RAF: Discipline and respect in RAF

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Two years’ National Service in the RAF was an eye-opener for Keith Bonnett, of Weston-on-Trent, but he reckons it taught him a lot – not least, respect, discipline, camaraderie and seeing the funny side when things go wrong. Here he continues his tale.

IN 1955, my fiance Brenda and I decided to get married at St Edmund’s, Shelton Lock. We had a lunch reception at the then Traveller’s Joy and a week’s honeymoon in Douglas, Isle of Man.

Brenda was working at F W Hampshires, at the time. After I finished my National Service, we lived in furnished rooms for about two years at the Cavendish.

But, meantime, it was back to RAF Upwood, near Huntingdon, for me. Our squadron flew out to Wildonraf, in West Germany, to take part in a big combined European air defence exercise.

One night, I had to do bomb dump guard duty. The dump was in bunkers hidden away in a copse. There was an IRA alert on and I was quite scared. It was pitch dark, windy and cold. Owls were hooting. We had to circle the dump, two at a time, then go back to guard the hut with rifles at the ready. Luckily, nothing happened.

On Wednesday sports afternoons, I used to play badminton for our station against other stations in the vicinity. I also played in the Bomber Command team championships at RAF Waddington (Lincs). We had a Middlesex county player, Luckstow, in our team but still struggled, our officer in charge not being up to scratch.

They had a station athletics meeting and, as I had done a bit for Derby & County Athletic Club and Technical College, I entered the 220 yards and 440 yards flat races and promptly pulled a leg muscle, which shows how quickly you lose fitness. When sports afternoons finished, we all got 48-hour passes.

I also qualified as a duty driver for a one-ton Bedford, called a Gharry (a Kenyan Indian expression). I had no civvy licence but did have a military licence and quite often drove “chiefy” Marshal Bantam on errands.

I had to get up early, sign for Gharry at the motor transport section, then pick up ground crew at 8.30am and take them to dispersal. Later, I had to take half of them back to the station for dinner, then the other half and so on.

The same procedure was repeated at teatime and then I had to pick up the night flying ground crew to take them for supper and back to their billets after night flying finished.

After that, Gharry had to be returned to the MT section and I would finally drop into my own pit.

By then, I had become a senior aircraftman three props and my last six months was on a regular’s pay £6 6s (£6 30p), a princely sum. As long as you remembered your last three service numbers and took your hat off at pay parade, you were paid.

Every year, there was an allowance for replacement clothing. If you didn’t need any new clothes, you received two allowances. So, we would keep a set of kit which we never wore and bring it out at the weekly kit inspections. Any worn clothing was put on under our overalls and we used civvy underwear if our RAF issue was falling to pieces.

We did get a very good work clothes issue – gloves, mitts, anorak, sea boot socks, string vests, kerosene suit overalls, fur hats (like Americans). You needed it if you were changing a hydraulic pump on an aircraft through an aperture 6ins by 4ins, in a howling gale, with your assistant holding a ground sheet over you while you tried to see with a torch where to locate the spanner.

The refuelling was also tricky. Each aircraft had two wing-tip tanks and three main plane tanks.

At night, the bowser drivers would slam pumps on full blast. If you tried sitting astride a wing-tip tank with the inlet offset and tried to judge when to switch off, you would know why kerosene suits were issued.

When the tank was full, you would suddenly get a face full of kerosene – to the great merriment of the rest of the crew.

During my two years, I did get charged once. It was when some MPs raided our billet one night and caught us playing cards (brag) with some motor transport guys. We got a day’s pay stopped and the MTs got a week’s jankers. We were so busy they couldn’t take us out of the flying programme.

In my last month, they sent me on a firefighters’ course for two weeks and then I had two weeks of leisurely signing off from different sections of the station.

During that time our squadron was issued with overseas kit. I later found out they were sent out to the Suez Crisis. One of our pilots was court-martialled for refusing to bomb.

The lads bought me 50 Players Navy Cut as a joke and, sitting on a train back to Derby, I started to smoke.

Looking back, in spite of early setbacks, National Service was good for me. It taught me discipline, respect, getting on with all sorts, seeing the funny side of things and camaraderie.

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