2 25 123 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/471/8354/ABirkbyB150729.2.mp3 40d49652d36d4a48be5610dad7fe0f43 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 Birkby, Bessie B Birkby Tess Birkby Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Birkby, B Description An account of the resource Three items. An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftswoman Bessie Birkby (1924 - 2019) and two photographs. She was a Women's Auxilliary Air Force driver stationed at RAF Binbrook, RAF Kelstern and RAF Scampton. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bessie Birkby and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-07-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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 interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Annie Moody and the Interviewee is Bessie? BB. Birkby. AM. Birkby, and the interview is taking place at Bessie’s home Wath on Dearne on the 30th of July 2015. So if perhaps Bessie just to start with tell me a little about your background, about your parents and school and stuff like that. BB. Shall I tell you my age first? AM. Go on tell me how old you are. BB. I am ninety one going into ninety two. I was married to my husband Walter Birkby he always got called Wally I got called Tess that was my nick name and eh we had been married sixty three years when Walter died. And eh anyhow I was eighteen when I joined, had to join, because eh my sisters were nurses but I worked in a shop. So it was either going in munitions or going in the forces. AM. How old were you when you left school Bessie? BB. I was fourteen. AM. So what did you do straight from leaving school? BB. Mostly working in shops, you know [cough] like grocery shops and eh I loved it but then of course I was working in a shop when both my sisters were nurses. So I had to choose, either going in the forces or going in factories where you make bombs and things. AM. Ok, you could have stayed in the shop, but you wanted to do something? BB. But I fancied going in, in the forces so I joined and eh my mum put me on the train in Doncaster and I was crying and she was crying but I still wanted to go. But I’d never been, I never left home or, my father worked in the pit and my mum she had five children. I was next to the eldest and eh so we were both upset at me going but I still wanted to go. I was going as far as Bridgenorth anyhow I got on this train and off I went. When I got there, it was a long journey and when I got there, on the last train. I remember where I had to change but I don’t remember where or anything. So I met up with the girls that were going in to join to be a WAAF. AM. What year was this Bessie? BB. What year was it it was 1942. AM. ’42. BB. Yeah and so [cough] eh when we got there to Bridgenorth, ‘course you had to have a medical and all sorts of thing like that. AM. What was that like. BB. Well I had never really been away from home, I never sort of got undressed in front of anybody and it, it was an ordeal. And eh but anyhow I carried on and I made friends and I was very popular because I could do make up, I could do hair and all sorts, I used to love it you know, beautifying. I got lots of friends because they used to come to me.’Oh Bessie will you do my hair or will you do this, pluck my eyebrows?’ And I really enjoyed it but anyhow we had to get up early to get your knife, fork and spoon and what have you. You had to go outside for to wash yourself and eh and anyhow we started marching, we used to have to go on parade. And eh so anyhow I don’t know how long I was marching and what and then of course I put in to be a driver but of course I had to go along to be em trained [?]. So I had to go with girls I go to me MT Sections and em got sort of well anything you know [a little confused]. AM. When you put in to be a driver did you have to have an interview or anything or did they say yes you can be a driver then? BB. No I had to, in fact they sent me to a place where there were balloons you know and I had to practice putting a balloon up which was like driving a car. AM. Tell me more about that, how do you put a balloon up. BB. I was posted to Scotland and so and there we didn’t have we had to go in digs in peoples houses. This lady I went into she were a lovely lady and she took to me. In fact for years I wrote to her but we lived in Borough Muir West and and I were really I loved it sending the balloon up. AM. What do you mean ‘sending the balloon up.’? BB. You had to fly it. AM. How big was it? BB. Huge, didn’t you remember them balloons, well they were huge weren’t they? Unknown Male. Like a Zeppelin. AM. Oh like a Zeppelin? Oh eh I have got you. BB. They were like as big as a caravan. AM. Like a barrage balloon? BB. Yeah. Unknown Male. So that planes would fly into wires that were holding them. BB. ‘course it got me going to change gear and one thing and another to learn. AM. So where were you, were you on the ground. BB. I were in a cage and balloon were over top of me, I used to have to send them up and Germans were coming over, you know it were queer. But anyhow I think I was there about six months and eh there must have been a place for me to start up for me driving and I was posted to Pwllheli in North Wales then again. AM. So down, up to Scotland and then across to Wales. BB. Yeah, down in Pwllheli oh that were, I was six months there but you had to do eh, besides learning to drive you had to do, learn how to eh maintain your vehicle in the morning you put and inspection for your water, your battery what have you and then [cough] you go out driving on the roads. I used to go in all these eh country lanes it were in Pwllheli. AM. Who was it that were doing the instructing. BB. We had men instructed. AM. What were they like? BB. Well I don’t recall. AM. What were they like with you I mean, were they ok, women learning to drive? BB. I were a ‘right with learning this balloon business I knew how to change gear, do the footwork because you had to do it like driving a car and so I was very lucky because I soon learned to drive but I was there six months so I had a thorough training but when you passed out you had to pass out on three vehicles. AM. Different ones? BB. Yeah a little one, small and then a fifteen hundred and then a thirty hundred weight and then of course later on it in the time I got to drive a two ton, were it, what were it, crew bus. I used to drive the crew bus. I was first posted to Binbrook when I passed out driving but there were lots of girls who failed and they couldn’t go back driving they had to remuster to another job. But I was very fortunate I passed it all and then I was posted to Binbrook and they were just forming our Squadron 625 Squadron and it was Bomber Command. I forgotten what Group was it One Group? Bomber Command, 625. Unknown male. You were stationed, no you would have been in Five Group. BB. Can’t remember. AM.Anyway 625. BB. 625 Squadron. Unknown male. It would be in Five Group. BB. Yeah and so they were forming this Squadron and then from Binbrook I was posted to Kelstern which was a few mile away because there was a lot of aerodromes in Lincoln at that time, weren’t there and so this were all new but we all had eh to sleep in these eh tin things, what did you call them? AM. Nissan huts. BB. Nissan huts and there were ten beds, you just had your bed and what have you. You didn’t have sheets, aircrew had sheets but not. Unknown male. Aircrew had sheets. BB. But not. AM. The girls didn’t . BB. And we were in these, fireplace in the middle and it were a little round thing and and I don’t know what it, I think it was coal or coke and that were only heating you had. You had to go outside for toilets and what have you, ablutions, it were you know. But, oh it were marvellous and at Kelstern I got very friendly eh and I were post, I were given a job on the ambulance. So I lived in sick quarters and eh with being at Kelstern when that snow came, nobody could get anywhere could they. It were terrible but I [cough] used to take the MO, the Doctor down into Lincoln and I used to drive him about on the small ambulance. There were bigger ambulances for a crew and eh this particular day we were going down into Lincoln and the MO he were a marvellous fellow and he had flying boots on, big coat but then eh, now he says ‘ I shall be about two hours so you go market, have a look round and meet me so and so, and we will come back to camp, to Kelstern.’ So anyhow I did that and I thought while I’m in, ‘cause where I lived down at the old mill at home we had apple trees, pear trees and all sorts. So I thought ‘ I will buy me self some apples.’ And I am [unclear] eating me apple and I went to pick the MO up like and I said ‘would you like and apple sir?’ he said ‘yes I would,’ he said ‘now don’t be getting tummy ache.’ You know before tea time I started reeling, the nurses were saying ‘we are going to fetch the MO to you.’ Because I were crying with pain and of course they fetched him from Officers Mess. When he came he said ‘my dear I will have to take you down to Louth Infirmary.’ They operated on me with appendicitis before midnight. Do you know he stayed with me because I was crying, I wanted me mum, Oh I were in a state. Me mum managed to come and see me I were in a farm house. AM. So it weren’t the apple. [laugh] BB. [laugh] No, well I don’t know what it were, anyhow he were brilliant and he stuck with me until next morning when I come round. In them days putting you to sleep it were horrible, dreaming and what not. Anyway he gave me some leave and I were at home about a month I think. Anyhow it was when that snow was on of course there were no flying. So of course I went back to Kelstern and then a month after we got a message to say we were all moving to Scampton. AM. Just before you moved to Scampton what did you do then when you got back to Kelstern? BB. I went back on the ambulance AM. Still the ambulance, so you were driving the MO around who, what else were they using the ambulances for, the crew or. BB. Well they used the ambulances to follow them back didn’t they? They used to be many a time crashes ‘cause they used to shoot at them didn’t they? It were horrible. Anyhow eh I carried on then and then of course we all went to Scampton, I can’t remember the date at all. So anyhow I know for a fact that all Lancaster bombers from Kelstern, they all got toilet rolls where bombs used to go and they let them all go over the fields and there were white toilet rolls when we moved, when we moved. AM. Why was that then. BB. It was just a bit of fun for the farmers, these were aircraft doing this. Anyhow we got to, to and of course with me this one job I did eh I didn’t always be on ambulance. I remember eh there were er er an Officer in command of our MT and he came to Kelstern and he said to whoever were in charge of our MT at that particular time ‘I want one of your best drivers, because I am going visiting eh we shall be away about three weeks.’ He says ‘ I want somebody I can trust.’ And and I was a good driver so they picked me. So he were brilliant now he says, we had a good car, it were really good and we set off and we were going all up North to go to Topcliffe and all them aerodromes and we had to visit all MT departments. He says as we were setting of he says ‘now then I want you to relax and I want you just to think of me as your father. Whatever you want you must tell me and if you are ever in trouble or whatever you do when we get to different Stations I’ll get you sleeping quarters. And I’ll see that you are put, well looked after and you will not have to be frightened and you will have to get in touch with me if, if you are frightened.’ AM. What did he think you would be frightened of? BB. I don’t know. AM. All them men. BB. I didn’t think of it then. You know I weren’t frightened because we lived out, when, when we were girls we lived down on our own in countryside we used to go to school and we couldn’t go home for dinner because it were too far away. We lived down at old mill didn’t we? Unknown male. Aye [unclear]I remember being down there. BB. In fact when I used to go home on leave I used to arrange, I used to hitch hike home to as far as Doncaster when I had the leave and eh what I did I used to catch the double decker bus from Doncaster and it always used to go to Brampton Church where I had to get of me last call, you know and it always used to get there about ten o’clock. And where we lived at the old mill I got off the bus and then I come on some steps and to go down these steps and down the road and what I used to do. Me mum used to be watching out for that double decker bus, she could see it from where we lived. And I used to whistle we had two dogs and me mum used to say ‘go on she’s come our Bessie, go and meet her.’ And they used to come as far as bottom of green them dogs and come and meet me home. And we had a big long orchard going down another way didn’t we? Unknown male. Yeah. BB. He knows where old mill were ‘cause it were a lovely, lovely cottage where we lived. AM. Sounds it. BB. Aye me mum always used to, always she used to always save me a little bit of steak and give me a cuddle. She used to spoil me, anyhow that were, I’m cutting me tale aren’t I. Anyhow I did that for three weeks and I got leave again given and it were wonderful, I enjoyed it and he were a gentleman and we had a burst, we had a burst tyre, I think we were near Topcliffe and and he said I’ll do it and he changed wheel. I said ‘I can do it I am capable.’ He said ‘I’ll do it. ’Because I had been driving. It were marvellous that and, and I were right proud to think they had chosen me, oh it were lovely. Anyhow, and then when we were posted to Scampton that’s when I met me husband but he already got a girl, lady friend. One of me first jobs there was sick quarters again on the ambulance, well I had small ambulance but they had quite a few big ins. Because in fact they had another Squadron there besides our Squadron. In fact there were they had just done eh where they dropped them bombs? AM. Oh Dambusters. BB. Yeah we must have been at Kelstern when that was on, it was soon after that when we were posted to Scampton. AM. So it was 617 Squadron the other one then? BB. Yeah so anyhow. AM. What was it like being there with, how many women and how many men ‘ish a lot more men than women? BB. Oh yeah. AM. So what was it like. BB. Well it, I don’t know it well you just did a job you were twenty four hours on and twenty four hours off weren’t we. I really, I had a wonderful life. I met me husband I’d been there quite a bit before I met him. AM. Tell me a bit more about what you did, you drove the small ambulances. BB. Yes. AM. And then what or were you just driving the ambulance right through because I’ve got a picture of you here with the. BB. That was at Binbrook. AM. Oh was that at Binbrook. BB. That was me first. AM. Right BB. Yeah that was at Binbrook. AM. So you were an ambulance driver at Scampton. BB. And I have another one a lovely one it’s in a it’s in a, in fact somebody came knocking at door one day and said we’ve seen your picture in a pub in Cleethorpes. It was me stood agin a van an RAF vehicle and it’s a lovely picture and it was in this on this, and then above there were all women marching, another two pictures. I am on this picture but I can’t remember myself being on it because I couldn’t see properly, but anyhow. AM. Tell me about meeting your husband then? [unclear] BB. Well he already got a girl friend. AM. On the Base. BB. On the Base and she was a parsons daughter but nurses used to kid me on and they used to say Bessie ‘you can’t have him because.’ But they used to call me Tess, I didn’t get called Bessie ‘you can’t have him because he has got a girl friend.’ I said ‘I’m not bothered but I’ll keep trying.’ Anyhow he went on leave didn’t he and when he was on leave she went out with a Pilot. Well I didn’t tell him but somebody did so I go me, I don’t know how it came about but I got talking to him and eh, and eh he took me to the pictures and it were Pinocchio, they were a picture on camp and we started going out together then and he had to go to Italy ‘cause they went, what did they go for. AM. Were they dropping propaganda leaflets and stuff like that. BB. Aye and he came back with a big thing of fruit and he gave it me and then we went home and I met his mum and dad in Bradford. He lived in Bradford. AM. What was Wally, he was an Air Gunner. BB. Yeah he got to be Warrant Officer before he, ‘cause there is his warrant up there, aye but when I met him he was a Sergeant. Then he got to be Flight Sergeant then he were. He ended up looking after prisoners of war eh after war finished. I mean he stayed in a bit longer than I did but eh I came out because I were pregnant. AM. You were married by then? BB. I loved him and, and so well we had been married all them years. AM. You had been married sixty five years. BB. We had a lovely life in RAF because girls used to come and Bessie pluck me eyebrows, Bessie do me hair, they used to say Tess to me like AM. Tess BB. I used to have some gloves on and I used to have Tess written on them. I used to be, I used to drive crew buses at Scampton and it [unclear] ambulance job. AM. So what was driving the crew bus like, what, what was that? BB. Well, I mean many a time within two minutes, they’d one go off and two minutes after another one, they were two minutes AM. Oh eh the planes? BB. Hundreds, loads, fifty, sixty oh and we used to wait at the end of the runway eh no flying control weren’t it. We used to stop against flying, and then we used to sort of go, go and dodge about or what have you and be there when they came back. Used to be watching them but once when I were driving the ambulance and there were planes came back and Germans were following them because they used to have to put runway lights on. If you were driving a crew bus and you were going to pick lads up that were coming back and they used to say ‘be early for me.’ You know didn’t they, used to breathing down your neck and eh [cough] and there would be no lights on. And you would be driving on and you would see this black brrr and you would go on grass. Oh it were mad and I mean, and but it was sad and all weren’t it especially and there used to be seven coffins go out and you know. They used to follow them back did Germans. It were terrible, they were nearly ready for landing. Unknown male. Yeah when you were in circuit. AM. The German fighters, fighter planes. BB. Yeah but I had a lovely life, I enjoyed every bit of it and I loved him all me life. AM. Good. BB. I did really. AM. What did you do after the war, did you come out more or less straight away. BB. Well I were quite well on with having me baby but eh I’d been in four years and eh and he come out [cough] eh, [pause] mm, I know I had two children, pity me husband was still in he were looking after Italians and and they were brilliant eh they didn’t make no bother for me husband he was in charge of them, in fact they made him a cabinet. AM. Where was that Bessie? BB. It was where Terries are, is it Ipswich where we used to go picking because we got into married quarters, I had me baby she was nine month old, he was still in RAF. And eh, and eh and we were in married quarters and we used to be picking these cherries and eh ‘cherries, excuse me.’ Eh but I had lots of jobs really, I didn’t only drive the ambulance and crew bus I had lots of jobs you, you, you were detailed you know they would leave you so long in the ambulance and then you would be so long on this crew bus and then you would probably eh. I used to have different vehicles, vehicles where I could pop in home going through to Sheffield, yeah I did. My mum used to say ‘Oh goodness me there’s our Bessie, look what she’s got that big thing.’ And I used to be in this two, three ton lorry and and you had to jump over wheels. They couldn’t believe it and eh [laugh] she used to, oh it were lovely. I did used to drive lots of different vehicles and of course I got to be LACW that were leading aircraft woman. But I could have been a corporal but you had to go inside and I didn’t want that job, so I never. AM. You enjoyed the driving? BB. I did, I loved it and of course me husband he didn’t drive then Wally but eh he had a, he had a motor bike and we used to go up on leave and I used to ride on the back of his motor bike, but when he got out of the forces he went to the School of Motoring and he got a job British School of Motoring. Because he went to Blackpool, Lytham St Annes with RAF. He had to remuster because eh when flying had finished you know. So; but they were happy days. AM. Lovely, did you drive after the war? BB. Oh yes it stood me in good stead that because there weren’t many women drivers. Yeah, I got a job as soon as I got me two little ones to school. Me mum used to live nearby because she moved from where we lived and she got near to where I lived an she used to have two children for me. AM. So what did you do? BB. I used to drive for eh, eh war veterans and I used to go out selling bread and cakes and what have you and I had a real good job there. AM. It must have been, so this was in the 1950’s. BB. Our eh yeah 1947 Jeff were born and Nigel were born in 1946. I didn’t come out while I think. She were born in March and I didn’t come out until the middle of February because I weren’t showing, couldn’t tell. AM. As long as you weren’t changing wheels. BB. I’ve still got me pay book and I’ve still got me husbands pay book. AM. Oh I might have a photograph of them as well. BB. I know. AM. That was excellent, thank you. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Bessie Birkby 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 2015-07-29 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ABirkbyB150729 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Description An account of the resource Bessie Birkby grew up in Sheffield and volunteered for the Women’s Auxilliary Air Force in 1942. She initially worked in Balloon Command in Scotland and then trained to be a driver in North Wales. She was then posted to 625 Squadron at RAF Binbrook but later transferred to RAF Kelstern and worked driving ambulances. She discusses driving the station Medical Officer into Lincoln in the snow, as well as driving crew buses. She developed appendicitis, and had an emergency operation at Louth. Having transferred to RAF Scampton, she again drove ambulances and crew buses. She met her husband Wally, an air gunner, and they were married for 65 years. While in the RAF she managed frequent visits home, sometimes in RAF vehicles. On leaving the Air Force she had three children and worked as a driver, selling bakery items. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hugh Donnelly Maureen Clarke Language A language of the resource eng Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Royal Air Force. Balloon Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire England--Shropshire Wales--Pwllheli Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:31:39 audio recording 625 Squadron entertainment ground personnel love and romance medical officer military living conditions Nissen hut RAF Binbrook RAF Bridgnorth RAF Kelstern RAF Scampton service vehicle training Women’s Auxiliary Air Force https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1092/11551/PReptonB1801.jpg b905c6ea618c945392e7963f17d5d221 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1092/11551/AReptonB180306.mp3 262211d521d81a32c139676920347e53 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 Repton, Betty Betty Repton nee Jackson B Repton Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Betty Repton (b. 1922). She served as a stenographer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force at RAF Coningsby. 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 2018-03-09 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. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Repton, B Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document EM: Just talk in a minute. Stop worrying. DK: I’ll just, I’ll just introduce this. David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre. BR: Just interrupting. Have you — DK: Don’t worry. Yeah. That’s okay. Don’t worry. BR: Have you seen many elderly ladies like me? DK: Yes. Yes. Three. BR: Three. DK: You’re my third. BR: Oh. DK: You’re my third. So, yes. BR: And are they all with it? DK: Oh, yes. Yes. Just like yourself. BR: Oh yes. Yes. Just like yourself. EM: Just like you. DK: Now — EM: Just keep quiet a minute. DK: That’s okay. EM: He’s just doing a bit of recording. DK: Sorry. EM: Just be quiet a minute. Yeah. DK: So I’m interviewing, Betty Repton isn’t it? EM: Yeah. DK: Betty Repton, at her home, don’t worry about this, the 6th of March 2018. If I just, can I just move this over? EM: Yeah. Do you want a maiden name? DK: Yes. Could do. EM: Jackson. DK: Oh. So, that’s Betty Jackson [pause] That looks alright. Yeah. EM: Ignore that. DK: Ignore that. Pretend, pretend it’s not there. If I, if I lean over it’s just making sure it’s still working. So, so first of all can I ask you what you were doing immediately before the war? BR: What was I doing? EM: Before the war. BR: I worked in a library. DK: Okay. BR: In Macclesfield. It was called a chain library and it was for the north west. DK: Right. BR: And that’s all I did. DK: Okay. BR: Until the war broke out and it so happened that I was engaged to a gentleman and his parents bought him a shop. DK: Right. BR: And they asked me if I would leave and look after it for his twenty-first birthday. And in that time he was called up for would it be the militia? DK: Yes. Yeah. BR: I’m not quite sure. DK: Yeah. BR: To do training because he was called up in the Army. DK: Right. BR: And it so happened that I wanted to join the forces. A volunteer. DK: Okay. BR: And my brother was in the Navy and my other brother was in the Army so my mother said, ‘I’d like you to go in the WAAF. Then I’ve got one of you in each.’ DK: Each of the services. BR: And I wrote to Eric, his name and told him I was going to join the forces. And he wrote back and said, ‘No girl of his was going in the forces.’ DK: Oh right. BR: So that was the end of that. And so I just applied to join up and I went to Manchester to see a WAAF officer. And she gave me a test and I had to do handwriting. DK: Right. BR: And she said, ‘You’re a beautiful writer and you’ve a very good speaking voice.’ DK: Well, you still have. BR: ‘What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I’ll do, I want a job that, such as a telephonist.’ DK: Right. BR: She said, ‘That would be ideal for you,’ and so I was put down to go on a course at Sheffield GPO. DK: Right. BR: To be a telephonist when they called me up. And, and then once I’d passed that I was just [pause] I’ve forgotten the word — EM: Posted. BR: Yes. To, well I was in the WAAF. DK: Right. Okay. Okay. BR: And I had to go to Bridgnorth. DK: Right. BR: And get my training done there and then the place that I first went to was 16 MU at Stafford. DK: A Maintenance Unit. 16 Maintenance Unit. BR: Maintenance Unit there. DK: Yeah. BR: And I was there and then gradually I went to various places. DK: Right. BR: And I ended up at a place called Winstanley Hall. DK: Right. BR: Near Wigan. And it was a private residence but it was very beautiful and the place that we had to travel each day was on the East Lancs’ Road and they called it RAF Blackbrook but it was underground. DK: Oh right. BR: And it was a switching centre. DK: Yeah. BR: For teleprinter operators. DK: Right. BR: But while I was at Stafford there were so many operators. Telephone operators. DK: Yeah. BR: That I never got a chance to get on the switchboard. There were so many. DK: Yeah. BR: So I used to sit there in the traffic office and if a message came through on the teleprinter we would get up and go and receive it and put your initials. DK: Right. BR: And I got so used to doing that that I thought I’d like to be a teleprinter operator. So I re-mustered and got a posting to Cranwell. DK: Right. BR: Where I did the teleprint. I couldn’t type at all. But everything worked out perfect. DK: So the fact you couldn’t type — BR: Yes. DK: Wasn’t a problem. BR: And so I got posted to this Winstanley Hall. DK: Yeah. BR: And, but during [pause] DK: That’s okay. BR: During this time my mother was taken ill. DK: Right. BR: And I had two sisters that had got children and I was the only single one. So I had to, to ask if I could be released to look after my mum which I did for three months. And in that time if she died within that time I was to be called up straightaway. And she died in the November and they called me back December. At the end of December. 1st of January 1944. DK: Right. BR: Because she died in 1943. DK: Okay. BR: And so I got posted to Scampton. That was the first posting after being released. DK: Right. BR: And that’s it. Scampton it was. DK: Yeah. BR: And it so happened that the Dambusters were operating there but they’d already been on the raid. DK: Yes. Because that was — BR: To the dams. DK: That was 1943. BR: So I was just one. DK: Right. BR: Of the WAAF, ordinary WAAF just doing a job at Scampton. DK: And, and, and what was — BR: And that’s — DK: And what was your role at Scampton? Were you still on the teleprinters? BR: What was that? EM: Were you still a teleprinter operator? BR: Yes. EM: At Scampton. DK: Yeah. BR: And I stayed to be a teleprinter operator all the time. DK: Right. BR: At Scampton. And then I got a posting to Syerston. DK: Right. BR: And from Syerston I got another posting. This was within two years of each to Coningsby. DK: Right. BR: And that’s where I stayed until I was released from the services to go to, and get my discharge. DK: Did, did you get to meet any of the aircrew at all? BR: Did I? EM: Tell, tell David while you were teleprinter operating at Scampton who, who came through the, who you handed the messages to. BR: We handed them in. It was all to do with the flying. DK: Right. BR: And every time the kites took off there was a message. When they came back they was all debriefed and they put a message together and they called them a BCIR Report. Bomber Command Intelligence Report. So therefore you had to be in the section to type these messages that you plugged in to the stations around — DK: Right. BR: When they came back off of a raid. And they just, that was it. And it just, it was all the same. DK: So you did this every time they went for, on a raid. BR: Yes. DK: And then when they came back? BR: Yes. They went into debrief too, and I suppose the pilots told their own story because some came back and some didn’t. But they always sent a message whenever an aeroplane went off. DK: Right. BR: There was a message with the names of the pilot and the crew. DK: Okay. BR: To say they’d returned. Then they put this message together and it went to all the 5 Group. DK: Right. BR: Places. DK: So eventually would, the messages would have got to the headquarters here then. BR: That was what? EM: Where would the, would the messages have come to St Vincent’s and that? Where would the messages go? Just to the — BR: I don’t know. I think St Vincent’s had something to do with the raid. DK: Right. Okay. The planning. BR: It was before I ever got. I didn’t get to the beginning of the Dambusters. DK: No. No. BR: To see them. It took place I think in May. DK: Yeah. May ’43. BR: And I didn’t get there ‘til December. DK: Yeah. BR: But then they, I think the Dambuster pilots and that were stationed at Petwood Hotel. DK: That’s right. That’s correct. Yes. BR: And I got married and I went to live at Woodhall Spa. DK: Oh right. That’s a lovely village. BR: And so of course I don’t know if you’ve seen the monument. DK: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. BR: Yeah. And I was there all the time it was being built. DK: Oh right. BR: So — EM: Yeah, but — BR: And — EM: You’ve missed the bit about who you, you handed your bit of paper at Scampton to who did you hand your bit of paper to at Scampton? BR: Oh, well — EM: Guy Gibson. BR: I just reported to the guardroom. DK: Right. Okay. BR: You know. DK: Yeah. BR: I just, I had to report. DK: Right. BR: To RAF Scampton. DK: Yeah. BR: And everything you did you had to sign in. DK: Yeah. BR: At the guardroom. DK: Can you remember anybody you met there at Scampton? BR: I met Guy Gibson. DK: Okay. BR: He used to walk past the window of the teleprinter room. DK: Right. BR: And go into the ops room. Now, the ops room was another room attached to the teleprinter off, but you wouldn’t have known that. But there was a window and if there was a message came through that had to be going to the ops — DK: Yeah. BR: You just knocked on the little window. It was wooden. DK: Yeah. BR: And it was forced back. DK: Right. BR: And who should take the message but Guy Gibson. Because I’d seen him walk past. DK: Yeah. But he didn’t speak to you then. BR: No. DK: No. Oh. BR: No. No. You just handed the message and that was it. But I saw him pass and I think he’d got the dog and then it was killed. DK: Yeah. BR: But I don’t know if it was killed in the time I was there. DK: I think it would have been before. BR: Which I think it probably was. And from that it was just a routine. Every day the same. I just went on duty. DK: Yeah. BR: And off duty and that was it. DK: Where did you used to go off duty? Was there anywhere you went? BR: What was that, Elaine? EM: When you were Scampton where did you live? Where did you, what did you used to do when you were off duty? BR: We were billeted at Dunholme. DK: Right. Yeah. I know. BR: Across the road, down in to Dunholme village. DK: I know. BR: And there were Nissen huts. DK: Right. BR: And we stayed in those until I got a posting to Syerston. Then got to Syerston and we were in a block. I don’t know if it was G block. DK: Yeah. BR: I think they called it. DK: Yeah. BR: And — DK: Did you, did you get on well with your other WAAFs? BR: Yes. Made some wonderful friends. DK: Okay. BR: And little things happened. I sent a BCIR report, Bomber Command Intelligence Report this particular day and it was very long and the flight sergeant in Scampton office said, ‘Betty, if you can send this report without making three mistakes you will get your corporal badges.’ And I said to him, ‘Flight, I don’t want promotion. I don’t like giving orders.’ But now, you see, oh I think I was stupid but I’d just been a country girl. DK: Yeah. BR: Lived in a village and I don’t like giving orders to other, to other WAAFs. DK: Did, did you used to watch the aircraft take off? BR: No. DK: On the raids. BR: No. DK: No. BR: No. I was either on duty, and when we weren’t on duty we were down at Dunholme. DK: Right. BR: That was the billet. DK: So you never really saw the activity on the airfields then. BR: No. So, I was trying to think of something that I did at 16 MU. EM: She’s got some nice photographs. BR: Oh, the first time, it was the first posting I had, and another WAAF and I were going into Stafford. So you had to go to the guard room and report and sign. DK: Yeah. BR: And the WAAF officer there, well it was a corporal, her name was Corporal Blood. Which I shall never forget. DK: What a great name. BR: And she said to me, ‘And which bus did you drive?’ I said, ‘I beg your pardon, corporal?’ She said, ‘Which bus did you drive?’ And I was flabbergasted. And she whipped my hat off and she plonked it on straight and she said, ‘That is how you wear your hat.’ Not — DK: Oh. Like that. Yeah. BR: Not at an angle. DK: Like a bus driver. Yeah. BR: And so I always remember her name and what she said. DK: Yeah. EM: I wonder if she’s still about. DK: Yeah. BR: And then she said, ‘Get off.’ DK: Oh dear. BR: And that was the first, I thought I’ve got to be careful. DK: I’ll tell you what shall I just pause it there? Shall I? Shall I just stop. Thanks. [recording paused] DK: Okay. Carry on. BR: When I was at Woodhall Spa a WAAF had bought a cloth a yard wide. DK: Yeah. BR: It was plain. And she got people to sign it. DK: Right. BR: And she ran up to me for some reason and she said, ‘Betty, would you sign my cloth?’ So, I said, ‘I’d be delighted to,’ but it was my maiden name obviously and she embroidered my name on it and all the others that she asked. DK: Right. BR: The local reporter for the Horncastle News said could anybody, could they issue any information as to how that came about because the girl had lost it. DK: Right. BR: And it was found behind a cupboard at Coningsby. One of these metal containers that — DK: Yeah. BR: You know further in. And they’d found the cloth at the back. So she never took it home. DK: Do you know what year they found it? BR: And funnily enough does that prove? EM: Yeah. What it was. BR: It was the girl’s. DK: Oh, here we go. 1986? EM: Yeah. DK: Yeah. 1986. EM: And then they’ve lost it again. DK: Oh. BR: And so that — DK: Oh no. BR: I took that photograph of the girls and I phoned. Bill Skelton his name was and he said, I said — EM: Horncastle News. DK: Yeah. BR: ‘I think I can help you with the cloth.’ He says, ‘Never.’ I said, ‘I can because my name’s on it.’ So he came to see me. DK: Right. So — BR: And it was put in the paper. Then a few years after. DK: So you’re on that then. BR: Yeah. DK: Yeah. EM: Here it is all about the cloth. DK: Right. EM: And they’ve lost the cloth again. DK: So where was it last seen then? At Coningsby? EM: Coningsby. BR: So that’s at Coningsby. My last station. DK: Right. BR: And there are the girls there. And the girl that did it was this one. DK: Okay. Can you remember their name? BR: That’s Wendy Taylor. DK: Wendy Taylor. BR: So, Mr Skelton that was, he wrote a bit about the paper and said they’d found — DK: Right. BR: But it disappeared again and a WAAF officer wrote the next part of it. DK: Right. BR: Is it there? DK: There’s a new museum at Coningsby. I wonder — EM: We’ve been. DK: Oh right. EM: We went a week last Monday. DK: Okay. EM: And she mentioned the cloth. DK: And they’ve got no — EM: No. They’ve lost, and they lost it and we mentioned it didn’t we? BR: Yeah. DK: What a shame. EM: And I think her name was Donna who’s there now. And she’s going to see if she can find it. But that is, that’s history. DK: Oh sure. Yeah. EM: And it’s a fabulous story. DK: Yeah. EM: They found in 1986. DK: ’86. And lost it again. EM: But she’s going to try to find it again. Probably through social media. You know, this is how you’re going to have to get it out there. DK: Well, what I can do is if I, if you can send me a copy of this I can put it on the IBCC’s Facebook page. EM: Yeah. DK: And see if that brings out any information. EM: Well, the thing for me to do then — DK: Yeah. EM: If I scanned that and that. DK: Scanned that and that. BR: That’s the next letter — EM: There look. BR: That came. DK: Yeah. EM: Yeah. I’m going to scan these for David and send them to him. DK: Right. EM: And he’s going to see whether they can find the cloth or any of the people. DK: Yeah. We can put an appeal out there. EM: Yeah. DK: On the Facebook pages. BR: There were about the second time they contacted me for that one. EM: Yeah. BR: For the cloth. DK: Yeah. BR: It was a WAAF officer and that. Is there a write up about it? DK: Yeah. EM: Yeah. DK: Yeah. EM: Yeah. DK: Well, we’ll see. We’ll see what we can do. BR: And — DK: I can get both the IBCC to look into it on their Facebook page and also the Coningsby Aviation Museum that’s recently opened. Or the Historical Centre or whatever it’s called. EM: Yeah. But as I say we were there. DK: Yeah. EM: And they just seemed totally aghast that anyone and I said well this had been going on and as I say it’s 1944/46 look. DK: So it was lost between the late 40s and about eighty — EM: ’86. Found in ’86 and lost again. DK: Oh dear. BR: What’s the date of that? That one. EM: It’s 1986. BR: Yeah. Yes, so — EM: But I’ll do that. BR: I don’t think she ever got it, but its disappeared and it isn’t in the museum. DK: Well, we — BR: And that’s what they wanted. DK: We’ll have to see what we can do. BR: And they asked me on Monday if I would take the cloth to show them but we never got the chance. DK: Right. Well, what I can do is I can send, if you email me all that I can send that to them. Both Coningsby and — EM: Yeah. DK: IBCC and they can put out an appeal for it then. EM: Yeah. Because the other thing I don’t know if you’ve noticed somebody’s written on there Dinah Shaw. DK: Right. EM: And there’s a singer called Dinah Shaw. DK: Oh right. Okay. EM: And they don’t, is that right? Dinah Shaw. Isn’t there a singer? BR: Diana Shaw. EM: Diana Shaw. Diana Shaw. And they’re not sure if it was the Diana Shaw who was the singer who put her name on that cloth. BR: Well, it probably was but I don’t know. DK: Right. Right. EM: And she’s quite a famous — DK: Yeah. EM: Person. Which is why they’ve written that there look. DK: Yeah. So whereabouts is your mother’s name? EM: Mum’s on this — BR: I don’t know why. I don’t know why. EM: Betty Jackson. DK: Oh, Betty Jackson. There you go. BR: Wendy came to me and there’s my name on there. EM: Yeah. Your name’s there look. On the bottom. BR: Yeah. E. Jackson. EM: Betty. No, Betty Jackson. BR: I put Betty. Yeah. EM: Yeah. But you see there Douglas Craig, all the names are quite — DK: Quite clear aren’t they? EM: Quite clear aren’t they? I mean I don’t know what they’d be like — BR: And there’s lots of girls in there from various stations that I’ve kept at the back. DK: Yeah. BR: And put the names under. DK: Well, it would be good if you could get all the names to the faces. BR: Yeah. EM: What do you want me to do then? Get the names? DK: If you could get the names to the faces on there. EM: Yeah. DK: I can either come back and scan these myself if you like. EM: Well, it’s up to you. DK: Or scan them. EM: I can scan them at work and send them from work. DK: We just need them at six hundred BPI. EM: Yeah. DK: Six hundred. Or DPI is it? Six hundred DPI. EM: Dots per inch. DK: Dots per inch. EM: Yeah. Yeah. DK: Six hundred DPI. If you can do that you can then just email them to me. EM: Right. What I’ll do then I’ll get her to name, you see. I mean again they’re all here look. DK: All there. Yeah. I notice you’ve got a missing one there. BR: Yeah. What’s that one? DK: That’s — EM: Peggy. Oh, Peggy Hassel. I don’t know where she’s gone. BR: Yes. DK: She’s [unclear] EM: Oh, she’s there mum. DK: [unclear] BR: Oh yes. She’s there. Peggy Hassel. EM: But they’re fabulous photographs aren’t they? DK: They are aren’t they? EM: I don’t know what that is. BR: It was a job to get your photograph. EM: What’s that? Who did that? BR: Percy Bexton. Doesn’t it say on there? EM: Yeah. And who was Percy Bexton, 1946? BR: Yes. He was at Scampton and he was in the office. He says, ‘I’ll give you something to remind you, Betty of me and that’s what he did for me. EM: Yeah. BR: Yeah. EM: They’re great, aren’t they? BR: And that’s how I looked. DK: Yeah. EM: Yeah. BR: When I got there. DK: Oh yes. Yeah. BR: That’s the one that’s enlarged there and — EM: They’re good though aren’t they? DK: So that’s Winstanley Hall in the background was it? EM: That’s Winstanley Hall, isn’t it? BR: Yes. That’s Winstanley Hall. And why I’m sitting amongst the daffodils apparently every year when the daffodils came out they were picked and given and sold to the hospital in Wigan. DK: Okay. Right. BR: And that’s the reason I’m sitting there with that in the background. DK: I know the IBCC would love those photos. BR: We were in Nissen huts. DK: Yeah. BR: That’s where we are in slacks and that. EM: Yeah. BR: It was a day off — EM: Well, I’ll go through with you. BR: Yeah. EM: And make notes and then if I can scan everything. BR: Yeah. DK: And send to you. DK: And send them to me. EM: And you can choose. DK: And I can send them on. EM: What you want and don’t want, can’t you? DK: Particularly the cuttings and we’ll see if we can — EM: Yeah. DK: Put the message out there about the lost cloth. EM: But from Scampton then you went to Coningsby, didn’t you? BR: No. I went from Scampton to Syerston. EM: Right. BR: But it was just, I think some of the Dambusters were posted there but I wouldn’t be certain. DK: Yeah. BR: But I never bothered about them. We never bothered about them. We were just WAAFs going on duty. Then we, that was it. DK: So you didn’t mix with the men much then. Mix with a group. BR: Well, we did because there was always a dance on the camp. DK: Right. BR: And the odd one would come to it but you’d just, they’d just come up and say, ‘Come on,’ you know, ‘I’ll have this dance with you.’ And you didn’t, it never made anything. DK: Yeah. BR: You know. They were just, when we were off duty we went to the dance. It was on every week. It wasn’t anything special and I wasn’t a dancer. DK: Yeah. So how, so you left in 1946. BR: 19 — DK: ‘46. Yeah. EM: You left. When did you go to Coningsby then? In 1945. DK: ’45. BR: Yes. EM: Why? Did you get posted to Coningsby? BR: Yes. I went from Scampton to Syerston. EM: Yeah. BR: From Syerston to Coningsby. EM: Right. BR: In 1945. EM: Right. And so you were a teleprinter operator. BR: And I was a teleprinter operator. EM: At Coningsby. BR: All the time. Yeah. EM: But they, where did you live in Coningsby? You were in the Nissen huts in Pilgrim Square. BR: We were. That’s right. That’s where those pictures were taken. DK: Yeah. BR: Outside with that cloth. DK: Right. Yeah. BR: I was at Coningsby. DK: So what, what was it like in a Nissen hut? Was it a bit cold? BR: You see. I wish I could tell what he said. EM: What was it like living in the Nissen huts? BR: Well, it was alright because it was really, you slept in them and then you was going on duty and then when you come off duty if you were free we’d go in to Lincoln. To the YMCA. But Lincoln was not, it wasn’t a long way to Lincoln from Scampton. EM: Oh, Scampton. We’re back at Scampton now. DK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. BR: But that’s what you did. And if not we went to the Nissen huts and — DK: Yeah. BR: Didn’t do anything there. We just used to sit around the fire and talk. EM: What about when you were Coningsby? Where did you go when you were at Coningsby? BR: Coningsby. Well, we were stationed at Pilgrim Square. EM: Yeah. BR: In the Nissen huts. EM: Yeah. BR: And well I shouldn’t say this it’s where my husband, where I met my husband. And if you want to know that story it’s lovely. DK: Oh, well go on then. If you’re happy to tell it. What, what was your husband doing? BR: He was a GPO engineer. DK: Right. BR: And he was, he wasn’t in the forces. What was it? EM: Civil service wasn’t he? BR: Yes. DK: Yeah. Reserved occupation. EM: Yeah. DK: Yeah. BR: His area was Woodhall Spa, Horncastle, Digby RAF, Coningsby RAF. Everything to do with — DK: Right. BR: And he was at Blankney Hall when it burned down. And Stan came to mend the teleprinter I was on. DK: Yeah. BR: And also the telephone exchange was just there adjoining the teleprinter room. DK: Right. BR: So he went to mend the fault on the switchboard, came off and went to the room which was the GPO room to wash his hands. And he came back with his hands wet through and I said, ‘Here you are. Dry them on my towel. I’m going on leave for the weekend.’ So that was it. Off he went. About a quarter of an hour later the telephone rang and a voice said, ‘When did you say I was going to take you out?’ And I said, ‘Well, I think you’ve had a bit of bad luck. I’m going on a forty-eight hour pass.’ And he asked the girls in this, what he knew, when I was coming back. And they said, ‘She’ll be back in Monday night. And she’s got to be in by 23:59.’ And he sat and waited for me at Coningsby Station for, to watch me get off the train. And there he sat in his little Austin 7. And he said, and I could have dropped dead, and he came and opened the door and he said, ‘I’ve come to pick you up.’ He said, ‘There’s a good film on at Boston. Would you like to go and see it with me?’ He said, ‘We’ll get you back for midnight.’ So off we went to Boston to see this lovely film. DK: Yeah. EM: Which was? BR: Eh? EM: What was the film? BR: Oh dear. EM: I know what the film was. BR: What was it? EM: “State Fair.” BR: “State Fair.” That’s it. And that was it. And from then on when he came to the camp we just kept going out together and — DK: So, so it was a good thing you were in the WAAFs then. Because of that you met your husband. EM: Yeah. Yeah. DK: Yeah. EM: You met, you met dad through being in the WAAF and posted to Coningsby, didn’t you? BR: Yeah. DK: Yeah. EM: Yeah. BR: Yes. That was the last place. EM: That’s why she lived in Woodhall Spa. DK: Right. EM: Because he lived at Woodhall Spa. BR: And in my off duty Stan would pick me up. He’d be going out to one of the villages like South Kyme. DK: Yeah. BR: To a little telephone exchange and I’d go with him. DK: Yeah. BR: But if we saw another PO van he used to say, ‘Duck down,’ because — DK: You shouldn’t have been there. BR: I shouldn’t have been in it. But that’s what we did all the time. DK: Yeah. Okay. I think that’s, let’s wrap up here. BR: And we got married. DK: Yeah. BR: And went to live in Woodhall Spa. DK: Right, then. Can I, can I just ask you finally how do you look back on your time in the RAF as a WAAF? How do you look back on it now? BR: What was that? EM: How do you look back on your time in the RAF as a WAAF? BR: Yes. I loved every minute of it. DK: Yeah. BR: It was so interesting and it was a routine. And — EM: But you enjoyed it didn’t you? BR: Yes. I did. EM: And you met some lovely people. BR: Yes. And they were going to have a Ruhr tour. DK: Right. BR: That was to see the damage. DK: Oh right. Okay. BR: And every so often the aircraft, the Lanc — DK: Yeah. BR: Flew. This was just after the war. Oh, I don’t know if the war was on and you could put your name down for a Ruhr Tour. DK: Right. BR: And so I put my name down but I never got on the Ruhr Tour because I got demobbed in April ’41. DK: So you never flew then all the time. BR: No. DK: When you were a WAAF. BR: No. EM: She never got to. BR: That would have just been the icing. DK: I should say. BR: And if I hadn’t met Stan, and we were getting married I would put my name down for, was it Singapore? DK: Right. Yeah. BR: I was going to stay in the WAAF. DK: Right. BR: And go off to Singapore. But it didn’t happen. DK: It didn’t happen. No. Okay. BR: And — DK: Sorry, go on BR: So that’s it. DK: Okay, that’s great. I’ll stop it. BR: There’s lots of little things that happened that, you know. EM: What? DK: Yeah. BR: The one that sticks in my mind. Oh, when I was on the parade ground the first night being a volunteer there was a lot of girls turned up but by morning a lot of girls had gone back home because they could. DK: Right. BR: So of course we had to stay because they were going to issue uniform and the WAAF officer went around with a corporal I think to see if your hair was off your collar. And mine as you can see was quite curly and she pulled it out of, down on to my collar to see if it was going to touch my collar and she said, ‘Barber’s shop,’ to this corporal. And I said, ‘What does that mean?’ Well, I could. I couldn’t turn around and say, ‘Why am I going there?’ And so she said, ‘You’ll have your hair cut to a certain length.’ And I went to the barber’s shop and there was a young lad in it, and he was going to cut my hair and I said, ‘You’re not doing that.’ He said, ‘I’ve got to cut some of it off.’ So I told him how much he could take off which he did. And from then on I lost the curls that I did. DK: Yeah. BR: And got, put it in a roll. You put it in a roll and tucked it in, you know. And that was alright. DK: So long as it was off your collar. BR: Yes. DK: Yeah. BR: To get it off my collar. DK: Your collar. Yeah. BR: And then of course I go first time out the corporal plonked my hat on. DK: Can’t win. BR: And funny how I remember her name. Corporal Blood. EM: It’s good though, isn’t it? DK: Yeah. Yeah. EM: Okay. DK: Okay. Well we’ll stop it there. Thanks. Thanks very much for that. [recording paused] That was David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Betty Repton nee Jackson at her home [redacted] on the 9th of March 2018. Also there was her daughter Elaine Mablethorpe. That’s Elaine Mablethorpe. Okay. 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 Betty Repton 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 2018-03-09 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. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AReptonB180306, PReptonB1801 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:37:08 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 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire England--Shropshire England--Nottinghamshire Description An account of the resource Betty (nee Jackson) worked in a library in Macclesfield before the war. When the war began, she went to Manchester to volunteer for the Air Force and trained as a telephonist. She did a course at Sheffield General Post Office before being posted to RAF Bridgnorth for training and then to 16 Maintenance Unit at RAF Stafford. Following training as a Teleprinter Operator at RAF Blackbrook she re-mustered and was posted to RAF Cranwell. She was released for three months to look after her ailing mother and was called back to the RAF in December 1944, being posted to RAF Scampton, then to RAF Syerston and then RAF Coningsby, where she stayed until being demobbed. When at RAF Scampton she was billeted in Nissen huts at RAF Dunholme Lodge. She handled Bomber Command intelligence report messages whenever a crew returned and met Guy Gibson. Betty met her husband, Stan, a civilian General Post Office engineer, whilst stationed at RAF Coningsby. Betty remembered a RAF officer who had a cloth embroidered with names of staff, but it had since been lost. When Betty and Stan married, they lived at RAF Woodhall Spa. Betty said she had loved every minute of her time in the RAF. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sue Smith Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Carolyn Emery Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944-12 1945 5 Group Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) ground personnel intelligence officer Lancaster love and romance Nissen hut RAF Blackbrook RAF Bridgnorth RAF Coningsby RAF Cranwell RAF Dunholme Lodge RAF Scampton RAF Stafford RAF Syerston RAF Woodhall Spa training Women’s Auxiliary Air Force https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/176/2339/Frost, Bob.jpg 4a22fb6eb58e5c781be4f1ae44654285 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/176/2339/AFrostB150707.mp3 84e7a270c883b3ce4d4e13c188971538 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 Frost, Bob R Frost Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Frost, B Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-07-07 Description An account of the resource Four items. Two oral history interviews with Robert Frost (1383682 Royal Air Force), and two photographs. Sergeant Bob frost flew as a rear gunner with 150 Squadron from RAF Snaith. Shot down on an operation to Essen, he was helped by the Resistance and evaded through the Netherlands and France to Spain. The story of his evasion is available in video form. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Bob Frost and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document GC: Right here we go. My name’s Gemma Clapton. I’m the interviewer. I’m here with Sergeant Bob Frost. We’re doing an interview for the International Bomber Command in Lincoln. How about we start with how you joined the RAF and why? Your reasoning. BF: Well to begin the story. I am Bob Frost. I was born in Camden Town, London, 1st January 1923. I grew up there. Went to the [Lyal Stanley?] Technical School. Took German. Went to Germany before the war and saw Hermann Goering arriving at Cologne Railway Station and scuffles in the streets between Germans for the Nazi party and the few who were opposed. When I got home I told my parents that I thought there would be trouble ahead and there was. The Second World War. At that time, around about 1937 there was recruiting going on for the air raid precautions and the Auxiliary Fire Service. I joined the Auxiliary Fire Service as a messenger boy and went through the London Blitz operating from Camden town and across Holborn and that part of London. Coming home off watch one morning around about 5 o’clock I saw a man at Mornington Crescent digging at what had been his house, his mother was buried inside. He only had his bare hands, and I thought to myself helping to put fires out is one thing but it’s not stopping them and so I went and joined the Royal Air Force. My father had been in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and was back in the RAF in the Second World War. I passed for all grades of air crew but was told that pilot training I’d have to wait at least eighteen months before starting on pilot training. I thought the war would be well and truly over by then and so I took the offer of becoming an air gunner and went into the air force just immediately after my eighteenth birthday. It took a year before I went on my gunnery course but I learned a great deal about what really happens to keep an aeroplane flying in the air force. It was a jolly good lesson. I went to Chipping Warden Operational Training Unit and was crewed up there with Bill Randle, the pilot, Scotty Brazill the navigator, Walter Dreschler, bomb aimer — Canadian, and Norman Graham — Canadian, the wireless operator. Whilst on that course we crashed an aircraft, destroyed a barn and knew from the way the crew reacted that we could instantly rely upon each other as a complete unit. It really welded us together. We were posted to 150 Squadron, Bomber Command at a place – Snaith, near Doncaster in Yorkshire and there on our twenty second trip over Germany when we were carrying one passenger, the second pilot – Del Mounts a United States citizen who’d joined the Canadian Air Force before the United States came in to the shooting war and he was flying with us on his first op to gain experience before taking his own crew. Going in to the target which was Essen we were hit by heavy anti-aircraft fire that put the port engine out of action. The aircraft relied on that port engine for all the hydraulics and this meant that the turrets no longer worked or anything at all but we pressed on and dropped our bomb, we only had one, a four thousand pounder cookie, on the target area and then headed straight for home. But over Belgium the starboard engine packed up at about thirteen thousand feet and we had to jump out, bail out, and came down by parachute. I landed in a field which seemed to come up and hit me. When I’d collected myself and my parachute I hid the parachute as best I could and set off in a south-westerly direction using the Pole Star as a guide hoping to head for Gibraltar. We had worked out what you did when you were shot down, not if you were shot down but when and heading for Gibraltar seemed to be the best option available. In the early light of the morning I came to the outskirts of a small village Kapellen by Glabbeek in the Flemish speaking part of Belgium, and I crept around the outside of the village, didn’t dare enter into the centre of it and I noticed a small farmhouse and for some reason that was the place for me. I went, knocked on the door hoping that an elderly lady would answer and I would be able to run away faster than she should she not prove friendly. But the door was opened by a burly young man. He spoke Flemish. It sounded to me something like the German I had learnt at school so I answered in my schoolboy German and the door was slammed in my face. I regarded that as a good sign, knocked again and eventually I’m in the kitchen of the house and there’s grandfather, grandmother, their daughter carrying a baby in her arms and this burly young man – her husband. They took me in and looked after me. Whilst we were having a bit of a pantomime in their kitchen that morning a woman came along knocking at the door. This was round about 6 o’clock in the morning, to buy meat because the family were also the village butchers and she had seen me skulking around and made pretence of coming to buy meat at 6 o’clock in the morning. I discovered later that she was visited by the local resistance and told if she breathed any word of what had happened she would not breathe many more breaths. She kept quiet. I stayed with that family for about a week and I was asked if I could ride a bicycle. Yes. And then I followed somebody on a bicycle to a small town Tienen or in French Tirlemont and was taken to the house of Manny and Marcel Renards [?]. Marcel was a stockbroker in Belgium and he gave me a suit. Now he was a big fellow and I was just a young lad of nineteen and the trousers came up under my armpits and I could easily look down and see [laughs] that the suit was really meant for a larger man but it served me well did that suit and I stayed with them for a while before being taken by train to, no it wasn’t a train it was tram to Brussels and lodged at a house of [Ashil Alieu] who lived on the outskirts of Brussels near to Laeken, near the royal palace there. And whilst there I was taken into the centre of Brussels to the flat of two ladies, both Elisabeth and one of them came back from a shopping expedition and let her shopping bag fall across the table and out of that came a passport sized photograph and lo and behold it was Del Mounts - our passenger on that last trip. I recognised the photo and said ‘yes I know that fellow’, and the look of relief on the faces of those two girls was really good to see. They had queried Del’s story, they had queried my story. I was talking German. Del pretending, they thought, to be an American. The Germans knew that aircraft were coming down and crews were making escapes and so whenever an aircraft crashed they put in dummies on the ground pretending to be out of that aircraft. They would then enter into the underground network and when they got a list of names they would give them to the Germans and the whole line would be wiped out. That happened twice to the line I came through – the Comet Line, which succeeded in helping escape eight hundred and twenty allied air crew during the course of the war but at tremendous cost in lives to themselves. From my [pause] safe house in Brussels I was taken to another place and there we met Bill Randle, our pilot who had succeeded also in finding his way in to the Comet Line and Del Mounts came along as well and we three were then taken from Paris to St Jean de Luz down in the south west corner of France by train in the company with three other escaping airmen by a young girl, Janine de Greef who was seventeen years of age. She made that journey from Paris to the south west corner of France twenty odd times during the war. So that meant forty trips in all. A real heroine that girl. At St Jean de Luz I was taken with the other five members to a farmhouse on the outside of St Jean and there I met again Dedee de Jongh, the Belgian girl who had started the Comet Line going. She had been training as a nurse before the war. The war came she was doing her bit looking after the men who had not been able to escape at the time of Dunkirk. And they found that the cost of maintaining these men, because they had to buy all their rations and things on the black market, was prohibitive and they really needed to clear these men back to the United Kingdom and so they took a three Scottish highlanders down to the south west corner, got them over the Pyrenees through Spain, Gibraltar and back to England and that began the opening of the line to bring men back to this country. From my position in Paris when Janine took us down to the southwest corner we travelled by train and the train was stopped at a frontier and we were taken into a hall, had to produce our identity papers which I had been provided with. I was now a Belgian seaman who had been stationed at Bordeaux and had travelled up to Brussels to his mother who lived there was elderly and not very well. Now I was now going back to re-join my ship down at Bordeaux so I had a reason for travelling. Had anybody examined the address on my papers the street existed but the number did not, so nobody would have had an unwelcome knock on their door from the German authorities seeking to know where this seaman Robert Seamoness [?] as I was known, had gone. They protected people from unnecessary adventure without any harm to anybody. They were a very thoughtful and well-arranged lot. When I got to the Pyrenees I was taken with the six of us who had travelled from Paris over the Pyrenees by Florentino Goicoechea[?], a Spanish Basque smuggler. He was a professional smuggler and he guided men over the mountains to safe haven as we would thought in Spain. Whilst going over he led the group, Dedee de Jongh brought up the rear, I was the last of the six men and during the crossing I fell into a great pit, knocked all the wind out of me. Dedee saw what had happened and called Florentino back and he lifted me out of that pit like a drowned rat and dumped me on the ground at the side and all was well. From time to time he would stop by a bush and bring out a bottle of Cognac which was passed around and how he knew one bush in all those hundreds I don’t know but he always found the right one. When we got to the other side of the frontier to cross the river Bidasoa we found that the river was in flood and we had to walk for another five hours to a bridge crossing in order to get on to the Spanish side. Climbing up towards the steep slopes on either side of that bridge there I was stopped looking at a little hut which had the Spanish Guard Seville members inside and one was outside smoking a cigarette. And I lay against the ground looking up at him in the darkness below thinking, ‘For goodness sake hurry up and finish your cigarette. I want to get to the other side.’ Well, eventually he moved off and I moved over and then we were greeted by a car with CD plates on the back and taken to St Sebastian and at that point Dedee left us and returned back to carry on her dangerous work through Belgium, France and up to the frontier. Florentino, he’d gone off and was then ready to bring the next group of airmen across. In Spain we were taken to the British embassy in Madrid. It was the old Victorian building and the stables had been used there in the days of horse drawn traffic and that became the dormitory for we, the escapers, and there were quite a number of Poles there including the one who was in our group Teddy Frankowski. He wanted to get back to England and we thought he wanted to resume the fight against the enemy. It wasn’t really that. Back on station he had a motorbike and he didn’t want them to sell it before he returned. He thought a lot of that motorbike. At Gibraltar we were housed quite comfortably but water was the great shortage. The lack of pure water was the great thing there and we were issued with soap. It would float in seawater and when you tried to wash with it was like using a piece of pumice stone. It scraped you clean. But we were debriefed at Gib and then after almost a week there told to be ready to take off in an American Dakota of the United States 8th Army Air Corps and we were flown back to the United Kingdom. We flew right out over the Bay of Biscay to avoid the land and any fighter aircraft and landed at Portreath in Cornwall exactly five weeks and four days after taking off from Snaith in Yorkshire. Nobody knew anything about us at all. We asked could we please have an overcoat because by now it was approaching Christmas time and it was jolly cold and we were provided with the proper air force winter uniform, given £5 which was a huge sum of money and a railway warrant up to London. Bill went to his family. I went to see my mother who was working for the London Fire Brigade at that time at Shaftsbury Avenue and I walked into the place where she worked, she was a cook and said, ‘Hello mum,’ and we both stood and hugged each other. She hadn’t received anything other than the telegram saying that I was missing. She had called my father who was stationed at Chivenor in North Devon and they had both gone up to visit my brother David who was evacuated not far from Doncaster and then they went across to the squadron to see if there was any news of what had happened to me but there wasn’t any because I hadn’t been picked up by the Red Cross or anybody else. The shock of that telegram caused my father to become ill and he was admitted to Sheffield Military Hospital suffering phlebitis in his legs and unfortunately was not passed as medically fit for service anymore and was discharged from the air force. I’ve always regarded my father as one of the casualties of war. I went back to where the squadron had, was or so I thought but when I got there I found it was no longer in this country. It was at [?] in North Africa. No, I didn’t want to go to North Africa thank you very much and so I was sent back to London and sent to RAF. [pause] And I was sent to RAF Uxbridge as a holding unit, I was put into a barrack room with a number of other aircrew NCOs of all aircrew trades and in the morning ordered on parade on the barrack square and was being marched up and down with these lads who I discovered had been sent to Uxbridge for court martial as lacking in moral fibre. They thought because I was wearing an air gunner’s brevet that I was one sent there for court martial. So I left the parade ground. A warrant officer standing on the side bellowed at me to get back on parade and I told him in two words what to do. And then went to see the adjutant and explained to him that I had not returned back to this country in order to be marched about on his parade ground. He was most surprised and that evening I went home with an open leave pass in my pocket whilst they decided what on earth they were going to do with me. And the upshot of all that I was posted to the RAF Marine School at Coswall [?] in Scotland teaching the marine side of the air force what to do with such weaponry as they carried and tactics against enemy aircraft attacking them because a lot of them were engaged on air sea rescue in the North Sea and the best advice that could be given and the skippers of those north sea ASR boats agreed, was to leave the 303 machine guns wrapped up in oiled casings and not try firing them off against a Junkers 88 equipped with twenty millimetre canon. The best thing they could do was to shut down the engine, leave no wake and hope that the aircraft would start running out of fuel and leave them alone. They did a jolly good job those chaps but I wanted to go back into the air force but not bombing this time but to go back supplying munitions to the underground movement and I succeeded in being posted to an operational training unit which would have led me on to 644 squadron flying Halifaxes, dropping supplies and also glider towing troops across the channel. But the air force stepped in and said no you’re not allowed back on ops anymore and none of our crew ever went back on operations again because if, we assumed we should come down again and were caught questions might be asked of us as to what had happened the first time around. Whether that be the case or not I’m not too sure but I finished my time in RAF Bridgnorth in Shropshire and there in the sergeant’s mess I met a young WAAF, a hospital steward, we were married two years later and we had fifty years and six months of happiness before eventually she succumbed to motor neurone disease. Now I live in Sandwich. A daughter looks after me. She lives nearby and the friends I made during the war we’re on to the great-grandchildren. They have become our family. And to those people working in the resistance I really do accept them as the real heroes. If we were caught it was POW. If they were caught the whole family was caught and what happened to them I hate to think, in the concentration camps. The stories I’ve heard from their relatives and the fact that when I went back to Paris to see Robert and Germaine who’d looked after me in ’42, Robert was no longer there. He’d been arrested in ’43 – executed in ’44. Germaine, they were going to send to forced labour for them. She refused to work for them and so was put in to Ravensbruck concentration camp. She survived, became aunt to my children and lived to be ninety years of age. Then she gave her body to the local hospital. I was given her two bibles. The old and new testaments in French and those bibles are now lodged in Canterbury Cathedral where they have a French chapel and a service in French every Sunday afternoon to the memory of a very brave person. That’s my story. This is the Observer and Air Gunners Flying Log Book. And you had to get it signed every month as being accurate. This is to certify 1383682 LAC Frost R qualified as an air gunner with effect from the 23rd of January 1942. So I became an air gunner sergeant on the 23rd of January 1942. And that was Number 8 Air Gunnery School Evanton, Scotland, north of Inverness. Results of air gunnery course - exam mark ninety percent. Remarks – well above the average and then they made a ricket of the stamping here, well above the average. Should make an excellent air gunner. J Compton, Squadron Leader. I came top of the course. That was why when I went eventually to the Operational Training Unit at Chipping Warden they put so many pilots, so many navigators, so many wireless operators and you were all in to a big hangar - sort yourselves out into crews. There were ten pilots, ten navigators and so on you see and that is what happened. This is my 12 OTU Operational Training Unit, the different flights, circuits and landings, circuits and landings, instrument flying, circuits and landings, cross country’s and all that kind of thing. That was the gunnery school and I came down from there as I say and they asked did I want to accept a commission or apply for a commission ‘cause I came top of the course and I said no thank you. I just want to be an air gunner. That’s all I’ve joined for. And then we go to number, that was 12 OTU. That was in Oxfordshire and I’m crewed initially there. Let’s see if I can give you this. Evanton that’s there. Now here’s 12 OTU. Now look, date, hour, aircraft type, pilot and my first pilot and we’d sorted ourselves out in this big hangar – Sergeant Lock L O C K. I look down the list and his name never comes up again. What happened? I’m near to Oxford at this Operational Training Unit. There’s a heavy air raid on London. I asked for a twenty four hour pass to go and see if my home was still ok. Remember I’d been through the London Blitz and knew what could happen. So they said yes you’ve got twenty four hours out and back so I took off, went home, everything was alright. I came back and one of the pilots there Sergeant Randle said to me, ‘Bob would you like to fly with me?’ I said, ‘No thank you I’m flying with Ginger. Ginger Lock.’ He said, ‘Ginger Lock’s not flying with anybody anymore.’ He had taken up a Wellington aircraft and sat in the back where I should have been sat was a chappy who was going to become a wireless operator air gunner. He’d done his wireless course and he was waiting for his gunnery course and the opportunity to fly in an aeroplane was too good to be missed. Ginger flew that aeroplane and the whole crew with him, a scratch crew, down to Henley on Thames where Ginger lived and they flew down over the River Thames up the hill on the other side straight into the trees at the top and he wrote the lot off. Had I not had that twenty four hour pass? And that was my introduction to what flying was all about? You see? So I’m now flying with Sergeant Randle. And the first trip that we did together, you can’t imagine it, detail not carried out. Landed at Llanbedr. It was a cross country exercise. Navigation for the navigator. Remember we were an Operational Training Unit and the aircraft that were flying at these Operational Training Units, these OTUs, were all aircraft that were no longer fit for operational flying. They were clapped out. And so you got more crashes from these places than anywhere else because the aircraft as I say were clapped out. And the first trip that I did with Bill we landed because the aircraft was clapped out. That meant that it wasn’t working. Come home again. That went on there and now I’ve got Randle, Randle, Randle, Randle, Randle all the way through until we come to the 21st of June 1942. We took off at 9:30 in the evening and we were going on a cross country navigational exercise. Crashed near Whitton, Whitton is in Lincolnshire, at 1:52 in the morning. We’re bowling along, I say bowling along in the air and the engines start playing up and Bill says get ready to bail out. Walter, our front gunner, bomb aimer said he didn’t think that was a good idea. We were too near the ground. So Bill said right take up crash positions and we crashed near Whitton. We hit a barn. I’ve got a picture of it somewhere. [pause] And when Bomber Command Museum was opened and we met together forty odd years after the war, the day after that we went to where we had crashed to see what it looked like and that was taken there and that’s was the farmer’s son who’s now grown and has replaced his father as farmer. They weren’t owner farmers they were tenant farmers and they’d had a new barn built – a brick one. The one we crashed into was a wooden one with a thatched roof and when Norman our wireless op, I’ll show you Norman [pause]. This one here, the Canadian wireless op. Now he would be sat about the middle of the aircraft and he came out through the thatched roof swearing what do the so and so British put on their houses ‘cause we didn’t know it was a barn at the time but he found Bill Randle the pilot unconscious in the crash so he dragged Bill out. I was in the rear turret and the gun sight that was right up in front of me came back, hit me on the head, I’ve still got the scar up there somewhere and it knocked me unconscious. Only for a little while, not for hours but just for a few seconds and I’ve got my turret turned sideways so that you could open the doors and drop out the back. That was how you got out of that particular one at that time and I opened the doors and there running alongside the aeroplane is this lad. Can you see the one right at the end, at this end, that’s it you’ve got this hand on it. That fella Scotty, the navigator. He was running down the side of the burning aircraft to get me out of the turret. When I say it was that crash that brought us together we realised that we would look after each other whatever happened and that really welded us together as a crew. If anybody in the crew said turn right we all turned right. You didn’t argue. The pilot was the one in charge but if anybody in the crew saw something that needed instant action and they said stand up, sit down, jump about, do anything, you did it. You didn’t say why, you just did it because you trusted each other. Now I’m the last one alive. GC: Well we’ve got your voice on tape now. BF: So - GC: It won’t ever be lost again. BF: You see, that’s these things. Now you’ve seen Daphne. GC: Yes we have Daphne. BF: As a young - when a fellow had seen her with her three stripes on - GC: Ahum. BF: Tell me when you’re ready. I met Daphne at RAF Bridgnorth in Shropshire in the sergeant’s mess. She had just been made a sergeant. She had a boyfriend before then who was an airman and she had been a corporal but when he saw Daphne with her three stripes on he turned tail and ran. But Daphne came into the mess and two years later we got married. Best thing I ever did. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Bob Frost. One Description An account of the resource Bob Frost recounts experiencing the London Blitz as a member of the Auxiliary Fire Service. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force and trained at the Air Gunnery School at RAF Evanton, Scotland. He was then posted to the Operational Training Unit at RAF Chipping Warden and describes an aircraft crash in Lincolnshire whilst there. His operational posting was to 150 Squadron at RAF Snaith. On an operation to Essen, two of the Lancaster’s engines were damaged and the crew baled out over Belgium. Frost describes being taken in by a farming family and sheltered by the resistance. Reunited with his crew, they were passed along the Comet Line through Belgium and France, being accompanied from Paris to St Jean de Luz by Janine de Greef. They met Dedee de Jongh who, together with a Basque smuggler, accompanied them across the Pyrenees into Spain. From Madrid they were driven to Gibraltar and flown to the United Kingdom. Bob Frost did not undertake any further operational flying. He was eventually posted to RAF Bridgnorth, where he met his wife Daphne, who was in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gemma Clapton 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 2015-09-16 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams 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. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:43:03 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AFrostB150707 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England France Spain England--Northamptonshire England--Yorkshire Germany--Essen Pyrenees Netherlands Germany Great Britain Germany--Ruhr (Region) Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942 12 OTU 150 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School air sea rescue aircrew bale out bombing civil defence crash crewing up de Jongh, Andree (1916 - 2007) evading faith ground personnel heirloom Lancaster military ethos Operational Training Unit RAF Bridgnorth RAF Chipping Warden RAF Evanton RAF Snaith training Women’s Auxiliary Air Force https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/822/10806/AFlintC160421.1.mp3 c21fed5851cb164e0d77b2c9cea6b7b9 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/822/10806/PFlintCE1601.2.jpg 371cc9c8f2411ee0b5713627154de47d 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 Flint, Charles C Flint Description An account of the resource Two items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Charles Flint (1925 - 2019, 1812492 Royal Air Force) and his log book. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 115, 178, 70 Squadrons. 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 2016-04-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Flint, C Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document NM: So, the date is the 21st of August. It’s 2 o’clock — of April sorry 2016. It’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon. I’m with Mr Charles Flint at his address in Welwyn Garden City. Would you like to tell me a little bit about your background? Your childhood, your growing up before you joined the RAF. CF: Well, what happened was I was working down a tube station that was completely covered in bricks so the trains could go past. Where all the people concerned with the army, navy and air force they were there. And what happened one day I went across Trafalgar Square to get stuff for the Charing Cross Hotel. And I was walking across, come across a Lancaster. And the first thing the bloke says, ‘Would you like to go on it?’ I says, ‘Yeah.’ ‘Got a name and address?’ I give him my name and address where I used to live. And it was my day off the next day and when I got home there was a letter waiting for me. My mother says, ‘What you got there?’ I said, ‘Well, mind your own business first.’ I opened it up. I’d got a, been accepted for the Royal Air Force. She said, ‘Stupid sod. You’ll be called up.’ I said, ‘I’m never going to be called up. I want to do what I would do.’ And from then on I had to go Bridgnorth. Well, you do all the personal training. Learning how to march, reverse, fire a rifle and all that business. Yeah. Went to a place called Bridgnorth where we learned how to do the Morse code. And it took thirteen months to learn all the Morse code. And once you’d learned the Morse code we started in these three [unclear] and it tells you what we were doing. So, if you’d like to read it. As I say you can see what happened. NM: Why don’t you just tell me? CF: Yeah. NM: We’ll look at the books later. CF: Yeah. So, once you’d learned to do the, what you were supposed to do you’d got to get crewed up. They put you in a big hangar. Shut the doors. Locked it. Hundreds of people inside. You got to select your crew. So, first two blokes I met was a [pause] there was a Birmingham bloke. He went up in the middle. Top of the middle of the aircraft. And he could go around and around with two guns and shoot. The other bloke was a Scotch bloke and he was a rear, rear turret. The pilot. You had to pick up who it was. And then you needed a navigator. You had to pick him up. And once you crewed up they wouldn’t let you out until everybody had crewed up. And then I went to Bridgnorth where I had thirteen months to do the Morse code. By then, when they locked you in this hangar to get the pilot and the stuff you pick out your pilot. Or go up to him saying, ‘Do you need — ?’ If he said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Could I do it?’ ‘Yes.’ So that is it. You pick it up and you‘d got a crew then of seven. From then on he has to be taught what to do and as I say the first time we had to go up I had to do a test so that I could Morse code. And until I got on that pass they won’t let you go. Well, after I’d finished the tests, got away with it, went to Bridgnorth. From Bridgnorth to Bishops Court. That’s in Ireland. There four of us were trained to fire rifles. But we had to watch it. The copper says, ‘Don’t go in town because you’ve got uniform. I’ll teach you how to do what it is.’ He come back and once you start on the aircraft, it’s the pilot. He has to do what is said here. And if you’d like to read on it tells you how it goes. NM: Ok. But keep telling me your story. CF: Yeah. NM: In your own words. CF: Pardon? NM: So keep, keep talking. CF: Yeah. NM: Telling me about your own. CF: As I say — NM: After you’d crewed up. CF: Well, I went in Dominies first. They’re the double winged ones which was very awkward because there was three of us going around trying to contact the wireless operator on, you know. But eventually we got through and you got the crew and we went to [pause] to a place called Witchford in Herefordshire. And there was always thirty three aircraft from each squadron. The same squadron. Thirty three A, B and C. And that was how you took off. Apparently you had about three on the runway taking off. You go over. Then he has to do low flying exercises and all this business. We just keep flying and gradually he becomes a pilot. He gets his wings. And then from then onwards we started flying. Well, there’s, in there a series of places we bombed. And the last three bombs we’d done — the first we’d done daylight attacks on the, his atomic place he was trying to build. And then the last three, last three bombs we dropped was on Potsdam when Hitler give in. And the three bombs at the time was less than when the prisoners were receiving. One of them came to my Aircrew Association and he said, ‘Who dropped the bombs?’ I said, ‘My crew.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘What were they?’ I told him. There was an eighty, sixty and a forty thousand pound bombs followed by five hundred pounders. And when they dropped them we flew up about fifty feet after dropping then. And then from then onwards we flew over. We finished up in Egypt. Was out there for about seven years just doing normal flying up and down the coast. Up to Algiers where something happened to the pilot where he said, ‘Don’t ever tell Beryl what happened to me.’ That was his wife. And after seven years you had a number that you had to carry about. And that was your release number. I forget where I lived. It was somewhere in, just out of town near where the radio transmitters were, you know. And there were three women. I think it was. They, one used to go to where the Morse code machine was. Another one went to where the Beauforts used to take off. And the other one went somewhere else and they took it in turns. At the time there was about six foot of snow. And the warrant officer in charge he called me over. He said, ‘Charlie,’ he says, ‘I know what your rank is. You’re a warrant officer. Fetch the airmen down to me. We’ve got a meet. A big ATA meeting for the erks.’ The erks were just an ordinary bloke who looked after all the engines. I called them. Got them in line in threes. Marched them down. He said, ‘Right. Here’s your bed. Your place.’ I went there. A little hut. I had my own place to sleep. There was a fire inside where we had coke burners. I was there about what seven days then a letter come from somewhere. I don’t know who it was. I had to go to Blackpool. When I got up to Blackpool they took my uniform away and give me ordinary clothes and I was dismissed. And that was it. NM: Ok. CF: But we went to Iraq. Iran. People were quite nice. Look at them now. They’re fighting one another. That’s Daisy. She’s always after people. But — and that was the finish of my air force. NM: Ok. CF: And up there, oh. At the end of the war. Prior to going to Egypt we dropped food to the Dutch. And up there on the wall you can see. Up. No. Right up the right hand side there’s a big one called The Manna. The other one’s just the main — what squadron I was on. 115 Squadron. So that’s it. I was in seven years. And if I’d have had any brothers or sisters I would have gone to New Zealand. Because we had Australians, New Zealands, Canadians and all mixed crews. But as I was an only child I would have loved to have gone to New Zealand because the New Zealanders spoke better English than the Australians. But other than that as I say seven years I liked. And I didn’t know whether I should stay on or not but I didn’t. So, after I left the air force I come home. Eventually I was waiting to go to the, to the Trocadero Cinema and my two cousins got up and there was a girl there who became my wife. And that’s her over there. NM: Right. Ok. CF: So that’s my life in the air force and that. NM: Can I take you — CF: She didn’t know I’d been in the air force. I told her when we started going on holidays. Used to go Tenerife every year. And I’ve got a card over there stating it was thirty five years since we’ve been there. NM: Can I, can I take you back? CF: Yeah. NM: How come, how did you choose to become a wireless operator? How did that — CF: Pardon? NM: How did you become a wireless operator? CF: Oh, it took thirteen months in Bridgnorth. NM: Yeah. But why a wireless operator? How come you become a wireless operator? CF: Yeah. Yeah. You have to train to become it. NM: Yeah, but — CF: You had to learn the Morse code first. And they come along, give you a test. If you pass it then they give you your stripes which were sergeant’s stripes. And then after what was it? A year. They promoted me to a warrant officer. And then that was it. After that we finished up in the Algiers after we’d done our, all our stuff and I came out of the air force. NM: So, can you tell me about your crew? CF: Well, Harry Hooper was the pilot. I was the wireless operator. The navigator never told us where he come from. But Geoff came from Glasgow. He was the rear gunner. And the other bloke, I forget his name now, came from Birmingham. When we come back we had to go to customs. When we got to customs I had a big box. In it I had five thousand fifty tins of cigarettes, soap, Camel sort, three bottles of wine and he said ok. He says to Geoff, ‘What you got?