My Years in the Royal Canadian Air Force - Part 3 [Training In England] By Ronald Gaudet We boarded the Warwick Castle which was a large liner one evening and found our berth was on deck in places built out of planks not even caulked. We complained and were told a mistake had been made and would be fixed up the next day. The next morning we were at sea and I was the first to wake up and awakened the others saying there is your running water as the water from the deck was running back and forth on our floor. There were two aisles between the three rows of bunks so when the ship rolled one way we used the one with no water and climbed the bunks when she rolled back and the other side made a run for it. Needless to say they did not move us. The food was the worst I had seen yet, one noon dinner was a piece of salt cod straight out of pickle and nothing to go with it. There were two from the prairies sitting opposite me and they each took a bite looked at each other and said at the same time," This must be salt water fish." I just about died laughing. The dining room was divided in the center and as we come down the stairs the right side was for Officers Only with tables covered with cloth etc. The other side for N.C.O's had long tables and benches, of course we picked up our own food at the counter. We complained about the food to the Orderly Officer but it remained the same. About the third day at noon they served stew and it tasted like mud and we just could not eat it. A few minutes later the O.C. Troops and the Orderly Officer came in and met one of the boys who had just picked up his dinner. The O.C. said to him," What have you got there my good man." He replied," I don't know you name it." to which the answer was," That is good Irish stew." The reply to that was a surprise because he thrust the bowl at the O.C. who was so astounded he took it and the pilot said," Here take it back to the Irish," and left the mess. We saw that things were going to stay the same so started to sing " You eat shit and I will eat shit and we will all eat shit together." The officers tried to get us to stop as the partition did not go to the ceiling and there were Officers and some women on the other side, however they sensed we were not in a very good mood and got out before trouble started. We never went back to the mess; at least our group didn't. So we ate chocolate bars and canned fruit we could buy in the canteen. At first they thought we had a problem as no one had a can opener so I told them there was no problem and taking out my jackknife opened my can. They lined up and kept me busy for awhile until they went to drink their pop but no one had an opener until they saw me open mine with my teeth, so was busy for awhile opening theirs. Fortunately, we were only nine days going over; by the way we never saw the O.C. after the mess fiasco until we were ready to debark and we were all on deck. He came out with a couple of SP.s and said he was glad we had a safe and good trip. To which someone yelled, "Three cheers for the O.C. Troops," and with one loud voice we yelled Boo Boo Boo. He vanished very quickly. We were in the Firth of Forth, Scotland. We caught the train from there to Bournemouth; which was a holding unit where we waited to see where we were to be posted. We were billeted in Hotels taken over by the R.C.A.F. On the 28 November we took a night vision test and I got below average on it and was not too happy about this. That night four of us went in town and of course it was blackout time, One of the boys had gotten above average and we had a laughing fit with him as he walked into a telephone pole right off the bat. We thought he was joking until he almost did it again but I grabbed him in time. He would almost disjoint his neck as we crossed streets as he couldn't see the curbs. They all got a kick out of it as I was better than he at night with below average. However; I had a retest on the 2nd December and passed above average. We were finding that no matter what you trained on single or twin you could wind up on bombers. When they told me I was going to 59 O.T.U. I asked what they were flying and the Corporal didn't know so I was rushing around till someone told me they were flying Hurricanes. It sure made my day. I was posted to 59 O.T.U. 8 Dec.1941 at Crosby on Eden and flew Miles Master III and Hurricanes I and IIB. One hour dual with P/O Mould and one hour solo in the Master to get familiar with the British systems. December 16 was solo day in the Hurricane. To prepare for this we sat in the cockpit and memorized where all the instruments and controls were. Then an instructor would blindfold you and ask where the controls and instruments were one by one and you had to reach out and touch it at once with no feeling around for it. I had no problem with this so I was given a “kite to fly”. This was only to be circuits and bumps (take-off and landings) so I did not take a map along. I taxied out to the runway and got permission to take off and pushed the throttle for take-off, gained speed for lift off and now things began to happen a great deal faster than before. For instance, I had to use my left hand to fly and right to lift wheels, also adjust radiator flap, then change hands again to change pitch and set mixture. By the time I did this and checked instruments I was at 1200 feet in thick overcast with not a sign of the ground. As there were hills all around I started to turn in a big circle and went down a couple hundred feet but still no sign of the ground. I