Interview with Harry Hacker. One
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Interview with Harry Hacker. One
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Harry Hacker was in a Reserved Occupation with the Post Office when he and his friend volunteered for the RAF. He had lived through the Liverpool Blitz. He trained as a bomb aimer and was sent to South Africa to complete his training. While enroute they were told that a ship they had recently passed had been torpedoed. He crewed up at 77 OTU in Jerusalem and began his operational flying with 40 Squadron. His first operation was against Marseilles. His second operation was with an experienced crew against the oilfields at Ploesti in Romania and he describes the aircraft next to them receiving a direct hit and exploding. They were also attacked. The rear gunner shot down an attacking aircraft and received a DFM. After Harry’s operational service he became an RAF liaison with RAPWI as prisoners of war and internees were repatriated.
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00:45:45 audio recording
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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SBondS-HackerHv10008 copy
Transcription
Interviewer: Ok. We’re on the run.
HH: I’m a little bit hard of hearing so —
Interviewer: Ok, Harry. Not to worry.
HH: If I don’t get what you say sometime.
Interviewer: Not to worry.
HH: Please understand.
Interviewer: Really all I want to do is just chat really.
HH: Yeah.
Interviewer: About, you know sort of pencil in your service career. You know, when you joined, when you left and what came in between.
HH: Yeah.
Interviewer: And obviously we’re focussing on the Wimpy mainly but sort of set it in context.
HH: Yeah.
Interviewer: How come you came to join the Air Force and when was it?
HH: Yeah. Ok.
Interviewer: We’ll start there.
HH: Well, I’m born and bred Liverpudlian. I’m a Liverpudlian up in Liverpool and I went through the Blitz when I was a teenager and then when I was eighteen I joined the RAFVR. Went to the Recruiting Office with a pal of mine. We were both doing Night School and all. We were fed up with Night School so we said, ‘Come on let’s go and join up.’
Interviewer: What year was this?
HH: Sorry?
Interviewer: What year was this?
HH: That would be ’42. ’42.
Interviewer: Ok.
HH: Yeah. ’42. I would be eighteen, nineteen then. ’41 possibly. I don’t know.
Interviewer: Ok.
HH: I can’t remember exactly.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: 41 or ’42. It was when I was, I was about eighteen. We went along to the recruiting officer who was a big sergeant major there standing and, ‘What do you chaps want?’ ‘Well, we want to join up.’ And I was in, both of us were in a Reserved Occupation. We worked for the Post Office Engineering then. The only categories that you could get into from a Reserved Occupation was aircrew or submarines.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: So we both chose aircrew.
Interviewer: I wonder why? [laughs] Yeah.
HH: Yeah. My son is a keen aqua diver and he’s very keen on submarines but I wouldn’t like to go down. I don’t mind being out in the open but [pause] and that was it. I went away. They took all the details and then the next thing I got was notification from Padgate which was near Warrington then.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And that was a big recruiting and medical centre, what have you. I went to Padgate, went before a Selection Board which, that was quite a bit when you sit there and you’ve got to answer questions and they give you mathematical problems to do and all that sort of thing. You’ve probably experienced a lot of this yourself. And then got through that Selection Board and then had a medical. I’d never had such a medical in all my life. There must have been about a dozen specialists you know, ear, nose and throat. The chest man like this and the whole bang shoot. Anyway, we were there a couple of days I suppose. Two or three days and then they gave you a little badge then to show that you were joining the armed forces.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: It was RAFVR on it. A little tiny wing badge as you’ve probably seen. They sent us home then until they called us up.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And when they did call me up, I can’t remember how many months later but the Centre I had to report to was Lords Cricket Ground in London.
Interviewer: Yeah. ACRC.
HH: You know all this do you?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah, you carry on.
HH: They housed us in some luxury flats that had just been built but never occupied. Never sold. Never occupied. We didn’t have any furniture in there at all, just mattresses and brass ash tray in the middle of the floor. We did all our drill pounding and initial stuff around Regents Park. We marched all around Edgeware Road and Regent’s Park and everything.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And then from there I think we went up to a village called Ludlow in Shropshire.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: And it was owned by a top politician. It was an aristocrat, sir somebody or other who had a big estate there and the idea was we were supposed to be toughening up. So they put us on roadbuilding on the estate.
Interviewer: Really.
HH: It was obviously the old estate bloke was getting roads built you know for free sort of thing.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: We lived in bell tents then. The old-fashioned bell tents. Eight to a tent. Thirty nine pubs there were in the village. It was great. Then we finished that and then went up to [pause] I’ve got to try and remember the order that I did. Went up to Brough in Yorkshire. Opposite the Blackburn.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: Blackburn Aircraft Company.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: On the banks of Hull.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: There I flew in Tigers. They taught you to fly in Tigers. You were given about eight hours. Eight or ten hours. You had to solo in that time. Then that, that after that then I was selected because there was, they could see what was going to happen now as far as the air fighter was concerned. Not so much fighter pilots but yeah, that was still going. It was very busy then but they realised that Bomber Command was going to, and Coastal Command was going to extend.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: There were so many youngsters wanting to get in. All wanted to get in as fighter pilots with the top button undone sort of thing you know. The glory. All kids.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: So we were selected and they had a scheme then called the PNB scheme.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: And under that scheme I was selected to be bomb aimer.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And then we did initial, all the ground subjects we did at Aberystwyth in Wales.
Interviewer: Right. Yeah.
HH: Spent some time there under a famous boxer at the time who was in the RAF. A friend of Freddie Mills was Barnes. I can’t remember his Christian name now.
Interviewer: Ok.
HH: Barnes. A Welshman.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: He was a heavy or middle weight amongst the top at the time.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: In fact, they gave us whilst we were there an exhibition bout between him and Freddie Mills. You’ve heard of Freddie Mills.
Interviewer: Oh, of course. Yes.
HH: They were both in the RAF actually.
Interviewer: I knew Freddie was.
HH: Did initial training then. From there I was sent to, I think Blackpool. I think it was. We were at Blackpool, a short distance from my home in Liverpool and we were waiting there for, to be sent to a Flying School because there was so many, not enough Flying Schools in the UK. They had this PNB scheme which, you know.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: And I was chosen to go to South Africa.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: So I did my air training there at 42 Air School in Port Elizabeth and East London. Went through the whole course there of bomb aiming, navigation, air gunnery and also I was trained as a bomb aimer in the old Wellington. We were trained to act as co-pilots as well.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: So we did all that.
Interviewer: So that was Oxfords and Ansons was it?
HH: Oxfords and Ansons. You’ve got it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. Ok.
HH: That’s right. However, the old Anson there when you, down in the bombing bay you slid the panel back.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And there was always the danger there. You had nothing underneath you, you know. Looking down. That was a load of fun. Air gunnery was quite amusing. I remember flashing along there and they’d say, ‘Target coming up.’ You sort of get ready and then they’d say, ‘Right. The target immediate.’ You start to open fire and a bloody cow in the sights so we shot a cow. That was air gunnery practice. Bombing practice was to I think a twelve foot square. Twelve yards. Twelve foot square I think it was painted yellow.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And that was out in the Indian Ocean. That was our target. We went through all that. In the meantime doing all the subjects and then I passed out on Christmas Eve ’43.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: Christmas Eve ’43. Got my wings and then they shipped us up then by sea to the Middle East and that’s when I, on the way up there pulled into Mombasa and I became involved, I got a taste for Africa then.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And, but we weren’t, we didn’t go ashore. Always wondered then what was beyond it.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: Little did I know that a few years later I’d be marrying a girl from there.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And I would come back after the war.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: Anyway, twenty four hours I think we were in port probably revictualling or whatever and we left on the Sunday morning. At the Sunday service on board ship at the, on the Sunday morning the old padre informed us that a ship that we had passed only a couple of hours beforehand had been torpedoed.
Interviewer: Oh.
HH: By a U-boat.
Interviewer: Oh.
HH: So, obviously it must have seen us. We were a troop ship. Ideal.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: But for some reason or other they didn’t. Maybe he couldn’t reach us or something and he gave this merchant ship.
Interviewer: Oh God.
HH: That was sunk. Anyway, we arrived up in the Middle East and we were sent to, there was a big Reception Centre there at a place called Heliopolis.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: Outside of, just on the outskirts of Cairo. Spent a little while there and then posted to 77 OTU which was in Palestine which was still a British mandated territory then. So we did operational training there and at the same time, no after the end of that all our bombing then, practice, our bombing practice and navigation was all done around the Eastern Mediterranean and our bombing targets were in the desert in Jordan. We encountered an enemy fighter one night. No idea because we were green then. Absolutely.
