Interview with Ron Brown
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Interview with Ron Brown
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01:05:22 audio recording
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SBondS-BrownRv10002
Transcription
Other: I think Steve will agree the thing we find fascinating is you can talk to different people and they all had a different sort of pattern.
RB: Exactly.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Yeah.
Other: How they went through the stories.
RB: That’s right.
Other: Which makes, makes the interest.
RB: I do wish, a couple of colleagues who are local and one is he’s Polish but he was flying Wellingtons.
Other: Oh right.
RB: He was a wireless operator on Wellingtons.
Other: Yeah.
RB: He just lives around the corner from me and then another one who was, he was a squadron leader, Mosquito pilot and he interviewed him as well. In fact, we’ve just done that book. If you’d like it the book on the top look that’s the one that’s just been done.
Other: Fighter [Cook]
RB: Do you know Patrick?
Other: I’m aware of him. Yes.
RB: Yeah. Yes.
SB: Yes, I know the name. Yes. I know the name.
Other: Yes, I know the name.
RB: Well, on the, if you just look inside there they start off with me.
Other: Oh right.
RB: And then they do this, the Polish chappie who I can’t pronounce his name but he goes under the name of Andre [Ruttall].
Other: Ah [Westlowoski]
RB: That’s it. Yeah.
Other: I won’t say it again either.
SB: Very good [laughs]
And then Ian Linney’s story is a bit further on and —
Other: Oh yes. Ian Linney. Yes. ‘I want to kill the bastards not photograph them.’
RB: That’s it. Whether he was, yeah he was with the Photographic Unit.
Other: Oh yes.
RB: And he was flying over taking photographs of the, after the raid you know.
Other: Oh yes. Raid assessment.
RB: And he said, ‘I’ve had enough of this [laughs] But he’s, he’s quite a character. Actually, he’s the biggest employer in Mansfield.
Other: Gosh.
RB: He’s one of five generations of printers.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And he’s got a massive state of the art printing works.
Other: Yes.
RB: Here in Mansfield and he’s, the contract he’s got he does the whole of McDonalds printing.
Other: Oh right.
RB: Throughout. Throughout the country. He does all the examination papers for the schools and technical colleges and universities. That’s another tremendous contract he’s got and of course they have to have some strict security as well you see.
SB: Yeah.
Other: Yes.
RB: For this thing.
Other: Yes.
SB: Anyway, well I suppose we ought to start with the obvious thing.
RB: Right.
SB: The Glenn Miller episode.
RB: Oh, Glenn Miller [laughs]
SB: Let’s get that one out of the way. If you’d like to talk us through.
RB: Yes, well it was I’ve had a lot of media publicity and TV with it but it was the 15th of December and oh it was a claggy day. Horrible. Absolutely filthy day and we never thought that well we were briefed to attack Siegen in the Ruhr and we never thought we’d take off because it was absolutely teeming it down with rain and the cloud was right down you know to about five hundred feet. It was, we didn’t think we’d go but anyway we went on this thing and we just got into German air space and we were recalled and this is the only time in six of our missions we didn’t drop our bombs. But we’ve often thought afterwards that when we were in German air space we felt we should have jettisoned the bombs there.
Other: Yeah.
RB: But we had this predesignated area in the North Sea where we would jettison. But we came down to three thousand feet to jettison and that was a dicey business because we could hardly see our own wingtips and there was about seventy five aircraft all jettisoning at the same time and we didn’t know until some time later, months later that it it coincided with the same flight track that Glenn Miller —
Other: Oh yes.
RB: Was taking. He’d left Bedford, an air base in Bedford.
Other: Yes.
RB: And he was flying a —
Other: Norseman.
RB: A Norseman.
Other: Yes.
RB: A twin seated job isn’t it?
Other: Yeah.
RB: And apparently the pilot of the Norseman was not very experienced I’d say. He hadn’t had a lot of time on the Norseman and anyway it got that he never arrived at the base but strangely enough [pause] well it was after the war one of the observers that was in one of the Lancasters claims that he saw the bombs hit Glenn Miller’s Norseman. Now, it’s, you know considering the conditions because they were pretty grim it’s unlikely. But anyway he claimed he saw the bombs hit the Norseman below and would you believe he sold his logbook for thirty five thousand dollars to a Glenn Miller nut in America.
Other: Oh, do you think that was significant.
RB: Yes. He went and emigrated to South Africa on that thirty five thousand pounds.
Other: You missed a trick there, Ron.
RB: Oh yes.
Other: But strangely enough when I was a boy I lived very close to the airfield. Twinwood Farm.
RB: Twinwoods. Did you really?
Other: There was a complex of airfields just there.
RB: Yes.
Other: That’s had [unclear] —
RB: They say it’s an interesting place to visit. They’ve got a museum —
Other: Oh yes, they now have got a little museum.
SB: Yes.
Other: The airfield is gone. The museum is in the old, the old town.
RB: Yeah.
Other: But it was a very marginal work. I think there was a controversy when there was a bit of press-on-itis because Glenn Miller had to be in —
SB: Paris wasn’t it?
Other: Paris for a concert.
SB: Yes. Yes.
Other: Or something. Yeah.
SB: Yeah.
RB: I did some research with a fellow an American Air Force guy and we did a lot of research on it and he certainly did and —
Other: Yeah.
RB: He was at Twinwoods.
Other: Oh right. Yeah.
RB: And he saw Glenn Miller in the Officer’s Mess.
Other: Yes.
RB: And he was with a friend of his and he said, ‘That’s Glenn Miller there.’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘I’d like to go and get his autograph.’ He said, ‘Well, it’s not the done thing. I don’t think I should bother doing that.’ But anyway he actually saw him go to his aircraft to take off on this thing.
Other: Gosh yes.
RB: So he’s done a lot of work on it.
Other: Yes.
RB: On this and we used to email each other regularly but I think he must have died now because the emails stopped and —
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah.
Other: I’ve done a low pass in a Tiger Moth over the, what was the runway. Yes. It became, it’s now an immigrant’s holding centre.
SB: Oh, is it?
RB: Is it?
Other: Yarls Wood it’s called now.
RB: Oh, Twinwoods is?
Other: Yes.
RB: Is it?
Other: Yes. But as I say it’s surprising. The tower is still there which is now the museum and quite a lot of the the temporary hutting is still there.
SB: Right. Right.
RB: Yeah. Yeah. Another, the fellow who was in charge of the museum he used to write to me. In fact, he, I sent him quite a bit of memorabilia and I kept in touch with him for a quite a long time.
Other: Ex-Army or something. Yeah.
RB: Yes.
Other: Because I visited there.
RB: That’s right.
Other: And I was talking to him and he was ex-Army. He was a great enthusiast.
RB: Yeah.
Other: And he said, ‘I don’t know much about a lot of this kit.’ Because he’d got various things like radios and things like that.
RB: Oh right. Right.
Other: But you know, he was obviously a very hard worker.
RB: Yeah.
Other: Trying to make a go of it.
SB: Let’s go back to the beginning then, Ron. When did you enlist?
RB: Well, when I was [pause] my education was a little bit limited but I passed my eleven plus to go to Grammar School and I had a girlfriend in the same class with me at school and we both sort of passed but she went on to Grammar School but my parents, my father was a miner and just at this time he was injured in the colliery. Well, in those days they didn’t get compensation and so things were pretty grim, you know. There was not much money coming in so they couldn’t afford to kit me out for Grammar School so I never went. But you know looking back it was probably a good thing because I went into the typewriter trade. I was an apprentice typewriter mechanic.
SB: Oh right.
RB: And I came here to Mansfield, travelled on the train and it was about ten miles from my home at Creswell and so I did this up until when war was declared 1939. I went to Sheffield to the Recruitment Office there to, to join up.
Other: Where was that? Was that —
RB: Pardon?
Other: Where was the Recruiting Office? Do you remember?
RB: [unclear]
Other: Oh yes.
RB: You know [unclear]
Other: Yes. Yes.
RB: Yeah. Well, it was there.
Other: Oh Right. Yes.
RB: And then strangely enough the fellow standing next to me in fact you know we joined there and then and we got the same, next number to each other and he was a guy from Edinburgh. A lovely man and we I always remember they asked you know to give them a urine sample.
Other: Oh yeah.
RB: A urine specimen.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And of course he couldn’t manage it so I grabbed his jar and filled it for him. So it’s a good job I was alright or it would have shortened both our careers wouldn’t it really? And anyway we —
Other: [unclear] for duty you know.
RB: We went on and we were called up together.
Other: Yes.
RB: And we went to Padgate and then from there to Cosford.
Other: Right.
RB: And we did the flight mechanics course at Cosford and John was still with me and we [pause] we got our first posting and it was rather handy. It was at Newark.
Other: Oh right.
RB: Quite close to here.
Other: Right.
RB: And it was 58 MU and we were picking up crashed aircraft along the east coast. Both German and ours.
Other: Yes.
RB: And we were sort of taking the engines out or dismantling them and taking them back to various depots to AV Roe’s —
Other: Yes.
RB: And Vickers on these low loaders.
Other: Yes.
RB: The Queen Marys I think they called them.
Other: Yes. I did the same job at my first job in the Air Force.
RB: Yeah?
Other: At 71 MU.
RB: Really?
Other: Yes. Repair and salvage. I was on the Salvage Unit.
RB: That’s right. Well, would you believe it?
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah.
SB: When was that, Ron? When did you start at Newark?
RB: Sorry?
SB: When?
RB: When?
SB: You went to 58 MU.
RB: This would be ’40.
SB: Ok.
RB: 1940.
SB: Yes.
RB: And —
Other: So this was sort of Battle of Britain stuff you were picking up then really.
RB: Yes.
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah, and quite a bit of German stuff as well.
Other: Yes.
RB: Heinkels, and the only, the worst part of it was when you know the burnt bodies were in it and we had to sort of well help to sort of get these out but —
Other: Yes. Unpleasant.
RB: And then we were, we were put on around the boat and we went to, both of us still together John and I and we went from, sailed up the Clyde from Glasgow. We went out to the Middle East stopping at Cape Town where we’d got trouble with the, with the engines on the boat so we had a very nice three week stay in Cape Town and that was superb and the people in Cape Town were absolutely marvellous. They sort of lined up at the, by the boat there with their cars and they were taking us to their homes and we, John and I went with this fellow and he was an optician in Cape Town and he took us to his home and we were rather fortunate because he’d got two young daughters about sixteen and eighteen. And anyway they used to take us dancing and we had a wonderful time with them. We didn’t really want to leave there.
SB: I wonder why.
RB: And then we went on into Egypt to Kasfareet, Alexandria and we stayed there about a couple of weeks living in tents and then we were shipped off to Khartoum in the Sudan.
Other: Oh yes.
RB; And that was, you know a fascinating place to be but it was where the Blue Nile meets the White Nile.
Other: Yes.
RB: And General Gordon of course —
Other: Yes.
RB: Was very well-known there and we were on 71 OTU.
Other: Oh yes.
RB: And it was called Gordon’s Tree.
Other: Yes.
