Tales of a Meteor "NF" Navigator
Accompanying pictures in Gallery 1.
I joined the R.A.F. in July 1950 as a trainee navigator, and after ITS at Jurby in the Isle of Man commenced navigation training at No. 1 ANS at Hullavington. By this time the Government had become concerned at the Russians possession of nuclear weapons and the build up of their bomber force, based upon the B 29 copy which Tupolev were producing. As a result the Meteor NF 11 was produced as an interim lash-up night fighter and the night fighter force in Fighter Command was rapidly expanded. In consequence extra crews were required and my course was removed from navigation training at the completion of the Basic stage and posted at the end of August 1951 to the Night Fighter OCU, No. 228, at Leeming, before we had been awarded our wings and whilst we still held the rank of Officer Cadet. In normal circumstances we would have proceeded to the Advanced stage and spent a further 5 months or so at nav school before being awarded the 'N' brevet and going on to an OCU.
No. 1 Squadron of 228 OCU
No. 1 squadron of 228 OCU was then equipped with the Brigand T4 and Wellington T18 on which we were trained in the use of AI Mk 10, including the standard commands by which our pilots were directed into a firing position behind the target. The various components of the radar were explained in detail and we were also trained to recognise standard faults and correct them whilst airbourne. This usually involved changing a fuse, but in some instances a sharp rap on the side of the offending box could do the trick. We were subject to the mercy of an over zealous young education officer who attempted to continue the general nav. school syllabus of English, maths etc., and we were also required to continue square bashing. We also received instruction on the Hispano 20mm cannon with which all fighters of the period were equipped, and by this stage in our training we were capable of stripping, cleaning, reassembling, and firing the service revolver, 303 Lee-Enfield rifle, Bren light machine gun, and the 20mm cannon. Some 15 out of the 32 who had started the course at Jurby completed the AI school in October and were awarded a navigator/radio "N" flying badge, and I, in common with about half the course, got my sergeants stripes.
No. 2 Squadron of the OCU
We then joined No 2 squadron of the OCU, which was equipped with the Mosquito NF 36, and were introduced to the bunch of pilots with whom we were to crew up to fly. They had been on a separate course learning to obey our commands, which was very difficult for some to accept. I can only compare it to a car driver who cannot see out and is reliant on his navigators instructions to keep on the road. One of these was a Pole, Flt Sgt Joe Halkiew, who had wartime Mosquito experience, who several people wanted to fly with, luckily he chose me and we subsequently had almost five successful years together. This section of the OCU was devoted to various exercises to familiarise us with normal night fighter duties and to get us working together as a crew. Each was required to rely implicitly on the others judgement, and our instructors likened being crewed up together as being similar to a marriage! At the end of the course Joe and I, in company with another NCO crew, were posted to Egypt and early in February '52 we boarded a York at Blackbushe for Fayid in the Suez Canal Zone. On arrival we were given transport to Kabrit which was home to two night fighter squadrons, 39 and 219, equipped with the Mosquito NF36, and we joined 39 Squadron.
39 Squadron in Kabrit
Kabrit was a poor place with little in the way of amenities, conditions for the airmen were really bad and far worse than prisoners expect today. Ours were not much better, but at least we got our trips away. Water was obtained from the misnamed "Sweetwater Canal" which had been built to provide water for the builders of the Suez Canal in the 1860's, it came via a tortuous route from the Nile and every Egyptian along the way had disposed of his dead animals and done whatever else he needed to in it. To cope we had a water purification plant which produced slightly sand coloured water which curdled the milk in tea. Sanitation was of the bucket variety and these were emptied periodically by a gang of Egyptians into an old dustcart, to watch these people carrying buckets on their shoulders with the contents spilling down their galabiyas was something to steer well clear of, the smell being indescribable. They used to spread it on their fields and sell us the resultant melons, and the medics wondered why there were dysentery epidemics. In the worst of these the sick quarters was completely overrun with over 200 sick at one time. However we were on the edge of the Great Bitter Lake and could go swimming from a jetty which had been built by German prisoners of war, there was also a winter theatre/cinema, where we had occasional ENSA shows and an open air cinema for the summer. This generally showed three films per week, although very popular films were sometimes only on for one night. One such was "The Sound Barrier" which all the aircrew and the station commander wanted to see, but needless to say that night was a night flying night. While our CO relented, 219's insisted on his night flying and was not popular! One of his pilots flew over the cinema at very low level and rolled as he climbed away, there were four aircraft airborne and they all kept their mouths shut so the culprit was never known, true to the old service expression "No names, no pack drill". The Meteor of course never troubled the sound barrier, we were not supposed to exceed Mach .77 but with throttles wide open and diving most people imagined they could read .85 (in reality about .82) on the machmeter, but the aircraft was at its aerodynamic limit and no amount of extra power would make it go any faster. It felt as though the aircraft was gripped in a giant vice and being vigorously rattled about, and a wing would drop, but control was instantly regained by extending the airbrakes.
