Interview with R Knowles

Interview with R Knowles

R Knowles served with 640 Squadron at RAF Leconfield. As bomb aimer he had to deal with at least two remaining hang ups in the bomb bay. When they missed a Group message telling them not to return to base but to divert due to fog they insisted on landing at their base because they had no fuel despite the weather conditions.

01:10:13 audio recording

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AKnowlesRA950911

Interviewer: Ok. Now, we’ll just sort of, we’ll just have a chat.
RK: Yeah. Well, that one, it was a normal briefing. Gun positions on Walcheren’s Kapelle. Normal briefings. We were going in pretty, pretty low. The briefing was I think about four or five thousand and —
Interviewer: Was there a particular reason for that Arthur? Just as a matter of curiosity.
RK: No. Not really. It was just I think with it being a smallish target at the time, the same day there must have been about eleven ops planned for various targets on Walcheren Island. I know that but we were allotted these gun positions at Kapelle and we took off from that normal briefing. We were in front of the squadron and it was only about our fourth op I think. Fourth or fifth op. Yeah, and we got there, started letting down to the height that the Met said cloud base would be. I got down to four thou, four thousand. Still no deck. I couldn’t see the deck so Bill decided to drop his flaps so that we shouldn’t overrun the target. Being in the lead of the gaggle we didn’t want to overrun the target. So he dropped his flaps, undercarriage and slowed us down a bit. Still no sight of the deck. We broke cloud at two thousand feet, just under two thousand feet and as soon as we broke cloud all hell let loose and hit us.
Interviewer: You would be in the nose by this time of course.
RK: That’s right. I was down looking. All set up ready for bombing at four thousand. Four or five thousand. I forget the height but I’m sure it was about four or five thousand feet to bomb. Anyway, we got through the cloud, got smacked and I think it was, I’m not sure. It changes. I couldn’t get that exact, it was always changing. I’ve got a write up of that job there. Anyway, to cut a long story short, a long story short we were then being hammered by light flak. Twenty millimetres stuff and machine guns. We got further damage so I quickly said to Bill, right he was trying to pull his undercart up and flaps up. He had a bit of speed on, ‘Are you going to jettison or go around?’ I shouted.
Interviewer: Were you actually on, when you actually came on —
RK: We were on the run.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: I’d picked the target up and we decided to go around. Go around again. We thought well afterwards like we discussed it afterwards and said what’s the use taking bombs if you don’t crack them with them like. Fair enough. So there we went out to sea, around again. By this time the rest of the lads had gone through and of course we were quite a distance in front of them and I believe, you might check this but I believe the wireless op gave them the cloud base so that they would know that. That might have been when they hit us because as soon as he put the key down they got us actually and —
Interviewer: That was when the, one of the engines was hit.
RK: That’s right and anyway we came in again and by this time I asked Bill, ‘Are you ok?’ ‘Yeah. Alright.’ He was rattling the gates, set up now for the run like. I kept him out until I’d got my sights altered on the bombsight computer. You know, the Mark 14 had that all set up running expecting some more flak because the lads had gone through hoping the clouds would open up. We went in and got it again. I thought one gun was left so I run onto that. Went on it and we bounced a bit [unclear] because we were about eighteen hundred feet and took off. Come back. Then we found out we’d got a bit of a fire in the top of the Gee box.
Interviewer: This was on the way back.
RK: On the way back, yeah and we put that out and they sorted themselves out because I think on the, not on the kite, the rest of the squadron thought we’d gone in. When we did get back finally and land we were reported as missing you know on the board. You know what I mean. The record board. Posted as missing. Over twenty minutes late you’re knocked off the board and this sort of thing. We were about half an hour late but we got back alright flying low that day and the most amusing part of that was when the signals officer who was a new bod on the squadron at the time, flight lieutenant signalling officer wrote the wireless op for using a fire extinguisher on the Gee box. So, Bill, of course, Bill Goodrum heard about this, marched straight to this signalling officer and really tore him a strip off, ‘What the bloody hell do you think we were going to do when we were on fire, three engines and all the damage? What were we going to do.’ So he just went down like a balloon, the signals officer.
Interviewer: When you, I understand there were a couple of hundred aircraft on this —
RK: That’s right.
Interviewer: Particular raid, Arthur. So does that mean that there was a possibility of a couple of hundred aircraft sort of descending through cloud together?
RK: That’s right.
Interviewer: Wouldn’t that be a bit dodgy? Did you not have any reservations about that?
RK: It was if they kept their course all right fair enough it was a bit dodgy but the Met boobed you see. That was the trouble. The Met had boobed with the cloud base.
Interviewer: They said it was going to be higher.
RK: We came in above the cloud you see. It was low cloud. It was stratus which was, well it could be anything from a thousand feet thick to ten thousand feet thick. So on the briefed point the, to start this engine we thought we would be nicely down to bombing height run in below cloud. It didn’t work like that. We nearly overshot it. That was the whole mess up. That’s all.
Interviewer: Yeah. When you, when you came out of the cloud I think according to Rosie anyways as you came out of the cloud one of the engines was hit.
RK: That’s right. Straightaway.
Interviewer: Bill Goodrum had some difficulty sort of regaining control of that.
RK: Did he? Knocked us off. Chucked us over.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: I’ll tell you which [unclear] that —
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: Recommendations and what have you for DFCs like from [Graves] the station commander and what have you. They put that as that Kapelle job. This is the one. A port inner engine.
Interviewer: Right.
RK: We’ve got here.
Interviewer: Yes.
Interviewer: Could I —
RK: The aircraft lost height to two thousand feet.
Interviewer: Yes. Yeah. Could I just sort of read that into here, Arthur.
RK: You can have it.
Interviewer: Oh right.
RK: I’ve got two here.
