One Pilot's War

Hi all,

I am posting herein the full text of my only unpublished article to date: I offered this to the editor of Aeroplane but, as he was committed to publishing a series of articles which covered much of the ground in One Pilot, he had to reject it....

Hope you all find it interesting.

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At the conclusion of the Second World War in Europe in May, 1945, Warrant Officer Douglas Adams could review his operational flying career with mixed feelings, for though he had never fired a single shot at the enemy in anger, his path from raw recruit to night fighter pilot had been strewn with incident, both comic and serious.
Douglas Adams is from Birmingham, England. In March, 1942, aged 19, he was accepted by the RAF for aircrew training, and immediately resigned from his civilian employment as a qualified draughtsman. He completed his five weeks of “square bashing” with No 9 Initial Training Wing at Stratford-Upon-Avon, and was awaiting posting to an elementary flying training school to be “graded” for pilot, navigator, or air bomber training at an appropriate school overseas, when something unexpected happened. “The previous intake, who were about to sail, was a couple down on its pilot numbers”, he recalls. “As my surname begins with ‘A’, I was one of two selected to tag along to make up the shortfall. Therefore, I got to North America somewhat sooner than anticipated, and never having been officially graded!” Nonetheless, he arrived at No 31 PD at Moncton, Canada, in late April, to await pilot training under the aegis of the Commonwealth Air Training Plan, and was shortly thereafter despatched to No 32 Elementary Flying Training School at Bowden, in Alberta.
The unit operated the “C” variant of the ubiquitous DH 82 Tiger Moth, which featured an enclosed cockpit in deference to the harsh prairie winters, and a tail wheel in place of the skid found on UK based examples, the majority of Canadian aerodromes being paved. On one occasion, the latter modification dropped off Adams’ machine as it became airborne at the end of its take off run, though he remained ignorant of its absence until after landing, when he noticed the unusually
nose high attitude the biplane had adopted! Otherwise, the 60 hours flying he accumulated on the course passed without incident and, having been selected for multi engined training, he graduated to the twin engined Airspeed Oxford advanced trainers on No 34 Service Flying Training School, based at Medicine Hat, in the Indian prairie province of Saskatchewan.
Adams was to find this fourteen week advanced flying syllabus demanding (for the first time having to master the hitherto un-encountered complexities of flaps, retractable wheels, variable pitch propellers, and cloud, night, and formation flying), though he fondly recalls the hi-jinks of the often bored, “tour expired” instructors which, perhaps intentionally, provided the perfect anodyne to the stress of intensive learning, if doing little to foster sound airmanship. It was considered great testament to an instructor’s skill, for example, to place the tail wheel of an Oxford squarely atop the canopy of a sister aircraft formating for the purpose just below and behind it, or to successfully flick open an Oxford’s fuselage door in flight by the clever positioning of another’s wing tip beneath the handle. However, Adams’ most vivid memory remains his first nocturnal solo, an event he now views with some amusement.
He had been flying circuits and bumps with an instructor, and on the last landing had stalled the machine onto the runway from a height of fifty feet or more, causing the Oxford to depart in a marked ground loop or, as Adams prefers to relate it, “not enough circuit; too much bump!” Fully expecting admonishment from his instructor, he was therefore astonished to hear, instead, that he was now considered competent to solo! “He was inebriated”, Adams maintains to this day, “I could smell it on his breath.” Even so, he took-off again alone, as bidden, though a green light from the flying control staff below – night flying having already formally concluded – was
shortly encouraging his early return. Perhaps still keyed up with the excitement of his previous arrival, and certainly feeling the pressure to expedite his next, Adams overshot two of his three solo landing approaches that night, and on the third touched down much too far along the runway. Despite braking as hard as he dared, the Oxford flashed past the red lights at the upwind end of the runway and motored unchecked into the blackness of the prairie beyond. Eventually coming to a halt, for the next several minutes Adams taxied the Oxford gingerly round the sagebrush, peering into the inky blackness for some sign of illumination and a way back to the aerodrome. At length, the Oxford’s tyres met some resistance and, gunning the throttles slightly, Adams urged the trainer over the slope in the ground that obviously marked the aerodrome’s boundary. Now, a pinprick of light that evidently emanated from the watch office acted as a silent beacon in the distance, and Adams managed to chart a circuitous path toward it, eventually bringing the Oxford to a halt in front of the building. Then, with as much nonchalance as he could muster, he de-planed and strode into the welcome warmth and light of the office to sign the D.C.O (Duty Carried Out) book. “And nobody was ever any the wiser about my unplanned detour”, he says with a chuckle “If anyone had got wind of it…..” He lets the sentence hang in the air, and his meaning is obvious.