Interviewer: Right. Right.
HH: No idea where the hell he had come from. Who it was firing at us.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Or what. Am I ok?
Other: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: But we discovered later on that it possibly a prowling night fighter from Crete because the Germans by then —
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: Had occupied Crete.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: So that shook us a bit. Made us wake up a little bit to have a look out because the guys had not seen anything and I was at the controls at the time.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: The next thing I saw was tracer fire going above my port wing.
Interviewer: Wow, that’s —
HH: My tail gunner hadn’t seen anything at all. It was just a shot in the dark. Whether he was firing on radar or not I don’t know.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: But that was it. A bit of evasive action took us away. We had lots of casualties at OTU. Lots of casualties because there we were converting from Ansons and Oxfords to the much bigger Wellington.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: A different kettle of fish.
Interviewer: Were these Wimpy 1s, 2s, 3s?
HH: I can’t remember what model they were.
Interviewer: It was, it was radial engine Wimpies was it?
HH: The radial ones. I think they were the same as we, later on there was 9s and 10s —
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: That I flew on the squadron.
Interviewer: Ok. Yeah.
HH: As I say we had a few casualties. We went through a stage almost every day we had a funeral parade you know. Usually your mate’s carelessness here, there. We experienced a few ourselves. In bombing practice we used to drop hundred pound magnesium bombs as a flash. A photographic flash. We nearly hit an aircraft over, over Palestine or Jordan I’m not sure, around about there anyway one night and we dived. The skipper dived underneath it instead of doing the normal evasive actions.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: To starboard sort of thing.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: He dived underneath it. I left my bloody seat. I got thrown out of the seat because I didn’t have my belt on and suddenly had a cold sweat. I thought Christ those magnesium flares because the magnesium flares were in this flare ‘chute.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Which was at an angle and the detonator was a cable on the side of the frame which plugged into the detonator like a, like a grenade.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And of course when it stood out the chute that pin came out and the detonator was on. I had a cold sweat. I thought Christ what’s happened with those things? If I’ve shot out of my seat probably these things have shot out.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: From what I could remember there was no safety lock on it coming out and I leapt through and you know the Wellington has got a main spar just behind the flight deck.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: I can’t remember clearing that, passing the navigator, the wireless operator and I saw these two bloody flares lying on the ground. I’ve never moved so fast in all my life. I quickly unscrewed the, with both hands unscrewed the detonator capsule. These things. Found that the wire was taut but hadn’t actually pulled out. Got the detonators out and I thought thank Christ for that otherwise we could have gone up.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Little accidents like that I think and odd things. We had the hatch above the cockpit blew off one day. We had to try and drag that in. I was standing on this seat held by my belt by the wireless op or navigator. So on little instances like this I think anything could have happened. Blokes were just going down like nine pins. It seemed like it anyway. Anyway, to cut a long story short we went, we finished at 77 OTU and we went then to Jerusalem and Jerusalem again was like a transit. There in Jerusalem all the different categories came together. Air gunners, pilots, navigators, bomb aimers.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And you mixed all together.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: So you had the opportunity to pick who you wanted to fly with which was rather good and we chummed up and we, we had quite a mixture actually. I had, funnily enough I’m a Liverpudlian, my wireless operator was a Liverpudlian, the pilot was an Australian, the air gunner was a West Indian and myself from Liverpool and the navigator, Geoff Partridge was from I think Cheltenham down south of England here.
Interviewer: Yeah. Right. Right.
HH: There we came together as pals. We thought right, do we want to fly together when we go on operations? Yeah. So we chummed up and that’s how we formed our crew.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Which I’ve got a photograph in there if you want to see it.
Interviewer: Absolutely, yes.
HH: And then from there we flew by Dakota, DC-3s.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: To, direct to Cairo. Back to Cairo and then flew from Cairo I think to Italy. Italy was then under occupation.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: The southern part.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And the RAF had moved from the Desert then up into Italy.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: To the southern airfields. I was sent to Foggia Main.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: To 40 Squadron. Got onto the squadron and we met with the different, with the CO. He welcomed us in sort of thing and then he said next day we were to report to our flight commanders who had A-Flight and B-Flight who were both allocated to whatever flight you were in. And it was on that one occasion where we had one of our chaps that had gone through training, all in all I suppose there must have been sixty of us that on and off we were together going through training there was only one out of that lot first day on the squadron he went to the wing commander and said, ‘You can strip me. I’m LMF.’ And —
Interviewer: Really?
HH: Of course, he was whipped off the squadron quicker than that.
Interviewer: Goodness.
HH: We never saw him again.
Interviewer: Oh.
HH: But that was the only instance I ever met of any chap chickening out if you like.
Interviewer: Wow.
HH: To put it crudely.
Interviewer: Goodness.
HH: Which was rather nice to see because we were I suppose seventy five percent of us were late teenagers. I was nineteen coming up twenty.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: And that was it. Then my first operation was the invasion of Southern France.
Interviewer: Oh yeah.
HH: The docks at Marseilles.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: Second operation was a bit livelier. It was Ploesti oil fields.
Interviewer: Oh, really?
HH: Have you heard of them?
Interviewer: I certainly have. Romania. Yes. Yes.
HH: That was, that was quite an operation. That was my second one.
Interviewer: Wow.
HH: And I went in in a way fortunate. I went in with an experienced crew. Their bomb aimer had gone down sick and I was asked if I would go and stupid as one was I volunteered to go you know. Green as the grass [laughs] and that was my second operation. That was a very exciting one that one.
Interviewer: Well, talk me through that. You said it was lively. I understand it was exciting.
HH: Sorry?
Interviewer: Talk me through that can you?
HH: Yeah. Since I’ve gone into more details about Ploesti but as you know it was, it was the only German source then of oil. Germany couldn’t produce any oil. The only production she had was synthetic oil.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: So she was getting most of her oil from the Caucasus in Russia which she then possessed and the big oilfields of Ploesti in Romania.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: About ten oil, ten refineries there and then the oilfields. So they lost the Caucasus with the Russians advancing in ’43. June, July ’43. So all they had left was Romania. The Romanian oilfields of Ploesti. So they built a ring around the whole oilfields. Most of the guns, the heavies and the light ones were dug in on the hills around so you had an umbrella over the target plus the fact they also had searchlights that were radar controlled. What we called master searchlights and if you got one of these on to you he could hold you and then all the rest would converge on you having seen we’ve got one here and they’d throw everything at you. We had, on the bombing run in we had a bloke off our port quarter just blew up. He must have got a direct hit. He just went in in an orange flash. Quite chilling. But by then there wasn’t much time to, to worry. You were concerned with yourself and your bombing run. We were coming up to the bombing run then. We could see the Pathfinders ahead of us. We had 614 Squadron which were a mixture of Liberators and Halifaxes. They’d gone in and they were receiving all the flak and they were also replying with their guns as well. Going in was just hell let loose.
Interviewer: What height were you at?
HH: Sorry?
Interviewer: What height were you at? About?
HH: I can’t remember. I should have got it written down I think. Oh no. I should think probably twelve, fifteen thousand.
Interviewer: Ok.
HH: Not, if that. Not even high.
Interviewer: Ok.
HH: I think the highest we ever did was fifteen thousand on any target.
Interviewer: Right. Right.
HH: A lot of them were around about six thousand, six and a half thousand foot mark so they weren’t really high. In the Wellington it wasn’t designed as a high-level bomber.
Interviewer: No. No. No.
HH: At all.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: So it was quite, quite a low altitude so I can’t remember the one at Ploesti.
Interviewer: No. Ok. Anyway, carry on please.
HH: Some of them, I have some photographs which shows my altitude.
Interviewer: Ok. Well, I’ll have a look at those.
HH: At least you’d know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And that was it. Going in also with all the heavy flak that they had on the [flare] sites we were told they had a crack squadron of Romanian night fighters. Research later on there was about a hundred and twenty ME109s defending the target and then about two hundred aircraft defending the target on approaches from all directions whichever way we were coming from because what we did then was fly to Bucharest in the hope that we would draw some of the mobile artillery south. But as soon as we turned north of the fields that was it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: They knew where we were going.
Interviewer: Sure.
