Great Britain

I didn’t get a chance to see anything of Scotland.  We just disembarked and boarded a train for a long overnight trip to a camp near London.  At this camp we had further training both on the ground and in the air.  On one of our night flights while I was navigating by stars, suddenly the crew and I were surprised that everywhere in our area there were German planes dropping bombs.  Either they didn’t notice us or couldn’t be bothered with us.  I know we could see them and I know they gave us a scare as long as they were around.  We had no idea what would happen to us and when it would happen, we just had to stay quiet and fly on.  It was with much relief when they left us, and it was then that we finally noticed the fires below us.  We wondered if our airport had been damaged.  It hadn’t and we landed feeling indeed blessed.

This was the camp where we were introduced to the Red Cross.  They had hospitality rooms at every camp and attractive friendly hostesses in Red Cross uniforms.  There was music there, food, friendship, and hostesses who could offer help to men who needed to contact families or get some personal help different from the military benefits.

I went to London whenever I could, and it was on one of these trips that I decided to buy a bike so that I could get out in the country.  I’d even take trips when I could and with the bike be free to see many things.

 I found at the Red Cross names of families who wanted to entertain Canadian airmen.  I picked out the name of the Webster family, so on the next trip to London I called them and was invited for the weekend.  They lived in a suburb of London, and with my bike I went for the first of many visits.  They became for a year and more my family away from home.  I either went to the Webster’s on my leaves or took a train with my bike in the baggage car.  Sometimes when I had leave, I’d buy a ticket on the train to any place I could reach in the time I had.  At times I’d get off at a place that looked interesting, get my bike out of the baggage car and go touring.  One of these trips took me to Stonehenge near Salisbury, and another to Coventry shortly after they were terribly bombed.  Several times while I was in London, I saw the bombing of London.

In March we were sent to a new camp where we were to learn map reading and navigation when flying low and using rivers, railroads and highways for directions.  The camp was a military camp for army personnel, and the most important lesson we were to learn was how to identify an army camp from the air.

We were issued army jackets but continued to wear our air force caps as well as the rest of our dress.  We were a constant confusion to the personnel at this camp; the guards weren’t sure if we were officers or not, so they saluted us as we came and went from our quarters.  We were billeted in the town nearby in pubs and some public buildings.

We flew in two-seater planes belted in, wearing our parachutes, goggles and helmets and well protected against the wind.

About the second day the pilot who took me up yelled back to me and asked if I would like to do a few loops and some other fancy things.  I yelled NO NO, but he evidently didn’t hear me or enjoyed giving us new guys a scare, and he did just that.  It is hard to imagine what it feels like to fly upside down unless you do it.  I got through this experience, but when we stopped all these acrobatics, we had flown beyond the area of my maps.  We were in a strange area and further from our camp than we were supposed to be.  We guessed that we should follow railroad tracks and we finally got back into my map area.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999