1 25 15 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/85/765/PAnsellAV1612.2.jpg 45f988f7c5baaf281c957d1f61941e9e https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/85/765/PAnsellAV1613.2.jpg ff8e3f1fc520f6f96ac65b8637739df7 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 Ansell, Albert A V Ansell Subject The topic of the resource World War (1939-1945) Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Description An account of the resource 16 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Albert Victor Ansell (-1943, 1390280 Royal Air Force). It consists of his logbook, notification of awards, correspondence from the air ministry and ten photographs. He trained in the United States and flew as a navigator with 57 Squadron from RAF Scampton. His Lancaster crashed on an operation to Essen 30 April/ 1 May 1943. Its remains were discovered in the Zuider Zee in 1978. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Vicki Ansell and catalogued by Terry Hancock and Nigel Huckins.<br /><br />Additional information on Victor Ansell is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/100453/">IBCC Losses Database</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-07-30 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. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Ansell, AV 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 Pay parade Description An account of the resource Personnel are walking or standing in irregular formation wearing side caps. Trees are visible in the background. On the reverse 'Pay Parade. May 1st 1941, Miami' and '678'. Subject The topic of the resource World War (1939-1945) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1941-05-01 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PAnsellAV1612, PAnsellAV1613 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 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. United States Florida--Miami Florida Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941-05-01 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. Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph training https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/886/10879/EHudsonJDHudson[Fam]410501-010001.jpg 46eaf6d587a2a331c0b3ef773822a212 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/886/10879/EHudsonJDHudson[Fam]410501-010002.jpg 46026ac3f0e361024241d20d6c8926eb 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 Hudson, Douglas James Douglas Hudson J D Hudson Description An account of the resource 529 items. Collection concerns Pilot Officer James Douglas Hudson, DFC (755052 Royal Air Force) who joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in June 1939 and trained as an observer. While on route to Malta in August 1940 his Blenheim crashed in Tunisia and he was subsequently interned for two and a half years by Vichy French in Tunisia and Algeria. After being freed he returned to Great Britain and after navigator retraining completed a tour of 30 operations on 100 Squadron. The collection contains letters to and from his parents and from French penfriends while interned in Tunisia and Algeria, newspaper cuttings of various events, logbooks and lists of operations, official documents and photographs. A further 23 items are in two sub-collections with details of navigator examinations and postcards of Laghouat Algeria.<br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Elizabeth Smith and Yvonne Puncher and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /> <p>This collection also contains items concerning Louis Murray and Harry Bowers. Additional information on <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/202827/">Harry Bowers</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/220410/">Louis Murray</a> is available via the IBCC Losses Database.</p> 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 2015-06-16 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. 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 Hudson, JD Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document R.A.F. 755052 Sgt. Chef. J. D. Hudson Camp de Liberté Surveillé Hotel d’Orient MÉDÉA. Algerie. 1-5-41 My Dear Mother & Dad, I was very pleased indeed to receive your Air Mail letter dated April 9th, this afternoon, it had been forwarded from Kef apparently. You say you have received 2 letters & three postcards from me in one week, & that one letter took 14 weeks. I think it is quite definite that our letters take much longer to get through than yours. The Air Mail service from England seems very good & takes about 3 weeks, sometimes a little less. You ask about your telegrams I have received two. One on Feb 5th sent on the 3rd & the other arrived on April 7th sent on April 3rd. So you see cables are quite good. I have received all your news regarding your changes of addresses etc, & I do hope that you will have settled down now & that you will have much better luck. In all my letters I always say that I am thinking about you & hope you are keeping well & safe. From previous letters I am glad to learn that my allotment has been fixed at 35/- & trust that if it is of any use you will take advantage of it. I wrote to you by [page break] air mail from here about five days ago & also sent another letter via the American Consul in Algiers I do hope they get through. They explained about our change of address, about our coming here & about the new & of course improved conditions. Here we are allowed to walk about free. What a change after the last eight months. You say that Dad is out one night in eight. What is he doing? Can you tell? To-day here, they are celebrating May 1st. Seems to be pretty universal. I also remember it would be Grandma’s birthday. They are playing bands & flying flags etc. It is cold too, of course we are so high. I expect it will be as warm in England. This place is not in the least like Tunis. More English in type & country. There is a much bigger population of French here. Everybody says the hot weather is to come. I shall not forget the heat when we arrived in Africa 8 months ago. It was terrific, & the flies!! But not so here, at least yet. When I think of our aircraft I could weep. Those were the days [inserted] before [/inserted] when we were in England. War or no war. Suppose I have to be careful now. This might please you to know that as a matter of routine we were all medically examined yesterday. The Doctor said “tres bien; parfait” which means “splendid; perfect.” What more can I ask. Its not the meat, must be the olive oil at Kef. And so cheerio, all my best wishes & all my love, [underlined] Douglas [/underlined] 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 Letter from Douglas Hudson in Médéa to parents Description An account of the resource Writes that he has received many letters and discusses the time some have taken and different post options. Mentions finances and that conditions in new location are much improved. Catches up with family news and discusses weather in North Africa. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1941-05-01 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Two page handwritten letter Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Correspondence Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EHudsonJDHudson(Fam)410501-010001, EHudsonJDHudson(Fam)410501-010002 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Civilian Royal Air Force Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Algeria Algeria--Algiers Algeria--Médéa (Province) North Africa Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941-05-01 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Tricia Marshall David Bloomfield 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 James Douglas Hudson prisoner of war https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/937/11294/ALyonJK180202.mp3 741ac5d555a5640deb1186b8e219f3a1 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 Lyon, Jack Kenneth J K Lyon Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Pilot Officer Jack Lyon (1917 - 2019. 903044, 62667 Royal Air Force). He flew three operations with 58 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war. 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 2018-02-02 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 Lyon, JK Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document CB; My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 2nd of February 2018, and I am here in Bexhill with Jack Lyon, to talk about his life and times, now he’s aged a hundred. So Jack what is your, what were your first recollections of life? JB: Well I think a baby in a pram, and I remember going past a hoarding in Sydenham and I must have dropped something, yeah that’s my first, I was only about five years old I suppose then, apart from that I- CB: What did your parents do? JL: Sorry? CB: What did your parents do? JL: My father worked in the Smithfield Market, connected with the wholesale bacon trade, that sort of thing. He was a clerk in, George Bowles Nichols was the name of the firm. It had a, you know, a stake in Smithfield Market but they didn’t deal much in meat, mainly in products like ham and that sort of thing. George Bowles Nichols it was, he was a clerk in there. And he was a, oh right from a young child he had a, he was, had a bad health, in fact he had three brothers and they all did except one: they had a hereditary disease which gave them this hump back sort of thing. He nevertheless managed to work, to travel up to London every day, until in 1932 he had a, well he had a, and he died in 1932, anyway, of this, it was while we were on holiday my memory, in this town of Cleve. He didn’t die there, but he was in a very bad way and we only got home, a few days later he died. Well that was, what did I do then. CB: And you lived in Sydenham then. JB: I, we was living in Sydenham, and I attended Brockley County School. I’d passed what was the equivalent of the eleven plus from a, I began my school at five years old, in a, they call a church school I think it cost me, cost my mother about a shilling a week to get to, for this, a good education though, very good. I was going to say I passed this, the equivalent of the 11-plus and I went to this Brockley County until, well, I left school at sixteen and I went to work with a London gas company, the South Suburban Gas Company, which had an area extending from Lewisham right down to Tonbridge. I worked in their admin department. At the same time I was studying night school and, let me see that takes us up to, oh yes the, I left, I passed that what’s called the 11-plus and I was at the school and then the South Suburban Gas Company, I joined that in February 1934, and at the same time I tell you I was night school at a place in Knights Hill and I remember on the 30th, sorry on the 30th November 1936, somebody rushed in and said the Crystal Palace is on fire and of course that was the end: we watched that happen. Great pity because it, well it had, anyway I continued to work. In 1939 when I was still working for the South Suburban, I was studying night school as well - accountancy and that sort of thing - I passed stage one of the Royal Society of Arts bookkeeping, and the tutor was, worked for Shell and he poached me. He said, ‘you’re, you have quite good knowledge of accountancy and that sort of thing, would you be interested in transferring from the gas, from the gas company to Shell?’ Well I thought about it, and financially it didn’t, in fact it was slightly worse off I had to pay my train fare to London, but I thought well, it’s a good thing to be a small fish in a very large puddle and you couldn’t get much larger than Shell, could you? It was world wide then, Royal Dutch Shell, and I agreed. In fact I joined Shall about the 1st August 1939. I remember Shell opened an account for me with Lloyds Bank, 39 Threadneedle Street, where they banked themselves; they opened this account for me. But as I say, at that time we were working in St Helen’s Court and there was another famous RAF person also working there, Douglas Bader. He, when he lost his legs in a flying accident, he was invalided out of the service and he joined Shell as a management trainee, I remember that. Well, as I say on the 1st of September, Shell began, operated their wartime programme and that involved closing the London office. So they said well Mr Lyon we shan’t require your services during this present emergency, but in the meantime we will bring your salary up to parity with, what until it’s parity with what you’re earning now, and [emphasis] at the end of the emergency you will be free to rejoin the company if you so desire. Well that’s what, on 5th, war was declared on the 3rd of September, wasn’t it? CB: Yes. JL: That was a Sunday, wasn’t it. CB: It was. JL: On the 4th of September, I and a friend of mine, we made an effort to join the army because we had a connection with the Royal West Kents. They used to invite us to their annual, the Aldershot Tattoo, and we used to be entertained in their sergeants mess so we decided to join the army, but when we got to Parish Lane, Penge where their office had been, it was closed! [laugh] I suppose part of the war, we said well that’s a funny way to run a war but still, that’s it, there’s nothing we could do about that. And the next day, the 5th of September, somebody said oh they’re opening an RAF recruiting office at, in the Yorkshire Grey pub so we took a 75 bus from Sydenham High Street to there. We were examined and my friend was rejected because he had flat feet. I said he would have been more apt if he’d been joining the army, but still, that’s the way they work. I was accepted and I was told to go home, get overnight things and come back and I would be taken to RAF Uxbridge. I did that and, as I say, I was examined and accepted for, in the air force. They asked me then what trade I would like to be in and I said well what can you offer me and they said well cook and butcher well that didn’t ring any bells with me so I said hmm what else, and they said you could join the secretarial branch. Well I’d been pushing a pen for the last five years and in those days I think I want a change. They said well what about aircrew? I said well what about it? They said well if you complete your training satisfactorily you’ll be automatically promoted to the rank of sergeant, receive twelve and sixpence a day I think it was, plus so much flying pay, so there was really no contest was there. And that’s how, I passed the medical for flying and I was given a uniform which I must, was told to wear at all times because I was still actually in the air force. I was given two books to study. One was called mathematics for engineers and the other one was practical mechanics. Neither of them had much bearing on flying training, but there it was. Now this was the phoney war. I went back to my house, we were living in, oh, we had a little flat, my mother and I had a little flat in, just near the Sydenham Road, well as I say the phoney war dragged on until the 30th of December 1939. I had a telegram, “proceed to number one initial training wing, Downing College, Cambridge,” and that is where I went. Now the course was supposed to last for six weeks. In fact it dragged on to nearly four months. The reason was there were still no training facilities available. It had its up side. We were billeted in the, well what used to be the students home in, when they were there because when they were students there in Downing College, some of the colleges did have students as well, but we didn’t have that, we were permitted to use the clubs, that the College’s silver, yes, and we took turns at serving and washing up. So as I say, that relieved the monotony a bit. But this dragged on until as it were, what they say the nemesis, on the 10th of June, 10th of May 1940 the Germans invaded the Low Countries, Holland and Belgium, yes. I was, I was on fire picquet that night and the admin had been headed by a, well I must go back a bit. Before the second world war, Brigadier Critchley, his name was, was chairman of the Greyhound Racing Commission. Now when the war started he was given the rank of Air Commodore and he recruited quite of his old associates for various posts. Our adjutant was a name of Shaffey and I believe in peacetime was a tennis coach, he came and he was in a terrible state, he said LAC – we’d been promoted to LAC by the way after a number of weeks, which meant our pay was a bit better, Leading Aircraftman - what do I do with this LAC Lyon? I said well you must call, as soon as it’s light you must have a general, a roll call of all the students, all the would-be airmen, check for deficiencies in kit and that sort of thing, and the