The
"Telegraph's THE NAVY
THE Fleet Air Arm was once a
branch of the Royal Air Force. The Navy contributed three-quar- ters of the pilots and all the observers; it was administered by the Air Force ashore, and by the Navy when it served afloat.
This arrangement worked very well because it worked on unbounded good- will; but it had certain disadvantages and in due course the Fleet Air Arm censed to be a branch of the Royal Air Force. It is now a part of the Royal Navy, and I lives mostly in aircraft carriers and the larger men- of-war that carry aircraft.
Now in certain parts of the const there is a great deal of co-operation between the Air Force and the Navy.
If you remember they gave a re- markable demonstration of this on Trafalgar Day, when a convoy escort- ed by the Navy was attacked by Ger- man bombers. The Air Force fighters came whistling out from the const like a stream of machine-gun bullets in de- fence of the convoy. Twelve enemy machines took part in that attack. Only five returned to Germany.
At one of these points where the two services are in close touch, a squadron of Fleet Air Arm fighters on board an aircraft carrier recently got orders to fly off and take a spelt ashore.
I think the idea was to give them a rest because they had had a lot of gruelling fights and possibly to give them opportunities for certain specialised training. Anyhow they cocked an eye to windward and gave a hitch to their trousers and did all the things sailors do when they are told to go somewhere and do something, and off they went-streaming up from the deck of their carrier one after the other like bech going up from the alighting board.
***
WHEN I found them they had come to earth on a bleak headland with hangars and rows of huts, the only things that broke the skyline.
They agreed that one good thing they had in plenty, and that was fresh nir. There is normally only one Hound on an nerodrome-the roar of propellors as engines are warmed through and machines take off or alight. Whenever there was a lull in this one heard the cry of gulls above the cliffs, and the faint grumble of the surf.
Working in conjunction with the |ness in the sky to eastward which Air Force they instituted a con- was reflected in the puddles. The tinuous naval patrol across a part cold wind blowing of the land, of the North Sea from dawn to carrying silvery wisps of rain aeros dusk. One day was very like an- the aerodrome, smelt of heather and other except that sometimes the fog the hilla.
vame rolling in from the sea and,
Friday,
HONGKONG: TELEGRAPH
Page of Exclusive. THAT FLIES
unless the visibility was too low for The engines were being warmed, spoke into it.. The observer did the flying or they intercepted an enemy through that meant that the naval same and they both laughed. They reconnaissance or bombing machine, fighting machines, drawn up a little were finishing a converantion they one patrol was very-like another. to Beaward of the ranks of LA.. started in, the hut; in that rush of This maundron, of Fleet Air Arm machines, were roaring like ali the air and uproar it-was-their-secret-THE-
We climbed up into our cockpits. Aghters is carrying out, day after bulls of Bashan,
Each pilot and observer walked They were all two-seater fighters.
day, what 1 shared with them for
to their allotted machines. Two of
them stopped to exchange a remark
*
* *
a few hours.
First of all a word about the kit. Full flying kit consists of a com- drowned by the deafening roar of ONE observer was so obvious- bination suit like the skin of the engines in the slip-stream, ly unfamiliar with the situation teddy bear. On top of that goes where normal speech is, of course, that a member of the mainten wind-proof combination suit with a
an impossibility.
ance personnel-a cheerful red-
high collar lined with fleece. Then
comes a life-saving waistcoat.
The speaker reached out for the faced person with little drops of This can be inflated in a few tube of the other's headphone and rain on his eyebrows-leant over
moments by the wearer, and for]
some obscure reason is known)
technically as a 'Mae West,"
The parachute harness buckles on cumbersome over this. It is a
arrangement to walk about in, but it can be released in a second, and there are moments when it gives its wearer, quite a lot of moral support. Lastly there in a flying helmet with earphone attachments, gauntlet gloves, and fleece-lined flying boots. Now picture rows of wooden huts; something like what one imagines
-RADIO-
March 15, 1940.
དྷL‚!Y; It
Articles
the edge of the cockpit and de- monstrated, a fow essentials such as the stowage of the para- chute, the switches of the wire- less telephone that connected the machine with the base, the re- lease gour of the gun, how, the strap clipped the observer into his seat.
After that ho grinned and wished mo a happy landing and disappear- ed. "And then the roaring grow u little louder and the ground flowed bumpily away beneath us, turned in a wide eircle and recoded.
