MY NATIONAL SERVICE WITH THE R.A.F.

As Remembered By John Woollard

 

To a returning exile, Warrington Station in the rain may have been a welcome sight – but to an already apprehensive RAF recruit, it was not and the reception committee added little charm to the occasion. The Reception Unit staff were clearly selected on their ability to shout rather than their personal charisma. They shouted us onto a lorry and then shouted us off again at RAF Padgate. They shouted us into the dining hall and straight out again when the Corporal Cook shouted that we were too bl**dy late!!

After documentation, we were shouted into a hut to drop our luggage and then our trousers for a quick medical check. Then off to the clothing store to receive uniforms and all the other bits necessary for a quick metamorphism. Surprisingly, there was a civilian tailor in attendance who chalked all over the parts which didn’t fit and whipped them away. Even more surprisingly, they came back after a couple of days fitting perfectly. We were very pleased to be all smart and lovely in our uniforms but came back to earth with a jolt when we were given paper and string with which to send our personal belongings back to Mum – a real ‘lump-in-the-throat’ job!

During the 7 days at Padgate, we were taught to move in a reasonably coherent blob without getting mixed up with the blobs from other huts – but you could not call it marching! It allowed our shouters to move us about the place with a good chance of keeping our 33 bodies together. Our “Flight” was one of three into which the day’s intake had been divided. Mostly we toured the various activities as a Flight, but for some things all 90-odd of the intake gathered together. One such event for which we formed a long line was inoculation. This was either sadistic or a bad mistake as them behind had to watch them in front being ‘done’. After about ten minutes them behind were dropping like flies. Some developed vaccine fever and were very seedy for a few days. One poor soul lay crying on his bed for a night and a day and would not be shouted off it by anybody. When he did calm down he disappeared and we heard later he had been discharged as unfit for service.

The lottery of the railway timetables caused me to be one of only three Englishmen in the intake, the rest being very Welsh indeed. Few of them had any experience of a shirt with a detached collar and some could not knot a tie. This meant a very busy start to the day for those of us with these most important skills. Evenings were devoted to polishing of boots and brasses and the only bit of light relief came from my attempts to pronounce ‘Llanelli’ as they did. The polishing of kit to a high standard was a sort of masochistic chore. The really tricky item was boot toecaps, transforming them from rough leather to a hard glassy shine. Many had received advice from ex-service friends and well-wishers(?), the consensus being that vast amounts of black polish should be massaged into the leather using the back of a spoon. Someone suggested that warming the spoon might be a “good thing”. General progress was made along these lines with everyone sitting around the two glowing tortoise stoves. One impatient chap ran out of luck when he tried to speed the process by heating the leather directly. The result was total collapse of the toecap to something resembling a flat old purse. Definitely a “bad thing”!

Well-wishers were also very strong on advice about military haircuts and how to avoid them. The theory was that by having a close cut before leaving home one could avoid – at least temporarily – the attentions of the camp barber. It did not work. The establishment was manned by kindly civilians whose contract allowed them to take sixpence from each recruit, and they could not bear to take the cash without earning it. People who had had the pre-emptive trim came out bald and bad tempered.

One day a very young Pilot Officer (he looked about 15) appeared and announced that he had come to “Take Us Away From All This”. He was an Education Officer from the basic training camp at Credenhill, near Hereford. His attendant sheepdogs were in real life three Corporal Drill Instructors. They clearly had taken the advance shouting course. For the duration of our stay they deputised for God. From leaving Padgate they were in a constant frenzy of counting heads and getting wrong totals. It eventually transpired that somebody had escaped during a change of trains at Crewe. This discovery may have restored faith in their arithmetic but did little for their happiness. They had helpfully emphasised before leaving Padgate that we would be given a meal on arrival at Credenhill and should therefore pack cutlery and china mug at the very top of our kitbags for easy access. Naturally, these lovely chaps made a point of throwing every kitbag from the truck so that it landed upside down and smashed the mug. Needless to say we were once again too late for the meal.

Basic Training had two main aims. The first was to train the recruit as an infantryman and in so doing, instil discipline and unthinking obedience. The second was to make life so dreadful that nothing encountered in later service (or life) would be as bad. It was not the nicest experience but I am personally very grateful for it. Between 7:30am and 5:30pm we were shouted about between parade ground, rifle range, route march (singing compulsory), assault course, lectures and more jabs. One nasty thing was the gas chamber. We were invited, ten at a time, to enter a sealed Nissen hut. Apart from a little burner thing in the centre, the hut was bare. We were lined up along one wall and told to don our gasmasks. The Instructor tossed a couple of tablets onto the burner while we galloped round the hut until we were puffing nicely. We had to halt, remove gasmask and then trot round again to ensure that the lungs were nicely full. We then ran out, coughed our lungs to bits while rolling round on the wet grass, and that was that.

