The Hadwen Family of Lancashire

Corp Edward Stanley Harrison, 538323 Born 15 July 1919 (15/07/1919)

Stan was born in Gosforth, Erinshire, Australia, the family returned to England in 1921 because of his mother's health. His father found work as a gamekeeper on the Fenwick estate at Burrow, North Lancashire. Stan went to the Queen Elizabeth School in Kirby Lonsdale, Westmoreland [now Cumbria].

He left School at 16 after gaining his School Certificate and worked on local farms for the next year or so. With good jobs difficult to come by in the Thirties he decided to join the RAF, enlisting on 17th February 1937. His older brother, David, had joined the year before.

Basic training was at Uxbridge when in May he was detailed to be part in the precession party for the coronation of King George VI, living under canvas in Hyde Park. This extended his basic training and included extra drill and bull but was measured and fitted for an extra smart uniform!

He moved on to an armourer's course at Eastchurch and whilst there Stan heard that his brother had been seriously injured in a road accident at Henley when the RAF bus he was travelling in left the road and crashed into a ditch. Stan was flown from Eastchurch in an `old Hind' to the hospital at Cranwell to visit David, who had a broken spine. David was transferred to the orthopaedic hospital at Gobowen near Oswestry but died just before Christmas 1937.

Stan joined 113 Squadron at Grantham in late 1937, becoming an armourer, plumber', in the squadron workshop before joining C' flight when they moved to Egypt.

During a stay in hospital Stan remembers a ginger haired Sgt pilot being admitted after he had crashed his Hind into a tree during a night landing, the sergeant not being seriously hurt.

In April 1937 the squadron sailed, non stop, to the Middle East on board HMT Lancashire. There is a photo in the `album', taken on board ship, showing airmen involved in a pillow fight on a pole, all entertainment was home made! The ship docked at Alexandria, Egypt, on the 8th May, the squadron moving on to the airfield at Heliopolis near Cairo.

The base was the permanent `home' of 208 [Army Co-operation Squadron] with Hawker Audax and Fairley Gordon, later Westland Lysanders and 216 [Bomber/Transport] Squadron with Vickers Valencia and later Bristol Bombays.

113 moved into newly built accommodation which comprised of wooden huts with tin roofs that overhung to form verandas (see photo of `Nice Fruit', the man who went around the camp selling fruit and toping up the water char gars, who is seen asleep on a veranda). This accommodation was not up to the standard of the 3 story brick buildings of the other squadrons. There was one large hanger for the squadron aircraft with a tarmac hard standing around the hanger. The airfield did not have permanent runways, just sand.

Heliopolis was also an `airport' for the Imperial Airways HP42 Hannibal class airliner, which Stan says you could see coming a long way in the distance, it taking about half an hour to reach the field and coming straight in. No air traffic control!

Each day at 6.30am the airmen were marched the half or so mile from their billets to the hanger area and worked until Tiffin' at midday. The rest of the day was free, unless on guard duty, etc and you could sign out and go in to town, Heliopolis or Cairo, wearing civvy clothes. There was a lot to see for the new boys in this exotic land with visits to the pyramids, palaces and tombs (see pictures of mummies being taken from the Dead City') Stan was a very keen cricketer and was opening batsman in the squadron team, the games being played against other RAF and Army units in the area. He also was a keen bridge player and would play at any opportunity with Jim Oliver, Tich' Witts and Groupy' Bruce who invariably was smoking his pipe.

The barracks block allocated to Stan was numbered 162. How this allocation was done he does not know because he was not with any of his work mates. The Mess Hall was shared with the other two squadrons and Stan thinks it was enlarged when 133 arrived.

The squadron was made up of three flights, A, B and C. each having 3 Hinds, making a total of 9 aircraft [Stan does not recall any `spare' aircraft]. Each flight had 4 different trades to look after the planes; one flight mechanic [engine] and one flight rigger [airframe] for each plane and one armourer and one electrician for the flight of 3 giving a total of 8 men under the supervision of a Sergeant/Flight Sergeant, who was also a tradesman, normally a fitter aero engines [FAE]. These tradesmen were Technical Trade Group II. The fitters were Technical Group I and were, usually, based in the squadron workshops and were higher qualified.

The work on the base in the pre-war days was fairly easy going but the NCO's made sure there was always something to do. The officers rarely interfered; they were only required to sign the chits to get things from the stores. During the working day not much notice was taken of rank and saluting was not normally bothered with but discretion had to be used at times. Shortly after arriving in Egypt the dress code was changed and stockings were worn in place of puttees, much to everyone's delight.

The dust could cause problems with the guns so care had to be taken not to use too much oil. After signing to Form 700, Stan enjoyed the flight to test the guns following servicing. The squadron had air gunners so the ground crew were not often called upon to fly.

The Hinds normally carried small practice bombs though the racks could hold a total of four 120 lb bombs. Stan does not recall Hinds carrying anything larger than the 20 pound practice smoke bombs; he thinks they would be unable to take off with large bombs. The ground crew would be detailed to spot the fall of the bombs on the range that was situated on the Cairo to Suez road, 5-6 miles East of Heliopolis. The Hind had one fixed Vickers gun on the port side of the fuselage fired by the pilot and one flexible Vickers Gas Operated (VGO) in the rear cockpit, although a Lewis gun could be used. Stan is fairly certain it was a VGO this is confirmed in the photo of the armourer cleaning ammunition with VGO pans on the shelves.

The squadron was commanded by S/Ldr Cator [`Curly'] with the pilots being a mix of Officers/ Warrant Officers, Flt Sergeants and Sergeants [the total unknown].

The squadron moved to Mersa Matruh in Sept 1938 to take part in exercises and to photo survey the area. It was at this time that Stan saw the only rain in the 4 years he was in Egypt.