HH: And they were waiting for us. The sky was filled with just flak, tracer fire all over the place. As I say we had one aircraft, one of own blew up just to the off side of us. But by then your concentration is staying alive and of course the last few seconds or thirty seconds say try to keep straight and level into your target to get your target in your bomb site.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: Whilst we were doing that there was all sorts of yells of fire coming in from night fighters. We had our Indian, West Indian air gunner was quite cool and he was hammering away with his guns. In the meantime I’m trying to concentrate on keeping straight and level because we had a rule of thumb if you like you never stayed straight and level for more than twenty five seconds because that’s the time it would take to get the master radar to get you, a shell into their gun and up to your altitude.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: So you’re trying to not stay straight and level too long but you had got to do to a certain extent to get the target in between your tramlines of your gunsights.
Interviewer: Yeah. Sure.
HH: So I can’t remember the details. Anyway, in there we were bombing. We had just got rid of our bomb load when the, the guy yelled that an aircraft was coming in from the starboard quarter up. A night fighter. Soon after he said, ‘Stand by to corkscrew,’ because we had [pause] you know all about the corkscrew.
Interviewer: The corkscrew. Yes. Yes.
HH: So, ‘Standby corkscrew starboard,’ because the enemy was coming in from the starboard quarter up.
Interviewer: Yes, and you turned towards it.
HH: And as you know the idea is to tighten the circle. At the same time the wireless operator yells. He’s standing in the astrodome because he’d got nothing to do other than observe, same with the navigator. They yell, ‘One coming in from the starboard beam.’ So we had two fighters coming at us. Arthur is in his room with the four Browning machine guns. They were coned all to meet.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: All the four guns. Although our armament wasn’t heavy if you coned it in it became a heavy blaster and I think if I remember rightly the estimated range of the JU88s which I think was what most of their night fighters, and ME109s would be around two hundred and fifty yards.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: So our gunner yelled. He kept his cool. Yelled it at two hundred and fifty yards as he estimated it because he you know the wingspan and the [unclear] all of that, he got it right and he opened up with everything and he hit this bloke and the bloke just blew up.
Interviewer: Wow.
HH: A great cheer from the wireless operator, ‘We got him. We got him,’ sort of thing you know. We got the yell of course prior to this from the gunner. He always warns you, ‘Stand by corkscrew port.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Or starboard whichever way it is.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And then when he decides now is the time when he thinks the enemy is about to open fire then he would shout, Now and then we up front would go into the corkscrew. Whatever. We’d done this and suddenly at the end of it all when this fighter had gone and we had a moment to reflect we looked at our airspeed indicator and it was down to about seventy five. I forget, I want to ask you this. You might be more accurate. I can’t remember what the stalling speed was of the Wellington.
Interviewer: Wow, that’s just about there I think.
HH: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Yeah. That’s what I thought.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: We thought Christ we are going to drop out of the sky here. So we pushed the stick forward.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: After a second or two we realised we weren’t stalling at all. We were, the clock was second time around. We were in a steep dive. Shit. So both the skipper and I were both pulling back on the ruddy controls to try and get it up hoping that the wings would stay on. It took two of us to get the stick back.
Interviewer: Jesus.
HH: By the time we got the stick back we were in among Dante’s Inferno. Probably down to, I don’t know maybe down to about five hundred feet, a thousand feet, something like that. Everything going on around and the whole place was a mass of flames and gunfire and what have you. No chance to bloody think about it. Anyway, we got straight and level and we thought we’d stay down here for a bit, clear the night fighters until we clear the target area and all is reasonably ok. So by then we, we decided to carry on with every climb to cruising altitude to go back and on the way back, on the way back we were still tormented by night fighters.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: And we got to an area where we were crossing the Romanian and Bulgarian border somewhere around about that so we suddenly noticed down on our starboard quarter about five thousand feet below us navigation lights.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: We thought what the hell is this all about, you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: We were over enemy territory. It can’t be one of ours. So we deduced it had got to be one of the night fighter bases.
Interviewer: Oh, ok. Yeah.
HH: Some of the blokes going in to land.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: So we thought, all kids [laughs] ‘Let’s give them a bloody treat.’ So we went down and joined the circuit hoping that their identification was similar to ours you know coming in to land.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: Was green.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Held off with a red Aldis lamp because we were no audio then.
Interviewer: Sure.
HH: Most of the airstrips were landing strips not aerodromes. So we went in after two of them had gone in, we didn’t see anybody behind us hoping our silhouette wouldn’t divulge that we were a Wellington as opposed to what their night fighters were. You’d got, everything was quiet. We had our nav lights on going in as if to land and as we went along the runway we opened up. I went up to the front turret. The rear gunner was, he put his guns to starboard, I put mine to port and we opened up the taps and went along and we just sprayed. About thirty seconds we’d got tracer fire chasing our backsides. Quick time we turned to port all everybody yelling, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ And that was it.
Interviewer: Goodness me.
HH: We reached our cruising altitude safe and sound and headed back to Foggia Main. But then we thought now what do we do here? Do we say what we’ve done? Because we had a very blood and guts group captain. A Group Captain [Harris] and he was, I can remember him remonstrating one crew for the bomb aimer not bombing a convoy because there were Red Cross wagons in the convoy.
Interviewer: Right. Yes. Yeah.
HH: He said, ‘It doesn’t matter my boy,’ he said, ‘You bomb it anyway. That’s what you’re out doing.’ He said, ‘Those wounded could be on their feet the next day killing our people.’ So we thought to be on the safe side we won’t say anything at all and he always stood in at debriefing. He was always telling, he was always listening to what the crews had to say but he didn’t pick us up or anything so we got away with it. The old ground crew patched up because the old Wellie as you know was fabric covered.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Patched us all up. All the bullet holes we had with us. We just put it down to all the ammunition used as a night fighter operation. That was my second operation.
Interviewer: Wow.
HH: Then we did all sorts of ops then. We did the Herman Göring tank works in Austria. As I said to you I did my first operation Marseilles.
Interviewer: Marseilles. Yeah.
HH: The invasion of Southern France. There we had to, on the way in there we had to watch the Naval convoys because, to make sure you had the IFF switched on because if you didn’t the Navy boys wouldn’t hesitate.
Interviewer: [unclear]
HH: They would blast you out of the bloody skies they would.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Make sure that was ok.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And then second operation Ploesti. From there on there was just targets basically over southern and Central Europe. Italy, France, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, along the Danube. Mine laying on the Danube because the Danube then of course was more important than anything as a waterway and as transportation.
Interviewer: Yes, of course.
HH: Because the German forces were really up against it then being pushed back by the Russians. So the Danube was an important target. That was it. Our gunner got an immediate DFM for the fighter that he shot down.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: So that was good. That was —
Interviewer: What was his name? What was his name? The gunner’s name.
HH: West Indian.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And he was Arthur but his nickname was Sonny. S O N N Y. Arthur Sonny Skerritt.
Interviewer: Oh right.
HH: S K E R R I T T.
Interviewer: Right. Right.
HH: He was from St Kitts. And for weeks after that if we were [pause] Sorento was then used as an old rest and leave place.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: You are into a lot of this aren’t you? You’ve done your research.
Interviewer: Oh yes. Yeah.
HH: We had a very nice, we had taken I think there were three hotels in Sorrento then and 2 and 5 Group had taken them over as rest and recuperation places for their air crews so they were very nice. Really luxurious. We had the chance of seeing Vesuvius and Pompeii, Capri and all those sorts of things you know. The only thing to drink then because the Italians were desperately short of everything, food and they were begging food. You could get anything you know for a pound of butter or anything you had to give them. They were in a really sorry state.
Interviewer: Sure.
HH: All they had to drink, all they were producing was vermouth.
Interviewer: Oh, really.
HH: Which we used to drink as aircrews by the pint. No beer. No beer available there. There was on the squadron but not in Sorrento. So, there was only wine and that was a very poor quality. We were coming out in ulcers and all sorts of things. We were transported there from the squadron by road. Road transport.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: And one convoy I can particularly mention was the Polish girls. Army girl drivers drove us.
Interviewer: Oh, yes. Yeah.
HH: To Sorrento. Right across the snowy mountains.
Interviewer: Yeah. So then you completed a full tour then did you?
HH: I did thirty nine operations.
Interviewer: Thirty nine. Right.
