as our approach over Algeria was made with wheels down to show a non aggressive intent. I might tell you that Ian was very very chary, he had a superstition I think, about being photographed with the crew. He had a fetish, he didn't want us linked up. But I have one. The third day we were there, in Blida, Algeria, we all had liaison officers with us, and one of our liaison officers was a naval type, grand chap. Then there was Ginger Rider, one of our pals, he used to ride around on a motor bike. This particular day Ginger was involved in something and couldn't go out. So this chap says "Can I borrow your bike Ginge?" "Right oh. " he replied. So this naval type gets up on the bike and drives off, but he got run over by a bloody yank truck. It was incredible, I mean they had all the desert to go in and he has to run this poor bugger down on the motor bike. It was one of those terrible things, it shook us a lot because he was such a friend of ours. He'd been a lieutenant commander, a grand chap. My log shows that night operations followed, with attacks on Tunis and Bizerta docks and installations, especially the shipping and harbours. On night we attacked Tunis Harbour, but we weren't suppose to do it that night. We had set out to attack Bizerta harbour. Now if you know the north African coast, Bizerta harbour is there, and round the corner here is Tunis harbour. We went out that night and over the Mediterranean, now the Mediterranean can have terrible storms, and this particular night the clouds came right down, lightning flashing, you could see the white tops of the sea, it was very rough. We were a bit off track, but I couldn't signal for them to give us magnetic bearings because we were on an op, we were going to attack a target. There are no landmarks on the sea, but we did know that we'd set out from Al Kamir and gone along a bit, the coast was on our right, and Europe was on our left. So we sailed along and after a while we spot two islands. "Where the devil are these?" so I suggested "Malta?". "No, they couldn't be Malta, we're not that far east, somewhere else". Malta has those two Islands, Gozo and Malta. So we look at them a bit and Ian saws "Do you know what? That's Galita and Galiton". So Mac says "We'd better not fly over the buggers because they're probably occupied by the Hun", and he said "they'll probably give us a plastering. So we'll go down the middle." So we did, we went down the middle and we knew where we were then. So we altered our course, but leading up to that we we're suddenly clobbered by St Elmo's fire, and we were all hallowed in blue light and he was all blue faced and Don was the same, we thought it was a big joke afterwards. Those are the little things that crop up. So we reset for the coast line, but of course instead of hitting the coast line here, we hit the coastline there, and we go on to the harbour. The harbour was all lit up, the ships were all there and they're off- loading and everything, we thought this is a gift from paradise, so we selected our bombs, our Mickey Mouse as we call them, and we go straight down the middle, I'm blazing away, straight down the middle, we dropped our bombs and we did what we thought was a glorious job. We scattered them, the lights have gone out, we'd dropped bombs in amongst the ships, there's fires galore, lovely. Oh a VC for everybody on board, so we come flying home, full of elation and when we got back, Sinclair, Air Marshal Sinclair says "You Bastards, you weren't supposed to do that. Do you know what you've done? You've bombed Tunis". We said "Well isn't that all right? That's where Rommel is". He replies "Yes, but you were supposed to be doing Bizerta, round the corner". It was funny, on the way back, when we'd come out, we'd looked left and we'd seen Bizerta Harbour. Ian says "I don't know what that is, but those poor buggers going in there are getting a plastering." Flack and searchlights, but that was the place that we should have been bombing! They didn't want to do Tunis yet, they were going to make a daylight of that and catch the whole lot and we'd spoilt the whole thing by going in there early. But we did a good job, but we never even got the credit for it, you see that is what really upset us. That was the result of one raid. One night we were badly off track, we were coming home, early on in the campaign, they put a searchlight beam straight up and that was a homing thing. This time we couldn't see any. Then I did, I said that it was to the north "What do you think Don?" Don said "Well I don't know, I believe it must be North. Ah there it is." says Don, "Its beaming away". But what it was was an American truck going up through a gap in the mountains. Of course its headlights were on, the yanks you know, no blackout at all. So he's going up like that. So I said "Where did you say you saw that light Don?" "Dead south west from here." So we swing round and then we go along a bit and there it was the real one. So we came onto that. That was one of those little incidents that happen, but we were very amused about the American truck because it was typical of the yanks they thought that "Ra Yeh, I'm superman". Ian was such a companion, they used to call us the three musketeers, really, we use to breeze round everywhere together. By this time Field Marshall Rommel's Africa Corps were very well established with anti aircraft, searchlights and fighter opposition. We were now finding very hostile receptions on our varied operations in this theater, code named "Torch". Our bombing attacks on El Aouina airfied, Tunis harbor, and troop movement of various concentrations continued. These were interspersed with daylight