COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
bunks, on a rota basis, which must have added considerably to the
discomforts of the voyage. Meals were served in an endless series of
sittings, and we soon got brassed off with the nonstop tannoy messages:
"This is the third call for dinner. All with white cards form your
line."
In fact there was only time to provide each passenger with two
meals a day. So the wise made up a bacon butty at breakfast, to fill the
midday void, then slept and read the long hours away until the next
call came round.
All day long, a mass of American soldiers surged round the halls
and stairways. Little groups huddled in every available corner playing
poker or shooting craps. The air reeked of cigars and the decks were
littered with empty tins of coke. Fortunately the weather was calm and
for much of the time our presence was concealed by thick banks of
fog. Even so it was a voyage to be ended quickly and we were glad
when the ship reached her anchorage in the Clyde.
Many years later I read an account of the Queens' trooping
activities during the war. With such huge passenger loads they were
alleged to be barely stable. Had an enemy appeared violent evasive
action would have been quite impossible. Sometimes it is just as well
to be ignorant!
It would be better to draw a veil over the period of enforced
idleness at Harrogate, the worst time of all. A brief interlude with the
Aircrew Officers School at Sidmouth, a sort of post graduate ITW,
helped to keep us occupied. Escape and evasion had been added to the
syllabus and, amongst other delights, we were shown how to break the
neck of a German sentry with his own coal scuttle helmet. It was said
to be very easy, but practice was forbidden!
Small arms training was also included - to help us play an effective
part in airfield defence - but not to increase the fire power of friendly
resistance fighters should we be shot down amongst them. Our duty in
those circumstances was to evade and get home. Not to stay and fight.
As we practised with rifle, bayonet and sandbag dummies, and
carried out firing practice on the Sten, that explanation began to sound
less and less likely. Maybe there was a more sinister purpose behind
our spell at Sidmouth - like a last minute transfer to the RAF
Regiment or as infantry reinforcements for the second front. Difficult
to judge, because we only knew the RAF side of the story, and mostly
by rumour, but it was discouraging enough.
The surplus in single engined pilots was now so great that the vast
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