Tony Cunnane's RAF Years

After the completion of the Air Signaller's Course at Swanton Morley, the few of us who graduated were faced with a wait of several months because there was a blockage in the system which meant that we couldn't immediately be phased into Operational Conversion Units (OCU). I was sent, in May 1957, to RAF Shawbury in Shropshire, where the main station activity was support for the Central Navigation and Control School (CNCS) where they trained, would you believe, air traffic controllers and navigators.

I joined a small squadron of distinguished airmen who flew Vampire NF10 and T11 aircraft. The pilots, both officers and SNCOs and many of them Polish, were mainly ex World War 2 pilots and wore a magnificent display of medals on their blue uniforms, including quite a few DFMs and AFMs. Their job was to fly airfield homing and runway instrument landing procedures for the benefit of the trainee air traffic controllers. Because most of the flying had to be done looking at the cockpit instruments irrespective of the weather conditions, the second seat in the Vampires was occupied by a Safety Pilot whose role was to keep a sharp look out for conflicting aircraft - and warn the pilot accordingly. The safety pilots were almost exclusively former WW2 SNCO air gunners and wireless operators who had just as many medals, including some DFMs and AFMs, as the pilots. One of the flight sergeant air gunners had the CGM, a medal I'd never heard of before. I learned that the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal was the non-commissioned equivalent of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). Although the gunner in question would never tell me what he had done to earn the medal, one of the others told me that he had a large metal plate in his head. Into this exalted group I arrived, a fresh-faced 21-year old sergeant signaller with a grand total of 75 hours in his flying log book. It was daunting but I was made very welcome.

Not surprisingly, there was no-one else in the Sergeants' Mess within about 20 years of my age. The non-aircrew warrant officers and SNCOs almost seemed offended that anyone so young could be a member of their Mess, while the aircrew types tended to keep a fatherly eye on me. The aircrew told me that the non-aircrew members of Sergeants' Messes never really approved of aircrew belonging to their messes. It was the first time that I learned that during the war aircrew SNCOs had their own messes so that they didn't have to mix with the non-aircrew.

There were some conventions I had to learn. When the Station Warrant Officer, who also happened to be the Senior Member of the Mess, came into a room, you stood up until he invited you to sit down again. In the evenings you could not order a drink in the Sergeants' Mess Bar until the SWO had entered and bought his first drink - or someone bought a drink for him. In early June on the occasion of the Queen's Official Birthday, all the members of the Sergeants' Mess assembled at noon in the Bar dressed in No 1 Home Dress, aka Best Blue, to toast Her Majesty. As the youngest member, it fell to me to propose the Loyal Toast and they made me stand to attention on top of a bar stool to do it - which seemed rather incongruous!

I found the flying fascinating and I really enjoyed myself. At one stage I was gently accused of pinching other people's trips so that I could get more flying. I learned a lot about: QGHs, controlled descents through cloud; 'no compass, no gyro' let downs through cloud when the trainee controller had to bring us safely to a low level position in sight of the runway while we simulated that both our compasses were unserviceable; GCAs, ground controlled radar approaches, where the trainee controller talked us down onto the runway using his radar equipment; 'speechless let downs', when we simulated that our radio receiver was unserviceable; and various other simulated emergencies. Apart from our base at Shawbury we also used a satellite airfield at High Ercall and, for GCAs, a tiny hamlet called Sleap where the GCA truck was parked in a corner of a small field and there was no runway at all. On one sortie the pilot took us up to 42,000 feet, carried out a high speed run up to the limiting speed of Mach 0.84 and then dived all the way down to just 100 feet to carry out a simulated attack on a disused airfield somewhere near Shawbury.

.....In early June on the occasion of the Queen's Official Birthday, all the members of the Sergeants' Mess assembled at noon in the Bar dressed in No 1 Home Dress, aka Best Blue, to toast Her Majesty. As the youngest member, it fell to me to propose the Loyal Toast and they made me stand to attention on top of a bar stool to do it - which seemed rather incongruous!

About once a month I had a trip in a Varsity where I carried out the full duties of Air Signaller while a bunch of student navigators tried to navigate us around the country. Those sorties were between 6 and 7 hours long and I was responsible for most of the radio calls and position reporting and also, from time to time, had to obtain true bearings from direction finding stations for the navigators.

On my final day at Shawbury, 18 October 1957, Master Pilot Mullard flew me and most of my Service and personal kit all the way to my new station, RAF Kinloss in Chipmunk WK577. The first leg, from Shawbury to Edinburgh Turnhouse, took 1hrs 40 minutes. After refuelling, the final leg to Kinloss took just 55 minutes.

In my 5 months at Shawbury I had flown 135 sorties amounting to 160 hours.

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