MESSAGE BY AIR CHIEF MARSHAL THE HONORABLE SIR RALPH COCHRANE,
CB, CBE, KCB, AFC, AIR OFFICER COMMANDING No. 5 GROUP, BOMBER COMMAND
Waddington is always associated in my mind with 463 and 467 Squadron,
who occupied it during a critical stage of the bomber campaign. It was
there that I lost ten shillings to a young Australian flying officer,
I can’t remember his name, but I think it was Whiting or something
like that. I wonder if he remembers the incident. The occasion was an
attack, I think, in Berlin, when trouble with an engine had delayed the
take off of his aircraft, so that the rest of the squadron had been in
the air for some time.
I was in process of suggesting to the Station Commander that the sortie
had better be cancelled, when the captain arrived to say his aircraft
was now serviceable and could he take off?
When I expressed doubts about his being able to catch up with the main
stream he bet me ten bob he would be over the target on time, and so he
was.
On another occasion a nearby squadron was in trouble and needed a firm
hand to sort things out, so Squadron Leader Doubleday found himself a
Wing Commander in Command, and quickly restored morale.
Waddington was also the station to pioneer the 5 Group rapid landing scheme.
The station was seen landing its aircraft faster than any other station,
and I seem to remember 30 aircraft in 20 minutes on a dark and dirty night
— good going, which meant a lot to returning crews.
While I won’t go so far as to say that Waddington was the best station
in the group, I can’t at the moment think of one that was better.
R.A. COCHRANE
June, 1974
Reproduced from the Official Squadron Histories
H.M.(Nobby) Blundel Official Historian 467/463 Lancaster Squadrons Association