HH: A tour then in the Middle East was forty.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Forty operations. I did thirty nine and we were told, ‘Ok boys, pack up. You can go now back to Cairo.’ In my logbook I was recommended. I was given a good report as a bombing, as a bomb aimer and recommended that I would make a good bombing leader. So as you know like these boys that go back to Afghanistan the adrenaline has got to you. No hesitation. Go back for a second tour. So I was going to train as a bombing leader but then of course the war was coming to an end.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: So it wasn’t necessary.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: So I’d been promoted on the squadron to pilot officer.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And when we went back to the Middle East I was posted to Alexandria which was then or prior to then a permanent RAF station and I was the sprog officer in the Officer’s Mess and as you know the sprog his job is to —
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Toast the King at that time.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: I was as nervous as bloody hell about doing this. Being an RAF station everything was pukka you know. Everything. The crockery was RAF insignia. The silver —
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: The Mess dinners were absolutely spot on with the president of course, the CO. I’m at the end there and I’m given the job of toasting the —
Interviewer: Yes. Yes.
HH: I was as nervous as bloody hell about this because being on the squadron you know they were all, they were all kids all thrown in all FAO we’d no experience of the regular experience of the Air Force at all.
Interviewer: True.
HH: Other than blokes that we met and flew with so that was a bit nerve wracking.
Interviewer: I bet it was.
HH: After that I was posted as the assistant adjutant to [unclear] old station, the transient place, Heliopolis and then they sent me to a Communications Unit because I’d had communications experience with the Post Office as a youth in training.
Interviewer: Oh yes.
HH: So they posted me there as assistant adjutant. Still a bit bloody nervous. You have all the blokes on janckers come up before you. No experience of how to handle these blokes but we had a very good warrant officer, a regular who as you know the warrant officer is the senior NCO.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: The backbone of the service.
Interviewer: Absolutely right. Yeah.
HH: And he was a super bloke you know. I used to say, I forget what his name was now, I used to say to him, ‘Ok, this bloke has done that. What do you recommend?’ He’d say, ‘I recommend seven days — ’
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: So I’d bravely dishing out the punishment [laughs] but absolutely inexperienced. Eventually they sent us all these flying types that were commissioned on the squadron with no officer training whatsoever so they sent us to an officer training course in, again in Palestine.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: That was an education because most of the instructors were sergeants or senior NCOs. The odd, the odd officer amongst them but we were all veterans as we reckoned you know. Tough guys. We don’t want [laughs] we don’t need this bullshit and so that was a bit rough and ready on that one but it was good fun. Passed out on that but we were posted still in the Middle East and then the war was coming to an end. Obviously at Alexandria the night that war finished in Europe.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And I was then posted to the Canal Zone.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And one of the first jobs I had because they were bringing a lot of ex-prisoners of war and internees back from the Far East in a rough state. Every ship that they could lay their hands on were bringing these people back from India, from Burma. Anywhere where they were.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And they were in a sorry state. They were.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: They had been in prison camps some of them for as long as five years. They’d married the first woman almost that they met when they were released and they were bringing back some odd looking women as their wives and they were really in a bad state.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: On one of the Red Cross ships. I was then attached by the way to the organisation which was called RAPWI which was Repatriation of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees.
Interviewer: Ok.
HH: And I was the RAF liaison officer working in conjunction with the British Red Cross. So these ships used to come in to the, what we used to call the [Roads] at Adabya which was at the top of the Red Sea before you enter the Suez Canal.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: The idea then there was a big political set up to look after these people from the welfare point of view. Give them some decent food, re-clothe them for the coming home to the UK and generally to give them a break because they’d come from the Far East.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: On board crowded ships. Every ship imaginable. Ark Royal. I think Mauritania was one. A lot of our big ships that had survived the war. They were putting them on any sort of aircraft and our job then or my job with the Red Cross as RAF to go out to these ships, meet the RAF personnel, see what I could do for them and then they would come ashore. We had warehouses set up with clothing, demonstrations, amusement. A whole organisation laid on because it was political. These blokes were coming home. The politicians back here were wanting to get into power so everything had to be done.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: For these people.
Interviewer: Sure.
HH: Not after the war they couldn’t give a damn.
interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: As you know with Bomber Command.
Interviewer: Yeah. That’s right.
HH: But it was a good organisation set up and I worked there at RAPWI until that finished. Then I was posted as welfare officer. Ismailia.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Which was about halfway up the canal. I was there for a while filling in time really.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: Waiting to come home. By then I was, I was a flying officer and whilst I was there I got my flight lieuey.
Interviewer: Oh right.
HH: I finished up as a flight lieuey. And then at the end eventually again it was troop transport. They transported us from Port Said to [pause] Marseilles actually on again on the troop transport.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: We came up back to the UK by train from Marseilles, right up through France. Over on the ferry, the Channel.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: The Channel ferry.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And then where did we go to then? We went to a place. Stratford I think it was. Stratford was a big —
Interviewer: Oh yes.
HH: Demob centre there.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: From there we went through all the demob business of kitting you out. Trilby hat.
Interviewer: Yeah. The suit. Yes.
HH: The demob suit. And that was it. I was there two or three days and then sent home and you still stayed on the Reserve for I think three months.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: But I had leave until, that was around about the middle of the year I think it was. August.
Interviewer: Was that ’46?
HH: August I think it was.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: ’46 that would be then.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: Yeah. And then sent home. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: But yeah, ’46. Sent home on three months leave. Still on the Reserve until I think the December.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: But that was it. I went home to see my folks who I hadn’t seen for about four years. Three or four years.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: So that was a great homecoming.
Interviewer: Yeah. I’m sure. Yeah.
HH: And then during my days in the RAF I met with a WAAF, Patricia [Cotter]. She came to the UK to take her demob rather than go back to Kenya because we got on quite strong then and we married in the UK in 1947.
Interviewer: Oh right. Right.
HH: At the end of that year she wanted to go and see her people back in Kenya so that’s when I emigrated and I stayed out in Africa then.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And I went into the safari business ultimately.
Interviewer: Oh right. Right.
HH: I started off running a ferry on Lake Victoria which was an ex-landing craft —
Interviewer: Right.
HH: The ferry people had bought.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: It was sitting in Mombasa still in its packing cases and they were looking for tenders to buy this thing and these ferry people who I was working with put in a bid for two hundred and fifty pounds.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And they got it. They were the only bid. We had, I forget, about seventeen big packing cases shipped up from Mombasa to Kisumu which was the port on Lake Victoria.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: We were south of Lake Victoria. That all came up in packing cases, shipped down to the little place where I was, Musoma on the eastern shores of Lake Victoria and we assembled this thing with convict labour. Three hundred convicts from the local prison. We pushed it into the water and it was a twenty four tonne landing craft.
Interviewer: Wow. Goodness me.
HH: So I kept on that thing for about a year.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Then my wife wanted to go back to Nairobi so being in communications I then went to the, it was then the East African Post and Telegraph Telecommunications Organisation.
Interviewer: Oh yes. Yeah.
HH: It covered all the three territories which were then British mandated territories. Kenya was a colony. Uganda was a protectorate. Tanzania or Tanganyika as it was then was a protectorate. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Protected mandate. Protectorate.
Interviewer: Ok. [unclear]
HH: Protectorate or mandate. One or the other.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: So I spent then —
Interviewer: Right.
HH: A few years in communications. So I did a lot of fieldwork in communications.
Interviewer: Gosh. Yeah.
HH: Getting a taste, travelling around the country I got a taste then for safari and wildlife.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: And later on went into the business running —
Interviewer: Gosh.
HH: Running game lodges and taking people out on safari.
Interviewer: Oh, fascinating What a great career.
HH: Finished in 1972.
Interviewer: Yeah. Wow.
HH: And there you are.
Interviewer: What a great career. Super. Now, I can see resting on your knees is what looks like a scrapbook.
HH: Sorry?
Interviewer: I can see what’s resting on your knees looks like a scrapbook. Is that right?
HH: That’s just what I’m doing. I’m writing what I call my basket of memories.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: I don’t intend to publish them but it was my son that got me on it. I used to tell him old stories.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: He’s a photographer and film maker. He said, ‘Come on, dad. Get it down on paper.’ So that was about ten years ago I started writing stories.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: I’ve now got four volumes. Growing up from childhood until joining the RAF.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: That one is the RAF.
Interviewer: The RAF one. Yeah.
HH: Which is the second volume. The third volume I’ve got is wanderings in East Central and Equatorial Africa. That’s my third volume. And then fourth volume the latter years.
Interviewer: Right. Sounds fascinating.
HH: So I’m just writing —
Interviewer: I’d like to have a look.
