The Landing
Let me do the talking and you just nod and mutter yes Sir and no Sir in the right place and we might not get sent back to the trenches.
The cream of C Flight had been sent on a special mission and now I was going to have to explain how we had come back to the Drome by rail and then road tender from the Depot, rather than flying back as the C.O. rather expected we might.
We were all dressed in our best uniforms and wouldn’t have looked out of place at a Squadron inspection not that we had any of those. The only incongruity was my lack of a hat because it wouldn’t fit over the bandage around my head, and the bandage around Taki’s left hand meant he was only wearing one glove. Bob though, looked perfect, well scrubbed, indeed even pink behind his ears and there was a faint smell of carbolic soap emanating from his direction.
“Come” the stern voice of the C.O. answered my tentative knock at his office door, he looked as grim as usual as we filed into the rather austere surroundings, we all saluted and I noticed Uncle looked rather more relaxed than I thought he might under the circumstances.
“Well Acting Lieutenant, tell me what went wrong. I’ve only a few minutes before going to Wing to request more planes and I’d like some reasonable excuse to give them for this debacle. We only received these Nieuports a week ago they’ve not made one excursion over the lines and now I need to ask for more!”
I didn’t like the emphasis on “Acting Lieutenant” but cleared my throat prior to speaking but my mouth was rather dry.
“Come on man spit it out, just tell me about the night landing, you can give the rest of the report to Uncle later.”
Yes Sir, we’d been flying for about an hour, saw some action Sir and I was leading the flight home. It was rather awkward because there were no landing lights as such around the runway, just the 2 searchlights either side of it, next to their AA guns and so I was trying to put my plane down between the pair of them. Just as I touched down I saw an unturned plane at the end of the runway and took avoiding action.
My plane slewed across the runway and I went through their AA and searchlight pit before doing a nose dive into the soft earth by the side of the runway.
Good grief man, were any of them hurt he asked. Not as many as I would have liked I responded ruefully. He looked startled. I’ll put it in my full report Sir but they fired on us as we were taking off Sir. Indiscriminately Sir, if I may say so Sir.
Ummm was his only response.
Takahashi followed me in but of course there was only 1 searchlight operational and it was more difficult for him to line up on the runway, it was very narrow! The other problem was that my plane had caught fire on landing, fortunately I’d been throw clear but the blaze blinded him as well. He had to side slip at the last moment of his landing, but their damn runway was far too short for this sort of nonsense at night and he rolled off the end of it, hitting the plane I’d seen on my approach. He didn’t see it because of the bright light from my bonfire.
Anyway on hitting the Be2C his plane also caught fire.
To save the plane the daft bugger tried to extinguish the flames with his hands.
How come his gloves didn’t protect him the C.O. asked astutely.
“Ahhh, well they were new gloves Sir and he didn’t want to damage them”, Uncles eyes grew wide with astonishment as I continued “so he took them off” and the C.O. said, “well he’ll not do that again will he”, looking pityingly at Taki.
“And what about you Parkhurst” he continued with a slight smile playing round his normally rigid lips.
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Sir, Parkhurst had the worst situation of all, he was coming in to land, there were 2 planes burning at the end of the runway and as he lost height and dropped down the blasted remaining searchlight was turned full on him.
He was trying to land by the side of the runway to avoid the mess at the end but when the light lit him up he had to sideslip hard to the left to avoid it but only succeeded in running straight into the AA/searchlight pit before bouncing over and then tipping the plane onto it’s nose well beyond the end of the runway.
“I suppose they deserved that as well” the C.O. asked rather caustically. “No not really Sir” I said trying to hide a grin, “Their gun jammed on the first burst and they never got chance to shoot in our direction after that, it was the other buggers that tried to kill us.
“There’s just a couple of other things I’d like to know and you can go.” “Why were there no light’s around the landing strip?”
“If I was being kind I’d say they were trying to remain hidden from the enemy, but if not I’d say whoever built the field forgot about including them in the design”. They could also do with a leading light to indicate when to drop down, at night it’s almost impossible to judge it correctly.
“OK and what training had you been given on arrival” “Well none Sir, we’d chatted to the chaps up there about how they carried on with this night flying, it seems pretty dangerous to me Sir, especially the landing” “So you were asked to undertake a mission in the dark, with no landing lights and no training?” “Yes Sir”
I was feeling a little easier with the way the interview was going but I couldn’t really understand why I was getting an easy ride, I’d been expecting a roasting for losing 3 planes.
I’ve checked their records the C.O. interrupted my reverie, and it seems they are losing a lot of planes, mainly on landing, whoever designed the runway will be digging trenches pretty soon if they’re not careful.
Serve him right I thought but didn’t say anything further.
Well that was a disaster, my landing skills are pathetic. I placed the planes randomly near to the strip and then did the best I could with the cards. Lining the planes up on the right track was difficult and any last minute corrections mean that you over shoot the end of the bally thing. In all cases I should have opened up the throttle and done another circuit but it had been a long game and pilot fatigue took over so I did the best I could. Which obviously wasn’t good enough, but it looks as if the C.O. is going to give me a pass on this.
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