After receiving his wings, he was posted back to England, boarding a Liverpool bound ship for the “fast run” home. Then, following a spell of leave spent visiting his parents in Birmingham, he was sent, in January, 1943, to No 12 AFU (Advanced Flying Unit) at Grantham, in Lincolnshire.
Conceived as a finishing school for pilots trained in North America, South Africa, or elsewhere within the compass of the Commonwealth, Arnold, or Empire training
schemes, who would have had no experience of flying in the often inclement European weather, the blackout, or, indeed, of map reading over a cluttered, congested landscape, the AFUs had been formed from the cadre of SFTSs remaining in the UK to impart the necessary flying skills. For the multi engined pilot, this entailed an 80 hour course spread over approximately eight weeks, depending on the weather, and the aircraft most often used, as in the case of 12 AFU, was the Bristol Blenheim, which the unit operated in its mark I, IV, and V versions.
Of this period, Adams has three abiding memories, two comic, and one which had repercussions for both his personal and service life. The first concerns the Blenhiem’s cockpit layout, which today would be described as an ergonomic nightmare, with identical and adjacent hydraulic selector controls for undercarriage, flaps, and turret alongside the pilot’s right thigh. The former was provided with a “very awkward” catch to distinguish it from the other handles, and was intended to prevent inadvertent retraction. Nonetheless, under stress, or if inexperienced on type, it was all too easy for accidents to happen, and though he never suffered the indignity himself, Adams bore witness to a post landing taxiing accident when the hapless pilot, intending to pull up his flaps, retracted his wheels instead, dropping the Blenheim flat on its belly to the audible amusement of all around!
The second incident, comic to witness but more serious potentially, derived from Grantham’s unsuitability for night flying. Like most major RAF bases, the airfield was clearly marked on Luftwaffe maps, and flare paths used for night training inevitably made natural targets, as, of course, did slow training aircraft flying unarmed and in predictable patterns around the circuit. Therefore, this part of the course was conducted from a nearby satellite with the flare path delineated by hooded,
goose neck paraffin flares, and a chance light. Other facilities were minimal. The tiny watch office on the field (which was situated on the opposite side of the valley to Grantham) was usually staffed by AFU pupils, who approached the task with little enthusiasm due to the high boredom levels inherent in the duty. As the Blenheims endlessly pounded the circuit, there was nothing to do except wait for a request for landing, when the pupil would cast a cursory glance skywards and, assuming there was no other traffic likely to conflict, give the aircraft a green light. On this particular occasion, however, such a casual approach led to some frayed tempers, when the aircraft seeking landing clearance turned out to be a Lancaster returning from a raid on the Ruhr! The big bomber only just got down on the satellite’s stunted runway (perfectly adequate for Blenheims), and the crew clambered out with much profanity colouring the cool night air. Adams’ subsequent conversation with the crew revealed that the navigator had been convinced the little field was home, when in fact their base lay a few miles further on track, and since he had managed to convince the pilot of the soundness of his conclusion, the latter spent some time venting his spleen in the former’s direction.
Saturday, February 13, however, was a less amusing day. By now, Adams had flown all three variants of the Blenheim with which the AFU was equipped and that afternoon, in an endeavour to while away the hour or so remaining before catching the bus that would take him into town on a 36 hour pass, he found himself in the pilot’s seat of one of Grantham’s distinctively short nosed Mark Is for an unscheduled third solo on type. It was to be a short trip: at a height of just a few hundred feet, on the climb out, Adams’ scan of the instrument panel revealed a sudden cessation of oil pressure. Initially believing the hydraulics to have failed, he soon became aware that
the port engine had stopped dead! In fact, though he was blissfully unaware of either fact, the Bristol Mercury radials powering the Blenheim were prone to such sudden and complete failures, and the ensuing consequences were often fatal. Adams had no option but to continue around the circuit against the dead engine (i.e. to the right) in order to affect a normal landing, doing his best to maintain the height he had. As he gently nursed the Blenheim on he realised that, at this abbreviated altitude, the high tension power cables stretched across the hill to starboard on his downwind leg were at the same level. Even so, Adams was unalarmed, reasoning that at the last moment he should be able to pitch the Blenheim’s nose up to “hop over nicely”. Unfortunately, his confidence in the aerodynamics of a one engined Blenheim proved misplaced, since the up elevator Adams applied had no visible result other than to alter the aircraft’s angle of attack slightly, without the expected transient increase in height, and it continued onward to impact with the cables in a fantastically coloured shower of sparks. Adams remembers perversely enjoying that display; nonetheless, the cables had effectively cut the fuselage in two: the stricken twin plunged to the ground.
