Interview with Ken Oatley
Title
Interview with Ken Oatley
Description
Initially too young to enlist at the beginning of the war, Ken Oatley served in the Home Guard until he was able to enlist in October 1940 and, after initial training, he undertook pilot training. After basic flying training he went onto Canada training on Oxfords. It was whilst he was there that Donald Bennett was forming the Pathfinder Force. Five pilot trainees were taken from each course to retrain as navigators and Ken was selected for transfer. Eventually posted to 627 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa on Mosquito aircraft, Ken flew a total of 22 operations. He describes how 627 Squadron operated within Bomber Command operations, explaining how their role was to arrive and illuminate the designated targets for the following bombers. This included the operation on Dresden in February 1945. At the end of the war, Ken served with the Bomb Development Unit at RAF Marham, before being demobbed in 1946.
Creator
Date
2017-03-21
Spatial Coverage
Language
Type
Format
01:03:33 audio recording
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
AOatleyK170321, POatleyK1701
Transcription
DK: I’ll just introduce myself, so, this is, this is David Kavanagh introduce, interviewing Ken Oatley at his home [redacted] on 21st of March 2017. So, I’ll just put that down there.
KO: Surely.
DK: Okay, if I keep looking down I’m just making sure it’s still working.
KO: Functioning.
DK: Still functioning, yeah. It’s, it can be a bit temperamental at times, that looks, that looks okay. Alright with that. I’ll just like to ask sort of first of all, what were you doing before the war?
KO: I was going to be a professional violinist.
DK: Really?
KO: My father, I won a scholarship to the Royal Academy when I was fifteen.
DK: Right.
KO: But I had no one to live with in London so I had to put it off for another year and then I had to take an examination that year to get the exhibition the year after that which actually brought me up too far close to the war and, even then, I had a year to go before I could get into the Air Force so I joined the Home Guard, did my duty as far as I could from then, and at that time, it was the 13th of September I think of ’39 that I was in headquarters and the phone rang and call out all the Home Guard, we’re anticipating the invasion immediately, so that passed over of course and October came and I thought, well, really it’s, it’s time and I just was old enough then to volunteer so I volunteered for aircrew in October of 1940.
DK: Just stepping back a bit, when you were in the Home Guard, what were your sort of roles then? What were you actually doing, were you guarding anything or?
KO: No, I was in, I was in headquarters most of the time, but I had to take out messages or anything that required, you know, but I was there nights and so forth.
DK: So were you mostly young men there waiting to be called up or sort of [unclear]?
KO: No, no, no, they were all a lot much older than me.
DK: Oh right. So you then applied to the Air Force, so ⸻
KO: Hm, hm.
DK: It was always your intention then to ⸻
KO: I always wanted to fly.
DK: Alright. Yeah, so did you actually go into pilot training then?
KO: Yes, in, I started flying in April of ’41, it was April time anyway. And did the usual six weeks at Blackpool and then waiting for a course to come around they sent me to Northern Ireland guarding an auxiliary airfield there against the IRA and then in May time they sent me over then to Scone, not Scone, there was a, at, oh God! This is, my memory is, north of, in Scotland.
DK: Ah, okay.
KO: On the east coast top, anyhow it was the biggest town north. We were there prepared to go down to our ITW then at Scarborough, by, by June then I was I was flying from Sealand on the Wirral.
DK: What type of aircraft were you flying?
KO: Tiger Moths.
DK: Ah!
KO: Which I did, I loved flying and I had the aptitude for it and I really thoroughly enjoyed my time there, it was wonderful.
DK: What did you think of the Tiger Moth?
KO: Oh, I liked it very much and I, our last hour or two that we had on the course, my friend and I, we were supposed to be going out for three quarters of an hour flight at night in the evening, come back and report and then go back and do another three quarters of an hour so I said to my mate, ‘Well, this is a bit of a waste of time, I’ll meet you over the river Dee and we’ll have a dogfight.’ Which we did. When time came to, to come back to report in, he disappeared and I thought, well, I don’t know where the heck I am [laughs], we’ve wandered about somewhat for three quarters of an hour so I had, eventually I had to give up and I saw a farm with smoke coming out of the chimney and I decided, well, that looks alright so I made a forced landing into this field, knocking out a host of surveyor’s posts on the way down and a ditch that was half way across which I hadn’t noticed. Anyhow I landed there and a motorcyclist came in and I got out and spread my map on his handle bars and asked him where I was and he gave to me, I was in the middle of Lancashire so I flew back and ⸻
DK: You’ve gone that far south?
KO: Yes. So, anyway, I was up for the wing co the next morning.
DK: Were you able to take off out the field then?
KO: Yeah, I did, half the, half the field.
DK: Yeah, so that was okay.
KO: It was ⸻
DK: No damage to the aircraft?
KO: No, no, no, no, it was a bit dodgy, there was a wood at the end of the field and I just caught the width to the corner of it and I managed to get through, anyway, landed there and the next morning I was up in front of the CO on a charge which it was going to be a court martial but he let me go on [unclear] ‘cause I was the first one to solo out of thirty so I thought, you know, I’m made for this and so I was taken off the Spitfight posting and ended up in Canada flying Oxfords. Well we were on the Oxfords for some while and then there was, Bennett was just due to do the Pathfinders setup but he had no navigators, only map readers really, observers, don’t tell him I told you that, but he had no navigators so he took five pilots off of every pilot’s course in Canada, brought us home to do the Midland [?] course on the navigators, then go onto flying.
DK: So, you were actually on a pilot’s course in Canada.
KO: Yeah, yeah.
DK: Got pulled off by Bennett ⸻
KO: Yeah.
DK: Because he needed navigators.
KO: Yeah.
DK: How did you feel about that at the time?
KO: Not very happy, I must admit, but anyway.
DK: How were you chosen, was it almost a lottery or?
KO: Well, I don’t know, I think probably I wasn’t landing them very, very well. I came down beautifully, the approach was hundred percent, I touched down on the wheels, nice and quietly, as soon as the tailwheel had dropped, which off the runway we’d had, my instructor never once told me that I should be doing three point landings, never mentioned, then when the CFI took me up, I did the same thing and he then asked my instructor whether he’d taught me three point landings, of course he said, oh yes, of course he has, and so I was one of the five that got tucked out.
DK: So, it might have been poor training on the trainer’s part, not I suppose, [unclear]
KO: Well, I mean, it seems a simple enough thing to say you should be doing three point landings. I landed it quietly and smoothly, you know, and then ⸻
DK: And this would have been the Oxford, would it?
KO: Yeah, yes. Anyhow I came back home, nearly torpedoed on the way home.
DK: Can you remember which ship you came back on?
KO: Volendam and just out of Halifax I was on my swing hammock and there was an enormous bang, I thought, my God, we’d been torpedoed, and I bet, I was four four flights down and I bet I was, tops, tops of that before anybody else [laughs]. However, there happened to be a torp, a destroyer had come alongside and for no apparent reason, and he happened just to take the torpedo and the thing was sunk with all hands and we just carried on, there was ⸻
DK: You can’t remember the name of the destroyer that was lost?
KO: No, no, no.
DK: No. Did you actually see it go down or?
KO: No.
DK: No.
KO: But we were told.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But you see, we were in two passengers, well, one was obviously a passenger ship and we were in a sort of a half and half but there were five hundred aircrew on board ships, then we had several destroyers flying around us all the way back across the Atlantic. It took three weeks coming home because they went all over the place and got back to England and put me on the navigation course which we did one course at Grand Hotel, oh, Eastbourne.
DK: Right. Yep, yep.
KO: Six weeks and then we were sent off on a ship again, I thought, well, we are going back to Canada again, which I didn’t like ‘cause I’d got engaged to a girl in Canada while I was, while I was out there. Anyway, we went to South Africa and I was, from start to finish it was nearly eight months, wasted out of my flying time, going down there, doing the course and coming back again and we spent three weeks at Clairwood race course in tents. Then they moved us to East London and we were there for another six weeks and while we were there I met somebody there quite out of the blue, he asked me what we did, what our hobbies were, said well, ‘I play the violin, ‘Oh’, he said, ‘I know somebody who’d be interested in you’, so he took me up the road to this gentleman and he said, ‘Would you like to play me something?’ So I played him one of the better class pieces that I used to perform and he said, ‘Would you like to play with the municipal orchestra on Sunday?’ This was Thursday, so I did that and I did that the following month, so that was the virtually, the last time I played the violin at all, really.
DK: So you never played it since then?
KO: Not, not, not really, no.
DK: No, no.
KO: So, anyway we got back and messed about for ages and I did ⸻
DK: How did you feel when all this was going on, you were going to South Africa, you’d done this training, was there a certain amount of frustration or?
KO: Yes I, you know, it was very enjoyable.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Anyway we got back and there was so many aircrew trained here messing about Bournemouth was full of them all the time, they didn’t know what to do with us, anyhow we ended up at Harrogate, then I was sent off on a commando course to start with at Whitley Bay, six weeks and then they sent me up to Scone to sit in the back seat of a Tiger Moth with a, with a just recently qualified pilot in front and I was another six weeks messing about there, well, that was, then I started the navigation course proper then so I never thought I was gonna get there.
DK: Was navigation something you took to easily, was it?
KO: Oh yes, I was, no worries about that, and then I was onto OTU and from what I understand I was, uhm, was the top of the class in both flying and ground subjects and ⸻
DK: Can you remember which OTU it was you went to?
KO: I can never remember the name of it, it was north of Oxford.
DK: Right. Is not in there, in the logbook.
KO: It would be, I suppose [pause] It’s more likely in the back of my pilot’s, pack of pilot’s ⸻
DK: That one.
KO: But in the back one.
DK: Oh, right, okay. So, what year are we talking about now then? It’s ⸻
KO: That’ll be ’42.
DK: ’42, alright. So that’s the Oxford, so that’s ’41, ’74, you are still flying in ’74?
KO. Oh that’s, that’s flying here.
DK: Right.
KO: It’ll be very, very close to, no, but it wouldn’t be in there, yes, on the back, on the back page, I’ve got all the ⸻
DK: Ah, right.
KO: All the ⸻
DK: Ah, right, okay, so ’40,
KO: Be in, here, up here.
DK: [unclear] ’43.
KO: Down here.
DK: 16.
KO: 16.
DK: Ah, right, so, I’ll just say this for the benefit of the tape so it’s 16 OTU Upper Heyford. So you were there from the 10th of August 1943.
KO: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Then we went onto Scampton and then to Swinderby.
DK: And that was?
KO: On Stirlings
DK: 16.
