An Air Force Life: the Autobiography of Wing Commander J.R.C. Lane
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An Air Force Life by Joe Lane The autobiography of Wing Commander J.R.C. Lane RAF, AFRAeS. Joe Lane with Bristol Bulldog TM R.A.F. Sealand 1934 2 List of Chapters INTRODUCTION 1 In the Beginning 2 Cranwell 3 Halton 4 Netheravon 5 Fleet Air Arm 6 Back to the RAF 7 Return to the Fleet Air Arm 8 Over Land 9 Fighter Pilot 10 Over Seas 11 Home Waters 12 Gosport 13 Back Over land 14 Farnborough 15 No 2 Maintenance Flight 16 Back to Farnborough 17 38 Group 18 India 19 Chaklala 20 Singapore 21 “Little Corner” 22 Later Years 3 List of figures Frontispiece Joe Lane with Bulldog TM at RAF Sealand 1934 1 Edith and Frank Lane c 1950 2 A 1957 visit to a now-derelict Kineton lodge. 3 ‘Charity’ – the alms houses at Longbridge (2003) 4 River Wylye at Longbridge (1964), church and school (‘faith’ & ‘hope’) in the background 5 New boy. 6 Cranwell camp 1924 7 Airfield Course, Halton, 1927 8 DH9A and Bristol Fighters 9 Bikers – 1929 style 10 DH9A and playful crews 11 HMS Argus 12 Napier Lion engine on test 13 LAC Lane 14 HMS Tetrarch, Bay of Biscay, 1930 15 Parnell Peto ex submarine M2 16 HMS Argus hangar 17 Dornier DoX at Southsea 18 Model Supermarine S6B (in 2003) 19 Two-seat Siskins lined up for AOC’s inspection RAF Spitalgate 20 FAA airfield at Novar 21 ‘My’ Fairey IIIF S1518 lands on 22 Battlecruisers in Cromerty Firth 23 HMS Furious 24 Hopefuls 25 Southsea honeymoon 26 Siskin and Bulldog trainers at RAF Sealand 1934 27 Fighter pilot! 28 Sergeant Pilot Lane at West Freugh 29 Restored Bulldog (Filton 1963) 30 FAA Seaplane course 1937 31 Hawker Nimrod Fleet fighter 32 Burst tyre at Upavon 33 HMS Courageous 34 Sergeants Mess, HMS Courageous 35 Landing on, HMS Courageous 36 Edcu, damaged Nimrod 37 Joe lands replacement Nimrod 38 Nimrod pilot 39 Nimrod model in 2003 40 With Fred and ‘Nan’ Bullock 41 The end of K2912 42 An argument with the funnel 43 79 Squadron personnel 44 79 Squadron formation 45 A monoplane! (Miles Magister) 46 One of the rare views of the Hawker Henley 47 ‘Rose Cottage’ 62 years later 4 48 Air experience for A.T.C. cadets 49 Airspeed Horsa glider 50 The ‘Airborne Arms’ 51 38 Group staff 1944 52 Balbo memorial at Castel Benito 53 New Delhi 54 Kingsway New Delhi 55 Patients and staff at British military hospital, Palam 56 ‘Char wallahs’ greet the York at Drigh Road 57 Partition, lowering of British flag 58 Raising of the Pakistan flag 59 Star yacht 60 Joe with ‘big American car’ 61 Snipe ‘Lorna’ 62 Sammy with Judith and Chris at the cottage 63 Our first house of our own – ‘Little Corner’ 64 Sqn Ldr Devine handles a problem for the RAE Parachute Section 65 Joe with Buckler 90 at Silverstone 66 Stand at Farnborough Air Show 67 Joe and Sammy with their six grandchildren Appendix 1 Aircraft Types Flown Appendix 2 Service Postings Appendix 3 Family Homes Appendix 4 RAF Flying Training - Exercise Numbers 5 INTRODUCTION y father wrote this text between 1987 and 1989 when he was housebound and ill. I typed it for him with what was then the new technology of “word-processing”. I used a M BBC ‘B’ home computer running a software package called ‘Wordwise-plus’. After his death a few copies of the text were printed for members of the family. After I retired from the aircraft industry I entered the University of Central Lancashire in 1994. As a mature student I read Geography with History for a combined honours degree. As a consequence of this I returned to Dad’s text with new insights and sensitivities about “the historical record”. Consultation with Dr. Mike Parry, the university’s expert on military matters, revealed that many such autobiographies exist and another Royal Air Force pilot’s story, but devoid of Spitfires and a significant total of enemy aircraft destroyed, would not interest the literary market. His view was that it was source material nevertheless, and should be collated and placed on record for “mining” by future students. With the dramatically increased power of home computers since the original typing, I was able to look again at the contemporary photographs with which he had intended to illustrate the story. All had suffered the years of poor storage typical of both the era and the constant moves of Service life. I was able to repair and enhance some of them and they are now included in the text where they seem appropriate. Sketches of aircraft used in this book have been photocopied from Dad’s flying logs. It only recently become apparent that, because