He was admitted to Rauceby Military Hospital that evening with multiple injuries, particularly to his right leg. On reflection, he feels he owes his life to the short nose configuration of the Blenheim I, which allowed the engines to absorb the impact of the crash. Had he been flying a later model, where the pilot’s seating position was situated further forward relative to the power plants, the result may have been somewhat more final. The comparatively low height of the cables above the hill also undoubtedly contributed further to Adams’ survival.
The first, positive, repercussion to this incident followed almost immediately, for it was whilst at Rauceby that Adams met his future wife, who was then working as a
nurse at the hospital. And he was now to enjoy six months convalescence at Hoylake Nursing Home, a time he remembers mostly for the relaxed, non-military atmosphere of the place, and the boyish antics of his fellow patients, most of whom were RAF personnel.
However, the whole recovery period was marred by a visit shortly after the crash by a “rather pompous Group Captain” who sought, with little sensitivity or sympathy, to determine its cause. Nevertheless, Adams was still dumbfounded by his interrogator’s warning that, if found guilty of pilot error, he would have to pay for a replacement Blenheim out of his own pocket! He spent some considerable time thereafter bleakly contemplating the remainder of his life as a pauper, before the realisation dawned that he would hear nothing more of the incident.
With the onset of autumn, 1943, Adams regained his medical flying category and, following a short refresher flying course, was posted to No 51 OTU (Operational Training Unit) at Cranfield, in Bedfordshire, to convert onto the night fighter variant of the Bristol Beaufighter. As a preliminary, however, he first had to master the Beaufort torpedo bomber, since there were no dual control Beaufighters and the acceptably similar Beaufort had just sufficient room in the cockpit to enable a second pilot to squeeze in beside the captain and observe his movements. Though Adams was to love the Beaufighter, he remains mystified as to how pilots succeeded in launching a torpedo from an aircraft as unstable in pitch as the Beaufort! From there, and with, as Adams puts it, “thankful haste”, it was back into the hangar to begin the process of familiarisation with Bristol’s later, more potent product, the aircraft that had, in 1941-42, proved the Luftwaffe’s nocturnal nemesis: the night fighter Beaufighter.
Adams reports a feeling of intimidation upon first acquaintance with the type: the two huge Bristol Hercules sleeve valve radials set one either side of the pilot’s cockpit, the sinister soot black colour scheme, and the mystical assemblage of radar aerials on wings and nose (which, with skill and luck, would bring the fighter to within sufficiently close distance of an enemy bomber to unleash its sting of four nose mounted 20mm Hispano cannon and six wing mounted .303in machine guns) combined to create an impression of barely containable power and aggression. This feeling was unassuaged by certain peculiarities in the layout of the cockpit. For example, the engine and propeller controls were in two separately arranged gates, while the Beaufighter’s electro-mechanical undercarriage indicators were reminiscent of a one armed bandit’s display!
After assimilating as much information as possible in the time honoured fashion of sitting in the cockpit learning the location of every switch, lever, and dial until confidently able to find when blindfolded, the tyro Beaufighter driver would go aloft in the type for the first time. Adams remembers that this was accomplished with the pupil standing with hands and feet braced against the fuselage sides, while peering over the handling pilot’s shoulders to observe his actions, although he was able to see far less than in the Beaufort. After an hour, the aircraft would be landed and, without further ado, handed over to the student. “And that was it”, says Adams, “You were expected to go off and fly it”. Somewhat nervously, Adams took off for his first solo on type (in Beaufighter 1F X2196) in December, 1943, and after the prescribed hour in the air, felt sufficiently relaxed to attempt his first landing, which he completed without incident.

Though the Beaufighter was relatively fast and as a gun platform quite superb, if it had a vice it was in its tendency to poor longitudinal stability (one contemporary official publication described the aircraft as neutrally stable in pitch). In effect, this meant it could never be flown “hands off”, requiring the pilot to keep a guiding hand on the control column at all times to maintain a desired altitude, and in common with other Beaufighter pilots, Adams was later to find this fatiguing on extended patrols. (The pronounced dihedral introduced to the tail plane of later variants alleviated this problem to a degree, but poor longitudinal stability was to remain a feature of the Beaufighter throughout its life.)
