Interview with Stan Howes
Title
Interview with Stan Howes
Creator
Date
2002-09-10
Temporal Coverage
Language
Type
Format
00:30:31 audio recording
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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
AHowesS020910-0001, AHowesS020910-0002, AHowesS020910-0003, AHowesS020910-0004
Transcription
Interviewer: Stan Howes, pilot from Wickenby on the 10th of September 2002. Stan, you were going to tell us a bit about the time when you were, you were based in the RAF during the war.
SH: Yes.
Interviewer: When did you, when did you start? Where did you train?
SH: I joined July 1940 and at that time it was a bit chaotic in the country because if you remember it was in July 1940. It was immediately after Dunkirk and loads of us joined the RAF. We went to Blackpool and we trained there for a fortnight. I’d said when I joined up in Norwich. We, in fact I went one day, I joined up. They said, ‘Come back tomorrow morning,’ you know, ‘With some sandwiches [laughs] and brown paper and string so you can send your clothes back. You’re going to Blackpool.’ So we got to Blackpool and I didn’t know quite what I was going to do but they said there were loads of us there. I don’t know how many exactly. Forty thousand I think. Loads of us in Blackpool and the fortnight to the day there was a train left there with five hundred of us and two hundred and fifty went to Church Fenton and the other two fifty went to Catterick. Our training at Blackpool consisted of marching about and we went on a train and tram to Fleetwood and fired five rounds from a Lee-Enfield rifle. So a fortnight later I was at Catterick and two hundred and fifty of us for the sole purpose of you know because they expected a wave of paratroopers coming down and we were there to defend the aerodrome and my trade was a ground gunner. That later became the forerunner of the RAF Regiment and it didn’t suit me at all. I didn’t like that at all. I was a real dogsbody doing everything, marching about and one of my duties was to guard the [cool] compound. So I re-mustered you know. I went, I tried to get all kinds of other jobs and I went as a clerk. Are you alright Jim?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yes.
SH: I eventually got moved to clerical work and then I met someone there who was training, you know had been earmarked for going through the routes to be trainee aircrew so I thought well that’s a good idea. So, went through that, got accepted and trained in this country. Went to Canada and trained in Canada as a pilot and towards the end of that I was posted to Prince Edward Island and did a navigation course. So I was a pilot and navigator. The sole purpose of that was to go to Coastal Command and at the end of that course I had the option of coming back here or going to Nassau in the Bahamas. I had a wife back here. I’d married so I came back here and as soon as I got back here I said, ‘I’m a pilot/nav. Forget that. Bomber Command you see. But this was pretty late on and it was 1944 and I did training. We did some training on Oxfords and Ansons and then I went to Silverstone. That’s right. Flying Wellingtons. What they called Operational Training Unit. Then I went down to Suffolk, Stradishall in Suffolk on Stirlings. While we were doing those we were doing leaflet raids you know. Taking leaflets. Diversionary things. Of course we were under training.
Interviewer: You were still at OTU?
SH: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: At the time.
SH: Operationally. Yeah.
Interviewer: What aircraft were you flying then?
SH: Stirlings.
Interviewer: On Stirlings.
SH: And the Wellingtons. The Stirlings and Wellingtons. And the fact that there were not, at that time not many crews being bumped off I didn’t get to Wickenby until the beginning of 1945. So I’m no hero really. I think we did about, we did seven trips and so the war ended when I was at Wickenby. But just as the war, we’d been to Flensburg I think the day before and coming back the starboard outer engine the oil pressure dropped and this was, it was always happening with Merlins really. The oil pressure dropped, the temperature goes up. Feather the engine. Right. So we landed on three engines and they were supposed to have, the engineers overnight sort of you know mended it. It was ok. Did an air test the next morning you see.
Interviewer: And this was in the same aircraft.
SH: On the same aircraft. And we did an air test and the engines packed up on take-off. So it caught fire from take-off really.
Interviewer: So you took off on an air test and a full crew.
SH: We had a full crew. Yeah.
Interviewer: And any idea what time of day that was?
SH: Yeah. I think it was well you are doubting now whether the gentlemen I spoke to whether in fact it was the aircraft. I’m pretty certain it was the morning but he said it was. He was a schoolchild and they were going back, or they were lunchtime and they all came down and looked at the aircraft. they were all late back and the master gave them the cane. So that’s what he said. So they would be morning.
Interviewer: That would be morning.
SH: Well, it was a bit of a struggle you see getting an aircraft home on three engines and on fire and I think we must have gone up to about fifteen hundred feet, something like that and they all started baling out.
Interviewer: What did you, did you [pause] so you got up to fifteen hundred and then was that the instruction? Was that you’d got a fire.
SH: Yeah.
