So as far as I can work out, Dad finished his fighter pilot training with 71 Operational Training Unit (71 O.T.U) at the end of December 1942. You can catch up on his training here.

I don’t know why but he was then stationed at No.1 A.D.U. I’m going to guess at this – I think that pilots in an A.D.U. delivered or transported aircraft that were either new or repaired to R.A.F. squadrons. Dad was only in No.1 A.D.U. from January 14-30, 1943 when he then moved to No. 2. A.D.U. Perhaps he was waiting to be transferred to the 127 Squadron, which he joined in April, 1943.

The images below show his logbook for January 1943 and I think this is the first mention of flying a D.C.3. This makes sense to me now. As a kid, Dad used to take me to Sydney airport on a Sunday. This was back in the day when you could stand on the roof of the terminal building and watch planes take off and land. I even have a very hazy recollection of meeting someone at the bottom of the steps as they were disembarking. No paranoid airport security back then! And I remember him telling me that the D.C.3 was a great aircraft to fly.

Dad was also flying a Hurricane IIC and you can see from the images below the routes he flew. What’s interesting is that Dad now starts to make comments in his logbook. Up to now, it was all Sequence of Instruction stuff but, from now on, we find out about the purpose of missions, what problems Dad encountered and so on.

Dad’s handwriting is oh-so-familiar to me. Even so, I’m having a bit of trouble deciphering his first comment. I think it says “Dome ‘drome (i.e.aerodrome) – right in the jungle. Nasty place to force lob”. The other two comments are:

• Brake pressure ‘went for a Burton’. O.K. though, 1/4 mile runway!
• Over the Nubian Desert – not too nice flying this.

I had to chuckle at the “went for a Burton” comment – Dad often uttered this phrase. He also often said “bad show”, which is a phrase I sometimes say too.

Seems that Dad might also have been testing aircraft – the entry for January 20 says “Air Test (Ikeja)“. Ikeja is in Lagos, Nigeria and this makes sense as the entry above this says that Dad flew the El Geniena-Lagos route (although I think he meant El Geneina).

For those of you interested in flying hours, you can see the Grand Total in the images below. And if anyone has information on No.1. A.D.U. or the routes flown, leave a comment please.