Interviewer: I can let you have it back of course once you—
RK: That is the list of our ops.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: Our crew’s ops.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: You can have that.
Interviewer: Oh excellent. Thanks.
RK: That’s because I’ve got another here.
Interviewer: Yeah. I could, I could always take a copy at home and send you the main one back of course if you want —
RK: You can have it.
Interviewer: Ok.
RK: I’ve got two of those.
Interviewer: Yeah. Lovely. Thanks very much.
RK: That, that was the op, sorted out the recommendation like.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: Same with Bill. I think Bill must have one of these similar. Similar worded.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: I stuck them, I stuck them together to read them. That’s it. From the air vice marshal of the Group, number 4. That was the wing, that was Waterhouse who was on the —
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: 640 Squadron.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: Board.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: I’ve never seen him yet.
Interviewer: I’ve seen photographs of him.
RK: Not since we were on the squadron.
Interviewer: Oh, I see. Yeah.
RK: I’m talking about like.
Interviewer: Yeah. I understand he’s still alive.
RK: Oh yeah. I don’t know what his health is like but he’s quite good. He was quite good. A [unclear] chap you know and a rugby man. A good lad. We all liked him. That’s it. I’ll tell you what. You’ve got the lot with one of these. You can have that [pause] ops. That’s the ops our crew did.
Interviewer: Right. Good. Yeah. Yeah. So when [pause] when —
RK: Getting back to that other one you’ve had a word with Rosie. Did he tell that they were getting prepared for ditching?
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: That’s alright.
Interviewer: Yeah. You said, you said that Bill Goodrum had shouted, ‘Dinghy. Dinghy.’
RK: That’s right. Get ready.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: He didn’t actually give us the word dinghy but I said, ‘Hang on, are we going to have another crack or are we jettisoning and getting out of it,’ Like you know. That’s what I —
Interviewer: Actually, when [pause] yes.
RK: Bill said, ‘We’ll have another go,’ you know. I got down and got set for another go.
Interviewer: Yeah. When the, when the port engine was hit Rosie seemed to think that there was a possibility that it might have been.
RK: That’s right.
Interviewer: That’s why Bill —
RK: Yes.
Interviewer: So did you sort of try and help Bill Goodrum —
RK: Yeah.
Interviewer: To get out then or did you stay where you were waiting for him to tell you —
RK: I checked he was ok. I went back out of the way, a couple of yards away.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: In the nose. Went back, jumped up. Oh aye. He put his thumb up so I got down again.
Interviewer: Right. Right.
RK: Went back to the mark again. Asked him were we going in, going around again.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: Yeah.
Interviewer: So, how did that, how did that take you then? The idea of going around again when folks are shooting at you and you were going to go around rather than —
RK: Well, that’s the job [laughs] isn’t it? That’s —
Interviewer: That sounds a bit dangerous to me. Well, actually more dangerous than usual really.
RK: Well, I could see it. Moreso than the others because I’m looking down at it all the time but it didn’t bother me. It didn’t me at the time and it never did because the top crew and I thought our crew was one of the top crews on that squadron, Bill was an exceptional pilot. He never let us down and none of our lads ever let us down at all. They all did their job. A smashing set of lads. We all got on together. For instance, last year at the Association meeting a bloke came up to me. He said, ‘You’re Arthur Knowles aren’t you?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Bill Goodrum’s crew.’ ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Everybody knows your crew,’ he said, ‘Because you were always laughing and joking together. You were always all together.’ We were. We went out together when we were stood down and all that and he said, ‘Everybody thought you were not like some long faces down here.’ Well, it’s on the board. Ruhr again. Ruhr again. Ruhr, you know. But it didn’t bother us.
Interviewer: Yeah. What was the secret of the laughs and the jokes then?
RK: Well, the wireless operator or the —
Interviewer: The navi.
RK: The navi. He just moved down to what’s its name. Norfolk. He just moved down to Norfolk. I would be working the Gee sets getting Larry a fix. I used to get all Larry’s fixes, radar fixes whilst we were going in and when I’d done with Bill and we’d get fixes like. Suddenly a fist would fly through [unclear] knocked my oxygen mask off. The wireless op sat that side of the nav table here. The navigator, me, the wireless op on the far end. That sort of thing you know. He was a comic. A real comic. When you went outside into Beverley or anything like that we’d go and have a jar or two you know. I’d known him in Hull. I’d been to Hull and come back and we’d been trying to catch a bus in Hull back up to Beverley and he’d walk up to people and say, ‘Can you tell me where I can get a number bus.’ Naturally what do you say? ‘What number do you want?’ ‘Just a number bus.’ They’d look at him but you know. Oh aye.
Interviewer: Would you say, would you say that [unclear] Kapelle, going back to operations would you say that was the worst operation you had then, Arthur?
RK: It was the worst one we got, the worst damage we got but I don’t know. It didn’t worry me at all because as I say I had got faith in Bill pulling it out when we sort of did a dive in. It looked a bit dodgy the wintertime. The sea was rough. It was what we would call the [unclear] the North Sea always did.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
RK: It’s the coldest sea in the world.
Interviewer: Yeah. I don’t think, I don’t think the temperature shifts more than a half degree between summer and winter.
RK: I think Reg and Rosie panicked more. Had a bit of panic then. I think they had a bit of a panic but they got ready for ditching which was their job to do. I was all for having a go at those sods that were —
Interviewer: So could you see?
RK: Shoot at them.
Interviewer: Could you see them then?
RK: Yeah.
Interviewer: Because you knew –
RK: I saw the flashes. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: And I saw the, as soon as we broke cloud I was down. Thump. I heard it hit the engine. I told Bill, ‘Bill, they’re hitting us, Bill.’ It was light flak. I told him what it was.
Interviewer: Yeah. I understand that that twenty millimetre light flak was really quite vicious wasn’t it?
