OCTOBER 31, 1943
RACE ONE - BOSTON v BEAUFIGHTER
BACK
PHOTOS AND EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS.
George Dusting – Fitter IIE.
October 31, rained like hell so the B25s didn’t arrive and we didn’t get our inspection finished so we don’t have tomorrow off. What a bastard! Saw a good race between a Boston and a Beaufighter this evening. The Boston won by a short head, but they are going to have it over. We used A19-54 which was flown by our CO Squadron Leader Bill Boulton.
Don Kirkwood - Navigator.
October 31, Sunday, slack day again. Rain and general bad weather has restricted flying (deleted by censor). Our spirits are cheered once again by new that the Boston took advantage of us. He had taken out armour plating, ammunition, air gunner, and covered his gun ports. We were operationally loaded plus three extra people, yet still held him. A great race has been announced again, for tomorrow at 5pm from one of the Amplett Isles to Vivigani, a distance of 25 miles. No holds barred.
John Farquhar - Medical Orderly.
Squadron Leader Bill Boulton was our CO and ‘Big-Bum’ Boulton wasn’t the most popular man around the place and we thought we’d have a bit of a laugh at his expense. We took the female impersonator back to our camp, took him into the tent where ‘Big-Bum’ was asleep, sat ‘her’ on the side of the bed and shook the CO awake. His visitor leaned her elbow on his chest and spoke some endearing words in her high falsetto, at which time the CO said that he’d give her half-an-hour to stop doing that.
Doug Raffen - Pilot.
Few of the young pilots and navigators were what you would call seasoned drinkers, and as we were in an officially ‘grog free’ area, few of them had had a drink for quite some time and thus could be classed as two pot screamers. It always seems to me that on convivial occasions like this, the men reach a stage where it is the height of merriment and fun to get the clothes off a victim or two. And that happened to the Adjutant.
Curley Wearne AKA 'Split Pin' was much older that the rest of us and he submitted to the indignity of a bunch of drunk removing his attire bit by bit until he was totally nude, except for a black money belt around his waist. Curley was a tall skinny fellow he had a thick black moustache but was completely bald. Then it was insisted that he clamber up onto one of the roof trusses and drink a glass of beer while hanging upside down. Which he did and passed his test very well and took all this in a good natured way.
Then someone yelled out that it was the CO’s turn, so a mob descended on him myself included and tried to remove his shirt and pants. But Bill Boulton wasn’t too pleased about this affront to his dignity and resisted to some extent. He was a big fellow sometimes know a Bubble Guts or Barge Arse but he was eventually completely disrobed and as an added refinement was grabbed by the feet and dragged around the gravel floor of the Mess on his bare behind. Boulton left the island for a couple of weeks he went to Milne Bay to have his backside repaired. I doubt whether anyone in 30 Squadron sent him a get well card.