Interview with Phillys Beech
Title
Interview with Phillys Beech
Description
Phyllis “Phyl” Beech joined the WAAF in March 1943, completing basic training before moving to London for meteorological instruction. After eight weeks learning to read cloud formations and wind patterns, she was posted to RAF Swinderby, a Lancaster Heavy Conversion Unit, where she served for over a year.
In June 1944, just after D-Day, Phyl transferred to Bardney, working in the Met Office until late 1945. Her role involved hourly weather observations, plotting charts, and teleprinting reports to Group HQ - critical for Bomber Command operations. She recalls Bardney’s persistent ground mist, which often led to last-minute cancellations, and November 1944 as particularly bleak. Intelligence from Mosquito weather flights and the French Resistance informed forecasts, and Phyl vividly remembers crews returning from raids, exhausted yet eager to talk.
Phyl witnessed the strain of operations, including a tragic New Year’s Day 1945 crash when two Lancasters collided on take-off. Bardney life was close-knit, with WAAF camaraderie, local hospitality, and occasional tennis or cinema trips. After Bardney closed, Phyl moved to Waddington, then Hullavington and Boscombe Down, working on advanced charts for research and experimental aircraft. She was demobbed in October 1946, later maintaining friendships with aircrew and revisiting Bardney years after the war.
Creator
Language
Type
Format
00:47:15 audio recording
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.
Identifier
ABeechP010608-0004, ABeechP010608-0001, ABeechP010608-0002, ABeechP010608-0003
Transcription
RA: June 2001 at [redacted] with Roger Audis, 9 Squadron historian interviewing Phyl Beech, Phyllis Beech who was in the Met Office at Bardney during the, during the war. Welcome to Bardney, Phyl.
PB: Nice to be back again.
RA: Yeah. I just wondered if you could just tell us about your time at Bardney. If we could start first with how you trained to be a Met officer.
PB: Well, we did basic training which all the WAAF did. Marching up and down and saluting. Then we, for our technical training we were sent to London. Oxford Street. And we lived in a block of flats in Chelsea. Went up to work every day on the Tube and we were taught to read cloud formation, height, wind direction in central London. Very funny because there never seemed to be clear skies in London. It wasn’t cloud it was just smog. We had about eight weeks training and then we were posted by the Air Ministry to various stations.
RA: What year was this Phyl?
PB: ’43.
RA: 1943. The beginning of ’43 was this?
PB: Middle.
RA: The middle. About June’ish ’43.
PB: No. March.
RA: ’43.
PB: My first posting was to Swinderby which was a Heavy Conversion Unit with Lancs. I stayed there for over a year. I then went to Bardney for personal reasons. I was getting married to a man who was going back on his second tour with 617 to be nearer.
RA: And he was based at Woodhall at that time was he?
PB: Yes. Bardney was one of my favourite places.
RA: [unclear]
PB: No.
RA: No. Yeah, ok. Yeah.
PB: It didn’t work out because he was shot down over Munich before I managed to get to Bardney.
RA: Yeah.
PB: Very sad but he was a prisoner. I got to Bardney which was a standard manning for Met officers. Two forecasters who were, at that stage was just coming into uniform. They were civilians. And four WAAF who worked three watches. Morning eight ‘til four. Evening four ‘til eleven. The night shift was eleven ‘til eight. We did about three days of each. We had, domestically we were rather, or I’d call us shift workers like LT ops and telephone operators because we had to sleep during the daytime. On the job we had basic responsibility. There was an hour of observation. Local conditions. We trotted outside come rain or shine night and day and checked wind direction, speed, estimated cloud height, type and colour. Visibility. If you could see Lincoln Cathedral about twelve miles away it was pretty clear. Except it wasn’t always at Bardney because we had ground mist that went up about twelve, fifteen feet. We had to teleprint our takings, our findings through to Group Headquarters on the hour. They called us up in turn at each of the stations in Britain. Then about fifteen minutes later after they’d passed them to the Bomber Headquarters or Air Ministry Headquarters we had to have a teleprinter print out giving us the whole country’s observations of that last hour and every three hours we plotted the findings on a chart and from that the forecast was gradually accepted. Occasionally, I remember someone offsetting the [unclear] indicator the chart. Just as we finished the whole thing disappeared and they had worked out what the conditions were likely to be if the lads were out on ops. We would do a chart much more frequently obviously to check visibility obviously. We did it basically from huts outside the Watch Office where we had a Stevenson Screen in front of the Watch office but for the visibility and other things we would go up to the tall tower on the balcony. Peer out. See what was happening.
RA: Could you just tell us what a Stevensons Screen was?
PB: A Stevensons Screen looks like a sort of square kind of beehive on legs and it had a chart in it that was a sort of a circular thingy and that used to record pressure, direction of pressure which was easy at Bardney. It’s thirty feet above sea level so you know. Later when I was posted somewhere off Salisbury Plain it was quite important that I remembered it was about four hundred feet above. We had a thermometer in there as well and a rain gauge where it measured how much had fallen. Snow had to melt to get it. Very occasionally if conditions were really tricky we would send up a balloon. Quite big. Rather like a [tall?] balloon about four times as big. Probably [unclear] an entire sort of lamp with a candle inside. Let it float off into the sky and followed it with a [unclear] light to find out the cloud base mostly and also the [unclear] The charts were as I say updated every three hours local conditions being most important and also conditions at other airfields where we might have to be diverted to. Lincoln was opposite [unclear].
RA: But Bardney was, it came in quite common this ground mist. Did it cause problems as well?
PB: Yes, because I think of that sort of landing field where they had beam approach at that stage I don’t think they did but you needed to know when you were coming near the ground. I mean thirty feet up when you were in cloud you weren’t quite sure what was coming down but —
RA: When were the worst months at Bardney? Was it, was there some when the weather was really [unclear]
PB: November. November was pretty bad. We didn’t have a great deal of snow in that winter of ’44/45 but it was pretty grey and lots and lots of ops were cancelled. Sometimes because of local conditions sometimes because of conditions over, over the target when they were really adverse.
RA: Was there any time when you actually had to cancel when they were almost on the perimeter track?
PB: It had been known very much last minute because it was not a local decision. That would have been through Bomber Command who would update the whole story for the area and they would by then have had weather and wind conditions reported back either from usually Mosquitoes that were doing weather flights over Germany on what was going on. We had the other weather report coming in from occupied France from the Resistance.
RA: And did that come straight to Bardney or would that have gone to Group and then —
PB: No.
RA: Or [unclear]
PB: That would come to Command and they would push that out to, and where there were weather flights going out into the Atlantic. The Azores were particular one which gave us advanced warning of weather coming in from the Atlantic. But it got easier after D-Day because we got more information from, from Europe.
RA: What kind of area? Bardney was, [unclear] the actual going to another airfield, were diverted, what kind of an area would it cover? Would the whole of Lincolnshire be bad or would it just be that area?
PB: No. It could be very local. I remember one night when it was supposed to be foggy all over and we were still in a proximity of six or seven miles. But you know it happens now. I mean I’ve visited a friend where I live across the other side of the river and they’d been having rain and we’d been having sunshine. England has very funny weather.