KO: We did Wellingtons at ⸻
DK: 16 OTU.
KO: 16 OTU.
DK: Yeah.
KO: And then we went on the Stirlings.
DK: And that was at Swinderby.
KO: Yes and then the Lancs.
DK: Right, so, at 1660 Conversion Unit, Swinderby, that was the Stirlings.
KO: Yes.
DK: Yeah, and then at Syerston,
KO: Yes’
Dk: That was 5 Lancaster finishing school.
KO: Yes.
DK: So, at Upper Heyford was the Wellingtons?
KO: Yes.
DK: Yes, so what was your feeling about the Wellington then as an aircraft?
KO: Oh, fine and my pilot that I had there, although he hadn’t all that many hours in, he was fine and we got on very well, our crew was first class and everything we did, we we were quite quite well appraised for.
DK: So how did your crew get together then?
KO: Oh, we all, they put us in a hangar and said, I’m sorry, sort yourselves out, so to speak, you know.
DK: You just found yourselves a pilot.
KO: Yes, from.
DK: Do you think that worked well?
KO: Yes, it did in our case.
DK: Yeah.
KO: I had an excellent crew and I was very sorry that we went on from there to Metheringham,
DK: Right.
KO: With Gibson squadron.
DK: 106 Squadron.
KO: Then my pilot went on a second dickie trip with his, with a crew that were on their last operation.
DK: Right.
KO: And failed to return. So, we were sent back to Scampton again to be recrewed. If they’d have given us another pilot, which would have been more sensible, though they split the whole crew up as far as I’m concerned, gave us another crew of odd bodies that they had and he wasn’t too bad, he wasn’t as good as my other pilot you know, they were a little bit lumpy, but see my my trouble was, my navigator’s seat was well back from the front and as I remember it seems as if I had a little office of my own now, the only ⸻
DK: This was the Wellington,
KO: Stirling.
DK: Stirling, right, okay.
KO: And my only chance of talking to the pilot was on the intercom.
DK: Right.
KO: So I never was anywhere near him. It was when we got on to Syerston to the Lancaster, I was sitting right behind him as you realise and he had the most dreadful body odour that you can ever imagine, it really was out of this world.
DK: Oh dear.
KO: And so I took the crew up to the wing commander after we’d sort of nearly finished the early stages with the Lanc and I said, ‘I can’t fly with this bloke’, we all agreed, nearly court martialled, I bugger to go for, go for a sheep as a lamb, you know and anyway we sent back to Scampton again and ⸻
DK: So, you’ve gone back to Scampton for a third time.
KO: Yes, yes.
DK: Alright. When you, just going back to 106, you never met Gibson then, did you?
KO: No, no.
DK: I, just for the, slightly confusing that for the tape, just for the benefit of the tape, what I’ll say here is where you were, so initially it was Upper Heyford with 16 OTU from the 10th of August 1943, then it was Scampton 15th of December ’43, then 1660 Conversion Unit at Swinderby from the 8th of February ’44 on Stirlings.
KO: Yes.
DK: Then 5 Lancaster Finishing School at Syerston.
KO: Yes.
DK: From 28th of March ’44, obviously on Lancasters, then 106 Squadron your pilot went missing as a second dickie, so back to Scampton again, then Swinderby.
KO: Yes.
DK: Then 5 Lancaster Finishing School, Syerston again.
KO: Yes.
DK: Then back to Scampton because there was problems with the pilot.
KO: Yes. On 106.
DK: Onto 106, and then on, I’ve got here, then onto 627, so that was, that’s the next question.
KO: Yes, yeah.
DK: Yeah, okay. So, you’ve complained about your pilot then and what happened then?
KO: Oh, they didn’t do me any harm or anything, I’m just, my memory gets so bad at times, other times I can go with, like a, you know, what was the question?
DK: It was, you’re back at Scampton and you complained about the pilot, because of the body odour.
KO: Yes.
DK: So what happened then?
KO: Well, straight away I was sent to Woodhall Spa from there.
DK: Right, okay. And that’s with 627 Squadron.
KO: 627 Squadron, yes.
DK: Yeah, okay. So, what were you flying at 627 then?
KO: Mosquitos.
DK: Yeah. What did you think about the Mosquito?
KO: Oh, marvellous.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Yes, I, had no complaints about the Mosquito.
DK: Was it, was it a bit of a shock when you’ve gone from four engine bombers?
KO: It was lovely.
DK: Yeah. So you ⸻
KO: Oh. Beautiful.
DK: So you never flew any operations on the four engine bombers?
KO: No, not again, no, no, no. It was all on the Mosquito from there on.
DK: Alright.
KO: And then of course the first, the move from, from Metheringham to Woodhall Spa was like chalk and cheese, you know, [unclear] it, well, every moment we, there we enjoyed the flying and the operational side of it and ⸻
DK: Yeah.
KO: It, it was just something once in a lifetime, you know.
DK: What was Woodhall Spa like as an airfield then?
KO: It was big enough for what we wanted because they were flying 617 from there as well so they had to cover the twenty thousand pound bomb weight on runways because it was just a small camp, on the on the outside there was no main buildings to it at all, we were very much countryfied.
DK: Did you go to the Petwood Hotel at all?
KO: No, that was 617’s privilege that was.
DK: Ah, right.
KO: We were in the Nissen huts.
DK: [laughs] oh, okay.
KO: Which was a bit of a comedown.
DK: Did you get to know any of the 617 crew?
KO: I did but I can’t remember the names now. [laughs] Funnily enough, one of the well known ones that flew with Gibson on the dams, I went into the sergeants mess one day and he was playing cards with a table full of crews there for 617 and he said, ‘Can you lend me a pound?’ So, I lent him the pound, never expecting to get it back again, when I came out of the Air Force about four years after that, I happened to be standing in front of my restaurant in Northampton and who should come in? This chap I’d lent the pound to. So, I caught him and I got me pound back on it [laughs].
DK: [unclear] oh excellent, [laughs], well he did owe it to you.
KO: Yeah, having, having done the dams raid he was lucky to.
DK: Yeah. So, you can’t remember who that was then now?
KO: I, a flash came into my head, I got an idea his name, was Monroe, was it?
DK: Les Monroe? Yeah, Les Monroe.
KO: Yeah.
DK: The New Zealander?
KO: Yeah.
DK: Yeah, yeah. He owed you a pound did he [laughs].
KO: Yeah. He just walked in the shop, not knowing I was there.
DK: Yeah.
KO: I just recognised, I said, ‘Hey you!’
DK: I actually met Les a couple of times when he came over to UK, in the last few years. So, you’re now on a Mosquito squadron, so what was your actual role then as 627 Squadron, what were you?
KO: We were at 99 percent for marking, for main force.
DK: Right.
KO: And we were the only squadron that did what we did. We were way ahead of everybody else, and we had to dive, we introduced dive bomb marking which was not heard of before 627 Squadron was formed. But they started off the first two or three months joining in with the, flying backwards and forwards to Berlin in those days and then when we moved up with 617 Squadron, we started doing what we [emphasis] did, that was our thing, and that was flying, flying out ahead of main force and being there three minutes before the actual time we needed to be there because that was ten, ten minutes between, let me try to explain it a different way. The flares, the target was illuminated by one or two squadrons of Lancasters from from our station to drop thousands of luminating shares over the target area and five of us went out separately to the target and stood off until the first markers went down illuminating, lights went down and then on the, dead on the spot, they were there ten minutes before the time for bombing and we went in, in that ten minutes under the flares, dive, dive bombed the marker onto the target from about, well, anything from three, two, three hundred feet, from fifteen hundred feet and it was purely up to the pilot because he dropped he dropped the bombs, he had a china graph pencil mark on his windscreen and he, that was his only guide he had to drop his markers, and they used to put that up according to how they saw it in the height and that sort of thing. It needed to be very careful and then we would drop off the markers at about two hundred feet, something like that.
DK: Two hundred feet.
KO: Well, we, we flew round Dresden at three or four hundred feet, probably five hundred feet for nearly ten minutes.
DK: Yeah, yeah. So the, so the illuminators went in first.
KO: Yes.
DK: They’ve illuminated the target area.
KO: Yes.
DK: So you could then see where to drop your ⸻
KO: That’s right.
DK: Drop your indicators by ⸻
KO: Yes.
DK: Diving on the target.
KO: Yes.
DK: And then the main force came in.
KO: After that, yes.
DK: Yeah. So, how was that controlled then? Was it?
KO: Just on timing.
DK: Literally on timing, so there’s no one there.
KO: No, no, no, no, no, no we had to be there three minutes before the, ten minutes if you like.
DK: Right, yeah.
KO: Thirteen minutes, three minutes we had to get in our track in to go in and do our dive in.
DK: Right.
KO: That was just for error, for coming from, over from Holland down to Dresden, we had that little margin of difference, so at ten, ten to the target, the Lancasters then came in and they had ten ten minutes to bomb on the markers that we had laid.
DK: So, can, just stepping back one bit, can you remember where your first operation was to then?
KO: Erm, Bremen.
DK: Bremen. And how many operations did you actually do then?
KO: I, we did twenty-two operations altogether.
DK: Twenty-two.
KO: They were spread over a little bit but, see we only did, we had enough crews that we only did one every five.
DK: Right.
KO. We had thirty crew, thirty crew, thirty crewmen on the, for fifteen aircraft and we only ever sent five aircraft out on an operation, so we had, there was, sort of.
DK: It’s quite a long period between flying then.
KO: Yeah, yes.
DK: So, can you remember when your tour started and when it ended, how long it was for, roughly?
KO: The first tour?
DK: Yeah.
KO: I’m having a particularly bad day today, I don’t know why it is, but, oh Jesus! [laughs] I’m lost.
DK: Is it, is it, will it be recorded in here anywhere?
KO: Yes, it was about, the middle, the middle of June July of ’40.
DK: ’44.
KO: ’44.
DK: Okay, here we go, yeah, so, that’s 627 Squadron.
KO: Yes.
DK: At Woodhall Spa.
KO: Yes.
DK: So, on the 25th of July.
KO: Yes.
DK: ’44, so that’s all practice.
KO: Yes. Our night operations were in red.
DK: Right.
KO: See, we did, only did one in every in every three.
DK: Okay, that way we’ll, so, that’s all practice so, cross country, practice.
KO: We practiced at least five, five times for every operation we did.
DK: Alright. Okay, so we got operations here we got Gladbach, that’s Monchengladbach presumably.
KO: So that was where Gibson got lost.
DK: Right, oh right, okay.
KO: So that was his own fault.