RK: It is. Yeah. Aye. Oh aye. It could [pause] Particularly if you got the high explosive ones. The big stick. [unclear] Armour piercing. Just like the 303s we had on our belts. Incendiaries. Just a mix but the, if the high explosives hit you that was nasty. Quite nasty.
Interviewer: I think towards around about the middle of your tour did you switch from night operations to day operations?
RK: We did.
Interviewer: Did that make a difference to you?
RK: No.
Interviewer: Did it change your perceptions at all?
RK: Well, night as opposed to day they were longer flights because you dog legged all over to evade the fighter screens. You’d feint, say you went to the Ruhr you’d feint up north and of course where the winds were where you were going to attack you’d do probably a ninety degree [unclear] you see. Their fighters would already be drawn up because as you know Holland and the North German Coast that’s where the main fighter opposition was to stop you getting in like and then track you as you were going either as you were going in but we saw very few fighters. We were, might have been lucky. I don’t know. We were never attacked really by a fighter. We never, we never [pause] once it was another daylight mind this on Soesterberg.
Interviewer: The airfield.
RK: That’s an airfield in Holland which was a big fighter ‘drome. Their front-line fighter ‘drome. We were briefed to attack that. About two hundred and fifty on that. We went in again and by this time we were, Bill was a flight leader. Of course we were at the front and we used to take off, do our [unclear] over Flamborough from [unclear] come back and the rest of the lads would come up and formate on you. A loose gaggle again. We’d go down England whatever else was on the raid would formate on you until you got your gaggle, you know divided into timings. You had a minute either side the target. That was your time you got for your bombing. You had to keep to that time otherwise it [unclear] Well, this time everything went alright until we were going in and then lined up perfect. A bit of flak. Not a lot. A bit of flak. Dodged a bit, run in again. Bomb doors open. I had a light you see that denoted the bombs had gone [unclear] until so I could have dropped them and smashed through the bomb load because they were only on light, on light hinges you know. And the [clothes] were snapping up on sort of an elastic lever. So, I told Bill like [I haven’t got that quite right] get around again,’ and I said, ‘I’ll try and open —’ To get to your bombs there was like portholes above [unclear] above the bombs. About nine in the belly. So I got in, told the flight engineer, right try your best to get those portholes and get the bomb doors open.’ Meanwhile, Bill is trying [unclear] went down and again we were last then of course. The target, [unclear] perfect target then. Smoke had cleared, they had pasted it, the run up [unclear] not another kite in sight. A beautiful day it was and on the run in I thought I’d get a smashing photograph of this. Right. Bombed ok. No flak. Nothing. Told the lads to look out for fighters because we were on our own. Turned off. Come back. Shout from Reggie in the back, the rear gunner, ‘Single engine coming.’ Ok. Spitfire. That Spit kept with us right to the coast and that well a couple of miles out of the coast. Waggled his wings, put his hand up and left. But we never saw a thing but that was a bit dodgy because you were expecting —
Interviewer: Yes. Yeah.
RK: Something on your own I think. Moreso than to me, more than the [Walcheren] Island was. Aye.
Interviewer: I was looking at a photograph of the, a bombing photograph of the, the Walcheren one and someone was on about it and eventually you twigged instead of being a perpendicular shot it’s probably somewhere around about thirty to forty five degrees. So was it, it must have been did you bank away rather swiftly once you’d —
RK: As soon as I said, ‘Bombs gone,’ off he went. He should actually have kept for about ten seconds straight and level after I said, ‘Bombs gone.’ That gives you what you called your aiming point photograph. The centre overlaps. The centre one should be where the bombs would be but after being belted the first time in we didn’t want a second lot and actually they didn’t give us any more on the second run in on the Walcheren Island one. I went back the next day to Walcheren on the —
Interviewer: [Zoutelande]?
RK: [Zoutelande] yeah. That was —
Interviewer: Did you have any reservations about that then? After going back almost to the second —
RK: No, because let’s face it we’d only done about four then. I’m sure it was.
Interviewer: I thought it was a rather exciting time the day before you might have thought no I don’t fancy —
RK: A talking point that one of course because they thought we’d gone in.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: The rest of the squadron thought we’d gone in and we were [pause] several crews had thought we’d gone in. Going in now like, you know. So —
Interviewer: Did you spend a lot of time going around for a second go then because I mean you went —
RK: No. That’s only two. Only two we did I think. What we shouldn’t have done at all hanging about unless we had to, you know. But that one the bomb doors held us up so [pause] and I think now there was one we went on [pause] we missed a, I don’t know which one it was now. Around about mid-tour and it was a daylight. Somewhere [unclear] probably.
