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
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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