1 25 16 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/106/1564/ABriggsDW170327.mp3 154ae8a60c9fc85e03bb0d4e30404e55 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/106/1564/PBriggsDW1701.jpg 0ddb6a37aec4aa568c806c57545b57bd 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 Briggs, Donald Donald W Briggs D W Briggs Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-27 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Briggs, DW Description An account of the resource 21 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with flight engineer Donald Ward Briggs (1924 - 2018), his logbook, memoirs and 16 wartime and post war photographs. He completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders flying from RAF Upwood. Post war, Donald Briggs retrained as a pilot flying Meteors and Canberras. He eventually joined the V-Force on Valiants and was the co-pilot for the third British hydrogen bomb test at Malden Island in 1957. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Donald Briggs and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document PJ: My name is Pete Jones. I’m interviewing Flight Lieutenant Donald Briggs DFC. Other people attending are Sandra Jones, Pete Jones and Ann Kershaw. It is Monday the 27th of March 2017 and we are in Mr Briggs’ home in Freeland, Oxfordshire. Thank you Donald for agreeing to be interviewed for the IBCC. Donald, now tell me about your early years before you joined up Bomber Command. DB: Right. Thank you Peter. Well, I was brought up in a small village called Lealholm which was about ten miles from Whitby on the north east coast and my parents ran the village post office and general stores and I, I used to help out while I was a teenager and that sort of thing and then I went to, I went to Whitby County School, a good grammar school and I did five years there but I decided that having seen some advertising literature for the air force and apprenticeships at RAF Halton, and so I applied and then I sat the entrance exam and got through all right, and this was as things were building up towards World War Two. And so the Royal Air Force were recruiting ground servicing personnel in pretty large numbers. At this time I was a fifteen year old and so I saw my chance to learn all about aircraft and what, how you put them together and so on and so I applied for the examination as I said. And I joined at Halton on two days after the war was declared. And that was on the 5th of September 1939. And so there is little doubt that the harsh discipline at Halton coupled with excellent theoretical lessons in schools, and the schools were known as Kermode Hall after the well-known Kermode, the aerodynamicist and he used to teach there actually, and many hours filing pieces of metal in workshops. And it turned boys into men and later in the course we worked in teams stripping down and re-assembling many types of aero engines and at the end of the training which was reduced a bit because of being wartime, and there was a great demand for fitters out in the units, in the fighting units. So my first posting was at RAF Finningley which is about ten miles from Doncaster. And I worked there on the engines of Wellington bombers and Hampden bombers and the Rolls Royce Vulture engines in the Avro Manchester and they, they gave a lot of trouble and er, which meant there were several engine changes that I assisted in. And the next posting was to RAF Upper Heyford where I was promoted to corporal at the age of eighteen. Now there I worked on the Wellington Mark 3 with more powerful Hercules engines and after carrying out rectification on an aircraft if an air test was necessary I usually asked if I could accompany the pilot. Which I did on several occasions and after approximately two and a half years I decided that more excitement was needed so I volunteered for air crew. The president of the selection board said that I had passed all the tests to become a pilot, but the waiting list for pilots was pretty lengthy and also there was a little demand, this was mid-1943 and the commanding officer of the board interviewing, the selection board er he, he said, ‘Now look you’re already a technician, a fitter 2E,’ he said, ‘And what we need is flight engineers,’ and so he said, ‘You want to, you’ll be on operations within six months. You do want to fight don’t you?’ And of course I had to say, ‘Yes. Of course I do,’ and that’s how I became a flight engineer, by passing the course at Royal Air Force St Athan in Wales. Now, during this crewing up procedure when I finished my training I was sent to Lindholme near Doncaster. I was fortunate in meeting the captain of the crew that I was to fly with. He was Flying Officer Bill Neal with his crew and they had already completed a tour of operations on Wellingtons. Now Bill explained that they had been selected to join the Pathfinder force and what our duties would entail. Our first step was to convert on to the Halifax Mark 1 because these were ex beaten up old war, operational aircraft that had seen better days, and so we had to train on them and during our training sorties, Bill Neal gave me a potted flying lesson so that the very, very first aircraft I flew was the Halifax. And that flew alright and I got the hang of how to fly straight and level and do gentle turns and so on, but we completed the course of thirty hours and went on to convert on to the Lancaster at RAF Hemswell, north of Lincoln. Or nearer to Gainsborough actually. I did the night conversion on to the Lancaster on my twentieth birthday, would you believe? And after attending a short course to learn the Pathfinder procedures we joined number 156 squadron Pathfinders at RAF Upwood near Peterborough. And as a new crew we had two weeks of training to complete during which time I took on the additional role of bomb aimer. I was taught how to run up on the, set the bomb sight up to start with and, and then how to run up and give corrections to the pilot, running up to the dropping point, aiming point. And we dropped practice bombs at a nearby bombing range which I seemed to get the hang of quite, quite well. And also during this time Bill Neal vacated his seat. There were no dual control Lancasters on squadrons you see, just a single set of controls in the left hand seat for the captain, but he allowed me to fly this superb aircraft, the Lancaster. And on completion of this training we were declared operational and on the 11th of June 1944, we saw that our crew was on the battle order. All a bit, a bit terrifying for a new chap like myself. The target was vast marshalling yards at Tours in the south of France. The Germans were routing most of their reinforcements through here to the Normandy battlefront. Now, on this particular trip we had a couple of night fighter sightings and attacks and Bill Neal being a terrific pilot he corkscrewed and got rid of them. The whole secret was if you had a rear gunner with such good night vision and if he saw the night fighter before he saw you, then you stood a fairly decent chance of getting away without, without disaster. Well, firstly I volunteered for aircrew and I was fully committed now. There was no turning back. Anybody that did turn back were, were called lack of moral fibre and they were, they were given the most terrible mucky jobs that you could ever imagine. And so, but anyway I stuck with it and destiny would decide whether or not I survived. And secondly I was fortunate in joining a very experienced crew and they all made me a welcome addition to the crew. They had not flown previously with a flight engineer because the Wellington didn’t need one and so on. I should explain that in Pathfinder crews the reason the flight engineers took on the extra duty of visual bomb aimer was that the primary bomb aimer operated the H2S radar, and a lot of our targets relied on this for identification and running up and so on. Now 156 Squadron were primarily a blind marker squadron which meant that if no target indicator flares were seen by the master bomber, he would call for blind markers to be dropped and they were reds which is where we came in. And they would be seen cascading and so on, and give an initial aiming point for the main force of bombers running in. The master bomber would then know that the markers were dropped blind and the target had not been visually identified. But on the very first operation we were about to fly we were part of the illuminating force, and we carried twelve rather large hooded parachute flares. And you drop all twelve together and that was like turning the target into a daylight. The visually illuminated target so they were able to, to identify the aiming point, the master bomber. We had a master bomber and his deputy and he had a dicey job. He used to go right down to about four thousand feet and circle around and a very dangerous job. Some of them didn’t make it and were shot down. And on the first ten operations mostly dropping flares, and on — I was mentioning earlier about the run in to the Tours marshalling yards we had two night fighter attacks and we thought actually that — we heard later that these were night fighter pilots that were training down in France so they weren’t sort of fully, fully operational like their counterparts in, up in Germany and Holland and so on. And so it was a great feeling to be safely on the ground back at our Upwood base and I often used to say to my colleagues, my — well between us we’ve said we climbed up that ladder of the Lancaster at the back end where you board the aircraft, not knowing whether we’d ever be in the position to come back, climb down it again on to terra firma so — but happily I did that sixty-two times. Gratefully rather, I survived those to, climb down that ladder again. And I, our crew was sent on Allied support for the ground forces on the Normandy battlefront and we dropped sticks of one thousand pounders, fourteen bombs in a rapid stick of bombs from only four thousand feet. And the aircraft shook very badly with the blast as you’d expect at that height, and we could see the blast rings coming up from other people’s bombs as well. And we also attacked the V1 launch sights in the Pas-de-Calais area. And the, we formation, six Lancasters formatted on a Mosquito aircraft which was equipped with this very accurate blind bombing system called Oboe. They, they used that for, some of the Pathfinder squadrons used it for marking targets as well. So that when his bomb doors opened we opened ours and when we saw the bombs leave his bomb bay we hit our bomb release button and, as you can imagine that was a lot of bombs going down, usually finishing up in rendering the buzz bombs site unusable. And that must have saved a lot of lives in the, around London. And my first German target was Hamburg, and that was our thirteenth op. And it was quite a, quite a dicey town. Very heavily defended of course as always was Hamburg, being a major port and ship building and that. But we came through the barrage unscathed. My skipper always used to say, ‘What you see in the sky is what’s been, the flak bursts and they’re not going to do us any harm. It’s the ones you can’t see that er.’ But anyway, night fighters were of course were in the area, and we saw several bombers going down in flames, and erm, it was a sickening sight and we, er, sort of sympathised with our colleagues and comrades. They would meet their end in a fireball from bombs and fuel when they hit the ground. It was a sickening sight but we made a note of its position and we got on with our own job. And there wasn’t much else you could do. [pause] Bill Neal, my skipper, always said to me, ‘Don,’ he said, ‘when we’ve finished our tour of operations,’ not if but when, he said, ‘I’m going to put you up for commissioning and,’ he said, ‘Then you can join the rest of us in the officer’s mess.’ So I said, ‘Oh well that’s good. Pleased to hear that,’ and sure enough that’s what happened. After I’d done forty operations and about the end of my first tour and I had an interview with Air Vice Marshall, Don Bennett up at Pathfinder headquarters and he was satisfied and so I became Pilot Officer Don Briggs. And erm, so the — I carried on with Bill because he was awarded the DFC because he’d already, that completed two tours of operations having done one before I met him. So what one more tour and of course usually, certainly a skipper got the DFC. And, but I’ll just tell you during a daylight operation to a target called Kleve in October ’44, we had a flak burst right on the port wing tip. And it, we thought it was really the end, you know, because it was that close. And it damaged the aileron quite badly on the port side, but we still had, skipper had control of the aircraft well and with his amazing piloting skill brought us back to a safe landing back at Upwood. But there was substantial damage, the aileron was, was in a terrible mess. And I pressed on in to my second tour with Bill apart from one operation with another crew as their flight engineer had completed his tour of operations. And one of which was with the squadron commander, one of these battlefront operations, and I had the gunnery leader, the squadron leader was — I was on the bomb sight at the front, and he was in the front turret with his legs, and one of his legs was in plaster. He’d, he’d broken a leg or done something, and in plaster, and this was rubbing on my ear as I was trying to aim bombs and he was swivelling around the front turret which normally wasn’t manned at all. And so that was about it. I’m happy to say that despite several very close shaves, I came through sixty two operations unscathed. Lady Luck was certainly on my side. Bill Neal pressed on with another flight engineer and notched up just short of a hundred ops and he was awarded the DSO and he’d already got the DFC. And the French awarded him the Croix de Guerre, and I’m eternally grateful to Bill for getting me through the most dangerous period of my life. He made sure that my operational record was recognised resulting in the award of the DFC in July 1945. I’ve got a few statistics here which are, to save boring everybody, the number of French targets that we did was twenty-four but German targets exceeded that. Thirty-eight we did to German targets. Forty-one of those were night operations and we did twenty-one daylight operations some of which were daylight ops on Ruhr targets in the hell’s, what do they call it? Hell’s valley or something? Happy valley. That was it. And forty-one of those operations we had our own Lancaster which was GT J-Johnny. And so we flew that and of course that meant our own ground crew and we got to know them pretty well. Of those ops we did three raids on oil refineries, because the Germans were desperately short of fuel towards the end of the war and you can’t run a war machine without fuel. And the V1 sights we did, five of those attacks I was telling you about and five on the battlefront and, and then four on marshalling yards. Ruhr targets. Yes ten. We did ten of those and four in daylight, and my last thirty operations were all German targets. Now, it was a massive relief as you can imagine to have survived all those ops and great to be able to enjoy end of second tour leave with my parents and four younger brothers. I’m the eldest of five. So that ended my wartime contribution to the, to the war effort and I, after the war I was selected for Transport Command and flew on Yorks as a flight engineer going out to India and the Far East. And did that for a couple of years and then was posted to the Empire Test Pilot School at Farnborough and I got some valuable experience there. Only the very, very best of pilots were selected and of course we had exchange officers from America, from the United States Air Force and also the US navy. They sent a representative to the, representative to the empire test pilots course. And a lot of those test pilots that I flew with under training they became, you know, top test pilots for the different companies. And so a very interesting three years out, flying Lincolns and things mostly. And after that I was posted to Manby in Lincolnshire where I met an ex-Pathfinder wing commander and he advised me if I wanted to take pilot training, re-train as a pilot, I should write him a letter which I did. And he must have found it fairly satisfactory ‘cause he, he had me to London, to Hornchurch for a selection board and I passed everything there, all the aptitude tests and so on. And very soon in the summer of ’51, late summer, I started training as a pilot at RAF Ternhill in Shropshire and that was — I enjoyed every minute, every minute of that. It was wonderful. And so er, I passed out from there, graduated and awarded those prestigious pilot’s wings that, all RAF pilots remember being presented with their wings. And so I’ll lead on later to describe my, what, what the, what my path through the peacetime air force was. Right. Now. In the August of 1951, I was allowed to start my conversion to retrain as a pilot. And so I promptly, having got furnished accommodation for Edith and we had two children then and, in Louth, and I used to travel across to Ternhill in Shropshire. So the first two weeks of the course naturally was ground school and exams and all the rest of it. And then we started flying, and the aircraft then for training was the Percival Prentice which was a lumbering old thing, but you could do, you could do sort of basic aerobatics with it and so I went solo on that. My instructor sent me off on my own after about four or five hours. Something like that. And then I did sixty hours on the jet, Percival Provost and then I went on to Harvards and that was a wonderful machine to fly. A very big powerful five hundred and fifty horsepower engine in front of you and not easy to see when you’re flowing out for landing. The engine gets in the way, you’ve got to sort of look over the side a little bit. Anyway, I loved flying the Harvard and completed the course and did my final handling test and so on and graduated for my pilot’s wings presented by some air vice marshall and so I’ve still got the photograph. I trained with a lot of chaps that were engineering officers and they were sort of doing a seconded tour in the general duties flying branch just before going back on to engineering. And so from there it was a question of advanced training over at Oakington in Cambridgeshire, and the Meteor was the standard trainer for jet conversion. I had a French instructor of the French Armee de L’air, and George Golee [?]sent me on my first solo in a Meteor Mark 7 and that was enjoyable and went very well. And the, then working my way through the course — the one thing that I didn’t enjoy too much was at night climbing above thirty thousand feet unpressurised and I had a pretty bad attack of the bends. And ask anybody what the, what that’s like and all your joints, it’s the nitrogen that comes out in the joints of your, everywhere knees, ankles the whole lot, so you can only spend a few minutes above thirty. However, and down we came, and the one thing about the Meteor was when you’d been up high everything used to mist up on the inside so you’re sort of rubbing frantically to be able to see out for the landing. However, that was ok and I passed my final handling test with the wing commander, chief instructor and he seemed quite pleased with my performance and he, on landing, after landing offered me the chance of going straight back to Central Flying School to become a flying instructor. Like what we would call in the service creamed off. Creamed off CFS. Now I politely declined and said I was flattered and so on, but I would like to proceed to a Canberra squadron. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Yes, that’s fine just I was giving you the chance, you know.’ So that’s what I did, and I proceeded to Bassingbourn to convert on to Canberras, and in those days there was no dual controlled Canberra. You just had to ride alongside someone on the, what we used to call the rumble seat, and er, see what he did and make a note of the speeds and everything, and then on the second trip he would climb out and look up through the hatch and raise his thumb and say are you happy, and all the rest of it and off I went. Well I think somebody else had control, namely the almighty I think had control of that Canberra on take-off. They er, it was so steep, but anyway. I enjoyed my first, first solo and certainly strange having to fly an aircraft where you’d never handled the controls previously, anyway. And so from there I was posted right up to Lincolnshire to, to join 10 Squadron. We were just forming the first Canberra squadron at Scampton. And we, straightaway I was made a flight commander and in charge of all the servicing and so on, on the eight Canberras. And so we, we got on pretty well and the Canberra’s a wonderful aircraft to fly. Quite light on the controls and plenty of power there and so on. And we did lots of exercises, and I always remember on my first early night flying we were, couldn’t land back at Scampton because of bad weather and we were diverted down in to Cornwall to then St Eval which is just near, just north of Newquay. And the trouble with St Eval is that the runway is up high on the cliffs and you come, you come right in on the approach and this was at night and remember, and I hadn’t flown at night for quite some time and coming in over these cliffs and the runway itself had a great big hump in the middle so you could only see half of it when you touched down. And then happily the final half of the runway came into view as you went over the hump. But I got away with it alright, and so and then of course we spent the night and went back to Scampton the following day. My, my time at Scampton involved quite a lot of diversions. There was once we were diverted up to Kinloss in Scotland. And the Canberra had a fairly good performance for, for the time in the air, endurance as we called it. And so during that time on Canberras my boss was, he was an ex-flight commander over at Binbrook on Canberras, and he was promoted and took over 10 Squadron. And Punch Howard [?] was a great Mosquito night fighter ace and he used to go over these German night fighter airfields and fire off the colours of the day and join in the circuit and shoot down two or three night fighters by doing so. And for this he got the DFC and the DFC and bar as well. And so he set up a formation display team and he gave me a check for my formation flying, and he was happy so I joined his team. And we used to give displays up and down the country and there was one in particular when the National Air Races were on at Coventry airport. And so we gave this display and they gave us a good write up in the flight magazine and also a very congratulatory letter from the president of the Royal Aero Club, which I’ve still got a copy. And so that was, that was my forte if you like on 10 Squadron and from there I, we were actually moved over to East Anglia to, to 3 Group at Honington, RAF Honington near Bury St Edmunds actually. And so I spent about three or four months there before they suddenly came up with a posting and I was to be one of the first pilots to join the new V bomber force on Valiants. The, the courses were starting at RAF Gaydon near Leamington Spa, and so I joined as a co-pilot for Squadron Leader Arthur Steele, who later became air commodore. And so we were posted initially to 138 Squadron at Wittering and Edith was — we actually couldn’t get married quarters, they hadn’t built, they hadn’t finished building them so we lived in an old country hall called Rushington Hall. And so the, it was a wonderful old place, and we had one wing of the place to ourselves and it had a lounge half the size of a hangar. And the boys used to ride around on their tricycles up and down the corridors in this thing, this place. But it was, it was good and then by the time we’d spent three or four months there we were given a married quarter at Wittering and we, there we stayed in that for a good five or six years. Then 138 Squadron was the first squadron to form on Valiants of course but then they were forming a new squadron, 49, 49 Squadron to do the Grapple operation. That was the H bomb trials in the pacific from Christmas Island and our crew, Arthur Steele that is, and myself and the rest of the crew, were selected and in the April, sorry in the March of 1957 we all flew out to Christmas Island via Canada. Goose Bay first and then Edmonton, Alberta and then down to San Francisco where we spent a couple of days, and were able to do some sightseeing and exploring in the good old San Francisco. And then the big leg from there to Honolulu was against headwinds normally and we could work out that providing that the headwinds weren’t greater than sixty knots we were ok. We had enough fuel to get there and a little bit to spare. But and as it happened on the day the winds were lighter than that so we were fine. So it was, Arthur Steele was a good skipper. He used to share the landings with me and if it was my turn come hell or high water I would do it and the one at Honolulu was at Hickam air force base and you come right in over Pearl Harbour on the final approach. So that was, I couldn’t look for very, very long I’m afraid, just a quick glance. And so we had a lovely time and it happened to fall on St Patrick’s Day when we were in and of course there was a big, the Americans celebrate that pretty well and we had, they entertained us very well in the officer’s club. And a couple of days later we flew down the thousand mile leg to the south of Christmas Island. Now, the runway had been built by the army, The Royal Engineers and they’d made a good job of it. It was quite a, not a tremendously long runway, but it was long enough just over two thousand yards. And that’s where we prepared for our H bomb drop. So we saw the first one, Squadron Commander Ken Hubbard he dropped the first and Dave Roberts the flight commander he dropped number two and it was our turn for number three. So we’d all prepared and done the drills and so on, the dropping drills. Now, I want to emphasise that we didn’t drop these H bombs and they went into the sea. They burst at eight thousand feet. So there was no, no fallout like some of the previous tests had done by well, say the Americans perhaps or the Japanese they, well, no the Japanese didn’t have it in those days. However, the, there was no fallout and the, but we took ours, it was on June the 19th ‘57 and the yield wasn’t quite as much as the scientists wanted but it was good enough and they were, the British government were then able to specify, say, Britain now can become the, have the facility of nuclear deterrent. The nuclear fallout, nuclear bomb. And so there was to be a fourth, but that was cancelled and we all came the reverse route and flew home. And flew back to Wittering and so that was, that was Operation Grapple. And so we, we settled down and then I, after that, shortly, short time after that I became a captain on the Valiant and posted back to 138 Squadron. [pause] After completing my tour as a Valiant captain which I enjoyed very much, I used to get trips out to Nairobi and did Salisbury which is now called Harare, I think. And er, Germany. I did several trips there with the Valiant and my co-pilot was an ex-fighter pilot, been stationed in Germany so he was able to show us how to get on there in our leisure time. We then, I was posted to Gaydon, as I said and became a ground school instructor on the Victor mark two. Wonderful aircraft, well built and it had all the then high tech, what was high tech in those days, you wouldn’t call it that now. And I used to teach that, and for doing that they allowed me to do first of all the pressured breathing course, because the Victor two would go up to fifty-two, fifty- three thousand feet and if you had an explosive decompression there you were, you were automatically on pressure breathing to get down to forty thousand as quick as possible. So having completed that which, which, which was a bit rigorous, I was able to do the flight simulator on the Victor two and then fly with the OCU instructors. OCU being Operational Conversion Unit which was at Cottesmore. So I, I enjoyed about six flights from either the captain’s seat or the co-pilot’s seat and enjoyed very much flying the Victor and streaming the great big parachute on landing. And you’d swear that somebody had clamped the brakes hard on when you streamed that, fantastic thing and I was later to come across it of course on the Vulcan. So that was the Victor two. Now, from there I was decided to do the central flying school course at Little Rissington. Near Bourton on the Water that was and so I did the course and qualified and became a flying instructor and was posted to Syerston, which was a flying training school near Newark in Nottinghamshire. And there I, I was checked out by the standards people, and allowed to instruct on the aircraft. And my first bunch of students, there was one of them who was particularly good material and tremendous potential and I could tell the way he was flying I only had to show him something once and he had it off pat, absolutely as good as I could show him. And that gentleman was called Brian Hoskins and he later, in later years joined the Red Arrows. He was a member of the team to start with when they were flying the Gnat and then he became leader, and converted them from the Gnat on to the Hawk which they use now of course. And so he led the Red Arrows for, for a couple of years so I’m rather proud of the fact that I helped train him and taught him his first aerobatics and formation flying, which was pretty essential for being in the Red Arrows as you can imagine. So, anyway I enjoyed my tour and I was promised to have a double tour on instructing on the Jet Provost, and I was just enjoying every minute. However, that was not to be. Because I, because I had previous V bomber experience they posted me up to Finningley, where I was to do the Vulcan course. The Vulcan Mark two and so once, once I was trained and finished the course as a Vulcan captain and I went to, you say, call it solo if you like but strangely enough I had an American colonel for my co-pilot on my first trip in a Vulcan. And first trip as captain anyway and he he’d done a tour in Vietnam had this chap, so a very accomplished pilot. And so after that I had to do a short spell of a year or so in the flight simulator, because having an instructor rating of course you need to establish familiarity and the checklist and emergencies in the flight simulator before they actually did the flying. However, they said, ‘Well don’t get too downhearted about it,’ he said, ‘When you’ve done this short spell in the simulator we’ll groom you for stardom Donald and you’ll be given the flying instructor course on Vulcans.’ And that’s how I became a Vulcan flying instructor initially, and they cut, I had to cut my teeth on some young co-pilots who were converting from the right hand seat to the left hand seat just for, they were from squadrons of course. And it meant that they were fairly flexible and they could, providing their captain could, could fly from the right hand seat they would, they would do that. And so and then I went on to take a whole crew, a full crew. And I trained some fairly senior officers, the odd wing commander that was taking over a squadron or a station, a group captain who would be taking over a Vulcan station and so give them the course and and I had some, I had some nasty experiences at night particularly with training, training co-pilots. And they failed to recognise that in a Vulcan once you allowed the speed to fall the Vulcan was, became a high drag machine and it dropped out of the sky very quickly. And so of course being instructors we could recognise this fairly quickly to take control and save the situation as it were. And I had to do this on more than one occasion. At night particularly. Sorry. [recording paused] After completing my tour on the Vulcan OCU as an instructor, I was given my own crew. And we were posted out to Cyprus on to Number nine squadron and I was to become the squadron QFI and then carry out normal duties of a squadron crew as well. So that was wonderful. Edith and I flew out on a VC10 from Brize Norton and the rest of my crew found their way out there somehow. And one of my crew, his wife played the piano, and I’ll just tell you this. You can have a good laugh. She, they managed to even to fly this piano out to Cyprus on some transport aircraft, a Belfast or something. And so anyway, we settled down and we had a very nice hiring in Limassol itself and that was until a married quarter came up and, which it did. After about three months we moved up on to the base into a very nice married quarter and there I continued my, my tour on the squadron and it was very enjoyable. We were able to — if we weren’t flying in the morning we were free to go at about one o’clock and after lunch we were on the beach taking in the sunshine and the nice, in the lagoons swimming. Swimming by the rocks and so on, in the crystal clear water. It was lovely really. It was like a paid holiday. And so that’s how I finished my air force service. I came out in 1973 and I was given a nice send off in the, in the officers mess, dining in night. And so we, Edith and I we’d bought a Volvo car and I was hoping to get it in duty free, but to get a car in from overseas duty free you’d got to have it over a year and I’d only had this Volvo about six months so I knew I was going to have to pay duty on it. However, we drove home. Got the ferry to Athens and then we drove, various little ferries from a place on the mainland to Corfu. And we spent three nice days in Corfu and then on to Brindisi and we drove up the east coast of Italy to, past Venice and up to almost before you cross the St Bernard’s, St Bernard’s pass. There was no tunnels in those days. And that’s how we got home for a series of ferries and arriving home and we still had our place in Doncaster and we sort of tried to settle down as civilians, which was rather strange because when you become a civilian after thirty-five years of air force service you, you feel you’ve lacked that sort of cushion, that cocoon. You’re cocooned in a, in a sort of safe situation in the services and you’ve got to, you’re out in to the big, big world out there to try and make a living. Well I started off by trying to sell insurance from door to door and I got blown out of many a place and without selling anything. And so that turned out to be a dead loss and we tried looking around for a post office and we found one in York. We actually had bought a property now, a new bungalow in York which was very nice. And we ran this post office for, oh I guess about three or four months, and we were going to buy it from the present owner and he must have fallen foul of the head post master of York because he said that, ‘If you sell that,’ he said, ‘I’ll close it down.’ And so we couldn’t, we couldn’t have that and I settled into an insurance office job which wasn’t very exciting. Now, some member of the family was doing a course at Kidlington Airport near Oxford and he said, ‘Donald, why don’t you get yourself down there and get a commercial licence and they want you as a flying instructor,’ and I did just that. It took me about three months and I finished up as a commercial flying instructor on the Oxford Air Training School. And there I did fourteen years and trained many pilots for the commercial airlines, British Airways included, Aer Lingus, British Midland, Singapore Airlines and many others. And it was very enjoyable and rewarding. The, the ones I didn’t have much joy with were the Algerians. They were a bit of a peculiar lot but, however I retired then after fourteen years and I still went on flying at RAF Halton, where my service life started of course in 1939. So I joined the Microlight Flying Club and they immediately enrolled me as their chief flying instructor so I did a bit more instructing on microlights, and not the weight shift, I wouldn’t fly those. These microlights were proper stick and rudder aircraft and so on. And so I was happy with that, and it just so happened I trained a couple of air marshals. They came through and wanted checking out on microlights so, so I flew with them and a very nice situation. And I went on flying those until I was eighty four and then I thought well I’ve just about had enough. I think I’ll. I’ll give it up now, the flying, and so I haven’t flown since and we are now in 2017. So, so, [laughs] right. However I’ve had a very, very enjoyable flying career and I’ve got a lot, a lot to be thankful for. So that’s the end of my little broadcast. Thank you. SJ: So did you have any, in all the times you were flying, did you have any lucky mascots or superstitions. DB: Oh well no, not really. I tend, you tend to sort of get into a habit so that you know if you do something — I can’t give you a quote somehow I can’t sort of think of much that, that would, would do it. But I think you know you make preparations. It doesn’t matter what sort of flight you do you’ve got to prepare for it and otherwise you know if you just go leaping off without checking anything. Now, you see some of the material I could give the people who are coming after this. I’ve got one that the BBC did on me. They came out to Halton and checked. I mean I don’t want to waste time now showing it to you. I could, it only runs for about three minutes anyway but it was on BBC South Today and Geraldine Peers have you, do you remember her? SJ: Yeah. Know her. DB: She started, she introduced it and there was Jeremy Stern did the interview. PJ: You’re quite a celebrity then Donald. DB: Oh yeah. Well, I was at the time. PJ: Yeah. DB: I don’t think many people would remember it but the, and then they edited it and Frank Sinatra, “Come Fly With Me,” you know, it sounds, it sounds quite good and you see me take off in the latest microlight. It was a lovely craft called the Sky Ranger. PJ: Yeah. DB: And I mean we, my brother Malcolm helped to build it. He did all the instrument layout of that. You’ve flown in that with me haven’t you? AK: Yes. DB: No, you flew in - AK: I flew with my head down. DB: I’ve forgotten. That was the Thruster we flew in. AK: Oh right. DB: I don’t think you ever flew in that Sky Ranger. No. AK: And never again. DB: Oh I taught you. I gave you a potted flying lesson Ann. AK: Yes. For free. DB: Yeah. All for free. So - PJ: When you were in the Pathfinders. DB: Right. PJ: To get in to the Pathfinders were you told that you were going in the Pathfinders? Were you transferred or did you volunteer because I’m not sure? DB: No. The way it worked, Peter is that I, like a bunch of other guys that had passed out from St Athan as flight engineers we all had to obviously go on to bombers or transport. Some of them even went on to Sunderland Flying Boats and Coastal Command and so on. However, I, we all went on parade and there was the crews, crews that were going to do the course were six people. There was the pilot, navigator and bomb aimer, the wireless operator and two gunners. Six people. All we were shirt of, short of was a flight engineer. So Bill Neal strode up and down, and I don’t know what it was but he just caught my attention and I sort of nodded and he said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Tell me about yourself.’ So I said, he said, ‘Have you done any flying?’ I said, ‘Well yeah a few with air tests, you know, flying in Wellingtons and that sort of thing on air tests but not, not all that many hours,’ but so, and he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’re probably just the chap we’re looking for. Do you want to come and fly with us?’ So I said, ‘Well, yeah. Thank you,’ and he said, ‘We’ve all done a tour of ops so experienced crew and he, ‘cause he’d been instructing down at Harwell. There was an OCU at Harwell and Hampstead Norris was their satellite and so on. Bill Neal this was. So anyway and he said, ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘We’re not going to the main force.’ That would have been 1 Group or 3 Group. He said, ‘We’re going to Pathfinders.’ 8 Group and he said, so I said, ‘I don’t know. I’m not the wiser,’ I said, ‘Tell me about it,’ ‘Well,’ he said, and then he went on to describe, you know we, we will be doing this that and the other and helping to mark, find the targets. Good navigator and we did have a good navigator and find targets first and then mark them or help the master bomber to mark them. But when that first crew had done a tour they all left and we got, not all of them, sorry, the two gunners left and the navigator, that’s the first, what we would call the plotter, not the H2S operator, George Hodges, he stayed with us. Johnny Carrod, the radio, the wireless operator, he stayed, and so we had to find two gunners and a new navigator. Now, the gunners we were lucky, because there was a guy called Eric Chamberlain and he had hawk eyes. He could see in the dark this guy. He could honestly. His night vision was amazing. He could, he would see the night fighter before the night fighter saw us. And then, but the Canadian, the navigator was a Canadian flight sergeant and he was thrown in at the deep end. He had no operational experience at all and the first, he got us lost on the first trip! And I had to get them out, Bill Neal thrust a map in my hands and I said, I said, ‘I’m not,’ it was at night I said, ‘I’m not ruddy good at map reading,’ [laughs] But it so happened that we were running up on the, what they called the Frisian islands, the Dutch islands and there was one in particular that I recognised that was the shape on the map. And I was able to give him a pinpoint on that and actually the target was up in Northern Denmark. Well it was German occupied of course as you know but, and that’s how he, but he improved and he wasn’t bad, you know later on. His name was Archer, and I can never remember his first name but he was a young Canadian. Yeah. PJ: Did you stay in touch with the crew after the war? Any of your crew members? DB: Just, just Bill Neal I’m afraid. Johnny Carrod died fairly young and his house was burgled and he lost his DFC. That was stolen. And you know you can buy the odd whatever it is like theatre replica or something. PJ: Yeah. DB: But - PJ: No. DB: It’s not the same as the original. I was going to get mine to show you. PJ: Yeah. DB: And [coughs] excuse me. But George Hodges, he, he, er, I spoke to him on the phone but I never actually saw him because he never attended our reunions did George so, and that was it really. I lost touch with all of them really. PJ: Did you - DB: Except Bill Neal. PJ: Yeah. DB: Bill Neal and I met at the Hendon museum. At the RAF Museum at Hendon and we had a full day touring around. Pictures taken near that Lancaster which says, “No enemy aircraft - PJ: Yeah. Yeah. DB: Shall penetrate German airspace.” PJ: Yeah. DB: Old Goering you see. PJ: Yeah. DB: And we had our pictures taken with that. PJ: Yeah. DB: And all the hundred odd bombs on the side, you know, painted on. PJ: Is it, is it a fallacy you all, that the whole crew stuck together and when you went out you all went together to the pub? Is that - ? DB: More or less oh - PJ: A fallacy? Because - DB: Somewhere I’ve got a picture of my first car which was a little Austin seven tourer and I bought that from a Canadian who was finished his ops and was off back to Canada. And I bought that car for thirty-five quid and it was a tiny little two seater really but people used to sort of get, we had the whole crew on that [laughs]. Can you imagine the springs [laughs]. PJ: Brilliant. DB: And to start it all you had was just a blade. You could start it with a screwdriver. PJ: Yeah. DB: And I had the keys in my pocket and I parked outside the pub and when I went outside it was gone. Somebody had stolen it and they’d obviously had a blade of some sort, a knife maybe and just turned the thing and started the engine and away and they stole it. But it was found abandoned up near the airfield, near Upwood main gates or somewhere. Rotten devils. SJ: You said that the red markers were blind markers. They had green markers as well. DB: Oh yes. SJ: What were green markers for? DB: Yeah. The green markers were what we called backers up and we dropped some of those but you dropped them on mixed reds and greens. Mixed reds and greens were dropped by the master bomber and the primary visual marker. And they actually had identified the target visually by this time but TIs didn’t last forever. They needed backing up you see and so we, we were able to back them up by dropping just the greens on their own. Now 156 were basically a blind marker squadron so if that master bomber had got to the target but he wasn’t happy with the actual identifying the aiming point, he would call for blind marking. And this is where George Hodges on his H2S would drop the reds, red TIs. But when I was down the front on the bomb sight if mixed reds and greens were going down then I would go click, click, click, click and deselect the markers and just drop HE. We became really like main force and I would just, just drop the bombs on, on the markers that were already, but that was, that was what the three things and they called this a Parramatta. Bennett had his own various names for the - PJ: Yeah. DB: And the, we even had sky markers. Where the, if the, if the target was obscured by a thin layer of cloud or something like that they used to drop what they called sky marker flares. They would go off more or less the same or just a couple of thousand feet below the height of the bomber stream but there was one thing about an air, an air, a sky marker and that is if that’s the target and let’s say this is the blind marker, you had to bomb on an exact heading because if you didn’t, if you came in on a heading like that, and you dropped there you would, you might have this in your sights but the bombs would fall over that side, over there. So you had to be, you had to run in on an actual precise heading when you bombed on sky markers. And that was another thing that, but we only had to drop them a couple of times that I can remember. George Hodges having to drop sky markers. But they had, I know that Bennett, he went around his office and he said something about, he was asking various people what they would call a certain attack you see. I think the Parramatta one that he decided was by a New Zealander. It sounded a little bit New Zealandish that. And there was another one. What was the other one? That — he asked this young WAAF clerk, and she gave him a name and that’s what he called, what was it? That was the overall sort of marking plan. I can’t remember the name. It’s so long ago now but yeah that’s that was what Bennett did. And he used to come around and visit you know after, not every, but he used to get around a lot of the bomber stations and he came to Upwood to the debriefing, he was there for debriefing. And he always used to ask you, you know, ‘Who dropped the bombs?’ And, ‘Did you see the target?’ And did you do this, that and the other? And I used to try and give him the best idea that, that I could. He was always quite approachable you know. Bennett. And then another night he’d be down at Graveley, you see, debriefing them from 35 Squadron and all these other path — Oakington was a Pathfinder station you see. Little Staughton, that was another one, and as I say I’ve got a list of them upstairs. Can you think of anything else? SJ: No I think you’ve covered it. DB: Have I? PJ: Yeah. DB: Well I hope I haven’t bored you stiff and just before you go come and look at this big picture I was telling you about and you’re welcome to come out. PJ: Anyway, Donald. DB: Sorry. PJ: On behalf of the IBCC - DB: Yes. PJ: I’d like to thank you for allowing us to interview you. Thank you. DB: Alright. Right. Right. Ok. Did you want, have you recorded that? PJ: Yes. DB: Oh. 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 Donald Briggs Description An account of the resource Donald Briggs was born in Lealholm near Whitby in Yorkshire. After school, he became an apprentice with the Royal Air Force. He trained at RAF Halton in 1939 and became an engine fitter working on Wellingtons and Manchesters. He volunteered for aircrew in 1943, qualified as a flight engineer and completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders at RAF Upwood. After the war he re-trained as a pilot and took part in the H-bomb tests at Christmas Island. Later he became a flying instructor and trained aircrew to fly Vulcans. After he retired from the Royal Air Force, he became a commercial flying instructor. He continued to instruct and fly microlights until he was 84. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Pete Jones Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:08:42 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ABriggsDW170327 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Royal Air Force. Transport Command Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-27 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain France Germany England--Buckinghamshire England--Lincolnshire Christmas Island United States 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. 1939 1943 1944 1945 1957-06-19 156 Squadron 8 Group aircrew Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986) bombing Distinguished Flying Cross fear fitter engine flight engineer ground crew ground personnel H2S Halifax Halifax Mk 1 Harvard Lancaster Lincoln Manchester master bomber Meteor Mosquito Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Pathfinders pilot promotion RAF Halton RAF Upwood target indicator V-1 V-weapon Wellington York https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/178/2341/ABriggsR160128.1.mp3 03beb9ecd0a2c80b649bf4291792a9a5 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/178/2341/PBriggsR1613.2.jpg 21d447364bbb0c33d44abf36914a71a4 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 Briggs, Roy R Briggs Description An account of the resource 24 items. One oral history interview with Roy Briggs (- 2025, 1893726 Royal Air Force), his logbook, service material, training material, official documents and 12 photographs. Roy Briggs trained as a wireless operator and flew four operations with 576 Squadron from RAF Fiskerton. He also took took part in Operation Manna and Operation Exodus as well as Cook’s tours over Germany. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Roy Briggs and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-01-28 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Briggs, R 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. 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 I am in Hemel Hempstead with Roy Briggs who was a wireless operator in the war and we’re going to start talking about his earliest days and right through to his working life as a civilian. So, Roy, where did it all start? RB: In Battersea. I was lucky but we lived in a London terrace which was by the side of Clapham Junction Station, and Mac in number 3, my dad in number 5 married two girls from 17. There was still a girl and a boy left there. One, one aunt was married and one of the sons was married but they only lived locally so when I was born we moved to Balmoral [?] Street opposite Price’s Candle Factory alongside the Thames. We lived in a downstairs flat. This, what I’m saying now I’ve got vague remembrance but it’s mainly from the family talking. When the Thames got high the water come up the manholes and come down in the basement where we were and the police knocked us up and we, we went upstairs. We weren’t there long. My grandmother on my father’s side had diabetes and lost both her legs so mum, dad and me moved back to help grandad with nan so from then on I saw my two grandfathers and my grandmother every day. My grandad, who had come from the country, had rabbits, chickens and racing pigeons and I was very involved with him with the racing pigeons from an early age. He died by the time I was ten and I used to put rings on the, on the young birds. They used, he also got fairly bed ridden and he instructed me from the bed on what to do. I matched them up, pairing them up for mating and so I rung them. I took them up to Clapham Common and released them. We had a friend who used to race our pigeons so I was down there most days. My aunts, on Saturday afternoon, used to go to Battersea High Street and Northrop Road shopping and they used to come in to see grandad and grandad so on a Saturday afternoon it was, in the summer, it was the men playing darts in the garden and the girls chatting with nan and drinking tea indoors. [mild laughter] The only time that I went away I think I went to Westward Ho! I think it was only for a week, what they called in those days school journeys. We had an undertaker’s opposite us on the corner and horses. The Chapel of Rest was opposite us and the horses used to be there in those days when they went I went and picked up the manure and put it in buckets of water for grandad for watering his flowers and stuff. And in Battersea in those days that was sort of the life. My father worked at South Kensington Museum. The highlights in the summer used to be when he used to cycle home and come in to Battersea Park and mum used to take us down and we met in the park and had a picnic and played games before we came home. When I got bigger we used to go as far as Clapham Common and Wandsworth Common during the summer holidays but that was about it. I went to Shillington Street School at first until I was, till I was ten and then I went to Latchmere, Latchmere Road. I broke me thigh when I was ten, I didn’t realise it, playing football. On a Sunday morning going down to get the chicken food and the pigeon food I took the dog with me and on the way home I collapsed and got up and didn’t realise at the time but when I got up I shot the bones up. Somebody come to help me and that they hopped home and told me dad and he came down and got an ambulance and took me in to Battersea General Hospital where I was, where I was put on traction for weeks, for some weeks to pull me leg down and then when they took me down to plaster me they measured both my legs and the one that they hadn’t pulled down had grown so they put me up again to pull the other, the leg that had broken down to get it to the same length. My uncle worked for Battersea Borough Council, driving. Used to come and look over the wall, get on the back of the van and wave to me [laughs]. My grandad looked after the horses for Battersea Borough Council and he used to go in early of a morning and feed them and clean them, get them ready to take the dustcarts and that out so he used to come home about half past nine to have his breakfast. So, he, he was around during the day. He used to then go back in the evening to feed them and look after them in the evening. [pause] Yeah. That — CB: What about school? RB: Pardon? CB: What about school? So, when did you leave school? RB: 1939. I was, I’d put in for going to the, be a telegraph boy but went and had tests and that but there was people at sixteen who’d left Grammar School going for the same job because it was thought to be a fairly good job [laughs] in those days and I did not get accepted so I then started at Quickflows [?] it was supposed to be a good little engineering firm. So the Labour Exchange told me. They did Spitfire cockpits and also the sliding windows on London Transport buses. I got the job of cleaning the Bostik off round the glass that went in the frames to slide and as there was somebody there about nineteen and had been there since he was fourteen and he was still cleaning Bostik off the glass I did not [laughs] think it was a very good job. Luckily my mum had worked with somebody in the 14/18 war and her son worked for Benham and Sons, a catering company, and she had a word and he’d just finished his apprenticeship and he had a word and got me a job there. I think, I think it was somewhere about May ’45, er ‘39 I started there. They were starting to expand because they were getting contracts for the Ministry for cooking equipment and that because they’d started re-arming with cooking equipment if not the aircraft [laughs]. They were in, in Garratt Lane and they went over the River Wandle and they were having an extension built. They, they dug down and took half the Wandle up and built an air raid shelter in level with, in the Wandle [laughs] really and then built on top of it more workshops which were finished probably late, late ’39. Yeah. ‘39/’40. Yeah. I, first of all, started building dish washers and then I got in with Jimmy Thurgood who was a good all-rounder in his, in his thirties and he was the odd job man and with him I got a lot of experience and when I did sinks and drainers and boiling pans with him but, yeah he, if there was maintenance trouble quite often he used to get involved in it. Getting on in to, in to 1940 and Dunkirk our first Ministry contract was for hold fasts. It was one about half inch six steel plate and one about three quarters and they were somewhere about four foot square and they had, I believe, thirteen holes in them with thirteen tie rods about three foot long I believe. We made the tie rods and the nuts and one went either side. Being a catering firm we didn’t really have big lifting gear and somehow or other we got permission to use the Wandsworth Greyhound Stadium car park and Jimmy Thurgood and me went down there and we met a low loader with sixteen foot by eight foot sheets of steel. We took some crowbars with us and we crowbarred these sheets off the low loader on to the ground and at the same time, all very organised the [laughs] British Oxygen Lead [?] came with Oxy Acetylene boards which they unloaded there for us. We went back I suppose about a quarter of a mile away to the works and we picked up gauges and hoses and cutting equipment and went back down there and connected up and we cut these sheets into eight pieces, four foot square which was still not really handable [?] but a lot better. We, we put these on a trolley and pulled them along Garratt Lane to the works. They went in and they, they flame cut them to the shapes on the outside and then they went to the machine shop where there was only one machine. It cut, it drilled the thirteen holes which I think were somewhere about three quarters. As soon as they were done they were assembled and taken to Clapham Junction Railway Station and put on, in the guards van and they went straight down to the south coast but they were set in concrete for coastal guns to be connected to. The first contract was done in about seventeen days. A manager or director of the firm afterwards said to me said to me when I said about this ‘oh it didn’t matter what it cost’, but cost wasn’t in it. People just worked on it. They drilled the holes. If somebody went for a break then somebody else stepped in. The drills. There was a stock of them. When they needed re-sharpening they went to the tool room and re-sharpened and it it it just kept going all the time. After the first contract we got lots more and then we started, which was something very new, rocket [emphasis] launchers and Jimmy Thurgood and me were on, on the first of the rocket launchers. They, we had the sheets come in and there was lots of holes punched in them so that the heat could go through and, but they were made in to a half round with rolled edges either side and the rockets were just placed on them and fired. Fired. There was the back of it rested on the ground and there was two, like a tripod, fixed half way up. After the first ones other people started getting involved and Jimmy Thurgood and me we got involved in the firing gear, because the heat that came out of the end of the rocket melted [emphasis] the first firing gears [laughs] and [background laugh] we, we devised a, a nose which we did an [abrasion?] at the end which touched the contacts and it went back down on to a spindle with a, with a, a spring on it, and, I worked or we worked till about 1 o’clock the first time we were on this and there was a despatch rider waiting there and he took it down, I believe, to Aldershot where the rest was already down there and they fixed it on to try it out. The night superintendent came along and said, ‘What are doing here?’ We said, ‘We’ve been working here.’ Well he said, ‘Are you Roy Briggs?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Your dad’s been on wanting to know if you were still working and I told him no.’ Of course there’d been an air raid and I wasn’t home [laughs]. So he said, ‘You’d better go.’ So, [laughing] as we’d finished I went home and dad was on the doorstep waiting for me. Yeah. We went in about 10 o’clock in the morning and by then we’d found out that it had been partly successful but not successful. We made a little bit of alteration to the shape but the main trouble was the springs. Anyway, we got, we’d, they’d got on to the spring manufacturers and we, we made two of these contacts during the day with the U shaped and in the evening the springs came and we fitted them and once again it went down to Aldershot. I think this lasted three or four days, three or four nights by which time we had a successful job and it went in to mass production. Yeah. But in ‘39 in the summer they had started calling people up and, to do I think it was six months National Service but because the war started before they got out and they were still in the services but after Dunkirk these people came back out of the forces because as they’d all sort of finished their apprenticeships it was easier to train soldiers to fire a gun than it did to make engineers which took much longer. Yeah, what, in fact one of them he come out and he got the chief, he was the chief Ministry inspector. A couple of others. We then started building rocket, anti-aircraft rocket launchers. I don’t know whether they have a name. When they were, they went into parks they were known as Z batteries. There was, they started off as singles and then there was four, doubles. The doubles were long tubes with about five holes drilled in them which had studs go through them and they were welded and cleaned off on the top and those studs held them on the framework. The base was, was round and went down and then these went on and we, we took over a printing works at Colliers Wood and they were made, all made over there. They went into the parks. Wormwood Scrubs there was no and I think, I think it was about sixty odd in a battery which fired about a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty rockets. They weren’t very accurate but they put a barrage up [background ‘Hmm’]. They carried on until 1943, when the army was getting short of people they took the people off these guns and ATS went on there and the Home Guard which were not really needed, they thought, then. There wasn’t much chance of invasion. They, they took over at nights as well. I do know one or two of the Home Guards who, who fired them. This, this time probably because I could, I could make simple tool jobs and we had half a dozen fly presses with ladies on them and I was more or less looking after them. It was, it was of a range. We had everybody from an actress to a lady whose father was a doctor and had never been out to work. Quite a shock for her to see what life was like. We had a prostitute. We had Kath whose husband had been killed at Dunkirk and yeah I more or less looked after them. Made sure the parts that they were putting through the fly presses were there and cleared away afterwards and if anything went wrong sorted it out. When I went to, yeah, the same time we’d taken over cheaper garages at northside, Wandsworth Common which we were, we were producing cooking equipment in. At Clapham Junction the milk depot closed down just before the war and we took over the milk depot at Clapham Junction and there ovens and stuff was made. There was, round Wandsworth High Street there was a dump or you could call it [laughs] you had a bit of a shelter, and not much but people worked in there doing sinks and drainers and by that time we were involved with the City and Guilds and their training rooms and that, professors and that were actually producing for us mass produced parts and that. Well there was one of the theatres. They took that over and that. It was a general office for getting war work done and we had gone from somewhere about five hundred people to, I think, about sixteen hundred people in that time. Colin. Colin Benham was quite well educated in engineering. His cousin, who was a commander in the navy, came out to help with us in the war work. There again, thought he had, with his, he had an engineering background I think, but, it was more useful. Miss Benham came and she, she looked after people who, who’d been bombed out and that and did things what she could for them and generally did work for them. Yeah. They had, they did their own ventilation stuff and sterilising. Big sterilisers. When it come to register I can’t remember which it was now. If you registered as a sheet metal worker you weren’t, you weren’t reserved occupation. If you were registered as a sheet arm worker you were. Or it was the other way around. Anyway, as I wanted to go in the air force, I’d been in the ATC, I registered as the one that went. I didn’t tell them that I’d put it down. And yeah while I was in the ATC we were attached to the Home Guard. We went down to Bisley throwing hand grenades and firing. We actually, in the ATC we actually had 1914/18 Lewis guns which they’d got out the dungeons from somewhere. I started off as number three but by the time I was going in the air force I got up to number one. Number three was, as they fired up to six hundred rounds or more a minute you know, you had to have a supply going. One fired and the other one fed it through I think and I, I got it up and then gradually we went up. Yeah. There was talk at the time that if we were invaded there was holes in the ground on Wimbledon common and that and some of us would go up there and come out to try and kill Germans. I thought afterwards that when, after Dunkirk, a little while afterwards there used to be reports come in that in villages in France somebody had come out and killed a German and they had killed all the, all the men and that over fourteen and things like that and then there were reports that they’d killed everybody in the villages, you know, I thought if I’d have come out and killed somebody how many of English and Londoners might have been wiped out by it. I had that in my mind all my life and glad it never happened. Yeah. We, we, we had a stick of bombs dropped around our road in October ’45. We’d had brick air raid shelters built in our back gardens. We had one and next door had one and there was just a three foot square hole which we could have got in to them or them in to us. I think there was about nine bombs came down. One of them had blown up and dad and me ran out and we went down the road and as I passed the house with somebody I used to go to school with he said, ‘Roy we’ve got a great big hole in our passage’ and I said, possibly a bomb by the side of it, probably a bomb had gone down so I said, ‘You’d better, better grab some clothes and get out in case it goes up.’ Before the war I used to help a green grocer setting up his stall before, before I went to school and on the way back home to get washed I used to take the vegetables into the fire station, Este [?] Road fire station which was in the next road to us. It was only half a dozen houses down so I did know the firemen in there. The fire engine from there came, came around and somebody I knew said, ‘Roy we’re here now. You go back home.’ So dad and me went back home, I was in the shelter and dad was in the doorway. We were talking to mum and there was a big bang and the bomb which was in this house had gone off. Dad and me raced down there. The fire engine was more or less wrecked and I couldn’t see the firemen I knew but anyway the other, other people were coming then. As we walked back home the moon was out and we saw a hole in the Flatt’s house. Jean, my sister was friendly with Jean, the daughter, and dad and me went and started banging on the door and couldn’t get any reply and next door come and said, ‘What are you banging on there for?’ We said, ‘The Flatt’s have got a hole in it, in their roof. Probably a bomb’s gone through it.’ So she said, ‘Oh. We’ll, we’ll go and tell them.’ They were in the shelter at the back and they went and told them and they came out and they grabbed some stuff and we helped them take it over outside in the car park at Clapham Station. They’d built an air raid shelter and we took it over but they went in the shelter and then we went back home. The, what we didn’t know that one of the bombs was on the shelter at the other end and later on it went off and killed, I think it killed two people in the shelter but [unclear] Jean and that. Yeah this must have been on the Friday night. On the Saturday morning I cycled over to the Beverly at North Cheam and my mum had had a friend over there who she’d worked with during the war and I said, said to ‘em, ‘Any chance of mum and my sister and me coming over?’ And they said, ‘Yeah come over.’ Her son was in the marines. ‘We got a four foot bed.’ So mum, me and my sister went over there and we slept together in the four foot bed [mild laughter] but dad stopped at home more or less. Dad patched up the windows and that that had gone, to look after the house really during the night. We had some old [unclear] but they didn’t bother to put, they didn’t bother to replace the windows. They put like a muslin over it, there was just the downstairs in the front that had a window in because people could have broken the, got through the muslin quite easy. The glass was a bit more difficult. Yeah and I cycled from North Cheam to Wandsworth in the morning. The raids were still on sometimes and the guns on Cannon Common were blazing away, shrapnel was coming down and when we went home of a night it was still, they were still firing and the shrapnel was still coming down. I’ve got a feeling that I did that for three or four months before we went back home. Yeah. March ‘43 I went for the first medical at North Cheam. I think some, early April, went to Euston House for the aircrew medical and selection board which I passed and got me number and the, and the King’s shillin’ and got deferred for two or three months but there was a great demand to get in as pilots but I think some of them were deferred for about a year there was, they had that many. Yeah. And in fact I was called up for going to Lord’s Cricket Ground on the 21st of June 1943. As I, as I went there I met Len Spratt who I spent the day with at, at Euston House and we went in and we, we got our injections at the same time in the long room. We dropped our trousers in the long room. W G Grace was on the, a picture of him was on the wall. [phone rings in background] I don’t remember but they, they said that they used to turn W G Grace’s around. [phone ringing and then phone conversation] CB: So we — RB: It’s a bit — CB: We’re just on W G Grace and when you were at um when — RB: Yeah. CB: You went to Lords and he was looking down on you. RB: Yeah but they do say that they used to, used to turn him around when we dropped our trousers but in all of it I don’t remember that [laughs]. Yeah. We, we were in flats opposite Regents Park Zoo. Len and me were in the same room and, in fact, I can cut it short, we were always in the same room or the same hut for the next year. We, we went in to the zoo four times a day to eat. In the restaurants not in, not in the cages. Along by our flats were Stockleigh Hall and another posh one. I must be getting old I can’t remember their names. Yeah, and they had a garage underneath and they did put a canteen in there but we still we were talking to people afterwards who were at Lords they that they were still using the zoo for quite some time. We went to Seymour Hall for lectures and swimming. You could march down there and have a lecture in the morning and go in the afternoon and they’d removed the flooring and you were in, in for swimming. There was a garage at the roundabout at St Johns Wood and they took that over and that’s where we got kitted out. In, in the park was [pause] anyway I can’t remember at the moment. They used that as the hospital. The normal run was to stop at Lords for nineteen days. Some, some things were, activities took place in Lords. They had the gas mask room built there and you went in and tested your gas mask. You got paid there, sat on the seats in Lords till you got called out for your pay. We did our first marching in Regents Park and in the back streets there. First four, three nights were spent putting your names on all your clothes and that. After that you were allowed out where most of the Londoners took their civvy kit home and sort of saw their parents. Unless you were on guard most evenings were free. Yeah, after the nineteen days we went to the railway at Olympia. I think it was called Olympia and there was another name for it where there was a troop train in there and it was just the one train and all the different trades went on and they dropped off a couple of carriages every, every here and there going along. We used to then, got taken to, either pilots or navigators, where they were going. We went to Bridgenorth which was up on the high level. There was a lift to go down to get on the street level down by the river. Yeah. Yeah. We went out to, there was 18 and 19 ITWs which was mainly wireless operators and air gunners. I, I had actually gone in as wireless operator/air gunner and at that stage I was still a wireless operator/air gunner. Probably jumping the gun a bit. Early in oh probably the decision had already been made and hadn’t got through that to stop training wireless operators as WOPAGS for Bomber Command. The, the thought was that if your gunner got killed or anything and you had to go back, by the time you got back, operated the dead man’s handle which lined the turret up with the fuselage, opened the doors at the back, disconnected his oxygen, his intercom and got that out of the way. Got hold of him and pulled him in and if he needed first aid badly to stop it and then we’d have got in to the turret we would probably have been shot down anyway so after that ruling come out we stopped doing the full air gunner’s course although we did enough that we could have got in and fired them. If the wireless operators were going to Coastal Command they then went on and did the air gunner’s course because all the gunners I believe and wireless operators operated air gunners and they did a swap around on sixteen hour flights that they all had a break from whatever they were doing. Yeah. I, I stopped with Len for all that time and then they said he had webbed feet and got to go to Coastal Command. We don’t believe it [laughs] and I’ve still kept in touch till today. Yeah. We, at, at Madley after ITW we went to Madley where we flew on Dominies where you could have an instructor and a number of you went in there and you had the one set and went through it, after that you went into Percival Proctors which is just well, [?] you and the pilot in the main although there were some three seaters if anybody was having trouble and they needed an instructor up with them. Most of the, most of the flights were about fifty five minutes but the most dangerous part was coming back to land because they used to see the NAAFI van leaving the site and they had Lyons fruit pies which were delicious but there was a very limited number and they all wanted to get in to get their pies. There were one or two collisions when the airfield controller fired Very cartridges to tell people not to land. They always thought he was firing at somebody else I think. Yeah. It was, it was pretty hard work on, on training. You, we had Morse. At the same time we did things which health and safety and things because I suppose they thought we were all going to end up as officers and NCOs. We did things like setting up camps by a river and taking the water for cooking from the top and washing and using the ablutions down the way the water was lying. [laughs] Yes. We had to do fault finding on, on the radios, coding and things and you used to get a test on these. Some were about every fortnight or so. If you did not do very well then you went to evening classes and I believe a week was eight days so that the schools were used every day. You had a different day off every week. If you went on evening school and then on the next time you hadn’t picked up or perhaps it was a couple of times you then went to FT which was Further Training and you didn’t want to do that ‘cause you lost all your mates. You went back a few courses. I, I was nearly always on extra training but I never went to FT. The people who went to FT if they went back a few courses and then didn’t succeed they were then ceased training and well the only place for them really was to go as air gunners. We had people who, who joined us at Madley who had been to America and failed as pilots and then go on the training as navigators and had failed at, failed as navigators. I believe some of them after that went, went as bomb aimers. Yeah, in fact we had one chap who reckoned he’d worked it that he’d fail his pilot’s and failed as a navigator. I don’t know whether the air force had caught, caught on to him but when he took his wireless operator’s exams he just scraped through and I don’t know whether the air force had done that deliberately and he was the first one that had to bale out [laughs]. Yes, well I got me, got my sergeant’s stripes about a fortnight before I was nineteen, went on leave and then we went back and then we still did another about three months wireless operator’s training. After that we went to Llandwrog, North Wales. Number 9 OAFU I think it was. They were flying Ansons and we got bearings for the navigators who were really having more, more experience of flying and training where they were going but I believe sometimes we used to fly two or three times a day with different crews. I think we were only there about a month. After that we went to 30 OTU at Hixon and we got crewed up. We, we got Reg, Reg Featherstone as a pilot, Johnny Smale as the navigator, Roy Briggs as wireless operator, Benny Benson as a rear gunner and me and the navigator disagreed afterwards about whether we got Taffy Jones as a mid-upper. He seems to think that we didn’t get a mid-upper until we went to Heavy Conversion Unit but I’m sure he’s wrong. Oh and we got a bomb aimer. This is bad [laughs]. He was an Indian civil servant. I can’t, I can’t believe I can’t remember his name. [laughs]. [pause] Right. We’ll have to come back to that. After doing ground training we started flying. Reg was struggling rather and he, we soon sort of always had another pilot in with us and I think it was probably only after a couple of weeks we had the chief flying instructor in with us for a couple of times and Reg got grounded. Unfit for heavy aircraft. So, we become a headless crew. Robbie Roberts had, had joined the air force before the war. He had been seconded to the Royal Navy and had spent some time on the Ark Royal. He then re-mustered for pilot training and went to South Africa, and I believe South Africa and Rhodesia for pilot training and ended up, I can’t remember what the, what aircraft he flew but he did a tour in the Middle East before coming back to England. He was then at Hixon as a headless crew and we got together and luckily because he’d got this mass experience it didn’t lose us too much time because he had twin engine experience. So we, we swapped between Hixon and Seighford. Spent some of the time over at Seighford for OTU. When we were at Hixon they were a rotten lot. They said as we got in the plane, we were on circuits and bumps at Seighford and they said, ‘Roy take us back to Hixon will you?’ and I said, ‘Yes,’ full of confidence and I got in and we took off and I worked like mad to get Hixon to recognise my call sign amongst the other three hundred who were trying to get it. Eventually I got through and I got a bearing and all proud I said fly so, so and so and so and they were all looking at me and laughing and they went like that and we were about two foot off the ground [laughs]. Yeah talking about like that when we were on Lancs the navigator used to call the sign out for the, to get the speed out for the pilot. Of course the pilots didn’t do anything. Only drive. I mean the engineer used to push the throttles up with him. He used to do what I told him. He used to do what the navigator told him and the gunners if they wanted him to do something he had to do what they told him. Yeah and Johnny was calling out the speeds and I, it was getting slower and slower and I was looking at him and he looked at me with panic in his eyes because we shouldn’t be up in the air and we weren’t. Rob had made that good a landing we were on the ground. We were all looking at the, on the other hand Rob did a rotten landing and we bounced and Len said, ‘Oxygen going on skipper.’ [laughs, including background laugh] They were a few of the, yeah, from, we were, we were actually in a field at Hixon by the side of the railway. I don’t know whether you remember but in the, in the ‘40s after Hixon packed up English Electrics took over the hangers and they were taking one of their big transformers and it got stuck on the level crossing and a train hit it. There was a loss of life but that was actually at that level crossing in the field that we used to stop in. Yeah. [pause] Yes. We then went on to a holding unit I think, for a couple of weeks before going to Swinderby. We started heavy conversion on, on Stirlings. After Stirlings and when you were used to four engines you used to then go to Lancaster Finishing School if you were going on Lancasters but a couple of weeks into our course there was enough Lancs available and they phased, the courses in front of us carried on on the Stirlings but we were the first at Lancaster course to go right through on, on Lancasters. Yeah, we picked up Len Piddington as the, he was a pilot flight engineer. In 1944 they had trained that many pilots they didn’t know what to do with them so they sent a complete courses of flight engineers from St Athans to the army ‘cause the army was shorter, short of people and these pilots went to St Athans and did an engineer’s course on the promise that if they completed a tour on Lancs on Bomber Command they could then go back and re-muster and finish and carry on as a pilot for Lancs then but of course the war finished and none of them had finished a course by the time, I don’t think, a tour by then. I have met one person who carried on flying on Lancasters and finished his tour and went back and then trained as a pilot and he went into Lancs. We then, I think we went to a holding unit, Balderton I believe, because there wasn’t all that much flying. There was a lot of snow around in Lincolnshire but it wasn’t, it wasn’t too long because we went to Fiskerton. The pilot and I think the navigator, some of the crews went second [?] dicky on tour with an experienced crew, they never entrusted me with anybody [laughs]. They, on the day after me twentieth, yeah my twentieth birthday because I was the only teenager in the crew by this time, Benny who was a teenager when we first crewed up had had his twentieth birthday. I, [pause] we, I don’t think I went out drinking because we were on an air test of N-Nan which had completed a hundred ops so we flew around N for Nan. I think it was an air test. Afterwards we flew, N-Nan did a hundred and thirteen ops and we took it on its hundred and tenth and the hundred and eleventh. Yeah. We then had a week’s leave to, which they used to say to go and say goodbye to your family and before starting ops and went back. We got called for an op which I think they called us about midnight which got cancelled and then we, we got called back to the briefing room for an attack at Plauen on the German Czech border. This was one of the targets that the, Churchill and Stalin had agreed needed bombing. It was er, we took off just after 6 o’clock and got back something like I think it was nine hours. Nine hours trip, which seeing we’d been up for an op the day before and we then had to go in for the debriefing and a meal. Carried on for quite a while and I think it was four days later we got called to do a daylight on Potsdam on the outskirts of Berlin. We were all briefed and ready to go and the Met Flight said that the weather was too bad over there so it got cancelled. We got called back to the briefing room later on and the stream was told us it was still Potsdam but there was still one going around Germany. They told us that the Potsdam raid was still on. This was the first time Berlin had been bombed for about a year. The last time by Lancasters. The last time they’d lost about forty two I think. Mosquitos had carried on bombing Berlin of the night, light night bomber force. They used to bomb regular with their one four thousand pounder. In fact in the darkest days Mosquitos used to do two flights a night. A crew would take off in light over here, bomb Berlin, come back, a new crew, new bomb and another crew would take off and it would be light by the time they got back. Anyway, we were told we weren’t going to Potsdam. We were going on a daylight training aircraft were going to have OTUs and heavy conversions were going to fly towards Germany to pick up the fighters like this was just going to be our squadron. I’m not sure if we had one or two Mosquitos and we were going to fly around Germany and bomb Cuxhaven on the way back and I don’t know whether it was because we had an experienced captain we could then go back in and see what we could see on fires and that and then I could send a message which I didn’t want to do because the German fighters could pick up on your radio. But they, we felt that they were risking our lives unnecessarily because if there had have been fires we were going to be home in an hour and a half. We could have told them. [laughs] Anyway, we went back in, didn’t really see anything. I mean we didn’t have enough aircraft really to get any fires going and I did code a message up and send it, send it back. Oh yes and on the nine hours to Plauen it was an extra long night because somebody had a puncture in front of us and we couldn’t get back to, to our dispersal and had to stop and wait there until they organised somebody to come and pick us up and a ground crew to come and take over the aircraft because we had to sign to say that any faults and that was on it. Yeah so yes so that was it. After that we had, yeah on the 18th of April we, we were briefed to bomb Heligoland. The main reason for this was that the Royal Navy were going along the North German coast supporting the army and Heligoland had U-boats and E-boats and submarines which they felt could come back and attack the navy by the rear. Yeah. There was approximately eight hundred Lancasters and two hundred Halifaxes on the raid. We, I think we bombed Sylt. It was an island by the side of, with a little airfield on it or an airfield on it. I don’t think they’d been using the aircraft from there for some time. Somebody hit the oil storage tanks and the master bomber didn’t have much, a chance of directing bomber. I think he said, ‘Bomb the smoke, under bomb the smoke as you get in and then over bomb the centre of the smoke and port and starboard of the smoke’ you know so yeah there was only a couple of Halifaxes lost I think. It’s probably the only time I saw the thousand aircraft ‘cause we bombed and we went over we turned around to come back and we either saw the aircraft that bombed in front of us or those that were still going in to bomb you know because normally on nights you didn’t see them anyway and on other daylights if they went and bombed and carried on you didn’t see them. After that we started, mixed up with a briefing for the 20th for Hitler’s birthday to bomb Berchtesgaden, we were also being briefed and I believe we had something like twenty briefings for Bremen. Bremen, the army was having trouble in some places to advance and in other places were going easy and we kept going back to the briefing room and eventually we got, we got briefed for Berchtesgaden and we, I think we got out to the aircraft and the Met Flight said the weather over the Alps was too bad so it got cancelled. I’m not sure if the next day or the day after, yeah, the 22nd I think we went to Bremen. Yeah, in the end we went to the briefing room and they said that they were gonna withdraw troops to a certain line for, in the evening and they were ordered to come back to that line and we were going to bomb in front of it. As it was I think when we got there and we were going in as we got along there, there was some cloud and the master bomber said, ‘Apple Tart,’ which was don’t bomb. So we went there and we didn’t bomb. I think whether some aircraft earlier or after went and bombed but we didn’t bomb. The, a couple of days afterwards I think it was about eleven thousand garrison surrendered. [pause] And, oh yeah and then the squadron, we didn’t go, I think about the 25th they bombed Berchtesgaden but as we bombed, as we’d done four or five we were on a stand down and the Berchtesgaden one, that was the last one on the squadron. We, we somewhere amongst then we got a cross country looking for [pause] windmills [laughs] sorry. Sorry I had a job to remember the word. Yeah. We went around Norfolk looking for windmills not knowing what it was but on the 29th we got called to the briefing room to say that we weren’t going to drop bombs. We were going to drop food over Holland. And that was the first of our six trips over, over Holland. When we come they said that we, they hadn’t got permission for us to drop the food and they weren’t sure how the Germans were going to take it. They were going to tell them we were going to go and were hoping they were going to get away with it. Nobody got fired on although there were reports that some of the Germans were still with their guns and that but so we, so we came back and we got called to the briefing room on the 30th and were told that as we had got away with it the day before they were going to do it again and send some more aircraft in the hopes that the Germans wouldn’t think that we would do that and then they would open fire. We did it on the second and then the next, the next, the next day we got called and were more or less told the same although I believe later on that day that the, they did agree that we could go over and do it so, yeah. So we did another three we did six drops to I think, the Hague, Rotterdam, Delft and Valkenburg airfield. Amongst the children there was a girl who now works in our charity shop up the shops and we’ve got chatting and I’ve, I’ve taken her to an aircrew buffet and told her that I was feeding her sixty nine years ago. I didn’t still think I’d be feeding her sixty nine years afterwards. We’re great, we’re great friends. CB: What height were you flying when you dropped — RB: Oh I should think about two fifty foot or something like that wasn’t it? About two hundred miles an hour I think. CB: And was the food in the bomb bay or how was it released? RB: It was in the bomb bay. It was in nets. Yeah. CB: So how did they, how were they released? RB: By the bomb aimer on, as though he was dropping — CB: In a sequence was it? RB: He just dropped the lot you know and they, but they, you know, you could see the targets anyway but they had pathfinders had put targets, targets down. Yeah, CB: Could you see the locals? RB: Pardon? CB: Could you see the local? RB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah you could see, you were close enough to see them. Yeah. CB: What were they doing? RB: Pardon? CB: What were they doing? RB: Waving and, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah and they by the end they had put in flowers “Thank you RAF” Yeah. Because they, it was about nineteen thousand extra people died during that winter which they take it was you know the starvation and that. They were eating bulbs and things. The, the Germans weren’t really feeding them and the Dutch had gone on strike to help for their bit for the war effort. Yeah. I think this lady I talked to I think she was fairly well off and they had a maid and they, they, they took some of their valuables. They got her to take them in a pram out in to the country where people were a bit well off to try and sell it, you know. CB: What’s her name? RB: Ellen, Ellen. [pause] CB: I think we’ll take a break there. RB: Right. CB: Thank you. [pause] CB: We’ve just had a break for one or two things. By the way this is the 28th of January and we’re now going to carry on with Roy. We’re close to the end of the war, right at the end of the war but we’re talking about Operation Manna. So Roy how did you get briefed about this and what were your reactions as a crew? RB: Well we went to the briefing room and were told that we weren’t going to drop bombs we were going to drop food. I don’t, I think it was a shock really that there was, they’d said that they’d tried to get permission from the Germans but they weren’t playing you know and that the Dutch were in such a state that they’d offered to let a ship go in but the, I believe but the Germans had said no. Yeah, it was a bit of shock yeah that I, I know that I’ve read that a CO wasn’t pleased that he was telling his crews to go in at about two hundred miles an hour and two hundred and fifty feet or something like that and there was no, no agreement and that they were going to tell the Germans that we were coming, you know, over the radio yeah. But as, I mean I could never really have imagined myself dropping bombs over Germany. In fact, as a little titbit, you know when we got, I think it was over Bremen or somewhere. I thought, is this me? A boy from Battersea doing this, you know. There wasn’t much flying before the war. It was a different world. And everything it’s just when it all starts it’s all far away and it just goes one step at a time, you know and then all of a sudden you’re on a squadron and then all of a sudden your skipper goes on a second dicky and that and it’s getting nearer and you’ve been trained for it for twenty one months you know and it’s, it is all, it is all a case of doing one step and somehow thinking that what, if anything bad is going to happen it’s going to happen to somebody else. Not you. Yeah. No. I mean even the second day there was a thought of oh when they said they were going to send more we thought are they going to let us build up you know, to, before they fired at us. They just, I think when we got over there glad that those in front of us if they, well if they’d have been firing on them we’d have no doubt turned around and come back. Yeah. Because you know I mean they could have virtually fired at you with rifles couldn’t they, I mean. Because the Dutch people had been good to aircrew that had come down over their land. They were good ‘cause the Manna Association went over there for years after the war and took part in their, I think it’s their Freedom Day or something isn’t it? CB: And when you got back from the sorties what discussions did you have as a crew? RB: Well, we, we’d got away, you know. They hadn’t fired on us, you know and we sort of accepted it. That we had got away with it. But there was, there was that thought that the next day was, was going to be a build up but no. That was— CB: So you’d done two. Now you get to number three. What are you feeling now? RB: Yeah well after that we did, I think it was after the third that we were told when we come back from our third that they had agreed that we could — CB: No. RB: Go on dropping there. Yeah. CB: So you stopped at six. RB: Yeah. CB: So what was the reason for that? RB: VE day I think. CB: Right. OK RB: Yeah. CB: Ok. So in the beginning you’ got the apprehension. What was the briefing about? If the Germans did fire on any of the aircraft ahead what were you going to do? RB: I don’t know that there was much, you know, that they were just hoping that they wouldn’t. CB: Just go in — RB: I think we were about the third squadron in you know so we were in the early stages of it. CB: Right. RB: Yeah. CB: Ok. So fast forward now to the last raid and we’ve got the end of the war. So can we carry on the narrative there? What happened then? RB: We, Bomber Command brought, I think, something like seventy two thousand released prisoners of war back in twenty seven days. We took Uncle over to B58 at Rotterdam. No. Was it Rotter? CB: Melsbroek? RB: What? CB: Melsboek? RB: No, B58 at, Holland anyway. We took a service aircraft over. We had a spare wheel and a ground crew and we went over and landed there. It was no air traffic control. I think from, from, from H hour to twenty five past aircraft landed. From H30 to 55, aircraft took off and that’s how it was. You know, there was discipline and it went, and they they came in and they landed and loaded them up with troops and away they went. CB: So this was Operation Exodus. Where did you fly into with these POWs? [pause] CB: Because Westcott here — RB: Pardon? CB: Westcott up the road here? RB: No. No, we didn’t bring any back. Although they say we did we didn’t bring anybody back, in my actual log I’ve got them asking me whether flight sergeant somebody of, did we have him on board. CB: Ah. RB: He was on compassionate leave. CB: Oh right. RB: And we brought him home but the squadron records say that we didn’t bring anybody home. CB: Right. RB: We one of the other aircraft brought some Red Cross. CB: So as such you weren’t part of Operation Exodus. RB: Pardon? CB: As such — RB: No. No. CB: The squadron wasn’t part of Operation Exodus. RB: No. No. No. CB: Ok. Well don’t worry about that. So we’ve got to the end of the war. Then what? RB: We took, I think we took some people around Germany. Some ground crew. To see. And then we went to Bari and Naples bringing troops home. CB: Oh you did. RB: Yeah. We, yeah. CB: So just on the round robins, the Cooks tours they called them. What height did you fly over the cities? Cause that’s what you were doing. RB: Not very high so people could see. Yeah. Yeah. CB: And what was your relationship with your ground crew during the, during hostilities anyway. RB: Yeah we got on alright with them all but seeing as we flew a number of different aircraft you know you didn’t get the same ground crew all the time. CB: Oh right. RB: I mean some, some people seemed to do twenty, twenty trips in the same aircraft. CB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and more. RB: No. All I got here is Exodus. Service aircraft to B58 CB: Right. Anyway, on the Cooks tours where did you fly then? RB: Essen, Cologne, Aachen and Antwerp. CB: Right. RB: I think that might have been the only one we did. Yeah ‘cause in, in May ‘45 by the end of the month all Australians, Canadians and foreign people had gone out of the, out the crews, you know. CB: Oh right. CB: They went home immediately. RB: Yeah they yeah they got out. So, I mean, I know a pilot, he was the only Englishman. He was on leave and went back and they’d all gone. [laughs] CB: Didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. RB: No. No. No. No. CB: I bet he, yeah, what was the relationship in your crew like? RB: Yeah alright there was only one snag was the mid upper gunner. CB: Oh go on. What about him. RB: He had a girlfriend in Leicester. CB: Taffy Jones. RB: Yeah. Yeah. CB: So he went there a lot. RB: Yeah and you know we covered for him when we were more or less in briefings and he didn’t get back till the last minute and things. Yeah. CB: So what, so did the crew socialise a lot. RB: Yeah well you really had to because other crews were doing things at the time. CB: Yeah. RB: We basically knew our crew and then I knew wireless operators, the navigator knew navigators because they had — CB: Yeah. RB: Sessions together, you know. I might, if you got friendly with another wireless operator there was a, chances are that you might get sort of a bit friendly with the other crew but they would be flying other times so you know other than being in the mess — CB: So how did the crew feel about Taffy Jones going off all the time? RB: Yeah [laughs] We’d know that there was, there was — CB: What did the crew say to him? RB: Well at times we felt as we should dump him, you know. CB: Did you? RB: Yeah. Yeah. The rest of us were, were alright you know. CB: Commonly known as pee’d off. RB: Yeah. CB: Because the flight engineers didn’t join till after OTU how was Len Piddington selected? Or did he just appear? RB: I think, I think he just appeared. I can’t remember now, you know but yeah. CB: Yeah and how, how did he get on? RB: Yeah he was a Londoner you know and we had, yeah. CB: So now we are at the end of the war what happened then? RB: We went down to Wyton. No we went down to Upwood. Upwood was due for a clean up after the war so we went, we got transferred to Wyton. By the end of August 576 and 156 were being disbanded. Alan Craig was CO of 35 err 156. He was ex- Halton he’d done a number of master bomber trips and they, they did six Lancasters with Lincoln engines in to try them out and he did master bomber trips on them trying them out. I suppose because he had an engineering background because of Halton. CB: What was his name? RB: Alan Craig. CB: Oh Alan Craig. Ok. RB: He was well known and he got picked to take 35 Squadron around America in 1946. He, as the squadron was being disbanded he went over there to Graveley. He grounded some of their crews and they not very, they weren’t very pleased with him and he sent over to 156. My skipper was in line for going but he, his, he got married in ‘44. Joan who lived in Stratford on Avon and I take it there were a lot pilots around there she had been engaged twice and both got killed and when they got married she thought flying was dangerous and when the war finished he was to give up flying. As he’d been in before the war he was due for demob by the time they were going to America so he would have had to sign on and he wouldn’t sign on so that wiped our crew out. Flight Lieutenant Jenkinson DFM he, I don’t know how, he didn’t have a wireless operator and I’d kept me nose clean. Nothing special but you know just did as I should do. The signals officer, we got on alright but he got on alright with lots of them you know and him and Jenkinson asked whether I would like to go with them so I said yes because my crew had well I think a couple of them had already been posted to other places. Me navigator was on his way out to the Middle East. He was an accountant and he was going on ground crew in the accounts somewhere. The bomb aimer’s going. Len they sent over to, to another squadron. I mean why they, why they took him and put on another squadron. Benny, the rear gunner he went to another squadron. Yeah. So I went over to Graveley. We got our white Lancs and started flying and we were going to be Alan Craig’s crew. We spent hours in the crew room waiting for him to take us up to fly but he never did because he had other things to do and then a signal came through from High Wycombe that it was all pathfinder crews and it had got, been remade with crews from each of the bomber groups so you’ve heard of Sir Mike Beetham have you? CB: Absolutely. RB: He come from East Kirkby down to Graveley and swapped with a crew. We swapped with a crew from 138 at Tuddenham and, I was, I was torn. When he come he didn’t have a wireless operator and I said did I [?] want to stop with him and you know I didn’t want to lose my crew so I said no. It was the worst thing I ever did really because when they got us over there to Tuddenham we were a new crew and they were grounding crews left, right and centre. They sent. They us on leave. I got recalled the next day and got posted so I never saw any of Jenks crew. The day after I left the two gunners come back and got posted. So I found out. By the time the pilot come back he didn’t have a crew. They’d all gone, you know [laughs]. So yeah at Tuddenham we were doing photographic work for town and country planning. We didn’t do much because we were making maps over bombed areas but quite often you know with cloud and that we didn’t get all that much photographic work done. And anyway I don’t know whether I would have gone because Flight Lieutenant Koreen [?] had a mid-air crash. He had a nose and he went into somebody’s tail and the wireless operator had frostbite and I never did find out whether he went around America. CB: So they took their Lancasters with them did they? RB: Yeah they did. CB: To America. RB: Yeah they went around. Sixteen — CB: Good Lord. RB: Sixteen went around America. Yeah. Yeah. I did, I did have all the cuttings and that. CB: Yeah. RB: And um — CB: But you never went. RB: No. I didn’t go but I knew the people, a lot of the people, and I thought of, and when I saw Mark Beetham up at Hendon once I said ‘I got them’ and he said ‘I didn’t ‘ave it cause I was there’ so I handed over to him all the photos and that that I had. Yeah. Yeah it’s like. How far are we going to go on? CB: No, we’re just, it’s just a question of what you did at the end of the war. RB: Yeah. CB: ‘Cause you came out in ’47. RB: Yeah. CB: So what did you do between the end of the war and when you were demobbed? RB: I went to Cranwell on a, on a course for VHF Homer. Do you know? CB: Yeah. RB: VHF Homers? I operated a VHF Homer at Wyton. Only for a day or two. I was on air traffic control as an RT operator giving aircraft permission to take off and land. I, I was on duty now, now, now I’m going to do a bit of a shine [?] I was on darkie watch. Darkie watch. Anybody know darkie watch? CB: That’s, no. No Other: No. No. RB: It was on channel 4. The transmission was I think was ten to twelve miles maximum so if you were in trouble during the war you could use plain language. CB: Yeah. RB: And you could say — CB: Oh it could only go twelve miles. RB: Eh? CB: Yeah. RB: You could say Lancaster of 576 squadron I’m lost. CB: Right. RB: They could put searchlights up and things like that. CB: Oh right. RB: If you had trouble they could get somebody to talk if he was injured or in trouble and things like that. Anyway, I was the only one, there was no flying so I was the only one on air traffic control for the night. I took a — [pause] CB: We’re just pausing to look at documents. RB: I took a call from Group in the night that the Americans had lost a Dakota in the Alps. Oh I’ve already told you every, every three weeks we were duty Air Sea Rescue [?] Squadron and had to have an aircraft standing by all the time. I think we had airborne life boats which had come in. We had one of those. We never used it as far as I know and I switched on the tannoy and said, ‘Emergency air sea rescue. Emergency air sea rescue. Emergency air sea rescue. All air and ground crews report immediately. All duty air and ground crew should report immediately.’ I rung up the crash crew to make sure they’d heard me. The Met girl had come up before she’d gone off. I knew the winds. I’d put the runway lights on, I’d put the perimeter lights on and by the time the, I can’t believe it now but I believe it only took somewhere, something about just over a quarter of an hour for a crew to come ready to take off and by that time ‘cause I wasn’t supposed to give the aircraft permission the flying control officer was supposed to be there. I mean when I was on an airfield by meself overnight I wondered whether if it had ever happened you know if someone had said, ‘I’m in trouble.’ I had to [?] switch the lights on for them to land. What would have happened — CB: Yeah. RB: You know, but officially? CB: What rank — RB: So — CB: What rank are you now for authority? RB: I’m warrant officer. CB: You are. Right. RB: Yeah. Yeah the, anyway we got them off and they went to the Alps and they did find the Lanc but I think they — CB: The Dakota. RB: Pardon? CB: The Dakota. RB: Yeah, they found the Dakota. They saw it a number of times. In fact I can probably tell you how many times they found it. [pause] Anyway, in the Alps, flying, they’d saw it a number of times and there was a crash crew from Milan sent to find them and I think they went across to Castel Benito for the night and then went back the next day. CB: Right. RB: I suppose being the nearest — CB: Yeah. RB: Anyway they went over and — CB: This was a daylight operation? RB: This is looking for daylight in the Alps, yeah. I have got the cuttings here. CB: So why didn’t the Americans send a plane to search? RB: I don’t know. I don’t know. In fact, in fact I think afterwards they did sort of say that — CB: Can we look at those in a minute? RB: Yeah. Yeah well yeah well that — CB: Yeah. RB: That is the paper reports. CB: Yeah. RB: And it’s in focus and we diverted the Lanc to what is now London Airport to be interviewed by the BBC. CB: Right. Amazing. RB: And I’ve here got the signal from the American air force. Message received as follows from the USA Air Force in Europe, ‘Please convey our deep appreciation for the efforts in finding our aircraft and the hard work put in.’ CB: Brilliant. RB: And when we were clearing up they said, ‘Roy you did most of it. You’d better take that with you.’ CB: Very gratifying. RB: Yeah. CB: Yeah. RB: Yeah. CB: So when are we talking about? 1946 is this? RB: This is ‘46. CB: Ok. And you were at Cranwell. RB: No. No, I’d come from Cranwell. I’d done the course at Cranwell. CB: Oh right. RB: I’m back at Upwood. CB: Back at Upwood. Ok. RB: Yeah. CB: So you’ve done, you’re still flying intermittently. RB: No. No. CB: Not at all. RB: No. No. CB: Ok so how did you come so we’re in ‘46 but you didn’t leave till ‘47 so what did you do in the rest of the time? RB: RT at Upwood. CB: Ok and how did your demob come about? RB: You got a demob number. Your age and when you went in and mine was 45 and that was due out but it varied on trades because believe it or not in some trades they were short. Trades which had been built up at the beginning of the war were due for demobbing and if they hadn’t, if they didn’t need more along the line yeah and I did while I was at Upwood the only other highlight was I went over to Wyton because they were short of an RT operator over there and somebody on the VHF Homer and I did, I did a day or two on the VHF Homer over there. Yeah. CB: So your demob date was actually 1945 but you didn’t take it till ’46? RB: No, no, no that was 45 was the number. CB: Oh sorry. RB: But it came up — CB: Beg your pardon. RB: It came up. Wireless operators. It was due March ’47. CB: Right. RB: Yeah. CB: Ok so then you knew that in advance. RB: Yeah. CB: Where did you go for demob? RB: Lytham St Anne’s at Blackpool. CB: Ok and what happened then? RB: They said did I want to go back in? [laughs] CB: Yeah. And you said — RB: No. Well those, at that time well pre-war the air force spent a lot of time overseas. In actual fact about that time squadrons of Lancs used to go to the Middle East and that for a month and come back, you know so it would have been a whole different ball game then if, from the — CB: So when did you meet your wife Joyce? What was she doing? RB: 1943. CB: Right. Where was she? RB: Um she was in Battersea. Yeah, she worked for the Red Cross and St Johns Joint Organisation [?] CB: And so you saw her intermittently or how did you — RB: It was intermittently, yeah. Yeah, yeah I mean I was only coming home once every three months for leave sort of thing or — CB: Yeah. RB: An odd weekend. CB: So that was another motivation for leaving the RAF was it? RB: Yeah and to really I suppose to start doing something for, for me life you know. CB: Yeah. So what had you chosen to do when leaving the RAF? RB: I didn’t choose it. I got a job in engineering didn’t I? CB: And you went back to it. RB: I went back to it yeah. CB: Ok. And they had to, it was a reserved — RB: Pardon? CB: Place? They had to take you back. RB: Well yeah when I went back in there he said, ‘I’m not taking you back. I didn’t want you to go and you went.’ He was joking he was. [laughs] CB: Oh right. RB: Yeah. I I didn’t really have any young life, you know, even social life ‘cause I went to evening school for three years and evening school was evening school. There was no day release in those days you know. I used to work till 6 o’clock and race home and drink a cup of tea and race to be at Wandsworth Tech by quarter to seven, you know. CB: And what was the course? RB: Sheet metal plate work. CB: Right. RB: And after I passed it I went back in to work and said I passed my course and they said, ‘Right, Roy, we will give you a rise. We will put you up from one and seven pence farthing to one and seven pence three [emphasis] farthings.’ CB: Fantastic. RB: And a little while later they said we’ve got a contract for Kirkup [?] Oil Pipeline and their cooking equipment as they’ve got so much oil they want it oil [?] fired so the boiling pans if we give you a half a dozen people to work with you you control it [laughs] ‘cause you’re getting the extra money. I’m getting the extra ha’penny an hour. So you know thinking back on it that probably they’d charge on [?] it got ten bob a week extra so you know yeah so I I organised it that the iron framework had to be, go and be hot dipped and galvanised so I sort of got that organised. The outer panels were going to be vitreous enamelled but we didn’t have a plant in those days we had to send it out to get it vitreoused [?] so the bits that had to go you got done in the hopes that when they come back all the in-house bits, the pans in stainless steel and the tops and that and the bits and pieces you were making you kept it going and it all ended up, yeah. CB: So you spent the rest of your working life with that company did you? RB: No. No I well we couldn’t get a house, you know. We were, we were in the mother in laws front room and then we managed to get two rooms and there was no chance of getting a place in London, I mean and Bartlett’s were in the same line but they, they were moving from Bell Steet because they thought they were going to be pulled down for the Harrow Road Flyover and they were having a place built out here so I applied for a job there and got it. CB: In Aylesbury. RB: No Hemel. CB: In Hemel. RB: Hemel, yeah, yeah and in fact we got a house and were down here before the factory. We had to travel up every day you know to, the next job I got when I was at Benham’s they got the contract for the ventilation for the House of Lords and the Commons what had been bombed during the war and they were used to galvanised and aluminium but underneath the fancy plasterwork they wanted stainless steel because they didn’t want it to rot and after all the cost of all the plasterwork so I got the job of the stainless steel because it all had to be welded and I could weld stainless steel when it was all curves and that. Yeah. CB: So you know the House of Commons backwards. RB: No. No, I didn’t, I didn’t go up there at all. I just made it and it all fitted so I didn’t have to go up there. Yeah. I got, I got in with the, the gang that places in London, the restaurants and that hadn’t been, hadn’t had any building work done on them during the war and we went to places like Derry and Toms to, to update their service counters. We used to, at this time we were working eight to eight because we were busy and we used to go up there Friday dinnertime and the counters were red hot. The counters in the pre-war used to be galvanised pipes going back with steam going through them and they would be red hot and we’d start stripping down from as soon as they’d finished serving dinnertime and we’d carry on stripping down and the stainless steel tops and that in the early days there wasn’t welding on stainless steel. It was riveting and various means and er but we used to put that on the lorry which used to go back to the works. We used to go home and then go in at 8 o’clock on Saturday morning. Our outside fitters used to be pulling out the pipes because at this time copper pipes were going in to replace the galvanised which were some had like rusted and that you know so we used to go in to the works and replace the tops and anything that needed to be. Sometime during Saturday night we’d load it on to the wagon and we’d go back and we’d go straight in and we’d start putting it up but there was no break because you didn’t know what snags you were going to come. Until it was finished you just kept so you worked from Saturday morning all the way through Saturday night round and it usually used to be sometime Sunday afternoon that used to get finished and you’d say ‘right we think we’re there’ you know, we ‘ave to, we used to have to make sure there were no leaks or nothing so there wasn’t too many of them but there was one. Barclays bank had a terrific long counter and it was decided that it was hopeless to try and do it all in one weekend so we did it in three weekends all running on so for four weekends I didn’t have a weekend off. I was out working eight till eight. Luckily it was, it was during the summer so I wasn’t at evening school. My son was born and I daren’t, my wife went into hospital. I daren’t say I’m not going because you were in that gang and if you didn’t go you were frightened that they wouldn’t have you next time you know but er CB: When were you married? RB: 1950. CB: And how old are, well who are your children? RB: Roger. CB: Yeah and how old is he? RB: He’s about sixty — CB: No. He was born when? RB: Er ’52. CB: 19, and the next one? RB: Peter ’53. CB: Yep. RB: Trevor ’56. CB: Yeah. RB: Andrew about ’59, I think. CB: And then you adopted. RB: Yeah. CB: Who? What’s her name? RB: Elizabeth. CB: And how old is she? When was she born? RB: About ‘69 I think. CB: Right. So you needed to get over the others a bit before you took her on [laughs] RB: Yeah. Well [laughs] Roger was working, you know. CB: Oh was he? RB: Bringing money in. CB: Yeah. Right. Ok. We’ve done amazingly well. Thank you. 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 Roy Briggs Description An account of the resource Roy Briggs was born in Battersea, London. After leaving school he undertook an engineering apprenticeship with Benham and Sons, producing equipment for the war. He describes his life during the Blitz. When he joined the Royal Air Force he trained as a wireless operator and served at RAF Fiskerton. He was on operations to Plauen, Cuxhaven, Heligoland and Potsdam. He also took part in Operation Manna and Operation Exodus as well as Cook’s tours over Germany. He served at RAF Upwood until he was demobilised in 1947. After the war he returned to a career in engineering. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chris Brockbank Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-01-28 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Janet McGreevy Maureen Clarke Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:58:03 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ABriggsR160128 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain Germany Atlantic Ocean--North Sea England--Nottinghamshire England--Cambridgeshire Germany--Plauen Germany--Cuxhaven Germany--Berlin 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 30 OTU 576 Squadron Advanced Flying Unit air sea rescue aircrew Anson bombing bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945) civil defence Cook’s tour demobilisation Dominie Goodwill tour of the United States (1946) Initial Training Wing Lancaster Operation Exodus (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) Operational Training Unit Proctor RAF Bridgnorth RAF Fiskerton RAF Hixon RAF Llandwrog RAF Madley RAF Seighford RAF Swinderby RAF Upwood recruitment Stirling training wireless operator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/241/3386/ACrawleyF151222.mp3 c7e60126e907dfc9fd813433d3cabec6 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 Crawley, Fred Fred Crawley F Crawley Fred Crawley DFC Description An account of the resource One oral history interview with Squadron Leader Fred Crawley DFC (146012 Royal Air Force). 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 2015-12-22 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 Crawley, F Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document PL: Hello. I’m Pam Locker and I’m here today in Enfield interviewing Squadron Leader Fred Crawley DFC and the date is the 22nd of December 2015. So, Fred, can I just start by saying thank you very very much indeed on behalf of the International Bomber Command Memorial Trust for agreeing to talk to us and I know you’ve lots of things that you want to say so please, please do start. What I’d like to hear first of all is how you got in to the RAF in the first place. FC: Well, I thought about the beginning of this and I thought to myself well what I could do, I could tell you, Pam as the interviewer just three lines of information and that would be my career. The first thing I would tell you I spent six and a half years in the RAF from 1939 May to the last day of 1945. I did over a thousand hours flying in doing what I did and I did seventy four operations against Europe. Twenty nine of those came on four engine Halifaxes and the forty five came on the Mosquito Pathfinder squadron. That was all continuous but the amazing part of the story really is the amazing change that happened in my career, not of my doing but what the authorities decided to do with me. So I will start by enrolment. I enrolled in what was known as the Volunteer Reserve, the VR, in May 1939 by leaving the office where I was being trained as an accountant and went to London in Embankment and there I was interviewed. First, for fitness to see if I was fit to be considered at all and despite having had appendicitis the year before and having happened on the Saturday morning when the local hospital had no doctor. They just had a student and he made a complete and utter mess of it and the RAF doctors who examined me on the day I enrolled said, ‘You’ll never fly with that wound.’ So I said, ‘Well, don’t be silly because I’ve been playing football and cricket ever since,’ So I said but if you say it, well they gave me such a pummelling I thought they would break it open but they didn’t and in the end they said, ‘Ok. You’re fit to have an interview,’ and my interview took place the same afternoon with an elderly, well ranked, he was an air commodore and all he said to me, ‘I suppose you want to be a pilot.’ I said, ‘Oh no. No. No, I don’t want to be a pilot. I want to be a navigator.’ ‘Why then. I’ve heard about this.’ Heard about navigation. I thought the first step which told me something really important and I said, ‘Well I, I’m interested in all things mathematical,’ I said, ‘I went to a good grammar school. I’ve been in employment for a year. I’m eighteen years of age and I would like to go in and train as a navigator’. Accepted. Then things started to move quite quickly. We had a few lectures in London and then I was posted to what was called ITW the Initial Training Wing and that turned out to be at Bexhill and it didn’t take long to see why. I thought I was fit despite my appendicitis operation but Bexhill pebbles, if you pound up and down Bexhill pebbles you get fit and we were without anything really except training, drilling, guarding at night with broomsticks and that finished with one of the most laughable things I’ve ever heard. It didn’t take long. It was just over two months and we went to the Delaware Pavilion which was quite a famous pavilion in Bexhill and there the chap in charge was once again an elderly, high ranking, I think he was an air commodore too, and at the end of his speech he said to me, ‘You who are about to die, I salute you.’ And I thought we’re back in Roman times. And so there was just dead silence and then muffled laughter and so that was the introduction to the RAF and almost immediately we were posted. We were all going to be navigators so the whole building was filled with would be navigators. That told you something. We were short of navigators and they were trying to redress the balance and we were posted to Scotland to Scone airfield which is just north of Perth. It was a grass airfield and I started in fact about it was there wasn’t one RAF personnel on the station. Not one. The navigation training was given by retired sea captains, the aircraft, which happened to be DH Rapides, de Havilland Rapides, they were flown by retired civil airline pilots over seventy and we did all our training but it was a wonderful training because they were not satisfied, if you didn’t understand they would go over it and over it and over it again to make sure you did and when you were in the air the pilots would respond. For example, would say, ‘Are you lost?’ ‘Yes, I’m lost.’ ‘Well down there is Lord Inverary’s place. I was playing golf there yesterday and you notice a strange building? That’s their home.’ And that was the attitude. I loved it. It was so friendly but those old people, those old sea captains, those old pilots, they were the salt of the earth and so we had a very marvellous training but nothing was skipped and we had a longer training than was normal. But all things come to an end and we left Perth to go to a place in North Wales for bombing and gunnery training. I couldn’t pronounce the name because it was P W L L H E L I which is pronounced Pwhelli. Well, we found out when we got there that that was where we got out and we were met and we were taken for bombing and that was done by old Fairy Battles which had become worn out and open cockpit Demons. Biplanes. So you could see it was using the rubbish really that we had only to use and so that went on and then we left there and, where did we go then? Oh then we went to Penrhos which was for bombing and gunnery and we did have a wooden platform built out on Aberystwyth Bay and you were supposed to try and hit it. Well there was one snag because they were very small bombs that you used because we couldn’t afford to waste any real bombs and I for one couldn’t find anyone who had hit it but so it was. We left there then to come away - PL: Can I just ask you a little bit more about that? FC: Yeah. PL: So you would go up in just that little open - FC: Cockpit. PL: And then what? And there would be a bomb dropped from? How did that happen? FC: Well the bombing was done from the Fairy Battles which were outmoded. They went to France I was going to talk to you about that. They went to France when war broke out and the French had of course, the French, made the fundamental mistake of relying on the Maginot Line but left the end open for the Germans to walk around the end and our 12 squadron, I think it was, were sent and they were literally wiped out. They destroyed a few bridges here and there but that was all. They did no good at all in stopping the advance of the Germans. So there we were and we were at the end of my training and I was posted then to my first operational squadron which I did on 12 squadron and that was on the Oxford Road at Benson. Well it was a crew of three. The pilot was in an open cockpit. He sat up in front. You couldn’t reach him from the inside and at the back was me as navigator facing forward and behind me, back to, was an air gunner/wireless operator with a single Lewis gun with a pan on top and that was our defence. The only other thing that was terrible about it was that if you got down inside to bomb then you had to pull the slide back and right in front of you there was the radiator for the Merlin engine which just about singed your hair off but that was life but of course in a way it was exciting because I was going to France. I was being trained for France and in being posted to Benson they had this off shoot of that to train people to replace the losses in France and that’s how it worked. In the meantime we were utilised. We used to attack our own forces, the military and bomb them or give them experience of low flying aircraft attacking them head on. Well, we didn’t have any bombs and this is perfectly true, we were given bags of flour and they were tied at the neck and we used to drop them over the side and hopefully hit a tank and one day I did. I was the only one who did but I did and it went straight down the turret which was open and the chap standing in it and it covered him with white flour. I never had the skill to do it again but anyway it was good fun. That was then for Benson in its prime but of course all things come to an end and the powers to be soon realised it was a waste of time sending our dilapidated aircraft to France to be shot down like flies by the Germans fighters who were so much better and the French had nothing at all. They pulled 12 squadron back and so I therefore never got further training in 12 squadron. I was then posted to my next move and so - I’m trying to see now what I put down. They decided that in going from Benson I would be well used in training others. I must have been giving a good impression that I had done fairly well because I never, I couldn’t get away from this training others as an instructor and so I was sent to Prestwick and they had a racket going there in my view. I’ve got to be careful what I say. I think I’ll withdraw that Pam because that might have repur but it was run by a private firm and they had one four engine old Fokker, a German plane, fixed undercarriage. It made the noise of twenty five devils when it took off and we crammed forty or fifty pupils in that with a small table to write on and we tried to teach them navigation and it didn’t work. So they then got a few Ansons and that was better. The old lady of the air force who I loved actually. I flew them myself as a navigator and so I was there at Prestwick for a time and then it was obviously costing a lot of money paying this private firm and I was moved down to, lower down the coast of Scotland to, where are we, [pause] oh yes I went then to Penrhos which was a navigation school and there I had a happier time. They were equipped with Ansons mainly and then I was posted yet again to another training place in Scotland and I kept, I was there until, flying Fairy Battles again, which weren’t used in France anymore and the replacements that came back from there. So the accent was always on training. Training, training, training and so in the end I began to get a bit annoyed and I said to the CO of, of the training station look I didn’t come in to the air force to train others. I want to do something for myself. So, at long last I was posted to [pause] forgive me, I went from Prestwick to [?] I was posted to an operational squadron of Lancasters by myself. Now in the air force it’s very dangerous to be on your own. If you’ve got six other blokes you regularly fly with you form a compact seven and you trust each other but to go by yourself, it’s a nasty position to be in but however I went to 106 squadron at Coningsby and the man in charge happened to be Guy Gibson of fame and he said, ‘Well we’ve got a navigator who’s permanently sick, he’s really ill. So,’ he said, ‘I think the chances are he won’t come back and the crew that you will go with are experienced and they will be pleased to have you.’ And I thought wow and would you believe I hadn’t been there for two or three days and I got my first op and that was to Poland so I was chucked in at the deep end and we went to Danzig Bay and we laid five very large mines in the harbour. Very cleverly done too. One mine perhaps would let two ships over before it got, this one would let four ships go over, this one would only allow one to go up so it shut the harbour right down for a very long time till they got them all up. So I thought right [?] and would you believe luck run out again because the first part of the war I had no good luck in it at all. The chap came back from sick. He wasn’t very well but he passed fit for operations so I was out of a job and I said to Gibson, ‘Look. What are we going to do?’ ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I’ll fit you into a good crew.’ So I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to be the odd bod fitting in an odd place. I want to be posted and pick up a crew of my own and fly with them.’ And so, so he said, ‘Right. I’ll get you posted. Well I was sent back to Prestwick but much to my utter amazement it wasn’t to teach others. I was pulled in to the CO’s office and he said, ‘We’ve got a special job for you.’ ‘Oh what am I going to do?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We are going to ask you to lead formations of the American 8th Air Force from Prestwick down to their bases in East Anglia.’ I said, ‘Why do you do that?’ ‘Because they are getting lost going from Prestwick to East Anglia.’ And I can understand that. Where they were training if they came across a town there can only be one town because there’s no other town near it but when they get over here of course one town merges into the next one and the poor souls they just, they lost some aircraft too. Crashes. And in the end I had a wonderful time with the American 8th Air Force. They’d do anything for me. They supplied my mother, who lived in London, with butter, eggs and that’s what, that’s what they gave me as, ‘Thank you very much.’ So happy times. Here we go. And so having got away from 106 I was then with the 8th Air Force until, again they did get the idea how they could get from Prestwick to East Anglia without having someone to lead. I was given a special aircraft, a B25 Mitchell, a twin engine and a pilot whose name, would you believe it, was Lieutenant John Haig. Now, I liked whisky and here was a chap with a whisky name and we were great friends by the time we parted but parted again. I had to say, ‘Look, this has got to stop. I must, I must get on to a proper squadron and so I got posted to, much to my amazement from 5 group where Gibson was to Yorkshire, 4 group, on Halifaxes and I went to Marston Moor where they had an OTU, an Operational Training Unit and you were there to pick up a crew and well when I found the crew they were short of a navigator and I thought how odd. That’s the second time this has happened to me. What’s the matter with the chap? Well, he’s not the right type. When he gets angry he loses his temper, he breaks all his pencils and says, ‘’m not doing any more navigation.’ Well they were a young crew. A very young crew. I was the oldest at twenty one, I think. Yeah, twenty one, and so anyway we introduced ourselves and we got to the stage where we were doing the last night circuits and bumps, you know, as you do, with an instructor pilot on board. Well, in the Halifax a navigator’s position on take-off is on the rest bed in the middle of the aircraft. It’s simply because his navigation equipment is up front in the nose and so we did two or three. It was in February ’43. A rotten night. Very dark. Windy. They kept changing the runway to suit take-off better and he said to the pilot, I heard him say it, ‘Well you’re not too bad. Do one more then call it a day.’ He got out and we took off. Well, by this time I’d got fed up lying on the rest bed and I decided to do something about it so I said to the mid upper gunner, ‘Look you’ve had your turn. Can we change places? You come and have a rest on the rest bed and I’ll go in your turret and I can at least see what’s going on.’ No problem. ‘Yes, fine.’ He was fed up being up there himself so we took off and then all bad things happened. We were only just off the ground at about five hundred feet possibly when fire broke out in the starboard outer. So you remember the pictures of Concorde with all the gaps and there it was and we, everything was done that could be done. The fire extinguisher was pressed, the fire didn’t go out and it was trailing back and so all I heard at all was somebody said, ‘My God. We’re low,’ and with that there was a big bang and I went out like a light. Now that aircraft happened, by sheer luck, to be landed on a downhill field so it hit, it didn’t dig in, it bounced. The tail section broke off with the tail gunner in it two fields that way. I was thrown out. I didn’t know how, what had happened but I found out after the middle section broke off from the front section and I was catapulted but I had no shoes, no socks, no trousers on, and I was half in and half out of a bush. The rest of it was down another field and burning like fury and I saw one bloke come to the edge but he fell back in and he’d obviously had it. Well, of course this was on Marston Moor. There were no roads on Marston Moor so they could see the fire but they couldn’t get to it but the MO, the Medical Officer, he had a motorbike so he eventually managed it although he came off the motorbike several times. He got to me because when I came around, the reason I came around my feet were in a small pool of burning petrol and it was the pain of that that brought me around but the experience that I had then was bang, but then you’re going down a long, long black shaft and I was saying to myself if I reach the bottom I shall die. If I reach the bottom I shall die but then a voice out of the darkness, ‘Is there anybody there?’ And it was the farmer whose farmhouse we just missed on the way down and I yelled and said, ‘Yes I’m here.’ And he was, he had his small son of about six or seven with him and he picked me up, carried me on his shoulders and took me to his farmhouse. Laid me on the floor. And the MO got to me there and he filled me up with morphine and then of course I went out for a light, well, as a light and I woke up next morning in York Military Hospital lying on a stretcher in the corridor. Then I found I couldn’t move anything this side at all. Everything didn’t work. Legs, arms, shoulders anything, and they were very painful. I then saw the senior medic in York Military and he said, ‘How are you?’ So I said, ‘Terrible.’ I said, ‘What’s happened?’ So he said, ‘Well I’m puzzled by you,’ he said, ‘You haven’t broken a bone in your body. I’ve been all over you,’ he said. So I said, ‘Well what’s happened?’ So he said, ‘Well, what did you do immediately before the crash?’ I said, ‘I was looking at the fire.’ Of course I was. So I turned the turret around to look at it and so we were going that way you see and I was looking this way so I took everything on this side and he said, ‘What has happened is the force of the crash,’ which must have been a hundred and sixty knots or something like that, a hundred and fifty possibly, he said, ‘All your nervous systems have been so pulverised but,’ he said, ‘If you think you’re in pain now it’s nothing to what you will experience when it starts to recover.’ And it was true. It was agony. So I stayed in York Military. I had facial burns, burns to my legs and I was transferred to Rauceby near Ely Burns Hospital and there of course once again luck on my side. They had just got a new technique to deal with burns which applies to this day and they treated me and the only way Joyce could tell subsequently that when I got hot you could see that there was this side. You could see the outline of the fire and the legs too. And so there I was. So I was in hospital for a month and when I came out they said, ‘Go and have some leave.’ I was arrested in London because they thought I was drunk. I was taken to the SP’s hut and I said, ‘Well I’ve just come out of the burns hospital. I can’t put my coat on because I can’t do it.’ He took me into a pub and bought me a half a pint of beer and got me on the train home. So eventually I go back. I go back to Marston Moor. PL: Did anybody else survive that? FC: Well there were seven crew members. The tail gunner and I were the two survivors. The other five died. Two on impact and three from their injuries subsequently and it’s on the internet. My daughter-in-law found the account of this and all the pictures on the internet. I couldn’t believe it. I’ve still got it somewhere. Yeah. So back I go to Marston Moor. So I’ve been in the air force quite some time. I haven’t done anything worth talking about so when I got back to Marston Moor it was difficult to believe but they said, ‘Well, we are a navigator short in a crew.’ Ah. So I said, why, why, ‘Why, are they short?’ ‘Well he’s got a bad temper.’ it was exactly - PL: Same chap? FC: And I was convinced it was going to happen to me again and so when I saw the crew I’d got from a young innocent crew I’d got, I mean I was the oldest at twenty one and ok I was a bit older now. This was a Canadian pilot and and these people were a different calibre altogether. And to cut a long story short no trouble. We did our training at the OTU and we were posted to 158 on the East Yorkshire coast and that was my introduction to the operational theatre but I’ve wrote down here I’d been in the air force nearly four years and I’d done one op. Poor return. But then of course as so often happens in life things started to get better. We had, we did a full tour on 158 near Bridlington. I got the DFC and the pilot got the DFC for that and I was then posted to an OTU to train others and I thought I’m back to training again and this kept on dogging me. I get pulled in again but mind you to go to Blyton which was near Gainsborough, dreadful place. Wartime airfield. Nissen huts running in condensation. You couldn’t get a dry shirt and so I got very friendly with the adjutant who happened to be a West End actor. Unfortunately, I can’t remember his name now but he was quite somebody to reckon with at the time and he said, ‘Isn’t this a dreadful station?’ I said, ‘Yes it is.’ So he said, ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said, ‘Suppose we put on a show.’ ‘Doing what?’ I said. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I thought of a mannequin parade. We’ve got some lovely, young, beautiful WAAFs. I’ll go to London and I’ll get all the dresses and you write the music,’ ‘cause I used to play a lot in those days. ‘You write the music and there’s a WAAF, there’s a WAAF officer, she’s a good pianist we’ll tune one of the WAAF pianos so we got two pianos and you write the music.’ So I thought, ‘I don’t think I can do that.’ ‘So,’ he said, ‘The first thing you’ve got to do you’ve got to retune the NAFFI piano to match the Grand in the mess. Never try it,’ he said, ‘It drives you nuts.’ However, we did it and there we were and so he went to London and he came back. Well, when he showed me some of these dresses it left nothing to the imagination, Pam and I said, ‘It won’t do,’ I said, ‘You’ll have a riot because,’ I said, ‘The erks at the back, they’ll be on the stage grabbing them.’ So he said, ‘No they won’t. No.’ He, so he said, ‘Let’s give it a try with nobody in attendance.’ Well no we asked the CO to attend. So he said, ‘Well I can’t see anything wrong with it,’ But one girl was a very pretty girl. She took one look at the dress she was going to wear and she said, ‘I’m not wearing that.’ So he said, ‘Look. Nothing will happen. It will be like a graveyard. They will be so mesmerised by you and your,’ well to cut a long story short again it went ahead and it was true there wasn’t a murmur. I concocted something that was [in a Strauss?] nice and easy, bouncy stuff, you know and the WAAF, she was a lovely pianist and we did well there but when the girls came on in these wonderful dresses, I mean they left nothing to the imagination I can assure you, there wasn’t a murmur and they went out to thunderous applause and we then toured the area to the other airfields with it and so the time at this terrible airfield went quite well. But again I wasn’t happy because I had to go around the night skies with these to make sure they were doing alright and sometimes when I saw them do I thought, ‘Oh dear. You won’t last long.’ And so I thought to myself, ‘I must get out of this somehow.’ How am I going to do it? Well I had a particular friend at Bomber Command Headquarters in York and so I phoned him up and said, ‘What have you done with my application for Mosquito Pathfinders?’ ‘Oh I didn’t know you’d sent one in, Fred.’ ‘Oh yes,’ I said, ‘It’s been in a long time.’ I said, ‘I thought you were craving for navigators,’ because what they were doing they were taking pilots who’d got through the initial training, hadn’t done much flying, but putting in an experienced navigator with him. Only a crew of two you see and that made it compact but I said, ‘Well see what you can do.’ He came back to me and said, ‘I found your application.’ I hadn’t sent one in so he was lying in his teeth. So I said, ‘I’m so pleased. When can I go?’ So I said, ‘Like tomorrow?’ ‘Well if you want to go that quickly.’ So I did. I went the next day and I went to Warboys just near Huntingdon and there they were all being selected. Sprog pilots with experienced navigators and they would have had to have done a tour on something to be considered. Well, in that group of inexperienced pilots was a chap that worked in the same office as me in peacetime and who I knew very well and so it was obvious. I phoned his wife before I went and I said, ‘When is Mark coming down?’ ‘Tomorrow,’ she said. He’d been training at Lossiemouth in North Scotland and so we met and I saw the chap who was dealing with the matching. I said, ‘Look, I know him very well. Is it alright with you?’ ‘Yes. You take him.’ So my crew was established. Now, he wasn’t a particularly good pilot to start with. He became one and I was well satisfied with him and we did forty five trips as Pathfinders and of course with Pathfinders you’ve got radar. I had two types of radar. Gee in the nose and H2S up here. Do you know what I’m talking about? No. Well a Gee is a two wireless stations transmission of beam and you’ve got an oscilloscope and you measure the strength of each beam and where they meet that’s where you are. So that was the simple thing. The H2S is something quite different. This was a scanning machine which rotated a hundred and twenty degrees like that in the nose and you could illuminate any building ahead of you to a hundred and twenty degrees wide. You couldn’t take a back bearing. If you’d gone past it you couldn’t do it but with H2S, H2S is the symbol for hydrogen sulphide isn’t it? You know, bad eggs. I mean somebody had a sense of humour and so those two, navigation I was always fascinated by. In fact I loved what I was doing and but mind you the Mosquito, a lovely aircraft and I’ve listened people say marvellous aircraft and I think to myself, ‘Yes, it was,’ but it was, it had it drawbacks. For example, it was so cold. The engines could never give you enough warmth. They gave you a pipe which were supposed to stuff up your trouser leg, you know, to preserve your manhood sort of thing but it was only a trickle of warmth and at the blister at the side, thick ice, that thick. But the windscreen always freezed [they covered that?] But again no toilet. Now if you fly for five hours in freezing cold there’s things happen to the human body and the pilot had a tube between his legs, it came up as a nozzle here and the navigator had to try and get it down there but you know nobody worried about that because it was a wonderful aircraft to fly and so we developed our own skills there because when he came it was bumps-a-daisy for landing. He couldn’t get it right and so I said, ‘Well I think it’s too much to ask. You’re having to do too many things. I’ll do some of them. For example I’ll put the wheels down. I’ll put the flaps down. I’ll call out the airspeed.’ And, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Would you?’ I said, ‘Oh yeah.’ And we even gravitated to when we were on our way back having bombed and marked oh and by the way the radar screen, you always took a picture of it and if it wasn’t a picture of the target you didn’t get it, you didn’t get credited. It was tough. The WAAF officers used to develop it and in the morning when you came down from your sleep they had a big blackboard and there was the target and your ribbon, you know, O-Orange that’s your picture and if you had a picture of a herd of cows you weren’t there and you didn’t get it. So you had to work for your points. So there it was and that went on and on. There was never any talk of giving up because in Pathfinders once you got, you know your special brevvy as you did. It shows you in the picture there you never talked about giving up. You just went on. I’m sure, we had one bloke who did flip and he was found at 2 o’clock in the morning walking around the perimeter track and it was too much. But he went to hospital, he came back and finished his tour. Yes, it’s amazing what people did in those days and so I continued with him and I actually went on the last raid of the war which was in 1945 to Kiel where the Germans had set up their puppet government and do you now that was one of the worst trips I’ve ever experienced because there was nothing happening. No searchlights, no flak, nothing. It was eerie but I kept on thinking, ‘What if the engines pack up? The last war raid that’s likely to be. War is going to be cancelled tomorrow and I get shot down. I ditch in the North Sea.’ And it wasn’t until I saw the lovely cluster of searchlights that always appeared on the English east coast to welcome you home I thought, ‘Oh isn’t it lovely.’ Now, you would think that was the end of my career because the war had finished. I had done, as I said to start with, a thousand hours flying. More than a thousand hours flying. I’d done seventy four trips and I had done six and a half years’ service but no when the war finished myself and one other chap were given a weeks leave. It looked perfectly normal, perfectly normal. I said, ‘Oh that’s very nice.’ And of course I knew my co very well. I was friends with him after the war and he said, ‘Go and enjoy it. Go and enjoy it. You’ve earned it.’ You know. I should have twigged that something was in the wind but I didn’t. I had a nice weeks leave. I was reunited ‘cause we weren’t married then. We knew each other. We’ve known each other ever since babies because our mothers were great friends so we will be married sixty seven years and we are now in our sixty eighth year and so I called on her. We had a lovely weeks leave. And it was that that started it ‘cause I said, ‘Oh we must do more of this,’ you know, and we were married within six months or so and [laughs] when I got back from leave I saw the same CO and he said, ‘You’re posted.’ ‘Oh yes? Where to? Somewhere nice?’ ‘Oh yes. Very nice,’ he said. So I said, ‘Where?’ ‘Italy,’ he said. ‘Italy? But the war’s over.’ ‘Well I’m sorry. You’ve been chosen.’ ‘Am I going by myself?’ ‘No. We’re sending a pilot with you so the two of you are going.’ ‘Mosquitos?’ ‘Yes.’ I thought this is all very fishy. So he said, ‘But you’ll have to go by boat.’ To Italy. So off we went the very next day to Morecambe. We got on the Empress of India or a boat of that ilk and it took us a couple of weeks to get to Naples but right out to Atlantic and down the Med and into Naples and there I was met and billeted near the base of Mount Vesuvius. Nice, nice billet provided you remembered to walk on the duck boards because if you walked on the sand it took the skin off your feet because it was so hot. So, anyway, I was met by the duty officer and he said, ‘We’ve got you all lined up,’ he said, ‘Stay the night here and we’ll get the train to the airfield.’ ‘Train?’ I said. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Don’t you know where you’re going?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘You’re going to Foggia,’ which is right in the middle of Italy towards the south. Oh well. Anyway, on the way in the train I was very lucky. I’ve been lucky too because I sat in the same compartment with two army officers who had been on leave and had been in the area and they were starting to ask questions, ‘First time out old boy?’ you know, he says. Well they could tell by my knees ‘cause my knees were white. I said, ‘Yes. I’ve just come.’ ‘Oh. Have you got a gun?’ So I said, ‘Well yes but it’s in my kit bag.’ I’d never had any reason to fire a gun. So, he said, ‘Well get it out and load it and always wear it,’ he said. So I said, ‘Why? What’s happening?’ He said, ‘Well it’s very very dangerous out here,’ because they had literally got to starvation by the end of the war and they were ripe to take anybody’s food, clothing, transport or anything. And so I had [?] at Naples airfield. I had Foggia in the middle and I had Bari airfield on the east coast. The Adriatic coast. And so he said, ‘I’ve been detailed to give you two days run around the area.’ So I said, ‘Oh well that’s something. Yeah.’ So he said, ‘But do come prepared. You must wear your gun and you must be prepared.’ He said, ‘Never stop for anybody.’ ‘Never stop for anybody?’ ‘No. Like this,’ he said and out in front was a small village and out of a side turning came a poor old chap. He must have been fifty or sixty on a very rickety bike and he deliberately drove in front of us. So I expected him to stop. ‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘This is it. Don’t take him on. He’s not what he seems to be.’ I said, ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘I’m going to run him over.’ And he, well he tried but that chap was off that bike so nimbly we went over the bike but we didn’t go over him and of course all his cohorts were - PL: Hiding. FC: Behind the wall. And the other trick was to get the girls to pull their skirts up on the mountain roads all by themselves you see but the blokes were all behind the wall and it was very dangerous. And that was after the war had finished. And so that went on and by then I realised I had the most wonderful job I’ve ever had in my life. Never mind about air force. My job, I was in charge of three airfields. The three I’ve mentioned. Naples, Foggia and Bari and in each airfield there was a marshalling area for all, any kind of military personnel who was due to go home for leave, demob or whatever and my job was to get the aircraft from this country to these three airfields to take them there and I could, I had a very powerful radio station. I could order seven hundred aircraft at the drop of a hat. The power. It was marvellous, you know. You don’t, you can’t believe you’ve got that power and there they were all coming into the three places. The colonel or the major in charge of the army camps, they got all the details ready and they were loaded on the aircraft and they all came back to this country. You couldn’t do better than that. I could have made a fortune because everybody wanted to get on the planes but of course they had to take their time. I only did it once and that was because a chap came in, came to see me in the administration building where I was and he said, ‘Can you help me get home out of turn?’ I said, ‘No.’ I dare not do it. ‘Everybody is allotted a day. I can’t do it. Why should you be so particular?’ ‘Well,’ he said, he looked embarrassed for a minute, he said, ‘I’ll be frank with you,’ he said, ‘My girlfriend lives in Milan, she’s pregnant and she’s going to have a baby tomorrow. Now, if you could drop me off tomorrow I can be with her when she has the baby.’ Well, I didn’t know what to do but one of the Lancs that came in I knew the pilot very well and I said to him, ‘Do you think you can sneak a landing at Milan, drop my bloke off and take off like the hounds of hell were after you?’ He said, ‘I’ll do it.’ And that chap gave me a travelling American suitcase so you could take all your gear and it never creased and that was the only thing I ever got out of it. And then it all finished when my number came up ‘cause I had a very early number having been in so early. I found that it was my turn to go and I thought well this time I will get a Mosquito to take me home. No. All the RAF effort was controlled from Caserta in Northern Italy and they told me point blank, ‘I’m Sorry. You’ve got to go home on the train.’ Anyway, we had an Italian train allotted to us, no windows because they’d all been blown out and this was December. Bitterly cold. And the only thing that saved my life was I met my old batman and he had a primus and so he made tea every half hour. I had a stinking cold. I think I almost had pneumonia and he kept us going on that. When we got to Milan we changed trains to the Swiss railway. Lovely. Oh luxury and at every station we stopped at, ‘We hope you will come and have your holidays here.’ You know. Well listen to this when we got to the French border it was the smallest tank engine I’ve seen in my life and it had to pull this whole long train to Calais. Well it had to stop every hour to fill more water in the thing but eventually we got to Calais and, as I say, up to Birmingham for demob and that in a nutshell is my story. PL: What an extraordinary story. FC: Yeah. PL: What an extraordinary story. FC: It is. I mean could put all sorts of fine detail on it but I think it would spoil it because I think, it’s a true story. I have a job reading my notes so I stumbled a bit here and there but what it taught me was and I only got to this conclusion when I had finished putting these notes together for you. It was obvious to me that they had singled me out to be of the utmost use in training others. They weren’t interested in me getting on to an operational squadron. They’d much rather get the through pull of dozens of fellows. Much better return on paper. Yeah. But then you see four years in. One op. Six and a half, seventy four ops. So they all came in the end but they were the killing years. 1943 was dreadful. I mean the losses were so high. I mean, you could sit and have your eggs and bacon before you took off. When you came back sometimes there wouldn’t be one crew on the table. There was one table. The losses yeah. And touches still come flooding back because on Mosquitos they were really some of the elite if you like. I mean they were blokes with long flying experience because pilots had caught up a bit now. The navigators had been at it a long time. We lost some. We lost one or two perhaps a week. Never found out why. But of course Gibson himself had been killed in a Mosquito, but that was a boob. That was his navigator killed him but he changed over the wrong petrol tank. Still not many people know that. But - PL: Sorry, what did he do? He changed over the tanks? FC: Sorry? PL: He changed over the tanks. FC: Changed, yeah, the navigator had to do that. PL: Right. FC: Because the cocks, he sat in his seat here. The cocks were down there. PL: Right. FC: Now, it was very easy, so it was an unwritten rule that the navigators and of course when we were flying Mosquitoes we used, there were drop tanks underneath the wings, papier mache. There was two tanks in the wings and two tanks in the centre piece. Two tanks there. Now if you weren’t careful you had a couple of pints in that one, a couple of pints in this one, a couple of pints in that one. If you were caught when you got brought back ‘cause the weather had closed in you had it all over the place. You didn’t want that so we used to drain every tank dry so ok the drop tanks cause you would jettison those. They were made of papier mache you wouldn’t get a second and then move to the wings because that’s where the shells were going through and you would have fire so drain those and leave it so the centre section ‘cause if you were hit in the centre section you were, you were gone anyway and so we worked that out so we always had every drop of petrol, when we were coming in to land and coming out of markers and watching the beacons we had all our fuel in one place so if we were diverted because the weather packed up, we didn’t get too many. I think the met people did a wonderful job during the war. Far better than they do now sometimes and so petrol in one place. In the heavies you learned the hard way. Now we were raw recruits in East Yorkshire but it wasn’t long before you realised that if you stayed straight and level over there somebody would creep underneath you and - so don’t stay still but move to the side a bit. Get somebody else to take your place. And we and I was the main instigator in this sort of thing. I used to think about these things and say, ‘Well don’t do it.’ It’s a bit of a drudgery you know and of course you had to do it if you saw a fighter. You corkscrewed then but, but I think so many of the crew that were pushed in to these four engine Lancs and the Halifaxes they hadn’t had enough training and that didn’t get put right until 1944 when, of course, the German air force was marvellously organised. Their radar was every bit as good as ours but they used it for a totally different purpose. We used radar to find a target, they used the radar to find you. And they did. And they had directly you crossed their coast they were then saying, ‘Well, where’s he going? Where are they going? Are they going that way or that way or that way,’ and they had got everything organised to pass you on and they did. Pass you on box to box and that’s how it went and one thing that I shall never forgive the RAF for in 1943, round about September, October time, I suppose it was obvious something new was happening because you got these terrible explosions in the sky and it was obviously an aircraft blowing up and you thought well why are they getting so many? Well, we found out afterwards but the RAF said it was because the Germans were firing decoy shells which exploded and made it look like an aircraft going down but when you’re near it you can see it’s an aircraft going down. And that was dreadful because it was so many. PL: So why were they saying that? Was that just about morale? FC: Well just to get you, yes it was. That’s to stop you sort of getting the wind up. But as I said at the time when you’re looking at it you’re in no doubt what it is. Yeah. Yeah. And they were red hot. I only had one dodgy time on the Mosquitos because they were so fast they had to be in the position to catch you. And so what they did was as standard we went to Berlin more often than not because we had two types of oboe squadron. Mosquito squadrons. I had one type of radar and the other type of Mosquito had a different type of radar which was used for the Ruhr Valley because the Ruhr Valley was always covered in smoke and dust from the manufacturing. You couldn’t find it and so they controlled the Mosquito entirely from take-off. They took off, set course and they would give them changes of direction and they would even get you in a line which went right through the target and tell you when to drop [targets?] whereas we had to find them and in our case the Germans knew what we were at because the best way to find a target is to identify something near it or comparatively near it which you could see on radar and radar picks out buildings or more particularly, water. So if you go over a big lake you can see it because there is no response at all from water and so the great lakes north west of Berlin and about a twelve minute run in to Berlin stood out on the radar and it was a dead reckoning and so once you got there and took the line, altered course, twelve minutes you were there. You couldn’t miss but they put all their fighters around the great lakes and one of them was educated in this country and he would come on our frequency, he got our frequency taped and he would say, ‘Good evening gentlemen. You’re a little late this evening but we can see you all right,’ because we were the end of the contrail of course and they were up above us because they had the super chargers ME109Fs. They were up above. They could see our contrails. We had three markers per target so the three of us were very close together. They made a lot of contrails dead stick and they would come down, they could dive, they could get the speed to catch them but they had to get us first shot otherwise they were gone through us and they would never catch us up again but, but he would talk to you all the way. He would talk to you all the way in and say, you know, ‘Just stay like that, we’ve got that,’ and he – PL: So they were really really - FC: Yes. PL: Messing with your heads and - FC: Oh yeah. It was a war of psychology really, you know. He knew exactly how to ruffle people. Yeah. Yeah. And he would talk to you like that. PL: So, so - FC: But there is about the story of my RAF life. PL: It’s just an extraordinary story. It really is. Do, do, I get the impression then that you, did you feel safer in the Mosquitos? FC: Oh it was so much faster. Yeah PL: Did you sort of feel in control of the situation more? FC: A German fighter could outrun you but only in the diving mode so they used the height to catch you and of course we were flying, we always flew at twenty six and a half thousand. Don’t ask me why. Someone at the air ministry rather thought that’s a large figure so they won’t dream of, but always twenty six and a half thousand. Sometimes somebody would say alright we’ll make it thirty thousand but very rare and of course we were, time and time again the target was Berlin because we didn’t need any escort. No escort could keep up with us and so we always went the same way across the north German plains and came back the same way taking bearings on Hamburg, Mannheim and all those places as they came up on the radar screen. Yeah. Yeah PL: I’ve heard a lot about the relationships within the crews and you talked a little bit about that earlier on. FC: Yeah. PL: With that dreadful crash but on base did you, I mean obviously you were in pairs in the Mosquito. Did you all socialise together and form relationships or - FC: Well in my case because I knew Mark Wallace so well we shared a room. Didn’t have to. You were just allotted a room. We had batwomen instead of batmen by then of course [?] but they were the salt of the earth. They would defend you so that you got some sleep and they would make up their own boards and put them, “Quiet. Operational crew sleeping.” And they’d do your uniform and oh they were the salt of the earth. I always had a tremendous affection for them because they were all in the forty to fifty group, years of age, yeah but they wouldn’t take anything for the, you know, extras. Go treat yourself to something. No. They wouldn’t do that. No. They were really wonderful and of course again we were lucky here ‘cause whereas the Yorkshire one was a wartime airfield I can tell you something about that too but you might want to pack up. Upwood was a peacetime camp so it was all beautifully laid out and the mess was all brick built, everything was brick built. It’s still there. It’s just a massive American hospital now. Not working except for the local airfields. They treat any airmen from their local airfield but it’s there to deal with a calamity like, you know, a multiple train crash or something. PL: So where is that? FC: It’s just outside of a place called Ramsey which is just near Huntingdon. PL: Right. FC: Yeah. PL: Right. FC: And the airfield is called Upwood and it’s still there. I’ve been there. I was taken there by the mayor and of course they wouldn’t leave me alone. They’d say, ‘Was it like this when you were here?’ I said, ‘Yeah. Oh you changed that,’ or, you know, and then you get a magnificent meal you know, oh dear that was a lovely time. George came with me and of course the mayor was one of the, well he wasn’t a real relative but he, we were very great friends and he said well I’ll take you there. I’m invited to bring friends and so I did. Yeah. PL: Lovely. FC: Yeah. PL: Tell me about the Yorkshire airfield. FC: Well, it was, as the name suggests, a wartime airfield. It was built probably in late part of 1941 or thereabouts and it was all nissen huts except for the control tower. That was made of brick. And it’s another odd thing about my time in the RAF I was always, a squadron normally has two flights A and B. Sometimes, if they’re big enough they have C as well but normally it’s A and B and never, never was in A. I was always in B and I placed some importance to that because I thought I want to be in B for luck. And so as it was a poor airfield you can guess I was a bit of a rogue in those days I got back one morning about half past two in the morning. We’d had our debriefing and so on and we went back to the nissen hut and I thought, ‘Oh this is awful.’ Running in condensation. Well I had - PL: This is the Yorkshire airfield. FC: Yeah. Yeah. PL: So, different from the one down in - FC: Huntingdon. PL: Bladon, Bladon, Was it Bladon near - FC: Blyton. PL: Blyton yes. Where you had the show. FC: Yes. PL: Right. FC: No that was pretty stark. PL: Right. Yeah. Ok. Fine. FC: So that was alright. But I wasn’t flying this particular night and I missed the last bus back to the airfield. That’s me, you know. So I thought, ‘What do I do?’ I gave myself up. I went to the local police station. ‘Can I sleep in one of your cells?’ And they said, ‘No. We can’t do that. That’s for locking up prisoners.’ So I said, ‘Well, what am I going to do?’ ‘Oh, that’s no trouble. If you go along the main road to,’ I can’t remember the square number but it was Beaconsfield Terrace, ‘And the second house as you go in, ask for Mrs Wilson.’ I said, ‘What will she do?’ ‘She’ll give you a bed for the night and breakfast in the morning in time to get the bus back.’ So I said, ‘Really?’ So I went there. I trudged down to Beaconsfield Terrace. I saw this lovely Yorkshire grandmother she was and she looked at me and she said, ‘My God you’re thin.’ Well of course I was. I hadn’t long been out of hospital. I’d been flying on ops as well. So, ‘Come in. We’ll have to get some flesh on you,’ she said. And she took to me like and she, I stayed at Mrs Wilson’s so I had an arrangement from then on. I thought well if I can do it this far I can go a bit further. As the adjutant, I always made a friend of the adjutant because he’s the all-powerful admin. So I said to him, ‘Look, can we have an arrangement? If I phone you and say its Fred here you can tell me if I’m wanted back or not and if you say no I’ll stay in Bridlington and I’ll get the afternoon bus.’ So he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘What if it changes?’ I said, ‘Well I’ll leave you a number to ring just in case something pops.’ It worked like a charm. I was never let down by the adjutant. I never got caught. I used to get the afternoon bus in and she fed me up. I used to have hot milk and whisky at eleven in the morning. No charge. And she used to make the life of the butcher on the corner of the square a misery because, ‘Look at him. Look. He’s hardly got a bit of flesh on him. Give him something.’ And do you know that continued after the war. PL: Really. FC: Joyce and I, we were married by now. We used to go up there for holidays. PL: How lovely. Whereabouts was that in Yorkshire? FC: Bridlington. PL: And this was at Bridlington. FC: Yeah. PL: You said about Bridlington. FC: Yes. In the main square. Yeah. PL: Fantastic. FC: Yes lovely, lovely women she was. My boys she used to call us. My boys. I had two brothers. One was in the navy on North Atlantic convoys on the, on one of the small, I forget what they called them now, small boats. Terrible time. My eldest brother was too old to serve as a combatant. He was, he was put in, some sort of officer in charge of a prisoner of war camp in Cornwall so he had a lovely war did my brother, Harry. Of course they’re all dead now. Everybody’s dead. But er but we met once only. My brother Bob and he come up with his wife. Yeah. Stayed at Mrs Wilson’s of course. He had the front bedroom on the first floor. Now, Mrs Wilson had one weakness. Her drink was port and brandy. I thought that’s a killer. I couldn’t take it. I’ve never been very good at strong drink. I like a whisky with lemonade. That’s the sort of stuff I like. And so she said, ‘We’ll have a celebration.’ So, ‘righto,’ my brother was there with his wife. The whole of my crew. Now the whole of my crew were all younger than me and she bought them all a port and brandy. Well you can imagine what it did to these kids. I mean at twenty three now, I was, I was the oldest. They were out like lights so they all went to bed early. We heard them all collapse on the bedroom floor. Somebody went up and put them to bed but the thing I always remember with some amusement my brother was just an ordinary sailor, a matlow as they called them. Never try and undress a sailor because we couldn’t get, his wife and I we were so convulsed with laughter we put him to bed in his uniform in the end because we couldn’t get it off. But they were the good times. Yeah. Yeah. PL: And he survived the war. Your brother. That was in the navy. FC: He survived the war. Yes. Yes. He was never caught by a submarine or anything and he did it all the war. Backwards and forward to the States. Yeah. Bore a charmed life. Yeah. Harry was - PL: Talking about the lucky, about being lucky, being lucky, the B squadron was lucky. Did lots of you, were you, were you sort of superstitious in that way? Was there a sort of - FC: I think everybody - PL: Did people have charms. FC: Flying is superstitious really. You, for example you would never dream of dressing to fly except in one way. For example, you always put something on first and then something on second and if you do it wrong you’d strip, start again. I’ve done that. I’ve done that a dozen times. Never change that. No. PL: How funny. FC: Yeah and you get an affection for a particular aircraft. That’s the funny thing you see. You know, I had an amazing experience. We had an [laughs] am I boring you? PL: Not at all. FC: Oh. Because we had great losses in 1943 and our replacement aircraft used to be flown in by little girls dressed in a beautiful white uniform and they had the time of their lives because they always stayed the night in the mess and then they were picked up. Nobody asked any questions and so and they were right royally entertained but now and again a particular aircraft, I nearly always flew in O-Orange or P-Peter and one of those photographs is O-Orange. PL: What does O-Orange and P-Peter mean? FC: Well, each, each aircraft has its squadron letters which in, in Yorkshire was NP but then on the other side of the roundel that was on all our aircraft the NP was on the left of the roundel but the letter of the aircraft was on the right. So you, A flight was from A to H, I think it was, and then B flight was from say L to, no, yeah L to Z and so you identified yourself as you were coming in. You’d say O-Orange PL: Right. Right, I see. FC: So, you see, they knew who you were. But we had one occasion which, it really accentuated superstition because the little girl brought the aircraft in. There was three of them. They brought in three Halifaxes from the factory but we were operating that night and we were one aircraft short so we had to bring one of these new arrivals in to the raid and it happened to be the one that was given to us because our own aircraft had been so badly damaged it couldn’t fly and I said, ‘What’s its letter?’ It hadn’t got a letter. It had just come from the factory. It’s got a squadron letter NP but no individual because they didn’t know what it was going to be. Well, I said, ‘Well that’s alright. We’ll call her O-Orange. So we did. We thought of her as O-Orange. That aircraft flew like a gem. It was fast. It was trouble free. It gave us no trouble. We had no trouble finding the target. We had no trouble with enemy fighters. Everything was perfect. I said, ‘We’ll keep this one.’ So we all went to bed. When we came down to the flight offices there’s the chap in charge of maintenance said, ‘Sorry about your aircraft.’ I said, ‘What aircraft?’ ‘Well, the one you flew last night.’ ‘Yes. Wonderful aircraft. We want to keep it.’ ‘It’s finished.’ ‘Finished?’ I said. ‘It will never fly again.’ I said, ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ He said, ‘Well, it’s got a major fault in it.’ For that one raid it didn’t show it. Anyway, it was loaded on a Queen Mary vehicle and taken away in one piece. It never flew again. It was broken up and made into another one. PL: Good gracious. FC: I know. And that convinced me - PL: So that had two flights. FC: Just that one. PL: It was delivered and then it went on the raid. How extraordinary. FC: Extraordinary isn’t it? Yeah. But people did have a, did get a love, it was always a kind of love anyway, you know because for example in the Mosquitos we had one old timer. It was, it was operational but it didn’t have all the modern amendments. For example, the windows at the side were flat whereas in the new version it had big blisters so you could see backwards and that poor thing it kept on going and going and going but I never liked it and we were sitting at the end of runway waiting to take off. It was dark. It was a night take off and S-Sugar it was, with the side windows flat was sitting in front of us. As was the first one to take off in front of us and we saw it go down the runway, we saw him lift off but then the tail lights started to do this and he, obviously something terrible happened to it and it went straight out of control, straight in to the bomb dump of another airfield. Boom. Nobody knew what happened. Poor Mark said, ‘What on earth was that?’ I said, ‘Don’t worry about a thing. Just concentrate on what you’re doing.’ Yeah. So, yeah, poor old S-Sugar had a poor end. Yeah. PL: Goodness me. FC: I could tell you a story. One more story about the Mosquitos. Now, our, our losses of course were so little compared to the big ones. After all we had two fellows to lose instead of seven, for one thing and of course the big ones were much more vulnerable. Well, on this particular occasion we had marked very successfully. A lovely picture on the screen showed we were right on the dot and we, the bomb doors shut, pictures taken and dive and turn to come home and we were coming back across the north German plains at about twenty two thousand, something like that ‘cause we were gradually losing height and picking up a bit of extra speed and I started to feel very uncomfortable. I’ve told so many writers about this it’s almost as if I, you know, it happened yesterday. Well, I said to Mark, ‘Is everything alright?’ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Let’s have a good check all around. You check yours and I’ll check mine.’ Couldn’t find anything so I thought, well, sat down, got on with my work and this feeling came back. I said to Mark, ‘There’s something wrong here. I know what I’ll do.’ We had a little extra astrodome and if you got your head into it you could see backwards so I said, ‘I’ll have a good look around. Perhaps somebody’s on our tail somewhere.’ Anyway, I got under the astrodome and I had wonderful eyesight in those years. I could see things in the dark that most people couldn’t which I’ve now lost of course, completely and I said, ‘Well I can’t find anything, Mark,’ and I sat down but as I sat down something down there caught my eye. I couldn’t see it when I tried to see it so I thought, ‘I know. I’ll wait for my eyes to get adjusted here and I’ll look again,’ and there about a thousand feet down but flying the same course was a single engined plane. Couldn’t be mine. Couldn’t be one of ours. We had no single engines during that so it was obviously one of these 109Fs and so I said, ‘I’ve got him.’ I said, ‘I can see him now.’ ‘What’s he doing?’ he said, I said, ‘Well he’s not doing anything. He’s just flying parallel to us about a thousand feet down,’ but I then began to notice he was getting a little bit closer all the time. Very, very, very slowly. And I said, ‘Oh I know what he’s going to do. He’s going to get as close as he dare and then he’ll come up, firing as he comes up.’ PL: Underneath. Yeah. FC: So I said, ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Let’s turn around and go back into Germany.’ ‘What?’ he said. I said, ‘Let’s turn right around and go right around and go back into Germany for three or four minutes. Then come back on the course again.’ Exactly what we did. I sat down. I felt quite comfortable but in a few minutes the feeling was back and so was he. He’d done exactly the same as we had. So I thought this is no, no pupil here this is a really experienced bloke and this time he was definitely closer. So I said, ‘Now, get ready now Mark. Do the same again but dive. Stuff the nose right down,’ and as I said that up he was coming and as we turned he came and he was firing but of course we’d dropped out of his firing range. He gave up after that and I knew he’d given up ‘cause I felt fine. So I think you do get senses of things. Yeah. No more trouble. I said, ‘He’s gone Mark. We can proceed.’ And that’s I think I could bore you to death if I carried on. PL: No. It’s, absolutely, honestly it has been fascinating hearing you. Really. Are there any other stories you want to share? FC: Pardon? PL: Are there any other stories you want to share? FC: Well, I suppose the story that haunts me all my life, has done and still does, is when I crashed on Marston Moor because I think I was half dead. When I was going down, when we hit there was this colossal bang and blackness and I was out but I was conscious, no, I was aware that I appeared to be going down a long black shaft. Not terribly fast but I was saying to myself, ‘If I reach the bottom I shall die,’ and I’m convinced that had I reached the bottom and been conscious when I did I would have died. So I have no fear of death at all. None at all. I mean we often talk about it, Joyce and I. She’s ninety four. I’m ninety five. I’m ten months older than her and we talk about it. Now, what we have done we have decided we will not go into a home so we’ve persuaded our daughter who has a lovely house in Royston, a big house, to build on it a suite for us and we’ll pay for it. Now, it’s all been done. We have stayed in it. It’s a little bit smaller than we had hoped because when they started to build they had to do something in the building of whatever and so it is a little bit smaller but it’s beautifully done and so when one of us goes the survivor, when all the battels are cleared up will go and live with our daughter and I’ve got the most wonderful family in the world. PL: How lovely. FC: My daughter and son are and their spouse’s, well, no I’ll qualify that. No. One of the, my daughter’s husband is an absolute gem. He’s just like a son to me. I say my two boys. Yeah. My son’s wife is not so easy but she’s alright but I often think of that time and I’ll never forget it. It comes back to me. Yeah. And to think that you could survive. Just think, you’re coming down and you hit the ground at about a hundred and sixty miles an hour. That breaks off, the next bit breaks off and the front stays there, huge fire and I’m out here somewhere in a bush. No socks, no shoes, no trousers. PL: And if you hadn’t have gone up into the top - FC: Ah that’s the point. If I hadn’t have asked that chap to change places with me I would have been where he was and I would have been flying up from there as I was but he died in my position and he was quite glad to do it because he was bored to tears of course. He’d done it three times already. He didn’t want to do it a fourth time, ‘Yes,’ so we changed over. I actually saw the fire start because, you know, you’ve got your big cupola turret. I happened to be looking down and saw the first globule of flame and I thought, ‘That’s odd.’ Then suddenly there was a long streamer of fire and going back toward the tail end and so I called him up and I said, ‘I think we’ve got a problem with the starboard outer.’ ‘Oh good gracious. Yes,’ turned the petrol off but one thing ‘cause the chap who was CO was Cheshire. Leonard Cheshire. He was my CO at Marston Moor and he said, ‘Well what did you do?’ I said, ‘Well in the front they did everything right except for one thing. They did not feather the prop,’ So the prop was windmilling and dragging that wing down and that did it. And the fire of course did the rest, you know, but they were so inexperienced. They had very little flying between them. PL: But it’s amazing that you dared go back up again. Were you not terrified when you went back in to the air? FC: Well I, when I went back to Marston Moor and they told me they’d got another crew whose navigator [laughs] I thought, ‘Oh no. I can’t take that again.’ PL: No. No. No FC: So I thought, ‘Oh well.’ But of course you can’t refuse. I mean you’re under control from the air force and, but when I saw them I thought well these are a different kettle of fish and the chap, the Canadian pilot, he had hands like ham bones. You know. When he got hold of the [cold column?] he dwarfed it but even then he hadn’t got these [?] you see. It was his first trip and it could have gone so badly wrong because on the first trip which they gave you always what was called a gardening trip. A gardening trip. What do you mean by a gardening trip? Laying mines. And so three newcomers to the squadron took off together on this night and we were going across Denmark in to the Kattegat and putting the mines down in the shipping lanes. Well, there were only three of us flying from that squadron that night and we were the last to get off and the other two were on our left so we were following here but they kept on drifting further and further left and my pilot kept on giving a touch on the rudders to follow them and I said, ‘Don’t do that. They’re not right.’ Drifting away, ‘They’re not on track.’ He did, well he didn’t know me so I got set up but when it got dark he couldn’t see them so I gave him an alteration of course, brought him back where I knew he ought to be and we found Terschelling Island which was the turning point, went over the point of the island, into the Kattegat, down the lanes, no problem at all. Back again to Terschelling Island, home and we were home and in the debriefing room all finished. No sign of the other two. I thought, ‘Oh dear, we haven’t lost them already have we?’ Anyway, they turned up very very late, they had got lost and then been chased up and down the Norwegian coast by fighters but they got away with it but that taught me a lesson so I said to Smith, the pilot, ‘If you ever do that to me again I’ll finish with you.’ I said, ‘I’m navigating. If I say you ought to turn right, turn right.’ If I’d have said it’s raining cats and dogs outside he’d have believed me from then on and they all got their commissions in turn and it was an all commissioned crew in the end. PL: How wonderful. FC: Yeah. Yeah. PL: And that’s photograph that you showed me. FC: Yes. That’s the photograph. Yeah. PL: So, what, so what was the relationship like between navigator and pilot then? Was that - FC: Ah well you had to have good relationship. I mean when you think of a pilot what is he doing? He’s sitting in a seat. He’s strapped in as tight as he can be. He’s staring into the dark, darkness. He can see all the terrible things that are going on. Aircraft going down in flames and so on you know but he’s got to what his instruments and so he doesn’t, and the compasses. His job is just to do what he’s told and do it well but then of course you’ve got to think about other things because the Germans devised the JU88 and also the ME110 where they, underneath, no on the top of their aircraft they had upward firing cannon. It was called schragemusik. You may have heard of it? PL: Ahum. FC: Well of course what they did was if you got a bloke flying along straight and level they’d come along underneath. The gunners couldn’t see him unless he did, the aircraft was doing something like and then he would manoeuvre his German aircraft out, to right or left, it wouldn’t matter and he would fire into the wing where all the petrol was. Boom. Gone. If you manoeuvred he’d let you go because he could find somebody who won’t and I got very friendly with a number of German night fighter pilots when I had a writer here. His name was Williams and he said they knew straightway whether the aircraft they were looking at was one that knew the ropes or didn’t and if they started to jink about it was too difficult to pick somebody that starts. And I had a wing commander once who came from Training Command, took over and of course they only flew occasionally, wing commanders, on ops. Anyway, in my, Smithy was not well so as a natural choice he turned to me and said, ‘I’m taking your crew.’ ‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘I don’t like that,’ because not only was he green but he wouldn’t listen. So when I said to him, ‘I think it would be a good idea if we did a bit of jinking and weaving.’ ‘I’m the pilot here and I will do what I think fit.’ I couldn’t believe my ears. So I said, ‘Well we have learnt sir, from experience, that if you stay straight and level you gradually find that someone is underneath you and the gunners won’t see him if you don’t move anything.’ ‘I’ll decide when we do that.’ He lasted two trips and he was shot down. That’s the sort of thing. So, gradually, throughout your tour you were learning all the time. Little things happen and, ‘Oh I must remember that.’ You know. PL: Because it might just save my life. After the war did you, did you sort of, was it a big shock at the end of the war, you know, your transition into doing other things? I mean were you - FC: Oh the worst time of my life was in the aftermath of war and demob because Pam, I went back to where I came from. They paid me a small salary throughout the war which was very nice. I was training to be an accountant in a big commercial enterprise. When I went back there all the men that didn’t go had the top jobs and all the people below them were their girlfriends. I’m not joking. They were all their girlfriends or [?] so there was nothing for me at all. I went back as an office boy. I came out as an office boy really at eighteen and I went back in exactly the same and the secretary had the gall to call me down when I went back ‘cause he phoned me up and said, ‘I’m so glad you survived,’ you know. ‘Jolly good show chaps,’ you know. ‘When can you come back?’ I said, ‘Well I’ll start on Monday if you like.’ I’ve never had a day’s unemployment in my life. So he said, ‘Well that’s great,’ he said, ‘We’ll make sure we look after you.’ The first morning I got back he called me down and I thought well he’s going to call me down for a drink. I really did. And when I walked in, ‘Oh it’s good to see you. Lovely to see you.’ Something in the boss changed and he said, ‘Let’s get one thing clear,’ he said, ‘You may be able to take an aircraft from A to B and bomb it to blazes but you’re no good to me unless you can do the job which earns money.’ And I thought, ‘Well.’ So I was thinking all the old boys have got the top jobs, the girls underneath them got the second row. Where do I fit in? There is nowhere. So I thought well I don’t know what I’m going to do so I decided the only way to do it was to do two jobs so I went to work for a football pools and I worked Saturday evening and all day Sunday and I earned more money doing that because I love maths. Permutations and combinations were my bread and butter. I loved it. And so old Alfie Coates, it was Coates of course, which was quite near. They’re down in Edmonton. We were living in Palmers Green and he took a shine to me. I soon got on to the top rank of payment and he said to me, ‘I’d like you to come to work for me,’ and I was tempted because I was earning more on the Saturday night and Sunday than I was getting for the full week but I thought, no. You never knew what was going to happen because they were all Jews of course and [laughs] he said, ‘Well I must use your skills,’ he said, ‘You don’t, don’t sit in the factory. Come in to my private office and we’ll give you all the syndicate coupons,’ you know and they put thousands and thousands of lines and very complicated. I might only do five coupons the whole night because there were so many lines but I loved it and that was so satisfying but I learned one of the major lessons of life and that is what you can do as discipline with staff if you have the guts to do it and this came about because with Coates they got so much bigger and bigger and bigger their throughput got bigger and bigger and bigger they wanted more time so they then started to say, well, Saturday evening, all day Sunday. Can you come in Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evening? Well, of course if you’ve got a young family of course I couldn’t do that so what he did in the end was, he said, ‘Well, I’ll take people who can work Saturday evening and Sunday out to lunchtime but if you can’t work beyond lunchtime come to my desk and tell me why.’ So I watched this parade of people going up to the desk and I watched them coming back. They obviously hadn’t got their own way at all but what I never expected ever to see in England all the exit doors were barricaded, locked and a guard put on so nobody could leave the factory and he never got taken. Human rights? I mean, he broke every law imaginable but he never got taken to task and I thought, yes, if you’ve got the guts to do it you’ll get away with it because those chaps had to have the money. They were all fighting for money to support their family and their wife and they would do anything to do it. I did it myself. But then of course things do change. We had a change of chief accountant and somehow my face fitted. He was hated as a man and as the chief accountant but for me he had all the time in the world and he was a lay preacher. Now, of course I was a church goer in those days and I was an organist at the church and I used to read the lessons and so on so I had some sympathy for him and so he said to me one day, ‘Do you think you could drive me to the station to go on holiday?’ I said, ‘Of course.' That was another brick in the cement. All building the wall. And his wife took a shine to me. She was the mothering type. She took to me. It was embarrassing. She always wanted to give me things. And I said, ‘No you mustn’t do that,’ but where he was concerned he suddenly said to me, ‘I think you’re wasted where you are.’ He said, ‘What would you say if I gave you a department of your own?’ I said, ‘I’d say thank you very much and I’ll go for it.’ I finished up, he gave me one, he gave me two, he gave me three, he gave me four and it was damned hard work but I learned the lesson, never complain about the hard work. That’s not what pleased him and I watched one of the other departments that I hadn’t got. The chap who used to work to 5.36 no less on a Friday afternoon for the weekend. Well, of course there comes a time when you’re doing dividends and so on and this chap came in, very close to 5.36 and this chief accountant said to him, ‘How are you getting on.’ ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’m in a bit of trouble ‘cause I’m a bit behind.’ ‘Why is that?’ ‘Well, we haven’t got the work done.’ ‘Yes I know that. Why is that?’ You know this was the kind of, I thought, ‘You idiot. Fancy, you’re provoking,’ what happened in the end he said, ‘Look I’m a reasonable man,’ the chief accountant said, remember Friday evening, 5.36 knocking off time he said, ‘I’ll be generous,’ he said, ‘You let me have that at 9 o’clock on Monday morning and we’ll call it square.’ And the chap said, ‘Thank you very much sir,’ and walked out. Now I don’t know when the penny dropped but I said to him, that’s the chief accountant, ‘You’re the wickedest man I’ve never met,’ and he laughed his hat off because nobody had ever spoken to him like that and from then on we were not master and pupil. We got on like a house on fire and in the end, unfortunately, he died in my arms because he said because we used to go out together around the area ‘cause it was a big area. We were in the Enfield offices and had our meeting with the manager there and said, ‘Well this is not good enough, do this,’ and he, my chap said, ‘Well I’ll go down to the car now. You finish up Fred and I’ll write up my notes and give them to the typist when I get back and they’ll have it ready for the next morning,’ and it was in the local manager’s hands the next morning. You see, pressure. So I said, ‘Ok.’ And I finished up and when I got to the car he was slumped like this and he’d had a heart attack. PL: Oh my goodness. FC: And although I yelled for the manager, the local manager to come down and drive the car and I got behind him and I massaged his heart but I couldn’t save him. He died. I think died shortly after we got to the [?] but and that and then life was good. I had four departments. I had a beautiful office over the main door at the south end. I was then promoted to be the manager of two large warehouses where we introduced a system whereby it was all computerised and a crane picked it up and put it down and put it, and then of all things I got the sack. Why? We had a steering group where we all prepared and I asked a question of the eastern board, Eastern Electricity Board’s chairman, I said, ‘Can we go anywhere to see this system working?’ ‘No.’ ‘Why is that?’ ‘Because there isn’t one.’ I said, ‘You’re buying on spec that it’s going to work.’ And he said, ‘Oh it will work.’ I said, ‘How do you know that? You haven’t seen it work have you?’ ‘No.’ Anyway, I said, ‘Well you’re going to have to use a system of contractors which will be liable to failure instead of using solid [states?] I knew a bit about things then and he said, ‘Oh no. That’s old hat,’ he said, ‘We’re going to do exactly as I say.’ Then he appointed me as the manager. Well it never did work and it wasn’t capable of working but of course who do you blame? You blame the bloke in charge and, you know I, Joyce and I used to go down to the warehouse at 8 o’clock on a Sunday evening, cure all the faults on the cranes, automatic cranes, get it all loaded so the lads could pick at 8 o’clock on Monday morning. Nobody knew we were doing it. I even drove a ten tonnes lorry to get supplies down to Harold Hill in Essex on a Sunday night. Nobody knew. And of course I’d have been sacked if they’d have found out but I had such a host of friends now from Harold Hill who realised that I was facing getting the sack because I hadn’t, well I’d driven bigger things than a car, yes, but a ten tonnes rigid full of parts and machines and at the end of course they weren’t satisfied with output of the factory and so we had a meeting and they said, ‘Well, regretfully we’ll have to say we’ve got to have you out.’ I said, ‘Well that’s alright. I fully expected this. In fact I anticipated what you came here for,’ because in the interval they had a spare engineer. They didn’t know what to do with him. He was a very objectionable bloke too so they put him down with me and even said that he has got authority over you but where he made his terrible mistake, he loved sailing so he used to disappear from the factory at Friday lunchtime and come back Monday lunchtime. Never saw him. So he had no idea what was going on. Not a sausage. So of course I all I said to them when they literally sacked me, the secretary of the board was a very old friend of mine and he said to me, ‘I think you’ve been treated abominably.’ I said, ‘Well that’s life. ‘It happens.’ He said, ‘But there’s a job going in Hemel Hempstead but it’s going back to accounting.’ PL: How funny. FC: ‘How strange,’ I said. But then he said the chap that’s leaving has been promoted and he was very good. It’s the best area on the board. You’ll have a job to beat him. And I said, ‘Well I’ll try.’ And I got there. I got the job by merit and I made that district the best in the board. PL: How funny. FC: And then of course once you’re known the deputy chairman said, phoned me one afternoon and said, he never announced who he was, he said, ‘Are you going to be in this afternoon?’ I said, ‘Of course.’ So he said, ‘I’ll come, I’ll be over shortly,’ and he came over and he said, ‘I’m moving you.’ I said, ‘Oh I’m just enjoying myself here,’ I said, ‘It’s a lovely life here. It’s cushy. The entertainment is lovely you know. We go for walks at lunchtime.’ So I said, ‘What’s the job?’ And I dreaded it. It’s the trouble shooter for the board. So if anybody’s in trouble Charlie goes and sorts it out and gets it right. And in this area which was Pinner. Which you may know. Yeah. The offices were just, well you know where it is the manager was permanently sick, was never there, just take it over and get it back. So I did. And that’s where I retired from. PL: Good gracious. FC: And I closed that factory down as I retired because we’d moved on and we brought other premises. You know. PL: So did you never miss your navigational skills? Did you, did you ever think I’d have love to have carried on with something or - FC: Well you see I tried to - PL: Flying or - FC: I tried, well I tried to get into civil flying but I was knocked about so much. So, that, I I had a fictitious medical category. So, you know you get A1 or A2 or whatever. I was called, I was RAF A3B. There isn’t such a category but I was. That was me. PL: So what did it mean? FC: It meant that he shouldn’t be flying at all but as he wants to go and fly let him fly and that’s how I went through with the Mosquitos. I was always A3B after that crash but everybody sort of turned a blind eye and said well if he wants to fly let him fly. And I must say I look back and it’s only one of pleasure I look back on because I met some wonderful friends. I met some wonderful characters. Really. I mean one of the pilots was a policemen in the Met police. Totally different from my own who was very careful, nursed an aircraft. This fellow, this policeman his idea was thrash it. Get home first. Why? ‘Cause you got the meal first you see. [laughs] And he was always back first. I never knew why but I said to him quietly one day, ‘One of these days you’re going to get caught.’ ‘Why so?’ I said, ‘Because you’re racing back. You’re using more petrol and you won’t have enough petrol to contain the diversion. I said, ‘Think on it Alec because,’ I said, ‘One of these days you’ll regret,’ but when it came, he should have been a fighter pilot because he was an artiste. I mean you couldn’t tell he was down because I flew with him four or five times when my pilot was sick. You couldn’t tell he was down. He was shhhhh shhh shhh wonderful wonderful pilot. Natural pilot. PL: So did he get caught? FC: No. No, he didn’t. He saw the war out and he, he I had to laugh because he liked to drink. He married the owner of a pub whose husband had died. [laughs] Now if that’s not - PL: So he was lucky to the last. FC: Well there you go. Yeah. Yeah. I can look back and say I was frightened many times. You can’t go off it but generally speaking I look back with pleasure because you get so skilled in what you’re doing ‘cause in navigation the rule was you fixed your position with radar, you plot it, extend it forward three minutes, alter course in three minutes so it’s six minutes. I did that in three. So I got my fix and in three minutes I altered course. I never got out of the stream so everybody else was there. It made all the difference. You were never a low one that could be picked off by anybody that was about. PL: So do you think, how do you think your experiences changed you for the rest of your life or - FC: Well I’m lucky to have the loveliest woman in the world. I mean, to me the thing where Joyce is concerned we only had two children but I would have been quite happy with one but David was very dangerously ill before he was one and finished up in Great Ormond Street but I won’t go into that but she was an only child and she said, ‘That’s wrong. I think we ought to have two children,’ So we had, we got Gillian and my two to me they are the salt of the earth. They’re wonderful. If I have a preference its only because naturally a father thinks a little bit more of his daughter I think. And she, she’s lovely. And I’ve had a wonderful life. Wonderful life. Joyce has been the kindest, the most efficient ok she’s got trouble now. She’s a very bad knee which, every time she goes to the hospital to get it done they find her blood pressure has gone up so they won’t do it. And so I said, ‘Just give it up old girl. You’re never going to get it,’ because she suffers from [Coates?] syndrome, you know. She goes to the doctor her blood pressure goes up. Never win. You know. I hope - PL: Well Fred – FC: I haven’t bored you PL: You have, I’ve been absolutely fascinated. You haven’t bored me for one second. FC: Oh I’m glad of that. PL: But I guess there’s just one last question that I’d like to ask you and that is what are your thoughts about how Bomber Command were treated after the war? FC: Badly. Well of course it hasn’t been handled well this side. First of all let me preface by, I feel very strongly. You’ve touched on a rise, well I won’t speak. PL: You must say whatever you want to say. This is your moment. FC: Well, Fighter Command saved this country to start with by not allowing the German air force to rule the skies and to allow an invasion and nobody can take that away but Fighter Command unlike Bomber Command had good aircraft in the Spitfire and the Hurricane. A good match for anything the Germans had, in fact slightly better and they were able to hold their own. Their trouble was pilots. They didn’t have enough pilots and Dowding said very, very strongly, ‘I wish I had more pilots,’ but of course it wasn’t quite as bad as it might have been because we had the university air squadrons, we had the club squadrons and they all had got some training and they were able to slot in. Mind you some of them flew with very little flying hours, I know that, but so did the Germans. They had to bring [?] so there was a parity there which at least gave them a chance of holding their own and so it proved it be and of course they were in foreign territory coming from France. We were on our home territory. If they baled out we could fly again where the Germans once they were shot down they were shot down. They were finished. So gradually they, and Hitler gave up any idea of an invasion but if you look at the history of Bomber Command. Are you alright? PL: Yeah. FC: Yeah. PL: Fine for batteries. FC: If you look at Bomber Command, the Bomber Command had not been dealt with properly. When we went to war we had no decent bomber aircraft. What we did have we sent to France. They were shot down like flies and in the end it was given up as a bad job and that’s where I first come in the picture when I go to Benson. I’m being trained to replace somebody killed in France. Ok but of course on paper things were happening. New designs were emerging. The Fairy Battle was never a bomber worth talking about. It was a crew of three. Pilot, open cockpit. Couldn’t get at him. One single Lewis gun at the back and nowhere to do navigation. Hopeless. Absolutely. But it served the purpose of giving our military on the ground some experience of being attacked by low flying air and the laugh of the flour bags. So, gradually we got replacements. We got the Wellington. We got the Whitley. We got the Hampden, the Hudson but they were not really satisfactory. They were only twins but of course the Germans made exactly the same mistake. They never went for four engine. The only four engine they ever had was the Fokker Wulf which they put on the convoy routes and so of course they made their mistakes as well but they were never really successful and of course above all else the thing in my book which turned the balance was the advent of radar. Now, we and Germany were well on track for being first. In the end it was a tight race and I think the Germans got radar more or less the same time we did but totally different motives. We were keen on two things with radar, defending our country by detecting incoming aircraft but more importantly finding targets in the dark which we could not do. I mean you can’t just circle around in the dark and hope to pick up something and we couldn’t find the targets and so when we got radar along came the better aircraft to equip it and so we had three. The foremost in the public mind was the Lancaster. Then came the Halifax and then came the Stirling. Now the Stirling really was the poor man’s plane. It was big, cumbersome, slow, couldn’t get the altitude and really was although they flew through the war I always felt desperately sorry for them. I know one or two people who flew them, one particularly well and I said, he was always down there. We were up here and the Lancasters were a bit further up and so gradually we not only got better aircraft but we got radar as well and they became standard. We could find places in the Ruhr because we had two types of radar. The type that finds the targets in the Ruhr were controlled from this country. Two radio stations and you flew on a beam and as long as you got your fix, crossed swords, you flew and kept it if you bring it back and then they would tell you when to mark. I didn’t get that. I got the other one. I got the H2S which was totally different, which was long range. It was, it was a signal which was radiated by the aircraft and so it swept on this, on those, a hundred and twenty degrees like that and I, if I went over a town I could take a bearing on it. I’d get a fix. Never let me down. Never let down once and Gee was marvellous. Gee had its limitations ‘cause the Germans were very clever. They learned how to block it out. And so you got Gee to the enemy coast or just short of it and then they jammed it, you know and so I feel that we were totally wrong when dear old Chamberlain you know, was trying to give us peace in our time, as he said, and then he said, ‘I regret to say we are now at war with Germany.’ Of course we were at war with Germany. I could see it at eighteen coming and that’s why I decided to go in the RAF. I didn’t want to be in the infantry and I didn’t particularly want to be on the waves so I went with that and so I think we were poorly led at the start of the war. We were ill prepared and only the natural gifted talents of our beloved country and the men that would give their lives for it could got us back into it in the end and I think that at the end and to answer your specific question when it then started that Churchill took sides against Dresden I thought don’t they realise the only reason we bombed Dresden was because Stalin asked us to. Dresden was the rail and road junction where all the pulling back of the German forces were going through and it was wood and so of course it burned. I went and looked at it. We’d been to Berlin. I said, ‘Let’s go and have a look at it,’ because we were quite confident by then about what we were doing. And nobody has had the guts to say well, A) Stalin asked to have it bombed because it will reduce his losses as they were pursuing the fleeing Germans and of course the nature of the town being wood it was catastrophic but it was no more catastrophic than Hamburg in 1943. I went to Hamburg two nights running, I should have gone the third night but the aircraft was u/s and that, I saw a town as big as Hamburg on fire from end to end and thousands of people died in their cellars from suffocation because the fires were so intense they had a fire storm and that destroyed all the oxygen in the cellars and so they couldn’t breathe. And so Dresden was no exception but Churchill, I felt he thought he was on a weak wicket here and he, to our dismay anyway, I thought he just let the blame go to Bomber Command. No. Old Butcher Harris, he knew what he was doing. After all, think back in the war. What were we trying to do? We were trying to bomb individual factories which we couldn’t find. When we got radar well you could find the town but you couldn’t find the factory. You didn’t know what it looked like. It took Butcher Harris a long time to convince Churchill we ought to bomb the towns because if you knock the houses down the workers won’t be able to go to work and you’ve effectively stopped production. And so it did and of course time after time you could, well I used to always navigate by the fires, you know. As you were going across the north German plains you go across Mannheim and Frankfurt and all those places you could see where they’d been because of the fires but all those chaps didn’t go to work the next day and so the production dropped and in the end well they either did one or two things. They either had to take the factory, get it undercover, mountains something or caves and transfer all the people that worked there to it and that’s the way they survived in the end. Yeah. So I think and then of course when it came to supporting Bomber Command there was not a voice raised. Not a sausage. And I still think that memorial opposite the RAF club in Piccadilly is is abominable. Do you realise they’ve dressed them up in uniform which we never used. They’re old fashioned clothes. They were the days of open cockpits. So - PL: Goodness. FC: Really, you know, so often I see people on the television. They’re usually gunners or wireless operators and they talk about wonderful aircraft to fly. They didn’t do anything to make it fly. Only two people did that. The pilot flew it and the navigator got it to the place it wanted to go to and let’s face it if you didn’t get to where you wanted to get to the pilot is superfluous but most pilots would agree with that and they would say well they were sitting there in the dark. Very little light. I mean the lighting in those things was an anglepoise lamp attached to the outside which came over your shoulder with a nozzle at the end and in that nozzle was cardboard with a pinhead opening and the light [of emmission?] came through that and you were navigating on your knees, you know and people, I mean these blokes how could they know that? They had no experience and it always tickles me, of course, ‘What did you do?’ ‘I was a wireless operator.’ Well he sat down below and he used to listen to the German night fighter controllers, usually wetting his pants as he did so ‘cause the bloke I had he would come eyes as big as saucers and say, ‘They got so and so, all up. We’re going to get a terrible pasting.’ I said, ‘Yeah. Alright well we’ll deal with it when we come to it. Go back and tell us what’s happening.’ But I felt so sorry that we hadn’t got somebody in authority who could have said, ‘Don’t talk rubbish. Tell what the real reason was why we destroyed Dresden.’ Why did we destroy Hamburg then ‘cause that was a burn out. Thousands upon thousands of people killed in their cellars. Doesn’t that merit an equal comment to Dresden, but of course Dresden was wood. Made it worse. It just jumped from one place to another ‘cause all the initial load were all incendiaries. Get the fires going, drop the bombs in, kill the firefighters. Yeah. It’s very sad because, you know, now and again one of the things, I hope you don’t mind me saying this. PL: No. Not at all. FC: One of the things that appals me we have got so many women in parliament now. You know they come on the box and they talk with great authority and I think how old is that one? Twenty three. Twenty seven perhaps. But you know they talk as if they’ve lived a life of experience. Hands on, you know but they can’t have done. They’re not old enough. Mind you they sometimes get men that are no better. And one thing I do admire is the vitality of these girls. They work and they speak well too. Yeah. So, but I sometimes I think to myself I don’t thing they have the right to say that to me. [laughs] And how does she know? But there you are looking at an old, irascible, sort of awkward old boy. PL: I think that’s perfectly fine. FC: Well there you are. I must say it’s been a pleasure to see you. PL: Well it’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. FC: I wondered how could I talk? That’s a big task. When you talked about an hour and a half I thought to myself well you’ll be lucky to get away with an hour and a half if you really are going for it but you’ve been very generous. You’ve just let me ramble on. PL: Not at all. I think it’s been an amazing story and - FC: Yeah. PL: I’d just like to say thank you very very much indeed. FC: Jolly good. PL: For sharing that with us. FC: Oh well it’s my pleasure to meet you too. I would love to meet your husband and perhaps that might happen one day. Who knows? PL: He’s, I’ll switch off here. FC: Yes. Ok. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ACrawleyF151222 Title A name given to the resource Interview with Fred Crawley DFC 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 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Language A language of the resource eng Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 02:05:36 audio recording Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Pam Locker Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-12-22 Description An account of the resource Fred enrolled in the RAF Volunteer Reserve in May 1939. He wanted to be a navigator and was sent to an Initial Training Wing at Bexhill. He received excellent training on DH Rapides at RAF Scone, near Perth. Bombing and gunnery training were carried out at Pwllheli on Fairey Battles and Demons, and at Penrhos. Fred was posted to 12 Squadron at RAF Benson to replace losses in France. They were pulled back, however, and he had several instructor roles, mainly on Ansons. Fred was keen to join a squadron and had a short posting to Guy Gibson’s 106 Squadron at RAF Coningsby on Lancasters as a replacement navigator. His first operation was to lay mines in Danzig Bay, Poland. The navigator returned and Fred was sent to lead formations of the American Eighth Air Force. Wanting to join his own squadron, Fred was posted to the Operational Training Unit at Marston Moor, with an inexperienced crew. Their engine caught on fire and they crashed. One of two survivors, Fred was badly burnt, hospitalised and transferred to the burns hospital at Rauceby. His commanding officer was Leonard Cheshire. Fred was posted to 158 Squadron at RAF Lissett where he carried out a full tour for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. After a posting to Blyton, Fred was accepted for the Mosquito Pathfinders at RAF Warboys. He carried out 45 operations and describes the navigation aids he used, Gee and H2S, as well as the Mosquito aircraft. His last operation was to Kiel, the final operation of the war. He had completed 1,000 hours’ flying and 74 operations. Fred was sent to Italy to organise flights for military personnel due to return to England. When he demobilised, he travelled back by train. Fred discusses the lessons learnt and the problems faced, particularly in 1943. He notes the kindness he encountered. Fred recounts his life after leaving the air force and the skills acquired during the war. He comments on the treatment of Bomber Command, and the importance of radar and improving aircraft. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire England--Huntingdonshire England--Lincolnshire England--Oxfordshire England--Yorkshire Scotland--Perthshire Wales--Llanbedrog Germany Germany--Kiel Italy Poland--Gdańsk Poland Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Sally Coulter Maureen Clarke 106 Squadron 139 Squadron 158 Squadron aerial photograph aircrew Anson Battle bombing bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945) Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992) Churchill, Winston (1874-1965) crash Distinguished Flying Cross entertainment Gee ground personnel Guinea Pig Club H2S Halifax Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984) medical officer mine laying Mosquito navigator Operation Exodus (1945) Operational Training Unit Pathfinders perception of bombing war RAF Benson RAF Blyton RAF Coningsby RAF hospital Rauceby RAF Marston Moor RAF Penrhos RAF Scone RAF Upwood RAF Warboys superstition target photograph training https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/310/3467/PNoyeR1501.jpg 2653db561dc3c7ee26ea68bcaca8b1ef https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/310/3467/ANoyeR151022.mp3 be6dc302b639364c57f551e47bc43bba 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 Noye, Rupert Rupert Newstead Noye Rupert N Noye Rupert Noye R N Noye R Noye Description An account of the resource One oral history with Rupert Newstead Noye DFC (1923 -2021, 1332761 Royal Air Force). Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-10-22 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 Noye, R Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document RN: My name is Rupert Noye. I was born in February 1923. When the war started I was, er, sixteen and in 1940, when Churchill formed the LDV, I volunteered for that. We were renamed later Home Guard and it came in useful when I eventually went into the Air Force because we had learned a lot of rifle drill, marching, things like that. And in, after just a few days after my eighteenth birthday I volunteered for the Air Force as a wireless operator air gunner. I was accepted in April ‘41 but then put on deferred service and eventually called up in September ‘41 and, er, went to Blackpool on a s— a radio course, failed it miserably and re-mustered to air gunner. We were posted to Hendon then and at Hendon for about six months and then I was posted onto Scotland to take the gunnery course. After gunnery course we did OTU on Whitleys at Abingdon. When that course was finished we were posted to St [unclear] attached to Coastal Command, where we were doing sweeps over the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay, and one day we did actually see a submarine and attacked it but we never knew of any definite result. After that we were posted on to Wellingtons, went to Harwell to convert from Whitleys, and we were then to posted 166 Squadron at Kirmington and our pilot disappeared one day and we had another pilot, an Australian, starting his second tour. He was very, very good and, er, we finished our first tour at Kirmington when they converted to Lancasters in September ‘43 and I was posted to Operational Training Unit as an instructor. I was recalled in April ’44 to 12 Squadron at Wickenby to replace a rear gunner who had been injured and they, the crew, had already volunteered to join the Pathfinder Force so I went along with them. We went to Upwood and started operating with Pathfinder Force. You had to do so many marker trips before you got your Pathfinder badge and, er, but due to an incident of — we, the crew was broken up. I stayed at Upwood as a spare gunner and during that time I flew with quite a few different pilots and eventually finished up, er, in about September ‘44 with, er, Tony Hiscock. He was what we called a blind marker. He bombed on radar or dropped the flares on radar and we did quite a few, well we did about nineteen trips together, and the last one was over Hamburg, a big daylight raid just before the end of the — 31st March actually, 1945. After that we were all made redundant, went to various stations and different jobs and I volunteered to stay in the Air Force for another three years and eventually was posted back to Upwood on 148 squadron, again on Lancasters, and I stayed there until I was demobbed in 1949. That’s about it. I was very lucky during my time in Bomber Command. I did three tours of ops and was only once was attacked by a fighter. That was on the 5th of January 1945. We were coming back from Hanover and I saw [bell rings] a fighter, a single engine fighter, approaching from starboard side. I told the skipper and he started to corkscrew but the aircraft did fire at us and we were damaged in the tailplane and the wing. The damage to the wing disabled my turret completely because of the hydraulics were damaged and the — but there was no real serious damage. We got back to base quite happily but we did lose about three hundred-odd gallons of petrol. Then in March ‘45 I was again rather lucky and I was awarded the DFC and Tony Hiscock, the pilot I flew with, he was awarded a bar to his and, er, he was a very good pilot and we got on very well together as a crew, which was one of the biggest things you needed, to be a happy crew. I think that’s about enough. When you flew with Bomber Command you were in a crew and the crew — you were trained as crew and you got, generally speaking, you got on very well together and at times, er, when me as a rear gunner would have given instructions to the pilot, having seen possibly an enemy aircraft, instruct the pilot to dive or corkscrew and he would do that without any hesitatation, although I must say we were — that I was lucky in my time that we didn’t have many times when that was necessary but the crew, the crewing up system was a bit haphazard. When you reported to OTU you were all at one time, a varying number of pilots, wireless operators, navigators, bomb aimers and gunners were put in a big hangar or big room and told to crew up, which seemed very haphazard, but the system seemed to work. Later on, if you went on heavies as a crew, you went to a Heavy, Heavy Conversion Unit and got a mid-upper gunner and a flight engineer and, er, I never had that because as I joined from a place of rest to a place as a rear gunner. I think that’s about it. We got up to about to, er, on our training and we went into these Defiants and the — firstly you couldn’t, not allowed to work the turret until the pilot says so, and so he said, ‘OK.’ So, I turned the turret round and you have to raise the guns first, turn round and looked at the tailplane and there’s this little tiny tailplane behind you and you think, ‘That’s all that’s holding us up.’ [slight laugh] But it wasn’t, we had wings built the right way round and a good engine [slight laugh] but it was funny really because I mean that was the first time the vast majority of us had ever flown when we were on training because, I mean, you didn’t fly much in those days unless you paid five bob ride with Jack Cobham when he came round to a local airfield and you could go and have a short trip for five bob or seven and six or something. Alan Cobham that was. He started off doing refuelling in mid-air didn’t he, er, down in Dorset? But funny ‘cause when we were at Blackpool we went to the Pleasure Gardens there had they had what they used to call in those days the scenic railway and got on this thing and then down in almost vertical swoops and up the other side. And I think that was designed to put you off flying. [laugh] MJ: Did it? RN: It didn’t. No, Not really. Not when you got on a bit on bigger aircraft with the rest of the crew, you were alight, you were quite happy because you couldn’t do much with a Whitley [slight laugh]. It was quite good fun. MJ: People don’t realise it was good fun. RN: Well, it was as you steadily, as you, after you crewed up and got steadily got to know a bit more about the rest of the crew because, er, that pilot we lost when we got on the squadron because I think he went LMF. And — but he was married and had a young daughter. He was a Welshman and later on the wireless operator went LMF. There must have been something wrong with us because the navigator and the bomb aimer and myself finished the tour eventually on, on Wellingtons. But we had a nice picture of the Queen, didn’t we, for our 60th wedding anniversary? And I must get a frame for that. Put it up. But it’s a nice picture. MJ: That’s the point. It’s — that’s how it works. That’s how you remember things. RN: On Pathfinders, um, they were all volunteers from various squadrons but we used to have talks on the squadrons from, er, Hamish Mahaddie who was one of Don Bennett’s leading men and he used to come round trying to talk people into joining PFF and, um, he must have been very successful because they were never short of volunteers. MJ: Did — what sort of training did you have to do for that? RN: Well, when we went to PFF you went to Warboys because Warboys was the Navigation Training Unit for Pathfinders and you went there and you did so much, about a week or ten days’ course there, training, mainly training for navigators and then you were sent to the squadron and did the ops and marking as the time came [background noises]. You didn’t mark straight away because you were, weren’t considered experienced enough or trained up to the, the standard that they wanted. MJ: Did you have to go with another crew then? RN: No, you had instructor pilots that went with you mainly but, of course, all the navigators’ logs were sort of checked by the navigation officers after you came back from every trip whether it was training or an actual operation. [background noises throughout sentence] MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command I’d like to thank Rupert Noye DFC for his recording on the date of — I forget what it is now, 26th? 27th, ah — RN: 31st is Saturday. MJ: I’ve got — I’ll see this is on and stays on. 27th of October 2015. Once again, I thank you again and even though I got the date wrong. Thank you. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ANoyeR151022 Title A name given to the resource Interview with Rupert Noye 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 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Language A language of the resource eng Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:12:40 audio recording Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mick Jeffery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-10-22 Description An account of the resource Rupert Noye completed two tours of operations as a rear gunner with 166 and 156 Squadrons. Rupert initially tried to become a wireless operator but on being unsuccessful with the requirements of that trade, re-mustered as an air gunner. Rupert completed his first tour at RAF Kirmington, and went on to be an instructor. Rupert volunteered to remain in the RAF after the Second World War and was eventually demobbed in 1949. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Royal Air Force. Coastal Command Civilian Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire England--Lincolnshire Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christine Kavanagh Maureen Clarke Claire Campbell 12 Squadron 148 Squadron 156 Squadron 166 Squadron air gunner aircrew civil defence crewing up Defiant Distinguished Flying Cross Home Guard lack of moral fibre Lancaster Operational Training Unit Pathfinders RAF Abingdon RAF Harwell RAF Hendon RAF Kirmington RAF Upwood RAF Warboys RAF Wickenby submarine training Wellington Whitley https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/322/3478/AReedD151015.2.mp3 3a2e4cbfe06a01d1f1b16fe159e1d6ac 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 Reed, Douglas D Reed Description An account of the resource One oral history interview with Douglas Reed (1620813 Royal Air Force). He flew operations with 166 Squadron from RAF Kirmington and with 156 Squadron, Pathfinders, from RAF Upwood. 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 2015-10-15 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 Reed, D Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document HD: This is an interview being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Hugh Donnelly and the interviewee is, is Doug Reed. The interview is taking place at his home at [redacted] Wolverhampton on the 15th of October. Interview commenced. DR: Yes. When I left school, like many of my school mates I was going to be apprenticed in Goole Shipyard. Because apprentices from the shipyard would go on to Trinity House in Hull to be trained as Merchant Navy officers. So, if you were apprenticed in the joinery shop in the shipyard you went off to Trinity House to be trained as a Merchant Navy deck officer. If you went in to the coppersmith’s shop as an apprentice in the shipyard you went off to Trinity House to be trained as an engineering Merchant Navy officer. And so that was my planned movement until, out of the blue my history master sent, ‘Would you please come and see me?’ So I trotted off to see the history master and he said, ‘There’s a vacancy in the Town Clerk’s Department at Goole and I want you to apply for it.’ So I’m saying to him, ‘Sorry. No can do. I’m going to be apprenticed in the shipyard to be a deck officer in the Merchant Navy,’ and so on. ‘Just to please me,’ he said, ‘Go and apply for it.’ So all nonchalantly and uncaring I go in to the Town Clerk’s department and say to them, ‘I understand you’ve got a vacancy. I’ve come along to apply for it,’ in a couldn’t care less attitude. And so they sit me down and they give me a few maths to work on and write, write a letter applying for the job. Being fresh from school that didn’t take very long. And they saw me sitting there and said, ‘Are you stuck?’ I said, ‘No. I’ve finished.’ So they gathered up the papers and the next thing I know I’m ushered into a large room with a big bay window and walls lined with all kinds of books. A big open fire. And, to me, was an old gentleman wearing pince nez spectacles sitting behind this desk who I later found out was the town clerk. He looked at the papers and said, ‘Very pleased with these. I want you to start in my office.’ So I said, ‘No can do I’m afraid.’ And told him the story. All about being apprenticed et cetera. And he says, ‘Well, I understand what you say but I want you to start in my office on Monday. So go home and speak to your parents about it.’ So, I did that and my parents listened to me and didn’t say anything and said, ‘Well, it’s up to you. You want to go into the shipyard or do you want to go into the Town Hall?’ Neither of them offered anything. But I looked closely at my mum and I thought I could detect a sort of a look that she didn’t fancy the idea of her son eventually going off to sea. And she didn’t, couldn’t look into the future of course because this was about ’37, ’38 and of course the war broke out in ‘39. And a lot of my school friends who had been apprenticed and gone off into the Merchant Navy they were killed and lost through enemy action. But she wasn’t to know that. And I thought I detected she didn’t like the idea of her son going to sea. So in the end my father said, ‘Look, if you want to take up the Town Hall job I will square the apprentice thing with the shipyard.’ So, in the end I decided yes, that’s what I would do. And therefore I started working in the Town Clerk’s Department at Goole. And so time wore on and war was declared in September ’39 . And I just carried on working but I realised I was of the age when I would have to go into one of the services as soon as I was old enough. And I worked it out in my mind that I didn’t fancy the army. I’d taken my father as an example of that. He’d been badly wounded in the First World War through his army service. I wasn’t too keen on the navy. And by process of elimination I decided that yes I would like to go into the air force. Particularly if I was flying at least I would get a parachute to look after myself with. So, off I went to the Hull Recruiting Office in Jameson Street in Hull. And there a rather beefy flight sergeant says to me, ‘So you want to join the air force.’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘Hmmn hmmn. So you want to fly do you?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Right. You want to fly and fight in the air.’ I said, ‘Oh I don’t know so much about that.’ [laughs] He didn’t say much but in the fullness of time I was called up to go to the, the, not the Aircrew Reception Centre but where they give you a three day examination and so on and so forth before you’re accepted for the aircrew training. And after the three days yes, I was. I was going to be aircrew. And that’s how come I, I started. Eventually I was called up and went off to Initial Training Wing et cetera like most air crew had to do. And that’s how eventually I finished up as aircrew doing flying duties. But in, in those days it all seemed to be very adventurous and perhaps even satisfying but it’s because people like me were naïve really. Just had a vague idea that flying, especially the operational flying something might happen to you. You might get killed. But that’s all it meant really. You didn’t know any details. We had no experience. And so it transpired that having been through all my training and finished up with a good pal of mine Pete le Guard and one or two others. We were all in the same crew and off we went doing our bits and pieces. We went to Operational Training Unit at RAF Peplow in Shropshire. And after OTU we went off and converted off twin-engine Wellingtons on to four-engined Halifaxes. And then having converted we went off to Lancaster Finishing School at RAF Hemswell. And having completed that we were ready to be assigned to a squadron. And I looked at my RAF records afterwards, at the end of the war and I saw that we were being posted to 12 Squadron, and I’d no idea where 12 Squadron was. I knew it was in Lincolnshire somewhere. But then they said, ‘Sorry. Not 12 Squadron. You’re going to 166 Squadron at RAF Kirmington.’ So, off we went and we arrived at Kirmington on the 30th of March 1944. And we’d hardly booked ourselves in when they said to Pete, who was my pilot, that he was going to go as second dickie on a, on an operation that night. That operation proved to be Nuremberg where we lost eighty or ninety aircraft. And unfortunately Pete, as second dickie with a so-called experienced crew who had done at least five ops — they never came back. And so the first day on a squadron I needed another crew. And eventually yes, I was. I joined another crew skippered by Bill Biddell who was a bit of a character himself. Having been in the Kings Royal Rifles and been evacuated from Dunkirk he’d remustered in to the Air Force and become a pilot. So I was to fly with Bill. By the time I’d done three ops with Bill he’d done about seven. And it was quite, quite an educational, if that’s the right word, experience. He began to fill in some of the details that you hadn’t been aware of when you were glorifying what it would be like to be aircrew. I, in my first op from Kirmington, which I think from memory was [unclear] somewhere in Germany there I bombed my first target Turned for home and away on the starboard side there was a, a sudden explosion which drilled into my mind what it was like seeing an aircraft explode. But just accepted it as one of those things that happens. And that was my first op. The, the second op was on my twenty first birthday. And I spent the evening of my twenty first birthday bombing Essen in the Ruhr. Which I found out subsequently was the most heavily defended place in the Ruhr. So, and then my third op from 166 Squadron was to Frederikshavn on Lake Constance. And as we were, I think we were the fourth to take off and as we took off the fifth one behind us blew up on the runway. It swerved off the runway and blew up. Anyway, we carried on with our task and went to the target which was on the shore of Lake Constance. And having got there it was ablaze. But one had to be careful to locate the target because half of the blaze was reflected in the water of the lake and it would have been so easy to bomb the edge of the lake. And so we, we did that target and when we came back to Kirmington a WAAF — we called up, we were flying L-Love as, as it was called then. We were flying that and we called up to land and this female voice said. ‘Hello Love. Land left.’ And we’d never had an instruction like that before. We said, ‘What does land left mean?’ Do they want us to land left of the runway? Could be a bit dodgy on a grassy airfield in a Lancaster. But if that’s what they want us to do we will do. Perhaps the runway got damaged in that aircraft that blew up as we took off. Anyway, we lined up to land left of the runway which triggered off all kinds of sort of red Very lights from the caravan and from the control tower. So we realised that wasn’t correct. So we called them up again. We said, ‘What’s this land left?’ And she said, ‘I want you to land on the runway and turn left at the end.’ And we thought to ourselves why the hell didn’t she say so? And, however, having gone around again and landed safely we turned left at the end and said, ‘L-Love clear.’ And this female voice said, ‘Goodnight Love.’ And all the crew in chorus, not, not wireless protocol at all, in chorus we said sarcastically, ‘Good night, darling.’ And that was that. And that proved to be my last op at Kirmington. And I was rather sorry because the funny thing about Kirmington it was such a spread out large aerodrome that everybody but everybody was issued with a bicycle so you could get from A to B quicker than walking. That’s an outstanding memory I have. Anyway, Bill, having done seven trips by then, the squadron commander called us into his office and sort of invited us to think that we might like to go on Pathfinders. And sort of, if you know what those invitations were like [laughs] they were coupled with the idea of — pick up your travel warrant as you go out of the door. And that’s how we came to be eventually on 156 Pathfinder Squadron at 8 Group. Having attended the Pathfinder Training Unit in the first instance. And it was with 156 Squadron that I did the rest of, of my operational flying duties and which I, I’d completed and I was still twenty one. But having done my tours with the Pathfinder force I was, I was quite unceremoniously [pause] well, stood down I suppose. But nobody ever said that to me. I was just getting on with the job as usual and someone said, ‘I think you’re posted.’ So I said, ‘What?’ And they said, ‘Yes. We think you are.’ So I thought I’d better go and find out. So I go up to station headquarters at Upwood and I say, ‘Am I posted?’ And they looked it up and said, ‘Yes. I’m afraid you are.’ Which was the unceremonious way of saying you’ve been stood down. And I said, ‘What’s the posting?’ And they said, ‘Oh, it’s an Air Ministry posting.’ Which shattered me because if it was a squadron or a station posting it left room for you to negotiate a little bit but with an Air Ministry posting no negotiation. You just had to do it. And that’s how my operational flying came to an end. As I say you couldn’t argue with an Air Ministry posting. But during that time the initial experience that I’d picked up at Kirmington developed with the Pathfinder squadron. And if people didn’t know about what we did at Pathfinders it’s because Air Vice Marshall Don Bennett who was the CO of 8 Group — he didn’t like publicity. In fact, he refused to appoint a public relations officer. So we just used to get on with the job. It’s only afterwards when you’d finished operational flying that the realisation of what might have happened to you through the experience you’ve gained on the way more than suggested that you had been very lucky indeed to get through a couple of tours with the Pathfinders. We did some very long trips. When I first started flying with 156 I didn’t do many German trips before it was D-Day. That was kept very secret. We as aircrew had no idea it was D-Day but we were out at the dispersal point. We’d already been briefed to bomb a coastal battery and we thought this was an unusual target but okay if that was what they wanted us to do we’d do it. And we were out there at the dispersal point long before midnight. Time went by and it got around to 3 am in the morning. We’d never taken off so late for a night operation. Anyway, we, they let us go at about 3 am. And we located Fougeres where the coastal battery was and did our stuff. And as we climbed to come away, flying home, through a break in the clouds I saw dozens of ships heading in the direction from which we were coming. And it suddenly dawned on me this is, this is the invasion of Europe. It, it’s D-Day. But that’s the first indication we had of D-Day. And then after that we got several trips backing up the army. Strategic bombing trips. If the army had got bogged down somewhere we had to go and, I think they used to be called totalised targets. And on one of the occasions because the Germany forces and our forces were so close together that they wanted the German forces loosened up a bit we asked them to fire from their Bofors guns red star shells over the position that they wanted us to bomb. And this they did. We were able to pick out these red star shells bursting and we, we bombed accordingly. I hope we did a bit of good but that was a, an unusual Pathfinder job. And it brought home to you that although in the briefing you were given a route to follow sometimes a deviation route to throw off the enemy defences and leaving until the last minute almost for you to line up on your target. To fool the enemy defences. Oh incidentally that’s one of the things that didn’t happen on the Nuremberg raid. I learned afterwards that AVM Bennett argued with the people who’d set the course, which was direct to Nuremberg. He wanted a variation but he was overruled and hence I’m afraid we paid the price. But anyway, we used to follow the route that we’d asked to. But it was up to you how you got to the target and indeed how you got back because you might be diverted because of the enemy defences or you might be chased by a fighter or the, you might meet headwind which was slowing you down. You might have a wind up your tail which was making you early. So you had to alter course to suit your own navigation. That’s what I mean by saying it was up to you how you got there. And as long as you got there on time to do the Pathfinder job you’d been given to do because there were several different jobs that you could do with the Pathfinder force. You started with the easiest and you worked your way through to finish up as master bomber. You probably start off as an, as an illuminator. Dropping about twenty, twenty odd flares straight and level every eight seconds. And you’d work your way through the more advanced jobs until you finished up as the top job which, which involved supervising. Staying in the target area all the time and supervising how the raid was going. And principally we were, you could either be a visual marker or a blind marker. Blind marker was on radar but if you got to the target and it was visual okay the visual markers marked it and you backed them up. If it was obscured you, as blind marker marked it and the visual boys backed you up. And then somewhere halfway during the raid you could pick up a job as a visual centerer where you would go and see how the raid was going and perhaps in conjunction with the master bomber you decided that the, the target needed centering which you would mark and then tell main force or VHF for example to ignore reds and bomb greens. And as I say you did these different jobs and you picked up some, some long targets. And eventually, well in no time at all, perhaps cheekily we were doing more daylight bombing then night bombing and that’s on German targets too. Cheekily going into the Ruhr in daylight. And one time we did this, I think the target again was Essen and main force, we were there on time, main force was late. There was no sign of them. So there was about five, five Pathfinder aircraft circling in daylight over the Ruhr. And I think all the towns in the Ruhr were saying, ‘We’ll pick him. You pick him. You pick up.’ And we were getting flak all around us. Right, left and centre. And then on the distance main force came into view. Straggling along towards us. And when they were near enough we marked the target. It’s no good doing it too early because the flares would probably wear away before they got there. Anyway, we marked correctly. By which time our aeroplane was in a bit of a sorry state. We’d had one right close to the nose which had blown the front off the aeroplane and made it extremely cool with a two hundred plus knot wind whistling through, apart from other damage. We used to pick up quite a bit of damage. Flying home on three engines instead of four. One time when we limped home that way our ground crew, God bless them it was their aeroplane really. They only lent us the aeroplane so we could do the operation. But we used to return it them to them sometimes in a very sorry state. But God bless those aircrew they did us, those ground crew, they did us a good job. But one time we got back there and they told us afterwards they’d had to patch up forty four holes in the aeroplane and that there was a piece of shrapnel about the size of half a beaker if you know what a beaker is. A mug. About a half split down the middle. A piece of flak about half that size lodged in the petrol tank. On the, on the starboard wing. And they’d said if that had come loose we would have lost all the fuel out of the tank. But it acted as a cork for which I was duly thankful. Another time was unusual. We were ordered, a daylight job as well, way down ooh in sight of the Pyrenees. But this was an oil refinery. So we were ordered, as I say it was daylight, we had to be down at five hundred feet and we flew out over Looe in Cornwall. You could see people on the beach enjoying themselves at five hundred feet. And we were down there crossing Biscay at five hundred feet and lo and behold we came across a German mine sweeping flotilla doing its stuff. So lat and long was radioed back to base and afterwards when we got back we, we were told that they’d notified Coastal Command and Coastal Command had gone out and, and dealt with the mine sweeping flotilla. Anyway, at five hundred feet we were over Biscay and then we had to climb to bombing height. Up to about eighteen thousand. And it were pretty cold after that. Most of us were just in shirt sleeves and it was a bit cool. Anyway, we did our stuff on the oil refinery and just in the bargain there had been a tanker alongside the refinery at the time. And as we cleared the target and looked back through the smoke and what not I don’t know what we’d done to the oil refinery but we couldn’t see the tanker any more. And so that’s how we, we came back. But we got quite a few, quite a few jobs of a different kind of nature as I say. Most cheekily in Germany in daylight. And, as I say, we, we copped it once or twice. I do remember an early morning daylight on Duisburg. The same night, Duisburg again. And we lost an engine to come home. And then again Wilhelmshaven. We did three German trips in thirty six hours. So we got very little time for a kip but we made sure that the aeroplane was serviceable and so on to do its stuff and we managed even to get something to eat in between times as well. Oh incidentally I do remember that when you were going off on an operation the mess always dished up egg and chips. This was your aircrew meal before you went off. But egg and chips was a godsend in those days. It was another manna from heaven job because eggs were scarce, if not rationed. But to us that was a good meal. And also for a sweet [laughs] we had, week after week, day in day out stewed prunes. And oh dear. You got so tired of stewed prunes. So we said we’ll alter this. So we go in to the kitchen. We said, ‘Have you got some bread? A slice of bread?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Have you got some jam?’ ‘Yes.’ Put the jam on the bread. ‘Now, have you got some batter that you use when you’re doing the chips?’ They’d got some batter. So you dipped your jammed bread in the batter, put it in the, in to the deep fryer and lo and behold you’ve got another sweet. A lot, a lot better than the stewed prunes [laughs] MR: Apricots. Were they apricots? Not prunes. DR: Oh, I beg your pardon. Yeah. Apricots. Stewed apricots. Yes. Yes. Stewed apricots. Yeah. Yes. And as I say Bennett appeared to be a hard man. And indeed he was only hard because he’d got a job to do and he was to make sure that you helped him to do that job. And I’m sure that when he was losing his crews he was as heartfelt as anybody else. But as I say he had a job to do and he gave all the appearance of being strict. Which of course he was. If you couldn’t do your job there were examples where people had been told, ‘You’re not Pathfinders,’ and sent back to wherever they’d came from. So he used to make sure that we knew what we were doing. But there was one incident where a German target, we must have been going in mid-way in the raid because the target was well ablaze. Lots of fires, lots of smoke, lots of flak. And on the, our bombing run I always used to make sure that there was none of our boys up above us dropping his load. And so it was that in the target area I was searching up above as well as below and there was a Junkers 88 about a couple of thousand feet below us flying on a reciprocal. But it wasn’t bothering us so didn’t bother the rest of the crew. Just let them get on with the job. However, when we got back to Upwood, whenever we came back from an op on the table waiting for us in the debriefing room there used to be Walters’ cigarettes, navy rum and hot coffee. So you sat back there with hot coffee and rum to thaw the chill out of your bones and, and a Walters’ fag. And there was a delay in debriefing during which time leisurely we’d consumed three rum and coffees. Sank back and enjoyed them. So, anyway, when we were called in for the debriefing we told the intelligence officer all he wanted to know. And as we finished he said, ‘Was there enemy fighter activity in the target area?’ And I said, ‘Yeah. I saw a Junkers 88.’ And a voice behind me, over my shoulder said, ‘How do you know it was a Junkers 88?’ And the rum answered, ‘I know a bloody Junkers 88 when I see one.’ And looking over my shoulder there’s the two steely eyes of Air Vice Marshall Bennett looking at me. Oh dear. I thought that’s it. And he looked at me and he said, ‘That’s alright lad,’ he said, ‘But we had Mosquitoes on that target tonight.’ And the rum wanted to say, ‘I know a bloody Mosquito when I see one.’ But I restrained. But as I say AVM Bennett often used to be around in, in the debriefing. Many a time. But I thought I was going to get the chop then for being rude [laughs] Anyway, as I say probably if I flicked through my logbook I could see other, other things that had happened to us. But it was quite a full, a full time because in addition to operational flying you were airborne every day without fail. Sometimes two or three times a day. If not operational you were on air tests or practice bombing raids. Fighter affiliation. Navigation cross country trip. You were kept on tip toe all the time. So that you were, you were aware of course that you were part of Bomber Command but not impressively so. You were more impressed with the fact that you were on 156 Squadron. But more so with your own crew because you, you slept, you ate, you flew, you went on leave with the same people. The crew. So that you built up this strong bond and you hoped that they relied on you as much as you relied on them. And you were vaguely aware that there were other crews on the squadron doing the same job more or less as you were doing. But life was so busy that — and sometimes unfortunately because crews went missing you didn’t get any time to make friends or acquaintances. As I say you just, you just knew one or two here and there. Possibly because you’d been at OTU with one or two of them. But otherwise you were so busy. But there were two other, two gunners who had been at Operational Training Unit with me and they’d both, they’d both [pause] Barclay Felgate was a Rhodesian and he was in my first crew. And he appeared at 156 Squadron, Pathfinder Squadron with another crew. And Bob Heatrick, an Irishman, he also flew with me and he was on 156 Squadron Pathfinders. And I’d known them previously from OTUs so you did pick these up. But you did get a giggle from time to time. It depends how things struck you. Sometimes and seriously some people were stricken religiously almost. And there was one pilot who was like that but he was conscientious. And the guys used to call him Dinghy Dan because sometimes when it was reasonable he used to have the crew practicing dinghy ditching positions. Which of course was, was a good idea in case you needed it for real. But on one particular occasion they had a chap, another Irishman with a hell of a sense of humour and they were getting knocked about a bit in the target area and this Irishman said, ‘Come on skip. Let’s get out of here.’ And Dinghy Dan said, ‘It’s alright. The stick is in the hands of the Lord.’ And quick as a flash the Irishman says, ‘Well give him a hand then. He can’t do it all by himself.’ [laughs] As I say we used to pick up the odd, the odd giggle now and again. And my flight engineer Baz, Baz Butterfield, bless him. We were twenty, twenty one as I say. I’d finished operational flying and I was still twenty one. He’d got a son twelve years of age and we used to look at Baz as Uncle Baz and we used to go out to the aeroplane ready for an op and climbing on board Baz, usually he used to say, ‘We’re going to have a good trip tonight.’ ‘Oh do you reckon so Baz?’ ‘Yeah. I’ve got a feeling in my water,’ he used to say [laughs] He was a good lad was Baz. Nearly lost him as I say when we, when we lost the nose of the aeroplane that time. He was very close. Yes. As I say if I were to fish out my logbook I’d probably think of other incidents. But mostly the German trips. But as you got experience you were trained to do, do your job in the air. You were given an aeroplane that was the best that could be provided. You were trained but they couldn’t give you operational experience. You had to earn that the hard way. And it was a hard way. Sometimes it was quite devastating. It brought home reality. Not only what could happen to you in a flash but what might happen to you. For example if you baled out. You only had what you stood up in. If you’d landed in a German urban area God knows what might happen to you. There were stories of aircrew being lynched. And certainly you wouldn’t have been received very kindly once they found out you were RAF aircrew. You could have landed by parachute in the water, in the sea and hope to God you could rescue yourself. Or the aeroplane itself might have to ditch. All these realities came home to you through realisation after. Afterwards. It was afterthoughts really. And made, made you realise that as good as your training had been and as good as your equipment had been you had been very lucky. Because people of the same experience of you and higher rank than you, rank didn’t count for anything. The chopper chopped when it needed to be. That’s at RAF Kirmington. There was a pub there called the Hand and Cleaver and to the aircrew it was called The Chopper. Hence a crew that didn’t come back had got the chop. Yes. Yes, they, you didn’t write off the German defences. The urban targets were well defended. Flak and fighters. You’d got to watch out for fighters. They knew what they were doing. They got very wise. Operating in pairs at times. One would fly on a beam and deliberately show a light and hoped you would focus on him so the other one could come in from the blind side and knock spots off you. But fortunately we were wise to that little trick. Sometimes they would follow you home to your home aerodrome and as you were coming in to land, in the most vulnerable situation, flaps and undercarriage down they would nip in behind you and shoot you down over your own airfield. So you didn’t write them off lightly. Indeed I remember coming back one evening. Well, it was still dark coming back. And as we came across the English coast there was a light. And I thought it was an aircraft showing a light. And we immediately thought it was the German fighters trying the old duo trick. But this light seemed in a steady position and I watched it go astern of us. Anyway, in the debriefing I mentioned this. That it was an apparent fighter showing. And the intelligence officer was highly interested in this. Wanted to know all about it. Where, where we’d seen it first of all and that. How we’d lost sight of it and was it a steady light? Yeah. And in no time at all, within a day or two we’d seen one of the first of the buzz bombs coming across. And that, that was the flames from its tail that we’d seen. And, and then afterwards they were coming over frequently and everybody knew about the buzz bombs. But we therefore got the job of trying to put paid to some of the buzz bomb sites. And later on the V-2 rocket sights. We got the job of trying to put paid to them. And the job was twelve Lancasters flying in pairs. Two, two — six pairs flying astern with the wing, tucked in wing. As close as we could. And we had a Mosquito who was on the Oboe beam or supposed to be on the Oboe beam flying ahead of us and when he picked up the beam and picked the target up he would open his bomb doors and drop a red, a red flare and then we twelve would open our bomb doors and twelve lots of bomb loads used to go down. Hopefully in the one position. But more often than not the Oboe beam wasn’t working so the Mossie was no good. So we had to do it ourselves and as I said drop twelve bomb loads all together. And we did this several times on the buzz bomb or rocket sites. So some of our daylight flying at home was tucking a wing in to the wing space of another Lancaster. So, we got some pretty interesting jobs to do. I’m running out of things to tell you. As I say without picking up a logbook [laughs] HD: Lovely. Thank you Doug. We’ll call that an end to the interview. Thank you very much. [recording paused] HD: Doug’s wife Margaret would like to tell you a little story of what happened in Goole. Here you are Margaret. [pause] MR: [unclear] This is Margaret Reed. I have known Doug since we were three and a half. We went right through school together. And he went away in to the air force. I went away to college. And we got married when we were both free. I don’t mean, mean free. When we were both able to get together and be in the same part of the country. I was sitting with my parents on the outskirts of Goole. In the bungalow that we had there with my two brothers and my mother and father. And we were sitting in the evening, a beautiful evening. It was April. And just one of those evenings you get sometimes. And we had deckchairs. The old striped deckchairs. And in the back garden we had chickens. I had white doves. One of my brothers had guinea pigs and my mother had chinchilla rabbits which we ate. One a week. So we kept having, on having young ones to make sure we had enough for one rabbit a week and they are fairly big. So she, after the war she had the most beautiful chinchilla coat made. DR: Say Goole was surrounded by airfields. MR: Goole was surrounded by airfields. And as we sat there we watched the planes going out on a raid. All the same way. And quite close together. And suddenly my father said, ‘Oh. One’s touched wings with another.’ And we said, ‘Where?’ And we stood up and in the distance there were like two very very small aeroplanes circling down. One coming towards Goole and us and the other going in the opposite direction. And we watched and we watched as it circled around. And we counted out seven crew so we knew there was nobody in it but it was coming in our direction. And suddenly my father said, ‘It’s getting too close. Run in the house.’ We all ran in the house and dropped under the kitchen table. We all scrambled in there. And then there was the most terrific bang and everything shuddered and peculiar noises. And we rushed around into the back garden again and there was a hole where the lawn had been and water filling up in this massive hole. It was the width of the garden. And there wasn’t a feather from the chickens, my doves had gone. Everything had gone. The chinchillas. And we, we then wondered what would happen next. And an RAF kind of lorry with men in it were there within ten minutes and told us to get out of the house. The bungalow. The bungalow at the back was covered with mud out of this hole. There was about six inches of mud over the brickwork. The roof. Really it was just a grand mess at the back. And these men came and shoved us out of the way. They said they didn’t know whether there would be any other bombs that had gone off. And the one near the back, towards the back door was the tail fin, was just across the door. We had to step over it. And I went back in to the bungalow because I knew in my bedroom I’d got a bag of those tiny little silver threepenny bits and I’d got a bit of jewellery. Nothing, I mean at that age you don’t have jewellery but an aunt had left me a pair of diamond earrings and they were in the, in the paper bag with the threepenny bits. And as I climbed over this bomb, the tail of the bomb near the back door so of course the bag, the paper bag burst and they were all over the drive. And they wouldn’t give me any time to pick them up. They just said, ‘Get out. Get out.’ And we went down to our grandma‘s. And instead of her little two bedroomed, well not a town house even, a small house. We had to live with her for a week. You can imagine what it was like. Five of us going to live with her. Anyway, the funny story about it was my mother had had new false teeth that, that she’d collected them the day before and of course they were on the, what was the bathroom window ledge. But the glass had blown out and the teeth, the new teeth, top and bottom were on the floor. But the next day we retrieved them. So her Yorkshire instinct of not having to pay a penny more than she should and collecting them well she won in the end. HD: Lovely. Thank you Margaret. MR: Well that was that. HD: That was absolutely super. Thank you very much. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AReedD151015 Title A name given to the resource Interview with Douglas Reed 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 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Language A language of the resource eng Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:08:23 audio recording Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hugh Donnelly Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-10-15 Description An account of the resource Douglas Reed was working in the Town Clerk's Department, Goole when he volunteered to serve in the RAF. After completing operational training at RAF Peplow he was posted to 166 Squadron at RAF Kirmington. He flew operations over Germany before joining Pathfinders, 156 Squadron and completed his tours with them before being stood down from operational flying. He describes the role and actions of the Pathfinder force and the difficulties they encountered, resulting in them, on occasion, returning their aircraft to the ground crew in a very sorry state. He remembers a post-operation encounter with Air Vice Marshall Donald Bennet. He discusses his crew, the German air defence tactics and encountering an early V-1 flying bomb. His wife Margaret (from 59:41) speaks of living in Goole and experiencing a returning plane crashing into the garden of their bungalow. They were unharmed and they witnessed the crew bale out prior to the crash, but the family had to move out and the animals kept in the garden (including chinchillas raised as food) were lost. