The Beautiful Blonde in the Bank My Ramblings Through Sixty Years of Flying F/L Andrew Leslie Cole AFC RAFVR Pilot: 88 Squadron 2nd TAF and BAFO Communication Squadron 8th May 1923 - 9th December 2017 DEDICATION Joyce Cole neé Wilson 22nd January 1922 - 18th April 2001 Sadly, my beloved Joyce, the beautiful blonde in the bank, to whom I was married for over fifty-five happy years, lost the battle she fought bravely and uncomplainingly for so long, just before this book was finished. I dedicate it to her with my deepest love and gratitude. Thank you for everything, Darling. Andrew Leslie Cole Page i Page ii HOW THIS BOOK CAME ABOUT This project started with a posting for BajanThings.com: “F/O Errol Walton Barrow, Navigator RAF World War II and Prime Minister of Barbados” published in March 2019. Following publication, Melissa Whitney Nelson posted a comment on a Facebook group: Old Time Photos Barbados. She commented that back in 2010 while visiting the UK with her son “she had a chance meeting with a lovely old gentleman with very white hair” at what turned out to be St. Nicolas Church, Great Bookham, Surrey. Following some detective work that “lovely old gentleman with very white hair” was Andrew Leslie Cole; Errol Barrow’s pilot in 88 Squadron 2nd Tactical Air Force (TAF) during World War II. Might Andrew Cole still be alive? Sadly he had died in December 2017. “The Beautiful Blonde in the Bank” is Andrew Cole’s legacy; an unpublished book he wrote in 2001 on his time in the RAF during World War II and flying post war. This is an important piece of recorded World War II history, about the training of RAF aircrew in Canada, about war-time flying with 88 Squadron 2nd Tactical Air Force (TAF) and peace-time flying with British Air Forces of Occupation (BAFO) Communication Squadron. It is about the lifetime friendship that Cole and his navigator Errol Barrow developed during their time training in Canada, flying fifty combat sorties together while in 88 Squadron 2nd TAF, followed by two years flying together while they were both in BAFO Communication Squadron and then latterly as the personal aircrew to Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir William Sholto Douglas. Post war, Andrew Cole spent his entire working life with Royal Dutch Shell following a personal introduction from his commanding officer: Sholto Douglas. This is a digital facsimile of the original printed manuscript. The only major change is the epilogue has been changed to a dedication. Paragraphs ending have been added to break-up walls of text. The original manuscript had no photographs. Photographs have been added where these were available. Andrew Cole’s manuscript was in a leaver arch file printed on A4 paper, using a small serif font. No digital version was available. The paper manuscript was digitally scanned to PDF and then converted into a Microsoft Word document using optical character recognition (OCR) software. In the OCR conversion characters such as f’s and t’s and i’s and l’s and rn’s and w’s were often read incorrectly. The paper manuscript was scanned at 300dpi to increase the quality of the scan and help minimise OCR conversion gibberish. This OCR gibberish has mostly been corrected in the editing post conversion. Should you find a typo or error please e-mail me so the corrections can be made good – that’s the beauty of an online delivered book. The conversion of this manuscript has been a mammoth undertaking. I would like to thank a number of people that helped get this project off the ground: • Andrew Cole’s daughter Deborah Jefferies, who gave permission for BajanThings.com to publish posthumously her Dad’s manuscript: “The Beautiful Blonde in the Bank” and shared his three RCAF/RAF log books, a tribute he wrote "Errol Barrow: My Navigator. My Friend" and family photographs some of which have been included in this book. Page iii • William Burton, my cousin: he inspiration behind BajanThings.com. William badgered me for more than a year to write a post for BajanThings.com on the war-time service of Prime Minister: Errol Barrow. Little did I know that putting together that post would take eighteen months! There are books and books written on Errol Barrow’s political career. His war-time service was typically covered in a paragraph! That meant trying to piece together Barrow’s service career using data from official sources such as RAF service records, RCAF training records, RAF Squadron record books held at the National Archives Kew, supplemented with stories of people that flew with Barrow. • Lynda Lewis who hosts the Facebook group: Old Time Photos Barbados. • Melissa Whitney Nelson for posting a comment on Old Time Photos