Having now crewed up with a Navigator/Radar ( Nav/Rad), Sergeant Harry Brett, the process of learning to operate the type in its designated role began, and as the pair were to discover, this was not without its potential for danger. On one nocturnal sortie, the GCI (Ground Controlled Intercept) operator had placed Adams’ and Brett’s Beaufighter within about four miles of the “target”, sufficiently close at their altitude of 20,000 feet for the on board MK IV AI (Airborne Intercept) radar to acquire it, and had passed Adams final course corrections before handing over the intercept to Harry Brett. Now, the latter was busily transmitting range, azimuth and elevation information through Adams’ earphones as the pilot scanned the raven blackness for the tell-tale exhaust flames of the target Beaufighter. At this point, quite unexpectedly, the shimmering green blips astride the time bases in each CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) display vanished. Adams recalls the mystified voice of Harry Brett informing him of this strange development at the instant a fiery tailed red light passed low over his cockpit, causing him to duck instinctively. Somewhat shaken and perplexed, the pair returned home, and dissecting the incident later with Adams, Brett realised that GCI
had brought them in on a head-on intercept course – the red light passing over Adams’ cockpit having been the flame belching exhaust stacks of the other Beaufighter!
On another occasion early in the course, their Beaufighter suffered a blown tyre as it accelerated along the runway to flying speed. An aircraft renowned for its already pronounced tendency to swing on take-off, the Beaufighter slewed drunkenly to starboard, Adams instinctively countering with left rudder and brake while simultaneously retarding the throttles of both engines. Nonetheless, the heavy twin continued its swerving charge down the runway until finally ploughing into the perimeter hedge. However, as Adams philosophically adds, “If I’d really anchored it (with the brakes) she would almost certainly have tipped on her nose, and ended up going over on her back!” Few Beaufighter crews survived making contact with the earth in such a fashion.
Toward the end of their time at Cranfield, an incident of a more benign nature occurred. Airborne on the darkest of nights, Adams and Brett had instructions to practice the procedure developed to locate the nearest airfield in the event of an emergency. This involved simply flashing the letters of the period in Morse, whereupon a vertical searchlight beam would appear, moving to the horizontal, in the direction of the nearest field. On this occasion, however, not one, but a dozen or more beams illuminated the night sky, the white fingers criss-crossing as they sought to direct what had obviously been taken to be an aircraft in genuine distress! Adams and Brett flashed the letters again and all the lights, with the exception of the single beam indicating the way to Cranfield, were doused.

Adams graduated from the OTU in February, 1944 and, together with Harry Brett, was posted to No 515 Squadron, flying Beaufighter VIfs from Twinwood Farm, in Bedfordshire. However, any aspirations he harboured to accumulate a score of German bombers were to be thwarted: finally operational after almost two years of service, he was disappointed to discover an almost complete absence of nocturnal incursions by the Luftwaffe into British airspace. Once a nightly occurrence, large scale night attacks had progressively declined due to the wholesale transference of Kampfgeschwader to the Russian front, and to the waning fortunes of the German war machine generally, over the last two and a half years. Indeed, even raids by singleton aircraft were by now something of a rarity. Even so, RAF heavies returning from raids on the German industrial heartland would often result in one or more of the unit’s aircraft being scrambled if the unfortunate bomber’s IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) was inoperative or malfunctioning. It was engaged in such activity that Doug Adams and Harry Brett whiled away much of the earlier part of 1944, while watching enviously the exploits of those night intruder units equipped with the fleet and nimble De Haviland Mosquito.
Since experience had shown that, from certain angles at least, the Beaufighter resembled a Junkers Ju 88, an intercepting Beaufighter crew would first formate at some distance above and behind an unidentified aircraft, partially to avoid giving an unpleasant scare to the crew of what was in all likelihood a British bomber, and partially to avoid being fired upon – an easy enough procedure on bright, moonlit nights, when the bomber would be clearly silhouetted against the cloud below, but assuming greater difficulty on moonless evenings when a positive identification of the aircraft might prove nearly impossible.
One evening around this time, Adams was astounded to be asked if he had ever done any train-busting! His questioner was one of the more experienced pilots on the squadron who had apparently diligently practiced this particular art during his previous service in Italy. Curiosity overcoming caution, Adams accepted the officer’s invitation of a practical airborne demonstration, and shortly thereafter found himself occupying the back seat of a Beaufighter being flown at treetop height over a blacked-out English landscape. “We found a train”, says Adams, “in fact, we passed through its smoke several times. We must have alarmed the people on board. And remember, railways have telephone wires, go through cuttings, etc. It was quite an experience. I was glad to be on the ground again; glad, too, that train busting wasn’t my job!”