DK: [laughs] We’ll come back to that in a minute. Okay, [unclear]
KO: Yes, I think we did four in one week, which was an exceptional.
DK: Right.
KO: My first op was a day run to L’Isle-de-Adam, a bomb dump north of Paris. We had a fairly leisurely time as you can see.
DK: I see there is an awful lot of practice between the actual raids, isn’t it?
KO: Yeah, it was about five, one in five. Really, what brought that about was we had to have the aircraft on for that night, and they had to have a morning test before.
DK: Right.
KO: And we used the test to go and do a bombing run on the sands at ⸻
DK: Wainfleet.
KO: Wainfleet, yeah.
DK: So, navigation then and timing clearly needs to be very accurate.
KO: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But we didn’t do anything really, we flew, normal thing was that we flew out to Holland and turned from just over the coast of Holland, turned down to the, wherever we were going, from there it was, we had no troubles [unclear], we went more or less our own on our own way, we knew what time we had to be there and that but.
DK: So, I think this is your first operation the 6th of October ’44 to Bremen.
KO: That was the first, the first time when we used our dive bomb technique.
DK: Right, okay.
KO: It was, it was, they didn’t know really what it was gonna be like and they told the CO that he wasn’t to go on that operation.
DK: Oh, alright. So, then you got the Mittelland Canal on the 6th of November ’44.
KO: They were easy.
DK: So, it’s got aborted flares over aiming point. And then you’ve got, 21st of November the Dortmund-Ems Canal.
KO: Mhm, there were two or three of those.
DK: And then I’ve got here the 13th of December ’44, the Cologne and Emden ships cruisers.
KO: Yes, that was in, that was in the Oslofjord, but they’d moved them by the time we got up there and it was a wasted trip.
DK: So, this is ‘Arrived late, called off by marker one.’
KO: Yes, well.
DK: So, it was a ⸺
KO: I can, this, as I was saying to my friend here today, I’ve worried about that ever since and I cannot understand because I was absolutely dead on track all the way up there, I said the only thing I can excuse myself in is that the pilot was running ten miles an hour, he was on three hundred and twenty instead of three hundred and thirty and he would he would jump down my throat if I suggested that but I can find no other reason for being late ‘cause we were dead on dead on course for everything.
DK: Yeah, careful opening this, that’s slightly stuck.
KO: That’s, that was stuck down for a purpose. Probably made a mess of it so.
DK: So, then we got 14th of January ’45 and it’s oil refinery at Merseberg. So, that’s and then it’s got here two times one thousands, so that’s two one thousand pound bombs.
KO: Yeah.
DK: And the red target indicators. So that’s showing what you’ve dropped and. So, then it’s 2nd of February ’45 Karlsruhe. It says target obscured by cloud. Sky marking only.
KO: Yes.
DK: So then, 2nd of Feb, Dortmund.
KO: Dortmund.
DK: It says wrong target marked.
KO: I’m doing well, aren’t I? [laughs]
DK: And then, 8th of Feb, Politz-Stettin, oil refinery. Stettin oil refinery, yeah. And then the 13th of Feb ’45, ops Dresden. Marker two. And then backed up, one one thousand pounder, red TI. So, just talking about that then, what actually happened on the Dresden raid? Was?
KO: Well, the, there was a trade wind blowing to start with and normally, starting off from home, we would climb to the operating height, going out and we would take a fix every three minutes and find an average wind which we would calculate to fly us on from there to Dresden. Well this MIG wasn’t working particularly well and when we got to the turning point, it was a question of Hobson’s choice as to how you carried on from there. So I part guessed well I could out of what I’d got already to choose from and then I realised that the thing that we had installed in the aircraft which I’d never used before and I’d never been instructed on because it was introduced while I was on leave, I thought, well, I’ll give it a go and see if I happened to have the charts with me and so, I took him, took him down on that, bearing as it was, there was a line running straight through Dresden that I could put up on the machine, that was terrible ‘cause on a on a Gee box you had to two two stroves running like that, but on this particular case, when I went on to the LORAN, it was like that and right across the thing as you couldn’t tell which was which, you had to take a guess at it and fortunately I guessed right and I didn’t navigate all the way down there. I just kept on one line and then I could, guide him down along this line all the way down to Dresden and then there was a one, there was another line crossing out the second line there which went through Dresden and as soon as I kept switching backwards and forwards to that, and when that line came up, I said, right-oh Jock, we’re here now. We were three minutes early and doing the raid one turn, another one off to the arrival and then the main force came, we had the, the [pause] the squadrons that were dropping in there, illuminating flares came in at ten ten to the eleven and we were just on the on the edge of the city, sitting there, waiting for them. When they had put those down and then we went in and dived in and we were just, just about to call out marker two, tally-ho, and number one tally-ho didn’t just in front of us so we had to go round again and ⸺
DK: So you, so marker one got his markers in first?
KO: Yeah, well he was the flight commander you see anyway.
DK: Right, okay.
KO: So, couldn’t, he couldn’t.
DK: Right. So, your markers then were the second to go.
KO: Yes.
DK: Right.
KO: But we were the most accurate.
DK: Right.
KO: On that.
DK: And how low would you’ve been when you dropped the markers?
KO: About three hundred feet.
DK: As low as that.
KO: Well, we were so low, that as we flew away from there, my pilot was looking back to see if he could see where they’d dropped and I had a shout at him because we were just gonna hit the spires of the cathedral, so I had to pull him up on that one. And then we just circled around Dresden for three or four minutes at five hundred feet and then we came home.
DK: And did you see much of the main force bombing then in that five minutes?
KO: They just started to bomb.
DK: Right.
KO: And I think they let a couple of four hundred, four thousand pounders off as we weren’t all that high and we could feel the, [unclear] get out quick now.
DK: I just, for the benefit of the tape, I just read what it says here, so, 13th of Feb ’45, you took off at 20:00 hours as, Mosquito F, so your pilot was flying officer Walker and you’re navigator so it says, ‘Ops Dresden, marker two’, which you mentioned ‘Backed up’, so is that meaning you backed up marker one?
KO: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Well, we got in, it was a football stadium.
DK: Right.
KO: We got our marker in the football stadium.
DK: Oh, right, okay.
KO: And the others were in a bunch, nearly out sort of a hundred, a hundred yards.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Away but ⸺
DK: So, your second ones down was actually the more accurate and then it’s got one thousand, so you’ve dropped a thousand-pound bomb and red.
KO: No, they were, they were a thousand-pound flares.
DK: Oh sorry, so you dropped one-thousand-pound red target indicators.
KO: Yeah, yeah.
DK: Sorry, yeah, so one thousand red target indicator. And you?
KO: And the others all backed up after that.
DK: Yeah. So, you arrived back at 05:40?
KO: I know my, my history today to you doesn’t sound very much but on my claim for a commission, my squadron commander and the camp squadron commander both put down that we were the best crews, one of the best crews of the squadron.
DK: Oh!
KO: I mean we did, we did do well, I mean, we, we felt that we, you know, if we, if we dropped our markers that was bloody well close on it and of course the last operation we did was at Tonsberg oil refinery at the.
DK: Right.
KO: The, coast up towards Oslo and ⸺
DK: So, were all the operations with Walker?
KO: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. And was he a good pilot?
KO: He was a good pilot and he was, he was good at dropping the bombs too. We were the best on that one as well. But, I know it sounds terrible that, our successes and that sort of thing but sometimes they went right and sometimes they didn’t and sometimes if our radar wasn’t working up to scratch, we ⸺
DK: So, when you were briefed for Dresden then, it was just an ordinary briefing.
KO: Yes.
DK: And an ordinary target.
KO: Yes. I mean, I was I was allocated onto a new job I’d only been on the squadron about six weeks, two months when I was sent to RAF Wyton 1409 Met Flight.
DK: Right.
KO: For a two week crash course on wind reporting and then I found myself that we were doing a big operation in south Germany and we had to stop at Manston to refuel and my job then was to decide two hundred miles from the target whether it was gonna be satisfactory for the main force to continue on to attack the target and if I didn’t think it was gonna be satisfactory, my job was to call them out and send them home.
DK: So, you’ve gone out and checked the weather in effect then.
KO: No, that was what we were supposed to be doing.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But fortunately a fog came down and we were, the thing was called off. It was never reinstated again but I think that somebody up aloft had said, well, this is a bloody silly idea in the first place.
DK: That, was that with 1409 Met Flight?
KO: Oh, that was where I was sent for those two-week crash course.
DK: Right, okay. Okay, so you’ve done the training at 1409 Met course.
KO: What there was there of it.
DK: Yeah. So, you, did you get?
KO: I was ⸺
DK: Did you get back to Manston then or?
KO: Oh yeah, yes, well we, I think we came in at that night, I think we came into, probably into Woodbridge.
DK: Alright. ‘Cause there’s one here you’ve been here the 12th of October ’44, it says from Manston, yeah. You went to Manston the day before. So that idea of going out early and ⸺
KO: ‘Cause we used the wing tanks up, you see, we needed all the petrol that we could carry to get there and back so we’d used the wing tanks up going down to Manston until we just had to refuel then and while that was being done, we were a little bit early, the fog came down and the whole thing was scrubbed.
DK: Alright. So that’s why it’s saying here that you remained at Manston. Yeah. So, just going on here then, 16th of March ’45, Wurzburg, ops to Wurzburg.
KO: Wurzburg.
DK: Yeah, so you’re marker two. So, one one thousand marks red target indicator, one one thousand yellow target indicators,
KO: That’s what we carried.
DK: Right.
KO: But we carried a red, yellow and a green, as the Germans had a funny act of if the red ones went down they’d light another red one up somewhere. somewhere away from it, you see, to distract it, so we’d have to go back in again and drop a green beside the red or whatever and ⸺
DK: Is this when you’ve got the master bomber’s there then that were telling.
KO: Yeah, the master bomber’s up there.
DK: Yeah. So he’s then telling who, the rest of the main force who, which coloured markers to bomb. ‘Cause you mentioned you were on the same operation that Gibson was lost on ⸺
KO: Yeah, yes.
DK: You didn’t know him ‘cause he flew a 627 Mosquito if I recall, didn’t he?
KO: Yes, yes.
DK: You didn’t meet him there then?
