Even during watch hours there was seldom much in the way of control work
to occupy us. We spent many boring hours in our rest cabin reading, smoking (I
never ever smoked), chatting, catching up on sleep, playing cribbage or playing
'knock' - a rather silly, but entertaining card game. Occasionally one of us would
write a letter or two, and sometimes we would do work connected with our
extraneous duties. Yet, whenever anyone aimed to do that, there was usually some
real control work to be done instead. We were frequent victims of Sod's Law in this
respect.
As a
u/t Fighter Controller my first live interceptions were closely monitored by a more experienced controller.
2 In this way I quickly learned the vagaries of the equipment, its capabilities and limitations, and many techniques not taught at Middle
Wallop.
It was almost Christmas before I performed my first live real interception. On December 22nd I controlled 2 Meteor NF11 night fighters at 25,000 feet doing three
90° practice interceptions, one of which was aborted because I made a mistake, the
other two being recorded as successful. The next night I did one
PI with badly fading
radar, again with NF11s. I was busier on December 29th when I controlled two
separate pairs of NF11s. I did 3 successful
PIs with the first pair and 1 good and 2
aborted
PIs with the second pair in conditions of bad radar fading. All these
PIs were
done at altitudes between 25,000 and 30,000 feet and at night. This work, and the
speeds and turning radii of jet aircraft at altitude, was vastly different to doing
PIs
with the slow, low altitude, Balliols at Middle Wallop. The techniques I had learned
had to be considerably modified and practised in this new, operational,
environment.
In the meantime, Christmas had followed the usual RAF pattern. All Officers
did the usual routine of reciprocal entertainment with the Sergeants Mess and jointly
served the Airmen their lunch. With the site strength numbering only a couple of
hundred personnel the level of festivities was more muted but somewhat more
personal than I had previously experienced. The fact that watches had to be manned
throughout the Christmas period, regardless of the occasion, undoubtedly had its
effect on the celebrations. With there being so few living-in Officers our own
Christmas lunch was a quiet affair, but nonetheless enjoyable. After we had slept off
our lunchtime excesses, all of us were invited to spend the evening at the homes of
our brother Officers on the married patch. On my walk back to the Mess afterwards,
through the village, my way was lit solely by pools of yellow light spilling from the
windows of the houses. On leaving the village, I continued in almost total darkness
through the snow along the open lane to the main gate and the Guardroom, and on
to the eerily empty Mess. Apart from the duty
SP I saw no other sign of life until
after I woke the following morning.
3
