2 25 54 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2228/40327/LWardHVT1150434v1.pdf d26941ce58ca4ae2481c2ea9c4d4b217 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ward, Hugh Vivian Toms Ward, HVT Description An account of the resource 38 items. The collection concerns Hugh Vivian Toms Ward (b. 1917, 1150434 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, photographs, drawings and documents and an album. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 44 and 463 Squadrons. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Patricia McCabe and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-02-11 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Ward, HVT Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hugh Ward's Royal Air Force observer's and air gunner's flying log book Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LWardHVT1150434v1 Description An account of the resource Observer's and air gunners flying log book for Warrant Officer HVT Ward, flight engineer, from 15 September 1942 to 9 September 1945. Detailing his training schedule, operations flown and instructional duties. He was stationed at: RAF St. Athan, RAF Waddington, RAF Wigsley, RAF Syerston and RAF Skellingthorpe. Ward flew in the following aircraft: Oxford, Manchester, Lancaster Mk1 and Mk 3, Halifax and Stirling. As a flight engineer he carried out 34 operations, 26 night time operations with 44 Squadron followed by a second tour of four daylight and four night time operations with 463 Squadron. Targets were (in order): Genoa, Hamburg, Turin, Stuttgart, Mannerheim, [Mannheim] Nienburg, Gironde river (Gardening), Duisburg, Essen, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Lorient, Milan, Wilhelmshaven, Nürnberg [Nuremberg] , St, Nazaire, Lutzkeneron [Lützkendorf], Würzburg, Bremen, Wesel, Frage [Farge], Nordhausen, Komutov [Chomutov], Juvincourt. His pilots on operations were: Pilot Officer Walker, Flight Sergeant Elger, Flight Lieutenant Walker, Flying Officer Riggs and Flying Officer Findlay. In between tours he served as a flight engineer instructor on1661 Conversion Unit, 1654 Conversion Unit and No. 5 Lancaster Finishing School. Ward also took part in Operation Exodus and a Cooks Tour. Ward's log book also records his time spent in a Link Trainer and his time at the controls of an aircraft. After the war he joined the Royal Auxiliary Air Force and flew in Auster aircraft as an air observation post with pilot Captain Huggins. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Czech Republic Czech Republic--Chomutov France France--Aube France--Gironde Estuary France--Lorient France--Saint-Nazaire Germany Germany--Berlin Germany--Bremen Germany--Duisburg Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Essen Germany--Hamburg Germany--Mannheim Germany--Nienburg (Lower Saxony) Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Stuttgart Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Wilhelmshaven Germany--Würzburg Great Britain England--Lincolnshire England--Nottinghamshire Wales--Glamorgan Italy--Genoa Italy--Milan Italy--Turin France--Juvincourt-et-Damary Europe--Garonne River Italy Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mike Connock Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942-11-06 1942-11-07 1942-11-09 1942-11-13 1942-11-14 1942-11-19 1942-11-20 1942-11-22 1942-11-23 1942-12-06 1942-12-07 1942-12-08 1942-12-09 1942-12-10 1942-12-17 1942-12-29 1943-01-08 1943-01-13 1943-01-16 1943-01-17 1943-01-18 1943-01-23 1943-02-04 1943-02-05 1943-02-13 1943-02-14 1943-02-15 1943-02-16 1943-02-17 1943-02-18 1943-02-25 1943-02-26 1943-02-28 1943-03-01 1943-03-02 1943-03-03 1943-03-05 1943-03-08 1943-03-09 1944 1945-03-12 1945-03-14 1945-03-15 1945-03-16 1945-03-17 1945-03-22 1945-03-23 1945-03-24 1945-03-27 1945-04-04 1945-04-19 1945-04-20 1945-05-06 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 1654 HCU 1661 HCU 44 Squadron 463 Squadron aircrew bombing Cook’s tour flight engineer Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Manchester mine laying Operation Exodus (1945) Oxford RAF St Athan RAF Syerston RAF Waddington RAF Wigsley Ruhr Campaign (5 March – 10 July 1943) Stirling training Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Terras, Robert Wallace Description An account of the resource 35 items. The collection concerns Robert Wallace(1050292 Royal Air Force) and contains documents, memorabilia and photographs. He served as a Flight Mechanic, Air Frames on 83 Squadron at RAF Wyton. The collection digitised by Melisa Terras and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. This collection was provided, in digital form, by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by the IBCC Digital Archive. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-05-03 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Terras, RW Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Individual history of Avro Lancaster B Mk1 R5868/7325M Description An account of the resource Complete history of the aircraft from 1942 to placement in RAF Museum. Delivered to 83 Squadron at RAF Scampton. Lists all flights with crews and provides details of operations and other sorties. First operation was on 8/9 July 1942. Was founder member of Pathfinder Force at RAF Wyton. Moved to 467 Squadron at RAF Bottesford in September 1943. Flew on 100th operation on 11/12 May 1944. Provides many detailed descriptions of operations. Last of 137 total operations was flown on 23 April 1945. Flew prisoner of war repatriation flights and took Cook's tour over Germany. Continues with post war history until arrival at the RAF Museum. This item is available only at the University of Lincoln. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource A Simpson Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942-06 1942-07 1942-08 1942-09 1942-10 1942-11 1942-12 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1956 1958 1959 1960 1961 1970 1972 1973 1982-08 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Manchester England--Lincolnshire Germany Germany--Wilhelmshaven Poland Poland--Gdańsk France France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine) Germany--Essen Germany--Duisburg Germany--Hamburg Germany--Osnabrück Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate) Germany--Flensburg Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Bremen Germany--Krefeld Germany--Aachen Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea Germany--Kiel Italy Italy--Genoa Italy--Turin Germany--Munich Germany--Berlin France--Lorient Italy--Milan Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Cologne France--Saint-Nazaire Germany--Stuttgart Germany--Dortmund Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Wuppertal Germany--Münster in Westfalen Germany--Bochum France--Montchanin Germany--Mülheim an der Ruhr England--Leicestershire Germany--Hannover Germany--Munich France--Modane England--Yorkshire Germany--Leipzig Germany--Schweinfurt Germany--Augsburg France--Paris Germany--Braunschweig France--Mailly-le-Camp France--Sablé-sur-Sarthe France--Lille France--Cherbourg Atlantic Ocean--English Channel Belgium Belgium--Leopoldsburg France--Nantes France--Saint-Pierre-du-Mont (Landes) France--Argentan France--Rennes France--Poitiers France--Somme France--Vitry-le-François France--Saint-Leu-d'Esserent France--Caen Germany--Euskirchen (Kreis) Poland--Gdynia Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie) Germany--Rheydt Germany--Mittelland Canal Germany--Merseburg Czech Republic Czech Republic--Most (Okres) Germany--Siegen Germany--Karlsruhe Germany--Würzburg Germany--Leipzig Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Netherlands Netherlands--IJmuiden Czech Republic--Plzeň Belgium--Brussels Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Ruhr (Region) France--Reims Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Thirty page printed document Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context MTerras1050292-150302-01 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 467 Squadron 8 Group 83 Squadron bombing Cook’s tour Fw 190 Ju 88 Lancaster Lancaster Mk 1 mine laying Mosquito Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Operation Exodus (1945) Pathfinders RAF Bottesford RAF Coningsby RAF Fulbeck RAF Metheringham RAF Scampton RAF Tholthorpe RAF Waddington RAF Wroughton RAF Wyton V-weapon https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/129/40/PFlowersJ1501.jpg c8c6c363f3571803b163c63628f7293d https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/129/40/PFlowersJ1502.jpg 13dff83dcc74f0fe413ea7eb4a08fccc https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/129/40/AFlowersHJ150602.mp3 f58403692c6da41dbb74bf1dcbd8b1fe Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flowers, James H J Flowers Horrace James Flowers Harry James Flowers Description An account of the resource 15 items. The collection concerns the wartime experiences of Flight Sergeant Horace James Flowers ( - 2025), a rear gunner with 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe. The collection consists of one oral history interview, a propaganda leaflet and nine photographs. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by James Flowers and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Flowers, HJ Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document HJF: My name is Horace James Flowers. I’m known as James. I am recording my, I served in the RAF for four and a half years from 1944 until 1947. I attained the rank of flight sergeant and flew, and served with 50 squadron and 44 squadron, 50 squadron at Skellingthorpe and 40 squadron, 44 squadron in Tiger Force at a number of squads, at a number centres, stations. I’m recording this for the International Bomber Command Centre on the 2nd of June, er, 2nd of June 2015 in, at xxxxx Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire. Yeah. I was born on the 9th of 10th, 9th of the 10th 1924 in a small village called Huthwaite in Nottinghamshire. I remained in Huthwaite, remained in Huthwaite during my education which was only secondary modern. Secondary modern. I then left school at fourteen, 1939. That sounds bad doesn’t it? MJ: That’s alright. HJF: I left school, I left school when I was fourteen. That was 1939. I became an apprentice butcher and loved the job. I absolutely loved it and if it hadn’t have been, hadn’t have been for the war, I’m certain I would have remained in that trade for the rest of my working life. However, Sutton in Ashfield area, Huthwaite and Sutton in Ashfield area rapidly became an area, a training area for a battalion of troops. And also there were Yanks at er, at Kingsmill Hospital and there were the paratroopers at Hardwick Hall five miles away. They was the elite and they used to come in at night time and the village had, all the village halls had been turned into dance halls so the town was thriving at night time, with hundreds probably thousands of, of soldiers coming in to be entertained for the night. It was so exciting. Now, the paratroopers were special. They were elite and when they used to come in they used to create skirmishes in the, you know, to a teenager it was so exciting and at the same time my brother had joined the navy and he was he was in, in, he was stationed at Brightlingsea at what they called [unclear] sorry [unclear] [pause]. Yes. HJF: German U-boats used to, used to speed in and torpedo any, any ship that was in the area. At the same time, at this particular time I had a girlfriend whose brother was in aircrew and he was a wireless operator and he used to come home at the weekends and I used to listen to his stories about his fly, what was happening while he was flying. This really stimulated my interest so I just had to get to it, get involved. Now, on the 18th of February 1943 I attended the, enlistment section- [pause] On the 18th of February 1943 I attended the recruitment section, recruitment place at Mansfield to be given a medical for aircrew which I passed A1. How excited I was when the medical officer told me that I’d passed A1. Not that my excitement was allowed to last long because shortly after the recruiting officer called me in to his office to give me the bad news. Now then, this is, ‘I’m very sorry to tell you, you can’t be accepted. We can’t accept anyone who is in a reserved occupation.’ I was completely devastated because I’d took a year to get in. I pleaded for them to change their mind, ‘Sorry you can only be accepted if the authorities release you from your reserved occupation.’ To a teenager desperate to volunteer this was terrible news. It felt as if a bomb had been dropped on me by the recruiting officer. My factory manager showed no sympathy at all. He firmly informed me that unless I was medically released I would have to remain with them until the end of the war. The problem was that I needed to be A1 to be accepted for air crew and unfit to be released from the reserved occupation. How do I get around that? Continuously I racked my brain to try and think of a way that I could overcome this problem. Months went by and I began to despair. It seemed as if my chance of joining the RAF had gone forever. At last I had an idea. I wondered, will it work? No matter whether it did or not I just had to try something. So with my heart in my mouth I arranged an appointment with my factory doctor. Attending the appointment I showed the doctor all the spots on my face, and telling him that I considered that the heavy fumes of the machine grinder on which, on which I was working was giving me dermatitis. I then requested that I should be released from this work. My case was so thin and I knew it but I had to try something. I then had to listen to the doctor giving me a real dressing down. How awful he made me feel. He ended his lecture by saying, ‘You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. Men are dying for the likes of you.’ Feeling very subdued I then quietly said, ‘But doctor, I only want releasing from munitions because I volunteered and been accepted for air crew. The RAF won’t take me if you don’t release me.’ With my heart in my mouth I waited as he fixed his gaze on me for what seemed an eternity. He looked me straight in the eye. Then without another word he reached for his pen and signed my release. As I got up to leave the surgery he leaned forward and shook my hand and wished me luck. All these problems had taken a year to resolve. Is that? MJ: Yes HJF: Now, having reached my ninetieth year I can’t help thinking how much slimmer my chances of surviving this terrible war would have been if I’d been allowed to leave my reserved occupation in 1943. Although I knew that being a rear gunner was a very dangerous job with a very high casualty rate, so much so that rear gunners were named Charlies and that’s another name for stupid fool, it didn’t matter to me what others thought. This was the way I wished to serve my country. Yeah, so that goes on to my “Tail End Charlie’s Story”. MJ: Ahum HJF: This was the title I gave to my book which I’ve, which I’ve had produced, “A Tail End Charlie’s Story” ‘cause I think that fits the bill. Right, on the 6th of March 1944 I reported to the induction centre at Lords Cricket Ground, London along with hundreds more recruits for entry to the RAF. Lords Cricket Ground was used during the 1939 ‘45 war as an induction centre for air crew. A roll call, a roll call was made during which, to my astonishment, a second HJ Flowers’ name was called out. It was then that I first met Henry James Flowers. Henry told me that he came from a village called Bargoed in South Wales. From then onwards we became constant companions. We remained together during basic training at RAF Bridgnorth after which we were posted to RAF Stormy Down for air gunnery training. Fortunately, we were kept together during flying training and in actual fact ended up serving on both 50 and 44 squadron, squadrons. Now, ok, recruitment before I get on to? MJ: You can put it whatever way you like. HJF: Does that sound alright? MJ: Yes it’s fine. It’s superb. I mean I know exactly what you mean when you said that London had had a right bash of it. HJF: Yeah. MJ: I mean, my nan got bombed out twice. You know, nothing left. HJF: We got friends, we’ve got a friend that lost everything twice. Absolutely everything. MJ: Yeah, yeah. HJF: She lived near where I was stationed yeah. MJ: ‘Cause the road that they lived in doesn’t exist. HJF: Yeah. MJ: And so on. You know people don’t- HJF: Yeah. MJ: Realise this sort of thing. Are you ready? HJF: Yeah ok. After disembarking from the troop train at Bridgnorth railway station we formed up in threes. Shouldering our heavy kit bags we began the long march to camp. The last mile was up a steep hill. As new recruits, unfit, with no marching experience at all, all carrying a heavy kit bag the formation rapidly turned into a gaggle. By the time we reached the camp everyone was on the point of collapse. Next morning, after the recruits had been formed up on the parade ground the NCO in charge of the parade informed us that we’d be confined to barracks for the entire six weeks - square bashing, ‘You will not be allowed in public until you can be a credit to your uniform.’ From that moment on we spent every minute of every day drilling and exercising. My muscles screamed out from the strains. The course seemed never ending. Much to my surprise the strain became less. I was obviously getting fitter. Not content with keeping us hard all day we were also given guard duty at night. On Saturday and Sunday a percentage of recruits were picked out to stand guard throughout the weekend. It was just the luck of the draw as to whether your name would come out. By the end of the fourth week I was badly missing my girlfriend Eunice so despite the ban on boots, new boots, new recruits leaving camp I began to make plans. Now, having been on guard duty at a sentry box on the edge of the wood at the rear of the camp I knew there was a way in and out. Those on guard duty were given instructions to arrest anyone there but be that it may I let loads of them through expecting them to make the, make the favour, if I, if I needed it. I noticed. Now desperate to return home I was willing to risk anything. So after duty on the fourth Friday I slipped out of camp by the back way and began thumbing lifts. In uniform they came very easily and with a matter of hours I was back home again. Early next day I walked the two miles to my girlfriend’s house. This was the first time that Eunice had seen me in uniform and I knew that I’d created a good impression. We had a lovely day and a half together. I can still remember going for a walk that Sunday morning along a very attractive country walk known locally as Skegby Bottoms. The sun shone brightly as we sat there. I was at peace with the world. I wanted it to go on and on and on. Late Sunday night I successfully re-entered the camp through the back. Through the woods. In no time I was back in my billet. The moment Taffy saw me he exclaimed, ‘Your name was called out several times for guard duty over the weekend.’ ‘Oh dear,’ I thought, ‘Blimey I shall be on a charge on Monday morning’. Sure enough I was called off the parade ground and told to report to the commanding officer. Shaking like a leaf I stood to attention in front of him. ‘Sorry. I didn’t hear my name called out.’ Not impressed, he said ‘Fourteen days jankers and do it again and I’ll throw the book at you.’ Next day I reported to the cookhouse in full pike. Just my luck to be the only one on jankers, jankers at the time to peel the thousands and thousands of potatoes needed to feed a camp full of hungry airmen and then to wash the pots that had to be used for meals. Gosh it was hard work. You may have thought that all this effort made my weekend worthwhile. I’m in no doubt at all. It was. Now then, what did I get to? 3rd of, 3rd of June 1944 see us arrive at Bridgnorth for flying training. Now this training was on Avro Ansons. It had one mid upper turret and we used to fire at drogues that used to come by with a, with a Spitfire travelling a drogue alongside us. And quite honestly, quite honestly it was I think, I think the pilot was, of the Spitfire, was in more danger of us hitting him than us hitting the drogue. Anyway, when, when we finished this course, at the end of this course I managed to get a day’s, a weekend off so I travelled home to see Eunice. She was in the Land Army near Grimley and I remember as I arrived at the, at the hostel, at the hostel Eunice was telling me about the, about someone who was getting married. One of the Land Army girls getting married. And I could feel that this was the, that there seemed to be a longing in her voice which suggested to me that this was the right time to once again, for the hundredth time ask her if she’d marry me. And so as she turned to me I said, ‘Well shall we get married then?’ and she said, ‘Yes, let’s.’ I’m not joking with you I could have fallen through the floor. Anyway, we decided there and then. She said, ‘What are you doing now?’ I said well I’m going now to Husbands Bosworth for a ten week course on OTU training and she says, ‘Ok when will that finish?’ Well we calculated it out that it would finish about October the 14th. She says, ‘Ok we’ll add a week to that. We’ll add a week to that. We’ll get married on the 21st of October.’ Not for one minute did we think the things that could happen in a flying training. So naïve we were. Anyway, a week before, two weeks before the October the 21st flying training, all flying training was cancelled through bad weather. We didn’t fly for nearly eight days. Comes the 20th, comes the 20th of, of October and I’m getting married the next day. I’d still got four hours flying to do that morning. Anyway, by sheer luck we got the flying training finished, finished by dinnertime. We then needed to, to get cleared from the station, and of course collect all our gear because we’re moving to another, another station. And, and we’d got, in those days, today if you wanted to get cleared from a section they do it on computer, can do it in five minutes. In our day we used to have to go to every section to get our chitty signed, mainly on foot. Fortunately, Taffy managed to borrow a couple, a couple of bikes. He was going to be my best man so he’s coming with me. We circulated and of course there’s a tremendous area in, in, on an RAF aerodrome and we circulated the area on these cycles and I’m certain that everybody, every section knew we were getting married because as we were, the next day every section and as we, the next day, and as we came in they immediately signed my chit. Bless them all. Anyway the admin section was closing at 5 o’clock. We arrived there at five minutes to five. The admin, the officer then cleared us from the section and, and he says, ‘Ok, right, you can go now. Report to RAF Wigsley on Monday the 23rd.’ I thought, bloody hell, two days. We then had to start [laughs] we then had to start our journey. Now in those days, in those days there was very little transport. We had to, we had to cadge lifts we had to catch buses, local buses, train journeys, local train journeys. It took us all night. We didn’t arrive in Sutton in Ashfield until half past eight on the Saturday the 21st. Having been awake all night I was absolutely shattered. Anyway we walked out of Sutton in Ashfield railway station and Eunice lived a mile to the right and I, and I lived two miles to the left. Taffy walked to tell Eunice we’d arrived. I walked the two miles to Huthwaite to, to my parent’s home. Now there was so much happening. The wedding was planned for 2.30. There was so much happening I never got any rest. I was absolutely cream crackered. By, I remember, I remember we were in, as we got in, as we got in to the taxi turned up to St Mary’s Church at Sutton in Ashfield and I says to my mum ‘Oh I can’t.’ ‘Go on, go on, ‘she said, ‘Oh no. You’re here now. Go on. Get going.’ Anyway we got into the church and I’m not joking I stood at the altar and I was absolutely asleep on my feet. I can’t explain how tired I was. Anyway, after a while suddenly there was a thump in my ribs and I opened my eyes and said. ‘I will’ and it was back to sleep again and quite honestly that’s all I remember of my, of my, of my wedding. And then photographs. The photographer wouldn’t take any photographs at the church. He insisted that we went down to his studio which was a couple of miles away and then he only took, would agree to take two photographs. One of Eunice and I and the wedding group. How different it is these days. Wedding photographers dominate the wedding and take millions of photographs and charge a tremendous amount of money. They do, don’t they? Anyway, Eunice was late when she arrived at the, at the church. She told me later, she said as the taxi drew away from her house a funeral appeared. Now it’s bad luck for you to go past a funeral. That’s what they said. So, quickly the taxi driver changed direction, changed direction to, to avoid it. Lo and behold they were just about to turn up the drive to the, to the church it was quite a long drive two or three hundred yards long and another, another funeral appeared so quickly he turns around and went back again and made another deviation. Well, she says she thought this a sign our wedding wouldn’t last. Well sixty nine years, seventy years later I think probably her premonition was a little bit wrong. [laughs]. Fortunately, the Sunday, Sunday, a telegram arrived at my home to tell me that I’d been given eight days leave. So, so we didn’t have to report to Wigsley until eight days later but I want to go back a little bit now to my flying training because quite honestly flying training on Wellington bombers, it was a marvellous experience. Dangerous. Always exciting. Mostly enjoyable but quite honestly we were like kids playing with big new toys and we couldn’t get enough of it. Now, many things happened, happened, that quite honestly, that could, we could have bought it there and then. I remember one instant. One instant comes to, comes to mind. This was a training flight up to the north of Scotland and, and this was one for the first night trips that we had. Now, navigation in those days was very, very difficult because they didn’t have radar, the navigator didn’t have radar. He had to use his maps and they used to even use the stars and, and even used to ask us, ask us for things on the ground so that was how primitive it was. Anyway, we flew up to the north of Scotland. It was six and half hour trip and when we got to the north of Scotland we were due to turn, to turn starboard to come down the North Sea but instead of telling us to turn starboard the navigator told Skip to turn port so instead of travelling down the North Sea we were travelling down the Irish Sea. In fact we were rapidly going towards bloody America [laughs] and extended the flight trip quite a long way. He said the reason why this happened was because he accidently pulled his, we were flying above twelve thousand feet and he accidently pulled his, his oxygen cylinder thing out, connection out so he, but that was his story. Anyway, we goes down the North Sea. I remember we got back to, we got back to the Husbands Bosworth area and I remember looking down. It was absolutely, early hours of the morning, it was absolutely pitch dark. You could not see a thing on the ground and Jack the navigator says, ‘Ok Skip. We’re over base.’ Skip says, ‘Can’t see anything.’ So he says, ‘Ok, dog leg.’ so he does a five minute dog leg, comes back again and he says, ‘Right Skip. We’re over base.’ And when he says that there’s a chorus of voices says, ‘You’re up the spout, you’re bloody up the spout we can’t see anything.’ Ok, another dog leg. We did another dog leg and another dog leg and then when we gets to the fourth one there’s a voice, the flight engineer butts in and says, ‘Hey. Hey, we’ve only got, you’d better pull your fingers out, we’ve only got four minutes of fuel left.’ I was sitting, I was in the rear turret listening to all this going and quite honestly my ring was beginning to twitch. I thought to myself, ‘bloody hell if they don’t do something about it we’re going to crash’. So I switched it on. I say, ‘Skip why don’t you call somebody up?’ He says, ‘Oh yes.’ He then calls out the base. The base called in the, the aircraft codes, signs and immediately lights, the aerodrome lights flicked on straight beneath us. Navigator, nav, had been right all the time. We made an emergency landing. We taxied around this, we taxied round, around the perimeter. We turns in to, turns into our bay and as we turned into the bay, before we were in, the engines stopped. That’s how close we were. Ok now then. I’ll go forward now to after my wedding ok. MJ: Yeah. HJF: Are we still going? MJ: Yeah. HJF: After, after the wedding I reported to, to Wiglsey. Now, once again we, one, one time comes to mind we had a complete and utter cock up on Stirlings. I remember we were corkscrewing, corkscrew starboard, corkscrew port and the Skipper was saying to me diving starboard, diving starboard, climbing port, climbing starboard, rolling port, so on. The corkscrew. And in the middle of this cork, and this Spitfire was attacking us, was attacking us from behind and I was giving a running commentary on, on him coming in and all of a sudden the aircraft levelled out and a panicked voice came over the, came over the intercom, ‘Put on parachutes, jump, jump, jump.’ And I thought, ‘bloody hell, I can’t believe this’. The next second, ‘Put on parachute. Jump, jump, jump. I can’t hold it, I can’t hold it, I can’t hold it.’ I thought to myself ‘bloody hell there’s something happening I can’t see’ and I thought to myself, I thought ‘I’ll have a go’. So I drags the turret around to the beam, pulls on my slider, green as grass I was at the time. Now with experience I’d have opened the door and just flopped back outwards but green as grass I dragged myself out of the turret outside and I was standing outside and the wind was terrible. You can imagine. We were twelve thousand feet, travelling two hundred miles an hour and I’m looking down. I remember standing there with one, with my feet on the edge of the turret, one arm’s holding the top of the turret and I looked down and cows in fields looked, looked like flies. I thought, ‘Bloody hell I wonder if my parachute will open.’ Anyway, I thought to myself I’ll have a go. So therefore, I thought, I started, I released one hand and took, took, began to take my helmet off and quite honestly it was, there was so much noise outside I could hardly hear anything. All of a sudden I heard a faint voice and I didn’t care what it was it I thought, that’s somebody shouting something. It took me twenty minutes to get out but five seconds to get back in. I was back in like a bloody flash and I held my hands to my ears and it was the flight engineer. We’d got a, we’d got a extra member of the crew that time, he was a tour expired extra flight engineer and he was shouting, ‘Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go.’ So, right, well what happened? When we got down as we came down to land I was so stressed up with this thing as I climbed, as I came out of the turret into the fuselage I just asked myself, I just had to know whether my chute would have opened. So I immediately, I pulled the rip cord and my parachute spilled out into the fuselage. It cost me two and six pence to have it, now that’s a lot of money. When you think it’s only two pounds a week for me and I was giving a pound to my Mrs that was a lot of money to me but I didn’t care. It gave me the confidence that at least, at least it opened. Now, when we got out, when we got out I say, I says, I says to Skip, ‘What happened?’ He says, ‘Well’ he says, ‘We were diving,’ he says, ‘We were diving and climbing and rolling in the what do you call it,’ he says, ‘And all of a sudden a window just at the back of my head, unbeknown to me, flew out.’ The window had got, on the inside, had got a lead weighted curtain and as it, as the window blew out it sucked this lead weighted curtain out and he says it just started banging on the side of the fuselage bang, bang, bang, bang he says, ‘I suddenly heard this bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang tremendous noise’ he says, and at that precise moment by sheer coincidence the instructor, flight engineer, the bloody fool, sitting at the side of me, the starboard outer oversped. Now, the standard procedure is to pull the nose of the aircraft like climbing a hill to steady it down. Now, instead of just poking the Skipper or, or switching his intercom on which was at his mouth and saying what was happening he immediately dragged on, dragged as hard as he could on the controls to lift. Now, the Skipper at the time because he was hearing this banging noise was trying to keep the aircraft straight and level and at the same time the flight engineer, and they were pulling against each other and I’m not joking it was a complete and utter cock up but I’ve often thought to myself what did that bloody Spitfire driver think of me when he saw me standing outside, climbing out, he must have thought I were doolally. [laughs] Another thing happened whilst we were in flying training. We were doing the corkscrewing. All of a sudden all four engines cut out. Quick as a flash Skipper slammed the aircraft in to a vertical dive and kick-started the engine. Fortunately got them going, fortunately we got plenty of height, kick-started them. By golly that did make your heart flutter [laughs] and then our final training, training trip with, on Stirlings we had an emergency landing and we had, we had to make an emergency landing at Woodhall Spa, the home of 617 of all places, and as we, as we touched down all of a sudden the Stirling swung off, swung off the runway and headed straight for flying control. Now the Stirling was a massive aircraft and, and the cockpit, when the cockpit, when it was stopped, when it was stationery the cockpit was level with the windows in flying control and we, we careered across the, across the, the grass and stopped about a couple of foot from the, from the flying control windows and Skip said he could see flying control people running away from the windows in panic and when we stopped he says, he switches on, he says, ‘Flying control, ‘he says, ‘Can you see where we are?’ and a droll voice, a dry voice came over, ‘Yes’.[laughs] Anyway, the bonus for this was we spent the night at Woodhall Spa and we were, we were able to spend the night in the mess and we were able to mix with those elite airmen, the 617 people. It was absolutely wonderful. Anyway, the next morning we flew the thirty five minutes back, back, back to base at Wigsley and that was our last training trip, flying training trip. The next day we went to, we transferred to RAF Syerston for Lanc finish school which we spent two weeks there. At the end of the two weeks we were being moved to squadron. We were now fully trained. Now, for some reason we, on the 24th of January 1945 we, we boarded a RAF transport to take us from there to squadron. For some reason and I don’t know why we were taken to RAF Balderton for the night. Now, we were absolutely dead beat when we got there. It’s a bit sexy. [laughs] Absolutely dead beat so we went to bed very early. Now, we were in a Nissen hut with about twenty beds and there was entrances both sides. Now, fast asleep, late on, I don’t know, about midnight, all of a sudden there was a door opened the other end and a couple, excited couple came in and they obviously didn’t know there was anybody there. Short time later the excited talk, sexual. [laughs] and this went on and on and on and on. Anyway satisfaction came in time and they crept out laughingly and after they’d gone a quiet voice says, ‘Did you hear all that?’ [laughs] It goes without saying that fit aircrew fully trained wouldn’t miss a thing like that. It certainly brightened my night up. The next day we were a, to 50 squadron Skellingthorpe. We arrived at RAF Skellingthorpe on the 25th of January 1945. Now, the atmosphere, there was quite an atmosphere on training, training, on training stations but it was nothing like this. There was that feeling like an electric feeling. There was so much bustle and things going off, watching, actually we were nearly month before we did our first operation but we, all right? Seeing aircraft take off, disappearing, new aircraft coming in, the wild, wild parties that were in the mess. The atmosphere was absolutely wonderful. Now as I said we were a month, we were doing training during the time and I remember wonder, wonder if, if I’m going to be up to it because you never know do you? Anyway, it was the 5th of March, the 5th of March by the time we, we did our first operation and what an operation. What an eye opener. Now, I remember we walked into the, we walked into the briefing room, and The excited chatter and then all of a sudden the briefing officer came in quite pleased and deathly silence instantly. Your target for tonight will be Bohlen. Bohlen. Apparently, I found out, it was going to be a ten hour trip. Your, your route will be passing the Ruhr, in the Ruhr, in the Ruhr 3 Group will be attacking the Ruhr. In that area expect to see enemy fighters attacking in pairs. One from above and one below. If one gets above, if one gets beneath you they will shoot you to pieces. So be careful. Beware. Anyway, briefing finished and we’re standing outside. They’re all chatting all excitedly together and I’m talking to Flight Lieutenant Ling’s rear gunner and I can’t remember his name but I knew that he’d been, he was getting towards the end of his tour. I says to him how are things going, what was the flight like? Obviously, obviously I was quite uptight and he said, ‘Oh don’t worry, there’s nothing to it. Nothing to it. And I said something to him which I’m not going to tell you about which made me think, made me think ‘You’re not taking it seriously enough.’ He said, ‘Oh’ he says, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve never seen, I’ve never seen a fighter at all.’ Unbelievably, we came, we came across our first Messerschmitt less than four hours later. He say, ‘Don’t worry. There’s nothing to it’ and I thought, anyway they got the chop on the next trip, the next what do you call it, you see. Anyway, I remember going out to the aircraft at Skellingthorpe and the tension in me was absolutely sky high and I remember it didn’t seem to take us long, didn’t seem to take us long before we were taxiing out and as we were taxiing out I was looking around and there was all, I’m certain as I remember 61 squadron were also going that night and there were all these aircraft taxiing around the perimeter. The atmosphere was absolutely electric and all above, above, above all above us we could see the Lincoln cathedral in front of us and all above we could see heavily laden bombers gradually circling up, circling around. The tension inside me just went just like that. I was ready for it. Anyway, we turns on to the peri track, taxies up to the runway, waits our turn, turns on to, turns on to the, turns on to the, on to the runway. Skip calls, ‘Brakes on. Full power.’ And then, ‘Right, brakes off’ and, and we began to surge forward and alongside the, alongside the runway was a line of ground staff waving us off. What a wonderful take off. What a wonderful send off. Anyway, this was the first time that we’d been in a, in a Lancaster with a full bomb load. We’d got fourteen thousand pounds of bombs on and two thousand two hundred gallons of fuel. It was as much as any aircraft, Lancaster aircraft could carry in those days. I remember we were surging along, we were surging along, the vibration, this was the first time I’d heard the engines on full throttle right through the gate. The aircraft was absolutely, all the fuselage was vibrating with the tension of it. Anyway, as I, as I remember one two five was the one, was about the speed that you used to take off. I remember engineers started to call out one twenty, one twenty one, one twenty two, one twenty four, one twenty five and then Skip dragged the aircraft and you could feel the fuselage vibrating as he was fighting to get the aircraft into the air and then we had another problem. The Skellingthorpe runway was aimed straight at Lincoln Cathedral on top of that hill. Now that’s like a pimple today but to us in, in 1945 it was a terrible object to get over and we used to have to be banking while still at stalling speed. We used to be banking to miss that, well, I say ‘bloody cathedral, oh God’ and then when we got to a thousand feet it was such a relief. Anyway, I remember, I remember gradually climbed up. Our operation height was twelve thousand feet. I remember circling around. There were hundreds of aircraft. I think there were about two hundred and fifty aircraft involved in that operation. They were oh wonderful sight, wonderful sight gradually, circling around getting up to height and then a green light, Very light came from came out of one of the, the leading aircraft and we immediately began into a bomb, into a stream and we started to head out for Germany over the North Sea. Now, gradually, we’d set off at half past five at night, March and it was getting dark, getting quite dusk and as we set out, as we set out over the, over the North Sea gradually the light disappeared and so the aircraft, the aircraft, gradually, my night vision was developed. It used to take you twenty minutes for your night vision to develop and, and gradually all you could see was just, you could see Lancasters when they were the image of them when they were very close and you could see the sparks of the engine and we used to, we used to, we’d been told, warned about these twin fighters so we were swaying from side to side so we could look straight beneath us so we wouldn’t be caught out and I remember we’d been flying over the North Sea and were now entering, entering, enemy territory for the first time. The tension built up in, the adrenalin. I should say adrenalin building up inside me and I remember I was looking, it was now almost pitch dark, although it was a moonlit night it was still dark and I remember watching this, watching this Lancaster drift slowly underneath us, about twenty or thirty feet beneath us and it had just drifted underneath us. I could just see the sparks from its engines and just as he drifted there was a tremendous explosion just a short distance behind us and the explosion, the light split in half, then the next second, two, two seconds later there were two tremendous explosions. Two Lancasters rammed each other and both exploded in mid-air and then it was back to complete darkness. It hadn’t, the shock, the shock it hadn’t taken me long to realise the difficulties of being on operational active service but you know sadly fourteen air crew, airmen had lost their lives in that second but the shockwave was, it was so close to us the shockwave came right through our aircraft, violently vibrated us and quite honestly I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had blown us down. Anyway, we carried on. We climbed up to twelve thousand feet. Now, it was a moonlit night, a moonlit night and the clouds, the clouds looked like a rolling sea. It was so picturesque. The clouds were up to ten thousand feet, we were two thousand feet above and it looked so picturesque. It was lovely and I remember my concentration was absolutely sky high and all of a sudden I saw something which could have been a fly on a window, it was just a slight movement right down deep, deep on, on the starboard side and I thought to myself, bloody hell a fighter. Can’t be. Who said he’d never seen a fighter? Yeah, I thought, anyway it was at that moment that I made, through inexperience, something which could have been, could have been fatal to us because I should, all my, all my training, I should have in actual fact immediately called and, and warned the crew what was happening. Nevertheless, despite this mistake I automatically aimed my guns at it. Gradually this object moved gradually astern and when it was dead astern at ten thousand feet gradually it started coming up. Now when it got to, when it got level with us the image of the aircraft filled my, filled the ring on my gun sight and it was at that moment that the hundreds of hours that I’d spent viewing, viewing pictures, silhouettes of, of fighter, of enemy fighters, fighters on screens in training paid off because I recognised it a Messerschmitt 109. Immediately, without, without a second thought I pressed my, pressed my button and gave it a prolonged burst straight at the fighter and I watched my, I watched my tracers go straight in it. At this fraction of a second I immediately switched on and shouted, ‘Fighter. Fighter. Dive, dive, dive.’ And the Skipper slammed the aircraft straight into a, into a vertical dive and he’s shouting me, ‘You mean corkscrew. You mean corkscrew.’ But I didn’t. I meant dive because there was no deflection required because he was absolutely dead astern. Anyway, I watched my tracers go straight into it, straight into it and the fighter immediately went straight down as if out of control straight into the cloud. I’m convinced now that I shot it down but of course rules do not allow you to claim anything when you don’t see the ground and we were at ten thousand, the clouds at ten thousand feet so therefore that’s but I’m convinced that I got him. Anyway, we carried on to the target, this was another couple of hours RT silence and all of a sudden, all of a sudden a voice, RT silence was broken. Now, a voice came over as calm as I’m talking to you, ‘Control to Link One how do you read me?’ And it was the, it was the voice of the controller who I feel certain was Wing Commander Stubbs, a man I had a great respect for. ‘Link One to control. Loud and clear. Control to Link One go in and mark the target.’ Ok. Right, carry,’ I listened to this conversation. We’re gradually, now we’re quite some distance from the target but gradually now the pathfinders are now beginning to drop their flares so the sky’s beginning to light up so I’m beginning to see lights in, lights in the sky and gradually as we are approaching as we are getting nearer and nearer the target. I’m listening to the conversation of the controller and the Link One now when everything was done and everything had been marked with satisfaction controller says, ‘Ok. Ok Link One, go home, go home.’ Then he called out which I’m certain was Bandwagon. They called the bomber stream Bandwagon, ‘Hello Bandwagon,’ and that was our call sign, ‘Hello Bandwagon. Come in and bomb the target. Bomb red flares,’ and he was giving instruction to which flares to bomb and when he’d finished all that he says, he says, now, ‘No flak. Watch out for fighters.’ So, anyway, we approach the target and just before the target, just before we reach the target all of a sudden a single engine fighter which I’m certain was a Messerschmitt 109 suddenly made a run at us. I immediately, now I was listening to the bomb aimer and Skipper beginning to give instructions for our bombing run and our instructions was that you should not corkscrew during that time. We were taught to be quiet so immediately I aimed and fired. Calamity. The back of my gun sight dropped out and a white light there, I’d been five hours in pitch darkness, and this white light bomb sight bulb was right in front of me. Now, it only took me seconds to put it together but twenty minutes for my, for my night vision to come back and during that time anything could have happened. I couldn’t have done a thing. I could hear what was happening and all the talk and I couldn’t see a thing. What happened to that fighter I will never know. Anyway, we went on our bomber run and, and I could hear the bomb aimer saying, ‘Left, left, steady, steady, steady. Ok bombs gone.’ Now, the bombs used to drop at about a thousand feet per second. We were twelve thousand feet so twelve seconds later he says, ‘Photograph taken.’ Now, immediately Skipper slammed the nose of the aircraft right down. We went straight down a couple of thousand feet straight into the cloud and we stayed in those clouds for hours. Anyway, we came out of the clouds eventually and then lo and behold as we came out of the cloud over to our, over to our side I can’t remember if it was port or starboard there was a bloody Lancaster flying on with all its lights on. The stupid buggers. With all his lights on. We scooted away from it as quick as we could. So anyway we got back to our area where the cathedral, over the cathedral. Now, Skellingthorpe, Scampton and Waddingon, their circuits almost intertwined around the cathedral, more or less. Now, when we used to come over the cathedral you can- now you can imagine everything was visual so therefore there were loyal scores of very, very tired, tired aircrew so all, all desperate to get home, desperate to get home so there was a tremendous danger of collision and another thing, another thing, the night before this, the night of the 4th , 4th of March, three intruders had shot three Lancasters down in the circuit at Waddington and one at Fulbeck so this had immediately filtered through us so instead of relaxing as one do after, after being in the turret for nigh on ten, eleven hours my concentration as we switched our landing lights on, we just used to have landing lights while we were in the circuit, and I remember as we switched our landing lights on about, about twenty aircraft close by and they must have been in different circuits switched their lights on. Now, I remember I was, my concentration was sky high and I remember thinking Skip calls twenty degrees of flap, a hundred degree of flap and I was all the time searching all the way around thinking to myself I’m not going to be caught out by an intruder because this was the dangerous, you’re like a sitting duck then. We came in to land we stopped in dispersal all the twelve hours of tension drained out of me. I thought to myself ‘bloody hell and this is only the first one’. And that was my first operation. Yeah. Another interesting operation was the one to Lutzkendorf which was on the 14th of March 1945. There were two hundred and forty five Lancasters involved and eleven Mosquitos. Eighteen aircraft failed to return. Never even reported in the paper and that’s nearly two hundred people it’s just, yeah, anyway. Anyway, took off about ten minutes to five. I remember we, we flew past the Ruhr and once again rear group, 3 Group were attacking the Ruhr and I remember as we passed by I could see the fight that was going on. I could see flak shells bursting in the air. Tremendous. I could see air to air tracer bullets from, from bomber to fighter. I could see bombs dropping and I thought bloody hell we’ve got another, we’ve got another two hours to go yet and then we continued a short distance away and now there was another problem. We’d been warned that there was a fighter, a fighter aerodrome, a night fighter ‘drome in this area which had a light shining from its roof, from the top of flying control so that, so that we knew from one that there would be, there would be fighters, night fighters in strength in this area and this light was on specifically so they could stay in the air until the last minute, down, refuel and be up again. Now, I remember I suddenly saw this and the adrenalin was such, I thought to myself God the night fighter are bound. All of a sudden I saw the airfield had been strafed. The light disappeared. Obviously, it must have been one of our aircraft. One of our aircraft. I know full well that putting the light out didn’t, didn’t make much difference to the fact that fighters were around but boy it did relieve me. Anyway, we carried on to the, we carried on to the target and once again, once again, I can’t remember the controller it might have been Wing Commander Stubbs but he went through the same procedure, went through the same procedure. I remember him saying at the end, ‘No flak. Look out for fighters. Watch out for fighters’. This was our fourth trip and the tension was beginning to build up in me as we were going through the target and I remember without me intercom switched on I was listening to the, I was listening to the bomb aimer saying, ‘Left, left, left, steady’ and I was shouting, I was shouting in a loud voice, ‘Drop the bloody thing. Drop the bloody thing and let’s get out of here.’ Anyway, after what seemed an interminable length of time he said ‘Bombs gone.’ Skip immediately slammed the aircraft down into a dive and disappeared from the, and as we as we left the target I thought to myself, ‘thank God, we got away with it’. Little did I know. Now, I remember we’d left the target, we’d been gone probably ten and fifteen minutes and I could still hear that controller over the target. ‘Bomb green, the green flare,’ do this, undershoot it, do this, do that. It was absolutely inspirational. He must have been, he seemed to have been over the target hours. Anyway as I’m listening to this left from the target about approximately fifteen minutes when all of a sudden a fighter flare burst straight above us. From complete darkness it was like switching the light on, an electric light on in a pitch dark room. The shock of it made me sink deep in, deep in to my, in to my turret. My seat. Mind you, immediately my mind started working like lightning and I, looking out of the, looking out of, I searched the area. I searched the area all the way, all the way. I searched the area all over and sure enough high on the starboard side I could my left I could see an FW190 coming in fast dragging all I’d been looking I hadn’t been turning my turret around so as quick as I can I’m dragging my turret around. I didn’t have time to aim. So, immediately I got anywhere near I pressed my, I starts firing, my gun starts rattling away I’m dragging, trying to drag my tracer, tracer bullets into it and I’m watching it. Then all of a sudden with this, this aircraft coming in fast I felt rather than saw something on my, deep on the starboard side and forcing myself to take my eyes off this aircraft I had a quick glance to the right, to the right, and there deep down, deep down on the port side. It’s my right but it’s the port side of the aircraft, deep down on the port side was a JU88 almost underneath us and I thought, bloody hell. Immediately I realised that if he could get underneath us he was going to shoot us to pieces so I stopped firing at him, drags my turret around and as soon as I can, as soon as I can I began firing at this JU88 and immediately, immediately they both of them broke away. Now, they played cat and mouse with us for twenty six minutes. Now, that might not seem a long, a long time but as each, each attack only lasted about ten seconds. How many times they came in I don’t know but anyway Lancasters, Lancasters didn’t have any power assisted controls. The Skipper was corkscrewing continuously for forty minutes. The physical effort on him must have been absolutely terrific. Anyway, the tension inside me remained after. I didn’t realise they were twenty six minutes. After a time, after a long time with my tension, with my concentration, still sky high they disappeared. They must have decided that, that, you know, either run out of fuel or they realised they might as well go for an easier target. Anyway, the navigator, I only know it was twenty six minutes because the navigator told me later but when we got back I remember the relief as we passed over the English coast. It was absolutely fantastic. I know we weren’t safe but the relief to be over. It seemed so much comfort to be coming over, over this country. Now, when we, when we, after we came in to land I found out that all ten thousand rounds that I’d supplied to my rear turret - I’d fired every one. There wasn’t one left. So if we’d have had another attack by one of those fighters I couldn’t have done anything about it. That was as close we were to disaster. Phew. And sadly, sadly Flight Lieutenant Ling and crew did not return from this, from this operation and I’m not surprised. Well I shouldn’t say this but, no I won’t say any further. I did think that the rear gunner was getting a bit blasé and probably he wasn’t doing what he should have been doing but I don’t know. I can’t say anything more about that. But that was my fourth operation. Another interesting operation was a daylight operation to Nordhausen. There were two hundred and forty Lancasters involved. Now during briefing we’d been told that the SS troops had been transferred to Nordhausen to protect Hitler. Now, this was what made it interesting with thoughts that we might be bombing Hitler. Now, we didn’t have any flak or fighters to contend with but all we had was problems. Now, I remember we took off. Generally speaking most of my operations in fact all of the other operations we used to take off from, from Skellingthorpe and go straight out to the North Sea. On this occasion we were going to travel south, south and meet up with 3 group aircraft and, and, and travel to Nordhausen with them, you see, which, which meant we were going to drive past the London area. Now, we’d been warned at briefing be careful near the London area. Their ack ack gunners don’t like strangers, unidentified aircraft flying over. They will fire first and ask second so beware. Anyway, having taken off in the early hours of the morning it was still absolutely pitch. 2.30 we took off. It was still pitch dark as we went by, went by the London area and I remember as we arrived there, there were absolutely hundreds and hundreds of searchlights shining up and quite honestly we were so close to them I thought, I was really on tenterhooks, because I thought bloody hell, thinking about the fourteen thousand pound of bombs underneath us and those, those twitchy ack ack gunners. Anyway, I was looking down, all of a sudden Skip slammed the aircraft in to a vertical drive. Now the g-force on me was tremendous. It drew me, stretched my body up and my body, my head hit the top of the fuselage with a bang, the top of the turret rather with a bang and just at that precise second, now you’ve got to remember that I had no perspex at all in front of me, so, therefore, therefore the open air was just there and just as that happened a Lancaster aircraft flew just over and I swear to this day that if I’d have put my hand out I could have touched that aircraft. Another one of our nine lives. Anyway we carried on. We met with up 3 Group, over Reading it was, and we drifted out over the, over the, on to enemy territory. I remember we were so widely spaced out well, we were used to flying at night-time, we didn’t need to be in a gaggle when all of a sudden there was a voice came up, RT silence broken and it was obviously the fighter leader controller, fighter leader and he shouts up ‘Close up. Close up. How do you expect me to bloody protect you?’ Anyway, we got to Nordhausen and boy did we close up. Our operational height was about twelve thousand feet as far as I could remember. I can’t remember. Somewhere in that region. But two hundred and fifty aircraft then from being miles apart suddenly homed in together in to a thin line and I remember there was aircraft all the way around us, almost touching us. Now, I didn’t mind the ones at the side or the ones below or the ones straight above us but I was leaning forward in my turret and looking up. The ones I was concerned of one above in front that I couldn’t see because I thought to myself they’ll be dropping bloody bombs on us and I’m looking at them when all of a sudden, all of a sudden a full load of bombs missed the back of my turret with this, with a fraction. Almost touching us. Ten, ten one thousand pound bombs and a cookie. Now, they go down like lightning. Fifty foot beneath us was a Lancaster. The first, the first thousand pounder hit this fuselage right in the middle, right, just at the back of the mid upper turret. I cringed, expecting it to explode but lo and behold the bomb went straight through the fuselage and disappeared, continued down. The next, the next thousand pounder hit the middle of the wing and I still couldn’t believe it. I’m still cringing again and it bounced back and bounced off. Now the cookie, which was a contact bomb, they must have had err, you know biometric things that didn’t explode above five hundred feet or something but the cookie was a contact bomb. It missed the side of the fuselage by a skin of paint. Anyway, I remember the, the aircraft disappeared and there was a lot, there was a lot happening. I forgot about it. Anyway, by sheer chance at the end of the war I was listening to Canadian troops embarking on to the ship to go home and, and the person being interviewed was a pilot and it was an interesting story and do you know he went through what I’ve just told you. It was the, it was the pilot of this aircraft and he said, he said, and it was so pleasing to know, that they’d staggered back to the North Sea and dropped their bombs and got, and they survived the war. Anyway, anyway we were coming over the North Sea about, about ten thousand feet and all of a sudden I saw two Lancasters drop right down to zero feet and I thought bloody hell they’re going in. They’re going in. And all of a sudden from the back of one of them I suddenly saw foam appear and it was like watching a motorboat swing, speeding along and this foam behind, I can’t remember, two engines, two of the engines, this foam was behind it for about four hundred yards when gradually it picked up, climbed up and I thought to myself, ‘oh they’re ok. They’re alright’. Anyway, by sheer coincidence four days later when we returned from an operation we were diverted to Spilsby of all places, 44 squadron which I eventually finished up on and we were able to get out of the aircraft to have a walk you know and have a stretch and I was walking by this aircraft which had got props bent and all the props on one side. I think it was just on one side [laughs] I think it was just on one side. They were bent almost double and I, and there was a ground staff working on it and I said, ‘God, what happened to that aircraft?’ He said, ‘The silly buggers,’ he says, ‘This bloke and another bloke coming from an operation a few days ago, they were playing about to find which one could get closer to the sea. This silly bugger dragged his props in the water. Nearly drowned his rear gunner.’ I thought to myself, ‘God, how did they manage to keep the aircraft flying with damage like that?’ Anyway, he said they were being court martialled. I don’t know. Anyway, and that was that. [laughs] Another very interesting operation was a daylight operation to Hamburg oil installations, Germany on the 9th of April 1945. During this operation twenty five jet fighters ME262s attacked the bomber force. This was, I believe, the first time that any fighters were ever used during any war, first attack. Anyway, there were, there were, there were fifty seven bombers involved. 50 squadron, 61 squadron I think we got twelve and something like that, 61 squadron and 617 and 9 squadron. We were to, we were to drop, we were to drop thousand pounders on the oil installations and 617 and 9 squadron were to drop a tall boy. I can’t remember if eight thousand or twelve thousand pound bombs on the, on the submarine pens. Now, the thing was that because of the weight of the Tall Boy they’d taken out of the Lancasters, 617 and 9 squadrons they’d taken away the bomb doors and had actually taken off the mid upper turret to lighten the aircraft so to be able to carry it ready to take off and because of this we were, we were instructed that we were to fly in a gaggle and fly as quick, as close as possible to support them. Now another thing the apparently 309 squadron, a Polish squadron flying mustangs, would escort us and 65 squadron were also taking part. Now, we took off at about well 14.48 I believe it was. The weather was perfect and I remember our operational height was twelve thousand feet. Now, I remember we were passing over, we were passed quickly, over, over the, over the North Sea and I’m thinking to myself now Hamburg was a very, very dangerous place. A very important place to Germany. Still is. Still is. But because of this over the war, during the war they’d built up a tremendous defence and if you had any aircraft attacking there we could have heavy losses so we knew that we were in for a difficult time when we got there. I remember passing over, over Germany and all of a sudden every so often the flak was bursting, shells were bursting shells were bursting around us but quite honestly I never gave them a thought. You know I was used to night, night bombing where the flak was a bright light but I never gave as I say, probably I should have done. Anyway we got to, got to Hamburg, near to Hamburg and I rotated my turret. I can’t remember port or starboard side but we were coming up and turned square to the right over Hamburg. Other: Can somebody come in here? Going back a little bit I remember as we were going over the, going over the North Sea it was a completely cloudless sky, brilliant sun and I remember thinking to myself where are those bloody fighters supposed to be, that are supposed to be protecting us? Three squadrons were supposed to be protecting us but every so often, every so often we saw right in the distance swirling around oh I thought, ‘Oh lovely. There they are.’ Anyway we carried on. I remember as we, as we, as we entered, got over mainland Europe gradually every so often we’d hear the phuf phuf of flak shells at the side of us which I just ignored. I don’t know a bit complacent probably but I just didn’t care about them. Didn’t take any, anyway we gets to Hamburg and Hamburg, I’m just, I’m repeating myself now. Hamburg was a very special place. Was then. Is now. And during the war years they’d built up a tremendous, tremendous defensive force. They, they could send up a box barrage of flak in an instant and I remember we were approaching, approaching Hamburg and I can’t remember which side we were. Left or right. But I leaned forward, leaned forward and I looked and turned my turret to the beam and leaned forward to look forward and I could almost see in front of us and I could see the target as we were approaching her and I’m not joking I have never seen flak like it. We were, we were, I think we, I think we were, our height was we bombed from about sixteen thousand feet but up to around our bombing height there was a complete black cloud of flak shells bursting out and I remember thinking to myself, bloody hell we’re never going to get through that. Now I’m just going to divert a little bit because we were at the back of the fifty seven aircraft and a friend of mine on 61 squadron, Ted Beswick, he was in the front aircraft and he was telling me later he says they were watching this predict, this flak. I forget what you call it. Predicted flak. It gradually approaching him and he said until one burst right in front of the nose and he says and, and, and parts flew through the front through the bomb aimers position and, and, and badly injured the engine, the bomb aimer. Anyway, we carried on to the target. We turned on to the target and we, I’m not joking with you, I can’t describe what it was like going through the flak. It was absolutely frightening you. I was thinking, I say, frightening. Anyway, believe it or not we went, we got through the target unscathed. We dropped our bombs and I understand it was a successful bombing. Anyway, we left the target and I could see aircraft. I feel certain I could see aircraft around, some damaged but nobody shot down. Anyway we’d left the target and we’d been left a few minutes. I then turned my turret around and I thought to myself, bloody hell, we’re back marker. Sitting duck for any fighters. So immediately I switched on. I said, ‘Skip, Skip we’re back marker. Sitting duck for any fighters.’ He says, ‘Ok. Ok.’ So he immediately shoves full throttle on and gradually, gradually we moved forward so we could see aircraft behind me. That made me feel a bit better. Now, a short time later and I can’t remember how long, all of a sudden twenty five ME262s attacked the formation. I only saw five but I know from later reports it was twenty five but I saw five aircraft coming along the, coming along the ground level and I, I called, ‘Skip Skip I can see, I can see five small aircraft on almost at ground level.’ God, I’ve never seen aircraft travelling so fast. They, they, they began to climb. I says, ‘God they’re climbing faster than I’ve ever seen any aircraft dive.’ Within seconds they were up to our operational height. They levelled out and came straight at us canons blazing. Canons blazing’s straight through us like a dose of salts. Now, one of them come straight at us and I’m firing as hard trying, trying as hard as I could ‘cause it’s like lightning is happening, trying to drag my tracer bullets into it and it came so close I thought to myself it’s going to ram us and I’m not joking he then swung in between us and another Lancaster by my side, by our side and, and I could see the, I could see fighter, I could see the fighter pilot as close as I can see you now. Anyway, I’m swinging and firing my turret and all of a sudden I realised that I’m firin my, still firing my bullets straight through this Lancaster at the side of me. I lifted my arms like lightning off, off my, off my off my controls and, and, and I thought to myself bloody hell, I thought to myself might have shot down my, the aircraft but of course you can’t shoot an aircraft down by firing straight at it you have to fire in front of them but that was fortunate because it was a 617 aircraft. I don’t know what would have been said. Anyway, we, we’d left the target, we left the target and only a few seconds later after they’d attacked us all of a sudden by the side of us the aircraft, the back marker aircraft exploded, broke in half and began to drop straight down. Now, when it had dropped about a thousand feet I saw although the rear turret would immediately lose, as it broke in half, lose, lose any control we had we had a handle which we could turn and swing the turret around. Anyway, after about a thousand feet I saw the, this is another story I’ll tell you in a bit which I’d forgotten to tell you. Forgotten to tell you. I watched this rear gunner drag himself out of the, out of the turret and fall away and I thought to myself oh thank God, he’s, thank God he’s, going to get away with it. He was a friend of mine. Anyway, the parachute opened and a few seconds puff it exploded in flames and then I had to watch this friend of mine, friend of mine struggling, drop away, gradually drop away to his death. Now, I’ll tell you a little, I’d forgotten to tell you but when we went out to the aircraft, when we went out to the aircraft after we’d had the briefing you all race out and you all try to get on to the buses as there were buses and lorries. Now, the buses were a lot of comfort so therefore you raced to get in those. Now we raced in and I sat in the front seat and, and sitting at the side of me was Norman, Norman Garfield Fenton. Friend of mine. I say he’s a friend, he was a squadron friend not that I knew much about his private life other than that he was from Kettering. But I says to him, ‘What aircraft are you in? He says, ‘Fred. F Freddy.’ Now F Freddy, we did four ops in there so it gave us, gave us chat, you know, something to talk about. Anyway we got to the dispersal area and, and climbs out. All of us rush to our aircraft and climbed aboard and did our pre-start checks and afterwards there was still an hour or so to go. We climb out of the fuselage and, and, and went Taffy and I went, went and sat down, sat down on the grass and a few seconds later Norman walks across and we sat down and there we are. I think we took off at 2.30 so it was quite warm and where we sat there chatting away talking about what we were going to do. I remember I do believe he said he’d got a little child. I can’t remember but I think he said he had a young family but we were chatting about what we were doing and four hours later I watched him die. You know, it really did affect me. I mean, at night time you just disappeared, didn’t have the same effect on you but knowing, I recognised the aircraft as it dropped away as V and F. I could see it clearly so I knew this was Dennis, Dennis struggling and nearly got out and I had to watch him fall and it did affect me for quite a long time and poor Dennis and Flying Officer [Berryman] who was his Skipper and, and one of the other crew are buried in, in Hamburg but oh dear it did affect me for quite a long time that. Ok. Now one thing I’ve got when we got back to briefing. When we got back to briefing we turned around and told the briefing officers we’d been attacked by jets and they says not possible. Not possible. Not possible. There’s no, there’s no airfields around Hamburg for jets but little did we know, little did we know that jets, the Germans were taking off from motorways. Ten out of ten for them for innovation. But apparently the, the powers that be killed the story because they were so fearful of the effect it might on morale, of morale of our aircrew. But then I want to go back a little bit now to Ted Beswick. He saw all, I only saw five but he saw all twenty five. Now, one of them came at us came at them and he shouts port corkscrew, corkscrew, go, go but of course they couldn’t because they were in gaggle. Anyway when the, when the ME262s had attacked they began to swung around and began to go around to reposition they could only do one or two attacks because of limited fuel but one drew up by accident right on, right on their starboard side I can’t remember starboard or port side. Anyway he immediately fired and saw his tracer bullets go straight into it, straight into it and immediately, immediately the aircraft went straight down as if out of control and he watched it spiral down. Ted is convinced that he made a kill, he made a kill. Of course he couldn’t claim it because once again he didn’t see the ground. But they had another incident they did. They had a hang-up bomb. They couldn’t get rid of it and try as they might they couldn’t get rid of it so they started to go back and try to get rid of it in the, in the North Sea. They still couldn’t get rid of it so they decided to bring it back, bring it back to Skelly. Now as they came in, in to land there was a bang as they touched down and the bomb dropped on to the bomb doors. Now, they pulled up immediately at the end of runway, got out of the aircraft, scooted away from the aircraft called up and a short time later, a short time later well some time later along comes the ground staff, gingerly opens up the, opens up the, winds open the, the bomb doors, bomb doors. Two of them stands there, catches a thousand pounder and then, you know, we have got a lot to thank those air crew people, ground staff people for. Wonderful, wonderful unsung heroes. One, one interesting operation was to [?] in Norway. I remember there was, I can’t remember how many aircraft, several hundred aircraft involved. But we’d been in we’d been told that we were to fly at zero level up the North Sea and I remember in the half-light seeing probably a couple of hundred Lancasters flying, almost touching, almost touching the waves. It was so exciting. I loved it I did. And I’m certain Skip enjoyed it just as a much as I did. Anyway, we got to the, we got to the, got to Norway and, I can’t remember how long it took us. Anyway, we climbed up to bombing height which would be, it would have been about ten to twelve thousand feet. Now, I seemed to remember one gun, one heavy gun but if I’m to believe records, records say there was no, no flak but I seem to remember one gun as we approached. One heavy gun. Anyway, we came in, we came in to bomb and, and we’re virtually on our bombing run and I’m listening to the Skip and the bomb aimer conversing when all of a sudden, now, always before when the Skip had had to dive the aircraft had to change direction of the aircraft it had always been a dive. On this occasion it was different all together. All of a sudden the aircraft reared straight up. Now, I remember I’m clinging on to my controls and I was transfixed. I was transfixed and even though my head still thumped the top of the turret because of the reaction of the aircraft swinging and at the same time we used to carry our flasks and sweets and chocolates given to people, aircrew and I remember them coming straight up in the air, straight up in the air and as the aircraft, aircraft levelled they all went straight out of the window and I said oh sod it. I was saving those for the return. But another thing happened. Ass this was happening. I’m hearing a swirl, a swirling noise of machine gun noise coming into my turret. Thousands of bullets was coming along the ducts into the aircraft. Now, I didn’t realise this was what happened but they came in and completely jammed the turret. Anyway, we levelled out. We crept back over the sea and got back home but if anything had happened we couldn’t have done a thing about that. Now, the thing is when I was on that operation, in our billet, in our billet was another crew err if you just give me a second I’ll remember his name. I’ll just get, now this operation was on the 25th, 26th of April 1945. Now, in my billet, in my billet was another crew. Now this crew, they disappeared and I didn’t know what happened so I just, this is when people got the chop things, just used to take there was usually two crews to a Nissan but when they got the chop they used to take, just take their things out. They disappeared. Never heard anything about them. Anyway, last year, last year at our reunion, our reunion a fellow approaches near our memorial. He says, ‘Hello James. Do you remember me? And I says to him, ‘I don’t think so. I can’t remember.’ Well, he says ‘You were in the next bed to me on 1945. January 1945.’ I says, ‘Oh yes.’ I said ‘What happened to you then?’ I said, ‘You disappeared didn’t you?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ He says, he said, ‘When you were going on [?] we were on Exodus.’ Exodus operation. Fetching prisoners back from, from Europe, probably Brussels. Anyway, he says, ‘We dropped the prisoners, the POWs, ex-POWs down he said and headed for home and on the way back we crashed.’ He said, the, the ‘We had problems, engine problems and in trying to avoid these houses the wing tip hit the ground and, he says, ‘And it slewed into the ground. My turret was thrown off into, into a field.’ He said, ‘My guns were buried in the ground.’ He said, ‘I was in hospital for a week.’ He said the mid upper turret, the mid upper gunner got away with it he got a broken leg but the rest of the crew were all killed. I said, ‘Oh good God.’ I says, ‘I wondered what happened.’ They just disappeared. So there you are. Made contact all those years later but how did he finally manage? Probably he managed to find me because with me doing so much on our website. I’m better known. More people know me then I remember them. That’s probably it isn’t it. Could be couldn’t it? But an interesting story that isn’t it? There you are. MJ: Ahum HJF: Now then. I want to carry on. On the 1st of June, is it on? Switch her on. MJ: It is on. HJF: Yeah. On the 1st of June ‘45 we were transferred from 50 squadron to 44 squadron to be part of, to be part of Tiger Force. The intention was to, to, to fly us straight out, quickly out to the Far East. As a matter of fact Okinawa was going to be our base. So we, we went, we transferred to Spilsby. Now, from day one we started doing high level training. Anyway, I can’t remember but it was a few days after we got, one of our trips, it was only one and three quarter hour trips I think it was just about the worst one of all. I remember we’d got fourteen thousand pounds of bombs we were going to drop into dispersal area in the North Sea and as we taxied around all of a sudden, the port, the port inner set on fire. Now, the smoke was coming and filling my turret and I thought to myself silly bugger put your oxygen mask on, puthering in to me. Anyway, rapidly the, the engine was feathered and after a few minutes the Skip calls up flying control and tells them, ‘Engine fire. Waiting for instructions.’ We waited for instructions and a few minutes later the flying control calls, ‘Right, start the engine up. Give it a run up. Take off when you’re ready.’ When he switched off there was a chorus of voices, ‘We’re not bloody going, the stupid buggers, that engine wants checking. We’re not bloody going.’ MJ: Ahum HJF: ‘We’re not bloody going.’ Anyway, Skipper in the meantime started the engine up. He revs it up, he says, ‘It seems ok to me. We’ve got to go.’ And we kept saying, ‘We’re not bloody going.’ Anyway, we turns on to the, and eventually gets and I’m not joking I was full of trepidation. I could feel in my water that something else was going to happen. Now, anyway we’d just got our wheels off the deck and the starboard outer seized. Now, let’s just think about it. We’ve got a dicky port inner and we got a, a seized starboard outer and we’ve got fourteen thousand pound of bomb. I’m not, that’s as much as an aircraft immediately started to vibrate telling me, telling me she’s going to stall. She’s going to stall. Now, quick as that I thought, my apprehension just disappeared. I thought to myself I’m going to, I’m going to jump no matter what the height. So, quick as lightning I swings my turret to beams, pulls open the doors. like a flash I was sitting outside and there I sat outside listening to, feeling the violent vibrations of the, of the aircraft as it gradually gained speed and height. It took us about thirty minutes to get up to about two thousand feet and while I’m sitting there just thinking about myself there our poor old Skipper was at the front fighting to keep this aircraft in the air. What a brilliant, brilliant Skipper. Anyway, we eventually get, gradually the vibration stopped. We got to the dispersal area, drops the bombs as near, as near as we could and returned. That, that trip took an hour and a quarter and it seemed the longest one of all. Good God we were so close and then what turned out to be our final trip, final flight actually for seventy, nearly seventy years as far as I was concerned. We were taking part in a dodge operation. Which, Dodge Operations were returning, returning British soldiers, taking, taking Italian troops back to Italy, to Bari in Italy and bringing British soldiers home. Now, we’d been so many times we used to fly visual. We used to go down to Marseilles, turn left over Marseilles, out over, out over the North Sea to the tip of Corsica and, and, and then make for Rome and over Rome straight for Bari. Now we were so casual about this we used to fly you know, anyway as it turns out the engineer, the engineer used to do a bit of piloting every so often. They used to keep their hand in. Anyway, fortunately the engineer had strapped himself in. Now we were carrying twenty one, twenty one Italians and I was sitting in the fuselage, in the fuselage. I was more or less a steward. Now, we were climbing, we were climbing up to ten tenths cloud. Now it was a very, very stormy day. Very, very hot day. Tropical storms everywhere and as it turned out we were the only aircraft only two of us arrived at Bari. Aircraft were diverted all different places. Anyway, we were climbing up through ten tenths cloud at ten thousand feet when all of a sudden cause safety height over, to cross the tip of Corsica, safety height being eleven thousand feet when all of a sudden the aircraft veered straight up, straight up and we flew slap bang into the centre of cunim, Now the tremendous upward force hit the belly of the, hit the aircraft and flung it straight up in the air. She stalled, dropped on her back and started to vertically drop down. Now, the Skipper standing by the side of the engineer as I say he was, he was, he was piloting was thrown up to the roof and he dragged himself around the, and for a time he thought to himself bloody hell we’re going. I’m going to drag myself back. Then he realised that the flight engineer was beginning to get a bit of joy so he drags himself around the fuselage, the side of the fuselage to a standing position alongside him and there was only single controls in a Lancaster. He then grabs hold of the controls and the two of them used all their strength to pull the aircraft out, out of its vertical dive. Now, as I told you I was in the back of the aircraft looking after these, looking after the Italians. I was thrown up to the ceiling and a water tank that was there for them floated up in the air, floated up in the air and were virtually trapped beyond the fuselage and as I looked, I could look at the back and there was, we’d got a Lancaster wheel in in the back, in the back which we were taking. Probably somebody had a burst tire. They’d left it loose. The silly buggers had left it loose. I watched this, watched this Lancaster wheel do a full circle of the fuselage. It smashed the auto gyro and it went around and it hit the machine gun ducts and right to the side of the ducts were the, were the rudder bar controls and I thought to myself, I was praying that it wouldn’t come rolling towards us when the next second, the next second with a slam I was banged down, banged down on to the floor, banged down on to the floor and I dragged myself up. All the Italians were in a complete panic and without thinking I just slotted the bloke at the side of me, slotted him, knocked him down and said, ‘Lie down.’ I made him lie down. Anyway, then I thought to myself, I thought as I’m standing there I thought to myself, actually I called Skip up. I said oh I think one of these, one of these Italians had pulled the [aerial] controls and we knew we’d lost an aircraft through somebody pulled themselves, their all external inside the aircraft and pulled them up and it had caused the aircraft to crash because it was almost you know in a position where they couldn’t change so I thought that’s what had happened, Anyway, as I’m standing looking all of a sudden the aircraft reared up again but not quite as bad. So I thought sod it I’ll have a look at this. Now our mid upper gunner had been transferred because of the end of the war you see, had transferred so I climbed into his turret and I was amazed. We should have been at eleven thousand feet to cross over safely over the tip of Corsica. We were then travelling along the coastline on the edge of the mountains, parallel. Somehow or other in the process of diving vertically we’d changed direction. Now, I don’t know whether it were luck or whether it was the skill of our pilot but anyway we turned, we were flying along the coast of, coast, coastline. Now then we came into land. Now at Bari, at Bari there was only one single runway. One single runway. And, and aircraft were, aircraft were positioned, were parked either side of the runway. Yanks on the left, yanks on one side and all Lancasters on the other. Now, as we came in to land, another thing, just at the end of the runway was a, was a large quarry and on very hot days, on very hot days used to cause an air pocket above the, right above the end of the runway. Now Skipper might have forgotten that or it might have been just because let’s face it I was stressed up and I was only looking after them, so God only knows how he was feeling but anyway as we came in to land we dropped from about sixty foot straight down. We hit the ground, we hit the tarmac with such a bang and the aircraft reared off, reared off, slewed to, slewed to port and, and coming, taxiing right down, right down just in front of us was a, was a flying fortress. We were heading straight for it. Skip immediately slams port throttle, full port throttle on, slews the aircraft and I could feel the undercarriage bending. Why it didn’t break I don’t know and there we are slewing across to the other side and going straight for the Lancs and he shoved full throttle on the other side and we straightened out and that was it and we levelled out. Now, you might have thought that was enough trouble for one thing but when we were coming up, we stayed there four days and I remember I was standing, we were waiting to return and we were standing about halfway along the runway and there were thousands of troops, thousands. There were hundreds of aircraft and thousands of troops, American and British, and we were watching the first Lancaster to take off and it came by us and it was almost as it came flashing by us it was almost at take-off speed when all of a sudden it turned completely ninety degrees. Now there were four line I think, I can’t remember whether it was three line or four lines but it went through the first ones, first ones, missed all the aircraft but hit another one in the line absolutely broadside and just as it hit its undercarriage collapsed but when it hit it’s props were churning into the side of the aircraft churning, churning. Now, thousands of us ran across thinking to ourself, expecting that there would be many many fatalities, many many fatalities but when we got to the aircraft, when we got to the aircraft there was a great big hole in the nose of the aircraft. Three, three, three soldiers climbed out of the front of the nose and do you know and people were pouring out of all sides of the engine. All sides of the aircraft. Do you know there were thousands of people out but do you know to my knowledge there was only one person, there were nobody killed and one person injured and that was he was injured through flying glass. Absolutely fantastic. I thought to myself this is a bloody mugs game. It’s time I pack this game up. Well I’ll tell you now it was an uneventful trip back to the, back to the, back to England but that was the last time I flew in any aircraft until about 2012. [laughs] 1.38.08 Now, at the, I now over the years, over the years over the last, nearly twenty years I’ve been involved with the 50 and 61 Squadron Association website. Now, quite honestly I never, until, until I was in my seventies I’d never used a computer. But anyway, anyway I was instrumental in helping, helping, eventually, not for a start in helping to start up our website 50 and 61 Squadron Association websites. Now, I have a veteran’s album. I don’t do hardly anything these days Mike [Connock] does it but until, at our reunion 209 Air Vice Marshall Nigel Baldwin came up to me and says, ‘James, I’ve got a story here, an interesting story which would be good for your veterans album.’ Now, it was then I was interested to, I was then introduced to a person called Chris Keltie. Now - Other: I don’t want to hear your secrets. HJF: Yeah Chris Keltie. He then, Chris told me a story which at the time - Other: Make him at least give you a drink. HJF: No. No. You’re alright. Other: At least make him. Now I’m telling you. Go on. HJF: Oh did, did we bring that cup of coffee in? Did we leave that coffee in there? I don’t think we did did we? MJ: No. HJF: Oh bloody hell we forgot. Oh sorry. HJF: As I say. Chris Keltie. Chris Keltie. He told me a story which at the time I just didn’t believe. I couldn’t believe that anybody, because of my experiences, I couldn’t believe that anybody could do what I was being told but he was telling me that a pilot whilst severely injured and weakened by loss of blood had regained control of an earthbound Lancaster and, and in pitch darkness brought the thing in to land and thereby saved the lives of, as it turned out, three of his crew members. For this he got nothing. Not even get, now I’ll tell you the full story. On the, it’s Victoria stuff. Victoria Cross stuff. I’m not joking with you. It was in July 1944 I can’t quite remember exact date. It might have been the 4th or 5th. Anyway, they successfully, they were bombing a V1 bomb site. It was 61 squadron aircraft. QR D Dog was the aircraft. Bill North was, Bill North, flight lieutenant. He was the flying officer at the time but it was Bill North, Bill North was the pilot and his aircraft was QR Dog. Now they were to, from thirteen thousand feet they were going to bomb the V1 sites. Now, which they were the first aircraft to bomb it and after, as they left the target an FW190 sprayed their aircraft. It blew away the fin, the port fin. It blew away the port fin. Blew away the port outer engine and fuel tank and it also it splattered the middle of the turret. Now, the mid upper gunner, now I used to say it was either between six and eight bullets, non life saving bullets in his body. Unbelievable. Splattered the turret. Anyway, it splattered all the Perspex, the cockpit Perspex and, and the pilot screamed out in agony as four bullets hit him. Two in his thigh and two in his left arm. Now, his left arm one of them hit the nerve and it paralysed his arm so his arm was flailing there. Now, immediately and the aircraft immediately begins, it’s earthbound screaming towards the earth. He immediately gives instructions to bail out and begins to drag himself out to go to the escape hatch. Now, as he drags himself out of the seat the flight engineer who is sitting by his side reaches back. Now, as the pilot had sat on his parachute. Now, but the, but the flight engineer and the rest most of the crew, the rear turret and rear gunner all had clip on chutes now his was clipped on the fuselage. Now, he reaches back to unclip his, his ‘chute off the fuselage, the side of the fuselage and as he pulls it off it’s been shot to pieces by bullets. It’s just at that point Bill was about to drop out of the escape hatch. Quickly he grabs hold of his shoulder and shouts my parachutes gone, my parachutes gone. Now, nobody would have blamed Bill North If he’d have thought to himself nothing I can do. I’m badly injured myself and just to have gone just to continue to drop out but without one second thought he made a conscious decision to drag himself back into his to his controls. Now, the, the landing an aircraft, a Lancaster is a two man job. You need, you need the help of the flight engineer. The flight engineer was frozen with fear. Couldn’t do anything. Now, Bill North, with one hand, his adrenalin must have been five hundred percent I have no idea how he did it but unbelievably with the aircraft screaming earthbound he regains control and in pitch darkness not only did he regain control but in this very heavily wooded area he found, he found a clearing, brought the aircraft in to land from an impossible height at an impossible speed. No, no flaps involved because the bloke couldn’t, the flight engineer couldn’t do anything. Had the presence of mind as he brought the aircraft in to land it tail down so there would be less danger of fuel tank, of fuel explosion and landed and when it became stationery he was so weak from the loss of blood that he slipped into unconsciousness. Now then, as it turned out not only had he saved the life of the flight engineer alongside him but apparently the mid upper gunner and another person, I think wireless operator, were both trapped in the fuselage because their turret ‘chutes had been shot to pieces, so they, as I say he slipped into unconsciousness so they had to carry, carry him, they had to carry him out of the aircraft and as they laid him on the grass at the side of the plane he slipped into unconsciousness and they thought he was dying. Anyway, time went by. The French were involved but I can’t remember who else was involved but in time the Germans came, whisked him into a hospital and he remained in hospital for several months after which he was, he was transferred to a concentration camp and he finished the war, and finished the war in a concentration camp. For this he didn’t get any mention in despatches. Not even a mention in despatches. Absolutely disgraceful. This is, this is, this is VC stuff. Now when Mr Ball when, when Nigel Ball contacted me I, I wrote this story, this was several years before, I wrote his story on my website. Now last year, October during last year the, the sons of, of Bill North, he’d passed away the year before, wrote to David Cameron to thank him for what he’d to done to get the air crew their memorial in London and thanked him for getting the clasp. Bloody clasp. Ridiculous. Anyway, anyway out of the blue, credit to David Cameron. David Cameron phoned them personally. No wrote to them personally and invited to them to come and see him at the, at the House of Commons. Now, they decided that what a golden opportunity this to try and get a posthumous award for their father. So they put together a delegation of about ten people and they wanted a representative of the squadron association to be, to be, to be with them. Now, as to whether I was the only one or not I’ve no idea but I was the person that was invited to go. Now, I travelled down to London and I remember, I remember we, we, David Cameron was wonderful actually. I remember he took us and we were chatting to him in his office and he was chatting to all the party and I couldn’t hear him he was right at the far end of the room and I says, ‘I can’t hear.’ And he says, ‘ok’ and got, upped sticks and came and sat right to the side of me and I’m listening to them talking. Now, quite honestly as I was listening to him you know how people are when they’re talking to someone of higher authority? They, they become meek and mild don’t they? And I’m listening and I don’t hear very well. After they’d been going on for quite some time I thought to myself they’re missing the point so in actual fact I had spoken to him and told him that why I was there to represent the association and I, I interceded. I said, ‘But sir, we’re missing the point of our visit.’ and I says and I then went into detail of this, of what Bill North had done and I says to him this is bloody Victoria Cross stuff and for this he gets nothing. Not even a mention in despatches. This is a complete disgrace and I remember, I remember David Cameron looked set aback and he looks at me and says, ‘Well I don’t know. All the hassle I’m getting here.’ He said in a friendly way. It wasn’t nasty. ‘All the hassle I’m getting here and he says the hassle I’ve had in question time today and he says and it’s my birthday today.’ And I said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ He said, ‘It’s my birthday today.’ I says, ‘It’s mine as well’ and he reached over and he said, ‘Birthday boys.’ [laughs] [laugh] There you are but do you know something we had, we had a celebration last year for my ninetieth birthday and, and, and seventieth wedding anniversary and last year. It was in October. October. And last year, about three weeks before our, before our party a friend of ours and I don’t know how he got this phone number my friend answers the phone and this voice says, ‘Hello, this is David Cameron here’ and she says, ‘Oh don’t – tell me another one.’ And he said, ‘No. This is David Cameron ringing from the House of Commons. Can you give me the details of Mr and Mrs Flowers celebrations’ on the, and you know he said, ‘Because I want to send them a letter’ and lo and behold lo and behold on the, on the, my birthday arrives a letter comes, ‘Dear Mr Flowers,’ from the House of Commons ‘I’m writing to you wish you a very happy ninetieth birthday. This is a marvellous occasion and I’m sure you will use this opportunity to celebrate all your many achievements and all you have seen and experienced. I would like to send you, Samantha and my best wishes for a wonderful birthday.’ That was on the 9th of October. On the 21st of October we gets another one. ‘Dear Mr and Mrs Flowers I am delighted to send my congratulations to you both on your seventieth wedding anniversary. It’s a huge achievement to celebrate such a long and happy marriage. A great example to family and friends and your local community. Samantha and I would like to wish you all the best on your anniversary. We very much hope you enjoy your celebrations. Have a lovely day. David Cameron.’ We of course did have the letter from the queen we all know the queen the queen had millions. She can’t do it personally do it you know that’s a secretary but to think that David Cameron made the effort during such political time to ring my friend up to find out details of our celebrations and then to ring us up and send this. As a matter of fact I sent him a Christmas card and he sent me a Christmas card back. [laughs] There you are, now, that’s different isn’t it? In conclusion I would like to go back to the time in 1941/2, I can’t remember the exact date, my first sighting of my dear wife. Of my Eunice. I remember at the time I was working on munitions twelve hour shifts a day, week about and I was on daylight day shifts this time and I’d finished at 7 o’clock, cycled home and, and home and quick change and cycled back two miles to Sutton in Ashfield baths which had been converted to a dance hall and as I went in it had a balcony. I went in about 9 o’clock. I climbed the stairs to the balcony and I remember looking down and it was a teeming mass of dancing local people, RAF, navy all having an absolute, and a wonderful band with all the top, all having, and the RAC band was there. It had top musicians in it and I remember I was looking down and I saw right beneath me I saw this beautiful young lady in a yellow and white check dress. I’m not saying anything wrong but she was flitting from one male to, from one friend to another. She was obviously the life and soul of the party and I thought to myself God what a cracker. So, quick as lightning I rushed downstairs and I stood in the background until the opportunity came and I tapped her on the shoulder and I said to her, ‘Can I have a dance please?’ and ‘ Yes.’ And the first time I held her in my arms oh she didn’t have make me quiver and it was the first time that I met my dear wife. [laughs] How I ended up with her I will never know. She was so beautiful and so energetic. She was out every night dancing. There were thousands of soldiers all around training all on the lookout, all on the lookout for, for, for as beautiful women and here I was just working on munitions. Nothing going for me. My chances of making a go with her were very very slim. Anyway, gradually I became a friends. It was two years before she’d call me a friend. But there you are. That’s how I met my dear wife and there we are seventy years later. Love of my life. Still feel as we did as all those years ago. Beautiful woman. Still beautiful woman still beautiful in my eyes. How’s that. As I say I’m in my ninetieth year and I can’t help thinking of my family. Thinking of the time on the 25th October when our first son Ian was born and when he was accidently deaf when he was only thirteen and a half you never get over it, time never heals it. The birth of my second son Richard and when he was accidentally shot in the head by his wife. He was so lucky to have survived. Then my third Phillip born ‘68, ‘58 and to his lovely daughter. She was absolutely beautiful. Passed away when she was two years and nine months. Then there was my fourth son was a whopper when he was born and the, and the midwife says to my he’s the biggest baby I’ve ever had and she said ironically he’s the biggest baby I’ve had as well. Then I think to the stresses and strains and excitement I felt during my aircrew years and the thirty two years as a driving examiner and to the pleasure we felt on the birth of two granddaughters, eight grandsons, fourteen great grandchildren and finally I recall the seventy years that I’ve been married to my dear wife Eunice. I can’t help thinking of all the times I felt like throwing her in the bloody river or burying her with the plants in the garden yet despite all this she still remains the love of my life. Such wonderful memories. I would like to end by saying that during the time that we, as a crew, were involved in bomber operations we were attacked by ME109s, JU88s, FW190s, ME262s jet fighters, passed through flak you could have walked on, almost touched passing aircraft, almost crashed through fuel shortage and fell vertically from eleven thousand to five hundred feet. Nothing special. Just the normal sort of thing that most Bomber Command aircrew had to put up with during World War 2. Happy days. MJ: On behalf of the Bomber Command I’d like to thank James Flowers for his interview on the 2nd of June 2015. This is Michael Jeffries, recordist. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with James Flowers Subject The topic of the resource World War (1939-1945) Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Description An account of the resource Horace James Flowers was born and grew up in Huthwaite, Nottinghamshire. He became an apprentice butcher before being released to volunteer for the Royal Air Force in 1944. He trained as an air gunner at RAF Bridgnorth, RAF Wigsley and RAF Syerston and attained the rank of flight sergeant, serving largely with 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe. He recounts his experiences on several operations, including Bohlen, Nordhausen, Lutzendorf and Hamburg. He was transferred to 44 Squadron in June 1945, as part of the intended Tiger Force and also took part in Operation Dodge. He also discusses how he met his wife, Eunice, and their marriage in 1944; his role with the 50/61 Squadron Association after the war; authorship of a memoir "A Tail End Charlie’s Story"; and the occasion of his 90th birthday when he received a call from the Prime Minister, David Cameron. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Michael Jeffries Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-06-02 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Heather Hughes Maureen Clarke Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:58:11 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AFlowersHJ150602, PFlowersHJ1501, PFlowersHJ1502 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire England--Nottinghamshire Germany--Böhlen Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Lutzendorf Germany--Hamburg Germany Germany--Leipzig Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944 1945 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review 44 Squadron 50 Squadron 617 Squadron air gunner aircrew Anson anti-aircraft fire bomb struck bombing fear final resting place Fw 190 Ju 88 love and romance master bomber Me 109 Me 262 military discipline military ethos military service conditions Operation Dodge (1945) P-51 Pathfinders RAF Bridgnorth RAF Skellingthorpe RAF Stormy Down RAF Syerston RAF Wigsley recruitment Spitfire Stirling Tallboy target indicator Tiger force Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1497/28755/LLeadbetterJ163970v1.pdf 8b54fa7306a0c184800b59be488a49fa Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leadbetter, John J Leadbetter Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-04-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Leadbetter, J Description An account of the resource 166 items. The collection concerns John Leadbetter (1549105, 163970 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, photographs and documents. There are four sub-collections: <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1725">Leadbetter, John. Aerial Photographs</a> <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1721">Leadbetter, John. Aircraft Recognition</a> <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1723">Leadbetter, John. Canada</a> <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1718">Leadbetter, John. Maps and Charts</a> The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Keith Henry Leadbetter and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource J Leadbetter’s flying log book aircrew other than pilot Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LLeadbetterJ163970v1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mike French Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Canada Germany Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire England--Gloucestershire England--Lincolnshire England--Staffordshire Germany--Bottrop Germany--Bremen Germany--Chemnitz Germany--Hanau Germany--Hannover Germany--Kiel Germany--Mannheim Germany--Paderborn Germany--Pforzheim Germany--Plauen Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Langendreer Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944 1945 1945-02-01 1945-02-02 1945-02-03 1945-02-14 1945-02-15 1945-02-23 1945-02-24 1945-02-28 1945-03-01 1945-03-19 1945-03-22 1945-03-23 1945-03-25 1945-03-27 1945-04-03 1945-04-05 1945-04-06 1945-04-09 1945-04-10 1945-04-11 Description An account of the resource Bomb Aimers flying log book for J Leadbetter covering the period from 25 October 1943 to 14 May 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. Also details of targets and bomb loads. He was stationed at RCAF Picton (31 B&GS), RCAF Portage La Prairie (7 AOS), RAF Halfpenny Green (3 (O)AFU), RAF Moreton-in-Marsh (21 OTU), RAF Sandtoft (1667 HCU), RAF Hemswell (LFS), RAF Ludford Magna (101 Squadron), RAF Warboys (PNTU) and (AGLT), RAF Little Staughton (582 Squadron). Aircraft flown in were, Anson, Bolingbroke, Wellington, Halifax, Lancaster. He flew 14 operations (9 night time and 5 daylight) with 101 squadron. Targets were Mannheim, Bottrop, Chemnitz, Pforzheim, Hanau, Bruchstrasse, Bremen, Hannover, Paderborn, Nordhausen, Lützkendorf, Kiel, Plauen. His pilot on operations was Flying Officer Ridler. Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 101 Squadron 1667 HCU 21 OTU 582 Squadron Advanced Flying Unit Air Observers School aircrew Anson Bolingbroke bomb aimer bombing Bombing and Gunnery School Gee H2S Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit incendiary device Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Lancaster Mk 1 Lancaster Mk 3 Operational Training Unit Pathfinders RAF Halfpenny Green RAF Hemswell RAF Little Staughton RAF Ludford Magna RAF Moreton in the Marsh RAF Sandtoft RAF Warboys training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/189/2493/LCaseyJ2219470v1.pdf 620c98aafe151a45e5c4968e353df57d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Casey, John J Casey John Casey Description An account of the resource 14 items. Collection contains an oral history interview with Sergeant John Casey (- 2016, 2217470, Royal Air Force), an escape map, logbook, service documentation, a wallet and photographs. John Casey served as an air gunner on 61 Squadron in 1944-45. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Casey and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-06-10 2015-11-19 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Casey, J Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource John Casey's flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners and flight engineers Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LCaseyJ2219470v1 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1944 1945 1944-10-19 1944-10-20 1944-10-23 1944-10-28 1944-10-29 1944-11-16 1944-11-21 1944-11-22 1944-11-26 1944-11-27 1944-12-04 1944-12-05 1944-12-06 1944-12-07 1945-01-07 1945-01-08 1945-01-13 1945-01-14 1945-01-16 1945-01-17 1945-02-08 1945-02-09 1945-02-13 1945-02-14 1945-02-19 1945-02-20 1945-02-21 1945-02-22 1945-02-24 1945-03-14 1945-03-15 1945-03-16 1945-03-17 1945-04-04 1945-04-08 1945-04-09 1945-04-25 1945-04-26 1945-05-16 1945-09-13 1945-09-15 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. France Germany Great Britain Netherlands Norway Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal Germany--Dresden Germany--Giessen (Hesse) Germany--Heilbronn Germany--Leuna Germany--Mittelland Canal Germany--Munich Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Würzburg Netherlands--Vlissingen Norway--Bergen Norway--Tønsberg England--Lincolnshire Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie) Germany--Altenburg (Thuringia) Poland Germany--Böhlen Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 Description An account of the resource Navigators, air bombers, air gunners and flight engineers flying log book for Sergeant John Casey from 26 February 1944 to 8 October 1945. Detailing training schedule and operations flown. Served at 7 Air Gunnery School followed by training at 29 Operational Training Unit on Wellington, 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit on Stirling and No 5 Lancaster Finishing School. Aircraft flown were Anson, Martinet, Wellington, Stirling and Lancaster. He carried out a total of 22 daylight and night-time operations with 61 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe as an air gunner on the following targets in Germany, Netherlands, and Norway: Bergen, Bohlen, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Dresden, Flushing, Giessen, Heilbronn, Leuna, Lützkendorf, Mittelland Canal, Munich, Nordhausen, Nuremberg, Politz, Rositz, Tønsberg and Würzburg. His pilot on operations was Flight Lieutenant Bain. The log book records a Cook's tour and Operation Dodge flights. Also contained is a newspaper cutting on the history of 61 Squadron and two pages of calculations. 1654 HCU 29 OTU 61 Squadron 83 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson bombing bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945) Cook’s tour Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Martinet Operation Dodge (1945) Operational Training Unit RAF Coningsby RAF North Luffenham RAF Skellingthorpe RAF Stormy Down RAF Syerston RAF Wigsley Stirling training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1187/31549/LWatsonJR1605406v1.pdf 501f3aa015650de589fa38da68a1c63d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Watson, John Robert J R Watson Description An account of the resource Seven items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer John 'Jack' Watson DFM (b. 1923 Royal Air Force) his log book and photographs. He flew three turs of operations as a flight engineer with 12 and 156 Squadrons. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Watson and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-08-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Watson, JR Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource John Robert Watson’s observer’s and air gunner’s flying log book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LWatsonJR1605406v1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Review Oct 2024 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. France Germany Great Britain Netherlands Poland Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea Atlantic Ocean--English Channel Atlantic Ocean--North Sea England--Cambridgeshire England--Leicestershire England--Lincolnshire France--Abbeville France--Boulogne-sur-Mer France--Caen France--Calais France--Donges France--Fougères (Ille-et-Vilaine) France--Lens France--Lille France--Longues-sur-Mer France--Montdidier (Hauts-de-France) France--Nantes France--Neuville-aux-Bois France--Normandy France--Paris Region France--Sézanne France--Somain Germany--Aachen Germany--Augsburg Germany--Berlin Germany--Braunschweig Germany--Chemnitz Germany--Cologne Germany--Dortmund Germany--Dortmund Region Germany--Duisburg Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Essen Germany--Euskirchen Region Germany--Friedrichshafen Germany--Hamburg Germany--Hanau Germany--Hannover Germany--Hildesheim Germany--Karlsruhe Germany--Kiel Germany--Leverkusen Germany--Magdeburg Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate) Germany--Münster in Westfalen Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Rüsselsheim Germany--Saarbrücken Germany--Schweinfurt Germany--Stuttgart Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Wiesbaden Germany--Wilhelmshaven Germany--Worms Netherlands--Rotterdam Region Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie) Germany--Ruhr (Region) France--Fougères (Ille-et-Vilaine) France--Trossy St. Maximin France--Connantre Germany--Urft Dam France--Oisemont (Canton) France--Cerisy-la-Salle France--Middel Straete Netherlands--Moerdijk Germany--Freiburg im Breisgau France--Pas-de-Calais Germany--Böhlen Germany--Leipzig Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944-01-14 1944-01-20 1944-01-21 1944-01-22 1944-01-27 1944-01-28 1944-01-29 1944-01-30 1944-02-19 1944-02-20 1944-02-21 1944-02-24 1944-02-25 1944-02-26 1944-03-01 1944-03-26 1944-03-27 1944-03-30 1944-03-31 1944-04-20 1944-04-21 1944-04-22 1944-04-23 1944-04-24 1944-04-25 1944-04-26 1944-04-27 1944-04-28 1944-04-30 1944-05-01 1944-05-03 1944-05-04 1944-05-07 1944-05-19 1944-05-20 1944-05-21 1944-05-22 1944-05-23 1944-05-24 1944-05-25 1944-06-03 1944-06-05 1944-06-07 1944-06-08 1944-06-09 1944-06-15 1944-06-16 1944-06-17 1944-06-24 1944-06-27 1944-07-02 1944-07-23 1944-07-24 1944-07-25 1944-07-26 1944-07-28 1944-07-29 1944-08-03 1944-08-04 1944-08-05 1944-08-07 1944-08-08 1944-08-09 1944-08-10 1944-08-12 1944-08-13 1944-08-16 1944-08-17 1944-08-18 1944-08-19 1944-08-25 1944-08-26 1944-08-27 1944-09-12 1944-09-13 1944-09-15 1944-09-16 1944-09-17 1944-09-20 1944-10-05 1944-10-06 1944-10-14 1944-10-15 1944-10-16 1944-12-03 1944-12-12 1944-12-17 1944-12-28 1944-12-29 1944-12-30 1945-01-02 1945-01-03 1945-01-05 1945-01-06 1945-01-14 1945-01-16 1945-01-17 1945-01-28 1945-01-29 1945-02-01 1945-02-02 1945-02-03 1945-02-08 1945-02-09 1945-02-13 1945-02-14 1945-02-17 1945-02-21 1945-02-22 1945-03-02 1945-03-05 1945-03-06 1945-03-18 1945-03-22 1945-03-24 1945-03-25 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mike Connock Description An account of the resource Observer’s and air gunner’s flying log book for J R Watson, flight engineer, covering the period from 2 November 1943 to 30 March 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Faldingworth, RAF Wickenby, RAF Warboys, RAF Upwood and RAF Husbands Bosworth. Aircraft flown in were Halifax, Lancaster. Oxford and Wellington. He flew a total of 77 operations, 12 with 12 Squadron and 66 with 156 Squadron. Targets were Brunswick, Berlin, Magdeburg, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Schweinfurt, Augsburg, Essen, Nuremburg, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Karlsruhe, Friedrichshafen, Somain, Montdidier, Nantes, Boulogne, Duisburg, Dortmund, Aachen, Calais, Longues, Forêt de Cerisy, Fougeres, Lens, Middel Straete, Oisemont-Neuville, Donges, Hamburg, Cassan, Trossy St. Maximin, Abbeville, Caen, Lille, Rüsselsheim, Kiel, Connantre, Moerdijk, Saarbrucken, Wilhelmshaven, Heimbach, Opladen, Hannover, Mainz, Wiesbaden, Politz, Bohlen, Wesel, Worms, Chemnitz, Hanau, Hildesheim, Harpenerweg and Munster. His pilots on operations were Flight Lieutenant Cleland and Wing Commander Scott. 