2 25 90 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/787/47005/EHarrisATMaltbyDJH430523.2.jpg f45f4034a82ea1b408e4cf76af7366f4 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 Maltby, David John Hatfeild D J H Maltby Description An account of the resource Seven items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader David John Hatfeild Maltby DSO, DFC (1920 - 1943, 60335 Royal Air Force) and consists of his pilot's flying log book and documents. David Maltby completed a tour operations as a pilot in Hampdens, Manchester and Lancasters with 106 and 97 Squadrons at RAF Coningsby before being posted to 617 Squadron at RAF Scampton. He successfully attacked the Möhne Dam in May 1943. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by the Maltby Family and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br />Additional information on&nbsp;David John Hatfeild Maltby is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/114788/">IBCC Losses Database</a>. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-09-20 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 Maltby, DJH 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 Telegram to DJH Maltby from Arthur Harris Description An account of the resource The telegram congratulates him on the award of a DSO. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Commander in Chief, Bomber Command Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1943-05-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Correspondence Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photocopy Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EHarrisATMaltbyDJH430523 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943-05-23 617 Squadron Distinguished Service Order Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984) RAF Scampton https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/787/47003/E[Author]PMaltbyDJH430523.jpg 533497092ab8b9fac558e62700b2f270 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 Maltby, David John Hatfeild D J H Maltby Description An account of the resource Seven items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader David John Hatfeild Maltby DSO, DFC (1920 - 1943, 60335 Royal Air Force) and consists of his pilot's flying log book and documents. David Maltby completed a tour operations as a pilot in Hampdens, Manchester and Lancasters with 106 and 97 Squadrons at RAF Coningsby before being posted to 617 Squadron at RAF Scampton. He successfully attacked the Möhne Dam in May 1943. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by the Maltby Family and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br />Additional information on&nbsp;David John Hatfeild Maltby is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/114788/">IBCC Losses Database</a>. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-09-20 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 Maltby, DJH 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 Telegram to DJH Maltby Description An account of the resource The telegram congratulates him from Coningsby and Woodhall. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Patch Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1943-05-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Correspondence Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photocopy Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context E[Author]PMaltbyDJH430523 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943-05-23 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire aircrew Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) pilot RAF Coningsby RAF Scampton RAF Woodhall Spa https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/787/46997/E[Author]MaltbyDJH430524-0001.jpg 15e5743fa2ea6375e52ed5d48b964654 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/787/46997/E[Author]MaltbyDJH430524-0002.jpg 1d33faa169ebfee429b533b7e5407de7 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 Maltby, David John Hatfeild D J H Maltby Description An account of the resource Seven items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader David John Hatfeild Maltby DSO, DFC (1920 - 1943, 60335 Royal Air Force) and consists of his pilot's flying log book and documents. David Maltby completed a tour operations as a pilot in Hampdens, Manchester and Lancasters with 106 and 97 Squadrons at RAF Coningsby before being posted to 617 Squadron at RAF Scampton. He successfully attacked the Möhne Dam in May 1943. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by the Maltby Family and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br />Additional information on&nbsp;David John Hatfeild Maltby is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/114788/">IBCC Losses Database</a>. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-09-20 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 Maltby, DJH 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 Telegram to Flight Lieutenant Maltby Description An account of the resource A telegram to DJH Maltby congratulating him on award of DSO. On the reverse 'Telegram from Guy Gibson VC'. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Guy Gibson Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1943-05-24 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Correspondence Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photocopy Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context E[Author]MaltbyDJH430524-0001, E[Author]MaltbyDJH430524-0002 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943-05-24 617 Squadron aircrew Distinguished Service Order Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1744/46292/ABrownK93XXXX.mp3 93e7840f42f2f16360e8a38a05797382 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 Bomber Command Museum of Canada Nanton Air Museum Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-12-07 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. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Nanton Museum Description An account of the resource Three items. The collection is from the Bomber Command Museum of Canada and contains interviews with Squadron Leader Ken Brown CGM (1920 -2002, R/94567 Royal Canadian Air Force) and Group Captain Hamish Mahaddie DSO DFC AFC (1911 - 1997). Ken Brown flew operations as a pilot with 44 and 617 Squadrons. Hamish Mahaddie flew operations as a pilot with 77 and 7 Squadrons. Post war he worked as a consultant to the film industry. The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Karl Kjarsgaard and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document Ladies and gentlemen please welcome our guest speaker Ken Brown, a Dambuster. [applause] After all those accolades I don’t know if this speech is going to stand up with it. [laughter] Before I start however, I wanted to comment on two things. The message from the designer of the Lancaster’s daughter. I was at Buckingham Palace when he received his award. A very gracious fellow. I was also, it was my roommate who was the pilot of the Tudor that crashed with Sir Chadwick on it at the time. It was a great loss to us believe me. David was one of the best pilots in our squadron, DSO and Bar, DFC and Bar. But this happened shortly after the war down at Farnborough. May I commence by first of all saying Mr president, members of the Lancaster Society, ladies and gentlemen we turn back the pages of history and sometimes they cause a great deal of furore in your stomach. But getting to the time that I joined 617 Squadron I was flying with 44 Squadron. My CO was also a VC winner, and we were briefed to go to Berlin. After the briefing he said, ‘Brown, report to my office immediately after briefing.’ Which I did and he said, ‘You are transferred to a new squadron.’ I wasn’t too happy about that. I said, ‘Sir, I’d rather stay here and finish my tour with 44.’ He explained in his very curt manner that was impossible. It was a named transfer and he could do nothing about it. So we went to Berlin and on our return we got packed up and off we went to 617 but before we went the wing commander wished me well and said, ‘Do you realise Brown you’re going to be the backbone of this new squadron.’ Well, we arrived over at Scampton and we started to look around as to who was there. There were an awful lot of DFCs. Not so many DFMs. We realised that perhaps we weren’t really all what was set up to be. My wireless operator sauntered over to me and said, ‘Skip, if we’re the backbone of this squadron we must be damned close to the ass end.’ [laughter] I began to wonder how I got there with all the [pause] When I was going through Manchester, training in Lancaster training there was a fellow by the name of Mick Martin who has perhaps become one of the RAF’s greatest. He was my instructor at that time. So was a fellow that we knew as Terry Taerum. Everybody in the outfit knew Terry. He was T Gee at the time. Gee was a navigation aid and it was new at the time so Terry was sort of our expert on it. I was speaking to Martin. He took me up on fighter affiliation. This is where you take off and you have a fighter aircraft attack you and he shows you how to evade a fighter attack. Well, he played around with the aircraft and showed me a few things and then he said, ‘Ok, young fellow. Let’s see what you can do.’ So in mid-air we changed seats and I said, ‘Anything you can do Buster I can do too.’ Where he said, mumbled something that he didn’t think my mother had been married when I was born. [laughter] We got on to the squadron. I’d never met Wing Commander Gibson before so this was a new experience. We were all sitting out on the lawn in front of the briefing room. Someone said, ‘Briefing’s ready. Come on in.’ So we marched into the briefing room which was right down on the flight line. I wasn’t last in but I did close the door. When I did so he said, ‘Brown, report to my office after briefing.’ Sounded familiar. However, I couldn’t believe it when I reported to his office. The adjutant met me, marched me in and he had me on charge for being late for a briefing. I thought he was kidding but he wasn’t. So he then read out the charge of being late for a briefing, an operational briefing and advised me whether I’d take a court martial or his punishment. I said, ‘I’ll take your punishment, sir.’ So he said, ‘Fine. You’ll wash all the windows on the outside of the briefing room and the inside of the briefing room. All after duty hours.’ As we were flying about eighteen hours a day that was really something. [laughter] I wasn’t going to let this really stump me so I did it and I did it night after night. It was one of those things. Wing Commander Gibson had a very high standard for everyone and you had to meet it and meet it on his terms. He was a really strong and staunch disciplinarian. He had been brought up in a boy’s school as a head prefect and I still think he handled things that way. At least I thought that after about the ninety ninth window. [laughter] About this time we started our low flying and you’ve heard various stories about we started at sixty feet. It really wasn’t so. We started our low flying cross countries over England at about two hundred feet. That lasted about three days and we were down to about a hundred and fifty feet. And I did a cross country one day and as I came across a new aerodrome that was being built, an awful lot of people around it there I was headed straight for the hangar and I thought well I’d better pull up. There’s no use trying to get through it. So I pulled over the top of the hangar. When I got back the next day at briefing and by the way let me explain that the Royal Observer Corps kept track of us all the time so Guy got our altitudes no matter where we were and had a report on them the next morning. So at briefing he said, ‘Brown, what were you doing going over the top of a hangar?’ I said, ‘Well, I thought it was a good idea.’ And he said, 'Two hundred feet? Hardly. You’ll do that one again.’ And it wasn’t a bad cross country anyhow so I did it the next day. When I came to the hangar the same thing. All these men working on top of the hangar, at the side of it and so forth. So I put it down on grass level and then came up over the top of the hangar and there was people sliding off the top of it and running in all directions. So next day at briefing he looked at my direction again and said, ‘Brown, I said low but not that low.’ [laughter] We ran into problems. I want to really try and bring out the character of Guy Gibson more than anything so bear with me a bit. The next time I had a problem with him we were doing low-level night runs on the aerodrome and what they did was put a great sheet across the runway at one end and so many yards down the other another sheet. You had to start at the end of the runway at fifteen hundred feet and dive, cross the first sheet at seventy feet, cross the second sheet at seventy feet and at the end of the runway be at fifteen hundred feet. It was quite tricky. However, this particular night David Shannon and I were doing the exercise and he did his. David happens to be an Australian. So we changed seats and he got over the other side and I did mine and the rain started in dear old England, coming hell bent for leather so by the time I’d finished it was really a soak out. So on taxiing in I said, ‘Dave, keep your head out the window, and I’ll keep my head out my window so we can see.’ So, we were taxiing. We couldn’t see out the front the rain was that heavy. David got his face wet so he closed the window. I didn’t know this [laughs] head out the window like an idiot, getting wet. And low and behold we had a marshaller there and he was telling us to turn and we turned and the port outer, and the starboard outer on that side clipped what they call a totem pole, which was a pole with lights on it. Well, I knew Gibson wouldn’t take that very well. So next morning at briefing he said, ‘Brown, I’ll see you in my office.’ I knew damn well he wasn’t going to compliment me on my window washing. [laughter] However, we started out using the Derwent Dam amongst other targets and believe me we didn’t have a clue as to what was going to be the target. Nobody even mentioned dams. We thought the Tirpitz or some other thing. We went up to the Derwent Dam and there was a moonlight. It was moonlight but unfortunately there was a few clouds around and in the Derwent there’s a row of hills down the east side and a slight cut-off at the end and you’ve got to cut around this and come at the dam. Well, Guy Gibson decided he would make the first run, and his bomb aimer happened to be an Australian so he runs in on this dam and just as he was going in a cloud came across the moon so it was damn dark. We came down on the water without lights then rushing towards this thing. We were equipped with VHF radio, which was the fighter boy’s radio. It had a little toggle switch at the side. Transmit that way, receive this way. Guy left it open. Lo and behold we dashed in towards this, or he did and the bomb aimer says, ‘This is bloody dangerous!’ [laughter] I think everybody in every aircraft was hollering just hearing those remarks. Then along comes the Dams raid. We really, it’s unbelievable now. The pilot, the navigator, and the bomb aimer were briefed on the 14th but we couldn’t tell our crew what the target was. So, on the 15th they found out what the target was. We were still shaking. We weren’t terribly impressed for the simple reason that at the dress rehearsal when they dropped the bomb itself two of the aircraft their tail was damaged to such an extent that they were lucky to get back. However, such was the case. We were going on the Dams raid. A padre friend of mine, I always remembers, ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, stand before the wall.’ I think in everyone’s life that has to come up. Once you find out that this is something that you really hadn’t expected, how well you handle it I think everybody had to handle it his own way. That night, we were perched out on the grass. It was a beautiful night, clear sky, no cloud, waiting for the buses to take us out to the aircraft. John Burpee, a Canadian, Pilot Officer Burpee, came over to me. He thrust out his hand and said, ‘Goodbye, Ken.’ I said, ‘Goodbye, John. I didn’t expect he’d come back. You see some people feel that way. Then we got on board the bus, there were three crews on one bus and as the aircraft, or the bus stopped to let the first crew off then the second crew got off and my tail gunner, when the second crew got off and the bus moved on he was very quiet. Then it stopped for us. So we moved over towards the aircraft and my gunner stood there where he’d got off the bus. I said, ‘Come on Mac. Let’s go.’ He said, ‘Skip, you know those guys aren’t coming back, don’t you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I know.’ So, he said, ‘Well, damn it!’ So we got aboard the aircraft. You see, in most pictures today they show the Dambusters taking off from runways. That wasn’t so. We took off from grass. The bomb that I had on the aircraft was marked with eleven thousand-nine hundred and sixty pounds on the side of it. I only found out this year why that was so. Because when the bomb was made with a casing and a wooden cover the whole thing weighed that much but once it was removed then the real weight came off. We went out to the aircraft. The usual thing. We went all the areas around the dispersal, some more than others and then we tried to take off. Well, we knew that such a beautiful night, but no wind we needed that wind because we were on the short runway and the hedge on the short runway was a thousand feet tall. At least it looked that way when you were taking off. [laughter] We got the aircraft into the air and then discovered that we had to have, use climbing power, twenty six fifty at nine to keep the whole thing in the air. The next exercise was to get down to sixty feet and try out the guns, the lights and two lights that would focus down on the water to form a figure eight and also turn on the motor which rotated the bomb. Now, you’ve heard it said many times we flew at exactly sixty feet. Absolutely at sixty feet. When that bomb rotated believe me it was like driving a truck or anything else over the rails of a railway unbalanced as it was. And once we got that settled in then we came onto the coast, the Dutch coast. Immediately we were in the area of Gilze-Rijen which was a fighter drome which we all knew the Luftwaffe night-fighters were there at the time and Pilot Officer Burpee was about a mile and a half off to the north coast and they opened up on him and he blew up on the airport. So, we knew we had one less. We went on towards Hamm and I just couldn’t help but there was a train moving along a gentle slope and I said, ‘Ok gunners. Here’s where you can get your exercise now and your target practice.’ So we took on the train. We flew right alongside it. We were having trouble as everyone else was, with high-tension wires. It was, they were our greatest danger at any time. Without shooting a line if the wires in the moonlight would flutter up here you knew you’d have to go underneath them. So you’d hope they’d flutter down here because you had a chance to go over them. It was that quick we lost two aircraft to those wires. They merely slapped into them. Deadly stuff. We, as we came along to Hamm they were really waiting for us. Many of the other two waves had passed that way so they just poured it down. As a matter of fact, they were firing down at us. They were on a little bit of a lip as we went through the valley. However, Ottley was on my starboard side at about one o’clock and they hit him and he immediately blew up. His tanks went first and then his store. I have a piece of that aircraft that was presented to me on my recent trip to England. It’s no larger than your fist. However, when that happened the whole valley was just one orange ball. I didn’t have too much of an alternative. I don’t think there was any bravery connected with it. There was a road off to the port. Everything was trees and this road and I could just see it because of the fire from his aircraft. So I dove and I went down the road and they were shooting off the tops of the trees as we went along. Then much to my consternation that damn road led right into a castle and I’ll never forget that castle door. [laughter] We had to dip and the left wing went through two turrets as we went through the castle but we were pretty slow. We arrived at the Derwent, the Derwent Dam, pardon me the Mӧhne Dam. It had been breached at that time. The gunners were still fairly active. We thought we’d leave them alone to their own and we went over to the Sorpe Dam. The Sorpe was of a different construction altogether. It was an earth dam where you have a solid core and earth on either side. Very difficult to breach. One thing that they never really took a hard look at. Such a dam you have to have a spillage and the spillage in that particular dam which I visited twice after the war is natural. If we would have spun our bomb and gone to the wall which was the spill wall we could have taken it out as well but our tactics were to run parallel with the dam and drop our bomb in the middle so that it would explode, wash out the front of it and crack the wall and the water would do the rest. But we needed more than one. The only problem with it was the whole darned valley was full of fog. When we arrived there they told us that there would be a church up on top of the village. We found that all right. Just the spire of the church. So I tried to position myself from the spire. I didn’t do too well. I got behind the dam on my first run. When I found myself at ground level behind the dam I had to climb up roughly eighteen hundred feet. It wasn’t, it didn’t do my nerves any good at all because I was on top of the trees and I had to do a flat turn. I couldn’t move the wing down. I had to stand on the rudder to get around and then we were down in the valley again. Well, we did quite a number of runs on the dam before we were able to clear enough of the fog away which the propellers constantly going through did and I must say, according to the historians today it was a near perfect drop and I didn’t even write them about it. [laughter] However, we were pleased with it and as far as the explosion was concerned the waterspout went up to about a thousand feet and so did we. I think we ended up about eight hundred. There was one thing that sort of bugged me. When we went to the Mӧhne Dam, one of our aircraft had been shot down there and I felt we owed the fellow a visit. So I went back. And as soon, all the other aircraft had left but as soon as we came over the Mӧhne, mind you they were throwing 20mm at us and I think there was a few that were thirty seven millimetre and I figured that we owed that fellow a visit. So we came real low, below the towers, straight on at them and I heard this fellow’s story about three weeks ago in Germany, and he said, now I won’t try his German. Anyhow, we opened up at about five hundred yards and carried right in over the tower and the rear gunner depressed his guns and we raked the thing as we went through. Well, there was no firing coming from that tower when we left. We figured we’d done him in. However, the fellow got the Iron Cross so we weren’t that successful. The worst was really yet to come. It was then daylight was just breaking. We had to go across and up the Zuiderzee. There was no horizon. The mud from the Zuiderzee and the sky were all one. So I started across strictly on my altimeter with my head below the cockpit top at fifty feet and I hung onto it. I’d been told by a famous Wing Commander in the RAF, ‘Never ever pull up. If you’re low, never pull up.’ So I hoped he was right because all hell broke loose within a matter of fifteen minutes. Searchlights, even though it was light caught us from the starboard side and straight on. There was a lot of light flak immediately in front of us. The cannon shells started to go through the canopy. The side of the aircraft was pretty well blown out, and there was only one thing I could do and that was go lower. So I put her down to ten feet. We came across and actually their gun positions were on the sea wall so they were firing slightly down at us and I guess they couldn’t believe that we were lower than what they could fire. So in this turmoil with the front gunner blazing away at them I just got a glance for a moment and I could see the gunners either falling off because they were hit from our guns or rather they were jumping off to save their skin. I pulled up over top of them and we all gave a great sigh of relief. I think I’ve never had a bowel movement that ever gave me greater relief. [laughter] [recording interrupted] And I was really surprised to find that no one had been hit. There was a great deal of damage. My wireless operator said, ‘Hey Skip. Come on back and crawl in and out the holes with me.’ [laughter] I did go back. I wondered how badly and what damage had been done to our landing gears etcetera but by that time we were, it was broad daylight of course and I’m sure the Germans figured that we were a Kamikaze crew or something stupid enough to do what we did. We came back to base and we were quite elated that we’d all made it through. I called my squadron call sign and in my enthusiasm I said, ‘This is F for Freddie.’ And a little WAAF voice came back and said, ‘Hello F for Fox.’ That too had changed while we were away. [laughter] We didn’t really know of the losses however until we landed. Even then we were kind of naive because when I went into my dispersal point where ten aircraft should be there was one and we thought, ‘Wonder where the other fellows landed.’ But you see out of the nineteen one had hit the water on the Dutch Coast. As a matter of fact, the tail gunner was under water when the aircraft pulled out. He made it back. The other, another aircraft was hit by light flak and his intercom went. So consequently, of the nineteen you’re now looking at seventeen went beyond the Dutch Coast. [recording interrupted] We couldn’t quite believe that there were so many missing. When we got out of the aircraft the ground crew of all the aircraft were standing around long faced, tears running down their cheeks. We were the only ones that were sort of elated and saying, ‘Well, we made it back.’ But it was a sad thing to know how the ground crew felt. Some of them mentioned here tonight. How the ground crew worked on our aircraft and believe me they did. My aircraft was so badly damaged it had to go back to the factory. But the next aircraft I had was very badly shot up. My ground crew worked on it. When I came in at six o’clock in the morning they worked all day, all night, all the next day and the next night and I took it out the following morning. So I have a great deal of respect for the ground crew personnel. They did a tremendous job and it’s unfortunate at times we don’t really recognize what they did. They were really a God’s send to us all. [applause] Well, the big day came. My stock in trade with Guy Gibson improved tremendously after the Dams raid. I was commissioned and I was assigned a married quarter, which was really an officer’s married quarter which we had one room in and every room was filled with another officer. In this particular place I was on the ground floor and every night I came back or evening I came back there was a huge rabbit that was bounding around the field at the back and I figured that the rabbit would look better on my plate than in that field. So I borrowed a shotgun from the armament section and a few shells and I stashed them in my closet. I came home one night and sure enough there was that rabbit so I took off with the shotgun across the field. The old rabbit was well ahead of me avoiding my flak. He crossed the highway on the other side and went into a field. So I followed him in and he went down a hole by a big tree. I thought, ‘That’s fine. I’ll just wait him out.’ So with my shotgun at my side here I was waiting for this damn rabbit and what happens? Down the road comes a constable with a 2IC, in other words a training officer and he stops, and he hollers, ‘I say. Do you know you’re trespassing?’ And I said, ‘Go on. I’m waiting for a rabbit.’ Which didn’t go over very well. [laughter] So immediately the two of them dismounted and come over, and he said, ‘Do you know you’re on private property?’ And I said, ‘Well, the rabbit was over on our property, and he came down to this and I’m claiming it,’ I said. ‘I demand to see your identification.’ But then at that time I realized that I’d taken my ID out and put shotgun shells in. So I said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t disclose my identification.’ That was as quick as I could think of being on a secret squadron. And he said, ‘In that case, you’ll have to come down to the station.’ So, I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry, I’ll have to decline your invitation.’ And he said, ‘I demand to know why.’ And I said, ‘Because I’ve got a double-barrelled loaded shotgun in my hand and you’ve got nothing.’ Boy did their faces change. [laughter] However, two days later I, we took a trip. We had to do a mission into North Italy. We did a bombing trip to Italy and then cut across to North Africa and landed so I was away for about seven days. But when I came back the Adj said to me, ‘You know, there was a couple of constables out here with a warrant. They were looking for a tall blonde Canadian and as you were the only one that fitted the description we gave them your name.’ I said, ‘How kind of you.’ Low and behold he said, ‘I think the C/O might want to see you too.’ Now, this is my point in my whole story. Guy Gibson took the warrant, went before the court, I don’t know what he said but he never ever mentioned that to me. That was his way of letting you know that you were accepted. It took a long time. [laughter] Guy Gibson came to Canada and visited his navigator’s family. He visited my family. He went and visited a number of Flying Schools and told them what a good friend he had in Ken Brown. He didn’t tell them of the three charges he had me on. However, my mother was very pleased with his visit and to see him. And it’s something today. Beryl and I have just been over to the UK. I introduced the survivors of the Dams raid to the Queen Mother, Beryl introduced the wives of the Dambusters to the Queen Mother and we were exposed to a great deal of the English hoopla about the great Dambusters. They do a great deal on it. We went to the Derwent Dam, which we practiced on. There was over one hundred thousand people there. I’d never seen a crowd like that. But they sell their Air Force this way. They sell their museums that way and they do a good job of it. I’m not criticizing them at all. It’s something that perhaps we can learn something about in supporting our Air Force and supporting our museums in Canada because Canadians were not as directly affected as the British and consequently many of them had no idea at all of what their uncles, their brothers, etcetera did during the war. It was a tremendous contribution. I’d like to just quote a couple. Do you know that twenty-five percent of all aircrew in the UK were Canadians? Did you know that per capita, I repeat per capita, Canada had more aircrew in operational outfits than what England had?’ ‘Do you know that sixty-two percent of all casualties in the Canadian armed forces, were aircrew?’ There’s an awful lot we can be thankful for of the ten thousand nine hundred and nineteen airmen killed in Bomber Command were Canadian. Today, I’ve even been asked, ‘Well, did Canada really get involved in the war?’ We don’t want to perpetuate the thought that war is something glorious and wonderful. But we do want to put the thought across. I’ve been through Germany, I’ve been through England, just recently and I was so damn glad to get back to Canada. It’s the most wonderful country in the world. [applause] The Nanton Lancaster Association provides that link between those who are not here to speak on their own behalf to let the younger generation realize that a tremendous contribution was made. Made because the young fellows were so concerned that we might lose our way of life here in Canada. That was their main concern. That this Canada of ours might suffer and at times, especially with our political situation today I think we can all give that a little bit of serious thought. I was proud to stand among, as they called themselves, “Guys.” I never heard that in the RAF. As I am sure they would be proud to have the Nanton Group expound their desire and their wishes for this country. I take off my hat to the people in Nanton and for the perpetuation that they have achieved here in their Society. 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 Speech by Ken Brown Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ABrownK93XXXX Description An account of the resource Speech made by Ken Brown at the Bomber Command Museum. Ken Brown, a Canadian pilot was serving with 44 Squadron when he was told he was being transferred to 617 Squadron at RAF Scampton. He undertook his training with the squadron in preparation for the Dams operation. On the morning of the operation a fellow flyer came to him, shook his hand and said, "Goodbye Ken", as he knew he was not going to survive the operation. When Ken and his crew returned for the operation there was only one aeroplane in the dispersal point, where there should have been ten. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ken Brown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1993-07-17 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 Canadian Air Force Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:42:19 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. Canada Germany Great Britain Netherlands England--Derbyshire England--Lincolnshire Germany--Möhne River Dam Germany--Sorpe Dam Netherlands--IJssel Lake Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943-05-16 1943-05-17 44 Squadron 617 Squadron aircrew bombing briefing Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) pilot RAF Scampton https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1450/43606/MKeelingGW2217141-151002-01.1.pdf 115d4634cc8af3733d01291792ddaae8 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 Keeling, George G W Keeling 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 2015-10-02 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Keeling, GW Description An account of the resource One item. The collection concerns George W Keeling and contains 'The Short History of 640 Squadron’, including photographs records and newspaper clippings. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by George Keeling and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle. 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 A short history of 640 Squadron (George Keeling) Description An account of the resource A number of stories, recollections and events remembered by George, who was part of the ground crew on the squadron. It includes press coverage and a programme from an amateur dramatics production that George appeared in post-war. There is also a copy of the Operational Order for Operation Chastise by 617 Squadron, as well as crew lists, and a copy of the squadron 540 for the operation. There are also pages from Flight Sergeant Stalley's Log book for the period July to October 1944. He was the rear gunner on Flight Lieutenant Melrose's crew on No 9 Squadron at Bardney. During this period the squadron attacked the Tirpitz twice, once from Archangel. Included are the Memories and Reflections of the German civil engineer who was in charge of the rebuilding of the dams which had been damaged in the Dams Operation. There are two newspaper cuttings from 2005 regarding the military burial of a 640 Squadron crew who had been shot down on the 24 March 1944, one was from The Daily Telegraph from 2 September 2005. There is also a letter George wrote to the Times giving some background to the story. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource George Keeling Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1944-01-07 1945-04-07 1944-03-24 2005-09-02 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Yorkshire Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text. Memoir Text. Personal research Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 57 printed sheets Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context MKeelingGW2217141-151002-01 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending text-based transcription Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Maureen Clarke 4 Group 617 Squadron 640 Squadron 9 Squadron air gunner aircrew bomb aimer bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942) bombing of the Creil/St Leu d’Esserent V-1 storage areas (4/5 July 1944) bouncing bomb debriefing Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) entertainment final resting place flight engineer Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) ground crew ground personnel Halifax Halifax Mk 3 love and romance memorial navigator Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) nose art operations room pilot RAF Leconfield RAF Lissett superstition tactical support for Normandy troops Tirpitz wireless operator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2487/42972/PTeasdaleA22020005.jpg 24a7a8e8bd1071e1d8094a59c38745ef https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2487/42972/PTeasdaleA22020002.jpg 85c5ea15997e67570b34bb0ab14417bf https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2487/42972/PTeasdaleA22020004.jpg fdc2b9f034aaa8fb64d3b2a53f94c7a8 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2487/42972/ATeasdaleA221220.mp3 b5a71ed1000342febb67d638c48a5934 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 Teasdale, Audrey Audrey Pitts Description An account of the resource 21 items. An oral history interview with Audrey Teasdale (b. 1923, 2135963 Royal Air Force) and photographs. She served as a WAAF in the officers' mess at RAF Waddington. The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Audrey Teasdale and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2022-12-20 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Teasdale, A Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document AT: Er, from my own point of view I, you know, after the exam had gone before I got my act together and so none of us really managed a qualification, but we were all very well educated. And my Harry, er my two eldest brothers, they both worked in the Coal Board, as I said, my father was a colliery manager and Fred was in administration with the local authority. My Tom, the middle brother, he finished up as a company secretary for the Coal Board. We did all our study after school, y'know, we did it all off our own bats and erm... BW: So was it night school that you went to? AT: Night school and as we progressed, you'll see what I did, y'know but er, so it was night school and it was, y'know, interesting things and, you know, getting on with life generally and we had this encouragement from home and... BW: You say your Mother was Victorian, she worked in service. AT: In service yes, yes... BW: Whereabouts did she work, was it a grand house or something? AT: Yes, she's worked, yes, cos there's photograph there, I think, with one of the people she was with. Oh no, yeah, yeah. She worked with gentry but she also, at one point, worked at the girls grammar school in Wakefield. Yes but lovely lady. BW: And what age were you when you left school? AT: 14. BW: Which was standard at that time. AT: Standard, yes. And, do you want to know my occupation from then on? BW: Yeah, what did you go on to do? AT: My first occupation, I used to walk to the station, which was a mile away, then get a train to Leeds. And I worked for a firm called Barrens and it was a tailoring firm and I worked in their offices and it all related to production and y'know, what they were using and the sort of stuff that went on to the actual finished product and that sort of thing. So I did clerical work with them and I followed on where I got a job in Wakefield. I worked with a jeweler, a very top shop jewelers, you know, it was Appleyard's, in a terrific arcade, terrific shop. So I went there and then from there I was always sort of in the retail business and I went to work at the Co-op, ha! And I worked in the furnishing department where I was first assistant and I did all the erm, now then, the word, you know when they can't afford to pay... BW: Debt. AT: Er, actually making out the agreements for them to sign, you know, when they'd got x number of years to pay it in, y'know, that sort of thing. The name just escapes me. BW: Repayments? AT: Er, yeah, it was, it was, y'know, basically the lay out of what they'd bought, the interest to be paid and, and the period that they were going to pay it in. Yes, and that was it, all official and then they made the payments to the [unclear] and I did that and I was first assistant for sales. 01:08:24 BW: How long were you doing that job for? AT: Oh it was, y’know, it was sort of between the jobs, you know, between that and my service really and er, yeah, and I did sort of clerical work and I actually went into the WAAF from there. BW: Do you remember where you were, where your family was, when war was declared? AT: At home. Yes, yes, er my youngest brother, the two boys - the elder brothers, they obviously were in the Coal Board, working in the Coal Board, and of course, were exempt. Fred, the youngest one, was in administration with the local authority and of course, he was conscripted. And he was in the Green Howard Regiment and stationed in Northern Ireland. But he never went abroad. A great brother and we used to, when I was in the WAAF, we used to write to each other and he kept in touch with home, and y’know, we'd always continue, you know, keeping in touch. BW: So how old were you then when war was dec... when war broke out? AT: About 23 and it broke out in '39... BW: So you [unclear]. AT: Yes and then I went to, went to, I was conscripted and then I actually went into the WAAF 15th December 1942. BW: So, what sort of choice did you have? You mentioned you were conscripted, how did that work, particularly for women because we think of men as being primarily conscripted but... AT: Yes. I sort of could have gone the fire brigade, which didn't appeal at all [laughs]. Land Army but I think what did it [laughs] I was out one day and I saw this advert [laughs] "Join the WAAF and work with the men who fly", and I thought, 'That's for Audrey' [laughs]. So that's what I did. BW: OK AT: And of course, I could have been anything then, I could have been a balloon operator - barrage balloon, doing anything, really. But basically, all my time I was in the officer's mess and my, all my work was generally clerical and y’know, relating to the crews and different things. BW: So you decided to join the WAAF. Did you, ah, it may be perhaps too detailed but I'm just interested to understand did you have to go into the air force recruitment office to complete that or was it different, did you go in to sign up? AT: Er, I remember, you made the decision to go and then of course it just took place after that. I remember going down to, I can't remember where it was but I was interviewed and it was discussed and yeah. That's very vague to me but I do remember that. BW: I was going to ask you about your interview and whether there was a particular test that you sat for example, maths or English or anything like that? AT: No, no qualifications. Basically it was the things you were interested in. BW: And how long between you being conscripted did it take for you to actually get into training? AT: More or less immediately. BW: Right. AT: Yes, I remember I, it was, 15th December '42 and I went, I think, to Innesworth in Gloucester, where I was kitted out then that didn't take long and then I came back to Morecambe to do my square bashing and I was there about a fortnight. We lived, I lived in billets in the West End of Morecambe and that was very funny. BW: How long did you spend there? AT: Just a fortnight. It was a training and it was so funny because obviously it was winter, it was December, it was icy. We had a flight sergeant who did a thing and I'll be [laughs], quite [unclear] what he said but we couldn't stand up and he said, "What do you want me to do? Whistle the bloody skater's waltz?" [laughs]. And the other thing that was interesting about the square bashing was, they'd horses on the promenade and there was poo all over the place and you were marching away merrily and if you got your foot in that everybody got it from behind. You used to be absolutely blathered sometimes. But, that was quite an experience, the icing and the horse poo [laughter]. BW: And I believe you would have your passing out parade on Morecambe prom, is that right? AT: Yes, yes...yeah. BW: And it must have been pretty close to Christmas when you passed out of your fortnight's training. AT: Yes, yes...yeah. BW: Or just past. AT: Yes, yeah. I can't remember that but I do know I went from there to Lindholme, Doncaster. I didn't stay there very long. I don't know, really and there was a lot of army personnel there at that time. And I don't know what the purpose of that. I wasn't there that very long and then I got a posting to Waddington. And when I got to Waddington, my time at Waddington, I was actually with 9 Squadron, which was English, 44 Squadron, which was Rhodesian and 467 and 463 which were Australian and I sort of did my service there. And from the first day, you know, I sort of worked in the officer's mess and I did lots of clerical work relating to that. Occasionally I did waitressing and I always used to get the job of the VIPs who would have a special room and I would serve them. Like Wing Commander Nettleton VC. I met him. And lots of personalities, you know, they came through. You know, met a lot of people. BW: You mentioned Wing Commander Nettleton. AT: Yes. BW: He led, I think, the raid on Augsburg, which was quite a famous raid. AT; Yes. BW: What were your recollections of him? Did you meet him often? AT: Lovely man. And he married a WAAF officer. Yeah and I remember service tea for them when they came, when she came. Yeah, yeah. BW: So you were on the base, there, at Waddington, in the officer's mess, were you there pretty much all of the time, were all your duties conducted in...? AT: In the officer's mess, yes. I did, sort of, I used to get the, the battle orders, if you'd like to call them that and I knew the crews, where they were going and they used to get a special meal when they were going on a flight cos it was often a nine hour flight and I used to, you know, make sure that they got their flight [meal], you know. They all passed through the desk and I checked that they were there and that they should get this meal, and what have you and, so that was that and of course, when they came back and... BW: So, because the orders were going through your desk as an admin clerk, you would probably know where they were going before they did. AT: Yeah, yeah. BW: And was it you that put the orders up on the board each night? AT: No, no. I was just responsible for the crews, the crews that, you know, who was going through. And this was another funny thing, they were so funny, the life they were living and you know, it was a case of eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we, we'd be...they were so, so, you know. And so respectful that it wasn't like it is today, it was, the changes in men's [sic] because they'd so much. I think probably in the early days of the war, when the WAAFs and sort of, army, you know they got the women in, I think probably in the early days they got a lot of the rough but at the time that I was going in, in '42, we got the greatest respect. And they, the crews, knew exactly who was who and what was what and...you understand what I am saying? And, yes, they made an effort. But what I was saying, they were so funny cos, I remember one time, [they were returning] and I was sat at my desk and I looked up at this officer and he smelt beautiful [laughs] and you know, for one moment, I thought, "Anything I can help you with?" and I said, "Have you been flying, Sir?" He says, "No, I've been for a walk in the park!" [laughter]. Yes, so, needless to say, he hadn't but he'd obviously managed to shower and smell beautiful [chuckles]. BW: So, where were you, yourself, billeted? AT: I were in the Waafery [sic], a beautiful house, I don't know if it's still there, a beautiful old building on the left as you went into the 'drome. Do you know the Waafery? I might have a photograph somewhere. BW: That was the name of it - The Waafery? AT: Yes, yeah, yeah. And there was, we used lovely bedrooms and I think I may remember, I was on the ground floor and there was three of us in most bedrooms and, there was a night when someone got through the window on the ground floor - he was obviously looking for a WAAF but [laughs] it wasn't one of us three [laughs]. So, yeah, I lived in there. BW: So, did you make good friends with the other WAAFs there? AT: Yes, very good, yes. I've got pictures of them. Yes, really good friendships. And all the staff I worked with, really, because there was the cooking staff and y’know, and everything that went with...and I used to go to some beautiful functions, you know, the officers used to have at The Bulls Head and I mean, the food wasn't a problem, y’know, you got beautiful food and everything and we were just on duty, basically, to see if everything was all going alright. BW: So it wasn't just your room mates you got on well with, you got on well with the other... AT: I got on well with the crews and everyone, hmm. Yes, there were, I mean, the English, y’know, were very much the stiff upper lip type and a little bit more serious, 'Yes sir and no sir, three bags full, sir', sort of thing but the, er, Rhodesian and the, y’know, Australian they were so laid back, you know. I mean, we didn't, we couldn't have hair on our shoulders and we were not supposed to fraternise with the officers but, you know, they were so completely different to our officers. Nevertheless, our officers were still very nice. BW: So, the officer's mess wasn't segregated between squadrons presumably, it was a large - was it a large mess for all of them? AT: It was a large mess and of course, you had your sergeant's mess and your other ranks, yeah but you know, if I, on my first day arriving back on camp I was in the other rank but I spent my... BW: So what would a typical day look like? AT: In what respect? BW: Well, what would you, would you sort of be up maybe six in the morning and into work for eight or what? And would you spend, say, half the day in the office and the other time at mealtimes on shift? How would it work for you? AT: No, it wasn’t.. I don't remember it being too specific because you had flights at different times and you know, it varied. BW: So you were just required to serve meals at particular...? AT: Times, yeah. And operational meals were separate of course, at a different time of the day but I don't even remember what sort of a shift I worked, you know, the hours I worked or anything. But it was all very normal to me, you know, nothing outrageous. BW: So it seemed fairly regular hours and then would you have evenings off, most evenings? AT: Oh yes, yes. Yes, you'd nothing after a meal was served, really. And, of course, at that time I could have been somewhere else, i.e. they weren't all going on operations, yeah. BW: You mentioned, erm, serving meals to crews who would be out on the night raids, on the missions into Germany and occupied territory, did you ever get to hear what their targets were, did you get a sense of where they were going or was it only when they came back? AT: Only when they came back, really, yes, yes and you know, it wasn't, that was unpleasant, really because we knew them so well and you know so many went for a burton and, you know their life span wasn't very long, was it? For a, y’know, a newly qualified pilot who would probably be 19 or 20, you know, going on their first ops and lifespan were about a fortnight, wasn't it. BW: So, when the crew lists were up and there was a raid on for that night, would you be serving them their meal around lunchtime or mid afternoon? AT: Well the night raids it would be going on, you know, towards you know and have the time to check in, you know, that sort of thing. BW: Yeah. I was just thinking, because they'd have to allow, you know, you sort of work back from when they would have to be over the target and they've got to go to briefing AT: Yes and they got to go to briefing, yes, all that, yeah. But, I didn't particularly clock all that because I worked to a timetable. BW: And when you got the time off on the evenings, what kind of things were you able to do, socially? AT: There were always something, I mixed with people then and you know, we used to get to dances in the sergeant's mess and there was sport, I used to play tennis and we were always going down to the local pub and celebrating something, y’know, someone had done their first trip or finished a tour of ops or it was somebody's 21st birthday or, y’know, something. We'd a nice social life and we used to go to the villages nearer and we had bikes and we used to cycle to the other villages and go to the village dances and we did a lot of dancing, ha! [chuckling]. BW: Did you get into Lincoln, itself? AT: Yes. Now, at the weekends, we were allowed to wear civilian clothes and y’know, when we went dancing and there's an officer there in a crew, who, we won [chuckles], we won a jitterbugging competition [unclear]. You know, it was lovely, there was a lovely spirit, lovely. We'd lots of things to do, really. BW: So who would you socialise more with because you were working in the officer's mess, dances in the sergeant's mess, so would you mix more with officers or with NCOs or with other ranks? AT: I think I probably mixed more with the officers but I still enjoyed the company of the sergeant's mess so, or the other ranks, if it comes to that. But, Brian Fallon, one of the officers, actually come [sic] and spent a leave at my home in West Yorkshire. You know, I had a lot of contact with them and I suppose I was more inclined to have...but nevertheless, I did, er. I've got a thing there, somewhere, where it was an invitation to the last dance of the 467 Squadron or something like that, you know. BW: And was Waddington where you stayed throughout your WAAF service? AT: No, when, oh... nine squadron went to Bardney and the Rhodesian squadron moved on and so the last few years I was with 467 and 463 and er. What was the question there? BW: Did you stay at Waddington or did you move on elsewhere? AT: Ah, yeah, I went to, when I left Waddington, cos it was at the end of the war, I went down to Silverstone in Northants and that was, you know, there wasn't a great deal to do. It was almost like a civilian thing because we were preparing to be demobbed. But there again, we had a nice carry on, I remember being introduced to greyhound racing [chuckles], when I was in Silverstone. Now then, what was the name of the place, it begins a 'B'... Anyway, I can't remember it. And we used to go to this, and there was a chappie who worked with the greyhounds and the first race you could guarantee a 'cert' and he used to mark our cards for us [laughter]. I always remember thinking, "Oh, if I had only had just put my wedge on it..." but I didn't, I just put my pittance cos it was so little. BW: So what did you get paid? AT: I can't remember, but I do remember, at one point, I got an increase and instead of saluting and saying "963" I said, "Thank you!" [laughs]. I was so delighted! Not very popular! [laughter] BW: So Silverstone was quite different to being at Waddington. You must have been at Waddington, probably, 18 months - two years, easily? AT: Two years yes. I spent very little time at Lindholme. BW: Were there particular raids or events that you remember at Waddington? Because the squadrons took part in them during that time but I wonder if anything came out through the talk with the squadrons or [unclear] AT: No, no. I remember the experience, various experiences, because I remember seeing the greatest bonfire of my life when I was at Waddington because I was watching them come back and I was stood next to a WAAF officer, she was watching as well and they German, the Messerschmidt followed them back and they strafed the 'drome and they didn't hit a Lancaster bomber but beyond, which offices, was the incendiary dump and they hit that and poosh! You can imagine, the place was lit up, it was amazing. That was an experience. Different things happened, you know. BW: When people look at photos and some film footage they would see, as the bombers took off, people gathered at the halt point waving them off... AT: Yes, I personally and others, used to go and walk on the perimeter track and we were living very dangerous cos of the 1000 lb bombs but we used to go and wave them off cos, you know, we knew the crews and where they were going. We used to go onto the perimeter track. BW: And did you watch them come back? AT: Well, no, no because that could have been early hours, you know, whatever. Basically, we went to see them off. BW: And, it might sound a daft question but, were you attached to a particular aircraft, did you recognise particular aircraft or did you just generally go and wave everybody off? AT: Yes, yes, we knew the crews and different things and, of course, as you'll be aware, Hitler said that no enemy plane would ever fly over the German territory but at Waddington, we reach a hundred trips and I've got some classified photographs of the bombers, y'know and 'S' for Sugar, obviously there'd been more than one crew that did the hundred trips but that particular 'S' for Sugar did the hundredth trip [sic]. BW: Did you ever - you were obviously good friends with the pilots and crew - did you ever get shown around a Lancaster, did you ever get inside one? AT: Yes, I've been inside one, yes. BW: Did they ever take you flying on one? AT: I never took, actually, after the war, the WAAFs, we could go to do a parachute jump and what have you and, it got off the ground and then I think there was an incident and the WAAFs panicked and it stopped. Yes, so we'd that opportunity. But I've obviously been in and I've sat in every seat, I've even been in the bomb aimer's part [chuckles], y'know. So I knew the aircraft very well. BW: And at the time you were there they were mainly flying Lancasters, did you, did they fly anything else, were there other aircraft that came onto the base that you could go and see? AT: No. Of course the Spitfire pilots were escorts, you know, for the bombers. A lot of Canadians and Polish people flew the Spitfires but generally, it was strictly Lancasters. I mean, you mentioned the Stirling, you know, I didn't see anything of those. Of course, I was around when there was all the talk about the Dambusters and Barnes Wallis and the bouncing bomb and, I didn't, I actually, I didn't personally meet, I wasn't personally introduced but, Gibson came to the 'drome at one point. So I was around when all this was happening. BW: So when you heard about the dams raid, what was the atmosphere like, how did you feel when you heard about it? AT: The Dambusters? Oh it was amazing because there was an awful lot of work went into it, you know, a lot of tests and then for them to actually crack it and flood everything I felt it was amazing. I mean, it was a serious business, I always say it was an experience I wouldn't have liked to have missed but there was a lot of sadness and, you know er and I mean, like its happening in Ukraine now but I mean we flattened Stuttgart and Berlin and y' know, but its all, but that was on targets, wasn't it, it wasn't on civilians but nevertheless, they got involved in it, didn't they? So there were lots of civilians. BW: Did you hear about these raids when crews came back? What was the atmosphere like in the mess, I mean you'd served some of these guys before they went out. What happened when, you know, the crews perhaps didn't come back? AT: Well, obviously, there were the sadness, you know, because people had got to...and there's crews, you know and of course, a lot of the...I knew a friend, actually, who flew and, he erm, they got shot down and, for a while I didn't personally get to know whether...anything but I did keep in touch with Peter's parents, he lived in Watford and I remember the number, Bushy Heath, 1428 [laughs]. And it was Peter Kimber and I think, actually they'd a hairdressing business in London and I think, family must still be running that. But for my 21st birthday he bought me a Mason & Pearson hair brush [laughs], which was very expensive for me then. [laughter]. Yeah, erm, no, they'd obviously, they'd, you know, the crews were all gelled together, you know, and, but er... [siren] BW: Sorry about that. So, yeah, you said the crews were all gelled together. AT: Yes, yes, and there wasn't a morbid, nothing morbid about it. It was a job, it was a duty and y'know, they got on with it. BW: Did you...I'm just trying to picture the scene in the mess when the crews come back for their first meal after a raid and obviously you, as catering staff or general staff, you're serving in the mess, you'd be laying the places... AT: I wouldn't be there when they came in, I'd not necessarily be there but there was no, nothing morbid or...I mean, they weren't throwing a party but y'know, it was a job. BW; And you'd only find out later, of course, whether... AT: The crews that had gone missing hadn't got back. You checked in everybody who was coming back, y'know but of course, the others...