13
lished ourselves in tents again. Being the first move of the Wing it was, of
course, somewhat 'shambolic' but the M.T. Officer,
"Happy" Appleby
, who was still
very short of the establishment in transport, managed to convey the whole Wing
without serious mishap. By now it was no secret that "D" Day was not far
distant and
Northolt
Station was to be responsible for feeding us while our own
feeding equipment was on the way to France. We were all delighted with our
reception at the new station which, from the first moment, treated us as its
most beloved child and did everything to make us feel at home.
From February onwards events began to move rapidly and pressure of work had
increased. Coastal Defences, Beaches and Ports were covered more frequently:
the sea-bed off Normandy was photographed: vast mosaics of Normandy and the Pas
de Calais were completed: Bomb Damage, Railways, Marshalling Yards, Bridges,
Airfields, V-1 Sites, Entrances to underground H.Q's and Dumps, Excavations at
WATTEN, WIZERNES and VALOGNES, Defence Lines, River Lines and Radar Installations
were all covered, and many other targets as far from home as Luxembourg, Dijon
and Poitiers. The Wing was visited in succession by
Sir Archibald Sinclair
,
Secretary of State for Air,
General Eisenhower
, Supreme Commander and
His Majesty
the King
.
The increased pressure of work put a heavy strain on the resources of the
two Interpretation Sections - run by
Michael Spender
and
John Hood-Daniel
.
Michael arrived with
Gerry Nethercott
in January and his Section, by the end of
April, could handle all the sorties taken by the Wing on any given day in time to
brief the pilots for the early sorties next morning. Both these sections usually
had to work throughout the 24 hours in order to keep in touch with which tasks
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