instructions were: ten recruits and each, name, not by name but by number, to various RAF stations, not necessarily air training stations and I and nine others were posted to RAF Kinloss which was not, at that time it was called 45 MU I believe, there was no flying directly from there, because as I say it was mainly material. Well we made the journey up, I had to stay, we stayed overnight I remember in the YMCA in Edinburgh, we managed to get a billet there. We travelled on the next day and we arrived at RAF Kinloss to be viewed with a certain suspicion because at that time it was stories of nuns in parachutes, coming down by parachute and all the rest of it, we were not exactly given a heroes welcome. However, they found us a billet where we could lie our heads for the night and after a day or so they received some sort of confirmation of our status and we were trained in air station defence. I think we, they, the weapon we had was interesting: it was a 20mm Hispano-Suiza cannon which had to be what they called “cocked” before it could be fired, the great thing is not so much the strength, dexterity because the story was if you lingered a bit you could lose a few fingertips, however we were trained in the use of it. And we were going to have a read out, two read outs, five of us in each, in each one, but the cannon was, overnight was requisitioned for service in the south of England where it was thought would be far more useful in the event of an invasion. It was replaced with a, I recall it was a 1912 Lewis, Lewis gun with a pan for ammunition. CB: A drum. JL: And even then it was a bit of a situation. We were told we must not open fire under any circumstances without consulting the Station Defence Officer. Well first of all we didn’t know who the Station Defence Officer was and even if we did we had no means of contacting him. So therefore, as I say it was perhaps a good thing that our skills were not called into account. This went on for a few weeks and the only outstanding thing I can remember is that one night, or one morning, we woke up to find on a stretch of uncultivated area in the camp were prone figures. They were guarded by normally armoured personnel and we were instructed not to attempt to approach these people in any [emphasis] circumstances. Well, they were in fact refugees from the evacuation of Dunkirk: they were up there because they were spread all around the country, they didn’t want too many in the same place, bad for morale. They stayed there, one night they disappeared and that was that. Not long after this, I was, we, yes, I and one or two others were posted to RAF Elementary Flying Training School at a place just outside, where the beer, Burton. Burton, that’s right, you know, there’s a sign he’s gone for a Burton, well that’s there. Burton on Trent. I was trained as a, in those days all aircrew were first of all trained to be pilots. I failed the pilot’s course – so the failure rate was quite high, something like thirty per cent - and then I was asked what I wanted to do, they said well the only question is becoming a navigator bomb aimer. The senior, the officer in charge of training there, tested my knowledge of mathematics, it was not a big test, it was comparatively simple, just sort of fourth fifth form geometry and that sort of thing. I satisfied him I was intellectually capable of becoming a useful navigator and bomb aimer and then I was then posted to RAF Manby, Number 1 Air Armament School, at a place near Louth in Lincolnshire, where we went through, wait a minute, no, no, one of them, sorry I’m jumping the gun, I was posted to RAF Prestwick, in Scotland for a navigation course. That went on until, that’s right, we completed the course in I think it was September 1940, and I was then posted to, wait a minute, that’s right, I was posted from Prestwick to this one, this Number 1 Air Armament School in Louth in Lincolnshire, that’s right. I satisfactorily completed that course and I was called to the Station Commander, or Training Commander in charge of aircrew training. He said, ‘LAC Lyon, in view of your passing out at the top of the class and your past service record you have been awarded a commission,’ pending what they used to call well, you know, gazetting, whichever, whatever the wartime equivalent of that was, where I would be promoted to sergeant, and I was posted then to, oddly enough, RAF Kinloss! But by that time it had become Number 19 Operational Training Unit, well, it gives you, it tells you, the name tells you what it did. That’s right, this, this was in, this would be about November 1940. I completed the course in early January and let’s see, I went to, oh yes, that’s right. Nothing particularly, well, you cut all the bits and pieces short. The course was completed in, oh yes, in about, I think it was, March of 1941 I was called to the admin office in Kinloss and said that your commission has been confirmed. I was given a week’s leave to get myself a uniform and that sort of thing and then I would return for operational training. I bought my uniform, I managed to stay with a family I knew, their name was Truss, I think it was, and he was an engineer and he was working actually I didn’t know turned out it was the largest, there was an article about it the BBC Channel 4 some time, it was the largest armaments factory in the whole of the country. I didn’t know the extent of it then, but he was employed there. I got my uniform and whatnot and returned to RAF Kinloss and after, in a few days, I was posted to RAF Linton on Ouse which at that time was, it had, it was unusual, a brick building very good accommodation. It was built in the intermediate war years. It also had the other squadron was, they had Halifax, they were being converted to Halifaxes but they were not operational. So that’s right, I stayed with them and returned. Right, well I completed at RAF, at RAF Linton on Ouse I remember I was taken a very bad cough and cold and I remember the medical officer said, ‘Oh, Pilot Officer you have a nasty sounding bit of congestion there.’ And within half an hour or so I was ensconced in this local nursing home to be treated for this congestion. After about ten days there I think, I was released and my training continued. Right. Now, here we come to our, first of all I was to join with a man named, was it Flight Lieutenant Walker, who I think he had the nickname Johnnie, well he would wouldn’t they, that name, but then that order was countermanded for some reason unknown to me, the rumour had it that he was getting a little too fond of his namesake, sort of rumours that are rife in war time. I was then teamed up with a crew the first pilot was Sergeant Roberts. I was the only commissioned member of a crew. Now I don’t know what you know about, can you see any particular reason that that would cause difficulty, you probably don’t now, but it did then. As I was commissioned and they were not I could only converse with them socially or otherwise, in two places: either in a crew room or of course in the aircraft itself, otherwise it was actually forbidden to associate with me as commissioned officer to associate with non-commissioned personnel on the camp area, so it did make things a little awkward, didn’t it. Very unusual situation, that. Anyway, on the, was it on the let me see there, the 1st, of, was that, would be May 1941 we were allocated a new aircraft and told that the, in the crew room, we were told that the target was marshalling yards and adjoining railway station in Dusseldorf, Germany. Right, and we were going to do a pre-flight air test, as you were operations rules insisted. We were in the aircraft waiting to start and well, Roberts, the captain, started the engines but calamity intervened: there were no chocks in the wheels, under the wheels and the aircraft rolled forward and collided with what I think was called a Huck starter. CB: Oh dear. JL: No one weas injured but the propeller blades of one engine the Whitley, they were, it was a Whitley 5 was the actual classification of the aeroplane. Well, there is, chaos reigned and it just about did because, I didn’t mention, but shortly after my arrival early at RAF Linton on Ouse, one night there was an air raid. Now I looked around and there were no instructions of what to do in the event of an air raid, I thought well, what do I do? I thought it was a question of Jack you’ll have to play it by ear and wait and see what happens. Suddenly there was an almighty bang! My bed lifted off its, it seemed about lifted about a foot in the air and came down well what do I do? If I rush out to find a shelter I may be going the wrong way. I thought no, I’d better stay put, so I did. The next morning I got up and I went into the Officers Mess and there was no hot water, well that was not unusual, what I didn’t know, overnight a shelter had received a direct hit and quite a large, I think about twenty airmen were killed, including the Station Commander, so that was not a very auspicious beginning to my stay at Linton, was it? Anyway, I did, I, well nothing I could do there then, just hold on. We, I, the station was in a really, a terrible, the pilot was confined to quarters, told he would face a charge of gross negligence and we were told that we would not be flying that night, so we returned to, the rest of the crew, returned to our quarters. Not two hours later there was a change once more. Group, you see it was Headquarters at 4 Group, Group wanted a full number of aircraft involved, no exceptions. They said you, we have allocated you another aeroplane. You must be ready within two hours for take off and your pilot will be Sergeant Roberts. Now there’s a volte face isn’t it, one day he’s considered not fit to fly and next moment it’s all over and he’s fully qualified to fly as captain again. Well, that aeroplane that they gave us should never, in my opinion, should never have been used. We’d only, we took off with the rest of the squadron, but after about only an hour and a half flying, the port engine began to overheat and the, Roberts could do nothing about that, we had to reduce speed, it meant we cut our speed by about ten knots. That in itself was not particularly of great concern, but what was far more important was that we couldn’t get above ten thousand feet. Now the previous briefing the recommended height had been fourteen thousand so theoretically we could have been knocked out with one of our own bombs, but I don’t think that that’s very likely. There was no, well there wouldn’t be any fighter aircraft, they were also using anti aircraft fire, in any case, I think all the fighter squadrons in that part of Germany had been withdrawn and were sent to the, what would be the east front in Poland and regroup and practice for the, what the plan, what was it called - Operation Barbarossa – which was due to and took place on the 21st of June, yes 21st of June 1941 so there were no. Well we, I, we flew on this and almost immediately [emphasis] we were caught in that blue light which locks on to you and it is so dazzling you cannot see your own instruments, it’s so, it’s, you’re virtually as good as blind. We, I released the bombs at what I considered, though I had no idea really where it was, but I knew we’d got to get rid of them, they went down, and we immediately turned and I gave, I gave Roberts a course for home, although we never had any time to check the variation from magnetic to compass course, but let’s hope it was alright. But not long after we turned on for home, the port engine caught fire! The extinguisher didn’t work so therefore we flew on. Now, then the pilot said to me, ‘look Jack I can’t contact the rear gunner. Do you think you could crawl along the fuselage and see whether he’s all right?’ I said, ‘yes I’ll try.’ I opened the door behind the wireless operator and I was immediately assailed by a cloud of fume and flame. I really thought my, my time was up. I didn’t feel particularly frightened, I don’t know why, but then of course the adrenalin snaps in, doesn’t it. I seized an oxygen mask, took a few gulps of it, and Rob looked around, and he said, ‘oh my gawd, abandon aircraft.’ Now, it so happens that the exit is, in that particular aeroplane, was right beneath where I was sitting, so I had to be the first one out otherwise I’d block the exit for the remainder of the crew. I opened the hatch, I jumped, I don’t actually remember pulling the cord, the release, parachute release cord, I obviously did otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here, would I? I came to and I could see by that time the aeroplane below me and it was like an enormous [emphasis] torch in the sky, the entire plane was burning. Now how this happened, I don’t really know, but that was a fact. I saw it hit the ground with one tremendous kind of smoke and flame. I landed, and it was a windless night, so much so that the canopy covered me. I looked, I got it off and I looked around. Now I’d either landed in what was a probably a recreation ground, or what might have been a sports field, but I think it was a recreation ground. I know in the escape books they scurry around and bury their, bury their parachute. Well, you needed a power, power digger to make any impression on that soil: it was hard as a rock! But within less than a minute a German soldier turned up and well he didn’t, although he didn’t say it, had he done so I’d have been inclined to agree with him. “For you the war is over.” Well I wouldn’t have got far in the old fashioned fleece lined flying boot with no proper heel to it and in British battle dress, so there was little I could do but accept it. Now, this one, I could have walked in front of him and he could have walked holding on one hand on his rifle and the other hand his bicycle, so we accepted that the only other alternative: I sat on the cross bar and he did, we proceeded on a bicycle. Now either way, he stopped. Now it was, I wasn’t quite sure at the time, but depending on whether Germany had double summer British, double summer time, but it was well past midnight, he knocked on the door of this house, at that time I could understand a fair amount of German because I’d been studying German at night school, but that’s another, that’s another. He said I have a wounded British officer here, I’d like you to give him a little help. The lady produced some warm water. Head wounds always bleed a lot although they’re really only superficial and this was only a superficial cut, she bathed all the dried blood away, and believe it or not, she also made a cup of tea. Tea not coffee. I thought that was very impressive and I knew enough German to say vielen danke, kneidiger frau: thank you dear lady for your kindness. We then proceeded on for the rest of the journey to a town called Goch, G-o-c- h, not far from the Dutch border. Now for some reason that I never discovered, I did not end up, oh, first of all the policeman, he said give me your pistol, I said ich habe keine pistol, I have no pistol, which I didn’t, the sort of thing I didn’t want to be lumbered with that. He thought maybe a bit odd but he accepted it and that was it. I didn’t spend that night in the cells, he put me in the telephone exchange of all places. And all night, it was a manual exchange in those days, you hear the thing going up and down to finding its correct slot to go in to, anyway I can’t say I slept much but still, that was, I was dry and I’d saved my life so I couldn’t really grumble. The next day the, a Luftwaffe officer turned up and he said would you please come with me, and together with, at some stage or other, we picked up the rest of the crew so I must have had, I think, a slight case of concussion, but anyway, we ended up, he took us to the Luftwaffe base at Duisburg, and he said, ‘oh by the way, your comrade, the rear gunner is quite safe, but when he landed he broke his ankle and he is receiving treatment in a clinic near here, but he is otherwise he’s safe and well.’ And now believe it or not, these, they were extremely polite these Luftwaffe officers, very high standard of education I’d say, in fact some of them could speak English; some of them had spent time in England. We were entertained in the officers mess. There was no attempt made to extract information from us. We talked about cricket or the weather or something like that, and then they said, well we now have to hand you over to a representative of the German Air Force POW body and we went, we, they duly took us in hand and we went by I think it must have been a sort of a mini bus I think, yes it must have been. It wasn’t a, wasn’t a truck, it had seats in it, I know. Well, where do you think they took us? Believe it or not they took us to Dusseldorf and we got out of the thing there, and we stood on the platform. There was absolutely no sign of any damage whatsoever. [Emphasis] We were not the object of any kind of well, abusive attention from the Germans. They looked us up and down and took no, virtually no notice, in fact we had, it was a corporal with us, and he came back with some sticky buns for us. Well, so that was the, from we entrained at Dusseldorf and we travelled to Frankfurt, that is Frankfurt on the Main, the river Main, which at that time was the prison, the Luftwaffe prisoner of war body as what they called the Dulag dursrstadtlager’s transit camp. Now we, when we reached this transit camp, this is where we, they put me in the, I suppose they did with the other, rest of the crew as well, in the interrogation cell, which was really not much different from a second or third rate boarding house the only thing is there were bars over the window. Now before we’d had no instructions to what to do in event of being taken prisoner, of course they do it now, but they didn’t in those days, in 1941. But anyway, a Luftwaffe major came in and he gave me a form to sign and he said if you complete this, your details will be sent immediately to the Red Cross in Geneva and your relatives or whoever you’ve asked to be notified, will know within forty eight hours that you are safe and well. Now, we had [emphasis] oddly enough, been briefed about this. It wasn’t anything to do with the Red Cross in Geneva, it was actually prepared by the German Intelligence Service. I read it and I said, ‘I regret, Herr Major, I am not allowed to divulge some of the information that you require.’ And he accepted this without argument: that was that. And the next day I was released into the compound there. Well of course they had got far more on their hands to worry about than a rather insignificant crew. The last Sunday I think it was, in May, which used to be called Whit Sunday, there was a break out, there was a tunnel, the permanent staff at the gulag had been building this tunnel which they broke on I say, on the Whit Sunday. All were subsequently recaptured except for Roger Bushell, and that’s another story. So you might well say that I wasn’t the only failed bomb aimer, was I? We know that now. Anyway we travelled by normal train from Frankfurt, after Frankfurt. There were some guards there, but they were, they didn’t make themselves too obtrusive. We arrived at a place called Barth, which was the site of Stalag Luft I. Stanlager all that means is it’s a permanent camp, Stan means permanent, as opposed to Durst means transit. So that’s all. That was Stalag Luft I we found ourselves in. Now at the entrance to that I went one way because I was a commissioned officer and the rest of the crew went the other because they were not, because at Stalag Luft I there was an NCOs compound as well as an officers compound and that was in fact the last I ever saw of any of them. Any of them. Peculiar isn’t it, never mind. We were only there, well I stayed there until about April of 1942 and that was when Stalag Luft III was opened. The journey there was uneventful. We got to Stalag Luft III and I was allotted a, well a billet obviously, a room, [sigh] how much more of this do you want from me? CB: Just keep going. We’ll stop for a break. I think you deserve it. So, you said you were shot down on the 3rd of June 1941. JL: Correct. Yes. CB: You had been in the squadron since, for a couple of months, by then. JL: Oh, no. CB: Three months was it? JL: I think it was. CB: April. JL: So much happened, air raid and whatnot. I think it was about the mid April when I got to Linton on Ouse, yes. CB: And you talked about the crew, but in the air, what was the cohesion like? JL: Well, we could fraternise. CB: Were you all on christian name terms in the aircraft on operations? When you were flying? JL: Well, the only one I knew quite well was Robbie, that’s all, the pilot. I don’t remember. If they told me I, it didn’t sink in. CB: No. Then you already mentioned, that in, outside the flying period, if you were, time, if you were going out and socialising, that was different. JL: Some of the better class, you know the real, the nice hotels in Linton on Ouse, didn’t like too many non-commissioned ranks in there, they were fussy. CB: They only wanted the officers in. JL: They only wanted officers, yes. CB: Yes. I suspect times changed quite radically later. JL: Oh, they must have done. CB: When the heavies came. Yes. J: They must. But in the early days it was a, it was strict, I was given, no doubt about, I was given strict instructions I was not to fraternise. CB: Yeah, that was the early part of the war. JL: They were very particular about it in those days, the air force. CB: Right. And because you were shot down so soon into your tour, you didn’t have a lot of time to get to know your crew well, did you. JL: I had very little time, Robbie was about the only one I knew. CB: Yeah. Fast forward again into Sagan, Stalag Luft III. How was that organised? You had the officers and NCOs. But in the officers’ side. JL: There was an officers’ compound, and an NCOs compound. CB: And in the officers compound, how did that work? JL: Actually I went in to a the, they were quite small huts, and there were only two more in the room that I was in. I was billeted with a man with, a chap named Jules Silverstone, who was in fact Jewish and also this chap Pop Green, who in fact had served in the first world war. He was a, interesting history, at the beginning of the first world war he held a commission in the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry. CB: Right. We were in that. We were in that. JL: Really. Yes well, he had a commission in that but he later transferred to the Machine Gun Corps because the Germans hopelessly outclassed us in that, in those, in weaponry. He survived the war, but he was told that he was only allowed to fly on training missions, but being that sort of man he probably got himself on an operation and he was flying in a Hampden and they were shot down, and he survived, without, he wasn’t injured, and as I say I was billeted with him. He said that Passchendaele was the worst he had ever [emphasis] encountered. People died there not in action, but in a mass of filth and slime. He said it was, it was appalling. What happened was, he said the Germans withdrew to higher ground and left us in these swamped trenches. He said, as I say, he hated it. And of course, well he, [laugh] he was the only man who was rather sorry when the war ended. The reason was he’d have to go home and rejoin his wife whom he hated the sight of, [laughter] and last I heard of him he was running a taxi service in Bray. CB: Any reason why he hated his wife? JL: I don’t know, but he did. He didn’t go into that. [Chuckling] CB: Yes. What, you said there were three others. So you had Jules Silverstone, Pop Green, who was the other? JL: Jules Silverstone. His father was a solicitor in Birmingham, but he didn’t follow in this father’s footsteps, he moved heaven and earth to join the RAF. Now I think he was, at age, I think he was thirty four. He was too old to join as pilot or navigator, he had to be classed as a gunner. So, that was it, he was a - CB: Was an air gunner. JL: Pilot Officer Silverstone, gunner. Interesting him, because he knew all about this stuff they used to call window, the one that, when they released it, it had black, black on one side and a sort of reflective surface on the other. It played hell with the tech - CB: With the radar. JL: With the radar, yeah. And it wasn’t, he said they won’t use it, he knew this, he said but they won’t use it till they’ve found a reason to overcome it. And it was in fact, it wasn’t used until that raid on Hamburg, that firestorm they created. CB: On Hamburg. JL: Hamburg. In 1943. Yeah. CB: Who was the third person with you? JL: Sorry? CB: Who, you mentioned two people, who’s the third one? JL: There was only Pop Green and Silverstone. Three in the room. CB: And you. Oh, just three in the room, sorry. Yeah, okay. JL: They were quite small huts. There were only, I think there were only four, only four huts in the officer’s compound, certainly not many. I tell you what we, did happen one day, do you remember that story of the one who got away? CB: The German. JL: The German, yeah. Well he turned up, he was in, dressed in ordinary German uniform, he was a major, major, and I remember seeing he was on the doorstep to one of the huts chatting to a man named talking to Squadron Leader Mac Dunnell [?]. Of course he was, actually, the German, he was shot down during the Battle of Britain wasn’t he. CB: Yes. Yes. JL: That’s right. And of course Mac Donald [?] was part, flew a Spitfire I think. They were chatting quite friendly, and he was not accompanied by any other German personnel. he just wandered around chatting to people. CB: Amazing. JL: He had a sad ending, he was killed in a flying accident. He was testing new fighter apparatus I think, but he had engine trouble or something, he was lost at sea, never found, they never recovered his body, in November 19, oh, 1940 41. That was the one that got away. CB: Off the Dutch coast. JL: Yeah. He was there. CB: Well. he escaped in Canada. JL: There was obviously, you know, a bond in the, between the two air forces at that time, later on they didn’t, but there was in the early days. CB: A Chivalry. JL: Yeah. Chivalry. That’s it, chivalry of the air. CB: Extraordinary really. JL: So well that’s my story. Long before, Douglas Bader, who was, he was taken prisoner wasn’t he. CB: Yes. JL: When, something, either his plane collided with another one, anyway but he was taken prisoner. CB: He was shot down. JL: Whether he was shot down or not. CB: By one of his own people, he was shot down by one of his own people it turned out. JL: Ah well that’s. By one of his own people? CB: Yeah. They met in prison and the chap had to own up. JL: Oh, I met him personally. CB: But he didn’t admit. JL: Because he was also Shell. CB: Yes, he was. JL: Well anyway, That was a. When he was in the camp he used to play golf, he would try to. And because of his, he lost his legs you see, I mean his prosthetic legs, CB: Yes. JL: I think they replaced them, they threw them out or something like that. He would sometimes fall over but god help you if you went to assist him, you know he would swear at you, he was determined to get on his feet unaided. Anyway, he had a bit of a falling out with the powers that be there. Because he didn’t like the way they were treating the guards and whatnot as if they were friends not enemies. it was decided he would be better off in another camp and the last I saw of him, well not the last, the last in the prisoner of war camp I saw him, he was being escorted out, he turned it into his own advantage inspecting as if these as a company. CB: Oh you saw hm doing the inspection did you? Of the guard. JL: He was inspecting the, yeah. That’s typical Bader, isn’t it. Now! I retired, I left the air force in something like well, October 1945 but I remained on as a, I was paid by the air force till I think it was January ’46 and very soon after going to, where did we work to? Very shortly we, I was asked if I wanted to go to Venezuela because Venezuela still had most of its wells, oil wells and I agreed, and I was, I went out to, we didn’t go out on a ship I went out on a tanker SS Luscia, Luscia I think she was. She was imbalast so she rocked about a bit I’ve never been seasick or any other sick in an aeroplane. We finally docked at Aruba, in, which belonged to, was a Dutch possession then, Aruba, in the West Indies and I was only there for a night and then we got a, I was flown to Maiquetia, which was the airport for Caracas. Caracas itself is about five hundred feet above sea level, the capital of Venezuela. I was, from Maiquetia I travelled by a bus on a road which they say was built by convicts in the Gomez, when Gomez was a dictator of Venezuela, you could sometimes look down and see where you’d been ten fifteen minutes before. I reached Caracas, or I might say that they charged me, I had to have what was called a certificate of identity, and I had to pay for it in the local currency. They took a, all I had, was a, I had an English, I had a five pound note I think, they gave a stamp and it was probably worth about one tenth of that in the local currency, the so-and-sos. That’s how it happened. When I got to Caracas, I found a billet in the Hotel Majestic and I knew enough Spanish, I’d, interesting while I was in the prisoner of war camp I had lessons from of all people Tom Kirby Green, why he should be a good Spanish speaker, mind he served with the Republicans, didn’t he, in the war in Spain. CB: In the Spanish Civil War. JL: Lord Haw Haw announced it, didn’t he, yeah. So that was that, yes. I had enough Spanish to say I’m in the employ of Shell, they were called the Caribbean Petroleum Company then, they didn’t, Shell, enter into the name although they used the, what it is, the, oh it’s a scallop isn’t it, that’s the Shell sign isn’t it, the scallop, and oh I think it was the afternoon of Christmas Day, a chap named Swinson turned up, he said, ‘Oh Lyon, I’m glad to find you,’ he said, ‘I know you, we were advised you were on your way but then we sort of lost track of you.’ But then of course I served in the, on what they called internal audit, that is not, not, as opposed to the exterior audit, was actually Price Waterhouse in those days. They did the proper auditing of Shell’s possessions there, I went round to these depots making sure their equipment and whatnot was properly registered and that sort of thing. It was quite interesting work. Well, while I was there, who should, that was having travelled down to the fields the main producer in the Maracaibo, while I was there on this what they call internal audit, who should turn up but Douglas Bader. Now he was on a, well they say he was just, reviewing his position, he was visiting, but what he was really was doing he was trying to push the company to try to use British aero, aircraft rather than all American, and I was introduced to him as: ‘oh this is Mr Lyon from our head office in Caracas.’ And he said, ‘oh, hello there.’ I said, ‘but sir, we’ve met before haven’t we. He looked, I said, ‘last time I saw you, you were acting as a kind of inspector of a -.’ ‘Oh my gawd yes!’ And we kept in touch quite a lot afterwards, I’ve known him for quite. CB: Did you? JL: Yes. Bader, so. CB: How did you find him, outside Stalag Luft III? JL: I got on with him very well. He certainly wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but he had a, he was shrewd. One of the airfields in the concession area, was at a place called Mushi de Suleman [?]. It’s at five thousand feet and in the hot season the pilots were having great difficulty in taking off because of the rarefied air. Now in those, this was the days before computers, I didn’t get a, I got a file across my desk one day, and this was, Bader had seen this problem that they had and he had written in the margin, “let them take off with half tanks”, and he knew that in emergency they would still have enough to reach wherever necessary to safety and yet still travel with only half a tank. He did very well as a, in Shell. He finished as the President of Shell Aviation with a private jet to fly. So he did very well there. But he certainly, he had this, being able to see the, you know little bit further through a brick wall than most people. I had great admiration for him. But I agree he wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I always got on with him quite well. Yeah. CB: Where did you go from there? JL: Sorry? CB: Where did you go from there? JL: After I returned home by 1950, April 19. By the way, I flew the Atlantic in, at a time when there weren’t many transatlantic flights. I was staying in Montreal at the time, I had some relatives there and I was booked on this, it was little more than a souped up DC4, the aircraft we flew in. We were due to call only at one place: Halifax, but I remember the pilot made a special landing somewhere, he wanted to pick up, I think they were Catholic priests I believe, the look of ‘em, there was snow on the ground, I think we were lucky to take off again, but anyway we did. But flying at that, of course in those days you only flew at probably about twelve thousand feet, something like that, looking on down this unbroken mass of well pine trees I suppose, you wouldn’t have stood a dog’s chance of anything if you’d had to make a forced landing in a plane in there. Anyway we did we, I got home and 1950, in April 1950 and I, [pause] I met my future wife. Now, now I had known her as a schoolgirl because I was friendly with [chuckle] her half uncle, it sounds like carbuncle, doesn’t it [laugh] but he was a half uncle because they’d been, the father grandfather [unclear] had married twice, but that’s all I, we met again and well we decided to get married, Hazel and I. Our, our union, we didn’t do too bad: sixty three years exactly because she died on our wedding anniversary. CB: Did she really. JL: In 19, sorry, 2013. So we’re not bad was it. CB: Fantastic! JL: So , and then I, well I continued with working. I had the opportunity to leave about the end of. You see they formed what they called Iranian Oil Participants which was agreement hammered out with the Shah as he was then and when they kicked out Masadic [?], he agreed that concessions could be opened by this consortium of oil companies, and there was the BP had a forty per cent interest in it, the major oil, American companies had another forty, Shell had fourteen percent and the Company Francaise de Petroleum the remaining six per cent. That was how Iranian Oil Participants, and I was senior financial, financial assistant in, seconded to Iranian Oil Participants and I held that post for seventeen years. At the end of it I was getting a bit tired of it. I had a man that I’d no respect for: a man named Hoppen. Let’s say he shafted me once, he fed me to the, he tried to feed me to the lions that’s it; fortunately I was set, I had no respect for him after that. He said, ‘I’m not going to make you redundant, Lyon.’ I said, ‘thanks very much, I don’t want to be called redundant, I think I’ve done a pretty good job for seventeen years. Thank you.’ All I asked was that they brought forward the, at Shell you retired at sixty, that was before, and then there was also a reduction made for overseas service which I had, so it would only mean bringing forward my pension date by three or four years, not too much to ask, but that served me well because you see it’s an index linked pension. CB: Yeah. JL: Now, my monthly salary is worth, worth much more that I was actually paid when I retired. CB: Yeah. JL: So I made the right decision there. CB: You did, yes. JL: Staying with, staying with Shell. So I have some things to worry about but money is certainly not one of them. CB: What made, what brought you down to Bexhill? JL: Ah! Shortly before I retired, I’d lived in St Leonards. We had a, I had, we had a small bungalow in what they called the Links. It was actually originally it was a golf course, because I, it wasn’t being used as a golf course then but nothing else. I used to walk across this links to West St Leonards where I picked up the train for, used to take me to Cannon Street. But so, that brings it well, I’ve been with them ever since. CB: But you decided to leave St Leonards and come to Bexhill. JL: Oh yes, well, I made the right decision there. CB: What made you do that then? JL: There wasn’t much there for me in the air force: a failed navigator. I mean. They don’t even have them now anyway do they? CB: Well, It’s different. JL: No, no I made the right decision there. I knew I would. No, I couldn’t go wrong. CB: You mentioned air force again. Going back to your flying times in the Whitley. JL: Yeah. CB: What navigation aids did you have in those days? We are talking about 1941. JL: Well you had a thing called a CFC, whicb you set your, you set your, the course you would want to follow, and then you fed in what the, the wind direction, and you fiddle around with it and that gave you your course to fly. They did have, you could have, some of the Whitleys, not the one I was shot down, didn’t have one, they had an astrodome. CB: Oh yes. JL: So if you’d been trained in the use of the [unclear] mill, polar, star charts you could theoretically fix your position by air, star sight, but certainly the one we flew in, the old one they trundled out, that didn’t have one, didn’t have a - there was only one exit there, and that was downwards. CB: Oh right. JL: So that was the only navigation instrument we used to rely on, and dead reckoning as they called it. CB: So in the daylight you could more easily see where you were, but flying at night, what did you do there? JL: Oh yes it was. I did in fact, have use of, while I was waiting for this, at Cambridge, Downing Cambridge, Downing College Cambridge, I used to read Air Publication 1 2 3 4 and this was the navigational training of a pilot, CB: Right. JL: Because we were all supposed to be trained as pilots to start with in those days, they didn’t have different courses then. I was able to use it one day because I know we took off and the mist came down, I was pretty certain we were drifting off course, well it did tell you what to do. You flew halfway to your, half the distance that you’d previously calculated and then [emphasis] you gave the pilot orders to fly twice the distance that you were, you think you’d been going off course, twice that distance and that should give you a course to your original. It really, all you’re doing is flying the two sides of an isosceles triangle, and I tried it and we did, and out of the water, out of the thing, saw this, it was just an island. CB: You’d got it right. JL: So it certainly, it worked, I know. CB: This is doing the maximum drift calculator isn’t it. JL: Sorry? CB: This is the maximum drift calculation. JL: Yes, it’s for, they call it pilot navigation. CB: Yeah. JL: Yeah, oh yes. Because he couldn’t take bearings and all that sort of thing could he. As I say, it’s a simple, simple, it’s just geometry really, that’s all you’re doing, flying the two sides of an isosceles triangle. Yeah. CB: So how many ops did you do before you were shot down? JL: Only a couple, that’s all. C: Right. JL: We had to, they call them nurseries, they were using them to bomb an occupied port like Calais or somewhere like that. How they arranged it so that the, you weren’t dropping bombs on German and French civilians I suppose they had some means of contact in, I didn’t know what it was but that was all, a couple of those and this was just our third trip, that’s all. CB: How many aircraft were there in the squadron? JL: That I don’t really know. It was not public information anyway. CB: And when you went out on a raid, on an operation, did you go with other aircraft or did you go as individuals, as singletons? JL: Each one took off, you got the, from the Control Tower you get the take off clear, that’s it, one by one. CB: But you weren’t in any kind of formation or cohesive? JL: Oh no, it was only Americans that did that, formation flying. Oh no, quite impossible at night. CB: Yeah. And before you went on the op how did the briefing go? JL: Well as I say, it was quite clear. The marshalling yards, and the adjoining station: Dusseldorf. That was in the briefing, that was the target. CB: But they got you all together in a room where everybody was briefed together did they? JL: That was, yes, well not the second time, we were only given about a couple of hours’ notice to, there was no second briefing, we were just told to fly the original course. Yeah. CB: Were, when you went off on the ops were all the crew together or were the briefing only for the pilot and navigator? JL: Well, the pilot and navigator, myself, or bomb aimer I was acting as, we were there and the second pilot, and of course, but the rear gunner was at, well where he should be, the rear gunner. What he, you see he was getting, he was getting fried, there’s no doubt, because the whole aeroplane was on fire and we didn’t know it. CB: Ah! JL: So he, what he did, he just rotates his, rotates his, turret, pulls the ripcord, and the airstream takes him out, clear of the, the Whitley was built so that you were clear of the tail, the rear gunner was clear of the tail, twin tail, it just pulls him off and that’s it, that’s what he did, yeah, but as I say he broke his ankle, that’s all. CB: So all the crew survived. JL: All the crew survived, yes. CB: And all of them were captured. JL: All of them were taken prisoner, yes. CB: Taken prisoner. What about after the war, first of all how did you get back? Were you flown back or did you come on a ship? Or what happened? JL: Well at the end of the war, I was here wasn’t I. CB: No, but you were flown back were you? Or did you come back by ship? JL: Oh I see what you mean! Well, we by the I think it was the 1st of May 1945, we heard a bombardment and we guessed that was to cover the crossing of the Elbe by the British forces. The next day, the 2nd into the, we were billeted in a farmyard, well we were told that it belonged to a German, well he was in the tobacco business we heard, I don’t know how true that it was, but anyway, the accommodation was fine, we managed to get, it was good weather then, quite warm, no problem there. Into this compound the, came a, there was a British light armoured vehicle. There was a Captain I think, and a corporal. He didn’t say it to me but apparently he said to somebody, I believe there are quite a number of POWs here, and they said yeah, about six hundred if you look around. And that was the end of the war. What we didn’t know was, that as of the 30th of April all German forces in North West Germany surrendered to the British. Well they obviously, they’d rather surrender to the British than the bloody Russians wouldn’t they, that’s what they did. So actually the war ended in that part of the world a week before the main alliance. So, I remember the guards, they neatly piled their arms as you should do and that and they went off to what was called the cage, which was, that was the name the British gave to it, where they, and then they’d be taken ordinary prisoners of war. We’d only been there a short while and a convoy of American Mac trucks turned up and we were loaded on to these and this convoy set off. We got to a place called Rheiner, where we exchanged the American transport for British, well they were only yes, British RSC vehicles and we finally, we crossed the Elbe, I know. They had, well they had one of these revolving things and all the searchlights on, the idea because the war was still on theoretically, as protection as we crossed the Elbe. We, that’s right, we stopped at Luneburg, which was the place a week later the official German surrender took place, and they flew us on, then they drove us on next day to this Rheiner, this airfield at Rheiner. And we waited and we, I was flown home, most of them were, in the, it was a Douglas DC3. [Other]: Dakota. JL: They called it a Dakota. And we landed at Dunsfold in Surrey I think it was, where they gave us tea and biscuits you know, the Women’s VS, and we were really then rushed high, as quick as possible up to RAF Cosford which was the gathering centre for POWs, and there we were stripped bare, I don’t think, I never had any, they were thinking of lice. Actually, interesting thing I never saw a louse all the time I was in Germany, let alone getting infected with them, lice so that was. We used to get showers occasionally, but that was, that was certainly not getting rid of lice, it was merely to get a bit of, clean ourselves. We had a quick turn around. I was given fresh clothing, battle dress only with an officer’s stripe on it and I was home on the 9th of May 1945. We were living, my mother was living in Wallington. She had a flat which was a house owned by a relative. Wallington it was, yes. CB: In Surrey. [Other]: Surrey. JL: Yeah, in Surrey, yeah. That was it, that’s my war story. CB: So how did you actually get to the Elbe? Were you in the Long March? JL: Oh, I, you look at my book, I never called it a march, it was a, I called it the long walk home. CB: Yeah. JL: Yeah well, in those days the incurable optimists thought that when the Russians turn up: oh they’ll be brothers in arms and we’ll celebrate their victory with liberal tots of vodka. [Laugh] We didn’t think that! We refused to countenance the story that Hitler, and he did actually give this order, all, all commissioned personnel, ex-prisoners of war to be shot. But fortunately in those days his writ didn’t extend much beyond his bunker. So we refused to accept that. The one that we thought would happen and in fact it did that we would be put on the road and have to leg it to wherever we were supposed to be going. That is why I used to do at least five circuits a day on foot. CB: In the camp. JL: In the camp, yeah, in preparation for this, and of course it paid off. It wasn’t, the Germans never pushed the pace. The only thing is, our first night I couldn’t find any covered accommodation. Everywhere I went I was politely told to shove off [laughter]. No room at the inn. So I crawled into a great pile of hay, or straw I suppose it was really, covered myself entirely and I went to sleep and next morning I got up and I was all right. From then it was really dead easy, because a thaw had set in. These people who had built themselves sleighs – they were useless. Similarly those people that had got trollies, they were useless because they didn’t have any hard wood for a bearing, it went through and that was their trollies and their sleighs were useless. I went, I just plodded on. I had a little suitcase I remember, made of fibre. The first, the second night, after the, when I settled down to the straw or hay, or whatever it was, we were billeted in the stable. I believe it was actually, the stable was owned by General von Arnim. The man who replaced Rommel when he was repatriated on grounds of ill health, wasn’t he. I don’t know, that’s the story, it belonged to General von Arnim. Anyway, I was bad enough to get a dry place to sleep. I admit I was a bit close to the horses, but I don’t think they’re any particular menace. I was awakened by a terrific bang! I thought oh my goodness that’s a shot first of all, isn’t it. I thought no, not a shot. I looked, I was using my little fibre suitcase as a pillow, and there was a bloody great hole in it, it was the hoof of a, it must have been within inches of my head! [Laughter] But from then on it was dead easy because the, we stopped at a place called Spremburg. Now there was a glass factory operating and it was still working. We managed to get a, I did manage to get a bit of a wash down and the girls were decent enough to look the other way. I managed to get myself a bit of a clean up. From there we went on to a place called Spremburg, which was a rail head. Now here our column was split in two, why, I don’t know. One, we were loaded on to, on to, they weren’t cattle trucks, they were the old fashioned you know, these Eschable carourdon [?] variety from the first world war, we were loaded in to one of these. The others they went to a place called Luckenwalde, I think was, actually that was liberated by the, by the Russians, and from all accounts they weren’t too well treated to start with by the Russians until they found, were sure who they were. But we were lucky, we were loaded into this. Well, it was crowded, yes I grant you, but the real reason was that we were in pitch dark, everybody wanted, for some unearthly reason to sit as near the door they could. I don’t know if they think it was suddenly going to open and they were going to be wafted away to safety, but they wouldn’t move. When daylight came we were able to sort ourselves out. Now I grant you the toilet facilities were not all that good, but no worse than a ordinary soldier in the field in action has to cope with, a sort of open latrine, and above all, I’ve virtually I’ve experienced worse crowding in London’s underground. So it wasn’t all that bad. We trundled along, we, I remember we did a very slow stop-start circuit of Berlin, course there was a raid going on at the time. We arrived then at a place called, what was it, oh it was a little village, small settlement, not far from Bremen. We, it was, I remember we stopped outside this camp, and look up at it and miserable rain was coming down, there was this thing over the door, well it didn’t, we used to always used to say it was a “Work Makes You Free”, and we used to say “work yourself to death”, but it looked a pretty dreary and unuttering place and we went in to this. It was called Marlag and Milag Nord and it was designed, by the name you could tell, for Royal Marine and Merchant Navy officers: Marlag and Milag. And there were, we were a little concerned because we thought this camp is empty. Where have all these Marine, Naval and Marine officers gone? And we got a horrible thought they might be in some mass grave or other. However, it wasn’t true, they had been moved, when, where and why I’m not actually sure. But when we got inside, well if we had any clothing, warm clothing we were lucky, or dry clothing we put it on. It was a nothing, not a camp I’d recommend but it was, at least it was dry and there was, we had adequate food. There was a certain thing, belief that we were short of food, well I can assure you we never were, we had more than we could do with because the