Library Reference Number: 109
Thanks For The Memory
Flying as a Navigator with No.502 Squadron, RAF Coastal Command, Ian Currie sustained loss of memory following an air crash. Fortunately, this proved to be a temporary condition, but after making a full recovery, Ian learned about a series of bizarre events which occurred during that period, which he only found out about later:-
"At that time (1942), the BBC used to broadcast short items dealing with selected incidents in the war after the Six O’clock News.I was home on leave when the announcer stated that a Coastal Command crew, which had sunk a U-Boat in the Bay of Biscay, would describe the experience. When it began, I shouted, 'Hey! That's us!" It was - and my contribution had been edited out.
A couple of uneventful sweeps to the Spanish coast followed, and then at the beginning of August (1942) we took off on our last flight before going on leave. Once again the Gremlins got into an engine, this time the starboard one which seized up because of an oil leak. Fortunately we were well on our way home and reasonably confident that we could make the English coast on the port engine. As someone with a bit of experience of Whitleys flying on one engine, I suggested to Tony, now Pilot Officer Hunt, that he should jettison his depth charges but he felt that, with most of our fuel used up, the starboard engine's prop fully feathered, and the relatively short distance to cover, he could make it to the nearest airfield, Predannock. We did but it was covered in one of the local fogs that occasionally blew in from the sea. We had now lost so much height that we were below the level of the Cornish cliffs. We began to crawl along the coast to Land's End and then up the west coast of Cornwall towards St Eval but it was obvious that we would never make it and eventually we crash-landed on Hayle beach in St Ives Bay.
For the events of the next eighteen hours or so I have to rely on the accounts given to me by other members of the crew on my return to the squadron a week or so later, for the period from the crash until I woke up in the hospital is a complete blank. Eighteen hours of my life have been wiped out of my memory.
I had apparently gone back to the normal ditching position, lying on my back in the rear of the aircraft. The aircraft ended up on the sands of Hayle beach and may have bounced, for the two WOP/AGs lying beside me were both injured, one with a cracked spine and the other with a broken rib. I was apparently unscathed and was able to climb out unaided. An ambulance arrived to take the injured to hospital and when it left I had disappeared. Hayle beach, like most other beaches providing a possible landing place for invasion craft, was heavily mined. Somehow I got off the beach, nobody knew how, but I was discovered later in an Army camp, drinking a mug of tea and, I understand, shooting a horrible line about the RAF.
When the others caught up with me, it was clear that all was not well and they suggested that I should go along to hospital but I protested that there was nothing wrong with me. They reminded me that I was going on leave and was about to be married which I strenuously denied. I always carried a small photograph of my fiancé in my wallet and they thought this might have the power to recall the immediate past, but again I insisted that I had never seen the girl in my life. They then tried another ploy, suggesting that we should all go along to the hospital to see the two injured members of crew and I readily agreed. Apparently when I entered the ward where my two injured comrades were lying, I proceeded to undress without any prompting and climbed into an empty bed beside them. Next morning I woke up. My back ached and my head felt as if it was expanding and contracting in excruciating spasms.
The hospital we had been taken to was a small cottage hospital run by nuns. Now that I was compos mentis again, I realised that the day of the week was Monday and there was no way that I was going to be married in Edinburgh on Thursday as had been arranged. One of the nuns kindly agreed to send a telegram to my prospective bride saying that the wedding would have to be postponed and that I would write explaining why.
The next day we were transferred to the Infirmary in Truro since the hospital had no X-ray equipment. The following morning I wrote a letter explaining the situation and gave it to a nurse who was going off duty that afternoon to post. In the early afternoon, however, as all of us in the ward were dozing after lunch, I heard the sound of an aircraft coming in very low. Hours of Aircraft Recognition exercises paid off at that moment. It was a Focke-Wulf 190, the Luftwaffe's fastest fighter, and it was heading directly over the hospital. I could not believe that it would attack the hospital, which was clearly marked with a red cross on its roof, but instinctively I ducked under the bedclothes and immediately there was an almighty bang and the sound of shattered glass. When I poked my head out, the ward was faintly visible through a curtain of dust that slowly began to settle. Soon nurses entered the ward from the central administrative block, their faces masks of red blood like something out of Edgar Allan Poe. The German pilot had taken the Red Cross on top of the administration section of the hospital as his aiming point and had scored a direct hit.
We had some unfortunate Army transport drivers in the ward who had broken arms and legs in accidents and their plastered limbs were suspended from wires and pulleys. They had not been able to lie down for their afternoon nap and, having taken the full brunt of the flying glass, were dripping blood all over the place.
Then fire broke out in the central area that had been hit and, while the Fire Brigade tackled the flames, those of us who were mobile wheeled the beds of those who were immobilized out on to the lawn separating the two wings of the Infirmary. We must have been a weird sight in our hospital nightshirts shepherding the nonwalking wounded to safety. The Fire Service soon had the blaze under control and we were able to collect our personal possessions and clothing and wait in the warm sunshine for the next move.
In due course a fleet of buses arrived to transport the patients to other accommodation and I found myself for the evening in a room somewhere in Newquay. The following day I received a visit from a doctor who asked me what was the matter with me since all our medical records had been destroyed at Truro. I explained the situation to him and he asked how I felt, I said fine and he said that in that case I might as well rejoin my Unit, which I did. There I learned from the two uninjured sergeants in the crew of my bizarre behaviour after the crash. The story had circulated in the mess and I was the recipient of some good-natured ribbing.
In the meantime my first letter sent from Truro had never been posted. It is possible that the nurse to whom I had entrusted it was killed in the bombing for several were. My poor fiancé was frantic with worry, left completely in the dark until a second letter arrived. A visit to the Station MO followed where I received a verbal grilling. His final question was, "Do you want to continue flying?" I had never considered that question. In retrospect it occurred to me that he suspected that my temporary amnesia was possibly a psychological defence mechanism, the mind suppressing the memory of an unpleasant experience. He may have been right. Personally I believe it was the result of concussion; the back of my head was witness to that.
At last I set off for my leave, now sick leave, a new date for my marriage was hurriedly arranged and we managed to have a brief honeymoon before I returned to the squadron. Shortly afterwards I was summoned to the CO's office to be informed that my operational tour was finished although I still had some thirty hours to do. There was a vacancy for an Assistant Navigation Officer at Group Headquarters at Plymouth and I was being sent to fill it.
To say that I was gob-smacked, to use an expression not in use until more than fifty years later, is to put it mildly. Less than six weeks before the same Wing Commander had handed out to me a Severe Reprimand, enough to stop any airman's career dead in its tracks, and he was now indicating that I was to be commissioned and sent to an important, if very minor, staff post. I was obviously extremely pleased for more reasons than one.
I had been encouraged by many of my fellow crewmembers apply for a commission but my Scottish pride forbade it. Having seen quite a number of the members of my course whose results were well below mine regarded as officer material, I was determined that, if I was worthy to be commissioned, the RAF would give me one; I would not ask for it. And it had happened. Naturally I was delighted.
Note: Extract from "The White Crows" by Ian S. Currie Pub: Minerva Press (1996) £7-99.