Six Sacks of Potatoes

Later the following morning I arrived at the seaside resort town of Silloth where for the next six weeks I was going to learn to fly a Leigh-Light Wellington. The airport was only a few miles from town and I arrived there in time for afternoon tea. It was there that I was introduced to the rest of our crew. The Wellington carried three Wireless-Air Gunners who rotated their positions from rear gunner to wireless operator to radar operator. Harvey Firestone, George Grandy and Ken Graham were our WAGS. Maurice Neil was the Navigator while Gord Biddle and myself were the two pilots. Gord had several hundred hours experience on Wellington’s and was captain and instructor combined. The reason for the two pilots was because of the long flights as well as the necessity for someone to operate the Leigh-Light.After several familiarization flights I finally got the hang of how to land this bulky aircraft. The rest of the crew always took up their crash positions when I was bringing it in, well for the first few times anyway. We did a lot of radar, navigation and bombing exercises, along with photo and night flying sessions.

After about three weeks of this we were ready to begin long range training flights combined with actual operations in areas far removed from the enemy, or so the powers that be thought. The Wellington carried six depth charges and was used mainly at night against enemy submarines and small ships. Under good conditions the way a successful attack took place was as follows: we would take off at dusk or later and fly at about 600 feet above water on a set navigational pattern. The radar operator would keep a close watch on his radar screen for any "blips", if one was picked up we would drop down to 100 feet and the radar operator would direct the pilot towards the cause of the blip while continually calling out the number of nautical miles to the target. In the meantime the large light which was stored in the middle of the aircraft was cranked down. The second pilot then took his position in the nose of the plane to direct it after the light was turned on about 1000 yards out. If you were lucky the target was sighted and an attack run could be made with your depth charges. Although this sounds pretty straight forward, when you consider all this could take place on a dark and stormy night with an unknown enemy waiting to shoot you down which would have been an easy task if you missed him with the light, perhaps it wasn't quite so straight forward. To me the whole operation seems pretty ludicrous when I think about it 47 years later.

Most of our practices were over the Irish Sea and we managed to light up several fishing boats, a few small islands, as well as the Blackpool Tower. Fortunately for us they were all friendly. Silloth was a typical seaside resort town with the usual boardwalk along the Irish Sea waterfront. There were numerous fairground rides, refreshment stands and dance pavilions. We spent most of our spare time playing baseball and tennis. The weather was really great, as it usually is in late April and May. While playing catcher on the flight ball team I took a foul tip in the middle of my catching mask and this resulted in a trip to the station dentist to fix a chipped front tooth.

Early in the war, Silloth was the home of a Canadian O.T.U. which flew Lockheed Hudson aircraft. These were an extremely difficult aircraft to fly on a single engine with the result being that so many were lost off the end of the main runway in the Irish Sea that it was renamed Hudson Bay by the Canadians. Fortunately they discontinued using the Hudson on night flights when the Wellington was adapted to take the Leigh-Light.

During some of my spare evenings and days off I would bike back into the beautiful hills of England's Lake District. The narrow winding roads with their vine covered stone hedges were great for cycling. Residents of the villages welcomed the Canadians from Silloth always with a smile and a friendly greeting.