The 81st Entry
RAF Halton Aircraft Apprentices
Sept 1955 - July 1958

ISSUE No.20 - AUGUST 2009
81st ENTRY NEWSLETTER
Editor: Mike Stanley

The Continuing Adventures of 681267 Cpl/T Alan Lowther
(Armourer)

Our Sgt. was an ex-Thor missile man and he mainly left us to it and busied himself in the armoury inventing things. This paid dividends as in no time at all he had come up with a printed circuit board for testing the photoflash dischargers that eliminated the hit and miss existing method. He also redesigned the bombing system test kit and made it much simpler, lighter and easier to handle. Turret servicing was initially minimal, the main problem being getting the ammunition feed assisters to operate correctly.

Policy dictated that every air test after major/minor servicing was undertaken with a full ground crew on board to rectify any problems and to physically fire the guns and test photoflash dischargers and flare chute systems. This system paid dividends as on a couple of occasions, had the ground crew not been on board, the aircraft would have had to divert to Valley to do a wheels-up landing. We also had to fit the long range (2000 gall) fuel tank into the bomb bay for air tests and make sure that the fuel was transferred successfully. 30-hour trips were the norm out over the Atlantic, usually to drop mail etc. to the weather ships or to find a target as part of the training regime. I went on one of these exercises, which was to find the Queen Mary, and the weather was abysmal with rain and very low cloud. We were flying at 100 feet and I was sat in the front turret. As an aside I asked the skipper the height of the target and he replied, “175 feet”. We did find it and turned round for the long haul home. Conditions on board were fairly basic but there were cooking and sleeping facilities. I can understand the person who wrote in an earlier journal about wanting to be a pilot until he read the word ‘boring’ scratched on the control column. Hours and hours over a grey ocean, most of the time seeing nothing, must have been soul destroying.

I think it was in 1963 that the Cuba crisis blew up. This caused some consternation at St Mawgan as two Shackleton Mk 3s had to be detached to the Caribbean (Antigua) at short notice along with supporting ground crews and equipment. Main problem was that they decided that they wanted the guns harmonised and it appeared that no one had done this before and nor was there any harmonisation board set up. Anyway we soon sorted out what was required and harmonised the aircraft to point harmonisation at 800 yards. After that all aircraft were harmonised after every servicing and tested on every air test. Air/Ground crew and aircraft were rotated at regular intervals during the crisis; I believe the route was across the Atlantic to the USA then down the coast to Florida and then on to the Caribbean.

22 Squadron base servicing employed the ground crew flying as makeweight on air tests, so quite a few helicopter flights were undertaken. One of these resulted in a very heavy landing when, after a practice autorotation, the engine failed to pick up and we hit the ground rather hard. No injuries and only minor damage to the undercarriage. Another incident involved a blade failure during tethered testing and, needless to say, the aircraft was severely damaged. Again, there were no injuries.

Considering the salt laden environment the aircraft operated in on a daily basis they were in fair condition for their age. However, during one major servicing we found severe corrosion in the main alloy body of the nose turret to the extent that the metal was like powder. The turret hydraulic system operated at 3000 psi so this could cause a severe problem in operation. A check of all aircraft was instigated and all aircraft were found to be suffering from the same problem to a greater or lesser degree. New turrets were available and it was decided that turrets would be removed on the next aircraft servicing and be replaced until all were done. After that they would be bay serviced every Major and anti-corrosive treatments renewed.

Social life was varied; drinking, playing darts, football, sailing, sea angling and being crew on one of the local fishing boats operating out of Padstow. The local (evening) watering hole was the ‘Sailor’s Arms’ in Newquay where, along with Bob Hobson (82nd?) we would take on the ‘grockles’ at darts with beer as the prize. Bob and me made a formidable team so most nights were all free beer. I ran into Bob (as a civilian) during my tour in Masirah and again after I had left the RAF and was in Air Traffic Control and he was a commercial pilot, but more of that later. The lunchtime watering hole was the Watergate Bay Hotel that was out of the back gate by the Bomb Dump, very popular as the bar staff in the summer were all young girls imported from Switzerland.

I played football for RAF St Mawgan in a league that covered Cornwall and parts of Devon. The sailing club operated out of Newquay with Albacores. Shortly after I arrived there was a fatal accident and the club was moved to Restronguet Creek at Falmouth. What happened was that two Albacores set off to sail round Atlantic Head into the next bay; Conditions were ideal, sunshine, gentle winds and light seas. One of the helms had recently arrived from Gan and his WRAF crew had turned up without a lifejacket so he gave her his. While running into the next bay, the other helm told me that he heard this loud roaring of water and, on looking over his shoulder, saw a 30 ft breaking wave bearing down on them. It was too late to do anything and both boats were swamped, eventually finishing up on the beach as a pile of wreckage. The ex-Gan helm was unfortunately drowned and the other three were washed up on to the beach. I have wondered since, in the light of recent tsunamis, whether this wave was caused by some underwater event in the Atlantic. Anyway, sailing at Falmouth was just as good, just further to travel there and back.

Six of us (all junior ranks) represented RAF St. Mawgan at the Coastal Command sailing championships in ’63 held at the Welsh Harp reservoir in London. It was a good week for us and we swept the board, 1st, 2nd & 3rd in the individual and we won the team racing. Not bad for a Cpl and two J/Ts. This should have opened a lot of doors for us in the sailing world but, as we were told after the prize-giving by Doug Newman, a well known RAF sailor, don’t expect to get anything out of this because of who you are. I didn’t give it a great deal of thought at the time but, some time later, when we were sent to the Isle of Wight to sail in the RAF Mermaid (3-man keelboat) championships at Seaview and arrived (on the date we were given) only to be told that the event had finished the day before, did the significance of Doug’s remark sink in.

Beach fishing was very popular and many hours were spent fishing at various locations up and down the coast between Newquay and Padstow. I chatted up one of the local fisherman in Padstow and managed to get a permanent berth on his crab/lobster boat. His name was Tommy Morrisey (now deceased) and the boat was a 36 ft. converted RNLI lifeboat (now in the museum at Newlyn). I’ll never forget the first trip, told to be on the dock at 0530 I arrived and it was blowing old boots. I didn’t think we would go but we did for what turned out to be quite an interesting trip where I learned all about lifting and dropping crab/lobster pots, re-baiting the pots and most important of all, not getting the pot lines round your leg when re-laying the pots. The boat had a main engine and a wing engine, which was used when picking up and laying out and just kept the boat going ahead at the pace required to lift the pots and get all the connecting rope into the boat tidily (eight pots to a group).

We had a visiting, one legged, seagull that would land on the bow of the boat as we crossed the bar on the way out and then get off again as we crossed the bar on the way back. I often wondered how it managed to stand there on one leg for six hours at a time in some of the conditions we went to sea, but it did and it never failed to turn up.

Hardest days were when we were changing ground. This entailed picking up all 48 pots and miles of rope which was all (neatly!) stowed in the working area and then all set down again in a new area, which could be several miles away.

During the summer days basking sharks were a common sight, I couldn’t believe how big they were. Dolphins were also regularly seen. We usually had good catches of crabs and lobsters and spider crabs. The main legs were taken from the large spider crabs and they were put back as they grow new ones. A bit of mackerel fishing on the way back and the larder was full for a week.

To be continued...