Interviewer: Was that the minimum height? What was the actual instruction when you were, you were —
SH: Yeah. We knew. We knew that you can’t bale out below say a thousand feet really. We didn’t have Martin Baker seats [laughs] a safe height really and I suppose the first one went out at a thousand feet and it was still [pause] In fact, it was a bit dodgy really because I was flying the thing and in touch with control and when I was about to go out I looked back. I went on the intercom and said, you know ‘Everyone out?’ And didn’t get an answer. When I looked back there was a parachute. You see when you got out of a Lanc without, the bomb, where the bomb layout, the bomb aimer position is there is an old cushion there. He was normally lying down. The cushions had two handles. You turn that, turn the thing around and let it out and you’ve got a gaping hole there you see. So when I was about to go out there was this air rushing out, I looked back and there was this parachute inside the aircraft and I thought, my God. You know.
Interviewer: Someone was still there.
SH: Someone was still there and I had to, I had to decide you see. Well, what had happened was the flight engineer had, when he, I don’t know if he’d been in a bit of a panic or not I don’t know but when he, you see the pilot sits on his parachute, right. The others had to wear the harness and they store their parachute and they clipped them on when they need it. Well, when he had taken it off to store it he’d taken it off permanently [laughs] The thing had drifted in the aircraft you see. And it eventually turned out that the rear gunner who was very, you know clued up, level-headed, he had a spare. He had a spare and he gave it. So they moved this parachute and they went out. So it must have taken a minute or two you see and when I went out I can remember standing on the step and seeing this [unclear] you see and going straight at it. And that was that, you know.
Interviewer: So you kept it up and then told them to bale out and by this time you were virtually over Bardney.
SH: Yeah.
Interviewer: Or must have been in the region of Bardney.
SH: Yeah.
Interviewer: And then did you set it on course or —
SH: Well, I set it on George you see.
Interviewer: Right.
SH: But on three engines you know it’s you’ve got two pulling on one side and one on the other it doesn’t really work really.
Interviewer: So what would it, you know, take? What did George, what, can you just explain what George was.
SH: It was automatic pilot.
Interviewer: Right.
SH: It was a rudimentary —
Interviewer: Right.
SH: I mean it’s not like computer control like today. It was just [pause] it was straight and level, you know. It was a pneumatic thing or hydraulics. And when you were flying straight and level you could put George in and it would, it would fly on it. You had to keep checking every so often.
Interviewer: Yeah.
SH: And the idea is that it would keep on a level course. But with one engine gone it was pretty useless really.
Interviewer: You started banking and then —
SH: Yeah. I remember. I remember getting out and the thing went like this. I think it exploded before I hit the ground but I’m not too sure.
Interviewer: My understanding is that it came down in [unclear] in Nocton. Nocton Estates which is on —
SH: Not that one. I don’t think it was that one.
Interviewer: No, I think, I’ll show you in a mo.
SH: Well, I —
Interviewer: Certainly, you know where I think you actually came down which it was about a quarter of a mile over into Bardney Causeway.
SH: I remember it was a field of potatoes.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Well, they were —
SH: And they took me to the farmhouse and gave me a cup of tea. And I remember I was shaking so much that I could drink this by the tea spilling out [laughs] The things, the funny things you remember.
Interviewer: Yeah. How did you feel —
SH: By that time I didn’t know whether we’d all got out you see.
Interviewer: Right. Right. So you were the only one in that, in that house when who, who come to collect you? Did you, did happen to [unclear] did you, did like Wickenby come or did you have to go to hospital or —
SH: No.
Interviewer: Were you collected and then did you go back to Wickenby that evening?
SH: No. Well, we were collected individually. I went back. I remember because they were not sure whether we were all alive. But the bomb aimer landed in a tree somewhere and his story afterwards was he was at the top of this tree. He’d come down all that way and he put on a brave face [laughs] So they had to get ladders or something to get him out. Yeah.
Interviewer: And so none of the crew were injured at all.
SH: No.
Interviewer: Did you fly again as a crew after that?
SH: The next day.
Interviewer: Yeah.
SH: I mean these days there was nothing like they have. Counselling and all the things. I remember the next day he said. ‘That was a good show you made over that.’ He said, ‘The best thing to do is to get on again.’ So the next morning we flew again.
Interviewer: What was the date? Do you have a date for when this crash happened?
SH: It was May. It was [pause] it was plus or minus the [pause] I would think it would be about the 15th or 20th of May. Something like that. The date. Anyway, that was —
Interviewer: And where did you go the next day? Was it on a trip? On an operation?
SH: No. I think they just said, you know get your ass off the ground you know.
Interviewer: Right.
SH: That was the counselling.
Interviewer: Yeah. Right, so May. That was virtually the end of the war wasn’t it?
SH: Yeah. Yes.
Interviewer: Did you, did you [pause] were you one of the selected few that went on the Berchtesgaden raid?
SH: No. I wasn’t.
Interviewer: No.
SH: That was the last one that was.
Interviewer: Yeah.
SH: No. I didn’t go on that one.
Interviewer: So you did, you did about seven trips altogether.
SH: Yeah. That’s right.
Interviewer: And where were, were they into, most of them into Germany?
SH: Yeah. Yeah. First were a couple of mining ones I remember. Bremen. Things like that.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yes. Who were your crew? Did you, did you [unclear] and then carry on all the way through?