We were told that we were to be re-equipped in early 1953 with the Meteor NF13, which was an NF11 still equipped with AI Mk10 but with a radio compass, and Rebecca/Babs fitted in lieu of the SCR 729 beacon system which our Mosquitos carried, also a refrigeration unit to civilise the cockpit. Incidentally Mosquito cockpit temperatures could reach 160°F(70°C), and we had a nasty experience while night flying after having done 3 hours low level during the day. While climbing at 25000' Joe announced that he was unable to read the instruments, I took my head from the radar visor and found that my eyes were not a lot better, so we very gently returned to Kabrit to be met by the ambulance. However the Meteors were delayed and the Mosquitos were getting tired, so much so that the MU ran out of serviceable aircraft so 219 were temporarily re-equipped with Meteor NF11's. We were able to borrow a couple for a week or so in order that the pilots could be converted and we could do some PIs. Finally in March 1953 the Meteor NF13s arrived and we embarked on a period of intensive flying in order to get fit for a large exercise at the end of the month, which went off fairly well.
In 1952 there had been a tense period with Egypt when the Egyptian army overthrew King Farouk and General Neguib became president, we sat about in the crew room with the aircraft fully armed waiting to take our appointed place in a plan to invade Egypt but it all came to nothing. A rather similar thing happened the next year when Colonel Nasser in turn ousted Neguib, I can remember visiting the Egyptian camp barber who, while trimming my neck with a cutthroat razor, told me how the Russians were going to supply Nasser with Migs and we would at last be driven out. Quite a number of servicemen lost their lives due to hostile acts by the Egyptians, mainly ambushing transport and sniping, and these actions continued throughout the time we spent in Egypt. The airfield had an RAF Regiment squadron of Bofors guns for defence and these were normally lined up inside the wire perimeter close to the guardroom. In an incident early one morning there were a series of explosions, the Egyptians had crept through the wire and blew up several guns. Also we had a telescramble system whereby the aircraft on standby at the end of the runway were connected to Group by a telephone line plugged into the rear. These lines would be laid out from the control tower during the afternoon and on several occasions thieving Egyptians would remove large lengths before we took the aircraft out at sunset. It got so bad that the lines had to be permanently concreted in. One of the more arduous duties we NCO's had was that of guard commander, the whole camp, except for the actual airfield and the control tower, was enclosed by a barbed wire fence which was patrolled at night by armed guards. In addition the unit was responsible for guarding a dredger when it was working on our section of the Sweetwater Canal, so in total the guard comprised some 60 men, who would be organised into the standard three shift system of two hours on and four off. The guard commander had to be awake all the time, and his orders stated that on no account must he leave the guardroom, however the supplementary orders for guarding the dredger instructed him to visit the dredger guard every two hours. It should be remembered that the majority of the men comprising the guard were young frightened National Service airmen whose weapons training had been minimal. One of the most important duties of the guard commander was to physically check the breech of each rifle as guards were dismounted, to ensure that they had been properly unloaded. Joe twice had men accidentally discharge a round through the guardroom roof from supposedly empty rifles, this was not an unusual occurrence, and the guard commander would be put on a charge.
In April '53 we set off as part of a flight of three aircraft to visit Malta, this meant a refuelling stop at El Adem and because of strong headwinds, a further stop at Benina. Unfortunately we were unable to restart an engine and so the other two carried on while we were stuck at Benina, this aerodrome belonged to the Libyans and while the air traffic control was done by an English company, the small RAF detachment who had refuelled us could not effect a repair. A servicing party had to be sent the 200 mile trip by road from El Adem, which took them more than a day. We were accommodated in the old Italian officers mess and decided that we would have a Saturday night on the town in Benghazi a few miles away on the local bus. What a joke, it took us all evening to find somewhere to get some alcohol of very dubious quality. Engine repairs dragged on and it was four days later when we returned to Kabrit.
A weekend away!
It was usual practise to send us away for weekends to Malta, Cyprus, or Habbaniyah in Iraq, as a navigation exercise and one or two crews would be told, "Off you go to Malta, or wherever, Friday afternoon and return on Sunday afternoon or early Monday morning" These were great fun and enabled us to get a good meal and a drunken night out, and some cheap booze and fags. The Meteor ammo tanks in the wings were a good store and I can remember getting bottles of gin out covered in ice after the trip back from El Adem, where they had cost 6/8d (33p). The cockpit was rather cramped and I used to fly with my travel bag upended between my legs, if I dropped a nav instrument on the floor the only way to retrieve it was to ask the pilot to invert the aircraft and sort it out from the rubbish which collected in the top of the canopy. Navigation was quite tricky at times when it is realised that we had to plot our tracks and courses on a small scale chart which was folded on a clip board, together with a log, (a paper record), a Dalton computor, a ruler, protractors, and dividers all balanced on one's lap. It was essential to keep a supply of pencils and at night a small torch, although in the Meteor we had the luxury of a small lamp. When in the Mosquito, squeezed up beside the pilot, to shine a torch anywhere near him brought a swift rebuke, and I used a little pen torch shielded with red tissue. To achieve engineering drawing standards in those conditions was trying to say the least, the noise and vibration from the two Merlins only added to the distractions. I just could not imagine the problems the wartime people faced.