RA: And what, do you remember any of the names that were in the offices in the control tower? Like the forecaster and the people who worked with him.
PB: Peter was the flight lieutenant in charge.
RA: You don’t know, can’t remember his surname?
PB: [Cartledge.]
RA: [Cartledge.]
PB: [Cartledge.] He married a WAAF corporal. I kept in touch with them for a long time after the war. He had a heart attack and died.
RA: Do you remember the WAAFs name?
PB: Yes. Jean. That’s it. She’d been in since about ’41, I think. And there was Pat who married the squadron leader of the other squadron that invaded Bardney sometime in ‘44/45. And [unclear] who was a farmer’s daughter from Suffolk. That was the four of us. We got on very well together. We were good friends. The trouble was you didn’t always go out with your good friends because we were off duty at different times. You would have someone on duty, someone getting off duty and someone sleeping after the night. So we had other friends. But the girls in the hut six were all a nice crowd and they all had pretty responsible jobs. The Met Office was very much a centre for aircrew. Mostly flight commanders who used to come in every morning without fail to discuss what had happened the night before and have tea. We kept them supplied with tea and sugar and they also used to bring new crews in to let them know what was available. To join the Tea Club. It was particularly nice with 9 because it was such a mixed squadron. We had many young lads. Scots. All sorts. Mostly, lots of them English. Some of them second tour blokes who had been. Some who were new. They, you know, they, it was a place I think where they felt they could unwind. They knew who was on duty because the rota was up on the board. I suppose they all had their favourites amongst us depending on who made the cup of tea. We had a speciality which was omelettes we made. We used to make with the eggs that were generously supplied by aircrew. They’d come in as an alternative to going down to the pub on their bikes. Also [unclear] we picked mushrooms on the airfield. Apparently it had been a favourite spot for the Bardney villagers but they were denied it when the airfield was built. The forecaster always said [unclear]
RA: So you had your own kitchen in there.
PB: We had our own kitchen. We had bedding too which was intended basically for the forecaster if ops were on at night and he wouldn’t go back to the Mess. He’d sleep there until the crews came back keeping an eye on conditions. We didn’t use it ourselves but if you had to work every hour you’d get yourself a good sleep [unclear]
RA: Do you remember was there a timer or a buzzer that went off to remind you that it was time.
PB: No. No. You had to just keep your eyes on the clock.
RA: You were downstairs.
PB: We were downstairs. Yes. We had as I say a [unclear] stuff around the corner and we had a sloping desk for our charts and we used to plot in two colours with pens that were tied together so that you could switch over red or black doing whatever the signals were that day.
RA: What was the colours for when you [unclear]
PB: No. Just sort of [pause] I can’t remember now. Some of them had one direction. Some had the wind direction. [unclear] we wrote them down. And we used ink in those day. No sort of biros or [unclear] and —
RA: So was your forecaster in the same office or did he have his own office?
PB: No. It was just one biggish office. We’d have wall charts, maps. We usually knew where the crews were going by the questions that flight commanders would come in and ask about. Wind direction at fifty thousand feet here to, you know roughly to where the target was. We were very security conscious.
RA: How soon would that be before the actual —
PB: Yes. We knew before briefing. I think they must have had an early morning. I think the Command Centre had targets quite early on in the day and they’d sort of work out. Sometimes they were, well largely towards the end they were, they were given all their routes because they were trying to avoid the clusters of ack ack guns over Europe and the known locations of the fighter bases. There were still some individual pilots who usually were successful always flew their own routes irrespective of what they’d been told to fly. They were, you know really hard men [unclear] but they were the very last. The others you knew if they got past number five they were probably going to get on to about past number twenty one. You did [unclear]. I think Bardney had a second pilot scheme for a time where a new pilot went out with an experienced crew. I don’t think that was popular at the time.
RA: That was ceased in the beginning of ‘44 because they were losing so many crews.
PB: Yes.
RA: They were actually called, they classed it as second dickie.
PB: Yes.
RA: When they would crew up, certainly when new crews come they wouldn’t let them on operations without having a, going on a second dickie and they’d been shot down and then that crew —
PB: Loss to everybody.
RA: And then that crew had to go back.
PB: Yes.
RA: To be re-crewed up. So it did stop about the middle of ’44 I think it was or a bit earlier than that.
PB: I can see the theory behind it. You pick up tricks from the existing people.
RA: Yes. So was there just the one office downstairs?
PB: Just the one. Nothing else.
RA: Nothing else.
PB: A big office and a toilet which was for the station commander and WAAF I believe it said on the door. I don’t know where everybody else went. I know where the aircrew went. It was a function wasn’t it before you took off.
RA: Yeah.
PB: To pee on the rear wheel.
RA: Yeah. Yeah. What about upstairs? Did you ever get upstairs?
PB: Oh yes. We’d go up because one of our friends was always on duty and [unclear] squadron leader [unclear] was his name. He was the flying control officer. He, you know he sat there and he’d seen what the target was and what time they were taking off. And when we heard the first vroom vroom of the Lancs coming back we used to go up and find out who was coming. Whether it was a special friend of ours or not. And then when they all came back or they didn’t.
RA: And did they did they, did they radio in who it was or was it just put in Morse who was coming in?
PB: I think it was. I didn’t hear. We all had got headphones on.
RA: So when did you know? Did they put it on the board?
PB: They put it on the boards yes to say who was coming in and you’d see them landing and they taxied off to their dispersal. Off from there the aircrew came back from [unclear] sometimes they would come in, come back to see us. They did like to talk. Some of them said they couldn’t sleep after an op. They were too traumatically [unclear] they’d come in and talk about the conditions or what had gone wrong or right. Mostly navigators and pilots were there. we didn’t have much to do with the bomb aimers and gunners. Technically we were with navigators and pilots.
RA: Was anyone allowed in the control tower or was it, was it by special permission?
PB: I don’t think the rest of the, you know ordinary people could come in and flight commanders, I think they used it as an unofficial club I suppose. There was a cup of tea and a room to sit in and have a talk and just generally sort of relax.
RA: So the board that you mentioned. It was a board with the pilot’s —
PB: Well, with the number, the aircraft and the pilot’s name. It was always the pilot’s name and then the time of take-off and then expected time of arrival for coming back.
RA: And then the actual time.
PB: Actual time.
RA: [unclear]
PB: Yes.
RA: And did they go to debriefing before they, before they went off to see you or to see the —
PB: Oh they had to have debriefing first. That was the first thing they had to do. They were taken in. I think they had that before they had their supper and their drink. I think they were given one tot when they got back [unclear] got back [laughs] I’m not sure that they did but —
RA: What about the station commander and the, and the, I think it was, was it Bazin the CO?
PB: Yes.
RA: When they were there.
PB: Yes.
RA: They kept coming in.
PB: Well, they would come in. They were usually the ones who came in around about the morning after the target had been given to them. They’d be looking at the charts and so on. Enquiring about wind direction, conditions over the area.
RA: What kind of people were they?