12 Squadron 156 Squadron 1667 HCU 85 OTU aircrew Berlin Campaign (23 August 1943 – 25 March 1944) bombing bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944) bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944) flight engineer Halifax Halifax Mk 5 Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Mk 1 Lancaster Mk 3 Me 410 Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Operational Training Unit Oxford Pathfinders RAF Faldingworth RAF Husbands Bosworth RAF Upwood RAF Warboys RAF Wickenby tactical support for Normandy troops training V-1 V-weapon Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1438/56814/EBaldwinER-GummersallTBaldwinER-GummersallTv1.pdf 5c5c767bfb02b81252b2796acfde4023 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Baldwin, Eric Russell E Baldwin Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-07-29 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Baldwin, ER Description An account of the resource Seven items. The collection concerns Eric Russell Baldwin (b… 1923 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 467 Squadron. The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Mary Hallchurch and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document LANCASTER CREW AT WAR ERIC BALDWIN & TOM GUMMERSALL [underlined] 467 SQUADRON [/underlined] [Squadron badge] R.A.A.F. RAF WADDINGTON LINCOLN 1943 – 1945 [underlined] FRONT COVER [/underlined] Crew of PO-K 467 Sqn RAF Waddington Back Row – Wally Bradbury – Jack Clemons – Stuart Anders – Eric Baldwin Front Row – Frank York – Tommy Gummersall – Les Chalcroft Lancaster PO-K 467 Sqn – Air and Ground Crew Checking Aircraft Lancaster PO-K 467 Sqn with Kangaroos and Bombing Raids [page break] [italics] Transcribers Note; As a member of the City of Lincoln Aircrew Association it came to my attention that Eric Baldwin had, once before, had these notes typed up. He had subsequently loaned the booklet to another, whom he cannot remember, and unfortunately they had not been returned. I managed to obtain a copy of the handwritten notes and spent several hours typing them up (and re-typing them when I lost 5 pages in a computer glitch!) then arranging them into a book format. This I consider, a small price to pay for the dept we all owe. [/italics] Kenneth E Moore Flight Lieutenant Royal Air Force Born 1958 [page break] [underlined] Eric Baldwin’s Notes [underlined] Returning from a raid to Politz, we had completed our bomb run, but met lots of German fighters waiting for us plus ack-ack shelling as we came away from the target. From our corkscrew evasive action, it must have toppled our giro compass, for instead of being on our homeward course we were flying in the wrong direction to the course given by Navigator to the skipper, until the compass settled down. Then suddenly the Bomb Aimer discovered we had two bomb hang-ups and the bomb doors would not close fully. Breaking radio silence we were given orders to divert to Lossiemouth in Scotland. The decision to land with the bombs on board, rather than bail out, was discussed by all the crew and agreed. We landed safely amid lots of panic among the crew and also the service personnel on the aerodrome. Stayed overnight and the ground crew working on the aircraft safely remover the bombs and we returned to Waddington the next day. On another occasion we just taxiing for take off and with my mid upper guns pointing to the rear, as routine, I noticed the port rudder had fallen off. I yelled over the intercom to the skipper and we managed to abort “take off” and headed for dispersal. The ground crew spent time reassuring us, that they could not have seen that the bolts holding the rudders were worn and weak. All the same, in about 5 minutes we would have been airborne losing a rudder, there was a good chance we would have crashed with a full load of fuel and bombs on board. But as “luck” would have it they found a replacement aircraft and we took off about 40 minutes late, and we somehow got permission to fly to France over London and meet up with our squadron with the help of a Mosquito aircraft which flew alongside us and, waggling his wings indicated that he wanted us to follow him to join the formation. There was a sight to behold with “gaggles” of 60 to 100 planes as far as the eye could see. The reason was for a special operation to bomb the hell out of the Germans in the ‘Battle of the Bulge’. When I saw the film ‘The Battle of the Bulge’ with Humphrey Bogart and the Americans winning the battle, I was sure that could not have done it without the RAF and in some way, a little help from PO-K. On a raid to the Mittelland Canal we had a ‘second dickie’ pilot with us on his first operation as we had progressed to a senior crew status. All went well, the weather over the target was clear and the canal was breeched. On the return leg, planes started going down left, right and centre so we were extremely vigilant and then our skipper decided to air his knowledge and explain to our ‘second dickie’ pilot about the use of ‘scarecrow weapons’ by the Germans to give the impression that lots of planes were being shot down, to scare us, but that he knew all about them and not to worry. This was completely wrong as 5 Group lost 13 planes that night out of a force of 165. So our skipper did not offer his experienced knowledge freely again as we could not confirm any sighting of ‘scarecrows’. During an early evening raid on Duren we were just short of the target when the Pathfinder, who was acting as “Master of Ceremonies” called us down from 16 000ft to 10 000ft to get below the cloud level. When we broke through at 10 000ft we thought there was something wrong as there were only about a dozen planes at this level so we thought we must have been one of the first to arrive and the rest were on their way down. We were close to the target when I saw a load of bombs come through the base of the cloud heading for a Lancaster that was about 300 yards ahead of us. I started yelling corkscrew but we were on our bombing run and the Bomb aimer was staying on the intercom saying ‘steady, steady, right a bit, steady – bombs gone’. The Lancaster in front was hit by the bombs falling from above and there was a fierce explosion as the plane’s own fuel tanks and bomb load blew up and I remember seeing the starboard wing being blown off the plane which [page break] was replaced by a cloud of black smoke as we flew through it with the bombs from above still falling all around us. A 4000lb bomb passed so close I could almost have touched it. Only a few moments ago there had been a Lancaster with seven men on board as the shock waves hit us. We did not get any explanation as to why the other bombers did not come down to 10 000ft as instructed by the Master Bomber. Here is a story not directly about our bombing raids, but the German reactions to our attacks and how they would respond on occasions against us. It was customary on the nights we were not flying to adjourn to the Waddington village pub, The Horse and Jockey, together with our ground crew with whom we were very friendly. On this occasion, after a long session, we staggered from the pub. Tommy, our skipper and Paddy our engineer, managed to separate themselves from the rest of the crew as we headed back to the aerodrome. Our Lancaster’s were just returning from a raid and we had be warned, for some time, that enemy planes could follow the bomber stream back to England and attack our planes as they landed. On this night as we were in two separate groups one of our planes passed overhead and we could see an enemy fighter positioning himself behind for an attack. We could see the tracer bullets going towards the bomber and we were shouting from the ground below, to no avail. Then another fighter started shooting up the aerodrome and Paddy and our skipper raced towards the control tower where there were guns mounted and somehow fired a few shots going everywhere but not hitting the enemy fighter. The rest of the crew, myself included, reached the aerodrome and were suddenly confronted with the fire tender being driven by the commanding officer. He ordered us to climb onto the running boards to be driven to the bomb dump as the enemy fighters has started a fire among the incendiary store. With the help of the C.O. we started throwing them away from the main explosive bomb racks as fast as we could. Next day, at the main parade of all station personnel, the C.O. praised the efforts of the Gummersall (our skipper) crew as we stood in line, dishevelled and unshaved with hangovers from the night before, trying very hard to look like heroes, to all those present. It must be remembered, that this was our night off flying and really not at war, dodging anti-aircraft fire and cannon shells as we did during our many raids. We did not have to stick our necks out trying to save the station bomb dump, but we did this as the crew of PO-K. [page break] [underlined] The Ups and Downs of a Bomber Crew Tommy Gummersall – his story. (1993) The PO-K saga. From September 1944 to April 1945 [/underlined] Cast: Frank York – Australian, Bomb Aimer, at 32 was the eldest of the crew. A cool and calm father figure, especially to me. Lecturer at the New South Wales Department of Agriculture. Tom Gummersall – Australian, Pilot, at 20 years of age was the youngest of the crew and had the responsibility to see that everyone of the crew wore their winter underwear and put on their anti-freeze cream. Did his best but was not outstanding in leadership material. Jack Clemons – English, 23 years, Flight Engineer, a permanent member of the RAF. Transferred to flying duties and was with us on our first 10 trips until he contracted pneumonia. He collapsed on a raid to Dortmund-Ems. At the time of writing the author had just resumed contact with him after 45 years. W.H. Todd – Paddy Todd, Irish, Flight Engineer, another permanent RAF member. He replaced Jack Clemons and completed 24 trips with us. His brogue was so thick that every time he asked a question I could only nod and say ‘Yes’. As luck would have it I seem to have given him the right answer every time. Les Chalcroft – Australian, Navigator, 28 years. In civilian life he was a manager for Niall Products in New Zealand. He was rather brilliant and became excitable at times. He did no [sic] enjoy bombing raids. He would come out from behind his blackout curtain to see what it was like over the target, said ‘Jesus Christ!’ and disappeared back to his navigating position never to re-appear again for the rest of the tour. Stuart Anders – Australian, Wireless Operator, 23 years, steady and reliable. He was the only WOp on the squadron to receive a change of wind direction for a target area despite severe electrical interference. We are still close after 50 years. Eric Baldwin – Australian, 24, Mid Upper Gunner and: Wally Bradbury – Australian, 26, Rear Gunner. Eric and Wally were inseparable. I really do not remember how I picked them for my crew. I think they picked me, not because I was a good catch, but because they were told that as soon as they had a pilot they could go on leave. I have never regretted their choice for they were excellent gunners. They were rebellious and would not accept authority. Being leader of the crew, any strife they caused then C.O.s would come down on my head. [page break] [underlined] Chapter One [/underlined] [underlined] To Bomb or not to Bomb? [/underlined] It all started on the evening of my Aunty Denise’s birthday – 26th September 1944. I was on the list to participate in the raid against Karlsruhe as a second pilot to Flying Officer Layton. The position of second pilot was created to give novice pilots target experience. The trip was exciting but uneventful. The real excitement came a number of days later when as a new crew we were listed for an attack on Walcheren Island. I wasn’t too worried as we had already been on an attack to Walcheren Island, knocking a hole in the dyke wall that surrounded the island and so let the ocean in and in the process flood the island and deny its use to the retreating Germans. It turned out to be a very quiet and successful attack; we breached the dyke and so flooded a large area of the island. I always felt sorry for the little boy who put his finger in a hole in the dyke wall and saved the island. Here was I smashing a great gap in the dyke and it wouldn’t matter how many fingers the boy had now, he wouldn’t be able to save the dyke. This time the target was changed; instead of the dyke wall it was to be anti-aircraft gun emplacements on the isthmus that protruded from the island. They were opposite the mainland where Canadians had established a beachhead to harass the retreating Germans, but from where the Germans on the island could lower the barrels of their guns and cause havoc on the beachhead across the narrow strip of water separating the island from the mainland. Our job was to take out the guns. There was only one flaw with the plan, some bright spark in the planning section of the Air Ministry had decided that it would be an excellent idea if we attacked in a formation known as line astern. I think his mother must have been frightened by an old sea captain fro [sic] line astern belongs to the Navy. We were to fly just short of the target then form up line astern on the Flight Commander, all nicely behind each other with about 50ft or 60ft below the plane in front. We did this without too much trouble, the leader at 6000ft and us, as the junior crew, at the end of the line at 5500ft or thereabouts. It looked good on paper but in practice it didn’t work, I was lucky to manage 5000ft. When we were lined up we proceeded to the target area, I had a great view of the formation, with all the planes holding position more or less until the leading plane reached the target area and the Germans let him have the lot. The poor bagger could not hold position and dropped down, his slipstream hitting No2 in the formation. No 2 did some crazy aerobatics and his slipstream caught No 3. No 3 then dropped down and his slipstream played havoc with No 4 and so it went on down the line until it got to yours truly at the end. What with the anti-aircraft fire and the wild manoeuvres because of the slipstream instead of going through the target at 5500ft I most vividly remember seeing 3300ft on the altimeter as we went through the target. I do not remember where the rest of the formation had got to. The next thing that registered on my shell-shocked brain was that of flat green fields as we flew over the middle of Walcheren Island. It was so peaceful and quiet that I would have been quite content to stay in the same spot for the rest of the war. That is, until Frank’s calm slow voice over the intercom, informing me of the fact that we were just coming up to a hospital and why didn’t we drop the rest of the bombs on it? I looked out and sure enough a building with a big red cross on it was just passing below us. Next moment Les’ very excited voice came on stating the fact that we couldn’t bomb hospitals as it was against the Geneva Convention, or some such thing. I told Les that Frank was only joking and anyway we had passed the hospital. [page break] But it was Franks comment about the ‘rest of the bombs’ that brought me back to reality with a shock. We were to drop half our bombs, then stay in formation and make a second bombing run on the target dropping the other half. The only trouble was that the rest of the formation had stuck to the plan and here we were left on our lonesome in the middle of Walcheren Island. I was waiting fo [sic] a sound from the rest of the crew wanting to discuss the wisdom of making a second bombing run but there was only a very painful silence. So figuring that I must be the only coward on board I turned the plane around and headed back to the starting point of out [sic] bombing run. I lined the plane up and with my head down I headed for the target. I remember thinking that with any luck the rest of the squadron would have knocked out most of the guns. Some hope! The Germans threw everything but the kitchen sink at us and I am more than sure that I saw that go flying past the cockpit. The next minute or so we were through and after checking that everyone was alright I turned the plane around and headed as fast as I could back to England. On the way back I started thinking that we must be in for some praise about what a good job we had done and how we had hung in there as a crew and seen it through, except for a few moments of doubt about myself which I was sure would disappear with experience. It only remained to get back to base an [sic] relate our experiences to the rest of the squadron and even if we were not welcomed as heroes, at least to congratulate us for a job well done. Upon landing we had a welcoming committee consisting of a senior pilot who considered the plane that we were flying as belonging to him, and here was this novice letting the Germans blast holes all over it. He took me around poor PO-K and showed me all the holes in the bomb bay doors and the fuselage. Even though I pointed out that most of the 64 holes would only take a finger, with a few where you could put a fist and one or two that would take your head, it meant that he would have to fly a strange plane whilst PO-K was patched up, everybody seemed to agree with him and our apologies didn’t seem to make any difference. So it was a very subdued novice pilot who fronted up at the Mess that evening with very little conversation being directed his way. Luckily things changed as the senior pilot finished his tour and over the months I became a more senior pilot myself and PO-K gradually became mine and no novice pilot was game to damage him. [page break] [underlined] Chapter Two [/underlined] [underlined] Run Rabbit Run. [/underlined] One afternoon about two or three weeks later we were briefed for a raid, I cannot remember where it was but I remember the rest of details very well. We had just been dropped at the dispersal area by the truck and being a little bit early walked over to the plane that was still in the process of being bombed up. The six 1000lb and six 500lb bombs were already hanging in their positions in the bomb bay of the plane. It only required the 4000lb ‘cookie’ to be slotted into the space left among the other bombs to complete the bombing up. We were all standing around, just trying to keep out of the way of the armourers, the cables were attached to the ‘cookie’ and it was being hauled up into position when there was a jarring noise and a yell. I looked up and saw the ‘cookie’ falling from the bomb bay and landing on the tarmac with a sickening thud. I gave Frank and Stuart at least two or three yards start, but after about fifty yards, even though I was hampered by carrying a parachute which, in my panic, I had never thought of dropping I was a good five or six yards in front when the thought hit me that it hadn’t gone off. I stopped, and the sight that met my eyes was of people running everywhere plus others lying in any shallow depression in the ground or behind any small rise. Then, there was Wally and Eric peering over one of the landing wheels at the ‘cookie’ on the ground in front of them. But worst of all was the sight of the armourers rolling all over the place laughing their heads off. They were the only ones that knew that the ‘cookie’ was not armed! [page break] [underlined] Chapter Three [/underlined] [underlined] Round and Round the Roaring Flames the Ragged Rascals Ran [/underlined] On the 6th of December, on a trip to Giessen, I was sitting back as relaxed as I could be, heading for the target that the Pathfinders had marked. The first wave had started bombing, everything was as bright as day. I could make out other bombers in the bomber stream through the searchlights on the clouds and the flames already started. Then there on our port side was this FW 190, a single engine night fighter, 50 feet away just below us and travelling parallel. He hadn’t seen us but we had all seen him. Stuart, Eric and myself were deciding whether Eric should have a go at it or leave it alone and maybe he might find someone else to get excited about. Just then, he turned his head and saw us, he was out of there fast. He sat about 800yds astern but didn’t attack at once. He was waiting for us to drop out [sic] bombs knowing that our bombs could blow him up if he attacked and shot us down. We figured that we had an old hand waiting to have a go at us, we decided to carry on as if we hadn’t noticed him and a [sic] soon as we had dropped our bombs, go into our corkscrew defence to port which if we surprised him, just a little bit, would make his first attacking angle too sharp and maybe we might be able to get away. Not that a bomber is any match for a fighter but we had previously been attacked by a JU-88 twin-engine night fighter and had beaten it off with a ‘damaged’ claim to our credit. All this had been agreed upon in a matter of seconds. I wondered if we were not being too blasé or over-confident and if we got out of this I thought to have a chat to the boys about over-confidence, not that we ever lowered our guard but sooner or later we must be on the receiving end. I was brought up with a start as Frank started his bombing run, after a series of ‘left, left, steady, s-t-e-a-d-y’, ‘bombs away’. On ‘bombs away’ I put PO-K into a dive to port saying ‘Down port’ and at the same time reaching for the lever to close the bomb doors. The only ones speaking were Wally, Eric and myself. Wally and Eric were carrying on a running conversation about distances and angles to aim their guns. I don’t remember the correct sequences, but say, when I put the plane into ‘Down port’ Wally and Eric knew that they had to aim their guns at the one o-clock position. ‘Up port’ was four o-clock, ‘Up starboard’ was seven o-clock and ten o-clock coincided with ‘Down starboard’. All this was to take the guesswork out of aiming their guns and send the bullets on the right trajectory to hit the enemy plane. I was doing my corkscrew and heading for the cloudbank below as fast as I could when the FW-190, with smoke and flames pouring out of it, beat me to it. Quite a number of other planes saw it disappear into the clouds. When we got back to base we claimed ‘destroyed’ but as nobody had seen it hit the ground we were only awarded a ‘probably destroyed’. Still I was very proud of Wally and Eric, who were armed with only .303s and a range of 300yds against the fighters 20mm cannon armament and 600yds range, we all agreed that they did a marvellous job and I never did get around to delivering my ‘over-confidence’ speech. But we were not out of the woods yet. Getting a course from Les to head for home I set it on the compass. I put down the fact that we had to fly over the target again to the evasive action with the enemy fighter that must have taken us to the other side of the target. It wasn’t until Les wanted to know why we were wandering all over the sky that it dawned on me that I had been over energetic in my evasive manoeuvres and this had ‘toppled’ the compass. While it was settling down I had been following it and flown in a half circle. Setting a new course on the compass we once again flew through the target area but the searchlight crews, anti-aircraft guns and enemy fighters must have gone home. I think they must have got tired of us fooling around and had given us away as a bad job. [page break] For me I was very glad that at last we had worked out which way was home [underlined] Chapter Four [/underlined] [underlined] Some You Win, Some Just Disappear [/underlined] Some time later we were down for an attack on Politz that was on oil refinery on the German-Polish border. It was an uneventful trip out, though quite long, with little opposition. Over the target they had one gun and about 50 searchlights that upset me no end. Once they locked onto you they made you feel quite alone and vulnerable. We had just dropped our bombs and I was sitting there minding my own business and contemplating the long trip home when this bloody big hole appeared through the cowl covering the port inner engine, which immediately gave up the ghost. Down to three engines we slowly limped back home and arrived there a good hour and a half to two hours late. I cannot remember if they had our fried egg waiting for us or not? The next day I found that my shirt, socks and underwear were missing. Items like this, when roughed up a bit and taken to the quartermaster’s store, if lucky, could be replaced with new articles. I must have been a bit luckier than most because for weeks later people kept turning up with pieces of my clothing saying that they had ‘turned up with their laundry’ [page break] [underlined] Chapter Five [/underlined] [underlined] Humphrey, PO-K and Crew [/underlined] We had just started taxiing out for take off when there was a yell from Eric that the port rudder had just fallen off! On the ground there was pandemonium with the ground crew blaming themselves. We spent a great deal of time reassuring them that they couldn’t have seen that the bolts holding the rudder were weak. All the same, in another 15-20 mins we would have taken off. Being just àirborne and losing a rudder there was a fair chance that we would have crashed. With a full load of bombs on board it would have taken an awful lot of work to find us. But as luck would have it there was a spare plane already bombed up which we were transferred to as soon as possible. As fast as everybody was [sic] were well and truly late. Somehow permission had been granted for us to take a short cut and fly to France over London to meet up with the Squadron. We flew over London, which was something special, as nobody was allowed anywhere near it. Over France it was a sight to behold, as far as the eyes could see there were formations (or as we knew them ‘gaggles’) in groups of 60 to 100 planes. After flying up to a couple of formations to check their squadron letters with no luck, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, I was just about ready to give up and just join up with one of the nearest formations when a Mosquito aircraft flew over, and waggling his wings, indicated he wanted us to follow him. After diving under half a dozen or so formations he led us to our squadron where we made room for ourselves and we were on our way. I forget to tell you at the start that all these planes were going to bomb the hell out of the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge. Sometime later I saw a film on the Battle of the Bulge with Humphrey Bogart and the Americans had him winning the battle. But I am sure he couldn’t have done it without the RAF and PO-K, or at least its crew. [page break] [underlined] Chapter Six [/underlined] [underlined] What Goes Up Must Come Down [/underlined] A few weeks before Arnhem, we were down for a fighter affiliation exercise, where a Spitfire or Hurricane would attack us and we would take evasive action. The results would be examined later as we both would be armed with camera guns. On this exercise we had about six or eight paratroopers coming along for flying experience. As mentioned earlier the Arnhem invasion had not yet taken place. We met the Spitfire above the clouds at about 12 000ft and started our corkscrew manoeuvres. All was going fine but on the top of the ‘Up starboard’ section of the corkscrew the airspeed fell off too sharply (I had not allowed for the extra weight and the change in the centre of gravity of the plane that the paratroopers had made). We stalled and plunged down in a dive so steep that the airspeed indicator went straight round to 360 m.p.h. and stopped at the pin; it couldn’t go any further. I was pulling back on the control column with all my might, to no avail, I also put my feet on the instrument panel and pushed with my feet, it still made no difference, just then Jack wound back on the tail trim for the elevators and we came out of the dive. If it weren’t for Jack we would all have perished. Les reckoned we had 10 to 12 seconds left before we would have hit the ground. Back through the cloud we hurtled to the surprise of the Spitfire pilot who couldn’t work out what had happened to us. I didn’t enlighten him but we finished the rest of the exercise very gingerly. I often wondered how many of those paratroopers survived the Arnhem fighting not knowing how close to death they were with me. [page break] [underlined] Chapter Seven [/underlined] [underlined] Don’t Worry – They Are Scarecrows [/underlined] For weeks before the raid the intelligence people had been telling us that the Germans had invented a new weapon nicknamed ‘Scarecrow’. It was a psychological weapon which when fired at the bomber stream exploded and fell to the ground in flames and was supposed to look like a plane being shot down. On the evening of the 21st February 1945 we were on the list for an attack on the Mittelland Canal. We had a Flying Officer (F/O) Hudson on board as ‘second dickie’ so you can see we had progressed to a senior crew status by this time. F/O Hudson and I went back a long way in Air Force terms, we had done our initial training together. We were still together on the same course flying Hirraways (?) at Deniliquin. One of the highlights of our training at Deniliquin was the inspection of the bombing range, which consisted of the outline of a ship in white painted sandbags. We were walking over the range, which was covered in the remains of thousands of practice bombs. I was walking along with Hudson and a chap called Kirkpatrick in the middle of us. As I remember it was Kirkpatrick who picked up the front end of a practice bomb, at the same time Hudson picked up the tail fin section of the bomb. He then proceeded to screw them together. ‘How about that? They fit’ he remarked, then tossed it over his shoulder. The following explosion was exceptionally loud and Hudson and Kirkpatrick collapsed on the ground. I stayed upright but staggered around a bit. A truck was brought up and we were all bundled in and taken to the hospital on the base. Hudson and Kirkpatrick were in a mess and were hospitalised. I had about a dozen small pieces of shrapnel taken from my legs and allowed to go. Hudson recovered after about six months but Kirkpatrick was invalided out of the Air Force. Being six months ahead of Hudson when we met again I took him on his first trip. As I was saying before I got diverted with the Hudson explanation. We were on an attack to the Mittelland Canal. All went well, the weather over the target was clear and the canal was breached. Everything was going along just fine until on the return leg of the trip planes started going down left, right and centre. We doubled our under aircraft search but when we didn’t find any enemy aircraft underneath, not relaxing our search, I decided to air my knowledge about the German’s use of ‘Scarecrow’ weapons for the benefit of Hudson. I explained that even though they looked like planes being shot down it was more likely to be the German’s use of ‘Scarecrow’ weapons and were supposed to upset us psychologically. ‘Not a worry’ I said. Whether it was our vigilance with our under aircraft search or just pure luck, we didn’t get attacked. Planes still kept going down all around us and as for my superior knowledge? It turned out to be 100% wrong. No 5 Group, which was us, lost 13 planes that night out of a force of 165 and F/O Hudson never asked me for any more advice. As a matter of fact I don’t remember him ever speaking to me again and I never did see a ‘Scarecrow’ in action: [page break] [underlined] Chapter Eight [/underlined] [underlined] Bombs Away! or I’m Not That Keen On Soup! [/underlined] I always thought that the rudder falling off – Duren – and the Battle of the Bulge, were all on the same raid. But Stuart has it down in his logbook that Duren was the raid where we were the target. Stuart is most likely to be right for he wrote an article about our raid on Duren for the Victorian Railways Institute magazine just after we came back to Australia. I am only going by my memory and my memory could have played up after Duren. It was a daylight raid and we were just short of Duren. The Pathfinder, who was acting as ‘Master of Ceremonies’ (we were very advanced at this stage of the war) called us down from 15 000ft to below the cloud level at 10 000ft. When we broke through the cloud at 10 000ft I immediately thought that something was wrong as there were only about a dozen planes at that level. I thought that we must have been one of the first to arrive and the rest were on their way down. We were getting close to the target when I saw a load of bombs come through the base of the cloud heading for the plane that was about 800 yards ahead of me. Next thing that happened was that Eric and Stuart started yelling at me, one to go to port the other to go to starboard. Not knowing which way to go I froze on the control column. Then the bombs falling hit the plane ahead of us. There was a fiery explosion, as the planes own bombs blew up. I still remember seeing the starboard wing being blown off the plane, which had been replaced by a cloud of black smoke as a result of the explosion. The wing fell like an autumn leaf to the ground. From the shouts coming from Eric and Stuart the bombs falling on us passed that close that they could make out letters painted on them, with a 4000lb bomb coming so close that Eric felt he could have reached out and touched it. I flew through the black cloud of smoke that a few moments ago had been a Lancaster with seven men on board. A few bumps where the shock waves hit us then, as in a daze, I heard Frank’s voice over the intercom saying ‘steady, steady, right, a bit more right’, ‘s-t-e-a-d-y’, ‘bombs away’. I never did find out why the rest of the planes didn’t come down and I was too upset to ask many questions. All I do know is that it was about a week before I could get a spoonful of soup to my mouth without spilling it everywhere. [page break] [underlined] Chapter Nine [/underlined] [underlined] Ten And A Half Hours To Nowhere [/underlined] We were Off to see Father Christmas at the North Pole or rather we were going to Trondheim in Norway which was 64 degrees north, only four or five degrees short of the Arctic Circle. I was quite excited by the prospect for it had us flying at 60ft above the North Sea so we wouldn’t be picked up by the German Wurtzburg radars. This legalised low flying appealed to me immensely although I wasn’t too sure If I would feel the same after four or more hours of it. It was in the early afternoon when we started and it was getting close to dusk when we reached the point where we had to start climbing over the land. Then, loud and clear over the earphones came a voice belonging, I would say, to one of the Pathfinders. He was broadcasting to anyone listening – our target – what height we were to bomb – course we were to take to the target – what exactly our target was (submarine pens) and how we were not allowed to drop our bombs if there was a chance of Norwegians being killed. With his transmit button pushed to the ‘On’ position nobody else could transmit and tell him to shut up! As a result the Germans were ready for us when we reached Trondheim. They had laid a smoke screen all over the submarine pens and the amount of anti-aircraft fire they put up was amazing. I had never seen so much tracer arcing across the target at our bombing height. The Pathfinders were down amongst all that mess trying to mark the target. It was a terrifying thought that they might soon might [sic] start calling us down to have a go at bombing. I couldn’t see how we could do it. Then, after what seemed like an eternity of stooging around in wide circles over the target they found that they couldn’t mark the target. If we did start bombing without the target being properly marked then bombs might go astray and kill Norwegians, which they were most desperately against doing. So in the finish they decided to call it off and send us home. ‘Go Home!’ It sounded just right to me but as Les informed us not too much later that if we wanted to make home we would have to drop our bombs in the North Sea, which we did. Some time later he further informed us that we could not make home and that it would be advisable to head for the nearest aerodrome which turned out to be Lossiemouth at the top of Scotland, so it was agreed. That was a long trip back to Lossiemouth with the petrol running low and the feeling of loneliness in the darkness. It all depended on Les to get us to this strange aerodrome, which he did – right on the button. Now it was my turn, to land us at this aerodrome, which turned out to be easier than I thought it would. The aerodrome was covered with snow and the runway made a straight black line on it even though the runway disappeared into the sea at one end, Lossiemouth being a seaplane aerodrome. We landed without too many hassles and were taken to a dispersal area, then after debriefing we were taken to the Mess. It was good to relax in the warmth of the fire and over a beer wonder about the ten and a half hours of getting nowhere. In the morning a young WRAF driver took us out to PO-K. Having some time to spare I decide to hop over the aerodrome fence and on to a road running past the ‘drome to have a bit of a look around. After walking a few hundred yards to the top of a rise all that was visible was a very barren land, strewn with boulders, and some very hardy but miserable looking sheep all covered with snow. I was quite content to turn around and go back to the plane. What I couldn’t get over was that people lived and worked here. It was simply [page break] amazing. I never did hear what happened to the Pathfinder that caused all the trouble, most likely a rap on the knuckles that is if they ever found out who it was. One more thing, with all that roaming around the skies near the Arctic Circle I never did see Santa Claus nor his sleigh, let alone reindeers flying through the sky pulling it. It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t exist! [page break] [underlined] Chapter Ten [/underlined] [underlined] All You Need is Luck, Luck and More Luck [/underlined] Towards the end of our tour we were returning from a raid and still well and truly over Germany when we saw this strange phenomenon on the ground in the darkness ahead, a searchlight was going in a 360 degree circle level with the ground. My first reaction was that the war must be over and they had forgotten to tell us, then following on from that, that somehow this was a trap. Then wishing we had a bomb left in the bomb bay so we could give them some hurry-up. ‘Check that out’ said Frank ‘Have you ever seen anything like it?’