Interview with W Pilling

Interview with W Pilling

W Pilling trained as a gunner before joining 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington. During a training flight he jumped out of a burning Whitley. While at his first squadron he flew with several crews and when he no longer flew with them they had a tendency to not return. He got a reputation as a lucky gunner and was often called upon to make up the crew of officers on the squadron. On one flight he asked the engineer to check the heating because he was so cold. The engineer almost fell through the hole that had been made when a bomb dropped from above had made a hole in the turret. His mascot was a scarf on which a WAAF embroidered each of his operations.

01:02:32 audio recording

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APillingW[Date]-01

Interviewer: Just a straightforward question first of all, Bill. Where did you, where did you go to your OTU? What was your OTU?
WP: Marston Moor.
Interviewer: Marston Moor.
WP: When we first [pause] yeah.
Interviewer: What number would that be?
WP: Might be the first, 1 AES. Then Marston Moor. That’s the date 23. 3. 43 to 12. 7. 43.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: That’s —
Interviewer: So, this was, this was your Operational Training Unit then.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: At Marston.
WP: This was where all —
Interviewer: What number would that have been then? Can you remember? It would be in your book. Training unit.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. Does it have a number there?
WP: Just Halifax.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: I don’t think it does.
Interviewer: Ok. Ok.
WP: [unclear] I’ll give you a name then.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: 1652 Conversion Unit, Marston. Marston Moor. Right. Actually, I see you got an above average for night vision, eh?
WP: Yeah. Yeah. I was very, my eyes are very good.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: There’s another story because my mate and I sat the exam in the same room and we both got the same mark. Ninety five percent out of a hundred. They said we were both cheating. See.
Interviewer: It’s impossible to win isn’t it? They’re looking for eagle eyed people but when you show that you are eagle eyed you must have cheated.
WP: What we did —
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: I said to him, I was always the one that spoke up. Funnily enough, I was always the one that got myself into bloody trouble.
Interviewer: Yes.
WP: Because I always spoke.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: I said, ‘Right. He sits over there. I sit over here.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: ‘Now, you, these photographs, cover them all up and shout them out to us, right and we’ve got to tell you what they are. Him first. Then you give me one. I’m next. Mark us up.’ We both finished up with ninety five percent.
Interviewer: Yeah. So they believed you then did they?
WP: So, I said, ‘You know what you can do with them photographs don’t you?’ And walked out. He didn’t like that.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: So —
Interviewer: So when you, when you’d made yourself popular with the fellas at Marston Moor is that when you went off to Pocklington? Did you go to Pocklington from there?
WP: Yeah. Marston Moor.
Interviewer: Then you went from Marston Moor to Pocklington.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: And you went to, just let me check the dates for Marston Moor again. Was it March ’43 to July ’43? Was it?
WP: [unclear]
Interviewer: I think it’s, I think its towards your front, the front of you Bill when you —
WP: All you’ve got to do is this.
Interviewer: That’s what I was looking for. Yeah.
WP: 21. 2.’43 to 15. 7.’43.
Interviewer: ’43 you’re at Marston Moor.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: And then you went off to Pocklington. 102.
WP: ’43.
Interviewer: On the 16th of July 1943.
WP: And May ’43. Now, why this is all rough we didn’t have pens you know then.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: You’d get a matchstick, spray a bit off the end and put it in the ink. It were a matchstick. We didn’t have pens.
Interviewer: Goodness me. Right.
WP: Yeah. I also flew Blenheims, Wellingtons and I did Defiants. There was a gallery in the Defiants.
Interviewer: Right. This is in training. Air gunner training. Yeah.
WP: You see, and Whitleys. Twelve of us. I jumped out of a Whitley. The first jump I ever made. It was on fire. We all jumped. I had to push one bloke out.
Interviewer: Yeah. That was again when you were with 102.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: What was the date on that one? Can you remember that? Would that be in your logbook somewhere?
WP: No.
Interviewer: No.
WP: No, it was —
Interviewer: So, this, you were in this Whitley and you were on a cross-country exercise were you?
WP: Yeah. All these. Wait a minute. Squadron. Leconfield. Pocklington. You just, it just says in the side here you weren’t allowed until you did a cross-country you see. That’s —
Interviewer: Yes. Yeah.
WP: And it gives you generally all Halifaxes.
Interviewer: Yes.
WP: Because the other training you don’t put it in your logbook. If they —
Interviewer: No. This is the flights. Yeah. Yeah.
WP: The officers have got to do this. They have got to sign everything you see. You can’t. Everything is signed. At the end of every, each one look.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: Signed by Phillips for the OC Flying.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
WP: You were talking about a bloke. What was his name now?
[recording paused]
Interviewer: You got yourself to Pocklington.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Did you actually go, had you been assigned to a crew then or did you go there as a spare?
WP: I’ll tell you in a minute.
[pause]
WP: I flew with a Sergeant Ellis. Now, remember you’ve got a forty tonne aircraft and four tonne of bombs, two thousand gallons of high octane and a young lad, a sergeant leading me all the way to Italy. [unclear] in Italy. Eight hour thirty trip. A sergeant. And that was the best trip. To think I flew with just a common sergeant like myself all the way to Italy.
Interviewer: Yeah, and that was your first trip was it?
WP: Yes.
Interviewer: On the 16th of August.
WP: Not the first. It was —
Interviewer: 1943.
WP: The second trip because we went to Hamburg but we didn’t make it. We turned back.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: The first trip but that was [unclear] and we made it.
Interviewer: Eight and a half hours. Yeah. Of course, eight and a half hours sitting in what were you? A rear gunner then were you?
WP: Mid-upper.
Interviewer: Mid-upper. Well, I mean sitting in any. Sitting in any turret.
WP: Yeah, it was. Now, this might —
Interviewer: At that time of the year would have been damned cold I should think.
WP: Then I could put it on the tape. One, two, three, four. This was when I came with Dick.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: Four [pages turning] four, five —
Interviewer: And then you [pause] oh one, yeah. Actually, it’s interesting. It’s down as 158 but Ayres was with 640 by then wasn’t he?
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: 640 would be, that’s the first operation that 640 went on.
WP: He went there and he took me to see [pause] this is what I’m trying to point out. Six or seven different crews and I did eighteen trips and every time I left them he was the only bloke I think that was alive.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: To think, you know I flew with all these lads and then I never saw them no more.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: I just, I was sort of an omen to some lads. Some used to call me a lucky gunner.
Interviewer: Well, it was, it was a dangerous time Bill wasn’t it? I mean —
WP: But you see for yourself how many, how many, look pilots I’ve flown with but once I got on, got in to the —
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: They put me with wing commanders.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: Wing commanders wanted me. Squadron leaders wanted me.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: I could really have had the pick.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: But they just, the gunnery, the squadron leader in charge of us used to say to me, ‘Bill, you’ll flying tonight and you’re flying with — ’ so and so.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: ‘Go and find him.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: I’d get to chat to him.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: Say, ‘You’re fine.’ You know.