RB: The airbase and we had Harvards, Hurricanes, Tomahawks. That’s the P40.
Other: Yes.
RB: Mohawk. That’s the radial engine version and Hurricanes.
SB: Yes.
RB: And we were a mix of pilots. A lot of them were coming from South Africa and we had a lot of problems with sand in the —
Other: Oh yes.
RB: In the filters and —
Other: Yes.
RB: Engines sort of seizing on take-off and things like that so we attended a lot of funerals. But on the other hand the Harvard was a beautiful aircraft. A marvellous work horse and —
Other: [unclear]
RB: Yes.
Yeah. A treat to work on that. No reduction gear you know. Had very nice [engines]
Other: Yes [Bradshaw]
RB: Yes. But [pause] and then whilst I was there, and an interesting episode the, the CO sent for me and he said, ‘I want you to be here in one hour’s time with your kit bag. We’re flying you to Cairo.’ So I said, well, you know, wondering what I’d done wrong sort of thing. He said, ‘I’ve no idea. They’ve not told me a thing. They’ve just sent me this signal through that they want you there and absolutely straightaway. It’s dead urgent.’ And so they flew me out in a Harvard to Heliopolis as it was, Cairo Airport then and when we arrived at Heliopolis there was a couple of Army guys, armed guards there who met me and took me to military headquarters in Cairo. Marched me in front of a few top brass. There were colonels and God knows. All sorts of high-rank people you know.
Other: All Army were they?
RB: Top brass. Yeah. All Army.
Other: Yes.
RB: All Army. And they said, ‘Right. You’re probably wondering why we sent for you. We’ve gone through the whole of the records.’ We were using the Hollerith records system there.
Other: Oh yes.
RB: They’d gone through all the Hollerith records Army, Navy and Air Force. ‘Yours is the only name that’s come up that is in the typewriter trade.’
Other: Oh God.
RB: So they said, ‘We want you have a look.’ [laughs] ‘We want you to have a look at this typewriter that’s dropped off a lorry in the western desert in the Rommel Montgomery sort of campaign.’
Other: Yes.
RB: And anyway they took me into this room and there was this typewriter and of course I mean it was, I’d no idea. I mean I couldn’t recognise it. It was the Enigma.
Other: Ah. Good lord.
RB: And you know the thing I mean I just looked at it.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And rather strange you sort of press a key, the letter S and it would come up in a window and you pressed the same letter again and it would be another different letter you see.
Other: Yeah.
RB: So I mean I just hadn’t a clue.
Other: No.
RB: So they said, ‘Well, what we want you to do is sort of it’s you know it’s had a bit of rough treatment. There’s some wheel bent and what not. We’d like to sort of get it going. Can you get it working for us? I mean [laughs] I mean even the keyboard. It was, it was a quirky keyboard.
Other: Yeah.
RB: With the usual German figures.
SB: Yes.
RB: In fact, would you believe, this is a coincidence but that is a German keyboard. That’s the same keyboard that was on the Enigma. But I was in the typewriter trade of course.
Other: Yes.
RB: Have I mentioned that to you?
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah. And I had a collection of a hundred and fifty antique typewriters up until about five or six years ago and my son said to me, well I was chatting with him, I said, ‘You know, when I sort of depart what will you do with them?’ He said, ‘Oh, I’ll throw them in a skip.’ I thought well I’d better do something about them so I donated them to a theme park in Downham Market.
SB: Oh yes. Yes.
RB: And they’re over there. But that one I just, I’ve got, hang on I’ll show you in my committee room I’ve got four or five portables but it was, it rather surprised me because I was going to sell it and then realised it’s got a German keyboard and I didn’t know [laughs] Anyway, yes I spent two weeks at Army Headquarters in Cairo working on this Enigma and anyway at the end of the two weeks I was taken back in front of the, the brass hats and they said, ‘Well, we’re delighted with what you’ve done for us and we’ll give you a promotion.’ And they promoted me from LAC to corporal. Yes.
Other: You did get something out of it.
RB: Yeah.
SB: Absolutely.
RB: And they also gave me a weekend’s leave at Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo. The top hotel you know.
Other: Yes.
RB: And it’s the first time in well over a year that I’d slept between sheets.
Other: Yeah.
RB: It was lovely you know and a feather pillow. It was, it was really nice.
Other: What an amazing story. Yes.
RB: So yes anyway and whilst I’d been away I mean from there they’d had a typhoon hit the, hit the camp at Gordon’s Tree where we were and did a lot of damage. Turned a lot of aircraft over.
Other: Yes.
RB: So I missed that. Even the place where I was billeted the roof was off. Anyway, we, when after two years there was a signal came through wanting fitter 2Es to volunteer for flight engineers. So John and I we’d both got girlfriends back in England and we knew that the training was St Athan so it was, it was a means of getting back home to the UK. So we both applied. They accepted us both and within a few weeks, three or four weeks we were back on the boat and we came back the quick way through Gibraltar and we were posted to —
Other: So this was 1943 was it?
RB: Pardon?
Other: Would this be early ’43?
RB: This was ’43.
Other: Yes.
RB: Yes. And when back home they’d said to me, back at the base they said to me, ‘Where would you like to be posted in England? You know, we’d like to get you near to your home if it’s possible after you’ve been out here all this time.’ So I said, ‘Well, yeah,’ I said, ‘The nearest airfield to Creswell.’ You know, airbase to Creswell. So they sent me to Morpeth. There’s a place called Cresswell with two SSs.
Other: Yeah.
RB: That’s spelt with two SSs right alongside it.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And it was, I’d come from a hundred and twenty degrees in Khartoum.
Other: God.
RB: To absolutely a bitter December day in England.
Other: Yes.
RB: And I remember it was, there was snow on the ground and working on aircraft there you know in the snow and I’d never done that of course before. But so anyway fortunately it was only a matter of about three weeks we were at Morpeth and then we were posted to Lords Cricket Ground.
Other: Oh yes. This was —
RB: Over at St Johns Wood.
Other: Yes.
SB: Yeah.
RB: And we did the aircrew —
Other: ITW.
RB: That’s right.
Other: Yes.
RB: And as I say John was still with me and again I always remember one of the questions that the intelligence officer asked me was, ‘Can you tell me the meaning of the word campanology?’
Other: Oh yes.
RB: Well, when I was at the school I was at at Creswell, the primitive school I was at it was alongside a church. It was a Church of England school and I was. I was a bell ringer.
Other: Yes.
RB: I’d been appointed. I’d been appointed a bell ringer and there was about five of us. Five young lads.
Other: Yes.
RB: And I’d never realised how many sort of Saint’s Days really, Saint’s Days there were in the Christian calendar.
Other: Yes.
RB: There always seemed to be bell ringing.
Other: Yes.
RB: So of course I, you know I said straight away, ‘Well, bell ringing,’ when they asked me this question and afterwards the following day he said to me you were the only one that knew the meaning of campanology [laughs]
Other: I’m not surprised. Yeah.
RB: And yes, so we again we were posted from there to St Athan’s.
Other: Oh right.
RB: To do our flight engineer training which I think was only six weeks.
Other: Yes. Well the information I have is that it was six weeks.
RB: Yes.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Yeah and —
Other: That map of St Athan.
RB: Oh, we flew didn’t we?
Other: To sort out the buildings.
RB: And we, we enjoyed the six weeks there and as I said we had a, John and I had found a couple of girlfriends who were two sisters in Cardiff dancing at the City Hall there.
Other: Yes.
RB: And I was mentioning to Steve we used to come back on that last train from Cardiff into, was it St Giles?
Other: Yes.
RB: The, the station.
Other: That’s right. It was a halt really wasn’t it?
RB: Yes.
Other: Yes.
RB: That’s it. Yeah. Then we were posted from there to Heavy Conversion Unit. I can’t think of the [pause] I can’t remember the number of it.
SB: 1653.
RB: 1653.
SB: Yeah. We said it was Chedburgh so that was 1653.
RB: It was 1653.
SB: Yeah.
RB: That’s right. Yeah. And we [pause] because we were crewed up then. We met the crew and the, this young pilot officer came over to me and said, ‘Are you Ron Brown?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’d very much like you to join our crew as flight engineer.’ And he said, ‘I’m pleased to see that you come from Nottinghamshire,’ he said, ‘Because I’m from Nottingham.’
Other: Ah.
RB: And he was a really good guy. Excellent. And I mean he turned out to be a marvellous pilot and as a crew we really were superb. We were just like seven brothers and we were sort of dedicated and disciplined and we flew as per the book. We didn’t sort of cut any corners and it was really great being together and we [pause] we did this conversion course but unfortunately I’d been trained on the Merlin and worked on the Merlin in the Middle East as well.
Other: Yes.
RB: Well of course they posted us to Stirlings.
Other: Yes. Exactly.
RB: And I hadn’t a clue [laughs] a Stirling engine. And we did [pause] we completed our training there and right up to the very last training flight which was the bullseye. What we called the bullseye.
Other: Astral navigation.
RB: Which was the simulated operation.
Other: Yes.
RB: You went through everything and we were briefed to fly from, was it in Suffolk or Norfolk? 1653.
Other: Chedburgh.
RB: What?
SB: Chedburgh.
Other: Yes.
RB: Chedburgh. Chedburgh and we flew from Chedburgh to Newcastle on Tyne, Newcastle on Tyne to Cardiff, Cardiff to Dover and we were to be coned in our own searchlights over Dover and practice evading and doing the corkscrew. And there were just three Stirlings and my colleague was in another one, John and we, he went in first and our other two Stirlings just to circle around observing. And we saw this flash of explosion of the Stirling and a German night fighter had attacked it and shot it down.
Other: Too much really. Gosh.
RB: It was then that we thought this is a dangerous business, you know and the thing is in six weeks time I was going to be the best man at his wedding.
SB: Yeah.
RB: In Edinburgh. And I think you know the letter I had to write, and the letter I had to write to his fiancé was probably the most difficult letter I’ve ever had to write.
Other: Yes.
RB: But yes really sort of missed him but anyway you know the next day we were posted to a squadron and I went to 218 Gold Coast Squadron at Woolfox Lodge near Stamford.
Other: Well, I used to pass Woolfox Lodge regularly.
RB: Oh.
Other: Between Cranwell and my home in Bedfordshire.
RB: Oh yeah.
SB: I passed it this morning as it happens.
Other: Oh yes.
SB: I’ve come past it this morning.
RB: Have you?
SB: Yes.
Other: And I always used to as I went past I’d try and visit when it was a Stirling unit.
RB: Well —
Other: I never met anybody that flew from Woolfox Lodge so —
RB: Well, I don’t know.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Yeah. And of course we used to go into the George.
Other: Oh yes.
RB: And then also the Ram Jam.
Other: Yes.
RB: You know the Ram Jam.
Other: Yes. Still going.
SB: Yes.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Yeah. But when we used to come back from operations we used to get on these, these Queen Marys. These low loaders and they used to take us out to the George.
Other: Tell me did you ever have any problems because one of the runways is parallel to the A1?
RB: That’s right.