SH: Yes. We joined up at Silverstone as I say. Well, what happens is that there were twenty pilots and twenty navigators and in the first week we were there we got to meet each other. And on the Monday of the next week the pilot had to come with his crew. I think they selected him and that was that.
Interviewer: Yes. And your crew were, can you just read that out?
SH: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: And what their positions were.
SH: Yeah. I must get my glasses. [unclear] and I’ve got to get to Norfolk too. I’ve got to get to Norfolk tonight haven’t I?
Interviewer: Yeah. You’ve got loads of time.
SH: Right. Well, I was the pilot, Stan Howes. The navigator was Jack [Cunliff] who is now in Adelaide in Australia and I write to him. I’ll write to him at the beginning of this week. Billy Steel, he was a banker and he died two years ago.
Interviewer: And he was what?
SH: He was the bomb aimer.
Interviewer: Bomb aimer.
SH: Yeah. And [pause] Frank Ford. That’s right. Frank Ford was the wireless operator. The mid-upper was Jim Warner and Paddy Sheridan who was, he was the tail gunner. And as I say we joined up at Silverstone and when we went to Stradishall and on to Stirlings we needed an engineer and he was allocated to us. Jim Moore. That’s the crew. That was what we stuck with.
Interviewer: Right.
SH: And after that we did all kinds of things. We did the Manna trips.
Interviewer: Right [unclear] to feed the Dutch.
SH: And then we did quite a few trips to Brussels and Germany picking up troops and bringing them back and we were going to Italy frequently. That was lovely that was. We went to Italy one morning. Got to either Naples or Bari on the other side and there literally the next day you loaded up twenty five troops and brought them back to Glatton.
Interviewer: Right. Where is Glatton? [unclear] Yeah.
SH: And I eventually came out in July 1946 and they stayed on. The fact that I had joined much earlier than them I stayed on for six months and I came out.
Interviewer: Right.
SH: Earlier. My demob was earlier than that.
Interviewer: You didn’t get, did you get the chance to go on the Tiger Force?
SH: Well, we were earmarked for Tiger Force but we didn’t go.
Interviewer: So you had, you didn’t go anywhere other than that because 9 Squadron they weren’t going on Tiger Force they finished up —
SH: Yeah. We —
Interviewer: You didn’t go anywhere.
SH: That would have been [pause] was that immediately after the war?
Interviewer: Yeah. Well —
SH: You see —
Interviewer: They moved to Waddo and retrained and had all the aircraft.
SH: What? On Lincolns?
Interviewer: No. On, on Lancs.
SH: On Lancasters. Oh right.
Interviewer: And they waited out there. They were out there for a fair couple of months or so and then they came back. I wondered if they converted on to Lincolns at Binbrook.
SH: Oh right. No. No. We didn’t. No. We didn’t do that.
Interviewer: Right. And just mention which squadron they went on.
SH: 626.
Interviewer: 626.
SH: You see 626 was a sister. I mean 11 Squadron, I mean 12 Squadron was, it is still flying today isn’t it. 12 Squadron. And 626 was formed from 12 Squadron and we were a sort of junior squadron. 12 Squadron and we were disbanded in I think disbanded about October. We went to Elsham Wolds I remember. And then I joined 100 Squadron. You know. Squadrons were being closed then and you were being transferred. I know we went to Scampton for a time.
Then I joined the Volunteer Reserve at Cambridge. You know, still a territorial thing where you go weekends and fortnight every year. I was very active in that. I got called up for the, I went on the Berlin Airlift flying Dakotas for three months. Two to three months. A couple of months. Three months. And then in the Korean War was it?
Interviewer: [unclear]
SH: Yeah. The fact I was in the Volunteer Reserve at that time. They were glad to have us because ten of us cost them no more than one and we could be, you know they kept us in readiness. We could be called up at any time. And of course the Korean War they looked at my boss and said, ‘You know, these officer aircrews we were running out of them. Were invaluable to the country and can you come back in?’ And I converted to jets. I went to Full Sutton on Harvards for six, three weeks, three months isn’t it? Yes. Harvards and then Spitfires. I flew Spits. So not too many pilots were flying Lancasters.
Interviewer: Spitfires. When you went on to the jets did you ever see a Lancaster with a jet engine. Some said there was a prototype.
SH: But I’ll just, I’ll just finish what I was saying. We went on to the Harvards and Spitfires. I think I did about fifteen, eighteen hours or something. The idea was that if you were Bomber Command and you were used to fighter aircraft getting on your back. [unclear] straight and level [unclear] And then we went to Vampires. So finished on Vampires and I did sit dual in a Meteor and that was that. In between this when I was called up for a fortnight, every year for a fortnight I got posted to [unclear] I got sent to Scampton and they had Lincolns there and I joined a squadron there and it was about six, eight years I think after I’d flown the Lancaster. I did a trip with a crew and I was allowed to do a cross country with a crew. [laughs] I did do cross countries. I’d never been so frightened in all my life. I really ought not to have you know agreed to it so it’s one, I mean it’s all very nice saying Lancaster, Lincoln you know but it wasn’t quite like that at the time. I mean I had some experience of this knowing what it entailed but if something goes wrong I dread to think what would happen if [unclear] Anyway, that’s it.