attacks on road and rail junctions from our base at Canrobert. On January 21st 1943 the Squadron moved to Oulmene with Night Operations on roads, bombing German road transport, and rail crossings in the Pont du Fahs and Le Kef area.Heavy flack was very evident, giving us some trepidation on these sorties. Kasserine Pass From mid January to early February we continued our night and day close support role and by the 20th January Ian was promoted to Squadron Leader and Flight Commander. Our own very major raid at this time was an attack in support of First Army in the Kasserine Pass and Sbeitla with heavy bomb loads and incendiaries. This was on the 25th February 1943 and Ian received the Distinguished Fly Cross (D.F.C.) for this attack, which he pressed home relentlessly, and this was a well deserved recognition of his gallantry. Citation from the magazine "Flight" or "Flight International": "In operations in North Africa this officer took part in a number of successful sorties, many of them in bad weather and over difficult terrain. One night in February 1943 he was detailed to execute a night bombing attack against enemy transport and troops in the Kasserine pass. The weather was extremely bad and heavy cloud covered the mountains on either side. Despite this, Squadron Leader Maclaren flew down the pass and successfully bombed the target." We weren't encouraged to shoot lines about our activities in our logs, so consequently we didn't put in much detail. But as I mentioned they were very hairy ops., which meant that they were very difficult and frightening at the time, trapped in searchlights. This is in my log: "War Operations Oulméne and Tebessa, transports on road from Kasserine to Tebessa bombed successfully also a train in Kasserine sidings. Flack and searchlights." Remember Ian vetted my log and so did the CO, but the CO was the only one who would vet his, so he wouldn't put much in there, just a brief statement about the ops and the lengths of times. It was a very dicey operation. We took off with a very heavy bomb load, the army were in dire straights then. At that particular time the Africa Corps were pushing through the Kasserine pass and the Guards were being very sorely pressed and we had to support them all we could - in fact stem the breakthrough of the Germans, so we got airborne. We were very heavily laden with fuel and bombs, two of our aircraft crashed on takeoff, because of the heavy bomb load and the fact that the weather was very adverse a Mediterranean storm really and it was night time. We got airborne after a very laboured take-off and we managed to get to the target without too much trouble, only the elements. Well there was low cloud and we followed the railway, we shouldn't have been there, anyway we had to find the gap and followed the railway line in. Some people would have turned back and said that it was impossible to get through, but we came down very low. Of course, we were very experienced at low flying, it was our forte and we specialised in this maneuver, so we could go in really low. When we did our ops in Holland we went very very low and they had antiaircraft guns on flak towers that shot down at you, but at the Kasserine pass they weren't that sophisticated but never the less when we got there the enemy were very well dug in and gave us great opposition. In fact when we got back the flight sergeant in charge of the ground crew said to me "What on earth have you been doing Paddy, in the back there? Tearing up sheets of paper?" And in actual fact it was bits of my parachute that had been ripped off with bits of flack. They counted the holes in the machine and I think that there were about one hundred and three. But they were only little holes you see. But it showed you the splatter of flack that was bursting around us. On this mission we weren't in formation or anything like that, we were all individual aircraft that managed to get there and Ian, as I said, pressed home. We had to do at least a couple of runs to get at the front line of the enemy and, as I say, the Africa Corps were very well dug in and they had plenty of scum coming for us, that was flack, that was really devastating, with searchlights, anyway that was that. A lot of bomb damage and I was in the turret blazing away on both sides of the turret. But we got right through and we dropped our bombs and we apparently stemmed the gap and saved the day and for that Ian was given a DFC. It was a successful raid and we were very determined and we did it. The RAF got the information because when you get back you're debriefed and its all written down. Then it goes to the CO - and he says "Jolly good show". Because so many aircraft had gone out on the raid, one or two had not come home, and only about two or three aircraft that night got through and we were one of them. When we got back they realised that. They got the reports of course from the military in the front line they had reported back that we were persistent in the attack and we'd saved the day etc.. They know the time because we had to send back certain signals when we complete our ops, so they know the time that you completed your op and when you were on your way home. Then, hopefully to God, you get back without meeting any planes on the way home. The other side of that, when we got back after Kasserine, Ian checked with me and Don and then we went back again, so we did it twice. But there was a fault and we didn't get rid of all the bombs, there was a hang up, but in the end we off loaded the lot in the Kasserine pass. We were now called upon to support the Army more closely, our operations taking us well into Tunisia during the latter