Since the start of 1943, the writing had been on the wall for the Beaufighter’s continued employment in the night fighter role, most units using the type for nocturnal predations having by now re-equipped with the more capable Mosquito. So it came as small surprise to Adams when, together with Harry Brett, he was posted, in April, 1944, to a unit flying the thimble nosed Mosquito NF XIII, with its 10cm AI MK VIII radar, with a range of six and a half miles.
No 264 Squadron, then based at Church Fenton, in Yorkshire, had been using the Mosquito in the night fighter role since 1942 (indeed, uniquely among RAF squadrons, the unit was to chalk up 10 years continuous service with the type). After a period spent on night intruder sorties, and an intensive spell on bomber support operations, mingling with the main force bomber stream and hunting German night fighters with the aid of newly installed “Serrate” equipment, the squadron had recently reverted to its primarily defensive function, and had celebrated the fact in fitting manner by claiming three German bombers shot down over Hull on the night of 19 March. These victories coincided with a slight upsurge in the levels of Luftwaffe activity in the early spring, but Adams’ hopes of finally meeting the enemy were to be dashed once more by the unit’s luke warm reception of his very limited operational experience. As if to officially approve their ambivalence, Adams remembers, the unit’s CO, W/Cdr E.S. Smith, had barely bothered to look up from his desk when, having reported as instructed to his office, the former confessed to never having previously flown a Mosquito.
Nonetheless, Adams set about correcting that deficiency with gusto, “adopting” the squadron’s sole T.10 dual control trainer as his personal hack. It was an uplifting experience: “Going from the Beaufighter to the Mosquito was like exchanging a cart horse for a polo pony”, says Adams. This feeling was heightened in the T.10 which, bereft of radar, armour, and armament, was lighter than a standard Mosquito and therefore even faster. Over the next few weeks, gently coercing the services of various pilots as “instructors”, he built his hours on type, and grew to love that particular T.10 for its extra speed and climb.
In May, the squadron transferred south to Hartford Bridge (now Blackbushe Airport) to assist in the diminution of the German defences prior to the Allied invasion, but Adams was detached to Wittering around this time for a beam flying course. Once again he found himself ensconced in the cockpit of an Oxford, listening for the synchronization of the Morse like tones of the approach beam under the tutorage of a Polish instructor who, Adams recollects, was remarkably adept at the procedure. On one approach, concentrating hard on the aural signals being received, Adams was mortified to see the unmistakeable form of a Focke-Wulf 190 curving hard into a slightly high 12 O’clock approach on the Oxford. For long seconds, Adams’ heart lived in his mouth until, banking sharply once more, the fighter revealed the RAF roundels painted on its main planes. One of many captured Axis fighters, the FW 190 was en-route to Farnborough, where it was undergoing the latest in a series of comparative evaluations with Allied fighter types.
Upon his return to Hartford Bridge, Adams – now a Flight Sergeant – found to his chagrin that the squadron had again been in action in his absence. Commencing on the eve of D-Day, the unit racked up a tally of 13 German aircraft and a V1 flying bomb destroyed for that month of June alone. But for Adams, nominally on the strength of A Flight and operating under the call sign of “Nursemaid 28”, life continued very much as before, with only the odd inconclusive night scramble and the occasional escape and evasion exercise to relieve the boredom. Though the latter were treated in jocular fashion by all concerned, they were instituted in anticipation of the squadron’s projected move to the continent in September, and were not without their element of danger, since the local populace seemed inclined to the view that anyone running around the countryside in full flying kit must be German: tales of furious farmers attempting to pitchfork what they took to be Teutonic airmen abounded!
By way of something less hazardous, Adams decided one day to fly the T.10 up to his home city of Birmingham where, so a chance telephone conversation with his sister had revealed, a “salute a soldier” day was in progress. From his vantage point over the city, which was shrouded in industrial haze, very little of the salutations proceeding below were visible, so he turned the Mosquito about and, opening the throttles wide, found himself back overhead Hartford Bridge in less than twenty minutes! This episode utterly convinced Adams of the Mosquito’s superiority in speed over any other twin piston engined aircraft then flying, and though unable to
confirm from personal experience, he has heard others opine that a Mosquito on one engine was still as fast as a late marque Hurricane at full bore.