KO: No, I’d met him on several occasions but, you know, not sort of personally, we were, you know, had a social occasion or on one occasion he tried to, he came into our little bar, as you can imagine, we were in we were in Nissen huts and they were all posh in and he came down to our officer’s mess and we, that was, that was an airman’s hut actually, the whole mess, and the kitchen that was all part of it but we had no bar arrangements or that, so we had a builder of one of the boys in the squadron, so he built the bar and built a fire in there for us so we could have an officer’s drinking area. And one night my pilot and three Australians were in there having a drink and the door opened and Gibson appears and nobody, nobody sort of moved and he came, ‘Don’t you normally stand to attention and when a senior officer comes in?’ And they looked at each other, said, no, no, no. So, anyway, he created such a fuss, they grabbed hold of him, took him outside, took his trousers off and told him not to come in again. The next morning, there was an officer’s parade at which he officiated, went down the line and of course the Australians all six foot something in their dark uniforms and my pilot who was a real dour Scotsman.
DK: This was Walker, was it?
KO: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
KO: He was standing at the end of the line and he got him and he put him in the glasshouse for three weeks. So, he didn’t remain very, very popular with our crowd.
DK: No.
KO: So I was flying odd bits with anybody who was needing it, a navigator, flew all that three weeks when he was.
DK: Well that, I mean, that meant you had another pilot you had to fly with then that. So you, you weren’t too pleased about that then?
KO: Well, we didn’t operate.
DK: Alright, okay. They were just ⸺
KO: I might have gone on a night flying test.
DK: Alright, so you didn’t do any operations while he was in the glasshouse then.
KO: No, I mean, I had a very, very nice, nice run of it really, I mean, some of the ops we did, we, you know, you had to have your head on and I was, I was considered to be one of the better navigators although it didn’t sound like it. You know, you don’t know the circumstances of how things go.
DK: So, what was it like then if you were, you know, you are flying the Mosquito there, you’re over enemy territory, what does it feel like, you know, it’s very dark and you’re being shot at?
KO: Well, we weren’t being shot at, that was just the point you see. Everybody else, the main force went out on allocated circuit. We went out, there was only five of us, we went out and more or less and did it the way we thought we would, we didn’t stick to any plan as long as we were there sort of three minutes before the flares went down
DK: Right.
KO: Thirteen minutes before the bombers came in. So rise up and up and when I’d crossed sort of thing on the on the machine I said ‘Right-oh, Jock, we’re here now and three minutes early, do a right one turn, wind off three minutes and that should bring us on time’, and at that moment in time, the flares started to come down and we turned to going to find the thing and the number one saw it just as a fraction, we were just, there’s a story in my book there, he pressed the tit just at the same time my pilot was just going to so we had to go off and go round again. And that happened several times and on one, where we had to bomb Wesel, because the commandos had taken over, they crossed the river there and they were outside of Wesel, we had to mark Wesel and we went, there were five of us and we went in and we had to put our markers on the [pause] the, what’s, I don’t know what you call it, on the stone part of the pier sort of thing.
DK: Alright, okay.
KO: On the river.
DK: Yeah.
KO: And both our pilots saw it at the same time, both pressed the buttons, that cut out transmission then they couldn’t hear anything else. We went in, they went in, and we went in, dropped our markers at the same time and they landed in the same, virtually the same place at the same time so how far we were apart where we dived in there, we couldn’t have been more than twenty feet apart, never saw them and they didn’t see us.
DK: I’m just reading there from your logbook, so, that’s the 23rd of March ’45 and it’s ops to Wesel, army support. And you’ve marked with a thousand-pound red target indicator. So, you both dropped at exactly the same time.
KO: In exactly the same spot.
DK: Onto a pier.
KO: Yeah.
DK: On the river.
KO: Yeah. We didn’t, didn’t realise what had happened until we got back.
DK: So then just going on here, I’m just reading this out for the recorder here, so, you then got the tenth of April ’45 ops the marshalling yard near Leipzig. So, backed up number two, thousand-pound red target indicator, carrying a thousand-pound yellow target indicator.
KO: Yes.
DK: So that probably would have been your last operation then, would it or?
KO: I really don’t, really don’t ⸺
DK: Oh, okay.
KO: I know that [laughs] I found out that since that my sister married a family in Northampton, they’re apparently of Jewish extraction and they came down to the grandfather had had property in East Germany,
DK: Oh, right.
KO: And nobody knew where it was or anything and it wasn’t until after the war that they set the wheels rolling and apparently there’s two blocks of very luxury apartments and we’d blown one, one block up and so they only got reparations for the one, who’d been getting the rent for the other one up until that time never came to the fore.
DK: Oh, hang on, there’s another op here, sorry, so Norway, so 25th of April ’45 Tonsberg, Norway.
KO: Yes, that’s the last one I did.
DK: That’s the last one, yes, so, sorry. So at that point the war’s ended, how did you feel then?
KO: Well, that was about the first or second op I did from commissioning.
DK: Right. So you were commissioned at this point. Yeah.
KO: But no, it didn’t bother us, we didn’t know what was going to happen to us though, where we were going to go, and what happened, what happened then a lot of the Aussies were sent home and we brought in some new, new people because there was the Far East war and we were going to take part in that and so we were going out there to mark for 5 Group, it was only 5 Group that was going out there and we were the Pathfinder Force for 5 Group but we weren’t going to do our dive bomb marking there, somebody got the bright idea of using H2S and we would fly over the target at two thousand feet straight and level for two minutes and drop our markers then. You know, that that was a ridiculous idea, we wouldn’t even know where the bloody markers had gone and we would’ve much rather continued what we were doing previously and knowing where it was but.
DK: This would’ve been part of Tiger Force then.
KO: Yes, this was Tiger Force and we were supposed to be leading it.
DK: So, the atomic bomb’s dropped then, how did you feel that you weren’t now having to go out to the Far East?
KO: I was a bit disappointed in some respect because I rather looked forward to the exploratory flight out there really but on the other hand, see, there was a five hundred miles from Okinawa to the landfall in Japan.
DK: Yeah.
KO: And we didn’t have that great deal of overlap of petrol to do that, so we were waiting for Mark 40 Mosquitos to come, which were pressurized and we would fly at forty thousand feet out, taking the trade wind to blow us there, then we go down and do our marking role for drop our markers or whatever to do there and then we were gonna come back at sea level because the trade wind would.
DK: Yeah, yeah.
KO: Well that was what the theory was anyway, that would blow us back, blow us there and blow us back. Which we weren’t particularly thrilled with the idea.
DK: Oh, I can imagine.
KO: If you can imagine, sort of being dropped in the sea in the middle of the Pacific there.
DK: Hope you get blown back [laughs].
KO: [laughs] No, some big bright spark idea, I don’t know.
DK: So the war’s ended then, what were you ⸺
KO: Yeah.
DK: You’ve carried on with the RAF then.
KO: Well, what happened then was, I was supposed to be leading them out and they started sending the Aussies back then because the war was.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Virtually finished then and they started importing a few other, other crews to come in, to go on that go on the Okinawa job and [pause] I’ve forgotten what I was gonna say now, I’ve lost the thread of something.
DK: So, the war’s ended, you’re [unclear] not going.
KO: Yes, so a lot of the new boys that they’d brought in were dispersed amongst other other stations and so forth and we were we were we were just left to sort of, we were the only crews that were taken out of the squadron and sent firstly to Feltwell and then, I can never remember the other airfield and then ended up at Marham.
DK: Right.
KO: On a bombing development unit and we were supposed to think up different ways of attack for future things, well, that was a waste of time really but that was that was all we were doing. All the rest of the them, and the squadron as it was left, ‘cause they’d imported a lot of aircrew, and sent the Aussies back, and they were sent to, 19th Squadron, something like that.
DK: Right.
KO: And within, within months it was, they were all released from it.
DK: And what happened to yourself, then you, did you leave the RAF at that point?
KO: Well I was still on bombing development unit.
DK: Right.
KO: We just, there we just five crews of us there.
DK: Yeah.
KO: And I stayed on till June and I was then, had to hand in me notice so to speak.
DK: So that would have been June 1946.
KO: Yeah.
DK: Yeah, yeah, you’re at Marham. So, you’ve left the Air Force in ’46 then. Yeah. So, what did you after that then?
KO: Well, it’s a bit of a long story really, I wanted to, I wanted to get engaged to one of the WAAFs in the squadron who was our parachute packer.
DK: Right.
KO: And I wanted to get engaged, this was at Christmas time, and I went home that weekend, took a photograph and my father said, ‘No, you’re not marrying that girl.’ So, I sort of, I argy-bargied a little bit, he said, ‘No, you’re not going to marry that girl, if you do’, he said, ‘We shall sell the business up, we shall go back to America’, ‘cause my parents were American born.
DK: Alright, okay.
KO: So, I said very bravely, ‘Well, that’s what you want to do, that’s what you’ll have to do.’ Anyhow, they didn’t go, didn’t go back, my father bought a bungalow outside the town and I left myself thinking that this was the route I was going to take, and then he changed his mind about being awkward and he bought two limited companies in Northampton and when I came out to take on the businesses which was a great help to me because I only had one other option and that was to stay in the Air Force.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But that wasn’t very good because they really didn’t want anybody else in the, in there but that’s. So where I went and I was in Northampton then for five or six years working on the family business and then we divided up from there into the different companies and so forth.
DK: So what did the family business actually involve?
KO: We were a restaurant and bakeries.
DK: Oh, right, okay. So, so looking back now, after all these years, seventy odd years, how do you feel about your time in the Air Force?
KO: What do you mean, for good or bad?
DK: Both [laughs]
KO: I thoroughly enjoyed it.
DK: Alright.
KO: No, it was a great experience, I learned a lot really from it, you know, and I wouldn’t have missed a day of my experiences there I mean obviously I was able to fly in the Air Force, when I came home and joined the local flying club and I was flying several hundred hours there.
DK: So you did eventually get your private pilot’s licence, then.
KO: I got my private pilot licence, yes.
DK: Yeah. And, one other question I’ve got, did you know anything about the controversy of 627 Squadron moving from Bennett’s 8 Group to ⸺
KO: Oh, there was a bit of bit of an argy-bargy about that.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But, no, that’s what, what came our way and that’s what we accepted.
DK: So, when you initially joined 627, you were part of 8 Group, were you, under Bennett.
KO: Yes. And 6.
DK: And then moved to 5 Group under Cochrane.
KO: Yes. And 617 Squadron were on the same station with us.
DK: Right.
KO: So, it was quite a nice association really.
DK: Yeah. And you got on well with 617 Squadron.
KO: Oh yes.
DK: Yeah, yeah.
KO: It was a really good arrangement really.
DK: So, that controversy then, you just accepted you were going to another Group.
KO: Well, that was all you could do really.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Hadn’t got a great deal of option [laughs].
DK: Okay. Well, that’s been absolutely marvellous.
