Interview with Norman Sirman and Hugh Brewer
Title
Interview with Norman Sirman and Hugh Brewer
Description
Norman Sirman joined the RAF in 1941. He trained as an air frame mechanic and aircrew fitter in order to become a flight engineer. Norman was posted to 9 Squadron RAF Barney, in September 1943 and was part of the crew of Squadron Leader Ray Backwell-Smith, pilot, who was the flight commander of A-flight.
Norman went on leave on the 4th of March to get married. On his first operation back on 15th/16th March, his aircraft was shot down near Stuttgart. Norman tells how he left the plane and how he was treated differently depending to who was interacting with.
Norman talks about the Gestapo’s brutal treatment of both himself and various other prisoners he was held with. He also describes how Luftwaffe officers would actively intervene to support of RAF Airmen in the face of Gestapo opposition.
Norman remained in contact with Ray Backwell-Smith.
Norman went on leave on the 4th of March to get married. On his first operation back on 15th/16th March, his aircraft was shot down near Stuttgart. Norman tells how he left the plane and how he was treated differently depending to who was interacting with.
Norman talks about the Gestapo’s brutal treatment of both himself and various other prisoners he was held with. He also describes how Luftwaffe officers would actively intervene to support of RAF Airmen in the face of Gestapo opposition.
Norman remained in contact with Ray Backwell-Smith.
Creator
Date
2004-11-13
Language
Type
Format
00:21:13 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
ASirmanN-BrelnorH041113-0001, ASirmanN-BrelnorH041113-0002, ASirmanN-BrelnorH041113-0003, ASirmanN-BrelnorH041113-0004
Transcription
NS: [unclear] German night fighters.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. No. we never had that.
NS: Yeah. Well, we had a contact.
Interviewer: Yes.
NS: [unclear] stuck to us like glue.
Interviewer: Did he?
NS: [ ] cannon on his [unclear]
Interviewer: Canon.
NS: [unclear] and then he hit us with his —
Interviewer: Yes
NS: His two upward guns and canons all sticking out.
Interviewer: Angled were they?
NS: Angled with the controls [unclear].
Interviewer: Yeah. Yes.
NS: But he wasn’t credited with it because he didn’t see us go down in flames. I mean George went down in flames. He only got a possibility for it.
Interviewer: [unclear]
NS: He was positive but [unclear] in crew numbers [unclear] .
Interviewer: I’m going to change the [unclear] so if I put that a bit nearer can you go through when you, you know when you did you’re your training and then when you got to Bardney [unclear] please. So, this is Norman Sirman recorded on the 13th of November [1990. 2004.] It’s coming up to the Remembrance Service at Bardney. Right, Norman —
NS: Very briefly I went into the Service in ’41. Trained as an air frame mechanic and aircrew fitter which we had to do to become a flight engineer in those days [unclear]. A very extensive training but once I’d passed out I joined 9 Squadron in September ’43. I was a crew member of Squadron Leader Backwell-Smith who was flight commander of A, A-flight. After a number of operations I went on leave in the beginning of March ’44. I was married on the 4th of March. On the 15th 16th went back to base for my first raid. Shot down. [unclear] a JU88 north of Stuttgart. Eventually he hit us with his forward guns which killed a few members of the crew and I was hit in the thigh. After that he hit us with his upward firing cannon, guns that completely wrecked the controls of the aircraft. Got the immediate order for bale out. In those days the code was, ‘Abracadabra. Jump. Jump.’ The bomb aimer went out first. Normally I would go then but I wasn’t sure if Ray was alright to get out of his seat so that left the navigator with the crew and gave Ray his ‘chute and he gave the thumbs up to say he was ok. I then went to fall out the aircraft and doing so I hit my head as the aircraft jerked and I don’t remember anything, even pulling the rip cord until I hit the ground with a fairly hefty bump. I gathered my ‘chute together. Went to stand up. Found that I couldn’t. The ground went around and around. The next thing I knew someone was poking me and saying, ‘Raus,’ or something like that. If I remember rightly it was a German soldier telling me to get up, you know. Two local people helped me to get up and carried me to what was a railway cottage. The man worked on the railway and was a level crossing keeper. I was taken into the cottage there and very kindly helped me to bandage my leg. While we spoke [unclear] they dragged Ray Backwell-Smith, the skipper in. He was obviously very badly injured. His leg was being dragged along. They started giving him some aid when the door burst open and a chap with a long black mac came in. He turned out to be a Gestapo man. First thing he told me to stand up and then kicked Ray in the small of the back. I went to stop him doing a second one and he