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire England--Lincolnshire England--Yorkshire Germany--Nuremberg Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1944-03-30 1944-03-31 1944-06-05 1944-06-06 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Carolyn Emery Maureen Clarke 156 Squadron 166 Squadron 8 Group aircrew Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986) bombing bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944) bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944) crash ground crew ground personnel Halifax intelligence officer Ju 88 Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School master bomber mess military ethos Mosquito Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Oboe Operational Training Unit Pathfinders RAF Hemswell RAF Kirmington RAF Peplow RAF Upwood take-off crash target indicator training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/295/3615/AWallerT151027.1.mp3 fabda2f9ca0e4a33deecf28b4415ef22 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 Waller, Tom Tom Waller T Waller Description An account of the resource Four items. An oral history interview with Corporal Thomas Waller (- 2018, 1096366 Royal Air Force) a memoir and photographs. Tom Waller was a fitter/armourer with 138, 109 and 156 Squadrons and served at RAF Stradisall, RAF Wyton, RAF Warboys, and RAF Upward. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Thomas Waller and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-10-27 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 Waller, T Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document DE: So this is an interview with Thomas Waller. It’s at his house in Swanland. It’s the 27th of the 10th 2015. Approximately 10 past 10. My name is Dan Ellin and this is an interview for the International Bomber Command Digital Archive. So Mr Waller could you please tell me what you did before the war and before you joined the RAF? TW: I left school when I was fourteen. Worked on the fish docks. I left there when we came to Swanland in 1936. I went to work at the Blackburn’s which is now British Aerospace at Brough. I couldn’t stand being penned in there so I came and worked in the local village grocery shop. Wednesday was our half day so when I was in town one Wednesday I went in to the recruiting office and joined the RAF. I came home. Mother said, ‘Why did you do that for? You’ll not pass your medical.’ So I said, ‘Ah. Let’s see.’ So I went for my medical and passed A1. And she said, ‘Well you couldn’t have done.’ But I never found out why. So I joined up. Went in for MT driver but I’d joined up just at Dunkirk and they’d lost a lot of armourers in Fairey Battles so I became an armourer. Hadn’t the vaguest idea what it was – came home on leave, home and my brother he was a flight engineer. Ground crew. I said, ‘What’s an armourer?’ He said, ‘Oh guns and bombs.’ ‘Oh I don’t want to do that. I’m not doing that.’ He said, ‘It’s good pay. Good promotion.’ I said, ‘Money’s not everything.’ Anyhow, I went. Got on the course. And the lad next to me said, ‘Well, I don’t want to do this.’ So we filed up and down. Up and down. The tutor came around and said, ‘You two can stop messing about. Get on with it because we know you can do it.’ So we did. So we passed out flying colours so went out there in the armoury after it had finished. An officer come along and says, ‘Those whose names I call out please step forward.’ My name was called out. Go for fitter armourer to Credenhill in Hereford. So my mate said, ‘We didn’t want to do that, did we?’ I said, ‘No. But we’ll have to go won’t we?’ So we went and we enjoyed it and we got through that course alright and then I was posted to Stradishall. 138 Squadron. SOE Squadron. I wasn’t there very long because Tempsford was its main base and they decided to put all the SOE section together. So they transferred me to Wyton. But instead of Stradishall sending me to Wyton they sent me to Upper Heyford. So, when I got there they said, ‘Where have you come from?’ I said, ‘Stradishall.’ ‘Well you’re not supposed to be here mate.’ I said, ‘Well I have a railway warrant for here.’ ‘Well, we’ll fetch you up a bed for the night and feed you and see.’ I was there for a week and then they said, ‘We’ve found out where you should have been. You should be at Wyton.’ So they said, ‘Get your kit ready and come down to the orderly room tomorrow morning. Half past eight. We’re flying you over in an Anson.’ Oh, I thought lovely. My first flight. Here I go. I got to the orderly room. ‘You’re going by train.’ It’s got a snag. They took me to the station. Stood there. Thought got to get rid of him and make sure he gets on the train. So when I got to Wyton they said, ‘Where have you been?’ I said, ‘I’ve been at Upper Heyford.’ ‘Well what did you go there for?’ I said, ‘Well that’s my railway warrant.’ You know. So he said, ‘Well have you come through King’s Cross?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said. ‘Have you been stopped by the police?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’ve got them at your house looking for you.’ So I said, ‘No wonder my mother was agitated.’ So I settled down there and then, you know [pause] I eventually got to Wyton and the lads said, ‘Oh you’re our new armourer are you?’ So, I said, ‘Yes sir.’ They said, ‘Right.’ So we got settled in. Got working on the aircraft and then came home on leave. Got back off leave. Just got to the guard room and there was a terrific explosion. All the people came out the guardroom, the guard chaps. There’d been an explosion there, hadn’t there. Now had I been, not been on leave I wouldn’t be here now. So I’m one of the lucky ones and the billets at night with all the empty beds. It was really horrible to see it, you know. So we plodded on. Carried on. And then I was transferred from Wyton to [pause] from Stradishall. I went to Wyton and from Wyton I went to Warboys. To 156 Squadron. Start of Pathfinder force. And then they transferred over to Upwood and I went over to Upwood. And then I was there till 1946 and I was sent to a satellite drome near Stratford on Avon. With a dummy four pounder in the bomb dump, fifty rifles in the armoury. I was a corporal and there was me and another lad there with nothing to do. So when demob come I was glad to get out. But if I’d been on a proper station I would have stopped in because I really enjoyed the life. So I came home. Went back to my job in the village. And then at that time I was engaged to a WAAF in London so I got a job with Barclays Baking Machines. Went down to their factory in London and trained to be a mechanic. Service mechanic for the area. So we came back home again. But my lady friend said, ‘I’m not going to Swanland to live.’ So that brought that up. So I did it but I had to give it up because I didn’t have the money to buy a car or a motorbike and doing all the villages. And I walked from Holme on Spalding Moor to Easingwould carrying a wooden box with all my kit in. And I were going, and I went to one place, Newbold. And you’re allowed an hour and a half to service a machine and when I got there I had a new blade to put on. There were only a bus in the morning and one at night [laughs] so I panicked. I got it on. So I gave the manager my address. I said, ‘If anything happens send me a telegram and,’ I said, ‘I’ll come over,’ you know. Anyhow, everything was alright, thank goodness. So, but it was having walking from one village to another and buses it was that awkward so I gave it up. And I came back to the local shop again. Met a local girl and got married. And then I went to work for a local multiple store. Cousins. Down in Ferriby. And I used to go into the shop on the corner, a big shop on the corner where, down where we lived on a Sunday morning to do the bale machine for him and sort his yard out for him. So one day he said, ‘Would you like to come and work for me? I’ll give you a pound more than what you’d do down there.’ A pound in them days was a lot of money. And I had four children then. So I said, ‘Oh yes. Yeah.’ So I came and I was there for nineteen years. And then he brought his nephew into the business and of course he fell out with everybody. Fell out with me. It was horrible to work in. I was fifty five then and I thought where I go from here. Anyhow, Everthorpe Prison was advertising for a canteen manager’s assistant storeman. So I applied for the job. Went for the interview and then I got a letter saying no. The other man was there. He’d been a manager but I’d never been a manager. Anyhow, on the Monday they rang me up. Was I still interested in the job? I said why. Well the manager walked into the canteen on the Friday dinnertime and walked out. He said, ‘I’m not doing this.’ So he said, ‘The job is yours if you want.’ So I did nine and a half years there and took early retirement. So then my hobby was decorating. So I had a little business decorating. DE: Right. I see. So you, going back to when you were working in, in the grocer’s shop and you had your early day off on Wednesday afternoon. TW: Yeah. DE: Why did you decide to join the RAF? TW: I just did it on impulse. No real reason. I just, I just thought I’d go, you know. My brother was in the RAF so maybe that was one of the things as well, like, you know. DE: Did you consider any of the other services? TW: No. Never. If anything it was always going to be the RAF. So I got what I wanted but I didn’t get the job wanted. DE: No. Because you wanted to drive. TW: I wanted to drive. Yeah. DE: Why. Why did you want to drive? TW: I was always interested in driving and I learned to drive when I was at the village shop so. But I never passed a driving test. Because when the war came in 1939 just, just as I was taking mine and I’d only done driving down country roads and I did my test in the town. And I’d never been in front of a policeman before. And in Hull, there was a street in Hull where it was just a snake of people because when we had the ferry you’d see people going down , down the outside to the ferry. The policeman was waving me on you see and saying, ‘You’ve got to go hadn’t you?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, They’ve got to move for you,’ you know. He said, ‘Well, your driving’s alright but you need more experience in the town.’ Well the war came so I kept my licence going and it became a full licence after the war so – DE: I see. TW: So me being a clever man, I taught my eldest son to drive. So I said to him, ‘Well we’ll finish you off at a driving school because I’ve never passed a driving test.’ So I got these people to come. So I said, ‘No. I’ve never passed a driving test. But,’ I said, ‘I’ve done my best so will you take him and finish him off.’ So they went and they came back and they both got out the car and folded their arms. He said, ‘You taught him to drive.’ I thought – here it comes. He says, ‘We can’t fault him anywhere. We don’t know how he didn’t pass the test. He said, ‘We’re putting him for his test straight away because he’s brilliant.’ DE: Wonderful. TW: I always say to him now, ‘Now you didn’t listen to what I said to you? Did you?’ He borrowed my car once. He said he wanted to follow the RAC rally. I said yes. It was in November and it was snowy and icy. I said, ‘Go to Harrogate and Howard House but whatever you do do no go on the moors.’ ‘Ok dad.’ 3 o’clock in the morning a neighbour came down, ‘They’ve had an accident.’ ‘I’ll kill him,’ I said, ‘I’ll kill him when he gets home.’ Looked out the window when I heard this wagon outside a few hours later. Looked out. I said, ‘Look at my car. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him.’ ‘Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.’ I said, ‘What did I tell you?’ ‘Well.’ ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘But when you was driving the car you were in charge of the car. You should have done what I told you.’ So every time we go up on to the moors there’s an archway. ‘That’s where I had my crash dad.’ I said, ‘Don’t keep reminding me.’ DE: Oh dear. So the RAF didn’t want you to be a driver. They sent you on the armourer’s course. TW: Sent me on the armoury course because at that time – Dunkirk and we’d lost a lot of armourers on Fairey Battles apparently. So, and they were short of armourers so that was it. DE: So what did the course entail? TW: Well, it entailed making little parts for guns and that and then you sort of went on to turrets and how to look after guns and how to sort the turrets out and that, then finished that armourers course, called out outside. Then this officer calls through, ‘These names please come forward.’ So we stepped forward. We all went to be fitter armourers. I went to be fitter armourer. Should have been general if I wanted to go on bombs but I was just fitter armourer but I ended up doing everything. You know. Bombing up and everything. So [pause] DE: And what was it like on an, on an operational station? TW: Oh it was fantastic. The spirit amongst the lads and that. Yeah. They were brilliant. And the aircrew were brilliant as well. Especially if they’d been in a hangar for a service. You saw the pilot, ‘Are you going up for a flight? Can I come with you?’ ‘Yeah.’ So, the first time I went up it was in a Wellington. Well that was by mistake because it had been in the hangar for a service and they took it out on to the airfield and revved the engines up and then they usually took the crew down to the dispersal points. So I thought well I can go down. Get a lift back. So I went and I thought he’s revving his engines up. Well it was running up. ‘I haven’t got a parachute.’ ‘Don’t worry. None of us,’ there were two other bods there, ‘None of us have parachutes. Don’t worry.’ So any chance after that I got. So the Lancaster was next. So I said to the pilot, ‘Are you going up?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ So I went with him. So I was felt real happy and light headed. I thought oh this is lovely you know. I got a tug on my leg and this chap said, ‘How long have you been up there mate?’ I said to ten. ‘My God,’ he said, ‘Plug this into the intercom. Plug this in to the oxygen because if we come down quickly it’ll blow your ears out.’ Got on to the pilot, this, told him I was up there. So, anyway and then we got out over The Wash. I thought – panic. Only one engine. I thought, what’s happening? What’s happening? So when we got back I said, I said to the pilot, ‘How did you manage to fly on one engine?’ ‘Oh don’t worry.’ He said, ‘That Lancaster can fly on one engine.’ He said, ‘Guy Gibson’s done it.’ I thought, I said, ‘Thank God for that.’ I said. But he said, ‘I’d forgotten you was up there mate. It’s a good job the chappie saw. Saw your legs hanging down. Because,’ he said, ‘It put me in a spin because I could have damaged your ears if I’d come down too quick.’ DE: Where were you? In the mid-upper turret? TW: In the mid-upper turret. Yeah. Lovely. Lovely sight from out there. And then when D-day started we was called out because previous to D-day – well about six months before we took all the front turrets out of the Lancasters because it gave them twenty five miles an hour more speed. So when D- day started we was all called out of the aerodrome to put these turrets back in again. Drizzling with rain. Just getting, it was just getting light. So I was out of the nose of the Lancaster guiding this turret in and the sky turned black. And all these aircraft come over with the white markings on and I shouted, ‘D-day’s started, D-day’s started.’ The most fantastic sight. So, we got, we got all the turrets put back in again. We had to – the time I was in the pilot’s cockpit. No scaffolding. Health and safety today would go up the wall because the only scaffolding they had was for the engine people. So you had to climb out over the and crawl along a little but to the turret to guide it in and check if you wanted. If anything had happened inside. Check nothing loose. It was moving slow. Check that there were no oil leaks. So you had to take the cover off and check the oil pipes and that and put it back on. They’d grab you by your collar and turn you around and you’d go back in head first. DE: That sounds like a really interesting job that. TW: It was. It was really good. I really enjoyed it. As I say had I been on a proper ‘drome when the war finished I would have stopped in. I did really enjoy it. DE: What other sort of things did they have you doing then? TW: Being a gunner armourer I should never have been on bombs. But I was put on to a bombing up crew. I mean I didn’t know anything about the fuses or anything but I was putting fuses in and then we got – when we got Mosquitoes they couldn’t get four target indicator bombs on. So I had to shorten the tails till we could get four target indicator bombs on. So we got that sorted out. DE: What were target indicator bombs like then? TW: They were, well I think they were about two hundred and fifty pounds and that and they had about a hundred candles in. So when it dropped all the candles came out and should have burned but they didn’t. But we’d be, we got pressed for – Professor Cox came down and we helped him to perfect this so that when they dropped if they snapped everything burned. So we used to go to Thetford Forest. Got it on to a Lancaster. Go to Thetford Forest. Wait for it to be dropped. Go and see. Our fourth attempt was a successful attempt so we achieved something. DE: So did you have four different prototypes then? Is that how it, how it worked? TW: Yeah. You did one and put it to one side. Then marked it number one. Then number two, number three, number four. And of course when number four dropped it cracked but with having the metal rods down the cap it didn’t – it didn’t snap the rods. So it all burned when it fell. DE: I see. TW: Yeah. So, so we was coming back from Thetford when the war finished, one time, we said, ‘What’s everybody cheering for?’ You know. We stopped and asked somebody. ‘Well the war’s over.’ So that was nice surprise for us coming back again. DE: So what were the conditions like on the stations that you were working on? TW: The worst one was Stradishall because it wasn’t a proper ablutions. It was more open than that. Very basic. But the rest of them were fantastic. Beautiful toilets and showers and everything. And the barracks were good as well. There was, you used to get each station I’d been on after that there were the parade ground and then there was four blocks at each corner of the parade ground. Four blocks of houses. For people, for the crews. The airmen to be in. So then you went off to your, on to the ‘drome and then you went on to your armoury and did your business. DE: Right. So could you describe a typical working day then for me? TW: We’d have breakfast and then start about 8 o’clock and you’d sort of check your turrets over and then go and have your dinner and then come back. And if there ops on you would, I would be bombing up which I shouldn’t have been and then you stood there for them to go off and if you was conscientious you were there for when they came back again. But that was the worst part. Waiting for them to come back again. ‘Cause you would think if yours was the last one in and it hadn’t arrived. You’d say, well there was another one to come in yet? Another one to come in yet? And he’d come limping in. Probably be shot up a bit and a bit of damage on the wings and that. Our aircrew were good. They never made any bones or anything if they were hurt or anything. Because one day we had the Americans come in. The fighters shot the ‘drome up right down the runway. Then the B17 came in. Got out, ‘Where’s the blood wagon? Where’s the blood wagon?’ Kissing the ground. Pathetic, absolutely pathetic. My brother, my brother was all for, all for the Americans. I said, ‘Well, you can have them. You can go over there and live with them.’ I said, ‘From what I’ve seen of them I think they’re pathetic.’ Then we used to go to the pictures in Huntingdon. We was coming out one day and Clark Gable, the film star, was walking in. Oh there’s Clark Gable there. With it being Americans there you see. Huntingdon was the nearest with a cinema so they used to come there. DE: So what other things did you do when you had an evening off then? TW: Well, when I had an evening off we, sometimes my mate and I would go right around the villages and then we got to this little village of Benwick. So we stopped and went in to the pub and got a drink and went outside at the back because they had a lovely bowling green at the back. And we sat and there was a couple sat next to us. So they asked, ‘Are you from the local ‘drome?’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ They said, ‘Would you like a game of bowls?’ So I said, ‘Oh I’ve never played bowls.’ My mate said, ‘Oh come.’ We won them [laughs] and so they said, ‘Are you sure you’ve never played before?’ So I said, ‘No.’ I said. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’ve managed to get the right bias on the bowls because you managed to get them through, you know.’ So, anyhow they invited us over to, for supper. And we used to go over regular and they had two boys and a girl. Now, the girl she’s what, she’ll be in her seventies now. We’re still in contact with one another. I made her a doll’s bed. She had two boys. Her boys had boys but she’s still got the bed. She said, ‘I might get a great granddaughter one day so I’ll pass it on to her.’ So we were regularly in contact with her because the family were fantastic to go to. You come home on leave, ‘Are you going on leave?’ He said. ‘I’ll come around night before and we’ll give you some eggs.’ Come home with some eggs. And sometimes you’d come home with a chicken. My mother didn’t know she were born. When I was going with a WAAF in the telephone exchange and they used to cook for themselves so if they got kidneys and I was coming home on leave they‘d give me the kidneys because they never ate them. DE: Right. TW: So mother would have my kidneys which was a luxury in them days. Couldn’t get them from the butcher and that. So she did well did my mother with eggs and that. But my brother was a rogue. I came, on the first leave I came home on leave he was home on leave. So, I gave my mother my ration card and the money. She said, ‘What’s this?’ I said, ‘Well, my ration money.’ So she said, ‘Well Maurice never give me it.’ Give it me back. And do you know what he said? ‘It’s something that’s just started.’ DE: Oh. I see. TW: I said, ‘No. It’s been going on since you’ve been in the forces so don’t talk daft.’ But her blue eyed boy could do no wrong could my eldest brother. DE: And what was – what was he? Did you say he was –? TW: He was an engineer but he had a painting and decorating business before the war. DE: Right. TW: But he was stupid. Get a lad to. Employed a lad to work when he should be working himself. And of course when the war started his business flopped because he had a load of credit. So after the war my mother said, ‘If anybody asks where Maurice is you don’t know.’ He went into partnership with a chap and I used to work with a chap at the bottom of the road here and his partner used to come to me for a box of matches and look at me because before the war I didn’t wear glasses. After the war I were wearing glasses. He’d look at me and he’d go outside and he’d be pondering. And he came every week. I thought well I know who you are mate but I’m not going to make myself known to you [laughs] Oh dear. So those were the days. DE: You, you mentioned a bit earlier on about an, about an explosion. TW: Yeah. That must, must have been when they were bombing up. Because I was coming back off leave so it had to be an evening one. And I just got through the gate and there was this terrific explosion. And the chap said, ‘By. Something’s gone up there.’ You know. So the next day we had to go out on to the drome. Looking in the crater. See if we could find anything. And three Lancasters looked like they’d been made of corrugated iron. All, every bit of them but I don’t know, as far as I can remember I don’t think the tyres had gone down. In the crater you couldn’t find a thing. And the only funeral from there was a WAAF driver. And she was stood at one of the Lancasters with a crew wagon and she was the only one that was killed. She was buried in Bransby churchyard. DE: I see. And what had happened? Did you ever find out? TW: All I can think of – it was a barometric fuse. ‘Cause they were very delicate and if they got knocked they could have gone off. And we had a lad from London and I don’t know how he became an armourer because he was thick. And he wasn’t in the billet at night so two of us said, ‘I wonder if it’s him.’ Tried to tighten it up and hit it with a hammer. ‘Cause if he had have done it would have gone off, you know. Because it was the only explanation we could think of ‘cause it couldn’t have gone up otherwise. But never did find out really. There was nothing to piece together to sort things out. DE: Right. How did that make you feel when you were loading up the bombs? TW: It didn’t bother me. You don’t. You don’t feel fear. I mean when you’re sat on top of the Lancaster you don’t think about falling off. In them days you didn’t have any fear in you. You was, you was bravado, you know. Fearless. No. It was a good job. I enjoyed it. DE: How many people worked in the team that were bombing up these aircraft? TW: It would be about four. It would be one upstairs winding the winch. Two or three downstairs. Especially if it’s putting the four thousand pounder on. To guide it so that it didn’t swing. Otherwise three could have done it because one upstairs doing the and the other two just guiding the bomb up till it got in to, as far as it could get. Until it go into its – I forget what they call it now. It’s anchorage. DE: Right. TW: Yeah. But Mosquitoes were the worst ones to do. Mosquitoes were the worst ones to do because you had to get in the back and wind the winch. Nearly crippled you. DE: This was, this was by hand. TW: All by hand. Yeah. DE: Right. TW: Everything was done by hand. Even the winches in the, winching them up in to the Lancasters. All hand winches. We weren’t modernised technically in them days. DE: So it was quite hard physical work as well. TW: It was. Yeah. But it didn’t bother you. You just took it as part of your – what you had to do and you just, you didn’t think about it. It was a job to do and you did it and enjoyed it. I enjoyed it anyhow so. DE: Did you have any particular friends on any of the stations? TW: One friend. But we lost contact after the war but we used to go out when we had time off on night time. We used to go out and cycle around the villages and as I say, going to Benwick. This couple. But that was the only one I had. But, I mean, in the group, the armourers, we were all friends and that. But you see you all go your separate ways and your lives change when you go into Civvy Street. DE: Sure. Yeah. TW: So you’ve got to adapt. DE: What about the WAAF? Did you have anything to do with, with them? TW: Well we’re still, we got engaged. We were still engaged when the war finished. And she came down for a holiday and she said [pause] I’d arranged for take her to see Richard Tauber in Old Chelsea. At the theatre. So we went there and when we came back there used to be an old man sat outside the Station Hotel. And I used to always give him a coin when I passed through. He was a really nice fella. And when, getting off the bus I wanted a halfpenny change but she wouldn’t get off the bus until the conductor come downstairs and give me a halfpenny. Then when we got home she said, ‘What did you waste money for? Going to the theatre.’ I said, ‘Hang on a minute,’ I said, ‘I didn’t waste money.’ I said, ‘I treated you.’ I said, ‘I haven’t seen you for months,’ you know. I said, ‘Well what about you? I didn’t complain about you when you said you’d been here, there and everywhere.’ I said, ‘I’ve sat at home knitting a rug. I haven’t been wasting my time. But you’ve been gallivanting. You blamed me because you lost a pen because you had to write to me.’ I said, I’ve stood in – the girl’s on the phone, ‘Ringing you and you weren’t there.’ ‘I was.’ I said, ‘No you weren’t,’ I said. On Edmonton Green apparently there were four telephones and the girls on the exchange used to know me. ‘I’m sorry Mr Waller but there’s nobody there. We’re trying them all.’ DE: Oh dear. TW: So I said I’m wasting my time. So it fell through. So we had a friend who’d been engaged and she’d packed in so she had, when you got engaged you could get dockets and units if you were going to get married. So we got our dockets and units so I managed to get a bedroom suite and two fireside chairs. I bought them. So it’s just before I went down to Edmonton. So I went down to Edmonton. She stood outside the gates of the factory, followed me home to my lodgings and then knocked on my door. And then they said, ‘There’s a lady at the door for you.’ I said, ‘There can’t be.’ She said, ‘Well she’s asking for you.’ ‘What the devil do you want?’ ‘I wondered if you’d like to take me to the pictures tonight.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Clear off.’ I said, ‘I’m not taking you anywhere.’ She sent a great big Pickford’s van down to my, our house to pick some stuff up. I mean the fool. She must have been a fool because I mean, she didn’t know what she was going to send for. And my mother didn’t know anything about it. When this chap got to the front door. ‘What do you mean you –?’ He said, ‘You mean to tell me I’ve come all this way for nothing.’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what you’re supposed to be collecting like.’ Anyhow, I wrote to her and said, “Why did you send a Pickford’s van down to our house for?” I said, “You didn’t want a Pickford van. A little pickup would have been done.” So she wrote back, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, don’t forget I paid for the bedroom suite. I paid for two fireside chairs. I paid for the tea set we had.” I said the rest of the stuff will just go in a cardboard box.” I said, ‘Just send for a little pickup.’ But you see her father was a police inspector and she thought it might frighten me a bit but it didn’t. So the Pickford van come. He said, ‘This is all I’ve got to pick up is it?’ She said, ‘Yeah.’ It was the same man that came before. DE: Right. TW: So he said my God. I thought I was coming to fetch a great big mansion box but a little portmanteau thing, you know. But she was [pause] I don’t think I’d have ever married her if it had gone on. She was a bit a one for herself. You know. Yeah. DE: Sounds like it. TW: And I was always wrong. And there was me. I had sore fingers from knitting. ‘Cause you couldn’t get canvas in them days so you used to wrap wool around a wooden ruler. Cut it. And then you got the right set. So you knit, put it in, knit a stitch and turn it around. Made some lovely rugs. I was very good at knitting. I knitted my first son’s christening shawl when he was born. Yeah. My sister was useless but I’ve got, I’ve got my mother’s genes because she was court dressmaker was my mother. But she would never help me because when I was growing up I wanted to be a dress designer. Oh no. No. No. No. I’ve dressed dolls as brides and they’re all over the world. I can make them ever week. People wanting them but my mother wouldn’t help me one little bit. DE: Oh. TW: And my sister couldn’t even, couldn’t even knit. It took her all her time to sew a button on. I could do the lot. In fact up until my children starting school I made all their clothes for them. DE: Ok. TW: Yeah. I was an industrious little lad. Used to have a nice decorating business. Go out at night decorating. And then when I retired I was with the prison service. They said, ‘Are you going down to London for a retirement course? They’ll explain all the things to do for getting a job and that.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘No. No. I’m not going.’ I said, ‘I know what I’m doing.’ ‘What do you mean?’ they said. ‘Well I’m going to do my decorating.’ ‘Oh, you’re going on this course.’ I said, ‘I’m not going on a course.’ I went on the course and I made twenty seven quid. I said, ‘What?’ Because I went to the cashiers. They said, ‘How did you get the tools?’ So I said, ‘I went on the bus.’ They said, ‘No. You went by taxi.’ ‘I didn’t,’ I said, ‘I went on the bus.’ ‘No. Taxi. You got a taxi back as well. When you go to London where do you get a taxi to?’ I said, ‘I didn’t. I walked.’ ‘No you didn’t.’ I said, ‘I walked.’ He said, ‘What hotel did you stay at?’ I said, ‘I didn’t stay at a hotel.’ I said, ‘My brother lived at Hatfield so,’ I said, ‘I commuted each day from there.’ ‘Oh no. You stayed at a hotel. Now that looks a good one. You stayed there’ And I thought, afterwards I thought well that’s all over the country happening. It’s an eye opener sometimes. And that was in the prison service. No. I don’t know. DE: Strange. [pause] DE: I’m just having a look at my notes. [pause] DE: Was the, did the different stations feel particularly different? I mean you say you worked with an SOE squadron and you worked for Pathfinders. TW: No. They’re all types sort of thing, you know. There was no sort of difference in it. The only difference was Wyton. The bomb dump was at the other side the main road. DE: Right. TW: But the rest of them were all on the ‘dromes. DE: I see. TW: No. But they were all the same, there was no difference in them. Just because they were different squadrons. There were no, the routine was more or less the same all the way through. DE: Ok. And the target indicator bombs that you were experimenting with in Thetford. Were these the sky markers? Or the – TW: The sky markers. Yeah. DE: Yeah. TW: Some some used to drop them in the cloud. A break in the clouds. And others used to drop down on the ground. And they were in different colours so there was a Master Bomber up above directing so if Jerry lit a decoy they’d change the colour. ‘Don’t bomb on red. Bomb on green.’ ‘Don’t bomb on green. Bomb on yellow.’ I wouldn’t like the Master Bombers job. To be up there all the time when the raid was on. Circling around. DE: Yeah. TW: No. I enjoyed it though. [pause] DE: And you say you, you chose to be demobbed because – TW: I chose demob because I was on a satellite ‘drome. I had nothing to do and you just got bored. There was nothing you could do about it so you were glad to get out of it in the end. But that’s to say if I’d been on a proper ‘drome I would have stopped in. DE: Right. I see. TW: But I wasn’t so – DE: What was the demob process like? TW: Dead easy. Mind you I’ve always had a query with it. My demob. Because the medical officer examined me. Went and fetched another doctor. And I wondered why. So I’ve now developed an irregular heart beat so whether that was coming on then I don’t know but I’ve had this sepsis into regular rhythm. DE: Right. TW: When I was ninety two. Put me in the cubicle. ‘My God. We’re sorry. We shouldn’t have done that to you at your age.’ The cut off point’s ninety. I said, ‘Well it’s too late now isn’t it?’ He said, ‘Well you won’t get it done again. It’s back to normal. Its back to its regular beat again.’ Yeah. So they can’t do anything about it. DE: Did you have much to do with the RAF medical services? TW: No. Never. DE: No. TW: I’ve never bothered anybody. British Legion or anybody. I’ve bought my own wheelchair. Bought my own mobility scooter. I’ve a step son won’t part with a thing. He had a leg off. We’ve a wheelchair in there. We’ve a zimmer outside. We’ve two stools. I said, ‘You want to send those back.’ ‘Oh I might need them.’ I said, ‘You won’t need them.’ He won’t part with a thing. DE: I see. TW: They’re stood there. Brand new. DE: Some people are like that though aren’t they? TW: Yeah. DE: Yeah. You were showing me before we started the interview this research that you’ve been doing. TW: Yeah. DE: About the Halifax bomber crash. Could you tell me a little about that? TW: Well it happened. We lived in Swanland. We came to Swanland in 1936. My parents left in March 1944. So I came back and knew nothing about it and then and a guy in the village wrote a book and there was a bit about it in there. And we were out one day with the church on an outing and yon side of Gilberdyke there was this model of where Halifaxes had crashed and there was two sort of intertwined. So I said, ‘Something should have been done about those two chaps who were killed in our village. Anyhow, a week or two went by and nothing happened so I thought I’ll take it on myself you see. So I thought he’s buried in Bury so he’s got to be a local lad. Got on to the paper and that. No. Couldn’t find anything about him. There was nothing about him at the cemetery and nothing about him at the War Graves Commission. No address or anything. So I got on to the records office and they rang me up and said, ‘He comes from Nottingham.’ I said, ‘Well, its seventy years since it happened. Can you tell me where?’ ‘Oh no. He came from Nottingham.’ So I wrote to tourist the board in Nottingham and they gave me the address of the radio station and the paper. The local paper were like the Daily Mail in Hull. They were useless. Two little pieces at the bottom. One, the modern Nottingham paper was in the Bygones letters in back of the paper. Two lines at the bottom. And the radio station at Nottingham were brilliant. They did a magnificent programme. But they rang me up to say would I go on the station but I was away on holiday and my son took the call. They said, ‘Well, tell your dad we’ll read out his letter out he sent us. We’d have liked to have him on it but we can’t change a programme now.’ So they wrote to me to tell me what they’d done and then [pause] I’ve got a blockage [pause] So, I got on to the tourist board and they said he’d come from Nottingham. So Radio Nottingham put a programme out and I heard nothing. Now, the other pilot, he came from Tottenham and he’s buried and I knew he was buried near his parents. Now, the War Graves just had the address of the church where he was buried so London University took it over from me but they couldn’t trace any relatives at all then. And then about four months after I started investigating I got a telephone call one night. ‘When are you having the service? I said, ‘What service?’ ‘For the airmen you found.’ I said, ‘I’m not because I haven’t found anybody.’ ‘He said, ‘I’m a nephew.’ He said, ‘We’ve just found out from Australia.’ I said, ‘Australia?’ He said, ‘Yeah. Eastern Australia.’ So how it got over there. Whether he’d been on the internet and that I don’t know. So he said can you arrange it. So I arranged a new service and about fifteen came down. They said, ‘Oh we owe everything to you. We thought he’d been killed over Germany.’ And they said, ‘But we’re grateful to you for what you’ve done. We’ll keep in contact.’ So Christmas come. I got a Christmas card. I’ve written letters. I’ve never heard a thing from them. Now, on the Monday night after it was on television a cousin who knew him – she rang me up. She said, ‘Oh I wish I’d known. I would have been there. Can I come over and see you?’ So she came over and we took her over to show where it crashed and the plaque in the church. And we took her to the cemetery to his grave. And then she said, ‘When was you born? And we found out we were born on the same day so it seems as though fate decreed that I should find him you know. His relatives. And we were keeping in regular contact with her. And we found out that he was with the 1160 Heavy Conversion Unit from Blyton near Gainsborough where he was killed. And so he was killed just up the road from where we live now. DE: I see. And what, what was it that made you think it was important to tell this story? TW: Well I think everybody who was in the air force should be recognised if it can be. And being out on this car ride and seeing that I thought well something ought to be done so that’s when I set about doing it. But I didn’t think I’d come against so many brick walls. But you do but you get through in the end you know. But the point I can never understand why his wife had him buried in Beverley. Why she told his family he’d been killed over Germany. There’s something funny there. DE: Yeah. TW: And you see all those there was about fifteen came. None of them knew him. There was his sister in law and his brother. Well not his brother because his brother had been killed. But his sister in law there and his nephews and that. But none of them knew him. Even his sister in law didn’t know him. But this cousin she’s brilliant. She keeps in, there’s a photograph in there of her and she always readily comes. What I want now when this gets seed I don’t know how they’re going to work it at the spire. In the plaques. But he’s Cumberworth and so whether they’ll put 1160 Conversion Unit in or not or whether it will just be a plaque with C’s on. Names of C’s. DE: It’s alphabetical. Yes. I mean – TW: Yeah. Cause I know a lady in the village she’s been down and she’s found her father’s name. And hers is J so I thought C must be up if J’s. J’s there. DE: What’s there at the moment is 1 Group and 5 Group. TW: Oh he must have been in one of them. She’s got – they gave me their memory card to put on the computer and there’s a picture of her pointing to her dad’s name. DE: Yeah. TW: Yeah. DE: Yeah. So I think this gentleman will be on – TW: Cumberworth. DE: Cumberworth will be on the next lot of names that go up. Yeah. Yeah. Leslie Cumberworth. TW: So if I can manage to get a photograph sometime I’ll get one. DE: Yeah. TW: I can get and get a photograph and send it to his cousin. She’d be really grateful. DE: Yeah. I’m sure we can arrange that when the names are up. TW: Yeah. DE: Yeah. So you said earlier you’ve never joined any squadron associations or any, any groups. TW: I’ve joined the RAF Association. DE: Right. TW: Yeah. But Hull’s useless. Right from the very start, useless. They said they were short of money. So I did a mini market for them and I raised five hundred pound. And the lady who did the catering she did everything. Paid all her expenses like I do. Pay all expenses so everything you get is profits. I handed that money over to a flight lieutenant in cash and I’ve got a letter of thanks for a receipt. Where did that money go? I’m sure they’d have sent me a receipt if they’d got the money – DE: Yeah. TW: But I didn’t realise it at the time. It was afterwards I thought about it you know. And then I went down and I said I’d organise a competition. They said, ‘Oh you can’t do it because you’re not on the committee.’ I said, ‘I’m not joining the committee because I know what would happen. I’d end up doing everything.’ I said I like to everything. So, I said so I was working at Everthorpe then so I got a thousand copies done. So I said if you give every member ten copies you get a pound from every member. That’s a tenner each. If I give you a prize for the winner. So I gave them a lovely Parker, Parker pen and pencil set. That got pinched. ‘Cause they said I said to them when I went down I said, ‘Well you’ve got a prize to go with it so,’ I said, ‘Parker pen and pencil set.’ But it wasn’t there upstairs in the office. DE: Oh dear. TW: So I said, ‘Well have you started yet?’ So they said, ‘No. No. They said, so I started, ‘Oh you can’t start it. You’re not on the committee.’ So I said, ‘Have you started that?’ So she said, ‘No, not yet but,’ she said, ‘We’ll buy a prize out of what we make.’ I said, ‘No. I’ll give you another prize.’ When I do a thing I stand the expenses myself. I always have done. So I saw her a fortnight after. Four pound. I said, ‘You what? Four pound?’ I said, ‘I’ve done it twice and I’ve made over fifty pound each time.’ Then in 19 what 60s 70s fifty pound was a lot of money in them days. So I stopped going then ‘cause my son has joined as associate members. DE: Yeah. TW: And my daughter in law. Well the third time I went my daughter in law won the jackpot. You should have heard them. ‘You’ve only been here three weeks.’ I said, I went to the bar, I said, ‘Is this the way they go on?’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Well, I said we’re supposed to be an air force group,’ I said esprit de corps, where is it?’ DE: Yeah. TW: I said we’ve joined and paid our money. So I went in one night and I sat in this chair and this woman tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me, she said, ‘That’s my chair.’ I said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ She said, ‘That’s my chair.’ So I got up. ‘Well it hasn’t got your name on it.’ So I said, ‘I’m not moving.’ And this was how good our club was. We had a trip to [pause] the memorial down in London. Castleford invited us back for supper. And they did a fantastic spread. Absolutely brilliant. So we invited them down to our club. I went down on the Wednesday night when it was due. There was only me and another fella in the club. The chap behind the bar, he said ‘We don’t usually see you here on a Wednesday night Tom.’ So I said, ‘Well, where is everybody?’ ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Castleford are coming tonight.’ ‘No they’re not.’ ‘Yes they are.’ With that the door opened. They all walked in. So I said, ‘I do apologise but I said, ‘You’ve picked the wrong club to come to because this is useless. This club.’ DE: Oh dear. TW: I said, ‘I’ve just come in,’ I said, ‘And it’s obvious they’ve forgotten.’ So they had to dash out and buy pie, pea and chips. No. I wouldn’t join no committee. I used to run a coffee morning every Wings week. We raised quite a lot of money. Got some good, one prize we had was a Hornby Double O train set. Folks said, ‘We like your coffee mornings because you always have a good raffle.’ I said it’s the people that you know they can get something from me. Where you go to you know. DE: Yes. TW: Very generous. You know. DE: So apart from that Association what do you think about the way Bomber Command’s been remembered over the last. TW: Very poor. Very poor. I mean the spire when it was opened. Did BBC do anything about it? DE: I think – TW: No. Only local stations. But BBC, I mean there’s all the people around the country in bomber command. BBC should have been doing that as well. I think their biased. DE: Why do you think that is? TW: Well, why weren’t they there? I mean you don’t seem to get much about the RAF or anything like that on the BBC. [pause] TW: I’m an old man. I do things differently. If I get a letter I answer it straight away. Anything that I’ve done I do it straight away but today it’s so lackadaisical. I mean this cousin of the airman. I sent some things about the Association and some photographs. A month ago. I’ve never had, I rang her up and said I’m sending you this parcel. I’ve never had a telephone call, an email or anything to say she’s got it. I just can’t understand folks. [pause] DE: Hello. I’ll just pause it there a moment. [recording paused] DE: That’s fine I’ve just started it recording again. Sorry about the interruption. Is there anything else? Any other stories that you think you’d like to tell us? TW: I don’t think so because we covered it pretty well cause my memory is not as good as it was and I get, I’m talking and I go blank. DE: I think you’ve done very very well. TW: Yeah. So but I think no I think we’ve covered it really well. DE: Just one other thing I think you covered it in the phone conversation when we were arranging this. What do you think about the stories of people like yourself and ground personnel have to tell? TW: Pardon? DE: What do you think about the stories of ground personnel? How well do you think they’ve been remembered? TW: They haven’t. Because somebody was saying if it wasn’t for ground crew the bombs wouldn’t have gone off. But we haven’t been remembered. You never hear anybody talk about us. We’re just a forgotten crew. But I’m not worried because I did my best so. They rewarded me with a mention in dispatches so I can’t complain. DE: Oh. How. What was the story behind that? TW: I’ve no idea. DE: No. TW: All I can think it was because we helped Professor Cox design his target indicator bomb and alter the tail fins for [pause] to get the bombs on to Mosquitoes. I can’t think of anything else that I’ve done that’s deserving of it. Because getting out on D-day I mean that was just part of the job I think. DE: Yeah. TW: So [pause] and my grandson has my medals and my certificate because he’s a keen, very keen on what his granddad’s done. So he said, ‘Can I have your medals granddad.’ So I said, ‘Yeah. You can have that as well.’ DE: That’s wonderful. TW: Because I know you’ll look after them. DE: Yeah. TW: So this is I’ll be able to tell my son. Show his photograph of his granddad and what he’s done. And he’s got my war memoir so he’s got that so. So I’ve got something to show him when he grows up. DE: Wonderful. Right. So I’ll press pause there and thank you very very much. TW: 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 Thomas Waller Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-10-25 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AWallerT151027 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dan Ellin 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.hh:mm:ss Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:56:09 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 Thomas Waller volunteered for the Royal Air Force and hoped to be a driver. However, he undertook training as an armourer and was based, initially, at the Special Operations Executive 138 Squadron. He was posted to RAF Stradishall, RAF Wyton and RAF Warboys. He returned from leave on one occasion and had just arrived back on the station when a massive explosion occured. He helped to develop and test target indicators with Professor Cox. He recently undertook research into the details of a Halifax crash to make sure the airmen were remembered. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Suffolk England--Cambridgeshire Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Maureen Clarke 138 Squadron 156 Squadron bombing bombing up crash final resting place ground crew ground personnel Halifax Lancaster memorial military living conditions Mosquito Pathfinders RAF Stradishall RAF Upwood RAF Warboys RAF Wyton sanitation Special Operations Executive target indicator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/185/3630/ASayerT151202.1.mp3 ba6057852e62c62cbbfc007b82267a39 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 Sayer, Thomas Tom Sayer T Sayer Description An account of the resource 13 items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer Thomas Sayer DFM (1922 - 2021, 591744 54901 Royal Air Force), two log books, service material, newspaper cuttings and photographs. After training as a pilot in the United States of America, Tom Sayer flew Halifaxes with 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington. He was commissioned in 1944 and became an instructor. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Tom Sayer and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-02-17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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 Sayer, T Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document CB: So my name is Chris Brockbank and I’m in Chalfont St Giles with Thomas Sayer DFM and we’re going to talk about his life and times. And today is the 7th of December 2015. So, Tom would you like to start with your earliest recollections please and then take it right through joining the RAF, what you did in the RAF and afterwards. TS: The first recollections are that on a spring day in about ’28 I was [pause] no ’24. ’24. I was in the front of the house. Farmhouse. My father was busy in the yard because he wanted to get everything ready for the harvest and I was told that I hadn’t to interrupt my father because he was there doing it all by hand. There was no machinery and he just had to take the file and sharpen all the different tools which were necessary. Especially the mower where the thing went from side to side and it was pulled by one horse because we only had one horse. There was another one but it wasn’t trained to do that sort of thing. But anyway, and I was told not to interrupt. My mother said I didn’t had to, didn’t have to interrupt. I had to not to interrupt. And that was what he was doing. I was watching my father doing this and he was sharpening these tools as I said. And I was looking at the birds at the same time and the birds were quite happy to flutter quite close to us because they had nests nearby and we’d been, we were living there and so we were all good friends. One thing you certainly found though was when the birds just disappeared that there was a cat around and that is something which I also learned. That the cat would have the birds if the birds didn’t fly away. And how come the birds could fly like that when we couldn’t fly was a question in my mind. And it seemed strange that they just opened their wings and flapped them and they went up in the air. Now, I was going to ask my father that but of course I had to be quiet because he hadn’t to be interrupted while he was doing this job. As I say, all by hand and if he cut his hand then that would be, then be awkward for carrying on with the job. And that was my first outlook as to why people fly. How can people fly because I hadn’t seen anybody, people fly because they haven’t got the wings that the birdies have? And so, then sometime after, I don’t know if it was the next year I was playing around. I was still not at school and there was a terrific noise and it seemed to be coming up the valley and then all of a sudden there was this machine flying in the air and that was the first time I saw an aeroplane. And I then mentioned this to my father and at different times I mentioned things like that to him. He noticed that there was a, I can’t remember the name of it again but the air force. Each unit gave a showcase to the public once a year and there was one at Catterick and Catterick was just a small aerodrome apparently and dealing with the air force and the army getting together. And he, however, we had — he owned a motorbike and side car. Maximum speed about twenty five miles an hour I think. And we set off and it took us just a little while to get to Catterick and I was amazed of these things and he said they could fly but they weren’t flying. They were just sitting there. And then all of a sudden there was some activity and somebody came along and jumped on to the wing of the aeroplane and then disappeared into the aeroplane and somebody else came along with something in his hand and he started winding and winding and this thing at the front with a roar from an engine started up. The chappie who was on the wing slid down and off and then I think they were moving something from in front of the wheels of the aircraft and then he took away and went around the field, and then it turned around and then it, with a big roar came just right over me flying in the air. That was when I first saw a real aeroplane close up. From then on all I wanted to do was fly an aeroplane. And I read books if I could get hold of them. There weren’t many books in those days but if I could get books I would have a look at the books. I wouldn’t say read but I hadn’t really learned to read. And I was told that I, if I wanted to join the air force you had to pass exams. And if you had to pass exams you had to listen to what the teacher said and so on and so forth. So there was only one teacher at this school for the whole of the school and she was teaching people from five to fourteen and a few of each all divided up and so on and so forth. And I quickly found myself being pushed in to the higher ones of age and I was the youngest one by quite a while in this, in this group and I was catching my sister up as well which she didn’t think much of. So, anyway, I also was told that if I passed an examination by the local authority which had just come in in the 1930s, it was just a common thing where you could, if you passed the exam you got your schooling at the grammar school for free and it depended on how much you succeeded in the exam as to whether you got transport or not and so on and so forth. And so I really went for it and I got the top rate and was able then to go to the grammar school. But to get to the grammar school I had to get to a railway station which was two and a half miles up hill and downhill and then at Aysgarth Station where I’d join the train and then the other people who’d been coming in. The rest of the Dale and they were all coming up and we went up to Askrigg where the Yorebridge Grammar School was. And I, we, I soon found out that you had to work there as well and work quite hard otherwise you were chastised by the headmaster. If he knew that you could learn and you didn’t learn you got in to trouble. But I wanted to learn anyway and I did. I did learn and moved up as I said into another, the next year up so that I was in, I’d already done a year at school before I’d started it if you’d like to put it that way. But myself and another young girl who just happened to be my wife later on in the things and we were great pals and we joined together and we were — had to battle because of the, we having been moved up a year the people who were in the second year didn’t think much of it and she used to, shall I say, hover around me because for protection etcetera. Verbal mainly. Anyway, we both passed our exams and I wanted to join the air force and I had learned, had got some information that if I had the school certificate I could go in as apprentice and so, I went in as an apprentice. And that meant that the young lady was left at school and she was going in. I spent from the beginning, I was still at school at the Christmas and I joined the air force just in the beginning of the next year you see. But she was left in there and then she decided she’d had enough because when the war came on at the 3rd of September 1939 she decided that she didn’t want to go to university because in the first place she didn’t think her family could afford her going there and then she — because a lot of the exams and that were disturbed by the war she decided to come out. And she had an aunt who lived in [pause] not far from Croydon and so she came down here and she got herself a job in London. And she was on that, in that capacity going higher and higher because she was doing quite well until we were married which wasn’t until after the war. I think that was my fault but I thought I’d seen times when people had come back from their marriage and within days they’d gone missing and I thought that must have been terrible for the wife. To be a wife for such a short time and then be in that situation. And so, it got towards the end of the war and we sort of drifted apart a little and it wasn’t ‘til after I’d established myself in a job here in the south, in the south of England that I could make contact with her again and after a few very heart to heart talks we decided to get married. She died ten years ago. And we had two children. They are now retired. That is it as far as that’s concerned. But the air force was my chief thing and I managed to persuade the people. I was, my apprentice, I was in accounts because I was very good with figures but I would rather have been in the mechanic side of it but anyway that was way they had accepted me in to the air force and I worked hard and I got results and I was soon an NCO. Well before I was eighteen I was an NCO in charge of the whole of the stores side of the station and two new squadrons. And so, some people apparently couldn’t believe it but I did it because the chappie who was in charge had come in from the Civvie Street and of course he knew nothing about, not a lot about the accountancy in the air force. And so he sort of relied on me and they were just building up this station with two squadrons and so I started up the whole of the side from the stores side of it. I didn’t do anything with the pay, pay side. And then when I was eighteen I applied to fly. So I started flying. The chappie in charge of the accounts was not at all thrilled by it and I said, ‘Well sir you’ve got people who had the same instruction as me when I came in. there are ex-apprentices in there, in that lot, who are in the pay side so they should be able to do the job.’ I never found out whether it was successful or not. I just joined the air force. It was quite easy for me in the early part of that because I knew all about drill. I knew all about the rules and regulations and so therefore I had quite an easy time. And I did have a little chat with one chappy who started to order me around. I was an NCO and it seemed as though he didn’t like me being an NCO for some reason and so I said to him, I said, ‘Now look. I think that you are probably an LAC with an acting sergeant.’ And so on. And he looked at me and I said, ‘Yes. That’s enough.’ And he never tried any more with me. I just —but I didn’t, I wasn’t interested in doing anything to him because all I wanted to do was go flying. But that’s me. And so anyway. Where did I go flying? Yes, well, I went down to the south coast. I could point to it on a map but it’s just gone and where the initial side of learning to fly was and that was when I had that chat with that chappy. And then we were told we were going abroad to be trained as pilots. One point which has always interested me was when I was having the medical, as they called it, for, to see whether I was fit to fly you had to look and do certain things to see that your brain was coordinating with your hands or your hands were coordinating with your brain. Which was very important of course in flying. And it, anyway, I just lost a little ground there. We — [Pause] CB: So your initial flying assessment. TS: Yeah. CB: Was on the south coast. TS: Yes. CB: And that’s where they were doing those tests. TS: Yes. Yes. CB: That’s wasn’t at Torquay was it? TS: No. I was at Torquay but I don’t think. That is what I can’t remember exactly where that – CB: It doesn’t matter because we can pick up on it later. TS: Yeah. Yeah. CB: But then they decided that you should be trained abroad. TS: Yes. CB: And there were lots of places they trained abroad so where did you go? TS: Yeah. A little point on this test. CB: Yes. TS: There was a test there and there was something where you looked with one eye and you had to get it level and all the rest of it and then the other eye and so on and so forth and then the chappie who was in charge of it went and talked to somebody and he said, ‘Well, will you do it again?’ And so I thought to myself aren’t I going to pass this then?’ Then he said — I asked, I said, ‘Why am I being asked to do it again?’ I said, ‘Haven’t I got it?’ He said, ‘Got it?, he said, ‘You’re the best bloody so and so on there.’ He said, ‘That’s why I [unclear] he said, ‘Its ages since we’ve got anybody who could do that.’ And so, I thought oh that’s fair enough. And of course, I’ve still got very good eyesight. I know I need to sometimes just to read but I can almost tell you how many leaves are on that. No. Not there [laughs] the one at the back. I can see if there’s a cow, or a lamb or anything goes in the field right near that tree quite easily yet. The only time I have to is when I need to read something and I’m fiddling around with these things. Now where have we get to? CB: So, you did the test and they were very impressed. TS: Yes. CB: So, then what? TS: Then we went to go abroad and it might seem as though it’s quite easy. Just get on a boat and go but it wasn’t as easy as that because apparently we were to go to Iceland and pick up another, another ship in Iceland and we were supposed to be going on a certain day and then we didn’t go. And then, this was when we were in Cheshire. North Cheshire. And we had to sail from Liverpool. And we were going to go and then we didn’t go. We were going to go and then we didn’t go. And that was the sort of situation we felt we were in. And so eventually we did go and on the boat where we left Liverpool was such a lovely boat. It smelled of nothing but cows and what cows had left behind. And they, they’d taken a ship which was being used for bringing cattle from Ireland to Scotland and they’d grabbed it and said they would do this and they’d supposedly scrubbed it out and supposedly that was our ship to get us to Iceland because the other ship just disappeared. And so that was going away from a farm and then I got the smell of a farm as I was on the ship. CB: Fantastic. TS: The first ship that I’d been on. And there you are. So, Iceland was quite interesting because we had to go on this ship because the other one as I say had been lost somewhere and we were late and apparently this big ship just coming out of Reykjavik harbour was the one we were supposed to be on. But it didn’t stop and pick us up and we were just dropped in Reykjavik and the boat went away and nobody, you know, there was no arrangements been made for us to be there. And so there was a little, I think it’s something to do with the, not radio so much, as to do with atmosphere which was being looked into by a gaggle of air force people and then they were sending the messages back to England but we weren’t really interested in that. But they couldn’t cope with a great big horde of people. I think there were about fifty odd of us there and then they shifted us a bit further up where there was another little air force base. And they could feed us and they could give us sleeping accommodation but no beds or anything. We could, we more or less slept in what we had. Well, after a while it was a little difficult because there was no hot water. The only heat they were using was where they wanted to do their cooking because they didn’t have the fuel to do a whole load of heating. Heating water and such. So, we said well how about, I think it was one of, one of our blokes, anyway we would go to the, one of these pools which are in Iceland and therefore, therefore we could have our baths there and it was quite interesting to some of the locals who happened to be females [laughs] and it was quite, you know, jolly and all the rest of it. You know, it was, there was nothing serious. There was one person in there who was serious and I don’t think she really thought we should be there. And I think she was apparently of German descent or something. Anyway, it didn’t worry me. We just, and we got on to another boat and we went to Canada. And then at Canada we jumped on a train and we thought oh well we’re just going along to Halifax, not, from Halifax to Toronto. We were just going from Halifax to Toronto but we didn’t realise it didn’t take you one day. It took you about three days to get from Halifax to Toronto and then the size of the place. Looking at the maps that I’d used at school and that going from there to there and then you had to go to there to be at the other side of Canada meant Canada was a very big wide place. And then again, when we set out from there we went to Toronto as I said and then when we were at Toronto we were given civvies. So we didn’t really know — ‘What do we want civvies for? None of the others seemed to have civvies.’ So we jumped on the train and we didn’t go out the west. We went south and then we found we were in the United States of America and as we were, as we entered America they warned us to keep away from the windows because there were some people in America who were stoning these trains because they didn’t want to be involved in the war and some of them were of German descent didn’t want us to be fighting the war anyway. But we got, the further south we got the more accompanied we got and the more warmer we got and so on and so forth. And — and we went to Georgia. Georgia was a big place. Now, I need my logbook to give you the exact — DAR Aerotech. That’s it DAR Aerotech. Now where in Georgia? Can’t remember. CB: It doesn’t matter. We’ll pick up with it later. TS: And yes, it was a civilian outfit but with American Air Corps instructors. And it got us going on the, as far as the flying concerned in quite a nice atmosphere and with hardly any discipline as, you know, the rigid discipline and we would just fall in and we’d be marched from one place to another but apart from that there was nothing on that side. And the — quite a noisy lot. One or two of them. One gaggle of them was noisy but as the weeks went by the noise seemed to grow less and less and less. So, they were no longer there. But the chappies like — quite a few of us were ex-apprentices and we knew the ropes as far as the air force was concerned and therefore we drift in to flying that matters. Playing silly boys around the table didn’t matter to us at all. And that’s my attitude about it as well now. If you have a job to do the job’s there and you do that regardless. And it, it was quite an eye opener and brain damaging almost that I was having to accommodate a lot more all at once. Different things. Bits and pieces here and there. The locals were ok but we were told we had to be in civvies and we were told that we had to be careful and certain areas were supposedly out of bounds and because of the German people who were American German or German American. And once or twice we’d wander off in to the wilderness as it looked like and there would be a little village of coloured people. And we managed to chat with them. At first, they were very shy of us. They didn’t, you know, they didn’t talk to the white people and the white people didn’t talk to them sort of thing and they were quite amazed that we’d come. They’d heard of England. They’d knew England. Somewhere. You know. It was mystical place to most of them. And it was quite a nice pleasant chat to them on more than one occasion when we just strolled around there in the evening and then went back to base and went to bed and started another day and most of the chappies who had been in the air force before the war went through. Got through all right. Very few of them didn’t. But it was a very strict situation. Not only as far as behaviour was concerned but as far as remembering what you were supposed to be there for and to get on and get, do the job. Then we went to, having passed on the primary we went to another one and this was an intermediate one which was a little further north. When I say a little further north — about a hundred and fifty miles and there we were right in to the US Army Air Corps. Another experience. So that was another step we had to make. And it was really strict but we wanted to learn to fly so we decided that we wanted to fly. Well we got on with it and we were flying the Vultee BT13As. I don’t know whether you’ve come across it. And then they had, of course, on the first place we were on biplanes. Stearmans. And then it was a move in the right direction which I was able to take quite quickly. It had a fixed undercarriage but we did have flaps and we had a two speed prop. I think those were the main changes. They also had both out there and they had the wings and all the rest of it. And then we moved on to the North American AT6A which is the Harvard in the British air force and, well you got all the details of that before. hadn’t you so-? And we passed. We passed out. Those who made it. And back to England. CB: So how many hours did you accumulate in your flying? In the basic flying and in the intermediate. Roughly. TS: I think when we’d finished we had about four hundred hours flying. CB: So, you got your wings at that stage, did you? TS: Yes. CB: And who gave you the wings? TS: Well the wings I got, we got, were American Air Corps wings. And I’ve still got them. CB: So, there wasn’t an RAF officer presenting RAF wings. TS: No. No. CB: Interesting. Right. TS: It wasn’t until we got back to Canada that we could have the RAF wings. CB: Because the war, this is pre-Pearl Harbour isn’t it we’re talking about? We’re talking about ‘40 ’41. TS: When we were at, on the final lot. We went from the station we were then on in [pause] the next state. The next state to the west. CB: Yes. TS: Yes. And then we went from there to the main Florida place for the US Army Air Corps and when we got there — we had to fly our own planes from the Station. Take our planes and land them there. We all went in one big formation. CB: Right. TS: And landed there. And then we could see all the new planes coming along and I was most interested in that and I started wandering along. Nobody said anything so I wandered further and I saw that the, the very [pause] what they call the touchy plane. The twin-engined with the big engines in the American Army Air Corps. CB: What the B25 Mitchell? Was it? TS: No. No it was — CB: Before that. TS: No. It was after that. CB: Oh right. TS: There was a bigger one with a bigger engine. CB: Right. TS: It was difficult to fly on one engine. CB: A Marauder. TS: A Marauder. Yes. CB: Ok. But you flew over there in your Harvards. TS: Yes. But we didn’t fly in these planes. CB: No. I know. TS: But they were there. CB: Yeah. Yeah. TS: And I was going around while other people were doing all sorts of other things. CB: Right. TS: I was going around all those planes and looking at them. CB: It wasn’t Fort Lauderdale was it? In Florida. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We can pick that up later. So, you got there and that’s when you were awarded your wings was it? in Florida. TS: No. No. CB: Oh it was in the previous one. TS: We came back again. CB: Oh right. Came back again. Right. TS: We came back again. And we got the American wings and then we got our English wings when we were in Canada. CB: Right. They just did a straight swap when you got to Canada. TS: Yeah. CB: Did they do a parade? To — TS: I don’t, I don’t know. I can’t remember. I can’t remember. CB: So, you got back to Canada. Then what? TS: Then I caught measles. CB: Oh. JS: Oh dear. TS: And that changed my life. CB: In what way? TS: Well, all the people I was with — CB: Oh yeah. TS: They went back to England. And there was me. I didn’t feel well. I didn’t want to go to the [unclear] and I was apparently staggering around. So they more or less forced me in to see the doc. And I remember going in and him saying, ‘And what’s the matter with you then?’ Something like that. And that’s, two days later I woke up [pause] because I hadn’t gone early enough for it to be sorted out because I wanted to go back to England. So, I lost all my friends and everything. I came back as a lonely man. If you can imagine one airman on a boat with about four hundred other servicemen but none of them airmen. It was quite interesting. I could go anywhere I wanted on the boat. Nobody, nobody queried it because all the rest were the, were the Canadian army and they were quite restricted in their, they had all their different — but I could go anywhere on the boat and that was it. And it was only because I’d come out of hospital. And then when I got to England they couldn’t find my papers or anything because apparently, I was supposed to come on the —they’d been looking for me and there were some papers and there was no body. And they didn’t know that I’d been left in Canada. And you can imagine me trying to explain to these people what was what. It was ages. I just, I think it was about three weeks I was there. I was nobody because I couldn’t prove that I was who I supposed to be. CB: You had an id card on you presumably. TS: Well, I can’t remember. I expect I must have had something there. CB: And your tags. TS: Yes. But they — CB: But they thought you were absent without leave. TS: Yeah. CB: Now at that stage you’d been a sergeant technically throughout your flying training had you? TS: No. I was only corporal. CB: Corporal. Right. TS: Corporal. CB: When you get back to Britain what rank are you then? TS: I am a sergeant. CB: Exactly. Yeah. When you got your wings. TS: Yes. CB: You became a sergeant. TS: Yes. CB: Right. Ok. So, you get back to Liverpool. TS: Well. No. CB: They try and sort you out. TS: No. It wasn’t Liverpool. CB: Ah. TS: This was — CB: Up in Scotland was it? Prestwick. TS: No. No. No. This was at a Yorkshire place. Not York. Harrogate. Harrogate. And I was sort of the only one in. It isn’t as though I had friends or anything. I was just this little one person who wanted to be known but they didn’t have the proper paperwork so I couldn’t. But they did feed me. CB: Ok. How long did that go on for? TS: About two or three weeks. I can’t really remember but — I still don’t know where my books are. CB: No. So here you are in Harrogate which was a sort of holding place — TS: Yeah. CB: Before allocating you so now you’re trained to wings standard with a lot of flying. What happened next? TS: Well I went to an — not an OTU. An advanced flying place where after having flown the AT6A with all the little knobs in it I flew a mighty Oxford [laughs] with a little bit of fans going on. CB: Yes. TS: Yes. And you had to be careful with the Oxford because it — if you misbehaved it let you know. CB: So, you’re on twin engines and you’re only used to singles. TS: Yes. CB: So where’s the Advanced Training School? TS: That was at Upwood. Not Upwood. Upwood. CB: In Cambridgeshire. TS: No. No. It wasn’t in Cambridgeshire. You go down the Great North Road as it used to be there. You come to right next to it. I could put my hand straight to it on the map. Anyway, this, we can work that out later and it was Oxfords and when I was being trained on how to fly and all the rest of it and I just happened to say that I’d never flown an aircraft which had constant speed props. I got a bit of a mouthful from the person who was trying to teach me how to fly a twin-engined aircraft ‘cause he thought I wasn’t taking sufficient notice. But anyway, I was alright and I was alright at night as well. That was when we started flying at nights and I think that had I got back with the gaggle instead of having measles I would have gone forward on the fighter pilot side of it but I, it was sort of the — some of us seemed to have no home at Harrogate and we were the ones who were pushed in to there but that didn’t matter. I was flying. That was the main thing. And then I went, of course, on to Blenheims. CB: Where was that? TS: That’s Upwood. Blenheims was Upwood. So that brain there had got too far forward hadn’t it? CB: Yeah. And that’s the OTU. TS: Yeah. And then just as we were finishing that the Blenheims were withdrawn from the front line and so as we were used to flying low because we did low flying with the Blenheims then we went to 10 OTU detachment flying Whitleys. Then we learned how, I picked up then there would be five with us in the crew. It was three with the Blenheim and then having five crew when we were flying Whitleys. So, a lovely move wasn’t it from playing? So, it meant that one way and another I had flown all sorts of different types of aircraft and I wasn’t unduly worried about it. I just, I could just get in to the planes and do it. It was like later on when we were after ops and I was instructing on Whitleys and then the Whitleys were falling apart so they came with with the Wellingtons and so there was somebody who had been on Wellingtons and he came along to teach me how to fly and I just went in and I just went and I took off and I came in and landed. He said, ‘I can’t learn — I can’t teach any bloody thing at all.’ And that’s just because I could. This brain of mine could just concentrate on, on these things. Well that lever’s there. I didn’t know that a lot of people had a lot of trouble having to remember where all these things were. Once I’d sat down in an aircraft it looked as though I knew where they all were and that’s one reason I think why I survived. CB: So, you’re on Wellingtons. TS: Yes. Just for a short time. No. We were still on Whitleys at the OTU. CB: Right. Ok. TS: And then we went down to Cornwall where we did the anti-sub patrols. CB: St Mawgan. TS: St Eval. CB: St Eval. Ok. So that’s your Bay of Biscay flying. What was the pattern of flying there? TS: Well you jumped into the, well you crawled in to the aircraft and as you were taxi-ing you realised that there was an awful lot weight on there because we had so much fuel on board and although I’d flown the plane without being weighed so much it was quite an experience to realise that you just had to concentrate quite a lot more and make sure that the engines were ok. Which you had to do by sound mainly. And that the — you had all your flaps up and wheels up etcetera and so forth and then you could happily go and do anything up to ten hours sitting in a seat. Driving an aeroplane. CB: Did you have autopilot in the Whitley? TS: Yes, but I never, I never took to the auto pilot. There was, even on the Halifax I never used it. I used to trim the aircraft so it could fly itself. That’s what I did. Yeah. CB: So, on the anti-submarine patrols what did you do? What was the pattern of your work? You take off. TS: Yeah. CB: Then what? TS: Then you’d go to the Scilly isles. And from there you would be given a triangular trip which would be anything up to ten hours over the Bay of Biscay. And sometimes you would [pause] over the Bay of Biscay you’d never see another aircraft until you got back again. CB: Are we in daylight or at night? TS: On daylight. CB: Right. TS: Of course, we didn’t want to see the German aircraft which were looking for us because we would have been just, you know, been hopeless. All we had was the four guns at the back and a pop-up gun at the back and any Junkers 88s or ME110s would have just shot us out of the sky if we were found. So, we, when we were nearest to France we were very very low down on the sea. CB: How low would you fly consistently? TS: I can’t really work it out in feet. It’s just [unclear] but you could definitely, you could definitely see the waves and the forming of the waves and all the rest of it. CB: Are we talking about a thousand feet? Or — TS: Oh no. No. No. CB: Five hundred feet. Or lower. TS: No. No. A Hundred feet. CB: Right. So, the intensity of concentration was considerable. TS: Yes. And then if you wanted to relax a little bit you could come up a bit above the shade and relax a bit more. There was — we did have with us another pilot but we knew nothing about him because he, he just arrived when we were going on the plane so we couldn’t even talk to him about anything. He just came in and sat at the co-pilot’s seat there and so I just let him sit there because I wasn’t going to let him fly my aeroplane unless I knew what he could do. And we were supposed to be keeping low over there. And then he’d just get off the plane and disappear. And it seemed to be a different person every time. So, I thought, well, no continuity. If I had to have somebody who I wanted to do a course and all the rest of it then there was some sense to if I had him every time. CB: Where did they come from? These people. TS: I don’t know. CB: Oh. They weren’t your squadron members. TS: Oh No. No. No. I think — CB: Were they experienced? TS: No. CB: Coastal Command people. TS: No. CB: Oh, they weren’t. TS: They were all sergeant pilots and the way they, you know, I don’t think they knew much about flying. Just, after the first two when I started talking about one or two things he just sat there. They just sat there and I wasn’t sure that they could fly that aeroplane at the height I wanted them to fly it. It wouldn’t be right down low either. And so — CB: Did you ever let them take over? TS: No. CB: Put it up a bit and take over. TS: No. CB: Right. TS: No. CB: So here you are flying along. What are you doing? A square search. Or how are you operating? TS: Triangular. CB: Triangular search. Which is? How does that operate because it’s not continuous over this same area is it? TS: No. The — CB: The triangle moves. TS: We’ll say this is, this is the Bay of Biscay. CB: Yes. TS: And there’s France. And there’s Spain. CB: Yeah. TS: And here are we. Well you’d sometimes go that way around and come back again or you go that way around. And then you go there, there, there. Come round. And it was all to do with the navigation and that was why I was so pleased with my navigator who I had when I was on Blenheims. And it wasn’t ‘til a few years ago that I realised in the chatter by some of the other people when we had a get together that he had a PhD in mathematics. CB: Did he really? TS: Yes. CB: After the war or before? TS: Before. CB: Did he really? TS: Yeah. When he was flying with us he had a PhD in — CB: In maths. TS: In maths. CB: Was he a bit older than the rest of you? TS: Yes. He was. Apparently he was a teacher. CB: What did you call him? TS: He was teaching maths. CB: What did you call him? TS: Well. CB: Uncle or grandpa? TS: Well, we called him Bill because his name was Billborough. CB: Right. TS: The — I didn’t know either ‘til the end of the war that my bomb aimer who, he said he’d wanted to be a pilot but anyway he had come down from [pause] what’s the place? Cambridge, and he still had some of his university to do when the war was over. And I met him after the war and he was, he was marvellous. You know. He got his degree and all the rest of it. So when the time came when my son had a chance of going we made sure that he got there too. CB: Good. TS: And he finished up with a PhD in maths. CB: Did he really? TS: Yeah. CB: Wasn’t that good. TS: And he’s now retired as I said. And so, its all a question at times when you’re doing certain things. When you do the right thing and then you realise you’d done the right thing because of the information you got afterwards. CB: Of course. TS: And he didn’t, in any way, shall I say, push the issue and say I’ve got a PhD or anything like that. He just was there because he needn’t —I think in his position he probably needn’t have gone to the war but he decided that he was going to do that. CB: So, he was a very good navigator. Bill. TS: Yes. Oh yes. CB: So, going back to the flying you’re doing the triangular search and it’s move, you’re varying the triangle. And how on earth do you keep going for ten hours because you can’t leave the plane flying itself? TS: No. CB: If you need to go and look at the plumbing. TS: No. You don’t. You don’t. There was a little gadget there. CB: A tube. TS: A tube. Yes. But other than that. No. CB: What sort of — ten hours is a long time without refreshment so what was the arrangement for eating? TS: That did come up a little bit and we had a thermos flask with some supposedly coffee in it. And some sandwiches. And we ate well. CB: Did you? TS: When we were on the ground. We did really eat well. So there was no question of were we hungry. It was your own fault if you didn’t eat when you could. CB: Of course. And the sandwiches. Jam? Or were they something more substantial? TS: Something a little more substantial. Yes. CB: So, what about the rest of the crew? When you’re flying your triangular search you’re in a Whitley which has got five people in. The navigator’s got his head down. What’s everybody else doing? TS: Looking to see if he could see what you really didn’t think you ought, you ought to see. We would have had to go — had we seen a U-boat you would have to attack it. Now, if the boat was right out of the water and they had the guns all ready a Whitley would be so slow getting at it that it would be shot out the sky before he could drop his bombs. So you, if you were going to have one you had — just as it was coming up. Or just when it was going along with a little bit at the top. And we never saw anything of that nature and once I was thinking — I needed a little bit, to go up a little bit and pulled up and then there’s land immediately in front of me. I thought — that’s Spain. And the navigator for once had forgotten to tell me to turn. But we were still in — we were in — CB: International waters. Were you? TS: Still in international waters. But if I hadn’t just, for some reason it’s, I’ve got that little magic thing somewhere telling me to do some things. If I hadn’t I’d have been flying right over Spain before I realised it. Of course, you couldn’t immediately turn. Especially if you were down low. CB: No. Sure. TS: You had to come up a little bit to turn. And so, I’ve always thought that in lots of times in my life there’s been a little angel just helping me along. CB: So, thinking of your armament. I’ve interviewed somebody who attacked a submarine. So, what was your forward armament first of all? TS: We’d got a pop up in the front. CB: What were they? TS: It was just a little — CB: Two. TS: Yeah. CB: Two 303s. TS: Yeah. CB: And so what anti-submarine stores did you carry? TS: Four. CB: Depth charges. And how did you, what was the intended attack mode for that? TS: Well, you go there and you drop them so that your first ones were just before the sub and then you’d have two land where the sub was and the other one was — but you you had to get them a bit earlier than some people did. It’s no good letting them go and then them all being over the top of it. CB: Because they’re flying forward with you. TS: Yes. That’s why we didn’t know it but when we were on a bombing at — Whitleys. CB: Do you want to stop for a mo? JS: Yeah. Stop for a minute. TS: Yeah. CB: Ok. TS: Well it’s alright. Yes. Yes. We’d better stop for a bit. JS: Stretch your leg for a bit. CB: Right. [Recording paused] TS: Well when we were doing OTU we, as a crew, were seen to be doing more low-flying bombing than anybody else. And we were doing this and we’d go up and we’d do it and we’d go up and we’d do it and by getting the pictures and that we realised how early we had to be dropping these because you were going at the speed even though we weren’t going at a terrific speed you were going at a speed and if you’re not careful the sub is back here and you’re bombing something that isn’t there. And so, we said well is it any different to the, for the depth charge type thing which we would be dropping? Well we didn’t even know that we were going to be on Coastal Command then. I said the bombs we would be dropping then for the practice bombs which we were using. You see. Just the smoke bombs. And they say well as far as we can get to it that has the same flying attitude until it hits the ground but it depends largely on the height you are and the speed you’re doing as to where that thing lands. CB: So, with depth charges the principal is the same except that they’re not aerodynamic are they? TS: No. But you are very low so that’s not going to be a big thing. And if you have a string of four you have one before and two more or less hitting it and then the third one on that but you had to get it on the —say that’s the sub there you have to come in but you have to be right over the top of the sub to do it. Well, you can imagine if the sub is fully raised and there’s somebody on the gun already it’s a bit warm before you get there. CB: Now, in your aircraft did you have a bomb aimer? TS: Yes. CB: And he had the responsibility of dropping the depth charges? TS: No. CB: Or you did. TS: I did. CB: Right. And how did you come to do that because you didn’t have the sight? So he had to call it to you. TS: No. Well, we’ll say that’s the U-boat there. CB: Ok. TS: Well you would be going, coming and if you saw it you might be going at an angle across it and all the rest of it. Well, you would have to drop your bombs so that one of them was, it was, they were depth charges so they weren’t bombs and therefore they had to go more or less — CB: Sure. TS: Underneath the plane to blow it up. CB: Under the submarine. Yeah. TS: Yeah. Underneath the submarine. CB: They were pre-set before you set off. TS: Yeah. CB: On the premise that you were only flying at a hundred feet. TS: Yeah. CB: So, who is calling the release time? TS: I was. We decided, I think, that I would do that. And I would — CB: You’d pressing the button. TS: I’d press the button. CB: He’d call. TS: And I was pressing the button when we were practicing. CB: Yes. But who gave the call for the timing of the dropping? So, the bomb aimer is saying, ‘Right. Drop now.’ TS: No. CB: Is he? TS: No. CB: You are. TS: Yeah. CB: Ok. TS: Because you were so low that the bomb aimer couldn’t use the bomb aiming thing or anything. CB: So it was just a Mark One eyeball. TS: Yeah. CB: You didn’t have a sight yourself. TS: No. No CB: And did you — TS: But that was because you had the four — CB: Yeah. The final question on this is did you drop them automatically as a stick or did you have to press each time to drop each one? TS: No. You dropped and your whole load went. CB: Right. TS: That was how we were set anyway. So therefore you’d drop a little early than you thought for the first one to go because there was a tendency to get too close to it. CB: Yeah. TS: And you went over the top of it. And that is why we did the low levels. CB: Ok. TS: And I have pictures somewhere of the, of us dropping low level. CB: So, detached to Coastal Command how many ops did you do? TS: At. Then. I think it was eight. Eight of those ops. CB: Ok. And then after that what happened? TS: I went back to bombers. And I went from there to [pause] Stanton. No. Not Stanton Harcourt. The one near York where you went from Whitleys to Halifaxes. CB: Is that Riccall? TS: No. It was the other one. There was Riccall was one. It was the other one. CB: Holme on Spalding Moor. TS: Yes. No. No. There was another one. Anyway. CB: Yeah TS: Yeah. And the chappy. I’m trying to remember. CB: There was Elvington and Pocklington later. TS: I’m just a little bit. CB: Ok. And this was the HCU was it? The Heavy Conversion Unit. TS: Yes. Heavy Conversion Unit. CB: Ok. TS: We went to [pause] in Yorkshire. Not far from York. The Moor. CB: Ok. I’ll look it up. TS: There was a big, a big battle fought there during one of the years long before we were born. And — CB: Ok. TS: I’m just wondering. You see all the time my brain is thinking where the heck are those things. CB: Those logbooks. Yeah. So how long were you at the HCU? TS: Not very long. And it was, I think more of them deciding your capacity early than anything else because you hadn’t to do anything more than just convert from one plane to another. CB: Yeah. Because you already had experience in operations. TS: Well, that might be the case but I think everybody had to be at that and if you’re just going from one plane to another well you just go from one plane to another. It’s like going from one car to another isn’t it? CB: Yeah. TS: As far as I’m concerned anyway. And it [pause] it was interesting to have these. The four engines and you had the engineer and the mid-upper gunner as extra crew. You had to get to know them and they had to know who was boss in the second, looking at it from another angle. And we made quite sure that we got the right people. I was lucky, as I said, in getting my original crew. When we went from three off the Blenheims to five I said to the [pause] you know on to the Whitleys, I said to the observer, as he then was, I said, ‘Well you know more about bomb aiming than I do. You find the best bomber.’ And I said to, you WOp/AG, I said, ‘You know more about the thing. Go and get me a good air gunner,’ and that’s what they did. They were successful because I’m still here. That’s the thing and the same sort of thing was when we went — that was from three to five and then from five to seven it was a similar thing except that I chose the engineer. CB: Right. Ok. TS: And I walked up to the gaggle of the engineers and I said, ‘I’m a pilot who’s looking for an engineer. What have you done? What engineering have you done?’ And I was quite blunt about it. So this chappy there was saying, ‘I haven’t passed many exams,’ he said, ‘Because the job was to keep machinery going twenty four hours a day.’ CB: In civilian life. TS: In civilian life. I thought, well, we’ll have him. Some of the others had just done, more or less, a verbal course. And so when the engineer and I first went into an aircraft the first thing we did was start at the nose and work right to the back and all the bits and pieces and he seemed as though he’d done his learning in the classroom and he never let me down one, one little bit. He was a very good man. Because he had also, he hadn’t come straight from somewhere where he hadn’t been involved in anything much and he had been where he kept, had to keep these machines going for twenty four hours a day in a factory as I said. And I think it makes quite a difference. CB: Yeah. Ok. So just going back on timings what are we talking about here? You go to the HCU. When would that be? TS: Oh well actually we didn’t go straight from what we were doing to the HCU. We went on a battle course. That has nothing to do with flying though has it? CB: No. With the RAF regiment was it? TS: No. It was — we had somebody in the army who didn’t really want to be on the job. So it was interesting. CB: So the whole crew goes on the battle course. TS: Yes. CB: And they’re all sergeants. TS: Yes. CB: And what’s the army man? TS: He was a sergeant. I think he was a real sergeant as well. He wasn’t just a sergeant. Somebody — CB: Experienced man was he? TS: Oh yes. Yes. CB: So what did you do on the battle course? TS: Well what the army did. It was an army’s battle course. Live — live ammunition at the end and that was being introduced then more and more I think because if you baled out and you happened to land somewhere over the other side and you weren’t picked up by the enemy you could probably fight with the people who were just making a nuisance of themselves to the Germans or when the — we really went for them then you could help too, as battle course behind their lines. That was the theory of it. I don’t think it would have been very very efficient because [pause] anyway we’re talking here now because we won the war. Or well we officially won the war but – CB: I interviewed a man who was shot down and had done a battle course and joined the Maquis. TS: Yes. Yes, well that was the other one. Yes. CB: Right. Ok. So when is this? What time are we talking about? 1942? Or are we still in ‘41. Where are we? TS: Well, we are now going to four engines aren’t we? CB: Yeah. HCU. TS: HCU. HCU was in the 1943. In the spring. CB: Ok. TS: I did my first ops in May. So we weren’t long at HCU. See. So — CB: So your first ops were with the squadron. So you spend a couple months at HCU. TS: Yeah. CB: Would you? TS: No. I don’t think as such. I don’t think it was as long as that. CB: Ok. TS: And the CO of the HCU was somebody you might have heard of. His name was Cheshire. CB: Yeah. TS: You’d already got that information. CB: No. I know about him. Yes. TS: He was ok. We went on a night trip and the engineer, as some people call them, had difficulty in as much as he had to tell me that according to his instruments there was something wrong with one of the engines. And so I said, ‘Well it doesn’t feel like it,’ I said. It’s all, because I had the engines all in sync. When there was two it was easy. CB: Yeah. Yeah. TS: And you could tell if there was something wrong because even before the instruments would tell you because the engines would let you know. And anyway [pause] I’ve lost it. CB: Yeah. So the engineer said there’s something wrong with one of the engines. TS: One of the engines. Yes. And so I shut it down as we were told to do and then the next day we were told to go in front of the CO and he wanted to know why we’d come back early. And so we said we’d done it on what we thought were the instructions and we went through them. And he said [pause] and he said, ‘Well, according to the people on the ground here there’s nothing wrong with that engine.’ And so I turned to the engineer. I said, ‘Well you said this.’ ‘Just a minute. Just a minute.’ The CO said this. CB: Yeah. TS: He said, ‘We are here to find out why that happened. We’re not putting the finger at anybody,’ he said, ‘Because we’ve had this happen before where people have come back because they’ve thought there was something wrong with the engine and we were hoping that you might be able to let us know.’ And so I said to the engineer, I said, ‘Well, did you notice anything other than what you just said about the instrument?’ He said, ‘No. I’ve told you everything as I saw it.’ And so he said, ‘Well, thank you very much for calling,’ and he said, ‘This is what we’re here for is to try and find out why these engines are supposedly failing when they’re not.’ And I thought that’s fair enough. He just more or less showed us the door and we went out. And I thought that was fine. CB: This is an LMF issue. Is it? TS: Well, no. No. CB: It’s not. In other words some people were calling engine fault because they didn’t want to go. TS: No. I know. I know. CB: But he was, you were relying on your experience and knowledge of the engines and he was relying on the instruments. TS: Yes. Yes. CB: So did you crack the code? TS: Well, we never had anything like it again. CB: These are radial engines aren’t they? They’re not the Merlins. TS: No. These were the Merlins. CB: Oh they were Merlins. Right. TS: These were Merlins and you see I’d quite a bit of time on Merlins having done the, with the — CB: Whitley. TS: Whitleys. Having to listen to them for ten hours at a time over the Bay of Biscay etcetera. Well up to twelve hours we were airborne sometimes. CB: Amazing. TS: It makes you wonder how. How you do it. I expect I’d do it again if I had to. CB: So you didn’t find out what was wrong with the — TS: No. CB: Why the – TS: Why. But I think it was not just on the, on the training side of it. I think for some reason this was happening and whether it was anybody who was interfering with it on the ground or not I didn’t ask the question. But I think that’s probably what it was about. Very difficult things to find out. CB: Well I did interview a man who had a man, had a ground engineer court martialled for threatening to upset the aircraft on a sortie. So there was an element of this sort of thing clearly. TS: I hadn’t thought of that at all. CB: As a bribe. Anyway, sorry, go on. TS: Anyway, that was that. I thought nothing much more about it until it keeps cropping up about that engine failing. Supposedly failing when it didn’t. And we were learning. CB: So this is, you’ve just joined 102 Squadron and this is when it’s come up. This isn’t the HCU. This is the squadron. TS: Yeah. That was HCU. CB: Oh it was the HCU. TS: That was the HCU. CB: Right. So you joined the squadron after the HCU. TS: Yeah. CB: Then what? TS: Well, I had to go as a second pilot with [pause] I had done a second pilot when I was at the OTU. Not the OTU. The HCU. CB: HCU. Yeah. TS: And then I did another one when I was, when I joined the squadron. And then I was on my own and then I went flying as expected [pause] and this is when really when I need the book. CB: Right. So what do you recall as your first operation? TS: I think it was Essen. Happy Valley. CB: How did that go? TS: Well I’m just trying to think whether the Essen one was with the — no. Essen was very early and whether it was when I was going as second pilot or when I was just on my own. I don’t know. CB: So, going as a second pilot is not a training flight around the country. It is actually an operation. TS: Yes. CB: Ok. What other highlights are there that stick in your mind about operations? TS: Well, I was always of the [pause] aware of a number of aircraft all huddled together. CB: In the bomber stream. TS: Yeah. Or before that when people were taking off. We had three stations. Like one, two, three. Anyway. And if, say somebody is a bit slow in being able to get height he’s getting awful near that other station at times and I was very well aware of that. And so as soon as I was pointing as though I was where 10 Squadron was — one of our take off things more or less pointed directly at it. So, as soon as I got nicely airborne I made sure that I turned away and gradually got up and up and up. CB: This is from Pocklington. TS: That is from Pocklington. And I always tried to be the first one off. And I was approached once by the, an officer of one of the other flights who said, ‘You came and took off before the wing commander.’ I said, ‘Well I didn’t even know the wing commander was flying. So how the hell was I to do that?’ But I didn’t care. I was doing the op and so was the wing commander as far as I was concerned. And he didn’t take it very kindly. But I don’t know who the hell he was but he didn’t come and talk to me again and I think that’s one of the things where you had to get airborne and you had make sure you had sufficient speed to drag that load higher and higher and get out and if you got off first then you could get on the top of the spiral going up and therefore and you were less likely to hit anything. CB: So ahead of you is Topcliffe is it? TS: No. No. 10, 10 Squadron on — CB: Binbrook. TS: No. No. No. I had it just a minute ago and then the other one was Elvington. CB: Yes. TS: In the clutch. There was Elvington, us and the other one. CB: Ok. Right. So, you’re climbing out. TS: Yes. CB: And making sure you get out of the way. TS: Yes. CB: How do you know when to head off? TS: Well you only take off — you only head off when you’re supposed to be moving off. But if you are waiting for somebody to take off and waiting for somebody else to take off and waiting for somebody else. You’re going to have difficulty in getting off before you’re supposed to be setting course. So, as I say I used to be there and then supposedly been told off by this officer that I shouldn’t have taken off before the flight commander. CB: You’re a flight sergeant by now are you? TS: Yeah. CB: Ok. TS: I was offered a commission after we’d done about ten ops or something like that and I said, ‘No. We’ve all, we’ve decided. We all had a little chat and we all want to remain NCOs.’ Later on, in my life in the air force I said I would like to take a commission. So, somebody popped up and said well according to the records you refused a commission. And I said, ‘I didn’t refuse a commission as such. I said, I didn’t want to take a commission while we were flying as a crew on 102 Squadron.’ And it looks as though it got the rounds and I eventually got a commission. I was wanting a commission because I was instructing and nearly all of the pilots coming through were commissioned and some of them objected to being instructed by an NCO. I was only a warrant officer mind. But — CB: So, we’ve talked about getting off and setting off. Tell us the rest of a sortie. So, you’ve all set off at the prescribed time. TS: Yes. CB: Which is how it was done because you can’t see the other aircraft can you? TS: No. CB: So, you’re off. Now what? TS: Well we would still be climbing and so having been first off, I was normally up above anybody else from the area and then we would, when we got to the height we wanted and there was the big light on the Lincolnshire coast which you had as a glass which many people saw. But you had that as a guidance and if your navigator was doing his job properly and you were flying the aircraft properly and you flew on the headings that he asked you to fly at the same time and then you changed when he said that then he would know once he got right above that light exactly what the wind was. CB: Right. So now you’re setting off from the light. TS: Yeah. CB: And you’re — what height are you by then? TS: Well if we were still climbing as far as we could go and they used to say, ‘Well level off at eighteen thousand feet.’ If you got to seventeen thousand feet you were lucky some nights because I knew as soon as I’d lifted off from there that we were, if anything, over laden. I couldn’t prove anything though. CB: Over laden with bombs or fuel? TS: Well both together you see. CB: Right. TS: Yeah. You had the tanks full of fuel and then you would have different bomb arrangements on different trips. CB: So, when you were briefing. Going backwards. When you went to your operation briefing you knew, did you, what would be your bomb load and the variety? TS: Usually yes but you hadn’t always worked it out. There would be a slight difference in the high explosives and incendiaries. And when we went to some of the places in France we were full of incendiaries. I couldn’t quite work that out. And occasionally we were full of incendiaries but it was this, you would climb to eighteen thousand feet was just not on because we would not get to them. CB: The fuel load was dictated by the target was it? TS: Yes. Well if it was just Happy Valley it was, you just had all the tanks, all the main tanks full, I think. I don’t know whether there was any less in the tanks because you could get there and get back with having sufficient [pause] sufficient fuel. You would have sufficient fuel to get there and back. CB: Right. Now fast forward to your trips. Which were the most notable ones would you say? Ops. In your mind. TS: Well there is only the one that — we’ve mentioned it. CB: That’s Peenemunde. TS: Yeah. But we did have some others and I’d have to refer to the book again. CB: Yeah. TS: Because I haven’t registered that in my mind to keep. CB: I see that on your map here. We’re looking at the map with sorties that Tom has put on and two of them show damage to German aircraft. Could you just talk us through that? TS: Well that one there. We shot it down. CB: Did the rear gunner do it or the mid-upper or both? TS: Well we didn’t — at the time we didn’t have a a mid-upper. CB: Oh right. TS: Turret. CB: Right. TS: That was before we, we only had one lot of guns on the whole aeroplane. CB: Right. So, you did well to shoot that down. TS: Yes. CB: Right. TS: Well that was, the thing was because of the manoeuvres etcetera. And — CB: So, what did you shoot down? TS: I don’t know. CB: But it was a German aeroplane anyway. Yeah. TS: Well, that’s as it was recorded. Yeah. CB: Yeah. TS: Yeah. This one here. CB: The further south. Yeah. TS: The further south is where we were damaged by a fighter. We managed to continue to the [pause] for the rest of the journey. CB: So, what happened there? TS: Well, we knew we had by that time got one of these units on the plane which would tell us when there was an enemy aircraft nearby. And we were getting this message and I did some changes of course a little bit and changes of course a little bit and each time it would follow me so it meant that it was a German aircraft looking for me. Looking for us shall I say. Rather than just a casual one of ours getting in to that area. CB: Yeah. TS: And so having done that, I think, three times and it was still getting much closer each time because of the beep. You know the beep beep system that was there’s a, so I thought I would just hold it and hold it and hold it until it came very close and then I just whipped over to the one side. CB: In a corkscrew? TS: No. No. No. You couldn’t corkscrew in one of those. You might think you were doing it but it was so sluggish when you were up at that height with that weight you had. CB: Yeah. Ok. TS: It was minimal sometimes. You had to really decide it. And so, I decided that this one it was coming again. We turned and it followed and I had turned and it followed. I think the book will say exactly how many times. Anyway, and I decided right well I’ll see how far I can go on this and I just sat there. I just sat there and the noise was getting and then it was almost beep all the time you see instead of just getting the beep beeps. Time to go down so I just flung everything over to one side and just as I was doing that he was letting off his things but only sufficiently for it to hit us in the port outer wing. If I hadn’t moved those cannon shells would have been in the half empty petrol containers. CB: Yeah. The tanks. TS: Tanks. Petrol tanks. And I wouldn’t be here. No wonder I went bald early. CB: So, in that circumstance did you break right or left? TS: No. I didn’t break right. This was the normal things you start and most people start don’t they? It was the opposite way anyway. Yes. In those days. I’m just trying to remember which way it was. I think. Oh, they expected you to go left and I went right. That was it. And it was just a question of luck, I think, in lots of instances where the cannon shells went in to the outer wing instead of them hitting a petrol tank which would have caused it to blow up and that would have been it. It wasn’t ‘til we got out, ‘til I got out the plane and then there was a huddle of all the people looking at the outer wing and the expletives which were being said can’t be repeated at the moment. Still, my luck and, well there was just no aileron at all. The whole of the aileron thing had just disappeared and then of course there was further on was the damage to the wing but we only had torches. It was dark and I didn’t realise that the wing was all so badly — no wonder it was rather difficult to keep on course. And that was, I think, the reason why probably I was awarded the DFM because the — CB: A good bit of flying. Yeah TS: Well the next day when I went in to the flight office the squadron leader said that, ‘The wing commander wants to see you.’ And I said, ‘Why sir?’ He said, ‘Well I don’t know.’ He sounded a bit upset about something. ‘The wing commander wants to see you.’ Unfortunately, this chappy had only just replaced the flight commander and so I didn’t know him in any way at all. Just done, he’d just come from, I don’t think he was in the flight before he was made flight commander or anything. And so, anyway this wing commander came charging in and he said, ‘So this is the fella is it? This is the young fella is it?’ and he was going around me like this. I thought what’s he going to do next because he had something in his hand. He said, ‘Take that.’ And he gave, gave me the part of the spar of the wing and he said, ‘You see that?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ I didn’t know exactly what he was saying. I was thinking whoo whoo. He said, ‘Well look. That thing shows that a cannon shell went through there. If it had exploded then I wouldn’t be talking to you today because your whole,’ blankety blank, ‘Outer wing would have gone.’ And I’ve still got it. And that was that. Him coming in like that and he wanted to shake me by the hand and all the rest of it. I didn’t know what the hell to do. The wing commander shaking me by the hands or everything. And anyway it was, the aircraft was taken into the hangar and they couldn’t believe it. That I’d flown it back in the state it was in and I’ve still got a very awkward knee. Five hours. CB: Pushing hard. TS: Pushing hard on that. But I’m not going to charge them now. CB: Oh. You’re not. TS: Not after all this time. CB: So no aileron. On the port side this is. TS: Yeah. CB: Big hole in the wing. TS: Yeah. And we had to bomb and we came back with a proper picture. CB: Picture. Brilliant. TS: [unclear] CB: So where were you going that day? Where were you bombing? TS: Ah that’s. CB: Was it Frankfurt? Was it? Or – TS: I don’t know. I don’t know. I [pause] Yes, that would be the one. I know it was five hours after being hit. CB: Oh. Was it? TS: When I managed to get out of the plane. CB: So, in that circumstance what’s it do to the flying characteristics of the aircraft? You’ve got more drag on that side. You’ve got less manoeuvrability. TS: Well you just had, you just, it’s towards the end, the outside you see, which is less. I mean, there was less of it. The main part of the lift is where the engines are where you have that huge, yes, difference but you’ve only got a very narrow wing when you get towards the wingtip and that’s more for control rather than anything else. There was, there nothing left of the aileron, you see. There was just tangled bits. And it was, I think just the thing that I had that other people didn’t have. The feel of the thing would be almost immediate to me and I was already operating my foot before I realised we’d been hit so badly. CB: Yeah. So, you were hit in the left. On the port side. TS: Yeah. CB: You’re turning around to the right and going down. Are you? You’d turn it. TS: Well. Yes. I was already – CB: Then you’ve got to recover from that. TS: Yeah. CB: So what did you do? TS: Well I did what I would automatically do and I can’t tell you exactly what it was but then we got back on to course which was the thing. And now what do we do? We’re badly damaged. What shall we do? Should we drop our load and go back? And I thought well, no, that’s not a good idea at all because if you go back you’ll be all on your own going all the way back there and they’d be picking you off with no trouble at all. So, we just plodded on and bombed. And — CB: So, you’re approaching the target with a damaged aircraft. What do you do? TS: You just keep on going as though you’re not damaged. As far as possible. And although we were damaged we hadn’t lost a lot of — the aileron part had gone but the rest of the damage was not so severe but a lot of the — it’s a wonderful thing a wing in an aeroplane you see because if you’re up there and you’re flying and you have a little bit missing, well it doesn’t seem to matter quite so much as if you was trying to land or take off. CB: So, your roll control is on one side only. In this case the right. The starboard side. What effect does it have on your direction ‘cause you’re pushing hard on the rudder so there’s been some –? TS: Well you have to keep — this pushing on the rudder is not, you can’t get the same effect absolutely but if you put it so that you don’t have to press against the wind as it were then you are getting more efficient. And if you fiddle around and get that system by adjusting the — well it was the aileron this side. I know there’s no aileron there but you had it on the other side as well. And so, I had to, fortunately we were at the height as far as we could get and we lost a little bit of height but we didn’t lose all that much that we were going to be right underneath the whole of the [unclear] CB: Right. TS: And you just have to take what you can think of at the time and I seemed to think at the right, of the right things when anything happened over there and the rest of the crew of course were very good most of the time. The, the engineer although he’d never had much to do with aeroplanes he soon proved to be a very good man. CB: I’m just thinking that here you are with a damaged plane. Normally your attitude is going to be as level as possible. You’ve got a damaged outer port wing. Are you to maintain control raising that so you’re not actually straight and level. You’re straight but not level. Or how do you compensate? TS: Well I don’t really know but I did it. CB: And when you’re over the target. Do you — after the target you hold for a bit to get over to take your picture. Are you then turning left against the damaged wing or do you turn right? What did you do? TS: I can’t remember. It might be in the book but it was just what you’d normally — you see, we as a crew, because I said so, maintained going on after you had dropped your bombs whereas some people they just turned when they dropped their bombs to cut off and go like that where and I tried to explain it to many, well I say many, more than once to some of these people. I said, ‘If you’re all going as a bunch all along together like that and you drop your bombs and then you go along and you come to the turning point and then you’re turning everybody is turning. But if you for some reason want to turn and you’re here and there’s all these there there’s a likelihood that you’ll run into those.’ And they said, ‘Oh no. It wouldn’t.’ But I used to think it terrible that some of them were doing all these things which they shouldn’t do and then bragging about it. CB: Bragging because of –? TS: Bragging that they’d, they’d cut off the corner. As soon as they bombed they cut off the corner because if — CB: To get away. TS: If you were going towards your target — CB: Yes. TS: And then you go on a little bit and then you turn. CB: Yes. TS: Yes. Well they, in that then if they would turn immediately and they know you can’t be sure you got to that point properly if you hadn’t already worked it out. And so, I think some of the navigators would have a difficult time with some of the people. CB: So fast forward now. You’ve dropped the bombs. You’ve had to push hard on the rudder pedal to get back. How do you set up for landing? How did that work? TS: Well I had done it in this way. I managed to know that I could land it because at ten thousand feet I did a mock landing. CB: Right. TS: I went through all the process of seeing whether — CB: Wheels down and everything. TS: Yes. But I couldn’t be sure that I was absolutely straight like that but you could tell by the little bit of light you were getting whether it was getting — whether you were going straight or whether you were going differently. And I’d report to the, and it wasn’t the first time I’d come back with a damaged plane, you see and I’d report to the people on the ground and saying that I’d done a landing at eight thousand feet I think it was in one instance. So on and so forth. So that they would know that I could, I thought I could land but of course you couldn’t see really whether — if you were up here you couldn’t see whether you had been pushed on one side or you had lost another side or anything like that but the feel of the plane as I keep on saying to different people is far more important than lots of other things. CB: So, you’re making your approach. What are you doing about speed compared with normal approach speed? TS: Well, I’d know from the [pause] what I was doing up there what it felt like CB: The practice. TS: Yes. CB: Yeah. TS: Just the practice up there. And then I’d always add at least ten miles an hour on to that. CB: Right. TS: So, you couldn’t see exactly what it was but I was doing that here. I don’t know whether I’ve even mentioned it in the book but – CB: Right. TS: That’s what it was. CB: So, you’re on finals. How do you feel then? TS: Well, I had so much to do that all I felt was that if I keep on going as I’m going now and now and now when I’m doing some of this. The final movements CB: Corrections. TS: Corrections and all the rest of it and I would make sure that I was down to the, getting on towards the speed. The approach speed. Of course I was flying above the approach speed a lot of the time. CB: Yeah. TS: When I was doing manoeuvres. So that I had speed there to recover it if it wasn’t right. And I got down to that and then I would be making sure that I was going to get on to the thing and then I would level off because it would be the main runway probably had plenty of runway to do it but if you land it, if you always used to land in the immediate area then if you had to use a bit more land you had it there but for those people who come over and then still have to level out and they’re halfway down the runway before they touch down. CB: Too high. TS: They’ve got no leeway. CB: No. So, you made sure you came right over the fence as it were. TS: Yes. CB: As near the end as possible. TS: Yes. CB: The beginning of the runway as possible. TS: Yeah. CB: So, you got that down ok. TS: Yeah. CB: You mentioned you’d had an aircraft damaged before. What was that one? Was that flak or fighter? TS: I’m not quite sure. We. We had, we had the engine. An engine pack up. And that was much more serious than anything else because it was before the target and we were losing height and we couldn’t do anything else but do it. Drop it. CB: So, what did you do? TS: Well — CB: How many, how far short of the target are you when the engine packs up? TS: This one was, it was — CB: Where were you going? TS: We were going to Happy Valley. CB: Right. TS: So, it’s just over the border and we, by turning to the port I could drop the bombs in the Zuider Zee and then I reckoned I could get back if I just was out of the, out of the gaggle. CB: Yeah. TS: I thought I could. As far as I can remember that’s where I was thinking I could get back without any trouble much CB: So which engine was it? TS: It was the [pause] I think it was the starboard outer. CB: Right. TS: And shortly after that I had a different plane. I think that was S for Sugar and after that I had another one and the — CB: What? Another engine failure? TS: No. Another plane. CB: Another plane. Right. TS: Yeah. And then I did most of my ops when the new Mark 2 series 1A came in. They gave me another aircraft and that was a W and of course it was the finer points which had been added. Just a small amount on the aircraft but it was a big difference to flying. CB: Was it? What had they changed? TS: Well, instead of having the turret at the front they did away with that and they just put a covering over. It wasn’t very good in as much as it wasn’t in with the rest of the plane. It seemed to be a sort of a bang. Not a bang. It just didn’t feel right to me. CB: Because it upset the aerodynamics. TS: Yes. Yes. But when they brought the series 1A in then they had the new front entirely and it was much better because the, with the Mark 1 or the Mark 2 when they still had the front turret it wasn’t at all. You know there was an awful lot of resistance around that because of the turret. I mean it wasn’t at all streamlined really was it? CB: No. No. So we’ve talked about incidents there. What about Peenemunde? What was significant about going to Peenemunde? TS: It was the way the people approached us about it. They said that we had to do the job tonight or else you would go for every night after night after night until you’d done it and going in as we did at eight thousand feet [pause] but you see there was practically no resistance at all. There was a sort of a searchlight but nothing very much at all. And the — I don’t think that they thought, I think the Germans didn’t consider us going there anyway. No defence much. CB: So, there were layers of bombers. What was above you? TS: Well no. The thing was that we thought we were all going to go in at the same height. CB: Right. TS: But we from 4 Group probably went in at the same height as the rest of 4 Group but some of the others went at probably at a different height to us. I don’t know. It was a question I’ve been wanting to ask but I’ve never got around to finding out what they went and everybody was supposed to be going in at the same. You see we would — 4 Group would be in that time. Four minutes, you see. And we were all supposed to bomb within that four minutes. All 4 Group. And I don’t know. It’s who could I ask? Who could give me the answer? CB: Were you following Pathfinders? Or straight bombing? TS: We were following Pathfinders until we got there and then we were supposed to be bombing any of the main buildings because we were mostly high explosives. So we were told that there would be some buildings in a certain area and we had to bomb those and according to the result of our photograph we did what we were told. CB: Right. Now, you’ve got a picture of the target where there’s a bomber that can be seen below. So what’s that? TS: That was a twerp who wasn’t obeying orders is all I can say. It’s a Halifax. And what the heck that man was doing flying there against the whole of the flow of the — I don’t know. I don’t know whether he’d get back. It is a Halifax isn’t it? CB: He’s flying your way, is he? [pause] CB: It looks as though he’s in the same direction as you so he could end up with bombs straight through him. TS: Yes. Yes. Yes. Well we were bombing on the height we were supposed to be bombing and he is below. Yeah. CB: Quite a long way. TS: I thought that that photograph was one, somewhere I’ve got one where where was somebody going the opposite direction CB: Oh, is there really? So, when you get to a target. You’re in a stream. It’s in the dark. How do you know if everybody is on the same track? TS: Well the only persons who would know whether they were on the wrong track would be those who were on the wrong track. CB: And they’d be on the wrong track for what reason? TS: I can’t — I haven’t discussed it with any of them who were on the wrong track. Shall I put it that way. CB: Ok. TS: But some of the comments on debriefing. CB: Such as? TS: ‘Wizard prang. Wizard prang.’ Yah yah yah. When everybody else is being, sitting at the table and quietly talking and there would another lot sitting and then this fella would come out and every night he’d come back, ‘Wizard prang.’ ‘Wizard prang,’ CB: Same man or different? TS: Yes. CB: What was your — TS: My bomb aimer had a different version of his wizard prang because he found out if they could find out where the bombs had been dropped. So that’s something which I, you know, but it was, whether he knew that he was doing it all wrong or not I don’t know. CB: What was your last operation? TS: Well, I think it was on my knee [laughs] CB: [laughs] So, we’ll go back to the flying operation then. TS: Yeah. Sorry about that. CB: That’s alright. TS: I can’t help it. Anyway, it’s [pause] I don’t know where we are as far as what you want. CB: Right. So what we’re on is, you’re on ops as 102. TS: Yeah. CB: And how many ops did you do in total with 102 Squadron? TS: Well you see I did those ops over the Bay of Biscay. CB: With Coastal Command. Yeah. TS: They counted as a half an op when we were in Bomber Command. CB: Oh right. TS: We thought that later. But it was only half. So there was four. It was, we were all on, all the rest were on Halifaxes. There were eight on the Whitleys and then the twenty six on the four engine jobs. CB: Ok. So, the last four-engined on the Halifax. Where was that to? TS: I can’t really remember. CB: Ok. TS: Without looking it up. CB: So, you finished with 102 Squadron because you’ve ended — TS: Yeah. CB: Your prescribed thirty ops. TS: Yeah. CB: What did you do next? First of all, when was it? TS: It was in October ’43. CB: Ok. TS: Early October ’43. CB: And what did you do after that? TS: Became an instructor. CB: With whom? TS: 81 OTU. CB: Which was where? TS: The other side of the Pennines. CB: What? In Shropshire. So, what was the aircraft? TS: I went back to Whitleys. But it wasn’t Bomber Command. It was 38 Group. You know what they did? CB: Yeah. They were the tactical air force ones were they? TS: 38 Group were the people who – CB: Maquis. TS: Towed gliders. CB: Oh towed gliders. Ok. TS: And dropped supplies to the Maquis. CB: Yeah. TS: We were teaching people how to tow gliders and I’d never flown one before. CB: How did you feel about that? TS: I was still just relieved to have completed a tour of ops that I thought well I can beat this one if I can do that and it was alright. CB: Did you — as a prelude to that did they get you to fly a glider? TS: Yes. CB: How did you feel about that? TS: Bloody awful. CB: In the co-pilots seat? TS: I don’t know. Now. Yes. It was with the co-pilot’s. CB: What was the glider? A horsa. TS: A horsa. CB: So how many trips did you do in that? TS: Only the one. CB: Just one. That was plenty I should think. TS: Yeah. CB: Yeah. TS: Yeah. CB: Right. Then you went on to towing. TS: Well yes, we had to instruct the people. They had to do an OTU as a Bomber Command OTU. CB: Right. First. TS: For all the different. First. And then they would do the towing which wasn’t very much really. The worst was towing it at night when there was night towing and it looked as though my name had come out of the book to do this and you just, with a plane and you had a series of pilots, RAF. And a series of pilots, glider pilots coming to a certain place in the aerodrome where you then had an experienced pilot in both places and those who were just learning in the others. At night. CB: Sounds. How did you feel about that? TS: Not very good because it so happened that my pupil was pulled out of the hat to be the first one and then I was there doing it all ruddy night until I got so far and then I just — some of the pupils didn’t even, I don’t think they knew how to fly the plane at night without anything else there. They weren’t, they weren’t from, on our flight I know that. And I don’t know how they managed and I didn’t like to interrupt too much but once I was just a little bit and all of a sudden I realised we’re not on course ‘Ahhhhh,’ there were those bloody trees there. And I looked out and I could see the trees. Just the top of the trees just going underneath the aeroplane. CB: Yeah. TS: In the little light that we had on the front of the aeroplane. I just relaxed a little bit. Well you couldn’t just lift it. You had a glider on behind. So, it took you ages and ages to get any height anyway but you had a lot of trees there and a lot of trees there but you were supposed to be going down there and he was over here. And so I was too tired to act properly. CB: Go on. TS: So, when I came down I said to the, you see it was a coordinated thing. The pilot. The pupils coming to go in this plane and there were the pupils coming to go in the glider and all sorts of things and then you had to, after dropping the glider you had to drop the rope and then you had to come around again and get down and then you had to taxi around and pick another one up. And I came into the pointer. Switched the engine off. I said to the sergeant in charge of the plane to make sure that the plane was ok with the, for the — it was quite a gaggle of all different people busy there and I just walked off. And I was expecting somebody would come and ask me why. And I waited and I waited and I waited and nobody came. But I was never asked to do it again. CB: So, what did you do next? TS: Well we were having, still doing the normal OTU but it was this flying at night. Towing gliders at night. Off at night. And when I pointed it out they said, ‘Well really, they didn’t think they wanted to take off at night with the gliders. They only wanted to take off in the day time.’ And yet we were doing this at night. CB: So were there fatalities flying at night? Glider towing. TS: I don’t know. CB: Oh. TS: I don’t know. CB: Not in the time you saw. TS: No. CB: No. TS: But I was wondering why we were doing it if the people on the front line said they didn’t intend to do anything like that. CB: But for D-day of course, they did fly at night. TS: Yeah. Well but I was very irate and I just left it at that. CB: You were a warrant officer at this stage. TS: I think so. Yes. CB: So, the sergeant’s going to be careful. TS: I didn’t, didn’t fling it around at all. CB: No. TS: But you had to be friendly with the glider pilots. You had to be friendly with the pupils coming along. And you had to gently ease them if they were being a bit stupid because shouting at them would have been no good. CB: So were you flying with a student pilot on the Whitley at the same time as a student pilot on the glider? TS: Yes. At night. CB: So, you’ve got a double whammy potentially. TS: Yes. CB: Right. I’ve done glider towing myself and I know how long it takes to get up. Right. So, you continued with the daytime OTU which could be dangerous in itself. TS: Yes. Well I was, I was the, on the OTU and we were on. I did my share of night flying and all the rest of it and I didn’t mind. I did enquire about going back on ops and I was bluntly told that, well, ‘No. You’re here and you’re going to stay here because we want you here.’ And then later on I decided that, well, I did, when I was flying on ops I did refuse the offer of a commission because we were stated, I respected the, I told you at the beginning we were going to remain NCOs all the time. Well, that seemed as though it followed in my papers somewhere along the line that I had refused a commission when offered. But I managed to overcome that and — CB: So, when were you commissioned? TS: During the war. CB: Yeah. TS: [laughs] Seriously I can’t give you a right date. CB: No. TS: Without looking at it on the — CB: Yeah. So then did that change things? I mean, you were, you said that you were instructing pilots who were commissioned. TS: Yes. CB: And that’s what prompted you to — TS: Yeah. CB: Re-apply as it were. TS: Yeah. CB: Well to apply. So how did that change things once you were commissioned? TS: Well, in the main I found that I was commissioned and in quite a few instances I was told I hadn’t been to the right school. To my face. CB: By the commissioned pilots being instructed. TS: Yeah. CB: Right. TS: But I was, it didn’t worry me too much because I knew I could fly the pants off them all. CB: How did you put that one down then? TS: Pardon? CB: How did you put down that comment? TS: Well. CB: Or you just left it? TS: I just left it. The worst part of my career was after the war ended. CB: Ok. TS: Because there was a decided inflow of, of the type I felt I’d, you know, fallen out with. They didn’t accept me as being the right person to be a commissioned officer and they were just narked about it and so I thought I was hoping to make the RAF my thing so I decided no. I’d come out. And another things was I was wanting to get married and I was stupid enough not to ask her to marry me during the war when she really wanted to get married then. We were engaged. But we didn’t marry in the end. CB: When did you get married? After you came out though. TS: After we came out. Yes. I got myself a job. CB: So just going back. You were at the OTU. Was that — did you keep in the OTU until you were demobbed or did you go somewhere else after the OTU? TS: Well the OTU got more and more interested in the towing side of things and I was still an OTU but it was a different from when we started towing and all the rest of it. And it was a different thing as I say. And it had advanced considerably to what it was and I think it was very good and done properly by the book or if there wasn’t a book by what was recognised. It was a good thing. On one occasion the, there was a Halifax came and landed because I think it had engine failure. Supposed engine failure or something and so then they repaired it but it was in the way so they wanted to move it and they didn’t have the thing they could move it. They didn’t have a tractor that could move it so they said, ‘Oh well Tom used to fly on those. He’d be alright.’ So, I thought, right. I very nearly. No. I didn’t. I was very tempted. I was very tempted. I thought, no. You can’t really do it on your own, you see. So I — CB: What? You can’t fly the aeroplane on your own. TS: No. You could. CB: But it would be dangerous. TS: It would be dangerous because you couldn’t feed fuel or anything like that you see. You didn’t have the instruments you could check to see if they were all working. CB: Oh right. TS: So, to a certain degree you had the instruments but it’s — CB: So, what did you do? TS: So I had to collect [pause] the headquarters were sort of here. Around in the — CB: One side of the airfield. TS: Yes. Well, no. The hangars and that were there and then there were the station. The CO’s office and one or two bits and pieces there. CB: Another site. TS: And they wanted it moved. Wanted this aeroplane moved to over there. So, I was, I was asked if I would do it. I said, ‘Do you want me to pull it?’ And eyes all around. They said, No,’ they said, ‘We would like you to, if you could start two of the engines can you take it.’ I said,’ Yes. Well. You’ve done two engines haven’t you? Why don’t you take it?’ Sort of thing. And they were getting a bit fed up of me being awkward and I was only teasing them really but as we came along then I said right. We might as well have all four engines going so and that and then I turned it partly into the field but with my back right to the flight, not the flight commander’s office but the wing commander’s office. And he had made one or two cracks about people, you know, coming from the ground and being commissioned and all the rest of it so I put the plane right like that and his office was here. CB: Behind it. TS: Behind it. And I blasted those engines. I knew he was in the office. CB: So, he got a lot of noise. TS: Yes. CB: And a lot of wind. TS: Yes. And so somebody said, ‘You know you shouldn’t be doing that.’ Well, if he didn’t want me to do that somebody else should have done it shouldn’t they. It’s just one of those things where I perhaps go just beyond the point I should have stopped at. CB: So were you a flying officer or a flight lieutenant at this stage? TS: Oh, I was only a flying officer. But it’s, I don’t see why they couldn’t just jump in to a plane and taxi the damned thing. CB: They hadn’t got the right certification had they? TS: Well. Perhaps not. As I say there was no instructor to tell them what to do. CB: So where? What — are we talking about 1945 still? TS: Yes. CB: So, you didn’t come out until ’46. So what were you doing? TS: Well I was doing this but I was getting more and more frustrated with the attitude of the people there and it got to the stage when it was more important what was going on in the officer’s mess in the evening as to whether you could fly in the night or fly or anything and it was, if there were any targets to be met well they definitely weren’t being met. I wasn’t flying my pupils as much as I would have liked to have flown them and all this sort of thing going on so I thought I’d come out of it. Wasn’t, wasn’t done. CB: The people who were converting on to glider towing. They had all done a tour had they? That’s why they were commissioned. TS: The? CB: Well, you were instructing. TS: Yeah. CB: People who already had experience on tours. On heavies. Were they? TS: No. CB: Oh. TS: No. CB: What were they? TS: Well — CB: Or on twins or some kind. TS: Yes. Yes, they were. Some of them were coming straight through the thing. There were some experienced people and you could, before you’d taken off you realised that it was an experienced person. Even if you hadn’t been told. And it was more than awkward on more than one occasions where I didn’t really want to pass some people but they said they had to be passed if they’d got that far. So, I made a point of making a point of it so that they couldn’t say well you didn’t say. CB: They could record it. TS: And so anyway in the, after the war had ended and I thought of applying, I was applying for a permanent commission and there was just no chance at all. CB: No. TS: Came out. CB: So where were you demobbed and when was that? TS: Where was I demobbed? I don’t know exactly. CB: Because you had to go and pick you suit up. TS: Actually, I was driving a car. I’d got an old car and one of the chappies — I was in the same billet as him and he was the NCO in charge of the transport, the ground transport and so he made sure my car was ok. That was about the one thing I got, shall I say. Rather than just being there and having the general things. He said, ‘Of course I can’t do it on site,’ but he had to send off some of the vehicles outside the thing to somebody who was a local man doing repairs and my car went along with that but he didn’t know about it. CB: He never heard a thing. TS: That was the only thing I got like that. CB: So, you left in ‘46. What time of the year? TS: I can’t really remember that. It was pretty good weather. I can’t really remember. CB: And you got a job. How quickly did you got a civilian job after you left? TS: Before my leaving. CB: Terminal leave. TS: Terminal leave. Yes. Was up. CB: Where did you? How did you get the job? And what was it? TS: Well I came down south here because there was nothing up north really for me. From what I thought. And all I wanted was a job. I mean I was enough, far enough around the bend to go completely around there if I didn’t get a job. And it —I tried. My parents had moved from the Dales in to Darlington. My father had given up farming and was running the the animal auction market at Darlington which was quite a big job. And he wanted me to join with him to do that and I thought he’s still a young man. I wouldn’t be getting anywhere for years. I decided that I didn’t want to stay at home and do that. And I came to — one of my crew was in West London and so I came down and asked him about it and he said, he said, ‘Well all sorts of jobs going,’ he said. It’s what you’re even qualified for. They don’t want pilots here. They want bus drivers.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to drive a bus.’ I knew he was only joking anyway. But in the end I got a job at EMI and it so happened he was working at EMI but he had no control over the things. And he had said to me, ‘Don’t get a job at EMI whatever you do.’ I went around all sorts of places and I have sympathy for anybody who is in a similar situation now. If they want a job and they keep going around different places and then they can’t get it. There was one there he said, ‘There’s one or two jobs going here,’ he said, ‘But the thing is that it’s likely that I’ll be retiring soon,’ he said. ‘And you’d have to wait a bit but if I take you on you can have my job.’ And when I went in to it a bit more I decided, no, I didn’t want it. And then I took a job in EMI and I said, ‘Now look I don’t want to sit behind a table all day long shifting bits of paper. I want something on the move.’ So, I finished up half the time doing something on the table and the next was to keep a department of EMI Records going. Which meant there were several aspects towards the keeping the smooth running going and you had to be sure you got all the bits and pieces coming and going. It wasn’t tremendously, shall we say, a money-making job but it kept me going. I could go on. It’s about time you had a cup of tea isn’t it? CB: That’s sounds — JS: My knee’s getting set. CB: We’ll stop there for a mo. Thank you. 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 Tom Sayer 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 2015-12-07 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 02:30:30 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ASayerT151202 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Royal Air Force. Coastal Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain United States Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay England--Yorkshire Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942 1943 1944 1945 Description An account of the resource Tom Sayer was accepted in to the Royal Air Force as an apprentice and began training as a pilot as soon as he was old enough. He trained in the United States and, on his return, he was detached to Coastal Command. He completed eight operations patrolling for submarines before being posted to 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington, where he completed his tour. His aircraft was badly damaged on one operation but he continued to the target and managed to get the aircraft back. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Maureen Clarke 10 OTU 102 Squadron 81 OTU aircrew Blenheim bombing bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943) Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992) Distinguished Flying Medal Halifax Harvard Heavy Conversion Unit Horsa Operational Training Unit Oxford pilot RAF Pocklington RAF St Eval RAF Upwood Stearman submarine training Whitley https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/520/8753/ALucasWE170208.1.mp3 80ab136990a1e6cd2bf66c7acb839ff1 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 Lucas, Bill William Ernest Lucas W E Lucas Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Lucas, WE Description An account of the resource 15 items. Two oral history interviews with Squadron Leader Bill Lucas DFC (1917 - 2018, 1255396 Royal Air Force), his log book, brief memoir and photographs. He served as a pilot with 9, 15, 139 and 162 Squadrons. After the war he ran in the 1948 Olympics. The collection was catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle. Requires A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence. William (Bill) Ernest Lucas was born in Tooting Bec, London on the 16th January 1917, 3 years deep into World War One. Luckily for Bill he was not of age to endure with the fighting in the trenches. However, when Europe was engulfed into another worldwide conflict in 1939, this set way for Bill to become involved with the RAF and IBCC. Growing up, Bill was an only child and left his school (Bec Grammar School) at the age of 15. He managed to get a job with a printers, which led to his second and only other job at an insurance company called the London and Lancashire. The company’s sports club enabled Bill to find his passion for athletics (especially running) and he was expected to participate in the 1940 Olympics until the war interfered. (https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/30884) A photo of Bill in his running gear is shown in https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/30865 where he is running down 55 Graham Road in Surrey. Bill instead competed in the 1948 Olympic Games as the games were also cancelled in 1944 due to World War Two. Luckily the games were hosted in London (https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/london-1948) and Bill had retired from IBCC meaning that he had time to participate. As seen in ‘Bill Lucas and the 1948 London Olympics’ (1948) https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/30866 Bill managed to come 6th in the Second Heat meaning he was one position off of being in the final on the 2nd August 1948! This collection also includes Bill in his older prime wearing his 1948 Olympic Games jacket and the official Olympic Games programme from 1948. When Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st 1939, Bill was 22 years old meaning that he was eligible to be part of Great Britain’s Army. Combining Bill’s hatred of the sea and his fathers recent experiences in the trenches, the RAF seemed to be the most compatible choice with Bill. (https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/520/30884/B[Author]LucasWEv10001.jpg) Bill was not involved in Britain’s mightiest air conflict against Hitler’s Luftwaffe however, instead watching ‘The Few’ defeat the Nazi aircrafts and succeed. Being considered to be Nazi Germany’s first ‘major military defeat’, this allowed for Britain to continue fighting in the war (https://www.raf.mod.uk/our-organisation/our-history/anniversaries/battle-of-britain/ and to an extent, allowed Bill to continue his path of becoming an Squadron Leader. It was November 1940 when Bill started his pilot training, but due to a bomber offensive being the only way to properly counter the Nazis, this was huge not just for Bill but Britain as a whole. There had never been a bomber offensive before in warfare. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/520/30884/B[Author]LucasWEv10001.jpg As seen in Bill’s official Pilot’s Log Book: (https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/520/24264/LLucasWE122826v1.1.pdf) his training consisted of being part of 16 Elementary Flying School at RAF Derby from 1940 to 41 , 8 School of Flying Training at RAF Montrose in 1941 and 20 Operational Training Units at RAF Lossiemouth in 1941 . He flew three different types of aircraft during his training, Miles Magister, Miles Master and Wellington I’s. Bill’s training finally finished in August 1941 and he was posted to his first official squadron, IX Squadron at Honington. Here he flew the Wellington Bomber. Will Cragg Record of Service: 4 November 1940- 4 January 1941: 16 Elementary Flying Training School at RAF Derby flying Miles Magisters 9 January- 4 May 1941: 8 School of Flying Training at RAF Montrose flying Miles Masters 31 May 1941- 13 August 1941: 20 Operational Training Units at RAF Lossiemouth flying Wellington I’s 14 August 1941- 4 November 1941: 9 Squadron at RAF Honington flying Wellington III’s 4 November 1941- 30 December 1941: 26 Conversion Fleet at RAF Waterbeach flying Stirling’s 30 December 1941- 1 August 1942: 15 Squadron at RAF Wyton flying Whitley V’s 1 August 1942- 3 August 1942: 218 Conversion Fleet at RAF Marham flying Airspeed Oxfords 4 August 1942- 18 August 1942: 19 Operational Training Units at RAF Kinloss flying Whitley IV’s 19 August 1942- 13 August 1942: 3 Fighter Instructor Schools at RAF Hullavington flying Ansons 17 September 1942- 18 September 1942: 19 Operational Training Units at RAF Kinloss flying Halifax II’s 18 September 1942- 24 October 1944: 19 Operational Training Units at RAF Forres flying Mosquito III’s 30 October 1942- 19 December 1944: 1655 Mosquito Training Unit at RAF Warboys flying Mosquito IV’s 30 October 1944- 19 December 1944: 1655 Squadron at RAF Bourn flying Mosquito XX’s 7 June 1945- 28 June 1945: 162 Squadron at RAF Blackbushe flying Mosquito XXV’S 28 June 1945- 29 January 1946: 139 Squadron at RAF Upwood flying Lancaster III’s 29 January 1946: Station Head Quarters at RAF Upwood flying Mosquito XVI’s William Cragg William (Bill) Lucas was born on January 16th, 1917 in Tooting Bec, London. He was educated at Bec Grammar School, and left at the age of 15 to work at a printing company before moving to the insurers London and Lancashire to work as an assessor. While working there, he developed his talent for athletics with the Belgrave Harriers, with his best discipline being the 5000 metres. His goal was to compete at the 1940 Olympic games. However, in 1940, Bill was called up to help the war effort and mindful of his father’s advice to avoid the army and his own dislike of the sea, he chose to join the RAF. Initially he trained as a fighter pilot on Miles Magisters and Miles Masters, but by the time he had finished training, the Battle of Britain had been won and the need for bomber pilots was more urgent. So, he was reallocated to bombers and trained to fly the Wellington at RAF Lossiemouth. Bill Lucas · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk) Following completion of pilot training in August 1941, he was posted to RAF Honington and joined 9 Squadron flying Wellingtons. He flew 14 operational sorties – notably Cologne and Hamburg – before converting to Stirlings at RAF Waterbeach. He then joined 15 (Bomber) Squadron at RAF Wyton, flying the Short Stirling and, by August 1942, Bill had completed a full tour of 30 operational sorties (over 40 operations in total). Bill experienced tense encounters with German defences, having to take evasive action and also getting caught in a cone of five or six searchlights. To get out of the searchlight glare he had to do things with the aircraft which it was never meant to do. Returning from one mission they flew too close to Kiel and the airframe amassed a lot of bullet holes and an alarming loss of fuel. Crossing the North Sea, the tank indicators showed practically nothing and they had to divert into Woodbridge in Suffolk. The groundcrew estimated there was less than twenty-five gallons of fuel left (probably less than 6 minutes of flying time). He was released from operational duties and was posted to RAF Lossiemouth as a flying instructor. Then in December 1944, he returned to operational flying and was posted to 162 Squadron, part of the Pathfinder force, to fly the Mosquito, an aircraft he described as “a bit quicker and more responsive; a nice aeroplane”. He completed a further 34 operational sorites with 162 Squadron, including missions over Kiel, Berlin, Hannover and Magdeburg. In recognition of his war services, Bill was awarded the DFC and was Mentioned in Despatches. Squadron Leader Bill Lucas was released from the Service in January 1946 and returned to the insurance job he had left to join the RAF. Eventually, he left the company to become an insurance broker. He also returned to athletics and the Belgrave Harriers; he ran in various internationals and competed for Great Britain in the 5000m at the 1948 London Olympics. Athletics remained with him for the rest of his life and he gave his spare time freely, working in prominent roles in the administration of athletics. He remained a Belgrave Harrier committee member well into his 90s. He became known as “the golden voice of British Athletics” for his many years as stadium announcer at the White City . In his later years, Bill remained prominent in RAF and Aircrew Associations. He, along with a small Band of Sussex veterans, was instrumental in helping to raise funds for the construction of the Bomber Command Memorial in London’s Green Park and the International Bomber Command Centre. Chris Cann 1940: Volunteered for the RAF 4 November 1940 – 4 January 1941: RAF Burnaston, No. 16 EFTS, flying Magister aircraft 9 January 1941 – 4 May 1941: RAF Montrose, No. 8 SFTS, flying Master aircraft 31 May 1941 – 13 August 1941: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, flying Wellington aircraft 14 August 1941 – 4 November 1941: RAF Honington, No. 9 Squadron, flying Wellington aircraft 1941: Commissioned into the officer ranks 4 November 1941 – 30 December 1941: RAF Waterbeach, No. 26 Conversion Flight, flying Stirling aircraft 30 December 1941 – 1 August 1942: RAF Wyton, No. 15 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft 1 August 1942 – 3 August 1942: RAF Marham, 218 Conversion Flight 4 August 1942 – 18 August 1942: RAF Kinloss, No. 19 OTU, flying Whitley aircraft 19 August 1942 – 13 September 1942: RAF Hullavington, No. 3 FTS, flying Oxford aircraft 17 September 1942 – 18 September 1942: RAF Kinloss, No. 19 OTU, flying Whitley and Anson aircraft 18 September 1942 – 24 October 1944: RAF Foress, No. 19 OTU, flying Whitley and Anson aircraft 30 October 1944 – 19 December 1944: RAF Warboys, 1655 MTU, flying Mosquito and Oxford aircraft 19 December 1944 – 7 June 1945: RAF Bourn, 162 Squadron, flying Mosquito aircraft 7 June 1945 – 28 June 1945: RAF Blackbushe, 162 Squadron, flying Mosquito aircraft 28 June 1945 – 29 January 1946: RAF Upwood, 139 Squadron, flying Mosquito and Oxford aircraft 29 January 1946: Released from Service having attained the rank of Squadron Leader. Chris Cann 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 8th, Wednesday the 8th of February 2017, and I’m in Cowfold with Squadron Leader Bill Lucas DFC, and we’re gonna talk about his experiences of life, starting with what are your earliest recollections of life, Bill? WL: Well, I was born on the 16th of January 1917 to poor parents and my father was a bricklayer, er, in Upper Tooting, er, we lived in Upper Tooting all the time. I went to a school, a primary school, and then I went to the Beck Grammar School, as it was then, in 1928 I think it was. I was there until 1942 and, er, that’s it [slight laugh]. CB: So, what age did you actually leave school? WL: Oh, I was fifteen, was it? CB: Okay. WL: Fifteen. CB: School leaving age was fourteen in those days. WL: Yes. CB: What did you do immediately after you left school? WL: I, um, I worked for a firm down in Surrey somewhere and they were a printing firm, and I was there for about — oh, quite a few months, and then my mother, who had got me introduced to the insurance company, London Lancashire, um, Insurance Company, and I eventually joined them in — oh, don’t ask me the date but I, I did, yes. CB: Yeah, and during that time you were quite an active, athletic youngster? WL: Um, whilst I was in the insurance company yes. I was inured into athletics and became a good athlete with Belgrave Harriers, where I’ve just completed eighty-, eighty-one years. CB: Brilliant. So, you were working for this insurance company and then doing your running in the evenings were you, and the weekends? WL: Oh yes. Training at weekends. CB: Training at the weekends. WL: At weekends and the evenings. Yes. CB: Yeah and, er, when the war started you were still with the insurance company, were you? WL: Oh yes. CB: Now, what made you choose to join the RAF rather than the Navy or the Army? WL: Well, I was taken to a — or had to go to be seen by a doctor at some school in Croydon, and, er, he said to me, ‘which service do you want to go in?’ I said, ‘well, my father was in the Army and he said — he put me against that. I don’t like water so I’ve got to join the RAF’. So he said, ‘what do you want to do in the RAF?’ I said, ‘well, there’s only one thing to do in the RAF, that’s fly’ see. So he did a few probings around and said, ‘well, you’ll never fly’. I said, ‘oh, why not?’ He said, ‘well, you’ve got a large heart and you won’t pass the [unclear]’. So, you know, I persisted with, with this and said, ‘well, my large heart is because I’ve been an athlete and it doesn’t usually preclude anybody doing anything’. So — but, um, but eventually it worked out that I did. CB: So, where did you report first? WL: Oh, er, what first? CB: For the RAF. WL: Uxbridge I think it was. CB: And what did you do there? WL: Well, I was only just seen there, et cetera. Why did we go there? Now after that, we went down to Torquay. CB: You didn’t go to Lord’s Cricket Ground? WL: No, I don’t think so, no. CB: Okay. WL: I don’t remember that. CB: And what happened at Torquay? WL: We spent time doing ground work and that sort of thing. CB: This was an ITW was it, Initial Training Wing? WL: Yes, at Torquay and Babbacombe. CB: What were the main activities there? WL: Oh, it was going through ground work, weather, and all that sort of thing. CB: And at what stage did you know that you were going to be trained as a pilot? WL: What age was I then? Oh, you’ve got me on a bad day actually. CB: Okay. Never mind. We can come back to that. WL: What age was I? Could I have been? CG: Twenty-one, twenty-two? WL: Yes, something like that, yes. CB: So, you joined up in ’39, did you? CG: ’40. WL: No. CB: Not ’40? WL: No, not ’39, no. I was dragged in in ’40. CB: Okay. So, after Torquay, then where did you go? WL: Where did I go? CG: His log book will help. WL: Oh, that’s what the log book’s for [slight laugh]. I went to, um, 16 EFTS at Derby. CB: Right. WL: That was flying little aeroplanes and then on to AFTS, Advanced Flying School, at Montrose, where we transferred onto a fighter type aircraft. That didn’t last long, and so we finished up at 20 OTU Lossiemouth on Wellingtons. CB: So, what was your choice, really of — ideally would you have preferred to be in fighters or bombers? WL: Well, seeing how I survived bombers, definitely that. I don’t think I’d have survived as a fighter pilot, I would probably kill myself. CB: Too adventurous, were you? WL: [slight laugh] Something like that. CB: So, after you start, you did the OTU on Wellingtons. Where was that? WL: That was in May ‘41. CB: Yeah. WL: Three months. CB: Whereabouts? WL: Mm? CB: Whereabouts? WL: Lossiemouth. CB: Oh, that was Lossiemouth. Right. Which then took you to — WL: 9 Squadron at Honington. CB: What were the bombers there? WL: We were there three months. CB: What were you flying there? WL: What was I flying? Um — CG: The 1C. WL: Wellington 1Cs, yeah, and 3s. CB: But that was fairly short. WL: Then to a conversion flight at Waterbeach, learning to fly the Stirling and then I went to 15 Squadron at Wyton. CB: How did you like the Stirling? WL: Oh, yes, I quite liked it. Bad on the ground, good in the air. Spending time with 15 Squadron at Wyton. CB: Still on Stirlings, were you? WL: I was on Stirlings, yes, and then with a conversion flight at Marham, onto Mosquitos. CB: A bit different. WL: Yeah. A bit quicker, a bit more responsive, nice aeroplane. CB: And which role was the Mosquito operating in? WL: Mm? CB: Which role was the Mosquito operating in? WL: Which role? CB: Was it, was it as a bomber or was it as a anti-shipping or was it a night fighter or — WL: Night fighter and a bomber, yes. Right. What next? CB: Yes, I just wondered how you got on with the Mosquito and, er, what sort of raids? WL: Oh, I got on very well with the Mosquito. CB: What sort of ops did you do on them? WL: I did marking for the main force and general, general bombing raids, yeah. CB: This is before Pathfinders is it? Oh was it actually Pathfinders? WL: During the Pathfinder period, yeah. CB: Because Pathfinders gradually worked up, didn’t they? WL: Oh yes. It was well run. It had a good leader and we did a lot of good work. CB: On the Stirlings, were you on bombing raids with those or not? WL: Mm? CB: When you flew the Stirling — WL: Yes. CB: Were you — the raids? You went on ops with that did you? WL: Oh yes. CB: Bombing? WL: Bombing raids. CB: What sort of height? WL: Night, night bombing raids. CB: Yes. Was the Mosquito day and night or only night? WL: Oh, only night. Yes. CB: Okay. Other: Apart from the three thousand bomber raid. CB: In the thousand bomber raid. CG: All three of them. CB: Yes. CG: In the Stirling. CB: So what about — in the Stirling, did you go on the thousand bomber raid? WL: Yes. 30th of May 1942. CB: Mm. That was quite a busy — WL: Cologne. CB: Route. WL: The thousand, yes. [slight laugh] CB: To what extent could you see other aircraft when you were flying there? WL: Oh, always. CB: And then there were other large raids? WL: Oh, yes. There were always more. CB: What did you do after Mosquitos at Marham? WL: What happened? CB: Or, or was that a long tour? WL: Well, it was only a two-day conversion course at Marham. CB: Yes. WL: I went to 19 OTU at Kinloss. CB: Right. WL: Oh my brain. It’s just not working. CB: Do you want to have a break? WL: I don’t think it will be any faster really. CG: Have a break. CB: We’ll just have a — stop there for a mo — WL: I am a hundred years — [background noise] serving on two other four engine aircraft, squadrons, four of us, four squadrons up there doing that, and we were put in a newly built, um, building which was very damp et cetera and that’s where we slept. That was, that was — CB: This was on operations? WL: Well yes, yes. CB: What were you flying then? WL: I was flying — what was I flying? I was flying the Stirling, was I? CB: You were flying the Stirling, yeah. And when the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau went through the Channel, what were you flying in order to — WL: I wasn’t flying. I was just, um, I’d just joined 15 Squadron and on the same day that happened and the CO got everybody on board that could to look out — CB: Look out for the ships? WL: Yeah. As Cherry said, we —, I — we said that if we’d been — we did it from low down. If we’d emerged anywhere near them, we’d have been shot out, out of the sky. CB: And what was the main attack? What aircraft were in the main attack? WL: Er — CB: So you were looking out but who was doing the bombing, supposedly? WL: I was only just looking out, yes. The squadron were doing the bombing, if any. CB: But this was with Stirlings? WL: Mm? CB: This was with Stirlings, was it? WL: Yes. CB: Right and the Navy were doing their bit as well. WL: Oh yes, with what they call — CB: Stringbags. WL: Mm? CB: Yeah. Stringbags, Swordfishes. WL: Yes. Stringbags. CB: Yes. WL: Oh, you’re stretching my mind. CB: Okay. We’ll stop again. So when you went to Kinloss, you were an instructor on the OTU? WL: Oh yes, yes. CB: So, how did that work? You — WL: Well, you took crews out on night flights and all that sort of thing and cross country flights and, you know, trained them as, as bomber crews. CB: Yes and, er, how, how dangerous was that? WL: [slight laugh] Well, you were the passenger without any, any means of flying the aircraft. CB: Where — so it had a full crew and the pilot, trainee pilot, was the captain — WL: Well you trained the crew, you see? CB: And so where would you be? Did it have dual controls? WL: No, no, no. CB: So you stood next to him did you? WL: I sat next to him, yes. CB: Oh, you sat next to him. WL: Yes. CB: Right. WL: Well, on the step below the pilot’s seat. The pilot up, just up there and you sat down there. CB: Could you see out, er, fairly well, or was it pretty difficult? WL: Oh yes, yes. You’re stretching my mind. CB: Yes. So did you have any hairy moments with the students? WL: Not that I really recall, no. CB: And those Wellingtons, were they new and up to date or — WL: Oh, far from it. CB: Were they old and knackered? WL: Far from it. Old 1Cs. CB: And could you fly on one engine with the, er, Wellington? WL: Yeah, it flew on one engine. Yes. Most aircrew, most aircraft could fly on lesser engines. They were designed that way. CB: How did you feel about being an instructor away from the front line? WL: [slight laugh] I don’t know how I felt. I suppose, I suppose I was a good instructor and that was all they needed of you. [sigh] CB: I’ll stop again. CG: You had got a couple of ops more than the rest of your crew, hadn’t you? WL: Oh yes, yes. CG: And then his — the rest of his crew were taken on the next operation by another pilot and lost. CB: This is on Stirlings? CG: On Stirlings on 15 Squadron. WL: All but one. CG: But Bill didn’t know until about three years ago. He thought the whole crew had been lost and then through, um, Facebook and doing our Bomber Command things, somebody in the United States, somebody somewhere got to hear about it, and it transpired that — WL: Well, I had a picture, I had a picture in one of the Sunday papers, Sunday Telegraph — CB: Yes. WL: And they picked it out and, and the boy, the boy said, ‘Oh, that was my father’, and, er, it followed from there. CG: His — and his flight engineer had survived. He had been ill on this trip apparently and he’d survived and he — WL: He did another trip. He was a sergeant as an engineer, he survived to do another tour and became a warrant officer and got a DFC. CG: And Bill found out about three years ago and he was like a dog with two tails [laugh]. He was so thrilled and, and you had lunch with the grandson, didn’t you? WL: Yes, we did. CG: Bill, they’ll probably, they’ll want to record that so you’ll need to repeat it, but I just thought I’d jog it because, because this thing about losing your own, your crew. I mean, you was quite upset that another pilot had lost his life for him. WL: Oh yes. CG: That — WL: I’d flown a number of trips with them so naturally to lose them was, was a great harrowing. CB: What was it that caused you not to be on that particular op and another pilot had to do it? WL: Because I’d done my stint. I’d, I’d come off, come off and left them to it. CG: It was the stage when they did second dicky trips so he would do his — or he would do his dicky trips and those counted as ops, so the pilot was often two or three ops ahead of the rest of his crew, you see? CB: Mm. Yes. CG: Anyway, they will need to record that probably Bill, so — WL: Mm? CG: They’ll need to record it so you’ll have to say it all again [laugh]. WL: What exactly have I got to say? CB: Okay. So the question — the point here I think is the trauma of — WL: Of the loss of the crew? CB: Losing a crew. WL: Yes. CB: And so if we could start, please, with why it happened. Is it, was it because you’d finished your tour of thirty ops? WL: Yes. CB: And then — WL: Well bit more than thirty but — CB: Okay. How many had you done by then, roughly? It doesn’t matter. You’d done your tour but the crew went on. WL: That’s right. CB: So what happened there? WL: At the end of my period of — CB: This is on Stirlings. WL: Operational work on Stirlings, I finished my tour and, er, left the crew. The crew still had a few trips to do. Another captain took them over and, er, lost them, all but except the — CB: The flight engineer. WL: The — what is he? CG: The flight engineer. WL: Flight engineer, um, and lost them and, er, I was very sorry about that because, you know, we got very close together with a lot of trips behind us. CB: Mm. WL: Mm. CB: How did the crew gel in general? So you did the full tour but how well did the crew gel during operations and — WL: Oh very well, we went everywhere together. CB: Yeah. WL: Yeah. CB: And what about on the social side? WL: Yeah, and on social side. We all went drinking together. CB: Yeah, and were — did you have a mixture of officers and NCOs or were, were all the crew at that point NCOs? WL: No, no. I had a mixed lot, you know. CB: What — when were you commissioned? Immediately you joined? WL: When was I commissioned? I don’t know. CG: May ’42. CB: Some people were — CG: May ’42. WL: May ’42. CB: Okay. Whilst you were on the squadron. That squadron? WL: Must have been. CB: Okay. Right, we’ll stop there. WL: [background noise] Earlier in the war, um, he was there. CB: Mahaddie? WL: I didn’t know him well then but we got to know him very well later. And he remembered me, so he then put me forward to go onto Mosquitos. CB: Mm. Right. WL: That’s as how I see it anyway. CB: And what was, what were, what were the main strengths that Mahaddie had? What was he particularly good at? WL: He’d done God knows how many, um, bombing trips, early on. One hundred and twenty-odd of them. CB: Mm and his role in Pathfinders was what? WL: Mm? CB: What was his role in the Pathfinders? WL: Oh, I don’t know. I suppose he must have been second in command to the boss man, whose name I can’t think at the moment. CB: But was his role to select suitable candidates for being Pathfinders? WL: Oh, I think, I think he was, yes. That you’ll never know whether they were good, bad or indifferent. CB: Right. So, in your OTU how did you grade some of these pilots because there must have been various different abilities? How did you find that? WL: Well, they had to reach a standard before they could move on to go on to squadrons. CB: Mm. WL: That’s what we were teaching them to do. CB: Yes and then you were required to grade between exceptional, good, average and below average. WL: Was I? [slight laugh] CB: [slight laugh] And I just wondered how you — WL: I don’t think I did, I was. I think my, my CO did that. I certainly didn’t do it. CB: No. I’m just intrigued to know whether you were consulted in that process in order for that assessment — WL: Oh, no doubt I was but it was a long time back. CB: Yeah, and some of the people didn’t complete the course, did they, or would you imagine? WL: Oh, must have been plenty that didn’t. I can’t remember any of that. CB: That’s okay. That’s okay. So after OTU where did you go then? WL: Went to 3 FIS Hullavington. What did we do there? Oh, Hullavington was a training thing for, for, um, teaching and I had a course there on being able to fly and talk at the same time. [slight laugh] So — CB: So was that before you went to OTU? Because you were learning to be an instructor? WL: That’s right. That was learning to fly and talk. CB: Yes. WL: And then I went to 19 OTU Kinloss. CB: Yeah. So after Kinloss? WL: Oh, I had two years at 19 OTU Forres, part of Kinloss. CB: Part of Kinloss, yeah, yeah. What was the accommodation like up there? WL: It was quite good. We were in nice, nice huts. Yes, up the road from the mess really. We had to walk or we all had a bike and —. CB: How were the instructors housed? Did you have two in a room or three or how did it work? WL: Er, certainly more than one, two I think, yes. CB: Wooden huts or Nissen huts? WL: Oh, wooden huts. CB: Suitable for officers. WL: Now you put Nissen in? [slight laugh], it could, yeah, it could have been Nissen huts. CB: I was thinking of the comfort. WL: They were alright, yes, yes. We all had a stove in the middle of the floor et cetera, to keep you warm. CB: Yeah, and what about the food? What was, what was the quality of the food like when you were at an OTU? WL: It was acceptable, I suppose you could say. CB: But on the operational stations it was different? WL: Oh yes, they treated us well there. Had the expenses of giving you eggs and bacon before you went off and when you came back [slight laugh]. CB: Has that affected your long term interest in bacon and egg? [slight laugh] WL: Hardly, I love bacon and egg. CB: I do. Got to have fried bread though. WL: Mm? CB: You must have fried bread with it. WL: Oh yes CB: So after Kinloss, at the OTU for two years, and Forres where did you go? WL: I went to an, the MTU at Warboys where I learnt to fly Mosquitos. CB: Right [pause] and that was a fairly short course I imagine. WL: Oh yes, a couple of days, that was all. CB: Followed by? WL: To be posted to 162 Squadron at Bourn, in Cambridgeshire. CB: At where? WL: Bourn. CB: Oh, Bourn, yes. WL: Bourn without an ‘e’. CB: Yeah. Not to be confused with Lincolnshire. And what was your — WL: And I was there for, er, six months. CB: Right, and what was your role there? WL: Oh, I was a bombing and marking pilot. CB: Right. CG: Pathfinder. CB: So could you just talk us through a Pathfinder sortie? So the main force would be following, would be flying along and needing markers. Did you start — did you set off after the main force had already left because of your speed or did you integrate with it at the front? Or how did it work? WL: Oh, we didn’t see the main force. We had to arrive at a time when we flew H2S on the Mosquito which — CG: Did you have Oboe? WL: Had Oboe, yes. CB: You wouldn’t have had H2S on a Mosquito, would you? CG: No, it was Oboe. WL: H2S Mosquito. Yes. Yes. CB: Oboe. WL: Where you flew — where you flew — I forget what you did. You flew — CB: Confluence of the lines. WL: You flew a beam — CB: Yes. WL: Et cetera, and then photographs and et cetera, and you, you dropped the marker on that spot, yes. CB: Did you have more than one colour marker so that you could go round again, or did you tend to just be in and out? WL: Oh, in and out. Yes. I don’t think — I don’t remember any bombing raids where you went round a second time. CB: Right. And I was think — yes. Okay. And was the — your sortie on its own or were there several Mosquitos together doing the marking on a single target? WL: I can’t — I honestly wouldn’t know. It depended on what, what the bosses said. CB: Mm. I was thinking — WL: Funny question that. CB: I was just thinking of the amount of flares that you’d be using, coloured markers I mean, um, whether your load would be enough? WL: That’s all we had to do was fly the beam and then drop as instructed, so how many flares went Lord knows. CB: Mm. WL: Not within my remit. CB: Okay. So you did that for six months. WL: Yeah, something like that. CB: How many ops were those roughly? Was it as many as when you were doing the — CG: Forty. WL: I haven’t a clue. CG: It was forty Bill. CB: Forty WL: Forty-odd, yeah. CB: Okay. So at the end of that six months, then what did you do after that? Did they think you needed a rest? CG: It was the end of the war. CB: Or did the war come to an end in Europe? WL: Oh yes. It was finished and the, er, aircraft, we were flying did some trips round Europe dropping mail, um, where we landed at Blackbushe, and then I finished up at — you know, the squadron joined 139 Squadron at Upwood before being dismantled in January ’46. CB: So this was all Mosquito flying was it? WL: Yes. CB: Yeah. So compared with the Stirling, which was clearly a different aeroplane, which one did you really prefer? WL: When it comes to aircraft I love them all. They brought me home. CB: Mm, people have different affections — WL: Well — CB: For different planes for different reasons. WL: Well, you could hardly compare a Mosquito with a Stirling. So different aircrafts. CB: Yes but my experience is that people have a huge allegiance to their aeroplanes. WL: Oh we all loved them. [slight laugh] CB: Yeah. Yes. Okay, we’ll stop for a mo. Other: [unclear] Windows stuff. CB: No, that’s different. WL: Window was you’d have this strip stuff which — CB: You didn’t drop Window — WL: Big aircraft pumped down the chute. CB: For jamming the radar, yes. You were with Pathfinders, but were you Pathfinding on every sortie, every op, or did you do other sorts of operations? WL: Oh, I did plenty of others. CB: And what would they be? WL: Just dropping a — the cookie, yes. CB: Yes, so could you describe the cookie? WL: I can’t. CB: It’s a four thousand pound barrel. WL: Four — five thousand pound bomb. CB: Yes. What’s in it? WL: Something that explodes. CB: [laugh] What about locations? What was the worst place to bomb? WL: I suppose they all were because they were all, they were all protected, yes. CB: Mm, and how many trips did you do to Berlin? WL: Fourteen. CB: What was your reaction to flying there compared with somewhere like Essen? WL: It’s a target. CB: The flak? WL: Oh, well — CB: The same everywhere, was it? WL: Yes, it’s all — CB: Or were they more organised? WL: If you look at the picture there behind, that is what you see. CB: Yeah. WL: That is flak. CB: Yeah. Were you pleased to move away from Wellingtons to bigger, more modern aircraft? WL: Well, whether I was pleased or not, I was drawn off of Wellingtons and put on Stirlings, so that’s what the Bomber Command wanted, so that’s what they got. CB: What were the limitations of the Stirling in your perception? WL: Well, its speed wasn’t huge and it only had an operational height of about sort of twenty thousand. CB: With the Mosquito, you could go — WL: Oh well, you could go thirty-five thousand. CB: So at what level would you normally fly on a typical Mosquito op? WL: Oh, twenty thousand or something. CB: And when you did the marking as a Pathfinder was there — how soon, how far ahead of the main stream were you to do the marking? WL: Well, whatever the Bomber Command wanted. CB: I was just thinking of — WL: I didn’t have any say in it. CB: No, no, but I wondered whether you could see them arriving almost immediately or there tended to be a, a lag. WL: Well, it was flying home you could see the bombs dropping and well, you could see the explosions. CB: Yeah and as the smoke got thicker, did another marker come along to re-set the target? WL: I haven’t a clue. CB: So you didn’t have to do that? WL: No, no. CB: No. I’m stopping for a mo. [Background noise]. So on a raid, as I understand it, there would be a master bomber. Would he be sometimes in a Mosquito, or always in a Lancaster or a Halifax? WL: I couldn’t tell you. CB: ‘Cause he was calling up what — WL: Well, well you’d hear him but you wouldn’t see him. CB: Yes. Right. What was your endurance on the Mosquito? Could you hold over the target if it was a long way away? WL: Mm? CB: Could you actually circle a target in a Mosquito if it was a long trip, or was the endurance not sufficient? ‘Cause the Lancaster master bomber would be circling, wouldn’t he? WL: Well, you could. You are asking some impossible questions. CB: That’s okay. I don’t mind if you can’t answer. I’m just curious because of some of the other bits that have come out. Yes. Thank you. Because we want to know what people’s perceptions were. WL: It was a very long time ago. CB: Yeah. I’m stopping again. WL: [background noise] Scotland. CB: Right. WL: The Whitley was the aircraft at, er, Kinloss. CB: Was it? WL: Yes. CB: Yes. So what was the Whitley like in terms of — WL: Oh, a little worse than the Wellington. A slow aircraft. CB: Yeah. They’d been all withdrawn from service some time before. WL: Mm? CB: They’d been withdrawn from frontline service. WL: Oh yes. They were replaced by, by the Wellington I think, yes. CB: Yes. What was the handling like because it was an old design? WL: Very heavy. CB: And, um, what about reliability? WL: Of the Whitley? CB: Of the Whitley, yeah. WL: I haven’t a clue. CB: It might have been its saving grace. WL: The ground crews would look after them. They always seemed to be flying to me. CB: Yeah. And on the topic of ground crew, what was your relationship on the — first of all on the Stirling squadrons, squadron, with the ground crew? How did that work? WL: You had a ground crew, yes. CB: Yes. How close did you — how closely did you liaise with them? WL: Well you got quite friendly with the sergeant, yeah. CB: Yeah, and you talked about the crew being very cohesive and social events as well as in the air. Did the sergeant, your chief, did he get involved in that or did the aircrew tend to — WL: Not usually, no. CB: No. Was he not invited or just not thought to be — WL: Wasn’t protocol. CB: Right. You also flew the Anson for a bit. Why was that? WL: The Anson was only a transport aircraft, used when you wanted to transmit somebody or carry something, or, or go somewhere. CB: Yeah. Now throughout the war people were supposed to be fit. You were a very fit person before you joined. How did you maintain your fitness during the war? WL: Well, I tried to do a bit of running but I never really found time to do it. CB: And your running was, um, well recognised before the war. What did the war do to it. WL: [laugh] what did the war do to me? It deprived me of going to, er, two events 1940 and ‘44. CG: The Olympics. WL: The Olympics. CB: Yeah, so what did you do instead? WL: Mm? CB: What did you do instead? WL: I don’t know. CB: Retribution. CG: You bombed Hitler [laugh]. WL: I bombed Hitler instead, yeah. [slight laugh] CB: So you missed those two Olympics, then what happened in ‘48? WL: Well, I was in them. CB: Were you in the Air Force at the time? WL: No. CB: Right. And what was it like at the Olympics in 1948? WL: I don’t remember now. CB: You — I mean it was a huge achievement to go there. WL: Yes. CB: But the winner that time was — in 1948? WL: The what? CB: Who was the winner? WL: The winner? CB: In your particular speciality in 1948? WL: Oh — CB: Emil Zatopek WL: Zatopek. Yes. CB: Did you meet him again afterwards? Or was that the end? WL: Well, it was no good meeting him. He couldn’t speak English and I couldn’t speak Czech so — CB: Right. [slight laugh] CG: Bill did actually run against Zapotek in his heat. CB: Did he? WL: Yes. CB: Yes. And after those Olympics did you — you still kept up your running did you? WL: Good Lord, yes. I did eighty-two years with Belgrave Harriers. CB: Yeah. Right. And you were running the Harriers, weren’t you? WL: Well, I wasn’t running all the time, but I was doing administrations. CB: Yeah. Did you feel after the ’48 Olympics that you would have a go at the next one, or did you think that was one step too far? WL: After? CB: 1952 in other words. WL: Have a go doing what? CB: At the Olympics, enter the Olympics again in ’52. WL: Oh, not to perform, no. CB: No. WL: I couldn’t possibly, could I? Think of the age I was. CB: Well, some people go on and on, as you have. WL: Well, it depends on your event. CB: Yes. WL: But you can’t do fifteen hundreds or five thousands unless you’re pretty fit. If you want to run a marathon, then you might do it. CB: Yeah. And how did you fit in your running and all your activities with Belgrave Harriers with your job? WL: Oh, it was all evenings and weekend work. CB: Yes. And the company itself was sponsoring you, was it? WL: I didn’t need sponsoring. CB: Your employer? I was thinking for time off and — WL: Oh no. I didn’t take any time off because of it. CB: Everything was done in those days differently. WL: They did indeed, yes. CB: Yeah. How did you develop programmes with Belgrave Harriers for people in future? As time was moving on, did you run? Did you work out training programmes to improve people’s effectiveness? WL: Oh no, no. They’d all do their own [pause], oh, um, Belgrave met up at Wimbledon on Saturdays and during the week if necessary. Otherwise you did your, did your work on your own from home, running round roads et cetera. CB: Right. Changing back to, um, your occupation, you left the RAF at the end of the war or were they — did they keep you on for a while? WL: You had your option of going on a short service commission, without any assurance that you would be kept at the end of that period so I didn’t. CB: So your promotion had got you to where? WL: My? CB: Your promotions got you to what rank in the end? WL: In the war? CB: Yes. WL: Squadron leader. CB: Right, and what were your responsibilities as a squadron leader at that time? CB: I looked after a flight, um, in the Pathfinder Force. CB: Right. Okay. How many people — WL: I was OC a Flight. CB: Right. How many aircraft in the squadron? So how many in a flight? WL: Twelve probably. There you are. So, twelve I think. CB: In the squadron or the flight? WL: The flight. CB: Yeah. Right so three flights in the squadron or two. WL: Two usually. CB: Yeah. Right. So you left because you didn’t feel you wanted to continue your career, is that what you said? WL: No guarantee to it. CB: Yeah. WL: I had a job to go to so I came back to the job. CB: Mm, and took up where you left off, effectively? WL: Yes, yes, exactly. CB: How did it progress from there? Did you keep going with that or — WL: Oh yeah, I did quite well in it. CB: Yeah. Good. We’ll take a break. Thank you very much. CG: What was the equipment you were given? A blazer? WL: Blazer and, um, shorts. CB: Who gave you those? WL: And, er — CG: A cap. WL: A cap. CB: What? The Olympic Committee did that, did they? WL: Yes. CG: Just minimal and he got the — didn’t you get the train from home to go and take part? WL: Oh yes, yes. CG: There was no Olympic village or anything. CB: So how did this work then? WL: I lived in Sanderstead, which is outside Croydon. I had to take a bus down to Croydon, a train to Victoria, Victoria to, to — CG: White City, was it? WL: No. CB: Wembley? CG: Wembley. WL: Wembley. Walk in from there. CB: This is all for the honour of serving your country in the Olympics. WL: All for the honour of serving my country and what am I getting for it? Sweet — CG: Carol enclosed those in an envelope [unclear]. [Background noise] CB: Now just going back a bit. The first thousand bomber raid was an amazing achievement, however you look at it, but was there any significance about some of the aircraft? What about the one you flew? What was that? WL: Stirling. CB: Yeah. And did it have a significance in itself on — who had paid for it? WL: Er, I don’t think so. We had a little bit better navigation equipment. CG: MacRobert’s Reply. You flew MacRobert’s Reply. WL: It might have been, yes. CG: I think you said it was. It’s in your book. WL: Yes. CB: So, do you just want to describe that? What was it, the significance of MacRobert’s Reply? WL: Well, Lady MacRoberts had two sons she lost during the war and in return for that, she bought replacement, um, aircraft. CB: Right. WL: That was the sig— significance. CB: And they were Stirlings? WL: Oh yes, yes. CB: Appropriate. Scottish family, Scottish name of the aircraft. WL: Yes. Bound to have been. CB: And you flew one of them? WL: I few one of them, yes. CB: And it was on that raid was it? WL: I think it was, yes. CB: Yes. When you were on a squadron, did you tend to fly the same aircraft all the time or did you move around to different ones? WL: Oh, you had your own aircraft and you flew it whenever you could, according to availability, you know, whether it was serviceable or not. CB: Mm, and that would be checked out with you, er, you had to sign for the plane before you took off, did you? WL: Well, that was part of the ground, um, operation, yes. CB: Yes, with, and who was the person who handed over the aircraft? WL: Sergeant. CB: Of the ground crew? CB: Yes. CB: Right and if, if yours wasn’t serviceable they would rustle up another, is that it? WL: They would try to but if they couldn’t then they couldn’t. CB: And you didn’t go. WL: Didn’t go. CG: Are you sure you haven’t done enough though? CB: Yes. CB: This interview was cut short because Bill was clearly was getting too tired. He’s done an amazing job when one considers his recent car accident and also his hundredth birthday celebrations as well as all the media attention associated with that. The interview was in company with Cherry Greveson. 