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The Diary of a Transport Command Pilot


With kind permission from Charles two extracts from his Diary.

The Sgt’s Mess was run by a small committee of NCOs with a W/o as president of the Mess ours was a tubby Single’s pilot whose main claim to fame was the occasion when he talked whoever was in charge, in the flight office, into allowing him to have a local conversion on to Mosquitoes.
He always took the opportunity to boast of his piloting skills especially when flying a Spitfire, how he would whip the wheels up almost immediately after take off. He had a couple of duel flights and went solo alright, but on his first delivery, with great bravado, he goes into his usual routine and climbing away, pulled up the wheels to early, the Mossie didn’t like it, sank back towards the runway before lifting away. Not before the propellers had struck the ground and about a foot or more of the wooden blades had sheered off, the engines screamed as the revs went up and he slewed along the ground in a very undignified fashion. How he succeeded in his Court Martial, I have no recollection, but one very foolish fellow left, never to return to our unit.

Also during October there were a few ‘Milk Runs,’ to do, one miner to Oran from Oujda, ferrying the ‘doc’ with a patient who needed an operation, and a trip to Casablanca with ten passengers, all Singles pilots, who I was taking there to collect Fighter aeroplanes to deliver. There was a MU, based at Casablanca whose job it was to assemble fighters sent out in crates, the same as they did at Takoradi in the earlier days. As we approached the airfield. it was so routine that one would not believe what was about to happen, all landing checks completed and satisfactory, the down wind procedure carried out, the passengers warned that we were about to land. Fuel gauges, temperatures every mortal thing checked, no hitches no problems. I turned to the finals, informed the tower as normal, and settled the aeroplane down on the runway, after a good approach and landing.
Mac was in the second pilot’s seat, and assisting as usual when I tried to slow down using the brakes in the usual fashion, no response! I called out “Check air gauges,” “OK” from Mac. I had a swift glance at the dials they showed full pressure but no joy from the brakes. “No brakes” I yelled not knowing the intercom was on and the VHF on “transmit, there wasn’t much time or room to waste, the aeroplane was slowing down but would reach the end of the runway before stopping, there was sand at the end and if I had to I would raise the wheels when on the sand and if the plane did not stop.
Things are never what they seem, all good plans fail sometime, around the perimeter at about a hundred feet intervals stood empty fifty gallon oil drums painted with black and white bands acting as markers, I was aiming to avoid these by rudder control or a blip of engine power. Mac had his feet on the instrument panel, his arms across his face, after releasing the escape over the cockpit, and they told me one of the passengers who had plugged into the intercom, overhearing our cries up front, had warned the others at the back, so they took up ‘crash positions’ I got the line right we rolled through the gap at about fifty knots on to the sand. Great I thought we were clear, then it happened! The right wheel dropped into a culvert running diagonally from our right, the right under-carriage leg tore off complete with the wheel, the right wing tip dropped to the sand and the plane spun to the right.
Unknown to us the Americans Fire truck was charging down the runway after us, with the ‘Blood Wagon’ in attendance, they had heard all the cockpit chat over the intercom. We stopped in a cloud of flying sand, with Mac, big fella he was, forcing his bulk through the hatch, the passengers one after another pouring out through the open Astrodrome hatch, whilst I was turning off the fuel pumps, fuel cocks, ignition switches and trying to free Frankie whose door to the cockpit was jammed, a big boot shifted that. We were all out in a couple of minutes all thirteen of us, unlucky or LUCKY! Thirteen, not a scratch, no fire all safe, the Yanks stood goggle eyed at the stream of people getting out of that aeroplane. It was deemed ‘Pilot error’, at the subsequent enquiry. But with help from the Technical Officer at Casablanca’s MU, we established the cause of the brake failure as a faulty valve on the control column. There after an apology appeared in the next Monthly accident report clearing the stigma of ‘pilot error’ from my records.

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