Gratitude for the Ground Crew

Each kite, like I am talking about Lancs, had its own ground crew of, you know, what they call a fitter and an armour and so on. They looked after your kite and they treated it as if it was their own. In other words, they gave it the greatest of care and made sure that it was in top, top running operation. And they were, like our ground crew in 103 Squadron used to wait up no matter how late we got back. Some ground crew were happy enough to have an air crew that would take them out for a beer but the ground crew worked very hard in all kinds of weather. They had to service our kite rain or shine and no matter how cold it was, they were responsible for the aircraft and they did a wonderful, wonderful job. We can’t compliment them enough.