They Spread Their Wings (23 page)

Pilot under training Aircraftman Jim Crampton (right) at No 4 ITW Paignton, in July 1940. (Crampton Family Collection)

Flying – the RAF way – began for Jim on 26 August 1940 when he had thirty minutes in Magister N3780 under the critical eye of his instructor, Fg Off Ratcliffe. During that trip he carried out numbered flying exercises, which continued under dual instruction in a logical progression on subsequent days. Some exercises were repeated as necessary until the instructor felt Jim was competent enough to move on to the next exercise. Flying in a variety of Maggies, he was airborne twice a day. On 29 August he made two trips practising take-offs and landings with Fg Off Ratcliffe; he then went up with Flt Lt Townsend who checked him out for another twenty-five minutes. Upon landing, Townsend told him to stay in the aircraft, climbed out and sent Jim off on his own – a ten-minute solo circuit in T9735. Jim had done his RAF solo after just five hours and twenty minutes dual instruction.

For the next month Jim worked his way through all the required exercises, mainly flying solo but with occasional dual with Fg Off Ratcliffe and Flt Lt Townsend to assess his progress. Another instructor, Fg Off Hamilton, took him up for the dual instrument flying exercise (No 19). By 25 September he had accumulated a total of forty-five hours and at this milestone Fg Off Lash put him through a rigorous test of his flying ability. During his time at Carlisle, Jim flew in nine different Magisters: N3780, 3836 and 5407; R1850, 1853, 1854 and 1968; T9687 and 9735. By 27 September, with all his exercises completed to the satisfaction of his instructors, Jim had a grand total of forty-eight hours fifty-five minutes (twenty-three hours five minutes dual and twenty-five hours fifty minutes solo) in his logbook and it was time for him to move on.

By 28 September 1940 Jim Crampton was at his next flying training unit. It would seem he was destined for bombers since he was posted to No 3 Service Flying Training School (3 SFTS) at RAF South Cerney near Cirencester, Gloucestershire. This school, formerly designated No 3 Flying Training School (3 FTS), had at one time operated both single- (Hawker Hart) and twin-engine (Airspeed Oxford) aeroplanes, but in June 1940 it dropped its single-engine training role and, by the time Jim arrived, had become a Group II twin-engine school with an establishment of 108 Airspeed Oxford Mk I and Mk II aircraft. There now began an intensive four-month period of flying the Oxford in all weathers in preparation for the heavy bombers he would fly on operations.

Miles Magister R1853, one of several flown by Jim Crampton and the aircraft in which Arthur Edgley soloed when both airmen trained at No 15 EFTS Carlisle. (A.J. Jackson Collection)

Jim’s twin-engine training began on 30 September. His instructor, Plt Off Brown, took him up a couple of times in Oxford P6807 to show him the ropes; then after two more trips that day, Jim began carrying out a sequence of numbered exercises similar to those he had experienced at Carlisle. This pattern continued up to 25 October with between two and five flights a day, subject to weather conditions. During his three months at the SFTS, Jim flew in no fewer than thirty-five different Airspeed Oxford aircraft and did his first twin-engine solo in Oxford N6263 on 5 October, after only eleven dual flights totalling four hours and ten minutes. That was only the beginning, though, since the hard work to hone his flying skill continued, with many of the numbered exercises being repeated over and over, flying solo, then again under assessment by his team of instructors. By 1 November, having accumulated twenty-five hours dual and solo on the Oxford, he was about a third of the way through his course. As at Carlisle, the latter part of his flying course concentrated on air navigation, but this time it was at a more advanced level.

On 1 November Jim’s first trip was a solo cross-country to Peterborough and back in P1952. With that hurdle over, he was teamed up with other trainees – LACs Job, Hanafy and Bruce – to plan and carry out different cross-country flights, of two or three hours’ duration, with each of the pupils, in pairs, taking turns at flying and navigating the aircraft. In addition to these dual efforts, Jim had to continue flying many solo cross-country flights and also keep practising various numbered exercises. Meanwhile, for example on 15 November, he was checked out at the Relief Landing Ground (RLG) at Bibury by WO Knights, then taken up on his return to South Cerney for an interim flying test by the ‘B’ Flight commander, Flt Lt Ridge.

Towards the end of November 1940 Jim’s logbook begins to show evidence of instrument flying cross-country and multiple-leg cross-country exercises. All through December he practised cross-country flights on instruments only, culminating on 27 December with a CFI test with Sqn Ldr Clarke in Oxford R6017. He completed that trip satisfactorily and was back ‘beating the circuit’ at Bibury RLG the same afternoon. It was here that Jim experienced his one and only mishap during training. He was flying Oxford N6378 with an instructor, WO Knights, at the time and recorded the incident in his logbook simply as ‘crashed’, but it could not have been too bad since he was back in the air a couple of days later. In later years, when retelling this story, Jim said the instructor was supposed to be in control but fell asleep! They were flying too low on approach and the undercart struck a low Cotswold stone wall. Neither of them was hurt but Jim and his wife returned to the scene many years later and found that same piece of wall – still bearing the scars of the passage of the aircraft’s undercarriage through it.

