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The Royal Air Force as seen by John Cooper |
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205/209 Sunderland Squadron RAF Seletar
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209 Squadron Formed out of Number 9 Squadron RNAS on 1st April 1918 at Clairmarais, 209 Squadron hit the headlines on April
21st 1918 with being credited with the shooting down in air to air combat of Baron von Richthofen in his famous Fokker Triplane.
Captain Roy Brown flying a Sopwith Camel took the credit for this feat of airmanship however in recent years the credit has
gone to an Australian Sergeant who fired at Richthofen's Fokker from the ground. Whatever the arguments 209 Squadron
was instrumental in downing the first world war fighter ace who had previously accounted for 80 British and French aircraft
victories. Further reading on Manfred von Richthofen at www.anzacs.net/MvR_English.htm Squadron disbanded 24.06.1919 Reformed 15.03.1930 Iris Flying Boats
1934 Perth Flying Boats
1936 Singapore Flying Boats
1938 Stranraer Flying Boats
1939 Lerwick Flying Boats 1941 Catalina
Amphibious Aircraft
1945 Sunderland Flying Boats To RAF Seletar, Singapore 18th May 1946 renamed "City of Hong Kong " Squadron January 1st 1955 209 Squadron merged with 205 Squadron and on 1st November 1958 demerged from 205 Squadron.. Fifteen days after getting
back from Labuan in Borneo I went into work as usual at eight o clock on the 5-12-1957 and waiting for me with his sly grin
was Corporal Andrews. “Morning Tich,
what are you doing tonight?” Hesitatingly I answered,
“Playing darts? I said, knowing that something else was in the wind. “You aint now,
your packing your suitcase, your off to Hong Kong for Xmas.” “Wow! That’s
some Christmas present Andy, Thanks.” “Its not your turn
for another detachment but its over Christmas and the married blokes want to spend Christmas with their kids, so your it.” “I don’t
mind, any time” I replied. I never knew it at the
time but this reply was the best reply I could have given him, as it planted a seed in Andy’s mind that I was willing
to go anywhere at the drop of a hat. Consequently when a detachment came up and the powers that be wanted an electrician to
fly with them, he knew where he would get no argument. Hong Kong, this caused
great excitement, I had more visions of the mysterious east, old Chinamen with wispy beards, Dragons on everything, wonderful
paintings, mysteries, wonderful food the list was endless and all mine for discovering. Lots of questions were racing through
my mind. How long for? What aircraft were we taking? How many men? All sorts of things were racing through my head. Andy put a bit of
the dampers on
the aircraft question
by telling me
we were flying
up there in
a Hastings from RAF Changi. I had flown
in a Hastings before from RAF Topcliffe in Yorkshire to Ballykelly In Northern Ireland
on detachment and back again, when I was working on the Neptunes, that was enough.
The noise inside a Hastings was horrendous you
could hardly hear yourself speak. The aircraft themselves always seemed too high off the ground to me and gave you the impression you were flying before you got off the ground.
Also one look at those big balloon tyres made you feel that if you came down a bit hard
you would bounce back up where you had come from, about eight thousand feet up. In answer to my other question I was told that there would be two of each trade going at least, plus a few NCOs
and that we were going for a month. We were to be outside the billet with all our
gear at 06.00hours in the morning, dressed in our working blue uniform, as it was cold in Hong Kong this time of year. The coach turned up on time next morning and
we all piled on board, arriving at RAF Changi dispersal about an hour later, The servicing crew gave us a funny look, us all
being dressed in blue, and them in KD. (Khaki dress). One of them asked us where we were going and someone told him the bloody
Artic and he believed us. We then boarded the aircraft. I don’t remember too much about the flight, as it was over the
sea all the way, bloody noisy, boring, and seemed to last forever. I only had one fright on this trip. On our arrival at Hong Kong I was looking out
of one of the starboard windows as we made the approach, below us was what you could only describe as a shanty town, hundreds
of huts made up of bits of wood and tin sheet and no order to the lay out the town looked like it had a moat between it and
the main road with a bridge over it at the entrance. I was later to find out this was the Forbidden City a place that you
dare not enter. Even the Police went in as a squad, O, and me on my own one night. I turned to look out of the port window
and I nearly shit blue lights, there were boulders and bushes whizzing past the port wing, I thought we had had it. Apparently
this was a normal approach into Kai Tak airfield, you flew along the side of a mountain then turned to starboard and did a
quick descent onto the runway. I for one was very glad to be down on the runway in one piece. When I got off the aircraft
I looked back to where we had just flown in and saw a Dakota on the same approach that we had made. It was way below the mountain
in the background and looked like it was going to fly straight into the side of it. I held my breath, then it turned at the
last moment and dropped down onto the runway, I would not like to come in here at night I thought. We disembarked from the aircraft with our suitcases
and I couldn’t help thinking of old Piss and Importance and wondered what he would have said (You will have had to read
previous chapters to know who piss and importance is, suffice is to say he was a DI sergeant.) “Squad Deeee---Aeroplane” or some
such bloody nonsense. We had to walk to our billet about a couple of hundred yards away these were silver painted Nissan huts
that were to be our home for the next month. I hated Nissan huts as they usually had an old coke stove in the middle for heating.
