Are you sure that you're all right? By Charles Roberts

          This is based on a true story of what happened to me when I was in the RAF.

          I suppose it happened when I almost died.  I was an electrician in the Royal Air Force and stationed in Lincolnshire.  This one night it was raining quite heavily, but they were still flying.  I happened to be on duty and was called out, my mate Geordie, who was duty fitter, collected me and drove me out onto the airfield, whilst he drove he told me where we were going and why.

          “The sodium lighting units aren’t working on the north side of runway zero two.  I can’t go nearer than a hundred feet from the runway.  I’ll stay with the wagon and flash my lights when an aircraft is coming in, you’ll have to run back to the wagon until it has landed.”

          “Right!  I hope it’s not much, I don’t fancy a big job in this weather.”

          We drove round the perimeter track and then, as we were nearing the end of the runway, we drove onto the grass and stopped.  Geordie parked up so that I would be able to see him without any problems and he could see exactly what I was doing.  I jumped out of the wagon and filled my pockets with tools then set off across the wet grass.  The first thing I did was check the plugs into each lighting unit, then I checked the cable running from the main distribution board to each unit, just in case the grass cutter had been around and clipped a cable.  The lights flashed and I ran back to the wagon.

          “How many more are due in, do we know?”

          “Three or four I think, there was a lot of static for some reason and I couldn’t hear him too well.”

          “Can you ask him to switch them off then I can check the distribution board.”

          “No problem!  I’ll switch the headlights on and off.”

          “Okay!  Thanks mate.”

          The Phantom landed and after it had reached halfway down the runway I made my way back to the lighting units.  Geordie flashed his headlights to tell me that the flare units had been turned off.  I bent down to open the door of the distribution box, the next thing I knew was that I was being shaken by the shoulder.

“Dick!  Dick!  Come on wake up.”

“What!  What do you want?”

“Come on Dick get up, we’re needed.”

“Oh!” I said blinking and shaking my head.

“Come on will you!  There’s a right flap on!  Will you get out of bed?”

“All right!  I’m coming,” I said swinging my legs off the bed.  I looked down at my stockinged feet, then at my wet boots.  “What time is it?”

“Half past four.”

“Bloody hell!  Does it come round twice in one day?”

“Come on you prat.  I’ve got the tractor outside.”

“Has it stopped raining yet?” I asked looking up at Geoff as he stood at the end of my bed, his hair stuck to his head with rain.

“No!” he said watching as I pulled my boots on, then picked up my still wet raincoat.

“Come on then!  Don’t just stand there dripping all over the end of my bed.”

We walked out of the barracks, the tractor was standing on the road, its head lights trying to shine through small slits in the metal blackout covers.  We jumped onto the dark green painted vehicle and sat on the soaking wet seats.

“Bloody hell!” I cried as I felt the water soak through my woollen trousers and cotton pants.

Geoff started the tractor, put it into gear and we set off.

“What’s the flap?” I shouted above the noise of the engine.

“Everywhere else is fogged in so they are coming in here,” he shouted back.

“What!  In this shit!  Why us?”

“Because we have a long enough runway, and we can light it.”

“Yeah but will they see it in all this low cloud and rain?”

“We’ll see when we’ve lit those lights and they start arriving.  They say this lot will stop in about half an hour.”

“We’ll be drowned by then,” I said to myself. 

Geoff drove straight out to the east end of the runway, all we had to do was drive along the tarmac, stopping every twenty feet or so to light the flare path.  This was an experimental type of lighting called ‘Fido’, and was used to clear the fog, the way it worked was that you lit cans of kerosene set every twenty feet or so along the length of the runway, the heat of the fires heated the air and caused the fog to disperse.  Ours was the first runway to be fitted with this system, so whenever the other airfields in the group were closed because of fog, they would all fly in to us and land, returning to their home airfields when they could.

We knew that it had been a maximum effort that night, we didn’t know where they had been, but we did know that it was in the heart of Germany.  Which could only mean one thing and that would be that a lot of aircraft would come home damaged, some badly damaged.  Some of them might crash on the airfield, or close the runway down, which we couldn’t afford to let happen, so a couple of bulldozers were stationed on the dispersal nearest the east end of the runway.  There was no wind, hence the fog, so they would be coming in from the east.

“Right lads!” a sergeant said as we stopped at the end of runway zero two, he had a burning torch in his left hand and an unlit one in his right, “you know what to do,  You McLuskey start here and work down as quickly as you can.  Turner!  You take the far side of the runway and go as fast as you can, we expect the first ones home in twenty minutes, so you’ll have to run,” he said looking at the two of us, “here you are lad,” he said handing me the lit torch, then handing Geoff the other torch after lighting it from the one I held.  “Get running lads, don’t worry I’ve got some more torches and I’ll be following with the tractor.  Off you go lads, as quickly as you can.”

“You mean we have to walk all the way down the runway Sarg?”

“No lad!  I mean that you have to run all the way down the runway.  They reckon that you two are the best runners on this station.  Well get running.  I want all these cans lit in ten minutes.  Now get going or you’ll have this tractor up your backsides.”

