Fair ’nuff

There is a superb clip on You Tube where the late, great Ray Hanna flying a Spitfire parts the hair of a TV reporter whose name I wish I could remember but can’t.

Spitfire low pass

I play the clip regularly because, whilst it looks dangerous, it wasn’t. It’s just very funny.

I played the clip again a couple of nights ago and it triggered a dim and distant memory of a story that my father used to tell about a Spitfire pilot he knew in Germany just after the end of the Second World War.

My Dad, an army officer, was sent into Germany with the occupation forces in 1945. He was based in Iserlohn where he was initially billeted at the Officers Mess. ‘Z’ Mess in Iserlohn had a reputation for being a tad wild.

There was a Mess party every Friday night that usually ran non-stop through the weekend during which just about anything could happen.

The Spitfire pilot was a Wing Commander who, in civilian life, had been a barrister. For this ‘sin’ he was appointed a war trials judge.

The mental stress of being a Trials Judge must have been enormous. Quite apart from dealing with racketeers and black-marketers, he would, fairly regularly, don the black cap in order to hand down the ultimate sentence on a criminal of a different standing.

All of this took its toll and Tubby (that was his nickname) would hit the bottle hard during the weekend merriment that was taking place in ‘Z’ Mess. As the evening progressed he would slide slowly under the table and assume a foetal position clutching his glass.

His great drinking buddy was a Canadian (nicknamed ‘Moose’) who would keep an eye on him and make sure he stayed safe and sound. Tubby was quite small whilst Moose was a giant of a man. At regular intervals he would reach under the table and, one handed, lift Tubby up from under it by the front of his uniform tunic, still in his foetal crouch, to fill his glass before gently lowering him back under the table again.

Tubby’s only response would be to murmur ‘Fair ‘nuff – fair ‘nuff”.

Being a serving RAF pilot, Tubby was required to fly an aeroplane once a month in order to retain his ‘flying’ pay. Because he was tied up with legal matters during the week, the only days he could fly were Saturday and Sunday.

Shortly after my Dad arrived in Iserlohn, Moose invited him to accompany them to a nearby airfield where Tubby was to take his monthly flight check. This was scheduled for Sunday morning. The mess party that had started on Friday night had been a good one and had extended through Saturday night as well.

Early on Sunday morning Moose and my Dad recovered Tubby from his usual place under a table. He could hardly walk and had to be helped to my Dad’s Humber 4 x 4 staff car occasionally murmuring, “Fair ‘nuff”.

A Spitfire was waiting with its engine ticking over when they arrived at the airfield. Moose guided Tubby to the aircraft, assisted him with his parachute, and helped him into the cockpit. The canopy was slid shut and every one stood back and held their breath.

I suppose that, if you can survive six years of all out war, going head to head with fighter pilots who were as good as and (sometimes) better than you, it says a lot about the instinctive way a born pilot reacts when he finds himself in his natural environment.

The Spitfire taxied to the runway and took off. My Dad’s account of what followed would occasionally leave him at a loss for words when it came to describing what Tubby did with that aeroplane.

My Dad wasn’t a pilot so he didn’t have the right names for the manoeuvres he witnessed but from what he told me it seemed that Tubby began his ’show’ by executing a vertical climb immediately after lift off culminating in a roll off the top (or Immelmann turn) leading to a very low pass over the assembled witnesses, some of whom dropped prone as the aircraft passed over them. That’s why the You Tube clip reminded me of the story.

What followed was a classic demonstration of a man in total control of a flying machine. It was a brilliant display of just what a Spitfire in the right hands was capable of. 30 minutes later the final act was a high speed inverted pass at low level downwind along the runway, so low that my Dad swore that there were only inches between the propeller tips and the concrete. Just beyond the runway threshold, Tubby pushed into an inverted 3/4 loop that left the Spitfire perfectly positioned for a gentle landing right on the numbers.

Painting by Barry A F Clark

The aircraft taxied in, the engine stopped and Tubby could be seen unlocking the canopy and cracking it open. Then – nothing.

Moose walked out to the aircraft, climbed onto the wing and slid the canopy open. He lifted Tubby out of the cockpit and helped him back to my Dad’s car.

Then they drove back to ‘Z” Mess to continue the party.

Next morning, bright eyed and bushy-tailed, Tubby went back to being a Judge. Amazingly, he was able to shrug off the excesses of the weekend as if nothing had happened.

As to whether he could remember flying an aeroplane and putting on an amazing display of flying skills the previous day – who knows?