kept doing this every so often hoping to find an opening. After quite a period of time I started a very slow descent and suddenly there was a darkened patch ahead and I had to pull a steep turn as I was headed right into the side of a hill. I was down to 400 feet at this time in a valley and so I headed out toward the open spaces but did not have a clue where I was. There was a spiral of black smoke in the distance and I thought it may be Carlisle as it was near our field. I headed for it but seemed slow in overtaking it and it turned out to be a train going in the same direction as I was. However this turned out for the better as now I could see a large amount of smoke which turned out to be Carlisle and chased the river to the field. In the future I always carried a map no matter how short the trip. The trip took me 1 hour and 25 minutes but seemed like a year. The weather was something like home, cold and damp. On the station I only wore my battle dress as I never wore an overcoat at home so the boys from out west wanted me to wear mine as it was making them cold to watch me. “I thought you said it was 60 deg. below at home” and they replied "It was, but did not feel this cold". They were hugging the stove as soon as they came indoors. One evening another pilot and I went to Carlisle and he wanted to to see a friend of his in one of the hotels so I waited in the lobby while he was looking him up. An S.P. (Service Police) came up to me and told this was an officers only hotel and took our names. The next day I was called in the Sqdn/Ldrs. office and was told there would not be any punishment this time, but not to let it happen again. This airfield was a dispersed one so we were issued a bicycle to get around and they had the brake handles on the handlebars and of course at home we had coaster brakes. The first time I drove to the mess some one crossed in front of me and I back peddled and nothing happened then remembered to use the brake handles so just stopped before I hit him. One of the instructors had been in The Battle of Britain, whose idea of being in the box was to have your prop 6 inches below his belly and 6 inches in front of the tail wheel. If not you heard, "what are you doing way back there". One day he had four of us for formation flying and climbed in Vic (Vee formation) when Begley called he had engine trouble (as usual) so he broke off for base and not waiting for an order I slid in the box (stupid of me as wanted to make the formation balanced). This area is very hilly and the first thing I knew I was busy looking at the ground and his tail wheel as he was sure skimming the deck along with aerobatics. My shirt was wringing wet on landing. When we were all back in the ops room the instructor came over to me and with a big grin said, "Did you enjoy your trip." I grinned back and said, "Sure." He then said, "When we came to those high tension wires did you go under or over them". I just gave him a grin but thought to myself what wires. He then told me he did not know I was there until we broke off to land. He thought I had gone back with Begley; otherwise he would not have flown so low. Another of his ideas was to have us join up in half a circuit so that when we arrived on a squadron we would be well trained to fit in with the rest of the crew. This meant that we had four aircraft and would take off one after the other but must be in formation in half a circuit; which means the fourth one off has to pull a steep turn as soon as the wheels leave the deck. For beginners this is a dangerous manoeuvre as a small slip and you are in the deck instead of over it. My first time, I happened to be number four but was determined to join at the half point so as soon as the wheels cleared the deck put her in a vertical bank. Now I had to change hands and lean down to pull up wheels which puts your head down in the cockpit so you lose sight of the ground. When I looked up the safty-man was hitting the deck and my left wing was just skimming the grass as I had let the stick and pedals move a bit and was loosing height. I corrected for this and joined at the half mark. He did this on our passing test and I was standing close to the Airmarshall from H.Q. London. On seeing this he turned to our C.O. and wanted to know who the Officer was and that he was to be told not to do this manoeuvre any more. His reason being it was too dangerous for students as we did not have enough experience yet. Shortly after learning to fly the Hurricane I was on an hour of doing what ever I wished so of course I did aerobatics. Started with a loop; so nose down to get speed but could not get above 180 (needed 250). When I thought the speed was high enough I pulled back and completed the loop. Now there was only 160 airspeed. Realizing the instrument was faulty I continued for my hour, as getting flying time in was not easy due to the aircraft having been through the Battle of Britain and they were pretty well worn out. At times we flew one for an hour and it would be off line up for three days. Arriving back at the field, I suddenly realized there was the problem of landing with no airspeed indicator. My usual landings were dead stick but this time I used some throttle on approaching the runway. There were three Hurricanes on their nose along the side and a Master upside down at the intersection. My immediate thought was here comes number five; however I made a safe landing. The C.O. called me in and told me I should have called in and had someone to lead me in, and I said, "Now you