Interviewer: Right. When you said that this was 1946 when you finished.
SH: Yes.
Interviewer: You didn’t go to Scampton by any chance did you and do an operation when you tried to get rid of all the Upkeep mines?
SH: No.
Interviewer: You haven’t heard of that at all.
SH: But we were. No. I hadn’t. No. But we were, we did lots of trips taking bombs and all kinds of rubbish and dropped them in Cardigan Bay.
Interviewer: Right. These they took out were taking three of the original Dambuster aircraft back and Lossiemouth refurbed them and then they were taking the Upkeep mines and dropping them over the Continental Shelf.
SH: Were they?
Interviewer: Over into the Atlantic.
SH: Well, we used to do that.
Interviewer: We were trying to find out more about them.
SH: Oh, we used to drop them in Cardigan Bay because of the [unclear]
Interviewer: There could be but Wickenby then became the main bomb you know collection part.
SH: Yeah.
Interviewer: And there was a guy I’ve spoken to at Wragby who was in charge of it.
SH: Oh, was he?
Interviewer: Yeah. [unclear]
SH: Yeah.
Interviewer: Because now Wickenby [unclear] airport. Have you been back to it?
SH: I have. Look [pages turning] I finished up in aviation [ ] I went for the day you see. I know, I know I was going to. My wife used to come —
Interviewer: Oh, so you flew today then.
SH: Yeah. I did a circuit. I went to Wickenby today and saw the gentleman there and he said, ‘Would you like to do a circuit?’ And I thought, I said, ‘You’re kidding.’ He said, ‘No.’ [laughs] And I didn’t know. He said, well, he’s got several microlights there. He’s got a school. He’s an instructor.
Interviewer: Sure.
SH: He said, ‘I’ll take you up.’ And we did about twenty minutes I should say.
Interviewer: Yeah.
SH: Half an hour. Yeah.
Interviewer: That was something.
SH: Yeah.
Interviewer: Because I haven’t actually seen the museum but they have got a lot of photos and things.
SH: Yeah.
Interviewer: And stories haven’t they?
SH: They have.
Interviewer: [unclear]
SH: I found my what do they call it?
Interviewer: Are you on your own today?
SH: Yeah. I am. What was the, not the instruction book. You know where you have to sign your crew and who you’re going with.
Interviewer: The 540. The Operational Record Book.
SH: Yeah. Yeah. I saw that. They’ve got that there.
Interviewer: Oh right.
SH: But they haven’t got, it’s incomplete because I was looking to [pause] I was looking to see the date of this but it’s not in there.
Interviewer: Right. Yeah. Well that would be a training flight so it wouldn’t be in the Operation Book.
SH: Probably not.
Interviewer: So that’s why you wouldn’t find it. Do you know what aircraft it was? What you were flying. What was the [626]. What was the [unclear] for that?
SH: I think it was PD, PD315 I think.
Interviewer: 315. And what [pause] lettering was it?
SH: I think, well I used to, I used to my name is Howes you see and the phonetic for H in those days was Howe.
Interviewer: Right.
SH: So I used to have H but I can’t remember if it was that but if you —
Interviewer: What was, what your [extension]
SH: UM.
Interviewer: UM.
SH: Yeah. UM H, but it was definitely UM was the squadron but I can’t think exactly but there’s a book with every Lancaster and what happened to it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
SH: My daughter bought me that years ago and it’s in there.
Interviewer: Yeah. I’ll have a look.
SH: It’s PD. PD something.
Interviewer: Yeah. And just one other thing. When you landed, you say your plane crashed close to you before you actually parachuted down. Did you go back and look at the Lancaster before they, or did you ever see it anymore?
SH: Yeah. Yeah. I went and had a look well I think I must have done. I’ll tell you why. Because I had the control. It was all battered you know. I had it for years and years and years and we’ve moved around a bit and I was working in Norfolk with a chap who set up the museum in [unclear] or somewhere and he pestered me and pestered me and I gave him lots of my stuff including my logbook which I shouldn’t have done and maps and he had this thing as well. So that’s [unclear] you know when you get to my age eighty two, I’m eighty two you see and you sort of look back and it had taken me sixty years to get there.
Interviewer: Lovely. That was very good.
SH: Thank you. Are you pleased with that?
Interviewer: I am. I’m very pleased with that and I’ll as I say the one of the obviously it must have come down with a right old [pause] the damage to it then you, did you go there then and pick it up?
SH: No. No. I was in such a ruddy state. No, because and I was worried about my crew, you know for the reasons that I mentioned.
Interviewer: But I’ll let Ian Blackmore know because he’s the Chairman of The Group [unclear] because when they dug it up not all that long ago [unclear] Lancaster recovery [unclear]
SH: Would it have been mine? Would it have been that one?
Interviewer: Yeah. It is. It’s that one down there. We virtually know where it, you know where it crashed.