Interviewer: [unclear]
RK: Might have been [unclear] [pause] Oh, well we came back. We missed it. We missed the Group message. It was broadcast every hour. Every twenty minutes past the hour. Change it. You’d change the frequency like and if there was any change in ops or anything like that you got it in cycle. The wireless op recorded it and let us know what it was. This time it was land away. Land down Norfolk somewhere. We didn’t get that for some reason or other. I don’t know why we didn’t get that. I forget now. We come back to base. Fogged up. You know how frets get up on the coast. Fogged up. Bill asked them to fire the drem lights up. That’s they give you the head of the runway and from that you know which runway you are using. You can go on normal approach between these lights and then you start worrying about twenty feet from the deck like, can you see sort of thing. That’s when I start looking. We went down alright. Oh, they said, ‘No. Divert. Divert down to Scampton, Lincolnshire.’ ‘No we’ve not got enough juice.’ They only give you twenty minutes, half an hour juice going in and out and he said, ‘No. We’re landing here. We’re short of juice.’ We had a bit of an argument with the control tower. So we were coming in anyway. So, I lined them to check. Called them up. We got Gee max, which were quite good the Gee by this time. Gee was pretty good for fixing particularly closer to our coast. I was, lined him up, stoved him up, keep that course. Flew that course al right through until we got we just saw the Humber for a fleeting moment like and of course you know Beverley Minster is stuck up on the runway going down the north south runway. You take off there, you go straight over the Minster from Leconfield. We were coming in now. Fair enough we’re alright. So, Bill, we did a circuit. Bill asked them to fire the drem lights up. After an argument they did do so we went in. We saw the deck about ten feet from there we were alright. Bang in. Bang on the runway alright. The rest of the squadron was stuck three or four days down south. We were the only ones who got back to base [laughs] we shouldn’t have done but it was our own fault. We missed the message like. Another time they said, well again, the wireless op again we had to land at [pause] in Norfolk somewhere. I think it was Deopham Green. I think it was Deopham Green. Right in here somewhere [pages turning] A Yank ‘drome. They were flying Fortresses and Liberators. Anyway, we were diverted there and we landed. And you know Bill Goodrum is not that tall. We followed the, landed alright, we followed the jeep to where they wanted us to park alright. I can’t find it. I know it was Deopham Green I think. Somewhere around there. And we parked, shut down and got out like and we were getting out. They were counting us these Yanks you know one, two, three. As you know there was only seven of us in. ‘Where’s the rest of you?’ ‘That’s all there is.’ ‘Where’s the other pilot?’ ‘There isn’t one.’ ‘You what?’ ‘There isn’t one. This is him. The pilot.’ And one big Yank lieutenant said, ‘Jeez, look at the size of him.’ That one down there he when you go in there for debriefing the Yanks say, ‘There’s a bottle of whisky there at the side of you.’ They gave you a tot of it. These USO girls you know.
Interviewer: Oh yeah. Yes.
RK: Like our, akin to our NAAFI lasses.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: We were told take what you want.
Interviewer: [unclear]
RK: But Yanks, and we were I was amazed. It was the first time we’d been on a Yank operational squadron.
Interviewer: But it wouldn’t have been as good as tea or cocoa.

RK: Peanut butter sandwiches. [unclear] The whisky weren’t bad and you could buy what you wanted in there I think. all day and yeah towards night before we were allowed to fly back home before our ‘drome had cleared.
Interviewer: You’d notice quite a difference then.
RK: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: In the standard of comforts then did you?
RK: Oh yeah. And we went in their USO, again like their NAAFI and Bob the wireless op bought these packets of fags. Where he got the money from God only knows. You’re not supposed to take money on ops with you. Where he got it from I don’t know. Anyway, selling these fags [laughs] he made quite a bob or two out of them.
Interviewer: Perhaps he was given them.
RK: He probably was. He had packs. Packs of them. None of the other lads —
Interviewer: I’ve heard a portion of the squadron I’ve been talking to them saying that whenever they landed at an American aerodrome —
RK: [unclear]
Interviewer: The standard of comfort was totally, totally different.
RK: Yes. They were. All their, the aircrew ate together. Enlisted men, officers and the lot all in one Mess. What put me off there in that Mess I saw an airman go and get his dinner, normal dinner. Then he went to the next counter, dipped in a big jam container, slapped that on his dinner. Jam on his dinner. And several did that. Christ an extra plate. I was interested in this lot. I went and said, ‘Are you going to eat that?’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Christ. We’d never do that here.’ You know what I mean. Putting jam on your top of your roast dinner.
Interviewer: Yeah. It might have been a South American custom Arthur.
RK: I don’t know. He looked, you know, he didn’t look like a foreigner, the Spanish type and that. If he was I’d have spoken to him in Spanish.
Interviewer: Oh you speak —
RK: Yeah.
Interviewer: Do you go on holiday there a lot.
RK: I took Spanish at school. I kept it up with various kids going to school and grandkids.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
RK: I had one or two relationships. We both spoke Spanish. Went to the same school as mates.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: We kept in touch to keep it up, you know. But old Bob and the cigarettes in. We all wondered where he got them from and he was flogging them.
Interviewer: Yeah. Lucky Stripes and Camel.
RK: Yeah. That’s it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: Aye. And they had briefing different to ours. They wanted the camera out of the kite. ‘No way are you getting that. No way are you getting that.’ ‘Oh, we’ve got to develop the photograph.’
Interviewer: If you, if you —
RK: They wanted to know what had happened —
Interviewer: Oh, did they have to debrief you?
RK: They debriefed us.
Interviewer: They didn’t wait until you got back to Leconfield.
RK: No. We were debriefed when we got back to Leconfield.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: Of course by our own intelligence people.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: As well but they had the right to debrief us. Yeah. Yeah. They must have worked hand in glove with the RAF intelligence.
Interviewer: Well, yeah I suppose. Yeah.
RK: Which they did. they could talk about that fair enough. ‘Now, can we have your camera?’ ‘No. No.’ That’s one thing we never give up.
Interviewer: Would that mean for developing the pictures.
RK: Yeah. That was how it was drawn. You can’t have that.
Interviewer: You mentioned earlier that there was an occasion when your particular crew was a lead crew and then you were picking up folks from Leicester all the way down too. Did, was there any particular reason why crews were selected for that or did everybody on the squadron get —
RK: It was flight leader that took off first or you were flight leader. Your flight leader would say, ‘Right, you take lead.’
Interviewer: Was there any particular reason for that though?
RK: I just think, I just think that like that Walcheren Island, that Walcheren Island job there we were just picked out. We were all sergeants at the time. We had only been on the squadron a bit and they said right, fair enough. Have a crack at that.
Interviewer: Did that bring any additional responsibilities then if you were the leaders?
RK: You were first to bomb of course. You kept your navigation up to top. Nobody could have a go back at you, you know. Our navigator. We had a good nav.
