Read Online Aircrew: The Story of the Men Who Flew the Bombers by Bruce Lewis - Free Book Online

silvery-white wing and the letters AG surrounded by oak leaves, he arrived in Cape Town, South Africa. He was billeted in a vast transit camp crammed full of servicemen waiting to board ships bound for many destinations. There were two parades each day at 8am and 6pm. After roll call the names of those who were to sail that afternoon, or the following morning, would be read out.
    Reg, who had found himself a girlfriend, soon became fed up with this monotonous routine. He got into the habit of staying overnight at the girl’s home on the other side of town. After all it was safer – he might well have been mugged returning to camplate at night! Each morning and evening he telephoned the camp for the latest shipping news.
    When his turn did come it was actually his girl, working in a shop, who first broke the news. She told him he would be embarking on the troopship
Staffordshire
the following day. So much for wartime security in Cape Town.
    But no one had told him where he was going. He assumed, and hoped, that the voyage would end in an English port, but having experienced the vagaries of posting procedures during his years in ‘admin’, he was prepared for anything, or almost anything. What actually happened was outside his wildest speculations.
    Reg’s group was made up of forty aircrew, all senior NCOs. These airmen had learned their specialized skills at great expense to the British taxpayer. Even in those days it cost thousands of pounds to train a flyer in any category. The idea was that, once they were qualified, they should then fight the enemy in the air.
    So how were they employed? As soon as the
Staffordshire
put to sea they were signed on ship’s articles to carry out ‘trooping’ duties. This involved calling at small ports along the West African coast collecting native ‘troops’. The military knowledge that had been imparted to these unfortunate blacks was limited. They had been told which end of a rifle the bullet emerged, and very little else. They had not the remotest idea who the enemy was, and their desire to fight anyone was less than enthusiastic.
    This unhappy complement of ‘passengers’ was shipped up to Freetown and disembarked. Then Reg and his boys sailed back for more ‘recruits’.
    He celebrated his 20th birthday on 15 September, 1942, in Lagos. Having regard for his years of service in the RAF, he was the senior man of his group. Occasionally he had to act as policeman, both on and off the ship. Once, with an Askari escort he went ashore to round up 150 native deserters. After scouring several unsavoury locations he returned to the
Staffordshire
with a handful of deserters. Unfortunately, the compliment of prisoners was outweighed by the number of escorting troops who had disappeared!
    Another time, perhaps not surprisingly, three of his fellow aircrew sergeants had gone ashore and got drunk. They were reportedto be causing a disturbance in a hotel and Reg was detailed to bring them back to the ship. With a revolver strapped to his waist he strode into the hotel, determined to restore peace and order. At that moment the local Gendarmerie arrived. Mistaken for one of the revellers, Reg received a smack on the back of the head from a truncheon. He woke up later in a gaol from which he was released the following day.
    Matters came to a head when they again docked in Freetown with another two or three thousand troops. Orders were issued to take the troops north to Bathurst, in readiness for an assault on the German U-boat base at Dakar. Reg, with the wholehearted support of his comrades, felt the time had arrived to lodge an official complaint.
    He explained to a Flight Lieutenant that he, and many of the others, had been in Africa for two and a half years. They had trained to do a job that would help Britain’s war effort, yet their services were not being utilized in a proper manner. The effect of this protest was dramatic. Coded signals sped back and forth between RAF Freetown and