Interviewer: Well, actually, we’ll come back to why Ayres was —
[recording paused]
Interviewer: You’d flown ten operations with —
WP: Anybody.
Interviewer: Yeah. All with 102 at Pocklington.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Different crews each time.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Until you flew your first operation with 640 and that was on the 14th of the 1st ’44.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: With, with Ayres. And then you and that was where? That was a cross-country actually wasn’t it?
WP: Yeah. Must have been.
Interviewer: Yeah. 23rd of the 1st ’44 was your first operation and that was to, that was to Berlin. Now, you were flying with Ayres. Were you just sort of automatically assigned to Ayres? Or did he say, ‘Well, we’ll have Bill Pilling —
WP: Yeah. He just said, ‘Right. You are my gunner while I’m flying.’ I won’t be flying for thirty he told me I wouldn’t be flying thirty two. I’d only be flying a few trips.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: All he did with me I think was six wasn’t it?
Interviewer: Right. But while, when you weren’t flying with him you were flying with other crews that were short of a gunner were you?
WP: No. Once you were with a crew you stayed with the pilot then. You didn’t go in between. [unclear] with Ayres. I was flying with Ayres. I stayed with Ayres until he packed me in right.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: And then I go with another wing commander. Wing Commander Carter.
Interviewer: Oh yeah, because Carter took over from Ayres didn’t he?
WP: That’s it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: Now, when he got his —
Interviewer: Actually before we get on to Carter —
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Oh yeah, I would actually. Yeah.
WP: And then —
Interviewer: So he was shot down eventually as well wasn’t he?
WP: After that you see D-Day started. I did thirty, twenty nine or thirty trips but D- Day with Slater. That’s where you made your mistake on writing.
Interviewer: Where [pause] oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, actually I, I’ve tried to, I’ve tried to change that now. I’ve actually, on your, on the appendix I’ve actually moved it forward a date as you said.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: Yeah, because now D-Day, you know when D-Day was? My birthday 6.6.1922.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: Now, why I didn’t let the crew know, you know what they used to do was stick you up the [unclear] chuck you up and I didn’t want that because I’d hurt my back and I didn’t want them to hurt it anymore.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: But you know that thing up and down, sideways.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: And you dive or go. He went.
Interviewer: Yes.
WP: And if you weren’t tight up in the air you went.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: You see as soon as the bombs went the plane went, or the [unclear] went up.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: Released that four tonne of bombs.
Interviewer: Yes. Right. Yeah.
WP: See what —
Interviewer: Well, what about these first couple of trips there with Ayres in January, Bill? I mean had you been on any dicey trips before that at Pocklington?
WP: Yeah. Look. They’re all down to the P was Pocklington.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: Look, Hamburg, [unclear] Hanover, Bochum, Kassel, Hanover, Leverkusen, Berlin.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: Frankfurt.
Interviewer: Yeah. Would you say they were all sort of —
WP: Would you call them easy trips?
Interviewer: No, I wouldn’t. I certainly wouldn’t.
WP: They were all eight hour trips.
Interviewer: I wouldn’t. Yeah.
WP: Now, look who I flew with. A flying officer, a pilot officer, a flight lieutenant, flying officer, flying officer, flying officer. Not any rank of there is there?
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: See what I mean.
Interviewer: Yeah. Was there a particular reason for that? I mean when you went on to the squadron at 102 did you go along with sort of an above average assessment or something for gunnery?
WP: All I was was a good air gunner. I had good eyesight. Now, I’d give it, now is it going?
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: One night I was flying and I was in the rear turret. I was with Flying Officer, FO [Dean]. Yeah. Flying Officer [Dean], and he said, ‘I want you in the rear turret.’ I didn’t know any of the crew at all. I was just allocated to Flying Officer [Dean] and while I was sitting there I noticed one or two of our bombers going down in flames behind us and this happened two or three times and it annoyed me to think the lads were going down but then I realised why. Because there was two fighters somewhere behind me which I couldn’t see. What they were doing one was dropping flares over the lads coming in over the top. The other one was shooting them down.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: I thought, well I wonder if I could see them. Anyway, anyway I looked through my ring sight and I saw a shadow going from right to left. I thought well that’s strange because the wind is the opposite way so it must be a fighter. I’m looking at the shadow. So anyway, I let a burst go and I thought now if I start low down and come up with a burst and the next one I’ll come, at the top and come down and all of a sudden there was a great big white flare. I could see a big flare. What I’d done I’d hit the bloke carrying the flares so I knew. After that there were no more flares dropped so I knew I’d got that but I hadn’t got his mate. That’s what I was dreading. I was getting his mate. Where was his mate? And anyway we got the couple of shells come whizzing past us and then that was it. We never saw no more.
Interviewer: Right. What, what trip was that on Bill? Can you remember?
WP: The tenth trip.
Interviewer: The tenth.
WP: FO [Dean] I think it was.
Interviewer: There we are. So that’s to Leipzig.
WP: Leipzig.
Interviewer: And that was an eight hour well an eight hour fifty minutes. That was on the 3rd of December 1943.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Actually, ah so you’ve got down here fighter, FW 190 driven off.
WP: I shot down that fighter. We were bloody hit and we came down. We weren’t really shot down. We came down because when you come down after a bad do you generally fly to a different station and then you’ve got to get somebody to come and pick you up and take you back to base.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: Got the idea.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: But we managed to get back.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: We came down but we were in a bad way but the next —
Interviewer: Right. So you were with Flying Officer [Dean] in Halifax W of 102 Squadron on the 3rd of —
WP: The 3rd of the 12th and on the 14th [pause] you see in eleven days I was back with Wing Commander Ayres.
Interviewer: Yeah. Actually, well this is, this is when you were on 102 with [Dean.]
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: And then this was when you joined 640. Well, at Lissett and you went on your first operation with Ayres on the 20th of January.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: 1944, and that was to Berlin. The seven and a half hour, seven and a half hour trip.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. I mean what, what’s it like Bill or what was it like to actually sit in the back of a, of a Halifax for seven and a half hours over. I mean in January it must have been intensely cold for example.
WP: Well —
Interviewer: And you’re unlike everyone else aren’t you because you are right at the back end. You’re away from everybody else.
WP: You’re all on your own. That’s why you see if I said I wasn’t frightened I’d be telling a lie. In a way I wasn’t frightened but I was apprehensive. I knew what could happen any minute. So your thoughts were what might happen to you. You knew that that ring sight, I knew, I worked on my ring sight. Right across the wing sight the wing to wing sight is four hundred yards behind me. Three quarters is eight hundred yards but he could stick up at a thousand yards and shoot bullets at me and I couldn’t touch him with a —
Interviewer: Because he had a cannon. Yeah.