HH: Just a few of my, if you want to have a look.
Interviewer: Oh, yes please.
HH: A few of my RAF days really.
Interviewer: Right. Do you have your logbook still?
HH: Yes. I’ve got my logbook.
Interviewer: I’d like to have a look at it if I may.
HH: Do you want to see that?
Interviewer: Yes, please. Yes.
HH: Yeah.
HH: I’m a little bit hard of hearing so —
Interviewer: Ok, Harry. Not to worry.
HH: If I don’t get what you say sometime.
Interviewer: Not to worry.
HH: Please understand.
Interviewer: Really all I want to do is just chat really.
HH: Yeah.
Interviewer: About, you know sort of pencil in your service career. You know, when you joined, when you left and what came in between.
HH: Yeah.
Interviewer: And obviously we’re focussing on the Wimpy mainly but sort of set it in context.
HH: Yeah.
Interviewer: How come you came to join the Air Force and when was it?
HH: Yeah. Ok.
Interviewer: We’ll start there.
HH: Well, I’m born and bred Liverpudlian. I’m a Liverpudlian up in Liverpool and I went through the Blitz when I was a teenager and then when I was eighteen I joined the RAFVR. Went to the Recruiting Office with a pal of mine. We were both doing Night School and all. We were fed up with Night School so we said, ‘Come on let’s go and join up.’
Interviewer: What year was this?
HH: Sorry?
Interviewer: What year was this?
HH: That would be ’42. ’42.
Interviewer: Ok.
HH: Yeah. ’42. I would be eighteen, nineteen then. ’41 possibly. I don’t know.
Interviewer: Ok.
HH: I can’t remember exactly.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: 41 or ’42. It was when I was, I was about eighteen. We went along to the recruiting officer who was a big sergeant major there standing and, ‘What do you chaps want?’ ‘Well, we want to join up.’ And I was in, both of us were in a Reserved Occupation. We worked for the Post Office Engineering then. The only categories that you could get into from a Reserved Occupation was aircrew or submarines.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: So we both chose aircrew.
Interviewer: I wonder why? [laughs] Yeah.
HH: Yeah. My son is a keen aqua diver and he’s very keen on submarines but I wouldn’t like to go down. I don’t mind being out in the open but [pause] and that was it. I went away. They took all the details and then the next thing I got was notification from Padgate which was near Warrington then.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And that was a big recruiting and medical centre, what have you. I went to Padgate, went before a Selection Board which, that was quite a bit when you sit there and you’ve got to answer questions and they give you mathematical problems to do and all that sort of thing. You’ve probably experienced a lot of this yourself. And then got through that Selection Board and then had a medical. I’d never had such a medical in all my life. There must have been about a dozen specialists you know, ear, nose and throat. The chest man like this and the whole bang shoot. Anyway, we were there a couple of days I suppose. Two or three days and then they gave you a little badge then to show that you were joining the armed forces.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: It was RAFVR on it. A little tiny wing badge as you’ve probably seen. They sent us home then until they called us up.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And when they did call me up, I can’t remember how many months later but the Centre I had to report to was Lords Cricket Ground in London.
Interviewer: Yeah. ACRC.
HH: You know all this do you?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah, you carry on.
HH: They housed us in some luxury flats that had just been built but never occupied. Never sold. Never occupied. We didn’t have any furniture in there at all, just mattresses and brass ash tray in the middle of the floor. We did all our drill pounding and initial stuff around Regents Park. We marched all around Edgeware Road and Regent’s Park and everything.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And then from there I think we went up to a village called Ludlow in Shropshire.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: And it was owned by a top politician. It was an aristocrat, sir somebody or other who had a big estate there and the idea was we were supposed to be toughening up. So they put us on roadbuilding on the estate.
Interviewer: Really.
HH: It was obviously the old estate bloke was getting roads built you know for free sort of thing.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: We lived in bell tents then. The old-fashioned bell tents. Eight to a tent. Thirty nine pubs there were in the village. It was great. Then we finished that and then went up to [pause] I’ve got to try and remember the order that I did. Went up to Brough in Yorkshire. Opposite the Blackburn.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: Blackburn Aircraft Company.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: On the banks of Hull.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: There I flew in Tigers. They taught you to fly in Tigers. You were given about eight hours. Eight or ten hours. You had to solo in that time. Then that, that after that then I was selected because there was, they could see what was going to happen now as far as the air fighter was concerned. Not so much fighter pilots but yeah, that was still going. It was very busy then but they realised that Bomber Command was going to, and Coastal Command was going to extend.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: There were so many youngsters wanting to get in. All wanted to get in as fighter pilots with the top button undone sort of thing you know. The glory. All kids.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: So we were selected and they had a scheme then called the PNB scheme.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: And under that scheme I was selected to be bomb aimer.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And then we did initial, all the ground subjects we did at Aberystwyth in Wales.
Interviewer: Right. Yeah.
HH: Spent some time there under a famous boxer at the time who was in the RAF. A friend of Freddie Mills was Barnes. I can’t remember his Christian name now.
Interviewer: Ok.
HH: Barnes. A Welshman.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: He was a heavy or middle weight amongst the top at the time.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: In fact, they gave us whilst we were there an exhibition bout between him and Freddie Mills. You’ve heard of Freddie Mills.
Interviewer: Oh, of course. Yes.
HH: They were both in the RAF actually.
Interviewer: I knew Freddie was.
HH: Did initial training then. From there I was sent to, I think Blackpool. I think it was. We were at Blackpool, a short distance from my home in Liverpool and we were waiting there for, to be sent to a Flying School because there was so many, not enough Flying Schools in the UK. They had this PNB scheme which, you know.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: And I was chosen to go to South Africa.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: So I did my air training there at 42 Air School in Port Elizabeth and East London. Went through the whole course there of bomb aiming, navigation, air gunnery and also I was trained as a bomb aimer in the old Wellington. We were trained to act as co-pilots as well.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: So we did all that.
Interviewer: So that was Oxfords and Ansons was it?
HH: Oxfords and Ansons. You’ve got it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. Ok.
HH: That’s right. However, the old Anson there when you, down in the bombing bay you slid the panel back.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And there was always the danger there. You had nothing underneath you, you know. Looking down. That was a load of fun. Air gunnery was quite amusing. I remember flashing along there and they’d say, ‘Target coming up.’ You sort of get ready and then they’d say, ‘Right. The target immediate.’ You start to open fire and a bloody cow in the sights so we shot a cow. That was air gunnery practice. Bombing practice was to I think a twelve foot square. Twelve yards. Twelve foot square I think it was painted yellow.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And that was out in the Indian Ocean. That was our target. We went through all that. In the meantime doing all the subjects and then I passed out on Christmas Eve ’43.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: Christmas Eve ’43. Got my wings and then they shipped us up then by sea to the Middle East and that’s when I, on the way up there pulled into Mombasa and I became involved, I got a taste for Africa then.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And, but we weren’t, we didn’t go ashore. Always wondered then what was beyond it.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: Little did I know that a few years later I’d be marrying a girl from there.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And I would come back after the war.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: Anyway, twenty four hours I think we were in port probably revictualling or whatever and we left on the Sunday morning. At the Sunday service on board ship at the, on the Sunday morning the old padre informed us that a ship that we had passed only a couple of hours beforehand had been torpedoed.
Interviewer: Oh.
HH: By a U-boat.
Interviewer: Oh.
HH: So, obviously it must have seen us. We were a troop ship. Ideal.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: But for some reason or other they didn’t. Maybe he couldn’t reach us or something and he gave this merchant ship.
Interviewer: Oh God.
HH: That was sunk. Anyway, we arrived up in the Middle East and we were sent to, there was a big Reception Centre there at a place called Heliopolis.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: Outside of, just on the outskirts of Cairo. Spent a little while there and then posted to 77 OTU which was in Palestine which was still a British mandated territory then. So we did operational training there and at the same time, no after the end of that all our bombing then, practice, our bombing practice and navigation was all done around the Eastern Mediterranean and our bombing targets were in the desert in Jordan. We encountered an enemy fighter one night. No idea because we were green then. Absolutely.
Interviewer: Right. Right.
HH: No idea where the hell he had come from. Who it was firing at us.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Or what. Am I ok?
Other: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: But we discovered later on that it possibly a prowling night fighter from Crete because the Germans by then —
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: Had occupied Crete.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: So that shook us a bit. Made us wake up a little bit to have a look out because the guys had not seen anything and I was at the controls at the time.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: The next thing I saw was tracer fire going above my port wing.
