Every person who commits to one of the professional services and has to suffer through a tour of active duty deserves respect for defending the honour of their people. No matter which side they serve on. Less professional types who aim to kill non-combatants can go straight to hell for all I care.
Dad was born in Aberdeen and joined the RAF as soon as he could at the opening of WW2. He was lucky to be approved for pilot training due to his responses and aptitude, many others were less lucky. He was sent to Canada for training during the hard times of the blitz.
He joined the war during 1944 and was given the role of tank busting with the Typhoon. He described it as an engine in sore need of control surfaces. All of his squadron were afraid of giving it full throttle in a dive. He said if nothing else it meant you could not aim for toffee as it was shaking so hard. He was not keen on talking about many other aspects. A few years back I got to see his flight logs. Many of the pages had red dots. When I asked about these he said they represented a death in the squadron. I cannot tell you how many I counted.
Between the war and my time he flew some wonderful classic British aircraft. His description of the Vampire was "variable noise generator" no matter what you did it made the same speed but just a different noise. Full throttle was a high pitch, anything less was a lower tone.
He was stationed in Hong Kong operating PhotoRecon Spitfires up the Chinese coast.
In the background is the Hong Kong Island !
This is from his plane with a test shot. It is Kowloon with nothing over two stories. In the middle was KaiTak the old airport which was a military base at the time. Compare this to the famous fly between the skyscrapers approach years later.
One of my earliest memories was living on the north coast of Scotland and watching Lightenings flying out on scramble. The key memories are
"Damn its cold"
"Whats that funny noise" claxon for scramble
"Oh look at the shiny lights" lightenings on quick start
"Wow what a noise" they hit the runway and illegally engage afterburner before clearing ground
"Oh its gone" they climb at 85 degrees so fast you cannot comprehend
"Damn its cold."
He liked the Lightening. When I went to the Hendon museum recently I was able to see one. I never realised they were so large. If you have any interest in the Air Force it is well worth a visit. The Vulcan takes over an entire corner. Walking under it is wonderful. The interior of the Victor cockpit makes you think. They climbed into a tiny space and flew without knowing if they would return. When you see the instruments and pull out your iPhone with google maps you feel the contrast.
From my memory I remember some wonderful things as a child. He took on the role as instructor. We got posted through Malaya, Singapore, India, Cyprus and many other places as the RAF sold their post war stock to the other air forces. He cross trained them onto the aircraft. In this case it was Helicopters, whirldwinds. We followed him through these regions which was an amazing childhood. 6 months in each location from the age of 4-7 before returning to the UK. I have a great love of the culture of Malaya and Singapore and their gentle ways.
His last posting was 33 Sqdn in Odiham flying Pumas. He was not keen on these. The less attractive aspect of his role also came to be. Pumas are troop taxis. He got two postings to Northern Ireland. On the first we went and I had the misfortune to see his Puma with 20+ holes from light arms fire after one flight. You might think they were made of bullet proof metal. No. We did not go on the second tour. I remember my mother not being the same for that time. Using the military against non-military objectives is a mess.
When he died I spoke to the BBMF and they were kind enough to do something very special. There was no question. It was just done. Honour is something very very special.