Barbados about her chance meeting “with a lovely old gentleman with very white hair” Andrew Cole. • Rev. Alan Jenkins, Rector of St Nicolas Church, Great Bookham where Andrew Cole was an active member. Rev. Jenkins following discussions with the Cole family made an introduction. • Anthony Whittingham who helped validate Errol Barrow’s RAF Record of Service and provided a number of cross checks, technical help on Bostons and Squadron history and created the appendix of airfield identification numbers. • Bryan Norton, whose Dad was Geoff Norton and flew with Andy Cole in 88 Squadron 2nd TAF and BAFO Communication Squadron, latterly as the personal aircrew to Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir William Sholto Douglas where he was the other Anson pilot. Bryan shared information from his Dad's log books and photographs. • Peter Devitt the curator of the RAF Museum and Gordon Leith the Archive Librarian for their ongoing encouragement and help in producing the original Errol Barrow post and for their help and encouragement in digitising this memoire so it could be recorded and kept as a piece of World War II history. • And to all those that took the time post publication to email me with typos and other errors. If you enjoy “The Beautiful Blonde in the Bank” please consider making a donation to either the: • RAF Benevolent Fund or • RAF Museum. Peter Burton [email protected] 2nd July 2020 Page iv INTRODUCTION Today, VE Day 2020, would have marked my beloved father’s 97th birthday had dementia not finally defeated him on 9 th December 2017 thereby re-uniting him with his “Beautiful Blonde”. From humble beginnings being born to a working class, devout and loving family in Tottenham, North London, his rich and eventful life led him across the globe, first through his experiences in the RAF of World War II Britain and then through his years with Royal Dutch Shell and onwards with his enduring love of travel and adventure. In addition to his wartime years in Europe and Canada, his Shell postings included The Hague (where he taught himself Dutch!), Brussels, Toronto and Caracas where he was to remain for 12 years, and where Spanish was also added to his repertoire. In his early years of post war marriage, he had obtained a good external degree from the University of London in Economics and French. He was a popular figure with keen intelligence, quick wit and genuine interest and love for his family and fellow man. Many of these friendships around the world were to last throughout his life, including the bond with his wartime navigator Errol Barrow, who was later to become Prime Minister of Barbados and who features herein. He leaves behind a daughter and two grandchildren and a wealth of humorous anecdotes from over the years, many at his expense. We all have our particular favourites. What follows is a record of his personal experiences during World War II and of the camaraderie prevailing over all throughout these at once and exciting and terrifying times; times which gave him some of his greatest and most precious memories of his life. As I look out of my window up and down my street during this Coronavirus lockdown I see it lined with bunting celebrating this 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, and I say from my heart a big thank you for our freedom today and, Happy Birthday, Daddy! Debbie Jefferies (neé Cole) Andrew Cole’s daughter Bristol 8 th May 2020 Page v Page vi FOREWORD So much has been written, both fiction and non-fiction, about flying during World War Il, and most of it no doubt more interesting than the present volume, that I have no desire to add to that library. Instead, this book is more concerned with peripheral happenings along the way, with flying simply a focal point. Airmen, military and civilian, are required by law to keep a logbook giving details of every flight they make - date, aircraft type and registration, names of crew, destination, nature and length of flight, day/night etc. This provides a detailed diary of one's whole flying life. In the RAF these log books, at any rate in my day, had to be ruled off and totalled monthly, signed by the holder and countersigned by his superior officer (flight commander etc). When the individual was posted away from the unit an assessment of his flying performance was added and signed by a more senior officer - squadron commander, for example. Civilian logbooks are similarly "audited". In my own case, as a private pilot now, this is done annually by an approved member of the flying establishment - Chief Flying Instructor, for instance. It can therefore be said that logbook entries represent a true statement of a person's flying history.