kicked me and I don’t remember anything else until I came too and a chap said that he was a French doctor and he was going to take the bullet out of my leg. He went to give me a local injection but this Gestapo chap smashed it out of his hand and jumped on it. They had to hold me down and take the bullet out without any medication. After that we were taken to part of the prison camp there, put in a small cell and after a day they brought Ray Backwell-Smith in and he had a plaster cast from his neck down to his thigh. He explained he’d been taken to a German hospital. They’d x-rayed him. He’d broke his back. I had my leg and stilts. A pair of stilts made. After two or three days I was taken out, came to this, this local lad was there. He freely gave me a couple of apples from his pockets. They immediately took those out, searched me. I was then taken to Gestapo Headquarters and thrown in a cell. A little bit of an unsavoury bit but we were in cages and there was a girl in a cage next to me on one side and a man on the other side. He’d been badly beaten, his hands burned [unclear] raw meat. They’d done terrible things to this girl. Raped her. Eventually put a hosepipe in, turned the tap on and [unclear] The next day I tried to help the young man in the next cage push his food, which wasn’t much to the bars near me and I was trying to feed him. Every time I did that I got beaten up for doing it. After a day or two he was hung from the hook on the ceiling with his toes just touching the ground. Eventually he choaked to death. Because I had struggled with one of the guards I was told I was going to be hung the next day. That following morning I was taken up to an office upstairs where a very smart Gestapo man said I had assaulted a German officer and therefore I was going to be hung. And at that time the door burst open and a German Luftwaffe officer came in and I’ve never heard two men argue like it in my life. They were thumping the table. Eventually the Luftwaffe officer stormed out, came back with two German airmen and they carried me to the car. I was in a filthy state because they wouldn’t let us take our clothes off or anything in the cells. A rather funny thing did happen there. I did say to the German Luftwaffe officer that I was making a mess of his seats and his expression was, ‘As you RAF men would say, “F’ck my seats.”’ And he took me to their base where I was taken to the sick quarters and the biggest nurse I’ve ever seen in my life stripped me off, lifted me up, put me in a bath changed the water put me in another bath and laid me down on my face and rubbed the areas where I’d been beaten. Her fingers were like feathers [unclear]. After a day or two I was taken to the German commandant’s office who said that I was given a parole. I would be locked up at night but no guard. I said I couldn’t do that. He said, ‘Well, you’ll be locked up. But at mealtimes if you are taken to the Aircrew Mess if you give me your word as a gentleman you wouldn’t try to escape.’ I couldn’t have done in any case because my leg was very weak. My leg [and that] and for a few days I ate with the German aircrew. They never asked me any questions they shouldn’t. They showed me pictures of their wives and children, girlfriends. And after a while I was taken from there and taken to the Dulag Luft for interrogation and through the normal POW procedure. [unclear]
Interviewer: Yeah.
NS: Is that alright?
Interviewer: Was it [pause] you were saying about the unpleasant stuff. You were talking about —
NS: Well, I was talking about —
Interviewer: Talking about the aircraft which had a twenty one pound gun. You’ve done that? Sorry.
NS: No. No, I was just going to say —
Interviewer: If you could just basically go on to —
NS: Just before we went off on leave we took off, we took over an aircraft that had just been delivered to the Squadron with a Mark 24, Rolls Royce engine in which gave us eighteen pounds of boost instead of fourteen. I’ve since found out that it was the first one delivered to the squadron with conversion for the Tirpitz raid. We took it out on a raid the beginning of March. On the 14th 15th we took it out a second time and that was when we were shot down and lost it.
Interviewer: You were in A flight.
NS: A-Flight. Ray Backwell-Smith was A-Flight commander.
Interviewer: And they went on to something you knew basically [unclear]
NS: Yes, I flew with Ray quite a lot. Several times he was in conversation with crew [unclear] and found him remarkably [unclear] No side to him at all.
Interviewer: And did Blackwell-Smith, did he, did he like meet up with the CO, etcetera and come back and join with the Officer’s Mess or —
NS: Yes. They, they seemed to have a lot of common interest formed before the war when they were at Cranwell. They had lots in common in the Service before the war.
Interviewer: Do you remember any of the ground crew?
NS: Not by name.
Interviewer: What about like in the evenings? What did you do? [pause] Did you go out at all?