. I agreed I hadn’t and put PO-K into a tight turn above it. After circling above it for a few more minutes everybody gave up trying to guess what it was and we headed for home. At debriefing later that night we explained to the Intelligence Officer what we had seen and what we had done. ‘You must be the luckiest crew in bomber Command’ he said ‘What you were circling around was a night fighter assembly beacon’ he said in disbelief ‘You must have dodged them or they were away attacking someone else. Very lucky’ He couldn’t get over it and broke off the debriefing to tell the other intelligence officers. They all agreed ‘Very lucky’, ‘Very lucky’ over and over again. Looking back over my time with the Air Force I can see that I had all the ingredients of an accident waiting to happen. The only thing I had in my favour was incredible luck and a crew that more than made up for my stupidity. With luck and all of them looking after me we got through. [page break] [underlined] Chapter Eleven [/underlined] [underlined] I Enter the ‘Hall of Fame’ [/underlined] One last story and I am going to ‘blow my own trumpet’ this time as it is the only time that I did anything that the rest of the Squadron wasn’t able to do. We had just returned to base and found it all fogged in with all the Squadron’s planes circling around unable to land. As luck would have it I was the only one circling above the fog layer. I remember we were at 1600ft while the rest of the Squadron were in the fog at 1000ft unable to see a thing whereas I could make out the layout of the drome, perimeter track and runways by looking directly down. The rest were trying to look through the fog and failing to make out anything. Attempt after attempt was made with nobody being able to land. I received permission to try and land and, being able to see the layout of the ‘drome, did my usual landing circuit procedures making sure I stood well back at the funnel entrance to the landing runway. Then, making very sure I had the runway exactly lined up I let myself down into the fog flying by the gyrocompass with Les calling out the airspeed and height. We hit the runway right on the nose, apart from a small adjustment on landing. It was with more than a little pride I was able to interrupt the calls from the other planes, asking for a diversion to another ‘drome, with my transmission of ‘PO-K, clear of runway’. The reason why the control tower persisted with the landings was that Air Vice Marshall Wrigley was waiting for a plane to land so he could have the film of the bombing results developed. This was to see if we had destroyed the target or if they needed to send another force back that night to finish the job off. I am happy to say that we had breached the target, which was the Ems-Weser Canal, vital to the Germans at that time as the only means of getting supplies through to their troops. The trains, trucks and other means of transport being completely wiped out by Fighter Command aircraft of the Air Force and American Air Force. A sequel to this story was the fact that on the white washed wall of the urinal of th [sic] ‘Horse and Jockey’ pub in Waddington village was the phrase in pencil – ‘Gummersall is a know-all bastard’ showing that somebody didn’t appreciate my marvellous effort. Knowing how many times these old pubs get renovated, it could still be there! [page break] [underlined] Chapter Twelve [/underlined] [underlined] Unsung Heroes [/underlined] This story is one where I don’t take centre stage. It was customary on the nights that we weren’t on the list for a raid to adjourn to the Waddington village pub ‘The Horse and Jockey’ together with our ground crew, with whom we were very friendly. After a number of drinks, the sergeant in charge of the ground crew, who was also an Australian and also named Tom, would demand that he and I change tunic jackets, whereon he would move around the pub, dancing with various lasses, trying to impress them with his new uniform. On this occasion, after we staggered from the pub I somehow managed to separate myself from the rest of the crowd and wandered back to the aerodrome on my own. Our planes were just returning from the raid and we had been told for sometime that the enemy fighters would try and follow the bomber stream back to England and attack out [sic] planes as they were landing. On this night, as I wandered back to the ‘drome, one of our planes passed overhead and I could see an enemy fighter positioning himself for an attack from behind. ‘Weave you fool, weave’ I cried out at the top of my voice. I could see tracer fire from the fighter going towards the bomber as I danced and screamed from the road below. Then another enemy fighter started shooting up the aerodrome. I hurried to the control tower and there found Paddy, who was as drunk as I was if not worse, firing the machine gun that was one of two positioned either side of the tower, with bullets flying everywhere. ‘Where are the rest of the boys?’ I shouted. ‘Gone with the CO to the bomb dump’ he screamed ‘The bastards have set it on fire’. From the stories the boys told me later, the CO took the fire tender with PO-K’s crew standing on the sides. When they arrived at the bomb dump, the enemy fighter had started a fire amongst the incendiaries, which with the CO helping, they started throwing them away from the main explosive bomb racks. Next day at the main parade of all the members of the station, the CO praised the efforts of the Gummersall crew who were standing in line dishevelled and unshaven with hangovers from the night before, trying very hard to look like heroes, which they were. The thing that must be remembered is that this was their night off and they were not really at war. After dodging anti-aircraft fire and cannon shells from night fighters, they did not have to stick their necks out trying to save the Station bomb dump on their night off! Some people might cruelly say it was done as a spur-of-the-moment thing from under an alcoholic haze. I prefer to think of it as just another way that the crew of PO-K won the war – definitely – UNSUNG HEROES! [page break] [underlined] Chapter Thirteen [/underlined] [underlined] Epilogue [/underlined] Though it may seem from these writings that PO-K and ourselves won the war, don’t forget that the war had been going on for just over five years and thousands of very brave men had lost their lives before we arrived at Waddington to do our bit. The bravest men in my opinion, not that all the airmen, especially those who had died, were not brave but the bravest of the brave were the first aircrews who flew in antiquated planes facing losses of 60-70% in 1939-41. It wasn’t until 1942-3 that we started to get on top of the Germans even though our losses were still very high. In 1944-5 we were really dishing it out to them. It has been worked out that more tons of bombs were dropped in 1944 than in the whole of the war until then, owing to the fact that more planes were getting through as the opposition got weaker and weaker. All I can say is that I am very glad that I was too young to be in the war any earlier as I am sure that I wouldn’t have been emotionally strong enough to have been able to stand up to the stress. [page break] Seal of the Governor General Commonwealth of Australia [underlined] HONOURS AND AWARDS [/underlined] [underlined] DISTINGUISHED FLYING CROSS [/underlined] [underlined] FLYING OFFICER THOMAS ALBERT GUMMERSALL [/underlined] [underlined] (428308) [/underlined] [underlined] CITATION [/underlined] Flying Officer GUMMERSALL has completed a large number of operational sorties. In OCTOBER, 1944, he was detailed for an attack against FLUSHING. His aircraft was damaged by anti-aircraft fire over the target but, nevertheless, he made a second bombing run and successfully completed his task. On two other occasions, his aircraft has been attacked by enemy fighters, but each time he has beaten them off. This officer’s cool courage in the face of the enemy has inspired confidence in his crew. [italics] Authors note: This medal, although made out to me, is a disgrace, as it should have been given to all of PO-K’s crew. I have informed the rest of the crew of my feelings on this subject and have awarded each of them a seventh part of this medal, which I am please to say they have accepted. [/italics] [page break] [underlined] [a] DATE [b] TARGET FOR TONIGHT [c] AIRCRAFT [d] COMMENTS [underlined] [a] 6.10.44 [b] Bremen [d] F/O Gummersall. T.A. 2nd pilot with F/L Broad. [a] 7.10.44 [b] Walcheren Dyke [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 11.10.44 [b] Flushing [c] LM100 PO.D [a] 14/15.10.44 [b] Brunswick LM100 PO.D [a] 19/20.10.44 [b] Nurnberg [c] NG197 PO.G [a] 23.10.44 [b] Flushing [c] DV396 PО.В [a] 6/7.11.44 [b] Ems Wesser [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 11/12.11.44 [b] Harburg [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 16.11.44 [b] Duren [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 21/22.11.44 [b] Ladbergen [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 23/24.11.44 [b] Trondheim [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 26/27.11.44 [b] Munich [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 4/5.12.44 [b] Heilbronn [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 6/7.12.44 [b] Giessen [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 8.12.44 [b] Urft Dam [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 27.12.44 [b] Rheydt [c] PB762 PО.B [a] 30/31.12.44 [b] Houfalize [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 1.1.45 [b] Ladbergen [c] PD362 PO.Y [a] 13/14.1.45 [b] Politz [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 14/15.1.45 [b] Mersburg [c] LM677 PO.V [a] 16/17.1.45 [b] Brux [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 1/2.2.45 [b] Siegen [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 2/3.2.45 [b] Karlsruhe [c] NG196 PO.R [a] 14/15.2.45 [b] Rositz [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 19/20.2.45 [b] Bohlen [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 21/22.2.45 [b] Gravenhorst [c] ME487 PO.H [a] 24.2.45 [b] Ladbergen [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 5/6.3.45 [b] Bohlen [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 7/8.3.45 [b] Harburg [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 11.3.45 [b] Essen [c] NN805 [a] 16/17.3.45 [b] Wursburg [c] LM642 PO.K [a] 4.4.45 [b] Nordhausen [c] RP139 [a] 6.4.45 [b] Limuiden [c] RF139 A428308 Thomas Albert Gummersall. DFC and crew posted to 467 Sq 25.9.44. Completed 33 ops by 8.5.45. On their first solo op attacking the Walcheren Dyke the A/C was hit by flak but then made a second run over the target to successfully hit the aiming point. On two occasions, the crew had successfully beat off determined fighter attacks. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lancaster crew at war Description An account of the resource Memoirs of Eric Baldwin and Tom Gummersall of 467 Squadron RAAF RAF Waddington. Eric Baldwin recounts several of his experiences as a mid upper gunner including flying in the wrong direction due to compass problems, parts falling off his aircraft on taxi out, experiences on other operations to Germany. Concludes with anecdote about off duty incident. Follows "The ups and downs of a Bomber Crew" - Tommy Gummenrsall his story. List his crew 'Frank York bomb aimer, Tom Gummersall pilot, Jack Clemons flight engineer, W H Todd flight engineer , Les Chalcroft navigator, Stuart Anders wireless operator, Eric Baldwin and Wally Bradbury air gunners'. Provides details and experiences of operations to Walcheren Island, a 4000 lb cookie falling out of bomb-bay of parked aircraft, engaging night fighters on operation to Giessen. Experiences on operation of Politz. Includes citation for Distinguished Fly Cross for Tom Gummersall and a list of their 33 operations. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Baldwin E Gummersall T Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944 1945 1944-09-26 1944-10 1944-10-06 1944-10-07 1944-10-11 1944-10-14 1944-10-15 1944-10-19 1944-10-20 1944-10-23 1944-11-06 1944-11-07 1944-11-11 1944-11-12 1944-11-16 1944-11-21 1944-11-22 1944-11-26 1944-11-27 1944-12-04 1944-12-05 1944-12-06 1944-12-07 1944-12-08 1944-12-27 1944-12-30 1944-12-31 1945-01-01 1945-01-13 1945-01-14 1945-01-14 1945-01-15 1945-01-16 1945-01-17 1945-02-01 1945-02-92 1945-02-02 1945-02-03 1945-02-14 1945-02-15 1945-02-19 1945-02-20 1945-02-21 1945-02-22 1945-02-24 1945-03-05 1945-03-96 1945-03-07 1945-03-08 1945-03-11 1945-03-16 1945-03-17 1945-04-04 1945-04-06 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire Czech Republic Czech Republic--Děčín Germany Germany--Mittelland Canal Germany--Düren (Cologne) Germany--Karlsruhe Netherlands Netherlands--Walcheren Germany--Giessen (Hesse) Netherlands--Vlissingen Germany--Braunschweig Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Mittelland Canal Germany--Harburg (Landkreis) Germany--Steinfurt (North Rhine-Westphalia) Norway Norway--Trondheim Germany--Munich Germany--Heilbronn Germany--Giessen (Hesse) Germany--Euskirchen Germany--Rheydt Belgium Belgium--Wallonia Poland Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie) Germany--Meersburg Czech Republic Czech Republic--Most Germany--Siegen Germany--Altenburg (Thuringia) Germany--Leipzig Germany--Essen Germany--Würzburg Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Netherlands--IJmuiden Scotland--Moray Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Royal Australian Air Force Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Memoir Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Twenty-two page printed document Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EBaldwinER-GummersallTBaldwinER-GummersallTv1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Steve Baldwin 467 Squadron 5 Group air gunner aircrew anti-aircraft fire bomb aimer bomb dump bomb struck bombing up Distinguished Flying Cross flight engineer Fw 190 ground crew ground personnel incendiary device intelligence officer Lancaster master bomber Mosquito navigator Pathfinders pilot RAF Lossiemouth RAF Waddington Scarecrow searchlight Spitfire wireless operator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1011/11470/PStavesME16020013.jpg 6bb8e752b80aedcb504d4e35d8dbcfe2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Staves, Malcom Ely M E Staves Description An account of the resource 77 items. The collection concerns Flying Officer Malcom Staves (1924 - 2012, 1591418, 203137 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, items, documents, photographs, and training notebooks. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 207 Squadron. There is also a sub collection concerning Flight Lieutenant <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1020">D A MacArthur.</a> The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Christina Chatwin and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-02-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Staves, ME Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lancasters and aircrew Description An account of the resource Top is a group of airmen in front of a Lancaster. Captioned '207 Squadron (Aircrews and Ground Staff) At Stradishall, Suffolk. February 1947'. Bottom is the rear of an air-to air view of a Lancaster captioned 'Lancaster EM-A in which we flew on Operations to:- Dortmund Ems Canal 6hrs 45 m Politz (Baltic) 10hrs 5min Nordhausen - 6hrs 45min Molbis - 5hrs 30min Lützendorf - 8hrs 20min Cham 8hrs 30min'. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One photocopied sheet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PStavesME16020013 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Suffolk Poland Germany Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal Germany--Borna (Leipzig) Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie) Germany--Lutzendorf Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1947-02 207 Squadron aircrew ground crew ground personnel Lancaster RAF Stradishall https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/247/7275/LDorricottLW1230753v1.pdf 0caaa4b6a9f9d25985df7879bb5cccef Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dorricott, Leonard William Leonard Dorricott Len Dorricott L W Dorricott Description An account of the resource 72 items. An oral history interview with Rosemary Dorricott about her husband Flying Officer Leonard William Dorricott DFM (1923-2014, 1230753, 1230708 Royal Air Force). Leonard Dorricott was a navigator with 460 and 576 Squadrons. He flew 34 operations including Operation Manna, Dodge and Exodus. He was one of the crew who flew in Lancaster AR-G -George, now preserved in the Australian War Memorial. He was a keen amateur photographer and the collection contains his photographs, logbook and papers. It also contains A Dorricott’s First World War Diary, and photographs of Leonard Dorricott’s log book being reunited with the Lancaster at the Australian War Memorial. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rosemary Dorricott and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-10-07 2015-11-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Dorricott, LW Access Rights Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies. Permission granted for commercial projects Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leonard Dorricott's observer's and air gunner's flying log book Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LDorricottLW1230753v1 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1943-04-27 1943-04-28 1943-04-30 1943-05-01 1943-05-04 1943-05-05 1943-05-12 1943-05-13 1943-05-14 1943-05-23 1943-05-24 1943-06-11 1943-06-12 1943-06-13 1943-06-14 1943-06-15 1943-06-16 1943-06-17 1943-06-21 1943-06-22 1943-06-23 1943-06-24 1943-06-25 1943-06-26 1943-06-28 1943-06-29 1943-07-09 1943-07-10 1943-07-12 1943-07-13 1943-07-29 1943-07-30 1943-08-02 1943-08-03 1943-08-07 1943-08-08 1943-08-10 1943-08-11 1943-08-22 1943-08-23 1943-08-24 1943-08-27 1943-08-28 1943-08-30 1943-08-31 1943-09-01 1943-09-06 1943-09-07 1943-09-29 1943-10-02 1943-10-03 1943-10-07 1943-10-18 1945-04-03 1945-04-04 1945-04-05 1945-04-10 1945-04-11 1945-04-14 1945-05-02 1945-05-04 1945-05-11 1945-06-18 1945-07-09 1945-08-16 1945-08-20 1945-10-01 1945-10-10 1945-10-25 1945-10-26 1945-11-20 1945-11-26 1945-11-30 1945-12-08 1946-01-04 1946-01-14 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain Italy United States Atlantic Ocean--North Sea England--Leicestershire England--Lincolnshire England--Shropshire England--Staffordshire England--Yorkshire Florida--Miami Germany--Berlin Germany--Bochum Germany--Cologne Germany--Cuxhaven Germany--Dortmund Germany--Duisburg Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Gelsenkirchen Germany--Hamburg Germany--Krefeld Germany--Leverkusen Germany--Mönchengladbach Germany--Mülheim an der Ruhr Germany--Munich Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf) Germany--Plauen Germany--Stuttgart Germany--Wettin Germany--Wuppertal Italy--Turin Italy--Po River Valley Florida Germany--Ruhr (Region) Description An account of the resource Royal Canadian Air Force observer's and air gunner's flying log book for Sergeant Leonard Dorricott from 27 November 1942 to 21 January 1946. Detailing training schedule, instructional duties and operations flown. Trained in Miami, Florida and served at RAF Bobbington (aka RAF Halfpenny Green), RAF Whitchurch (aka RAF Tilstock), RAF Lindholme, RAF Breighton, RAF Bottesford, RAF Swinderby, RAF Binbrook and RAF Fiskerton. Aircraft flown were Anson, Commodore, Oxford, Harrow, Whitley, Halifax and Lancaster. He carried out a total of 32 operations on two tours with 460 and 576 Squadrons as a navigator on the following targets in Germany and Italy: Berlin, Bochum, Cologne, Cuxhaven, Dortmund, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Krefeld, Leverkusen, Lützkendorf, Mulheim, Mönchengladbach, Munich, Nordhausen, Nuremberg, Oberhausen, Plauen, Stuttgart, Turin and Wuppertal. His pilots on operations were Flight Lieutenant Henderson, Flight Lieutenant Strachan, Flying Officer Crofts and Flight Lieutenant Halnan. The operations are annotated and the log book includes maps and newspaper cuttings. It also includes Operation Manna, Exodus, Dodge and Cooks tours. Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 1656 HCU 1660 HCU 1668 HCU 460 Squadron 576 Squadron 61 Squadron 81 OTU Advanced Flying Unit Air Observers School aircrew Anson Berlin Campaign (23 August 1943 – 25 March 1944) bombing bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943) Commodore Cook’s tour Halifax Harrow Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Mk 1 Lancaster Mk 3 mine laying navigator Operation Dodge (1945) Operation Exodus (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) Operational Training Unit Oxford RAF Binbrook RAF Bottesford RAF Breighton RAF Fiskerton RAF Halfpenny Green RAF Lindholme RAF Sturgate RAF Swinderby RAF Tilstock RAF Waddington Ruhr Campaign (5 March – 10 July 1943) training Whitley https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/109/2425/LGreenLC1318527v.pdf b5e686d98ddbb0320085b55c6d541553 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Green, Leonard Len Green L C Green Description An account of the resource Twelve items. The collection relates to the service of Warrant Officer Leonard C Green (1318527 Royal Air Force) and consists of his log book, correspondence, a newspaper cuttings, four photographs and a foreign languages phrase book. Leonard Green flew Lancasters with 50 and 61 Squadrons from RAF Skellingthorpe and completed 19 daylight and night time operations. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Mark Boother and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-06-01 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Green, LC Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leonard Green’s navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LGreenLC1318527v1 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mike Connock Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain Italy Scotland England--Leicestershire England--Lincolnshire England--Nottinghamshire France--Modane Germany--Berlin Germany--Bremen Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal Germany--Hannover Germany--Leipzig Germany--Magdeburg Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Würzburg Italy--Bari Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway Germany--Böhlen Germany--Braunschweig Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) France Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Borna (Leipzig) Germany--Hörstel Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1943-10-18 1943-11-03 1943-11-10 1943-11-11 1943-11-18 1943-11-19 1943-11-22 1943-11-26 1943-11-27 1943-12-02 1943-12-03 1943-12-20 1943-12-21 1943-12-29 1943-12-30 1944-01-02 1944-01-03 1944-01-14 1944-01-15 1944-01-20 1944-01-21 1944-01-21 1944-01-22 1945-02-19 1945-02-20 1945-02-21 1945-02-24 1945-03-14 1945-03-15 1945-03-16 1945-03-17 1945-03-22 1945-03-23 1945-04-04 1945-04-05 1945-04-06 1945-04-08 1945-04-09 1945-04-26 1945-05-06 1945-05-12 1945-05-14 1945-07-17 1945-09-09 1945-10-16 1945-10-20 1945-12-14 1945-12-20 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 Description An account of the resource Navigator's air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for Flight Sergeant Leonard Green, wireless operator, covering the period from 15 December 1942 to 20 January 1946. He was stationed at RAF Manby, RAF Wigtown, RAF Bitteswell, RAF Bruntingthorpe, RAF Swinderby, RAF Syerston, RAF Skellingthorpe and RAF Coningsby. Aircraft flown in were, Dominie, Proctor, Anson, Wellington, Manchester and Lancaster. He flew a total of 23 operations, 13 night with 50 Squadron and 3 day and 7 night with 61 Squadron. He also flew operations Exodus with 61 Squadron and Dodge to Bari, Italy with 83 Squadron. Targets were Hannover, Düsseldorf, Modane, Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Brunswick, Magdeburg, Bohlen, Gravenhorst, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Lützkendorf, Würzburg, Bremen, Wesel, Nordhausen and Molbis. His pilots on operations were Pilot Officer Lundy and Flight Lieutenant Phillips. The log book also contains many newspaper clippings relating to the targets attacked, aircraft flown in and events of the war and post war. It also contains pictures of the crew positions of Navigator, Bomb Aimer and Wireless Operator. 1660 HCU 29 OTU 50 Squadron 61 Squadron 83 Squadron Advanced Flying Unit aircrew Anson Berlin Campaign (23 August 1943 – 25 March 1944) bombing bombing up Cook’s tour Dominie Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984) Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Lancaster Mk 1 Lancaster Mk 3 Manchester military service conditions Operation Dodge (1945) Operation Exodus (1945) Operational Training Unit perception of bombing war Proctor RAF Bitteswell RAF Bruntingthorpe RAF Coningsby RAF Manby RAF Skellingthorpe RAF Swinderby RAF Syerston RAF Wigtown training Wellington wireless operator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1355/28011/LJacksonL1897934v1.1.pdf f6e9ed922b216ce3b79d75c41743d138 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Jackson, L Jackson, Les Description An account of the resource Two items. The collection concerns Les Jackson (b.1925, 1897934 Royal Air force). He flew operations as an air gunner with 103 Squadron. It contains his log book and an audio memoir. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by C Thompson and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-05-28 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Jackson, L Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Les Jackson’s flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners, flight engineers Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mike Connock Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LJacksonL1897934v1 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain Italy Netherlands Atlantic Ocean--North Sea England--Lincolnshire England--Shropshire England--Staffordshire England--Yorkshire Germany--Berchtesgaden Germany--Bremen Germany--Hamburg Region Germany--Hanau Germany--Helgoland Germany--Hildesheim Germany--Merseburg Region Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Paderborn Italy--Pomigliano d'Arco Netherlands--Rotterdam Northern Ireland--Down (County) Great Britain Germany--Hannover Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1944 1945 1946 1947 1945-03-15 1945-03-16 1945-03-17 1945-03-18 1945-03-19 1945-03-21 1945-03-22 1945-03-28 1945-04-02 1945-04-04 1945-04-05 1945-04-17 1945-04-22 1945-04-25 1945-04-29 1945-05-01 1945-05-03 1945-05-07 1945-05-10 1945-10-01 Description An account of the resource Flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners, flight engineers for L Jackson, air gunner, covering the period from 28 May 1944 to 16 June 1947. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Bishops Court, RAF Peplow, RAF Lichfield, RAF Blyton, RAF Elsham Wolds, RAF Scampton and RAF Lindholme. Aircraft flown in were Anson, Wellington and Lancaster. He flew a total of 11 operations with 103 squadron, 7 daylight and 4 night. Targets were Misburg, Nuremberg, Hanau, Bremen, Hildesheim, Paderborn, Nordenhausen, Lützkendorf, Heligoland and Berchtesgaden. He also flew three Manna to Rotterdam, one Exodus and one Dodge to Pomigliano, with 103 squadron. He flew post war duties with 57 squadron. His pilot on operations was Flight Lieutenant Wilson. Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 103 Squadron 1653 HCU 1662 HCU 27 OTU 57 Squadron 83 OTU air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson bombing bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945) Heavy Conversion Unit Ju 88 Lancaster Operation Dodge (1945) Operation Exodus (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) Operational Training Unit RAF Bishops Court RAF Blyton RAF Elsham Wolds RAF Lichfield RAF Lindholme RAF Peplow RAF Scampton training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2802/49815/SBondS-HornerLv10001.pdf 7a23d199fab3c296b92f109d94fec575 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Horner, Lionel Description An account of the resource Three items. Collection concerns Lionel Horner who flew a double tour on 50 Squadron as a Lancaster navigator. Collection contain his flying log book and an oral history interview. The collection was licensed to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Dr Steve Bond and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. This collection was provided, in digital form, by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by the IBCC Digital Archive. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2022-01-18 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SBondS-HornerLv1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lionel Horner’s Royal Air Force Air Navigator’s Flying Log Book Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Multi-page printed book with handwritten entries Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Review Oct 2024 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SBondS-HornerLv10001 Description An account of the resource Lionel Horner’s Royal Air Force Flying Log Book as an Air Navigator from 29th June 1942 until 10th September 1945. Navigation training at the Pan American Airways Navigation Section, Miami and then Advanced Flying Unit in England. Posted to 29 Operational Training Unit in 1943 followed by 1661 Conversion Unit. Posted to 50 Squadron for operations. Served at RAF Bobbington (Halfpenny Green), RAF Skellingthorpe, RAF Sturgate. Aircraft flown were Avro Commodore, Anson, Wellington, Manchester, Lancaster III. With 50 Squadron he flew 33 bombing operations (3 day and 30 night). His targets were Nurnberg, Leverkusen, Berlin, Hannover, Mannheim, Bochum, Hagen, Munich, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Stettin, Brunswick, Augsburg, Farge, Nordhausen, Ijmuiden. He also flew one Cook’s Tour, one Operation Post-Mortem (Flensburg) and four Operation Dodge (Pomigliano). His pilots on operations were Flight Sergeant Lloyd, Flight Lieutenant Lees, Pilot Officer Dobbyn, Pilot Officer Durham and Flight Lieutenant Morgan. Includes the following hand written note “Skipper court martialled and reduced to the ranks for low flying over aeffield [airfield]”. This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942 1943-08-10 1943-08-11 1943-08-22 1943-08-23 1943-08-24 1943-08-27 1943-08-28 1943-09-22 1943-09-23 1943-09-24 1943-09-27 1943-09-28 1943-09-29 1943-09-30 1943-10-01 1943-10-02 1943-10-03 1943-10-07 1943-10-08 1943-11-18 1943-11-19 1943-11-23 1943-11-24 1943-11-26 1943-11-27 1943-12-02 1943-12-03 1943-12-16 1943-12-17 1943-12-29 1943-12-30 1944-01-01 1944-01-02 1944-01-03 1944-01-05 1944-01-14 1944-01-20 1944-01-21 1944-01-22 1944-01-27 1944-01-28 1944-01-29 1944-01-30 1944-01-31 1944-02-15 1944-02-16 1944-02-19 1944-02-20 1944-02-25 1944-02-26 1944-03-27 1944-04-04 1944-04-06 1944-06-24 1944-04-25 1944-08-15 1944-08-17 1944-09-07 1944-09-10 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. United States Florida Florida--Miami Great Britain England--Lincolnshire England--Staffordshire Germany Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Augsburg Germany--Berlin Germany--Bochum Germany--Braunschweig Germany--Bremen Germany--Flensburg Germany--Hagen (Arnsberg) Germany--Hannover Germany--Leipzig Germany--Leverkusen Germany--Mannheim Germany--Munich Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Stuttgart Poland Poland--Szczecin Netherlands Netherlands--IJmuiden Italy Italy--Pomigliano d'Arco Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nick Cornwell-Smith Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. 1661 HCU 29 OTU 50 Squadron Advanced Flying Unit aircrew Anson Berlin Campaign (23 August 1943 – 25 March 1944) bombing Cook’s tour Distinguished Flying Cross Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Mk 3 Manchester military discipline navigator Operation Dodge (1945) Operational Training Unit RAF Halfpenny Green RAF Skellingthorpe RAF Sturgate training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/636/40437/MRoyallGL1801494-220420-17.jpg 078174283482566665fda6283263bf3b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Royall, George G Royall Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Royall, G Description An account of the resource 46 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer George Royall (1801494 Royal Air Force) his flying log book, photographs, correspondence, course notes, examinations, newspapers and parts of magazines. He served as a bomb aimer on 166 Squadron. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by George Royall and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-07-20 Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document 36, Macoma Road, Plumstead, S. E.18. Your Ref:- C.I. CAM/C/1801494 27-9-48. Re:- [underlined] Campaign Medals [/underlined] [a] [underlined] Date [/underlined] [b] [underlined] Operation [/underlined] [c] [underlined] Squadron [/underlined] [a] Night 15-16 – 3 – 45 [b] Misburg [c] 166, Kirmington [a] Night 16-17 – 3 – 45 [b] Nuremburg [c] 166, Kirmington [a] Night 19-20 – 3 – 45 [b] Hanau [c] 166, Kirmington [a] 25 – 3 – 45 [b] Hanover [c] 166, Kirmington [a] 27 – 3 – 45 [b] Paderborn [c] 166, Kirmington [a] 31 – 3 – 45 [b] Hamburg [c] 166, Kirmington [a] 3 – 4 – 45 [b] Nordhausen [c] 166, Kirmington [a] Night 4-5 – 4 – 45 [b [indecipherable word [c] 166, Kirmington [a] Night 9-10 – 4 – 45 [b] Keil [sic] [c] 166, Kirmington Two trips as spare Bomb Aimer [deleted] (dates unknown) [/deleted] on Food dropping missions over Holland. Exact dates unknown, but approximately end of April or beginning of May, 1945. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource List of operations Description An account of the resource Hand written details of nine operations to Germany, titled 'Re:- Campaign Medals'. Notes on some other operations are also given. There is a file reference in the upper left corner and a private address in the upper right. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1948-09-27 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1945-03 1945-04 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Germany--Hamburg Germany--Hanau Germany--Hannover Germany--Kiel Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Paderborn Great Britain England--London England--Lincolnshire Netherlands Germany--Giessen (Hesse) Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Personal research Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One-page handwritten document Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context MRoyallGL1801494-220420-17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sue Smith 166 Squadron bombing Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) RAF Kirmington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1011/11443/MStavesME203137-160226-330001.jpg f0c0211f7d2b6db3f301a8d5463af72d https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1011/11443/MStavesME203137-160226-330002.jpg 2d3a79863fcadec5b840ace17ac96cc7 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1011/11443/MStavesME203137-160226-330003.jpg 755e2b383ee18d236541ad22637719fb https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1011/11443/MStavesME203137-160226-330004.jpg 53d8bf6acc03513531a0bc70393739bb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Staves, Malcom Ely M E Staves Description An account of the resource 77 items. The collection concerns Flying Officer Malcom Staves (1924 - 2012, 1591418, 203137 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, items, documents, photographs, and training notebooks. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 207 Squadron. There is also a sub collection concerning Flight Lieutenant <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1020">D A MacArthur.</a> The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Christina Chatwin and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-02-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Staves, ME Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document ON THE [UNDERLINED] 21ST JANUARY 1945, [/UNDERLINED] WE JOINED [UNDERLINED] 207 SQUADRON [/UNDERLINED] BASED AT [UBNDERLINED] SPILSBY, LINCOLNSHIRE. [/UNDERLINED] THE FOLLOWING RECORDS SHOW THE OPERTAIONS WE MADE AGAINST TARGETS IN EUROPE. [underlined] 7/8 February 1945 [/underlined] DORTMUND –EMS CANAL 177 Lancasters and 11 Mosquitoes of 5 Group attacked the canal section neat Ladbergen with delayed-action bombs. Later photographs showed that the banks had not been damaged; the bombs had fallen into nearby fields. 3 Lancaster were lost. Minor Operations: 38 Mosquitoes to Magdeburg, 16 to Mainz and 41 in small numbers to 5 other targets, 63 R.C.M. sorties, 45 Mosquito patrols, 30 Lancasters and 15 Hailifaxes minelaying in Kiel Bay, 4 Mosquitoes lost – 3 from 100 Group and 1 from the raid on Mainz. Total effort for the night: 1,205 sorties, 10 aircraft (0.8 per cent) lost. [underlined] 8/9 February 1945 [/underlined] PÖLITZ 475 Lancasters and 7 Mosquitoes of 1, 5 and 8 Groups. 