Letter to Frances Grundy from Doug Worrad

Letter to Frances Grundy from Doug Worrad

Thanks her for kind letter and notes that on 192 squadron., her father was known as a fine senior officer. Relates damaging or destroying three aircraft during the war, unfortunately all British, including a Tiger Moth, a Halifax and an Anson. Goes on to write of his life in the air force during the war, including getting married and after the war with KLM.

2004-04-17

Three page printed letter

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EWorradDGrundyAF20040425

Dear Frances,
My mother's name was Frances. She was born a Kingwell, in 1900 in Lynton, Devon. My father got to England in the “first war”.
Thank you very much for your kind and most interesting letter and enclosures. Needless to say not many of us, if any, on 192 Squadron, excepting perhaps his close colleagues, knew anything of your father's long wartime RAF career, from September, 1939. We only knew him as an exceptionally fine senior officer, I might say a wise and caring leader and a thorough gentleman. And all this, at the time we knew him, he was only twenty nine years old.
When you mentioned he rather enjoyed, when as Chairman of an Industrial Tribunal, hearing and listening to the pleas of employees when they had been badly treated, that reminds me of an incident in which I was involved. Going back a few years, after the war, when someone would ask me, Did you shoot down any enemy aircraft during the war? I could honestly tell them that I damaged or destroyed three aircraft........but unfortunately they were all British. The first one was a Tiger Moth which it was jokingly said was the sole property of your father but which he woad lend to anyone if they asked nicely. I asked him one day and he agreed. However, when he taxying out towards the runway for takeoff I hit a hole or a stone or something and broke off one wheel. As was the rule, after any kind of such a mishap, you had to write a report, always starting, “Dear Sir, I have the honour of........ Si I wrote such a report starng “Dear Sir, I have the honour of reporting that I have broken one of the wheels off your Tiger Moth. ….” Nothing further was said and he let me have it a few more times after that.
The next incident was a Halifax. One night, in most unpleasant weather over England and after two of the four engines had failed, I asked urgently for permission to land at the nearest aerodrome. It was an American glider base. On landing we overran the runway, damaged three gliders, a radar hut and our Halifax. A couple of years ago when I was in England visiting a few of the crew who are still around, the “bomb aimer” who lives in Bristol, recalled that night and said he was not frightened until, when we were descending I told the crew to get into crash stations, put on your parachutes but don't jump until I tell you to.” I didn't.
Finally and most amusing. One morning the Senior Navigation Officer, a Squadron Leader, came into our staff room and asked if anyone would care to fly him down to London for some leave in the Station Avro Anson, a rather old twin engined training plane. Another Australian pilot, John Gibby, and I agreed. It
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was a most interesting flight, flying rather low over London avoiding barrage balloons and eventually landing on Hendon aerodrome. While taxying rather a long way round this strange, to us, aerodrome and in the course of a ninety degree turn in the taxiway, the brakes failed just as we were heading for a pile of dirt, which we hit! Much hilarity in the Anson......until we all got out. The port wing was resting on the top of the pile of dirt and the port wheel of the aircraft was broken off and dangling in the breeze. The Chief Navigation Officer said, Good luck, Chaps. I'm on leave! Gibby and I walked over to the Control Tower, but it was deserted. We eventually found a civilian gentleman, a caretaker, who told us Hendon had been closed for years as an operational airport. We asked him something like, What do we do now? And he said, I don't know. We left the airport, in our flying boots and carrying our helmets and found a public telephone and called Foulsham RAF Adjutant and asked him what we should do He said you had better catch a train back to Foulsham. I think we caught a bus or an underground train back to Liverpool Street station, or somewhere, and then another train back to Norwich. In the compartment with us, we with our flying boots and helmets, were two elderly ladies and we saw them looking at us and whispering to each other, “look at these brave young men. They must have been shot down defending London.”
A couple of weeks later your father called me into his office and told me the Anson was a write-off, the fuselage was twisted beyond repair and he was going to give me a “red” or “blue” endorsement (anyway a very bad mark) in my logbook for “bad airmanship” or something. I protested that it was not fair, that the brakes just failed and it was not my fault. I remember saying to him, If you have to give me a bad mark, give it to me for the Halifax business but not for the Anson accident” And do you know, Frances, he never gave me a bad mark for anything! So I can imagine him ”listening to the employees when they had been badly treated”.
What became of me? Shortly after I left school in 1940 I had jobs in an insurance office and then in an oil company, as a junior, then I got a job with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in Sydney, still as a junior, so I wasn't making much headway, and then the Japs came into the war and I became eighteen. I volunteered for the Air Force and they took me! During the war in England I used to pray, Dear Lord, if I come through this business, please give me back my job with the Dutchmen! And He did! But before that, shortly after I arrived in England in 1943, at that time based in Brighton, my best friend, Johnny Swales, had a girlfriend, a very nice girl, in the Wrens and I asked him if he could get me a Wren too. It took a little while but one day Johnny's girl told me she thought she had a girl for me and that night it was agreed we would all got to the movies. I arranged with Johnny that if I thought my girl looked pretty good I would suggest we all went for coffee after the movies. Well we all went for coffee and the rest is history. We, Marcia and I, became engaged about a year later. After I finished my “tour of duty”, about thirty five “ops” and shortly after VE day I was called back to Brighton for return to Australia. I heard that ”wives” would be coming to Australia within six months and
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“fiancees” in eighteen months. So I put the “hard word” on Marcia and we were married very shortly thereafter.
As I said I got my job back in KLM and they were a very fine company and very good to me. I tell everyone I started as the lowest paid “clerk” in the office and I finished as the highest paid “clerk” In the office in 1985. I was in charge of Australia and New Zealand and that included New Guinea, which I hated and the islands of the South West Pacific (Fiji, Noumea, Tahiti, Samoa) which I loved! I made about fifty five visits to the Head Office in The Hague and then Amsterdam.
Marcia and I are still in pretty fair shape, to save you working it out, we were both born in 1923, she plays lawn bowls, does the crossword every day and has marvellous memory. I used to play a reasonable game of golf and my memory is awful but I walk a couple of miles a few times a week. We have five children, three ladies and two sons, ten grand children and two very young great grand daughters. We have always lived in Sydney mostly in cottages in the suburbs of Sydney, but for the last seven years in a rather pleasant home unit, or apartment, overlooking a part of Sydney Harbour.
So far I haven't told you any lies so now I had netter stop. Thank you for writing to me. If you or any of your family ever come this way, you have our address! My email address is dougworrad@ozemail.com.au
With fondest and best good wishes,
Sincerely
Doug
PS I didn't tell you anything about Marcia. She was born in Wolverhampton and went to Grammer (?) school there and a college in Peterbourgh (?) She had one sister, and they moved down to Malvern some years ago. Sadly her parents died a few years ago and her sister last year. Marcia still corresponds with her old school magazine friends some of who have visited us in Sydney, Some of her friends compliment her on her complexion and then say “but then you are English”. We go to the movies once a fortnight or so. Yesterday we saw “The Barbarian Invasion”. Don't miss it.
PPS I finished this letter quite late last night. Then in bed I thought of something else I should have