Christmas and New Year 1941 went past in a blur with no let-up in the training schedule and on 2 January, reflecting the hard winter that year, Jim logged one trip with Flt Lt Ridge as ‘air experience in snow!’ He was now teamed up with three different fellow trainees – LACs Tubman, Symons and Bristow – and for the next ten days they and their instructors worked almost continuously. The course came to its final fever pitch on 16 January 1941 when Jim logged seven separate flying sessions during the day. Four of these were instrument flying practices lasting a total of about three hours, followed by two take-off and landing check flights with two instructors, followed finally by Jim doing four circuits and landings on his own. He had worked hard for three and a half months and now, having added a further seventy-one flying hours to his total – bringing him up to 120 hours – he was considered proficient enough to move on to the next step of becoming a bomber aircraft captain. Furthermore, Jim received his ‘Wings’ and a commission and was now off to his next posting as Pilot Officer Crampton.

Airspeed Oxford as flown by Jim Crampton at No 3 SFTS South Cerney in late 1940. (Author’s Collection)

Newly commissioned Plt Off Jim Crampton in 1941. (Crampton Family Collection)

After a spot of leave, Jim’s next posting was to No 21 (Bomber) Operational Training Unit (21 OTU) based at RAF Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire. Established to train night bomber crews, this unit – one of several similar bomber OTUs – was formed in late January 1941 and began its task at the beginning of March. The main function of a bomber OTU was to take newly qualified pilots, navigators, wireless operators and air gunners from their respective training schools, to introduce them to the aircraft they would fly operationally and to train newly formed crews to work together as a team. They would spend six weeks at No 21 OTU during which time they would receive both ground and air training. Arriving at Moreton on 1 March, Jim was therefore one of the very first aircrew to arrive at the newly formed OTU. He was a member of No 1 Course, which had spent the preceding two weeks going through its ‘crewing up’ process at RAF Harwell. That was where a motley collection of aircrew from the various trades mentioned above were brought together in a large room or hangar and told to get on and form five-man crews amongst themselves. With the exception of No 1 Course, as explained above, this process for No 21 OTU would in future take place at Moreton itself.

On 3 March No 1 Course began flying at Moreton-in-Marsh as ‘C’ Flight and continued until 18 March, when No 2 Course was posted in and No 1 Course moved on to the operational flying training part of the programme with ‘A’ Flight. The aeroplane in use at Moreton at that time was the Vickers Wellington IC of which, by the end of March 1941, there were sixteen on charge, together with four Avro Ansons. The Anson Flight at a bomber OTU was generally responsible for training wireless operators, wireless operator/air gunners (WOp/AGs) and navigators in the work and procedures they would encounter on ‘ops’, while the pilots were receiving their own early initiation on flying the Wellington. Sometimes the Anson was used to give more instruction to pilots who, on arrival at the OTU, were deemed to require more day or night dual instruction before carrying on with the standard OTU programme. When each pilot was considered to be sufficiently capable of flying a Wellington, the navigators, wireless operators and gunners joined the crew captain and flew as a team until the end of the OTU course.

Having familiarised himself with the Wellington, both by day and night, when he moved to ‘A’ Flight Jim began making long cross-country flights as second pilot, which also enabled him to take over from his instructor for most of the time while airborne. One of the more adventurous of these was a four-hour formation exercise in T2853 on 31 March, with Flt Lt Williams in command and Jim and Plt Off Tweedie – another trainee captain who arrived at the OTU at the same time – taking turns at the controls. The formation left Moreton for Aberystwyth where practice bombs were dropped and the gunners were allowed to fire their weapons over the range; then on to Abergavenny where the formation dealt with a mock attack by practising defensive manoeuvres; on to Cirencester, then Cricklade before returning to base once more. Throughout the first half of April 1941, Jim frequently flew with Tweedie, each of them alternating as captain and second pilot, building up their hours on cross-country sorties the length and breadth of England. It was clear that the course was coming to an end when, on 10 April, all the trainees were sent off on what was really their ‘proving’ flights. In Jim’s case this entailed a six-and-a-half-hour sortie in T2853 under the watchful eye of Flt Lt Williams. Jim and Plt Off Tweedie each spent half the flight – three hours and fifteen minutes – in command of the aircraft, two hours of which was flown at 10,000ft with everyone on oxygen. The course flown was: Moreton–Salisbury–Bassingbourn–York–Carlisle–Isle of Man–Bardsey Island (which was bombed) and back to Moreton; a long trip but of the type to which they would have to become accustomed on ops. After one more shared trip with Plt Off Tweedie and no instructor, during which they had to navigate to a given ‘Point X’, that was the end of the course and they were keen to know their operational postings. Jim had at last caught up with the war!

On 14 April students of No 1 Course at 21 OTU left RAF Moreton-in-Marsh to join their various squadrons. In Pilot Officer Jim Crampton’s case, with a total of 203 hours in his logbook, he and his crew together with eleven other crews were posted to No 214 (Federated Malay States) Squadron at RAF Stradishall, Suffolk, which operated the Vickers Wellington in No 3 Group of Bomber Command.