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.