SB: Yeah.
RB: It was. It was parallel with the A1.
SB: Yes.
RB: Yes, it was.
SB: Did anybody ever have any problems with that because —
RB: We had one that on take-off it, it couldn’t, it couldn’t get the height and crashed into a farmhouse.
SB: Oh well.
RB: And the whole thing exploded you know with the bombs on board as well.
SB: Yeah.
RB: Killed all the residents in the farmhouse.
SB: Yeah.
RB: But that’s the one I remember. But it was, it was a fascinating really because I was going to get married from, from there and fixed the wedding day. June the 6th.
Other: Ah.
RB: And of course D-Day and there was a clamp down on the station on security. On everything really. You weren’t allowed to leave the camp. You weren’t allowed to make a phone call. All the phones were cut off anyway and of course you couldn’t sort of send out any correspondence. Well, I wasn’t able to let my mother know that you know the wedding was off.
SB: Oh no.
RB: And even the vicar turned up for the wedding and nobody there. But we were, we were briefed and it was very very short notice. We were briefed, just three of us Stirlings to go to Cottesmore to tow a glider.
Other: Oh right.
RB: Over to Normandy.
Other: Yes.
RB: And never done it before. We didn’t tell the, actually when we arrived there typical American organisation. All these gliders with the Dakotas fastened you know.
Other: Yes.
RB: To them all the way both sides of the runway. Spectacular. It’s incredible what they’d done.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Anyway, we, we got hooked up to this glider.
Other: So had they modified your squadron aircraft then for this?
RB: Pardon?
Other: Had they modified your squadron aircraft for this?
RB: That’s right.
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah. And we didn’t tell the American airborne troops that we’d never done it before because it was prudent not to mention that [laughs]
Other: It was very wise I should have thought.
RB: Anyway, it was an incredible sight to see this. Particularly the armada of shipping over the Channel. It was fantastic and, and also when we [pause] when the glider left us and we looked down there and we saw the carnage that was, there was gliders on their back and on fire and oh it was we thought how fortunate we were to be able to go back to —
Other: Yes.
RB: You know the tranquillity of our own base.
Other: Yeah.
RB: In comparison anyway.
SB: Because it was obviously daylight then was it?
RB: Yes.
SB: Yeah.
RB: Yes. It was very early morning. Yes.
Other: Right. What, on the 6th of June?
RB: Yeah.
Other: Yes.
RB: And another, another example is the fact that very rarely someone took your aircraft on the squadron but things were pretty desperate and when we got back to base we were told by the CO not to talk about it. Not to tell anybody where we’d been, you know. We mustn’t. We’d been briefed before we went out on this but they were quite emphatic about this. We were not to tell people about this at all. When we got back the aircraft was refuelled and bombed up and another crew took it and they failed to return. You know, we were so lucky. It’s unfortunate and also luck comes into it. No doubt about it.
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah.
SB: And I know most of your Stirling ops the majority were mine laying weren’t they?
RB: Yes, we did a lot of mine laying.
SB: Yeah.
RB: Yes.
Other: Was that because they were withdrawing Stirlings from main force ops at that time?
RB: Well, I guess that would be it. It was. Yes. But we were a lot of them were the mine laying operations.
SB: So that’s one of the bombing ops you did on May the 1st to marshalling yards at Chambly.
RB: Oh yes.
SB: Your squadron lost three aircraft. Does that stick in the memory at all?
RB: No. No. It doesn’t.
SB: Any particular Stirling ops that do stick in your memory for being a bit dodgy or anything particularly memorable?
RB: We had other problems with the Stirlings.
SB: Yeah.
RB: They were certainly you know getting past their sell by date.
Other: Yes.
RB: And we I know on the Heavy Conversion Unit we went in the night flying exercises we had to come back to base three times and change aircraft. They’d got problems with them. They were, and particularly at the Heavy Conversion Unit I think they were clapped out aircraft.
Other: Yes.
RB: That had been sent from squadrons.
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah.
Other: But it was very much an electric aircraft wasn’t it?
RB: Yes.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Yes, it was. Yeah.
Other: Am I right in thinking the throttle controls were Exactor? Was it the Exactor system? Which was the short thing they used on flying boats.
SB: I don’t know.
Other: I think it was a hydraulic —
SB: Oh right.
Other: I think it worked quite well but no one believed it.
SB: What were the sort of problems you were getting with it then? You said they were past their sell by date and —
RB: Well —
SB: What particularly would have been the issues?
RB: Well, yeah very big mag drops with them.
SB: Yeah. Yeah.
RB: And we [pause] it was mainly, mainly engines. Engine problems. Yeah.
Other: I’d say it was, sorry, I was just going to say cross wind take-offs were a bit hairy.
RB: That’s right we used to get quite a bit of yawing.
Other: Yeah.
RB: As you took off. Yes. Yeah.
Other: With that tall undercarriage.
RB: Quite.
Other: You were a bit vulnerable weren’t you?
RB: Yes.
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah. But it’s amazing really when whatever you flew you always had sort of respect for it. Particularly if it brought you back.
Other: Yes.
RB: You know.
Other: Yes.
RB: And [pause] but I must admit it was marvellous when we got on to the Lancaster and got an extra —
Other: Yeah.
RB: Eight thousand feet and more power and a beautiful aircraft the Lanc.
SB: So when you’d finished your first tour the priority was to get married. I know.
RB: That’s right.
SB: But what were the options for you then? What, did the crew all want to do a second tour? How did that work?
RB: We were well aware that we’d got to fly a second tour.
SB: Right.
RB: So we, we approached the adjutant of the station and we said, ‘Look we’re quite willing to forego the —' sometimes you’d get a month off. A month leave between tours. We said that we were willing to forego this providing we could keep together as a crew. So he said, ‘Well, I’ll see what I can do for you.’ He said, ‘But and I must admit we are pretty stretched for crews right now. They may even consider it.’ And so anyway we just had two weeks leave and we stayed together and we were posted to 75 New Zealand Squadron and it suited us a treat and —
SB: Did you go, you said on your list here that you went to HCU for Lanc Conversion first.
RB: Yes.
SB: Where was that? [pause] Wigsley?
RB: No. What’s Feltwell?
Other: Feltwell?
RB: Yeah. What’s Feltwell on —
SB: Not to worry.
Other: So it was an HCU rather than a Lancaster Finishing School.
RB: Well, it was [pause] I can’t remember. I know when we got there there was a film unit there and it was Dickie Attenborough.
Other: Oh yeah.
RB: On the film.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And the film they were making was, “Journey Together,” and we did some of the flying scenes for them flying Lancasters.
Other: Yes.
RB: But I can’t just think of the name of the base.
Other: What part of the country?
RB: It was a, it was the site of a Heavy Conversion Unit.
Other: Yes. Can you remember what sort of part of the country it was in? Was it Lincolnshire or —
RB: No. It wasn’t. It wasn’t Lincolnshire.
SB: Well, not to worry.
Other: No.
SB: It may well come back to you. So then your second tour at 75 Squadron.
RB: Yes. Mepal.
SB: Yes.
RB: Near Cambridge.
SB: Yes.
RB: Yeah.
SB: And what did you think of the Lanc compared to the Stirling?
RB: Oh, it was, it was a treat. It was lovely. We were very pleased with it and they gave us a brand new aircraft as well to start with so that chivvied us up along but oh the, you know the whole performance. The power and the ceiling it gave us.
SB: Yeah.
RB: We were further away from the flack. It was a lovely aircraft and certainly nice to handle and everybody was happy. The whole crew were pleased with it.
SB: Are you, again on your list here you singled out your thirty third op. July the 23rd. The oil refinery at Homberg. Heavy loss on the squadron there.
RB: Yes.
SB: Do you recall that one?
RB: Yes. Yes. Yes, it was, it was a pretty grim one that. The flak was when we crossed the Dutch coast we ran into a tremendous flak barrage and I think this was probably the problem with most of the aircraft that were lost. But no we were hit as well and some damage on the fuselage but that was, that was one of the bad ones.
SB: Were there other times when you sustained a bit of damage? I guess there would have been some.
Yes. We got, we got, we got damaged several times on, even on the mine laying because we ran into one or two of the flak ships.
Other: Yes. Right. Right.
RB: That they’d got sort of moored there just off the coast and they created some problems for us and we got some flak damage through on about two occasions anyway from there.
SB: Then halfway through your second tour you lost your pilot Harry didn’t you? He just —
RB: Yes, we [pause] that was, that was a grim business really. We, we got hit by this ME 109 attacking us from below and of course we were vulnerable.
SB: Yes.
RB: You know, the gunners couldn’t sort of fire below at all.
SB: Yeah.
RB: So this ME 109 fired his cannon underneath and hit my skipper’s elbow and really took his elbow off and we had to get him out of his position. Fortunately, we’d always, we had our bomb aimer was an ex [pause] in civilian life he’d been a St Johns Ambulance Brigade guy and he’d got quite a bit of medical knowledge and we always said that if the occasion arose he would be in charge of the medical kit you see.
SB: Yes.
RB: Well, anyway he took over and he put a tourniquet on his elbow and although it seemed to be a long time because I was flying the aircraft then.
Other: Of course.
RB: Something I absolutely dreaded you know. I’d had nightmares over.
Other: Yes. I was going to ask you. Did you ever have time at the controls at all during the —
RB: Yes. I’d done a lot of link.
Other: Yes.
RB: And had the, and from time to time had taken over the controls.
Other: Yes.
RB: Particularly with, yeah with Harry or [unclear]
Other: Yes.
RB: And he was very good. He used to ask us from time to time to take over but I did a lot of link.
Other: Yes.
RB: And that helps. I mean I could fly a course.
Other: Yes.
RB: I could do banking and weaving but I wouldn’t have attempted a corkscrew and this was what I was thinking. At this time you see when we’d had lost him I thought —
Other: Yes.
RB: Oh my God. I mean this was the nightmare that you dreaded about you know and you’d have, and it seemed an eternity but it was it was a great relief when he tapped me on the head and said, ‘Ok, Ron. I’ll come back into my seat now.’ That was marvellous.
Other: Yes.
RB: And he’d patched him up and put a tourniquet.
Other: Yes.
RB: On his elbow and we did this. We returned to base and —
Other: How far off base were you when you were hit? Were you actually on the return? Or —
RB: We were on the return. Yes. Yeah. We were just coming up to the, to the Dutch coast.
Other: Right. Yes.
RB: And we [pause] we made this landing and our rear gunner was a bit of a wag and he said, ‘By goodness,’ he said, ‘That’s the best landing you’ve made and you did that with one hand.’ He said, ‘You ought to do more like that.’ But anyway when we taxied up to the, to the hangar there he fell over the control column. He collapsed over the control column and he was whipped up for the ambulance came over to take him to hospital and in those there again [pause] but we —
Other: Did he get any recognition of that? Flying the aircraft back in the interim.
RB: He didn’t.
Other: No.
RB: He didn’t. No. And I’ve got to explain this business we [pause] he’d met this girlfriend as well in the [pause] Nottingham in the old pub.