12 Lancasters lost, 1 of them coming down in Sweden. The attack took place in 2 waves, the first being marked and carries out entirely by the 5 Group method and the second wave being marked by the Pathfinders of 8 Group. The weather conditions were clear and the bombing of both waves was extremely accurate. Severe damage was caused to this important synthetic-oil plant. It produced no further oil during the war. Speer mentioned this raid, in his post-war interrogations, as being another big setback to Germany’s war effort. [Page Break] 13/14 February 1945 DESDEN The Air Ministry had, for several months, been considering a series of particularly heavy area raids on German cities with a view to causing such confusion and consternation that the hard-stretched German war machine and civil administration would break down and the war would end. The general name given to this plan was Operation Thunderclap, but it has been decided not to implement it until the military situation on German was critical. That moment appeared to be at hand. Russian forces had made rapid advances across Poland in the second half of January and crossed the eastern frontier of Germany. The Germans were thus fighting hard inside their own territory on two fronts, with the situation in the East being particularly critical. It was considered that Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz – all just behind the German lines on the Eastern Front bow – would be suitable targets. They were all vital communications and supply centres for the Eastern Front and were already packed with German refugees and wounded from the areas recently captured by the Russians. As well as the morale aspect of the attacks, there was the intention of preventing the German from moving reinforcements from the West to face the successful Russian advance. The Air Ministry issued a directive to Bomber Command at the end of January. The Official History* describes how Winston Churchill took a direct hand in the final planning of Operation Thunderclap – although Churchill tried to distance himself from the Dresden raid afterwards. On 4 February, at the Yalta Conference, the Russians asked for the attacks of this kind to take place, but their involvement in the process only came after the plans had been issued. So, Bomber Command was specifically requested by the Air Ministry, with Churchill’s encouragement, to carry out heavy raids on Dresden, Chemnitz and Leipzig. The Americans were also asked to help out and agreed to do so. The campaign should have begun with an American raid on Dresden on 13 February but bad weather over Europe prevented any American operations. It thus fell to Bomber Command to carry out the first raid. 796 Lancasters and 9 Mosquitoes were dispatched in two separate raids and dropped 1,478 tons of high explosive and 1,1,82 tons of incendiary bombs. The first attack was carried out entirely by 5 Group, using their own low-level marking methods. A band of cloud still remained in the area and this raid, on which 244 Lancasters dropped more than 800 tons of bombs, was only moderately successful. The second raid, 3 hours later, was an all-Lancaster attack by aircraft of 1,3, 6 and 8 Groups, with 8 Group providing standard Pathfinder marking. The weather was now clear and 529 Lancasters dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs with great accuracy. Much had been written about the fearful effects of this raid. Suffice to say here that a firestorm, similar to the one experienced in Hamburg in July 1943, was created and large areas of the city were burnt out. No one has ever been able to discover how many people died but it is accepted that the number was greater than the 40,000 who died in the Hamburg firestorm and the Dresden figure may have exceeded 50,000. Bomber Command casualties were 6 Lancasters lost, with 2 more crashed in France and 1 in England. 311 American B-17s dropped 771 tons of bombs on Dresden the next day, with the railway yards as their aiming point. Part of the American Mustang-fighter escort was ordered to strafe traffic on the roads around Dresden to increase the chaos. The Americans bombed Dresden again on the 15th and on 2 March but it is generally accepted that is was the R.A.F. night raids which caused the most serious damage. [Page Break] [underlined] 14/15 February 1945 [/underlined] ROSITZ 244 Lancasters and 8 Mosquitoes of 5 Group attacked the oil refinery in this small town near Leipzig. 4 Lancaster were lost. Damage was caused to the southern part of the oil plant. [Underlined]19/20 February 1945 [/underlined] BÖHLEN 254 Lancasters and 6 Mosquitoes of 5 Group. 1 Mosquito lost. This raid was not successful, probably because the aircraft of the Master Bomber Wing Commander E.A. Benjamin was shot down by Flak over the target. Post-raid reconnaissance showed that damage to the target was ‘superficial’ there was no evidence to show where the main bombing fell. (The body of Wing Commander E.A. Benjamin, D.F.C. and Bar is buried in the Berlin War Cemetery) [underlined] 20/21 February 1945 [/underlined] DORTMUND 415 Lancasters and 14 Mosquitoes of 1, 3, 6 and 8 Groups. 14 Lancasters lost. The intention of this raid was to destroy the southern half of Dortmund and Bomber Command claimed that this was achieved. It appeared that the Dortmund air raid recording service had now broken down completely; the local Stadtarchiv has no details of any king of this raid. This was the last large Bomber Command raid of the war on Dortmund. [underlined] 24 February 1945 [/underlined] DORTMUND –EMS CANAL 166 Lancaster and 4 Mosquitoes of 5 Group were ordered to abandon this raid without bombing because of cloud which covered the target area. All aircraft landed safely. [Page Break] [underlined] 4 April 1945 [/underlined] NORDHAUSEN 243 Lancasters and 1 Mosquito of 5 Group, with 8 Pathfinder Mosquitoes, attacked the barracks and the town, which was severely damaged. 1 Lancaster lost. [underlined] 7/8 April 1945 [/underlined] MOLBIS 175 Lancaster and 11 Mosquitoes of 5 Group attacked the benzol plant at Molbis, near Leipzig. The weather was clear and the bombing so effective that all production at the plant ceased. No aircraft lost. [underlined] 8/9 April 1945 [/underlined] LÜTZKENDORF 231 Lancasters and 11 Mosquitoes of 5 Group attacked the oil refinery, which has escaped serious damage the previous night. The refinery was rendered ‘inactive’. 6 Lancasters lost. [underlined] 10 April 1945 [/underlined] LEIPZIG 230 aircraft – 134 Lancasters, 90 Halifaxes, 6 Mosquitoes – attacked the Englesdorf and Mockau railway yards. The weather was clear and the bombing was accurate. 1 Halifax and 1 Lancaster lost. [underlined] 17/18 April 1945 [/underlined] CHAM 90 Lancasters and 11 Mosquitoes of 5 Group attacked the railway yards in this small town deep in south-eastern Germany. The attack was completely successful, with tracks torn up and rolling stock destroyed. No aircraft lost. LEIPZIG 76 Lancasters and 19 Mosquitoes of 5 and 8 Groups attacked the Wahren railway yards. The eastern half of the yards was destroyed. 7 Lancasters lost. Minor operations: 77 Mosquitoes to Berlin, 21 to Chemnitz and 7 to Bayreuth, 53 R.C.M. sorties, 26 Mosquitoes patrols. 1 Mosquito from the Berlin raid and 1 R.C.M. Halifax were lost. Total effort for the night 594 sorties, 9 aircraft (1.5 per cent) lost. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Malcolm Staves' List of Operations Description An account of the resource An account of 207 Squadron operations undertaken by Malcolm Staves whilst at RAF Spilsby. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Malcolm Staves Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Four typewritten sheets Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Personal research Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context MStavesME203137-160226-330001, MStavesME203137-160226-330002, MStavesME203137-160226-330003, MStavesME203137-160226-330004 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal Germany--Dresden Germany--Leipzig Germany--Dortmund Germany--Cham Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie) Poland Germany Germany--Ruhr (Region) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1945 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Claire Monk 207 Squadron bombing bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945) RAF Spilsby https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2182/40417/LNyeAF1877081v1.pdf bbac32c5eb0cd498d238800ddaebea47 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nye, Albert Frederick Description An account of the resource 171 items. The collection concerns Albert Frederick Nye (b. 1925, 1877087 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, service documents and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 207 Squadron before being posted overseas. The collection also contains an <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2237">album of his service life in India.</a> The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Lynn Corrigan and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2022-03-03 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Nye, AF Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for Albert Frederick Nye Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LNyeAF1877081v1 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1945-02-01 1945-02-02 1945-02-03 1945-02-08 1945-02-09 1945-02-13 1945-02-14 1945-02-15 1945-02-19 1945-02-20 1945-02-21 1945-02-24 1945-03-11 1945-03-14 1945-03-15 1945-03-16 1945-03-17 1945-03-20 1945-03-21 1945-03-23 1945-03-24 1945-04-04 1945-04-23 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Nottinghamshire England--Lincolnshire Germany Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Siegen Germany--Karlsruhe Germany--Dresden Germany--Altenburg (Thuringia) Germany--Hörstel Germany--Ladbergen Germany--Essen Germany--Wettin Germany--Würzburg Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Flensburg Germany--Borna (Leipzig) Poland Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie) Czech Republic Czech Republic--Plzeň Germany--Böhlen Germany--Böhlen Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lynn Corrigan Description An account of the resource Navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for Albert Frederick Nye form 13 May 1944 to 31 May 1945. Detailed training schedule, instructional duties and operations flown. Training was undertaken at 10 AGS RAF Barrow, RAF Bitteswell, RAF Winthorpe Notts and RAF Syerston Notts. Operations were all undertaken from RAF Spilsby, Lincolnshire with 207 Squadron. Aircraft flown during training were the Anson, Wellington, Stirling and Lancaster Marks I and III. All operational flights were in the Lancaster Mark III. Albert, ‘Bert’, undertook 18 operations with 207 Squadron as a mid upper gunner. Of the 18 operational flights 14 were night flights and 4 day flights. The operations, all in Germany, were: Siegen, Karlsruhe, Politz, Dresden, Rositz, Bohlen, Gravenhorst, Ladbergen, Essen, Lützkendorf, Wurzburg, Bohlen, Wesel, Nordhausen, Molbis, Leipzig, Pilsen, Flensburg. His pilot on all the operations was Flight Officer ‘Bob’ Halewood, an Australian. Following his final operational flight Bert partook in the repatriation of prisoners of war from Brussels and a flight disposing of incendiaries. Bert was assessed as being ‘an average type’ but he had ‘taken some exceptionally good films on cine camera’. Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 1661 HCU 207 Squadron 29 OTU air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson bomb aimer bombing bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945) Heavy Conversion Unit incendiary device Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Lancaster Mk 1 Lancaster Mk 3 Operation Exodus (1945) Operational Training Unit RAF Barrow in Furness RAF Bitteswell RAF Spilsby RAF Syerston RAF Winthorpe Stirling training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/376/7718/PHouriganM18010019.jpg 8b92e26e288e274564593f089d171dcb https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/376/7718/PHouriganM18010020.jpg 777185e2677485361156ed82e6e1dcac Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hourigan, Margaret Margaret Hourigan M Hourigan Description An account of the resource 158 items. An oral history interview with Margaret Hourigan (1922 - 2023, 889775 Royal Air Force) and 156 target photographs taken by 50 and 61 Squadron aircraft during 1944. Margaret Hourigan served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force as a plotter with Fighter Command before being posted to RAF Waddington and RAF Skellingthorpe with Bomber Command. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Margaret Hourigan and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-04-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Hourigan,M Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nordhausen Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1945-04-04 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PHouriganM18010019, PHouriganM18010020 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1945-04-04 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Geolocated Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photograph Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Description An account of the resource Target photograph of Nordhausen. Substantially obscured by smoke, dust and cloud. Where visible, streets and buildings appear to be mainly industrial. Captioned '5°F', '4B', '5046 SKELL.4.4.45//8" 15750 360° 0917 NORDHAUSEN.U . 1HC4000IN+6ANM64DT+10MC500DT. C.31secs F/L PHILLIPS. U.61.' On the reverse 'F/L PHILLIPS NORDHAUSEN 4.4.45.'. Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Hourigan, Margaret. Folder PHouriganM1801 61 Squadron aerial photograph bombing RAF Skellingthorpe target photograph https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1391/24703/MDunmoreG635201-160526-03.pdf 66e9cdc7b6b0f6706fc2113aa115abfb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dunmore, George G Dunmore Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-05-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Dunmore, G Description An account of the resource 17 Items concerning Flight Lieutenant George Dunmore DFM (5601) who flew 45 operations as a flight engineer on Lancaster with 83 Squadron at RAF Scampton and then as part of the Pathfinder Force at RAF Wyton. Commissioned in 1944 he continued to serve in the general duties branch as flight engineer and then equipment branch until 1967. The collection contains his logbook, an account of a maximum effort operation, official documents and letters, a history of an individual aircraft, pathfinder certificate, recommendation for DFM, career notes as well as photographs and memorabilia. A sub-collection of 58 photographs of aircraft under repair or being manufactured in factories. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Louise Dunmore and catalogued by Nigel Huckins Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document OPERATIONAL HISTORY OF [underlined] AVRO LANCASTER IB R5868 MERLIN XX [/underlined] 29 Jun 42 Joined No 83 Squadron RAF Scampton – a/c letter “Q” [underlined] OPERATIONAL FLYING WITH 83 SQUADRON [/underlined] [list headings] [underlined] Date [/underlined] [underlined] Pilot [/underlined] [underlined] Target [/underlined] [underlined] Hrs Mins [/underlined] [list] 8/9 Jul 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC Wilhelmshaven 1,260 x 4 IB 4 13 [space] 11 Jul 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC Danzig 5 x 1,000 10 5 Daylight. 14/15 Jul 42 P/O J.E.Partridge Bordeaux Mining 1 x 22 1 x 14 1 x 13 set 6 1 x 22 7 40 [space] 18 Jul 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC Essen – Krupps Works 6 x 1,000 4 0 Daylight. 19/20 Jul 42 F/Sgt Calvert D. Vegesack 6 x 1,000 6 0 [space] 21/22 Jul 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC* Duisburg 112 x 30 IB 3 41 [space] 25/26 Jul 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC* Duisburg 1 x 4,000 6 x 500 2 x 250 3 32 [space] 26/27 Jul 42 P/O J.E Partridge DFC* Hamburg 1,260 x 4 IB 5 8 Holed in port wing on way out by flak ships. 5/6 Aug 42 W/C D.Crighton-Biggie Mining in Gironde River 22 – 13 set 2 13 set 6 44 – 13 set 1 7 14 Slight flak damage. 6/7 Aug 42 P/O J.Marchant Duisburg 1 x 4,000 900 x 4 IB 4 3 [space] -1- [page break] [list headings] [underlined] Date [/underlined] [underlined] Pilot [/underlined] [underlined] Target [/underlined] [underlined] Hrs Mins [/underlined] [list] 9/10 Aug 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC* Osnabruck 1 x 4,000 900 x 4 IB 3 57 Alternative target. 10/11 Aug 42 P/O J.Hodgson Mainz 1 x 4,000 8 x 30 IB 5 38 [space] 18/19 Aug 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC* Flenxburg 14 x 4 Flares 5 5 PFF. No attack. 24/25 Aug 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC* Frankfurt 112 x 30 IB 5 45 [space] 8/9 Sep 42 F/Sgt Jackson L.T. Frankfurt 6 x 4 Flares 8 x 250 IB 5 24 No attack. Flares dropped but cloud and haze plus intercom failure prevented bombing. 13/14 Sep 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC* Bremen 1 x 4,000 6 x 4 Flares 4 24 [space] 14/15 Sep 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC* Wilhelmshaven 6 x 4 Flares 8 x 250 IB 4 6 W/Op wounded by frire from another 4-engined twin fin a/c overtaken on return flight over the sea! 2/3 Oct 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC* Krefeld 4 x 7 Flares 10 x 250 inc 3 40 [space] 5/6 Oct 42 F/Lt J.E.Partridge DFC* Aachen 8 x 4 Flares 2 x 7 Flares 1 x 4,000 HC 5 45 No attack. Weather u/s. 2 x 4 flares dropped, remainder brought back. 6/7 Oct 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC* Osnabruck 1 x 4,000 HC 9 x 4 Flares 1 x 4 Flares 4 25 [space] 13/14 Oct 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC* Genoa 10 x 4 Flares 6 Flares internally 1 x 4,000 HC 9 20 Landed at Mildenhall (weather). -2- Page break] [list headings] [underlined] Date [/underlined] [underlined] Pilot [/underlined] [underlined] Target [/underlined] [underlined] Hrs Mins [/underlined] [list] 7/8 Nov 42 S/L J.K.M.Cooke DFC Genoa 10 x 4 Flares 6 Flares loose 1 x 4,000 HC 7 10 [space] 9/10 Nov 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC* Hamburg 9 x 4 Flares 1 x 3 whole and ! green with stars 1 x 4,000 HC 5 0 [space] 13/14 Nov 42 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC* Genoa 9 x 4 White 3 x 1,000 RDX 7 55 [space] 15/16 Nov 42 P/O R.N.H.Williams DFM Genoa 9 x 4 Flares 3 x 1,000 GP 7 20 [space] 29/30 Nov 42 Sgt Partridge H.A. Turin 1 x 4,000 gel 4 x 500 GP 7 25 [space] 2/3 Dec 42 P/O J.Marchant Frankfurt 10 x 250 inc 1 x 4,000 gel 5 55 [space] 21/22 Dec 42 F/Lt J.Hodgson DFC Munich 1 x 4,000 gel 7 07 [space] 15/16 Jan 43 S/L R.L.Hilton DFC* Berlin 1 x 4 Green 1 x 4 White 6 T.I. Red 6 T.I. inc 1 Red Flare int 7 20 No attack claimed. Flares brought back except 1 x 4 White. 11/12 Feb 43 F/Sgt Partridge H.A. Wilhelmshaven 6 x 4 White Flares 3 T.I. Green 1 x 4,000 HC 3 x 500 GP 5 23 Flares and T.I.s brought back as instructed. 13/14 Feb 43 F/Sgt Partridge H.A. Lorient 6 x 4 White Flares 4 T.I. Green 1 x 4,000 gel 4 40 [space] 14/15 Feb 43 S/L J.K.M.Cooke DFC Milan 9 x 4 White Flares 1 x 4 Red Flares 2 T.I. Red 1 Green Flare 1 x 4,000 HC 7 35 9 x 4 Flares brought back. -3- [page break [list headings] [underlined] Date [/underlined] [underlined] Pilot [/underlined] [underlined] Target [/underlined] [underlined] Hrs Mins [/underlined] [list] 16/17 Feb 43 S/L S.Robinson DFM Lorient 8 x 4 White 4 T.I. Red 1 x 4,000 HC 4 22 Bomb sight u/s. 18/19 Feb 43 F/O F.J.Garvey Wilhelmshaven 1 x 4,000 gel 12 x 8 x 30 inc 4 22 Rear turret u/s for 3/4 of trip. 19/20 Feb 43 W/C R.L.Hilton DFC* Wilhelmshaven 4 T.I. Red 6 x 500 GP 4 07 [space] 25/26 Feb 43 F/O F.J.Garvey Nurnberg 1 x 4,000 gel 10 x 8 x 30 inc 6 24 [space] 26/27 Feb 43 F/O F.J.Garvey Cologne 1 x 4,000 HC 12 x 8 x 30 inc 3 24 Dropped but bombing circuit u/s – bomb doors damaged by bombs falling on them. 28/1 Mar 43 P/O U.S.Moore DFM St Nazaire 8 x 4 White 4 T.I. Green 1 x 4,000 HC 4 34 [space] ½ Mar 43 P/O U.S.Moore DFM Berlin 4 T.I. Green 1 T.I. Yellow 1 x 4,000 HC 6 15 Minor flak damage. 8/9 Mar 43 F/O F.J.Garvey Nuremburg 2 x T.I. Yellow 2 x T.I. Green 1 x 4,000 HC 8 x 8 x 30 inc 6 47 [space] 11/12 Mar 43 F/O F.J.Garvey Stuttgart 4 x T.I. Green 6 x 4 Flares 2 x 90 x 4 inc 1 x 4,000 HC 5 37 Mid-upper and Gee both u/s 12/13 Mar 43 F/O F.J.Garvey Essen 4 x T.I. Green 1 x T.I. White 1 x 4,000 HC 2 x 250 GP LD 1 x 250 GP LD 4 08 [space] 27/28 Mar 43 F/O F.J.Garvey Berlin 6 x T.I. Green 6 x T.I. Yellow 1 x 4,000 HC 2 x 250 GP (LD) 6 56 [space] -4- [page break] [list headings] [underlined] Date [/underlined] [underlined] Pilot [/underlined] [underlined] Target [/underlined] [underlined] Hrs Mins [/underlined] [list] 29/30 Mar 43 F/O F.J.Garvey Berlin 2 x T.I. Yellow 1 x Green with Red 3 x 4 White 4 x T.I. Red 1 x 4,000 HC 7 08 Flak damage. 2/3 Apr 43 F/Sgt McNichol G.A. St Nazaire 4 x T.I. Red 6 x 1,000 GP 4 x 500 GP 4 36 [space] 23/24 May 43 F/O F.J.Garvey Dortmund 4 x T.I. Green 1 x T.I. Green (LB) 4 x 1,000 GP (NF) 1 x 4,000 HE 2 x 1,000 GP (LD) 4 33 [space] 25/26 May 43 F/O F.J.Garvey Dusseldorf 1 x T.I. Yellow (LB) 1 x T.I. Green (LB) 3 x T.I. Green 1 x 4,000 HC 3 x 1,000 GP 1 x 1,000 GP (LD) 4 08 [space] 27/28 May 43 F/Sgt King R. Essen 1 x 4,000 HC 4 x 1,000 GP 6 x 500 MC 4 34 [space] 29/30 May 43 F/O M.R. Chick Wuppertal 1 x 4,000 HC 1,008 x 4 inc 72 x 4 ‘x’ inc 4 48 [space] 11/12 Jun 43 F/O M.R.Chick Munster 1 x 4,000 12 SPC x 8 x 30 4 52 [space] 12/13 Jun 43 F/O M.R.Chick Bochum 1 x 4,000 HC 1 x 1,000 GP 1 x 1000 GP (LD) 12 x 90 x 4 inc 4 36 [space] 16/17 Jun 43 F/Sgt Cummings M.K. Cologne 1 x 4,000 HC 12 x 90 x 4 inc 4 07 [space] -5- [page break] [list headings] [underlined] Date [/underlined] [underlined] Pilot [/underlined] [underlined] Target [/underlined] [underlined] Hrs Mins [/underlined] [list] 19/20 Jun 43 P/O H.Mappin Moutchanin 5 x 1,000 MC 8 x 500 MC 3 45 [space] 21/22 Jun 43 F/O M.R.Chick Krefeld 1 x 4,000 HC 12 x 90 x 4 inc 4 18 [space] 22/23 Jun 43 F/Lt F.J.Garvey Mulheim 8 x T.I. Green 1 x 4,000 HC 6 x 1,000 GP 4 07 Flak damage. 24/25 Jun 43 F/Lt F.J.Garvey Elberfeld 1 x T.I. Green LB 4 x T.I. Green 1 x 4,000 HC 6 x 1,000 GP (2LD) 4 24 [space] 28/29 Jun 43 F/Lt F.J.Garvey Cologne 3 x T.I. Green 1 x T.I. Green LB 1 x 4,000 HC 6 x 1,000 MC 4 19 [space] 3 Jul 43 F/Lt F.J.Garvey Cologne 1 x T.I. Green LB 3 x T.I. Green 1 x 4,000 HC 6 x 1,000 MC Backer Up 4 48 Windscreen holed. 12/13 Jul 43 F/O W.R.Thompson Turin 8 x 500 GP LD 6 x 8 x 30 inc 9 30 [space] 24/25 Jul 43 S/L R.J.Manton Hamburg 1 x 4,000 HC 4 x 1,000 MC 1 x 12 x 20(F) 6 11 [space] 25/26 Jul 43 F/Lt F.J.Garvey Essen 1 x 4,000 HC 3 x 1,000 MC 2 x T.I. Green (LB) 3 x T.I. Green 4 39 Passenger: General Anderson USAF -6- [page break] [list headings] [underlined] Date [/underlined] [underlined] Pilot [/underlined] [underlined] Target [/underlined] [underlined] Hrs Mins [/underlined] [list] 27/29 Jul 43 F/Lt F.J.Garvey Hamburg 2 x T.I. Green LB 3 x T.I. Green 1 x 4,000 HC 3 x 1,000 GP LD 5 34 [space] 29/30 Jul 43 S/L R.J.Manton Hamburg 1 x 4,000 HC 10 x 500 MC 5 42 [space] 12/13 Aug 43 F/Lt F.J.Garvey Milan 2 x T.I. Green LB 2 x T.I. Green 1 x 4,000 7 47 [space] 14/15 Aug 43 F/Lt F.J.Garvey Milan 4 x T.I. Yellow 1 x 4,000 3 x 500 8 07 [space] [underlined] OPERATION FLYING WITH 467 SQUADRON (BOTTESFORD) – a/c letter “S” *27/28 Sep 43 P/O A.M.Finch Hanover 1 x 4,000 HC 104 x 30 1,260 x 4 inc 5 23 Recommended a/c after [underlined] 78 [/underlined] trips unreliable for ops. *29 Sep 43 P/O N.M.McClelland Bochum 1 x 4,000 HC 104 x 30 1,260 x 4 inc 4 50 [space] *2/3 Oct 43 F/Lt H.B.Locke Munich 1 x 4,000 HC 84 x 30 600 x 4 inc 8 17 [space] *3/4 Oct 43 F/O J.A.Colpus Kassel 1 x 4,000 HC 24 x 30 1,440 x 4 inc 6 11 [space] *4/5 Oct 43 P/O B.R.Jones Frankfurt 1 x 4,000 HC 1,440 x 4 inc 6 51 [space] *7/8 Oct 43 F/O J.A.Colpus Stuttgart 1 x 4,000 HC 72 x 30 990 x 4 inc 6 50 Landed at Tangmere -7- [page break] *18/19 Oct 43 P/O N.M.McClelland Hanover 1 x 4,000 HC 104 x 30 1,260 x 4 inc 5 15 This aircraft ‘S’ is only fit for a conversion unit *3/4 Nov 43 P/O N.M.McClelland Dusseldorf 1 x 4,000 HC 108 x 30 1,560 x 4 inc 4 21 [space] *10/11 Nov 43 P/O A.Fisher Modane 1 x 4,000 HC 44 x 30 840 x 4 inc 7 35 [space] 11 Nov 43 Moved with Squadron to Waddington. *18/19 Nov 43 P/O N.M.McClelland Berlin 1 x 4,000 HC 52 x 30 1,170 x 4 inc 8 21 Shot-up over Bonn. *23/24 Nov 43 P/O N.M.McClelland Berlin 1 x 4,000 HC 48 x 30 900 x 4 inc 6 31 [space] *23/24 Nov 43 P/O N.M.McClelland Berlin 1 x 4,000 HC 64 x 30 1,230 x 4 inc 6 31 [space] 26/27 Nov 43 F/O J.A.Colpus Berlin 1 x 4,000 HC 56 x 30 1,050 x 4 inc 7 46 Had collision with another Lancaster just after bombing the target. Went into severe dive to port, but by use of rudder aileron and engines, aircraft maintained height and landed at Tholthorpe. 15/16 Feb 44 P/O J.W.M.McManus Berlin 1 x 4,000 HC 6 x 30 900 x 4 ‘X’ 6 48 [space] * Sorties credited to other aircraft in the official records for which there is sufficient evidence to indicate that they were flown in R5868. -8- [page break] [list headings] [underlined] Date [/underlined] [underlined] Pilot [/underlined] [underlined] Target [/underlined] [underlined] Hrs Mins [/underlined] [list] 19/20 Feb 44 P/O J.W.M.McManus Leipzig 1 x 4,000 HC 36 x 30 1,050 x 4 150 x 4 ‘x’ 7.24 [space] 20/21 Feb 44 P/O J.W.M.McManus Stuttgart 1 47 DNCO (Did Not Complete Operation) Port Outer shaky on take-off, cut at 13,000 ft. Bomb load jettisoned. 24/25 Feb 44 P/O J.W.M.McManus Schweinfurt 1 x 4,000 HC 104 x 30 900 x 4 inc 7 32 [space] 25/26 Feb 44 P/O J.W.M.McManus Augsburg 1 x 4,000 HC 92 x 30 650 x 4 100 x 4 ‘x’ IB 7 45 [space] ½ Mar 44 P/O J.W.M.McManus Stuttgart 1 x 4,000 HC 72 x 30 800 x 4 100 x 4 ‘x’ IB 8 08 [space] 18/19 Mar 44 P/O J.W.M.McManus Frankfurt 1 x 4,000 88 x 30 1,200 x 4 inc 150 x 4 ‘x’ 5 58 [space] 22/23 Mar 44 P/O J.W.M.McManus Frankfurt 1 x 4,000 60 x 30 1,500 x 4 inc 5 12 Tail wheel tyre collapsed on landing (possibly flak damage). 24/25 Mar 44 P/O J.W.M.McManus Berlin 3 19 No attack. Port outer failure. Port inner oil leaks. Bombs jettisoned. 25/26 Mar 44 P/O R.E.Llewelyn Aulnoye 13 x 1,000 MC 5 15 Bombed with port outer engine failure – returned at 5,000 ft resulting in just making Tangmere. 11/12 Apr 44 P/O A.B.L.Tottenham Aachen 16 x 5000 MC 30 x 4 inc 4 11 [space] -9- [page break] [list headings] [underlined] Date [/underlined] [underlined] Pilot [/underlined] [underlined] Target [/underlined] [underlined] Hrs Mins [/underlined] [list] 18/19 Apr 44 P/O A.B.L.Tottenham Juvisy 14 x 1,000 M fused 6 hr delay 4 15 [space] 20/21 Apr 44 P/O A.B.L.Tottenham La Chappelle 18 x 500 MC 4 17 [space] 22/23 Apr 44 P/O A.B.L.Tottenham Brunswick 1 x 2,000 HC 12 x 500 ‘J’ clusters 5 27 [space] 24/25 Apr 44 P/O A.B.L.Tottenham Munich 6 x 500 ‘J’ inc 144 x 30 inc 9 39 Landed at Market Harborough. 26/27 Apr 44 P/O A.B.L.Tottenham Schweinfurt 1,800 x 4 inc 150 x 4 ‘x’ IB 8 58 [space]28/29 Apr 44 P/O A.B.L.Tottenham St Medard-en-Jalles 6 x 1,000 (USA) GP 5 x 500 MC 7 29 [space] 3/4 May 44 P/O T.N.Scholefield Mailly 1 x 4,000 HC 16 x 500 MC 5 33 [space] 6/7 May 44 P/O T.N.Scholefield Sables-sur-Sarthe/Louailles 13 x 1,000 GP (USA) 4 46 [space] 10/11 May 44 P/O T.N.Scholefield Lille 1 x 4,000 HC 16 x 500 MC 3 28 [space] 11/12 May 44 P/O T.N.Scholefield Bourg Leopold 3 36 Ordered NOT to bomb. Fighter attack for 9 1/2 mins by 2 Ju 88s. Successfully forestalled 9 or 10 attacks carrying full bomb load. 5/6 Jun 44 F/O I.Fotheringham St Pierre du Mont 11 x 1,000 GP (USA0 4 x 500 GP 4 12 [space] -10- [page break] [list headings] [underlined] Date [/underlined] [underlined] Pilot [/underlined] [underlined] Target [/underlined] [underlined] Hrs Mins [/underlined] [list] 6/7 Jun 44 F/O I.Fotheringham Argentan 2 x 1,000 MC 2 x 1,000 SAP (USA) 10 x 500 GP 3 59 8/9 Jun 44 F/O I.Fotheringham Rennes 12 x 500 GP 2 x 500 LD 2 x 1,000 SAP (USA) 6 11 Landed Metheringham. 12/13 Jun 44 F/Sgt Millar K.V. Poitiers 11 x 500 MC 2 x 1,000 GP (USA) 12/13 Jun 44 F/Sgt Millar K.V. Poitiers 11 x 500 MC 2 x 1,000 GP (USA) 1 x 1,000 MC 6 35 [space] 14/15 Jun 44 F/O I.Fotheringham Aunay sur Odon 11 x 1,000 MC 4 x 500 MC 4 35 Army Support. 24/25 Jun 44 F/O G.C.Skelton Prouville 14 x 500 MC 2 x 1,000 MC 3 22 ‘P’ Plane Installations. 27/28 Jun 44 F/O I.Fotheringham Vitry 9 x 1,000 GP (USA) 2 x 500 GP (USA) 2 x 500 GP LD 72 hrs 7 31 [space] 29 Jun 44 F/Sgt Johnson M.G. Beauvoir 11 x 1,000 4 x 500 3 25 Buzz-Bomb site. Daylight attack.4/5 Jul 44 F/O W.R.Williams St Leu d’Esserent 11 x 1,000 4 x 500 4 23 Buzz-Bomb site. 7/8 Jul 44 P/O M.G.Johnson St Leu d’Esserent 11 x 1,000 4 x 500 4 49 Buzz-Bomb site. 14/14 Jul 44 P/O M.G.Johnson Villeneuve St Georges 16 x 500 GP 2 x 500 GP 6 hr LD 6 44 [space] 18 Jul 44 F/Sgt Cowan I.R. Caen 11 x 1,000 SAP (USA) 4 x 500 MC 3 30 Daylight. -11- [page break] [list headings] [underlined] Date [/underlined] [underlined] Pilot [/underlined] [underlined] Target [/underlined] [underlined] Hrs Mins [/underlined] [list] 18/19 Jul 44 F/O M.G.Johnson Revigny 10 x 1,000 MC 12 hrs LD 3 x 500 12 hrs 5 07 [space] 8 Dec 44 W/C J.K.Douglas Urft Dam 14 x 1,000 4 25 Daylight attack. Landed at Ford. 17/18 Dec 44 S/L E.L.Langlais Munich 1 x 4,000 9 09 [space] 18/19 Dec 44 F/O P.K.Shanahan Gydnia 9 x 1,000 9 19 [space] 21/22 Dec 44 F/O G.A.Stewart Politz 1 x 4,000 HC 5 x 1,000 MC 10 51 Landed at Leuchars. 27 Dec 44 F/Lt M.G.Johnson Rheydt 13 x 1,000 MC 4 53 Daylight. ½ Jan 45 F/O W.K.Boxsell Gravenhorst-Mittelland Canal 13 x 1,000 MC 6 38 Landed at Lossiemouth. 13/14 Jan 45 S/L E.L.Langlais Politz 1 x 4,000 HC 9 x 500 MC 2 x 500 MC LD 10 10 [space] 14/15 Jan 45 F/O J.J.J.Cross Merseberg 1 x 4,000 HC 9 x 500 GP 9 11 Landed at East Moor. 16/17 jan 45 F/Lt F.Lawrence Brux 1 x 4,000 HC 10 x 500 MC 2 x 500 MC LD 9 43 Hit by light flak. Bomb Aimer slightly injured. 1/2 Feb 45 F/Lt F.Lawrence Siegen 1 x 4,000 HC 16 x 500 MC 6 11 [space] 2/3 Feb 45 S/L E.L.Langlais Karslruhr 1 x 4,000 HC 12 SBCs (150 x 4 inc) 7 04 [space] 16/17 Mar 45 F/Lt P.K.Shanahan Wurzburg 1 x 4,000 HC 11 SBC (150 x 4 inc) 6 40 [space] -12- [page break] [list headings] [underlined] Date [/underlined] [underlined] Pilot [/underlined] [underlined] Target [/underlined] [underlined] Hrs Mins [/underlined] [list] 20/21 Mar 45 F/O L.W.Baker Bohlen 1 x 4,000 HC 14 x 500 MC 8 19 [space] 22 Mar 45 W/C I.H.A.Hay Bremen 14 x 1,000 MC 5 19 Daylight attack. 23/24 mar 45 F/O L.W.Baker wesel 13 x 1,000 MC 5 32 [space] 27 Mar 45 F/O L.W.Baker Farge 11 x 1,000 4 35 Daylight attack. 7 small flak holes in wings. 4 Apr 45 W/C I.H.A.Hay Nordhausen 1 x 4,000 HC 16 x 500 MC 7 09 Daylight attack. 6 Apr 45 S/L W.M.Kynock Ijmuiden 14 x 1,000 MC 3 18 Daylight. No attack made. Army already there. Turned back by the Master Bomber. 9 Apr 45 W/C I.H.A.Hay Hamburg 13 x 1,000 MC 4 18 Daylight. 16/17 Apr 45 F/O R.A.Swift Pilsen 1 x 4,000 HC 13 x 500 MC 8 23 Landed at Boscombe Down. 18/19 Apr 45 F/O L.W.Baker Komotau (Czechoslovakia) 18 x 500 MC 8 08 Landed at Lyneham. 23 Apr 45 F/O L.W.Baker Flensberg 8 x 1,000 MC 6 x 500 MC 5 24 No attack made Weather u/s. Grand Total of Operational Flying = [underlined] 795 25 [/underlined] Bombs Dropped Operationally = [underlined] 466 tons approx. [/underlined] [underlined] POST-WAR HISTORY [/underlined] [list] 23 Aug 45 to 15 MU – exhibition aircraft. 16 Mar 56 Struck off charge as an exhibition aircraft and transferred to 13 MU Wroughton to the Historical Aircraft Collection (Museum). 1959 To Scampton – for display. 24 Nov 70 to 71 MU for refurbishing. 12 Mar 72 To RAF Museum, Hendon. -13- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Operational history of Lancaster 1B R5868 Description An account of the resource List of 135 operations flown by Lancaster R5868 from 8/9 June 1942 until 23 April 1945. List includes pilot, target, bomb load. hours flown and comments. Was with 83 Squadron at RAF Scampton and Wyton then 467 Squadron at RAF Bottesford and then RAF Waddington until the end of the war. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1942-06-29 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Thirteen page typewritten document Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Personal research Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context MDunmoreG635201-160526-03 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. England--Lincolnshire England--Cambridgeshire England Germany Germany--Wilhelmshaven Poland Poland--Gdańsk France Germany--Essen Germany--Duisburg Germany--Hamburg Germany--Vegesack Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate) Germany--Flensburg Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Bremen Germany--Krefeld Germany--Kiel Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea Germany--Aachen Italy Italy--Genoa Italy--Turin Germany--Munich Germany--Berlin France--Lorient Italy--Milan Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Cologne France--Saint-Nazaire Germany--Dortmund Germany--Wuppertal Germany--Bochum France--Montchanin Germany--Kassel France--Modane Germany--Leipzig Germany--Schweinfurt Germany--Augsburg France--Maubeuge Region Germany--Braunschweig France--Bourg-en-Bresse France--Saint-Médard-en-Jalles France--Mailly-le-Camp France--Sablé-sur-Sarthe France--Lille Belgium Belgium--Leopoldsburg France--Saint-Pierre-du-Mont (Landes) France--Argentan France--Rennes France--Poitiers France--Villers-Bocage (Calvados) France--Abbeville Region France--Vitry-en-Artois France--Beauvoir-sur-Mer France--Creil France--Caen Poland--Gdynia Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie) Germany--Rheydt Germany--Mittelland Canal Germany--Merseburg Germany--Siegen Germany--Karlsruhe Germany--Würzburg Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Netherlands Netherlands--IJmuiden Czech Republic Czech Republic--Pilsen Basin Czech Republic--Chomutov Germany--Düsseldorf Great Britain Germany--Münster in Westfalen Germany--Hannover Germany--Osnabrück Germany--Stuttgart France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine) Great Britain Germany--Ruhr (Region) France--Saint-Leu-d'Esserent France--Louailles Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944 1945 1943-07-24 1943-07-25 1943-07-27 1943-07-28 1943-07-29 1943-07-30 1944-04-18 1944-04-19 1944-05-03 1944-05-04 1944-07-04 1944-07-05 1944-06 1944-07 1944-08 1942-07 1942-08 1942-09 1942-10 1942-11 1942-12 1944-02 1944-03 1944-04 1944-05 1944-12 1945-01 1945-02 1945-03 1945-04 1944-06-05 1944-06-06 1944-06-14 1944-06-15 1944-06-24 1944-06-25 1944-07-18 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Robin Christian 467 Squadron 83 Squadron bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943) bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944) bombing of the Creil/St Leu d’Esserent V-1 storage areas (4/5 July 1944) bombing of the Juvisy, Noisy-le-Sec and Le Bourget railways (18/19 April 1944) bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944) bombing of the Pas de Calais V-1 sites (24/25 June 1944) Lancaster mine laying Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Pathfinders RAF Bottesford RAF Scampton RAF Waddington RAF Wyton tactical support for Normandy troops target indicator V-1 V-weapon https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/408/7332/SChattertonJ159568v10266.jpg e0d3c23b688d5d4480299ab1b32884df Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Chatterton, John. 44 Squadron operations order book Description An account of the resource Collection consists of 521 items which are mostly Operations orders, aircraft load and weight tables and bomb aimers briefings for 44 Squadron operations between January 1944 and April 1945. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by M J Chatterton and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. This collection also contains items concerning Dewhurst Graaf and his crew, and Donald Neil McKechnie and his crew. Additional information on <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/109020/">Dewhurst Graaf</a> and <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/115642/">Donald Neil McKechnie</a> is available via the IBCC Losses Database. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-03-14 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Chatterton, J Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document [indecipherable] Part of Bomb Aimers Briefing Proforma [/indecipherable] Includes aiming instructions (crossed through), bombing details warning 'P.O.W. Camps, A) Norningen - 3 ml N.W. of Δ, B) Niedersachswerfen - 4 1/2 ml north of Δ'. Followed by camera settings and more target marking detail (crossed through). Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Part of bomb aimers briefing Description An account of the resource Includes aiming instructions (crossed through), bombing details warning 'P.O.W. Camps, A) Norningen - 3 ml N.W. of Δ, B) Niedersachswerfen - 4 1/2 ml north of Δ'. Followed by camera settings and more target marking detail (crossed through). Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One page form document partially filled in Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Service material Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SChattertonJ159568v10266 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource David Bloomfield aircrew bomb aimer bombing briefing prisoner of war target indicator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/467/20275/LBantingP1399810v1.pdf f5a5a755a7d32eb0bb82a7c58f575f42 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Banting, Peter P Banting Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Banting, P Description An account of the resource Three items. An oral history interview with Peter Banting (b. 1923, 1399810 Royal Air Force) his log book and a a piece of material containing signatures. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 75 and 7 Squadrons. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-03-15 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Peter Banting’s Royal Canadian Air Force flying log book for aircrew other than pilot Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mike Connock Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LBantingP1399810v1 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Canada France Germany Great Britain Netherlands Alberta--Edmonton Alberta--Lethbridge Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea Atlantic Ocean--North Sea England--Buckinghamshire England--Cambridgeshire England--Norfolk England--Suffolk England--Wolverhampton France--Aisne Germany--Bremen Germany--Cologne Germany--Dessau (Dessau) Germany--Dortmund Germany--Duisburg Germany--Essen Germany--Gelsenkirchen Germany--Hamburg Germany--Kamen Germany--Kiel Germany--Krefeld Germany--Lübeck Germany--Mönchengladbach Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Plauen Germany--Potsdam Germany--Salzbergen Germany--Wanne-Eickel Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Wiesbaden Netherlands--Rotterdam Alberta Germany--Ruhr (Region) England--Staffordshire Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944 1945 1946 1945-01-22 1945-01-28 1945-01-29 1945-02-01 1945-02-02 1945-02-03 1945-02-18 1945-02-20 1945-02-21 1945-02-23 1945-02-25 1945-02-27 1945-03-01 1945-03-04 1945-03-06 1945-03-07 1945-03-08 1945-03-10 1945-03-11 1945-04-03 1945-04-04 1945-04-08 1945-04-09 1945-04-10 1945-04-13 1945-04-14 1945-04-15 1945-04-22 1945-05-04 1945-05-09 1945-05-23 Description An account of the resource Royal Canadian Air Force flying log book for aircrew other than pilot for Peter Banting, bomb aimer, covering the period from 5 October 1943 to 11 July 1946. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and post war flying. He was stationed at RCAF Lethbridge, RCAF Edmonton, RAF Halfpenny Green, RAF Oakley, RAF Westcott, RAF Chedburgh, RAF Feltwell, RAF Mepal, RAF Warboys and RAF Oakington. Aircraft flown in were, Anson, Bolingbroke, Wellington, Stirling, Lancaster and Oxford. He flew a total of 25 Operations, 12 Daylight and 5 night operations with 75 Squadron and 2 Daylight and 6 night operations with 7 Squadron Pathfinders. Targets were Duisberg, Cologne, Krefeld, Mönchengladbach, Wiesbaden, Dortmund, Wesel, Gelsenkirchen, Kamen, Wanne Eickel, Salzbergen, Dessau, Essen, Nordhausen, Hamburg, Kiel, Plauen, Potsdam and Bremen. His pilots on operations were Wing Commander Baigent and Flying Officer Rothwell. He also flew Operation Manna to Rotterdam, and Operation Exodus to Lubeck and Juvincourt. Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 11 OTU 1653 HCU 7 Squadron 75 Squadron Advanced Flying Unit Air Observers School aircrew Anson Bolingbroke bomb aimer bombing Bombing and Gunnery School Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Operation Exodus (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) Operational Training Unit Oxford Pathfinders RAF Chedburgh RAF Feltwell RAF Halfpenny Green RAF Mepal RAF Oakington RAF Oakley RAF Warboys RAF Westcott Stirling training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/966/18585/LJacksonCP1815926v1.pdf 8d3c3e8000b1b36ac3388759f3489b80 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Jackson, Philip Charles Philip Jackson C P Jackson Description An account of the resource Six items concerning Philip Jackson (1924, 1815926 Royal Air Force), including his log book and photographs. He served as a flight engineer with 166 Squadron. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-10-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Jackson, CP Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Philip Jackson's flying log book for flight engineer Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LJacksonCP1815926v1 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mike Connock Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain England--Lincolnshire Germany--Aschaffenburg Germany--Birkenfeld (Landkreis) Germany--Bremen Germany--Chemnitz Germany--Cologne Germany--Dessau (Dessau) Germany--Dortmund Germany--Düren (Cologne) Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Essen Germany--Halle an der Saale Region Germany--Hamburg Germany--Hanau Germany--Karlsruhe Germany--Kassel Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein Germany--Mannheim Germany--Merseburg Germany--Mönchengladbach Germany--Munich Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Pforzheim Germany--Stuttgart Germany--Ulm Germany--Wanne-Eickel Germany--Wiesbaden Wales--Vale of Glamorgan Germany--Freiburg im Breisgau Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Urft Dam Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1944 1945 1944-10-30 1944-10-31 1944-11-02 1944-11-11 1944-11-16 1944-11-18 1944-11-21 1944-11-27 1944-11-28 1944-11-29 1944-12-03 1944-12-04 1944-12-05 1944-12-06 1944-12-12 1944-12-17 1944-12-18 1944-12-28 1945-01-02 1945-01-07 1945-01-08 1945-01-22 1945-01-28 1945-01-29 1945-02-01 1945-02-02 1945-02-03 1945-02-14 1945-02-15 1945-02-20 1945-02-21 1945-02-23 1945-02-24 1945-02-28 1945-03-01 1945-03-02 1945-03-05 1945-03-06 1945-03-07 1945-03-08 1945-03-11 1945-03-12 1945-03-16 1945-03-17 1945-03-19 1945-03-21 1945-03-31 1945-04-03 1945-04-04 1945-04-05 1945-08-02 Description An account of the resource Flying log book for flight engineer for C P Jackson, covering the period from 13 August 1944 to 17 October 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF St Athan, RAF Blyton, RAF Hemswell and RAF Kirmington. Aircraft flown in were Halifax and Lancaster. He flew a total of 35 operations with 166 squadron 10 daylight and 25 night. Targets were Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Duren, Wanne-Eickel, Aschaffenburg, Freiburg, Heimbach, Karlsruhe, Merseburg, Essen, Ulm, Mönchengladbach, Nuremberg, Munich, Stuttgart, Ludwigshafen, Wiesbaden, Chemnitz, Pforzheim, Mannheim, Dessau, Kassel, Hanau, Bremen, Hamburg, Nordhausen and Lützkendorf. His pilot on operations was Flying Officer Bonsall. This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available. Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 166 Squadron 1662 HCU aircrew bombing Cook’s tour flight engineer Halifax Halifax Mk 2 Halifax Mk 5 Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Lancaster Mk 1 Lancaster Mk 3 master bomber RAF Blyton RAF Hemswell RAF Kirmington RAF St Athan training https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1679/29074/LOrtonR2217450v1.pdf 5141585d9348cc89e1fec12e4751eec5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Orton, Robert R Orton Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-03-17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Orton, R Description An account of the resource Eighteen items. The collection concerns Robert Orton (b. 1925, 2217450 Royal Air Force) who served as a rear gunner on 150 Squadron at RAF Hemswell and contains his log book, photographs of his crew and a medal ribbon. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by JR Orton and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert Orton’s flying log book for navigator’s, air bomber’s, air gunners, flight engineers Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LOrtonR2217450v1 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Review Oct 2024 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Description An account of the resource Flying log book for navigator’s, air bomber’s, air gunners, flight engineers for R Orton, air gunner, covering the period from 27 May 1944 to 7 October 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Stormey Down, RAF Finningley, RAF Worksop, RAF Lindholme, RAF Ingham, RAF Hemswell, RAF Bruntingthorpe, RAF Catterick, RAF Newmarket, and RAF Kirkham. Aircraft flown in were Anson, Wellington, Halifax, and Lancaster. He flew a total of 24 operations with 150 Squadron, 8 daylight and 16 night, plus 5 Operation Manna and one Operation Dodge. Targets were Nurnberg, Hannover, Merseburg, Zeitz, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Wiesbaden, Kleve, Duisburg, Pforzheim, Neuss, Chemnitz, Kassel, Essen, Dortmund, Misburg, Nordhausen, Kiel, Plauen, Heligoland, Bremen, Walkenberg (Valkenburg), The Hague, Rotterdam and Pomigliano. His pilot on operations were Flight Lieutenant Harswicke and Squadron Leader Morhen. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mike Connock Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain Italy Netherlands Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea Atlantic Ocean--North Sea Germany--Hannover England--Cambridgeshire England--Lancashire England--Leicestershire England--Lincolnshire England--Nottinghamshire England--Yorkshire Germany--Bremen Germany--Chemnitz Germany--Dortmund Germany--Duisburg Germany--Essen Germany--Hannover Germany--Helgoland Germany--Kassel Germany--Kiel Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Mannheim Germany--Merseburg Germany--Neuss Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Pforzheim Germany--Plauen Germany--Stuttgart Germany--Wiesbaden Germany--Zeitz Italy--Pomigliano d'Arco Netherlands--Hague Netherlands--Rotterdam Netherlands--Valkenburg (South Holland) Wales--Bridgend Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Ruhr (Region) Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1944 1945 1945-01-02 1945-01-05 1945-01-14 1945-01-16 1945-01-17 1945-01-28 1945-01-29 1945-02-01 1945-02-02 1945-02-07 1945-02-21 1945-02-22 1945-02-23 1945-02-28 1945-03-01 1945-03-05 1945-03-06 1945-03-08 1945-03-09 1945-03-11 1945-03-12 1945-03-15 1945-03-16 1945-03-17 1945-04-03 1945-04-09 1945-04-10 1945-04-11 1945-04-18 1945-04-22 1945-04-29 1945-05-01 1945-05-02 1945-05-03 1945-05-31 150 Squadron 1656 HCU 18 OTU air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson bombing bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945) Cook’s tour Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit Initial Training Wing Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Operation Dodge (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) Operational Training Unit RAF Bridgnorth RAF Bruntingthorpe RAF Catterick RAF Finningley RAF Hemswell RAF Ingham RAF Kirkham RAF Lindholme RAF Newmarket RAF Padgate RAF Stormy Down RAF Worksop training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1389/31249/LDixonW2206823v1.pdf 708eeff6860c5633fc1d6aab98548bb0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Connock, Mike Michael Connock M Connock Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-02-24 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Connock, M Description An account of the resource Eight items. The collection concerns (Royal Air Force) and contains people who served with 50 and 61 Squadrons at RAF Skellingthorpe. They include: W Dixon GR Williamson BV Robinson GA Walker L Barber HJ Whitwell The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Mike Connock and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sergeant W. Dixon’s RAF Navigator’s, Air Bomber’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LDixonW2206823v1 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Belgium Germany Great Britain Netherlands Norway Poland Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea Atlantic Ocean--North Sea Belgium--Houffalize England--Buckinghamshire England--Lincolnshire England--Northamptonshire England--Nottinghamshire England--Wiltshire Germany--Altenburg (Thuringia) Germany--Braunschweig Germany--Bremen Germany--Dortmund Germany--Dresden Germany--Düren (Cologne) Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Merseburg Germany--Mittelland Canal Germany--Munich Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Rheydt Germany--Saxony Germany--Saxony-Anhalt Germany--Siegen Germany--Steinfurt (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Würzburg Netherlands--Vlissingen Northern Ireland--Down (County) Norway--Trondheim Poland--Gdynia Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie) Scotland--Ross and Cromarty Great Britain Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Borna (Leipzig) Germany--Ladbergen Alps Germany--Hörstel Germany--Böhlen Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944 1945 1944-10-06 1944-10-07 1944-10-11 1944-10-14 1944-10-15 1944-10-19 1944-10-20 1944-11-02 1944-11-03 1944-11-04 1944-11-05 1944-11-06 1944-11-07 1944-11-16 1944-11-21 1944-11-22 1944-11-23 1944-11-24 1944-12-17 1944-12-18 1944-12-19 1944-12-27 1944-12-31 1945-01-01 1945-01-02 1945-01-07 1945-01-08 1945-01-13 1945-01-14 1945-01-15 1945-02-01 1945-02-02 1945-02-07 1945-02-08 1945-02-09 1945-02-13 1945-02-14 1945-02-15 1945-02-19 1945-02-20 1945-02-21 1945-02-22 1945-03-06 1945-03-07 1945-03-12 1945-03-14 1945-03-15 1945-03-16 1945-03-17 1945-04-04 1945-04-07 1945-04-08 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource David Leitch Description An account of the resource Sergeant W. Dixon’s RAF Navigator’s, Air Bomber’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book, from 23rd September 1943 to 4th April 1945, detailing his training and operations as a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner. He was stationed at RAF Yatesbury (No. 2 Radio School), RAF Evanton (8 Air Gunnery School), RAF Bishopscourt (7(O) AFU), RAF Turweston, RAF Silverstone, (17 OTU), RAF Wigsley (1654 HCU), RAF Syerston (5 LFS) and RAF Skellingthorpe (61 Squadron). Aircraft in which flown: Dominie, Proctor, Anson, Wellington, Stirling and Lancaster. He flew a total of 32 operations (6 day, 26 night). Targets in Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Norway and Poland were: Bohlen, Bremen, Brunswick, Dortmund, Dresden, Duren, Düsseldorf, Flushing, Gdynia, Gravenhorst, Houffalize, Ladbergen, Lützkendorf, Merseburg, Molbis, Munich, Nordhausen, Nurnberg, Politz, Rheydt, Rositz, Siegen, Trondheim and Würzburg. His pilots on operations were Flight Lieutenant Burns, Flying Officer MacFarlane and Flying Officer Lambert. Includes numerous comments on operations, including “COULDN’T CLIMB OVER ALPS OPENED BOMB DOORS & TOBBOGANED (sic) OVER” and “ATTACKED BY 5 JU88’S 2 SHOT DOWN”. Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 1654 HCU 17 OTU 61 Squadron Advanced Flying Unit air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945) Dominie Heavy Conversion Unit Ju 88 Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Operational Training Unit Proctor RAF Banff RAF Bishops Court RAF Carnaby RAF Evanton RAF Gransden Lodge RAF Middleton St George RAF Netheravon RAF Silverstone RAF Skellingthorpe RAF Stradishall RAF Syerston RAF Turweston RAF Wigsley RAF Yatesbury Stirling training Wellington wireless operator / air gunner https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/641/32464/BSmithJSmithJv1-2.pdf fa99ddac1408d0948f187f5b15dccf96 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Smith, Jack John George Smith J G Smith Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Smith, JG Description An account of the resource Three items. An oral history interview with John 'Jack' Smith (1921 -2019) and his memoirs. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 189 Squadron. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by John Smith and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-04-08 Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document Sparks in the Air These are the wartime recollections of Pinchbeck resident John George Smith known to his friends as Jack. Jack was born in 1921, the son of George and Bessie Smith. George was the keeper of a smallholding, raising Poultry and assisting a local farmer. [photograph of Jack] As a young teenager growing up in 1930’s England, through the newspapers of the day, Jack was aware of events taking place in Germany and of Britain’s own Fascist problems directed by Oswald Mosley. Although still only a teenager, Jack approached the time he would leave school realising that another war in Europe was inevitable. Jack left Donington Grammar School in1937 his parents and relatives asking the question “What are you going to do?” Jack had an ambition to become a Chartered Accountant however this required any potential candidate to pay an indenture however the cost was prohibitive and Jack decided to try and join the RAF instead. Ironically jack encountered the same obstacles as his Father who had been unable to join up to serve his country during the First World War because of the poor state of his teeth. At the age of 17, Jack had 22 teeth removed! Having seen an advert in the Spalding Free Press for “Well educated youth required by Chartered Accountants, Hodgson, Harris & Co”, a national company who had a small office in Spalding over Gibbs shoe shop, Jack applied and got his first job. There was no payment to the company however it only had a low wage of ten shillings a week. There were no girls in the office and as a consequence Jack had to learn shorthand typing to a standard of 100 words/minute, this alongside learning accountancy. [bold] This is Jacks[sic] account of his wartime memories. [/bold] When war broke out on 3rd September 1939 recruiting for the forces had started at 20 years plus however I was only 18 at the time. Accountancy was not a reserved occupation and in the August of 1940 I and my colleague Bill Taylor who was the same age as me and worked in the same office both decided to volunteer for the RAF as we didn’t fancy the Army or the Navy. In September 1940 we were called to the RAF station at Padgate near Warrington to be attested and undergo a medical. Bill and I undertook intelligence tests but we both knew that we wanted to be Wireless Operators. [page break] Although the war was now into its second year, there had been as yet no air raids in South Lincolnshire. Whilst at Padgate we suffered ten air raid warnings but fortunately no damage was inflicted on the airfield. It was my first experience of an air raid. This took place over the 13th, 14th and 15th of September and later became known as the Battle of Britain weekend when British fighters shot down 185 German planes. After my three days at Padgate I returned home to Lincolnshire and on the 4th November 1940 I and my friend Bill Taylor were required to travel to Blackpool. We left from Donington and travelled by train via Manchester arriving at Blackpool in the late afternoon. We were directed to Offices in the centre of Blackpool where we were officially enrolled in the Royal Air Force. Bill and I were then separated and I was lodged at a boarding house at 30 Reads Avenue Blackpool where another 15 RAF personnel were also residing. I was accommodated in the attic where there was a single fanlight, two beds and a wash basin. The next morning we assembled on the promenade near to the Hotel Metropole. Grouped into Units of approximately thirty, we were placed in the charge of an Acting Corporal. We commenced drill training and were marched around Blackpool for exercise stopping around mid morning at a Café for coffee and buns! As we were potential Wireless Operators we were required to attend the Winter Gardens daily where we were given instruction in radio technicalities and morse training. Due to double Summertime being in operation, it was exceptionally dark when we set out for the day at 8am. I was given the role of marker to the squad and marched at the front carrying a lantern. There was no heating in the Winter Gardens where we sat throughout the day in our greatcoats breaking only for refreshments before finishing training at around 4 to 4.30 pm. The food at the boarding house was acceptable being plain in nature but sufficient. In the evenings we were free to enjoy the night life of Blackpool but we had to be back by 10.30pm. After I had been there for several weeks, I joined a harmonica band consisting of around ten or twelve members and we performed at concerts held in various village halls in the area. The highlight was being able to perform at the Opera House on the same bill as George Formby. After three weeks I moved to 45 Ashburton Road along with three other RAF personnel. It was a much more homely atmosphere there, living and eating with an elderly couple who owned the property. After another three or four weeks I moved further down Ashburton Road but only stayed for a couple of nights as it was overcrowded with five to a room. I then moved to 4 Bank Street off the promenade near to the Hotel Metropole and where I had to parade each morning. This was a private hotel and very comfortable as I shared a room with only one other member of the RAF. it was extremely convenient for excursions into town in the evenings and I was happy to remain there until it was time to move on from Blackpool. [page break] Radio training continued everyday and we were tested each week at the premises of Burtons the Tailors. We were required to increase morse speed by one word per minute each week until a speed of twelve words per minute had been achieved at which point the course in Blackpool was concluded. [RAF Radio School crest] We were then posted to radio schools on normal RAF stations. I was posted to No. 3 radio School at RAF Compton Bassett in Wiltshire which was for ground operators. There was another radio school nearby to Compton Bassett, No. 4 at Yatesbury which was for aircrew operators. I enjoyed life here for the first time on a proper RAF station. My day started at 6:30 am with PT on the parade ground square before starting work at 8:00 am. I was at Compton Bassett from the end of March 1941 to the end of June which was when I qualified as a ground wireless operator and was allowed to wear ‘sparks’ on my right arm. Having successfully completed training I was allowed home for two weeks leave. This was my first leave since travelling to Blackpool the previous November. I thoroughly enjoyed the break and whilst there I received a posting to the RAF station at Bramcote near Nuneaton. This was a regular peacetime station however at this time it was mainly occupied by members of the Polish Air Force. This was my first experience of an operational signals cabin and for the first time working for real with a radio set. After several weeks at Bramcote, at the end of July, I was notified I was going on embarkation leave. After three weeks leave I had to make my way to the RAF station at West Kirby in the Wirral Peninsula. On arrival here, I found that several of my fellow colleagues who had been at radio school were also awaiting the same posting. We were all accommodated in tents. [photograph] POLISH Aircrew RAF - Fairey Battle Mk 1 sun L5427 BH*E of 300 (Polish) Bomb Squadron “Mazoviecka Province” - RAF Bramcote August 1940 - [page break] After several days we were moved by RAF transport into Liverpool for embarkation. The docks were very busy with movement of troops. We marched in units towards the vessel we were to leave England on. This vessel was the Orient Liner SS OTRANTO. Otranto was a 20,000grt passenger vessel that had been modified as a troop carrier. Some 500 RAF personnel embarked along with 3000 men of the Yorkshire Regiment. The decks of the ship went from A to H. RAF personnel were accommodated on E deck which was the last level with portholes. [photograph] There were eighteen on each mess table, we slept in hammocks and the toilets were primitive. Ten toilets without doors so there was no privacy. We knew nothing of our destination as security was so tight. On each mess table, two of the men were nominated as mess orderlies and had to bring the food from the galley. I was lumbered with one of these jobs! After being on board for 24 hours, we departed Liverpool. For me this was quite an experience having never been on a Liner before. It was quite a bright day on 31st August 1941 and our course followed the coast of Northern Ireland. We all started to take a guess at our destination and some of us thought we may be off to Canada to start our Air Crew training. For a day or so we headed due what until we were well clear of the Irish coast and out into the Atlantic. We were under escort of a number of Royal Navy vessels including two Battle Ships, the ill fated HMS REPULSE and HMS PRINCE OF WALES. [photograph] Repulse [photograph] Prince of Wales [page break] There was very little to do onboard and very little reading material available. The only book that seemed to be in circulation was ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’. After some time a number of personnel got sick and went off their food. It reached a point that on my table only myself and one other Mess Orderly were eating. A number of the party were literally very green and extremely poorly. The vessel eventually altered to a southerly course from its westward heading, still under escort, many of us spent a lot of time just sleeping and looking over the side watching the waves. Some spent their time writing letters intending to drop them off at the first port of call. All letters were censored prior to posting and in fact one of my associates was identified by the OIC as having referred to the Commanding Officer as bring “nothing more than a broken down commercial traveller”. As a result he was brough before the CO and given 7 days confinement to barracks which in this case was a cell in the depths of the ship on deck ‘H’. Several days later the vessel changed to an easterly direction giving rise to further speculation as to our destination. Eventually we made landfall on the west coast of Africa, berthing at Freetown where we stayed for a week. This was a very boring seven days as we were not allowed shore leave. We amused ourselves by watching the local boys jumping into the harbour to retrieve coins that were being thrown into the water by army personnel. The temperature was extremely hot and the humidity was high. At the end of the week we left Freetown and the vessel headed in a southerly direction. We now assumed our destination to be South Africa. As we were now in a consistently hot climate, some of us erected our hammocks on deck where it was much cooler to sleep. The next sighting of land was that of “Table Mountain” on the Cape however to our surprise we did not call at Capetown but carried on further along the South African coast eventually calling at Durban. We stayed here for a week and during that time were allowed shore leave daily. We were kindly entertained by South Africans who took us to restaurants and hotels for meals and tours in the neighbouring countryside. The weather was perfect and this was a really enjoyable and welcome break. We were extremely surprised that none of us were staying on in South Africa. We Aircrew thought that we may have been going on to Southern Rhodesia to continue air training – no such luck ,,,,,! At the end of this week we once again set sail along with our escort of Battleships heading east into the Indian Ocean. We sailed for several days before Repulse and Prince of Wales left us. No one could have imagined that only a few months later both these mighty ships had been sent to the bottom of the South China sea sunk by land based bombers and torpedo bombers of the Imperial Japanese Navy on 10th December 1941. In Japan the engagement was referred to as the Naval Battle of Malaya (Mare-oki Kaisen). We were more fortunate with our destination as the Otranto finally docked in Bombay (Mumbai) India. Once again we were alongside for a week and were entertained on pleasure trips. I found Bombay to be a very exciting and busy place. At the end of this week, we Aircrew were taken off the SS Otranto and transferred to a much smaller vessel, the SS KHEDIVE ISMAIL complete with its Lascar crew. Of 7513 grt, formerly the SS ACONCAGUA, built in 1922 as an Ocean Liner and converted to a troop ship in 1940. [page break] We eventually left Bombay heading West and once clear of India we were advised that we were going to Basrah in Iraq. This revelation was our first indication as to our final destination. There was very little comfort onboard and hammocks were again the order of the day. The Lascar crew were very helpful and attentive and at night whilst in our hammocks they would come around with a bucket of tea or chai as they called it. This was very refreshing especially with the temperature as high as it was. Although the food onboard was quite acceptable, the toilet arrangements were primitive, consisting of a trough the width of the vessel with wood seats where you sat side by side with your fellow airmen – Absolutely no privacy whatsoever …..! We were off into the Arabian Sea without any sight of land until we entered the Straits of Hormuz, being the entrance to the Persian Gulf. We now had no escorts and sailed on alone through the tranquil waters of the Persian Gulf in very high temperatures and daily sunshine. [photograph of SS Khedive Ismail] Land eventually came into sight as we approached the Northern end of the Gulf and we eventually arrived at the Port of Basrah which was a very busy port. After disembarking, we were directed to a very large cargo shed on the dockside where we were to stay for the next few days. We only had beds made from boards and raised off the floor on four empty biscuit tins. The luxury was completed with one blanket and a small pillow. The temperature at this point was most uncomfortable. Whilst awaiting a posting, we were able to go into Barrah itself and sample the local life. The authorities were slightly puzzled as there were some fifty of us qualified Wireless Operators and they were not at all sure what to do with us. This took some time to sort out. Eventually a few of us were posted to Shuaiba which is now the second largest port in the State of Kuwait. At that time it was a camp about ten miles out of Basrah which had been a peacetime RAF camp. The accommodation at Shuaiba was of brick constructed buildings having been built partly below ground to try and reduce the heat as during the height of the season temperatures exceeded 40 deg’s. I spent quite some time carrying out general duties until one morning an order for volunteers for anybody who could type was requested. By this time I was rather tired of filling sand bags and doing guard duty. As I could type and do shorthand, I decided I would risk it and volunteered. I immediately became the Squadron typist and carried out all the office work and correspondence for the C.O. After a week or so the Squadron was posted to Sharjah a British Protectorate which is now a part of the United Arab Emirates. The squadron consisted of 18 Blenheim aircraft all of which were ex OUT and were not terribly serviceable. [page break] The Blenheims were required for anto[sic] submarine patrols up and down the Persian Gulf and out into the Indian Ocean. We were moved to Sharjah by boat and disembarked by dhow into the then village of Dubai. We continued by road transport to Sharjah where we were billeted in huts which had the luxury of fans. On the edge of the airport was a stone built structure known as the ‘Fort’. This was well equipped as it was used by BOAC crew for overnight stops. Because of the very high temperatures, the Mechanics could only work on the aircraft until 10am and then cease until 6pm. It was so hot an egg could be fried on the wings of aircraft. Water was in short supply and the only bathing was done in the sea which was about half a mile away. We only had a small supply of fresh water for shaving and tea was rationed. Food was very repetative with many combinations of risoles you have never seen the like of. Once every fortnight we were allowed American beer which equated to about four half pint cans which were consumed in one night. We used to leave the empty cans outside our billets and by morning they would have been removed by the locals. If you then happened to go into the village of Dubai, these cans could be seen on sale as mugs, having had handles attached. Although I was trained wireless operator, I was still being misemployed as Squadron Typist which mean that I could not be reclassified and so remained an AC2. However, I eventually took the AC1 examination and was upgraded. Like all the other Wireless Operators out there, we all wanted to get back to complete our Air Crew training. The Adjutant suggested I re muster as a Radio Observer which meant I could go to Southern Rhodesia for training or alternatively consider obtaining a commission as a Filter Officer. Whilst at Sharjah I suffered quite badly from ‘prickly heat’ which developed into blisters requiring my admission to the base sick bay. I also had heat exhaustion around the time of my 21st birthday, running a temperature of 106 degs. I was taken to the Fort at the edge of the camp which had air conditioned rooms. My skin problems got progressively worse and I had to have by head completely shaved. I received treatment with bread poultices on my arms and legs which became septic. [photograph of an aeroplane] Eventually I was taken by air to the RAF Hospital at Shuaibah and spent 2-3 weeks there recovering in the dermatology ward. At the end of my hospitalisation, I was posted to Tehran in Iran on sick leave. I travelled by road transport through the town of Ahwaz in Iran and then by train to Tehran. This journey took 24 hours. The train was completely full with people sleeping not just on the seats but also on the luggage racks and corridors. [page break] When the train stopped in the early morning there were many locals selling eggs and bread on the platform which was very welcome. On reaching Tehran we were taken to a rest home on the edge of the city. It had pleasant facilities. We used to go into Tehran in groups of 3 or 4 personnel. Towards the end of the two weeks, I developed tonsillitis which resulted in my being taken to the Sick Bay at the RAF Station at Tehran where I remained for a further ten days. The MO allowed me to remain in Tehran until I felt well enough to travel to Basrah but after about a week, I became quite lonely as all my colleagues had by then left. After arriving back in Basrah I was then posted to Habbaniya, a real peacetime RAF station about fifty five miles West of Baghdad. I was extremely pleased to receive this posting as the climate at Sharjah did not suit me at all. Habbaniya was quite a large base, all brick buildings including two cinemas and a range of shops where you could buy clothing etc. Surprisingly even the food in the Airmans[sic] mess was exceptionally good! There were also facilities for sporting activities including tennis courts. We had local youths acting as what we called “cheekos” who did our laundry and kept the village clean. There were 16 men in each billet and we all paid the equivalent of two shillings per week for this domestic assistance. It was always done promptly and efficiently. Each billet had fans as temperatures were around thirty to forty degrees. I was employed as a Ground operator in a Signals Cabin on a shift system, working stations in the UK and India. I found this to be very enjoyable work. [bold] NOTES ON RAF HABBANIYA, IRAQ [/bold] There were numerous billets, messes and a wide range of leisure facilities including swimming pools, cinemas and theatres, sports pitches, tennis courts and riding stables. It was self-contained with its own power station, water purification plant and sewage farm. Within the base was the Civil Cantonment for the civilian workers and their families and the families of the RAF Iraq Levies. Water taken from the Euphrates for the irrigation systems enabled green lawns, flower beds and even ornamental Botanical Gardens. After World War II the families of British personnel started living at Habbaniya and a school was started. The base at Habbaniya was used by the RAF from October 1936 to the end of May 1959, Not quite a year following the July 1958 revolution. In recent years Habbiniya was used for the manufacture of mustard gas which was used against Iranian troops during the Iran Iraq war. [map of the area] [page break] [centred] The Journey Home (Habininyah to the UK) [/centred] On a February morning in 1943, I was sleeping in the billet after having been on a night shift when I was awoken by some excited discussion. This was caused by a sergeant from the Orderly room reading out a list of names of Operators being posted back to the UK to resume Aircrew training and my name was on the list! It was then necessary to get clearance from the OIC of Signals – so off we went! However the Officer said that as we were all experienced Ground Operators, we could not leave until replacements arrived and this took five months until July. There were six of us with our kit bags that were put on to an open lorry to start our return journey to England. We travelled due west over the Iraqi desert. The temperature was around 40 degs C and after about four hours we stopped for refreshment and toilet relief. The stop took place at a point on the “Oil Line” known as H3. We carried on, passing through the small town of Al Rutbah which was the only sign of any habitation that we had thus far seen. Before darkness we stopped for the night somewhere near to the Syrian/Jordanian border, having to make ourselves as comfortable as possible on our kitbags. The next morning we resumed our journey travelling just north of the Dead Sea until we arrived in a small coastal town in Gaza just South of Tel Aviv. We were in a small transit camp with brick billets, completely unfurnished. We had to sleep on a blanket on a stone floor and in the morning we all had a large number of insect bites! After spending a couple of days on a Mediterranean beach we embarked on a train for Cairo. It was a pleasant journey as it followed the coast and at each station there were vendors of eggs and bread. On arrival in Cairo we were taken by truck to the RAF base at Almaza, a few miles out of town. On this occasion we were accommodated in small (2 person) tents whilst we awaited the Liner which would return us to the UK. After ten days in Almaza, we Wireless Operators were taken to Alexandria where we boarded a large Liner. Unfortunately I never knew its name however it apparently was the first ship to go through the Mediterranean since it was closed at the beginning of the war. We docked in Algiers for two days and the day after we sailed away, the Luftwaffe attacked Algiers. Our next stop was Gibralter where every night depth charges were set off at intervals as a deterrent to U-Boats. However during our five night stay there was no air raid. The last leg of the journey was north into the Atlantic and around Ireland into the River Clyde. This was uneventful but as we sailed into Greenock it was wonderful to once again see all the green vegetation. Something that I had missed in the two years I had been away. It was now the end of August, exactly two years since I had left. There was also good news – Italy had surrendered. I was also very happy now to send a phone message to my folks via their neighbours to let them know that I was back in the UK. I travelled by train to RAF West Kirby on the Wirral to leave my tropical kit and get a three week leave pass. The next day I had arrived home to a very happy reunion with Mother and Dad. I spent the next three weeks meeting relatives and friends recounting my travels. [page break] After three weeks disembarkation leave, I was posted to Number 4 Radio School at Madley near Hereford. This was where I was to resume Air Crew training as a Wireless Operator, flying Dominis and Proctors. [photograph] The [bold] Percival Proctor [/bold] was a British radio trainer and communications aircraft of the Second World War. The Proctor was a single-engined, low-wing monoplane with seating for three or four, depending on the model. [photograph] At the start of the Second World War, many (Dragon) Rapides were impressed by the British armed forces and served under the name [bold] de Havilland Dominie [/bold]. They were used for passenger and communications duties. Over 500 further examples were built specifically for military purposes, powered by improved Gipsey[sic] Queen Engines, to bring total production to 731. The Dominies were mainly used by the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy for radio and navigation training. This was my first experience of flying and operating as a Wireless Operator and here we were flying most days for about one and a half hours carrying out various operation exercises on the radio. RAF Madley was also a peacetime Station and the accommodation was quite good and included bunks for two members each in huts containing about sixteen personnel. Whilst I was here, I was with a number of the men that I had served with in Iraq so I was quite happy with the friends that I already knew. We used to go into the local village in the evenings, frequenting the local hostelries where I had an enjoyable time making up the[sic] for the two years I had spent overseas! The course finished at the end of December 1943 and this is when I passed out and was promoted to Sergeant. At the same time I was also presented with my previ, the letter ‘S’ for Signals in the centre. Previously Wireless Operators had been Air Gunners as well but that had by then been discontinued and a Wireless Operator was purely a Wireless Operator and not required to do a Gunnery course. Having qualified, I was kept on for a few more weeks assisting with the training of other personnel. At the end of April 1944 I was posted along with some of the other Wireless operators to No 9 Advanced Flying Unit at Llandwrog in North Wales which is close to the town of Pwihelli and also close to Caenarfon. The