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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0826.PDF
A Gloster Meteor of No. 77 Squadron, with U.S.A.F. personnel building up the revetment. Rocket projectiles lie ready beneath the wings. With WjC. John Hubble, A.F.C., O.C. No. 77 Squadron (centre), are (left) S/L 0. Hillier (officer i/c flying) and SjL. R. Glassop, D.F.C., who took over S/L Hillier's duties shortly after our visit. The metal R.P. boxes seen above make serviceable pavements at No. 77 Squadron's Korean base. (Below, left) FjL. G. Galbraith, M.O. of No. 77 Squadron, confers with W/C. D. A. S. Morgan, S.M.O. of No. 91 (Composite) Wing, R.A.A.F. The adjacent picture shows a Meteor nacelle which sustained a direct hit from a 37 mm shell. Meteor 8s of No. 77 Squadron, R.A.A.F., with P/0. Ken Murray's aircraft —"Black Murray"—in the foreground. THE SHARP END when we met him on the airfield. He showed us the valves on the boots which had to be sealed on entering the water, the blanked-off provision for a G-suit, and the numerous pockets. He considered the suit an excellent garment (after initial discomfort) but disliked the P.i helmet because it restricted his vision and bumped on the canopy. His preference was an ordinary R.A.F. leather helmet. Many of the squadron pilots preferred the American Mae West to the British pattern, and there were numerous variations in rig, according to personal taste. The CO. himself favoured the P.i helmet and considered that it would certainly be needed in the bumpy hot weather. He recommended all pilots to carry a knife as well as a revolver, and would himself prefer it to the revolver for survival. Not only was it useful for cutting oneself free, but for piercing the dinghy (should it inflate in the air), for getting food, and for building a shelter. Finding the waist holsters too bulky, many of the pilots were wearing armpit holsters, which they bought in Japan for about 350 yen. Some had had them adapted to take the knife also. A flashlight was considered an essential item of flying equipment. As for flying conditions, the ruggedness of the Korean terrain can be judged from McLaren's pictures. The physical difficulty of making dive attacks in the valleys (and, what is equally important, getting out afterwards) will be obvious enough. Nor are these the only handicaps, for a pilot newly returned from a sortie told me that an attack on vehicles had been seriously interfered with by turbulence. The rivers, of course, are a useful navigational aid, but otherwise there is little to be said for flying in Korea. Of these matters I talked with the 6ft 3m, 15-stone W/C. Hubble and his officers. That afternoon the wing commander had been leading an escort for B-26S Wonsan-way. I heard that he had flown more than 65 sorties since he took over the squadron from S/L. J. R. Kinninmont, D.F.C., late in 1952, and he told me he was trying to get in one a day. He described the current operations as "a battle of camouflage and flak versus the air." Physically contrasting with him was his opponent at darts— P/O. Ken Murray, D.F.M.—who chalked up sorties with the same frequency as double-tops. Black Murray held the record for the squadron—and possibly for the theatre—for jet combat sorties. That day he had completed his 330th—beating F/L. Wally Rivers by n. Murray had only lately been commissioned, though he was nearing the end of his second operational tour and had applied for a third. The wing commander assured me that his aggressive spirit and experience on jets had proved most valuable to the squadron. F/O. Dick Wittman, D.F.C. (227 sorties), had completed his second tour (and a two-month extension of operational duties), and had been made responsible for testing and instructing at Iwakuni. He had converted 50 replacement pilots on to Meteors. Sharing the stove with their Australian tent-mates were five attached R.A.F. pilots—F/L.s M. E. Whitworth-Jones and (Left) F/0. J. W. Price, R.A.F. (attached to No. 77 Squadron, R.A.A.F.), in full Korean winter-fighting regalia. Shown below is the P.1 helmet as used by pilots of No. 77 Squadron.
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