Interviewer: Folks wouldn’t be using your, your bombs as the marker for them.
RK: No. No. No. They may do. They may do on that, on a do like that. They might have done on a do like that but normally there was a master bomber on.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: And markers. On that one there wasn’t. On the first one there there wasn’t. What you could see you could see it was right on the rim line. They flooded it again. I saw the Walcheren Island, Middelburg was underwater. All the north, all the south rather was flooded. It had blown a hole in the dyke. the reason we attacked primarily so the briefing goes they had already sunk a destroyer, one of our destroyers that was going up the Scheldt Estuary to try and land marines and SAS men sort of style to blow communications and everything in Holland to meet the advance coming up. And it was a thorn in their side there like the nearest guns and that’s one of these why we were put onto ships that we —
Interviewer: Walcheren is at the mouth of the Scheldt.
RK: Yeah.
Interviewer: Isn’t it?
RK: Yes.
Interviewer: So it would of course also be blocking any traffic that wanted to move up.
RK: Right.
Interviewer: Towards Antwerp.
RK: In and out. The only stuff of ours the type two destroyers through but this is what we got told but one of them so the, that was bad weather. E-boats could get in. Our MTBs and e-boats, their e-boats used to fly around that area something cruel. They were always having a go at one another. I’ve seen them at night under us.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: Yeah. But it was [unclear] I suppose shook us up a bit. Gave us an idea what we were aiming for but following on as I said from that that one after that one no we didn’t get much hammering at all. We got a clip, little clips but not nothing really bad.
Interviewer: So you never found as a result of some of these little clips you never found yourselves sort of looking occasionally at the next op, the next operation with perhaps just a little bit of trepidation.
RK: No.
Interviewer: No.
RK: No. As I say we, we I think all the lads had faith in each other in the crew. I had. I could go with Bill anywhere, anywhere because I realised what a good pilot he was. I mean I was with him from OTU you know and I thought he was a good lad. He’d got it up here as well you know. He’d not just panic. I used to be second dickie. Take off with him. Pull the throttles up, check the air [unclear] throttles up, lock them ready for the pulling them back when he wanted them or climb. Synchronise engines for him.
Interviewer: Actually with that kind of experience presumably you would have been in the situation where had it been necessary you could have at least sat in his seat could you?
RK: I could. Oh aye. I did fly it many times.
Interviewer: Was that the idea? Just to make sure that if there was ever an emergency somebody would —
RK: Oh yeah. We did this. We taught the wireless op to fly, to navigate rather to the briefed flight plan. We taught him that. I could navigate. I’d done a navs course and I could navigate no bother. Larry could navigate. I could man a turret. Any turret. I could if necessary fly it which I used to give Bill a break many times. Leave the bomb line, crossed the coast coming out. If he wanted to stretch his legs I’d get on and fly across the North Sea. I used to do hours of link training on the squadron just in case it ever happened that I had to fly it back if anyone was injured.
Interviewer: Could you just go along and get that sort of practice yourself on the base if you wanted?
RK: Well, we were interested in it. I mean when you sit and work it out and think it out it’s far better to have two bods or three bods to be able to do another man’s job.
Interviewer: I get that.
RK: Sufficiently well to get you back.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. So did you find that individual crews used to have this practice? It wasn’t a policy was it? A squadron policy.
RK: Some were slack about it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: They didn’t last long. Some were like our crew.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: Did it and they lasted a tour out.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: Now, we for example we took a lad on his, we never did what they called a second dickie. Bill never did a second dickie. That’s, you take, you take a pilot from a new crew on an op with you to show him what it’s like. What he’s got to face and that. This particular crew they looked to me all misfits. I don’t know why but me and Bob thought they were all misfits and we took him on his second dickie. Now, we went on an op to Worms. A night op. The run up was dead, dead north and along going up because there was a wind from the north, a very strong wind blowing that night so it took a long run up. We must have been on that run up five minutes. You could see the TIs from miles away and of course it was a slow run up dead north. No bother. No deviation because the wind was straight at you. [unclear] flights. You could, in about three flights you used, you used your 88 millies and they used to position. Get your, get the route in from the [unclear] Start predicting. Plus the eyes over the target. Now, this kid is sitting next to Bill and I got down to bomb. I said, ‘Take your time. If you see alright I’ve plenty of time.’ The air speed would only have been about a hundred and twenty.’ [unclear] air speed such a fast wind. Strong wind. We went in. This kid suddenly starts panicking. ‘Drop the bombs. Drop the bombs.’ Well, Bill nearly knocked him out of the seat you know because there was only me and Bill, unless we were being attacked, on RT unless we were being jumped by a fighter and then the gunners come in but no. The next op they did one op.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: The next time they went out. Chop. I mean that kid never ought to have been —
Interviewer: No. I suppose —
RK: Responsible for a crew like. Give orders to —
Interviewer: Bill, didn’t sort of feel the need to report that then?
RK: Yeah.
Interviewer: He did you report it?
RK: I think he did but of course they were all trained then. They were only given easy ops to start with. I will say that on a squadron. You got what you thought were shortish —
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: Ops and then gradually followed them in. We, when we got to flight leaders we just picked our own ops more or less.
Interviewer: When [pause] I know I said 640 seemed to have done quite a lot of bombing practice.
RK: Yeah.
Interviewer: And navigation practice.
RK: That’s right. We won the cups.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: Yeah.
Interviewer: So presumably you would be quite, very much involved in all of that.
RK: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: Did you not find that that was a bit of a drag? To be on operations and then this practice.
RK: No. No.
Interviewer: In addition to that.
RK: I’ll give you a funny incident on that. Our bombing range was in [pause] between Brid and Flamborough and they used a site at Flamborough and another site. Thy used another site they used to for air runs. They used to take eight practice bombs. Eleven and a half pound smoke or practice bombs.