PB: Mixed. I mean we had English lads who had been bank clerks and servants, navigators, schoolteachers. The Australians were very much more mixed. We had farmers. I had two particular Australian friends who joined about August September ’44. Both Queenslanders. One grew sugar cane in the north. Tropical things. The other was [pause] had a haulage mail business that he’d set up in the [unclear] area carting sheep. The fox after the sheep. They used to, the pair of them used to come in together. Terrifying stories of snakes. Put me off Australia forever because Queensland seemed to have every known vicious variety of snakes and spiders. I don’t know how much of it was true.
RA: But the likes of Bazin. Was he quite a nice chap? Could you get on alright with him or was he a bit —
PB: Rather remote. Rather remote. But very well respected and kept there but goodness he did fly which was something you know. There were flight commanders who didn’t go up very often but they weren’t terribly popular with crews that were going out at night. But he was, he could relax. One of my favourite pilots on 9 invited him to play squash with him. After that he was very much a favoured boy.
RA: Was there a squash course at Bardney?
PB: Yes. It must have been attached to the Officer’s Mess for them to play squash. He’d been to boarding school of course and was pretty athletic anyway. We had, I can’t remember if it was Bardney or Swinderby where I was before. We used to have mixed hockey which was the oddest game I’d ever come across. I didn’t play squash. I played tennis though quite a lot. We had a tennis court.
RA: At Bardney again.
PB: Ahum.
RA: Where was that? In the, near the, in the WAAF quarters or —
PB: No. It was on the main thing. We had just a hut. Someone opened a WAAF Mess on the WAAF thing although as I recall we only did breakfast there but because we were on shifts I don’t seem to remember having many meals on camp. We’d either cook ourselves something in the office or with our friends in the village. Everybody seemed to have a family in the village that they visited on their off days and they were generous people looking after us. Or we would go into Lincoln and eat. [unclear] not very exciting as I recall.
RA: Did the NAAFI van come around to you at all?
PB: Yes. We had. We had you know a cigarette ration which we used to, I didn’t smoke but I used to take up my ration and hand it over to whoever was. A big favour. We had different hairdressers. Free hair dos. We had a sort of suite away from the hut that was showers and baths. It was more baths in those days. Showers weren’t as popular as they are now.
RA: That was all, do you remember how many huts there were around there?
PB: We were in number six and there were about twelve of us in a hut. We had our own bed space and locker room where we kept our stuff. We had two coke burning stoves which we kept going.
RA: Did you have someone to look after the hut for you?
PB: No.
RA: You had to look after it yourself.
PB: We had to keep it tidy ourselves which was awkward really because I mean we were inspected fairly often by a WAAF sergeant or a WAAF officer if she was feeling so inclined. But if you, you know you tried you came off duty at eight in the morning and you tried to sleep not very successful. I was, I was it was unfortunate I would talk in my sleep and it was a favourite hobby of them asking me questions [laughs] Very unfair [unclear] if I talk in my sleep now.
RA: And so I think you said earlier that you decided to paint your —
PB: Oh, yes. That was [unclear]It was all pretty gloomy and miserable inside. Corrugated iron. We wanted to cheer it up. So we went off and bought yellow and turquoise paint and painted all our bunkers. We didn’t know anything about undercoating and rubbing down. We just splashed colour paint on. We did make it look nice and we didn’t have anything on the floor. I think it was [unclear] on the floor. Central lights. It wasn’t luxurious but it was [unclear] people would bring you, if you stayed in bed after your shift they would bring you [something back] as usual.
RA: Was your Mess very far from the —
PB: No. It was not a very big Mess. You were supposed to go for main meals to the main camp somewhere but—
RA: But not on the actual, where the runways and the —
PB: No. No.
RA: Where the —
PB: The offices were, the admin offices and it was sort of dispersed sites really. The WAAF site was one side of the road. The main offices were the other. Things like the huts where they interrogated people. It all had to be fairly near. We had we were always on shifts and bicycles. Bicycles were the thing. You were issued with your own and you had to look after it.
RA: So just going on to this [pause] this Mess. That was actually on the airfield site.
PB: Yes.
RA: So you had to go past the guardroom.
PB: Past the guardroom.
RA: There was another mess there was there?
PB: The big Mess. That was a general, oh you know, Sergeants Mess. I don’t know what that means. It must have been somewhere by the Officer’s Mess.
RA: So there was a Sergeant’s Mess and an Officer’s Mess.
PB: Yes.
RA: Where —
PB: And then there was a general dogsbody Mess.
RA: On the main camp.
PB: On the main camp.
RA: On the main camp.
PB: Yes. Near the entrance to —
RA: Do you know roughly where that was? Was it near the control tower?
PB: No. It was, was it cut off from everything else [unclear]
RA: And this was where the airmen would get their —
PB: Yes.
RA: Their breakfast and things.
PB: They would have all their meals there. The WAAF were there for lunch and supper I suppose. But as I say I could never seem to eat in those days. I was very slender and I used to eat with my good friends in the village and be taken out for supper if I was lucky and cooking our own whatever that we would bring back and buy. We must have lived on eggs and fruit.
RA: And you, I know you went to see Mr and Mrs [pause] the names.
PB: Scott.
RA: Scott. That was right.
PB: Yes. [unclear] T Scott, the manager of the sugar beet factory and they’d adopted all four of the four Met Office WAAFs. All three of us. We used to spend our off-duty hours down with Julie who was a tremendous woman. Very bright but in a wheelchair suffering from I realise now it was multiple sclerosis. She taught us to cook. We used to spend most of our lives. Perhaps that’s where we would be eating. In her kitchen. And the other family that I used to visit and babysit with and scrounge the eggs was the Pouchers who ran a big farm. I remember they had a set up of [unclear] glass which they used to sold to [unclear] it was sold racing stables. It would be highly concentrated and we had, I helped gut their turkeys one Christmas once. Old Lady Poucher explained to me. Put me off turkeys for some time.
RA: Gutting them was that?
PB: Gutting them. Yes. Not killing them. Just plucking feathers and gutting them and I remember one of the few of us was having a birthday party and whipping about two pints of cream which was something unheard of in the rest of the world.
RA: And this was with old Mr and Mrs Poucher or was it —
PB: Old Mrs Poucher. Yes.
RA: Was it with the girls, two girls were there you were saying?
PB: Yes. I think daughter in law was one of them I knew and there were some small children who I suppose now are in their fifties. One was [unclear]. They were very very generous.
RA: Did the Pouchers at that time have a maid at all do you know?
PB: No, I don’t think so. No. It was a big house and quite a few workers there.
RA: You ate there fairly regularly did you?
PB: Fairly regular. Yeah. Maybe a couple of times a week.
RA: You’d cycle up there would you?
PB: Cycle around. Yes. I mean Lincoln might be flat but you never did have an easy cycle ride. You were usually struggling against the wind one way or the other.
RA: At that time would you have gone over the airfield?
PB: No.
RA: You didn’t have a village shortcut. You’d come through the village.
PB: Through the village.
RA: And off down the [unclear]. Yes.
PB: You never knew when the aircraft would come belting around there because they would do training flights all throughout the day and testing Lancs you know that had been [unclear] We did cycle sometimes on a country track. I was taught to drive on the bomb dump which was a sort of little place to practice reversing as long as you didn’t hit anything.