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘Open your bag [pause] Oh,’ he said, ‘That’s lovely. I want fifteen pound off of you.’ So I said, he said, ‘You got away with it.’ I said, ‘I told him what I had. More than you.’ But otherwise he got nothing because it was taken away from him because he couldn’t pay the fifteen pound. All we had was shrapnel. And that was the finish of the air force. NM: Ok. So, you were based in Witchford. CF: Pardon? NM: You were based in Witchford. CF: Witchford. NM: 115 Squadron. CF: Yeah. Herefordshire. NM: So, what was life like on the squad — CF: Eh? NM: Tell me what life was like on the squadron. CF: Oh well. As I say you was, you was in your billets and if you was going on you would be woken up by one of the erks and said you were due to fly. You’d get dressed. Go in the café and you’d be eggs and bacon. Every time you go on a trip you got eggs and bacon. But as I say there was thirty three aircraft who took off one after the other over the cathedral. And in the cathedral there’s books about this size. That thick. There’s twenty. Over twenty of them. Names and addresses where they lived. They’re the people who died in the squadron. And our squadron actually had the most losses throughout. Even in the First World War. And as I say after seven years I was out of the air force. NM: Ok. CF: And as I say I was living in London, nothing to do and suddenly out of here appeared this woman who became my wife. Fifty eight years married. Now she’s up in the crematorium. But other than that everything’s ok now. NM: Are there any of the trips you did, any of the operations you did — CF: Yeah. NM: With 115. CF: It’s all in the books. NM: Yeah. Are there any — CF: Yeah. I’d done about ten. Ten day ones. And the last one was on Potsdam. Nights. That took us eight hours fifty. NM: So — CF: And that finished the war. NM: So you did about eleven trips with 115. CF: Yeah. NM: Yeah. And during that time were you ever attacked? CF: Well, we was attacked because you’d got holes coming in but it was strong enough to stop the bullets coming out. Coming in. You could hear them trinkling along the wing and catching in the power — they were blown away. So, funnily enough we never had that. The last trip we was doing over to Potsdam it was a night attack and the skipper said, ‘Go down. See the flare go out. Make sure it hits.’ But we used to have a little thing called H2S but they took it out because the Germans could track it. A big six hole, in the dark, walking along, parachute in one hand holding on, walking slowly over this, ‘Ok Harry. Flares gone.’ And I got back and that was it. And that was the last op finished. NM: So — CF: So, that was my time in the air force. NM: Any more? Any more stories from your operations? Can you remember? CF: Not really. As I say the, I think there were one on Denmark. On the atomic business they were trying to do. That’s all I know. Other than [pause] see we, we had to do the job. They never told us what it was all about. We had to keep our mouths shut. Before we took off we were searched for cigarettes. If you had cigarettes with you they were taken. Put in a bag. Because you were not allowed to fly and smoke. Not like the Americans. But in the Americans we had an, he landed because he ran out of petrol and when he saw the bomb bay he says, ‘What’s that?’ I said, ‘It’s the bomb bay.’ ‘What bombs are you carrying?’ And I told him. He said, ‘I can’t believe that aircraft can take that lot up,’ because all they had was twelve little bombs. Five hundred pounders. They flew in squares which the Jerry had under, their fighter pilots had the upward firing machine guns and they shot down more aircraft from the American Air Force because they flew in a square. And they were about twenty three thousand feet above us. And their blokes used to stand and sing and smoke. And that was my time in the air force. I really, I enjoyed it. If I’d, as I say had brothers or sisters I would have gone with one of the New Zealanders that was on our crew. Because as I said they speak English better than the Australians. Other than that, after the dismissal they give you a number. You get, you go up to Blackpool. You lose your uniform and they give you clothes, tickets back and that was it. NM: So, so after the war you went — you say you went to Egypt. CF: Yeah. NM: That with a different squadron? Was it? CF: No. That was seven. We had number 70 and 178. That was so we had three squadrons. NM: And what were you doing in Egypt? What were the squadrons doing in Egypt? CF: Well, looking. Well, at the time the desert was being cleared up but we weren’t used. We was waiting to be used but we were never used because those Communist blokes done their job. And as I say the last flight we’d done was to this place right at the end of where the Mediterranean finishes. And that’s where what happened to the pilot. I can’t even say it. I can’t even tell you what happened. It’s got to be kept secret. NM: Ok. CF: And that was my time in the air force. I really liked it. And I came back and I started work at the post office. I was forty five years in the post office. And I finished up doing forty two hours overtime every Friday. That was for forty five years because they wouldn’t accept another people. Another person taking place. And I was doing it on overtime. So that’s, and the amount of money I got I used to give to the wife. I says, ‘Help yourself to what you want.’ I left the air force. Got a job in a — they were doing shop fitting. I learned all the tools barring one and that was the one that goes around and around. Twenty thousand revs a minute. Of course my wife’s uncle he used that machine and he came home one day. His wife had died. He came home like that. No fingers. He had a little dog. And he put his head in the gas oven. Committed suicide because he couldn’t, couldn’t work. NM: Oh dear. CF: But other than that. NM: So, how long were you in the Middle East? CF: Pardon? NM: How long were you in the Middle East with your squadrons? Because you mentioned — CF: I went out there about five or six years. NM: So, during that time you say you, you flew over Egypt, Iran, Iraq. CF: Yeah. NM: What were you actually doing though? What were these missions? CF: Well, we were just doing, you know keeping in control of flying. We didn’t drop any bombs anywhere else. It was just a matter that what happened was when we was taking off [pause] people follow you. They track every aircraft and they, I got a message, ‘Tell your pilot to land at Truro.’ So I tell. He said, ‘Well, what have we got at Truro?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. Ask them.’ Of course when we got there we had to change the aircraft from black to white. And that was it. And we just, we went by train to Cairo. Quite nice. Come back on the train. All the women had their tits out in front of us feeding their kids. That was the way they carried on. But now look at them. Fighting one another. But other than that that was my time in the air force. And up there is quite a few things if you’d like to see. I’ve got plenty of them around there but the most information you’ll see at the end. Come up the end and I’ll show you. NM: Yeah. CF: Yeah. NM: Yeah. We’ll do that at the end shall we? CF: Eh? NM: We’ll do that at the end. CF: Do it again. NM: So, since you left the air force have you, did you go to any reunions with the squadrons? CF: Yeah. I go once a month to an Aircrew Association in Hemel Hempstead. And everybody there, well the majority of them were all on Lancaster bombers. But there is a bloke there. He’s in charge. He used to fly the Queen about. But other than that I don’t know what he’d done otherwise. Sometimes we have letters with other unions aircraft. ACA blokes. But you’ve got to pay about twenty pound. And I’ve got no car now so I have to rely on Rod to take me anywhere. So, other than that I had a very good time in it. I didn’t [pause] I liked it and as I say if I’d had brothers and sisters I might have stayed in. I might have got a commission. But as I say I came out as a warrant officer. It’s unusual. NM: When you, when you look back at your time in Bomber Command. CF: Yeah. NM: What’s your main thoughts? CF: Main source? NM: Thoughts. What do you think about your time in Bomber Command? CF: I thoroughly enjoyed it. You know, it was a job we had to do. So as I say I was glad I’d done what I had to do. We went up to Gatow and Berlin was absolutely flat. And this boy, this girl, I says, ‘Are you hungry?’ And we’d opened up a [unclear] club there. So she says, I brought them out, she said, ‘Do you want anything?’ Because it wasn’t the Russians that invaded. It was the Mongols. Because one of them told me and he saw my watch. He said, ‘Can I have that?’ I said, ‘No.’ He had thirteen watches up his arm. He couldn’t wind them up. Didn’t know how to wind them up. And that was in Gatow. And from there I just came out and that was it. NM: So what were you doing in Berlin? Was that — CF: We was checking. You know. See what we’d done. NM: So this was — CF: We was given that permission to do. And as I say it was absolutely flat and they got a big sign. It goes up. And there’s a big thing on it and it comes down and that was the only thing that was left standing. And that was at the end of Gatow. A place called Gatow. But after that I did, I loved it in the air force. I got, I’m keen on flying but nowadays we go on what they called Project Propeller. And little aircraft like up at, just up the road there used to fly all the people. You’d go to a certain airport like all the along the coast. Various airports. You had, all land, you had about three hundred aircraft there and you find your people from the ACA there as well. So, as I say yesterday I went back to the [pause] and they all clapped when they see me coming in because I’ve been in hospital for eight weeks with this all caused by a blood clot. And that’s my stories. NM: Ok. CF: If you’ve got it recorded. NM: Well, we have. CF: I hope you have. NM: We have. CF: So, as I say, if you come down the end I’ll show you the stuff there. NM: Before we do that — CF: Yeah. NM: Can we go right back to the beginning and tell me about your childhood? Where did you grow up? What was your school like? What did you do before the air force? CF: Well, at school there was seven classes. You do it one at a time. Nine out of ten if you was on the last lot at fourteen if you’d done anything wrong you got a cane. And that school was in Westminster Bridge Road. NM: In — CF: Yeah. And I got a cane pretty often. But, and as I say after I left it was a long time before I told my wife that I’d been in the air force and she says, ‘What’s it like? Flying.’ I says, ‘Alright. Let’s go on holiday.’ Of course they’d changed over to jets. And it was the first jet I ever saw landed in Camden Town at the end of the road where I had to go and identify her husband’s body. That was my wife’s mother. And I identified him and then we was living, we had our own place and she used to come up. I had a nice fire going and she would, counted her money. And Vin came in, says, ‘For Christ’s sake mum stop counting that money.’ She says, ‘It’s my money.’ So Vin says, ‘If you keep on counting it — well she got into a sort of a dementia. And she put her out of the way and from then on we was just on our own. We used to have three holidays a year. One in May, June, September and we used to go to Seaton in the caravan. We had that for a few years. But as I say after fifty eight years she died and that was it. Heart attack. I would never go for another woman. NM: Right. CF: No. NM: Ok. CF: No. I always said that. You hear people like our Geoff who was one of the blokes in the ACA he has, his wife died. He got another girl. They, they lived together. Didn’t marry. She run away. Leaving him. Another girl. She’s now left him. That was it. NM: Why don’t we go up there and — CF: Yes. NM: You can talk me. CF: Yeah. NM: Tell me about the things. CF: Yeah. NM: On the wall. Is that alright? Are you alright? CF: Yeah. NM: Right. [pause] CF: Well, first of all that was painted by my wife. This thing is the Manna Operation where we dropped the food. NM: Tell me a bit about that. CF: We’d done about four trips at fifty feet. That was what I used to do. And there’s all the crew. And that’s my warrant. NM: Your warrant for —? CF: Yeah. NM: For what? Tell me about the trips. The Manna trips. CF: Eh? NM: What was it like on the Manna trips over Holland? CF: Well, the Germans said five hundred feet. We said no. Fifty feet. Because all the stuff would have opened up. And they had their planes waiting if you dropped them too low. We dropped them and took off again. You kept flying. We was low flying. That’s one of the, what you had, what the pilot had to do training. Low flying. And as you see that’s what it’s all about. That was my signaller’s badge. That’s the wireless operator’s badge. That was the crew. And that was what I used to do. That was more wanted than what the others wanted. NM: Charles is showing me a photograph of a wireless operator in a Lancaster. CF: Yeah. NM: So did your crew stay together for the whole of your time? CF: Yeah. Yeah. That’s it. Yeah. But as I say well that’s me. That was a flight engineer. He was a pilot. He trained in Canada with Harry. But that was the pilot. Where is he? He’s there. And there’s, he’s from Birmingham. The other two were in Scotland. NM: You said you had some New Zealanders on the crew as well. CF: Eh? NM: People from New Zealand. CF: Yeah. NM: On the crew. CF: No. We, we was an all, well English and Scotch. I did a training in Bishops Court for a certain thing to do. Was too. We went, four of us wireless operators went into town and the police, they had rifles. Stopped us going. They said, ‘You’re in uniform.’ That was when the IRA was pelting them. Other than that that’s my seat. I thoroughly enjoyed it. NM: Very good. CF: We went and I saw Prince Edward. I had all them on. He, I went up and I said, ‘Hello Prince Edward. How are you? I’m Charlie Flint,’ so and so squadron. He said, ‘I’ve only got three medals.’ And I’ve got a photo of him over there. NM: So, when did you meet Prince Edward? CF: When, met him in the Guildhall on the seventy fifth anniversary of the RAF. Yeah. And the only other bloke there was Geoff. One of our blokes. And they supplied us with food. But there’s another one when I was in my battledress. NM: Did you keep in touch with your crew after the war? CF: Yeah. I’m still in touch with only Harry. We’re the only two left. NM: Ok. CF: I’ve been up to his place several times when I had a car. But now I use the phone. And he doesn’t know, he didn’t even know what the AC was. There’s nothing like that where he lives in Hampshire. So other than that nothing. Otherwise as you see there’s planes all around the place. NM: So, did you, did you have reunions with the aircrew? CF: Yeah. NM: After the war. CF: Yeah. NM: You had. You met up with the crew after the war, did you? CF: Yeah. As I say there’s only the two of us left. But otherwise if I had, as I say brothers or sisters I might have got a commission and stayed in. But as it is I came out as a warrant officer and I thought well if I get fed up staying here I can join the Beefeaters what the Queen has. Because they’re all ex-servicemen. But they’re like warrant officers, sergeants and corporals but they’re all on different levels. But would I, would I be accepted? NM: We’ll just pause it there, I think. CF: Yeah. Yeah. [recording paused] NM: Turn the tape recorder back on. CF: Yeah. NM: So tell us about the time — CF: I was — NM: In the auxiliary air force — in the fire service. CF: Yeah. I was with a bloke. He’d only got a wooden leg. And we had to listen for the air raid sirens and inform the headquarters where we trained. And they used to do a show every Wednesday. People used to go and watch them. How the, how the firemen got rid of flames and everything. NM: So, this was before the RAF. CF: Yeah. NM: And where was this? Where were you doing this? CF: Yeah. That was, that was 1939. All that stuff. When the war started. NM: But whereabouts were you? Where were you based? Living. CF: Well, I was living in a place called Campbell Buildings. And there was five blocks there. NM: Was this in London? CF: In London. Yeah. I went to Westminster School. I even joined the Cubs. And my mum and dad used to go to their relations and I come out one day it was pouring with rain. They didn’t give me a key to get in so I had to go about five miles to this place. Knock on the door, ‘What are you doing soaking wet?’ ‘Because you didn’t give me a key.’ ‘Oh.’ From then on I had my own key. Yeah. Other: Where was Campbell Buildings. CF: Eh? Other: Where was Campbell Buildings? CF: Oh they was just off the Westminster Bridge Road. The Bakerloo Line. Lambeth. NM: So, were you in the Auxiliary Fire Service during the Blitz? CF: Yeah. NM: So, you were heavily involved in fire fighting during the Blitz. CF: Yeah. NM: Tell me. Tell me a bit about that. CF: Well, there was not much really because we was only there if the Fire Brigade, you know they had a box you used to push, break open. That called them. You didn’t have to tell them where you are because the box was numbered and they knew where to come. So all the fire stations had these boxes. They were all over the country. But now they don’t use them. It’s a 999 call for them now. NM: But what was it like fighting fires during the Blitz? CF: Oh, it was murder for them really because if you look at the damage that was done. Fortunately, the only bomb that landed on our roof was a little one. A fire one. But I kicked it off the roof. That was the only one we had. But all along the docks over the side of the River Thames they were all alight and of course the Germans were bombing there. But when the alarm went all the people went down the tube station. And the Tube still kept running. When the alarm went off again, the clear, everybody moved. Eventually it finished up that they put in beds for the kids and they stayed there all night. And the trains were still going. But it wasn’t a nice place. As I say I got a job as a paper boy. And the bloke says, ‘You’re stealing off me.’ I said, ‘I’m not.’ He said, ‘You are.’ I said, ‘Right. You will never have another paperboy.’ He said, ‘I will.’ I told all the boys, ‘Don’t go papers delivering for him. He calls you a liar.’ He had to shut his shop up. But other than that as I say it was, what was it? Oh, I’d left school. Got this job in [unclear] State Railways. And three days later they shut down. So I had to go down to a place in, just off Queen’s Park — no. Green Park. And it was a disused tube station. So I worked there quite some time and one day I said to them, ‘I’ve been accepted for the Royal Air Force now.’ From then on. That’s how it begun. NM: Excellent. Let’s just, let’s just have a look through your logbook shall we? CF: Yeah. Have a look. [recording interrupted] CF: Finished. We went to Egypt and that was 70 and 178 Squadrons then. NM: And that was your whole crew — CF: Yeah. NM: Went with you. Other: Osborne. He was one of your regulars wasn’t he? CF: Eh? Other: Osborne. Wasn’t he one of your regulars? CF: No. Other: No. CF: No. Other: I thought he was. CF: You’ll see the names of the crew on there. Other: I can see you were a sergeant. Osborne another one. It was Geoff Osborne. Geoff Osborne was the guy. He was one of your regulars. CF: Who was the navigator? Other: It doesn’t. Oh, someone called Hough. Sergeant Hough. H O U G H. CF: Houghs. Yeah Other: What’s his name? Hough. CF: I didn’t always know at the time. It’s only in that book. Or that page. Other: Ok. CF: No. That was all the crew that that was on. Other: Yeah. But this is, this is on your plane. 696. CF: Yeah. Very — NM: So, tell me again. You came home from Egypt. CF: Eh? NM: You came back from Egypt and flew into Cornwall. Tell me about the trip home. CF: I was at, that was because I went to Cornwall before. I went. On the 1st of May we was having our overcoats because they used to have a stick making sure your overcoat was conformed and the officer said, ‘You’re sweating. Why?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ I’d got pneumonia. I was off for about a week. They sent me, they said, ‘Anywhere you can go?’ I said, ‘Yeah. I’ve got a place down in Ottery St Mary.’ They gave me the tickets. They said, ‘Come back in a week.’ Gave me another chit back to Ottery St Mary and I think that time that fortnight saved my life because the way they was shooting down the aircraft at the time was really horrible. And it was a last sort of stuff. Last. When we dropped the bombs on Potsdam that finished him. That’s when he committed suicide. And we went over to Gatow and that was it. I liked to, you know see what happened but quite a few of our blokes had done the same thing. NM: I see from your logbook that you took, did some flights to repatriate some prisoners of war. CF: Yeah. NM: Tell me. Tell me a bit about those. CF: Well, we went to Juvencourt in France. And at Juvencourt — yeah that’s in France, we used to pick up twenty four people. One of the blokes I sat beside he’d been a prisoner of war. I says, ‘You’re going home?’ He said, ‘No. I’m coming back.’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘I worked on a farm and married a farmer’s daughter.’ And he said, ‘I’ve got a child.’ [laughs] A prisoner of war. Things like that, you know you can’t really believe it. And then we flew out to Italy and we got all the people back from there. That was in Italy. At a place called Bari. Where I bought three hundred, three bottles of wine. And that was, I gave them to my dad. He took them to the hotel, come back and give me seven fifty. NM: So, were the prisoners grateful for a flight in a Lancaster home? CF: Eh? NM: Were the prisoners happy to see you? CF: He was. NM: No. No. Were the prisoners you picked up? CF: Oh yeah. NM: Were they? CF: But as I say this other one he, as I say he hadn’t been put in prison because they was using prisoners to do all the gardening and stuff and he married one of the farmer’s girls. Then stayed there. The blokes I felt sorry for though was all that parachute lot that dropped. Because the Germans upwards you know because the parachutes bullets go through and the parachutes fold up. Unfortunately I never used my parachute but my daughter done a parachute drop from fourteen thousand feet. I thought she had a — I’d done it. I wished I’d have done. I would have loved to have done one. We tried. We were trained how to do it. You know, you had to land on a bar and land. And how to land. You sort of landed up and push yourself up. But as I say Sue she’s done one. And I thought of all the time I’d done flying she’s done one of them. I can’t believe it. Other: So if I look up the Bomber Command website — 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 Charles Flint Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nigel Moore Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-04-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AFlintC160421, PFlintCE1601 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 00:48:17 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 Charles Flint was in the Auxiliary Fire Service in London before joining the RAF. He volunteered and began training as a wireless operator. Part of his training took place at RAF Bishops Court in Northern Ireland, where he was advised not to go out in uniform. Charles and his crew joined 115 Squadron based at RAF Witchford. They took part in Operations Manna, Exodus and Dodge before being posted overseas. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Egypt France Great Britain Italy England--Cambridgeshire Northern Ireland--Down (County) Great Britain North Africa 115 Squadron aircrew civil defence crewing up Operation Dodge (1945) Operation Exodus (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) RAF Bishops Court RAF Bridgnorth RAF Witchford wireless operator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/18/1563/ADarbyC150630.2.mp3 da9e5105946763a779ff81714d32e118 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 Darby, Charlie C Darby 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 2015-06-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Description An account of the resource Five items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Charlie Darby (b. 1924, 1897788 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a poem and two photographs. Sergeant Charlie Darby flew 30 night time and daylight operations in Halifaxes with 466 and 462 Squadrons from RAF Driffield as a rear gunner. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Charlie Darby and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Darby, C Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document CB: Right, so my name is Chris Brockbank and I'm here to interview a gentleman on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre and the interviewee is Mr Charlie Darby and we've got here his wife Barbara as well and ably assisted and interrogated by Tony Lee their son-in-law. CB: Okay Charlie it's running now, so here's Charlie Darby and please tell us about your life, Charlie. CD: I'm Charlie Darby, I was born on the 26th May 1924 from a family of six boys, three girls and went through normal schooling. Went to work at fourteen [pause] er and when I became seventeen I was directed labour a government scheme that you had to fall in line with. If you didn't, there were two other choices: down the mines or prison. So, I took the job on which was at Mirdam [?] Ways, High Wycombe dismantling Churchill tanks. And I stuck at that for eighteen months and I just did not want to know any more about it [laughter]. So there was only one thing to do; that was to volunteer for the forces. And that's how I became to join the Royal Air Force. Now, having joined the Royal Air Force, or rather prior to that, I had to have an attestation which I took at Houston House, Houston Square in London. Got the result, I was passed to go into aircrew. Now, I waited my call up which came the 20th of September '43. I had to report to St John's Wood, London, for two weeks initiation. The same day of joining, I had to go down to Lord's Cricket Ground to get kitted out. And from there, I went to Bridlington ITW (Initial Training Wing) for eight weeks training. From there, number 3 EADS Bridgnorth, another eight weeks, from there, that was EDA Elementary Air Gunnery School. From there, to a place in Scotland, I don't know where they got it from but I was there. [background laughter] A place called Castle Kennedy. Never did see the castle. Eight weeks there was the AGS which I successfully passed and I was made aircrew and presented with brevet and I then awaited call to my next station which was Moreton in Marsh Gloucester, 21OTU and this is where we crewed up. There was one day we were assembled on this bit of green, [cough] and three officers came and approached us NCOs and my pilot, navigator and wireless operator were the three officers. And Les, my pilot, approached, we accepted and we found out afterwards: 'How did you do this, Les?' 'I went to each section and looked at your, your pass marks' and that's how he took judgement on us. Because we had our names on our breast and he knew where to go, he knew the names he was looking for. So therefore that is the way we crewed up. But, you never had an engineer, that came at a late a stage er at Heavy Conversion Unit. Which is what we did, er, [pause] yes just after that. But prior to that even, still in Yorkshire, we went to a place called Acaster Malbis and did a battle course. That was living rough, think that was the only, the occasion arise, you got adapted to it. Anyway, we went on to Riccall, near Selby, to 1658 Heavy Conversion Unit and did our first flying on four engines. And from there, we went to my operational station of Driffield where 466 was. Did er, training from there prior to operations [pause] yeah but- CB: Okay we'll stop there for a mo. What I'd like to ask you to do please, Charlie, is to explain so we can understand what's coming next, how you were trained, so what happened at your initial training and in your gunnery training? So, how did that go? CD: Dis-dis-discipline and er squad marching [pause] that it? CB: Okay. CD: Only two weeks of it. CB: Right, then gunnery? So you had initial gunnery and then main gunnery. CD: Initial training wing a little bit more extra started to pick up Morse code. CB: Right CD: That's something we had to know as a gunner to help the navigator. We had to know Morse at a simple rate of eight words a minute which was what occults and pundits flash at the rate of. A pundit flashed two red letters which were the letters of the aerodrome but an occult flashed one letter in white, that gave a navigator a bearing. So if you saw an occult flash, you called up your navigator and told him 'occult flashing so and so'. And then I guess I've got the bearing, we're not, we're about a mile off track. That sort of talk. Right then that it? CB: And you're gunnery, so how did the gunnery training go? CD: Very good. CB: So what did they do initially? CD: They started off with - CB: Shotguns, was it? CD: Yeah, yeah, started off with a point two two, a little pallet of a shot. At short range, yes, did quite a lot of clay pidge shooting, er, learning deflection. And from there, we didn't, we didn't go on to the main guns until we got to um [pause] er OTU. We were there on Wellingtons, oh may I add that, at this stage we haven't got a flight engineer. That came when we met with four engines, 'cause you didn't need a flight engineer on a Wellington. CB: No. CD: A pilot did all his - CB: Yeah CD: fuel changing. So we are now at Riccall on heavy conversion work. The normal day light, night time, cross countries, air-to-sea, air-to-air, firing and er - CB: Were you firing live or with a camera gun? CD: If we having fighter attacks you had a cine camera twenty-five feet of camera. And they assess you on the radical [?], on the film. To see whether you were on target or not. Er - CB: And they had towed targets, did they? They had towed targets for you to shoot at? CD: Yes the drogues I forgot that. CB: Drogues CD: I forgot that, I should have come up with that and erm - CB: So that was live ammunition? CD: Castle Kennedy, yes, at Castle Kennedy we were on Ans- I sh [?], I can't think of it all the time - CB: That's alright, that's okay CD: I can now, we were on Ansons, and an Anson took six gunners up at the time. And the one that sat next to the pilot wound the wheels up. Twenty-three turns, I might add. [laughter] Anyway, the drogue was towed by a Martinet, just above you, in front of you. So all you had level with you and behind was the drogue. Now, each gunner had a colour and the tips of those bullets for the space of two-hundred rounds I would think at the time, blue, red, etcetera etcetera. So if you were blue, they knew you were blue, bad aim [?]. And if you fired at this drogue, they'd count the number of blues and cut them in half, because it's going through the drogue, it's making two blue marks so it's gotta be halved. That's how they assessed how many hits you had. [pause] er this - CB: I'll just stop you a mo. [beep] Right, so we're restarting now, with Charlie. CD: I was - CB: Johannson [?] wheels. CD: At Castle Kennedy AGS and we were six to a plane. Six to an Anson. And the last one in sat next to the pilot who and then you had to wind the wheels up for him and [pause] I er, rather premature in that respect whereby I started to wind the wheels up far too soon for the pilot, not 'No no no!' he said 'I have not trimmed it yet'. By the way, he was a Polish pilot [laughter]. TL: Now carry on. CD: And now, I finally passed the exam to become an air gunner and I went on leave waiting for posting to 21 OTU Moreton in the Marsh. This is where we crewed up, man-to-man, assembled on the grass. People approached one another, and that's how crews were formed. [pause] er less, a flight engineer, as you didn't need them on twin engines air craft. That was selected when you went to RCU - HCU - (Heavy Conversion Unit). The one we went to was 1658 Riccall, near Selby, Yorkshire. This was where my pilot selected his engineer, from thereon, we were fully crewed. Went on to four engine training, did the right exercises, then went from there to squadron. We were put to Driffield where 462 was, 466 was rather, beg your pardon, and in the time of pre-training operations, 462 came from out of the desert and reformed at Driffield. Ah, by the time we got operational, our first operation was with 466 and then, the time we come to our second operation, 462 was formed. Australian, yes, these were Australian squadrons by the way, and when we got through our second operation, 462 were ready formed up and started and we did our second op on their inauguration on the squadron. From there on, we did our operations. We did twenty-three in all on 462. And they were then posted down to Foulsham in Norfolk, on RCM work (Radio Counter Measures) which was in 100 Group. As we had only seven to do, they put us back on the 466, it wasn't worth sending us down there to do seven operations. They switched us back to 466, and there we completed our tour, which in January 1945. Now, the nitty gritty bit is, I ended up going into hospital halfway through my tour, which put me behind my crew. So, it eventuated that I had one trip to do at the time when my crew had done the last trip which was Hanover one the 5th of January. From there, I was placed on a battle order the next night with a crew strange to me by the name of Flight Lieutenant Stewart. And it was a hair raiser, [laughter] things like we were just set course, and one shouts to the other 'Throw the cigarettes up then, I threw them up last night!' Now, our pilot’d had gone beserk if we'd have smoked on an aircraft. With hundred octane petrol about, not good is it? Not good for life. However,[background noise] I managed to get through that operation [background noise] I went on these then I had to report to ACRC Catterick (Air Crew Receiving Centre) as we were being made redundant to be put on a ground staff job. Thus, what we did to the day I was demobbed. CB: So, just going back now, to the HCU. CD: Yes. CB: When you're at the HCU, how did the programme go to create a crew that was operational? CD: We did the right designated exercises to do, so many affiliations with the fighter, at night and day, to resemble an operation. Now, coming back to my initiation at squadron, we were on a cross country, a daylight cross country, which took us the last [pause] part of the er, cross country. We took a leg up to Belfast. We turn off at Belfast down to Fleetwood, near Blackpool. Well, we got to Belfast the while, the flight engineer said 'We're going down to the Elsan, Snowy' That was the pilot's nickname, Snowy. Okay, so we get down there and all of a sudden four engines cut. [laughter] 'Jock [?], where the hell are you?' [laughter] 'Down at the Elsan], Snowy', 'For Christ's sake, get back here soon! Sooner than that' he says. [laughter] We were icing up, because there were icicles on my gun that night outside, and everybody was getting to stations of bail out [background laughter]. We are now over the Irish Sea, heading towards Fleetwood, and Jock rushed back quick as he could and changed over and all the four engines picked up, just like that. In that time, all four engines had cut and we'd lost 5000 feet, fell like a tree. Everything righted itself. The explanation was for the engineer was he thought, he thought that the dials indicators were frozen. He said he checked them before he left his post but they were showing still fuel in the tanks but it wasn't so. [laughter] However, all was fair, we managed to get back to base, and that was the start of operations for you. That was a lift that, wasn't it? CB: Now, were you mid-upper or were you tail-gunner? CD: Rear. I was tail. CB: Right, so did you come to choose that yourself? CD: Well - CB: How did you decide which position to be in? CD: I favoured the dr- rear to be honest, and, we don't come on to operations. We are now, our second operation, the first on 462, was the flying bomb site at a place called Waddon [?] just the side of Dunkirk. And we did that one Friday evening and daylight. Succeeded with that, got to, I think, number seven. We went, we were designated to Kiel, U-boat pens , that was a night trip, very bad weather round the target area. But coming back we somehow had a fracture of the oil pressure. We're coming back over the North Sea and the pilot realises that he's got one wheel down and one up. The whole of the distance across the North Sea, he was up and down up and down with the good wheel hoping for something to happen. After about an hour, it succeeded. It dropped the good wheel and they both went back together and that was solved, just like that. That was Kiel. Now, we're coming now into September, we went to a place called Neuss in the Ruhr - N E U double S. On leaving the target, a hazy target as well because there were plenty of fires. Dead astern of me was this 1-1-0 or 2-1-0 it didn't matter, literally identical but for a small [inaudible] unrecognisable one from the other. Oh, I butted on here because, going back to my training, the instructor would always say to you 'traverse your turret'. Now after, between there and becoming operational, I sat sometimes and thought a lot. Now, if I'm round there, he could be coming from there, I can't see him. So, I decided in my mind, I'm just gonna sit there, and look. You pick things up and you cover a bigger area than you would by doing this. Because, by doing that, he could be there, it only takes seconds. You wouldn't know anything about it. So that's what I, I kicked that one out of the window and I always sat dead astern, looking dead astern, and looking for everything that's coming from those quarters, because that's where it comes from. And coming back to this, where I sighted this 1-1-0, 2-1-0, whatever, if I'd have done what my instructor had told me, I probably wouldn't be here now. To the point that I saw him, and I kept my eyes on him, and I had already informed the pilot 'prepare to corkscrew' it's gonna be port because he was dead astern of us and they're at our height [?]. So I let him get nearer, and then I gave the order to corkscrew which was to port. Now, there's one advantage there by going to port, it helped the pilot who was sitting on the port side, as he goes down to come back up, he can see going down and he can see going back up. Didn't fire, I always held fire because on your ammunition belt, every fifth bullet was - TL: Tracer. CD: Tracer. And with the speed of the guns firing eight hundred rounds a minute, that tracer becomes a red line and it immediately gives your position away. And that's one thing you should not do, give yourself away. [phone rings] You, you er, you er, [background noise] [pause] yes, you must not give your position away. I'm there to defend the aircraft, I don't attack, I only attack with bombs, so therefore, you do not [phone pings] put yourself in that situation by what they call firing in anger. I didn't believe in it and I never ever would but I never did it. And I think on those, on those terms, puts us on the right side of success. You getting through? CB: This was in the night, was it? CD: Eh? CB: This was in the night this 1-1-0, 2-1-0 were coming at you. CD: Yeah, at night, yeah. But in the day light totally different. They can see you, you can see them. CB: Exactly. CD: You adopt a different attitude then. CB: Do you think he'd seen you? CD: Hum? CB: Do you think he had seen you? CD: Oh yes, without a doubt. He had probably honed onto us. He was going that fast, it was this [pause] a matter of seconds, eight seconds, and it was all over. He never fired, by the way. So it just shows you how things happen so quick and once we did that, to start down on the corkscrew, it went, Dennis ran right us and said 'There he goes' I said 'I know Dennis I've been following him all the way along.' As we went down on the corkscrew, he went over the top of us. Now, my pilot comes up and we're in a bubble of corkscrew, I won't, I won't say the complete statement but he said 'Let's go back up and see where he is' I says 'You stop down here'. TL: Or words to that effect. CD: Plus a few more syllables. [laughter] Deathly hush, deathly hush because I chewed him. [laughter] And I, I'm now saying to myself, 'What have I said?' Sat in that turret thinking ‘I'm really heading for it now’. Not a word was said and between there and getting back to base, I made up my mind, if he doesn't say anything, then I won't. Let it just calm away. That's just what happened. Nothing was said. I think, I think, in a nutshell, he knew I was right. Well, I know I was right, because we were told in training, back in training, a pilot is always the captain of the aircraft but in a situation where you're under attack, he takes orders from you. That's why I did it, that's why I said it. But, having said that, I still, I still blinkering [inaudible], what am I heading for [laughter] because I could really have been brought upon the coals about this. But no, it petered out. BD: You dropped your bombs. CD: Yeah. CB: What do you think was in his mind? CD: Well, being a naughty, I think he being a bit of a daredevil. Or, he was making a joke of it. But it was the wrong time of day to make a joke! [laughter] CB: So what other incidents did you have that were- BD: What about when, when erm, chap shot the mid-upper, nearly shot you? CD: Yes, I'm going back to pre-operation training- CB: Right. CD: At Driffield. After a daylight operation, beg your pardon, a daylight wide cross country, we had to go out into Bridlington Bay, do some air-to-sea firing at nought feet. He's shooting the foam to get deflection. He said, my mid-upper said, 'Do you want me to fire first?' I said 'Yes, okay Dennis' so he fired his five hundred off, he said 'I've finished now' and I went to go traverse round onto the beam to start mine, and I heard this zoom, and there's an on and off oxygen dial just slightly above my head to the left that hit that and went somewhere in the turret [laughter]. What was it? It was a cooked round from one of Dennis's guns. When the guns finished firing, they should always stop in the recoil position so they're clear of a round. So every time a breechblock goes forward, it takes a round with it up the spout of the gun. Hence, what they call a cooked round. The bullets in the barrel, the heat of the barrel sets it off. That's what happened. I did not fire one shot [background laughter]. It was straight back to base, to get inquiries on it. The gun, the gun was faulty. It er, it should have stayed at the recoil position but it just did not. Hence, the cooked round. CB: So of the thirty operations you did, how many were in the dark at night, and how many were daylight? Roughly? CD: Twenty-three daylight and seven night, I did. CB: Other way around? CD: No beg your pardon, that's wrong. BD: It's the other way round. CD: Twenty-three on 462, seven on 466. No, I did fifteen on each. Fifteen daylights, fifteen nights. At one stretch there I did ten in nine days I think it was. CB: And how often did you have to use your guns? CD: I didn't. I say, I did not fire in anger. I made my mind up on that one. This is the trouble with, I think, I may be wrong, but I think that by firing away willy nilly at something they got a hold on you. You see that tracer? Why expose yourself? CB: What was the purpose of the tracer? CD: If you were guidance. Give you, give you a guide to what you were shooting at. And, I would never, ever fire in anger. And I think, in my mind, I think that's where we lost quite a few aircraft. Not saying I'm right, but I would think it inclinates that way. CB: How often were the aeroplanes hit? CD: How many? CB: How often were the aeroplanes hit by flack or fighter? CD: Varied. I, there was one instance at a place called Bochum this was on November the fourth, fifth, where I saw one of ours over the target. It was on fire from wingtip to wingtip and it came to pass in the aftermath and later years that it turned out to be Joe Herman and with the descriptions that I know of now, that resembles Joe Herman's aircraft. The one where he finally went out last but it was blown out. The plane then blew up. I never saw the explosion, but I saw it from wingtip to wingtip. On our course, it wasn't spiralling out of control, it was still going along you know. But I can't keep looking all, too long, you've gotta look after yourself. So it was a question of just that and concentrate on your own, you know, it's, and that's what happened. It blew up. And it blew Joe out of the aircraft without a parachute. And, he went down, down, down, grabbing at anything possible. And he finally grabbed something and it was the legs of his mid-upper gunner on his chute. They went down together and they were talking to one another on the way down but he said 'Just prior to hitting the ground, I'll release myself' which is what he did, and he broke his leg doing it. Vivash [?] came out of it alright. And, er, but the others had already bailed out, they were the last two to go and Harry Nott the flight engineer was, he he was asked, told to put the fires out, the small one in the fuselage. Well, he did that but then the whole kaboosh was alight, wing tip to wing tip. So he bailed out and he hid in the forest for five days, eating