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I joined 152 Squadron at Angle in South Wales on September 24th 1942, only to find that we were to move at dawn the next day to Wittering, near Peterborough. Naturally I was in the ground party and so spent a second delightful day experiencing the joys of travelling by rail in wartime England. The first few days were spent at Collyweston, a sattelite of Wittering, that the Station Commander, the famous Group Captain Basil Embry, had connected to Wittering by a grass strip thereby creating a runway some 31/2 miles long, the first emergency strip for returning damaged bombers. At the time I joined the Squadron I had a total flying time of 296 hrs, of which 115 was on Spitfires, not much maybe but considerably more than those unfortunates who joined squadrons in the summer of 1940. The object of our stay at Wittering was to prepare for Operation Torch, the Allied Landing in French North Africa, so we immediately started an intensive training program, formation flying, cross countries, air firing etc., which lasted until mid-October. Then preparation for embarkation, I do not remember much about that, except that we ended up in khaki battle dress, and we also had been issued solar topees, only one pilot ever wore his, a Canadian. Nine officer pilots were to travel by cargo ship and nine NCO pilots in escort ships of the Royal Navy. Definitely a case, in my opinion, of officers not getting preferential treatment! So, nine of us, under the Boss Jackie Sing, duly embarked on MS Hope Crown in the Manchester Ship Canal, where we joined up with nine from 111 Squadron under Tony Bartley. Our accomodation was very basic, and the food quite extraordinary after wartime Britain, unlimited butter, sugar etc., and lib steaks for breakfast, either curried or braised ! Boredom was a problem, poker palled after a while, but the Master had a bright idea, for some reason he thought that fighter pilots would make good anti-aircraft gunners and so gave us the job of manning the 20mm Oerlikon guns. It helped with the boredom problem, but whether it was an effective idea was never tried out as the voyage was completely uneventful. I have always found it very surprising that that convoy was not attacked, it was at the height of a period of intense U-Boat activity and I believe that there was a large convoy battle going on not far away. We arrived in Gibraltar November 8th for our ship to unload its cargo of crated aircraft and NAAFI stores, celebrated my 20th birthday on the 10th, and prepared for the long, for the Spitfire, flight to Algiers. Also on the 8th the first squadron, No43, under Mickey Rook, flying Hurricanes, flew to Algiers and landed at Maison Blanche, the main aerodrome. We followed on the 14th, eighteen aircraft carrying 30 gallon longrange fuel tanks. So far as I know these aircraft were not airtested after coming out of their crates, certainly not by us. About one hour into the flight B Flight Commander, Bertie Bassett, suffered engine failure and had to take to his parachute. He was seen to get into his dinghy, but that was the last anyone saw of him. A very tragic start to the campaign. Chaos reigned at Maison Blanche, squadrons using the nearest end of the runway regardless of other traffic, or rather in ignorance of other traffic as there was a hump in the middle of the runway which made it impossible to see one end from the other ! I dont think that this caused any real disasters, but it certainly caught me out on the 24th. We were moving up to Souk el Arba, carrying 90 gallon longrange tanks, and I did not see the bomb disposal boys digging up a UXB in the middle of the runway just out of sight over the hump. The mound of earth knocked off the undercarriage, punctured the radiator and the 90 gall tank. Luckily I managed to belly land on the grass without a spark causing a fire, which would have been very embarassing !
We saw no action whilst at Algiers, just convoy patrols and dawn and dusk patrols. The area was bombed every night and the firework display over the harbour was really spectacular, every ship firing tracer in all directions. The aerodrome was also bombed at night but I do not remember any significent damage being done. Considering the reputation that Algiers had at that time as a really hot city I suppose we really got into very little trouble, especially when I think of all the effort we put into it! We finally got away on the 24th, the Boss leading 12 aircraft to Souk el Arba (now Jenouba) in Tunisia, leaving me to bring on the remaining pilots when I could collect enough air craft, which were in very short supply right then. By the 28th we had the requisite number, I presume six, and we followed the Boss. Souk was not a bad little airfield at that time, unlike the quagmire it became after the rains came, but not really adequate for five Squadrons of Spitfires each.theoretically, having eighteen machines. Since leaving Algiers the boys had had a very busy time indeed, encountering Bfl09s, Ju87s and Ju88s, of which they claimed quite a few, but unfortunately in the process we lost four pilots of whom only one became a POW. Jackie Sing must have found running the unit extremely difficult and wearing, and indeed his health suffered, as did that of the only other older pilot Wilf Sizer. Conditions were definitely rather primitive, refuelling out of flimsy 4gall tins, servicing by Servicing Commandos, for whom I have nothing but praise but whose tool kits appeared to consist a screwdriver, a hammer, a wrench and a Sten gun ! Accomodation was very basic, two very ratty old Bell tents borrowed from the Foreign Legion, one at Dispersal and one in a field just off the