Interviewer: Wow, that’s —
HH: My tail gunner hadn’t seen anything at all. It was just a shot in the dark. Whether he was firing on radar or not I don’t know.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: But that was it. A bit of evasive action took us away. We had lots of casualties at OTU. Lots of casualties because there we were converting from Ansons and Oxfords to the much bigger Wellington.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: A different kettle of fish.
Interviewer: Were these Wimpy 1s, 2s, 3s?
HH: I can’t remember what model they were.
Interviewer: It was, it was radial engine Wimpies was it?
HH: The radial ones. I think they were the same as we, later on there was 9s and 10s —
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: That I flew on the squadron.
Interviewer: Ok. Yeah.
HH: As I say we had a few casualties. We went through a stage almost every day we had a funeral parade you know. Usually your mate’s carelessness here, there. We experienced a few ourselves. In bombing practice we used to drop hundred pound magnesium bombs as a flash. A photographic flash. We nearly hit an aircraft over, over Palestine or Jordan I’m not sure, around about there anyway one night and we dived. The skipper dived underneath it instead of doing the normal evasive actions.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: To starboard sort of thing.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: He dived underneath it. I left my bloody seat. I got thrown out of the seat because I didn’t have my belt on and suddenly had a cold sweat. I thought Christ those magnesium flares because the magnesium flares were in this flare ‘chute.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Which was at an angle and the detonator was a cable on the side of the frame which plugged into the detonator like a, like a grenade.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And of course when it stood out the chute that pin came out and the detonator was on. I had a cold sweat. I thought Christ what’s happened with those things? If I’ve shot out of my seat probably these things have shot out.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: From what I could remember there was no safety lock on it coming out and I leapt through and you know the Wellington has got a main spar just behind the flight deck.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: I can’t remember clearing that, passing the navigator, the wireless operator and I saw these two bloody flares lying on the ground. I’ve never moved so fast in all my life. I quickly unscrewed the, with both hands unscrewed the detonator capsule. These things. Found that the wire was taut but hadn’t actually pulled out. Got the detonators out and I thought thank Christ for that otherwise we could have gone up.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Little accidents like that I think and odd things. We had the hatch above the cockpit blew off one day. We had to try and drag that in. I was standing on this seat held by my belt by the wireless op or navigator. So on little instances like this I think anything could have happened. Blokes were just going down like nine pins. It seemed like it anyway. Anyway, to cut a long story short we went, we finished at 77 OTU and we went then to Jerusalem and Jerusalem again was like a transit. There in Jerusalem all the different categories came together. Air gunners, pilots, navigators, bomb aimers.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And you mixed all together.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: So you had the opportunity to pick who you wanted to fly with which was rather good and we chummed up and we, we had quite a mixture actually. I had, funnily enough I’m a Liverpudlian, my wireless operator was a Liverpudlian, the pilot was an Australian, the air gunner was a West Indian and myself from Liverpool and the navigator, Geoff Partridge was from I think Cheltenham down south of England here.
Interviewer: Yeah. Right. Right.
HH: There we came together as pals. We thought right, do we want to fly together when we go on operations? Yeah. So we chummed up and that’s how we formed our crew.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Which I’ve got a photograph in there if you want to see it.
Interviewer: Absolutely, yes.
HH: And then from there we flew by Dakota, DC-3s.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: To, direct to Cairo. Back to Cairo and then flew from Cairo I think to Italy. Italy was then under occupation.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: The southern part.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And the RAF had moved from the Desert then up into Italy.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: To the southern airfields. I was sent to Foggia Main.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: To 40 Squadron. Got onto the squadron and we met with the different, with the CO. He welcomed us in sort of thing and then he said next day we were to report to our flight commanders who had A-Flight and B-Flight who were both allocated to whatever flight you were in. And it was on that one occasion where we had one of our chaps that had gone through training, all in all I suppose there must have been sixty of us that on and off we were together going through training there was only one out of that lot first day on the squadron he went to the wing commander and said, ‘You can strip me. I’m LMF.’ And —
Interviewer: Really?
HH: Of course, he was whipped off the squadron quicker than that.
Interviewer: Goodness.
HH: We never saw him again.
Interviewer: Oh.
HH: But that was the only instance I ever met of any chap chickening out if you like.
Interviewer: Wow.
HH: To put it crudely.
Interviewer: Goodness.
HH: Which was rather nice to see because we were I suppose seventy five percent of us were late teenagers. I was nineteen coming up twenty.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: And that was it. Then my first operation was the invasion of Southern France.
Interviewer: Oh yeah.
HH: The docks at Marseilles.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: Second operation was a bit livelier. It was Ploesti oil fields.
Interviewer: Oh, really?
HH: Have you heard of them?
Interviewer: I certainly have. Romania. Yes. Yes.
HH: That was, that was quite an operation. That was my second one.
Interviewer: Wow.
HH: And I went in in a way fortunate. I went in with an experienced crew. Their bomb aimer had gone down sick and I was asked if I would go and stupid as one was I volunteered to go you know. Green as the grass [laughs] and that was my second operation. That was a very exciting one that one.
Interviewer: Well, talk me through that. You said it was lively. I understand it was exciting.
HH: Sorry?
Interviewer: Talk me through that can you?
HH: Yeah. Since I’ve gone into more details about Ploesti but as you know it was, it was the only German source then of oil. Germany couldn’t produce any oil. The only production she had was synthetic oil.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: So she was getting most of her oil from the Caucasus in Russia which she then possessed and the big oilfields of Ploesti in Romania.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: About ten oil, ten refineries there and then the oilfields. So they lost the Caucasus with the Russians advancing in ’43. June, July ’43. So all they had left was Romania. The Romanian oilfields of Ploesti. So they built a ring around the whole oilfields. Most of the guns, the heavies and the light ones were dug in on the hills around so you had an umbrella over the target plus the fact they also had searchlights that were radar controlled. What we called master searchlights and if you got one of these on to you he could hold you and then all the rest would converge on you having seen we’ve got one here and they’d throw everything at you. We had, on the bombing run in we had a bloke off our port quarter just blew up. He must have got a direct hit. He just went in in an orange flash. Quite chilling. But by then there wasn’t much time to, to worry. You were concerned with yourself and your bombing run. We were coming up to the bombing run then. We could see the Pathfinders ahead of us. We had 614 Squadron which were a mixture of Liberators and Halifaxes. They’d gone in and they were receiving all the flak and they were also replying with their guns as well. Going in was just hell let loose.
Interviewer: What height were you at?
HH: Sorry?
Interviewer: What height were you at? About?
HH: I can’t remember. I should have got it written down I think. Oh no. I should think probably twelve, fifteen thousand.
Interviewer: Ok.
HH: Not, if that. Not even high.
Interviewer: Ok.
HH: I think the highest we ever did was fifteen thousand on any target.
Interviewer: Right. Right.
HH: A lot of them were around about six thousand, six and a half thousand foot mark so they weren’t really high. In the Wellington it wasn’t designed as a high-level bomber.
Interviewer: No. No. No.
HH: At all.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: So it was quite, quite a low altitude so I can’t remember the one at Ploesti.
Interviewer: No. Ok. Anyway, carry on please.
HH: Some of them, I have some photographs which shows my altitude.
Interviewer: Ok. Well, I’ll have a look at those.
HH: At least you’d know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And that was it. Going in also with all the heavy flak that they had on the [flare] sites we were told they had a crack squadron of Romanian night fighters. Research later on there was about a hundred and twenty ME109s defending the target and then about two hundred aircraft defending the target on approaches from all directions whichever way we were coming from because what we did then was fly to Bucharest in the hope that we would draw some of the mobile artillery south. But as soon as we turned north of the fields that was it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: They knew where we were going.
Interviewer: Sure.
HH: And they were waiting for us. The sky was filled with just flak, tracer fire all over the place. As I say we had one aircraft, one of own blew up just to the off side of us. But by then your concentration is staying alive and of course the last few seconds or thirty seconds say try to keep straight and level into your target to get your target in your bomb site.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: Whilst we were doing that there was all sorts of yells of fire coming in from night fighters. We had our Indian, West Indian air gunner was quite cool and he was hammering away with his guns. In the meantime I’m trying to concentrate on keeping straight and level because we had a rule of thumb if you like you never stayed straight and level for more than twenty five seconds because that’s the time it would take to get the master radar to get you, a shell into their gun and up to your altitude.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: So you’re trying to not stay straight and level too long but you had got to do to a certain extent to get the target in between your tramlines of your gunsights.
