1 25 103 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/565/8833/PEvansDC1602.2.jpg 86b05a1f1363b47b738718b23de31580 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/565/8833/AEvansDC160714.2.mp3 c2f2de6871b83db8ca8bdb70d47cefb5 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 Evans, Derek Carrington D C Evans Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Evans, DC Description An account of the resource Eight items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Derek Carrington Evans (1924 - 2017, 2207080 Royal Air Force) and his log book. He flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 625 Squadron. Also contains photographs of model Lancaster and people. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Derek Carrington Evans and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-07-14 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document AM. Ok so this is Annie Moody and I am with Derek Evans today. Derek was born in Doncaster he’s living in York at the moment and I am undertaking this interview at the Offices of Worans in Doncaster. DE. He was born on the 20th of June 1924. AM. 20th of June ’24, erm and todays date is the 14th of July 2016. So, Derek. DE. I am 92. AM. You’re 92, getting on a bit, but still. DE. I am getting on a bit, yes. AM. Derek tell me, you have told me when you were born, tell me a little bit about where were you born and tell me a little bit about your parents? DE. I was born in the village of Doncaster, that’s Edlington, I was born [laugh] about twenty past nine one Friday morning and, eh my sister went to school and she came back and she got a new brother, and eh I don’t know what her reactions were but I heard plenty about it at the time [laugh], yeah eh, yes there was two of us. I had a brother as well who died em but em, there was Doris and me who lived and she died just a few years ago with rotten cancer and she was as good as, as healthy as me, which seemed anyway. AM. What did you, what did your parents do Derek? DE. What did? AM. What did your parents do, what work did your dad do? DE. My father, my mother was a housewife, my father was an electronic, electric engineer and em pneumatic. That’s em, he worked in the collieries installing the machinery. AM. Right DE. And em, and he served in the first war and em he got some medals for that, ‘cause he, one day he heard somebody crying in no mans land, he went over the top. AM. So he was in the Army? DE. Yes, he was in, first of all he was in eh [pause] thousands in the Middle East, what do you call it, the Dardanelles and he got away with that. In fact, he brought a shell back that had burst near him [laugh] and I have still got it somewhere. AM. Still got it. DE. And eh, eh, then he was, oh he was quite an authority in the eh Scout Movement, and eh if, if they haven’t been destroyed, I’ve got letters from Baden Powell to him and from Lady Baden Powell to him yeah, he helped in the formation of that. AM. So were you in the Scouts? DE. Oh I was. AM. Tell me a bit about your childhood? DE. Well, I went to school as an infant and, eh it was at Edlington, and eh I think my father must have had a bit better job than a miner because we lived in the top village and it was new, it was all new that, but I had to go down to the old village to school. And eh I used to go dressed, I had a little suit and a tie and did I get some hammer from the scrubbing sods down there, and eh the only thing I remember about that is I got hold of one of these lads and I pulled him up to me, and me hand went up like this, somebody got hold of it. It was me father. AM. This was at school? DE. Coming home from school em, yes, and I had waited for that devil because he had taunted me quite a bit. And eh I, I cured him. AM. Your Dad stopped you thumping him? DE. Yeah, I would really have done something [unclear], knocked him about I would. AM. So that was the village school, what about when you were older and in your teens? DE. That’s eh, one day my father came home from a colliery, I learnt after it was Bentley and there had been an explosion there and he was filthy, his clothes were in rags. And em, I heard him say to my mother, ’that’s the last time I go down the colliery’, and eh he gave his notice in and eh he had no job. And then he managed to get a supply of electrical goods, he was an electrician he knew all about that job and he was selling those, he used to go round the streets selling them and he built a good business up and then the war came. He lost all his contacts and we had to come out of our nice house and get a cooperation house, council house, and eh I went to, I then joined Doncaster Council. AM. Let me just ask you, so what age were you when you left school then, ‘cause you would be fifteen when the war started, you left at fourteen. DE. Em. AM. So what was your first job? DE. I got a job taking papers around and eh I gave my mother my first wage packet of five shillings, yeah. And eh and then I got eh, and then I left school at fourteen and I was on the streets. AM. On the streets looking for a job you mean? DE. Well walking about looking for a job and somebody said to me, “oh, you know Taylor of Colbridge’, do you remember them? ‘looking for an errand boy’ so I went in there and said, ‘I have come for that job’ and they gave it me. AM. So what did you do, what did you have to do, what did that consist of? DE. Well first of all it was delivering orders of books round Doncaster, eh and inside three months there were three other errand boys in there, and inside three months I was in charge [laugh], bighead [laugh]. And em, I er carried on there and eh the boss said, ‘would you like an apprenticeship?’ I said, ‘Yeah I would’, so I took an apprenticeship with them at ten and sixpence a week. Ten and six a week, which was a good wage in those days. AM. A good wage indeed. DE. And eh I carried on there and er and at six er at sixteen em, I was a junior there and at sixteen I was senior. All the folks had been pulled out in to the War and they left me in charge of that ruddy shop, d’know, at sixteen. AM. So we are 1940at the beginning of the war, the first year of the war. DE. Oh yes it would be, wouldn’t it? AM. Yeah. DE. And eh I run that all right, eh there was a lot of turnover I maintained it, eh I think it was, about thirty thousand a year, which was a lot of money. AM. A considerable amount. DE. I was in charge of about six women [laugh] old women, they were all twenties and thirties and they were all old to me of course, but I ran it, I carried on with it and eh part of there was printing you know, and of course I learned the printing job. I was a stationer, printer and bookseller officially when I came out of there. Well, I was eighteen, at seventeen, I heard they wouldn’t take aircrew unless you volunteered. AM. Why did you want to be aircrew particularly rather than Army, Navy. DE. Well, I thought it was a bit cleaner than being shot in trenches [laugh]. AM. True. DE. Well, me father told me about his, he did fourteen to eighteen in the Army and he was in France, he was in Passchendaele. He used to tell me all about them actually and somewhere in that house of mine, I have got a recording of him telling the tale of the Red Baron being shot down over the trenches yeah. AM. Baron Von Reichthoven. DE. I’ve got that somewhere. AM. So you are getting to seventeen, they wouldn’t take aircrew unless you volunteer. DE. And I volunteered at seventeen, I went down to the Royal Air Force Recruitment Centre and got signed on. AM. Right, where was that in Doncaster? DE. In Doncaster, yeah, well my interest [unclear] out the place. My interest in aircraft started, oh, in the thirties because I was only a kid and my father used to take me to see the aircraft at Finningley, and in those days, you could walk on and walk up to the aircraft you know and I used to talk to the aircrews that were hanging about them, and eh I got really interested in, and they were, now then, Vickers Vimmies, em oh I can remember them over, I will tell you what they were later on, Vickers Vimmies. AM. It’ll come. DE. Aye? AM. It’ll come DE. Oh, it’s there yes and the Handley Page, eh the Handley Page, it had the gunner on the, in the front nose and the two engines were at the side of course. And eh, I had a look round and I was dragged into one, one day just to show, show me and I remember they had thirteen there and they went off on a [unclear], what did you call it eh, eh countryside eh, travels so. And eh thirteen took off and they got two back they crashed the rest of them. AM. This was before the war? DE. This was in the thirties, when the Vickers Vimmies and Handley Page Heyfords, Heyfords, em yeah and from then I have been interested in aircraft. AM. So, you are interested in aircraft and you want something cleaner than the trenches, so off to the RAF Recruiting Officer. DE. Yeah AM. So they signed you up, but then what? DE. Well eventually of course, my eighteenth birthday turned and they called me up into the Air Force and em I got, I got into the Aircrew Receiving Centre, Aircrew Receiving Selection Centre and it was in the Zoo in Regents Park [laugh]. AM. Had they, at that point, done any testing or anything to decide whether you were going to be aircrew or Ground Crew. DE. Wait a minute. AM. Sorry, going too fast. DE. Typical woman rushing away [laugh]. AM. I apologise. DE. And eh we was in the eh, the melee of being selected and, and, and I passed the exams for Pilot and they, after a week or two, we were square bashing at that, we were feeding amongst the monkeys [laugh], the zoo and eh one day some sort of Air Force bloke, I didn’t notice what his rank was in those days eh, ‘does anybody know morse code?’ I said, ‘yes I do’, ‘why?’ I said, ‘because I have got a radio station meself and with another bloke, we rented an office, an office we were using in the middle of Doncaster for half a crown a week’ [laugh], and we got all the gear in there. And eh this bloke said, ‘we are short of recruits for radio officers, do you think you could, like to transfer?’ ‘Yeah, I don’t mind, it’s flying, I’ll come’, and I then went down into the radio school and eh I spent twelve months there, came out, it tells you in the book there, came out and qualified a radio operator. AM. So it was twelve months? DE. I am sure it was twelve months yeah. AM. Don’t matter, so what was that like, tell me a bit of what the training was like, easy, hard? DE. It was hard yeah, it was not particularly hard for me actually em, they could fire morse at me all the days of the year and I could take it then, it’s a good job ‘cause when I was flying on operations, I had, it was all the time morse was coming in from headquarters em, eh Bomber Command headquarters. Go on, you tell me? AM. No I can’t remember. DE. And eh it all came in code and you had to be taking it down, writing it out and I could take twenty words a minute then [laugh], and I used to say to the Pilot, ‘oh there is diversion on, we are diverted when you get to such and such a place’, and that is how a radio operator used to perform and weather reports used to come through. AM. So you finished your training as a wireless operator, what happens next after that. DE. Well, I got, I don’t know, I was selected and I was given a course of radio navigation and it was a month, and I had a what I call them ‘sprog pilots’, they had just qualified and they wouldn’t trust a good pilot with me [laugh], and I used to fly all over the country and tell him where to go and what city he is going to do. I did that for a month, I did it successfully and I was passed out as a radio operator one then, and then I went to gunnery school and I went to, majority of them didn’t but I was selected to go to Gunnery School and I have no idea why. AM. Not as a trained radio operator, not when you were already a trained wireless operator. DE. Well in Bomber Command eh, there were more WOP/AG’S because if anything happened to the rear gunner, he was shot, my job was to crawl down there, open the doors, chuck him out into the open space and get in, sit in the guns [laugh] and that was the procedure yeah. I went to gunnery school, I have got the results there, they are good results and eh [looking through papers]. AM. I am just flicking through the log book for the tape to find where we are up to. DE. Let’s have a look at it please. AM. So we are looking at, we are looking at the initial trips here and the results of the initial courses. DE. You are nowhere near the operation here. AM. No, I know, no, no. DE. Ah this is it look, extra syllabus. AM. So we are May, June ‘44 and we are on the gunnery course. DE. Yes AM. And the results of the gunnery course are above average a very keen Cadet. DE. [laugh] and when I were in gunnery, I used to be in the top turret of an aircraft in the mid upper gun turret, and eh they used to fly, now then a master, or an em, they are Masters aren’t they? Single engined training aircraft towing a long drogue and we had to hit it. You had to fire at that thing coming over you. ME. A bit like clay pigeon shooting, not. DE. Oh, I have done plenty of pigeon shooting. ME. Oh later on. So, I’m looking at the fact that you were given extra syllabus training, given in lieu of bad weather, which cancelled flying. DE. Yes, ah and that’s Dominies, isn’t it? Yeah, Domini that’s it. The De Havilland Domini was a twin engined twin winged aircraft I don’t know whether you - ME. No. Unknown. A biplane. DE A biplane yeah, it was a lovely aeroplane that, lovely. AM. So you have done your WOP training, you’ve done your gunnery training. What next? DE. Eh after gunnery, I don’t know what they call it, it was advanced flying school, oh that’s advanced gunnery course. AM. You moved onto the Operational Training Unit I would guess. DE. No not yet. AM. No, was that later? DE. [unclear] Wigton that is on the West Coast of Scotland and I don’t know what we were supposed to be doing there, have I made notes of it? [pause] It’s just the details of what we were doing, I don’t know. Anyway, that’s Advanced Flying School, and then I went to No. 18 Operational Training Unit. How I got to there was, we were paraded one morning and eh this corporal came out and he said, ‘I am going to read out names and say a place where you are posted to. You will find that some is going to Leuchars in Scotland’. The bloke next to me said, ‘I live at Leuchars’, he said, ‘the others are at Finningley at Doncaster’. I said, ‘and I live at Doncaster, what is your name, I will swap you names’. Well, this Leuchars name came up, put me hand up, join the queue for Leuchars. No, I, t’other way round, yes, and when it was all, come out in the wash, I was going to Bomber Command, so I thought I had dropped a clanger here, and he was going to Coastal Command, so anyway I joined 18 and we were, we were put in a big, we were put in a Hanger with four, and there was a desk in there and there were four candles. The bloke sat there he re [unclear] they got a seventy-two scale Spitfire if you like and he went, and you had to shout out, and I got everyone right. AM. Right, so what were you looking at? DE. I was looking at the aircraft. [Unknown]. Aircraft recognition. AM. I’ve got you actual recognition of aircraft, I’ve got you. DE. An eh, Peter Russell, who was and who’d come and he was in this hall, and there was about four hundred of us and eh he came to me and he said, ‘would you like to become my radio operator?’ and he had done a tour. AM. How did you know he had done a tour. DE. He told me. AM. Ok but he had a little brevet as well that shows that they had done a tour I think. He talks about that in his book that maybe at crewing up, people were happy to join him because he had already done a tour, so you are probably going to be safe with him. DE. Yeah, he was good looking too. AM. Right, so he decided. DE. Couldn’t keep the girls off him. AM. So at crewing up then, there’s you. DE. So, there is a Pilot, Colin Richardson, Navigator, Derek Evans the Radio Operator and Titch Haldred the Rear Gunner, is that it? AM. Yeah, I have got them written down. DE. Where do you get that from? AM. The book. DE. Oh, I see and I did quite a fair lot, quite a lot of flying to a lot of places. AM. And this was on Wellingtons. DE. Wellingtons, we used to go wandering around the Continent you know and eh and from then - AM. Sorry to interrupt, so at this point there is five of you, ‘cause you are in a Wellington and you are doing your training on Wellingtons based in, where were you actually? DE. Finningley. AM. You stayed at Finningley. DE. Eh well we used to use the satellite at Worksop. AM. Yes, I had scribbled down Worksop. DE. Finningley was the base and em, and then what, what happened then. Oh, went to eh, four engined aircraft and that was Halifaxes. AM. So this is heavy conversion unit to get you used to big boys. DE. Yes, and therefore we had two crew, we had an engineer and a mid-upper gunner. AM. And I think I’ve got the names here. Tim Cordon was your Flight Engineer and Tony Large was your Mid Upper Gunner. So you picked up your extra two and got seven of you. DE. No, I am telling lies, he was a Dubliner. I said to him, ‘what the hell are you doing here?’ he said, ‘you don’t think you are fighting the war on your own’ [laugh]. AM. So you went to Heavy Conversion Unit I think at em, Blyton. DE. Blyton yes, it was the base was Lindholme, but the airfield was - AM. Was at. DE. Yeah. AM. And that was initially on Hali, on old Halifaxes. DE. Yeah. AM. So what was the wireless operator bit, room, not room, area like in the Halifax? DE. Ruddy awful, in fact I, I wouldn’t say it terrified me but it frightened me to death. AM. Why was it ruddy awful? DE. Well, there was a staircase and em, the Pilot sat on the top of this staircase and I sat directly under him, in trouble and the aircraft spinning, do you think I got down those stairs? No, no, you were pinned in, no, you had no room, I had full radio gear there. I could do all the nice flying, I could do everything you want to but I wouldn’t have like to thought I was getting in operations in it. Anyway, then we went to Lancaster Finishing School at Hemswell, an eh - AM. So how different, tell me how different was, the Lancaster was to the Halifax. DE. Well, it is like coming, sitting in this room instead of a back passage somewhere yeah, you could walk about in a Lanc. AM. And the wireless operator area was better? DE. Well, there was the pilot, there was the bomb aimer, our front gunner and then there was the pilot and then there was the navigator and the radio operator, we sat together and that was a flight crew. You couldn’t take a four engined aircraft off without having a pilot, navigator and a radio operator yeah, three and eh good job as well, I will tell you later on. I pulled them out of the drink. AM. Got some stories. So, you done your heavy conversion training, what did that consist of? Just basically up there? DE. Circuits and bumps. AM. Circuits and bumps. DE. And familiarisation with the aircraft of course, but the radio gear was the same so I didn’t need any conversion to that because I knew that backwards. AM. For your pilot of course, who was moving onto a completely different plane, to fly from what he had been used to on his first tour. DE. Yeah, oh he used to fly Hudsons, that’s an American twin engined originally a civil aircraft and eh yeah, I’ll come to him in a minute if you like? [laugh]. AM. Sorry, where am I up to, we know where are you, so you have done your circuits and bumps, your heavy conversion training, got your crew. DE. And then got posted to a Squadron, 625 Squadron. AM. Yep, at RAF Kelstern. DE. Kelstern, and the CO met us, because we were two crews posted there to replace two lost last week. So he says, ‘Good evening gentlemen, the only thing we can guarantee here is two weeks life. The crew, the other crew took off with us on the first operation and was lost’. They had one life em I went, well we went as a crew we went on, we went on, we did a tour, we did. AM. When he said that to you though Derek, you are twenty years old. DE. Twenty. AM. You’re twenty. You have not done your first operation yet and he is telling you you’ve got - DE. A years . .[unclear].. well AM. I can’t imagine how that felt or what you thought about that? DE. Em, well we were a little bit bravado, we said, ‘well we will bloody show you’ [laugh] yeah well Peter had done two years operational flying before that and our first operation was to Essen. AM. Was this the, on your first one, well first of all, you start off, your pilot has to go as second dicky and not all of you went with him. DE. I don’t know if I went on his second dicky or not, I can’t remember, but he normally took, this is the old, this is the experienced taking the new crew, they actually, they were the, he used to take, the old pilot, used to take the new pilot as second pilot, and he used to take his own navigator and his own rear gunner. So I wouldn’t go on that dicky, second dicky. I did a few of those when we took a new crew on ops. AM. I’m just looking, so when you did your first one DE. Was Essen. AM. Right, let’s find it [pause]. Circuits, here we are. So, the very first one was HLB? DE. High Level Bombing. AM. High Level Bombing at Essen. So, tell me right, so this first operation you’re going to Essen, what was that like from the beginning. As in, you know, you are going, you start off, it’s going to be a night, night flight. DE. Will you close your ears a minute [laugh]. Em the Battle Order, that’s an illustration of the Battle Order in there, it was posted in the mess in the morning and we had to go for breakfast, and eh we thought oh, tonight so what we did as a crew, at ten o’clock we used to go down to the aircraft and we used to go through it like a dose of salts. We used to make sure everything was working and the first thing we did was to say to the ground crew, ‘what’s loaded on here?’ and they used to say, ‘eighteen hundred gallons’ or ‘two thousand gallons’, and of course, if it was two thousand five hundred, we used to say, ‘a long one tonight’. Then we em, went back and had a meal and then we went to kitting out. Put our ‘chutes on and whatever we were going to wear. We used to find out by devious means the temperatures, ‘what are we going to wear?’” So, and then we went into briefing and eh I went into radio briefing, navigator went into navigator briefing and so on, and gunnery and then we had a briefing altogether where you saw the wall, and we used to think ‘bloody hell’ [laugh]. And eh we used to then get in the bus and took out to dispersal, where we climbed in our aircraft. And by ritual all aircrew before an op, had to wee on the wheels. AM. That is better than doing it up in the air isn’t it? DE. Yeah, you diverted me a little bit AM. Sorry. DE. It’s all right. It was really cold, I mean I’ve flown in minus fifty I, I, actually in conjunction with this, I’ll have to write you a story about Essen, I can tell you. AM. Tell me what the story is? DE. I can’t really without thinking about it but eh, Essen, we were up through the flak barrage but we didn’t enquire, we didn’t, we didn’t involve running into a fighter, and we came back on that and eh. That’s where that poor devil lost his life on that first flight of the next crew that we were replacing. So that was Essen done. Come back, you got a cup, a mug of cocoa and half a mug of rum. AM. A mug? DE. You could treacle it out the rum you know, if it was naval rum. I didn’t drink, it sort of thawed you out a bit ‘cause you come back from these raids, and I will say it quite bluntly, you were terrified. And em, and then of course you went to your bed and you slept very soundly. AM. Did you speak with each other about how terrified you were or did you keep that to yourself? DE. No, no, we, no, no, we talked about it. Because one was saying, ‘did you see that fighter, did you see that, did you see that going down on so and so’. Oh no, you portrayed the whole lot together because the pilot had a different view all together over the rear gunner. I had a different view of them all because I had the radar and I could, I could see every aircraft in, in the Bomber Stream. AM. Is that the Fishpond? DE. Fishpond, oh I have saved the, with that I have saved the crew on numerous occasions where I have said to Titch, in the tail, em, ‘aircraft two thousand yards astern, don’t know what it is but it looks quite small and it is going fast’, so we presume - AM. So it is not a Lancaster then. DE. It is not a Lancaster, well I can see all the lights around us em, because I used to say to the pilot ‘increase your height by about two hundred feet, ‘cause there is somebody converging on us’, and it would be another one of the stream, ‘cause we had a thousand in the stream you know. And he would raise the aircraft and you would feel the wash of something passing underneath and that was going to be a collision had we not had the knowledge. Mm, so, and then I would say to the, I would say to Titch in the tail, we called him Titch, he was about my size actually, and eh I would say to him ‘seventeen fifty yards, fifteen hundred yards, twelve hundred yards, you are now coming up to a thousand yards’, and he would say ‘I can see him’ and so, and once, I don’t know which. Well I do, I have got it somewhere down eh, I heard him say ‘bloody hell, there’s four of them’. and so they came in and eh the first one actually went up and he set a Lanc on fire above us. We saw them bale out and floating down and it exploded, and all the flaming petrol landed on the ‘chutes and they went, and the next one he decided to have a go at us. He went out to, he went out to starboard and was coming in like this, and I was counting out to Torrey in the top turret, ‘he is just above the horizon, em and is in within oh, he is coming up to about nine hundred yards now from us’, and I said to him, “he will, he’s a fighter and his guns point forward, he’s got to level himself up with us’. and I kept saying to him, “he’s levelling up, he’s levelling up, he’s levelling up’, and I heard Torries’ guns going brrrrr and this thing, so he got him, shot him down [laugh]. And em, the other time, our rear gunner never shot anybody down but he knew where they were, so they didn’t come in his range, but twice Torries came in because once a Junkers 88 came alongside us and he was stalking a Lanc in front of us, and he didn’t see us. Then I heard Torrey, and I heard Peter shout, ‘who’s firing?’ He said, ‘it’s me, oh I have just hosed a Junkers 88 down’. He must have killed the crew ‘cause it went straight down. Aye, I didn’t like to see that just the same, whether it was the enemy or what, but I do know if it hadn’t been the enemy, it would have been us. AM. Exactly, exactly. DE. And em, oh this went on night after night. AM. Can I just ask you about that Cologne trip. So, it is your second one and I believe you, if I have got this one right, is this one where you had to land somewhere else? DE. Oh, we were going, we were running in on the target and there was Kenny the Bomb Aimer just shouted ‘steady, steady, steady, steady, bombs open, bomb doors open, steady, bombs gone’, and the old Lanc, you know, we used to be at about seven or eight, yes, five hundred foot, it used to rise you know and then eh [pause], well heard, it was a god almighty bang, crash and lit the whole aircraft up and I thought [unclear], and eh we levelled up, Peter caught it again and we got it flying and [pause], no at that time he said, ‘I lost me, I haven’t lost me bombs’, so we went round again like stupid idiots, and we let our bombs go and him at the front said, ‘I haven’t got any bomb sight, the shell has hit it and destroyed our bomb sight’, so some wag in the back shouted, ‘let’s dive bomb them then’ [laugh] and we did, we used Cologne Cathedral as the sighting point and missed it. AM. Was this the one where the compass and the chart didn’t match and you later found out that the compass had been shot up actually. DE. Well what happened was that big flash [unclear], a shell had burst next door to us very, very close and had shaken all the navigation equipment that was fixed to the walls, onto the floor and Colin was groping round looking for it, and em we are flying along and em, I suddenly said to him, ‘Colin, you are running on about 230 degrees’, and I said ‘if my memories right, that’s heading for the Atlantic, yeah West’, you see, ‘no I’m not’. I said, ‘you are’, anyhow, I am arguing with him and I knew he was wrong. AM. How could you tell? DE. I could see all the bomber stream, I could see the fighters attacking them on the stream. AM. On the fishpond. DE. On my Fishpond and eh I saw the bomber stream converging north, and us converging west and eh anyway, Peter the Pilot he said, ‘what are you two arguing about?’ I said, “well we are off course, we should be wanting to swim back shortly because we are heading for the Atlantic’, and eh he talked to Colin for a minute or two and then he said to me, ‘Derek, take us home’, just that, ‘take us home’, and he dismissed Colin as navigator and eh I brought ‘em home, I brought ‘em home, and eh I got, I was given them the courses, I could read the courses off and I thought, thank god I had had some navigation training. We were, we were flying up country and I said I can’t get em, eh a beacon from Binbrook, because that was the local with the em, the pilots thing, that’s right, and if you keep those like that, you will get to where that is being transmitted from and if it collapses, you are on, turned over it. So anyway, I couldn’t raise Binbrook and I couldn’t raise Binbrook and eh we were flying up country, and our rear gunner shouted, ‘there is an aircraft below us, in car headlamps’. Because I had just said to Peter, ‘by god, you are flying low’, he said, ‘I am looking for a field’, he said, ‘we have no juice hardly’. Eh so I said to him, ‘you use your flight control radio’, it’s a little radio in the pilots cockpit and I said, ‘shout Darky on it’, and eh he shouted, “Darky, Darky’, and all the lights came on and he whipped it round like that and banged it down on the runway, and eh a car came and he followed us to dispersal and em it was an American, it was half American and half British, I can’t imagine. AM. Falkingham. DE. Falking. AM. Falkingham. DE. Falkingham yeah that’s right, she knows more than me about this. AM. Oh I don’t. DE. [laugh] I didn’t notice you sat at the side of your mam like. AM. I am a bit younger than that. DE. I would have thought, you are alright anyway [laugh]. Anyway em, we parked and we went into the mess, God, the food was beautiful. The Americans used to fly their own food in you know, and eh it was served like pigs. You walked past the table with all this beautiful stuff on it, custard, kippers. AM. All together? DE. All together a plate full of [unclear]. The next morning, as usual, we went to look at our aircraft, ten o’clock in the morning, we always used to gather round the aircraft and eh it was like a colander. There were holes in it and eh Peter said to a so called engineer, who was walking about there, ‘how long are you going to get this kite ready, how long is it going to be?’ and he said, ‘that’ll not fly again’. And eh there was an unexploded shell which lodged in the port outer engine, if that had gone bang, um. AM. And what about the compass, because at this point Colins compass, you brought them home because the compass wasn’t working. DE. I bought mine, yes, through my radio detection gear. AM. What happened to the compass. DE. It was lying on the floor. AM. So that had been shot as well. DE. It had shot off, well I don’t know whether the explosion but it was lying on the floor of the aircraft at the back because the, the rear, what do you call it? That compass anyway was lying on the floor and it was giving all sorts of bloody readings to him, ‘cause I couldn’t believe that Colin had lost us because he had run us into targets and kept the forty five second window that we got to bomb. AM. So Colin was vindicated. DE. Yes, I he grumbled at me a bit ‘cause I, I told him, ‘You are out of your mind, Colin, you are wrong’, [laugh] and I knew he was. AM. But it was his equipment rather than him? DE. It wasn’t Colin, no, no. AM. So that was only your second operation and you had to get back. Then how did you, you get back from there [unclear]. DE. On a truck. AM. And what did they say to you when you got back to your own base? DE. First thing I done, I went into Flying Control and I said, ‘what happened to the comp. The transmitter at Binbrook’, I said, ‘I couldn’t get that for the last, we were half up the country’. And I could have brought Peter with that device over the airfield, and I couldn’t and fortunately, the rear gunner shouts, ‘there is an aircraft in the car headlamps’. Anyway, ah I walked into Flying Control, Peter Russell, Colin Richie and Derek Evans, there was a line through us. They had written us off, dead and they wouldn’t answer my calls, and anyway, we had that out with them with a little bit of fury [laugh] and we were alright with them then, I mean. The aircraft didn’t fly again for some months and we got it again once. AM. Did you? DE. Yes, aye, but there was a hole in the floor, hole in the floor between me, and I used to sit with the navigator, close as this and our table was here, and eh there was a hole in the floor, hole in the ceiling something had come through and missed the pair of us. And my father was right, wasn’t he, ‘cause when I started this he said, ‘don’t worry lad’, he says, ‘the Devil looks after his own’ [laugh]. AM. But somebody was. DE. Yeah, my mother was a spiritualist and, on that night, it was three o’clock when we landed, and she wouldn’t let me father and her go to bed, ‘he’s in trouble’, and at three o’clock she said, ‘he’s alright’. AM. He’s alright now. DE. That’s fantastic ‘aint it. AM. Do you want a rest? AM. So I am looking at other stuff that I’ve got here. I’ve, I’ve so we have done the Essen, we’ve done the Cologne, then we have Düsseldorf, Bochum. DE. Bottrop, we were attacked by about four ruddy German fighters there with that. It was a terrible job that, I don’t know whether, I got some, I got some, I got some good notes but I never carry them about with me. AM. I have got some here where, I think it was on your third one, that was one where I think you saw and aircraft hit. Tell me about, there was one, there was one where you had a near head on crash? DE. Oh god aye, we were flying, well, we did, no, not quite all night bombing but most of it. That’s the aircraft I got together and the only things I haven’t made are the wheels, I couldn’t do rubber wheels. AM. We are looking now at a picture of a model of E for Easy, Derek’s second Lancaster that he made and I have got a photograph of that. DE. Do you know how long it took to make that? AM. A long time. DE. Two thousand four hundred hours, because I built it from the plans, and all these engines and all the ribs and everything are all scale fifteen scale. Two thousand four hundred hours and it is a beautiful model and it is made to fly, and I put it on our drive eh, I opened the throttles and it shot forward and I closed them. I thought that’s not going into the air ‘cause [unclear]. AM. You wouldn’t get it back. Tell me about the operation where you had a near head on crash? DE. Oh well, it’s in the Ruhr, we had done the bombing and suddenly, we were flying like that, suddenly we went down and I looked up and I saw an aircraft pass over the top of us. I thought ‘bloody hell, that was a close one’, and Peter says, ‘I was watching that aircraft come towards us’, he says, ‘and when the wings filled my windscreen, I thought I had better dive’, and that one went up and it was a German fighter. AM. Right. DE. So he nearly got his chop as well. AM. I am looking at, I am looking back at Derek’s log book here, at all the various things. So, in November ‘44 now we are talking about. So, thinking about what is happening generally, we have had D-Day, the Army. DE. No, not in. AM. In November ‘44. DE. Yes, yes, D-Day was, was it June ‘44? AM. June ‘44. DE. Oh yes. AM. So the Army are working their way up towards Germany now and you are still flying over Germany. DE. We are taking out important points eh Dortmund, Durkheim, [unclear], Dortmund, good gracious. AM. I think you bombed quite a few railway, railway lines as well, railway yards. DE. And also, oil refineries. AM. What did you think, if you did think at all about, about the, the people on the ground. DE. Nothing, afterwards yeah, I thought oh dear, we got reports back, you had killed so many on that night and eh, we as a crew had killed four hundred and fifty Germans or something, and I was sorry. I don’t like killing eh, we have had to kill ah, while these German fighters were levelling their guns up, we had to kill ‘em quick or it was the man who got in first. AM. Kill or be killed. DE. Yeah, but I didn’t like, I didn’t like it particularly. I am not a killing man but you are if you get in the right circumstances em, yeah [laugh] yes. Em just to jump a year or two, I was, I didn’t attend a meeting and I was appointed President of an Air Gunners Association over the north here somewhere, and I thought, ‘flipping heck’, and eh I then said to myself, ‘what did I do. I know, lets go see if there is any German fighter pilots still alive’. I went to Germany, I walked into a Luftwaffe station, I said, ‘does anybody know anything about flying here?’ [laugh]. AM. And they said? DE. Oh, I got ever so friendly with them, as a matter of fact, it eh, em we got invites to, my wife and I, got invites to stay with them and we invited them and their wives to stay with us. It culminated in, I cleared a couple of fields, ‘cause I still have the farm and em, I got, I asked the, I knew the Army, a Major in the Army, Richard somebody or other, and I said, ‘do you do any manoeuvres?’ and he said, ‘why’, I said, ‘I have quite a few acres of woods and fields’, ‘Oh’, ‘the price is couple of marquees and a field kitchen on Saturday, such and such a date’, ‘yeah that’s easy, yeah I’ll do that’, and they arrived and I issued an invitation to British and German aircrews, a hundred and twenty eight turned up. The wife says how are you going to feed these? Well, we got a few sausage rolls and that, and I said, ‘oh I know something’, and I went into see the CO at Finningley, a David Wilton, he was very friendly with us and eh I said ‘can I borrow a Jetstream for an afternoon?’ He said ‘what do you want one for?’ I said ‘I’ve got a hundred and twenty five British and German aircrew starving in a field of mine and I know that’, what is the German station, closing one down [pause] and eh I will think about it and I had heard on the grapevine that there was chucking food away and stuff, and so to fetch all these bottles of whisky and food into Finningley, it wasn’t changing hands was it? It was RAF in Germany and RAF in England, and eh when we put the, when we put the piles of food down on pallets, my drive was eighty five yards long and it was full, we had tons. I was, I was moved of course, I got a field kitchen cooking and eh I thought, ‘I wonder where they make all the sausages in Germany’. Just as a thought, so I undid a big bundle and got down to a small package, a kilo or something and it said ‘in case of complaint, such and such a company, Burnley’ [laugh]. I held it up and I said you bloody Krauts can’t even make your own sausage. AM. Can’t make a sausage. I am going to pause while we have some lunch. AM. So we are back now, we have had lunch, a bit of refreshment and Derek is raring to go, I think. DE. Raring to carry on. AM. Raring to carry on. So, we, we have talked about his early life and we have gone through joining up, crewing up, squadron, some of his first operations em. I think just before we paused, Derek was telling us about the near miss when he nearly had a head on crash. DE. Yeah, I looked up and saw this bloody aeroplane two inches above me, well it seemed like it. AM. Not long after that em, I think your pilot became a squadron leader, your squadron leader. DE. Yes, he was. AM. What difference did that make to rest of you as a crew, did that make a difference? DE. No, no, no, no he, all the crews were all a family, all the crews were a family. AM. Right. DE. The only time I couldn’t get near him was what I used to crudely call ‘Birding’. AM. Playing out with the ladies. DE. Yes, and he was very good at that. AM. You don’t mean, you don’t mean bird watching with binoculars then? DE. Eh I don’t think he would know one bird from another actually. AM. Also just before we finished or maybe just after we switched off, you talked about a landing at Sturgate with Fido, tell me about that, what happened? DE. Well eh, they put some eh pipes and they didn’t quite join them up, there were leaks in them on both sides of the runway and [unclear]. AM. Yes, so as you are coming back from, dropped your bomb load, on your way back and it is not foggy as you are coming back. DE. And I am saying to Peter, oh I got it through the ‘we can’t land at Kelstern’, ‘Oh?’ ‘We have been diverted to Sturgate’. ‘What’s Sturgate, we don’t have been of there’, ‘it’s Fido, Fog Investigation Dispersal Operation’, and em we arrived over Sturgate, there was just a blazing mass, there’s the air and the fog had been moved up to about five thousand feet I should think, so it was above, above the runway and the runway was just a mass of fire actually and Peter said, ‘god [unclear]’. Anyway, he landed down there and we were frightened, we didn’t want to get a tyre burst or anything, and em we landed there and then we taxied back up the runway, and we picked up a truck with lights flashing and took us into dispersal. That was it, we stayed there for the night. It was em, it was a dangerous job landing on that job, if you got anything went wrong with you and you veered off, you were burnt. AM. It went down both sides of the runway, didn’t it, all the way down. DE. Both sides about six thousand gallons of petrol, a minute was burning oh, colossal, colossal amount. AM. How many times did you have to land on a FIDO? Just the once? DE. Just the once um [laugh]. AM. Good job. DE. Yeah, we took off on it, we got, the next day, message came through that Kelstern was clear, so we said ‘right, we might as well take off and get on back’, and so we did. AM. But it was still foggy where you were? DE. It was still blazing so we actually took off amongst the blazing petrol and em got up to a reasonable height and cleared off then. AM. And got back to Kelstern. DE. Lovely station was Kelstern, it was a - AM. What was it like, tell me what Kelstern was like? DE. A field. AM. But you just said it was a lovely Station, what was lovely about it? DE. Em, it was a family, there were no rules and regulations, it was just a station carved out of the countryside and all we got round there was just fields and woods, and eh it suited me because I had been used to woods and fields. We spent a nice time there and eh everybody knew everybody, there was no ‘morning Sir’, in fact the boss there was Air Vice Marshall John Baker. I saved his life once and he always called me Derek, never airman. AM. So how did you save his life. I think I know this story but tell me anyway? DE. Well, we set of to bomb em some German positions that were holding the British Army up. AM. You say we, so he was with you. DE. Oh Aye yes, he was with us and em we were flying over the North Sea and I got a message from headquarters, eh position over run, return to base and take your bombs and fuel back. Thirty two of aircraft and bombs and I said to Peter, ‘yeah whip it round, we have a recall’, and he said ‘our position is to fly with the boss’. AM. So he was in a separate aircraft. DE. Oh, in a separate aircraft, we were the aircraft escorting him because Peter was high up then in rank, and em we were to fly in Vic formation with him. You have heard of Vic formation, haven’t you? AM. Yeah, yeah. DE. And we kept on flying and I said, ‘Peter. aren’t you turning round?’ He said ‘I can’t let him fly over ‘cause we’re getting near the Dutch coast there you see’. So eh he said eh, so I said, ‘go a bit closer to him’, and I got the Aldiss lamp out and I winked out the message, and that stupid radio operator said, ‘Why?’. And I signalled back ‘read your bloody bomber [unclear] broadcasts’, and he disappeared and he did and em just before the Dutch coast and the Dutch defences. There were rockets you know. We used to fly along and a rocket would be fired and we would steer round it [laugh], you can’t believe it can you? And em I saw him then turn and we flew back with him, and em he said to me, he says, ‘thank you for saving my life’. AM. So neither of you had dropped your bombs, the whole lot had to land. DE. We were loaded with petrol and bombs, thirty tons, and em Peter came in, came in last ‘cause we, they had all gone, they had all gone to land except for the gaggle, us and Peter said, ‘I will let him land and go back in after’, so we did an orbit or two and eh then he came in. His rate of sink was too much because a hundred mile an hour was the rate of sink of a Lanc you know, coming in to land. He was sinking a lot and he slammed the throttles forward and he came in a hundred, came in to land on full throttles and we [unclear]. I was in the astrodome, I thought, ‘bloody hell, we are not, we are going to be buried automatically in the field here, you know’, and em, he touched down and then, he was like this, wheel to wheel and he banged open the throttles and took off, and we went round and come and did a proper landing then. We got in the crew bus and we were detached, dispatched outside the Flying Control near the parachute section and all that, and there was John Barker, the Boss, he got all the air crew kneeling down on the hard runway and we were all with this. AM. Bowing. DE. Yeah, and Peter said to him ‘what’s all this’, and he said, ‘any bugger who can survive a landing like that is a god’ [laugh]. AM. I can’t, I can’t imagine landing with the full bomb load and how scary that must be. DE. It was scary. A burst tyre would have made things hot. AM. Very. DE. Oh you wouldn’t have got away with it if you had burst a tyre. AM. You know that Vic formation that you said, what does Vic stand for? I know what it is like and arrow head. DE. Vee AM. Oh vee, of course, yeah, but I was trying to work out what the I and the C stood for. DE. Vic AM. Vee, Vic, so it is the phonetic alphabet, isn’t it? DE. Three aircraft. AM. It is the point at the front. DE. Yes, that the Vic. AM. The ones that take the flak. DE. Yeah. AM. I read in the book that you led a formation of about two hundred at the front of that, and Colin got them all there and got them all back. DE. Yeah, oh he was a good bloke was Colin, he was a bit shirty with me when I said, ‘you are bloody miles out, Colin’, ‘oh no I’m not, no I’m not’, and Peter says, ‘what are you two arguing about?’ AM. To be relying to, on his instruments. I am looking at, I am still looking at your log book here at some of the others “Gaggle Leader Training.” DE. Yes, you are talking about Vic, aren’t you. AM. Is that what, I am just looking at this. DE. What do they say about a flock of birds? AM. A gaggle of geese. DE. Yeah. AM. But it is got here that you actually did training for it. DE. Yes that’s right, learned to fly in vics. AM. Yes, got you. DE. Because normally we flew alone, didn’t we? AM. Yes within the stream. DE. Yeah. AM. And then you, what else have I got here, I’ve got one, I’ve got a little note about when you were attacked by some fighters near Nuremburg. DE. Yes, yes. AM. Can you remember that one, I might be jumping about too much now, and then the other note I’ve got is em that in April 1945 Kelstern closed, and you had to move to Scampton. DE. Yes. AM. And then your very last Operation was Heligoland? DE. Heligoland yes, a submarine base. I remember running in over that and we weren’t leaders, we were in the main stream and eh we were dropping big stuff on there. Eh and I mean the ones with the em, ten tonners, they used to go through thirty eight feet of concrete and very often didn’t explode a few days later they would explode wouldn’t they. It was designed for that, what do you call it, delayed action yeah, ’cause we, we done one or two trips to em the Dortmund Emms Canal and eh we used to let the water out the canal [laugh] bad people. AM. That’s one way of putting it. DE. All eh, you see the submarine engines were made by MAN, M.A.N [spelt out name], you have seen the lorries and that was, that was down there anyway, Dortmund or somewhere and eh, they always used to use barges taking these submarine engines to Bremen to be fitted to submarines and they were all stuck there with no water in [laugh]. AM. That was the idea. DE. Have a good trip, yeah, yeah [laugh]. AM. And that was it so that was April ’45, that last one. DE. Yeah. Unknown. When was VE day? AM. VE Day was in May, early May, wasn’t it? DE. Something like that, I know where it starts, the last operation and the next was delivering food. AM. For the Operation Manna. How many of those did you do? DE. How many? AM. Did you just do one Operation Manna? DE. No, we did two or three, did more than one anyway. AM. ‘Cause you were flying really low level in Operation Manna weren’t you. What was that actually, after all that year of the full tour of dropping bombs and all the rest of it, now you’re dropping food? DE. Well we was dropping food to this Hospital. I was stood in the astrodome and we were lower than the nurses standing on the roof. AM. I know it was really low level, I didn’t know it was that low, I knew it was really low level. DE. And you know, some years later, I take my wife to Buxton, to the theatre there, you know the theatre? I drove into this car park, lined up and got out and a Volvo came in and what a pigs ear he was making of trying to, so I got out and I am saying, ‘come on, come on’, you know, then I notice it’s Dutch number plates. So I said to him ‘are you a Dutchman then?’ and he said, ‘yes, have you been to Holland?’ I said, ‘I have been over it a time or two’, he said, ‘have you?’ I said, ‘yes, the last time I went I was delivering food’. He said ‘I’ve got some photographs’, he said, ‘I had hidden a box brownie camera’, and he’d taken photographs of us. He said, ‘I have got it with me and you can have them’. AM. That’s brilliant. DE. That was marvellous that was, wasn’t it? AM. What was it, I can’t imagine what that must have been like to be flying so low that you could actually see the people waiting and, and for the food, because they were starving weren’t they? DE. Oh, we would have killed them if we had dropped it on them, Aye, we were dropping six ton, lots and eh, we went along this low, we went Hague, I think we went somewhere else as well, I think it was the Hague. AM. Yes, we’ve got the Hague here ‘Spam Droppings’. DE. Spam Droppings, we call it spam yeah [laugh], and eh we used to, we dropped that and then we dropped, we went across low like that, if we could have put our wheels down landed on it, it was that low. Well, eh was perhaps thirteen, thirteen foot diameter [unclear] props they were and as soon as we let the things go, turned it over and went straight up. We was told not to fire at the defences because they had agreed not to fire at us and I remember Titch saying, ‘the buggers were going with us all the time’, their guns you know. He said, ‘and I got ‘em lined up as well’ [laugh]. AM. Just in case. DE. Yeah, but the only one that was any trouble was an American. They fired at some of the defences and they shot him down. Serves him right, the agreement was made, it should have been kept. AM. They called it ‘Chow hand’ didn’t they, we called it ‘Operation Manna’ and the Americans called it ‘Chow hand’. DE. They would do. When we got a, we used to land at different places if there was fog like Sturgate, the Americans used to land with us in case, if their bases were fog bound and I remember once, this young airman, he attached himself to me, this American airman. ‘Will you show us a Lancaster?’ ‘Yes, I will show you a Lancaster’, and then there were the bomb trains starting and he said ‘where are all these going from?’ I said, ‘they are going to’, I said, ‘wait a minute, this is ours, look’. I said, ‘climb on one of those bombs and you will have a ride round’, so we rode round into the, into our dispersal and he lay on that aircraft until the last one was bombed. He couldn’t believe it, ‘cause I don’t know we eh, four thousand pounder, sixteen five hundreds eh about two and a half thousand pounds of incendiaries, that was a usual load you see. He watched every one hung cause he couldn’t have believed that lot would have done the whole lot of and American squadron, ‘cause their bomb load, maximum bomb load is four thousand pounds. Well, ours was twenty two thousand pounds. Unknown. What on a Flying Fortress? DE. Pardon? Unknown. What on a Flying Fortress, American. DE. And the German, what do you call that, Dornier 17 isn’t it. AM. Dornier, yeah. DE. That was four thousand pound load as well, they couldn’t carry anything. AM. Well the Lancaster basically was a flying bomb factory, machine wasn’t it. DE. That is what it was. AM. And when you stand under it and look at when the bomb doors are open. DE. Thirty three feet long. AM. Yeah it is, so have I missed any stories about various operations. Can you think of any more that I have missed that you need to tell me about? Unknown. The one that you were trying to get Derek was the fighter one, that was the one when Pete went into the Corkscrew, you know, the manoeuvres that got the fighters off the tail. DE. Eh, I think it was Bochum, yes Bochum. It was a [unclear] because I have got a lot of. AM. I think Bochum is just after the photographs. DE. I see it, yes. Unknown. I know you told me before, Derek, about how Peter had to turn, turn the Lancaster into, you know, the Corkscrew turn, upside down. DE. We used to turn a Lancaster down like that and roll it, somebody says to me, ‘you can’t roll a Lancaster’. I said, ‘you bloody can with a fighter at the back of you’ [laugh]. I don’t know how many, I can’t remember how many fighter attacks I dealt with, because I dealt with them before the gunners saw them. Yeah look, ninety minutes to the target, Titch in the tail shouts, ‘fighter, fighter!!’ AM. Eight o’clock. DE. ‘Eight o’clock level, corkscrew, left, go!’ AM. So describe that to me what that felt like from where you were sat? DE. Where I was sat, I was glued to a screen, eh, well I used to do this with the armchair to hold myself there, ‘cause I’d be swung about and eh Its corkscrew left, right wing down, nose down, dive four thousand feet eh, and then eh, change the wing so that wing was down and then up and that’s why the corkscrew was like that you see, yeah. And that’s why we hoped that the fighters wouldn’t follow us em, and we through them off most we had, oh we had about twelve fighter attacks so we got used to it [laugh]. But with two very good gunners, they were, they were, I mean Torrey the Mid Upper Gunner shot two down, and he shot two down because em, ‘cause they got too close and he said ‘I waited’ and I was saying to him, ‘cause I was vectoring him onto this fighter coming in, and eh I said to him, ‘he has gone out to starboard but he is just, I can see him, he is just below the em, horizon’. He then said, ‘I can see him’, I said, ‘well watch him because he has no guns on top, he has got to fire out of his wings ‘cause he was a 110’, an eh we knew the German aircraft, we knew them very well, best thing for him to do was to study them. That, I can see him now, ‘cause I am up on top, looking, then I saw this fighter coming up and I said, ‘he is going to get his guns level on you, Torrey’, and Torrey let him have it, killed him, oh he killed him, killed him and eh that was five seconds to our demise. That coming up like that and he got him just before he got his guns level em, oh yes, em. Sometimes we got a bit of excitement. AM. Ah, probably excitement you could have done without. DE. Oh god, aye, yeah. AM. And then it all just came to an end, VE Day, last operation. Just looking at your log book, after the Operation Manna, you did a couple of photographic em. DE. Oh eh, yes in there you see, eh about ten of us nicked a Lancaster. AM. Nicked a Lancaster? DE. Borrowed one and then we, and what have I done now, called it? AM. You have called it a Special Bombing Photographic. DE. No, I didn’t. AM. Was it later than that? DE. Yeah. AM. Let’s have a look. DE. Oh we did a Cooks Tour as we called it, we borrowed an aircraft, well there were plenty [unclear] and I think it was about ten of us and we went round the Cooks Tour, up over the Ruhr and the targets we done and had a look at them, and we were shattered. We were shocked at the damage we’d done and eh fighter affiliation, that is you meet up with a Spitfire and it is trying, its got cameras and it is trying to shoot us down with cameras, yeah and that is where we learnt to fight night fighters. And then on 69 Reserve Flying School, I was, of all the flight crew, that was navigators, pilots, navigators, radio operators em, were given a five year call up if you like and em, they gave us an aircraft and we had a lovely time, this was after the war. AM. Just before the after the war bit, so we have had VE day, you’ve nicked your aircraft and had a bit of fun going round looking at the bomb sites. How long, what, what happened to you then between then and demob, because it was usually quite a lengthy time wasn’t it? DE. I don’t know why but eh I, I was posted to eh em, electronic school and I qualified as an electronic engineer then, and then I got on a fighter squadron, servicing their gear. AM. In, in England. DE. Yeah, and then I got posted to ruddy Scotland, Leuchars, do you know Leuchars? AM. I don’t know it, but you talked about that right at the beginning. DE. And eh - AM. It’s Coastal Command isn’t it up there? DE. Yes, it used to be Bomber Command and then it was Coastal Command. Because I think they took off from there and the adjacent station to bomb the ships in the fjords, that’s the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau and then em, I had been there a little bit and I was just about getting acclimatized I was posted to St. Leonards, the point of Cornwall. Unknown. Penzance. AM. About as far away as you could get. DE. Yeah, and I thought to myself eh and I thought my demob number is number 53 and they are demobbing 45, ‘I’m not working’, I went. I went looking round the beach and I saw a bungalow for to let and I went in there and I didn’t turn up for work. But what I’d done was, I went into the, into the other aircrew that I was friendly with and I said, ‘book me into the mess will you, for each meal and sign Derek Evans’. Eh after a fortnight I thought, I wonder if they have missed me? AM. So what did you do, just generally played about on the beach and had a rest? DE. On the beach it was lovely, a bit of surfing and that, I was fit then and em, one morning I thought ‘I wonder if they’ve missed me?’ So I got on me bike and rode to the station, I went through a fence where the radar section was and somebody says, ‘the Adj. is looking for you’. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘Is he?’ I went in front of the Adj. and eh ‘you have been absent without leave’, I said, ‘no I haven’t, go and look at the meals register’. Well he couldn’t get anywhere so he said, ‘you had better go and see their Radar Officer in charge of the radar section’, and eh he said, ‘you have been absent without leave’, I said ‘no I haven’t’. Bit of an argument and I thought ‘bloody bloke, he has been here all the blinking war, telling me off’, and at the end of the argument, I said ‘what you need is a bit of air under your arse’ [laugh] flying. AM. And he said? DE. Put me on a charge for insubordination and I went in front of the CO, and he says, he says, ‘you shouldn’t demonstrate discipline like this’. He gave me a right ticking off. My demob came up then about a fortnight after and I went in front of the same Group Captain, and he says ‘will you sign on?’ I said ‘after what you have told me’, he said ‘I have got to talk in front of these buggers’. But he had the same medal ribbons as me and I knew what he’d done [laugh], then eh I went, I, I, left then and he says, ‘I’ll guarantee you promotion to Squadron Leader in five weeks if you sign on’. He says, ‘we are losing’, he said ‘you are experienced ground crew, experienced aircrew’. I said ‘you’ll be right now’, I said. He said ‘Squadron Leader’, and I said ‘no’ I said, ‘I am going back to my own patch where I served an apprenticeship’ and I did. AM. And that’s what you did. Were you married by then Derek, did you meet your wife in the war, during the war or afterwards? DE. After the war. AM. It was after. DE. I wouldn’t entertain [unclear] AM. Of course, you are still only twenty two or twenty three at this point, you were still only a baby in relative terms. DE. Twenty two and em yes, quite a few contacts with WAAFs especially in the, well that’s put it politely, and there was one or two wanted to marry and I says ‘do you know what job I am doing?’ I says ‘tomorrow I might be dead’, I said, ‘if anything happened you became pregnant’ [unclear]. I said ‘no, I won’t attach myself to anybody’ and I think I did right. I eh was posted to Verne, that is near Selby and there’s a Holding Unit. They had bods in there and they were saying ‘I need six so and so, right six out of these’, and eh I was, I was driving up past the racecourse in Doncaster which was, well my mother’s home was there, just near the racecourse and I saw this WAAF working, walking on her own and I pulled up and I says ‘hello, what are you doing here?’ She was one of the Kelstern teleprinter operators. She said ‘I have been posted to Verne’, I said, ‘that’s where I’m going, get in’, so I took her up there, and eh I did marry her actually, eventually. Me dad said to me, when I took her home the first time, ‘she’s no bloody good to you, you know’. My god, was he right, I didn’t last long with her. AM. So this wasn’t Edna then. That wasn’t Edna then because I know that your wife that you have been married to for a long time, was Edna. DE. No, I don’t know if it is for publication actually. She was a chemist was Edna and she was in, worked in Boots, just down, and I managed an office equipment shop, just above and we just used to say ‘hello’, you know, nothing and eh, I was living with me father and I was in the pub one night and I used to meet all the builders and business folks, ‘cause I used to collect business, you see. And em, ah, I am trying to think of his name now, Terry it was, anyway I said to him ‘Are you building any houses?’ He said, ‘I have got whole estate going at ‘em’. I said, ‘have you anything cheap?’ He said, ‘Well I have a very nice bungalow, er, next to the field which we are not building on’, I said, “oh, what do you want for it?’ and he said, “two and a half thousand pounds’. I said, ‘I’ll have it’, and I bought it off him in the pub [laugh]. I move in there and I was in there for a bit and eh I kept seeing Edna, I used to chat with her, nothing extraordinary. She said ‘What have you done then?’ I said ‘I have moved from me fathers’ place, I’ve bought a bungalow in [unclear], a brand new one’. ‘Oh’, she said, ‘what’s that address?’ Anyway, bless her, I am having my dinner one day, I used to go, it wasn’t far from where I worked. She knocks at the door, she had all her cases with her. I said ‘what are you doing?’ She said ‘I’ve come to live with you’ [laugh]. Unknown. That’s very forward. AM. And that was that? DE. Oh, I took her in and that was it, yeah and I was with her, I have been with her sixty odd years, sixty six years. AM. How did the, you know, I know you, you talked about what you did after the war, but you know the model building, how did the model building come about? DE. Well. I used to build models, I have built hundreds, ships, aircraft. AM. As a hobby, this is a hobby, not as a job. DE. Yes, and I eh, a friend of mine said, he was one of the officials at the brewery, John Smiths, and I said ‘have you got any property you are getting rid of for nought?’ And he said, “yes, got a nice one in Silver Street, a nice’, but he said ‘but Legards are in it’, but he said, ‘their things coming to an end’. He said, ‘so you had better put in a thing’, so I had a look at it and I thought, ‘this would make a good shop’. I don’t know what, I don’t know what I was thinking of, and then, and then I thought a model shop, yeah, a model shop. Em, the bloke who’s in it, what they call him, I don’t really know him now but, he says ‘Oh, your lease is coming to an end’, ‘cause I rented it from him for a week or two, and he says ‘the lease is, so your rent will have to go up’, so I said to him, ‘why, has your landlord put your rent up?’ ‘No, I am going to see him’. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘you had better come back to me and tell me how much you want more’. He came back to me and said ‘you cheeky bugger, you own the place’. AM. You are the landlord [laugh] and I think on that note. 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 Derek Carington Evans Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Annie Moody Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-07-14 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AEvansDC160714, PEvansDC1602 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Language A language of the resource eng Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:42:07 audio recording Description An account of the resource Derek was born on June 20th 1924 in Edlington near Doncaster, volunteering as aircrew at the age of 17. After leaving school at the age of 14, Derek delivered books in and around Doncaster before going down to the Royal Air Force Recruitment Centre in Doncaster and signing up for service after developing a love of aviation after seeing Vimmies and Heyfords. Derek passed his exams for a pilot, however trained as a wireless operator because of his knowledge of Morse code. When he was crewed up, his team flew in Wellingtons at RAF Finningley, with 18 Operational Training Unit. Derek then was transferred to a Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Blyton, where he worked on Halifaxes, before being posted to 625 Squadron at RAF Kelstern, flying on Lancasters. He completed operations to Essen, Dortmund, Cologne and also targeted the oil refineries. Derek also took part in Operation Manna, dropping supplies in Holland. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Vivienne Tincombe Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire England--Yorkshire Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Cologne Germany--Dortmund Germany--Essen Netherlands Germany 18 OTU 625 Squadron Absent Without Leave aircrew Anson bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945) Cook’s tour crewing up Dominie FIDO Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit Ju 88 Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School military discipline military service conditions Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) Operational Training Unit RAF Blyton RAF Finningley RAF Hemswell RAF Kelstern superstition training Wellington wireless operator wireless operator / air gunner https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/201/10044/BBaileyJDBaileyJDv1.pdf 3a146f510c94f18f8643a8ac43ad6772 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 Bailey, John Derek John Derek Bailey Bill Bailey John D Bailey John Bailey J D Bailey J Bailey Description An account of the resource 17 items. Two oral history interviews with John Derek "Bill" Bailey (b. 1924, 1583184 and 198592 Royal Air Force) service material, nine photographs, a memoir and his log book. He flew a tour of operations as a bomb aimer with 103 and 166 Squadrons from RAF Elsham Wolds and RAF Kirmington. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Bailey and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-12-07 2017-01-13 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bailey, JD Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document [centred] “WAS IT ALL A DREAM” [/centred] [centred] The Memories of a Wartime Bomb Aimer Bill Bailey with No. 1 Group Bomber Command February 1942 to April 1947 These things really happened. I now have difficulty in remembering what I did yesterday but happenings of Fifty-odd years ago seem crystal clear, or Was it all a dream? [/centred] [page break] Chapter 1. Enlistment – Royal Air Force Training Command. The story begins on 2 February, 1942, my 18th. Birthday, when I rushed off to the recruiting office in Leicester and enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve as potential aircrew. Being a founder member cadet (No. 6) of 1461 Squadron Air Training Corps was a help. I passed the various medicals, etc[sic] and was sent to the aircrew attestation centre in Birmingham for the various tests for acceptance as aircrew. Like most others I wanted to be a pilot but on the day I attended I think they had that day’s quota of pilots. It was said my eyesight was not up to pilot standard but I could be a navigator. I was said to have a ‘convergency’ problem and would probably try to land an aircraft about ten feet off the deck.. I was duly accepted for Navigator training. The procedure was then to be sent home, attend ATC parades regularly and await further instructions. This was known as ‘deferred service’ and with it came a letter of welcome to the Royal Air Force, from the Secretary of State for Air, at that time Sir Archibald Sinclair, and the privilege of wearing a white flash in my ATC cadet’s forage cap which denoted the wearer was u/t (under training) aircrew. So it was that on the 27 July 1942 I was commanded to report for service at the Aircrew Reception Centre at Lords Cricket Ground, St. Johns Wood, London. I was now 1583184 AC2 Bailey, J.D., rate of pay two shillings and sixpence per day. We were billeted in blocks of flats adjacent to Regents Park and fed in a vary[sic] large underground car park at one of the blocks or in the restaurant at London Zoo. Talk about feeding time at the Zoo!! A hectic three weeks followed, issue of uniforms and equipment, dental treatment, numerous jabs, endless square bashing - the ATC training helped. Lectures on this, that and everything including the dreaded effects of [page break] VD, the latter shown in glorious Technicolor at the Odeon Cinema, Swiss Cottage. Not that this was of much consequence at that time because we were reliably informed that plenty of bromide was put in the tea. One day on first parade I and one other lad from my Flight were called out by the Flight Corporal, a sadistic sod, who informed us we had volunteered to give a pint of blood. Apparently we had an unusual blood group and some was required for what purpose I have never really understood. Having completed the aforementioned necessities it was a question of what to do with us next. The next stage of training was to be ITW (Initial Training Wing). but there was congestion in the supply line from ACRC to the ITW’s so a “holding unit” (this term will crop up from time to time) had been established at Ludlow and it was to there that we went. Ludlow consisted of three Wings in tented accommodation and was progressively developed into a more permanent establishment by the cadets passing through, using their civilian life skills. We were allowed (officially) one night in three off camp so as not to flood the pubs, of which there were many, with RAF bods, and cause mayhem in the town. Four weeks were spent at Ludlow. It was said to be a toughening up course and it was certainly that. Next stop from Ludlow was to an ITW. Most ITW’s were located in seaside towns with the sea front hotels having been requisitioned by the Air Ministry. In my case I was posted to No.4 ITW at Paignton, Devon where I was to spend the next twelve weeks living in the Hydro Hotel, right on the seafront near the harbour. Twelve weeks of intensive ground training. At the end of this period I was at the peak [handwritten in margin] followed (needs a verb[?]) [/handwritten in margin] [page break] of fitness and having passed my exams was promoted LAC – pay rise to seven shillings a day. One of the subjects covered at ITW was the Browning .303 machine gun and I well remember the first lecture on this weapon when a Corporal Armourer giving the lecture delivered his party piece which went as follows: “This is the Browning .303 machine gun which works by recoil action. When the gun is fired the bullet nips smartly up the barrel, hotley [sic] pursued by the gases …”. Applause please! Another subject learned was the Morse Code and here again the training in the ATC stood me in good stead. The next phase would be flying training, but when and where? On New Years[sic] Day 1943 we were posted from Paignton to yet another ‘holding unit’ at Brighton. The move from the English Riviera to Brighton was like going to the North Pole. At Brighton we were billeted in the Metropole Hotel. More lectures, square bashing and boredom, until, after about three weeks, on morning parade it was announced that a new aircrew category of Airbomber had been created and any u/t Navigators who volunteered would be guaranteed a quick posting and off to Canada for training. Needless to say, yours truly stepped forward and within a week had been posted to Heaton Park, Manchester which was an enormous transit camp for u/t aircrew leaving the UK for Canada, Rhodesia or America for training. They used to say it always rains in Manchester and it certainly did continuously whilst I was there. Anyone who has seen the film “Journey Together” will have seen a departure parade at Heaton Park in pouring rain. I am told that on the day that film was shot it was fine and the fire service had to make the rain. Sods Law I suppose! [page break] Chapter II. Canada – The Empire Air Training Scheme. Next, after a farewell meal of egg and chips (In 1943 a delicacy), and a few words from the C in C Training Command, it was off to Glasgow to board the “Andes” for our trip to Canada. The ‘Andes’ was said to be jinx ship in port. She didn’t let us down. In the Clyde she dropped anchor to swing the compass and when she tried to up anchor a submarine cable was wrapped around it. After a couple of days we finally left the Clyde and I endured six days of seasickness before arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia and then to yet another enormous transit camp at Moncton, New Brunswick where we enjoyed food that we had not seen in the UK since the start of food rationing. It was in a restaurant in Moncton that I had my very first ‘T’ Bone steak. The first task at Moncton was issue of cold weather kit to cope with the Canadian winter and Khaki Drill to cope with the very hot Canadian summer. We were at this time in the middle of the winter and colder than I had ever experienced before.. The next stop should have been to a Bombing & Gunnery School but before that there had to be the inevitable ‘holding unit’. So it was off to Carberry, Manitoba, five or six days on a troop train, days spent seeing nothing but trees, frozen lakes, the occasional trace of habitation and the odd trappers cabin. At intervals on the journey across Canada, people were taken off the train suffering from Scarlet Fever. It was believed that this disease came from the troopships. As we passed through Winnipeg on our journey, for the first time we were allowed off the train and as we went from the platform to the station concourse we were greeted with bands playing a huge welcome from the good people of Winnipeg. They had in Winnipeg the “Airmens Club” and an invitation to visit if there on leave. They [page break] had a wonderful system of people who would welcome RAF chaps into their homes for a few days or a weekend when on leave. This was to stand me in good stead as you will hear later. Shortly after arrival at Carberry I fell victim to Scarlet Fever and spent five weeks in isolation hospital at Brandon after which I and a fellow sufferer by the name of Peter Caldwell had two weeks sick leave in Winnipeg and the Airmens Club arranged for us to stay with an English family. Wonderful hospitality. The Canadians were wonderful hosts to the Royal Air Force. Carberry and Brandon were, of course, on the Canadian Prairies and whilst in hospital at Brandon, one night and day there was a terrible dust storm and despite the usual Canadian double glazing, everywhere inside the hospital was covered in black dust. This is probably of little interest but to me at the time was an amazing phenomenom. Now it was back to reality and a posting to 31 Bombing & Gunnery School at Picton, Ontario. A two day journey by train around the North Shore of Lake Superior to Toronto and Belleville and then twenty plus miles down a dirt road to Picton. The airfield still exists, on high ground, overlooking the town on the shores of Lake Ontario. The bombing targets were moored out in the lake and air gunnery practice took place out over the lake. The weather during this spell was very hot and flying was limited to a period from very early morning until midday. Canadian built Ansons were used for bombing practice and Bolingbrokes, which were Canadian built Blenheims, were used for air to air gunnery practice. The target drogues were towed by Lysanders. Nothing outstanding took place at Picton except perhaps for our passing out party which we held in Belleville. In my case, being full of Canadian rye whisky of the [page break] bootleg variety I literally passed out and for many years afterwards could not even stand the smell of strong spirits. Having recovered from the passing out the next stop was No. 33 Air Navigation School, RAF Mount Hope, Hamilton. Ontario. Mount Hope is now Hamilton Airport. Navigation training in Ansons was fairly uneventful and ended with us receiving our Sergeants stripes and the coveted “O” brevet. (Known to all as the flying arsehole) The “O” brevet was soon to be replaced with brevets more appropriate to the trade of the wearer, ie “B” for Airbombers, “N” for Navigators, etc. Next it was back to Moncton for the return to the UK. The return voyage was on the ‘Mauritania’ where there were only 50 sergeant aircrew who were to act as guards on the ship which was transporting a large number of American troops. O/c. Troops on the ship was a Royal Air Force Squadron Leader. To our amazement when the Americans boarded the ship they had no idea where they were going. Most seemed to think they were going to Iceland and when we told them Liverpool was our destination they could not believe it. We were asked where we picked up the convoy and when we told them we did not go in convoy this caused a great deal of consternation. All the troopships going back and forth between the UK and North America were too fast to be in convoys and fast zig zag runs were made across the Atlantic. It was very long odds against the likelihood of encountering a U Boat.. Having safely arrived in Liverpool our next temporary home was yet another ‘holding unit’. [page break] Chapter III. Flying Training Command. This time it was the Grand Hotel in Harrogate overlooking the famous Valley Gardens. The RAF had taken over both the Grand and Majestic Hotels. Sadly the Grand has now gone. I rcall our CO at the Grand was Squadron Leader L E G Ames the England cricketer. Time at Harrogate awaiting posting was filled by swimming, drill, the usual time filling lectures, etc. We did, of course, get what was known as disembarkation leave. I went home and whilst there my granddad, with whom I had always had a very close relationship, took ill and died at the age of 85 and I was very grateful that I had been able to talk to him and to attend the funeral. Christmas was spent at Harrogate, there being a ban on service travel during the Christmas period. On, I believe, Boxing Day, Maxie Booth and myself were in Harrogate, fed up and far from home, when we were approached by a chap who asked if we were doing anything that night, to which we replied “No”. He then said he was having a small party at home that night and had two Air Ministry girls billeted wit6h his family and would we like to join them. We readily accepted and when we arrived at the party we found that one of the girls was Maxie’s cousin. Small world! Still at Harrogate on my birthday 2 February, now at the ripe old age of 20. My room mates contrived to get me very drunk. I will spare you the details. After a short time we were posted to Kirkham, Lancs to yet another holding unit, for a couple of weeks and then onward to Penrhos, North Wales, 9(O) Advanced Flying Unit for bombing practice. We were using Ansons and 10lb practice bombs. In Canada the Ansons had hydraulic undercarriages but at Penrhos they were Mk1 Ansons and it was the Bombaimers job to wind up the undercarriage by hand. A hell [page break] of a lot of turns on the handle – not much fun. Next move was to Llandwrog, Nr. Caernarvon for the Navigation part of the Course. Same aircraft flying on exercises mainly over the Irish Sea, N. Ireland, Isle of Man, etc. Llandwrog is now Caernarvon airport with an interesting small museum. [handwritten in margin] museum since closed [handwritten in margin]. Llandwrog was unusual in that the airfield and our living site were below sea level, a dyke between us and the Irish Sea. Because of this there was no piped water or drainage on our site and it was necessary to carry a ‘small pack’ and do our ablutions at the main domestic site which was above sea level. I, and a pal or two went into Caernarvon for a weekend in the Prince of Wales Hotel to get a bit of a civilised existence for a change. However our stay at Llandwrog was quite brief. The 1st. March 1944 was very significant in that it marked the move from Flying Training Command to Bomber Command. 83 Operational Training Unit at Peplow in Shropshire. Never heard of Peplow? Neither had I, it is a few miles North of Wellington. [handwritten in margin] Peplow was formerly Childs Ercall – renamed to avoid conflict with High Ercall airfield, nearby, I understood. [handwritten in margin] We arrived by train at Peplow, in the dark, station ‘lit’ by semi blacked out gas lamps. Arriving at Peplow were Pilots, Navigators, Bombaimers, Wireless Operators and Gunners from different training establishments. Somehow, the next day, we sorted ourselves out into crews of six, Pilot, Nav, Bombaimer, W/Op and two gunners and were ready to start the business of Operational flying as a bomber crew.. We had never met each other before but were to spend the next few months living together, flying together and relying on each other, and developing a unique comradeship.. Peplow was notable for several things. From our living site, the nearest Pub was five miles in any direction. Having twice walked in different directions to prove the [page break] mileage we quickly acquired pushbikes. At that time there were no sign posts. One night doing ‘circuits and bumps’ in a Wellington we were in the ’funnel’ on the approach to the runway, skipper put the flaps down and the aircraft started to make a turn to port which he could not control. He ordered me to pull up the flaps and he then regained control. We then climbed to a respectable height and skip asked me to lower the flaps. The same thing happened again, an uncontrollable turn to port and quickly losing height. Flaps pulled up and normal service resumed. Skip then got permission from Air Traffic to make a flapless landing which he managed without running out of runway. We taxied back to dispersal and on inspection found that when the flaps were lowered only the port side flaps came down. Apparently a tie rod between port and starboard must have come apart. Could have been nasty! On a lighter note, when cycling back to camp from Wellington one night I had a problem with the lights on my bike and was stopped by P.C Plod and booked for riding a bike without lights. Fined 10 shillings. Another incident clearly imprinted on my mind was one day in class we were being given a lecture on the dinghy radio. I had heard all about the dinghy radio so many times I could almost recite it. I was sitting on the back row in class and I put my head back against the wall and must have dropped off. Suddenly a piece of chalk hit the wall at the side of my head. I awoke with a start and the guy giving the lecture (A Flying Officer) said, “I suppose Sergeant, you know all about dinghy radio”. To which I foolishly replied “Yes Sir”. He then said “In that case you can come out and continue the lecture”. Even more foolishly I did. When finished I was asked to stay behind to receive an almighty bollocking for being a smartarse. Finally whilst at Peplow a young lady I met in Wellington gave me a red scarf for [page break] luck and after that my crew would never let me fly without it. We were now getting down to the serious business of preparing for actual operations and on the 24.5.44 we were despatched on an actual operation which was known as a ‘nickel’ raid, leaflet dropping over France, a place called ‘Criel’. 4 hours 35 minutes airborne in a Wellington bomber. [Where is chapter IV?] Chapter V. No. 1 Group Bomber Command. On the 26th. June we were on the move again, ever nearer to being on an operational Squadron in Bomber Command. This was to 1667 Conversion Unit at Sandtoft where we were to convert to four engine aircraft ‘Halifaxes’. These were Halifax II & V which were underpowered and notoriously unreliable and had been withdrawn from front line service. In fact Sandtoft was affectionately known as ‘Prangtoft’ because of the large number of flying accidents. One of my pals from Harrogate days, Harry Fryer, got the chop in a Halifax that crashed near Crowle. So that I do not give any wrong ideas, let me say, the Halifax III with radial engines was a superb aircraft and equipped No. 4 Goup. It was here at Sandtoft that we acquired the seventh member of our crew, a Flight Engineer, straight from RAF St. Athan and never having been airborne. We obviously survived ‘Prangtoft’ and then moved on the 22 July to LFS (Lancaster Finishing School) at Hemswell, which supplied crews to No. 1 Group, Bomber Command, which was the largest main force group flying Lancasters. We were only two weeks at Hemswell, the sole object being to familiaise[sic] with the [page break] Queen of the skies, the LANCASTER. A beautiful aeroplane, very reliable, able to fly easily with two dead engines on one side, and to withstand considerable battle damage and still remain airborne. Chapter VI. The Tour of Operations. 103 Squadron. Now for the real thing. On the 10th August we joined 103 Squadron at Elsham Wolds, in North Lincolnshire. At this point I should like to introduce our crew: P/O George Knott. Pilot & Skipper. F/Sgt. Ron Archer. Navigator. F/Sgt. Bill Bailey. Bombaimer. F/Sgt. Gus Leigh. Wireless Opeator. F/Sgt. Wally Williams. Flight Engineer. F/Sgt. Jock Greig. Midupper Gunner. F/Sgt. Paddy Anderson. Rear Gunner. After a bit more training we eventually embarked on our first operation on the 29th,. August. I now propose to go through our complete tour of Operations as recorded in my flying log book and other documents. Before doing that perhaps I should give an insight into Squadron procedure. We were accommodated in nissen huts on dispersed sites in the vicinity of the airfield, two Crews to a hut. The huts were sleeping quarters only and were heated by a solid fuel stove in the centre. Bloody cold in the bleak Lincolnshire winter. The messes were on the main domestic site. Every morning (provided there was no call out in the night) [page break] it was to the mess for breakfast, check if there was an Order of Battle and if you were on it. If not, we made our way to the flight offices and section leaders. I would go to the Bombing Leader’s office where we would review the previous operation and look at target photographs. Releasing the bombs over the target also activated a camera which took line overlap pictures from the release point to impact on the ground.. We would then return to the mess to await the next orders or perhaps take an aircraft on air test, although after ‘D’ day this practice was discontinued because the aircraft were kept bombed up in a state readiness. Temporarily at least Bomber Command was being used in a close support role to assist the Armies in France. When a Battle Order was issued, the nominated crews assembled in the briefing room at the appointed time and when everyone was present the doors were closed and guarded. On a large wall map of Europe in front of us was a red tape snaking across the map from Base to the designated target. The length of the tape dictated the reaction of the assembled company. Pilots, Navigators and Bombaimers did their pre-flight planning prepared maps and charts ready to go. Each crew member received a small white bag into which he emptied his pockets of everything. The seven bags were then put into one larger bag and handed to the intelligence office until our return. We, in turn, were given our ‘escape kits’ and flying rations. The escape kit was for use in the event of being shot down and trying to evade capture and return to England. We also carried passport size photographs which might enable resistance workers in occupied countries to get us fake identity documents. Phrase cards, compass, maps and currency notes were also included. The flying rations issued were mainly chocolate bars (very valuable at that time) also ‘wakey wakey pills’, caffeine tablets to be taken on the skipper’s orders. All ready to go. Collect parachutes, get into the crew buses and be ferried out to the [page break] Dispersals A visual check round the aircraft and then climb aboard. Start engines when ordered, close bomb doors, complete preflight checks and taxi to the end of the runway. The airfield controller’s cabin was located at the side of the runway and on a green lamp from him, open the throttles and roll. We were on our way. The Lancaster had an all up weight for take-off of 66000 lbs and needed the full runway, into wind, for a safe take-off. The maximum bomb load on a standard Lancaster was 7 tons but operating at maximum range the bomb load would be reduced to about 5 tons to accommodate a maximum fuel load. On return from operations, after landing and returning to dispersal, shut down engines, climb down and await transport back to the briefing room for interrogation by intelligence officers. Hot drinks and tot of rum available and back to the mess for the customary egg, bacon and chips.. At this time were confined to camp because of the possibility of being of being[sic] called for short notice operations. THE TOUR OF OPERATIONS. No. 1 29.8.44 Target – STETTIN. Checked Battle Order to find our crew allocated to PM-N. Briefing for night attack on the Baltic Port of Stettin. Bomb load mainly incendieries.[sic] The route took us across the North Sea, over Northern Denmark, S.W. Sweden and then due South into the target, bomb and turn West to cross Denmark and the North Sea back to base. The force consisted of 402 Lancasters and 1 Mosquito of 1,3,6,& 8 Groups. It was a very successful attack and 23 Lancasters were lost. We suffered no damage from anti-aircraft fire and saw no fighters. Whilst crossing Sweden there was [page break] a certain amount of what was called friendly flak, shells bursting at about 10,000 ft whilst we were flying at 18000 ft This was my first sight of a target and something I shall never forget, smoke, flames, bombbursts, searchlights, anti-aircraft fire. It was also very tiring having been airborne for 9 hours 25 minutes and flown some 2000 miles. Used full quota of ‘wakey wakey’ pills. No. 2. 31.8.44. Target .Flying Bomb launch site. AGENVILLE France. Daylight attack, Master Bomber controlled This was one of several targets to be attacked in Northern France. Seemed like a piece of cake after the long trip to Stettin. Not so! We were briefed to bomb from 10,000 ft on the Master Bomber’s instructions. On approaching the target area there was 10/10 cloud and the call from the Master Bomber went like this: “Main Force – descent to 8,000ft and bomb on red TI’s (Target indicators). – no opposition” We descended to 8,000ft and immediately we broke cloud there were shells bursting around us, Fortunately dead ahead was the target and I called for bomb doors open and started the bombing run.. At the appropriate point I pressed the bomb release and nothing happened. A quick look revealed no lights on the bombing panel. Whilst I was checking the main fuse the rear gunner was calling “We are on fire Skip – there is smoke streaming past me” The ‘smoke’ proved to be hydraulic fluid which was vaporising. We climbed back into cloud and assessed the situation. Whilst in cloud we experienced severe icing and with the pitot head frozen we lost instruments which meant skip had no way of knowing the attitude[?] of the aircraft and for the one and only time in my flying career, we were ordered to prepare to abandon aircraft and I put on my parachute pack. However we emerged from cloud and normal service was resumed. We had no [page break] electrics, no hydraulics, bomb doors open and a full load of bombs still on board Skip decided to head for base via a North Sea designated dropping zone where I could jettison the bombs safely. This was accompanied by going back along the fuselage and using a highly technical piece of kit, a piece of wire with a hook on the end, pushing it down through a hole about each bomb carrier and tripping the release mechanism. Having got rid of the bombs it was back to base, crossing the coast at a spot where we should not have been and risking being shot at by friendly Ack Ack gunners. We arrived back at base some one and a half hours late. Now for the tricky bit. The undercarriage, in the absence of hydraulic fluid, had to be blown down by compressed air. This was an emergency procedure and could only be tried once, a now or never situation. Now we have to make a flapless landing and hope that the landing gear is locked down and does not collapse when we land. Not being able to use flaps means the landing speed is greater than normal and then we have no brakes. Skip made a super landing but once on the runway could only throttle back and wait for the aircraft to roll to a stop. This it did right at the end of the runway. On inspection after return to dispersal it appeared that a shell or shells had burst very near to the bomb bay and shrapnel had severed hydraulic pipes and electric cables in the bomb bay. I should think we were very close to having been blown to bits. This trip was a little bit sobering to say the least. The aircraft resembled a pepper pot but luckily no one was injured. No. 3 3.9.44 Target Eindhoven Airfield, Holland. Daylight Operation. Allocated to PM-X (N having been severely damaged on our last sortie) A straight forward attack on the airfield, one of six airfields in Southern Holland [page break] attacked by.675 aircraft a mixture of 348 Lancasters and 315 Halifaxes and 12 Mosquitoes, all very successful raids and only one Halifax lost. This was my first experience of the ‘Oboe’ target marking system now used by Pathfinders flying Mosquitoes.. A very accurate system – the markers were right in the middle of the runway intersections. Very impressive. No.4 5.9.44. Target – Defensive positions around LE HAVRE. Aircraft allocated PM-W. Bomb load 15,000 lbs High Explosives. Daylight operation. This attack was in support of Canadian troops who were demanding the surrender of the German garrison. The first phase of Lancasters orbited the target awaiting the outcome. This was negative and the attack took place. In clear visibility our riming point was 2000 yards in front of the Canadian troops and the area around the aiming point was completely destroyed. No.5 10.9.44 Target – LE HAVRE again. Daylight operation. Aircraft allocated PM-E Bomb load 15000 lbs High Explosive. Daylight operation. 992 aircraft attacked 8 difference German strongpoints only yards in front of Canadian troops. All were bombed accurately. No aircraft were lost. No.6 12.9.44. Target FRANKFURT. Night operation. Aircraft allocated PM-G. Bomb load 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus incendiaries. This was an unusual operation in that we were one of several crews who were briefed to bomb 5 minutes ahead of main force, identifying the aiming point ourselves. The [page break] object was to occupy the defences whilst the pathfinders went in low to mark the aiming point for main force. Our route to target took us South into France, near Strasbourg and then a turn North East towards Frankfurt. Our navigator Ron at some point realised we were well off track because he was getting wrong positions due to distortion of the ‘Gee chain’, wither by jamming or almost out of range. As well as being bombaimer I was also the H2S radar operator and so I switched this on to try to verify our position I managed to identify Mannheim on the screen and was then able, with Ron, to fix a course to the target. As we approached the target there were hundreds of searchlights but instead of combing the sky they were laid along the ground in the direction of our track. It took a few minutes to realise that what they were doing was putting a carpet of light on the ground so that any fighters above us would have us silhouetted against the light. Gunners be extra vigilant! I dropped the bombs and we headed for base without incident. Intelligence reports said it was a very successful attack. No. 7 17.9.44 Target Ammunition Dump at THE HAGUE, Holland Daylight. Aircraft allocated PM-B, Bomb load 15000lbs Gen. Purpose bombs. This attack by 27 Lancasters of 103 Squadron only and was carried out without loss. No. 8 24.9.44. Target CALAIS. Close support for the Army. Daylight. Allocated aircraft PM-B Bomb load 15000 lbs GP Bombs. 103 & 576 Squadrons were chosen to attack this target, gun emplacements, at low level (2000 ft) in the interests of accuracy. The weather was atrocious, almost as soon as we got off the runway we were in cloud. However we set course for Calais flying [page break] at around 1000 ft so as to keep the ground in view. As we approached the Channel the cloud lifted a bit and we were able to climb to 2000 ft but as we approached the target the cloud base lowered again and we had to descend again to 1000 ft for the bombing run. A we approached the aiming point, I was lying in the nose and could see everything on the ground. And being in the best position to see what was going on. could see where I thought the worst of the anti-aircraft fire, and indeed small arms fire was coming from.. I therefore ‘suggested’ to skip that when I say “bombs gone” you put her over hard to port and get down on the deck. Bugger the target photograph, we’ll have a picture of the sky! George did this and where we would have been if we had gone straight on whilst the camera operated, were shell bursts. We got out of that unscathed. Of the 27 aircraft that started that attack, one was lost, 8 landed away with various degrees of battle damage and of the remainder only 3 aircraft returned to base undamaged. “B” was one of them. As Ron recorded in his notes “Oppositions – everything”. No. 9 26.9.44. Target Gunsites at Cap Gris Nez Daylight. Allocated aircraft PM-B Bomb load 15000 lbs GP Bombs. This was a highly concentrated and successful attack with very little opposition. Obtained a very good aiming point photograph. No. 10 27,9,44. We were briefed to bomb in the Calais area again on 27th. Sept but this operation was aborted due to the bombsight being unserviceable. This ended our operational career at 103 Squadron. Only two of our operations had been at night. Ourselves and one other crew from ‘A’ flight were transferred to 166 Squadron at [page break] Kirmington, one of the three stations forming 13 Base, to form a new ‘A’ flight at 166.Squadron. As a matter of interest, Kirmington is now South Humberside Airport. Before moving on to the next phase I should explain that operational aircrew were given six days leave every six weeks which will explain some of the gaps in the story. Chapter VII. The Tour of Operations. 166 Squadron. 166 Squadron, Kirmington, Lincs. When we arrived at Kirmington we were allocated a hut on a dispersed site in Brocklesby Wood, about as far as could be from the airfield. Primitive living arrangements, but not too far from the Sergeants Mess. By now we were no longer confined to camp and “liberty buses” were run from camp to Grimsby and Scunthorpe. Most of us used to go to ‘Sunny Scunny’ where there was a cinema two well known pubs, The Bluebell and The Oswald, the latter became known as 1 Group Headquarters. This establishment had a large function room with a [page break] minutes after other aircraft had set course. We took part on second aiming point and catching up 20 minutes on round trip landed No.3 back at base. No. 14 28.10.44 Target COLOGNE Allocated aircraft AS-D Bomb Load 1 x 4000 lb Cookie plus incendiaries. Daylight operation. 