To fire these stoves up usually took about two hours, then two more hours to heat the place, and a further two hours to choke
you to death with their fumes. When you went to bed and left the stove burning you would wake up in the morning with a feeling
right at the back of your nose that you had a bad cold coming, coke fumes. Next it was down to the mess for supper, we had
to eat in the mess as we were hungry, all they ever gave you to eat on RAF Transport aircraft was a packed lunch consisting
of two dry sandwiches, usually corned beef and an apple or an orange. If you had a good cook in the mess making up the packed
lunch, you would have a piece of cake as well. Supper in the mess usually consisted of whatever
had been left over from tea and a big mug of Coco thick as shit mixture we used to call it, as when you had drunk the liquid
the last inch you had to eat with a spoon. Our Sunderland was arriving next day, just one,
and this aircraft was becoming my favourite, RN 282 ‘NAN’ it moored up approximately off the end of Kai Tak runway
or just past it, in Kowloon bay. We had to go down to the Kai Tak Yacht Club to get the dingy to go out to the aircraft to
do our servicing, pre flight, and after flight inspections. If the aircraft took off then we had to wait till it got back
and after the servicing was done the rest of the day was our own. For this period of waiting we used the Yacht Club as a crew
room. The old Chinese manager that looked after the place hated us, every cup of tea was served with a scowl and an under
the breath muttering in Chinese, he was a real miserable old sod. When he was not wiping the table under your nose and knocking
your fags on the floor with his cloth, he was polishing the Yacht Club bell. Not long after we got there, one of the chaps
that was stationed at Kai Tak, came into the billet and asked us if we wanted any dhobi doing, if so he would fix it. We told
him we would want some done, if not today in the near future. He went away and came back with a Chinese laundry man and spoke
to him in fluent Chinese we were amazed. I asked him how long he had been here and the answer was eighteen months. He had
had the good sense and foresight to learn the lingo and he had done that in eighteen months, that’s all the time it
had taken. I would never have mastered this language as it sounded as if it was all grunts and squeaks, and you had to forget
the letters ‘W’ and ‘R’ ever existed, also you had to go up and down the scale as you spoke working
the noises from deep in your throat for the low notes to the nasal passages behind the nose for the high ones. You could see
why people called them sing song Chinamen. We settled in fine but never went to the City
of Hong Kong that week as we were all broke but when payday came around that was a different tale. We had been told by the
Chinese speaking lad not to bother going to Hong Kong but to stay on the main land and go into Kowloon where there was a much
more interesting night to be had. We took him at his word and a Taffy lad and myself
teamed up and away we went with a pocket full of dollars, a Hong Kong dollars was worth one shilling and three pence in 1957
so we had almost twice the dollars as we had in Singapore and felt very rich. We arrived in Kowloon and I was amazed to see
Tram Cars running along the streets, I hadn’t seen a Tram Car since I left Scotland at the age of nine where I used
to get a Tram to Paisley baths to go swimming. We walked round the shops in Kowloon drooling at what was on sale such as Elephant
tusks intricately carved, ivory balls carved inside other ivory balls and many other wonderful items, not over priced either.
I seem to remember that one tusk with a beautifully carved camel train on, and in it, about three feet long was one hundred
and seventy dollars, still we had more important things on our mind, a drink, a Chinese meal, and see what the local talent
was like. We went into a bar called the Bamboo Toby just
off Nathan road for a wet and came out about two hours later nearly wet enough, and quite happy, to look for a place to eat.