KO: I’m sorry I’ve been so ⸺
DJK: You’ve been absolutely wonderful, it’s been brilliant, don’t worry, it’s useful having the logbook here ‘cause we’ve gone through the various ⸺
KO: Yes, my, my memory seems to be worse at times than others and ⸺
DK: You’ve been absolutely marvellous, no, it’s been good.
KO: Good. It’s been absolute rubbish from my point of view.
DK: It’s been good. Right, I’ll turn that off now.
KO: Okay.
DK: Okay, thank you very much.
KO: Surely.
DK: Okay, if I keep looking down I’m just making sure it’s still working.
KO: Functioning.
DK: Still functioning, yeah. It’s, it can be a bit temperamental at times, that looks, that looks okay. Alright with that. I’ll just like to ask sort of first of all, what were you doing before the war?
KO: I was going to be a professional violinist.
DK: Really?
KO: My father, I won a scholarship to the Royal Academy when I was fifteen.
DK: Right.
KO: But I had no one to live with in London so I had to put it off for another year and then I had to take an examination that year to get the exhibition the year after that which actually brought me up too far close to the war and, even then, I had a year to go before I could get into the Air Force so I joined the Home Guard, did my duty as far as I could from then, and at that time, it was the 13th of September I think of ’39 that I was in headquarters and the phone rang and call out all the Home Guard, we’re anticipating the invasion immediately, so that passed over of course and October came and I thought, well, really it’s, it’s time and I just was old enough then to volunteer so I volunteered for aircrew in October of 1940.
DK: Just stepping back a bit, when you were in the Home Guard, what were your sort of roles then? What were you actually doing, were you guarding anything or?
KO: No, I was in, I was in headquarters most of the time, but I had to take out messages or anything that required, you know, but I was there nights and so forth.
DK: So were you mostly young men there waiting to be called up or sort of [unclear]?
KO: No, no, no, they were all a lot much older than me.
DK: Oh right. So you then applied to the Air Force, so ⸻
KO: Hm, hm.
DK: It was always your intention then to ⸻
KO: I always wanted to fly.
DK: Alright. Yeah, so did you actually go into pilot training then?
KO: Yes, in, I started flying in April of ’41, it was April time anyway. And did the usual six weeks at Blackpool and then waiting for a course to come around they sent me to Northern Ireland guarding an auxiliary airfield there against the IRA and then in May time they sent me over then to Scone, not Scone, there was a, at, oh God! This is, my memory is, north of, in Scotland.
DK: Ah, okay.
KO: On the east coast top, anyhow it was the biggest town north. We were there prepared to go down to our ITW then at Scarborough, by, by June then I was I was flying from Sealand on the Wirral.
DK: What type of aircraft were you flying?
KO: Tiger Moths.
DK: Ah!
KO: Which I did, I loved flying and I had the aptitude for it and I really thoroughly enjoyed my time there, it was wonderful.
DK: What did you think of the Tiger Moth?
KO: Oh, I liked it very much and I, our last hour or two that we had on the course, my friend and I, we were supposed to be going out for three quarters of an hour flight at night in the evening, come back and report and then go back and do another three quarters of an hour so I said to my mate, ‘Well, this is a bit of a waste of time, I’ll meet you over the river Dee and we’ll have a dogfight.’ Which we did. When time came to, to come back to report in, he disappeared and I thought, well, I don’t know where the heck I am [laughs], we’ve wandered about somewhat for three quarters of an hour so I had, eventually I had to give up and I saw a farm with smoke coming out of the chimney and I decided, well, that looks alright so I made a forced landing into this field, knocking out a host of surveyor’s posts on the way down and a ditch that was half way across which I hadn’t noticed. Anyhow I landed there and a motorcyclist came in and I got out and spread my map on his handle bars and asked him where I was and he gave to me, I was in the middle of Lancashire so I flew back and ⸻
DK: You’ve gone that far south?
KO: Yes. So, anyway, I was up for the wing co the next morning.
DK: Were you able to take off out the field then?
KO: Yeah, I did, half the, half the field.
DK: Yeah, so that was okay.
KO: It was ⸻
DK: No damage to the aircraft?
KO: No, no, no, no, it was a bit dodgy, there was a wood at the end of the field and I just caught the width to the corner of it and I managed to get through, anyway, landed there and the next morning I was up in front of the CO on a charge which it was going to be a court martial but he let me go on [unclear] ‘cause I was the first one to solo out of thirty so I thought, you know, I’m made for this and so I was taken off the Spitfight posting and ended up in Canada flying Oxfords. Well we were on the Oxfords for some while and then there was, Bennett was just due to do the Pathfinders setup but he had no navigators, only map readers really, observers, don’t tell him I told you that, but he had no navigators so he took five pilots off of every pilot’s course in Canada, brought us home to do the Midland [?] course on the navigators, then go onto flying.
DK: So, you were actually on a pilot’s course in Canada.
KO: Yeah, yeah.
DK: Got pulled off by Bennett ⸻
KO: Yeah.
DK: Because he needed navigators.
KO: Yeah.
DK: How did you feel about that at the time?
KO: Not very happy, I must admit, but anyway.
DK: How were you chosen, was it almost a lottery or?
KO: Well, I don’t know, I think probably I wasn’t landing them very, very well. I came down beautifully, the approach was hundred percent, I touched down on the wheels, nice and quietly, as soon as the tailwheel had dropped, which off the runway we’d had, my instructor never once told me that I should be doing three point landings, never mentioned, then when the CFI took me up, I did the same thing and he then asked my instructor whether he’d taught me three point landings, of course he said, oh yes, of course he has, and so I was one of the five that got tucked out.
DK: So, it might have been poor training on the trainer’s part, not I suppose, [unclear]
KO: Well, I mean, it seems a simple enough thing to say you should be doing three point landings. I landed it quietly and smoothly, you know, and then ⸻
DK: And this would have been the Oxford, would it?
KO: Yeah, yes. Anyhow I came back home, nearly torpedoed on the way home.
DK: Can you remember which ship you came back on?
KO: Volendam and just out of Halifax I was on my swing hammock and there was an enormous bang, I thought, my God, we’d been torpedoed, and I bet, I was four four flights down and I bet I was, tops, tops of that before anybody else [laughs]. However, there happened to be a torp, a destroyer had come alongside and for no apparent reason, and he happened just to take the torpedo and the thing was sunk with all hands and we just carried on, there was ⸻
DK: You can’t remember the name of the destroyer that was lost?
KO: No, no, no.
DK: No. Did you actually see it go down or?
KO: No.
DK: No.
KO: But we were told.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But you see, we were in two passengers, well, one was obviously a passenger ship and we were in a sort of a half and half but there were five hundred aircrew on board ships, then we had several destroyers flying around us all the way back across the Atlantic. It took three weeks coming home because they went all over the place and got back to England and put me on the navigation course which we did one course at Grand Hotel, oh, Eastbourne.
DK: Right. Yep, yep.
KO: Six weeks and then we were sent off on a ship again, I thought, well, we are going back to Canada again, which I didn’t like ‘cause I’d got engaged to a girl in Canada while I was, while I was out there. Anyway, we went to South Africa and I was, from start to finish it was nearly eight months, wasted out of my flying time, going down there, doing the course and coming back again and we spent three weeks at Clairwood race course in tents. Then they moved us to East London and we were there for another six weeks and while we were there I met somebody there quite out of the blue, he asked me what we did, what our hobbies were, said well, ‘I play the violin, ‘Oh’, he said, ‘I know somebody who’d be interested in you’, so he took me up the road to this gentleman and he said, ‘Would you like to play me something?’ So I played him one of the better class pieces that I used to perform and he said, ‘Would you like to play with the municipal orchestra on Sunday?’ This was Thursday, so I did that and I did that the following month, so that was the virtually, the last time I played the violin at all, really.
DK: So you never played it since then?
KO: Not, not, not really, no.
DK: No, no.
KO: So, anyway we got back and messed about for ages and I did ⸻
DK: How did you feel when all this was going on, you were going to South Africa, you’d done this training, was there a certain amount of frustration or?
KO: Yes I, you know, it was very enjoyable.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Anyway we got back and there was so many aircrew trained here messing about Bournemouth was full of them all the time, they didn’t know what to do with us, anyhow we ended up at Harrogate, then I was sent off on a commando course to start with at Whitley Bay, six weeks and then they sent me up to Scone to sit in the back seat of a Tiger Moth with a, with a just recently qualified pilot in front and I was another six weeks messing about there, well, that was, then I started the navigation course proper then so I never thought I was gonna get there.
DK: Was navigation something you took to easily, was it?
KO: Oh yes, I was, no worries about that, and then I was onto OTU and from what I understand I was, uhm, was the top of the class in both flying and ground subjects and ⸻
DK: Can you remember which OTU it was you went to?
KO: I can never remember the name of it, it was north of Oxford.
DK: Right. Is not in there, in the logbook.
KO: It would be, I suppose [pause] It’s more likely in the back of my pilot’s, pack of pilot’s ⸻
DK: That one.
KO: But in the back one.
DK: Oh, right, okay. So, what year are we talking about now then? It’s ⸻
KO: That’ll be ’42.
DK: ’42, alright. So that’s the Oxford, so that’s ’41, ’74, you are still flying in ’74?
KO. Oh that’s, that’s flying here.
DK: Right.
KO: It’ll be very, very close to, no, but it wouldn’t be in there, yes, on the back, on the back page, I’ve got all the ⸻
DK: Ah, right.
KO: All the ⸻
DK: Ah, right, okay, so ’40,
KO: Be in, here, up here.
DK: [unclear] ’43.
KO: Down here.
DK: 16.
KO: 16.
DK: Ah, right, so, I’ll just say this for the benefit of the tape so it’s 16 OTU Upper Heyford. So you were there from the 10th of August 1943.
KO: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Then we went onto Scampton and then to Swinderby.
DK: And that was?
KO: On Stirlings
DK: 16.
KO: We did Wellingtons at ⸻
DK: 16 OTU.
KO: 16 OTU.
DK: Yeah.
KO: And then we went on the Stirlings.
DK: And that was at Swinderby.
KO: Yes and then the Lancs.
DK: Right, so, at 1660 Conversion Unit, Swinderby, that was the Stirlings.
KO: Yes.
DK: Yeah, and then at Syerston,
KO: Yes’
Dk: That was 5 Lancaster finishing school.
KO: Yes.
DK: So, at Upper Heyford was the Wellingtons?
KO: Yes.
DK: Yes, so what was your feeling about the Wellington then as an aircraft?
