Interview with Roger Rogers. Two

Interview with Roger Rogers. Two

Roger Rogers’ real name was Joseph Clement Augustine Rogers but was renamed by his crew as Roger. Although he was in a Reserved Occupation he was determined to join the RAF having been fascinated by aviation since childhood. He lied about his age to get into the Service. He lost his first pilot who was disciplined for dangerous flying and spent his operational career with a New Zealand pilot. On one operation he reported that he could see St Peter and the Angel Gabriel walking along the clouds. His oxygen mask was quickly replaced having frozen over and cut off the supply.

00:42:17 audio recording

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SRodgersJCA[Ser#-DoB]v10001-0002

Interviewer: Hello. This is John again bringing back to you a gentleman who some of you requested you would like to listen to again and a bit more. This is Flight Lieutenant JCA Rogers who was flying on Halifax and Lancaster bombers in World War Two and I’ve invited him back at your request folks. All I propose to do here is let Rogers as he prefers or as his mates have always referred to him as tell you a few more of his exploits.
RR: Hello again. Thank you for inviting me. I’ll tell you a little about myself. My childhood. How I came to join the RAF. As a child I was always interested in aeroplanes. I think they were Avro 504s. This would be 1928 when I would be four and I used to see these little aeroplanes above and sometimes even the shadow on the streets and I’d run up and down with that rrrr rrrr. Then as I got older I would make what I’d called aeroplanes from five pieces of plywood nailed together.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RR: And again up and down the streets rrrr rrr.
Interviewer: Was this in Liverpool?
RR: Yeah.
Interviewer: That you did that.
RR: As I got older I started buying the Japanese balsa models and of course the models were all the First World War fighters.
Interviewer: Yes.
RR: And they didn’t fly very well but they looked nice if you painted them and I’d hang them from my bedroom ceiling. Then I left school at fourteen. I was hoping to go to college but my grandfather had died when I was [unclear]. My father had died when I was five or six.
Interviewer: Goodness.
RR: We went to live with my mother’s parents. He had a decent job with the Corn Exchange. He was always known as Mr Bowler Hat. Little Scotch cap sort of thing with his pipe and he more or less brought I and my three younger sisters up. There were four sisters but the youngest one died of diphtheria. And war had started and the clerk in the office I was in, the [unclear] room clerk he didn’t want to go in the Army. He thought he’d be called up so he joined the Air Force. Three months after we changed what we were making and we started making degaussing cables. These were sort of plastic foam cable that was around metal merchant ships and they would negate the magnetic mines —
Interviewer: Yes.
RR: That the Germans were using and of course that made it a Reserved Occupation. So if Jackie [Moore] had waited six months longer before joining up he could have been a Reserve. He didn’t need to go into the Air Force. In the meantime I’m telling people that I want to join the Air Force and one of the managers in another department that I dealt with he’d been a captain in the First World War and he said, ‘They won’t let you go because you are reserved.’
Interviewer: Right.