SH: Right.
Interviewer: We’ll just check that.
SH: I’m the jigsaw now. Have I sort of completed it.
Interviewer: Yeah. You are. You are.
SH: Yes.
Interviewer: When did you, when did you start? Where did you train?
SH: I joined July 1940 and at that time it was a bit chaotic in the country because if you remember it was in July 1940. It was immediately after Dunkirk and loads of us joined the RAF. We went to Blackpool and we trained there for a fortnight. I’d said when I joined up in Norwich. We, in fact I went one day, I joined up. They said, ‘Come back tomorrow morning,’ you know, ‘With some sandwiches [laughs] and brown paper and string so you can send your clothes back. You’re going to Blackpool.’ So we got to Blackpool and I didn’t know quite what I was going to do but they said there were loads of us there. I don’t know how many exactly. Forty thousand I think. Loads of us in Blackpool and the fortnight to the day there was a train left there with five hundred of us and two hundred and fifty went to Church Fenton and the other two fifty went to Catterick. Our training at Blackpool consisted of marching about and we went on a train and tram to Fleetwood and fired five rounds from a Lee-Enfield rifle. So a fortnight later I was at Catterick and two hundred and fifty of us for the sole purpose of you know because they expected a wave of paratroopers coming down and we were there to defend the aerodrome and my trade was a ground gunner. That later became the forerunner of the RAF Regiment and it didn’t suit me at all. I didn’t like that at all. I was a real dogsbody doing everything, marching about and one of my duties was to guard the [cool] compound. So I re-mustered you know. I went, I tried to get all kinds of other jobs and I went as a clerk. Are you alright Jim?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yes.
SH: I eventually got moved to clerical work and then I met someone there who was training, you know had been earmarked for going through the routes to be trainee aircrew so I thought well that’s a good idea. So, went through that, got accepted and trained in this country. Went to Canada and trained in Canada as a pilot and towards the end of that I was posted to Prince Edward Island and did a navigation course. So I was a pilot and navigator. The sole purpose of that was to go to Coastal Command and at the end of that course I had the option of coming back here or going to Nassau in the Bahamas. I had a wife back here. I’d married so I came back here and as soon as I got back here I said, ‘I’m a pilot/nav. Forget that. Bomber Command you see. But this was pretty late on and it was 1944 and I did training. We did some training on Oxfords and Ansons and then I went to Silverstone. That’s right. Flying Wellingtons. What they called Operational Training Unit. Then I went down to Suffolk, Stradishall in Suffolk on Stirlings. While we were doing those we were doing leaflet raids you know. Taking leaflets. Diversionary things. Of course we were under training.
Interviewer: You were still at OTU?
SH: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: At the time.
SH: Operationally. Yeah.
Interviewer: What aircraft were you flying then?
SH: Stirlings.
Interviewer: On Stirlings.
SH: And the Wellingtons. The Stirlings and Wellingtons. And the fact that there were not, at that time not many crews being bumped off I didn’t get to Wickenby until the beginning of 1945. So I’m no hero really. I think we did about, we did seven trips and so the war ended when I was at Wickenby. But just as the war, we’d been to Flensburg I think the day before and coming back the starboard outer engine the oil pressure dropped and this was, it was always happening with Merlins really. The oil pressure dropped, the temperature goes up. Feather the engine. Right. So we landed on three engines and they were supposed to have, the engineers overnight sort of you know mended it. It was ok. Did an air test the next morning you see.
Interviewer: And this was in the same aircraft.
SH: On the same aircraft. And we did an air test and the engines packed up on take-off. So it caught fire from take-off really.
Interviewer: So you took off on an air test and a full crew.
SH: We had a full crew. Yeah.
Interviewer: And any idea what time of day that was?
SH: Yeah. I think it was well you are doubting now whether the gentlemen I spoke to whether in fact it was the aircraft. I’m pretty certain it was the morning but he said it was. He was a schoolchild and they were going back, or they were lunchtime and they all came down and looked at the aircraft. they were all late back and the master gave them the cane. So that’s what he said. So they would be morning.
Interviewer: That would be morning.
SH: Well, it was a bit of a struggle you see getting an aircraft home on three engines and on fire and I think we must have gone up to about fifteen hundred feet, something like that and they all started baling out.
Interviewer: What did you, did you [pause] so you got up to fifteen hundred and then was that the instruction? Was that you’d got a fire.
SH: Yeah.
Interviewer: Was that the minimum height? What was the actual instruction when you were, you were —
SH: Yeah. We knew. We knew that you can’t bale out below say a thousand feet really. We didn’t have Martin Baker seats [laughs] a safe height really and I suppose the first one went out at a thousand feet and it was still [pause] In fact, it was a bit dodgy really because I was flying the thing and in touch with control and when I was about to go out I looked back. I went on the intercom and said, you know ‘Everyone out?’ And didn’t get an answer. When I looked back there was a parachute. You see when you got out of a Lanc without, the bomb, where the bomb layout, the bomb aimer position is there is an old cushion there. He was normally lying down. The cushions had two handles. You turn that, turn the thing around and let it out and you’ve got a gaping hole there you see. So when I was about to go out there was this air rushing out, I looked back and there was this parachute inside the aircraft and I thought, my God. You know.