WP: I couldn’t touch them with a 303. I was lucky if I hit him at eight hundred yards. So I had to wait patiently until he made his move and was daft enough to come within that ring sight. I could try and frighten him off which I’ve done many a time. Frighten him off by firing and you get likely a pilot who hasn’t done many trips or a bit scared and he’d pause with my four guns coming at him. He’d think bugger him. I’ll go somewhere else.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: That’s what you called finding [unclear]
Interviewer: So what about, I know you were saying that you had sort of above average night vision but I mean just what can you see when you’re up in the, in the dark? Can you see very far? Can you see eight hundred yards for example?
WP: Oh yeah. Some nights you could see oh a long way. The sky is so lovely you know and the only trouble is your turret had got to be absolutely spotlessly clean because just a little speck on it you think that’s a fighter.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: Do you know what I mean? You’ve got to move your head about and look above and look to the side. Never direct up or down or sideways. Never direct because you could see a lot better —
Interviewer: Right.
WP: High above. Looking above anything.
Interviewer: Right. Yeah.
WP: You know.
Interviewer: So did that, did that approach stand you in good stead then when you, did you find that you were able to spot fighters on occasion and they didn’t bother you?
WP: You had your own ideas you see. Some lads used different things for eyesight and might be as good as mine, might not but they had their own ideas how they used to travel but I was always working that I’m, that I had six lads behind me. I know I had another gunner but he couldn’t see where I could see. Downwards.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: He could see nearly all the way around and he could help me. Now, I could give him instructions. If a fighter was coming upwards I’d let him know where it was coming up so his guns were ready when I, if I missed him or hit him he’s going to get another burst off him. But if he was coming straight at me I wouldn’t know if he was going to go down without just, I’d just keep firing.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: You see.
Interviewer: So, did you, did you work closely with the mid-upper gunner all the time?
WP: Always. Yes, if you [pause] he had been trained like I had been trained in different schools and different times and different places and he wouldn’t have got through. He wouldn’t have got is gunner’s, his AG badge if he wasn’t any good.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: I mean you had a very —
Interviewer: Right. Am I right in thinking that you used to sort of synchronise your turrets in a way so that you would be scanning different parts of the sky?
WP: Oh yeah. All the time. Now, you used to be, your turrets used to sometimes some pilots would tell you off for moving your turrets too much because it affected somehow.
Interviewer: Affected the trim.
WP: Yeah. The trim and that one thing and another but if the pilot said that to me I’d tell him, ‘Look, get on with your bloody job and I’m getting on with mine.’ I’d tell him. I was a bloke like that. I didn’t care. I didn’t care what rank they were. I was doing my job and I was doing it properly the way I’d been taught. I’d never, see, put it this way I thought these lads most of them in the Mess playing billiards, snooker, cards with them and it’s like a big family. You work it out. You know you live with them all the time and I was there to look after them and the plane. That’s all I was there for and I just tried to do my best.
Interviewer: So when you joined 640 I mean again it was, it was a different crew for you with Ayres as the captain of the aircraft. What kind of a fellow was he? Ayres.
WP: I never spoke to him while I was, do you know I couldn’t even [pause] when I looked at his face now I flew six trips with him I don’t think I spoke to him because he might get in first and up the front and I’m at the back. I might just pass him and that’s it.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: A lot of them wouldn’t speak to you.
Interviewer: Whenever, whenever I mean I’ve spoken to a lot of 640 guys —
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Over the years and of course a lot of other fellows who flew with other squadrons and one of the things that always came across to me was just what a close-knit family an aircrew were.
WP: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Own crew.
Interviewer: Yeah. But that wasn’t the case with Ayres then.
WP: No. No. You see another thing is when you went into that briefing room it was a death trip to me. You looked around and you thought to yourself is it my turn tonight?
Interviewer: [unclear]
WP: And these lads who were different as you know in different crews and the idea was to be quite honest never have a mate in another crew. Try and have somebody in your own crew if possible to go out with, have a drink. For some reason it hurt me when I lost a special mate. I had a mate, an Aussie. If you were short of cash he’d pinch anything. Not off his own mates but he could always pinch something to [unclear] Right. And he’d come from a very rich family. His father owned a big sheep farm out in Australia. He told me how his dad used to say, ‘Now, you’ve worked hard all you gang. You go into town and I’ll pay for everything. Have a bloody good time on me. But when you come back you’ve no work.’ That was his dad. He told me a real tough time he had. But, and he always had when his dad used to send him money to him I don’t know how he got it across but now and then he got a nice bundle and he’d say, ‘Bill, I’ve got my bundle. Off we go.’
Interviewer: Right.
WP: I’m off for a bit of for a bit of a laugh so I don’t know what you’re going to do but I’m off for a bit of a laugh.’ And he was away.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: You know.
Interviewer: Yeah. So when you were flying with Ayres then, let’s see, Berlin on the 20th of January ’44.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: On the 15th of February ’44 to Berlin. On the 22nd of February ’44 —
WP: That’s right.
Interviewer: To Leipzig.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: On the 1st of March ’44 to Stuttgart. I mean these are all sort of dangerous places.
WP: And the times we got into [unclear]
Interviewer: Yeah. And they are all somewhere between seven, seven and a half hours to eight and a half hour, half hour trips but these are all part of the Battle of Berlin when it was really —
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Really dangerous.
WP: Dangerous.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: Very. I’ll tell you what I’ll get Bethany to show you something soon. My mascot. It was my own mascot. Not belonging to the crew. My own mascot. I had a scarf. I managed to get it from a drogue. You know the top of a drogue at the top of the parachute.
Interviewer: Yes.
WP: Pulled it out.
Interviewer: Yes.
WP: I got a piece of that and I said to, I got to know a young girl in the Sergeant’s Mess and I said to her, ‘Can you crochet?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Embroidery? Can you?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ So I said, ‘I want you, I’ll give you my scarf and I want you to embroider the trip I did. I’ll tell you the trip when I come back in the morning. I’ll give you this scarf and I want you to embroider it for me. But —' I said, ‘Mind if I’m flying the next day I need the scarf. You’ll just have to give it to me, you know. Give it back again because I need it every time I go flying.’ And on that I put eighteen trips, big trips on it. She put eighteen on. I never put these comms on D-Day. They were a load of rubbish. Stuttgart, went on three times. You see. Berlin, went on four times I think. Now, Berlin was black. Embroidered in black. Stuttgart was embroidered in red. To me it resembled what the trip was like.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: Blood for Stuttgart.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: Death was Berlin. That was horrible.
Interviewer: So what was the danger? I mean this might seem a silly question, Bill but I’ll ask it. What was, what was particularly dangerous about Berlin?