Red Cross parcels were being delivered by since the rail system was on the blink they were coming in by truck and they were, they were dumping parcels by the side of the road by us. Well I couldn’t carry, well most of us did, took out things like chocolate and tea and coffee and things like that, the rest of it. We offered them to the guards but they wouldn’t, neither would the civilians, I suppose they still might be pounced upon by die-hard SS, SS army, the army SS not the civilian SS. In fact one, one night we were billeted with these SS Waffen, Waffen SS, they, weaponed I mean, armed SS and we did, well always had a low profile but these chaps were very willing to chat to us. They got somehow idea that it wouldn’t be long before we joined forces with them and then finally put the bloody Russians - CB: Out of Germany. JL: Where they should be. Well it was, well, actually the second, as I say, if the first leg of the, our all expenses tour of north Germany was bearable, the second was a doddle. It was fine weather. Warm enough to sleep outside, in fact sometimes we walked through orchards white with blossom, not with snow with blossoms and we, there was no attempt to force the pace, but what did happen on the way, we stopped, in all the, four, nearly four years I was a prisoner of war I never suffered not even verbal abuse, let alone physical, never, but this particular, we did have a bit of trouble there, it was more directed at personal about us, in general. In fact the civilian population we got, they tried to you know, reach our ranks, the Germans just turned bayonet and rifle, pointed and don’t you dare come any closer. Well we moved on and then we thought we heard an explosion and we saw smoke arising from this. We thought it was the town that had been attacked, and we, you know as they say well it couldn’t have happened to nicer people. I’m afraid it wasn’t that, it was our column [emphasis] that had been attacked! By a, I think it was a Canadian Squadron Leader flying a Typhoon. He, he must have been blind, because this, it couldn’t possibly been a, it wasn’t a, looked like a German unit of any description but anyway I’m afraid he did and there were quite a few people killed on there. And that to my mind I think was the only, some, I’ve read in terms of hundreds something, hundreds killed on this so called long march, it’s just not true. The only other fatal casualty was a chap named Large I think it was, he had a ruptured appendix but there’s no reason to say he wouldn’t have had it anyway, it wasn’t caused by the conditions and that was that. We reached, we reached the place called Stade, was the southern side of the Elbe, and oh one thing I did see while we were at Marlag and Milag Nord, I saw a V2 fired, not many people have seen that. There was a bit of a rising ground and I happened to be on it and then suddenly I saw this, this thing, this great rocket, with this great burst of flame as it rised slowly and slowly and slowly, and it appeared, of course that was as much an optical illusion, it held itself out and it turned to get its bearing and by that time it couldn’t reach Britain, so probably the target was Antwerp, but that’s I saw a V2 fired and not many people have seen that. Anyway, we got to this Stade place and the Elbe ferry if you please, was still not operating normally, it was, and there was a, there was a boot repairer there, some people’s boots needed a bit of attention, mine were all right, but anyway he did what he could. We crossed the Elbe and we arrived at a place called, oh, just outside Hamburg. You come up a cobbled street, which we had, quite steep and we were then met by what, I, was the most horrible thing I’ve ever come across, a migration of slugs! Can you believe this, they were marching up on a broad front. There was absolutely no way of avoiding them. Blankenese, was the name of this little town, that’s the name of it: Blankenese. We tried to pick our way, very, very carefully and thank god I managed to keep on my feet, otherwise if I’d fallen can you imagine the state I’d been in. Well from then on it was, it was easy going and as I say, we got to this, this open, this tobacco man’s, well he was, farm and from then on it was the journey home. But I’ll never forget, oddly enough we saw a reverse, I mean a thing so beautiful. I’d never seen it before. It was a, I didn’t tell you, hadn’t told you that in September of 1942, I and a number of others were for some reason which the Germans had and they didn’t bother to give us the details, we were transferred to a place called Offlag 21B. Now Offlag meant it was an officer’s camp, that’s all. 21B. And we stayed there through a rather dreary time, the winter, until we moved in April, but I came back and I didn’t go in to the north compound I went back to the east compound for some reason or other. Why I don’t know, and actually I didn’t move into the north compound where the tunnel was being dug until September of 1943. How are we doing? CB: You’re doing well. One final question. What happened to the guards after you’d walked all this way? Did they just surrender or did they leg it or what did they do? JL: Oh yes. Well they were only part of this. They’d realised, they heard they were all German forces had surrendered and they were only too pleased, they just neatly piled their arms and that was that. They knew all right. And they went off to go, to be taken in what we called the cages to a British prisoner of war camp. Some of them actually, when I lived in Salcombe in South Devon many years later, there was a chap there used to run a driving tuition, he’d been one of these there and he’d stayed in England. CB: Funny. JL: So he didn’t have too bad a time. CB: Well Jack Lyon, thank you for a very interesting conversation. JL: My pleasure. 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 Jack Kenneth Lyon Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chris Brockbank 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 2018-02-02 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 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ALyonJK180202 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Pending revision of OH transcription Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 02:03:03 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng 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 Description An account of the resource Jack Lyon was a navigator/ bomb aimer and a prisoner of war for almost four years. Born in 1918, he was employed with the London Gas Company as a bookkeeper until August 1939, when he transferred to Shell. Atfter the declaration of war, Shell closed their London office and Jack enlisted in the RAF on the 5 September, being attracted by the extra privileges that aircrew received. His initial training commenced in late 1939 and elementary flying training in June 1940. Being unsuccessful with pilot training, Jack completed navigator training at RAF Prestwick, followed by armament training at RAF Manby, and operational training at RAF Kinloss. On completion of training, Jack was awarded his commission and posted to RAF Linton-on-Ouse. Being the only commissioned member of the crew, Jack found the opportunities to socialise restricted. Having only completed a few operations, during one operation, Jack and his crew had to abandon their stricken aircraft. Having been separated from his crew, Jack was arrested by a German soldier cycling past who, faced with a long walk, decided the easiest way was for Jack to ride on the crossbar. Stopping at the first house they came to, the soldier arranged for Jack’s wounds to be attended to, and he was given tea and cake. Initially billeted in Stalag Luft 1, he was then transferred to Stalag Luft 3 in April 1942, where he remained until early 1945. Douglas Bader was also billeted there, and Jack witnessed the famous incident when Bader inspected the German guards before being transferred. Early in 1945, with the advancing Russian army getting nearer, Jack participated in what became known as “The Long March”. Following the German surrender, Jack returned home and, following demobilisation, returned to continue his career with Shell. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ian Whapplington Anne-Marie Watson Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain Poland England--Lincolnshire England--Yorkshire Germany--Barth Germany--Hamburg Germany--Duisburg Germany--Düsseldorf Poland--Żagań Scotland--Moray Germany--Ruhr (Region) Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941-05-01 1941-06-21 1941-06-03 1942-09 1943 1945-05-01 1945-05-09 aircrew bomb aimer navigator prisoner of war RAF Kinloss RAF Linton on Ouse RAF Manby RAF Prestwick Red Cross shot down Stalag Luft 1 Stalag Luft 3 the long march V-2 V-weapon https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1018/11667/EWynnIAWynnK410430-0002.1.jpg ca6a33c7ee143820030f57c3dc5dbe49 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1018/11667/EWynnIAWynnK410430-0003.1.jpg 86743e66c11b688cd9cb020cc7020dcc https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1018/11667/EWynnIAWynnK410430-0001.1.jpg 800570b78fd565aeaba0eabf1d251135 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 Wynn, Ian Archer I A Wynn Description An account of the resource 146 Items. Collection concerns Pilot Officer Ian Archer Wynn (1908 - 1943, 146838 Royal Air Force). After training as ground crew he remustered as a flight engineer and flew operations with 100 Squadron. He was killed 25 May 1943 on an operation from RAF Grimsby to Düsseldorf. Collection consists of a diary, a memorial book, an official report on what was his final operation, photographs of his crew, his family and the squadron as well as official correspondence from Air Ministry and British Red Cross, letters of condolence and a large number of letters from Ian Wynn to his wife Kathleen. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Patrick Anthony Wynn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Ian Archer Wynn is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/126116/">IBCC Losses Database.</a> 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 2015-07-13 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 Wynn, IA Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document [Envelope] MRS I. A. Wynn, Sunny Brae, Norley, Frodsham, Warrington, LANCS. [/envelope] [postmark] NEWQUAY CORNWALL 1 MAY 1941 [/postmark] [page break] Newquay [underlined] 30/4/41 [/underlined] Dearest, [deleted] honey [/deleted] Many thanks for your letter of Monday. I am glad you have the car back. The Price was not bad but I would have made him wait for his money. Be careful when you are driving (By the way have you heard any more about the Austen?)) Now I still dont [sic] know whether I have failed that exam. I know I have passed one, so I cant [sic] say how long Ill [sic] be here yet Ill [sic] let you know as soon as possible though. Today it has rained the first time for [indecipherable] we [deleted] when [/deleted] went to Penzance. I do miss you so there is only one consolation. When [page break] this course is finished there will be this worry. Just work your allotted hrs then you are [underlined] free [/underlined] [underlined] Thursday [/underlined] I could not get this finished off last night dear so I am doing it [corrected] now [/corrected]. I still have heard nothing I expected a letter today. I dont [sic] know whether you have written or not but the mails have been all beggared up lately owing to the raids on Plymouth If you could get D down here it would be nice but it is no use doing anything about it yet though. I could get you a warrant for travelling & you can get for ½ fare then. I would think that would be about a £1 or 30/= Well Ill [sic] have to go now the Corporal is yelling Love to all Ian XXX for Kids 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 Letter from Ian Wynn to his wife Description An account of the resource Thanks her for letter and mentions a car. Writes of exams and results. Mentions rain and going to Penzance. Complains about mail and raises possibility of her visiting. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1941-05-01 1941-04-30 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Tow page handwritten letter and envelope Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Correspondence Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EWynnIAWynnK410430 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Civilian Royal Air Force Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lancashire England--Warrington England--Cornwall (County) England--Newquay England--Penzance England--Cheshire Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941-05-01 1941-04-30 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 Ian Archer Wynn military living conditions military service conditions training https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1281/19055/E[Author]ValentineJRM410501-0001.jpg dd96268add33b22e112c3446a87fda07 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1281/19055/E[Author]ValentineJRM410501-0002.jpg 751b3f57fb39b680b05cc5484c801089 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 Valentine, John John Ross Mckenzie Valentine J R M Valentine Description An account of the resource 674 Items. Collection concerns navigator Warrant Officer J R McKenzie Valentine (1251404 Royal Air Force). The collection contains over 600 letters between JRM Valentine and his wife Ursula. It also contains his log book, family/official documents, a book of violin music studies and other correspondence. Sub-collections contain family photographs, prisoner of war photographs and a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings of events from 1942 to 1945. He joined 49 Squadron in April 1942 and flew 10 operations on Hampdens. The squadron converted to Manchester in May when he completed two further operations. His aircraft was shot down on the Thousand Bomber raid of 30/31 May 1942. Five crew, including him bailed out successfully and became prisoners of war. The pilot and one air gunner were killed when the aircraft rolled over and crashed. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Frances Zagni 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 2018-09-06 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 Valentine, JRM 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 Envelope addressed to John Valentine Description An account of the resource To LAC Valentine in Monkton Ayrshire. Postmarked Aberystwyth. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1941-05-01 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One handwritten envelope Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Correspondence Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context E[Author]ValentineJRM410501-Env 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 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain Scotland--Ayrshire Scotland--Monkton Wales--Dyfed Wales--Aberystwyth Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941-05-01 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. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1281/19558/EValentineUMValentineJRM410430-020001.1.jpg e22569841149fb6a658f0b2a794c7c21 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1281/19558/EValentineUMValentineJRM410430-020002.1.jpg 0d4358f021bc5e2cb98c4375eefde00c https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1281/19558/EValentineUMValentineJRM410430-020003.1.jpg 961d5d04fb9200cdb98155bbeeefa3a3 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1281/19558/EValentineUMValentineJRM410430-020004.1.jpg 8c09b4143d5cf516b20b1c8b0295fc58 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 Valentine, John John Ross Mckenzie Valentine J R M Valentine Description An account of the resource 674 Items. Collection concerns navigator Warrant Officer J R McKenzie Valentine (1251404 Royal Air Force). The collection contains over 600 letters between JRM Valentine and his wife Ursula. It also contains his log book, family/official documents, a book of violin music studies and other correspondence. Sub-collections contain family photographs, prisoner of war photographs and a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings of events from 1942 to 1945. He joined 49 Squadron in April 1942 and flew 10 operations on Hampdens. The squadron converted to Manchester in May when he completed two further operations. His aircraft was shot down on the Thousand Bomber raid of 30/31 May 1942. Five crew, including him bailed out successfully and became prisoners of war. The pilot and one air gunner were killed when the aircraft rolled over and crashed. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Frances Zagni 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 2018-09-06 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 Valentine, JRM Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document Trefilan Penparke Aberystwyth April 30th My darling, this is the third epistle I've penned to you today. One in the parcel of socks, & the other with the birth certificate & Ba's letter, were dispatched this morning from Aber. P./O. I've survived my first excursion into the wide wide world. The bus didn't turn up at the appointed time so I was forced to hitch-hike into town – much cheaper & pleasanter! I paid £1.10 into Frances' P.O., collected £1.1.5 back money on her account, now I start tomorrow with the regular 43/6 a week. I also paid the crossed warrant for £19.12.3 into my bank a/c, that was right wasn't it? I hope to return your P.O. book herewith. Certainly put anything you can save into your P.O. book, I don't need any more – specially if I go to the Baby's Home & don't have to pay for board & lodging. [page break] We shall really be able to save up for our own home then! I hope you'll let me know what you think about it as soon as poss. As you'll see from Ba's letter, the jobs I should do are quite genteel & you needn't fear that they'd make a skivvy of me. Anyway I could try it for a few weeks, as Miss Crow suggests. I'm hoping in any case that some day I shall be able to live with you again, tho' I suppose that won't be for 6 months or so, & if I can make myself useful & save money in the meantime & bring Frances up in the way she should go, & keep Jane, that's all we can hope for. I am writing to Miss Crow today to thank her for her offer & tell her I'm consulting you – I won't commit myself. But I hope you'll approve, as I do. [page break] [underlined] May 1st [/underlined] I put Frances out to sleep yesterday afternoon in the front porch. It was beautifully sunny & sheltered, but I didn't feel too sure about her & sat watching her thro' the front window all afternoon while I wrote letters (to David Blaikley, Mother & Aunty Meg, Dundee). However she survived, & slept well, so I've put her out at the back this morning, & shall continue as long as the weather is fine. I want her to get some colour in her cheeks, tho' I suppose she's pretty young yet for sun-tan. I'll have to be careful with that fair skin, too, or else she'll get burnt instead of tanned. We started on smocking lessons last evening – Mrs S. is always asking my advice about sewing & cooking, I feel rather an ass telling her what to do in her own house before I've been here a week! I went to the NAAFI yesterday & got last week's ration for Frances [page break] & me, & can get another double set for this week if Mrs S. wants them. I deducted the cost from the £2 & paid her for this week, & she seemed to consider that quite in order. I also went round to call on Jane – she certainly seemed pleased to see me & bounced all over the place. Mrs Royle says she's not going away just yet. Apparently they haven't got accommodation in Coventry, so that's OK. From Jane's point of view. They remind me vaguely of the Micawbers! I have enjoyed D. Cop. I've almost finished it & you can consider me converted. I've got a large tablet of Morny's Gardenia soap for Irene & shall send it off today, to Barnet for forwarding, as I don't know her address. I'm longing to hear how you enjoy flying, & if its very different navigating in the air from navigating in the classroom. I've asked Ba to send your slippers if she goes to Lido. With all my love – do look after yourself, darling Ursula XX from Pumpkin 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 Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine Description An account of the resource Writes this is third letter she has written today and mentions her days activities going out into town. Discusses finances, her future plans and job. Hopes she will be able to live with him again someday but in the meantime bring daughter up in the way she should do as well as keeping the dog. Continues with description of baby and daily activities including going to the NAAFI to get rations. Asks how he is enjoying flying. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1941-05-01 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Four page handwritten letter Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Correspondence Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EValentineUMValentineJRM410430-02 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Civilian Royal Air Force Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain Wales--Dyfed Wales--Aberystwyth Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941-04-30 1941-05-01 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 Ursula Valentine Navy, Army and Air Force Institute training https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/886/23155/EHudsonP-HEHudsonJD410406-0003.1.jpg 93cef77b82b0508426eae83dbada07db https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/886/23155/EHudsonP-HEHudsonJD410406-0004.1.jpg c9e34ff246eb7a5554b134441714e767 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/886/23155/EHudsonP-HEHudsonJD410406-0001.1.jpg 5b12ae48bf7307835d51a8fbd2d68730 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/886/23155/EHudsonP-HEHudsonJD410406-0002.1.jpg 93c99cb4412e05511017e40f0a4f75f1 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 Hudson, Douglas James Douglas Hudson J D Hudson Description An account of the resource 529 items. Collection concerns Pilot Officer James Douglas Hudson, DFC (755052 Royal Air Force) who joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in June 1939 and trained as an observer. While on route to Malta in August 1940 his Blenheim crashed in Tunisia and he was subsequently interned for two and a half years by Vichy French in Tunisia and Algeria. After being freed he returned to Great Britain and after navigator retraining completed a tour of 30 operations on 100 Squadron. The collection contains letters to and from his parents and from French penfriends while interned in Tunisia and Algeria, newspaper cuttings of various events, logbooks and lists of operations, official documents and photographs. A further 23 items are in two sub-collections with details of navigator examinations and postcards of Laghouat Algeria.<br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Elizabeth Smith and Yvonne Puncher and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /> <p>This collection also contains items concerning Louis Murray and Harry Bowers. Additional information on <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/202827/">Harry Bowers</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/220410/">Louis Murray</a> is available via the IBCC Losses Database.</p> 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 2015-06-16 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. 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 Hudson, JD Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document Prisoners of War Post [postmark] [postage stamp] [EXAMINER 5723] 755052 Sgt. Chef.. J. D. Hudson R.A.F. British Prisoner of War [deleted] c/o The American Consul [/deleted] [deleted] Tunis [/deleted] [inserted] Grand Hôtel d’Orient Rue Gambetta [/inserted] Afrique du Nord. [inserted] [underlined] Médéa. [/underlined] [/inserted] [page break] From Mrs Hudson 6 Walverden Crescent Nelson Lancs. England [postmark] [inserted] 1-5-41 [/inserted] [OPENED BY] [page break] 6 Walverden Crescent Nelson Lancs. Wed. 6th/4/41. My dear Douglas. We were very delighted to have two letters & 3 post-cards from you last week, after being without news from you for some time, & to learn that you are well. The letter, Dec. 28th, told that you had a nice Christmas & received gifts from [indecipherable word]. The oranges sound good. – we have nearly forgotten what they look like. The Jan. 10th. letter told that you were at last receiving letters & I’m so glad about this, altho’ they do bring news which is almost ancient history. Your letters to [deleted] you [/deleted] [inserted] us [/inserted] appear to take much longer to travel than do [deleted] yours [/deleted] [inserted] ours [/inserted] to you. The Dec. letter from you took about 14 weeks. Last Thursday I sent a cable to you from Nelson but am wondering much about it. The rate of charge was 3d a word. I stressed the fact that I wanted the message to travel by the quickest way possible & told the attendant that the charge from Manchester was 4 1/2d a word. She was quite emphatic about the thing being in order so will you please note the date when you received the message It was sent from here on April 3rd. I shall [page break] be interested to know how long the Air Mail letter, written while I was at Cranford, took to reach you. Well love I hope you’ve been able to make sense of all the different messages I sent. We’ve had such difficulties & anxieties during the last nine months – I sometimes wonder if this really is me – my life is so changed. Of course it is war-time & everybody’s life is changed, but the old folks cannot stand up to it like the younger ones. One night in eight Dad is out & I am getting quite brave in staying alone. Did I tell you in a previous letter that we have taken this very small furnished house for 3 months. I keep going over to look at No 10. which is just as we left it & the garden looked really nice yesterday with the new grass & Spring flowers coming up all around. I didn’t go down to the crab tree but thought I could see tiny green buds on it. I have a very nice neighbour here – a widow - & her father, who is 79, keeps his small garden very nice indeed. Grandad, who is 79 gets more & more crotchety & Auntie, who is not quite that age is almost as bad. I have not heard anything of John for a long time. Last time I heard from Mrs Clapton she was expecting Miss Howarth going to live with her. It’s a good thing Spring-time is on the way – or she would freeze like I did when I stayed there. Am only just beginning to feel anything like myself. I don’t wonder Mrs Clayton has so many colds. The house is too cold. So glad you are having good weather. All love from Mother & Dad. 755052 J.D. Hudson Sgt. Chef.) R.A.F. British Prisoner of War. c/o The American Consul Tunis Afrique du Nord. 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 Letter to Douglas Hudson from his parents Description An account of the resource Received two letters and three post cards from him. Comments on contents of his letters. Mentions that they had not seen oranges in England. Mentions time letters take to travel and that they have sent cables. Talks of their life in general. Catches up on news, activities, the garden and friends and family. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource P Hudson Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1941-04-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Two pag ehandwritten letter and envelope Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EHudsonP-HEHudsonJD410406 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Civilian Royal Air Force Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Algeria Algeria--Médéa (Province) Great Britain England--Lancashire England--Nelson North Africa Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941-04-06 1941-05-01 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 Christian prisoner of war https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1525/27331/SNewtonJL742570v10009-0001.1.jpg 0fa8f67eea05ab9c1f1c69288bb97387 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1525/27331/SNewtonJL742570v10009-0002.1.jpg 50e4aaf3c93657ade92ba679e5ecc3ba 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 Newton, Jack Lamport J L Newton 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 2016-07-15 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. 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 Newton, JL Description An account of the resource 83 items. Collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Jack Newton (742570 Royal Air Force) who was a Sergeant air gunner on Wellington of 12 Squadron. His aircraft was landed on fire at a German occupied airfield in Antwerp in August 1941. He was the first airman to escape back to England via the Comète escape line. The rest of his crew were captured and made prisoners of war. The collection contains accounts of his escape, letters of research from Belgium helper, other official correspondence from the Red Cross and the Royal Air Force, photographs of places and people, newspaper cuttings propaganda leaflets and maps of airfield and escape route. In addition there is an interview with Jack Newton about his experiences in the wartime RAF. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jackie Bradford and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document A double sided leaflet written in French dated 1 May 1941. 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 Leaflet Description An account of the resource 1er Mai 1941, Message des ouvriers de Coventry aux ouvries Francais Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1941-05-01 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Two side printed leaflet Language A language of the resource fra Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SNewtonJL742570v10009 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Civilian Royal Air Force Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Warwickshire England--Coventry France Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941-05-01 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 Jan Waller propaganda https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1770/31055/BCleggPVLangAGv1.2.pdf 2c05ba1be620d88127344d317bed4e35 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 Clegg, Peter Vernon. Lang, Alastair - folder Description An account of the resource Fifteen items. Contains description of the terrible three, a biography of Squadron Leader Alastair Lang DFC, photographs, a portrait, details of his flight engineer, operational diary, correspondence, newspaper cuttings and extracts from his log book. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-07-02 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. 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 Clegg, PV 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 Extracts from Alastair Lang's pilot's flying log book Description An account of the resource Covers from April 1941 on 150 Squadron flying Wellington, then on 21 Operational Training Unit and finally on 156 Squadron with Wellington and then Lancaster until operation to Dortmund 4 May 1943 when his aircraft was hit and target indicator bomb exploded in bomb bay and he was reported missing. A second pilot on operations was Flying Officer Skinner. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 21 b/w photocopied sheets 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 BCleggPVLangAGv1 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--Berlin Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea Germany--Kiel Germany--Cologne Germany--Mannheim France France--Saint-Nazaire Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay Germany--Bremen Germany--Hamburg Atlantic Ocean--English Channel France--Boulogne-sur-Mer Germany--Osnabrück Germany--Duisburg Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Bielefeld Italy Italy--Turin Germany--Stuttgart Germany--Munich France--Lorient Germany--Wilhelmshaven Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Essen Czech Republic Czech Republic--Plzeň Italy--La Spezia Germany--Dortmund Germany--Ruhr (Region) Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941 1942 1943 1941-04-15 1941-04-16 1941-04-17 1941-04-18 1941-04-30 1941-05-01 1941-05-03 1941-05-04 1941-05-05 1941-05-06 1941-05-07 1941-05-08 1941-05-09 1941-05-10 1941-05-11 1941-05-12 1941-05-13 1941-06-11 1941-06-12 1941-06-13 1941-06-16 1941-06-17 1941-06-26 1941-06-27 1941-07-03 1941-07-04 1941-07-05 1941-07-06 1941-07-07 1941-07-08 1941-07-09 1941-07-10 1941-07-11 1941-09-13 1941-09-14 1941-10-15 1941-10-16 1941-11-09 1941-11-10 1941-11-20 1941-11-21 1941-11-22 1941-11-23 1941-11-29 1941-11-30 1941-12-08 1941-12-09 1941-12-10 1941-12-11 1941-12-12 1941-12-20 1941-12-21 1941-12-22 1942-01-26 1942-01-27 1942-01-28 1942-01-30 1942-01-31 1942-02-02 1942-02-03 1942-02-04 1942-02-09 1942-02-10 1942-02-24 1942-02-25 1942-02-26 1942-02-28 1942-03-01 1942-03-02 1942-03-08 1942-03-09 1942-03-10 1942-03-12 1942-03-13 1942-03-22 1942-03-23 1942-04-16 1942-04-17 1942-04-18 1942-04-19 1942-04-26 1942-04-27 1942-05-04 1942-05-05 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 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 12 Squadron 150 Squadron 156 Squadron 20 OTU 21 OTU 23 OTU aircrew bombing Flying Training School Harvard Lancaster Lincoln missing in action Mosquito Operational Training Unit pilot RAF Lossiemouth RAF Waddington RAF Warboys shot down Spitfire training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2093/34639/SWeirG19660703v090003.pdf cf321337e20b8a659aa3202e02eb91de 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 Weir, Greg. Flannigan, J and McManus, JB Description An account of the resource Seventeen items. Collection concerns Flt Sgt James Flannigan who flew as a wireless operator/air gunner on 77 and 76 Squadrons in 1941, he failed to return from operations 31 October 1941 and J B McManus (RAAF), a Halifax pilot who flew operations on 466 Squadron in 1944-45. Collection contains their log books, mementos, parade notes, medals, documents and photographs. Collection catalogued by Nigel Huckins Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-26 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 Weir, G 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 Jas Flannigan - Observer's and air gunners 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 SWeirG19660703v090003 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Review Oct 2024 Description An account of the resource Observer's and Air Gunner's Flying Log Book for Jas Flannigan, wireless operator/air gunner. Covers his training and operations 13 January 1940 to 31 October 1941. He was based at RAF Evanton, RAF Bassingbourn, RAF Jurby and RAF Middleton St George. Aircraft flown were Anson, Harrow, Wellington, Whitley and Halifax Mk 1. With 76 Squadron and 77 Squadron he flew 22 operations. Targets were Boulogne, Rotterdam, Kiel, Hamburg, Bremen, Mannheim, Dieppe, Cologne, Magdeburg (but bombed Emden), Frankfurt, Leuna, Hanover, Essen, Brest, Cherbourg and Dunkirk. His pilots on operations were Sergeant Smith, Pilot Officer Ireton, Sergeant Thrower, Sergeant Hutchin, Squadron Leader Bicksord, Group Captain Opert, Sergeant Herbert, Sergeant O'Brien. He failed to return from the operation to Dunkirk and his log book is marked 'Death presumed'.<br /><br /><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW135383485 BCX0">This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No </span><span class="ContextualSpellingAndGrammarError SCXW135383485 BCX0">better quality</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW135383485 BCX0"> copies are available.</span> Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941-04-15 1941-04-16 1941-04-19 1941-04-20 1941-04-24 1941-04-25 1941-04-30 1941-05-01 1941-05-02 1941-05-03 1941-05-06 1941-05-07 1941-05-08 1941-05-09 1941-05-10 1941-05-11 1941-05-12 1941-05-15 1941-05-16 1941-05-19 1941-05-20 1941-07-05 1941-07-06 1941-07-07 1941-07-08 1941-07-09 1941-07-14 1941-07-15 1941-07-19 1941-07-20 1941-07-21 1941-07-22 1941-08-07 1941-08-08 1941-08-29 1941-08-30 1941-09-14 1941-09-10 1941-10-26 1941-10-27 1941-10-31 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. Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire Scotland--Ross and Cromarty Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Isle of Man England--Darlington France Germany Netherlands France--Boulogne-sur-Mer Germany--Ruhr (Region) Netherlands--Rotterdam Germany--Kiel Germany--Hamburg Germany--Bremen Germany--Mannheim France--Dieppe Germany--Cologne Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony) Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Leuna Germany--Hannover Germany--Essen France--Brest France--Cherbourg France--Dunkerque 10 OTU 11 OTU 215 Squadron 76 Squadron 77 Squadron Air Observers School aircrew Anson bale out crash Halifax Halifax Mk 1 Harrow killed in action Operational Training Unit RAF Bassingbourn RAF Evanton RAF Jurby RAF Middleton St George training Wellington Whitley wireless operator / air gunner https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2468/46744/LWhymarkJP53481v1.1.pdf 551b9fb9670ed9aad0d684fed1683dac 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 Whymark, Jack John Percy Whymark Description An account of the resource 56 items. <br /><br />The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Jack Whymark DSO DFC (1920 -1945, 616289, 53481 Royal Air Force) and contains a<span>n oral history with his son, Robert Whymark.&nbsp;</span><br /><br />He joined 17 Squadron in 1939 and took part in Operation Aerial in 1940.&nbsp;<br /><br />He flew operations as an air gunner in Europe and North Africa with 101, 103, 106, 148 and 149 Squadrons and was killed 04 October 1945 during Operation Dodge. <br /><br />The collection was donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Graham Thurlow and Robert Whymark and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan. <br /><br /><span>Additional information on Jack Whymark is available via the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/230288/">IBCC Losses Database.</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-11-03 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 Whymark, JP Requires A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence. [his log book, correspondence, documents, objects and photographs]. 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 Jack Whymark’s Royal Air Force Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LWhymarkJP53481v1 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 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. 1940-12-16 1940-12-17 1940-12-28 1941-01-02 1941-01-09 1941-01-29 1941-02-10 1941-02-11 1941-02-12 1941-02-14 1941-02-21 1941-02-24 1941-02-25 1941-03-11 1941-03-12 1941-03-14 1941-03-18 1941-03-19 1941-03-20 1941-04-30 1941-05-01 1941-05-17 1941-05-18 1941-05-22 1941-05-23 1941-05-28 1941-05-29 1941-05-30 1941-05-31 1941-06-02 1941-06-03 1941-06-16 1941-06-26 1941-06-27 1941-06-29 1941-07-02 1941-07-03 1941-07-06 1941-07-07 1941-07-08 1941-07-09 1941-07-10 1941-07-14 1941-07-15 1941-07-17 1941-07-18 1941-07-20 1941-07-21 1941-07-22 1941-07-23 1942-11-17 1942-11-18 1944-02-19 1944-02-20 1944-02-21 1944-02-24 1944-02-25 1944-02-26 1944-03-01 1944-03-02 1944-03-15 1944-03-16 1944-03-18 1944-03-19 1944-03-22 1944-03-23 1944-03-24 1944-03-25 1944-03-26 1944-03-27 1944-03-30 1944-03-31 1944-04-10 1944-04-11 1944-04-12 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 1944-05-11 1944-05-12 1944-05-19 1945-05-20 1944-11-09 1944-12-13 1944-12-14 1945-01-02 1945-01-03 1945-01-07 1945-01-08 1945-01-14 1945-01-15 1945-01-28 1945-01-29 1945-02-01 1945-02-03 1945-02-28 1945-03-05 1945-03-06 1945-03-11 1945-03-12 1945-03-15 1945-03-16 1945-03-26 1945-03-31 1945-04-04 1945-04-05 1945-04-22 1945-04-27 1945-05-07 1945-05-10 1945-08-23 1945-08-25 1945-10-03 1945-10-04 Description An account of the resource Jack Whymark’s Flying Log Book as an Air Gunner from 1st October 1940 until 4th October 1945 when his aircraft crashed in to the Mediterranean Sea. Initial training at No. 8 Bombing and Gunnery School and 225 Squadron. Posted to 149 Squadron for operations in December 1940. In April 1941 posted to the Middle East with 148 Squadron, returning to the United Kingdom in September 1941. Become an Air Gunner Instructor in February 1942 with No. 1 Air Armament School. Further posting as an Instructor to No. 4 Air Observer’s School. February 1943 saw a posting to the Central Gunnery School as an Air Gunner for further training before returning to No. 4 Air Observer’s School as an Air Gunner Instructor. His second operational posting was to 101 Squadron in February 1944. A further operational posting to 103 Squadron in November. On 3rd/4th October 1945 his aircraft was reported missing over the Mediterranean Sea during an Operation Dodge flight carrying 17 ATS females and two Army Nursing Sisters as well as the crew of six. Served at RAF Evanton, RAF Old Sarum, RAF Tilshead, RAF Mildenhall, RAF Manby, RAF West Freugh, RAF Syerston, RAF Sutton Bridge, RAF Ingham, RAF Elsham Wolds, RAF Glatton, RAF Kabrit (Egypt). Aircraft flown were Harrow, Battle, Hector, Lysander, Wellington, Botha, Anson, Lancaster, Oxford, Martinet. With 149 Squadron he flew 15 night operations to targets including Mannheim, Lorient, Bremen, Gelsenkirchen, Wilhelmshaven, Hannover, Brest, Kiel, Cologne. His pilots were Flt/Sgt Marr, Flt/Sgt Goss, Flt/Sgt Hawley, Flt/Sgt Milsted, With 148 Squadron, 21 night operations to Gazala, Benghazi, Karpathos, Heraklion, Tripoli, Naples, Messina, Palermo, His pilot in 148 Squadron was Flt/Sgt Milsted. A single night operation while with No. 4 Air Observer’s School to Danzig, his pilot being Pilot Officer Curtin. 20 night operations with 101 Squadron to Leipzig, Stuttgart, Schweinfurt, Augsburg, Frankfurt, Berlin, Essen, Nuremburg, Aulnoye, Aachen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Karlsruhe, Friedrichshafen, Hasselt, Orleans. With this squadron his pilots were P/O Evans, P/O Holland, (P/O Waughman. Finally a total 17 bombing operations with 103 Squadron (7 day, 10 night). Targets included Wanne-Eickel, Samso Fjord, Denmark, Nuremburg, Munich, Merseburg, Stuttgart, Ludwigshafen, Bottrop, Gelsenkirchen, Chemnitz, Essen, Dortmund, Hannover, Paderborn, Hamburg, Mining-Kattegat, Bremen. Also 1 Operation Manna (Rotterdam), 2 Operation Exodus (Brussels) and 2 Operation Dodge (Pomigliano). Pilots included Flight Lieutenant Garton, Squadron Leader Hague, Flying Officer Saxe, Flying Officer Mosley, Flying Officer Wright, Squadron Leader Butler, Flight Lieutenant Anderson, and Flight Lieutenant Newman. Newspaper clippings of the last flight in October 1945 included. The last couple of pages of the logbook have been signed by those who attended the squadron reunion at Elsham in 1995. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Berkshire England--Buckinghamshire England--Cambridgeshire England--Essex England--Gloucestershire England--Lincolnshire England--London England--Norfolk England--Oxfordshire England--Rutland England--Suffolk England--Wiltshire England--Yorkshire England--Yorkshire Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway Scotland--Ross and Cromarty Wales--Glamorgan Belgium Belgium--Brussels Germany Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Aachen Germany--Augsburg Germany--Berlin Germany--Bottrop Germany--Bremen Germany--Chemnitz Germany--Cologne Germany--Dortmund Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Essen Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Friedrichshafen Germany--Gelsenkirchen Germany--Hamburg Germany--Hannover Germany--Karlsruhe Germany--Kiel Germany--Leipzig Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein Germany--Mannheim Germany--Merseburg Germany--Munich Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Paderborn Germany--Schweinfurt Germany--Stuttgart Germany--Wanne-Eickel Germany--Wilhelmshaven France France--Aulnoye-Aymeries France--Brest France--Lorient France--Orléans Malta Greece Greece--Ērakleion Greece--Karpathos (Municipality) Netherlands Netherlands--Hasselt Netherlands--Rotterdam Netherlands--Texel Poland North Africa Libya Libya--Banghāzī Libya--Darnah Libya--Gazala Libya--Tripoli Egypt Egypt--Kibrit Italy Italy--Messina Italy--Naples Italy--Palermo Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea) Denmark Denmark--Samsø Germany--Stuttgart Italy--Sicily Italy--Sicily Poland--Gdańsk Italy--Pomigliano d'Arco Europe--Frisian Islands Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nick Cornwell-Smith Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 101 Squadron 103 Squadron 148 Squadron 149 Squadron 225 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School Air Observers School aircrew Anson Battle Berlin Campaign (23 August 1943 – 25 March 1944) bombing Bombing and Gunnery School bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944) Botha evacuation Harrow killed in action Lancaster Lancaster Mk 3 Lysander Martinet mine laying missing in action Operation Dodge (1945) Operation Exodus (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) Oxford RAF Elsham Wolds RAF Evanton RAF Glatton RAF Ingham RAF Kabrit RAF Manby RAF Mildenhall RAF Old Sarum RAF Sutton Bridge RAF Syerston RAF Tilshead RAF West Freugh training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2652/47205/SButlerR102576v20007-0002.1.jpg 32525efd0073c6be34dd2b30a29ed649 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2652/47205/SButlerR102576v20007-0001.1.jpg 456a44f35e00854353d874623ceaf3be 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 Butler, Bob Robert Butler R Butler Description An account of the resource 76 items. The collection concerns Flying Officer Robert ‘Bob’ Butler RAFVR (1914 – 1942, 958421 and 102576) and contains his log book, correspondence, documents, photographs and objects. He flew operations as an air gunner with 99 and 218 Squadrons before being presumed dead in the North Sea on 23/24 September 1942. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jan Johnstone, Richard Heslop and Liz Heslop. Catalogued by Jan Johnstone with additional contributions by Paul Baguley, Verandar Yuen, Tsz Yau, Shwetal Patil, and Ami Wagner.<br /><br /> <p>Additional information on Robert Butler is available via the&nbsp;<a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/204033/">IBCC Losses Database.</a></p> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023-07-12 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. 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 Butler, R 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 Drei Machte ein Kriegsziel Description An account of the resource The leaflet observes that Britain has been joined by the United States and Soviet Union with their leaders sharing Churchill’s vision and words, seeking freedom and peace for all people. Churchill has undertaken to help everyone who fights against Hitler. The Third Reich is said to be without friends with the powers of freedom united against it. The reader’s attention is drawn to a list of false assertions and promises made by German leaders. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Double-sided printed leaflet Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending text-based transcription. Other languages than English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SButlerR102576v20007-0001, SButlerR102576v20007-0002 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. 1934-08-14 1938-09 1939-08-09 1939-09-09 1940-05-28 1940-06-22 1940-06-24 1940-06-28 1940-07-14 1940-09-01 1940-11-09 1941-01-01 1941-01-30 1941-03-15 1941-05-01 1941-06-02 1941-06-22 1941-07-02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource deu Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sally Coulter Churchill, Winston (1874-1965) Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945) propaganda Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882-1945) Stalin, Joseph (1878-1953) https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2529/48552/LJacksonWHA965484v1.1.pdf 4782ab8730356b40bafd86f7fc37efc7 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, William Hugh Anthony W H A Jackson Description An account of the resource Three items. The collection concerns William Hugh Anthony Jackson (b. 1921, 965484 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, and a photograph. He flew operations as a pilot with 105 Squadron. The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anthony Jackson and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-10-15 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 Jackson, WHA 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 William Hugh Anthony Jackson's Royal Air Force Pilot’s Flying Log Book. One Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LJacksonWHA965484v1 Description An account of the resource William Jackson’s Flying Log Book 1 from 12th July 1940 until 14th February 1943 as a pilot. Training started in No. 15 Elementary Flying Training School, then No. 6 Flying Training School, 17 Operational Training Unit. Posted to 105 Squadron in February 1941 for operations including a detachment to Malta. Posted to Central Flying School in November 1941 to be trained as a flying instructor. Return posting to No. 6 Flying Training School and No. 6 Advanced Flying Unit as instructor. In August 1942 posted to 23 Operational Training Unit. Served at RAF Carlisle, RAF Little Rissington, RAF Upwood, RAF Swanton Morley, RAF Lossiemouth, RAF Luqa, Malta, RAF Church Lawford, RAF Upavon, RAF Pershore. Aircraft flown were Magister, Anson, Blenheim, Tiger Moth, Oxford, Tutor, Boston, Botha, Wellington, Lysander, Defiant. Jackson flew 35 day operations. Many were shipping sweeps and convoy intercepts in the North Sea, Mediterranean and Ionian Seas. His targets included Ostend, Nieuport, Emden, Le Havre, Haarlem, Stockum, Antwerp, Borkum, Helgoland, Norderney, St Omer, Chocques, Dunkirk, Bremen, The Hague, Pantelleria, Tripoli, Catania, Buerat, Homs, Sirte. On 7th July 1941 his aircraft was attacked by a JU-88. The other two crew members were wounded and he had to belly land the aircraft. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941-04-03 1941-04-04 1941-04-07 1941-04-19 1941-04-21 1941-04-23 1941-04-25 1941-04-27 1941-04-29 1941-05-01 1941-05-03 1941-05-07 1941-05-12 1941-05-22 1941-05-25 1941-05-27 1941-06-11 1941-06-14 1941-06-17 1941-06-19 1941-06-21 1941-06-23 1941-06-26 1941-06-28 1941-06-30 1941-07-04 1941-07-19 1941-07-30 1941-08-07 1941-08-08 1941-08-09 1941-08-11 1941-08-16 1941-08-22 1941-08-23 1941-09-10 1941-09-22 1941-09-25 1942 1943 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire England--Cumbria England--Gloucestershire England--Norfolk England--Warwickshire England--Wiltshire England--Worcestershire Scotland--Moray Malta Atlantic Ocean--North Sea Mediterranean Sea Belgium Belgium--Antwerp Belgium--Nieuwpoort (West Flanders) Belgium--Ostend Germany Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Borkum Germany--Bremen Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony) Germany--Helgoland France France--Dunkerque France--Le Havre France--Pas-de-Calais France--Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais) Netherlands Netherlands--Haarlem Netherlands--Hague Italy Italy--Catania Italy--Pantelleria Island North Africa Libya Libya--Al-Khums Libya--Surt Libya--Tripoli Italy--Sicily France--Chocques Germany--Norderney Libya--Buerat el Hsun Libya--Al-Khums Libya--Surt Europe--Frisian Islands Europe--Frisian Islands France--Pas-de-Calais 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 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nick Cornwell-Smith 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 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 105 Squadron 17 OTU 23 OTU Advanced Flying Unit aircrew Anson Blenheim bombing Boston Botha Defiant Flying Training School Ju 88 Lysander Magister Operational Training Unit Oxford pilot RAF Carlisle RAF Church Lawford RAF Little Rissington RAF Lossiemouth RAF Luqa RAF Pershore RAF Swanton Morley RAF Upavon RAF Upwood Tiger Moth training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2749/51041/MichaelMyersWaymanPDF.pdf 5117e981c44d0399a02f4269372b4dd3 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 Wayman, Mike Michael Myers Wayman Description An account of the resource 52 items.&nbsp;The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Michael 'Mike' Myers Wayman (89359 Royal Air Force) and contains&nbsp;<a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2863">an album</a>, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 21, 90 and 139 Squadrons and was killed 20 March 1943. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Catherine Ashby and Dorothy Ramser and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan. <br /><br />Additional information on Mike Myers Wayman is available via the&nbsp;<a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/229696/">IBCC Losses Database.</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-08-22 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 Wayman, MM 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 Flight Lieutenant Michael Myers Wayman (version one) Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Personal research Photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context MichaelMyersWaymanPDF Description An account of the resource Summarises Mike's family history, marriage, operations with 21, 90 and 139 Squadrons, awarding of the Distinguished Flying Cross and the circumstances of the crash in which Mike died together with his observer, Flight Lieutenant Sampson Clear, DFC. Operations were to Ijmuiden and Vlieland, Heligoland, Schiermonnikoog, Île-de-Bréhat, Ploughnerneau, The Hague, Flushing, Wilhelmshaven, Berlin, the warships Scarnhorst and Gneisenau, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hegelo, Den Welder, Osnabruck, Eindhoven, Liege, Tours, Rennes, Knaben, Aulnoye and Malines. <span>Details the short lived experiment of using B-17s as a high altitude bomber with the RAF in 90 Squadron.&nbsp;</span>Details the loss of Pilot Officer Herbert Kitchener Marshall, Sergeant John Dunning, Sergeant Maurice Stafford Dewing. Sergeant Harold Needle and Flight Lieutenant Charles Kenneth Hayden. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dorothy Ramser Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941-04-13 1941-04-16 1941-04-18 1941-04-26 1941-04-28 1941-04-30 1941-05-01 1941-05-02 1941-05-04 1941-05-08 1941-05-09 1941-07-08 1941-07-23 1941-07-24 1941-08-12 1941-08-16 1941-08-19 1941-08-21 1941-08-29 1941-08-31 1941-09-15 1942-10-13 1942-10-15 1942-10-25 1942-12-06 1943-02-12 1943-02-14 1943-02-17 1943-02-26 1943-03-03 1943-03-04 1943-03-20 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Atlantic Ocean--North Sea Europe--Scheldt River Belgium France Germany Germany--Ruhr (Region) Great Britain Netherlands Norway England--Berkshire England--Eton England--Buckinghamshire England--Cambridgeshire England--Lincolnshire England--Norfolk England--Oxfordshire England--Brightwell-cum-Sotwell England--Sunderland (Tyne and Wear) Belgium--Liège Belgium--Mechelen France--Aulnoye-Aymeries France--Brest France--Plouguerneau France--Rennes France--Tours Germany--Berlin Germany--Cologne Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Helgoland Germany--Hürth Germany--Kiel Germany--Norderney Germany--Osnabrück Germany--Wilhelmshaven Netherlands--Den Helder Netherlands--Eindhoven Netherlands--Hague Netherlands--Hengelo (Overijssel) Netherlands--IJmuiden Netherlands--Schiermonnikoog Netherlands--Terschelling Netherlands--Vlieland Netherlands--Vlissingen France--Bréhat Island Europe--Frisian Islands Europe--Frisian Islands Europe--Frisian Islands Europe--Frisian Islands England--Burnham-on-Crouch [place] Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Civilian Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 13 printed sheets 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. 103 Squadron 139 Squadron 21 Squadron 90 Squadron B-17 Blenheim Churchill, Winston (1874-1965) crash Distinguished Flying Cross final resting place Gneisenau Hampden killed in action love and romance Me 109 Mosquito Portal, Charles (1893-1971) RAF Bicester RAF Elsham Wolds RAF Marham RAF Martlesham Heath RAF Watton RAF Wyton Scharnhorst sport training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/3345/58718/LReeksA649770v1.pdf 45ce580cadcaaf79f47c0602db7ebb39 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 Reeks, Albert Description An account of the resource 39 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Albert Reeks (b. 1921, 649770 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, correspondence, documents, objects and photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator/air gunner with 216 Squadron in North Africa. The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Philip Reeks and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021-12-01 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 Reeks, A Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document "The Story of King George and His Minister" Once upon a time, there was a great king named George. From his small island, he controlled strange peoples and possessed warships and massive armies. False Propaganda And this King had a minister called Churchill, who was famous for lying and hypocrisy and for consuming alcohol (whiskey). And when (the King and his minister) thought that time was smiling upon them, they grew bold and declared war on another peaceful people who had nothing before them but work and diligence. Norway Dunkirk Greece Crete Island Malaya Singapore However, this people demonstrated supreme strength, and they slaughtered King George's soldiers, casting them into the deep abysses of the sea. Then the submarines and aircraft of this mighty people sank most of the ships of this arrogant king, whether they were warships or commercial vessels. Food supplies on the island began to run dry and decrease until the King and his minister were forced to tighten (the belts of) their wide bellies. This was because food ration cards alone were not enough to quiet the hunger... To London In addition to this hardship, a significant number of kings and ministers from other kingdoms arrived, having lost their countries and peoples due to the war, and became guests of King George. However, they grew tired of this life due to a lack of work and began to bicker among themselves, so King George decided to entertain them by performing a play in which they all participated. “From Steadfastness to Steadfastness!!” And thus all the King's guests participated in acting out this play; they crowned their heads with imaginary crowns, sat on alleged thrones, and believed that under their command were massive armies answering their every call. And while they were thus occupied with their play, two other peoples of great power and might joined the enemies of King George. Harsh blows began to rain down on the King's soldiers, and they started losing one country after another. And suddenly, the King and his minister asked their guests to stop their theatrical performance and join them in this fierce war. However, the guests refused to comply with this insulting request. So King George was forced, while in this critical predicament, to send his minister to his mischievous friend Roosevelt, who lived in the far lands of America. However, this (man) Roosevelt had declared war, and his opponent's final blows began to descend upon him until he was no longer able to send even a single warship or a single one of his soldiers. The King and his minister were left with only one means, which was to clothe themselves in the garb of the innocent. They fell to their knees and began chanting spiritual songs day and night. However, the Almighty Lord knew their hypocrisy and lies, and the woes they brought upon the world." And so what was bound to happen did happen; Roosevelt plundered all the wealth and lands of King George, leaving him with nothing but his island, and completely ignored his pleas for help. The King's soldiers returned to their island in a state of extreme exhaustion and hunger from the effects of the blows that fell upon their heads. The King was forced to cease fighting, so he dismissed his minister, intending to lead a life of asceticism and renunciation in this world. And with that, all the enslaved peoples became free. And here you see them, having breathed a sigh of relief, going to their jobs to earn their daily bread. Churchill could not bear to see the world at peace, so he fell dead on the ground, and his impure soul departed, heading to hell. 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 Albert Reeks’ Royal Air Force Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LReeksA649770v1 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 Albert Reeks’ Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book from 20th May 1940 until 19th January 1949. During this time trained as a wireless operator and air gunner. Trained at No. 4 Bombing and Gunnery School, 12 Operational Training Unit. Operational posting to 103 Squadron in August 1940. In May 1941 posted to Overseas Aircraft Delivery Flight followed by operational posting to 216 (Bomber Transport) Squadron in Egypt carrying out transport duties conveying freight, ammunition, petrol, passengers and collecting casualties. In April 1944 posted to India with a detachment from 216 Squadron carrying out supply dropping operations to India and Burma, in addition to normal freight and passenger duties. In June, returned to Egypt. In December 1944 posted to Central Mediterranean Forces as Signals Briefing Officer with various units including 130 Staging Post (Pomigliano), 107 Staging Post (Hassani), No. 282 Wing, 216 Group, 205 Group, before returning to England in 1947. Released from the RAF on 1st September 1950. Served at RAF Yatesbury, RAF West Freugh, RAF Benson, RAF Penrhos, RAF Newton, RAF Kemble, RAF Heliopolis, RAF El Khanka, RAF El Adem, Landing Ground 224 (Cairo West), RAF Khartoum, RAF Agartala, RAF Topcliffe, RAF Middleton St. George, RAF Watchfield, RAF Pitreavie. Aircraft flown were Anson, Battle, Wellington, Bristol Bombay, Vickers Valentia, Hudson, C-47 Dakota. With 103 Squadron he flew 18 night bombing operations. His target were Boulogne, Calais, Ostend, Rotterdam, Bremen, Gelsenkirchen, Bremerhaven, Wilhelmshaven, Hamburg, Lorient, Kiel, Brest (to attack the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau), Berlin, Cologne and Mannheim. His pilots were Pilot Officer Thorougood, Squadron Leaders Tait and Blome-Jones and Sergeant Muggeridge. When flying with 216 Squadron he flew 9 night and 22 day supply dropping operations in addition to his normal transport duties in the Middle East, Burma and India. Named targets included Leros Island, Bongyaung, Mokokchung, Thingai, Indaw, Tsemmy, Sakhai, Kohima, Meluri, Lake Indawgyi, Kidzematuma, Cheswezum, Wokha and Nerhema. His pilots were Squadron Leader Archbell, Flying Officer Rustom, Sergeant Hersey, Pilot Officers Cody and Vickery. During his time with 216 Squadron in the Middle East he was involved with a search for force landed Wellington which was found and the aircrew successfully recovered. Whilst transporting a repair crew to this aircraft he found and recovered the crew of a second Wellington which had also force landed. 7th and 13th July 1942)) On the 14th October 1942 the undercarriage of his aircraft collapsed on take-off. The aircraft caught fire and became a write off. No injuries. The log book also contains a newspaper clipping regarding an operation to supply fuel to Fleet Air Arm Albacores, operating behind enemy lines, to attack a convoy heading to Tobruk on 9/10th July 1942. Reeks has added a hand written list of the aircraft he flew, where, how many flying hours and radio type. This list is also typed. Also added is a list of his postings with duties and remarks. Also included is a US Office of War Information booklet entitled “How to get along with the Kachins, Shans and Burmans”. There is also a propaganda leaflet with cartoons written in Arabic entitled “The Story of King George and His Minister”. Note: times given in the log book are all GMT even when overseas. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1940-09-17 1940-09-18 1940-09-21 1940-09-22 1940-12-21 1940-12-22 1940-12-28 1941-01-03 1941-01-09 1941-01-15 1941-01-16 1941-02-28 1941-03-01 1941-03-13 1941-03-14 1941-03-21 1941-03-22 1941-04-08 1941-04-09 1941-04-12 1941-04-13 1941-04-15 1941-04-16 1941-04-17 1941-04-18 1941-04-24 1941-04-25 1941-04-30 1941-05-01 1941-05-03 1941-05-04 1941-05-05 1941-05-06 1942-07-09 1942-07-10 1942-07-11 1942-07-13 1942-10-14 1942-10-23 1942-10-24 1943-11-14 1943-11-15 1943-11-16 1943-11-17 1944-04-13 1944-04-14 1944-04-25 1944-04-29 1944-04-30 1944-05-03 1944-05-10 1944-05-11 1944-05-14 1944-05-16 1944-05-18 1944-05-19 1944-05-21 1944-05-22 1944-05-23 1944-05-25 1944-05-29 1944-05-31 1944-06-02 1944-06-03 1944-06-05 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Durham (County) England--Gloucestershire England--Nottinghamshire England--Oxfordshire England--Wiltshire England--Yorkshire Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway Scotland--Dunfermline Wales--Gwynedd Belgium Belgium--Ostend Netherlands Netherlands--Rotterdam France France--Boulogne-sur-Mer France--Brest France--Calais France--Lorient Germany Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Berlin Germany--Bremen Germany--Bremerhaven Germany--Cologne Germany--Gelsenkirchen Germany--Hamburg Germany--Kiel Germany--Mannheim Germany--Wilhelmshaven Egypt Egypt--Cairo Libya Libya--Tobruk Sudan Sudan--Khartoum Greece Greece--Leros (Municipality) India India--Kidzematuma India--Kohima India--Mokokchung India--Nāgāland Burma Burma--Bongyaung Burma--Indaw Burma--Mohnyin 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 Artwork Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nick Cornwell-Smith 103 Squadron 12 OTU 205 Group 216 Group 216 Squadron air gunner aircrew Anson anti-aircraft fire Battle bombing Bombing and Gunnery School C-47 Churchill, Winston (1874-1965) Gneisenau Hudson Operational Training Unit propaganda RAF Agartala RAF Benson RAF Cairo West RAF El Adem RAF El Khanka RAF Heliopolis RAF Kemble RAF Khartoum RAF Middleton St George RAF Newton RAF Penrhos RAF Pitreavie RAF Topcliffe RAF Watchfield RAF West Freugh RAF Yatesbury Scharnhorst searchlight take-off crash training Wellington wireless operator wireless operator / air gunner