Other: The Saracen’s —
SB: Oh.
Other: The Saracen’s Head or —
SB: No. The Trip to Jerusalem.
RB: The Trip to Jerusalem.
Other: Yes.
RB: That’s right.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And he’d met this young Canadian WAAF officer. Had only just been made, only just been commissioned. Immaculate. Marilyn Monroe type lass she was. She was superb and they really hit it off and it turned out that she was the daughter of one of the Canadian Embassy in London and when he went into hospital she arranged for him to be transferred to a hospital near her in London. You know, being able to pull the strings and having her father there and he went there and we never saw him again after that. But yeah, we then were taken over by the acting CO of 75 New Zealand Squadron and he was a different kettle of fish altogether. I mean Harry, young Harry he was outgoing. He was a public schoolboy and he was, you know a Jack the lad. Oh, he used to fly with a pair of lady’s knickers tucked into his collar. A different pair every operation you know from his previous night’s [pause] and in fact when we went to visit him in hospital after, after this happened we went in, he went into Ely Hospital from there. And when we went to visit him he was, we fully expected him to be in agony, in pain and he was sat up there beaming and he’d got a pair of lady’s knickers tucked into his pyjama jacket and the matron said, ‘Don’t ask. He’s not got them by, he’s borrowed them off one of my nurses.’ So we were taken over by the acting CO of 75 New Zealand Squadron. A Squadron Leader Rogers and, DFC. He’d done a tour already and he was, he was going to start his second tour with us. Took us over but he was, he was totally different. He was dour, sort of uncommunicative at all he just didn’t sort of [pause] there was no repartee —
Other: Yeah.
RB: Between us.
Other: Was he, was he a New Zealander?
RB: Yeah. He was a Kiwi. Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
RB: New Zealander and he was [pause] he was sort of an introvert and he didn’t mix at all.
Other: Yes.
RB: And he was totally different to what we’d been used to you see. Anyway, having said that he was a good pilot. I mean he certainly knew what he was doing and we felt comfortable with him in that respect but out of the aircraft there was just nothing at all between us and we flew. We just went. When we reached our, we’d got about sort of seven or eight ops to go to have completed our tour and we said to him that we were going to finish, you know when we’d done our —
SB: Yeah.
RB: Our sixty fourth. And he said, he was, he was absolutely livid with us. He was annoyed and he said, you know, ‘I want you to finish me with my tour. Won’t you stay with me and finish my tour?’ And two of us had just got engaged. Two of us had just got married.
SB: Yes.
RB: And we, we thought, we thought we’d done enough and, but he was absolutely livid and, and we eventually sort of finished and we finished our tour but would you believe he never even came to say goodbye or shake our hands or anything. So he, he just he ignored us you know. We’d really upset him.
SB: Yes.
RB: And so we, what we felt was that our navigator he certainly deserved the DFC because he’d brought us back twice by the stars when we’d lost all our instruments.
SB: Right.
RB: He was brilliant our navigator.
SB: Yeah.
RB: He was an ex-Oxford don and he’d left. He’d given up his, interrupted his law degree at the university and he was brilliant and he really should have had the DFC.
SB: That’s Sergeant Whittaker.
RB: Yeah.
SB: What was his first name? What was his first name?
RB: Don.
SB: Don.
RB: Yeah.
SB: So when you finished, you’d done your sixty fourth —
RB: Yeah.
SB: Hurray.
RB: Yeah.
SB: What came after that?
RB: Well, they’d done the, a bit of work and checked up and it was the fact I’d been in the typewriter trade and they said, ‘We’ve got just the job for you,’ he said, ‘We’ve got at RAF records at Gloucester.’
SB: Yeah.
RB: ‘There’s over three thousand typewriters there which have had no service right throughout the war.’ He said, you know, ‘We’d like you set up a Service Department.’ And so they sent me to records at Gloucester. They gave me a free hand and I went to the Imperial Typewriter Company at Leicester and got all the spare parts and tools and then they went and got on to the records and they found me two more typewriter mechanics and so we set up this department at, at Gloucester records.
Other: Was that at Insworth or —
RB: Yeah. At Insworth.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And Barnwood.
Other: Barnwood, yeah.
RB: Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And that was very good because they gave me, gave me an RAF home. A house. A very nice house in Gloucester and so my wife was quite pleased. She gave up her job and came and joined me and we had a very pleasant sort of year there in Gloucester. And yes they just commissioned me just before I came out. Pilot officer. And so, yeah I had a wonderful career.
SB: Yes. So it was ’46 when you came out was it? 1946 or —
RB: ’46 yes.
SB: Yeah.
RB: Yeah.
SB: Yeah. Yeah. So did you stay in the typewriter world then after you —
RB: I came and started a company. Formed a company. Office equipment. Typewriter and office equipment here and built it up and I got I finished up with a staff of forty but I’d got two branches. I got one in Nottingham and one in Mansfield and very lucky I got all the main agencies that were going and yes it did very well. I was fortunate in having some good contracts. The National Coal Board was just being formed and I got the whole of the National Coal Board contracts and also I was lucky. I was invited [pause] you’ve probably read in my book I probably should have mentioned this but when I was about thirteen, twelve or thirteen years of age the local doctor in our village asked me to go and, if I would like to go and caddy with him. Caddy for him at golf at the Duke of Portland’s private golf course at Welbeck Abbey. Fascinating. Fantastic place it is. So I went there and eventually he was playing golf with the Duke of Portland so I finished up carrying two bags. The Duke of Portland’s and the doctor’s.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And I spent quite a while I’d been doing this probably two years and when I came out, when I went into the Air Force he kept in touch with me, the Duke and it used to be nice to get this lovely gold letter.
SB: Yes.
RB: And I flaunted it a little bit and it, he really he always took an interest and he kept in touch with me but it transpired that I’m going back now to Mepal when we, I joined the squadron there he said to me, ‘Would you like to bring along ten or a dozen of your crew to a shoot at my estate?’ And, I mean you know with rationing you know with food and we went over. We got this [pause] there was a fellow joining the squadron who was going to take over as CO. His Name was Wing Commander Newton and he’d just returned from New Zealand. He’d been on compassionate leave. His father had died and he was coming over to take over as CO. So he was ex-farming stock and he’d done a bit of shooting and I mentioned this and he said, ‘Well, yes. I’d love to come.’ And I took ten people over and he arranged a coach and a WAAF driver to take us and they had a ball. It was fantastic you know. We got this they came out with this flat-bottomed lorry full of food and you know there was pheasant, partridge, rabbit, all this sort of stuff and drinks of course. And anyway they had their shoot but in the middle of this shoot he’d arranged, this fellow had arranged for a Lancaster to do an air test over us and he came over and went through the whole performance.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And the Duke and Duchess thought it was incredible. They were thrilled to bits with it and, but there again would you believe this crew the next night they went out on operations and they failed to return.
Other: Yeah.
RB: But this Wing Commander Newton he was, his first, he took over as CO of the squadron and we took him about two days before the end of the year something like that and we took him —
Other: To Cologne.
RB: On his, on his refresher. His, we took him as second dickie.
Other: Yes.
RB: For his refresher and I know I was a bit miffed because I had to sit on my parachute all the time you know.
Other: Yeah.
RB: But he was, he was a really good guy. Would you believe on New Year’s Day he took a sprog crew on their first trip and failed to return.
SB: Yeah.
RB: And he was a real nice chap.
Other: Were the crew lost? Did he become a POW do you know or —
RB: No. No. They all perished.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
SB: Fascinating. Is there anything else that you’d tell us that we haven’t already asked you about, Ron? You’ve told us an awful lot which is great. Thank you very much.
RB: Well, you know I’ve been involved with, I formed an East Midland Ex-Aircrew Association in 1950.
SB: Yeah.
RB: And we got we were a hundred and fifty strong in members and we’re down to twenty five now. But we, we did a lot of things. We, I’ve been very friendly oh for forty years with the daughter of Roy, the designer of the Lancaster.
Other: Chadwick.
SB: Roy Chadwick.
RB: Roy Chadwick. Roy Chadwick. His daughter.
SB: Oh right.
RB: A lovely lady.
SB: Yes.
RB: I’ll tell you her name. Margaret Dove. And she’s been over two or three times to me here and been out with our organization. We’ve taken her over to Coningsby and I remember the very first time we took her to Coningsby and I had a word with the CO over there and mentioned who she was and anyway it was transmitted to him and would you believe he arranged a flight for her. And she came back and tears were rolling down her cheeks.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And she was saying that it took her back to the time when her father, and you could tell how young she was, she was on his shoulders and he took her to see the Manchester.
Other: Oh yes.
RB: It had come out of the hangar.
SB: Yeah.
RB: And —
Other: Fabulous. Yeah.
RB: That was a dead loss wasn’t it? That was.
Other: Yes. Yes.
RB: You know —
Other: It led to —
RB: Yeah. Underpowered and —
Other: Well, I think it was the engines really.
RB: They were Kestrels weren’t they?
Other: No. They were Vultures.
RB: Oh.
Other: But they needed, I think it was a question of wartime. Not enough development time.
RB: What were they?
SB: Vultures.
Other: Vultures.
RB: Vultures. Oh.
Other: Yes. An [extension] you’re right. I think they were basically two Kestrel.
SB: Kestrel. One practically
Other: [unclear] cases.
SB: Yeah. That’s right.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Yeah.
Other: Incidentally, Roy Chadwick you know he worked very hard obviously during the war and his relaxation was to come over to Hucknall, not Hucknall, Great Hucklow.
RB: The gliding.
Other: Gliding.
RB: Really?
Other: He was actually present at gliding.
RB: Was he? I’ve been to Great Hucklow. Yeah.
Other: Yes.
RB: Right. She was a lovely person. In fact, I went to her funeral. It’s two years ago now in the Isle of Man. She lived there.
SB: Oh Right. Did You keep in touch with any of your crew after the war?
RB: We kept in touch regularly. My, my first skipper he, this father-in-law who was the, with the Canadian Embassy he, he had a bank in Canada and he, Harry went to live in Canada. He went with, they got married and he, he was given a bank as a manager.
SB: Right.
RB: And he came over. Oh, we used to meet every year. We used to meet in Cambridge. We used to meet when the students were off and we used to stay at the university and we all, we all used to meet. Unfortunately, the rear gunner and mid-upper gunner we never made contact with. We couldn’t contact them at all, never did and we tried very hard to do it. But the five of us did used to meet and we did until gradually the, Harry in Canada had a heart attack and died and then my, the others died and I just only recently, well probably about two years ago I lost my navigator. He went.
SB: Yeah.
RB: So I’m the last remaining one now.
SB: Right. Right.
Other: That’s absolutely brilliant.
SB: Yes. Thank you very much indeed, Ron. That’s
Other: Yeah.
SB: Right.
Other: It was quite funny when you were talked about being whipped out from 71 OTU to go to Cairo you know I thought they were going to say, you know, ‘We want you to join the SAS.’ [laughs] What a drama.
RB: [laughs] I thought have I done something wrong.
