The Ejector Seat Test Pilot

Both my parents, who were called James Samuel Victor McAllister and Kathleen Lee were in the RAF in World War 2. They met in the RAF because my father was from Carrickfergus, County Antrim, and my mother was from London. She's a Londoner.

My father had just qualified at Queens (University, Belfast) with a degree in 1940. The war had just started, obviously, and he tried to join up and wanted to join the army. There were no vacancies, which seems funny to me, so he ended up joining the RAF. And the RAF took him as a navigator, he became a navigator. He flew in Beaufighters and mostly in Mosquitoes. You know, he was with men who didn't last that long in the war, but they survived - both of them, him and his pilot.

His pilot was called Alan Owen. But he was always called "Ginger" because he had ginger hair. But, of course, all the photographs were black and white, so it doesn't really show that.

But they were a very successful pair and shot down a lot of German planes, especially in 1944. And he got medals for this and a bar on one of the medals, which means he got it again. He got the DFC in the DFM, so I think I can't remember which one is the bar, but it's all in the records I've brought with me today.

Mother: She joined the WAAF - wasn't even that in those days, was it, WAAF? Women's Auxiliary Air Force. She was a schoolgirl when the war broke out. And she went to a school in London called Saint Ursula's. And for some, to my mind, mad reason Saint Ursula's was evacuated to Hastings on the South Coast, which is like taking you into the mouth of the battle. A load of girls after that then came in 1940 on the school holidays and came to the start of the New Year, as far as I understand, that school was going to be evacuated again, but somewhere in Wales.

She did not like the sound of Wales cause it was like the end of the world to a London girl. So she asked her parents if she could leave school. Which she did and got a job in the Admiralty in Bath where one of her older sisters was working. So it was like making tea and filing forms. That's what she called her job. It wasn't very exciting, and I don't think it was really one of the forces. Technically, it was an administrative.

So when she was 17 and 3/4 she asked her parents if she could join up now that was underage for a woman, I believe. I think if they were 18 - but they allowed her and one of her older sisters had join up, so she joined the WAAF and she went first into what was called Balloon Command.

They used balloons for various things. One of her first jobs was as a young girl - she would barely have been 18 and she was a driver - her job was a driver. And she drove these - what should call them - Meteorologists - to dine in a town called Maisel Mouse - Mouse Hole. It's written what it's called - Marisel in Cornwall.

And she used to take these civilian meteorologists to their weather station or from that weather station. They let off weather balloons. And they treated her rather harshly, I thought - they wouldn't let her come into the Hut or anything. She had to sit out in the vehicle. There be no heat.

And this is December or Christmas spent away from home, staying in the wide open in, I don't know, some Cornish town. And then she should have been signed for three weeks or something, you know, that was her first experience away from home.

She continued with her driving and I don't have her whole story... But anyway, she went... I don't know whether she applied or they just transferred her into... she called it the proper Air Force and she was one of the people who would drive men, you know the way you see in films... pilots would have scrambled... they had to be taken to these huts near the airplanes from the base, and she would have been one of these sorts of drivers in and out... She used to drive lorries - she would tell me that - three-ton lorries.

My father was trained as a navigator in America. In Miami. This is extraordinary to me. They were sent there - the last thing I found yesterday when it was getting this ready was an article in Florida papers saying another 150 RAF men had been sent here to be trained as navigators, and they were trained by Pan Am. You know, the domestic airline.

Then he was sent to North Africa, where he was in Algeria, Tunisia - now photographs of that sort of stuff. He was in Malta and then in the South East of England, where a lot of the sorties over Germany were made from 44'. I have a feeling they were both at a place called Swannington, an air base called Swannington. I think that's probably Norfolk. A lot of them were in Norfolk when the war ended. That was 45.

They had then planned (his parents) to get married in 46', but they weren't demobbed until 46'. They were still part of the Air Force until 46', and then an interesting little fact is that my father's parents were from Carrickfergus. And they wanted to go to the wedding in 46'.

But in those days, you had to have an identity card to travel. So we have Granny and Grandaddy's identity cards showing that they went to London for their (my parents) wedding.

My father got his name - James Samuel Victor McAllister - can I tell you a story about that? Even his name is interesting. He was born on the 9th of November, 1918, two days before the Armistice that we celebrate. You know, the 11th of the 11th (November), which is today. He was due to be called James Samuel after his father and his would be his great grandfather, I think. And because of the Armistice being signed at the end of the First World War, his parents added another name, Victor.

(Father tested early variants of the ejector seat in Northern Ireland)

The photos of the ejector seat trials are interesting and I don't know how my father came to be in Northern Ireland for that - yeah, and understand that Mr. Martin, who invented the ejector seat - that a lot of his work from the Langford Lochs, which is an air base. Still is for aeroplanes, near Crumlin. And a funny place, I heard on the radio.