On July 14, Hartford Bridge received some esteemed and unexpected visitors. The flight crews were lazily sauntering around the airfield, hands thrust into pockets and battledress tunics undone, when suddenly a long line of expensive looking cars appeared on the flight line. To everyone’s stunned disbelief, the King and Queen stepped out of the leading vehicle. Taken completely by surprise at the Royal couple’s unscheduled visit, the crews hastily formed some semblance of a line in front of their Mosquitos and, at the Sovereign’s request, were introduced to the King and Queen in turn. Adams recalls fielding questions about rationing from the Queen, who was “very chatty”. Her husband, in contrast, said very little, doubtless because of his stutter, though he did appear knowledgeable on the activities of the squadron, if not on their aircraft: gazing admiringly at the parked Mosquitos, the King is reported to have sighed, “Ah, so these are Spitfires”!
After assisting in combating the V1 onslaught throughout the remainder of July and into the following month, 264 Squadron moved earlier than scheduled to the continent on 11 August, but returned to the UK on 24 September, landing at Predannack, in Cornwall.
By now, the war in Europe was entering its penultimate phase, and the sphere of Germany’s influence was being steadily compressed from both east and west. As a result of the effective reduction in the size of the war zone, many RAF units, particularly those based in the UK, found themselves relatively overstaffed. Whilst Japan looked set to remain a threat long after the conclusion of European hostilities, its aerial subjugation was to be a largely American operation, with British participation provided, for the most part, by Royal Navy carrier based aircraft. The RAF was in the process of forming Tiger Force, which consisted of Lancaster and Lincoln four engined bombers, for long range strategic bombing raids to supplement the US B 29s, but the selection of aircrew was limited to those with four engined operational experience. Thus, like many others without valuable combat experience, and operational in a role for which there was no longer a need, Adams found himself, at the turn of 1945, surplus to requirements and, under the direction of labour extant in wartime Britain, was removed from flying duties and returned to his civilian occupation of draughtsman. Adams was phlegmatic about the switch, however: “It could have been worse. I heard of some chaps sent down the coal mines to work with the Bevin Boys! As it was, I left as a Warrant Officer and with a commission in the RAFVR.”
So ended the wartime flying career of Douglas Adams, without a shot ever being fired at the enemy in anger.
In the immediate post war period, Adams tried to continue his association with the service by attempting to join one of the reconstituted squadrons of the Auxiliary Air Force (now prefixed “Royal”, in honour of their service during the war). Having heard of one such unit operating Mosquitos at Honiley, and believing his flying experience on type to be of value, he confidently expected a favourable result to the interview convened shortly afterwards. However, things didn’t go quite as imagined, since the interviewing officer seemed more pre-occupied with Adams’ father’s professional status, or more specifically, his ability to discharge the large mess bills which, as an auxiliary, Adams would be bound to accrue! The officer foreseeing problems in that area, Adams application was declined.
In 1947, however, his commission in the RAFVR was activated when, the threat of war with Russia now looming on the horizon, he was recalled into the service, reporting to Castle Bromwich, in the West Midlands, where he flew a Tiger Moth again for the first time in five tears. “We were warned that war with Russia could commence any time”, Adams recalls, “and therefore we were really on stand-by. This continued, I think, until the 1950s.”
In the intervening years, Adams has remained in flying. In 1975, he formed Vectair Aviation at Goodwood Airport, near Chichester, in West Sussex, who over twenty years later still boasted a fleet of two Cessna 152s and a Cessna 172. He was flying less by those days, preferring the hardy comfort of the small ops shack, the coffee percolator, and the company of old pilots like himself, while his son, who has all the required qualifications, shouldered the bulk of the instructing burden. Now, rubbing his right leg where he still carries the screws from the repairs made to it following the Blenheim crash at Grantham in February, 1943, he ponders awhile on the longer term repercussions that incident held for his service career. “I was out of the air for six months while that leg healed”, he begins. “That’s me joining a squadron six months later than would otherwise have been the case, having missed the bulk of the action. Six months earlier, and who knows? On the other hand, I got shipped out to Canada some months ahead of my ITW intake, so maybe my accident was meant to cancel out that lead; perhaps I wasn’t meant to see any real action?”
Perhaps not. But talking to Douglas Adams leaves you in no doubt that his enthusiasm for flight remains as undimmed as the day he climbed into his first DH 82 over six decades ago.
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