Interviewer: Someone was still there.
SH: Someone was still there and I had to, I had to decide you see. Well, what had happened was the flight engineer had, when he, I don’t know if he’d been in a bit of a panic or not I don’t know but when he, you see the pilot sits on his parachute, right. The others had to wear the harness and they store their parachute and they clipped them on when they need it. Well, when he had taken it off to store it he’d taken it off permanently [laughs] The thing had drifted in the aircraft you see. And it eventually turned out that the rear gunner who was very, you know clued up, level-headed, he had a spare. He had a spare and he gave it. So they moved this parachute and they went out. So it must have taken a minute or two you see and when I went out I can remember standing on the step and seeing this [unclear] you see and going straight at it. And that was that, you know.
Interviewer: So you kept it up and then told them to bale out and by this time you were virtually over Bardney.
SH: Yeah.
Interviewer: Or must have been in the region of Bardney.
SH: Yeah.
Interviewer: And then did you set it on course or —
SH: Well, I set it on George you see.
Interviewer: Right.
SH: But on three engines you know it’s you’ve got two pulling on one side and one on the other it doesn’t really work really.
Interviewer: So what would it, you know, take? What did George, what, can you just explain what George was.
SH: It was automatic pilot.
Interviewer: Right.
SH: It was a rudimentary —
Interviewer: Right.
SH: I mean it’s not like computer control like today. It was just [pause] it was straight and level, you know. It was a pneumatic thing or hydraulics. And when you were flying straight and level you could put George in and it would, it would fly on it. You had to keep checking every so often.
Interviewer: Yeah.
SH: And the idea is that it would keep on a level course. But with one engine gone it was pretty useless really.
Interviewer: You started banking and then —
SH: Yeah. I remember. I remember getting out and the thing went like this. I think it exploded before I hit the ground but I’m not too sure.
Interviewer: My understanding is that it came down in [unclear] in Nocton. Nocton Estates which is on —
SH: Not that one. I don’t think it was that one.
Interviewer: No, I think, I’ll show you in a mo.
SH: Well, I —
Interviewer: Certainly, you know where I think you actually came down which it was about a quarter of a mile over into Bardney Causeway.
SH: I remember it was a field of potatoes.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Well, they were —
SH: And they took me to the farmhouse and gave me a cup of tea. And I remember I was shaking so much that I could drink this by the tea spilling out [laughs] The things, the funny things you remember.
Interviewer: Yeah. How did you feel —
SH: By that time I didn’t know whether we’d all got out you see.
Interviewer: Right. Right. So you were the only one in that, in that house when who, who come to collect you? Did you, did happen to [unclear] did you, did like Wickenby come or did you have to go to hospital or —
SH: No.
Interviewer: Were you collected and then did you go back to Wickenby that evening?
SH: No. Well, we were collected individually. I went back. I remember because they were not sure whether we were all alive. But the bomb aimer landed in a tree somewhere and his story afterwards was he was at the top of this tree. He’d come down all that way and he put on a brave face [laughs] So they had to get ladders or something to get him out. Yeah.
Interviewer: And so none of the crew were injured at all.
SH: No.
Interviewer: Did you fly again as a crew after that?
SH: The next day.
Interviewer: Yeah.
SH: I mean these days there was nothing like they have. Counselling and all the things. I remember the next day he said. ‘That was a good show you made over that.’ He said, ‘The best thing to do is to get on again.’ So the next morning we flew again.
Interviewer: What was the date? Do you have a date for when this crash happened?
SH: It was May. It was [pause] it was plus or minus the [pause] I would think it would be about the 15th or 20th of May. Something like that. The date. Anyway, that was —
Interviewer: And where did you go the next day? Was it on a trip? On an operation?
SH: No. I think they just said, you know get your ass off the ground you know.
Interviewer: Right.
SH: That was the counselling.
Interviewer: Yeah. Right, so May. That was virtually the end of the war wasn’t it?
SH: Yeah. Yes.
Interviewer: Did you, did you [pause] were you one of the selected few that went on the Berchtesgaden raid?
SH: No. I wasn’t.
Interviewer: No.
SH: That was the last one that was.
Interviewer: Yeah.
SH: No. I didn’t go on that one.
Interviewer: So you did, you did about seven trips altogether.
SH: Yeah. That’s right.
Interviewer: And where were, were they into, most of them into Germany?
SH: Yeah. Yeah. First were a couple of mining ones I remember. Bremen. Things like that.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yes. Who were your crew? Did you, did you [unclear] and then carry on all the way through?
SH: Yes. We joined up at Silverstone as I say. Well, what happens is that there were twenty pilots and twenty navigators and in the first week we were there we got to meet each other. And on the Monday of the next week the pilot had to come with his crew. I think they selected him and that was that.
Interviewer: Yes. And your crew were, can you just read that out?