Interviewer: Would this be for the designated height?
RK: Yeah. Well, you could pick your height and work it out you see. Work your own. Set your height on your computer. I think the Mark 14 computer you set everything on it, switched on and there you were. The angle was set for you if you’d got your winds, your land speed right, air speed right, went in. It was set for the correct angle. Drift alright. Fair enough and they took out practice bombs and we used to run two, two, two. Four siting. Two on the coast on the Brid side, two on the Flamborough side. They used to record the site of each bomb and then consequently where there [unclear] that was where the bomb should have dropped. If it didn’t drop there you were out. Got that report back to the squadron and that’s how they used to check your bombing. We went out this day one day. A nice fine day and we dropped seven alright. Should I explain first that these practice bombs as I say were eleven and a half pounds on a small bomb container which was hung on to your main rack. You couldn’t get at those bombs from inside the aircraft because on a small bomber contained which was and you got eight bombs on it. You couldn’t get around it in other words to manually release it. You could release all the like but you wouldn’t do that. Anyway, one hung up. The last bomb hung up. I run up two or three times and it wouldn’t go. Went to Bridlington, I think it’s a couple of miles out of Bridlington there’s a park. I think they call it, is it Sowerby or Sowerby.
Interviewer: There is. Yeah.
RK: Right.
Interviewer: Yes. To the north.
RK: That’s it. As it goes up towards the cliff and in there is a bandstand. Well, nobody was about there so I had a look on it. Bandstand. [unclear] automatically.
Interviewer: Yeah, when you say the bandstand —
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: Run it down. Got my sight on and crossways whatever. It went. The practice bomb went. Well it must have been only about three or four yards on the side of this bandstand. Had it been a normal bomb it would have blown it to smithereens like.
RK: Yeah. Right.
Interviewer: So what did these things do? They just sort of stuck in the ground did they?
RK: No. It’s a flash bomb and it’s a flash bomb that issues white stripes, it detonates the explosive. You get your flash and then you get smoke. Thick smoke so that the sighters can really get a good sight because they’ve got sighted through telescopes from their positions. He went, this lad, I said, ‘Christ, it’s gone.’ I almost got the bandstand. Bill was laughing in the [unclear]
Interviewer: There were no repercussions from that.
RK: There was a note came around from Group that anyone —
Interviewer: Don’t bomb bandstands.
[phone ringing – recording paused]
RK: A notice came around Group. Anyone see anyone going in? The lads on the site never said a dickie bird. They knew that they’d only had seven.
[recording paused]
RK: Yeah. Sort that bomb load. Oh aye. Just one time. Have you looked? This was funny [pause] we went on an op and it were recalled. We got to the coast on a recall. I forget where we were going to but we were recalled and weather conditions were on our side. We were all bombed up and everything and we got right to the German coast, the Dutch coast and in the North Sea we had a dropping area. That, that long position the box marked on all your maps and shipping. All shipping knew it. The Navy knew it. Keep clear. Well, we were coming back and you were working your bomb load out, your petrol load out what you hadn’t used and you keep what bombs and petrol, you keep your petrol and work out what bombs you can jettison. The least weight you can test then to see the bombs. They used to like you to save the, say you’ve got armour piercing ones on. Particularly a thousand pounder armour piercing save those or the thousand pound GPs. Then the five hundreds because you could drop five hundreds easy enough from your wing, your wing positions but the liked us to do that. So we headed back to this dropping position and it was like what you might call a mackerel sky.
Interviewer: Right.
RK: Altocumulus and it was yappy. We were at twelve thousand feet. Something like that and right I picked which bombs. I worked it out with the engineer. We worked out so we got to save all the weight. I think it must have been about sixty thousand. Sixty thousand pound safe landing weight for the undercarriage to take in coming in steady. So I picked these bombs out and there were five. We were dropping five thousand pounds worth of bombs. By the time we’d got back to base we would have been just worked out petrol using we’d have been alright. So we run up. We ran it around. Couldn’t see nowt. I had a good look around. Couldn’t see nowt. [unclear] five one thousands went and Christ I saw a little trawler. A little trawler. He shouldn’t have been there because we were bang in this dropping area.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
RK: Well, these, these were primed with what we called number 58 depths. Yankee 58s. Very, very sensitive. Whether you dropped them live or not they went off. So, I dropped them safe but they still went off. Bomb, bomb, bomb. This little trawler was [laughs] like mad. We could hear them.
Interviewer: Nice.
RK: Of course they couldn’t reach us.
Interviewer: No. No.
RK: Well, they had a go. You could hear it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: You could hear it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: Chattering away.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: Their little Lewis gun.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: Aye. The poor lads I bet they wondered what the devil.
Interviewer: I think there must be one part of the North Sea there that’s absolutely littered with —
RK: Full up. And gas, gas bottles went in there.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: Hope they never go off.
Interviewer: Yeah. There must be tonnes and tonnes of it. Thousands of tonnes in there.
RK: Yes.
Interviewer: Aye. And that’s, that were funny that. Not for the boat.
RK: Certainly not for the trawler. Certainly not for the trawlermen.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: Yeah.
RK: And it was, what was the other one? Oh yeah [pause] I have a map somewhere. Oh, this is a pilot’s map. He knew exactly where he was and fly to that. These airspeeds you see.
RK: Fly to these lakes.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: Positions where he turned.
Interviewer: Is that? That’s not Flamborough Head there is it?
RK: No. No. They would come back down to base. That’s base there.
Interviewer: This is not far from where I live actually. This must be —
RK: That’s right.
Interviewer: Around about Scarborough somewhere. Bridlington is it?
