DIARY NOTES
Location
12 Operational Training Unit Chipping-Warden, near Banbury, northwest of London
Put in the list for crews - A typical bomber crew, consisting of a pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator, mid-upper gunner and rear gunner, formed up on its own in an Operational Training Unit with the final member, the flight engineer, joining them later when they started training at the Heavy Conversion Unit
CGI - Chief Ground Instructor
Henderson - Johnston's navigator
Marsden - Johnston's wireless operator
Epstein - Colleague who trained with Johnston at Chipping-Warden – likely a bomb aimer
AG - Air Gunner
Kirsch - Canadian pilot and friend, who trained with Johnston, and was later posted to 90 Squadron at Tuddenham
Prang - Crash a plane, usually on take-off or landing at an airfield
Mossie - Mosquito fighter-bomber. The RAF’s Mosquito, or “Mossie”, was a versatile twin engine plane, with a mainly plywood construction that made it both agile and faster than any fighter. It was durable, could fly to altitudes above 10,000 metres, and had exceptional combat range. These features made the two person plane invaluable not only as a bomber, but as a fighter, a Pathfinder, and for photo reconnaissance.
Beat up of the field - Low level high speed flyover of an airfield, frowned on by the Commanding Officers
BAT - Blind Approach Training – learning to fly in poor visibility
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January 6, 1944 (Thursday)
Put in the list for crews to the CGI today. I put in Henderson
Navigator and Marsden Wireless Operator. The rest I left open. I
expect though, I’ll get Epstein – he’ll be okay I guess as I’m not
very hard to get along with usually as long as he knows his business.
The AG I put in the hands of fate – I don’t even know what they
look like!
Kirsch has buzzed off to town tonight to treat his crew to a dinner
so they can get to know each other (on my money incidentally). I
had my haircut tonight in the mess.
There was a big prang today – a Mossie was doing a beat up of the
field (ex BAT flight instructor) and he went in too low! Tore a
hole in the roof of the BAT flt after bouncing off the field itself.
The tail was torn off and rammed into a hangar and hung there. The
rest of the plane bounced over the CGI block where I was and landed
two hundred yards away in a field across the road. Nothing left
at all. When it exploded on landing pieces flew all over the place
and I got one. There was ammo exploding for three quarters of an
hour and clouds of black smoke. An example of what not to do!
Mosquito
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