invisible single layer fabrics, for almost nothing of the feminine form was left to the imagination.
During an interval, when the lights were a little less dim, we spotted a couple of our older Airmen sitting at the end of the catwalk and made sure that they didn't see us. At the same time we were pestered by waiters who wanted us to buy more drink but we steadfastly refused at the price and made our single glasses of Pils last the evening. The show resumed and another fashion parade started. This time the dresses, if one could call them that, were much longer but equally transparent. Then one female swept along the catwalk and paused longer at the end than usual because of some comment from the clientele. In this very instant one of the Airmen rapidly pushed what looked like drawing pins through the tail of the dress, securing it to the catwalk. Said female went to continue her routine, the dress ripped away, she bent down, unadorned, revealing all, and gave the culprit an open handed resounding slap across the face. The audience roared. It made their evening. We exercised discretion and decided it was time to depart.
Our stay at Sylt was noteworthy for most of the wrong reasons. The weather was mostly foul and there were severe storms with strong crosswinds on the main runway. The radar gunsights could only seldom lock on to the drogues, and the drogues themselves were frequently unstable in flight, thus causing sorties to be aborted. I had been at Sylt for two days before the first aircraft arrived and it was the 21st before all aircraft of both Squadrons had landed. There had been recent runway extensions at Sylt and the undershoot/overshoot areas were extremely muddy and wet. We were cautioned about this during our arrival briefing. The Officers Mess was undergoing considerable building changes while we were there, and there were extensive works to other buildings within the airfield perimeter.
Only two days after the flying programme commenced our old Boss, Sqn.Ldr. Bob Allen left us. He had been promoted to Wing Commander and was posted to lead the Flying Wing at Fassberg. The day before, newly promoted Sqn.Ldr. 'Des' Browne joined us. (He was often later referred to as Bwown with an 'e', due to a slight speech impediment preventing him from pronouncing the letter 'r' properly). He had been a Flight Commander with 20 Squadron at Oldenburg where, for various reasons, he had taken some ribbing.
Our new boss, far from being the butt of humour at Oldenburg, turned out to be a waspish and determined, sometimes inconsiderate, individual. Some of us did not take to him readily, but he was our new leader and orders had to be obeyed, like the man or not.
There is no record of my gunnery scores during the detachment, and no clues in my Log Book. My first flight, after the usual introductory briefings, was a 30 minutes ciné sortie on the flag. My second was the next day, dual with Flt.Lt. Goodwin, the Wing Pilot Attack Instructor, in a Vampire T11, live-firing on the flag. Conditions were not good owing to turbulence and thunderstorms in the area.
The weather remained the same during my next four sorties following the weekend, all of which were of 40 minutes or less, and all briefed for live-firing, although one was aborted due to weather. Two involved 10 minutes IF, so bad were the conditions. On taxying back to the hangar apron and shutting down after one of these sorties I noticed one of the ground crew whose hair was standing on end. On jumping down from my aircraft and removing my helmet I said so to him, whereupon he told me that mine was standing vertically as well. There was also a crackling of electricity in the air. Realising immediately what might happen, I shouted to everyone to get into the hangar. No sooner done, the hangar was struck by lightning, with the simultaneous crack of thunder nearly deafening us all in the corrugated iron building. No one was hurt and no damage was discovered, although
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