RR: I didn’t know at that time as far as aircrew went the only people who were reserved were doctors, dentists and probably you know scientists. In fact, I did meet a couple of doctors who were flying later on but the RAF didn’t know they had been doctors. I kept saying I wanted to leave and you know they said, ‘You can’t leave. You’re reserved.’ I’d be nearly seventeen by this time but I had a corporal in the Home Guard and he was in partnership with a Liverpool book-maker. They were repairing bomb damage and he said if I, he thought that was equally important as the degaussing cables plus the fact he’d give me thirty shillings a week and call me an apprentice plasterer plus all the odds and ends you can make. So anyway I applied to, I went to St Helens just outside Prescot and I saw a Board there and they did decide that it was equally important. So I went to work with Ted Lloyd. Of course after a couple of weeks I’m bored. I tried to join the Air Force. Ted Lloyd said he would [unclear] They told me to come back with a birth certificate. So a few weeks later I went down in overalls and dirt all over my face and working man’s cap on and they took my, again they asked for the birth certificate but they said, ‘You can go to Padgate for an interview but bring your birth certificate with you and show it to the RTO.’ That’s the Rail Transport Officer at Lime Street Station. So the Saturday morning that I was to go Ted Lloyd let me go of course and I went down. I went into Liverpool on the train and I met a young chap who had been called up. He was going into the RAF too and I mentioned I had no birth certificate. ‘Oh, he said, ‘They probably won’t ask.’ So I’d gone in my Home Guard uniform. You had to be eighteen to be in the Home Guard so this showed [laughs] When I got there the major I saw he just said, ‘Rogers.’ Ticked my name off and they gave me a return ticket to Padgate. So I arrive at Padgate and put in a room with lots of people. So I marched in with a bang with my size six on. ‘Go through.’ Cap on and I marched. So they said, ‘Why do you want to join the Air Force?’ So I said, ‘I want to fly.’ They said, ‘Yes. Go outside.’ Got up, cap on sort of thing and as I got to the door I said, ‘Have I passed, sir?’ Five minutes later I was told to go for a medical which meant I had passed the acceptance. I went there. They tested my hearing. They tested my eyes. They took my height this, that and the other. Sat again and the brass ruler, and the squadron leader MO come along. He said, ‘Get your bottom back against the wall.’ And I pushed back.’ And I kept trying to add this brass ruler on the ground. He said, ‘I’m sorry your leg length is too short. Half an inch too short.’ So I said, ‘I’m going to grow, sir. [laughs] Look, I want to fly. I want to be a fighter pilot.’ Well, they said you’ve got no, you know part of your leg length is half an inch. I’ve a medical slip showing that somewhere.
Interviewer: You’ve still got that?
RR: Yes. But anyway I went back to the Board and I had tears in my flipping eyes. I was rubbing my eyes. Bang bang bang and they said, ‘We’re very sorry about that but you know, your leg length is too short. So I knew that, I think it was Ball who was one of our aces and McCudden or something. They were small and they had [bars] you know fixed on their pedals. So I said, ‘Ball and McCudden, they used to fly. They can put — ’ ‘Oh,’ they said, ‘We can’t put those on the Hurricane.’ Whether they could or not I couldn’t say but I said, ‘I want to be a fighter pilot.’ They said, ‘Well, look you can be the observer. The observers then did the navigation, and the bomb aiming. Very important. You guide the bomber to the target. You drop the bombs and guide them back home.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I want to be a fighter pilot.’ He said, ‘You can be a wireless operator/air gunner. That’s very important. You take all the messages in the air and send out the information that you’ve got and if you’re attacked you man the guns. Incidentally I’ve never met a wireless operator who ever went to the turret. It was always you know the two gunners. And I thought well that’s, you know better than nothing so I said, ‘I’ll be a wireless operator.’ So I said we all went out. We were accepted. Passed the medical. Go to this large room and we’ve got to take the oath of allegiance. Of course I and everybody it’s, ‘I John Smith,’ ‘I Edward Jones,’ and I’m going, ‘I Joseph Clement Augustine Rogers [laughs] hereby do solemnly swear.’ You swear allegiance to the King and to serve any offices appointed over you and obey any dutiful commands sort of thing. So then they give us a little badge. Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. But after a month I hadn’t heard from them so I wrote to Sir Archibald Sinclair who was the Minister of State for Air saying I’ve, you know I’ve sworn an oath a month ago and I haven’t heard a word.’ Now, my mother was very pleased with me working with [unclear] because I was getting thirty shillings a week and there were all little fiddles going on and in the BI as an office boy I’d be getting ten and six. So that’s just an aside for the moment. But anyway a couple of weeks later I come home from working in Liverpool. Mother is playing mad. She had opened this envelope from the Air Ministry. She thought it was the income tax. She wanted to know and inside it was [unclear] thanking me for my keenness. He would advise me that we were building crew training centres in Canada and South Africa and would send for me as quickly as possible. Of course, my mother’s reply is, ‘I’m going down tomorrow to tell them your seventeen.’ So I said, ‘Look, I know how to get in now. I’ll join up under another name. I can be shot down and you’ll never hear from again.’ So my grandmother, my ninny who was, I was her little favourite she said, ‘If he wants to go back Mary you’d better let him go.’ So I went. After a fortnight they said, ‘I have to request they want straight air gunners. Would anyone like to volunteer to be a straight air gunner?’ So we said, ‘What’s that?’ He said, ‘Well, you are mandatory you don’t do a wireless course like this and go on for wireless training. You go straight. You’ll all be sergeants in six weeks.’ Well, half a dozen put their hands up and of course I put mine up. So they posted me to RAF Swinderby in Lincoln. Outside Lincoln.