WP: Well, it’s quite simple. We’ take this as Berlin. Now, what he did he had guns raised from two thousand feet. Three, four, five all the way. All way up to about twenty thousand feet different guns could fire and you had to go through them. Then you had a master searchlight with a blue, a big blue searchlight and once he came on to you all the rest of the searchlights came on to you. The only way was go down that searchlight and go down as fast as you can and weave your way out to get out. If you were at twenty thousand feet you could lose quite a few thousand feet going down to get out of it. A lot of them did it. A lot of them wouldn’t. A lot of them would find it was going to take the wings off because of the bomb loads on. A lot of them released the bombs they were so scared. I’ve seen planes on fire. I’ve seen planes with their wings shot off. I’ve seen lads jumping out hoping they were all getting out. There was seven there. There might be eight.
Interviewer: With the second dickie.
WP: Yeah. Somebody was doing their second trip you see. Trying to get two trips in. Now, in that Pocklington book I was reading the deaths of the chappies who were in prisoner of war camps. Now, I flew in training with a Cohan. The name Cohan. He was a prisoner of war in that book. Pocklington. He was in Pocklington. Now, he was, I called him the miser. Now, he was a South African and [unclear] said I think he was Jewish because of the name Cohan you see and he used to have a box under his bed and all the stuff he used to get from South Africa. Great big tins of peaches, pears, packets of cigarettes, sweets. How we found out when you get shot down you know how they clear your kit out and all this. That box we knew he stuffed stuff in there so one of the lads got a big iron bar because he’d got steel around the boxes. You know, well-made and he had a big clasp on you know. We got this bar and we opened it up and we had a damn good feed. To think what he had in there but he’d never let any of the lads have any. I was the only one he ever took out for a meal. And any time he ever went on any exercise night, country, bullseye he took me with him only because he only needed a gunner and I could use the Morse so he wasn’t worried. He did, look bullseyes there. Yeah. Now, this is a bloke who I thought I’d be crewed up with. You see they were all the different times.
Interviewer: Yes. Cohan. Yeah.
WP: See and of course when I wasn’t with him they put me with somebody else which was the usual cross-countries and things like that you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: To keep your —
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: And then he went [pause] a bullseye. He went on a trip after that, sometime after that, he got shot down. That was it. I never saw him no more because then I was, I was with Flying Officer [Ashley]. Now, he was a nutcase. We were flying. We were supposed to go do a bullseye to Scotland and back. Something like that and we got lost and when we phoned up we were still flying over York. That was [Ashley.]
Interviewer: That was when you were with 102.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: And that was in August 1944.
WP: He was a bloody nutcase.
Interviewer: So what about, what was his navigator thinking of then? Was his navigator —
WP: I don’t know. Look, we went to Hamburg. Did not complete operations one hour and fifteen. We got one hour fifteen somewhere and then we come back home and then he didn’t fly no more because they got rid of him.
Interviewer: Oh right. Was he —
WP: Got rid of him.
Interviewer: Right. Right. Could I just sort of move it forward a bit?
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: To here, Bill.
WP: What you like.
Interviewer: We’ve gone through all these trips with Ayres and then when we got to the 15th of March ’44 you’re off to Stuttgart again and then on the 24th of March ’44 you were off to Berlin again. By this time you must have almost finished a first —
WP: Thirty.
Interviewer: Oh no. Thirty first trip.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Twenty the second. Yeah. Yeah. So these are all pretty dangerous.
WP: They were nasty.
Interviewer: Pretty dangerous trips because I mean when I was looking at the Bomber Command losses during this period you know and they were averaging across the whole main force they were averaging around about six and seven percent a trip you know which is an awful lot.
WP: They said if you did three trips, you got away with three trips you did well. After that it was just luck.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Well, did the, I mean given that you were flying in these operations and you would see aircraft going down and you would realise just how dangerous the whole business was I mean what kinds of, what kinds of opinions were aircrew forming at the time regarding these operations? You know, I mean —
WP: Well, if you had any sense Bill you just say to yourself if anything hits us I won’t know nothing because you’re sitting on four tonne of bombs.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: And you’re sitting with two thousand gallons of high octane in the wings.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: And the first aircraft we flew in they had two bunk beds. Two beds. Now, what would happen the spare tanks were inside them.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: They were like two boxes so we made them into two beds either side so any accidents we had somewhere to [pause] but when the planes got better because they were being improved all the time. Planes got better, right. They did away with that.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: They made a different, a different way into the wings altogether.
Interviewer: Yeah. So I assume that aircrew just became fatalistic about the whole business.
WP: It was no good worrying. You’d just say to yourself well yeah if I lost a good mate or a bloke said he’d just lost his mate you’d say, ‘Well, it was his turn to go. He got the chop.’ And that’s it. Just like that. It could have been me. No. You just —
Interviewer: You see this never fails to amaze me how. I mean as I’ve sort of delved into what Bomber Command was doing at the time I mean these young, and they were only young weren’t they really, I mean early twenties. They were going out several nights a week and being exposed to all this and it became very personal. I mean if a night fighter locked onto you and it was you he was after — yeah.
WP: Well, once you, once you knew a fighter was after you you always knew if he was after you.
Interviewer: How would you know that?
WP: Well, the way he always, he didn’t sit too far away. You see when you were flying there was some times you might have two or three around you. Another time you’d never see another. A hundred, a hundred planes going into a target you never might see nothing until you get on a run in because you see you were timed at a certain time. You had to be there and certain time there so you were only, you know. And sometimes you would say oh there’s one of ours over there. Another one over there.
Interviewer: So what would the distance be? I mean you had your formations going over even in a loose gaggle but in the dark it’s dangerous.
WP: You didn’t get too near them because if a fighter came on top of you you wanted all the room you could have. If you, like the Yanks were right packed together once one of them was hit you hardly could get out of the way can you? We never did that. That was daft.
Interviewer: You didn’t sort of have any apprehensions about flying at night knowing full well that you might be surrounded by two, three, four hundred other aeroplanes in a loose, in a loose gaggle like that.
WP: Your navigator was trained to fly at night. The Yanks weren’t. So, put it this way the Yanks were no good flying at night. They were through the day because they could see. They could pick a landmark out. They couldn’t at night though. Our navigators were good. Now, our navigator, I never liked my navigator. To be quite honest I never really got on with him.
Interviewer: Was he another one of Ayre’s choices then? Oh, you mean [Keighley].
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Oh right. Yeah.
WP: He was picked with me for you know when they needed their crews built to go up first dropping the flares.
Interviewer: Oh, as Pathfinders.
WP: Pathfinders.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
WP: Now, they wanted good gunners, good navigators. He was picked and I was picked.
Interviewer: For Pathfinders. Right.
WP: But the CO, I think the CO stepped in somehow. He was short of crews and he said, ‘No way.’