anything he could put his hand to. But he decided to cross the Rhone [?] and that's where he was caught. He was made prisoner of war and the other three, four, Vivash and Joe heard gunfire. It came to pass over latter years but quite recently in this day that the, the blokes were shot by Gestapo. That was, one bloke was Underwood he was the bomb aimer, Wilson, someone else and, how this has all come about now whereby I've got young enthusiasts of 462 and 466 that have taken me up in the last two years back to Driffield and has encouraged me to go with them and tell them all the things that I've been telling you now. And Paul Nott was the great-nephew of Harry Nott the engineer on Joe Herman's crew. Now, Paul, as an enthusiast he is, he's a private pilot himself. He had this painting done by someone in Shrewsbury. He flew up and collected it. Went over to Aces High in Wendover and had it framed. And now he's got it hung in his office at Ascot. In my plane he's put above it between two searchlights because I told him I saw that plane on fire. It could onl- the description that he gave was identical to what I saw it could be no other. And that's how it's now become we're close friends with the Australians, Tiana Adair the lady. Her father was a pilot I think he was, and all these things of years gone by have all come together with someone being a relative of someone. And this is what has happened. I went, only this April on Anzac day (April the 25th) and we went to Driffield Gardens and we had the memorial which we dedicated in 1993 and Joe, Harry Arnes and myself, he's a prominent air gunner and he was on his second tour. Incidentally at Driffield he was on his second tour and I've met him twice since and last year we laid the wreath at the Gardens memorial and he came this year again but he had to get away quickly because he was going the next day to Drongen in Belgium to another parade. So, things went well. So the point, yes, it renewed our old way of living as regard being air crew in World War Two. CB: So what was your pattern of living? What was the pattern that you went through? You got up in the morning. CD: Yes. CB: What happened? CD: You went to, you went to your section and did a DI on your, on your turn (daily inspection). You cleaned your, you cleaned the Perspex with special Perspex polish to cut out all spots from the engine you get exhaust oil splashes the like and believe you me if you got any like that you think well that's an aircraft that one and that spot of oil on the air on the Perspex. So it was down to you to keep your turret clean. It's your vision, you rely on it. So- CB: What about the guns? CD: Yes. CB: What about the guns? How did you clean those? CD: You clean those with what they call four by two. CB: Wooding? CD: Yes, a cloth, like a flannel. You had a pull through. We cleared the flannels. Yes. CB: So after the DI, then what? CD: Well, you went back to section. And then if the battle orders come out, you look up and saw upon the jar the DROs and you destined. Report to briefing at so-and-so time. From there on things worked. CB: What's a DRO? CD: Daily routine orders. CB: Right. CD: Sorry. CB: Okay. CD: And each section line pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, went to their respective section, did a flight plan after briefing. And the gunners, engineers just sat and wait and report to parachute rooms at such-and-such a time. From there on it was on the, the bus to the perimeter track to dispersal point got up your aircraft. In my case, set my guns to fire. There's a fire and safe on each gun so you had to put it on fire, from there on hold it there. CB: 'Cause you got four 303s you didn't have the retro fitter point fives [?] CD: Yes I had round a minute they fire. So you got three thousand two hundred a minute. But you'd never fire it for a minute, just short sharp bursts. Yes, so- CB: So what time would you normally be going on a raid? Did it vary a lot? CD: Anytime. Any time of day, yes. Daylights. When we, when the, [pause] when the [pause] erm, the army was for-, going forward in France, we were always bombing the French ports because that was the last of the resistance from the guards, the German army, and they were really dug in, they were very hard to get out, suss out. And [background noise] to do a daylight, early morning, you were up at one o'clock, two o'clock. You were called by someone in the guard room came round your billet woke you up. From there on breakfast, briefing, the [inaudible], airborne, drop your load and back you come. Now, as I say, that varied, as my log book shows. Any time of day, any time of night. And I might add, every time we came back and entered the debriefing room, there was always that man stood there by the, by the tea urn [laughter] and the biscuits. And the station padre, no matter what time of day or night, he was always there. Something I noticed, it always sticks in my mind, how dedicated that man was. Yeah. CB: How did the crews feel about that? How did the crews feel? CD: Well about like, about the same as me I think. Such dedication, this, this is what went through all aircrew as well. You know, you had to do that to survive. CB: What was your crew like? CD: Very good, very good. My, especially my navigator, he was quite exceptional. And Tom, the wireless op, yes, good man. Lost him quite young, he was, he was the daddy of the crew. We were twenties and he was thirty-one. And he died when he was forty-two, back in '54. Terry and I and the bomber, we went to his funeral in London. Yes. And pilot, Les, he came over on two occasions. He was married to a New Zealand girl. He got married, lived in Australia, and his home town of Cowgill [?] Cowgill [?], yes. And she wanted to go back home, she couldn't stand the heat. This he did, [background noise] and when we went and met him on our fiftieth wedding anniversary, my son-in-law, daughter, two sons and two grandsons put us on an air ticket and we had two weeks in Brisbane with her cousin, the other two weeks in North Island New Zealand with Les my pilot and his wife. But sadly since then, they've both passed on, and my wife's cousin. And at that stage, we're now left with one two three four five. In turn, they've all died off to the point now that where there is only two of us. That's Derry, my navigator and myself. CB: As a crew, what did you do when you weren't flying? CD: My first and foremost job was and I did it every day like a nut, I used to write to her, yeah. BD: Her? CD: Every day. Can you imagine that? I think I should put it on a rubber stamp because it's the same old things I would say [laughter]. CB: We're talking about Barbara here. BD: Yes. CB: And what a lucky lady she was. [laughter] CD: Yeah, well there you go you see. CB: We're just going to stop for a cup of tea now. CD: Okay. CB: And pick it up in a minute. [Beep] [At 50:20 there is a break and the recording seems to start again on another day] CB: Right, my name is Chris Brockbank, listeners, and we're now on the 7th of July and we're with Charlie Darby and Barbara Darby and Tony Lee their son-in-law. And we're just going to pick up on where we finished up last time really which was the end of the war. And then we'll pick up on some other items. So, Charlie, we came to the point where the operations finished, what happened next? You'd done your thirty. CD: After leave. CB: Okay, so how much leave did they give you? CD: Oh, there was about six weeks. CB: Right. Yep. And then what? CD: We then had a telegram to report to Catterick on ACRC [background noise] (Air Crew Receiving Centre) as we were going to be made redundant, they would issue us with a ground job. And, that was it. I went in on to a course called aircraft finishing which was a coating of paints and so forth, putting on [inaudible?] on aircraft. I went on a course down to Locking in near Weston-Super-Mare for that. And along came the end of the war. And from there on I just went from pillar to post, station to station, and things were never, did never happen as regards that course. So as I've told you earlier, we were just a person not needed. CB: How did you feel about that? CD: Well, depressing. CB: Was all, were all the crew members together? CD: No, no, we all went respective ways. My pilot is now already on his way home, all’s finished with him as far as that was concerned. The re-, Derry, the navigator, went to Morton in Marsh as navigation instructor. My other gunner, he went down to Wales- CB: What was his name? CD: On the bombing site- CB: What was his name? CD: Dennis. CB: Dennis. CD: And in the end, he turns up marrying a Welsh girl and that's where he stayed. And that's where he died, in Wales. Don, similar aspect, but then he went on the, the er Elizabeth Line. CB: Was he the bomb aimer? CD: No, he was the flight engineer. CB: Right. CD: [background noise] He went as a steward on the Queen Elizabeth and something else. Arthur, the bomb aimer, he went on a bombing site. He was sol- a practice bombing site. He was sole charge of that, somewhere up in the Midlands, and that just about covers it. CB: And the signaller- CD: The wireless op- CB: Wireless op, yeah- CD: I never did know what he went in to. And then, as I said before, shortly after that he died, not many years after this. CB: He was the one who died - he was the grandpa of the crew and died at forty-two? CD: Yes that's correct, yes. CB: Right. Now, your rank when you were flying most of the time was flight sergeant? CD: No sergeant. CB: Sergeant. CD: Sergeant. CB: When did you become flight sergeant? CD: About, it came in about a year's time, a step up. CB: Okay. And then you became a warrant officer, when was that? CD: Yes. That warrant officer, that was between '46 and seven. Immediately I got it, immediately they took it away. That sort of time. CB: And put you back to what? CD: Sergeant, basic sergeant. CB: And what happened to your pay? CD: Still the same. CB: You still get flying pay? CD: No, no. The rank of whatever. CB: But the flying pay stopped when you stopped flying did it? CD: So I. Yes. I think so. CB: How much did you get paid? Do you remember? CD: I think it's something like fifteen shillings a day. Something like that. CB: And then the flying pay. How much? CD: [Pause] Tough to say. CB: Okay, doesn't matter. Now, going back to the early days- CD: Adding to that, mind you- CB: Yeah? CD: We had a donater by the name of [pause] he was, er- BD: Nuffield? CD: Pardon? BD: Nuffield. CD: That's right, Lord Nuffield. He gave money to operational aircrew and you received that every leave you went on while operating. To the, to the tune of fifty shillings, something like that, every six weeks. And that fund is a trust fund still running today. Yes. I had the pleasure of meeting him once on the golf course up here at Flackwell Heath. Yeah, anyway that's another point. CB: After the war? CD: After the? No. No, during the war. CB: Oh. CD: It was on my first leave in '43. Amazing isn't it? CB: Yeah. CD: Then were we? I was on a ground job, yes, but it didn't materialise as I thought it was going to do. Like Dennis, Arthur, they had a distinct job of doing something on a bombing range. Well, that didn't happen as far as I was concerned. It just didn't have an end to it. I was in the end just doing silly jobs. You can't describe really. CB: So how did they - when did they demob you? And what was the process? CD: They demobbed me in '47, May '47. I had to go to Lytham St Anne’s near Blackpool where I was issued with civvy clothes and came home on leave, the something about leave, and then that stopped. In other words, go and get a job. CB: So what did you do? CD: From there, I went into Hoovers. Hoovers Limited. It was like engineering. In the time I was there in twenty years my, my bit of fire service experience before I joined up came to light again as they had a fire crew within the works and I was able to join that. Which is what I did. CB: That was as an extra? Or full time? CD: That was during the work time. Any fire on the building, you went to it at the same time the local fire engine was coming up. Yes. We were paid a, extra and they used us funnily enough to collect the wages every week. Down in the town, down the bank because we were insured as firemen so that allowed them to insure - to use that same insurance for us to go down the bank and collect the money. Every Friday, I had to wear a mackintosh. Along, along, a - with weather like this or even hotter, I had to go and pedal into work with my mate 'What the hell you got that mac for?' I says 'It might rain, you know?' I dare not tell him the secret was I had to wear a poacher's jacket underneath which held all the paper money. And we used to go down to the bank, the man used to taxi us, conveniently had his business right outside the bank where he drove out of and he came out. We could see him coming, we went out the door as he pulled up by the pavement and we go on in one movement and all way. It was all done. And people working next to me never ever knew what I was doing. BD: Did I? CD: I think I told you whilst I shouldn't have done. BD: Ooh God. CD: Yeah. [background noise] The money I've carried was nobody’s business. CB: So, you worked there twenty years? CD: Yes. CB: So that gets us into the later 60s. What did you- CD: ‘67. CB: ‘67, what did you do then? CD: I still kept in business when back to BroomWade where I did the tank work. I did precision grinding there. And then I moved to a small business in Beaconsfield, Oppermans, did work for Martin Baker. I told him [inaudible] for he had yet to see. And then from there, I went on franchise work, from the bakery, the local bakery. And he made me redundant. From there, I decided to set up myself, then I went painting, decorating. I went on a course created by Margaret Thatcher to encourage people to do that sort of thing. And I was tax-free for a year, wasn't I? I think. BD: Forty pound a week. CD: Something like that. And after a year, it stopped. But then I was, I'd established a little bit of a business, enough to keep me going. And this is what I did to the end of my working days. I was working right up to seventy-five, even longer I think. BD: And now you've stopped. CD: Even longer. And that was it. And now we're at this stage and I'm still working. CB: Quite right. [laughter] CD: They say when you retire, you'll be able to play bowls, yes [laughter] no way. CB: Let's go fast backwards to when you joined. CD: Yes. CB: So, when you joined, where was it, and what type of people were there who joined with you? CD: What, people with me? CB: Yeah. To the RAF. CD: Well, we were only there a fortnight. CB: Yep. CD: At St John's Wood. So you didn't get a lot of time to get personalised. Bit more introductory, check you out on your health. You had to see the dentist, he was the other side of Hyde Park [laughter] it's true. BD: It must have been a big job for this. CD: And did a fortnight there at St John's Wood, then went to Bridlington, ITW (Initial Training Wing). CB: So, what sort of people were with you, were they all Brits? Were they people from abroad? CD: Yes, all Brits. CB: Okay. And what sort of backgrounds? Were they technical type people or office based or what were they? CD: I wouldn't know to be honest. CB: Right. So when you got to - CD: Pretty general like me. CB: Okay. CD: Workers in the day. CB: Yeah. And at Bridlington, then what? What were they like there? What sort of people? CD: Well, as I say, a bit strict on the instructional side. But they have to be, don't they, to deploy discipline? Early morning start, 06:30 parade, it was very, very civilised. We paraded down by the Spa Hotel which was our mess deck, in other words. The ball- dance hall floor ballroom was the mess. And the theatre side of it was used for Morse code and semaphore flagging, flag and signals. If the weather was fine, would they use the beach. You stood at one end, and he stood the other, about a mile away, and you did your exercises there. Small arms fire, shop frontage people that have sold up or what and they've taken it over because they took over all the, all the boarding places for holidays. That were taken over for us to be housed in. And each course was sixty strong, you kept that sixty all the way through. And that was eight weeks there, seven day leave. Next place was Bridgnorth, number three EAGS. You did a bit of squarebashing there. CB: So EAGS was gunnery school? CD: Elementary Air Gunnery School. CB: Air gunnery school. And what was the elementary training? Was that with shotguns or what was it? CD: Yes, shotguns. You didn't get to the big stuff 'til later. CB: So shotguns and clay pigeons? CD: Clay pigeons, yes. We did quite a lot of that, especially at the next station, AGS. That was the one in Scotland, Castle Kennedy. And that's where you went for your rigorous- The main subject to think about was aircraft recognition. Because, if you didn't know your aircraft, you could be shooting at one of your own. So you had to, you had to know the characteristics of all aircraft and when you sat in the classroom, they would put up on the screen a flash of a sighting of an aircraft no matter what distance, not close up, never close up, and, a hundredth part of a second and you had to write down on a sheet of paper what it was. And you were told afterwards so that was a vital subject. It was before, it was placed before, learning the Morse code. You had to know your aircraft. It happened so many times, people had been shooting their own. Not by me! [laughter] Success at the end, having passed, as you saw in my log book, eighty-one point five percent out of one hundred. I finished third of the sixty. The remarks were above average as you saw. CB: Yeah. Now, did some of the course of sixty not get through? CD: Some, well, they, I don't know what they did, they just, they're not required for aircrew. CB: That's what I mean, they weren't all selected for aircrew because they couldn't see or shoot. Was it? CD: No, no. You went for that and from the word go. CB: Right. CD: Their testing found you out. CB: That's what I mean. Yes. CD: Yes. Sorry. CB: Yeah. So, what I meant was, it was a very high standard- CD: Yes. CB: [Background noise] And some of the people didn't pass so they went to other jobs. CD: Yes, for whatever, ground job, it’d be anyway. But one, one day, at the AGS I was called before the gunnery leader. I thought 'What the hell does he want?' Referring back to our last interview, I mentioned about firing at drogues, didn't I? CB: Absolutely. CD: And they recorded your hits by the colour of the paint on the tip of the bullet. Now, I was called before him and he said 'I've called you in,' he said 'because you've got an exceedingly amount of extra bullet marks.' I said, he said, 'What's your answer to that?' I said 'Well' quick thinking, I said 'Well, it can only be one thing, I'm must be nearer the drogue than I should have been.' And I said 'I'm not in control of that, that's the pilot's job.' 'Good answer,' he says and it ended like that. Now, I get pulled up, it doesn't make sense to me, I get pulled up for having too many hits. [laughter] Does that make sense? No. But that's what happened, that's what passed. He accepted what I said, but he had to, I had no other answer. CB: What sort of range was the drogue being towed at from the aircraft you were in? CD: Well, about one hundred yards I suppose, maybe a little bit more. It was always above you. The martinet was the one in front of you, it was a long tow rope for obvious reasons. [laughter] I'd be shooting the martinet down! [laughter] Yes, that's how it worked and the pilot of your plane, he did that. So you got more movement to make more deflection so it made it harder to hit the drogue. CB: So, could you just describe what is deflection shooting? CD: Well, deflection shooting is, you have two moving targets, the object and yourself. So, you've got to lay it off in front of the actual movement of the object. You never aim straight at it for obvious reasons. It's that. So you had to be in front of it and it goes into it. Now, the most common attack on an aircraft by a fighter is the curve of pursuit, what they call the curve of pursuit attack. From, from the b- er, the quarter, it comes in like that now- CB: In a curve. CD: You have to lay off your aiming point in the front of it, always. That is deflection. CB: Right. CD: And a good idea of that registering up there is doing a lot of clay pigeon shooting. Because, when they shoot those clays out, you've got to be in front of it, although you're stood still, your arms are moving. You've got to fire in front of it. There's no good aiming dead on it. You must - that's allowing the speed of the object and the speed of your bullet to be there at the same time. And that's how you register your hits. That's my term of deflection. CB: So after you'd been at the AGS and passed that, you then went to the OTU? CD: Malton in Marsh, after about a month's leave was a, a little [background noise] an extra for what you've done. We reported there, and after I suppose about two weeks we were all assembled on this big piece of green, some people went in hangars, and that's [background noise] where you selected your crew. Always the pilot, he was always the one that approached because he's the leader of the aircraft. And I say, he came, Les, the pilot, Derry, and Tom they were three officers. They came and approached us fellows who were stood all as one and Les, the pilot, as I said earlier, he went to every section and checked on the pass marks and the remarks of any individual and it turned - and it came to pass, he was looking for me because I'd got my name on there, everyone got their name on there. And Dennis, [background noise] because he'd been with me from day one, and Arthur the bomb aimer and that's where I met him and we were pretty close together there and it made it easy for Les. Well, he literally asked us all three stood together, if you get what I mean? Flight engineer comes into the, into the quota when we go on to four engines. Because on one engine, you didn't need a flight engineer. So, that was made easy by him, by doing what he did. BD: Sorry. CB: So Les had done an initial selection of his navigator - CD: The crew, correct. CB: And bomb aimer. CD: Yes. CB: When he came to you, he was an Australian. CD: Yes. CB: But, when you were in the hangar, he checked on the scores, you said, but he didn't know where the people came from, or did he? CD: Well, yes, it would be English on your papers. CB: So- CD: Your service number would show that anyway. An Australian Air Force number was different to us. CB: Because at that stage, they were, were they, Royal Australian Air Force, whereas originally, they joined the RAF? CD: No, no they still come in as R double A F. CB: They did? CD: Yes. Yes. They came here with their Air Force number from Australia where they trained. Yes. Dennis, my other gunner, he came in with his ATC number. That started with 301, seven figures. Mine was 189, seven figures. I used to pull his leg, I says 'With a number like that, you want to get some in' [laughter] Yes. Anyway, I couldn't run that one too long. CB: Just expanding a bit on the OTU before we have a break. CD: Yes? CB: You've now got the crew. CD: Yes. CB: Les has. When you started training, each of you is doing something different, so what were you doing as the gunner? CD: Doing the exercises that was required. You saw in my log book, exercise one 'till three, whatever. Yes. CB: So did they - CD: Air-to-air, air-to-sea firing, pretty well the same as the other stations. CB: Yeah. CD: We were still on learning Morse and we were getting taught the essential aim of oxygen, why it's so specially needed. We were shown the proof of that by six of us getting into an oxygen chamber, compression chamber, the instructor outside looking through the port hole. And one of you not wearing the oxygen, the other five wearing it. Now the instructor would say this is the proof of what that oxygen does or if you haven't got it, it does it the other way. And we will show you now. And the man that hadn't put the mask on is now getting a bit dreary like. He said to the one sat next to him go to his pocket, take out his pay book. He looked down, he didn't, he didn't know he had taken that that log book. Afterwards, when they put him back on oxygen, and he'd come to his senses, and the fellow said 'Did you see him take anything from your pocket?' and he said ‘no’. That's, that drove it home, so essential that oxygen was. Now, [door creaks] talking on the oxygen side, we, especially at night, we always had oxygen on from the ground and going up. Normally, you can leave oxygen off up to ten thousand feet, but rather than make the contrast high up we did it at ground level. But you were okay without oxygen up to ten thousand feet, so they told us. But especially on operations you had it on, it comes on automatic anyway on four engines. With the, with the Wellington, you had this, this situation of get putting the oxygen on yourself, i.e. before getting into the turret there was a circle in, up here on the oxygen line and that had a cotton reel pushed in to close it off when not needed. [laughter] And that cotton reel is tied on a piece of string and you pulled the cotton reel up away and it just dangled and you then got the flow of oxygen. Then in the turret, you got on off tell tale. But one night, we were on a cross country and after about quarter of an hour I'm, I'm feeling, I'm a bit, I'm a bit drunk - a drunkenness had appeared you know? Light headed. And it suddenly dawned on me I hadn't pulled that cotton reel out before I got in the turret. Honest. I'll letcha go. So when he opened the door and pulled out I came round. None of the others ever knew, I just didn't bother to tell them, would have felt ashamed to. [laughter] And one, there was one exercise we had it was called a bull's eye. It involved, it was on Bristol and Derry, we had been together now what, a week I suppose, green horns, and it came to pass we got there and it was all over Derry was about quarter of an hour late. And that worried him stiff. ‘Derry boy’, the nav leader said to him 'Go and have a good drink, Derry, don't worry about it.' And from there on, Derry used to have his half a pint because he never drank before he met us. He was a lay preacher, he'd been a lay preacher for fifty years after that [laughter] but he liked his drop of sherry. [laughter] So I bought him a bottle when we left. And yes that was it, we were too late for the bull's eye. And then from there, we're going on up into the Yorkshire area now. We had to do a f- two weeks at a place called Acaster Malbis about three miles outside York. It wasn't an aerodrome it was just a plain battle course training. They took you out in the day, live it rough. One night we went out, we had the choice, we stopped at a farm, we had the choice: sleeping in the barn or under the far wall. It was a nice hot day, like one last week, not as hot as that but it was a hot day, so we proposed, [laughter] we proposed to lay under the brick wall with our ground sheets. [unclear] in the barn, went down the pub, had a couple of drinks, came back, slept under the wall, woke up the next morning, oh that bloody great cob horse stood over the top of us [laughter], oh dear. The things that went on. Did that a fortnight, then we went down the road, not far, to a place called Riccall 1658 HCU (Heavy Conversion Unit) and that's where we picked up with our, Les had a choice of flight engineer. Which is what he did. Got together, now we're now fully at strength, seven personnel starting on four engine aircrafts. Going through all the courses again, exercises, cross countries, day and night, fighter affiliation, mock attacks. Used to do that with cine camera, twenty-five feet cine camera. And then, as I say, cross country. We did, we did one and it took us up, I told you before I think, it took us up to Belfast, and the next leg back was to Fleetwood and from Fleetwood over to base, straight across. And we got to Belfast, Jock, the engineer says 'I'm go down to the Elsan, Snowy.' Okay, we barely got down there before all four engines cut. We were at freezing alt - we were icing up, had icicles that long on my guns. Daylight, cloudless sky, yeah, eighteen thousand feet, icing up. He just about gets down to the Elsan to do his necessary and they cut. All four engine cut. 'Jock where the [pause] are you?' 'I'm down in the Elsan, Snowy.' 'Well for Christ's sake get back here quick as you can' [laughter] Back goes Jock [inaudible]. He switches his tanks over and then all four had picked up just like that. But, in the meantime, we had dropped five thousand feet. Fell like a tree. Twenty-five tonne of aircraft, won't stay there, will it? [laughter] So, we were all prepared to ditch because we were over now over the Irish Sea but it didn't have to happen. Eventually got back. [background noise] On another occasion, we did a cross country, we had to go out into Bridlington, Bridlington Bay and fire air-to-sea. From Bridlington to base it's probably about twelve miles, so, nothing, just- And Dennis fired his five hundred first, he said 'I'm finished now', I said 'Okay' and I went to swing round to, to port beam, port quarter rather, and I heard this zutt. I looked up there and there was the mark, the bullet's gone I don't know where. Left me in a state of [laughter] 'What's up?' they said, I said 'For Christ's sake, something’s gone wrong here.' And it came to pass on me that Dennis, one of his guns was faulty [background noise] it stayed in the forward position. When going forward, it takes a round on the face of the breechblock into the, into the [background noise] TL: Barrel. CD: Barrel [laughter] into the barrel, hence, the heat of the barrel ignited the detonator the pull it [?]. Should I have gone onto the beam a fraction earlier it could have been - we marked it on getting back to base, it could have been anyone there. It was there, you see. Because it went round with the turret, it [pause]. CB: So on that - CD: That was the obvious conclusion of it. CB: Right. CD: And it was called, commonly called, a cooked round. CB: Right. So when you landed, the ground crew then- CD: Well, we were notified then what had happened, and little doubt had then to recti- probably the recoil spring on a rod, it was a long rod like that, and the recoil spring was over it. It's probably that that snapped at the. You see, a browning [?] gun can fire eight hundred rounds a minute, for a solid minute which you never did fire a solid minute. But that was the rate of of shot. So it [unclear] the mechanism, it's amazing how it works at that rate of knots. And well you can think of many things I suppose, it's probably more technical than what I can think it can be to suggest yes that did it. But no, no-one came back to us so we assumed its righted itself in their knowledge. CB: I think we'll take a pause there, because you've done well and we'll start another track in a minute. CD: Yeah my tongue tells me that. [Beep, background noise] CB: Right, we're restarting after our tea break. And what I'd like to ask you to do please, Charlie, is to talk about a raid. So, how did you prepare the raid and, the sortie, how did it work? CD: Well, you were first brought up on battle order, then you knew you'd got to go and do so-and-so so-and-so, then the respect of pilots, navigators, bomb aimers. After briefing, which we all went to, after briefing, they went to their respective sections and did their flight plan. Other people like the flight engineer and gunners you just sat and waited because you had nothing to do until you get to the aircraft and then you prime your guns ready to fire in action if any. You went for operational meal, then to briefing, then to respective sections and wait for take off time. In that time, ground staff are loading up with bomb, required bomb load, to each aircraft. You go to parachute room, collect your chute, empty your pockets and wait for the liberty bus to take you to your respective aircraft. Get aboard, do your pre-flight checks, pilot so-forth, gunners, breach your guns up, put them on to fire, when you press the slot to put them on safety, you get airborne and you put them back on to fire, and you were ready for any action, if any. Some occasions, it was a straightforward flight, on other occasions completely opposite. Lone situations and situations you can see from other aircraft but you never ever know what is the problem but you saw it happen, you know what I mean? I.E. the one about the Lancaster. Coming off from the target, a gas incursion. It was flying very strangely, it was veering here and there which gave it the impression there was something wrong with the works. I.E. the rudder for instance, I don't know, it's pure guesswork. There was no smoke, no flame, this this was the foxing part of it all. Anyway, it suddenly went up and over onto its back, and went down into a dive, and in that time, four parachutes came out, unfurled. And went further down and not much further it just disintegrated [?] no explosion whatsoever. It just, just fell apart. Now on the chutes, shown so, it guess the ultimate. On another occasion, the one on Bochum, where I saw Joe Herman's plane, that was alight from wingtip to wingtip. It was still on course, still able to go, it was below us, but still with us, and I had to take my eyes off him because I've got to look after my aircraft, our aircraft, so there wasn't much chance to sit and gaze. So therefore, I never saw the explosion which happened. Three, four, four of the crew have already bailed out. This is in the aftermath, it's all in the squadron book. Harry Nott, the uncle, the fellow I know and recently Paul Nott, his great nephew, who lives in Hartford, he's one of the enthusiasts of the squadron, young enthusiasts, and it tells you what really happened when Joe went for his chute. The plane exploded. It blew him out the aircraft, and he just floating down, grabbing at anything that he could put his hands to. Suddenly, he grabbed this fella, his mid-upper I think it was, he grabbed his legs, and they both went down together on the chute. They arranged it, prior to hitting the ground, that he would release himself from his legs to lessen any dead fall. And they did that, but in that throw, he broke his leg, Joe, the pilot. Anyway, he got, he got the piece of the parachute and Vivash had got an injury to his ankle. He rips some of the parachute up, and wrapped it round his foot but then they decided they'd got to give themselves up, he couldn't try to escape with a broken - he broke a bone up here as well as one in his leg, so they were forced to give themselves up. They heard gunfire and it came to pass that, they found it out since the war, one of, one of the, it must have been a farmer, he had a horse and cart with one of the crew on it. He was injured. I think it was the bomb aimer, it wasn't the bloke called Underwood, Australian. And in the presence of I think there was an army bloke, a German army bloke, and up came a Gestapo. And he didn't mince his words whatever, he just pulled out his gun and shot Underwood. That is the glowing report from the farmer with the horse and cart. They, those two, heard gunfire so went seems the match what really happened. Yeah, there's four of them who were eventually in one cemetery from that particular instance, incident. [pause] Others, there was one after we'd finished our operations. One was coming in at Driffield one foggy morning in April '45. It was on the circuit over at Kirkburn Grange which was a farm right on the circuit of Driffield. He went round and he asked permission again because it was thick fog and they requested him to go to Carnaby just up the road, ten miles up the road, to a crash landing site. He said 'Well, I'll give it another try.' He did. At this farm, there were cops of about three hundred yards, and narrow too, about three hundred yards long, and he hit that, ploughed right through it. Right by the farm house. And the present farmer in '83 was the son then. He was five years old and he didn't know a thing. That plane exploded, what, just at, about fifty yards from the house. We went over there on the '83 reunion, in a cab [?] of cader [?] cars and the squadron leader Riverton [?] he went with us and he took the Halifax book and presented it to the farmer. He wondered what was happening I think. Coming there was [?] about six or seven car loads of us. [Laughter] Anyway, we went to the site and I took a photograph of it from memory out of the book. And I wasn't far out. I leaned over the hedge of the ploughed field and I took that photograph and it was as I say as near as I could get it. But I've loaned the book out to someone with that photograph in it and I can't think who. No, that won't have gone [?]. If he'd have taken the orders right, and accepted from the control tower go to Carnaby things would have been different. But no, he wanted to do it again. Inexperienced pilot apparently, and he got people on there with DFCs, people on their second tour no doubt. [background noise] It just blew into pieces. [pause] I told you the one - CB: Any other trips you remember when you were doing the bombing of Northern France for the flying bombs? CD: Yes. What? CB: What height were you and what sort of experience did you have with those? CD: Well, that was only our second one you see and I [laughter] erm [pause] there was - it didn't happen in our squadron, but we got to know that one of the aircraft on that raid, one of the crew, must have been the engineer I would think, he's the only one who seemed to walk about, and he lifted the, the inspection panel to look and see the bombs go. It - he unscrewed the panel, got down on his knees and looked down through and a piece of shrapnel hit him in the throat. The thing, hard luck story there to the point, you're going about two hundred miles an hour and something comes up through a hole about that big, and hits you in the throat. It, now, that was the crew, it wasn't on our squadron but we got to know about it. There's another incident you see I would never ever have known about it other than getting it from our people. And [pause] that's encouraging [?]. One of those two days that we did, went there consecutively, I forget which one it was but turning, we had to turn round onto the target. And I looked round to see where we're going and this block barrage it was like that just a solid black wall of flack. At our height, dead heights, and I said to myself 'Christ we've got to go through that?' Only we did, somehow. I have said to Les the pilot afterwards he said 'I just climbed above it.' Well I didn't know that at the time you see, still had flack going around you at various heights but this block barrage, well it was just like looking at that screen. It was a massive black wall of flack bursts. I don't know how many guns had to do that, probably about fifty rapid firing. I don't know, pure guesswork. But, that was an incident and I, I don't know whether that was the same one when I saw that Lancaster do what it did because we went there two days running, yes. Seventy years ago it's tough to remember what day it was so. That was that incident. [Pause] er. CB: Which did you prefer, flying at night or flying in the day? CD: Well, safety wise, well obviously day light. Because when these turning points as I was saying in that Bockholme one that Bockholme bay was seven-hundred and forty-nine aircraft. And you all, you're all converging on Aufitnez [?]. You're all coming at different angles so, I had it written down here. [pages turning] [pause] First turning point whereby all aircraft were coming in at all angles to turn off onto the next heading. [cough] Incidentally, all navigation lights are turned off so you're in a complete darkness which helps towards a hazard. Within our crew, we found an idea to help to overcome this. Derry, our navigator, would call up and notify us, the gunners in brackets, ten minutes before turning point and ten minutes after the turning point. This about covers the time it takes [cough] seven-hundred and forty-nine aircraft to pass through. We, you could do a raid of a thousand bombers in a quarter of an hour over the target. So that ten minutes each side of that turning point served a good purpose. [background noise] But there was this raid where I saw two aircraft collide at the first turning point, Orford Ness . CB: And what happened to them? CD: Well, they just hit one another and that was the end of the story. Just a vivid blue flash. CB: Oh was it? CD: And a black pall of smoke to follow. CB: You couldn't see- CD: Joe Her- incidentally, Joe Herman saw that same one. That happened just off the North, from Orford Ness in the North Sea. Yeah. CB: So you didn't see them before they collided, just the explosion 'cause it was in the dark? CD: No no no it was just above us too. CB: Was it? CD: So you wouldn't see it above us. CB: No. CD: No, you couldn't help but see it. Just a blue flash. CB: Yeah. So if we go forward a bit, you've now completed the sortie and you've landed. What happened next? CD: [background noise] You go to debriefing. First person you saw, and always saw every time no matter what day or night was the Padre, the Station Padre. He was stood there just inside the door with the tea urn and the biscuits. And welcomed us back. And then we went and sat in our crew at one table, crews at another table, [background noise] and you systematically interviewed and told what you saw, [cough] things happened. The navigator was always logged in so as, right that aircraft went down at so many degrees east or whatever. And the others gave their remarks and that was it. You went down to the mess had a return meal, no matter what time of the morning or night. From there to bed. CB: Was it as standard meal, you always got something? CD: Egg, bacon and chips. [laughter] Yeah, egg, bacon and chips. CB: Okay. CD: Some used to craftily get in there and get a meal and weren't on operation. They, they sussed that one out. So the WAAF behind the co- the hot plate, had a list of all the crews that were in operation and they used to ask you your name and if you weren't on there she didn't give you a meal, which is fair enough. How other way are you going to defeat it? And that's not all they did, tried to do, they did until they found it out. Yeah. CB: So you've had your debrief, you've gone to bed, how long were you allowed to rest or sleep for before you had to do something else? CD: We, you just got up and if it was too late a day to go and do a daily inspection then you didn't do it. You were probably on battle orders again the next night. I'll give you an instance, [background noise] they were very, the discipline to help the individual himself rather than not break his morale, they let discipline slide a bit. Whereby there was none of this saluting when you passed an officer and all that, as it was in training. I remember once in training at AGS, Dennis and I were walking up to the section and there were two officers coming down the drive. I says 'We'd better sling them one up, Dennis.' 'Oh, bugger him' he says, 'Bugger him' he says. I went up and he didn't. He got seven days [laughter]. 'That's alright for you.' I says, 'All you had to do, Dennis, was that.' Anyway, we came back to twelve noon again, and then, simple as that. That's strict discipline, that, you see and that, that didn't occur in- I'll give you the instance why. We had a billet inspection by Wing Commander Shannon, Dave Shannon, and we're all stood at the end of the bed, waiting for him and his entourage to come in and inspect, and Bob Elliott, the Canadian, he was in that far corner and he's still in his bed, he'd been on ops the night before. So immediately Shannon went straight over to him you see and he woke him up. [laughter] Elliott went like that on his poliasse, paliasse rather, 'What're you doing on that bed?' he said, 'I was on ops last night, sir', Oh well, alright, well get up and sweep this bit of bed fluff up.' [laughter] That's all that happened. Now, if he'd have done it the army way, he'd have blown the bloke to hell, wouldn't he? So they never, they never inclined to go down that road. In the army, his feet wouldn't have touched the ground. You know that. He'd have been in the glasses. But no, he just laid him back there 'I was on ops last night, sir.' 'Well alright, get on and sweep this bed fluff up.' I was stood down the other end, yeah, heard it all. That, that was the sort of discipline on the squadron. CB: 'Cause we're talking about- CD: We had to be at a level otherwise you'd have broke, you'd have broken up- CB: Yep. CD: You know what it is. CB: Yeah. CD: I don't have to tell you, do I? CB: So, the accommodation is an H-Block. CD: Yes. CB: At Driffield. CD: Yes. CB: So that’s real comfort, relatively. CD: Yes. CB: Then you go to Foulsham, when did you get there? CD: I remember, Nissen hut, wasn't it? I've got an old photograph of it in that other book, pimpernel book. CB: Was that, what was the condition of that like? Comfort? CD: Well Nissen hut, you had that all the way up in your training. [pause] I had a tortoiseshell stove and a mirror on the hut [laughter]. I always picked the bed away, yes, picked the bed away from there because they would all sit along the edge of your bed near the fire. [laughter] So I kept well away. But, oh, I had an incident at Bridgnorth. There was this farmer bloke, he was a farmer really, all Gloucestershire boy, you know. And he'd been out and had a few and he came back I was, I was half asleep I just got into bed. I hadn't been out. I never ever went out anyway, I was always religiously learning up, swotting up all the time. Plus, the letter writing, it all takes your evening up, doesn't it? So, I got into a habit. I never ever went out. Anyway, this night he comes back a bit worse for wear and I think he had a bit of encouragement from others and [background noise] he came and tipped my bed up. What does one do? I got straight up and hit him one. Only hit him once, honest to God, yeah, yeah. 