THOSE CANBERRA DAYS

THAT there is still a thriving and active Canberra Association and that the PR9 variant is still fully operational at RAF Marham testify to the esteem and durability of a remarkable aircraft. It was as long ago as the 1950s when it established 22 FAI world records, which included those to Australia and New Zealand.

Shortly after completing navigation training in Winnipeg (1952-3), I had my first flights in a Canberra when I was temporarily assigned as a 'Safety Observer' with No XV Squadron at RAF Coningsby. Up to then, two-man crews of pilot and navigator had flown the B2s.

However, the workload involved, together with a series of incidents involving practice bombs falling outside the designated danger areas precipitated moves towards pilot and two navigator crews.

The stopgap measure of a 'Safety Navigator' facilitated the checking of target and bomb release settings on the Gee-H equipment; the mainstay of the aircraft's all-weather navigation and blind bombing devices.

RAF Navigator Brevet

AFTER a brief but unsuccessful attempt at becoming an airborne intercept Navigator/Radar on night-fighters, I went to Bomber Command Bombing School at RAF Lindholme, where we were trained in both radar and visual bombing theory and practice.

At RAF Bassingbourn, after an operational conversion course, we were brought together as a 3-man crew of Pilot, Nav/Plotter (responsible for position and timing) and Nav/Observer (responsible for operating the radar and bomb aiming), our crew eventually found ourselves joining 18 Squadron at RAF Upwood, just outside Ramsey.

As I recall, at the time the squadron was equipped with eight Canberra B2s with a complement of l0 crews, and in those days of National Service, a full establishment of uniformed ground staff.

Each crew was required to fly at least 30 hours per month, and this was at a time when five and half day-weeks were still being worked with Saturday mornings usually set aside for compass swings and the like.

18 Squadron Canberra B2

FITTED with wing-tip drop tanks, the range of the Canberra B2 was just sufficient to reach the Soviet satellite countries of the Warsaw Pact and to penetrate beyond the Russian frontier.

At that time, the aircraft was the mainstay of the RAF Bomber force, with its trained crews aimed at discouraging any ambitions the Soviets may have in threatening the integrity or either us or our allies.

Most mass exercises were designed to reflect this, but normal training was dedicated to improving crew skills. For Navigators, this meant navigation and bombing exercises by day and night using all means at our disposal; radar and radio aids, visual, astro-navigation and of course mental dead reckoning.

Attempts were made to calculate the errors caused by taking star shots through the uncalibrated Perspex canopy. Indeed, one enterprising navigator from 18 Squadron called Eric Humpston developed a band-held device called a 'danglometer', which facilitated crude range calculations from distant features.

Crews were set different standards to achieve in their various categories and would be rated both as individuals and crews on their achievements, as either Combat, Combat Star or Select. The higher up the scale a crew climbed, the more flexible became its employment opportunities.

For many others, and myself the most remarkable feature of the Canberra was its service ceiling - only above 45,000 feet did its performance begin to sharply decline. We regularly operated above 40,000 and a Select crew was cleared to visually bomb a practice target from 45,000 feet!

Whenever this happened, being in the aircraft nose position and releasing a bomb seven miles or so before one was actually overhead the target was rather exciting.

Canberra B2 Cutaway

CRUISE climb profiles might see us getting just above 48,000 but some experimental variants got above 50,000 and there is on record the account of a crew ejecting at 56,000 and surviving. The cabin was only pressurized to about 21,000 feet or so; consequently we were on oxygen for most of the time.

A pressure breathing option was available to counter the risk of an emergency decompression and we wore a rather cute little waistcoat, which, in the event, was supposed to counter lung pressure by applying pressure to the outer rib cage. It worked in the decompression chamber but, fortunately, I never had to experience it for real.

Despite having no active defensive weapons, in the early 1950's the Canberra's high level performance and speed did seem to give it a reasonable chance of comfortably penetrating Soviet defences at that time.

A little known fact is that Canberras were for a time, and prior to the introduction of the U2, used to fulfil USA's high-level reconnaissance requirements from beyond the Iron Curtain.

If one did see another aircraft up there with you, it was almost certainly another English Electric Canberra.

As it became operational, we were soon to welcome the English Electric Lightning to our select circle of high altitude aviators: two outstanding British aircraft built by the same company!

Because of the aircraft's range, size and reliability, those appropriately qualified crews were permitted to go on 'Lone Rangers'. In addition to Germany, these were to destinations as far flung as Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Libya, Iraq, Aden and several other Gulf airfields. I once got as far as Nairobi in an 18 Squadron Canberra.

To facilitate these journeys, a pannier was fitted in the bomb bay in which we could carry our suitcases and loot. I seem to recall that there was an emergency spares pack in there too, somewhere. If so, it was rarely needed.

Thus did routine life on the squadron proceed, except for a period when the Canberra fleet was grounded for modifications, This was to eliminate forever a serious problem that had caused some aircraft losses and fatalities when the electrically operated tail plane actuators had spontaneously driven the surface to its upper or lower limit causing the aircraft to go into an irreversible steep climb or dive.

The Squadron Commander thought we might benefit during this period by going on educational trips. Inter alia we visited a wind tunnel, a submarine base and even went down a coal mine.