733 aircraft despatched to devastate residential areas in NW of the City There was heavy flak opposition and our aircraft suffered some minor damage A piece of shrapnel came through the Perspex dome in front of me whilst I was crouched over the bombsight It hit me on the shoulder on my parachute harness but did me no harm. This was a very good operation as ordered. No. 15 29.10.44. Target Gunsites at DOMBURG. Walcheren Island, Holland. Allocated aircraft AS-M Bomb Load 15000 lbs HE. Daylight attack. 6 aircraft from 166 squadron together with 19 others attacked 4 aiming points. All were accurately bombed. There was no opposition. No. 16 30.10.44. Target COLOGNE, Night operation. Allocated aircraft AS-K Bomb Load 1x4000lb Cookie plus 9000 lbs HE. No. 1 Group was assigned to attack aiming point which was not successfully attacked on 28th. October. Over the target there was clear visibility, moderate flak opposition. This was considered to have been a very good attack. It was on this operation, whilst we were on the bombing run an aircraft exploded ahead of us. At least I believe it was an aircraft although the Germans used a device which we called a “scarecrow”. This was a pyrotechnic device which exploded to [page break] simulate an exploding aircraft. Presumable meant to put the frighteners on us! On the 31,.10.44 we were again briefed to attack Cologne but having climbed to operating height a crew check by the Skipper revealed that Paddy our rear gunner was unconscious in his turret. Gus, wireless op went back and pulled him from the turret and onto the rest bed in the centre of the aircraft. He fitted him up with a portable oxygen bottle and skip made the decision to abort and return to base where an ambulance was waiting to whisk paddy[sic] off to sick bay. Apparently the problem had been a trapped oxygen pipe in the turret. We had been airborne for 2hrs 15 mins. To depart for the moment from the tour of operations, it was about this time when I developed at[sic] rash on my face which turned to a weeping eczema which meant that I could not shave and I had to report sick. The Doc took a look and said, “OK You’re grounded”. I replied “You can’t do that Doc, my crew will have to take a spare bombaimer and I shall have to complete my tour with other crews”. After pleading my case Doc agreed to allow me to continue flying provided each time before flying I reported to Sick Quarters and had a dressing put on my face so that I could wear my oxygen mask. The Doc was treating me with various creams which had little or no effect until one day the WAAF medical orderly who applied the treatment said to the Doc “Why don’t we try a starch poultice”. The Doc suggested that was an old wives remedy. However as nothing else had worked he agreed to let the Waaf[sic] give it a try. I know not where this young lady learned her skills because I gathered she was a hairdresser in civvie street, in Leicester, my home town. She applied the said poultice and the next day I reported back to sick quarters where she removed the poultice and whatever was clinging to it. I went back to our hut and very carefully shaved. The starch poultice had done the trick. I thought frostbite had probably caused the [page break] problem in the first place but I was to learn some months later the real cause which I shall reveal later in the story. No. 17. 2.11.44. Target DUSSELDORF. Night operation. Aircraft allocated AS-C. Bomb load 1 x 4000lb Cookie and 9000 lbs HE. “C” Charlie was now to become our regular aircraft, for which we developed a great affection and a very special relationship with the ground crew. 992 aircraft attacked Dusseldorf of which 11 Halifaxes and 8 Lancasters were lost. It was a very heavy and concentrated attack with extensive damage and loss of life. This was the last major Bomber Command raid of the war on Dusseldorf. At about his [this] time friendships were struck up. In my case I was returning from leave and whilst waiting for my train at Lincoln Station to Barnetby (where I had left my bike) I met a Waaf, also returning from leave and who was, surprise, surprise stationed at Kirmington. I asked how she was getting from Barnetby to Kirmington and she said she was walking. No prizes for guessing that she got back to Kirmington on the crossbar of my bike. (No it was not a ladies bike). We became good friends and she along with others, would be standing alongside the airfield controllers cabin at the end of the runway to wave us off on operations. Also at about his [this] time George and Gus acquired friends from the Waaf personnel, one of whom was a telephonist and the other a R/T operator in the control tower. When returning from operations George would call up base as soon as he was able, to get instructions to join the circuit. First to call would get the 1000’ slot and first to land. The procedure then was to make a circuit of the airfield around the ‘drem’ system of lights, report on the downwind leg and again when turning into the funnels on the [page break] approach to the runway. We would then be given the OK to land or if there was a runway obstruction, go round again. I understand that word was passed to those who wished to know that “Knott’s crew were in the circuit.” No. 18. 4.11.44. Target BOCHUM. Night operation. “C” Charlie. Bomb load. 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus 9000lbs HE. 749 aircraft attacked this target. Unusually Halifaxes of 4 Group slightly out numbered Lancasters. 23 Halifaxes and 5 Lancasters were lost. No. 346 (Free French) Squadron, based at Elvington, lost 5 out of its 16 Halifaxes on the raid. Severe damage was caused to the centre of Bochum, particularly the important steelworks. This was the last major raid by Bomber Command on this target It was about at this on return from an operation, I felt the need of a stimulant and so, instead of giving my tot of rum to Jock, I put it into my ovaltine, which curdled and I ended up with something resembling soup and a chastising from Jock for wasting ‘valuable rum’. No. 19. 11.11.44. Target DORTMUND Oil Plant. Night operation. “C” Charlie. Bomb load, 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus 9000lb HE. .209 Lancasters, all 1 Group, plus 19 Mosquitoes from 8 Group (Pathfinders) attacked this target. The aiming point was a synthetic oil plant. A local report confirmed that the plant was severely damaged. No aircraft were lost. No. 20 21.11.44. Minelaying Operations in OSLO FJORD Norway. [page break] Aircraft AS-E. Bomb load 6 x 1800 lb Accoustic[sic] and Magnetic Mines. Six Lancasters from 166 Squadron and 6 from 103 Squadron detailed to plant ‘vegetables’ in Oslo Fjord. AS-E to mine a channel half a mile wide, between an island and the mainland. This was to catch U Boats based in the harbour at MANNS. The attack was carried out at low level and required a very accurate bombing run.. It was a major sin to drop mines on land as they were classified Secret This was a highly successful operation with no opposition and no aircraft lost. Time airborne 6hrs 45mins No. 21. 27.11.44. Target “FREIBURG” S.W. Germany. Night operation. “C” Charlie. Bomb load 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus incendiaries. Freiburg was not an industrial town and had not been bombed by the RAF before. However. No. 1 Group 341 Lancasters, which was maximum effort for the Group, plus 10 Mosquitoes from 8 Group, were called upon to support the French Army in the Strasbourg sector. It is believed the Freiburg was full of German troops. The target was accurately marked using the ‘OBOE’ technique from caravans based in France. 1900 tons of bombs were dropped on the target from 12000 ft in the space of 25 minutes. Casualties on the ground were extremely high. There was little opposition and only one aircraft was lost… On this operation we carried a second pilot as a prelude to his first operation. He Was Charles Martin, a New Zealander and he and his crew were to claim “C” Charlie as their own when Knott’s crew had finished their tour. Martin’s wireless operator was Jim Wright, who now runs 166 Squadron Association and is the author of “On Wings of War”, the history of 166 Squadron. This crew completed their tour on “C” Charlie and the aircraft survived the war. [page break] No. 22. 29.11.44. Target DORTMUND. Daylight operation, “C” Charlie. 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus 9000 lbs HE. This was no ordinary operation, 294 Lancasters from 1 Group plus the usual quota of Mosquitoes from 8 Group. At briefing we were told that as Bomber Command had been venturing into Germany and particularly Happy Valley in daylight, and, unlike the Americans, had not been attacked by large numbers of fighters, there was concern that because of our techniques in Bomber Command, each aircraft making its own way to the target in the Bomber stream, we might be very vulnerable to fighter attack. We could not possibly adopt the American system of flying in mass formations and do some boffin somewhere had come up with the ‘brilliant’ idea that we should indulge in gaggle flying. No practice, mind, just – this what you do chaps – get on with it.. The idea was that 3 Lancasters would have their tail fins painted bright yellow and would be the leading ‘Vic’ formation. All other aircraft would take off, find another squadron aircraft and formate on it. Each pair would then pack in together behind the leading ‘vic’ and the lead Navigator would do the navigating with the rest of the force following. The route on the flight plan took us across Belgium crossed the Rhine between Duisburg and Dusseldorf then passing Wuppertal and North East into the target area. All went well until we were approaching the Rhine when the lead navigator realised we were two minutes early. It was important not to be early or we would arrive on target before the pathfinders had done their job. The technique for losing two minutes was to do a two minute ‘dog-leg’. When ordered by the lead nav, this involved doing a 45 degrees starboard turn, two minutes flying, 90 degree port turn, 2 minutes flying, 45 degree starboard turn and we were then back on track. [page break] Unfortunately the apex of the dog-leg took us directly over Dusseldorf, a town which was very heavily defended. All the flak in the world came up, especially among the three lead aircraft and suddenly there were Lancs going in all directions. I actually saw a collision between two aircraft which both spiralled earthwards. Once clear of this shambles we found we were now in the lead and so we continued to the target and there being no markers down, apparently due to bad weather, I followed standard instructions and bombed what I could see. We had suffered slight flak damage but nothing to affect “C” Charlies[sic] flying capabilities and we arrived back at base 5 hours 35 mins after take-off. Six Lancasters were lost. This was our one and only experience of ‘gaggle flying’. No. 23. 4.12.44. Target KARLSRUHE. Night operation. “C” Charlie. Bomb load 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus incendiaries. The railway marshalling yards were attacked by 535 aircraft. Marking and bombing were accurate and severe damage was caused. A machine tool factory was also destroyed. 1 Lancaster and 1 Mosquito were lost. No. 24. 6.12.44. Target Synthetic Oil Plants “MERSEBERG LEUNA” Nr. Leipzig. “C” Charlie. Bomb load 1 x 4000 lb Cookie 6000 lbs mixed HE. 475 Lancasters and 12 Mosquitoes were called upon to destroy Germany’s largest synthetic oil plant following numerous ineffective raids by the U.S. Air Force. This was the first major attack on an oil target in Eastern Germany and was some 500 miles from the bomber bases in England. “C” Charlie and crew were detailed to support pathfinder force (We were now considered to be an experienced crew). This meant we were to attack six minutes before main force. Weather conditions were [page break] very poor and marking was scarce and it was thought the attack was not very effective. However, post raid photographs showed that considerable damage had been caused to the synthetic oil plant and it was later revealed that the plant manager reported that the attack put the plant out of action and the second attack on 14.1.45 was not really necessary. 5 Lancasters were lost. No.25. 12.12.44. Target ESSEN. Night attack. “C” Charlie. Bomb load 1 x 4000lb Cookie 10000 lbs HE bombs. This was the last heavy night raid on Essen by 540 aircraft of Bomber Command. Even the Germans paid tribute to the accuracy of the bomb pattern on this raid which was thanks to “OBOE” marking by pathfinder Mosquitoes. 6 Lancasters lost. No. 26. 13.12.44. Target Seamining [?] KATTEGAT. Night operation. “C” Charlie. Bomb load. 6 x 1800 lbs mines. 6 aircraft from 166 Squadron and 6 from 103 Squadron were detailed to lay mines in the Kattegat. This force took off in poor visibility but over the dropping zone the weather was good. On this occasion the mines were to be dropped using the blind bombing technique. I was to use the H2S radar which was a ground mapping radar. The dropping point was a bearing and distance from an identifiable point on the coast which gave a good return on the radar. On reaching the dropping point the pilot had to steer a pre-determined course and I had to release the mines at say, one minute intervals. The H2S screen was photographed so that the intelligence bods back at base could check that the mines had been put down in the right place. In this case – spot on!! We then received a signal from base informing that the weather had [page break] clamped and we were diverted to Lossiemouth. We landed at Lossie having been airborne for 5 hrs 45 mins. At Lossie we were given beds and of course food, with the intention of returning to Kirmington the following morning. The next morning we were given the Ok to return to Kirmington and went out to the aircraft. One engine failed to start and a faulty starter motor was diagnosed. A replacement was to be flown up from Kirmington. There we were dressed in flying kit with no money or toilet requisites and not knowing when the aircraft would be serviceable It certainly would not be today. We managed to secure a bit of cash from accounts and towels, etc from stores. That night Jock and I decided to go out on the town breaking all the rules about being out in public improperly dressed. However we got away with it. On the 17yth. “C” Charlie was serviceable and we were permitted to return to Kirmington. When we joined the circuit we could see Flying Fortresses on our dispersals having been diverted in the day before. The weather was certainly bad in the winter of 44/45.. The Americans crews allowed us to look over their Fortresses and we in turn invited them to look at our Lancaster. Their main interest centred on the Lancaster’s enormous bomb bay compared with their own. 21/12/44/ Seamining BALTIC Night operation. Aircraft AS-H. Bomb load. 5 x 1800 lb mines. This operation was aborted shortly after take-off due to the unserviceability of the H2S which was essential for the accurate laying of the mines. The visibility at base was very poor and we were given permission for one attempt at landing and if unsuccessful we were to divert to Carnaby in Yorkshire which was one of three diversion airfields with very long runways and overshoot facilities. We therefore [page break] jettisoned fuel to reduce the landing weight and made the approach. The airfield controller was firing white Very lights into the air over the end of the runway to guide us. We crept in over trees in Brocklesby Wood, trees which had claimed other Lancasters coming in too low, and made a perfect wheeled landing. It does not bear thinking about what would have happened if the undercarriage had collapsed, we were sitting on top of 9000 lbs of High Explosive. Good work skipper! Did not count as an operation. The Squadron had a stand down at Christmas and on Christmas Day there was much merriment and a fair amount of booze put away and we went to bed a bit the worse for wear. It was therefore a bit upsetting to be got out of bed at 3am on Boxing Day morning, sent for an Ops meal and told to report for briefing at some unearthly hour. So to operation No. 27. No. 27.. 26.12.44. Target “ST-VITH” Daylight operation. Aircraft ‘B’. Bomb load 1 x 4000lb Cookie and 10000lbs HE. “The Battle of the Bulge”, the German offensive in the Ardennes was in progress. A large force from Bomber Command was called upon to support the American 1st. Army trying to stem the German advances in the Ardennes. The attack was concentrated on the town of St. Vith where the Germans were unloading panzers to join the battle. The whole of Lincolnshire was blanketed in fog with ground visibility of only a few yards. After briefing we went out to the aircraft, climbed aboard and waited for the time to start engines. Just before time there were white Very Cartridges fired from the [page break] control tower which indicated the operation was scrubbed. We returned to the mess and were given a new time to go out to the aircraft. Another flying meal. We went out to the aircraft again and had a repeat performance. Third time lucky, we sat in the aircraft and although there was still dense fog, time came to start engines. This time no scrub. A marshall appeared in front of the aircraft with tow torches signalling us to start taxying and we were guided to the end of the runway. A glimmer of a green from the airfield controller and we turned onto the runway, lined up, set the gyro compass and we roared off down the runway at 1.15pm. Airborne and climbing we came out of the fog at about 200 ft and it was just like flying above cloud. We set course according to our flight plan and visibility across France and Belgium was first class. No cloud and snow on the ground. We did not really need navigation aids, I was able to map read all the way to the target. Approaching the target area there were a few anti aircraft shell bursts and it was apparent the Germans had advanced quite a long way. We bombed from 10000ft and the bombing was very concentrated and accurate. In fact it was reported that 80% of the attacking aircraft obtained aiming point photographs. It was now time to concern ourselves with the return to Kirmington. The fog was still there and the only 1 Group airfield open was Binbrook, high up on the Lincolnshire Wolds, which stuck out of the fog like an island. The whole of 1 Group landed at Binbrook. There were Lancasters parked everywhere. Whilst we were in the circuit awaiting our turn to land, I was looking out of the window and noticed a hole in the wing between the two starboard engines. When we had landed and shut down the engines, we went to look at the hole. On top of the wing it was very neat but on the underside there was jagged aluminium hanging down around the hole. Obviously a shell had gone up and passed through the wing on its way down, without exploding. [page break] An airframe fitter looked at the damage and said the aircraft was grounded. This meant that after interrogation we were allowed to return to Kirmington by bus and proceed on leave. Our next operation was not until 5.1.45 but some of us returned early from leave to attend a New Year party in the WAAF mess which was actually situated in Kirmington Village. No.28. 5.1.45. Target HANOVER Night operation. “C” Charlie. Bomb load. 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus incendiaries. 325 Aircraft of Nos. 1 and 5 Groups were briefed for the second of a two pronged attack on Hanover. Nos. 4 and 6 Groups had bombed the target two hours earlier with bomb loads of mainly incendiaries. When we crossed the Dutch coast, the fires could be seem[sic] from at least 100 miles away. Our track took us towards Bremen and was meant to mislead the enemy into believing that was our target. However we did a starboard turn short of Bremen and ran into Hanover from the North. The target was well bombed and rail yards put out of action. I don’t know what we did right but “C” Charlie arrived back at base 4 minutes before anyone else. No. 29. 6.1.45. Seamining. STETTIN Bay. Night operation. Aircraft AS-D. Bomb Load 6 x 1500lb Mines. Knott and crew started their third and final gardening trip (As seamining was known) 48 aircraft of Bomber Command were detailed to plant ‘vegetables’ in the entrance to Stettin Harbour and other local areas. The enemy was able to pick up the force 100 miles North East of Cromer because bad weather condition forced us to fly at 15000 [page break] ft to the target instead of the usual 2000ft,. As a result of this early warning enemy fighters were waiting and the target area was well illuminated by fighter flares. It was believed that the enemy thought this was a major attack on Berlin developing. Knott and crew dropped their vegetables in the allotted area, securing a good H2S photograph and again returned to base first. No. 30. 14.1.45. Target MERSEBERG LEUNA (Again) Night operation. “C” Charlie. Bomb load 1 x 4000 lb Cookie plus 5500 lbs HE. 200 Aircraft attacked this target to finish off the job started on 6th December. A very successful attack. No. 31. 16.1.45. Target Oil refinery ZEITZ Nr. Leipzig. “C” Charlie. Bomb load 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus 6000 lbs GP Bombs. This was the one we had been waiting for, our last operation. We went into briefing and were told by the intelligence officer that although we were being briefed the operation might be cancelled because a large force of Amercan[sic] Fortresses and Liberators had been to the target earlier in the day and a photo recce Mosquito had gone out to photograph the target and assess the results. Before the end of briefing it was confirmed that that[sic] the Americans had missed and our operation was on. At 1720 on the 16th January we took off on this operation. Over the target there were hundreds of searchlights, the markers were in the right place and we completed our bombing run. The target was well ablaze and there were massive explosions. At one point Paddy called out “We’re coned skip” meaning we were caught by searchlights. [page break] It was briefly very light in the cabin but the light was caused, not by searchlights but by the explosions from the target. Of the 328 Lancasters that attacked the target, 10 were lost. When we returned to base all of our ground crew, including one guy who had returned early from leave, were there to welcome us and join in a little celebration. George Knott was awarded an immediate Distinguished Flying Cross, said to be a crew award for completing a tour of operations. All seven of us were posted from Kirmington, on indefinite leave to await our next assignments. Apart from activities in the Officers and Sergeants Messes, and trips into Scunthorpe where the “Oswald” was the central drinking point, the main point of activity was the pub in Kirmington village. The “Marrow Bone & Cleaver” or the “Chopper” as it was known, was the meeting place for all ranks. The pub is now a shrine to the Squadron, there is a memorial in the village, lovingly cared for by the villagers’ and memorial plaques in the terminal building at Humberside Airport. There is also a stained glass window in Kirmington Church. I have mentioned our off base activities but, of course, a lot of time was spent in the Mess and the radio was our main contact with the outside world. I think the most popular program was the AFN (American Forces Network). They had a program which I believe was called the “dufflebag program”. Glen Miller and all the big [inserted in margin] this sentence needs a verb! [/inserted in margin] bands of the day. The song “I’ll walk alone” was very popular and was recorded by several singers. The British one was Anne Shelton, an American whose name escapes me and another American called Lily Ann Carroll (Not sure about the spelling of that name). This girl had a peculiar voice but it had something about it. [page break] Since the war I have not been able to find anyone who ever heard of her but I did hear the record placed on one of the archives programs on BBC, two or three years ago. If anyone knows of Lily Ann Carroll I would love to know. I can’t remember where it was but on one occasion when we were out together as a crew, someone asked what the “B” meant on my brevet. Quick as a flash Paddy jumped in “It means Big Bill Bailey the bastard Bombaimer”. The completion of our tour of operations was of special relief to Gus Leigh, our wireless operator who incidentally had a few weeks earlier had[sic] been commissioned as Pilot Officer. Gus was married and his wife Enid was pregnant and lived in Kent. George our skipper had relatives who lived near Thorne which was quite near to Sandtoft and not really too far from Elsham and Kirmington so it was arranged that Enid would come to stay with George’s relatives and Gus would be able to see her fairly regularly. As we approached the end of our tour you can appreciate the tension. I was to hear later that after we had left Kirmington, Enid had a son and then suffered a massive haemorrhage and died. What irony, a baby that so easily could have been fatherless was now motherless. Before leaving the scene of operations, so to speak, I would like to clear up one or two points. I have often been asked the question, were you frightened? I can only speak for myself and maybe my crew. I don’t think ‘frightened’ was the right word, apprehensive, maybe but except for a very few, I believe all aircrew believed in their own immortality. It was always going to be the other guy who got the chop, never yourself. Had this not been the case then we would never have got into a Lancaster. [page break] Ron Archer used to tell me he thought we were the luckiest crew in Bomber Command. There were, of course, a very few aircrew who lost their nerve and refused to fly. All aircrew were volunteers and could not be compelled to fly but if that became the case then they would be sent LMF (Lack of moral fibre) and would lose their flying badge and be reduced to the ranks. Much has been said and written in recent years about the activities of Bomber Command and in particular our Commander in Chief, “Bomber” Harris. I believed then, and still believe that what was done was right. I did not bomb Dresden, but had I been ordered to do so, I would not have given it a second thought. [page break] Chapter VIII. Lossiemouth. I was at home in Wigston, Leicestershire and my 21st birthday, the 2nd February was fast approaching. Parents and friends were trying to organise a party, meagre rations, permitting. They need not have worried because I received instructions to proceed immediately to 20 OUT Lossiemouth, At 9.30 pm the eve of my birthday I caught a train from South Wigston station to Rugby and then onto a train bound for Scotland. I arrived at Lossiemouth at 11pm and following day. What a way to spend a 21st birthday! The next day having completed arrival procedures I duly reported to the Bombing Leader for duty. At the same time I discovered that George Knott had also been posted to Lossiemouth as a screened pilot. I flew with him ocassionally[sic] when he needed some ballast in the rear turret when doing an air test. The role of 20 OUT was to train Free French Aircrew, again flying Wellingtons and my job was to fly with them on bombing exercises to check that they were using correct procedures. I used to say, “Patter in English please”, which was alright until they got a bit excited and lapsed into French. Bombing took place on Kingston Bombing Range, on the coast East of Lossiemouth. One of my other jobs was to plot the bombs on a chart using co-ordinates given by observers at quadrant points on the [page break] range. These were phoned through to the bomb plotting office. The student bombaimer then came to the office to see the results of his aiming efforts. 10 lb smoke bo9mbs were used for daylight bombing and 10 lb flash bombs for night bombing. In the summer at Lossie, night flying was almost impossible due to the short night in those Northern parts. It was quite common to take off after sunset and then see the sun set again. After a few weeks I was attached from 20 OUT to 91 Group Airbomber instructors school at Moreton in Marsh for 3 weeks before becoming an official instructor. I returned to 20 OUT and shortly afterwards was again sent off on a course, this time to the Bomber Command Analysis School at Worksop. Here I became an alleged expert on the Mark XIV Bomsight.[sic] This was a gyro stabilised bombsight [sic] which was a tactical bombsight [sic] rather than a precision bombsight.[sic] It consisted of a computor[sic] box and a sighting head and obtained information of airspeed, height, temperature and course from aircraft instruments plus one or two manual settings and converted this information into a sighting angle. The only piece of vital information to be added was the wind speed and direction which had to be calculated by the Navigator. The bombaimer was then able to do a bombing run without the necessity of flying straight and level.. It took account of climbing, a shallow dive and banking. The sequence of events when bombing was, when the bomb release (hereafter called the ‘tit’ [)]was pressed several things happened, the bombs started to be released in the order set on the automatic bomb distributor, so that they were dropped in a ‘stick’. The photoflash was released, the camera started to operate and as the bombs reached the point of impact almost immediately beneath the aircraft, the photographs were taken. Having used this equipment for the whole of my tour of operations I can vouch for its performance. The Americans had their much vaunted Norden and Sperry Bombsights [sic] [page break] which were claimed to be very accurate but required the aircraft to maintain a straight and level flight path for an unacceptable time against heavily defended targets. The Mk XIV was so good that the Americans adopted it for their own aircraft and called it the T1 Bombsight. Many T1’s were used by the RAF in lieu of the MkXIV. A matter of production I guess. On my return from Worksop, with glowing reports from my two courses, the Bombing Leader said “OK Flight Sergeant you had better apply for a commission.” This I did and after going through all the procedures was commissioned in the rank of Pilot Officer (198592) on the 5th June, 1945. Of course ‘VE’ Day took place on the 5th May after which it was only a matter of time before the OTU’s were run down and in the case of Lossiemouth this was to be sooner rather than later. The Wellingtons were all flown down to Hawarden in Cheshire for eventual disposal, I must record one tragic incident which happened whilst I was at Lossiemouth. One Sunday morning a Wellington took off on air test and lost an engine on take-off and the pilot was obviously trying to make a crash landing on the beach to the East of Seatown. He didn’t make it and crashed on top of a small block of maisonettes killing most of the inhabitants who were still in bed. A tragic accident! The question now arose as to where next we would all go. We were given the option of being made redundant aircrew, going to another OTU or going back to an operational Squadron. My problem was solved for me, ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, ‘A’ Flight Commander, came into the plotting office and said “I’m going back on ops, I want a bombaimer”. Thus I joined his crew and other instructors made up a full crew with the exception of a flight engineer, all having done a first tour. Johnnie had to revert [page break] from his Squadron Leader rank to Flight Lieutenant. All the other members of the crew were officers. Chapter IX Tiger Force. On the 6th. July we went to 1654 Conversion Unit at Wigsley, were not wanted there and were sent to 1660 Conversion Unit at Swinderby. It was necessary to do a conversion course becaused[sic] Johnnie had done his first tour on Halifaxes and needed to convert to Lancasters. We also picked up a Flight Engineer who was actually a newly trained pilot, who had also done a flight engineers course, there now being a surplus of pilots. He happened to be a lad I knew from my ATC days. We were now part of “Tiger Force” which was 5 Group renamed and we were to fly the Lancasters out to Okinawa to join in the attack on Japan. The Lancasters would shortly be replaced by the new Lincoln bombers which were bigger, more powerful and had a longer range. We commenced our training, for my part I had to familiarise myself with ‘Loran’ which was a long range Gee for use in the Pacific. I did say earlier in the story that I would tell you about my ‘rash’. At Swinderby I had a recurrence and immediately reported sick. The Doc took a look at me and said “Oh! We know what that is, it is oxygen mask dermatitis, when you sweat your skin is allergic to rubber. We will make you a fabric mask. Problem solved. The new mask was not needed, however, [page break] because the war ended and with it my flying career. VJ Day was a wild affair, In the “Halfway House” pub at Swinderby my brand new officer’s cap was filled with beer when I left it on a stool. In a final salute to the mighty Lancaster, Swinderby had an open day to celebrate the end of the war and the Chief Flying Instructor, the second on three, the third on two and finally the fourth on one engine. What an aeroplane! What a pilot! Chapter X The last chapter. There followed a strange period. First to Acaster Malbis, nr York where all redundant Aircrew handed in their flying kit. Then to Blyton, Nr. Gainsborough where we were given a choice of alternative traded. Seldom did anyone get their first choice and I was chosen to become an Equipment Officer and after a brief spell at Wickenby was posted to the Equipment Officers School at RAF Bicester. A four week course and I was meant to be a fully qualified equipment officer. I was posted to Scampton but not needed there and so was posted on to RAF Cosford where I was put in charge of the technical stores. The Chief Equipment Officer was fairly elderly Wing Commander who took me under his wing and kept a fatherly eye on me. The Royal Air Force was beginning to return to peacetime status and Wingco[sic] warned me that it was probably not a good idea to fraternize with my ex Aircrew NCO’s in the “Shrewsbury Arms”. If you must, get on your bikes and go further afield, was his advice. [page break] One Monday morning I was called up to the WingCo’s office to be asked “Where is F/Sgt. Brown (Not his real name) this morning”. “I don’t know sir” I replied. “Well I will tell you” he said. “He is under arrest at Shifnal Police Station” This particular ex Aircrew NCO lived in a village quite near to Cosford and had permission to ‘live out’. It transpired that almost everyone in his village had new curtains made from RAF bunting and quite a few people were wearing RAF or Waaf shoes. I was ordered to do a stock check on my section and for his part he was charged by the Civil Police and at Shifnal Magistrates Court received little more than a slap on the wrist. No doubt his war service stood him in good stead. Because he had been dealt with by the Civil Courts he could not be charged and Court Martialled by the RAF and all that happened was that he was posted away from Cosford and released early into civvie street. At the time, lots of POW’s were passing through Cosford on their way from POW Camps in Europe to their homes. Monthly “Dining In” nights were also resumed in the Officers Mess. Due to officers leaving the station or being demobbed, at every “Dining In” we were “Dining Out” those departing., always ending in a wild party. I remember one night which was extremely boisterous ending with Bar Rugby, footprints on the ceiling, the lot. I had better leave to the imagination how the footprints on the ceiling were achieved. That night I went to bed at about 3 am and when I went in to breakfast the following morning the mess was immaculate. The staff had obviously been up all night cleaning up. On the 4th. November 1946 I received my final posting from Cosford to Headquarters Technical Training Command, at Brampton Nr. Huntingdon to be Unit Equipment [page break] Officer. The Headquarters Unit consisted of a Squadron Leader C.O., a Flight Lieutenant Accountant Officer, a Flight Lt. Equipment Officer and their staffs. I had a hairy old Sergeant Equipment Assistant who I believe was a regular airman and probably looked upon me as not a real Equipment Officer. However, his knowledge and experience were invaluable. I enquired as to the whereabouts of my predecessor to be told that he had already gone having been posted abroad. There was, therefore, no handover of inventories. The next surprise was even greater, I was told that I also had RAF Kimbolton to finish closing down. I took myself to Kimbolton to find a ‘care and maintenance party’ of three airmen and one Waaf. Two were out on the airfield shooting rabbits and the other two were dealing with some paperwork. The entire camp had been almost cleared, barrack equipment to a storage/disposal site, fuel to other sites and/or the homes of the local population. Legend had it that a grand piano from the Sergeants Mess had gone astray. One day a Provost Squadron Leader came into my office and said: “Bailey, I want you to come with me to St. Neots Police Station to identify some rolls of linoleum which they have recovered from a farmer”. We went to St. Neots and a police sergeant showed us several rolls of obvious Air Ministry linoleum standing in a cell. I examined the rolls and could find no AM marks so I told the Provost that I could say the rolls ere exactly similar to AM Lino but I could not positively identify them as AM property. The provost told the police sergeant to give the lino back to the farmer. Heaven only knows how many houses had their floors covered in Air Ministry lino in the Kimbolton area. No doubt this sort of thing was happening all over the country. The politicians were so anxious to get servicemen back into civvies street that establishments were seriously undermanned. When I, a mere Flying Officer, did the final paperwork for RAF Kimbolton I raised a [page break] write off document well in excess of £1 million at 1947 prices and this only involved equipment known to be missing. With regard to Brampton itself, the winter of 46/47 was extremely severe with heavy snowfalls. Even the rail line between Huntingdon and Kettering was blocked. When the snow thawed there was severe flooding. One weekend I went home and returned to Camp on Sunday afternoon to find that the previous night there had been a severe storm with gale force winds and Brampton was a scene of devastation. Trees had been blown down crushing nissen huts. The camp was flooded and the sewage system was completely useless. The following morning I located a stock of portable loos (Thunder boxes so called). A four wheel drive vehicle was despatched through the flood waters surrounding Huntingdon, to RAF Upwood to collect these things. Things gradually returned to something like normal but it was a terrible time. The Officers Mess at Brampton was in the large house in Brampton Park and the Headquarters Staff from the C in C Technical Training Command down, were housed in Offices adjacent to Brampton Grange. There were far more senior officers at Brampton than junior officers because of the very nature of the place. The PMC of the mess was a Group Captain and one day he came to me and said “Bailey, we are going to have a Dining In and I thought it would be nice if we could have some proper RAF crested crockery and cutlery”. I informed the PMC that these items were not on issue whereupon he suggested that I use my initiative. It just so happened that whilst I was a[sic] Cosford I learned that in the Barrack Stores the very things I was being asked to get were in store, having been there throughout the War. I spoke with the Wing Commander, my former boss, who agreed to release a quantity of crockery, etc. I informed the PMC of my success and he arranged for a De Havilland Rapide aircraft from our communications flight at nearby Wyton to take [page break] me to Cosford to collect the two heavy chests of crocks. I am sure the Rapide was overloaded on the flight back to Wyton but the mission was accomplished and the PMC was able to show off his ‘posh’ tableware at the next Dining In. I was shortly to have to make a major decision, the date was fast approaching for my release back into civilian life, I had agreed to serve six months beyond my release date and had made an application for an extended service commission which would have kept me in the Royal Air Force for at least another six years. However my civilian employers became aware that I had done the extra six months and were not amused. I, despite having access to ‘P’ staff at Brampton could not get a decision from Air Ministry and I made the decision to leave the service. On 1st. April, how significant a date, I headed off to Kirkham in Lancashire to collect my demob suit. A very sad day. This is the end of the ‘dream’ but not quite the end of my love affair with the Royal Air Force. But that, as they say, is another story …… [page break] Two photographs in RAF uniform; one in 1942 aged 18 and the other in 1945 aged 21. [page break] 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 Was it all a Dream The memoirs of Wartime Bomb Aimer Bill Bailey Description An account of the resource Bill Bailey's wartime memoirs detailing enlistment, training in UK and Canada and details of each of 31 operations in Bomber Command. After completion of his tour he was transferred to RAF Lossiemouth to train Free French aircrew, after which he was offered a commission. Later he trained for Tiger Force ops at RAF Wigsley and RAF Swinderby. When the Force was cancelled he became an Equipment Officer at RAF Bicester then RAF Cosford, RAF Brampton and RAF Kimbolton. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bill Bailey Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 45 typewritten sheets and two b/w photographs Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Memoir Photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BBaileyJDBaileyJDv1 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 United States Army Air Force Free French Air Force Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Canada Germany Great Britain Norway Poland Atlantic Ocean--English Channel Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea) England--Birmingham England--Devon England--Leicestershire England--Lincolnshire England--London England--Yorkshire France--Domléger-Longvillers France--Calais France--Cap Gris Nez France--Le Havre Germany--Bochum Germany--Cologne Germany--Dortmund Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Essen Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Freiburg im Breisgau Germany--Hannover Germany--Karlsruhe Germany--Leipzig Manitoba--Carberry Netherlands--Domburg Netherlands--Eindhoven New Brunswick--Moncton Norway--Oslo Nova Scotia--Halifax Ontario--Hamilton Ontario--Picton Poland--Szczecin Netherlands--Hague France Ontario New Brunswick Nova Scotia Netherlands Germany--Ruhr (Region) England--Warwickshire Manitoba France--Pas-de-Calais Europe--Ardennes Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sue Smith David Bloomfield Maureen Clarke Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1 Group 103 Squadron 166 Squadron 1660 HCU 1667 HCU 4 Group 5 Group 576 Squadron 8 Group 83 OTU Advanced Flying Unit Air Observers School aircrew Anson B-17 Bolingbroke bomb aimer bombing Bombing and Gunnery School briefing Distinguished Flying Cross flight engineer Gee ground personnel H2S Halifax Halifax Mk 2 Halifax Mk 3 Halifax Mk 5 Heavy Conversion Unit Initial Training Wing intelligence officer lack of moral fibre Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Lincoln Lysander master bomber medical officer memorial mid-air collision military living conditions military service conditions mine laying Mosquito Oboe Operational Training Unit Pathfinders perception of bombing war prisoner of war promotion RAF Acaster Malbis RAF Bicester RAF Binbrook RAF Blyton RAF Brampton RAF Cosford RAF Elsham Wolds RAF Hawarden RAF Hemswell RAF Kimbolton RAF Kirmington RAF Llandwrog RAF Lossiemouth RAF Moreton in the Marsh RAF Paignton RAF Penrhos RAF Peplow RAF Sandtoft RAF Scampton RAF St Athan RAF Swinderby RAF Worksop RAF Wyton Scarecrow searchlight superstition Tiger force training Victory over Japan Day (15 August 1945) Wellington Women’s Auxiliary Air Force https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1568/35500/BFreemanWFreemanWv1.pdf 3f3caa442d86d0abdb3348aa0c6b5c21 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 Freeman, Bill William Freeman W Freeman 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 2016-12-07 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 Freeman, W Description An account of the resource 11 items. The collection concerns Bill Freeman (1806695 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book memoir and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 550 and 300 Squadrons. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Monica Snowball and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document [underlined] 1 [/underlined] 5TH APRIL 1943 SAW ME LEAVE TWICKENHAM to REPORT FOR SERVICE IN THE ROYAL AIR FORCE. MOST OF MY FRIENDS HAD ALREADY BEEN CALLED UP, SO IT WAS A RELIEF TO BE JOINING THEM AT LAST. EVEN SO IT WAS A WRENCH TO BE LEAVING HOME. I MADE MY WAY TO LORDS CRICKET GROUND NEAR REGENTS PARK IN LONDON, UPON REPORTING TOGETHER WITH MANY MORE, WE FILLED IN MASSES OF PAPER WORK & WERE KITTED OUT. FIRST A MASSIVE KIT BAG & EVERYTHING ELSE WAS JUST SHOVED IN. IT WEIGHED A TON. AFTER LUNCH WE WERE PARADED IN SOME SORT OF ORDER & MARCHED TO VICEROY COURT. A RECENTLY BUILT LUXURY BLOCK OF FLATS, WITHOUT ANY LUXURIES. THE FLOORS WERE PLAIN CONCRETE, THE ROOMS CONTAINED 1 BED AND 1 CUPBOARD PER BODY, OF WHICH THERE WERE ABOUT 1 DOZEN PER ROOM. WE WERE INSTRUCTED TO UNPACK OUR KIT, CHECK EVERYTHING FOR SIZE. ANYTHING NOT FITTING WAS TO BE EXCHANGED THE FOLLOWING DAY. PARADE THE FOLLOWING MORNING, IN UNIFORM WAS AT 8 AM, BREAKFAST WAS AT 7 AM BED HAD TO BE MADE UP IN ARMY FASHION, READY FOR OFFICER’S INSPECTION. A DRILL SERGEANT WAS ASSIGNED TO INSTRUCT US AND INFORM US ABOUT WHAT WAS TO BE EXPECTED, THERE WAS ABOUT 20 OF US IN OUR FLIGHT. OUR FIRST DAY WAS TO BE TAKEN UP WITH MEDICAL & INJECTIONS. SO OFF WE WERE MARCHED TO SOMEWHERE NEAR THE ZOO. WE WERE A RAGGED LOT, BUT HAVING DONE TRAINING & DRILL WITH THE HOME GUARD IT WAS EASY FOR ME TO FIT IN. THE MEDICALS & INJECTIONS & LUNCH TOOK ALL MORNING QUITE A FEW OF THE LADS WERE OVERCOME & LAID OUT ON BENCHES. THE SERGEANT WASN’T TOO PLEASED AT THIS, HE [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 2 [/underlined] THAN THE OTHERS, COULD YOU FIND YOUR WAY BACK TO VICEROY COURT?” I SAID “YES SERGEANT” HE SAID “VERY WELL, MARCH THOSE THAT CAN WALK BACK, I WILL HAVE TO GET A WAGON TO TAKE THE OTHER SHOWER BACK”. STAY IN YOUR BILLET UNTIL I COME BACK” I TOLD THE OTHER LADS WHAT WAS GOING ON & THEY ACCEPTED THAT IT WAS BETTER THAN HANGING AROUND FOR A COUPLE OF HOURS. SO OFF WE WENT AND IN 15 MINUTES WERE BACK AT VICEROY COURT. THE LADS WERE GLAD TO LAY ON THEIR BEDS FOR THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON, I MANAGED TO SEE THE SERGEANT IN THE KITCHEN AND SCROUNGED TEA & BISCUITS, WHICH WENT DOWN WELL. THE DRILL SERGEANT WAS QUITE HAPPY ON HIS RETURN TO SEE ALL HIS FLIGHT WAS ACCOUNTED FOR & DISMISSED US UNTIL 8 AM PARADE THE FOLLOWING MORNING, BUT WE HAD TO REMAIN IN QUARTERS, NO TRIPS INTO TOWN. THE FOLLOWING MORNING WAS TAKEN UP WITH CLASSROOM WORK ON AIRFORCE PROCEDURE & WORKING. AFTERNOON FREE TO GET OVER THE EFFECTS OF THE INOCCULATIONS. THE FOLLOWING MORNING WAS TAKEN UP WITH DRILL & MARCHING, AFTER A WHILE THE SERGEANT PULLED ME OUT & TOLD ME TO TAKE OVER. HIS WORDS WERE “LETS SEE JUST WHAT YOU DO KNOW”. SO THE HOME GUARD TRAINING WAS COMING IN USEFUL & ALL WENT WELL. IT WENT SO WELL THAT FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK I WAS GIVEN THE JOB OF DRILLING THE OTHERS WHENEVER THE NEED AROSE. TO MY ASTONISHMENT THE LADS TOOK IT WELL – WE HAD NO TROUBLE. MAINLY BECAUSE AT THE END OF THE DRILL SESSION WE WERE ALWAYS FIRST IN THE QUEUE FOR MEALS. WE WERE POSTED to [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 3 [/underlined] of THE WEEK. BEFOR [sic] WE LEFT, THE DRILL SERGEANT SAID “GOOD LUCK, YOU’VE HAD A GOOD REPORT ON YOUR RECORD, THIS WEEK HAS BEEN AN EASY ONE FOR ME.” BRIDLINGTON OUR BILLET WAS A HOUSE IN RICHMOND ROAD. THE COURSE WORK WAS AIRCRAFT RECOGNITION MORSE CODE SIGNALLING & GENERAL DRILLING ETC. THIS LASTED 6 WEEKS. THOSE THAT PASSED THE TEST WERE POSTED TO BRIDGENORTH IN SHROPSHIRE. HERE WE WERE INSTRUCTED IN THE WORKINGS OF THE FRAZER NASH TURRET & THE BROWNING 303 MACHINE GUN, AIRCRAFT RECOGNITION WAS AGAIN A MUST. ALL WAS CLASSROOM WORK WITH A MAJOR EXAM AT THE END OF A FUTHER [sic] 6 WEEKS, THEN OFF TO STORMY DOWNS IN SOUTH WALES. STORMY DOWNS WAS APTLY NAMED. THE DROME WAS ON THE HILLS CLOSE TO THE SEA & THE AIRCRAFT WERE AVRO ANSONS WITH A GUN TURRET MIDWAY ALONG THE FUSELAGE. THE PILOTS WERE THOSE BEING RESTED AFTER A TOUR OF OPPERATIONS. [sic] ALL OF US CADETS HAD NOT FLOWN BEFOR [sic] & THE PILOTS TOOK GREAT DELIGHT IN THROWING THE AIRCRAFT ABOUT TO SEE IF THEY COULD MAKE US AIRSICK. FORTUNATELY I STOOD UP TO IT PRETTY WELL, AND WHILST FEELING A BIT SQUEEZY AT TIMES, MANAGED TO KEEP THINGS UNDER CONTROL. HERE WE DID AIR TO AIR FIREING [sic] & PRACTICE CINE CAMERA GUNNERY, WITH OTHER AIRCRAFT ATTACKING. HAVING AT LAST GOT THE RUDIMENTS OF WHAT AIR GUNNERY WAS ABOUT, WE WERE EXAMINED & PASSED OUT AS AIR GUNNERS, GIVEN 3 STRIPES & THE RANK OF SERGEANT AND SENT ON 7 DAYS LEAVE. I [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 4 [/underlined] AIR GUNNER, ALL IN A MATTER OF 5 MONTHS OF JOINING. THE LEAVE WENT QUICKLY & I HAD BEEN NOTIFIED THAT I WAS TO REPORT TO HIXON IN STAFFORDSHIRE, TO BE CREWED UP, & SO IT WAS AT THE END OF AUGUST ’43 THAT I WAS TO MEET THE CHAPS I WAS TO FLY WITH. IT WAS A QUEER MEETING. WE STOOD AROUND IN OUR VARIOUS GROUPS WIRELESS OPS, BOMB AIMERS, NAVIGATORS, & AIR GUNNERS THE PILOTS THEN APPROACHED EACH GROUP AND ASKED INDIVIDUALS IF THEY WOULD LIKE TO JOIN HIS CREW. BY THE TIME HE CAME TO THE GUNNERS HE HAD ALREADY GOT THE OTHERS TOGETHER. HIS OPENING LINE AS HE CAME UP TO ME WAS “CREWED UP YET GUNNER?” I LOOKED UP TO SEE A CHAP OF MY OWN AGE, FAIR HAIRED & WITH A BIG SMILE AND A TWINKLE IN HIS EYES, AND A SERGEANTS STRIPES ON HIS ARM. WHY I ASKED MYSELF WAS HE ONLY A SERGEANT. MOST PILOTS WERE OFFICER RANK. I REPLIED THAT I WASN’T CREWED UP, HIS NEXT WORDS WERE OFF PUTTING “HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT BECOMING A HERO & WINNING MEDALS” HE SAID. “NO THANKS” I REPLIED “THE ONLY MEDAL I WANT IS THE LONG SERVICE ONE” HE LAUGHED AND SAID “YOU’LL DO, COME AND MEET THE OTHERS” WITH THAT WE INTRODUCED OURSELVES. THE PILOT WAS RON JONES FROM BRIGHTON. HE HAD BEEN PUT BACK TO SERGEANT PILOT BECAUSE HE HAD UPSET too MANY “BIG WIGS” THE NAVIGATOR WAS ART CRICHE CANADIAN FARMER. THE BOMB AIMER ANOTHER CANADIAN DAVE BREMNER A YOUNG COLLEGE BOY FULL OF FUN THE WIRELESS OPERATOR WAS KEN SMITH, SHORT, TUBBY FROM DEWSBURY & A COMIC. SO [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 5 [/underlined] GET THEMSELVES INTO A TEAM, FOR THE ESSENCE OF A BOMBER CREW WAS EACH TO HAVE THE CONFIDENCE OF THE OTHERS. HIXON WAS AN OPPERATIONAL [sic] TRAINING UNIT. FLYING WELLINGTON TWIN ENGINE BOMBERS, OR WIMPYS AS WE LOVINGLY CALLED THEM. WE FLEW AS A CREW MAINLY. PRACTISING TAKE OFFS & LANDINGS. HIGH & LOW LEVEL BOMBING CROSS COUNTRY NAVIGATIONAL TRIPS OF 4 TO 5 hours AND GUNNERY EXERCISES. I ALSO HAD TO GO ON A SPECIAL GUNNERY COURSE & RECOGNITION COURSE AT THIS TIME MY SHOOTING WAS NOT VERY BRILLIANT, BUT THANKFULLY IMPORVED BEFOR [sic] IT WAS NEEDED. GRADUALLY IN THE WEEKS AHEAD, WE BECAME RELIANT ON EACH OTHER, WE WORKED HARD TO BECOME A TEAM, UNTIL WE ALMOST KNEW WHAT THE OTHERS WERE THINKING. SOCIALLY WE HAD VERY LITTLE CONTACT WITH EACH OTHER, BUT ONCE A WEEK WE HAD A CREW MEAL IN A LOCAL PUB, THE 2 CANADIANS BEING OFFICERS, PAID FOR THE MEAL & THE SERGEANTS PAID FOR THE DRINKS. OUR OTHER CONTACT WAS ONLY DURING FLYING TRAINING, WHICH WE ALL TOOK SERIOUSLY AND IT PAID OFF LATER ON. MY SPARE TIME, MOSTLY EVENINGS WAS SPENT IN STAFFORD, DARTS SNOOKER & DRINKING IN THE LOCALS. I HAD MADE FRIENDS WITH ANOTHER GUNNER NAMED TONY. HE WAS ABOUT THE SAME AGE AS MYSELF. A BLONDE, BLUE EYED, HANDSOME FELLOW. AN ONLY CHILD OF DOTING PARENTS & VERY SHY. I DONT THINK HE HAD EVER HAD A DRINK BEFORE JOINING THE AIRFORCE. MANY TIMES I HAD TO TAKE HIM BACK TO CAMP WORSE FOR WEAR. DURING ONE OF OUR EVENINGS [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 6 [/underlined] GIRL FRIEND, WE USED TO GET THE LORRY TO TAKE US IN TO STAFFORD, THE [sic] INTO THE PUB FOR DRINKING DANCING. HE WOULD GO OFF WITH HIS GIRL & I WOULD PLAY DARTS OR SNOOKER, UNTIL IT WAS TIME TO GO BACK TO CAMP. ALL OUR MATES WOULD PILE INTO THE LORRY, IN VARIOUS STATES OF INEBRIATION ESPECIALLY TONY, TOWARD THE END OF OCTOBER ’43 OUR CREW HAD BEEN ON A CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT OF ABOUT 5 hours AND WERE READY TO LAND, WHEN WE SAW THAT THERE WAS A PLANE ON THE GROUND ON FIRE. WE WERE ALLOWED TO LAND & IN THE FLIGHT OFFICE WERE TOLD THAT THE CREW WAS TONY’S & THAT THEY MANAGED TO GET OUT, EXCEPT TONY IN THE REAR TURRET BEING TONY’S MATE I HAD THE TASK OF COLLECTING HIS PERSONAL BELONGINGS AND PRESENTING THEM TO HIS PARENTS WHEN THEY CAME TO CAMP. I VOWED THEN THAT I WOULD NOT GET INVOLVED IN ANY CLOSE FRIENDSHIP WHILST FLYING AGAIN & NEVER DID. THE EVENING AFTER THE ACCIDENT I WENT INTO STAFFORD, INTO THE PUB WHERE I KNEW HIS GIRL FRIEND WOULD BE. AS SOON AS SHE SAW ME ON MY OWN SHE KNEW THAT SOMETHING HAD HAPPENED. THERE WERE NO TEARS AS I TOLD HER. WE FINNISHED [sic] OUR DRINKS AND SHE JUST SAID “THANKS BILL” & OFF SHE WENT WITH HER CROWD. SHE HAD SEEN IT HAPPEN BEFOR [sic] & NO DOUBT WOULD SEE IT HAPPEN AGAIN, AS WE ALL DID. A WEEK LATER WE HAD OUR LAST FLIGHT AT THE OTU it was TO BE A TRIP OVER SOUTHERN FRANCE. WE WERE LOADED UP WITH [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 7 [/underlined] DETAILING ALL THE NEWS OF THE PROGRESS OF THE WAR. ALSO WE HAD BUNDLES OF FOIL STRIPS WHICH WERE TO BE RELEASED AT A GIVEN TIME AT A GIVEN PLACE, THESE FOIL STRIPS REFLECTED THE SIGNALS OF GERMAN RADAR & GAVE THE APPEARANCE OF A HUGE FORMATION OF BOMBERS, IT ACTED AS A DECOY & DREW FIGHTER AIRCRAFT AWAY FROM THE TRUE BOMBER FORCE. WE ACCOMPLISHED THIS MISSION WITHOUT MISHAP & WERE THRILLED THAT AT LAST WE HAD BEEN PART OF A RAID. THEN IT WAS A 14 DAY LEAVE. IT WAS DURING THIS LEAVE THAT I CELEBRATED MY 21ST BIRTHDAY ALBEIT, A LITTLE EARLY, BUT AFTER FLYING IT SEEMED QUEER NOT TO HEAR THE ROAR OF AIRCRAFT ENGINES. ALSO THE FLYING ROUTINE WAS MISSING, SO WHILST IN [sic] WAS NICE TO BE HOME WITH THE FAMILY I WAS NOT SORRY TO BE GOING BACK. THERE WAS MORE TRAINING TO BE DONE & I HAD TO GO FOR A WEEKS GUNNERY COURSE TO BINBROOK. THIS WAS AN AUSTRALIAN BOMBER STATION, VERY OPPERATIONAL [sic] & THEIR LOSSES WERE HIGH. THE FIRST PERSON THAT I MET AT BINBROOK WAS A CHAP I HAD DONE MY INITIAL TRAINING WITH AT STORMY DOWNS. A WELSHMAN FROM TREDEGAR & AN EX POLICEMAN NAMED VICTOR JONES. VIC & I HAD BEEN PUT FORWARD FOR OFFICER SELECTION AS WE HAD TOPPED THE COURSE TABLES. THERE WAS ONE OFFICER PLACE PER COURSE. I WAS NOT OVERKEEN & THOUGHT THAT ONLY 5 MONTHS DID NOT JUSTIFY BEING MADE AN OFFICER. THE BENEFITS [sic] OF BEING AN [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 8 [/underlined] WHEN SHOT DOWN YOU WOULD BE ENTITLED TO BETTER TREATMENT. VIC GOT THE OFFICERSHIP, MUCH TO MY RELIEF. AFTER THE DAY’S GUNNERY PRACTICE, I USED TO MEET UP WITH VIC, BORROW HIS SPARE UNIFORM & WE WOULD HAVE A DRINK OR TWO IN THE OFFICERS MESS, WHICH WAS VERY ENJOYABLE. AFTER A WEEK I LEFT BINBROOK THANKFULLY MY SHOOTING HAD IMPROVED & I WAS MORE CONFIDENT IN MY JOB. SADLY I HEARD A FEW MONTHS LATER THAT VIC HAD BEEN SHOT DOWN I REJOINED MY CREW AT BLYTON 1662 CONVESION [sic] UNIT. WE WERE TO FLY HALIFAXES. ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS AND CONTRARY AIRCRAFT AND SO EASY FOR INEXPERIENCED PILOTS TO CRASH. HOWEVER, RON, OUR PILOT MASTERED THE BRUTE & WE COMPLETED 10 DAYS THERE. DURING THIS TIME OUR CREW INCREASED BY 2. THE FLIGHT ENGINEER CALLED GEORGE, I NEVER DID KNOW HIS SURNAME. HE WAS A LONDONER & HAD WON HIMSELF THE GEORGE CROSS MEDAL FOR HIS PART IN THE BLITZ. OUR PILOT TOOK AN INSTANT DISLIKE TO HIM & ALWAYS FELT THAT GEORGE WAS ONLY WAITING TO WIN MORE MEDALS, WHICH WAS AGAINST OUR CREWS WAY OF THINKING. WE ALWAYS SAID THAT OUR JOB WAS TO REACH THE TARGET DROP THE BOMBS & GET HOME IN ONE PIECE. HOWEVER GEORGE WAS GOOD AT HIS JOB & WAS NEVER GIVEN THE CHANCE TO PLAY THE HERO. – MUCH TO HIS DISGUST - . THE OTHER MEMBER WAS THE MID-UPPER GUNNER JOHNNY JOHNSON, SHORT & [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 9 [/underlined] HIMSELF TO HIMSELF & CAME FROM NORTHAMPTON OUR ORIGINAL 5 NEVER REALLY GOT USED TO BECOMING 7. BUT WE ALL DID OUR JOBS AND MADE A DECENT CREW. WE TRANSFERED [sic] (MUCH TO OUR RELIEF) to LANCASTERS AT HEMSWELL FOR A WEEK AT ELSHAM WOLDS AFTER A COUPLE OF FLIGHTS IT WAS FINALLY ONTO 550 SQUADRON AT NORTH KILLINGHOLME NEAR GRIMSBY, OUR FIRST TASTE OF OPPERATIONAL [sic] LIFE. IT WAS NOW MARCH 1944. KILLINGHOLME KILLINGHOLME [sic] HAD ONLY JUST OPENED UP IN JAN 44 & THE FACILITIES WERE VERY SPARTAN & WE HAD TO ROUGH IT FOR SOME TIME. SLEEPING ACCOMODATION [sic] WAS A NISSEN HUT, STRAW MATTRESSES ON IRON BEDS & TWO COKE STOVES FOR HEATING, BUT AS THE C/O SAID “YOU’LL BE PLENTY WARM ENOUGH, FLYING.” WE SETTLED IN WELL TO SQUADRON LIFE. WE STILL HAD TO TRAIN DURING THE DAY. WE WORKED WELL TOGETHER & DEVISED A SYSTEM SO THAT WE WERE AS EFFICIENT AS WE COULD BE. THEN ON THE 10TH APRIL 1944 OUR PILOTS NAME APPEARED ON THE FLIGHT LIST. THE ROUTINE THEN & IN FUTURE TO BE REPEATED OFTEN, WAS, 10 AM IN THE MORNING, CREW BUS TO THE AIRCRAFT WE WERE TO USE. Q-QUEENIE, EACH OF US CHECKED & RECHECKED HIS PART. THE ENGINES WERE RUN UP & THE PILOT CHECKED EACH ENGINE SEPERATELY. [sic] ANYTHING HE DIDN’T LIKE WAS ATTENDED TO & CHECKED AGAIN THE WIRELESS OP. CHECKED HIS EQUIPMENT. WE [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 10 [/underlined] HAD TO CHECK MY GUNS WERE IN WORKING ORDER AMMUNITION RAN SMOOTHLY INTO THE GUN. THE AMMUNITION BELT WAS FOLDED INSIDE THE FUSELAGE & RAN IN TRACKS INTO THE TURRET. COULD NOT AFFORD A JAMMED BULLET, IF NEED AROSE, TO MESS THINGS UP. THE TURRET HAD TO WORK SMOOTHLY THE HYDRAULICS FREE FROM LEAKS & AIRLOCKS THE ELECTRIC HEATING FOR MY FLYING SUIT HAD TO BE WORKING, FROZEN FINGERS AT A CRUSIAL [sic] MOMENT to BE AVOIDED. THE INSIDE PERSPEX WAS CLEANED so THAT VISION WAS CLEAR. EVERYTHING CHECKED & RECHECKED, THEN & ONLY THEN THE PILOT WAS ADVISED THAT EVERYTHING WAS O.K – THE BOOK SIGNED. WE HAD A FIRST CLASS GROUND CREW & RARELY FOUND A FAULT, WHEN WE DID, IT WAS PUT RIGHT. BY FINDING OUT HOW MUCH PETROL WAS BEING PUT IN & THE WEIGHT AND TYPE OF BOMBS WE COULD WORK OUT THE DISTANCE AND TYPE OF TARGET of the opperation. [sic] ALL WAS TO BE REVEALED AT THE BRIEFING ABOUT 2 hours BEFOR [sic] TAKE OFF NO ONE WAS ALLOWED OUT OF CAMP UNTIL TAKE OFF. AT THE BRIEFING it WOULD BE DISCLOSED THE TARGET, THE COURSE to BE SET TIME OF TAKE OFF, TIME OVER TARGET & TIME BACK. WE WERE ISSUED WITH AN ESCAPE KIT IN CASE WE HAD TO BALE OUT & CHOCOLATE & CANNED DRINK FOR THE JOURNEY. ALL RELEVANT INFORMATION WAS GIVEN & DIJESTED. [sic] THE NAVIGATOR THEN HAD TO WORK OUT HIS FLIGHT PLAN. OUR NAVIGATOR WAS SLOW & METHODICAL. I NEVER KNEW HIM TO [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 11 [/underlined] ON, TOO SOON OR TOO LATE MEANT THAT YOU WERE ON YOUR OWN & EASILY PICKED UP BY RADAR, SEARCHLIGHTS or FIGHTERS, SO THEN TO TAKE OFF. OUR TARGET ON THAT FIRST TRIP WAS MARSHALLING YARDS AT AULNOYE. TAKE OFF 23.35 time over TARGET 02.25 WE PILED INTO THE CREW BUS WITH 2 OTHER CREWS & WERE TAKEN OUT TO OUR AIRCRAFT THERE WAS A BIT OF LAUGHING & JOKING & AS EACH CREW LEFT, IT WAS “CHEERIO, SEE YOU AT BREAKFAST”. WHEN OUR AIRCRAFT WAS REACHED, WE ALIGHTED, SAID “CHEERIO” to the GROUND CREW & CLIMBED ABOARD, THE JOKES STOPPED & WE WERE EACH LEFT TO OUR OWN THOUGHTS “HOW WOULD WE COPE UNDER FIRE” WE SHOOK EACH OTHERS HAND, PATTED THE SIDE OF THE AIRCRAFT & MADE OUR WAY TO OUR POSTS. MINE WAS A LONG WALK TO THE REAR, STOWING MY PARACHUTE OUTSIDE THE TURRET I SWUNG MYSELF IN, PLUGGED IN MY ELECTIC [sic] HEATER, CHECKED IT & SWITCHED OFF, RUNNING THROUGH ALL THE CHECKS I REPORTED OVER THE INTERCOM THAT ALL WAS O.K. EACH MEMBER IN TURN REPORTED AND ALL WAS SET. AT THE APPROPRIATE TIME THE ENGINES WERE STARTED & CHOCKS AWAY WE WERE MOVING TO THE END OF THE RUNWAY. GIVING THE THUMBS UP SIGN FROM THE GROUND CREW SERGEANT. ONE PLANE AFTER THE OTHER WERE SIGNALLED OFF & SOON WE WERE AIRBOURNE [sic] & REACHING 20,000 FT [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 12 [/underlined] LIKE A TRAINING EXERCISE. SOON IT WAS OVER THE FRENCH COAST & COURSE SET FOR TARGET TARGET [sic] REACHED SPOT ON TIME. FEW SEARCHLIGHTS AND A BIT OF “ACK-ACK” GUNFIRE. THE BOMB AIMER LINED UP HIS TARGET & GAVE THE PILOT DIRECTIONS. I FELT THE AIRCRAFT RISE AS HE REPORTED “BOMBS GONE SKIPPER” THE PILOT REPLIED “THANK YOU BOMB AIMER, LETS GO HOME” & AS WE PASSED OVER THE TARGET I COULD SEE A SERIES OF EXPLOSIONS, FIRES BURNING & SEARCHLIGHTS TRYING TO PICK US UP, VERY LITTLE “FLACK” SUGGESTING THAT THERE WERE A NUMBER OF NIGHT FIGHTERS ABOUT. I REPORTED THIS TO THE SKIPPER. HE SAID “KEEP YOUR EYES WELL PEELED GUNNERS. THE WORST IS BEHIND US.” WE HAD A QUIET JOURNEY BACK. LANDED. REPORTED IN & WENT TO BREAKFAST. ALL OUR CREWS WERE BACK SAFELY AFTER WHAT WAS A RELATIVELY EASY TRIP. BUT AS ONE OLD CREW SAID IT DOESNT HAPPEN OFTEN, COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS BREAKFAST WAS A GOOD FRY UP AND SUDDENLY I WAS TIRED & SURPRISED TO SEE IT GETTING LIGHTER IT WAS 6 AM THE TRIP HAD TAKEN 5 hours NO REPORTING UNTIL 12 NOON AND SO TO SLEEP. AS IT HAPPENED WE WERE NOT OPPERATIONAL [sic] AGAIN FOR OVER A WEEK, BUT THERE WAS NO SLACKING, WE STILL HAD TO PRACTICE AND WERE ALWAYS KEPT INFORMED OF DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES BEING USED. IF WE WEREN’T REQUIRED FOR FLYING WE COULD GO INTO GRIMSBY FOR CINEMA, PUBS & ENTERTAIN [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 13 [/underlined] WHICH WAS USED BY THE RAF, AND NICKNAMED THE “MUCKY DUCK,” NOISEY & SMOKEY. IT WAS THERE THAT I FIRST MET UP WITH THE “YANKS”. WE GOT ON REASONABLY WELL ONCE WE WERE USED TO THEIR WAYS, BUT COULD NEVER UNDERSTAND WHY THE WHITES WOULD INSIST ON BLACKS BEING FORCED TO DRINK ELSE WHERE, AND ANY TROUBLE USUALLY AROSE BETWEEN THE TWO. BACK IN CAMP WE KEPT LOOKING AT THE OPPERATIONS [sic] BOARD AND AT LAST ON THE 18TH APRIL WE WERE DETAILED. OUR ROUTINE CHECKS OF THE AIRCRAFT WERE DONE AND ABOUT 8 pm WE HAD BRIEFING. THE TARGET WAS ROUEN. THE DOCKS & MARSHALLING YARDS. AGAIN EVERY THING WENT WELL. WE STAYED OUT OF TROUBLE, DID THE JOB AND CAME BACK TO BASE. TWO NIGHTS LATER WE WERE FLYING AGAIN, THIS TIME TO COLOGNE IN THE RHUR. THE HOT SPOT OF GERMANY. THE LARGE MUNITIONS FACTORIES OF KRUPPS & STEEL WORKS WERE ALL ALLONG [sic] THE RHUR. WELL DEFENDED. THIS TIME IT WAS NO JOY RIDE. WE SAW IT ALL. SEARCHLIGHTS “FLACK” AND THE AIRCRAFT TOSSED ABOUT BY NEAR SHELL BURSTS. NO DAMAGE TO WORRY ABOUT. WE SAW OTHER AIRCRAFT BEING ATTACKED BY NIGHT FIGHTERS & GO DOWN IN FLAMES. THE TARGET WAS ONE MASS OF FIRES & BOMB BURSTS. IT SEEMED ENDLESS. BUT EVENTUALLY WE WERE THROUGH, BOMBS DROPPED & TARGET BEHIND US. THE SKIPPER CHECKED EVERY ONE WAS O.K. APPOLOGISED [sic] FOR THE BUMPY RIDE & SAID “I’LL BUY YOU ALL A BEER WHEN WE GET BACK”[missing words] [page break] [underlined] 14 [/underlined] A COUPLE OF SCARES FROM NIGHT FIGHTERS, BUT MANAGED TO EVADE THEM AND LOSE OURSELVES INTO THE DARK NIGHT SKY. THE C/O HAD BEEN RIGHT, IT HAD BEEN PRETTY WARM FLYING NO NEED FOR COKE FIRES. TWO NIGHTS LATER WE WERE IN THE RHUR AGAIN TO DUSSELDORF. MUCH THE SAME HAPPENED, BUT WE RETURNED O.K. NO DAMAGE. THEN KARLSRUHE A COUPLE OF NIGHTS LATER, WE HAD A BIT OF DAMAGE, BUT MADE IT HOME, BUT THAT WAS A LONG TRIP AND TOOK 6 1/2 hours. MOST OF IT TRYING TO KEEP OUT OF TROUBLE, WE HAD TO PICK UP ANOTHER AIRCRAFT FOR OUR NEXT FLIGHT TO ESSEN ON THE 26TH APRIL. BY NOW WE HAD EXPERIENCED IT ALL. EVERYTHING THAT COULD HAPPEN AND THOUGHT WE WERE BEING LUCKY TO GET AWAY WITH IT. WE HAD DEVELOPED A GOOD WORKING SYSTEM BETWEEN US GUNNERS WHICH KEPT US OUT OF THE WORST OF IT. THE REST OF THE CREW ALWAYS CAME AND SAID THANKS ON LANDING GEORGE WOULD HAVE PREFERED MORE ACTION. ON THE 27TH WE WERE BRIEFED FOR FRIEDRICHAFEN AFTER ABOUT 30 MINUTES ONE ENGINE BEGAN SIEZING UP AND HAD TO BE CUT, THE SKIPPER SAID WE WOULD HAVE TO GO BACK. GEORGE WANTED TO CARRY ON ON [sic] THREE ENGINES BUT RON WAS AGAINST IT & TO GEORGES DISGUST TURNED THE PLANE ROUND AND HEADED HOME. RON RADIOD [sic] BASE & WAS TOLD TO JETTISON THE BOMB LOAD OVER THE NORTH SEA. THIS WAS DONE AND WE [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 15 [/underlined] ENGINE WAS PLAYING UP, SO IT WAS A RELIEF TO PUT FOOT ON LAND. ON THE 30TH APRIL WE WERE BRIEFED FOR A TRIP TO MAINTENON MARSHALLING YARDS IN FRANCE THIS TIME A NEW TECHNIQUE WAS TO BE USED. WE WERE INSTRUCTED TO ARRIVE AT THE TARGET AREA AT A GIVEN TIME. TARGET INDICATORS WERE BEING DROPPED (YELLOW FLARES) AND WE WERE TO CIRCLE UNTIL ORDERED TO OUR SPECIAL TARGET (GREEN FLARES) OTHER AIRCRAFT WERE GIVEN (BLUE FLARES OR RED FLARES TO BOMB ON. EVERYTHING WENT ACCORDING TO PLAN AND THIS WAS THE BEGINING [sic] ON THE PATHFINDER TECHNIQUE AND PROVED A GREAT SUCCESS FOR PINPOINT BOMBING. THE AIRCRAFT USED WERE THE MOSQUITO’S WITH A 2 MAN CREW THEY WERE FANTASTIC. THERE WAS, HOWEVER, TO BE A SERIOUS SET BACK A FEW DAYS LATER A PERIOD OF FULL MOON HAD JUST BEGUN, AND USUALLY THAT MEANT A STAND DOWN. WE WERE THEREFOR [sic] SUPRISED [sic] ON THE 3RD MAY TO SEE THE ROSTA UP FOR EVENING OPS. AND OUR CREW DETAILED. WE DID OUR USUAL CHECKS IN THE MORNING. EVERYTHING O.K AND THEN BRIEFING ABOUT 8 PM. WE WERE INFORMED THAT THE TARGET WAS MAILLY-LE-CAMP IN FRANCE JUST SOUTH OF PARIS. THIS WAS A GERMAN PANZER TANK TRAINING CAMP AND WITH THE IMPENDING INVASION WAS BETTER DESTROYED. THERE WAS TO BE TWO TARGETS. WITH OUR NEIGHBOUGHS, [sic] GROUP 5 TAKING THE FIRST. OUR GROUP [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 16 [/underlined] TO DROP TARGET INDICATORS AND EACH GROUP TOLD WHEN TO ATTACK AND WHAT COLOUR FLARE TO BOMB ON. GROUP 5 ARRIVED AND CIRCLED ON YELLOW MARKERS UNTIL GIVEN THE ORDER TO BOMB. THIS THEY DID SUCCESSFULLY. GROUP I (OUR GROUP) ARRIVED, SOME A LITTLE EARLY AND WERE INSTRUCTED TO CIRCLE OVER THE YELLOW MARKERS UNTIL GIVEN THE ORDER TO BOMB. IN THE MEANWHILE GERMAN FIGHTERS HAD ARRIVED AND GIVEN BRIGHT MOONLIGHT AND LANCASTERS FLYING AROUND IN CIRCLES, HAD EASY PREY. THE PATHFINDERS ORDERED THE PLANES TO KEEP THEIR POSITION AND THE AIR WAS BLUE WITH PILOTS REMONSTRATING, IT WAS PANDEMONIUM. OUR PLANE WAS APPROACHING THE AREA AT THE CORRECT TIME AND THE PILOT DECIDED TO CIRCLE SOME WAY AWAY FROM THE ACTION UNTIL WE HAD THE ORDER TO BOMB ON THE RED FLARE. THIS WAS ACCOMPLISHED WITH DUE HASTE AND ACCURACY. ONCE THROUGH THE TARGET WE WERE CONTINUALLY HARRASSED BY GERMAN FIGHTERS. ONE IN PARTICULAR CAME FROM AFAR AND I COULD SEE HIS TRACER BULLETS GOING OVER THE TOP OF US. AS HE GOT WITHIN RANGE I OPENED FIRE AND HE PEELED OFF. I KNOW SOME OF MY SHOT HIT HIM. HE WHEELED ROUND AND CAME IN AGAIN, WELL OUT OF MY RANGE. BUT AGAIN HIS TRACERS WERE HIGH AND I SAT THERE FULLY EXPECTING TO GET THE FULL IMPACT. OUR PILOT WAS TWISTING AND TURNING [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 17 [/underlined] SUDDENLY HIS FIRING CEASED AND ROUND HE WENT AGAIN. THIS TIME HE JUST SAT OUT OF RANGE, WAGGLED HIS WINGS AND FLEW OFF. – WHY? – EITHER HE HAD RUN OUT OF AMMUNITION, OR HIS GUNS HAD JAMMED, EITHER WAY, IT WAS A RELIEF AND I SAID A FEW WORDS OF THANKS TO OUR GARDIAN [sic] ANGEL WE HAD OTHER ENCOUNTERS AFTER THAT BUT ARRIVED BACK WITH ONLY A FEW GASHES. ALL OUR OTHER CREWS ARRIVED BACK TO BASE AS WELL, AND HAD FARED [sic] IN THE SAME MANNER. OUR GROUPS LOSSES WERE 28 AIRCRAFT AND GROUP 5 LOST 14. WE WERE LUCKY BUT NONE OF US WOULD EVER EXPERIENCE ANYTHING LIKE IT AGAIN – OR FORGET IT – THE PATHFINDERS NEVER AGAIN MADE SUCH A MESS OF THINGS AND WENT ON TO BECOME A GREAT SUCCESS. THERE WAS A STORY THAT WENT AROUND SOME TIME AFTER. THE SPECIAL DUTIES FLIGHT AT BINBROOK UNDER COMMAND OF SQUADRON LEADER BILL BREAKSPEAR HAD BEEN AGAINST THE RAID BECAUSE OF THE BRIGHT MOON AND CLEAR SKY AND HAD SAID SO TO HARRIS, BUT HAD BEEN OVER RULED. AT THEIR NEXT MEETING BREAKSPEAR STORMED OUT OF THE ROOM WITHOUT SALUTING, HARRIS CALLED HIM BACK AND SAID “DON’T YOU SALUTE AIR CHIEF MARSHALLS” BREAKSPEAR REPLIED “NOT STUPID ONES – SIR,” HARRIS WAS NOT NAMED THE BUTCHER FOR NOTHING AND APPEARED NOT TO CARE ABOUT LOSSES OF MEN. AFTER MAILLY WE HAD A REST FOR A [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 18 [/underlined] WHICH BY NOW WAS BECOMING A WAY OF LIFE RENNES (FRANCE) DIEPPE (FRANCE) ORLEANS (FRANCE DORTMUND, AACHEN (GERMANY) TWICE ACHERES (FRANCE THIS WAS ON THE 6TH JUNE (D. DAY). WE TOOK OFF JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT AND RETURNED 5 1/2 hrs LATER TO BE TOLD THAT BRITISH & ALLIED TROOPS HAD MADE A SUCCESSFUL LANDING IN FRANCE. ALL OPERATIONS AFTER THAT WERE TO FULLY SUPPORT GROUND TROOPS FLEURS [Flers] (FRANCE) ON THE 9TH ACHERES (FRANCE) 10TH THEN ON THE 13TH JUNE CAME THE SHOCK. WE WERE TO BE POSTED TO 300 (POLISH) SQUADRON TOGETHER WITH 5 OTHER EXPERIENCED CREWS IT SEEMED THAT 300 SQUADRON WERE LOSING A LOT OF AIRCRAFT AND WAS UNDER STRENGTH NO ONE WANTED TO LEAVE KILLINGHOLME WE HAD BUILT UP A GOOD REPUTATION LOSSES WERE LOW MISSIONS WERE ACCOMPLISHED AND WEIGHT OF BOMBS PER AIRCRAFT WERE THE HIGHEST IN THE GROUP. HOWEVER, ORDERS WERE ORDERS AND WITH MUCH MISGIVINGS WE WENT TO FALDINGWORTH NEAR LINCOLN. WE ARRIVED AND WERE SHOWN OUR QUARTERS, SAME NISSEN HUTS SAME TYPE OF BEDS NO OTHER COMFORTS THEN TAKEN TO THE MESS FOR A MEAL. TO PUT IT MILDLY POLISH FOOD HAD LITTLE ATTRACTION FOR US AND WE SETTLED FOR A GOOD FRY UP OF EGGS AND BACON. WE MANAGED TO INSIST ON AN ENGLISH MENUE. [sic] THE AIRCRAFT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO FLY WERE A DISGRACE AND FALLING TO PIECES [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 19 [/underlined] to FLY THEM AND OUR C/O BACKED US UP. WITHIN 2 DAYS WE HAD NEW LANCASTERS DELIVERED AND ON THE 14TH DID OUR FIRST OPERATION FOR 300 SQUADRON TO LE HAVRE. THE STATE OF THE OTHER AIRCRAFT THE POLES WERE FLYING GAVE US A GOOD IDEA WHY THEIR LOSSES WERE SO HIGH. BUT WITH OUR SUPPORT THINGS WERE TO CHANGE AND NEW AIRCRAFT ARRIVED ALMOST DAILY. THE POLES WERE A FRIENDLY LOT. VERY QUICK TO BUY A DRINK FOR THEIR ENGLISH FRIENDS, WE HAD BEEN WARNED NOT TO DISCUSS POLITICS, AS PART OF POLAND HAD BEEN HANDED OVER TO RUSSIA IN A DEAL BETWEEN ROOSEVELT CHURCHILL & STALIN. WE SETTLED IN VERY UNEASILY TO OUR NEW SQUADRON. MORE THOROUGH CHECKS ON EVERY NUT AND BOLT. WE DID OPPERATIONS [sic] TO AULNOYE (FRANCE) RHEIMS (FRANCE) AT THIS TIME LONDON WAS BEGINING [sic] TO GET ROCKET ATTACKS AND WE WERE SENT OUT WITH PATHFINDERS MARKING TARGETS, TO THE ROCKET SITES, THESE WERE MAINLY IN WOODLANDS HIDDEN BY TREES AND HEAVILY CAMAFLAGED [sic] WE STARTED DAILIGHT [sic] BOMBING. SOMETHING NEW FOR US. WE WERE USED TO BEING ON OUR OWN, NOT FLYING IN FORMATION. WHICH WAS FOR US, DOWNRIGHT DANGEROUS & DISPENSED WITH RIGHT FROM THE START. THE “YANKS” HAD OUR ADMIRATION FOR THE WAY THEY FLEW IN FORMATION AND IT WAS LAUGHABLE WHEN, AS [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 20 [/underlined] IN PRETTY PATTERNS AND OUR STRAGGLY LOT ALL OVER THE PLACE. IT WAS ABOUT THIS TIME I WAS PROMOTED TO FLIGHT SERGEANT THIS MEANT A LITTLE EXTRA CASH AND WAS MOST WELCOME, AS VERY OFTEN WE HAD TO VISIT A RESTAURANT IN LINCOLN TO GET A DECENT MEAL. I BECAME QUITE A REGULAR CUSTOMER AT MRS HOLDEN’S FOR HER DELICIOUS CHICKEN LUNCH, AFTER WHICH AN EVENING IN THE SARACENS HEAD. OR AS IT WAS AFFECTIONALLY KNOWN “THE SNAKE PIT”. BY NOW THE 2ND FRONT WAS GETTING ESTABLISHED AND WE WERE ATTACKING TARGETS SUCH AS AULNOYE (MARSHALLING YARDS) RHEIMS (TROOP PLACEMENTS) SIRACOURT (ROCKETS) VIERZON (TROOPS) ORLEANS ROCKET LAUNCHERS IN DAYLIGHT, ALMOST EVERY DAY AND NIGHT WE WERE OUT. SOMETIMES RUNNING INTO FIGHTER AIRCRAFT, SOMETIMES HEAVY GUNFIRE BUT WE STEERED CLEAR OF TROUBLE. THEN CAME CAEN ON THE NORMANDY FRONT. THE BRITISH TROOPS WERE BEING HELD UP IN THEIR ADVANCE AND THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR US, WERE TO BOMB A VERY HEAVILY DEFENDED TOWN AND PANZER DIVISION. THE PATHFINDERS WERE TO GO IN FIRST AND DROP THEIR FLARES AND GIVE US INSTRUCTIONS ON WHICH COLOUR TO BOMB WE TOOK OFF AT 8 PM AND STILL VERY LIGHT WE COULD SEE ALL OUR OTHER LANCASTERS MAKING THEIR WAY TO DIFFERENT TARGETS, THERE WOULD BE 20-30 PLANES ON 1 COLOUR FLARE [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 21 [/underlined] WAS STILL LIGHT. OUR USUAL BOMBING HEIGHT WAS 20,000 FT FOR THIS ONE WE STARTED OFF AT 10,000 FT. BUT BECAUSE OF CLOUD HAD TO DECEND UNTIL WE COULD SEE OUR FLARE. BOMBING HAD TO BE SPOT ON BECAUSE OF THE NEARNESS OF BRITISH TROOPS ON THE GROUND. WE COULD SEE THE HOUSES, TROOPS, EVERYTHING – ESPECIALLY OTHER AIRCRAFT CONVERGING ON THE SAME TARGET SOME LOWER SOME HIGHER, THOSE THAT WERE HIGHER WERE OPENING THEIR BOMB BAYS RIGHT OVER HEAD OF US, AND AS I HEARD OUR BOMB AIMER SAY “BOMBS GONE” I COULD SEE ABOUT 3 OTHERS HIGHER, RELEASING THEIRS. I JUST SAT THERE AND PRAYED. THE BOMBS WERE FALLING ONE AFTER THE OTHER AND THANKFULLY MISSED THE TAIL, BY HOW MUCH I DONT KNOW BUT IT LOOKED PRETTY CLOSE. OUR LOSSES DURING THAT TRIP WERE PUT DOWN TO OUR OWN. WE WERE TO DO A COUPLE MORE TRIPS LIKE THAT. ON ONE WE EVEN GOT DOWN TO 1500 FT WHICH WAS VERY, VERY LOW. THEN ON THE 31ST JULY WE WERE TO DO OUR 30TH TRIP AND THE LAST ONE OF OUR FIRST TOUR. THEN ON TO 14 DAYS LEAVE. WE TRIED NOT TO THINK ABOUT IT UNTIL WE HAD OUT FOOT ON ENGLISH SOIL AGAIN, THIS TIME A ROCKET SITE. NO HASSEL. [sic] NO FLACK. NO FIGHTERS ONLY ON THE RETURN DID AN ENGINE PACK IN, AND WE HAD TO LAND AT A DIFFERENT BASE. WE WERE DEBRIEFED, AND WHEN THEY HEARD IT WAS OUR [missing words] [page break] [underlined] 22 [/underlined] THE AIRCREWS CAME OUT. IT WAS ABOUT 3 AM IN THE MORNING. WE HAD A BIT OF A PARTY BUT WE WERE LOOKED UPON LIKE FREAKS THE QUESTIONS WE WERE ASKED, IT WAS ALL A BIT OVERPOWERING. NEXT MORNING WE WERE NOT ALLOWED TO FLY BACK TO BASE THEY SENT A CAR TO TRANSPORT US AND A FRESH CREW TO TAKE OUR PLANE. ON ARRIVAL BACK AT FALDINGWORTH WE WERE DROPPED OFF AT THE C/O’S OFFICE TAKEN IN HAD A SHOT OF WHISKEY WITH HIM, SHOOK HANDS AND TOLD THAT ON THE FOLLOWING DAY WE WERE TO START OUR LEAVE. GET EVERY THING PACKED. THAT EVENING WE MET UP AS A CREW FOR THE LAST TIME. HAD A DRINK OR TWO AND SAID OUR CHEERIO’S. THE FOLLOWING MORNING RON, OUR PILOT & I WENT TO LINCOLN STATION CHANGED TRAINS AT PETERBOROUGH AND HENCE TO LONDON. THERE HE WENT OFF TO BRIGHTON & I TO TWICKENHAM. JOB DONE, - NONE OF US MET UP AGAIN. [page break] TAILENDERS END TALES. [circled 1] IT WAS DURING OCTOBER 43 THAN [sic] OUR PILOT CALLED A CREW MEETING. HIS OPENING WORDS WERE “WE HAVE BEEN TOGETHER LONG ENOUGH, I TAKE IT THAT WE ARE HAPPY WITH THE WAY WE OPPERATE [sic] TOGETHER”. WE ALL AGREED. HE CARRIED ON. “AS I SEE IT. I AM JUST THE DRIVER. ART (NAVIGATOR) GIVES ME THE COURSE. I FLY IT OVER THE TARGET. DAVE (BOMAIMER) [sic] GIVES ME DIRECTIONS. – I FLY IT -. KEN. [deleted] YOU [/deleted] I RELY ON YOU TO GIVE ME CORRECT MESSAGES THAT COME OVER THE RADIO. AND I ACT ON IT. BILL. – AS GUNNER, YOU ARE OUR EYES. ANY TIME YOU SEE WE ARE BEING ATTACKED, YOU GIVE ME DIRECTIONS FOR EVASIVE ACTION. – STRAIGHT AWAY. ALL OF YOU, TELL ME, I WILL FOLLOW YOUR ORDERS WITHOUT QUESTION OR HESITATION. – ANY QUESTIONS NOW.” DURING PRACTICE RON & I EVOLVED A SERIES OF MANOEVERS [sic] FOR EVASIVE ACTION. THAT THEY WORKED WAS ONLY DUE TO THE WAY THE LANCASTER WAS BUILT. [circled 2] ONE NIGHT WHILST ON A TRAINING FLIGHT WE RAN INTO AN ELECTRICAL STORM. LIGHTENING FLASHED AND THE AIRCRAFT WAS TOSSED ABOUT BUT WHAT WAS MOST FRIGHTENING WAS THE WAY SPARKS WERE LEAPING FROM ONE METAL OBJECT TO ANOTHER. RUNNING THE LENGTH OF THE GUN BARRELL AND ALL ROUND THE TURRET I WAS GLAD WHEN WE WERE OUT OF IT. [circled 3] ON SQUADRON THE GROUND CREW WERE FANTASTIC [page break] THE SERGEANT WAS THERE IN THE MORNINGS AND THERE WHEN WE TOOK OFF AT NIGHT. – AND THERE AGAIN ON OUR RETURN, WHEN HE SLEPT I DONT KNOW. BUT THEY WERE DEDICATED TO GIVING US THE BEST SERVICE. [circled 4] OUR SQUADRON BASE AT KILLINGHOLME WAS CLOSE TO THE HUMBER RIVER. THE PORT OF HULL ONE SIDE AND GRIMSBY THE OTHER. VERY OFTEN BOTH PLACES WERE SUBJECTED TO HEAVY BOMBING BY THE GERMAN AIR FORCE. QUITE OFTEN THESE RAIDS CO-INCIDED WITH OUR TAKE OFF TIME, SO THAT BOTH AIRFORCES WERE IN THE AIR OVER GRIMSBY AT THE SAME TIME AND WE WERE OFTEN CAUGHT UP IN OUR OWN SEARCHLIGHTS. WITH THE NEXT GROUP OF SEARCHLIGHTS HOLDING A GERMAN BOMBER IN ITS BEAMS. WE HAD TO SIGNAL IN MORSE TO THE GROUND FOR THEM TO SWITCH OFF. [circled 5] DURING THE TRIP ON AACHEN AT THE END OF MAY, ART, OUR NAVIGATOR ANNOUNCED THAT HE WAS ALWAYS SO BUSY PLOTTING THE NEXT COURSE AFTER THE TARGET, THAT HE HAD NEVER THE CHANCE TO SEE THE TARGET. THE NAVIGATORS CUBBY HOLE WAS ALL SHUT IN BECAUSE HE HAD TO HAVE LIGHT TO WORK BY. ON THIS TRIP HE DECLARED HE WOULD GIVE THE PILOT THE COURSE TO FOLLOW BEFORE HAND. SWITCH HIS LIGHTS OUT AND SEE WHAT WENT ON. THIS HE DID. IT HAPPENED THAT IT WAS A HECTIC NIGHT. AND THE FIREWORK DISPLAY WAS BRILLIANT. WE HEARD ART GASP. [missing words] [page break] I WOULDN’T HAVE COME.” I DONT THINK HE PEEKED OUT AGAIN. [circled 6] 3RD MAY. THE PERIOD OF FULL MOON. WE TOOK OFF CLIMBED THROUGH BILLOWING WHITE CLOUD AT 10,000 FT INTO FULL MOONLIGHT. THE SIGHT WAS BREATHTAKING THE MOON SHONE ON THE CLOUDS LIKE DRIFTS OF SNOW. YOU COULD SEE FOR MILES, LANCASTERS ALL OVER THE SKY. OUR PILOT WAS SO CARRIED AWAY AT THE BEAUTY OF IT, HE FLEW THE AIRCRAFT LIKE A SLEIGH, SKIMMING THE TOPS OF THE CLOUDS AND WHOOPING LIKE A COWBOY. IT WAS INDEED A GRAND SIGHT. PITY IT WAS GOING TO BE SPOILT LATER THAT NIGHT. [circled 7] AFTER WE HAD FINISHED OUR TOUR AND THE CREW HAD GONE OUR DIFFERENT WAYS, I WAS TO BE POSTED TO BRIDGENORTH AS INSTRUCTOR. IT WAS THERE THAT I WAS INFORMED THAT I WAS ELIGIBLE FOR 2 SERVICE MEDALS. THE 1939/45 STAR. AND THE AIRCREW EUROPE STAR AND CLASP. MY THOUGHTS IMMEDIATELY WENT TO GEORGE. HE MUST HAVE LAUGHED HIS SOCKS OFF. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bill Freeman's Service Career Description An account of the resource A detailed account of Bill's time in the RAF, starting with drill at Lords, training at RAF Bridlington and RAF Bridgnorth then RAF Stormy Down. He passed the course and, on return from leave, reported to RAF Hixon for crewing up. He describes training and his social life. He then transferred to RAF Binbrook, followed by RAF Blyton, RAF Hemswell, RAF Elsham Wolds and RAF N Killingholme. He describes individual operations in detail. He and his crew were transferred to RAF Faldingworth where the condition of their aircraft was poor and were quickly replaced with new aircraft. His crew successfully survived their 30 operations, never to meet up again. He concludes his memoir with seven tail-ender tales. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bill Freeman 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. Memoir Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 25 handwritten sheets Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BFreemanWFreemanWv1 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--London England--Brighton England--Dewsbury Canada England--Stafford Wales--Tredegar England--Northampton England--Grimsby France--Rouen Germany--Cologne Germany--Essen Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Karlsruhe Denmark--Frederikshavn France--Maintenon France--Mailly-le-Camp France--Rennes France--Dieppe France--Orléans Germany--Dortmund Germany--Aachen France--Paris England--Lincoln France--Le Havre Poland France--Pas-de-Calais France--Caen France--Vierzon France Germany Denmark France--Reims Germany--Ruhr (Region) England--Northamptonshire England--Yorkshire England--Lincolnshire England--Staffordshire England--Sussex Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending text-based transcription. Under review Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Tricia Marshall Maureen Clarke Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943-04-05 1944-03 1944-04-10 1 Group 1662 HCU 300 Squadron 5 Group 550 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson anti-aircraft fire bomb aimer bombing bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944) bombing of the Le Havre E-boat pens (14/15 June 1944) briefing Churchill, Winston (1874-1965) crewing up entertainment flight engineer George Cross ground crew Halifax Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984) Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster mess military living conditions military service conditions Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy Mosquito navigator Nissen hut Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Operational Training Unit Pathfinders pilot RAF Binbrook RAF Blyton RAF Bridgnorth RAF Bridlington RAF Elsham Wolds RAF Faldingworth RAF Hemswell RAF Hixon RAF North Killingholme RAF Stormy Down searchlight Stalin, Joseph (1878-1953) tactical support for Normandy troops target indicator training Wellington Window wireless operator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2261/40803/EGreyWHGrayDA440515.pdf dcb84aeef14b580762355b80319a8c4e 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 Gray, Donald Arthur Description An account of the resource 57 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Donald Arthur Gray (b. 1922, 1006912 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 460 Squadron. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Catherine Burrows and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021-06-10 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 Gray, DA Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document [crest of The Salvation Army, Australian Comforts Fund and YMCA] Aus421207 F/Sgt. Grey. W.H. R.A.F. Station. Binbrook. Lincoln. 15th May, 1944 Dear Junior, We were very pleased indeed to receive your letter this morning. Sorry I have not written you before this, but now I’ll give you all the 460 news. P/O Cullen is still the same shit house lander – having Knocked an “elson” and wireless equipment off their stands one afternoon. We all had a good leave – Dan came North with me and thoroughly enjoyed himself. Now we’re back on the job. The first day back we were presented with [page break] 2. the new E2. Quite pleased we were. Then some stupid eng doing a Di selected the undercart up instead of flaps. Poor “new” E2 went down with a bang – unfortunately the Queen Mary was in front of the nose and even that was wrecked. Well E2 is a complete write off (Cat A/C) as you can guess we are all broken hearted. Still a new E2 is in its place now – we’ll most probably get it in a fortnights time. Quite a gen kite – I cant mention equipment in a letter. We were out again on Thursday night – place called Hasselt in Belguim. [sic] What a shaky do – the M/G. couldn’t drop flares on the target so told us [page break] [underlined] 3 [/underlined] to return home with them. (bombs) We got to base quite O.K. (2nd kite in) and prepared to land on No. 4 runway. There was no breeze or wind. Well in comes G2, we’re on, we’re off – bash, crash. The bloody thing doesn’t stop. A slight ground loop is necessary – then through the hedge into a ditch and down we come. Thank “god” that 6 tons of bombs didn’t go off. – Quite a mess – knocked two engines out, broke its back and all the rest to make it Cat A/C. Spike finished up over the hedge, but didn’t prang. The poor old engineer (his second trip) was badly shaken up and bruised. We are all O.K. We’ve started Y flying and the [page break] [underlined] 4 [/underlined] boys are getting fed up with it. I’m progressing O.K. with it and have a few clues. We’ve had standown [sic] for three days running (to-day the 3rd). The new flight commander, an Aussie in the RAF, DFC type, is not so bad – rather keen. Spike is leaving very soon. Douglas (ex Blyton) is taking his post and being promoted to Winco. The weather is on the nose, bags of ice etc. The car looks O.K. and we keep the crafty eye on it. Hope you’re back soon as your job is waiting for you. No other engineer for us. Personally, flying with a spare puts the breeze up me as they can never hear Dan on the [page break] 5 intercom. What did you mean by “wounds healing” – did you cop more than one? I can just see you wallying around the station with your wound stripe up. McCleary went on Hasselt the other evening. Remember on the 2nd May we lost 49 on France – well 460 lost 5 crews – 2 of them experienced crews. I’ve worked out the ave. TAS & air miles for Friedrichshaven – want it? No doubt we’ll do a few trips before you get back, but that wont matter much. Sorry to hear your folks weren’t notified – we were told that [page break] [underlined] 6 [/underlined] they were. Dan is going to make enquiries. You will also be pleased to know that from May 1st there are no more 1/3 ops – all full dos. Quite good eh. To-night we are all going into town to celebrate Dan’s commission came through to-day. Your bed is making a grand flat wardrobe for my clothes. Colin want to put one of his scally bags in it. Well slash bottom I’m off – look after yourself and get back here bloody quick. Cheerio, [underlined] Senior [/underlined] P.S. Did I tell you we had a very shaky do over Friedrichshaven the other evening = bags of flak. Sr Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter to Don Gray from Bill Grey Description An account of the resource Don Gray is Junior and Bill Grey, Senior. He has news of 460 Squadron. Their latest aircraft was wrecked after an engineer selected the undercarriage up. They wrecked their new aircraft after an aborted raid on Hasselt. Fortunately the bombs did not explode. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bill Grey Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1944-05-15 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Belgium Germany Belgium--Hasselt Germany--Friedrichshafen Great Britain England--Lincolnshire Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Royal Australian Air Force Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Correspondence Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Six handwritten sheets Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending text-based transcription. Under review Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EGreyWHGrayDA440515 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. 1944-05 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Tricia Marshall 460 Squadron aircrew anti-aircraft fire bombing crash Distinguished Flying Cross flight engineer master bomber pilot RAF Binbrook RAF Blyton target indicator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/348/3517/AWaughmanR150803.mp3 4b20ad44c8f089eeec0544eae42cc539 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/348/3517/PWaughmanR1501.jpg ea7d7d15f3b9f96826258b16ff6e1ae6 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 Waughman, Rusty Russell Reay Waughman Russell R Waughman Russell Waughman R R Waughman R Waughman Description An account of the resource Two oral history interviews with Russell Reay "Rusty" Waughman (1923 - 2023, 1499239 and 171904 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 101 Squadron. 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 2015-04-01 2015-08-03 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 Waughman, R Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document RW: All wrote a little letter and signed it and sent it to the station commander who interviewed us and said, ‘This constitutes mutiny.’ So, with all our explanations of what went on he accepted that the fact that we’d been left off the draft and the corporal [?] corporal from West Kirby was actually charged for taking bribes to take, put people on, take people off drafts and put friends on. So, there we are. There we are. We’ve got no records, no kit, no nothing so we had to start again. So we didn’t do the, so we went and did our IT, initial training, again at Stratford on Avon which was rather nice, very fine. Nice place Stratford. I think I had my first girlfriend at Stratford. She was a very, she was a nice little girl. I often whatever happened to all these creatures looking back on all these times but there we are. We did our initial training again and from there of course we had to learn to start playing with aeroplanes and to start with we had to make sure that we were alright and worth sending overseas. We had to go to Codsall at Wolverhampton and er on a Tiger Moth just go solo. As soon as you got, went solo that was it finished until you were posted overseas and we went, went over to Canada on the Empire Training Scheme on the little ship called The Battery a converted Polish ship which was very comfortable, very nice. Very congested of course. And we landed at St John’s in Canada, down to Moncton which was the holding unit and then we travelled all across Canada on a public train to Calgary and the little aerodrome there was called Dewinton, which was just south of Calgary. We’d been there, back there since and Dewinton is now a suburb of Calgary which is incredible when you think of it. And that was nice and we were learning to fly on Tiger Moths and the Stearman. The Americans, the Boeing people had sent up sixty Stearman to the air force for people to learn to fly on. So we trained on both the Stearman and Tiger Moths and of course having finished the course I was a bit slow learning so I was, I think they were a little concerned about what the state of flying was. I was, I’ve always been a slow learner and I had a wash out check with the CGI on the station who very kindly allowed me to carry on and really from that time I never really looked back. It was really quite remarkable. And for some reason, I don’t know why, looking back I don’t know why they ever asked it but they said, ‘What do you want to become? What do you want to join? Fighter Command or Bomber Command?’ And you can imagine about ninety nine percent of us said Fighter Command so I was sent to Bomber Command which meant going down, back down on to the prairies to Medicine Hat and Moose Jaw learning to fly on the Airspeed Oxford and we had great times there. One thing we learned there which helped us later on in flying experience was the fact that we used to go off on a cross country with two pilots, no navigator, just one acting as pilot and one acting as navigator and switched over halfway through and we saw on a lake, which looked rather nice, we said, ‘Let’s low fly over this lake,’ which we weren’t allowed to do of course, which we did. Little did we know that there were ducks on the lake which rose up and we clattered through these ducks. I ended up with a duck wrapped around my face. We had six duck in the aircraft. Fortunately, they ended up in the engines nacelles, they didn’t damage the engines and of course when we got back we had a right old rocket from the, from the boss but the fact that we got the aircraft back between us and landed they allowed us to carry on. But I had to go to the dentist the next day on camp and the dentist said, ‘Oh you were the bloke who flew that aeroplane.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘We had duck for dinner.’ And then I sat back. And of course that was sort of an experience which helped us much, much later in life, in flying life, which was quite remarkable. And so of course having finished that course you took the little white flash out of your cap which was indicated that you were UT aircrew and took that out and you sewed on your wings in and then, oh, you were a pilot which was quite, which was quite remarkable. And of course you had to get back home so we forgot all about aeroplanes for quite a little while, travelled right back across Canada down to New York where we joined the Queen, Queen Elizabeth to come back home on the Queen Elizabeth and that was, wasn’t in convoy. We just pointed east and set off. It was quite, so new to us. We were so naïve and that was just a wonderful experience except on the Queen Elizabeth there were seventeen thousand others and we had a first class cabin along with eight other people which, you were sleeping in bunks with a chappie’s bottom above you rubbing on your nose, you know. But it was a wonderful experience. Two meals a day and it was wonderful. We lost two people overboard er but the boat didn’t stop they just threw life belts over and, poor souls. But there were Americans, nurses, Americans, Canadians, all coming back, back to the UK. Got back to Gourock up on the Clyde and then of course we had to find somewhere to go and be rehabilitated. We went first of all to Harrogate and then down to Whitley Bay and then back down to Oxford where we had a little rehab course on Oxfords just to get your hand back in again on Oxfords. That was at Kidlington, at Croughton, just outside Oxford. And the course, then of course you had to go to OTU Operational Training Unit and that was an amazing experience when we were flying the Vickers Wellington, the old Wimpy. When we got there of course you had to get a crew. You had a get a five man crew for the Wimpy and the system as I’m sure everybody knows was the fact that they got all the pilots, all the navigators, all the wireless operators a gunner and no engineer at the time and but the, and the navigator and put everybody into this big room and said, ‘Sort yourselves out into crews.’ And they used to go around and say, ‘I haven’t got a navigator. Are you a navigator? Can you fly? Do you want to fly with me?’ and this sort of system is amazing and the system worked. It really was incredible. And my crew had, you had no idea of the background of these people and my crew turned out to be the most wonderful collection of blokes and we flew really as a crew and not just a skipper and bods behind we just, and it worked out wonderfully well. Just to give an idea what they were my bomb aimer up front he was, had a little gypsy existence over in Manchester, a dapper little man, he used to come on operations with a crease in his trousers which was unheard of. My engineer, we had two engineers, I’ll relay about that a little bit when we come to flying. Les, my, I shan’t give his name because it so happened that he couldn’t cope on operations. He was just more or less a young lad working in an office. My navigator Alec, Alec Cowan, he was a real, he was a wonderful navigator, wonderful navigator. He lied about his age to join up. He joined up when he was sixteen and he was operational flying with us at eighteen. We didn’t know at the time. We didn’t find this out until sixty years later which was just as well. We were sitting in the pub at, at Lincoln at our reunion and we were saying, we had just had our eightieth birthdays and we said. ‘Oh we just had our, when’s your eightieth birthday Alec?’ And he said, ‘Well, it’s not for another two years yet.’ So that was the first time we, we found out what he was and he was just really more or less straight from school but he really was a most wonderful navigator. Taffy, a little wireless operator, he was a character. Oh, he was a mad little nut he was. We tried to find out where he was after the war and we discovered that his background was in Aberdare and his uncle had a pub and I think he was helping out in his uncle’s pub and I think he took that up for the rest of his life and I wouldn’t say he was a rebel, he was a wonderful character. His mischief, terribly mischievous bloke and we still keep in touch now. He’s a very, very close friend. A lovely little friend, Taffy. My engineer, I eventually had another engineer. A chap called Curly, Curly Ormerod and he was on the situation where he didn’t fly with his skipper who was shot down and killed and he didn’t fly that night he, because I had to get rid of my first engineer Curly was a spare engineer and he joined us and he was a, worked for the council in Oldham I think it was where he was a trainee engineer and just, only a young lad, he was twenty and my special duty operator because of the special duties he was my special duty operator, he was an Austin apprentice and he wanted to join the air force as a pilot but the waiting list for the pilot training then was quite long and he couldn’t wait that long so he volunteered to join as a gunner. We’ll explain a little more about Ted when we come to what they did in the aeroplane. Tommy, my mid upper gunner, he was a council worker in Rotherham and he was the old man of the crew. He was twenty six. The next one down was twenty. I was twenty at the time which was incredible when you think of our kids at twenty. You know, I’m sure if the same thing happened again now I’m sure the responses from the children, the young youth, would be the same but he was, he was married and he had a bit of leave on the station because his wife produced a baby. So, poor old Tommy, he had rather a tragic death after the war but still that Tommy. And my rear gunner, he was a Canadian. His father, an Englishman who had a funeral service, funeral service which he developed in Vancouver in America and Harry through his father’s English experience although he joined the RCAF he came over and joined the RAF as a Canadian. Again, these lads, you know although these vast different backgrounds we all gelled and we all worked together wonderfully well and what they did with us they kept us alive, you know and it really was wonderful. And I, myself, I couldn’t, I didn’t have any education at all. I went to school but because of my illnesses I went to school to start with at the age of five in Newcastle and then I became desperately ill and I was in bed for six months as a young teenager with TB so I couldn’t take place in sport or anything like that so when they came to doing exams when they did the scholarship in those days I went to school just before I was due to take the scholarship and of course I didn’t pass. So there I was. I was, I couldn’t go to a secondary school so I was sent to what they called a training school for the shipyards and it was a sort of engineering training school where at the age sixteen I started to learn about art and drawing, machine drawing and this sort of thing. It was, I enjoyed the school. It was nice but I had no exam, no exams at the end of it so when I, when I joined up I had no matric, no school cert, no exams at all. So how on earth I was ever passed. The only thing that helped I think when they were testing for the attestation was the fact that I became, I started off on the stage at the Newcastle Rep Theatre for a, for a year a bit while I got a position as a pupil surveyor at an architect surveyors office in Newcastle and there I used to do a lot of surveying work using angles and trade vectors and things which helped in the navigation exams and I think that helped me to pass the attestation exams in London. So there we are. There, you’ve got a crew. But we mentioned Ted, the special duty chap, Ted Manners, but he didn’t join the crew at OTU at all because we only had the five man crew and we didn’t know about, anything about special squadrons then of course and of course having finished at Operational Training Unit on Wimpies we were posted to a Heavy Conversion Unit which was at 1662 Conversion Unit at Blyton and of course with the demand for Lancaster aircraft and operational aircraft they had very few Lancasters available. The ones they had available were really the ones that weren’t fit for operational flying so we started to learn to fly four engine aircraft on Halifaxes, on ‘Halibags.’ A nice aeroplane to fly but not quite as amenable as the Lancaster from our experience later on but that was, that was nice, that was fine and of course on the station, on the same station they had what they called an LFS a Lancaster Finishing School so when we’d gone solo on the Halibag we went on to join this LFS, the Lancaster Finishing School and this was on Lancasters and they were a different aeroplane all together. It was a wonderful experience and experience we never expected to have in my life. But I had a little problem. Although my height was right I’ve got little short legs and when you’ve got twelve, four engines of twelve eighty horsepower all taking off with each engine, each propeller going around with three thousand revs you get a lot of torque, a lot of swing on take-off and with my little short legs I was having a hell of a job keeping these bloody black things straight down the runway on take-off so I was a little bit later finishing my training conversion than my friend Paul [Zaggy] who I’d trained with, been in parallel with for many, many months. And when we finished, when he’d finished his course he was posted to 101 squadron and when my turn came about two or three days later I asked the flight commander, ‘Can I go and join my friend Paul on 101 squadron because we’d been friends for a long, long time?’ And his response was, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘It’s a special duty squadron and we only send the best ones there.’ And I said Oh God that was a bit of a comedown. Anyway, a couple of days later he said, ‘Right, Waughman, 101 squadron. Off you go.’ And I said, ‘Well what’s this special duties thing?’ He said, ‘Oh you’ll find out when you get there.’ He didn’t know actually from what we found out later. And when we got to the squadron the day we arrived on the squadron my friend Paul had been killed the night before. And that, you suddenly begin to realise this is serious stuff, you know and you didn’t really think about it beforehand but then it became realistic. You did a couple of cross countries to get your hand in on the squadron experience and then we were given a special duty operator. An eighth member of the crew who spoke German, a German speaker operator and he was flying, was using this equipment called ABC. This ABC equipment started down on the south of England where there were fifteen stations with very fluent German speaking operators who could talk to the German night fighter controllers and jam their signals to their fighters, instructions to their fighters but it only had a range of a hundred and forty miles so that didn’t cover the deep penetration raids in to eastern Europe. So, Sydney Bufton, one of the air ministry boffins said well let’s put it in an aeroplane so they put, started putting them in. It took about three thousand hours to fit this equipment in to an aeroplane and quite an expense and this was allocated to 100 squadron. Now, 100 squadron were also having H2S which was a ground scanning radar and the power unit on the Lancaster mean you couldn’t cope with the ABC and the H2S so they chose the next squadron down which was 101 squadron. So 101 squadron became the special duty squadron flying this ABC and what they called the stuff on the ground station was called Jostle and it had a code name of Corona. Hence it became the Cigar and it was known as ground Cigar and of course when they got it stuck into an aeroplane it became ABC which was Airborne Cigar and Bufton wrote to the air ministry saying that in future correspondence all reference to Airborne Cigar aircraft will be known as ABC in future correspondence so hence 101 squadron became the ABC of the RAF which is remarkable. What Ted had, he had a little three inch cathode ray tube where he could pick up the frequency of the night fighter controllers and lock a little strobe on these, on these, on his screen, cover that with the aircraft’s, aircraft strobe, lock that on and he’d locked on to the frequency of the German night fighter controller’s instructions to the fighters. Having decided that on another little switch where there was German speaking because there were Poles, Czechs and things, once he’d decided that he pressed another little button which blasted engine noise out on that frequency and jammed the signals. And it was a wigwog noise woooooo oooo oooo and the Germans called that, they had a name for this and it was called dudelsack and I think it’s quite an appropriate little description ‘cause dudelsack means bagpipes. And so we had this ABC equipment which is wonderful stuff and this started operating in September, in ‘43. We didn’t join the squadron until November ‘43 and on the first raid the first, one of the first instructions that the special duty operator received from the German signals was, ‘Achtung. Achtung. English bastards coming.’ And that was one of the first instructions they had but sadly, one of our aircraft on that first raid was shot down and the Germans had the system right from the beginning but even the [telephones] people knew of the system but they couldn’t really work out all the technology of it at all so that was quite the thing. That was one of the things that added to the attrition rate on our squadron, the fact that the German night fighters could home on to our transmissions ‘cause we were using their frequencies so they could home on to us and the ABC aircraft were used on every major bombing raid that went out and the idea was that our aircraft were staggered every ten miles through the whole bomber stream. We acted as a normal bomber aircraft with a reduced bomb load, only slightly, well I suppose so I don’t think it ever happened actually but the equipment weighed something like [six or seven hundred pounds] plus another operator so it knocked our bomb load down a little bit and we had three enormous aerials transmitters on the aircraft. Two on the top and one under the nose and these were nearly seven foot long. It didn’t affect the aerodynamics of the aircraft whatsoever. We didn’t, we wouldn’t have realised they were there and we just there we were and our first raid, when we went off on our first raid my little engineer, there was something strange about him he didn’t seem really with it at all. Anyway, so we found we were getting in a bit of a mess and got in the way so, with experience I think we could have carried on but being so inexperienced we came back, we aborted the trip. So, we were, this was just at the very start in November of the Battle of Berlin and this was a trip to Berlin and the WingCo wasn’t too happy about it, WingCo Alexander. And our next operation a couple of nights later again was to Berlin and Les, my little engineer, nineteen year old, we had an engine on fire, a starboard outer went on fire and he just couldn’t do anything he just sat on the floor and just shiver and shake he couldn’t do anything, couldn’t do any of his work at all and I had to, the graviner button on the Lancaster is down on the right hand side of the instrument panel and I had to half get out of the seat to cover all this lot. He couldn’t do any of the fuel control systems at all. So, anyway when we got back I reported this to the wing commander who said, ‘Well you know I suppose you’ve done the right thing,’ and Les, this, my little engineer left the squadron that day, that afternoon. Whether he was made LMF which they usually do in those days we never did find out but he never should have been because he never refused to fly and this is what happened to a lot of Bomber Command aircrew who were literally shit scared. They really were and that was really a physical thing as well and these lads who knew what the conditions was never, they’d rather face the guns of Germany rather than have the stigma of LMF stamped on their documents and this LMF stamped on their documents followed them wherever they went afterwards and this information is kept by the record office and isn’t being released until 2035 so by that time none of the people will be alive to get any slur on their character. So we lost our little Les and this is when we got Curly who didn’t fly with Les the night he was shot down so we acquired Curly as an engineer. Wonderful character. Again, another great tease at the, he was a nice man though but we gelled as a crew and really in those days you did become slightly insular because you worked as a crew and trained as a crew and you played as a crew and I must admit we, we drank a lot. Eight pints a night wasn’t out of the way you know and this was part of the relaxation system for the, for the air force. Because of this Harris wrote to all station commanders, again we found out this much, much later, only fairly recently, the fact that a directive had been sent to the station commanders saying that no Bomber Command aircrew must be used on station duties unless it affected the running of the station and intimated that the relaxation activities must be condoned. Which, as far as that was concerned, was young lads full of testosterone was beer and women and it sounds a bit crude but the girls and boys on the station were really wonderful. They were really good companions. They knew what the system was and they complied and they were really lovely. We had one little girl who used to look after us in our little hut, in our little nissen hut which was, which was just a corrugated iron nissen hut and she was a little Welsh girl with a little doggie and she was known as the camp bicycle ‘cause everybody rode it, you know and these are the sort of the things that went but it wasn’t pornography it was just an accepted way of release of stress and one of my friends who I knew very well he used to say, ‘Well, thank God for sex. It’s kept me sane.’ And this was just a means of release of stress on the aircraft. And a lot of it did happen in Bomber Command sadly and it caused people to lose their lives which is rather a shame but you know those lads who flew and knowing their condition like that they were really the bravest of the brave, you know. They really were. Wonderful. And it kept Bomber Command going. But LMF, they didn’t have so many LMF. I think there weren’t a huge number cases of LMF but it was a rotten stigma and of course then having been on the on the, on the squadron with our ABC equipment we were involved very much with the German night fighter system and this was organised by a chap called, oh I’ve forgotten what they called him now, I’ll think of it in minute but he organised that the, all of eastern Europe, western Europe would be split in to five boxes. The Kammhuber. Kammhuber, the Kammhuber Line and this in each box each controller had control of their fighter system and they had a couple of systems there where they had, called Wilde Sau and Zahme Sau which is Wild Boar and Tame Boar and with the Wurzburg radar they could direct a fighter in to the bomber stream and nearly always ME109s and they were the Wild Boar who could go and find their own aircraft to attack and the Tame Boar was with Wurzburg and Freya aircraft systems whereby they could direct an aircraft almost on to an individual aircraft which was quite alarming as it turned out. We had experience of that and they developed a system called Lichtenstein whereby you see these aircraft with German aircraft they nearly all the ME109s with an array of aerials around the nose and they could actually home onto an individual aircraft and because of our ABC equipment we were very, very vulnerable. They could home on to the ABC equipment and the H2S and they developed the system called Naxos and SN2 which was very, very effective indeed and they could home directly on to aircraft and counter, counter measures for our broadcast so we had, they had a system where they could home on to our aircraft. We had a system where we would counter measure their counter measures, counter measure their receptions and they developed a [Frensburg] which counter measured our counter measures and we developed counter measures that would counter measured their counter measures and so on and the electronic wall we learned afterwards really was quite terrific but the German night fighter system was, really was very good. And they had with their, with their Wurzburg searchlights, radar controlled searchlights, radar controlled guns they had what they called predicted flak and predicted searchlights and when you were flying along you’d see this characteristic big blue searchlight appear which would wave backwards and forwards and as soon as it picked you up on the radar it flicked on to you and you were flying in their searchlights and all the searchlights roundabout would come on. You’d have perhaps forty, fifty, sixty searchlights flying with you and you were flying in daylight and of course the night fighters used to get in amongst you then but we had systems of flying. We flew the corkscrew pattern which flying a corkscrew pattern more or less like a horizontal corkscrew. It was bloody hard work when you’ve got a fully loaded aircraft. You lost a little bit of height doing it but it was really effective and the sad thing is when gunners, some gunners saw these things and gave instructions like say, ‘Dive starboard go’ and something like this some of the captains said, well, ‘Why?’ And of course by that time it was far too late but this corkscrew pattern did help enormously to evade the things and on the predicted flak it was quite a characteristic burst of flak. They usually put out a box system of flak where they just covered this area completely with anti-aircraft fire and you had to fly through this box of fire but they had this predicted flak whereby they could send up the shell which would burst in the characteristic sort of development and if you saw this behind you, if you were lucky enough, you knew this was predicted flak so, and you knew it’d take forty five seconds for the Germans to reload their guns, fire their shells and for the shell to burst so you turned off forty five degrees, and flew for about forty seconds then turned back ninety degrees and hope the next one burst behind you. This happened to us once and we nearly ended up in the system for twenty five, twenty minutes just doing this evasion all the time. Similarly with the searchlights, the searchlights I caused a bit of hilarity one night when we got back to debriefing saying that we were attacked by searchlights over Hanover but we were in searchlights for nearly half an hour trying to get out of them which, but with these sort of things happened on raids and so of course there we are we are flying on a squadron and it was daily life of being on the squadron. When you woke up in the morning usually late, after breakfast or early after lunch you went up to flights and on the wall you saw a battle order and could see your name on the battle order and all the battle order told you was A) you were flying, the crew you were flying with, the aircraft you were flying in, and the time of briefing, and the time of meal and when you saw that the first thing you did was go and change your underwear which is, which is, it really was. To say that you weren’t fearful, you know, it was very, it was very anxious, became very anxious because you had no idea where you were going. It was just you were on the battle order that night. So we used to go up to flights and check the aircraft, the serviceability of the aircraft, meet the ground crew, wonderful ground crew I had, and there you’d ask what the petrol load was and what the bomb load was and if you had lots of petrol, not so many bombs you knew you were going a long way. Vice versa if you had lots of bombs and not so much petrol you weren’t going so far so you had some idea what the thing was going to, what the raid was going to be about and then at briefing of course, on the wall, we were all in nissen huts by the way, little tin huts, on the wall they had a big map of Europe covered by a map, a curtain and when you all sat down and all got collected together they drew the curtain back and there was the red line which was a tape showing the route to and from the target and if it was a long distance target, Berlin, Munich, these groans used to go up right through the briefing and then you were briefed by the various section leaders, the met officer, the armament officer, navigation officer and there of course then you had to get out to the aircraft so we went in to the crew room, got our kit on and the girls in the parachute section, [collect your] parachute section, they were great. One little girl one day said, ‘Let me have your battle dress.’ And she took my battle dress off, took my wings off and sewed a lucky three penny piece under my wing. And these are the sort of things that went on. Wonderful characters. And you had a locker where you kept your kit in the locker and when you were flying the rear gunner had what they called a Sidcot suit which was an electrically heated suit but the rest of the crew you could really manage with just a thick jumper and battle dress. Some wore some form of overall but the costumes were really quite, quite ordinary. You had flying boots. We had, originally we had the brown fur lined flying boots and after that we had the escape boots, black escape boots, whereby they had a little knife concealed in the boot where you could cut the top off and leave a little, like a pair of shoes when you got shot down. There we are. We’ve got our kit, we’ve got our kit we’ve got to get out the aircraft so the crew buses arrived and we had to get out in to the, in to the aircraft but the atmosphere was quite electric, you know. They had sort of two sort or reactions. Some people were verbose and talked and over talked which was out of characteristic and some were just clammed up and just didn’t talk at all. So, when you got to out to the aircraft you just checked and went around and did a normal flight check for the aircraft, waiting for the signal to taxi out and of course once you got there, once you got in the aircraft there was no outside communication whatsoever ‘cause the Germans could pick up. In fact with their radar system they knew that the raid was going to take place and they knew the height you were going to fly at, they knew the course you were going to fly and the speed you were flying at but they didn’t know where you were going. So, we were waiting at the aircraft for the verilight to tell us to go and taxi out and of course the other little superstitions, you know the old tale of just a bit of luck you wee’d on the tail wheel. The lads used to wee on the tail wheel. We never did of course but er [laughs]. My rear gunner Harry, being stuck at the back he didn’t feel a part of this the bombing lark at all so he used to take a couple of empty beer bottles with him and when we were over the target his contribution to the bombing was to throw out a couple of empty beer bottles. This, this on one occasion when we were waiting to get on the aircraft the station commander, Group Captain King used to come around and just say, ‘Hello lads.’ Wished them all best of luck. Thinking of a man like that knowing, sending all these lads you know that a third of them aren’t going to come back, you know. What went through their mind must be, must be awful. Anyway, when the group captain saw Harry without his beer bottles Harry explained. ‘Oh I haven’t got my bloody beer bottles.’ He said, ‘Right. Get in the car.’ Dashed down to the mess, got a couple of beer bottles and drove him back again so Harry had them. Whether he drank them or threw them out full we never did find out but Harry had his beer bottles. I had a little, I wasn’t superstitious, touch wood but my cousin Mary, I’m very fond of Mary I think our parents were getting a little bit worried but Mary she gave me a silk scarf, a little RAF silk scarf which I wore on every operation I went on and I wore long johns, used to wear the long johns on the flying and I thought well if I change my long johns I’ll, you know, I’ll change my luck. We had two pairs. One for wearing and one for washing. I never had mine washed and I wore the same pair of long johns for thirty operations and the lads used to say, ‘Well you took them off and stood them up in your locker’ and you can imagine the odour on the aircraft with all this sort of thing going on must have been pretty awful. You didn’t notice it at the time. But another thing I had was my dad, one of the talismans for naval people was a caul and the caul is a sack a baby is born in and my dad was given one of these when he, when he first joined, when he started operations in the navy in the First World War and I was on leave just before I was joining the squadron. They knew I was going to go on an operational squadron and I was standing, I was standing by the stove in the kitchen and my dad came up and he wasn’t a very effusive man and he said, ‘Here’s this,’ and he gave me his caul in a little tin box which I’ve still got and that’s over a hundred years old and he said, ‘There you are. Good luck. I love you.’ And that was really a three hankie job, you know. A wonderful little man. But there we are I had my caul and I didn’t take it on operations but it kept me alive and these are the sort of superstitions you had but we weren’t on because of the job we were doing we weren’t allowed to take any sort of document, photographs or anything at all because of the very secret nature of our, with the work we doing. It was treated very, we weren’t allowed to take any photographs on the squadron at all. We did. And everything was kept very, we weren’t allowed to discuss it anywhere outside but A) our aircraft was parked at dispersal, we were W which was far end of dispersal just by a fence and the main road was just outside and I don’t know what guarding they had on the aircraft but anyway part of the secrecy thing was not having to take any documentation. When we got our sandwiches they were wrapped up in newspaper so they had a good, they could have had a good idea what was going on. So there we were, off on operations and operational flying became to start with you were so inexperienced that you didn’t really realise what was going on and the casualty rate in the first five operations was something like forty percent which was as high as that and it really was. It became quite an alarming thing. We didn’t realise at the time. We only found out this many years afterwards. So our squadron were very vulnerable and once we got past the five operations squadrons, five operations you really became quite fatalistic. You just, you were doing a job and accepted what you had to do and you expected you were going to die and it was quite a strange relationship that you had and you had a bit, a little bit of sick humour and I’m sure folk know of the grim reaper, the old skeletal figure with his scythe and with his scythe you got the chop and we used to say, when you were talking, standing by somebody, put your hand on his shoulder and you said, ‘Death put his bony hand on your shoulder and [live] chap I’m coming,’ you know and if you were in the mess and one of your comrades has been killed and gone you used to drink his health and you used to say, ‘Here’s to good old,’ so and so, ‘And here’s the next one to die.’ So this sort of atmosphere existed. Some people had premonitions you know and my mother, my mother was an old witch really she used to have dreams and things and she had a dream one night that things weren’t going to go right and she tried to contact the station to see what was going on and of course she couldn’t because the station was completely isolated and that was a night when we had an awful lot of trouble. But she had this idea. And one of the girls on the squadron one of the little WAAF officers, on the Nuremberg raid, said to her fiancé Jimmy [Batten] Smith she said, ‘You’ll be over the target about ten minutes past midnight.’ She said, ‘Right, I’ll set my alarm clock and I’ll think of you when you’re over the target.’ She woke up about 11 o’clock, half past ten, 11 o’clock and knew something wasn’t right and she switched on her light and listened and couldn’t find anything, anything about it at all and Jimmy, over the target, as soon as he left the target, just at the time, he was shot down and killed so he never got back. There’s another, our Flight Commander, Squadron Leader Robinson he was a wonderful, he had very, very rapid promotion because our previous flight commander was killed and he was promoted from flight lieutenant up to, straight up to squadron leader within a matter of weeks and he became our squadron commander er flight commander. Wonderful little man. And he had a rear gunner who was seconded from the American air force and this American chappie still had his brown overalls and American flying kit and they were in the mess and the lads were playing crib and poker and he, this Jones a chap called Jones, won the, won the kitty and I can see it now a little pile of ten shilling notes which he won which he when he picked it up he said, ‘Shan’t be needing this.’ And gave it all away. That night, on the raid, on the twenty ninth raid they were all killed. So whether they had these sort of premonitions, you know, it was quite remarkable and one of the bomb, when I came off leave one occasion we only had a short, a few days leave the bombing, the armament officer, only a young lad, he looked strange and I said, ‘Are you alright, Geoff?’ And he said, ‘Well, funny thing happened,’ an aircraft had crashed on take-off and hit part of the bomb dump and he jumped in his little wagon to go out and see what he could do out there and when he got on the perimeter track near where the bomb dump was there was a chap waiting and saying, ‘Don’t go down in there. They’re all dead.’ This chap was covered in blood and whatever. He said, ‘Don’t go down in there. They’re all dead.’ But he said, ‘I must.’ So when he went down to see the, what was going on he found the body of the man he’d been talking to on the perimeter track dead in the hut. So, and within a few weeks he was white haired. And these sorts of strange things happened you know it’s a, it’s a, you didn’t realise at the time all the significance of all these things but there we are. One of the things that happened, on one of the early raids when we went and poor old Bomber Harris, he didn’t like the idea at all but they developed what they called the transport plan whereby they were bombing railway martialling yards, [tank?] depots, station er station signal boxes and train stations to stop goods going down for the pre-invasion, for the German pre- invasion and so this was the transport plan and Harris didn’t like this but we went off on one raid to a place called Hasselt which was on the Belgian/German border, railway martialling yards and we got within about ten minutes of the target. This was all at night. This was all night flying of course in cloud, mainly in cloud and my engineer who was looking out the window said a very rude word, something about fornicating in hades and the next thing we knew this other aircraft hit us slap on the side and we just crashed into this, the two aircraft just crashed together and we were, he was slightly underneath us and his propellers cut through our bomb aimer’s compartment, just behind Norman’s feet. He was lying down ready to bomb. His mid upper, his canopy, the other aircraft canopy took off our starboard tyre, his turret, which was sticking up at the top of his aeroplane carved through our fuselage at the back, left a big hole in the back. We lost part of the tale plane. Lost all our electrics. Harry, the rear gunner was knocked unconscious, only temporary and we were a bit of a mess and thereby we, we were sitting, I didn’t see all this going on but the crew saw what was going on and when we hit this aircraft we were literally sitting on top of it and his propellers were churning through our little bits and pieces and we were in a bit of a mess and afterwards I was asked to write a little resume of what happened in the collision just for purely records sake and to give it a title of the most significant thing that happened, you remembered, on the trip and the most significant bit was sitting on top of this other aircraft with no control over your aircraft whatsoever. All the controls were just limp and wobbly. So, nothing. So, I called this the title of this thing, ‘It went limp in my hand,’ which was highly censored. I wasn’t allowed to do that. So this report went through and in consequence we had to do, coming back, we had to do a crash landing. We had Fido on the station and the Fido system was a sort of a little triangular system with the fuel pipe on the top and the gaps of about ten metre gaps within each section and unfortunately our dud wheel skidded between the gap and the thing and the other one bounced over the top of the pipes and just put a little dent in the top and there was a casualty that night sadly. We were skidding towards the control tower in the dark and we were getting very close to the control tower and all the staff on the control or most of the staff on the control tower and the little girls, came out to watch this idiot bend his aeroplane and as we were skidding towards it one of these girls jumped back and sprained her ankle and that was the only casualty that night but there were sort of talks of decorations and things but it never happened so I was very kindly given a green endorsement in my logbook and mentioned in despatches. That’s in the logbook now still but if it had been a red one it would have been an adverse report but a green one was a pat on the back sort of thing so that was, that was quite nice but there of course that aircraft was written off. As far as the squadron it was written off it had to be repaired and rebuilt but we discovered that two main longerons going along the back of the aircraft were badly damaged and had we to have taken evasive action no doubt the aircraft would have broken up and we realised that a lot of damage at the back because we had a big hole in the floor and I told Harry, the rear gunner, I said, ‘Harry, pick up your parachute, come up front just in case anything else happens.’ And he said, ‘No. I’ll stay here and keep a look out.’ And these are the characters that they were. Wonderful characters. And that wasn’t the only thing that Harry did. We went on one long trip and his electrically heated Sidcot suit failed. He never said a peep, never said a word and when we got back seven and a half, eight hours later getting out the aircraft they said. ‘Where’s Harry?’ ‘Oh he must still be there.’ So I popped into the aircraft, opened his door and there he was sitting with an icicle from his face mask as thick as my wrist down between his legs. He couldn’t move and he’d never said a peep he just kept on doing his job. He was in sick quarters for nearly three weeks and that affected him for the rest of his life. And this is what these poor lads got up to. It really was wonderful. I was so lucky with the lads I had as a crew. Wonderful and very conscientious lads. So there we are. We got back and of course the aircraft had to be taken away and we had to get a new aircraft. Our first aircraft was W with the squadron letters were SR and we had a W, W ABC all the way through. We had W, so we had W and there was a song of the day called. “Coming in on a wing and a prayer.” So I thought. ‘Oh lets,’ and there’s a P O Prune character so I painted on the front of the aircraft this P O Prune character with wings and “On a wing and a prayer” coming underneath and of course that was the one that we crash landed. That disappeared. That went. And we get a new aircraft almost immediately. Well, they got another aircraft almost immediately straight from MU and, ‘What are we going to put on the nose. What nose art were we going to have?’ And when we got out of dispersal to see the new aircraft Jock Steadman or Willy Steadman, Willy Steadman our Scottish in charge, NCO in charge of the aircraft he’d already painted on the aircraft Oor Wullie and Oor Wullie was the cartoon character from the Glasgow Sunday Post and that was the aircraft which gets all the publicity now and we did more operations in the other one than we did than we did in this one but they were wonderful aeroplanes to fly. Really, really were. So, anyway, there we are. We’ve got a new aeroplane and another operation we went on was to Hasselt which was another transport plant target whereby 5 group and 1 group were involved. A hundred and seventy three aircraft from each group. We were scattered all the way through the raid, just our squadron, so we were going to Hasselt which was French had been French military base which was the biggest military base in Europe at the time right on the edge of the village of Mailly and we were briefed to bomb very, very strictly. We didn’t want to kill anybody in the village so we had to be very precise, we were told to be very precise with our bombing so, and we were to assemble at a point just north of Mailly called Chalon whereby you waited there to get instructions from the master bomber, Cheshire who was the master bomber to go and bomb. He was really being very precise as well and he wasn’t satisfied with the marking so when the first group of a hundred and seventy three aircraft from 5 group arrived at Chalon, encircling the beacon, circling the area, it wasn’t a beacon as such but circling the area and being, the aircraft being delayed and delayed and delayed this second group caught up with the first group so there was something like nearly four hundred aircraft milling around waiting for instructions to go in and there just happened to be three German night fighter stations handy and they got in amongst us and it really was chaotic. There really were all sorts of awful things going on. The result of the raid was a very successful raid but the loss was over eleven percent. They sent just under four hundred aircraft and we lost forty two but there was only one aircraft crashed in the village where a French man were killed so that was compensation in a way. So when we were circling this beacon the RT discipline disappeared. You weren’t supposed to talk outside because the Germans knew where you were going, where you were coming from but the RT discipline just went that night and a voice came over the air to the pathfinders, ‘Pathfinders. For God’s sake pull your fingers out. I’m on fire. I’m being been shot at.’ And a very broad Australian voice came over the air, ‘If you’re going to die, die like a man.’ And this was the sort of thing that went on. The problem was that the American force [AFM?]were broadcasting on a similar frequency and it was the signals weren’t getting through as well as they ought to but anyway of course, when we got the order to go in and bomb it was just like Derby Day. All these aircraft ploughing down on the target. It was successful but we had a problem. We’d just dropped our bombs and we’d had an aircraft, something rattle us about with an updraft coming up and that. It was a bit rough but we’d just dropped our bombs and Norman, the bomb aimer, lying down in the front, he didn’t have time to say anything he just said, ‘Oh Christ’ and an aircraft blew up underneath us and turned us over. We were upside down and I can say I half rolled a Lanc [laughs]. So there we were, upside down at eight thousand feet and coming out you just couldn’t pull it out like that because the high speed stalled the aircraft so it took us a little while to come out and we were down to about a thousand feet by the time we sorted things out. Going very, very fast way beyond the [all up] speed of a Lancaster. We were doing nearly four hundred miles an hour. Four hundred knots as it was in those days and, but the aircraft just had scorch marks and a little bit of creaky stuff but there we are. Once you got sorted out you checked on the crew. ‘Alright, Harry?’ The rear gunner. ‘Yes skip.’ ‘Alright, Tommy?’ ‘Yes.’ Wireless op. ‘Alright, Taffy?’ And the response I got was, ‘Blood. Blood,’ and I thought, ‘Oh Christ, what’s happened?’ So I pulled the curtain back and there’s Taffy wiping his head and that’s all we knew and, ‘Oh God, what’s happened to Taffy,’ and Taffy, what happens when you’re flying at those, those temperatures, those heights, temperatures, the lowest temperature we had was minus forty seven and you had an elsan at the back of the aircraft which if you went and used that if you sat down on the elsan like that and you left a bit of your behind, behind ‘cause it was like you’d have an ice cube sticking on your fingers. You couldn’t do that so what the lads had they had a large [fuel] tin with the top cut off which they passed around the aircraft as a pee can and this pee can was kept down by the wireless operator which was the warmest place ‘cause it didn’t freeze when it was down there. And Taffy said now you can still see this pee can arriving with negative gravity and tipping all over him. When we were falling, coming out, recovering from the dive which we got in to and of course when you got back there was no question of going to get cleaned up. You had to go straight to be debriefed and of course he wasn’t exactly flavour of, flavour of the month which was, which was poor old Taffy. Still gets his leg pulled unmercifuly about that. CB: I’m going to suggest we have a break. RW: Yes fine. CB: For a moment. So thank you very – [pause] CB: What it’s doing? We’re now recording again. RW: Yeah. CB: I’ve tried to do the playback but that didn’t work so we’re recording again now and I’m just hoping everything’s worked because it’s so good and I’m just looking at the numbers. [pause] CB: Right. So we’ve come to the point where you were inverted. RW: Yeah. Yeah. CB: Would you just like to describe before we go on to other things just how did you get the aircraft upright? RW: Well - CB: Because you can’t turn, roll it. Can you? RW: Well we had to, to a certain extent with being upside down. You just imagine an aircraft being upside down you had to get it the right way up and the only thing you can do is turn it around so while we were plummeting, plummeting downwards and getting rather fast we sort of half rolled the thing out. Sort of almost like a very poor barrel roll that we flew. So, we were upside down and you turned over and came out sort of in that direction so you didn’t do a full roll. It was sort of almost like a half roll like almost like a half missing out the last bit of a barrel roll. CB: Yeah. RW: Coming out but because of the weight it was hard work but you didn’t think of it as hard, you didn’t think of it as work at the time you just sort of had to get out of it. Get it back. CB: Yes, of course. RW: Flying again but, and you just couldn’t pull the stick back and get the aircraft flying again because you could develop what they called a high speed stall cause the wing stalls at fourteen degrees and if you’re mushing down it increases the angle of attack very rapidly and you get what was called a high speed stall so this is where the training came in with these other flying, these little experiences we had in training. So, we just really tried to come, come out as gently as we possibly could. You certainly had to pull back on the stick to get control but trying not to mush it down so you really tried to fly it out which we did in the end, going very, very fast. CB: You say we. Was the engineer helping you? RW: Yes, well all he could do was pull the throttles back or push the throttles forward apart from being spread, spread across the floor. You know, the poor navigators instruments are all over the place. In that respect think of the navigators instruments all over the place my little wireless op oh he was a little terror and my navigator and he were chalk and cheese, vastly different characters and one occasion my navigator asked for a QDM from the wireless operator and Taffy said a very rude word telling him to go away and Alec looked back and found there was Taffy with his radio set, the old 1154 55 bits of the set on the floor trying to repair it and he couldn’t give him a QDM but he said [?] [laughs] so that was the atmosphere but they were a great crew, great crew. But there you are. We pulled ourselves out and we got ourselves out and we got back with having done the crash landing as I say. But the raid that I think affected us more than anything was the Nuremberg raid. The raid on Nuremberg. It was the raid that really should never have happened but we just discovered this afterwards reading books and things the fact that the, the uncertainty in Bomber Command headquarters about whether it should go on or shouldn’t go. CB: It was to do with the fog, wasn’t it? RW: Pardon? CB: It was to do with the fog. RW: Yeah. Yeah, well apparently there was a front coming up over Germany and the idea was that the route was going to be clear and the target was going to be er the route was going to be cloud covered and the target was going to be clear but the movement of the front wasn’t right and of course the, all the route was clear and the cloud over the target and the winds were wrong, all wrong. CB: Oh. RW: And all the hundred odd mile winds and this sort of thing were going on and nearly all in the wrong direction. Even the pathfinders, even the wind finders didn’t get the right places for the right system for the wind and so some of the pathfinders were marking Schweinfurt and different targets and Alec, my navigator, who was insistent on being a very precise little man he got us to the target and we actually flew to the target but by the time we were flying out the operation was delayed. Put back, put back and put back twice. So, we were going to bomb about five past twelve sort of thing like this. And we went off, a little bit in daylight taking off and we got, when we got to the French German border we’d seen sixteen aircraft shot down and to do what you used to do you used to report this to the navigator and he’d log it so they could get a record of where the aircraft went down and when he got to sixteen Alec said, ‘I don’t want to hear any more.’ So, we didn’t tell him anymore but we saw no end of stuff and coming across we were supposed to come south of the Ruhr which we did but a lot of people went straight over the top of the Ruhr and the carnage there. And just on the controversial long leg, what they called the long leg which was from the French from France right across to northern, north of the target, north of Nuremberg there was a two hundred and sixty five mile leg which was unusual ‘cause you usually had diversions and that sort of thing and it just so happened that there were two German night fighter beacons on the route Ider and Otto and it just so happened that their night fighters were assembling at the beacons all at the right time for them. So, there we were, we were ploughing along. We were very, very fortunate. We managed to keep out of trouble. We did have trouble but nothing drastic so we carried on and what we saw over the beacons was quite considerable. Lots of aircraft being shot at. We could see the tracers, German tracers going on, and this was a raid where the Germans first used the system called schragemusik whereby instead of having guns firing directly at the rear gunner they knew that there was no ventral armament on the Lancaster at all so this very astute German chap said, ‘Well, let’s have the guns pointing upwards,’ so they had two 20mm cannons pointing up, about sixty degrees. So, they used to fly underneath you and you knew nothing. You didn’t know they were there at all until the shells started to fly past. We, we were lucky. On one occasion we saw the shells coming upwards to us just on our starboard side so we managed to take evasive action but we didn’t know what it was, we didn’t know why they were coming up that way until many years later when we discovered they had this schragemusik and one German shot down forty two aircraft using that equipment. He did five in one night which was amazing so this added to the attrition rate of the raid at all. We were very, very fortunate. Alec, the navigation was spot on and we passed a target which we saw in the distance Schweinfurt which was being bombed which we didn’t know it was Schweinfurt then but we said, Alec said, ‘That can’t be right.’ So we carried on and actually arrived at Nuremberg which was cloud covered and we just, Norman had just happened to see a break in the little clouds so we bombed there. I think we bombed Nuremberg. We were certainly over Nuremberg. Whether we actually bombed Nuremberg you can’t really say because we couldn’t take a photograph because of the photoflood. It wouldn’t show anything on the photo apart from cloud but there was a massive explosion on our, on our left hand side which apparently somebody had hit a munition train just outside Nuremberg and this had this enormous explosion so we knew something had happened. And of course we had to come back when it was a long leg. There was some fighter activity on the way back but it was such and the lads when they used to go on these raids the lads, I didn’t get involved but the lads used to have a kitty. They put some pennies in this kitty and the ones who guessed the most number of aircraft shot down or most accurate number of aircraft shot down got the kitty and Curly my engineer got it that night because he said a hundred. He estimated a hundred and when we got back for debriefing the intelligence people were very sceptical about the thing. Oh it couldn’t have happened no its near going to happen but when our squadron records came in we sent twenty six aircraft that night and we lost seven which was nearly a third of the squadron that night. Sixty people, you know, all gone that night and it left it was really strange. It was. We were like zombies, you know. We just walked around. Not upset. Just mind blown and we went back we couldn’t sleep. We just walked around until daylight and the squadron didn’t operate for a little while after that. But what happened with the, when we got back used to go for a flying meal when we, when we got back and when we got back to the mess there were no waitresses there at all. All the meals were left on the counter and a little notice on the wall saying, ‘Please help yourselves.’ And all these girls had gone into the restroom and they were crying their eyes out ‘cause of the losses on the squadron. You know, they really felt the effect of that. Moreso than we did in many respects. Norman, my bomb aimer, who was always girl mad for the ladies wanted to go and console them but the WAAF officers said. ‘No. Leave them to it.’ And so we had to help ourselves to the meal and this was the atmospheres they had on the squadrons you know. The thoughts of the people working. When you think of a squadron where you’ve got something like anything a hundred and eighty, two hundred aircrew you’ve got something like two thousand, two and a half thousand ground staff who without them we couldn’t have kept flying, you know. So they, and they don’t get the credit that they justly deserve and our ground crew were wonderful. Little Willy [Severn] and Nobby Burke and they were part of the aircraft, they were part of the aircrew and I kept in touch with them for many, many years until he died just a few years ago at the age of ninety seven. CB: Really. RW: Lived up in Glasgow and Perth, near Perth and when I visited him and his lovely wife Annie he used to sit in his room all by himself just looking out the window and saying, ‘Aye. Och aye. Aye. Och aye,’ and remembering all the things that were going on. We were very, very fortunate on the squadron he was on the squadron for many, many months. He joined the squadron up at Holme on Spalding Moor and he only ever lost two aircraft so we so lucky to be with him. Mind you, we lost an aircraft for him which was, didn’t go down very well. So, but again, again these characters you’d come back with holes and bits missing and they’d be waiting for you when you got back and they’d get these things sorted out and repaired more or less for the, for the next night so, in all sorts of weathers. The, being a dispersed camp we didn’t have any hangars to work in. All the aircraft were stacked outside and, you know, in February ‘44 we had something like three foot of snow and sixteen foot snowdrifts and the station was cut off completely and these lads were working on the aircraft changing plugs, doing servicing on the aircraft. They worked, Willy said they worked in pairs. When one was working and his hands got frozen he went and warmed up. Another chap took over so they were working outside in all these sorts of conditions. CB: There were hangars but they couldn’t put the aircraft in was it? RW: Well, there were hangars when they had major things to do. Engine changes - CB: Right. RW: And these sort of things. They would take them in for major servicing. [Eight star] servicing, for a major servicing but apart from that they were just kept outside in the cold and the wet and in the war it could be anything. CB: I’m going to stop there again because we are going to have a cup of tea. RW: Yeah. CB: Thank you. RW: Oh lovely. [pause] CB: Right, so we’re back on again now. RW: Yeah. CB: And we’re just doing the - RW: You finished the - CB: Rerun of the Mailly but I think it’s useful because I’ve heard this, somebody mentioned before. RW: Yeah. CB: Of the attrition - RW: Yeah. CB: And because of the milling around - RW: Yeah. Yeah. CB: So why was it that the marking was so delayed causing the traffic jam? RW: Well the again Cheshire was a brilliant pilot and a brilliant pathfinder and he was a perfectionist and again, forgive me if I’ve mentioned but the briefing that we had as the ordinary aircrew main force was to be very precise with the bombing because we didn’t want to hit any of the village. The village next door to the target. And he was being the same and he wasn’t satisfied with the markers that were going down and he said, ‘Well, don’t come in. We’re remarking.’ So he was re-marking the target to get in to the correct position for, for the [Mailly] raid and because of this it was delaying. It was, saying delayed you’re only talking about minutes. You’re not talking about hours, you know, but five minutes, ten minutes. An awful lot can happen in five, ten minutes and he was waiting until the markers got, really got them organised because there were two marking spots. One east and one west. One on the railway. One on the barracks because it was timed for midnight because this was the time when the people were coming back to their billets and were getting their, and they [wanted to kill the] troops. CB: Yeah, of course. RW: Troop concentrations so he was being as perfect as he possibly could and in consequence with the markers not being as accurate as he liked he stopped it and said we’ll remark again. CB: Because it’s a French target? RW: Because, well, not so much a French target. The target which was right next door to the French village. CB: Yeah. RW: And he didn’t want to kill - CB: That’s what I meant. Yes. RW: Didn’t want to kill, bomb the village. So, we were briefed and presumably they must have been briefed as well to be as perfect as they possibly could on their marking so as not to kill French people. CB: Course. RW: So this, and this came to light too, many, many years later here, by a little girl who was doing her degree at the Sorbonne in Paris relating to British and American efforts during the war and she came here and interviewed me here and stopped here for quite a little while and had a little chat about the Mailly raid and this sort of thing and she was quite concerned, you know. She was only what twenty, twenty one year old but she was only concerned about the fact that that attitude was taken to stop people, French people being killed. She got a first degree anyway which was rather nice. CB: You obviously briefed her well. RW: Yes, we still send Christmas cards to each other. I haven’t seen her for years and years and years. I wonder what she is doing now, whether she is married or what. But she was a nice little girl and I’ve got some pictures of her somewhere in there. CB: Yeah. RW: So, yes, so the, that was the result of the Mailly raid and the Nuremberg of course, raid, as well of course had although we’d had a lot of damage on other raids and quite traumatic things on other raids the Nuremberg raid left the biggest scar than any, mental scars was far, far greater than the physical scar and that really got sunk home when you realise what the attrition rates was. And the reports I think say there was ninety six, ninety seven aircraft shot down over the target but there were over a hundred wrecked completed so there must have been about a hundred and sixteen, a hundred and twenty aircraft written off altogether with all those, not all those aircrew but I think there was something like five hundred and sixty five, five hundred and five hundred and fifty aircrew killed that night, one night. The Nuremberg raid. And there were more aircrew killed on that one night then there was in the whole of the month of the Battle of Britain, which, you can’t compare the sort of flying that we were doing but the figures are quite remarkable when you think of what was going on. But being thickies as we were we knew it went on and we didn’t realise the implications of what was going on. We just got on with and had to do a job. But again, we had the trip, we had a little experience which was a trip to Munich. We were briefed for nine hours twenty five minutes petrol and we were given nine hours forty odd minutes petrol to fly on with instructions to land in the south of England if we had problems with getting back with the fuel consumption and it was again the weather wasn’t as forecast so we chugged off to Munich. Rather a long haul. A very long haul. Beautiful scenery over the Alps. We cross the Alps three times it was wonderful. Twice because it was twice the target and coming back we had problems. We lost part of a port wing, part of the leading edge of the port wing, we lost instruments, lost the pitot heads so that caused us little problems. Not exactly flying by the seat of our pants but - CB: But you had no air speed indicator. RW: So we were chugging back and as we say the leading edge of the port wing had disappeared somewhere and we’d had icing on the props. That was the amazing, we used to get icing on the propellers. And these were flying, the icing used to fly off and rattle against the side of the aircraft. It was just like flak for hitting the side of the aircraft and I’ve still got a bit of flak that came into my aeroplane. It’s on the table over there. Yes, so coming back it took a lot, lot longer than we anticipated and we were rather slow coming back to the extent that we were coming back over France in daylight and we were getting halfway across France and we saw these two little specks appearing flashing towards us and, ‘Oh Christ, what’s this going on?’ A couple of spitfires. They had been sent out to escort us back. So we were escorted back but with the engineers and navigation and fuel conservation we got back to Ludford having flown for ten and a quarter hours. CB: Wow. RW: But again the ground crew had that aircraft ready again for the next night which is, which is, what they get up to is wonderful. So they’re the sort of things that happened on raids. Another story, we came over Stettin one night. We lost two engines, two starboard engines. We managed to get one going half again so we came back from Stettin on two and a half engines. CB: Was that flak damage? RW: Yeah. Yeah. That was flak damage yes and when we got back Curly, he was a dreadful tease, he used to tease the WAAFs dreadfully and this poor little girl he teased her so much that when he was having his meal, operational meal she said, ‘I’m not going to serve you with your meal, cheeky bugger. I’m not going to serve your meal.’ He did get his meal of course but she wouldn’t serve him. And coming back off this trip we were so late we were, everybody, the committee of adjustment had been in and started to take our kit away. They didn’t think we were coming back but when we got back we got to the mess and this poor little kid was in tears, ‘Oh I shall never do that again.’ This was the atmosphere of these kids and girls. Wonderful. They were the sorts of things that happened. My last, very last operation was to again a transport plant target which was the original D-Day which was on the 4th 5th of June and like on the briefing we knew we were on the battle order but we had no idea where we were going and when we got out to the dispersal and asked what we were, what the petrol load and bomb load was Willy said, ‘Eeh,’ he said, ‘You’ve got full tanks and overloads and no bombs.’ And you were thinking, ‘Oh God. What’s going on? Are we going to Italy, Russia, whatever.’ No. What was happening we were flying a square circle around the invasion beaches giving false instructions to some of the shipping people imitate a convoy and also reporting on the fighter activity, German fighter activity to report back to help with the invasion and of course the invasion was put back twenty four hours because of the weather. So they took our overload tanks on, put a few bombs on board and we went off and we bombed Sangatte. Didn’t do a very good job obviously. So, that was our very last trip, Sangatte, and when we got back, because of the weather, very adverse weather we were diverted to Faldingworth which is only about thirty odd miles from Ludford, our base and we slept on a chair in the mess for the rest of the night and when we got up in the morning and having breakfast the station commander, Group Captain King arrived and he said, ‘Come on. I’m taking you back.’ I said, ‘Well I’ve got an aeroplane outside you know.’ And he said ‘You’re not touching another aircraft on the squadron. That was your last operation.’ So we just left the aircraft. How they got it back I don’t know but he took us back in his little hut, little, his little van. We went back and that was my last operation and mentioning our attrition rate on the squadron, in early 1944 our attrition rate was something like sixty two percent. CB: Gee. RW: Which was, you know, it’s unbelievable when you look. CB: This is because they were targeted specifically. RW: Yeah. Targeted. Very vulnerable. A) Because they could home onto our frequencies and B) Because we were on every bombing raid that went out. So there we are. The next morning I had to go and have a little interview with the station commander to give a pat on the back. He was a lovely chap Group Captain King. Curly, my engineer had finished because he’d done an operation with his previous crew he was finished the night before and he’d been out on the booze. Went down in to Ludford on the booze and when I had the interview with Group Captain King the following morning he said, ‘Your bloody crew.’ And, ‘Oh God. What’s going on?’ And he said, ‘Your engineer was down in the pub last night spouting about what he got up to and whatever and there just happened to be an intelligence officer there.’ And he just, no he was just pulling my leg really in a way but he said yes thank you very much for what you’ve done and I was given my green endorsement for the Mailly, for the raid where we had the mid-air collision and he had a curtain covering a chart on the wall which gave the crew statistics on the wall and he pulled the curtain back and he said, ‘There you are. You are the first crew that has finished as a crew for over six months’. Yeah. CB: Amazing. RW: And you didn’t even realise then. Appreciate what you - CB: Yeah. RW: What the attitude was but it really was remarkable and then of course I wasn’t allowed to touch a Lancaster again ever. Until 1977. Until the 101 squadron had a 60th anniversary of the formation of the squadron and they tried to get, I was asked. Martin Middlebrook was involved and he wrote a book and he was, he used to live not far away and then he was trying to get all of our crew together again and did I know where they were. And I had a few addresses so we managed to find 5 of us and we couldn’t find Taffy, could never find Taffy and we tried to find Taffy and we got in to contact with the people of his uncle who ran a pub and he wouldn’t tell us where he was and we assumed he was either in jail or in hospital but there, he’s still about but he never knew anything about it. But anyway, we had this meeting with five of my crew were there in 1977 in Waddington at 101. The Lancaster was there and at the dinner the previous night the PMC stood up and gave a little chat and said, ‘You’ve got the Lancaster here. It’s had an oil leak it needs an air test in the morning. We’ve got a crew here.’ So we flew in the Battle of Britain Lanc and did about a twenty, twenty five minute air test. CB: Fantastic. RW: In the Battle of Britain Lanc which was quite a thrill, quite a thrill. CB: Amazing. RW: And it’s wonderful that they’ve kept the thing going. CB: Yes. RW: It’s great. So after the war, I stayed in the air force after the war. CB: Yes excuse me for interrupting but after the ops what did you do then because we’re not at the end of the war? RW: Oh no. Yes. Yes. CB: We’re still a year away. RW: Yes. After the operations, yes normally you were, your crew tended to try and keep as much of the crew together and were posted away and most of the crew were posted to 28 OTU. And I was sent to 82 OTU. I never knew why or found out why. Typing error? Whatever. Anyway, I arrived at 82 OTU which was all Australian station and I was one of the very few Englishmen there as aircrew. One of the only aircrew there as an examiner, screen pilot, and they didn’t think much of this pommie bastard arrived in their midst and it wasn’t exactly a comfortable place to be but I’d only been there a couple of weeks when I had a bit of a problem, a symptom from the flying in the war. I had a perforated ulcer. Again, attributed to stress, whatever. So anyway, I had this haemorrhaging and I went sick, reported to the Australian doc, went sick and he didn’t think much of this whinging pommie bastard so medicine on duty. That was, that was, that was it. We just, and very shortly after that I was posted to Gamston where, which was a Wimpy OTU so I was flying in Wimpies there. Met my first fiancé there which was a lovely little WAAF in the camp. Audrey, Audrey Simms. Again, my luck held out, a lot of luck was involved on the squadron, tremendous lot of luck on the squadron and again my luck held out. My friend, Tommy Thompson, who’d been on operations, same as myself, screened and I was also the sports officer on the squadron and I had to do an air test as well and Tommy said, ‘Well you go and get the sports kit.’ On Wednesday afternoon the whole place shut down in those days for sport so I went to get the sports equipment and Tommy did my air test in a Wimpy and the Wimpy blew up and he was killed. Poor chap. Poor Tommy. And the only way we could recognise him when we found him was his ring on his finger. And he was a Geordie like myself and I was given the task of organising his funeral, went up to his funeral and because he didn’t get married during the war he got married very shortly after the end of his tour. He didn’t get married until after he’d finished his tour and his wife was expecting a baby, lived at Wallsend near Newcastle and of course I had to go to the funeral and there was this poor lass and it was rather sad. Yeah. So, these are the sort of things that happened and the luck you can achieve on these sort of things. So, anyway, because of my sins and flying I was due to go back on a second tour, supposedly on Mosquitoes, in early ‘45 but the attrition rate had dropped considerably at that time and there was a glut of aircrew coming though so they said, ‘Don’t come back on operations.’ So I was sent down to Lulsgate Bottom which was an instructor’s school. So I went down to the instructor’s school at Lulsgate Bottom which is now Bristol airport and I had a nice time down there learning to drink scrumpy which was, which was great. Lovely. Lovely. Lovely place down there. I enjoyed it very much. Again had little problems with the instructing. Flying with the instructor one night and the radial engine, the pot burst and the pistons were coming out through the through the canopy around the engine. So we had a little single engine landing there but that was fine. I ended up there and became an instructor. So the instructing I was sent to be a place called Desborough. I had the choice of going to Carlisle or Northampton so I chose Desborough and I was stationed there as a screen pilot and flying instructor, Wimpies. This story extends a little bit. A very good friend of mine who became my first fiancé her friend she was stationed, became stationed at Wyton, Cambridge and my friend and I used to go and visit her and he, Jock Murray, he was a married man. He had a girlfriend as well, a WAAF at Wyton so we used to go and stay at the George hotel at Huntingdon when she was there but sadly we were sitting on the banks of the river at Earith. I’d already bought the engagement ring and whatever and she said, ‘I’m sorry but that’s it’ and she went off with a married pilot on Wyton, pilot and that was it. I came back to Desborough rather tail, my tail between my legs sort of thing and my squadron commander, he knew what the situation, we were very good friends and he knew what was going on and one of the pilots who had been at Wyton on big stuff he was converting on to Dakotas and that’s what we were doing in Desborough and he came to Desborough to be converted on to Dakotas. He didn’t, I knew him but he didn’t know me and my flight commander, Lofty [Loader] he said, ‘You have him as a pupil.’ So I had this poor soul as a pupil. All the first details in the morning and all the last details at night. He complained to the boss and he said, ‘Nothing to do with me. Get on with it.’ But he was brilliant. He was a good pilot but he didn’t know anything about that at all. And again strange things happened at Desborough. When I was there another crew came through at, which er, yes this other crew came through whereby the pilot had a wireless operator who eventually joined the company I joined after, after the war as a wireless operator and I had to screen the crew on a cross country out over Wales. A claggy night. Not a very nice night at all and his skipper didn’t say, ‘I don’t think we ought to go. The weather.’ ‘Oh it’s all right,’ Well the weather we flew in the war we flew in all sorts of weather. They said, ‘Oh no it’s alright Alfie,’ So, off we went and coming back they asked to get a QDM and he couldn’t on his little set. He couldn’t get a QDM and fortunately I had been to the Empire Radio School and, and, and knew a little about electrics so I went back, got this bearing, give it to the skipper and when we let down there was Desborough the identification lights DE flashing, I said, ‘There you are. That’s how it’s done.’ And I had to give this wireless operator an adverse, not exactly an adverse report but not a very favourable one. He eventually became a director of the company I was working for and he didn’t, he didn’t, he didn’t like me very much at all because I was one of the lower minions in the works and he was a director of purchasing. Not a nice, not a very nice chap. Anyway, there we are so that was, that was little situation but Desborough from there I went and was posted to Transport Command, had to go into Transport Command and there I was flying Dakotas and doing mainly conversion work flying Dakotas. I had some very nice jobs to do and stationed at Oakington. This was in 1947 when I first went to work in Oakington and I was the flying wing training officer for four squadrons 10, 27, 30 and 46 squadrons and this was early ‘48 when the thought of the airlift came into being and this was quite an amazing situation because the squadron as I say had this four, the unit had the four squadrons on board and I was working with all the four squadrons. Then when you are going on the airlift all the aircrew had to be completely categorised and had to have a current incident rating so I was kept very, very busy. One night well one month one day I did something like ten and a half hours flying testing just to get them ready to go on the airlift. So, there we went and when we got them all, got them all off we, the WingCo said, ‘Right have a few days left, go on the airlift for a month and have a rest.’ So that was fine so I thought now do I go home and see my mum and dad or do I go and see my fiancé. I was getting married in October. And I said, ‘Hmmn I’ll go and see my fiancé,’ which I obviously did. Went back on the airlift and when I got to [Rumsdorf] which we were then I went to see the flight commander chappie in charge of the flying and I said, ‘Where do I go for briefing?’ And he said, ‘You don’t.’ He gave me a piece of, a sheet of A4, ten sheets of A4 with all the instructions on and said, ‘Go away and read those, inwardly digest. You’re flying in the morning.’ And that was it. That was it. And it was strange how the flying did, is it alright talking about the airlift? CB: Absolutely. Yes. Yes. RW: Yeah, because this is forty, a long time after the war but there we are. How the airlift came about was the fact that the Russians had taken over Berlin and they wouldn’t allow any people into Berlin for about eight weeks. So nobody was going in and they really split Berlin in half. They took over the east sector but they had to keep the airlift going, had to keep the situation going because the embassies of the French, British and American embassies there so they had to keep flying going in. They couldn’t stop the flying but they could affect the roads. There were originally six corridors going in but the Russians said you don’t need six. So they cut out, cut the north one out and the south one out and the east one out so they only had three corridors going in. The Americans were doing the, the southern one and we were doing the north one and we all came out on the centre one. But when they started the airlift all this happened in a very, very short period of time. The Americans, a chap called Lucius Clay was in charge of the system flying then in Berlin and he called every possible aircraft back from the states, even from Alaska, to come down to [?] which was the southern part of Germany and, to organise the thing properly he asked a chap called [Tupper, Tupper?] who was in charge of the Burma hump flying over the hump in Burma and he was asked to organise that. The first trip he went on, this was the very, very beginning all, all the Americans were there first and they’d gone off he went off on one of these very first trips and when he got to, got to Berlin there they were going to land at Tempelhof. He found there were aircraft stacked from five hundred feet to five thousand feet and everybody, all the Americans, were clamouring like mad to get permission to land and there was very little organisation at all. Two aircraft, two of the American aircraft had crashed on the runway. One crashed on the runway and was being repaired, and went on the fire and the other crashed and gone over the end of the runway. Nobody was killed but [Tupper Tupper] realised what was going on. He sent all the aircraft back to base even with their loads and got landed himself at Gatow at er [Wunsdorf] and at Tempelhof, landed at Tempelhof and he wrote out orders and all regulations for all flying on the Berlin airlift. Each aircraft had a different speed, different height to fly and all, all went, all went off and when we were at [Wunsdorf] at the time and when you went off you flew to a beacon north of Ber, we flew to a beacon at [?] just north of Berlin where you, when you arrive there you gave instructions, or you were given instructions of how to land and what your load off and we flew in everything. Literally everything in to Berlin because when the Russians took over they closed their frontier and they closed the, all the rail, road and water transport into Berlin and there was something like two million two hundred thousand West Berliners with twenty seven days rations of everything they’d left and they’d taken the generators from the power stations away, they’d taken the gas and that was all rationed and these poor Berliners were left with twenty seven days of nothing. I was very fortunate. I gave a little talk to some aircrew at Leamington and one of the chaps brought along a German lady who had been a little girl, a young little at the time the Russians took over and she was, she spoke English quite well but a very, very strong German accent and she of course she was quite an elderly lady then and she said she and her elder sister, she was young teenager and her sister was seventeen, eighteen and they were walking through Berlin and the Russians came along, a group of Russians came along and they herded all the girls and women they could possibly find into this building. The older sister knew what was going to happen and she hid this young lady, was a young lady, hid her and all the rest were gang raped for the rest of the day and she said, she was telling me that her sister never ever spoke of that again. She couldn’t talk about it. There was something like two million women raped. Two thousand committed suicide. You know, and these figures you know and the Berliners were so appreciative of what we did. We literally flew in everything. Naughty story. When we were on taking a few coal fuel and flour everything in and when you got to the beacon as I say you had to call to get landing instructions and declare what your load was so you could be directed to the correct unloading bay when you landed and the Germans were doing this and they could turn an aircraft around in eight minutes you know. Incredible. So there we were we were going towards this beacon and I said to the wireless op cause I didn’t have a crew I had the nav leader and the signals and I said to Jacko, ‘Call up and get us instructions.’ So he gave instructions and they said, ‘What is your load?’ And he said, ‘Medical supplies. Mainly manhole covers,’ and they were all sanitary towels. It didn’t end there because when we landed we were directed to the heavy unloading bay and we weren’t exactly flavour of the month. We didn’t half get a rocket but there again when you were flying in there was no question of doing an overshoot and going around again. If you couldn’t land you just had to go back to base and start again. CB: Yeah. RW: And when you were there they had all your aircraft lined up. Your day was split into three eight hour shifts and you were doing as many raids, as many sorties as you could in eight hours and then you had the next 8 hours off and then you flew in the next 8 hours and this went on seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Day and night. There was only one day it never happened and that was through extensive fog. So, and when the aircraft were lined up the ground crew had to do a pre-flight test on every aircraft and part of their equipment the wireless operators, wireless, ground wireless operators were a pair of bellows and when they got on the aircraft they used the bellows to blow this, the flour and coal dust off the instruments so they could check them. So this was the sort of thing that was going on. When we were at [Rumsdorf] they also had the York there and the payload of the York was something like what fifteen thousand pounds and the Dakota’s about seven and a half and one of our skippers said, Flight Lieutenant Sheehan, he went off in the Dakota and he said, ‘It’s like a brick. It’s like flying a brick.’ And he had an awful job getting it off the ground, an awful job getting it there, an awful job landing it and when they landed it they found they’d put a York load on the Dakota so he was flying at double his all up weight. CB: Gee. RW: And it says a lot for the skipper and the aircraft you know. CB: Absolutely. RW: You know, these sort of things went on. Amazing. But that was a long time after, after the squadron. And on the squadron looking back and talking to people on the squadron about the squadron about the air force in general they said, ‘Well you know in our group, in one group we were losing seventy aircraft a month.’ Every Bomber Command station lost nine hundred aircrew. You know, it’s amazing the figures that went on like that and a gentleman did some statistics working out how it affected a hundred air crew and of the hundred aircrew fifty one were killed. Twelve were shot down and badly injured, five were badly injured so they couldn’t fly again, three were, so three were killed on landings back at base, twelve became prisoners of war and one escaped to come back and of the remaining of that hundred aircrew only twenty four remained. Nearly all with some medical problem afterwards which, is you know, is -, I had my share. The sort of things that happened they said personally the sort of things that happened to me afterwards apart from this ulcer which affected me for most of my life until I was here at Desborough, at er Kenilworth when I moved in here and one night I had a massive haemorrhage. I couldn’t get upstairs and the doc came and it was a peculiar system he had. I was not allowed food, I wasn’t allowed to get out of bed, I wasn’t allowed to do anything with work and I lived on an ounce of milk and water for six weeks. Couldn’t do anything and I remember sitting down where we are now sitting now watching the television, watching the cricket with the doctor, chatting about what was going on and it was amazing. In consequence I can eat anything, anything at all doesn’t bother me but alcohol doesn’t like me. I can drink it but I can enjoy it for about a week afterwards so you know I don’t drink very much now. I’ve had my share. But this is the sort of thing that happened and what still happens now. One operation we were on going on to the Ruhr and the Ruhr, the old Happy Valley and we were approaching the Ruhr and it really it looked deadly and the flak, there was an old saying, the flak was so thick you could get out and walk on it and it was like that searchlights, fighters going on and the first time I ever experienced terror and it was most peculiar. I’d heard about it but I’d never experienced it and I literally was shaking and really I couldn’t do what I was supposed to do so I dropped my seat so I couldn’t see outside and funnily enough I said a little prayer that I hadn’t said since I was about six years old. Mum and dad used to sit by the side of my bed and say this little prayer which ended up, ‘If I die before I wake I pray the lord my soul will take.’ Why I said it I don’t know, no idea but I said this little prayer and the terror disappeared and I raised my seat and I could just carry on. You’re still frightened of course but all the terror disappeared. And we had similar situations again afterwards but no terror so whether the power of prayer you know whether this happens or not. Some of the lads we used to take the mickey a bit ‘cause they used to kneel down by their beds and say their prayers or kneel down by the aircraft before they got on and said their prayers and thought they were a bit sissy until you had this sort of experience yourself and then you realise there’s something in it. It’s all, I’m sure it was all mental you know. Some of these sort of things happened. When I laid my head down on the pillow even now, not every, if I’ve been reading a books like some of the air force books and service books that come out now, if I’ve been reading these books about aeroplanes and I put my head down on the pillow I can see flak bursting and little sparks flying about. It doesn’t affect me. I’m fine. No problem at all and this sort of thing, you know, just reminds you of the old days and now talking about it so much now it’s almost like a myth, you know. As if you’re telling fairy stories. Did I really do it, you know but yes it does once you’ve experienced those sorts of things you never forget them. They’re always there. And some, some fixed more than others. We had one navigator who, they were badly shot up and some of the, a lot of the crew were injured. The aircraft was on fire and he got out of his seat to walk back to the, the aircraft was still flying, he walked to the back of the aircraft to jump out the back. No parachute. Some of the crew stopped him and said, ‘No. Don’t.’ He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t speak. He was just a zombie completely. Couldn’t speak and when he got back, they got back alright he never spoke. Never spoke at all. Went to the sick quarters for a couple of weeks. Never spoke, could understand a thing and he was sent to the service hospital at Matlock, the psychological hospital at Matlock and he was there for several, a couple of weeks and he never spoke until one of the nurses dropped an instruments in a tin tray and he woke up. He said, ‘Oh Christ, they’re on fire. They’re on fire.’ And he got his speech back again. He was invalided out of the service as you know unfit for flying. He was alright but that experience he had of these weeks of not talking you know and this is the sort of thing that happened to these sort of folks and, you know, when you think of the experiences you had and how bloody lucky you’d been all these whiles. And, your luck. Yes, I think you bought yourself your own luck to a certain extent. In my crew, were such that although vastly different characters, we were all great comrades and great friends. Great friends. And you know this helped enormously the operational flying, in my instructing and examining after the war when Oakington was closed down and all the four squadrons dispersed 30 squadron was posted to Abingdon and having, me being flying wing training, I thought I was out of a job. 30 squadron had taken over a VIP element from 24 squadron and for my sins I was posted to 30 squadron at Abingdon to become the training officer on 30 squadron and to get our qualifications, to get my, I had to go to Central Flying School to be examined and that was quite the thing. The fact that I had an instrument rating and the fact that I had done something like fifteen hundred hours instrument flying I was allocated a master green instrument rating and I became examiner and when I went down to the Central Flying School to become an examiner and a tester, an instructor, the instructor there, Flight Lieutenant Walker, a lovely man, when we finished the [CGI], said ‘There is a book. Take it away. Read the chapters about training and it’s all about what you learn about.’ And it was a book called the “Psychological Disorders of Flying Personnel” and the chapter on training illustrated the fact that you know even experienced people when being examined had a little bit of panic. It’s a bit of the white coat syndrome of the doctor with his stethoscope and things and you couldn’t really operate as you normally could and this was a chapter about that sort of thing. And this psychological business he gave me this book to take back home. And when I got back of course I used to examine all the crews but each crew had to be examined completely once a month. They had to do certain training exercises. One per month and the VIP pilots had to do the same as well but the VIP pilots were like a class apart. They wouldn’t have a, they insisted on having a separate crew room from us roughies and strange things happened with them. One occasion one of the pilots a chap called Van Reinfeld had to do a VIP trip the following day and he hadn’t done a little night, night flying exercise and I said, ‘Well it’s alright. I’ve got a spare navigator. You can do your little trip tonight. I’ll put you on early, you’ll be alright for tomorrow.’ And he said, ‘Well I can’t do it.’ He says, ‘My navigator has gone in to Abingdon and I don’t know where he is.’ I said, ‘I’ve got a spare navigator. It’s alright. It’s only a training trip. It’s not a VIP trip.’ And this chap, the replacement, a chap called Baxter who was a coloured boy wouldn’t fly with him. Refused to fly with him and I said, ‘Well you don’t, if you don’t fly with him you don’t get your trip tomorrow.’ He went to see Squadron Leader Reese the squadron commander and he said, ‘It’s nothing to do with me it’s to do with the training.’ And he went back and I said, ‘Well if you don’t do it. You don’t fly.’ And he went into Abingdon and scoured all the clubs and pubs, found his navigator, came back, flew late in the morning, early in the morning the next day and went off to do his trip the next day and that’s the sort of atmosphere they were. And the principal job of the Transport Command at 30 squadron were again, like all transport was glider towing and paratrooping and there was a big operation called Operation Longstop which was going on at Old Sarum and all the crews had to go down and join in the exercise and of course every pilot had to have an aeroplane. There wasn’t enough aeroplanes to go around and I was given an aeroplane and a pilot to fly with me who was a VIP pilot called [Ria.] He said, ‘I’m a VIP pilot. I don’t fly second dicky.’ And he wouldn’t fly. Refused to fly with me. Again, he saw the flight commander down at Old Sarum and the boss said. ‘Well if you don’t fly you don’t fly at all. Go back to base. Get back to base.’ He sent him back to base and these sort of characters they were an elite apart, you know. Brilliant fliers no doubt about it brilliant fliers and as I say we had to go down to Central Flying School to be examined and when you’re examined if anything went wrong and you didn’t fail any one part of the exercise two of the exams you had to write, reply a hundred percent. Safety and regulations, these sort of things and when you were, one of the exercises you had it do you were given all the met readings from various stations and you had to plot a synoptic chart and give a forecast for the next day, until midnight the next day, which I did and I said possibly get some rain by lunchtime tomorrow and whatever down the south of England and he called a Met man in and he said, ‘Oh that’s not going to happen. That’ll never happen.’ So I didn’t pass that exam so I had to go back, wait another month before I was going to be examined again. Blow me, the next day it started to rain so I rang up old Walker at Central Flying School and said, ‘Have you looked out the window?’ And he said, ‘You jammy bugger,’ he said, ‘I’ll put it in the post.’ So it was a great atmosphere. A wonderful atmosphere and 30 squadron had a wonderful atmosphere. Still has now. Still does wonderful work now. But the flying it left a great character in my life but I was married by then of course and we had a wonderful life with my wife in peacetime air force. Sadly, she became terribly ill when we were at Oakington and she started having terrible haemorrhages and this sort of thing and the, our local doc said, ‘You’d better take her home’ so we took her to her home in Desborough near Kettering and my mother who was a state certified midwife, she’d nursed all her life said, ‘You know the prognosis of this isn’t very great,’ you know and discovered that she had what they called a [? deformed] mole which is a pregnancy like a bunch of grapes and indicative of cancer. And they did scrapes they didn’t do scrapes in those days but they couldn’t find it and it was the cancer was deep seated in the womb and my mum said, you know ‘She can’t live very long.’ She was only about six months, nine months perhaps at the most so I resigned my commission to come out to look after her. Haven’t been, my last posting just about this the time this happened found was AOC far east to go VIP pilot, the AOC in the far east which I had to keep delaying, delaying, delaying because of Pat’s illness and eventually that was cancelled completely so I didn’t go. So, I resigned to come out on the condition that I renewed my qualifications every year and stayed on the reserve until I was, 1960 um and came out and poor old Pat died about ten months afterwards and with my lack of education I couldn’t get a grant to do any, I was hoping for a grant to go teaching but I couldn’t get a grant because I had no certificates or educational certificates. Fortunately, Pat, my wife’s father owned a factory. A packaging factory. So he said, ‘Come and work for me.’ So I went and worked in his factory on the marketing and sales. I can say for twenty seven years I travelled in cardboard boxes which was very kind of him. I got along very well with the old man. He was quite an eminent military man himself. Thinking of that sort of thing when I was at Abingdon, Oakington, I was going to get married and I was told I had to get permission to get married otherwise I wouldn’t get my marriage allowance ‘cause I was a little bit too young. So I was told I had to have an interview with the station commander which a chap called group captain [Byte Seagal] so I went and had an interview with him and my dad because of his health couldn’t do any serious work and he used to work for the Coop looking after the horses for the Coop stables so when we went for the interview with group captain [Byte Seagall], a peacetime group captain trying to get everything back to a peacetime protocol he said, ‘Who are you marrying?’ I said, ‘Well, Pat.’ ‘What does she do?’ And I said, ‘Well she does typing and bit of filing in an office.’ ‘Oh that’s interesting.’ ‘What does your father do?’ And I said, ‘He looks after horses.’ He said, ‘Newmarket?’ I said, ‘No. Coop.’ And this didn’t go down very well at all. And he said, ‘What about your father in law then?’ And I said, ‘Well he was colonel in chief of the Northamptonshire regiment. He got the MC in Gallipoli.’ ‘Ah now isn’t that interesting.’ I said. ‘My mother, my dad was in the navy. He got the DSM in the navy. My mother got the Royal Red Cross.’ ‘Now isn’t that interesting.’ Yes, I can get married. So I got permission to get married. And they were trying to get things back to peacetime protocol but after the war people like myself were asked to go up to Cranwell which was a training, a major training school then for aircrew and just to meet the people, not to meet, just to chat to the students and pupils and met one young man called, oh dear [pause] His dad was the president of the Nuremberg raids. Oh, what did they call him? Anyway, he was, he was his dad was this very eminent gentleman. Martin, [pause] oh dear, old age and memory don’t go very well together. Anyway, this gentleman he was on the Nuremberg trials. He organised the Nuremberg trials for the post war Germans and his son was on the Cranwell course and he eventually came down to 30 squadron and I said to him, you know, ‘What’s the last thing they taught you at Cranwell then?’ And they said, he said, ‘Don’t get associated with wartime commissioned officers.’ Because, in February ‘44 the directive came about saying all captains of heavy bombers had to be commissioned and my commissioning interview was with the accountant who gave me a cheque for ninety quid to go and buy a uniform with. Yeah. What do they call the chappie on the Nuremberg trials? Very eminent man. Very eminent barrister. CB: Yeah. I can’t remember. RW: Pardon? CB: I can’t remember. RW: No. Can’t remember. Anyway Martin didn’t like this system in the air force at all so he resigned and came out. But that was the sort of thing that was going on in those days and I was very, very fortunate to be able to have a job to work. I stayed and played with cardboard boxes. For two years I had to go to Marshals and be re-examined for, just to keep your hand in that all it was part of the condition for resigning. I did that for two years and the first time I went the instructor there said. ‘Well go on and do the exams and, what did you do?’ I told him what I did. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Bugger it. Go on. Take a little chipmunk and take off. So I used to fly over Desborough and around the school where I was teaching and [laughs] no that, and I started learning, I taught myself aerobatics because the transport flying which is dead straight and level sort of stuff and I’d never flown aerobatics at all apart from slow rolling the Lancaster. It was great fun. Great fun. But they only did that for two years because they said it’s getting expensive and we’ve got squirty things now and so - CB: Yeah. RW: Just keep on the register. CB: Yeah. RW: And I was in the reserve until 1960 so really I had a wonderful career. CB: Yeah, brilliant. RW: Wonderful - CB: Can I - RW: Experiences I’ll never be forgetting and played an awful lot of luck and met some wonderful people and wonderful friends and with my crew when the squadron formed the association from flying together in 1977 the squadron chappie called Goodliffe formed the squadron association and from then on we found all eight of my crew and all eight of us used to meet every year. CB: Fantastic. RW: Until 1990 when we all met at Ludford in 1990 and the Coningsby, the Battle of Britain Flight said, ‘Would you come down and do a little exercise down here with a full crew.’ And Tommy, my mid upper gunner, wouldn’t go so we never went and a couple of months later he died so whether he had some sort of premonition, you know. CB: Extraordinary. RW: But anyway nevertheless all 7 of used to meet until, and then the rear gunner dies and all eight of us, all six of us used to meet and a couple of years ago my special duty operator died so all five of us - CB: All five. RW: Are still round about and very, very different states of health and all creaking a bit. I was being very lucky. I had open heart surgery. CB: Oh, did you really? RW: It was only three years ago and got a zip fastener up the front but if it hadn’t have been for again like the services, like with family if it hadn’t have been for family and my mum looking after me with diphtheria when I was a little boy and my daughters and family looking after me afterwards when, when I had when I had the operation for the heart I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat and my daughter Catherine who is, she is now the ward manager sister at the coronary care unit at Warwick Hospital she took me into hospital on her day off and did an ECG and a blood test and the cardiologist just happened to be walking past and he said, ‘What are you doing here?’ You know, and he took the blood away and came back and he said your bloods alright but it’s not, you’re not going anywhere. Don’t go home. So within just over a week I’d had open heart surgery. CB: Gee. RW: And I was back home again. CB: Amazing. RW: Yeah, it’s amazing. CB: I’m going to stop you there. RW: Yes, that’s about it I think, Ok. CB: Because we both need a – [pause] right we’re restarting again after a brief comfort break and the bits I just want to ask you about, Rusty is first of all the ranking system. So you went in as an aircraftsman second class. RW: I went in as an AC2. CB: And how did the promotion system work until you were – RW: Yeah. Well, usually after about six months you were promoted an AC1 and then after another short period of time you became an LAC, leading aircraftman. And I was a leading aircraftman when I went and did my flying in Canada and it was from then after you’d finished and completed your training successfully that was when you were ordered your flying brevvy and you became whatever grant, whatever grade you were going in to. Fortunately, and with a lot of luck involved I became a pilot. And having, became a sergeant pilot. Some, about three or four of the course that we were on we lost about forty percent of the course on washouts. You know, it was incredible because the training was very, very precise. I must say it was very, very good. Looking back it was remarkable. So there I was a sergeant pilot and promotion as an NCO was roughly six months and you got an increase and promotions so by the time I was, got on the squadron I was a sergeant pilot and then I very soon became a flight sergeant pilot and that was in ’43. End of ’43. And in early ‘44 the directive came from the air ministry that all captains of heavy bombers had to be commissioned so I was given the cheque for ninety quid by the accountant and told to go and buy a uniform so there was no formal interview at all. It was just a thing that happened. In consequence, the social class, in a sense, disappeared because there were people commissioned from training and they tended to be a little bit elitist and some of the crews had done previous tours and tended to be all commissioned and usually flight lieutenants and all this sort of thing so they were nearly all a little bit aloof but we were just the roughs. Not like the pathfinders. Gibson and the pathfinder force really didn’t socialise with the NCOs at all. Didn’t speak to them, didn’t talk to them but it wasn’t like that on the squadron. Really, apart from doing your job you were all the same. And the, the, our WingCo was a wonderful man in that respect. He knew everybody’s name on the squadron. Ground crew and air crew. Wonderful man. Old Alexander. Wingco Alexander. CB: What sort of age was he? RW: He, he’d be getting on about. He’d be early 30s I think [laughs] so. He died not such a long time ago. A little story about Wingco Alexander which, of course, a little bit about the war. His batman, Ward, a little chap called Ward turned out to be a homosexual and he was sacked from the service because in those days homosexuality was virtually a crime and he was sacked from the service and when I used to go home on leave and my brother was being in the army my mum was nursing a very eminent north country barrister called Lambert, Pop Lambert. Mum used to, got the job to nurse him because she could swear as much to him as he swore at her when she put him to bed and he used to love my, my brother and I and my mum to go down and have dinner with him and it was finger bowls and butlers and things like this so it really was quite out of our class altogether and when we were sitting down having dinner this night and the butler came in with the finger bowls and he looked at me and said, ‘Hello Waughman.’ And I said, ‘My God. Ward. What are you doing here? You were Alexander’s batman.’ And that went on, he went out and Pop said, ‘How the hell do you know him?’ And I said, ‘He was our WingCo’s batman. He was sacked because he was homosexual.’ And the poor soul. Pop gave him the sack a week later. He just wouldn’t have him around and this was the attitude about homosexuality - CB: Yeah. Yeah. RW: In those days. The lads used to go out queer bashing. You know. CB: Yeah. RW: Yeah. There was no gay business in those days at all, sort of thing. But that’s the sort of thing that happened. So, anyway, I was flying, became pilot officer and on the squadron I became towards the end of my tour I got promotion to flying officer and ended my tour as a flying officer and subsequently with the jobs I got as the training officer, again it was timed promotion really in a way. I became a flight lieutenant and most of the screening and examining and training I did then was as a flight lieutenant until I was posted to Singapore and never got there, flying as a VIP pilot AOC Far East. I never got there. Had I, had I gone I would have been promoted to squadron leader. No. I would have got the rank of squadron leader. Which would be temporary acting unpaid. So when I left that job I reverted to my previous rank again so that would be a rank mainly because you were socialising with VIPs but that never came about. So whether I don’t think I would have advanced very far in the air force at that time because I was a Geordie like, you know from up north, a very uneducated man, and I don’t think I would have advanced too far in the service. CB: Ok. RW: Although I got on very, very well with the people. CB: Yeah. RW: It was great but I think the social side, the social class system would have meant that I’d perhaps have made wing commander but I don’t think I would have got any great senior rank. Again, partly that’s my thought. Whether it would have happened or not. My navigator, he was an educated lad and very good lad you see he lied about his age to join up, operational at eighteen. He stayed in the air force after the war, did very, very well indeed did all sorts of very important flying. He ended up as a squadron leader and stayed in the air force after the war and he was very well thought of in the service. Most of the other lads left the service. Except Taffy. He stayed in the service. He became, he stayed as a sergeant I think all his life and I think he drank his way through the service but er - CB: And he was always on the ground. RW: Always on the ground, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yes he did, he did fly a second tour. Some of the crews did second tours. He was on the second tour and he was on the last bombing raid that went to the Nuremberg and the Buchenwald raids. And Manna, Operation Manna. Norman, my bomb aimer, he stayed in the air force. He stayed although he had some elevating jobs he never rose above the rank of flight lieutenant because he was out in Burma and he was on the squadron in Burma. This was very shortly after the end of the war and the war was still going on in Burma and he was duty officer one weekend and the Scotch troop was getting knocked about in the jungle so he laid on a strike which was successful and got back. I think they only lost a couple of blokes which was really remarkable. Got everything back and he had to see the CO the next day who said, ‘You don’t, you didn’t have the authority to lay that on’ and he was court martialled and in the, in the court martialling that was it you know but he went on and he eventually when he got back to the UK, got sent back to the UK and he didn’t have a job and he had a friend who knew somebody who knew somebody and he went to work down at, down in Halfpenny Green down Pershore way working on TSR2 and he did some work on TSR2 and then did an awful lot of flying in Buccaneers, err Buccaneers um Canberra’s flying all over America doing line over mapping and this sort of thing. Got himself an MBE. So Norman who now lives in the tax haven Andorra is MBE DFC AFC, yeah. But lovely guy. CB: Ok so that’s a good intro thank you - RW: Yeah. CB: To the awards. RW: Yeah. Yeah. CB: So how did that come about for you and for him as well? How many of the crew were decorated? RW: Well the sad thing is I’ve still got it but thinking about the decorations for crews and that sort of thing I’ve still got a got a bit of a conscience about the DFC because at the end of the tour of operations nearly every skipper got a decoration and I got a DFC but the crew didn’t get anything and the crew were doing half the work. They kept me alive, they kept us all alive they were doing exactly the same job as I was doing, under the same circumstances. Same risks. The same with all the Bomber Command crew but none of them got a decoration. My engineer Curly did eventually get a DFM. CB: On the second tour - RW: But none of the - CB: Was it? RW: None of the crew got any recognition whatsoever I think what Harry did was the rear turret and think what rear gunners did sitting watching shells flying at you having a little 303 gun to fire back at a 20 millimetre shell you know um and the casualty rate for rear gunners was, really was something and there was a lot of decorations which should have been. We had one crew which were very, very badly knocked about and from what I gather afterwards the station commander recommended the skipper for a VC which, and the crew did all sorts of wonderful things the skipper was hit three times and all sorts of things went wrong and got the aircraft back but this was turned down and we gather that the reason was that he wasn’t just getting the crew and the aircraft back he was getting himself back as well. So five of the crew got CGMs that night so the decorations system I’m sure it’s the same in all the wars that a lot of people who deserved them didn’t get them because it was unknown. One, one situation whereby unless an action was seen by an officer it didn’t count. CB: Right. RW: So - CB: So the Queens Gallantry Medal. RW: Yeah. CB: The CGM. RW: Yeah. CB: Was a pretty good award. RW: Well it’s the next one down from the VC. CB: Exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. The whole crew got it. RW: Yeah. Yeah. Five of the crew got it. CB: Yeah. RW: So you know the awards system obviously they have to have some rules and regulations, you know. I was told by, the by people afterwards after my crash landing getting the aircraft back the thought was the immediate award of the DFC but that didn’t come about. CB: So when did it happen? RW: That was in May, March CB: When you came to the end of your tour. RW: Oh, it was the end of the tour. CB: Was it? RW: Not at the time. Not immediately at the time. It wasn’t until anyway there we are. My DFC was given to me by the postman and there’s a nice little letter in there from King George saying I’m sorry, implying that he’s too busy too busy to see I’m sending it through the post but thank you very much. So, so that was given to me by the postman. CB: Extraordinary. RW: Subsequently, when I got I was very fortunate after the war I was awarded the MBE and - CB: But you got the AFC. So what was that - RW: I got the AFC. CB: So what - RW: I didn’t get the MBE I got the AFC. CB: The AFC, yes. RW: Yes, the AFC. CB: So what was the circumstance of that? RW: I’ve no idea. I’ve tried to find out but the only thing I’ve ever, people have been able to say meritorious service but I’ve no idea why. I think it was a brown nose job really you know, being in the right place at the right time. I can just imagine from what I’ve seen afterwards the air ministry would be issued so many medals to be issued to the command. Got down to group. Group allocated the medals out. Group was passed out to stations, stations allocated medals out, passed down to the squadrons and what was left for the squadron they had to find someone to give them to and I think I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. So, no reason why I - CB: No specific event that you can - RW: No specific event. Nothing - CB: No. RW: At all. No. So, it was again poor luck. CB: What about this other man you talked about who’d been in your crew before who got DFC, AFC? RW: Oh, Norman. The bomb aimer. CB: Yes how did he get those? RW: Well. CB: Did he get the DFC at the end of the tour? RW: Afterwards he, he - CB: Was he commissioned by then? RW: He eventually ended up on pathfinders. CB: Oh right. RW: Yeah, he did a second tour. CB: Ahh. RW: Didn’t do a full second tour but he did a lot of second tour on pathfinders and he got his DFC for that and he got his AFC for what he was doing in research down at Pershore down there and his MBE was for the work he did on TSR2 and the, and the work he was doing with the, with the Canberras. CB: Yeah. RW: Yeah and Curly my engineer he eventually got the DFM just after - CB: On his second tour. RW: After he left us he got the DFM and he from a very lowly back, we’re all from very lowly backgrounds, working class backgrounds his son Paul was at grammar school and there was a thing, a big trip they were going to do, which he could do which would have affected his career quite considerably from the school and Curly couldn’t afford it so he sold his medal. CB: Right. RW: To pay for his son to go through school. His son ended up as a very eminent statistician broadcasting, writing articles, touring the world doing this sort of thing and he still brings Curly to the reunions. CB: Oh does he? So he feels that’s good value. RW: Yeah. Yes, Yeah but poor old Curly he missed his medal a lot and a chappie called [?] it’s in there he bought Curlys medal. CB: Oh. RW: And there you are. He bought Curly’s medal. He was a medal collector and he also involved with [?] he’s a Frenchman working, working with the [6th airborne div] on the invasion things and he bought Curly’s medal and through the squadron he found out that Curly was on the squadron cause he got in touch trying to find out who’s it was and he invited Curly over for several years, every year to get his medal. Well the first year well he couldn’t get his medals back, well he didn’t, he was allowed to wear it but he very kindly let him wear his medal and showed him where his medal was and that’s the sort of thing, the sort of the lads they were. But - CB: Can I go back to a particular experience - RW: Yes. CB: You describe - RW: Yes, certainly. CB: And that was the collision. RW: Yes. CB: So you’re on top of another Lancaster. RW: Yeah. Yes. CB: What happened to that aircraft? RW: Well I didn’t see it at all. ‘Cause I was - CB: No. RW: A little busy keeping flying but apparently his propellers, as I said, chopped through our, just behind the bomb aimer’s feet and the bombing compartment up front. His mid upper, his canopy over the cockpit carved through our wheels and tore the canopy off. CB: Yeah. RW: And his mid upper gunner, his mid-upper turret was torn off as well and the boys said they saw Taffy who was looking out of his little window saw the aircraft falling away with the canopy falling off and the aircraft falling to bits so you can’t imagine what happened to the crew in the cockpit and the mid upper gunner sitting on top of the aircraft and they saw the aircraft falling away with no parachutes coming out. Of course it disappeared in cloud. CB: Ah. RW: And we were two thousand feet and then they saw the explosion on the ground. CB: Oh. RW: They found out afterwards that it was another Lancaster. CB: Right. RW: And they were able to identify what Lancaster it was and they were all killed of course. Unfortunately. How lucky can you be? CB: Yeah and none of your boys saw it coming because you hadn’t got any view of it of underneath. RW: No. Well the engineer was standing at his little window on the starboard side said he just saw it as it appeared and he didn’t see it at all. CB: So you were flying straight and level. RW: Yeah. Yeah. CB: And this came up from underneath you. RW: Yeah. Hit sort of sideways. CB: Oh sideways. RW: Sideways underneath. CB: Which is why you can’t - RW: Yeah and that’s why he cut across us and we sat on top of him. And that was, and you never thought about it you never thought about disaster at the time you were thinking preservation. CB: No. RW: And keeping the aircraft flying. We’ve got to fly. Yeah. Which fortunately it did. CB: And a different question each of the crew has a different recollection of what was going on because they had different jobs. RW: Yeah. CB: You’ve already mentioned the danger of being the rear gunner. RW: Yeah. CB: How many times did your gunners shoot at other aircraft? Attacking aircraft in other words. RW: In a way not as many as the attacks that we had because the idea was you didn’t use your guns unless you had to because it gave away your position so about what a half a dozen times, perhaps. CB: Yeah. RW: On one occasion we in the going over Germany we had [five] fighter attacks almost one after the other and if it hadn’t been for the diligence of the gunners we wouldn’t have escaped out of it, you know. CB: You did corkscrews to get away from it. RW: Corkscrewed out of it. And once you’ve started corkscrewing it’s no good, no point flying firing your guns. CB: No. RW: What did happen I was very fortunate I flew in both the, two of the aircraft who did the, the ton up aircraft who did over a hundred operations. One was in H How which was one of our squadron aircraft and the reason why I flew it was because our squadron was allocated the first two Rolls Royce turrets with the 2.5 guns in the back instead of the four 303s mainly we were the first one of the earliest ones to get it because of the attrition rate on the squadron we were given this the 2.5 and we were, WingCo asked us, well he didn’t ask us he told us to go on this operation and get into a position where the special duty operator could attract the fighter to us. CB: Right. RW: So we could try the guns out so we’re stooging along and there we are and Harry called up, he said, ‘Attack starboard quarter coming up.’ So we waited there and he got, when he got in the position where he pressed the guns, pressed the tits to fire the gun it didn’t operate. It didn’t go and we saw sparks flying past but fortunately there were lots of contrails around about so we nipped into the contrails and got rid, got corkscrewing and got rid of the fighter but when we got back the old boss was a bit concerned. CB: Yeah. RW: And he said, ‘We’ve got to have to find out what’s going on here,’ he said. And they discovered that they’d changed the anti-freeze grease on the guns and because of that we were told to go out the next night and try them out the next night. Which we did and unfortunately there were ten tenths cloud all over the place but we fired the guns and they worked alright. So that we flew and that was one of the reasons why we had the .5 guns. Because of the attrition rate on the squadron. CB: Were they also on the mid upper? RW: No. No, just the 2.5s in the mid upper gunner. CB: Yeah. RW: But again you don’t hear much about the mid upper gunners. CB: No. RW: But they were just as vulnerable as the others really. They were attacked from behind. CB: They were an important lookout. RW: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. We were so lucky the diligence of my crew and we were good pals. It wasn’t the skipper sitting up front dictating things. They were telling you what to do. CB: Yeah. RW: You had to make the final decision obviously but you were just a crew. CB: What was the, what was the signaller doing? RW: [laughs] As little as possible [laughs] he was a wonderful character, very mischievous and he always swore he was going to come on operations drunk and towards one of our last operations we were in the crew room and we were talking and he crept up behind me and patted me on the shoulder [drunken talk imitation] and I turned around. He disappeared and I turned around and I said, ‘You bugger.’ And he’d left a couple of WAAFs standing behind me. [laughs] This is the sort of character he was. CB: This is an eighteen year old lad was he? RW: Nineteen. CB: Nineteen. RW: He was nineteen. No. He was twenty. CB: Oh was he? RW: Around then yeah and this was the sort of character he was and he used to get bearings when nobody else could and he when the skipper wanted a bearing, a particular bearing, he’d get one and there’s an emergency frequency which you had to keep off and he used to get right on the edge of this frequency and pick up bearings that you weren’t supposed to have. CB: So in practical terms. RW: Yes. CB: He was giving bearings all the time. RW: Yeah. Yeah. CB: Was he? RW: Yeah and again very different from, very different from the navigator and mischievous little devil and I always remember one of the occasions which we remember very vividly was at Waddington after the war when we had our squadron reunion and we’d all had quite a lot to drink and we were getting back into our taxi and we were going to drop him off at his pub, the Wheatsheaf in Lincoln and on the way back he was relating in his very drunken manner how Norman, my bomb aimer lost his virginity to Luscious Lill in Grimsby and there was a policeman walking past the car and wanted to know why. This was the sort of character he was. He drank like a fish and on one occasion we went into Louth to have drink and they used to run a crew bus to run us into Louth and pick us up at half past eleven when the pubs closed and we were coming back and Taffy disappeared. He didn’t know where it was until we had a call from the police station saying we have a wireless operator from your station. A chap called Arndale. He’s in prison. And what he did, he had a skinful, gone down a lane to have a wee and there just happened to be a policeman there and half wee’d on the policeman so they took him in. We were on operations that, had to be on operations that night so I had to into Louth and pay ten shillings to bail him out from the police station to get him back. This was the sort of, wonderful characters and we used to go down the pub and drink enormously playing Moriarty and again, it was a form of relaxation. CB: Yes sure. RW: Getting rid of stress. CB: Just a couple of things about the flying, excuse me. RW: Yes that’s - CB: What were you doing when you weren’t on operations? RW: Well occasionally you did an air test. And perhaps did a little bit fighter affiliation practice being attacked by a fighter but generally your, you were completely relaxed to do whatever you wanted. There was no, no station duties whatsoever. You’d perhaps go up to flight and see what was going on with the others. Down the pub. CB: But were you doing bombing practice in The Wash? RW: Yes, there were - CB: Were you doing circuits and bumps? RW: I think, I think it was a place called Wainfleet. CB: Yeah. RW: Somewhere about The Wash where we used to do practice bombing little eleven and half pound practice bombs you know, practice bombs. Used to drop those. CB: What height would you be flying when you dropped those? RW: Oh about eight, ten thousand feet. You weren’t flying at twenty odd thousand feet. CB: No. RW: In those days and yes we used to do little air tests and things. CB: Cross countries? RW: Pardon? CB: Cross country for navigation practice. RW: Err not so much. You did those when you first got on the squadron and you, when you got the feel of the squadron you did a couple of cross countries then but after that no we didn’t have to do any cross countries at all and your relaxation was really resting and down the boozer, down the pub and I used to get into trouble. When we used to live in a nissen hut, little corrugated iron nissen hut and when the condensation, used to get the condensation inside used to run down the ridges and in the winter used to form icicles. CB: Cause there’s no insulation. RW: Yeah. No. CB: No insulation. RW: No insulation. No. CB: No. RW: And all we had was a pot stove in the middle of the room a little cylindrical pot stove which we used to go and try and rob people of their ration of fuel and burn furniture and all sorts of silly things and of course there were no ablutions or watering inside. The ablutions were outside in another hut with a concrete bench with taps on and that was all you had. It wasn’t a, Wimpy built the station in eighty days completely and there were a main roads. There was a main road into the station, a main road with flights, a perimeter track and a runway and that’s about it. And all the rest we were walking around on grass and mud as a matter of fact being called Ludford Magna they nicknamed the place as Mudford which is a - CB: It was that bad was it? RW: It was that bad. CB: Right. RW: But it was, basically apart from the stress of what was going on it was a happy station and this was reflected on the senior staff. The group captain and the WingCos in that place. CB: But with the high attrition rate - RW: Yeah. CB: How, the senior officers would get shot down as well. RW: Yeah. CB: So how did the replacements work? Would it be somebody from the squadron already or would they post in a squadron leader or wing commander? RW: I think it depended on who was available. Perhaps one of the flight commanders would be promoted or could be promoted and our flight commander, Squadron Leader Robinson he was a fortnight before he was a flight lieutenant but the flight commander was killed and with rapid promotion he is made squadron leader. So he became a squadron leader and it has happened that when a station commander who’d gone on operations, well WingCo Alexander a wonderful man, he used to come and take on a crew that had just arrive on the squadron. Take them on operations. So if there were lost they’d perhaps try and promote somebody on the squadron, from the flight to become station commander or bring somebody in with experience. CB: Squadron commander you mean. RW: Yes, squadron leader. CB: Yeah. RW: Bring in one of the senior officers to take over the station which didn’t happen on our lot. I know it did, it has happened but then rapid promotion for whoever is on the flight. CB: Yeah. RW: Which Robinson was. He became from the - CB: Yeah. So - RW: Yeah so this rapid promotion business was well deserved but Robinson became the, the flight commander when he was twenty five, twenty six. Yeah. Well, look at Gibson. He was twenty six, he was a group captain and the group - CB: Yeah. RW: Group captain in the service, yeah. CB: Well did sometimes the station commanders fly on raids? RW: Not the station commander. I know some of them did. Ours didn’t. Old Group Captain King. As far as we know he didn’t because we didn’t know everything that was going on but the Wing Commander Alexander who was in charge of all the flying as I say a new crew would come on the squadron and he’d take that squadron, take that crew that night. Normally, he did a second dicky trip which was an experienced to get experience on flying but when we started at the end, end of of ‘43 started the Battle of Berlin when the operations were called Gomorrah which was maximum effort err old Squadron Leader Robinson flight commander called me in and said. ‘Right you’re flying tonight.’ I didn’t get a second dicky trip but thinking of that sort of thing we used to have jinx. People in the squadron. Used to have WAAFs, you know, somebody little transport driver if they’d been out with this particular WAAF nearly everybody who’d been out with her got killed so she became a jinx, you know. CB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. RW: And we became a jinxed crew. CB: Yeah. RW: We took three different pilots on experience operations and all of them were killed. CB: Were they? RW: So they wouldn’t send any more people with us. CB: No. RW: Yes. Which is remarkable. So these jinx things did happen. CB: How many hours did you fly in your thirty by the time you’d finished your tour of thirty ops? RW: Something like a hundred and eighty three. Something like that. CB: On, on ops. RW: On ops. CB: Ok. RW: Do you want to see my logbook? CB: I do. Please. RW: Yes. When – CB: We’ll do that in a minute but overall how many by the time you left the RAF how many hours had you flown? RW: Oh that’s getting on a bit. I did something like two and half thousand hours. CB: Did you really? RW: Which, when you compare people flying now are talking about thousands of hours. Thirty, forty, fifty thousand hours. No, two and a half thousand hours I ended up with which was quite a long bit for, for the - CB: When the Canadian Lancaster came over last year - RW: Yeah. CB: The senior pilot there, he’s on airlines, had done twenty seven thousand five hundred - RW: Yeah. Yeah. CB: Hours. RW: Yeah. Amazing, yeah. CB: I’m going to stop there for a moment. Thank you. [Pause] CB: Right we’re starting again. RW: Right from the beginning. CB: And what I’d like to do is to ask Rusty just to talk about the time from his birth really to a point at West Kirby. RW: Yeah thank you. Gosh. That’s, well at ninety two it’s a long story. No, it’s not really but I was very fortunate in my bringing up. I was born in a place called Shotley Bridge in County Durham and my dad worked as a handyman on a colliery owner’s estate and there I don’t know whether it was because of the situation or what was going on we lived in a tied cottage and I got diphtheria. I was, I had mucous diphtheria quite a chronic illness in those days and my mum who’d been a nurse in a military hospital nursed me at home with that and mum and dad had quite different careers. My dad was in the navy. He was orphaned as a boy, a two year old boy and brought up by an elder sister who when he got a bit older didn’t want them so he was put in the navy in 1905 as a boy entry and he went through and became a naval diver. And my mum who was a nurse in the, a sister, a matron, assistant matron at a military hospital in Darlington. Went through the war and got herself a Royal Red Cross, Associated Red Cross which was one down from the nursing VC which was a considerable award. She was a wonderful lady. And dad with his naval experience on the Q ships got himself a DFM and he is a leading seaman which was rather unusual in those days ‘cause not very many lower rank NCOs, he wasn’t even an NCO, got a decoration. He got a DFM. CB: A DSM. RW: Yes a DSM. DSM, yes. CB: Yeah. RW: Distinguished Service Medal and he, having been orphaned, he didn’t have a home to go to and my uncle Stanley was in the navy as well and he brought dad home on leave up north to Newcastle and there he met my mum and my auntie and he married my mum which is, which is lovely but because of his health he couldn’t do any really serious work and he used to do handyman work on the colliery owner’s estate and eventually when he moved in to Newcastle he used to do shift work looking after the stable and the horses for the Coop and in those day they had something like four hundred and sixty horses in the stables. And the nostalgic smell of all that leather was, when I used to go to night schools to try and get some education his stables were just a bit up the road and I used to go and meet him at, class would finish at 9 o’clock, the stables used to finish at half nine. I used to go and meet him at the stables and have a cup of tea by the big stove in the kit room. Smelled wonderfully. Wonderful. And then we had to walk home two and a half miles. No question of buses. Walk home. And dad was, really was a very quiet, unassuming man. Mum was a nurse all her life stayed nursing as her career all her life and she really saved my life on more than one occasion. Nursing me at home with diphtheria and typhoid and then the consequence because we, because we lived in, had no inside toilet, it was only a cold tap and no electricity, gas, paraffin lamps. We had communal toilets outside on The Green at the back I obviously picked up the typhoid from there so my mum went out and set them on fire and burned them down. So there we are. I came back to Newcastle and lived in the city for a wee while and then as a young teenager then I got TB, I had a TB [?] and that kept me down very much so and I was in a wheelchair when I was twelve so my mum nursed me at home with the TB and in consequence my health suffered to the extent that I wasn’t allowed to play sport, I wasn’t allowed to go swimming, couldn’t do all the exercises that my brother used to do and because of the family teeth which weren’t very good and because of the medication I was taking my teeth were in a very poor state so I had all my teeth out when I was sixteen and in those days they didn’t put teeth straight back in away again they waited until your gums got hard and then they put some china teeth in in those days. China porcelain things and that ruined my early love life that did. Mind you I didn’t know what girls were anyway. As far as I was concerned they were the ones that danced backwards, you know, so my upbringing in that respect was very, very sheltered. In consequence I started to go to school when I was about four and a half in Newcastle on the City Road but soon becoming ill I had to stop school and when I did go back to school I was just, just under eleven when you took the scholarship exam at twelve and of course I didn’t pass the scholarship and I didn’t, my brother went to a grammar school. I couldn’t go to a grammar school. I went to a school where you learnt ship working and work on the, work with the prospect of going perhaps in to the drawing offices of the shipyard. All the local stuff. But there again I wasn’t allowed to join the scouts or play sports and yet and yet my dad used to love watching football and we used to go to Newcastle United and watch the football there from an early age, from about eight, so I got quite a bit of fondness for Newcastle United. So, there we are I was a very sickly child with very little education and of course in those days to join the services at the age of eighteen you were called up and you were directed into any of the services that they needed. Even go down the mines and become a Bevan boy which I didn’t relish so I told mum and dad my friend he was going to join up at seventeen and have some sort of choice of services you went into and dad having been in the navy I said to mum and dad I said, ‘I’m going to volunteer and I’m going to join the navy. Volunteer to join the navy’ And they said, ‘Yeah. With your health record you’ll never get in.’ So off I went down to the recruiting centre which was a school and in the navy classroom there was the navy recruiting officer and my own doctor, Doctor Wright and I thought. ‘If I go in there I’ll never get in.’ So, I went next door and joined the air force. And really they were very hard up. This poor chap with no teeth and a heart murmur and varicose veins and covered in psoriasis and I think the air force must have been very, very hard up and much to my amazement after going to West Kirby to sign on where you were attested and signed on and joined the air force at seventeen. And poor old mum wept buckets her poor little lad, her poor little innocent lad going to play soldiers um and of course from then you had to go down to London to ACRC, St Johns Wood to be attestation and see what air crew you were going to be. When you were first signed up and joined up I was told I could train as air crew which was amazing ‘cause, in view of my health. Anyway after being signed on and got the kings shilling, not that I got a shilling but had to swear on the bible down to ACRC where you had attestation where you had medicals and exams. The medicals we used to have were in the Lords Cricket Ground and used to line up just with your underpants on and arms akimbo with your hands on your hips and they were at the side with the hypodermic syringe and pumping this stuff into you and the doc used to come and do what they called an FFI, free from infection, whereby you walked down the front, dropped your trousers and they used to go down and examine you with a little stick and the back, they went around the back, they went around the back and said bend over and made me wonder what on earth was going to happen but there you are if anyone collapsed when you were there or fainted there they just produced all the work on the ground. They just gave the injections on the ground. So we being, being at the Lords Cricket Ground you know and of course the result of that, much to my amazement, I was told I could train as a pilot because when you first went there you were trained as aircrew UT aircrew with a little white flash in your cap to show you were aircrew, trainee aircrew. So there we are I was told I could train as a pilot. And of course from there you had to start learning about the air force so I was posted to Newquay down in Cornwall at the ITW Initial Training Wing where you learned about the air force, square bashing, how to salute and all these sort of things. The admin side of the air force. So having completed that we were posted to, I was posted to South Africa and issued with the tropical kit and off to East Kirby, West, West Kirby at Manchester er at Liverpool to catch the boat to go out to South Africa. And in the billets there when the time came all the people left except eleven of us who were left in the room all Ws. All Walls, Walkers all the Ws left behind and we were left there and the camp disappeared. They took all the men off the camp, all the operating men off the camp and there were just the eleven, we lived off the NAAFI for a week and not knowing what on earth was going on until the next posting that came in and they were all WAAFs. All the WAAFs came in and seeing eleven blokes in their billet you know wondering what on earth was going on. So did we. Then the WAAF officer said, you know, ‘What are you doing?’ Well. ‘We were posted to South Africa and we didn’t go.’ Ah draft dodging. So we were posted down to the B course at Brighton. The bad boys course at Brighton because of the because we were accused of draft dodging and down there we were up very early in the morning and booking in at half past eight at night which we didn’t take very much enjoyment out of this sort of thing and the parades were very, very strict and doubling and running everywhere and we complained to the orderly officer one day at a mealtime telling him, you know we shouldn’t be here. We haven’t done anything wrong and he didn’t believe it and he said, ‘Oh you carry on.’ So the eleven of us, we wrote a letter and we all signed it and sent it to the station commander who had us in his office and he said. ‘This constitutes mutiny,’ which is a court martial offence and when we’d explained to him what had happened he did a bit of an investigation, he said, ‘Oh that’s alright he said, ‘Alright just book in in the morning and come in at night time.’ So we had a few days, four or five day holidaying in Brighton just walking about and spending all our time in [Sherry’s] Bar I think it was and of course then we had to start again. And when we were posted we were posted to another ITW at Stratford on Avon but all our kit and all our records had been sent out to South Africa so nobody knew anything about us so we had to start again so we did all our ITW again at Stratford on Avon and that was very pleasant. We took over most of the hotels for lectures and bedding and I can say I was on the stage in Stratford on Avon which is quite a, quite a thrill mainly as we used the theatre as aircraft recognition. We had to go on stage to point out aeroplanes but that was quite an experience and of course having completed the course successfully there you had to go and prove that we could fly and go overseas so we were posted to a place called Codsall, just north of Wolverhampton where there was a civilian aerodrome where we were, had to go flying Tiger Moths and once we’d gone solo that was it, forgot about aeroplanes. Some of the poor souls couldn’t go solo and they were re-posted. So, fortunately, I managed it and on the Empire Training Scheme where they used to send trainees to South Africa, some to Australia even, some to Arnold Scheme in America. I was posted to Canada on the Empire Training Scheme and this was at a place called Dewinton which is just south of Calgary. CB: So this is, what date are we talking about here? RW: This, this was in early ’42. CB: Right. RW: Early ’42. CB: Can I just go back to what you said earlier? RW: Yeah. CB: You were selected for aircrew. RW: Yeah. CB: But you must have gone through some kind of process that suggested you were suitable for aircrew rather than - RW: Yeah. CB: A ground crew job. RW: Yeah. CB: So what was that? RW: Yes. When you were first signed on, volunteered as air crew, when you went to Padgate to be officially sworn in to the service you did some testing there. You did some examinations there and with, fortunately with my experience as a pupil surveyor doing vectors and things on the ground is a similar sort of thing they did in the air with wind resistance and this sort of thing and that helped me enormously to pass the ground exams and having done that minor exams there you were then told you could train as UT aircrew. CB: Right. RW: Becoming UT aircrew PNB. CB: Yeah. RW: If you couldn’t succeed as a pilot you could perhaps become a navigator or a bomb aimer PNB. CB: Yeah. RW: And I was fortunate to say I could train as a pilot. So we - CB: Just, just to put that into context. Earlier you talked about your experience of then getting to leave school. RW: Yeah. CB: How did you get in to bring the surveyor? RW: Ah the well I - CB: Which was the basis for your selection. RW: Yeah. Yeah. CB: For aircrew. RW: I had, the school I went to was a training establishment more than a school. Learning about draughtsmanship and this sort of thing - CB: Yeah. RW: To go on the shipyards and you had to leave there when you were fifteen, sixteen. So I left school, no idea of what sort of job I could get whatsoever. So my brother who was, he was a grammar school boy and very highly educated, a very clever lad, he used to work in his spare time at the Newcastle repertory theatre and this Christmas they were putting on a play called “The Circus Girl” and they were short of somebody to take the part of the monkey in the play and my brother said I’ve got a brother who is doing nothing maybe he’d be it so I became a monkey in the Christmas pantomime at the Newcastle rep which was great fun. The devils, they wore a uniform, skin monkey skin with not much else really. The devils used to put itching powder inside that actually. Not very nice. And of course then when the pantomime was finished they said, ‘What are you doing now?’ and I said, ‘Well, I don’t know. I’ve got to look for a job.’ They said, ‘Would you like to stop on?’ So I stayed on the Newcastle rep for nearly a year as an assistant assistant assistant stage manager and with the girls doing quick changes at the side of the theatre you learned an awful lot about life but my aunt who had a very good friend who was, worked, had another friend who owned and ran an architect’s surveyors office said would I like to go and work for them. So I went and worked at the architect surveyor’s office and became a pupil surveyor. I was doing the exams for the Institute of Surveying, ISF, and I passed their preliminary exams but they didn’t count because I didn’t have a matriculation or school cert so I was going to night school four nights a week learning about mathematics and history and I wasn’t getting on terribly well. I don’t think I would have ever qualified completely but very fortunately the war came along and having volunteered to join up I left surveying and became, and joined the air force. CB: So that’s how you effectively qualified for being air crew. RW: Yeah. CB: Yeah. RW: Yeah. CB: Ok. Yeah. RW: So the fact that I qualified for air crew, the fact that, not so much my health record although the medicals I had were very comprehensive medicals the fact that the mathematics I was doing for the surveying helped me enormously with the navigation exercises we were doing in the thing so that, I think, helped towards the fact that I was allowed to train as air crew apart from the fact that they must have been very short of aircrew and they wanted somebody [to fill the boots]. Yeah, so - CB: Just a quick question about your initial training. RW: Yeah. CB: How many hours did you fly before you went solo? RW: When we first went solo at Codsall in Wolverhampton it was about eight or ten. CB: Right. RW: Something like that. When we got out to Canada you really had to start again and you were doing sort of fifteen, twenty hours before you really were allowed to go solo. CB: So I’m just interrupting now because this goes into the early part of the interview because it got missed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AWaughmanR150803 PWaughmanR1501 Title A name given to the resource Interview with Rusty Waughman. Two Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Language A language of the resource eng Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 02:55:47 audio recording Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chris Brockbank Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-08-03 Description An account of the resource Russell (Rusty) Waughman was born in Shotley Bridge, County Durham. Due to serious poor health as a child, his education was interrupted. He describes his training with the Empire Training School in Canada. He was posted to 101 Squadron which was a special squadron with the ABC system. He describes some of the unusual aspects of squadron life, such as premonitions, and the close connections between everyone on the station. He had many close calls, including having to right the aircraft which was flying upside down, due to being blown off course by a nearby explosion. On one occasion he managed to keep his Lancaster flying despite a collision with another aircraft. On another occasion the aircraft was again damaged during an attack on Munich. However, as they made their slow progress back they found themselves flying over France in daylight and were amazed to see, from a distance, two Spitfires which had been sent to escort them home. He also took part in the Berlin Airlift. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain Canada England--Lincolnshire Germany--Berlin Germany Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Maureen Clarke 101 Squadron 1662 HCU 82 OTU aircrew anti-aircraft fire Berlin Campaign (23 August 1943 – 25 March 1944) bombing bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944) bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944) briefing C-47 control tower coping mechanism crewing up dispersal entertainment faith fear FIDO forced landing ground crew ground personnel H2S Heavy Conversion Unit heirloom lack of moral fibre Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School love and romance Me 109 mid-air collision military living conditions military service conditions nose art Operational Training Unit Oxford perimeter track pilot promotion RAF Abingdon RAF Blyton RAF Desborough RAF hospital Matlock RAF Ludford Magna recruitment sanitation searchlight Stearman superstition Tiger Moth training Wellington Women’s Auxiliary Air Force https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/524/8758/AAn00202-150907.mp3 3a51154e9d6d6fcbea96557bce0d714b 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 Navigator from 101 Squadron Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context An00202 Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with a leader navigator from 101 Squadron. The collection was 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 CB: So it’s rolling now and my name is Chris Brockbank and I’m conducting an interview with [name redacted] and he wishes to remain anonymous when the recording is lodged, and we are at his home which is near Scunthorpe and we’re going to talk about his career in general but specifically the wartime activities and today is the 7th of September 2015. [redacted] could you start by saying where you come from and what your early life was and how you came to join the RAF, and then your history from there please? AN: I was born in London and after education I spent a time in the city of London as a clerk cum secretary initially to a Lloyds underwriter, and after that to a shipping company and from there I volunteered for the RAF. Didn’t like the idea of the army or the navy but as a Londoner I wanted to get into the war having experienced the Blitz. I was taken on, on the PNB scheme and went first of all to America for pilot training with the United States Air Force, which I failed as many people did, and I was given the option to re-muster to navigator. I went to Portage La Prairie west of Winnipeg and when we started there we were told the important thing for a navigator was to remain on track and we were also told that one important aim, rather one important aid, was astro-navigation using a sextant. I did the course at Portage La Prairie which I passed, came back to England having done a little astro-navigation in the air but on the ground we were required to take hundreds of shots and plot them out for the instructors to check to make sure we hadn’t cooked them and then after that I came back to England, went to RAF Melham? where I did more flying once again no astro-navigation because as newcomers to this aid we had to be precise and this took time, and if you’re flying around the UK it’s short legs, it’s short legs and you haven’t got time to do astro-navigation and so I had my course at Melham? and then with a lot of other newly qualified aircrew I went to Wymeswold where one important thing we were told was that a good aircrew was a good team and we then went into a big room where we were told ‘crew up’ and so we stood around whilst the pilots picked us out and Rusty picked me and then together we picked our bomb aimer, our wireless operator and a gunner. We did our flying from Wymeswold and Castle Donington and then after that we [loud crackling noise]. CB: Just dropped it, we’re okay. AN: After this we proceeded to Blyton where we converted from the Wellington which we’d trained on at Wymeswold to the Lancaster, at the same time we also picked up an engineer and a second gunner so we were now a crew of seven. Having done our course, once again including night flying but very little navigation we were then posted to 101 Squadron. We knew nothing about the squadron and we arrived to find that instead of getting H2S, a map reading radar to help with the navigation, instead we’d picked up an eighth crew member who spoke German and so was able to jam the German instructions to their night fighters. Also, once again it was stressed to us about staying on track, there being safety in numbers, also the question of timing. Bomber Harris didn’t want aids to be, the bombing to be in bits he wanted a complete termination of the target if you like and so we had to keep to timing that we were given and at the same time this meant that we had, we were spaced throughout the attack and this gave coverage to every, the whole Bomber Force against the night fighters or so it was thought. The other thing we found was that while we were at Wymeswold and Blyton we were introduced to a lovely aid called Gee, where you counted blips on a screen and converted this on special charts to latitude and longitude, but when we got to 101 Squadron we found the Germans had found Gee equipment on crashed aircraft and they were jamming the signals so our last Gee signal, our last reliable fix, was going to be round about the French coast, so we needed to get to height as soon as possible so we got a chance of getting a reliable wind because when we went to briefing, the navigation briefing for an operation we were given the forecast weather, the forecast winds, but bear in mind the forecast winds were based on what the meteorologists knew about the weather in the UK plus information sent back by Coastal Command from the North Atlantic patrols which [laughs] didn’t give you much. So it meant that once we got flying and got past the Gee stage where we had long legs we had time to practise, to use astro- navigation. If there was cloud cover and we couldn’t use astro then the next fix we were going to get would be when the bomb aimer said ‘Bombs gone’ so we needed if possible to get a fix in between to get some idea most importantly of whether we were on track and secondly that things were, we were also on time. So it meant that when we got into the bombing area and the bomb aimer said ‘Bombs gone’ I had to work quick to reset my equipment to get an accurate wind to use on the way back. Now there is a funny story goes with this. As I say I was kept busy but on our first trip the skipper asked me to come up front to have a look at the target to see, and so I saw all these bomb flashes and the flak and everything and my comment was ‘Bloody hell’ and I went back into my office and I never came out to look at a bombing, as a target, until my last trip. The other job I also had to do was that the captain would report to me when he saw an aircraft being shot down which I recorded, and I think that all these reports were combined after the war to ascertain as far as possible where aircraft were lost. I’ll have to stop and think for a minute, yes, I’ve already said to you I don’t look upon myself as a hero, I was doing a job. These are my thoughts, also why did we survive a tour when other crews didn’t? Well I like to think my navigation helped but in all honesty we got through because of luck. We had an in-flight collision, we survived the other crew didn’t. Also we lost an engine on one occasion and Rusty had to decide whether or not we should go on. This is where we had a bit of a hiccup, at Blyton we picked up an engineer. When we flew round the UK he seemed okay, but he couldn’t cope with operational flying and on the occasion when we lost an engine instead of being able to give Rusty advice on whether we could carry on to the target or not he was lying on the floor and it was a case we had to get rid of him, and in his place we got a very good engineer which also helped. In the same way we survived fighter attacks, we had good gunners, the thing is we were a crew but we were a team. We relied on each other and we trusted each other. In the year that I flew with Rusty never once did he ever query a heading I gave him or a change of speed I gave him, he trusted me implicitly and this is how our crew operated, we relied on each other and this plus luck is why we were able to finish a tour. Right, after I finished my tour I went instructing back at Wymeswold and whilst I was there Wymeswold was taken over by Transport Command and I spent a lot of my years until I retired in Transport Command. I became an A category navigator which meant that I was qualified for up to royalty. I carried, in my capacity as a navigator, various persons like Field Marshal Montgomery, I was part of a back-up crew when the Duke of Edinburgh visited Borneo, this was it, I enjoyed Transport Command, it was hard work you did a lot of flying but you saw a lot of the world in bits. I say in bits because if you went somewhere you were allowed twelve hours on the ground which included sleeping, eating, briefing. Didn’t have time to see anywhere but when on Britannias we slipped crews so therefore you had about a twenty-four hour gap between legs so then if you wanted to you could go into the local area. Apart from my transport work I obviously had ground appointments like adjutants and things like that and also I finished up at Scampton where I was involved in the training of radar navigators for the Vulcan and also for, oh dear, the coastal fighter. Anyway can’t think what it was but we were training radar navigators and that’s where I finished my RAF career. CB: Did you fly in the Nimrod? AN: No, no, no it was the Buccaneer. CB: The Buccaneer yes right, okay, we’ll pause for a moment. AN: After the air force I spent six months playing golf then I got bored then I became a civil servant for ten years. CB: Doing what? AN: Clerical work and then I retired again. I think I’ve covered everything in a nutshell. CB: You’ve covered it really well thank you. So shall we cover one or two other bits? AN: Yes certainly. CB: This business of LMF. AN: Um hum. CB: And the navigator, what happened to people, well first of all in the case of the navigator, what happened to him? I didn’t mean the navigator, I meant the flight engineer, your flight engineer what happened to him as a result of that? AN: We never saw him again. He was off the station very quickly. I mean we don’t think he was LMF we think it was medical. CB: Right. AN: Now because if he’d been LMF, now I was, it was after I left the squadron, my wife told me about it the LMF parade where the person concerned is, marches on and his stripes are torn off his uniform and then he’s off the station. LMF, were they LMF? Who can tell? I mean that in all honesty I don’t think I ever worried about what would happen to us until I started going out with my wife. Then I had a reason for wanting to survive but until then, I can’t, I can’t speak for other crew members because that’s something you keep to yourself. We all, well I say all, we had little mascots, I had a little doll I had in my inside pocket of my battledress, you got, you got very, very, very how can I explain it, you, you, you things had to happen, people might fly in a silk scarf, these things went on. Now our Canadian rear gunner he always took two beer bottles with him so he could bomb the target himself. Now one night, the station commander used to come round and wish us all luck and the Canadian rear gunner told him he hadn’t got his beer bottles so the station commander went back to the mess and brought him two beer bottles so he went on the raid happy that he could bomb Germany. CB: These little snippets are classic aren’t they but people were handling stress in different ways? AN: Um. CB: I think that the LMF bit one doesn’t want to overstate at the same time it is important to understand it and some people as you say perhaps had, weren’t feeling very well, and would react in a particular way and it wasn’t actually lacking moral fibre. AN: Yes. You see, I mean in my case as a navigator, I was busy, I was busy all the time. I mean if I was in the middle of taking, I mean it was three astro sights to a fix. If I was in the middle of that and we hit bumpy weather or we were attacked by a fighter that was wasted time, had to start all over again so I was kept pretty busy, then had, I mean I hoped that when I took my three shots it would meet exactly in the middle, never happened you got a cocked hat. Provided this cocked hat wasn’t too large you could say ‘Right I’ll go for the middle of that cocked hat and I can trust that’ but I mean you had to take each case on its merits. CB: But occasionally there would be a very high cloud top cover so what did you do then? AN: Oh yes true, then all you could do was just hope. CB: Um. AN: You couldn’t do anything, and because I had no aids. CB: But you were clearly skilled at using the equipment. AN: Dead reckoning. CB: Yes. AN: But that was based on the winds the met office, the met can’t forecast weather now so. And of course one other thing when we talk about luck we were on the Nuremberg raid, the ninety-three aircraft. CB: Yes. AN: Well we lost a quarter of the squadron on that and amongst us the quarter of the squadron we lost was our most senior crew on their twenty-ninth or thirtieth trip. And how were they lost? They were shot down by a gunner in a Halifax aircraft who mistook the Lancaster for a night fighter. CB: Crikey. AN: Now the thing is. CB: Savage irony. AN: We were taught, right from the word go, that if the night fighter, if you saw a night fighter, if he wasn’t attacking you, ignore him, because if you fire on him you’re giving away your position. CB: Yes. AN: This is another bit of luck. CB: Um, um. What happened to the crew in that case? AN: They were all, one escaped, one evaded but the rest were killed. CB: Um. Okay, now as I understand it from Rusty you had a curious experience of an explosion beneath the aircraft? AN: Oh this was at Mailly-le-Camp. CB: Yes. So that put you inverted? AN: Well, I think Rusty is a little bit incorrect there. CB: Right. AN: Because if we had been upside down, or doing a slow roll I think he terms it, he tells everybody this, and I keep quiet. If we had inverted my sextant in its box would have been at the side of me. If he’d inverted the box would have gone up in the air and come down and clobbered me. I don’t recall a sextant clobbering me. CB: Okay. AN: That’s all I can say. CB: Yes, okay. Now fighters chase you and the rear gunner says ‘Corkscrew’. AN: Yes. CB: How did you manage that situation as a navigator? AN: Well as navigator I mean i just sat there and waited for all clear. I mean the thing is we had a, we had a number of attacks but only one where it persisted and we felt that the normal night fighter pilot he could have been new and if we took the correct action he’d go and find somebody else who was asleep. This particular one continued the attack and our gunner shot him down. [Chuckling] luck. CB: Um. So you’re a special ops squadron, what was going on with your German speaker crew member? AN: In what way? CB: Well he sitting in the back? AN: Yes. CB: What was he actually doing and did you link in with it? AN: Well the, as I say, our operators, who were ABC operators were spaced throughout the attack and I think they were given certain frequencies each to monitor. We didn’t know much about this because we only saw our special at briefing, he didn’t live with the rest of us, they were kept away from us in case they said if they talked in their sleep. CB: Yes. AN: And gave away secrets. CB: Yes. AN: So we knew nothing really of what he did, but he like me was lucky when we talk about being afraid. He, like me, was kept busy. The wireless operator was kept busy but all the rest were spending all their time looking out for fighters and seeing people shot down. I didn’t experience that, our special didn’t, the wireless operator didn’t ‘cause we were all kept busy doing our jobs and we were fortunate in that respect. CB: And what was the wireless operator doing linking in with you? AN: Well that he couldn’t help me as such but he was, he was listening out for, there were broadcasts at certain times, we had a classic case where it was, well Rusty was in London getting his uniform and we went to Berlin with the squadron commander, and this particular one we were going, we were coming in to Berlin from the north, from Denmark. The forecast wind was something like sixty-five miles an hour. They’d started then, certain aircraft were given the job of giving broadcast winds, which they were giving to us and so we were given something like eighty-five when I got a pinpoint on the Danish coast I reckoned it was a hundred and thirty, and we were coming into Berlin with the wind right behind us, and I had to say to the wing commander, ‘Do an orbit’, he did an orbit, I said ‘Flaps down, undercarriage down’, now normally speaking we had a system, when the bomber aimer said ‘Bombs gone’ the bomb doors were closed, Rusty put the nose down and we got the hell out of there. I had planned, I planned that, I loved that because it was a short run out of the target before you turned west. Too far, too short and you’re off track. In this instance the wing commander he was sitting down in his cockpit on instruments and we’re going through with nothing on the clock and I said to people afterwards, ‘How do I say to a wing commander for Pete’s sake let’s get the hell out of here?’ A bit of, looking back on it funny. CB: Yes. AN: But not at the time. CB: No quite, because there’s a strict hierarchy? AN: Um. CB: So bombs have gone, then there’s the delay while you wait for the picture to be taken? AN: For the picture to be taken yes. CB: What was that like? AN: It seemed a lot longer than it was but the thing is we had this short distance to run which took that into account, as I say and then we turned and by then hopefully I would have worked out a wind and the first thing I do, no sooner turned on a course, I’d give Rusty a new one to allow for where we were and what the wind was, or what I thought it was. CB: So you’re over the target, you’ve dropped the bombs, the flash has gone and you’ve taken the picture. There are lots of planes around you so how do you take a new heading when there are so many, so close, how long before you change heading? AN: Well, we wouldn’t change, we’d change heading when we got to the end of that particular leg out of the target. CB: Right. AN: It was a case in the same way we had our collision, it happened. Who’s to say how many aircraft collided with each other, and why did they? I mean the thing is this, that at night you can’t see much, this is what we relied on for our safety, the fact we were in the dark. CB: Sure. Now you went on ops to do your thirty? AN: Um. CB: But you didn’t fly every night, so what did you do on the nights when you weren’t on operations? AN: Well. CB: And in the days? AN: Well, the thing is first of all I mean we’d flown by night and we’ve come back at dawn, we’re ready for sleeping. It would all depend, I mean it might well be we were down for fighter affiliation or an air test or something, it could vary in the same way we might get back and they’d say ‘You’re on ops again tonight’ because being the special squadron we sometimes flew not with, we were 1 Group, but we might be flying with 5 Group, covering 5 Group from the fighters. CB: So the attrition rate on your squadron was higher than the average of others? AN: Yes, because I mean the thing is that we did our first op in November and finished our last op 4th June and in that we did thirty trips. CB: Um. So in then extending, so when you were flying with the others then you’re doing a higher rate of ops? AN: Yes. CB: How did that go down with the aircrew? AN: I don’t think we ever, we ever talked about it really. I mean we had a spell where the Bomber Command in its wisdom said ‘Oh, getting ready for the invasion we’re doing the French targets’ and because they’re French targets they’ll be a third of an op which would have taken us longer, but after Mailly-le-Camp where we lost a lot of aircraft they changed their minds. So all of a sudden we suddenly found we’d done more ops than we thought. CB: [Laughter] Right. AN: But once again my attitude changed when I started going out with my wife. Before then, before then it was the case that if there were no ops then right it was down to the village pub with our ground crew. We were very fortunate with our ground crew, we had a corporal in charge of our aircraft, he’s dead now unfortunately, but he lived in Scotland just near Perth, and if any of us were up in Perth area we’d always pop and see him and his wife, and he was a corporal he stayed a corporal he wouldn’t take promotion ‘cause he would be going away from his aircraft. He had a radio at dispersal and he heard us coming back, he was ready for us, and if we were going on an op I’d get in the aircraft and I’d unpack my stuff ready, my chart, and if one of the ground crew was coming up front he’d say ‘I’m coming up front cover your chart up’. Never asked us until we got back then they’d ask us where we’d been. In the same way that after we’d had our collision and the aircraft was a write off we came in the next day, not only did we have a new aircraft we had a new insignia, the insignia that’s on that picture there, ‘Our Willy’. CB: So there was, in your case there was a very close liaison with the ground crew, what about other aircrew when their? AN: Well this is the thing that the loss rate was so high you didn’t get to know people. I mean you knew the odd people for different reasons, I mean I didn’t even know all the navigators because I mean you go into briefing, you see we had a nav briefing then there was the crew briefing when we could see peoples’ faces when they saw what the target was, we’d already had that shock we’d got over it but it was the briefing and then after I’d finished, I’d finished doing my calculations I’m back as a crew member again, I’ve ceased to be an individual. CB: Yeah. AN: And so you did, I mean I’ve had people say to me ‘Did you remember so-and-so?’ I’d say ‘No, never heard of him’ whereas on the other, yesterday I was able to say to Rusty ‘Yes the aircraft next to us was x squared and the captain was McKenna’ why I don’t know I remember that but it’s, people change so much. CB: When you took off you had to form up? AN: Well. CB: How place? AN: Well not, no not necessarily, what we had, we had a beam and we would fly up and down the beam climbing and then once we reached a certain height we would then set off bearing in mind I wanted us to get to operating height so I had time to calculate a wind. CB: Was the beam radio or was it a searchlight? AN: No it was a radio. CB: Right, and anyway you were interspersed in the stream? AN: Oh yes, yes. CB: So actually you didn’t go as a squadron? AN: The ones going, the ones in our area would be from Knutford? CB: Yeah. AN: Wickenby would have their own system I assume. CB: Right, okay. Now in the day time and you’re not sleeping after an op what are you doing? AN: Well, it might be fighter affiliation. CB: Could you just describe what fighter affiliation involved? AN: Well fighter affiliation. CB: How it works? AN: It would be arranged that we would go to a certain point somewhere and a fighter would suddenly arrive and our job was to take evasive action the way we would have done if it were a German night fighter. It was just to make sure that the two gunners were on the ball and the reaction by the pilot was okay. CB: Okay. Going back to crew and operations, the air bomber is up front doing in the run-in, how did you link with him? AN: Well, the link with him is as we were getting near the coast I’d say to him ‘Can you give me a pin point?’ and I got the same answer every time, ‘I can’t give you a pin point but we’re dead on track.’ That was my link with him. His job before we got to the target was throwing out Window strips but you see the thing is that, as I said to you, we were told ‘A crew is a team.’ Now think of the composition of our crew. Pilot a Geordie, engineer Lancashire, bomb aimer Birmingham, I’m from London, wireless operator from Wales, mid upper gunner from Lancashire, special operator from Norfolk, rear gunner from Canada, there’s a mixture for you, but we clicked as a team in the same way that if we go back that when the squadron association was formed in 1977 for about two or three years we were unique we had eight crew members at the reunion, as time went on some of them didn’t make it but at the moment we still have five out of eight. CB: Um. Your special ops man was Ted Manners? AN: Ted Manners yes. CB: After the war he could meet with you could he and tell you what he was doing? Or did you not get into that conversation? AN: I met Ted in northern Italy when he was an intelligence officer. CB: Still in the RAF, he was? AN: Still in the RAF, yes. CB: Right. AN: I met Rusty at Cranwell in 1951 when he had taken some Canadian cadets to the graduation at Cranwell when Princess Elizabeth was the, the⸻ CB: Reviewing? AN: Reviewing officer. CB: Yes. AN: Talking of that incidentally who is coming on the 2nd of October to bless the? CB: Can I come back to that in a mo? AN: Yeah. CB: Yes, thank you, thank you. Now on the, there are some things that are less palatable to discuss but they were, they were the reality of life and it still is today in a different way but with aircrew there was a contentious different approach perhaps and that’s the sexually transmitted diseases challenge, how did you see that? AN: I, I would say it would depend on the individual. I mean on the book about our crew they talk about Norman Westby, our bomb aimer, being taken to Grimsby by some of our crew where he met Luscious Lil [chuckling]. But, but, but we, apart from the nights when we went drinking to a degree we went our own ways. I mean if you weren’t going to the pub it was the case you got the bus into Louth you could go to the pictures, come out of the pictures, get your fish ‘n’ chips and get the bus back. CB: Um. I was thinking of other crews and just in the RAF in general because you, it’s the sort of thing that isn’t a secret so. AN: Well see once again we didn’t mix with other crews. CB: No? AN: We were our own little environment. CB: Right, and I think that’s the point, yeah. AN: But you see I mean the thing is that, that we have got this, I have got this connection with the rest of the crew. I, after the war I flew with many crews. CB: Yeah. AN: With many units but I never went to the associations, to other squadron’s associations meetings, it’s only 101. I spent the least time on 101 but it was the time when we were fighting for our lives. CB: Um. AN: And I think it’s a different attitude in the same way as I say that Rusty never once queried a heading. Now I had a case where I was flying with a flight sergeant and I was what’s known as the wing navigator, I was an examiner, and I was flying in the Middle East and I gave him an alteration of heading and he queried it. When eventually the beacon came up and we were dead ahead. Did he apologise? Not bloody likely, and that’s the difference. I mean I don’t know what was going through Rusty’s mind, he may have told you when I gave him an alteration, we had the joke in that I would tell him off for being one degree off, because if you’re going at sixty miles an hour every sixty miles you’re one mile off for a degree, but I mean this was it, it was a joke. Certain things we treated as a joke. CB: Just going to pause there for a moment. AN: Yes sure. CB: Thank you. AN: Now can I offer you⸻ CB: We’re on again now and just going to recap on one point which was the raid in France on the tank training school so what was the background to that then Jumbo? AN: Well, the school was in two parts, the accommodation and the technical side. I can’t remember which was which but 5 Group went in first and we were told to orbit until we got permission to bomb and while this was going on aircraft were being shot down while they were orbiting, and Rusty said ‘Oh we’re not having any more of this’ and he moved away from the orbiting until we got permission to bomb, then we went in. But we had this flash and the tail went up in the air, the nose went down, what it was I don’t know but it put us into a steep dive and as far as I recall it was Rusty and the engineer were pulling at the control column to get the aircraft back on an even keel. CB: Um. AN: As far as I can recall. CB: Um. AN: Because the thing is things were going on but you see the great thing with our crew, Rusty maintained that only people who needed to talk on the intercom talked, and if for example we were being attacked then anybody else talking shuts up. On the bombing run Norman’s in charge. CB: Um. AN: And this seemed to work very well, I mean most of the time our intercom was quiet, now compare that with the intercom on the American aircraft. CB: Um, V17? AN: Yeah, on the film. CB: Memphis Belle? AN: Memphis Belle. The noise on that intercom, the yakking going on. CB: Um. AN: I mean you can only listen to one person and that didn’t happen in the Memphis Belle at all. CB: Um. Now part of the challenge with the raid you’ve just talked about was interference, radio interference so what was that? AN: Well it was an American forces network, dance music, which seemed to be on the same frequency. I don’t know the technicalities of it at all, how it happened, why it happened, but this was the case that er, and it’s responsible. I mean we lost four or five crews on that which is a lot. CB: Um. AN: Not as bad as Nuremberg but still enough. CB: Um. Was the high attrition rate due to the fact that the Germans were able to lock onto your special ops operator? AN: Well, well, all I know is what I’ve read is the fact that the Germans developed a new system in that they had pockets where the fighters would patrol and they covered certain areas and that way they cut down the amount of fuel that was being used and so I think to a large degree the ABC became superfluous. CB: Okay. AN: Only an opinion. CB: Yeah. Now what about Scarecrow? AN: Scarecrow, well you see once again, Scarecrow was a form of flak. I mean in fact on the Mailly one I put in my logbook ‘a scarecrow up the flare shoot.’ I don’t know. CB: Because the notion is, or was, that Scarecrow was actually a spoof to overcome the fact that the RAF could do nothing about the upward firing guns in the night fighters. AN: Well do you know? CB: Causing blow-up. AN: We never knew about the upward firing guns. CB: Oh really. AN: And I mean I read about it somewhere and I said to Rusty ‘Did you know about it?’ and he said ‘No’. So we were flying in blissful ignorance. CB: Um, ‘cause the notion was that the explosion wasn’t a special type of shell called Scarecrow but was the explosion as a result of the Schräge Musik. AN: You wouldn’t be able to tell unless you were close to the explosion. CB: Quite. AN: Because I mean, the thing is that it was, the flak was going on all around you. CB: Yeah. AN: I mean, the thing is that, I remember on one trip we did we went to Aachen two nights running. The first night we did at normal altitude, the second night we descended and dropped the bombs in the descent as I recall and our special said afterwards that he heard the Germans giving our height just as we passed it, so the stuff was going off above us not below us. But that’s only what I was told at the time. CB: Yeah sure. Now after the war, the war comes, you finish your tour, you then go to instruction. What were you instructing on then? AN: Well it was navigating, either self-navigation equipment or DR, dead reckoning navigation or flying as a screen with them. CB: In what type of aeroplane? AN: Well it was a Wellington. CB: So this is OTU? AN: At the OTU at Wymeswold. I went back to Wymeswold. CB: Um. AN: And as I say Wymeswold was taken over by Transport Command and I suddenly found myself navigating Dakotas. CB: Oh right. So when did that start? AN: Well that would be have been at the end of, at the end of, probably about the end of ’44. CB: Right. AN: Then at the end of the war I went overseas on ground appointments and then I came back and eventually I came back onto Transport Command again. CB: What did you do overseas? AN: I was a briefing officer or an adjutant. I was an adjutant at Treviso, unit adjutant Treviso, station adjutant at Udine and a wing adjutant at [indistinct]. Then I came home and did the staff navigation course. CB: Right. What was the OTU number that you were at when you were training at Wymeswold? AN: I think it was either 93 or 108. CB: And then when you went back again same people were there were they? AN: It had a different number then I think. That may be why I’m thinking of two numbers. Well I mean actually what happened was I was there at Wymeswold some people were posted out, new people posted in and I had to do the course that a trainee would do, because it was my first time I learnt about trigonometry. CB: Which was important for Dakotas? AN: [Laughter] Well it’s like the same thing that people say you’ve got to be a mathematician to be a navigator, that’s a load of rubbish. As long as you can get two and two makes four. CB: What was the ACU number at Blyton? AN: Dear me, now you’re asking something. CB: Doesn’t matter. Okay so then after the war and you’ve finished your adjt job, what happened then as a sequence until when you gave up flying? AN: Oh no, I didn’t give up. No, I came back from Austria and then I then went onto a reserve centre, teaching reservists’ navigation and then I went onto Hastings and did a few years at Hastings, then I spent a spell as an examiner of navigators, and then, that included tour in Singapore, then I came home from Singapore, um let me think, oh I did more examining and then after that I went to training command for a spell and then I went out to Borneo with the army, I was at the brigade headquarters. And I came home from that and I was on Britannia’s. After Britannia’s I was station navigation officer at Manby and then I went onto training radar navigators at Lindholme and then at Scampton. CB: And those two were Vulcans or did you do Victors as well? AN: No, no I did Vulcans because we were at a Vulcan station. But before then I did the navy, the navy, the Buccaneers. CB: And why nav radar rather than the navigator? AN: Well because the, the navigators used nav radar and it was a case that, it’s difficult to explain, if you can imagine that you’re flying along and you’ve got a hill coming towards you, you can get the, you can see that as a hill, but as you get closer to it the picture changes, and I don’t know what instruction they had because what happened was that we would take off in the Hastings with the radar navigator at the back with an instructor and they, the trainee, he would do the navigating but we were the safety crew, and I mean it was very interesting flying at five hundred feet. CB: In a Hastings? AN: In a Hastings. [Laughs]. And of course while we were doing that we also had a spell where we used to go round the, fly round the, oil-rigs to make sure they were okay. We then relieved the Nimrods periodically to do the Cold War patrols, so it was very interesting one way and another. CB: Yeah. In the V Bombers there are three people at the back, so one’s the navigator, the other’s the nav radar and the third one’s the AEO? AN: Yes. CB: So how was the division of labour organised? AN: I don’t know because I never flew in, I never flew in the Vulcan. The Vulcan chap flew with us because we had the equipment. CB: So it’s purely dealing with the radar aspects of navigation? AN: Yes, yes. CB: Because he was also the air bomber? AN: Yes. CB: So then you give up doing that, then what? AN: Well that was when I retired from the RAF in 1977. CB: Aged 55? Close? Then what did you do? You did your time off? AN: I played golf for six months. CB: And how did you then get into a new career? AN: Well I saw, well when before I retired from the RAF I went on a course and became associate member of the Institute of Administrative Management. I also took the Civil Service entrance exam and after six months of playing golf and getting bored I saw an advertisement in the paper that they were looking for people, civil servants. So I applied and I spent ten years, most of it at Kirton Lindsay. CB: Oh right. On things we can’t talk about? AN: Oh no, no. This was the Environment Ministry but we looked after military and public buildings and married quarters. And then after that when that, they then moved me from Kirton Lindsay to Scampton back where I used to be. CB: And then you retired? AN: I retired yes completely. CB: Okay good, thank you very much. [Pause]. So how did, you were shut away in your office as you said how did you feel about the effect of what you were doing with your bombing, the effect on the ground? AN: Well I mean we were told, no we were given bits of information about trips we’d done, about whether it was a success or not, um but to me bombing in Germany we were bombing the enemy. I was a Londoner, I lost relatives, not close relatives but I lost relatives. As far as I was concerned I, I had no feelings really about the poor Germans, to me at that time the Germans were our enemy. Now as far as I’m concerned that I could meet someone today and he’s a German, so what the war’s over. I mean the price has been paid and this is the way I think it should be but I mean I didn’t have any feelings about poor Germans at all because it’s no different, we were doing the same as two armies fighting each other. This was, we were one army and the civilians were the other army. Unfortunately reading books since the war a lot of the people who got lost achieved nothing, their lives were wasted. CB: Um, um. AN: In case of, as in the Nuremberg raid, I mean as Rusty would say ‘On the Nuremberg raid, we lost more people than the whole of the Battle of Britain’. CB: We did, yeah. AN: And I’m afraid I for one, I mean they did a wonderful job in the Battle of Britain, but I for one feel it’s about time we had our turn. I mean every time an aircraft was lost it was seven or eight people. CB: Yeah, absolutely. AN: But then that’s life. CB: You’d given up operations by the, towards the end of the war so did the Dresden raid, were you aware of that? AN: Well as far as I’m concerned the result of the Dresden raid made me have second thoughts about Winston Churchill because I feel that he did the dirty on us, that on what I’ve read about the Dresden raid it was asked for by the Russians because the troops were passing through Dresden. That is what I have read other people say it’s a lie but to me it was spite in particular that Bomber Harris didn’t get the decoration that the other service chiefs got, and that was small minded I feel. CB: Um. AN: But once again Dresden was in the war area. It was unfortunate. CB: As was Chemnitz down the road? Okay 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 a navigator from 101 Squadron Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chris Brockbank Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-09-07 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AAn00202-150907 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Language A language of the resource eng Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Royal Air Force. Transport Command Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:00:24 audio recording Description An account of the resource <p>The interviewee was born in London and worked for some time as a clerk until joining the Royal Air Force. He did not like the idea of serving in the Army or in the Navy but - as a Londoner - he was keen to take part in the war, having experienced the Blitz. He trained in America as a pilot, but failed and re-mustered as a navigator at Portage la Prairie, west of Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada) where he learned astro-navigation. Back in England, he crewed up RAF Wymeswold, then trained on Lancasters at RAF Blyton before being posted to 101 Squadron. They were joined by an additional crew member who spoke German and could disrupt night fighters radio communication. During his first operation he saw the target with all bomb flashes and exclaimed: 'bloody hell' - he never left his post to see the effects of a bombing until his last trip. One of his tasks was to note every aircraft shot down, as communicated by the pilot: these pieces of intelligence were then combined to ascertain where the aircraft were lost. He remembered how they survived a mid-air collision, but the other crew did not; and another incident in which they lost an engine and his pilot had to decide whether they should go on. He recounts how the Germans salvaged Gee equipment from crashed aircraft and were able to jam it; the last reliable Gee signal was picked up near the French coast. He recollects that a flight engineer could not cope with pressure when they lost the engine: he panicked and laid on the floor for the whole time. They had to replace him with another one. He ascribed survival to both camaraderie and sheer luck, including mascots. He had a little doll inside his battledress, and their Canadian rear gunner used to bring two beer bottles so that he could ‘bomb’ the target himself. On one occasion, since he did not have the beer bottles, the station commander himself went back to the mess so that he could have his beer bottles with him, and he was happy that he could bomb Germany. He said that some reacted in different ways to operations: even if the operations took a heavy toll on them, this did not automatically equate to lack of moral fibre. The incident involving the flight engineer wasn’t a case of that; if it had been, he would have had his stripes torn off his uniform while being marched away. He himself, the German speaker special operator, and the wireless operator felt less stressed, being busy all the time inside the aircraft. On the contrary, the rest of the crew could see the operation unfold in front of their eyes. He mentioned an operation to Nuremberg in which they lost a quarter of the squadron. They lost the most experienced crews, who were at their twenty-ninth or thirtieth trip, because of friendly fire. He recollects a corporal serving as ground crew: he was very close to him and to the rest of the crew. He never wanted to be promoted as this would have meant being separated from ‘his’ aircraft. Losses were so high that he could not afford the luxury of befriending other crews. He stressed that he was ‘an individual only when he was attending briefings’, then he became part of his crew. While not on operational flights he took part in fighter affiliation exercises in which they simulated combat situations. He points out the sense of belonging, despite individual differences: the pilot, a ‘Geordie’, the engineer from Lancashire, the bomb aimer from Birmingham, he himself from London, the wireless operator from Wales, the mid-upper gunner from Lancashire, the special operator from Norfolk and the rear gunner from Canada. He did not consider himself a hero, but merely did his job in an impersonal way - bombing Germany was bombing the enemy. Despite having lost relatives during the Blitz, he did not have hatred: that was war. In a total war, the distinction between civilians and combatants fades. After the war, he realised how many people achieved nothing and wasted their lives.</p> Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Leicestershire England--Lincolnshire Scotland--Perth and Kinross England--London Canada Manitoba Manitoba--Portage la Prairie Germany Germany--Nuremberg France France--Mailly-le-Camp Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Adalberto Di Corato Carolyn Emery Maureen Clarke Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1944 1945 101 Squadron air gunner aircrew bomb aimer bombing bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944) briefing C-47 coping mechanism flight engineer Gee ground crew ground personnel lack of moral fibre Lancaster mid-air collision military ethos navigator Operational Training Unit perception of bombing war pilot RAF Blyton RAF Kirton in Lindsey RAF Wymeswold Scarecrow Schräge Musik shot down superstition training Wellington wireless operator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/607/8876/AMaywoodRM151109.mp3 773cbbdec73ec1fb4e55919303593c37 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 Maywood, Dick Richard M Maywood R M Maywood Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Maywood, RM Description An account of the resource Three items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard 'Dick' Maywood (1923 -2016, 1623169 Royal Air Force), his log book and a certificate. He flew operations as a navigator with 608 and 692 Squadrons. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-11-09 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document CB: This was the, this was the interview with Mr Richard ‘Dick’ Maywood, xxxx and he was a Mosquito Pathfinder navigator. [Recording resumes] RM: Above the main bomber stream. Twenty-eight thousand feet. We carried one cookie. CB: Four thousand pounder. RM: A four thousand pounder. CB: Yeah. RM: And we had the Mosquitoes with the bulged belly. Now a lot of those - that was the B16. A lot of those appeared in the film, “633 Squadron.” Now, that film was the biggest load of bullshit you ever came across. It was so ridiculous that a lot of people would believe it. The bombs which they showed being loaded up on these, for the operation, were cookies. The four thousand pounder bombs that we carried, with the peculiar tail fin added, and they were supposed to drop these bombs so that they hit the base of the rock and bring it down. Now, with the four thousand pounder, we were told safety height above one of those is five thousand feet or more. They wouldn’t have been more than five hundred feet away from that rock. So, the best part of that film as I was concerned was the theme song, the theme music. CB: Yes. Exciting. RM: Which I intend to have played at the end of my funeral service. CB: Oh right. RM: Because I’m gone. CB: Yeah. RM: The other Mosquito film that they made, “Mosquito Squadron”, again, that was largely, sort of, bull but there was one interesting point there which is true, and that is the point where they had Mosquitoes practicing dropping bombs or lobbing bombs in to tunnels and that actually did occur. And one of the Polish squadrons, I think it was 305 was involved in that, but other than that, away we go. The Amiens raid which was a true one. CB: Pickard. Yeah. RM: That formed the basis of Mosquito squadrons attack. So, in actual fact, “Mosquito Squadron”, in spite of the American CO and all that sort of nonsense, did contain certain aspects which were very true. Curiously enough, as I say, most of the light night striking force operations were either nuisance raids to divert fighter aircraft from the main bomber stream and were raids in their own right, or they were on the same targets but about a mile higher than the main stream. So, some of them, the runs, were particularly with Berlin, they used to call that the Milk Run. CB: Yeah. RM: Yeah. CB: So how did that work? RM: In exactly the same way as an ordinary raid would be set out. You’d be given the route, you’d plot the route, and you’d be given the Met winds which the weather people had found and were vital because A: - you needed it for navigation in the days of steam navigation, and you also needed it as the only setting to be put on the Mark 14 bomb sight. And that was the gyroscopically controlled one. I can tell you a story about that too. I shared a bombing range with a B17 on one occasion at Boxmoor near Oxford. We’re at twenty-five thousand feet. We had six practice bombs. It was a NFT. And I was sharing a range with a B17 and he could not have been more than fifteen thousand feet. With the bomb and the pickle barrel from thirty thousand feet. Norden bomb sight. His bombing error was twice mine. I was knocking up around about sixty, seventy yards and he was around about the, probably a hundred and twenty, hundred and fifty yards, and as I say he was probably ten thousand feet below me, two miles below me. So much for the American bomb sight. And that Bomb sight, the bombardier had to take it out of the aircraft every time he flew and put it back in to safe keeping, and then draw it out because they didn’t want the Germans to get it. But what they’d overlooked was the fact that the Germans had hacked down quite a lot of B17s and knew everything about the bombsight. But there we go. I’m afraid that you are probably going to think that I am very biased against the Americans. I’m very biased against the American Navy, and I’m not particularly, sort of enthusiastic about their Air Force either. Any Air Force which bombed in daylight, in formation, well, at a steady height. Steady speed. Nearest approach to suicide you could get. Their B17 crews, I must admit, were very, very brave people. Very brave people. But in those days as I say, we hadn’t got much reference for them because most of the big B17 stations were around here. in this area. Northamptonshire. CB: Near Peterborough. RM: Peterborough and that area. CB: Yeah. CB: And all that area. And George, my pilot, if we were coming back off a night flying test, he’d look around for one of these and he’d formate on a B17 and sort of drop his undercarriage, and put the flaps down and sort of follow on its wingtips, and then when he’d had enough of that, he’d go clean. Both engines. And then he’d fly in a circle around them as they went along because I mean, we could do a hundred and ninety knots quite comfortably on one engine. But to give you some idea, on one occasion, on an authorised low flying exercise, an American B, a P47, the Mustang - formated on us. “Air Police” written along its side and he was going like this, more or less telling us to get up. I gave him the washout sign. I said to George, my pilot, I said, ‘We’ve got a visitor’. ‘What’s that?’ He looked, ‘Oh him’, he said. He said, ‘Let’s teach him a lesson’. And he just took both engines through the gate and we left. CB: Left him standing. RM: Within a minute he was a dot. He could have beaten us at low level because of course, our B16s that we were flying at that time, although it’s low level, really didn’t get into their own until we were at twenty-one thousand feet or over. But going through the gate gave us that little bit extra. And that was it. Because we used to - from Downham Market, we exited down between the old and new Bedford Levels, right down to Royston. That was our route out. Incidentally, after VE day, they said, ‘You’re coming off high level bombing. You’re going low level daylight in the far east and map reading’. Now, that is the equivalent of going off an HGV on to formula one practically. Now, a lot of people don’t believe this, but I can assure you, hand on heart, that it’s true. We were told, ‘Now, when you go to low level, that is fifteen to twenty-five feet’. And we did it. Fortunately, my pilot, when he was an instructor in Canada at Estevan on Oxfords had four instances of collecting rubbish from the undercarriage of his Oxfords. Low level. Unauthorised. But he was very, very good at it [laughs] and we had quite an amusing incident to do with that, but if we go back to the light night striking force, as I say, that was part of 8 Group which was given the permission to put eight, in brackets, PFF force, group rather, Pathfinder force. Because each station in 8 Group had one Mosquito which was mainly light night striking force, and one squadron of Lancs which were again associated with the Pathfinder force, and they were equipped with H2S which gave you the map. And of course, H2S was the result of quite a lot of Lancs being shot down, because the night fighters, German night fighters, could tune in. Home in on them and bang. And then again, the Germans had a very nasty idea called Schräge Musik, which you’ve probably heard of. The upward firing guns. So, they’d home in underneath an unsuspecting Lanc and bang, that was it. But once they got wind of this then, they put the Mosquito night fighters in with the bombers and that did reduce the losses a little, because it upset the Germans. Now, is there any aspect that I could fill you in on? Because I don’t exactly know what you’re after you see. CB: That’s alright. So, what I’d like to suggest is that we start with your earliest recollections of your life. What you did at school? Where you were born? And then after school what did you do? RM: Yeah. CB: And how did you come to join the RAF? RM: Yeah. CB: I’m just going to stop for a mo. RM: Yeah. [recording paused] CB: Hang on, let me just get it started again. So now we’re restarting with the early days, Dick. RM: Yeah. CB: So, where you were you born and — RM: I was born — CB: Just up the road. RM: Just around the corner. CB: In Peterborough. RM: In Peterborough yes. I went to the local school which is about a hundred and fifty yards around the corner from here as an infant, from five to seven. They had the junior section then from seven to eleven and when I was eleven, I got a scholarship to the local grammar school which was called Deacon’s School. Peterborough had two grammar schools, Deacon’s and King’s, of which, of course, there was very considerable rivalry between the two [laughs] as you can imagine. With King’s School, it didn’t matter so much about passing the school cert exam. Eleven plus equal. With King’s School, you had to be able to sing because that was the Cathedral School. And curiously enough, at the service yesterday at the Peterborough Cathedral, I remarked on the fact that we must be getting old because the choirboys looked smaller and smaller. I was actually in school to hear war declared. I’d reached the sixth form, and we were actually called in during the holiday to the sixth form to deal with the evacuees from London. Now they, that started on a Friday. The evacuees came into the school and we were there to separate these various children and give them to the groups to which they’d been allocated, so that they could be taken to their future homes. And about half past ten, quarter to eleven on the Sunday morning, the headmaster came around and said, ‘Forget about the evacuees. All of you assemble in the music room because Neville Chamberlain is going to speak to the nation at 11 o’clock’. So, we went in there and we heard the war declared and that was that. Now, I came to the conclusion then that instead of staying on to go, say to do my A levels and go to university if that would be interrupted by war service. Now, I’d always been, from the age of about nine when I’d got a book called the Boy’s Book of Aircraft for a Christmas present, I’d always been interested in the flying aspect. Biggles and all that sort of thing. And I developed quite an interest in flying from the reading point of view and from the model aircraft point of view, and I thought well why not volunteer for the Air Force. So as soon as I was eighteen, that was in 1941, I nipped up to Cambridge, because at eighteen, if I volunteered for the Air Force, I wouldn’t be called up for the Army or the Navy. And so, I volunteered. I was accepted for further investigation, that was in 1941, and then in December ’41, was called to Cardington where I had my aircrew medicals and aptitude tests and was accepted as future aircrew. And much to my annoyance, that was December ’41, I was actually called up to Lord’s Cricket Ground, August bank holiday Monday, 1942. I hopped off one foot on to the other. I thought that was a dirty trick [laughs]. Anyway, we were assailed with needles and vaccinations and boots to be cleaned and uniforms, paraded up and down Earl’s Court and so on, and went to the zoo for meals. From there, I eventually went to Number 6 ITW at Aberystwyth. I’d only been there about six weeks on a ten weeks course when I had to report sick on Tuesday. I’d got a swollen throat and what not, sore throat, went to sick quarters and the MO there sort of looked, ‘Ah, he said, ‘Mist Expect, three times a day for three days. Come again on Friday’. Well, this Mist Expect was a brown lotion. Yuck. Which was very evil tasting. Anyway, by the Friday morning, I more or less managed to crawl up to the sick quarters and they said, ‘Strange. We’ll have you upstairs under observation’, and that was on the Friday. On the Sunday morning, I developed the classic male symptoms of mumps. Now, as soon as they realised this, they whipped me off to the local isolation hospital called Tanybwlch, where I was the only patient and I distinctly remember it. There were five Nurse Williams’ and one Nurse Prodigan there. I lived like a lord but the interesting thing was, that I was there for a week and at the end of the week they said, ‘Right. You’ll be going home on Monday. Fourteen days sick leave’. Now, before the Monday, on the Friday, about twelve of the people who were in my flight at ITW reported in to Tanybwlch with mumps. And what they were going to do to me was nobody’s business until I mentioned fourteen days sick leave. I was the flavour of the month after that. Anyway, from there, after a week, a few weeks due to bad weather, I finished up at Desford Leicester, grading school where I did my twelve hours on Tigers. Selected for further pilot training. The interesting thing was there the instructor that I had was a Sergeant Collinson. He was an ex-bank manager and three weeks after I’d finished and gone to Heaton Park, word filtered through that he’d had a pupil who’d frozen on the controls and killed them both. And a nicer bloke you couldn’t have wished for. He was the exact opposite to the American instructor which I had at Grosse Isle. Anyway, as I say, we did this grading school and then from there we went to Heaton Park, which of course was the centre from which all aircrew to Canada, America - the USA, South Africa were sent simply because there was no room in the sky to have UT pilots barging about and getting in the way, even though the Tigers were painted yellow. But and as I say from there, I volunteered for the Flying Boat course which was rather ill fated. I did get about thirty - thirty-five hours solo on Stearman N2S4s which I thought was a beautiful aircraft. It really handled superbly. The sort of one that the wing walkers are using now. Much nicer aircraft to fly than the Tiger. Had twice as much power and on Tiger, if you came on the approach five miles an hour too fast, you nearly floated across the airfield. You didn’t get down. With the Stearman N2S4, you came in and as soon as you got the right attitude, closed the throttle, stick back and it would go down on a three pointer and stick. Much nicer. Also, had brakes which helped you to stop and manoeuvre because with the Tiger, they had to come out and take your wing tip. CB: Now where was this? In the states. Where? RM: This. Grosse Isle, Detroit. CB: Grosse Isle. RM: Yes, and the French Grosse Isle - G R O S S E I S L E - and that was American navy. The only British officers that we had there were one RAF and one Royal Navy officer, acting as liaison because of course, not only did the RAF send pilots there but of course Fleet Air Arm. And it was the Fleet Air Arm course really. With carrier work and then Flying Boats, because they had to be versatile with both but I could never understand why we were subjected to the first part of the course, but it was a good thing in actual fact, But I couldn’t see it at the time. Because I couldn’t understand why anybody would try landing a Catalina on a Flying Boat. It’s a ridiculous state of affairs to be. Anyway, from there, as I say, I was sent back to Canada, to Windsor, Ontario and had a re-selection board. Was re-selected as a navigator air bomber. The navigators could either be pure navigators, NavBs, NavWs, nav wireless or Nav radio, and in each case, it depended on the type of aircraft that they would be going on to for their training and radio mostly on fighters for instance. The day and night fighters. The - CB: Can I just go — can I interrupt? Go back a bit? Why was it that you gave up the flying? The pilot training with the US Navy. RM: Why? I was washed off. Yes. I was washed off the course. They had a field. The main fields. Grosse Isle had several satellite airfields. Much more. And one of these was a square field on the edge of Lake Michigan, and in the middle of the field was a hundred-foot diameter circle. Now, it gets rather technical here because to explain it, I’ve got to be technical. Imagine that there’s a line through the circle with the wind. Wind line. And this wind line, when on the afternoon that I was taking my tests, was at right angles to the shore of the lake. Now, this field was probably no more than four hundred yards long and the circle would be probably about eighty or ninety yards in, because you had to, sort of, do a touchdown and off again. The afternoon, it was in August, the ambient air temperature was eighty-five Fahrenheit. Now, you came down wind parallel to the wind line like a normal left hand circuit. Eight hundred feet. When your wings were opposite the circle, you cut the engine and the rest was a glide. Now, you had to glide down across the wind line at between ninety and forty-five degrees, continue the left hand turn and make a right hand turn onto the wind line and in and drop. Because, of course, with a lot of aircraft, you’ve got no forward, fighter aircraft particularly, no forward vision. So, they had to adopt this and they still do I believe, I’m not sure. Now, as soon as on the right hand turn, as soon as I crossed the shoreline, I gained about fifty feet. Thermals. I’ve never done any gliding or known anything about it, and I didn’t know what a thermal was. So, I overshot. The next time, the second run, I came a little bit lower. I still overshot. And we had to get three out of six in the circle. The third shot. I came around and I still touched down just beyond the circle, so I knew that I’d failed but I opened up and ignored the instructor, who was sitting by the side of the circle watching, ignored his signals [laughs]. I thought I will bloody well put one in and the fourth one in, I actually undershot. But in order to do that, my right hand wingtip on the right turn was almost in the water. It was that low. And as I say, as soon as I muffed that third one, I knew that I’d failed so it didn’t bother me much. Now, one difference between the RAF training aircraft and the American training aircraft was that with the Tiger Moth, you had a two-way Gosport system so you could talk to the pilot. With the Stearman N2S4s, both Army and Navy, they had one way Gosport. The pilot could talk to you but you couldn’t talk back. The other fact is that all of the instructors, Army and Navy instructors on pilot training in the States were usually first generation nationalised Americans. Now, they were not allowed to go to the actual warzones, just in case they were spies and nasty types. So, you can imagine that these instructors had quite a bone to pick, you know. They were very bitter about being singled out for this and they took it out on us. Now, on one occasion, I’d already upset my instructor, you know, before these circles landing. And if you had a high level emergency, which usually occurred at two thousand feet, you were supposed to glide round, selecting a field and then make this sort of approach. And we were stooging along on one exercise, just before these circles, and he suddenly cut the motor and said, ‘Right. High level emergency’. And one of the satellite fields was just down there so, I gave it full left stick, full right rudder, organised a side slip and brought it right down in one go in to this field. Settled and did a three pointer. And I sat there and I thought bloody marvellous Maywood. The remarks that came over the Gosport were not printable. Definitely not printable. I had disobeyed every rule in their book. Disobeyed them. I was worthless. I was useless. He didn’t speak to me for a couple of days afterwards. He just took me up. But on the way back, after the side slip, he cut the visit short because we flew for an hour and a half at a time. We’d been flying for about a half an hour. He said, ‘Right. We’re going back to base’, and he did flick rolls left, right, left, right, and obviously to try and upset me. And they had a mirror up in the centre section where they could see us, and as he did these, the more he did it, you know, sort of thumbs-up which made him even worse. As I say, for two days he would just take me out to the aircraft. We’d do what we had to do until this circle business and not a word was said. Now, after washing off this course, as I say, we had a re-selection board in Windsor, Ontario. It’s just across the water from Detroit and I was selected as a NavB. I had to do six months general duties work. Three months in Toronto manning depot. That was quite an interesting, mostly sweeping the floor but on one occasion, two occasions, two successive days. We had to, you know, two of us, another washed off pilot and myself who chummed up and we were picked for guard duty in the detention barracks there. When we reported to the flight sergeant MP first thing in the morning, we were handed side arms. 45 revolvers. And the SP said, ‘Now, the only thing I’m going to tell you’, he said, ‘Is never ever let one of the prisoners get within shovel distance of you’. Shovel distance? What’s that? He said, ‘Remember that’, he said. ‘If they look like getting there’, he said, ‘Shoot them, because it might be the last thing you do’. He said, ‘We won’t ask questions’. Anyway, we went into this detention barracks and we were ushered in to a building which was about thirty feet wide, probably ninety feet long and normal height of a shed. Say perhaps ten, twelve feet. Across the centre of the room, there was a black line. Two-inch black line that ran down the walls, across the floor and up the other wall. Now, you can imagine, you walk in there and you see this. At one end, there was probably about fifty, sixty tonnes of small coal. The other end absolutely pristine walls and floor. Whitewashed. The prisoners had wheelbarrows and shovels and it was their job to shift this coal from one end to the other and then when they’d done that, they scrubbed the floor and the walls. Whitewashed them. And then did the job again. Now, they were doing this probably for two or three months and they were, it was described as being stir happy. And this is the reason. They’d had one or two of the guards had been attacked with these shovels and had been seriously injured or killed, and that was the reason why we were told. Now, we only had that for two days fortunately, because we more or less stood back-to-back [laughs], watching each other’s backs and then back to the old sweeping routine. And that was for three months. Then from there, I was sent out to a place called Goderich, which is right on the borders, Western border of Ontario. That was a training station for twin-engined aircraft for Royal Canadian Air Force cadets. Spent three months there and then onto a place called Mountain View in Ontario to do the bombing and gunnery school. The bombing was done on Mark 2 Ansons. You’ve probably seen pictures of those. And the gunnery was done with the Bollingbroke, which was the Canadian version of the Blenheim 4. The turret. Have you ever seen the Blenheim gun turret? Other: No. RM: Most peculiar arrangement. Vertical column, and a beam pivoted on this vertical column. At one end of the beam is a seat, at the other end are two Browning pop guns, 303s, and handlebars. So, when you - to operate the turret, to elevate the guns or depress them, you turn the handlebars like twist grips. And to turn the turret, you steer it like a pushbike. So, if you were firing at aircraft up there, your bottom was right down here and you’re looking up there. You’re not sitting in the chair and looking all over like you did with the Fraser Nash and the other turrets. The locking ones. Anyway, we were quite interested because the first exercise that we did, it was really a chastener. We had two hundred rounds each to fire. Now, what they did with the two Brownings, they put three hundred pounds in each with a dummy round of two hundred in each gun. So, the first person in to the turret, you flew in threes, first used the left hand gun. Two hundred rounds. Left it. The next person going in, two hundred rounds from the right hand gun. And then the third one cleared both guns and a hundred from each. Now, the actual bullets, the tips were dipped in paint. So that when, they went through the drogue, which was the target, you could see from the colour as to who hit and how many. The drogue was roughly in size a bit bigger say, than the fuselage of a Hurricane or a Spit so you can see it’s quite large and the first exercise was what was known as a beam target, where the towing aircraft had towed the drogue on your beam two hundred yards distance. Steady. In other words, you were firing at a static object. No lead necessary either way. And of course, we just blazed away with these in short bursts and when we got down after the first exercise, this exercise, they gave us the number of hits. Now, believe it or believe it not, at two hundred yards, steady target, no more than probably being on the gun boats - an extraordinarily good result was five percent hits. The average? Three percent. Which is amazing. The reason? Vibration. The rigidity of the gun mountings of course allowed the guns to spray and this is one of the things where modern films and pre-modern films of aircraft fights, where you see a nice line of holes being stitched across the fuselage - absolute bullshit. You were lucky if you get it off, peppered them. That was the gunnery and then we did sort of quarter cross overs and all that sort of thing. Mostly then with cameras of course, attached to the guns. They took Cinefilms. They wouldn’t allow us, use live ammunition against [laughs] their aircraft. The bombing was done with Mark 2 Ansons. A very slow aircraft, and using the old-fashioned Mark 9 bomb sight, which was quite a Heath Robinson contraption really but it worked after a fashion. But it was designed to operate when aircraft were sort of doing their bombing runs at probably a hundred and twenty, a hundred and fifty miles an hour, with very little relationship to the forthcoming four-engined aircraft. And for that reason, they devised the Mark 14 bomb sight which was gyroscope labourised and it was a beautiful piece of work. But going back to what I was saying about the weather aircraft and wind finding, with the Mark 14 bomb sight, you had to put the wind velocity in, feed it in manually. And the only other manual thing you did was to fit the bomb type. Select the bomb type and it worked out the trajectory and everything. Not only that, but with the plate glass, sight glass, you had the red cross with the sword and that was stabilised horizontally. So that it would, in actual fact, give you accurate bombing up to about ten degrees of bank. Whereas with a Mark 9 you couldn’t, you had to be absolutely spot on and running the thing accurately. CB: Straight and level. RM: Straight and level, yes. So that was an advantage with it, and that was bombing and gunnery school. Then nav school, as I say, was at Charlottetown, PEI. Prince Edward Island. And it was there I had my first really narrow squeak. In training of all things. Now, the nav school at that time lasted for twenty weeks. At the end of ten weeks, you got a seventy-two-hour pass. From the Friday night to the Sunday, which you couldn’t do much about because by the time you got from Charlottetown on to the mainland, it was time to come back again. Right out in the sticks there. You were in the boon docks. Anyway, because we had bad night flying weather in the first eight weeks of our course, they decided that instead of us flying on the tenth week, we would fly on our twelfth week and the next course – 97, behind us, two weeks behind us would fly in our place. Now, you can appreciate this obviously. We were, a group of us, were going into the local cinema and it was just getting dark. Nice bright moon. No wind. Not worth talking about. Beautiful night. When we came out of the cinema three hours later, there was a forty-five-knot gale blowing. Now, I can visualise what I understood and if I was in the same position, I might have made the same mistake. In fact, almost certainly would, but the Met forecast for the whole of their four hours was light and variable winds. Now, a sprog navigator. They’d only done ten weeks. They were only half way through the course. You still, over there, only had radio bearings. Visual sightings, more or less, and astro compass. The old bubble sextant, which I could never get on with, to navigate with. And the first leg out probably -of course, you see navigation in those, steam navigation, the vital part was wind finding, direction of the wind, because that meant that you would get to where you wanted to go to. Probably find wind - sort of ten knots. Well, that falls within the flight plan. Get on the next leg and then you suddenly find wind fifteen, twenty knots. Must be something wrong so you backtrack. Check all your doings and in the meantime, still maintaining the same course. And eventually, you think well the only thing to do is to go back to ten knots. So, you re-plot for ten knots. Come to the next turning point, as you thought, make your turn and say, with four legs ultimately, you’ll probably be getting, or getting readings of thirty knots, thirty-five knots. Can’t be right. Must go back to flight plan. And at the end of the flight, when you should have been back at Charlottetown if you’d sort of ignored the truth, you were probably fifty, sixty nautical miles northeast of Charlottetown. Right over the main Gulf of St Lawrence. Well as I say, when we came out of the cinema, there was this forty-five knot wind blowing. When we got back to the camp, they said, ‘Course 96, report to briefing room first light’. And they made sure that we were there at first light because they sent people around to get us up. And we were given a very quick course on how to conduct line square searches, and every available aircraft and staff pilot who were available flew us, so that we did these searches over the Gulf looking for missing aircraft. Never did see any. I believe that just after we’d finished the course, twenty weeks, and being on our way back, that they found one empty dinghy out there. And I believe that in actual fact, they found the wreckage of one on the coast of Labrador, which is just across the other side. How many went missing, we were never told, but I did find out from the archives of the Empire Air Training Scheme in Brandon near Winnipeg, that I think three crews were absolutely lost. But anyway, we measured that and as I say, we came back to this country. We did, before they would turn us lose on anything, they said, ‘Right, you’ve got your navigation brevets in Canada, from Charlottetown. Over the Maritimes. Where one road or one railway is a land mark. Now, you may find flying over Britain and the continent a bit different. So, before you do anything, we’re going to give you three weeks intensive training on map reading’. And we were actually posted to a lovely little station just outside Carlisle. I think it was called Longton, where we were piled in the back seats of Tiger Moths. They only had about eight of these Tigers with staff pilots there. So, as I say, it was quite a small grass field and we did quite a lot of map reading and target spotting over the Midlands and the Lake District. And that was good fun actually. On one occasion we, I actually flew with a pilot. One of the staff pilots, who was a little bit more daring than others, and it was a very windy day and he said, ‘I fancy doing a trip. Do you want to come?’ So, I said, ‘Yes’, So, we took off and we were plotting our way around and the biggest rift that I calculated on that was fifty-four degrees. And when we came over the airfield boundary at three hundred feet, we actually landed ten feet inside the fence because the wind speed was virtually the approach speed of the Tiger. Yeah. That was quite interesting that was. Anyway, from there we went to AFU, Advanced Flying Unit and that was at Wigtown in Scotland. Halfway between Dumfries and Stranraer and that was on Ansons. Again, that was just generally getting used to flying over Britain. And then from AFU of course, straight on to OTU at Upper Heyford, where we flew in Oxfords and we, more or less, we were [pause], our technique with Gee was a Gee fix every three minutes. DR after six. Six minutes. New course and again every three minutes. Every three minutes. And this was anything up to four hours. Which of course is the sort of navigation that we would be doing with the Mossie’s at night. And we also, we weren’t introduced to LORAN until OTU, and the snag there you see was the Gee would only be useful up to the Continent’s coast line. After that, there was so much interference by the Germans. So much, what we called grass, that you couldn’t pick up the signal so we had to use LORAN which, curiously enough, they never did jam. It worked quite well and it worked out over the Atlantic as well. Coastal command used it quite considerably. And as I say, the last OTU trip, we demolished a Mossie by going through the hedge and into trees on the way back with a single engine landing. Then, as I say, I’d only just started a tour before VE Day came. Just after VE Day, the first thing we did were Cook’s Tours. We had two Mosquitos from each of the stations. 8 Group stations. Took off at one-hour intervals during the day, so that there was a route which went across northern Germany, the Ruhr valley, then out more or less through the Danish border and back to home. And this was ostensibly to give us a picture of the damage which Bomber Command had done, but if you bear in mind that these flights were every hour through daylight, I reckon that the idea was a standing patrol just to tell the Germans we were still about. Now, at the risk of boring you here, we were told that these Cook’s Tours would be a thousand feet. That’s a thousand feet above ground level obviously, but George sort of took it upon himself to fly at a thousand feet. Now, the Ruhr valley is above sea level. About three hundred feet if I remember rightly. So, we were probably about seven hundred feet. Now, as I say the place was absolute rubble with steel structures. Just odd bits sticking up. Odd bits of concrete. Just like Hiroshima. And the Germans had bulldozed roads through this rubble so that they could get their troops. We were stooging along one of these roads, sort of just ambling along at about a hundred and ninety knots. And we could see in the distance a chap ambling along with his stick and he heard us and he turned around. He recognised what we were and shook his stick at us. So, George said, ‘I’ll teach him a lesson’. So, he sort of pulled up into a stalled turn and as he did, he opened the bomb doors. Now on the B16, the bomb doors are big. Four thousand pound bomb size and from the front, you can’t miss them. And this chappy, you could see, he sort of looked. Up went the stick and he was legging it down the road like mad, much to our amusement. Yeah. When it comes to low level flying though, as I say, our height was fifteen, twenty-five feet. Clipping the grass almost. And on one occasion we were going across Wales, went down the valley and then up the other side. Big wide valley. Half way up this valley was a farmhouse and we were climbing up the slope and there was a woman pegging washing out. She obviously heard us and we could see her looking. Saw we were there and then she decided to look down and she could see us coming up and she legged it through this farmhouse. We could see her. And she ran out the other side as went over the top. Again, in those days our sense of humour was different to what it is now, and as you probably [unclear], it was quite interesting. But fortunately for us, just after this, 608 Squadron, the one I was on, was disbanded and we were posted to another 8 Group unit. 692 Squadron at Gransden Lodge which is just to the west of Cambridge and we, in actual fact, did one or two trips there and 692 was disbanded, which meant that we were redundant aircrew. So, we were sent first of all up to Blyton in Lincolnshire for re-selection board, and I eventually finished up, although I’d opted for something different, on a flight mechanic engines course at Hereford. Credenhill. But there, I learned all of the intricacies of the Merlin and the Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasp engine. And having finished that course, I was posted to 254 torpedo Beaufighter Squadron at Langham in Norfolk. Langham, now, I believe, is famous for its glass factory there, which I think is on the old airfield where I became the flight tractor driver. And that’s what I stayed until I was demobbed. Now, they [pause], I could have opted to sign on with the Air Force. Not necessarily guaranteeing that I would fly as a navigator again but there was a pretty good chance. But in those days, you had to do twenty-one years for a pension, which would have taken me from the age of nineteen, when I joined up, to forty. But you were too old to fly at thirty-two. Now, as you probably appreciate, after being grounded, you don’t know what sort of job you’re going to get. General dogsbody usually. And the thought of eight years as dogsbody to get a pension didn’t appeal to me, so I came out and I eventually finished up at teacher training college, where I spent five years with a secondary mod trying to teach maths and science. And at the end of five years, because in the period between school and joining the Air Force, I’d become an electrical trainee at the local power station so I’d got quite a good working knowledge of turbines, pumps and all that. Generators and so on. A good mechanical background. I managed to get a job as a lecturer in mechanical engineering at the local technical college on a one term temporary contract in 1954, and I was like old Bill in World War One. Unless you can find a better hole, there’s no point in moving. And I eventually spent twenty-eight years there and retired. Well, took voluntary redundancy in ’82, and I’ve been a pensioner ever since. I think the Ministry of Education are busy making little plasticine models of me and sticking pins in because I’m quite expensive. Yeah. But that is that sad story of my life. CB: Fascinating. Thank you very much. I suggest we have a break now. RM: Yes. CB: So, I’ll turn off. [recording paused] CB: So, Ken. We’ve just talked about Ken O’Dell being at Edith Weston near North Luffenham, because he was also trained in America. RM: Yeah. Now, if he was trained in America, he wouldn’t necessarily be going to Grosse Isle because – CB: He didn’t. No. RM: He went under what was known as the Arnold Scheme, and that would be usually around about Texas or somewhere like that. To one of the flying schools there with the American Army and he would become an Army pilot. Now, of course, there would be some relevance there because the first part of their course would be for fighter aircraft. Fighter training. Single seat fighters. And this is probably where he went. CB: Yes. RM: Under the Arnold Scheme. CB: His instructors were civilians. RM: Yes. Yeah. And that did apply, but not with the Navy. The Navy were all genuine Navy types. For example, the chief petty officer who took charge of all the morning parades and what not, he had been in the American Navy for eighteen years and he’d never seen the sea. Mind you, the Great Lakes, when it does get rough, you get thirty-foot waves on it so it’s as good as the sea. And we can prove that because a group of us Fleet Air Arm and RAF types, we hired one of these paddle steamers one Saturday night to go out on the lakes. You know, for an outing. This chief petty officer came with us. Now, admittedly, it was a bit choppy, but he spent all evening draped over the rail. Much to our delight. Much to our delight. Yes. Yes, he was not popular. The Americans for instance. The American Navy have a very queer discipline which didn’t go with us. Very rigid. Whereas with the RAF, you get a certain amount of latitude and humour. But not the Americans, and for any minor misdemeanour, the sort of punishment you got, you went before the mast, you see, and you were awarded this punishment. And that was known as square eating. Have you ever come across it? Other: No. RM: Ever heard of it? Other: No. CB: Never. RM: Right. Now, at mealtimes, because you were condemned to this, you had to do a square eating. In other words [pause] that. That was square eating. CB: So, lifting it up vertically and then pulling it horizontally. RM: Yes. Horizontally. To eat. CB: Into your mouth. With both knife and fork. RM: Yes. Oh no. Usually with the fork, because the Americans of course chop up their stuff. CB: Of course. Yes. RM: With a fork even. But if you did use the knife. CB: Yeah. RM: It had to be like that. Now can you imagine anything more stupid? And that was the sort of typical sort of thing that you got. But the Americans, bless them, they weathered it so - good luck. CB: Tell us about the accommodation. What did that they have? RM: Oh, the accommodation was superb. These twin, these blocks that you see in the films. Two story blocks. Everything beautifully polished. Wood floors. The interesting thing is they had showers there and toilets. You had a single bed which was made up every morning. You know. Bullshit. And the interesting thing was the actual loos. Now, the loos were just like ordinary loos except there were no partitions [laughs], yeah. And we thought that strange. But they say you can get used to anything and it is so. Yeah. CB: How many people? Were they, were you in dormitories? RM: It was a dormitory. Yes. It would be about twenty - probably twenty-four people. Twenty-four cadets. Two sides. Twelves. Just like the dormitories you see on the films. The wartime films of the Americans. The American Army, of course, were a bit more spartan than the Navy. But everything was nice. The food was good. Rather like the curate’s egg though. Good in parts. And you had very strange things like plum jelly with chopped celery in it and that would be a vegetable. Things like that. It was ingenious. Let’s put it that way. As I say, the discipline was very, very good. If you heard the trumpet sound for the flag being lowered at the end of the day, wherever you were and whatever you were doing, you had to stand to attention, face the flag and salute whilst the trumpet blew. We did, in fact, there was one big Navy battle that was conducted whilst I was there, and I can’t for the life of me think what it was. I think it was Leyte Gulf but I’m not sure. On this particular occasion, all flying stopped on this day. We were all assembled in one of the big hangars. All RAF. And five hundred of us all together. Fleet Air Arm types. All the officers there. The band. And the flags and banners and what not, and we were given a very, very stirring speech by the commanding officer on how good the American Navy was and how brave they were and what a victory this had been. All this, that and the other. If you’d listened carefully at the back, particularly with Royal Navy types, Fleet Air Arm types, a series of raspberries. Yeah. Then having gone through all this Marshall music, we were all marched out again and continued. I remember that quite clearly. CB: What time did you get up in the morning? RM: Usually around about half six. CB: And breakfast? RM: Breakfast. Yes. You wandered over to the mess. That was one thing you didn’t parade for. You only paraded after breakfast. You know. CB: Yeah. And what time did you go to breakfast? RM: Usually around about half seven. CB: And then you went for your parade. What time? RM: About quarter past eight or so. From there, disbursed to the actual flying field which -now this was quite interesting in actual fact. The main airfield at Grosse Isle didn’t have runways but it did have a huge circular patch of concrete, about six hundred yards diameter, so that you could land in any direction and you could land two or three aircraft side by side. Now, that was clear. All you had was hangars in the distance. And beyond the hangars, there was one vertical radio mast which was clearly visible. Now, that radio mast subtended a fraction of one degree from the field. So, you think nobody’s going to hit it. Wrong. Just before we got there, some character flying solo. Chop. And the mast came down and hit the, fortunately the American seamen’s mess not the British mess and did grievous bodily damage to several of them. But nobody shed a tear from the British contingent for that. As you can gather, I’m not terribly impressed with the Americans. CB: Were the Americans training their people in similar numbers to yours or what was the situation? RM: I don’t know what the Navy situation was because this was the American Navy base. And it was only RAF and Royal Navy. CB: Oh, was it? Training. RM: Training. CB: Right. RM: Yeah. So, they must have had other bases. Probably in California and on the coast and so on. But we didn’t know anything about those and didn’t want to know anything about those. CB: No. Tell us a bit more about these people who were first generation Americans. What sort of people were they and what was their attitude to the war? RM: The one. My instructor and I only came across him really was a chappy who was a naturalised Dutchman, with the rather curious name of Nieswander. Not spelt exactly as we’d pronounce it. N I E S W A N D E R. Now, he was, as a say, a naturalised Dutchman. First generation. And about six feet two, physique rather like a beanpole and of course, like all of these characters, he had a chip on his shoulder. He wanted to be a fighter pilot. He was going to be a fighter pilot. Bugger this job sort of business. And he was, I suppose, fairly interested in teaching people to fly but you could sense and even it was expressed sort of rather obliquely to you by him, that he wanted to go into the war zone but he was not allowed to. CB: No. RM: All of the pilots and this, of course, I think this applied also to the Army pilots, that they were not allowed to go into the warzone so they could either go on to training, but curiously enough - transport. Cargo and all that sort of thing. And some of these cargo flights actually took them into the war zone. But they weren’t equipped with guns and what not so they couldn’t fight. Yeah. CB: And what ranks were these people who were your instructors? RM: Oh, practically all lieutenants. Junior grade. CB: Right. RM: Which would be equivalent to our POs. Pilot officers. Now, the interesting thing was there that in the RAF of course, with commissioned and non-commissioned ranks, you got upgrading in rank at given periods of time with aircrew and what not. Not so with the Americans. And I daresay that I was there, what, 1943. I daresay that in 1945 when the war finished, he would still be a lieutenant. General. GJ. Lieutenant junior grade. CB: And what rank were you at that time? An LAC were you? RM: An LAC yes. Got, oh - Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where I got my brevet. The Wings Parade there. Now that was in July. And we were all drawn up. We’d finished our training satisfactorily and I was assigned the rank of sergeant. We did get about three or four commissions straight away but mostly sergeant rank. And we were drawn up 2.30 in the afternoon on the parade ground there at Charlottetown, and we were addressed by the Governor General of Prince Edward Island after we’d been given our brevets. And this gentleman to us, at that time, we estimated his age at eighty. He was old anyway. He was quite short and apparently, he was deaf. His aide de camp was an Army type, lieutenant, who stood about six feet two and this Governor General was making a speech which lasted in total about fifteen minutes. And in the speech, he congratulated us on being, becoming pilots with the Royal Air Force. Went on in this vein and his aide de camp was nudging him. Almost to tell him. You know, we could see it happening but he ploughed on, and at the end of it, the aide de camp had a real chat with him. Now we were standing to attention. Blazing sun. CB: July. Yes. RM: And by this time our tunics were turning black with perspiration. And what does the silly old bugger do? Once he’d been told that we were navigators, he went through exactly the same speech and substituted the word navigators. CB: Yes. RM: Now, if any of us had had a gun we’d have shot him. Without any doubt. He was definitely not the flavour of the month. I had, I have never ever been so hot because of course the Canadians had the lightweight summer gear. Khaki. Like the Americans. What did we have? Blue serge. We never had any and those blue serge uniforms were quite warm. Yeah. We could have shot him quite cheerfully. CB: Yeah. RM: But – CB: Now the Canadians. Excuse me, I’m going to stop a mo. [Recording paused] CB: So, let’s just talk about the Canadians. RM: The Canadians, except for the French Canadians in Quebec, were charming people. Now, as far as the Americans are concerned - individually very charming. We had individual hospitality through their USOs where you could go and have a weekend with a family and so on. Superb hospitality. But when you get them in a group, you’re on a different planet. Terry Thomas had the best description of a group of Americans. Remember his –? Other: No. I remember him but not – RM: Described an absolute shower. Yeah. And we found that afterwards actually, when my first wife and I went across to the Continent in the early 60s, on the ferry we bumped into a bunch of Americans. Loud mouthed. Uncouth. But if you separated them, they were quite charming to talk to. Now, the Canadians -much more reserved but just as genuine and I made quite a few friends there, except at Charlottetown. Which, there’s a joke about Charlottetown actually which was very true at that time and the joke goes like - that in summer they raise potatoes and in winter, children. Now, they still had prohibition there when we were there. That would be in late ’43, early ‘44. And apparently, prohibition stopped only perhaps twenty years ago so consequently, the local inhabitants made their own alcoholic drinks by filtering off brasso and stuff like that or using rubbing alcohol. And the weekend before we got there, two of the erks off the station, because there were RAF aircrew there, had purloined from the stores a quart of glycol, mixed it with orange juice and two of the local popsies and these two had a beano at the weekend. On the Monday morning, the two popsies were dead, one of the erks was in sick quarters, blind, and the other one was rather non compos mentis. And both of them, by the time we got there at the next weekend, were on the boat home to Britain. That’s the sort of thing they got up to. As far as I can remember, with Charlottetown, you had large numbers of children who did the same sort of thing as a lot of the children you see, where troops are concerned, and where the Americans are concerned. You know. Chocolates. They wanted chocolate and sweets or whatever and I was not impressed. Nothing would tempt me to go back there again, even though it has changed apparently. The Maritimes, the western provinces, New Brunswick and so on — very sparsely populated and very uninterested. The only thing with them is trees, more trees and even more trees with roads, odd roads going through. Nah. CB: Now when you were flying in Canada — RM: Yeah. CB: Were the instructors all Canadians? Were they British? What were they? RM: A lot of them were RAF seconded over there. What happened, say take twin engine aircraft. You get the RAF sent over there, say to Estevan. He would do his course. The few people at the top of the course, the really high flyers would be retained. CB: The creamies. RM: As instructors and would do a full tour. Now, this has a bearing actually on George, my pilot, and 8 Group. Now, all 8 Group Mossie pilots had to have at least a thousand hours on twin engines, and the twin engines were mostly of course Oxfords, which handled apparently rather like a Mossie. Either that or they were tour expired Lancasters. But you didn’t get anybody who just got his wings becoming a Mosquito pilot. Now that was with 8 Group. I don’t know what happened with 5 Group or 2 Group, which were the other two groups that I remember being a part of Bomber Command. And it worked. It worked quite well. There were Canadian instructors obviously. RCAF. That is, if they hadn’t been posted to Britain, which they were. I mean, they were coming over. When it comes to going over to Canada and the States, I travelled on the Queen Elizabeth and it was like a mill pond, and of course the Lizzie and the Mary were run by the Americans. They were handed over to the Americans and based at New York. And typically, from New York, they would come across to Glasgow - Greenock, with a division of American troops. Eighteen to twenty thousand troops on. They would unload them. They would then load returning Americans or returning Canadians and all RAF aircrew that were going for training, Royal Navy and so on. Roughly about five thousand at a time, and they would go to Halifax. At Halifax, they would discharge and pick up a Canadian division. Bring those back and then you’d have aircrew that were going to the United States on the Arnold Scheme and people like that. Returning Americans going back to New York. And that’s how they did it. Now, going over there, the actual mess deck had tables for twelve diners. Twelve people. And the cooks cooked in batches of twelve and you had, each day, one person went from the table to the mess. The cooks collected a tray say, of twelve steaks. Twelve chops. Now, when I say steaks — American steaks. Not British steaks, which were postage stamp sized, but these were genuine. Genuine pork chops. Sausages. Those twelve helpings came to the table. Now, we got on to the QE in Greenock at midnight. The engines were running, there was a bit of vibration there. We sailed on the first tide which was about 6 o’clock in the morning. Just breaking day. We had to go to breakfast around about 7.30 again. And of course, we collected this tray. There were only four of us on the table. The other, sorry, six of us on the table. The other six were in their bunks seasick and we hadn’t even hit the Atlantic. Anyway, we got out onto the Atlantic and it was like a mill pond. There were six the first day, six missing the second day, four missing the third day. And we ate like lords. You know, God, we thought, you know, this is marvellous. We really ate. And these steaks and they were beautiful. Couldn’t grumble at that. And on the last morning, they did manage to come down for breakfast before we disembarked. But one interesting thing, each of us was given a job. The job that I was given was to go from the main stores with one of the American seamen to actually re-store or re-stock the canteens. Chocolate and so on. Which was quite a, not a very onerous job. Over and done within an hour and that was it. But this American seaman I was with, he said, ‘Have you got any currency you want changing?’ So, I said, ‘Well, you’re not allowed to bring any currency out. Only ten pounds’. He said, ‘Well’, he said, ‘Supposing you got a bit more than that?’ He said, ‘Would you like it changed?’ He said. So, I said, ‘Changed to what?’ He said, ‘Dollars. American’. Now in 1939, the pound was worth four dollars American and four forty dollars. CB: Canadian. RM: To the Canadian. So, you had this ten percent difference. So, I said, ‘Well, what’s your exchange rate?’ He said, ‘Well’, he said, ‘For you’, he said, ‘it’ll be four dollars to the pound’. So, I said, ‘Well, it so happens’, I said, ‘that I’ve been a bit naughty. I’ve brought an extra tenner out’. Twenty. I got twenty pounds changed into American dollars which, interestingly of course, if you spent them in Canada which they were spendable. For ten dollars, you’d pay the American ten dollars and get a dollar change. So, it worked out quite well. But the, I was talking to this seaman and I said, ‘We seem to be going at a fair old lick’, I said, ‘What’s it doing?’ He said, ‘Well, I shouldn’t tell you’, he said, ‘It’s more than my job’s worth’. So, I said, ‘Go on’, I said, ‘Nobody’s listening’. He said, ‘Well’, he said, ‘We’re cruising at twenty-nine knots’. But one night, I woke up. It was only about 2 o’clock in the morning and the boat, you could tell from the vibration that they’d definitely sort of upped the steam, but when we went to breakfast, we were back to the twenty-nine knots. So, I said to this chap, I said, ‘What happened last night?’ ‘Nothing very much’, he said. So, I said, ‘Go on, you’re pulling my leg’, I said, ‘You were going a lot faster’. I said, ‘What speed were you doing?’ And he said, ‘Thirty-four knots’, he said, ‘There was a sub scare’, Now, of course the two Queens were unescorted, but imagine this. A six-inch gun fore and aft on the bow and the stern. On the main deck, Bofors and three-inch guns. On the deck above, you had Oerlikon cannons. CB: Twenty millimetre. RM: Yeah. Twenty millimetre. And on the roof, you actually had two rocket launchers. So, as far as aircraft were concerned, which of course would be the main thing, they would have given them a very rough time. And on the second day, they tried the guns out, you know, just to make sure they were working. And they did them one side and then the other. A big rocket flare went up, parachute flare, and they all opened up on this and it was quite deafening. Except the big six-inch guns. They didn’t. But everything else — CB: How many days did it take to get over? RM: Four days and eight hours. As I say, we lived like lords. Coming back, we came back on one of the old Empress boats. It was the Empress of Japan but it had been re-named the Empress of Scotland for obviously patriotic reasons. That took six days and a half. And on that, they only had two meals a day, not three. Now, you can believe this or believe it not. Going out the canteen had run dry so there was nothing on the way back. The first morning, I forget exactly which way around it was, but this was the sort of thing. We had smoked haddock for breakfast. The evening meal, wiener sausages. Then for a change, wiener sausages for breakfast. Smoked haddock. And we had that for six days. There was no sweets. No fruit available. And we were not in a happy mood. And then when we got into Liverpool Bay, the boat had to anchor there for twelve hours before we could dock. And we could see the shoreline. People moving about. There would be restaurants there. And there we were. Stuck. We were not a happy crew. Funnily enough, when we came back, we had a full customs inspection, and you were allowed two hundred cigarettes, a bottle of Scotch say, or a spirit and a bottle of wine. The chappy in front of me, customs bloke, ‘cause we were all queuing up, customs said to the chap. ‘Any cigarettes?’ Expecting two hundreds. The chappy in front said, ‘Six hundred’. The customs officer looked at him and he said, ‘Surely you mean two hundred?’ ‘No’, he said, ‘I’ve got six hundred’. ‘Oh. Well, that’ll bloody well cost you then’ [laughs]. I mean, how thick can you get? Dear. Oh, it was. I must say that in spite of our, got one, two, three near squeaks, I can look back on my war service and it’s quite interesting. Very varied. And I met some jolly nice people. CB: How many of those did you keep in contact with after the war? RM: I kept in contact with my pilot up to a time and then I lost contact with him. The chappy that I was at the Toronto manning depot with, we split up but I traced him afterwards. After we’d become civilians. And found out that he’d actually joined the Toronto Metropolitan Police, been with them for ten years and then he’d left there and joined Pinkertons. CB: Right. In America. RM: Now, I always thought that the Pinkertons was a mythical organisation and I was put severely in my place when Gordon — eventually I went over there in ‘86 and stayed with him and his wife. When I said that I thought it was mythical, he said, ‘We’re international’, he said, ‘We’re interested, more or less in industrial espionage and things like that’, he said. ‘We’re not interested in police work’. So, I was really put in my place there. Yeah. And my pilot. He died. Had a heart attack around about 1982 if I remember rightly, going on a fishing trip from Vancouver to Nanaimo. Vancouver Island. And he died on the ferry, had a heart attack. CB: Was he a Canadian? RM: No. He was a Londoner. But he had gone across to the States, to Canada. Done his pilot training, become an instructor at Estevan and while he was there, he met his wife who was the daughter of a newspaper owner in Langley, which is just outside Vancouver. And of course, as soon as he was demobbed, he shot off to Canada because he got free passage there. Free ticket back home. Yeah. CB: I’ll stop there for a bit. Thank you. [recording paused] CB: Right. We’re now re-starting after a short break and we’re with Dick Maywood and talking now about LMF. RM: LMF. Lack of moral fibre which was a euphemistic way of referring to cowardice. It was not unknown with, particularly Bomber Command crews, that some of them lost their nerve. In fact, it’s a wonder that they didn’t all lost their nerves on heavies. Anyway, if they were accused and if they did succumb to lack of moral fibre, they more or less had a courts martial and were almost certainly stripped of all rank. CB: Physically. RM: Yes. And – CB: In front of — sorry go on – RM: They were also treated to so many months in the Glasshouse which was at Sheffield. And everybody knew. All aircrew knew of Sheffield and what it entailed. And fortunately, from my point of view, I mean flying in the Mossie was safe. I mean not like the heavies. Because the chop rate even in 1944/45 on heavies was still quite considerable. But on Mossies, I think it worked out, on 8 Group Mossies, something like about half a percent. But one thing that did strike me with that ‘cause in the Mossie, being wood, low thermal conductivity. Radiators between the engines and the fuselage on both sides with air bleeds. Sealed cockpits. We flew in battle dress, no gloves, but we did have the escape boots just in case we had to escape. That was it. And we had our own sidearms. In my case a .38 revolver, and it was only about three years ago it that it suddenly dawned on me. Twenty-five thousand feet. If we had been hit and had to bale out, we would have been dead. Lack of oxygen and cold because, I mean, the outside air temperature was around about minus sixty, minus seventy. And apparently about thirty seconds of that and its good night nurse. It was a good job we didn’t think about that, otherwise we might have gone LMF. But no, I have the utmost sympathy because one or two of my friends I know have had a very sticky patch. One I was with yesterday, he is ex-Bomber Command Lanc and he was telling a friend that on one occasion, they had a twenty-millimetre shell, or, no, it couldn’t have been twenty millimetre, it must have been bigger than that, go in to the Lanc and lodge in the ironmongery and not explode. And Dennis said that they sort of fished this thing out and dropped it out. And the chap who was talking to him and said, yeah, ‘Didn’t it explode then?’ And Dennis said, words to the effect, ‘You’re rather stupid. If it had exploded, I wouldn’t be here’. How silly can people get? It’s, but it’s surprising really. When it comes to the old Mossies they talk about the wooden wonder. They’ve heard of the wooded wonder vaguely. No idea what it did really. Couldn’t be very interesting because it’s made of wood. And when you consider it was the first RAF multi role combat aircraft. You had your weather versions, you had the oboe versions, you had the PR Unit versions. Night fighter units. You had the Coastal Command Banff Wing, which for a time had those Tsetse Mosquitoes with the 57-millimetre gun, and I know one or two of the 247 Squadron even now who flew in those. And one in particular and he said that every time one gun went off, you lost twenty knots airspeed with the recoil. But they didn’t last long because they found that a battery of eight rockets, sixty-pound rockets, was a better bet than the Tsetse gun. That was known as the Banff wing. There was 235 and 247 Squadrons in the Banff Wing. Anti-shipping. You had second TAF who flew fighter bombers, that’s guns, cannons and two bombs in each and that would probably be either on interdiction, road transport, railways and what not. You had the night intruders. Now, had the war had gone on longer, it would have satisfied my sense of humour to get on night intruders, because I loved the idea of sort of just dropping an odd bomb on the runway as they were about to land or shooting the buggers down. Pardon my broken English. Shooting them down. It would have appealed to my sense of humour but no. No. But there we are. CB: So, you talked about flying at very low level. RM: Yes. CB: Tell to us a bit more about that. I mean we’re talking about very low indeed. RM: Yeah. CB: However you look at it. And what about the excitement and the danger? Or the other way around. RM: Well excitement. Yes. Particularly when we were doing low level bombing because I’d be prone in the bomb bay, looking out the window. The Mark 14 bomb sight was useless, because it was a high-level job, and they hadn’t got a low-level bombsight, so it was all done with Mark 1 eyeballs. Now we had a bombing range out at Whittlesea, well, just the other side of Whittlesea. And flying PPL, I often had a scout around there to find out where the field was and I couldn’t find it, but this was a big square field with the target in the centre. Now, literally to go, we were flying over trees and down again. That was, we were sort of doing. The reason for it was quite simple. We were told the lower — you were going out to the Far East, a lot of jungle. Clearings. The lower you fly the less time you’ll be a target for ground gunners, so, the closer you can get to the treetops and the ground, the safer you’ll be. And as I say, fortunately, George was extremely good at low flying. Quite interesting actually. If we were bombing on east west run, we’d come in low level and then at the end of the run, we’d do a slow climb up to about fifteen hundred feet, and then do a turn, reciprocal, back down to height again and bomb in the reverse direction, and when we were on that run. On the east west run. Our turn to go reciprocal was always over Peterborough Town Bridge. It was super you know. Sort of down there. Yes. Home. CB: Now, what about navigating when you’re — because your vista is very restricted when you’re flying low. So how did you deal with the navigation in that context? RM: That was extremely difficult because, as you say, your range of vision is restricted, so you have to absolutely do the correct thing. You look out and you see on the map where you are. The common mistake with map reading is to look at the map and say, ‘Oh that must be it’, because as you are probably well aware, it is in actual fact, it’s very easy to do that. To convince yourself, but I’ve been ferried over the last two or three years on what was known as Project Propeller, and I have, I’ve had a variety of pilots and I’ve flown as passenger with them and quite interestingly, I am deadly against wind, so called wind turbines. And I cannot convince the BBC or the papers just what a waste of money they are. But these wind farms shown on air maps are extremely accurate. CB: Are they? RM: And they make bloody good landmarks because they actually show the arrangement of them. CB: Oh right. RM: So, you can see an arrangement and you can look at the map. Well, we must be there. But of course, in those days, we didn’t. And again, you see, over the jungle as far as I can make out, fortunately we were three weeks away from going out to the east with the B35s. CB: Oh. RM: Which was the later version of the B16. We were within three weeks and VJ day came. Now I cannot stand hot humid weather. Whether it’s a throwback to the Wings Parade with the Governor General or not, I don’t know, but I just cannot stand it and the thought of going out there. I would have been a grease spot. CB: Yeah. RM: A grease spot. Yeah. CB: Just picking up on the navigation. RM: But it would be with maps. CB: Yes but — RM: And dead reckoning. CB: Yes. Well, I was going to say you use IPs, Identification Points. Would you put more of those in? RM: Oh yes. You’d put them on the map because you’d probably, you’d be looking for these on the course. And as I say, you take the ground on to the map, not the map on to the ground. Yeah. CB: Now, going back to what you were talking about before we started taping, you talked about the three mishaps that you had. So, what were they? RM: Right. The first one was at Navigation School at Charlottetown, and that was the fact that due to bad weather, we missed the bad weather which was not forecast for the people who flew in our place. So, they got lost and I’m pretty sure that if we had flown on that night, and we’d been given that Met forecast — winds light and variable which would take as zero for navigation purposes. It might have been a case of there but by the God go. CB: Yes. You might also have vanished. RM: Yes. Yes. CB: Yeah. In the Great Lake. RM: No. The Gulf of St Lawrence. CB: Oh, in the Gulf of St Lawrence, sorry. Ok. Next one. RM: That was the first one. CB: Ok. RM: Then at OTU, on the return trip from France where we had to land on one engine. They put us on the shortest runway with no wind, and of course, we vanished through the hedge with rather dire consequences to the Mossie. But, and then the third narrow squeak we had was of course, the first time we took off with a four-thousand-pound live bomb and we got off ten knots slower than we should have done. CB: Now, the Mossie could take four thousand pounds. RM: Yes. CB: But it was just in this particular case. What happened? RM: Well, we, we — it took us longer to maintain, to achieve height than it should have done. Let’s put it that way. There was considerable chance that if the engines had even stuttered under those conditions on take-off, we would have wiped out half of Downham Market. CB: Was that because of the wind? You took off with the wind? Or what was it that caused it? RM: Oh, we always took off in to wind. CB: I know but in this particular case, why was it? RM: George didn’t say very much, but I think that the engines were not producing as much as he expected or the flaps were not right or something like that, but I was too busy then actually during take-off. Getting all the charts ready and getting ready to — CB: Where were you going that day? RM: We were going to a place called Eggbeck, which was one of the satellite airfields for Kiel. The Kiel Canal in Denmark. And it must have been the name of an airfield, because I’ve looked and I’ve actually been in that area. Motored in that area for quite some distance and never found a place called Eggbeck. But it must have been one of the fields which was known as that. Yeah. And that was the one and only. CB: Right. RM: I’m afraid. Much to my annoyance. I was really savage when VE day came along, you know. CB: Yeah. I imagine. RM: I wanted to get my teeth into the Germans. But these things happen. But as I say, afterwards we did the Cook’s Tour. We did quite a few what were known as Bullseyes. Have you come across those? CB: Yes. Would you like to describe that? RM: Yeah. The Bullseyes were exactly the same sort of conditions you would fly an actual operation. The only difference was that at the target area, we didn’t drop a bomb. We took a photograph to prove that we were there and we got there on time. Now, to give you an idea of the difference, because as I say, we had the Lancaster squadron, 635 Squadron at Downham Market and on bullseyes, we both did the same route. Now, the Lancaster chaps would go in for their evening meal, would go to briefing and would be taking off as we were getting ready to go to the mess for our evening meal. Our evening meal, briefing, take off. Fly the same route. Be on target at the same time. On the way back, we would land, be debriefed and would be having our breakfast when the Lancs were coming in. So, two-hour difference. Solely due to speed. But here I can give you something which is even more interesting. The American B17, the Flying Fortress. Nine crew. Fourteen guns. Four engines. Bomb load to Berlin, four thousand pounds exactly. Out and return, nine hours. Now, our Mossies on 608 Squadron, 692 and the other ones on the, what we called the Milk Run, the Berlin run. Out and return time, four and a half hours. Now, admittedly with the American B17s, there was time taken up getting into formation and breaking formation on the way back, but a lot of people don’t realise with the Americans in daylight, they couldn’t fly at night. They couldn’t navigate. They didn’t know how. They flew in daylight. Formation. Now, they carried a master navigator and a master bomber, and I think usually two deputies just in case. They’re in formation. When the lead aircraft dropped his bombs, they all dropped theirs. So, what they were doing in actual fact, was carpet bombing. Admittedly, they’d blanket the target. They would hit the target but that would be covering an area. Now, of course Bomber Command was specific on target markers. You bombed a target and all of the aircraft bombed that target, not just one or two. So, as I say, the American B17 crews were very brave. Much braver than I’d be, I think, under those circumstances to fly in daylight, level thirty thousand feet. Fighter fodder. No doubt. Yeah. Whereas the old Mossie. You couldn’t describe [pause] they did, the Germans did do us an honour. I think it was the Henschel 219 but I’m not sure, where it was designed as a twin-engine night fighter specifically to counter Mosquitoes. CB: Was it really? RM: And that was the biggest compliment they could pay us. Then of course, the jets came along and that was a different matter. They could sort of commit mayhem. But the interesting thing was that on the raid that we were doing on Eggbeck, we were going out and near the target, one of the aircraft called out, ‘Snappers’ and that was the code name for the fact that 262s were about. CB: Right. RM: But nobody got lost that night. So – CB: Messerschmitt 262 jets. RM: Yeah. CB: Yes. RM: I mean, they were serious opponents those. The 30-millimetre cannon for a start. I mean, you don’t argue with those. Yeah. CB: What was your operating speed? RM: Our normal cruising airspeed out was around about two hundred and thirty knots, but that was indicated airspeed. I mean, at twenty-five thousand feet, the true airspeed would probably be somewhere in the region of three hundred knots, which was covering the ground fairly well. If we went flat out, the highest ground speed that I ever recorded was four hundred and ten miles an hour. And that was without trying. CB: Now, what was the pattern of your operation? Because you were much faster than the Lancasters so you took off late, but you had to be there first so how did you do that? RM: Well, the oboe aircraft had to be first. And then the Mosquitoes that carried additional marker bombs would be on target more or less at the same time, and they would be listening to the oboe. CB: Which was the master bomber. RM: Or the ground. Master bomber. Advising them where to drop their new flares. CB: Right. RM: Whether they’d drop them short, long, east or west and so on, to correct the error. And then of course, by this time, the main force Lancs and Mossies would be coming up on the scene, but in a lot of cases with 8 Group, the light night striking force actually operated on different targets. These targets were designed to be diversionary to lure night fighters away so that they didn’t know whether to go for the Lancs or us and in that case, you’d probably get about anything from forty to fifty Mossies attacking quite a valuable target. Yeah. CB: Now, you talked about twenty-five thousand feet. Was that your normal operating height? RM: Yes. That was normal. CB: Or did it vary much? RM: It didn’t vary much. Anything from twenty-five — twenty-eight thousand. The oboe Mossies, of course, they went up to thirty-seven thousand feet. CB: Oh, did they? Right. RM: Because of course, the radio waves were line of sight and at that height they could just get the Ruhr. And of course, the Ruhr was the main complex of the German war industry, and after, in ’43 onwards, it was systematically demolished with oboe and with precision bombing. Yeah. As I say, the whole area was completely derelict. There was nothing there. CB: What was your most abiding memory of your experience in the war? RM: Well, it may sound silly to you but the thing which stuck in my throat more than anything was catching mumps. I mean it was so demeaning. Orchitis. Which, of course is the classic symptoms of that. It’s not pretty and it’s painful, and to catch that at nineteen years of age, it was a chance complaint and that, that really stuck with me more than anything. Yes. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles. CB: Yes. RM: I suppose in a way, what with that and the fact that I got washed off pilots’ course and the fact we hit bad weather at Nav School. With the time I lost. If it hadn’t been for that I might not be here. CB: But you might have done all sorts of other things. Operationally. RM: I might have finished up on heavies with a much heavier chop rate. Yeah. CB: Just going back to the American training experience. In essence, it was to train for flying boats so that – RM: Yes. CB: What aircraft did they have in that area working on the lake? RM: They didn’t. The Grosse Isle was the aircraft carrier part of the Navy. CB: Ah right. RM: And once they’d completed that, you then went down to Pensacola. CB: Right. RM: And the Gulf of Florida and converted on to Catalinas. CB: Right. RM: Now the interesting thing is that for many years RAF, the RAF Museum at Cosford encapsulated my wartime flying experience very, very neatly. They had Canso, which was a Canadian built Catalina because it had a retractable undercarriage whereas the Catalina didn’t, and alongside it was a Mossie B35 which, to all intents and purposes, apart from an astro dome was the same, exactly the same as our B16s. And these were side by side. Now, nobody knew about me there so it was purely chance, but I gather now that last year that they actually split them up into two different hangars, which is a shame. CB: Changing the subject a bit — RM: Yes. CB: A Mosquito is very cramped inside. Or is it? For the navigator? And how did you operate? RM: Well, I was a lot slimmer than I am now. The amount of room we had. My seat was about that wide. In front of me, we had a dashboard with a dropdown table for the maps and what not on. We were actually sitting on the main spar and the pilot’s seat was just in front of the main spar. Now, just here — CB: In front of you. RM: In front of me and to the left hand side, would be the console with the undercarriage and flaps. CB: Throttles. RM: And throttles. For the pilot. Right handed. In front of me, underneath the dashboard, would be the opening which I would go through to get into the bomb bay. CB: Go in legs first. RM: No, head first. CB: Right. RM: Yeah. Because you had to be facing the front. Yeah. You could only go in head first. There was no room to do a hundred and eighty. CB: Yeah. RM: It’s very cosy. The pilot, he had roughly the same amount of room and all the gubbins in front of him and to his left. We were both slimmer and we could both get in. Now, the B, the bomber versions — you went in underneath. It had a floor entry. Like the prototype in South Mimms Museum. The fighter bomber versions had a side exit or entry, and that was just aft of the propellers, about nine to twelve inches behind the propellers and in the event of getting out, you had to go in. Go out head first, facing the rear to make sure you didn’t get mixed up, and come out as mincemeat. Yeah. They had a ladder which stowed in the aircraft that you climbed up. You went in facing backwards and then turned around. The pilot went in first, of course, to get into his seat. Now, he would have a seat type parachute. We had just the harness and we had the parachute stowed down by the right hand side, so that if we had to get out, we could just pick it up, clip it on and then out. CB: So, if you had to get out, are you going to go out through the canopy or through the floor? RM: Oh, you didn’t go out through the canopy except as we did when we crash landed at [unclear], when it was stationary. If you went out through the canopy, you had a jolly good chance of being chopped in half with the rudder. So, you always went out the escape hatch at the bottom. Yes. It would be a very foolhardy thing to go out the top. Yeah. That was quite interesting now you’ve come to mention it. When we were at Gransden Lodge, we were doing, going up on an air test actually, and we got up to about ten thousand feet and all of a sudden, there was a hell of a bang and a lot of rubbish and what not flying about, and George said, ‘Get ready to jump’. So, I sort of put the parachute on and he said, ‘Oh’, he said, ‘The aircraft seems to be flying all right’, he said, ‘I thought the front had gone in’, you know, the nose, with all the rubbish and what not. We were looking around. Couldn’t see anything wrong. And then we looked up and we found that the top hatch had blown off. And of course, the vacuum, the sort of [unclear] effect took place, all the rubbish in the bomb bay had come out and he said, just said, just tried it and he said, ‘The chances are, it’s probably altered the stalling speed a bit’. So instead of carrying on with the climb, he played about and found out exactly how the aircraft handled at a hundred and twenty knots which was the normal approach speed and he found it was probably about a hundred and thirty knots with the extra drag. And so, we aborted and came back and landed. There was quite a hullabaloo, you know. ‘How come you lost that hatch?’ Well, one of those things. Yeah. They didn’t charge us for it [laughs], 664B. I take it you know what 664B was. CB: No. Tell us. Tell us for the tape. RM: 664B action was to re-claim from your wages. CB: Yeah. RM: The money, for whatever it was that you’d lost, stolen or strayed. Yeah. A lot of people for instance lost their wristwatches and went on 664B, because you could get a Rolex for around about six pounds ten shillings. The Longines. I had actually had a Longines wristwatch. We were issued with watches. I don’t know whether you realise this or not, but we had, were equipped with aircrew watches and we had to rate them and adjust them, so that they lost no more or gained no more than two seconds a day. Now, that stems from the vital necessity of having exact time to the second when you’re doing astro shots, because one second in time can mean about a quarter of a mile in position. And for instance, Coastal Command types. The Catalinas and the old Flying Boats. CB: The Sunderlands. RM: The Sunderland. If they were returning and they had poor radio signals, very few Astra shots, and could not be absolutely certain of their landfall because of the astro shots and wrong time. A few seconds. I mean a quarter of a mile could mean the difference between getting into a fjord or a bay, or hitting the land at the side of it. So, it was vitally important that you got the time down to a second. It wouldn’t have mattered now because course cards. So accurate. But of course, with the spring, you actually had to adjust them. Now, the first watch I had, we were equipped with these at navigation school at Charlottetown. The first one I had was a Waltham, an American which was quite well thought of, but I just could not get it closer than about five seconds, no matter how I tried. And after two weeks they said, ‘Right. That’s no use’. So, I took it back and got a Longines and within a week, I’d got that sorted out and it worked quite well. And kept that right the way through and stupidly I handed that in when I was demobbed. Because as I said 664B, I could have had it for six pounds fifty. Six pounds. CB: Even in those days. RM: Another thing. Another thing too which I bitterly resent or regret handing in was my sunglasses. Now, they were Ray-Ban. Green. They were superb for sun. Want a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses now? Ninety quid. Ridiculous isn’t it? They would have cost about three pounds. Other: Yeah. RM: On 664B. CB: You talked about astro shots. You talked about astro shots, so where did you put the sextant. Could you hang it on the —? RM: Yes, you hung it in the astro dome. CB: Yeah. RM: Now, you can turn this off otherwise I’m going to be in trouble. 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 Dick Maywood Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chris Brockbank Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-11-09 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AMaywoodRM151109 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Language A language of the resource eng Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 02:21:54 audio recording Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire England--Herefordshire England--Norfolk England--Oxfordshire England--Lincolnshire Scotland--Aberdeenshire England--Leicestershire Canada Ontario Ontario--Goderich Alberta Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island--Charlottetown Germany Germany--Ruhr (Region) Ontario--Belleville Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1944 1945 1945-05-08 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sally Coulter Maureen Clarke Vivienne Tincombe Description An account of the resource Dick was born in Peterborough and volunteered for the Royal Air Force in 1941. He was called up to Lord’s Cricket Ground in 1942. Dick went to No. 6 Initial Training Wing at RAF Aberystwyth. He then went to RAF Desford, flying Tiger Moths and was selected for further pilot training. After RAF Heaton Park, Dick volunteered for the flying boat course and flew on Stearman N254s at Grosse Isle in the United States. He returned to Canada, initially to Windsor, where he was re-selected as a navigator air bomber. He was sent to Goderich and then Mountain View to the Bombing and Gunnery School on Mark 2 Ansons and the Bolingbroke. He gained his brevet at Navigation School in Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island. Dick underwent intensive map training on his return and went to the Advanced Flying Unit in Wigtown on Ansons. He proceeded to the Operational Training Unit at RAF Upper Heyford on Oxfords, where he was introduced to LORAN. He had just started a tour as a Mosquito Pathfinder navigator before VE Day. He describes the aircraft, Oboe, and the pattern of their operations. Dick participated in Cook’s tours to the Ruhr Valley. He was in 608 Squadron, which was disbanded, so he was posted to 692 Squadron, another Group 8 unit, at RAF Gransden Lodge, which was also, subsequently, disbanded. Dick was sent to RAF Blyton for a re-selection board where he was sent on a flight mechanic engines course at RAF Credenhill. He was posted to the 254 torpedo Beaufighter Squadron at Langham until he was demobilised. 608 Squadron 692 Squadron 8 Group Advanced Flying Unit aircrew Anson B-17 Beaufighter Bolingbroke bombing Cook’s tour flight engineer Gee Initial Training Wing master bomber Me 262 military living conditions military service conditions Mosquito navigator Oboe Oxford Pathfinders perception of bombing war RAF Banff RAF Blyton RAF Credenhill RAF Desford RAF Downham Market RAF Gransden Lodge RAF Heaton Park RAF Upper Heyford sanitation Schräge Musik Stearman Tiger Moth training https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/816/10798/AFarrAA170712.1.mp3 d49cec1a2dbe85a82d83be9b60eed25b https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/816/10798/PFarrAA1701.2.jpg 3e058e95595921e20571e4b0fbccb768 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 Farr, Allan Avery A A Farr Description An account of the resource Six items. An oral history interview with Allan Farr DFM (1923 - 2018, 1434564 Royal Air Force) as well as his flying logbook, a photograph, list of operations, a map, contemporary photograph and a song. He flew operations as an air gunner with 100, 625 and 460 Squadrons. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Allan Farr and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 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 Farr, AA Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 12th of July 2017 and we’re in Barnwood, Gloucester with Allan Farr, DFM to talk about his life and times. So, Alan what are your earliest recollections of life? AF: Well, the earliest recollection that I, that I can think of is school. Although you had to be four and a half or five to go to the juniors, but I started off by going to, let me think now for a minute [pause] Benedict’s Road School. Which was in Small Heath. I can remember going each morning through Digby Park to get to the school from the place where we lived in Floyer Road, Small Heath. That was pretty well straightforward then. The only time I had any ruckus at school was when my teeth became bad and I had to go to the dentist and he took eight double teeth out. Now, for a child off five I can remember all of that. And I can remember my mother of course going with me and saying, ‘Now, you behave yourself.’ [laughs] As if somebody wouldn’t behave themselves in the, in the dental bloody trade. And of course they hadn’t got all the equipment then because what was I? Five and a half. Six and a half. All through eating sugary stuff. But my teacher was named Miss Walters and when she said, ‘Why were you away from school for two or three days?’ I forget what it was now. And I said to her, ‘It’s because I had some teeth out ma’am.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘You must let me see this. Open your mouth.’ And she ran her finger around the gums that I’d got now instead of teeth. See. And that at the age appalled me. And I went home. And I never went to that school again. CB: Oh right. AF: Simply because of the disbelief. And I, I went then to Somerville Road School which I think was the junior school. That was on the Green Lane. And funnily enough we moved home then to live in Palace Road which was sort of lined up, if you think of it as a gun barrel onto the school that I was going to go to. And that little thing is, that’s that one thing has remained in memory, oh forever you know. The school. I had good friends. One passed away a few years ago. Frank Aden. I could never understand why I couldn’t do my muffler up like him. He had a lovely wool muffler and it seemed to fill this area because he fluffed it up. And I had a thin scarf from my mother which used to tie around my neck and slowly encircle me you know, sort of thing. We used to do a lot of bicycle riding but only locally. But used to stay out well until half past eight, 9 o’clock, you know. Otherwise and that it was purely a child’s life. My father worked at the coal stores in town. He used to take me to work with him on a Saturday because I enjoyed, enjoyed being with the workers in the coal stores. You know. One of those things that other children hadn’t got, I suppose. But, and the Market Hall was very, very close to the [unclear] Mansel’s Coal Stores. And I liked the market, I liked the flavour of the market. Men and women altogether working away. Every sort of stall you could think, think of. Even to its, its own animal, little animal zoo which I thought was lovely to have in a town because Birmingham was a big place. But slowly grew up until my only, what can you say? My only sort of adventure left was to work actually in the Market Hall itself. Which I did do finally at Reg Johnson’s Fish Monger and Poulterer and I was there until unfortunately the Market Hall got bombed and became a wreck. But the council, what they did made sort of daylight stalls where people could rent either a fish and poultry shop or a flower shop or anything that would make a shop and you were given a stall. And that I stopped at until I was eighteen and a quarter when I joined up because my father was now in uniform as a second lieutenant. Regained his commission. And we saw him on regular sort of trips back home. And I thought he was quite magnificent [laughs] as a child you know. For getting on for twelve, thirteen, fourteen then. Left school at fourteen. Went straight to the Market Hall. Straight to Reg Johnson who was a friend of my father’s and I began work at fourteen in the Market Hall. And it seemed to me that my what, my finest dream had been recognised by somebody somewhere because now I worked in the market and that’s what I’d always wanted. Not much really but it was, it was a life on its own. The market was quite full of good people you know. Working class of course but they were at it all the time. And I had one or two little adventures in the market but nothing really much. One of them was I’d not long left them and I was in blue. In the RAF. And I was stationed in civilian lodgings in Blackpool but I was on duty this one day with a rifle and five rounds of ammunition and a whistle. And I was guarding Derby Baths. If you know perhaps of the size of it I had to walk around along the front with a rifle at the slope. And I was doing just that one day and something I remember is I could see from the corner of my eye even though I was walking up and down with a rifle outside the Derby Baths an RAF officer coming from my right to walk past me. So I thought, right I’d better recognise him somehow because of his rank. He’s an officer. I could tell by the quality of his overcoat. And as he came to me I got the rifle at the slope and I saluted him by putting my fingers to my right temple and he walked on a few paces. Then he stopped and came back and he said, ‘Do you know sonny, one of us has done wrong here and I don’t know which one it is.’ And he turned around and walked away again. All is forgiven sort of thing. I should have saluted him on the butt of course [laughs] But that was a small adventure that always stuck with me because he was so nice about it. And I thought I’ve joined the right mob for a start off, you know. They’re alright. They forgive you quickly. But otherwise than that I was stationed at Croydon and stationed at St Mawgan down in Cornwall until it came my turn to go for training for an air gunner which was about twelve months later because they were really filled up with all sorts of people wanting to do their bit. And the next thing we know, I think it was either twenty eight or forty of us all wanting training as air gunners finished up on the docks at Liverpool looking for a boat called the [pause] We were going to Canada anyhow. Can’t think of the name of the boat and it’s rather important because we were going to go through miles and miles and miles of the same sort of boat. A nine knot convoy it was. And I can’t think of the name of the boat now. Should be able to. But we were found jobs on board a lovely little ship. A nine thousand tonner, if you can say, you know a nice little ship but it was all the corridors down below decks were done with cedar and different named woods. It turned out to be an ATA boat which was an Air Transport boat, which was Air Transport Auxiliary and they would fly planes over, be sorted out and go back on a boat to fly some more planes over. So I thought that was very clever. So we had a good boat to go across to Canada. We landed at Halifax. But it was a nine knot convoy so I think it took us about fifteen days to do the trip across the North Sea. I hope I’ve got that right. Geography never was my good class. But anyhow we settled off. While I was being in England I’d become a member of the RAF boxing team with the very clever reason that because they wanted my name on the programme. Farr. Because Tommy Farr was the boxer then and he was getting ready to fight Joe Louis [laughs] That was another thing that my name sorted. Sorted me out. But that’s what it was. And what happened was of course when we got to Halifax in Canada immediately I was, I became another member of the RAF Canada apostrophe [pause] in the boxing team. I caught some very nice blows as well. I didn’t do very well. They all had more experience than me but I stuck to it. And there we did our training and we went back on the Elizabeth. It took us sixteen days crossing. Fifteen, sixteen days crossing in a nine thousand ton boat. And going back home we landed up north in Scotland and we had to be ferried by small boats across from where the Elizabeth lay to where the harbour was because the boat was too big for the harbour. So, that was another little adventure. And on one occasion going across I was in the small boat taking us to the harbour when it crossed in front of the Elizabeth where she lay and it’s amazing the size of that boat. And my job on board with a rifle and no ammunition, I don’t think I looked very trustworthy was to guard the foot of the stairs leading to the bridge in case of any trouble. But I suppose I was supposed to hit them with the rifle and not shoot them because I’d got no ammunition. I always felt wrong about that somehow or other. Still. And also we, we were given the location which we were to call the sergeant’s mess because we were sergeants now. Now we were trained aircrew. And the first meal I had or second or third meal I had on the Elizabeth was breakfast on a boarded up [pause] Oh, it was a boarded up swimming pool and that’s, with trestle tables and chairs, that’s where we had our sergeant’s meal twice a day. And one of the waiters coming out brought me my breakfast and it was a man I’d worked for in the Birmingham Market Hall named Jack Bickerstaff. And he never spoke to me and I’d worked for him as an employee for some time. And he never spoke to me. I never spoke to him except to say, ‘Thank you.’ But what I felt like saying was, ‘You sit down and eat my breakfast.’ It looked like he needed it. But I hadn’t got the pluck and I didn’t see him again. But I found out that he’d been passing communist literature around somewhere where he was stationed in Canada so they booted him back again on the Elizabeth. Back to be demobbed. Not wanted. That’s terrible for a grown man isn’t it? But anyhow it happened. Never saw him again. Joined [pause] went from there to Croydon. That’s from Chipping Warden to Croydon. Then we were warned off about going on a course to become air gunners. We’d already done the basic training in Canada. We were only there sort of three months but they asked me if I wanted to join the Canadian Royal Air Force because I knew more about aircraft recognition than they did. It had been my hobby and they wanted me to become an instructor in Canada. But I thought long and hard about it but what my father would have thought about it I don’t know. So I stayed as I was and went back home to win the war. That’s [laughs] all I can say about that period. He’d, my father unfortunately was becoming an ill man so he had to finish. He was demobbed and Ansell’s, the publican people gave him a pub in Wolverhampton for somewhere to live and to run. Which he did with my mother, Faye. And I was of course in the RAF and now I was doing circuits and bumps in a Wellington at Lichfield because that was the name of the aerodrome where they trained air gunners. And next thing we know we did our final trip which was to Paris where we dropped leaflets. And then we went to my first Squadron which was 100 Squadron. Used to be a fighter Squadron during the war 100 Squadron but it was bomber now and it was Wellingtons. In Canada we trained on Fairey Battles and I sat with a Vickers gas operated machine gun on a Scarfe mounting. But that was soon all over. They didn’t spend a lot of time with us with training. To go from a single Scarfe mounted machine gun to a turret with four automatic machine guns took some beating really. But times being what they were you didn’t moan. You just got on with it. And so I passed my air gunner’s test. The way they crewed us up they’d got seven different categories of crew at Chipping Warden. No. Not Chipping Warden. At Lichfield, which was our Operational Training Unit. We went there to train to be air gunners in turrets. And a daunting thing it was as well because all the turrets were so complicated and yet so basic. You know. You either loved it or left it. But I stuck it out. And then we were called together, the seven different categories of crew and we were all shepherded in to the officer’s mess and we were told to sort ourselves out in crews. They found this was the, the better way. That like would attract like, I presume. I don’t know. But we had, I think there was [pause] it takes a bit of figuring out. Seven in a crew. And then we had to form I think it was twenty crews all with seven in. And had to report to somebody at a desk as you are writing all our names down in lots of sevens because that’s what the crews were going to be. And that’s what they were doing all over England I presume to get crews together. They had to train them all. But of course pilot’s training was running to a year or more than that. And navigators was a long course. But I got my little air gunner’s brevet and I was happy as I was. My father was pleased. My mother was worried. But that’s how it all was at that time. And so we finished up on the Squadron, 100 Squadron as operational. Which I thought was great. I had worries. But as long as my mother and father didn’t worry I wasn’t going to worry. But I think they were good actors basically. Yeah. We were on the Squadron now. CB: We’re going to pause just for a minute. AF: As you wish. CB: Yeah. Only — [recording paused] AF: Yeah. CB: So just going back a bit the interesting thing is that you and your future wife joined the RAF together but how did you come to go to the bureau to sign up and — AF: In Dale End. CB: Yes. AF: It was a Recruiting Office. And the three recruiting offices had taken over offices in Dale End. Navy, Army, Air Force. And the air force as far I was concerned was all that was needed because the flight sergeant who was the recruiting officer or sergeant when I said to him an air gunner he said, ‘That’s the sort of thing we want.’ he said, ‘Anybody else like you at home or anything?’ I said, ‘No, sir. Just me.’ He said, ‘Oh well, you’ll have to do. Good luck.’ I said, ‘Thank you.’ And my wife unfortunately was nine, eighteen months older than me and she went away quicker to be in the forces properly. And my mates. I was working at Mac Fisheries then because we’d been told that the coal stores was becoming a Reserved Occupation and we wouldn’t be able to join up. So we’d better get a move on and make up our minds and that’s why we went on that Saturday. She joined the RAF, the WAAF. I joined the RAF to train as an air gunner. And I was content with life. I can’t think of remembering anything absolutely wrong. CB: How did they encourage you to join a particular specialty? So — AF: Oh no. No. CB: Did they ask you what you wanted to do? AF: No. I said to the flight sergeant, ‘What’s the quickest way to get in to the RAF? What’s the quickest way to become useful in the RAF?’ He said, ‘Become an air gunner.’ I said, ‘Well, put me down for that please, flight sergeant. That’ll suit me.’ I didn’t know they were killing them off as quick as they were training them [laughs] So he’d earned his Kings Shilling for the day hadn’t he? Eh? Yeah. CB: Did it well. You went out to Canada. AF: Yes. For training. CB: So how did that, so you landed at Halifax. Then what? AF: Well — CB: You had this long trip. AF: Yes. And we were treated quite nicely and treated properly but they had, they couldn’t put us into an Air Gunnery School because all the schools they’d got were full. So we had to wait at Halifax. No. We went from Halifax to Moncton which was like another holding station if you like for trainees. And we were taught rudimentary air gunnery at Moncton. But the real training came back home in England. They hadn’t got the equipment. And in fact they asked me and this is true, they asked me to stay. There was an opportunity for me to stay as a trainee instructor on aircraft recognition at Moncton. And I said, ‘Oh, no. No. I want to carry on and work my way through. I want to become an air gunner properly.’ They said, ‘But you won’t be involved in the war and you’ll certainly get your ranks come automatically. You know, if you spend two or three years at Moncton you’ll, you’ll have the rank of whatever is awarded to you.’ No. No. It wasn’t what I wanted. I said, ‘My father wouldn’t like it anyhow. Let’s get back home and help them there.’ ‘Oh,’ they said, ‘Alright. If that’s your attitude.’ I said, ‘It’s not my attitude. It’s my feelings.’ And that’s exactly what it was. CB: You’d got an urge to actually do something that you regarded as practical. AF: And quickly. CB: And contributory. AF: Yeah. But it took me, oh another must have been ten months before I got through to my course. Then you had to go on another course to get yourself prepared for what a rear turret was. Or a mid-upper turret. They never told you about these things but you’d obviously have to use them so they put you on a course. Another separate course for the use of a turret with four guns or with two guns. So I was happy enough with a turret with four guns. I thought you’ve got twice as many as the other people on the mid upper turrets, you know. And I played my part and that was it as far as I can make out. Had a marvellous crew. I had a good crew. The first crew I had was one with the wireless operator in named Brockbank. Here’s the crew. As small as it is. CB: Excellent. Yeah. AF: That’s the first crew. And not much else we could do. And we did our training and our final bout of training was to, I’ll pass it to the gentleman here. [pause] AF: We had to go, not bomb Paris but to drop leaflets on Paris. You’ve possibly heard this story before. CB: Keep going. AF: Yeah. And it was in a Wellington and I was, there was no mid-upper so the wireless operator took over the part of the other gunner if was necessary. And his name was Brocklebank. He’d got an L in it for a start off. And if you think of coming up the fuselage of a Wellington. Not all that big but far bigger than a Spitfire or a Hurricane. And then when you came to where your shoulder would be near the pilot and you’d be down a step you’d be heading for the bomb aimer’s position. And we had a lovely bomb aimer because he had to be woken up to drop the bombs [laughs] I haven’t made that up. God honest. Because the pilot got used to the, to the habit of saying, ‘Give the bomb aimer a kick.’ [laughs] because he’d be asleep going to the target. He thought it was all a load of bunkum. This business of doing that there and the other. But [Noel Macer] his name was and he was a lovely chap basically but he did like his little, his little ways you know. A bit nutty if you like but he was genuine enough. And that’s what they used the Wellingtons for which were pretty useless for anything else actually. CB: Just on your Paris trip. AF: Yes. CB: How many planes went with you and how many came back? AF: Only, only, we only went on our own. We had to follow the navigational plot that they’d got for us to cross over the Channel. The western France. Follow their route because this was, this was a trip for the whole seven members of the crew. Navigator, bomb aimer, pilot, who was a beautiful pilot. No doubt about it at all. And we all hoped to stick together because that was the plan. Not to stick with other people. CB: No. AF: Your own men sort of thing. And we did. CB: So, going back to your training in Canada you said it was quite short. So what bomb aimer training did you have there on the ground or in the air? AF: Oh, no. We only had air gunners. CB: I meant to say air gunner. Sorry. AF: Yeah. CB: Yeah. What air gunner training did you have on the ground? AF: Well — CB: And in the air in Canada. AF: We wondered what a dome building was. Made of brick. The second or third day of our training they took us in there and I still don’t remember. I’ve got the photograph of this. It was experimental group that we were with. They were all air gunners. All training as air gunners. But we went in this domed building and what it was it was domed and also it was painted white inside and there was a moving platform as well with equipment like this sort of thing but much bigger which threw an enemy fighter on to the curved area of this dome. And you sat in a turret which moved about on a long sort of pole and you had two guns but it was a cinemata. A camera. And you actually, as you supposedly blazed away at this one aircraft that was being shot on to this dome interior of the domed building it was all being kept on film. And you were told what the lead was and how, how far you would have to fire in front of one of the planes to make a hit while you were doing it sort of thing. It was very, very clever in its way and it gave you the feelings of what you were doing were worthwhile. But you were glad to go home. CB: This is called deflection shooting. AF: Deflection shooting. Quite right. That’s right. CB: Now, what about flying in the air. Because they were Fairey Battles in Canada. Did you get — AF: Ah, well, I got into trouble. The only time in my service. But we were at an RAF station down south in Cornwall. CB: St Eval or somewhere like that, was it? AF: St Eval. Yeah, well St Eval was north of, of St Mawgan. CB: Yeah. AF: St Mawgan. We used to fly when, when you did fly you flew off a cliff into the great blue yonder sort of business. CB: Yeah. AF: We did our share of flying at Cornwall. CB: But in Canada did you fly in a Battle in your training there? AF: Yes. We did. We did flying in a Fairey Battle with a pilot in the cockpit and then you sat in the open cockpit at the back with the Vickers gas operated machine gun. But it was so cold and very often it was twenty and thirty below, and to fire your machine gun you had to jam it against the side of the fuselage with the rifle part sticking out over the side of the aircraft and you had, you fired the gun several times. That was to blew the interior to let it see, let it see that it had been fired. But what we were doing actually was using one, one case of, of machine gun bullets and when we thought we’d downed or blew the inside of the machine gun we held the rest. We knocked the spring off and held the rest over the side the fuselage and it spun all the bullets out into the River St Lawrence below because it was just too cold to aim. CB: Yeah. AF: And most of the pilots were either Polish or foreign. Foreign people who hardly understood us but they were flying us so we had to be nice to them. And when we’d finished unloading all the bullets we crawled up the interior of the fuselage and tapped the pilot on the left shoulder. That was the only way you could talk. He had no intercom at all. And they knew right away that that tap meant back home, land, breakfast or dinner, what was on and that was it. CB: How did they tell you about your scores in your practice? AF: Oh. It was all a bit ridiculous really. This is my logbook. It’s got everything in there that I did. And in the back couple of pages is the programme and proficiency assessments. Here we are, sir. Oops sorry. That’s it. CB: Ok. But it didn’t last very long in Canada. AF: Well, once we’d gone through all the manoeuvres and the air to air firing and air to, there would be a Fairey Battle would tow like a long stocking. CB: A drogue. AF: A drogue. And you had to wait until he passed you because obviously one or two got excited and started firing at the plane. Which didn’t help a lot, you know but [laughs] it was all in good, good sport. No doubt about that. CB: How much damage did the planes get? AF: No. Well, we had several talkings to. Let’s put it that way. What not to do and it was meant what not to do was to fire at that bleeding plane. ‘The drogue’s what you fire at, you bloody fool. You’ll never become an air gunner,’ you know. But you did. They needed them too badly. But that’s true that is. Yeah. I would have placed him in the same spot as the bloke who said I was wrong at Derby Baths [laughs] But they did their best. Everybody did their best then. CB: So when you then returned as you said you went to the OTU. AF: That’s right. CB: And what did you do at the OTU? AF: That was — CB: At Lichfield. AF: That was, to start off we did nothing else but circuits and bumps. And this was to get the pilot familiarised with his crew and what they’d got to do because you had, we had to sit at our positions. Mind you we only had six in the crew because they had no mid-upper turrets then. Those came later. But we had mock ups and we used to run around outside on the grass with people with rifles. And the runners were taking model aircraft of quite some size and we had to run with those so that the ones with rifles could work out what the lead was ahead of the flying aircraft. But they did their best. They did their best. That’s about all you can say. Because they were, this was done in groups of sort of thirty or forty. You know. And you didn’t get, have your bomb aimers with you or the pilots. They were away doing other courses. But it all came together in the end. We were all re-joined again and made into aircrew. CB: But at the, at the OTU you formed the crew. AF: That’s right. CB: How did you do that? AF: At the, we were told to go to the big lounge in the officer’s mess and we were given a pen, a pencil and paper and we sat around in chairs. We had a chat with people. They made us cups of tea. Who did you like? Who didn’t you like? Who treated you well? And who, blah blah blah. But the whole idea was for you to form a crew of six on your own which you did. CB: Yeah. AF: And you could always be told that for any reason at all you could leave the six at any time as long as you gave a specific reason. You know. But nobody did. Everybody stuck with who they’d got. And then we had the same number of crew forwarded in a few days time. And they were the engineers because we were going on to four engine aircraft and they would be needed, engineers to balance out petrol and all that when you were flying. CB: This was going to the Heavy Conversion Unit. AF: Heavy. That’s right. Yeah. CB: So where was that? AF: Blyton? I think. I think that name sort of sticks somehow or other. CB: Ok. AF: But we only stopped there a week. That was all. Just to get the crew together and to get the engineer to balance his petrol flows and everything else which was rather important. CB: So you’re on a four engine aeroplane now. What is it? AF: A Lancaster. CB: Right. Ok. How did you like that? AF: Thought it was great. Well, I did. Of course you had to stay in your positions. You had to take everything very seriously but as long as you could aim and use your turret. And you got your fair share of orange juice in the little tins. They used to freeze as well when you went on ops but you weren’t told about that. Bloody orange juice. You had to get it open with the cocking lever to a machine gun inverted and one hand on top of it and the other put the orangeade on the, well the orange juice on your knee and keep hitting it. When you got through you found the bleeding stuff was frozen. We had our disappointments as well but that’s true that is. Yeah. Yes. I had my eyes freeze up once. The wireless operator, Bobby Brockbank on instructions from the pilot had to come down, open my turret, rear turret, lay me down flat and put his heating gloves on my face because they’d had, we’d had instructions that they were going to take Perspex out of the turrets so they wouldn’t get dirtied. The surface of the turret. But they never thought about the wind bringing the bloody rain in on us. We used, we used to get soaked. And my eyes actually froze up where I couldn’t open them and I couldn’t speak properly. As though everything was frozen. Started to change our minds a bit then but once you got back home people talked you out of things. But it was scary that was. When you couldn’t see. What bleeding good’s an air gunner if you can’t see? Phew. It annoyed me I can tell you. But that was true that was. That was true. CB: So, from Blyton, from the HCU, you went to 100 Squadron. Where was 100 Squadron stationed? AF: White Waltham. Near Grimsby. CB: Waltham. AF: Waltham. Yeah. That’ll do. CB: Yeah. AF: When we’d done eighteen trips and believe it or not at eighteen operational flights in 1943, when you’d done eighteen trips you were experienced. There was Berlins. There was Colognes. There was Essens. There was all sorts of famous German towns that we must have caused awful wreckage at, you know. But it had to be done. It wasn’t a game and that was the end of that sort of thing. You went and you hoped to come back. That’s what we called our plane at [pause] what was the name of 100 Squadron? Yeah. CB: Yeah. AF: At Waltham. CB: At Waltham. Yeah. AF: Yeah. We’d go. We’d come back after the famous radio funny man. CB: Oh, Lord Haw Haw. AF: Hmmn? CB: Lord Haw Haw. AF: No. No. No. He was English. CB: Oh, funny man. Right. AF: Yeah. Funny man. A comedian. We go. We come back. He was talking to the natives of course. CB: Right. Yeah. Yeah. AF: But that’s what we called our aircraft. Oh, and I hope you don’t mind but when we did our first operational flight to Paris to drop the paperwork. The — CB: The leaflets. AF: It was to talk the Germans in Paris out of fighting the war. But of course that was useless but that was part of our training that was. CB: Yeah. AF: And there was a front bulkhead door which meant to say if the wireless operator, Bobby had to get in to the front turret there was a big door. Must have been like that and like that that was held by two locks. And that’s, the air gunner if he was going to do an air gunner job in the front turret he had to be locked in that because the air was so great coming through if it was open that the, the Wellington used to take the attitude of a, of a Whitley. And that was a nose down flight. They reckon there was that many Whitleys got away with it because the Germans aimed ahead of the apparent motion and they were firing here and the Whitley was flying above them if you like to think of it that way. And that broke away from its moorings. That bulkhead door broke away. We couldn’t even fasten it. We’d got nothing to fasten it with. There was two locks this side and hinges that side and it was the hinges that broke through constant use. And we just had to sort of sit and wonder you know what it was all about really. Nothing you could do about it but they soon repaired it. Didn’t destroy it. CB: With — AF: That was part of the other story. CB: Yes. That’s ok. So you said with 100 Squadron after eighteen trips. AF: After eighteen. CB: What was the significance of eighteen trips? AF: Well, we had to, we joined three more crews from four more Squadrons and we formed 625 Squadron with those extra men. Well, they weren’t extra. They were extra to the Squadron that was being formed. We thought it was quite an honour because now we’d got different mates and different people but we had psychologists and psychiatrists come along and taught us. Talk to us about how we felt about doing operations and losses and all that business. And they asked us not to make too strong friends of any of the other crews but to make friends of our own crew. Look upon them as brothers and all that. I thought it a load of cobblers but they tried it out and the idea was that you weren’t [pause] you weren’t affected, or you shouldn’t be affected by the loss of other aircrew. It’s your own aircrew you had to stand by sort of thing. Some enjoyed it and some disliked it but it was up to them. But I suppose to a certain extent it had to work because they didn’t want too many moaners. But we formed 625. And what happened then, we had Stan [pause] We had the navigator. I can give you his first name. I can’t think of his second. He lived, he lived in Lincoln. His father worked in the steel works. Course the one thing that people disliked but they were shot out in their hundreds I believe by the aircrew and that was a telegram. And of course Stan Cunningham. Stan Cunningham, he sent his laundry on a regular basis home to his mother in Lincoln because we weren’t far from Lincoln at Grimsby. And she used to send them back in about four or five days ironed and pressed and aired and great. None, none the rest of us bothered. We tried to wash our stuff or fancied a pretty WAAF and get her to do the washing if you could [laughs] I was lucky at times. Very nice. Dizzy, the WAAF hairdresser was allowed in the men’s area for cutting hair. She was the Squadron hairdresser, you know. A lovely girl as well. But you couldn’t do much about it. One of them things. Just get your hair cut and get out of it. A shame. Are you alright? Good. And we did, we were told by the, the weather people that when we came back that night, we were going to Stettin which was farther east then Berlin. So it was a long trip and a cold trip too because it was I think it was October, November, December, one of them months. And unfortunately Stan got hit in his little navigator’s cubicle and lost part of his, his leg. So of course we pressed on sort of thing and dropped our bombs but we remembered what the Met people had told us. And the, one of the Met men told the skipper, he said, ‘When you leave the French Coast,’ he said, ‘Lose height because you’ll be able to tell when you hit England just what the weather is like. See in the distance.’ And it was all the searchlights that were set up because every Squadron had its own searchlight pattern and you could see it for miles away and you headed for it because you wanted to get down. But [pause] I don’t know what. Oh, it got to the point where poor Stan was losing a lot of blood and we couldn’t do much about it because he’d lost the thick part of the left leg. And the skipper said to call up Mayday. He said, ‘It’s the last request but call up Mayday and let’s get Stan somewhere where he can get some treatment.’ We called up and we happened to be in [pause] there was thick fog. We called up Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. All the time until it got answered and we only, ‘We got you. We’ve got you on our — ‘ CB: On the radar. AF: Hmmn? CB: On the radar. AF: Yes. ‘We’ve got you on the radar.’ On the H2S. Whatever it was, ‘And we’ll get, get you directed to us. And we’re also equipped with FIDO.’ Now, FIDO was the — CB: Fog clearing system. AF: Fog clearing system. Yeah. And we saw them. We more or less saw the FIDO switched on. And it sort of cut a long piece of cake out of the fog. And the skipper nipped in very very quickly and got the wireless op to call up that we had wounded aboard. One wounded aboard. Because we were quite lucky, you know. Over the trips. And we landed and the moment we landed they switched the flames off because all the flame burners were down each runway and they could switch them on. But we landed and I helped get Stan to the, helped carry him. We had to lay him out. We had no stretcher. We had to lay him out on a board of some sort we’d got and put him in the ambulance. And I heard from him sixty years later [laughs] CB: How did that come about? AF: Well, it was me that was dilatory. You’d think with flying with a brother that you’d want to know how he got on. But the world was moving on. We had to get another navigator. But we didn’t use him because they screened us to become instructors. So we lost that navigator and I had six months at Waterbeach where we had a demob centre of our own. And they were flying Liberators from Waterbeach to India. To aerodromes there where they were picking up I think it was fifteen or sixteen early army troops and they were bringing them to Waterbeach and they were demobbing them there. They’d got their clothes and everything. And we had our dip as well. The pilot used to leave us his carton of rations which had got sweets in and cigarettes and matches and all that. But at Waterbeach there was an officer by the name of Lancaster. You’ve got to remember his name, haven’t you? We were flying them. And also we was there at the time of my marriage to my wife. No. A year after my marriage to my wife. And she was due for demob because she was pregnant which I’m proud to say was all my doing [laughs] But a posting came through while I was getting married on D-Day. June the 6th ’44. With all the family and everything else at a, a white wedding at a church in Yardley, Birmingham. And when the marriage was over, was done and all that business we went all outside talking in groups. My father came to me and he said, ‘They’ve invaded son. You should be alright now.’ I said, ‘Well, it aint won yet, dad. Let’s face it,’ you know. ‘We’ve still got to fight them.’ He said, ‘Oh, well, yeah. I know.’ But he’d been demobbed out of the Army because his health wasn’t right. But Jean and I had a very nice honeymoon at the Lygon Arms, Broadway which was paid for by some Lord or other. Good luck to him. But this Lancaster unknownst to me was put in charge of the gunnery section because lieutenant Mussey was on leave. I was away. And so there was only a couple of instructors and this Lancaster. Unknownst to me he filled a form in for an air gunner to go back and he put my name down while I was enjoying my wedding. Well, of course when it came through the next time it should have been for Lancaster because he’d been away eighteen months. But it wasn’t. It was Farr for some unknown reason. I made no complaint because I was posted within two days and there’s quite enough to do when you’ve got to go somewhere else. I’d got to go to 460 Squadron, Binbrook and take my part there as an air gunner in a Lancaster. But I was only to do twenty trips. That was, that was the score then. Thirty and twenty. But why I put my name down, if a bloke was frightened and Lancaster was frightened to death then he’s a liability to his crew. And the only way they’ll find out is when they get in the aircraft. So I thought, ‘Well, I can do it. I’m strong enough.’ So I did. Mother and dad was upset, ‘Thought you’d done enough, son,’ and all that lark but there we are. My wife done her nut. But I had to do twenty more trips. Yeah. They said Farr was a devil for bloody punishment. They weren’t far wrong either because we were helping Pathfinder force on some occasions at Binbrook. Because Binbrook was Group Squadron. 1 Group Squadron. And we were always in sort of [pause] one of the things they did on us, I think it was the third or fifth trip, I forget now. There were too many trips. But they had fitted a small light to our Lanc and we were to fly it across the target, where ever it was, with this little light on. Well, of course a moving light at about twelve thousand feet is very obvious, isn’t it? And so we got plastered left right and bloody centre by the anti-aircraft fire. They knew very well we were going to bomb that place because we were attracting the attention of the anti- aircraft fire. That’s to deflect attention off the Pathfinder force. CB: Oh right. AF: But they soon stopped it because of losses. So, we were alright at Binbrook, 460. But it was still 1 Group and we were still flying Lancs. And I only had to do twenty because I’d done thirty. Well, leading up to thirty. So nobody said a word. But we had a haunting, haunting bloody trip. We went to Stettin. It was our seventeenth or eighteenth trip. We were flying a normal Lancaster. We were happy enough as a crew. But just as the bomb, the bomb aimer was about to open the turret doors the bomb, bombing doors where all the bombs were laid ready to drop the aircraft we were flying reared up like a stallion. Like on its hind legs. Just, just as it was. And then its nose dropped and down we went. Of course you’ve got to the right of the pilot’s seat a wheel and it’s called a trimming wheel. And that is connected to small ailerons on the wings and on the fin and rudder and on the tailplane. That’s the same. No, it isn’t. The tailplane’s the flat one. The fin and rudder’s the upright. It was connected by, it was connected to a smaller aileron on the bigger ailerons. And the whole idea was that if you went into a dive a Lancaster with its bomb load on or without its bomb load on was too heavy for one person to pull out of a dive. But if you got somebody standing by you who could slowly turn this wheel which was connected to the ailerons and the ailerons would move very slowly and they in turn would take the pressure off all the other moving parts and the skipper would be able to pull the aircraft out of the dive. But Stan was in a bad way. And we landed and we watched three of these big hefty sort of house building machines push the Lanc off the runway. Oh no. I’m sorry. I always get stuck on this part [pause] We made it and we shouldn’t have made it. We made it back to our aerodrome. 460 Squadron, Binbrook. I’m sorry. Other: That’s alright. AF: I’ve gone all wrong there. Other: Yeah. From Stettin. AF: Hmmn? Other: From Stettin you came back. AF: We came back all the way from Stettin. Other: Even though she’d reared up and then gone into a dive. AF: That’s right. Fortunately he had the bomb aimer there with him to ease the aircraft out of its dive. Other: The wheel. AF: That’s right. Other: Yeah. AF: With the wheel. And drew. We went over the target and the bomb aimer dropped the bombs. You can put your fingers through holes and pull away the hook. Bomb doors were open so we dropped our bombs because they were a bigger liability than anything else in the world there at the time. Turned around and we were at about six or eight thousand feet and of course [pause] we don’t know what had hit us but something burst into flame on our starboard side. We went into a dive so we were soon away from it. Then the skipper got her out of the dive, pulled her level and said, ‘We’d better have a look around our areas and see what damage had been done.’ If you can see it at all because you’ll find it all underneath. Another plane had hit us head on [laughs] it’s not, it’s not believable. Other: A glancing blow. CB: How did you know that? How did you know it had hit you head on? AF: Because — CB: The bomb aimer told you, did he? AF: No. No. No. This thing on fire passed us on the right hand side but he must have hit us about three foot below our eye level because it skidded along the fuselage and then burst into flame and exploded. And that was it. His petrol went up. But it, I cannot tell it quick enough but that’s how it happened. It was all over and the next thing we know we were flying straight and level again at about six thousand feet because the wheel had worked. On the — CB: What height was the collision? AF: Oh, I don’t know. CB: Roughly. AF: May I read you a little, it’s only a small story because you had to put, we had put we had to put everything down but it might be in that. I don’t think so. “Operation Stettin. Collision with — “ [pause] I’ve got Lanc with a question mark behind it. “Ten miles before target area. Considerable damage to own aircraft. Carried on to bomb at twelve thousand feet.” There you are. There’s your thousand. Twelve thousand feet. We were on our way home and it was slowly getting light. We were in the air nine and three quarter hours. Nine hours and thirty five minutes. Skipper awarded Distinguished Flying Cross and [pause] no. We didn’t land with fog help. That was another trip. This trip, flying back from Stettin as soon as we cleared the English coast we went into Mayday. Mayday. All the time. Mayday. Until we were — no. No. No. Forget that. I’m sorry. But that that doesn’t apply to the raid on Stettin at all. CB: I’ll tell you what. We’ll stop just for a mo. AF: Yeah. [recording paused] CB: Right. We’re just reconvening now about the Stettin situation. AF: Yeah. CB: Because it was a serious event obviously and unexpected. So what was happening? You were ready on the run in to Stettin. AF: Yes. Yes. And the fighter must have been coming away from Stettin and suddenly I think it was as big a surprise to the fighter as it was to us because a normal way for a fighter to attack a plane is to have a curve of pursuit attack. Which is the way they are trained. But he can’t do a curve of pursuit from head on. CB: So what, what so this aircraft came on head on at you? AF: Well, no. CB: Is that what you’re saying? AF: You see, we didn’t even know that. CB: No. AF: All we know is suddenly our aircraft reared up to the point where it almost became impossible to fly because the pilot would have been on his back. And then suddenly this, this explosion to our starboard so that’s that plane done with. And then we went straight into a dive. And it’s impossible that you can stand on your feet when you’re in a Lanc that’s diving but the bomb aimer dropped all his bombs and his, his — CB: So, he regained control of the aircraft. AF: That’s right. And we were at twelve thousand feet. We lost about eight. CB: So when you dropped the bombs you were low. AF: Oh yes. We were low for a Lancaster. CB: Right. AF: And — CB: And you were flying by then. AF: And they all went. Yes. We were flying level. CB: On how many engines? AF: Two. CB: Right. AF: The outer engines. But I wondered sitting in the mid-upper turret. I mean I should have seen something. I mean it must have come as close as I am to you. The pilot of that. Because there’s only one in a single engine plane. And even then that’s guesswork. But forget that. Suddenly your plane is flying again normally and the engineer is going mad trying to balance his petrol up because if it maintained, keep his petrol from the two inner engines he’s got that spare to fly on the outers you see. Now, I’ve got to think. I’ve got to think Stettin. We didn’t come across any other aircraft. We were able to maintain our way back home. The [pause] this is, this is chronicled by the way in the RAF 460 Squadron thing in the — CB: Is it? Good. Right. So we can pick that up there. AF: Yes. Other: So coming back now. AF: That’s right. Other: To Britain. AF: Yeah. Other: Do you do you call Mayday? Because you’re on two engines — AF: No. No. No Other: No. That’s where you mixed it up with the other one. AF: There was a discussion amongst the crew. We were only doing a very low — Other: Speed. AF: low speed. That’s obvious because he was trying to maintain, keep whatever petrol he’d got. Other: Yeah. AF: For the later journey. Other: Yeah. AF: Because you’ve got to travel the full width of France. Other: Yeah. AF: If we’re over Stettin. Other: Yeah. AF: We’ve got all that. CB: The width of Germany. Yes. AF: All the width to the coast. See. But anyhow we were over France in daylight and we could not understand. Not any of us. Couldn’t understand why nobody came up to poke their nose in. They just left us. Other: Very nice. AF: If, if anybody had have come up they must have seen that the damage was horrendous. But we couldn’t see it could we? There was no way we could get out of the aircraft and have a look around. So we just left it like that and kept our fingers crossed. And we made it. And this is hardly believable. We made it back to our squadron. Sigh of relief. Sigh of relief. We wanted to hug everybody, you know. They stopped us from landing because they said, ‘You’ll damage your [unclear] will land and it will put the aerodrome out of commission altogether. It’ll no doubt crash. So will you please use the emergency crash ‘drome at Carnaby,’ which is in Scotland, see. We’d had no petrol for an hour. Well, of course it’s not registering on all the dials because the petrol is being used up. But anyhow, we had to say alright because they refused us entry and we went to Carnaby and its five runways. Bigger than all the other runways we’d ever seen and its different surfaces to land on. We picked the middle one and its right from the sea. They said, when we got on to control at Carnaby, they said, ‘There’s no other aircraft in the vicinity. You can go out to sea as far as you like and come in as slow as you like.’ And we didn’t know what he was trying to tell us at all but they didn’t like the look of it. You know. Anyhow, we had a chat together because we could all link up with the intercom on the plane and the skipper said, ‘I’m going to go out to sea again. I’m going to come in as slow as I possibly can,’ and he said, he looked at the bomb aimer and he said, ‘I want you to have your face pressed against the starboard window in the cockpit. You others can look through the small windows there are,’ down each side of the fuselage in the Lanc, ‘And you can tell the skipper anything you want that is useful. But for God’s sake no idle chatter,’ he said, ‘ Because what I’m going to try and do, I’m going to try and put the weight of the aircraft, and the wheels down if they’re working. If they’re not working then I’ve got to think again but we’ve got to get the wheels down and locked. So you get your faces against the little windows and my gunner, engineer will see about what petrol we’ve got and if we’re alright.’ And we came back in again then on to the middle runway. I don’t know what surface it was but he came in with the tail down. The port wheel, it, it was swinging and it came forward and it locked at an angle. The starboard wheel was just swinging. So that was going to be the trouble. The right hand one. So the skipper said to the bomb aimer, ‘Keep your eye on that starboard wheel, he said, ‘’m going to bring it in in any case. I’m bringing it in as slow as I can and as low as I can and the moment it touches the earth I’m going to pull the joystick back and put the weight on it.’ He said, ‘That’s all I can do,’ You know, ‘God bless you all and thank you very much.’ And we had to take up our crash positions either side of the main spar and look through the little windows and sure enough the right hand wheel was flapping. But suddenly the plane lurched and it come down and the wheel snapped, locked. The right hand wheel. [laughs] I see it now. Other: Yeah. AF: I can see it now. Locked. I thought thank God for that. We pulled up [pause] A wagon came out to pick us up as members of a crew. And there is on board the plane, on a chute behind the navigator’s little hut if you like, there’s a seven million candle power photoflash that goes out the chute of its own accord. Activated by the first bomb. So that travels down to the height where the bomb explodes and the photoflash is set off at the same time so that they get exactly where the bombs have landed. Other: Right. AF: And the plane pulled to a standstill and the skipper said, ‘I want you all out as quick as you can. The plane may explode.’ We don’t know what might happen after this. And so we all hurtled out. And the photoflash had been shook loose by the collision and had started its travel down the chute to go out with the first bomb. But instead of that the plane had hit it so it must have been under the aircraft. The German fighter had hit it and bent it in to the Lancaster like a screw into wood. Yeah. That was, you know a five hundred pound bomb going off on its own. We had a look around. Oh. Now then. I’ve missed a lump out here. Oh. I’m sorry. But I’d said to the skipper after the collision and we’d dropped the bombs, ‘I’m going to remain in the mid-upper skipper because I can see more from there than anybody else.’ ‘Alright, son. Do what you like as long as you’re helping.’ So I waited in that plane and I said to the crew about half an hour later, I give it time to settle, I said to the crew, ‘It looks like the port fin and rudder,’ and they’re like elongated eggs on a Lancaster, I said, ‘It looks like it’s badly damaged and its starting to move.’ I said, ‘I’m sorry about this but it’s true.’ I said, ‘So, wherever you are get your parachute close to you so at least you can get out of the aircraft,’ I said, and, ‘I’ll stop here. I’ll just keep my eye on that fin and rudder.’ As it grew lighter the fin and rudder wasn’t moving. But the plane had grazed its way down our fuselage and released loads and loads of this white metal and that had wrapped itself around the fin and rudder. And it was that that was shaking. So I called up the crew. I said, ‘The fin and rudder appears to be safe but I don’t know. But it won’t stand a lot of shaking about I can tell you that,’ I said, ‘But I’ve got to tell you because you need your parachutes with you.’ You know. I said, ‘I’m going to get mine now it’s got lighter. We can see we’ve got a plane.’ As I went to jump down from the half turret of the mid-upper gunner I felt somebody hammering on this part of the leg because I’m sitting on sort of, this is part of the dustbin and the guns are here. So I looked down. I could see out there and it’s the wireless operator again. Bobby Brockbank. And he’s going like this to me, up. Eyes. So I leant right over and looked down [laughs] and there was no plane. The H2S equipment which is bigger than that table, far bigger and like a pear shape, that had been thrown against the rear turret of the rear gunner. So, of course we thought about him then. So I said to, I motioned to Bobby. I said, move out of the way and I was able to climb down the fuselage inside because it was all long lengths of metal. So I got down and we moved all that junk from behind the rear gunner so that he could get out and have his, drink his orange juice if he wanted to. But what we did then is we sat ourselves in the, in the spaces where the main spar is joined to the fuselage. We had four of us in there in holds. So that was better. And then yeah what a fool. What a bloody idiot. We had this, this bloke we were nearing the coast and you could see fog and we called up Mayday. Mayday. Mayday continually all the time. And finally they called us back and said, ‘If you go on to — ’ [pause] oh what do they call them? Bloody. ‘If you go, if you go on route — ’ such and such, ‘You’ll hit our aerodrome and you’ll see the fog lights are on. You can land. There’s no other plane about.’ And we did this and landed straightaway. He put the aircraft down plonk and the wheels shot forward [laughs] you know. How do you look at it? It’s nothing else but pure bloody marvellous. You know. We did a little dance. At least we were flying still. We landed, pulled up, and immediately they sent three of these bulldozers out to push the aircraft off the spot where we had landed to all, there was all crashed aircraft there. Piles of them. They sent a van out for us. None of us were hurt which is remarkable in itself. We were ferried back. Carnaby back to Binbrook. Twenty five minutes. That’s how far it was. So we were so lucky. It doesn’t bear thinking of. When I called up that lovely crew and told them about the strips of, not the strips, no that the fin and rudder was shaking. I honestly thought it was shaking. I wasn’t trying to enlarge upon our dilemma. That, that was all that thin strips of metalised stuff. You know. And to see the photoflash turned around and bedded in to the side of the aircraft. It was near miraculous it didn’t go off because it was supposed to go off. You know. And what do you do? CB: Extraordinary. AF: Did a little, oh and underneath the mid-upper turret where I was sitting you could see daylight straight through the fuselage [laughs] and I’m not building the story up. You know. CB: So when you were first hit and the aircraft reared up what went through your mind? AF: Well, I thought for a moment that, that the pilot had had a heart attack or fainted as some did and he’s, he wasn’t driving straight. You know. What do you do? What do you think of? You see all, all your relatives and hope that they’re all alright but you think to yourself don’t start thinking about them. Nothing to do with it. Mind you we were Stettin away from England which was a good two and a half to three hours flying at the speed we were going. So I thought to myself at the time I wish Lancaster had been here. Naughty. But there we are. CB: We’ll just take a break there. Yeah. [recording paused] CB: We talked, you talked a bit earlier about the navigator getting his leg, Stan. Wounded. AF: That’s right. CB: So how, first of all how did he become wounded? What happened exactly? AF: Anti-aircraft fire. CB: Right. AF: Coming through the fuselage. CB: Right. So it was shrapnel. AF: Shrapnel. CB: Which took out a good section of his leg. AF: Actually took it away. CB: Yes. So then coming to the nearer time. Sixty years later what happened? AF: The phone went. ‘Is that Allan Farr?’ I said, ‘Yes, it is. Who’s that?’ He said, ‘It’s Stan. Your lovely navigator. What are you doing this time of the morning?’ I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. I’d always expected him to have a very, very, very dicey leg and even to be in a chair and wheeled about you know. And I thought to myself then and he said, ‘Are you still there?’ I said, ‘Yes. I’m in shock you silly cow. I’m in shock [pause] Have you got any hobbies?’ He said, ‘Yes. My wife and I go fell walking.’ [telephone ringing] AF: [laughs] Fell walking. Other: [laughs] Without a leg. CB: Amazing. Other: Yeah. CB: So, what did you say to that? AF: I burst into tears. CB: Oh, did you? AF: He said, ‘You aint crying are you?’ I said, ‘Stan, thank goodness. Oh.’ I said, ‘The number of times I’ve been going to write to the RAF section which would look after anybody who, you know.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’m, I’ve got a job. I’m still working. I’m doing electrical stuff but only, only on paper,’ you know. ‘And I’m married. I’ve got a lovely wife.’ I said, ‘Well, you know this is great.’ And I was still crying. Funny isn’t it? CB: Did you get to meet him? AF: Yes. We went up to Lincoln. Stayed two nights. And really it was so very, very nice just to see him come in a room. Funny walk but he wasn’t putting it on. CB: So what was his side of the story? AF: Pardon? CB: What was his side of the story that he told you? So after he’d been wounded what did he tell you had happened? AF: He was put straight into an ambulance. And that was the aerodrome that had got the — Other: FIDO. AF: FIDO. That’s right. FIDO. The fog dispersal thing. And he got his old job back. But we went and saw him. We enjoyed their company. They enjoyed ours. We got talking about different things. We didn’t go again because it upset me too much to see him. CB: But as a curiosity what about his wound? How did he describe — AF: Well — CB: How that had been dealt with? AF: You have, you carry, I think it’s a half a dozen in the medical pack which is by the, in the, by the bomb aimer’s compartment. And they’re a tube like that with a very, very long spidery point. And what you have to do is, and it wasn’t me that did it. I don’t think I could have done. Now, who could it be? It could have been the bomb aimer [Noel Macer]. It couldn’t have been the skipper because he couldn’t leave his seat. But what it is you break the top off and it leaves a very jagged long sharp thing which now of course is laudanum or something coming out. And you stick that in the wound. I don’t know if I got it right. But I had to look away. I mean I’m a big brave bloody air gunner. CB: It’s morphine is it? AF: Hmmn? CB: It’s morphine. AF: Morphine. That’s right. Yeah. But dear Stan. He was a lovely fella. He was. I said to him, ‘You’re nearly good enough to be an air gunner.’ [laughs] CB: We’ll stop there again. AF: Yeah. [recording paused] CB: So in an aircraft we’re talking about here the Lancaster there’s a mid-upper gunner and there’s a rear gunner. Now, you did some time as a rear gunner but in this case you were sitting in the mid-upper. AF: Yeah. I was. CB: So what was the situation there? AF: When I went on my second tour it was the mid-upper gunner that needed to be replaced so you take that position. You can’t mess about. Or if in the case of Stan they almost immediately put another gunner [pause] No. Put another navigator into his place so that the plane could still keep flying. CB: Yes. AF: Because I did, I think four or five more trips after that. Then I left the crew. Went around and shook all their hands. And one of them spat in my face. He said, ‘You could have stayed.’ CB: Gee. AF: Because they get used to you. They get to trust you. CB: It was that emotional was it? He felt, what did he feel to make him do that? AF: Well, he felt the lack of a good gunner. CB: So what did he say when he spat in the face, in your face? AF: Well, ‘You can piss off as far as I’m concerned.’ CB: That dramatic. AF: Well — CB: Because you — AF: They get to rely upon you. CB: But you are all the family aren’t you? AF: That’s right. CB: You are a family. AF: Yes. You see, even, even the plane is, I think it’s M for Mother isn’t it? Yes. M for Mother. Look. See. We go. We come back. You’re frightened of death but you don’t want it to happen to you. But where’s the logic in that? CB: So you said that the specific training, for separate training — AF: No. CB: For the different positions. AF: I have seen, a briefing is when all the crews of the Lancasters and we could put forty two up from Binbrook. You, when you attended briefing up on the dais was the commanding officer to tell you why this was taking place, what the target was, how they, possibly to do with a target. You know, what they’ve got to do. Other things that they wanted other planes to do. Really it was to keep you in tune with any equipment that was going to be used as well. I mean [pause] you weren’t allowed to go wild. You were supposed to respect the villagers but what used to upset me more than anything else there was an area where the villagers from Binbrook, because there’s a village of Binbrook come to wish you well by waving flags or anything they’d got that’s colourful. Scarves. And of course as the aircraft came on to the take-off area you were on solid ground. You’d come off the grass. And as the engines revved up you’d see the flags going quicker and quicker you know. And then you’d take off and they vanish out of sight. But again you find you’re crying. You don’t basically want to go. Who wants to take that job over anyhow? I wish I could see that bleeding sergeant major now sometimes [laughs] I’d make him pay for something. I don’t know. But all sorts of fears came at you. I don’t know. Yes. CB: On how many occasions did fighters attack the planes you were flying in? AF: I think, I think my limit was four. You see the only way a fighter can properly bring down a bomber is by the curve of pursuit attack. That’s drummed into you time and time again. They don’t make head on attacks. They did out east where the Japanese planes often just flew in the way they’d been trained. In straight lines. Which made it easier actually to sort of kill them off. But it was always a curve of pursuit and he couldn’t have been attacking us because that would have been the silliest way to commit suicide. I mean to ram yourself into a Lancaster. It don’t bear thinking of does it? CB: No. So on occasions when the planes did attack, other than that one how many times did you shoot at them? AF: Oh. You see. The psychiatrist told us. They said, ‘The Germans don’t want to die any more than you gentlemen want to die.’ He said. ‘So if they’re making an attack on you, you can be well prepared that they will fly away from you because they’ve had enough if only it’s you see if it’s only seconds.’ So they didn’t do much to help you. These psychiatric people. Whatever the names are. But in fact you had, you had a flying operation which were supposed to take you away from aircraft that were trying to knock you out of the sky. And that, that was if you had to, you had to identify your aircraft because if an aircraft has a thirty foot wingspan which is a fighter normally then you can’t hit him. You won’t hit him unless you open fire at six hundred yards. Then you stand a chance of hitting him. Or setting him on fire. Some of the blokes tried to get, some of our blokes tried to get maps of different German aircraft because what you were looking for was the oxygen bottle. If you could hit that you’d blow his head off because it would just disintegrate the plane you see. You haven’t got time to even look three times at the plane to work out whether it’s an ME109 or a Focke Wulf 190 or — CB: And it’s in the dark. AF: Hmmn? CB: And you’re in the dark. AF: Well, oh yes. Yes. I was put in front of the CO by the warrant officer in charge of the armoury. And he said he’d put me in front of the commanding officer because I’d, I’d not denied anything, I’d agreed with what he said but he, this is what he said to the commanding officer, ‘This man continually loads ammunition into his four guns in the rear turret. He loads them in an explosive, a cupronickel. Anything that’s not cupronickel, he’ll use again.’ He said, ‘He uses exploding bullets, incendiary bullets, different sorts of bullets, bar cupronickel which is supposed to use, sir. And it’s bending, the heat from some of them is bending the barrel.’ And the CO says, ‘Well, you’re entitled to have your say, Mr Farr. What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m trying to get the one that’s trying to get me.’ I said, ‘It’s only own back sir. That’s all.’ I said, ‘If I can get this bastard with an exploding bullet I’ll use it.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Stay out of the armoury. That’s an order. And that’s the order that’s going into the, into your record. So let’s have no more of it. You’ll treat this gentleman with respect and accept what he’s done to your guns. That’s what his job is. So don’t make it silly.’ I said, ‘Alright. Thank you very much.’ But that’s, that’s what I was doing. Putting incendiaries in. Anything that exploded. And of course didn’t do very well at it. CB: How many did you shoot down in the end? AF: Hmmn? CB: How many did you shoot down in the end? AF: No. No. No. You couldn’t. To claim a kill you’d got to have either confirmation from the French Resistance. They have got to see, actually see the battle take place and to see the wreckage. Now, who can do that? It really, it was to stop handing out lots and lots of medals I suppose. CB: Now, in your case you did two tours. AF: Yeah. CB: And you had a distinguished flying medal. AF: That’s right. CB: So at what point was that awarded and what was the accolade that they attached to it? AF: Um. CB: So what did they do? On a time base or based on some experiences. AF: No. They just, and they give a reason for it. CB: That’s what I thought. AF: It’s amongst some of these somewhere. CB: Ok. We’ll have a look in a minute. So when did you get it? AF: Oh. I got it in, I think it was January or February of ’45. CB: Right. AF: And I finished my last trip in October ’44. CB: Yes. AF: So obviously they were deliberating over it for some time. But also of course these things were really of no monetary value except for the, the twenty pound they slide to you. Which was good money in them days because we only got, I think it was eight and a six or eleven shillings a day flying pay. See. So you didn’t become an air gunner for the money [laughs] Give us a kiss and shut up. CB: Did all the crew get the same flying pay? AF: Oh yes. Yes. I think the pilot and the navigator were a higher, a higher grade because they had to shovel. They had to shoulder more responsibility. Their courses were really courses to make you sit up. Especially a navigator. You know. I was down as a wireless operator. A w/op ag. Wireless operator and air gunner. I soon crossed off the wireless operator off. I wasn’t sitting down at some poor lady’s diner at Blackpool where some of the crews who were training as wireless operator/air gunners were asking people to pass the sauce in code. That aint me. Tapping it out on the vinegar de de dit da da. Dit dit. They can stick that. CB: Did you get any training in signal? AF: Wireless. CB: Yeah. In wireless. AF: Yes. Oh yes. But I am not that technical. I just am not with it. CB: No. AF: You know. In fact, Mr Pretherick at St Benedict’s Road School. Friday afternoons we used to leave class at half past four. But he used to say, ‘Put all your books away. Happiness is about to descend upon you.’ Lovely teacher. He really was. He said, ‘I’m going to throw a question to the room and as soon as, if you answer it right you can go. But don’t hang about in the corridors.’ Half an hour later there would be him and me. He said, ‘Farr, we’re in the same bloody position again.’ Excuse the language. He said, ‘But why are you having this difficulty with just putting four or five numbers together and totalling it up?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, sir,’ I said, ‘I do try very hard. I do really. Can I go now?’ He said, ‘No. You aint answered your question.’ [laughs] He was as cute as me, I think. Yeah. CB: So you finished in October ’44 on ops. AF: Yes. CB: What did you do after that? AF: I was posted. I was sent down to Waterbeach where they were demobbing the first Army soldiers from Mauripur, India. And they were flying them back in Liberators. Fifteen or sixteen at a time. Big aircraft but they could only fit sling seats in them. And that’s all they could sort of fit in. And I was partly to do with that. I had to drive a little jeep around with, “Follow Me,” on the back in lights. That’s so that when they landed and got to the end of the runway control would tell them to hang fire. ‘Just keep your props going. The inners will do. We’ll send a jeep out to you to take out the demob centre which is the other side of the airfield.’ And they were whistled straight over to this demob centre and three or four days they were out because they had to do all this sort of thing. Obviously. What have you been doing sort of thing. And everything else, you know. CB: But that was at the end of the war wasn’t it? AF: Oh yes. CB: So you went to, according to your logbook you went to 12 OTU after you finished at 460 Squadron. Did you? What did you do there? AF: Can I have a look? CB: Yeah. It’s on the summary at the back page. AF: Oh yes. 12 OTU. Here. CB: That was all ground work was it? AF: Oh yes. The 2nd of October. CB: 26th of October. AF: It’s alright. No. CB: ’44. AF: Do you want to leave it there a moment? CB: Yeah [pause] Yes. 26th of October it says. AF: Yeah. I’m looking for my — CB: Your glasses? What? AF: No. I mean. Ah, that’s what I want. CB: But you ended up, you stopped your flying by the look of it at — AF: Oh yes. CB: After 460 Squadron. AF: Yeah. Yes. That was the end. Well, after I’d done forty odd trips they put that as a limit. And they wouldn’t let you go. CB: No. AF: I mean, we’ve had, we’ve had crews go off and get halfway to the target and they’ve discovered, ordinary, one of the — CB: An airman in the — AF: Yeah. Airmen in the Lanc. CB: In the aircraft. Yeah. AF: Yeah. He wanted to go for the experience of seeing what a raid was like [laughs] I mean, you’ve got to look after him. What could you do? CB: Just keep going. AF: Well, that’s right. CB: Yeah. AF: Just keep on going. Yeah. But I’m just wondering what it says here. CB: It’s back on Wellington on the listing. But in here you haven’t got an entry. AF: No. CB: So it sounds as though you didn’t do flying from then on. AF: 12. No. Obviously. No. I would presume that I gave them a blank. CB: Yeah. AF: There’s eight months work there. CB: Thinking back across, of the war. What would you think was the most disturbing part of your experience? AF: Seeing what it looked like from the air when hundreds and hundreds of houses were burning. Which is upsetting. You know. You can imagine what’s taking place down there. People screaming. People trying to get out of rubble and rubbish. Stuff that’s burning. A terrible thing really. But that’s what used to worry me was the condition of some of the towns. Well, you must have seen photographs of the towns afterwards. CB: Absolutely. AF: With just, well, it’s like a lot of vacant blind people walking about. A great thing. A great pity. You couldn’t get up an anger. I never found that easy. But it happened. When I was — CB: Couldn’t get up an anger of what do you mean? AF: An anger that it was all happening at all. CB: Oh right. AF: Not at Waterbeach. These books are never right. You skived off as much as you could. Although I enjoyed, I enjoyed instructing on aircraft recognition. But there again I’d been doing it as a hobby at eight. And they force you to look at aeroplane models when you’re twenty one or twenty you don’t mind. CB: What was the high part of, for you in the war? The best thing that happened to you in the war. AF: The only, the only thing that I can think of, sir with any honesty is when my leave came around and I could see my parents and my girl, then my wife. Same girl. CB: Yeah. AF: But didn’t have a lot of money. Never have had. CB: It must have been difficult to keep in touch with her because she was posted to different places. AF: Well, she was in a, she was in a [pause] they’d all got bikes so they could cycle where they’d got to go to. You could tell the pluck they’d got. But she was repairing aircraft. Wellingtons of course were made in a [pause] made in a linen which is then doped when it is on the frame of the aircraft. It’s doped and it tightens up so that it gives you a skin which will, a linen is very strong. And that’s what was used on Wellingtons to keep them flying. Because there’s no doubt it. They were useful aircraft for training. But that’s what she was doing. CB: I’m just going to stop. Other: Wonderful. [recording paused] AF: Just be glad you weren’t an air gunner. CB: Yes. AF: In all respects. Other: You know. CB: So, Alan Farr, thank you very much indeed for a most interesting conversation. 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 Alan Avery Farr Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chris Brockbank Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-07-12 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. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AFarrAA170712 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Pending revision of OH transcription Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 02:02:38 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Description An account of the resource Allan Avery Farr was working at the Birmingham market before he joined the RAF. He wanted the quickest entry to see action and so trained as an air gunner. He trained in Canada where he was offered a post as an instructor but he wanted to serve with an operational squadron. On one flight his eyes froze over and the wireless operator had to help him to recover. The navigator was seriously injured during one operation and when they landed the crew helped get him to the ambulance. Allan met up with him again 60 years later. On one operation they collided with a German night fighter and, although the aircraft was very severely damaged, they managed to return to the UK. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Canada Germany Great Britain Poland England--Cambridgeshire England--Lincolnshire Germany--Berlin Poland--Szczecin Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 100 Squadron 12 OTU 460 Squadron 625 Squadron air gunner aircrew Battle crewing up Distinguished Flying Medal FIDO Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster love and romance mid-air collision military service conditions Operational Training Unit RAF Binbrook RAF Blyton RAF Grimsby RAF Lichfield RAF Waterbeach recruitment training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1151/11708/ASwainsDNJ170123.mp3 6c5a58a73d611bc1b4c8bce01e1b9548 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 Swains, Dennis Dennis Norman John Swains D N J Swains Description An account of the resource Three items. An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Dennis Swains (1924 - 2020) and two photographs. He trained as an air gunner but the war ended before he reached an operational station. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Dennis Swains and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-01-23 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 Swains, DNJ Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is 23rd January 2017. I’m in Aylesbury with Dennis Swains to talk about his experiences in the air force but in life in general. So Dennis, what are the earliest recollections you have of family life? DS: Um, probably when I was about four, I can’t remember anything prior to that. I remember misbehaving and being told off for whatever I was doing. That’s about my earliest recollection I think. Of course, I started school at what was St Georges or Black Horse Bridge School as we knew it in Amersham. And I was there until taking the 11+, or whatever they called it in those days, and I managed to get a place at Amersham Grammar School, Dr Challoner’s grammar school. But because I only got the scholarship in the second year I was then amongst the older ones in the class and it was twelve when I joined them and that was 1936, September, left in July 1941 when I was seventeen. There were a lot of firms evacuated to the Chilterns area because of wartime bombing and there were several insurance companies. And we had a lodger. He was actually from the railway clearing house, who were also evacuated but through him and sundry others I got a job with an insurance company at Newland Park, Chalfont St Giles. It was an old Scottish company, The North British and Mercantile, and I was with them for three and half years, so until May ’44. My father was a goods clerk on the Met Great Central railway and he looked after the goods work at Great Missenden and Amersham and he was also, of course, a relief booking office clerk and he would work at any of the stations between Rickmansworth and Aylesbury, if someone was away poorly, that sort of thing. And my Mother, who at sixteen I think, no fourteen it would have been, she joined the same railway company and she was a booking office clerk at Little Chalfont station and of course somewhere down the line they met. And they married in 1923, I was born in 1924. When I left school I joined the North British and Mercantile, I was placed in their accounts department and I served in accounts for the rest of my career with various insurance companies. Ones who took us over subsequently and right up until the time when I retired at fifty-nine and three quarters then, because once more there was a takeover bid and they offered full retirement for anyone over fifty-five, so I took it and retired then. Going back to school days, at Challoner’s, in 1941 the Air Training Corps was formed, a squadron was formed at Amersham Grammar School and from there I was recommended to go to Oxford with the possibility of a short term degree course, which would have resulted in me entering the air force a year later as a pilot officer. But unfortunately my mathematics was not of a high enough standard. I’d chosen to take other subjects at ‘O’ Level, and just to do ordinary maths. I didn’t touch trig and I didn’t touch calculus and as such I just returned to ordinary civil occupation again attending the Air Training Corps. During those years, ’41 to ’44 we visited Halton each Sunday and joined the gliding school there each Sunday where I learned to fly the gliders, the Slingsby Primary and the Grunau Baby. We had a German more advanced aircraft, plus the Slingsby dual-controlled glider with a sixty foot wing span. After graduating from the Primary we were allowed to do, only short hops, the width of the aerodrome. The rules were that you weren’t allowed to go outside the aerodrome perimeter. But our gliding instructor who had flown gliders in international competitions before the War, if a sixty foot wing span job could get enough height from its launch he would probably take us across to the hills, above Wendover Woods, and had up to twenty minutes soaring there before we went back and landed. It was quite a game, landing amongst all the other aircraft that were taking off. They had the Cierva autogyros there before the War, and they were practising. Well, it wasn’t quite a vertical take off, it was a short run until they clawed their way into the air. But they could land, of course, almost vertically. And other aircraft there were Ansons, Oxfords, Percival Q6 , Tiger Moths all doing their various circuits and bumps, or going off somewhere else. And it was quite a game getting the gliders along the edge of the aerodrome where we were allowed to take off and land but it was quite often fun if one of the instructors landed the aircraft away from the strip that we were supposed to stay on. That was good fun of course. Then in 1944 I got my call up papers. I was then nineteen and three quarters, somewhere my name had slipped through the net, and instead of being called at eighteen and a quarter it was a year and a half later that I actually joined the air force and found myself one of the oldest recruits joining at the time. During those three years, ’41 to ’44, there was always the thought that one day you were going to get called up and having served in the Air Training Corps and not wishing particularly to go into the navy or the army, to volunteer for the air force was the obvious thing to do. And that must have been noted somewhere in the records because I was called up and went into the air force in the Spring of ’44 and we travelled up to Scarborough to the Initial Training Wing. I met a chap on Kings Cross station with the same looking cardboard suitcase I had. Ernie Smale he was from Tintagel in Cornwall. And we stuck together until the best part of the way through OTU. And as his name began with an ‘S’ as mine did, we seemed to be doing things together in that first stage. We were placed in the Manor Hotel, in St Nicholas Square at Scarborough on the opposite side of the square to the Grand Hotel, which was the RAF headquarters. We fed in the Grand Hotel, the barber’s shop was in the Grand Hotel, so we were continually criss-crossing St Nicholas Square. In entry to St Nicholas Square on our first Friday it was jobs night. I was given a pot of white paint and a one inch brush and shown the stairs for the main entrance and was told to ‘paint the white line’ or ‘renew the white line’ down the side of these stairs. And that was my Friday evening job. And when I’d finished I said to the corporal, ‘I’ve done that now Corp.’ ‘Have you my son?’ He said. And he got out a ruler and he measured the width of the paint. And he said, ‘Two and a half inches, it should only be two inches.’ He said. ‘Here’s a bottle of turps and a rag’ And so my job wasn’t complete I then had to take the width of the paint down to the required two inches. [laughter] I’d straightened it up by eye, and thought it looked better straight ,but the rule was the rule and that was that. On our first night in the Manor Hotel, if you, if the room measured seventy-two square feet there was one person in it. If it measured seventy-five square feet the extra three square feet meant you could have somebody else so there were two in a room that size. And, of course, having dumped our civvy clothes we were handed the papers that we’d got to sign we gathered in one chap’s room. And the windowsills were very recessed and deep and one chap sat well sort of half over the sink on the windowsill. And we chatted and then we decided we’d better fill in the paperwork so bit by bit we got out of the room. And he got down off the windowsill but unfortunately he brought the sink with him. So there we were on our first night in the air force, in someone’s room, with the sink at forty-five degrees to the wall and everyone expecting that we were all going to be on a charge the following morning for damaging Her Majesty’s, His Majesty’s property. But Smithy, Smithy was one of these blokes who took charge straight away. He had us scouring the hotel to see if there was anything we could find that might help. One chap came back with a very ancient broomstick and it was found that with a bit of careful work if it was cut in half it would just prop the sink up again. And so they cut the broomstick in half with a very old penknife. It was a terrible job. But they wedged these two bits of broomstick underneath the sink and it leaned back against the wall to where it was originally. With picking up bits of plaster that had come out and mixing it with toothpaste they filled up the gaps around the tiles on the windowsill, they scraped the broomsticks absolutely clean with this penknife and they propped up the sink. And six weeks later when we left Scarborough those two broom handles were still holding up the sink and no-one had ever noticed. We often wonder whether they’re still there today. But that was probably our biggest worry. We then of course, learned to march. We learned PT on the south shore at Scarborough. There was an area that was surrounded by barbed wire entanglements with a gate through the middle and that’s where we did our PT. And although it was wartime there were a lot of Yorkshire people still managed to have holidays. They would come and watch us and stand round the outside of the barbed wire entanglement and they would call out different commands to what the PTI gave us. And if we followed their commands instead of his there was trouble. But it happened every time we were down there. There were always people standing there to watch and to laugh when we did things wrongly. We also had to learn how to march. We got mixed up in a Wings for Victory parade and we had to march with army and navy units right through the town of Scarborough. And we had to cross the bridge over Happy Valley, which is still there. And they insisted that we broke step. And when you’ve spent about three weeks doing nothing but marching, to break step is the hardest thing. But of course the problem was that if everyone marched across the bridge the vibrations would probably have had it down. We did manage to break step but it was probably one of the hardest things we’d done in those days. Then towards the end of the six weeks we had aptitude tests. They were similar to the 11+ but a bit more adult. But it was a question of ticking boxes and we all thought that this was a piece of cake. Some of us had done quite a bit of flying. Some of us had even, you know, flown solo in gliders and things like that. Only low hops admittedly but we all thought we were good for pilot. Or if not pilot, then pilot navigator or bomb aimer. And these tests were run by WAAF officers, with WAAF NCO’s. And after all the results had gone in the chief WAAF saw us in the lecture hall. [telephone ringing] Well the WAAF officer who’d been in charge of all this read out our names and what category we were in. And S for Swains is fairly well down the alphabet so we were all saying ‘Oh well, you know we’ll be alright when we get down there.’ And of course when it was read out ‘Swains, air gunner. Smale, air gunner.’ There were cheers that went up from some of the lads who’d, you know, listen to us saying ‘Well, we’ve done so much, we’re almost certain to be pilots.’ But we weren’t, and it came as a blow, but it was obvious later on that it was service requirements. The losses of aircraft, and this was now, although we didn’t know it then, we were in the last year of the War, just. And when you look at the losses, how they multiplied, year by year, from 1939 through to 1944, and later of course when you see the losses that there were between ’44 and the close of hostilities in ’45. They were losing aircraft at a fantastic rate in that last year, not really knowing that the Germans had perfected upwards firing cannons on their fighters. CB: Um. DS: It was a long while before the RAF realised it was not just anti-aircraft fire that was causing these things to explode it was fighter aircraft. So, obviously by that time, and realising that it’s two gunners to every aircraft then I suppose it’s not surprising that eighty of us were considered to be gunners. Of the odd twenty I think six made pilot navigator bomb aimer and the rest were radio operators and we don’t really know how many of the six survived. The eighty of us were sent off to Bridgnorth, I think the RAF were quite clever with their psychology. We wouldn’t, we were only youngsters, just joined the air force. We weren’t going to argue with WAAF officers as to why we’d all been made air gunners, we accepted it. And we accepted it of course with the warning that we could change our category then we could re-muster to a ground crew if we wished. But if we did it from this point forward at any stage our records would be marked ‘lack of moral fibre.’ Cowardice. And we were faced with that. I think, you know, we weren’t terribly happy about going for air gunners but there again we weren’t going to go home and tell our parents and friends ‘Oh well, we’ve chucked it in.’ We’d always said that we were going to fly, so we’d fly. So we stuck it and we went onto Bridgnorth which was Elementary Air Gunner School. And there, of course, it was, we came into contact with the Browning 303 machine gun. And amongst the other things we had to do was to learn to strip it down to its basic parts and to reassemble it. And having done that and learned it in daylight we had to do it in pitch darkness. And it had many, many, intrinsic parts. I remember there was a thing called a rear sear retainer keeper. And if you’ve got a rear sear retainer keeper, you’d got a rear sear retainer and if you’d got a rear sear retainer there must be a rear sear somewhere. And they were all parts of the breech block in a Browning 303. And we learned all about that. We did clay pigeon shooting which taught us trajectory, to aim ahead of the clay so that by the time our shot reached the same spot that the clay was, that was success. If you aimed too far away then you were a miss. And clay pigeon shooting was quite good fun. One of the things you learned very quickly on the first day was that the recoil from a shotgun was worse than a recoil from a 303 rifle. And we all finished up with badly bruised shoulders. We did rifle shooting as well, we did grenade throwing. We were told of the example where a chap had thrown the grenade and he’d not thrown it forwards, it went upwards, hovered above them and then dropped at the feet of the RAF Regiment sergeant. And the other two students in the pit ran along the trench as fast as they could away from where this hand grenade had fallen. And the sergeant from the RAF Regiment grabbed a sandbag off of the bank, put it on the top of the hand grenade and stood on it, and took all the shrapnel in his boots and they got away with it. But we were then taught to make absolutely certain that when we threw a grenade it went forwards over the bank and exploded where there was no problem with the bits hitting us. There was no flying of course at Bridgnorth, so we hadn’t at that time come into contact with the actual turrets. But we had to learn exactly how to manage a machine gun under all climatic conditions. How to clean it, oil it and look after it. And after due time there the next move was to Dalcross, No2 Air Gunnery School, at what is now Inverness Airport. So on the 11th of August 1944, which was my twentieth birthday we travelled up to Dalcross. Now when we arrived at Dalcross the position had been the same as at Elementary Air Gunner School, they weren’t ready for us. And for three weeks at Bridgnorth we’d done navigation walks, or cross country runs and all sorts of things. At Dalcross we were put onto potato picking with the Italian prisoners of war. And we picked potatoes and we followed the action of the Italian prisoners of war in not picking the tiny ones. Until just before we’d finished this three week stand-off they announced that whoever was in charge of the RAF allotments was inspecting the gardens and would be arriving the following day. We were handed buckets and we picked up all the tiny potatoes, took them across the road, tipped them into the Moray Firth and they were going up and down with the tide for days. And from such events as that wars are won. Much to our amusement really. Then we started the actual course. We were taken out on one of the early nights to be shown what pyrotechnics looked like. And we saw single star reds, double star reds and greens and yellows for the colours of the day. And the colours of the day were changed every day and in some cases every twelve hours. And I believe during the Battle of Britain it was as much as every six hours they changed the colours of the day by which an aircraft could identify itself by firing one of these Very cartridges. And we saw a demonstration of each of those and then the sergeant in charge showed us what was the twenty eight star signal rocket. And this was aimed from flying control to explode exactly six hundred feet above the aerodrome and was to guide in aircraft that were coming in, in exceptional weather. They’d stuck this thing in the ground and it was lit with another pyrotechnic called a ‘port fire’. Touched the fuse at the bottom of the rocket and it fizzed. And he said ‘Now this will reach about five hundred feet.’ He said, ‘And burst into twenty eight stars.’ And it was also used as a guide, to get aircraft to see where the aerodrome was if visibility was very bad. And the thing fizzed, and it fizzed, and it fizzed. And he said, ‘It’ll rise to five hundred feet.’ But it exploded on the ground, and there were twenty eight stars all curled up and fell on the crowd that was gathering round, one chap had to get a new overcoat because one of the stars burned its way right the way through his collar. So that was our introduction to pyrotechnics. And we were then taken to [Ardagh?] which is on the Moray Firth, an army place, and they had some turrets on the beach. And the sergeant who took us down there said ‘We’re going to show you what tracer bullets look like.’ He said. ‘First of all they’ll be on in ten will be day tracer, and that’ll be very bright.’ He said, ‘Then we’ll have one in ten night tracer, which is not so bright.’ And he said then ‘Amidst them all there will be other tracer bullets put.’ And he climbed into the turret and he fired this belt of ammunition out into the Moray Firth. And it looked, yes there was the night, the day tracer which was extremely bright and the night tracer went off. And we thought ‘Oh well, he’ll stop in a minute and we shall see another burst of fire.’ The chap suddenly bailed out of the turret backwards and the turret went on firing, and the bullets arced out onto the Moray Firth until the barrels got so hot and the guns stopped firing. And he finished up in trouble because he should have, once he got runaway guns, knocked up the covers on the Browning. And it was an easy thing to do. There was a catch on the side of the lid, you just lifted it up, the lid flew up and the gun stopped firing. But the guns had run on until the barrels bent. And the last two or three bits of ball ammunition came out through the sides of the barrel and there were slits in it about two or three inches long where this hard steel bullet, ball ammunition had come out through the bending of the things and we thought, ‘You know, this is a dangerous business being an air gunner. We haven’t got off the ground yet and we’ve had, been showered with twenty eight star signal rockets and now runaway guns.’ But we were introduced, there were Avro Ansons we were flying and there were Miles Magister which towed a droge about a hundred yards long. And we were sent up three in an aircraft with a pilot, and we took with us two belts of two hundred bullets each which had been dipped onto a coloured paint pad and we then fired, well we had to load the guns in the turret when we were in the air and fire them off at the droges and they would count the paint marks where people had hit the droges once we landed. But the droges were covered in paint smudges anyway. We never knew how they could say accurately how many rounds had actually hit the droges. The pilots were Czechs or Poles and only really knew one word of English and was ‘Why you no fire?’ So whenever we got a jam or a bullet out of the belt not quite in position, ‘Why you no fire?’ And we had to wind the undercarriage up, someone sat beside the pilot on take-off, it was a hundred and twelve turns on that handle between the seats to raise the undercarriage on an Anson. And if you were there fortunately when you were coming down to land, it was still a hundred and twelve turns for the undercarriage came down much easier than when it went up. And that was how we spent our days, we still did quite a bit of clay pigeon shooting. And we were up there when the weather turned bad, there was snow on the ground and we were put out to start clearing the runway and it still went on snowing and we thought ‘Oh this is useless.’ And we heard the sound of an aircraft coming and through the snow there was a little Fairchild Argus came in. And he landed practically without any forward run. It was coming in against the wind and it landed on the grass outside flying control and out of it stepped a lady air transport pilot from the the pilot’s side and from the other side got out her boyfriend, obviously they embraced he went into flying control, she got back in the Fairchild Argus and took off and disappeared into the snowstorm. And when the old man saw what went on there, we were flying within half and hour. He wasn’t going to have some woman fly when he couldn’t. So were soon given up trying to clear snow and the second it was suitable to fly we were flying again. We also had, having met turrets, we had to know all about them. You never knew if you were going to a squadron which had electrically controlled turrets which was the Halifax or whether you would have hydraulic controlled turrets which were the Fraser Nash’s fitted to Lancasters so you had to learn what you could about the turrets. And you weren’t expected to maintain them, that was the ground crews job, but you had to know how to clear stoppages and all sorts of things because once you got into Halifaxes or Lancs the rear turret was fed from sleeves on the side of the fuselage so you could have as much as a thousand pounds, a thousand rounds of ammunition for each gun. On a Lancaster the strips went right the way up past the mid upper turret practically to the wing route so you’d got tons of ammunition. And all these things could jam or go wrong and you had to learn best that you could to clear them. You had your own cocking tool, which was made of aluminium with a T handle at the end of it and a groove that fitted over the bolts on either side of the Browning so that when you got into your aircraft and were ready to fly you could cock the lever so that the guns would then fire when you pressed the trigger. And in fact you can tell the air gunner on the Bomber Command memorial in Green Park in London ‘cause he’s got his cocking tool tucked into his boot, it was the thing you hung onto in grim death because if you lost it well it was a problem to find another. [Exhalation of breath] CB: Have a break. You had a variety of people clearly different backgrounds but from existing people did you have any people who’d been redirected as a result of LMF? DS: No, I never knew of anyone who’d been redirected from it. And I didn’t know myself of anyone who ever refused to fly. CB: How well aware were you as recruits, trainees of the LMF system? DS: I wouldn’t have known. CB: What they did to people? DS: No, I didn’t know. I knew that they were normally stripped of their rank but, and decorations, but I wouldn’t have known what happened to them afterwards, and I never met anyone afterwards who I knew had been reduced to the ranks for that, not at all. So, we’d pretty well finished at Air Gunnery School. We had to do dinghy drill of course which we did in the baths at Inverness. I got caught for going off the highest board. We had to go off the various diving boards and I had a job getting into the Sidcot. It was good if you first of the day, the Sidcots were dry. But once they got soaked they were a job to get into. I missed a bit, there was I faced with the top diving board. I’d never been off the top diving board in my life. It was a case of just shut your eyes and jump. Then we had to turn the dinghy over and climb in, but that was a weekly effort while we were there. Flying was just air flying as we said previously with the Miles Master with its hundred yards of cable weaving above us so we were firing upwards at it. We did some firing at [whaleback?] buoys which were anchored just off the coast so we had a bit of air to, air to ground firing but not much and a lot of it was sitting in turrets in one of the hangars where the walls had been painted white and there were aircraft projected onto them, coming in towards you so you had to aim deflection shots. And there was quite, quite a lot of that too. But we finished the course on the 20th of December and paraded on the 21st having sewn our brand new sergeants stripes on our sleeves and on the greatcoat and set off home on leave. And I travelled down on the only through train to London, the four-twenty out of Inverness, due into Euston about ten o’clock the following morning. From there I journeyed home to Amersham, went down to where my fiancée was living to say hello, and the following morning 23rd of December, we were married in the Free Church at Amersham. I had a fortnights’ leave, we were called back after about ten days, and once again it was catch the only through train from London to Inverness which was the seven-twenty off of Euston, and stopped at most of the main stations on the way north and we picked up people who were coming back off leave and we got into Inverness about ten o’clock, eleven o’clock the following morning and we were told we didn’t have to be back until six-thirty in the evening. And half of [unclear] said ‘Oh, we’ll get on the bus we’ll go back and get a decent billet.’ So we took the bus. Well, a lot of the others stayed on in Inverness. ‘Oh, we’ll have a decent meal and a few beers, we don’t have to be back ‘til six.’ We walked into the guard room, into the, yeah the guard room at Dalcross and the sergeant said ‘Hello, what are you lot doing here?’ We said ‘oh, we’re ninety-four course back sarge from leave.’ ‘Stick around for a bit.’ He said. Disappeared and about twenty minutes later he came back with another fortnights’ leave ticket, a travel voucher and a fortnights’ ration coupons. So we were back on the bus into Inverness and bumped into some of the chaps who’d stayed there. ‘Oh, what are you doing?’ ‘Oh, we’ve got another fortnights leave.’ But they hadn’t got the opportunity then to get back to camp and to get back to Inverness to catch the one and only train, the four-twenty. So, having travelled up in the train from Euston I sat in the same seat, in the same coach, in the same set of rolling stock all the way back from Inverness to Euston once more, with another fortnights’ leave. And that was our goodbye to Scotland. After that we were called to NCOs course at Whitley Bay. And it had been snowing pretty steadily for days, and we arrived at Whitley Bay and there was a foot of snow. We were dumped in houses which had been requisitioned by the air force. We had fifty-six pounds of coal per semi-detached house for a week. It lasted a day. After that everything froze. The pipes froze, the toilets froze. We had to go into the Empress Ballroom, which was our headquarters, if you wanted to use a toilet. Or we were there for meals of course and we were told that we mustn’t use any auxiliary heating. So because we were told we mustn’t everybody did. And we bought little, tiny fire clay discs from Woolworths which had an electric element wound in them. And we had one in the middle of our floor where we were sleeping in one of the rooms in the house plugged in, going merrily all night. But that evening chappie came in with the laundry. And just called out our names and tossed it onto our beds. And one of them was left on someone’s bed and it rolled off during the night and we all woke up choking with smoke. Couldn’t see a thin, flung open the windows and doors. Got the people from upstairs down thinking the place was on fire and it was absolutely freezing within about five minutes. The smoke cleared and we saw that it was one of these little hotplates, the laundry had fallen onto it, half the laundry had gone up in smoke. And we eventually got back to bed, most of us were sleeping in our flying clothing because it was so desperately cold, and in the morning when we woke up to see really what had happened there was a groove in the floorboards where this hotplate had stood and that took a lot of scraping before we got back to what looked like ordinary board again. No-one ever really noticed it at the time but we were there and the weather was so bad that they called the course off and sent us to our next stations which was Operational Training Unit at Abingdon. And I do remember at this NCOs school we were introduced to the pistols. And if you became an officer of course you had a pistol otherwise we were taught how to do pistol shooting. I can remember it was so cold that we were holding the pistols on the range and it was almost impossible to pull the trigger using two fingers while you held, tried to hold the gun steady. It was so desperately cold. Of course, then we moved onto Operational Training Unit and there we were supplied with electrical heated equipment and from that time on we had two kit bags. You could always tell an air gunner ‘cause he had two kit bags. One with his ordinary kit, and one containing his flying clothing, boots, Sidcot, eiderdown suit, long johns, silk underwear and it was a bind having to take two kit bags around with you it really was. One was bad enough but having to take two was tough going. {unclear] CB: This was the heated clothing? DS: Heated clothing yes. The jacket which had extensions that came down to your gloves and extensions that ran down your legs. And although your feet could be very hot your knees could be cold because all the clothing was tight by the time you got all your flying clothing on so. They weren’t a hundred per cent effective but. CB: Um. Just pause there. So when you joined up. DS: Yes. Only found them of course when we were training. They volunteered and they came in. CB: Scottish policemen? DS: Yes. The first time they were allowed. We met them at NCO’s school at Whitley Bay. And the thing I remember about them is we were taken out in a lorry one night, about four miles out of Whitley Bay, given a map and said ‘Now make your way back and capture the Empress Ballroom which was our headquarters. We had a rifle and five rounds of blank ammunition and some of the Scottish policemen had also been sent out on the same thing. Well, they knew more tricks than the criminals I think. They stopped a bus and checked everybody’s identity card on the bus. And if they hadn’t got one they demanded that they appear at the police station within forty-eight hours. They requisitioned the bus and they drove back, dumped the bus in a back street in Whitley Bay, they were back in the billets of course in about half an hour and the rest of us had to struggle through a foot of snow to get back. It was reported in the Newcastle Evening paper the following day that someone had requisitioned a bus, stolen a bus, but I don’t suppose they ever caught up with the ones who had done it. Rogues. CB: Um. After you finished at Dalcross. I’ll stop now. DS: Yeah. CB: What did you do then? DS: Sorry. CB: It’s OK. DS: Well, it was OTU at Abingdon. CB: Um. DS: We went to Abingdon. The usual crewing up all brought together in a hangar and told to find yourselves a crew. And my, chap who became my pilot had gathered one or two people around him, he saw me and said ‘Would I like to be his gunner?’ So, I said ‘Yes’ and we formed a crew. He was John Bell, a Scottish baker. The navigator was Geoff Sedgwick, he was a cobbler from Manchester. The bomb aimer was a riveter from Newcastle. The radio operator was Colin Blight, he was a New Zealander who’d trained at Canada and come across the Atlantic. So that was our basic crew. And we stuck like that until we gained a flight engineer later on at heavy con unit. But we were sent to the satellite at Abingdon, Stanton Harcourt, and we did all our flying from there. It was the usual thing once they’d introduced us to the Wellington and our pilot had done sufficient trips on his own, no with a screen pilot rather until he was capable of flying on his own. And then of course all the flights that we did were with him. Cross countries by day and by night. There were also of course separate lectures for whichever category you were in there were things you needed to know. And we did the required series of flights, by day and by night. Until towards the end of the course, which we had had its problems. We lost an engine on a cross country some miles off the tip of Cornwall before we turned north to go up to Chicken Rock and then back to Abingdon. We had coring with oil freezing and stopping lubricating one of the Bristol Hercules properly and we had to feather the propeller because the engine was overheating and was not getting the lubrication. And the operator, wireless operator, sent out a Mayday call which was picked up by rescue people at Plymouth and they directed us back to St Mawgan at Newquay. We had sufficient height, they said that a Wellington would maintain height on one engine, but not a clapped out Operational Training Unit Wellington. We lost height steadily but we still had plenty in hand, landed at St Mawgan. We were met by the little airfield control van, a Hillman, and there was an officer in there who pulled up under the nose of the Wellington and shouted up to Jock, the pilot, who opened his window. ‘Got any bombs on board?’ Jock said ‘Yes.’ So the bloke nearly went mad. ‘Follow me’ he said and drove off across the aerodrome. And we were dumped on the far side of the aerodrome. ‘Open your bomb doors.’ He said. Opened them and we’d got ten twelve and a half pound practice bombs in there of course. So he wasn’t at all happy. But then our Wellington had got all the bombs raised [that it had done?]painted on the pilots window. He didn’t know when we landed that we were only a training aircraft and got these little bombs to drop somewhere. But, we then found that we were on the VIP aerodrome, St Mawgan. It was where the aircraft jumped off for going to Gibraltar and anywhere in the Middle East, and it was all very hush-hush. They tried to keep the aircraft without the engines running before take off as long as possible just start your engines and take off because they never knew if there was anyone watching who would say ‘Well, such and such an aircraft took off at such and such a time’ to someone in France. I mean they did lose aircraft over the Bay of Biscay. They lost the one with Leslie Howard the actor in it coming back from Gibraltar, he was shot down. And they reckon someone saw them taking off at Gibraltar, thought there was someone who looked like Churchill on the aircraft and it was shot out of the sky. So it was a bit hush-hush and it was full of VIP’s and when we had to have lunch in the mess with red tab generals and admirals and goodness knows who having their lunch and one warrant officer and five timid little sergeants sitting there trying to not be seen in the corner you know? So that happened to us there. And having done all that was required at Operational Training Unit we, the CO said ‘I don’t think you’ve got enough night hours in’ he said. ‘You’re going off on a three and a half hour cross country tonight just to make up some hours.’ And we were routed Abingdon, Lands End, Chicken Rock on the Isle of Man and back to Abingdon again. And we took off at dusk. And it had been a very hot day, quite a lot of storm clouds about and we dodged them all the way down to Lands End because flying westwards, although we took off at dusk, the sort of dusk went with us westwards and we could still see pretty well all these clouds built up and avoid them. We turned up the Irish Sea and it was as black as night and just plain, no trouble at all. Turned south eastwards again at Chicken Rock on the Isle of Man crossed the Welsh coast and ran into a belt of electrical storms. And I’d never seen anything like it. I sat in the turret at the back lit up as though I was sitting in a neon sign and St Elmo’s fire was running along the wings, dancing on the propellers, and the noise of thunder and the lightning flashing around us and well there was a lot of prayer went up for that aircraft that night I’m pretty sure about that, certainly from me. And there were five aircraft on this trip and we flew through this most appalling rain. Well, it was drumming on the aircraft. The noise was almost obliterating the thunder and lightning was flashing continuously, and we were in it for about twenty minutes. And then we flew out, no more thunder and lightning but still pouring with rain. And we got back over Stanton Harcourt and conditions were pretty grim. And I remember on the intercom Jock, our pilot said ‘Let’s have the lights on’ he said. And if you called up flying control and said ‘Lights, lights’ there were three searchlights came on that were angled to form a cone over the centre of the aerodrome and to give you enough light to land by. So of course ‘lights, lights’ was a coded signal and you used a code because you didn’t want any Jerry who was hanging about to sort of know what was going on. So, called up flying control and said ‘lights, lights’ and flying control came back and said ‘Do you want the searchlights on?’ [chuckling] ‘Yes, we B well do.’ So they put ‘em on and we landed and we were the first one back and subsequently one other aircraft came back. Three of them were lost that night somewhere over Shropshire and we were all trailing aerials of course, and we didn’t know but obviously something had struck those aircraft and they had just blown up, and we lost fifteen pals that night in training. And we discovered afterwards that we were the only five aircraft flying in the whole of the British Isles. Bomber Command had decided the weather was so bad they wouldn’t fly. But our press on commanding officer sent us off and that was that. Fifteen, three aircraft disappeared and they were buried up in Shropshire. They wouldn’t let us go to the funerals, but then I think that was standard practice, they didn’t let you go to the funerals of people who were lost. And so from there you didn’t know whether you were going onto a Halifax, heavy con unit or Lancaster one. And of course we, Wellingtons had hydraulic turrets so we hoped it would be Lancs, and it was, it was Lindholme just outside Doncaster and we went up there and we went up there. We went up there and we’d done a little bit of flying, only familiarisation, you know with a screen pilot, local flying. And VE Day came along and we then had a rather funny sort of month in which they couldn’t make their minds up what they’d do with the air force. Churchill had promised Roosevelt that Bomber Command would fly to India and fight the Japanese and there were all sorts of rumours went round. ‘Oh they’d going to take the mid upper turrets out.’ And everyone said ‘Why?’ ‘Well, they don’t think you’ll need them out there.’ And I said ‘Well, the Japanese are flying fighters just as much as Jerry did.’ ‘Oh well we don’t know about that.’ And then there was another rumour. ‘They’re going to paint the tops white. You don’t need camouflage, and it gets so hot out there that the white paint will reflect the heat.’ So it was a whole little period of indecision. And then we went on flying exercises, trips with a screen pilot and then eventually Jock on his own. We gained a flight engineer who was a chap who’d trained as a pilot in South Africa, got his wings but there was no aircraft for him when he got back to this country. And we carried on until VJ Day when they dropped the two bombs on Japan and we never flew again as a crew. It was another odd sort of thing. If I remember rightly the Australians and the Kiwis were on a flying contract for hostilities only. So with hostilities over they didn’t fly again and we soon lost him. They were taken down to boarding houses in Brighton and along the south coast and they waited there until there was a troop ship capable of taking them back to Australia or New Zealand. And they took the pilot. They took Jock and our navigator away, they went on flying. They went back to Wellingtons for a time which seemed very strange and then they went into Transport Command I think afterwards and the rest of us were made redundant. I never flew again in the air force. We were sent to Acaster Malbis which was the biggest aerodrome in Yorkshire built especially to take the Vickers Windsor which was a six engine aircraft of which they only ever flew two prototypes I think. But that was just a holding unit, we handed in all our kit there, all our flying clothing and stuff we didn’t want. Then we were sent down to Blyton in Lincolnshire which was another holding unit and there we were re-mustered and offered whatever trade we wanted to go into and I opted for Air Movements Assistant in Transport Command. We were waiting in Blyton and it was really wet, damp weather, sleeping in soaking wet blankets things like that, and I committed the cardinal sin of the crew in that when they asked one morning ‘Anyone who can paint?’ I said, ‘Yes, I can paint sergeant.’ So ‘Right’ he said, ‘Down to flying control.’ I thought ‘Oh well I’ve got a job at least and it’ll probably be warm in flying control.’ And it was. And they were working as the publicity department for the station because as it was a holding unit there were films on all through the evening and halfway into the night for people to go just to occupy them. And they were the publicity department they were designing posters and I produced all my own Christmas cards down there, painting you know, between other odd jobs. And I was there for a week, and it was a very good week, nice and warm and a job to do. And then three of us, two Scottish chaps, I don’t know who they were, well Jock and Matthew I knew them as afterwards. We were told we were going on a posting to Millfield which was a fighter OTU just outside Berwick-on-Tweed. And we became service policemen. Millfield, the living site and the aerodrome, were about a mile apart because of the hills and the land where the airport was, so we were living in the guard room, because they were short of service policemen and every night we had to, Group Captain Donaldson it was, insisted that everyone stood in the cinema for the National Anthem at the end of the film. No-one, I mean there was a tendency as soon as the National Anthem started playing people were up and running out of the exits for dear life. We had to stand there and make sure nobody got out until the National Anthem had finished, that was one of our jobs. And we also had a problem that the short cut from the aerodrome to the living site went through a private estate. And the people who owned the estate were quite happy with that but they had barbed wire entanglements put up on the bit where it went into the estate just to keep people on the road. And a WAAF cycling down there one night back to the camp with the sort of dim headlights that we had rode straight into the, into the barbed wire entanglements. And she was a mess when they got her out of there. And we then had to go down there on a evening when the shifts finished on the station and make sure no-one crashed into the barbed wire entanglement. So we had three weeks of that and at the same time Group Captain Donaldson was the bloke who took the world speed record in a Meteor off Bogner Regis just after the War, and he’d got his Meteor with him. And when he got a bit fed up with it he’d go and get in his Meteor and put on the most amazing flying display over the aerodrome until he’d sort of worn off his mood then he’d just land and carry on again. It was quite odd there. We had one occasion while we were there on a Monday when all the fighters took off. They were Tempests and Tornados and they were firing at turrets, at targets, on the beach at St Abbs Head at Berwick-on-Tweed. And they all took off one Monday morning and they came back within half an hour. And they said the targets hadn’t been moved along the beach. Well they usually sent out a bloke in a Hillman, one of the airmen, and he stayed in a hut if they were going to be firing for two or three days, and moved with a tractor the targets along the beach so that they weren’t firing their rockets at the same bits of cliff. And they found that the targets hadn’t been moved. So they sent someone out to see what was going on. And this chap had been out there for a few days. He’d repainted the tractor and sold it to a farmer and cleared off up to the north of Scotland where he lived. They eventually found him, picked him up in Newcastle, about six weeks later so we heard. Selling the tractor to a farmer. [chuckling] But it was quite interesting of course for the three or four weeks we were up there. And then after that it was Bramcote which is near Nuneaton. And this was a royal naval air station in the middle of England. It was a grass aerodrome, and no runways, no aircraft and no royal naval when we there. We just took it over and it was the training unit for Air Movements Assistants. And there we were taught load control. How you loaded an aircraft so that the centre of gravity was within the required limits and it would fly straight and level. And oh, wonderful things like knots and ropes that had special colours, special strengths and special lengths and all sorts of things. And then we were told we could put in a request for which station we wanted to go to. And everybody found that number nine was Palm Beach, Florida. So we all put down number nine. None of us got it of course. Although there were stations for Transport Command across the Caribbean to north of South America. Then there was the hop to Dakar in West Africa, and the route went on across Africa then where they’d supplied American aircraft and Transport Command kept those routes running for a time but we weren’t allowed to go to Florida, Miami Beach it was, not Palm Beach. So we finished our course there and they thought we were all going abroad to, ‘cause our demob numbers still hadn’t come up. And we went to Heaton Park in Manchester which was the jumping off points for troop ships from Liverpool to take us to the Middle East or wherever they finally posted us to. And there was absolutely nothing to do at Heaton Park most people put their beds, two legs of their bed out, into the little miniature lake in the middle of Heaton Park and fish for minnows with bits of string and cotton and bent pins. But it was really just waiting and demob numbers began to come up and in the end after three week or so there, there were very few people with demob numbers that would allow them to go overseas. And we were told ‘No, not sending you out, if you go to the Far East, you’ll be there in time to come back.’ Sort of thing. I was sent to Merryfield, just outside Taunton, where we handled Yorks coming from the Far East. And we had a commanding officer there who’d been a prisoner of war in Germany. And he’d got no time for the army. He said that they’d heard the guns from the army for weeks and said if the army had really pushed on they’d have relieved these prisoner of war camps much sooner. And he was a very bitter man about it. And we used to have to go out to the Yorks when they landed and picked up the manifest for their passengers and cargo. Take the passengers into the office and give them ration cards and travel warrants and dispatch them wherever they wanted to go. And one day he said to me ‘Your turn Dennis, and there was a York that had come in that wasn’t on schedule. So I walked out with the Customs Officer, the naval officer, and before we got to the York the door was flung open, steps dropped, about three steps to the ground, and down it came a red tab general, following by about ten high ranking army officers. He took one look at me and turned to the naval officer. ‘Where’s your boss?’ So the naval officer ‘Well in headquarters sir.’ And pointed to the door. And this crowd followed this red tab general. And what had happened we found when one of the members of the crew got off the ‘plane was that the aircraft had come from Singapore. And when it got to Karachi they had Rolls Royce Merlin which had come off a York and had got to come back to this country for repair. And that became what was known as AOG trans, which is aircraft on the ground transport, and that had priority over everyone but the Royal Family. So they put this Merlin on the York, removed half the seats and told the officer half his entourage would have to wait in Karachi for the next aircraft available. And he was mad at it ‘cause he’d had to sit and look at this vast crate underneath the wing of the York and it was covered in orange and purple striped labels which gave it the priority. And funnily enough British Airways used those same labels for AOG trans up until a year or so back. They took it on from Transport Command and this bloke was going to say his piece as to why he’d been taken off the aircraft you know? And I can imagine our commanding officer, having been a creaky, was quite happy to tell this bloke that he hadn’t got a leg to stand on you know? That Merlin engines were a top priority and he’d have to wait his turn. So I never really knew what he said to him. We always thought it was quite good that day for this chap to be told off. Anyway Merryfield closed and I went to Blackbushe. And the interesting part of Blackbushe was the Nuremburg Trials were on. And evidence for the trials was flown to Blackbushe every day in a Mosquito. And it was then taken in two lumps to the War Office and the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand. And that had to go officer only escort in a little Hillman truck and they hadn’t got enough officers who wanted to do the job so we NCO’s had to take it sometimes. And it was the first place I ever came across self-heating tins of soup and cocoa which were kept just for the crews of the Mosquito because they only stayed on the ground about forty minutes and took back other papers that were coming from the Courts of Justice and the War Office. They flew them back to Nuremburg. And that was six days a week these Mossies flew and we used to feed them a quick bowl of soup and some cocoa from these self-heating tins. And that was quite interesting of course taking some of the evidence up to London. And then of course Blackbushe closed. And I went back to Abingdon. And there we had two Dakotas flying, eight o’clock each morning to, one to Buckeburg and one to [Fallsbuttel?] at Hamburg. They went every day and others went extra occasionally down to Vienna or Lubiana in the top of Yugoslavia. Trieste or Italy and they were flying mostly newspaper and mail. So I had to, someone had to go down to the office at half past five in the morning, and ‘phone up WH Smith at Blackfriars to learn the weight of newspapers going to Germany. And you ‘phoned the army post office at Nottingham to find out the weight of the mail. Then you sat down and worked out the weights and balances of two Dakotas. Took about forty minutes each, because you had to take the fuel load, the weight of the passengers if any, the crew. Passengers you gave them two hundred pounds each for them and their luggage. And any freight that was going with the mail. And the result had to be that the centre of gravity was within certain limits so the pilot could trim the aircraft and fly it as he wanted. And that had to be done between half past five and about half past seven when the trucks arrived. You then went out to the aircraft with a list and a pen and as the men threw the mail into the aircraft you had to keep a running total as to how much they could put in, a, b, c, d, e, which are the imaginary compartments within the aircraft. And the same thing with the mailbags when they arrived and then you got rid of the two aircraft about eight o’clock in the morning. And if there was nothing doing in the day you sat there like lemons until about six thirty in the evening when the aircraft came back and you got to unload them. And if there were passengers, give them a fortnights’ ration card and a first class ticket to Paddington. And that was that. We had one old lady came back from Vienna, she’d been a nursemaid to a family and got caught by the War and stayed out there. And she asked us whether ten shilling notes were still valid. She’d got some ten shilling notes left from when she went to Austria in 1939. And she said she was going up to London so we said ‘Do you know where you’re going?’ ‘I’m going to stay with friends.’ And she had an address but we didn’t know whether the place was still there or whether it had been bombed flat. And she’d got nowhere else to go, and she insisted that no, she was alright, she would find her way around. And in the end Chief said ‘There’s nothing you can do, give her a first class ticket and a fortnights’ ration card.’ And she was as happy as a sandboy to be taken in one of the lorries to Oxford Station, put on the train and off she went. And we never, of course, knew what had happened to her. And then just at that stage there were three of us, flight sergeants, running the section in Abingdon, and my demob number came up. The other two said ‘Oh, we’re going to try and get our stripes confirmed and stay on in the air force.’ Well I was married and I said ‘Oh no, I’m off.’ And demobbed I went up to Blackpool, picked up my civilian suit and suitcase and said goodbye to the air force. And I had a postcard about a month later from these two chaps that had stayed on and it came from Blackpool and said ‘No, they wouldn’t confirm our stripes so we left the air force as well.’ And that was the end, well the end of my RAF career as, finished there and then, that was August 1947. So, it had been not quite three and a half years, I’d been to fifteen different stations in that time. Some of them twice, well Abingdon was twice, but that’s it I’m afraid. CB: Thank you very much. DS: Rambled on. CB: Thinking about that though, what was the real highlight of your RAF career? DS: Well, I enjoyed the flying with the crew very much, I did enjoy flying generally. CB: You did target practice when you were in the Gunnery Schools but what did you do about fighter affiliation, did you get much of that? DS: Well we did at OTU, at OTU we did our air firing to a droge towed by another Wellington. Not by a Miles Master or anything like that. It was the bomb aimer’s job, there was a winch in the fuselage of each Wellington and we streamed the droge from there you see? And then one Wellington would zig zag across and we would fire upwards at it you know, hoping we’d got the right trajectory at the droge. . But they used to put up aircraft for fighter affiliation but one of the amazing things it always seemed to me is, we fired over Salisbury Plain. I mean Abingdon is pretty much the centre of England, it’s a long way to go to the sea, quite a while. You can go down the Bristol Channel, that takes twenty minutes from Abingdon, and you’re over Bristol. But to go to the other coast it’s probably three quarters of an hour or getting on for that. And I can remember flying over Salisbury Plain and they’d be a bloke down there with a tractor ploughing a field. And I’m pooping off, you know, couple of hundred rounds of ball ammunition, it’s got to fall somewhere. And our firing ranges were anywhere over Salisbury Plain. I suppose by the time the shot got to the ground it wasn’t harmful or anything like that, but that always surprised me that we did that but then of course they put up aircraft when we were using camera guns instead of Brownings and curling round behind us and attacking us from all sort of angles, and particularly so at heavy con units, we had Hurricanes there and it was very hard to see them at night. The Hurricanes had ultraviolet or infrared cameras on their wingtips which they switched on. We couldn’t see them but it registered on the film. So when you looked at the film you could tell, could see them coming round or wherever they were coming from. But so, and bombing ranges, I think the Wash was the one where we did most of our bombing because that was from Abingdon. And from Lindholme ‘cause we were a lot nearer at Lindholme to the coast than Abingdon. But there were inland bombing ranges but I can’t remember, probably in Wales I suspect where there’s plenty of uninhabited territory. I can’t remember really whether we dropped bombs on the landlocked ranges but they were only those little twelve and a half pound practice bombs which. CB: Um. The fighter affiliation one involved Hurricanes and others also stationed on your airfield were they? DS: Oh yes. CB: And to what extent did the pilots engage with the gunners in briefings, of the pilots of the fighters? Did you talk to them directly? DS: No. CB: You never spoke to them at all? DS: We did talk in the air, particularly at night. You know, you’d be on the, he’d have his radio on. He’d tell you when he’d attacked and say ‘Didn’t see you.’ Sort of thing. And quite often that was the case, very hard to see. CB: Yes. DS: See them at night. CB: The instructors that you had from a gunnery point of view were people who had done a tour were they? DS: Yes, yes. CB: And to what extent did they tell you tales of the unexpected? DS: Well, they were very good at telling you what had gone on. Up until that time, as far as, air gunnery school at Dalcross the people who were instructing you there, in many cases, were chaps who had been through previous course and someone had decided, you know, that they were worth hanging onto as an instructor, particularly the blokes who did aircraft recognition and things like that. They were rogues too really, they used to build kits in their spare time, and they had plenty of spare time. Plastic aircraft, and then they’d raffle them. [chuckling] And I used to make aircraft before I joined the air force. I had about thirty-six different ones. I sold them to a toy shop in Amersham when I joined the air force. And I used to fiddle about with bits of, bits of wood and a craft knife and they realised that, you know, I was making stuff myself and didn’t really trouble me about getting into the raffles. Because I mean they probably only charged about six pence each ticket for a raffle, and they’d have the boxes ready, which they got from stores, empty boxes. And I used to think by the time those aircraft got home I wondered if any of them were ever complete. CB: Um. DS: But er. CB: Right we’ll stop for a bit. So the aircraft in the gunnery schools what were they? DS: At Dalcross it was Ansons, and Wellingtons of course at operational training unit and then Lancs at heavy conversion. CB: Yeah. DS: So, they were the only aircraft that I flew in in the air force. CB: Were the turrets all the same? DS: No. CB: Or did they have different turrets in. DS: There were Bristol turrets in the Ansons. CB: With how many guns? DS: Two guns. They were Fraser Nash four gun turrets at the rear turret, and two guns on the rear turret on the Wellingtons. On the Lanc it was Fraser Nash again, two guns on the front, two guns on the upper, four on the rear turret. CB: How did, did you have a choice, initially which gunner you were going to be, or did they say ‘You’re a rear gunner, and that’s it?’ DS: You trained as a rear gunner in the Wellingtons you see? They hadn’t got a mid-upper. CB: No. DS: So, I think that I just automatically went to the rear turret I suppose, and went to heavy conversion unit. I mean we picked up a young chap for mid upper at heavy con unit, but he only stayed with us a week or two because after VE Day we had this odd sort of period and there was this talk of taking the mid uppers out. And they were short of gunners anyway so we lost our mid upper and I suppose he must have gone to another crew ‘cause he wasn’t with us for any length at all, when they were considering, you know, are we going East or are we not? And we didn’t of course. CB: So you flew without a mid upper gunner for a while? DS: Yes, if I felt like it I might go and sit in his seat, see a different view for a change. CB: What was the, what was the general operation of the crew? Did it work well? Well co-ordinated? DS: Oh, I think so. Yes, yes. We got on fairly well. Yeah. CB: And in the social context? DS: Well, we were all NCO’s you see until Bill arrived who was the flight engineer. And he was a flying officer. And er. CB: He’s the ex-pilot? DS: Yes. So, you know, soon as a trip was over six or seven of us were off to the sergeants’ mess and Bill was off to the officers’ mess. I mean he was alright, no complaint about his efficiency as a flight engineer but he wasn’t a mixer you see? Got his own companions. I think that, well it was circumstances and probably nothing you could do about it. But you see it was rather funny, when Tom, Tom Paine. CB: Who was the pilot? DS: Became a pilot, some of his crew were officers, Tom was a flight sergeant you know? When he got onto a squadron the commanding officer said ‘All captains of aircraft squadrons are commissioned.’ and commissioned him on the spot. CB: Um. DS: So then he was with his fellows who were also officers. CB: Yes. DS: I mean that was an odd situation I think. But I mean you could be commissioned in the field as it were. CB: Yes. DS: With well probably this chap was allowed to do it with the agreement of the Air Commodore at Group I imagine. CB: And as the captain of the aircraft then it would. DS: The pilot effective of what his rank was. CB: Yes. DS: Yes. And I think that was probably recognised 99.9%. CB: Um. DS: You accepted that straight away. CB: So you went through all this training having started late in practical terms. DS: Yes. CB: The War was progressing all the time, what was your attitude and the attitude of the crew towards getting into action? DS: Well, if we’d got from heavy con unit to squadron it was a sort of natural progression. CB: I wondered if you were anxious to get there? DS: Probably not. CB: Or you just assumed you would did you? DS: Probably not in the last year of the War with the losses going up and up and up as they were. CB: Um. DS: You know, you’re always a bit apprehensive. My pilot was engaged to a girl in North Wales. He was a screen pilot at Valley before he was transferred to OTU and I think old Jock was always hoping that things would be OK. I was of course having married. CB: Yeah. How many? DS: If things had been different whether I’d be sitting here or not would be questionable. You see I had that year and a half later than anybody else being called up. CB: Yeah. DS: And I have no idea what the reason was. I wasn’t in a reserved occupation, used to ring up RAF records at Gloucester. ‘Oh no, no, your turn will come.’ You know ‘Don’t bother us.’ So I was a year and a half late there. So when we went from ITW to Elementary Gunner School we were three weeks just doing cross country runs, navigation hikes, talks nothing. And three weeks occurred again when I was potato picking. So that was six weeks wasted there. Then the NCO school, of course we was called off that because the weather was so atrocious and when I went back to Dalcross and got an extra fortnight’s leave, that’s two full months that I did nothing really. CB: Um. DS: And add that to a year and a half, if I’d have gone in at eighteen and a quarter the story would have been so different. CB: Um. DS: And I don’t understand why. CB: Two other things. To what extent were the crews, particularly the gunners, aware of gunners on bombers? DS: Um, I don’t think that it was. Well, there was always the thought that there’s two gunners and one of every, you know, every other category. But if you look at the graph of losses there was what twenty five thousand? I think that in the first four years of the War there’s probably not as many killed as in the last year and a bit. CB: Um. DS: So I don’t really know what effect that would have had on people at the time. I mean we certainly heard how many aircraft were missing and that sort of thing. I can’t say, I expect it bothered us, but I don’t suppose anyone was prepared to show it really. CB: No. DS: I mean for a long while in the last eighteen months when Jerry had got those twin engine fighters with the upward firing cannon, it was a long while before the RAF really knew that they’d got them and that was what was causing the trouble because using tracer you see? They were underneath an aircraft and they said they were accurate enough to even aim at a particular part of the aircraft. CB: Um. DS: They’d aim for the wing, ‘cause the fuel was in there and they were using what thirty millimetre cannons. Thirty mil, that’s an inch and a half, inch and a quarter, and how long is the shell? There’s enough explosive in there to do a lot of damage. And not using any tracer, I don’t think the air force knew for a long while what was causing this sudden explosion of aircraft or why they were suddenly bursting into flames. So it was, it was right towards the very end I think, well I don’t really know how they would have thought then. Going off on these raids in the last few days of the War was a very risky business. They were losing a lot. CB: Going before you joined the RAF. DS: Yeah. CB: People who were still in civilian life were really in the focus of the public if they weren’t in uniform. So what did you do? Did you tend to wear your ATC uniform or did they give you a badge that identified you as a waiting person? DS: No. I didn’t have a badge that would point out I’d been, you know, waiting call up. I never had any, any trouble that way. I know, well I mean we were at Air Training Corps several nights a week and weekends. CB: Um. DS: So we’d be in uniform quite a while. But no never, never found anyone antagonistic or anything like that as to why we were still there. CB: And your workmates, what sort of ages were they? Did they tend to be older people? DS: Yes, oh yes. And there were quite a lot of jobs going for people in our area. There was, insurance companies were dotted about the place. The railway clearing house were in Great Missenden. I suppose when I joined the company there were probably three others from the school joined with me, and others did in subsequent years. And, of course, we were the younger people who most of the people who were called up had gone by the time we got there. CB: Yeah. DS: They were um, yes they were quite a bit older most of them. I know I joined the spotters group at Newland Park, where they had a post on the roof where they watched for aircraft to warn people if anything was very close, sort of get under your desk or whatever you did in those days. They were quite independent those groups. After the War I joined the Royal Observer Corps. I found some of my friends who’d not been called you know in the Royal Observer Corps, younger than me. And I was in that for twenty-five years. We had a post at Missenden, group headquarters were in Watford and we had a post at Chorley Wood, Beaconsfield, Great Missenden and Princes Risborough. And we were linked by telephone to Watford, and to the other posts we could hear what they were reporting. And at the end of it when we were reporting radio active fallout and had stopped aircraft reporting all together, some of us were invited to go down to the underground command room at Naphill, Bomber Command’s headquarters. And we all had to have a special interview, I was alright I’d already signed the Official Secrets Act, and we did shifts in the underground control room at Naphill. But that was only reporting radio active fallout and you were given readings on automatic machines because there wasn’t any fallout to speak off. Nothing that was really measurable. So you had gadgets which, the tape which produced figures which you then report. And we had a separate map, beside the working map, at Naphill. But periodically if you were on shift when the Russians sent a couple of bears down the North Sea, and Leuchars put a Lightning, two or three Lightning’s up to turn them around then probably at Wycombe they would consider it was an alarm and the map they worked on by day disappeared and the War map came down in it’s place. CB: Oh did it, right? DS: And the control room was locked and you were in there, you couldn’t get out until they thought the problem was over. That was quite interesting but it got so boring just doing radioactivity that in the end they, they gave up and the Royal Observer Corps was disbanded completely. So I imagine there’s a few holes in the ground. They built a hole for us, when we went to occupy it, it was full of water. So they had to then drain it out and put another fresh lining inside but it used to be freezing cold down there. CB: Yeah. DS: Only about twenty foot down on a farm up at Hide End. CB: Really? Just stop there for a mo’. The War finishes, you’re demobbed? DS: Yes. CB: Then what options were you and what did you choose? DS: Well, I had my leave but of course having been employed, employers had to offer you a job back. And I went back. They had an office in Rickmansworth, the main office was back in London of course, so I travelled to Rickmansworth which was very easy for me and eventually when that closed and went back to London I had to go back to London to do insurance accounts again. But I finished up doing re-insurance accounting which was interesting because this was big sums, multi-millionaire figures. Things like we insured the Beatles for goodness knows how many million pounds when they made their first film. If one of the Beatles had fallen ill and they had to scrub the whole film this would have cost millions, so they insured on short term things but of course no company could keep the whole of the business. So, it was shared. And you shared it with companies around the world. And you had treaties with these companies. It was a bit like, ‘you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.’ We would take two and a half per cent of a risk from a certain company, anywhere in the world. They would take two and a half per cent of big risks that came our way. But so big were some of the risk that you didn’t insure, or you’d re-insure everything except the thing maybe a quarter of a per cent because you couldn’t take the lot, it would have. CB: Um. Bankrupt the company. DS: But because I was mixed up in that I got to speak to people, or write to them all over the world. And to countries in Europe and here you were talking to people and got to know them very well. I mean the Beatles was just one example . We had, there was a flush of American golfers, who fly their own aircraft. And that’s a risk. Even if they don’t make it to a golf tournament. Because the stars aren’t there, the public aren’t there and you’ve got a loss on your hands so all these sorts of things. It was quite an interesting change from ordinary accounting. CB: Yeah. DS: You know contacting all these people as to what they would take and, as I say I knew many people from all around the world. It was quite interesting. CB: And you said you retired at fifty-nine and a half? DS: Yeah, almost sixty. Um, but there was the offer, we were taken over and, for the second time actually, and they made that offer because they were then overloaded with staff. CB: Um. DS: And I had to stay on for six months to train up someone for my particular job and then it was goodbye. CB: Yes. And that made you, you fully retired then did you? DS: Yeah. Been retired for thirty-three years now. Nearly as long as I worked. [laughter] CB: That’s very good. Dennis Swains thank you very much indeed. 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 Dennis Swains Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chris Brockbank Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-01-23 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ASwainsDNJ170123 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:48:46 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource In 1936, Dennis went to Dr Challoner’s Grammar School in Amersham, where an Air Training Corps was formed. Aged 17, he got a job with the North British and Mercantile Insurance company. He visited RAF Halton with the Air Training Corps each Sunday, where he learned to fly the Slingsby Primary and the Granau Baby. In 1944, Dennis was called up and trained as an air gunner on Ansons. On the 20 December 1944, he finished the course and married his fiancée on the 23rd. He then went to the Operational Training Unit at RAF Abingdon, where they crewed up and flew Wellingtons. Dennis describes a three-and-a-half-hour cross-country night run, during which they encountered a terrible thunderstorm and three aircraft were lost. The squadron was then posted to RAF Lindholme to fly Lancasters, but the war ended and they never flew as a crew again. After the war, Dennis went back to his job in insurance. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sue Smith Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Halton England--Cheshire England--Yorkshire Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1936 1944-05 1944-05 1944-12-20 1944-12-23 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending revision of OH transcription air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson crewing up Initial Training Wing lack of moral fibre Lancaster memorial RAF Abingdon RAF Acaster Malbis RAF Blyton RAF Bridgnorth RAF Dalcross RAF Lindholme RAF Merryfield RAF Stanton Harcourt sanitation training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/642/8912/ASnowballM150626.mp3 bbd766624aaad1dc3f596be446f736f9 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 Snowball, Maurice M Snowball Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Snowball, M Description An account of the resource 14 items. An oral history interview with Sergeant Maurice Snowball (1922 - 2020, 1595147 Royal Air Force) his log book, documents, notebooks and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 550 Squadron. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Maurice Snowball and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-06-26 Requires A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence. Maurice Snowball was born in Sunderland, England in 1922, after apprenticing at a brewery in Sunderland, whilst also playing football as an amateur and having spent time in the local Home Guard, Maurice chose to join the RAF as a volunteer. After passing his medical and joining full time in December 1944, he underwent training at RAF Bridlington. Technical training was undertaken at Locking and then at RAF St. Athan as a Flight Engineer. Starting out in Halifax Mk. II & V he then switched to the Lancaster Mk.I & III. Once training was over, he had a short tour at 12 Squadron at RAF Wickenby, Lincolnshire and was sent, to 550 Squadron, based at North Killingholme, Lincolnshire. Here he undertook four bombing operations as well as taking part in Operation Manna, the dropping of food parcels in the Netherlands, After the end of hostilities he also took part in operation Post Mortem, the testing of German Radar systems and operation Dodge, the repatriation of British troops from Italy. He was demobilised December 1947. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/34648 Log Book https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/8912 Interview Andrew St. Denis Maurice was born and brought up in Sunderland, when he left school he was apprenticed to a small company manufacturing equipment for the brewery industry and had become a keen amateur footballer. Although in a reserved occupation he volunteered for aircrew and eventually did his basic training at Bridlington in January 1944. He continued his training at RAF Locking and RAF St Athan and arrived at No 1662 Heavy Conversion Unit (HCU) at RAF Blyton to fly the Halifax in September 1944. Part way through the course the HCU became a Lancaster Finishing School (LFS) and the crew converted to the Lancaster. With his crew he was posted to No 12 Squadron at RAF Wickenby. He did one flight with them there and then he returned to the LFS and by January 1945 he had re-crewed and in late March the crew were posted to No 550 Squadron at RAF North Killingholme. He did four bombing operations and one Operation Manna flight before the war in Europe ended. He continued to fly with the squadron doing the usual Post War flying, operations Post Mortem, Dodge and Cooks Tours until late March 1946. He retrained as a Mechanical Transport (MT) driver and was for a time posted to the Middle East specifically RAF El Adam. Having been demobilised Maurice returned to Sunderland and resumed his career with the brewery equipment manufacturer. He relocated several times within the UK and at one time was the mechanical foreman maintaining the Tornado at RAF North Luffenham. He remained a keen amateur footballer never making the elevation to professional player. He maintained his links with his No 550 Squadron crew members and Operation Manna, visiting Holland in 1985 and he also met a Dutch woman who was eight years old in 1945. Trevor Hardcastle Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document David Kavanagh interviewing Maurice Snowball, David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre. DK: Were you with 550 Squadron? MS: 550 Squadron yes DK : Were you with another squadron before then? MS: No I was [chit chat not relevant to interview] well, we, I did my training and then I had a problem with the first crew I was in and had to go back to heavy con unit and get another crew and that was the crew I flew with afterwards. DK: Was your training all in the United kingdom? MS: Yes, flight engineer, all the flight engineers were trained in England and down at St Athan but when we, when I, went it was busy at St Athan and we had six weeks previously at RAF Locking and then went to St Athan and the engineers did all that training and qualified and got their wing before we even saw a four engine aeroplane, and you were posted up to heavy con unit. We went, I, was sent to Blyton near Gainsborough, and I did it there then I had to go back there to do it again with the new crew and it knocked me back 3 months, so I didn’t get to the squadron with this crew until January 45. DK: So the crew that you were with in the heavy conversion unit were the same crew that you joined the operational unit? MS: Yes, the second, the second visit to Blyton was the crew that I flew with and I couldn’t have got a better crew, it was a really good crew I got with, and there is only me and the navigator left now, he is a retired police superintendant that lives at Boston, and he is not very well, he had to drop out of the going to Holland this year, it would have been his first visit to Holland, and he had to drop out, and he’s now cancelled his reunion next weekend at Killingholme, he’s not well enough, so he’s, I don’t know what his problem is, I think its something to do with heart because I know he had a – DK: Pacemaker ? MS: Pacemakers the word, yes, he had a pacemaker fitted a while, several years ago, but, its a shame really because we get on ever so well together, he originated from Gateshead and I was from Sunderland so we were two north country, and the rest of the crew, the skipper lived down in Dorset, yes Dorset, and our bomb aimer was from London, and he was a keen golfer he used to give officers lessons at golfing, and when we split up he said ‘keep’, ‘if we lose touch with each other keep a look at the world cup team every year because I am going to play for them one day’ and it was [unclear] Laddie lucas, this is your life was on, that Ken was on that he was on that team then, and he died, about three or four years ago now might even be more. We used to meet up, the skipper the navigator and me. We used to meet at Banbury every year because it was, the hotel we went to was a mile difference between the skippers home and the navigators home, we couldn’t have got more central, and I contacted the bomb aimer and he said he would come the next year, and I rang up in the August and his wife answered the phone, and I said ‘Ken did promise to come to Banbury this year for the lunch and I’ve now got the dates, September’ and she said ‘just a minute I’m very sorry I’ve got some bad news and I’ve got some good news’ and I knew what the bad news would be, she said ‘he died in July just a month ago and the good news he always wanted to play golf to his dying day and he collapsed and died on the golf course’ so he got that - and the mid upper he lived at Nottingham I managed to contact him, he had a couple of lunches with us before he died, and the radio operator was the only one we couldn’t trace and I put a letter in the Hull papers and I got two back one from a lady and one from a man that were teenagers with him and they both said the same, although one lived - they never met each other since they were youngsters but they both said the same Geoff had died in his early 30’s from a kind of a blood disease so I don’t know whether it was leukaemia or what so that was why I wasn‘t able to trace him and it was funny when I put the letter in the Hull Echo I got nothing back from his family, so I don’t know whether there was any family left. Anyhow I finished training with the crew, and got posted up to North kilingholm 550 squadron, and we had done our first two training trips and early April we started operations. DK: Did 550 have Lancaster’s at the time then? MS: I trained on Halifax’s at the first one and midway through the course we switched to what we called Lancaster school but the second time they were all Lancaster’s the Halifax’s had gone, so I did training on the Halifax and we flew on the Halifax and did the whole course practically on the Halifax, the first one. DK: What was you impression of the two aircraft, the Halifax and the Lancaster? MS: I liked the Halifax, and it was, it was a good aircraft for the engineer, well for the crew because there was more room in it, you are not cramped like you are in the Lancaster and it was a pretty reliable aircraft with the radial engines but it didn’t get the height or anything, so the Lancaster was the better one being on operations, it was the safer one to fly, the Lancaster, but at the same time if anything happened it was a difficult one to get out of because it was so cramped so there was a lot of crew members lost by not bailing out quick enough, whereas with the Halifax it was easy to get out you see, so when you learnt about it you think well I am better on the Lancaster but once you start flying with the Lancaster that was the plane for you, you know, it was a terrific aircraft , but I never sat down as flight engineer, because it was a little tip up seat, and if I sat on that I was facing the skipper, you couldn’t see the dials properly and my panel was over here so I stood all the time and I’ve not found an engineer yet that I’ve met that did sit down much the only time you sat was when you were doing your calculations of fuel use and stuff like that, but mostly when flying plus the fact when you went on operations you were asked to, you were helping the skipper all the time but at the same time they asked you to keep a lookout and help the gunners in case you saw anything, well if you sat on your seat with your back to window you couldn’t so you had to stand. And our first two operations were both within 5 mins of 9 hours, 8 hours and 55, and people have said you didn’t stand all that time I said ‘well I was young enough then not to be worried about standing all that’, I never used to think that was a long time to stand and being an engineer in civilian life and working on heavy machinery it was a lighter job when you’re flying, and standing hours we used to work, before I went in, in 1943 I was 17 doing 12 hours shifts at work where you’re on your feet 12 hours a day anyway so - DK: Where was that you were working? MS: Up in Sunderland I served me apprenticeship, funnily enough it was, served in brewery machinery bottle washers, conveyers, fillers and everything like that, but we got a good engineering - because it was a family firm, you learnt electrics and plumbing all sorts of work that when you went in a ship yard you were maybe trained in one thing, or you were on one lathe, we got a bit of work done planeing, on lathes, all sorts of things and it turned out in my life afterwards, I went back to the same firm when I came out of the air force and I had altogether 25 years with them, and good experience, and then I left 1960 I left Sunderland and moved down to Northamptonshire and I worked down there for northern dairies for 5 or 6 years, then we moved up to Oakham and when I was in Oakham I finished my working life, working, first of all, I started at Ashwood prison and then when the tornados came to Cottismore I got started there as a fitter and ended up as a mechanical foreman, and retired at 65 from there. My apprenticeship came in very handy because it covered so many things you know - DK: Do you remember now why it was the air force that you chose I understand [unclear] you volunteered? MS: Its funny how it happened I was in a reserve job so I couldn’t, you could only volunteer for one thing that was aircrew, and I never thought about it when I was doing my apprenticeship but when I got up, I was a keen amateur footballer, and I played every Saturday afternoon and the foreman used to say to me’ wait until you’re a man out of time and you’ll have to work Saturday afternoon I can’t stop you playing football now, but once you’re a man your job will be here’ and jokingly I said ‘well if that’s the case I might as well join the air force or somewhere at least they get leaves every so often’ and that was, I just said it as a joke, but then the last year towards the time when I was 21 and out of my time, he said that ‘I’ll have you working on Saturdays next year’ and I said ‘will you?’ and I didn’t think anything else about it, but as soon as I finished my apprenticeship I thought I am not going to be working here 12 hours a day for the rest of the war, I am going to volunteer after all, and aircrew was the only one you could volunteer for, I thought, I was keen on hearing and reading about the Sunderland flying boat, being a Sunderland born man and I thought I wonder if I could join the air force and become a flight engineer on Sunderland’s so that’s what I did. I hadn’t really thought about until actually I was 21, and I volunteered straight away in the January, my birthday was January, I had my aircrew medical in the July, 3 days, and then put on deferred service, and I wasn’t called up until December of that year, so I was 12 months between volunteering and, and by then I hadn’t changed my mind, but I had settled in to the fact that well if I’m not going to get called up, I hope I can make the grade as a goalkeeper, professional, and I had a pretty good amateur life as a footballer you know, and I played untill i was 34, but when the time came to 21 I thought, I must try and get on Sunderland flying boats. We went down to be typed[?] At St Athan and when you did training you were all in the hanger, and they would say right we want so many at[?] for this and so many for that, and the first thing he said ‘how many of you chaps want to be a flight engineer on Sunderland flying boats?’, and half of us put their hands up, he says ‘well I’m sorry we’re not training flight engineers for Sunderland flying boats until they get the new Centaurus engine’, so I said ‘oh’, and then they asked for so many volunteers for Stirling’s and when they didn’t get enough what they wanted, the Sergeant said, right anybody whose last figure is so and so you’re on Stirling’s and then they did the same for Halifax’s and by then I’d done them both, I wanted to be on Lancaster’s so I thought well I’m not going to volunteer I hope he doesn’t call my number out next time and he called out whose last two numbers are so and so and fortunately it didn’t come? So he said right the rest of you are all Lancaster boys, so that’s how it came about the end of the [unclear] And we went to Bridlington and we did all our marching and that at Bridlington, and that was prior to going to St Athan, I’ve jumped the gun a bit there, I was posted up to Bridlington and I’d been in the home guard while I was apprentice up home, lance corporal, and we had a demonstration team and we never lost a competition we went in, we were drilling at Bridlington and sergeant, there was two lads couldn’t march properly their hands went with the foot when they shouldn’t have done and he came to me and he said ‘I’ve been watching you, you’ve done this business before haven’t you?’ I said ‘yes’ I said ‘I was in the home guard in a demonstration platoon’, he said ‘well take these two lads along there and see if you can get them marching properly’, and I was with them 20 minutes and by the time that 20 minutes was up when I said quick march, they marched properly, and the sergeant said ‘how you going on?’ I said ‘good’ so he said ‘bring them back’, and he got them to stand in front of him and he said quick march and they went back to what they had been, and he said ‘oh just join the ranks’ he said ‘they’ll learn eventually’ but it was just they were nervous you see in front of the sergeant. And from Bridlington you were posted to heavy con unit where you meet the crew. And,When you formed your crew. I skipped the early one to talk about the one I flew with because that’s where me memories are. I was in the hanger and I was told to find the crew of pilot officer James, just altogether you know, and you used to just, if you saw somebody that you liked you say could I be in your crew? Well, I was told to ask for pilot officer James’s crew, and I thought well I don’t know any of them so I just waited until I saw practically everybody was teamed up, and then I saw these two lads, navigator and bomb aimer walking round, and I went up and said ‘excuse me are you with pilot officer James’s crew’, they said ‘yes’, so I said ‘well I’m sergeant Snowball, I’m going to be your flight engineer’ and the navigator who come from Gateshead said ‘oh dear, we thought with a name like that you must come from the West Indies, we’ve been looking for the wrong colour’. And it was, when we met up after the war 40 years afterwards, I reminded them about this and he says ‘Maurice’ he said, ‘I should have known’ he said,’ I told you I never heard the name Snowball before’, and he said ‘the biggest department store in Gateshead was Snowball’, he said ‘so why I thought I’d never heard the name before’ and I used to really rib them about that because [pause] they didn’t actually say West Indian [laughter] they said another word. DK: [unclear] MS: Yes. But we got on ever so well together the crew, I couldn’t’ have got a better crew, the skipper was very good with us. It was winter of course when we got to Killingholme, by that was a cold camp, we were in Nissan huts and you had a coal, just one coal fire in the middle, you know a stove, and the coal was rationed you could never get enough to keep it -, and at one stage the coal heap outside was whitewashed so far up so that if anybody went out at night and got coal they knew somebody had been because they had whitewashed was disturbed, so anybody that did that they had to be very careful because if they saw it happen they would come into the billets and look at any coal that was in buckets or anything to see if there was any whitewash on the top. [laughter] You see it was rationed and it was unfair to pinch it and make somebody else short of it, but when you did, when you did have a good fire going you could boil a kettle on it and make yourself a cup of tea, all used to bring tea, it was loose tea in them days of course, but we always managed to have a cup of tea, didn’t always have milk, because you had to go off camp to get the milk or scrounge it off the naafi girls in the naafi, but it turned out to be a good camp. I used to go in, I had a cycle and I used to cycle up to Immingham and catch the night tram into Grimsby, especially on a Saturday night when we wasn’t flying anywhere, because I liked dancing I did a lot of ballroom dancing, and the skipper and the bomb aimer both had little cars, and you had a ration you know, and they used to go, and it wasn’t until 40 years afterwards we were talking at one of these reunions [checks if its alright to continue] we were talking at one of these reunions, and they were talking about George the navigator, he got engaged to a girl there, which he later married, and they were talking about going to his wife’s, then his girl, we used to go to your girlfriends, mothers for dinner [unclear] we always used to have egg and chips or something, and I said ‘when did that happen?’ they says ‘well you always used the bike because it was only a two seater car, you couldn’t go in the car with us and when you left the dance we went to the car you got on your bike [corrects self] ‘and got on the tram’, rather ‘to go and get your bike at Immingham, and we used to call in to Georges, girlfriend’s, and had a good supper off her mother’ so I missed all that by using the bike [gentle laughing]. Well the skipper, he was a pilot officer and our rear gunner was a flying officer, two good gunners because the two gunners had been gunnery instructors and when the gunnery school closed they were posted to heavy con to do some ops, they’d never flown on ops they had been training, so we had two experienced gunners really, which was a good thing, fortunately we never had have any bother there. I can’t remember ever whether they did ever do open up fire? The rear gunner said at one time his gunnery where he was, was lit up by a searchlight and he said fortunately it went out straight away otherwise they would have quickly gone onto us with the rest of them, but we didn’t know anything about that he told us afterwards, so we had no real problems at all, we were very fortunate we never had a fault with an engine or a plane, and we got through the four bombing operations we did safely, and then we did the food drop one. DK: So you did four operations before that? MS: We did four bombing, We did two night ones, and the first one Plzen[?], was near the Czech border that one was eight hours 55 minutes the next one was at Potsdam just 30 miles south of Berlin, so that was eight hours and so many minutes after, and then we did Helgoland that was about a four hour trip, 2 hour you know -, trip, and that was bombing of course, and Breman we went to Breman, oh Bremen was our first daylight one because it was the first time we had seen anti-aircraft shells. And we went through Wilhelmshaven and we could see all the flak then, and think well we’ve got to go through that, well we got through it safely, and then we got to Breman, because the cloud hadn’t properly cleared and the Canadian army was waiting to attack Breman after we’d bombed, the master bomber was cancelling it, and so we got all the way to Bremen and brought the bombs all the way back again, and landed with them, I, a little task that I had to do then was on the way back the Skipper said ‘you had better work out what fuel we’re going to use and whether we will be on our landing weight’ and I said ‘oh you will be by the time we get back there’, because I said ‘we’re nearly home, its been well down’ and, we landed with the full bomb load on but the skipper was told he should have jettisoned the 1,000 pound one because they said it wouldn’t have exploded but if you landed heavily and it had come off the hooks any of the bomb armourers that were underneath them doors could have it drop on them, so they said if it happens again you must get rid of your cookie. DK: Was he in any trouble for that? MS: No no DK: Or was he just advised next time? MS: Just advised because we were a new crew and we had never had that experience of bringing bombs back before. We knew that planes had come back when it had an engine missing or something like that, and had to turn back and they had got rid of their bomb load you see, but we were, we had no fault to get rid of the bombs, other than the fact the safety of them, we didn’t think of that, as far as we were concerned we were bringing them back safely. [gentle laughter] [pause] Then when the squadron closed in 47 no 46, October 46, I was re-trained as a MT driver until my de-mob came up and I was posted to El Adem at Tobruk. While there, actually, I had developed an injury when I was playing in goal, I couldn’t take goal kicks with my right foot my back used to be too painful and when I used to sit down any length of time, I would walk about 40 or 50 yards before I could straighten up properly, and eventually I went to the MO at North Killingholme, and he said ‘that’s [unclear] but you’ve got a bit of arthritis or rheumatism’ he said, and I said ‘well I’ve now got a posting to the Middle East’, I said ‘should I have something looked at before’, and he said ‘oh if you’re going to the middle east its nice and warm there you’ll be alright’ and I went there and I was there 12 months nearly still having this problem and then they said we’re going to send you back home now to Cosford hospital and they’ll offer you a back injury, an operation for your injury, don’t have it put up with the pain for as long as you can, don’t have that operation, and I came back to Cosford by sea, I had to get myself on the ship, in a hammock with a bad back was a problem, and when I approached the navel steward about it, I said ‘I’m coming home with an injury to my back, I’m going to hospital, I can’t get up in one of them’ he said ‘well according to this sheet you’re not bed bound or anything, so I can’t give you a bed in the hospital, when its not on your sheet’ so I had to manage, I got back alright, and I got examined at RAF Cosford, and the surgeon, two surgeons there was, they did some tests with me and then got me sitting on a chair to drop my head onto my chest, and they kept saying no you’re putting your head down, I want you to drop it, let it drop off, and eventually I did drop it, and I jumped off the chair with this pain down my leg and they said now right what it is, you’ve got a slipped disc we can put that right with an operation. Straight away I thought of what I’d been told, so I said ‘well have you got an alternative?’ He said ‘yes you can have a plaster jacket on for up to 3 months if its not right by then, well you’ve got no other -, you’ll have to have the operation’ and I got that jacket on, and sent home a month, and two days every month back to have the jacket checked, but them 3 months I was dancing 3 or 4 nights a week with no problem with the jacket on, and within two days of getting that jacket off the pain was back, and by then I knew about the operation, and I said straightaway ‘I’ll have the operation’ and they did operate on it, and they discharged me from the hospital A1, and I said ‘I’ve gone passed my date when I should have been home’ I said ‘I was in hospital when my de-mob date came up’ i said ‘and I am going back to the job where I was, its heavy engineering and lifting’ they said there is no problem with that but you won’t ever be able to touch your toes no matter how fit you get. So I came home and I did, I went back to the job, as soon as I was fit I was playing football and I played till I was 34, and it was only in later life when I started getting back problems which I have now more or less permanently, but I don’t thinks its, well I’m told its nothing to do with the disc that I had, they just said, what they’ve told me is all the discs have crunched a bit up with age and if one of them touches the nerve that’s when you get the back ache, but I don’t have the pain down my leg like I used to have but as soon as I walk, I don’t walk very far before I’ve got back ache, so my limit is I walk up the street 5 minutes and there is a fire hydrant and I sit down there for two minutes and then I walk back again so my limit is about 10 minutes walk. MK: But you were still playing football until your mid thirties? MS: Sorry? MK: You were still playing football until your mid thirties? MS: Yes, yes. MK: You never went professional then? MS: No. I was, I played at Locking [inaudible] we had a good wing team, and there was another wing team there that was also good, and their team was all physical instructors except the centre forward was an amateur, and we had all amateur [unclear] we didn’t have any physical instructors, our own physical instructor, he was our trainer but he never played, and when we did the tests, I played in goal in the trials and the CO that was in charge of us, Wing Commander, he said ‘well’ he said ‘you’re quite a good goal keeper’ but he said, ‘but I must put you in team Haley because’ he said, ‘he’s a professional he plays for west ham so he’s got to go in this team’ and he played in the first game we played and they put me on the forward line which I’d never played out in my life and I said ‘oh this is no good for me’ and we lost two, one, and the Wing Commander was annoyed because he said ‘Haley should have stopped them’ so he said ‘in future I’m having you in goal for my wing team he can go to the station team and play for them as he’s been doing’ so, and I played in that wing team, and Tim gave me tips and coached me a bit, he was ever so good about it, and we played in the competition for the best wing team and we met the other team in the semi-final and they wanted us to meet really in the final, but we got drawn in the semi-final, so the officers, both officers said we’re going to make this like the final ‘we’ll have some chairs round and we’ll have officers come in from other places, you’re going to be playing in front of a crowd’ and we did, and we drew nil, nil, after 90 minutes, and we were still nil, nil, after extra time, and they said right now then we’re playing, no penalties in them days, we’ll play till a team scores, and we played another half hour, and I had the game of my life [emphasis on the game of my life] they could not beat me, and then this, after half an hour, we knew we had been playing a long time, it turned out to be half an hour extra, the centre forward came through and I had been out one to one with him several times and got the ball, you know, managed to stop what he did, but this last time he didn’t wait for me going out he shot straight away and I was just moving off the line to go and meet him, and I dove and I touched the ball and it went in off the post and the next minute I was on their shoulders, I was crying my eyes out, but they carried me off, what a great game I had. My PTI came to me and he said, ‘would you like to come off the aircrew course? and become a PTI’ he said ‘you’d make a good PTI’ and I said ‘if I come off the aircrew course I’ll have to go back to my reserve job in Sunderland, he said ‘well its a great pity because this chap here’ and he had a chap who was dressed in a suit and everything, he said’ he’s a scout for Cardiff City and [unclear] Athletic and he thinks you can make the grade as a professional, and he would get you into one of them clubs’ and I said, ‘well no’, I said, if I make the grade as a professional I want to play for Sunderland where I was born and that was it, and then two of the PTI’s off the other team when we had the meal afterwards they came not together one came up and said, ‘have you thought about playing professional after the war?’ I said ‘well if I’m good enough I would, always dreamed about being professional’ he said ‘well I’m with South end’ he said ‘if you survive the war and you’re still playing football contact Southend and I’ll give you my name and you’ll get a trial’ and then this other one came up and he said he was a professional with Tottenham Hotspur and he said the same after the war if you’re still playing and you’re fit contact Tottenham and mention my name and you’ll get a trial, so that was as near as I could get to being professional, until after the war when I came home with the plaster jacket on, I met the secretary of the local team I played for before I went in the air force [unclear] it was, the next village to where I lived and he said, ‘oh Maurice are you de-mobbed?’ Because was in civvies you see, I said ‘no’ he said ‘oh what a pity’ he said ‘I’ve had the coach from Sheffield Wednesday on, they are looking for a young goalkeeper to play in the reserve team and they’ve signed a professional from Scotland but they want another goalkeeper for the second team’ and I said ‘oh’ I said ‘I’m in a plaster jacket I can’t play football, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to play again’ and he said ‘what a pity’ he said, ‘because I thought, when I saw you I thought straight away Maurice you’re going to Sheffield’ [gentle laughter] so that was as near as I ever got. But I did have a good amateur career. DK: So how many years were you actually in the Air force for? MS: Four, four years, I joined in 43 as I say, I volunteered in 43 and joined in the September 43 so I had been on deferred service for 6 months, because after your aircrew medical they told you that you’d passed the medical and that you were accepted but you had to go on deferred service until there was vacancies on the training [pause] DK: Just going back a bit, how many Manna operations did you do? MS: We just did the one, because we, being a new crew the CO shared the aircraft, you see, they didn’t get your own aircraft until you had done a few operations, and although we had done four, we still hadn’t got our own aircraft so it was a case of we did that one and then, I don’t know whether, there was one particular time when the skipper was grounded a bit with a perforated ear drum and I don’t know whether that was why we only did one or whether the fact there wasn’t an aircraft available so - DK: And can, do you have memories of the Dutch people down looking up? MS: Yes the, oh yes the [pause] we went on the second day which was before the truce was signed and we knew the first lot had come back alright, but they warned us that the navigators must get the course right and you must be no higher than 500 feet or they can shot at, and I since learned after the war that some crews were told if you went off the track or too high the Germans would fire a red markers telling you to get back and then if, once you got back they would fire a green one to let you know, stay where you are but we didn’t know anything about that, we just knew that ours, with the skipper keeping the speed that we wanted, 160, because it was a low speed you see, and the navigator had to be dead right to keep on the track, and we went over the north sea at 300 feet, and then as we approached the coast the navigator come and said you’d better get up to 500 now because we will be crossing the coast shortly, so we crossed the coast and we all aware of the anti-aircraft guns following the aircraft round and hoping nothing would happen which thankfully it didn’t but one or two aircraft did have small arms fire, but they put that down to the fact flying over from the coast some outlying post would see an aircraft and just fire at it without realising that they shouldn’t, but we didn’t have any damage at all, and we got our food dropped at the racecourse Duindigt racecourse and it was. [slight pause] My memories myself of crossing the coast and getting it going in, was the flooded houses and everything, water everywhere and that, that’s my main memory of approaching, I can’t remember looking out and seeing crowds of people while we were flown in, but as soon as the navigator [corrects self] the bomb aimer said he’d got the racecourse in his sight then we were able to look out and I saw the crowds round the racecourse then all waving. You couldn’t believe it, how did they all know we were coming? But you see they’d got the word through the radio and they’d seen them the first day, so there was I suppose when we went on the second day, there would be more people out who had missed the first day. DK: How did that make you feel dropping humanitarian supplies? [pause] How did that make you feel dropping humanitarian supplies? MS: Oh its, well again we just knew that we had been told that people were starving and we were going to drop some food because the fact they had no food, they had no electric, they had no fuel to light fires, and most of the trees had been cut down, and any damaged houses all the woodwork was gone, so we knew it was pretty desperate, but my recollection at that time was that the biggest thing was all the houses were flooded, where they living? And they’d all gone into Rotterdam and Amsterdam you see, on to the higher grounds. But when we went over in 85 and met the people, who were at that time there, then we found out what life was like for them, where they had nothing to eat and no heating, the men were taken away to work in Germany, and so the people at home were the ladies, old men, and young children, and the young children we made friends with, one lady in particular she used to go with her bike 5 days or 6 days, and come back with what food they could, but she told us money was no good then, they took out maybe a spare pair of shoes or some clothing, anything you could barter with the farmers to get something, a few potatoes off them or something, whatever they’ve got spare, but she did tell us about one time, she’d been away 5 days, and they were told when they were cycling, cycles had no tyres they were just on the rims, when they were riding, if they heard aircraft they had to get in a ditch and stop riding, because the aircraft would shoot up anybody on the roads. So they had that to contend with, and then on the way back they had to make sure that the Germans didn’t see them coming back because they would take the food off them, because they were short of food you see, and she said this particular time, ‘I’d been 5 days away and was coming back and I’d not managed to pick anything up at all, I’d got no food other than one farmers wife said well he’s got nothing to offer you this time so I can’t trade you with anything, but we have some cracknel left off some pork that we’ve had you can take that’ and she said, ‘that was all’ and when she got home, she said ‘I went in and crying my eyes out and said to my mum, mum all I’ve got is this bit of cracknel I’ve not been able to get any more food and her mam said well I’ve still got some bread left and Mrs so and so next door they’ve got nothing, so take that into them and give them the’ [unclear] so what she brought back for her family was given to the next family. And she gave us, we had her over here to England one year and she gave us a list she’s done in that winter a thousand miles going out different places for 5 days at a time and back, and she mentioned the place and how many miles and so on and so and so, and it totalled up to a thousand miles, as a young girl going out and that’s the sort of thing they had to do. But it was then in 85 that we got to know what it was really like for them, and in the video that I’ve got that was made in 2010 general, forget his name, the general that was a boy at the time tells a story him and his mates, they were out looking for wood and they went on to a, [hesitation] to get some wood off some houses in the banned area, and he said the Germans turned up, and he said, unfortunately on that particular occasion the German, one of the German soldiers fired his gun and it hit his pal in the throat, he touches that when he tells you, and it hit him in the throat and he collapsed on me, and he said he died in my arms, so that was, it was after 85 that we got to know these things and it really brought it home to you then what we didn’t know when we actually dropped the food. DK: Terrible conditions they were living in, [pause]terrible conditions? MS: Oh yes, yes, you see they had nothing the photographs, you probably, you might have seen them [rustling] one old chap is stratting about and he comes up with a bottle, looks like sauce and he dipping his finger and eating that, but the children were allowed to go into the churns that the soup was brought in and rake the food out you see, because they had to give coupons and it was a measured like ladle, what they brought out and that was just one in every family, and of course they couldn’t get the rest, they would get as much as they could and as far as they were concerned it was empty, and the kids were allowed to go in and, dive in and eat it. DK: I’ll just finish, I‘ll just ask you one final question, how do you look back now on your time with the RAF because it was only, I say only, it was four years, it was actually a small part of your life, how do you look back on it all these years later? MS: I am pleased that I volunteered and went into the air force into aircrew but my main memory is operation Manna that one operation has brought so much into my life with friends that we’ve met in Holland since 85, and I met this Dutch lady at Lincoln when we were interviewed, she was an eight year old girl at the time, and she lives at Cambridge, and I’ve already spoken, and she’s spoken to me on the phone since and she wants to keep in touch because, I don’t know whether you’ve seen the video, what was, Songs of Praise, how she greeted me then we had met and talked in the room before we went out to there, and then the interviewer, a girl went, well, she was talking about what life was like for her in the war, the BBC girl was in tears you know, she didn’t know exactly what it had been like and then we went outside and she was told, the Dutch lady was told now we want you to meet Maurice for the first time when we go down there we’ll decide what’s the best place to do, and then they tried two or three places round where the flowers were and then eventually got me to stand on the corner and her to go across and then come in and greet me, and oh she did, it was a proper greeting, she really hugged me and everything, afterwards we had to go back to the hotel, they wanted to do a bit more filming, and my daughter [unclear] where we’d been watching she got hold of my arm, the daughter to help me, and the Dutch lady said ‘he doesn’t need you now he’s got me to help him’ and she cared and helped me back up into the hotel, and they asked us to wait in the lounge, we’re just going to prepare the room, we wanted to do a chat and when we went in, there was two chairs like we are now and a round table, two cups of tea and two tea cakes, two small cakes on two -, and the interviewer said ‘now then, we want you to sit there and we want you to have a conversation just as like friends now’ she said ‘we’ve got the full story from you, so just if there’s anything you want to talk about to here or you want to talk to Maurice you can have a little bit of private conversation but you must not eat those cakes’ and we thought well dear me [slight laughter] you know and we had the cups of tea and she, well we talked to each other while they were doing this extra filming and then when they’d finished, they said ‘right that’s the end of the filming you can now eat your cakes, I didn’t want you eating cakes while I was filming you’ so that was why, and I said ‘well while we’ve been talking to you we’ve neither of us has had a cup of tea to drink, its gone cold’ and she said ‘don’t worry put the kettle on make them some fresh tea’ so we had fresh tea and ours cakes afterwards. The husband of the Dutch lady came to me and he said ‘while you were talking about my wife’ he said ‘I hear that you play organ?’ I said ‘yes I’ve got an organ at home’ I said, ‘and I play every other week at the chapel down in Colsterworth’ I said, ‘take my turn at, its every other week I play now’ and he said, ‘well, you said chapel’ so he said ‘if it was chapel it means your a Methodist’ I said ‘yes’ he said, ‘well, I’m a Methodist and I’m a local preacher down in Cambridge and I go to places that have got an organ but haven’t got organists’ and he said ‘I have to play the hymns’ so he said ‘I not only preach, I play the hymns at them places’ and he said, ‘it would be nice some mornings, Sunday morning’ to his wife he said, ‘it would be nice if Sunday morning we could come up when Maurice is on the organ and go to the service there’ so whether they will or not I don’t know, but I told the steward down the chapel, but he says ‘oh’ he said ‘we’ll make them welcome if they want to come’. DK: Hopefully they’ll come MS: Yeah, but - DK: Ok well I’ll stop that there MS: Yes DK: Thats great, thanks 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 Maurice Snowball Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource David Kavanagh Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-06-26 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ASnowballM150626 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Pending revision of OH transcription 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 00:56:14 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Description An account of the resource Maurice Snowball was born and educated in Sunderland. After school, he served an engineering apprenticeship with a local family firm and was a member of the Home Guard. Maurice was a keen amateur footballer and had hopes of turning professional but, aged 21, he volunteered to join the RAF as a flight engineer and was called forward for initial training at RAF Bridlington in December 1944. He discusses his time in flight engineer training at RAF St Athan and subsequent duties as a flight engineer on Halifax and Lancaster aircraft with 1662 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Blyton. He recalls the operational duties with 550 Squadron, RAF North Killingholme where he took part in four bombing operations - two of them on night raids (close to nine hour round trips), and operations over Heligoland and Bremen. He reflects on the differences he encountered, as a flight engineer, between the Halifax and Lancaster, how the Halifax was spacious and comfortable; the Lancaster cramped and only a small tip-up seat for his flight engineer position. He talks about the main memory of his time in the RAF, Operation Manna, and his later conversations with a lady from Holland who was eight years old at the time. He retrained as an MT driver when his squadron was disbanded and was demobilised in October 1947. Maurice later reaffirmed his affiliation with the RAF. In later years, he moved to Rutland and retired in the 1980s, from his last job as a mechanical foreman at RAF Cottesmore. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire Wales--Glamorgan Germany Germany--Helgoland Germany--Berlin Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Chris Cann Maureen Clarke 550 Squadron aircrew bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945) flight engineer Halifax Home Guard Lancaster military service conditions Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) RAF Blyton RAF North Killingholme RAF St Athan sport https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2261/40727/BGrayDAGrayDAv10001.2.jpg 5fde851226b4290ddcd7f62490f60b89 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2261/40727/BGrayDAGrayDAv10002.2.jpg 902573c706840ca4f84ca7be4a0f1b2c 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 Gray, Donald Arthur Description An account of the resource 57 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Donald Arthur Gray (b. 1922, 1006912 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 460 Squadron. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Catherine Burrows and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021-06-10 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 Gray, DA Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document The Diary of a Flight Engineer in the Second World War My name is Don Gray and at the outbreak of the Second World War I had just taken my School Certificate at the local Grammar School, Sir John Deane’s in Northwich, Cheshire. I had moved into the 6th Form to commence studying for my Higher School Certificate in 2 years’ time. I was mad on aeroplanes. I found the course irksome, particularly with all the exciting war news continually pouring out of our wireless. I decided to leave school, much to my parents’ disappointment, and take a correspondence course in Aeronautical Engineering with a view to making a career in the R.A.F. I do not think I chose the right approach as I badly wanted to fly and, after my 18th birthday in April 1940, I became more and more restless and lacking in concentration on my studies. In May 1940 I travelled to the R.A.F. Recruiting Centre at Padgate, Warrington and told them I would like to be a pilot. I passed all the medical checks but was then told that there were no vacancies for pilots but that I could be a Navigator, Bomb Aimer/Observer, Wireless Operator or Air Gunner. I told them it was Pilot or nothing so they suggested that I trained as a Flight Mechanic as it would be easier to remuster to Pilot later if I was already in the R.A.F. I foolishly agreed. I trained in Blackpool as a Flight Mechanic (airframes), did well on the course and passed out as a Leading Aircraftsman at the end of 1940. I served on various R.A.F. stations in the following 2 years, having repeated applications for remustering to aircrew turned down generally on the grounds that they could not waste the money they had spent on my training. So much for the advice I received when I joined up! During this rather unhappy period of my R.A.F career, I scrounged flying lessons from understanding pilots whenever I could and spent as much time as possible on the Link Trainer in the hopes that the experience might count in my favour in my endeavours to become aircrew. At the beginning of 1943, when stationed at Swinderby near Newark, which was equipped with the dreaded Manchester 2 engined forerunner of the Lancaster, I was called to the Station Commander’s Office. He thumbed through my many requests to become a pilot and asked if I had ever considered becoming a Flight engineer who, on 4 engined bombers, was the emergency pilot too. My experience over the last 2 years of servicing all types of aircraft would stand me in good stead (and also satisfy the R.A.F.’s conscience on wasting the cost of my training) and would be the quickest way of getting me airborne. I was pretty fed up with my ground job and, after a little thought, agreed to the remustering. I was posted to R.A.F. St Athan in South Wales, where Flight engineers were trained, in February 1943 and passed out as a qualified Flight engineer in November of that year. [page break] Flight Engineer Don Gray. DFM [symbol] Joined R.A.F. June 1940 [symbol] Trained in Blackpool, passed out as a L.A.C. (Leading Aircraftsman) December 1940 [symbol] Seconded to A.V. Roe 1941/42 at Chadderton, Manchester assembling Lancasters [symbol] Flight engineers Course, St Athan, S. Wales February 1943 to November 1943 [symbol] Crewed up January 1944. Trained on Halifax’s at Blyton, Lincolnshire February 1944 [symbol] Converted to Lancaster at Hemswell 15th March to 8th April 1944 [symbol] First op. 9th April 1944 [symbol] Wounded on 6th op. 27th April 1944, re-joining crew on 15th June 1944. Flew with them until they finished on 4th August 1944. [symbol] Completed my tour of 32 ops. with various Pilots on 27th September 1944 [symbol] Orderly Room Flight Sergeant at Hemswell until 22nd April 1945 [symbol] Glider Pick Unit, Ibsley 25th April 1945 to 1st May 1945. Qualified as pick-up winch Operator [symbol] Flew out to Karachi 23rd May 1945 [symbol] To Calcutta 12th June 1945 [symbol] Akyab, Burma (our base) 30th June 1945 [symbol] Flew until 3rd October 1945 [symbol] Then ground jobs Rangoon and Seletars [symbol] Sailed home from Singapore on Capetown Castle [symbol] Discharged from Kirkham April 1946 THE CREW LANCASTER J.A.683 D2 [symbol] Pilot F/O D.J. (Dan) Cullen (Duke) D.F.C. R.A.A.F. [symbol] Flight Engineer W/O D.A. (Don) Gray (Junior) D.F.M. R.A.F. [symbol] Bomb Aimer W/O Arthur (Robbie) Robinson R.A.F. [symbol] Navigator F/S W.H. (Bill) Gray (Senior) R.A.A.F. [symbol] Wireless Operator F/S R.W.R. (Ross) Yates R.A.A.F. [symbol] Mid-Upper Gunner F/S C.H. (Col) Wheatley R.A.A.F. [symbol] Rear Gunner F/S A.W. (Arthur) Knapp D.F.M. R.A.F. 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 The Diary of a Flight Engineer in the Second World War (Don Gray) Description An account of the resource Don's autobiography begins with him leaving school and starting a correspondence course in aeronautical engineering. Although he wanted to be a pilot, the RAF persuaded him that a flight engineer doubled as a second pilot. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Don Gray Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Blackpool England--Chadderton Pakistan--Karachi Burma--Akyab (District) Burma--Rangoon Singapore England--Northwich England--Ringwood India--Kolkata India Pakistan 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. Memoir Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Two printed sheets Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BGrayDAGrayDAv10001, BGrayDAGrayDAv10002 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending text-based transcription. Under review Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Tricia Marshall Maureen Clarke air gunner aircrew bomb aimer flight engineer flight mechanic ground crew Halifax Lancaster Manchester navigator pilot RAF Blyton RAF Hemswell RAF Kirkham RAF Padgate RAF St Athan RAF Swinderby recruitment wireless operator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2261/40799/BGrayDAGrayDAv2.pdf 50c92d34e39dd95a7fed1c362a653ee3 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2261/40799/BGrayDAGrayDAv2-Transcript.pdf b3fbc8dc508b98e52f4e09f4d2421154 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 Gray, Donald Arthur Description An account of the resource 57 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Donald Arthur Gray (b. 1922, 1006912 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 460 Squadron. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Catherine Burrows and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021-06-10 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 Gray, DA Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document [crest of Sir John Deane’s Grammar School, Northwich] [page break] 1. This is the story of a bomber crew, a main force crew, [deleted] none of your plebs or Pathfinder types, but [/deleted] [inserted] just [/inserted] an ordinary common or garden crew of seven ordinary [deleted] men [/deleted] blokes who derived great pleasure in seeing Jerries towns or railways or oil [inserted] installations [/inserted] go up in quite a large cloud of smoke. I will start my story at Heavy Conversion Unit [inserted] BLYTON, LIN [/inserted] because that was where I, being an engineer, merged into the story. These units are manned by instructors who have [inserted] generally [/inserted] completed an operational tour and the aircraft are [deleted] generally [/deleted] obsolescent types of 4 [deleted] motor [/deleted] [inserted] engined [/inserted] bombers which serve quite well in accustoming crews fresh from two motor [deleted] solo [/deleted] [inserted] aircraft [inserted] to the intricacies of the multi- [page break] 2. motor types. One fine morning, in the beginning of January 1944, seven engineers and myself were ushered into a large room full of engineer-less crews. After the usual pep talks the skippers’ name and his engineer’s were read out. I drew a tall, instantly likeable, rangy Aussie out of the hat. He was over six feet tall, and in his late twenties with streaks of grey already showing in his dark, curly, hair. He was known to everyone as “Duke” and a professional golfer in civie [sic] street. The navigator, a dapper, moustached, Australian had the misfortune to have the same surname as myself [inserted] and so naturally enough Senior and Junior we became. [/inserted] [deleted] so then I became Junior and he became Senior [/deleted] [page break] He was a [deleted] ban [/deleted] clerk in peace time with thoughts of starting a newspaper business after the war. The bomb-aimer a tiny [inserted] apparently timid, [/inserted] Lincolnshire lad, [inserted] affect called R. [/inserted] who was to prove one of the mainstays of the crew, [deleted] was so much like an intrepid aviator as Richard Gouldin. [/deleted] He was an Air Force regular and more than pulled his weight in the crew [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] [inserted] with [/inserted] his super-abundance of common-sense. Another point in his favour was that he [deleted] was a [/deleted] [inserted] had covered [/inserted] navigation [deleted] bomb aimer [/deleted] [inserted] in his course [/inserted] so we really carried two navigators. The wireless operator [deleted] was [/deleted] an Australian clerk named Ross, was a chap who didn’t conceal his nervousness at flying but [page break] who never let it interfere with his job in the air. More than once his consciention [sic] helped us greatly. The mid-upper gunner, Col, an Aussie bank-clerk, a typical happy-go-lucky type but who was far from casual in the air and, Mac, the Aussie rear-gunner whom we were to lose in the near future. He was never the type for air-crew as we found out to our sorrow. Myself, well I’m a Lancashire lad, an ex-ground staff fitter and still possessing the keeness [sic] which had matured out of [deleted] many [/deleted] [inserted] several [/inserted] years trying to get into an aircrew. I had joined the RAF in a burst of patriotism straight from school. [page break] Well, that’s the mob you’re going to hear about, not a very outstanding lot you may say, but welded together from the start by mutual [deleted] self [/deleted] confidence [deleted] in each other [/deleted] and respect. I have always thought that it was this team spirit both at work and play which enabled us to succeed where better individuals have failed. The first week of our training was spent on the ground, going over the a/c we were about to fly and learning thoroughly the various systems and gadgets peculiar to the type and which had been passed over in our general trade training. This naturally is a boring business but none the [page break] less very necessary. [deleted] and we set about [/deleted] The big day arrived when we were to prove our theory in practice and we were given an experienced Australian instructor with the purple and white silk ribbon of the Distinguished Flying [inserted] Cross [/inserted] on his tunic. He proved to be a very able instructor and no matter what happened, and believe me there was never a dull moment, he was always the acme of coolness and helpfulness and earned himself the title of “I never mention your name” [deleted] as [/deleted] by [deleted] this was the song he [/deleted] croaking [inserted] this song [/inserted] permanently over the intercomm. [sic] His a/c was a Halifax under the letters [page break] E2 or Easy 2. These letters were to [deleted] dog [/deleted] [inserted] follow [/inserted] us throughout our flying together and they proved to be a lucky charm, I think. From that day onwards my life became a blurred mass of “Wheels up”, “Flaps up”, “2650 revs”, “30 degrees Flap,” “Wheels down,” and then as we touched or rather crashed on to the runway the skipper would say “Right off” and I would chop the throttles right back and hope that we settled down O.K. Gradually we gained more confidence and we soon lost our instructors. After an hours circuits and landings one day, the pilot and engineer instructors climbed out with a last [page break] warning “Remember to do so and so” and we were on our own. Just the six of us in this vibrating monster of the air. We felt a little dwarfed by its immensity and by all the things that [deleted] caught [/deleted] could possibly go wrong. Would a tyre burst on that first touchdown? Would I retract the flaps instead of the u/c? Would that swing to port get out of hand at take-off? Well, this was the test. We maneuvered [sic] into position at the end of the runway, slightly to the right hand side to allow for this tendency to swing to the left and the Duke said, “All O.K boys?” We all chorussed [sic] “OK Duke” [page break] and he slowly opened the throttles, left hand outboard leading slightly, and with the control column well forward to get the tail airborne. We gathered speed with no trace of the dreaded swing, the Duke was doing his stuff. The air speed indicator crept round towards the hundred mark, the tail rose and at 105 m.p.h the Duke eased her off the ground. We were airborne. All on our own in that great, noisy, world of nothingness dominated by the roaring of our four Rolls Royce Merlins. I was recalled from my reveries by the skipper “Wheels up”, “Wheels coming up,” I replied and up they came. “Flaps up,” “Flaps coming up,” the flaps came up slowly [page break] 5 degrees at a time, any faster than that and we might go straight into the ground. “Climbing power,” I change the revs and boost from take-off to climbing power and we begin [deleted] the [/deleted] to gain altitude. At 1000’ we levelled out, [inserted] CRUISING G Power [/inserted] and did our circuit, the boys were all feeling pretty happy, rotating turrets, and Ross was trying to get some dance music on the wireless. The Duke soon stopped that with a “Not now, Ross.” On the down wind leg came [inserted] R.T [/inserted] “Wheels down,” “Flap 20 degrees”, “Revs 2650” in rapid succession and we turned, slowly losing height, cross wind, “Flap 35 degrees,” and we started our approach. The Duke was calling flying control on R.T. “East 2 to Bandy – [page break] may we pancake,” back came the reply “Bandy to Easy 2 – Pancake,” “Easy 2 pancaking out.” Then came “Full flap” “Full revs.” I put these on and gave a last look at my guages. [sic] We all felt a little apprehensive, things ran through my mind – did I check those tyres correctly?, is the u/c locked down securely? and then we touched with our wheels at the end of the runway. “Right off” shouted the Duke [deleted] and [/deleted] little anxiously, I chopped the throttles and after a couple of bounces [inserted] we [/inserted] settled down nicely to a straight run down the runway. We looked at each other and grinned, it was all over and our first solo flight together [page break] was a success. Then just as we turned off the runway the port tyre burst! Why hadn’t it burst on landing? We couldn’t say, but that wasn’t the only bit of luck we had! A couple of days after, a sleety, rainbowy sort of day, we had to go down south to pick up one of [deleted] over flight [/deleted] [inserted] a [/inserted] V.I.P. [deleted] commanders [/deleted] We took our instructor with us and flew all the way down at 500’ as vis. was very poor. We arrived there after a bit of frantic map reading and just scraped in on the very short runway. The V.I.P. came aboard and off we belted again. We [deleted] came [/deleted] [inserted] tore [/inserted] down the runway [deleted] on [/deleted] staggered into the air and [page break] looked with horror at the hill looming up in front of us! The V.I.P. turned round to my panel and retracted the radiator flaps! Such was the state of the poor old Halifax. On the way back we ran into snow and a little icing. The VIP tapped our instructor on the shoulder and yelled “Look at the ice on the mainplanes.” Our instructor glanced nonchalantly at the erring mainplane and bellowed back, “I think she can just [inserted] about [/inserted] carry the extra weight,” the V.I.P, mollified, sat down again. We just happened, by chance, to find our own drome again and came in for a landing. It was just about the worst the Duke ever made – and that’s saying [page break] something. We kangarooed down that runway, swung from side to side, but finally managed to straighten up somehow. The Duke looked round with a relieved expression to see the V.I.P. quite safe, standing there with a worried expression [deleted] The V.I.P. [/deleted] He said, [inserted] with a sickly grin [/inserted] “I think you’re trying to scare me”. Our next venture was a solo day x-country. It was a dull day with 10/10ths cloud, and we took off feeling as dull as the weather. We climbed steadily and then, with a thrill I have experienced many times since yet never tired of, we broke into the world over the cloud. What a difference it makes. Our dull feelings [page break] were immediately transformed into [deleted] on to [/deleted] [inserted] ones of [/inserted] elation and a feeling of bouyancy [sic] at the grandeur of the scene. The cloud tops, snow white and billowy with an occasional cu-nimb towering above the rest, all [deleted] lit [/deleted] [inserted] tinted [/inserted] with a [deleted] ruddy [/deleted] [inserted] rose-like [/inserted] glow from the sun. We climbed steadily, the oxygen coming on at 10,000, until we reached 20,000 when we reduced to cruising revs., put the automatic pilot in and settled back to do our jobs quietly and comfortably. Everything went smoothly until about halfway home when Senior said, “The G. box has gone for a burton, Duke, and I’ve only the vaguest clue where we are”. This was the one and only time Senior [page break] was void of clues “Oh,” said the Duke, “that’s bloody brilliant get Ross on the intercomm”. [sic] The wireless op is generally off the intercomm [sic] attending to his broadcasts. Ross came on with “Want me, Duke?” “Yes, Ross, try and get a Q.D.M. for base will you.” [deleted] said the skipper. [/deleted] Ross’ next words shook us a bit, “Sorry Duke but the sets u/s, I’m working on it now.” “Christ, this is shakey do, we’d better get down and try and map read home.” said the Duke. Down we went and after several minutes of the always horrible sensation of passing through cloud – it’s just like driving a car in a thick fog, you keep expecting something to [page break] loom up and hit you, we broke cloud right over a big town. We didn’t have time to identify before Col came on with, “Better get up, Duke, there’s bloody barrage balloons all round us.” Indeed there was and there was no time wasted in getting full power on and up through the cloud again. “Hasn’t anybody got a clue where we are,” asked Duke. “Not [deleted] a [/deleted] [inserted] the [/inserted] bloody [deleted] clue [/deleted] [inserted] vaguest [/inserted] came Senior’s voice. and we all felt a bit worried as the petrol was not too plentiful. We bashed along for five minutes more, “How’s the juice, Junior.” asked Duke. “About another half hour,” I replied after consulting my log. The Duke looked [page break] a bit serious, “If we don’t find out where we are soon, I don’t fancy our chances of getting back to base,” he said. Another five long silent minutes and then a voice came on the intercomm, [sic] a voice which seemed more pleasing than Stuart Hibberd’s at that moment. It was Ross, he said, “O.K. Duke, I’ve got a Q.D.M. It is two five zero for 18 minutes.” The Duke relaxed, adjusted the course on the compass and said “Good show, Ross.” Twenty minutes later we were on the deck feeling as though we had earned our tea, we had triumphed over our first spot of bother, almost veterans! Our next trip was a [page break] diversionary stooge for the main force. We took off in the late afternoon, climbed to 21,000 and headed for the north west German coast over the North Sea. This was our first view of a bomber stream, it was very exciting to see a/c of all shapes and sizes, all around us, all heading towards Germany in the fast fading light. We were a little annoyed on looking up to find a Wellington 1000’ above us. Hardly the thing for the elite Halifax crew to have to give best to a poor measly Wimpey. Still our kite wasn’t the best and we couldn’t stagger one foot higher than our 21,000. [page break] We droned on and soon saw our first enemy flak as some of our [inserted] main force [/inserted] bombers crossed the coast. It looked very frightening to us poor learners, lighting up the clouds with its wicked flashes. The skipper warned the gunners, “There may be fighters about here boys so keep your eyes skinned,” “O.K. Duke,” came the reply and Col and Mac returned to their vigil, straining eyes out into the seemingly impenetrable gloom, moving their turrets this way and that, protecting our vulnerable tail from the Boche. It’s a very comforting feeling to have to [sic] good gunners behind you. [page break] Just before the coast we turned and started back for home. On our starboard below us, a Lancaster was spiralling slowly down with two motors on fire and black smoke pouring out of it. That was the first kill we had seen going down and we shivered a little and renewed our search of the dark heavens expecting any minute to see tracer come hurtling out of the gloom towards us. We regained our own coast uneventfully and started our “bullseye.” This is an exercise for training bomber crews, A.A. crews and fighter crews and consists of mock attacks by fighters and interceptions by searchlights [page break] There are certain rules to obey - no evasive action to be taken from searchlights, if you want them to shut down flash your downward ident light. If you spot the fighter closing in you flash a torch at it, and if he sees you without you seeing him he flashes his landing light. A bit farcical but quite good training. We crossed the coast and up came the master beam of the searchlights. Just like an octupus’ [sic] tentacle feeling round in the sky for us and just as loathsome. The beam came closer and closer until it finally caught us and everything was bathed in a brilliant bluish light. The moral effect [page break] of searchlights is very great. It makes you feel as if everyone in the world can see you, as if you were the one and only target of all the fighters and flack in the district. The beam held us for a few minutes and then wandered off in search of new victims. We saw no fighters that night. We also had a practice bombing but returned thankfully to base when we couldn’t contact them on R.T. – it is not a very pleasant spot to be circling, a bombing range at night there are too many collisions. We finished our night circuits and landings and took off on our final night [page break] x-country prior to conversion on to Lancasters. We took off into a very dark night and soon levelled out at 20,000. It feels very lonely up there at night in the gloom of the cabin, [deleted] with [/deleted] only broken the [deleted] th [/deleted] gleaming luminous dials of the instruments. We had just turned on to our second leg when I noticed a sharp fluctuation on the starboard outer radiator temperature gauge. At this moment the Duke shouted, “What the bloody hell’s the matter with this engine, Junior.” For a moment my mind went a complete blank and I tried in vain to picture the instructions which had been pounded into me from the very [page break] first. I can remember vividly the feeling of helplessness and I wondered how I would be like on ops. if I panicked now. I pulled myself together and said as calmly as I could “It’s O.K. Duke I’m watching it.” I glanced out of the cabin and saw that sparks and flames were coming from the exhausts. “Don’t let the damn thing catch fire Junior” said the skipper. I took a final glance at the temperature gauge – it was right off the clock and the kite was starting to swing to starboard as the power failed. “I’m afraid I’ll have to feather it, Duke.” “O.K Junior carry on” came the reply. My head cleared at last and the feathered drill came [page break] easily to my mind. – Fuel, I turned off the engine master cock, revs through the gate, throttle back and I pressed the feathering button. The rev counter dropped slowly back to zero and there was the [deleted] prop [/deleted] airscrew straight and stark and useless. With the motor the g. box had gone and we were almost without navigational aids “Well, boys, what shall we do,” said the Duke, “Lob down at the first drome we come [deleted] could [/deleted] to or try and get back.” The majority [deleted] was [/deleted] [inserted] were [/inserted] in favour of getting down and not risking getting lost so we reduced power and slowly circled the height off. We went into cloud [page break] at 2,000 feet and Duke asked, “What’s the high ground round here Senior,” “About 1500 as far as I know” said the navigator, “ I should break cloud very slowly” “Okey doke”. Down we circled and called on the R.T. “Hello Blackie Hello Blackie this is Juneday calling, this is Juneday calling”. – the standard distress procedure. No reply. We tried again. All the time we were enveloped in the thick veil of cloud, our navigation showing eerily against the opaque mass. I can tell you I didn’t feel too good about, breaking cloud on three motors and not being sure of the height of ground. [page break] At last a faint reply was heard, “Hallo aircraft calling can we help you.” At this moment we broke cloud into pouring rain. [deleted] it [/deleted] I glanced at the thermometer, it was zero, I told the skipper, it was a bad temperature for the dreaded glazed ice. He said “Yes its bloody bad but we can’t do much about it” and then, “Hello Blackie can you land a 4 motor aircraft. We have only 3 motors” “Hello aircraft calling. Yes you may land here Q.D.M. 325 Q.D.M. 325.” “Hello Blackie, thank you coming in.” the Duke replied. At this moment we ran into a patch of cloud and lost the aerodrome lights which were coming into view. When we broke [page break] out again a different ‘drome was calling. “Hello Blackie can we help you, can we help you.” The voice was very faint so we decided to turn and try out locate our first drome. After a couple of minutes we sighted the lights, very indistinct even at 1000 ft in the pouring rain. We descended to 500 and rockets started coming up to mark the end of the runway. At the last turn in on to the approach we lost the lights and made our approach very high. The Duke stuck the nose down but too late, we were too far down the runway to make a safe landing. “Overshoot” he yelled [deleted] the Duke [/deleted] I jammed [page break] the throttles open and whipped the wheels up and crossed my fingers wondering whether she’d take it on three motors. For one horrible moment she seemed to hover, vibrating from stem to stern. I glanced at the A.S.I – 100 mph – a little too near the stalling speed I thought. I whipped 5 degrees of flap off and the speed began to build up under our thankful eyes. We had made it. We made another circuit and and [sic] managed to get in O.K kangarooing rather badly. We breathed our sighs of thankfulness and followed the taxy van to our dispersal. The next day we went [page break] down to the kite and found that there had been a leak in the cooling system and not a drop of coolant was left in the motor. We spent all day taking conducted tours over the “mighty bomber” as the drome was a Wellington O.T.U. and the boys were very interested in the kite they would probably be flying in a few weeks. The lads had a bit of fun in the mess that lunchtime, Col shooting a deadly line to a WAAF sergeant who thought we had been on ops. We had to wait until the 1 o’clock news to find out where we’d been and, according to Col, [deleted] the [/deleted] we had had more opposition that night than Bomber [page break] Command had had in all its years of operating. The glib way he told of fighters, rockets flack and searchlights with the Duke backing him up caused the rest of us considerable amusement. The WAAF sergeant began to get a little wise, I think, for she asked where was the other member of the crew. (Mac had stayed at base as he was sick) Col casually mentioned that he had bailed out over the Channel. The Halifax had no mid-upper turret but, according to the boys, it had been retracted. We stayed there four days snow-bound and in the end went back by train. We felt very operational marching through London [page break] in full flying kit carrying our Mae Wests and ‘chutes. I shall never forget when we were sitting in the Sally Anne having a cup of tea a policeman asked Col “Come down mate,” Col replied “Yes chum, we lost our rear gunner over the Channel.” We got another tea on the strength of it! Back again, we packed our grips and embarked upon the next stage of our training Lancaster Finishing School. We got really stuck in to it then as this was the kite we were to operate on. The usual ground school, and then eight hours flying, circuits and landings, fighter affiliation, and practice bombing and we were regarded as the [page break] big operational types with just a couple of night cross countries to do, a few circuits and landings and then the real thing. I think we all felt a little apprehensive as to how we would react to the nerve strain and other rigours of operational flying. I know I did, I was horribly afraid of a cowardly streak coming out or my nerves not being able to stand the strain. I think the real fear is that you will let your crew, [inserted] down [/inserted] boys who had grown into [deleted] f [/deleted] more than friends by now You feel very close to one another when you’re flying in the same crew. We arrived at our squadron with two other crews, signed [page break] in at our various sections and had our aircraft assigned to us. Ours was a veteran of 45 operations and the letter was E.2 We were to learn that every time we flew in another aircraft something went wrong. I remember sitting in the crew bus on our arrival and watching the operational crews coming down the road with their thermos flasks of hot tea and getting a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach as I wondered how many times we would leave this place and, more important, how many times we would return. Before starting to operate we had a few night circuits and x countries [page break] to do. We were hurried through these in a week doing 5 1/2 hours solid circuits and bumps one night. 5 1/2 hours of “Wheels up” “Wheels down” and then the shock as we hit the runway none too lightly. I became almost an automaton. At last came the big moment when at 10 o’clock one morning in April the Duke came into my section looking a bit tense “We’re on tonight, Junior, get the stuff out and get on with your checks” he said. I went with Ross and Senior and loaded the ‘chutes, harnesses and Mae Wests into the crew bus which took us out to our aircraft. She was all [page break] ready and the corporal in charge of our ground crew, Len, a big capable hardworking Australian looked a bit doubtful when he realised his previous E2 was to be entrusted to a sprog crew. [deleted] We didn’t know then but we were soon to know that [/deleted] Those ground crew boys never let us down once during the whole tour of flying their aircraft we never had one mechanical failure. [deleted] More over [/deleted] We lost Mac, our rear gunner, the same day. We noticed he had been looking a bit seedy during fighter affiliation a couple of times and the Duke had said to me that he didn’t think Mac [page break] was cut out for his job. The previous night an aircraft had come back from ops pretty badly shot up and the rear turret had been practically torn to pieces. The rear gunner lost both his legs. That finished Mac. He went straight to the C.O. and applied for a ground job. It was a sensible thing to do and we were very glad he had not left it any later when he might have let us down although it meant taking spare gunners for a few trips until a new one could be posted to us. Our gunner for that night was a London lad, who had done nine trips called Curly. I finished my checks [page break] and wandered over to lunch. I didn’t eat much. We discussed the possibilities of the target, where could we go on 1600 gallons. The Ruhr? Central France? or would it be farther into Germany? We didn’t know but we sincerely hoped that Happy Valley would be left until we were a little more experienced. Main briefing was scheduled for 19.00 and we arrived at 18.30, a little worked up by this time after an afternoon of speculation. We entered the briefing room and there stretched across the map of Europe was our course marked [deleted] in [/deleted] [inserted] with a [/inserted] red cord. The cords led to a marshalling yard just south of Paris. We felt a [page break] little better. Not so much flak round there anyway. We drew our escape aids and [inserted] flying [/inserted] rations and sat [deleted] to [/deleted] down to wait for the briefing. The various sections ran over their gen. Met:- a clear, moonlight night not so good Intell:- giving details of flak and fighter opposition – not too bad [deleted] and [/deleted] Flying Control:- giving our runway for take off and beacon letters. The section leaders Gunnery Bombing and Engineer giving their instructions to the crews and finally the C.O. with our take-off times, routes, heights and tactics. The C.O. finished with a ”Good Luck Chaps,” and off we hurried, chewing madly at our gum to the locker rooms to change [page break] into our flying clothing. The Duke, myself, Senior and Ross only needed flying boots and a pullover but Robbie, Col, and Curly all needed their electrically heated suits as the cabin heating didn’t reach them. We changed, got into the crew bus, and were taken out to our kite. We ran the motors up, did a final check on navigational equipment and turrets and settled down to an hour’s wait for take off. That’s just about the worse time. You sit and talk and laugh too much trying to hide your real feelings but it is a necessary evil to give the ground crew a chance to rectify any snags which [page break] might crop up during the final run up. Nine o’clock was our take off time so at ten to we started our engines and taxied into the line of waiting A/c at the end of the runway. Just in front of us was Jock, one of the crews whom we had trained with and who was also doing his first trip. He taxied on, got a green from flying control and started off lumbering down the runway. He got airborne but [deleted] he [/deleted] we saw he was flying very port wing low. We taxied on, cleared our motors and slowly opened them up. Well, this was it, there was no turning back now. That 14,000 lbs of bombs didn’t feel so healthy right underneath either. We got half-way down the runway when the whole sky was lit up by a huge, orange explosion. The Duke mutters “Jesus, someones [sic] hit the deck. I hope it isn’t Jock.” [inserted] MCKENZIE [/inserted] We were to learn later that it was indeed Jock who had been unable [page break] [duplicate page] [page break] [inserted] Bottom of back cover page [/inserted] No. 1 SERGEANTS’ MESS ROYAL AIR FORCE STATION HEMSWELL GAINSBOROUGH LINCOLNSHIRE to get his port wing up and had gone straight in. They were all killed. [inserted] Dad converted to Lancasters at Hemswell [/inserted] [page break] [blank page] [page break] Flight Engineer Don Gray, DFM This is the story of a bomber crew, a main force crew, just an ordinary common or garden crew of seven ordinary blokes who derived great pleasure on seeing jerries towns or railways or oil installations go up in quite a large cloud of smoke. I will start my story at Heavy Conversion Unit, Blyton, Lincolnshire because that was where, I being an engineer, merged into the story. These units are manned by instructors who have generally completed an operational tour and the aircraft are obsolescent types of 4 engined bombers which serve quite well in accustoming crews fresh from two motor aircraft to the intricacies of the multi motor types. One fine morning, in the beginning of January 1944, seven engineers and myself were ushered into a large room full of engineerless crews. After the usual pep talk the skippers name and his engineers were read out. I drew a tall, instantly likeable, rangy Aussie out of the hat. He was over six feet tall and in his late twenties with streaks of grey already showing in his dark curly hair. He was known to everyone as Duke and a professional golfer in civie [sic] street. The navigator, a dapper, moustached Australian had the misfortune to have the same surname and so naturally enough Senior and Junior we became. He was a clerk in peace time with thoughts of starting a newspaper business after the war. The bomb-aimer a tiny apparently timid, Lincolnshire lad, Arthur (Robbie) Robinson who was to prove one of the mainstays of the crew. He was an Air Force regular and more than pulled his weight in the crew with his super abundance of common sense. Another point in his favour was that he had covered navigation in his course so we really carried two navigators. The wireless operator an Australian clerk names Ross, was a chap who didn’t conceal his nervousness at flying but who never let it interfere with his job in the air. More than once his conscientiousness helped us greatly. The mid-upper gunner, Col, an Aussie bank clerk, a typical happy-go-lucky type but who was far from casual in the air and, Mac, the Aussie rear-gunner who we were to lose in the near future. He was never the type for air crew as we found out to our sorrow. Myself, well I’m a Lancashire lad, an ex-ground staff fitter and still possessing the keenness which had matured out of several years trying to get into an aircrew. I had joined the R.A.F. in a burst of patriotism straight from school. Well, that’s the mob you’re going to hear about. Not a very outstanding lot you may say, but welded together from the start by mutual self confidence and respect. I have always thought that it was this team spirit, both at work and play, which enabled us to succeed where better individuals have failed. The first week of our training was spent on the ground, going over the aircraft we were about to fly and learning thoroughly the various systems and gadgets peculiar to the type and which had been passed over in our general trade training. This naturally is a boring business but none the less very necessary. [page break] The big day arrived when we were to prove our theory in practice and we were given an experienced Australian instructor with the purple and white silk ribbon of the Distinguished Flying Cross on his tunic. He proved to be a very able instructor and no matter what happened, and believe me there was never a dull moment, he was always the acme of coolness and helpfulness and earned himself the title of “I never mention your name” by croaking this song permanently over the intercom. His aircraft was a Halifax under the letters E2 or Easy 2. These letters were to follow us throughout our flying together and they proved to be a lucky charm, I think. From that day onwards my life became a blurred mass of “wheels up”, “Flaps up”, ‘2650 revs’, ‘30 degrees Flap,’ ‘Wheels down’ and then as we touched, or rather crashed, onto the runway the skipper would say ‘Right off’ and I would chop the throttles right back and hope that we settled down O.K. Gradually we gained more confidence and we soon lost our instructors. After an hours circuits and landings one day the pilot and engineer instructors climbed out with a last warning ‘Remember to do so and so’ and we were on our own. Just the six of us in this vibrating monster of the air. We felt a little dwarfed by its immensity and by all the things that could possibly go wrong. Would a tyre burst on that first touchdown? would I retract the flaps instead of the undercarriage? would that swing to port get out of hand at take-off? Well, this was the test. We manoeuvred into position at the end of the runway, slightly to the right-hand side to allow for this tendency to swing to the left and the Duke said, ‘All O.K boys?’ We all chorused ‘O.K. Duke’ and we slowly opened the throttles, left hand outboard leading slightly and with the control column well forward to get the tail airborne. We gathered speed with no trace of the dreaded swing, the duke was doing his stuff. The air speed indicator crept round towards the hundred mark, the tail rose and at 105 m.p.h. the Duke eased her off the ground. We were airborne. All on our own in that great, noisy world of nothingness dominated by the roaring of our four Rolls Royce Merlins. I was recalled from my reveries by the skipper ‘Wheels up’, ‘Wheels coming up’ I replied and up they came, ‘Flaps up’ ‘Flaps coming up’, the flaps came up slowly 5 degrees at a time, any faster than that and we might go straight into the ground. ‘Humbug power’. I change the revs and boost from take off to climbing power and we begin to gain altitude. At 1000’ we levelled out, cruising G power and did our circuit, the boys were all feeling pretty happy, rotating turrets and Ross was trying to get some dance music on the wireless. The Duke soon stopped that with a “Not now, Ross.” On the down wind leg came R.T. ‘Wheels down’ ‘Flap 20 degrees’ ‘Revs 2650’ in rapid succession and we turned slowly, losing height, cross wind, ‘Flap 35 degrees, and we started our approach. The Duke was calling flying control on R.T. ‘Easy 2 to Bandy, may we pancake?’ back came the reply ‘Bandy to Easy 2 Pancake’ ‘Easy 2 pancaking out’. Then came ‘Full flap, Full revs’. I put these on and gave a last look at my gauges. We all felt a little apprehensive, things ran through my mind – did I check those tyres correctly?, is the undercarriage locked down securely? And then we touched with our wheels at the end of the runway. ‘Right off’ shouted the Duke a little anxiously, I chopped the throttles and after a couple of bounces we settled down nicely to a straight run down the runway. We looked at each other and grinned, it was all over and our first solo flight together was a success. Then just as we turned off the runway the port tyre burst! Why hadn’t it burst on landing? We couldn’t say, but that wasn’t the only bit of luck we had! [page break] A couple of days after, a sleety, rainbowy sort of day, we had to go down south to pick up a V.I.P. We took our instructor with us and flew all the way down at 500’ as visibility was very poor. We arrived there after a bit of frantic map reading and just scraped in on the very short runway. The V.I.P. came aboard and off we belted again. We tore down the runway, staggered into the air, and looked at horror at the hill looming up in front of us! The V.I.P. turned round to my panel and retracted the radiator flaps! Such was the state of the poor old Halifax. On the way back we ran into snow and a little icing. The V.I.P. tapped our instructor on the should [sic] and yelled ‘look at the ice on the mainplanes’. Our instructor glanced nonchalantly at the erring mainplane and bellowed back, ‘I think she can just about carry the extra weight’. The V.I.P., mollified, sat down again. We just happened by chance to find our own drome again and came in for a landing. It was just about the worst the Duke ever made – and that’s saying something. We kangarooed down that runway, swinging from side to side, but finally managed to straighten up somehow. The Duke looked round with a relieved expression to see the V.I.P. quite safe, standing there with a worried expression. He said, with a sickly grin ‘I think you’re trying to scare me!’ Our next venture was a solo day x-country. It was a dull day with 9/10ths cloud and we took off feeling as dull as the weather. We climbed steadily and then, with a thrill I have experienced many times since yet never tired of, we broke into the world over the cloud. What a difference it makes. Our dull feelings were immediately transformed into ones of elation and a feeling of buoyancy at the grandeur of the scene. The cloud tops snow white and billowy with an occasional cu-nimb towering above the rest, all tinted with a rose-like glow from the sun. We climbed steadily, the oxygen coming on at 10,000’, until we reached 20,000’ when we reduced to cruising revs, put the automatic pilot in and settled back to do our jobs quietly and comfortably. Everything went smoothly until about halfway home when Senior said, ‘The G-box has gone for a burton, Duke, and I’ve only the vaguest clue where we are’. This was the one and only time Senior was void of clues. ‘Oh’ said the Duke, ‘that’s bloody brilliant get Ross on the intercom’. The wireless op is generally off the intercom attending to his broadcasts. Ross came on with ‘Want me, Duke?’ ‘Yes, Ross, try and get a Q.D.M. for base will you.’ Ross’ next words shook us a bit, ‘Sorry Duke, but the sets U/S. I’m working on it now’. ‘Christ, this is shakey do, we’d better get down and try and map read home’, said the Duke. Down we went and after several minutes of the always horrible sensation of passing through cloud – it’s just like driving a car in a thick fog, you keep expecting something to loom up and hit you – we broke cloud right over a big town. We didn’t have time to identify before Col came on with, ‘Better get up, Duke, there’s bloody barrage balloons all round us’. Indeed there was and there was no time wasted in getting full power on and up through the cloud again. ‘Hasn’t anybody got a clue where we are?’ asked Duke. ‘Not the bloody vaguest’ came Senior’s voice. and we all felt a bit worried as the petrol was not too plentiful. We bashed along for five minutes more, ‘How’s the juice, Junior?’ asked Duke, ‘About another half hour’ I replied after consulting my log. The Duke looked a bit serious, ‘If we don’t find out where we are soon I don’t fancy our chances of getting back to base’ he said. Another 5 long silent minutes and then a voice came on the intercom, a voice which seemed more pleasing than Stuart Hibberd’s at that moment. It was Ross, he said ‘O.K. Duke I’ve got a Q.D.M. It is two five zero for 18 minutes. The Duke relaxed, adjusted the course on the compass and said ‘Good show Ross’. Twenty minutes later we were on the deck feeling as though we had earned our tea, we had triumphed over our first spot of bother, almost veterans! [page break] Our next trip was a diversionary stooge for the main force. We took off in the late afternoon, climbed to 21,000’ and headed for the north west German coast over the North Sea. This was our first view of a bomber stream, it was very exciting to see a/c of all shapes and sizes, all around us, all heading towards Germany in the fast fading light. We were a little annoyed on looking up to find a Wellington 1,000’ above us. Hardly the thing for the elite Halifax crew to give best to a poor measly Wimpey. Still our kite wasn’t the best and we couldn’t stagger one foot higher than our 21,000’. We droned on and soon saw our first enemy flak as some of our main force bombers crossed the coast. It looked very frightening to us poor learners, lighting up the clouds with its wicked flashes. The skipper warned the gunners ‘There may be fighters about here, boys, so keep your eyes skinned’. ‘O.K. Duke’ came the reply and Col and Mac returned to their vigil, straining eyes out into the seemingly impenetrable gloom, moving their turrets this way and that, protecting our vulnerable land from the Boche. It’s a very comforting feeling to have two good gunners behind you. Just before the coast we turned and started back for home. On our starboard below us, a Lancaster was spiralling slowly down with two motors on fire and black smoke pouring out of it. That was the first kill we had seen going down and we shuddered a little and renewed our search of the dark heavens expecting any minute to see tracer come hurtling out of the gloom towards us. We regained our own coast uneventfully and started our ‘bullseye’. This is an exercise for training bomber crews, A.A. crews and fighter crews and consists of mock attacks by fighters and interceptions by searchlights. There are certain rules to obey - no evasive action to be taken from searchlights if you want them to shut down flash your downward ident light. If you spot the fighter closing in you flash a torch at it and if he sees you without you seeing him he flashes his landing light. A bit farcical but quite good training. We crossed the coast and up came the master beam of the searchlights. Just like an octopus tentacle feeling around in the sky for us and just as loathsome. The beam came closer and closer until it finally caught us and everything was bathed in a brilliant bluish light. The moral effect of searchlights is very great. It makes you feel as if everyone in the world can see you, as if you were the one and only target of all the fighters and flack in the district. The beam held us for a few minutes and then wandered off in search of new victims. We saw no fighters that night. We also had a practice bombing but returned thankfully to base when we couldn’t contact them on RT – it is not a very pleasant spot to be circling a bombing range at night there are too many collisions. We finished our night circuits and landings and took off on our final night x-country prior to conversion on to Lancasters. We took off into a very dark night and soon levelled out at 20,000’. It feels very lonely up there at night in the gloom of the cabin, only broken by the gleaming luminous dials of the instruments. We had just turned on to our second leg when I noticed a sharp fluctuation on the starboard outer radiator temperature gauge. At this moment the Duke shouted, ‘What the bloody hells the matter with this engine, Junior?’ For a moment my mind went a completed blank and I tried in vain to picture the instructions which had been pounded into me from the very first. I can remember vividly the feeling of helplessness and I wondered how I would be like on ops if I panicked now. [page break] I pulled myself together and said as calmly as I could ‘It’s O.K. Duke I’m watching it’. I glanced out of the cabin and saw that sparks and flames were coming from the exhausts. ‘Don’t let the damn thing catch fire Junior’ said the skipper. I took a final glance – it was now right off the clock and the kite was starting to swing to starboard as the power failed. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to feather it, Duke’, ‘O.K Junior, carry on’ came the reply. My head cleared at last and the feathered drill came easily to my mind. – Fuel, I turned off the engine master cock, revs through the gate, throttle back and I pressed the feathering button. The rev counter dropped slowly back to zero and there was the airscrew straight and stark and useless. With the motor the g-box had gone and we were almost without navigational aids ‘Well, boys, what shall we do?’ said the Duke, ‘Lob down at the first drome we come to or try and get back?’ The majority were in favour of getting down and not risking getting lost, so we reduced power and slowly circled the height off. We went into cloud at 2,000’ and Duke asked, ‘What’s the high ground round here, Senior?’ ‘About 1500’ as far as I know’ said the Navigator ‘I should break cloud very slowly’, ‘Okey dokey’. Down we circled and called on the R.T. ‘Hello Blackie, Hello Blackie this is Juneday calling, this is Juneday calling’ – the standard distress procedure. No reply. We tried again. All the time we were enveloped in the thick veil of cloud, our navigator showing eerily against the opaque mass. I can tell you I didn’t feel too good about breaking cloud on three motors and not being sure of the height of ground! At last a faint reply was heard, ‘Hello aircraft calling, can we help you?’ At this moment we broke cloud into pouring rain. I glanced at the thermometer, it was zero. I told the skipper it was a bad temperature for the dreaded glazed ice. He said ‘Yes its bloody bad but we can’t do much about it' and then ‘Hello Blackie can you land a 4 motor aircraft. We have only 3 motors’. ‘Hello aircraft calling. Yes you may land here QDM 325, QDM 325.’ ‘Hello Blackie, thank you, coming in’ the Duke replied. At this moment we ran into a patch of cloud and lost the aerodrome lights which were coming into view. When we broke out again a different ‘drome was calling. ‘Hello Blackie can we help you, can we help you?’ The voice was very faint, so we decided to turn and try and locate our first drome. After a couple of minutes we sighted the lights, very indistinct even at 1000’ in the pouring rain. We descended to 500’ and rockets started coming up to mark the end of the runway. At the last turn in on to the approach we lost the lights and made our approach very high. The duke stuck the nose down but too late, we were too far down the runway to make a safe landing. ‘Overshoot’ he yelled. I rammed the throttles open and whipped the wheels up and crossed my fingers wondering whether she’d make it on three motors. For one horrible moment she seemed to hover, vibrating from stem to stern. I glanced at the A.S.I. – 100 mph – a little too near the stalling speed, I thought. I whipped 5 degrees of flap off and the speed began to build up under our thankful eyes. We had made it. We made another circuit and managed to get in OK, kangarooing rather badly. We breathed our sighs of thankfulness and followed the taxy van to our dispersal. The next day we went down to the kite and found that there had been a leak in the cooling system and not a drop of coolant was left in the motor. We spent all day taking conducted tours over the ‘mighty bomber’ as the drome was a Wellington O.T.U. and the boys were very interested in the kite they would be flying in a couple of weeks. [page break] The lads had a bit of fun in the mess that lunchtime, Col shooting a deadly line to a WAAF sergeant who thought we had been on ops. We had to wait until the 1 o’clock news to find out where we’d been and, according to Col, we had had more opposition that night than Bomber Command had had in all its years of operating. The glib way he told of fighters, rockets, flack and searchlights with the Duke backing him up caused the rest of us considerable amusement. The WAAF sergeant began to get a little wise, I think, for she asked where was the other member of the crew? (Mac had stayed at base as he was sick) Col casually mentioned that he had bailed out over the Channel. The Halifax had no mid-upper turret but, according to the boys, it had been retracted. We stayed there four days snow bound and in the end went back by train. We felt very operational marching through London in full flying kit carrying our Mae Wests and ‘chutes. I shall never forget when we were sitting in the Sally Anne having a cup of tea a policeman asked Col ‘Come down mate?’ Col replied ‘Yes chum, we lost our rear gunner over the Channel.’ We got another tea on the strength of it! Back again, we packed our grips and embarked upon the next stage of our training, Lancaster Finishing School. We got really stuck in to it then as this was the kite we were to operate on. The usual ground school, and then eight hours flying circuits and landings, fighter affiliation and practical bombing and we were regarded as the big operational types with just a couple of night cross countries to do, a few circuits and landings and then the real thing. I think we all felt a little apprehensive as to how we would react to the nerve strain and other rigours of operational flying. I know I did. I was horribly afraid of a cowardly streak coming out or my nerves not being able to stand the strain. I think the real fear is that you will let your crew down, boys who had grown into more than friends by now. You feel very close to one another when you’re flying in the same crew. We arrived at our squadron with two other crews, signed in at our various sections and had our aircraft assigned to us. Ours was a veteran of 45 operations and the letter was E2. We were to learn that every time we flew in another aircraft something went wrong. I remember sitting in the crew bus on our arrival and watching the operational crews coming down the road with their thermos flasks of hot tea and getting a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach as I wondered how many times we would leave this place and more important, how many times we would return. Before starting to operate we had a few night circuits and x countries to do. We were hurried through these in a week doing 5 1/2 hours solid circuit and bumps one night, 5 1/2 hours of ‘Wheels up’ ‘Wheels down’ and then the shock as we hit the runway none too lightly. I became almost and [sic] automaton. At last came the big moment when at 10 o’clock one morning in April, the Duke came into my section looking a bit tense. ‘We’re on tonight, Junior, get the stuff out and get on with your checks’, he said. I went with Ross and Senior and loaded the chutes, harnesses and Mae Wests into the crew bus which took us out to our aircraft. She was all ready and the corporal in charge of our ground crew, Len, a big, capable, hardworking Australian looked a bit doubtful when he realised his previous E2 was to be entrusted to a sprog crew. Those ground crew boys never let us down once during the whole tour of flying their aircraft, we never had one mechanical failure. [page break] We lost Mac, our rear gunner, the same day. We noticed he had been looking a bit seedy during fighter affiliation a couple of times and the Duke had said to me that he didn’t think Mac was cut out for his job. The previous night an aircraft had come back from ops pretty badly shot up and the rear turret had been practically torn to pieces. The rear gunner lost both his legs. That finished Mac. He went straight to the C.O. and applied for a ground job. It was a sensible thing to do and we were very glad he had not left it any later when he might have let us down although it meant taking spare gunners for a few trips until a new one could be posted to us. Our gunner for that night was a London lad who had done nine trips called Curly. I finished my checks and wandered over to lunch. I didn’t eat much. We discussed the possibilities of the target, where could we go on 1600 gallons? The Ruhr? Central France? Or would it be further into Germany? We didn’t know but we sincerely hoped that Happy Valley would be left until we were a little more experienced. Main briefing was scheduled for 1900 hours and we arrived at 18.30, a little worked up by this time after an afternoon of speculation. We entered the briefing room and there stretched across the map of Europe was our course marked with a red cord. The cords led to a marshalling yard just south of Paris. We felt a little better. Not so much flak round there anyway. We drew our escape aids and flying rations and sat down to wait for briefing. The various sections ran over their gen. Met - a clear moonlight night - not so good. Intell - giving details of flak and fighter opposition – not too bad. Flying Control - giving our running for take off and beacon letters. The section leaders Gunnery Bombing and Engineer giving their instructions to the crews and finally the C.O. with our take off times, routes, heights and tactics. The C.O. finished with a ‘Good Luck Chaps’ and off we hurried, chewing madly at our gum to the locker rooms to change into our flying clothing. The Duke, myself, Senior and Ross only needed flying boots and a pullover but Robbie, Col, and Curly all needed their electrically heated suits as the cabin heating didn’t reach them. We changed, got into the crew bus and were taken out to our kite. We ran the motors up, did a final check on navigational equipment and turrets and settled down to an hours wait for take off. That’s just about the worst time. You sit and talk and laugh too much trying to hide your real feelings but it is a necessary evil to give the ground crews a chance to rectify any snags which might crop up during the final run up. Nine o’clock was our take off time so at ten to we started our engines and taxied into the line of waiting a/c at the end of the runway. Just in front of us was Jock, one of the crews whom we had trained with and who was also doing his first trip. He taxied on, got a green from flying control and started off lumbering down the runway. He got airborne but we saw he was flying very port wing low. We taxied on, cleared our motors and slowly opened them up. Well this was it, there was no turning back now. That 14,000lbs of bombs didn’t feel so healthy right underneath either. We got half-way down the runway when the whole sky was lit up b [sic] a huge orange explosion. The Duke muttered ‘Jesus, someone’s hit the deck. I hope it isn’t Jock McKenzie.’ We were to learn later that it was indeed Jock who had been unable to get his port wing up and had gone straight in. They were all killed. [page break] [underlined] REMINISCENCES [/underlined] For some reason, flying over enemy territory and being shot at did not worry me unduly as I had confidence in my own ability and that of all the crew. I thoroughly enjoyed my 32 trips and was convinced that nothing could happen to us. On April 24th 1944 we had a 6 1/2 hour trip to Karlsruhe in Germany. We commenced our bombing run at 00.51 from 21,000 feet and when the Bomb Aimer shouted his usual ‘Bombs gone’ we did not feel the normal lift as the weight of the bombs left the aircraft. We turned to port to start our homeward leg and the Skipper said that the control felt heavy and asked the Bomb Aimer to check. He looked in the bomb bay and found we still had a full bomb load – they had frozen up! We did not return to the target! On August 4th 1944 we were briefed for a low level raid on the oil storage facilities and refinery at Pauillac on the west coast of France – a 7 1/2 hour trip. We were ordered to fly at 50’ – not an easy task more or less all over water including the Bay of Biscay. We saw one of our squadron misjudge the height and crash into the sea. We climbed to 8000’ to bomb which we did successfully in daylight at 18.00 hours. On another trip to Essen in the Ruhr, we were on our homeward leg and approaching the Dutch coast. We saw on our starboard side mayhem going on. There was anti-aircraft fire, searchlights and tracer from both night fighters and return fire from our bombers. The skipper remarked that some poor sods must have got off track and were getting hammered. Just then we crossed the coast, the Navigator got a fix and said ‘sorry Skipper, we are 20 miles to port of our intended flight path!’ – the sort of luck you need to survive. There were a few operations which were out of the ordinary starting with a 7 1/2 hour trip to Stettin (originally part of Germany but now part of Poland) on August 16th 1944. We flew through a violent electrical storm which arced along the wings in a Christmas decoration sort of way and we were illuminated as though we had been coned in searchlights. It was very pretty but we felt rather on view for night fighters. My crew, when I was in hospital with my shoulder wound, took a spare engineer to Hasselt on May 11th 1944. The Master Bomber aborted the mission due to weather conditions and all aircraft were ordered to bring their bombs back. The skipper landed too far down the runway, went through the perimeter fence, wiping the undercarriage off, and finished in the adjacent field resting on a bomb bay full of bombs, which fortunately did not detonate. Luckily the Flight Commander did the same thing so not too much was said. My Pilot recounts that, as the Lanc. shuddered to a halt, he heard the noise of the overhead hatch being jettisoned, and felt the engineer’s foot on his right shoulder as he disappeared into the night! 2 [page break] We spent a lot of time in the Mess, drinking or playing cards or table tennis. The Marquess of Granby pub. in Binbrook was a favourite haunt and we quite often went into Grimsby to pubs and dances. One night we were in Grimsby at a dance, having been in the pub. until 10.30, when the Service Police came in and ordered us back to camp as the A.O.C. had ordered a maximum effort on Berlin. I shudder to think what would have happened if we had gone but mercifully the weather over the target clamped and the sortie was abandoned. One of our pilots, returning with a full bomb load after an abortive sortie, was on his approach when his engineer decided that he was landing too far down the runway and closed down all the throttles. The aircraft sank like a stone and hit the runway with a bump that rattled the windows in the Control Tower. By some miracle the undercarriage held up, the tyres did not burst, and, as the Lanc. got to dispersal the Commanding Officer, Group Captain Hughie Edwards V.C. DSO. DFC drew up in his car and warmly congratulated the pilot on the finest landing with a full bomb load he had ever seen! After a drinking session, a Free French Wireless Operator went missing. He was found late the following day peacefully asleep in a ditch near the airfield with a loaf of bread under his arm half eaten by birds! I also went home whenever possible to my parent’s house and generally took one of the Aussies with me in my old Riley which was somewhat unreliable! I removed the engine at one time to do a decoke, the crew were not too happy when I did the work in the kitchen of the married quarters where we were billeted. When I reassembled the engine I found I had a few bits left over! I think this was the reason that the interior always filled up with blue smoke! This, coupled with the fogs we used to get in those days and the dubious light from the required slit headlights, made for quite an exciting ride particularly over the Cat & Fiddle! 3 [page break] [underlined] THE CREW [/underlined] PILOT F/S D.J. (DAN) CULLEN R.A.A.F. FLIGHT ENGINEER F/S D.A. (DON) GRAY R.A.F. BOMB AIMER F/S ARTHUR (ROBBIE) ROBINSON R.A.F. NAVIGATOR F/S W.H. (BILL) GREY R.A.A.F. WIRELESS OPERATOR F/S R.W.R. (ROSS) YATES R.A.A.F. MID-UPPER GUNNER F/S C.H. (COL) WHEATLEY R.A.A.F. REAR GUNNER F/S A.W. (ARTHUR) KNAPP D.F.M. R.A.A.F. [underlined] THE AIRCRAFT [/underlined] LANCASTER J.A.683 D2 [underlined] THE TARGET [/underlined] FRIEDRICHSHAFEN, LAKE CONSTANCE [underlined] THE DATE [/underlined] APRIL 27TH 1944 OUR 6TH SORTIE NARRATED BY: DON GRAY, FLIGHT ENGINEER We took off at 21.43 in the company of 18 other aircraft from 460 squadron, a total of 322 Lancaster in all were briefed to attack this target which was an important manufacturing town for tank engines and gearboxes. Everything proceeded normally until we strayed off course and were caught by heavy, predicted flak over Strasbourg, when, in spite of repeated corkscrews, we were hit in the starboard outer engine, in various parts of the airframe and the hydraulics to the mid-upper turret were severed. I was hit in the right shoulder by shrapnel which went right through and shattered the canopy above my head. Afterwards, assessing the angle the piece of metal took, it seemed impossible that it missed my head. My shoulder was numbed for a time but I managed to activate the fire extinguishers and then feather the engine. The skipper asked for a damage report from the crew and it was decided to continue to the target which we bombed all on our own at 02.19, the target being seen to be burning fiercely over a large area. We were routed out over the Swiss border and encountered some ill directed neutral flak over Swiss Territory. We were well behind the bomber stream by this time, struggling to maintain altitude, and half-way up France, I decided to balance the petrol tanks. I asked the Wireless Operator to open the balance cock to feed the port engines off the starboard tanks and immediately the three remaining engines cut out and we dropped like a stone for 1,000 feet. As it was patently obvious that the fuel line was cut, I yelled to him to return the cock to the central position and, after a deathly quiet period which seemed to last for ever, the engines picked up and we resumed our course at around 15,000 feet. My shoulder was pretty sore by this time and there seemed to be a lot of blood on the aircraft floor, but I decided, perhaps stupidly in hindsight, that we were in enough trouble and to say nothing. We passed to the west of Paris as dawn was breaking, but our luck held and no fighters appeared. The skipper then decided not to try and make base, as the port tanks were all but empty, and the Wireless Operator started to send a May Day call. This was cancelled when Tangmere (near Chichester, West Sussex) answered and we decided we had enough fuel to make it there. We landed at 05,30 in daylight, the Bomb Aimer carrying out the landing drill as by this time my arm had stiffened up. I was hospitalised for a month or so and did not rejoin my crew until the middle of June, finishing my 32-operation tour with 10 trips as a spare bod. LOSSES: MAIN FORCE 18 MISSING OUT OF 322 5.6 percent 460 SQUADRON 3 MISSING OUT OF 19 15.8 percent 4 [page break] [underlined] EXTRACT FROM THE LONDON GAZETTE DATED 8TH DECEMBER 1944 [/underlined] The King has been graciously pleased to approve the following award in recognition of gallantry and devotion to duty in the execution of air operations. [underlined] Distinguished Flying Medal 1005912 Flight Sergeant Donald Arthur GRAY, RAFVR No 460 (RAAF) Squadron [/underlined] This airman is an excellent flight engineer. He has participated in many sorties to heavily defended targets, including attacks against Cologne, Essen, Karlsruhe and Stuttgart. At all times he has displayed a marked keenness to participate in any operation, while his consistent courage, technical skill and strong tenacity of purpose have set a high example to all. On one occasion in April 1944, Flight Sergeant Gray’s aircraft was detailed for an attack against Friedrichshafen. It was hit by anti-aircraft fire on the way to the target and he was wounded in the right arm. Although suffering great pain, he continued at his post and enabled his crew to attack this vital target. Only when his aircraft had returned to this country did he inform his captain of his wound. 5 [page break] LIFE AFTER 460 SQUADRON My crew finished their tour leaving me with 10 trips to do which I missed when I was in hospital. I was not too happy to be with strange crews but all went well and I completed my 32 trips on September 27th 1944 with a sortie to harbour installations and gun emplacements at Calais. I was screened for 6 months and bored to death doing admin. jobs. Then I volunteered to train as a winch operator on a glider pick-up squadron and trained in April 1945 at No. 1 Glider Pick-up Unit Ibsley, Hants. If you do not know about this, we flew D.C.3’s equipped with a hook on an arm below the fuselage. A nylon towrope was stretched across two high posts with the glider hitched to the other end. The Dakota dived and hooked the loop of the tow rope and snatched the glider into the air. [black and white photograph of an airmen leaning out of an aircraft with a towrope in his hand] My job was to operate the winch in the aircraft which controlled the paying out of the nylon tow rope. After the glider had cast off, I winched the tow in and then leant out of the open door, hanging on to ropes, and hooked the tow rope off the arm on to the quick-release gear – a bit dicey! We were trained to snatch General Wingate’s wounded men out of jungle clearings in Burma but as we flew out to the Far East we heard he had been killed in an air crash – we were sorry but we heaved a sigh of relief! I flew from R.A.F. Lyneham in DC3. KG774 via Elmas in Sardinia, Castel Benito in Tripoli, Cairo West, Habbaniya in Iraq, Sharjah in the UAE to Mauripur, Karachi where I spent 3 blissful weeks in a transit camp playing cricket! I then boarded Empire Flying Boat Coorong at Karachi Marine air Base and lake hopped across India via Rajsamand, Gwalior and Allahabad, landing on the Ganges in Calcutta – a magical experience. We were once again in a transit camp for around 2 weeks, spent relaxing and swimming at the Victoria Baths. It was the time of the riots and we had to take care, avoiding the mobs and burning buses. The trip to Rangoon was by boat on the Ambulance Transport S.S. Rajula. We were billeted in the hospital cots below decks but soon found it was far too hot and slept on deck from then on. We had to be careful to pack our bedding up by 6 a.m. as that is when the decks were swabbed! We spent some time on Mingladon Airfield, under canvas where we picked pineapples outside our tent flap and watched carefully for scorpions which tended to make their homes in our boots. From there I was flown to Akyab an island off the Burmese coast, to 194 Squadron to rejoin my skipper, F/L C.L. Smith. From Akyab we flew in supplies to the forward troops and brought back Japanese P.O.W.’s from Myingyan, Meiktila, Toungoo, Ywataung and Magwe, the main danger being flying in the monsoons plus the odd bit of rifle fire. In my off duty hours I built a canoe by lashing bamboo together covering it with fabric and applying aircraft dope which waterproofed and stretched it. I did not have time to use it as we were posted but, as we were transported to the airfield, I saw some local boys launch it and it immediately capsized! 6 [page break] When we arrived on Akyab, we were allocated a basha – a bamboo hut built by the locals. We made our own beds out of thick bamboo poles lashed together with rope across to support the bedding. We strung mosquito netting over each bed. As we were in the monsoon season it was very hot and humid – ideal conditions for mosquitoes which were always around us in swarms. The anti-malaria drug was Nepacrine in those days which, when taken regularly, turned our skin yellow. We looked like Chinese immigrants when we arrived home! The toilet facilities were primitive – the showers were small water tanks which had a pull chain to release the water, and often we were deluged with small frogs which somehow had infiltrated the tank. The toilet facilities was a rope strung across oil drums. Creosote had been poured over the debris and set alight so that we sat in a cloud of creosote flavoured smoke. I did not hear of anyone falling in! When stationed there I bought a motorboat off a chap who had been posted, with the idea of going conger eel fishing. I found that when in the water the motor power was so poor that when against the current you were stationary! Ever been had! When flying we were given K Rations as we never landed anywhere where there was catering. These consisted of a cardboard box in which were tins of luncheon meat, dried egg, cake and orange juice. There was also a packet of biscuits with margarine and after a fortnight of this unappetising fare, we were heartily sick of it but it was that or nothing. The mess and bar were in a larger basha and was inhabited by many geckos which lurked, mainly around the lights, and cleared up a lot of flies and mosquitoes. They were very welcome. We had a camp cinema which was housed in a large Nissen hut and it was there that we first heard of the Japanese surrender. [black and white photograph of a Nissen hut] After the Americans dropped the atom bomb and the Japanese surrendered, I spent some time in charge of native loading parties at the flying boat base at Seletar, Singapore which was quite interesting because we carried out the loading and unloading with D.U.K.W.’s. The C.O. was G/C Beamish, one of the famous Irish rugby playing family, so I had a marvellous few months playing the oval ball game, generally in a sea of mud. I came home on the Capetown Castle from Singapore at the end of 1945, which was 3 weeks total luxury, and was demobbed in April 1946. I then finished my accountancy studies and worked in the family business of which I was Chairman until I retired from the day to day running of the Company in 1987 when I was 65. 7 [page break] Dad’s Sense of Humour Dad never took himself too seriously. He had a quirky sense of humour and took a delight in poking fun and highlighting the ridiculous. Life must have seemed especially good after surviving the horrors of war, flying Lancaster bombers over Germany. An extreme example of his humour, which we will never forget, occurred when we were on a family holiday in Austria. He struck up a conversation with a man in a bar who said, ‘I come from Hamburg, have you ever been to Hamburg?’ and Dad, to our horror, replied airily, ‘Oh, just a flying visit’. Fortunately they had both had a couple of beers and the conversation moved on without incident. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flight Engineer Don Gray DFM Description An account of the resource An autobiography of Don's RAF service. It includes reminiscences of specific trips, an extract on his DFM and a footnote by his son about his sense of humour. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Don Gray Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire England--Lancashire Germany Germany--Ruhr (Region) France--Paris Germany--Karlsruhe France--Pauillac (Gironde) Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay Germany--Essen Poland--Szczecin Poland Belgium--Hasselt England--Grimsby Germany--Berlin Germany--Friedrichshafen France--Strasbourg Germany--Cologne Germany--Stuttgart France--Calais England--Ringwood Burma Italy--Elmas Libya--Tripoli Egypt--Cairo Iraq--Baghdad Pakistan--Karachi India--Rājsamand (District) India--Gwalior India--Allahabad Burma--Rangoon Burma--Akyab (District) Burma--Myingyan (District) Burma--Toungoo Burma--Magwe Burma--Sagaing Singapore Austria Germany--Hamburg India--Kolkata Atlantic Ocean--North Sea France France--Pas-de-Calais Libya Egypt North Africa Burma--Ywataung Belgium India Iraq Italy United Arab Emirates Pakistan United Arab Emirates--Shāriqah Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Royal Australian Air Force Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Memoir Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 14 printed sheets 46 handwritten pages Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BGrayDAGrayDAv2, BGrayDAGrayDAv2-Transcript Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending text-based transcription. Under review Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Tricia Marshall Maureen Clarke 460 Squadron air gunner aircrew anti-aircraft fire bomb aimer briefing C-47 crash crewing up Distinguished Flying Medal flight engineer Gee ground personnel Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School mess military service conditions navigator Nissen hut Operational Training Unit pilot RAF Binbrook RAF Blyton RAF Lyneham RAF Tangmere sanitation take-off crash training Wellington wireless operator Women’s Auxiliary Air Force https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2184/38625/PSheppardIE22010063.2.jpg c886f4f3db4e122bb2f57695ed49f0f6 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2184/38625/PSheppardIE22010064.2.jpg 04cfd0679396b8775d1c7a11a5d03759 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2184/38625/PSheppardIE22010065.2.jpg 23f87a216e18079b3d119ebe466fee77 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2184/38625/PSheppardIE22010066.2.jpg 20f6514868e8f23e8298e09754bf3ae3 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 Sheppard, Irene Eleanor Sheppard, IE Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digitals 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 Sheppard, IE Description An account of the resource 75 items. The collection concerns Leading Aircraftwoman Irene Eleanor Sheppard (b. 1925, 2035826 Royal Air Force) and contains photographs, <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2186">an album</a>, and documents. She served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Michael John Wainwright and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2022-02-21 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 Doreen WAAF Description An account of the resource Two photographs of one of Irene's WAAF colleagues. Both are head and shoulders but in the first she is in civilian clothes and in the second WAAF uniform. On the reverse of the first is 'To my beaut Cobber. With love, from your little mate Doreen xxx 5/1/45'. On the reverse of the second 'Remember the Good Times we've had at Barmy Blyton. [indecipherable]. Also [indecipherable]. All the [indecipherable] in the World Cobber. [indecipherable] Yours as ever 1945. Doreen xxx'. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Doreen Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1945-01-05 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1945-01-05 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 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 Two b/w photographs Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PSheppardIE22010063, PSheppardIE22010064, PSheppardIE22010065, PSheppardIE22010066 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 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire ground personnel RAF Blyton Women’s Auxiliary Air Force https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/3328/58516/BGarlandEGarlandEv1.pdf bc635462f24e30c10062d7c0035fe23a 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 Garland, Victor Alan Description An account of the resource 44 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Victor Alan Garland (b. 1924, 3030098 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, correspondence, documents, and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 429 Squadron. The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Elaine Dove and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021-11-10 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 Garland, VA 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 Memoir of Emilia Garland (nee Ocardi). WAAF 429 Squadron. Description An account of the resource Recounts life in Glasgow (Clydebank) at the beginning of the war. Incudes tales of bliztz bombing, blackout, sirens and evacuation. Talks of continuing business though blitz. Eventually tired of hard work in family business, despite parental opposition, decided to join up. Goes onto describe experiences and training at RAF Innsworth. (includes b/w photograph) and then on to RAF Leeming where she worked as a sergeants mess waitress. Describes life on camp in detail. Mentions attack by German bomber and tells other several anecdotes of incidents. Tells of effect of casualties on relationships, recreation and entertainment. Mentions royal visit. Relates her love life and meeting her future husband. At end of war she was posted to RAF Bracknell while her fiancé was posted to Europe. They married in September 1946. Continues with description of life, post war postings, demob and life after the war. Includes b/w photographs of Emilia, Vic and family. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource E Garland Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942-03-15 1946-09-11 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain Scotland--Glasgow Scotland--Clydebank Scotland--Coatbridge Scotland--Dunfermline England--Gloucestershire England--Yorkshire England--Berkshire England--Bracknell England--Lincolnshire Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Royal Canadian Air Force United States Army Air Force Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Memoir Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Fourteen page printed document with photographs Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending text-based transcription Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BGarlandEGarlandEv1 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. 429 Squadron B-24 bombing ground personnel military living conditions military service conditions RAF Blyton RAF Innsworth RAF Leeming Women’s Auxiliary Air Force https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1540/47580/YHaguesGT1819687v1.pdf 2b6f863b8f6e0b4bcb9d20115f8c7932 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 Hagues, George Thomas G T Hagues 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 2016-09-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Hagues, GT Description An account of the resource Three items. The collection concerns Sergeant George Thomas Hagues (1819687 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, diary and a document. He flew operations as an air gunner with 625 Squadron and was killed 13 September 1944.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Annie Roberts and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.<br /><br /> <p>Additional information on George Hagues is available via the&nbsp;<a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/109557/">IBCC Losses Database</a></p> 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 George Thomas Hagues’ diary Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource George Thomas Hagues Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context YHaguesGT1819687v1 Description An account of the resource Air Force diary for 1944 containing names and addresses, records of lectures attended, letters received, his movements and comments about operations. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1944 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1944 1944-05-03 1944-05-11 1944-05-25 1944-06-22 1944-06-24 1944-06-27 1944-06-29 1944-06-30 1944-07-02 1944-07-12 1944-07-20 1944-07-25 1944-10-12 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Shropshire England--Lincolnshire France France--Mailly-le-Camp France--Neuville-aux-Bois France--Reims France--Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais) France--Seine-Maritime France--Siracourt France--Tours France--Vaires-sur-Marne France--Vierzon Belgium Belgium--Hasselt France--Pas-de-Calais Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Diary Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending text-based 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. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nick Cornwell-Smith 625 Squadron 83 OTU aircrew bombing bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944) bombing of the Pas de Calais V-1 sites (24/25 June 1944) missing in action Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Operational Training Unit RAF Binbrook RAF Blyton RAF Hemswell RAF Kelstern RAF Lindholme RAF Peplow training V-1 V-2 V-weapon https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2810/51948/LSewerinS704459v2.pdf 5f28a4c0f4b6b8e42ce13f5b725affdf 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 Sewerin, Stanislaw Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Peter Sewerin about his father Stanislaw Sewerin (b. 1915, 704459 Royal Air Force). The collection also contains his log books, an&nbsp;<a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2907">album</a>, and miscellaneous documents. He flew operations as a pilot with 300 Squadron. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Sewerin and catalogued by Jan Johnstone. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2024-09-16 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 Sewerin, S 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 Stanislaw Sewerin's Pilots Flying Log Book. Two Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LSewerinS704459v2 Description An account of the resource Pilots Flying Log Book for Warrant Officer Stanislaw Sewerin covering 19 July 1944 to 16 July 1948 detailing day and night training flights and operations with: 18 Officer Training Unit, 1662 Heavy Conversion Unit and 300 Squadron. The period 29 June 1948 to 16 July 1948 details training undertaken with a Pilots Refresher Flying Unit at RAF Finningley. Sergeant Sewerin flew 18 operational sorties, three of which are described as Spam dropping, two as transport of prisoners of war and one that was transporting supplies. In addition, the log book reports seven 'Dodge' flights. Aircraft flown were Wellington, Lancaster and Oxford. Pilots flown with: Pilot Officer Stephani, Flying Officer Dziedzic, Flight Lieutenant Nowak, Flight Lieutenant Sancewicz, Warrant Officer Kazimierczak, Flight Sergeant Nowocin, Flight Sergeant Kalfas, Flight Sergeant Koziok, Warrant Officer Blachowicz, Warrant Officer Zablocki, Flying Officer Wareham, Flying Officer Oakeshott, Flight Lieutenant Kwapniewski, Warrant Officer Torunski, Flight Sergeant Kulesza, Flying Officer Pash, Squadron leader Fisher, Flight Lieutenant Dobbie, Flight Lieutenant Firmin, Flying Officer Price. Some pieces of paper with typed information in Polish have been pasted into the log book. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng pol Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending text-based transcription. Other languages than English Review Oct 2024 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1945-03-08 1945-03-09 1945-03-11 1945-03-12 1945-03-15 1945-03-16 1945-03-17 1945-03-22 1945-03-23 1945-03-25 1945-04-09 1945-04-10 1945-04-14 1945-04-15 1945-04-21 1945-04-22 1945-05-01 1945-05-04 1945-05-07 1945-05-10 1945-05-11 1945-08-15 1945-08-17 1945-08-28 1945-10-10 1945-10-11 1945-11-26 1945-11-27 1945-11-28 1945-12-13 1946-01-04 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire England--Gloucestershire England--Lincolnshire England--Shropshire England--Surrey England--Wiltshire England--Yorkshire Germany Germany--Ruhr (Region) Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea Germany--Berlin Germany--Bochum Germany--Bremen Germany--Dortmund Germany--Essen Germany--Hannover Germany--Helgoland Germany--Kassel Germany--Kiel Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Potsdam Italy Italy--Pomigliano d'Arco Netherlands 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 1662 HCU 18 OTU 300 Squadron aircrew Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Operation Dodge (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) Operational Training Unit Oxford pilot prisoner of war RAF Aston Down RAF Blyton RAF Cosford RAF Dishforth RAF Dunsfold RAF Faldingworth RAF Finningley RAF Glatton RAF Ludford Magna RAF Skipton on Swale RAF Sturgate RAF Wickenby RAF Wroughton training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2810/51998/LSewerinS704459v3.pdf e9b93d7fdb82bfc2ef3ecaa4bb5129dc 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 Sewerin, Stanislaw Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Peter Sewerin about his father Stanislaw Sewerin (b. 1915, 704459 Royal Air Force). The collection also contains his log books, an&nbsp;<a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2907">album</a>, and miscellaneous documents. He flew operations as a pilot with 300 Squadron. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Sewerin and catalogued by Jan Johnstone. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2024-09-16 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 Sewerin, S 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 Stanislaw Sewerin's Pilots Flying Log Book. Three Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LSewerinS704459v3 Description An account of the resource Pilots Flying Log Book for P2 Stanislaw Sewerin covering 5 August 1948 to 9 March 1954 detailing training with: 1 Air Navigation School at RAF Topcliffe, 3 Air Navigation School at RAF Bishops Court, 201 Advanced Flying School at RAF Swinderby, 128 SE Refresher Course, the Central Link Trainer School at RAF Kirton in Lindsey and 61 Group Communication Flight at RAF Kenley. Aircraft flown were Anson, Wellington, Tiger Moth, Prentice, Harvard, Varsity, Meteor 7 and Chipmunk. Pilots flown with: Flight Lieutenant Merrett, P2 Siekierkowski, Flight Lieutenant Kerbey, P2 Ponsford, P2 Chmielewski, P2 White, P2 Harris, Flight Lieutenant Coulson, P2 Barrow, P2 Walters, P2 Atkinson, P2 Foster, P2 Walters, P2 Nadin, Flight Lieutenant Thieme, Flight Lieutenant Carroll, Flight Lieutenant Palmer, Flight Lieutenant Barnes, Squadron Leader Woods, Flight Lieutenant Price, Flight Lieutenant Hutchings, Flight Lieutenant Bradshaw, Lieutenant Jamal, Sergeant Succar, Flight Lieutenant Bethell, Flying Officer McGrory, Sergeant Alexander, Flight Lieutenant Valentine, Flying Officer Henley, Flight Sergeant Hall, Flight Lieutenant Stewart, Flight Walker, Flight Sergeant Bellamy, Flight Lieutenant Graham, Sergeant Turtle, Sergeant Pearse, Flight Lieutenant Double, Flight Lieutenant Scotchmer, Flight Lieutenant Hemsley, Group Captain Piper, Flying Officer Noonan, Flight Sergeant Oldham, Flight Sergeant Redina, Flight Lieutenant Vines, Flight Lieutenant Cermak, Sergeant Jones, Flight Sergeant McCandless, Sergeant Martin, Flying Officer Robertson, Flight Sergeant Thompson, Flight Sergeant Melville, Sergeant Pardridge, Flight Sergeant Salmon, M/P Gregory, Flight Sergeant Mitura, Flying Officer Bainbridge, Group Captain Johnson, M/P Slon, M/P Newman, Squadron Leader Attlee, Air Commodore Cohu. Flight Sergeant Rooke, Flying Officer Kirn, Air Vice Marshall McEvoy, Flight Sergeant Donnard, M/P Souter, Flight Lieutenant Cole, Squadron Leader Bulford, Flight Lieutenant White and Flight Lieutenant House. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 Advanced Flying Unit Air Observers School Anson Harvard Meteor Oxford pilot RAF Acklington RAF Aldergrove RAF Bicester RAF Blyton RAF Booker RAF Boscombe Down RAF Brize Norton RAF Church Fenton RAF Coltishall RAF Cosford RAF Duxford RAF Exeter RAF Filton RAF Finningley RAF Gaydon RAF Hendon RAF Hucknall RAF Hullavington RAF Kenley RAF Kirton in Lindsey RAF Leconfield RAF Leuchars RAF Linton on Ouse RAF Little Rissington RAF Lyneham RAF Manby RAF Manston RAF Marham RAF Martlesham Heath RAF Morpeth RAF Newton RAF North Weald RAF Oakington RAF Odiham RAF Ouston RAF Prestwick RAF Rochester RAF Shawbury RAF Shepherds Grove RAF Southend RAF St Athan RAF Stradishall RAF Sturgate RAF Swanton Morley RAF Swinderby RAF Syerston RAF Tangmere RAF Thornaby RAF Thorney Island RAF Topcliffe RAF Turnhouse RAF Valley RAF West Malling RAF West Raynham RAF White Waltham RAF Worksop Tiger Moth training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/167/2445/LAllenDJ1880966v1.2.pdf 9e5a668d1c670d39cf4e1ba2b8204224 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 Allen, Derrick Derrick Allen D J Allen Description An account of the resource 75 items. The collection covers the career of Flight Sergeant Derrick John Allen (1880966 Royal Air Force) who was a mid-upper gunner on 467 Royal Australian Air Force Squadron at RAF Waddington in 1944-45. Collection contains his logbook, Royal Air Force documentation, notes on air gunners course and photographs of various aircrew. Collection also contains maps and photographs covering the loss of his Lancaster near Spa in Belgium from which he successfully bailed out on 2 November 1944. There is also an oral history interview with his family. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Judy Hodgson and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-08-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Allen, DJ Access Rights Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies. Permission granted for commercial projects Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Derrick Allen's flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners, flight engineers 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. Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LAllenDJ1880966v1 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mike Connock Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Czech Republic Germany Great Britain Netherlands Norway Poland Czech Republic--Chomutov England--Bedfordshire England--Lincolnshire England--London England--Northamptonshire England--Nottinghamshire England--Shropshire England--Yorkshire Germany--Essen Germany--Bremen Germany--Chemnitz Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal Germany--Dresden Germany--Harburg (Landkreis) Germany--Homberg (Kassel) Germany--Kaiserslautern Germany--Sassnitz Germany--Wilhelmshaven Norway--Tønsberg Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie) Wales--Vale of Glamorgan Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Braunschweig Germany--Ruhr (Region) Netherlands--Walcheren Germany--Ladbergen Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1944 1945 1944-09-27 1944-09-28 1944-10-05 1944-10-06 1944-10-07 1944-10-11 1944-10-14 1944-10-15 1944-10-30 1944-11-01 1944-11-02 1945-02-07 1945-02-08 1945-02-09 1945-02-13 1945-02-14 1945-02-15 1945-03-03 1945-03-04 1945-03-06 1945-03-07 1945-03-08 1945-03-11 1945-04-18 1945-04-19 1945-04-25 1945-04-26 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 Description An account of the resource Navigator’s, air bomber’s, air gunner’s and flight engineer’s flying log book for Flight Sergeant Derrick Allen air gunner, covering the period from 11 February 1944 to 25 April 1945. Detailing training and operations flown. He was stationed at London, RAF Bridlington, RAF Bridgnorth, RAF Pembrey, RAF Silverstone, RAF Wigsley, RAF Syerston, RAF Waddington, RAF Strubby, RAF Blyton, RAF Cardington, RAF St. Athan and RAF Spanhoe. Aircraft flown were, Anson, Wellington, Stirling, Lancaster and C-47. He flew a total of 19 operations with 467 Squadron, 6 daylight and 13 night, his aircraft was shot down on his ninth operation to Düsseldorf, when pilot and rear gunner were killed, he abandoned aircraft. Targets were Kaiserslautern, Wilhelmshaven, Bremen, Walcheren, Brunswick, Homberg, Düsseldorf, Ladbergen, Politz, Dresden, Chemnitz, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Sassnitz, Harburg, Essen, Komotau and Tonsberg. His pilots on operations were pilot Officer Landridge, Flight Lieutenant Evans and Flying Officer Rodinson. 1654 HCU 17 OTU 467 Squadron 619 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson bale out bombing bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945) C-47 Heavy Conversion Unit Initial Training Wing Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Lancaster Mk 1 Lancaster Mk 3 Operational Training Unit RAF Blyton RAF Bridgnorth RAF Bridlington RAF Cardington RAF Pembrey RAF Silverstone RAF Spanhoe RAF St Athan RAF Strubby RAF Syerston RAF Waddington RAF Wigsley shot down Stirling training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/380/7012/LHattersleyCR40699v1.2.pdf 099f001bc26b394fc0440d57cacdb995 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 Hattersley, Peter Peter Hattersley C R Hattersley Charles Raymond Hattersley Description An account of the resource 77 items. The collection concerns Wing Commander Charles Raymond Hattersley DFC (1914-1948, 800429, 40699 Royal Air Force). Peter Hattersley served in the Royal Engineers between 1930 and 1935 but enlisted in the RAF in 1936. He trained as a pilot and flew with 106, 44 and 199 Squadrons. He completed 32 operations with 44 Squadron but had to force land his Wellington in France on his first operation with 199 Squadron in December 1942. He became a prisoner of war. He married Miss Kathleen Hattersley nee Croft after the war. The collection contains his logbook, notebooks, service material, his decorations and items of memorabilia in a tin box and 39 photographs. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Charles William Hattersley and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-05-06 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Hattersley, CR Access Rights Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies. Permission granted for commercial projects Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Belgium Bermuda Islands Canada France Germany Great Britain Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea England--Berkshire England--Cambridgeshire England--Kent England--Gloucestershire England--Leicestershire England--Lincolnshire England--Middlesex England--Norfolk England--Nottinghamshire England--Oxfordshire England--Rutland England--Shropshire England--Wiltshire England--Yorkshire Ontario Scotland--Ross and Cromarty Wales--Vale of Glamorgan Belgium--Liège France--Soissons Germany--Hannover Germany--Berlin Germany--Dessau (Dessau) Germany--Duisburg Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Hamburg Germany--Kiel Germany--Leuna Germany--Lingen (Lower Saxony) Germany--Magdeburg Germany--Sylt Germany--Münster in Westfalen Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Rheine Europe--Frisian Islands Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Title A name given to the resource Peter Hattersley's pilot's flying log book Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LHattersleyCR40699v1 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1945 1946 1947 1948 1940-05-17 1940-05-18 1940-05-19 1940-05-20 1940-05-23 1940-05-24 1940-05-25 1940-05-26 1940-05-27 1940-05-28 1940-06-01 1940-06-02 1940-06-03 1940-06-04 1940-06-07 1940-06-08 1940-06-09 1940-06-10 1940-06-11 1940-06-12 1940-06-20 1940-06-21 1940-06-25 1940-06-26 1940-07-01 1940-07-02 1940-07-05 1940-07-06 1940-07-09 1940-07-10 1940-07-20 1940-07-21 1940-07-22 1940-07-23 1940-07-25 1940-07-26 1940-07-28 1940-07-29 1940-07-31 1940-08-01 1940-08-03 1940-08-04 1940-08-07 1940-08-08 1940-08-11 1940-08-12 1940-08-13 1940-08-14 1940-08-16 1940-08-17 1940-08-21 1940-08-22 1940-08-25 1940-08-26 1940-08-28 1940-08-29 1940-08-31 1940-09-01 1940-09-03 1940-09-04 1940-09-06 1940-09-07 1940-09-08 1940-09-09 1942-12-09 1942-12-10 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Description An account of the resource Pilot's log book for Wing Commander Peter Hattersley, covering the period 10 April 1937 to 24 September 1948. It details his flying training, operations flown and other flying duties. He was stationed at Hanworth Park, RAF Reading, RAF Netheravon, RAF Little Rissington, RAF Catfoss, RAF Manston, RAF Thornaby, RAF Evanton, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Finningley, RAF St. Athan, RAF Waddington, RCAF Port Albert, Darrels Island-Bermuda, RAF Bawtry, RAF Blyton, RAF Upavon, RAF Shawbury, RAF Bircham Newton, RAF Wymeswold, RAF Syerston, RAF Oakington, RAF Cosford, RAF Stanmore and RAF Abingdon. Aircraft Flown in were, Blackburn B2, Hart, Audax, Mile Hawk, Magister, Battle I, Anson, Hampden, Tiger Moth, Lysander, Catalina, Wellington, Oxford II, Hudson, Harvard IIb, Proctor and Dakota. He flew a total of 32 night operations in Hampdens with 44 Squadron from RAF Waddington, and one operation with 199 Squadron. Took part in Berlin Airlift (Operation Plainfare).Targets in Belgium, France, and Germany were Hannover, Hamburg, Lingen, Rheine, Liege, Kiel, Frankfurt, Duisburg, Soisson, Ruhr, Sylt, Dessau, Leuna, Magdeburg, Berlin and Munster. Some navigation logs and correspondence concerning the award of his Distinguished Flying Cross are included in his log book. He became a POW in late 1942. Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 106 Squadron 14 OTU 199 Squadron 44 Squadron aircrew Anson Battle bombing C-47 Catalina Distinguished Flying Cross Flying Training School George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952) Hampden Harvard Hudson Lysander Magister navigator Operational Training Unit Oxford pilot prisoner of war Proctor RAF Abingdon RAF Bawtry RAF Bircham Newton RAF Blyton RAF Catfoss RAF Cosford RAF Cottesmore RAF Evanton RAF Finningley RAF Little Rissington RAF Manston RAF Netheravon RAF Oakington RAF Shawbury RAF St Athan RAF Syerston RAF Thornaby RAF Upavon RAF Waddington RAF Wymeswold Tiger Moth training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/81/7914/LGodfreyCR1281391v10001.pdf 2bb4feee369606f050f7e0e0563b6922 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 Godfrey, Charles Randall Subject The topic of the resource World War (1939-1945) Description An account of the resource 64 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Charles Randall Godfrey DFC (b. 1921, 146099, Royal Air Force) and consists of his logbook and operational notes, items of memorabilia, association memberships, personnel documentation, medals and photographs. He completed 37 operations with 37 Squadron in North Africa and the Mediterranean and 59 operations with 635 Squadron. He flew as a wireless operator in the crew of Squadron Leader Ian Willoughby Bazalgette VC. The collection has has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by David Charles Godfrey and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. 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 Godfrey, CR Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-11-18 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 Charles Godfrey's observer's and air gunner's flying log book Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LGodfreyCR1281391v10001 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Belgium Egypt France Libya Greece Germany Gibraltar Great Britain Netherlands Scotland Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea Belgium--Haine-Saint-Pierre Egypt--Alexandria Egypt--Cairo Egypt--Ismailia (Province) Egypt--Marsá Maṭrūḥ Egypt--Tall al-Ḍabʻah England--Berkshire England--Cambridgeshire England--Cumbria England--Devon England--Gloucestershire England--Hampshire England--Kent England--Leicestershire England--Lincolnshire England--Norfolk England--Northumberland England--Oxfordshire England--Rutland England--Shropshire England--Suffolk England--Wiltshire England--Worcestershire England--Yorkshire France--Angers France--Caen France--Trossy St. Maximin France--Mantes-la-Jolie France--Nucourt France--Rennes Germany--Wiesbaden Germany--Berchtesgaden Germany--Bottrop Germany--Chemnitz Germany--Dorsten Germany--Dortmund Germany--Duisburg Germany--Düren (Cologne) Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Essen Germany--Gelsenkirchen Germany--Hamburg Germany--Hannover Germany--Karlsruhe Germany--Kiel Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate) Germany--Merseburg Germany--Mönchengladbach Germany--Munich Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Osnabrück Germany--Osterfeld Germany--Stuttgart Germany--Troisdorf Germany--Wanne-Eickel Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Wesseling Greece--Ērakleion Greece--Piraeus Libya--Darnah Libya--Tobruk Netherlands--Hasselt Netherlands--Rotterdam Scotland--Moray Germany--Münster in Westfalen England--Cornwall (County) North Africa Libya--Banghāzī Germany--Ruhr (Region) Libya--Gazala Germany--Hemmingstedt France--Noordpeene Egypt--Ras el Shaqiq Egypt--Fukah Libya--Timimi Egypt--El Dabaa Egypt--Saniyat Turbiyah Netherlands--Hague Egypt--Quotaifiyah France--Senantes Germany--Nuremberg France--Revigny-sur-Ornain Germany--Worms France--Chapelle Notre Dame Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1942-03-23 1942-06-10 1942-06-11 1942-06-12 1942-06-13 1942-06-14 1942-06-15 1942-06-16 1942-06-17 1942-06-18 1942-06-19 1942-06-20 1942-06-22 1942-06-23 1942-06-24 1942-06-25 1942-06-26 1942-06-28 1942-06-29 1942-07-02 1942-07-03 1942-07-05 1942-07-08 1942-07-09 1942-07-10 1942-07-12 1942-07-13 1942-07-15 1942-07-16 1942-07-17 1942-07-19 1942-07-20 1942-07-25 1942-07-26 1942-07-28 1942-07-29 1942-07-31 1942-08-01 1942-08-06 1942-08-07 1942-08-08 1942-08-09 1942-08-14 1942-08-15 1942-08-16 1942-08-17 1942-08-18 1942-08-19 1942-08-21 1942-08-22 1942-08-23 1942-08-24 1942-08-25 1942-08-26 1942-08-27 1942-08-28 1942-08-29 1942-08-30 1942-08-31 1942-09-01 1942-09-03 1942-09-05 1942-09-06 1942-09-08 1942-09-09 1944-05-06 1944-05-08 1944-05-12 1944-05-13 1944-05-27 1944-05-28 1944-05-29 1944-06-05 1944-06-07 1944-06-08 1944-06-09 1944-06-12 1944-06-13 1944-06-15 1944-06-16 1944-06-23 1944-06-24 1944-07-07 1944-07-09 1944-07-10 1944-07-14 1944-07-15 1944-07-16 1944-07-18 1944-07-19 1944-07-20 1944-07-23 1944-07-24 1944-07-25 1944-07-26 1944-07-28 1944-07-29 1944-07-30 1944-08-01 1944-08-04 1944-11-17 1944-11-18 1944-12-04 1944-12-06 1944-12-07 1944-12-12 1944-12-15 1944-12-18 1944-12-24 1944-12-28 1944-12-29 1945-01-01 1945-01-02 1945-01-05 1945-01-07 1945-01-08 1945-01-23 1945-02-01 1945-02-02 1945-02-03 1945-02-04 1945-02-07 1945-02-08 1945-02-09 1945-02-14 1945-02-15 1945-02-18 1945-02-20 1945-02-21 1945-03-07 1945-03-08 1945-03-22 1945-03-24 1945-03-25 1945-03-31 1945-04-11 1945-04-13 1945-04-14 1945-04-25 1945-04-30 1945-05-05 1945-05-07 1945-05-15 1945-05-22 1945-06-08 1945-06-18 1945-08-03 1945-08-05 1944-06-06 1944-08-03 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 Description An account of the resource Observer's and air gunner's flying log book for Pilot Officer Godfrey from 3 of February 1941 to 25 of September 1945 detailing training schedule, instructional duties and operations flown. Aircraft flown were Dominie, Proctor, Wellington, Hampden, Anson, Defiant, Martinet, Stirling, Lancaster, C-47 and Oxford. He was stationed at RAF Manby, RAF Bassingbourn, RAF Harwell, RAF Lossiemouth, RAF Downham Market, RAF Hemswell, RAF Wittering, RAF Abingdon, RAF Upper- Heyford, RAF Upwood, RAF Gillingham, RAF Cranwell, RAF Melton Mowbray, RAF Church Fenton, RAF Market Drayton, RAF Waddington, RAF Upavon, RAF Sywell, RAF Carlisle, RAF Linton-On-Ouse, RAF Newbury, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Brize Norton, RAF Exeter, RAF Andover, RAF Hampstead Norris, RAF Hythe, RAF Gibraltar, RAF St Eval, RAF El Dabba, RAF Shaluffa, RAF Abu Sueir, RAF Almaza, RAF Blyton, RAF Ingham, RAF Marston Moor, RAF Leeming, RAF Acklington, RAF Middleton St. George, RAF Newmarket, RAF Moreton-in-Marsh, RAF Leconfield, RAF Skipton-on-Swale, RAF Wyton, RAF Warboys, RAF Westcott, RAF Gravely and RAF Worcester. He completed 37 operations with 37 Squadron in North Africa and the Mediterranean and 59 operations with 635 Squadron to targets in Belgium, France and Germany. Targets included: Heraklion, Piraeus, Derna, Tmimi, Benghazi Harbour, Gazala, Mersa Matruh, Ras El Shaqiq, El Dabaa, Tobruk, Fukah, Quotaifiyah, Düren, Munster, Mantes- Gassicourt rail yards, Haine-Saint-Pierre rail yards, Hasselt rail yards, Rennes, Angers rail yards, Caen, Revigny rail yards, Nucourt, Wesseling oil refineries, L’Hey, Kiel, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Notre Dame [Chapelle Notre Dame?], Trossy St. Maximin, Karlsruhe, Merseburg, Essen, Ludwigshafen, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Mönchengladbach, Troisdorf, Dortmund, Nuremberg, Hannover, Munich, Gelsenkirchen, Mainz, Wiesbaden, Osterfeld, Kleve, Wanne-Eickel, Chemnitz, Wesel, Worms, Hemmingstedt, Dorsten, Bottrop, Osnabruck, Berchtesgaden, Ypenburg and Rotterdam. Notable events are that Charles Godfrey undertook a search and rescue operation in a Defiant and during the operation to Trossy St. Maximin 4 August 1944 his aircraft, Lancaster ND811, was brought down by anti-aircraft fire. Whilst he survived and evaded, his pilot, Ian Willoughby Bazalgette was awarded the Posthumous Victoria Cross. Pilot Officer Godfrey also took part in Operation Manna, Operation Exodus and Operation Dodge. The hand written notes added to the end of the log book give a description to the crash at Senantes, and his attempts to evade capture: RAF Lossiemouth S/L Ian Willoughby Bazalgette 33 on first [?] [indecipherable] DFC Flight Commander Deputy – RAM Palmer Left there April 1944 – 37 on first tour [?] [indecipherable] F/O Geof [sic] Goddard Nav F/O Ivan Hibbert Bomb Aimer F/O Godfrey F/O Cameron DFM ex F/Sgt Middleton’s V.C. rear gunner Joined at PFF Navigation Training met [?] by Sgt George Turner then on Sqdn by F/LT Colonel Hewell [?] mid upper 6/5/44 First op as crew During May 5 and June 7 night ops In July Daylight and night ops 1 2 ND950 ‘M’ Mother 23 Kiel Last week in July 24 Stuttgart 25 Stuttgart [indecipherable] and motor bike [?] 28 Hamburg 4 August 1944 Should have gone on leave F/L Henson missing – Oxford to York One crew required Baz [?] volunteered – get one more in before leave Daylight to Trossy St Maximin Took T for Tommy instead of M Mother Crew conference at [?] dispersal – decided to go in at 6000 feet main force up at 12000 feet. [page break] F/LT Beveridge (DMB) shot down by flak going into target Nearing target heavy Ack-Ack shell penetrated starboard wing – Both engines spluttered to standstill Bomb aimer wounded [page break] Godfrey last to leave aircraft G. Goddard put foot [?] on him and out he went. Landed in tree I landed in cornfield – stripped [?] [indecipherable] and hid parachute under corn stacks [?] - lay under hedge – rather shocked Lancaster hit deck two fields ahead exploded on landing down Village of Senantes Maire of village helped us – in civvies within a few minutes of landing. Lay in potato bed all afternoon while Germans searched for survivors – waited till darkness into house for meal. Slept at gentlemans [sic] house – [indecipherable]. Moved by horse and Cart to farm near Chappelle [sic] aux Pots No English – lying sunbathing alongside Railway line – Thunderbolts beat up train SS troops moved back. Moved to Forest for 10 days – [indecipherable] to lay on food from 3 farms. Heavy rain Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sally Coulter Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 11 OTU 15 OTU 20 OTU 37 Squadron 635 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson anti-aircraft fire bale out bombing bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944) bombing of Trossy St Maximin (3 August 1944) C-47 Cook’s tour Defiant Dominie evading Hampden killed in action Lancaster Martinet missing in action Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Operation Dodge (1945) Operation Exodus (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) Operational Training Unit Oxford Pathfinders Proctor RAF Abingdon RAF Almaza RAF Andover RAF Bassingbourn RAF Blyton RAF Brize Norton RAF Carlisle RAF Church Fenton RAF Cottesmore RAF Cranwell RAF Downham Market RAF Graveley RAF Hampstead Norris RAF Harwell RAF Hemswell RAF Ingham RAF Leconfield RAF Leeming RAF Linton on Ouse RAF Lossiemouth RAF Manby RAF Marston Moor RAF Melton Mowbray RAF Middleton St George RAF Moreton in the Marsh RAF Newmarket RAF Skipton on Swale RAF St Eval RAF Sywell RAF Upavon RAF Upper Heyford RAF Upwood RAF Waddington RAF Warboys RAF Westcott RAF Wittering RAF Wyton Resistance shot down Stirling tactical support for Normandy troops training Victoria Cross Wellington wireless operator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/201/9631/LBaileyJD1583184v1.pdf 2e9c51cb48a073b0119651195b7a083c 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 Bailey, John Derek John Derek Bailey Bill Bailey John D Bailey John Bailey J D Bailey J Bailey Description An account of the resource 17 items. Two oral history interviews with John Derek "Bill" Bailey (b. 1924, 1583184 and 198592 Royal Air Force) service material, nine photographs, a memoir and his log book. He flew a tour of operations as a bomb aimer with 103 and 166 Squadrons from RAF Elsham Wolds and RAF Kirmington. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Bailey and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-12-07 2017-01-13 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bailey, JD Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource John Derek Bailey’s Royal Canadian Air Force flying log book for aircrew other than pilot Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mike Connock Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LBaileyJD1583184v1 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944 1945 1946 1944-05-24 1944-05-25 1944-08-29 1944-08-30 1944-08-31 1944-09-03 1944-09-05 1944-09-10 1944-09-12 1944-09-13 1944-09-17 1944-09-24 1944-09-26 1944-09-27 1944-10-19 1944-10-20 1944-10-23 1944-10-25 1944-10-28 1944-10-29 1944-10-30 1944-10-31 1944-11-02 1944-11-04 1944-11-11 1944-11-21 1944-11-27 1944-11-28 1944-11-29 1944-12-04 1944-12-06 1944-12-07 1944-12-12 1944-12-13 1944-12-21 1944-12-26 1945-01-05 1945-01-06 1945-01-07 1945-01-14 1945-01-15 1945-01-16 1945-01-17 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Canada France Germany Great Britain Netherlands Atlantic Ocean--English Channel Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea) Belgium--Saint-Vith England--Gloucestershire England--Lancashire England--Lincolnshire England--Nottinghamshire England--Oxfordshire England--Shropshire England--Yorkshire France--Calais France--Criel-sur-Mer France--Le Havre France--Pas-de-Calais France--Somme Germany--Bochum Germany--Cologne Germany--Dortmund Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Essen Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Freiburg im Breisgau Germany--Hannover Germany--Karlsruhe Germany--Merseburg Germany--Stuttgart Germany--Zeitz Manitoba--Carberry Netherlands--Eindhoven Netherlands--Hague Netherlands--Walcheren New Brunswick--Moncton Ontario--Hamilton Ontario--Picton Scotland--Moray Wales--Gwynedd Poland--Szczecin Poland Ontario New Brunswick Belgium Germany--Ruhr (Region) Manitoba Ontario--Mount Hope France--Agenville France--Cap Gris Nez Description An account of the resource Flying log book for aircrew other than pilot for John Derek Bailey, bomb aimer, covering the period from 6 July 1943 to 5 September 1945, detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Regents Park, RAF Ludlow, RAF Paignton, RAF Brighton, RAF Heaton Park, RCAF Moncton, RCAF Carberry, RCAF Picton, RCAF Mount Hope, RAF Harrogate, RAF Kirkham, RAF Penrhos, RAF Llandwrog, RAF Peplow, RAF Lindholme, RAF Sandtoft, RAF Hemswell, RAF Elsham Wolds, RAF Kirmington, RAF Lossiemouth, RAF Moreton-in-Marsh, RAF Worksop, RAF Wigsley, RAF Swinderby, RAF Acaster Malbis, RAF Blyton, RAF Catterick, RAF Wickenby, RAF Bicester and RAF Scampton. Aircraft flown in were, Anson, Bolingbroke, Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster. He completed a total of 31 operations, one night operation with 83 operational training unit, 2 night and 8 daylight operations with 103 Squadron and 16 night and 5 daylight with 166 Squadron. Targets in France, Germany and the Netherlands were Criel, Stettin, Agenville, Eindhoven, Le Havre, Frankfurt, The Hague, Calais, Cap Gris Nez, Stuttgart, Essen, Cologne, Walcheren, Düsseldorf, Bochum, Dortmund, Freiburg, Karlsruhe, Merseburg, Kattegat, St Vith, Hannover and Zeitz. His pilot on operations was Flying Officer Knott. 103 Squadron 1654 HCU 166 Squadron 1660 HCU 1667 HCU 20 OTU 83 OTU Advanced Flying Unit aircrew Anson Bolingbroke bomb aimer bombing Bombing and Gunnery School Halifax Halifax Mk 2 Halifax Mk 5 Heavy Conversion Unit Initial Training Wing Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Lancaster Mk 3 mine laying Operational Training Unit RAF Acaster Malbis RAF Bicester RAF Blyton RAF Catterick RAF Elsham Wolds RAF Heaton Park RAF Hemswell RAF Kirkham RAF Kirmington RAF Lindholme RAF Llandwrog RAF Lossiemouth RAF Moreton in the Marsh RAF Paignton RAF Penrhos RAF Peplow RAF Sandtoft RAF Scampton RAF Swinderby RAF Wickenby RAF Wigsley RAF Worksop RCAF Moncton training V-1 V-weapon Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/171/9859/LAtkinsAH418514v1.pdf 2442259ebfd050afd9ef5293f8203e96 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 Atkins, Arthur A H Atkins Description An account of the resource 24 items. An oral history interview with Arthur Atkins DFC (d. 2022, Royal Australian Air Force), his logbook and 23 photographs. Arthur Atkins grew up in Melbourne, Australia and joined the RAAF. After training he flew 32 operations as a pilot with 625 Squadron from RAF Kelstern. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Arthur Atkins and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-01-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Atkins, A Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending additional content 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 Arthur Atkins’ flying log book for pilots Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mike Connock Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LAtkinsAH418514v1 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Royal Australian Air Force Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Australia Belgium France Germany Great Britain Netherlands Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea Atlantic Ocean--English Channel England--Berkshire England--Buckinghamshire England--Derbyshire England--Gloucestershire England--Hampshire England--Lincolnshire England--Nottinghamshire England--Staffordshire Belgium--Ghent France--Calais France--Calvados France--le Havre France--Les Landes (Region) France--Orléans France--Pas-de-Calais France--Saumur France--Forêt du Croc France--Tours Germany--Cologne Germany--Duisburg Germany--Emmerich Germany--Essen Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Kiel Germany--Rüsselsheim Germany--Saarbrücken Germany--Salzbergen Germany--Stuttgart Netherlands--Breskens Netherlands--Terneuzen New South Wales South Australia Victoria--Benalla Victoria--Point Cook Poland--Szczecin Victoria England--Sussex Poland Germany--Ruhr (Region) France--Pauillac (Gironde) France--Ardouval France--Fontenay-le-Marmion France--Raimbert Europe--Ghent-Terneuzen Canal Germany--Rheine France--Caen France--Sémerville France--Pas-de-Calais France--Wizernes Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942 1943 1944 1945 1943-11-13 1944-07-04 1944-07-05 1944-07-06 1944-07-07 1944-07-12 1944-07-13 1944-07-18 1944-07-20 1944-07-23 1944-07-24 1944-07-25 1944-07-26 1944-07-27 1944-08-02 1944-08-04 1944-08-05 1944-08-06 1944-08-07 1944-08-08 1944-08-17 1944-08-18 1944-08-19 1944-08-25 1944-08-26 1944-08-29 1944-08-30 1944-08-31 1944-09-05 1944-09-06 1944-09-10 1944-09-12 1944-09-13 1944-09-16 1944-09-17 1944-09-27 1944-10-05 1944-10-06 1944-10-07 1944-10-11 1944-10-14 1944-10-15 1944-10-23 1944-10-24 1944-10-31 1944-11-01 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 Description An account of the resource Pilots flying log book for Arthur Atkins, covering the period from 12 November 1942 to 12 July 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAAF Benalla, RAAF Somers, RAAF Malalla, RAAF Ascot Vale, RAAF Point Cook, RAAF Bradfield Park, RAF Brighton, RAF Andover, RAF Greenham Common, RAF Long Newnton, RAF Lichfield, RAF Church Broughton, RAF Boston Park, RAF Wescott, RAF Blyton, RAF Hemswell, RAF Kelstern, RAF Sandtoft and RAF Gamston. Aircraft flown were, DH 82 Tiger Moth, Wackett, Anson, Oxford, Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster. He completed a total of 31 operations with 625 squadron, 15 night and 16 daylight. Targets were Orleans, Foret de Croc, Caen, Sémerville, Wizernes, Kiel, Rüsselsheim, Tours, Le Havre, Rheine-Salzbergen, Saarbrucken, Fort Frederik Hendrik, Essen, Ardouval, Stuttgart, Le Landes, Pauillac, Fontenay-le-Marmion, Stettin, Ghent-Terneuzen Canal, Raimbert, Frankfurt, Calais, Emmerich, Duisberg and Koln. His pilot for his first 'second dickie' operation was Flying Officer Slade. 1662 HCU 1667 HCU 27 OTU 625 Squadron Advanced Flying Unit aircrew Anson bombing Flying Training School Halifax Halifax Mk 2 Halifax Mk 5 Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Lancaster Mk 1 Lancaster Mk 3 Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Operational Training Unit Oxford pilot RAAF Bradfield Park RAF Andover RAF Blyton RAF Church Broughton RAF Gamston RAF Hemswell RAF Kelstern RAF Lichfield RAF Sandtoft RAF Westcott tactical support for Normandy troops Tiger Moth training V-1 V-weapon Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/886/10898/LHudsonJD173116v1.1.pdf 3c81a50e35b74a600f942d515f1e4a4d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hudson, Douglas James Douglas Hudson J D Hudson Description An account of the resource 529 items. Collection concerns Pilot Officer James Douglas Hudson, DFC (755052 Royal Air Force) who joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in June 1939 and trained as an observer. While on route to Malta in August 1940 his Blenheim crashed in Tunisia and he was subsequently interned for two and a half years by Vichy French in Tunisia and Algeria. After being freed he returned to Great Britain and after navigator retraining completed a tour of 30 operations on 100 Squadron. The collection contains letters to and from his parents and from French penfriends while interned in Tunisia and Algeria, newspaper cuttings of various events, logbooks and lists of operations, official documents and photographs. A further 23 items are in two sub-collections with details of navigator examinations and postcards of Laghouat Algeria.<br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Elizabeth Smith and Yvonne Puncher and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /> <p>This collection also contains items concerning Louis Murray and Harry Bowers. Additional information on <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/202827/">Harry Bowers</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/220410/">Louis Murray</a> is available via the IBCC Losses Database.</p> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-06-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Hudson, JD 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 Douglas Hudson's observer’s and air gunner’s flying log book Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LHudsonJD173116v1 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Review Oct 2024 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mike Connock Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. France Germany Great Britain Poland Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea Atlantic Ocean--English Channel Atlantic Ocean--North Sea England--Gloucestershire England--Leicestershire England--Lincolnshire England--Yorkshire France--Dieppe France--Dunkerque France--Merville (Nord) France--Tergnier (Canton) Germany--Augsburg Germany--Berlin Germany--Braunschweig Germany--Cologne Poland--Gdańsk Germany--Dortmund Germany--Essen Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Leipzig Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Schweinfurt Germany--Stuttgart Germany--Wilhelmshaven Poland--Pomerelia Germany--Duisburg Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Ruhr (Region) France--Crisbecq France--Vire (Calvados) Atlantic Ocean--Pomeranian Bay France--Aulnoye-Aymeries Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944 1945 1943-07-14 1944-01-20 1944-02-15 1944-02-19 1944-02-20 1944-02-21 1944-02-24 1944-02-25 1944-02-26 1944-03-01 1944-03-02 1944-03-15 1944-03-16 1944-03-18 1944-03-19 1944-03-22 1944-03-23 1944-03-24 1944-03-25 1944-03-26 1944-03-27 1944-03-30 1944-03-31 1944-04-09 1944-04-10 1944-04-11 1944-04-18 1944-04-19 1944-04-20 1944-04-21 1944-04-22 1944-04-23 1944-05-10 1944-05-11 1944-05-12 1944-05-13 1944-05-21 1944-05-22 1944-05-23 1944-05-24 1944-05-25 1944-05-27 1944-05-28 1944-05-31 1944-06-01 1944-06-02 1944-06-03 1944-06-05 1944-06-06 1944-06-07 1945-06-16 1945-07-25 Description An account of the resource Observer’s and air gunner’s flying log book for Douglas Hudson, navigator, covering the period from 15 May 1943 to 20 July 1945. It states, ‘original log book lost on operations 27 August 1940’. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Staverton, RAF Wymeswold, RAF Lindholme, RAF Waltham (RAF Grimsby), RAF Blyton and RAF Sandtoft. Aircraft flown in were, Anson, Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster. He completed a total of 29 night operations with 100 Squadron. Targets were Braunschweig, Berlin, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Schweinfurt, Augsburg, Frankfurt, Essen, Nuremberg, Danzig, Aulnoye-Aymeries, Bay of Pomerania, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dieppe, Wilhelmshaven, Duisberg, Dortmund, Dunkirk, Merville, Tergnier, Crisbecq and Vire.&nbsp;<span>His pilot on operations was</span><span>&nbsp;</span>Flight Lieutenant Hamilton. 100 Squadron 1656 HCU 1662 HCU 1667 HCU 28 OTU Advanced Flying Unit Air Observers School aircrew Anson Berlin Campaign (23 August 1943 – 25 March 1944) bombing bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944) bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944) Cook’s tour Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster mine laying navigator Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Operational Training Unit Pathfinders RAF Blyton RAF Grimsby RAF Lindholme RAF Sandtoft RAF Staverton RAF Wymeswold training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1279/17438/LPearceAT1874945v1.pdf e35e6116419f7eb8f03d67b018b5f883 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 Pearce, Arthur A T Pearce Description An account of the resource 140 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Arthur Pearce (1874945 Royal Air Force) He served as an air gunner with 12, 170 and 156 (Pathfinder) Squadrons and completed a 44 operations. After the war, on 35 Squadron he took part in the June 1946 Victory flypast over London and a goodwill visit to the United States. It contains his diaries, memorabilia and photographs. The collection also contains an album concerning his post war activity with the Goodwill tour of the United States. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Steve Allen and catalogued by Nigel Huckins Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-12-17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Pearce, AT 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 Arthur Pearce's air gunners flying log book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LPearceAT1874945v1 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Review Oct 2024 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 Mike Connock Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. France Germany Great Britain Netherlands Poland United States Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea Atlantic Ocean--English Channel Atlantic Ocean--North Sea England--Cambridgeshire England--Lincolnshire England--Staffordshire England--Suffolk France--Calais France--Falaise France--Le Havre France--Pas-de-Calais Germany--Berlin Germany--Bonn Germany--Chemnitz Germany--Cologne Germany--Dessau (Dessau) Germany--Dortmund Germany--Duisburg Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Essen Germany--Euskirchen Region Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Hamburg Germany--Hanau Germany--Hannover Germany--Helgoland Germany--Kiel Germany--Magdeburg Germany--Mannheim Germany--Mücheln (Wettin) Germany--Neuss Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Osterfeld Germany--Pforzheim Germany--Plauen Germany--Rüsselsheim Germany--Schwandorf in Bayern Germany--Soest Netherlands--Eindhoven Netherlands--Rotterdam Northern Ireland--Down (County) Poland--Szczecin Germany--Rheine Germany--Leverkusen Germany--Wangerooge Island Germany--Urft Dam Great Britain Germany--Ruhr (Region) France--Cap Gris Nez Germany--Rheine Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944 1945 1946 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1943 1944 1945 1946 1944-08-13 1944-08-14 1944-08-25 1944-08-26 1944-08-29 1944-08-30 1944-09-03 1944-09-05 1944-09-10 1944-09-12 1944-09-13 1944-09-16 1944-09-17 1944-09-20 1944-09-23 1944-09-24 1944-09-25 1944-09-26 1944-10-19 1944-10-25 1944-10-28 1944-10-30 1944-10-31 1944-11-01 1944-11-02 1944-11-03 1944-11-29 1944-11-30 1944-12-03 1944-12-05 1944-12-06 1944-12-21 1944-12-28 1944-12-30 1944-12-31 1945-01-16 1945-01-17 1945-01-22 1945-02-20 1945-02-21 1945-02-23 1945-02-24 1945-03-01 1945-03-05 1945-03-06 1945-03-07 1945-03-08 1945-03-15 1945-03-16 1945-03-17 1945-03-19 1945-04-04 1945-04-05 1945-04-08 1945-04-09 1945-04-10 1945-04-11 1945-04-13 1945-04-14 1945-04-15 1945-04-17 1945-04-25 1945-06-02 1945-07-13 1945-08-13 1945-08-15 1945-09-25 1945-09-26 1946-01-02 1946-01-03 Description An account of the resource Air gunners' flying log book for A T Pearce, covering the period from 2 December 1943 to 25 November 1946. It details his flying training, operations flown and post war flying. Arthur Pearce was stationed at: RAF Bishops Court, RAF Seighford, RAF Hixon, RAF Ingham, RAF Blyton, RAF Hemswell, RAF Wickenby, RAF Kelstern, RAF Dunholme Lodge, RAF Warboys, RAF Upwood, RAF Wyton, RAF Graveley and RAF Stradishall. Aircraft flown in were: Anson, Wellington, Halifax, Lancaster and Packet. He flew a total of 45 operations, 7 Daylight and 5 Night-time operations with 12 Squadron, 2 daylight and 4 night-time operations with 170 Squadron and 4 daylight, 23 night-time operations, operations Manna and Dodge with 156 Squadron. Post war Pearce flew a goodwill tour of the USA with 35 Squadron. Targets were: Falaise, Rüsselsheim, Stettin, Eindhoven, Le Havre, Frankfurt, Rheine Hopsten, Calais, Neuss, Cap Gris Nez, Essen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Duisberg, Urft Dam, Soest, Bonn, Opladen, Osterfeld, Magdeburg, Hamborn, Dortmund, Pforzheim, Mannheim, Chemnitz, Dessau, Misburg, Nurenburg, Hanau, Lützkendorf, Hamburg, Kiel, Plauen, Berlin, Schwandorf, Heligoland, Wangerooge and Rotterdam. His pilots on operations were Flying Officer and Flight Lieutenant Keeler. 12 Squadron 156 Squadron 1662 HCU 170 Squadron 30 OTU 35 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson bombing bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945) Cook’s tour Goodwill tour of the United States (1946) Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit Initial Training Wing Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Operation Dodge (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) Operational Training Unit RAF Bishops Court RAF Blyton RAF Bridgnorth RAF Bridlington RAF Dunholme Lodge RAF Graveley RAF Hemswell RAF Hixon RAF Ingham RAF Kelstern RAF Seighford RAF Stradishall RAF Upwood RAF Warboys RAF Wickenby RAF Wyton tactical support for Normandy troops training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/966/18585/LJacksonCP1815926v1.1.pdf 8d3c3e8000b1b36ac3388759f3489b80 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Jackson, Philip Charles Philip Jackson C P Jackson Description An account of the resource Six items concerning Philip Jackson (1924, 1815926 Royal Air Force), including his log book and photographs. He served as a flight engineer with 166 Squadron. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-10-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Jackson, CP Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Philip Jackson's flying log book for flight engineer Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Great Britain. Royal Air Force Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One booklet Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Log book and record book Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LJacksonCP1815926v1 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mike Connock Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain England--Lincolnshire Germany--Aschaffenburg Germany--Birkenfeld (Landkreis) Germany--Bremen Germany--Chemnitz Germany--Cologne Germany--Dessau (Dessau) Germany--Dortmund Germany--Düren (Cologne) Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Essen Germany--Halle an der Saale Region Germany--Hamburg Germany--Hanau Germany--Karlsruhe Germany--Kassel Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein Germany--Mannheim Germany--Merseburg Germany--Mönchengladbach Germany--Munich Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Pforzheim Germany--Stuttgart Germany--Ulm Germany--Wanne-Eickel Germany--Wiesbaden Wales--Vale of Glamorgan Germany--Freiburg im Breisgau Germany--Ruhr (Region) Germany--Urft Dam Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1944 1945 1944-10-30 1944-10-31 1944-11-02 1944-11-11 1944-11-16 1944-11-18 1944-11-21 1944-11-27 1944-11-28 1944-11-29 1944-12-03 1944-12-04 1944-12-05 1944-12-06 1944-12-12 1944-12-17 1944-12-18 1944-12-28 1945-01-02 1945-01-07 1945-01-08 1945-01-22 1945-01-28 1945-01-29 1945-02-01 1945-02-02 1945-02-03 1945-02-14 1945-02-15 1945-02-20 1945-02-21 1945-02-23 1945-02-24 1945-02-28 1945-03-01 1945-03-02 1945-03-05 1945-03-06 1945-03-07 1945-03-08 1945-03-11 1945-03-12 1945-03-16 1945-03-17 1945-03-19 1945-03-21 1945-03-31 1945-04-03 1945-04-04 1945-04-05 1945-08-02 Description An account of the resource Flying log book for flight engineer for C P Jackson, covering the period from 13 August 1944 to 17 October 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF St Athan, RAF Blyton, RAF Hemswell and RAF Kirmington. Aircraft flown in were Halifax and Lancaster. He flew a total of 35 operations with 166 squadron 10 daylight and 25 night. Targets were Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Duren, Wanne-Eickel, Aschaffenburg, Freiburg, Heimbach, Karlsruhe, Merseburg, Essen, Ulm, Mönchengladbach, Nuremberg, Munich, Stuttgart, Ludwigshafen, Wiesbaden, Chemnitz, Pforzheim, Mannheim, Dessau, Kassel, Hanau, Bremen, Hamburg, Nordhausen and Lützkendorf. His pilot on operations was Flying Officer Bonsall. This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available. Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Review Oct 2024 166 Squadron 1662 HCU aircrew bombing Cook’s tour flight engineer Halifax Halifax Mk 2 Halifax Mk 5 Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Lancaster Mk 1 Lancaster Mk 3 master bomber RAF Blyton RAF Hemswell RAF Kirmington RAF St Athan training