I was luckier than most, having spent several years as a member of both the Army Cadet Force and school Training Corps. Because I had obtained various proficiency certificates. I was, after 4 weeks, moved forward to a Flight which had already completed 6 weeks of training. With the final 2 weeks ahead it meant that I did only 6 weeks of ‘square-bashing’. I was sorry to leave my Welsh mates but being free of their collars and ties did allow me a little longer in bed.

Strangely, as the days went by, the regime became almost enjoyable and there was a certain smug satisfaction surviving the daily horrors. The hitherto sadistic Corporals began to show little flashes of humanity. They were in competition to win the ‘Best Flight’ citation for the passing-out parade and by this stage our co-operation was essential. By the time of this event we were so euphoric that we agreed to do our best for our erstwhile tormentors. One of them repaid us by taking lots of photographs and then cash by promising to forward prints. Surprise, surprise, they all got lost in the post! During these past weeks we had been assessed to determine our suitability for trade training and where possible we were asked to state a preference. As my previous experience has been in a soil testing laboratory, I thought that Airfield Construction would be appropriate but there were vacancies for concrete mixer drivers and tractor drivers only, so I opted to be an Armourer (Bombs). There might have been a chance to be an Armourer (Guns) or Armourer (Turrets) but as they said there “Wasn’t the Demand” and I’ve always liked loud bangs so I chose Bombs. Anyway, that was that and off home I went for Xmas Leave.

Early in January I reported to the Armament School ar RAF Kirkham, situated between Preston and Blackpool. The non-technical part of the induction lecture was given by the Station Warrant Officer – always known as the Abominable Snowman. His task was the maintenance of good order and discipline, together with identification of miscreants to carry out the more unsavoury jobs around the camp. He explained that, through the kindness of his heart, he had arranged for a local coach operator to lay on buses to most areas for people going on weekend leave. He further explained that fares were ridiculously cheap and tickets could be purchased from his office. In other words, no ill would befall anybody who travelled frequently under his auspices. I cannot recall his name but he was universally known as W.O. Swarbrick – the name of the Bus Company!!

Discipline was much more relaxed than in basic training. The instructors were a mix of RAF and civilian and friendly. They even made jokes! We still marched between the various classrooms and workshops but mostly shouted ourselves along. Things were looking up. Life was interesting. We were taught to handle, fuse and defuse all types of bombs and how to render them safe if they became unstable through age or unsuitable storage conditions. We learned the electrical and mechanical intricacies of bomb carriage and release mechanisms and what to do if they didn’t want to let go. We played with various types of explosives and were shown the basics of demolition (with satisfying loud bangs) and how to dispose of unwanted or out-of-date stores. We were given basic workshop instruction and had to transform two unfriendly lumps of iron into something else using a blunt hacksaw and file only. Even though there ‘Wasn’t the Demand’, we were taught some turrent servicing and also care and repair of guns used. These ranged from rockets and tank-busting cannon to ordinary twelve-bore shotguns which were used to give air gunners practice in deflection shooting at clay pigeons.

Saturday morning (if you had not escaped on one of the SWO’s famous buses) was spent trotting and crawling on Station Defence exercises. On fine days playing soldiers was fun, but when we had rain we also had mud which in turn gave rise to much cleaning of equipment in order to avoid harsh words on the brief working parade on Monday morning.

One popular civilian instructor was an elderly ex Royal Navy Master Gunner who used to arrive on a tall old bicycle and with his cap at a jaunty angle. He would liven up a dull day by leaping about the room giving a lively demonstration of RN gun drill, acting all parts himself. He ended by shouting “Numbah one gun ready Sah!” - someone should have shouted “Fire” to test his ultimate acting ability. He was happy with modest applause but turned huffy if anybody actually laughed.

The war in Korea was nicely on the go and a sure way for an instructor to regain faltering attention was to remark “When you find yourselves in Korea you’ll wish you’d b;**dy listened!”. We would spend hours in the evening sitting round the fire speculating on whether ‘they knew something’. Happily, they didn’t.

