I returned quite chipper [from Malaria treatment in Carthage (today: Tripolis)] in August [1943] to catch the buzz about Italy. The mood in the squadron was unusually tetchy. Aircrew and ground staff were restless. There was a lot of moaning. There'd been no mail. There was no beer. There were many other petty niggles. There was a high crop of disciplinary action. There was no doubt everyone on the edge.
Nevertheless I was amazed, waking early one morning, to see red flags sprouting on the airman's bivouacs. I thought it must be a joke. A Welch corporal, very experienced with in the making of pretexts on his own behalf, now came to me on everybody's behalf, saying, "The lads have decided they want to talk to you on an official matter." He said he knew that if it was an official complaint he should be adressing himself to another quarter. He said, "The lads was wanting an officer out of the ranks, sir, and with all respects, you was an erk yourself, sir." I said, "Is it to do with the red flags, corp?", and he replied, "Some of them are getting a bit unruly, to tell the truth, sir, not what you might call controllable." I said I'd see what I could do.
The adjudant grew very excited and shouted out "Mutiny!" and the word soon ran round the Wing: "260 has a mutiny on its hands." The CO [Commanding Officer] said that I'd better go down and see what it was all about. The adjudant wanted me to wear a gun, but I didn't think it was a very helpful suggestion. More red bunting had appeared, scarves and handkerchiefs and flags. It looked like May Day in Moscow. Then I went along and gathered them all together under one roof.
The heart of their grievance was that they felt they were left out of the picture. They had no mail, they had no beer, and worst of all, nobody told them anything. They wanted to know, for instance, what was going on in Russia. Was Stalin a monster or a hero? What about the trials and purges? Who were the current commanders? What were they doing? How were they grouped? Was it true that Russian women rolled naked in the snow?
All this was meat and drink to me. I'd been mugging the stuff up without an outlet for months, if not years. For a couple of hours I let them have at it, with pictures. I saturated them with facts and figures. They may by the end have wished that I'd never got started. But they said it was what they wanted. We sang 'The Red Flag' together and the decorations came down. After that I could do no wrong in the CO's eyes. He'd said he'd heard of many ways of quelling a mutiny, but to filibuster one into the ground was a novel expedient.
Source:
Lee, Christopher: Tall, Dark and Gruesome (1997), p. 148f
Further Reading:
Bonus Content:
- The Red Flag sung a cappella by an audience - the closest I could find to what that closing song of the mutiny must have sounded like
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