Interviewer: Oh yeah. Yeah.
RR: And when I get there it’s a modern aircraft, built station, built just before the war. Modern barracks. Everything sort of thing and when I arrive at the station headquarters after reporting to the orderly room and the sergeant said what, you know, what do you —? I said, ‘I’ve been posted here. They said if I mustered straight air gunner I’d be a sergeant in six weeks or so.’ Five minutes later I’m dragged into the station adjutant. He said, ‘What’s all this about you being a sergeant?’ He said, ‘You’ve been posted here as an aircraft [unclear]’ So anyway, I finished my flying training there and that and they sent us on ten days leave. So the squadron leader who was in charge who had given me my [unclear] and congratulating me and and that. I said, ‘Was there any chance of going back to 50 Squadron?’ When I’d left them I’d flown with them just around the aerodrome like in Hampdens and also Manchesters but they were going to get Lancasters as replacement. He said, ‘Well, I’m not sure of that. I think you’re all due for the Middle East.’ He said, ‘Where are you posted to?’ So I said, ‘Moreton in the Marsh.’ He said, ‘Well, that’s usually for the Middle East to be going on Wellington bombers.’ I said, ‘Oh.’ He said, ‘However, I’ll see what, what I can do.’ So as I said we’ve got ten days leave and came tour through Liverpool to Rafferty. Rafferty and O’Brien and we were all posted to this Moreton in the Marsh down in Gloucestershire. But after a week I got a telegram telling me to report somewhere else and of course they went off to Moreton in the Marsh and I went off to a new station in Lincoln and I found that I would be going on to Lancasters but I didn’t know how. Didn’t know what squadron. So we were flying on Wellingtons for the first three training and I didn’t have a crew so they were all air gunners, wireless operators, pilots and navigators. They had bomb aimers there as well like and they were all milling together. You were to sort yourself. But this pilot he came over he said, you know I like that. He was about six foot six like a big Viking. Broad Moustache. He was Welsh actually, Taffy Lloyd. He said, ‘I’m looking for a rear gunner.’ ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Yes.’ So we hit it off. Now, this was the one I was posted to and fortunately it was 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe but when I arrived there they had to send a gunner to go. They were bringing new gyroscopic sights out and they wanted a gunner from this squadron to test it along with other gunners from other squadrons. Of course they’re not going to send an experienced gunner so they send the latest replacement.
Interviewer: The latest recruit eh.
RR: Me. So I went away for ten days and when I came back my pilot had been grounded. His wife was a teacher in Sheffield and he’d flown over the school low and the police had got the number. VN whatever it was. VN was our squadron letters. He’d been court martialled and reduced to the ranks for dangerous flying etcetera. The rest of the crew except one, the navigator had been sent back to the training unit to pick up a new crew. So they said to me, ‘You can either go back and pick up a new crew or we’ve got a crew on sick leave. The rear gunner was killed on his thirteenth trip.’ So I said, ‘Well, I’d rather stay on and wait until they come back and fly with them,’ because I’d been on the squadron at Swinderby when you had Hampdens and Manchesters. So I stayed on. Well, my first pilot when he came back was Mac Cole. He was a New Zealander. He was old. He was thirty four [laughs]
Interviewer: Thirty four. He was old was he?