KO: Oh, fine and my pilot that I had there, although he hadn’t all that many hours in, he was fine and we got on very well, our crew was first class and everything we did, we we were quite quite well appraised for.
DK: So how did your crew get together then?
KO: Oh, we all, they put us in a hangar and said, I’m sorry, sort yourselves out, so to speak, you know.
DK: You just found yourselves a pilot.
KO: Yes, from.
DK: Do you think that worked well?
KO: Yes, it did in our case.
DK: Yeah.
KO: I had an excellent crew and I was very sorry that we went on from there to Metheringham,
DK: Right.
KO: With Gibson squadron.
DK: 106 Squadron.
KO: Then my pilot went on a second dickie trip with his, with a crew that were on their last operation.
DK: Right.
KO: And failed to return. So, we were sent back to Scampton again to be recrewed. If they’d have given us another pilot, which would have been more sensible, though they split the whole crew up as far as I’m concerned, gave us another crew of odd bodies that they had and he wasn’t too bad, he wasn’t as good as my other pilot you know, they were a little bit lumpy, but see my my trouble was, my navigator’s seat was well back from the front and as I remember it seems as if I had a little office of my own now, the only ⸻
DK: This was the Wellington,
KO: Stirling.
DK: Stirling, right, okay.
KO: And my only chance of talking to the pilot was on the intercom.
DK: Right.
KO: So I never was anywhere near him. It was when we got on to Syerston to the Lancaster, I was sitting right behind him as you realise and he had the most dreadful body odour that you can ever imagine, it really was out of this world.
DK: Oh dear.
KO: And so I took the crew up to the wing commander after we’d sort of nearly finished the early stages with the Lanc and I said, ‘I can’t fly with this bloke’, we all agreed, nearly court martialled, I bugger to go for, go for a sheep as a lamb, you know and anyway we sent back to Scampton again and ⸻
DK: So, you’ve gone back to Scampton for a third time.
KO: Yes, yes.
DK: Alright. When you, just going back to 106, you never met Gibson then, did you?
KO: No, no.
DK: I, just for the, slightly confusing that for the tape, just for the benefit of the tape, what I’ll say here is where you were, so initially it was Upper Heyford with 16 OTU from the 10th of August 1943, then it was Scampton 15th of December ’43, then 1660 Conversion Unit at Swinderby from the 8th of February ’44 on Stirlings.
KO: Yes.
DK: Then 5 Lancaster Finishing School at Syerston.
KO: Yes.
DK: From 28th of March ’44, obviously on Lancasters, then 106 Squadron your pilot went missing as a second dickie, so back to Scampton again, then Swinderby.
KO: Yes.
DK: Then 5 Lancaster Finishing School, Syerston again.
KO: Yes.
DK: Then back to Scampton because there was problems with the pilot.
KO: Yes. On 106.
DK: Onto 106, and then on, I’ve got here, then onto 627, so that was, that’s the next question.
KO: Yes, yeah.
DK: Yeah, okay. So, you’ve complained about your pilot then and what happened then?
KO: Oh, they didn’t do me any harm or anything, I’m just, my memory gets so bad at times, other times I can go with, like a, you know, what was the question?
DK: It was, you’re back at Scampton and you complained about the pilot, because of the body odour.
KO: Yes.
DK: So what happened then?
KO: Well, straight away I was sent to Woodhall Spa from there.
DK: Right, okay. And that’s with 627 Squadron.
KO: 627 Squadron, yes.
DK: Yeah, okay. So, what were you flying at 627 then?
KO: Mosquitos.
DK: Yeah. What did you think about the Mosquito?
KO: Oh, marvellous.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Yes, I, had no complaints about the Mosquito.
DK: Was it, was it a bit of a shock when you’ve gone from four engine bombers?
KO: It was lovely.
DK: Yeah. So you ⸻
KO: Oh. Beautiful.
DK: So you never flew any operations on the four engine bombers?
KO: No, not again, no, no, no. It was all on the Mosquito from there on.
DK: Alright.
KO: And then of course the first, the move from, from Metheringham to Woodhall Spa was like chalk and cheese, you know, [unclear] it, well, every moment we, there we enjoyed the flying and the operational side of it and ⸻
DK: Yeah.
KO: It, it was just something once in a lifetime, you know.
DK: What was Woodhall Spa like as an airfield then?
KO: It was big enough for what we wanted because they were flying 617 from there as well so they had to cover the twenty thousand pound bomb weight on runways because it was just a small camp, on the on the outside there was no main buildings to it at all, we were very much countryfied.
DK: Did you go to the Petwood Hotel at all?
KO: No, that was 617’s privilege that was.
DK: Ah, right.
KO: We were in the Nissen huts.
DK: [laughs] oh, okay.
KO: Which was a bit of a comedown.
DK: Did you get to know any of the 617 crew?
KO: I did but I can’t remember the names now. [laughs] Funnily enough, one of the well known ones that flew with Gibson on the dams, I went into the sergeants mess one day and he was playing cards with a table full of crews there for 617 and he said, ‘Can you lend me a pound?’ So, I lent him the pound, never expecting to get it back again, when I came out of the Air Force about four years after that, I happened to be standing in front of my restaurant in Northampton and who should come in? This chap I’d lent the pound to. So, I caught him and I got me pound back on it [laughs].
DK: [unclear] oh excellent, [laughs], well he did owe it to you.
KO: Yeah, having, having done the dams raid he was lucky to.
DK: Yeah. So, you can’t remember who that was then now?
KO: I, a flash came into my head, I got an idea his name, was Monroe, was it?
DK: Les Monroe? Yeah, Les Monroe.
KO: Yeah.
DK: The New Zealander?
KO: Yeah.
DK: Yeah, yeah. He owed you a pound did he [laughs].
KO: Yeah. He just walked in the shop, not knowing I was there.
DK: Yeah.
KO: I just recognised, I said, ‘Hey you!’
DK: I actually met Les a couple of times when he came over to UK, in the last few years. So, you’re now on a Mosquito squadron, so what was your actual role then as 627 Squadron, what were you?
KO: We were at 99 percent for marking, for main force.
DK: Right.
KO: And we were the only squadron that did what we did. We were way ahead of everybody else, and we had to dive, we introduced dive bomb marking which was not heard of before 627 Squadron was formed. But they started off the first two or three months joining in with the, flying backwards and forwards to Berlin in those days and then when we moved up with 617 Squadron, we started doing what we [emphasis] did, that was our thing, and that was flying, flying out ahead of main force and being there three minutes before the actual time we needed to be there because that was ten, ten minutes between, let me try to explain it a different way. The flares, the target was illuminated by one or two squadrons of Lancasters from from our station to drop thousands of luminating shares over the target area and five of us went out separately to the target and stood off until the first markers went down illuminating, lights went down and then on the, dead on the spot, they were there ten minutes before the time for bombing and we went in, in that ten minutes under the flares, dive, dive bombed the marker onto the target from about, well, anything from three, two, three hundred feet, from fifteen hundred feet and it was purely up to the pilot because he dropped he dropped the bombs, he had a china graph pencil mark on his windscreen and he, that was his only guide he had to drop his markers, and they used to put that up according to how they saw it in the height and that sort of thing. It needed to be very careful and then we would drop off the markers at about two hundred feet, something like that.
DK: Two hundred feet.
KO: Well, we, we flew round Dresden at three or four hundred feet, probably five hundred feet for nearly ten minutes.
DK: Yeah, yeah. So the, so the illuminators went in first.
KO: Yes.
DK: They’ve illuminated the target area.
KO: Yes.
DK: So you could then see where to drop your ⸻
KO: That’s right.
DK: Drop your indicators by ⸻
KO: Yes.
DK: Diving on the target.
KO: Yes.
DK: And then the main force came in.
KO: After that, yes.
DK: Yeah. So, how was that controlled then? Was it?
KO: Just on timing.
DK: Literally on timing, so there’s no one there.
KO: No, no, no, no, no, no we had to be there three minutes before the, ten minutes if you like.
DK: Right, yeah.
KO: Thirteen minutes, three minutes we had to get in our track in to go in and do our dive in.
DK: Right.
KO: That was just for error, for coming from, over from Holland down to Dresden, we had that little margin of difference, so at ten, ten to the target, the Lancasters then came in and they had ten ten minutes to bomb on the markers that we had laid.
DK: So, can, just stepping back one bit, can you remember where your first operation was to then?
KO: Erm, Bremen.
DK: Bremen. And how many operations did you actually do then?
KO: I, we did twenty-two operations altogether.
DK: Twenty-two.
KO: They were spread over a little bit but, see we only did, we had enough crews that we only did one every five.
DK: Right.
KO. We had thirty crew, thirty crew, thirty crewmen on the, for fifteen aircraft and we only ever sent five aircraft out on an operation, so we had, there was, sort of.
DK: It’s quite a long period between flying then.
KO: Yeah, yes.
DK: So, can you remember when your tour started and when it ended, how long it was for, roughly?
KO: The first tour?
DK: Yeah.
KO: I’m having a particularly bad day today, I don’t know why it is, but, oh Jesus! [laughs] I’m lost.
DK: Is it, is it, will it be recorded in here anywhere?
KO: Yes, it was about, the middle, the middle of June July of ’40.
DK: ’44.
KO: ’44.
DK: Okay, here we go, yeah, so, that’s 627 Squadron.
KO: Yes.
DK: At Woodhall Spa.
KO: Yes.
DK: So, on the 25th of July.
KO: Yes.
DK: ’44, so that’s all practice.
KO: Yes. Our night operations were in red.
DK: Right.
KO: See, we did, only did one in every in every three.
DK: Okay, that way we’ll, so, that’s all practice so, cross country, practice.
KO: We practiced at least five, five times for every operation we did.
DK: Alright. Okay, so we got operations here we got Gladbach, that’s Monchengladbach presumably.
KO: So that was where Gibson got lost.
DK: Right, oh right, okay.
KO: So that was his own fault.
DK: [laughs] We’ll come back to that in a minute. Okay, [unclear]
KO: Yes, I think we did four in one week, which was an exceptional.
DK: Right.
KO: My first op was a day run to L’Isle-de-Adam, a bomb dump north of Paris. We had a fairly leisurely time as you can see.
DK: I see there is an awful lot of practice between the actual raids, isn’t it?
KO: Yeah, it was about five, one in five. Really, what brought that about was we had to have the aircraft on for that night, and they had to have a morning test before.
DK: Right.
KO: And we used the test to go and do a bombing run on the sands at ⸻
DK: Wainfleet.
KO: Wainfleet, yeah.