SH: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: And what their positions were.
SH: Yeah. I must get my glasses. [unclear] and I’ve got to get to Norfolk too. I’ve got to get to Norfolk tonight haven’t I?
Interviewer: Yeah. You’ve got loads of time.
SH: Right. Well, I was the pilot, Stan Howes. The navigator was Jack [Cunliff] who is now in Adelaide in Australia and I write to him. I’ll write to him at the beginning of this week. Billy Steel, he was a banker and he died two years ago.
Interviewer: And he was what?
SH: He was the bomb aimer.
Interviewer: Bomb aimer.
SH: Yeah. And [pause] Frank Ford. That’s right. Frank Ford was the wireless operator. The mid-upper was Jim Warner and Paddy Sheridan who was, he was the tail gunner. And as I say we joined up at Silverstone and when we went to Stradishall and on to Stirlings we needed an engineer and he was allocated to us. Jim Moore. That’s the crew. That was what we stuck with.
Interviewer: Right.
SH: And after that we did all kinds of things. We did the Manna trips.
Interviewer: Right [unclear] to feed the Dutch.
SH: And then we did quite a few trips to Brussels and Germany picking up troops and bringing them back and we were going to Italy frequently. That was lovely that was. We went to Italy one morning. Got to either Naples or Bari on the other side and there literally the next day you loaded up twenty five troops and brought them back to Glatton.
Interviewer: Right. Where is Glatton? [unclear] Yeah.
SH: And I eventually came out in July 1946 and they stayed on. The fact that I had joined much earlier than them I stayed on for six months and I came out.
Interviewer: Right.
SH: Earlier. My demob was earlier than that.
Interviewer: You didn’t get, did you get the chance to go on the Tiger Force?
SH: Well, we were earmarked for Tiger Force but we didn’t go.
Interviewer: So you had, you didn’t go anywhere other than that because 9 Squadron they weren’t going on Tiger Force they finished up —
SH: Yeah. We —
Interviewer: You didn’t go anywhere.
SH: That would have been [pause] was that immediately after the war?
Interviewer: Yeah. Well —
SH: You see —
Interviewer: They moved to Waddo and retrained and had all the aircraft.
SH: What? On Lincolns?
Interviewer: No. On, on Lancs.
SH: On Lancasters. Oh right.
Interviewer: And they waited out there. They were out there for a fair couple of months or so and then they came back. I wondered if they converted on to Lincolns at Binbrook.
SH: Oh right. No. No. We didn’t. No. We didn’t do that.
Interviewer: Right. And just mention which squadron they went on.
SH: 626.
Interviewer: 626.
SH: You see 626 was a sister. I mean 11 Squadron, I mean 12 Squadron was, it is still flying today isn’t it. 12 Squadron. And 626 was formed from 12 Squadron and we were a sort of junior squadron. 12 Squadron and we were disbanded in I think disbanded about October. We went to Elsham Wolds I remember. And then I joined 100 Squadron. You know. Squadrons were being closed then and you were being transferred. I know we went to Scampton for a time.
Then I joined the Volunteer Reserve at Cambridge. You know, still a territorial thing where you go weekends and fortnight every year. I was very active in that. I got called up for the, I went on the Berlin Airlift flying Dakotas for three months. Two to three months. A couple of months. Three months. And then in the Korean War was it?
Interviewer: [unclear]
SH: Yeah. The fact I was in the Volunteer Reserve at that time. They were glad to have us because ten of us cost them no more than one and we could be, you know they kept us in readiness. We could be called up at any time. And of course the Korean War they looked at my boss and said, ‘You know, these officer aircrews we were running out of them. Were invaluable to the country and can you come back in?’ And I converted to jets. I went to Full Sutton on Harvards for six, three weeks, three months isn’t it? Yes. Harvards and then Spitfires. I flew Spits. So not too many pilots were flying Lancasters.
Interviewer: Spitfires. When you went on to the jets did you ever see a Lancaster with a jet engine. Some said there was a prototype.
SH: But I’ll just, I’ll just finish what I was saying. We went on to the Harvards and Spitfires. I think I did about fifteen, eighteen hours or something. The idea was that if you were Bomber Command and you were used to fighter aircraft getting on your back. [unclear] straight and level [unclear] And then we went to Vampires. So finished on Vampires and I did sit dual in a Meteor and that was that. In between this when I was called up for a fortnight, every year for a fortnight I got posted to [unclear] I got sent to Scampton and they had Lincolns there and I joined a squadron there and it was about six, eight years I think after I’d flown the Lancaster. I did a trip with a crew and I was allowed to do a cross country with a crew. [laughs] I did do cross countries. I’d never been so frightened in all my life. I really ought not to have you know agreed to it so it’s one, I mean it’s all very nice saying Lancaster, Lincoln you know but it wasn’t quite like that at the time. I mean I had some experience of this knowing what it entailed but if something goes wrong I dread to think what would happen if [unclear] Anyway, that’s it.
Interviewer: Right. When you said that this was 1946 when you finished.
SH: Yes.
