In late 1944, while awaiting our aircrew training in Canada, four of us “erks” were packed off to Linton on Ouse, for some unknown reason.
No one seemed to know what we were there for and as we spent most of our first days with French Canadians, we didn’t get much response when asking.
It was the time of the Battle of the Bulge and the RCAF Halifax’s were in much demand to slow the German advance.
The Vale of York was experiencing freezing fog, similar to recent weather here, and even getting the aircraft off the ground was a problem.
On one occasion an aircraft, with full bomb load, blew up after attempting to take off.
As spare hands, we were given the task of salting the runway, shovelling grit and salt off a trailer onto vast areas of tarmac.
Even though warming it was gruelling work, and despite the aching back, it turned out for me to be a long lasting illustration of differences in up- bringing.
Amongst us was an apparently tough and outspoken Glaswegian, who was quickly reduced, literally, to tears by this toil in the cold.
In contrast, Tony an amiable ex- Uppingham boy took it all in his stride and even showed great sympathy for “Jock”
This incident has remained with me for 60 years, not least because Tony was the only one amongst us with cheek and composure to lead us into the HQ block where we “borrowed” the Station Commander’s washroom to shave and tidy- up.
Sleeping was a matter of scrounging a spare bunk where available on an overcrowded station, usually this meant the one right next to the stove in a Nissan hut ,kept glowing for most of the night, a bit too much of a good thing.
At the other extreme was being sent to Tholthorpe, used in an emergency by aircraft unable to land at their home airfields.
There were many empty Nissans with bunks and blankets, but no heating, so it was a question of trying to sleep in full dress under six blankets, with the windows covered inside and out with frost.
A year plus later, as a navigator, I was briefly at Leeming, for training as a radar navigator on night Mosquitoes, but the course was aborted.
A final recollection overhead of Ripon, many years after the war, is being towed out of Duxford in a glider in very rough conditions. At some stage I was conscious of an abrupt change in the cockpit conditions but was too involved to locate the reason.
It was rather a short late afternoon flight and on return the glider had to be derigged to be towed back to Bristol.
While doing this a colleague asked me if I had used any oxygen, knowing full well that I had had no need for it, but the cylinder was empty.
At that point I recalled the unsolved “event” and realized that being a tight fit in the cockpit and thrown about my shoulder had operated the emergency oxygen control and filled the cockpit with oxygen.
Had there been an electrical short I would have been blown to bits.
