DUXFORD and 65F SQUADRON (Continuation) by John Hobley
This chapter about Duxford - and my experiences there in 1960-1961 - is extracted from an amateur autobiography written solely with my family, and extended family, in mind
I have had to provide therefore some explanations not normally required by a readers with service backgrounds. This can make for somewhat laborious reading in parts.
Secondly, it is not an account of any historical importance or accuracy - it contains personal
reminiscences with some service humour thrown in. I treat my subject selfishly from a very
junior pilot's perspective at the expense of talking about our groundcrews, for example, and
I don't want to diminish or undervalue the enormous and essential contribution they made
to 65 Squadron's operational role and status.
Suffice to say here that my training, and gradual introduction to the operational roles of 65 Squadron, continued over many months, and I was able to carry out practice interceptions over the North Sea, conduct cine-gun ranging and tracking exercises, navigation exercises, low-level simulated attacks, air-to-air live firing, and air-to-ground live firing on Cowden range by September of 1960. I was particularly pleased with some improved air-to-air firing results compared to my Chivenor scores: I recorded 24%, 30%, 33%, 25%, 27%, and 29% during my first intensive weeks’ firing - which certainly helped to improve my standing on the squadron. Even though I was the " junior pilot ", my contribution towards the operational status of 65 Squadron was steadily increasing. All this time, my experience was growing and I was beginning to appreciate what real service life was like: people worked hard and strived for the highest possible operational standards, whilst at the same time enjoying the richness and excitement of flying, and of course the camaraderie and fun of service social life.Service humour was attractive and infectious: there was always an amusing gloss put on everyday events either in the air or on the ground, and of course "black " humour saw people through bad times and unpleasant experiences. I recall a very bad ground incident one day on 65Squadron: the armourers were arming up one of our Hunters with a load of 30mm cannon ammunition when, despite all the safety procedures, a few rounds were accidentally fired off in the designated ‘safe’ direction which was, in fact, directly across the airfield. One of the armourers had a couple of fingers and part of his hand torn off in this horrific accident, since he had had his hand over a gun port at the time, and obviously had to have immediate emergency treatment. But the cannon shells that had ripped across the airfield and runway, had just missed a Javelin which was completing its landing run; as this aircraft duly taxied past our squadron lines, the pilot and navigator opened up their cockpit canopy and waved white handkerchiefs tied
to ends of navigation rulers at us ! It lightened a very dark moment, and was truly apt.
My Hillman coupé proved popular, and I was often joed to transport three or four others into Cambridge on nice days, with the hood down. This was a good way to ‘spot totty’ and for my friends to find girl friends from amongst the university population. There were no legal " drink and drive " restrictions in those days, and I am ashamed to say that many such outings involved the driver consuming almost as much alcohol as his passengers - fortunately without serious mishaps. This continued to be the case for many years - to consume two or three pints, sometimes four, and then to drive ‘home’ was quite normal and considered unremarkable. Just about everybody did it. How laws and fashions change.
Since this book is fundamentally about anecdotes and humour, I must recount some of the tales concerning Flying Officer Lyn Hadley, who was an attractive and very astute member of the WRAF, and a prominent member of the Mess community. Lyn worked in the Administration Department of Station Headquarters, whose ultimate boss was the ‘Wing Commander Administration’. Lyn got on OK with him, it appears, but had a very tortuous and friction-filled relationship with his wife - who used to pester Lyn with petty and often time-consuming tasks by telephone from her Married Quarter - which Lyn resented.
One day, in the " Cambridge Evening News ", Lyn spotted an advertisement for the vacant post of " Level Crossing Gate Keeper " for British Rail at Fen Ditton, just to the north of Cambridge, and with a mischievous glint in her eye applied for this post in the name of Mrs Wing Commander Admin., giving a full and fictitious history of level-crossing gate-keeping experience up and down the land. It was with great amusement for us to learn the following week that the rather pompous Mrs Wing Commander Admin. had received a letter offering her the post " in view of her outstanding experience ", that " the interview would be a formality only " and would she " kindly attend the offices at the Main Line Station in Cambridge for this interview and uniform fitting " ! Mrs Wing Commander strongly suspected who lay behind this entire saga, but could never prove it.