of their similarity, they were probably copied from the once popular ‘cigarette cards’1. Photographs are from the author’s albums and appear to be a mix of personal and official photographs. Properly accrediting them is difficult as many are in postcard form and thus look ‘official’. However, personal films processed on board HM ships and on RAF Stations were often exposed onto pre-printed postcard stock so that they could be readily sent by mail. In view of their age no great effort has been made to establish copyright. Some photographs, notably those of the Hawker Henley and Airspeed Horsa aircraft, were copied from various sources on the Internet. I photographed a few of the domestic locations in recent years. He had a number of photographs of aircraft incidents on board aircraft carriers. He also collected postcards of the places he visited. In early versions of the text many of his pictures were omitted. It was later appreciated that these are also part of the historical record and so a policy of illustrating the text with the most relevant images, supported by appendices containing those appropriate to the time but not directly referred to in the text, was adopted. The grammar-checking function on the computer word processor constantly objected to my father’s phraseology. Nevertheless this has been retained unedited as indicative of both the man and the age. He wrote as he spoke. When he first heard a recording of his voice he was a little mortified as he believed it showed that he had retained a Dorset accent. I have also respected his spelling where it was correct for his time (e.g. ‘shewn’ for ‘shown’). 1 Cigarette cards were themed picture cards inserted in packs of cigarettes and intended to be collected into sets – an early marketing ploy. 6 Chapter 1 In the Beginning rank Lane was born at Thornford, Dorset, in 1878. He was the fifth of ten children born to Joseph and Sarah Jane Lane. The first three children, two girls and a boy, died within F the first three years of their lives. The eldest of the surviving children, Stephen, became head gamekeeper to Lord Digby - a big estate owner of Sherborne. Frank, the second boy, was trained to be a gardener on another big estate at Ramsey and being single he lived in the bothy. After some time he moved to a job at Dalesford2 as an under gardener where he met his wife to be, Edith Williams, a Herefordshire girl. In addition to Stephen, his elder brother, Frank had three sisters Annie, Amelia, and Beatrice and two younger brothers Reginald, and Gilbert. Both Reg and Gilbert served in the Army during the Great War. Reginald died in hospital of influenza in 1918 - just eleven days after the war ended3. Gilbert was killed in action and has no known grave4. He was twenty years old. Frank and Edith married in 1907. Frank obtained a job as head gardener to a Mr. Murdoch who had a large house at Kilcoran in Ireland. The job entailed the laying out and making of the gardens on the lower slopes of the Galty mountains in County Tipperary. Frank and Edith lived in a new cottage on the hillside and close to the gardens. On the 18th June 1908 I was born there. My memories of Kilcoran are happy and distinct. My mother kept chickens which were truly free range since they had the Galty Mountains to roam as they wished. My mother used to take me to search the hillsides, looking under bushes and tufts of grass, for any eggs laid by the hens. We would often find nests, containing twelve or thirteen eggs, which we would collect and carry home. My sister was born two years after my birth. On each occasion my father's sister, Annie, came to Ireland and stayed, helping the family until mother was fully operational once more. We children were both christened in Ireland. I became Joseph, after my grandfather, and my sister was named Eva after my father's sister-in-law, Reg's Figure 1. Edith and Frank Lane c 1950 wife. Our nearest neighbours were an Irish family called Davern. The husband was Neddy - that is as my memory serves. The family, there were three children, lived in a thatched cottage on the road to Cahir near the entrance gate to the estate. The living room in the cottage had an earth floor and an enormous open fireplace. There always seemed to be a huge fire stacked with burning lumps of peat. The smell was lovely, the air smoky, but always warm. 2 There is no Dalesford on current maps and this evidently refers to Daylesford. 3 War Graves Commission records list him as buried at Thornford. No grave was found there during a visit in 2003.