baloffskiMy mother, born and raised in Liverpool, lived on West Derby Road during the war. In 2007 she narrated a short video story about her Liverpool aunt, uncle, and cousin — the only survivors, said Mom, of a direct hit on a shelter on 28 Nov 1940. The story is illustrated with various Blitz photos, some from Liverpool, some not. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of all details, but Mom did consult reference books at the time she wrote it.
Cheers,
Matt
The Memorial Service is reported here:
baloffskiBearing in mind that it is nearly 30 years ago and I have had lots of bangs on the head since (including many many centring spike strikes when refuelling Hunters).
I am sure I recall being sent out to do a see off on a red civvy single seat Hunter (G-HUNT I think) for the ’82 air show at Valley. I dropped the Avpin panel as one would on an F6, and upon looking inside no starter was found. Luckily the pilot arrived and put me out of my misery by explaining that the jet was ex Swiss(?) and they were all electric start versions.
Hope this offers a new avenue for research?
Just been thinking about this a bit more and I am pretty sure that during start, the engine had to be self sustaining within 7 seconds (carts) and 10 seconds (Avpin) which possibly equates to 1600 RPM.
On the civvy jet mentioned above, it may have been my imagination but during the electric start cycle there was much clicking of what sounded like fairly big relays so there may have been a soft start system fitted?
baloffskiThere might not be many ex chief out there willing to be a chief liney in the cold without pay and a sgt mess to get drunk in afterwards for a couple of quid[PHP][/PHP]
There are one or two of us!
And as for the mess, it was where most business was conducted. I could always count on the Mrs B of the time to come and pick me up from happy hour after a few pints of Ruddles County at 75p a pint; happy in the knowledge that a bottle of curry ketchup bought on a Bruggen run had been a successful barter for getting some job or other sped through the system.
I was a Trucky ‘Crew Chief’ and personally have no objection to anyone who takes charge of all the engineering on an aircraft and accepts the reponsibility that brings, calling themselves the Aircraft Crew Chief, or Grand Pumbah of Aircraft Trickery if that is what they want to be referred to as.
baloffskiA book called “The Liverpool Firebobbies” by Frank O’Reilly has a lot of quite detailed information on the type of ordnance and the damage it caused by location in Liverpool during the war. The information is taken from the Fire Brigade Divisional Logs.
I was always told that the last raid of the war dropped bombs on Hitler’s brother’s house, and this book confirmed that the last raid did indeed damage and destroy houses in Upper Stanhope Street. The copy I viewed was in the Central Library which is unfortunately closed at the moment for restoration though I have heard that arrangements to view can be made.
baloffskiThis is one of the things I was thinking of when I made my shaken warmly by the neck comment. Merchandising is surely one of the cornerstones of a successful fundraising effort, it can raise oodles of money, it makes people feel part of the effort and allows them to show that they are to others.
Enough has been written here and elsewhere about perceived financial failings. Some I agree with and some find a bit harsh, but the sheer fact is this finger pointing isn’t limited to one or two disaffected punters venting on the interweb, it appears to be quite a widespread feeling.
I desperately want this all to work and am still happy to throw a few quid in the pot when it is neeed, all I want in return is a feeling that the money I do contribute is used to greatest effect, and an end to the precipice of calamity fundraising speeches.
baloffskiSome info you may find interesting here:
baloffskiAnother Skin of the Teeth job!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-11663661
Though the fact they are still in effect over £30K behind the line is a bit of a concern?
I do wish somebody would take the project and shake it warmly by the neck to get what is a very sad state of affairs to be in sorted; either way, once and for all. That way threats of redundancy or begging bowls are never used as a lever to prise my hard earned out of my wallet again.
baloffskiI am hearing Shadow R1 will go to the Army as the asset it ‘replaced’ was an Army asset used elsewhere. Supposedly, it is could be used as a bit of a barter chip for any future realocation of funds, with the Royal Marines being thrown into the pot as they are a Shadow end user and the Navy wanting to keep some element of fixed wing ops in the short term. All very political!
So can we afford to be 1(F)less for ten years? Afford to lose an important BofB plate?
baloffskiGood reply Pagen01 but a few things:
5 (AC) will disband at the end of the Afghan campaign as the Sentinel will be done away with, but it could reform straight away(ish) with Rivet Joint 707’s.
I doubt XV (R) will disband it is the biggest Sqn in the RAF and will still be very important in the Tornado world.
