COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
confronted Butch earlier in the day and refused to fly a Typhoon again
claiming that it was no longer necessary and much too dangerous.
From then on he ribbed us unmercifully for risking our lives, until
they sent him home to Canada, which was just what he wanted.
Ironically he was to be killed, bush flying in British Columbia, before
many years had passed.
When the AOC visited us to present the Squadron badge, Butch was
in his element, determined as ever to secure that elusive permanent
commission. You could see it in his face as the band fell in and he took
command of the parade.
Air Vice Marshal Hudleston's words were complimentary. But
there was a dreadful sense of anticlimax. Had he really been talking
about us?
Our future, and that of the Squadron was obscure to say the least.
In a month or two we might be scattered to the four winds. We
celebrated the occasion by getting rather tight.
The Wing was at Alhorn for barely a month, the beginning of a
long period of painful adjustment, coming to terms with the idea of
peace and thinking about the future. Some were attracted to the idea
of a career in the Royal Air Force. Others kept their heads down and
soldiered on hoping for the earliest possible release.
Charlie Hall and I explored the area together. Starting with the
mess basement, which was knee deep in Nazi photographs and
magazines, with a few swastika arm bands and ceremonial daggers
abandoned in haste by their owners. The rest of the airfield was a dead
loss. Everything had been destroyed. But a train of flat cars, on an
adjacent railway line, was loaded with damaged aircraft which yielded
a few more instruments for my bottom drawer. Most were Ju 188s and
amongst them an almost undamaged Tempest V.
That railway line ran through the depth of a pine forest, where we
tried our hands at deer stalking, lethally armed with German machine
pistols.
We never actually hit anything and this highly dangerous sport
came to an abrupt end when two stalking parties opened fire on each
other as the quarry fled between them!
Fortunately there was plenty of flying, practising for the Victory
Air Parades, and there were extra flights for the leaders too as they
learned accurate station keeping between squadrons. This was a new
skill and the range bars on our reflector sights proved invaluable until
it became second nature. Then came the Balbos proper, sweating to
100