Profile of the Month - May/June 2007

Profile of Ian Donald Bale.

Born 11th. September 1919. In Surbiton Surrey. The parents ran a public house , one of two children and although his given name was Ian he was nicknamed 'Buzz' and this stayed with him throughout his career.

As he grew up and attended various schools, some of them in Brighton, he decided that he wanted to be a mechanic and after leaving school in 1934 obtained a job in a garage but this did not fulfill his ambitions so at 17 he walked from Brighton to London to apply for service in the RAF. After an examination they sent him home to be called up at 18 and this occurred a few days after that date being ordered to RAF Uxbridge where three months of square bashing and signing on for four years dictated his future.

Various courses followed until he was to be posted to Malta as a flight mechanic before which he was given a months embarkation leave which he spent in Brighton but then the war broke out and the Malta posting was cancelled, instead a posting to Poland was on the cards but that too fell through. When the offer of a posting to Salisbury in Southern Rhodesia came up it was up and away via a luxury liner around Cape Horn and became part of the flight training scheme there as a Fitter2E which used Harvards. His spell of duty was some three years and he loved every minute of it being a delightful country in those days.

He then volunteered to be a Flight Engineer and was sent back to UK via Durban and then by liner through the Suez canal to UK. Now a Sergeant. His posting was to St. Athen. where he had a Flight Engineers course to qualify and then to Spilsby in Lincs and on to Lancasters

The war now began in earnest for Buzz and didn’t end until thirty one operations later!

A typical night from the Operations Record Book for 207 Sqdn reads.

21/2/45. Lancaster 3. 7 crew members including P/O Bale I.D. Duty , Bombing.

16.51 out, 23.20 home.

Bombing Attack Gravenhorst. Bomb load 12x1000 lbs.

Sortie completed, successful strike on canal.

They got home but on the same page two other Lancasters are recorded as Aircraft missing.

Buzz had a lucky escape on one occasion in that he went sick before his projected 13th. mission and they didn’t return

At the end of the war in Europe there was an idea to send Sqdns of Lancasters out to the Far East to support the American effort to defeat Japan and Buzz was to be posted to that scheme which proved short lived because the atomic bombs achieved the end result.

One day on leave he met a squadron friend who told him that BOAC were looking for qualified engineers to join them but three licences were needed so it was off to school again. The intention was to operate Short Sunderlands as passenger aircraft and also converted Halifax's renamed the Halton, Buzz went on to crew Lancastrians, Hermes, Britannia's,Constellations, Tudors & Comets. In some cases there were 7 crew and 14 passengers. In the Halton it was necessary to leap over the main spar to serve the passengers. A far cry from today. In between he did the Berlin Airlift on Tudors. Finally ending on VC10s on the South African routes.

He had the honour of being chosen to be part of the crew on three Royal Flights. Two to Australia by Constellation and one to the USA by VC10.

British South American Airways also became part of his life , the flights to Rio involved many hours with stops and there was another lucky escape on the route to Rio when a change of aircraft involved a delay and Buzz was due to marry Cherry so a change of FE's was arranged and the Tudor set off for Rio never to be seen again.

Flights in the middle to late 1950s were of necessity lengthy, a typical flight to the Far East involved many stops such as a recorded one in Buzz’s logbook which reads.

Aircraft-Constellation.

London-Rome-Istanbul-Karachi –Calcutta-Rangoon-Kuala Lumpur-Singapore.

Total time 31hours in flight, 8 days including an engine failure. There is no need to comment!

After some 30,000 hours in the air Buzz ended his days with BA as an Instructor and that after 30 years with the company.

Married by this time to Cherry he retired at 55 , two daughters and a son in UK the only place to be was Spain. After an early interest in sailing Buzz built a 41 ft Catamaran and promptly sailed it with two friends and Cherry as crew from UK to Javea.

Cherry who was a charming lady passed away some 8 years ago which we all regretted. They had been supportive members of the ACA since the early days, indeed Buzz is No 3 in the membership list and his quiet manner has obviously been a disguise of an outstanding career in aviation..

Alec Jackson. May '07.