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 Bill Lucas. Two 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 2017-02-08 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ALucasWE170208 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. 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 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:49:45 audio recording Description An account of the resource Bill Lucas DFC was born on the 16 January 1917 and lived in Upper Tooting. He left school at the age of 15 and went to work in an Insurance Company, before joining the Royal Air Force in 1939. Bill was sent to 16 EFTS at Derby and then to an Advanced Flying School at RAF Montrose, before finally ending up at 20 OTU Lossiemouth in 194, flying Wellington Bombers. He also spent time learning to fly the Short Stirling before being posted to 15 Squadron at RAF Wyton, where he transferred to Mosquitos, becoming a Pathfinder for Bomber Command. Bill completed over 40 operations with Bomber Command flying various aircraft and, after the war, competed in the 1948 Olympics where he competed against Emil Zatopek. Bill spent time after the war with the Belgrave Harriers and took part in, and organised activities for over 80 years. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Vivienne Tincombe Carolyn Emery Maureen Clarke Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1940 1941 1942 1945 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain Germany--Ruhr (Region) England--Cambridgeshire Scotland--Moray Germany--Cologne 139 Squadron 15 Squadron 162 Squadron 19 OTU 20 OTU 9 Squadron bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942) Distinguished Flying Cross Flying Training School Initial Training Wing Mosquito Oboe Operational Training Unit Pathfinders RAF Bourn RAF Forres RAF Kinloss RAF Torquay RAF Upwood RAF Wyton sport Stirling training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/555/8822/PPennyJ1501.2.jpg fff42be023f2039d6a047d63b00ab006 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/555/8822/APennyJ150816.2.mp3 6ebaa9907dda395c064c30ee9492e7f8 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 Penny, Jim James Alfred Penny J A Penny Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Penny, J Description An account of the resource Three items. Two oral history interviews with Flight Lieutenant Jim Penny (b. 1922, 1345892 Royal Air Force) and his log book. He joined the RAF in 1940 and flew operations as a pilot with 97 Squadron from RAF Bourn. Targets included Nuremberg, München Gladbach, Berlin, Montlucon Dunlop rubber factory in France, and the Modane Tower Tunnel. His aircraft was shot down over Berlin 24 November 1943 and he became a prisoner of war. He was liberated on 3 May 1945 and retired from the RAF on 19 July 1971. The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-08-16 Requires A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence. Jim joined the RAF in July 1940 on his 18th birthday. His ‘Flight’ was sent to the US to train under the ‘Arnold scheme’. He went to a variety of bases to learn to fly (detained in 1st interview), flying the PT17 Stearman biplane, BT-13A, AT-6A Harvard, Vultee-13, and then the Armstrong Siddeley, before returning on the Queen Elizabeth as a newly commissioned pilot with the rank of Sergeant. On returning to the UK, he was posted to RAF Shawbury (Shropshire) Advance Flying Unit. Jim’s next posting was to RAF Tilstock Heath where he ‘crewed up’. Complete with crew he arrived at RAF Sleap (an auxiliary station for RAF Tilstock Heath). On being asking if they would be willing to join the Pathfinder Force all agreed to accept the offer – PFF was elite after all. After HCU training at RAF Blyton je stated, ‘The Lancaster was the finest plane I’ve ever flown’. On 26th July 1943 Jim was promoted to Flight Sergeant. He remembered the RAF casualties and how their work affected their mental state, particularly the Squadron Casualties. However, the awareness that they were regularly striking at the heart to Nazi Germany left the with an enduring pride in being a ‘Armada’. Jim and his crew transferred to RAF Upwood – Pathfinder Navigation Training Unit then to RAF Bourne 97. Jim flew to bomb Nuremberg, München Gladbach, Berlin itself many times, Montlucon Dunlop rubber factory in France, and the Modane Tower Tunnel in France. He was involved in 2 flights that were ‘Boomerang flights’. One of the October operations was to be part of the decoy flight that was to draw fighters away from Kessel onto themselves, and bomb Frankfurt. In November 1943 they were judged to be a competent part of the PFF and were tasked to be a back-up marker crew – the ones with the GREEN flares. They flew to Dusseldorf, Manheim and Berlin. On 24 November 1943 they were hit by flak, managed to survive, became a POW until he was liberated on 3rd May 1945. On 6th October 1945 he reported to No 34 Maintenance Unit at RAF Montford Bridge. A year later he had refresher course at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, as a Warrant Officer. In 1948 Jim joined the City of Lincoln, Lincoln Squadron Bomber Command at RAF Waddington. He left Waddington to join the RAF Central Flying School as a flying instructor which he found very rewarding when he sent a pupil solo. Jim tried for a permanent commission while posted to RAF Ternhill but failed because he was tone deaf. Jim was offered a branch commission at the age of 37. He left RAF as Flight Lieutenant on 19th July 71. He had no regrets about serving in the RAF and was a part of the Shrewsbury RAFA and the Shropshire Aircrew. Claire CampbellClaire Campbell Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document JP: Right, I’m James Alfred Penny. I’m ninety-three. I was born in Glasgow and during the war I ended up as a Bomber Commander Pathfinder Pilot with 97 Squadron at RAF Borne in Cambridgeshire, where we flew Lancasters. I was seventeen and a half when the war was declared. I still remember Neville Chamberlin broadcast. I thought then that he had done his best to prevent another war was almost in tears with those that were in war with Germany. I joined the RAF in July forty when I was eighteen. I’d wanted to be a pilot since I was about ten probably from reading all the exciting stories of the First World War pilots. There was a long waiting list before finally getting an aircrew medical. I finally became RAF VR at the voluntary reserve on 20th March 1941. I finally called for service on 4th July forty-one, sixteen days before my nineteenth birthday. On the train to London I met John Thomas and Alec McGarvey both policemen. Police had been reserved from East twenty-five and recently those between fifty-five and thirty were given permission to volunteer for aircrew. In my flight of sixty ITW, Initial Training Wing, forty were ex police. I remained convinced that every policeman in the United Kingdom between twenty-five and thirty promptly volunteered. Our flight was sent to America. General [unclear] Arnold commanded the South East Army Air Core. What became known as the Arnold Scheme trained RAF airman to be pilots. It began in June 1941 while America was still neutral and we entered the United States in civilian clothes. Our six hundred airmen became 42E, the fifth entry to be trained as pilots. When the Japs attacked Pearl Harbour on 7th December forty-one we went into RAF uniform. As the US declared war in Germany in Japan we were now allies. The Arnold Scheme ended in March 1943 presumably as the US required their training facilities and the build up of their own airforce. As well as the Arnold Scheme RAF were trained in Texas and produced navel airman by the US Navy. One hundred of us went to Souther Field, Americus, Georgia for primary training by the civilian, Graham Civilian Aviation Company on the PT17, the Stearman biplane. My civilian instructor, G M Marston was a quiet, patient man who inspired confidence. Being sent solo was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. From basic training we went to the US AirCore Cochran Field, Macon in Georgia manned by AirCore ground crew and officer flying instructors. We flew the BT-13A, an all metal monoplane with fixed undercarriage and a standard instrument panel suitable for night flying. The propeller had a fine and coarse pitch. Compared to the Stearman it was very heavy on the controls. I was slowly adjusted to these heavy controls. My aircrew lieutenant with a none stop [unclear] style had no patience had put me up for check ride by a senior instructor. This went off well and I was given a new instructor a Lieutenant Stanell, another quiet patient man with whom I progressed well and passed onto advanced. Advanced training at Napier Field, Dothan, Alabama was an AT-6A named by a Harvard by the RAF. Light on the controls I was again slow to adjust. On approachment to landing I let the speed drop dangerously low, near to a stall, which from approach height would have been fatal. I had two check rides and was washed out and sent back to Canada. In Canada the personal dispatch centre at Trenton Ontario was unhappy place. Airman who had failed their courses were processed for some other form of service. Interviewed by a Flight Lieutenant he asked why I had been washed out. I said it was my own fault. I’d been too slow to adjust the voltage much heavier controls and the Harvard had the same trouble in reverse, for it was light on the controls and I was heavy handed now. I said I thought it would’ve been better if I had gone from the Stearmans straight to Harvards. The Lieutenant smiled and said we had been worried about the number of washouts at advanced and sent a team of experienced pilots to investigate. They’ve just come back and had recommended exactly what you have suggested. I’m going to recommend you go back and fly. In 1950 training by a flying instructor at central, RAF Central Flying School I was trained to rest my hand lightly on the Harvards trim to ensure it was not used incorrectly whilst you’re a pilot. I recall the Vultee VT-13 required the elevated trim to be wound fully back on the approach to landing. Wind the trim fully back on the Harvard resulted in a near up attitude and dangerous loss of speed on the approach. Now that my instructor and two check ride pilots had recognised what I was doing with the trim which was creating the danger, and recently reading about the Arnold Scheme on the internet I learnt that some fifty percent failed and were sent back to Canada. I wonder now how many of the large number of washouts from advanced that Trent Flight Lieutenant had mentioned had been caught out by the same simple trap. In a flight interview the Flight Lieutenant apologised for me going back to flying on the twin engine Lockwood for he rightly assumed, like most, I wanted to be a pilot, fighter pilot. We went to 35 SFTS North Battleford, Saskatchewan. After the war when I visited Canada I realised that someone in the Canadian Government had been very far seeing. These airfields built all over Canada became civil airfields serving the far flung areas of Canada which might otherwise might not have afforded this vital facility in such remote areas. The Airspeed Oxford was a low wing twin engine aircraft with a single fin and rudder pared with the Armstrong Siddeley 350 horsepower Cheetah radial engine. A sturdy plane, for me it had no vices. My instructor Pilot Officer, Flight Officer Henry Shackleton was another quiet patient man whose pleasant friendly manner put one at ease. On the 12th of September 1942 we were awarded our coveted wings and promoted to Sergeant. I had flown a total of two hundred and eighty-one hours by then and as was usual only six on our course were commissioned. We came home on the Queen Elizabeth. More than ten thousand of all three services were aboard. She sailed unescorted because she was too fast for any sub to catch her. The Queen and Queens must have carried nearly two million men to and fro across the Atlantic. [pause] RAF Shawbury in Shropshire was the first airfield I flew from in England on 15th January 1943 and was to be the last stationed I served at on retirement on 19th of July 1971. It was a special place in my memories, all happy for it was a happy station and always blessed by good station commanders. In January forty-three number 11 Advanced Flying Unit was equipped for the Airspeed Oxford. They checked our competency as pilots, accustomed us to night flying over the blacked out, over the blacked out UK. There was a bat fight a team approach training flight which trained pilots on the system where on approach to landing the pilot had a constant hum in his earphones if he was correctly in line with the runway. If he strayed off course the hum became a Morse Code dot dash or dash dot depending on whether he was port or starboard of the correct line of approach. There was an outer beacon, sorry an outer and an inner beacon which gave a cone of silence as the plane passed overhead. I think one had — stop this is then —I think one had to be four hundred feet at the outer beacon and two hundred feet at the inner. On my last bat fight, under the hood flying solely only on instruments, I was guided by the beacon approach. After the near marker I expected the instructed to take over but he told me to keep going and finally said “round out”. This I did and instantly with touchdown on the runway. I had a shock when I lifted the hood off. We were in thick fog. The instructor, also on the beam, had absolute faith in it keeping me on the controls lets him concentrate on seeing the runway at the last minute. Thick fog had arrived suddenly and with insufficient flow to divert to another airfield clear of fog. The experience only gave me even more confidence in the BE system. I left Shawbury with a total of three hundred and seventy hours and much more confident of my abilities as a pilot. [pause] Can we start again? For operation training we went to RAF Tilstock Heath in Shropshire where we crewed up. This is a strange RAF custom. Pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, wireless operators and rear gunners were assembled in a large hanger. We were told to sort ourselves out into crews and left to get on with it. With no warning of this affair most looked at stunned as I felt. How did one start? I thought I might as well get a Scottish crew and went over to a work of bomb aimers and asked if any of them were Scots. Sergeant Ali Campbell, a bomb aimer, said “I'm from Glasgow will I do”? I liked the look of them man. “Certainly” “I know a navigator from Glasgow shall I get him?” “Yes please.” He fetched a dark [unclear] individual older man and introduced him as Jimmy Graham also from Glasgow. With Jimmy was a red headed, freckled fresh face gunner and Jimmy said “Red here is an American. He'd like to be in the same crew as me.” Red was Sergeant P D Rise from New York. I liked, I liked the look of the man. I was delighted. All I needed now as a wireless op. A little chap asked if I could take somebody from Grimsby. I liked the look of him too. Sergeant J R Cowan made my crew complete. Seems strange I never knew their ages until I started to write my memoirs in the year 2000 and I learnt them from a kind and most competent lady from the Air Historical Branch. Jimmy Graham was the oldest man in the crew at twenty-eight. Bob Campbell was twenty-two. Bob Cowan twenty-three. Red was Royal Canadian Air Force and I only learnt he was twenty-nine when my book was published and I was contacted by his relatives. It seems now a strange way to select a crew to put us all together and let us sort ourselves out. Somehow it worked and the crew thus formed seem to be successful. RAF Sleap was a nearby satellite airfield for Tilstock Heath. C flight from err, C flight was detached to operate from there. We flew the Whitley Mark 4, powered by two Rolls Royce Merlins. When we practiced single engine landing I thought the Whitley was difficult in holding height on one engine. In fact, one night heading back to Sleap from a cross-country exercise, we lost power in the starboard engine and started to lose height. We approached the Pennines with only high ground to come, a black night and a possibility of air, air, alternator error I told the crew to put on their parachutes and standby to bail out if we got below three thousand feet. Fortunately our old Whitley held height above three thousand feet and we made it safely back to base. That was when I found out that Bob Cowan was petrified of having to bail out but it didn't stop him flying, that is courage. I liked the aircraft. It handled well and seemed sturdy. We practiced bombing at both high and low level, air to sea gunnery and many cross-country flights. We flew slightly more night than day hours. By the end of the course I had four hundred and thirty hours in my log and for the first and only time passed out with an above average assessment in my logbook. As a crew we were above average and we had major successes in navigation and bombing exercises. We were pleased to be one of the two crews on the course to be chosen to fly on an operational leaflet dropping over France and even more pleased when the operation was cancelled. For we were only too well aware that the Whitley was no longer a suitable operational aircraft. I was asked if we would volunteer for Pathfinder Force, warning that this would mean a tour of forty ops instead of thirty which was the main post tour. I consulted with the crew and they all agreed they wanted to accept the offer for the Pathfinders were considered an elite force. We went to a heavy conversion unit at RAF Blyton in June and we were there until July and we first flew the Halifax Mark 2 and 4, 2 and 5, sorry. For the Halifax was reckoned to have a sturdier undercarriage, better able to stand a heavy landing pilots new to the type might make and often did. After about fifteen hours in a Halifax we flew forty-eight hours in the Lancaster's Mark 1 and 3. I loved the Lancaster from the first flight. It was a pilot’s aeroplane. It was very responsive. Sergeant Father's, aged 21, who came from London, became our flight engineer. On the 26th of July I was promoted to acting up flight sergeant and we left Blyton for RAF Upwood which housed a Pathfinder Navigation Training Unit. For the staff instructor observing how we performed we flew one bombing and six country flight exercises. The last was the north, up the Irish Sea between the western isle, round the top of Scotland down over central Scotland and the Pennines. At ten thousand feet on a clear summer day it was the most pleasant flight I have ever made. The weather was glorious and the Highlands and Islands were beautiful. [pause] Next we joined 97 Pathfinders Squadron at RAF Bourn in Cambridgeshire. Bourn was [unclear] airfield with dispersed accommodation. We were allocated a mid upper gunner, pilot officer G T, G J Bates. He had already completed one tour and we were delighted to have a man of his experience join the crew. He was relaxed and at ease with us and we all liked him. I remember the casualties and how they affected our attitude and emotions at the time, especially squadron casualties. We were aware that regularly [unclear] strike at the heart of Nazi Germany. We were proud to be part of the Armada, I still am. [pause] Alright. Over the years I’ve often been asked if I was ashamed of bombing Germany. Those that asked that question are the ones who should be ashamed. More than fifty-five young men in Bomber Command who died were exactly the same type of men as the fighter pilots from the Battle of Britain and like them were fighting for their country. Err, and Hitler — don't, don’t, yeah, right. The bombing campaign was indeed terrible but in the context of the time it was essential. The moment war ended political experience combined with moral cordis made those who had approved the campaign back off because of primarily Hamburg and Dresden. Both had military targets and ethers of time I deeply regret the necessity but not the actions. For the first I was not yet an operational squadron. For the second I was a POW. Had I been on a squadron at those times I would have taken part. This part of my story is primarily to the memory of five brave young men who died to keep the country free from an evil tyranny and a brave young American who came to help. Right. At Bourn we were allocated a mid — new pilots went as a second pilot for an experienced crew in their first two operations. I was crewed with Pilot Officer Ken Farely, an Australian. Operation pilots in Lancaster were not fitted with dual control. Second pilots stood behind the engineers position keeping out of the way. Milan was a seven hour forty-five minutes round trip of about twelve thousand miles, twelve hundred miles sorry. A long time to be standing. All I did look out and listen to the crew on the intercom. They were very professional. There was no chatter and it was all related to the task. There was cloud cover all the way over France but over the Alps the sky cleared and in the bright moonlight the Alps were awesome. Brilliant white snow on the mountains did not hide the bleakness and the threat of the black rock. I remember thinking this was no place to have an engine failure. A forced landing was out of the question, even parachuting would have been fraught with danger. The sky cleared over Italy and the target was visible from the fires already started. The searchlights and the flying to my inexperienced eye seemed to waiver about rather aimlessly in the fact of the light below us even though we were only about fifteen thousand feet. We were carrying target indicator bombs, the usual cookie, the four thousand pound blast bomb and three five hundred pound high explosive bombs. Looking at the bomb dispersal I thought how impressive that bomb load looked. It was particularly interesting listening to the bombers controls as he lined up to drop are green TI’s on the [unclear]. The Pathfinders task, the most experienced crews identified the aiming point and dropped red TI markers and follow-up Pathfinders dropped backup greens on the reds. Target indicators drifted, usually backwards. Instructed by the master bomber, Pathfinders would re-centre. Main force aircraft bombed on these markers. One hundred and forty Lancasters went to Milan and one failed to return. The flight home was anticlimax. The Alps were awesome but the flight over France was dull, even boring. Later on of course I realised that was just what was most wanted. A nice safe, incident free, boring journey home. On the 16th it was a relief to be at the controls again with my own crew and we made a short daylight flight. On the 17th I was flown — no hang on, cut that. On the 23rd of August to Leverkusen. Again I was crewed as a second pilot to Pilot Officer Farely. Four hundred and seventy Lancs and Halifax’s went to Leverkusen and five failed to return. Flight time was four hours forty-five for a five hundred mile round trip. With a lighter fuel load we carried a heavier bomb load. TI’s, the cookie and six thousand pound high explosives. This time the targets seemed to be heavily defended by flak. There was virtually complete cloud cover lit up by the searchlights, good for the night fighters to see the bombers against the relatively bright cloud. Although our gunners didn't see, other reports said there was a lot of fighter activity. We bombed the red glows. I thought a bit dodgy though I had just enough sense to make no comment. Leverkusen is not far from Cologne and I heard later the Germans had reported that Cologne had been attacked. We bombed from thirty thousand feet which I thought a bit dodgy in heavy flak. Sergeant Farely was making sure his bomb aimers had the best possible view. There was a lot of flak on the way to and from the target. We were in a major industrial area and the flak was from other towns. I was dying to ask questions but knew that would not be welcomed. The shorter flight time with so much going, on despite tiring, this trip was not too tiring. [pause] Was on the 23rd and 24th of August to Berlin. It was decided it would not be fair to send me to Berlin on my first operation with my crew. Ok. We had been reminded at briefing to be alert for intruders on return and this lesson was rubbed in when we learnt that a crew had been shot down over England when nearly home. Our first operation as a crew was on 27th, 28th of August to Nuremberg my flight engineer was Sergeant Richard Fathers, twenty-one. I was twenty-one at that time. My navigator Sergeant James Graham was twenty-eight. My bomb aimer was Sergeant Campbell, twenty-two. My wireless operator Sergeant Cowan was twenty-three. My mid upper gunner, I never did find out his name, his age and my rear gunner Sergeant Rees eventually I found out was ninety-seven, no twenty-seven. On the ground it was Christian names except that I was always Skipper and there I used the crew positions eg bomb aimer. On that first flight with a task as main force for the bomb force, loaded with the cookie a blast bomb and high explosives Jimmy’s navigation was spot on and we reached the target on time. The Nuremberg, the Nuremberg target was clear. Bob bombed the TIs which were clearly seen. I was impressed with his calm control on the bombing run and his rising crescendo tone as he gave steady, steady, steady just before he reached our bombs which emphasised the need for just that. Although the flight was heavy and there was many searchlights we saw no night fighters but learnt there weren't many at the target on the route home. Of six hundred and seventy-four aircraft thirty-three were lost two night fighters. Two were 97 Squadron crews which put a damper on our euphoria at completing a successful mission. Right. Stop. On the 31st of August we went to Mönchengladbach. Fifteen of the squadron took off after midnight, a round trip of six hundred and sixty miles took three and a half hours. Jimmy’s navigation was spot on and we arrived at the target on ETA. We carried a cookie again and high explosives even with that load we had notably reached ninety thousand feet. Despite the cloud cover Bob could see the glow of the red and green concentration markers and bombed in the centre of these. Again I found it easy to follow his clear guiding voice as he kept us on line for his target. With his bombs gone the light seemed to leap up, if it could have sighed with relief I’m sure it would have. I did. We still had a further thirty seconds of straight and level waiting for the flash to go off on our camera. I hated that extra wave and ones instinct was to turn away with the flak bursting near us. No fighters but twenty-five aircraft were lost to [unclear] many over the target area. Right. The 30th August to the 1st September 1943 we went to Berlin. The flight time was six hundred and fifty hours over a thousand miles. Our bomb load was a cookie plus eight five hundred pound heavy explosives. We reached Berlin on estimated time of arrival. At eighteen thousand feet Bob bombed on a red marker despite the cloud. The flight seemed more concentrated to me. The searchlights lit up the cloud. We saw no fighters but many of our own aircraft was seen over the target. Forty-seven were missing mostly to fighters and mainly in the Berlin target area. Wing Commander Burns, A Flight Commander was reported missing which was a shock for he was a legendary character on the squadron. It was also disconcerting that someone so experienced could fail to return. We were gaining in confidence. The crew had performed so well and Berlin was considered one of the dodgiest targets. Overall losses proved that. We flew three more successful missions [pause] each time arriving on our ETA and err, our ETA — alright. Start that again. 3rd of September 1943 was Berlin again and the 5th and 6th of September we went to Mannheim which was the boomerang. The Boomerang is failing to complete a mission [pause] oh dear. It’s incomplete a mission. Returning airway a very opposite name for such events. A boomerang does not count as an operation. Less than an hour out the starboard outer engine caught fire. We ejected our bombs in the sea. On our way back the station engineering officer told me the oil pipe, the propeller control had sheared and the loss of oil would have been so rapid, too much to allow for the feathering. He congratulated me on getting back and landing safely with a wind milling prop. I was pleased for I was a bit miffed that not one of the pilots, not even my flight commander, made any well done comment. When I thought about it, it was small beer compared to having been to Mahnomen and back. On the 15th of September we went to Montluçon in France again, no not again, take that out, rubber factory some four hundred and thirty miles from base. [pause] It took five hundred and twenty hours, five hundred and twenty hours. Three hundred and seventy-four Halifax and Stirling bombers were assigned. Of the forty Lancaster twenty-eight were Pathfinders. I suspect the others were new crews like us from Pathfinder squadrons with main force bomb loads of cookies and heavy explosives. We went in at four thousand six hundred feet. On the approach Sam Ogleby, our new gunner called out from mid upper turret “Christ skipper look up”. I saw what seemed to be hundreds of bombs falling just a few feet in front of us. Most seem to be coming from heavy bombing directly over head. At briefing we had been told of the aircraft brief to bomb from six thousand, eight thousand and ten thousand feet. On return it was surprising to hear that incendiary bombs had hit only five aircraft. What had been looked on as a relatively safe operation had turned out to be quite hairy. Three aircraft were lost, one to flak near the coast and two to fighters. The raid was completely successful in destroying the entire Dunlop works. On the 16th and 17th of September we went to Modane Tower in France. Again our mid upper gunner was again Sam Ogleby. The target was the entrance to the Modane Tunnel. Three hundred identical loads. Unlike my feelings on my last return from Milan, this time I welcomed an uneventful return home. I was not tired by flight time of seven hours ten minutes but piloting kept me busy and strangely happy. Also I was not standing all the way. Two aircraft had lost to flak over the French coast one going and one on the way home. A third fell to a fighter somewhere on the route back. We then had a new mid upper gunner Flight Sergeant R S Mortham, aged 23, who had completed a tour in the Middle East. [pause] [sigh] In September we flew three more successful missions each time arriving on our ETA. We also flew one boomerang. The 3rd of September 1943 we went to Berlin. On the 5th, 6th of September we went to Mannheim, that was the boomerang. The boomerang is failing to complete a mission returning early. A boomerang does not count as an operation. Less than an hour out the Starboard outer caught fire, we ejected our bombs in the sea our way back to the base. On our way back the station engineering officer told me the oil pipe, the propeller control had sheared and the loss of oil would have been so rapid, too much to allow for the feathering. He congratulated me on getting back and landing safely with a wind milling prop. I was pleased for I was a bit miffed that not one of the pilots, not even my flight commander, made any well done comment. When I thought about it, it was small beer compared to having been to Mahnomen and back. 15th of September was Montluçon in France. The target was the Dunlop rubber factory four hundred and thirty miles from base. The round trip took five hours. Three hundred and seventy-four Halifax and Stirling bombers were assigned. Of the forty Lancs twenty-eight were Pathfinders. I suspect the others were new crews like us. Squadrons with main force bomb loads of cookies and HE. We went in at four thousand six hundred feet. On the approach Sam Ogleby, our new gunner called out from the mid upper turret “Christ skipper look up”. I saw what seemed to be hundreds of bombs falling just a few feet in front of us. Most seem to be coming from a heavy bomber directly over head. At briefing we’d been told there would be aircraft brief to bomb from six thousand, eight thousand and ten thousand feet. On return it was surprising to hear that incendiary bombs had only hit five aircraft. What had been looked on as a relatively safe operation had turned out to be quite hairy. Three aircraft were lost. The raid was completely successful in destroying the entire Dunlop works. September 16th, 17th we went to Modane in France and again our mid upper gunner was again Sam Ogleby. The target was the entrance to the Modane Tunnel. Unlike my feelings on my last return from Milan, this time I welcomed an uneventful return home. Two aircraft were lost to flak over the French coast one going one on the way home, a third fell to a fighter somewhere on the route back. We then had a new mid upper gunner, Flight Sergeant R S Mortham aged 23, who had completed a tour in the Middle East. In October we made five successful operations. On the 2nd and 3rd of October, 3rd of October to Munich. On 4th and 5th to Frankfurt. At Frankfurt ten aircraft were missing and one was from 97 Squadron. Strange that even heavy losses overall seem to have little effect yet the loss of one squadron crew cast a gloom. Not that we knew the lost crew, we were all friendly enough but did not mix with other crews. It was as if each crew was sufficient unto itself. It was certainly not a conscious decision but as if we were aware at all time that someone might be the next to go. With indestructibility of youth it was never going to be you, always some other chaps. 7th, 8th of October Stuttgart. 8th and 9th Hammerberg. That was another boomerang. 18th and 19th Hanover. 22nd, Frankfurt, Kassel. Three hundred and forty three Lancs went to Kassel, the main target, only four were lost. This time there were two important [unclear] raids. Lancs to [unclear] and Mosquitoes to Munich. These spoof [unclear] particularly Mosi’s in Munich drew off the German fighters. For us there was various flak to fly through, much as usual. Of the eighteen aircraft of 97 Squadron which went to Hanover one was — a number of experience crews went missing. 18th, 19th of October was Hannover. Three hundred and sixty Lancs went out. Seventeen were lost. Another experienced crew from 97 Squadron again put a dampener on satisfactorily completing another op. 22nd of October Kassel and Frankfurt. Sixteen crews attacked Kassel and two were part of the spoof raid on Frankfurt to draw the German Fighters from the main force. We were one of those crews though the other boomerang. Frankfurt, eight mosquitoes and twenty-eight Lancs set off for Frankfurt and thirty-one of us got there. A bomb load with cookies and one hundred and fifty-six incendiaries. The only time we carried incendiaries for we were a spoof simulating the beginning of a full raid. On the crew buster aircraft I remember Red “Hey skip were to draw off the fighters we’ll be drawing off the buggers onto us”. Kassel, Frankfurt was 90 mile to the south and slightly west to Kassel. The route had made it appear that Frankfurt was the main target but as we opened attack there the main force turned north east to Kassel. We headed there to after dropping our bombs and the raid was fully developed as we approached. The sky was clear and visibility good. We could see Kassel was a solid [unclear] of fire. I thought it must be completely destroyed. All my commander reports confirmed that. My thoughts had been accurate to all intents and purposes it was. There were many fighters at Kassel and of the four hundred and forty-four Lancasters and Halifax which attacked Kassel, forty-two were lost. A heavy price to pay even for an incredibly successful operation. I was sad that our spoof had not been very successful. Kassel was a horror on the scale of Hamburg and Dresden and the efficiency of the operation. It was a smaller place. I have no idea of the casualties or reports concerned to the Germans. War did not comment on German casualties. For once I felt sorry for the folk in that city. Would I do it again? Yes. We were at war, all war is evil but more evil is to submit to evil. For me it's a simple as that. Bomber Command in forty and forty-one to forty-three was the only force with air striking directly at Germany. Part of the direct damage done to the German war. If all those German fighter planes, guns, searchlights and the men who manned them had been available for the Russian front, it could reasonably be argued that Russia might have been defeated before the aid of the west reached it. November forty-three [pause] 3rd and 4th November 43 we went to Dusseldorf. This was our first operation as back up markers. I have since discovered that crews from main force Squadron with a good record would be asked to volunteer for Pathfinder Force after fifteen main force operations. We’d been picked up early and done [unclear] trips for the Pathfinder Squadron. It gave us a boost to think we had proved ourselves. We were now considered competent to be a back up marker crew. This was due to Jimmy’s consistently accurate navigation and Bob's excellent bomb aiming. Bob certainly is part too passing information obtained on his steady radio watch. Although we had not been attacked by night fighters we had great confident in our gunners ability which was comforting. We now carried four TIs, that’s target indicator bombs, as well as the cookie and high explosives. Dusseldorf was a round trip taking four hours thirty minutes. Bob's report as recorded in Jimmy's log stated green TI markers and bomb sites at time of release of bombs. Markers later were concentrated. A typical clear report from Bob. He always had a relevant aiming point in his bomb sight. Cut. 7th and 8th of November we went to Mannheim which had twin towers separated by the Rhine. Then on the 18th and 19th of November we were back to Berlin. Stop there. 18th and 19th of November was Berlin again. Again we got there on ETA and Bob released our HE on a concentration of various backed up by greens. We saw flak all around us, Berlin was getting quite dodgy. Nine of the four hundred and forty Lancaster's failed to return. 22nd and 23rd of November Berlin, six hundred and fifty heavies plus eleven mosquitoes attacked Berlin. Wait a minute. The, the — what's that? The Bomber Command report stated that German Fighters were grounded by bad weather and only twenty-five aircraft were lost. It only shows clearly that although every airport was made to keep losses down these raids were made before learners and acceptance of the best of all those young men. It was appropriate to record the great regard bomber crews had for Butch Harris. Back within the ethers of time with us and we were proud to be one of the Butch’s men. Butch was a term of affection. I recorded it but I don't expect those not there to understand it. Cut. 24th November 1943, Berlin. We were again carrying TIs. We arrived on ETA to find about eight tenths cloud. The searchlights again lit up the sky and the cloud. The flak seemed heavier than ever as we arrived up to our aiming point. At the end of our terminal run and just as his voice had risen to the central tone of steady, steady, steady he quietly said “we’ve re-centred, carry on straight and level Skipper it's going to be about two more minutes”. So we did a further two minutes straight and level. This time just as Bob's tone had [coughs] again risen to the steady, steady, steady indicating imminent bomb release we were hit by flak in the bomb bay. [pauses]The BST report of that night's raid seems to fully support my belief, as it was predictive flak, given that extra time to latch on to us one of our green TIs exploded in the bomb bay and we were surrounded by green fire. All the electrics fused so there was no intercom. I distinctively released my catch to my harness which strapped me in my seat and I broke open the harness to lean forward and wave to Dicky who was in the nose by Bob throwing out window. Window is metallic strips for deceiving radar. I pointed to behind my seat where his parachute was. As he came back I started counting one and two, two and three until I reached eighteen seconds. I knew my crew could be allowed thirty to sixty seconds for we practiced often enough. Now I had no intercom to give them the order I still believe that, that when I lent, lent forward I saw Bob with his hand on the bomb release panel trying to eject our bombs. I know the forward escape hatch was not open. I also knew it would all be a matter of seconds before the burning TI set off the four thousand pound blast bomb from the cookie, and hoped it would be long enough to get some of them out. I still had full control and all I had to do was keep my plane straight and level to give my crew the best aid to bailing out. I knew I was going to die but my responsibility for my crew, was my crew. I did throw up two thoughts my first was Mum’s not going to like this and very strangely for I had never considered this before nor even as the polite saying is knowing a woman the second was I wish I’d left a son behind. There was now flames between me and my instrument panel and Dicky was just bending down for a parachute when the cookie blew up. I found myself still in the sitting position in cold air with a flashing thought “where's my bloody plane gone”. The mind works incredibly fast in such situations and I recall waving the choices between doing a delayed drop to avoid the flak or opening my chute at once to drift clear of the bombing. As we were exactly over the aiming point when we blew up and at the midpoint of the raid I knew what was to come. I pulled my rip cord. When my chute opened I saw what could only be a piece of fuselage falling past me like a falling leaf. Then I remembered that the Home Guard had been told if a shell exploded within fifty feet of a parachute it would cause it to candle, which means to fold up. With that in mind, hanging there in the middle of the Berlin flak where it seemed to be every gun was pointed at me, I have never been so frightened in all my life. Courage is a strange thing, in the plane I had the responsibility of my crew I knew I was done but I was scared. Hanging from a parachute I had nothing to think about but myself, I was petrified. The German gunners missed me and I did land safely but that begins a different part of my story. [pause]. It's completely irrational for I could have done no more than I did but I still carry a deep sense, not of guilt but of something closely approximating to it, in that I lived and my crew died. I wrote to all the kin on my liberation with varying responses. I’d known my crew for such a short, time indeed knew little about them except professionally they were so very good at their respective jobs yet we became a close knit crew and formed an inexplicable bond, dependant on each other skills and loyalty. Red could have joined his countrymen, he would certainly have had better pay probably better promotion, yet he chose to stay with his skipper and his crew. Like the rest of us he knew the risks. Few crews from Pathfinder completed the forty-five operations. Now after over seventy years it’s absurd but I can still see them as they were and I miss them still. Their loss has conditioned my response in life to include indeed I am lucky Jim because I have a life that they were all denied. That's it. I landed in a back garden, a suburban back garden in Berlin and was very rapidly picked up. I was a prisoner of war from the 24th of November 1943 to the 4th of May 1945. After the war I stayed in the air force and was commissioned and retired in 1971. MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command I'd like to thank Jim Penny for his recording on the 23rd of August 2015 at his home in Shrewsbury. Thank you very much. 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 Jim Penny. One Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mick Jeffery Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-08-16 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context APennyJ150816, PPennyJ1501 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review 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 Jim Penny joined the Air Force in July 1940, aged 18. He recalls his training prior to becoming a Bomber Command Pathfinder pilot for 97 Squadron at RAF Bourn. He explains the crewing up process and details those who were in his crew. He gives accounts of his operations, until his aircraft was shot down over Berlin 24 November 1943. His Lancaster was hit in the bomb bay by anti-aircraft fire which caused a green target indicator to explode. All his crew were killed but he became a prisoner of war. After the war he stayed in the RAF until he retired in 1971. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Tracy Johnson Maureen Clarke 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 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Canada France Germany Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire England--Lincolnshire France--Modane Germany--Berlin Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Kassel Germany--Mannheim France--Montluçon Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1940 1941 1942 1943-11-24 1944 1945 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:43:13 audio recording 97 Squadron Advanced Flying Unit aircrew anti-aircraft fire bale out Berlin Campaign (23 August 1943 – 25 March 1944) bombing bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943) crewing up fear grief Halifax Halifax Mk 2 Halifax Mk 5 Harvard Heavy Conversion Unit Initial Training Wing Lancaster military ethos Oxford Pathfinders perception of bombing war pilot prisoner of war RAF Blyton RAF Bourn RAF Shawbury RAF Sleap RAF Tilstock RAF Upwood searchlight shot down Stearman target indicator training Whitley https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/569/8837/AForsythR160214.mp3 8c957767bac5297ef7b0921f68b6b9c2 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 Forsyth, Robert R Forsyth Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Forsyth, R Description An account of the resource Three Items. An oral history interview with Robert Forsyth (1921 - 2018, 201802 Royal Air Force) and two photographs. He flew 13 operations as a navigator with 156 Pathfinders before the end of the war, Subsequently he served on 35 Squadron and flew on the victory flypast in 1945. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert Forsyth and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-02-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document JF: It was just at the beginning of the war, the war started and I did this three-month course, and he said if I go down every Saturday morning to Drem airport, and he’ll fly [unclear] and they had down there a Tiger Moth so I went down there on a Saturday afternoon. Drem was just a grass strip field, it wasn’t a major airfield. I: No. Were you in the Sea Cadets? RF: I was in the ATC Sea Cadets and I spoke to the pilot and he said, ‘Sure, up you come’. I climbed into this Tiger Moth, it was a two-seater thing you know, a bi-plane. I: Yes. RF: And we went off and flew around North Berwick, and I wasn’t interested in flying, we just flew it along, we run onto some cumulous. I can remember going to Harrogate anyway. Then we set off to er ‒, it won’t be in my file because ‒, how did I come to 156 Squadron? I: You must have gone via an OTU. JF: Yes. I: Operational Training Unit? JF: Yes. OTU at Warboys, I think it was called. I: Warboys. JF: And we did Pathfinder navigational training there and then I was sent to 156 Squadron at Upwood, which was an operational squadron doing pathfinding with the squadron over Germany usually, and that was of course an exciting time. Q: How many ops did you do with 156 Squadron? JF: I only did about thirteen I think, if I remember right. I marked them in this thing, and then the war came to an end. I: That would have been late ’44, early ’45? JF: Yes. I: So, you did thirteen ops with 156 and then the war finished? JF: Yes, from various places in Germany. I: But then you might have been involved in flying back prisoners of war and all this sort of thing? JF: I had written down the places that were marked. These were the operations; Gelsenkirchen and Potsdam and places like that, which was a long flight Potsdam. Then the war finished, it came to an end, and oh, just before it ended, we were used to fly food to Holland. I: Operation Manna, yeah. JF: Manna, that was it, and we had a BBC man with us and I did a report to the BBC for this Manna thing, which was very interesting because it was ‒, the war was ‒, it was the day before the war finished and we were flying at very low level and dropping this food and the people were all out on their roofs waving. I: Waving, what a wonderful thing that was for the Dutch. JF: Yes, I remember we got a sweet ration, when you were for so long, I made it into a kind of parachute with my hanky and dropped it out the plane, hoping some boy would get it in Holland [unclear], how nice that was. How much they enjoyed getting it. They were starving of course, the people, so that was that. Then there was an interim when we was in no man’s land. I: Op Exodus. JF: Exodus, yeah, and we did that for a wee while and so did flights with the crew to show them what ‒ I: That’s right, ground crews went on these Cook’s Tours. JF: Cook’s Tours, that was it, these are in this book. We went round, just short flights, to let them see the ‒. I: Then there was the Goodwood, wasn’t there? There was the raid on Caen? JF: What? I: There was the Operation Goodwood. The raid on Caen. You went on that as well, didn’t you? JF: Yes, we went to quite a few places and then the war was coming to an end and they decided to reduce squadrons to a hundred, ‘cause we were in 156 and this started a very exciting time for me. We were sent to 35 Squadron, the whole unit was sent to 35 Squadron, which is that photograph there, Wing Commander Craig I remember, and we were fiddled about for a while. They got us doing formation flying, which was very difficult with Lancasters. I: Especially when you were used to flying at night, not formatting or anything. JF: This was through the day and we went down each day over Harris’s offices and we had to be there at a certain time and had to be in formation, and other squadrons were doing that of course, and all this was to do with a fly past on VE Day in London. And it was rather nerve-racking for a navigator in a big squadron, and you will see photographs of that flight over London. As a result of that success, and apparently, we seemed to be the best at it ‒ I: Oh, that’s a big fly past, isn’t it? JF: Flying over London. That was on the way to Buckingham Palace on VE Day, I would be about here you see? Rather nerve-racking for the navigator. Although we had to get there at the right time and so on. I: Right, of course. JF: So we did that and I’m sure it was as a result of that the RAF got an invitation from America, American Air Force, to celebrate their 39th anniversary of the formation of the American Air Force, which American Army Air Force, which later became the Air Force and that’s ‒, I have a big book there and that was an amazing experience because we ‒, and the whole squadron went and we went all round America, stopped at various ‒. I: Goodwill tour and showing off the Lancasters. JF: That’s right, we stopped for a week at various places, we laid the aircraft open for inspection and a great deal of hospitality, and taken round until we got to Los Angeles, where the final ceremony was, and they took us about there and of course, we’d stayed a week at each place which was very interesting. I: For a young man, it was a tremendous opportunity. JF: Yes, the hospitality was very good I must say, in fact, I wrote a bit about that and also to an American. I’m a member of the Forsyth clan and it’s quite strong in America, and ‒ I: So, you got involved in all of that. JF: And amongst the one who writes in their newsletter asked if I’d write something about this tour of America. I: Oh right. JF: Along the lines of all the good hospitality we had, so I did that and you’ll find that in there too. That was our squadron. That was the formation flying. I: So, there you were at the end of the war, when were you actually demobilized and sent back to civvy life? JF: It was in November of, is that ’46? I: ’46. November ’46. JF: ‘Because I remember coming up in a plane to Glasgow and going in that night to the university to see the professor, to see if I could start on the architect’s course. I: And they said, OK? JF: Although you had to have so many attendances by Christmas,’ If you do it, well, we’ll take you on all right’, and so I saved a year on others. I: Oh excellent. JF: At night and evening classes. The very day I came home, I was in the university. I: Excellent. JF: And got started and finally qualified or course as an architect. I: Right, and that was your career? JF: That was my RAF career finished. Now after that came the ‒, a Scottish air show, and I went down there to see that and I joined their club. I: Is that the one at Prestwick? JF: Yeah, they took part at Prestwick and they had aircraft there, and I’ve got a photograph of one of them too. After that, I joined the official club. I: Right. JF: You see? And there. I: So, you’ve kept up an active interest. JF: The official RAF Memorial Club and I joined that. That was just my crew. I: So that was you, so you kept the interest in aviation and developed your career as an architect? JF: That’s right, I did that ‘til I retired and as an architect ‒, I put it in here, one of the things I was proud of, the school I attended in Glasgow, that happened to be a circular school, a secondary school, a very large secondary school. I: Smithycroft Secondary School 1968. JF: Yes, I was very proud of that. I: It’s a lovely building, very aesthetically pleasing. Is it still extant today? JF: No. They knocked it down. I: They knocked it down? Vandals. JF: No, no [slight laugh]. I: It was getting a bit aged. JF: Yes. I: Still, it was pretty avant garde for its time, wasn’t it? JF: It was, yes, it was well thought of at that time. I: Excellent. You got an architectural award for that I hope. JF: I enjoyed doing that and I was in my own profession I became President of the Glasgow Institute of Architects. That was our crew. I: Yeah, tell me about your crew. At the OTU, at Warboys, sorry where you crewed up, when my uncle crewed up at the 11 OTU at Kinloss, sorry 1902 at Kinloss, they put them all in a big hangar, wireless operators, you know, gunners, pilots, navigators, bomb aimers and they just found people they liked, and they liked the look of them and did well on their course and they formed a crew from there. JF: Well, that wasn’t what happened at ‒. I: You were actually posted to Pathfinders? JF: Posted to 156 Squadron and there was always one or two planes failed to return, it was rather sad really and ‒, or they had a need to piece together crews, which they did, they introduced us to various people and would you like to join the crew of this chap? And I did this. I: OK, so it was more that you were selected to join certain crews. JF: We got on well together. I: It was a similar thing but more concentrated in your case. JF: And we formed a crew and we stayed as a crew. I: And were you all an officer crew? JF: No, the pilot was, of course, I wasn’t at that time, I was a flight sergeant. The engineer was a flight sergeant, actually. I: And there’s an officer there. JF: That’s him, and there’s the mid upper gunner and the wireless operator, they were flight sergeants. I: And you had a dog. Was that the mascot? JF: That was the pilot’s dog. It was just a dog he had. I: And they had a lot of dogs, didn’t they? Following Guy Gibson’s example. JF: [Slight laugh] Yes that’s right so we stayed together as a crew and we did very well, and then we had this dramatic change to go to America and that formed another crew. I had a different pilot then. I: So, when you came back in November ’46, you were demobbed. JF: Yes, but the thing about America was, we had to fly to America. I: Yes, of course, via Gander and all over that route. It would have been the old ferry route, wouldn’t it? It would have been the old air bridge ferry? Prestwick, Gander. JF: Being navigator, we had to stop at the Azores on the way because of the petrol, and I had to find the Azores, which is a very small island. I: Gosh. JF: In the middle of the Atlantic. The Azores has a very high mountain in the middle. I: Volcanic mountain. JF: Called Pico and my pilot was getting very nervous about finding this. I: There’s a lot of distance done and there’s a lot of sea down there and we haven’t found the Azores yet, come on nav. JF: [Slight laugh] that’s right, didn’t like the look of it, but we got there all right, then to Gander in Newfoundland. I: Was there, in those days there was no real navigational aids of any sort, a beacon and dead reckoning I suppose JF: Yes, and using the compass. I: The sextant. JF: The sextant. I: The astrodome a lot. JF: I’ve got that among these papers, I’ve got the log that I used, filled it in as I used it, you know. I: That’s fascinating. JF: If you want to take that away with you. I: Well, I’ll have a look now. JF: You know what it is now, I’ve told you. I: Well, I think that more or less finishes this, so we’ll stop that now. JF: Right. I: And I’ll play it back just to make sure it’s taken. 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 Robert Forsyth Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bruce Blanche Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-02-14 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AForsythR160214 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. 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 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:15:17 audio recording Description An account of the resource Robert was in the Air Training Corps (Sea Cadets). He did Pathfinder navigational training at the Operational Training Unit at RAF Warboys and then joined 156 Squadron at RAF Upwood. They did around 13 Pathfinding operations, usually over Germany, including Gelsenkirchen and Potsdam. Robert participated in Operation Manna, Operation Exodus, Cook’s tours, and Operation Goodwill. His whole unit was sent to 35 Squadron to do formation flying in the Lancasters in preparation for a fly-past on VE Day. They were subsequently invited to America. Robert demobilised in November 1946. Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944 1945 1945-05-08 1946-11 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire England--London Germany Germany--Gelsenkirchen Germany--Potsdam United States Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sally Coulter Vivienne Tincombe Maureen Clarke 156 Squadron 35 Squadron aircrew animal Cook’s tour crewing up Goodwill tour of the United States (1946) Lancaster navigator Operation Exodus (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) Pathfinders RAF Upwood RAF Warboys Tiger Moth Victory in Europe Day (8 May 1945) https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/581/8850/AHearmonPC160317.mp3 357fd317f299351fbd3b3b83ddd33699 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 Hearmon, Peter Charles P C Hearmon Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Hearmon, PC Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Peter Charles Hearmon (b. 1931, 2507699 Royal Air Force). He served as a pilot with 55, 58 and 61 Squadrons between 1951 - 1971. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-03-17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. 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 we’re here in Milton Keynes with Peter Charles Hearmon, who was a peacetime pilot and navigator and this is a sequel to the RAF’s activities in the war, and we’re going to talk about his life from the earliest days and to joining the RAF and his interesting variations. Peter, where do we start? PH: Well, my father was a London fireman and he was stationed at Euston Road Fire Station, so I was born in University College Hospital which was in Gower Street just across the road. My earliest recollections are of a flat because in those days firemen lived on the premises, and my earliest recollection is a flat at Clerkenwell Road Fire, not Clerkenwell, yeah Clerkenwell Road Fire Station, because my father had moved by then and my grandmother Nanty lived with us. And I can remember, as a kid of about six or seven, strictly forbidden to, but we used to slide down the poles ‘cause that was the way the firemen got to the, to the ground in those days, and they, I don’t know if people realise it, it wasn’t a continuous pole. It just went two floors. Well, this, otherwise they would pick up such a speed they’d break their bloody legs when they got to the bottom. No, it wasn’t a long pole, it was, you know. Anyway, then we, my father left the fire brigade in about 1938 and we moved to a council flat in Lewis Trust in Amhurst Road, Hackney from which we were bombed. And I was evacuated initially in, I should think, before the Second World War started, in about the August. I was one of those kids with a gas mask in a brown box with a label saying who I was, and I was evacuated to a place called Toller Porcorum which is in Dorset, a small village, but we lasted three days. There were three Cockney lads, seven or eight billeted on some poor old dear well into her nineties, and we all, well in those days they, they allocated, they just said to one of the local councillors, ‘You’re the allocation officer’, and they just went around and knocked on doors and said, ‘How many rooms you got?’ ‘I’ve got three rooms’. ‘Oh, you’ve only got one kid, you can have two evacuees’. It was as simple as that. We lasted three days and we all ran away back home and I was variously evacuated to Exmouth in Devon. I got an eleven plus and that was, we were I went to Westminster City School, which was billeted with Tonbridge High School in Tonbridge. That was during the Battle of Britain and that was a good thing because all, we were being rained on and bombed on and then I was re-evacuated to Devon and then back to, I think eventually back to London during the V1/V2 campaign because there was nowhere in England that was any different by that time. We’re talking about 1944/45. The Germans were raiding ad lib as it were, you know, indiscriminately. So, London was as bad or as good as anywhere so I went back home, and the school came back to London, Westminster City and I left in 1947 with a good clutch of O levels, especially in languages. French and Latin, didn’t do German in those days, and due to a friend of my mother’s, I got an apprenticeship with a firm called Princeline in the Merchant Navy and I did three and a half years but decided it wasn’t for me and I left. Couldn’t get a job really because although I was, I was over nineteen, I was still national, liable for National Service by then because having been in the Merchant Navy, the Merchant Navy was a reserved occupation, but because I’d left, so I wrote to them and asked to be called up and I was called up for the Army and I went to a place called [unclear], which was, I forget what it was. Selection centre. The Korean War was on and I went, I went in front of the naval chap who said I could join the Navy. They only took twelve National Servicemen a year and I said no thanks. The Army chap was, said to me you can join and with your educational qualifications even as a National Serviceman, you’ll probably get a commission but then for some reason, I forget why, the Air Force chap interjected and said, ‘We’re looking for aircrew’ and he did some dickering with the Army chap and that was how I joined the Air Force. I was literally sort of called up, you know. Went to Padgate and that was a laugh because the, the instructors were all acting corporal, National Servicemen who’d done a six-week course or somewhere or the other and given a couple of stripes, and in fact our, our hut commander was an acting corporal who was quite frankly, illiterate. I used to, used to get one of my guys to read him from the Beano, to read to him from the Beano. You may laugh but it was the God’s honest truth, you know. Anyway, went to Hornchurch, selected for pilot, navigator and I think gunner or gunner something like that. And I then accepted and we were offered, at that stage, the choice of staying as a National Serviceman or becoming what they call a short-term engagement, where you got regular pay so I opted for short term engagement. Went to nav school at Hullavington and when we first arrived at Hullavington, my course were all suspended pilots with wings, which rather upset a lot of the staff pilots because we were all officers and they were only sergeants, but eventually we were told to take our wings down so we had to take our wings off. So, I then qualified as a navigator, spent five, six months at St Mawgan because there were no vacancies in the Navigation Training Scheme flying Lancasters, so I did some Lancaster flying there. And then I went to Lindholme, that’s right, for the air observer’s course on Canberras. Didn’t do any, in those days the pilots and navigators went through Bassingbourn together. The set up or bomb aimer, or whatever you like to call them, did six weeks at Lindholme and then joined the crew on the squadron, which is what I did. That was at Upwood, and when I arrived, I think we only had about four or five, there was only about four or five aircraft. That was when you had squadron leader COs as well but we slowly but surely got aircraft from Short’s. I think Short’s made some Canberras and I think we ended up with something like eight UE and twelve crews. Sounds about right, I think it’s something like that. We were chased out of Upwood eventually by, no, sorry Wittering, it wasn’t Upwood, it was Wittering. We were at Wittering, we were chased out by the arrival of 148 Squadron Valiants and we then went, then went to Upwood, which I think by that time, we ended up with something like four Canberra squadrons from Scampton or, I think, well it was 61 Squadron, 40 Squadron, I can’t remember the names of the others. I think there was four ‘cause at one time, in the Air Force, I counted, there were forty-eight Canberra squadrons in the UK, Cyprus and the Far East. I think it was more or less was astounded when I counted. Yeah. I mean, I don’t think there are forty-eight squadrons in the Air Force at all at the minute is there? You see, we had Canberras at Upwood, Scampton, Waddington. What’s the one further north? Binbrook. Wyton. All had three or four squadrons. I think I’m talking of the days when there were a squadron leader CO and I was, I was a flight commander as well. I was acting flight commander as a flying officer [cough] excuse me. Anyway, let me go and get a drink of water. Sorry. CB: Ok. PH: Talking. [Recording paused] CB: We’re re-starting now to recap slightly and go to the initial training that Peter did and just take us through that. PH: When I, when I, is it going? CB: Yeah. PH: When I was called up in 1951, I went to Padgate where we didn’t do very much at all. I was there for about six weeks. We really got kitted out, that’s where we got our uniforms or up to a point, our uniforms. Some of it. Some of it. It was, it was very odd because at times there were groups with wearing their own jacket but Air Force trousers and Air Force shirts and Air Force berets or whatever, but anyway, after about six weeks at Padgate, we went to Hornchurch for aircrew selection which, and I was given pilot. I don’t think I was given navigator believe it or not. I think I was given pilot, gunner, engineer. We then went back to Padgate and we awaited and we got, I got posted to Number 3 ITS at Cranwell, and that was a six-month ab initio course doing square bashing, PT, customs of the service. Mathematics. Physics. We had a lot of National Service teachers in those days of course, who had done their, because in those days at eighteen, you could either opt to do your National Service straightaway or you could defer it until after you’d been to university. And a lot of these guys had been, had degrees and were just doing their National Service after university, so they were in their twenties normally. They only wore hairy battledresses because they weren’t issued, even though they were officers, they weren’t issued with anything else so that was it. So, we did six months at the ITS and I think there was, there was, if I remember there were four ITSs at Cranwell. At Cranwell alone or as of anywhere, and there was over a hundred on each. The chop rate was about fifty percent so at the end of the course of the six months, there would only be fifty of you left and these, these were pilots, navigators and gunners and then from there. you went to your specialist training and I went then to Feltwell and I did my flying training on Prentices, then Harvard’s. Got my wings, as we said on the time and went to Driffield on, on Meteors. And then from there, I went to Chivenor on Vampires which I didn’t get on with, and of that course of fourteen, because the Korean War ended, seven of us were suspended from pilot training. CB: So, when you went doing your training at Driffield, what did you do? It was a two-seater Meteor, was it? PH: Two seat. Yeah. The Meteor 7. CB: And so, what was the programme that you had for that? PH: Well, you - CB: ‘Cause it was the first jet really. PH: You flew, you flew nearly every day even only for a short time, say an hour or so if that. A with an instructor and eventually I forget, it will tell you in my logbook you. Eventually went solo and because you went solo that didn’t mean, you still, you still did dual trips for various other things like aerobatics and things like that. And then eventually, you did your final trip as a flight commander, you were passed out, you know, as having satisfied. I got a white card at Driffield but then I went to say Chivenor and there were fourteen on my course at Chivenor, of which seven were suspended and I was offered the choice. By that time, I was a regular of course and I was offered the choice of finishing my National Service, I had about a week or so to do, or retraining. By that time, I was married, I was married in the previous year so I decided I rather liked the Air Force so I decided to retrain as a navigator. And so, then I went to Hullavington and I had my pilot training. Actually, my pilot training stood me in good stead because I finished about second or third on the course, you know, because a lot of the navigator and pilot training, especially the ground school, they were the same, you know, the meteorology, all that sort of thing was pretty good so I’d already done it. Most of it. But they were, in fact, the course I was on at Hullavington were all chop pilots, and I think as I mentioned earlier, we were, we were forced to take our wings down eventually. CB: Only temporarily. PH: Well, no, we never got them back again because we then had, we then got navigator brevvies, and the law of the Royal Air Force was you wear the brevvy of the trade in which you are practicing. CB: Ok. PH: Well, we, our brevvies were virtually removed permanently. We were told we could no longer wear them. Right. Ok. CB: Ok. So, you did the Hullavington course. PH: Yes. CB: And you then got your new brevvy which was – PH: Correct. CB: The navigator. So then where did you go? PH: Went to St Mawgan as the assistant flying adj, because there was no vacancies for Canberra training at the time and I was there for six months. Did quite a lot of flying in Lancasters. [phone ringing] PH: Which one was that? Or was it – [Recording paused] PH: In training. CB: Right. So – PH: But because, because I was a navigator and I got on well with the squadron leader flying – CB: Yeah. PH: He said, ‘Pete, come and fly with us’. CB: Yeah. PH: So off I went, you know. CB: So, we’re talking about using your time at St Mawgan. PH: Correct. CB: And you got – PH: Went to Gibraltar two or three times. CB: Right. As the navigator on the – PH: As the nav. Yeah. CB: On the Lancaster. PH: On the Lanc. And believe it or not, we used to take down in the bomb bay, bundles of hay, because the AOC there and the brigadier, they had a cow because they couldn’t stand Spanish milk. Have you ever tried Spanish milk? Spanish milk is bloody awful. CB: Yeah. Yeah. PH: Anyway, they had a cow so in the bomb bay of the Lanc, which is quite large, we used to take bales of hay for the, for the AOC’s cow and bring back things like Christmas trees or potatoes and things like that you know. CB: Yeah. Any wine? PH: And wine. Yes, of course. CB: Ok. So, you had six months of this. PH: About six months. CB: Time. PH: And then I went to Hullavington and did the nav course. CB: Oh, this was before. This, was this after the nav course or before it? PH: What? CB: No. This being at St Mawgan was after – PH: Oh no, that was before, that was after getting brevvy, between getting a brevvy. CB: Yeah. PH: And actually getting, no, it wasn’t the nav course. No. Start again. CB: Yeah. PH: I’d already completed my nav course. CB: Exactly. Yes. PH: And I had a brevvy. CB: Yeah. PH: I went to Hullavington. I went to St Mawgan. CB: St Mawgan. PH: On, all of my nav course there was no slots available. CB: No. PH: And we all got jobs and went to all sorts of places as, I don’t know – CB: Just a holding position. PH: A holding yeah. CB: Yeah. PH: A holding post. Some went as MTs, some went as – CB: Right. PH: If you could drive, they made you MT officer, you know. CB: So, so what was the unit that you were supposed to go to after that? PH: Well, it was the flying, it was the, I was, it was the flying wing, just the flying wing. CB: Ok. PH: ‘Cause Hullavington at that time was the School of Maritime Reconnaissance. CB: Right. PH: MRS. And it was, they used Lancasters prior to, to the chaps training on Shackletons because, typical of the Air Force, the MRS was at St Mawgan which is in bloody, you know, Cornwall and the OCU was up in Scotland. So, the guys did their course and they had to go all the way up to Scotland to do, to convert to Shackletons. They used, ‘cause of course the Shackletons, as you know, was a development of the Lancaster. CB: Sure. Ok so you went back to Hullavington in order to get ready to go on to what aircraft? PH: No. No. From, from, from St Mawgan, I then went to Lindholme. CB: Right. PH: Ready to go on to Canberras. CB: Ok. PH: And we did the six-week bombing course and then I joined 61 Squadron, direct at Wittering, and as I said earlier on, the pilot and navigator, plotter he was known as, they called them the plotter in the, in the Canberra, and I was the observer. The plotter, they went to Bassingbourn together and the observers joined straight from Lindholme which was the Bomber Command Bombing School. BBBS. CB: Ok. PH: So, I didn’t do a conversion as such. Conversion was done on the squadron. CB: Right. Ok, so, now you’re at Wittering. PH: Yes. CB: 61 Squadron. So, what happened there? PH: Well, we were there for about a year and then they decided to move us to Upwood, because of the formation of the first Valiant squadron which was coming to Wittering. 