The squadron started to receive Blenheim Mk1 in the second half of 1939. As far as the armourers were concerned no special training was given to help service the new planes. Just picked up as it went on!

Stan says that to load a bomb into the bomb bay it was lifted on to his back whilst he was crouching down and with the steadying hands of his mates he then raised himself until the bomb could be located in its position in the rack. The normal load was four 250 pound general purpose bombs, containers of small bombs were also carried, and if so, then the bomb doors were taken off. The bomb bay doors were held closed with a bungee and when the bombs were released the weight of them forced open the doors, and as Stan says `no wonder our bombing wasn't all that accurate'!

The Blenheims came with the UK camouflage scheme applied [dark green and earth brown uppers and sides with light blue/green underneath]. The dark green was then over painted with a sand colour [tan?].

All in the squadron were very friendly. In the desert, especially in action, everyone, including the officers, `mucked in'.

The squadron moved from Heliopolis to Ma'aten Bagush when Italy entered the war in June 1940. The squadron made a succession of moves supporting the land battles towards and into Libya. Each new landing ground very much like the previous one, just flat a flat dusty area with no facilities, and these moves are very much a blur to Stan. There often wasn't time to pitch tents and so just slept wrapped in blankets and the nights did get cold. The priority was to keep the planes flying! He does remember arriving at an ex Italian airfield, probably El Adam, with badly damaged buildings and being told off by a Flt Sgt for `scrounging' around the area, it was explained that there were likely to be booby traps around.

One incident that Stan does recall was the time that a Blenheim was flown back after a sortie by the navigator/bomb aimer after the pilot was shot in the head. The airman was Ian Jock' Blair who was an LAC armourer in A flight. Jock was always keen to volunteer for flying duties, being nuts' about flying, and had therefore was interested in watching the pilot fly the plane. This was obviously useful when Jock took over from the shot pilot! Stan remembers the plane making a long approach before making a successful if bumpy landing. The watchers were aware of the situation and applauded when the aircraft came to rest. Stan understood that the pilot had been killed by a single bullet from an Italian fighter and he could not see how he could have been shot by his own turret gunner. Stan believes that Jock was awarded the DFM and sent on a pilot's course. [see Cpl Say]

In March 1941 the squadron was sent in great haste to Greece and landing at Piraeus, then moving up to an airfield at Larissa. Stan believes that the Blenheims flown by the squadron were Mk 1, short nose. This field was surrounded by a ditch and earth wall which gave little protection to personnel when the Germans strafed the field. Stan is certain the ME109's that attacked had yellow noses and that no German planes were shot down. Stan does remember one incident whilst at Larissa; the CO, S/Ldr Spencer, making a superb landing with one engine of the Blenheim shot out. The field being surrounded by the wall and ditch was not easy to land on. All the squadron's planes were destroyed and they withdrew to Athens, leaving Piraeus onboard the sloop HMS Flamingo. Stan is uncertain where they landed but thought they sailed directly to Palestine.

The squadron spent 4/5 weeks re-equipping in Ramleh, Palestine, then returned to the desert in June.

After 4 years in the squadron, Stan now a corporal left, around July/August 1941, to join a Maintenance Unit, firstly, for a short time at Amriya then to Ismailia.

He returned to the UK, via South Africa, South America and New York in, probably, July-August 1942. Prior to returning Stan was taken by air in, he thinks, a Valencia to Palestine to pick up his kit which had been stored there since he moved from Heliopolis at the start of the war. All his kit was safe and in good order, hence the survival of the album! The journey from South Africa to UK was on board the RMS Queen Elizabeth, where one of his duties was to guard POWs, the only time he carried a rifle in anger, but what use it would have been against hundreds of prisoners he doesn't know! The Queen Elizabeth sailed to Rio de Janeiro then to New York, where he got Jack Dempsey's autograph, then to England with the ship full of GI's

The rest of the war was, apart from a short spell with a Sunderland squadron in the North of Scotland, was spent with Maintenance Units at various airfields in England. In 1944 he attended a fitter's course at Kirkham, Lancashire. Stan having married Isabel in January 1944 was only 25 miles or so up the road from her so he acquired a bike and cycled home as many times as he could. On completion of the course he moved on to Technical Group 1 with an increase in pay.

He was still a corporal at the end of the war and was [and still is] aggrieved, like others, that he and many of the regular pre-war airmen had wartime conscripts promoted over them. Although he does agree that they were probably better trained on the new equipment.

Names of people remembered by Stan with some little information:

Jim Oliver, 530421, Stan's pal, flight mech C flight, from Peebles, Scotland. Jim stayed in the RAF reaching the rank of Warrant Officer after 24 years service.
Pooky' Jones, Armourer B flight. cricketer fast bowler, from Wales Nunky' Corner, flight rigger ? flight, from Scotland.
Eddie Lowe, armourer in workshop, from Liverpool.
Ginger' Barrett, armourer A flight, from Kent. Taff' Evans, ?????
Tich' Witts, ????? Groupy' Bruce, storeman, always smoking a pipe.
Pilot Officer Willie' Williams, Armaments Officer, left squadron before action started, father a vicar. Sgt Bagguley, pilot, from Carnforth, Lancashire, nearly a neighbour of Stan. Cpl Tom Parkinson, clerk in the office? Mother on the radio [cooking] Bill Bailey, flight rigger, ? flight. Hud' Maguire, flight rigger or mech? From Scotland.
Sam Harding, fitter aero engines, workshop, from Devizes, Wiltshire.
Flt Sgt Pierce, armourer, workshop.

SOURCE: Compiled by Jim Newton, Lancaster UK