Interviewer: Right.
WP: You see, but —
Interviewer: So when you, when you’d finished with Ayres then you were flying with Carter.
WP: Only one trip.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: And he —
Interviewer: He was only on the squadron a short time though wasn’t he?
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Why was that?
WP: He was still] good.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Yeah. I was saying that when you finished your trips with Ayres you were then flying with Carter and you went on your first trip with Carter on —
WP: 29th of the 4th.
Interviewer: Was it the 12th?
WP: 29th 4th oh that —
Interviewer: Yeah. Your first operation. 12th of May ’44 when you went to the Hasselt but —
WP: That was it.
Interviewer: Returned early because the pilot was, the pilot was ill.
WP: No, that’s France.
Interviewer: Yeah. Well, yeah. Hasselt. Belgium.
WP: Yeah. Belgium.
Interviewer: This is the transportation plan. Yeah. Yeah.
WP: Yeah. You see.
Interviewer: That was the transportation.
WP: Well, both of them —
Interviewer: Oh, what’s his name? Carter. He wasn’t even on the squadron long was he? He was supposed to take over the squadron but he left within a month or so.
WP: I knew the bloke that took over. Woodedge. Something like that.
Interviewer: Yeah. Well, he went down as well of course. Woodedge. Eventually. Yeah. But so then you Carter was transferred off the squadron. Was that because I mean time had it taken its toll do you think?
WP: Yes, I suppose.
Interviewer: He’d had more than his share of operations.
WP: He couldn’t do his job.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
WP: He couldn’t do the job.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: You see, when I, when I learned that we were crewed up with a flight lieutenant I thought well we’ve got a decent pilot which he was because he finished up with a couple of other medals and he went overseas and he was a high up officer helping out over there. Then he went training on Albemarles is it?
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: On there. He did well.
Interviewer: That was Skinner.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Did he not —
WP: Slater.
Interviewer: Oh, Slater. Yeah. Yeah.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: I noticed you had Skinner down there.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Skinner went down as well eventually didn’t he?
WP: Yeah. Well, he was, it turned out he had pulled out [unclear]
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: I mean when I saw this sort of thing happening, Bill you’ve got three engines. Now, I was flying. We were going to Berlin and we got near the target and one engine cut out and then the pilot said to me, ‘Will, are your guns working?’ I said, ‘No, they’re not.’ I couldn’t fire them. It was terrible. Now, this was when we were blowing something up. You’ve got four engines. One engine the hydraulics. Controls the hydraulics. One engine controls the turrets. Did you know that.
Interviewer: Well, I knew they were working off the engines. Yeah.
WP: Yeah. And this is what happened you know.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: So the pilot said to me, ‘Right, your guns are not working.’ I said, ‘Well, I have been used to using them manual. I can use manual. I was trained to use them manual.’ And he said to the mid-upper, ‘How’s yours?’ And he said, ‘Yeah. I think mine are alright.’ But I couldn’t make this out so I don’t know if the hydraulics were fixed somehow you know and it could have been mine, mine had just due to to the weather. They weren’t working right. But anyway he said, ‘Well, do you want to go in or do you want to turn and go home?’ Go back you know and I just happened to say, ‘Yes, I think we’ll give it a try.’ And the other, I heard one lad say, ‘You silly bugger.’ Something like that. I don’t know who it was. But anyway we got in and got out and then we found out it was the hydraulics. But things like that I didn’t do it. I don’t know why. I just thought to myself well we’ve come all this way. Why not you know go the, go the rest.
Interviewer: Yeah. Actually one of the things that struck me in the early part when it was a really dangerous time on 640 there were a lot of aircraft coming back because of technical problems of one kind or another.
WP: Gee. The Gee. It was —
Interviewer: Whether Gee was going or engines were packing in or icing was a problem.
WP: Ah, but now you see I don’t know if you know this. Why did we get a film going at the same time as we dropped a load? You know why?
Interviewer: Yeah. To make sure that the target had been bombed.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: And, well that you were in the right area anyway.
WP: Make sure that we got there. We went there.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: A lot of the lads were going into the North Sea stooging about and coming back with, on their way back and dropped their bombs there. I mean they’d never been. That was just to make sure. We got that there was too many fishermen their boats were destroyed or had near misses with bombs dropping on them in the North Sea. That’s what it was.
Interviewer: Yeah. Mind, I mean just reading about it I could understand why someone would do that to tell you the truth because I mean —
WP: Oh, I know but —
Interviewer: It strikes me as being a particularly dangerous occupation.
WP: I’m going to tell you a little story about it. In my crew or one of the crews I’d have likely done two or three trips I had a nice mate. Johnny. Now, Johnny said to me one night, ‘Bill I bloody hate, I detest flying. I want to get out of it. I’ve tried every angle and I can’t get out of it.’ That’s what he told me at first. But the next time I had a word with him he said, ‘Bill, I’ve got a bit of luck.’ He said, ‘I’m getting out of flying.’ I said, ‘You’re getting out of flying?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘You can’t. It’s impossible.’ He said, ‘Yes, it is they’re starting up a new dance band the Squadronaires and I’m a trumpet player. I got the job as a trumpet player.’ Right. ‘Good luck to you.’ ‘Yes, go on. I’ll have it.’ The next night he took off, got shot down. Now the CO or somebody had got to know that Johnny was a mate of mine and they asked me would I kindly go and see his wife and also his brother. The CO said, ‘Now, you’re doing me a great favour.’ He said, ‘You know Leeds very well. You were living in Leeds at one time Bill weren’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘You know London very well. Soho. Around there.’ I said, 'Yeah.’ He said, 'Right.’ Anyway, he said, 'You’ll find, you’ll find Johnnie’s wife, a Miss Zina Dowd, doing a show in Leeds. The old fashioned show.’ You know when they had the old fashioned musical hall?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
WP: ‘Her name is Zina Dowd and she’s done a tap routine with two chaps. I want you to go. You know what to say.’ I said, ‘Right.’ Anyway, I went to the stage door and the stage manager he took me to the dressing room and, ‘That’s Zina Dowd.’ She said, ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’ve got to undress. I’ve got a show on.’ And she said, ‘I’ll be back in about a half an hour.’ She said, ‘Help yourself to a drink.’ I said, ‘Well, thank you very much.’ She didn’t seem to [unclear] when I told her about Johnny getting shot down. I didn’t know if he was missing or dead. We didn’t know. She said, ‘Oh. Thank you very much.’ She said, ‘I’ll be back in half an hour.’ And when she came back she got dressed. She said, 'Bill, are you free tonight?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘I’ve really got three days.’ She said, ‘Right. There’s a big do on at the station. We’ve booked a hall there and we are going to have a big do there tonight. Tessie O’Shea you know, and there will be Teddy Brown the xylophone player. All the big knobs. Would you like to come?’ I said yes and had a lovely night and I finished up with Tessie O’Shea. Talking to her and Tessie said, ‘Are you fixed up with a date tonight, Phil?’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I’ll take pot luck.’ ‘You’re coming home with me.’ Now, she owned the Grapes in Leeds, a big pub and she made me a beef sandwich and give me a bed for the night and then that was that. Right then. I thought to myself well I thanked her. I thought well I’ll make my way down. Got the train and made my way down to London. Soho. Well, they’d given me an address but when I looked at it, this is funny this is a bloody knocking shop. You know. I thought is this address right? So anyway when I found out yes it was Johnny’s brother and [Johnny] said, ‘Well, I wasn’t in the war, Bill,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a gammy leg.’ And he said, ‘I’ve been running the business.’ He said, ‘I suppose Johnny told you what business we were in.’ I said, ‘No. He just said a business in London. Soho.’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve got thirteen girls working for me. Come on, I’ll introduce you to these thirteen girls. He took me in [unclear] told me everything. ‘Now, we’ll have a good night out tonight. I’m going to take you all around Soho and give you a good night. Johnny told me all about you and being mates.’ And he said, ‘By the way, Bill,’ he said, ‘Would you like this business?’ He said, ‘I’ll give it to you. Your Johnny’s mate,’ he said, ‘We’re not really friends but you can have the business.’ I said, ‘How can I run the business? I’m still flying.’ He said, ‘Well, can’t you buy yourself out?’ I said, ‘No. Not these days. Not like you could years ago in the Army.’ I said, ‘No.’ The funny thing, he said, ‘Do you like the business?’ He wanted to get out of it and that’s another little story.
