I will cut to the chase. I won’t give the old bits and pieces otherwise, but I came down just close to a Dutch farmhouse that had this massive, and I mean massive, bloody spike on one of the corners. But, fortunately, I went in the field very close by. But, the worst bit was that it was Volkel’s Tactical Evaluation year, the Dutch Minister of Defence was visiting. The guys when we came in knew there was an air attack coming, and they had miniguns arranged all round the airfield, and had been given out blank ammunition. This guy on the gun had been tracking my aircraft and firing off the blanks, when the aircraft all of a sudden burst into flames. Sadly, as a result of the shock, he was hospitalised!”
Desmond Penrose 
apologised that he could not beat Malcolm’s Story!
It was 1953, Exercise SUNRAY, in Egypt. The invading force was escorted by Venoms; 208 was defending, and there was an enormous dogfight, during which Pete Greensmith on 208 was chased by the Venoms. So, he rolled over and pulled through, and the first thing that happened was that his tail fell off.
The Venom pilot did not see anybody eject. The Squadron searched for 4 days to find Pete, and couldn’t find him. They couldn’t even find the wreckage. So, he was presumed dead, his relatives were notified, and a Committee of Adjustment was arranged. His kit was all gathered together, or sold off so that the money could go to his relatives, and the funeral arrangements were handed over to the RAF Regiment. They provided the gun carriage, but there was no body. The family, of course, was not to know that there was no body – they had to know that it was a proper military funeral.
The RAF Regiment practiced, and it was probably on the eighth day, the day before the funeral that everything was ready. However, on the ninth day, the day of the funeral, who appeared at the Guardroom, but Pete Greensmith. He had been picked up. He said that he landed in the middle of the desert, and he knew that there must be human habitation because the first thing that happened was a fly landed. He said that “if a fly lands, then there must be humans around.”
The value of Pete was £25, which was given to the 3 Bedouins who brought him in. Unfortunately, the very first person that Pete met at the Guardroom was the RAF Regiment officer in charge of the burial party, who said “You Bastard! – You might have waited one more day!”
2017 Reunion -