part of February. Through March and April we carried out intensive night attacks covering El Aouina airfield and Coastal Patrol, experiencing heavy opposition from searchlights and flak, from which our aircraft suffered many blemishes, particularly on one attack on El Aouina airfield (Tunis) on 5th May 1943 (I used to tease our navigator Don Ager that he had developed a nose twitch following the splintering of the nose panel from flak on this Op.). Hugh Malcolm Then we went to Ein Beda. That was just before Christmas in December '42. Here I should mention that in the early part of December 1942, Wing Commander Hugh Malcolm took a formation of Bisleys, with crews made up from all four squadrons, on a suicidal mission to support the Army. They allowed Mac to take a wing over to certain map reference, so we went speeding up in support, we stood by to do a night time, because we were very expert at night, even though I say so myself, and we took off and went to this remote airfield and waited there for the day light lot to come back. Now my very busom friend, Willie Sorbie, he was from Scotland, was with this lot and went with them. The poor formation Wing/Co Hugh Malcolm took was made up of 614, and 18 squadron, what was left. They went out. Poor old Malcolm, he and his merry eighteen boys were shot out of the sky. They were attacked by 90 enemy aircraft and they were just literally shot out of the sky. We sat up all night long waiting to get the orders to take off. Except they didn't come, we were grounded. Sit tight and wait. Nobody knew anything. The following morning we got a signal "Return to Canrobert urgently". We went back to there and then we learnt the sad news, that everyone had perished. Not quite everyone in fact there were five who had survived crashing after being shot down, but Hugh Malcolm died and as a result he got the Victoria Cross (VC). His courage and that of our colleagues led to the formation of the Malcolm Club. It was shortly after that that they decided that the Blenheim and Bisleys had had their time in desert warfare and so they re-equipped us with Douglas Boston A20s. On time we were going over the bay of Tunis on time and Ian says "Well Paddy have a look out side." "God" I said "the engine's stopped." "That's right" he said. "Do you know the air speed? 320." That's the sort of thing, 320 mph. These poor old Blenheims they lumbered along at 290mph and that was flat out. But 320mph on one engine, it was cruising. A very fast machine, well armed and very capable. Anyway that was the sort of thing that we went into. There was nothing like pressurised cabins. We weren't as bad as the poor 14/18 war lads with real open cockpits. No we weren't that bad. When we got down to Chamberry it was like going into Buckingham Palace. Do you know they actually had curtains on the windows, on the port holes. We had carpet on the floor. That was the way the yanks turned things out in their aircraft, ours were very basic in comparison. Behind the Lines Did Ian ever tell you about the time that we ended up in a place called Souk El Khemis. Well we had a very funny situation. You won't see it in my log and you won't obviously see it in his. But we were sent out on a very special run. We had to go to collect a chap who was an intelligence bloke of some sort, he was a French type, and we had to pick up this character at a rendezvous in the desert at about four thirty to five in the morning, just gone dawn. We went out there in our Bisley and we had to find this place first of all. The dicey thing about it all was that - we were the First army, with Rommel and the Africa Corps between us and the Eighth Army, under General Montgomery, and this was an in betweeny and we had to go in half blind and then to make safe contact with this character. (Note: The First Army were the North Africa Invasion force, starting in Algeria and approaching Tunisia from the West, endeavoring to link up with the Eighth Army under Gen. Montgomery, who was approaching from the East, that is the Tobruk/Egypt side of the African Continent. The German Africa Corps were between the two.) We were told that Ian had to approach him and he was given certain information that he didn't reveal to us, Don and I. It was a place where there were some rocks and promontories, some land marks, that were identifiable but which we could only gather by a map reference, but luckily we spotted the fact that there was an aircraft parked there, a Boston, we had to land and stay at this end of the ravine. Poor old Ian had to go out and walk from the nose of the machine out to this no-mans land. He walked down a certain distance not far maybe twenty or thirty yards, and the same thing happened on their side. We could make out him giving the directed code, anyway we were standing by, when we had landed we had got the machine in such a way that I was able to cover Ian with the turret. Eventually they exchanged words and this bloke left the group he was with. The group then went back to the Boston and he came back to our machine, got into it with us and that was it. I didn't have to speak with him and neither did Don, he sat in the nose and we took off and came back. On the way back we got shot up by a couple of fighters planes. Now in North Africa, in Tunisia particularly, there's a weird sort of weather situation where there are low lying gaps of mist, you'd have to see it to understand it, like little mini clouds, but they're flat - they just hover over the desert. It was thanks be to God that they were there, so we were able to slip under them, we were very very low I can tell you. One of the planes, I think, hit a pylon because Don shouted