Other: Yes. But of course, it had to be all very highly secret.
RB: Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Exactly.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Yeah.
Other: How they went through the stories.
RB: That’s right.
Other: Which makes, makes the interest.
RB: I do wish, a couple of colleagues who are local and one is he’s Polish but he was flying Wellingtons.
Other: Oh right.
RB: He was a wireless operator on Wellingtons.
Other: Yeah.
RB: He just lives around the corner from me and then another one who was, he was a squadron leader, Mosquito pilot and he interviewed him as well. In fact, we’ve just done that book. If you’d like it the book on the top look that’s the one that’s just been done.
Other: Fighter [Cook]
RB: Do you know Patrick?
Other: I’m aware of him. Yes.
RB: Yeah. Yes.
SB: Yes, I know the name. Yes. I know the name.
Other: Yes, I know the name.
RB: Well, on the, if you just look inside there they start off with me.
Other: Oh right.
RB: And then they do this, the Polish chappie who I can’t pronounce his name but he goes under the name of Andre [Ruttall].
Other: Ah [Westlowoski]
RB: That’s it. Yeah.
Other: I won’t say it again either.
SB: Very good [laughs]
And then Ian Linney’s story is a bit further on and —
Other: Oh yes. Ian Linney. Yes. ‘I want to kill the bastards not photograph them.’
RB: That’s it. Whether he was, yeah he was with the Photographic Unit.
Other: Oh yes.
RB: And he was flying over taking photographs of the, after the raid you know.
Other: Oh yes. Raid assessment.
RB: And he said, ‘I’ve had enough of this [laughs] But he’s, he’s quite a character. Actually, he’s the biggest employer in Mansfield.
Other: Gosh.
RB: He’s one of five generations of printers.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And he’s got a massive state of the art printing works.
Other: Yes.
RB: Here in Mansfield and he’s, the contract he’s got he does the whole of McDonalds printing.
Other: Oh right.
RB: Throughout. Throughout the country. He does all the examination papers for the schools and technical colleges and universities. That’s another tremendous contract he’s got and of course they have to have some strict security as well you see.
SB: Yeah.
Other: Yes.
RB: For this thing.
Other: Yes.
SB: Anyway, well I suppose we ought to start with the obvious thing.
RB: Right.
SB: The Glenn Miller episode.
RB: Oh, Glenn Miller [laughs]
SB: Let’s get that one out of the way. If you’d like to talk us through.
RB: Yes, well it was I’ve had a lot of media publicity and TV with it but it was the 15th of December and oh it was a claggy day. Horrible. Absolutely filthy day and we never thought that well we were briefed to attack Siegen in the Ruhr and we never thought we’d take off because it was absolutely teeming it down with rain and the cloud was right down you know to about five hundred feet. It was, we didn’t think we’d go but anyway we went on this thing and we just got into German air space and we were recalled and this is the only time in six of our missions we didn’t drop our bombs. But we’ve often thought afterwards that when we were in German air space we felt we should have jettisoned the bombs there.
Other: Yeah.
RB: But we had this predesignated area in the North Sea where we would jettison. But we came down to three thousand feet to jettison and that was a dicey business because we could hardly see our own wingtips and there was about seventy five aircraft all jettisoning at the same time and we didn’t know until some time later, months later that it it coincided with the same flight track that Glenn Miller —
Other: Oh yes.
RB: Was taking. He’d left Bedford, an air base in Bedford.
Other: Yes.
RB: And he was flying a —
Other: Norseman.
RB: A Norseman.
Other: Yes.
RB: A twin seated job isn’t it?
Other: Yeah.
RB: And apparently the pilot of the Norseman was not very experienced I’d say. He hadn’t had a lot of time on the Norseman and anyway it got that he never arrived at the base but strangely enough [pause] well it was after the war one of the observers that was in one of the Lancasters claims that he saw the bombs hit Glenn Miller’s Norseman. Now, it’s, you know considering the conditions because they were pretty grim it’s unlikely. But anyway he claimed he saw the bombs hit the Norseman below and would you believe he sold his logbook for thirty five thousand dollars to a Glenn Miller nut in America.
Other: Oh, do you think that was significant.
RB: Yes. He went and emigrated to South Africa on that thirty five thousand pounds.
Other: You missed a trick there, Ron.
RB: Oh yes.
Other: But strangely enough when I was a boy I lived very close to the airfield. Twinwood Farm.
RB: Twinwoods. Did you really?
Other: There was a complex of airfields just there.
RB: Yes.
Other: That’s had [unclear] —
RB: They say it’s an interesting place to visit. They’ve got a museum —
Other: Oh yes, they now have got a little museum.
SB: Yes.
Other: The airfield is gone. The museum is in the old, the old town.
RB: Yeah.
Other: But it was a very marginal work. I think there was a controversy when there was a bit of press-on-itis because Glenn Miller had to be in —
SB: Paris wasn’t it?
Other: Paris for a concert.
SB: Yes. Yes.
Other: Or something. Yeah.
SB: Yeah.
RB: I did some research with a fellow an American Air Force guy and we did a lot of research on it and he certainly did and —
Other: Yeah.
RB: He was at Twinwoods.
Other: Oh right. Yeah.
RB: And he saw Glenn Miller in the Officer’s Mess.
Other: Yes.
RB: And he was with a friend of his and he said, ‘That’s Glenn Miller there.’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘I’d like to go and get his autograph.’ He said, ‘Well, it’s not the done thing. I don’t think I should bother doing that.’ But anyway he actually saw him go to his aircraft to take off on this thing.
Other: Gosh yes.
RB: So he’s done a lot of work on it.
Other: Yes.
RB: On this and we used to email each other regularly but I think he must have died now because the emails stopped and —
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah.
Other: I’ve done a low pass in a Tiger Moth over the, what was the runway. Yes. It became, it’s now an immigrant’s holding centre.
SB: Oh, is it?
RB: Is it?
Other: Yarls Wood it’s called now.
RB: Oh, Twinwoods is?
Other: Yes.
RB: Is it?
Other: Yes. But as I say it’s surprising. The tower is still there which is now the museum and quite a lot of the the temporary hutting is still there.
SB: Right. Right.
RB: Yeah. Yeah. Another, the fellow who was in charge of the museum he used to write to me. In fact, he, I sent him quite a bit of memorabilia and I kept in touch with him for a quite a long time.
Other: Ex-Army or something. Yeah.
RB: Yes.
Other: Because I visited there.
RB: That’s right.
Other: And I was talking to him and he was ex-Army. He was a great enthusiast.
RB: Yeah.
Other: And he said, ‘I don’t know much about a lot of this kit.’ Because he’d got various things like radios and things like that.
RB: Oh right. Right.
Other: But you know, he was obviously a very hard worker.
RB: Yeah.
Other: Trying to make a go of it.
SB: Let’s go back to the beginning then, Ron. When did you enlist?
RB: Well, when I was [pause] my education was a little bit limited but I passed my eleven plus to go to Grammar School and I had a girlfriend in the same class with me at school and we both sort of passed but she went on to Grammar School but my parents, my father was a miner and just at this time he was injured in the colliery. Well, in those days they didn’t get compensation and so things were pretty grim, you know. There was not much money coming in so they couldn’t afford to kit me out for Grammar School so I never went. But you know looking back it was probably a good thing because I went into the typewriter trade. I was an apprentice typewriter mechanic.
SB: Oh right.
RB: And I came here to Mansfield, travelled on the train and it was about ten miles from my home at Creswell and so I did this up until when war was declared 1939. I went to Sheffield to the Recruitment Office there to, to join up.
Other: Where was that? Was that —
RB: Pardon?
Other: Where was the Recruiting Office? Do you remember?
RB: [unclear]
Other: Oh yes.
RB: You know [unclear]
Other: Yes. Yes.
RB: Yeah. Well, it was there.
Other: Oh Right. Yes.
RB: And then strangely enough the fellow standing next to me in fact you know we joined there and then and we got the same, next number to each other and he was a guy from Edinburgh. A lovely man and we I always remember they asked you know to give them a urine sample.
Other: Oh yeah.
RB: A urine specimen.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And of course he couldn’t manage it so I grabbed his jar and filled it for him. So it’s a good job I was alright or it would have shortened both our careers wouldn’t it really? And anyway we —
Other: [unclear] for duty you know.
RB: We went on and we were called up together.
Other: Yes.
RB: And we went to Padgate and then from there to Cosford.
Other: Right.
RB: And we did the flight mechanics course at Cosford and John was still with me and we [pause] we got our first posting and it was rather handy. It was at Newark.
Other: Oh right.
RB: Quite close to here.
Other: Right.
RB: And it was 58 MU and we were picking up crashed aircraft along the east coast. Both German and ours.
Other: Yes.
RB: And we were sort of taking the engines out or dismantling them and taking them back to various depots to AV Roe’s —
Other: Yes.
RB: And Vickers on these low loaders.
Other: Yes.
RB: The Queen Marys I think they called them.
Other: Yes. I did the same job at my first job in the Air Force.
RB: Yeah?
Other: At 71 MU.
RB: Really?
Other: Yes. Repair and salvage. I was on the Salvage Unit.
RB: That’s right. Well, would you believe it?
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah.
SB: When was that, Ron? When did you start at Newark?
RB: Sorry?
SB: When?
RB: When?
SB: You went to 58 MU.
RB: This would be ’40.
SB: Ok.
RB: 1940.
SB: Yes.
RB: And —
Other: So this was sort of Battle of Britain stuff you were picking up then really.
RB: Yes.
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah, and quite a bit of German stuff as well.
Other: Yes.
RB: Heinkels, and the only, the worst part of it was when you know the burnt bodies were in it and we had to sort of well help to sort of get these out but —
Other: Yes. Unpleasant.
RB: And then we were, we were put on around the boat and we went to, both of us still together John and I and we went from, sailed up the Clyde from Glasgow. We went out to the Middle East stopping at Cape Town where we’d got trouble with the, with the engines on the boat so we had a very nice three week stay in Cape Town and that was superb and the people in Cape Town were absolutely marvellous. They sort of lined up at the, by the boat there with their cars and they were taking us to their homes and we, John and I went with this fellow and he was an optician in Cape Town and he took us to his home and we were rather fortunate because he’d got two young daughters about sixteen and eighteen. And anyway they used to take us dancing and we had a wonderful time with them. We didn’t really want to leave there.
SB: I wonder why.
RB: And then we went on into Egypt to Kasfareet, Alexandria and we stayed there about a couple of weeks living in tents and then we were shipped off to Khartoum in the Sudan.
Other: Oh yes.
RB; And that was, you know a fascinating place to be but it was where the Blue Nile meets the White Nile.
Other: Yes.
RB: And General Gordon of course —
Other: Yes.
RB: Was very well-known there and we were on 71 OTU.
Other: Oh yes.
RB: And it was called Gordon’s Tree.
Other: Yes.
RB: The airbase and we had Harvards, Hurricanes, Tomahawks. That’s the P40.
Other: Yes.
RB: Mohawk. That’s the radial engine version and Hurricanes.
SB: Yes.