drome here was along the coastline and planes taking off the runway immediately across the Irish sea. [page break] At Llandwrog we were training in Anson aircraft doing cross country exercises, out across the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man, back to the Lancashire coast and returning to base in Wales. This was during the month of May 1944 and continued into June until the course was completed on 12th June 1944. By this time, I’d had 43 hours of lectures and about 37 hours of flying time. This had been quite good experience as we had been night flying on a number of occasions and experienced flying in terrific thunderstorms. The whole aircraft having been completely encircled in a blue light including the wings! This was quite an unnerving experience. [photograph] On two occasions whilst stationed at Llandwrog, two of the training aircraft taking off failed to raise into the air and ditched in the sea. Each about 200 -300 metres from the shore. Fortunately the crews survived. During my time there I was kept pretty busy however I did get into the local pub occasionally. There was a bit of a problem in that the pubs closed at 9 o’clock in the evening so you were never late getting back to camp. I was aware that there were certain local farms where airmen could go and have a bacon and egg meal and other enjoyable food but I never managed that. Having completed the advanced w/t course, I was then posted to No. 17 Operational Training Unit at Turweston, Northamptonshire which was also part of RAF Silverstone. Turweston was the satellite drone where I spent my first period operating. It was here at Turweston where we were all selected into different crews which was quite a hit and miss affair. This was because the Pilots were selecting more or less randomly the members of their crew from those present in the room. I was picked by an Australian Pilot, Flight Sergeant Rob Richter. In addition to myself we had a Navigator (Alan Capey) from Stoke on Trent, a Bomb Aimer (Taffy Cross) from Llanelli, an Flight Engineer (Ossy Williams) from New Malden, a Mid Upper Gunner (Price Proctor) from Hartlepool and a Tail Gunner (Paddy McCrum) from Belfast. It seemed strange putting together a crew in such an informal manner but thank goodness it all worked out reasonably well and we all sort of bedded down together in pretty good form. We then started operating together and flew in Vickers Wellington Mk III’s and I was now flying as a Wireless Operator no longer under training. [page break] [photograph] We were accommodated in nissan huts amongst a lot of trees and I was working together with a team for the first time. As we got on so well together we were socialising each evening, visiting the local hostelries in Silverstone and Brackley. The weather at this time was perfect and I was enjoying the experience of flying with a crew in the Wellington aircraft. The flying exercises we were doing began with circuits and landings. We then developed this on to cross country and high level bombing exercises at Wainfleet in Lincs. and also Epperstone in Notts. This included air firing for the benefit of the gunners. At the end of July our crew were moved into the RAF base at Silverstone with more permanent accommodation than we had previously had at Turweston. It was all most comfortable and I was quite content here. We were now mainly doing cross country flights on a regular basis with these being between three and five hours in length. In the middle of August we were sent on a semi operational patrol known as a “Nickel Raid”’ dropping foil paper to interfere with radio in enemy territory. This was a flight to Nantes in France where we unloaded the foil. This was a five hour trip. Two days later we were sent on a “Bullseye” which was a diversionary raid for the benefit of the main force. This was a trip to the coast of Holland to the town of Imjuiden. During the time at Turweston and Silverstone we had experience of 57 hours of daytime flying and 57 hours of night flying. As part of the training we carried out bale out drill, ditching, dinghy and oxygen drills as well as procedures when lost at night. It was the Wireless Operators job to carry the radio transmitter into the dinghy which would be used to transmit any distress signals. I’m pleased to say that this situation never arose. On 24th August 1944 we were sent on two weeks leave after which we were then posted to the Heavy Conversion Unit no. 1661 at RAF Winthorpe near Newark. The planes we used here were Mk III and V Stirlings. We carried out more cross country exercises however we were only here for one month. Our Pilot always likened the Stirling to the equivalent of flying a Double Decker Bus because the undercarriage was so high. [page break] [black and white photograph of a Short Stirling] Short Stirling On the 18th October 1944 we were posted to No. 5 Lancaster finishing school at Syerston, between Newark and Nottingham. This was our first experience of flying Lancasters. We were only here until the 8th November when we were all posted to various squadrons. [Crest of Royal Air Force Syerston] I and my fellow crew were posted to the RAF staion [sic] at Fulbeck which was purely a wartime air station and here we joined No. 189 squadron which is a Base that we shared with No. 59 Squadron. I arrived at RAF Fulbeck on the 9th November 1944. The Station was situated between RAF Cranwell and the villages of Leadenham and Brant Broughton all with good pubs which we visited regularly when off duty. My home in Quadring was only 25 miles away and as I had my bicycle I went home for the evening several times. I left camp at 4pm and by 6pm I was home. At midnight I would return to camp, arriving two hours later. It was a lonely ride but I usually had a pint bottle of beer in my saddle bag for refreshment on the journey! The daily routine in camp commenced about 9am when all crew members reported to their Sections. We were then given the days programme after which it was necessary to check your own particular equipment. At midday we all returned to either the officers or Sergeants mess for lunch. The only flying our crew did in November was a cross country and two high level bombing exercises at Wainfleet and Epperstone. Naturally we were waiting to be called for our first operation and during the month we had the experience of being fully briefed for three trips, all being cancelled before take off which was a bit nerve wrecking. However on the 4th December 1944 when we reported to our Sections we were informed that we would be on ‘Ops’ that night. After lunch the procedure was for all crews to attend the full Squadron briefing between 4pm and 5pm when we were told the target location and purpose of the raid. Depending on the nature of the target, the maximum bomb load was 16,000 lbs and 2,200 gallons of fuel. With a full load of bombs/fuel, the total weight of the plane on take off was 30 tons. The flight plan gave the level at which we would be bombing and could be 8000 to 16000 feet. The more trips you did, then lower was the level at which you bombed. [page break] There were usually several Squadrons - about 200 aircraft on night trips. There was a rendezvous point, either Northampton or Beachy Head, for us to group together. As the whole force would be over the target for thirty minutes, each crew was given a bombing time - H plus 10 or H plus 20 etc. It was an amazing experience in total darkness with no lights on the planes and a complete blackout of all towns and villages below. Our average take off time was 7 to 8pm. As we were not permitted to return to the mess or accommodation after lunch, we had sandwiches and flasks of tea with us. Upon returning to base, often in the early hours of the morning we were first debriefed on the raid. After that we had a very welcome meal of bacon and eggs etc, before going off to bed. Our first trip was to HEILBRON near STUTTGART in the RUHR to bomb the railway marshalling yards. Taking off for your first raid was a rather eerie feeling, not knowing what it would be like or if you would be coming back. However, once airborne your thoughts fall to getting the job done. After three hours we were over the target area giving us a very bumpy ride. Thankfully we were not hit and having dropped our 4000 lb bomb and a load of incendiaries, the yards were glowing with the fires raging. We returned to base safely and satisfied with our first operation. Our next ‘Op’ was GIESSEN near FRANKFURT on 6th December where the target was once again marshalling yards. On the 19th December we went on a long ten hour journey to GDYNIA. All went fairly well until we arrived over the target which was the docks. We should have done a ‘dog leg’ around the target (which we somehow missed!) to enable us to bomb on a northerly heading, coming out of the run over the Baltic Sea. As a consequence we were coned by searchlights and received heavy targeted gunfire from the German Navy below. Fortunately they missed us and we eventually had a successful raid. To avoid the enemy night fighters our Pilot took us down and we flew as low as possible over the Baltic and North Sea, not seeing any other activity although there had been some 200 enemy night fighters in amongst the main stream of bombers on the way home. Two nights later we were sent to POLITZ, not far from GDYNIA which was another ten hour trip. On this occasion we were in heavy gunfire and heavy anti aircraft fire and for the first time we witnessed ‘Scarecrow’ being used by the enemy in order to create panic. Once again we were successful and set out to return home. On the journey back we were informed by radio that Lincolnshire was completely fog bound and we were diverted to RAF Milltown near Elgin. We remained there, as from 21st to 28th December 1944, Lincolnshire continued to be fog bound. Far Right: ‘Scarecrow’ [black and white photograph of a ‘Scarecrow’ exploding] AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL SUK12055 [page break] On the 30th December, we were sent to Houffalize, Belgium which was a town in the middle of the Western Front, south of Liege in the Ardennes. Here we were supposed to bomb the front line which was a rather delicate operation. Although it was a relatively short trip of five hours, we needed a lot of care as to where we were bombing. We learned later that a number of the Polish army had been caught by the bombs on that occasion. On New years Day 1945 we were sent to bomb Gravenhorst for the numerous oil targets that were situated there. Unfortunately we could not return to base and once again returned to Milltown in Scotland where we stayed for a couple of days. On 4th January, I flew with another crew piloted by Flying Officer Martin due to the sickness of their Wireless Operator. On this occasion we went to Royan, a town in the south West of France near to Bordeaux principally to attack the Submarines of the German Navy which were on the river there. This was a seven hour journey to the mouth of the Gironde which was quite uneventful. On the 13th January we were sent to the town of Politz again which was a ten and a half hour trip. We were successful mainly targeting oil and marshalling yards alongside the Navy. Because of the length of the trip, on the return journey the flight engineer indicated that our fuel was not sufficient to get back to base. I made contact with base to establish where we should land given our circumstances and we were directed to make for Carnaby which was the emergency landing strip near to Flamborough Head in Yorkshire. We were fortunate to land there safely as there was virtually no fuel leaf onboard. On the 16th January I was back with my own crew and flew with them to the town of Brux. This was an oil target with a round trip time of nine and a half hours. This was over towards the Polish area. On the 1st and 2nd February we attacked the towns of Siegen and Karlsruhe. Both these trips were bright moonlit nights which made it much easier for the German night fighters to attack us when we were silhouetted against the moon. We did experience interference from night fighters and as always the anti aircraft fire was very intense. On the Karlsruhe trip, out of our 18 aircraft we lost 4 that night. On the 7th February we went to Ladbergen in order to attack the Dortmund-Ems canal. On this occasion we only carried 1000lb bombs with no incendiaries in the hope that we inflicted as much damage as possible to the canal. On the 13th February we had a very long trip to Dresden. This we were told was because the Russians had driven the German Army back and it was encamped in Dresden. This was termed as a “Russian Army co-operation raid”. The American Airforce had been operational during the day and had bombed the target so by the time we were arriving around midnight, the town was ablaze. We were successful over the target but did encounter a lot of the usual anti aircraft and fighter aircraft. On the way back to base over the Alps we were icing up and had to go down as low as possible which was a tricky operation being amongst the mountains. However we were once again able to make it back to base. [page break] Of course after this raid there has been much publicity about it and as the years have passed, the extent of the damage became more apparent and the subject tended to not be mentioned. However being aware of the reasons for the raid, it seemed to me to be a very satisfactory legitimate target and one that was done with extreme efficiency. The very next night on 14th February, we attacked an oil target at Rositz which is near Leipzig. This was another nine hour journey there and back. A few nights later on 19th February we were again in the vicinity of Leipzig over the town of Bohlen and once again it was an oil target. On all these Oil targets we carried a 1000lb’er and a load of incendiaries. On 20th February we went all the way to Gravenhorst but unfortunately the sortie was aborted and we were unable to return to base because of adverse weather conditions and we were diverted to Colerne. On 23rd February we were given a very different target in Horten which were the docks in the Oslo fjord in Norway which had a German Naval base there. This was a comparatively short trip it being only six and half hours and we experienced a lot of intense anti-aircraft fire from the German Naval gunners. On 12th March, we carried out our first raid in daylight and joined a one thousand bomber force. The target that day was the town of Dortmund. This was quite a new experience and rather frightening being amongst so many other bombers, all at the same time and all approaching the same area. However, the raid was successful and we returned without incident in what was a five hour trip. The next trip was to Lutzkendorf, an oil target which was quite a long journey and well into Eastern Germany. This was on 14th March and although the raid was a success, we did lose several aircraft. Once again the weather conditions in Lincolnshire prevented us from returning to base and we were diverted to Manston in Kent where there was an emergency landing strip. Two days later on 16th March we had another oil target to attack in the town of Wurzburg. Here we experienced a lot of fighter activity and heavy anti-aircraft. We were very lucky to get back! On 20th March we returned to raid Bohlen near Leipzig and this was another eight hour trip. On 23rd March we were sent to the town of Wesel to attack the marshalling yards there. This was a mere five and half hour trip which we carried out without incident. On 4th April we were sent on a daylight raid to Nordhausen and this was to attack oil targets and the marshalling yards. On 23rd April we were again raiding in daylight, this time to Flensburg on the Kiel canal. This was to attack the submarine pens there however the sortie was aborted and we returned home without encountering any problems. Three days later we were sent to Brussels to repatriate a group of ex prisoners of war. We managed to pack in twenty four in the fuselage of the aircraft and we flew to Westcott in Buckinghamshire. This made a very pleasant change and the former POW’s were naturally in good spirits. As the war was nearing its conclusion, we found ourselves doing more training exercises for a day or two and on 6th may[sic] we were back in Brussels collecting more former POW’s and this time we brought them home to Dunsfold in Surrey. [page break] We repeated this some six days later on 12th May. On each occasion there were twenty six former POW’s in our fuselage. On 15th April we flew to Lille to repatriate more POW’s. On 16th April 1945 we were sent on a grand tour of Germany to see what damage had been done. This covered the towns and cities of Bremen, Hamburg, Harburg in Bavaria, Brunswick, Cassel, Wurzburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Cologne, Osnabruck and back to base. The whole trip took some eight and a half hours. This was a very interesting and exciting flight to see just what effect the bombing had on Germany. On 1st April 1945, the Squadron had been transferred to Bardney which is nine miles east of Lincoln. This is the RAF station from where we operated the two daylight raids and the trips to collect the former POW’s. Also on this Station was No. 9 Squadron. They specialised in carrying very large bombs which they used to bomb the hiding place of Hitler in the Mountains. On most of the raids I was on, the anti-aircraft fire was quite intense in most places and the night fighters were usually very busy. The one frightening aspect that the defenders of certain targets used was to send up “scarecrows” this giving the impression of one of our bombers exploding and crashing in flames. How this was achieved, I am unsure but it was extremely frightening. Our crew had the unfortunate luck of having to be changed after the third trip as our Rear Gunner had been caught sleeping twice whilst we were still over enemy territory. On the first occasion when the Skipper called to him there was no reply and I was asked to go and find out what the problem was. I found that both the turret doors were open and he was lying back on the shute into the turret with his intercom lead pulled out of the socket. I informed the Skipper that he had not replied because his intercom was out. However on the very next trip the same situation occurred again whilst we were still well over Germany. On that occasion I did report to the Skipper that he was in fact asleep. After that he was removed from the Crew and we had to have substitutes for the remainder of our trips. After the raid on Karlsruhe we had lost four aircraft which I have already referred to but in fact on several trips one or two failed to return however I have no record of the numbers lost in my period of Operations. In the May of 1945, the Crews were being dispersed as our tours had finished with the war coming to an end on 8th May 1945. A number of us volunteered to assist with hay making and I spent about two weeks on a farm near Gainsborough, Lincolnshire after which we were all sent on leave for a few weeks. As we completed the tour, we were then given a rest period and at that point we expected to be going on operations in the Far East at the later stage however the war ended there on 15th August. As I was home on leave, I received a posting to RAF Woodbridge which was an emergency landing strip in Suffolk. There I was more or less just operating in the Flight Control Tower and also assisting in the Officers and Sergeants Mess’s with their accounting systems. I had plenty of spare time and the town of Ipswich was close by. This is where [I] and my friends were going most nights. [page break] One of my close friends at Woodbridge was Warrant Officer Bill Patterson, a pilot who had a lady friend called Rena in Ipswich. I was told that Rena had a lady friend who said that she would like to meet me. A date was duly arranged for the 4th November 1945 for me to meet this lady on the steps of the Post Office in Ipswich at 6 o’clock. The person that turned up was a young lady called Avis Fleet. That evening we went with Bill and Rena as a foursome for a drink in Ipswich and we had a very pleasant time. Consequently I continued to meet Avis on a regular basis and was taken to her home on Norwich Road where I met her parents and young brother Geoffrey who was only eleven at the time. We met very regularly most days as I didn’t have much to do at Woodbridge and our friendship grew until by the end of December we had agreed to get married in 1946. Avis and I went to my parents home in Quadring on Boxing Day and spent a few days there before returning to Ipswich. At the end of December, I was promoted to Warrant Officer which made my weekly pay Six Pounds and Eleven Shillings which at the time was pretty good money. I continued to meet Avis regularly whilst the release groups from the RAF were in number order and I was number thirty five. With the assistance of my friend Bill Patterson who was then in the Release Centre, I went for demobilisation on 3rd April 1946. I collected my civilian outfit and returned to Ipswich to meet Avis again. Of course being released at that time meant that I had a quantity of clothing coupons which helped Avis considerably in getting her wedding outfit etc. The wedding was arranged for the 4th May 1946 and this took place at All Saints Church Ipswich. I continued to receive pay from the RAF until the end of Mat[sic] 1946 by which time I had resumed my work as an accountant with Hodgson Harris in Spalding. [wedding photograph] After living with my parents for 4 or 5 weeks, I managed to obtain a furnished flat in Spalding at 13 High Street which was along by the riverside. [page break] In 1950 when war broke out in Korea I decided to join the RAF Reserve and this meant going to No. 9 Reserve Flying School at Doncaster. I would attend there at weekends, taking part in various flying exercises. In August 1951 as part of Reserve Training, I did two weeks camp at Topcliffe in North Yorkshire and flew in Ansons on cross country exercise which also included a trip to Malta. The last trip I did was in an Anson in a North Sea search for the Spurn Lightship. This was on 1st February 1953. After this I was retired from the Reserve as I was over the age of twenty nine. Whilst on Operations we had nine days leave every six weeks and all received Ten Pounds per week from Lord Nuffield (The boss of Ford Motor Co). In appreciation of our services. Returning from leave sometimes could be worrying. In our huts there would be members from 4 or 5 different Crews and returning home some would be missing from raids. On one occasion there were members of 7 Crews in our hut and on our return from one sortie, 5 were missing. This was a huge shock! I thoroughly enjoyed all of my time with the RAF and would say that it was as good as going to a University. I realise that I am very fortunate to be still alive at the age of 92. I now have the medals of my service history including the Bomber Command Clasp for the 1939-1945 Star. I hope my story will be of interest to whoever may read it. [two pages from 189 Squadron Fulbeck logbook] [page break] [photograph of Andrew Gaunt as sub-postmaster at Pinchbeck] Jacks[sic] WW11 story and experiences have been brought together by Andrew Gaunt former Sub Postmaster of Pinchbeck (2000 to 2014), from recordings made by Jack of his time with the RAF and his personal recollections of events and flying missions that he was sent on. Utilising Jacks[sic] log book and researching events that he has referred to. It seemed appropriate that I brought Jacks[sic] recollections together having myself been a fellow Wireless Operator. Being a Marine Radio Officer from 1975 to 1986 and visiting many of the ports of the Middle East that Jack transited on his journey. Ironically Merchant ships no longer have a requirement to carry an R/O. This position disappeared in the 1990’s whilst the requirement to carry a W/O on aircraft was I believe removed sometime in the 1960’s. My own experiences took me frequently into areas of conflict notably the Persian/Arabian Gulf, regularly through the then dangerous Straits of Hormuz during the Iran/Iraq war and I also have my own vivid recollections of the Iranian Revolution. Acknowledgements are made to the following sources whose photos have been used although there appear to be many copies of the same photos on different sites. Polish Aircrew at RAF Bramcote – polishsquadronsremembered.com Troopship SS Otranto – britisharmedforces.org HMS Repulse – historyofwar.org HMS Prince of Wales – dailymail.co.uk Troopship SS Khedive Ismail – cruiselinehistory.com Blenheim Aircraft – spitfirespares.co.uk WW11 map of Iraq – en.wikipedia.org Percival Proctor Aircraft – en.wikipedia.org De Havilland Dominie Aircraft – rafyatesbury.webs.com Avro Anson Aircraft – uboat.net Vickers Wellington Aircraft – aviationresearch.co.uk Short Stirling Aircraft – aoth.17.dsl.pipex.com “Scarecrow” phenomena – awrm.gov.au Whilst the tragic fate of Repulse and Prince of Wales is a well known WW11 event, a lesser known event but equally tragic story lies in the fate of the SS Khedive Ismail which took Jack into the Persian Gulf in late 1941. The SS Khedive Ismail was sunk by a Japanese submarine on 12th February 1944 with the loss of 1,297 lives. The vessel Sank in just two minutes. For more information on this terrible event visit www.roll-of-honour.com/Ships/SSKhediveIsmail.htm The story is also covered in The book “Passage To Destiny” by Paul Watkins. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sparks in the air - Jack Smith's wartime story Description An account of the resource Wartime recollections of John (known to his friends as Jack) George Smith from Pinchbeck. He tells of life before the war, how he went on to volunteer for the RAF in August 1940 and describes his training as a wireless operator. The document includes the radio school crest and a photograph of a Battle aircraft. He describes, in detail, his long voyage from Liverpool via Cape Town, eventually arriving at RAF Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and describes life and work on this station. He tells of medical issues and his subsequent posting to RAF Habbaniya in Iraq. Goes on to describe journey back to England overland via Gaza, Cairo and Alexandria, thence by ship. On returning he continues aircrew training at RAF Madley and Llandwrog in Wales. The document Includes photographs of Proctor, Dominie and Anson. After crewing up and starting operations on Wellington aircraft, he continues with postings to heavy conversion units and Lancaster finishing school before joining 189 Squadron at RAF Fulbeck. He then goes on to describes, in detail, operations from December 1944 to April 1945, including repatriating prisoners of war and Cook's tour to see damage to German cities. He describes life after the war including his marriage. The memoir includes photographs of Wellington. Stirling, night bombing, wedding and a page from logbook. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource A Gaunt J Smith Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Twenty page printed book with b/w photographs Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BSmithJSmithJv1-2 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire England--Spalding England--Cheshire England--Lancashire England--Blackpool England--Wiltshire England--Liverpool South Africa South Africa--Cape Town South Africa--Durban India India--Mumbai Iraq Iraq--Baṣrah United Arab Emirates Iraq--Ḥabbānīyah Gaza Strip--Gaza Egypt--Cairo Egypt--Alexandria England--Herefordshire England--Northamptonshire Wales--Gwynedd England--Nottinghamshire Germany Germany--Heilbronn Germany--Giessen (Hesse) Poland Poland--Gdynia Belgium Belgium--Houffalize Germany--Wolfsburg (Lower Saxony) France France--Royan Czech Republic Germany--Karlsruhe Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal Germany--Dresden Germany--Leipzig Germany--Dortmund Atlantic Ocean--Oslofjorden Germany--Würzburg Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Belgium--Brussels Germany--Flensburg Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie) Scotland--Moray Egypt Gaza Strip Germany--Ruhr (Region) Czech Republic--Most North Africa United Arab Emirates--Shāriqah Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1937 1940-09 1940-11-04 1941-03 1941-08-31 1943-02 1943-12 1944-04 1944-06-12 1944-08-24 1944-11-09 1944-12-04 1944-12-06 1944-12-19 1944-12 1944-12-30 1945-01-01 1945-01-04 1945-01-16 1945-01-13 1945-02-01 1945-02-02 1945-02-07 1945-02-13 1945-02-14 1945-02-20 1945-02-23 1945-03-14 1945-03-16 1945-03-20 1945-03-23 1945-04-03 1945-04-23 1945-05-06 1945-05 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Memoir Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource David Bloomfield Maureen Clarke Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive 1661 HCU 17 OTU 189 Squadron Advanced Flying Unit aircrew Anson Battle Blenheim bombing bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945) Cook’s tour crewing up Dominie Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School military living conditions Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy Operation Exodus (1945) Operational Training Unit Proctor RAF Bramcote RAF Compton Bassett RAF Fulbeck RAF Llandwrog RAF Madley RAF Milltown RAF Padgate RAF Silverstone RAF Syerston RAF Turweston RAF Winthorpe RAF Woodbridge recruitment Scarecrow Stirling training Wellington wireless operator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/641/32465/BSmithJSmithJv1.pdf 06d252abf25757870b967f73da7e1fc8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Smith, Jack John George Smith J G Smith Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Smith, JG Description An account of the resource Three items. An oral history interview with John 'Jack' Smith (1921 -2019) and his memoirs. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 189 Squadron. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by John Smith and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-04-08 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sparks in the air - Jack Smith's wartime story Description An account of the resource Second version. Covers life before the war and volunteering for the RAF in August 1940 and continues with an account of training as a wireless operator. The article includes radio school crest and photograph of a Battle aircraft. He describes his voyage from Liverpool via Cape Town, eventually arriving at RAF Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, having travelled through several countries. He describes life and work on this station. Describes medical issues and subsequent posting to RAF Habbaniya in Iraq. Goes on to describe journey back to England overland via Gaza, Cairo and Alexandria thence by ship. Continues aircrew training at RAF Madley and Llandwrog in Wales. Includes photographs of Proctor, Dominie and Anson. Describes crewing up and starting operations on Wellington aircraft. He continues with postings to heavy conversion units and Lancaster finishing school before joining 189 Squadron at RAF Fulbeck. Describes operations from December 1944 to April 1945. Mentions repatriating prisoners of war and Cook's tour to see damage to German cities. Describes life after the war including his marriage. Includes photographs of Wellington. Stirling, night bombing, wedding and page from log book. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource A Gaunt J Smith Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Twenty-eight page printed document Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Memoir Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BSmithJSmithJv1 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire England--Spalding England--Cheshire England--Lancashire England--Blackpool England--Wiltshire England--Liverpool South Africa South Africa--Cape Town South Africa--Durban India India--Mumbai Iraq Iraq--Baṣrah United Arab Emirates Iraq--Ḥabbānīyah Gaza Strip--Gaza Egypt--Cairo Egypt--Alexandria England--Herefordshire England--Northamptonshire Wales--Gwynedd England--Nottinghamshire Germany Germany--Heilbronn Germany--Giessen (Hesse) Poland Poland--Gdynia Belgium Belgium--Houffalize Germany--Wolfsburg (Lower Saxony) France France--Royan Czech Republic Germany--Karlsruhe Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal Germany--Dresden Germany--Leipzig Germany--Dortmund Atlantic Ocean--Oslofjorden Germany--Würzburg Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Belgium--Brussels Germany--Flensburg Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie) Scotland--Moray Egypt Gaza Strip Germany--Ruhr (Region) Czech Republic--Most North Africa United Arab Emirates--Shāriqah Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1937 1940-09 1940-11-04 1941-03 1941-08-31 1943-02 1944-04 1944-06-12 1944-08-24 1944-11-09 1944-12-04 1944-12-06 1944-12-19 1944-12 1944-12-30 1945-01-01 1945-01-04 1945-01-16 1945-01-13 1945-02-01 1945-02-02 1945-02-07 1945-02-13 1945-02-14 1945-02-20 1945-02-23 1945-03-14 1945-03-16 1945-03-20 1945-03-23 1945-04-03 1945-04-23 1945-05-06 1945-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Maureen Clarke 1661 HCU 17 OTU 189 Squadron Advanced Flying Unit aircrew Anson Battle Blenheim bombing bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945) Cook’s tour crewing up Dominie Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School love and romance military living conditions Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy Operation Exodus (1945) Operational Training Unit Proctor RAF Bramcote RAF Compton Bassett RAF Fulbeck RAF Llandwrog RAF Madley RAF Milltown RAF Padgate RAF Silverstone RAF Syerston RAF Turweston RAF Winthorpe RAF Woodbridge recruitment Scarecrow Stirling training Wellington wireless operator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1011/11442/MStavesME203137-160226-320001.jpg 5c42fc6b886207b4dc5cff756177050c https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1011/11442/MStavesME203137-160226-320002.jpg c888defc626bdc75cb6001a1ee332239 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Staves, Malcom Ely M E Staves Description An account of the resource 77 items. The collection concerns Flying Officer Malcom Staves (1924 - 2012, 1591418, 203137 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, items, documents, photographs, and training notebooks. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 207 Squadron. There is also a sub collection concerning Flight Lieutenant <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1020">D A MacArthur.</a> The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Christina Chatwin and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-02-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Staves, ME Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document [underlined]DATE DAY 4TH APRIL [/Underlined] [underlined] TARGET- NORDHAUSEN [/underlined] A/C CAPTAIN SORTIES LOAD ATD ATR REMARKS A CF194 F/O WATTERS 9 A 0627 1315 Base B PA183 F/O BOYLE 4 A 0624 1300 Base C PB878 F/O HOARD 21 3 0621 1257 Base [deleted] D [/deleted] E PD220 F/L SIMMONS 20 A 0622+ 1249 Base G PA 274 F/O ROBERTON 13 A 0629 1304 Base H RF144 F/O HALEWOOOD 14 A 0625 1256 Base J ME389 F/O SHARPE 1 A 0629+ 1314 Base K PB 874 F/O KING 14 B 0623 1301 Base L PB 764 F/O ONGLIS 5 B 0628 1308 Base M ME532 F/L ROWELL 19 A 0617 1255 Base 0 ME472 F/O MARTEN 8 A 0620 1306 Base R NG245 F/O LOVELESS 16 A 0611 1254 Base S RF208 F/O POWELL 2 A 0631 1316 Base T RF 209 F/O FLEWWELLING 26 A 0615+ 1250 Base V PD 280 F/L VERRALLS 27 A 0619 1256+ Base W PB293 F/O MCKINLAY 3 B 0614 1302 Base Q LM123 F/O HOWARD A 0618 1251 Base Y PD 782 F/OCHAMBERSMKI 13 B 0626 1305 Base [underlined] FLYNG OFFICER S/L HOWES [/underlined] [underlined] BOMB LOAD [/underlined (A) 1/4000 + 16 x 500 (B) 1 x 4000 + 14 x500 [underlined] Petrol Load [/underlined] 1800 GALLS [underlined] TONNAGE A/B [/underlined] [page break] [underlined] A. [/underlined] F/O WATTERS SGT HENDERSON F/S STEWART F/S MOORE F/S STAVES SGT VARNEY SGT WATKINS [underlined] B. [/underlined] F/O BOYLE SCT ROBINSON SGT. COPLEY F/S RENTALL SGT. BEEDTON SGT. COX SGT. CARR [underlined] C. [/underlined] F/O HOARD SGT. BATCHELOR W/O FRENCH P/O SCOWEN F/S CLARK SGT. JACOBSON SGT. CORSAR [underlined] G. [/underlined] F/O ROBERTON SGT. BARRETT F/O SMITH F/O DALE F/S DUGGAN SGT. DAVIS F/S VALLEAU [underlined] H. [/underlined] F/O HALEWOOD SGT. ALLISON F/O WHITE F/S DANTON W/O HOGAN SGT – NYE SGT. ARROWSMITH [underlined] J. [/underlined] F/O SHARP F/S BRICKNELL F/S SIER F/S BEATON SGT. KENNY SGT. FREEMAN SGT. WILLIAMS [underlined] K. [/underlined] F/O KING SGT, THOMAS F/S THOMAS F/S LOCKTON F/S SMITH SGT. DALZIEL SGT. CARRUTHERS [underlined] L. [/underlined] F/O INGUS SGT. TOBSON F/O LINES P/O PHILLIPS SGT. HELEY SGT. GILLARD SGT. BARRACLOUGH [underlined]O. [/underlined] F/O MARTEN SGT GREGORY [deleted F/O YOUNG [/deleted] W/C PEARSE F/O MACE W/O TAYLOR SGT. TAYLOR SGT. JACKMAN [underlined] Q. [/underlined] F/O HOWARD F/O YOUNG F/O HART F/O TYRRELL F/S NEWMAN SGT. ALLEN SGT. BILLANY [underlined] R. [/underlined] F/O LOVELESS SGT. FERNLEY F/S HALLAM F/O FLANAGAN]F/S SELLS SGT CHERRINGTON SGT. ROGERS [underlined] S. [/underlined] F/O POWELL F/S VAUX SGT. CULLEN SGT. CLEMENT SGT. HUTCHINSON SGT. WALLACE SGT. LEWIS. [underlined] W. [/underlined] F/O MAKINLEY F/S DAWSON F/S EDOM F/S BAILEY SGT. CALLAN SQT TULLETT SGT PUTT. [underlined] Y. [/underlined] F/O CHAMBERS SGT .TAIT W/O DAVIES F/S MIRFIN SGT. JEWISS SGT. SUTHERLAND F/S WALSH [underlined] E. [/underlined] F/L SIMMONS [deleted] F/O ORR (2P) [/deleted] SGT. CROMPTON F/L COOKE F/O FITZHERBERT F/S CUMMING SGT. LESLIE SGT. LANE [underlined] M. [/underlined] F/L ROWELL [deleted] F/O HARKER (2P)[/ deleted] SGT. COLE F/O POLLARD F/O PETERS F/S BRAMPTON SGT . PRYKE SGT. WILLIAMS [underlined] T. [/underlined] F/O FLEWWELLING [deleted] F/O PRICE (2P)[/ deleted] SGT. BROWN F/O CROFT F/S ROBERTS F/S HUNTER SGT. GREGORY SGT. ELMER [underlined] V. [/underlined] F/L VERRALL [deleted] F/L CHISHOLK (2P) [/deleted] SGT. MOORE [deleted] F/O DAWSON [/deleted] F/O EVENSON F/O LEROUX F/S THOMAS F/S PINK SGT. HOSKINS Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Target Nordhausen Description An account of the resource A list of aircraft used to attack Nordhausen on 4th April 1945. The list has tabulated, aircraft code and registration, Captain, Sortie, Bomb load, Departure and arrival times and Remarks. At the bottom is the CO's name - S/L Howes, two different variations of the bomb load and petrol load. The second sheet lists the full crew for each aircraft under the aircraft code. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1945-04-04 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Two photocopied sheets Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Service material Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context MStavesME203137-160226-320001, MStavesME203137-160226-320002 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1945-04-04 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Claire Monk 207 Squadron aircrew bombing