airstrip. A field telephone, a Bedford 15cwt truck and one young airman to man the telephone completed the setup. The airman caused great amusement later when we had to censor his mail home, ten or twelve identical love letters with just the names different! For food we had the famous Compo Ration, a wooden box containing everything considered neccessary for fourteen men for one day, even cigarettes and bumf. Cooking by petrol poured onto sand in half of a 4gall tin. Very effective. Enemy aircraft came over nearly every night to annoy us with flares, but only the Butterfly bombs which they sometimes dropped caused any real annoyance, no-one hurt, but one did go off under the 15cwt and gave us all quite a fright. The remainder of November saw much activity towards Tunis but no action The first few days of December did see some action however. On the 2nd I fired my guns in anger for the first time, a 109 which I did not hit, I expect he was way out of range ! On the 3rd we tangled with a large formation of both 109s and 190s and had a real free for all and I had my first close-up views of enemy a/c. I never had a clear shot at anyone but managed to collect one bullet hole through the engine cowling. We lost three a/c, but two of the pilots managed to walk home. The next few days continued in mch the same way with sweeps towards Tunis and small inconclusive actions. On the 7th we escorted Bisleys of Wing Commander Malcolm VC s squadron to Djedjeida, which must have annoyed someone as just after we landed, in fact as we were walking away from our a/c, we were strafed and bombed by Fwl90s. One pilot was killed by bomb splinters and two or three a/c destroyed. The middle of an airfield with absolutely no cover of any sort is not a comfortable place to be when attacked by pilots who know their job, probably ZG2. My Log Book does not record another flight till the 17th and I do not know why, it is possible that the rains had started by then, although I thought that that was a few days later.
When the rains did come operating Spitfires became exceedingly difficult. The a/c ia very nose-heavy and consequently taxying, which always requires great care, becomes positively hazardous in deep mud. Usually it required two men sitting on the tail to prevent the machine tipping on its nose. Apart from that taxying would throw up mud into the radiator blocking it and causing the engine to overheat. The Spitfire was always inclined to over heat when taxied for any distance so that this was enough to make it virtually impossible to get airborne. My Log Book shews very little flying for the rest of the month, presumably because of the mud. However we had one small action on the 20th, followed by another strafing attack by Fwl90s, which caused no damage. On the 20th, when escorting some Hurricanes, we got in the way of some accurate Flak and lost one pilot killed. Our Wing Leader, Sheep Gilroy, was flying with us that day and he was also hit, a bullet came up through the floor of his cockpit and passed between his legs. Christmas Day was spent trying to get our a/c onto some hardstandings improvised from steel mesh and sheets of cork oak. A very dirty and tiring day. The 28th was a very bad day for the Squadron, the aerodrome patrol of two a/c was jumped and both pilots killed. The same day one pilot did not return from an escort in the Font du Fahs area 31st December 1942. Squadron withdrawn from the line and sent back to Constantine in Algeria to reform. We hung around Costantine, a lovely and interesting town, for few days chatting up the local girls etc and then moved to Setif which had a much bigger and better airfield but was a very dull little town. Incidentally it was where the rebellion against the French broke out a few years later with a massacre. Very little flying at Setif, one trip to Algiers to collect new a/c, and escort to an Army Taylorcraft to Guelma. Otherwise just hanging around getting thoroughly bored. The Squadrons ground party caught up with us here, so from now on we had proper maintenance for the a/c and also camp beds to sleep in, a definite improvement on two blankets on the ground as at Souk el Arba. Other additions that were welcome were the cooks, although our rations got much worse from now on, the Medical Officer, apart from being a great doctor he was a wonderful man and a real friend to all of us, and the Intelligence Officer who was also very well liked. Less welcome was the Squadron Adjutant with his minions. I dont know on what date we moved to our new base, Paddington, one of a group of new strips in the Medjerda valley near Souk el Khemis just east of Souk el Arba, all named after London railway stations, but I first flew from there on Febl2th.. This was a great improvement for us, a long steel mesh runway, good taxiways, a proper dispersal etc. The domestic site, in a valley south of the strip, was very well organised and really quite comfortable, we even had electric light! The rest of the month saw very little flying, mostly aerodrome patrols, although on the 13th I have a note "Fired on by formation of Marauders whose retreat we were— covering". I presume they must have been under attack on their way home and were ordered to cover them. Needless to say they didnot hit anyone and we got quite used to such a reception, I would hazard a guess that virtually every escort to US a/c that we ever mounted was greeted in the same way. Likewise the US Navy, of which more anon. On the 26th I have an entry "Posted to Ferry Pool 26.2.43.", followed a few lines later by"Reposted to 152 Squadron 7.3.43 ". WhaUhat was all about I have no idea, and I certainly never went and was flying with the sqadron again on the 7th.