It was quite far beneath us by the time I had finished fiddling about with my straps and switches and trays of machine-gun ammunition and looked over the edge to xec what was happening,
It was doing funny things— the earth we had left behind- tilting on edge a bit, and a mare and her fonl'in a field and some sheep on the édge of a cliff seem=" ed quite unconscious that they were grazing at a most impossl. ble angle; and there was a rush- ing wind that song in the wires. and a rather queer feeling of lightness in the region of the tummy.
I screwed my head round and saw the other, fighters, quite close to us. Their movement was like that of bonts, rising and dipping slightly on the surface of an invisible sen. The real son was far beneath us, dark greenish grey, and then it fnded.
The observer in the next machine was blowing his nose on a pocket: handkerchief. I rather envied him that pocket handkerchief: I couldn't ket at mine through all those layers of flying, kit. Perhaps it didn't mat- ter, up there above the clouds, They stretched beneath us like an Arctic panorama, with little dark streaks which was the sea thousands of feet below showing through rifts, in a white floor that looked like pack ice, and cloud mountains in the far distance catching the first mys of the rising sun.
Not only did handkerchiefs not matter, but nothing sccined to me to matter very much, because we had been climbing steadily for some time and the altitude produced a curious feeling of detachment. It seemed impossible to recapture any emotion: one was sure only of peace: a sort of Nirvana: and a rushing wind- tearing through empty space: blue sky above and a white light gleaming on the cloud floor beneath. A little voice spoke in my earphone-a buzzing mumble. It was the pilot speaking. Keep a good look-out'. That was what we were there for, of course. Somewhere out of the cloud mountains to the south-east, or out of the blue of space, a speck might appear, or a cluster of specks, and we should be after them full split. And death would be abroad in that sunny emptiness. It was queer to think of death, up there in all that peace.
*
☆
ONE of the pilots-the youngest, aged twenty said one evening that the hunt was grand. It was the kill that wasn't so funny.
He himself had intercepted a German bombing machine one afternoon and à grim game of touch-Inst began in a series of gigantic cloud valleys.
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The enemy dived and banked and dodged from one cloud cover to an- other, and the relentless pursuit went on; until sald-the-midship- man, 'I nipped ahead to a cloud I thought he'd make for and I waited for him on the other side. Goah, it was fun I got him as he came through at 200 yards range. But then, when you saw the poor devils spinning down nose first through the clouds, with smoke pouring from the engine, it wasn't so good. I hated that part of the business."
So that's how they feel about it. Occasionally disaster comes to one of our machines. This samo pilot-I think he is the youngest fighting pilot in the Fleet Air Arm
had engine trouble when on patrol over the North Sea tho other day. Down he came from ten thousand feot-planing down In the direction of a trawlor he romombered seeing earlier.
Canton Cawnpore Cebu Columbo Delhi
(Peking)
He hit the water at 90 miles an Elamustre
Penang EXCHANGE and Central hour, slap into a fifteen-foot swell, FOREIGN
opened and about, three miles from the tran Banking Business transacted.
CURRENT ACCOUNTS
a mining camp to be, rising out of a Radio Programme Broadcast by sen of mud churned up by lorries\ZBW. on a Frequency of 145 k.c's. Bell Song, Milza Korjus (Soprano) or shorter periods in Local or Other Curler. Another fighter in his patrol
and all the trafe of a 'camp. In and on Short Wave from 1-2.15 p.m. one of these huts, warmed by and 8-11 p.m. on 9.52 m.c's. per parafin stove and lit by n single second.
hurricane lamp, the fighting pilots H.K.T.
and observers were pulling on their
Ouritaŝntermezzo; * New Light|
Tiny
Maniger.
skl and the Philadelphia Orchestra: FIXED DEPOSITS received for One Year
The of rencies at rates which will be quoted on saw him going down and followed
him through the clouds, with Orchestra; "The Barber appitention.
Philharmonic SAVINGS ACCOUNTS also opened in Seville-Overture, Symphony Orchestra of New York Local Currency and Sterling with interest trawler's crow were below decks
Arturo cond. by
Prologue allowed at rates obtainable on application and to attract their attention tho Toscanini; Prologue The Bank's Head Office in London to "I Pagliacci."
"A word allow me, undertakes Executor & Trustee business, undamaged plane circled round, 12.15 p.m. Short Service of Inter But not to prate, Mario Bastola and ciaime recovery of British Income firing an occasional burst'of ma- flying kit. They were all pretty cession.
and Members of La Scala Tax overpaid, on forms, which may be
scal ascertained at any of its Agencies and chino-gun fire. young-two of the pilots were Mld- 12.30. Songs by Lilian Harvey and
Millan: "Cavalleria Rus- Branches.
