Extract from a letter to the Odd Bods Secretary, George Smith:
Dear George,
I guess it's
not really important after all these years, but as that good bloke Norm Dobbie
has been kind enough to bring me a "Flying A-hole" tie from the
UK, maybe I should point out a slight error in the Odd Bods membership list
to which you have no doubt gone to great lengths to put together:-
Entry reads - HOFFERT, R. 419665. PILOT 216/436 Squadrons
Correction - HOFFERT, R. 410665 OBS 216/436 Squadrons (Yep,
George. I was far too brainy to be a pilot???).
Apart from the fact we became part of the ODDS & SODS, odd things did
happen to us. Not that it had the slightest impact on the outcome of WWII
- I, like a lot of blokes, enlisted to become a much-decorated fighter pilot
hero (that's the only reason?)
At I.T.S. I was told if I got high marks I could nominate singles or twins
- had to be bloody 'vroom-vroom' singles of course! I worked like mad, got
super high marks, and stuff me passed out to Air Observers' school with heady
bastards like accountants, school teachers, actuaries, bank managers etc -
oh yep, surveyors a la Arnold Easton - and doctor of science Good Guts Hirst.
Some were really OLD - 27 to 28 years, and some were even MARRIED.
On 216 Squadron RAF Mid-East, elements of the squadron were detached to SEAC for a while - monsoonal Burma suited my form of bush navigation and on recall to Mid-East my skipper was awarded a gong for being the driver of the only squadron aircraft to find the drop zone every time and never turn back!
Well, things were quiet back in the M.E., so I thought I would try to get a second posting to SEAC where my rough talents seemed to be of some use. Accordingly I wrote to the appropriate RAAF office in London with such a request. Pronto a note came back: - "You, like all of us, are in this war to do as we are told" (and sort of 'up yours too mate').
Blow me down - and this is the "odd part" - a week or so later a signal came in: 410665 W.O. HOFFERT second pilot SEAC - stuff me they had confused second posting and second pilot - on such small mistakes the whole outcome of WWII could have hung!Quick as a flash I gathered love letters from home, a change of clothes and buggered off from Cairo, bumming a lift to Karachi in a ferry Beaufighter.
In Karachi it was the usual airforce case of "oo are you? where did ya come from?"I was assigned to a Canadian crew of 436 Sqdn, RCAF, and when I told the skipper, Bill Scott, that I was only an Observer, he said that was OK, he would rather have somebody who knew their way around Burma sitting in the co-pilot's seat, especially as his navigator was ropey, new to the game, with eyes which had been badly affected by yellow fever, especially at night.
As for flying - Bill Scott was a flying instructor and put me through the ropes of loaded take-offs, landing supply drops etc. Of course on 216 Squadron I had taken every opportunity to grab the wheel so it didn't take much instruction to round off my flying skills.
As a second dickey I logged almost 800 hours, but I was never re-mustered. Things were pretty primitive in SEAC and as far as the CO of 436 was concerned, as long as the job was done, that's all that counted and why worry about an odd Australian on an otherwise 100% Canadian group?
George, how about that for a line-shoot?
But I guess these stuff-ups happened all the time, making us Odd Bods even odder. Thank you for all the work you do on the Association's behalf.
Yours sincerely,
Roy Hoffert