[unclear]. BW: And you mentioned earlier that fraternising with the aircrew, whether officers or other ranks, wasn't allowed but obviously it went on. Did you or your friends, your friends in particular, end up in serious relationships? AT: No, no. I had, mine were friendships, y'know, I had some great friendships but, no, I came home and married someone from the village [chuckles]. But, y'know, I enjoyed the time and I had some respect for people and, yeah. I mean Brian Fallon came home but, well, we just, y'know, it was a friendship and we just, I was giving him the opportunity to come and have a civilian life, if you like, at my home. 00:32:38 BW: How did your parents feel about you being in the WAAF and on an operational base? AT: My Mum was very worried initially but obviously, no objections to the decisions I made. But, obviously, I'd never been away from home, y'know and it was a big thing to do really, wasn't it? BE: And did you, yourself, get leave, periodically? AT: Oh yes, yes, it was about every six or eight weeks, leave, yeah, yeah. And yes, y'know, my parents always liked to see me. But my brother, Fred, my youngest brother, the one in Northern Ireland with the Green Howards, he used to write to me and of course he knew everything and the people I were meeting, and what have you and he wrote a letter to my mother and he says, "Mum," he says, "Audrey's life must be mangled something rotten." cos I was always telling him of someone, y'know, a friend, who had gone for a burton, y'know. BW: And you were talking about Scampton, before we began recording, it had a reputation as a jinx base? AT: Yes, we used to feel that, the jinx, because, yes, there was always some incident on take-off or something, y'know, we at Waddington always regarded it as a jinx. It was just, just happening there. And of course it was Lancaster bombers then. BW: And were then any other bases that had a similar reputation or others that had a particularly strong reputation? AT: No, Scampton was the only name that I remember ever being connected with anything like that, y'know, just felt that there was something...y'know? I never watched anything that weren't always airborne, y'know, they got off and they were away. BW: And have you ever seen the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight since, have you seen the Lancaster fly, since? AT: No. BW: I was just curious if you'd seen it and whether it provoked any particular memories when you saw it fly. But if you've not seen it... AT: I've only ever seen in parades like, in anything to do with London and armistice and what have you. In fact I, while I've been here, I've got back into art and doing things and for Remembrance Day I did a wall in the dining room and I had the Lancaster bomber and I had poppies coming out of the rear, just for... BW: And that was just for the painting... AT: Just for the painting, yes, yeah, yeah. Just for, y'know, for remembering. And we did a lovely wall this time, didn't we, for the armistice. BW: So, you moved down to Silverstone in Northants, after Waddington and I'm assuming this would be around early '45, cos you said you were demobbed from there. AT: Yes, it was about August-ish [sic] time, somewhere round about then. BW: They started flying POWs back from Germany and Continental Europe, did you get to meet any POWs, did you see the Lancasters bringing them back at all? AT: No, no, I was aware of, y'know, we had prisoners of war, they were actually on the camp, doing jobs, y'know, we had Germans, Italians, erm. I remember those two nationalities specifically, the prisoners were working on the camp. BW: That's really interesting because I've not heard of that before. I've heard of, obviously, enemy POWs being held in the UK but not that they were working on RAF bases. AT: Yeah, yeah, well I'm sure I'm right. Yeah. BW: And what kind of things would they be doing? AT: Nothing terribly important, they couldn't get themselves into trouble. BW: Presumably they were just labouring. AT: General labouring, I'd put it down like that. But I learned a few words of [chuckles] "Bellagambi" [belle gambe] was going round quite a lot. Ann: Nice legs! [laughter]. AT: Nice legs! [laughter]. BW: That was from the Italian POWs. AT: The Italians, yes, yeah [chuckles], yeah, yes. No, they were definitely on the camp because I can't imagine where else I'd have met any of them...[chuckling]. Are you learning something, Ann? Ann: Oh yes, absolutely. BW: So were you, I'm assuming you must have been at Silverstone when the war ended, when the news came through, what was the atmosphere like at that point? AT: Well, of course, VE Day, I would be, that was first, wasn't it? And then of course we had Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor, didn't we, and that brought it global and America came into it, didn't it? So that was the latest one to go...wasn't it the latest..? BW: Well, I was thinking about the end of the war and you mentioned VE Day and then there'd be VJ Day in the August, as you were saying. AT: Yes. BW: What was the atmosphere like on the base when the news of the war's end came? AT: Do you know, I don't remember. BW: I just wondered if you might have had parties or celebrations or anything... AT: No... no. BW: Maybe you had extra leave? AT: No...no...no. Ann: Do you need your glasses on, Mum, if you're looking at photos? Your reading glasses? AT: No, that was Matt O'Leary, an Aussie. BW: So, we were just looking at that photo of the rear gunner but it's inscribed 'All My Love, Ken' but it's not someone who rings a bell with you? AT: No, ha! I must have been drunk! [laughter]. I don't think so. Ann: You have had lucid moments, Mum, about him! [laughter] AT: I do recognise the face but do y'know, that's someone, he escapes me. I know this gentleman here, this is Terry King. BW: Terry King? AT: Terry King, yeah. He's the one where he's lent me his jacket when it was cold. I think he was a navigator [laughs]. BW: You wouldn't happen to know which squadron? AT: It would be 467 or 463. BW: OK, but he was definitely an Aussie? AT: Definitely an Aussie. Ann: And definitely Terry King? It's just remarkable, isn't it, remembering that, Mum. There was Matt O'Leary as well. AT: Matt, Matt O'Leary. He's there and I think the big photograph... BW: Which would be this one of seven aircrew in front of a Lancaster. AT: [Pauses]. Look at the other two, can we? Ann: Which one could have tempted you to live in Australia, Mum?, Was it Matt O'Leary, you did mention you could have been living in Australia. AT: Mmm. I thought I had one of Matt with a crew. BW: Erm. Ann: I think you were looking at that one, Mum, excuse me, just let me [unclear] him at bottom right, yeah. BW: So that's the four guys on the bottom right. AT: That's him there, look and he's an Aussie. It was one weekend and we were dancing in Lincoln and we won a jitterbutty [sic], it wasn't the one where they threw you over the hedge, y'know, it was clever footwork [laughs]. BW: So was it a village dance? AT: No, it was in the city centre. BW: OK. And was it, were there a lot of RAF aircrew taking part? AT: No, it was civilian and a mixture, yeah, yeah. But we cracked it! BW: And you came top? AT: We won it, yes, yeah. BW: So, just as a general question, how easy was it to learn to dance in those days, because it seems everybody did it as a social activity but where did you learn? AT: I danced with my three bothers from being that high because there was ten years between myself and the eldest and, you know, we used to go to the village dances and I could always go to village dances cos the others would always bring me home safely. So I've danced all my life, really. I love dancing. BW: And it just happened that you paired up this particular... AT: Yes, we were friends, y'know and we'd gone into Lincoln to the dance and, that was it. BW: It was a spur of the moment thing, presumably. AT: Not a spur of the moment, we'd intended going into Lincoln, which a lot of us did do. BW: So this photo shows a Lancaster crew, seven guys in front of a Lancaster. AT: And do you know, I don't know any names on there, I can't... BW: No, there's none on the back, it just says. AT: No, these were classified, I got, y'know, the pictures... BW: But it says 'The crew of S for Sugar'. AT: S for Sugar, yeah. BW: So that, presumably, is the crew with 100 missions... AT: A thousand... with... the missions, the last crew to crew it, presumably. Y'know, to get the hundred trips. There's one of the photographs, it shows quite clearly, doesn't it, that 'no enemy plane will ever...' BW: Which is this one, there's a crowd in front of the aircraft. AT: Yeah, yeah, that's, y'know, obviously, other ranks and whoever else was there. BW: Do you remember that occasion? AT: No, no, I wasn't among that but that was the... of course...I got the photographs. BW: This particular one's a Lancaster being, what they called, 'being bombed up' also is S for Sugar. AT: Yes, yeah. BW: Did you ever get to see the crews bombing aircraft up? AT: No, No. BW; There are a couple of photos here, with friends, which one is you and who are the others? AT: That's me, in the middle. BW; OK. And who...? AT: Do y'know, their name escapes me, I can't remember. BW: And this one also shows you but this time you are on the right and there are a couple of names on the back. Do you recall those? AT: I don't really, no, I don't. BW: No problem. AT: It was a long time ago and but, you know, we were friends. BW: Do you know where they were taken? Were they taken during training or it looks like they might have been taken... AT: Er, it was at Waddington, it was Waddington, it looks like first post thing. BW: OK, did you keep in touch with your friends after the war at all? AT: No, no. No, I y'know, got on with life again [laughs]. BW: And we were talking about the Australian crews earlier and obviously Matt was a good friend who you won the competition with, do you know if he survived the war? AT: I don't know, no. BW: OK. AT: Obviously it'd be sometime in that period, y'know, the period, he was there most of the time I was there. But I don't know...Peter, Kimber, when I rang his Mum, she said, y'know, I sort of asked had she'd heard anything and she said, "I've heard this morning, he's been made a prisoner of war." So, obviously he survived and he would get home. That was another, y'know, just friendship. BW: But you didn't hear anymore from Peter? You didn't hear where he was or what had happened to him? AT: No. Nothing at all. BW: How did you feel when you got the news, were you relieved? AT: I was so pleased that, at least, he was safe cos he could have been blasted into eternity, couldn't he? Yes, I was very pleased and pleased for his Mum. BW: were the rest of his crew captured? AT: The concern was Peter, y'know, I was enquiring about him and she told me she was absolutely delighted, yes. BW: And you were never tempted to move to Australia, having got to know some of these Australians. Did they ever try and tempt you with them? AT: No, actually, there was one thing: a lot of them they [were] staunch Roman Catholics. Y'know, I thought it was one thing, leaving your country but also, being Church of England and being brought up in that way. But it didn't really, there was no one who meant that much to me, to do that, cos you've got to love and care to take that step, haven't you? And when I met my husband, that was it and I'd just 15 years of super marriage and y'know, short-lived but I didn't work during that period and, we weren't like ships that passed in the night. So, we'd a good life Ann, hadn't we? Ann: Yes. AT: And we just had the one daughter. BW: You said earlier that you'd left the WAAF in August, around August '45. AT: Yes. BW: What happened next? You'd worked and had experience in administration, you'd worked at admin in the WAAF, what happened after you left? AT: I came back...I think I went back to the Co-op, I had a decent position there. Er, do you know, I don't think I did anything then. And then I met Norman and y'know and the next thing was marriage. BW: When was that, when did you meet? AT: Er, well, he lived in the same village and I'd been friends with his sister, y'know, she'd been a good friend for many years. But, suddenly that was it. So, you know, obviously, that was after the war and... What year did I get married, Ann, was it '53? Ann: 53. AT: 53. And you were born in 56, weren't you? Yeah. But I never worked once I got married, I never worked. And then, of course, my husband died young, at the age of 39. You've spoken about this, have you, Ann? Ann: Only briefly. AT?: Yes, yes. It was tragic really, a minor operation and he got an infection in the hospital and the drug they had used damaged a kidney. And I travelled to Leeds with him from Wakefield, left Ann in the care of the nurses at the hospital and he died between Leeds and Wakefield, er Wakefield and Leeds. And I had to wait ten days for a post mortem, because the coroner wasn't happy but at that time the medical profession were very much round each other and it was brought in 'misadventure'. So that was it. So, about six months after that I hadn't the confidence to pick up a telephone. I was devastated, wasn't I, in a mess and you witnessed it, didn't you, unfortunately. When Norman died, Ann had just turned 12 months at grammar school, obviously very clever and y'know, Norman and I had plans and we saw great things in the future and so, in my mind, I just wanted to bring my daughter up, see her through university and I never had to decide [unclear] beyond her age of 18, when she could manage her money. It was a very sad time. 0:12:09 BW: And you just had that short time between, finishing with the WAAF and working in the Co-op where you went back to and then married life. AT: Yes, yes, and, so when Norman died I had to get my act together and y'know, go out to work. So the first job I took, I got, was with the county council and it's statistics, erm...sorry, and I worked with the county, the fact that I needed to work and keep a roof over our heads, y'know and money, I wasn't averse to any change or anything I was asked to do, so consequently, over the time, I built up a, y'know, a lot of information about various things and then, I got involved with the director, who used to be appointed as a Guardian ad Litem in care related proceedings at the court either relating to children in care y'know, where there was a conflict of interests and er, and er, children who had probably been placed for adoption, and the putative father, y'know, was objecting. So I worked with the director getting reports to the director, it came to me, did all the documentation and I made sure that the social workers got out and saw every respondent that had the right to be seen and heard, regarding those proceedings. So I'd got that experience with the Guardian ad Litem and then, years later, the social service - they amalgamated the children's department and the county and [they] became Social Services and later, in '75, it's a long way ago, in't it? [The 19]75 Act the local authority said that the, all the...the government said that the Local Authorities had to become adoption agencies. So I had all this knowledge about, already, about adoption so I got all the White Papers from HMSO regarding the adoptions and proceedings and what the government expected and I studied it all and I got an interview for the post on the board of directors and I got the job. And one of the directors said, "I wish I knew as much as Audrey about the Children Act," [laughs]. And that's the sort of thing, I was saying, my brothers and I, that's what we've done, we've progressed but it's been our effort, you know. So that was it and I thoroughly enjoyed it cos it was so interesting, y'know we approved prospective adopters and we accepted children for adoption and lots of babies and some of the mums could only tell, all they knew about the father was, they could only tell you the colour. You know, they'd known these were one night stands and things - all very interesting. And of course we arranged placements and y'know, all the time we never had a problem and we got some really good placements. And then after, it came into force at 18 they could have knowledge of the prospective adopters so I did Section 26 counselling, which meant interviewing the mum because we didn't let anyone turn up on anybody's doorstep saying, "You're my Mum."or anything like that. We made sure that they, the natural mother, was happy with the decision that we were making and all that. I worked with professional people, y'know, solicitors, police and everybody, but thoroughly enjoyed it. And got a nice side of it, going to the pediatricians with babies [chuckles] and I did that till I retired and I could have stayed longer but my grandson was, [to Ann] you were pregnant, and I thought, " Oh, Norman's missed so much and I'm not going to miss these babies so I retired at 64. I had the ability to carry on but I didn't. BW: And, just to, I suppose, come back to the RAF and Bomber Command, you've been to the IBCC at Lincoln, how do you feel, seeing that? Ann: That was me. BW: Oh, I beg your pardon. AT: What was that? Ann: You know I went down to the International Bomber Command Centre? AT: Yes, you went, didn't you, yes. I've not been but I'd love to but I don't think I could make it down there. Ann: No, they've offered to entertain [you] but no. AT: Yeah but I've read the book. [to Ann] You got the book, didn't you. And I refresh my memory with it. Yes, yeah, it's very, very impressive, very impressive and it's amazing what they've done with the grounds. I was looking for the Waafery, [laughs] but I guess they've demolished it but it was a beautiful building. There was another nice thing in the village, I don't know the name of it, it was a nice pub, where we went, but there was a man in but it was only like a shed but he used to make jam and lemon curd tarts and we used to go and buy [laughs] them from this man in the village. Lovely time really. BW: So, knowing about the memorial, how do you feel about there being a memorial to the crews of Bomber Command? AT: I think it's wonderful, I don't think they should ever be forgotten. No. I think it's wonderful, I love the way they've got the walls with all the names, and the gardens, I think it's beautiful. And I think they deserve remembering, y'know, they've given their lives, and young lives. BW: Cos, the guys were largely only around the same age as you were at the time, weren't they? The chaps in the RAF, the aircrew, they were only around your age. AT: They were, yes, yes, very young, yes. That was the sad thing, it was so much in life going, y'know. BW: Whereas you say, I think you summed it up well, you wouldn't have wanted to have missed the experience... AT: Oh no, no, not for a moment. And I've often thought about it, haven't I? Ann: Yeah. AT: Yeah, I did not [unclear] it's an opportunity I wouldn't have missed. It was really good. Ann: I think it's affected Mum's outlook on so many things because I think, for my Mum's age group and generation, you've got a very rounded, cosmopolitan attitude towards people of all nationalities and I think that's quite impressive. AT: Hmm. BW: And through all the things we've talked about this afternoon, are there any other aspects or recollections that you want to add from your time in the WAAF? AT: No, I don't think so, I think I've covered it. You know I enjoyed the life, enjoyed the company of the people and the various things. Do you know, I'm 99 [unclear] but not very long ago I was, he was speaking to me on the phone and he said, "Mum, do you ever regret any of the decisions you've made in your life?" and I said "No, and I'd make them all again, all the same." Because, since my husband died I had this tunnel vision and it was family and I wanted to see Ann where, y'know [unclear] but then, you see, grandchildren came and then that was another life line and I've just, I had so much happiness with Ann and the children so I've not really wanted anything else. And strangely enough, when I came to this home and it was my decision but we chatted it over, didn't we, because Ann gave me 24/7 care when I came out of hospital, which was a near death experience and she gave that care and I could see what was happening and I, I mean, I had a good life, born into the right family, met the man I loved, enjoyed 15 good years and y'know, I wanted Ann to enjoy her children so I made the decision to come in here. But when, about the same time I met a man, he was upright and mobile but he'd had an accident, his wife had died and he'd scalded himself and he'd come in for respite care, initially and he was a professor of politics but he was such an interesting man I had a friendship with him while he was here, which was about five or six months, wasn't it Ann? Ann: Yep. AT: And it was a nice, good friendly relationship but he died just before Christmas but that was nice, y'see. But that's life, isn't it? BW: Well, I've no other questions and you've answered everything very thoroughly and clearly so, thank you very much for your time. AT: Yeah, thank you! Cos you been very tolerant and we haven't interrupted you very much, have we? BW: Not at all. [Audrey laughs] 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 Audrey Teasdale Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brian Wright Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2022-12-20 Language A language of the resource eng Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:12:25 Audio Recording Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ATeasdaleA221220, PTeasdaleA22020002, PTeasdaleA22020003, PTeasdaleA22020004, PTeasdaleA22020005 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942-12-15 1945-08 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lancashire England--Lincolnshire England--Northamptonshire England--Yorkshire 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 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Description An account of the resource Audrey left school aged 14 and began work as a clerical assistant for a tailoring firm in Leeds, before moving into furniture sales. She was 23 when the war started and was conscripted on 15 December 1942, electing to join the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. After her kitting out at RAF Innesworth she did some basic training at RAF Morecambe, was posted to RAF Lindholme and, eventually, to RAF Waddington where she worked as an administrator in the officer's mess. At that time there were four squadrons on the station: 9, 44, 463 and 467 Squadrons. Audrey's duties in the officer's mess included checking the crews against the battle orders, to ensure only crews flying that night got the special pre-flight meal, and waiting at tables for VIP diners, including Wing Commander Nettleton VC. She describes her friendships with the other staff and, especially, with bomber crews, as mostly nice and respectful. Audrey and others would gather on the perimeter track to see them off. She and many others were billeted in a beautiful old building, known as "The Waafery”. Audrey describes her busy social life, dancing at many venues and winning jitterbug competitions. Audrey also describes the events of one night, when an enemy fighter followed the aircraft home and strafed the airfield, hitting the incendiary dump, which exploded. After the war, Audrey eventually worked for the local authority’s adoption service, after the tragic death of her husband at a young age. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sally Coulter Andy Fitter Maureen Clarke 44 Squadron 463 Squadron 467 Squadron 9 Squadron animal bombing Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) entertainment Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) ground personnel Lancaster mess military living conditions military service conditions prisoner of war RAF Lindholme RAF Morecambe RAF Silverstone RAF Waddington sport Stirling strafing training Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979) Women’s Auxiliary Air Force https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2052/42875/PSouterKP2121.2.jpg 41031634394ac2540b00763414be43b3 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 Souter, Kenneth Place K P Souter Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021-07-10 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Souter, KP Description An account of the resource 30 items. An oral history interview with Kenneth Souter (1919 - 2024, 129001 Royal Air Force), his log books and photographs. He flew operations as a fighter pilot with 73 Squadron in North Africa and as a test pilot. After the war he flew Lancasters during the filming of The Dam Busters film in 1954. The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dambusters Scene Description An account of the resource Actors Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd playing Barnes Wallis and Guy Gibson having a discussion over a meal in the Mess. From the filming of The Dam Busters film. It is captioned 'E54.1.PROD.117'. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Civilian Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PSouterKP2121 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 1954 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1954 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive aircrew Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) entertainment Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) mess pilot Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979) https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2052/42870/PSouterKP2118.1.jpg 19de5569b142cea8125511cb7d161822 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 Souter, Kenneth Place K P Souter Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021-07-10 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Souter, KP Description An account of the resource 30 items. An oral history interview with Kenneth Souter (1919 - 2024, 129001 Royal Air Force), his log books and photographs. He flew operations as a fighter pilot with 73 Squadron in North Africa and as a test pilot. After the war he flew Lancasters during the filming of The Dam Busters film in 1954. The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lancaster Banking hard to Starboard Description An account of the resource A Lancaster coded AJ-G, of 617 Squadron, banking hard to Starboard viewed from the air. From the filming of The Dam Busters film, the fuselage has been modified for a mock up Upkeep bomb which it is carrying. 