Trouble was we passed another bar called the Waltzing Matilda run by some Australian chap and decided to see if he had any
Australian beer. I cant remember if he did or not but I do remember a picture of a Castle on the wall that intrigued me and
I was sure I had been there and even knew what it looked like inside, a case of déjà vu no doubt. When I asked the landlord
where it was he told me it was in Australia, so there was no way I could have been there as I had never been to Australia.
Thinking about it later I had never heard of a Castle in Australia either so I think he was taking the piss. A couple of hours
later we decided to resume our hunt for some grub only to fall into another bar called the Baldega. I can recall these names
because when we were in Kowloon we always seemed to use these same three bars. Some time later we staggered out and started
to make our way back along Nathan road the way we had come and were crossing over a bridge when, we were approached by a very
nice looking Chinese girl. “You like short time” She had just got these words out when she was
approached by three men who turned out to be plain clothed policemen, or so they said. They started to talk to her in the
local lingo and she started to protest whereupon Taffy started to argue with them. One of the men turned round and said in
perfect English. “ We are police officers and we are arresting
this girl for soliciting, don’t interfere, and carry on where you are going” Being strangers and not very street wise yet,
we decided this was good advice so we staggered on, the trouble was this incident had given Taffy ideas and he insisted on
going back to the Bamboo Toby where there was a bar girl he fancied. Me, I fancied them all I found the Chinese fascinating,
the far eastern women had the softest skin imaginable, especially around the thigh area. One beer and a fag later we were fixed up with
two girls, what Taffy had said to them I have no idea but when I came out of the bog there were these two lovely Chinese girls
all over us. A few more drinks and an hour later we were on
our way back to their place, which turned out to be just up the road from the bar. We entered through the street door into
a drab half lit hallway that smelt of decaying wood. On the right was a set of stairs and as we went up these stairs they
wobbled and creaked something awful and felt like they were going to collapse. On reaching the landing we went through a door
into the front bedroom that was partitioned off with blankets hanging from the ceiling and several beds about the place. The
blankets hanging from the ceiling must have been off the beds as there were none on them. I was naïve enough to think we had struck gold
till this girl turned round and demanded five dollars off me. “What for?” I asked. “For me, I not do it for nothing” Penny dropped at last, they were prostitutes
and this was a brothel. “Bugger off, I have never paid for it yet
and I aint going to start now, besides I have no money left.” I had plenty of money but there was no way I
was going to let this lovely little scrubber know that. All hell was let loose, she started battering
me with her hands and pushing me towards the stairs which I half fell down and she was right there behind me pushing me out
the door onto the street and all the time yelling something at me in Chinese. Once out the door she had a final swear off
at me, then stormed off down the street back to the bar, forgetting no doubt that she had cost me quite a few dollars in drinks,
I was learning fast. I waited by the door fully expecting Taffy to follow me out but there was no sign of him. After about
ten minutes a little old wizened Chinese woman that had been hanging about in a doorway watching all this going on, approached
me and said. “ You want Wankiee Johnee? two dollar” Christ,
what a place I thought, she must have been seventy if she was a day, if not older. She had obviously weighed the situation
up thinking that I had not had the five dollars to pay the girl but I might just have two dollars that she could extract out
my pocket. I declined her offer telling her I had had too much to drink and was just waiting for my friend. I don’t
suppose she understood a word of it as she repeated her offer after hanging about for another couple of minutes. Eventually
wandering off murmuring under her breath. I waited another ten minutes and as there was
no sign of Taffy I decided to go back in to see if I could find him. Back up the rickety stairs I went to the bedroom door,
which was open, I looked in and through a gap in the blankets hanging from the ceiling I had a birds eye view of a moony bum
going up and down in a slow rhythm, like it was on one of those long springs that you see on wooden toys hanging in shop windows
that have a never ending up and down motion. This bum was lit up from the light of the street outside the bedroom and as I
watched I was thinking Taffy, you’re taking your time mate, the beer has beaten you, when I noticed the rhythm had a
new urgency to it. Wont be long now I thought when I saw a woman’s hand appear from under the leg that was sticking
out from under this bum and give a sharp pat on his bum with the words “Hulliee up Johnee.” I grinned as the bum stopped moving, that’s
the worst thing she could have done, it put him right off his stroke and the beer took charge once again. The bum slowly started to move again to a slow
rhythm once more and I thought to myself, poor bugger he has had to start all over again. Just then I was startled by a tap on the shoulder,
I looked round and there was Taffy grinning at me in the dimness of the hallway. Shit, so the bum never belonged to Taffy
