Conversation with David Vandervord

Title

Conversation with David Vandervord

Description

Edited transcript. Begins by recalling joining up and pilot training on Tiger Moth, Anson and Wellington. Posted to 218 Squadron at RAF Marham as second pilot, and mentions the first pilots he flew with. He recalls an operation where they had to jettison bombs over England and then crash landed. He continues with details of an operation to Hamburg when they were attacked by two Me 11, during which he was wounded and the aircraft had an engine on fire. He was 
recovered to RAF Marham with damaged aircraft. He took part in 13 operations as second pilot and then asked to leave Bomber Command. He talks about his subsequent ground job. He was asked about, and commented on, squadron operations and flying the Wellington. He was also asked about a couple of operations, one to Brest to target Scharnhorst and his last trip to Hamburg. He concludes with a conversation about a bullet proof door in an aircraft which did not prevent him being shot.

Date

2013-10-16

Language

Format

Four page printed document

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

SBondS-VandervordDv10009

Collection

Citation

S Bond and D Vandervord, “Conversation with David Vandervord,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 13, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/50599.