RB: And we were a mix of pilots. A lot of them were coming from South Africa and we had a lot of problems with sand in the —
Other: Oh yes.
RB: In the filters and —
Other: Yes.
RB: Engines sort of seizing on take-off and things like that so we attended a lot of funerals. But on the other hand the Harvard was a beautiful aircraft. A marvellous work horse and —
Other: [unclear]
RB: Yes.
Yeah. A treat to work on that. No reduction gear you know. Had very nice [engines]
Other: Yes [Bradshaw]
RB: Yes. But [pause] and then whilst I was there, and an interesting episode the, the CO sent for me and he said, ‘I want you to be here in one hour’s time with your kit bag. We’re flying you to Cairo.’ So I said, well, you know, wondering what I’d done wrong sort of thing. He said, ‘I’ve no idea. They’ve not told me a thing. They’ve just sent me this signal through that they want you there and absolutely straightaway. It’s dead urgent.’ And so they flew me out in a Harvard to Heliopolis as it was, Cairo Airport then and when we arrived at Heliopolis there was a couple of Army guys, armed guards there who met me and took me to military headquarters in Cairo. Marched me in front of a few top brass. There were colonels and God knows. All sorts of high-rank people you know.
Other: All Army were they?
RB: Top brass. Yeah. All Army.
Other: Yes.
RB: All Army. And they said, ‘Right. You’re probably wondering why we sent for you. We’ve gone through the whole of the records.’ We were using the Hollerith records system there.
Other: Oh yes.
RB: They’d gone through all the Hollerith records Army, Navy and Air Force. ‘Yours is the only name that’s come up that is in the typewriter trade.’
Other: Oh God.
RB: So they said, ‘We want you have a look.’ [laughs] ‘We want you to have a look at this typewriter that’s dropped off a lorry in the western desert in the Rommel Montgomery sort of campaign.’
Other: Yes.
RB: And anyway they took me into this room and there was this typewriter and of course I mean it was, I’d no idea. I mean I couldn’t recognise it. It was the Enigma.
Other: Ah. Good lord.
RB: And you know the thing I mean I just looked at it.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And rather strange you sort of press a key, the letter S and it would come up in a window and you pressed the same letter again and it would be another different letter you see.
Other: Yeah.
RB: So I mean I just hadn’t a clue.
Other: No.
RB: So they said, ‘Well, what we want you to do is sort of it’s you know it’s had a bit of rough treatment. There’s some wheel bent and what not. We’d like to sort of get it going. Can you get it working for us? I mean [laughs] I mean even the keyboard. It was, it was a quirky keyboard.
Other: Yeah.
RB: With the usual German figures.
SB: Yes.
RB: In fact, would you believe, this is a coincidence but that is a German keyboard. That’s the same keyboard that was on the Enigma. But I was in the typewriter trade of course.
Other: Yes.
RB: Have I mentioned that to you?
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah. And I had a collection of a hundred and fifty antique typewriters up until about five or six years ago and my son said to me, well I was chatting with him, I said, ‘You know, when I sort of depart what will you do with them?’ He said, ‘Oh, I’ll throw them in a skip.’ I thought well I’d better do something about them so I donated them to a theme park in Downham Market.
SB: Oh yes. Yes.
RB: And they’re over there. But that one I just, I’ve got, hang on I’ll show you in my committee room I’ve got four or five portables but it was, it rather surprised me because I was going to sell it and then realised it’s got a German keyboard and I didn’t know [laughs] Anyway, yes I spent two weeks at Army Headquarters in Cairo working on this Enigma and anyway at the end of the two weeks I was taken back in front of the, the brass hats and they said, ‘Well, we’re delighted with what you’ve done for us and we’ll give you a promotion.’ And they promoted me from LAC to corporal. Yes.
Other: You did get something out of it.
RB: Yeah.
SB: Absolutely.
RB: And they also gave me a weekend’s leave at Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo. The top hotel you know.
Other: Yes.
RB: And it’s the first time in well over a year that I’d slept between sheets.
Other: Yeah.
RB: It was lovely you know and a feather pillow. It was, it was really nice.
Other: What an amazing story. Yes.
RB: So yes anyway and whilst I’d been away I mean from there they’d had a typhoon hit the, hit the camp at Gordon’s Tree where we were and did a lot of damage. Turned a lot of aircraft over.
Other: Yes.
RB: So I missed that. Even the place where I was billeted the roof was off. Anyway, we, when after two years there was a signal came through wanting fitter 2Es to volunteer for flight engineers. So John and I we’d both got girlfriends back in England and we knew that the training was St Athan so it was, it was a means of getting back home to the UK. So we both applied. They accepted us both and within a few weeks, three or four weeks we were back on the boat and we came back the quick way through Gibraltar and we were posted to —
Other: So this was 1943 was it?
RB: Pardon?
Other: Would this be early ’43?
RB: This was ’43.
Other: Yes.
RB: Yes. And when back home they’d said to me, back at the base they said to me, ‘Where would you like to be posted in England? You know, we’d like to get you near to your home if it’s possible after you’ve been out here all this time.’ So I said, ‘Well, yeah,’ I said, ‘The nearest airfield to Creswell.’ You know, airbase to Creswell. So they sent me to Morpeth. There’s a place called Cresswell with two SSs.
Other: Yeah.
RB: That’s spelt with two SSs right alongside it.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And it was, I’d come from a hundred and twenty degrees in Khartoum.
Other: God.
RB: To absolutely a bitter December day in England.
Other: Yes.
RB: And I remember it was, there was snow on the ground and working on aircraft there you know in the snow and I’d never done that of course before. But so anyway fortunately it was only a matter of about three weeks we were at Morpeth and then we were posted to Lords Cricket Ground.
Other: Oh yes. This was —
RB: Over at St Johns Wood.
Other: Yes.
SB: Yeah.
RB: And we did the aircrew —
Other: ITW.
RB: That’s right.
Other: Yes.
RB: And as I say John was still with me and again I always remember one of the questions that the intelligence officer asked me was, ‘Can you tell me the meaning of the word campanology?’
Other: Oh yes.
RB: Well, when I was at the school I was at at Creswell, the primitive school I was at it was alongside a church. It was a Church of England school and I was. I was a bell ringer.
Other: Yes.
RB: I’d been appointed. I’d been appointed a bell ringer and there was about five of us. Five young lads.
Other: Yes.
RB: And I’d never realised how many sort of Saint’s Days really, Saint’s Days there were in the Christian calendar.
Other: Yes.
RB: There always seemed to be bell ringing.
Other: Yes.
RB: So of course I, you know I said straight away, ‘Well, bell ringing,’ when they asked me this question and afterwards the following day he said to me you were the only one that knew the meaning of campanology [laughs]
Other: I’m not surprised. Yeah.
RB: And yes, so we again we were posted from there to St Athan’s.
Other: Oh right.
RB: To do our flight engineer training which I think was only six weeks.
Other: Yes. Well the information I have is that it was six weeks.
RB: Yes.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Yeah and —
Other: That map of St Athan.
RB: Oh, we flew didn’t we?
Other: To sort out the buildings.
RB: And we, we enjoyed the six weeks there and as I said we had a, John and I had found a couple of girlfriends who were two sisters in Cardiff dancing at the City Hall there.
Other: Yes.
RB: And I was mentioning to Steve we used to come back on that last train from Cardiff into, was it St Giles?
Other: Yes.
RB: The, the station.
Other: That’s right. It was a halt really wasn’t it?
RB: Yes.
Other: Yes.
RB: That’s it. Yeah. Then we were posted from there to Heavy Conversion Unit. I can’t think of the [pause] I can’t remember the number of it.
SB: 1653.
RB: 1653.
SB: Yeah. We said it was Chedburgh so that was 1653.
RB: It was 1653.
SB: Yeah.
RB: That’s right. Yeah. And we [pause] because we were crewed up then. We met the crew and the, this young pilot officer came over to me and said, ‘Are you Ron Brown?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’d very much like you to join our crew as flight engineer.’ And he said, ‘I’m pleased to see that you come from Nottinghamshire,’ he said, ‘Because I’m from Nottingham.’
Other: Ah.
RB: And he was a really good guy. Excellent. And I mean he turned out to be a marvellous pilot and as a crew we really were superb. We were just like seven brothers and we were sort of dedicated and disciplined and we flew as per the book. We didn’t sort of cut any corners and it was really great being together and we [pause] we did this conversion course but unfortunately I’d been trained on the Merlin and worked on the Merlin in the Middle East as well.
Other: Yes.
RB: Well of course they posted us to Stirlings.
Other: Yes. Exactly.
RB: And I hadn’t a clue [laughs] a Stirling engine. And we did [pause] we completed our training there and right up to the very last training flight which was the bullseye. What we called the bullseye.
Other: Astral navigation.
RB: Which was the simulated operation.
Other: Yes.
RB: You went through everything and we were briefed to fly from, was it in Suffolk or Norfolk? 1653.
Other: Chedburgh.
RB: What?
SB: Chedburgh.
Other: Yes.
RB: Chedburgh. Chedburgh and we flew from Chedburgh to Newcastle on Tyne, Newcastle on Tyne to Cardiff, Cardiff to Dover and we were to be coned in our own searchlights over Dover and practice evading and doing the corkscrew. And there were just three Stirlings and my colleague was in another one, John and we, he went in first and our other two Stirlings just to circle around observing. And we saw this flash of explosion of the Stirling and a German night fighter had attacked it and shot it down.
Other: Too much really. Gosh.
RB: It was then that we thought this is a dangerous business, you know and the thing is in six weeks time I was going to be the best man at his wedding.
SB: Yeah.
RB: In Edinburgh. And I think you know the letter I had to write, and the letter I had to write to his fiancé was probably the most difficult letter I’ve ever had to write.
Other: Yes.
RB: But yes really sort of missed him but anyway you know the next day we were posted to a squadron and I went to 218 Gold Coast Squadron at Woolfox Lodge near Stamford.
Other: Well, I used to pass Woolfox Lodge regularly.
RB: Oh.
Other: Between Cranwell and my home in Bedfordshire.
RB: Oh yeah.
SB: I passed it this morning as it happens.
Other: Oh yes.
SB: I’ve come past it this morning.
RB: Have you?
SB: Yes.
Other: And I always used to as I went past I’d try and visit when it was a Stirling unit.
RB: Well —
Other: I never met anybody that flew from Woolfox Lodge so —
RB: Well, I don’t know.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Yeah. And of course we used to go into the George.
Other: Oh yes.
RB: And then also the Ram Jam.
Other: Yes.
RB: You know the Ram Jam.
Other: Yes. Still going.
SB: Yes.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Yeah. But when we used to come back from operations we used to get on these, these Queen Marys. These low loaders and they used to take us out to the George.
Other: Tell me did you ever have any problems because one of the runways is parallel to the A1?
RB: That’s right.
SB: Yeah.
RB: It was. It was parallel with the A1.
SB: Yes.
RB: Yes, it was.
SB: Did anybody ever have any problems with that because —
RB: We had one that on take-off it, it couldn’t, it couldn’t get the height and crashed into a farmhouse.
