IN CONTACT WITH THE ENEMY

Being in the RAF and based mostly in England and America during the last war I had not a great deal of contact with live Germans and their war machine.

I will relate them to you later (as I may have done before), but now I will tell you about Fred Scott, my cousin, who was in the Army and very much in live contact with enemy tanks and soldiers.

Fred, well-educated, joined up as an ordinary private soldier. His first job was part of the defence of Shoreham Airfield on our south coast. His fellows were mostly guilty ex-criminals who had been told by the judiciary to become soldiers or go down the mines.

Fred learned from them about the rougher side of life and, in particular, a special skill.

His father was a Brigadier General. When in Fred’s district, the Brigadier ordered Fred’s presence. They were then together and alone - a hig-ranking soldier and an ordinary private soldier.

“Well, my boy, what have you learned in the Army?” 

“How to pick a lock, sir.”

“Well, Fred”, said his father, open the padlock on that gas meter in the corner.” 

Fred opened the lock and a cascade of coins fell to the floor.

“Now put the coins back and lock it up again.”

“Sorry, sir, I can’t do it. I have only learned how to unlock locks.” 

You might well imagine the following consternation caused by this episode of army life. 

Fred was flown into the Normandy battlefield by glider on the second day of the liberation, rose to become a Major, and was aworded the Militairy Cross by Field Marshall Montgomery on the battlefield.

My own first and closest contact with Germans came when, having returned to the UK in 1942 from America when old enough to join the RAF, with a view of becoming a pilot, I was given an RAF number and told to wait in civilian life for a flying vacancy.

The first job I took as an RAF/civilian was being a farm labourer. It was at a time of extreme food shortages and farm produce was vital. 

I was in the middle of a field weeding rows of mangels (cattle feed) when I heard approaching engines in the sky. A German Ju 88 bomber approached so low over my field that I could see the pilot and gunner quite clearly. The gunner could have so easily killed me, but chose not to do so. I suppose the German airmen were too tense, flying so low and trying to find their way to bomb Reading railway station - which they missed, hitting a school and killing many children. 

A dangerous meeting with the enemy came when I was posted to Davidstow Moor, in Cornwall, as a trainee pilot, now with the RAF proper, to experience real operational flying.

We flew Warwick Aircraft in RAF Coastal Command, with a lifeboat designed to fit beneath the fusilage of our rather ponderous twin-engined aeroplane. It was to be dropped by parachute. 

I was taken on sorties over the Bay of Biscay to find baled-out aircrew. With most of those on board looking downward to the sea, my job was to scan the sky for German Condors, four-engined aeroplanes that could easily fly faster than us and outgun us with cannon fire. I did see one in the far distance but communication broke down at that moment so had to point it out to the skipper beside me. As we had no chance of survival in a fight, we dived to just above sea level and headed for home at full speed. (All aircrew were given a fried egg on their return. That was special.)

The next four encounters were the following:

Arriving by train in the western suburbs of London on leave, an air raid was in progress. The train I was aboard was halted and, although advised not to leave the carriages for our safety, many of us climbed out and down to the rails to witness searchlights combing the sky to the sound of anti-aircraft shells, and bombs falling, mainly on the East End of London. I wrote to an American that I wouldn’t have missed it for worlds. 

Then came the unmanned, V1 flying buzzbombs (doodlebugs). They were directed haphazardly with London as their target. If the noise of its one ram jet engine stopped before the bomb reached you, you dived for cover. If it continued overhead then all was well and it would fall and explode elsewhere - and one could continue one’s interrupted bath if having one. 

After the buzzbombs came the V2 rocket. I was mending roofs in the East End of London (Plumstead) waiting for a posting to the USA when on top of a roof I heard an explosion and then a swooshing sound. It was one of the first V2 rockets to fall on London and far enough away. The noise of its explosion was followed by the sound of its arrival.

My last possible encounter with the enemy was when posted to RAF Skellingthorpe, near  Lincoln, at an RAF bomber squadron.

A Lancaster bomber had returned from a raid on Germany overnight with one of its engines shot up. Another was substituted and had to be tested before the next night raid took off for Germany. 

The rear gunner, for some reason, was unable to be aboard for this test flight to Scotland and back. So I took his place - with four Browning 303 machine guns to fire at a German aircraft should one cross the North Sea to interrupt our flight.  I was not required to press the firing button, but it was a great experience to have flown in such a famous bomber - even though my only duty was to line up my guns with the landscape beneath and read off the drift and pass on this information to the navigator by intercom.

These were my most exciting wartime experiences. Had I been born one year earlier I doubt very much if I would have been alive to write about such minor wartime episodes.

And I am also grateful to that Ju 88 air gunner for not bothering to kill me when I was hoeing weeds just beneath him.