Interviewer: So who was this chap? Johnny [Dowd?] was that his name?
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Johnny [Dowd]
WP: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Was that on 640 then or 102?
WP: Hang on. No. 102. 102.
Interviewer: That was —
WP: Yeah. 102 again. See, most of my stories as I say —
[recording paused]
Interviewer: You joined Robin Slater on the, on the yeah this is the 6th of the 5th is it? The day before.
WP: Yeah. But don’t forget that comes in at six in the morning.
Interviewer: The night of the 5th 6th was your first operation. Yeah. First operation and that was a D-Day one when you were tracking guns at, how do you pronounce this? Isigny.
WP: Isigny.
Interviewer: It’s I S I G N Y.
WP: Isigny.
Interviewer: Yeah. So a lot of these early trips then were against transportation targets weren’t they?
WP: Yes, about three fifty.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: Four fifty, four thirty.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: Half the time and the other —
Interviewer: Yes. So, how did you find Slater then? How did you get on with him?
WP: Robin was alright.
Interviewer: Were you just assigned to him or what?
WP: Yeah, just well I suppose when these two were no good I was spare again.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: And he was looking for another gunner. That’s all.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: See —
Interviewer: So you just had the one. Actually you did just the one trip with Carter and then he was off the squadron.
WP: Yeah [unclear]
Interviewer: Yeah. And one trip with Skinner.
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: And then you were Slater then. So, if it was thirty you would have gone right the way through to thirty trips did you?
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: All the way through. He started —
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: At nineteen with him and then up [1947]
Interviewer: Yes. So, oh is this, is this Crockett. Did you fly with Crockett? Roy Crockett.
WP: They’re rockets. Rockets.
Interviewer: Oh, right [laughs]
WP: Rockets.
Interviewer: There’s, there’s a chap called Roy Crockett you know who is also on the —
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Also on the, also on the squadron. Yeah. So, what was your opinion then of these, of these targets in France?
WP: A doddle. A doddle.
Interviewer: Why a doddle? Because they were so short?
WP: Well, because no. No. You got, you got that frightened feeling had gone.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: There’s a big difference of going into Berlin all that way and don’t forget you’re not just guns firing at you when you got there. There were guns, there was like when you got the ribbon on the board from there to there it would say be careful of this, there’s a fighter station there. Well, when you got too near it the fighters came up and that also warned some batteries where you were and they were banging away at you so you didn’t have like and a lot of the lads if you had a lost navigator, a bad navigator and you flew just a bit too close you didn’t see them no more.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: There were too many fighters if you got too near a fighter drome. Somewhere like that.
Interviewer: Yeah. Well, when you were flying over these transportation targets they were at night though weren’t they really? Did you not have a lot of night fighter activity there then on the run up to D-Day?
WP: Always had fighters. We always had fighters.
Interviewer: So these rockets here then these would be, would these be the flying bombs that you were after initially?
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. The V-1s and then of course there would be the V-2s.
WP: These are as I say you never I never worried because I thought if we get shot down I’m not, I could swim and I could —
Interviewer: Yeah, but twenty two miles is a —
WP: We had a dinghy.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: There’s another thing I learned see. I was the only one who’d volunteer when we went dinghy drill we didn’t use a [unclear] we used a empty boat. Went out to sea and you got to dinghy the same as we had in the wing. They’d toss it in the sea upside down so it’s the wrong way around. So one of you [unclear] in the middle. Grab hold of the ropes around the side, pull it over the top of you right so the lad could get in it. A lot of them got scared because they had flying kit on and when that comes over the top of you a lot of them used to panic. I didn’t. It didn’t worry me. It’s a way to —
Interviewer: I mean that would be quite heavy gear that you would have had on then.
WP: Oh, you got, you got everything. You’ve got your everything. I mean I always wore everything. It didn’t matter if it was summer. I might take one or two things off but even my electric suit if I was in that rear turret mate I had an electrical suit on and many a time I had to go to the doctor because it used to burn your back. The wires you know and they used to say well if you turn it off. That’s alright but all of sudden you start to shiver so you’d put it back on again but you are still burning your back a bit more, you know and that’s it.
Other: Can I just interrupt —
[recording paused]
WP: I lost all my fingertips not thinking. What was it? Oh yeah. We had a side panel and I think a lot of the lads used to take the panel out the front for better vision. I didn’t.
Interviewer: Is this what they called the clear view panel?
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yes.
WP: Taken that. I never did. But my turret now and then might steam up a bit where they had little vents. You used to wear a gauntlet, a woolly glove and a silk glove on your hands. At least I did. So I pulled them off you know and just had, I think [pause] no I pulled the whole lot off not thinking. The whole lot came off with the pulling. I just went like that and the hand stuck solid. And when I got my hand off it took all the skin off the fingers.
Interviewer: It was so cold.
WP: So cold. So really you see I told you about all the clothing I wore to give you an idea.
Interviewer: Because a Halifax would be about what about twenty, twenty two thousand.
WP: Twenty. We flew about twenty thousand regularly. Somehow, they expected we’d do it. Some wouldn’t but mind the stories you should know that at Marston Moor when you did your training there you might have five aircraft standing and you tried each one to see which one you were going to take. It was all rubbish and there were more deaths —
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: In that, in Marston Moor than any flying anywhere. The old aircraft there you know.
