Thursday, 22 January 2004
Dear All,
I’ve just been reading “Bring Back my Stringbag” at excellent account of life flying the Swordfish, in it the author mentions writing songs and joining in singing already established squadron songs.
In my continuing effort to preserve our aviation audio recordings I need your help. As far as I am aware no official or unofficial record exists of these songs, and they die out with the passage of time of the disbandment of a squadron.
I’m looking for information on aviation songs, not just FAA ones, they could be RAF, Army or civilian, about particular types of aircraft and or individual squadrons. The songs were often sung in the “one song to the tune of another” fashion, the music often from a popular song of the period.
Can you remember any aviation related songs, like the “Wattisham Lightning Song” for instance? Do you have on tape? Any information gratefully received, even its just the lyrics or the tune to which the songs were played?
Chris Butterfield
Lost and Found Aviation Sounds
Web: http://www.one-voice.co.uk/lafas
email: [email]lafas@one-voice.co.uk[/email]
By: DazDaMan - 22nd January 2004 at 22:44
Not a real one, but I thought I’d include it anyway (for all I know it may well have been based on a real song)
“Our name is Hornet Squadron,
no bloody good are we.
We cannot shoot, we cannot fight
nor march like infantry.
Yet when it comes to pay parade
we shout with all our might:
Per Ardua Ad Astra
F**k you, Jack, I’m all right!”
😉
By: von Perthes - 22nd January 2004 at 17:51
From ‘The bawdy songs & ballads of World war II’ by Martin Page (pub 1975 by Granada)
‘This was preferably sung in American Air Forces preserves, with the resultant punch-up’
(To the tune of ‘John Brown’s body’)
‘Flying Flying Fortesses at forty thousand feet,
(repeat twice)
We’ve got bags of ammunition and a teeny weeny bomb
As we go rolling on.
But fly Avro Lancasters at zero zero feet,
(repeat twice)
We’ve got F&%k all ammunition and a great big blooming bomb,
As we go rolling on’
(To the tune of ‘It’s foolish but it’s fun)
‘I love to be a WOP/AG,
and fly all over Germanee,
and get shot up to bugeree,
it’s foolish but it’s fun’
I remember a song being printed in FlyPast some time back about the time an RAF squadron accidentaly dropped a bomb on a pub toilet. I’ll have a look in the morning, when I get home from work, see if I can find it, if someone else hasn’t posted it in the meantime.
Geoff.
By: Arabella-Cox - 22nd January 2004 at 16:04
I recall this one from 205/209 Sunderland squadron Seletar, but can’t recall the other verses
They say that the Sunderland’s a mighty fine kite
This we no longer doubt.
If you get caught with a MiG up your ar*e
This is the way to get out.
Keep calm and keep cool and sedate
Don’t let your British blood boil,
Don’t hesitate, slam it right through the gate
And smother the *******s in oil!
Ref the Wattisham Lightning song, I was on 29 Sqn from 67-69 and can’t recall a song, someone please refresh these few cells I have left!
To those who served at the former RAF station of Katunayake/Negombo perhaps you recall the following sung to the tune of Galway Bay:-
If you ever go across the sea to Changi
They will tell you of a little emerald isle
Where the coconuts are always ten a penny
And the men of Lanka Luft all make a pile
When they tell you this my friend then don’t believe them
Or they’ll post you to Negombo straight away
Where you’ll find yourself a job on jungle rescue
Or doing G.C.T. at D.L.A.
You must keep a wary eye for TicPalongas
Another one for nuts upon the brain
And there’s just another trap for the unwary
And it revels in the name of Monsoon Drain!
Now its not the sight of snakes alone that get you
Or the amount of elbow bending that you do
That gets you home on a CaseVac Hastings
Its just a combination of the two
When the time has come for you to leave this island
And you sail out from Colombo one fine day
Spare a thought for those that you have left behind
Who dream of home 6000 miles away!
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January 22, 2004 at 3:37 pm