Chapter 12 Ground Staff Blokes; Oddity; Stratobuses; Out Of Control

(By a fighter pilot in the Western Desert)

WE blokes of the air crews seem to get all the praise for the knocks we give the Wops and Nazis, but you can take it from me, the chaps of the ground staff are doing the hard work. They are the cogs that keep us flying, and they are the dynamite that blasts the enemy.

They are never off the job; they live alongside our fighters in holes they have dug in the ground; they seldom sleep. When night falls, they keep on working, and they work by touch. If they must have light, they pull a blanket over their heads and do the job in the pin-point of light from a masked torch. They're marvelous.

Sometimes we come back a bit "shot-up" by the enemy. The ground staff seize hold of our crates, and there is no rest for them till they have put us in the air again. Raids can come and raids can go, but the blokes on the ground seem too busy to notice the falling bombs. And they get plenty, too, for one of the favourite targets of the Hun is the dispersal area, and that is where these boys are living and working.

Let me tell you about something which happened the other night.

Two aircraftmen were working on one of the fighter landing grounds, with bombs dropping all about them. Suddenly an incendiary dropped on a canvas covering, and started a blaze. The two lads scrambled on to the aircraft, undid the burning cover, and got it away before even the fuselage was scorched.

Then they brushed the dust off their hands and went on with the job. That's the ground staff.

Another chap found an unexploded anti-personnel bomb beneath the wing of the fighter he was looking after. A few minutes later he reported that he had disposed of it, "using every precaution". It turned out his precautions consisted of hauling the bomb away with a piece of rope three feet long. That's the ground staff, too!

For my part, I'd rather have done a fighter sweep, or a beat-up of Rommel's panzers. I'd have been less nervous, anyway.

These chaps are our pals, and we are proud of it. They would do anything, and work any hours, to keep us in the air. In dust-storms and heat, in darkness and cold night dews, they keep the fighters primed. Their aircraft serviceability record is higher than that of any other squadron in the desert. That is all the reward they ask-to keep that record for themselves. Our crates are always ready, refuelled, reloaded, guns and fuselage repaired and patched, engines purring smoothly, "rarin' to go".

Theirs is a job without heroics, with nothing but hard work in cramped conditions. When they can't work any longer, they drop into holes in the ground alongside their aircraft and fall into the deep, sound sleep of exhaustion, oblivious of the bombs and ground strafing that goes on about them.

just two blankets in a hole in the ground, with camel bush laid above, in the too optimistic hope that it will keep out the dust, the rain, the cold, or the heat-that is their "home".

At the crack of dawn, they arc out again, gulping down a mug of hot tea, warming up their engines, testing the aircraft, to ensure that they are in perfect condition.

It's great to have a bunch of boys like this looking after your fighter. Half the battle is to know your crate is safe beneath you, and with chaps like this, you can go up against the Jerry or the Wop, certain that the boys below have not let you down.

I "dips me lid" to the ground staff, they're tops.

THE story of Jacques Dupont and his comrades is so bizarre that the classical opening for it would be "Once upon a time-"; yet the story is as true as it is odd, and Dupont was awarded the D.F.M. for his part in the adventure.

Once upon a time-that is to say, just before Christmas Day, 1941 - Sergeant Air-Gunner Jacques Dupont, of Toorak, Victoria, was an air gunner in a Sunderland flying boat which was making a Mediterranean flight with a dozen or so passengers, when two Messerschmitt fighters attacked. In a brief encounter, one of the Sunderland's passengers was killed, and two of its gunners were wounded. Dupont kept up his fire, and after one of the Messerschmitts went trailing off in a cloud of smoke, he succeeded in driving off the other.

However, the fight had been by no means one-sided, and the Sunderland's starboard engines had been put out of action, and the ship began to lose height rapidly.

When a crash landing was made on a rough sea, the Sunderland ricocheted twice, the first time bouncing 50 feet in the air, and coming down on the sea again like a great, clumsy whale.

Although this did other damage to the ship, the Sunderland remained afloat for two and a half hours, while the complement sat on the wings and watched themselves being steadily blown towards the reef which protected the shore.

