Jim Bossley's Posting to MAEE

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Pennie Hedge, a volunteer from BBC London, on behalf of Charles John Bossley and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Bossley fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was working for the Engineer-in-Chief’s Office in St Martin le Grand, for the Post Office. When I was sixteen I joined the Home Guard, the local Home Guard in Catford, which you was allowed to do. So I did some initial training there with the other men. When I was 17 I volunteered for the Airforce, up at Kings Cross. Now if you volunteered for the Airforce you were given 6 months grace because they wouldn’t take you until you were 17 ½ .

From there you were recruited, sent on a train and I went to Warrington. That’s where they kit you out with all your gear and you stay there about a week I suppose, getting measured up for your clothes and all your equipment. Then you’re sent to Blackpool. Blackpool used to be the training centre for the RAF, and we used to do all our marching and armed drill, attending lectures in the cinemas which were shut all the morning. And we used to go in and listen to all this stuff about gas attacks, medical advice… We were billeted with landladies. Landladies were allowed 4 RAF and then they could have their summer visitors, but they had to take 4 RAF. Well looked after, I’ve no words to say about them. The only thing was, you had to be in by 11 o’clock at night, otherwise you were arrested.

So the long and short of that was, I’m at Blackpool and I did all the courses up there and you get aptitude tests in the RAF. And suddenly I get a posting from Blackpool to Cranwell College, which is the RAF equivalent of Sandhurst. What on earth I am doing down here? I’m going on a radio course, which was at that time top secret. The RAF used to have transmitters to aircraft which were only good for about 18 miles, useless old things for aircraft. The story we were told was that the Manchester Police, nothing to do with the war this, had developed a VHF, Very High Frequency, which was 90 mile, trouble free, nothing. So the RAF thought, this is much better than what we’ve got, so they took it over. So when I went to Cranwell I was put on a VHF course. It was a bit tricky, 14 weeks. And my official title was RT Operator VHF. Now included in that course, apart from talking to aircraft, was learning air traffic control, maintaining these sets. In every fighter aircraft he’s got a set of buttons, different channels and this operates the transmitter/receiver (TR33) and you’ve got to learn to tune that, put it all together.

So anyway, I come out of Cranwell and thought, so what happens to me now? I go on three days leave, come back here to see my Mum, and I get a posting to a place called Maee. Where on earth’s that? So I goes up to the RTO (Railway Travel Office for the Forces) at London Bridge. “Where’s this place, mate?” “Dunno. We’ll give you a travel warrant,” he said. “The only thing I can suggest is Glasgow.” “Oh, thank you very much.” Nobody even knew the name of this place but it looks a Scottish name. So I gets to Glasgow, don’t know where I am, goes into the RTOs office. So I says to the RTO “Where’s this place mate?” And he says “I dunno, I‘ve never heard of it. The only thing I can suggest is that you get a local train to a place called Helensburg.” I said “what’s up there?” and he said “I think there’s an RAF place up there, but I’m not sure.” So eventually I get to this place called Helensborough and went into the Station Master’s office — there wasn’t an RTO. “Do you know where this place is mate?” “No, but I’ll contact the local RAF Station, a little way down the road, and tell them you’re here and they’ll come and get you.”

Well when I get there it’s the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment. That’s what MAEE is. Its flying boats. And we had 60 people in a great big house in the village. That’s all, RAF. We got pilots but no aircrew. So when these flying boats took off - they didn’t go on active service, they were just experimental - they made up their own crews from ground staff, especially on the Sunderlands. We had to go and read radar screens. So I’m thinking, what am I going to do here? I get sent for, and he says “Down on the loch is a hut, you get down there, you got three WAFs underneath you.” “Right, I’m a lucky fellow.” And he said “No, you’re charging accumulators.” “Accummulators, what are you talking about?”

To get out to the flying boats - they were out in the middle of the loch, anchored on buoys - you had to go a little way down and there were RAF launches to take you out. Now flying boats got to start on batteries (accumulators), same as launches, so of course we’re charging up all these accumulators all the time.

One day a milkman turned up, and I said to a WAF, “What’s that milkman doing in here, we don’t have milk?” “Mind your own business” she says. “All outlying villages have battery driven radio sets and when their batteries run down, we fetch them back down here, we lend them RAF ones, and we charge them sixpence a time.” So everyone’s making a bomb.

So I spent this time on the flying boats, different types of flying boat: Catalinas, Kingfishers, two Sunderlands. And I’m thinking to meself, this is a good old number, this will suit me. Only trouble was, after a few months I got posted again.

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