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 Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PSouterKP2118 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 1954 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1954 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive 617 Squadron bouncing bomb Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) entertainment Lancaster https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2052/42857/PSouterKP2109.2.jpg 83ca982e6834d49ac278de047ea936f1 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 Souter, Kenneth Place K P Souter Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021-07-10 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Souter, KP Description An account of the resource 30 items. An oral history interview with Kenneth Souter (1919 - 2024, 129001 Royal Air Force), his log books and photographs. He flew operations as a fighter pilot with 73 Squadron in North Africa and as a test pilot. After the war he flew Lancasters during the filming of The Dam Busters film in 1954. The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Three Lancasters in Flight Description An account of the resource A view of three Lancasters flying low with mocked up Upkeep bombs for the filming of The Dam Busters film. They are flying over a field with a horse in. The photograph is annotated 'E54.1-PUB.156'. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PSouterKP2109 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 617 Squadron animal bouncing bomb Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) entertainment Lancaster https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2052/42819/PSouterKP2102.2.jpg 8e7162d1bb88b7b050c3c598e463b070 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 Souter, Kenneth Place K P Souter Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021-07-10 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Souter, KP Description An account of the resource 30 items. An oral history interview with Kenneth Souter (1919 - 2024, 129001 Royal Air Force), his log books and photographs. He flew operations as a fighter pilot with 73 Squadron in North Africa and as a test pilot. After the war he flew Lancasters during the filming of The Dam Busters film in 1954. The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lancaster with mocked up Upkeep Bomb Description An account of the resource An air to air photograph of a Lancaster carrying a mocked up Upkeep bomb during the filming of The Dam Busters film. 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 Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PSouterKP2102 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 1954 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1954 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive 617 Squadron bouncing bomb Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) entertainment Lancaster https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2333/42122/PCrossK22010006.1.jpg bb611b5d18abed62c85f1ce176ea1fde https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2333/42122/PCrossK22010007.1.jpg 565390ff792362d6cddd1ec9698554f8 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 Cross, Kathleen. Album Description An account of the resource 27 items. An album with newspaper cuttings, photographs and postcards covering RAF personnel and establishments in West Malling, Penarth and Peterborough. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2022-05-07 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Cross, K Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document [comic strip] [page break] [photograph] THE NIGHT FIGHTER, Wing Commander Townsend, right, with mascot Kim waits in dark glasses for the night’s operation. [page break] [photograph] TOWNSEND: 1941 This sketch of Peter Townsend – then a wing commander with the D.S.O., D.F.C. and Bar – was drawn by Captain Cuthbert Orde in September 1941. [page break] [photograph] WING-COMMANDER G.P. Gibson [italics] (centre) and his fellow “dam-busters” of the Möhne and Eder raid received their honours from H.M. the Queen acting as deputy for the King. This was the first occasion when a Queen Consort has held an Investiture. W/C. Gibson received his V.C. and Bar to his D.S.O., and his thirty-three comrades were all decorated. [/italics] 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 Newspaper cuttings and caricatures Description An account of the resource The first page comprises a page of caricatures annotated with quotations from the individuals pictured, including Wing Commander J Cunningham, Wing Commander Townsend, Warrant Officer Carter, Flight Lieutenant Erlwig, Staff officer Priestley, Flight Lieutenant Rawnsley, Leading Aircraftman Jordan and Joe Thomas. The second page has Wing Commander Townsend, wearing dark glasses with a colleague and his mascot dog, Kim; a sketch of Wing Commander Townsend drawn by Capitan Cuthbert Orde and Wing Commander Guy Gibson and 18 fellow Dam Buster colleagues having collected their honours from the Queen Consort. Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941-09 1943-05-16 1943-05-17 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Artwork Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Page of caricatures and three newspaper cuttings in an album Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PCrossK22010006, PCrossK22010007 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Paul Ross 617 Squadron aircrew animal Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) Victoria Cross https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1963/41315/BLazenbyHJLazenbyHJv1.pdf 35022f62bb4527b9a7da34bd424ec42f 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 Lazenby, Harold Jack H J Lazenby 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 2017-10-10 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. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Lazenby, HJ Description An account of the resource 11 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Harold Jack Lazenby DFC (b. 1917, 652033 Royal Air Force) and contains his memoir, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 57, 97 and 7 Squadrons. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Daniel, H Jack Lazenby and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource H Jack Lazenby DFC Description An account of the resource Harold Jack Lazenby's autobiography. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Warrington England--Wolverhampton England--Shifnal (Shropshire) England--London England--Bampton (Oxfordshire) England--Witney England--Oxford England--Cambridge France--Paris England--Portsmouth England--Oxfordshire England--Southrop (Oxfordshire) England--Cirencester England--Skegness England--Worcestershire England--Birmingham England--Kidderminster England--Gosport England--Fareham England--Southsea Wales--Port Talbot Wales--Port Talbot Wales--Bridgend Wales--Porthcawl England--Urmston England--Stockport Wales--Cardiff Wales--Barry United States New York (State)--Long Island Illinois--Chicago England--Gloucester Scotland--Kilmarnock England--Surrey England--Liverpool England--Lincolnshire England--Lincoln Denmark--Anholt Poland--Gdańsk Germany--Berlin Germany--Essen Germany--Kiel Europe--Mont Blanc Denmark England--Hull Czech Republic--Plzeň Germany--Ruhr (Region) England--Mablethorpe Germany--Cologne Italy--Turin France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine) England--Land's End Peninsula Italy--San Polo d'Enza Italy--Genoa Italy--Milan Algeria Algeria--Blida Atlas Mountains England--Cambridge England--Surrey England--Ramsey (Cambridgeshire) Germany--Mannheim Germany--Munich France--Montluçon Germany--Darmstadt Scotland--Elgin England--York Scotland--Aberdeen England--Grimsby Germany--Saarbrücken Germany--Zeitz Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein Germany--Wanne-Eickel Germany--Gelsenkirchen Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Chemnitz Germany--Heide (Schleswig-Holstein) Germany--Wuppertal Germany--Homberg (Kassel) Europe--Scheldt River Estuary Germany--Rheine Germany--Hamburg Germany--Helgoland Germany--Bremen Netherlands--Rotterdam Belgium England--Southend-on-Sea England--Morecambe England--Kineton England--Worcester Germany--Duisburg Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Mülheim an der Ruhr England--London Italy--La Spezia France--Dunkerque Poland--Szczecin Poland Germany--Hannover Germany--Recklinghausen (Münster) Netherlands England--Sheringham England--Redbridge France--Saint-Nazaire Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea) Germany France North Africa Illinois Italy New York (State) 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 Canadian Air Force United States Army Air Force Royal Air Force. Transport Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Memoir Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 99 printed sheets Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BLazenbyHJLazenbyHJv1 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lazenby, Harold Jack Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending text-based transcription Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Maureen Clarke 1654 HCU 20 OTU 207 Squadron 4 Group 5 Group 57 Squadron 617 Squadron 7 Squadron 97 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew anti-aircraft fire B-17 B-24 Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986) bomb aimer bombing bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945) briefing Catalina Chamberlain, Neville (1869-1940) crewing up debriefing demobilisation Distinguished Flying Cross Distinguished Flying Medal Distinguished Service Order Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) entertainment flight engineer flight mechanic Flying Training School George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952) Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) ground crew ground personnel H2S Halifax Hampden hangar Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984) Harvard Heavy Conversion Unit Hudson Hurricane Ju 88 killed in action Lancaster love and romance Manchester master bomber Me 110 Me 262 mechanics engine mess military living conditions military service conditions mine laying Mosquito navigator Navy, Army and Air Force Institute Nissen hut Oboe Operation Exodus (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) Operational Training Unit Oxford Pathfinders pilot radar RAF Barkstone Heath RAF Bassingbourn RAF Benson RAF Blida RAF Bourn RAF Brize Norton RAF Colerne RAF Cosford RAF Cranwell RAF Dunkeswell RAF East Kirkby RAF Elvington RAF Fairford RAF Halton RAF Lossiemouth RAF Melton Mowbray RAF Mepal RAF Oakington RAF Padgate RAF Pershore RAF Scampton RAF Silverstone RAF St Athan RAF Stormy Down RAF Swinderby RAF Talbenny RAF Tangmere RAF Upper Heyford RAF Upwood RAF Uxbridge RAF Valley RAF Warboys RAF Wigsley RAF Wing recruitment Resistance Spitfire sport Stirling target indicator training V-1 V-2 V-weapon Victoria Cross Wellington Whitley Window wireless operator Women’s Auxiliary Air Force https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2230/40185/SCheshireGL72021v20025-0002.mp3 7859ce966548cd85f0ebbcb1f8f0cf7d 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 Cheshire, Leonard. Audio recordings Description An account of the resource Twenty-seven items. Audio recordings of talks and sermons given by Leonard Cheshire on the morality of force, his service history and his and his wife's organisations to various organisations. Includes one series of after dinner speeches featuring Sir Arthur Harris. 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 property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document Leonard Cheshire Resonate Project File Title: Recording of several events during a tour of New Zealand and Australia. Oct/Nov 1974. Duration: 24 mins 20 secs Transcription date: 09/09/20 Archive Number: AV-S_510 S4 Part 1 Start of Transcription 00:00: Leonard Cheshire: Sacred Heart College: talk to the school. 00:03 [no speech] to 00:14 00:15 [applause] to 00:21 00:22: LC: Well I’d like to say that I’m very happy indeed to be given the chance of coming to meet you and to have these few moments together. The only trouble is, I suppose that if I weren’t here, you’d be in class. I’m keeping you out of class am I? No? I’d better not be too long had I – you’ll want to get back. 00:48: Children: No. 00:50 LC: Now Father Columbanus has said … has invited me to talk about the disabled, the poor, those that we are trying to do something for in a little way. Is that what you’d like me to talk about? You don’t want me to talk about the War at all do you? 01:12: Children: Yes. 01:16: LC: Well, do you know anything about the Dambusters? 01:22: Children: Yes. 01:23: LC: Shall I just say a few words about them? Well the Dambusters (for those of you who may not have seen the film or read the book) was a special duty squadron, but was formed from volunteers to do some special duties work. And in fact, Mrs Stanford, who you see on the platform here – her husband was one of the pilots in that squadron, and I’m staying with Ross and Joyce Stanford. The first job that the squadron had to do was to destroy the 2 dams in Germany – the Mona and the Ada dams, and that was done by the means of a skipping bomb. There was a very famous English scientist called Barnes Wallace, and he designed a bomb which worked rather like the way that you’d take a stone and throw it into the water – you know, it skips. And so it was able to skip over the torpedo net, hit up against the wall of the dam; it was spinning and it would drop to the necessary depth – I think it was 20 foot – and explode. The difficulty was that the aeroplane had to be exactly 60 foot above the water for it to work. – If you were 70 foot (10 foot too high), the bomb would sink. If you were 50 foot (10 foot too low) it would blow your tail off, and nobody particularly wanted that to happen. And there was no instrument accurate enough to judge whether you were 60 foot above the water, so the Commanding Officer of the squadron – Guy Gibson, a very famous and a very brave man who later was killed, and I in fact took his place a little later on in the squadron – thought up the idea of putting a searchlight in each wing tip, and the beam of light came obliquely downwards, so that it met at exactly 60 foot, so the bomb aimer was made to put his head in the … put his nut in the nose and look down through the Perspex window, and he’d watch these little pools of light. As the aircraft got lower they’d get closer and closer and closer, and when they just joined and made one pool of light he’d say ‘That’s right Skip’ (or something like that). If of course they crossed (which meant he was too low), then he’d say something much more abrupt and told the Skipper to get up a bit higher. It was a dangerous attack, because all the guns were mounted on the wall of the dam and the squadron lost a lot of aircraft that night I’m afraid. But they did their job. Later, when I came we had a different job, and our job was to destroy Hitler’s third secret weapon called the V3. Now you’ve probably heard of his secret weapons – the V1, the pilotless aircraft full of explosive and the V2, the rocket. The V3 was a great big gun which was buried under 50 foot of concrete and was going to fire one 500 lb shell every minute into London, and there was no bomb on earth which would go through 50 foot of concrete. But the same scientist, Barnes Wallace, designed a deep penetration bomb which he called Tallboy. If you dropped it from 16,000 feet it would go 90 foot into the ground and blow this gun up from underneath. Hitler hadn’t thought of putting 50 foot of reinforced concrete under his gun. The difficulty was you had to drop it within 15 yards – that’s not much more than the width of this hall – from the outside of the concrete of the gun emplacement. And when I said to Barnes Wallace that dropping a bomb from 16,000 feet within 15 yards was going to be difficult, all he said was ‘Well if you’re going to pepper the whole of northern France with my bombs, I don’t see why I should take the trouble to design and build them’. That was all the comfort we got out of Barnes Wallace. So we had to devise a method of doing this, and the only way was to send 1 or 2 aircraft in at very low level with what we called a marker. That was a bomb which was magnesium and burned very brightly – it made like a beacon, like what you have at sea that tells ships … a lighthouse. And then the high-flying aircraft could line up on this light and come slowly in and drop their bomb. We had to try the method out and we were allowed to have 1 trial in France against a target outside a very lovely old city called Limoges where they make beautiful china. And outside this city was a factory that made engines for the German air force – the Luftwaffe. It was the Cabinet itself – Churchill and the Cabinet – who gave these orders, and the condition imposed was that we did not kill 1 civilian. We were only allowed to hit the factory. The trouble was that at the time we were due into the target there were 500 girls on the nightshift. So how would you destroy a target, a factory with 500 girls inside it and not hit any of the girls? Can any of you tell me? Yes? 07:51: Child: [Unclear] 07:58: LC: Well they wouldn’t be able to get back. Yes? 08:01: Child: [Unclear] 08:03: LC: No. I’ll tell you what we did: we did 3 low level runs in a heavy 4-engine Lancaster, just above the factory roof, and a 4-engine Lancaster at 25 feet above a factory roof makes an awful lot of noise. And we hoped that the girls would take the hint. And fortunately they did. And all ran out, except for one, who was curious by nature. And I’d like to warn you that curiosity is not always … is sometimes a dangerous characteristic. And she decided that she wouldn’t go any further than the ditch, the other side of the road, and she’d sit there and see what was going to happen. Well I’m glad to say that the attack was successful, that all the bombs landed inside the factory, of which there wasn’t much left at the end. And nobody was touched at all, except this girl, who got hit by a bomb splinter. But fortunately she wasn’t very badly hurt and she recovered. So we were able to go on, develop our technique and eventually destroy those V3 sites which never fired their 500 lb shells. Well now, that was something about the War. Of course my part in the War was a very small one when you think of all the others that were involved, and particularly when you think of all those who were killed in it. I don’t suppose anybody in this room knows how many people – men, women and chidren were killed in that Second World War. Do you know? 10:06: Child: 25 million? 10:07: LC: No, 55 million. 20 million were killed … were put to death – nothing to do with the war – they weren’t soldiers – in the Nazi concentration camps alone. And that showed what was going to happen to the world if the Nazis had won. My generation – when I was young like you – we never wanted war. We refused to accept that war was the right way of solving disputes between nations. But unfortunately governments and others made mistakes and we were thrown into war. And we learned what it means to the world to have a world war, and we cannot afford a third. And so the question that was in our minds at the end of the war, and I expect is in many of your minds (or will be when you get older) is what can you and I … what can an ordinary person do to help see that there will not be another war? Or to put it another way, and a better way, what are we going to do to see that there’s peace, that there’s real peace in the world – unity, freedom, justice and the opportunity for everybody to lead the kind of life that he wants. Now that was a question that I myself couldn’t answer, and while I was trying to answer it I found myself unexpectedly with an old man in hospital dying of cancer. He had no relatives or friends and the hospital couldn’t keep him. They said ‘we can’t keep 1 old man blocking a bed when there are others we could take in and cure them’. And so I was asked to find somewhere else for him to go. I couldn’t find anywhere else for him, even though in Britain we are a welfare state, we have a National Health Service and we are told that whoever is ill or in need, he will be looked after by the state. Because there was nothing more to be done for him, nobody could afford a bed. So I set out to help him. In fact I took him into a large empty house that I was living in at the time and trying to sell. I looked after him as best I could myself. And that led me into a new world, that until then I never knew existed and I didn’t think had anything to do with me, and that is the world of the disabled. When I say the disabled I mean somebody who has become paralysed – either by accident or by illness. Somebody can go out today, this afternoon, cross the road, be hit by a car, or dive into a river or the sea or a swimming pool and find it’s too shallow, and you hit your head and break your neck. That can quite easily happen. You become paralysed, or you may get a disease. And I’m talking about the young, about people in their teens, their 20s and their 30s. Now we think, most of us, that somebody to whom that happens will forever after be a passenger in life, be somebody who is no longer able to give anything to the world – merely put in bed and looked after. But this is not the case. You’ve become disabled in your body, but in your heart and your mind you’re just the same as every other person – every other young person. I want to give you an example. In one home in England (my country), where we have 60 homes for disabled people, there’s one person I think of who’s started a typing business. He takes in typing and he types it, and he gets paid for it. And he has to keep fully professional … he has to type a really good letter – the same as a secretary here in school or in business. Now Norman (is his name): he can’t move his legs; he can’t move his hands – he can’t move his hands at all – they’re just dead. So he types by blowing down a tube. He has a tube … You know what a hookah is do you? You’ve seen pictures of Africans and others smoking a hookah – a sort of pipe. Well this tube is connected to an electronic box. That electronic box will operate the key on the typewriter that he wants – like a morse code. If he blows a short, long [LC demonstrates] that’ll be “a”. If he blows a long short [LC demonstrates] it’s “n”. So Norman sits there blowing into the tube, and he can type a letter that’s as good as any letter you’ll see typed by anybody. Now Norman has made something out of his life, and he feels that he’s earning his own living. He isn’t completely, because he doesn’t earn much in the week, but he’s making the most of it. He feels that he’s useful. And I think that everybody – you will know this – everybody has his own hopes for his own life. He wants to feel not only that he is wanted, that he belongs to a family, that he has friends, he wants to feel that he can give something. We all want to give – not only receive, and all of us want to be independent and free – to go the way we want. This is what the disabled want. But their disability makes it almost impossible. In the Philippines for instance we have 5 homes, and they’re all very disabled people – they’re in wheelchairs. In those homes they have no staff – no helpers – not to do the work in the home. And so the disabled have to do everything. They cook – even the men. The men live all alone in one home. They go out and they do the buying … they buy their vegetables and their meat. They do the cooking; they take it in turns to cook. They do their own washing, and they do work. One of them has set up work as a watch repairer. He has a little window on the street, and people stop and give him their watches and he mends their watches and gets paid for it. They have a wheelchair basketball team. Have you ever seen basketball played in a wheelchair? No? Well you’d be surprised at the speed in which they travel. And it’s really exciting to watch them play basketball. Well to them it’s just the same as an Olympic team. You know, they’re giving everything they’ve got. So I’m saying that throughout the world there are people who’ve been made completely helpless by accident or by illness, and they are waiting to be given the opportunity to be useful, to do something worthwhile with their lives. To give you one last and further example: I know a girl who was a good athlete. She got polio, and now she’s completely helpless. The only part of her body that she can move is one big toe. She can’t breathe, but she has a machine that makes here breathe. She can see and she can hear, but she can’t talk. She just lies absolutely helpless in bed, except for this one big toe. Attached to that toe is a microswitch. Now with it she can do quite a lot of things. She’s very musical, so she likes music. She has a hi-fi set – system. She can turn it on, she can choose the channel or the tape or the record that she wants, and she can adjust the volume. She can put her television on. She can work a typewriter slowly. You go in and you see her – Hilary is her name. You have a conversation with her (she can hear you). She answers on the typewriter. She’ll have a joke with you. She’ll pull your leg. And she can compose poetry – very nice poetry. Now I know that there are a lot of people who having seen Hilary as she once was would say ‘Better let her die’. And of course I respect the sincerity behind what they say. But Hilary never wanted to die. She wanted to live. And she wanted to make something of her life. She has, but she’s only made it because on her side she had the will and the talent and the determination, and on the other side there were the doctors who saw her through, the scientists who designed the equipment for her, her friends and her family who gave her companionship and support and encouragement. You might say that it’s a team. And this is what I have learnt in my time amongst the disabled: that all of us in the world, whoever we are, whether we’re rich or whether we’re poor, whether we’re old or whether we’re young, whether we’re helpless like Hilary or very strong and powerful like others, we’ve all got a part to play in building unity and peace in the world. The trouble is we think it’s … I can do nothing about the starving millions of India, and if you go to India and see them, you’d hardly believe that people could live as they do, with nothing. And yet they’re happy, they’ve got dignity, and like you and me they want to feel that they can be good citizens of the world. 21:53 [no speech] to 21:56 21:57: LC: Each of us has been given by God a job to do, not only in our own work, but outside it, in trying to make the world a little better for other people. And if we say ‘What can I do for all the poor in India’, I answer ‘Don’t look at the problem – the problem is too big; look at what we can do, what can I do?’. Perhaps it’s only very little, but do it, and have faith that that little thing you’ve done is really worthwhile. Now I would like to say how much I value the help that you have given us by your beachathon, by the fact that you’re interested in people like Norman and Hilary and the leprosy patients and the starving and the others that I know and live amongst. I would like to say that the very fact that young people, that children and students and others who are young are taking the trouble to do something for them gives them new encouragement and a new sense of purpose. And as I stand before you, I can picture in my mind the people who will receive the benefit of your help and be given a new opportunity and in a sense a new life, and I would assure you that they’re very grateful to you and that what you have done means a lot to them. So, as I finish, I just want to say that one thing: never be stopped from doing anything because it seems too little. It’s doing the little things well in life that counts. And one day you’ll realise how much it has meant. So I’d like to thank you for what you’ve done, thank you for inviting me and listening to me, and offer my very warmest wishes to you all, asking God’s blessing on you, both here at school and the success of your exams when they come along, and also in your future lives, wherever they may take you. I’m very happy to have been with you, and thank you. 24:20: Speech ends 24:20: End of recording End of transcription 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 Recording of several events during a tour of New Zealand and Australia. Oct/Nov 1974 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource G L Cheshire Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1974-10 1974-11 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1974-10 1974-11 2020-09-09 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. New Zealand Australia Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio recording 00:24:18 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SCheshireGL72021v20025-0002, SCheshireGL72021v20025-0002-Transcript Description An account of the resource First - Leonard Cheshire - Sacred Heart College: talk to the school. Talks of the dambusters and their operation to the German dams. Goes on to talk of operations against V-weapon sites and other operations carried out by 617 Squadron. Goes on to talk of civilian war-time casualties and possibility of future wars. Recalls the event after the war that set him on the path of looking after disabled and the establishment of his homes. Gives examples of their work. Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Talks in New Zealand and Australia Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive 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 617 Squadron bombing Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992) Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) V-1 V-2 V-3 V-weapon Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979) https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2230/40181/SCheshireGL72021v20023-0002.mp3 401809555fe151e4389b49ea2efa4348 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 Cheshire, Leonard. Audio recordings Description An account of the resource Twenty-seven items. Audio recordings of talks and sermons given by Leonard Cheshire on the morality of force, his service history and his and his wife's organisations to various organisations. Includes one series of after dinner speeches featuring Sir Arthur Harris. 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 property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document School. Recorded 15/10/1974. Duration: 31 mins 27 secs Transcription Date: 019/08/2020 Archive Number: AV-S 421 Side 1 Part 2 Start of Transcription 00.00: October 15th St Ignatius School Abbotsville Sidney. 00.10 (LC): Well, first and foremost, thank you very much for the opportunity you have given me of being with you this afternoon and talking to you. I suppose I ought to apologise because unless I misunderstood one of the masters, if I weren’t here, you’d be in class – would you? Oh, so I’d better not be too long had I! 00.43: I wonder if I can ask, what it is that you’d like me to talk about? Do you want me to talk at all about the war - or not? Dambusters? Well then, I’ll say just a little to begin with, about the Dambusters. You know something about the squadron, do you? You’ve seen the film. 01.14: Well the Dambusters was a special duties squadron, that was formed in the beginning of 1943 and it was given the particular job then of blowing up 2 or rather 3 dams - in Germany. The Moehne and the Aida and the Scorpie dam. The problem was this – I’m assuming you don’t know about the attack – you’ll excuse me if I’m telling you what you know. The problem was this – that in order to destroy the wall of the dam – you had to detonate a bomb, with a lot of explosive in it, at a definite depth, of I think, about 20 feet – in actual physical contact with the wall of the dam. You clearly couldn’t drop a bomb straight down from high up, so that it would hit the water just at the edge of the dam, that would be impossible to be that accurate and even if you did, the bomb would get deflected in the water and move away – probably. You couldn’t torpedo it because there were torpedo nets in front of the wall. So there was a scientist – a well known scientist – called Barnes Wallace – who, ever since he was young, had gone into engineering and designed a whole number of things, including the first British airship, nearly all of which have been rejected by the government. All his life he spent designing things – which were first class designs - and most of which have been turned down. But the remarkable thing about him, is that he has never lost…he has never given up trying. The more you push him down, the more he bobs up again. He’s 87 now, and he’s still designing. Well, he thought of a new idea – he watched his son – at some stage or another – throwing a stone into water, you know, if you throw a stone flat, it hits the water and it bounces. So, he designed a bomb that bounced. The idea was that it would hit the water, bounce, bounce over the net, keep bouncing, hit the wall of the dam and he would make it rotate, so that it would go down the wall of the dam and because it was rotating, it would keep in contact and then blow up. 04.07: From the pilots point of view – and I wasn’t on this attack – so I can – I’m free to say what I want to – the difficulty for the pilot was that the aircraft had to be exactly 60 feet above the water. If it was 70 feet, the bomb dropped into the water and didn’t bounce. If it was 50 feet, it blew your tail off. And there was no instrument, no altimeter, that could gauge your height that accurately. So, Guy Gibson, the CO of the squadron, the leader, suddenly thought one day, the idea of putting a searchlight in each wingtip, which would coincide at exactly 60 feet. And a bomb aimer was put in the nose and he had to keep his nut down and watch these pools of light and he said, “down, down down”, until the met into just a single pool and of course if thy got bit lower, by crossing, in no uncertain terms he told his captain to get up a bit. So that was the way that that attack was carried out. I was difficult because there were mountains round the lakes, rounds the dams, and the aircraft had to drop very steeply and then in a very short space, level off, at 60 feet and be at a precise airspeed – as far as I can remember – of 240 miles and hour. So, it did require some accurate flying. It was a dangerous operation and I think that 6 aircraft were lost over the target – 2 on the way in – 6 over the target – as far as I can remember. I joined the squadron later, and we were given a different target. The Germans then – the Nazis then – had a number of secret weapons, they had a V1, which was a pilotless aircraft, filled with high explosive, faster than any fighter we had, so it was difficult to catch. It’d fly in, then when it reached London, on an estimated time, the engine would cut out and down it would come, with its high explosive. The second was a V2 which was a rocket, and of course, that was unstoppable and that landed in London. But there was also a third, which I think is not quite so well know, and that was the V3. And this was a large gun, in effect, which was going to fire – there were 3 of them - each could fire one 500 pound every minute, into London. And they were protected, deep in the ground, by 50 foot of reinforced concrete. And there was no bomb on earth that could penetrate 50 foot of reinforced concrete. And so, Hitler thought this was an infallible weapon. But Barnes Wallace, then thought up, a different kind of bomb, which was really a deep penetration bomb, called Tallboy. And this, if dropped from 16,000 feet, would penetrate 90 foot into the ground and then explode and blow the gun up from underneath. Hitler had not thought of putting 50 foot of reinforced concrete underneath his little gun. 08.05: The snag was, that the bomb had to be dropped from 16,000 feet within 15 yards, maximum, of the outside of the periphery of the silo in which the gun was. And when I said to Barnes Wallace that dropping a bomb within a range of 15 yards, from 16,000 was going to be difficult, all he said was:, “Well if you’re going to pepper the whole of Northern France with my bombs, I don’t see why I should take the trouble to design and build them.” That was all the sympathy we got from Barnes Wallace. Well now, in order to do, have any hope of doing this, we had to devise a new method of precision bombing and our job became that, it was one we’d always wanting, of learning how to destroy a military target or an industrial target, without taking civilian life. The only way of doing it, was to start with a marking aircraft – that is to say have 3 aircraft in the lead whose job it would be to put on top of the target, absolutely accurately, a marker. That is to say, a coloured magnesium flare, which would burn very brightly of a particular colour, so there would be a coded colour for that night. To exclude the possibility of a dummy been put down somewhere else. And my particular job, with two others, was to put the marker on the target. We asked permission to try out this technique, in France, because to do it in very heavily defended Germany, on a single squadron, without support, would have been – to say the least of it – dangerous. And we were given permission, by Churchill and the cabinet, it had to go up to cabinet level, we were given permission, to have one trial, on a factory outside Limoges in France. Now Limoges is probably a town you haven’t heard of, but it’s a town that makes most beautiful china. And outside the town, was a factory, the Gnome Rhone factory, which is making aero engines for the Luftwaffe. And our instructions were to destroy it, but not to take one civilian life, if we did, we would not be given permission to do any more trials in France. One snag was, that at the time that we were due into the target - which is just before 1am in the morning – there were 500 girls on night shift. Now how would you destroy a target, with 500 girls inside it, without hurting any of them? Can you tell me? 11.36: [Unidentified speaker 1] Before you drop the bombs you drop… [inaudible at 11.37-11.40] 11.43 (LC) Anybody else? 11.46 [Unidentified speaker 2] You’d fly over the factory before you drop the bombs to let them know you’re coming in, so they all get out’. 11.50 (LC) Yeah, well he’s got the right answer, both would have done. We did three low level runs, over the target. When I say low level, I mean at about 20 feet. 12.10: (LC) Well we were trained as low level flyers, we were doing it day after day, night after night, so… and in fact, although it may sound dangerous, it was safer because anti-aircraft guns, in those days, couldn’t depress over five degrees, so if you were right down on the deck, as we called it, below tree level, you were safe. The danger was when you came up, you had to go either in and out of the trees or just come up over a tree and quickly down again. And we did three low level runs, as low as we could get, in a four engine Lancaster, which I can assure you, makes a lot of noise, over this factory. And the girls, fortunately took the hint, except for one. And she by nature was curious, and Id like to take the opportunity of warning you that curiosity, sometimes, can be rather a dangerous characteristic. And this girl decided that she wouldn’t go any further than the ditch, outside the factory, and she squatted down in the ditch to see what was going to happen. Well, fortunately, all the high flying aircraft, dropped their – they were very big bombs, they were 10,000 pound bombs – into the factory and none outside it, so that all the girls were safe, except this one, who was hit by a bomb splinter, but fortunately not very badly injured. So that opened the way for us to go on using this technique, and as I say, developing a way of picking out a target that was important, but saving civilian life. So briefly, in a word, that’s something of the Dambusters. Except one final thing. The Dambusters, was a composite squadron of many different countries. And the largest contingent, outside we English, were the Australians, and I’m not sure, whether we had more difficultly, keeping our heads up, above water, against the Australians, or, in carrying out our job. But anyhow, I can assure you that for me, for the rest of my life, I will carry, most grateful and affectionate memories, of the Aussies, with whom I was privileged to fly and serve. My bomb aimer was an Australian, and he used to tell me he thought and keep me in order, and I think was the best bomb aimer I ever had. And I think that we, in Britain, will never forget the debt that we owe, to other countries, who came from so far away, to help us in our struggle. 15.31: But having said that, the big question remains – this question remains – that war, was fought in the first instance, of course, in order to stop aggression, in order to stop Hitler. But it was also fought for something higher than that. We who fought it, and we were a generation like you, who rejected war, we could see no sense in war, but we were plunged into it. And we believed, perhaps naively, but we did believe, that when the war was over, there would be foundations to build a world in which peace would flourish. Peace and freedom and justice and the opportunity for everybody to lead the kind of life they wanted. A world in which there would no longer be violence. For out if violence, as we all know, comes a danger of war, and out of war comes a danger of world war. And this is something that we as a human race cannot afford again. And so, the question that remained in our minds, when all that was over, at a cost, if you don’t know it, including all sides who fought, of 55 million lives. The question was – what are we going to do, to see that this never will happen again? It was a question that I myself couldn’t answer, and my life unexpectedly took a turn in a direction that I’d never even thought of, into the world of the disabled. 17.42: It came about because whilst I was trying to make up my mind what to do and unable to know what to do, I came across an old man dying of cancer, in hospital. And the hospital could do nothing more for him, there was nothing that could be done to make him better, only to keep him in bed and nurse him, said, ‘I’m sorry but he must go, because there are others waiting to come in and we cannot afford to block this one bed, for perhaps a year, for one man, for whom we could do nothing, when there are others who could be treated and sent home’. And not being able to find anywhere else for him to go, even though we were a welfare state then, when the state said it would od everything for us, when we were in trouble, in return of course, for a petty healthy weekly payment, by us. In spite of the fact that he was an ex-serviceman who’d been too old to serve, but had dropped his age ten years and got in - and a lot was done for ex-service men in those days – nowhere would take him because he was incurable. So, for want of anything else, I asked him if he’d like to come into the large empty house in which I was living. I never thought he would, but I thought I must offer him something. Rather to my surprise, he said, ‘yes, I’d love too.’ Having no money with which to pay a nurse, I obviously couldn’t get a nurse, so the only thing I could do was to try and look after him myself. And a local nurse came in, and said, ‘well it’ll be perfectly easy, I will show you what to do - and you do it.’ And she gave me, what she called, a concentrated course of nursing in three evenings. She told me that I was a very bad pupil, which I have to admit was probably true. She made me do everything by numbers, so that I wouldn’t forget it – which of course, I did forget. Anyway, I’m not going to go into what happened to Arthur and all the various things that came about while he was in the house. 20.12: To me it was just a temporary interlude, but, unexpectedly, somebody else came. An old lady of 91. Who was bed ridden, living in a flat, on her own. And before I knew what I was doing, I found myself saying yes, Ill take her. I knew her as ‘granny’. She was stone deaf, had to go right up to her ear and shout at the top of your voice and even then, she wouldn’t hear it if she didn’t want too. And if you said something very quietly, that had nothing to do with her at all, she always seems to hear it. And 70 years ago she’d been a district nurse, so that everything I’d tried to do for her, she said had to be done differently. So, I can assure you, that we had a difficult time, getting to know and understand each other’s way of working. However, for me, this was a beginning of a completely new world, a world that I never knew existed, of the disabled. And I discovered that every country in the world, without exception, whether its rich, or whether its poor, is not providing enough of the right facilities and care for the young disabled. If somebody of 18 or 20 goes out today and dives into a river, or the sea, and shall we say, hits a submerged rock, and breaks his neck, as can happen and becomes paralysed, or has an accident on the road and becomes paralyzed, his body is disabled – he will go to hospital, he will go to rehabilitation centres, he’ll get all the treatment in the world and there will come a time when the doctor says, ‘there is nothing more I can do – the rest of your life, you will be like this – in a wheelchair.’ Well now, as I say, his body is disabled, but his mind is not. His mind is like yours, and his heart – he has all the hopes for his life that you have. Principally, he wants to feel that in the world, there will be an opportunity for him to express himself in his own, perhaps to be creative. He will want to marry, he wants to fell wanted, he wants to be just a normal human being, but he can’t and society normally, puts him either in a hospital, or in some big institution. And we think, that for most of them, it is better that he should have a small home, with perhaps 20 or 30 at the most, which is informal, as much like a home as you can make it – that with all the expert aids and gadgets and care, that exist today, to give a disabled person independence and the opportunity of doing something. 23.50: For instance, I know one girl, who got polio and she can move no part of her body whatsoever, except one big toe. She can’t breathe, she’s kept alive by a breathing machine. She can’t talk, but she can see, and she can hear. And to that big toe, is attached a little microswitch, and by moving it, she can do the following things – she can put on a hi-fi, she’s musical and she loves music – she likes pop as well as classical music. So, she can choose her music. She can put on the telly - select her station, adjust her volume. She can put on the radio, and more important – she can operate a typewriter – she can type. So if you go and see her, you can have a conversation, you’d talk to her and say, ‘hello Hilary, how are you today?’, she’d give you an answer. And I can assure you that she is very shrewd, although, she lies totally – I think you’d be shocked if you saw her – she lies totally helpless, with her tongue just hanging out, unable to move, even her eyes. And she answers you on this typewriter. She composes poetry, she’ll have a joke with you, she’ll size you up. 25.27: Now, when you think of somebody like that, there two lesson we have to learn. The first is, look at her determination. Look at the way that she’s not thinking of what she’s lost, now most of us in life, something goes wrong, we get upset. We think if only I hadn’t done that, we keep harping on what things might have been had we not had such and such a disaster or so on. She’s forgotten about all that she’s lost. She’s only thinking about what remains. And she’s making the most of it. But the second thing is, this would not have been possible, she could not lead the life she’s leading, which is a very meaningful, constructive life, had it not been for all the others who’ve helped her. The doctors, the engineers who designed this electronic box – the ‘Possum’ – the respirator, and so on. The nurses, who’ve nursed her back to where she is now, and her parents and friends who keep her in her own flat at home. We ourselves, that’s myself and my wife, have homes in a number of countries – 25 countries altogether – and each of them are running themselves, finding their own money, except for one in Northern India, which is much bigger than the others and for which the money comes from Australia and New Zealand. Indeed, here in your school – form two, I think – is very generously keeping one of the children in this home [inaudible at 27.19]. 27.24: What I’m trying to say, is this - that if we ask ourselves - what can I do, to build a kind of world, that we want, a world in which peace and justice and freedom will flourish? The answer is, that every single one of us, has got a part to play, even if somebody is totally helpless – like Hilary – if they are making the most of their opportunities and their resources, then their contribution is as valuable, as that of somebody who is powerful and fit and perhaps wealthy. That’s not the standard by which we judge things, we judge people by the achievement, by what they’ve done. But I’ve come to think, that this is not the true test. I don’t think the achievement, counts so much. Achievements can be washed away overnight, you can work all your life and build something up, and overnight, it’s destroyed. But what counts, is the effort, the sacrifice, and this is not washed away – this is remembered, it continues. And this is the criterion, by which God will judge the value of our actions. Let us do what we can and leave the rest to other people and to God. And if we look at the starving millions in West Bengal, or in drought-stricken Africa, or wherever it might be and say, ‘what can I do’? The answer is, we should not look at the problem - the problem is so vast, we think ‘I can do nothing’, so we are put off. We should look at ‘what can I do’, that’s all that matters, in whatever field we happen to choose - and do it. And I would say only one thing to you – never stop doing something, or be put off from doing something, because it seems so too inadequate, too small. Everything that we, as human beings do, - cause we are human beings, will be inadequate, it will have faults, it will be small – no use persuading ourselves we can do anything big. The important thing is, have we made the most of our opportunities, such as they are. And I find, going about the world, that this generation - your generation - is a compassionate generation. It is one that is interested and concerned in the underprivileged – mine wasn’t. We knew nothing about it, we knew nothing about the poor and the starving, but now, you’ll never find a school that hasn’t got some project, is doing something. And to me, this offers the greatest hope of all, for the future. And although you will have been told this before, I will say it again, that the world that you hand on, as you grow older, to your children will be the world that you make - and so I thank you for the opportunity of meeting you today, and I’d like to offer every one of you, my warmest wishes, and ask Gods blessing, not only on your school and your coming exams – but in your future lives wherever they may lead you. Thank you very much. 31.21: Speech Ends. 31.27: End of Recording End of Transcription. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leonard Cheshire - talk to St Ignatius School Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Australia New South Wales--Sydney France Germany New South Wales 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 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio recording 00:31:25 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SCheshireGL72021v20023-0002, SCheshireGL72021v20023-0002-Transcript Description An account of the resource Talks about the 617 Squadron and their operation against German dams. Continues with recollection of his time on the squadron and operations against v-weapons with Barnes Wallis designed bombs. Mentions development of low-level marking techniques and attack on Gnome Rhone factory in Limoges. Mentions Australian aircrew on the squadron. Continues with discussion on peace and war and the reasons for him founding his organisation after the war. Goes on to describe some of his work and experiences. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource G L Cheshire Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1974-10-15 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1974-10-15 2020-08-19 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive 617 Squadron aircrew bombing Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992) Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) Grand Slam Tallboy V-1 V-2 V-3 V-weapon Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979) https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2230/40179/SCheshireGL72021v20022-0001.2.mp3 a92f71608a2a1181016a8adbcac2a34c 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 Cheshire, Leonard. Audio recordings Description An account of the resource Twenty-seven items. Audio recordings of talks and sermons given by Leonard Cheshire on the morality of force, his service history and his and his wife's organisations to various organisations. Includes one series of after dinner speeches featuring Sir Arthur Harris. 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 property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document Leonard Cheshire Resonate Project File Title: Possible message played at premiere of Dambusters Film Date: 1955 (date assumed) Duration: 3mn33s (3.2MB) Transcription Date: 08.06.20 Archive Number: AV-S_367 Start of Transcription 00:00: GLC: I'm very happy indeed to be given this opportunity of sending just a few words of good wishes to you. Unfortunately, your letter arrived only just before I have to leave, so this is a very hurried message, but I do assure you that it comes with all my heart. And I would like to feel that I'm speaking to you on behalf of the members of the squadron. (00:28) We were very privileged to be allowed to take part in the operation of that squadron, and I feel privileged to have been able to try and follow in the footsteps of Guy Gibson and the others who set the pattern for the squadron. They were, as you know, all volunteers, so that meant that as many had given up their rank, dropped a rank, in order to join it, that we perhaps didn't have the same regard for higher authority than, I suppose, one should, but I hope never to the breach of good discipline. (1:16) We had the greatest respect for our AOC, Sir Ralph Cochrane. He was a man with an outstanding mind, he would question everything, but if he once was convinced then you knew that he was 100% behind you. We were composed of many different nationalities: Australians, Canadians, New-Zealanders, 2 Americans; and I think we gained from that. I think today we have a little lesson to learn or rather that we've learnt a lesson that perhaps in those days we haven't: the necessity of joining together whatever our country, whatever our belief, whatever our background, in working for a better world. (2:05) In this squadron, in our small way, we hoped that we were making such contribution as we could - small though it was - to ending the war. And in our minds, ending the war meant winning peace. But everybody, until the end of time, has got to work and sacrifice, and perhaps - though God forbid - fight, once again, in order to ensure peace; 'cause peace can only be founded on justice and freedom, and the dignity of the individual. And if we want peace, then we have to work to put right injustice. We have to work to fill the gap between the poorer countries and the richer countries, each generation according to the circumstances of his time. (3:06) Well, I wasn't here to give you a lecture, I'm far away from you but I'd like to feel that I'm with you in the room in spirit, and from all the boys in the squadron and, I suppose, the West, one or two of whom I've still kept in touch with. I would like to send warmest wishes, thank you for taking an interest in what the squadron did, and God bless. Thank you. 3:32: End of Speech 3:33: End of Recording. End of Transcription 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 Possible message played at the premiere of The Dam Busters film Description An account of the resource Talks briefly of the squadron, Guy Gibson, Sir Ralph Cochrane and international nature of aircrew. Continues with message of peace and sends warmest greetings. Submitted with caption 'Possible message from Group Captain Leonard Cheshire played at the premiere of the Dambusters Film, 1955. Leonard was invited to premieres over the world but could not attend. Leonard talks about Guy Gibson, his opinions on the contribution of Bomber Command to athe Allies' victory in the Second World War and sends greetings to his past RAF colleagues'. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource G L Cheshire Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1955 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1955 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio recording 00:03:33 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SCheshireGL72021v20022-0001, SCheshireGL72021v20022-0001-Transcript Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive 617 Squadron Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992) Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) military discipline https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2230/40111/SCheshireGL72021v20012-0001.2.mp3 b764155c8031c83bd39878fb5635efa9 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 Cheshire, Leonard. Audio recordings Description An account of the resource Twenty-seven items. Audio recordings of talks and sermons given by Leonard Cheshire on the morality of force, his service history and his and his wife's organisations to various organisations. Includes one series of after dinner speeches featuring Sir Arthur Harris. 