If watching the waves lashing the reef was small comfort, watching assorted pieces of the Sunderland breaking away from their now precarious perch was no better, and they decided to attempt to reach the shore in their rubber dinghies. While the dinghies were being floated overboard, the second pilot was nearly drowned when a strong undertow carried him away, but the captain of the Sunderland plunged into the water and drew him back to safety. The wounded were put into one dinghy, and the others slid down into the sea, like the animals in the Ark, two by two. After some buffeting and bashing, they all managed to get ashore, aided greatly by Dupont.

(Actually, this is where the story ends, so far as Dupont's award is concerned; but it was from here onward, that things really began to happen, with Italians bobbing up in one mood or another, like Christmas jacks-in-the-boxes.)

As the marooned men sit on the stony beach, shivering in their dripping clothes, 20 Italians bob up from behind a stone wall. As the Italians are fully armed, and the British party has no arms at all, the captain of the aircraft goes forward to surrender. Imagine his astonishment when the nearest Italian raises his rifle above his head, throws it away, and advances with outstretched arms in the best grand opera tradition of joyous surrender.

The bewildered British have not completely recovered from this piece of the unexpected when they are thrown into still greater confusion by the arrival of another band of Italian soldiers-So of them this time, all fully armed, and somewhat truculent. The leader immediately declares the whole party his prisoners, and orders an immediate march along the coast. As three of the British airmen have lost their boots in swimming ashore; as the beach is stony; as it teems with rain; as there are no cover or blankets; and as the Italians will not permit fires lest they attract Arabs friendly to the British, it is a miserable march.

But dawn, in the words of the song, proves that the whirligig goes round. Soon after the party has resumed its march, more Italians bob up, from a cluster of bushes this time. They prove to be officers, and very indignant officers at that. It appears that the Germans took their vehicles and told them to get to safety the best way they could. So upset are they by this idea of Nazi fair play that they propose that in return for their help, the British should guarantee them favoured treatment should they be captured.

By this time, the British are inured to the sudden appearances of Italians, and the arrival of a major with a face like an old boot and 50 men tailing him seems just another incident in the day's march. The strange major, however, deserves more attention, for he proves himself to be a good friend.

When the wounded man in the British party dies, the major conducts the burial service and weeps over the grave; and when an indignant member of the British party reports that his flying boots have been stolen by an Italian, the major whips the offender with a species of cat-o'-nine tails he carries.

At the Arab village of El Hamia, the party is given macaroni and coffee. Three eggs are bartered for an English two-shilling piece and a wristlet watch, and an Egyptian pound purchases a bag of dates.

While this bartering is going on, one of the British party whispers in an Arab's ears that if he informs the British, who are only 15 miles away, of the plight of the Sunderland party, a reward will be forthcoming.

The promise of "baksheesh" lends wings to the Arab's feet, and he slips away in the darkness.

After spending the night in El Hamia, the Italian major, who has taken complete charge of the party, summons the British leader, and says he proposes to leave for Benghazi. The Briton says Benghazi is in British hands; the major disagrees; so they make a bet on it. In this conciliatory mood, he agrees that the British should remain with the Arabs, while he sets off with his men for Benghazi, and he even offers to leave some rifles with them for protection against the Arabs. The British decline the off er, and watch the major, swishing at the flies with his cat-o'-nine-tails, disappear in the distance.

The British shake their heads and pinch themselves to make sure it is not all a dream, and convinced that it is not, and that the major really does exist, and may easily return and repent of his generosity, they set out again for the British lines. Before they have walked an hour they overtake some of the major's men. It appears that things have taken a turn for the worse and that they should have accepted the major's offer of rifles, for one of the Italians runs towards the British party struggling to draw his bayonet from its scabbard. Perhaps he is the man the major flogged, coming for revenge?

But no. Having drawn his bayonet from its scabbard, the Italian lays it across a stone and joyously, though determinedly, jumps upon it till it snaps.

There are about 25 Italians, and they gleefully throw away their rifles, or hand them over to the British, and make themselves prisoners. Four times along the route there are similar scenes, as more Italians bob out from their hiding places, throw away their arms, and join the procession.

After three hours, the unarmed British party has taken more than 100 prisoners, whom they hand over on arrival at a British encampment, to an armed guard.

What happened to the Arab who set out for help is not known, nor is there any news of how the major fared on his march to Benghazi, or if he arrived there, whether he decided to pay up. It is probable that if he lives he will do so. For how long the wristlet watch which was bartered for eggs continued to go after its immersion in sea water is also a mystery. It is known, however, that the Italian "prisoners" were sent to a prisoners-of-war camp where, it is presumed, they lived happily ever after.