Very busy first half of March, mostly patrols over the battlefields around Beja. In action only once on the 12th when we bounced a couple of 109s, I got onto one but one cannon didnt fire and the other fired 10 rounds before stopping. Cannon on one side only causes a violent swing to one side and makes aiming impossible. This was the first time I had experienced this, but it was to happen many times in the future, in fact it was a very common occurrence with the Hispano cannon, probably caused by sand. On the 17th we were told that we were to become a Bomber Squadron ! This actually meant that we were to re-equip with Mk5c a/c fitted with two locally manufactured bomb racks and operate as dive bombers. We were not enchanted with the idea at all. The 19th saw us transported back to Algiers to collect our new toys but they were not there, someone had moved them to Setif, unbeknownst to us. We finally caught up with them on the 21st and flew them to Paddington. The rest of the month was spent familiarising ouselves with the bombs, two x 2501bs, and carrying out our one and only practice drop. No one had the slightist idea how to go about dive bombing so we tried a 60 degree dive from 10000ft down to round about 5000ft. This got us up to well over 400 mph at which speed the controls become pretty hard. We carried out our first operation on April 3rd against a target near Sidi Nsir, thought to be an eneny HQ. We didnt think we had hit anything but later in the day a large force of 190s attacked our strip with bombs and guns, maybe we had hit something after all (they didnt). The rest of the month was very busy, I logged nearly 45 hours flying, almost entirely operational. During the month I flew nine bombing trips and over twenty patrols, escorts etc. I recorded three cannon failures in three actions this month, out of six times that I fired my guns. Not very encouraging. The last attack in April was memorable, it was against an enemy HQ in Ksar Tyr and earned us the congratulations of OC 78 Division. In May we carried bombs on every sortie and I dropped mine twelve times in nine days. Our targets varied considerably, on the 2nd it was an Italian destroyer, which we did not hit but got pretty close, tanks, MT and airfields kept us busy for the next few days. Returning from an airfield N of Tunis I got a perfect bounce on a 190 but was hit by ground fire just as I was lining up, infuriating. It was one explosive 20mm shell in the starboard wing, right in the middle of the gun-bay. It did not appear to adversely affect the flying characteristics so I flew home perfectly happily, however when I saw the extent of the damage I was quite flabbergasted, the wing was a complete write-off. The engineers were magnificent, as I was flying the same a/c the following day, bombing Tunis/El Aouina aerodrome. This was the main field used by the enemy for his transport a/c evacuating Tunisia, so there were four Me323s and some fifteen Ju52s for us to have a go at, I just missed a 52 and someone set fire to a 323. On the 8th, returning from attacking Menzel Temime a/d, GeoffBaynham and I bounced a Bfl09 ofJG53 which had just taken off from there and shot it down just behind our lines, where the pilot was captured and put into an Army Hospital. The 9th saw my last two sorties over Tunisia, both attacks on German tanks and MT. The following day I went down with dysentery and was carted off to hospital in most futuristic French Ambulance train, what an experience !, but definitely not one to be repeated. I ended up in 103 General Hospital at Chateau du Rhumel near Contantine. My stay there was really quite pleasant and lasted until the 21st. I was then transferred to the Replacement Pool in Algiers to await reallocation to a squadron.
Good news, I was to return to 152, which was said to be at one of the ex-enemy air fields near Tunis. I set off on June 4th in a USAF C.47 to El Aouina via Telergma, only to find that 152 had moved to Malta. Finding transport onwards was a matter of hanging around and keeping ones ear to the ground and eventually I succeeded on the 8th. Meantime I had some how acquired a Volkswagen Jeep-equivalent, a most extraordinary little beast, but it at least enabled me to get around the various airfields and follow up all leads. The a/c I caught on the 8th was again a USAF C.47, going from Protville to Luqa via Monastir. On arrival in Malta I found that the Squadron was based at Ta Kali and that the Mess was in the old capital, Mdina, in a beautiful old palace on the city walls high over the island. After a couple of local flights I was back on operational flying, offensive sorties over Sicily. The 24th,25th and 28th saw our last bombing trips, Vizzini, Pozzalo and Licata. This brought my total bombing sorties to twenty-four. From July 9th we were involved patrolling the landing fleet and then the beaches, where we found out how trigger happy the US Navy was, this was very counter-productive as we could not then provide sufficiently close cover for them. On the 12th whilst covering American landings near Gela I spotted a single Bf. 110 and went after him. We were carrying 30gall long range tanks, so that had to be jettisoned first, unfortunately it did not come off and so severely restricted my speed, with the result that after a long tail-chase at 0 ft I never really got within range and he got away. As I turned for home I saw, out of the comer of my eye, the 110 turn after me so I went up to full emergency boost, with the result that after a couple of minutes the engine blew up ! It did not stop immediately but delivered ever diminishing power for a few minutes, leaving a magnificent trail of