Flying as a Spare

You tried not to be too friendly to other crews. You're talking to a guy one day and the next day he's not there, he's gone, why, why would you want to have a friendship, you know. I... I got called into the gunnery office one day, there was a raid coming up we had a battle order on. And I got called into the gunnery office and I got told flying officer so and so his crew was short of a gunnery he had influenza, I was being given to his crew for the night. And I was not very happy. You did not want to fly as a spare. I never did. Some guys were spares, they flew with other crews all the time. Any crew that was short of a gunner, that's where you got. But no, I wasn't too happy, I didn't want to fly with another crew. And I came out of there, out of the gunnery office and I was walking over to the mess and here comes the skipper and the navigator, wanting to know where the heck I'd been and I said "Oh, I've just been over at the gunnery office, I got called over... I'm flying a spare with flying officer so and so." Well, I was told "Let's go." Went back to the gunnery office real quick, it turns out we were on the battle order at the last minute replacing a crew that couldn't go, the whole crew. So we went back in and told the gunnery office to find another spare. Martin says "I am not flying with another crew, with another gunner as long as my gunner's available and he's available." So I flew, and we had a, almost a very pleasant night really. It wasn't a very hectic night for us. We, we, we ran into some flack but it wasn't too bad for us. But the crew I should've flown with got killed. Never found. Disappeared.