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68 5.A/S/O Admin 1942 The Loughborough course was almost totally unmemorable, apart from the fact that it was in the purpose-built premises of the new Loughborough Training College, which had a swimming pool with one glass wall. This was startlingly rare at that date, and as a keen diver I spent as much time as I could using it. This course too, as well as the one that had made an officer of me, was a rest cure of a kind, as there were no exams at the end of the retraining month. I merely got my posting instructions and with my kitbag and bicycle made the circuitous train journey to Andover in Hampshire to report to RAF Middle Wallop. It was August, and the Desert War was already rolling backwards and forwards over the sands of North Africa. “Monty” [Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery] had just been given control of the Eighth Army, and the names Tobruk and El Alamein were becoming known points on the map for many whose knowledge of geography had hitherto been minimal. At the same time, in spite of heavy losses, British convoys were battling their way through to Archangel in the far north of Russia. The Germans were losing in Stalingrad. Middle Wallop was, as you might imagine, between two others of the same name, Over Wallop and Nether Wallop, both of which were mentioned in the Domesday Book. It had been a peacetime RAF station with a full complement of permanent, brick-built barracks. These, with the airfield itself, were on one side of the main road, while on the other were the solid, 1930s-style Officers Mess and a number of married quarters. In 1942 Middle Wallop was a Fighter-Bomber station operating a rather curious combination of aircraft working in pairs. These were an armed DB-7 Turbinlite Havoc (actually an American plane) equipped with a A/S/O Admin: 1942 | 69 searchlight in its nose which was turned on as soon as it was fairly sure it had an enemy in its sights. Its hidden partner, a single-seater fighter, then swooped into the attack out of the darkness onto the enemy in the searchlight ’s glare. It was a strange and rather beautiful sight to see the sudden, disembodied beam of light switch itself on, out of nowhere, in the dark sky to catch and hold the enemy plane, a helpless tiny object seeking by desperate evasive action to drop out of the lethal light and avoid instant destruction. But apparently it did not always turn out quite as intended, and the system never became widespread. The squadron’s pilots flying Mosquitoes were for part of the time a bunch of Canadians. They were housed at a pub called The Pheasant, a short distance away from the camp, while we WAAF officers filled several of the married quarters. I found myself sharing a room with one Joyce McFadden, a WAAF Catering Officer, a fairly newish breed amongst commissioned WAAF, as were Accounts Officers. We went over to the big main building for all meals. The majority of the WAAF Other Ranks and Airmen lived in the barracks that in peacetime had accommodated the unmarried men. They had their own dining rooms and the usual NAAFI where they could pay for platefuls of baked beans and chips to make up the deficiencies of the standard issue food, or just sit in the evenings over extended cups of tea. At least it was warm in the winter and, to many, not unbearably squalid. In addition to this camp accommodation, two large houses had been taken over for use as hostels for the Clerks S/D who worked shifts in the station’s Operations Room. Garlogs, the nearer and smaller of these two houses, was entirely filled by a couple of these Special Duties watches. The main house’s history dated back to the early fourteenth century. The building taken over by the RAF was a comfortable, friendly, three-storied house built in 1841, with a terrace and stone steps leading to the front door which was graced by a Doric portico. Behind the house stretched a largish garden dotted with bits of statuary. Here the girls could rest and sunbathe in seclusion. There was even a sizeable fish pond as well as a walled kitchen garden. The snags were: no easy access to the NAAFI where cigarettes and minor items of toiletry could be had (and very...

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