RA: That was in a car was it?
PB: No. A little van. A little truck.
RA: That was by one of the —
PB: One of the lads in the, I think he was a corporal in the control room. I don’t know what his, his main task was but he taught two of us to drive. It seemed, it seemed there were all these great big bombs floating around. It was not when anyone was getting ready for ops. It was on quiet days.
RA: What about when there wasn’t ops?
PB: We still had to —
RA: So the Met Office was open.
PB: Yes.
RA: Twenty four hours a day.
PB: Yes.
RA: Three hundred and sixty five days a year.
PB: Yes.
RA: There was always someone there.
PB: Always had to do obs even when we weren’t operating because other people in other parts of the country were, they needed our input to get the whole picture. It was tricky sometimes when the teleprinter broke down and you had to take it all down by phone which wasn’t very convenient. We had to become quite efficient typists.
RA: But there was one person called, he was the discipline officer. A chap called Ward. A sergeant ward. Have you heard of him at all? He was a sergeant at the station.
PB: I remember the sergeant who was always in the hut at the end at the main entrance to the camp because I was standing there one day, I think talking to him about something or other and someone dropped something at my foot which was a snake. I know it was only a snake [laughs] but I keeled over and fainted. I think he told somebody off. There were quite a few snakes floating around and we had a whole crowd of feral cats in the station. They used to, they would go hunting sometimes. They were forever having kittens. Some of the girls used to adopt them. They could be quite smelly those cats if they spent most of their lives outside. But it was a lovely peaceful place in the main. It was [unclear]
RA: Do you remember anybody like the wireless. The [pause] [Joe Skinner] and [unclear] and people like that who were leaders. They were on [pause] Skinner was the, he was a wireless op and he was the leader of the, of that section.
PB: No. I know —
RA: And then [Bracknell], Bracknell. He was, they were mostly in Bazin’s crew because that was the officer crew.
PB: Yeah. The top I suppose.
RA: Yeah.
PB: I don’t remember him flying with his own crew. I suppose he must have done. He didn’t fly as regularly as a flight commander. I remember particularly there was a flight commander, Englishman. Harry Newton I think his name was. He got two wild Australian boys. And there was a little Canadian flight commander who was [unclear]
RA: Did you say that was Newton? Newton. That was. Was he a pilot? Was he a pilot?
PB: Yes, he was a pilot.
RA: Was it he that got killed on New Year’s Day 1945?
PB: No. No. Harry. Not Newton. Watson. Watson or Watkins. I know he, after I’d [unclear] I came back. I’d been on leave to see my Aussie mate who was getting married and I got back, I heard [unclear] and I know he sent me squadron badges. Enamel badges [unclear]
RA: So what dates were you at Bardney from?
PB: ’44. Just about a couple of days after D-Day.
RA: So it would have been June.
PB: June.
RA: June ’44 until —
PB: October/November ’45. And then I went to Waddington. The squadron by then had moved to Waddington but the Dominion lads had been sent off to — Gamston, I think, pending repatriation.
RA: And once they, once they had left what, what was your role then?
PB: Pretty boring really. Just went on doing the charts.
RA: What [unclear]
PB: Yes. Yes.
RA: Even though there was no aircraft there.
PB: No aircraft there. No. We did sometimes have people from other people [unclear] airfields but it had lost its purpose really as far as we were concerned and then they closed Bardney down and brought the Army in. Keeping pace with itself. it was a bit of a joke you know. Ten thousand gallons in each Lancaster. Then we went to Waddington. And then it was spring and I went to Hullavington which was a research station. I forget which county that was. South of Gloucester. Much more formal. Full of research [unclear] and then on to Boscombe Down which was even more. We did funny charts there that I’d never done on a bomber station. High level charts. All sorts of things. They were much more sticky about that. They were doing a lot of research flying with gliders. Secret aero, secret kinds of aeroplanes and I was demobbed from there about the 10th of October ’46.
RA: Do you remember any prisoners of war coming and working at Bardney at all or any Polish came to Bardney?
PB: No. We had quite a lot of ground staff who were Jamaican and they had funny [unclear]
RA: But they were based at Bardney were they?
PB: They were based at Bardney. Yes. Quite a big contingent.
RA: But they were all ground crew.
PB: All ground crew.
RA: Actually working at dispersal points.
PB: Dispersal points or cooks. All sorts. General duties I suppose. As I say not going to the Mess really we were not, we were not frequented. We had a cinema there. We used to have a film we could in and see films. Some were there working on shifts.
RA: Where was that?
PB: That must have been on main camp.
RA: So there was a lot of things on the main camp.
PB: Oh yes. Sports things. You know, as I say we played tennis and watched some football. There was snow clearing occasionally. We didn’t do any of that.
RA: No.
PB: Aircrew were set on that because, especially the Australians and New Zealanders because it was a nice novelty seeing snow. Not after they had cleared a couple of tonnes [unclear]
RA: Yeah. I think earlier on you mentioned that there was a scheme where the Australians were adopted.
PB: Yeah. I think it was called —
RA: Can you explain that?
PB: Lady Ryder Scheme. They offered hospitality to Dominion aircrew.
RA: This was throughout the country —
PB: Oh yes. All sorts of families. Mostly they had to be people who had got spare rooms and plenty of cash and it was their home from home. My particular friend was adopted by the Riley family. The car people who lived in [unclear] and he used to spend lots of spare time. Not days off, it was too far to go although he did go off the base to the nearest airfield and he used to stay there. They lent him a car for the duration of the war. Not a, not a Riley. It was a, a little Fiat he used to wander around in. He kept on his friendship with me way after the war. I think they were in a way you know what fourteen thousand miles from home, a family, a domestic sort of scene. Although I’ve learned since from the family that his wife wasn’t happy that he was spending time with a family and mowing the grass and everything while she was at home worrying about what was happening to him. But it gave him a great love of England. In fact, he went back home and one of the places he lived was a town called [unclear] I don’t know if he chose it because it was familiar. I didn’t find that out.
RA: What was their thoughts when they went on? Did you find that a lot of them were very nervous to go on a trip? Relieved when they came back or took it in their stride.
PB: They were relieved. You know. I remember him coming in one night and telling me that at briefing they had been told that the Germans had new anti-aircraft shells you know. Exploded like exploding aircraft and he said he was flying and seeing these flashes and explosions to the left and right and thinking they’re putting up a lot tonight. The Lancasters were actually bearing up. He said he was glad he didn’t know at the time otherwise he might have succumbed. But he was, he was lucky except on January the 1st when his plane just, the first one I think took off in the morning after they’d been refuelled overnight, crashed and blew up and they were all killed except [unclear] He was the next one to take off and he failed to lift around the runway so he raced around the track at ninety miles an hour into the back of the Lancaster at the bottom and was underneath and was wondering why no one was coming to rescue him but they were all busy with the fire after it had exploded.
RA: Did he take that in his stride? Was he soon flying again?
PB: Oh yes. I think he was on ops about two days later but he did look a bit old after that. They all looked [unclear] a bit shattered. But I suppose he had the responsible of the crews on his hands. And it was written up in the Bomber Command losses book which I took out when I went to visit him.
