into them. It was awkward enough, with inflated Mae West, to struggle aboard a one-man water-filled dinghy in a calm swimming pool and warm water. Heaven help anyone having to do it in a freezing cold rough sea. The thought of that was in all our minds and made us practise all the harder. I was never a strong swimmer but coped with the best of them in spite of my size. It was during this practice that our instructor emphasised to us the need to carry a dagger or other sharp instrument with us when flying. The recommended place for carrying it was to sew the scabbard on the left, upper, sleeve of one's flying suit. This was the easiest place to access it in the event of either a Mae West or dinghy accidentally inflating in the cockpit. The dagger would be used to shred the inflated item in order to deflate it as quickly as possible for, should this ever happen, the stick could be forced forwards and control lost, not a desirable situation, and one which had to be remedied with utmost speed. We were warned, too, to try not to touch the dinghy CO2 cylinder when inflation was taking, or had just taken, place. As the gas expanded from within, the temperature of the cylinder dropped to below freezing point, as witnessed by the formation of ice on cylinders during the practices. In the cockpit we sat on our dinghy packs which fitted in the seat trays and acted as cushions. It was always, we had been told earlier in our training, important to make sure the CO2 bottle was placed comfortably, as otherwise, it could be most uncomfortable, especially when pulling high 'G'. Whilst it was our habit always to do that, when in the water, it was brought home to us to make sure that the webbing tie from the dinghy pack was always attached to one's Mae West. If this wasn't done the dinghy would sink away from one on immersion or, if inflated, float away in a breeze and leave one stranded. It was hard enough to catch a loose dinghy and board it in the swimming pool. In other circumstances it would be a matter of life and death.
Still the weather was bad. Some of us even joked about the fact that we were supposed to be an all weather Air Force! Nevertheless, below a 1000 feet cloud base (that's normal circuit height) I flew two low level sorties. One was in battle formation, generally beating up anything we saw and, frankly, having a whale of a time. My second low level sortie was a solo navigation exercise which included flying along the Küsten Kanal. I couldn't resist beating up the barges and watching the bargees duck, or even lie flat, as I approached. I applied the rule taught to me in training: "Don't go back or they'll get your number!" In the afternoon four of us practised high level battle formation at 20,000 feet in brilliant sunlight above the solid cloud mass.
That evening I flew, in slightly improving conditions, a night cross-country via Stade, Verdun, Wesemünde, and back to Jever. At one part of this sortie I was aware of a glow at my wing tips. Normally at night I would expect to see some sort of slight glow from my navigation lights, especially in or near cloud, but this was very different. The whole of each wing tip was glowing a pale lilac colour. When I flew into rain, as the droplets hit and tracked back over my cockpit canopy, they too were glowing. It was my first, and only, experience of electrical brush discharge, better known to ancient mariners as Saint Elmo's fire. It was uncanny while it lasted, but soon passed off as my 45 minute flight progressed, otherwise uneventfully.
My final sortie in March was on the 9th and was to Meppen Range, firing rockets. Little did I realise it then, but this was to be my penultimate flight in a singleseat Vampire. My final solo Vampire flight would not be until mid-April. In the intervening period I was due to go on a course, to Ehrwald, in Austria, to learn about and practise Arctic survival techniques.
As this was, to all intents and purposes, the end of my Vampire flying, it is time for me to mention several incidents which I am unable to relate to specific dates or sorties but which are worthy of mention.
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