Tales

Their plan is to engage the autopilot and open the Douglas’ side cockpit win- dows and then hide in the baggage compartment after summoning the FA on the intercom to come up ‘in a few minutes’. A loose curtain separates the passenger cabin, which is full this day, from the area immediately aft of the cockpit so that the prank can be nicely executed without alarming the all important passengers.

Douglas DC-3 Up walks our eager young flight, who upon opening the cockpit door sees only two moving control columns, open windows, heaps of airstream and engine noise and no pilots! A scream that could awaken the dead is emitted as she turns and bolts through the curtain to the rear of the aircraft causing pandemonium within the cabin as the startled passengers then witness two white faced pilots clambering from the confines of the baggage area and bolt back into the cockpit.

To our knowledge this was the last time that this particular prank was played out on an unsuspecting

FA! Bandits, twelve o’clock!

Remember that great movie of the late sixties The Battle of Britain? Well, even though it seemed that it was well publicised from start to finish there was always going to be somebody somewhere who missed the ‘briefing and doesn’t know that such an epic movie is even being made to celebrate the memory of what was probably history’s greatest air war.

Our scene opens appropriately five

Old foes

The following is not really humorous but perhaps better belongs in those ‘incredible coincidence’ files.

During the early years of AA our GA editor was the late John Perry. During WW2 John flew with the RAF and tells an incredible story that can only happen in real life.

Seems he was flying maritime missions in a Wellington over the Med when they come across a German U Boat in broad daylight on the surface. Obviously the sub had major internal problems and being unable to dive had most of the crew on deck armed with automatic weapons in addition to the main deck. gun. A crude but effective form of air defence.

Wellington bomber Not believing their luck, John lined up the lumbering Wellington for a bomb pass not taking into account the combined effect of three dozen hand held sub machine guns aimed at his steed. Unfortunately (or otherwise) John’s bomb missed the German sub but the boat’s defenders took their toll on the Wellington with the result that it soon had an engine out and was quickly look- ing for land. The outcome of the engagement was one damaged Wellington recovering to a nearby airfield and one German sub that obviously survived to fight another day, or like its airborne assailant, at least reach a safe haven. However the story doesn’t end there. More than a decade later John is emigrating to Australia aboard the P&Oliner Himalaya when he strikes up a casual conversation with a fellow emigrant, a German, as they both wistfully gaze out upon the passing sea, remembering times gone by. After a period of shooting the breeze, talk turns to the war years and the German narrates his experience as the only U Boat commander to have shot down an RAF bomber! Needless to say the two old foes retreated to the bar where their experiences were relived in more appropriate surroundings. Perhaps not unusual in these circumstances, the two men became good friends and kept in contact right up to the time of John’s passing It is incredible that so many summers have passed, so many miles travelled and two men who once fought each other face to face, as far as modern warfare allows, now meet heading for a new land and a new tomorrow. Whoever said that fact is stranger than fiction was certainly on target. kilometres above the English. The glorious spring sunshine only being interrupted by long lines of fluffy cumulus. From their operating base at Duxford come more than a dozen Luftwaffe Heinkel 111s in typical 1940s attack formation, droning on towards a make believe London, their rendezvous with a squadron of photoplanes and of course their escorting Messerschmitts and the less than friendly Spitfires and Hurricanes.

If you were indeed lucky enough to see all of this you certainly wouldn’t think it was 1968 and if you somehow stooged your way into the middle of this piston engined armada, emerging from a cloudbank whilst checking your instrument flight talents, in an RAF Canberra, then what would be your reaction? Canberra bomber This actually happened and the poor pilot, who wasn’t up to speed with the fact that a movie was even being made, quickly burst out over the radio with an uncharacteristic expletive, firewalled the jet bomber and got out of there real fast explaining later to his CO what he and his crewman had seen.

Legend has it that even now, so many decades later that both of them are constantly reminded of that day high above the fields of England and that somehow they hadn’t stumbled through the Twilight Zone.

Do you have a tale to tell? If so then share it with the world by sending it in to ‘Tales’, Australian Aviation, PO Box 3105, Weston Creek, ACT, 2611 or by fax on (06) 288 2021.

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