Once on returning from Malta to El Adem we had a problem when the ventral tank failed to feed. A hurried calculation showed we had not enough fuel to make El Adem or return to Luqa, so I made a rapid course alteration for Benina which was roughly at right angles to our track. We made it there with no more course changes and before the tower was manned, and landed with the gauges reading empty. When we susequently landed at El Adem to refuel we noticed a car waiting to cross the runway. The pilot forgot that we still had a full ventral tank and so were overweight for landing and dropped the aircraft quite heavily on to the runway. While we were having a meal the waiter came up to us and asked the pilot to come outside. There he was faced with the Station Commander who tore him off a strip for "damaging his runway". On another occasion on landing at El Adem, we were met by a 13 Sqdn pilot whose Meteor PR10 had sprung a fuel leak with fuel swilling about the fuselage. He was desperate to return his films to Kabrit, but was unable to use his radio or any electrics, and formated on us for the trip back.
Back to the Mosquito
However I was not finished with the Mosquito, when our Meteors were delivered the ferry pilots took a Mosquito back with them but left several behind under repair in the MU, these were returned to the UK by squadron crews as they were repaired. The last one, RL141, was appropriated by our CO, Sqdn Ldr Cogill who chose me to accompany him home where I enjoyed a months leave, that and the week in December 52, being the only leave I had during my 2½ year tour. We left Fayid on 24th July 1953, refuelled at Luqa and at Istres, near Marseilles, where we spent the night, and arrived at Benson on the 25th. I believe that this was the last time a Mosquito night fighter was flown by a squadron crew in the RAF, and it is a great pity that none were preserved.
A week's detachment to Habbaniyah (Iraq)
In October 1953 the Sqdn went on a week's detachment to Habbaniyah in Iraq, going there required us to divert round Israel, via Aqaba, landing at Mafraq in northern Jordan to refuel. Mafraq was an oiled sand strip and great plumes of dust were thrown up by the aircraft, particularly on takeoff. One evening waiting for our number two to take off while we were airborne above him reminded me of watching a Sunderland on the Great Bitter Lake. We were told that Habbaniyah was our "war station" and we carried out sector recces round the north and east borders, having to find the three passes into Iran at Ruwandiz, Penjwin and Khanaqin. The northern oilfield at Kirkuk had a very large flare where surplus gas was burnt off, and this could be seen from a great distance, as also could the gold plated dome of the mosque at Samara. While at Habbaniyah we did some air to air firing for the benefit of the Wing Commander Flying there. He was a very keen type and would press on in below the laid down 30° angle off, with the result that a shell ricocheted off the nylon target flag and passed through one of the tugs engines. As we only had one aircraft modified to tow targets that curtailed the fun. We also went down to Shaibah near Basra and did a sector recce round Abadan and Kuwait. There was an oil derrick immediately beside the approach into Shaibah and it was a little unnerving flying past this red light at night. While in the mess I got into conversation with an American oilman and he told me that they were drilling down to 10,000'! I considered this total bullshit but years later learned that this was in fact true and that the southern Iraq/Kuwait oilfield at 5,000' deep was underlain by even larger oil deposits 10,000' down. The oilfield produced large quantities of gas, and we were told that the town of Basra had gas pipes laid in the streets to supply street lighting for free and that each house had a free supply for lighting and cooking.
Armament Practise School
Another wonderful detachment, particularly for the navigators, was the annual Armament Practice School, at Nicosia in Cyprus. We were not required to fly as it was all gunnery, although I always enjoyed that and would always fly on the monthly gunnery sorties we did from Kabrit. This however meant we could enjoy the delights of Cyprus to the full, and I can well remember experiencing a mild earthquake when I was washing one morning. I put the room swaying about down to my exertions of the previous night, until someone else urged me to get out quick. Three weeks of that was absolute bliss for us, as the pilots were never slow to join in the parties, and the night clubs treated us as honoured guests.
