and an extraordinary incident occurred when
Sgt Thompson
was flung out of the
escape hatch of a
Wellington
during violent evasive action and was caught in the
aircraft by his foot. In this perilous position, he hung for some time but
managed to haul himself back into the aircraft, and his only injury was a sprained
ankle. A recent change of policy provided for 69 to carry bombs when the moon
was bright enough for them to dispense with flares, and six 250-lb bombs were
dropped on the village of WISSKIRCHEN on Feb 1st. On one night in this month
a full load of 18 bombs was dropped on WARBURG by
Sandy Darby
after he had seen
a train standing in the station.
At the beginning of February, the Wing strength was 161 officers, 216 senior
N.C.O's and 1,468 other ranks but this figure increased when, on Feb 15th, 1401
Met. Flight joined the Wing. This Flight remained with the Wing until the end
of the war and was, at first, commanded by
"Barmy" Balmforth
, and later, by
"Clinker" Clyne
. The presence of the Met Flight was of the greatest value to 34
Wing whose work was so largely dependant on an accurate forecast of the weather
some hundreds of miles from its airfield.
One of the advantages of
Melsbroek
was the proximity of the Wing to 2nd T.A.F.
Headquarters, which was in
Brussels
; apart from its parties, which were numerous
and most enjoyable, almost daily personal visits were made possible for the
purpose of discussing tasks which were always passed to the Wing by the Recon-
naissance Centre. This was a joint Army and Air Force Office presided over by
Neville Whittingham
and
Peter Moulding
, where much "coffee housing" was done and
the telephone was in continual use for 20 out of every 24 hours! Both
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