They Spread Their Wings (27 page)

As part of his Norfolk Airways operations, Jim undertook pleasure flying from Clacton, Yarmouth and Cleethorpes beaches during the holiday seasons of the 1950s, and even flaunted regulations by landing at low tide on Scrooby sandbank off Great Yarmouth. He rented space at the former RAF airfield of Waltham (Grimsby), and between 1954 and 1958 offered summer pleasure flights from both the airfield and Cleethorpes beach, the latter using Austers, including G-AIBY, AJVT and AMSZ.

As Jim’s own business grew it became necessary to find a more suitable base for the larger and greater quantity of aircraft needed. Norfolk Airways eventually moved to the former RAF airfield of Horsham St Faith on the outskirts of Norwich – later to become Norwich Airport. By 1969 his team of aircraft and pilots had notched up 1.5 million air miles, of which more than a third was flown on behalf of the Norwich Union Insurance Company, Jim’s biggest customer since 1962. Another regular customer was Anglia Television, for whom he undertook aerial filming sorties and flew filmed stories from all over the eastern counties back to the Norwich studio so they could be included in TV news bulletins and other programmes.

Around 1965 Jim acquired a business partner – the well-known and colourful aero engineer Leslie ‘Wilbur’ Wright – who already owned his own air business called Anglian Air Charter, operating out of Great Yarmouth (North Denes) airfield. Together they embarked on a series of steps that, over time, revolutionised the air travel industry in the east of England. Initially, recognising the growth potential of the North Sea gas industry for their businesses, the two companies launched a joint-venture operation called Rig Air which ferried rig workers between the various gas operator bases (but not to the rigs themselves). In addition to continuing their established charter work, a DC–3 aircraft was acquired to move gas personnel around the UK and the Continent from what was then Horsham St Faith airfield. This business was so successful that Jim and Wilbur decided to merge the three separate businesses under the name of Air Anglia. This airline grew to carry in excess of 400,000 passengers a year, serving eighteen airports in the UK and the Continent with twenty aircraft and 700 employees. The company also included an executive air charter division, an engineering services division that looked after its own and other operators’ aircraft, and a separate inclusive holiday subsidiary called Anglia Holidays. In 1979 Jim and Wilbur sold 85 per cent of Air Anglia to British & Commonwealth Shipping and the airline was later renamed Air UK, with Jim and Wilbur remaining as non-executive directors for a time until they both retired. Later, British & Commonwealth sold Air UK to the Dutch airline KLM, who subsequently relaunched it as KLM UK.

Post-war civilian pilot Jim Crampton in the uniform of Rig Air, with a Fairchild Argus. (Crampton Family Collection)

Airline owners Jim Crampton (right) and Leslie ‘Wilbur’ Wright mark the addition of the first Fokker F28 jet to their Air Anglia fleet in 1979. (Crampton Family Collection)

Jim continued to fly in his spare time as he remained fascinated by the continuing challenge and excitement of flying, even learning to fly a helicopter in his sixties. Much of his remaining personal leisure time was spent in renovating Oxnead Mill, on the River Bure in Norfolk, and turning its associated buildings into a home for his family in a most picturesque setting. The huge interior of the mill allowed him to install several theatre organs, which helped to satisfy both his engineering and musical passions. Jim Crampton died in Norfolk on 26 September 1987.

When the German blitzkrieg rolled into France on 10 May 1940, a south Lincolnshire airman found himself in the midst of the chaotic air battle that followed. Pre-war Cranwell-trained apprentice LAC Alan Summerson’s survival story is a minor epic in its own right, epitomising the resilience and strength of his own character, as well as that of the Fairey Battle and Bristol Blenheim aircrews thrown into the path of the blitzkrieg, like chaff in the wind. Not only did he survive that ordeal, but he went on to see post-war operational service in two more conflicts, moving from the interwar biplanes of the start of his career to flying jet V-bombers by the end.

Born in the Lincolnshire village of Donington in 1920, Alan Summerson was educated at Donington Grammar School where he took his matriculation exams. Then, in February 1936, aged 16 and ‘mad keen on aeroplanes’, he joined the RAF as an apprentice. As airman 568963, he was one of a total of 148 young hopefuls on courses 8M12E (wireless electrical) and 8J12 (instruments) making up the thirty-third entry at the Electrical & Wireless School (later No 1 E&WS) RAF Cranwell. A member of class 8M12E, Alan embarked on a three-year trade apprenticeship in what was essentially a ground-based trade, often referred to as ‘Tech Sigs’, but his abiding aim in life was to fly. From the names of interwar aircraft he wrote in his later flying logbooks, it seems certain that Alan indeed took every opportunity to get airborne during his training at Cranwell. We find such evocative names as Atlas, Gordon, Hart, Overstrand, Sidestrand, Seal, Tutor, Victoria, Vincent, Virginia, Wallace, Wapiti, Wellesley, and Wildebeest, which could reasonably only have been ‘logged’ up to the date he joined No 52 Squadron in January 1939.

