5
of 16 from
Mac
who went to 2 Group because he liked flying nearer the ground.
16 Squadron gradually took over all the
Spitfires
and 140 were being converted
to twin-engined flying by
Richard Bowen
and
Ralph Mottram
on three borrowed
Mosquitoes
, one of which had dual control. Navigators were arriving daily. The
first operational
Mosquito
was collected from
Benson
on Nov 5th and
Richard Bowen
flew it in exceedingly dirty weather on Nov 11th on a Dice of some supposed rocks
off the coast near Port en Bessin, the existence of which we succeeded in proving
to the Navy by means of his photographs and which later played a vital part in
the Invasion of France as the 'Calvados Reef'.
November was interesting for other reasons. The Staff College gave
vacancies to
Sandy Webb
and
Peter Stansfield
and
Marcus Kaye
arrived to replace
Sandy as Wing Commander Operations. The loss of Peter and Sandy was to prove
only temporary because both returned as highly qualified Staff Officers after
the course. A less pleasant note is struck in the Official War Diary by the
entry for November 26th which states that the influenza epidemic caused the
cancellation of all entertainments for ten days. This was a serious blow because
an Airmans' Dance and an E.N.S.A. Show were both affected. By this time enter-
tainment was being provided on a fairly lavish scale due to the work of many
officers and men, of whom
Don Twidale
and
Freddy Marvel
the Sports Officer are
deserving of special mention. Cinema and E.N.S.A. Shows were frequent though
due to the fact that we only had a small theatre - the Airmans' Mess at other
times of the day - we were sent rather low grade E.N.S.A. companies. The local
village gave a "memorable" variety show, and gramophone concerts, dances and even
Brains Trusts - after an exhausting search for the necessary grey matter - were
organised.
-
+
Sorry, your browser does not support inline SVG.