NS: Well, we went out. Ray had a very nice way about him. When we crewed up he said he’d got three hats to wear around the squadron. One that he was flight commander and was respected as such. When we were flying he was skipper and when we were out for a beer he was Ray as it were. We got on remarkably well. One thing about him. When they took me away from the cell that we were both laying in he was in the master cast we shook hands and he said to me, ‘Sirman, remember you’re an Englishman.’ Many many years later when he was very sick with cancer of the spine I asked him did he remember saying that? He said, ‘My God I must have been a pompous bastard.’ [laughs] he couldn’t remember it at all.
Interviewer: So when, did you go to Bardney or would you go into Lincoln?
NS: Well, sometimes down to the Jolly Tailor. Sometimes we’d have a cycle ride to one or two of the other and switch the pubs other village pubs or we’d go into Boston or Lincoln.
Interviewer: And did the skipper come around?
NS: He came out with us quite a lot. We got on. As a crew we got on remarkably well together. The rear gunner was a, well the second rear gunner was an Australian. The bomb aimer was [unclear]. We got on remarkably well together.
Interviewer: And did you, did you all eat in the same place? [unclear] he was an officer. So you would be in the Sergeant’s Mess.
NS: We ate in the Sergeant’s Mess and Ray and the navigator who was a flying officer [unclear]
Interviewer: When you went into the Sergeant’s Mess was there a different layout as you went in?
NS: As you went in at the right-hand side was the bar and the lounge.
Interviewer: [unclear]
NS: The bar was quite a reasonable size. I don’t know much about the other layout.
Interviewer: When you say a reasonable size.
NS: It was bigger than this. You had a bar in there.
Interviewer: Right.
NS: [unclear] 9 Squadron.
[background conversation]
It’s colder here than at home isn’t it?
Other: Outside?
HB: Yeah.
Other: Well, it might be like this at home for all you know.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
Other: Am I alright to join you?
Interviewer: Of course you are.
[recording paused]
HB: The bomb bay like that. Taxiing in. You opened the bomb doors or something like that taxiing in [unclear] so I just said, ‘Well, I’ll shut up.’ There were a couple coming in. Did you open the bomb doors?
NS: The new Air Ministry order came out that you weren’t allowed to open the bomb doors on dispersal.
HB: Yeah. That’s right. You had [unclear]
NS: You waited for the ground staff to step in.
HB: Oh no. Well, we —
NS: The first night after instruction —
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
NS: The order came back.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
NS: You could open the bomb doors.
HB: Yeah.
NS: And before you could [unclear] the word had got back to him when he came in [unclear]
[unclear] another way of taxiing in. He was left behind.
NS: [unclear]
HB: [unclear]
NS: The instruction was you weren’t allowed to. The ground staff had to search.
HB: Yeah.
NS: Shine a torch through the inspection hatch.
HB: [unclear]
NS: This guy here said to him. He said ‘Oh, it’s for you [unclear].’ I said, ‘What is it?’ Mr Ward Deceased. I said, ‘You what?’ Anyway, ‘It says Mr Ward deceased here. He said you’ve got [unclear] I said, ‘Are you with [9] Squadron?’ He said, ‘Yes, I’m with Bader.’ I said, ‘Gosh, you know I’ve waited nineteen years for a telephone line [to heaven] and now I’ve got it.’ So anyway, he didn’t laugh and then he said, ‘Where did you [unclear] to die.’ I said, [unclear] the obituary. [unclear] usually the obituary is the last thing. [unclear] I’ve moved house for the last time. ‘ve moved house to be nearer to the children. He said, ‘I’ve got to clamp down. I’m dead. [unclear] I’m sorry about that. You’ll have to ring and tell them you’re not dead.’ [unclear] Anyway, I’ll give you a little story about Bader. He said, ‘I’m sure you, surely you would have known about [unclear].’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, 'Well, I was the one who, I was going along the runway and the undercarriage went. [unclear] straight up off the runway. It all died out. Taking off the bomb load went. [unclear] blew up. Fires started everywhere, all over the place, went into the bomb dump. [unclear] into the bomb dump. Puts that out. The rest of the operation was cancelled. Scrubbed out. Then the next day the airfield was closed until every part of the runway and peritrack had been warped including [unclear]
[unclear]
Other: We don’t know that part of the world very well.
[unclear]
Other 2: Yeah. My boys would do that. I live this side of it. If I go down to mum and dad’s I go past the NEC and the airport. I actually think it’s Junction 10 I’m [unclear] places at the end. Yes. About [unclear] the NEC to start with so I’m on the right side for coming up here.