tell me". On 14th. January I was up with Begley on instrument training and it was my turn under the hood first, After twenty minutes I came in to land and changed seats. We were almost ready to touch down and the throttle and stick flew out of my hands and started to climb but I grabbed control again and landed with no problem. When we were changing seats I asked him what he was trying to do on landing and he said he thought we were going to go straight in the deck. When he came in to land he dragged the kite in from way back and used a lot of throttle to make his approach; if the engine even coughed we would have crashed short of the field. This was why he was so scared when I made my dead stick landing. My reasoning was if the engine stopped then it made no difference to my approach as I was not using it anyway so I would make a safe landing. I used this approach with all the aircraft I have flown. Begley was washed out on bombers and always made a “wheely” on landing (landing on two wheels) and any respectable fighter pilot makes a three point landing. I had my chute on ready to climb in a Master and saw him come in and land on the beginning of the runway and after reaching the middle his tail was still in the air. Then I noticed his prop was a blur and was saying “throttle back” although he could not hear me. After the three quarter mark his prop slowed down even though it was too late. At the end of the runway he tried to turn but the plane started to lean and he straightened out and ran into a stone wall and two large trees. He could almost lay his head on one from his seat as it cut right through the wing. His coop-top was closed, which was a no-no on landing. The kite was nose in the ground, tail up in the air and then I saw his radiator flap open followed by his coop-top as he climbed out. He had been checking to see if he had done anything wrong. It was a good thing it didn't burst in flames. He had come down early because his engine was over heating but it was no wonder as he didn't open his radiator flap. This all happened in the morning and instead of catching the truck back, I walked to the ops room from the mess. A crew was trying to throw a rope over the tail wheel of the wreck and the noose fell short every time. One of them saw me coming and said, "Here is a Canadian he knows how to rope (guess he thought we were all cowboys) so asked me to come over and rope it for them. I had been watching them as I walked and they made a loop and tossed it up but weight of the rope made it fall short of the wheel. I made a loop but took three more turns along with the loop and tossed it over the wheel first time. The same fellow said, "see I told you so." I figured that I would have a problem remembering the aircraft recognition part of the course so every spare minute was spent in intelligence going over the pictures of all the planes in use at the time. On the final test it paid off as I had top score of 99.5 and the two on either side of me on the test got in the nineties as they made mistakes copying. A new course came in and there was a fellow named Peters who had the same problem that was bugging me, so we teamed up and he was beginning to remember them pretty well also. We were getting in the truck to go to dinner one day and two kites were coming in to land one above the other and when they got to around 400 feet the safety man gave them a red flare to go around again. The upper kite opened up and flew level but the lower one let his nose go up and rammed into the other one wing tip to propeller. They both went in the deck upside down and drove the engines in as far as the cockpit. Both were killed instantly. The pilot in the lower one was Peters. The one in the other was an above average pilot from the course from before ours. He had piloted his aircraft properly. We had a bus service to town but if I missed the last one at night I would get a taxi. It was a Rolls Royce and was 17 years old but it ran like new with no rattles or squeaks. This field was widely dispersed so we were issued bicycles to get around with but, used a truck for noon hour meal. The billets were stone buildings with two to a room but only one hod of coal per day for heat so we only lit it in the evening. My room-mate was the son of a Squadron Leader in the peacetime air force. One day shortly after arriving there, I came back from supper and he was in his bed, clothes and all, shivering badly so I asked if he was sick and he said no just cold. “Why didn't you build a fire?” and he replied," I don't know how." I soon had a fire going and he sat up and told me who his father was and that everything had been done for him. He envied me because I was able to carry all my kit at one time and he had to make two trips and worry someone might take some of it between trips. Others had always did it for him. Also, I was capable of looking after all the other things that he had not been taught to do for himself like building the fire. This type of living was pretty hard on him. One day I was coming in to land and there was another Hurricane on the runway and headed off towards the end so I figured he would be out of the way by the time I touched down. As you can see nothing below and ahead of the aircraft you must look to the right side ,then the left side, until you come to a stop. I did this three times and my tail was still in the air. On looking out the right there was that Hurricane right in front of me. He was so close I saw him push his throttle forward. I felt a thump and there he was