PO. John Charles Leonard Poe
Royal Navy 774 Squadron Fleet Air Arm
At the outbreak of war in 1939 my father John Poe was a milling machinist and too young for active service. He was always proud to state that he had been in an army uniform, an R.A.F. uniform and a naval uniform. This is correct as in the early part of the war he joined the home guard and wore an army uniform. In August 1941 when he was 17 he enlisted with the R.A.F. The story he told me was that he was too young but put his age up a year and was enlisted on 5th August 1941 and this is the enlistment date shown on his certificate of discharge from the R.A.F. According to Dad's story his Mother informed the authorities that he was too young and he was discharged on 6th August 1941. This story is confirmed by the note on his naval certificate but is not noted on his R.A.F. certificate of service. His certificate of service with the navy notes that he served one day in the R.A.F. in August 1941 but was enlisted again in the R.A.F from 9th February 1942 to 5th June 1942. The discharge date is confirmed by his R.A.F. certificate. He was discharged because he was "not likely to become an efficient airman pilot". Dad told me that he failed his aircraft recognition exams because he was too involved with some local girls! His 119 days in the R.A.F. was recognised as war service on his naval discharge certificate. An item of interest is that both his certificates of service have an incorrect birth date of 1923 when he was actually born in 1924.
Not to be denied his wish to fly John commenced service in the Royal Navy on 8th September 1942 as a naval airman. His initial posting was to HMS Royal Arthur, Skegness, where he underwent his initial training as a telegraphist which was completed on 16th October 1942 when he was transferred to St Vincent, Gosport, where he undertook further training. His flying career commenced when he was transferred to HMS Kestrel, Worthy Down, on 12th December and the first entry in his log was 21st January 1943 in which he notes "flying not what I expected". His log shows flying hours at Worthy Down up to 16th July 1943. He completed 85.00 hours W/T Training. Whilst at Worthy Down he was promoted to A/L Airman on 22nd March 1943. According to his log he commenced air gunnery training with 774 squadron at St Merryn on 6th August 1943 but was not transferred to Vulture on his service record until 11th September 1943. I have his original Air Gunners Flying Log Book. Between 9th and 12th of August 1943 his pilot was S/Lt Reid. There are two further entries where the pilot was S/Lt Reed. On 17th September 1943 he was transferred to HMS Nightjar, 766 Squadron where he commenced flying 20th September 1943. I think this was still training in anti-submarine bombing and it was here that he became a crew member for S/Lt Gouldesbury. S/Lt Gouldesbury was his pilot until 1st May 1945 when John was transferred to 1702 Squadron at Lee-on Solent. On 3rd of October 1943 whilst on an exercise their plane crashed at Millom, Cumbria. This was the first of three major incidents that John was involved in during the war. He told me that after the crash and all the crew had evacuated the aircraft he wanted to go back to the aircraft to retrieve his lucky mascot but he was restrained by another crew member. As he was being restrained the plane burst into flames and the plane was completely destroyed. The log records the crash in much less dramatic fashion.
On 4th November 1943 he was transferred to 836 Squadron where he was a member of S/Lt Gouldsbury's crew until 30th April 1945 when he was transferred to 1702 Squadron (HMS Daedalus, Lee on Solent). S/Lt Gouldsbury does not appear to have gone with him. From his Flying log 836 Squadron flew between HMS Shrike (Maydown, N.I.), HMS Landrail (Machrihanish, Campbelltown, Scotland) and Merchant Aircraft Carriers (MAC). He spoke of travelling on the MAC's across the Atlantic to Canada and Moncton in Canada is mentioned in his log. They also landed at Ronaldsway on the Isle of Man and seemed to return to Dartmouth on a regular basis. Without knowing the movements of the Empire Macrae I don't think I have enough information to work out exactly what happened during the eighteen months of operations with 836 Squadron. One entry is worthy of note. On 9th of April 1944 they crashed into the sea 4.5 miles from Arran, Scotland. They were rescued and returned to Maydown the following day. John was admitted to the goldfish club as he escaped death using his emergency dinghy. Presumably the other members of the crew also qualified and were admitted. He did tell me there was one other major incident when landing on a MAC. There was some problem and they nearly went over the edge of the carrier. Dad said if they had gone over it would have been unlikely that they would have survived. This does not seem to have been documented but then perhaps it was not an uncommon event. He did not like flying and did not fly after his discharge until he migrated to Australia and had to catch commercial flights for holidays etc. He was always nervous and said "Only birds and fools fly, and most birds don't fly at night" he usually followed this up with "I have escaped death in aeroplanes three times, I doubt if I would be lucky enough to survive a fourth time".
On 1st May 1945 at the end of the war in Europe John was transferred to 1702 Squadron at Lee on Solent and flew in Sea Otters. He told me that he was transferred to Sea Otters and was to travel to the far east to assist in the war against Japan but by the time they reached Greece the war had ended.