RR: Yeah. He was, and when I was introduced to him the gunnery leader said, ‘He’s the latest air gunner. He’s got a good report on his training and that.’ And I rather hit it off with him. The rest of the crew weren’t too keen. They didn’t want you know they would have rather had someone who had done some ops.
Interviewer: Not some kid.
RR: So this was where I became Rogers. They asked me what my name was and I said Joseph and they said, ‘We don’t want to fly with a Joe or a Joseph.’ To be a Joe in the RAF you got a dirty job. If anyone asked you do something you didn’t want to do your reply was, ‘Who do you think I am? Joe?’
Interviewer: Oh right.
RR: Of course, they said, ‘What are your other names?’ So I wasn’t going to say Clement or Augustine [laughs] so I said, ‘Just call me Rogers like everybody.’ And the navigator said, ‘Oh, that’s it. Roger. We’ll call him out.’ So I was Rogers from then. I think I have mentioned the first trips and that. So the squadron led so I’ll give you a bit more of the squadron. While I was on 50 I did thirty two operations altogether according to my logbooks which I brought to show now. Also my medals to let you know who I am.
Interviewer: Good to see your medals. Yeah. I’ve never seen a Distinguished Flying Medal before.
RR: But I did, oh I have a couple of corrections to make. When I spoke before you asked that I was telling you how I was dressed and I didn’t mention I had a parachute. Well, I didn’t actually have a parachute. I had a parachute harness. Over my battledress I used to wear a submarine sweater. A white sweater. Then I’d have my battledress. Then I’d have my parachute harness which was strapped on. My parachute was outside the turret door. It meant that as I got in the aircraft I would strap it into the door and that meant if I had to bale out I had to open my turret door which was very awkward. I couldn’t reach behind me to get my hands in the two grips. I had to get up and work myself around open one door and then shut it which would take a couple of minutes. Of course I never thought —
Interviewer: You were halfway down by then.
RR: I never thought that you know this this might happen. But talking about the parachute and the difficulty getting in and out of the turret especially if the aircraft was tossing all around and all over the place. We were coming out of Berlin one night and I’ve told you how I thought not then but I’ve thought since then how brave the pilot, the navigator and the bomb aimer, flight engineer who were flying into flak. Well, the bravest man I ever saw, well I didn’t actually see him I just saw his aircraft come down. We were coming out of Berlin and of course the city is ringed with searchlights and ack ack guns. If they don’t get you going in they do get you —
Interviewer: Coming back.
RR: Going out sort of thing and I saw this combat on the port quarter so I called out the navigator, ‘Combat port quarter,’ and I saw five parachutes bale out, then another one and I was waiting for the seventh one. Six had come out. The aircraft was on fire and then it started falling over and as it fell over the rear gunner was still in the turret. He started firing at the target. It wasn’t a question of apparently just squeezing the guns it was only when the aircraft tossed over and this turret was [pause] and I thought, you know —
Interviewer: My God.
RR: How brave he was. Of course being emotional I even cry now when I see King Kong get killed. I had tears in my eyes —
Interviewer: Yeah.
RR: And my eyelashes froze and I couldn’t see. I couldn’t rub them on my mitts so I finished up on the corner of my top right hand gun rubbing my eyelashes to you know break the ice. I didn’t have proper eyeglasses for a couple of years after. But as I said that made me think why didn’t somebody come down and let him out? So after that when we got back I remember reporting that. I said to the flight engineer, ‘Well, what happens if you get hit?’ He said, ‘First thing I’d grab my parachute.’ I said, ‘What’s the second thing?’ [laughs] He said, ‘I’d get out.’ I said, ‘Your second thing you come down and let me out otherwise none of you pass my turret alive.’ I warned them. I was joking. So he said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘The aircraft could be on fire you know.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
RR: But the mid-upper gunner who was halfway above me and that.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RR: He must have heard that and he said it doesn’t matter what happens. He’d just drop down, put his chute on and twelve steps he’s at my turret door. He could open it, pass my parachute. I’d clip it on, turn the doors open and just fall back out of the aircraft. But whenever I flew with new crews for the first time I always told the engineer, ‘Don’t forget if anything happens your second job after you get your ‘chute is to open my doors and pass me mine.’