out suddenly "Jeeze!" he says " Look out Mac!" he says "Bloody pylons!" The wires were all down due to the war, but there we were, we managed to go through all right, no problems. That distracted these Jerries and they broke off. Fortunately for us, because they could have cut us up. So we got back, well not quite, we were going along and I think we were loosing oil and Ian decided we had to put down. We made it back to this place Souk El Khemis. We circled the airfield and came into land. As we were coming down we realised that one of our wheels wasn't coming down. So we decided to do the best we could, and raise the other good one, but we couldn't get the damn thing up again. We decided to come in on almost a crab- wise approach. We did that and bellied down and, thanks be to God, we were all right. But I damaged my foot in that, and to be honest its never been right since, I've had problems with my foot since then. But the big thing was, when we got out there was a big American colonel. Ian should have told you about this because this was a tale and a half. Anyway this colonel bloke came screaming up "What the hell do you mean by dumping that load of old iron on my runway? My boys have got a mission to fly." and "Don't you know there's a war on?" So I tell you what, we got very excited about this and anyway we went into what we thought was the duty pilot's hut. There was a chap sitting there in a khaki shirt he'd got no rank on I thought he was an LAC (leading aircraftsman) and I started leading off at him. Anyway lucky we met up with one of our old colleagues from the squadron, a chap called Rooney, he was now a Flight Lieutenant armourer and was attached to the Americans, looking after their bomb arrangements and so on. He got some quarters for us and that was all right. So we were told to come back the following day to see the AAC, or somebody or other, and he would tell us about our things. We couldn't let our people know that we were down, the Yanks wouldn't send any signals through there, they said they'd got a war on and all this nonsense they got a big push on, "We can't do that, there's a push". So of course we were stuck there overnight so that was all right. The next morning we filed down there, we go into this tent, and I nearly fell over backwards. He's not only got his cap on, he's got his bloody rank on. It was Air Marshal Tedder. Anyway he said "Not to worry, I've fixed up for you to have another aircraft. I've found one for you." and he did. An almost new Bisley came over next day and we flew back to base. You might have thought that that was the end of the matter, but oh no. We got an invitation then to Tunis, to the first Malcolm club that was opened. It was named after our CO who had perished and it was founded by Tedder's wife, Rosalyn Tedder, she'd set up the Malcolm Clubs and we were invited up there as guests. Sight Seeing There was one time at Constantine, in North Africa, which is a big French colonial city, and it was founded by Emperor Constantine. We were based not far from there, at a place called Oulmene and occasionally we used to go in breaks when ops were off for a day or two. We went in for many things, but partly for a haircut and shampoo and that sort of thing, freshen up, and then go around the town, have a good meal, we used to eat hard tack in the desert, because we were a mobile squadron, and so we used to go into Constantine. Now Constantine, had a funny situation, a fault happened in the earth and it became a rift valley, the whole of the center of the city fell by a matter of about a couple of hundred feet, perfectly. Now imagine Roman baths with all their tiles, not a tile cracked. Whether it went down slowly or whether it went down quickly, it went down, but these baths were perfect. Of course we used to go to the modern part where the French had set it all up beautifully, but the French turned this part into a sort of tourist attraction, which they called the Galleries. The only way to get to that part - the lower part, well it started off going down these stairs, all the way down by stages, till you got to the ground, then if you groveled around down there, honest to God whether they sowed them for our benefit or not I don't know, but you found these little Roman coins, I kept some. I got about half a dozen and I brought them home. When you got to the sort of apartments and that sort of thing, they were perfect and the baths were perfect with water in. These Romans baths, the tiles were wonderful and it was all that sort of thing, it was like visiting a museum. To my knowledge it is still the same today. But over the rift valley at one point there was a suspension bridge. At one time there we were doing an air test and we flew over the valley, flew over the bridge, and we noticed that the valley sloped away and went out to where the rift valley finished up. On this flight we found that the valley was clear. So Ian said to me and Don "I think I'll have a crack at flying under that thing". So he brought the kite down. Now you see when you are flying along, if you were getting near stalling speed, you would get a horn in the plane, and this horn came up. He said "Ah, I'll just put on a touch of speed." So he said "Right" and put the wheels down, in fact as if we were going to land, he slowed down and went sailing underneath this bridge. So that was all right, we had done it, we had achieved something. One of those things you feel cocky about. But about two or three days later some yanks tried it in a Lightening. But the bugger went straight into the side as he hadn't allowed for the fact that the thing sloped away slightly to the right as you came