Interviewer: I suppose the first priority would be the front-line squadrons. They would get the best gear wouldn’t they?
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: And then, but if you had a good pilot I mean a good pilot could fly with three engines. Two engines. I mean we’ve even flown on two. We came back from one place and we went in on three engines and we came more or less, came out on two. You know like sputtering and we knew. We knew, the pilot said, ‘Well, I know we’ll do it. We’ll do it. Don’t worry.’ And if he said we could do it we did it.
Interviewer: That’s wasn’t a fellow called Anderson was it?
WP: No. I never flew with an Anderson. No. But I know there was a [pause] Slater was a good pilot and I will give Wing Commander Ayres his due he was a good pilot. He would never have taken us to Berlin [unclear]
Interviewer: Just out of interest Bill did you —
[recording paused]
WP: I think the worst you see you always knew which was the worst target because you went there too many times. Because —
Interviewer: Right.
WP: They kept going there, going there, going there ‘til they annihilated the place. Now, Berlin, they wanted Berlin. I think they went there not only four times or six times they went there twelve or fourteen times to Berlin before they blew it apart.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: The same with Stuttgart.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: Stuttgart was, Hanover was a bad trip but as I say I only went there once. We didn’t make it.
Interviewer: Yeah. So when you say bad are you thinking mainly of the anti-aircraft defences there or fighters or —
WP: Oh yeah. Wicked. Wicked. I mean that you see, now another thing you are going in and then all of a sudden there was bang bang bang. You could hear the shrapnel hitting the side and God knows what and suddenly this. It stopped now. That give you a warning. Stop firing the guns because the fighters were coming up so you knew the fighters were and you were ready. You were still going in and you’d think to yourself you’re trying to keep the straight course for him to drop his bombs and get a good picture. It was thirty seconds you’d got to give him after he’s dropped his bombs for a clear picture and he was around and away. Right. Which you knew then the fighters were waiting for you you see because the guns are still. As soon as the guns started, started again the fighters disappeared.
Interviewer: So what would you reckon? Do you have a particular trip that stands out as being really the worst one for you?
WP: They could —
Interviewer: Or were they all as bad?
WP: They could really I know Berlin was bad and Stuttgart was bad but some of these other trips, Kassell [pause] Leipzig. Leipzig wasn’t so hot either. I would say three. There might be three was on a level par really. But of course you found like Berlin, Stuttgart and Leipzig, was worse because you’d been there more than once.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: Because you could assess some better than others you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: I mean sometimes, I mean you take we came down one, one day. We always had a look at the aircraft that was, I’d better start at the beginning. We always had a ‘jimmy riddle’ on the wheel before we took off. Always.
Interviewer: Was that a part of a kind of a good luck ritual?
WP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: Yeah. When we landed you couldn’t talk to one another for a while because you couldn’t hear. Four Merlin engines in your lugholes for eight hours played havoc. The first thing you wanted was a smoke so you had, you all had a smoke and you looked around the aircraft and what I spotted in the starboard inner was a dirty great big shell sticking in the engine. Anti-aircraft shell hadn’t exploded so we done a bunk. We didn’t wait to see what else. We went and told, you know told them about it.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: There was another time I must have been facing the front instead of back because my legs got very cold. Freezing. So I said to the engineer, called up the engineer, ‘Harry, will you come down and check the heating? My legs are froze.’ He came down and he plugged his intercom in near me and all of a sudden he screamed. What had happened a five hundred pounder had come down behind me, come down slanted and left a hole just like a coffin hole behind me turret. Down there. Harry nearly walked through the hole. I’m not quite sure whether it was Harry or somebody else but he nearly walked through the hole.
Interviewer: What? From an aircraft above?
WP: Above us. Another time we got a load of incendiaries through one of our wings. You know, incendiaries. Didn’t do a lot. Went straight through.
Interviewer: Did you not find that a bit unnerving that your own side were above you dropping, dropping things on you.
WP: Many a time we got the bomb aimer if we weren’t near the target or he might get up quick and tell Robin to move over. He could see you know. He’d got all glass around the front of him and he’d be watching and if he thought somebody was too near and he was going in he’d tell Robin to get over or go around again. When he said, ‘We’ll go around again.’ ‘No bloody fear you won’t. You’ll drop them now.’
Interviewer: Yes.
WP: You know. You’re ready to go.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: Because you’re going to get, coming around you’re —
Interviewer: Against the stream.
WP: You know. Daft. Only once we did it and that, I think that was Ayres did it. Yeah. it was daft. But as I say I really enjoyed the life in the forces and in the beginning once you’d obviously corporals and that I was taught by an uncle who was a heavyweight champion of the Navy, Charlie [unclear]. I got a very good hiding at school. Came home with two black eyes. I came home. He said, ‘You won’t have no black eyes when I’ve finished with you,’ and he taught me to box. And that was Charlie. I was going to tell you something. I forget now.
[recording paused]
WP: A Yank station for one reason only. Good grub, ice cream, cigars and cigarettes. Plenty of. Enjoy yourself.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: Now, a Yank dropped at our station. I think that was Leconfield and he said, ‘Do you mind if I look over your plane?’ And I said, ‘Well, you’d better ask the pilot because we’ve got a lot of stuff on there we don’t want people to see.’ That was Gee and H2S and all that.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: But anyway, they were given permission and when they saw the guns they laughed their bloody heads off. They said, ‘What are you doing with those peashooters?’ That’s what they called them. Peashooters. He said, ‘They want throwing away.’ He said, ‘Where’s your .5s?’ We’d been asking for them and we never got them until right at the end of the war the .5 and I was trained on the .5 too.
Interviewer: Even in, even in the fighters, the Spitfires and the Hurricanes they had 303s you know.
WP: Yeah, I know.
Interviewer: And I think —
WP: They had shells as well.
Interviewer: Yes.
WP: You see. I always thought supposing that they give us one good gun. A shell gun like a pom pom because when you worked as they did with four guns together it would only have been the same weight. One good gun and do some good with it. They let the mid-upper have his four guns you know but in the tail like the Yanks they used to have a special little, like a little gun and that was they used to train that on you know and then you had all this [unclear]
Interviewer: There’s an old friend of mine —
[recording paused]
WP: Pilot to go forward or starboard.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: You’ve seen the —
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
WP: See what I mean??
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: So what I did when I first got I put it in chalk port and starboard.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: See so —
Interviewer: So his port and starboard not your port and starboard.