Interviewer: Wow.
RR: The other thing that I said wrong I told you about the trip where we boomeranged because the mid-upper was screaming and that he couldn’t see.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RR: I said we bombed Heligoland. I said but it wasn’t that, we were punished for that.
Interviewer: Right.
RR: When I say we except that they didn’t count it as a trip but I said on the twenty sixth trip this is the crew who I was flying with regularly.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RR: On the twenty sixth trip we bombed it was Berlin and we were halfway over to Germany and the navigator started screaming. Really hysterical. He couldn’t find his flipping map. The map he wanted.
Interviewer: Oh.
RR: Now, he’s not screaming. He’s really upset now. He’s just upset he can’t find a map. You know the way you kick a door when you hurt your nail or something. This was a reaction. Of course there was no use to us flying now with his guidance. Hey we could be blown anywhere and blah blah. So this is where we decided to bomb Heligoland and we bombed Heligoland. They didn’t punish the navigator. They called him all the names under the sun sort of thing.
Interviewer: I bet they did. Yeah.
RR: And at least we didn’t waste the bombs. We bombed Heligoland. But that was on the 20th of January 1944. It was their twenty sixth trip. On the 23rd we went to Nuremberg. Nuremberg as we called it and the navigator flew with us but when we got back they said that was their tour. They finished at twenty three. Well, I think I had done seventeen then. I had caught up a lot.
Interviewer: Right.
RR: But I still had another load to do and I carried on flying with, flying with anyone.
Interviewer: What about that trip that you told me about? We didn’t actually record it last time. When you saw somebody famous while you were looking out the back.
RR: Oh yes. At twenty two thousand feet I used to think was very near heaven.
Interviewer: Well, it would be in those days wouldn’t it?
RR: If anything happened I wouldn’t have far to travel and we’d gone to Stettin on the Baltic and, a big sea port and that and the German forces stationed there and we were flying at I think it was twenty three thousand feet and the cloud was solid enough to walk on. It was what would be called the harvest moon. I said you actually could have read in the turret with the moonlight. The moon seemed about three foot across.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RR: And clear, and really I had the idea that I could get out the turret and walk on cloud.
Interviewer: And walk on the cloud.
RR: At that time that didn’t mean anything to me but later on what I’ll tell you what I thought about later on after a while I’d I’m looking and I’d see two people approaching me and they were getting larger and larger. They were walking on the cloud.
Interviewer: This is twenty odd thousand feet above Germany.
RR: Yeah. And I knew he was St Peter because he had a beard and the other was an angel and they were walking arm in arm talking. You could see their lips moving but you couldn’t hear them. But if he was marching with an angel it was probably the Angel Gabriel [unclear]So I said, ‘Mac, we’re being followed.’ Mac was the New Zealander pilot. He said, ‘What is it?’ I said, ‘They’re walking behind us.’ He said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Who’s walking behind you?’ I said, ‘I think it’s St Peter. He’s got a beard and it looks like the Angel Gabriel.’ He said, ‘Where are they?’ I said, ‘They’re walking on the cloud.’ The next minute then I heard mumbling words which, you know then there’s a bang bang bang on the turret door which I did hear. Then the flight engineer he opened the turret door. He’d got a portable oxygen bottle to come around. He banged on the door and he reaches over me. He grabs hold of my oxygen tube coming from my oxygen mask to the oxygen and he starts and I can hear it was ice crumpling. My oxygen tube had frozen up.