after all, must be another client. By this time Taffy had seen what I had been watching
and with a grin he whispered. “Dirty bugger.” Whether
he meant me, or the bloke on the job I never found out, it didn’t matter. I put my finger to my lips in a keep quiet sign
and said in a loud singsong voice in the best imitation of the Chinese girl that I could muster. “Hulliee up Johnee.” I just had time to see the bum stop again as
we turned and made a dash down the rickety stairs and out onto the street. We ran up the road and took the first turning
right where I had to stop as I could not run any more for laughing so much. At the same time Taffy was doubled over, out of
breath, laughing, and suffering from a stitch. After we had recovered we strode along singing that old ditty. Up the rickety stairs we went Parley Vous Up the rickety stairs we went, stole her knickers
and away we went, Inky dinky Parley Vous. And many more verses now long forgotten. We
made our way back to Nathan road and got a Trishaw back to camp, still laughing about our little adventure. This was Referred
to afterwards by Taffy and myself as the rickety stairs affair. Eventually the Bamboo Toby became known to us and all the
detachment as the rickety stairs. I had quite a few adventures in Hong Kong the
most frightening of the lot was being taken into the Forbidden City. We had been warned not to go in there under any
circumstance, as we most probably would never come out and if we did we would probably be floating down the open sewer face
downwards. We most certainly would have been beaten up and robbed. When the police wanted to go in there they would go in
thirty or forty strong so we were told. I had been drinking with a few of the Squadron
lads in Kowloon, and as usual some had disappeared with the odd girl and some had gone to eat while others had been left behind
in bars that we had been in so that I found myself all alone, a bit the worse for wear, no more money and out of fags. I decided that as funds had come to an end and
I’d had enough to drink anyway, that I would make my way back to camp, which was a fair step from where I was. I stumbled
out of the bar onto the main road and stood there wondering what to do when a Trishaw pulled up and the owner said. “You want Trishaw? Where you go?” “Kai Tak, RAF side” I replied getting
into his Trishaw with the intent of borrowing the fare off someone when I got back to camp. “How much?” I asked “Two dollar” “I got no money”. I informed him. He looked at me sitting there, weighing things
up in his mind no doubt. “ What you got? Watch, ring, gold tooth,
he said this last bit with a laugh, I laughed with him and was glad he had a sense of humour, as I still had no money. I remembered I had a fountain pen in my shirt
pocket that I had brought along to write some postcards that had never got bought or written. This pen I had bought in Thieves
Market in Singapore for two dollars, a Parker, probably fake, so I offered it to the Trishaw man to get me back to camp. “Look very good pen, very expensive, gold
nib, cost a lot of dollars in Singapore” I lied. “How many dollar Singapore?” “Ten dollars in Singapore” I replied. “OK, I take you Kai Tak.” He said
as he examined the pen then put it in his shirt pocket and started off. “Hang on, that cost me a lot of money so
I will settle for a lift back to Kai Tak and twenty Lucky Strike” He stopped, looked at me then said. “Ten Lucky Strike” “No twenty they don’t do ten packs” “OK twenty” he said and we were off
again. I was very happy with the deal as I sat there
being peddled along at a fair pace. We had come a fair way when I realised that we were leaving town and I still had no fags. “Hey how about my Lucky Strike” I
asked. “Soon, Soon” was the reply. This was all I got out of him so I gathered he
knew of a place to get fags on the way. We had almost reached the mountain end of the
airfield and I could think of no shops or anyplace to buy fags from here to camp. I
was thinking I’d been had, when suddenly my driver turned left straight over a bridge and into the Forbidden City. By the time I had got my wits together it was
too late we were in there. I must admit it was a very interesting place and I would have loved to explore it, as this was
my idea of the mysterious east. The alleyways were about six feet wide and it was just row upon row of shacks, a better maze
you couldn’t have designed. It had that smell of cooking food, sewerage, animals, and the smell of humans living too
close to one another. There were lots of bits of tin and plywood covering the alleyways so that you were completely closed
in. I realised also that after two minutes I was completely lost in this maze when my driver stopped, hopped off his bike
and disappeared through a half door. It looked more like a gate as it was made up of slats with gaps in between as many of
the doors were, with just a curtain hanging behind it. The ground was just dust and looked very hard where a million feet
must have pounded along it over the years and I thought it would be a mud bath when it rained. It was then I realised why
the alleys were covered over. There were other interesting things to look at such as bird cages hanging from overhead beams
hidden among clothes, hung out to dry no doubt, what sort of birds were in them I had no idea it was too dark to see but they
were twittering well. I could see plenty of chickens wandering about the ground and in and out of the shacks and Chinese music
coming from a host of radios scattered about the shacks somewhere. I waited about three minutes, though it seemed
much longer when I was aware that people were coming out of their shacks and just standing looking at me sat in this Trishaw.