DK: So, navigation then and timing clearly needs to be very accurate.
KO: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But we didn’t do anything really, we flew, normal thing was that we flew out to Holland and turned from just over the coast of Holland, turned down to the, wherever we were going, from there it was, we had no troubles [unclear], we went more or less our own on our own way, we knew what time we had to be there and that but.
DK: So, I think this is your first operation the 6th of October ’44 to Bremen.
KO: That was the first, the first time when we used our dive bomb technique.
DK: Right, okay.
KO: It was, it was, they didn’t know really what it was gonna be like and they told the CO that he wasn’t to go on that operation.
DK: Oh, alright. So, then you got the Mittelland Canal on the 6th of November ’44.
KO: They were easy.
DK: So, it’s got aborted flares over aiming point. And then you’ve got, 21st of November the Dortmund-Ems Canal.
KO: Mhm, there were two or three of those.
DK: And then I’ve got here the 13th of December ’44, the Cologne and Emden ships cruisers.
KO: Yes, that was in, that was in the Oslofjord, but they’d moved them by the time we got up there and it was a wasted trip.
DK: So, this is ‘Arrived late, called off by marker one.’
KO: Yes, well.
DK: So, it was a ⸺
KO: I can, this, as I was saying to my friend here today, I’ve worried about that ever since and I cannot understand because I was absolutely dead on track all the way up there, I said the only thing I can excuse myself in is that the pilot was running ten miles an hour, he was on three hundred and twenty instead of three hundred and thirty and he would he would jump down my throat if I suggested that but I can find no other reason for being late ‘cause we were dead on dead on course for everything.
DK: Yeah, careful opening this, that’s slightly stuck.
KO: That’s, that was stuck down for a purpose. Probably made a mess of it so.
DK: So, then we got 14th of January ’45 and it’s oil refinery at Merseberg. So, that’s and then it’s got here two times one thousands, so that’s two one thousand pound bombs.
KO: Yeah.
DK: And the red target indicators. So that’s showing what you’ve dropped and. So, then it’s 2nd of February ’45 Karlsruhe. It says target obscured by cloud. Sky marking only.
KO: Yes.
DK: So then, 2nd of Feb, Dortmund.
KO: Dortmund.
DK: It says wrong target marked.
KO: I’m doing well, aren’t I? [laughs]
DK: And then, 8th of Feb, Politz-Stettin, oil refinery. Stettin oil refinery, yeah. And then the 13th of Feb ’45, ops Dresden. Marker two. And then backed up, one one thousand pounder, red TI. So, just talking about that then, what actually happened on the Dresden raid? Was?
KO: Well, the, there was a trade wind blowing to start with and normally, starting off from home, we would climb to the operating height, going out and we would take a fix every three minutes and find an average wind which we would calculate to fly us on from there to Dresden. Well this MIG wasn’t working particularly well and when we got to the turning point, it was a question of Hobson’s choice as to how you carried on from there. So I part guessed well I could out of what I’d got already to choose from and then I realised that the thing that we had installed in the aircraft which I’d never used before and I’d never been instructed on because it was introduced while I was on leave, I thought, well, I’ll give it a go and see if I happened to have the charts with me and so, I took him, took him down on that, bearing as it was, there was a line running straight through Dresden that I could put up on the machine, that was terrible ‘cause on a on a Gee box you had to two two stroves running like that, but on this particular case, when I went on to the LORAN, it was like that and right across the thing as you couldn’t tell which was which, you had to take a guess at it and fortunately I guessed right and I didn’t navigate all the way down there. I just kept on one line and then I could, guide him down along this line all the way down to Dresden and then there was a one, there was another line crossing out the second line there which went through Dresden and as soon as I kept switching backwards and forwards to that, and when that line came up, I said, right-oh Jock, we’re here now. We were three minutes early and doing the raid one turn, another one off to the arrival and then the main force came, we had the, the [pause] the squadrons that were dropping in there, illuminating flares came in at ten ten to the eleven and we were just on the on the edge of the city, sitting there, waiting for them. When they had put those down and then we went in and dived in and we were just, just about to call out marker two, tally-ho, and number one tally-ho didn’t just in front of us so we had to go round again and ⸺
DK: So you, so marker one got his markers in first?
KO: Yeah, well he was the flight commander you see anyway.
DK: Right, okay.
KO: So, couldn’t, he couldn’t.
DK: Right. So, your markers then were the second to go.
KO: Yes.
DK: Right.
KO: But we were the most accurate.
DK: Right.
KO: On that.
DK: And how low would you’ve been when you dropped the markers?
KO: About three hundred feet.
DK: As low as that.
KO: Well, we were so low, that as we flew away from there, my pilot was looking back to see if he could see where they’d dropped and I had a shout at him because we were just gonna hit the spires of the cathedral, so I had to pull him up on that one. And then we just circled around Dresden for three or four minutes at five hundred feet and then we came home.
DK: And did you see much of the main force bombing then in that five minutes?
KO: They just started to bomb.
DK: Right.
KO: And I think they let a couple of four hundred, four thousand pounders off as we weren’t all that high and we could feel the, [unclear] get out quick now.
DK: I just, for the benefit of the tape, I just read what it says here, so, 13th of Feb ’45, you took off at 20:00 hours as, Mosquito F, so your pilot was flying officer Walker and you’re navigator so it says, ‘Ops Dresden, marker two’, which you mentioned ‘Backed up’, so is that meaning you backed up marker one?
KO: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Well, we got in, it was a football stadium.
DK: Right.
KO: We got our marker in the football stadium.
DK: Oh, right, okay.
KO: And the others were in a bunch, nearly out sort of a hundred, a hundred yards.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Away but ⸺
DK: So, your second ones down was actually the more accurate and then it’s got one thousand, so you’ve dropped a thousand-pound bomb and red.
KO: No, they were, they were a thousand-pound flares.
DK: Oh sorry, so you dropped one-thousand-pound red target indicators.
KO: Yeah, yeah.
DK: Sorry, yeah, so one thousand red target indicator. And you?
KO: And the others all backed up after that.
DK: Yeah. So, you arrived back at 05:40?
KO: I know my, my history today to you doesn’t sound very much but on my claim for a commission, my squadron commander and the camp squadron commander both put down that we were the best crews, one of the best crews of the squadron.
DK: Oh!
KO: I mean we did, we did do well, I mean, we, we felt that we, you know, if we, if we dropped our markers that was bloody well close on it and of course the last operation we did was at Tonsberg oil refinery at the.
DK: Right.
KO: The, coast up towards Oslo and ⸺
DK: So, were all the operations with Walker?
KO: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. And was he a good pilot?
KO: He was a good pilot and he was, he was good at dropping the bombs too. We were the best on that one as well. But, I know it sounds terrible that, our successes and that sort of thing but sometimes they went right and sometimes they didn’t and sometimes if our radar wasn’t working up to scratch, we ⸺
DK: So, when you were briefed for Dresden then, it was just an ordinary briefing.
KO: Yes.
DK: And an ordinary target.
KO: Yes. I mean, I was I was allocated onto a new job I’d only been on the squadron about six weeks, two months when I was sent to RAF Wyton 1409 Met Flight.
DK: Right.
KO: For a two week crash course on wind reporting and then I found myself that we were doing a big operation in south Germany and we had to stop at Manston to refuel and my job then was to decide two hundred miles from the target whether it was gonna be satisfactory for the main force to continue on to attack the target and if I didn’t think it was gonna be satisfactory, my job was to call them out and send them home.
DK: So, you’ve gone out and checked the weather in effect then.
KO: No, that was what we were supposed to be doing.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But fortunately a fog came down and we were, the thing was called off. It was never reinstated again but I think that somebody up aloft had said, well, this is a bloody silly idea in the first place.
DK: That, was that with 1409 Met Flight?
KO: Oh, that was where I was sent for those two-week crash course.
DK: Right, okay. Okay, so you’ve done the training at 1409 Met course.
KO: What there was there of it.
DK: Yeah. So, you, did you get?
KO: I was ⸺
DK: Did you get back to Manston then or?
KO: Oh yeah, yes, well we, I think we came in at that night, I think we came into, probably into Woodbridge.
DK: Alright. ‘Cause there’s one here you’ve been here the 12th of October ’44, it says from Manston, yeah. You went to Manston the day before. So that idea of going out early and ⸺
KO: ‘Cause we used the wing tanks up, you see, we needed all the petrol that we could carry to get there and back so we’d used the wing tanks up going down to Manston until we just had to refuel then and while that was being done, we were a little bit early, the fog came down and the whole thing was scrubbed.
DK: Alright. So that’s why it’s saying here that you remained at Manston. Yeah. So, just going on here then, 16th of March ’45, Wurzburg, ops to Wurzburg.
KO: Wurzburg.
DK: Yeah, so you’re marker two. So, one one thousand marks red target indicator, one one thousand yellow target indicators,
KO: That’s what we carried.
DK: Right.
KO: But we carried a red, yellow and a green, as the Germans had a funny act of if the red ones went down they’d light another red one up somewhere. somewhere away from it, you see, to distract it, so we’d have to go back in again and drop a green beside the red or whatever and ⸺
DK: Is this when you’ve got the master bomber’s there then that were telling.
KO: Yeah, the master bomber’s up there.
DK: Yeah. So he’s then telling who, the rest of the main force who, which coloured markers to bomb. ‘Cause you mentioned you were on the same operation that Gibson was lost on ⸺
KO: Yeah, yes.
DK: You didn’t know him ‘cause he flew a 627 Mosquito if I recall, didn’t he?
KO: Yes, yes.
DK: You didn’t meet him there then?
KO: No, I’d met him on several occasions but, you know, not sort of personally, we were, you know, had a social occasion or on one occasion he tried to, he came into our little bar, as you can imagine, we were in we were in Nissen huts and they were all posh in and he came down to our officer’s mess and we, that was, that was an airman’s hut actually, the whole mess, and the kitchen that was all part of it but we had no bar arrangements or that, so we had a builder of one of the boys in the squadron, so he built the bar and built a fire in there for us so we could have an officer’s drinking area. And one night my pilot and three Australians were in there having a drink and the door opened and Gibson appears and nobody, nobody sort of moved and he came, ‘Don’t you normally stand to attention and when a senior officer comes in?’ And they looked at each other, said, no, no, no. So, anyway, he created such a fuss, they grabbed hold of him, took him outside, took his trousers off and told him not to come in again. The next morning, there was an officer’s parade at which he officiated, went down the line and of course the Australians all six foot something in their dark uniforms and my pilot who was a real dour Scotsman.