Interviewer: Frozen inside.
RR: Yeah. Now, the only thing that I thought after that you start I have seen people in one of the oxygen chambers they showed me what the lack of oxygen is. I’ve watched people shuffling cards and the cards falling on the ground and still shuffling them.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RR: Ask them to count one to a hundred and after a while they go ninety two.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RR: You know.
Interviewer: They can’t do it because of lack of oxygen.
RR: That was, did I really think at the time I could walk, if St Peter hadn’t come up I’d have probably tried to walk on the cloud. But anyway this is fair enough and we go on and I was thinking as we were flying along you know did I really see them or was it imagination? The next thing the moon starts falling. Right away, ‘Dive starboard.’ Of course [unclear], ‘The moon. The moon.’ Right. Pilot saying now, a few minutes later bang bang bang on the turret. My oxygen tube had frozen up. Then of course we went on. We bombed Stettin. There wasn’t quite you know. We were actually bombing through clouds and you could see all the flashes but very few flak bursts were bursting above us. When we got back of course it’s the joke of the squadron. The moon. The moon.
Interviewer: Oh dear.
RR: My last trip on 50 was with the wing commander. With the wing commander, and Wing Commander Hewitt he was a nice chap. Better than the previous two we’d had. He did actually do a couple of trips every month. Not the one a month he was supposed to do and I said, ‘I want to fly in your rear turret.’ Because there was a mid-upper. He said, ‘Well, he’s pilot officer —’ so and so, ‘And he’s only done a few trips but if I tell him I want you there he’ll think I have no confidence. So — ’ he said, ‘It’s the mid-upper turret.’ So I said ok. Got in the mid-upper turret which is warm. I’m sitting there and they’d brought a new thing out. So many aircraft had been shot up from underneath, music makers as the Germans called the aircraft we had to bank port and the mid-upper gunner would look down and say, ‘All clear port.’ And then to starboard. I sat there for the whole trip. We went to Schweinfurt. The ball bearing factory.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RR: This Schweinfurt was the biggest place where they, one that made ball bearings. Now, up to the end of ’43 the American bombers had never bombed Germany. They had only bombed France but in I think it was October and December ’43 they did. They made two trips to Schweinfurt to bomb the ball bearing factories and then after in 1944 they started bombing Germany then. But they said this this last trip we were bombing Schweinfurt and I had a comfortable trip just looking out, ‘All clear port, skip.’ A few minutes later, ‘Bank starboard, skip. All clear starboard.’ And this went on. But when we got into the target area it had been snowing and you could see tracks across the fields and that about at twenty two thousand feet. But everything is lit up. The Americans had been there in the daytime and they’d not done any damage. We had gone as backers up. Somehow Gerry had affected us and they were flying above us dropping flares lighting us up into the target.
Interviewer: Oh wow.
RR: Of course, the fighters were having the time of their life. We were, we were fortunate. We didn’t see a fighter and there was just a normal flak over the target but we lost ninety six aircraft that night which was a lot. That was the heaviest loss.
Interviewer: Ninety six in one night.
RR: One night. Yeah.
Interviewer: Wow.
RR: If I remember that was it and that would have been over the target because if the aircraft come back shot up it hadn’t been lost.
Interviewer: Oh blimey.
RR: Because the flares, if you looked up at the flares you were dazzled. Talking about the dazzlement we were over Berlin one night with the crew Mac Cole, the New Zealander and we got coned by searchlights. For once our trip waiting for the V. The darkness to go through out of the way. And I said [pause] I don’t think I was frightened I was just, just annoyed. I was, the pilot was throwing the aircraft all over the place and I’m thrown in the turret and there’s not much room in the turret so I’m banging myself against gun butts, the sight and even the flipping seat and it seemed to me I was a moth attracted to a candle flame. You know you’d be surprised what you think. Anyway, we fell out the searchlights. I’m sure the pilot didn’t fly out. We’d be no reactive. We fell out. He got control of the aircraft so I managed to get back on my feet and sit back on my seat and grab hold of my guns, swing the turret and crunch crunch. I stopped moving. The turret was held on by one big bolt.