out. Anyway the upshot of it all was that there was a terrible hu-ha and they said that they understood that there were some planes that had been seen going under the bridge. (It wasn't just us, there were other people, Lightnings and Thunderbolts and people like that.) You see if you did a bit of reconnaissance and you were aware of these things you would be alive now, but you see this fella hadn't done any reconnaissance and hit the side. Of course that put a stop to it. Everybody was going on about how it was costing the war effort, all this that and the other. We continued to "Prang the Hun" until mid May when our particular part of the North African campaign took another turn which was quite unexpected. When we left the UK we set out as 326 Wing comprising four squadrons (Sqdns.) of Blenheim Vs (Bisleys), ie. 13 Sqdn., 18 Sqdn., 114 Sqdn., & 614 Sqdn.. Due to our heavy engagements with the enemy, our brave little group was getting very low in aircraft and personnel, because we were getting shot out of the sky and everywhere else, really getting decimated. Of the four squadrons that went out at the kick off they pooled us and sadly the 614 remnants became 18 Sqdn. overnight. We were now established at Grombalia and were re-equipped with the Douglas Bostons A 20 aircraft with tricycle undercarriage, vastly different from our three pointer Bisleys. We now experienced greater speed and higher angle of descent upon landing approach, with different instruments, bomb sight and radio apparatus, all alien to us "Brits". We had to become quickly familiar with our "steeds" as we were immediately operational. Coastal patrols and familiarisation sorties followed and this led to a very major operation. A squadron daylight attack on the marshalling yards and installations on the island of Pantellaria and although we had a fighter escort of Spitfires and a high level umbrella cover of fighters, the enemy ME109s and 190s broke through and gave us quite a mauling. We lost one Boston with a F/O Wilson and his crew but the "Spits" shot down one ME 109. Injury and Splitting of the Crew Our under gunner (we were now a crew of four) Art Switzer, a Canadian, received some scratches to his leg whilst I collected a cannon shell splinter, not too serious, but such was the high state of excitement over the Target that I did not realise this until we landed. Doc O'Brien, our squadron medic, did a temporary dressing and hospitalized me to the military hospital at Chateau D'un, officially 103rd General Hospital. I spent the next two months recuperating as due to my low metabolic state of health I picked up a malaria attack plus glandular fever and dysentery, all whilst in "Dock". Passed fit for flying again I set out in high spirits to rejoin the squadron, now in Italy, and Ian and Don. But alas that was not to be, my return took me through Tunis where I met them briefly on their way back to the UK. I said "Where are you two off to?" "Oh.." I said "Its too bad". He said "It won't be long now. When you get back you'll probably get sent straight back home. So I said "Good oh". So they returned to the UK and myself to Italy to resume my interrupted "Cook's Tour". Sadly we did not meet again physically but we have been in touch by phone in later years. Anyway when I get back to Brindisi, "get sent straight back ", nothing of the sort. There was a Group Captain Rawleston, who was a South African, who'd taken over the wing from Sinclair, he had been CO of the whole four squadrons. And Sinclair had obviously gone back to the UK, he's appeared on television. I've seen him now several times, when they rebuilt the Blenheim, and his successor was this chap Rawleston. So I said to him "What's the plan?" "I want you to be my aide" he said. So that's what I got. So I went stooging around with him. It was quite good, he was all right. I also continued flying with many other personnel. I did about two or three more ops in Bostons with the squadron, with a chap called Ray Eller, one of our lads, then I did a few ops with 223 Squadron. They were flying Baltimores the same aircraft company. After that I went through the gambit of instructor. I went down to Cairo and I got sent straight on to Shandur, in Egypt. I had been out there two years. I was put on Link trainers, a training aid, actually a ground based navigation and flying machine, which is operated electronically, in which the crew are sealed in and fly just on instruments. Their course is plotted for certain exercises, and an instrument called a Crab shows their progress on a table in front of the instructor. We gave a Pukka briefing for a flight and you have to watch them on the table. Ultimately I went from that onto Marauders (Glen Mart. B26s) which were like the big brothers of the Bostons. The yanks didn't like them, they called them the coffin makers. But we somehow or other managed to overcome all the little frailties of the aircraft. I found them lovely things to fly in, very comfortable and flew well. Anyway I went from that in Egypt, (by that time I was commissioned), to India, then South Africa, Iran, Iraq, you name it. So really I enjoyed myself, really I lived the best of it. But I never caught up with Ian. I finally returning to the UK where I joined RAF Transport Command. When I finally retired from the Air Force in the early fifties I returned to accountancy in the Westminster Bank Ltd. (now Nat West). (When I got back to the UK I was in the 614 sqdn. association, and the 18 sqdn association). I would like to finish this missive by stating that we had a comradeship which has proved steadfast right into retirement and please God into the Hereafter. Paddy Stapleton