Back to the normal routine
Between times we returned to the normal routine enlivened by exercises in one of which we were vectored on to a Vampire on a nice moonlit night who must have seen us as we were turning in behind him and started some mild evasive action. I held on to him for a few minutes until he thought he had lost us and levelled up so that we were able to complete the interception. We pulled up alongside him but he did not see our nav lights, we could plainly see the dark shape of his head in the cockpit, and once more we had to tuck a wing in and give him a close up flash. The dark shape went pale as he turned his face towards us, and I have never seen an aircraft break away so sharply, he must have had quite a shock when someone turned a light on about 15' away from him. We also carried out a large radar calibration operation for the army who were installing an air defense system. This involved low flying over set routes with no low limit and were most exhilarating, I flew six of these, three of them in one morning with three different pilots. The Meteor was a very pleasant aircraft to fly in and one felt safe and secure, in fact I have heard it referred to as a "gentleman's aeroplane", and Joe was an excellent pilot who loved aerobatics and formation flying.
Formation flying was all the rage and large formations would be flown for any occasion, we took part in the Coronation Flypast, which went all round the Canal Zone, and I can remember particularly another large flypast which was led by another keen Wingco Flying who would keep too low. Joe had a position at the extreme left of a large formation of squadrons which put us about 5 aircraft displaced laterally from the leader. The turns tended to be steep with the result that when on the inside of a turn we were in great danger of being flown into the ground. I had to remind Joe of this because it was a bumpy day and 110% of his attention was required to maintain formation, with the result that his station keeping became a bit ragged at times. The leader could check this by watching the shadows of the formation on the ground and reprimanded Joe. He got the immediate curt response "If you can do better come back here and do it yourself", there was no answer but a least he took the hint and took us up another 100'. A pilot in that situation really had to work hard and throttles and airbrakes working overtime to maintain station, in 45 minutes both he and 500 gallons of fuel were exhausted.
Coming Home
In June 1954, 39 Squadron was presented with its Standard, and we had a fancy ceremonial parade in which I was B Flight marker. We were issued with heavy khaki drill uniforms with trousers and a shirt and tie, which made three hours of ceremonial rifle drill quite an ordeal, normal summer dress being an open necked khaki drill tunic and shorts. Fortunately nobody fainted and it all went very well. All in all I was not sorry when my 30 month tour ended in August 1954, and I was required to be available at midnight one evening to load my kit into a lorry to go up to Fayid and catch a Hastings home. Needless to say I was dumped into the lorry and slept off a glorious binge on the aircraft. I did not recollect much about landing to refuel and have a meal in Malta, and only came to when the airman in the canvas seat beside me shook me awake to show me the English coast.
We had about 8 weeks leave and in October 1954 were posted to 152 Squadron at Wattisham in Suffolk. This was equipped with a mixture of Meteor NF 12's and NF 14's, which was normal for Squadrons as 100 of each mark had been ordered. However the NF 14 was far superior to the NF 12, having spring-tab ailerons and an auto stabiliser to improve directional stability (a problem with the other marks was a tendency to snake, which did not help gunnery). It also had the excellent bubble hood, and so was the preferred mount. Both aircraft were equipped with a nice digital GEE set which made for navigation and AI Mk 21. This was an American set as fitted to the F86D Sabre, and, while it had a better range than AI Mk 10 and a good lock-on facility, the display was inferior to the older set. We had an testing period becoming reacclimatised to UK weather conditions, and Joe's "press on single handedly" attitude got us into some interesting situations, but he was a superb pilot and we were never in serious trouble. Unfortuneately after about 18 months Joe had to have an operation on his throat, and became unfit for high altitude flying, and was posted away to a Transport Command unit in time to serve in the 1956 Suez campaign. I then flew with a variety of pilots, eventually becoming permanently crewed up with a Flight Lieutenant permanent commision Cranwell trained pilot. He was a very pleasant man but had become increasingly nervous and would often find any excuse not to fly, which was rather off putting to say the least and I never had the confidence in him that I had had in Joe, or most of the other pilots I had flown with, and this affected my own performance.
Conclusions
While the Meteor made an excellent fun aeroplane it could not be considered a satisfactory night fighter as the Canberra could just climb away from us at altitude, and even catching the American B46 Tornado was a difficult exercise. We once covered about 50 miles alternately climbing and diving to gain speed, just to close the last half mile of range and complete an interception on one. With the introduction of the V bombers we were completely outclassed, and on my last proper night fighter scramble in one of the big exercises, we were vectored on to a Valiant, a despairing final turn at close range took us through his slipstream and we were almost turned over, and lost control. I was then of course flying with the twitchy Flt Lt and the problem was partly of his making and partly my fault. By the time the pilot had recovered we had lost so much range that, although we tried for a few minutes we were losing out and had to abandon the chase. The very next day we were scrambled to 40000', and while passing through 38000', the hood opened and we suffered explosive decompression. This is not a pleasant experience, and we made 38000' to circuit height in record time, I was extremely displeased as I considered he was entirely responsible. However it coincided with the expiration of my tour on 152 Sqdn in May 1957 and I was not unhappy to leave. That concluded my night fighter experience.
© 1999 Peter Verney