RA: You’ve been out recently haven’t you?
PB: Yes. I went out a few years ago. Met all his family. We were were very intrigued to hear the stories we had together.
RA: His daughter is coming over next year.
PB: She is hoping to. Yes. She was a nurse over here during the 70s at St Thomas’. I stayed with her for about a week. [unclear] in Australia. She wants to come and see Bardney. I sent her, well I sent her my little squadron badge for her son who is very proud of his grandfather and I also sent them copies of Jim Brookbank’s book which they said gave them a terrific insight into Bardney [unclear] and how much he’d liked it here.
RA: Yeah. So most of your time then you wouldn’t have a great lot of other time other than doing your hourly weather report.
PB: No. No. That was our job. Our main job. Well, we had had tidying up to do. We had to keep the office tidy. Make tea for all these visitors.
PB: Nice to be back again.
RA: Yeah. I just wondered if you could just tell us about your time at Bardney. If we could start first with how you trained to be a Met officer.
PB: Well, we did basic training which all the WAAF did. Marching up and down and saluting. Then we, for our technical training we were sent to London. Oxford Street. And we lived in a block of flats in Chelsea. Went up to work every day on the Tube and we were taught to read cloud formation, height, wind direction in central London. Very funny because there never seemed to be clear skies in London. It wasn’t cloud it was just smog. We had about eight weeks training and then we were posted by the Air Ministry to various stations.
RA: What year was this Phyl?
PB: ’43.
RA: 1943. The beginning of ’43 was this?
PB: Middle.
RA: The middle. About June’ish ’43.
PB: No. March.
RA: ’43.
PB: My first posting was to Swinderby which was a Heavy Conversion Unit with Lancs. I stayed there for over a year. I then went to Bardney for personal reasons. I was getting married to a man who was going back on his second tour with 617 to be nearer.
RA: And he was based at Woodhall at that time was he?
PB: Yes. Bardney was one of my favourite places.
RA: [unclear]
PB: No.
RA: No. Yeah, ok. Yeah.
PB: It didn’t work out because he was shot down over Munich before I managed to get to Bardney.
RA: Yeah.
PB: Very sad but he was a prisoner. I got to Bardney which was a standard manning for Met officers. Two forecasters who were, at that stage was just coming into uniform. They were civilians. And four WAAF who worked three watches. Morning eight ‘til four. Evening four ‘til eleven. The night shift was eleven ‘til eight. We did about three days of each. We had, domestically we were rather, or I’d call us shift workers like LT ops and telephone operators because we had to sleep during the daytime. On the job we had basic responsibility. There was an hour of observation. Local conditions. We trotted outside come rain or shine night and day and checked wind direction, speed, estimated cloud height, type and colour. Visibility. If you could see Lincoln Cathedral about twelve miles away it was pretty clear. Except it wasn’t always at Bardney because we had ground mist that went up about twelve, fifteen feet. We had to teleprint our takings, our findings through to Group Headquarters on the hour. They called us up in turn at each of the stations in Britain. Then about fifteen minutes later after they’d passed them to the Bomber Headquarters or Air Ministry Headquarters we had to have a teleprinter print out giving us the whole country’s observations of that last hour and every three hours we plotted the findings on a chart and from that the forecast was gradually accepted. Occasionally, I remember someone offsetting the [unclear] indicator the chart. Just as we finished the whole thing disappeared and they had worked out what the conditions were likely to be if the lads were out on ops. We would do a chart much more frequently obviously to check visibility obviously. We did it basically from huts outside the Watch Office where we had a Stevenson Screen in front of the Watch office but for the visibility and other things we would go up to the tall tower on the balcony. Peer out. See what was happening.
RA: Could you just tell us what a Stevensons Screen was?
PB: A Stevensons Screen looks like a sort of square kind of beehive on legs and it had a chart in it that was a sort of a circular thingy and that used to record pressure, direction of pressure which was easy at Bardney. It’s thirty feet above sea level so you know. Later when I was posted somewhere off Salisbury Plain it was quite important that I remembered it was about four hundred feet above. We had a thermometer in there as well and a rain gauge where it measured how much had fallen. Snow had to melt to get it. Very occasionally if conditions were really tricky we would send up a balloon. Quite big. Rather like a [tall?] balloon about four times as big. Probably [unclear] an entire sort of lamp with a candle inside. Let it float off into the sky and followed it with a [unclear] light to find out the cloud base mostly and also the [unclear] The charts were as I say updated every three hours local conditions being most important and also conditions at other airfields where we might have to be diverted to. Lincoln was opposite [unclear].
RA: But Bardney was, it came in quite common this ground mist. Did it cause problems as well?
PB: Yes, because I think of that sort of landing field where they had beam approach at that stage I don’t think they did but you needed to know when you were coming near the ground. I mean thirty feet up when you were in cloud you weren’t quite sure what was coming down but —
RA: When were the worst months at Bardney? Was it, was there some when the weather was really [unclear]
PB: November. November was pretty bad. We didn’t have a great deal of snow in that winter of ’44/45 but it was pretty grey and lots and lots of ops were cancelled. Sometimes because of local conditions sometimes because of conditions over, over the target when they were really adverse.
RA: Was there any time when you actually had to cancel when they were almost on the perimeter track?
PB: It had been known very much last minute because it was not a local decision. That would have been through Bomber Command who would update the whole story for the area and they would by then have had weather and wind conditions reported back either from usually Mosquitoes that were doing weather flights over Germany on what was going on. We had the other weather report coming in from occupied France from the Resistance.
RA: And did that come straight to Bardney or would that have gone to Group and then —
PB: No.
RA: Or [unclear]
PB: That would come to Command and they would push that out to, and where there were weather flights going out into the Atlantic. The Azores were particular one which gave us advanced warning of weather coming in from the Atlantic. But it got easier after D-Day because we got more information from, from Europe.
RA: What kind of area? Bardney was, [unclear] the actual going to another airfield, were diverted, what kind of an area would it cover? Would the whole of Lincolnshire be bad or would it just be that area?
PB: No. It could be very local. I remember one night when it was supposed to be foggy all over and we were still in a proximity of six or seven miles. But you know it happens now. I mean I’ve visited a friend where I live across the other side of the river and they’d been having rain and we’d been having sunshine. England has very funny weather.
RA: And what, do you remember any of the names that were in the offices in the control tower? Like the forecaster and the people who worked with him.
PB: Peter was the flight lieutenant in charge.
RA: You don’t know, can’t remember his surname?
PB: [Cartledge.]
RA: [Cartledge.]
PB: [Cartledge.] He married a WAAF corporal. I kept in touch with them for a long time after the war. He had a heart attack and died.
RA: Do you remember the WAAFs name?
