From Fury to Phantom: An RAF Pilot's Story - 1936-1970

273 Pages·2005·3.59 MB·English

by  Captain

First published in Great Britain in 2005 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright © Richard Cummins Haine 2005
9781783034826

The right of Richard Cummins Haine to be identified as Author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.

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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER ONE - My Family
CHAPTER TWO - First Solo
CHAPTER THREE - Fury First
CHAPTER FOUR - Nearly Fatal
CHAPTER FIVE - Furies to Demons
CHAPTER SIX - Demons to Gladiators
CHAPTER SEVEN - Gladiators to Blenheims
CHAPTER EIGHT - First Operational Patrol
CHAPTER NINE - Commissioned and Shot Down
CHAPTER TEN - Beaufighters at Last
CHAPTER ELEVEN - Resting in Scotland
CHAPTER TWELVE - First Command – Defiants and Hurricanes
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - North Africa
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - No. 9 Group Headquarters
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - New Zealand Squadron Mosquitos
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - The Destruction of Two Junkers Bombers
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - West Through Panama to Hong Kong
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Kai Tak
CHAPTER NINETEEN - Air Testing Jet Fighters
CHAPTER TWENTY - A Demonstration for Royalty
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Air Ministry Staff London
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - Jet Refresher
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - RAF Habbaniyah, Iraq
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - Three Squadrons of Venoms
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - Six Venoms Down in the Desert
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - Handing Over to Iraq
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - A Visit from King Faisal
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - The End of my Tour in Iraq
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - Home by Sea
CHAPTER THIRTY - Officer Commanding RAF Turnhouse
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - Flying the Phantom
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - Helicopters and Edwards US Air Force Base
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - TSR 2 and Hastings Conversion
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - Bomber Command Bombing School
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - Bomber, Strike and Training Commands
APPENDIX ONE - Aircraft Types Flown
APPENDIX TWO - Units and Appointments
Index
CHAPTER ONE
My Family
1916 to 1934

I was born in the midst of that other dreadful war. In 1917 the news of the
horrors of Ypres and the Somme were being received at home with incredulity
and despair. The frightening casualties suffered during the taking of
Paschendaele Ridge brought home the horrors of the war in the trenches in
France, and now, at home, rumours were rife that the German airships had
dropped bombs on British soil. Indeed, it was revealed that for months the
Zeppelins had freely roamed the night skies of England unchallenged, and on
one night alone as many as fourteen had been reported over the home counties.
The physical damage and casualties they inflicted were comparatively slight, but
there was something uniquely horrible about these great dark menacing craft
cruising almost silently above the English countryside. I was spared that feeling
of terror, for I was only one year old at the time, but in later years any mention
of Zeppelins encouraged me to tell an amusing family story in which I jokingly
used to claim that I was a casualty of the First World War.
Old Eckits, the loyal and willing family retainer, although getting on and a bit
slow, was only too glad to do anything that was asked of her. One Sunday
morning, my parents had gone to church, asking Eckits to put the Sunday roast
in the oven at noon, and at the same time keep an eye on the two baby boys. On
returning home, as they approached the gate they heard a loud explosion, and to
their horror were met by the sight of Eckits, her face blackened, her hair singed
and in disarray, rushing out of the back door with a screaming child, equally be-
sooted, clutched under each arm. ‘The Zeppelins have come, the Zeppelins have
come!’, her hysterical shouts setting the dogs off barking. While Mother tried to
calm the victims and settle the dogs, Father rushed into the house to turn off the
gas oven before there was another explosion.
I was the baby of the family, and as well as the other casualty, my young
I was the baby of the family, and as well as the other casualty, my young
brother, there was an older son and three girls in the family. Father had founded,
and now ran, a small builders’ merchant firm in Gloucester. It was a hard
struggle in the Depression following the war, but through considerable personal
efforts he managed to keep the Firm alive, and in later years he was able to hand
over to his eldest son a thriving company with excellent prospects. My second
brother Mike was the brainy one, and understandably was favoured by my
parents to go to university. Even in his schooldays he showed considerable
interest and ability in electronics and physics, and he graduated later with a
doctorate in electronic engineering. He became Director of the AEI Research
Laboratory at Harlow and was Director of their Laboratory at Aldermaston, from
where he visited the United States of America during the Second World War in
connection with the current experimentation with nuclear physics. Back at
Harlow he worked with a colleague in his laboratory and became the co-inventor
of the electron microscope, an example of which can now be seen in the London
Science Museum. His outstanding abilities were clearly a hard act to follow, but
fortunately I, his younger brother, had no aspirations in the field of either
business or electronics, and my preordained course was clearly defined in my
mind. I was going to fly, and this ambition transcended all else. In those early
days I must admit I would not have believed, even in my wildest dreams, that
one day I would be one of the Few in the Battle of Britain, would be shot down
in Holland and would return to England with a Queen, and at the end of my
flying career would have flown more than a hundred different types of aircraft.
The three girls in the family were kind and considerate sisters to me, being the
baby of the family. My mother spoilt me madly and my father was a most kind
and generous man who never failed to support me in my ambitions. I suffered
the inevitable mild bullying and ribbing of my elder brothers and their friends,
but survived to relatively happy days of youth. To fly was my obsession, and all
my efforts and energy were directed along this well-defined course. I spent many
hours at home in my shed making aircraft models, and Christmas and birthdays
brought more model aeroplanes, which I would fly with great enthusiasm, on
their elastic power, around the tennis court. But there were also school exams to
get through, the growing pains of early adulthood and the agony of first love
affairs to suffer. There were several girls whom we shared among ourselves and
our friends, and it was seldom that a weekend passed without an expedition into
Wales or touring the Cotswolds.
We had learned to drive at an early age, and Father was always generous in
letting us have the use of his large Buick or one of the firm’s cars. The girls were
usually enthusiastic spectators on the touchline for our rugby matches, and all