Aircraftman Alan Summerson as a young Cranwell apprentice in 1936. (John Summerson)

During his time at Cranwell Alan acquired a nickname by which he became universally known in the RAF and beyond. Cranwell was not more than 20 miles from his home in Donington and as soon as the passage of time, regulations and money allowed him to do so, Alan, although 6ft 3in tall, bought an open-top MG sports car that became his pride and joy. This gave him the freedom to visit his home quite frequently. His notion of driving, however, seemed to be based entirely on two speeds: ‘very fast’ and ‘stop’. This penchant for driving everywhere like a bat out of hell quickly earned him the nickname ‘Zoom’, which stuck with him for the rest of his days.

He was a bright lad and displayed undoubted aptitude and skill in his trade, having passed his apprenticeship course as an Aircraftman First Class (AC1) wireless electrical mechanic in January 1939. Thoroughly schooled in the intricacies of radio equipment and how to operate it (truly living up to the motto of No 1 E&WS: ‘thorough’), with war clouds gathering he was able to seize yet another opportunity to fly by volunteering for aircrew training as a wireless operator/air gunner. In this he was successful and being highly qualified as a radio technician and operator already, Alan was posted to No 52 (B) Squadron based at RAF Upwood near Ramsey in Cambridgeshire to gain the other skills required by an air gunner.

As part of the rapid expansion of the RAF, Upwood had reopened with full station status in January 1937 and its two units, No 63 and No 52 (B) Squadrons, had also been reactivated, during the spring of that year, with Hawker Audaxes and Hinds respectively. By the beginning of 1938, No 52 (B) Squadron received the first of the RAF’s Fairey Battle Mk Is into service, but the process of re-equipment was slow and still going on when Alan arrived a year later. Indeed, his logbook shows both the Hawker Hind and the Audax in the ‘Types Flown In’ list. At the beginning of 1939, No 52 changed its status to that of a training squadron – taking on a role similar to the later bomber OTUs – and it was at that point, February 1939, that Alan arrived at Upwood for his air gunnery training. His logbook records that he qualified as an air gunner with No 52 (B) Squadron on 5 May 1939, so he could now proudly wear the new air gunner half-wing flying brevet on his tunic, to go with his ‘clenched-fist’ wireless-trade arm badge. He had at last achieved his boyhood dream.

Alan remained with No 52 Squadron until early August 1939, getting to know his way round the Battle until – with the obviously deteriorating political situation – he was sent home on leave before the balloon went up. It is probable that, with his insatiable appetite for flying in anything he could get his hands on, it was during this period up to August 1939 that he ‘logged’ time in the turrets of a Boulton Paul Defiant and an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, which are also recorded in his book. It was during this leave period that he and many like him received urgent telegrams, in his case recalling him to Upwood. Back at the station he was ordered to report to No 150 Squadron, an operational Fairey Battle unit based at RAF Benson. On 23 August 1939 the CO of No 150 Squadron, Sqn Ldr William MacDonald, was ordered to mobilise the squadron on a war footing as a unit of the Advanced Air Striking Force (AASF). One week later, on 3 September, war was declared and on that date the squadron had sixteen Fairey Battle aircraft on charge, organised into ‘A’ and ‘B’ Flights of eight aircraft each. Alan crewed up with Sgt George Barker, pilot, and Sgt James Williams, observer, in ‘A’ Flight and with just a few exceptions, Alan thereafter always flew with this crew. On Saturday 2 September 1939 AC1 Alan Summerson went to war.

Flying in the rear seat of K9380 Alan made a two-and-a-half-hour flight from Benson to Challerange in France as part of No 74 Wing of the AASF. With the arrival of the squadron’s Miles Magister P2394, flown in by Fg Off R.A. Weeks on the 4th, the whole squadron had fully relocated to Challerange, a town located 25 miles east of Reims, where they set about preparing for operations. At 14.35 on 10 September, the squadron’s first war operation was a three-hour reconnaissance by three aircraft from ‘A’ Flight led by Sqn Ldr MacDonald. On 12 September, having sorted themselves out and with all personnel and equipment having arrived, No 150 Squadron was ordered to move to an airfield at Écury-sur-Coole, near the River Marne south-west of Challons and 20 miles south of Reims. Alan Summerson made this short flight with Sgt Pay and Sgt Leitch in Battle L5225.