Now for the bones of contention:
Historically, and that after all is what we are about:
Keep 99 who have been truckies for the last fifty years on and off but disband 14 with nearly unbroken offensive air since they formed?
Keep 60 who spent most of there op time in the middle east but ditch Battle of Britain Sqn 41?
Should the RAF be without 1(F) arguably the most important and if you count balloon ops the oldest Sqn in the world, for ten years waiting for JSF?
As stated above 5 could reform almost imediately with RC135 but then what of 51?
baloffski[QUOTE=Phantom Phil;1653431]Well said Mr. Mills!!!
If the ball was in my court to reduce spending i’d….
1/ Ditch JSF F35 and keep reduced numbers of Harrier but also suppliment these with refirbished F/A-18C’s with updated avionics (maybe taken from Typhoon) and also refitted with EJ200
As a ‘toom type I thought you would have shyed away from re-engining an aircraft. It went badly i believe with the Spey fit and I shudder to think how many lines of code would need to be re-written simply to accomodate the differences in intake dynamics between Typhoon and Hornet.
My personal take on this is that the only fixed wing aircraft which the Royal Navy will ever fly off either carrier again will be Predator/Reaper or whatever BAE Systems come up with in the UAV world.
Something a bit bigger than Reaper could do AWACS and then self designate/shoot to defend the carrier leaving the Predator to find the targets on the ground and Reaper to shoot them in support of Army or RM ops.
Cat and Trap will be purely used by Rafale when we long term lease POW to the French as I reckon the F35 order will be drastically reduced to just the RAF buy in the next review, if not sooner if a get out clause can be negotiated.
baloffskiI imagine at least one of the ‘tooms at Leuchars will be fairly safe, although with a repaint to include a flying can opener on the nose. After all 6 were the first sqn to operate the mighty twin man twin fan superjet.
baloffskiWhen they produce the Rabbi and fifty other jewish people who lived in Dresden at the time of the bombing who are complaining. then I will support their request to not build the memorial. Instead how about 6 million gravestones with the Star of David on, will that be more acceptable?
I would love to hear the Gaffe Meister Boris Johnson’s views!:eek:
baloffskiI am sure that comedian Mark Thomas did one of his “exposes” on the pipeline about ten years ago, I think the programme was about features that don’t appear on OS maps – the pumping stations being one of the examples used.
If memory serves me correctly when you see what looks like a stunted telegraph pole with a dayglo orange roof on the top that marks where the pipeline travels.
baloffskiWithout wishing to create panic among the horses and not really applicable to Merlin bits; but there can be fairly significant amounts of beryllium in aircraft built from around the mid 1950’s onward and that can present quite a health problem if inhaled when blasting etc.
Notable uses are drive shafts, some relays and as a soldering/brazing medium. I am sure that a good outlet blasting cabinet filter and ori-nasal mask will take care of the nasty’s though.
Back to Cadmium, the metal bands on the old issue Amplivox Ear Defenders were cad plated and one of the entry routes for cad poisoning is through cuts. Most if not all Hunter Lineys had a cut on the top of their heads from forgetting the centring spike in the wheel bay dragging the fuel hose in. So obviously the pain in my kidneys most mornings was cad poisoning not the gallon of McEwans Export from the night before!
baloffskiAs I understand it the V force had ASC or Aircraft Servicing Crew hence the ability to be a Sgt ASC.
I can assure you that we were most definitely not ASC on RAF C130 but AGE – Aircraft Ground Engineer, mainly abbreviated to GE in the RAF but referred to almost everywhere else as the Crew Chief. This is also the case with VC10, TriStar and C17.
It has to be said that V Force ASC had a bit of a prima donna reputation in the RAF, and we avoided the stigma of being called Crew Chiefs as much as possible. However, now I am promoted Mr it is sometimes easier to refer to myself as an ex Crew Chief.
ASC went back to Halton/Cosford to do what was a mechanic level trade course for each trade and then into the type school for the conversion to whichever aircraft they were destined to be posted onto. The whole course took I believe anything up to 2 1/2 years.
As a C130K AGE we did the four trade specific Q course in the school and a shed load of on the job training in all the trades except our own; before joining the fleet as a U/T (Under Training) GE and ultimately passing the check ride and getting sent out to the world with your big yellow toolbox holdall full of spares and on Hercs , a hammock.
Happy Days indeed!
I have just remembered, there is an excellent book describing the life of a Vulcan ASC called ‘The FOBS Kid Syndrome’ by Barry Goodwin which I would commend to anyone interested in the life of 60s/70s Groundcrew on Vulcans
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