148 Squadron. Tubby, Tubby Oakes, something like that, was the guy who ran it. It was quite amusing because when we were doing the major exercises, I forget what they were called now, where we used to fly right up to the Iron Curtain and then all turn left as it were. We used to have to take off on the peri tracks because the mock, the invisible Valiants were using the main runway. That’s the honest truth. There were no, we didn’t have any Valiants there but they were, we had to get used to, I mean the peri tracks, if you know Wittering. CB: I do. Yes. PH: There was a big runway and there was a big peri track so it was quite funny. I’m trying to think of what they were called. It will be in my logbook somewhere. CB: Ok. So – PH: We used to do these operations quite regularly. CB: So, when you were at Wittering, you’re in Canberras and where are you flying? Are you on your own or do you go out as a formation? PH: Sorry, say again. CB: You’re at Wittering. PH: Yes. CB: And you’re now on operations. PH: Yes. CB: Effectively. Do you go off as a formation or did you go off as -? PH: No. No. We’re still using the World War Two tactics. Stream. CB: Right. PH: You didn’t, I don’t think I ever done, I can’t ever remember doing formation. Did at Wyton eventually but only as a practice. It was never used operationally. CB: Right. PH: The Canberras. The Canberra was a night bomber really and it was, and of course, we had Gee. CB: Yeah. PH: And GH and you did a minute stream. A minute stream. CB: Yeah. PH: We all flew one after the other, up to the Iron Curtain, and then all turned left, you know. It was just to stir, stir up the Warsaw Pact. That was what it was really all about. CB: Yeah. Quite predictable. Always turning left. PH: That’s correct. Yes. That’s right. CB: Ok. PH: And then we’d probably go to Nordhorn or somewhere like that and do some bombing or whatever. CB: Yeah. So, in Norway. PH: No. Nordhorn is in Germany wasn’t it? I think. CB: Oh, was it? PH: Yeah. CB: Oh, so you were flying that way as well as going up to the – PH: Well, we’d go out direct to the Iron Curtain, turn left. CB: I see. PH: Come back via Nordhorn, which was - CB: Yeah. Ok. PH: In the northern part of Germany. CB: Ok. PH: In fact, I’m not sure. It’s one of those islands that are off Sylt. Somewhere like that. CB: Ok. So, yeah. Right. Ok. PH: This is a long time ago now. CB: Yeah. PH: Fifty years ago, you know. CB: So, when you were bombing, what were you dropping? PH: Twenty-five pound bombs. CB: Ok. PH: When we, when we were using the bigger ones, the thousand pounders, we tended to do that at, in Malta. Filfla. There was a bombing range. There was an island there that was used as a bombing range in Malta. CB: Right. PH: For daylight bombing, we always used to deploy to, to Luqa for about a month at a time and use the bombing ranges in Libya, which of course was not part of the empire, but I don’t know, we had some, I forget, we had some interest in it. CB: Yeah. PH: And the Americans had some interest in it when they kicked out whatever his name was. I’m trying to think. CB: Yeah. Well, the airfield there was El Adem wasn’t it? PH: That was one of the airfields, yes. There was Benghazi, and there was another one the Americans had which had been called King, it was called Idris. That’s right. CB: Yeah. PH: Yes. CB: Ok. So, when you went on a sortie, how did the sortie run? PH: Say again. CB: When you went off on these sorties, how did the sorties run? Did you go on a dog leg or directly or how – PH: Well, you were given a timing to time on, TOT, Time On Target, and you may have to dog leg if you were a bit early but usually you were late [laughs]. You were urging the, urging the pilot to put a bit more steam on. CB: Ok. PH: It was just a, I mean if that was Germany and say that’s the Iron Curtain, there was a stream like that and when you got there, you turned left and went off to various places. Theddlethorpe, Nordhorn or sometimes back to base. That’s interesting. That’s right. We had something called to recover at base. You had something called a Trombone and the idea was to keep secret, you didn’t transmit or anything and they used to, your base would give a time. They would give a time, they would say whatever it was and you in your individual aircraft had a plus. So many minutes for your overhead, so they had something called a Trombone and I know from Wittering on several occasions, my Trombone ended over Liverpool, ‘cause you had to lose thirty minutes or some bloody nonsense, you know. This was so that when you landed, you were landing in, I don’t think they, you see, I don’t think although we were a minute apart in the bombing thing, landing was a different ball game. They had to have a gap of about two minutes or three minutes, which meant of course that the further back you were in the stream, the longer you had to lose. In other words, to land. CB: So, when you were actually doing the bombing, the space time between aircraft doing the bombing is one minute. Is it –? PH: Something like that, yeah. CB: The same for everybody, was it? PH: Yeah. Yeah. CB: Right. PH: But then after that, as I say, because you couldn’t land at minute’s slots at night you see. CB: Yeah. PH: During the day possibly. Excuse me [cough]. So, you had to, as I say, I had this Trombone where you flew down the Trombone to lose whatever minutes. CB: Lose time. PH: You had to, yeah. CB: Yeah. Ok. So how many planes are going up at a time on this sort of thing? PH: Oh, I would have thought, well I was, you know, well you say four hundred out, a couple of hundred at least. Half. Every, every airfield, every Canberra airfield would have to send up about fifty percent of their aircraft. CB: So – PH: There would be a lot of aeroplanes in the air at the time. CB: We’re in the dark as it was the case in the war. PH: That’s right. CB: And how were you aware, or otherwise, of the other planes on the stream? PH: Never [laughs]. Didn’t see them. I think we flew with lights up to a certain point and then, I can’t remember. I’m sure we flew with lights up to a certain point, then they were switched off. I mean there were, there were mid airs as you can imagine. CB: Mid-air collisions. Yeah. PH: Correct. CB: Fatal. PH: Well, I presume so, yeah, I mean, let’s face it, they didn’t advertise it too much as you can imagine. CB: No. Ok. So, you were at Wittering with 61 Squadron. How long were you there? PH: I’m trying to remember. Only about a year I think it was, then we went to Upwood. CB: Same squadron. PH: Same squadron. Yes, I think that’s right, I’m trying to remember. There was 61 Squadron and I’m trying to think, there was, was there another squadron came from, yes, there was another squadron came from, from Wittering. I can’t remember its number. There was 35 Squadron and 40 Squadron which came from somewhere like Scampton or Waddington, somewhere like that. They ended up with four squadrons at Wittering if I remember right. CB: Ok. And what about overseas detachments? How often did you do those? PH: Oh yeah. We used to go to Malta, oh, I should think every three months for anything up to, up to a month at a time. Some two weeks to a month doing visual bombing either at Idris, not Idris, I’m trying, Tarhuna, I think was the range in Libya. CB: In Libya. Ok. And I’m just thinking of the envelope you were operating in. So, you take off, what height would you cruise at? PH: Anything between thirty-six and forty thousand feet. CB: And what speed would you be doing? PH: Are you talking about airspeed or ground speed? Air speed would be about – CB: Take air speed. PH: Four hundred and sixty. Oh no, not air speed, no. True airspeed about five hundred. I can’t remember. Two hundred and twenty knots, something like that. CB: Oh, you were quite, quite – PH: Something like that. Your true airspeed is twice your indicated airspeed. CB: Ok. PH: Something like that. CB: Right. PH: I don’t remember the figures. CB: The indicated air speed would be? PH: Well, the indicated air speed would be, well about two hundred and twenty knots you see. CB: Right. PH: That was what you saw on your dial with your back – CB: Yeah. PH: Because we didn’t have GPI on 61 Squadron. CB: GPS. Right. PH: GPS. CB: Ok. So, your, the actual speed that you’re going is what? Over – PH: Four hundred and eighty knots. CB: Four eighty. Ok. PH: Something of that order. CB: And you’re at variable heights. How was the height decided? PH: Well, I can assure you, in 1955/56 there wasn’t a fighter in either the allied or the Warsaw Pact that could touch a Canberra flight. We could turn inside them you see. CB: Yeah. PH: Of course, that really broad wing. I mean if we turned inside a Hunter, it fell, it fell out the sky. CB: Yeah. PH: So did Sabres. CB: Sure. So how often did you do fighter affiliation? PH: Not that often. Not that often. Not true fighter affiliation. We, I can’t, I don’t remember doing any actual fighter affiliation with the RAF. Fleet Air Arm yes. I’m trying to think. Was it HMS Albion? What was the carrier they had in those days? CB: So, this would be in the Mediterranean or in the North Sea. PH: No. In the Mediterranean. Yes. Yeah. CB: Yeah. Ok. PH: When we were at, they used to ask us to come down five thousand feet – CB: Ok. Did they? PH: Because their fighters couldn’t reach us. I think they had Venoms – CB: Yeah. PH: Or something on board, didn’t they? CB: Then Sea Hawks. Later they had Sea Hawks. PH: Oh, and Attackers. CB: Then Attackers. Yeah. So now the bombing run, so where would the bombing run start? PH: I’m not with you. CB: So, you’ve got a target. PH: Yes. CB: And you’ve transited to the target. PH: Yes. CB: But how would you handle the bombing run? Would you be higher? Lower? PH: Well, that was, that was when you were sort of vulnerable because you had to be, fly straight and level for at least twenty miles before the target. CB: Right. PH: So, then you had to stay straight and level. In fact, we developed a technique, the Canberra squadrons developed a technique called the late bomb door opening because if you opened the bomb doors way back, it made it very difficult. It made the aircraft wobble. CB: Yes. Yeah. PH: So, we, I think it was seven seconds before target, before, not target, but before actually dropping the GH bomb. CB: Yeah. PH: I mean, don’t forget, you’re way back, aren’t you? CB: Yeah. PH: I mean you’re probably about thirty miles from the target. I can’t remember the exact distance, but you’re well back because of the forward throw of the bomb. CB: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it - PH: It had a different – CB: Depended on the height and speed as to just how – PH: Yes, exactly. Yes. CB: Far you were letting go in advance? PH: We had, you had a set of, you had a set of figures which were quite amusing. This is a true story. You’ll like a true story. You had a set of figures which you set up on your G set. CB: Yeah. PH: And when they clashed, the bomb went automatically. CB: Right. PH: And we were, we were first in the stream, that’s right, it was when we, Squadron Leader Hartley so it must, we were, it must have been soon after we arrived at Wittering because we were still a Well, 8UE Squadron. Squadron Leader Hartley was the boss who got killed subsequently. Anyway, we arrived back to be greeted and this was on a night exercise and I should think it’s in the book. They used to do them, we used to do them regularly. About at least once a month. Let me have a look and see. See if I can get the name. CB: So, we’re looking in the book now but – PH: Well, I’m trying to see what – [pause] CB: Well, what we could do Peter, is come back to that. PH: Well yeah, anyway. CB: Because – PH: There used to be, used to be an exercise, an operation so and so. This is what I was talking about where you flew to the, I’ve lost the thread now. Oh yes, we were first in, we were first at Nordhorn and I dropped the bomb. Fifty yards I said. I said, ‘That’s the fifty yards, two hours down. We landed. We had this enormous bloody greeting. Station commander. Squadron commander. ‘What did you do Pete?’ ‘Well, what did I do?’ ‘Well, your bomb dropped two thousand yards short in the woods, set fire to the woods and the whole exercise had to be cancelled’. So, I said, ‘Well I don’t understand that’, and they said, ‘Can we see?’ And what had happened was, the nav leader had typed the wrong, one of the digits wrong in my G set. So, it wasn’t my fault. CB: No. PH: It was the nav leader. CB: This was before you took off. PH: Oh yeah. Yeah. CB: Yeah. PH: You had a set of digits. CB: Yeah. PH: And those are the ones you put in your GH set? CB: Yeah. PH: And he’d, he’d typed them up in a hurry or whatever and he’d got one of the digits wrong and it was two thousand yards out. So I was, I was exonerated and he got his bum kicked. CB: Yeah. PH: You can imagine. CB: Yeah. Sure. PH: Well, the whole exercise had to be cancelled ‘cause we were the first ones through. ‘Cause I mean, I had the, I was the best bomb aimer in Bomber Command at the time. CB: Right. PH: Allegedly you know. CB: Yeah. Yeah. PH: Done on results. CB: Yeah. Right. So just going back. Here we are on the run in. PH: Yes. CB: And – PH: That’s when you’ve got to fly straight and level. CB: You’ve got, straight and level. Would you normally be at a higher or lower level than your cruise approach when you actually did the bombing? PH: Do you know I can’t remember? CB: Ok. PH: No. I’ve got an idea that you tended to fly around at the height you were going to bomb at. CB: Right. So, the practicality is, we’ve got the pilot and then we have the navigator and – PH: The plotter, yes. CB: Plotter as well, so there’s three of you in the aircraft. PH: Correct. CB: Who did the bombing? PH: I did. The, the set up. CB: Right. Ok. PH: So, you had, the navigator had in front of him, he had his radar screen. CB: Yeah. PH: And I had a GH screen up there. CB: Yeah. So, you’re sitting side by side in the back. PH: Yes. That’s right. CB: How did you get through to the front? PH: Well, you climbed on the, there was a, only, only fifty percent of the back, I mean all the instruments were there and there was a gap. CB: Yeah. PH: You had to go under the, you know you had to – CB: So, you’re crawling down to the – PH: This was only for visual bombing. CB: Yeah. PH: You had to go in to the nose. CB: That’s what I meant. PH: For visual bombing. For GH bombing you did it in your seat. CB: Ok. That’s what I’m trying to get, differentiate here. Sometimes you’d do visual bombing, would you? PH: Correct. CB: On what circumstance would you do visual bombing? PH: Well, they did a lot during the Suez campaign. CB: Ok. PH: When they bombed because it was in, the Gee and GH didn’t reach that far. CB: No. Right. So, you were practising visual bombing. PH: Correct. CB: At any time. PH: From forty-eight thousand feet sometimes. CB: Right. Ok. PH: Used to have, there was a strike barge at Wainfleet and I think there was another one at Chesil, Chesil beach. CB: Right. In the south. Yeah. PH: These were, these were the old invasion barges painted black and yellow and they used those as targets. And there was Theddlethorpe, Nordhorn but some, I think Theddlethorpe and Nordhorn were GH. I don’t think they were visual. I can’t remember. CB: Right. PH: I think they were straight GH. CB: So here we are flying along on your final approach to the target. PH: Yes. CB: The pilot and you are coordinating the activity. PH: Completely yes. CB: Who is actually running the plane at that time? PH: Oh, the pilot. The pilot. CB: Right, he’s still running it. PH: Yeah. CB: Who is pressing the – PH: Unlike some of the American aircraft, where the bomb aimer actually had physical control of the aeroplane, the Brits never went for that. CB: No. PH: You always used to say to the pilot, left a bit, left a bit, steady, steady, steady. CB: Sure. Yeah. And then you pressed – PH: You pressed the bomb. CB: Right. PH: The pilot had to activate, had a switch to activate the, the – CB: The release. PH: The bomb aiming equipment. CB: Yeah. PH: But the bomb aimer was the one who opened the – CB: Oh, the bomb aimer equipment. Ok. PH: Who did that? CB: Ok. So, you physically had to press the button for it to go. PH: Correct. That’s visual bombing only. CB: He, right, so on GH how did that happen? PH: It was all done automatically. CB: Ok. PH: When the bomb – CB: So effectively, when the crosses merged. PH: That’s right. Yeah. CB: The lines cross. PH: Yeah. CB: Then it goes. Right. PH: Correct. CB: And it’s been programmed on the ground on the basis of what the wind – PH: Yes. That’s right, yeah. CB: Is expected to be. Now what about circumstances where you have to approach at a different height for some reason? Would that happen? So, you had a planned height of say forty thousand. PH: Well, I think on the GH side, you’d have to throw it away because you, you wouldn’t have the necessary coordinates you know. On the visual side, we’d play off the cuff. CB: Right. Ok. So, a lot of this is practical stuff in training. PH: Yes. CB: So, Suez comes along. PH: Yes. CB: How did you get involved in that? What? Were you still with 61? PH: Well, I was never involved in the actual bombing of Egypt but I was involved in, I was in, I was at Nicosia and my crew were involved. My son was born and then they, they didn’t send me abroad. Our crew spent, George Cram, myself and a chap called oh, I should think Roger Atkinson, we were transiting carrying three, thousand-pound bombs from the UK to Cyprus via Luqa. CB: Right. PH: It was a bit hairy. We had three thousand pound bombs on board. CB: Makes a heavy landing, does it? PH: Yeah. Well of course they, I mean they were dropping, it was thousand pounders. The Canberra could carry thousand pounders of course and also nuclear weapons later on, but originally the actual iron bombs were the thousand pound. CB: Yeah. PH: Which we used to drop, practice dropping on Filfla which is just off Malta. Big island off Malta. CB: Right. So how many thousand pounders could it carry at one time? PH: Three. CB: Ok. PH: Two and one. CB: Right. Two side by side, yeah, and one behind or below. PH: Below. CB: Yeah. PH: Below. CB: Ok. Right. So, we’re on 61 Squadron and you’re occasionally going on your detachments. PH: Yes. CB: Where did you go after Wittering? PH: Ah well, what happened was, I was on what was known as an eight and four at the time, and when 61 Squadron packed up, I was, I only had about eighteen months to do in the Air Force allegedly, so I was posted to 58 Squadron at, at Wyton as by that time they had, the squadrons had a full-time adjutant. And I was posted there as the adjutant with no admin training allegedly, but I was, but because it was Canberras again, I did a lot of flying and I went to Christmas Island during the H bomb tests. CB: Ok. PH: It’s all in the book. CB: Yeah. So, the H bomb is what size in relation to the iron bombs of a thousand pound? PH: I’ve got no idea. Never seen one. CB: Oh, you didn’t see one there. PH: No. CB: Ok. PH: Well, Wyton was PR you see. CB: Right. PH: It wasn’t, it wasn’t bombers, it was, we had PR7s. CB: Ok. PR7s. So, the photographic reconnaissance Mark 7s. PH: Yes. That’s right. CB: So, what did, what did what did you do there? PH: Well, I was, my full-time job was adjutant. CB: Ok. PH: Squadron adjutant. A chap called Colin Fell. Wing Commander Fell. CB: Yeah. PH: Nice chap. Ended up as an air commodore. Navigator. One of the, you know at that time, one of the few navigator squadron commanders. CB: Yeah. So how long were you at –? PH: Eighteen months. CB: Right. Then what? PH: Well, I happened because I was the adjutant, I always read the DCI, Defence Council Instructions and one came. I was into judo, I was a judo instructor and then and one of these DCI’s came around saying that there was vacancies to learn Japanese, so I put my name down and I’m trying to think. North Lewis. North Lewis was the CO and he said, ‘Oh no’, sort of thing but there was a caveat on the Defence Council Instructions saying that all applications had to be forwarded regardless of whether they were approved or not by the CO, so mine was forwarded. I was called to London for an interview, sat in front of this large group of men, and as soon as I walked in and sat down, they said, ‘Well of course, we’re not, we’re not teaching Japanese’. So, I sort of almost got up to go and they said, ‘Sit down. Would you like to learn Chinese or Russian?’ And I said, ‘What’s the role?’ They said, ‘Well if you learn Chinese, you go to Hong Kong for a couple years’. And I was married at the time so, well I was married. ‘And if you learn Russian, you go to the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London and as I’d recently bought a house in Edgeware. I thought I’ll do that because by then I’d accepted a – CB: PC. PH: A permanent commission. CB: Right. PH: So, I went to the School of Slavonic and East European Studies for a year. That must have been about ‘58/59, I then went and stayed with a family in Paris for ten months. A Russian family, emigre family. Did the Foreign Office interpreter’s exam and got a, I got a second-class pass, which is not bad really. I mean very few people get a first-class pass. I then went to a place called Butzweilerhof in, in Germany. CB: Germany. PH: Cologne. Where for a time I was CO of the intercept, the intercept section. CB: You were a squadron leader by now. PH: No. Still a flight sergeant. CB: Right. PH: And from there, I went back to flying on Victors at Marham, tankers. As navigator. CB: Ok so – PH: And then I was short toured deliberately by the, by, despite my, despite my AOC saying that, ‘He’s part of a crew, a five-year crew’ and I was only three years, I was short because of my Russian and I went to a unit called BRIXMIS in Berlin. British Commander in Chief’s Mission to the Group of Soviet Forces and I was an interpreter with the Soviet forces in Germany and met lots of Russian generals. And my boss was a chap called Gerry Dewhurst. Have you ever come across Gerry? CB: So, in practical terms, what are you doing at brexmas, BRIXMAS? PH: Sorry? CB: What were you doing at BRIXMAS then? PH: Spying. CB: Right. So – PH: In practical terms. We used to tour East Germany. CB: In cars. PH: In a car. CB: Yeah. PH: With cameras to make sure that they weren’t building up their forces. CB: This was part of the agreement with the Russians. PH: Correct. They had SOXMAS. CB: They watched you and you watched them. PH: Yeah. They had, they had a similar unit at a place called Bunde. CB: Yeah. PH: And the Americans and the French, we all had, I mean I got on very well with the Americans and the French, and we used to, we used to you know talk to each other about where we were going to go and make sure we weren’t double you know. We made sure that we didn’t, I mean one stayed out all night sometimes on an airfield and God knows what. CB: Didn’t know PH: Because, see what happens was, the Soviets, the Russians because East Germany was, you know, very delicate, sensitive they always put their new kit there. So, I mean, you know we had Army tourers and Air Force tourers and we got some of the first photographs, good photographs of the MIG, the MIG 21J which was very early on. But I mean its surprising Janet, when I was doing the, when I became a volunteer of RAFVR and I was doing the air, air. Well analysing the air side because intelligence, you try and pretend you’re the enemy really because you give your, your boss what you think the enemy is going to do, so you put yourself in the enemy’s place. At one time, the Russians or the East, sorry the Warsaw Pact had twenty-eight divisions in East Germany. Twenty-eight divisions, the Brits, the Brits had one, the Americans had one, the Germans had about four. Three or four. And the French had one and they had nearly three hundred aeroplanes, three hundred, sorry what am I talking about? Two thousand aeroplanes and I think we had about three hundred or four hundred. I mean when I used to do the briefings for the, for the war, you know, for what was it called? There was a – CB: The war games. PH: Wintex. Wintex was the big, they say the generals they’ll be at the, they’ll be at the coast in, they’ll be at the channel coast in four days. That was why you know they had the tactical nuclear weapons. CB: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. PH: I mean, you know that was the truth. There was no good, no good denying it. There was no way, you know. CB: No. So, you were doing that from ‘50/60. PH: Well, I did that from, let’s think. That must have been ‘67. ‘67 to ’70. Something like that. CB: Ok. Right. Just – PH: Then I came back to MOD and I was going to be posted to Uxbridge as gash supernumerary but a chap, I’m trying to think of his name in MOD, who I knew very well, he used to, he was a great fixer. He got me posted to the Foreign Liaison Section to finish my time in MOD and because I was a Russian speaker, I was given the South American desk [laughs] of course. CB: Good service logic, isn’t it? PH: Sorry? CB: Good service logic. PH: Yeah. Well, I mean that was vacant and that was, you know, he got me in and I was quite pleased with it because I still met the Russians and more cocktail parties than you could shake a stick at, and I’ll tell you a thing. The poorer the country, the more ostentatious their cocktail parties and social events are. Some of these African countries that were starving their ambassadors, used to throw these champagne fuelled caviar and Christ knows what, you know. CB: Amazing. Right. PH: And by then I was, and I was lucky enough to be asked if I wanted, when was leaving I was to ring a certain telephone number which I did and I got a job and I did another twenty-two years with a, an organisation which I think the last letter of its number was five. CB: I can’t think what on earth you’re talking about. Right [laughs] Right. PH: Am I allowed to say these days? CB: Yeah. PH: At one time we weren’t. CB: So – PH: Which I thoroughly enjoyed. CB: Yeah. The South American desk. In practical terms, you were doing something useful but what was it? PH: Liaising with anybody, any, I mean – CB: Anybody in South America. PH: No. No. Anybody, anybody across the board. CB: Right. PH: But I did, I remember one occasion, that’s right. Yeah, mainly South America but I mean you didn’t have to speak, they all spoke English anyway. CB: Yeah. PH: But I always remember, I had to introduce new attaches to the chief of the air staff and I’m trying to think at the time who it was [unclear]. Oh dear, it will come to me in a moment, and I know that the guy, the guy I introduced was Peruvian Air Force. He was lieutenant colonel, no lieutenant general and they kicked him out because obviously, he was probably involved in some sort of coup. Jesus Gabilondo. His name was General Jesus Gabilondo and I remember I introduced him to the, said to the chief of the air staff who sort of almost said, ‘What’ [laughs]. I said, ‘Sir, this is General Jesus Gabilondo. CB: Yeah. PH: Nice chap. CB: Yeah. PH: Flying Canberras, ‘cause we’d sold Canberras to the Peruvians if I remember right. CB: Absolutely. Yeah. PH: So, we did have something in common. Nice chap. CB: Just going back – PH: But that rank. I mean, you know, that incredible rank to be, to be a military attaché really. CB: Yeah. Yeah. Just going back to your Victor times at Marham. PH: Yes. CB: So here we have a tanker squadron. PH: Yes. CB: So, what were, you as the navigator in one of the aircraft there. PH: Yes. CB: How did that work? You were linking with [pause], nice picture on the wall. PH: There I am in the – CB: What was the typical day? You were up fuelling fighters. PH: Well, we were very, very busy because what happened was, the Valiant packed up as you know. The Victor was brought in in a hell of rush. In fact, what I was initially on 55 Squadron which only had the two-point tanker. CB: Right. PH: They borrowed or stole or whatever it was from refuelling pods from the Navy. CB: Oh. PH: Which were put on the wings. CB: Right. PH: And we did something called Operation Forthright which was flying between the UK and Cyprus, to bring back, believe it or not, Lightnings that were stranded all around the Middle East, ‘cause with the demise of the Valiant, they couldn’t get back because as you know the Lightning, Lightning, the early Lightnings only had a range of about seventy bloody miles. They were terrible. Unless we, the Lightning 6s were a bit better but I mean the original Lightnings had to be, they had to be refuelled as soon as they got airborne virtually. CB: Yeah. Right. PH: I mean they were designed to go up, shoot down the incoming and come back. CB: And come back again. Yeah. Right. PH: But that was Forthright. So, we enjoyed that. We were doing a lot of flying. Unusual. I mean, I was doing something like sixty hours a month which is really double what the Air Force normally. I mean, thirty hours used to be the norm wasn’t it really? CB: So, this is in two sections really. There’s the overseas deployment. PH: Yes. CB: And there is the UK. So, on the UK, you’re flying from Marham which is Norfolk. PH: Yeah. CB: Where are you flying and what are you doing? PH: Well, what we did mostly, and I shall think of the name of it. What did you call it? Between the Wash and Newcastle and we used to refuel. They used to practice refuelling. We used to go around like that for about four hours. CB: So, you’re flying in an oblong shape, are you? PH: Yeah. I have the thing, just one moment CB: And what are you refuelling? Only Lightnings? PH: Anything. CB: Only Lightnings or Americans. PH: Let me just tell you in a moment. Let me look. CB: Yeah. Ok. We’re just stopping, stopping just for a mo. [Recording paused] PH: For refuel. CB: So, you’re flying an elliptical circuit. PH: That’s right. CB: Effectively so that just, how does that work then? PH: And we called it a Tow line. CB: You called it tow line. And how did it work? PH: Well, you just, they called you up and said, you know, we, they knew we were there and the Lightnings from Leuchars or wherever. Coltishall. I think there were Lightnings at Coltishall. They knew we were there and for them to practice refuelling. CB: Right. PH: And we just, I mean it was quite boring. I mean just went around in this elliptical shape. As I said, tow line. CB: So as the navigator, what was your role in that? PH: Virtually nothing because the guy doing the refuelling was the co-navigator. Two navigators in the Victor. One was the nav, one, I was the plotter and he was the other guy was the set up. CB: Right. PH: A chap called Pete Hall and he was the set op around the radar, but he also controlled the refuelling setup. I believe latterly they transferred it to the co-pilot. CB: Right. PH: But I mean in those days, it was done by the – CB: The nav radar. PH: The nav. Nav radar. Nav radar. Yeah. CB: Yeah ok. So, did he have a means of looking backward? PH: Yes. The telescope. CB: They’d put a telescope in specifically for that. PH: Yeah. CB: Ok. So how did it work? So, you’re flying straight and level. What sort of speed would you be flying for the refuelling? PH: Well, depending what you were refuelling. Normally about three hundred knots. CB: Ok and so you’re straight and level for specifically a period. PH: We’ll all the time straight and level. Well until you turn, you turn and come – CB: Yeah. PH: I mean the leg would take probably fifteen or twenty minutes. CB: Yeah. PH: Each – CB: And what speed are you going? PH: Well around I think - CB: Three hundred knots you said. PH: Yeah. Well, no, about two hundred and forty air speed. CB: And, and height? PH: Anything between thirty-two and thirty-eight thousand feet depending on the, how bumpy it was. CB: Yeah. PH: We would try and find, you know, the smoothest level we could, we would and then we’d settle down and they’d transmit what height we were at. CB: ‘Cause in practical terms, the Air Force system was to run a drogue line. PH: That’s right. CB: Effectively. PH: Yeah. CB: With a – PH: He had, he had a nozzle. CB: A nozzle in the back. PH: And we had a drogue. CB: Yeah. PH: And that was it. CB: Right. PH: And once and it was, there was a set of rings and things and when it connected, it wouldn’t float. CB: It held it. PH: Yeah. CB: Yeah. PH: But of course, when you withdrew, when it withdrew, there was always a spurt of fuel came out, you know which, which could blind the pilot sometimes. CB: Yeah. PH: ‘Cause it could go on his windscreen. CB: Yeah. Well yeah. So, the fighter is coming up and getting fuel on. PH: Correct. CB: And is trying to negotiate the drogue. PH: Correct. CB: And – PH: You had to fly, you had to fly – CB: Into it. PH: Depends where the drogue were. I think on the Lightning it was above them. CB: His nozzle was above his head. PH: I’m trying to think, I’m trying to think. What was the other one? We did refuel the odd one. CB: Phantom. PH: Phantoms, I think, yeah. Yeah. CB: Buccaneer. PH: Buccaneers. That’s the other one. Yes. Yes. CB: Right. PH: Buccaneers. CB: What about the Americans? Did you do any of those? PH: I personally, I didn’t, but I know the squadron did eventually but the Americans had a different system you see. CB: Yeah. PH: The Americans – CB: Theirs is a guided. PH: They had a drogue operator who fed the drogue on to the – CB: Yeah. PH: On to the other aircraft. CB: It was a long bar, wasn’t it? PH: Yeah. CB: Yeah. Well, is. Yeah. Ok. Right. And did you refuel other Victors occasionally? PH: Eventually, because as I pointed out, originally it was only a two-point tanker because they hadn’t, they hadn’t yet got the hoodoo. The hose drum unit. CB: Yeah. PH: Known as the hoodoo. CB: Yeah. PH: Which eventually was – CB: In the centre. PH: Fitted into the bomb bay. Once that was done, because the wingspan of a bomber, you couldn’t accommodate it on a wing – CB: No. PH: Refuelling pod but then, oh yeah, we did what we called mutual. Victor to Victor. CB: And you could do two fighters at the same time. PH: At a time. CB: Could you? PH: But only one large aircraft. CB: Yeah. Ok. PH: Other Victors, we had Victor to Victor and then we had Victors to whatever was available. CB: Ok. So that’s the UK. Then when you went overseas, how did that work? You were based in Cyprus or where were you? PH: Normally in Cyprus yeah. That was, they were called Forthrights if I remember right. Operation Forthright. That was taking Lightnings backward and forwards between, because we didn’t have Lightnings based permanently in Cyprus at that time, they were always on detachment from the UK squadrons and they would be out there for a couple of months and then changed over. CB: So would they fly the whole distance non-stop or would they pop into Southern France. In to Orange? PH: Oh no, we tried to take them all away. CB: You did. Right. PH: The trouble with the Lightning was as soon as it landed it bloody went u/s. CB: Oh right. So, you’d want to keep it airborne. PH: So, they kept it airborne [laughs] Yeah. I mean they, well it didn’t take, it only took about five or six hours to get to Cyprus from the UK. CB: Sure. Yeah. Because they’re, they’re transiting quite fast. PH: Yeah. I, yeah and I enjoyed being a nav because my responsibility was not just looking after the Victor but looking after the Lightnings as well, just in case they had some form of malfunction like breaking a probe which did happen. They had to make sure that the refuelling, they had refuelling brackets enroute. I had to make sure the refuelling brackets, if something happened instead of dropping into the sea, they could divert somewhere you know. CB: So, the refuelling bracket is a period, a space over the route. PH: Yes. CB: Certain areas where you would do it. PH: These were pre-determined – CB: Right. PH: Between, you, you had a special map which had what they called refuelling brackets, and that was where – CB: Right. PH: You actually did the refuelling. CB: So, were you stationed in Italy sometimes as part of the -? PH: Say again. CB: Would you sometimes have your Victor in Italy in order to be able to deal with the brackets. PH: Personally no. I know that, that, no after I left the squadron because of, what’s his name, Mintov they had to use Sigonella in Italy but, because he, he banned the RAF from Luqa but we always used Luqa. CB: Right. PH: What happened was, we would have on day one a Victor would go to Luqa. CB: Yeah. PH: On its own with a crew and that would be refuelled and everything ready, and then on day two, the Victor with its two Lightnings would take off from Marham. The Lightnings would join, go via Luqa. You’d call up when you were approaching Luqa. [cough] Excuse me. He would get airborne, take over your slot and you would then go into Luqa. CB: Right. PH: And depending on what was going on, you might well stay there and do the same thing as he’d done the day before. Refuel. And the next pair through you would take on to Cyprus. CB: Right. PH: It was quite complicated. It was quite well thought out. CB: Ok. PH: And occasionally, if we were going further, we’d do a Victor to Victor refuelling at height, because like, like the Lightning, the Victor used nearly half its fuel getting to height. CB: Yeah. So how long did it take to get up to height with a full – PH: What? The Victor? Forty minutes. CB: Did it? PH: Lightning did it in three [laughs]. CB: Yes [laughs]. Going to stop there for a mo. [Recording paused] CB: So, we’re just re-starting. Are you due to have your lunch shortly? PH: No. I’m ok. CB: Ok. PH: No problem. I’m eating this evening so I shall just – CB: Right. Ok PH: Have a cup of soup at lunchtime. CB: Right. Ok. So, one of the interesting things here is that, two things, first of all, in the war, the pilots who re-mustered to do other things maintained their wings. PH: Oh, I see. CB: You didn’t. PH: No. The law, the regulations state – CB: How did you feel about that? PH: You wear the brevvy of the job you are doing. CB: Yeah. So how did you feel about that? PH: Well as a youngster I was a bit miffed, but you know, it was a fact of life. You do as you’re told. CB: And once you got in to being a navigator. PH: I enjoyed it very much. The navigator on Victors was the best job in the Air Force. CB: In what way? PH: On tankers. CB: Yeah. PH: Well because you were in control really. I mean, the pilots did exactly what you told them. I mean, they did anyway but I mean in that particular context, I mean, you were, the two navs ran the operation completely. CB: ‘Cause you’re running a pattern. PH: Yes. CB: And you’re also doing a task that is very intricate. PH: Correct. CB: Right. PH: Not like sitting on your backside, you know, on QRA for God knows how long, waiting for the – CB: Yeah. PH: We did do a QRA at one time. The Victor tankers, because of the way we could stay airborne for quite a long while, there was a phase that the NATO went through where they were simulating that all the, the, shall we say the, let’s get the, war headquarters etcetera had all been wiped out by the Warsaw Pact, and by getting a tanker airborne with a senior officer in it, he was the, he was the one who could control what was going on and we did that for about a year and that was, that was a type of QRA where you set the aircraft sat at the end of the runway and you were in a caravan in your flying kit ready to get airborne if you were told. CB: Yeah PH: We did, we did simulate it once or twice but it never came to anything. CB: Just to – PH: The concept was, you’d end up with a group captain sort of determining whether or not you were going to obliterate bloody Moscow, you know, quite frankly. CB: Right. So just to clarify that. QRA is Quick Reaction Alert. PH: Reaction alert. Yes. CB: You’ve got a bunch of aircraft at the end of the runway. PH: Correct. CB: That can, can – PH: Get airborne – CB: Start off. PH: In three or four minutes. That’s right. CB: And move quickly. PH: Correct. CB: Yeah. Ok. Next bit is the difference between the wartime experience with the family and peacetime, is that wartime, the families were banned from the airfield and its environment. PH: Yes. CB: But in peacetime. PH: Oh yeah. We lived in quarters. CB: You had quarters. So, what was it like - PH: Yes. CB: For the family? PH: Well enjoyable. I mean we enjoyed living on, on station. Plenty going on. Social life in the officer’s mess, you know, kids went to decent schools. CB: So, in Germany, the children – PH: My oldest son was at boarding school when we were in Germany. CB: Where was he at school? PH: He was at Wymondham College. CB: Oh yes. Yeah. PH: But the others were with us because my last son Anthony was born in ‘64. By that time, we were back in the UK. CB: Right. PH: Semi permanently. CB: Right. So, the others didn’t go away to school. PH: No. Not really, they stayed with us, ‘cause in Germany, the schooling was quite good. The British education system was quite, what they called – CB: Yeah. PH: BF, British Forces. CB: BFPO. PH: No. Yeah. British Forces education. BFES or something. CB: Education yeah. Ok and on the airfields, what sort of, what were the quarters like? PH: Cold [laughs]. Cold. At Marham, we didn’t have central heating and we, we couldn’t use the dining room ‘cause it faced, faced north east and you know, when you’ve got that wind in from Norway or the North Sea, all you had was a radiator or something you know. No central heating. CB: Electric radiator. PH: Yeah. Something like that. CB: Yeah. PH: Yeah. CB: Right. But the quality of the building and the furniture was ok, was it? PH: As far as we were concerned, they were ok, you know. CB: Yeah. PH: Oh no. That’s right, Marham, yeah, that’s right. No, at Marham, we had a lounge which had a door directly into the lounge, which if you opened it, you stepped into the mud in the garden. CB: Oh. PH: And I’m told, we were told that it was an architect had made a note for a door instead of a window. It should have been a window but in fact they put a door in there for some unknown reason. I mean, who would have a door directly in to the lounge? I mean, we had a front door and a back door. I mean they were nice quarters, they were, but they were cold. These days of course they’ve all got central heating, but in those days, there was no such thing. CB: No. So, these are all traditional airfields. Expansion period airfields. PH: That’s right, yeah. CB: The ones you were based in. PH: Marham. We weren’t in quarters. CB: Wittering. PH: We lived on a caravan sight at Upwood and at Wittering. We had a caravan there. CB: Oh. Because the quarters were all full, were they? The quarters were full? PH: Yes, they might have been. I was fairly junior at the time, you see. CB: Yeah. PH: There used to be a waiting list. CB: Yeah. PH: But then you got to a frozen list eventually. CB: Right. PH: If you were lucky. CB: And in Germany, what were the quarters like there? PH: Very good. Excellent. Central heating, the lot. My wife said to me after we’d lived in one of those, ‘When you leave the air force, Pete, I’ll live in a shed but it’ll have to be bloody centrally heated’ [laughs]. Having been in quarters in the UK, which were bloody freezing you know. CB: So, in Germany, what was the life like there? PH: Excellent. Local overseas allowance and all sorts of things you know. CB: And did you, was everything centred on the airfield or did you tend to get out much? PH: I wasn’t flying in Germany. CB: No. PH: They were both were ground tours. CB: I was wondering if you got out in to the hinterland much. PH: I did in, in Berlin. Yeah. I was touring East Germany. CB: Yeah. PH: My wife often said our tour in Berlin was, our three-year tour was the best ten years of our lives. The social life was incredible. CB: Yeah. PH: I mean I was almost a diplomat you see. CB: Yeah. PH: Virtually had diplomatic immunity. And I mean, you know, it was very difficult. The Americans were always throwing enormous parties, you know. My kids loved going to the Americans. They used to have forty-gallon bloody drums of ice filled with coca cola and Christ knows what you know. Just helped yourself. CB: Yeah. Extravagant with everything. PH: Absolutely. CB: But very hospitable. PH: Absolutely. Yes. Very difficult to, to reciprocate. CB: Yeah. And on a professional front then, how did that work? PH: I’m not with you. CB: Well from the Air Force and intelligence point of view, how did the working together – PH: We were told by – CB: Operate. PH: RAF Germany that the intelligence we produced was invaluable. I think I said we got the first pictures of the new MIG 21J. CB: Yeah. PH: All the new tanks [unclear] yeah. CB: So, in when you went out on these sorties, forays in to East Germany, you weren’t staying in airfields there ‘cause they didn’t let, you were driving around all the time were you? PH: Well no. You camped up with luck. If you could get in undetected on the landing side of an airfield. CB: Right. PH: Which, of which one had heard there was particular interest. CB: Right. PH: ‘Cause what you were after was photography. CB: Yeah. PH: And especially if an aircraft had got its gear down and its undercarriage open, and then it’s you know the technical boys can tell a lot from that apparently, you know. CB: Right. Yeah. Good. Ok. I’ll just stop there again, thank you. [Recording paused] CB: So, you’re out in East Germany winter and summer so – PH: Yeah. CB: What sort of things was that like? PH: Well, go back to square one. What you’ve got to appreciate is that the west did not recognise the east. The Soviets called it the Democratic Republic of East Germany. The west called it the Soviet Occupied Zone of Germany and this was the protocol. CB: Right. PH: And you know the diplomacy sometimes is childish, because I would have to go sometimes to a meeting because we’d been called because of an infringement or something, and they’d produce this protocol which said so and so, so and so happened in the Democratic Republic of East Germany, which I then had to cross out and write Russian Occupied Zone of East Germany and initial it and then they would cross it out [laughs]. But that was, that was the situation. So basically, if you got into trouble in East Germany, we weren’t allowed to discuss it with the, with the Volkspolizei. We had to call for a Russian officer. And that was the situation. CB: So, were these engineered incidents, were they? PH: Oh yeah. Absolutely yeah, they I mean they, they I mean we would take pictures. We used to be, I used to have one and I lost it unfortunately when I moved. A big sign said, what was it -? “Presence of Foreign Liaison Missions Forbidden” in German and in Russian and in English [unclear] and if you went, what we would do, quite often we would take the sign down and throw it in the nearest bloody river. If you wanted to get near to an airfield. Which they had no right to do you see. CB: Right. PH: Allegedly. But they’d come and put another one up and then you’d get, you’d get nicked you know by the Russians because you were behind the sign as it were you know, and then there would be a protest and that was where I would have to go with my boss, because there had been a protest that flight lieutenant, always referred to me you know, Flight Lieutenant Hearmon was caught speeding at such and such a place and I’d have to deny it you know and say no, it wasn’t true you know, but quite often it was true but sometimes it wasn’t. It was just fabricated by the Volkspolizei, the East German police. It was quite amusing at times. Yeah. CB: So, you’d camp out. PH: Oh yeah. I had a little tent and a very good sleeping bag. An Army sleeping bag. You know one of those ones that zips up with arms. CB: Oh right. PH: You know the sort I mean? CB: Yeah. Yeah. So, it was quite cold sometimes. PH: Yeah. Oh yeah but you know, one slept ok. You’d wake up sometimes with ice all over your bloody face. CB: So how low would the temperature go? PH: Minus twenty-two. I think that was the lowest one we ever had. CB: Summertime. What about summertime? PH: Well, that would be ok. It would be hot. CB: But not too hot. PH: No. No. You’d do about one, you’d do about two tours a month. That was all because you had to write everything up as well you know, and that could take two or three days. CB: So, you’d come back. You’d write things up. How did the debrief go? PH: Well, the debrief was done by you. I mean it was all, it was a question of matching up. You would give a narrative about the photographs etcetera, etcetera, and then that was all sent. It was looked at by our own ops officers. Usually, an Army chap and then it would go to, what do you call it? RAFG. Royal Air Force Germany. Second ATAF intelligence. Yeah. CB: So, were you verbally debriefed by your seniors after these trips? PH: No. Not really. Just asked, ‘How did it go?’ Because you know they might look at your report before it went off, but you know they knew what you’d, they trusted you shall we say. CB: Yeah, and you were able to practice your Russian regularly, were you? PH: Yes. Yes. CB: So, you got even more proficient. PH: I did at one time, but don’t forget, we’re now talking about twenty, thirty years ago. CB: Sure. Yeah. So, when you eventually retired. PH: Yes. CB: What did you do? PH: I went for an organisation that’s number ends in 5. CB: Yes. PH: For twenty odd years. CB: And after that what did you do? PH: Retired [laughs] CB: Ok. To Milton Keynes. PH: Yes. Well, we’d already moved to Milton Keynes while I was still working in MOD. Well, we lived in Amersham and we had quite an old house that wasn’t double glazed, wasn’t double skinned and it was quite cold and we couldn’t afford, well the new houses they were building in Amersham at that time I should think that the lounge was about that size, you know. Remember they went through a phase of building houses with rooms that, I mean I had four kids. We couldn’t have all get in one room together. CB: Crazy. PH: I mean they showed you around and they had undersized beds and undersized wardrobes and Christ knows what in the various rooms, because they were, they were tiny. Whereas the house we had in Amersham was, Milton Keynes was very comfortable. I like a decent sized room. CB: Yeah. PH: I’m a, I mean this room’s quite pleasant isn’t it, really? CB: Yeah. PH: Nice aspect. CB: This is brilliant. Yeah. PH: That balcony goes all the way around by the way. CB: Right. And your children they left school. Then what? Any, any of them go in the forces? PH: My eldest son went in the Army for a while but then he became a policeman. He retired. He retired three years ago as a policeman. He works for an organisation that is on contract to the Home Office, escorting undesirables back to their own countries. He’s been, he’s been all over the world. China, Italy, Peru. Oh God. And if you excuse me, I’ll tell you. They took this rather, what’s his name, he was a Chinaman who didn’t want to go back so he was being a bloody nuisance, and they found, realised afterwards why he didn’t want to go back. He was wanted in China for something or other, being deported, escorted, they had to go via Moscow. They got to Beijing and Pete, he was in handcuffs ‘cause there were two of them, with this guy in the middle in handcuffs, and they got to, got to Beijing and they were met by a Chinese police lieutenant who spoke English. He’d worked, he’d served in the UK or something and he came out and he said, ‘Mr Hearmon?’ ‘Yes’, ‘We’ll take him’. Pete said to him, ‘Look’, he said, ‘He’s been a hell of a problem. We’re quite happy to leave you the handcuffs. Here’s the keys’. ‘No. No. No. No. No’. And he said something to this chap who went and sat meekly in a corner. And Pete said, ‘What did you say to him?’ He said to him, ‘If you don’t go and sit down and behave yourself, I’ll f***ing shoot you’, and he said, ‘I meant it, Mr Hearmon’, and he knew I meant it.’ CB: How amusing. PH: ’Cause the Chinese, you know. CB: Yeah. Yeah. PH: I mean they’d charge, they’d charge the family for the bullet or something. CB: What did the others do? PH: Sorry? CB: What did the other children do? PH: Oh well my second, well my second daughter is retired. She lives in Lincoln. My other son is also retired. He’s married to a Channel Islander and lives in Jersey. My youngest son is the only one who’s working. He’s not married and he lives in London and he’s, he comes and sees me about once every three weeks. He works for the local council. He’s in to environmental things of some sort. CB: Right. Right. PH: But even he’s, I mean he was born in, let’s see, ‘52, ‘56 ‘64 so I mean he’s coming up to his fifties quite soon. CB: Your eldest son, what did he do when he was in the forces? PH: Sorry? CB: Your eldest son. What did he do when he went in the forces, what did he do in the Army? PH: I’ve no idea. He was just in the infantry, that was all. He was just a soldier and then, when he left, he joined the Air Force, er joined the police and did twenty-eight years or something in the police. CB: Right. PH: And he wasn’t an officer. He was just a soldier of some sort. CB: We’ve had a really interesting discussion. Thank you very much indeed. PH: Good. CB: And we’ll stop it there. PH: Good. [Recording paused] CB: When you were at Driffield. PH: When I was at Driffield. CB: Yeah. PH: We had an instructor there called Flight Sergeant Chalky, this is God’s honest truth. Flight Sergeant Chalky, double DSO DFC. Been a wing commander during the war and a friend of mine said he was, he was at the, he was the adjutant. He was in the Air Force. He was a National Serviceman but he became a navigator eventually as a regular but he went out. At the time he was in the secretarial branch and he was the adjutant of the reselection unit in MOD, and when people, they were recruiting people back into the Air Force and they offered him the lowest thing they could get away with, you know, and this guy apparently had gone to, had gone to MOD and they said come back but we can only make you a flight sergeant. He accepted and Dave Kinsey said he should never have done because what he should have done was, ‘You must be joking’, gone away. A fortnight later, he’d have got a letter saying we’ve changed our mind, you can come back as a flight lieutenant. CB: Yeah. PH: But he said yes. He was obviously desperate to get back and he was a, and he, the sad thing was, he was killed as a result of a mid-air collision at Driffield at the time. CB: Was he? PH: Yes. And he’d gone through the war as a DSO double, wing commander double DSO. And we had DFCs and other things you know. CB: Yeah. Pilot. PH: Pilot yeah. Oh yeah. No. He was an instructor. CB: I think one of the sad situations, I don’t know what you’d call it, the number of people who actually who were killed after the war in accidents. PH: Well don’t forget, when I joined the Air Force in ’51, still there was an awful lot of ex-wartime guys still around you know, with double, double medal ribbon you know. DFCs and God knows what. I mean, when I was at Marham, the wing commander flying there, Mike Hunt, that’s right, yeah, I think he was a DSO DFC you know. He’d been, he ended up as station commander at Leuchar I think at one time. CB: Amazing. PH: I can remember as I say at Marham, there were certainly, no at Wittering, sorry there were certainly guys, Tubby Oates who took over the, I think it was Tubby Oakes, a name like that, took over 148 Squadron as a wing commander. He was ex-wartime you know. Well decorated. DSOs and God knows what. CB: Right. I think that covers a lot. Thank you. 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 Peter Charles Hearmon 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 2016-03-17 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AHearmonPC1600317 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. 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 Second generation Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:17:26 audio recording Description An account of the resource Peter was born in London and evacuated for part of the war. For National Service, he was taken on by the Air Force for a short time engagement and, subsequently,accepted a permanent commission. After RAF Padgate, Peter was selected as pilot/gunner/engineer at RAF Hornchurch. He was posted to Number 4 Initial Training School at RAF Cranwell and then went to RAF Feltwell. He trained on Prentices and Harvards and became a pilot. RAF Driffield and Meteors followed. Subsequently, Peter flew Vampires, which he did not particularly like, at RAF Chivenor. He re-trained and received his navigator brevet at RAF Hullavington. He took a holding post at RAF St Mawgan, the Maritime Reconnaissance School. He trained on Canberras at RAF Lindholme, Bomber Command Bombing School, before joining 61 Squadron at RAF Wittering, where he spent a year before going to RAF Upwood. Peter describes his overseas detachments, and outlines and contrasts visual bombing and Gee-H bombing. For the final 18 months, he was posted to 58 Squadron at RAF Wyton as adjutant. He flew the PR.7 variant of the Canberra for photographic reconnaissance. Peter then learnt Russian and passed the Foreign Office interpreters’ exam. He went back to fly Victors at RAF Marham as a navigator. Peter talks of Operation Forthright, flying between the UK and Cyprus bringing back Lightnings. In the UK, they practiced refuelling. Peter subsequently went to the British Commanders-in-Chief Mission to the Soviet Forces in Berlin. He took photographs in East Germany, particularly of airfields. He then went to the Ministry of Defence South American desk and worked for the Security Services before retirement. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Devon England--Lincolnshire England--Yorkshire England--Norfolk England--Wiltshire England--Cheshire England--Cornwall (County) England--Cambridgeshire Germany Russia (Federation) Cyprus Germany--Berlin Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sally Coulter Vivienne Tincombe Maureen Clarke 61 Squadron aerial photograph aircrew fuelling Gee Harvard Meteor military living conditions military service conditions navigator perimeter track pilot RAF Bassingbourn RAF Chivenor RAF Cranwell RAF Driffield RAF Feltwell RAF Hornchurch RAF Hullavington RAF Lindholme RAF Marham RAF Padgate RAF St Mawgan RAF Upwood RAF Wittering RAF Wyton training https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/633/8903/ARobertsonIU150824.mp3 df6d4e73bf583517219125c6e5d9e282 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/633/8903/PRobertsonIUA1501.jpg cdc7de004a3cd39382e7e562f5d48dd0 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 Robertson, Iain Urquhart I U Robertson Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Robertson, IUA Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Iain Urquhart Robertson (2503864 Royal Air Force). He flew as an air gunner with 214 Squadron in the 1950s. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-08-24 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document IR: My name is Iain Robertson. I’m doing this interview for Bomber Command. I was an air gunner. National Service air gunner in the early 1950s and I was fortunate enough to be selected for aircrew and became an air gunner with 214 Squadron at Upwood in Huntingdonshire. It all started really — I was working in Tunbridge wells in Kent and after my 18th birthday I was called up to Chatham to be interviewed to go and, to do my National Service. At the recruitment office — Chatham being a naval place it was sort of orientated towards the navy but after chatting to the interviewer there I was asked whether I would like to go into the army or the RAF and I said, ‘If possible I would like to be an RAF.’ So, we had a medical. Then we had a test which I guess was mainly an IQ test and then we were interviewed afterwards. I was interviewed by a flight sergeant in the RAF who said, ‘I’m not supposed to tell anyone but you got a hundred percent in the written test that you have just done and there is a limited requirement for aircrew and I would suggest that you ask to be an aircrew of some sort.’ So later, after Christmas, in January when I was called forward I went to the RAF Centre at Padgate in Lancashire which I realised subsequently was where everyone went but during the period that we were there some of us were taken down to Hornchurch in Essex and we spent a week there doing various things to be selected for aircrew. At the end of which I guess some people were not suitable and the majority of us appeared to be suitable and I was offered, if I was prepared to sign on for eight years they said I could go on to be a pilot or a navigator but as I had a good career in the Civil Service I decided that I would be an air gunner. And subsequently I was very pleased because I really enjoyed my two years training to be an air gunner and being an air gunner on 214 Squadron. After the aircrew selection there was an obligatory six weeks which they called square bashing but fortunately for me and a couple of the other people who were on the selection at Hornchurch there was a gunnery course starting at Leconfield several days after we returned from aircrew selection and we were put straight on to that so we missed the six weeks square bashing. Looking back, it was probably a good thing to miss. So, we got straight into the school. The gunnery school at Leconfield and we flew under instruction as air gunners with Wellingtons and we did fighter affiliation with Spitfires and occasionally a jet which was probably a Meteor or a Vampire. And after a three months course at Leconfield I passed out as a qualified air gunner and the squadron leader there signed a little certificate saying that I was a good average air gunner but I was very pleased to be given a medal as the best all around cadet of Number 13 Course. Which didn’t serve me in good stead, didn’t make me superior but it made me feel good. From there we went to Scampton in Lincolnshire for conversion on to the aircraft that we were going to be allocated and this, these were Lincoln bombers. And again, it was a three, a three month course after which we were allocated a squadron. During the course at Lincoln we put in probably about forty hours flying doing various exercises with pilots, navigators, bombs and gunnery. And we were crewed up and we went to 214 Squadron in Upwood at the end of that as a crew. And, you know, for the rest of my National Service which ended in 1953 I was with the same crew. Flying in Lincoln bombers. Doing various things in peacetime. Mostly pretty routine stuff but keeping our hands in as gunners, navigators, pilots, W/Ops, bomb aimers. All the exercises and during that time there were a lot of NATO exercises which were mostly night exercises. One of the NATO exercises I think which stands out in my memory was when we were the enemy force and we were laying mines and we laid mines in the Firth of Forth. And at the briefing we were told that we would be flying in very low but that we could not follow in line because when we dropped the mines the splash from the mine could actually interfere with the aircraft. So, we had to fly in like a gaggle of geese and drop these mines in the Firth of Forth. I think another one which stands out in my memory was the ditching of a Canadian Sabre pilot in the North Sea, just off The Wash, when we were flying on a cross country at that time and we got a fix to go and be part of the air sea search for this pilot. And we were fortunate to spot this pilot in his little dinghy floating around in The Wash and we dropped two smoke markers to identify his position and he was picked up by a Grumman Flying Boat which was, I think, an American from one of the American bases. Life on the squadron I guess was pretty routine but we were a good team. I think the beauty of the RAF was that when you were in the crew room the officers, NCOs were just crews and we got on very very well. I had a good rapport with the flight commander, Flight Lieutenant Burden, mainly because both he and I played football for the squadron football team and I was fortunate enough actually to play football with the squadron. We got to the finals of a squadron, inter-squadron command. Let me think. 3 Group Bomber Command finals and I was selected to play for Bomber Command in a representative game against a naval command. I think it was Portsmouth Command. Just as a representative of the RAF. And I think, I think the score was 3-2 for them so I’m not really too proud of that [laughs] but there you are. Our crew was one of the, of two crews which were all NCO crews. All the rest of the crews in the squadron had officers as pilots and navigators but our crews were all, we were all NCOs. Our skipper, Flight Sergeant Flight would you believe had flown Wellingtons during the Italian campaign and had been actually shot down and captured and he was the daddy. Actually, he looked after us well. Norman Flight was a Brummy but when he got airborne he was PO Prune because he had an RAF voice. The bomb aimer was Alan Cartwright, Sergeant Cartwright who was a Londoner. The navigator was Trevor Campbell who came from somewhere in Home Counties. Wireless operator was Bill Cartwright sorry – Bill Rycroft who was a Yorkie. A Yorkshire man. The flight engineer came from Norfolk. From Swaffham. And was what we used to call him Mangel Worzel because he had a, he was a farmer’s son. Mid-upper gunner Buster Unstead came from Brighton. And as you may have guessed I, as a rear gunner, came from Scotland. From Glasgow. So, we were a pretty mixed bag but being a crew, flying together, we were one unit. It was great. The crew room — officers and NCOs were mixed. We were all part of the squadron and that also was pretty good. When we got free at the weekends we used to go down to Cambridge. Once or twice we took a punt out on the river and we punted along with the skipper sitting back at the stern telling us what to do and as always telling us where we’d gone wrong. But it was all good fun. And the dances in Cambridge were pretty good as well because the nurses from Addenbrookes Hospital always put on a good show for us and if we were lucky we might get to see one of them home. I sort of got a friend who was the daughter of a farmer and had a car and she used to pick me up at the sergeant’s mess and we’d to go out for a drink and that was it. Actually, lost touch with her when we, when my National Service finished but there you are. It was just one of those things. Having described the crew actually all but the gunners were regulars. And the two gunners, Buster and myself were just National Service. But, you know, there was no distinction, except perhaps now and again in the mess when they referred to us as the Coca Cola kids. But, you know, on a squadron do we were prepared to drink our share of what was going so we, we all mixed in and it was great. It was like being part of one great family. Now and again things came along which broke up the monotony. I mean, clearly doing National Service in a period where the Cold War was the main part of our situation and because of that we actually did what they called escape and evasion exercises. We were taken in a sealed vehicle. Probably dropped off about forty to sixty miles away from the base and given sixpence for a telephone if we got into real trouble and were told to make our way back to the base over three or four days. Just living off the country and not getting caught. And to my credit, I think, although we were not necessarily the first to get back to base whoever I was with and I managed to evade all capture and eventually get ourselves back to the base by hook or by crook really. The fens were a big obstacle because clearly the best way back to base was a straight line but it wasn’t always very practical because these ditches were in the way. And now and again we had an incident with a local farmer where we had borrowed his boat or punt or whatever it was, necessary to cross over. And we took it and of course left it on the side that we were leaving and the farmer wanted it back on the other side. But we managed by travelling at night, diving into ditches and hiding out in woods during the day to get back to the base during these escape and evasion exercises. There was also one, one event actually which they called, I think, passive defence where we had to defend the airfield against a marauding army. And in our case, on this occasion the marauding army were the glorious Glosters who had been covered, covering themselves with glory in the Korean war and they took prisoners but they didn’t take kindly to being told that we had shot them. On one occasion, being a gunner, I was part of a machine gun post at the edge of the airfield and we saw this, these army blokes hiding down at the foot of a field and coming up behind a hedge for cover towards the edge of the airfield. As they came out they had to come across a field and we, with our range of fire, I think were able to shoot them all but of course there was inevitably a dispute and the umpires had to come and agree that we had actually disposed of that little group of soldiers. I think we took quite a few prisoners. Put them in the station tennis courts as a temporary measure but found that they had wire cutters and were actually cutting themselves out and escaping again. I don’t know what the real thing would have been like but this was probably as near the real thing as we could handle. Clearly, during that period as one of the, a Lincoln from another squadron had been shot down in the corridor during the Berlin Airlift. We felt that we as were near the front line as we could possibly be. But obviously as a member of 214 Squadron we had to do what we had to do and it was mostly exercises with NATO from time to time that created excitement and competition for us. As an air gunner and hearing that the squadron had latterly converted on to the V bombers and were flying Victors I realised that that was the end of gunners and that, you know, looking back at it, you know, it was a good time perhaps for us to be in with the last of the aircraft which flew needing gunners. Some of the other ones who had been selected for aircrew at the same time as me went on to B29s, Washingtons, and others went to Coastal Command and were flying Shackletons. I think these were the three operational aircraft in Bomber Command and Coastal Command at that time. Looking back, I guess I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. It was great to be part of an outfit serving our country. MJ: Right. On behalf of the International Bomber Command I’d like to thank Iain Robertson at his home in East Sussex for his recording on the date of the 24th of August 2015. I thank you. 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 Iain Urquhart Robertson Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mick Jeffery Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-08-24 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ARobertsonIU150824, PRobertsonIUA1501 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:18:52 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 Iain was a National Service air gunner in the 1950s and served with 214 Squadron at RAF Upwood in Huntingdonshire, after being called up at the age of 18. Upon completion of training, he flew on Wellingtons and fighter affiliation with Spitfires. He was then posted to RAF Scampton for conversion onto Lincolns. After completing about 40 hours, he was posted to 214 Squadron. He tells of his time doing NATO exercises, including laying mines in the Firth of Forth. Iain also talks about how his crew was all non-commissioned officers, one of only two on the base; and of playing for the squadron football team. He talks about his escape and evasion exercises during the Cold War and how he had to get back to base in three or four days. Iain speaks of his pride in serving in the Royal Air Force, and of the time he ended his National Service in 1953. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Vivienne Tincombe Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire England--Cambridgeshire Scotland--Firth of Forth Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1953 214 Squadron air gunner aircrew escaping evading Lincoln military ethos mine laying RAF Scampton RAF Upwood Spitfire sport training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/945/9435/PSmithDS1801.2.jpg d10213091db33bb0cd65a54bdedf81f8 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/945/9435/ASmithDS180921.2.mp3 61ada42d23df040254cb0944d5b6dee5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Smith, Douglas Stanley D S Smith Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Douglas Stanley Smith (b. 1918, 41948 Royal New Zealand Air Force). 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 2018-09-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Smith, DS Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document JB: Yes. DS: I was eighteen years old, I think. Eighteen or nineteen. JB: Okay. I’ll just need to — DS: And when the war started— JB: Could I stop, just stop you a moment because I need to do a little introduction to say who you are. This interview is being carried out for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jennifer Barraclough and the interviewee is Douglas Smith. The interview is taking place at Mr Smith’s home near Auckland, New Zealand on the 21st of September 2018. Now, sorry to interrupt you. Yes. DS: I was — JB: Let’s go. DS: Educated at Thames High School which was a high school down at Thames. Thames was a town of about five or six thousand people, and it was the middle of the Depression in New Zealand anyway. I went down to the bank. I had matriculation or university entrance, and the bank manager said to me, ‘Have you got Higher Leaving Certificate?’ An extra year at high school. I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘My father can’t afford to send me there again.’ He said, ‘It’s a pity. The bank can’t employ you in that case.’ So, he said, ‘Go down to the Post Office. They may take you as a Cadet.’ So, I went down there and the next thing I am a Cadet. Cadets were the lowest of the low, but never mind it was a good experience. I learned to drive. I learned to do a little bit of Morse. Not much, but a little bit and I learned all about Post Office. You know, where you put your letters in. What do they call that? I can’t think of that now. Post Office. Did all to do with mails and things like that. I learned to go around all the sub-offices, of which in New Zealand there were many. But mostly adjacent to Thames so really, I was quite busy. I had my hat which I kept on my head. I was not allowed to put the telegrams in my hat. I had to carry them in my hand, and ride my bicycle, and fight off the dogs and all that sort of thing. I suppose it was a pretty mundane experience really, but I didn’t know any better. Anyway, I’m never ashamed of Thames High School. I think they taught me well, and it was a co-ed school so I was in first touch with girls, you know, for the first time really. I’d never had a girl and I never, I have said that at that High School for four, four or five years, and I never had a girl at the end [laughs] But I didn’t do particularly well. I was in the first fifteen and the first eleven in cricket and football and all that nonsense and I think the nicest thing we did really was to go and play other schools like Hamilton High School. We played them at rugby. We’d go up to Auckland and Auckland Grammar. We were lucky enough to play Auckland Grammar, and they were a good school and a very good team. So, it was quite interesting really. And came the war of course, and about nineteen, what’s that? 1940. It began to be obvious to me that it was only going to be a matter of time before conscription was brought in to New Zealand because Mr [pause] what the heck was his name? He was a Scot, was very keen that New Zealand should follow the old country. Where they go I will follow he said with New Zealand sort of thing. In those days, you know, people made those sort of statements, and they expected the country without any thought of saying do you want to go to the war? We were all in the war and the Air Force took quite a while to get themselves organised but they did in the finish and I would have been in the tenths class perhaps. Classes were about sixty people so there were quite a few of us. We started off by going to school again because they didn’t think our maths were good enough but heavens knows we never used them anyway. And then we started to learn to fly the aeroplane and I was sent down to New Plymouth where we flew the Tiger Moths mainly, and the Gypsy Moth. I was given the old Gypsy to fly one day, and when I got in the aeroplane it had a big notice in front of me. I couldn’t help but read it, ‘Do not aerobat this aeroplane.’ And I had practically no flying experience at all. However, it wasn’t my second or third flight that I thought oh, I wonder if it does a slow roll. Of course, it didn’t do a slow roll properly. Not with me at the controls. And I sort of got it over like this on its back and a great stream of oil came out of the engine and all over me because I’m sitting in the back of that and all over the aeroplane. So, I thought I’d better go back, you know to the hangar with the aeroplane and I was taxiing back when unfortunately, I met the chief of flying instructor. And he took one look at the aeroplane and me covered in oil and I can tell you that oil was hot, and I was quite badly burned about the face and things but he said, ‘Amongst the many attributes that you don’t have, Smith,’ he said, ‘I find that reading isn’t one of them. What does it say on that notice?’ And I said, ‘It says, “Do not aerobat this aeroplane.”’ ‘And why did you do that? What did you do? A poor slow roll I suppose.’ I said, ‘Yes, sir. That’s exactly what, what I did try to do.’ He said, ‘You will be taught that sort of thing in the fullness of time,’ he said. I’m talking a bit in the foreign language that we used in those days but there we are. So, I started off on the wrong foot and I don’t, I don’t think I ever got out of it [laughs] Anyway, I managed to, to pass through the initial flying training they called that, and I had Tiger Moth on my logbook. We did about fifty hours on the Tiger, and then we were sent down to Ohakea, which was a, a new station for New Zealand. It hadn’t been built long, and it had a different type of aeroplane. It had an aeroplane called a [pause] what the heck was that thing called? You know, I can’t remember these things. Could you get me a logbook out of the second drawer down over there? Now — JB: Yes. Certainly. DS: The aeroplane that I flew at Ohakea was a twin engined light bomber called the Airspeed Oxford. It was a nice little aeroplane to fly. It was quite a bit bigger than the Tiger, and of course it had many things that you weren’t allowed to do with it, and the first thing of course I was flying with a friend of mine, we used to fly in pairs and I said to him, ‘I wonder if this thing will slow roll.’ I said, ‘I tried to do it on a Tiger, and I didn’t have any success so let’s have a go.’ So over we go. We get this Oxford upside down and there was a terrible crash down the back of the aircraft and I said to my friend, ‘You’d better go and see what that crash was over there. I’ll keep it straight and level.’ So, I flew this thing straight and level. He went down the back and he said, ‘Well, the radio is in pieces all over the floor. You know they’re not going to be happy about that, Doug.’ I said, ‘I bet they’re not.’ [laughs] And I got in to terrible trouble that. I nearly got fired. I nearly got sent back to the Army. But anyway, they persisted with passing me out of there so [pause] but I still was out. I wasn’t out of trouble really. When the end of the course came we had an end of course party because we were all going to England. All that course was, and there were about twenty five in the course. So we had a party and we all got drunk of course. Stupid. I had a motorbike at that time. Now, Ohakea must have been four or five hundred kilometres from Auckland, and I lived in Auckland so about 10 o’clock at night I’m full of beer. As we used to call it, full as a boot. I don’t know why. And I got on my bike, and I started off for Auckland. I got as far as Huntly which was quite a way. I was lucky to be able to get petrol at Te Kuiti otherwise, I wouldn’t have had enough petrol. But I got enough petrol and the road from Te Kuiti to Auckland was sealed. There was white dots in the middle of the road. Well, I suppose I was on that for about a half an hour, and the white dots are flashing in front of me because it was about four in the morning. Flashing in front of me, and I went to sleep on that bike and I went off the road, into the railway crossing which had these big boards in it like that. The bike went straight in to that and got stuck, and the speedometer which was mounted on the handlebars hit me straight in the face and broke my nose, fractured my skull, and didn’t do me any good. And I should have been knocked out and killed really but I wasn’t and the, I managed to stagger out on the road covered in blood and all dressed in uniform and everything, and a man was coming to work, must have been a sharemilker, I suppose. Milking cows, you know. So they, he took me in to Hamilton Hospital where they patched me up, told my parents what had happened and of course my mother was secretly pleased. She thought, well look at him they won’t take him like that. He can’t fly anymore so he does not have to go to the war. I was an only child you see, and she was terrified I’d have to go to the war because my father went to the First World War so that’s where I was born in England. And so there it was. I, oh I spent up ‘til Christmas and, doing nothing and then I got a posting. I had to go to a medical board and they looked at me and they said, ‘Well, you’re a bit of a mess. You won’t have much fun with the girls will you, with that face?’ [laughs] I said, ‘No. I suppose I won’t.’ Anyway, I said, ‘I don’t fly the aeroplane with my face.’ Well, I said, ‘It’s only part of me.’ So there we are. So I got on a boat and we went through Curacao, and Panama. That’s right. We went up to Halifax. We waited for the convoy to take us across the Atlantic but the convoy left us behind because we were so slow. That boat was a First World War freighter so you can imagine. But we all had to go on watch all the time. We watched for that, for the U-boats that were sinking us but luckily we didn’t get any. So that’s how we got to England. We landed at Liverpool [pause] I don’t know what happened then. Oh, we went, the two of us went in to a fine looking hotel in Liverpool which was called the Adelphi, and it looked pretty good to us. So, we went in there and they had big containers with biscuits and cakes and things in them and of course you had to pay for them. We didn’t know this so we just helped ourselves and there was a terrible fuss over that because we didn’t have much money and we found out that we had to pay for everything we had eaten [laughs] And of course, we were hungry. And of course, we were sergeants you see and the place was full of admirals and goodness knows what and one admiral said to me, ‘What are you doing in this place, boy?’ He said, ‘You don’t belong here.’ I said, ‘No sir. No sir, I do not belong here. I’ve just arrived from New Zealand.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘That’s different. Have a drink.’ So, he gave me a drink and he said, ‘If I were you, I’d better go out and find another hotel where your class will be welcome.’ He said, ‘You won’t be welcome in here.’ Oh, he said, ‘The Navy don’t drink together. The officers drink apart from the men.’ So, we had to go there and then we were sent down to Brighton. Brighton, which you might imagine is a nice beach but of course it was mined and everything like that and it’s full of stones in the first place. It’s a terrible beach really. And then we went on to Bournemouth which was much nicer and there, we were there for about, oh quite a long time. I don’t know how long we were at Bournemouth. July. Well, it must have been half way through the year, and we’d started off so yes, we got a posting to Grantham. See it here. And we were flying Oxfords again. And then, when we flew those for quite a while again. They didn’t seem to know what to do with us. And then we got posted to — where the heck was that? [pause] Oh, Upwood. We were sent to Upwood which was an Operational Training Unit, and they were flying Blenheims. Bristol Blenheim, which was a twin-engined light bomber again. Terrible aeroplane but still, it was an aeroplane and we used to use that for going over the Channel in daylight. Two of us would go over in daylight and if anybody got back, they were lucky. Very lucky indeed. Most of them were just shot down by, by the German fighters because they were no match for the German fighter. So, we spent quite a while doing that ‘til we ran out of Blenheims. And then all of a sudden we were out at the airfield one day watching and I said, ‘Hey, there’s a couple of new aeroplanes coming in. They don’t look like anything I’ve seen before.’ I said, ‘They look like they’ve got nose wheels.’ And I said, ‘No aircraft in the RAF has got a nose wheel so they must be American. I wonder what they’re doing here.’ Well, of course they were for us. So, the two girls landed both aircraft, you see. One, two and they said, ‘You’ll be flying these boys.’ ‘What?’ I said [laughs] ‘How will we learn to fly?’ ‘You’ll learn to fly when you have to fly them. If you’re going to crash, you know you haven’t learned enough. You be careful of them as they’re a bit tricky for you. But if you read the books and don’t do anything smart, you’ll be all right.’ So, I said to Doug, ‘You’d better stop, your, your light ways of getting in to trouble all the time. These aeroplanes will kill you.’ So, I read the books from cover to cover, and I talked to people that had flown them and the CO said to me, ‘Right, Smith, have you read the book?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ He said, ‘Have you talked about it?’ I said, ‘Yes, I talked to the chief flying officer. He’s flown them.’ ‘Right,’ he said, ‘You’ll find them quite easy to fly in the air.’ He said, ‘They’re a nice aeroplane, and they’re quick.’ He said, ‘They’re almost as quick as the German fighters.’ ‘Almost,’ he said. ‘If you get a start on them you’ll out distance them on the way home. Remember that. Break off the fight early and go for home. Don’t stop and try and shoot them down because the German fighters will get you.’ So, I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ So I flew those for about maybe a year and a half. I did about eight or nine trips on those over Germany. Over Northern France really. And those were, my operations started there. So, I’d done about eight or nine trips when I did something stupid again. I came back from a low-level cross country. I hope you know the technicalities I’m telling you. JB: Some. Some of them — DS: Yeah. Some of them anyway. But I came back from a cross country, you know they used to send you out on cross countries low level, and we were up at fifty feet. About as high as these buildings. And we used to go around all of northern England and that sort of thing. And I did one of these and I came back and I thought, oh I’ll give the boys in the officer’s mess, I’d been made an officer by then, in the officer’s mess a bit of a shake-up. So, I came over the officer’s mess and I didn’t know that Viscount Trenchard who was the chief of the Air Force was sitting on the other side having a cup of tea. And of course, as the Boston came over it was noisy and low and he spilled the tea on his number one blue uniform and he was not amused. He said, ‘You will know what to do with that young fool. Send him up to Sheffield.’ Now, Sheffield was what they called a Glasshouse. In that they meant that it didn’t matter whether you were an officer or anything. You marched around all day with a pack on your back. All that sort of thing. In other words, they were going to break your spirit there. Well, they didn’t break mine, but they very nearly did. But I didn’t. I didn’t give in. I marched around until I dropped. I literally fell on the ground. Fell on the ground with just marching around, you know. So, they thought oh goodness me. We’ll have to send him to the sick bay. See, see whether he’s kidding or not. But they found I wasn’t kidding all right. My legs had given way and, and I was off duty for quite some weeks really. So, so they sent me back to my squadron, said I was cured [laughs] But there we are. Just made me more stupid I suppose. No. But I wasn’t completely stupid. What happened then? Oh, no. I’ve got it all wrong. When I, when I flew over the mess with Viscount Trenchard was there he said, ‘You send him up to do, fly the heavy bombers.’ Gee. The [pause] what was the bloody thing called? It must be in here somewhere. JB: Not the Lancasters? DS: Oxford. Wimpy. Wimpy. I don’t know where he is. A York. I can’t find that aeroplane. Must have lost it [pause – pages turning] And I’ve got Wimpy here. [pause] Yes. That’s it [pause] I can’t find that aeroplane. [recording paused] DS: The Wellington. JB: Wellington. DS: Not the Wellington. JB: The Lancaster. It was Lancaster. DS: Lancaster. JB: Lancaster. DS: Yeah [laughs] Four engine bomber. And it was quite a good old aeroplane to fly. I sat in the front there, you see. The gunners, the bomb aimer sat, no, that’s the navigator. No, he isn’t. He is. The bomb aimer sits there, and he’s got a little hatch under here. The wireless operator and the navigator sit in the wing area there and the two gunners sit there. Yeah. So, we were lucky to get on the old whatever it was called [laughs] What was it called? JB: Lancaster. DS: [laughs] You know your memory’s gone. Lancaster. Yeah. That’s right. So, we did the, we’d done about ten I think on the Boston so our crew, that was my navigator and my engineer, my radiator officer, radio operator and myself we went on, on rest when we’d done thirty. Thirty trips. So, the [pause] most of those were Berlin, I think. Where the heck was that? [pause] Chapelle. That was our last trip on Brunswick. Stuttgart. Frankfurt. Frankfurt. Berlin. Essen. Nuremberg. We were on that Nuremberg raid when they shot down a hundred of us that night. Now, that was too many for us to take. We couldn’t take more and that was just before D-Day. So, there we are again. Berlin. Berlin. Berlin. Nuremberg again. Berlin. Berlin. Leipzig. Stuttgart. Schweinfurt. Augsburg. All the big German towns we were bombing. So, there we are. We got away with that and I don’t know how we got away with it really. So, after we’d done thirty trips they sent us away. The three of us. And we just parted. We never saw our previous crew members again until after the war had finished when we all met when the squadron held a, you know, a reunion, and everybody came so we met our crew members again and were able to talk with them and we made friends with them this time. So after that we were given I think a six months rest period when we taught the new boys coming from New Zealand how to fly which was just about dangerous as going over Germany I can tell you. They were pretty dumb [laughs] same as we’d been. And, and I think that’s, that’s when the war finished. D-Day came. I, I did one of the raids on Paris where we dropped our bombs right in the middle of the railway yards in the middle of Paris and all the bosses were frightened. They thought that we were going to kill a lot of Frenchmen with that but we did well that night. We didn’t kill very many people at all. Then we bombed this, this marshalling yard which was going to be used when D-Day came. The Germans were, had all their trucks and all their trains and things in there so we destroyed a lot of them. It was a good raid really. I did a couple of those, and then we were sent to what? A, an OPU which was a New Zealand OPU. OTU. Operational Training Unit. Well, I think I was there for well over a year and then — no. The war came, that’s right the war finished. The war finished. That’s right. Do you think you could put that thing over my — JB: Yes. Is that right? DS: Yeah. That’s okay. JB: Okay. So, what did you do after the war? DS: So, the war came to an end you see, and I got a note to go down to headquarters in London. And I met Air Commodore Gill down there. He was a good Catholic and he was nasty to me. He said to me, ‘You have a wife and two children have you not?’ He said, ‘I found that out.’ ‘Yes sir. I have.’ He said, ‘Are you married?’ I said, ‘No sir. You can’t get married in a wartime easily. In fact, you’re very lucky to get married at all. We shall probably have to wait until the end of the war.’ ‘I’m ashamed to talk to you,’ he said. Good Catholic you see. It didn’t matter how many Catholics had got English girls in to trouble. And I know one of my friends did that and they, and they adopted the child and he was married you see so they just sent him back to New Zealand. So, he was treated right but I wasn’t because I was a heretic I guess [laughs] Anyway, I was lucky. I found someone in the headquarters that said to me, ‘You flew Lancs didn’t you, Doug?’ I said, ‘Yes, I did.’ He said, ‘Do you have you anywhere near five hundred hours?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’ve got close on that.’ He said, ‘Would you like to fly the Avro York?’ I said, ‘What does it do?’ he said, ‘It’s Transport Command. They fly all around the world with very important people.’ ‘Oh,’ [laughs] I said, ‘Am I experienced enough?’ ‘Yes, of course you are.’ He said, ‘People with five hundred hours flying is very experienced in this war.’ So, they sent me to a like [pause] now I’ve forgotten that word. What’s the squadron called? Wasn’t it — [pause] Transport squadron it was and we went down the south of England. We were based down there quite close to Reading and we flew from Reading. I did a year and a half on that. And my last flight really was, with the Royal Air Force I came from Singapore to Calcutta on to Palam, which was Delhi in India with fifty prisoners of war. Ex-prisoners of war of the Japanese, and they were very poorly fellas, you know. They were. They were knocked around something awful. So, we had to treat them very gently. So, there I am taking off from Palam in India to go to Calcutta. We sort of just had big steps like that to go until we got to England and halfway through the take-off the undercarriage, or the wheels, you know the wheels. It had four wheels on each, two on each side. I think it did [laughs] Anyway, there were enough. We were taxiing on the take-off run, and we had about eighty five miles an hour which wasn’t quite enough to make it fly. It would have to be about ninety before it actually got into the air ‘til the pressure of the wind on the top of the wing lifted it up. And about, just before that I heard this undercarriage come past my ear like that and I looked at the panel and on the panel were two green lights for the undercarriage. Well, they should have been two green lights but as I looked at them they went red meaning that the undercarriage was slowly coming up. So, the aircraft had to be two things done to it. It either had to pull the undercarriage up completely and crash it on the, where it stood or it had to be flown and I chose to fly it. I made an instant decision and it was the right one because I got it into the air and we flew it. And we had to fly it around for four hours to get rid of the fuel so that we didn’t have that much more fuel to burn us and the aeroplane. And we did that. So, we flew around Taj Mahal. That was in, and what was the other place. There was a triangle. We flew around there. Flew around for four and a half hours. I went and talked to all these people. These fifty boys. One fella said to me, ‘You’re going to kill us aren’t you, sir.’ I said, ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said. ‘The war is finished. Why would I kill you for goodness sake?’ I said, ‘I’m living. I’ve got two children, a wife.’ I said, ‘Why would I kill you?’ I said, ‘You just sit there with your head in your hands like that,’ and I said, ‘You’ll be alright. Now, don’t go jumping up and down and trying to get out of the aeroplane until it stops.’ I said, ‘Wait ‘til it stops. If it’s not on fire then you can get out easily.’ And there it was. And I stood. Well of course, I had to fly the thing so I put it down. And it wasn’t a bad landing, you know. It was pretty good without an undercarriage and everybody got out. Nobody got hurt. So, they gave me a green endorsement in my logbook for that. I think I’ve got that somewhere up the back here. [pause] DS: Oh yes. There it is. There. But I don’t think it will come out. JB: No. DS: Green. There’s another green there. So, I got two greens [laughs] And this one here, ‘Gross carelessness. Taxiing accident.’ So really that was all my, that was all my career really. If you want to take this disc, have you got a player? JB: I haven’t. I’ll just switch this off now. DS: My last flight with the Royal Air Force. After that they said, ‘It’s time you went home. You’ve been here for six years and — ’ 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 Douglas Stanley Smith Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jennifer Barraclough 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 2018-09-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ASmithDS180921, PSmithDS1801 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:42:08 audio recording 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 New Zealand Air Force Royal Air Force. Transport Command Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Douglas Smith grew up in New Zealand and, on leaving school, he joined the Post Office. He joined the Air Force and he flew Tiger Moth, and Gypsy Moth aircraft at New Plymouth. On one of his flights there was a warning note in the cockpit not to do aerobatics. He slow rolled the aircraft and was covered in hot oil from the engine and was advised by the chief flying instructor, that he would soon get his chance later on to do aerobatics. He was posted to Ohakea flying twin-engined Oxfords. He arrived in the UK to commence training and was posted to RAF Upwood, an OTU flying Blenheims. He completed 30 operations. Whilst flying in Transport Command in India, he was carrying former prisoners of war from Delhi to Calcutta and his undercarriage developed a fault so he flew around the area to burn off fuel, and crash landed the aeroplane, with no injuries to his crew or passengers. He was given a green endorsement in his flying log book. Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1940 1944 1945 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain India New Zealand Germany--Berlin India--New Delhi India--Kolkata New Zealand--Auckland New Zealand--New Plymouth Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Carolyn Emery 207 Squadron 88 Squadron aircrew Blenheim Boston crash Lancaster military discipline Operational Training Unit Oxford pilot RAF Upwood Tiger Moth training York https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/848/10844/AHabberfieldM180111.1.mp3 fa5e71c1067db31d3b958cdcb17ee814 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 Habberfield, Margaret M Habberfield Description An account of the resource Two items. An oral history with Margaret Habberfield (b. 1923) and a group photograph. She served as a Women's Auxiliary Air Force telephonist at RAF Upwood and RAF Stormy Down. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Margaret Habberfield 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 2018-01-11 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 Habberfield, M Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document MH: I'll try and tell you. AM: Right. So today is Thursday they 11th of January I had to think about that. Thursday the 11th of January. It’s 2018 and this is Annie Moody for International Bomber Command and today I'm with Margaret Habberfield in Melton Mowbray where Margaret lives and Margaret is going to tell me all about Bomber Command in the war. But before we start on that Margaret you were born in 1923 so tell me a little bit about your childhood. Where you were born and what your parents did. MH: I didn't know my parents. I don't want to go into that part of it. AM: Alright. No problem. MH: It’s not nice. AM: Ok. MH: I don’t have, my parents died years and years ago. AM: Ok. As a child though where did you live? MH: I don’t want to say. Tell you that. AM: Oh ok. MH: Its rather personal. I haven’t mentioned that to anybody. AM: Not, absolutely not a problem then. Where shall we start then? Shall we start with you going in the RAF? MH: Yes. I went in when I was sixteen. AM: Ok. MH: I put my age up to eighteen but I was only sixteen. AM: You told fibs. MH: At the time. AM: Right. So how did that come about? Why did you want to join the RAF? MH: This is where I don’t want to be. AM: Tell me about joining. So how did you — MH: I joined up when I was sixteen. AM: Right. MH: And I said I was eighteen but I wasn’t but I just wanted to get away and get — AM: Right. So that’s, that’s what — MH: Yes. AM: What made you join. MH: Yes. AM: So where did you join? Where did you start off? MH: I think it was at Gloucester. The first training. Or, no, Harrogate. AM: So if you were sixteen that would be 1939. So was it just before the war had started? MH: Yeah. I was from 1941. 1941 to 1945. AM: Right. Ok. MH: I was in. AM: Right. So, so what was it like then actually joining up? MH: I thoroughly enjoyed every day. AM: Yeah. MH: I really did. AM: What was the initial bit like? What, you know you’d be in digs with other girls and training. MH: Oh, I was in a billet. It was massive, big billets until I got a rank. Then I had my own room. AM: Right. MH: You see. But I thoroughly enjoyed my life in the RAF. AM: So, when you, tell me about the early days in the RAF. What was the training like? MH: Well, it was, you had to go training every day in the first instance to get to know what the training was all about. What to do, what not to do and how to get on with it. And in your billet how to make your bed and this sort of thing which was inspected every day, every week. Things like that. AM: How many — MH: I got on with everybody. AM: Yeah. How many of you were there? MH: In the, in the one billet? AM: Yeah. MH: There was about forty. Twenty. Forty. AM: So quite big. MH: Yes, it was. Very very big. AM: Yeah. What was it like living with all girls? MH: Well, they were all different weren’t they? Everybody was different but I got on with every one of them. Great. We had the ablutions at the other end of the billet. AM: So what was that like? MH: It was fine. AM: The ablutions. MH: Well, you know. AM: Describe them to me. MH: We were all very young and you had to take your turn to get to a shower or a bath whichever you wanted and get yourself sorted, cleaned and so on and so forth. And then the next one took her turn and that’s how it went on. Then we went then to the mess to have breakfast and your meals of course which was rather nice. Meals were lovely. No faults at all there. AM: Right. MH: They were nice. Everything was fine. And you had PT. That sort of thing. Which was in a hangar with all the other WAAFs. That was great because you had a good laugh over that. AM: Who was, what were the instructors like? Were they men or women? MH: Oh, very nice. No. They were, they were, they were ranked obviously. AM: Yes. MH: Sergeants most of them but PT probably. But they were fine. They were really fine. No problems. I had no problems with any of them. AM: So, you really enjoyed it. MH: I did. I think it’s a lovely life for them to join, for girls to join up now. AM: Yeah. So how long was the training for? How long did that last for? MH: About six weeks training and for me that was— AM: And that was your general training. MH: General. AM: So — MH: Ordinary training. AM: Yeah. MH: Yes. AM: Marching and all the rest of it. MH: Yes. Oh yes. You had that every day. AM: And where were you? Did you say, Harrogate did you say? MH: Harrogate and Gloucester. I think that was the first. It’s going back such a long time I can’t remember it all. AM: So then once you’d done your six weeks training. MH: Then you were posted to a station. AM: Ok. MH: A permanent. Which was RAF Upwood. AM: Upwood. MH: And I was there for a long long time. AM: Right. So how did they decide where they were going to post you and what you were going to do? MH: Well, it was up to you what you, what — AM: Right. MH: What trade you wanted to do. You were given an option as to which trade you wanted to do, what you wanted to be in and I wanted to be in signals and I stayed in signals. AM: Right. MH: Telephone. Telephonist. AM: So what, why did you want to be in signals? MH: I thought it was interesting. I found it, I didn’t want to go in the cookhouse or places like that. AM: No. MH: I wanted to get on and be different and I did. AM: And you did. MH: I did. AM: So what was that? The training for that like then? No. Tell me about getting to RAF Upwood first of all then. MH: We went straight to Upwood. AM: So — MH: And there I stayed. Back in to the billet with the rest of the WAAFs. AM: Ok. MH: Made friends with other WAAFs. AM: What, what were the gradings? So, for the men it was LAC2 and then LAC1 and then corporal. MH: Corporal. Sergeant. AM: So what were the gradings for the for the girls? MH: Well, they were the same. AM: Were they? MH: Exactly the same. AM: So at this point what would you have been then when you — MH: Well, an ordinary AC. AM: Right. MH: I was just an ordinary AC at the beginning because the others — AM: So that was ordinary AC. MH: That’s when we all joined up together and that’s when you were an AC. So Aircraft Woman. AM: Aircraft Woman. Right. MH: ACW. AM: So as an Aircraft Woman now you’re off to RAF Upwood then. So whereabouts was that? [pause] I can look it up. It doesn’t matter. MH: Isn’t it in Towcester? AM: I don’t know. Gary will know. MH: I think it is. Yeah. I think so. But it was a lovely camp. Everything was fine. No problems at all. AM: So what, what was there? What was at RAF Upwood? Was it, was that a base? Were you all WAAFs or were you mixed? Was it a — MH: Oh, no. Mixed. AM: So it was a proper — MH: Oh yes. Mixed. AM: Ok. MH: Aircraft. AM: So, it was a bomber base. MH: Yes. AM: Right. And what year are we now in the war? MH: ’41. ’42. AM: About. MH: I started at ’41 and I came out at ’45. AM: Right. Ok. So in, so in 1941 you’ve done your basic training, you’re there in Upwood and you’re going to go in signals. So, what was that like? What was the training like and — MH: Oh yes. We had to go through training obviously to get trained to use a switchboard. A massive switchboard. Not like they are today. Just plugging in. AM: The ones that you see. MH: Yeah. Yeah. AM: Where there’s plugs all over the place. MH: And I worked my way up. In the end I was in charge of eight WAAFs. AM: Right. MH: And I got on with everybody. AM: When you started how long did the training last? Can you remember? MH: About three, oh a month at least. AM: A month. MH: A month to five weeks. AM: And that was — MH: Training. AM: So that was you’ve learned the switchboard. MH: We learned the switchboard. Then you were posted to this switchboard and there you stayed. AM: Right. And that was the switchboard for the whole camp. MH: That was the whole camp. AM: Right. MH: Outside calls. Incoming calls. AM: So at first you were one of many girls on the — MH: Oh yes. Yes. AM: How many of you would there have been in the — MH: Well, in my section it was, there was eight of us. AM: Right. Because how big was the camp then? MH: Oh, it was a big camp. AM: How many — MH: Upwood. Very big. AM: So how, how many switchboards? One. MH: Three in the one that I was in. There was three. AM: Right. So three switchboards. MH: Yeah. AM: In and out. MH: They had to be manned day and night. AM: Right. So it was twenty four hours. MH: Twenty four hours. AM: Were you doing shift work or — MH: Yes. AM: Yeah. What was that like then? Working shifts. MH: It was fine. AM: Yeah. MH: No problem. AM: You enjoyed it. MH: Yeah. Back to our beds and get up in the mornings and get on to your job. AM: How long were the shifts? How many hours were the shifts? MH: Eight hours. AM: Eight. So eight. Eight hour shifts. And what did you do the rest of the time? What was the, what was the social life like? MH: There was plenty to do. No. There was plenty to do, you know. Dances in the sergeant’s camp rooms. PT. Walking. Going into town. Things like that. AM: Yeah. MH: You know. AM: And did you, did you meet and mix with the chaps? MH: Yes. Yes. Yes. AM: Yeah. So were the dances on the base? MH: On the base. Oh yes. AM: Right. MH: Always on the base. AM: Yeah. MH: They were very nice too. We thoroughly enjoyed those. AM: Did you get dressed up or were you all still in uniform? MH: No. Still stayed in uniform. AM: You were all in uniform. Right. And then you said you got made up. You worked your way up. MH: I did. I worked my way up. AM: So what were the different, what different grades did you work your way through? You started, you were Aircraft Woman. MH: Yeah. AM: Ordinary. MH: Then corporal. AM: Then a corporal. MH: Then sergeant. AM: Then a sergeant. So you ended up in charge of the girls on the switchboard. MH: I did. Yes. AM: Right. Did you enjoy, what was that like? Managing a load of girls. MH: Great. They were fine. AM: Yeah. MH: I had no problems with any of them. AM: And what about the chaps? Did they — MH: They were, yeah, they were fine. I mean they’ve got them on here on the band. AM: I’m going to ask you about the band in a minute. MH: They were, they were, everybody was fine. The officers were fine. No problems at all. My signals officer he was next door to the telephone exchange. He was next door. Any problems I had to go to him to sort things out. AM: Yeah. With regards to the, the chaps obviously flying off did you see, I don’t quite know how to ask the question. What involvement, if any did you have with the bombers going off on operations? MH: Well, lots of phone calls obviously. And we’d see them going off. We got to know them. We were allowed to go and see but so far obviously. We weren’t allowed to go to near the aircraft. But they were there. We heard them going and coming back. AM: Right. MH: That sort of thing. AM: Yeah. MH: Get to speak to them. Get friendly with them. Meet them if we wanted to. Get to the NAAFI. Always in the NAAFI. Plenty to see and do in the NAAFI. That was fine. AM: I bet there are a lot of stories isn’t there? MH: Yeah. AM: About fraternisation. MH: Well, there was that. There was that. AM: Yeah. MH: You got friendly obviously. AM: When you say lots of phone calls is this, what type of phone calls were they? MH: All to do with the RAF. AM: Right. But with regards so would family be phoning in. MH: No family. AM: No. MH: No. No. No. No. No. AM: No. So it was all operational stuff. MH: ‘Put me through to sergeant — ’so and so or, ‘Put me through to —' AM: Right. MH: Officer so and so. That sort of thing. AM: So, tell me, I’m looking at a picture on your wall of the band. Tell me again about the band. MH: Well, we had that was once a week we had that band. AM: Ok. MH: That was at Stormy Down. That’s in, near Bridgend, in South Wales. AM: Right. So you moved. MH: Moved from — AM: You moved bases. MH: That’s the base I moved from to there. AM: Right. Ok. MH: And that’s where we got a band up. It was just sort of automatically got up. Who wanted to join joined. And I joined. AM: So what did you do in the band? MH: The bugle I had. AM: Right. Could you already play it or did you — MH: Sorry? AM: Could you already play a bugle? MH: No. AM: Right. MH: I was taught to play it. AM: Who taught you to play it then? MH: A sergeant on the camp. There he is down there. He taught us. AM: And what did, where did you play? Just on the base? MH: On the base. AM: Yeah. MH: Yes. On the base. Or if they had any dos on the camp we would play. AM: Right. MH: Perhaps you’d march through the camp playing. But mostly in a, in a hangar. Once a week we had that and it was really, really there’s officers there. WAAF officers and RAF officers. It was really really lovely. AM: I’m looking at the photo. MH: Yes. AM: It’s a complete mix isn’t it? MH: Yes. AM: Which one are you? MH: You try and find me. At the back. AM: Oh Margaret. [pause] MH: I’ll give you an idea. AM: Right. Let me have a look. MH: At the back. AM: Oh, that’s quite hard. MH: The fourth one in. AM: Do you know what, that one? MH: Yeah. AM: I was just going to say. MH: Yeah. AM: I’m looking at the shape of your face. MH: Yes. That’s me. Of course, we’re standing obviously on a bench to get the right photograph. AM: Yeah. Well yeah. Either that or you’re very tall. So in the band there’s quite, there’s a lot of you. MH: There was a lot of us. They were lovely. We had a grand time. AM: There’s twenty odd of you. MH: Great time. AM: Yeah. Who’s the dog? Who did the dog belong to? MH: The corporal down at the bottom. He looked, he looked after her. Yeah. She was a beautiful dog. AM: How come you had to changes bases? Was that — MH: Well, they just posted you. AM: Yeah. So how long were you on the second. What was the second base that you were on? You said. MH: Stormy Down. AM: Stormy Down. That’s right. And that was another bomber. MH: Oh yes. Yeah. AM: Another bomber base. MH: We used to hear them going off and we used to worry about them coming back and, you know that was natural wasn’t it? AM: Yeah. MH: We got to know some of the navigators or pilots or whatever wondering had they all come back safe and sound. That sort of thing. AM: What was it like when they didn’t? MH: Well, it was not nice when you knew that they weren’t coming back or they didn’t coming back. It wasn’t. You know. You naturally worry don’t you if you know them that we’re talking about. AM: Yeah. So any stories to tell me about fun things that you got up to? MH: No. I got to know one or two of them and got friendly with them. Went out with them but that was it. You know, you had to be very very careful. AM: Yes. As girls. MH: It was taught to us, pumped in to us what to do, what not to do. What was so and so like. What was that meant to be. What’s that sort of thing. What you do. What you don’t do. Take care. Be careful. AM: Yeah. MH: Which we did. AM: Be a good girl. MH: Oh yes. Yeah. AM: Well, yeah. I can’t imagine what it would be like on a huge base like that with, because there would be far less of you then there were of the boys. MH: Oh yes. AM: So I would imagine you were all in great demand for dances. MH: Yeah. AM: And things like that. MH: Yes. Well, we had a nice time at the dances and used to go out with them and meet them and [pause] but that was it. AM: Yeah. It does sound, I mean you sound as if you just enjoyed the whole experience. MH: I did. Yes. I did. I liked it very much. I liked every minute of it. AM: And you were in there for the whole of the war. MH: I did. AM: So you came out as a sergeant. You ended up as a sergeant. MH: I did. Yes. AM: Yeah. Which is quite high up for a WAAF isn’t it? That’s good. And when did you come out Margaret, of the —? MH: Well, at — AM: At the end of the war. MH: Yes. AM: So what did you do then? MH: My demob number came up so I just came out. AM: Right. So what, what — MH: But I stayed in Wales. AM: Right. MH: And I met my husband. AM: Where did you meet him? MH: In Neath. AM: Right. MH: This, that side of Swansea. AM: Yes. I can, I can visualise where that is. And he was in the Navy I think you said. MH: He was Navy. AM: Where did you meet him? At a dance? MH: The pub. AM: In a pub. MH: Yeah. AM: So what — MH: He used to come back and forth. We used to meet up and that was the end of that. Got married and had her. AM: And had your daughter. The, in the between bit from being demobbed and meeting your husband and getting married did you, what work did you do? MH: I started nursing. AM: Oh, you did. You were a nurse. MH: I went into nursing. AM: Right. MH: That was what I took up. AM: And did you do the full training? MH: I did. AM: And become a nurse. Because that’s, how long was the training for that? That’s about three years? MH: It was very very hard. Very hard. But I enjoyed that too. I got on with everybody. AM: Yeah. MH: I liked it. AM: So how long did you work as a nurse for? MH: Oh gosh. Up until I had Stephanie. AM: Right — MH: And then — AM: And that — MH: I had to see to her then. AM: And you lived in Wales. Did your husband stay in the Navy? MH: No. He came out as well. So we got married, set up house. We had a house. AM: Right. And what did he do? MH: He was in the South Wales Electricity Board. He ended — AM: Oh right. MH: He ended up a manager. AM: Right. So you lived up happily ever after. MH: We did. AM: But you obviously think back fondly. MH: Oh, I do. AM: To your time as a WAAF. MH: Yes, I do. I do. AM: Yeah. And here you are in an RAF home. MH: Here I am. My husband died of cancer and my daughter kept on saying, ‘You can’t stay in the bungalow,’ Which was my own bungalow, ‘On your own.’ Because they were over, she was over here. She wanted me to get nearer so that she could — AM: And you were still in Wales at this time. MH: I was in Wales at the time. To keep an eye on me. AM: Right. MH: So I came over here. In Oakham then, of course. AM: Right. MH: Went straight to where they are. And I stayed in Oakham and they wanted to make sure that I was taken care of, looked after and here I am. AM: And here you are. MH: And I applied here. AM: I’m looking at a picture of your daughter and son in law. Both in the RAF. MH: They are both. AM: So what rank is your daughter in the RAF? MH: She’s also a sergeant. AM: She’s a sergeant. MH: Yes. AM: As well. MH: She’s in, she’s in air traffic control. AM: Is she? Right. MH: And he’s a chief technician. AM: And you said that they’re both based at Wittering. MH: Yes. But they travel every day from Oakham to Wittering. AM: Yeah. Well, it sounds like you’ve had a really interesting life. MH: I did. Yes. I did. I’ve had some nice WAAF friends. I used to go to their homes on leave or we’d go up to London. Have a weekend up in London on leave. That sort of thing. AM: Yeah. So that, so this was in the middle of the war. So, what did you do in London? MH: Well, we used to go to a show or walk around. Go to the shops. Have a look around and that sort of thing. AM: Just for the day or the — MH: For the day. AM: Oh, you went just for the day. MH: Or a forty eight hour pass we had. AM: So, stay in digs or —? MH: Oh yes. We had to stay in digs. AM: Yeah. MH: B&B mostly. AM: Right. MH: We couldn’t afford these expensive hotels. AM: It sounds brilliant. There’s a war going on all around you but you are enjoying every minute of it. MH: Yes. AM: Why would you not? I’ll switch off. 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 Margaret Habberfield Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Annie Moody 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 2018-01-11 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 AHabberfieldM180111 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 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:20:49 audio recording Description An account of the resource Margaret Habberfield was born in 1923. Aged 16 she joined the Royal Air Force, having declared her age as 18. She began her six-week general training at RAF Harrogate and was billeted with around 20 other girls. Margaret was then posted to RAF Upwood and RAF Stormy Down. She was a telephonist in signals working eight-hour shifts. Margaret was in charge of eight Women’s Auxiliary Air Force members; became corporal and eventually sergeant. Her social life included darts, physical training and attending dances in the town. She learned to play the bugle and joined a band when transferred to RAF Stormy Down in South Wales. After the war Margaret stayed in Wales and became a nurse. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire England--Yorkshire England--Harrogate Wales--Bridgend Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sue Smith Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending revision of OH transcription entertainment ground personnel military living conditions physical training RAF Stormy Down RAF Upwood training Women’s Auxiliary Air Force https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1182/11754/AWalkerAJ180810.1.mp3 5320a1d464b3e3c16e12608c684536dd 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 Walker, Alfred James A J Walker Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Alfred Walker (b. 1942). He lived at the end of the runway at RAF Upwood. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Alfred Walker and catalogued by IBCC Digital archive staff. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-06-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Walker, AJ Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document MS: My name’s Michael Sheehan and [ buzz ] today is 10th of August 2018. And I’m sitting in the company of Alfred James Walker and you’re happy to be interviewed. Is that right, Alfred? AW: That’s right. Yeah. MS: Thank you very much. And he’s represented by Gillian Walker, his wife who’s also here. I’ve just got to read you some stuff and then we’ll hear about your riveting memories of RAF Upwood. Do you first of all confirm that you consent to take part in the recording? AW: I do. MS: Yeah. And do you, and at the end of the interview I’ll take you through some stuff here and get you to sign some paper. AW: Ok. MS: But you’re feeling well. No problems at all. AW: Yeah. No problem. Yeah. MS: Good. If at any time during the interview you feel tired or you want a break or something. AW: Never like that. MS: You want to give me a cup of tea just, you know [laughs] AW: Yeah [laughs] MS: Just say that you need a break and that’s not a problem. Is that alright with you? AW: Yeah. MS: Ok. AW: Fine. MS: Right. When, we had a quick chat over the telephone before I came down today and [pause] I am just checking the recording. Yeah. Everything’s working ok. And I take it you used to live at Upwood. Almost on the end of the east west runway. AW: 2 Bury Road, Upwood. MS: 2 Bury Road, Upwood. AW: That was the official address. Yeah. MS: Ok. And your date of birth? AW: My date. MS: Yeah. AW: 10.7.42. MS: So during the war you’d be a toddler. AW: I would be a toddler. MS: Yeah. AW: Yeah. MS: But because certain things were so impressive you’ve got strong memories of that time. Yeah. AW: I have. Yeah. MS: What things come to your mind most of all? AW: The fact that these big aeroplanes kept coming over grandma’s house at different times. I can recall how they used to. We could look out the front room window and see them coming towards us and then run through to the kitchen and see them going down on to the airfield at the other end because there was only one field between my grandma’s and the edge of the airfield. You want to know the particular time? MS: Anything at all you want to tell me. I mean can you just clarify one thing. You say it was one field. Could you see the threshold? You know, the end of the runway right quite close to you. AW: Oh yes. MS: Right. AW: Yeah. No problem at all. If I went into the bedroom we could see all over the airfield itself. MS: You could. AW: Yeah. MS: Do you remember the airfield wasn’t always tarmacked? It used to be grass. Do you remember when it was tarmacked? Do you remember them doing the work? AW: No. MS: Ok. That’s alright. AW: No. MS: So, tell us. Carry on then. AW: And this one particular morning we was having breakfast and we could hear this aeroplane coming in and there was an almighty crash. And it had hit the chimney pots and it had knocked grandma’s chimney pot off and part of the brickwork. We rushed to the kitchen window to see all the debris falling and rolling down the roof etcetera. And when everything all quietened down we went outside to look outside and all our chickens were running around all over the place. And we take it that part of the aircraft had caught the six foot wire fence that ran around to make a chicken run. Because the chicken run was right on the very outskirts of their garden. Right at the very bottom. The wire lay tangled all in, all over the place and we spent hours collecting all these chickens up. The outcome of it was we had a lot of people come around our house and the following day when we started to sweep everything up, at the time I had no toys at all. I had a little wooden wheelbarrow. MS: Yeah. AW: Which my next door neighbour or grandma’s next door neighbour had built for me out of wood. You’d use it as firewood today but it was my pride and joy. I spent two days virtually collecting these bits and pieces up, wheeling them around the front and tipping them in a heap and then picking them up from the front and wheeling them around the back because there was nothing, nothing to do. MS: And what did you do in your later life as a job? AW: [laughs] Yeah. That was my building experience, I suppose. MS: It was [laughs] So you had no choice did you? AW: I had no choice. But, and then I can, I can, I can recall when we couldn’t have a fire at the time to heat any water up because we were waiting for a chimney sweep to come to make sure the flue was clear. And I can remember grandfather when the chimney sweep did come he picked me up in his arms and we walked down the garden and we had to shout the chimney sweep when the brush came out the top of the chimney. MS: Did the aircraft, can I ask you a question? Did the aircraft actually make the runway or did it crash between you and the runway? AW: I think actually it landed on the grass before it hit the runway. But there was no fire or anything of that side as I recall. MS: Did you actually see the aircraft? AW: Yeah. The aircraft was like, was there. Yeah. MS: Sitting there or — AW: Yeah. Sitting on the grass. MS: Right. AW: Yeah. MS: So it landed short then. Was it on its wheels or — AW: It was on its wheels. MS: Oh right. AW: Yeah. Because after we’d collected everything up, collected all the chickens up we then walked across the field and looked to see what was going on and this aircraft stood there. MS: Right. AW: With multiple people going around it. And that’s as far as we went. But the strange thing was we could walk on to the airfield because there was only one section of wire strung between posts and we’d just duck under it and walk on to the airfield. There was no security whatsoever. And the, there was a loop in the runway right at the end. Went right into the corner of the airfield. MS: Yeah. AW: And that’s where they used to store an aircraft. MS: Would it be there? Have a look there. AW: That’s where they used to store an aircraft when it wanted a major, something major doing to it because it would be there for a long long while. MS: Right. AW: In this loop here somewhere. MS: Right. And Mr Walker is showing me a loop which is literally between the camp and his house and it’s to the — AW: Yeah. MS: Just to the west of his house. If you look, anybody who looks at an Ordnance Survey map will see a P almost next to his house and the loop is there. Just literally one field away with a footpath between them. AW: Yeah. MS: Ok. Thanks for that. AW: Yeah. And we, I used to go down there so regular — MS: Yeah. AW: That the people that was repairing the aircraft used to stand there and talk to us. And it was as open as that. MS: Yeah. AW: There was no security whatsoever. MS: And you were just a toddler. AW: I’m just a toddler. Yeah. MS: Right. AW: Yeah. MS: Do you have any other memorable recollections from that time? Anything else? Did you see aircraft crashing? Or — AW: Yeah. What I could, what I did remember quite vividly was grandmother. Well, for a start my grandfather, he had a taxi business and in the process of taking people backwards and forwards after they’d been on sorties or whatever the case may be he used to collect them up and they used to be or there is a hotel in Ramsey. The Red Lion. Which was basically the only place where you could be put up for the night. But grandmother always used to take people in. And I got used to these strange people coming in the house. They used to get fed for an evening meal and they always had a big breakfast before they went. Some of them, I think they must be Polish. MS: Right. AW: Because they didn’t talk English. MS: Yeah. She wasn’t a spy was she? [laughs] AW: But, and when I, because I used to live with them I had a little bedroom above the stairs. A little minor bedroom. Now, if three people turned up they used to nick my bedroom and I used to have to have a makeshift bed put in grandma’s room. MS: Right. AW: And I can remember it because it was made of two fireside chairs turned to make a little square. MS: Oh right. AW: And then I used to lay in there. MS: Because, of course you were just a toddler at the time. AW: I was just a toddler, you see. MS: Yeah. AW: Yeah. MS: You know you mentioned about the food. How did you get on for food during the war? AW: Food. We had no trouble with food whatsoever. MS: Something going on here. Go on. AW: We, of course we had a big garden. MS: Yeah. AW: Because it was a council house. All council houses had a rather large garden. And as I said we had all these chickens so eggs were no problem. We was for having, forever having chickens in the hearth. Little baby day old chickens in hearth. MS: Yeah. AW: Until they got old enough to put outside. Which gave us a continuity of meat in a manner of speaking. MS: Yeah. AW: Just over the road was two grass fields with high hedges and the hedges underneath was full of rabbits and we used to go and put, or grandfather used to go down and put a wire noose around, and — MS: Yeah. Snare. Yeah. AW: Snare them one way or another. Wild blackberries. Wild mushrooms. We lived perfectly ok. MS: You got your five a day. AW: And plus next door to Mr Smith which was the next door neighbour to grandma there used to be a farmer with cattle. So we used to go there if we wanted any milk. And just there again I used to take my little wheelbarrow with a little tin jug with a lid on it. MS: Yeah. AW: And I used to go with grandma around there and pick I suppose it was quart or something like that. Straight up. MS: This was, this was fresh milk. Not pasteurised. Nothing like that. AW: Fresh milk. Oh no. Fresh milk. MS: Whole milk. AW: Straight out the cow. MS: Right. AW: And if we could get cow’s [unclear] we used to have them. MS: Cow’s? AW: [unclear] MS: What’s [unclear] GW: [unclear] it’s disgusting. MS: What’s [unclear]? Sounds like the wrong end of the cow. Go on. AW: Sorry. A cow’s [unclear] is the milk a cow produces immediately after it’s had a calf. MS: Yeah. AW: Which is extra creamy and thick. MS: Right. Is this the one with the curds in it? AW: It’s the one with the curds in it. MS: Right. AW: Now, officially we shouldn’t be drinking it but grandma used to make a custard, an egg custard with it. MS: Right. AW: Put two or three eggs in with this really thick cream and put it in the oven and when it came out it was yum. MS: Perfect. When you’re young you’ll eat anything. AW: Well, yeah. Exactly. MS: Yeah. AW: I mean so consequently we, we didn’t really go without. MS: No. It sounds nice. Did you mention pigs as well when I saw you the other day? AW: My dad used to have — MS: [unclear] AW: Yeah. Pigs in the village. When they had little ones they was distributed amongst the community if you like. MS: Right. AW: Because I think originally they used to have to have the agricultural people wanted them all registered. MS: That’s exactly right. AW: Well, these weren’t registered [laughs] MS: Right [laughs] So you didn’t eat them then. AW: So we ate them. MS: Got rid. You ate the evidence. Can I ask you a couple of questions? You know the, you know when the roof came off how much damage was actually done. AW: Sufficient for them to put scaffolding up and we had two or three men there for two or three days to put it right. I think they must have taken about two foot of the brickwork off as well as the chimney pots. MS: Ok. Just out of interest because you were a toddler and obviously the only things that you remember things that would be really significant. Do you remember any other damage to any other houses in the area at all caused by aircraft or bombs? AW: No. MS: No. Not at all. AW: No. MS: Did you have a happy childhood? AW: Well, I suppose. It was happy I suppose but of course I had no mates because there was no children around that area. MS: Yeah. AW: The only one that was around that area was four doors up from us and it was a girl. She was about four years older than me. Well, as I was a toddler she didn’t want to know me because I was — MS: She was babysitting you. AW: You know. She was too old. MS: Yeah. AW: So although [pause] I suppose I was happy. Yeah. MS: Yeah. AW: In my own little world. MS: Yeah. and then your dad came back from the war. AW: That’s right. Yeah. MS: He’d been a prisoner of war I understand. AW: Yeah. And of course when he came back I didn’t know he was any different to the airmen that used to come to grandma’s house. MS: No. AW: So, he tried to put me on his lap and I ran away [laughs] MS: I bet that didn’t make him happy. AW: So, yeah. I mean unfortunately I haven’t got that memorabilia here because my daughter’s, my granddaughter has been using it as a — GW: Ella. She’s been doing a she’s been doing a, she’s been doing her mocks for her GCSE next year and she’s done her, part of her English on the Second World War. MS: Ideal. AW: Yeah. MS: Right. GW: We could get it, Alf but another things you see Alf’s dad was in the Army. MS: Yeah. GW: And of course the map that we took to Riseholme was of airfield, wasn’t it? And that’s why we didn’t think it was — MS: Yeah. GW: Because it’s Alf’s memories that you want, isn’t it? MS: Oh absolutely. GW: And not — AW: Yeah. GW: But I suppose we could get some. MS: No. No. Don’t worry about that. AW: Yeah. MS: This is, it is Alf’s memories. You’re quite right. AW: You see, that, that map — MS: Let’s turn this off for a sec. [recording paused] MS: So, you’re mentioning this map you took to Riseholme. Yeah. AW: It was a map of the, officially the Midlands but it went slightly higher than the Midlands and not down to the coast but quite a long way down and it showed every Air Force base or every airfield. But also it had a number on the side of it which no one seems to know why. For a start Biggin Hill perhaps was number forty. RAF Wyton perhaps was seventy three. MS: Yeah. AW: There was no logic numbers left to right, north to south. MS: Got you. AW: They was all over the place. Now, whether that was a code that when they was talking to people when they was coming in to land, ‘We’re going to land at number — ’ so and so, we don’t know. MS: No. And you say that was left. AW: I can’t, I can’t recall any other way I can get it. MS: Other than it being left with your grandmother. AW: Left with grandmother. MS: Yeah. When we were chatting the other day when did your dad actually come back? Was it after the fall? Where was he? Singapore? AW: Yeah. Burmese Railway he was on. Yeah. MS: So what year did he come back home? AW: 194 — GW: The telegram was 1945 but I thought he went to Roehampton for his feet first. AW: No. He came home first. GW: Oh, and then went back. AW: And then he had to go to Roehampton. GW: I see. Yeah. That’s — AW: To have his feet put right. MS: What was wrong with his foot? AW: He had a railway sleeper drop on it. MS: When he was working on the railway. AW: When he was working on the railway. MS: Right. AW: Of course he had to continue working and it twisted his foot all up. MS: Right. AW: So he had to have his foot broken again and then reset. He was off. Laid up in bed for weeks for it to be repaired because it was all steel pinned, and etcetera. MS: Right. And did the, did the time in prison camp affect your father at all? AW: Yes. I’m sure it did. He wouldn’t, I couldn’t get a word out of him what happened. There was nothing, was there? GW: No. He couldn’t talk about it. AW: Couldn’t talk about it. MS: No. AW: We heard nothing. No. MS: Did it affect his behaviour at all? AW: I don’t, I don’t think it did. GW: Not as such I don’t think. AW: But it, I’ll put it this way — MS: Things he wouldn’t eat or anything. AW: I think it, I think it affected him to a certain degree. It wasn’t. When he came back he wasn’t a lovable father. If you know what I mean. There was never any embracing or, ‘I’m sorry my old son if you’ve hurt yourself. Come here.’ No. If you hurt yourself he would say, ‘Come here. Let’s have a look. Stop whingeing,’ and he would — MS: Get on with it. AW: Put it right with a bit of horse liniment. MS: Yeah. AW: Or whatever the case may be, you see. So there was no, it was harsh if you know what I mean. MS: When we were chatting on the telephone the other day just sort of setting, just me saying what I would be talking to you about. You mentioned something very interesting. Your father had some dietary things later. He wouldn’t eat certain things. AW: He wouldn’t eat rice. He wouldn’t have rice anywhere near him because that’s all they had to eat when he was prisoner of war. And it was a no go. MS: Ok. AW: Other than that he had no problems at all regarding indigestion or stomach ulcers or anything like that at all. The only thing was when he came back although he was nearly six foot tall he only weighed just over six stone. MS: Right. So he needed building up. AW: So he got built, well he got built up because — MS: Because of the milk. AW: We had all the stuff laying around. MS: Which you found disgusting. Your face is saying it all. Right. AW: Another thing, another thing I didn’t say at the time. MS: Oh yeah. AW: Which I remembered later. Grandmother used to have an old radiogram. MS: Yeah. AW: It was a thing about the size of a four drawer chest of drawers. Massive great thing. MS: Yeah. AW: And it had all these different wave bands on it. I realised afterwards when I was older because when it broke I took it to pieces but all these wave bands were on it and the people that used to stop at grandma’s house they used to turn it right the way down to a low frequency. MS: Yeah. AW: Although I didn’t know what it was at the time and we could hear the discussion between the aircraft and RAF Upwood. MS: Right. You couldn’t do that on a modern radio. That’s interesting. AW: Yeah. And so we knew when the aircraft was actually coming before they actually came into sight. MS: Right. AW: And I can even now remember at different times grandmother used to say in the morning when it all went quiet, ‘There’s not many turned up today. They’ve had a bad night.’ MS: Ah. Right. Yeah. AW: And it was, it was solemn if you — MS: Yeah. I know. AW: Yeah. MS: I got that impression from you. What you’ve just said and also the way you’re looking about it as well. AW: Yeah. MS: When did you leave the area? When did you move away? AW: I was there eighteen months after dad came home. So it would be ’47. GW: Because Fred was born ’48. AW: Yeah. He was born ’48 and he was born in Benwick. Yeah. 1947 I left the area. MS: Yeah. Is there anything else you can think of at all that is significant or you want anybody to know or — ? Because it’s been, it’s been very interesting certainly from my point of view listening to you explaining about that because it’s a time I didn’t know. You know. I was born in ’48 so — AW: No. It just blows my mind that I can remember, thinking about it, so much when I was so young. MS: Yeah. AW: But at the same time even now if we go somewhere if a hundred and fifty miles away I can take you back without looking back at the map. I still recall. MS: A good memory. AW: A good memory. GW: He’s got a very good memory MS: Right. Ok. Right. What I’m going to do then if it’s alright with you I’ll read this bit at the back. Is that alright? First of all thank you very much indeed for chatting to us today. AW: You’re very welcome. MS: I’ll explain now what’s going to happen to the recording. Some of this sounds very official but it’s just the way we have to do it. AW: Yeah. MS: Are you able to confirm that you consented to take part in the recording? AW: I did. Yeah. MS: And you’ve assigned to the university all copyright in your contribution for use in all and any media. Is that ok? And you understand that this will not affect your moral right to be identified as the performer in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. Whatever that means. AW: Whatever it means. MS: Right. Do you agree your name will be publicly associated with the interview? But you understand that all other personal details will be stored under strict confidential conditions and will not be shared with third parties. So just your name. Yeah. AW: Yeah. MS: Ok. Do you grant me permission to take your photograph for the purposes of the archive with my phone? AW: Yeah. MS: Thanks. Very kind. And do you agree to the interview being made available online so people who have computers will be able to go to the IBCC Archive and download your interview? Is that ok? That’s great. Your daughter and granddaughter will be able to do that. AW: Yeah. MS: Yeah. And do you agree, oh this agreement sorry will be governed by and construed in accordance with English law and the jurisdiction of the English courts. And if you sign here for me that shows that you accept the agreement. Are you happy with that? AW: Ahum. MS: Thank you. GW: Alf, would this gentleman like to see this stuff of your dad’s that Libby’s got at the moment? MS: Yeah. I wouldn’t mind if it’s there. AW: Yes. Yes. The only thing we haven’t got it here, have we? GW: No. But I’m saying we can get it from Libby. AW: Yeah. MS: The, just let sign that. The, I’ll explain anything that’s what we call real such as maps, documents things like that I’m not allowed to actually take possession of. What would have to happen is you’d have to take those to Riseholme Campus. AW: Yeah. MS: And show them. And they could scan them in and, and if you wanted to hand stuff over then that would be discussed with them but we’re not allowed to take anything away with us. AW: No. No. The archives itself as it is we shall keep. [recording paused] MS: Alfred, while we were just sitting here just chatting you told me something quite interesting. Immediately following the war. Do you want to just take me through it again? You, just to set the scene, you, about eighteen months after the war was over you moved with your parents. Yeah. So where did you go to and what happened? AW: We moved back to Benwick which was a little village about eight miles from Ramsey. MS: Yeah. AW: And the only residence we could have was a pub. MS: Yeah. AW: Which basically, which only sold beer. It didn’t sell spirits. It was just beer. And so consequently it wasn’t earning enough for our parents to bring up as it was two children then because my brother was born. MS: Yeah. AW: So dad took a job as a lorry driver. And one of the major jobs he had was on a regular basis he used to have to go down to London, Covent Garden with a little Austin three ton truck. Well, in those days the potatoes was in hundred weight sacks. Hessian sacks. And this one particular time I remember he went down there and he had sacks of potatoes down each side and across the back and in the middle was full of stuff that shouldn’t have been there. There was eggs, there was chickens, there was pieces of pork and one thing and another from the pigs that we’d had. MS: The pigs that didn’t exist. AW: The pigs that didn’t exist. And this happened two or three times as I can recall. Also my uncle he used to live in London and he used to spend his week’s holiday, he was only allowed one week a year — MS: Yeah. AW: He used to spend his week’s holiday in Benwick with us. MS: Oh yeah. We’re interviewing again by the way Gillian because this is something that’s relevant. Yeah. AW: And we used to have a, he used to come down in a taxi. One of the old black cabs. MS: Yeah. AW: With the, an open side where they used to put the cases. MS: Yeah. AW: And the same taxi driver used to come every time. And we used to know a fortnight or so before hand and we used to get all the food that we could. Collect up for him. MS: Yeah. AW: He used to stop overnight and then the following night he used to go back to London. But this poor taxi was loaded right down with — MS: With contraband. AW: With contraband goods. The following weekend it was his job again to come and pick my uncle up again. MS: Yeah. AW: Well, in the week that he was over at Benwick he was collecting more stuff up and there was just room for him to sit in the back of this taxi and the rest of the stuff was full up with stuff again. MS: What would have happened if he’d have been stopped? AW: Well, I suppose he would have been in serious trouble. MS: Yeah. Because it was during rationing wasn’t it? AW: Because, yeah, it was during rationing you see. I mean, the stuff that moved around it seemed as though because it was a pub it was the hub of the village so consequently everybody that was coming in was bringing stuff and swapping stuff. No money took place. MS: No. AW: It was — MS: Barter. AW: All barter you know. I’ll give you that if you give me this. MS: All very sensible. AW: And that that was the way we lived. MS: When were these journeys done? Broad daylight? AW: Oh no. They was all done at night time. And apparently when he got to Covent Garden although there was a row of lorries waiting to be unloaded his was the first lorry to get unloaded. MS: That’s strange. AW: They used to go straight by all these other rows of lorries and disappear in to a corner somewhere. MS: Did you ever go with him? AW: I never went with him. No. MS: No. Did you hear about this from your father? AW: Oh yes. Yeah. Well, sometimes a lorry used to be parked in our back yard behind this big six foot fence before he went out. MS: So you’d see it get loaded. AW: So we could see what was being loaded and we knew that father was on his way back to Covent Garden again. MS: Right. Country folk are not beyond the wall are they? Thank you very much for that. 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 Alfred James Walker Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Michael Sheehan 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 2018-08-10 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 AWalkerAJ180810 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:28:50 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 Civilian Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire Burma Description An account of the resource Alfred lived near RAF Upwood when he was a young child. Alfred’s father was in the army and worked on the Burmese railway. Alfred remembered aircraft going over his grandmother’s house and landing on the runway nearby. One morning an aircraft flew low over the house and damaged the roof and the chicken pen. Alfred said that there was no security at the airfield and anyone could just walk through - aircraft were stored awaiting repairs very near their house. He also recalled his grandparents having a large radio set on which they could hear aircrews talking to ground personnel. In 1947 the family left the area and went to Benwick, near Ramsey where they had a pub. Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1947 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sue Smith Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending revision of OH transcription aircrew childhood in wartime crash ground personnel home front prisoner of war RAF Upwood runway https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1875/46465/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v310002.mp3 dba55bcfd3288733e70c03b9fff85978 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1875/46465/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v310004.mp3 af811d089815158df987ec0309af7ee5 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 Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-06-19 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire Description An account of the resource 34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br /> <p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with&nbsp;<a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with&nbsp;<a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p> Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document Part 1. Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr Bob Panton in RAF Coningsby on the 19th of May 2011 talking about his post-war experiences in Lincolnshire. So what are your memories of the war, Bob? BP: Well, all of it. All of it really. It was very fascinating with all the bits and pieces that went on. I can recall that after the 9 o’clock news every night apart from one there was a programme called, “Into Battle.” It lasted about ten minutes and you used to be absolutely glued to the radio listening to this every night which was part and parcel of what it was all about, you know. We saw very very strange things happen obviously. Only very recently was a report about someone finding an enemy aircraft which was downed in the sea. Yeah, and the powers that be were going to restore this aeroplane or get it out of the sea and it was a Dornier 17 and they did appeal for anyone that knew anything about Dornier 17s as I did. I didn’t do anything about it. Don’t get me wrong. And it was in August 1940, I was on holiday obviously, 12 o’clock father was coming down the garden path on his, pushing his bicycle and then from the south, west southwest of where we were I saw three Dornier 17s and of course as a young fellow who knew every aircraft inside out and backwards and I said to father, ‘There are three German aeroplanes.’ Father came out with some remark which I’ll not repeat and there appeared closer still three Dornier 17s. All of a sudden out of the sun appeared six Spitfires which we later understood came from Digby. Three of the Spitfires peeled away and the other three set about the Dornier 17s and I watched them shoot them down. That was a personal experience which I’ll never forget. One of them they actually sawed the wing off. It’s port wing. Just as if it had gone through a hacksaw. It just went like that and fell down to the ground. Almost immediately in our wisdom a good friend of mine who was equally mad about aeroplanes jumped on our bicycle to find the first one which came down which we knew wasn’t too far away. We got there before the Army did which the Army were not very pleased about because of course the prisoners, the aircrew had baled out and the fact that the blooming thing still carried a full load of bombs [laughs] If you look in the Visitor Centre you will see some of the remains of that Dornier 17. That was a very unusual thing to happen. They gathered all the crews together like eventually. What actually happened was not very nice. One of the poor souls was decapitated as he baled out. Got his head crushed and that was it. It parted company from the rest of his body. Another one was taken from Bilsby where this aircraft crashed to Alford Cottage Hospital by the village parson, Reverend Fletcher and when he was admitted to hospital he actually spat in the nurses face. Interviewer: Oh dear. BP: Which made him a very unpopular fella. But eventually three of them were killed and they were laid to rest in Bilsby Churchyard for a lot of years. And all of a sudden one day I showed somebody these graves and they weren’t there anymore. Interviewer: Really. BP: They’d taken the remains back home. ‘Well, that’s funny. I knew they were here.’ [laughs] Just one of the experiences, you know. You never forget. Amazing really. Joined the ATC as soon as ever I possibly could and eventually became a Senior Cadet NCO of 1073 Squadron. Won a scholarship which was mounted by the college at Manby and learned to fly with the University Air Squadrons on Tiger Moths of all things which was very nice. Open cockpit you see. Interviewer: Yes. BP: A true plane. And then at seventeen and a half joined the Royal Air Force and went on to do flying training on Tiger Moths to start with. On to Harvards and then on to the four engine ones. The only problem with my flying was why I finished up on big things because I couldn’t have any idea at all of navigation. It never clicked. Most of the exam we had to we cheated like mad. Once outside the boundary of the airfield that was it. So I had to have a navigator behind me [laughs] as it were. Interviewer: So, you flew Lancasters. BP: Yeah. Yeah. Interviewer: And where would that have been? BP: Mildenhall, Wyton. Interviewer: Wow. BP: Upwood for a little while. Variously saw an amount of service and then went on to eleven weeks with Operation Plane Fare which was what it was all about on Tuesday. The Berlin Airlift. Interviewer: Right. You were in involved in the Berlin Airlift. BP: Used to fly, flew Yorks on the Berlin Airlift. Interviewer: Right. BP: Yeah. Which was really quite something. Interviewer: Yes. BP: It was pure and simply a cowboy outfit from the word go because that was the way it had to be. The Russians had blockaded the city. We couldn’t get anything in by road or rail and of course the surrounding territory was the Russians. They wanted us out. It wasn’t all their fault. We did things that they didn’t like and vice versa. We changed the currency without really telling them which wasn’t a very good thing to do. And I did forty nine trips from Wunstorf to Gatow with eight and a half short tons of coal in the back. So somebody trained me to fly aeroplanes and I finished up being a coalman [laughs] which was what this trip was all about. The York down at Duxford apparently when we got it sorted it all out it was apparently one of the aircraft that actually flew on the Berlin Airlift. Interviewer: I’ve heard about the coal dust. BP: Yeah. Interviewer: Still being in the Lancaster years later. BP: Oh yeah. Well, this one was in the repair depot at Duxford many years ago. I remember seeing it and I did enquire if this thing had been found to have coal dust anywhere and somebody would come and have a look and they did. Nooks and crannies. The lot. And I learned on Tuesday when they took the floor up from the York it was absolutely covered in coal dust. But it solved a problem because they got the historical records of the aircraft and I got my historical records and it fitted. It was one of them. So it was a problem that solved after about twenty three years [laughs] Very nice. I don’t — Interviewer: What was it like to fly the Lancaster? BP: Physical. Interviewer: Hard work. BP: Yeah. If you like. It was physical. Not like today’s modern aircraft. There were no computers, no power control. It was pilot flying which was what pilots were supposed to do really [laughs] if you like. But it had a few little tricks which it liked to remind you of at times like pulling off the runway because all the props turned in the same direction but the pilots that were around were good at having to. Yeah. Lovely aeroplane. The Lincoln of course was another version. Bigger in every respect and obsolete before it really came out. Only built five hundred and three I think. The only operational service it did was with Mao Mao out in Africa. That was about it really. No way would it have even if we had gone to war they would never have launched them. Interviewer: No. BP: The ones that jacked it up. We were told that if we did go in to action then piston engine aeroplanes like that wouldn’t have lasted two minutes and they shot Gary Powers down didn’t they? Interviewer: Yes, they did. BP: From about five or six miles. I don’t think a Lancaster would have lasted very long. Thank goodness it never happened like that, you know. Interviewer: Did you sort of see the demise of the Lancasters? BP: Oh yes. Interviewer: Less and less of them around. BP: Yeah. Interviewer: And — BP: Yeah. Yeah. You’ll never ever see another one as good as this one because that one is better than brand new. They’ve been here in the wintertime and seeing what they do it every wintertime it’s amazing. They virtually take it to bits every year. Interviewer: Yes. BP: And then every six years. Now, eight years. It goes away to British industry to do a complete service on it. Take it virtually to pieces every time. It only does about a hundred hours a year but it’s perfect. Interviewer: Yes. BP: Inside it’s exactly the same as it would have been many years ago. All the bits and pieces have all been found and put back where they should be but it’s dual control now of course which it wasn’t. Which it wouldn’t have been. The main reason being because we always for safety sake there was two pilots there. Bearing in mind they don’t fly it at twenty thousand feet anymore. It’s about a thousand feet over a lot of people. Interviewer: Yes. BP: So they always have got to be in safety. Interviewer: You’re not a small man and I know a few men in the war weren’t small pilots and like Gibson wasn’t — BP: That’s right. Interviewer: Over tall, and a few of the others. What difficulties would he, could you see him having? BP: They always said he wanted to put wood blocks on the rudder pedals. I don’t think anybody dare tell Gibson that because he wasn’t a nice man to know in some respects. He was very very blunt and could be rude. Extremely rude. That’s what he had to be. Interviewer: Yes. BP: He got the thing done did he not? Yeah. Amazing. But in this area of course this is where it all happened. Interviewer: Indeed. Yes. BP: The great shame I think is that the Bomber Command Memorial is going in Green Park in London. I think the Memorial should be outside of Lincoln Cathedral or somewhere adjacent because that was the pinpoint all the bombing lads looked for. Interviewer: Circling Lincoln cathedral as they came back. BP: That’s right. Absolutely. It was a leading landmark. Interviewer: I suppose we should be grateful we’re having one at all. BP: Oh, we shall. Yeah. One of the things that happened amongst several. Think about the Poles and the Czechs even left out of the Victory Parade in London. Interviewer: That was — BP: That was absolutely disgusting. Interviewer: It was reprehensible. BP: The bravest of the brave. They really were. Poor old Bomber Harris was treated like a piece of dirt when it was all over and before it was all over actually. Interviewer: Yes. BP: The Dresden raid he took full responsibility. It wasn’t his orders at all. It was Churchill’s. It had been requested by Joseph Stalin to give him a little bit of support in the eastern part of Germany and that’s what happened. Interviewer: Yes. BP: Passed the buck. Interviewer: Yes. BP: We’re still deal with it a bit sometimes don’t we? I don’t know about sometimes but anyway, yeah. Interviewer: So how long did you stay in the RAF altogether? BP: I stayed nearly six years and the problem I got was eye trouble. I got astigmatism in one of my eyes and virtually given the chance to say you can stay in the Royal Air Force as ground crew or you can leave. So I left. Today they can cure that problem in three seconds with laser treatment. Interviewer: How did you feel when you left the Air Force? BP: Oh devastated. Devastated. And then twenty five years ago I came back and joined up again [laughs] which was rather nice. Interviewer: And you’ve been a guide here at Coningsby for twenty five years. BP: Yeah. Yeah. Twenty five in ’86. Yeah. Yeah. Interviewer: You see the veterans come sometimes. BP: Yeah. Quite, oh yeah quite often. We’ve had all sorts of people from all over the world. No doubt about that. Wonderful people that remember things. We were talking only last week to a party and we were talking about the Poles and the Czechs in front of the Mark Five Spitfire because it’s marked as one of their aircraft. And one of the gentlemen was listening very intently and when he came out with his driving licence and there was the funny name. And his grandfather was a fighter pilot on 303 Squadron. That very aircraft. Interviewer: Goodness. BP: Yeah. And he was, I just began to wonder whether I’d said anything wrong [laughs] but he was very interested in what happened and I said to him at the end of the day, ‘Remember the brave.’ Because he was one of them. Interviewer: Dear. BP: 303 Squadron. Fortunately, he lived to see the war over. Amazing. Interviewer: Have you had any family in the war as it were? BP: Oh, two. Two brothers. Interviewer: Yes. BP: Two elder brothers. Interviewer: And they — BP: One was a rear gunner on Wellingtons for quite a time until he got virtually shot to bits and the other one strangely enough was a trainee solicitor in Gloucester, called up to the Royal Air Force. Where do you think he got posted? Royal Air Force Records Office, Gloucester and stayed there the whole war. Absolutely [laughs] Anybody else you’d put preference down and say you wanted to stay in Coningsby they’d send you up to the north of Scotland. Interviewer: Best not to let them know. BP: He was there right through the war. Yes. Fascinating. Interviewer: How did you feel about your brother being in Wellingtons? What age would he have been? BP: Oh, he’d be twenty years, a bit more than that older than me. He’d be, today he would be well over a hundred but in those days he’d be something like twenty two or three. Something like that. But he actually got the canopy, his Perspex shot to bits all around him and he wasn’t touched. Amazing. Turned into a blithering idiot. He was shaking like this. It happened to him twice and he got discharged to, he was at least six years before he was ever any good again. Interviewer: So the war took its toll on, on your brother. BP: Yeah. Oh yeah. He was absolutely devastated. I can imagine it too. I mean the rear turret was not a very nice place at the best of times but— Interviewer: No. BP: Having it all shot to pieces. Yeah. Poor old Jack. Interviewer: And he did his service in just Wellingtons? BP: Yeah. Interviewer: Yeah. BP: But it, he wasn’t the only one of course. The aircrew like that. Interviewer: No. BP: The only possibly awkward thing was and not very nice at all was when someone got absolutely petrified they could be given a special title which was LMF. Lack of moral fibre. Interviewer: Yes. BP: And they were treated just like that. Banished. Wherever they were based they never saw them again. Interviewer: Yeah. They were sent away. BP: Put away somewhere and discharged and that was it. Interviewer: Different to, different commanders had different attitudes didn’t they? BP: Oh yeah. Yeah. Interviewer: Gibson who you’d think would be a real stickler for this didn’t really hold with anybody, sending anybody LMF did he? BP: No. No. Interviewer: He would get the doctor to sort of dismiss him and — BP: Yeah. Yeah. Interviewer: And do it like that. BP: Yeah. Yeah. Interviewer: Which is quite, you know contradictory to his — BP: LMF is a terrible thing to do to anybody. Interviewer: It is. Yes. BP: Even if he was a coward it’s a horrible thing to do. I mean not necessarily be a coward because he was deadly frightened. He was petrified. But that’s what happened. Interviewer: Indeed. BP: Canadians and Australians. New Zealanders. You name it the lot was there. We even lost one Israeli pilot in the Battle of Britain which was unusual. Just one. I think there was only one plane. There we are. Amazing. Interviewer: Well, thank you very much, Bob. BP: No problem. My pleasure. Interviewer: That’s been very very interesting. Thank you. Part 2. Interviewer: This is an interview at RAF Coningsby with Mr Bob Panton discussing his experiences as a boy during the war and his RAF career afterwards. BP: Yes. First interested in flying an awful long time ago when we had a barnstormer at the bottom of Miles Cross Hill near Alford with this old Avro 504k and he was a friend of my very eldest brother who was a lot older than me and I was, I was led to believe, I was three and I actually got a flight in this Avro 504k. The only problem is for a lot of years I thought I’d done it but we didn’t. Only did because I couldn’t see over the hedge. It was taxied a few yards and that was my flight [laughs] From then on the bug was there. Flying was the dream and eventually of course became senior NCO, Cadet NCO, 1073 Squadron ATC and went into the Royal Air Force and learned to fly on a scholarship with the University Air Squadron on Tiger Moths and eventually finished up as a four-engine aircraft pilot. The main reason being because I couldn’t do navigation very well which usually raises a bit of a titter but it was perfectly true. Never was any good. By then of course the wars were all over but another one was in the offing and that was a war, the Cold War. And I took part in eleven weeks on the Berlin Airlift when the Russians blockaded the city and we had to feed two million people and all the rest of their needs and did forty nine trips from Wunstorf in western Germany to Berlin with eight and a half short tons of coal in the back of a York. Interviewer: Did you just take coal or anything else? BP: Only coal. Yeah. Yeah. They gave all these mucky jobs to us sprog pilots and we were called actually on Wunstorf, sprog pilots. The five of us were all fairly young and we were all there to fill in the gaps. Anyone who went sick or anything like that we took his aeroplane and did it. And unbelievably now thinking about it quite often although we were not obliged to do it we actually went on trips as passengers [laughs] Just to say we’d been flying. That was really amazing. The memory was brought back to me on Tuesday. This last Tuesday at Duxford, the Imperial War Museum when I was actually reunited with a York that had actually flown on the Berlin Airlift which was rather nice. It had been in the offing for many years but it was proved it was one of the actual aircraft. I finished up flying Lancasters on their last few trips within the Royal Air Force and then of course went on to Yorks and then to the Lincoln. And I’ve been a guide at Coningsby now for twenty five years which gives us a lot of pleasure. To be reunited again with the Lancaster which was very nice. The best Lancaster ever. Looked after like a baby thank goodness and I’ve actually had the opportunity to fly in it a few times which is very nice. Can’t do that now because there isn’t time but it’s quite something. Interviewer: You must have seen the devastation of Germany. You know, what did you think about that? BP: Oh, it was awful. It was really awful. But it was war and that’s what it was all about. By then even in ’48 ’49 the city of Berlin was awful. Blown to bits. Hardly a building left standing. Interviewer: As in Cologne or — BP: Aye Cologne. The city of Cologne of course was and by divine judgement or bad bomb aiming we didn’t up the cathedral. Interviewer: No. BP: Chipped a few bits off it like but [pause] And then afterwards of course when that was all over we had a very strange experience. The Manna drop which was by kind permission of the enemy. We took Lancasters with not a bomb load but food to feed the starving people out in Holland. Interviewer: They were always very grateful for it weren’t they? BP: Oh yeah. Interviewer: And still are. BP: Yeah. They were. Oh yeah. We, odd times we get someone. I haven’t seen anybody for a long time now but odd times we still get one or two people like that who remember that experience. I didn’t do it but it was there. Somebody had written it into the annals of history of the Air Force. There we are. Interviewer: But as a boy living in Lincolnshire you had an experience with the, as I say with three Dorniers. BP: Oh. Yeah. That was quite [pleasant] yes. Interviewer: Would you like to tell us about that please? BP: 12 o’clock lunchtime at home in Alford and father was just coming down for his mid-day meal and looking to the west southwest where I was there was three ever growing larger specks in the sky. As a very very keen observer of aircraft I knew exactly what they were and I was right. They were Dornier 17s. Reports later on, a lot later on guessed at the fact that they were lost and they were, had been sent to bomb the airfield at Horsham St Faiths which was Norwich Airport now and all fully loaded with bombs. And eventually six Spitfires appeared. Three of them from out of the sun and set about these three aircraft. The first one they shot it down and virtually what looked like sawed its port wing off which was the blow was sufficient to make it just drop off plus the engine All three of them bit the dust and quite an experience really. Not very long after that gathered up a good friend and we went to explore the first crash site which we eventually found. Unfortunately, we got in to severe trouble by the Army because they were sent to gather up the prisoners and we weren’t supposed to be there. Plus the fact that all three aeroplanes still had still got a full bomb load onboard which was we didn’t know that either. A lot of stories around that. The local parson at Bilsby which was where the first one crashed, Reverend Fletcher carried one of the damaged crew to Alford Cottage Hospital and when he was admitted he actually spat in the nurse’s face. Nurse [Hundleby]. Amazing story. Three of them were killed outright. One of them was actually decapitated because he was trying to get out of his aircraft and they were buried in Bilsby Churchyard. Quite a few years ago now I had the opportunity of showing someone where these guys were buried and when I got there they weren’t there anymore. Obviously, their remains had been taken home which happened quite a lot. Interviewer: I think a lot of the Germans were sort of disinterred and taken around — BP: Yeah. Yeah. And vice versa. Interviewer: Yes. BP: Yeah. Interviewer: I think a lot of them found their way to Cannock Chase, didn’t they? BP: Yeah. They did. Yeah. Interviewer: And buried, reburied there. BP: Oh yeah. Yeah. Maybe. It was, it was quite an experience that was. Interviewer: Very exciting for a young boy. BP: Yeah. It really was. Yeah. Interviewer: At that time. BP: And as I say there are some of the remains of the first Dornier shot down was in the Visitor Centre at Coningsby now. Gathered those up and gave some away like. A few. But there we are. Very nice too. Interviewer: But very exciting and of course — BP: Well, war was like that. It really was. Some of the memories are really it’s a job to believe them. Like the blackout. I mean that was quite something. I mean everything was in pitch darkness. You wanted to go anywhere you had to feel your way along. Interviewer: Yes. BP: The streets, the footpaths, no lights as we walked past at all of any kind. Rationing was another one. One egg a week. Well, that was ridiculous in Lincolnshire. I mean for goodness sake there was millions of the jolly things. And every, everybody who knew anything about the job had a pig tucked away somewhere. So we were never short of anything really to be honest. Interviewer: You came from a town, a rural, or a rural — BP: Oh yes. Interviewer: Yeah. BP: That’s right. Yeah. Amazing. Interviewer: And your parents at this time they’d seen your elder brother go off and — BP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interviewer: And his experiences. BP: He was a rear gunner on Wellingtons and eventually having had the canopy, the Perspex on his turret shot to bits around him his nerve went. As simple as that and became a dithering idiot for quite some time. Interviewer: Then went back in. BP: No. No. Interviewer: Right. BP: He was discharged. Medical discharge. Interviewer: Right. BP: In case it reoccurred again of course. Interviewer: Yes. BP: But hardly surprisingly it must have been an awful experience for anybody. Interviewer: Absolutely, I mean they say the rear gunner was the worse position. BP: Yeah. The rear gunner. Rear gunner the rear position of a Lancaster. It was bad enough to look at its a terrible place to be. Even at peace. It really is. Claustrophobic beyond belief but somebody had to do it. That’s what it was all about. Interviewer: But you’re a tallish man so you would find flying a Lancaster not that difficult. BP: No. No. It was quite — Interviewer: Some of the shorter men. BP: Yeah. Yeah. Interviewer: Like Gibson. BP: Yeah. We had one at Coningsby. We called him Andy Tomlin. A smashing little chap but he was only about five foot four. We always chided him about his wooden blocks under the bench. They always, prior to actually taking command of Coningsby one of the basic needs was how to be able to fly the Lanc. Most of them had never done it. COs only lasted three years at Coningsby you see and they used to fly the Shackleton at Lossiemouth as a training aircraft. You can’t do that now of course. There isn’t one. Interviewer: No. BP: So they have to learn on our own Lancaster. That’s why, one of the reasons why it’s dual control. It’s on the job training if you like [laughs] Interviewer: And where did you fly from? BP: Mildenhall, Wyton, 15 Squadron. Upwood for a time. Interviewer: And then the York which — BP: Yeah. York. York. That was we joined the Berlin airlift at Northolt. That was the initiation if you like and became at Wunstorf one of a team of five of which we were christened sprog pilots because we were relatively young but our job was to fill in the gaps as and when they occurred. That was nice really. In fact, it was good. We got more flying than anybody else and that’s what it was all about. Interviewer: And you saw the Lancs gradually disappear. BP: Yeah. Interviewer: And the end of an era. BP: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Interviewer: As far as — BP: Yeah. Yeah. Interviewer: It must have been very sad to see them. BP: Saw a lot of them removed and just junked. Scrapped. Now, we’ve got well about three I think in this country. One of them can fly and the other is in Canada that can fly. The strange thing is in Canada theirs is actually registered to can carry passengers. Interviewer: Yes. I think they fly over Niagara Falls as well just to — BP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know what they charge but it must be nice. Interviewer: I think a couple of years ago it was a thousand pounds. BP: Were it? Well, why not? I can remember this thing very well just to fill you in on money. We were at, the flight itself was at Duxford on a Sunday, oh must be twenty years ago now and parked up. I was talking to the engineering officer, Warrant Officer Barry Sears who had gone with it [until he retired] and a chap came over the barrier, approached Barry Sears and said, ‘You’re doing a fly past over Cambridge.’ ‘Yeah, we are doing a flypast over.’ ‘I’ve got two thousand quid if either of you will take me.’ The trip was about ten minutes of course. Cambridge just up the road. We wouldn’t take his money. I said to him I’d have knocked his arm off, knocked his elbow for two thousand quid. He was serious too. Interviewer: Yes. Yes. There’s something about the Lancaster. BP: Yeah. Interviewer: You just — BP: I mean he would have only just had time to sit down [laughs] But oh dear. It couldn’t happen. There we are. Interviewer: So you had six happy years in the RAF. BP: Yes. Unfortunately had to do a discharge because of bad eyesight which today can be cured in three seconds with laser treatment but it wasn’t then. There we are. Interviewer: But you’re back here at Coningsby. BP: Yes. Interviewer: With the, with the Lanc. BP: Yeah absolutely. Interviewer: And — BP: Yeah. Interviewer: Spreading the word to the public. BP: Yeah. Interviewer: That come around. BP: Yeah. That’s right. Strange experiences quite often. We quite often see tears. That’s not in the slightest bit unusual. Interviewer: No. BP: Disbelief quite often which is understandable of course. We look at todays modern pieces of aviation well there’s no comparison whatsoever. Lots of people, if not everybody would give their absolute high teeth to fly in a Lanc and ninety nine percent of them would say never again because that’s what it was about. It’s a very good producer of blood and bad language. Sharp edges and bare metal. But it’s a beautiful aeroplane. Interviewer: And you have the Poles and the Czechs come around. BP: Oh yeah. Yeah. Interviewer: And have a look at the Spits and Hurris — BP: Yeah. We did. Only as I said last week we were talking about the valiant gallant Poles and Czech pilots in the Battle of Britain who were not in the slightest bit interested in the frilly bits of the Royal Air Force or anybody else’s Air Force. All they wanted to do was get into battle. Stuffy Dowding was the head of Fighter Command refused to make them operational because once airborne they reverted to their own separate languages meaning that nobody had any idea where they were. They wouldn’t remain in formation. If they saw a little something that looked suspicious they went to sort it out. One of their pilots on 303 Squadron was Sergeant Pilot Josef Frantisek and he was actually turned loose. He wasn’t, no pilot was ever supposed to follow enemy aircraft back over the Channel. It was a trap. Frantisek did it every time and eventually they said oh well, carry on. And dear old Frantisek finished up being the highest scoring pilot in the actual Battle of Britain. He shot down seventeen and a half enemy aeroplanes himself. Half a one he shared with another pilot. An amazing chap. Interviewer: And you’re full of admiration for the ones — BP: Oh yeah. Interviewer: Also, that come to — BP: That’s right. Interviewer: To see the flights. BP: All sorts of stories you can tell about the Poles and the Czechs. This chappy last week was talking about these incidents and things and getting on about the Poles and the Czechs and he pulled his driving licence out and it was a Polish name. And his grandfather had actually been a pilot on 303 Squadron which was one of the reasons he came to look at that particular aircraft. It was really quite something. Amazing really. Interviewer: So you hear all these wonderful stories. BP: Oh yeah. And experiences. That’s right. We do. Interviewer: Well, thank you very much, Bob. BP: No problem at all. A great pleasure. Interviewer: Very interesting indeed. Thank you. 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 Bob Panton 1029,1030,1031-Panton, Bob Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v31-02, SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v31-04 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Claire Bennett This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire. 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 Civilian Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Description An account of the resource Bob Panton was a child during the war. One day as his father was coming towards their house Bob saw three Dornier 17 come into view. Then out of the sun came six Spitfires and a battle started in front of him. Bob saw the Dorniers shot down and, with a friend, rushed to the crash site. Of the surviving German aircrew one was taken to the local cottage hospital where he spat in the face of the nurse. Bob’s brother was a rear gunner in a Wellington and was traumatised when the Perspex in his turret was shot away around him. Having been fascinated with aircraft, ever since his brother’s friend gave him a taxi ride on his Avro 504k, Bob joined the ATC at the earliest opportunity, before joining the RAF proper and training to be a pilot. He took part in the Berlin Airlift. In later years Bob became a guide showing visitors around the aircraft of the museum and hearing their own stories and experiences. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:18:14 audio recording 00:17:43 audio recording Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending revision of OH transcription 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. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire England--Lincolnshire England--Suffolk Germany--Berlin Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Maureen Clarke 15 Squadron aircrew childhood in wartime lack of moral fibre Lancaster pilot RAF Coningsby RAF Mildenhall RAF Upwood RAF Wyton Spitfire