WP: His.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
WP: And then he had a wind drift. I had a wind drift on the side of me. They might ask me for wind drift all the time. I’d give them a wind.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: And the navigator might say, ‘Well, circuits and bumps.’ Or cross countries and things like that. ‘Can you see anything to give me a landmark, Bill?’ I’d say, ‘Yeah, there’s a church. A large building over there. I think it’s a church.’ He said, ‘Yes, there should be a church there,’ because on a lot of maps you would see a cross on your maps and things like that.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: If you could read a map properly you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: Railway lines are good. Another good one.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: You know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: But —
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: You see if you’re I think being a good gunner if you remember what you were taught, when I used to go to the, into the room I used to take a foolscap with me and write a lot down and the instructors used to say, ‘Why don’t you lads do what Bill does? He could take that up later on. He could reverse that and look at that.’ They said, ‘That’s a good idea.’ When the marks, oh I had a schoolmaster. Yeah. I knew I wanted to go in for aircrew so I went to see this master. His name was Mr Kemp. He was a don from Cambridge. His son was a Spitfire pilot who was killed and his wife died and poor old boy he went a bit doolally. Anyway, he’d come to our school to take a teacher’s job instead of being at college. But having a don there he was the right man to teach you. I went to see him when I was, just before I was going to join up. I said, ‘Mr Kemp,’ I said, ‘I’ve come to see if you’ll do me a favour.’ I said, ‘I’m a bit low on algebra, trigonometry. I said, ‘That’s not my bag.’ And I said, ‘I get by but — ’ I said, ‘Could you coach me?’ He said, ‘Oh. Yes,’ he said, ‘I live at Kenton. You live at Harrow. I’ll give you three nights a week. If you can ride to Kenton three nights a week I’ll teach you.’ And he did. He said, ‘Remember, I was a don and a lot of lads, I had to sit on a lot of boards for the RAF.’ He said [unclear] ‘When you come into a building,’ he said, ‘Nine times out of ten there will be a plaque on the top with the age.’ He said, ‘You’ll put your hat and coat on a peg. They’re numbered most of them. Remember the number. Now — ’ he said, ‘When you go into the room you will find three officers sitting at the table. When you turn that handle, knock on the door to come in, you’ll come in. They are straight at you. Sixteen times sixteen or thirteen times thirty. Give them an answer. It doesn’t matter if it’s the wrong answer. Give them an answer.’ He said, ‘When you come to that chair don’t you dare sit down in that chair. You wait until they tell you to sit down. They’ll ask you questions. What do you want to do in the Air Force?’ He said, ‘Give them a nice quick clear answer. Don’t be frightened. Just think you’re talking to me. You see. You’re talking to me.’ That’s what he used to do. Now, I told you about the boxing I used to take. These corporals would try and get you down. This is a trick. Just smile. Do this. Do that. You just smile all the time. Just smile at them. They get so bloody mad. They’ll leave you along and go to somebody else. Things like that but this is what got me through. Little things that remembering and not give in. And of course I was a good boxer you know. I was good at boxing. Yeah. Then [unclear] was it the lightweight? The light weight and heavy weight before. A good round. An Army lad and we did well the two of us.
Interviewer: It's something I could never understand. Why folks wanted to do it, Bill. I wouldn’t want to go into a ring and have —
[recording paused]
WP: Sometimes you would, out there you saw a fighter down. Now and then and say you’ve got some heavy flak on the shore like where the Gerries still had a few guns you know.
Interviewer: Right.
WP: But to me it was a doddle.
Interviewer: Right. Well, yeah. I should think well it’s easy for me to say yes of course because I wasn’t there. I’m sure it was a damn sight more dangerous than —
Other: Yes.
Interviewer: Than you’re letting on.
Other: Yes. He sits and talks about these different little things, different instances and like he’s caught up in since he started to do all this research.
Interviewer: Yes. Yeah.
Other: He said that he’s sort of able in a way, sorry —
Interviewer: No. No. That’s not a problem.
Other: He’s able in a way —
[recording paused]
WP: Walk about like robots.
Interviewer: Sorry. Just say that again Bill. I had to start the tape again. The lads used to walk around like robots.
WP: Yeah. For some reason they got I think not only just frightened you got tired. We got fed up. We got really, you know we went out drinking too much because you come back and you were still [pause] these wakey wakey tablets keep you awake and you used to start off with two. Now, in my pocket I had a handful in my pocket and I got in the end I got [pause] I got, my old man told me not to take anymore because you take two. Then you take four. Then you take six. Now, what used to happen if you took too many when you wanted to sleep you couldn’t and when you could sleep you slept the day. You’d go out and nobody [pause] hit you, pushed you you couldn’t wake up at all.
Interviewer: Yeah.
WP: You see. But then I’ve seen lads flying, pilots, gunners and that walking about like robots. They’re doing their jobs. Doing it automatic. But you could look up and see oh he’s not well. You know. You’re going around the bend a bit. You know what I mean. Because if you went to the doctor now this is the thing you’d be lack of moral fibre.
Interviewer: Yeah. Which is a dreadful thing to say of anyone.
WP: Yeah. Well, that was it. You see they’d cut the corner off. You see that corner up the top. If they cut that off you’d never get a job. That used to, when you got home that would usually get you a job. Cut that off. That’s it. You never got a job. Especially —
Other: He [unclear] he gave it away didn’t you?
WP: Gave it away.
Other: Gave it away.
WP: Used to make a cup of tea and that when I was on the round.
Interviewer: Right.
Other: He’s getting paid to reconstruct it.
Interviewer: Oh right.
Other: And I’ve got half of it done you know.
Interviewer: Yes.
Other: Because I’m trying to —
Interviewer: Yeah.
Other: Is that —
Interviewer: No. I think it’s the other way around isn’t it?
Other: Funny.
Interviewer: Yes.
Other: Yes. Yeah. So doing them I didn’t have black so I’ve had to use navy for that, you know.
Interviewer: Right. Yes.
Other: He said it represented the colours. He put down what colours he wanted them in.
Interviewer: Yes.
Other: And I’m doing them each one is as many times as the trips he took you know so —
Interviewer: Right.
Other: There’s two Berlins this end and I’ve got the other end to do.
Interviewer: Oh right.
Other: So there would be to the other end to represent the four trips.
Interviewer: Yes.
Other: They symmetry you know and the same with Stuttgart. However many trips he did.
Interviewer: Yeah. There would be —
Other: They’d be repeated at the other end.
Interviewer: Right. Yeah.
WP: [unclear]
Other: Another length that I will be stitching in you know so that —
Interviewer: Yes.
Other: It’s all stitched in and in between —
Interviewer: Yeah.
Other: I thought I’d do, just keep them to the ends and do the same up this end you know.
Interviewer: Yes.
Other: The various different ones and then in between this gap here Bill did wonder whether he’d like to have what was it now? Your squadron.
WP: Squadron.
Other: Yes, squadron.
Interviewer: Right.
Other: Number and name on you know.
Interviewer: Right.
Other: To do it there but —
Interviewer: So what’s the significance of —