Interviewer: You didn’t go to Scampton by any chance did you and do an operation when you tried to get rid of all the Upkeep mines?
SH: No.
Interviewer: You haven’t heard of that at all.
SH: But we were. No. I hadn’t. No. But we were, we did lots of trips taking bombs and all kinds of rubbish and dropped them in Cardigan Bay.
Interviewer: Right. These they took out were taking three of the original Dambuster aircraft back and Lossiemouth refurbed them and then they were taking the Upkeep mines and dropping them over the Continental Shelf.
SH: Were they?
Interviewer: Over into the Atlantic.
SH: Well, we used to do that.
Interviewer: We were trying to find out more about them.
SH: Oh, we used to drop them in Cardigan Bay because of the [unclear]
Interviewer: There could be but Wickenby then became the main bomb you know collection part.
SH: Yeah.
Interviewer: And there was a guy I’ve spoken to at Wragby who was in charge of it.
SH: Oh, was he?
Interviewer: Yeah. [unclear]
SH: Yeah.
Interviewer: Because now Wickenby [unclear] airport. Have you been back to it?
SH: I have. Look [pages turning] I finished up in aviation [ ] I went for the day you see. I know, I know I was going to. My wife used to come —
Interviewer: Oh, so you flew today then.
SH: Yeah. I did a circuit. I went to Wickenby today and saw the gentleman there and he said, ‘Would you like to do a circuit?’ And I thought, I said, ‘You’re kidding.’ He said, ‘No.’ [laughs] And I didn’t know. He said, well, he’s got several microlights there. He’s got a school. He’s an instructor.
Interviewer: Sure.
SH: He said, ‘I’ll take you up.’ And we did about twenty minutes I should say.
Interviewer: Yeah.
SH: Half an hour. Yeah.
Interviewer: That was something.
SH: Yeah.
Interviewer: Because I haven’t actually seen the museum but they have got a lot of photos and things.
SH: Yeah.
Interviewer: And stories haven’t they?
SH: They have.
Interviewer: [unclear]
SH: I found my what do they call it?
Interviewer: Are you on your own today?
SH: Yeah. I am. What was the, not the instruction book. You know where you have to sign your crew and who you’re going with.
Interviewer: The 540. The Operational Record Book.
SH: Yeah. Yeah. I saw that. They’ve got that there.
Interviewer: Oh right.
SH: But they haven’t got, it’s incomplete because I was looking to [pause] I was looking to see the date of this but it’s not in there.
Interviewer: Right. Yeah. Well that would be a training flight so it wouldn’t be in the Operation Book.
SH: Probably not.
Interviewer: So that’s why you wouldn’t find it. Do you know what aircraft it was? What you were flying. What was the [626]. What was the [unclear] for that?
SH: I think it was PD, PD315 I think.
Interviewer: 315. And what [pause] lettering was it?
SH: I think, well I used to, I used to my name is Howes you see and the phonetic for H in those days was Howe.
Interviewer: Right.
SH: So I used to have H but I can’t remember if it was that but if you —
Interviewer: What was, what your [extension]
SH: UM.
Interviewer: UM.
SH: Yeah. UM H, but it was definitely UM was the squadron but I can’t think exactly but there’s a book with every Lancaster and what happened to it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
SH: My daughter bought me that years ago and it’s in there.
Interviewer: Yeah. I’ll have a look.
SH: It’s PD. PD something.
Interviewer: Yeah. And just one other thing. When you landed, you say your plane crashed close to you before you actually parachuted down. Did you go back and look at the Lancaster before they, or did you ever see it anymore?
SH: Yeah. Yeah. I went and had a look well I think I must have done. I’ll tell you why. Because I had the control. It was all battered you know. I had it for years and years and years and we’ve moved around a bit and I was working in Norfolk with a chap who set up the museum in [unclear] or somewhere and he pestered me and pestered me and I gave him lots of my stuff including my logbook which I shouldn’t have done and maps and he had this thing as well. So that’s [unclear] you know when you get to my age eighty two, I’m eighty two you see and you sort of look back and it had taken me sixty years to get there.
Interviewer: Lovely. That was very good.
SH: Thank you. Are you pleased with that?
Interviewer: I am. I’m very pleased with that and I’ll as I say the one of the obviously it must have come down with a right old [pause] the damage to it then you, did you go there then and pick it up?
SH: No. No. I was in such a ruddy state. No, because and I was worried about my crew, you know for the reasons that I mentioned.
Interviewer: But I’ll let Ian Blackmore know because he’s the Chairman of The Group [unclear] because when they dug it up not all that long ago [unclear] Lancaster recovery [unclear]
SH: Would it have been mine? Would it have been that one?
Interviewer: Yeah. It is. It’s that one down there. We virtually know where it, you know where it crashed.
SH: Right.
Interviewer: We’ll just check that.
SH: I’m the jigsaw now. Have I sort of completed it.
Interviewer: Yeah. You are. You are.
Collection
Citation
Roger Audis, “Interview with Stan Howes,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 20, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/52900.