Interviewer: One bolt.
RR: Of course, all this crunch I thought something you know something has been hit down there so I called the pilot up, ‘Hey Mac, I think we’ve been hit.’ He said, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘Well, when I go to move my turret there’s all sorts of shuddering and jarring and you know there’s only one bolt hanging on.’ So he said, ‘Do you want to come out?’ I thought yes but then I thought if I say, ‘I’ll come out,’ he’ll probably think I’m scared. So I said, ‘It only does it when I move the turret so I won’t move the turret.’ We had actually bombed Berlin and all this while we came back I looked back but I never touched the guns, the controls and that. As we were going in turning our turn to land he said, ‘Do you want to get out now?’ But I thought well no. He said, ‘It might be a bumpy landing.’ Of course he’d thought if it was the turret would —
Interviewer: Would come off.
RR: Come off.
Interviewer: And dump you.
RR: But German night fighters were very brave. They had what they called intruders. They used to follow us home but they’d wait until the aircraft were landing. The landing lights were put on for the bombers and that and they would come up and shoot them down. We were always told, ‘Don’t vacate your turret. Keep an eye out for intruders.’ So I said to him, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I’d rather stay here just in case.’ So I was looking up as we were coming in to land and for once he made a perfect landing. When we got to stable the flight engineer come down, opened the doors, with the torch shone the torch and there were hundreds of rounds 303 ammunition in belts.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RR: RIp belts. What happened I had four big tanks outside the turret and they fed in channels. Came up underneath the bottom into [unclear] fed up into the four guns. But with all the throwing, the G force and the inertia when I was thrown in space the rounds kept piling up. Of course, the moment I start moving the turret from four guns they are all mixed up crunching and grounding. I tell you I really thought we’d had it then. But we went to Norway one night. Now we always flew low to Norway until we got to the Skagerrak. Then we’d shoot up over the [unclear] after that. We flew in between a valley between the mountains. We found where the drop was. It was a hillside and there was somebody seemed to have a hurricane light. We were going —
Interviewer: Yeah.
RR: A couple of hundred feet above the hills, opposite the mountains obviously but when we went on and turned around it had gone. I think we were carrying a double load of containers because the bomb doors weren’t closed properly and coming back we met a headwind which slowed us down plus the weather was bad at Tarrant Rushton outside Bournemouth and we got a message to land in the area at Lincoln where my old squadron was. 50 Squadron. Land at one of the aerodromes there.
Interviewer: There’s quite a few around there isn’t there?
RR: But our wireless operator must have gone to sleep. As I say the wireless has got a little cubicle more or less next to the navigator and he missed a signal. By the time we got back to Tarrant Rushton we were running short of fuel and one of the engines packed up. So we did one circuit of the aerodrome and another engine was chugging away and I was all for getting ready either to ditch in the sea or better still bale [laughs] bale out over the shore sort of thing. But the ground control officer, we called him [Joe Soak?] I don’t know why. He was a nice old chap and he actually talked us in and as we were coming in to the runway the pilot couldn’t see the runway properly even though they had lit flares. Whatever. I flew over some ancient Britain ruins, well one of the forts, I’ve seen it on television a few times and I said we’re on course. Anyway, we landed. We got as far as the end of the runway having turned to the dispersal and the engines packed up.
Interviewer: Wow.
