Arthur Mace's diary 8th January 1942 to 15th March 1944
Title
Arthur Mace's diary 8th January 1942 to 15th March 1944
Description
A diary kept during Arthur's RAF service.
There is a second diary for 1943 only and its contents are identical to the first diary. A third diary covers 1944.
Year 1942
The diary describes tedium and excitement of training through 1942. He started training learning Morse, German, English, maths, gunnery instruction, and ground defence. From the very beginning he wanted to fly, going to hangars to beg a flight in an aircraft on test. Free time was spent reading, cinema, playing billiards and snooker, plus church parade. Describes crashes and various incidents while training. He was posted to RAF Evanton ( Scotland) for air gunner course and flew in the gun turret of a bomber for the first time. On 18th September he was presented with air gunner brevet and sergeants stripes, posted to RAF Abingdon 22 September and promoted to flying officer. Crewed up on the 4th October, started flying in a Whitley Bomber. Courting a young woman called Sandy, who he asked her to marry him. posted to RAF Stanton Harcourt Oxfordshire, got a two day pass to celebrate the engagement. Sandy and Harold were married during this period. Harold passed out as a wireless operator and air gunner. Harolds hopes that he would survive the war and return to peacetime to be with Sandy who had brought him so much happiness.
There is a second diary for 1943 only and its contents are identical to the first diary. A third diary covers 1944.
Year 1942
The diary describes tedium and excitement of training through 1942. He started training learning Morse, German, English, maths, gunnery instruction, and ground defence. From the very beginning he wanted to fly, going to hangars to beg a flight in an aircraft on test. Free time was spent reading, cinema, playing billiards and snooker, plus church parade. Describes crashes and various incidents while training. He was posted to RAF Evanton ( Scotland) for air gunner course and flew in the gun turret of a bomber for the first time. On 18th September he was presented with air gunner brevet and sergeants stripes, posted to RAF Abingdon 22 September and promoted to flying officer. Crewed up on the 4th October, started flying in a Whitley Bomber. Courting a young woman called Sandy, who he asked her to marry him. posted to RAF Stanton Harcourt Oxfordshire, got a two day pass to celebrate the engagement. Sandy and Harold were married during this period. Harold passed out as a wireless operator and air gunner. Harolds hopes that he would survive the war and return to peacetime to be with Sandy who had brought him so much happiness.
Creator
Date
1942
1943
1944
Spatial Coverage
Coverage
Language
Format
171 handwritten pages in a book, 60 pages in the second book and 17 loose pages for the third diary
Conforms To
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
Identifier
YMaceHA1295485v1 1, YMaceHA1295485v1 2, YMaceHA1295485v2, YMaceHA1295485v3
Collection
Citation
Arthur Mace, “Arthur Mace's diary 8th January 1942 to 15th March 1944,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed January 19, 2026, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/49584.