SB: Oh well.
RB: And the whole thing exploded you know with the bombs on board as well.
SB: Yeah.
RB: Killed all the residents in the farmhouse.
SB: Yeah.
RB: But that’s the one I remember. But it was, it was a fascinating really because I was going to get married from, from there and fixed the wedding day. June the 6th.
Other: Ah.
RB: And of course D-Day and there was a clamp down on the station on security. On everything really. You weren’t allowed to leave the camp. You weren’t allowed to make a phone call. All the phones were cut off anyway and of course you couldn’t sort of send out any correspondence. Well, I wasn’t able to let my mother know that you know the wedding was off.
SB: Oh no.
RB: And even the vicar turned up for the wedding and nobody there. But we were, we were briefed and it was very very short notice. We were briefed, just three of us Stirlings to go to Cottesmore to tow a glider.
Other: Oh right.
RB: Over to Normandy.
Other: Yes.
RB: And never done it before. We didn’t tell the, actually when we arrived there typical American organisation. All these gliders with the Dakotas fastened you know.
Other: Yes.
RB: To them all the way both sides of the runway. Spectacular. It’s incredible what they’d done.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Anyway, we, we got hooked up to this glider.
Other: So had they modified your squadron aircraft then for this?
RB: Pardon?
Other: Had they modified your squadron aircraft for this?
RB: That’s right.
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah. And we didn’t tell the American airborne troops that we’d never done it before because it was prudent not to mention that [laughs]
Other: It was very wise I should have thought.
RB: Anyway, it was an incredible sight to see this. Particularly the armada of shipping over the Channel. It was fantastic and, and also when we [pause] when the glider left us and we looked down there and we saw the carnage that was, there was gliders on their back and on fire and oh it was we thought how fortunate we were to be able to go back to —
Other: Yes.
RB: You know the tranquillity of our own base.
Other: Yeah.
RB: In comparison anyway.
SB: Because it was obviously daylight then was it?
RB: Yes.
SB: Yeah.
RB: Yes. It was very early morning. Yes.
Other: Right. What, on the 6th of June?
RB: Yeah.
Other: Yes.
RB: And another, another example is the fact that very rarely someone took your aircraft on the squadron but things were pretty desperate and when we got back to base we were told by the CO not to talk about it. Not to tell anybody where we’d been, you know. We mustn’t. We’d been briefed before we went out on this but they were quite emphatic about this. We were not to tell people about this at all. When we got back the aircraft was refuelled and bombed up and another crew took it and they failed to return. You know, we were so lucky. It’s unfortunate and also luck comes into it. No doubt about it.
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah.
SB: And I know most of your Stirling ops the majority were mine laying weren’t they?
RB: Yes, we did a lot of mine laying.
SB: Yeah.
RB: Yes.
Other: Was that because they were withdrawing Stirlings from main force ops at that time?
RB: Well, I guess that would be it. It was. Yes. But we were a lot of them were the mine laying operations.
SB: So that’s one of the bombing ops you did on May the 1st to marshalling yards at Chambly.
RB: Oh yes.
SB: Your squadron lost three aircraft. Does that stick in the memory at all?
RB: No. No. It doesn’t.
SB: Any particular Stirling ops that do stick in your memory for being a bit dodgy or anything particularly memorable?
RB: We had other problems with the Stirlings.
SB: Yeah.
RB: They were certainly you know getting past their sell by date.
Other: Yes.
RB: And we I know on the Heavy Conversion Unit we went in the night flying exercises we had to come back to base three times and change aircraft. They’d got problems with them. They were, and particularly at the Heavy Conversion Unit I think they were clapped out aircraft.
Other: Yes.
RB: That had been sent from squadrons.
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah.
Other: But it was very much an electric aircraft wasn’t it?
RB: Yes.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Yes, it was. Yeah.
Other: Am I right in thinking the throttle controls were Exactor? Was it the Exactor system? Which was the short thing they used on flying boats.
SB: I don’t know.
Other: I think it was a hydraulic —
SB: Oh right.
Other: I think it worked quite well but no one believed it.
SB: What were the sort of problems you were getting with it then? You said they were past their sell by date and —
RB: Well —
SB: What particularly would have been the issues?
RB: Well, yeah very big mag drops with them.
SB: Yeah. Yeah.
RB: And we [pause] it was mainly, mainly engines. Engine problems. Yeah.
Other: I’d say it was, sorry, I was just going to say cross wind take-offs were a bit hairy.
RB: That’s right we used to get quite a bit of yawing.
Other: Yeah.
RB: As you took off. Yes. Yeah.
Other: With that tall undercarriage.
RB: Quite.
Other: You were a bit vulnerable weren’t you?
RB: Yes.
Other: Yes.
RB: Yeah. But it’s amazing really when whatever you flew you always had sort of respect for it. Particularly if it brought you back.
Other: Yes.
RB: You know.
Other: Yes.
RB: And [pause] but I must admit it was marvellous when we got on to the Lancaster and got an extra —
Other: Yeah.
RB: Eight thousand feet and more power and a beautiful aircraft the Lanc.
SB: So when you’d finished your first tour the priority was to get married. I know.
RB: That’s right.
SB: But what were the options for you then? What, did the crew all want to do a second tour? How did that work?
RB: We were well aware that we’d got to fly a second tour.
SB: Right.
RB: So we, we approached the adjutant of the station and we said, ‘Look we’re quite willing to forego the —' sometimes you’d get a month off. A month leave between tours. We said that we were willing to forego this providing we could keep together as a crew. So he said, ‘Well, I’ll see what I can do for you.’ He said, ‘But and I must admit we are pretty stretched for crews right now. They may even consider it.’ And so anyway we just had two weeks leave and we stayed together and we were posted to 75 New Zealand Squadron and it suited us a treat and —
SB: Did you go, you said on your list here that you went to HCU for Lanc Conversion first.
RB: Yes.
SB: Where was that? [pause] Wigsley?
RB: No. What’s Feltwell?
Other: Feltwell?
RB: Yeah. What’s Feltwell on —
SB: Not to worry.
Other: So it was an HCU rather than a Lancaster Finishing School.
RB: Well, it was [pause] I can’t remember. I know when we got there there was a film unit there and it was Dickie Attenborough.
Other: Oh yeah.
RB: On the film.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And the film they were making was, “Journey Together,” and we did some of the flying scenes for them flying Lancasters.
Other: Yes.
RB: But I can’t just think of the name of the base.
Other: What part of the country?
RB: It was a, it was the site of a Heavy Conversion Unit.
Other: Yes. Can you remember what sort of part of the country it was in? Was it Lincolnshire or —
RB: No. It wasn’t. It wasn’t Lincolnshire.
SB: Well, not to worry.
Other: No.
SB: It may well come back to you. So then your second tour at 75 Squadron.
RB: Yes. Mepal.
SB: Yes.
RB: Near Cambridge.
SB: Yes.
RB: Yeah.
SB: And what did you think of the Lanc compared to the Stirling?
RB: Oh, it was, it was a treat. It was lovely. We were very pleased with it and they gave us a brand new aircraft as well to start with so that chivvied us up along but oh the, you know the whole performance. The power and the ceiling it gave us.
SB: Yeah.
RB: We were further away from the flack. It was a lovely aircraft and certainly nice to handle and everybody was happy. The whole crew were pleased with it.
SB: Are you, again on your list here you singled out your thirty third op. July the 23rd. The oil refinery at Homberg. Heavy loss on the squadron there.
RB: Yes.
SB: Do you recall that one?
RB: Yes. Yes. Yes, it was, it was a pretty grim one that. The flak was when we crossed the Dutch coast we ran into a tremendous flak barrage and I think this was probably the problem with most of the aircraft that were lost. But no we were hit as well and some damage on the fuselage but that was, that was one of the bad ones.
SB: Were there other times when you sustained a bit of damage? I guess there would have been some.
Yes. We got, we got, we got damaged several times on, even on the mine laying because we ran into one or two of the flak ships.
Other: Yes. Right. Right.
RB: That they’d got sort of moored there just off the coast and they created some problems for us and we got some flak damage through on about two occasions anyway from there.
SB: Then halfway through your second tour you lost your pilot Harry didn’t you? He just —
RB: Yes, we [pause] that was, that was a grim business really. We, we got hit by this ME 109 attacking us from below and of course we were vulnerable.
SB: Yes.
RB: You know, the gunners couldn’t sort of fire below at all.
SB: Yeah.
RB: So this ME 109 fired his cannon underneath and hit my skipper’s elbow and really took his elbow off and we had to get him out of his position. Fortunately, we’d always, we had our bomb aimer was an ex [pause] in civilian life he’d been a St Johns Ambulance Brigade guy and he’d got quite a bit of medical knowledge and we always said that if the occasion arose he would be in charge of the medical kit you see.
SB: Yes.
RB: Well, anyway he took over and he put a tourniquet on his elbow and although it seemed to be a long time because I was flying the aircraft then.
Other: Of course.
RB: Something I absolutely dreaded you know. I’d had nightmares over.
Other: Yes. I was going to ask you. Did you ever have time at the controls at all during the —
RB: Yes. I’d done a lot of link.
Other: Yes.
RB: And had the, and from time to time had taken over the controls.
Other: Yes.
RB: Particularly with, yeah with Harry or [unclear]
Other: Yes.
RB: And he was very good. He used to ask us from time to time to take over but I did a lot of link.
Other: Yes.
RB: And that helps. I mean I could fly a course.
Other: Yes.
RB: I could do banking and weaving but I wouldn’t have attempted a corkscrew and this was what I was thinking. At this time you see when we’d had lost him I thought —
Other: Yes.
RB: Oh my God. I mean this was the nightmare that you dreaded about you know and you’d have, and it seemed an eternity but it was it was a great relief when he tapped me on the head and said, ‘Ok, Ron. I’ll come back into my seat now.’ That was marvellous.
Other: Yes.
RB: And he’d patched him up and put a tourniquet.
Other: Yes.
RB: On his elbow and we did this. We returned to base and —
Other: How far off base were you when you were hit? Were you actually on the return? Or —
RB: We were on the return. Yes. Yeah. We were just coming up to the, to the Dutch coast.
Other: Right. Yes.
RB: And we [pause] we made this landing and our rear gunner was a bit of a wag and he said, ‘By goodness,’ he said, ‘That’s the best landing you’ve made and you did that with one hand.’ He said, ‘You ought to do more like that.’ But anyway when we taxied up to the, to the hangar there he fell over the control column. He collapsed over the control column and he was whipped up for the ambulance came over to take him to hospital and in those there again [pause] but we —
Other: Did he get any recognition of that? Flying the aircraft back in the interim.
RB: He didn’t.
Other: No.
RB: He didn’t. No. And I’ve got to explain this business we [pause] he’d met this girlfriend as well in the [pause] Nottingham in the old pub.
Other: The Saracen’s —
SB: Oh.
Other: The Saracen’s Head or —
SB: No. The Trip to Jerusalem.
RB: The Trip to Jerusalem.