RR: They had to send a truck to you know tow us and that. Well, this went on until the Germans surrendered. Now, Norway was the last. Last to surrender. It had packed up. It was Thursday afternoon at 5 o’clock. We had arranged to invade Norway the next day [laughs] but at 5 o’clock the Germans packed in. So the war in Europe ended. Of course everybody is [pause] group captain comes around and locks all the aircraft. No one can fly off. We all go into Bournemouth. We take the paras. I think there were twelve of them and a couple of officers. The paras didn’t have any money but the officers could sign a chit at the Mess bar. So we took them in you know to each crew would take the paras they had. We went into Bournemouth and the first pub we went into we decided we’d go around the bottles of spirits first. So I was, I was commissioned, my pilot was a squadron leader. We had a warrant officer. The rest were flight sergeants. So somebody punctured the first bottle. I forget what it was. It was awful. The second bottle wasn’t too bad. The third bottle was alright.
Interviewer: Amazing that [laughs] how it gets better as you try it isn’t?
RR: One I picked was a German drink and it was very inflammable. I bought a bottle after the war for my father in law and poured some on the [laughs] Pressure in the and I’d got him to put a match in it [laughs] of course it just went up and after that you know all sorts. But the paras wanted beer. So we went out. Came out the pub. I had my battledress on and that and I feel I’m bouncing with all the drink. Across the road there was a cinema with steps up and a policeman on each side the steps and I just floated over. Commissioned, battledress on but an officer so up the steps, floated past the policeman and white silk gloves which I wore on flight. I’d got them. I put them on. I just smashed a window and took a picture of one of the actresses [laughs] A picture, put it in my battledress and just bobbed away. The policeman looked at me, then they looked past me. We went into the pub next door and had a couple of drinks and we taught them, “The Muffin Man.” You stand in a circle and one man stands in the middle who balances the beer on his head and you all sing, “One man knows the muffin man.” He sings that, ‘I know the muffin man.’ Then he has to sit down with the beer on his head. Of course no one ever sits down. But after about, after about six glasses broke the landlord threw us out. We eventually found out the next day, or next day we went to Norway to take over the aerodrome. Gardermoen we went to and there were three [unclear] squadrons. One of them was a night fighter squadron looking for our group dropping people in and the other two were against the Russians convoys and I met a couple of the officers and they spoke perfect English and eventually you know we were looking for souvenirs.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RR: So one of them told me where the armoury was and I got a Lugar from that and a couple of efforts of ammunition. One of the officers from the Army [unclear] sent to Mess where we, you know we didn’t know when the other aircraft were landing and that. The paras had landed and as we passed, we passed one [camp] and there were all people with beards. They were Russian prisoners of war and they looked starved. We mentioned it but one of the Germans said, ‘We haven’t had much food ourselves. We were living off sardines and black bread,’ sort of thing but they had plenty of booze. We taught them a couple of our songs and they taught me or they wrote down Lili Marlene [unclear] and, ‘We’re bombing England.’ Our particular squadron were going to Chongqing the capital of free China. Do the same work as we did for the Underground. Drop people and supplies to the guerilla warfare against, behind Japanese lines. But my group, the wing commander sent for me one night. He said, ‘I’ve got bad news for you, Rogers.’ So I said, ‘What’s that sir?’ I thought he was going to say your mother has died or something. He said, ‘You are tour expired.’ Now, in 38 Group you didn’t have to do trips. Your hours were added up in what sort of operations you know you’d been on and if it was experimental work you got [unclear] So I said, ‘Well, what does that mean?’ He said, ‘You’re posted away to a Stirling squadron.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to. I want to stay here.’ ‘Well, you can’t.’ So he said, ‘It is a group order.’ He said, ‘I’ll check. I’ll make enquiries.’ So he told me that night in the Mess, he said, ‘No. Group definitely say you are tour expired.’ Now, we didn’t know at that time. I only found this out later if you did two tours they couldn’t say if you refused to fly they couldn’t say lack of moral fibre.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RR: Even though they didn’t agree stress and strain they recognised the two tours and that and the fact by 38 Group saying my tour was finished I’d done a tour in Bomber Command and a tour with them it meant that I could go abroad and if I got fed up with the heat I’d say I could say I don’t want to fly anymore.