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 property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document Leonard Cheshire Resonate Project File Title: AV-S 221 Side 1 RAF Marham. GLC proposing Squadron Association toast to present Squadron members on 40th anniversary of Dams Raids. May 1983. Recorded: 05/1983 Preservation copy: Duration: 00:15:13 Transcription Date: 20/07/2020 Archive Number: AV-S:221/1 Start of Transcription 00:00:01 Host: Make silence for Leonard Cheshire. 00:00:06 Host: Do you want to give them a rank? 00:00:07 [Audience Laughter] 00:00:08 Host: Because he knows no [unclear 00:09 – 00:12] 00:00:13 Host: Leonard Cheshire! [applause] 00:00:24 LC: Mr President, gentlemen. I assure you that it’s a very happy task that has been given to me of proposing on behalf of the squadron association – 617 Association – the toast to the present squadron. Tonight, is the anniversary of that first attack on the dams 40 years ago. Of the 133 crews that took part, only 34 are still alive. And of those, 21 are here tonight as your guests. The rest of us joined the squadron after that memorable occasion, and I think that we inherited something of their spirit and their tradition, even if we were a little overawed by what it was, we’d come to join. And I would like to introduce to you our present party of 80 or so who are your guests. You will see that we’re a fairly motley crowd – what your private thoughts are I don’t know. [audience laughter] 00:01:52: I would like to assure Ken Brown that if we limeys met you with what you thought was some rough language, that’s nothing compared to the home truths that we Poms were told by you Australians. [audience laughter and applause] 00:02:18: Well we’ve come here tonight, many from the other side of the world, travelling thousands of miles at their own expense. Yet we were only on the squadron together for quite a short time. Most of us not for more than a year. We’d come from different backgrounds. When we left the squadron and the war was over, we dispersed to different countries to build new lives, to make new friends, many of us to raise a family. And yet, we still meet together. And I think that in meeting together we like to look upon ourselves as a family, members of a family. Moreover – a family that is bigger than just we ourselves, the – 00:03:24 Audience member: [inaudible] 00:03:26 LC: How many – a hundred and...? Whatever it is – comprise. And I think one has to ask oneself ‘What is it that makes us come together to be here with you in your mess tonight after all those years and despite not seeing each other very often. Well obviously,, any intense experience that is shared in common creates a bond, particularly if that experience is in the face of a threat to one’s safety and involves danger. Every experience, even though it’s a momentary one, influences and moulds the rest of our lives to some extent. But that isn’t in my mind enough to explain our coming together, our feeling as if we were a family. I think that the real reason for it is that when we joined the Royal Air Force, we inherited a tradition, and when we were finally posted to 617, we inherited a particular form of that tradition. 00:05:00: I’ve often pondered about tradition and wondered ‘What exactly is it?’. I have a very vivid memory of reporting for duty in June 1940 to my first operational squadron. The Air Force was very generous then and allowed you to choose whilst at flying training school what operation command you wanted. They gave you three choices. None of mine were bomber command, because that’s the last thing I wanted [audience laughter]. Different now, isn’t it? [audience laughter] And I arrived at the station feeling very anxious. I didn’t know how I was going to make out. But when I arrived there, suddenly everything was different. Everyone was normal, you felt [audience laughter] ... I wasn’t looking at you, Ross. You felt somehow carried along by something greater than yourself. As you know, after World War One, when the Royal Air Force became the Royal Air Force, it had the choice of sharing some of the facilities and training of the Army and Navy, but decided that it was in its best interests to be entirely on its own, so as to build up its own traditions. And I think the fact that it did that was the major fundamental factor in the winning of the Battle of Britain. Because the Royal Air Force, as distinct from the Luftwaffe, which was mainly in a support role to the Army, enjoyed an independent existence. And so, the RAF has built up its own, unique tradition, of which all of us in this room are proud sharers. 00:07:12: But tradition is something living, active. It isn’t something in the past that you enjoy and remember, once you’ve shared in it, it is a part of you. And as each new recruit comes into the Air Force or the squadron, he and his squadron add something to that tradition, and we tonight, the members of the 617 Association feel that we are part of the tradition which you have now built up and developed during your term of service. I think that it’s the fact of our common tradition that holds us together as a squadron association. 00:08:11: When I look at our short term of service and wonder whether there is anything I can mention of that that has any relevance today, I think first of something that we were – was borne home to us this afternoon when we watched your flying display, and when we went into your aircraft and met you air crew, it reminded me of the basic need for professionalism. I don’t believe that in any area of life there is any substitute for total commitment to your job and hard work. I know that we found in the squadron doing low flying that you couldn’t afford to leave it for two days and then go on to an op. If you’d had a weekend off, then you needed to go out that morning and do an hour’s low flying, to get your hand back in. I think you would agree that what is needed is that when you go into an op no part of your mind is on the business of flying, so that all your mind is free for what you have to do. 00:09:36: Then secondly, I think it’s necessary always to ask ourselves ‘Are we doing it in the right way? Is there a better way in which we can achieve our objective?’ I think that the wartime squadron did have a gift of thinking new and improvising. I suspect borne out of an innate resistance to obeying any command that came from higher up unless it was unavoidable. 00:10:15 [audience laugh and bang tables appreciatively to] 00:10:26 00:10:26 LC: And we who’ve looked at you today and been allowed to share a part of your life and your work, I wonder what it is that we think, what our memories will be when we move away sadly after this happy evening. There are two thoughts in my mind, two ways in which your task is different from ours. The first is that in our case we were fighting a war with the objectives of which the entire country – in fact the entire Commonwealth, the entire free world – totally agreed. We knew that everybody was behind us. We knew that what we were doing depended upon everybody’s cooperation, participation in the country. But today, as in the 30s, the right to defend oneself is being questioned, and it can’t be quite so simple doing something when you wonder whether everybody is behind you. I think that in addition to becoming as you have masters of your profession, you need also to master the arguments against disarmament, so that when you meet people who hold a different view, you can meet them in reasoned argument and win the case. 00:12:12: Then I think it’s clear that now we are in the nuclear age, that the nuclear weapon has fundamentally changed the nature of war. In my own firm opinion, the nuclear weapon makes any form of war between nuclear powers rationally impossible, by making the cost of using it higher than any possible gain to the user. So in my own opinion, the likelihood of war between nuclear powers, so long as the deterrent is kept up to date and credible, is very small indeed if not nil. [audience assent and applause] 00:13:19: But the paradox is that in order to make any form of war – not just nuclear war – rationally impossible you have to make it quite clear that you’re willing to use it if need be. You need to make not only the enemy afraid of the fact that you may use it, but I think also your own people, the public. That is the paradox. And to come up as we did today and to feel your commitment, and to feel something of your skill and professionalism was very moving to all of us. 00:14:05 I would like to assure you that having participated as we have in part of your day, we feel that our involvement in the squadron 40 years ago was even more meaningful, because we see what the squadron is today, and we see the standard that it maintains, and we see that it is determined to carry out its own objectives. I think what set 617 apart from other squadrons is not that its crews were better – though perhaps we may like to think we were [scattered audience laughter] – we were specialists, we were picked out and given a special task and trained in that special role. And although the specifics of that role altered – [recording cuts off] 00:15:13: Speech ends 00:15:13: End of recording End of Transcription Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leonard Cheshire proposing squadron association toast to current squadron members Description An account of the resource RAF Marham. Leonard Cheshire proposing Squadron Association toast to present Squadron members on 40th anniversary of Dams Raids. At RAF Marham. May 1983. Starts with toast on 40th anniversary of operation. Talks about the wartime squadron. Mentions history and tradition in the RAF. Mentions professionalism and current role ad place of the air force. Submitted with caption 'Leonard Cheshire proposing Squadron Association toast to present Squadron members on 40th anniversary of the dam raids - RAF Marham - May 1983'. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource G L Cheshire Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1983-05 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1983-05 2020-07-20 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Norfolk Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio recording 00:17:21 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SCheshireGL72021v20012-0001, SCheshireGL72021v20012-0001-Transcript Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive 617 Squadron bombing Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992) Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) RAF Marham https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1998/38072/MOates1489926-171207-17.2.jpg cb46a4a423958f2ec6bb6b7168219855 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 Oates, James J Oates 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 2017-12-07 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. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Oates, J Description An account of the resource 91 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer James Oates (1489926 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents and photographs. He flew paratrooper drops and glider towing operations as a navigator with 196 Squadron. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Gina E Welsh and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Guy Gibson's Log Book Extract Description An account of the resource An extract from Guy's logbook for May 1943. It ends on May 16 with 'Awarded VC'. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Germany--Möhne River Dam Germany--Eder Dam Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One photocopied sheet Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context MOates1489926-171207-17 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943-05-16 1943-05-17 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. Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 617 Squadron Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) Lancaster Oxford RAF Hendon RAF Manston Victoria Cross https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1254/36045/PBakerWB16040005.jpg dcec6aa3989d4d0ee6e7c202352985a6 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 Baker, William Benjamin Biff Baker W B Baker Description An account of the resource 45 items. The collection concerns William Benjamin "Biff" Baker DFC (Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents art work and and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 115 and 626 Squadrons. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Pamela Baker and catalogued by Nigel Huckins and Peter Adams. 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 2016-11-28 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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 Baker, WB Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document [photograph] R.A.F. School of Administration [crest] and Accountancy, Hereford Vivian of Hereford No. 25 Elementary Course. Syndicate "V." 28/3/45 to 23/5/45. P/O. Shaw P/O. Smith P/O. Swetland P/O. Thomson P/O. Wade D.F.C. F/O. Weston, D.F.C. F/O. Lane’ D.F.C. F/O. Miles, D.F.M. P/O. Minard F/Lt. Oele, D.F.C. F/O. Parkin. D.F.M. F/O. Phillips, D.F.M. F/O. Priest F/O. Russell P/O. Brotherton F/L. Chattington, D.F.C. P/O Croysdill, D.F.M. F/O. Derham, D.F.M. F/O. Dixon, D.F.C. F/O. Emra F/O. Farnborough F/O. Fox P/O. Golding, D.F.M. F/L. Adair F/O. Baker, D.F.C. F/L Gibson W/Cdr. Shepard S/Ldr. Batwell F/O. Bannister F/O. Bragan [page break] [painting] 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 Course photograph and Lancaster painting Description An account of the resource Top - course photograph of thirty officers wearing tunics or battledress sitting and standing in four rows. Captioned 'No 25 Elementary Course. Syndicate "V", 28/3/45 to 23/5/45', lists name of those on photograph, F/O Baker front row second from left.'. Bottom - colour painting of three Lancasters with upkeep bombs at low level in "V" formation over water. Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1945-03-28 1945-05-23 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Herefordshire England--Hereford 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 Type The nature or genre of the resource Artwork Photograph Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photograph and one colour painting mounted on an album page Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PBakerWB16040005 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sue Smith 617 Squadron aircrew bouncing bomb Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) Lancaster training https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1901/35228/MRobertsEJH[See -DoB]-170712-02.pdf b6b0445730de3f22759eebd9263e152b 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 Roberts, E J H 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 2017-07-12 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 Roberts, EJH Description An account of the resource 50 items. The collection concerns E J H Roberts DFC (408451 Royal Air Force) and contains maps, documents, news clippings and photographs. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 61 Squadron. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Carole Grant and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nos Aviations Description An account of the resource Victoires de la RAF en 1943 Air Marshal Sir Richard Peck describes large composition and successes of RAF during 1943 whilst underlining the threat still posed by Germany. Les machines Maintains Anglo-American aircraft production is four times better than their opponents; combining skills and resources is highly beneficial. Les hommes Through the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, men from different countries trained in Canada, with the training spreading out to other countries. Bomber Command Main aim is to weaken the enemy’s war potential and open the way for the liberation armies. Les barrages de la Ruhr Describes the dawn operation by Lancasters on 17th May 1943, which destroyed the Möhne and Eder dams in the Ruhr Valley, using mines. 10,000 tonnes Hambourg 11 days of raids put Hamburg and its naval port out of action with 70% of the town destroyed or damaged. Berlin 30,000 tonnes As the main industrial hub and centre of Nazism, Berlin was one of the RAF’s main targets with many factories destroyed or damaged. Les éclaireurs Pathfinder Force, commanded by Air Vice-Marshal Bennett, was created in August 1942. They marked targets with flares to improve bombing accuracy. Coastal Command Important role played by aircraft in the Battle of the Atlantic, finding and attacking German submarines, and protecting allied ships. Fighter Command After four years, Fighter Command disbanded and split into defence and tactical aviation. Transport Command Created in 1943 to transport equipment from American and British production centres to operational bases and bases on the front. D’El-Alamein en Italie Campaigns from Africa to Italy have seen the air force and army leaders thinking and acting as one to maximum effect. Grip tightening on German industry. Les ailes franco-brittaniques Air Brigade General Martial Valin, commanding the Free French Air Force in Britain, outlines the positive Franco-British relationships and training provided. The Air Force’s different groups are described and how structures were effectively reformed, including in North Africa. Normandie en Russie Runs through the activities of the Normandy group on the Russian front during 1943, from training to successful operations. The Russians have shown friendship and esteem. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. France Germany Canada Ontario--Trenton Germany--Essen Germany--Hamburg Germany--Dortmund Germany--Hannover Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Leipzig Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Mannheim Germany--Wuppertal Germany--Peenemünde Germany--Bochum Germany--Mülheim an der Ruhr Germany--Kassel Germany--Cologne Germany--Duisburg Germany--Augsburg Germany--Berlin Italy Egypt--Alamayn Libya--Tripoli Tunisia--Tunis Italy--Sicily Italy--Pantelleria Island Russia (Federation) Russia (Federation)--Smolensk France--Limoges Tunisia Libya Egypt North Africa Ontario Germany--Ruhr (Region) 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 Royal Air Force. Fighter Command Royal Navy British Army Royal Air Force. Transport Command Free French Air Force Language A language of the resource fra Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 48 sheet booklet Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context MRobertsEJH[See#-DoB]-170712-02 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sally Coulter Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending text-based transcription. Other languages than English aerial photograph aircrew B-17 B-24 B-25 B-26 Beaufighter Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986) bombing Boston Churchill, Winston (1874-1965) Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) Halifax Hudson Lancaster Mosquito P-51 Pathfinders pilot propaganda reconnaissance photograph Spitfire Stirling Sunderland target indicator training Typhoon York https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1825/33688/SBrennanJ1210913v20005-00080002.2.pdf 3981f4d147217998372766161aef4c5b 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 Brennan, Jack John Brennan J Brennan 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 2017-04-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Brennan, J Description An account of the resource Twenty-four items. The collection concerns Sergeant John Brennan DFM (1210913 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book as well as documents including a Goldfish Club certificate, notes from station and squadron operational record book with details of activities and operations, memoirs, newspaper cuttings and correspondence. In addition, contains operation order and other details for 617 Squadron's attack of German dams on 16/17 May 1943. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 102 and 35 Squadrons. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by T Noble and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document [underlined] MOST SECRET [/underlined] COPY NO . . . . [underlined] NO. 5 GROUP OPERATION ORDER NO. B.976 [/underlined] APPENDIX ‘A’ – ROUTES AND TIMINGS [stamp] TOP SECRET [/stamp] APPENDIX ‘B’ – SIGNALS PROCEDURE FOR TARGET DIVERSIONS, ETC APPENDIX ‘C’ – LIGHT AND MOON TABLES [underlined] INFORMATION [/underlined]. [underlined] General [/underlined]. 1. The inhabitants and industry of the Ruhr rely to a very large extent on the enormously costly water barrage dams in the Ruhr District. Destruction of TARGET X alone would bring about a serious shortage of water for drinking purposes and industrial supplies. This shortage might not be immediately apparent but would certainly take effect in the course of a few months. The additional destruction of one or more of the five major dams in the Ruhr Area would greatly increase the effect and hasten the resulting shortage. TARGET Z is next in importance. 2. A substantial amount of damage would be done, and considerable local flooding would be caused immediately consequent on the breach of TARGET X. In fact it might well cause havoc in the Ruhr valley. There would be a large loss of cooling water for the large thermal plants. 3. In the Weser District the destruction of the TARGET Y would seriously hamper transport in the Mittelland Canal and in the Weser, and would probably lead to an almost complete cessation of the great volume of traffic now using these waterways. 4. The reservoirs usually reach their maximum capacity in May or June, after which the level slowly falls. [underlined] Enemy Defences [/underlined]. 5. (a) [underlined] TARGET X [/underlined]. There are three subjects on the crest of the dam which may each be a light A.A. gun. A light 3-gun A.A. position is situated below and to the N. of the dam with a possible searchlight position nearby. A double line boom with timber spreaders is floating on the main reservoir at 100 to 300 feet from the dam. No other A.A. position or defence installation is known. (b) [underlined] TARGETS Y and Z [/underlined]. Information about the defences of these two dams will be given when P.R.U. sorties have covered these areas. (Information has now been issued). (c) The last resort targets are unlikely to be defended. [underlined] INTENTION [/underlined] 6. To breach the following dams in order of priority as listed: (a) TARGET ‘X’ (GO 939) (b) TARGET ‘Y’ (GO 934) (c) TARGET ‘Z’ (GO 960) (d) Last Resort Targets:- (i) TARGET ‘D’ (GO 938) (ii) TARGET ‘E’ (GO 935) (iii) TARGET ‘F’ (GO 933) /EXECUTION . . . . [page break] [underlined] EXECUTION [/underlined] [stamp] TOP SECRET [/stamp] [underlined] Code Name [/underlined]. 7. This operation will be known by a code name which will be issued separately. [underlined] Date of Attack [/underlined]. 8. The operation is to take place on the first suitable date after 15th May, 1943. [underlined] Effort [/underlined]. 9. Twenty Special Lancasters from 617 Squadron. [underlined] Outline Plan [/underlined]. 10. The twenty special Lancasters of 617 Squadron are to fly from base to target area and return in moonlight at low level by the routes given in APPENDIX ‘A’. The Squadron is to be divided into three waves, viz:- (a) [underlined] 1st Wave [/underlined]. Is to consist of three sections, spaced at ten minute intervals, each section consisting of three aircraft. They are to take the Southern route to the target area and attack Target X. the attack is to be continued until the Dam has been clearly breached. It is estimated that this might require three effective attacks. When this has been achieved the leader is to divert the remainder of this wave to Target Y, where similar tactics are to be followed. Should both X and Y be breached any remaining aircraft of this wave are to attack Z. (b) [underlined] 2nd Wave [/underlined]. Is to consist of five aircraft manned by the specially trained crews who are to take the Northern route to the target, but are to cross the enemy coast at the same time as the leading section of the 1st wave. This 2nd wave are to attack Target Z. (c) [underlined] 3rd Wave [/underlined]. Is to consist of the remaining aircraft and is to form an airborne reserve under the control of Group H.Q. They are to take the Southern route to the target but their time of take-off is to be such that they may be recalled before crossing the enemy coast if the 1st and 2nd waves have breached all the targets. Recall will probably not be possible unless the first section of the 1st Wave are at POSITION 51°51’ N., 03°00’E. by Civil Twilight (EVENING) + 30 minutes and the 3rd Wave must be at this position 2 hours 30 minutes later. Orders will be passed to aircraft on the Special Group frequency if possible before they reach the enemy coast instructing them which target they are to attack. Failing receipt of this message aircraft are to proceed to X, Y and finally last resort targets in that order, attacking any which are not breached. Officer Commanding, R.A.F. Station, Scampton, is to arrange for individual aircraft to be detailed to specific last resort targets. [underlined] Detailed Plan [/underlined]. 11. the 1st Wave is to take off in three sections each of three aircraft and fly to the target at low level by the route given in Appendix ‘A’. Sections are to be spaced at intervals of ten minutes and are to fly in open formation. Height is not to exceed 1,500 feet over England. On leaving the English Coast aircraft are to descend to low level and set their altimeters to 60 feet using the Spotlight Altimeter for calibration. The QFF at various stages of the route is to be carefully noted. Aircraft are to remain at low level for the Flight to the target and on the return journey at least until crossing a point 03°00’E. [page break] – 3 – [stamp] TOP SECRET [/stamp] as low as possible both going in and coming out ever if it is necessary to climb a little later for map reading. 13. On arriving at a point 10 miles from the target the leader of each section is to climb to about 1,000 feet. On seeing this all other aircraft are to listen out on V.H.F. Each aircraft is to call the leader of the Wave on V.H.F. on arriving at the target. Spinning of the special store is to be started ten minutes before each aircraft attacks. The leader is to attack first and is then to control the attacks on TARGETS X and Y by all the other aircraft of the 1st Wave using the Signals procedure given in APPENDIX ‘B’. 14. Number 2 of the leading section of the 1st Wave is to act as deputy leader for the whole of the 1st Wave during the attack on TARGET X. Should the leader fall out No. 2 of the leading section is to take over leadership, and No. 3 deputy leadership, for the attack of TARGET X. For the attack of TARGET Y Number 4 is to take over deputy leadership, or if No. 1 is absent he is to take over leadership, in which event No. 7 is to be the deputy leader. All other aircraft are to return by Route 1, the second three by Route 2 and the last three aircraft of this wave by Route 3. 15. The direction of attack of TARGET X is to be at right angles to the length of the target. The general direction of attack is, therefore, to be S.E. to N.W. Aircraft are not to be diverted to TARGET Y until TARGET X has been breached. If TARGET X is breached, up to two additional aircraft may be used, at the discretion of the leader, to widen the breach in TARGET X provided at least three aircraft are diverted to attack TARGET Y. 16. When TARGET X is seen to be breached beyond all possible doubt the leader is to divert the remainder of the first Wave to TARGET Y by W/T and V.H.F. where similar tactics are to be used for the attack of this target. The general direction of attack of TARGET Y is to be from N.W. to S.E. If target Y is seen to be breached beyond all possible doubt all remaining aircraft of the 1st Wave are to be diverted by the leader to attack TARGET Z independently using the same tactics as the 2nd wave. 18.[sic] For the attacks of both Targets X and Y the special range finder is to be used, the height of attack is to be 60 feet and the ground speed 220 m.p.h. 19. The 2nd Wave is to take off and fly to Target Z at low level by the Northern Route given in Appendix ‘A’. Aircraft are to cross the enemy coast in close concentration, but not in formation, at the same time, although at a different point, as the leading section of the 1st Wave. Aircraft on this Wave sill [sic] be controlled on the alternative V.H.F. channel. The special stores are not to be spun for the attack of Target Z. Aircraft are to attack this target from N.W. to S.E. parallel to the length of the dam and are to aim to hit the water just short of the centre point of the dam about 15 to 20 feet out from the edge of the water. Attacks are to be made from the lowest practicable height at a speed of 180 m.p.h. I.A.S. Aircraft are to return to base independently. First two aircraft by Route 1; second two aircraft by Route 2 and the last by Route 3. 