Another exciting experience, later discontinued due to injuries, was to sit in an ejection seat trainer and be shot up a derricked ramp at high velocity.

In July 1956, 18 Squadron was designated for Operation Alacrity, and to be trained for shallow dive-bombing with readiness for short-notice deployment overseas.

Though we did not know it immediately, we were being earmarked and prepared for what became known as the Suez campaign after President Nasser nationalized the Canal.

The technique called upon the Nav/Bomb Aimer from his prone position in the nose cone to give guidance to the pilot as he winged over to turn into the target. Once lined up and in a shallow dive, the pilot could then release the bomb load himself.

President Nasser of Egypt

ONE evening in late October 1956, we lined up and were surprised by a loudspeaker message informing us that we were confined to camp.

The next day we flew to Nicosia, where four other Canberra squadrons shortly joined us. Units were also positioned in Malta. Hunters were also moved to Cyprus and soon the place was choc-a-block with aircraft.

'We were accommodated in tents and had only very basic latrine facilities.

The nearby Officers' Mess bar soon became eligible for the Guinness Book of Records for cramming 'em in. Every night, it was ankle deep in empty containers.

Having a number of WW2 veterans among us no doubt helped our more serious preparations for active service.

Incidentally, several of these men were highly professional NCO Aircrew whose service predated the policy of commissioning all pilots and navigators.

Our crew flew two operational sorties, both onto targets in Egypt. On our first sortie at night we released marker flares on El Kabrit airfield, using the shallow-dive technique. We encountered some anti-aircraft fire.

The second sortie was during the day, when we by day, we dropped six 1,000- pounders on marshalling yards at Ismailiya, visually from 20,000 feet. This time we did not encounter any countermeasures.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: On 31 October 1956, 38 Canberras performed night attacks on a number of Egyptian airfields. Flt. Lt. John Slater, 34, a veteran of WW2 Wellington and Lancaster raids on Germany, flew the first Canberra. His bombardier was FO Geoffrey Harrop, 23. There was a certain amount of 'wildly directed flak', reaching up to 8,000 ft. 'The weather was clear, and there was no sign of activity on the ground. Lights were put out when the aircraft arrived, but the bombing runs were jolly smooth,' Slater said.

A 00.01 communiqué from Anglo-French headquarters in Cyprus on 1 November said 'Pathfinder' aircraft dropped flares over several targets - Almaza and Inchass, near Cairo, and Abu Sueir and Kabrit, former RAF stations in the Canal Zone. Anti-aircraft fire had been encountered, the communiqué said.

Post-strike assessment showed they inflicted much less damage than desired, so on the same day, 21 separate raids were conducted in daylight, with much more satisfactory results and no losses. More strikes were conducted through 5 November. Meantime, President Eisenhower had reacted angrily to the Anglo-French operation and exerted intense pressure on the British to cease. They did, and a cease-fire was ordered on 6 November)

French forces began arriving at Limassol, Cyprus, on 6 September 1956, aboard the troopship Athos II to prepare for Operation Mousquestaire. Some were based at RAF Akrotiri, while others were stationed at Tymbou, Although Grivas promised he would not attack the French, unless they joined the British Security Forces, an EOKA gang ambushed a vehicle carrying French Paras on the Famagusta-Nicosia road and opened fire with small arms. No casualties were reported among the French troops, who returned the fire. It was the only incident in which the French were involved with the terrorists. - Editor.

General Jean Gilles, Commander of the French airborne forces, leaving British military headquarters with Brigadier N A H Butler.

Our brief experience of war was lightened by swimming trips to Kyrenia (with Sten gun escort due to the EOKA terrorist threat); BBQ parties at the squadron lines, and an invitation to drinks with the French Paras based to the east of Nicosia, at Tymbou, an RAF WW2 airfield. This involved our French hosts driving us in their Jeeps at breakneck speed along mountain tracks - the operational sorties had been less frightening.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Throughout Operation Musketeer, Field-Marshal Sir John Harding, the Governor, maintained the value of Cyprus as a military base was never impaired by the EOKA terrorist campaign.)

We left Cyprus on Christmas Eve and returned home without cheering crowds to welcome us. A few months later 18 Squadron was disbanded and I was posted to 35 Squadron, with its Canberra B2s, at RAF Upwood.

By 1958, I had achieved over 1,000 hours, experience which under policy at the time made me eligible to fulfil my ambition of becoming a Vulcan Navigator. But that and its sequel is another story.

End Note: My co-navigator on 18 was John Flight. He and I kept in touch with Royce Verdon-Roe, our pilot, until he died eight years ago. He was the youngest son of the aviation pioneer Sir A1iot Verdon-Roe. He once told me that his father had a delta shape wing-foil on his drawing board well before the outbreak of WW2.

John and I recently attended each other's 70th birthday parties. Another 18 Squadron pilot with whom I am in close touch is Air Commodore John Pack, both as a friend and because he was the captain of the Vulcan 2 crew with whom I flew and with whom I was fortunate - indeed privileged - to have served. I also still occasionally meet up with another of the squadron's pilots, Jack Sherburn, who was the Instrument Rating Examiner, and RAAF navigator Tony Munday, who was seconded to the squadron on an exchange program. Des Allen and 'Syd' Sidloe, two other navigators from those days,. Whenever any of us meet, we always relive our Canberra days.

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