21 September 1940

Oh dear. Ken Holland was in the bad books; his natural vibrancy got the better of him. He slept in until 8.25 a.m., needing as much sleep as he could get after his late night/early morning. Later on, he flew as Blue Two with Flight Lieutenant Thomas on a flap that was of such little consequence it did not make it into 152 Squadron’s Operations Record Book. Perhaps it was just as well, as our young Australian had put up a number of blacks. First off, there was just sheer bad flying. Then he carried out a blitz dive and lost the knockout patch off UM-N’s cockpit hatch. (BTW: if anyone can tell me what a knockout patch is, I would be very grateful.) And if all that wasn’t bad enough, without a hint of enemy aircraft in the general area, he fired ten rounds from each gun.

Ken was well and truly ticked off when he landed, and, sorry to say, he thoroughly deserved it. But it is hard to be unforgiving of such boyish joie de vivre. After all, Ken was only 20. What sort of hi-jinks did we all get up to as 20 year olds? I’m certainly not confessing!

 

While Ken was proving that boys (or at least 20 year olds) will be boys, John Crossman was taking life as seriously as he could. The mechanics had finished their ministrations of V6748 and John wanted to try her out. ‘Took my kite up for a fly this morning.’ After twenty minutes of putting V6748 through her paces, Johns verdict was ‘It handles very well.’ But he had noted that the sights were off so, he then ‘spent an hour checking the harmonising of the guns and sights. The sight was out and also two of the guns. The other six were OK.’

All tuned up, John had the chance to try her out on an operational sortie, another wing patrol with 249 Squadron. But the ‘weather was very thick so no show. Landed very late. Almost dark, were using navigation lights where we came in.’ Perhaps Bill Millington flew that 90 minute patrol over the Thames Estuary as well, and so two Australians were in the air, in almost the same area, at the same time, scouting for enemy raiders. We can assume that he was, but we can’t know as 249 Squadron did not record the names of the pilots who participated in that patrol.