Green recounts living through air raids in Britain

SAC William Green (wearing a cap) and colleagues standing in a monsoon drain at RAF Tengah in Singapore in the early 1960's. The larger plane in the background is a Canberra. The smaller plane is a Meteor. The Canberras were replacing the Meteor as the new recon aircraft. (Contributed Photo)

Robin Krafft, Post Correspondent

Despite his early memories of growing up in Liverpool during the Second World War, and enduring some of the heaviest bombing in the UK outside of London, Bill Green joined the Royal Air Force at the age of 20, in 1957.

After completing his basic training, he was told he had an aptitude for mechanical and went to trades training just outside Blackpool. He decided to focus on engines and became an aircraft mechanic. He was trained on engines for piston aircraft, and later worked on jet engines.

"After you repair them, you have to run them," Green said. "The first time I got to ground run a jet aircraft, it was a wet start (the engine was flooded with gas). There was a 30-foot flame coming out the back, and I was watching the temperature gauge praying please don't reach 600 please don't reach each 600˚."

The flame went out, and Green survived, but there were many dangers, accidents and challenging situations during his service.

"You get distracted for a second, and you're dead," Green said. "Those big four-engine jets are quite an adrenaline rush. The first time you get in those, with instruments everywhere, it's a bit overwhelming."

Green recalled an amusing incident at RAF Shawbury. He had just run an aircraft up, and a plane was taxiing in. Princess Margaret was coming to visit.

"A man in white coveralls was coming over towards me," Green said. "He was asking if I knew where the crew for the helicopter was. I told him we could use the phone in the CO’s office and was walking him over there, thinking I think I know this guy. About half-way to the office, I realized it was Prince Philip. When we entered the CO’s office, his surprised reaction was something to behold. He nearly knocked over his desk as he stood up to salute."

After two years of service, Senior Aircraftman Green was preparing for a new position in Australia.

"I was going through security checks to go to Australia for an intercontinental ballistic missile project, but it got cancelled," Green said. "You had to be cleared. You had to sign the official Secret Act. You lose your civic rights to be able to call a lawyer. If you talked, they could lock you up. You were interviewed about your political views, and they even went around to your neighbours.They wanted to make sure you weren't some sort of communist spy or had any leanings. When Australia was cancelled, they sent me to Singapore."

Green was posted to RAF Changi for staging and aircraft servicing, saying that it was a good base to be on. It had a cinema, sailing club, an Olympic-size pool, and various sports, and Green got into archery.

"It was an undeveloped city at the time," Green said. "If I hadn't grown up in slums, I wouldn't have been able to handle it. The tallest building was the Bank of China, at six stories."

Green recalled an aircraft coming in from Cambodia while he was at RAF Changi. He had learned enough Malay to get by, as well as some Mandarin, but he couldn't communicate with the flight crew who only spoke French. A passenger removed his coverall to reveal an expensive looking suit and asked in impeccable English, asked, "May I be of assistance?"

As they were talking, a line of Rolls Royces was pulling up. Green began to excuse himself, saying, "I think there's someone important coming."

The gentleman smiled, and said, "I believe they are here for me."

Green learned later that he was a visiting Prince or Prime Minister of Cambodia and graciously accepted his thanks when he returned to express his gratitude to Green for looking after his flight crew.

He was later posted to RAF Tengah as a Canberra expert, which was a jet-powered bomber. Green had to accept all of the aircraft, and show the pilots how to start them. There was no one else on the base that was familiar with the Canberra.

"They were replacing their aircraft with the Canberra," Green said. "I wasn't much of an expert. I learned how to start them by reading the pilot’s manual. There was a fuel-pump problem, and my first job was to change the fuel pumps. It took me two hours to get it out, and two more to get the new one in, cursing the Rolls-Royce engineers all the while. Then we took it up for a test flight. When the pilot pushed it to it’s absolute limits, we could see the curve of the earth. It’s something you can’t forget, when you see that."

The service manual arrived a week later. When Green looked up how to change the fuel pump, the first instruction was to remove the engine from the aircraft. The whole process should have taken three days. His CO wanted to know how he did that, and if he could write it down. In retrospect, Green compared it to solving a Rubik's cube and then being asked to write down how you did it, after the fact.

RAF SAC William Green served from 1957 to 1962, completing his five-year commitment. Although he was encouraged to continue, Green demurred, influenced by his time in Singapore.

"While at RAF Changi, we had visiting aircraft, Comets and Britannias, that we would service and refuel before they went on to Hong Kong. That's what made me decide not to go on and continue as a civil aircraft mechanic. You have so many people's lives in your hands. It's one thing to be responsible for one person's life, but a few hundred, no."

At 25, Green returned to civilian life and used his technical and mechanical skills for another 60 years, innovating and designing things that (mostly) remained on the ground.