PB: Yes. Jean. That’s it. She’d been in since about ’41, I think. And there was Pat who married the squadron leader of the other squadron that invaded Bardney sometime in ‘44/45. And [unclear] who was a farmer’s daughter from Suffolk. That was the four of us. We got on very well together. We were good friends. The trouble was you didn’t always go out with your good friends because we were off duty at different times. You would have someone on duty, someone getting off duty and someone sleeping after the night. So we had other friends. But the girls in the hut six were all a nice crowd and they all had pretty responsible jobs. The Met Office was very much a centre for aircrew. Mostly flight commanders who used to come in every morning without fail to discuss what had happened the night before and have tea. We kept them supplied with tea and sugar and they also used to bring new crews in to let them know what was available. To join the Tea Club. It was particularly nice with 9 because it was such a mixed squadron. We had many young lads. Scots. All sorts. Mostly, lots of them English. Some of them second tour blokes who had been. Some who were new. They, you know, they, it was a place I think where they felt they could unwind. They knew who was on duty because the rota was up on the board. I suppose they all had their favourites amongst us depending on who made the cup of tea. We had a speciality which was omelettes we made. We used to make with the eggs that were generously supplied by aircrew. They’d come in as an alternative to going down to the pub on their bikes. Also [unclear] we picked mushrooms on the airfield. Apparently it had been a favourite spot for the Bardney villagers but they were denied it when the airfield was built. The forecaster always said [unclear]
RA: So you had your own kitchen in there.
PB: We had our own kitchen. We had bedding too which was intended basically for the forecaster if ops were on at night and he wouldn’t go back to the Mess. He’d sleep there until the crews came back keeping an eye on conditions. We didn’t use it ourselves but if you had to work every hour you’d get yourself a good sleep [unclear]
RA: Do you remember was there a timer or a buzzer that went off to remind you that it was time.
PB: No. No. You had to just keep your eyes on the clock.
RA: You were downstairs.
PB: We were downstairs. Yes. We had as I say a [unclear] stuff around the corner and we had a sloping desk for our charts and we used to plot in two colours with pens that were tied together so that you could switch over red or black doing whatever the signals were that day.
RA: What was the colours for when you [unclear]
PB: No. Just sort of [pause] I can’t remember now. Some of them had one direction. Some had the wind direction. [unclear] we wrote them down. And we used ink in those day. No sort of biros or [unclear] and —
RA: So was your forecaster in the same office or did he have his own office?
PB: No. It was just one biggish office. We’d have wall charts, maps. We usually knew where the crews were going by the questions that flight commanders would come in and ask about. Wind direction at fifty thousand feet here to, you know roughly to where the target was. We were very security conscious.
RA: How soon would that be before the actual —
PB: Yes. We knew before briefing. I think they must have had an early morning. I think the Command Centre had targets quite early on in the day and they’d sort of work out. Sometimes they were, well largely towards the end they were, they were given all their routes because they were trying to avoid the clusters of ack ack guns over Europe and the known locations of the fighter bases. There were still some individual pilots who usually were successful always flew their own routes irrespective of what they’d been told to fly. They were, you know really hard men [unclear] but they were the very last. The others you knew if they got past number five they were probably going to get on to about past number twenty one. You did [unclear]. I think Bardney had a second pilot scheme for a time where a new pilot went out with an experienced crew. I don’t think that was popular at the time.
RA: That was ceased in the beginning of ‘44 because they were losing so many crews.
PB: Yes.
RA: They were actually called, they classed it as second dickie.
PB: Yes.
RA: When they would crew up, certainly when new crews come they wouldn’t let them on operations without having a, going on a second dickie and they’d been shot down and then that crew —
PB: Loss to everybody.
RA: And then that crew had to go back.
PB: Yes.
RA: To be re-crewed up. So it did stop about the middle of ’44 I think it was or a bit earlier than that.
PB: I can see the theory behind it. You pick up tricks from the existing people.
RA: Yes. So was there just the one office downstairs?
PB: Just the one. Nothing else.
RA: Nothing else.
PB: A big office and a toilet which was for the station commander and WAAF I believe it said on the door. I don’t know where everybody else went. I know where the aircrew went. It was a function wasn’t it before you took off.
RA: Yeah.
PB: To pee on the rear wheel.
RA: Yeah. Yeah. What about upstairs? Did you ever get upstairs?
PB: Oh yes. We’d go up because one of our friends was always on duty and [unclear] squadron leader [unclear] was his name. He was the flying control officer. He, you know he sat there and he’d seen what the target was and what time they were taking off. And when we heard the first vroom vroom of the Lancs coming back we used to go up and find out who was coming. Whether it was a special friend of ours or not. And then when they all came back or they didn’t.
RA: And did they did they, did they radio in who it was or was it just put in Morse who was coming in?
PB: I think it was. I didn’t hear. We all had got headphones on.
RA: So when did you know? Did they put it on the board?
PB: They put it on the boards yes to say who was coming in and you’d see them landing and they taxied off to their dispersal. Off from there the aircrew came back from [unclear] sometimes they would come in, come back to see us. They did like to talk. Some of them said they couldn’t sleep after an op. They were too traumatically [unclear] they’d come in and talk about the conditions or what had gone wrong or right. Mostly navigators and pilots were there. we didn’t have much to do with the bomb aimers and gunners. Technically we were with navigators and pilots.
RA: Was anyone allowed in the control tower or was it, was it by special permission?
PB: I don’t think the rest of the, you know ordinary people could come in and flight commanders, I think they used it as an unofficial club I suppose. There was a cup of tea and a room to sit in and have a talk and just generally sort of relax.
RA: So the board that you mentioned. It was a board with the pilot’s —
PB: Well, with the number, the aircraft and the pilot’s name. It was always the pilot’s name and then the time of take-off and then expected time of arrival for coming back.
RA: And then the actual time.
PB: Actual time.
RA: [unclear]
PB: Yes.
RA: And did they go to debriefing before they, before they went off to see you or to see the —
PB: Oh they had to have debriefing first. That was the first thing they had to do. They were taken in. I think they had that before they had their supper and their drink. I think they were given one tot when they got back [unclear] got back [laughs] I’m not sure that they did but —
RA: What about the station commander and the, and the, I think it was, was it Bazin the CO?
PB: Yes.
RA: When they were there.
PB: Yes.
RA: They kept coming in.
PB: Well, they would come in. They were usually the ones who came in around about the morning after the target had been given to them. They’d be looking at the charts and so on. Enquiring about wind direction, conditions over the area.
RA: What kind of people were they?
PB: Mixed. I mean we had English lads who had been bank clerks and servants, navigators, schoolteachers. The Australians were very much more mixed. We had farmers. I had two particular Australian friends who joined about August September ’44. Both Queenslanders. One grew sugar cane in the north. Tropical things. The other was [pause] had a haulage mail business that he’d set up in the [unclear] area carting sheep. The fox after the sheep. They used to, the pair of them used to come in together. Terrifying stories of snakes. Put me off Australia forever because Queensland seemed to have every known vicious variety of snakes and spiders. I don’t know how much of it was true.
RA: But the likes of Bazin. Was he quite a nice chap? Could you get on alright with him or was he a bit —
PB: Rather remote. Rather remote. But very well respected and kept there but goodness he did fly which was something you know. There were flight commanders who didn’t go up very often but they weren’t terribly popular with crews that were going out at night. But he was, he could relax. One of my favourite pilots on 9 invited him to play squash with him. After that he was very much a favoured boy.
RA: Was there a squash course at Bardney?