Apart from written and practical tests, the passing out process culminated in a formal inspection of personal kit. Those who have suffered the ordeal will know that this involves laying every item of personal equipment which you are not actually wearing in a precise and pre-ordained manner across you bed. This layout was done before breakfast and inspected immediately afterwards by a senior officer. The centrepiece was that large white china mug surrounded by knife, fork and spoon. On the day, the unthinkable happened. Somebody dropped his mug on the way back from breakfast. The empty space on his bed shouted its deficiency. The bored elderly Squadron Leader strolled by this bed without comment but turned back when about three beds past –

We were naturally all agog to know our ‘postings’ to operational units. Before these were officially announced a lad with an almost impenetrable Liverpool accent managed to get a glimpse of the list in the Orderly Room. I was delighted to learn that I was to go to Abington, near Duxford. However, that translated to Abingdon, near Oxford. A case of hearing what you wished to hear. My companion on this journey into the unknown was an interesting lad called Tony Walsh from Acton. He had been evacuated to the North during the war and had attended an obviously good Grammar School in Boulton. He was a strange mixture of Northern and London culture and had incredibly smelly feet for which he constantly apologises. Washing only made them worse. He also had a near-terminal obsession with a girl called Madeline.

About once a year one was invited to help in the defence of the Free World by doing Guard Duty for a night. At 6 pm twelve heroic figures would parade outside the Guard Room by the main gate. We were divided into pairs either to patrol the camp or work the gate barrier for the occasional vehicle. After two hours the first patrols would return for a two hour break while other pairs took their place, and this routine was continued until 8 am. My friend, Tony, was an avid reader of almost anything and while he was on gate duty late one night and passing the time by reading a paper-back he sensed that he was not alone. The Commanding Officer had rolled quietly to a halt and was sitting watching. All Tony could think of to say was a chummy “Oh… good evening” as he lifted the barrier. And all the C.O. could think of was an astonished “…. And good evening to you!”. In the Army that would have lead to three months in Colchester Military Prison!

Abingdon was home to the Parachute Training School so we were able to observe at close range the very different style of discipline in the Army. The Paratroopers day was filled with shouting, parading and marching about. They were supervised by a formidable veteran of Arnham, namely RSM Bob Grainger. Airmen quietly walking about their duties would send him purple with rage. He once gave Tony a doing-over for not saluting an officer. The fact that Tony was carrying a double armful of high explosives cut no ice at all. It happened that the RSM was a distant relative by marriage of my wife-to-be but I kept that to myself.

We were initially puzzled by the need for Armourers (Bombs) on a Transport Command station. Although we were attached administratively to the Station Armoury and our personal letters went there, we spent most of our time with Transport Command Training and Development Flight. This unit flew Hastings aircraft, mostly dropping paratroopers and their Jeeps, field guns and canisters of small items. A detachable magnesium alloy frame called a bomb-beam was mounted under the aircraft and to this were attached the various stores to be carried and dropped. The mechanical carriers and electric releases were exactly the same as those used to carry bombs. Our task was to load whatever was called for and to preset the timers and sequence switches so that they could all be dropped in the correct order and intervals. The all-up weight usually exceeded the safe landing weight of the aircraft so it was most important that it all worked. A “hang-up” entailed creeping about in the lower fuselage and tugging, pushing and praying until a loud bang and sudden upward leap indicated the end of the panic.

The jeep (or whatever) was housed in a crude metal frame at the top of which was a large steel pin from which it hung on the bomb-beam. It carried two large parachutes which were opened by a static line as the jeep dropped away. Projecting below the jeep were two metal “mushrooms” – convex discs mounted on hydraulic rams. On hitting the ground these rams would trigger the release of the parachutes so that strong winds could not drag the goodies away from their intended recipients. This did not always go to plan. I once saw the parachutes “candle”, i.e. twist together rather than open. After hitting the ground the jeep was still intact but only about two feet tall!

We did some drops for the Alan Ladd film “The Red Beret”. “Somewhere in Africa” was RAF Watchfield with palm trees stuck in old oil drums. A brisk wind coupled with the failure of parachutes to release caused one load to be dragged smartly across the grass in pursuit of the fleeing camera crew. One of our number was given a hard time on account of his attempts to play the bagpipes. As we would not put up with his practising indoors he was condemned to many lonely hours marching about on the airfield. His dedication paid off when he was dressed in Army battledress and kilt to pipe a bunch of pretend paratroopers onto an Indian Air Force Dakota which happened to be visiting. The piper was, of course, paid equity rates for the job. The visual trickery was interesting. The troops were seen getting into this tatty old Dakota which had a bit of flapping material covering the inconvenient marking, jumping from a Hastings, landing by the fake palm trees, and then fighting their way across a bit of North Wales. On screen it looked quite good.

 

Back to National Service

Back to Main Page