DK: This was Walker, was it?
KO: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
KO: He was standing at the end of the line and he got him and he put him in the glasshouse for three weeks. So, he didn’t remain very, very popular with our crowd.
DK: No.
KO: So I was flying odd bits with anybody who was needing it, a navigator, flew all that three weeks when he was.
DK: Well that, I mean, that meant you had another pilot you had to fly with then that. So you, you weren’t too pleased about that then?
KO: Well, we didn’t operate.
DK: Alright, okay. They were just ⸺
KO: I might have gone on a night flying test.
DK: Alright, so you didn’t do any operations while he was in the glasshouse then.
KO: No, I mean, I had a very, very nice, nice run of it really, I mean, some of the ops we did, we, you know, you had to have your head on and I was, I was considered to be one of the better navigators although it didn’t sound like it. You know, you don’t know the circumstances of how things go.
DK: So, what was it like then if you were, you know, you are flying the Mosquito there, you’re over enemy territory, what does it feel like, you know, it’s very dark and you’re being shot at?
KO: Well, we weren’t being shot at, that was just the point you see. Everybody else, the main force went out on allocated circuit. We went out, there was only five of us, we went out and more or less and did it the way we thought we would, we didn’t stick to any plan as long as we were there sort of three minutes before the flares went down
DK: Right.
KO: Thirteen minutes before the bombers came in. So rise up and up and when I’d crossed sort of thing on the on the machine I said ‘Right-oh, Jock, we’re here now and three minutes early, do a right one turn, wind off three minutes and that should bring us on time’, and at that moment in time, the flares started to come down and we turned to going to find the thing and the number one saw it just as a fraction, we were just, there’s a story in my book there, he pressed the tit just at the same time my pilot was just going to so we had to go off and go round again. And that happened several times and on one, where we had to bomb Wesel, because the commandos had taken over, they crossed the river there and they were outside of Wesel, we had to mark Wesel and we went, there were five of us and we went in and we had to put our markers on the [pause] the, what’s, I don’t know what you call it, on the stone part of the pier sort of thing.
DK: Alright, okay.
KO: On the river.
DK: Yeah.
KO: And both our pilots saw it at the same time, both pressed the buttons, that cut out transmission then they couldn’t hear anything else. We went in, they went in, and we went in, dropped our markers at the same time and they landed in the same, virtually the same place at the same time so how far we were apart where we dived in there, we couldn’t have been more than twenty feet apart, never saw them and they didn’t see us.
DK: I’m just reading there from your logbook, so, that’s the 23rd of March ’45 and it’s ops to Wesel, army support. And you’ve marked with a thousand-pound red target indicator. So, you both dropped at exactly the same time.
KO: In exactly the same spot.
DK: Onto a pier.
KO: Yeah.
DK: On the river.
KO: Yeah. We didn’t, didn’t realise what had happened until we got back.
DK: So then just going on here, I’m just reading this out for the recorder here, so, you then got the tenth of April ’45 ops the marshalling yard near Leipzig. So, backed up number two, thousand-pound red target indicator, carrying a thousand-pound yellow target indicator.
KO: Yes.
DK: So that probably would have been your last operation then, would it or?
KO: I really don’t, really don’t ⸺
DK: Oh, okay.
KO: I know that [laughs] I found out that since that my sister married a family in Northampton, they’re apparently of Jewish extraction and they came down to the grandfather had had property in East Germany,
DK: Oh, right.
KO: And nobody knew where it was or anything and it wasn’t until after the war that they set the wheels rolling and apparently there’s two blocks of very luxury apartments and we’d blown one, one block up and so they only got reparations for the one, who’d been getting the rent for the other one up until that time never came to the fore.
DK: Oh, hang on, there’s another op here, sorry, so Norway, so 25th of April ’45 Tonsberg, Norway.
KO: Yes, that’s the last one I did.
DK: That’s the last one, yes, so, sorry. So at that point the war’s ended, how did you feel then?
KO: Well, that was about the first or second op I did from commissioning.
DK: Right. So you were commissioned at this point. Yeah.
KO: But no, it didn’t bother us, we didn’t know what was going to happen to us though, where we were going to go, and what happened, what happened then a lot of the Aussies were sent home and we brought in some new, new people because there was the Far East war and we were going to take part in that and so we were going out there to mark for 5 Group, it was only 5 Group that was going out there and we were the Pathfinder Force for 5 Group but we weren’t going to do our dive bomb marking there, somebody got the bright idea of using H2S and we would fly over the target at two thousand feet straight and level for two minutes and drop our markers then. You know, that that was a ridiculous idea, we wouldn’t even know where the bloody markers had gone and we would’ve much rather continued what we were doing previously and knowing where it was but.
DK: This would’ve been part of Tiger Force then.
KO: Yes, this was Tiger Force and we were supposed to be leading it.
DK: So, the atomic bomb’s dropped then, how did you feel that you weren’t now having to go out to the Far East?
KO: I was a bit disappointed in some respect because I rather looked forward to the exploratory flight out there really but on the other hand, see, there was a five hundred miles from Okinawa to the landfall in Japan.
DK: Yeah.
KO: And we didn’t have that great deal of overlap of petrol to do that, so we were waiting for Mark 40 Mosquitos to come, which were pressurized and we would fly at forty thousand feet out, taking the trade wind to blow us there, then we go down and do our marking role for drop our markers or whatever to do there and then we were gonna come back at sea level because the trade wind would.
DK: Yeah, yeah.
KO: Well that was what the theory was anyway, that would blow us back, blow us there and blow us back. Which we weren’t particularly thrilled with the idea.
DK: Oh, I can imagine.
KO: If you can imagine, sort of being dropped in the sea in the middle of the Pacific there.
DK: Hope you get blown back [laughs].
KO: [laughs] No, some big bright spark idea, I don’t know.
DK: So the war’s ended then, what were you ⸺
KO: Yeah.
DK: You’ve carried on with the RAF then.
KO: Well, what happened then was, I was supposed to be leading them out and they started sending the Aussies back then because the war was.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Virtually finished then and they started importing a few other, other crews to come in, to go on that go on the Okinawa job and [pause] I’ve forgotten what I was gonna say now, I’ve lost the thread of something.
DK: So, the war’s ended, you’re [unclear] not going.
KO: Yes, so a lot of the new boys that they’d brought in were dispersed amongst other other stations and so forth and we were we were we were just left to sort of, we were the only crews that were taken out of the squadron and sent firstly to Feltwell and then, I can never remember the other airfield and then ended up at Marham.
DK: Right.
KO: On a bombing development unit and we were supposed to think up different ways of attack for future things, well, that was a waste of time really but that was that was all we were doing. All the rest of the them, and the squadron as it was left, ‘cause they’d imported a lot of aircrew, and sent the Aussies back, and they were sent to, 19th Squadron, something like that.
DK: Right.
KO: And within, within months it was, they were all released from it.
DK: And what happened to yourself, then you, did you leave the RAF at that point?
KO: Well I was still on bombing development unit.
DK: Right.
KO: We just, there we just five crews of us there.
DK: Yeah.
KO: And I stayed on till June and I was then, had to hand in me notice so to speak.
DK: So that would have been June 1946.
KO: Yeah.
DK: Yeah, yeah, you’re at Marham. So, you’ve left the Air Force in ’46 then. Yeah. So, what did you after that then?
KO: Well, it’s a bit of a long story really, I wanted to, I wanted to get engaged to one of the WAAFs in the squadron who was our parachute packer.
DK: Right.
KO: And I wanted to get engaged, this was at Christmas time, and I went home that weekend, took a photograph and my father said, ‘No, you’re not marrying that girl.’ So, I sort of, I argy-bargied a little bit, he said, ‘No, you’re not going to marry that girl, if you do’, he said, ‘We shall sell the business up, we shall go back to America’, ‘cause my parents were American born.
DK: Alright, okay.
KO: So, I said very bravely, ‘Well, that’s what you want to do, that’s what you’ll have to do.’ Anyhow, they didn’t go, didn’t go back, my father bought a bungalow outside the town and I left myself thinking that this was the route I was going to take, and then he changed his mind about being awkward and he bought two limited companies in Northampton and when I came out to take on the businesses which was a great help to me because I only had one other option and that was to stay in the Air Force.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But that wasn’t very good because they really didn’t want anybody else in the, in there but that’s. So where I went and I was in Northampton then for five or six years working on the family business and then we divided up from there into the different companies and so forth.
DK: So what did the family business actually involve?
KO: We were a restaurant and bakeries.
DK: Oh, right, okay. So, so looking back now, after all these years, seventy odd years, how do you feel about your time in the Air Force?
KO: What do you mean, for good or bad?
DK: Both [laughs]
KO: I thoroughly enjoyed it.
DK: Alright.
KO: No, it was a great experience, I learned a lot really from it, you know, and I wouldn’t have missed a day of my experiences there I mean obviously I was able to fly in the Air Force, when I came home and joined the local flying club and I was flying several hundred hours there.
DK: So you did eventually get your private pilot’s licence, then.
KO: I got my private pilot licence, yes.
DK: Yeah. And, one other question I’ve got, did you know anything about the controversy of 627 Squadron moving from Bennett’s 8 Group to ⸺
KO: Oh, there was a bit of bit of an argy-bargy about that.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But, no, that’s what, what came our way and that’s what we accepted.
DK: So, when you initially joined 627, you were part of 8 Group, were you, under Bennett.
KO: Yes. And 6.
DK: And then moved to 5 Group under Cochrane.
KO: Yes. And 617 Squadron were on the same station with us.
DK: Right.
KO: So, it was quite a nice association really.
DK: Yeah. And you got on well with 617 Squadron.
KO: Oh yes.
DK: Yeah, yeah.
KO: It was a really good arrangement really.
DK: So, that controversy then, you just accepted you were going to another Group.
KO: Well, that was all you could do really.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Hadn’t got a great deal of option [laughs].
DK: Okay. Well, that’s been absolutely marvellous.
KO: I’m sorry I’ve been so ⸺
DJK: You’ve been absolutely wonderful, it’s been brilliant, don’t worry, it’s useful having the logbook here ‘cause we’ve gone through the various ⸺
KO: Yes, my, my memory seems to be worse at times than others and ⸺
DK: You’ve been absolutely marvellous, no, it’s been good.
KO: Good. It’s been absolute rubbish from my point of view.
DK: It’s been good. Right, I’ll turn that off now.
KO: Okay.
DK: Okay, thank you very much.
Collection
Citation
David Kavanagh, “Interview with Ken Oatley,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed May 21, 2026, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/11430.