Interviewer: Yeah. Sure.
HH: So I can’t remember the details. Anyway, in there we were bombing. We had just got rid of our bomb load when the, the guy yelled that an aircraft was coming in from the starboard quarter up. A night fighter. Soon after he said, ‘Stand by to corkscrew,’ because we had [pause] you know all about the corkscrew.
Interviewer: The corkscrew. Yes. Yes.
HH: So, ‘Standby corkscrew starboard,’ because the enemy was coming in from the starboard quarter up.
Interviewer: Yes, and you turned towards it.
HH: And as you know the idea is to tighten the circle. At the same time the wireless operator yells. He’s standing in the astrodome because he’d got nothing to do other than observe, same with the navigator. They yell, ‘One coming in from the starboard beam.’ So we had two fighters coming at us. Arthur is in his room with the four Browning machine guns. They were coned all to meet.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: All the four guns. Although our armament wasn’t heavy if you coned it in it became a heavy blaster and I think if I remember rightly the estimated range of the JU88s which I think was what most of their night fighters, and ME109s would be around two hundred and fifty yards.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: So our gunner yelled. He kept his cool. Yelled it at two hundred and fifty yards as he estimated it because he you know the wingspan and the [unclear] all of that, he got it right and he opened up with everything and he hit this bloke and the bloke just blew up.
Interviewer: Wow.
HH: A great cheer from the wireless operator, ‘We got him. We got him,’ sort of thing you know. We got the yell of course prior to this from the gunner. He always warns you, ‘Stand by corkscrew port.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Or starboard whichever way it is.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And then when he decides now is the time when he thinks the enemy is about to open fire then he would shout, Now and then we up front would go into the corkscrew. Whatever. We’d done this and suddenly at the end of it all when this fighter had gone and we had a moment to reflect we looked at our airspeed indicator and it was down to about seventy five. I forget, I want to ask you this. You might be more accurate. I can’t remember what the stalling speed was of the Wellington.
Interviewer: Wow, that’s just about there I think.
HH: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Yeah. That’s what I thought.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: We thought Christ we are going to drop out of the sky here. So we pushed the stick forward.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: After a second or two we realised we weren’t stalling at all. We were, the clock was second time around. We were in a steep dive. Shit. So both the skipper and I were both pulling back on the ruddy controls to try and get it up hoping that the wings would stay on. It took two of us to get the stick back.
Interviewer: Jesus.
HH: By the time we got the stick back we were in among Dante’s Inferno. Probably down to, I don’t know maybe down to about five hundred feet, a thousand feet, something like that. Everything going on around and the whole place was a mass of flames and gunfire and what have you. No chance to bloody think about it. Anyway, we got straight and level and we thought we’d stay down here for a bit, clear the night fighters until we clear the target area and all is reasonably ok. So by then we, we decided to carry on with every climb to cruising altitude to go back and on the way back, on the way back we were still tormented by night fighters.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: And we got to an area where we were crossing the Romanian and Bulgarian border somewhere around about that so we suddenly noticed down on our starboard quarter about five thousand feet below us navigation lights.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: We thought what the hell is this all about, you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: We were over enemy territory. It can’t be one of ours. So we deduced it had got to be one of the night fighter bases.
Interviewer: Oh, ok. Yeah.
HH: Some of the blokes going in to land.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: So we thought, all kids [laughs] ‘Let’s give them a bloody treat.’ So we went down and joined the circuit hoping that their identification was similar to ours you know coming in to land.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: Was green.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Held off with a red Aldis lamp because we were no audio then.
Interviewer: Sure.
HH: Most of the airstrips were landing strips not aerodromes. So we went in after two of them had gone in, we didn’t see anybody behind us hoping our silhouette wouldn’t divulge that we were a Wellington as opposed to what their night fighters were. You’d got, everything was quiet. We had our nav lights on going in as if to land and as we went along the runway we opened up. I went up to the front turret. The rear gunner was, he put his guns to starboard, I put mine to port and we opened up the taps and went along and we just sprayed. About thirty seconds we’d got tracer fire chasing our backsides. Quick time we turned to port all everybody yelling, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ And that was it.
Interviewer: Goodness me.
HH: We reached our cruising altitude safe and sound and headed back to Foggia Main. But then we thought now what do we do here? Do we say what we’ve done? Because we had a very blood and guts group captain. A Group Captain [Harris] and he was, I can remember him remonstrating one crew for the bomb aimer not bombing a convoy because there were Red Cross wagons in the convoy.
Interviewer: Right. Yes. Yeah.
HH: He said, ‘It doesn’t matter my boy,’ he said, ‘You bomb it anyway. That’s what you’re out doing.’ He said, ‘Those wounded could be on their feet the next day killing our people.’ So we thought to be on the safe side we won’t say anything at all and he always stood in at debriefing. He was always telling, he was always listening to what the crews had to say but he didn’t pick us up or anything so we got away with it. The old ground crew patched up because the old Wellie as you know was fabric covered.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Patched us all up. All the bullet holes we had with us. We just put it down to all the ammunition used as a night fighter operation. That was my second operation.
Interviewer: Wow.
HH: Then we did all sorts of ops then. We did the Herman Göring tank works in Austria. As I said to you I did my first operation Marseilles.
Interviewer: Marseilles. Yeah.
HH: The invasion of Southern France. There we had to, on the way in there we had to watch the Naval convoys because, to make sure you had the IFF switched on because if you didn’t the Navy boys wouldn’t hesitate.
Interviewer: [unclear]
HH: They would blast you out of the bloody skies they would.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Make sure that was ok.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And then second operation Ploesti. From there on there was just targets basically over southern and Central Europe. Italy, France, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, along the Danube. Mine laying on the Danube because the Danube then of course was more important than anything as a waterway and as transportation.
Interviewer: Yes, of course.
HH: Because the German forces were really up against it then being pushed back by the Russians. So the Danube was an important target. That was it. Our gunner got an immediate DFM for the fighter that he shot down.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: So that was good. That was —
Interviewer: What was his name? What was his name? The gunner’s name.
HH: West Indian.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And he was Arthur but his nickname was Sonny. S O N N Y. Arthur Sonny Skerritt.
Interviewer: Oh right.
HH: S K E R R I T T.
Interviewer: Right. Right.
HH: He was from St Kitts. And for weeks after that if we were [pause] Sorento was then used as an old rest and leave place.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: You are into a lot of this aren’t you? You’ve done your research.
Interviewer: Oh yes. Yeah.
HH: We had a very nice, we had taken I think there were three hotels in Sorrento then and 2 and 5 Group had taken them over as rest and recuperation places for their air crews so they were very nice. Really luxurious. We had the chance of seeing Vesuvius and Pompeii, Capri and all those sorts of things you know. The only thing to drink then because the Italians were desperately short of everything, food and they were begging food. You could get anything you know for a pound of butter or anything you had to give them. They were in a really sorry state.
Interviewer: Sure.
HH: All they had to drink, all they were producing was vermouth.
Interviewer: Oh, really.
HH: Which we used to drink as aircrews by the pint. No beer. No beer available there. There was on the squadron but not in Sorrento. So, there was only wine and that was a very poor quality. We were coming out in ulcers and all sorts of things. We were transported there from the squadron by road. Road transport.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: And one convoy I can particularly mention was the Polish girls. Army girl drivers drove us.
Interviewer: Oh, yes. Yeah.
HH: To Sorrento. Right across the snowy mountains.
Interviewer: Yeah. So then you completed a full tour then did you?
HH: I did thirty nine operations.
Interviewer: Thirty nine. Right.
HH: A tour then in the Middle East was forty.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Forty operations. I did thirty nine and we were told, ‘Ok boys, pack up. You can go now back to Cairo.’ In my logbook I was recommended. I was given a good report as a bombing, as a bomb aimer and recommended that I would make a good bombing leader. So as you know like these boys that go back to Afghanistan the adrenaline has got to you. No hesitation. Go back for a second tour. So I was going to train as a bombing leader but then of course the war was coming to an end.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: So it wasn’t necessary.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: So I’d been promoted on the squadron to pilot officer.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And when we went back to the Middle East I was posted to Alexandria which was then or prior to then a permanent RAF station and I was the sprog officer in the Officer’s Mess and as you know the sprog his job is to —
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Toast the King at that time.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: I was as nervous as bloody hell about doing this. Being an RAF station everything was pukka you know. Everything. The crockery was RAF insignia. The silver —
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: The Mess dinners were absolutely spot on with the president of course, the CO. I’m at the end there and I’m given the job of toasting the —
Interviewer: Yes. Yes.