Geoff ran across the runway and started to light the cans, but by the time he’d lit his first one I was on my third.  I think that Geoff and I had been picked because we were deadly rivals on the running track, but the best of friends.  Whenever we were given a job to do we treated it as a race. 

It was a case of running down the edge of the runway putting the torch to the wick sticking out of a can of kerosene, lighting it, and running to the next can.  We’d been going for about two minutes when the rain stopped, not only had the rain stopped, but my torch had gone out.  I ran out to the sergeant, who was driving down the middle of the runway, for a new torch, he lit one and handed it to me, after I had thrown my raincoat onto the tractor, I ran back to my work, the flames from the torch roaring as the wind blew them.

I looked across the runway and saw Geoff, he was one in front of me.

We’d just gone past the halfway point when we heard it, the sergeant tuned the tractor and drove onto the grass somewhere behind me.  Both Geoff and I knew that we should get off the runway, but we both continued lighting the cans, running and dipping the torch into a can, without breaking step if we could.  I looked back, but couldn’t see anything so I kept on going, run, dip, run, dip, run.  The noise of the engines was getting louder, he sounded to be all right, but you never knew if they had been hit or not.

I glanced back again and saw him, I whistled to Geoff before going onto the grass, but kept on running.  I heard the tyres screech as his wheels touched the tarmac, then the engine note changed.  I stopped and crouched down as the huge Lancaster came past me, the spray from his wheels and propellers temporarily blinding me and almost blowing my torch out.  Then I was up and running again.  Dipping every twenty feet or so to put my torch to a can.  Again I heard the noise of those four huge engines, I glanced behind me and saw another coming in.  It was slower running on the grass but the job had to be done. Again I crouched down as he came past, I saw that part of his tail fin was missing and, what was left, full of holes.  Shaking my head, I stood and continued, almost there, I could see the end of the runway. 

Another one came in and again I had to crouch as he past.  I watched him as he reached the end of the runway he turned right and went round the perimeter track to one of the dispersals.  I had just started to move when I heard another aircraft coming in, this one didn’t sound the same.  I looked back down the runway, he had one propeller feathered, stopped, his wheels screeched as they touched the tarmac, he bounced. I instinctively knew that something was wrong. His wheels touched again, again he bounced, not quite as high, his wheels screeched again, once more he bounced.  Something was definitely wrong with this one.

His wheels hit the runway one more time, but this time his right wheel collapsed, the aircraft started to swing to the right, then the left wheel collapsed.  The propellers hitting the tarmac and being bent backwards as the speeding aircraft continued careering across the runway and onto the grass, the problem was that I was right in its wayward path.  I started to run, the noise of metal screeching on the tarmac getting louder and louder, and my wet uniform trousers clinging to my legs slowing me down.  I put my head down and ran as fast as I could, the noise of the aircraft now deafening.  I glanced behind me, the nose of the Lancaster filled my vision, and then it hit.

I was sat on the wet grass about five yards from distribution box.  I could see blue, yellow, red and green lights flashing between the plugs, the wires and the metal box.  I noticed the vehicle lights flashing, picking myself up I walked as quickly as I could to Geordie who was standing by the drivers’ door.

“Are you all right?” he asked as I approached.

“I think so,” I said looking round for the aircraft, which I knew had hit me, but all I could see was the workshop vehicle and the runway lights stretching off into the distance.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I just opened the box door and.” Should I tell him, I quickly thought, no! He’d never believe me, “the next thing was I was sat on the wet grass looking into the box, there’s sparks flying everywhere in there.”

I waited until the next aircraft had landed before going back out to the distribution box.  I kicked the door shut with my rubber soled shoe.

Geordie flashed the lights so I went back to the van.

“This is the last one,” he said, “the tower told me to leave it for the day staff.”  The last aircraft landed, as soon as it touched down a Land Rover set out from the control tower, its bright yellow light flashing, and sped round the perimeter track. He crossed the runway and came straight for us screeching to a halt near the van, a Squadron Leader jumped out.

“Are you all right?” he asked, “I was watching you.  When I saw the flash and you were thrown backwards I thought that you were a goner.”

“I’m fine thank you Sir,” I replied.

“Okay lads, get yourself off now and leave it to the day staff.  I’ve put it in my log,” he said climbing into his Land Rover and driving off back towards the control tower.  Geordie and I climbed into the workshop van and drove back to the workshops.  We both wrote up our log books.

“What did you see Geoff?  When I went flying?”

“There was a big white flash, it lit the whole place up, and you were flying backwards.  You hit the ground but didn’t move.  I wasn’t sure what to do, I couldn’t leave the van to see if you were all right, and besides the tower was straight on to me asking what had happened.  The duty controller had been watching through his binoculars.  You sat there for a few minutes without moving, then you got up and came to the van.  Why?  What do you think happened?”

“Pass!  I just opened the distribution box door and the next I knew was that I was sat on the wet grass with you flashing the lights at me.  Have you finished?”

“Yeah!  Come on let’s call it a day.  Why did you call me Geoff?”

“What?”

“You just called me Geoff.”

“Did I?  Oh!  Right.” 

“Are you sure that you’re all right?”