Page 6 - William Johnston

Newspaper cutting from the ʹDutton Advanceʹ Newspaper detailing William’s

Air Force service.

On arriving in the UK on a troop ship from New York William was posted to RAF Finningley in
South Yorkshire (now Robin Hood airport). The resident unit was 18 Operational Training unit
controlled by 91 Group (Training). Here the novice crew’s minus their flight engineer would be
gathered into a hangar and told to form a crew.

This unconventional method was the standard policy of the RAF and in the whole worked well with
very few mismatched crew’s.

The purpose of 18 O.T.U. was to train novice crews on the Vickers Wellington medium bomber
and supplemented by the Avro Anson trainer to get them to work as a crew operating the various
systems within the airframe in preparation for their next move to a Heavy Conversion Unit. There
they would convert to the four engine Handley Page Halifax bomber or if they were
lucky an Avro Lancaster.
The crew were also to undertake their operational training at RAF Worksop, a satellite airfield of
Finningley located some 10 miles South of Finningley alongside the A1 Great North road.

From Finningley the crew went to RAF Lindholme some 5 miles South of Doncaster. The unit here
was 1656 Heavy Conversion Unit and was the Base Station (11 Base) for three other satellite
stations, Sandtoft, Hemswell and Blyton. Here the crew undertook heavy conversion training on
the Handley Page Halifax. These aircraft like the Vickers wellington were ex squadron airframes
which were worn out with the airframe and engines weakened by battle. It was not uncommon for
novice crew’s to find an engine or a wing fall off the aircraft and there were numerous accidents
with the loss of novice crew’s commonplace.

It was here that the crew first met their flight engineer, who straight out of flight engineer’s training
school had to bond himself to the crew, he having no choice as to which crew he was allocated.

The reason for flight engineer’s to be posted in later was that their training was on the Merlin
engine and the systems required to operate a four engine bomber, and thus the two engine
Vickers Wellington with different engines would have required more training.

From RAF Lindholme the crew having passed their last examination were passed fit to fly
operationally and were posted to 12 Squadron at RAF Wickenby near Lincoln, one of 1 Groups
operational squadrons to await their first operation. Completing 5 operations there before William
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was separated from the crew as their pilot had been taken ill on the crew’s 6 operation and
removed from flying duties and the decision to split the crew up was taken. William and the rest of
his crew were spilt up and he found himself at RAF Hemswell, home to 1667 H.C.U. and
awaiting a new crew.

At the same time Squadron Leader David ‘Mickey’ Masters arrived at Hemswell with his crew and
was looking for a new Bombardier and after an interview with David, William found himself a new
pilot and crew, completing his tour of operations with 576 Squadron by 18 November 1944. Thus
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began a friendship, never broken even though both men were separated by the Atlantic Ocean
that would last until they both passed away.
William also kept in touch with his first crew who were Canadian.