PB: Yes. It must have been attached to the Officer’s Mess for them to play squash. He’d been to boarding school of course and was pretty athletic anyway. We had, I can’t remember if it was Bardney or Swinderby where I was before. We used to have mixed hockey which was the oddest game I’d ever come across. I didn’t play squash. I played tennis though quite a lot. We had a tennis court.
RA: At Bardney again.
PB: Ahum.
RA: Where was that? In the, near the, in the WAAF quarters or —
PB: No. It was on the main thing. We had just a hut. Someone opened a WAAF Mess on the WAAF thing although as I recall we only did breakfast there but because we were on shifts I don’t seem to remember having many meals on camp. We’d either cook ourselves something in the office or with our friends in the village. Everybody seemed to have a family in the village that they visited on their off days and they were generous people looking after us. Or we would go into Lincoln and eat. [unclear] not very exciting as I recall.
RA: Did the NAAFI van come around to you at all?
PB: Yes. We had. We had you know a cigarette ration which we used to, I didn’t smoke but I used to take up my ration and hand it over to whoever was. A big favour. We had different hairdressers. Free hair dos. We had a sort of suite away from the hut that was showers and baths. It was more baths in those days. Showers weren’t as popular as they are now.
RA: That was all, do you remember how many huts there were around there?
PB: We were in number six and there were about twelve of us in a hut. We had our own bed space and locker room where we kept our stuff. We had two coke burning stoves which we kept going.
RA: Did you have someone to look after the hut for you?
PB: No.
RA: You had to look after it yourself.
PB: We had to keep it tidy ourselves which was awkward really because I mean we were inspected fairly often by a WAAF sergeant or a WAAF officer if she was feeling so inclined. But if you, you know you tried you came off duty at eight in the morning and you tried to sleep not very successful. I was, I was it was unfortunate I would talk in my sleep and it was a favourite hobby of them asking me questions [laughs] Very unfair [unclear] if I talk in my sleep now.
RA: And so I think you said earlier that you decided to paint your —
PB: Oh, yes. That was [unclear]It was all pretty gloomy and miserable inside. Corrugated iron. We wanted to cheer it up. So we went off and bought yellow and turquoise paint and painted all our bunkers. We didn’t know anything about undercoating and rubbing down. We just splashed colour paint on. We did make it look nice and we didn’t have anything on the floor. I think it was [unclear] on the floor. Central lights. It wasn’t luxurious but it was [unclear] people would bring you, if you stayed in bed after your shift they would bring you [something back] as usual.
RA: Was your Mess very far from the —
PB: No. It was not a very big Mess. You were supposed to go for main meals to the main camp somewhere but—
RA: But not on the actual, where the runways and the —
PB: No. No.
RA: Where the —
PB: The offices were, the admin offices and it was sort of dispersed sites really. The WAAF site was one side of the road. The main offices were the other. Things like the huts where they interrogated people. It all had to be fairly near. We had we were always on shifts and bicycles. Bicycles were the thing. You were issued with your own and you had to look after it.
RA: So just going on to this [pause] this Mess. That was actually on the airfield site.
PB: Yes.
RA: So you had to go past the guardroom.
PB: Past the guardroom.
RA: There was another mess there was there?
PB: The big Mess. That was a general, oh you know, Sergeants Mess. I don’t know what that means. It must have been somewhere by the Officer’s Mess.
RA: So there was a Sergeant’s Mess and an Officer’s Mess.
PB: Yes.
RA: Where —
PB: And then there was a general dogsbody Mess.
RA: On the main camp.
PB: On the main camp.
RA: On the main camp.
PB: Yes. Near the entrance to —
RA: Do you know roughly where that was? Was it near the control tower?
PB: No. It was, was it cut off from everything else [unclear]
RA: And this was where the airmen would get their —
PB: Yes.
RA: Their breakfast and things.
PB: They would have all their meals there. The WAAF were there for lunch and supper I suppose. But as I say I could never seem to eat in those days. I was very slender and I used to eat with my good friends in the village and be taken out for supper if I was lucky and cooking our own whatever that we would bring back and buy. We must have lived on eggs and fruit.
RA: And you, I know you went to see Mr and Mrs [pause] the names.
PB: Scott.
RA: Scott. That was right.
PB: Yes. [unclear] T Scott, the manager of the sugar beet factory and they’d adopted all four of the four Met Office WAAFs. All three of us. We used to spend our off-duty hours down with Julie who was a tremendous woman. Very bright but in a wheelchair suffering from I realise now it was multiple sclerosis. She taught us to cook. We used to spend most of our lives. Perhaps that’s where we would be eating. In her kitchen. And the other family that I used to visit and babysit with and scrounge the eggs was the Pouchers who ran a big farm. I remember they had a set up of [unclear] glass which they used to sold to [unclear] it was sold racing stables. It would be highly concentrated and we had, I helped gut their turkeys one Christmas once. Old Lady Poucher explained to me. Put me off turkeys for some time.
RA: Gutting them was that?
PB: Gutting them. Yes. Not killing them. Just plucking feathers and gutting them and I remember one of the few of us was having a birthday party and whipping about two pints of cream which was something unheard of in the rest of the world.
RA: And this was with old Mr and Mrs Poucher or was it —
PB: Old Mrs Poucher. Yes.
RA: Was it with the girls, two girls were there you were saying?
PB: Yes. I think daughter in law was one of them I knew and there were some small children who I suppose now are in their fifties. One was [unclear]. They were very very generous.
RA: Did the Pouchers at that time have a maid at all do you know?
PB: No, I don’t think so. No. It was a big house and quite a few workers there.
RA: You ate there fairly regularly did you?
PB: Fairly regular. Yeah. Maybe a couple of times a week.
RA: You’d cycle up there would you?
PB: Cycle around. Yes. I mean Lincoln might be flat but you never did have an easy cycle ride. You were usually struggling against the wind one way or the other.
RA: At that time would you have gone over the airfield?
PB: No.
RA: You didn’t have a village shortcut. You’d come through the village.
PB: Through the village.
RA: And off down the [unclear]. Yes.
PB: You never knew when the aircraft would come belting around there because they would do training flights all throughout the day and testing Lancs you know that had been [unclear] We did cycle sometimes on a country track. I was taught to drive on the bomb dump which was a sort of little place to practice reversing as long as you didn’t hit anything.
RA: That was in a car was it?
PB: No. A little van. A little truck.
RA: That was by one of the —
PB: One of the lads in the, I think he was a corporal in the control room. I don’t know what his, his main task was but he taught two of us to drive. It seemed, it seemed there were all these great big bombs floating around. It was not when anyone was getting ready for ops. It was on quiet days.
RA: What about when there wasn’t ops?
PB: We still had to —
RA: So the Met Office was open.
PB: Yes.
RA: Twenty four hours a day.
PB: Yes.
RA: Three hundred and sixty five days a year.
PB: Yes.
RA: There was always someone there.
PB: Always had to do obs even when we weren’t operating because other people in other parts of the country were, they needed our input to get the whole picture. It was tricky sometimes when the teleprinter broke down and you had to take it all down by phone which wasn’t very convenient. We had to become quite efficient typists.
RA: But there was one person called, he was the discipline officer. A chap called Ward. A sergeant ward. Have you heard of him at all? He was a sergeant at the station.
