navigation, with the shapes of forests and villages coming a poor second. Diversion
airfields were Oldenburg, Ahlhorn, and Gütersloh. There were disused ex-Luftwaffe
airfields, the nearest being Wittmundhafen, each of which was dotted with bomb
craters and the obvious marks of runway sabotage by the Allied forces. These
airfields were of curiosity only and totally unusable.

It was almost a week before I flew again. The weather had clamped in and
lectures and training films filled our time, as did sport and time in the gym. More of
that later.
Battle Flight was on standby only. As I was not yet classed as 'operational'
I wasn't involved with that and, as with other new pilots, wouldn't be for some
weeks. I next had three flights in one day; a further 50 minute sector recce, then I
was tail end Charlie in a low level
battle formation and, late in the afternoon, some
practice
ciné ranging and tracking on other 'target' aircraft. The low flying was of
note because, although we were authorised only to fly above, and not to go below
250 feet above the ground, that order was generally ignored. The formation leader
took us at tree-top height and would call and identify a target, at which point we
would climb briefly to descend and 'attack' it, then continue this sort of routine
throughout the sortie. It was on this, the first of many such sorties, that we swept in
low, literally at roof-top height, over an old farmhouse. The jet blast from the lead
aircraft damaged the roof. More damage was done by numbers 2 and 3, and, on
looking back after I had also passed too close over it, I could see that many roof tiles
had been displaced. The cloud base was so low that the sortie involved 10 minutes of
low level formation
IF. On return to base I mentioned the farm to the leader who
snarled "Well, who won the bloody war?" I wasn't sure what to think. It brought
home to me the point that, in reality, we were on active service as an occupying
power.

The next day there was a similar low level sortie with me at number 4 again.
This time we were really low and I had to make a snap decision as to whether to fly
over or under some power cables. I went under rather than mushing into them on
attempting a rapid pull up.
1 My other sortie of the day was spent more
sedately doing
ciné work at a more comfortable altitude.

During the next days the
Squadron was doing live air-to-ground firing at Meppen Range near the Dutch border. My own flights were more of a training
nature, aerobatics, sorties involving getting radio fixes, and practice
QGHs.
2

The weather was generally awful and little flying took place before the end of October. There was none for me. There were other things afoot, instead.

As a
Squadron we were due to attend and witness live-firing, bombing,
napalm, and rocket attacks at Sennelager Range just north of Paderborn, over half a
day's bus ride away.
3 After rising early in readiness the weather at the range
clamped in and the trip was off. Next day, at 06.30, we set off again and got to
Sennelager only to find the show was off again. The bus broke down on the way
back not far from 2 Group HQ at Sundern near Gütersloh. At Sundern we were able
to visit the Operations room and to see the general Group set-up before returning
very late to Jever. What amazed me (and I should have known better) was that all
facilities were in vehicles which could be disconnected and moved to a new location
at short notice. Yes, I was a member of a highly mobile Tactical Air Force. This was
further brought home to me on realising that all main routes were given code
names clearly marked at frequent intervals by army signage. Ace, Spades, and similar designations were
______________________________________
1 A Vampire, with gear up, was less than 6 feet high and easily slithered through such gaps. The trick was to aim
to just miss the ground. The rest took care of itself. I hasten to add that it was not regular practice to do such things.
The biggest hazard on such sorties were flocks of birds. A bird strike at almost zero feet could be fatal to the pilot
as well as the bird.
2 Radio (not radar) controlled descents.
3 Sennelager Range on Sennelager Heide (heath) was an old German weapons training area and now used for
similar purposes by the
NATO occupying forces.
62