Other: Yes.
RB: That’s right.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And he’d met this young Canadian WAAF officer. Had only just been made, only just been commissioned. Immaculate. Marilyn Monroe type lass she was. She was superb and they really hit it off and it turned out that she was the daughter of one of the Canadian Embassy in London and when he went into hospital she arranged for him to be transferred to a hospital near her in London. You know, being able to pull the strings and having her father there and he went there and we never saw him again after that. But yeah, we then were taken over by the acting CO of 75 New Zealand Squadron and he was a different kettle of fish altogether. I mean Harry, young Harry he was outgoing. He was a public schoolboy and he was, you know a Jack the lad. Oh, he used to fly with a pair of lady’s knickers tucked into his collar. A different pair every operation you know from his previous night’s [pause] and in fact when we went to visit him in hospital after, after this happened we went in, he went into Ely Hospital from there. And when we went to visit him he was, we fully expected him to be in agony, in pain and he was sat up there beaming and he’d got a pair of lady’s knickers tucked into his pyjama jacket and the matron said, ‘Don’t ask. He’s not got them by, he’s borrowed them off one of my nurses.’ So we were taken over by the acting CO of 75 New Zealand Squadron. A Squadron Leader Rogers and, DFC. He’d done a tour already and he was, he was going to start his second tour with us. Took us over but he was, he was totally different. He was dour, sort of uncommunicative at all he just didn’t sort of [pause] there was no repartee —
Other: Yeah.
RB: Between us.
Other: Was he, was he a New Zealander?
RB: Yeah. He was a Kiwi. Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
RB: New Zealander and he was [pause] he was sort of an introvert and he didn’t mix at all.
Other: Yes.
RB: And he was totally different to what we’d been used to you see. Anyway, having said that he was a good pilot. I mean he certainly knew what he was doing and we felt comfortable with him in that respect but out of the aircraft there was just nothing at all between us and we flew. We just went. When we reached our, we’d got about sort of seven or eight ops to go to have completed our tour and we said to him that we were going to finish, you know when we’d done our —
SB: Yeah.
RB: Our sixty fourth. And he said, he was, he was absolutely livid with us. He was annoyed and he said, you know, ‘I want you to finish me with my tour. Won’t you stay with me and finish my tour?’ And two of us had just got engaged. Two of us had just got married.
SB: Yes.
RB: And we, we thought, we thought we’d done enough and, but he was absolutely livid and, and we eventually sort of finished and we finished our tour but would you believe he never even came to say goodbye or shake our hands or anything. So he, he just he ignored us you know. We’d really upset him.
SB: Yes.
RB: And so we, what we felt was that our navigator he certainly deserved the DFC because he’d brought us back twice by the stars when we’d lost all our instruments.
SB: Right.
RB: He was brilliant our navigator.
SB: Yeah.
RB: He was an ex-Oxford don and he’d left. He’d given up his, interrupted his law degree at the university and he was brilliant and he really should have had the DFC.
SB: That’s Sergeant Whittaker.
RB: Yeah.
SB: What was his first name? What was his first name?
RB: Don.
SB: Don.
RB: Yeah.
SB: So when you finished, you’d done your sixty fourth —
RB: Yeah.
SB: Hurray.
RB: Yeah.
SB: What came after that?
RB: Well, they’d done the, a bit of work and checked up and it was the fact I’d been in the typewriter trade and they said, ‘We’ve got just the job for you,’ he said, ‘We’ve got at RAF records at Gloucester.’
SB: Yeah.
RB: ‘There’s over three thousand typewriters there which have had no service right throughout the war.’ He said, you know, ‘We’d like you set up a Service Department.’ And so they sent me to records at Gloucester. They gave me a free hand and I went to the Imperial Typewriter Company at Leicester and got all the spare parts and tools and then they went and got on to the records and they found me two more typewriter mechanics and so we set up this department at, at Gloucester records.
Other: Was that at Insworth or —
RB: Yeah. At Insworth.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And Barnwood.
Other: Barnwood, yeah.
RB: Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And that was very good because they gave me, gave me an RAF home. A house. A very nice house in Gloucester and so my wife was quite pleased. She gave up her job and came and joined me and we had a very pleasant sort of year there in Gloucester. And yes they just commissioned me just before I came out. Pilot officer. And so, yeah I had a wonderful career.
SB: Yes. So it was ’46 when you came out was it? 1946 or —
RB: ’46 yes.
SB: Yeah.
RB: Yeah.
SB: Yeah. Yeah. So did you stay in the typewriter world then after you —
RB: I came and started a company. Formed a company. Office equipment. Typewriter and office equipment here and built it up and I got I finished up with a staff of forty but I’d got two branches. I got one in Nottingham and one in Mansfield and very lucky I got all the main agencies that were going and yes it did very well. I was fortunate in having some good contracts. The National Coal Board was just being formed and I got the whole of the National Coal Board contracts and also I was lucky. I was invited [pause] you’ve probably read in my book I probably should have mentioned this but when I was about thirteen, twelve or thirteen years of age the local doctor in our village asked me to go and, if I would like to go and caddy with him. Caddy for him at golf at the Duke of Portland’s private golf course at Welbeck Abbey. Fascinating. Fantastic place it is. So I went there and eventually he was playing golf with the Duke of Portland so I finished up carrying two bags. The Duke of Portland’s and the doctor’s.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And I spent quite a while I’d been doing this probably two years and when I came out, when I went into the Air Force he kept in touch with me, the Duke and it used to be nice to get this lovely gold letter.
SB: Yes.
RB: And I flaunted it a little bit and it, he really he always took an interest and he kept in touch with me but it transpired that I’m going back now to Mepal when we, I joined the squadron there he said to me, ‘Would you like to bring along ten or a dozen of your crew to a shoot at my estate?’ And, I mean you know with rationing you know with food and we went over. We got this [pause] there was a fellow joining the squadron who was going to take over as CO. His Name was Wing Commander Newton and he’d just returned from New Zealand. He’d been on compassionate leave. His father had died and he was coming over to take over as CO. So he was ex-farming stock and he’d done a bit of shooting and I mentioned this and he said, ‘Well, yes. I’d love to come.’ And I took ten people over and he arranged a coach and a WAAF driver to take us and they had a ball. It was fantastic you know. We got this they came out with this flat-bottomed lorry full of food and you know there was pheasant, partridge, rabbit, all this sort of stuff and drinks of course. And anyway they had their shoot but in the middle of this shoot he’d arranged, this fellow had arranged for a Lancaster to do an air test over us and he came over and went through the whole performance.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And the Duke and Duchess thought it was incredible. They were thrilled to bits with it and, but there again would you believe this crew the next night they went out on operations and they failed to return.
Other: Yeah.
RB: But this Wing Commander Newton he was, his first, he took over as CO of the squadron and we took him about two days before the end of the year something like that and we took him —
Other: To Cologne.
RB: On his, on his refresher. His, we took him as second dickie.
Other: Yes.
RB: For his refresher and I know I was a bit miffed because I had to sit on my parachute all the time you know.
Other: Yeah.
RB: But he was, he was a really good guy. Would you believe on New Year’s Day he took a sprog crew on their first trip and failed to return.
SB: Yeah.
RB: And he was a real nice chap.
Other: Were the crew lost? Did he become a POW do you know or —
RB: No. No. They all perished.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
SB: Fascinating. Is there anything else that you’d tell us that we haven’t already asked you about, Ron? You’ve told us an awful lot which is great. Thank you very much.
RB: Well, you know I’ve been involved with, I formed an East Midland Ex-Aircrew Association in 1950.
SB: Yeah.
RB: And we got we were a hundred and fifty strong in members and we’re down to twenty five now. But we, we did a lot of things. We, I’ve been very friendly oh for forty years with the daughter of Roy, the designer of the Lancaster.
Other: Chadwick.
SB: Roy Chadwick.
RB: Roy Chadwick. Roy Chadwick. His daughter.
SB: Oh right.
RB: A lovely lady.
SB: Yes.
RB: I’ll tell you her name. Margaret Dove. And she’s been over two or three times to me here and been out with our organization. We’ve taken her over to Coningsby and I remember the very first time we took her to Coningsby and I had a word with the CO over there and mentioned who she was and anyway it was transmitted to him and would you believe he arranged a flight for her. And she came back and tears were rolling down her cheeks.
Other: Yeah.
RB: And she was saying that it took her back to the time when her father, and you could tell how young she was, she was on his shoulders and he took her to see the Manchester.
Other: Oh yes.
RB: It had come out of the hangar.
SB: Yeah.
RB: And —
Other: Fabulous. Yeah.
RB: That was a dead loss wasn’t it? That was.
Other: Yes. Yes.
RB: You know —
Other: It led to —
RB: Yeah. Underpowered and —
Other: Well, I think it was the engines really.
RB: They were Kestrels weren’t they?
Other: No. They were Vultures.
RB: Oh.
Other: But they needed, I think it was a question of wartime. Not enough development time.
RB: What were they?
SB: Vultures.
Other: Vultures.
RB: Vultures. Oh.
Other: Yes. An [extension] you’re right. I think they were basically two Kestrel.
SB: Kestrel. One practically
Other: [unclear] cases.
SB: Yeah. That’s right.
Other: Yeah.
RB: Yeah.
Other: Incidentally, Roy Chadwick you know he worked very hard obviously during the war and his relaxation was to come over to Hucknall, not Hucknall, Great Hucklow.
RB: The gliding.
Other: Gliding.
RB: Really?
Other: He was actually present at gliding.
RB: Was he? I’ve been to Great Hucklow. Yeah.
Other: Yes.
RB: Right. She was a lovely person. In fact, I went to her funeral. It’s two years ago now in the Isle of Man. She lived there.
SB: Oh Right. Did You keep in touch with any of your crew after the war?
RB: We kept in touch regularly. My, my first skipper he, this father-in-law who was the, with the Canadian Embassy he, he had a bank in Canada and he, Harry went to live in Canada. He went with, they got married and he, he was given a bank as a manager.
SB: Right.
RB: And he came over. Oh, we used to meet every year. We used to meet in Cambridge. We used to meet when the students were off and we used to stay at the university and we all, we all used to meet. Unfortunately, the rear gunner and mid-upper gunner we never made contact with. We couldn’t contact them at all, never did and we tried very hard to do it. But the five of us did used to meet and we did until gradually the, Harry in Canada had a heart attack and died and then my, the others died and I just only recently, well probably about two years ago I lost my navigator. He went.
SB: Yeah.
RB: So I’m the last remaining one now.
SB: Right. Right.
Other: That’s absolutely brilliant.
SB: Yes. Thank you very much indeed, Ron. That’s
Other: Yeah.
SB: Right.
Other: It was quite funny when you were talked about being whipped out from 71 OTU to go to Cairo you know I thought they were going to say, you know, ‘We want you to join the SAS.’ [laughs] What a drama.
RB: [laughs] I thought have I done something wrong.
Other: Yes. But of course, it had to be all very highly secret.
RB: Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
Collection
Citation
“Interview with Ron Brown,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 14, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/48862.