Other: Have you got roadworks further down? [unclear]
Other 2: Where the M6 [unclear] Yeah, but the roadworks are still on the M42. Everytime I go down to mum and dad’s I sit. As soon as you hit the M42. I know there are no speed cameras and all these things, you know fifty miles an hour.
Other: You were averaging about ten.
Other 2: Yeah. There’s a lot on at the NEC and I think there’s something going on at the motorcycle museum as well which is —
Other: We had the radio on and we eventually heard unclear] and they said that they said there were things on at the NEC and there was a build up in both directions [unclear]
Other 2: You’re too late at that stage to do much about it.
Other: I mean it could be worse.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. No. we never had that.
NS: Yeah. Well, we had a contact.
Interviewer: Yes.
NS: [unclear] stuck to us like glue.
Interviewer: Did he?
NS: [ ] cannon on his [unclear]
Interviewer: Canon.
NS: [unclear] and then he hit us with his —
Interviewer: Yes
NS: His two upward guns and canons all sticking out.
Interviewer: Angled were they?
NS: Angled with the controls [unclear].
Interviewer: Yeah. Yes.
NS: But he wasn’t credited with it because he didn’t see us go down in flames. I mean George went down in flames. He only got a possibility for it.
Interviewer: [unclear]
NS: He was positive but [unclear] in crew numbers [unclear] .
Interviewer: I’m going to change the [unclear] so if I put that a bit nearer can you go through when you, you know when you did you’re your training and then when you got to Bardney [unclear] please. So, this is Norman Sirman recorded on the 13th of November [1990. 2004.] It’s coming up to the Remembrance Service at Bardney. Right, Norman —
NS: Very briefly I went into the Service in ’41. Trained as an air frame mechanic and aircrew fitter which we had to do to become a flight engineer in those days [unclear]. A very extensive training but once I’d passed out I joined 9 Squadron in September ’43. I was a crew member of Squadron Leader Backwell-Smith who was flight commander of A, A-flight. After a number of operations I went on leave in the beginning of March ’44. I was married on the 4th of March. On the 15th 16th went back to base for my first raid. Shot down. [unclear] a JU88 north of Stuttgart. Eventually he hit us with his forward guns which killed a few members of the crew and I was hit in the thigh. After that he hit us with his upward firing cannon, guns that completely wrecked the controls of the aircraft. Got the immediate order for bale out. In those days the code was, ‘Abracadabra. Jump. Jump.’ The bomb aimer went out first. Normally I would go then but I wasn’t sure if Ray was alright to get out of his seat so that left the navigator with the crew and gave Ray his ‘chute and he gave the thumbs up to say he was ok. I then went to fall out the aircraft and doing so I hit my head as the aircraft jerked and I don’t remember anything, even pulling the rip cord until I hit the ground with a fairly hefty bump. I gathered my ‘chute together. Went to stand up. Found that I couldn’t. The ground went around and around. The next thing I knew someone was poking me and saying, ‘Raus,’ or something like that. If I remember rightly it was a German soldier telling me to get up, you know. Two local people helped me to get up and carried me to what was a railway cottage. The man worked on the railway and was a level crossing keeper. I was taken into the cottage there and very kindly helped me to bandage my leg. While we spoke [unclear] they dragged Ray Backwell-Smith, the skipper in. He was obviously very badly injured. His leg was being dragged along. They started giving him some aid when the door burst open and a chap with a long black mac came in. He turned out to be a Gestapo man. First thing he told me to stand up and then kicked Ray in the small of the back. I went to stop him doing a second one and he kicked me and I don’t remember anything else until I came too and a chap said that he was a French doctor and he was going to take the bullet out of my leg. He went to give me a local injection but this Gestapo chap smashed it out of his hand and jumped on it. They had to hold me down and take the bullet out without any medication. After that we were taken to part of the prison camp there, put in a small cell and after a day they brought Ray Backwell-Smith in and he had a plaster cast from his neck down to his thigh. He explained he’d been taken to a German hospital. They’d x-rayed him. He’d broke his back. I had my leg and stilts. A pair of stilts made. After two or three days I was taken out, came to this, this local lad was there. He freely gave me a couple of apples from his pockets. They immediately took those out, searched me. I was then taken to Gestapo Headquarters and thrown in a cell. A little bit of an unsavoury bit but we were in cages and there was a girl in a cage next to me on one side and a man on the