The memoirs of Albert Horton
with the RAF in the Middle East during the 1950s
Albert Horton
Edited by Robert Davies
ISBN: 978-1-291-98679-2
155 pages
Black & White photographs
Paperback
Despite 208 Sqn’s long and glorious history, first-hand accounts of life on the Sqn very seldom appear in print, so it is a particular pleasure to read Albert “Bert” Horton’s memoirs: “From Spitfire to Meteor.” As the title suggests, Bert served on 208 during the transition from the Spitfire era to the jet age.
Bert’s memoirs waited 10 years to find a publisher and the book only made its appearance in print via a self-publishing concern last year, sadly, some months after Bert’s death in December 2013. It is a great read, with a real feel for the post-war era. Unsurprisingly for a self-published book, it lacks the gloss and crisp typeface of a more expensive publication, but that does not detract from what is a real gem of post-war Sqn history. Bert’s description of his flying training and first solo will strike a chord with many, but for me the real interest comes in his depiction of daily life and incidents on the Sqn in Egypt. This was a different Air Force: lunchtime drinking, frequent accidents and not infrequent fatalities.
One hilarious episode concerns the period referred to in the title, when the Sqn was being re-equipped with the Meteor. The drawdown of the Spitfire was going too slowly for one of Bert’s contemporaries, who hit upon the cunning plan of destroying Spitfires, in order to accelerate their replacement with Meteors! Bert recounts how the miscreant deliberately bailed out of a perfectly serviceable Spitfire, directly overhead the airfield, on the pretext of some incurable malfunction of the engine and this despite the fact that all and sundry could hear that the engine was performing normally! Surprisingly, the perpetrator was not court-martialled. Bert did not share this disdain for the, by then, ageing Spitfire and he continued to fly them at every opportunity, whilst also building up his hours on the Meteor. He was a member of the Sqn’s Meteor formation aerobatic display team and he gives a hair-raising account of an uncontained engine failure in close formation: fortunately, without fatal consequences for any of the formation members. Bert’s time on 208 ended in October 1952 and he left the RAF two years later, after a short tour in the UK, plus a brief spell of flying with the RAF Reserve. His memoirs are a fitting tribute to him and to his peers of the post-war 208 Sqn.
“From Spitfire to Meteor” is available from the Lulu self-publishing website: www.lulu.com.
1st printing 2015