BEHIND the great battles of the Western Desert lies the the story of air-army co-operation. It is in part a story of the perils and hardships of stratosphere reconnaissance-unspectacular flights which make great victories possible and may ward off great reverses, for they give eyes to the fighting forces.

Arrayed like medieval monsters, men of the R.A.A.F., flying in the vast empty spaces between earth and stars, pry the innermost secrets from the enemy in his stronghold. In special suits and masks they work in a strange and eerie world while science within battles with the forces of nature without which would destroy them.

Pieced together at headquarters, the information they glean may lay the foundation for a crushing blow against the enemy by air force, army or navy. If their work is not spectacular, the results they obtain are.

This service makes great physical and mental demands on the men engaged, and years of scientific research have made possible the operation of human beings at altitudes where no man, beast or bird could live. The crews fly at heights which make electrically heated suits and oxygen equipment essential to life. They spy out enemy movements, supply dumps, gun positions, communications, reinforcements, strength of dispositions, and the thousand and one things which the Army needs to know, and can learn, perhaps, from no other source.

To keep out the bitter cold-it is often as low as 3o degrees below zero Centigrade -each man wears three pairs of gloves, two of which are silk, and two pairs of socks.

Over his ordinary clothes he wears silk, and a special electrically heated suit. Even then, feet may freeze, and should his eyes water, icing up occurs. Even cameras have their heating devices.

There is risk, too, that the supply of oxygen may be inadvertently cut off from a member of the crew. Should this happen, he develops a kind of hilarious drunkenness and babbles incoherently of irrelevant things until the oxygen is restored.

A curious fact about this period of light-headedness is that he retains no recollection of what he did or said during the period he was deprived of oxygen, and for two or three days after the misadventure he pays for it with heavy headaches.

But it is not only hardship which these men endure. There is danger, too - danger which comes from outside this strange, aloof, flying world in which they live; for developments in plane construction have enabled the enemy to build fighters which can attain these great altitudes, and they are ever on the search for lonely reconnaissance planes.

The work of the reconnaissance crew, with their hardships and perils, may not be as spectacular as that of the fighters and bombers, but the successes of the fighters and bombers, and the army they support, would be more hazardous if the work of the high altitude men were less sure.

(By Flight Sergeant T.T.H.)

T0 watch Mother Earth rushing up to meet you while you are fighting a spin at a mere few thousand feet does not increase your expectation of a long and useful life.

I suppose hundreds of air crew members in this war have had the experience of being in an aircraft spinning out of control, and I suppose few will deny that it was a far from pleasant sensation.

My first prospect of gaining a harp and heavenly flying badge for this manoeuvre occurred over the Mediterranean off Tobruk. The pilot was trying to push our Maryland as high as possible, and we had reached 25,000 feet and were flying in cloud when we had the first warning that the balloon was about to go down.

"I feel ill, my legs won't move," the pilot shouted through the inter-com. phones.

What a pal!

Down went the nose, and with engines full out, the big twin-engined bomber roared down in an almost vertical dive. She fell about 5000 feet before the pilot came to and pulled back on the stick with all his strength. The nose came up all right, but such was the speed of the aircraft that the pilot was unable to move the stick forward again, and the Maryland did a loop and then plunged downwards again in a spin.

These violent manoeuvres wrenched the top gun from its mounting, and I was almost knocked out when the top gunner was forced through his seat and fell on me.

Pans of ammunition were flying round the rear cabin, and through breaks in the cloud we could see the Mediterranean coming closer, much closer.

Three times the aircraft looped and then continued on her downward course, screaming like a mad thing. The air speed indicator was hard over 500 miles an hour, which meant that true air speed was well over that figure.

I thought it was only a matter of seconds before we hit, but finally the Maryland levelled out, in a rather crazy and drunken fashion, at little over 1,000 feet. The pilot had gained control by pulling back the stick and then wedging his body between seat and stick.

Never were words so welcome as the pilot's rather shaky, "It's O.K., I've got her now"; and then the observer, expressing the whole crew's relief, "Thank Gawd for that. But all my charts have gone to the bottom of the Med. You'd better get me a bearing, Number 3-"

Number 3 was only too happy to oblige.

"Good trip?" asked the C.O., when we arrived at our desert landing ground.

"Not bad, thanks," we said. "These Yankee kites can certainly take it!"

And we meant it.