silver-white smoke behind us. I took the decision to stay low and hope that the engine would last long enough to get me out of the mountains and into flat ground, as I did not relish pulling up in the hope of getting high enough to bail out. As it happened we reached a nice big flat field just as we ran out of airspeed and the engine died so I just pushed it down onto the ground, quite a respectable landing actually, but unfortunately there was an enormous irrigation ditch across the end into which we went still going really fast. My respect for the Spitfire increased enormously at that moment, propeller and reduction gear knocked off, both wings off, fuselage broken in two just behind the cockpit, and I walked away with a couple of light cuts and two or three bruises ! Amazingly the radio was still working so I called the Boss and told him that I was OK. I then ran. I stayed in the ditch, which provided excellent cover, and tried to get as far as possible in the first couple of hours. I then lay up to await darkness. After dark I set off again with a great firework display off to the west, the US Navy off Gela trying to shoot down the USAF and RAF transports bringing in the airborne troops. Eventually I reached a belt of sand-dunes and then a beautiful beach, through the dunes I looked back and saw a large notice "MINEN"! In the distance I could see the loom of something away in the west so I walked that way and soon found myself on an American landing beach, no one took any notice of me so I reported to the Beach Master who handed me over to the MP.s who gave me a blanket, an excellent Field Jacket and a "K" ration and told me to get Iccst. This was my first experience of the famous "K", not bad but not a patch on our compo. I wrapped myself in my new blanket and slept in the dunes. In the morning I was woken up by an American pilot from one of their Spitfire squadrons who had been shot down the previous day by the US Navy ! His unit, either the 31st or 81st, was landing on that beach that day so I was invited to join them for their move to Ponte Olivo aerodrome which had just been captured. Our drive up there led through the aftermath of the last German attack on Gela which nearly reached the sea, in fact the attack was only stopped by gunfire from the US Navy ships lying off. Their gunfire, even when aimed at the wrong target was very accurate. A couple of hours after I arrived at Ponte Olivo the first Allied a/c landed, five or six Dakotas of the RAF, led by Air Commodore Whitney Straight who offered me a ride back to Gozo which I gladly accepted. On Gozo I was given transport to the ferry quay, then I was on my own. Near the ferry landing on Malta we had a little rest camp in a villa by St.Pauls Bay, so I walked there to telephone for transport,, I was greeted by Group Captain Tyrell, Ta Kali Station Commander, who immediately phoned for his staff car to take me home, so arrived in fine style ! A bit of an anticlimax, I had been expecting to give everyone a surprise, but they knew I was coming. The rest of the month was very busy, the usual mix of patrols and escorts, until we moved to Lentini on the 22nd. To start with we landed at the wrong place, Agnone, which was under artillery fire so we cleared off pretty quick. July 24th was 0^ memorable day for the squadron, three sorties to the north coast seeking Ju.52s evacuating German troops to Italy, twice 52s were encountered and eleven claimed as destroyed by us and more by the rest of the Wing.. The third sortie, which of course was the one I was on, encountered only Bf. 109s ! I succeeded in hitting one with a rather snazzy full deflection shot but then of course one cannon jammed, I tried every possible aim but failed, even from 50 yds, to hit him again. I had a very careful close-up look at him and decided he had very little chance of getting home and so decided to leave him to it. I dived down to sea level some ten miles offMilazzo and had the extraordinary, and rather alarming, experience of being fired at by heavy coast defence guns. The splashes were enormous and went higher than my a/c., none came anywhere near me so I continued on my way and got home without any problem. The rest of the month continued in much the same way, without however, any more parties like that of the Ju52s. The pattern changed slightly in August, we mostly escorted Kittyhawk fighter-bombers of the Desert Air Force, much nicer job than covering medium bombers, they went in faster and did not shoot at us if we got too close ! I did not envy them their job, it was mostly in the Straits of Messina which had, so we were told, the heaviest concentration of Flak anywhere in the world. Towards the end of the month the Squadron was allocated its first Mk.9 a/c, and of course I was promptly posted, tour expired ! I did however get in one flight, it was a real revelation after our old Mk.5c s, the increase in performance was quite incredible. August 22nd saw me set off in a Dakota for Cairo, this involved seven legs and took till Sept. 5th! After hanging around in Cairo for awhile I was posted to Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, for training duties. The flight down to Durban was one of my most memorable experiences, the Short Empire flying boat Castor of Imperial Airways, four days chuntering along over Africa, fourteen legs and three night-stops. Fabulous. On arrival in Rhodesia I was promoted to Flight Lieutenant and sent on a Flying Instructor Course at CFS. Consequently I spent the rest of the War in comfort and safety in a wonderful country and never returned to operational flying.
P/O Tony Tooth
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