Page 21

August 28, 1942 brought the permanent Under-Secretary of State for Air, The Honourable H.H. Balfour, Air Vice Marshall Cole Hamilton and their staff as visitors for an inspection of the station...an impressive moment for the squadron! Aircraft at that time were three Catalinas and seven Lerwicks.

Roy Dewar of Cabri, Saskatchewan was one of the earliest to arrrive at Castle Archdale from Invergordon. The first crews were Nick Honey's, W/O Len Limpert's and W/O H.P. Burt-Gerrans', but on the trip to Russia Burt -Gerrans flew as second pilot to Len Limpert.

Then Roy Dewar flew with Burt-Gerrans on the ferry trip on Catalinas.

(Sadly Burt-Gerrans was later killed in a crash at Oban on December 19, 1942.)




THE WALLS HAVE EARS
After various flights testing compass and other details on the Catalinas, Joe Corkindale one of the air crew was crewed up (Appendix 4 for detachment crews) with S/L Roger Hunter, Capt. Nick Honey, Keith Patience (all pilots), Navigator John Knox, WOP/AG Ralph Shepherd, F/L Pat Morrison, F/Eng E.F. Wilson, to take off for Invergordon on the Secret Mission as they thought, only to be advised by the waitress in the local cafe that they were probably going to Russia! This was confirmed when they saw the cargo on aircraft FP103 on August 29, 1942.

On the aircraft were boxes of Hurricane spare parts painted in white letters "To Murmansk by Air," on Invergordon Railway Station for a few days for all to see! On August 30, 1942 they flew to Murmansk, taking off at 1600 hours...flying time 8:40 day and 7:00 hours night. During the flight, radar immediately discovered land at 18 miles on the starboard at 2:00 o'clock....PANIC, they altered course 90 degrees at 500' for one hour while searching for the directional problem...the problem was a box of piston rings between the two pilots under the compass! They took bearings then from a Russian Radio Station which gave a call sign two minutes in every hour, duly touching down on the river just outside of Murmansk.

Crews were highly impressed with the efficiency. One operation using a half dozen Russians, took eight minutes from when the engines were cut until tied up on the tarmac.

>>>>