other side. He’d been badly beaten, his hands burned [unclear] raw meat. They’d done terrible things to this girl. Raped her. Eventually put a hosepipe in, turned the tap on and [unclear] The next day I tried to help the young man in the next cage push his food, which wasn’t much to the bars near me and I was trying to feed him. Every time I did that I got beaten up for doing it. After a day or two he was hung from the hook on the ceiling with his toes just touching the ground. Eventually he choaked to death. Because I had struggled with one of the guards I was told I was going to be hung the next day. That following morning I was taken up to an office upstairs where a very smart Gestapo man said I had assaulted a German officer and therefore I was going to be hung. And at that time the door burst open and a German Luftwaffe officer came in and I’ve never heard two men argue like it in my life. They were thumping the table. Eventually the Luftwaffe officer stormed out, came back with two German airmen and they carried me to the car. I was in a filthy state because they wouldn’t let us take our clothes off or anything in the cells. A rather funny thing did happen there. I did say to the German Luftwaffe officer that I was making a mess of his seats and his expression was, ‘As you RAF men would say, “F’ck my seats.”’ And he took me to their base where I was taken to the sick quarters and the biggest nurse I’ve ever seen in my life stripped me off, lifted me up, put me in a bath changed the water put me in another bath and laid me down on my face and rubbed the areas where I’d been beaten. Her fingers were like feathers [unclear]. After a day or two I was taken to the German commandant’s office who said that I was given a parole. I would be locked up at night but no guard. I said I couldn’t do that. He said, ‘Well, you’ll be locked up. But at mealtimes if you are taken to the Aircrew Mess if you give me your word as a gentleman you wouldn’t try to escape.’ I couldn’t have done in any case because my leg was very weak. My leg [and that] and for a few days I ate with the German aircrew. They never asked me any questions they shouldn’t. They showed me pictures of their wives and children, girlfriends. And after a while I was taken from there and taken to the Dulag Luft for interrogation and through the normal POW procedure. [unclear]
Interviewer: Yeah.
NS: Is that alright?
Interviewer: Was it [pause] you were saying about the unpleasant stuff. You were talking about —
NS: Well, I was talking about —
Interviewer: Talking about the aircraft which had a twenty one pound gun. You’ve done that? Sorry.
NS: No. No, I was just going to say —
Interviewer: If you could just basically go on to —
NS: Just before we went off on leave we took off, we took over an aircraft that had just been delivered to the Squadron with a Mark 24, Rolls Royce engine in which gave us eighteen pounds of boost instead of fourteen. I’ve since found out that it was the first one delivered to the squadron with conversion for the Tirpitz raid. We took it out on a raid the beginning of March. On the 14th 15th we took it out a second time and that was when we were shot down and lost it.
Interviewer: You were in A flight.
NS: A-Flight. Ray Backwell-Smith was A-Flight commander.
Interviewer: And they went on to something you knew basically [unclear]
NS: Yes, I flew with Ray quite a lot. Several times he was in conversation with crew [unclear] and found him remarkably [unclear] No side to him at all.
Interviewer: And did Blackwell-Smith, did he, did he like meet up with the CO, etcetera and come back and join with the Officer’s Mess or —
NS: Yes. They, they seemed to have a lot of common interest formed before the war when they were at Cranwell. They had lots in common in the Service before the war.
Interviewer: Do you remember any of the ground crew?
NS: Not by name.
Interviewer: What about like in the evenings? What did you do? [pause] Did you go out at all?
NS: Well, we went out. Ray had a very nice way about him. When we crewed up he said he’d got three hats to wear around the squadron. One that he was flight commander and was respected as such. When we were flying he was skipper and when we were out for a beer he was Ray as it were. We got on remarkably well. One thing about him. When they took me away from the cell that we were both laying in he was in the master cast we shook hands and he said to me, ‘Sirman, remember you’re an Englishman.’ Many many years later when he was very sick with cancer of the spine I asked him did he remember saying that? He said, ‘My God I must have been a pompous bastard.’ [laughs] he couldn’t remember it at all.
Interviewer: So when, did you go to Bardney or would you go into Lincoln?
NS: Well, sometimes down to the Jolly Tailor. Sometimes we’d have a cycle ride to one or two of the other and switch the pubs other village pubs or we’d go into Boston or Lincoln.
Interviewer: And did the skipper come around?