HH: I was as nervous as bloody hell about this because being on the squadron you know they were all, they were all kids all thrown in all FAO we’d no experience of the regular experience of the Air Force at all.
Interviewer: True.
HH: Other than blokes that we met and flew with so that was a bit nerve wracking.
Interviewer: I bet it was.
HH: After that I was posted as the assistant adjutant to [unclear] old station, the transient place, Heliopolis and then they sent me to a Communications Unit because I’d had communications experience with the Post Office as a youth in training.
Interviewer: Oh yes.
HH: So they posted me there as assistant adjutant. Still a bit bloody nervous. You have all the blokes on janckers come up before you. No experience of how to handle these blokes but we had a very good warrant officer, a regular who as you know the warrant officer is the senior NCO.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: The backbone of the service.
Interviewer: Absolutely right. Yeah.
HH: And he was a super bloke you know. I used to say, I forget what his name was now, I used to say to him, ‘Ok, this bloke has done that. What do you recommend?’ He’d say, ‘I recommend seven days — ’
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: So I’d bravely dishing out the punishment [laughs] but absolutely inexperienced. Eventually they sent us all these flying types that were commissioned on the squadron with no officer training whatsoever so they sent us to an officer training course in, again in Palestine.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: That was an education because most of the instructors were sergeants or senior NCOs. The odd, the odd officer amongst them but we were all veterans as we reckoned you know. Tough guys. We don’t want [laughs] we don’t need this bullshit and so that was a bit rough and ready on that one but it was good fun. Passed out on that but we were posted still in the Middle East and then the war was coming to an end. Obviously at Alexandria the night that war finished in Europe.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And I was then posted to the Canal Zone.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And one of the first jobs I had because they were bringing a lot of ex-prisoners of war and internees back from the Far East in a rough state. Every ship that they could lay their hands on were bringing these people back from India, from Burma. Anywhere where they were.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And they were in a sorry state. They were.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: They had been in prison camps some of them for as long as five years. They’d married the first woman almost that they met when they were released and they were bringing back some odd looking women as their wives and they were really in a bad state.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: On one of the Red Cross ships. I was then attached by the way to the organisation which was called RAPWI which was Repatriation of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees.
Interviewer: Ok.
HH: And I was the RAF liaison officer working in conjunction with the British Red Cross. So these ships used to come in to the, what we used to call the [Roads] at Adabya which was at the top of the Red Sea before you enter the Suez Canal.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: The idea then there was a big political set up to look after these people from the welfare point of view. Give them some decent food, re-clothe them for the coming home to the UK and generally to give them a break because they’d come from the Far East.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: On board crowded ships. Every ship imaginable. Ark Royal. I think Mauritania was one. A lot of our big ships that had survived the war. They were putting them on any sort of aircraft and our job then or my job with the Red Cross as RAF to go out to these ships, meet the RAF personnel, see what I could do for them and then they would come ashore. We had warehouses set up with clothing, demonstrations, amusement. A whole organisation laid on because it was political. These blokes were coming home. The politicians back here were wanting to get into power so everything had to be done.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: For these people.
Interviewer: Sure.
HH: Not after the war they couldn’t give a damn.
interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: As you know with Bomber Command.
Interviewer: Yeah. That’s right.
HH: But it was a good organisation set up and I worked there at RAPWI until that finished. Then I was posted as welfare officer. Ismailia.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Which was about halfway up the canal. I was there for a while filling in time really.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: Waiting to come home. By then I was, I was a flying officer and whilst I was there I got my flight lieuey.
Interviewer: Oh right.
HH: I finished up as a flight lieuey. And then at the end eventually again it was troop transport. They transported us from Port Said to [pause] Marseilles actually on again on the troop transport.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: We came up back to the UK by train from Marseilles, right up through France. Over on the ferry, the Channel.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: The Channel ferry.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And then where did we go to then? We went to a place. Stratford I think it was. Stratford was a big —
Interviewer: Oh yes.
HH: Demob centre there.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: From there we went through all the demob business of kitting you out. Trilby hat.
Interviewer: Yeah. The suit. Yes.
HH: The demob suit. And that was it. I was there two or three days and then sent home and you still stayed on the Reserve for I think three months.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: But I had leave until, that was around about the middle of the year I think it was. August.
Interviewer: Was that ’46?
HH: August I think it was.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: ’46 that would be then.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: Yeah. And then sent home. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: But yeah, ’46. Sent home on three months leave. Still on the Reserve until I think the December.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: But that was it. I went home to see my folks who I hadn’t seen for about four years. Three or four years.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: So that was a great homecoming.
Interviewer: Yeah. I’m sure. Yeah.
HH: And then during my days in the RAF I met with a WAAF, Patricia [Cotter]. She came to the UK to take her demob rather than go back to Kenya because we got on quite strong then and we married in the UK in 1947.
Interviewer: Oh right. Right.
HH: At the end of that year she wanted to go and see her people back in Kenya so that’s when I emigrated and I stayed out in Africa then.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: And I went into the safari business ultimately.
Interviewer: Oh right. Right.
HH: I started off running a ferry on Lake Victoria which was an ex-landing craft —
Interviewer: Right.
HH: The ferry people had bought.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: It was sitting in Mombasa still in its packing cases and they were looking for tenders to buy this thing and these ferry people who I was working with put in a bid for two hundred and fifty pounds.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: And they got it. They were the only bid. We had, I forget, about seventeen big packing cases shipped up from Mombasa to Kisumu which was the port on Lake Victoria.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: We were south of Lake Victoria. That all came up in packing cases, shipped down to the little place where I was, Musoma on the eastern shores of Lake Victoria and we assembled this thing with convict labour. Three hundred convicts from the local prison. We pushed it into the water and it was a twenty four tonne landing craft.
Interviewer: Wow. Goodness me.
HH: So I kept on that thing for about a year.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Then my wife wanted to go back to Nairobi so being in communications I then went to the, it was then the East African Post and Telegraph Telecommunications Organisation.
Interviewer: Oh yes. Yeah.
HH: It covered all the three territories which were then British mandated territories. Kenya was a colony. Uganda was a protectorate. Tanzania or Tanganyika as it was then was a protectorate. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: Protected mandate. Protectorate.
Interviewer: Ok. [unclear]
HH: Protectorate or mandate. One or the other.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: So I spent then —
Interviewer: Right.
HH: A few years in communications. So I did a lot of fieldwork in communications.
Interviewer: Gosh. Yeah.
HH: Getting a taste, travelling around the country I got a taste then for safari and wildlife.
Interviewer: Yes.
HH: And later on went into the business running —
Interviewer: Gosh.
HH: Running game lodges and taking people out on safari.
Interviewer: Oh, fascinating What a great career.
HH: Finished in 1972.
Interviewer: Yeah. Wow.
HH: And there you are.
Interviewer: What a great career. Super. Now, I can see resting on your knees is what looks like a scrapbook.
HH: Sorry?
Interviewer: I can see what’s resting on your knees looks like a scrapbook. Is that right?
HH: That’s just what I’m doing. I’m writing what I call my basket of memories.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: I don’t intend to publish them but it was my son that got me on it. I used to tell him old stories.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: He’s a photographer and film maker. He said, ‘Come on, dad. Get it down on paper.’ So that was about ten years ago I started writing stories.
Interviewer: Right.
HH: I’ve now got four volumes. Growing up from childhood until joining the RAF.
Interviewer: Yeah.
HH: That one is the RAF.
Interviewer: The RAF one. Yeah.
HH: Which is the second volume. The third volume I’ve got is wanderings in East Central and Equatorial Africa. That’s my third volume. And then fourth volume the latter years.
Interviewer: Right. Sounds fascinating.
HH: So I’m just writing —
Interviewer: I’d like to have a look.
HH: Just a few of my, if you want to have a look.
Interviewer: Oh, yes please.
HH: A few of my RAF days really.
Interviewer: Right. Do you have your logbook still?
HH: Yes. I’ve got my logbook.
Interviewer: I’d like to have a look at it if I may.
HH: Do you want to see that?
Interviewer: Yes, please. Yes.
HH: Yeah.
Collection
Citation
Steve Bond, “Interview with Harry Hacker. One,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed March 14, 2026, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/59444.