RK: Yeah. It is. You’re just Middlesborough. You’re just south of Middlesborough.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: What I’d say about there [unclear] Yeah and this, it was [Arnstadt] [Arnstadt] Oil refinery.
Interviewer: Do you have —
RK: And that one. I saw the master bomber go down. We were running in. Normal. [unclear] no bother. Saw a bit of flak on [unclear] island there. That were it. Not much. Nothing to worry about. Come down here Kiel set its mouth up like that every time you went near Kiel. Very heavily defended that Kiel Canal and around there. A good picture of them all there but there was fighter trouble like you didn’t [pause] we never saw any. We weren’t attacked but I know they were out that night there. Running in or coming I was on the run up and we [pause] now it was apparently to bomb at target indicators. Bomb on that. The beam’s there and the reds are backups. That’s [unclear]
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: But anyway that’s by the way. This run up here on to this target the master bomber was giving instructions. You know how they used to give it to you in a clock system from the header you were going to have. The clock system. Say the TIs, the primary TIs were a bit off he would give you a clock system to blank bomb off them. Say two hundred, five o’clock. That would mean two hundred yards at five o’clock off the TIs and that would be the target. He was way under you and he was busily conducting that op. Suddenly RT as we were running in. [unclear] I saw a kite in flames. It suddenly burst into flames about oh five thousand feet below us at least, probably more and I found out later when we got back, reported to Bill there was one in flames. It might be the master bomber because he just chopped off like a light and Bill sent me this a while back. He said it was a master bomber’s call sign to abort [unclear] the bomb load. Two hundred five. That meant two hundred yards off five o’clock off the target and it was the master bomber that went down we found out later. About a couple of weeks later. It was the master bomber. A squadron leader it was.
Interviewer: If he’s skimming around down below you isn’t there a danger that he was going to be hit from above?
RK: Oh aye. I saw it circle and I always think that’s how [pause] who was it who was killed? Gibson. He was killed when he was a master bomber and I think he, he was killed at Hanover I think. Yeah. And I think that’s how Gibson was killed. But he made a meal of it. I’m it you know and all this. Drew it out. Tried to bale out or what. Whatever. I think he [pause] I never liked Gibson. I met him once. We landed at Scampton when he was there. As a man no. As a flier yes. He was , must have been obviously a good flier.
Interviewer: What was it? What was it about him that you didn’t like?
RK: His attitude to anybody below his rank.
Interviewer: Right.
RK: No. We never called anybody by ranks in our crew. It were all, ‘Bill.’ We had two Bills. Bill Harvey. He was Rosie because he had a red face but it was all Christian —
Interviewer: Oh, that was it because he had a red face.
RK: All Christian names you know. No rank. Anything. When we were in that kite those young lads in that kite and that was it.
Interviewer: [unclear]
RK: In our squadron we had a good CO. You could walk about in your flying kit. Anything.
Interviewer: He was fine.
RK: Off the squadron you must be properly dressed. Everything. Now that. We dropped this off. A Dutchman called Weinberg who was on the squadron before us. He got a DFC. We had a, he was paid to be on the squadron with him being a foreigner and the air commodore of the Group presented it to him. Anyway, we got home from [unclear], from Weinberg because we took his kite. We graduated into his kite when he, we first came on and he was leaving.
Interviewer: Yeah. That wasn’t Zebra then though was it?
RK: No.
Interviewer: Because you had Nan.
RK: He had Nan. But we got that kite. We then got a new aircraft. Zebra. The first Zebra and we did several ops in that first Zebra. We came on leave once, somebody took it on ops, down it went. When we got back Zebra had gone. We did one of two ops in odd kites then we got a new one. Of course it was Zebra. It replaced our Zebra and we stuck to that one all the way through but that horn, we gave it to, we had it all through the tour.
Interviewer: Why did you keep it?
RK: It was sort of a mascot and it went on every op with us and we had it painted on the nose. You can see it on that picture there.
Interviewer: I can see it.
RK: It sort of was a bit of a talisman like. Anyway, when we finished there was another Dutchman. Robbie.
Interviewer: Van [Gleet]
RK: Van Gleet. We gave it to Robbie with the kite. Wished him well like. I was like, and I had to stop behind on the squadron then because well three, four months before that I was, or six months before that I was slapped up for commissioning. I was a flight sergeant then and when we finished the lads went their various ways. I had to stop still. I hadn’t seen the air commodore. I was ready to go see the air commodore for commissioning. All this time six months, every time I was to go up there there was an op or something else happen, you know. I came down then. You know, I couldn’t get because sometimes we were very busy. Three or four in a week and then you’d have a rest and what have you but anyway I had to stop behind. We had a bit of a breaking up party and everything and a bit of a do. That were it. So I stayed. I stayed back for commissioning and Robbie van Gleet had this horn. Well, I know he wasn’t shot down. Not while I told Bill when we were looking for it. I told Bill about it. He said, ‘Right. We’ll try and find it.’ So he contacted, I think he contacted some Dutch people at the Dutch Embassy in London I think he said. Yeah. They went on to Holland and it were a tele, we found that they’d gone to television channel. A Dutch television company wanted to make a thing about this horn.
Interviewer: Right. Did you know that van Gleet had taken it back to Holland with him?
RK: This was what we were trying to find out.
Interviewer: I see. Yeah. Yeah.
RK: And but no trace of van Gleet was ever discovered in Holland and they tried. The television people tried their Dutch Air Force people and no way could we find van Gleet. Now, Bill thinks the same as I, Bill Goodrum thinks the same as I do. A lot of these Dutch lads came across here, joined up, joined the RAF under false names. They were told to do this I think by their government to save their families if ever they got shot down over Holland which was a, it was, Holland was a real killing ground for air crew for our bombers as you know. Used to go in through Holland to the Ruhr. Up north to Berlin anyway like that. And a terrific number of bombers were shot down over Holland. They thought that if any of the Dutch lads were shot down and under the proper name they would wring it out of them where their family was and really go to town on their families. Which the Gestapo would have done obviously. And we think van [Gleet] must have been a —
Interviewer: Yeah. Pseudonym.