I was sobering up fast and very uneasy when my driver appeared and saying something to the gathering crowd, they laughed and
he grinned, climbed back on his bike, threw me twenty Lucky Strike with another grin and peddled back out of the Forbidden
City much to my relief. I arrived back at camp safely about twenty minutes
later, a little wiser, and feeling a little sorry for telling the Trishaw owner that the pen I had given him was worth ten
Singapore dollars, after all he had kept his side of the bargain. I just hoped that I wouldn’t bump into him again. At breakfast the next morning a couple of the
lads that I had been out with the night before asked me what had happened to me as they had been looking for me. I related
my little adventure about my jaunt into the Forbidden City they just looked at me like I was mad. One lad had a tattoo done of a leopard clawing
its way over his shoulder and it looked great, though sore. Now, I had said I would never have a tattoo done unless it was
a Dragon done by an old Chinaman in China, never thinking that one day I’d be here. Well here I was, though it was called
Kowloon and British territory it was still the Chinese mainland so I had no excuse. The next day I set out with this lad that
had had the Tattoo done, he was going to show me where to go. First of all we had to stop for a couple of beers then another
couple till eventually we ended up at this Tattoo shop pissed. It wasn’t a shop as such just an old Chinaman sitting
on a chair outside his home with a table full of books with Tattoo’s in them. I chose the one I liked whereupon he shaved
my forearm and put a transfer on it. Next he got a bottle cork with a needle poking out of the bottom end of the cork, dipped
it in some blue ink and started to stick it in my arm following the line of the transfer. That was bloody sore and felt like the needle
was red-hot every time he poked it through my skin. At last it was done and I was thankful and went to get up, the old man
grabbed my arm and pulled me back down, all he had done was the outline now came the filling in. That was worse he kept wiping
away the blood to see where to stick his needle in next till it was finally done. He then washed my arm and put a tissue paper
over it and asked for his money, five dollars, it had taken over two hours to do and had four colours in it. I had a couple
more tattoos done a year later with an electric needle and the pain was nothing compared to the old man with his needle in
the cork. The tattoo healed and pealed in two weeks and
I had my Dragon done by an old Chinaman in China and I was quite pleased with it. Next it was Christmas day and we were all looking
forward to Christmas dinner. Though it was in the mess the cooks usually excelled themselves over Christmas and put on a good
show, the officers served us common ranks with our dinner and we all got a free bottle of beer. Over the Christmas period
you could pretty well do what you liked and a blind eye was turned if you happened to be in a state and fall down drunk in
front of the guardroom or some such place. You might with a bit of luck trip over the orderly Corporal or Sergeant lying there. This Christmas was no different and after dinner
was over another of our crew called Mick and myself got drinking with two Zobbits till they could hardly stand up. We then
decided to help them back to the Zobbits mess and asked them if we could go in for a beer, they thought this was a good idea. The Officers mess was just opposite the camp
gates and up a hill so we all trooped up the hill singing some dirty song or other and duly arrived outside the hallowed hall
where no common airman was ever allowed to tread. It turned out to be no different this time, these
two Officers told us that they dare not let us in but if we waited there they would bring us a beer out. More fool us, we waited about an hour and nothing
turned up so we marched back down to camp singing the ‘All coppers are bastards’ song except we substituted the
word Officers for coppers. The detachment was nearly over and we had one
payday left and we were looking forward to this, as funds were almost nonexistent. Our CO used to pay us in the Yacht Club and as
we approached we heard shouting and on turning the corner there was the miserable old sod of a manager jumping up and down
shouting “205/209 steal our bell, 205/209 steal our bell, he was mad as hell running round, waving his skinny old arms,
pointing at us and shouting at the CO. Now this was a common practice to lift a souvenir
or two from another RAF camp while you were on detachment, it was frowned upon by some people but was generally accepted as
one of those things that just happened. You could see that the CO was getting a bit pissed
off with this Chinaman jumping up and down in front of him like a jack in the box, so he took him inside the Yacht club to
calm him down. Mean while the other paying Officer and the shinny
arse from pay accounts set up a table to pay us. Out came the CO. “Right chaps, there will be no pay till
the bloody Yacht Club bell turns up” “Anybody know anything about it?” Silence, even if any of us knew who had half
inched the bell we would never have told him and he knew it. “Right we will adjourn till this time tomorrow
morning and if the bell has turned up you will get paid, if not we will try again the next day. We all went off to work accusing each other of
pinching the bell in a good humoured way but no one was letting on if they knew anything about it. Next day it was still not back so no pay again,
we were all getting a bit desperate now especially the smokers as no one had any fags. Then as we turned the corner on the third day
there was the bell, hung up by its clapper upside down half way up the Yacht Club flagpole. No one dared to touch it in case
they got the blame for nicking it. As soon as the miserable old git of a manager turned up it was pointed out to him and he
made a B line for the flagpole and started to lower the bell which immediately spilt a load of liquid over him much to our
delight, especially when it turned out it was piss. We got paid that day with a grin from the CO.