with no fin and rudder and the end of my wing-tip turned up in the air. He lost his brake on one wheel and was going around in a circle so as I looked out one side he was on the other until the fourth change. I guess he was afraid if he went in the mud he would have gone up on his nose. Had it been me I would have opted to go for the mud rather than face a Hurricane going around 70 miles per hour. I had just come back from firing practice and flying a Hurricane IIB and had twelve 303 machine guns. When the rigger saw the wing tip bent up in the air he told me I was in big trouble as there were only two of these on the field and was extra special to the C.O. This was at supper time and I worried all night about it but nothing came of it because it was not my fault. We were in a truck one day going for dinner and a Hurricane was coming in to land and he hit too hard so it bounced up in the air again. The pilot gave it a burst of throttle but did not push the stick forward so the nose went almost straight up which caused the kite to stall and it fell to the left and crashed. It was an Aussie on a new course that had just started There was an auxiliary field we moved to after we had most of the crashes and were getting proficient on the Hurricane. We moved to the outer field and as usual everything was fouled up with our kit not being where it was supposed to be and mine was one of them. I was trying to track it down and went into the flight room to see if it was there and the Sqdn. Leader saw me and said,"Gaudet do the 25,000 check." I told him I had no flying gear and he just looked at his watch and told me it would cost me six pence for every minute over ten it took me to get off the deck. One of the guys said here is my outer (which is only thin) and with only low dress shoes and dress gloves on I jumped in the Hurricane and took off. By this time I was as angry as he was and decided to go to 25,000 if I froze doing it as I could have flown around and said it was done. By the time I got up there my hands and feet were like ice cakes and I could not feel the stick or pedals. Once in awhile I would look to see if my feet were still on the pedals. I tried a few turns which was the reason for this trip to see how much slower the response was to movement of the controls. Then I shoved the stick for a dive and went straight down but I didn't trim, I just held the stick with arms out straight. Then I decided to see how fast it would go. Trying to reach 500 mph. I managed to get 480 but the engine started to over rev. so had to bring the pitch back. About this time someone stuck a sharp pencil in each ear and realized I had a slight cold and couldn't clear my ears. By this time I was at 10,000 and when I tried to pull the stick back my elbows had locked under the strain and I really had to put some strength out to unlock them. Then the stick came back in my lap and went back up to 3000 before the feeling came back in my arms and I was able to straighten out to level flight. Later this worked out to over 500. One day we had a snow storm of maybe 4 inches or so and everything came to a stand still, buses and trains were not running as they were not rigged up for this much snow. Of course there was no flying as there was no plows on the station. So the next day the C.O. figured to blow it off with a Hurricane but after a couple of minutes the engine started to over heat and that finished that idea. Then we tried shovels but did not make too much headway. The next day we rigged folding tables in front of trucks and by supper time had cleared the runways so we could fly the next day. The fog came in that night and next morning there was not a sign of snow anywhere. One of our instructors took three of us up to do formation and we were doing pretty good and then he had us in line astern and I was number four. We dove down and picked up speed and pulled upward and suddenly I saw the leader go over on his back. Number two broke to the right and three to the left so I pulled over upside down and dove for the deck as I did not want one of the others to fall on me. I leveled off and looked around for the others and eventually joined up and returned to base. On the ground the instructor teased us for not being able to to stay with him as he was doing a roll off the top. However the reason it failed was number two let his throttle come back and started to stall so he fell off to the right causing us to do what we did. This added spice to the flying by not knowing what was going to happen next. One evening I heard someone say we were going to have Welch rabbit for supper the next day, And that is all I could think of until supper time came. I found it was Welch rabbit which I did not like the taste of; so much for hopes of a good meal. I was in the N.A.F.I. (canteen) one day and a couple of ground crew came over and was talking to me but most of the time I could not understand them. After they left another airman sitting at a table next to me got up and came over and said, "You could not understand what they were saying could you?". So I told him I did not and his reply was, "I am an Englishman and I could not either so do not feel bad". Another time was talking to a crewman and he said he hated Englishmen and told me he was Irish. I asked him how come he was in the R.A.F. and he replied that he hated the Germans worse. His mother had a scar down the side of her face from an Englishman sword. Finished with 9 hrs. 45 min. in the Master and 41 hrs. 40 min. in Hurricanes 20 February, 1942.