RK: Yeah. Weinberg died. That was his real name. He died in Holland ten years since I think. About ten years since.
Interviewer: I say I was reading, I was reading a letter from, from his wife to one of his crew.
RK: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: A guy called Gray. Was he —
RK: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah, because I’m, Maurice Hepworth is loaning me files to to go through.
RK: Yeah.
Interviewer: The one I’m looking to at the moment just had this letter in it and I was just reading a couple of days ago. Yeah.
RK: He was a good lad, Weinberg.
Interviewer: There was three or four. Obviously been a very strong bond between crew.
RK: Oh aye. We were really a set, you know. Well, I mean you trusted your neck to each other every time you went out.
Interviewer: Yeah. And I suppose as well you would be sharing some of the most intense moments of your life as well.
RK: I think the, what should I say the calmest of the lot really was me and Bob because we really got on very well together. We were both a bit —
Interviewer: So Bob was the wireless operator.
RK: Yeah. You met Bob didn’t you, Theresa?
Other: Yes.
RK: Bob [unclear].
Other: Yes.
RK: Right.
Interviewer: Actually, I meant to say Bill Harvey’s wife sent, sends her regards. She asked me to sort of —.
RK: Oh yeah. Sylvia.
Interviewer: I forgot. Yes.
RK: Aye.
Interviewer: She said, ‘Give him my love.’ So I’m giving you that love —
RK: Our team would go across odd times. He comes across here but his wife won’t come across. I think she’s at the moment she has a slight Channel phobia.
Interviewer: Right.
RK: She won’t come across.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: But I tell her I’ll pick her up and bring her across.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: To the reunion. Oh no.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
RK: Not very far away. We keep in contact.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: By phone like I do with Bill. [unclear] now —
Interviewer: Was it your engineer?
RK: Yeah. Frank Keane.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: I found him. I have a friend who was a telephonist in Sheffield and when we were getting this 640 Squadron Association together we found all the rest of us got together and that. He went to Australia. I knew he’d been to Australia sometime after he left the RAF. We knew he’d come back so I had asked Doreen, a friend of mine, this telephonist lady he lived in Barrow in Furness then when he was with us and I asked her to ring all Keane’s when she’d time in Barrow in Furness. Did they know Frank Keane from the RAF. And she kept ringing back no. Rang a lot of Keane. No, can’t get him. The last, and she rang me up, ‘This is the last one I’m going to try. It’s the last one on the list.’ On the telephone list in that area.
Interviewer: Ok.
RK: It was his brother.
Interviewer: Right.
RK: And I got his address. He lives up in, near Kendall.
Interviewer: Right. So he’s back from Australia now.
RK: He was back from Australia and he’d not been very well. He’d had a stroke the poor lad the year before. This was the first meeting coming up of the Association.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: I thought well we’ll, I’ll go and fetch him. So I rang him up and his wife said, ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Come in.’ I said, ‘Can he drive Doreen.’ Because I’d met his wife before. ‘Yeah. He can. We haven’t been out on his own before since this stroke.’ I said, ‘Well, if you don’t think he’s capable one of us will come and fetch him from Bills place because we were putting up at that motel down the road from Bill’s place. Bluebell is it?
Interviewer: Oh yes, the Bluebell. Yes.
RK: Well, Bob [unclear] of course had died but Rosie, Reg was still alive.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: The rear gunner. They were all, we were all there.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: Except Larry what died. So we were looking anxiously around for Frank and then he came in carrying this little case. So I said to Bob, ‘Is he Frank?’ He looked at [his wife] this pub were full. So I said, ‘Bob, go up to him and ask him. ‘Is he waiting for a number bus?’ So he tapped him on the side, ‘Mr Keane, are you waiting for a number bus?’ Well, his Scotch accent came out and he saw who it was straightaway like.
Interviewer: That must have been really good.
RK: [unclear] aye.
Interviewer: It must have been really good for you all to get together.
RK: Yeah but it took me a while to find him.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: It took him a little while to find me because I moved.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: Two or three times. They only knew me —
Interviewer: Rosie was saying that he spent some time ringing around.
RK: That’s right. Looking for me.
Interviewer: Yes, all of the Knowles in the area and when he saw Bob he thought that couldn’t possibly mean —
RK: It was.
Interviewer: So that must have, was that —
[recording paused]
RK: Wanted to modernise it but the council of Beverley said no. No. That is a tourist attraction and if you modernise it no one will come and see it anymore. [unclear] if they tart it up like a modern pub.
Interviewer: Well, I think nowadays with most pubs looking exactly the same as every other pub.
RK: Of course.
Interviewer: They seem to be —
RK: I mean that is original. There are the old benches. Wooden benches. Flagstone on the floor when we were there. We used to go there and get huge slices of pork in a sandwich from Old Nellie who, Nellie used to run it. It was known as Nellie’s by the locals but actually it was the White Horse.
Interviewer: Was that the Beverley equivalent of Betty’s then?
RK: Yeah. But Bettys Bar in York. Oh yeah. We’d been to Betty’s Bar in York. That was more notorious Bettys Bar for the women side of it.
Interviewer: Oh right.
RK: They all used to congregate there. There was a lot of squadrons around York that used to flock into York for the night.
Interviewer: [unclear]
RK: Beverley was our town.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: That we went to.
Interviewer: Yes.
RK: That’s why I had such a regard for Beverley to put that up. That Memorial there.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RK: When I was there I was, I mean I didn’t know anybody in the squadron then. I’d never met Maurice at all. So I spent a bit of time talking —