It was probably him what had pinched it in the first place or one or other of the aircrew. It took a day for the Chinaman to clean the bell
and get it shiny and bright again then he refused to sell us any more tea. That was fatal. We only had a couple of days left
there so every time we passed the Yacht Club we spat on his shiny bell. The day came when we had to leave and I was not
looking forward to flying back in that biscuit tin of a Hastings aircraft so when a couple of volunteers were asked for, to
help load some goods on the Sunderland and fly back with it I stuck my hand up in a hurry. Alan Sangester and myself were selected so down
to the yacht club we went and waited. An hour later a van turned up with a couple of the aircrew on it and it was loaded up
to the gunnels with boxes. This lot we had to load onto the dingy and take
out to the aircraft, there were large things like Camphor wood chests that we had to load through the bomb bay doors the rest
got loaded through the galley hatch. O to be rich, live like an officer and be able to afford such luxury items and get them
transported free. I found out later that they had a shopping list as long as your arm and had been shopping for their mates
back at Seletar, as things were a lot cheaper in Hong Kong. All loaded and with a last gob at the yacht club
bell we went out to the aircraft and got under way and taxied out between Hong Kong Island on our right and the mainland on
our left dodging Junks and Sampans till we had a clear run then the engines were opened up and away we went. I got down to
my usual chores of firing up the primus stoves and brewing the coffee, also having a good rummage through the rations to see
what I could concoct for dinner. The rest of the trip was uneventful except that
I got a glimpse of Vietnam as they call it these days away in the distance, I think it was called French Indo China in those
days and I did my first Sunderland night landing on arriving back at Seletar. I learnt a lot on this trip especially how other
people live and a few of their customs. I also learnt that the Chinese food while excellent was not as good as that of Singapore.
When I asked for a Nasi Goring in Hong Kong they had never heard of it. I found out some years later it was an Indonesian
dish and Hong Kong being a lot further from Indonesia than Singapore was probably the reason why. I also learnt that in Hong
Kong any girl that took you home on the first night you met was most probably a prostitute and even old wrinkled women were
scheming how to extract the last dollar out of your pocket, and to keep clear of miserable old Chinamen with skinny arms that
polished bells, but a bloody good detachment nevertheless. On getting back we got all the news of the goings
on at Seletar over Xmas, the most exciting being, some of the lads stoned out of their faces had wandered over to West Camp.
There being two camps on Seletar West and East with the runway in between them. There they had borrowed a Harvard training
aircraft that was out of service and had the outer wings missing. They pushed this Aircraft all the way to East camp and dumped
it on the parade square. Then turned it upside down and attempted to set fire to it. On the way from East to West camp there
was a confrontation with the orderly Sergeant and a few Snoops, demanding they put the Aircraft back. After telling the orderly
Sergeant and his henchmen where to go, the Sergeant threatened to get the riot squad out to them. This caused great amusement
when the Sergeant was informed that they were the riot squad. What was the end result I don’t remember but the Aircraft
was written off or declared CAT 5 in Air Force terms. I was glad I had been in Hong Kong at the time or I would have been
among them. Copyright A. Carrie
Information re this accident is urgently
required for a book publication in Jan/Feb 2006 details are here if anyone can help
I was wandering around just looking at stuff this morning Station Routine Orders dd 11th September 1958
SRO #146 signed by A R J Mc**ttie, Flight Lieutenant, Station Adjutant, RAF Seletar. Thanks to Alun W
ex 81 (PR) Squadron West Camp
A huge site for enthusiasts and modellers alike Seaplanes and Flying Boats Click Here
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