20. The 3rd Wave is to consist of the remaining aircraft and is to form an airborne reserve under the control of Group Headquarters. They are to fly to Target X in close concentration, but not in formation, at low level by the Southern route given in Appendix ‘A’. These aircraft are to be at Position 51°52’ N., 03°00’E. 2 hours 30 minutes after the leading section of the 1st Wave have crossed this point on their outward route to the target. Orders for the 3rd Wave will be passed to all aircraft on the special Group frequency, if possible before they reach the enemy coast, instructing them which target they are to attack. Failing receipt of this message aircraft are to proceed to X, Y and , finally, last resort targets in that order attacking any which are not breached. The 3rd Wave are to use tactics of attack /similar to those . . . [page break] – 4 – [stamp] TOP SECRET [/stamp] similar to those used by the 1st Wave when attacking Targets X and Y except that attacks on last resort targets are to be made independently. After attacking, aircraft are to return to base independently at low level by any of the three return routes given in Appendix ‘A’. Aircraft attacking early should take Route 1; the next aircraft Route 2 and the last Route 3. [underlined] Method of Attack [/underlined]. 21. Aircraft are to use the method of attack already practiced. The pilot being responsible for line, the Navigator for height, the Air Bomber for range and the Flight Engineer for speed. 22. The interval between attacking aircraft is to be not less than three minutes all targets. 23. On all targets except Target Z each aircraft is to fire a red verey cartridge immediately over the dam during the attack. Aircraft attacking Target Z are each to fire a red verey cartridge as they release their special store. 24. All aircraft are to fly left hand circuits in each target area keeping as low as possible when waiting their turn to attack. [underlined] Time of Attack [/underlined]. 25. The time of attack of each target by each wave is not important to within a few minutes. The time of crossing the enemy coast is, however, all important. ZERO HOUR, which will be given in the executive order, is, therefore to be the time at which the first section of the 1st wave are to be at POSITION 51°52’N., 03°00’E. on the outward route to the target. This time will probably be Civil Twilight (EVENING) + 30 minutes. At this time aircraft of the 2nd Wave should be about Position 53°19’N., 04°00’E. [underlined] Routes [/underlined]. 26. As in Appendix ‘A’. [underlined] Diversions [/underlined]. 27. The whole essence of this operation is surprise, and to avoid bringing enemy defences to an unnecessary degree of alertness, diversionary attacks must be carefully timed. H.Q. B.C. will be asked to arrange the maximum possible diversionary attacks 20 minutes after the leading section of the 1st wave crosses the enemy coast. No diversionary attacks should be despatched which would cross the enemy coast for a period of one hour preceding the 3rd Wave. 15 minutes after the 3rd Wave cross the enemy coast further diversionary attacks should be made at maximum strength and should continue, if possible until the 3rd wave are clear of enemy territory on the return journey. Diversionary attacks below 2,000 ft. should not be made in the area bounded by the points (51°00’N., 03°20’E), (51°20’N., 06°30’E), (51°00’N., 10°00’E.)., 52°00N., 09°00’E.). (53°20’N., 06°00’E.). H.Q. B.C. will also be asked to arrange suitable weather reconnaissance to report in particular on the visibility in the target area at least in sufficient time to recall the Lancasters before they cross the enemy coast if the weather is unsuitable. [underlined] Armament [/underlined]. 28. (a) [underlined] Bomb Load [/underlined]. – Each Lancaster is to carry one special modified store (UPKEEP). (b) [underlined] Ammunition [/underlined]. – All guns to be loaded with 100 night tracer (G VI). [underlined] Fuel [/underlined]. 29. The Lancasters may take off at a maximum all up weight of 63,000 lbs. at +14 boost. As the modified store now weighs about 9,000 lbs. 1750 gallons of petrol can be carried. /Navigation . . . [page break] – 5 – [stamp] TOP SECRET [/stamp] [underlined] Navigation [/underlined]. 30. H.Q. B.C. are requested to arrange for the Eastern Chain, Stud 5 to be switched on at Z – 20 minutes and to remain on for the whole of the operation. This should assist in making an accurate landfall on the enemy coast at the correct time. 31. The route is to be carefully studied before flight and the outstanding features, obstructions and pinpoints noted, particularly water pinpoints. E.T.A.’s at each are to be carefully calculated and if any pinpoint is not found on E.T.A. a search is to be made before proceeding to the next pinpoint. Aircraft may climb to 500 feet shortly before reaching each pinpoint if necessary to help map reading. 32. The maximum use is to be made of the Air Position Indicators. [underlined] Synchronisation of Watches [/underlined]. 33. All watches are to be synchronised with B.B.C. time before take off on the day of the operation. [underlined] Secrecy [/underlined]. 34. Secrecy is VITAL. Knowledge of this operation is to be confined to the Station Commander, O.C. 617 Squadron and his two Flight Commanders until receipt of the EXECUTIVE signal. After crews are briefed they are to be impressed with the need for the utmost secrecy because of the possibility that the operation may be postponed should weather reconnaissance prove the weather to be unsuitable. [underlined] Reports [/underlined]. 35. Each aircraft as soon as possible after it has attacked is to report by W/T on the normal Group operational frequency in accordance with APPENDIX ‘B’. [underlined] Special Devices [/underlined]. 36. MANDREL and TINSEL are not fitted. 37. IFF is NOT to be used on the outward journey but normal procedure is to be followed on the homeward flight. Any aircraft returning early is NOT to use IFF except after Z + 30 minutes for the 1st and 2nd Waves and after Z + 3 hours for the 3rd Wave. [underlined] Nickels [/underlined]. 38. nickels are not to be dropped. [underlined] INTERCOMMUNICATION [/UNDERLINED]. [underlined] Wireless Silence [/underlined]. 39. Strict W/T and R/T silence is to be maintained until after Z + 30 minutes for the 1st and 2nd Waves and after Z + 3 hours for the 3rd Wave. Any aircraft returning early is NOT to break W/T or R/T silence and is NOT to identify on MF/DF except after Z + 30 minutes for the 1st and 2nd Waves and after Z + 3 hours for the 3rd Wave. Aircraft returning before that time are to cross the English Coast at 1,500 feet at the point of exit and proceed direct to base or the nearest suitable airfield. Otherwise normal operational signals procedure is to be used except as modified by Appendix ‘B’. [underlined] MF/DF Section [/underlined]. 40. Section D is to be used if required in accordance with Paragraph 39. /[missing words] [page break] – [missing number] – [stamp] TOP SECRET [/stamp] [underlined] Executive Order [/underlined]. 41. The executive order for the operation will be given by EXECUTIVE followed by the code word allotted, the date on which the operation is to take place and the time of Zero Hour in British Double Summer Time. 42. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT BY TELEPRINTER. (Sgd.) H.V. SATTERLY C/C Senior Air Staff Officer, No. 5 Group, [underlined] Royal Air Force [/underlined]. Ref:- 5G/101/54/Air. [underlined] Date:- 16th May, 1943 [/underlined]. [underlined] DISTRIBUTION [/underlined] [underlined] External [/underlined]. – [underlined] Copy No [/underlined]. Group Captain J.N.H. Whitworth, DSO., DFC. – 1 and 2. Headquarters, Bomber Command. (Deputy C.-in-C. personally, or in his absence, Group Captain N.W.D. Marwood-Elton, D.F.C.). – 3, 4 and 5. [underlined] Internal [/underlined]. Action Copy (Ops. II). – 6 } – Not to be issued until after despatch of Executive Signal. C.S.O. – 7 } File. – 8 } Spares. – 9, 10, 11, and 12. } [page break] [map] [underlined] ROUTES FOLLOWED [/underlined] [page break] [map] [page break] [inserted] Red I Grey II White III [/inserted] [underlined] No. 617 SQUADRON NIGHT FLYING PROGRAMME 16.5.43. [/underlined] [table, annotated] No. – A/C. – Captain. – F/Engr. – Navigator. – [missing letter]/Optr. – A/Bomber. – Front Gunner. – Rear Gunner. 1. – G. – W/CDR. GIBSON. – SGT. PULFORD. – P/O. TAERUM – F/LT. HUTCHISON. – P/O SPAFFORD. – F/SGT. DEERING. – F/LT. TREVOR-ROPER – III – 0415 2. – [deleted] M. – F/LT. HOPGOOD [/deleted] – SGT. BRENNAN. – F/O. EARNSHAW. – SGT. MINCHIN. – F/SGT. FRASER. – P/O. GREGORY. – F/O. BURCHER. – II 3. – P. – F/LT. MARTIN. – P/O. WHITTAKER. – F/LT. LEGGO. – F/O. CHAMBERS. – F/LT. HAY – P/O. FOXLEE. – F/SGT. SIMPSON. – II – 0319 4. – A – [deleted] S/LDR. YOUNG. [/deleted] – SGT. HORSFALL. – SGT. ROBERTS. – SGT. NICHOLS. – F/O. MacCAUSLAND – SGT. YEO. – SGT. IBBOTSON. – III 5. – J. – F/LT. MALTBY. – SGT. HATTON. – SGT. NICHOLSON. – SGT. STONE. – P/O. FORT. – SGT. HILL. – SGT. SIMMONDS. – II – 0311 6. – L. – F/LT. SHANNON. – SGT. HENDERSON. – F/O. WALKER. – F/O. GOODALE. – F/SGT. SUMPTER. – SGT. JAGGER. – P/O. BUCKLEY. – II – 0406 7. – [deleted] Z. – S/LDR. MAUDSLAY. [/deleted] – SGT. MARRIOTT. – F/O. URQUHART. – SGT. COTTAM. – P/O. FULLER. – F/O. TYTHERLEIGH. – SGT. BURROWS. – III 8. – [deleted] B. – F/LT. ASTELL. [/deleted] – SGT. KINNEAR. – P/O. WILE. – SGT. GARSHOWITZ. – F/O. HOPKINSON. – SGT. GARBAS. – SGT. BOLITHO. – III 9. – N. – P/O. KNIGHT. – SGT. GRAYSTON. – F/O. HOBDAY. – F/SGT. KELLOW. – P/O. JOHNSON. – SGT. SUTHERLAND. – SGT. O’BRIEN. – III – 0420 10. – W. – F/LT. MUNRO. – SGT. APPLEBY. – F/O. RUMBSES. [sic] – SGT. PIGEON. – SGT. CLAY. – SGT. HOWARTH. – F/SGT. WEEKS. – I – 0036 11. – C. – F/LT. McCARTHY. – SGT. RADCLIFFE. – F/SGT. McLEAN. – SGT. EATON. – SGT. JOHNSON. – SGT. BATSON. – F/O. RODGER. – I – 0323 12. – H. – P/O. RICE. – SGT. SMITH. – P/O. MacFARLANE. – SGT. GOWRIE. – F/SGT. THRASHER. – SGT. MAYNARD. – SGT. BURNS. – I – 0047 13. – [deleted] K. – SGT. BYERS. [/deleted] – SGT. TAYLOR. – P/O. WARNER. – SGT. WILKINSON. – SGT. WHITAKER. – SGT. JARVIE. – SGT. McDOWELL. – I 14. – [deleted] E. – F/LT. BARLOW. [/deleted] – SGT. WHILLIS. – F/O. BURGESS. – F/O. WILLIAMS. – SGT. GILLESPIE. – F/O. GLINZ. – SGT. LIDDELL. – I 15. – [deleted] C. – P/O. OTTLEY. [/deleted] – SGT. MARSDEN. – F/O. BARRETT. – SGT. GUTERMAN. – F/SGT. JOHNSON. – SGT. TEES. – SGT. STRANGE. – III 16. – [deleted] S. – P/O. BURPEE. [/deleted] – SGT. PEGLER. – SGT. JAYE. – P/O. WELLER. – SGT. ARTHUR. – SGT. LONG. – F/SGT. BRADY. – III – [symbol] 17. – O. – F/SGT. TOWNSEND. – SGT. POWELL. – P/O. HOWARD. – F/SGT. CHALMERS. – SGT. FRANKLIN. – SGT. WEBB. – SGT. WILKINSON. – III – [symbol] 18. – F. – F/SGT. BROWN. – SGT. FENERON. – SGT. HEAL. – SGT. HEWSTONE. – SGT. OANCIA. – SGT. ALLATSON. – F/SGT. McDONALD. – II – [symbol] 19. – Y. – F/SGT. ANDERSON. – SGT. PATERSON. – SGT. NUGENT. – SGT. BICKLE. – SGT. GREEN. – SGT. EWAN. – SGT. BUCK. – II – [symbol] [inserted] Collection WBI. /inserted] [/table, annotated] (SEE OVER) [page break] [underlined] No. 617 SQUADRON. NIGHT FLYING PROGRAMME 16.5.43. [/underlined] No. – A/C – Captain – F/Engr – Navigator – W/Optr – A/Bomber – Front Gunner – Rear Gunner 1. – G. – W/CDR. GIBSON. – SGT. PULFORD. – P/O. TAERUM – F/LT. HUTCHISON. – P/O SPAFFORD. – F/SGT. DEERING. – F/LT. TREVOR-ROPER 2. – M. – F/LT. HOPGOOD – SGT. BRENNAN. – F/O. EARNSHAW. – SGT. MINCHIN. – P/O. FRASER. [symbol] – P/O. GREGORY. – F/O. BURCHER. [symbol] 3. – P. – F/LT. MARTIN. [symbol] – P/O. WHITTAKER. [symbol] – F/LT. LEGGO. [symbol] – F/O. CHAMBERS. [symbol] – F/LT. HAY – P/O. FOXLEE. [symbol] – F/SGT. SIMPSON. [symbol] 4. – A – S/LDR. YOUNG. – SGT. HORSFALL. – SGT. ROBERTS. – SGT. NICHOLS. – F/O. MACCAUSL’D – SGT. YEO. – SGT. IBBOTSON. 5. – J. – F/LT. MALTBY. – SGT. HATTON. – SGT. NICHOLSON. – SGT. STONE. – P/O. FORT. – F/SGT. HILL. – SGT. SIMMONDS. 6. – L. – F/LT. SHANNON. [symbol] – SGT. HENDERSON. [symbol] – F/O. WALKER. [symbol] – F/O. GOODALE. [symbol] – F/SGT. SUMPTER. [symbol] – SGT. JAGGER. – P/O. BUCKLEY. [symbol] 7. – Z. – S/LDR. MAUDSLAY. – SGT. MARRIOTT. – F/O. URQUHART. – SGT. COTTAM. – P/O. FULLER. – F/O. TYTHERL’GH. – SGT. BURROWS. 8. – B. – F/LT. ASTELL. – SGT. KINNEAR. – P/O. WILE. – SGT. GARSHOWITZ. – F/O. HOPKINSON. – SGT. GARBAS. – SGT. BOLITHO. 9. – N. – F/LT. KNIGHT. – SGT. GRAYSTON. [symbol] – F/O. HOBDAY. [symbol] – SGT. KELLOW. [symbol] – P/O. JOHNSON. [symbol] – SGT. SUTHERLAND. [symbol] – SGT. O’BRIEN. [symbol] 10. – W. – F/LT. MUNRO. [symbol] – SGT. APPLEBY. [symbol] – F/O. RUMBLES. [symbol] – SGT. PIGEON. [symbol] – SGT. CLAY. [symbol] – SGT. HOWARTH. [symbol] – F/SGT. WEEKS. [symbol] 11. – Q. – F/LT. McCARTHY. [symbol] – SGT. RADCLIFFE. [symbol] – F/SGT. McLEAN. [symbol] – SGT. EATON. [symbol] – SGT. JOHNSON. [symbol] – SGT. BATSON. [symbol] – F/O. RODGER. [symbol] 12. – H. – P/O. RICE. [symbol] – SGT. SMITH. – P/O. MACFARLANE. – SGT. GOWRIE. – F/SGT. THRASHER. – SGT. MAYNARD. – SGT. BURNS. 13. – K. – SGT. BYERS. – SGT. TAYLOR. – P/O. WARNER. – SGT. WILKINSON. – SGT. WHITAKER. – SGT. JARVIE. – SGT. McDOWELL. 14. – E. – F/LT. BARLOW. – SGT. WHILLIS. – F/O. BURGESS. – F/O. WILLIAMS. – SGT. GILLESPIE. – F/O. GLINZ. – SGT. LIDDELL. 15. – C. – P/O. OTTLEY. – SGT. MARSDEN. – F/O. BARRETT. – SGT. GUTERMAN. – F/SGT. JOHNSON. – F/SGT. TEES. [symbol] – SGT. STRANGE. 16. – S. – P/O. BURPEE. – SGT. PEGLER. – SGT. JAYE. – P/O. WELLER. – SGT. ARTHUR. – SGT. LONG. – F/SGT. BRADY. 17. – O. – F/SGT. TOWNSEND. [symbol] – SGT. POWELL. – P/O. HOWARD. [symbol] – F/SGT. CHALMERS. [symbol] – SGT. FRANKLIN. [symbol] – SGT. WEBB. [symbol] – SGT. WILKINSON. [symbol] 18. – F. – F/SGT. BROWN. [symbol] – SGT. FENERON. [symbol] – SGT. HEAL. [symbol] – SGT. HEWSTONE. [symbol] – SGT. OANCIA. [symbol] – SGT. ALLATSON. – F/SGT. MacDONALD. [symbol] 19. – Y. – F/SGT. ANDERSON. – SGT. PATERSON. – SGT. NUGENT. – SGT. BICKLE. – SGT. GREEN. – SGT. EWAN. – SGT. BUCK. [symbol] SURVIVED THE WAR. [page break] [sketch] [page break] OPERATIONS RECORD BOOK DETAIL OF WORK CARRIED OUT By No. 617 Squadron. [underlined] SECRET [/underlined] Page No For the Month of May 1943. Aircraft Type & Number – Crew – Duty – Time, Up – Down – Details of Sortie or Flight – Notes [underlined] SUMMARY OF OPERATION CARRIED OUT BY SQUADRON ON 16/17th. May, 1943. [/underlined] On the night of 16/17th. May, 1943, nineteen aircraft of No. 617 Squadron took off to breach a number of important Dams in and around the Ruhr area. There were three primary targets, namely the Mohne, the Eder and the Sorpe Dams, and three alternative targets, the Lister, the Ennerpe [sic] and the Diemel Dams. The Squadron trained for six weeks, paying particular attention to map reading and accurate low level bombing. The attack was divided into three waves. The first wave of 9 aircraft subdivided into three sections of three aircraft each, took off at 10 minute intervals, in perfectly clear weather, and with a full moon to assist them. They were detailed for the Mohne and the Eder Dams, in that order of priority. The second wave, consisting of five aircraft, took off to attack the Sorpe Dam, taking a different route, but timed to cross the enemy coast at the same time as, though at different points from, the leading section of the first wave. The third wave, consisting of the remaining five aircraft, formed an air bomb reserve and took off three hours later, each detailed for one of the alternate targets, and all detailed to be prepared to attack the Mohne or Eder Dams in the absence of any direct orders in the air to carry on to the alternative targets. Wing Commander Gibson, on route to the target leading the first section of the first wave, met about twelve searchlights, and some concentrated light flak at the lakes 10 miles N.E. of Haltern, which was reported to Group by W/T, and passed by Group to all the other aircraft. On arrival at a point 10 miles from the Mohne Dam, the formation went over to R/T control, and each individual attack was controlled by W/Cdr. Gibson. There were between seven and ten light flak guns around the target, believed to be mainly 20 mm. One or two were located on the Dam itself, and there were two positions on the N bank of the Lake on each side of the Dam. W/Cdr. Gibson attacked first and dropped his load accurately. Four other aircraft then attacked under his control, one of which was seen to be hit by light flak during its run up, and overshot with its load. The Dam was seen to breach on the fifth attack, and this was reported to 5 Group by W/T. The remaining four aircraft were then diverted to the Eder Dam, one of these however had been shot down on the way to the target, and only three attacked. One load was seen to overshoot, and this Dam was seen to breach, after two successful attacks. This fact was also reported by W/T to Group Headquarters. Of the five aircraft detailed to attack the Sorpe Dam, two returned early, one is known to have attacked, and two are missing without trace. A sixth aircraft from the mobile reserve was also detailed by W/T. to attack the target, and did so successfully. The two aircraft attacking both reported that the crest of the Dam was seen to crumble for some considerable distance. Two of the remaining four aircraft of the mobile reserve were detailed to attack the Sorpe Dam, one attacked successfully and one is missing, and it is believed did not attack. The fourth aircraft was detailed by W/T. to attack the Lister Dam, and acknowledged the order. There is no further trace of him, and it is not known if he attacked it. The fifth aircraft successfully attacked the Dam at Enneppe. The most important consequence of this operation is that the Ruhr industries will be deprived of a great deal of their industrial water for the coming summer. The immediate [sic] of the floods from the two Dams breached was to cause devastation and disruption throughout the valley of the Ruhr as far [inserted] as [/inserted] Duisburg, and serious flooding below the Eder Dam at Kassel, and other places down the Weser Valley. Date – Time – Summary of Events [underlined] SECRET. [/underlined] – References to Appendices 15.5.43 – P/O. A.M. WHITTAKER SD (A/5) reposted to Squadron on appointment to commission. (144777) P/O S.L. WHILLIS 144619 SD(F/E) reposted to the Squadron on appointment to commission. Flying Training prior to operations completed to-day. 16.5.43. – A special operation for which this Squadron has been training so hard was carried out. The target was the three great German Dams, the Eder, the Möhne and the Sorpe. 19 aircraft took off to attack the target, and of these, 8 failed to return. The attack was an outstanding success in spite of these losses, and the Eder and the Mohne Dams were definitely breached, and the Sorpe damaged. 13.5.43. – Today, the Air Officer Commanding No.5 Group addressed all personnel of this Squadron. After his address, all aircrew proceeded on 7 days leave, and ground crew, with the exception of a few personnel remaining as a [indecipherable word] staff, were given 3 days. P/O. MCCLEAN D.A. J.17476 reposted to Squadron on appointment to commission. P/O. G.A. DEERING J.17245 reposted to squadron on appointment to commission. F/LT. D.J.MALTBY(60335) [deleted word] D.F.C., GD. Granted acting rank of Squadron Leader [deleted word]. 19.5.43 – 568102 SGT. DENHAM R.B. Fit/Arm. posted to No.1.A.A.S. 20.5.43 – 1539602 SGT. WILLIAMS A. A/G. ceased attachment to A.C.R.S. Brighton. F/L. ALLSEBROOK AND CREW+ posted to Squadron. 24.5.43 – His Majesty the King approved the following immediate Awards for the squadron operation on the German Dams. :- [underlined] VICTORIA CROSS. [/underlined] WING COMMANDER G.P. GIBSON D.S.O. [deleted word], D.F.C. [deleted word] [underlined] C.G.M. [/underlined] F/SGT. K.W. BROWN. F/SGT. W.C. TOWNSEND. [underlined] D.S.O. [/underlined] F/L. D.J. SHANNON D.F.C., F/LT. J.C. MCCARTHY DFC. P/O. L.G. KNIGHT. S/LDR D.J.H. MALTBY DFC., F/LT. N.B. MARTIN DFC. [underlined] BAR TO D.F.C., [/underlined] F/O. D.R. WALKER DFC. F/L. R.E.F. HUTCHISON DFC F/L. J.F. LEGGO DFC., F/L. R.C. HAY DFC., [underlined] D.F.C., [/underlined] F/O. L. CHAMBERS. P/O. C.L. HOWARD. P/O. G.A. DEERING. P/O. H.T. TAERUM. P/O. F.M. SPAFFORD. [inserted] D.F.M. [/inserted] F/LT. TREVOR-ROPER DFM. P/O. J. FORT. F/O. H.S. HOBDAY. F/O. E.C. JOHNSON [page break] THE LONDON GAZETTE 28 MAY 43. [indecipherable word] Wing Commander Guy Penrose GIBSON, DSO, DFC, Reserve of Air Force Officers, No. 617 Squadron. This officer served as a night bomber pilot at the beginning of the war and quickly established a reputation as an outstanding operational pilot. In addition to taking the fullest possible share in all normal operations he made single handed attacks during his ‘rest’ nights on such highly defended objectives as the German battleship TIRPITZ, then completing in WILHELMSHAVEN. When his tour of operational duty was concluded, he asked for a further operational posting and went to a night-fighter unit instead of being posted for instructional duties. In the course of his second [missing letter]our, he destroyed at least three enemy bombers and contributed much to the raising and development of new night fighter formations. After a short period in a training unit he again volunteered for operational duties and returned to night bombers. Both as an operational pilot and as a leader of his squadron, he achieved outstandingly successful results and his personal courage knew no bounds. BERLIN, COLOGNE, [indecipherable words], MILAN, NUREMBURG, and STUTTGART were among the targets he attacked by day and by night. On conclusion of his third operational tour, wing Commander GIBSON pressed strongly to be allowed to remain on operations and he was selected to command a squadron then forming for special tasks. Under his inspiring leadership, this squadron has now executed one of the most devastating attacks of the war – the breaching of the MOHNE and EDER dams. The task was frought [sic] with danger and difficulty. Wing Commander GIBSON personally made the initial attack on the MOHNE dam. Descending to within a few feet of the water and taking the full brunt of the anti-aircraft defences he delivered his attack with great accuracy. Afterwards he circled very low for thirty minutes drawing the enemy fire on himself in order to leave as free a run as possible for the following aircraft which were attacking the dam in turn Wing Commander GIBSON then led the remainder of the force to the EDER DAM where, with complete disregard for his own safety he repeated his tactics, and once more drew on himself the enemy fire [symbol] [indecipherable] the attack would be successfully developed. Wing Commander GIBSON has completed 170 sorties involving more than 600 hours operational flying. [indecipherable word] his operational career, prolonged exceptionally at his own request, he has shown leadership, determination and valour of the highest order. (SEE OVER) [page break] THE LONDON GAZETTE. 28th. MAY 1943. Acting Wing Commander Guy Penrose GIBSON, DSO, DFC, Reserve of Air Force Officers, No. 617 Squadron. This officer served as a night bomber pilot at the beginning of the war and quickly established a reputation as an outstanding operational pilot. In addition to taking the fullest possible share in all normal operations he made single handed attacks during his “Rest” nights on such highly defended objectives as the German Battleship TIRPITZ then completing in WILHELMSHAVEN. When his tour of operational duty was concluded, he asked for a further operational posting and went to a night-fighter unit instead of being posted for instructional duties. In the course of his second Tour, he destroyed at least three enemy bombers and contributed much to the raising and development of new night fighter formations. After a short period in a training unit he again volunteered for operational duties and returned to night bombers. Both as an operational pilot and as a leader of his squadron, he achieved outstandingly successful results and his personal courage knew on bounds. BERLIN, COLOGNE, DANSIG, GYDNIA, GEMOA, Le CREUSOT, MILAN, NUREMBURG and STUTTGART were among the targets he attacked by day and night. On conclusion of his third operational tour, Wing Commander GIBSON pressed strongly to be allowed to remain on operations and he was selected to command a Squadron then forming for special tasks. Under his inspiring leadership, this squadron has now executed one of the most devastating attacks of the war, the breaching of the MOHNE and EDER dams The task was frought [sic] with danger and difficulty. Wing Commander GIBSON personally made the initial attack on the MOHNE dam. Descending to within a few feet of the water and taking the full brunt of the anti-aircraft defences, he delivered his attack with great accuracy. Afterwards he circle [sic] low for thirty minutes drawing the enemy fire on himself in order to leave as free a run as possible for the following aircraft which were attacking the dam in turn. Wing Commander GIBSON then led the remainder of his force to the EDER dam where, with complere [sic] disregard for his own safety, he repeated his tactics and once more drew on himself the enemy so that the attack would be successfully developed. Wing Commander GIBSON has completed 170 sorties involving more than 600 hours operational flying, throughout his operational career, prolonged exceptionally at his own request, he has show [sic] leadership, determination and valour of the highest order. 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 Operation order for Eder, Möhne and Sorpe operation and other details Description An account of the resource 5 Group operation order No B.976. Provides explanation for attack on Ruhr Dams, enemy defences, 20 special Lancaster from 617 Squadron, routes to be flown by all three waves. Goes on with detailed plan of attack, method and timing. Continues with diversions, armament all fitted with UPKEEP bombs, fuel, navigation, secrecy, reports, special devices, intercommunication details and other orders. Maps of routes, 617 Squadron night flying programme for night 16 May 1943 with crews listed. Diagram of attack against dams. Extract from operations record book for month of May 1943 with summary of operation carried out by squadron 16/17 May 1943. Extract from London Gazette citation for Guy Gibson giving details of his service career and accomplishments. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource H V Satterly Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1943-05-16 1943-05-28 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943-05-16 1943-05-17 1943-05-28 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany--Eder Dam Germany--Sorpe Dam Germany--Möhne River Dam Germany Germany--Ruhr (Region) Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Map Artwork Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Fourteen pages of photocopied printed and typewritten documents Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SBrennanJ1210913v20005-00080002 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Steve Baldwin 5 Group 617 Squadron bombing bouncing bomb Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) Lancaster https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1762/30389/PSmithJJ2001.1.jpg 5af2792c8819245dd9c0ec38c9afc30c https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1762/30389/ASmithJJ201227.1.mp3 0a602ddff875a9df408937afc9059a58 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, John James Jim Smith J J Smith Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Jim Smith (b. 1929, 2481850 Royal 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 2020-12-27 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. 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, JJ Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document NM: So, my name is Nigel Moore. I’m recording this interview on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln. It’s Sunday the 27th of December and I’m in my house in Bushey, Hertfordshire. I’m going to be interviewing John James Smith, known as Jim who happens also to be my father in law. Jim was born in February 1929 in the village of Gretton where he still lives. Gretton is in the northern part of Northamptonshire and very close to the border with Rutland and Leicestershire. It is also located at the top of the southern escarpment overlooking the valley of the River Welland. So, Jim, tell me about the first ten years of your life before the war. What was life like in the village? JS: Very quiet. You know it was a small village. Only about six hundred people and we just carried on a farming life really. Though with Corby so close Corby was a steel town making tubes. In fact, it made the tubes for the Pluto and most of the men either worked on the farm or at Corby in the steelworks. NM: So, what about schooling in your family? JS: Well, we all went to Gretton Primary School and at thirteen, I got a scholarship to go to the Corby Technical College which is about five miles away. Used to have to cycle that every day. Night, night, night and morning. NM: So, what, what, what changed in village life when war broke out? Because you, you were ten when war broke out JS: Yes, well — NM: What changed? JS: Well, suddenly about forty children came on the train from London and they all went, issued out to various people. And the people opposite us, an elderly woman she had two boys and she said, ‘Oh, no. I want two girls.’ But she had to have two boys. Two boys. And these children hadn’t seen any green fields at all. They came from inner London and hadn’t seen the countryside at all and the first night, first day the two, two boys went down to the river and on the way they came to across a field of sheep and it started to rain. So they tried to get the sheep to go in the hovel but the sheep wouldn’t cooperate with them so they took their coats off and put them over two sheep, two of the sheep and got wet through themselves. They came back up and the woman said, ‘Where are your clothes?’ They said, ‘Oh, we couldn’t get the sheep to go in the sheds so we put our coats on the sheep.’ NM: So, did, did you village children mix at all with the evacuees? JS: Yes. We did. Yes. They brought two, two teachers with them but one of them quickly disappeared and the other one he was a bit odd. He used to cycle around the village with his tin helmet on and his trilby on top of that and he was an odd sort of a character he was. So we suddenly had these thirty or forty children came into the school and of course we, our education suffered. And the men in the village came up to the school and dug trenches in the garden so we would have somewhere to go when, when the air raids started but of course we never, never went in the trenches at all and we all, the school issued, was the issuing centre for the gas masks. So we all had our gas masks from there and most of the people in Gretton had their gas masks from there as well. And the children, the very small children had a container with the, they put the children in and that was their gas masks. NM: So did you all have air raid drills at school? JS: Not really. No. We, they built blast walls around the cloakrooms and we went and sat in there but they were the only air raid precautions we took. NM: Did you get the Anderson shelters to dig in your gardens? JS: No. But there was a few in the village and they, they built above ground shelters but nobody ever used them. We used, we used to sit under the table downstairs during the alarms, when the alarm went off. And we had two radio, aircraft air raid sirens. One was at Uppingham which was always going off that was. We didn’t take any notice of that one. And then the one at Corby and we always took notice when that went off. But there were some ack ack guns at Corby. But they only fired about once or twice. Corby itself was a steel town and had Bessemer converters which were open to the skies and it’s a wonder really that they didn’t come and bomb them. But we had smoke cannisters all around Corby and they were lit and the smoke came out when the air raid sirens went. NM: So, were there air raid wardens in the village? JS: Yes. NM: Firewatchers. JS: Yes. Fire watchers. My father was an auxiliary policeman and there used to be about four or five of those used to walk around the village every night telling people to put the fire, put the light out if their blackout curtains weren’t good. NM: Can you remember the night that Coventry was bombed in November 1940? JS: Yes. We, we could see this glow in the sky and we wondered what it was. The planes were droning over us and in fact one was shot down but you could see the clouds of, well the sky was lit up with the explosions over Coventry and this plane was shot down by a Defiant and it was shot down over the village. We were outside and we saw all these tracers going over and in to the German plane and that landed, well crashed about five miles away at another village. All the people were killed in it. NM: So, at this point you weren’t under the table in the kitchen then. JS: No. NM: You were out watching. JS: That’s it [laughs] it was mid-evening that was. So it wasn’t, we hadn’t got up and gone under the table. We were standing outside and you could hear the drone, the planes droning over all night long. But that was the only action we saw. NM: Were you aware that night that it was Coventry? JS: No. No. We didn’t know what it was. We could see this glow in the sky and we didn’t, somebody said, ‘Somebody’s getting it.’ And we didn’t know who it was. But I had an uncle. He lived in Coventry and he said they went out and stood on a hill overlooking the town, city and they saw this parachute coming down and three or four of them said, ‘We’ll go and get him.’ And they went running towards it and suddenly found themselves on their back. It was a land mine. But no, it was very disappointing the next morning. Very depressed to see the city in ruins. NM: So, you saw German aircraft that night. JS: Yeah. NM: What about other occasions during the war? Did you see any German aircraft at all during the war? JS: Well, we didn’t, no. There was a lone raider, raider came over during the day and that machine gunned some farmers in the, in the valley but it was shot down near Peterborough. And one night we were all laid in bed and we could hear this plane going over and mother was saying, ‘That’s one of theirs.’ And father said, ‘No, it’s not. It’s one of ours.’ All of a sudden the bedroom lit up and he dropped about forty incendiaries in the valley below us and luckily all in the fields. If that had dropped on Gretton which had a lot of thatched cottages it would have been really serious. But the next morning I rode down to the valley to the site and collected a lot of bits of incendiary bombs. I’ve still got one somewhere in the house. NM: So, were you the only child there or did you all, all the boys — JS: No. NM: From the village go down and all the girls as well? JS: There were a lot of boys went down but you know it was scattered over two or three fields and we collected all the bombs, bomb bits we could find. All the fins at the bottom of the bombs. Some of the, one or two of them fell in the river itself but they didn’t go off. Or didn’t do any damage. NM: So, did the Corby steelworks themselves get any damage at all during the war? JS: No. That was very lucky really. No. Only once. Had got a new post office in Corby which hadn’t been opened and the bomb, one bomber came over dropped a series of bombs and one of them dropped outside the Post Office and opened the Post Office up for them. But the steelworks itself didn’t have a bomb dropped on it at all which was unusual because, you know these Bessemer converters going straight to the sky. NM: Was there an occasion when one crashed in to the steelworks? JS: That was an American. NM: Oh, ok. JS: A Lightning which, at that time I’d gone to the Corby College and we were at lunchtime and we heard this bang and looked up and the Lightning was coming down. Falling out of the sky. The pilot had parachuted out and it fell on, fell on the steelworks but fell in place with nothing there. Didn’t do any damage. And the pilot, he landed at Great Oakley which was about three or four miles away. NM: So you’ve no idea why. Why he crashed. JS: No. No. The plane exploded. Came from [pause] what is it? I can’t think. I can’t. About, an airfield about five miles away. We were surrounded by airfields. American and British. NM: Yeah. So, in fact, the nearby airfields to Gretton were Cottesmore, Wittering. JS: Yeah. NM: North Luffenham and Spanhoe. JS: Yeah. NM: Can you give some description of the aircraft traffic you saw during the war? Those airfields. JS: In the early days of the war they, at North Luffenham and Cottesmore they’d got Lancasters. No. Hampdens and Whitworths and they came over. Took a long time to get over from one side of the, one side of the sky to the other. Just limped over but we didn’t really see many. We saw more of the Yanks when they came to Spanhoe and they had gliders there and they used to take them up. When they got over Gretton they used to let them go and the gliders used to glide down to Spanhoe Airfield. And during, during the D-Day landings and also during Arnhem the roads were all closed round, around Spanhoe and we saw the gliders going off and saw masses of Flying Fortresses from various airfields, you know. Quite a few airfields and Flying Fortresses. One Sunday morning I was at work and suddenly there was a big explosion and one of the Flying Fortresses had failed to take off. All the crew got out, got out and the plane exploded and that evening I cycled over to Deenethorpe which was the airfield and got a belt of .5 ammunition. The police were there but they didn’t say anything to us. I flew away with, I come away with about a dozen .5 ammunition which my father took the bullets out, tipped the gunpowder out and lit that and that just flared and then he put the cartridges in a fire and they went all they detonated. Blew up then. So that was only the only real excitement we had. NM: So, can I take you back to Spring of 1943 when the Lancasters with 617 Squadron were practicing — JS: Oh yes. NM: Over the Eye Brook. JS: Yeah. NM: Although, of course you didn’t know who they were at the time. JS: We didn’t, we didn’t know what it was even. We didn’t know there was a reservoir there but you know in those days we didn’t know what was happening in the next village let alone five or six miles away. We could see these Lancasters coming low over about five miles away and as they come over they fired Very lights at them and we certainly knew afterwards that they’d been practicing at the Eye Brook Reservoir for the Dambusters. That was one of the two reservoirs they trained at. NM: So, how often did you see them? Was it frequent or was it — JS: Well, we saw them for about a week. Every night for a week or so and then suddenly they stopped and we realised afterwards what they were all about. NM: So, they’d come over at night would they? JS: Well, it was, it was dusk sort of thing. We could see them. That was the other side of the valley from us. So we could see them coming over and these Very lights being fired as they went over. NM: So, moving back to 1944 again and D-Day and Arnhem. Did you see the gliders go off as it were? JS: Yes. NM: [unclear] JS: We saw a lot of gliders going off. We didn’t know anything about it off course until afterwards. All the roads were closed and you weren’t allowed anywhere near Spanhoe. And the gliders went off and of course they didn’t come back, a lot of them. There’s a memorial at Spanhoe showing all the people who died on the various raids. On various operations that took part. NM: It must have been an impressive sight. Was it? JS: Yes. It was. Yes. Most impressive was the Flying Fortresses. Masses of them going over. I don’t, as I say there were four or five aerodromes around us and there were masses of these Flying Fortresses flying over. We didn’t, didn’t know at the time what it was all about but you soon found out of course. NM: Now, during the war of course you went from being a ten year old schoolboy to sixteen by the end of the war. So, tell me — JS: Yeah. NM: Tell me about your development during, during those six years. JS: Well, at thirteen I left Gretton and went to Corby Engineering College and I used to have to cycle there morning and evening. We didn’t see a lot. We saw all these smoke cannisters but never saw them lit. But one night, one evening when I came home from school the ground was covered in these plastic, white plastic pictures of foil. We didn’t know what that was about but of course it was practising the radar and they were all over the place they were. Had bits of foil all over the hedges everywhere. NM: So, this was Window was it? JS: Yeah. Windows. Yeah. NM: So, at Technical College you were training for what? What was your — JS: Engineering training. NM: Engineering training. JS: Yeah. Yeah. And of course, most of the people there went in to the steelworks or part of the steelworks. NM: So, by the end of the war you were still going to that Technical College. JS: Yes. NM: What, what can you remember about VE Day itself? What happened in the village? How did you feel about it all? JS: Well, everybody was very pleased of course and they had a big bonfire in one of the fields and a greasy pole. I’ll always remember that because most of the men would try and climb up this greasy pole and not succeeding. And in the end they pushed this chap up with two poles under his feet. And when he got to the top and got the flag he got a small pig and piglet and that’s the only real thing I can remember really about the VE Day. NM: So after the end of the war I know you did National Service. What happened between you, the end of the war and you doing your National Service? JS: Well, there was one other thing with regard to the Americans they decided, well with their, with our Army cadets they said they’d take us all up. And they took two Dakotas. We sat in the Dakotas. No seats of course. We sat on the floor and they took us up on one Sunday afternoon for about half an hour and flew around and then we had our tea up there. Had cakes which I hadn’t seen before and it was very very very good of them. And then when the rationing was on you had to cycle to Corby every Saturday and get cakes which weren’t available in the village. NM: Was there any other impact of rationing on, on the village life? JS: Well — NM: Were allotments and home grown — JS: Yes. NM: And all that? JS: There were a lot of allotments there taken over. My father had what? A ten pole. Twenty pole. Which was quite a big bit to dig and grow mainly potatoes. And then we had a Pig Club in the village and well a lot of people kept a pig in the back garden and every Sunday they used to go around looking at everybody’s pig and having a drink in everybody’s cottage and they finished up finally the worse for wear. My grandfather, he kept a pig and as I said we had some people from, lived in Coventry and when they used to come down my father, my grandfather used to hang their hams up in the, in the living room and when they, when they came down from Coventry they always wanted to take one of the hams back. So, in the end when he knew they were coming he used to take his hams down and hide them in the other room. NM: So, when did you graduate from Technical College? JS: Well, when I was fifteen, fifteen and a half, sixteen and started work straight away and spent five years as an apprentice. And at the end of the five years, on my twenty first birthday when I got on top rate of, for the money I had my calling up papers. I always remember when I started as an apprentice. I got twenty nine and nine pence a week for forty seven hours and when I’d just got on top rate, on the same day I got my call up papers to go on National Service and spent two years, well eighteen months but due, due to the crisis, Suez I think it was it put up two years. But I, I was lucky. I got posted to an aerodrome near Rugby which was only about forty miles away and I used to come home every weekend. NM: So, you did your National Service with the RAF. JS: Yeah. NM: From 1950 then when you were twenty one. JS: Yeah. NM: So how come you ended up in the RAF as opposed to the Army? JS: Well, we had, we went to Northampton to have our medicals and while we were there they had an Army and a Navy and an RAF chappy there and they asked you where you wanted to go in. I said the RAF. They said, ‘Why?’ I said ‘I don’t like marching.’ That was good enough. I got in the RAF. But a lot of, a lot of them went in the Army which they didn’t like at all. And one or two got in the Navy. But most of us went in the RAF and I went to Padgate to do National Service training and after six weeks had an interview and they sent me to a training college. At Weeton I think it was. Near Blackpool. And we had an eighteen month course in six weeks there and after we came out of there they posted me to Church Lawford near Rugby and I spent the rest of the time there. NM: And what was your role at Church Lawford? JS: Well, I was on the maintenance side of the earth moving equipment and I used to have to go out to various sub-contractors to sign off the work they had done and I always used to arrange for it to be on a Friday so that I could go straight off to, on leave for the weekend. NM: So you could go back home for the weekend. JS: Yeah. I was, by that time I’d been made up to a corporal and there was a, you had a security patrol every six, seven weeks and you had to spend all the weekend on the camp. So I used to arrange it so that on the Friday I used to be away from there to another civilian place. One of them was at St Albans and we stayed at the RAF camp there at, at somewhere. On the De Havilland site I think it was. And I used to arrange so that I went on Friday. So, they used to, when they used to ring up seeing where I was they’d say, ‘Oh, he’s on detachment.’ And by that time you’d be on detachment for seven or eight weeks before I’d be sent somewhere else and they realised I was still on the camp and so I didn’t do it. I only did security patrol once. NM: So you spent the whole two years at RAF Church Lawford did you? JS: Yeah. Yeah. NM: Were, were any other trips involved? Did you get any flying at all? JS: No. No. I didn’t see any aircraft at all while I was in there. Oh, I went, I went, they sent me up to Acklington to repair a tractor. RAF Acklington and they said, ‘We’ll take you to an airfield in in Birmingham and a plane will come and pick you up.’ So, they dropped me at this airfield. All the hangars had, all the control places windows had been smashed. I stood there wondering why, what was going to happen and all of a sudden this Avro Anson dropped out of the sky, picked me up and took me up to RAF Acklington. And after repairing the tractor I come back on a lorry all the way from there to, to Rugby. Stayed overnight at, in Doncaster. At the airfield there. NM: So at the end of your National Service you went back to the, back to the steelworks? JS: Yes. Yes. NM: At age twenty three. Yeah? JS: Yeah. I went back and they put me straight in the drawing office so I didn’t actually go to do any work in the workshop itself. I just stayed in the workshop, in the drawing office for six or seven years. Then started doing various, started building various things outside and I used to go and look after those. NM: Such as? What were you — JS: Well, the — NM: Mostly involved in? JS: Well, the most, the biggest one was the ropeway aerial ropeway which was six miles long from Rothwell to Corby. And I was a clerk of works on that so I oversee the work on that to get that working. NM: So, this was to try and get, is this is to get the ironstone from the quarry — JS: Yeah. NM: To the steelworks. JS: Yeah. NM: This six mile ropeway. JS: They were going to build another big dragline but that, and this ropeway was going to provide the iron ore for it but they cancelled it. The big dragline. So really it was surplus to requirements the ropeway. But it stuck around for four or five years and then they cut it all up. NM: So, you were involved in all the, how many quarries were there around Gretton and Corby that you were working with? JS: Oh I don’t know. About eight or nine I should think. Yeah. With large draglines in four of them and various smaller ones in the others. NM: And how long did you take, take on that role for? JS: Until, well until I was made, after about six, seven years I was made engineer in charge of maintenance of all the various areas and I stayed there until I was made redundant in nineteen [pause] I don’t know what it was now. No. I can’t remember. NM: Was that when the steelworks closed? JS: Yeah. NM: Right. JS: That was ’59, I think. NM: And what did you do? What happened after that? JS: Well, I got a job. Well, I knew one of the chaps in the steel, in the tube works. Used to go on the same manager’s mess tables as him and he said, ‘What are you going to do when you’re made redundant?’ I said, ‘I’m going to go on quality assurance. Come back to haunt you.’ Because he was in charge of quality assurance for the two works and he rang me up and said, ‘Were you serious?’ I said, ‘Oh yes.’ He said, ‘Well, Lloyds Register of Shipping want somebody and would you be interested?’ So I said, ‘Yes. Yes, I would. Yeah.’ So, he said, ‘Go to Birmingham and see the chief, chief surveyor there and he’ll take you out to lunch.’ And I went to the Birmingham office and he said, ‘Oh, I’m too busy to see you today,’ he said, ‘Can you start next week?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And that was my interview for Lloyd’s Register of Shipping. Somebody else had joined from another area at the same time as me. He said, ‘How did you get on at the interview?’ I said, ‘I didn’t have one.’ He said, ‘Oh, I had terrible one,’ he said. ‘They grilled me for about an hour,’ he said [laughs] So mine was just, ‘Can you start next week?’ NM: So, your last part of your career then was with Lloyds inspector. JS: Yeah. Yeah. Lloyds. Yeah. And then I had a stroke when I was fifty nine and so I didn’t work after that. That’s been thirty odd years ago now. NM: So that just about covers everything. JS: Yeah. NM: I had on my list. JS: Yeah. And me. NM: Have you got anything else to — JS: I don’t think so. No. NM: Add to that. JS: No. NM: When you look back during the war what was your overall impressions of growing up between those formative years of ten to sixteen and then with such major events going on around you. What was your — JS: We didn’t really know much about it. As I say we lived in a village and we didn’t really know what was happening in the next village let alone what was, what was happening in the world. I remember on D-Day I was doing a trig lesson and I put in the top of the page, “D-Day.” And that’s really all I knew about it. So it didn’t really affect me much at all. NM: Ok. JS: Yeah. NM: Very good. Thank you very much. JS: Thank you. NM: We’ll finish the interview there. 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 John James Smith Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nigel Moore Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-12-27 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. 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 00:34:46 Audio Recording Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ASmithJJ201227, PSmithJJ2001 Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource John Smith grew up near Corby, surrounded by aerodromes, so was used to the sight of aircraft. He observed Lancaster aircraft practising for the Dambusters raid over Eye Brook Reservoir. He also witnessed glider practice and was impressed by the sight of the Flying Fortresses flying overhead. John witnessed German aircraft flying overhead to bomb Coventry and witnessed a German aircraft being shot down. After the war he spent his National Service in the RAF at Church Lawford. Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1940-11 1943 1944 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Northamptonshire England--Corby England--Coventry England--Warwickshire Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Carolyn Emery Maureen Clarke 617 Squadron animal B-17 bombing childhood in wartime Defiant Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) evacuation home front incendiary device Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) P-38 RAF Church Lawford RAF Spanhoe Window https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1738/30191/PHaggerJ2026.1.jpg 7cc912a6d6e51e503920dce6613694a9 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1738/30191/PHaggerJ2027.1.jpg a777a42353e0defaf3e8d41827ea0186 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 Hagger, Jack J Hagger Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-09-04 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 Hagger, J Description An account of the resource 37 items. The collection concerns Jack Hagger (b. 1931, 1920358, Royal Air Force) and contains technical diagrams and photographs of aircraft and places including some from the filming of 'The Dam Busters'. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by P Thompson catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lancaster airborne Description An account of the resource Air-to-air view of rear quarter view of a four engine bomber with squadron letters 'AJ-G' airborne with clouds above. The aircraft carries a mocked up bouncing bomb for the filming of 'The Dam Busters'. On the reverse 'Originally a 617 aircraft sold for scrap July 1956. George Shuter'. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photograph Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PHaggerJ2026, PHaggerJ2027 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 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 617 Squadron Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) entertainment Lancaster https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1738/30190/PHaggerJ2025.2.jpg ecafc3afd5692b98c2792e6155607e99 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 Hagger, Jack J Hagger Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-09-04 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 Hagger, J Description An account of the resource 37 items. The collection concerns Jack Hagger (b. 1931, 1920358, Royal Air Force) and contains technical diagrams and photographs of aircraft and places including some from the filming of 'The Dam Busters'. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by P Thompson catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lancaster at low level Description An account of the resource Air-to-air view of rear quarter view of a four engine bomber with squadron letters 'AJ-G' and registration 'NX679' airborne at low level in a bank to the right with fields below. The aircraft carries a mocked up bouncing bomb for the filming of 'The Dam Busters'. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photograph Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PHaggerJ2025 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive 617 Squadron Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) entertainment Lancaster https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1738/30185/PHaggerJ2023.1.jpg 43b0edacf945be603fbd1b5494403e1d https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1738/30185/PHaggerJ2024.1.jpg 0f3f5cf24271bf5e16e6f8d215258399 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 Hagger, Jack J Hagger Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-09-04 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 Hagger, J Description An account of the resource 37 items. The collection concerns Jack Hagger (b. 1931, 1920358, Royal Air Force) and contains technical diagrams and photographs of aircraft and places including some from the filming of 'The Dam Busters'. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by P Thompson catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Two Lancaster aircraft airborne Description An account of the resource Air-to-air view of two Lancaster aircraft airborne in echelon formation. Taken from the port side of the two aircraft. The aircraft carries a mocked up bouncing bomb for the filming of 'The Dam Busters'. On the reverse 'Shuter, Dick Lambert, Mike Lawsey, Self'. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photograph Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PHaggerJ2023, PHaggerJ2024 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 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 617 Squadron Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) entertainment Lancaster https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1738/30180/PHaggerJ2011.2.jpg d358f7f7256a0aa4c5444510f4de862e 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 Hagger, Jack J Hagger Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-09-04 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 Hagger, J Description An account of the resource 37 items. The collection concerns Jack Hagger (b. 1931, 1920358, Royal Air Force) and contains technical diagrams and photographs of aircraft and places including some from the filming of 'The Dam Busters'. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by P Thompson catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lancaster at low level Description An account of the resource Air-to-air view of rear quarter view of a four engine bomber with squadron letters 'AJ-G' and registration 'NX679' airborne at low level with fields below. The aircraft carries a mocked up bouncing bomb for the filming of 'The Dam Busters'. The nose of a second Lancaster is also visible. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photograph Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PHaggerJ2011 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive 617 Squadron Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) entertainment Lancaster