NS: He came out with us quite a lot. We got on. As a crew we got on remarkably well together. The rear gunner was a, well the second rear gunner was an Australian. The bomb aimer was [unclear]. We got on remarkably well together.
Interviewer: And did you, did you all eat in the same place? [unclear] he was an officer. So you would be in the Sergeant’s Mess.
NS: We ate in the Sergeant’s Mess and Ray and the navigator who was a flying officer [unclear]
Interviewer: When you went into the Sergeant’s Mess was there a different layout as you went in?
NS: As you went in at the right-hand side was the bar and the lounge.
Interviewer: [unclear]
NS: The bar was quite a reasonable size. I don’t know much about the other layout.
Interviewer: When you say a reasonable size.
NS: It was bigger than this. You had a bar in there.
Interviewer: Right.
NS: [unclear] 9 Squadron.
[background conversation]
It’s colder here than at home isn’t it?
Other: Outside?
HB: Yeah.
Other: Well, it might be like this at home for all you know.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
Other: Am I alright to join you?
Interviewer: Of course you are.
[recording paused]
HB: The bomb bay like that. Taxiing in. You opened the bomb doors or something like that taxiing in [unclear] so I just said, ‘Well, I’ll shut up.’ There were a couple coming in. Did you open the bomb doors?
NS: The new Air Ministry order came out that you weren’t allowed to open the bomb doors on dispersal.
HB: Yeah. That’s right. You had [unclear]
NS: You waited for the ground staff to step in.
HB: Oh no. Well, we —
NS: The first night after instruction —
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
NS: The order came back.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
NS: You could open the bomb doors.
HB: Yeah.
NS: And before you could [unclear] the word had got back to him when he came in [unclear]
[unclear] another way of taxiing in. He was left behind.
NS: [unclear]
HB: [unclear]
NS: The instruction was you weren’t allowed to. The ground staff had to search.
HB: Yeah.
NS: Shine a torch through the inspection hatch.
HB: [unclear]
NS: This guy here said to him. He said ‘Oh, it’s for you [unclear].’ I said, ‘What is it?’ Mr Ward Deceased. I said, ‘You what?’ Anyway, ‘It says Mr Ward deceased here. He said you’ve got [unclear] I said, ‘Are you with [9] Squadron?’ He said, ‘Yes, I’m with Bader.’ I said, ‘Gosh, you know I’ve waited nineteen years for a telephone line [to heaven] and now I’ve got it.’ So anyway, he didn’t laugh and then he said, ‘Where did you [unclear] to die.’ I said, [unclear] the obituary. [unclear] usually the obituary is the last thing. [unclear] I’ve moved house for the last time. ‘ve moved house to be nearer to the children. He said, ‘I’ve got to clamp down. I’m dead. [unclear] I’m sorry about that. You’ll have to ring and tell them you’re not dead.’ [unclear] Anyway, I’ll give you a little story about Bader. He said, ‘I’m sure you, surely you would have known about [unclear].’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, 'Well, I was the one who, I was going along the runway and the undercarriage went. [unclear] straight up off the runway. It all died out. Taking off the bomb load went. [unclear] blew up. Fires started everywhere, all over the place, went into the bomb dump. [unclear] into the bomb dump. Puts that out. The rest of the operation was cancelled. Scrubbed out. Then the next day the airfield was closed until every part of the runway and peritrack had been warped including [unclear]
[unclear]
Other: We don’t know that part of the world very well.
[unclear]
Other 2: Yeah. My boys would do that. I live this side of it. If I go down to mum and dad’s I go past the NEC and the airport. I actually think it’s Junction 10 I’m [unclear] places at the end. Yes. About [unclear] the NEC to start with so I’m on the right side for coming up here.
Other: Have you got roadworks further down? [unclear]
Other 2: Where the M6 [unclear] Yeah, but the roadworks are still on the M42. Everytime I go down to mum and dad’s I sit. As soon as you hit the M42. I know there are no speed cameras and all these things, you know fifty miles an hour.
Other: You were averaging about ten.
Other 2: Yeah. There’s a lot on at the NEC and I think there’s something going on at the motorcycle museum as well which is —
Other: We had the radio on and we eventually heard unclear] and they said that they said there were things on at the NEC and there was a build up in both directions [unclear]
Other 2: You’re too late at that stage to do much about it.
Other: I mean it could be worse.
Collection
Citation
Roger Audis, “Interview with Norman Sirman and Hugh Brewer,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed July 21, 2026, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/52905.