COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
requisitioned cars and vans - new and better radios. We were
beginning to look like professional gunners once more.
Our commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Dorling, no doubt
enthused by this revival in our image, decided that it could be
improved even further. Thereafter each troop, until then identified by
its letter in the rather dreary phonetic alphabet of the period, Ack,
Beer, Charlie..... became known as Attack, Battle, Challenge..... As he
said, when he was putting the idea over to us:
"Do you really want to go into action calling yourselves Charlie
Troop?"
When these names began to appear on our vehicles we were
subjected to a fair amount of ribaldry from other units in the area.
They were a bit of a mouthful on the radio. But we found a way round
that and soon began to take a pride in being different as well as better.
With hindsight our Colonel knew his public relations.
From time to time we pulled out of our gun pits and took off on
manoeuvres. Once, when so engaged, our newly christened 'Challenge'
Troop was caught by the RAF. Out on a flank, standing at the ready
with megaphone and director, I watched the Quads come to a halt and
the crews tumbling out, swinging guns and limbers into action.
As they did so the sudden snarl of diving aircraft almost swamped
the words of command and four Spitfires came slanting down out of
the sun. Twice they came back, eight cannon and sixteen machine
guns, against just one Motley9 mounted Bren on a 15 cwt truck. It was
an unmistakable message conveying the savage potential of fighter
ground attack.
I first met Pierre in the bar of the Beverley Arms. He wore a pilot's
brevet and the word 'Belgium' on the shoulders of his blue tunic. We
had much in common. Waiting for an event which would change our
lives.
For Pierre it would be the liberation of his country, whilst I could
hardly contain my impatience at the delayed start to pilot training. Our
chance meeting turned out to be the first of many.
Once he took me up in a Blenheim, far out over the North Sea. It
was grey day, with occasional shafts of feeble sunshine penetrating the
cloud. The water below looked cold and uninviting, lumpy and
streaked with wind lanes. We flew on and on in silence, and then:
"This is the nearest I can get to Belgium, it must do for now, but one
day I shall fly above my house again."
We turned back towards the ranges off Flam borough Head, emptied
12