The Officer Commanding Flying Wing was a diminutive man called Wing Commander " Twinkle " Storey, whom everybody loved and respected. He and his wife were at the big reunion mentioned above, but I believe he died only a short while ago - possibly in 2010. He was a real character and a natural leader: he had that tremendous knack of being able to reprimand people when necessary in a manner which made them feel that they had let him down, and not make them feel angry about being called to book. I first made his acquaintance in the squadron coffee bar one morning shortly after arrival; there was a huge, violent explosion from outside the building which almost threw me to the ground, but which was largely ignored by the others around me at the time. Thinking there must have been some sort of gas leak and explosion, I volunteered this explanation but was puzzled by everybody else’s indifference to what had caused this huge noise. It was Alan Love who explained that it was " just Twinkle Storey announcing his arrival in the squadron for a chat and a cup of coffee ". Apparently the wing commander had a large stock of great big " Thunderflashes " - very large fireworks used on Army training exercises - which he loved throwing around to startle people or when he wanted to make a dramatic entrance. Grinning from ear to ear, he came into the coffee bar and introduced himself to me, obviously pleased that he had frightened the living daylights out of 65's junior pilot ! A lovely man in every respect, and in my opinion, an excellent OC Flying
In October 1960, 65 Squadron deployed to RAF Nicosia in Cyprus for two months, returning just before Christmas. This was only four years since the Suez Crisis of 1956, and the Near East was still smouldering from the abortive Anglo-French and Israeli attempts to seize back the Suez Canal from President Nasser. There were intense political and military repercussions in the area, and the Soviet Union was not slow to get involved and stoke up the situation as part of the Cold War.
The British Government had decided there was a need to have a strong military presence in Cyprus, and fighter squadrons were permanently deployed to the island to deter any aggression; the squadrons based in the UK took it in turns to deploy out there for two months at a stretch. As far as I recall, only the Hunter day-fighters were based at RAF Nicosia, and the allweather Javelins, and later on Lightnings, were based under similar arrangements at RAF Akrotiri in the south, thus providing the 24-hour cover required. I flew out to Cyprus in the transport aircraft taking out all our groundcrew and stores, along with the other pilots unlucky enough not to be flying out in Hunters. I did return in the T7 with Dinger Bell, however, at the end of this, my first overseas deployment.
There was always great excitement about such detachments - this was as close to Operations as most pilots would come, and there was always the possibility of being actively engaged in hostilities. This was not something we feared; on the contrary, the squadron commander, flight commanders and pilots were always hoping that we would be engaged operationally: that was the Squadron’s role and what we spent every day training for, and it would make a welcome change from routine training exercises over the North Sea. RAF Nicosia was a huge and beautifully laid out RAF station, but with rather primitive corrugated steel roofs to most buildings, which were rather hot inside as a result. The Mess was really nice, with flowers and trellises in abundance, and good food and facilities. We had to sleep in two or four-person rooms adjacent to the Mess and use the WCs - known as " thunderboxes " - located in separate blocks near to our quarters. It was fashionable and great fun to lob a large stone onto the roof of the thunderboxes when you spied a fellow pilot entering for his morning constitutional, though we drew the line when it was the squadron commander or the flight commanders !I ended up sharing a room with Jamie Adams, the RAF Duxford medical officer, who had been deployed with us for the detachment, though he proved less than useful when it came to hangover cures.
The detachment was a complete eye-opener for me, and a truly great experience. On the one hand there was the excitement of flying from a new base in the eastern Mediterranean, seeing how two fully-armed aircraft were permanently manned on a rota from dawn to dusk at the end of the runway - ready for a scramble in 30 seconds, and learning how the Radar Controllers on Mount Olympus in the Troodos Mountains coordinated our flying; and on the other, exploring the island at weekends when off duty in either Landrovers or hire cars, water-skiing at the beautiful Kyrenia Harbour on the north of the island, and eating out in the evenings in Nicosia occasionally as a change from the Mess.
We " worked hard and played hard " as the expression goes, and I found all aspects of life on a fighter squadron incredibly enjoyable and exciting. I was glad I had chosen this way of earning a living.
To be continued