IL A. CAMIDGE, shipmen, one a Sub-Lieutenant-willy Fritsch
ticano" South African. There were two 12.45. Czcal Philharmonie Orch.
Your were 1.00. Local Time Signal and Wea- Symphony Orchestra: Yo Marine Officers. Several
Hand is
Heavenly is Frozen, Morling (Tenor) Petty Offcors, ex-telegraphlet Air ther Report.
divine Alda, Jussi Gunners and so on.
with Orchestra: Canzonetta, Alfredo Campoli and His Salon Orchestra: Journal- 1.30. Reuter, and Rugby Press,
the Country, 2. The Man about! 1 SEEM to remember that in Weather Forecast and Announce The Three Men" Suite-1. The Man the last war there was a good
of the 1.45. Chopin-Concerto No. 2 in F Town, 3. The. Man from the
Orchestra cond. by Light Symphony deal of rather feverish-almost Atinor, Op. 21-Arthur Rubinstein
Waltz In A Flat The Composer
with macabre gaiety among the (Plano) and The London Symphony
Plano accomp., Lullaby, Op; 49, No. fighting pilots along the front, Orchestra conducted by John Bar- They made jokes about death.
* * *
I haven't noticed any of that in this war. I thought they all looked soberly cheerful. Much the same expressions framed by the leather helmets and lit by the flame of the hurricane lamp as 1 could recall on the faces in the rather changing room before a Important football match,
1.03. Dance Muste by Inck Harris and Us Orchestra.
ments.
birolli.
2.15. Close down.
0.00. Dance Music.
ross,
0.58. Closing local Stock Quota-
tions
7.00. London. Relay-Musical Hits of Thirty, Forty and Fifty Years Ago. 7.20. London Belay-The News. 8.00. Local Time Signal, Weather Report and Announcements.
from
gh
The
Major, Isolde Menges (Violin) Hongkong
4 Elisabeth Schumann (Soprano) with Orch.; Sonatine for Piano, Joux Fisheries D'Eu, Alfred Cortot (Piano).
11.0 Close down,
NEW
P.A.A. AGENT.
Mr. Delaney Going On Leave Boon
Mr. Owen Johnson, who will act as
Research Station
Edited by
Dr. G. A. C. Herklots
8.03 Brahms Concerto In B Fiat Major, ́ ́ ́ Op... 83. —-—--Artur Schnabel managing agent for Pan American (Piano) and The B.B.C. Symphony Airways in Hongkong when Mr. Phil Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Delaney goes on leave to Miami, Now on Sale
Florida shortly, arrived yesterday by Boult
150 Studio--Talk on Psychology the China Cupper from Manlia: Mr.at by Father G. Byrne, S. J. B: By Dog's Johnson has been stationed with Pan Feelings and Mino.
American office in Manila.
The trawler's crew decided reasonably enough that they were being attacked by a Ger- man machine and stayed below. In the meanwhile the machine stili floated. The plot land his observer
out
very and although climbed shaken they managed to launch their collapsible dinghy; but that in come way became entangled with the tall of the machine, and the pilot in try- ing to free It got his hand nipped in the hinge of the rudder."
So there he was up to his waist in ley water, clamped by his wrist to a machine that at any moment might cock up her tail and dive to the bottom.
The observer realised the situation in the trawler and most gallantly' decided to try to swim to her for help,
So off he set, supported by bia Mac Weat.'
circling The other fighter was helplessly overhead: she must have looked like a distracted mother pea- wit. However, ber strange behaviour reassured the trawler's crew.
Then one by one, burdened by the harness, they want squelching through the mud towards the land- ing ground where the fighters were drawn up. ****ghters we
0.02 The Rerumental Band of Mr. J. L. Fleming of the Bishop Morning Post Building, Bioking for all they were worth they bank of groy low-lying cloud hung overhead; beyond the edge of Coldstream Guards Ruddi- Trust Co., Honolulu was the one
goreSelection, "The Sorcerer other passenger to arrive by yester Price $3.00. the cliffe the sea was visible for a Selection.
day's Cilpper. Mr. Fleming is proceed- mile and then was obscurou by 9.15 London Relay-News Sum- Ing to Malaya and Sumatra where his mist. There was a silvery bright-| mary.
company owns several rubber estates.
They came up on deck and finally alghted the wreckage of the plane, came rushing to the rescue and hauled the observer and the plot on board.
In a day or two they were as right| as trivets and back on patrol, again.
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