In parallel with modern-day waiting, like for deliveries, taxis, post, queues and such, a lot of my war was waiting, but on a larger scale, mainly for the nsext posting on my way to becoming a pilot. Tedious it may have been but, in looking back, it was often accompanied by good luck.
On returning from America to join the RAF in 1942 in a convoy when we were attacked by German U-boats, I was accepted into the AF, given a number and told to wait.
Just that I managed to get back to England instated and in one piece was luck. The RAF was much in need of pints at that time, but conditions for learning to fly in England were meteorologically not conducive for novices. So I had to wait for a pilot-training vacancy abroad where the weather was free of clouds.
Not yet in uniform, I took a job as a farm labourer to help, in a very small way, to feed the nation. And in doing this very manual work I came nearest to the enemy in the entire war. Weeding in the middle of a field one day, a German Ju88 twin-engined bomber flew low and so close to my head that I could see the pilot and gunner quite clearly. They were on their mission to bomb the railway station at Reading. That I am able to write this is that the gunner failed to pull the trigger and shoot me dead. That was a real slice of luck during a wait.
My next job was as a prop-swinger at the RAF Theale. Dangerous I am sure it was in starting aeroplane engines by swinging the propeller and falling back at the same time. But through good luck I not only survived but also had the luck to obtain flying experience in the second pilot's cockpit when it was available.
Wait over, I was at last in uniform and flying my first solo flight at RAF Shellingford, which consisted of no more than a farmer's grass field. No luck was needed there as I now had some experience in the air.
The next wait was, I suppose, the most dangerous.
To give trainee pilots a taste of real combative action was to farm us out to operational RAF stations to experience the real thing. My first and most interesting posting was to RAF Davidstowe Moor in Cornwall to fly in the second pilot's seat in twin-engined Warwick aircraft. Each sortie was to fly out over the Bay of Biscay to find and then drop a lifeboat to save downed aircrew. Whereas pilot, gunners and all were looking down at the sea, my job was to keep an eye out for German, four-engined Condors for which we were no match. I did see one before they saw us. We were slow and poorly armed by comparison, but escaped unhurt. That was a real stroke of luck.
After another wait, I was posted to RAF Skellingthorpe, in Lincolnshire. This was one of the airfields from which Lancaster bombers left to bomb Germany at night. I took the place of a rear gunner in an engine-testing flight up to Scotland and back. Except for the remote chance that a German raider could intercept us, it was a case of not needing much luck, but luck it was.
Another posting was to RAF Hornchurch and another wait, where I volunteered to mend slate roofs in Plumstead that had been broken in German bombing raids.
One of the first V2 rocket-propelled bombs to land in England fell within earshot. It was luck that I was a good distance away, just as I had been from Buzzbombs falling in central London when I was on leave.
At last the Hornchurch wait was over and I was off to America to become a pilot in Oklahoma.
This was my third wartime crossing of the Atlantic by ship in a sea thick with Nazi U-boats. Not to have been torpedoed was real luck.
I write this just after the 75th anniversary of VE Day, the television pictures of which I found very interesting and joyful. Referring to my logbook I see that on that particular day in America we were given a day off, flying in formation the day before and in the Link Trainer the day after.
Pilots were no longer needed in Europe, but for the Americans the Pacific war was very much in progress. Fortunately there were enough of our skilled pilots to fly in the fight against Japan, so novice pilots like me were redundant. Luck again.
I returned to England by sea and became a Photographic Intelligent Officer until my turn came to be demobilised. My task held no risk as it was a desk and stereoscope job concerned with why the Germans had taken so many aerial photographs of oil installations in the area close to the north of the Caspian Sea. During this wait period I qualified to become a medical student but on release from the RAF it was found that I had TB of the lung (then incurable). So my luck rather ran out then.
I never liked having to wait so much in wartime. But I did like the good luck that seemed to coincide with it.
And I have always thought that had I been born a year earlier I would almost certainly have been killed in flying operations over Germany, such was the mortality rate of aircrew. So perhaps all this waiting did, in fact, help to save my life.
That's luck alright.
