I Sank The Bismarck Read Online Free PDF

bus, where we wrapped them
in blankets. One lady insisted on putting up her umbrella as
she left the stranded bus. I tried to dissuade her, saying it
would be of absolutely no use, but she wouldn't listen.
Naturally, as soon as she got outside it was whipped away by
the wind, never to be seen again.
    So we made our slow journey back to Kelso Hospital,
where they were given food and hot drinks and checked by a
doctor.
    Turnbull and I received a letter of commendation from the
bus company, and a reward of £5 each! Looking back, it
seems remarkable that just the two of us ventured out on thisrescue mission to find a lost bus and its passengers. Nowadays
there would have been a mountain rescue team, an emergency
helicopter in the air and the mobilization of police and
ambulance services, but we did the job ourselves without
much thought for the dangers involved.
    For the most part, working in the bus office day after day
made me more determined to find an alternative, and when I
was eighteen years old I saw an advertisement in a newspaper
asking for applications to theNaval Air Service Reserve. This
was a new organization, being set up because, after a long
fight, the navy was finally going to take control of its own aircraft
and the men who repaired and flew them. The Naval Air
Service had existed in the First World War, but in 1919 all its
aircraft had been handed over to theRoyal Air Force. The
latest change back to Admiralty control was due to take place
in 1939. If I had understood this a bit better at the time, I
might have been spared some depressing months.
    The advert that I saw was the first stage in setting up a
reserve force. Successful recruits would be taught how to fly
and would be required to spend several weeks per year on
duty in the Reserves, for which they would be paid. The idea,
of course, was that in the event of a war there would be a
group of trained men who could be called up rapidly to
enlarge the regular service. When I saw the advert I suddenly
thought that, at last, here was a way that I could learn to fly
– something I had secretly set my heart on ever since I climbed
out of the cockpit of the Avro 504 that had flown me over the
rooftops of Kelso. In those days the prospect of flying was so
remote for ordinary people that I had buried the desire deeply,
but seeing this advert brought me fresh hope. I would be
absolutely crazy not to apply: I might be able to learn to fly
after all, and I could say goodbye to my boring life in the bus
office.
    I wrote off and, within a couple of weeks, received a note
asking me to appear for interview in front of a board in
Govan, Glasgow. It was a long journey, involving a bus to
Edinburgh, then another bus to Glasgow, then a long tram
journey from Glasgow to Govan. About eight other applicants
were being interviewed at the same time as me and they
all seemed very confident. The members of the interviewing
panel were all dressed in civilian clothes, but they had ruddy
faces, I assumed from a lot of time spent out in the open air.
The gentleman at the head of the table had mutton-chop
whiskers, and two of them had full beards. To my eyes they
seemed very nautical. When they introduced themselves, I
realized that they were fairly senior men.
    They invited me to sit down and I was asked some simple
questions about my local town and the job I was doing, and
was asked to read a logbook. The interview then took an odd
turn, as the chairman of the board, who seemed by far the
oldest man there, realized that I lived next to the Tweed and
Teviot rivers. The rest of the interview became a discussion
about trout and salmon fishing, the effectiveness of various
fishing flies and the best techniques for tying them. I was veryinterested in fishing and I had caught my first salmon when I
was eight or nine, although entirely by accident. It came on to
the end of my line when I had been hoping to get trout, and
it was too strong for me to land. Eventually my trout rod
broke and I