PB: I remember the sergeant who was always in the hut at the end at the main entrance to the camp because I was standing there one day, I think talking to him about something or other and someone dropped something at my foot which was a snake. I know it was only a snake [laughs] but I keeled over and fainted. I think he told somebody off. There were quite a few snakes floating around and we had a whole crowd of feral cats in the station. They used to, they would go hunting sometimes. They were forever having kittens. Some of the girls used to adopt them. They could be quite smelly those cats if they spent most of their lives outside. But it was a lovely peaceful place in the main. It was [unclear]
RA: Do you remember anybody like the wireless. The [pause] [Joe Skinner] and [unclear] and people like that who were leaders. They were on [pause] Skinner was the, he was a wireless op and he was the leader of the, of that section.
PB: No. I know —
RA: And then [Bracknell], Bracknell. He was, they were mostly in Bazin’s crew because that was the officer crew.
PB: Yeah. The top I suppose.
RA: Yeah.
PB: I don’t remember him flying with his own crew. I suppose he must have done. He didn’t fly as regularly as a flight commander. I remember particularly there was a flight commander, Englishman. Harry Newton I think his name was. He got two wild Australian boys. And there was a little Canadian flight commander who was [unclear]
RA: Did you say that was Newton? Newton. That was. Was he a pilot? Was he a pilot?
PB: Yes, he was a pilot.
RA: Was it he that got killed on New Year’s Day 1945?
PB: No. No. Harry. Not Newton. Watson. Watson or Watkins. I know he, after I’d [unclear] I came back. I’d been on leave to see my Aussie mate who was getting married and I got back, I heard [unclear] and I know he sent me squadron badges. Enamel badges [unclear]
RA: So what dates were you at Bardney from?
PB: ’44. Just about a couple of days after D-Day.
RA: So it would have been June.
PB: June.
RA: June ’44 until —
PB: October/November ’45. And then I went to Waddington. The squadron by then had moved to Waddington but the Dominion lads had been sent off to — Gamston, I think, pending repatriation.
RA: And once they, once they had left what, what was your role then?
PB: Pretty boring really. Just went on doing the charts.
RA: What [unclear]
PB: Yes. Yes.
RA: Even though there was no aircraft there.
PB: No aircraft there. No. We did sometimes have people from other people [unclear] airfields but it had lost its purpose really as far as we were concerned and then they closed Bardney down and brought the Army in. Keeping pace with itself. it was a bit of a joke you know. Ten thousand gallons in each Lancaster. Then we went to Waddington. And then it was spring and I went to Hullavington which was a research station. I forget which county that was. South of Gloucester. Much more formal. Full of research [unclear] and then on to Boscombe Down which was even more. We did funny charts there that I’d never done on a bomber station. High level charts. All sorts of things. They were much more sticky about that. They were doing a lot of research flying with gliders. Secret aero, secret kinds of aeroplanes and I was demobbed from there about the 10th of October ’46.
RA: Do you remember any prisoners of war coming and working at Bardney at all or any Polish came to Bardney?
PB: No. We had quite a lot of ground staff who were Jamaican and they had funny [unclear]
RA: But they were based at Bardney were they?
PB: They were based at Bardney. Yes. Quite a big contingent.
RA: But they were all ground crew.
PB: All ground crew.
RA: Actually working at dispersal points.
PB: Dispersal points or cooks. All sorts. General duties I suppose. As I say not going to the Mess really we were not, we were not frequented. We had a cinema there. We used to have a film we could in and see films. Some were there working on shifts.
RA: Where was that?
PB: That must have been on main camp.
RA: So there was a lot of things on the main camp.
PB: Oh yes. Sports things. You know, as I say we played tennis and watched some football. There was snow clearing occasionally. We didn’t do any of that.
RA: No.
PB: Aircrew were set on that because, especially the Australians and New Zealanders because it was a nice novelty seeing snow. Not after they had cleared a couple of tonnes [unclear]
RA: Yeah. I think earlier on you mentioned that there was a scheme where the Australians were adopted.
PB: Yeah. I think it was called —
RA: Can you explain that?
PB: Lady Ryder Scheme. They offered hospitality to Dominion aircrew.
RA: This was throughout the country —
PB: Oh yes. All sorts of families. Mostly they had to be people who had got spare rooms and plenty of cash and it was their home from home. My particular friend was adopted by the Riley family. The car people who lived in [unclear] and he used to spend lots of spare time. Not days off, it was too far to go although he did go off the base to the nearest airfield and he used to stay there. They lent him a car for the duration of the war. Not a, not a Riley. It was a, a little Fiat he used to wander around in. He kept on his friendship with me way after the war. I think they were in a way you know what fourteen thousand miles from home, a family, a domestic sort of scene. Although I’ve learned since from the family that his wife wasn’t happy that he was spending time with a family and mowing the grass and everything while she was at home worrying about what was happening to him. But it gave him a great love of England. In fact, he went back home and one of the places he lived was a town called [unclear] I don’t know if he chose it because it was familiar. I didn’t find that out.
RA: What was their thoughts when they went on? Did you find that a lot of them were very nervous to go on a trip? Relieved when they came back or took it in their stride.
PB: They were relieved. You know. I remember him coming in one night and telling me that at briefing they had been told that the Germans had new anti-aircraft shells you know. Exploded like exploding aircraft and he said he was flying and seeing these flashes and explosions to the left and right and thinking they’re putting up a lot tonight. The Lancasters were actually bearing up. He said he was glad he didn’t know at the time otherwise he might have succumbed. But he was, he was lucky except on January the 1st when his plane just, the first one I think took off in the morning after they’d been refuelled overnight, crashed and blew up and they were all killed except [unclear] He was the next one to take off and he failed to lift around the runway so he raced around the track at ninety miles an hour into the back of the Lancaster at the bottom and was underneath and was wondering why no one was coming to rescue him but they were all busy with the fire after it had exploded.
RA: Did he take that in his stride? Was he soon flying again?
PB: Oh yes. I think he was on ops about two days later but he did look a bit old after that. They all looked [unclear] a bit shattered. But I suppose he had the responsible of the crews on his hands. And it was written up in the Bomber Command losses book which I took out when I went to visit him.
RA: You’ve been out recently haven’t you?
PB: Yes. I went out a few years ago. Met all his family. We were were very intrigued to hear the stories we had together.
RA: His daughter is coming over next year.
PB: She is hoping to. Yes. She was a nurse over here during the 70s at St Thomas’. I stayed with her for about a week. [unclear] in Australia. She wants to come and see Bardney. I sent her, well I sent her my little squadron badge for her son who is very proud of his grandfather and I also sent them copies of Jim Brookbank’s book which they said gave them a terrific insight into Bardney [unclear] and how much he’d liked it here.
RA: Yeah. So most of your time then you wouldn’t have a great lot of other time other than doing your hourly weather report.
PB: No. No. That was our job. Our main job. Well, we had had tidying up to do. We had to keep the office tidy. Make tea for all these visitors.
Collection
Citation
Roger Audis, “Interview with Phillys Beech,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed July 11, 2026, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/52895.