'Oh uh buh' [?] he went, I thought 'Yeah.' I had every right, didn't I? And he had my left. [laughter] That was one of the incidents. CB: What was the food like in general? CD: Pretty good. Yes. Pretty good. Another, another incident there at Bridgnorth, you remember that advert, Chad? It was a head looking over a wall and a long nose hanging over the wall. Well, our, our instructor was a bloke called Firth, and he was, he was Jewish and he'd got just one of those conks you know [laughter] and in the ablutions up over the taps was: 'Beware, Corporal Cashew watching you' and that he was Corporal Cash, beware Corporal Cash is watching you pissing [[laughter]. Nobody was ever pulled up, what could they do about it? CB: Banter. CD: Another instance, going back off a weekend leave to Locking [?], Weston-Super-Mare, we always used to- 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 Charlie Darby Description An account of the resource Charlie Darby joined the Royal Air Force in September 1943 and describes, in great detail, his training as an air gunner/wireless operator on Wellingtons and Ansons at RAF Bridlington, RAF Bridgnorth, RAF Castle Kennedy, RAF Acaster Malbis and RAF Riccall. He explains how he crewed up at 21 Operational Training Unit, RAF Morton in the Marsh, before being posted to RAF Driffield with 466 Squadron, where he served as a rear gunner. He recounts operational experiences, including an operation to Bochum. He discusses discipline and living conditions. At the end of the war, he was transferred to groundwork and moved between a number of stations before being demobbed in 1947. He worked for Hoover and other companies before setting up his own engineering business. He talks about what happened to his crew after the war and his participation in the unveiling of a memorial in Driffield Gardens in 1993. 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 2015-06-30 2015-07-07 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Bethany Ellin Heather Hughes Maureen Clarke Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:57:04 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ADarbyC150630 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Yorkshire Germany--Bochum Germany Germany--Ruhr (Region) Atlantic Ocean--Irish Sea England--Orford Ness 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. 100 Group 1658 HCU 21 OTU 462 Squadron 466 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson bombing crewing up debriefing demobilisation ground personnel Heavy Conversion Unit Initial Training Wing memorial military discipline military ethos military living conditions Operational Training Unit padre perception of bombing war RAF Acaster Malbis RAF Bridgnorth RAF Bridlington RAF Carnaby RAF Castle Kennedy RAF Driffield RAF Foulsham RAF Moreton in the Marsh RAF Riccall sanitation training Wellington wireless operator / air gunner https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/128/1278/AAbbottsC151015.1.mp3 cc3222384b5959170d324f9b72e8d83f 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 Abbotts, Cyril C Abbotts Description An account of the resource Two items. The collection consists of one oral history interview and one service and release book related to Warrant Officer Cyril Abbots (1924 - 2025, 1583753 Royal Air Force). Cyril Abbotts volunteered for the Royal Air Force and trained as a pilot in Canada. On his return to Great Britain he flew operations as a flight engineer with 57 Squadron from RAF East Kirkby in 1945 and later converted from Lancasters to Lincolns. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Cyril Abbot and catalogued by IBCC staff. 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. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-10-15 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Abbots, C Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document CB: So today I’m with Cyril Abbott and we are at Malvern in Worcestershire and it is the 15th of October 2015 and we’re just going to talk about his time in the RAF. Cyril, could you start off by talking please about your, family early, your earliest times you recollect? CA: I was born in 1924 in a place called Princes’ End, Tipton. I lived with father and mother, with my grandparents. My mother was one of a large family, unfortunately she died when I was six and for the next two years we were looked after by my Grandma until Dad remarried. My mother and father were, had a house built in a village Coseley, which was about two miles away but we never moved there because of my Mum’s death. But having remarried we moved as a family, mother, or I should say step-mother, and father and my sister Doris who was four years older than myself. And we moved to a house in Bradleys Lane Coseley. I went to junior schools in Princes End, Tipton and at the age of eleven I passed scholarship and entered Dudley Grammar School where I was educated for the next five, six years. I left school in ‘39 and went out to work with W and T Avery at Smethwick as a engineering apprentice. I didn’t like work so at the first opportunity I volunteered for the Air Force, for aircrew, and having had all the two days of tests at Digbeth, Birmingham, I was accepted as a recruit and sent home and told to wait until I heard from the RAF. I was a bit of a nuisance to my father and mother because every day I used to come home from work and say ‘Has the letter arrived?’ and nothing had appeared and I really caused a bit of grief. But eventually the letter arrived ordering me to report to ACRC at Lords’ Cricket Ground, London. I travelled to, down to London with a fellow from the village who was also joining up, I think it was the first time we’d ever been away from home by ourselves in the whole of our lives but we arrived at Lords’ and the cricket ground was full of recruits, you couldn’t see a blade of grass basically. But they formed us up in groups of about forty and marched us off to Seymour Hall baths where they told us to strip off and swim a hundred yards. This rather shook us I believe ‘cause having to swim without a costume, but we did this and those who could swim the hundred yards were pushed to one side of the bath, and those who couldn’t swim went to the other side. We found out later that the non-swimmers were sent off to RAF Cosford to learn to swim, if I’d have known that I would have done the same [laughs] because Cosford was within about twenty miles of home. But still, we, we were billeted in flats around St John’s Wood, waiting for postings to ITW. Eventually I was posted to 8 Wing ITW at Newquay, Cornwall where I spent the next three to four months school work. In actual fact I can remember the flight commander was a Flight Lieutenant Paine, he was an ex solicitor and the Squadron Leader I think was a man named Fabian, who was a English international footballer amateur. But, and the two PTIs was Corporal White and Corporal Beasley, one was a Londoner, a real Cockney, and they used to take us out on cross country runs. Because one day I, I decided I didn’t want to go, so we had to get changed and set off and I drifted to the back and at the nearest public toilets I disappeared into it, little realising that Corporal White was running right at the back and he caught me [laughs] and I was taken in front of the squadron commander and given three days CB, confined to barracks, but at the end of the, I think it was about twelve weeks of school work were finished and we were waiting then to, for postings and I eventually was posted to RAF Sywell for familiarisation, twelve hours in a Tiger Moth. Again, I remember the instructor was a Flight Lieutenant Bush, I think he could have owned the flying school which had been taken over by the RAF, but we did, we did about ten to twelve hours flying around in Tiger Moths to see if whether we were compatible with flying and then at the end we were posted to Heaton Park, Manchester which was a receiving centre for people waiting basically to go overseas. I mean there were literally hundreds of UT aircrew there and we used to have to attend in the morning when they would read out lists of people with the postings and you had to answer in a certain manner to signify that you’d understood the shouted instructions. Initially I’d received a posting to South Africa, Rhodesia for flying training and we went up to Blackpool to receive the inoculations required, and having received these inoculations we were sent back to Heaton Park where we found out that we weren’t going to South Africa after all. I was sent to Canada and we, we sailed from the River Clyde, Greenock, or something similar on the Queen Elizabeth, the original Queen Elizabeth one, and I think it was about three days and four nights journey which I didn’t like, I don’t, I’m not a, I don’t like sailing, I don’t like water and it was a welcome sight to go through the harbour bar at New York to get inside the docks because as we went through the bar and they closed it the ship lit up because we’d sailed in darkness over, through the Atlantic, and as soon as we entered the, the New York dock area all the lights came on the ship. I mean New York was lit up as you see it on the films, I mean we hadn’t seen lights for three years. Eventually we, we docked in Pier 91 next to the burnt-out Normandy which had been, it had gone on fire and had capsized in the dock next to us, and it was still there. But eventually we were taken off the boat and we went under the river to New Jersey to get a train to go up to Monkton, RAF Monkton in Canada. We had to pass through the customs between America and Canada, and we stopped on the American side and one or two of us shot off because we were near to a small town and got a glass of beer, and we’d got to drink this very quickly and we didn’t realise the American beer was practically frosty, it was very, very cold. But we, eventually we arrived in Monkton, and we were there for maybe a week or so before we were sent west to the flying schools and I finished up at 32 EFTS, RAF Bowden in Alberta, I mean we could see the Rockies on the horizon, as we drove from the station, Innisfail was the station, why I know that is because I was reading a book by an ex Worcestershire cricketer, Cheston, who had trained there as well, and I picked up the name Innisfail I’d forgotten, but as we drove up from the station to the aerodrome all the training planes were lined up with their tails towards us and we all thought God, we’re all going to be fighter pilots, they looked like fighter ‘planes ‘cause they were all Fairchild Cornell which was a low wing plane. We were there for a period of time, I think we got in about seventy or eighty hours, and I soloed quite quickly after about five hours and during the training I realised that I would never become a fighter pilot because I didn’t like aerobatics. I always remember being sent up to practice spins and to do this you climbed to about three or four thousand feet and then spun down, and pulled out and climbed back and did it again. But every time I went to do it I’d get practically to the point of stall, at which point I was supposed to kick in rudder to go right or left and my nerve went so I pushed the nose down and climbed another thousand feet until I finished up at about ten thousand feet before I forced myself to spin. But having done it the first time and realised I could get out of trouble it wasn’t so bad, but aerobatics I just did not like. So I made my mind up then that I would never become a fighter pilot, I’d go for twins or multi engines. Having completed the elementary training we were posted to service flying training and I was posted to a place called RAF Estevan in Saskatchewan it was right on the American border just a few miles on the Canadian side but it was more or less in the middle of the dustpan, everything was covered with dust, there was a wind at all times and it was just blowing this dust and coating everything. The dormitories had got double-glazing with a mesh screen to try to keep this dust out, but they were flying Ansons there for training and we had to have a check to see whether our leg length was sufficient to be able to apply full rudder in the event of an engine failure. Well I didn’t like the station I thought I’m going to do my best to get away from here, so when I came to do my test I put, extending my to get full rudder and I gradually slipped down in the pilots’ seat so that I couldn’t see over the top of the board, dashboard, so that I failed the test. I didn’t realise that I could have been washed out of pilot training but I was posted away from Estevan to RAF Moose Jaw at Saskatchewan to fly Tiger Moths. The Anson hadn’t got a moveable rudder pedal whereas the Oxford had, you could wind them in to suit your leg length. The Oxford had got a bad reputation for killing people. It was a very difficult aeroplane to fly and they said that if you could fly an Oxford you could fly anything. And I took to the Oxford, I soloed after about five hours again and from then on it was just train, train, train until we eventually finished, I think we did something like about a hundred and fifty hours flying, and it came, the wings, the graduation ceremony, and I believe we were presented with our wings by Air Vice-Marshal Billy Bishop who was a Canadian fighter pilot in the First World War. I believe that it was him but we had already sewn wings on our uniforms and stripes on our arms if we were becoming sergeants, but we had to parade without, without wings or stripes on. But then having graduated, we had, we were given a posting back to Halifax, to get the boat back to England. We were allowed, I think, forty eight hours to have a leave in either Quebec or Montreal on the way back. I can’t remember now whether we were in Quebec or Montreal, but we eventually got back to Halifax and boarded the French liner, Louis Pasteur, to come back and it was a terrible journey. Since we were now supposed sergeants capable of looking after ourselves on the ship some of us were posted as assistant gunners on the anti-aircraft guns which were put about ten feet above the boat deck on a little platform with a rail around it to stop you falling off. And we had an Oerlikon cannon to look after. I mean we’d never seen a firearm but we’d got a naval man as the gunner and we were just there to help, But we always said the Louis Pasteur was a flat bottomed boat because it rolled and rocked like nobody’s business and there were literally thousands on the boat, the conditions were terrible, but every morning at about twelve o’clock if I remember rightly, we had a rendezvous with a Coastal Command aircraft so that when it came time we had to close up the guns in case it wasn’t an RAF plane, but bang on the dot it would appear out of the clouds, circle round for about half an hour, and then off it would go and we’d plough on. I mean we were not escorted it was just a, a quick dash across and I must admit I saw more U boats in the sea, that on that journey, than the German’s had got, every wave was a U boat. [laugh] But eventually we arrived at Liverpool, and we disembarked and were shipped to RAF Harrogate, the Majestic Hotel we were billeted in, and there were literally thousands of pilots, bomb aimers and navigators there. We just, we just didn’t know what was going to happen to us. I mean they came round I think twice, once asking for volunteers to change to glider pilot training. I mean those that did, that accepted it, I think most probably went in at Arnhem. But I being frightened, I decided I would stay and get an aeroplane with engines. So I was there for quite some time and eventually I was sent, we had um, because we’d been in Canada, living the life of luxury, they sent us up to Whitley Bay, Newcastle under the Army to have a month toughening up, and everything was done at the double. I was given a rifle and a band to cover my sergeant’s stripes, we used to have to wear these because the instructors were corporals and privates of the commandos and they gave us a real tough time. Route marches of about twelve miles, my feet were sore, but that was completed and we came back to Harrogate. They just didn’t know what to do with us. So we, eventually I ended up at RAF Bridgenorth, under canvas, and we always said we were draining an air commodore’s farm because we were digging ditches all the time and there were, there were Australians, and other Commonwealth aircrew with us and they used to, to show how tough they were, they’d sleep out in the open without a tent, until they got wet once or twice, [laugh] but we were there most probably two or three weeks and back again to Harrogate. And then I went on airfield control at RAF Gamston, just outside Worksop, acting as traffic control watching the Wellingtons, it was an OTU unit, and we were there [indistinct] at night on flare path duty and the control hut flashing greens or reds as required with an Aldis lamp. While I was there, I became friends with one or two of the screened pilots so I managed to get a few hours in on a Wellington. At the end of the, at the end of the time Gamston was closed down and the ‘planes moved to other OTUs so I got a few hours flying with the screen people taking these aeroplanes to the stations. The funniest part was we landed at one, we had a plane which went round all the aerodromes picking up the screened crews to take them back to Gamston, a Wellington, and it was very funny we landed one control, or pulled up at the control tower and shut the engines down waiting for the people to be picked up and out trooped from the Wellington, about eighteen people and the control officer’s jaw dropped when he saw all these people coming out [laugh] but it was quite, we stood, down the Wellington hanging onto the geo, geodetic structure, it was quite funny. From Gamston, I eventually was posted, oh yeah, I think I went back to Harrogate again and there I was volunteered to do an engineers’ course at St Athan down in South Wales. There was no chance of becoming an official pilot because they hadn’t got enough aeroplanes and there was too many people. So we were volunteered to do an engineers’ course at St Athan on the Lancaster systems, which we did about six weeks just to get the fundamentals of the system. And having completed that I was posted to sixteen 54 HCU at RAF Wigsley in Lincolnshire, where I was going to get crewed up with an ex OTU pilot and crew who wanted an Engineer, so we walked in, as engineers we walked into an office where there were pilots sitting around and the first person I saw was a man who’d been on the course immediately in front of me at Moose Jaw, a flying officer, he was a Pilot Officer Coates and we made contact and starting talking, he said ‘Well I’m looking for an engineer’ I said, ‘Well I’m an engineer but I’m also a pilot’ he said ‘Do you want to come and fly with me?’ ‘Yep’, and that’s how I joined Pilot Officer Coates’ crew because we knew each other. We completed a number of hours on the, at the heavy con unit, the conversion unit, and we were posted as a crew to 57 Squadron at East Kirkby. CB: So when was this exactly? CA: Well I think it was in either February ’45, because I wasn’t on the squadron long enough to be able to be awarded the Bomber Command Clasp which I thought was a bit em, bit naughty of them, I can come to that later. Well we were introduced to Wing Commander Tomes who was the Squadron Commander and I think Squadron Leader Astall although I’m not sure about that name. And we were more or less sent off to go and do some practice flying which we thought we’d done enough with the heavy con unit but it wasn’t good enough for the squadron. So we did quite a few cross countries and bombing practice at Wainfleet. And one day I was, I think most likely the last one in the engineer’s office and I was about to go for tea, and as I was walking out the engineer officer shouts, ‘Cyril, what are you doing tonight?’ I said ‘I’m going to have a beer why?’ he said ‘No you’re not, you’re flying.’ He said so and so has called in, his engineer’s gone sick, so they want an engineer so you’re flying as a spare bod on Flying Officer Jack Curran, who was an Australian pilot, he was short of an engineer so I was going with him and that night we went to Luetzkendorf which was the first operation, our rear gunner had also been made a spare bod and he went as a rear gunner with another crew. But Jack, Jack Curran had been shot down about two months previously and had got back so he was, he was a bit nervous as a pilot, he gave me a bit of jitters, because once we crossed, if I remember rightly, once we crossed over the Channel and got to the other side he proceeded to weave all the time and it made a heck of a mess of my petrol consumptions. But the thing that I always remember, was having got to the target, was the different colours or shades of red that there are, or were, I’d never seen so many different shades. Of course I mean I didn’t realise what was happening I mean I was, I’d got bags and bags of window which I was pushing [unclear] down the chute like nobody’s business thinking they were saving me but they weren’t they were saving the people coming behind me. But I pushed packets of it down, I even jammed the ‘chute once I had to get a big file from out of my kit, my tool kit and try and clear it and the file went down the ‘chute as well so that if that hit anybody downstairs they would have had a headache. But eventually we got, we came back and as we neared East Kirkby, Jack had called in to ask for landing instructions and we were told to vamoose, scatter, it was either an intruder in the circuit or something but we scattered like nobody’s business heading towards Wales, and on the way, we were told to make for RAF Bruntingthorpe which we eventually reached and Jack landed the Lanc’ alright, we parked it and were taken into a room for a bit of a debrief, given something to eat and then we were taken to beds in the dorms, in the Nissen huts. And I was, I was lying there on the bed, I couldn’t get to sleep, I suppose it was the adrenalin still coursing through the veins, but I was smoking away like nobody’s business, and I woke up the man in the bed next to where I was and he sat up and he saw I was a flight sergeant, he saw my tunic on the bed, so he said ‘What’s happened?’ so I just explained that we’d been diverted there and we were talking, he was a corporal engine fitter and he looked at me and I looked at him quite intently as if we knew each other. So eventually one or other said ‘Were you ever in Canada?’ and I said ‘Yes, you were at Moose Jaw, were you at Moose Jaw?’ ‘Yes’, he’d been an Engine Fitter out on the flights at Moose Jaw and had been posted back to, from Canada and he was working, was working at Bruntingthorpe on the Wellingtons. Well eventually we were given the all clear to go back to East Kirkby and, although it was forbidden, the squadron pilots always shot up the aerodrome having taken off. So we, we took off and joined a queue of people waiting to go down the runway and ignored it which we did. The station commander went mad and by the time we got back to East Kirkby the squadron commander was waiting for us and he proceeded to tear us off a strip. ‘They were OTU pilots being taught to fly safely and you people go down and show them what not to do’ [laugh] still it was Lancaster below zero feet going at about two hundred miles an hour is something, it’s really exhilarating, but still. Um, oh yeah, a few days later we went to Pilsen as a crew, Fred Coates the pilot and the rest of the crew, I mean he’d already done two spare bods as a pilot getting the idea of what happened, and Johnny the rear gunner had been, but the, I’d been but the others hadn’t so it was all new to them, but us old hands [laugh]. Well we went to Pilsen and our navigator was a graduate and he was a very meticulous navigator, very good, but very meticulous. I mean when we were flying you’d hear his voice come over the, the intercom, ‘What speed are we supposed to be flying at?’ ‘About two hundred and twenty, why?’ he said ‘I want two hundred and twenty five, nothing else, two twenty five is the airspeed.’ So I spent minutes trying to get the, the right speed. And he’d come through, ‘What course are you steering?’ ‘Why?’ He said ‘You’re two degrees out’, oh he was a, he was a menace [laugh]. But on the way, it’s only in latter life that I’ve realised this, but it was his first trip, it was most of us second or third and he was navigating and he said ‘We’re too early, we’re going to get to target too early’ so Fred said ‘Well what do you want to do?’ So Marsh says ‘We’ll do a dog leg, turn, and he gave us a course to turn to the left, to port, and flew out for a few minutes and then to come back into the, into the stream and go, head toward the target again, we’d lose the required minutes. And like fools Fred and I did this, but during the flight we were getting, we were getting, bumped about a bit and we couldn’t understand this because there was no flak to blow us around but we’d get jumped up and down, it would last a minute and then die down and then about a few minutes later again. We couldn’t fathom out what it was, but it’s only in latter life that I’ve realised what it was, because we got to Pilsen and back okay, and then we were put on a daylight to go to Flensburg, and I mean the RAF didn’t flew, didn’t fly in formation, they just got into a gaggle and went. So we joined the bunch and the idea was to get into the middle of the stream, so you kept lifting yourself up a bit, move over and then gradually drop down and force the man underneath to move out of the way so that you were doing this all the time. And occasionally we’d get this bump and it’s only as I say in latter life that I realised that at night when we got these bumps it was the slipstream of planes in front of us, that I never, I never saw a plane during flying at night but we must have been very, very close because it showed up during this daylight. But we went to Flensburg and it was aborted we couldn’t bomb, why we were never told but I did see a Messerschmitt 262 I think was the jet fighter, something came, went through the formation like nobody’s business but we’d got Mustang fighter escort they were most probably about ten thousand feet above us, but we did see them come down and go through the formation, on the way down to the deck whether they’d, they went down to er, hit some of these two five twos taking off, two six twos, but that was quite a sight to see these little, little bits going through the, through the formation. But my war ended with that aborted raid on Flensburg. We were thinking we should be going to Berchtesgaden but all the, the higher ups of the squadron did that, they didn’t let the lower lads do it. Then after the , after the war I flew on Lincolns, 57 Squadron were given three Lincolns initially to carry out service trials on them and by this time our pilot, Fred Coates, had departed. He’d been a police constable before the war and since they wanted the police in peace time to build up again they got Class B releases, or they were allowed to take Class B release. So Fred had just married his Canadian girlfriend who’d come over here to marry and 57 Squadron was one of the squadrons that were going out on Tiger Force to the Far East but Fred said no he wasn’t going to go, he’d get his Class B which he did. And we had another pilot, a Flight Lieutenant Strickland, who was posted into us to take over the crew. He came up I think from Mildenhall, I can’t remember which group they were, but he’d been an instructor in Canada for a number of years and he was very meticulous with his flying, everything was perfect and he kept the rest of us on top line. We flew the Lincolns, we’d got three and I think Mildenhall station they’d got three, we had lots of trouble with engine failures where as Mildenhall had airframe failures, rivets popping and things like that so it was quite, it was quite stressful flying these Lincolns. I’ve got a write up. CB: We’ll stop there just for a moment. CA: Yeah, I’ve got a write up actually, CB: So we’ve stopped for a comfort break, and you were talking about Lincolns, you took on Lincolns? CA: Oh yeah. CB: You took on Lincolns. What happened then? CA: Well, with the Lincolns, we as I say we’d got three and I since found that there was a Flight Lieutenant, Flight Lieutenant Jones who was one of the leading lights in the flight, I can’t recall him really, but erm. CB: This is still war time before the Japanese surrender isn’t it? CA: It was, yeah, but it was after the European war – CB: Yep. CA: And it was in the time between May and August - CB: Right. ’45. The Lincoln was, was being produced to go overseas with the Tiger Force because the Lanc’ hadn’t got the range that was required and the Lincoln was supposed to have. But it wasn’t, in our eyes, it wasn’t as good as the Lancaster, I mean we were in love with the Lanc’ whereas the Lincoln was, was something different. I fully remember on one flight, I was sitting down on the right hand side and Pete was flying and I looked out of the starboard side and looked at the wing and I could see the skin rippling and I nearly collapsed with fear because I could see the wing moving up and down, and when it lifted up, so it rippled the skin at the join between the mid-section and the wing section, and for the rest of the flight my eyes never left that section [laugh] that part, but I found out when we got down that the wings moved five feet between the bottom and top and this was due to the weight of them and the, the fuel. And it was only after then that I noticed that when the Lincoln sat on the ground the wings appeared to be drooped and they moved up during the take off period to obtain the flying attitude. But it was a frightening sight I will admit. CB: So it was a bigger aeroplane? CA: It was a bigger aeroplane, it was heavier, I don’t know about the bomb load. I don’t think it was any different. CB: But they were bigger engines and could fly higher and the span was a hundred and twenty four feet? CA: A hundred and twenty. CB: Hundred and twenty. CA: About a hundred and twenty feet, yeah. CB: Now when did you get promoted to warrant officer? CA: Two years after I graduated. You were made, when you got your wings, you were a sergeant for about nine to twelve months and then flight sergeant for a year and then you became warrant officer. I mean a lot of the ground crew, senior NCO’s didn’t like this, I mean there were us youngsters who were up to sergeants after about eighteen months and they’d been in the Air Force for years and had just made corporal. So there was a bit of resentment between the ground crew NCO’s and the aircrews. But of course I mean we were only as aircrew given stripes, or officers in case you were ever shot down and taken prisoner, you got better treatment as a NCO, but that was the only reason. CB: OK, so fast forward again to the Lincolns, your time in the RAF finished when, 1946? CA: 1946 November. CB: Right, so what did you do? CA: What did I do afterwards? CB: After the war, after the war finished? CA: Well, I came back and as I said previously, I’d been an apprentice with Avery’s, and my apprenticeship had been cancelled when I joined up. So I went back to Avery’s and recommenced my apprenticeship but due to my service, instead of having to do a further length of time, because I was apprenticed for about five years and I had only done about twelve months, they reduced the remaining time by about twelve months and they concluded my apprenticeship about twelve months, having served and I’d done a four year apprenticeship instead of five, and that would have been somewhere around about 1947, ‘48 when I, they transferred me into the drawing office at Avery’s and I became a draughtsman. CB: How long did you work as a draughtsman? CA: Well I left Avery’s in 1951 and I was employed by the Cannon Iron Foundries for a year and then I, I went to Thompson Brothers in Bilsden for about three years and finally finished at ICI Marston Excelsior in ’56. CB: What did you do there? CA: I was a design draughtsman there and I, I did design, design work on, I always remember my first job was designing a heat exchanger for the Folland Gnat , just a small one, I can’t remember what it was for, I believe it was for the pilot cooling system to keep him cool. But this was on heat exchange. I finished up actually on heavy fabrication work, in aluminium work, and I became a section leader. I did various jobs, I engineered a liquid ethylene storage plant for ICI organic, organic section I think, or one of the sections at Billingham where we stored surplus liquid ethylene. And we stored it in a big container like a gasometer and I, I was given a piece of ground on the side of the river and put a storage plant there. I must admit that my initial estimate of costs was way down, [laugh] I made a hell of a bloomer, I think I estimated about a hundred and fifty thousand and it finished up at about, eight hundred thousand [laugh] we had quite a, an argument, not argument, discussion why [laugh]. But then I went onto production, onto the production side of the factory, as chief planning officer on fabrications which I, I did until the work started to peter out so I went onto development work on cold rolling of noble alloys for jet engines. CB: This is all for ICI? CA: All, yes, it’s all under ICI’s name, we bought in a cold rolling machine from Holland and we used to roll to very, very close tolerances. Rolls Royce were trying to reduce their costs by getting in components where they didn’t really have to do any work on, and I mean the jet engines required diameters to a thou’ in tolerance and we were supposed to try to do this by rolling them, which we did eventually, I mean we bought this machine. I went out to G, GE the American counterpart of Rolls Royce. GEC? CB: GE yeah, General Electric. CA: And I spent a fortnight out there getting some idea of how they tackled it but I mean they’d got a different idea I mean where here we had to justify spending sixpence, there the engineer, development engineer said ‘I want a machine it costs two hundred thousand pounds’ and he was given the money and they got the machine. Whereas we were trying to do it on one machine they’d got a battery of them, about ten. I mean this is the reason why they are the world beaters. Money is no object. CB: When did you finally retire? CA: I retired in March ’86 having completed thirty years. CB: OK, thank you, I’ll stop there. So we’re restarting, we’re restarting just on a flashback. So you’re back from Canada as a qualified pilot. CA: Yeah. I should have said then that I went up to, we were asked where we wanted postings to go to for flying. I never realised that there was a flying school at Wolverhampton otherwise I would have asked, instead I got posted up to RAF Carlisle on Tiger Moths where we did about a month flying a Tiger Moth around getting used to flying in English conditions. We used to take a navigator or a bomb aimer as a passenger for them to practice map reading while we flew it. We did a lot of flying around the Lake District, we were flying over Maryport and Workington I think is the other port, on the coast there. And we, we used to go down and count the number of ships that were in the harbour and things like this, and then having to fly back over the Lake District which was very, which could be quite treacherous with the down draughts and the winds whistling over the hills. It used to bounce the Tiger Moths around like nobody’s business. But we did that for about a month and then we were posted again hoping we were going to get posted to OTUs but it never, never, I was, you asked how I felt. I felt disappointed having made my mind up I was never going to fly single engine fighters I put down for twin engines or multis. The onus was on providing crews for four engine planes. So to get there I’d got to go to an OTU and that was never going to happen. So when I was posted to the engineers’ course I accepted it and it, I was still flying, that was what I wanted to do, I wanted to fly. So that, I made the best of a bad job. I thoroughly enjoyed it I mean, I enjoyed the, being on a squadron, being a crew, being a member of a crew and we’d got a good crew. I mean our mid upper gunner was the only one who could shoot through the aerial leading to the rudders which he did time and time again, it used to cost him half a crown a time when he pierced them, I mean this was when we were doing air to air gunnery and he was firing at a drogue and he’d traverse and ‘ping’ and Andy the wireless operator would say ‘You’ve done it again’ [laugh], but um. CB: So, how long did you keep your pilots brevet? CA: All the time. CB: Oh did you, throughout the war? CA: Yes, yes we were never forced to change them. That is why I always say I was a PFE rather than a flight engineer, I was a pilot flight engineer. And the pilots that I flew with gave me the opportunity to fly, to pilot. I mean Peter who was the ex-instructor, he was always within reach of pulling me out of the seat if necessary, but Fred he used to go and wander down to the Elsan at the back and leave me in charge. I mean I was playing about one day above the clouds and I was following the, the shape of the clouds up and down and Johnny who was sitting with his turret doors open, fore and aft, and it, it started to get a bit robust, the movement of the up and down movement and the Elsan lid which was tied down with a bungee rubber broke and the contents of the Elsan came up, [laugh], oh dear, and it covered him [laugh], he didn’t speak to me for days [laugh] because he knew it was me and not Fred [laugh]. CB: How did the crew get on together socially? CA: Very good, very good we never went anywhere unless we went as a six. I mean, we bought our beer in the mess, we bought it by the bucket and helped ourselves with dipping the glass into the bucket rather than separate. No, it was a very good crew, very good. CB: So in those days you could buy beer in a bucket could you? CA: In the mess. CB: In the mess, right. CA: In the mess yeah. CB: OK, and as a crew you worked well together? CA: Oh yes, yes. CB: And er. CA: Well Marsh, he was working, he wanted to get onto pathfinders. CB: Marsh being? CA: The navigator. He was a very good navigator but, Mac, the bomb aimer, he was more of, an easy come, easy go. CB: So. CA: That second or the first raid as a crew to Pilsen we went through the target twice because Mac he wouldn’t drop because he couldn’t line it up properly so he said ‘I’ll send you round again’ and the rest of us shouted ‘What the hell, will you pull them’ and Fred said ‘If you don’t I shall jettison’. So he says ‘Go round again!’ So we had to make our way round and come back and get it back in the stream and fly it through but on the second time he let them go. CB: This is a daylight raid? CA: No, this was a night raid — CB: This was in the night. So the reason I said that is because that sounds a particularly dangerous thing to do when you can’t see anything — CA: It was a, well this is it, I mean what with trying to get in, slip into the stream, I mean you, I never saw another Lancaster in the stream. And I mean we went through the target we were only given somewhere maybe half an hour from the start to the end of the squadron’s time over the target so I mean God knows how close we were, but we were very close when we were getting buffeted by slipstream. But I mean a, when Marsh sent us on a dog leg when we turned out of the stream and then had to come back and join it again. We didn’t realise the stupidity of it, but Marsh being Marsh he’d got to have it down on his chart. CB: Why would it have mattered if you had arrived early? CA: Well a, the target may not have been indicated, or they were down below marking it, so you, I mean er. CB: You could have bombed your own people — CA: You could have bombed them, yeah — CB: Right OK. CA: And since the Lancaster was always the top flight, I mean it was Lancasters, Halifaxes, Stirlings. CB: Right, there’s a ranking. CA: So. CB: And how did the crew feel, and you feel, about what you were doing as bombers? CA: I don’t think we thought about it. CB: OK. CA: I don’t think we thought about it. I mean the first one — we had been bombed at home in 1940. We’d had a landmine dropped within about a hundred yards of home and our house is most probably still standing with the back, back wall bulged where the roof lifted and the walls started to move and it dropped down and it held. So I wanted to do something back but having that I don’t think you, we never talked about whether there was a right or wrong, it was a job. CB: My wife was born in a bombing raid in Birmingham. CA: Eh hum. CB: What about LMF, did you know anything about that, or experience. CA: We knew of it. CB: Yes. CA: We knew of it but we never met anyone who was accused of it or anything like that. But we didn’t like the idea because it wasn’t nice when you were over there. A funny tale, we had a man on the squadron, he was a dark, a Negro, and he was as black as the ace of spades, colour. And he’d got perfectly white teeth and he was known as twenty three fifty nine, that was his nickname, because twenty three fifty nine is the darkest part of the night, or supposed to be, a minute before midnight. And he was a rear gunner and when he was in his turret at night and you walked past it all you could see was these white teeth. It was really funny, but he was a good lad. CB: What about other aspects of the work? When you boarded the aircraft what did you have with you to eat or drink? CA: I think the only thing I can remember is boiled sweets. I mean I can’t ever remember fruit, or anything like that. I don’t think we ever took, I never took a drink at all. I mean I can tell the tale where, I mean, we used, sometimes to remember to take a bottle to use and one day Fred had forgotten his, the pilot, and he was in, he was in dire trouble. So he said ‘I’ve got to have something, I’ve got to have something’ so I was scooting round trying to, what the hell can he have? And I went and took the cover off the G George instrument, gyro, which was a pan of about eight or nine inch diameter and about three or four inches deep held on with four screws. So I took this off and gave him this to use, which he used. So he used it and said ‘Here get rid of it’ so I said ‘How?’ he says ‘Throw it out the window’ so I pulled my sliding window back — CB: [laugh] — CA: and threw it out, threw the contents. Of course, I mean as soon as the contents went out the slipstream took it all the way down the canopy, the Perspex, and we, I couldn’t see out of that side all the way back, and I also lost the G cover [laugh] which cost me five shillings and a telling off from the engineer officer. How, why was the G cover uncovered. ‘I can’t remember’ [laugh]. CB: Now what about the ground crew because you relied on them so, what was the relationship with them? CA: Very good, other than the first time I went, we joined the squadron, and I don’t know whether I ought to say this, can I, can I not get up? CB: Um. 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 Cyril Abbotts Description An account of the resource Cyril Abbotts volunteered for the Royal Air Force while he was an engineering apprentice with W T Avery at Smethwick. After his reception and basic training at Lord’s Cricket Ground, he trained as a pilot at RAF Bowden and Moose Jaw in Canada. On his return to Great Britain, he spent some time in holding units, before being posted to retrain as a flight engineer at RAF St Athan. He flew operations with 57 Squadron from RAF East Kirkby in 1945 and, later, converted from Lancasters to Lincolns. Post-war he completed his apprenticeship, becoming a draughtsman for various companies including ICI. He retired after 30 years of service with them. 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 2015-10-15 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Dawn Studd Maureen Clarke Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:18:53 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AAbbottsC151015 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Canada Saskatchewan--Moose Jaw England--London England--Lincolnshire England--Yorkshire Wales--Vale of Glamorgan Great Britain Germany Wales Saskatchewan 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 1654 HCU 57 Squadron African heritage air gunner aircrew Anson bomb aimer bombing Cornell crewing up demobilisation fear flight engineer Flying Training School Heavy Conversion Unit Initial Training Wing Lancaster Lincoln Me 262 military discipline military living conditions navigator Operational Training Unit Oxford P-51 physical training pilot promotion RAF Bridgnorth RAF Bruntingthorpe RAF Carlisle RAF East Kirkby RAF Gamston RAF Heaton Park RAF St Athan RAF Sywell RAF Wigsley RCAF Bowden RCAF Estevan recruitment sanitation Tiger force Tiger Moth training Wellington Window wireless operator 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/1288/17230/AHarrisDR190508.1.mp3 6a11b42596b674bae0164350fdeba8e7 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 Harris, Donald Raymond D R Harris Description An account of the resource Three items. An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Donald Harris (B. 1925, 1877136 Royal Air Force) and two photographs. He served as an air gunner on 625 Squadron Lancaster at the end of the war when he flew on Operation Manna. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Donald Harris 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 2019-05-08 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 Harris, DR Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document HB: Right. This is an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive on the 8th of May 2019 between Harry Bartlett, volunteer with the Digital Archive and Mr Donald Raymond Harris who served in Bomber Command during the Second World War. Well, thank you for agreeing to the interview Don. The interview is taking place at Earls Barton in Northamptonshire, where Mr Harris lives. Right. Don, well like all good stories we start at the beginning so where were you born? DH: Acton, London. HB: Right. Oh right, and did you, you went to school there did you? Yeah. DH: Yeah. HB: Yeah. DH: A Common School. A Common School. HB: A Common School. Oh right. So, you were at that school until what sort of age? DH: Fourteen. HB: Fourteen. Right. And so that would be, yeah we would be talking about the year war was breaking out. DH: Yeah. HB: Yeah. So, as you came to fourteen did you, did you leave school and go to work straightaway? DH: Yeah. Yeah. HB: At fourteen. DH: Yeah. HB: Yeah. And what sort of things did you do, Don? DH: What? Work? HB: Yeah. DH: Teaboy. HB: Right. DH: Yeah. HB: Yeah. DH: Well. That’s, that’s what the official title was. I was the teaboy. HB: Yeah. DH: And I had to travel from Acton in London to Slough to go to work. I had to catch a lorry that took me down there with all the men. HB: Right. DH: Digging the road up, laying gas mains. HB: Right. DH: That’s what my reserved occupation was because gas mains were being bombed. Broken. All kinds of things. So we had to go out and repair them. And there had to be a teaboy because you could not allow the men to walk off to get cigarettes or tobacco or whatever else. HB: Oh. DH: I had to do it. I had to go and get the men’s, whatever they wanted. They weren’t allowed to leave the job. HB: Right. DH: So that was the original. HB: Yeah. DH: It was rather amusing in as much that being totally ignorant and fourteen years old I also had to tidy up round the office. There was an office for the ganger and I had to tidy up coke because it spread you know. That kind of thing. And I found a little package about that big. Didn’t know what it was so I took it in to the boss’s office and I opened it and it was all the men’s wages. The stupid agent had hidden it amongst the coke. HB: Oh dear. DH: So, I locked the office, went up to see the ganger. What was his name? Dave. No. No. Anyway, the ganger. I went up to him. I just took him to one side. I said, ‘I found a package.’ He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I found a package,’ I said, ‘And it’s got all the men’s wages.’ ‘Come with me.’ HB: Right. Yeah. DH: So, he went there and he counted how many wages there were which was right. He said, ‘Okay.’ He wanted to make sure — HB: Yeah. DH: I hadn’t put one aside. But that was some of the interesting things as a very young boy. HB: Yeah. DH: At fourteen years old. HB: Yeah. Who, who were you actually working for? DH: At that time it was a company called O. C. Summers. HB: Right. Right. DH: That was the name of the company. HB: Yeah. DH: Eventually, I mean I got rather well known and when that job finished I came back to London, worked with another ganger in [pause] it was in Shepherd’s Bush. Which is near, well not near but reasonably near home. I could go there by bus. So that was the second one. Then [pause] when that work finished, you know we’d go to another job. And it was then that my brother was reported missing in Burma. HB: Oh right. DH: I did get a lot of information because a friend of mine daughter went up to London and got a lot more information about them. He was the 3rd Carabiniers, which was tanks and they did a silly thing. They drove their tank up and they saw a tank, a Japanese tank on its own. And as far as they can learn all the people, there were five, four members of that tank that were captured by the Japs. They don’t know what happened to them. Never found any remains or anything like that. HB: So, what year would that be Don? DH: Oh, fairly early in the war. HB: Yeah. DH: When they first got to Burma. HB: Right. Right. Yeah. DH: That’s when it was. But she got a lot of information. Although they couldn’t find the graves or anything like that they itemised the four people that were missing because that’s, they had to report them missing. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: They put up a memorial then. I think it was Calcutta. With their names on it. HB: Right. Yeah. DH: But that’s all. HB: Right. DH: I got to sixteen so it must have ‘39 or ‘40/41 time. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: Then I decided then that I would want to go in to the Service and the eldest brother was in the Royal Corps of Signals. HB: Right. Yeah. DH: He was the eldest. HB: So, let me just stop you there, Don. So, there’s you, two brothers. DH: Yeah. HB: Mum. Dad. Any other family in there? There? Sisters? DH: No. My sister died before the war. HB: Oh right. Right. DH: She was twenty five. HB: Oh dear. DH: Yeah. HB: Yeah. So, yeah. Sorry. So, yeah. You decided that you were going to join. DH: Yeah. HB: The Services. DH: I wanted to join it. Now, there was a unit in Acton, in the school there which, what the devil was the name of the people training for the Air Force? HB: Air Training Corps. DH: Yeah. It was. And that was in a big school. High school. Up in there. And I went there once a week. Only to once a week and it was quite interesting because we went through lots of things. Not guns. Not guns. HB: No. DH: But radio. Morse Code. All that lot. You know. HB: Yeah. DH: So that was interesting. Then I got a letter to report to a place up where the balloons flew from. I can’t get it yet because I do forget. HB: Yeah. DH: But anyway — HB: Oh, well, that’s understandable. Yeah. DH: Where the in the balloons. We went there and we went through several tests and it came out that I’d remembered some of the Morse Code [laughs] HB: Oh right. Right. DH: Anyway, it was a little while later on when I got a letter to report to St John’s Wood. HB: Right. Yeah. Yeah. DH: Yeah. Report there. And they entered me as a wireless operator air gunner. HB: Oh, w/op. Yeah. DH: And once I got used to being in London the next place I moved to was Bridlington. HB: Yeah. DH: Just to make sure I wasn’t near home like. HB: Yeah. DH: But I had a sergeant. Brilliant. Blakey. Sergeant Blakey. He was absolutely brilliant. And our particular unit we got the highest recommendations. He was brilliant. Absolutely. Only a small fella but a sergeant and he really was good. HB: So, was it, was this your, like doing your basic training — DH: Yeah. HB: Don. DH: Oh yeah. HB: Right. So, so we’d be talking what now? We’d be talking, coming up 1943/44. DH: Yeah. HB: That sort of the time. DH: Yeah. HB: Yeah. DH: And we had twelve bore guns shooting out to sea. HB: Oh right. Yeah. DH: It was great. And this was the first time in my life I’d ever run six miles. Run. And I had to run from the coast back to my camp. And I thought oh. I laid down on a bed when I got back and I was puffing and at my age I should have been fit. Anyway, that was that. Then I got sent to [pause] oh Christ. A wireless school was at [pause] isn’t it funny? I can’t remember. Big city. Big city and, you know Hartleys Jam and things. HB: Yeah. DH: They owned the land that we were on. HB: Right. DH: And they said if ever you want to work come and work in the fields with all the fruit — HB: Lovely. DH: Got paid. HB: So that, so that would be [pause] was that north? Did you go north? DH: No. Never. HB: Or, I’m just trying to place because there were one or two wireless schools. DH: Yeah. HB: Knocking about. DH: Yeah. No, that was [pause] Hereford. HB: Hereford. Right. Yes. Yeah. DH: Hereford. HB: Yeah. DH: And while I was there I got ill and of course the sick quarters was well, kind of a hospital. Kind of. But the girls who were nurses only went for the officers. And then they sent me to a hospital. Credenhill Hospital. I’ve remembered that right down to the last word. The nurses there were like lady so and so. HB: Oh. DH: Oh yeah. And they were really good. They were good. And I met another bloke named Don and we both could play darts. HB: Oh, right. Yeah. DH: And we used to go in to town, go in to a pub. That was our first shall we say attempt of them getting their beer for nothing but instead of that we both could play darts. HB: Right. DH: And so we didn’t buy a pint. They did. Yeah. No, this is all reacting because I was ill. I really was. How I got to the hospital I don’t know. I was out. HB: What did you have? Did you have some sort of pleurisy? Or — DH: Cold and chill and something else. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: It was all luck. And that, then I went back to the school. You know the — HB: Yeah. The wireless school. DH: Went to see the officer in charge and I said, ‘We’re not getting anywhere.’ I said, ‘Nobody is wanting wireless operators. There’s plenty of them.’ There was. I said, ‘I want to remuster. Air gunner.’ He said, ‘Yeah. If you wish to do that we could do it.’ So I remustered as an air gunner. And do you know what they stamped on my docs? Lack of moral fibre. Yeah. If you found my documents you’d find it’s got, “Lack of Moral Fibre,” on them because I remustered. I remustered to a more dangerous bloody job. HB: Yeah. DH: Anyway, I wanted that and they sent me to the island at the beginning of the Thames. HB: Sheppey. DH: Sheppey. Which was a Fighter Command. They sent me there. They were Typhoons, Tempests. That’s what they were and they used to start them with a long cartridge. They’d be turning it over with the battery and then he’d fire it which would kick the engine over and start. HB: Yeah. DH: Well, the engine was a Napier. Made by Napier’s anyway and oh they were powerful things. God, they were powerful. It only took a very short distance to take off. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: And it was really, talk about noisy. Christ. Totally different to the Spitfire. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: Totally different, but it was good. So, from there I was sent to Bridgnorth. HB: Were you? Yeah. DH: Bridgnorth was a Gunnery School and there we did all the necessary flashlights and bit of this and bits of that and stripped the gun down and put it back. But it was just right. I liked it. I really did. And anybody that didn’t read the Morse Code with the lamp didn’t get in. HB: Right. DH: I did. I could read it easy. It didn’t make any difference. So, I finished there and sent me home. Home. HB: Right. DH: Until I got a summons to go to Aylesbury. HB: Yeah. DH: There was a main aerodrome and a sub. A little one. HB: Yeah. Little satellite. Yeah. Yeah. DH: Yeah. And we were in Wellingtons. Lovely aircraft but a bugger to fly and even at one time the skipper, who was, who was New Zealand, he called me up from the turret, ‘Come up and help me.’ So of course, I went up there and said, ‘What’s the matter, skip?’ He says, ‘Help me push this bloody thing down.’ [laughs] Because Aylesbury is all hilly. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: And the draught coming up was coming up and lifting us instead of going down. HB: Oh dear. DH: So I got in to the co-pilot’s seat and shoved it and we got down. HB: Was this, so this was an Operational Training Unit. DH: Oh yeah. HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. DH: Yeah. Well, we used to have to turn the engines over by hand. HB: Yeah. Yeah. How did, how did you get in to a crew there? Did it — DH: When we went to the main aerodrome. HB: Yeah. DH: There. We got all the crew sorted out. We didn’t do it. HB: Oh right. DH: They did it. HB: Right. DH: So, the pilot was New Zealander. The bomb aimer was New Zealander. The wireless operator was Irish. Irish. Not Northern Ireland. Irish. Our mid-upper gunner was Scotch. Bob. I even remember where he lived. Edinburgh. The main road. That’s where he lived. And me. So that’s six of us. We hadn’t got the engineer. HB: Yeah. DH: And we went oh several times. We went over, we had to fly over London to let the air people shoot at us. But they were told to shoot low [laughs] and also the searchlight. HB: Oh right. Yeah. DH: Because the searchlights taught them and us. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: And then we flew back to Aylesbury. That’s where we were going. So we landed at the auxiliary aircraft because the other place was busy. We landed and we, you know that type of aircraft the Wellington was kind of a big aircraft. But it’s also marvellous for keeping flying even if it had got a hole in the side, you know. HB: Yeah. DH: And all of a sudden we got a warning and all the lights went on. Americans landed because they couldn’t land at their aerodrome so they could land at ours and of course they’d got all these big fur coats and Christ knows what else on. Oh, and they were, got their big aircraft with four engines, you know. All that was this. A couple of the English blokes there said, ‘Yeah. You go underneath our wings, don’t you?’ [laughs] Almost caused a fight but never mind. From there we went to just north of Stamford. There was an aerodrome on the farm land that done it and they had Stirlings. Bloody great things. Seventeen foot to the bottom of the aircraft. We weren’t interested in that. We transferred from there to Lancasters and we were trained on the Lancasters. Now — HB: Can you can you remember what that airfield was? Was it Woolfox? No. DH: It was about three miles outside Stamford. HB: Right. Yeah. DH: On the main road by the way. A1. HB: Yeah. DH: And the airfield was on the right, and we had interlopers follow our aircraft in and they bombed the bloody girl’s place. WAAFs. Killed a lot of them. HB: Oh dear. DH: But anyway, that’s good. We did further training and for the skipper’s point of view nobody else. Him and me. And we practiced corkscrewing. HB: Yeah. DH: Do you know what that is? HB: Yeah. Well, you. You tell me what it is. DH: Well — HB: I presume you were a rear gunner. DH: Oh yeah. HB: Yeah. DH: We took off. Got up to a height and then we were looking for fighter. And it was there was the fighter. The skipper said, ‘Can you see what it is?’ I said, ‘Yeah. A Spitfire.’ [laughs] So, he said, ‘Right,’ he said, ‘So, is he within range?’ I said, ‘No. Miles away.’ And I ,it was amazing I could recognise it. Anyway, all of a sudden I saw this Spitfire getting closer and closer and when it got to about six hundred feet I said, ‘Corkscrew port go.’ And of course, where does the tail go? Voom. HB: Straight up in the air. DH: Straight up [laughs]. And I had a camera. HB: Yeah. DH: On the guns and I followed it to the word. Down, port, up starboard oh. Got a complete film. Complete film. So the Spitfire broke away. Waggled to say good. And that was it as far as I was concerned. And then we got back, landed and that afternoon of course the cameras went in to the photography department and they, we got a call over a tannoy, ‘Warrant Officer Mitchell and crew attend the Photography Unit.’ I thought oh, I must have made a mistake. Instead of that the bloke that did it, it was an officer and he said, ‘Watch it.’ He said. It only goes for a short while because you’re down. Up. Up. Up. You know. So we did. The film was absolutely perfect. HB: Oh right. DH: And this officer turned around and he said, ‘You’ve got one of the best gunners that I’ve tested.’ He said, ‘That pilot was dead from the first shot.’ HB: Really? DH: Yeah. I thought well that’s — HB: Yeah. DH: And then we had the other test to show that we were fit for action. It was, you know, the usual things. Aircraft recognition. HB: Yeah. DH: How to load your guns and all that kind of thing. And then we all had to attend a meeting with the people who were in charge of all of that and he said, ‘We’ve got some good results.’ What was he? A squadron leader, I think. And he said, ‘We’ve got some exceptionally good people.’ So, he said, ‘136?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘You’ve got nineteen and a half points.’ I said, ‘Out of how many?’ ‘Twenty.’ Nineteen and a half out of twenty. And the one thing I forgot. Where [pause] you know how the bullets go down a tray. HB: Yeah. DH: Into the turret. Up in the guns. Right. Now, when you stop these continue to run. HB: Yeah. DH: So something has got to stop them. At the bottom of the tray here there’s a hole like that which just fits the bullet. So it goes into that hole and it stops running. HB: Right. DH: And that’s what I missed. HB: Oh. DH: And my mid-upper gunner got nineteen. Just shows you doesn’t it? HB: That’s, it’s still pretty good. DH: To me it was of interest because I wanted to be perfect as a — HB: Yeah. DH: It’s a, I’m a defender. HB: Yeah. DH: You know. So, we did. It was good. HB: Yeah. DH: And then from there I went to oh I can’t remember the name. I did tell you. HB: Was this being posted to a squadron? DH: Yeah. 625. HB: 625, yeah. DH: Which was at, come on. It’s six miles outside. North of Lincoln. It’s a permanent station. HB: At Scampton. DH: Scampton. HB: I wasn’t supposed to help you there but — DH: No. HB: I thought I would. DH: Yeah. HB: Being as you got nineteen and a half for your gunnery I thought I’ll let you have that. DH: Yeah. Yeah. We were Scampton. We did. We did. I’ll tell you what, what I liked about what we did. I’m not talking about killing people I’m talking about what I liked. We flew to Holland. Instead of bombs we had sacks of food. HB: Yeah. DH: Marvellous. I was so pleased to see that. HB: Do you remember what that operation was called? DH: Yeah. Because we had to follow the sign on the, painted on the roof of the hospital. And it was two fields beyond and we had to drop the food there. One silly pilot flew underneath another one and when [laughs] it went straight through the cockpit. HB: Blimey. Yeah. DH: Flew. Flour everywhere. Daft. HB: Did you know that was called Operation Manna? DH: No. HB: Manna from heaven. DH: No. HB: Yeah. DH: I know I liked it. We were only a hundred feet high. HB: Yeah. DH: And as we flew along, I mean the roads and everything else I got a clear view because as you know there was no back in the turret. HB: Yeah. DH: I was amazed to see this German and a machine gun but he wasn’t anywhere near it. He stood well back. HB: Yeah. DH: And when I looked at him I thought Christ he can only be fifteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. And we were told not to get near the guns. Good job because I mean we were all loaded. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: And we flew back over the sea at a hundred feet. I didn’t like that. HB: No. I can imagine. DH: No. Not really. HB: Yeah. DH: It was alright but I mean we trusted the skipper obviously but I just didn’t like it. It was too near the sea. HB: Yeah. DH: Which is going to, but no. They said we mustn’t fly higher than that. HB: Had you actually flown any night operations before that, Don? DH: We were on the battle order two or three times. HB: Yeah. DH: But we didn’t go. We went out to the aircraft. Went to the nice little café in the middle of the airfield. You know where I mean? HB: Yeah. DH: And it was nice because we got eggs and bacon and a few — HB: Who was running that café? Was that — DH: Yeah. Lovely. HB: Was that the WAAFs running that or — DH: No. HB: No. DH: No. The Air Force. HB: Yeah. DH: They ran that. HB: Yeah. DH: It was really nice. It really was. We thought we would get a call in a minute which you were liable to do. If you get one of the others calling with the breakdown of engine or whatever else then we would have gone. HB: Yeah. DH: But I think we, four, four times. Yeah. And that was at Scampton. HB: Right. Right. So you were, you were like the reserve group. DH: Yeah. HB: Ready to fill in. DH: We were the first reserve. Yeah. HB: Yeah. DH: But that’s what they said when you said you were on the battle order. You are. You’ve got to obey whatever. Another thing we did there was when the, when the troops were advancing over in Germany and France and Belgium directly they got to this Air Force place. Well, it became an Air Force place. It was Belgian place. We were told to go there, land, switch off your engines. Switch off. HB: Right. DH: Yeah. Because there were still some bomb holes in the [laughs]and they were filling them in quick. HB: Yeah. DH: And we were bringing in prisoners of war home. And we brought them to England. HB: Yeah. DH: Buckinghamshire, I think somewhere. And then we flew home. HB: Right. DH: And we did that twice. HB: So you, so you flew from Scampton. DH: Yeah. HB: You flew over to Belgium. DH: Yeah. HB: Parked up if you want to call it that. DH: Yeah. HB: And then how would the prisoners of war arrive? DH: Oh, they were there in, this was the stupid part. They were there and they had fed them. Fed. HB: Oh. DH: Yeah. You can imagine. They fed them beautiful meals and when we got them on board. Oh — HB: Yeah. DH: It was a bit rough. But anyway, we got them home. Directly we landed in Buckinghamshire somewhere and unloaded them. Then we flew back. And then they had the job of cleaning the aircraft. HB: Who? Who cleaned the aircraft? DH: Ground crew. Yeah. They had power hoses and everything. HB: Yeah. DH: But there again at least we got some of them back home. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: We then got orders to move to [pause] I can never remember the name. I wasn’t there long. Where the bombers are? Where you went. Other: Coningsby. HB: Coningsby. DH: Coningsby. We got there. We were just getting settled in and what’s the squadron? 97? [pause] And about three days later we were called into operations room. We had to fly to Italy. HB: Yeah. DH: And we went. There’s two areas which we could have gone to. But the one we chose was at the foot of Vesuvius. Right at the foot. We landed at Naples Airport but we couldn’t take off because the runways weren’t long enough with a load of people on board. HB: Oh. DH: We were — HB: So this was all still part of Operation Exodus. DH: Oh yeah. HB: Bringing the prisoners of war home. DH: Yeah. HB: Right. DH: But those there were mainly officers. HB: Yeah. DH: What was it called? Lamy? Lamy camp? HB: Could be. Yeah. Yeah. DH: Yeah. I think it was. HB: Yeah. DH: And they were nearly all officers then. So — HB: This is, this is still in Lancasters. DH: Oh yeah. HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. DH: Oh yeah. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: The dodgy bit was with a load of people on board. As the gunner it would have been my job to dash about with an oxygen mask for each one to have a puff. But I never made it. I was ill. HB: Right. DH: Yeah. I went into this hospital in [pause] just south of Naples. It’s a little place. And I was in there for two or three weeks. When I came out I went and saw the sergeant that was in charge of getting people home and I said, ‘Right. When can you get me home?’ I said, ‘My skipper’s gone.’ I said, ‘He’s already taken off.’ Because the Yanks came and right at the end of the runway was trees. HB: Yeah. DH: And I’m afraid their big load of stuff took off and they had all the trees bulbed out and the runway lengthened. HB: Oh right. DH: So that they could get off. HB: Yeah. DH: It’s purely luck. Not anything else. It was warm. HB: Yeah. DH: Naples. HB: Yeah. DH: Warm. Christmas time. And we had our Christmas dinner in the palace at Naples. HB: Oh right. Yeah. DH: Yeah. HB: Yeah. What rank were you at this stage? DH: Flight sergeant. HB: You were a flight sergeant. Right. Yeah. DH: Nice. Everything. Then they said, ‘You’ve got to fly.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Good.’ So, I said, ‘What do you want me to do?’ HB: ‘Act as a rear gunner.’ DH: I said, ‘Well, I won’t act at it,’ I said, ‘I am one.’ So, he said, ‘Oh. Alright.’ So, he said, ‘Well, you’ve got to look after the men on board.’ Twenty. Twenty men. Apart from the crew, you know. HB: Yeah. DH: We couldn’t take more than that because we had to go over the Alps. HB: Oh yeah. Yeah. DH: The air is different. HB: Yeah. DH: So, we did go over the Alps. And it was a bit of job to go amongst all the people so I got the mid-upper gunner to do the same for the other ten. So I did ten and he did ten. HB: Right. This was with the oxygen. DH: Yeah. HB: Yeah. DH: Well, up there over the Alps there is no oxygen, virtually. HB: Yeah. DH: So — HB: So, did they give you extra oxygen bottles for them? Or — DH: Oh yeah. Portable ones. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: Or you could plug it in where ever you had it. HB: Yeah, yeah. DH: Where the hospital bed was, you know. HB: Yeah. DH: There was one there. HB: That’s up, so that’s up by the main spar. DH: Yeah. HB: Going through. Yeah. DH: So, you’d got all kinds of things that you could use. But we did. We got over the other side of the Alps and we came down to a nice level. Twenty thousand was nice. And we suddenly got a broadcast. The skipper could, we still had plug in and this skipper whoever he was, and I’ve still no idea who he was said, ‘We’re not going home.’ I said, ‘What?’ ‘No.’ He said, ‘Fog in England. Covered in fog.’ So we couldn’t land. I knew we could if we’d have gone on FIDO. HB: What, what was FIDO? DH: Fog dispersal. They had the runway covered in a pipe with loads of holes and big huge tanks of petrol and they pumped it through and lit it and that just lifted the fog. Very dangerous if the skipper wasn’t alert because the heat from the [pause] would lift it. HB: Lift the aircraft. Yeah. DH: Anyway, that, we didn’t go. So we had to land in southern France. Now that was not popular. We landed. We were told to switch off the engines and sit in the aircraft. Not leave it. That was the Frenchmen. Well, didn’t like that. HB: Yeah. DH: We were fighting for [emphasis] them as well. Anyway, we sat there and it must have been about midnight I think because we took off at 9 o’clock in Italy. HB: Yeah. DH: When we got down in France as I said we sat there and then we got clearance from England. HB: Yeah. DH: So, the engineer went out, primed the engines, started them and we took off and we landed somewhere near the Wash. Well, that’s where FIDO is. HB: Oh right. DH: Yeah. I mean it was quite interesting actually to know that we couldn’t use FIDO. Mind you it would have used a hell of a lot of fuel. HB: Yeah. DH: It gets pumped through at a hell of rate. HB: Yeah. DH: But we knew all about it because we were told about it. We couldn’t train on it but we were told about it and it was quite interesting but then I wasn’t at my aerodrome. HB: No. Of course not. No. DH: The people there were looking at it. How can I get home? And suddenly this officer came and he said, ‘I’ve just been brought down here by a vehicle. He’s going to go back. Not quite to your aerodrome but he will take you there.’ I thought oh thank God for that. You know. HB: Yeah. DH: And we went up through Boston. Lovely. HB: Yeah. DH: What was that? Bloody hell. What was that station? Dogdyke. HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. DH: What a name for a station. Dogdyke. HB: Yeah. DH: That’s the station’s name. So, we went back there. I said, well I’ll need a bed. HB: Just bear with me a second, Don. I’ll just pause this a second just while the tea — [recording paused] HB: Right. We just turned the tape back on after we’ve been provided with tea and biscuits. So, we’ve got these officers from Italy. We’ve come back and we’ve landed. DH: The van. HB: At Dogdyke. DH: It was a van. HB: Yeah. DH: Took me right back. HB: Took you all the way up to Dogdyke. DH: Yeah. They took me into the entrance. HB: Right. DH: Yeah. Yeah. I walked in. Well, I didn’t walk in. They, I got stopped at the gate but when I said who I was and what I was. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Yeah. The adjutant wants to see you.’ So, I thought how did he know I was. I thought to myself they must have told him from Italy. Anyway, I said, ‘Well, it’s a bit late now. I doubt very much if he’s there.’ So, I said, ‘Is he still there?’ ‘No.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ll need a bed for tonight.’ The bloke said. ‘We’ve allocated you one already.’ So I went there and evidently it was a new crew that had just, there was a spare bed. HB: So, I bet you were popular. DH: Well no. There was a spare bed. I don’t know why. But anyway. I went to bed and I did sleep. I really did sleep. I didn’t know what was going on. The next bed to me the bloke said, ‘You were dreaming.’ I said, ‘Was I?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘And it sounded pretty bloody awful.’ ‘Oh.’ I felt alright you know. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: Anyway, I got up. Got dressed. Went to see the adjutant. What’s going on. I didn’t know then so I said, ‘You wanted to see me sir.’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Alright. What’s going to happen because my crew’s not here.’ He said, ‘No. They’re on their way to New Zealand.’ I said, ‘What?’ ‘Yeah. Two have gone to New Zealand, one’s gone to Edinburgh, one’s gone to Ireland, the other one to London.’ I thought, ‘Oh.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘And you are on your way to Uxbridge. Do you know where it is?’ I said, ‘Oh, yeah [laughs] Do I know where it is?’ So, I said, ‘Why am I going there for?’ ‘Demob.’ ‘Oh.’ ‘You sound surprised.’ I said, ‘Well, I am. I like the Air Force.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘You can’t.’ Just like that. He said, ‘You’re going. In front of me are all your train passes. All your leave passes. And you will be going to Dogdyke Station.’ That’s why I remembered it. HB: Right. DH: So that I had to go from there to Boston. Train to London. Get another train from there to Uxbridge. You get out at Uxbridge and there would be a vehicle waiting for you. It was well organised. It really was well organised. I mean that. Everything was like he said. Got to Uxbridge. Looked. There was a vehicle. I said, ‘Where are we going now?’ ‘Oh, Wembley.’ ‘What for?’ He said, ‘Demob.’ I thought, Christ. They’ve done that all in the time that the phone message going from Italy. Now, that is some organisation. HB: Yeah. DH: Bloody well is. Really is. HB: Yeah. DH: And of course, when I got to Wembley they were ready for me. Gave them my paper. I got my shoes [laughs] blue suit, shirt, tie. All complete. Everything was there. HB: What did you have? Did you have a cap or a trilby hat? DH: Trilby. HB: I thought. Yeah. Trilby. DH: And that was it. HB: Yeah. After those years that you’d spent just finished. DH: Yeah. No, they, once he said, ‘You’re going back,’ I knew what he meant because obviously the amount of damage created by the bombs was tremendous in London and that’s where we worked. HB: Yeah. DH: Oh Christ. We even laid a main on top of the pavement. On top of it. To pump water because water mains down below were broke. HB: So how quick did you go back to doing your job from being demobbed? DH: Straightaway. HB: You didn’t have any leave or anything or — DH: Oh no. HB: No. DH: No. HB: Right. DH: Straightaway. HB: And did you go back to, was it O. C. Summers, was it? DH: Yeah. HB: You went straight back to them. DH: Yeah. HB: And they, had they kept your job for you? DH: Oh yeah. HB: Yeah. DH: They had to. HB: Yeah. DH: So then — HB: So, what job did you go back to, Don? DH: As a joint maker. HB: Right. DH: A joint maker. It’s one that the sockets and spigots enter one another and then you put yarn in and then you run hot lead in. And then you set it up. HB: Yeah. Okay. DH: Good. It was very very complicated. I used to go with a ganger and then they’d come and get me to take me to another ganger to run his joints for him. HB: Yeah. DH: And then go back to it. HB: Yeah. DH: Like that. HB: So, what, what year would this be then, Don? DH: The end of the war. HB: ‘45/46. DH: Yeah ’46. HB: ’46. Yeah. DH: Yeah. HB: Yeah. Can I just take you back a little bit, Don? DH: Yes. Yes. Yes. HB: You know, before you joined you were in Acton. You would have gone through the Blitz. DH: Oh yes. HB: And your family. You had bombing around Acton. DH: Yeah. We had a bomb in the bottom of the garden [laughs]. HB: In the bottom of the garden. DH: Well, I had a big garden. HB: Oh right. Well, yeah. DH: We had a long garden. HB: Yeah. DH: It must have been about a hundred feet long. Something like that. HB: Yeah. DH: And the bomb was at the bottom. It did kill a boy. Sixteen year old in the house opposite [unclear] HB: Yeah. DH: He got caught, you know. HB: Yeah. DH: Terrible. Yeah. I was there when the fires were roaring like hell. A big red glow in the docks. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: Yeah. HB: And so, so obviously you’ve come through that. Did you actually ever fly a live, I’ll call it a live operation to actually drop bombs? DH: No. HB: Right. Right. So, you come towards the end of the war. You’re what by now? You’re nineteenish. Twentyish. What about girlfriends? DH: No. HB: Social life. DH: Not interested. HB: Did you not have a social life in the RAF? DH: No. The only social life was in a pub in Lincoln. HB: Right. Right. Right. Yeah. DH: And it was in the cattle market. There used to be a cattle market. HB: Yeah. DH: There was a cattle market in Lincoln and there was a pub in the cattle market. HB: So, yeah, so you come to the end of the war. You’ve gone back to O. C. Summers and you’re now doing a jointer, a jointer’s job and did you, did you just carry on with them then? DH: Them. Yeah. For forty years. HB: Forty years. DH: Yeah. Because they count service as working for them. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: That was, oh before, before the forty years I was made a ganger and I went in to a gas works which I never expected. HB: Oh right. DH: Because that bit was a vastly different type of job. You do all kinds of heavy lifting. Crane work and everything else. HB: Yeah. DH: Now, I was the ganger there. The original ganger was ill and died and I took over. HB: Right. DH: Directly I took over they started to do big work. I ended up with, you know twenty five men doing different jobs. HB: Yeah. DH: I couldn’t cope because I couldn’t be everywhere at once. HB: No. No. DH: So, I asked the governor who I knew personally, I asked him if he could get me some men with knowledge. And one of the men he sent in was a ganger that I worked for. HB: Yeah. DH: And he came, he came in and he says, ‘Hello Don.’ I said, ‘Hello,’ I said, ‘Christ, I haven’t seen you — ’ because he was very experienced. And he said, ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘Don’t let it worry you.’ He said, ‘You’ve got the responsibility. Not me.’ HB: Yes. DH: See. And he was a very nice bloke. HB: Yeah. DH: He really was. HB: Yeah. DH: I mean, we used to go fishing together. We went, particularly when we worked night work I drove him home in the morning and then we’d drive out. — HB: Oh right. DH: And go fishing. HB: Yeah. DH: Anyway, Sammy Jefferies his name was. A really, a nice bloke. And he was [pause] amazed at the work I was doing. We had a forty eight inch main, gas main which gathered all the gas out the tanks into pumps, in to a main and so forth. And I had to cut a bit out of the gas main. We used to cut. Put a collar on and then put another bit of pipe in and draw the cord up. And that’s the first forty eight inch joint I’d run. HB: Right. DH: And what we had to do was we had a twelve inch ladle. Twelve inch. Quite deep. We filled that up first and then one bloke stood there, one bloke stood there with another nine inch ladle to top me up if I said so. Because if I couldn’t see that we were going to run it we could run out of lead so we pulled it in to my ladle and then I ran it. HB: Yeah. DH: So we did it. And the senior engineer in the gas works he had done a bit of district work, what we called district work and he stood there the whole time that I got it apart. Because we put gas bags up the main. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: To stop gas coming through. Well, we shut the valves but I mean — HB: Yeah. DH: If they leaked. HB: Yeah. DH: And that was me. I came. They took me out of the works, Summers and put me in charge of a gang that’s going on holiday. A gang of men. So, I did that. Then they sent me in to another one by St Pancras Station where there was a T-junction. And the lid was around but it was leaking bad. So the main there was eighteen. Eighteen. Eighteen inch. What I had to do was shut it off. So I ordered twenty four inch bags to put in there so that a twenty four inch bag would fill it. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: Up. HB: Yeah. DH: And then I could take the lid off. Re-drill it. Put new bolts in. Whip it out. And put it in. You’d be surprised. It’s really quite a technical job. HB: I wouldn’t be surprised. I’d be terrified. DH: Bloody hell. But after I’d been there for forty years John Laing — HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: Bought Summers because we were making money. So, they bought O. C. Summers. I lost [pause] well, twenty one years’ pension because Summer’s pension wasn’t as active to buy me equipment. HB: Yeah. Yeah. I see what you mean. Yeah. DH: So this posh speaking man from Laing came down to one of Summer’s depots which I was then responsible for all depots and he came down and he said, ‘Well, I’m afraid this is what is going to be.’ I said, ‘No. It isn’t.’ I said, ‘You’ve knocked twenty one years off my pension,’ I said. ‘And that’s not on,’ I said, ‘And I’ve got with me several agents who have got over twenty years on sites and I want twenty years pension.’ He said, ‘Are they the agents that’s running the area?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I’ll have to see what I can do.’ And if they all packed up the jobs would stop. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: And eventually he came back and he said, ‘We’ve made arrangements that when you do get to retirement we will give you a gift of money to go in to your pension. Not to you. To the pension.’ HB: Right. DH: No. HB: Yeah. DH: Actually, they did. I, I did do well in a way. The firm because the old managing director came with the job, got six thousand pound. HB: Right. Right. DH: When you put it in the figures to get six thousand pound like that meant a little bit each month. Only a little bit. HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. DH: But there you go. HB: Yeah. So, so you’ve, we’ve gone up to retirement. But you must have got married at some stage. DH: Oh yes. I did. Oh yes. She was a typist in the gas works. HB: So that would be, what? Nineteen — DH: Oh God. HB: Fifty something. DH: A bit later than that I think. Well, you can work it out if you like. I didn’t get married until I was thirty eight. HB: Oh right. Right. So you were thirty eight. Right. Well, yeah. Yeah. That’s, yeah, yeah so you — DH: My wife. HB: You were well on. Yeah. DH: Yeah. And because I’d lived in a house all my life I could not live in a flat. HB: Yeah. DH: And she had three boys. HB: Oh right. Right. DH: Eighteen, sixteen and fifteen. And I said to her, I said, ‘I can’t live in a flat.’ She said, ‘What are we going to do?’ I said, ‘We’re going to buy a house.’ She said, ‘We haven’t got any money.’ I said, ‘I know we haven’t.’ I said, ‘But I know what I’m doing. We’ll go and find a house first. Then we’ll go to Lambeth Borough Council and because this is a flat owned by Lambeth Borough Council they’ll willingly give us the money so that we get out.’ HB: Right. Yeah. Yeah. DH: It’s true. That is what they did. HB: Yeah. DH: And then the first house we bought was in Mitcham, Surrey and it was six thousand pound [laugh] And don’t laugh but that six thousand pound. HB: Yeah. DH: But that was a hell of a drain on the money. HB: Oh, it would have been yeah in those days. Yeah. Yeah. DH: So, yeah and then the firm decided to make me the depot manager of Watford. HB: At Watford. Right. DH: Yeah. But on condition I moved. HB: Right. DH: Because I had to be near it because we were on duty day and night. Still mending gas mains. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: So, the pleasant surprise was that it was the firm’s solicitor that dealt with the sale. That means that they paid. HB: That saved you a few pounds that way. Yeah. DH: Oh yes. Yes. HB: Right. DH: So, we lived in Bushey Mill Lane, Bushey. We lived in there for quite a long time. HB: Right. DH: I don’t know how long. Graham would probably tell you. HB: Yeah. DH: And we bought a house in Slip End which is near Luton. HB: Right. DH: Lovely house. Beautiful house. It was ideal. The first job we did was have double glazing. HB: Because of the airfield. The airport. Yeah. DH: Yeah. That was the first job. And unfortunately, she didn’t like it. HB: Oh dear. DH: It was a lovely house. You remember it. You liked it didn’t you? Other: What I remember of it. Yeah. DH: It was a really nice house. Four bedrooms. About two garages. Lovely. Anyway, she didn’t like it. Move. So we had to find somewhere to move to. So we moved to Sawbridgeworth. HB: Yeah. DH: So that is three miles north of [pause] Oh God. Shopped there long enough. Harlow. HB: Yeah. DH: Yeah. So, it wasn’t far from Harlow. Three miles. But it was a lovely little village. HB: Yeah. DH: Beautiful little village. And it had a direct train line to London. HB: Yeah. DH: Which of course is a benefit. HB: Absolutely. Yeah. DH: Yeah. HB: Yeah. So you, so we’ve got we’re sort of coming to the end of that part. Just take you right back. Right back. Just something that’s sitting in my mind. When you went, when you did your training and you ended up at the Radio School at Hereford. DH: Yeah. HB: You, you were actually doing wireless operator training. DH: Yeah. HB: Operator training. DH: Yeah. HB: Did you do any air gunner training at all there? DH: No. HB: No. So you were doing your wireless operator with a view eventually like a lot of them did you would go wireless operator and then you’d do an air gunner course and then you’d be wireless operator air gunner. Right. So I’m about right thinking like that. When they, when you said it’s not, you know it’s not working for me. I’m, you know I’m not happy with it. Did they ever give you a reason why they put it down as lack of moral fibre? DH: No. HB: They never gave you a reason. DH: Never. I didn’t know they did it. HB: Right. DH: Until somebody found out for me. HB: Right. Because were you keeping a logbook or a diary at the time? DH: No. HB: No? How strange. DH: Yeah. HB: How strange. DH: No. It’s, it’s stamped across my documents. Wherever they are or whatever they are. HB: Right. That’s [pause] yeah I’ve, it’s just it suddenly, suddenly came to me. I’ve just never heard of that before. Ever. But then to become a rear gunner on a Lancaster. It’s a little bit contradictive to some extent. DH: Yeah. HB: Well, look I think we’ve come to a sort of a, bit of a natural conclusion, Don and thanks ever so much for telltelling me that to consider, considering that before we turned the tape recorder on on you said you thought that you wouldn’t be able to remember anything I think you’ve done really well. I really do. I think you’ve done well. And it’s, and it’s interesting that you’ve done Operation Manna feeding the Dutch, you’ve done Operation Exodus bringing the prisoners of war back because people only ever think of the Lancasters steaming off in to the night dropping bombs and like you say they were the humanitarian side of it. DH: Yeah. HB: As well. Yeah. DH: I think that’s important. HB: It is. It’s very important. DH: And when you look at it the ones we picked up in Belgium some of them were ex-RAF. HB: Yeah. Yeah. DH: It’s inevitable isn’t it really when you think about it because the planes came down. HB: Yeah. DH: And they were put in the prison camps. HB: Yeah. You were bringing your own home. Well, Don thank you ever so much and I’m going to stop the recording because it is nine minutes past four and I think you’ve done an exceptional job, Don and thank you very much. Very useful. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Donald Raymond Harris Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harry Bartlett Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-05-08 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 AHarrisDR190508 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 01:20:56 audio recording Description An account of the resource Donald was born in Acton, London. He stayed at school until he was 14 and then worked as a tea boy/general help for O. C. Summers, a firm that laid gas mains in Slough. When that job ended, he worked for another ganger in Shepherds Bush. Soon after he heard that one of his brothers was missing in Burma. When Donald was 16, he joined the local Air Training Corps and later went to St. John’s Wood, where he was entered as a wireless operator/air gunner. He did his basic training at RAF Bridlington before being posted to a wireless school in Hereford. While there he was taken ill and sent to hospital. On his recovery he asked to be re-mustered as an air gunner and was sent to the Isle of Sheppey to be trained on a Napier. He was then posted to RAF Bridgnorth gunnery school. After finishing the course, he was sent home until he was summoned to form a crew. The crew was posted to RAF Halton where they flew on Wellingtons. Their next posting was to RAF Wittering where they transferred to Lancasters. Donald was then posted to 625 Squadron at RAF Scampton. The squadron flew to Belgium and, later, to Italy to bring prisoners of war home. They also took part in Operation Manna over Holland. On returning to England the crew were split and Donald was posted to RAF Uxbridge and then demobbed. He went back to work at O. C. Summers until his retirement. At the age of 38 Donald married a typist who also worked for O. C. Summers. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain Belgium Italy England--Buckinghamshire England--Lincolnshire England--Shropshire England--Yorkshire England--London Netherlands England--Cambridgeshire England--Northamptonshire England--London England--Kent England--Kent Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sue Smith Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Carolyn Emery Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944 1945 625 Squadron 97 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew crewing up demobilisation Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Operation Dodge (1945) Operation Exodus (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) RAF Bridgnorth RAF Bridlington RAF Eastchurch RAF Halton RAF Scampton RAF Uxbridge training Wellington wireless operator / air gunner https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/278/3431/AJamesDWK170120.mp3 ea9c15273fffc4beb797d784feaed5ba https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/278/3431/PJamesDWK1701.jpg b5e9d0060de6ccdc493b23953cb58e00 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 James, Douglas Walker Keeston Douglas Walker Keeston James Douglas W K James Douglas James Jim James D W K James D James Description An account of the resource One oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Douglas Walker Keeston "Jim" James (b.1925). He flew operations as an air gunner with 460 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 2017-01-20 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context James, DWK Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document MC: This interview is being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewee is Douglas James, named Jim, Flight Lieutenant, Jim James. The interview is being conducted at Mr James’ home in Branston, Lincoln, on Friday the 20th of January 2017. Also present at the interview is Mrs - [Other]: Nancy. MC: Nancy James and Mr - [Other]: David Schofield. MC: David. [Other]: Schofield. MC: Schofield. So thank you Jim, for agreeing to this interview. Just want to start with a bit about your life history, so if you could tell me a bit about when and where you were born. DJ: Where I was born? MC: Yes. DJ: I was born in India. MC: Were you born in India! When was that? DJ: Near Calcutta. MC: When was that? DJ: 1925. MC: 1925. And what date? What date was that Jim? DJ: I’m ninety two near, coming up to ninety two. MC: Ah, right. And you, what did your parents do then, for you to be born in India? DJ: Pardon? MC: What did your parents do for you to be born in India? DJ: My dad was in a plantation first, Plantation Manager, and that’s how I came to be born, and he went out to India to do the job and so I was born out there. MC: And how long did you live in India then? DJ: I came to England when I was nine years of age. MC: And did, you obviously went to school in India. DJ: In India, yes, a junior school, yes. I remember one occasion, we went for a picnic, we’d only be about nine or ten. We went to, in the grounds of a cathedral, to have a picnic, and as we were there an earthquake started. Oh my God! Steeple came tumbling down. Luckily we’d moved well away now, but big cracks appeared everywhere, the ground was, but it scared the hell like, out of us, oh, and the steeple kept tumbling down. MC: Were there many people injured? DJ: No, no, nobody injured. MC: Oh, that’s very good. DJ: Actually we all moved very quickly. We heard the, felt the ground tremble first and then down came the steeple. MC: So you came to England when you were nine years old, your father moved back here, you came back with your father and mother? You came back to England with your father and mother. DJ: Yes. My dad had a lot of illness and when we got to England he suffered a lot of trouble with his throat. I think a lot of it, later, was through his smoking. He used to smoke very strong tobacco, he even smoked pipe tobacco! MC: You can’t believe it these days, can you, no. DJ: I couldn’t believe it. Digger Flake, he used to smoke. He died eventually of cancer, of the throat. MC: So whereabouts, when you came back to the UK, did you live? DJ: In Withington, Manchester. South Manchester, Manchester 20, Withington. MC: So that’s where you continued your schooling. DJ: Yeah. I never went to high school though. MC: So how old were you when you left school then? DJ: When I left school? MC: How old were you? DJ: Fourteen. MC: Fourteen. DJ: I missed, missed my scholarship because I’d been ill so long, had tonsilitis, tonsilitis, tonsilitis through coming to this country. This country didn’t really, didn’t gel with me, you know, it was cold. MC: So what did you think to your schooldays in England then, in relation to your school in India? DJ: Pardon? MC: What did you think to your schooldays in relation to your school in India? DJ: Oh, I haven’t got many recollections of India. MC: Now what about in the UK, in England, school in England. Did you enjoy your school days? DJ: Oh, I did, very much so. I remember once we were playing out in the playground with the sports master and we were playing cricket, and he hit this ball, hard, it bounced straight over the wall, over next door’s garden. So I was picked on to go and fetch it again. So I had to go all round, now instead of going all round the road, I thought I’d just get it over the fence there, but there were spikes and lo and behold as I got one leg over the wall, over the spikes, the wall collapsed and I was stuck on spikes, in my bottom and my hands, and I didn’t dare move. And the sports master called time and they wondered where I was, he says ‘go down and see if he’s in the toilet’. He went down to the toilet and then he saw me stuck on the spikes, he said oh, and he started crying. So he went to the sports master and said ‘you you’d better come and help, he’s stuck on the spikes’. So the sports master came down straight away and took me on the bus to the Royal Infirmary and there they cleaned me up, all the spike holes and everything else. It was quite an experience. [Laughter] MC: It certainly was! DJ: They had to probe all the holes that had been made in my bottom because they were rusty you see, so they had to sterilise every hole with a steel thing, and they gave me a penny for every stitch they put in. [Chuckle] MC: How old were you then, when that happened? DJ: I’d be about nine. Nine or ten. MC: So you left school at fourteen. What did you do when you left school then? DJ: I went to the Amalgamated Society, Society of Woodworkers, I went in the post, they put me in charge of the postal room and I stayed there for a while ‘till my call up came. I said goodbye and cheerio. MC: So you were called up were you? DJ: No, no I volunteered. MC: You volunteered. What year was that? DJ: Pardon? MC: What year was that you volunteered? DJ: Oh blimey. I can’t remember. MC: You say you volunteered. DJ: For air gunner. MC: You volunteered for the Royal Air Force. Did you choose air gunner ? DJ : Pardon? MC: Did you choose air gunner or did they offer that to you? DJ: No, no, I’d set my heart [emphasis] on air gunner. I’d seen posters of air gunners with their full guns and everything, that impressed me. I remember at the Selection Board, the Wing Commander there said ‘do you know what the life of an air gunner is?’ I said ‘I haven’t a clue’. He said ‘eight hours! That’s the average length of time an air gunner lives’, he said ‘and this letter isn’t signed by your father either, so you’d better get home, take this letter home again and get your father to sign the letter saying he agrees to you volunteering as an air gunner’. So off I took it, back home, my dad’s signature was very easy to copy, so I copied his name and signature, saying that I agree that he, I should go as air gunner and that was it. MC: How old were you then? DJ: I was eighteen. MC: You’d reached eighteen had you. DJ: Eighteen and a half. MC: So what made you join the Royal Air Force? I mean you could have been a gunner somewhere else, but you wanted to be an air gunner. DJ: It just appealed to me. Oh no, I was in the Air Training Corps as well, you know, the ATC. That’s what made me go in the Air Force. MC: So where did you first go? Your recruit training. Where was that? DJ: My what? MC: Your recruit training, when you first joined. DJ: Oh, London. MC: In London. DJ: St John’s Wood. MC: Oh yes. DJ: Got injections and all, bloomin’ hell, played hell! Oh! They murdered [emphasis] us with those injections. MC: What about drill training and basic training, did you do a lot of that initially? Your basic training, drill training? Basic training. DJ: In London, yes. MC: That was all in London. DJ: St John’s Wood, that was the basic, yes, and then we went up to Bridgnorth. MC: Bridgenorth. And what was Bridgenorth? What did you do at Bridgenorth? DJ: We did very little! Very little! Most of the time we spent drinking. [Laugh] I remember. MC: But what was Bridgenorth, was that for your trade training, your gunnery training or was that? DJ: My gunnery training, Dalcross, Inverness. MC: You went from Bridgenorth to up to Inverness. You did your gunnery training at Inverness. DJ: At Dalcross, yes. That’s where the Queen’s Flight, it lands still. When she goes up to Edinburgh, she lands there still. MC: So was that where you had your first flight, your first flight? DJ: Yes. It was a thrill and a half! MC: You loved it. DJ: But I remember when I got on to, for experience, on the squadron, I got in the rear turret, I thought the damn thing was going to fall off! [Laugh] When they turned the turret to the wind, the wind was hitting it like that [slap] and I was going, oh my god this is going to fall off!” MC: Was that in, when you went to Inverness? DJ: No, that was on the squadron. MC: So what did you, what aircraft were you flying in, at Inverness? DJ: Wellingtons, oh, yeah, Wellingtons, yes. Oh no, no, it wasn’t, Ansons, Ansons. MC: Oh, Ansons. Yeah. So how long were you there doing your gunnery training? DJ: Just about, I think about two months, three months and from there, Dalcross, I went to a squadron then. MC: Did you not go to a Operational Training Unit? DJ: That was, yes, before the squadron. MC: Whereabouts was that? That was, you were saying about your lessons - you weren’t paying attention? DJ: No, I wasn’t paying attention. He caught me once climbing the girders when he was lecturing. ‘You – come down here you fool!’ I remember that very clearly. MC: So from your gunnery training you went to Wellingtons at? DJ: Wellingtons was Seighford. MC: Ah, Seighford, yes. DJ: Near Stafford. MC: That was, was that an Operational Training Unit was it? DJ: No, no, it just a training unit. MC: Gunnery training, yes. And you flew Wellingtons there. DJ: Yes. We baled out there. MC: Did you! What was the reason for that? DJ: The Americans shot us down. [Laugh] We’ve been sworn to silence ever since! Our Station Commander, when we got back to our unit, said you are not to tell one person [emphasis] that the Americans shot you down. They are our allies and we don’t want any friction, so all seven of you, keep your lips sealed. MC: Was that in a Wellington? DJ: Yes. What happened? We went on a leaflet raid, telling the, propaganda raid, telling the French population: keep a stiff upper lip, do everything possible to upset the Germans and they said it’ll be a quiet trip for you, go over Paris, come back, okay. Paris knows what height you’re flying at and everything. So we went there, we went to Saumur, Saumur, fifty miles south of Paris, and coming back the Americans let fly at us. Bang, bang! First of all they shot the port engine out, caught on fire straight away. MC: It was ground fire was it? DJ: Pardon? MC: It was ground fire that they shot at you? Not attacked by another aircraft. DJ: And they knew what time and height we were coming at, and we weren’t allowed to tell anybody. MC: Yes, I notice you put just baled out in your log book, yeah, and so that was, then you went to Ingham? DJ: Pardon? MC: You went to Ingham. DJ: England? MC: Ingham. Gunnery Flight. It says 1481 Gunnery Flight, at Ingham. DJ: I can’t see that, upside down. MC: And again you, so you must have gone from Seighford to Ingham. Where did you go from there? DJ: From Seighford, we went to a bomber station then. MC: Oh, is this one the one at Sandtoft? DJ: Yes. MC: Sandtoft. What squadron was that? DJ: It wasn’t a squadron, Training Unit. MC: Ah, it was a Training Unit was it, oh right. DJ: A first experience for the captain, skipper of four engined aircraft. MC: What about crewing up? What about crewing up? Whereabouts did you crew up? DJ: Stafford. MC: Stafford. DJ: We were all in a jumble in a hangar just walking round. And a pilot would come to you: would you like to join my crew as an air gunner, wireless op, anything else? And that’s how you crewed up. MC: Did you know any of them beforehand? DJ: No, not a soul, just whether you liked the look of the skipper or not, so you made up a crew. MC: Been told many stories about crewing up. They just put you all together and you picked your own crew. DJ: Yeah. MC: It was quite amazing, yeah. So when you went to Sandtoft, you picked up your other crew members ‘cause you, on Wellingtons you would have five crew, so you picked up new crew members did you, for seven man crew, on the Halifaxes, Halifax? DJ: Lancasters. MC: You did fly Halifaxes though, didn’t you. DJ: Pardon? MC: You did fly the Halifax in training. DJ: I did fly, We didn’t like it. They give us a choice, said you can either fly the Halifax or the Lancaster, take your pick. So they sent us off on one trip in the Halifax and we didn’t like it. MC: That was at Sandtoft. That was at Sandtoft? DJ: Yeah MC: That was there. And then you, from there you went to Lancaster Finishing School. DJ: Binbrook. MC: Hemswell? DJ: Sandtoft. MC: Hemswell. DJ: Hemswell, that was the Finishing School. MC: Yeah, and you liked the Lancaster. DJ: Then we went on to the Lancasters. Posted to squadrons then. MC: How long did you spend at Hemswell? DJ: I think about six weeks, not long. MC: And that was your regular skipper then, was it? DJ: Yes, yes. Getting to know each other, you know. MC: Who was your regular skipper then? DJ: Pardon? MC: Who was your regular skipper? DJ: Doug, Doug Jolly. MC: Ah Jolly, yes, ‘cause I know his - DJ: One coincidence, when we crewed up. He said ‘now when we’re in the aircraft you call me skipper because there’s two of us called Doug and that could be very [emphasis] confusing, so in the aircraft you call me skipper, never [emphasis] Doug. The Doug is the rear gunner’ so he made that quite clear because it could be quite awkward. MC: So you got posted then to the squadron. DJ: Binbrook, yes. MC: At Binbrook, 460 Squadron. DH: Yes. The Lincolnshire Wolds, now I’ve got a tale to tell you about Binbrook. We were going on a raid to Germany, we had a full bomb load on, and the skipper, off we went down the runway. I was in the rear turret, I thought we’re travelling very fast considering we’ve got a bomb load on, and we were oh, absolutely moving! And then I heard the skipper saying, ‘help me’, to the engineer, ‘help me pull this aircraft out!’ At the end of the runway there’s a valley so you had to have loads of power to make sure you never fell down into the valley when you took off. The silly engineer hadn’t locked down the flaps and by the time we came to take off, the flaps had come up again and he was struggling: ‘Help me Help me! Get this’, and because we weren’t climbing, we weren’t getting up. So the engineer came to his help and he got on the handle there again and at last we cleared the bay but we came to very near disaster, and the skipper didn’t let it go at that. When we got back, he said ‘you could have cost us our lives’, to the engineer. ‘Do you realise you could have cost us our lives? But you hadn’t locked the flaps’. He said ‘yes, I’m sorry’. MC: Very close, easy done, well, not easy done but it’s very close to disaster. DJ: He said ‘sorry isn’t good enough for me’, and he said to the rest of the crew ‘do I change him? Do I get another engineer?’ We all said ‘look, we are all entitled to one mistake, he made one, I know it could have cost us our lives but we’re all alive, I say we keep him’. And he went round the whole crew as to whether we keep him: we all said yes. MC: And he learnt his lesson. DJ: Yes. [Laugh] MC: I notice your first raid was to Essen then. You can remember that? DJ: Yes. Oh, the town on fire, oh blimey. We wondered how anybody lived [emphasis] there, you know, with the bombing. The whole town seemed to be on fire, but it obviously wasn’t. MC: Must have been quite a shock really, as your first raid. DJ: It was, it was quite a shock; I became immune to it. MC: Then you went to, then you, number two was Bonn. DJ: Pardon? MC: Number two was Bonn, you bombed Bonn, did a raid to Bonn? DJ: Oh yes. MC: And then you went on to Cologne. That was a big raid in Cologne, wasn’t it? DJ: That was a big raid, very big raid. It’s a sight when you’re up there and you see a thousand bombers in the air at the same time, it’s awe inspiring, it really is, and it gives you, a bit of, you know, as though they’re guarding you when in actual fact they’re just joining you. You feel very safe when you see a thousand bombers round you. MC: Did you have a regular aircraft? DJ: Yes. U – Uncle. MC: I noticed you did fly a few different ones but most of the raids were U – Uncle. Did you have a logo on your aircraft? Did you have a picture? DJ: No, the skipper never, we were never asked if we wanted one. I can’t remember them refusing. They all had something painted on them, most of them. MC: Did you, on the Cologne raid, did you come straight home from that? Because I noticed it says you returned from Hethel. DJ: Hethel, yes, we had fog, we couldn’t land at our aerodrome we had to divert to Hethel so that’s where we went. Oh, and next day, as is customary when you land at a different airport to shoot up the Air Flying Control, you know, and our skipper was mad as hell, he was an Australian, and we all took off, taking a dive at Air Control and pulling away going, but they were all Australians you see, they’re mad as hell, honestly, and they were getting a bit too near Flying Control so they started firing off reds to say [loudly] ‘no more, no more flying here!’ I think they got really scared thinking they were going to hit the Flying Control. MC: That’s an interesting point. How come you came to join an Australian squadron? DJ: They just happened to be there. MC: Yeah, obviously there to make up numbers. DJ: The whole squadron was Australian, the skipper. The Station Commander was Australian, Group Captain Hutton. [glass knocked] [Other]: Oops. Tissue. DJ: Taking turns. MC: When you were shooting up Flying Control you said? DJ: Pardon? MC: When you were shooting up Flying Control. DJ: Yes. One after another. They eventually got so scared they fired off the reds: ‘No more you mad idiots – go away!’ And we took off, the skipper came up to Flying Control and I swear he was going to go right through it, and at last second he pulled up and all my ammunition in my turret all came out the boxes all over the floor, oh my god! And all he did was laugh his head off. He says ‘that was a good one, wasn’t it’, and I said ‘yes all my blasted ammunition’s on the floor!’ MC: So your next, after Cologne, your next night operation was Münchengladbach. DJ: Oh yes. There was nothing much to report on much of them, with them, you know, you just had to keep your eyes out looking for fighters coming at you. MC: Did you meet much flak on that? DJ: Pardon? MC: Did you meet much flak on that? DJ: Oh bloomin’ hell, yes. MC: There’s always flak is there. DJ: Oh, always flak. The groundcrew mend the holes in the aircraft. The shells would burst about three foot away from us. MC: And then operation number six was Gelsenkirchen. Remember much about that? DJ: No, no. There was just one further away, the most, long one, was about ten hours’ flight. MC: Ah, you did, and you did Nuremburg. Nuremburg. DJ: No, further even. MC: Yeah, but Nuremburg was a long operation, wasn’t it. DJ: Oh yes. MC: That was a - DJ: A heavy, you didn’t know whether you’d come back alive or not, you went to Nuremburg, it was so heavily defended. MC: Then you went on to Hannover. DJ: Pardon? MC: Hannover. DJ: That was a dolly that was, no trouble there. [Laugh] MC: And Hanau. Where was Hanau? H a n a u. Hanau, I don’t know that one. DJ: Doesn’t ring a bell. MC: A fairly long one, it was a six hour operation. Operation number nine was Merseburg. Merseburg. That was a long operation - eight hours. DJ: Yes, and in the turret it gets tiring, I assure you. But you just had to keep alert, you know, your life and the life of the six crew members depended on you as air gunner, you had to be wide awake, every minute of flight. MC: From the stories I’ve heard, that was the secret, was to keep awake, keep alert. DJ: And they gave us tablets to keep us awake. MC: Wakey wakey pills! [Chuckle] DJ: They worked all right, they kept us awake and what we liked when we got back from a raid, [cough] we had to go to the briefing room to be examined, what we saw over the target and we saw tables and tables full of whisky, little cups of whisky for everybody, all lined up. But the point is, quite often or not you were too damned tired to enjoy it, you really were, you just wanted your bed! MC: Did you have a meal when you got back? DJ: Pardon? MC: Have a meal when you got back? DJ: Yes. Yes. Sausages. MC: Oh, sausages! DJ: Oh god, I swore I’d never eat another sausage! Sausage this, sausage that, sausage this, oh! MC: So operation continued. How many operations, all told, did you do? DJ: Twenty nine. MC: Twenty nine. DJ: [Cough] The skipper did thirty. He had to go on his first op [cough] as a – [cough] MC: You saw one sight of a? DJ: A Lancaster, ablaze from one end to the other, she was diving down to its death, crew and all, nobody baled out. I’ll never forget that sight. MC: Oh yes. They do have an effect on you. DJ: It did yes. You could see, from the rear turret you had a grandstand view of going down, down, straight down to the earth. You couldn’t live in that one, you know, in the end. MC: What about your experience of night fighters? Did you come across the night fighters? DJ: We came across but none attacked me, not one, throughout the whole war not one fighter attacked me. MC: Didn’t they? [Other]: What about the? DJ: End of the war this Messerschmitt 110 flew over us but he didn’t attack us, he just flew about fifty feet above us. He was obviously going home. MC: This was at the end of the war. Was it? DJ: It didn’t want to bother, you know. MC: He didn’t want to get hit. DJ: And I didn’t open fire. I think if I’d opened fire on him I’d have shot him down because he was so low, just over us. It was so near the war ending he must have thought he’d had enough now. MC: So Mannheim, number ten, that was a third of the way through, number ten was Mannheim. DJ: Mannheim, yes, they all, the towns were heavily [emphasis] defended. There wasn’t one you could go and say oh this’ll be easy. Every [emphasis] town was heavily defended. They put the guns right round the town in a circle and they put them so you, they knew that by the laws of average they’d hit somebody, because you had to fly through this barrage of flipping flak and they said well that’s the way to do it and that’s what they resorted to eventually: box ack-ack, make a box of it you’d have to fly through the ack-ack and either your number was up or it wasn’t. MC: I notice you did the Politz raid. The oil refineries at Politz. DJ: Yes. That was a long raid, wasn’t it. MC: Mmm. Yeah. Eight and a half hours. But one of the longest obviously was the infamous one of Dresden. DJ: Pardon? MC: Dresden, you did. That was the long raid. DJ: That Churchill took, and give Churchill this. Every raid had to be agreed by Churchill, right. Every raid had to be passed by him. At the end of the war he denied everything, being connected with the war even, he denied that he’d agreed to have a Dresden, because Dresden thought they’d get away with it, they told us we’re a undefended town now. It was right near the end of the war, so don’t bomb us, we’re undefended now they said, but we did, we had one and wiped them out. MC: And what about Harris. Bomber Harris, Arthur Harris. DJ: Oh he was a belter, he really was. He really was great. He gave us such heart, he used to come round the squadrons saying hello. He was a South African, Bomber Harris was, oh he was wonderful. He gave everybody encouragement all the way through. MC: Yeah. You did a few more raids after Dresden. Dortmund, Duisburg, Essen again. Daylight raids then, you started some, later on you were doing daylight raids. Daylight raids, you did some daylight raids to Essen, and Dortmund. How different was it to be doing a daylight raid to a night raid? Obviously you could see the aircraft more, the other aircraft. DJ: [Cough] Yes, yes, daylight raids were a dodgy thing because they could see you and you held your breath when you were put on notice on the notice board you were down for a daylight raid, oh bloomin’ hell, and you just got on with it. At North Weald, and the skipper was Douglas Bader, and we were just landing there for an overnight stay and the next day an American colonel landed at the aerodrome, and Bader was a very good looking man, very handsome fellow and female officers all used to drool over him. When they were at the dining room table he’d always have two female officers sitting at his right and left of him. He knew he was good looking, you know, and he had been such a good hero with those bloomin’ legs of his. It was amazing how he could move, absolutely amazing. MC: So you, how did you finish up at North Weald then? DJ: Pardon? MC: How did you finish up at North Weald then? DJ: Oh, we finished up at North Weald for the night, and this colonel landed and he said to Bader - we were at the dining table - he said to Bader, oh no, Bader said to him, to the colonel, ‘I bet I can land quicker, by taking off and landing, quicker than you can do in your Mustang’. So he says ‘okay, I’ll take you on a bet’. Mind, I don’t know how much they laid the bet for, but everybody in the station turned out to see this. Bader took a, lost the toss, he had to go first. He took off in his Spitfire, turned it over on its back and landed straight down and everybody gave a great cheer, we thought that was the winning thing. Oh, not for this American in the Mustang, oh my god, he made it talk, he took off and just turned it straight over on its back and landed, and won it hands down! Where the Spitfire had to do a turn and land, this Mustang just went over, bang! MC: Just done a full loop, ground loop. So your last operation was Kiel, I noticed. DJ: Kiel. MC: Kiel. DJ: The port. MC: That was the – DJ: There’s a battleship there. MC: Battleship, the Admiral Scheer. You sunk that. DJ: Yeah, we didn’t, not, didn’t hit it, but the bombs dropped right round it, caused such an explosion, you know, it tipped the battleship over. We didn’t hit it; nobody hit it. MC: So, it’s like you were saying about, you hear many stories, and you saying about when you said you baled out, you know, during training. DJ: Oh, that was hair raising. It was, they told us before we took off, at Seighford this was, and we took off in the Wellingtons, this will be a dolly of a trip for you, you know, no problem. You’ll all go there, drop the leaflets and come sailing back home. Oh no. Six of us went, one got back. It was, we had to go over Paris, fly past Paris and go further down, Saumur. MC: Oh yeah, you said Saumur, yes. So when you, whereabouts were you when you baled out? DJ: Oh, when they let fly at us, the Americans, they shot the starboard engine straight off on fire and skipper said and ‘the other one’s been hit as well, so I don’t think we’ll make England, we might have to bale in the sea’. Coming back we were losing height rapidly, where the port engine was leaking very badly, he said ‘I doubt if we’ll get to England’, he said ‘we might have to land in the sea’. Oh, we were all holding our breath and we staggered along and the starboard engine was out, the skipper put the fire out and we were losing height very rapidly and a lot of the equipment for the wireless op was all shot up and everything and he said ‘I doubt we’ll make England chaps, keep your fingers crossed’. So we all kept our fingers crossed and he said ‘now we’re crossing the coast we’re going to cross the Channel now, we’re going, yes, we’re on our way, now we’ll see whether if we land there or not’. And he couldn’t, the wireless op couldn’t get in touch with any station, all his wireless equipment was buggered up, so he said ‘yes, yes we’re gonna land! We’re gonna have to bale out’, we couldn’t find out where we were, to land it. So I said oh my god’, baling out, oh bloomin’ hell, that put the wind up me that did, oh, that put the wind up me. MC: In a Wellington how did you bale out? How did you get out? DJ: Through the nose, all of us went out through the bomb aimer’s. MC: So you had to come back from your turret and go out the nose. That was in England of course, and whereabouts did you land – where’d you come down? DJ: Oh. Blimey, it’s gone again. MC: No, that’s okay. So you landed safely; you were okay. DJ: Yeah. We did, the skipper said ‘get out quick! She’s going to cut the last engine and we’ll have to crash’, and crashing in a Wellington was awful, because a fabric aircraft, he says ‘bale out quick!’ So we got out of the nose of the aircraft, went out one after the other. They always said, say count three before you pull your zipper. I said ‘one’ - boom! [Laughter] I was that frightened honestly, I just said ‘one’ – I still had the handle in my hand when I landed! Oh, then when I landed, I landed very heavily and I went back and knocked my head on the floor and knocked myself out, and when I came to I thought I was in Germany. I thought right, do what they tell you, roll your parachute up now, in a tight ball, put it in the hedge so the Germans can’t find it. So I went and did this and I started walking. They said now, when you bale out in England you find the nearest house and ask for help, using the telephone. I walked and I walked and I walked. Eventually found this farmhouse. I said ‘can I use’, oh, I had to knock at the door and the upstairs window opened and a gun popped out. ‘Yes, who are you?’, ‘I’m an RAF flyer’, ‘how do I know you are?’, I said ‘we’re not allowed to carry any identification except my blood group’, yeah. This was conversation was going through the window down, and his two daughters were there with him, and his wife. I said ‘we’re not allowed to carry identification on any raid’, I said ‘you’ll have to take my word for it’, I said ‘can I use your phone and he said ‘we’re not on the phone’. [Laugh] Oh no, and I’d walked flippin’ ages! Because they’re very strict about that, if you bale out, you land, you make for the nearest telephone, for the police to know where you are. I said ‘oh blimey, I’m not walking any more, I’ve had it’. I had on all my full flying kit and everything on, you know, I thought I’m not walking another inch and the farmer said ‘you can go to sleep on this couch, you know, if I bring you some blankets’ and what have you. I said ‘thank you very much, I can’t walk another inch’, still had my flying boots on. Oh, I just looked at this settee and just zonked straight out you see. Next morning, knock on the door, he answered it and I heard American voice saying, ‘Say man, have you seen English flier round here?’ And she said ‘yes, he’s asleep on the couch here’. ‘I’ll give him the couch’ he says, he was a big American sergeant, said ‘I’ll give him couch, we’ve been looking all night [emphasis] for him’. Said, ’well he’s been here’. ‘Well he should have phoned us!’ She said ‘we’re not on the phone’. ‘Oh’. But it didn’t save me from the rocket, he said’ we’ve searched all night long for you and here you are comfortable’.[laughs] Oh I slept like a log. MC: So they took you back to base did they? DJ: Yes. They took me back to American base who had shot, I didn’t mention that they’d shot us down. I thought no, I don’t want to start a war here. [Chuckle] So I was taken to this American base, given a hearty breakfast, and then this plane came, landed to take us back to our aerodrome. Oh, but he really didn’t half play hell with me for not telephoning. I said ‘I’d walked for ages and don’t forget’ I said to them, ‘I had my whole flying gear on as well! How much longer do you think I could walk?’ They said ‘walk till you find a telephone!’ You couldn’t win an argument, you couldn’t, no matter what you said, you couldn’t win it. MC: So of all the operations you did, does anything stand out particularly that was the worst, you know? I mean I know you did some long ones. DJ: Nuremberg was very hot, very hot. Oh yes, they really let fly at Nuremburg, but they were all one, much alike, you know, because the flak was so thick when you got to each station, each town, you couldn’t tell the difference; the ack-ack was terrific. You just thought well if they hit us, they hit us, that’s all there is to it. You knew it would be a short life then, if they hit you. [Pages turning] MC: So finishing your tour at um, you finished your tour at 460 Squadron? DJ: Yes. MC: What happened when you finished your tour? Where did you go from there? DJ: I went to India, at my request. MC: Oh you got posted to India! DJ: Yeah. After the war was over I went straight to the Adjutant, I said ‘I wanted to be posted to India, Adj, can you get me there?’ I wasn’t commissioned yet, and he said ‘you want what?’ I said ‘I want to go to India’. He said ‘you must be mad, everybody’s leaving India!’ I said ‘well I was born there, I still have relations there, I want to go to India’. He said ‘I can get you on an aircraft tomorrow if you want’, he said ‘we’ll get rid of you that quick! I said ‘okay’. So they posted me to India. MC: So whereabouts in India were you born? DJ: Near Calcutta. MC: And when you got posted back, where did you go to? DJ: I was born at Asinsol, about seven miles from Calcutta, I was born there. My mum was a nurse, a midwife. MC: So when you got, after you finished your tour and you got posted back to India, whereabouts did you go to? DJ: India. First posting was down to Poona. [Cough] You’ve heard of Poona, everybody’s heard of Poona. The RAF were banned from the Officers Club there. You know what they did? The mad RAF? They got cigarette packets and lit them and put them on the floor, the dance floor, and pretended it was a flare path and set fire to the building, set fire to the whole damned building! And so we were banned from there evermore. [Laughter] And that was our visit to Poona. MC: So when did you get your commission? DJ: Commission. MC: Did you get commissioned? DJ: Yes. I got to Flight Lieutenant. MC: When? DJ: I got commissioned when I was at Binbrook. MC: Ah, when you was at Binbrook. You got your Pilot Officer. DJ: But authorities to me, had been told by Air Ministry don’t pass anybody for a commission right, we’ve got enough officers [cough] well that isn’t very heartening. I said to the Adjutant, ‘can I have the papers to be, for a commission’, he said ‘don’t you know the war’s over and we’ve got loads of commissions?’ I said ‘I do sir, but I still want the papers’. He said ‘well why waste our time?’ I said ‘I’m sorry but it’s my prerogative to ask for papers for commissioning’, and my mid upper said ‘yes, and I want papers too’. He says ‘all right, all right, I can’t stop you’, and he gave us papers, the forms to fill in for commissioning. But they’d had the letter saying don’t [emphasis] pass anybody for a commission, all officers had been told this. I said to the Adjutant, ‘I want to hear it from the hips, from the lips of my Station Commander that I’m not going to be commissioned, not you sir’. I said ‘you’re the Adjutant all right, that’s fair enough, but I want to hear it from the lips of my CO about my not being commissioned’. ‘All right, all right, waste our time’ he said. ‘I’ll arrange an interview with the Station Commander’, who was Group Captain Hutton, he was an Australian, and we both went for commissioning. Harry was turned down, he came from Wigan to tell you the truth, and when he spoke you couldn’t understand a bloody word he said, [laugh] he was that broad Lancashire, absolutely broad, I thought that poor fellow’s going to interview him! And he came out and he was in tears. I said what’s wrong Harry and he said ‘he hasn’t passed me for a commission’, he said ‘I’ve done the same number of ops as you’, I said ‘I know you have’, but I knew why they had turned him down, because the next officer would be another Australian, wouldn’t understand a word he said. But I didn’t say that. MC: But you got yours. DJ: Yes, ‘cause I went to the next officer and they said, gave me an interview. He said ‘do you know we have had a letter from Air Ministry, not passing anybody [emphasis] for a commission’. I said ‘I have sir, but I just want to hear it from you, if I’m going to be turned down that’s fair enough, but I want to hear it from you, not from the Adjutant’. He said ‘you’re damned determined, aren’t you’. I said ‘well, I’m just seeking what I think I deserve, I’ve done a tour of ops now, I’m as good as anybody else now’. He said ‘all right’, he says, ‘for your damned nerve I’ll pass you’ he said, ‘but I know I’ll get a rocket from Air Ministry for passing you’. I said ‘thank you very much sir’, this was Group Captain Hutton, so he passed me on to the next one. And then [cough] and interview again, same story, ‘do you know we’ve had a letter from the Air Ministry not passing’. I said ‘I’ve heard all this sir, I just want to hear it from the person who’s got authority to fail me, that’s all. I’m not complaining’. MC: So your commission you got after you’d finished your tour? DJ: Yes, and then I got up to fly-. MC: So when you went to India, did you fly in India, were you flying? DJ: No, no, I was on legal duties then. MC: Oh were you! DJ: Yes, Courts of Inquiry, formal investigations, and Formal Investigations. I went on the legal side of the RAF and I did many court martials, I had to prosecute. However, first of all they sent me to an admin school, which was Poona, and from there they posted me to, on the legal side of the RAF and I did for many years, that’s all I did for the RAF after the war. MC: Did you find that interesting? DJ: Very [emphasis] interesting, very interesting, oh I really did. But to tell you the truth, it starts making you change, change your mind, because eventually you get to an RAF station, you look at a person you try and weigh them up whether they’re a crook or not! You do, you get the habit of doing this. I thought oh God! But I did it, the whole of my RAF career was on the legal side, court martials. MC: Yes. So what was your title, you know, what was your role, what was your title? Was it legal officer or what did they call it? DJ: No, no, just my rank, Flight Lieutenant. MC: But you was just on the legal side. So how long were you in India for then? DJ: Oh, I went from India, I still had another year to do when India declared independence and they said ‘you’re not going home you know, you’re going on to Singapore’. [Laugh] Okay. So they posted me from India to Singapore. Very good posting, that was a very good posting. I loved Singapore, it’s a smashing country, really is. And I went on, became PA to an Air Vice Marshal. MC: That was in Singapore? DJ: Yes. He was a belter, he really was a cracker; he was an excellent officer to work for. But I wished he hadn’t picked me to partner him when he played tennis every time! [Laugh] ‘Jimmy, you’re partnering me’, ‘oh, not again!’ But you can’t say no to an Air Vice Marshal can you [laugh]. MC: So Singapore. How long did you spend in Singapore? DJ: I spent a year, then I came back to England and then I went to Singapore again, asked them to post me again. MC: Oh, right. DJ: I asked for Singapore again. They posted me back to Singapore. MC: Can you remember when that was, what year that was? DJ: The war ended ’45, it would be about ’47, ’48. Singapore was a very good posting, very good, I must say, especially when I became PA to the Air Vice Marshal. That was a wonderful life. His wife was a great person too, she was a big help to him. Every night she used to leave her house and come into the Officers Club and play gambling with us! Mrs Patch, she used to, we were playing liar dice, every night she’d be down and joining us all and having a drink, she was more natural than any woman you could meet, and she was an Air Vice Marshal’s wife, but oh she was so natural. She said to everybody, ‘Call me Mrs P, not Mrs Patch, just say Mrs P.’ So we called her that. [Pause] [Other]: Very interesting wasn’t it. MC: Oh, Singapore, you were second tour in Singapore, second time in Singapore, what happened after then? DJ: Came home then, left the Air Force. MC: Oh did you. When did you finish in the Air Force? DJ: Then I got a letter from the Air Council saying we are pleased to announce, to write to you, to tell you we have awarded you the rank of Flight Lieutenant until you, pass. So they gave me the Flight Lieutenant for the rest of my life. They said they didn’t often do it. MC: So what medals did you have? DJ: European medals, German medal, Peacetime medal, I forget what, and Holland, we got a medal from Holland. MC: Oh did you! DJ: For our helping them during the war ‘cause they were desperately short of food, in Holland, they were desperate for food. MC: Yeah. So it’s the 39 45 Star, yeah, France and Germany Star, yeah. DJ: Went to, to where their gunners were, in Holland, Holland, and oh, they were ever so grateful to the British, they said you saved us, dropping that food to us. We were desperate, the Germans were eating all the food and we were getting none. MC: And then, and you got the commemorative medal from the Belgian Government as well. So that was, when did you meet Nancy then? DJ: At RAF Cheadle, she came to a dance. She was working in a computer factory and she came with all the other girls to the dance at the RAF base at Cheadle in Staffordshire and I saw her walk down, she was dancing with another girl and she came past me. I was Adjutant of the station and I looked at her and thought I fancy that girl – she’s a beauty. So I excused them and started dancing with her and then I saw her home and then we married, after a while. MC: So what year was it you met her, you first met her then? You said you was the Adjutant. DJ: Pardon? MC: You said you was the Adjutant then. DJ: Of the station, yes. That was at RAF Cheadle, Staffordshire. MC: That was after you came back from Singapore? DJ: Yeah. When I was a free man! [Laughter] NJ: I’m behind you! MC: So when did you get married then? DJ: What year Nancy? Sixty odd years. NJ: Oh good grief. I don’t know, I keep losing track of these events. Was it ’49. Yes, 1949 you got married and had a child in ‘52. I can remember that. DJ: She had charming parents too. Very nice. MC: Going back to Cheadle. You got posted to Cheadle after you came back from Singapore, as Adjutant there, and that’s where you finished your service was it? DJ: No, no, I finished my service in Singapore. NJ: We went back to Singapore. DJ: We went back to Singapore. MC: Oh, after you was at Cheadle. Yeah, ah, I’m with you now, yes. DJ: Cheadle to Singapore. It was such a good posting. You fell over yourselves trying to get posted to Singapore. MC: So did they have any aircraft? DJ: Pardon? MC: What aircraft did they have at Singapore, then? DJ: Not flying. MC: It wasn’t a flying station. DJ: No, no. They had aeroplanes there, yeah. But. MC: You weren’t flying. DJ: I forget what they were. All sorts of landing, you know, all sorts of planes were landing. MC: I would think most of them would have been transport aircraft as well. DJ: Pardon? MC: Most of them would have been transport aircraft. DJ: Yeah. MC: Say that again Jim, they did what? DJ: After the war we had a roundup, all the Chinese guards, and we got them for trial. Put them to trial. All sentenced to death, this was at Changi Jail, and they were all hung, for cruelty to British officers, British personnel. Oh they were just, but it was so horrible, the Air Marshal wouldn’t let me read the book where all this was recorded, he wouldn’t let me read it, he said ‘no, it won’t do you good’, he says ‘take my word, they’ve taken it from this book, but you’re not to read this book under any [emphasis] circumstances’. So it must have been pretty bad. They must have asked the prisoners of war what did they do, you know. They did all sorts of things, did terrible things. MC: This was the Japanese. DJ: Yes. They seemed to be heartless, honestly, but I wasn’t allowed to read the book. [Other voices] DJ: Straight after the war the skipper came to us, said ‘I’ve volunteered the crew’, he said, ‘to go to Japan, to fight the war there now’. So we all agreed to go with him, we said ‘we’re all behind you, to go on to Japan now and fight Japan’ and they sent us on leave, seven days’ leave and during that time they dropped the atom bomb on Japan, so the war was over completely worldwide. So we didn’t go to Japan, we didn’t have the pleasure of seeing the atom bomb go. MC: When did you hear about that, I mean where did you hear about the atomic bomb? DJ: Pardon? MC: Where did you hear about the atom bomb, were you, you were at Binbrook when you heard about that were you? You were at Binbrook when you heard about the atom bomb, being dropped. DJ: Yes, yes. Er, no, I’d left Binbrook then, yes, I’d left Binbrook. I think I must have been – I was on leave. MC: Ah, you said you were on leave. DJ: I was on leave when they dropped the atom bomb. There must have been a lot of soul searching by the President to agree to drop that bomb: he knew what horror would come from it. It must have taken a lot [emphasis] of courage to say I’m going to give the sanction for the atom bomb to be dropped, you know, what with the results they had. Oh my god. MC: We talked about your raids and all the raids you did. DJ: Excuse me. Thank you, Nancy. MC: I mean how did you personally feel about what you were doing? DJ: I was very thrilled, I really was. I felt really proud [emphasis] that I had taken such a part in the war. I didn’t have any sympathy for what we were doing, not like Churchill who changed his mind. He dropped us all in the cart eventually. I’ll never forget Churchill, and he didn’t mention the RAF in his speech after the war and that hurts our skip, our Bomber Command boss, it hurt him terribly that Churchill didn’t mention him. Churchill took exception because we bombed that last place in Germany. MC: Dresden? DJ: Dresden, yes. He took, he’d asked us permission for it and then he tried to backtrack out of it, said ‘I have my hands clean, I don’t know anything about it’. That hurt the Commander in Chief: he went back to South Africa a broken man. He really was. MC: Well Jim, I thank you very much for talking to me. DJ: It’s been a sheer pleasure. MC: No, it’s been a pleasure to hear your stories, and it’s been great. Thank you very much. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AJamesDWK170120, PJamesDWK1701 Title A name given to the resource Interview with Douglas "Jim" James Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Language A language of the resource eng Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:04:16 audio recording Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mike Connock Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-01-20 Description An account of the resource Douglas (Jim) James was born in India and returned to England when he was nine. After leaving school, he joined the RAF as an air gunner, forging his father’s signature on the application. Jim carried out 29 operations with 460 Squadron, flying in Lancasters. He tells of his training and his crew and discusses some of his operations, which included the bombing of Essen, Cologne, Nuremburg and Dresden. He describes having to bale out following a leaflet drop over France when his plane was shot down, accidentally, by American allies. After the war, he was posted to India and Singapore and worked for the legal department of the RAF. 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 Wehrmacht. Kriegsmarine Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain India Japan Netherlands Singapore Germany--Ruhr (Region) England--Lincolnshire England--Staffordshire England--London Germany--Cologne Germany--Dresden Germany--Essen Germany--Nuremberg India--Pune Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Anne-Marie Watson Carolyn Emery Maureen Clarke Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1945 460 Squadron Admiral Scheer air gunner aircrew Anson bale out bombing bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945) Halifax Lancaster promotion RAF Binbrook RAF Bridgnorth RAF Dalcross RAF Hemswell RAF Ingham RAF Sandtoft training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/566/8834/PEvansE1602.2.jpg 70edd28e823fd9b3701eb02ab8fcb037 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/566/8834/AEvansE160331.2.mp3 0f5ef1aaf69856347003131f4e77cce5 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, Eric E 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, E Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-03-31 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Description An account of the resource Two items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Eric Evans (1923 - 2017, 2211558 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a rear gunner with 463 Squadron but also served as a Captain in the Royal Tank Regiment. Also includes a letter from prisoner of war senior British Officer to Russian authorities. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Eric Evans catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document BW: This is Brian Wright, I am interviewing with Sergeant Eric Evans of 463 Squadron, who served in the RAF, initially as sergeant, then warrant officer and finished as captain in the Royal Tank Regiment. It’s taking place at his home in Liverpool on Thursday the 31st of March 2016 at 10.30. So, would you like me to call you Eric or Mr Evans? EE: Eric. BW: Eric. If err, you wouldn’t mind just starting us off please Eric, could you confirm your service number and your date of birth please? EE: The 31st of the first 1923 and my service number was double two, double one, double five, eight. BW: OK, thank you. And you were born in Liverpool, is that right? EE: I was. BW: And, along with your parents, did you have any other brothers and sisters? EE: I had two brothers. BW: Ok. And how was it in your early life growing up? What was your family life like? EE: It was very pleasant. A good middle-class family. BW: A good middle class family. EE: My father was a major in the Army. BW: Right. EE: My two brothers were err, both commissioned, one in the Navy and one in the, one in aircrew. BW: Right, and were you the middle brother? EE: I was the youngest. BW: The youngest. EE: I was sixteen when the war broke out. BW: And you had a brother in the Navy. Was he the elder or the middle? EE: The elder. BW: The eldest brother was in the Navy, and so, your next eldest would have been in the RAF. Did he go straight in as an officer or did he go in — EE: He went on training, to Canada. BW: I see. EE: And he flew as a navigator. BW: Right. And what happened to him — EE: He just got through the war. BW: He came through OK? EE: Yeah. BW: And, at that time it was common for people to leave school at fourteen. Is that what happened to you? EE: No, I stayed at school until I was sixteen. I went to a private school. BW: I see. EE: We were all privately educated. BW: All privately educated, right. And whereabouts did you go to school? EE: Quarrybank BW: I see. EE: A local school. BW: And what was it like there? Was it pretty strict or was it a good school? EE: It was a good school. I didn’t like school very much it was very strict but it was a good school. BW: And then, when you were sixteen, you say the war broke out. EE: That’s right. My father arranged for me to do an apprenticeship. He got me a position as an indentured apprentice marine engineer. BW: An indentured apprentice marine engineer. I see. EE: Yes. BW: I see. EE: With a fee of fifty pounds. BW: And whereabouts was that? That must have been in Liverpool as well? EE: In the docks. BW: Right. EE: Liverpool docks. It was a firm called Grace and Rollo and Clover Docks Limited. BW: Grace and - EE: Rollo BW: Rollo EE: And Clover Docks. BW: And Clover Docks. I see. EE: Limited. BW: Right, and how long were you there? A year or two or less? EE: A couple of years, and then I tried to get in the Army but I couldn’t get out because I was in a reserved occupation. BW: I see. EE: So, eventually they announced, if you joined aircrew, you could, you could leave. BW: All right. EE: So, I joined. BW: (laughs). EE: I joined aircrew. BW: And what drew you to the RAF? Why them and, obviously, you said — EE: Well, it was the only one I could get into – BW: Yeah, I see, of course. EE: The Army wouldn’t take me. BW: Yeah. EE: I joined the Army twice. BW: Any you didn’t fancy the Navy? EE: Well, I couldn’t get in the Navy. BW: Same, same rule applied? They wouldn’t take you from a reserved occupation? EE: Only aircrew. BW: And, did you err, intend to fly or did you — EE: I intended to fly, of course, there again, I could only go into a flying branch — BW: Right EE: Or they wouldn’t release me. BW: So, if you had wanted to go in as a fitter or mechanic, you, you— EE: No, I couldn’t have done. BW: I see, so it sounds a pretty important job you had at, in the Docks. EE: Well, they considered it to be so. BW: What sort of things were you doing there as a — EE: I was just an apprenticeship, with ship repair. We did the, we did the Campbeltown, the one that did the dockade at St Nazaire. BW: Yeah. EE: We worked on the Campbletown. BW: Right, and was that re-fitting the Cambletown for that raid, or — EE: Yeah. BW: Really? EE: Yeah. BW: And was the purpose of fitting Campbletown out at the time known to you, or was it just given to you as a — EE: No, we didn’t know. It was just filled with concrete all the bows were filled up with concrete. BW: Right. EE: [unclear]. BW: So, were you involved in filling the bows with concrete or —? EE: No, no. BW: It was just part of the fitting. EE: It was part of the fitting. BW: Right and so, when the raid took place on St Nazaire, that must have been, I’m assuming the only time you knew that was what the purpose of that ship was? EE: She was an ex American destroyer. BW: Right, that’s fascinating. So, when did you join the RAF? EE: Err 1943. BW: Ok. When about was it roughly? EE: I don’t know. BW: Okay. That’s all right, there’s no, we don’t need an exact date. All right, so, we’ve just had a look at your RAF service and release book and it confirms your date of service from 13th September 1943 to the 5th February 1947. EE: I joined six months before that — BW: You joined six months before? EE: I waited six months to get in. BW: I see. EE: I went to Padgate for all my exams. BW: So, you did your exams at Padgate, and that’s at Warrington, that’s one of the recruitment centres, isn’t it? EE: That’s right. BW: Err. EE: Six months before. BW: Right, and once you’d done your basic training, where did you then go? EE: I went to err oh, [pause] from Padgate to Bridgnorth. BW: Bridgnorth. EE: And then I did all my square bashing at Bridgnorth. BW: Right. EE: And then I went to um Yorkshire, Bridlington. BW: Bridlington. EE: And I went from Bridlington to err, gunnery school in Northern Ireland. Bishops Court. BW: Bishops? EE: Bishops Court. BW: Bishops Court in Northern Ireland was a gunnery school. I see. EE: We went from gunnery school to [pause] — BW: And this is your log book we’re looking at now? EE: Yeah, [pause]. Let’s see, start on my log book. BW: OK. EE: It was gunnery school, a continuation of gunnery school. BW: And so, this starts in January 7th of January 1944, and you’re flying Ansons at this time. EE: That’s right. That’s at gunnery school at Bishops Court. BW: Uh-huh. EE: And you turn over. BW: This is just details, the number of rounds that you fired in practice on, on targets. EE: That’s right. BW: I see, and that confirms you flying twenty-one hours and ten minutes at 12 Air Gunnery School, Bishops Court. EE: What’s this? BW: And then a move to 14 OTU Bosworth. EE: That’s it. And Wellingtons. BW: Flying Wellington mark tens. This is April ‘44, so this is very nearly err, seventy-two years, almost seventy-two years to the day actually, since you started — EE: Yes. BW: How did you find flying in Ansons and target practice compared to flying in Wellingtons? EE: It was all right. It was just normal [indistinct] you just gave, you just took what they gave you. BW: And were you given much instruction about the arms, the guns that you were firing? EE: Oh yes. [unclear] blindfold and all that kind of thing. BW: Right. You had to take them apart in a certain time and do it blindfold. EE: Yeah. BW: And how did you find that? Was it— EE: It was easy enough. BW: Ok. And what was your, I mean, these detail your different sorties, how did you find your um, accuracy on the guns? EE: Reasonable. I think I was average. BW: Mm-hmm. EE: I didn’t expect to be more than average. But err, you just went out and did what you had to do, to the best of your ability. BW: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm So, looking at this you’ve had, you were flying pretty much every day almost, maybe the odd day or two in between and that lasted up until May, the end of May ‘44. But there’s a mark here, where you’ve got bullseye. EE: Yeah. [pause] That’s it. BW: I see. And some of these are marked on duty as cine, is that right so were they filming you, is, that right? EE: We had cine instead of bullets — BW: I see — EE: They had cine film on. I think err, what kind of aircraft, oh no [unclear]. BW: I see EE: We used to fly against Spits and things — BW: And this was what they called fighter affiliation then — EE: That’s right. BW: So, the Spitfires would be flying dummy attacks — EE: That’s right, and we would film them. BW: There’s a description here, fifteen minutes, I think that will be fighter affiliation, infra-red, what does that entail? EE: I don’t know, don’t remember, oh night time, night time I think. BW: Right. EE: End of 14 OTU. Operations Unit. BW: So, same type of aircraft here now. This is the 8th of May ‘44 err, where you have moved to 14 OTU at Market Harborough — EE: Yeah. BW: Still flying Wellingtons, and [pause] it’s a mix of live ammunition and cine film. Were the bombers flying straight and level or were they taking part in manoeuvres? EE: Oh no, they were doing corkscrews and things. All the manoeuvres one would normally do. BW: And so, while the pilot is putting the aircraft into a corkscrew manoeuvre, you are still having to fire at a — EE: That’s right BW: At a target approaching. EE: Yes. BW: And I’m looking here there’s about the same time, equal time, spent day and night. EE: Yeah. [pause]. BW: I see. And then from there, you had presumably a couple of months leave between May and July. This is when your heavy conversion unit training starts. EE: Yeah, Stirling, horrible aircraft. BW: What didn’t you like about the Stirling? EE: Big and ugly. Big, awkward thing. BW: Some crew found it quite spacious, did you - EE: Too big. BW: Too big? EE: it was like a bus. BW: [laughs]. Did it feel like it handled like a bus? EE: Yeah, didn’t like the Stirling at all. Never felt safe in the Stirling. BW: And that was simply because of the amount of space around you? EE: Just a big ugly — BW: Right EE: Big ugly thing. BW: And so, you’ve done between the 14th of July 44 and the 11th of August ‘44 at 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit at Wigsley, you’ve done um, best part probably of six weeks training thereabouts, maybe a month’s training? EE: Yeah. BW: And, were you, um, placed as a rear gunner or in different positions? EE: A rear gunner the whole time. Never changed, or I wouldn’t, stayed as, never took any other position. BW: And is that a role that you asked for, to be a rear gunner? EE: Yeah. BW: And was your preference for that? What drew you to that? EE: I dunno. BW: And then, moving on from err, the conversion unit, this is Number Five LFS, EE: Lancaster Flying School. BW: Lancaster Flying School, at Syerston in Nottinghamshire, and 27th of August 1944, this presumably was your first flight in a Lancaster? EE: Yeah. BW: How did that feel after being in Stirlings and Wellingtons? EE: Good, but they were all clapped out old aircraft. They lost ten percent of all crews in training. Ten percent, it’s outrageous. BW: Right. EE: Because they were all clapped out old aircraft. BW: Gosh. EE: They weren’t fit for squadron use. BW: And, did you know any guys on your courses who were lost as a result of — EE: Oh yes, I don’t remember their names now. BW: But there were guys who — EE: Oh yes, ten percent. BW: Right EE: One out of every ten. BW: Mm. So, you’ve not long, really, you’ve probably, only literally a few days, maybe a week at a Lancaster School thereabouts, and then you join — EE: 463 Squadron. BW: 463 Squadron, RAAF at Waddington. How did it feel to finally get on your squadron? EE: Well, it was, what it was all building up towards. It was quite a, quite a do. First trip was to France. BW: And do you recall what the target was in France? EE: Yes, troop concentrations, it’s written down. DW: Ah ha EE: It’s written down there BW: And then same again, troop concentrations around Boulogne? And this is after the invasion. EE: Yes. BW: Was there a sense of having missed out on what they call the big show, the invasion? EE: No, it wasn’t a big show for the RAF. We did all the bombing for it. For the Legions of Honour. For those two trips. BW: I see, so because you took part in raids over France, you became eligible for the Legion D’Honneur. EE: Yeah. BW: And did you take up the offer from the French government for that? EE: I’ve taken it up, but I’ve not heard from them yet. BW: I see. EE: Very long winded. BW: Well, I hope it comes through soon. There’s a note in your book here and it looks like you were flying in the group captain, group captain’s Lancaster, Group Captain— EE: Bonham-Carter BW: Bonham-Carter, over Germany? EE: Yeah, right. BW: And then a note about Guy Gibson. EE: Well, he was missing. He [unclear]. He went missing on that trip. BW: And what was he fulfilling? EE: Master bomber. BW: Master Bomber? EE: Yes. BW: Did you hear anything about what happened to him? EE: No, they kept it quiet for about three weeks. BW: I think he was killed in a Mosquito. EE: He was. I’ve been to his grave. BW: Have you? EE: Yeah, in Holland. BW: Presumably you never met Guy Gibson, just heard of him. EE: No, I never met him. BW: What was the err, I suppose the legend about him, how was it at the time— EE: Nobody liked him. BW: Nobody liked him? EE: No, he was an arrogant bugger. BW: And then, from October ’44, you are flying still Lancasters with 463. You had a regular aircraft it looks like, Q — EE: Yes, you eventually got your own. Queenie. BW: Queenie? EE: That’s right. BW: And do you recall the names of your other crewmen? EE: Oh yes. BW: There was a chap called Sunderland. EE: Yeah, he was my pal. BW: Was he? EE: The navigator, Stanley. BW: There was a Stanley Harding. EE: He was a mid-upper. BW: And — EE: He was killed. BW: Now your mate Sunderland, what was his first name? EE: Cecil. BW: Cecil? And so, Cecil Sunderland is navigator, Stanley Harding is the mid-upper, and, there was a chap called Lynch. EE: We were pals. BW: What was his first name, can you recall? EE: Joe. BW: Joe? EE: Yeah. BW: His first initial was a C but he must have gone — EE: C J Lynch. BW: And your bomb aimer was a chap called Rogers. EE: Was a chap called? BW: Rogers. EE: Yes, that’s right. BW: Do you recall his first name? It was R C Rogers, couldn’t - EE: Can’t recall it. BW: No problem. The flight engineer was Sergeant Haywood. EE: Yes. BW: And what was his first name. EE: Don’t know. BW: And there was a chap, he was an Aussie, the wireless operator called Woolmer. EE: Eric. BW: Eric. So, there were two Erics on your crew. EE: I saved his life. BW: Say again? EE: I saved his life, I got him out. BW: Really. EE: It was in the write up. You read the write up. BW: I ’ll ask you about that in a little while, um, do you recall any particularly memorable raids out of this lot? EE: Yes, this one. That one. BW: This is to Nuremburg. EE: I could never have done that again. I’d have gone LMF I think. BW: And, what was it that you particularly recall about that raid? EE: Well, we flew in to a mile squared of predicted flak. A mile square of predicted, imagine what that was like. BW: A mile square of predicted flak. So, it’s - EE: We had to fly though that to get to the target. It was impossible, but we got through. BW: And so, you could see, the rest of the crew could see this? You were obviously in the rear turret. EE: We cut all our Perspex out. We cut all ours out, from the top to the bottom so there was better sight. BW: I am just going to temporarily pause the recording because there is some background noise. BW: So, were you briefed about this particular flak hazard at Nuremburg, did you know about it beforehand. EE: No. They told us very little about this kind of thing. They didn’t tell us about the upward firing guns. BW: Schräge Musik EE: Never told us. There was a plane shot down in 1943 with complete, seventy-degree guns fitted, they didn’t tell us about it. BW: And, in terms of um, general preparation for a raid, just talk us through what, what would happen, from the base, from your point of view. You would attend a, a briefing about a raid, what, what sort of things went on? How did you — EE: Well, there were maps all over the wall. Loads of maps, you knew where you were going, and you just prepared for wherever it was [laughs]. Everybody moaned. BW: So, were there particular trips that everybody moaned about, particular targets that were notorious? EE: All the Ruhr targets. My three COs were killed on the one I was shot down on. Three COs killed there. BW: On the same raid? EE: Different raids. BW: Different raids, but same target? EE: Yes. Most heavily defended target in Germany. BW: Gosh. And why was that? What was significant about — EE: Dortmund-Ems Canal. BW: I see. You obviously knew your crew pretty well. How did you get to meet them? How did you crew up in the first place? EE: Just in the hall. Just crewed up. Found the pilot and found the navigator and we just crewed up. BW: Just got talking and liked the look of each other. There were only a couple of Aussies on your crew and yet it was an Australian squadron. EE: We were lucky. Best squadron of them all. No bullshit whatsoever. Superb squadron. Had the biggest losses of the war, my squadron. BW: I read that, yeah, the Australians and your particular squadron had the highest loss rate, probably because you had such heavy targets to go against. EE: Well, that’s it. We were 5 Group, which was one of the top groups. All the dirty work was done by us. BW: All the dirty work was done by 5 Group. Did they have a reputation amongst the air force separate from the other groups? EE: Yeah. BW: And what was that? EE: They were a bit gung-ho. BW: And was that, do you think, because of the mix of I don’t know, let’s say, colonial crew and squadrons — EE: I don’t know, I don’t know why. BW: What sort of preparations would you make before actually getting on board the aircraft and taking off? What, what kind of things would you do? Were there any mascots that you took, or rituals you had as a crew? EE: No, no. Just got on board and got on with it. BW: So, you weren’t a superstitious bunch at all? EE: No. Not that I knew of. I didn’t take anything. BW: And did you socialise as a crew on base as well? EE: Oh, always. I used to go out with my navigator. BW: And so, whereabouts did you go into? EE: Into Lincoln. All the pubs in Lincoln. BW: And what was that like? Were you treated well in the pubs? EE: Yeah, except in Yorkshire. They didn’t like us in York. BW: And why was that? EE: I don’t know [unclear]. BW: Mm. EE: But Lincoln was a stinking place. BW: Did you meet any of them before you joined the squadron, or did you meet the all at — EE: Met them all there, met them when, when we became a crew. BW: And what was your pilot, Joe, like? EE: Nice fellow. He was a year younger than I was, he was only twenty. BW: You were all young and Stanley was only nineteen at the time as well. So, you were all in your late teens, early twenties. EE: Yeah. BW: And what were you wearing as a rear gunner? There were electrically heated suits, did you have one? EE: Yeah. It was a silk suit, on your sort of skin and then underwear and a pullover and pants, and a denim overall, and an electric suit. The electric suits were useless. Used to short out and you’d get a red-hot leg and a cold one. Bloody useless. They never checked. BW: And how did you find your position in the, a rear turret of the Lancaster? They said they were made to get in to and not out of. Was it fairly cramped? EE: Yes, yeah. Very cramped, but there was space to do everything, except if you get a bad stoppage. BW: And did that ever happen? EE: Yeah. I had a separated case. BW: And how did you manage to clear the guns when you had the stoppage? EE: Well, you couldn’t, just isolate it. Stop the feed. BW: And the guns you were using at the time were the 303s, is that right? EE: 303’s, they were just being converted to the point fives when they got shot down. BW: Did you ever get the chance to use your guns in anger? EE: Yeah, I shot down a 110. BW: Really. EE: Yeah. BW: Talk us through that. What happened? EE: Well, he suddenly appeared about a hundred yards behind me. I say I shot him down, but I don’t know if I ever did, how can you tell at night? Anyway, he got a full, full load in the face. I got two that night, I hit two that night. I don’t know how many, I don’t know what happened to them. I never claimed them. BW: That’s interesting, that you managed to hit two separate aircraft and didn’t claim them. Why did you not go through the — EE: Well, how could I claim them, I just fired at them. BW: So, they didn’t go down in flames but they stopped their attack. EE: I don’t know, they could’ve done, you don’t wait around, do you? BW: No. EE: They’re both down there [pause], Brunswick. BW: Okay, op number eight over Brunswick. Two fighters, so actually on the same raid — EE: Yeah. One, I’m certain I got him. He was only about a hundred yards behind me. Hit him full on. I could see the pilot. BW: And, that’s a really close range for them to, to be attacking you. They’ve obviously come in to a very short distance before attacking, were there — EE: They didn’t realise. One night we were flying along a fighter between our tail plane. Flying along with us. Main partner tail plane, we suddenly looked and we both peeled off. BW: And so, because it’s at night, even, even so it was very difficult, so you were lucky in that case that you didn’t have a mid-air collision. EE: Yeah. BW: With a fighter between your tail plane [laughs]. Were there any other raids that were particularly eventful or memorable? For you. EE: All the Ruhr raids. BW: All of them on the Ruhr? EE: And when we got lost. BW: Wilhelmshaven? EE: We went to Bremerhaven by ourselves and then turned back and went to Wilhelmshaven by ourselves. Nearly got sent to Sheffield. You know about Sheffield, do you? BW: Not in detail, tell me about — EE: You don’t know Sheffield? BW: I know of the city but — EE: Nobody seemed to know about Sheffield. It was a punishment camp for aircrew. BW: I see. EE: An RAF punishment camp. BW: And this, presumably, was a result of you flying to um Bremen, instead of Wilhelmshaven, but you didn’t drop your bombs on the — EE: We did eventually. BW: But only on Wilhelmshaven. EE: No, we were going to Wilhelmshaven but we went to Bremerhaven. BW: Bremerhaven. EE: We turned around, we saw the fires so we turned back. Went to Wilhelmshaven and dropped them. BW: And, as a result of that, you were then sent to Sheffield which was a punishment — EE: We weren’t sent — BW: I see. EE: We were threatened with it. BW: You were threatened with the punishment camp? EE: Yeah. BW: And would that have applied to all the crew? Or just — EE: The whole crew. BW: Gosh. EE: People don’t know about Sheffield. It was, it was, an Army camp like a glass house. You got about a couple of weeks or a couple of months of strict discipline, then sent back to the squadron. But the Argies wouldn’t stand any of that nonsense. They had their own, no Argie was ever punished by the British. BW: I read somewhere that they were paid by their own government, not by the British. EE: They got twice the pay that we got. BW: So, did your pilot buy the rounds in the pub [laughs]. EE: No [laughs]. BW: [Pause]. And then, on your last mission, this was November 6th, 1944, and this was significant for a couple of reasons. Clearly this was going to be your last trip in a Lancaster, but you mentioned as well that you saved the wireless operators life, and there is a description in the book, or the memoir that you have put together. Would you just talk us through what happened on that, on that night? EE: It’s all written up there, yeah. BW: So, this is fairly early on. This is a target at the Dortmund-Ems canal system at Gravenhorst, and then you were hit by a night fighter, and this was just as you were on target, and it says that you were flying straight and level with a bomb load of fourteen, one thousand-pound bombs of high explosive, and the impact was just behind, your, your turret. EE: Yeah. BW: And so, can you describe what was happening at that particular point, did you see the fighter? EE: No, he was underneath. He was way, far away, he would be under, under the main bar. BW: And so, you didn’t see the fighter because it came underneath, behind your turret, and — EE: We didn’t start firing until they were seventy degrees, so if you took an aircraft and you were firing here, and I was here — [background noise]. BW: OK. I’m just going to pause the recording for a moment briefly, partly ‘cos of background noise but just to have a quick look through the description too. So, there are bullets coming through the fuselage behind you, and your turret is partly rotated to the beam position you said. Can you describe what you recall next? EE: We were trying to get out through one door, with the seat back, I got out and didn’t touch the sides, went out like a ‘rat up a spout’, into the fuselage and found the wireless operator. The mid upper came down and he told us to grab the— BW: And the mid upper got hit in the second attack by the — EE: Yeah, cut him in two, right through the middle we stepped over to the osam position. Obviously, they had all gone on the first attack, apparently everybody had gone. I don’t blame them for going, we were still there. BW: I’m just going to pause this one moment, we’ll just continue, there was some background noise. And at this point in the raid, you said there were a number of others that had already got out and you didn’t blame them. There was you and the wireless operator left in the aircraft, is that right? EE: And the mid upper. BW: And the mid upper? And you describe in your account how you got him out, with the aid of a foot in the back? EE: Yeah. I got him on the step. He passed out on the floor and I dragged him to the step and kicked him out, a hand and a leg over the step and pushed him out. I never told him. BW: He survived the bail out, but he was unconscious when you pushed him out. EE: Yeah. BW: Was the aircraft still straight and level or was it going down gently? EE: I don’t remember, she was going down. Then suddenly she banked and caught me. I got trapped. BW: And you were pinned against the fuselage by the seat by G force. EE: That’s right, he’d gone. BW: And there was nobody else in the aircraft at this point. EE: I was the last one. Had a minute and a half to go according to records, before she hit the deck. BW: And so, the aircraft is in a steep dive, your pinned to the roof of the fuselage— EE: Right opposite, I could see the door below me. BW: And, at a critical point, the aircraft banked— EE: She banked, let go of me and away I went. Hit the tail plane going down [laughs]. BW: And at that point, the aircraft banked, did you go straight through the door, or did you have to crawl to it and get out? EE: I don’t know. I don’t remember. And then I hit the tail plane. BW: And you were lucky, in the sense that you had a seat pack parachute — EE: Yeah. BW: Most gunners, fitted their chute to the side of the aircraft. EE: Yeah BW: Did you have choice to have a seat pack? EE: No. Just issue. Very lucky, been lucky all my life. Very lucky man. BW: And it saved your life in that respect. EE: Yeah. BW: And, the hit against the tail plane didn’t knock you out. Did it injure you? EE: No, I hit it with my back. I remember I was crouched up, and I straightened me up and skidded over the top of it, and after that I don’t remember much. BW: You managed to pull the chute. EE: Yeah. BW: Did you see any of the other crew in their chutes? EE: No, no. BW: There were two other aircraft lost on that raid, that same night. EE: Four altogether. BW: Four altogether? EE: We were the only ones that survived. BW: So, the others went down and the crews were all killed? EE: Yeah. BW: And, were you given an order to bail out by the pilot? EE: No, no, they’d gone. BW: So, there was no order, they sensed the attack because of the bullets hitting the aircraft and they just took their own decision to go. EE: Yeah. They may have got an order to go, but I didn’t get one. They probably did, I don’t know. BW: Do you know roughly what height it was when you bailed out? EE: No. No idea. BW: How long do you think you were in the chute before you landed? EE: No idea. I can’t remember now, too long ago. Not very long [pause]. BW: You then landed on your backside, it says here. EE: Yeah. BW: And I think you had another lucky escape, where you landed. EE: I did. BW: Just, can you explain why that was? EE: Just sheer luck. Sheer good luck. BW: Were there sharpened spikes in the field? EE: Yeah, they had trees sharpened, planted in the field. BW: Trees, planted in the field, that were sharpened, specifically to stop guys like you landing there. EE: Yeah [laughs]. BW: And, out of all of that, you missed all of them. EE: Yeah [laughs]. BW: So, you’re now down, and safe, in the sense that you have survived, but you are in Germany. EE: Yeah. BW: What did you do next? EE: Started looking for somewhere to hide. BW: And, you describe here that you started to run, but you ended up in a bog. EE: Yeah, lost me boots. BW: Both boots? EE: One boot. BW: One boot. And, you tried to shelter in a, in a wood. EE: Yeah. BW: Can you recall, how it felt at this point? EE: I didn’t believe I was in Germany. I just hoped I was somewhere else, but obviously was in Germany, but you just hope against hope you’re not. BW: Did you find any of the escape kit that you were given useful? EE: Oh, yes, I ate the Horlicks tablet and the chocolate. BW: And, at this point, you were on your own, you didn’t run into any of the other crewmen. EE: No. BW: And you were trying to avoid Germans and dogs. EE: Yeah [laughs]. BW: And you ended up by a jet fighter base? EE: Yeah. BW: What was going through your mind at this point, do you think? EE: To get away from the jet fighter base as quick as possible. BW: And shortly after that you were — EE: I’d been attacked by a jet over [unclear], 262’s, over Brunswick. BW: Over Brunswick? EE: Yeah, over Brunswick. BW: And was that a daylight raid at the time? EE: No, night. BW: Night? EE: It was over Bremen, Bremen. Five fighters [pause]. Went to Bergen in Norway as well. BW: So, there’s a possibility, perhaps, that when those five fighters had intercepted you at night, and those jets that you had seen attacking you — EE: Yeah. BW: Possibly were from that base that you were now sat in front of. EE: Yeah. BW: What prompted your decision to approach a farmhouse? EE: Well, I had been three days out, absolutely soaked, would have died of the cold, never stopped raining. So, I had to approach somebody, I would have died of exposure otherwise. BW: Can you recall the moment that you knocked on the door? EE: Yes, old lady came to the door and an old guy, they were obviously the mother and father of the farmer. I saw a picture of Hitler on the wall. I knew they were German and that was it. BW: And how did they treat you? EE: Okay. They were a bit frightened of me. They were worried about me, as one would be. BW: Were you able to communicate with them at all? EE: No. I said I was an Englishfleger BW: You said simply that you were an Englishfleger EE: That’s right. BW: And from your account, they must have called somebody who then came to arrest you. EE: Yeah. BW: Can you talk us through that period? EE: Well, this guy, this fella came through in a very resplendent uniform, he was a forest warden. And err, he took me off to the pub, dragged me through the wood, which I’ve since then I’ve followed my route, I’ve been back to Germany. Followed my route, and he dragged me through the woods and then he took me in to the pub to show me off to his pals, and then the Luftwaffe came for me. BW: And were you still in the pub when the Luftwaffe turned up? EE: Yeah. BW: And what happened? EE: Well, they put me in a cell and then eventually I finished up on the Dortmund, on one of the canals. BW: So, were you imprisoned at this, at this point? EE: Not really. It was a guard house. BW: It was a guard house by the canal? EE: That’s right. BW: That you actually been attacking near the canal, you said it was the Dortmund-elms canal. EE: I don’t think it was the Dortmund. BW: Was it not? And you mentioned that there was an American pilot brought in. EE: No, he was already in there. BW: He was already there. EE: Yeah, all his face was bandaged and his hand. BW: And an American thunderbolt pilot joined you as well. EE: Yeah, he was okay, he wasn’t injured at all. He would just curse. BW: How did he take to being captured? EE: Very badly, very badly [laughs]. BW: And then you were taken by train to Frankfurt — EE: To Oberusal and to Dulagluft. BW: And put straight in an air raid shelter, ‘cos there was an air raid going on. EE: Yeah. BW: What did that feel like, being under an allied air raid, that only a few days before you would have been — EE: Whilst I was in, I was bombed by the Americans, the Russians, the British and the Germans during my full-time service. BW: So, at this stage then, you are in Dulagluft and you have been ordered to fill out information, and it seems they weren’t quite convinced you were RAF, is that right? EE: Well, they always do this [unclear], tried to frighten you. BW: Did it work? EE: Yeah. BW: There were um, rules about information you were able to give — EE: Name, rank and number. BW: And how effective were those rules do you think. EE: God, I just told them my name rank and number, that’s it. BW: And you weren’t mistreated because of holding to that? EE: No. BW: But you were put in a cell with a radiator at the end of it — EE: That’s right. BW: That, that was turned hot and then cold. EE: Yeah. BW: Seems pretty grim. EE: Wasn’t too bad. There was a lot worse. BW: ‘cause you had met people who had been injured — EE: Yeah. BW: And then been captured. EE: Yeah BW: And the food was not much to go by, was it? EE: Oh God, no. BW: Can you describe what they fed you? EE: Yeah, two pieces of black bread and some watery soup, that was it. BW: And this was very thin bread. EE: Yeah. BW: And nothing to look forward to there for a meal each day? And somebody lent you a book while you were in there. EE: Yes, the fellow opposite. They opened the door and this bloke pushed a book across, it was Zane Gray, western. BW: Zane Gray, western. Did the guard do anything, did they see it? EE: They didn’t notice, just the door opened and he pushed it across. BW: And was that the first contact you’d had with anybody? EE: Yeah. Anybody from England. I don’t know who the guy was. BW: And how did it feel? Did it give you a bit of hope knowing there was some others in there? EE: Well, I suppose so. BW: At, at this point, you snuck a shave when you shouldn’t have done apparently. EE: Yeah [laughs], I went down the [unclear], waved my book and he sent me down to the library at the end, saw these, these blokes shaving so I joined them, and had a good wash and shave. BW: And apparently having a wash and a shave was only a privilege not a — EE: You had to, had to chat with them. BW: And the colonel who was in charge of holding you, was not very impressed with that was he? EE: He wasn’t. He went berserk. BW: And then then there’s an interesting incident here, where a German officer told you that you were going to be shipped out to a POW camp, asked you to swear an oath that you would not escape. EE: Yeah, he got shouted down and that, it was a stupid thing to say to us. BW: And were you all taken out and lined up at this point? EE: We were in a group, in a big room. BW: And am I right in thinking that this was must have been the first time you had seen all the other prisoners together? EE: Oh yeah, Americans and British and Canadians, Aussies and everybody, all mixed up. BW: How did it feel, being, you know, in a larger group of your — EE: Very impressed, hearing English spoken again. BW: You were then taken by train and packed into trucks um, and then during the trip, you stopped at some marshalling yards at Ham. What happened there? EE: We got bombed by the Americans. BW: Your guards deserted you, didn’t they? EE: Oh yes, they locked the carriage and buggered off. BW: And so. You’re all trapped in the railway carts while — EE: And they were all jumping off the bloody rails. The damn thing was jumping off. BW: Because of the concussion of the explosion? EE: Yeah. BW: So eventually, after the best part of a week, five days and six nights you say here, you arrived at Stalagluft 7 — EE: That’s it. BW: At Bankau, and you managed to get some boots and a great coat. EE: A polish hat. A new American great coat, new boots, and a Polish hat and that was it, oh, and a pipe. BW: A pipe as well? And you’ve still got it. EE: Yeah. BW: And this looks just like a regular pipe but it’s got the inscription — EE: I put that on, carved it with a razor blade. BW: And you carved an air gunners brevet, into the bulb of the pipe, with 463 squadron on it. EE: Yeah. BW: Do you still smoke it? EE: No. BW: Did you still smoke it after you came out of service? EE: No. BW: Just kept it as a souvenir? EE: Yeah BW: It’s wonderful. And how did you manage to find boots that fit you? EE: Well, they, they made sure they fitted. We got underwear as well, we got underwear and socks and things. BW: So, the Germans issued you this or was it —. EE: Oh, yes, it was all American. BW: Was there any indication where they got it from? EE: The Americans. Obviously, it was all American, new American army. Boots saved my bloody life. BW: So, you were issued with underwear, socks, shirts, towels, comb, toothbrush, razor, razor blades and the pipe which you’ve shown that you still have, and this that your showing — EE: A dog tag. BW: Is a dog tag, which is about two inch long by one-inch wide, and it’s numbered one, two, four, zero, and German initials, which presumably are standing for Krieg — EE: Fangelager. BW: Kriegsgefangenenlager. D — EE: Number seven. BW: D dot, LW, dot number seven. And it’s inscribed top and bottom — EE: I broke it in half. If you died, they broke it in half and buried one half with you and the other went to records. BW: I see. So, there’s, there’s a hole in each corner, apart from one, and there are serrations in the middle, and so the inscription is top and bottom of this and, as you say, is used if the prisoner happens to die, then they separate the two halves and send one half back and bury the other with you. Fortunately, they never had to use that. EE: No, now here’s my — BW: And, now this is your Caterpillar Club card. Name, Flight Sergeant E Evans. Am I right in thinking that you had to return your chute handle to get one of those? EE: No. BW: No? EE: [Unclear] as a squadron, says here. Letter’s in here. BW: Okay, and a bit of luck I suppose, in the sense that you arrived at your prison camp just before Christmas. EE: [Laughs] yeah. BW: You describe getting Red Cross parcels. EE: Yeah, the only one we ever got. BW: And was that, do you think, because the Germans were intercepting them, or they were just no — EE: Well, when we left, we left ten thousand in a place nearby, ten thousand parcels we should have had. BW: And it sounds as though, from what you’re saying, that the Germans kept them and just used them for themselves and didn’t distribute them [Pause]. And there was a brew made for Christmas with raisins and prunes. EE: I don’t know who made it. Some of the old lags. BW: And it sounds pretty potent. EE: [Laughs], it was, make you go blind. BW: How would you describe life in the prison camp at that point? EE: Boring. BW: What did you do to relieve the boredom? EE: Nothing. Nothing, bloody boring. Just walked round and round and round the perimeter by the trip wire. BW: When you mention the trip wire, what springs to mind perhaps, is a scene in the Great Escape where there’s sort of a trip wire in front of the fence, was it accurate what they portrayed? EE: Yeah, you just didn’t go over the trip wire. Got shot by the guards. One fella did get shot. BW: And do you think that was because he’d had enough or was he trying to escape or — EE: He’d had enough. BW: And by this stage the war is coming to a close. We know this retrospectively, but at this time — EE: Well, there was another six months to go. BW: And the Russians were advancing. EE: Through the Vistula. Always the Vistula. We were jammed between the Russians and the Oder and the Vistula. We were trapped in the middle, so they had to get us over the Oder before the Russians got us. BW: And just describe, if you can, that period where, where, the Germans decide to evacuate the camp. EE: Well, what can you do? You’ve got to go, you’ve no choice. BW: Did they tell you what was happening? EE: No. We thought we were going to be shot. We thought they were going to take us to us a wood somewhere and shoot us. BW: Did they order you out of the huts in to the — EE: Yeah, in to the main compound. Told us we would be leaving in half an hour. The previous night we had been bombed by the Russians, the camp was bombed. BW: Were there any hits in the camp or was it just around — EE: No. No. BW: And, so, you start walking, and you mentioned previously that it was about a three-week trip. Can you describe the conditions with the sort of weather or the terrain or — EE: Well, it was the worst weather for fifty years in Germany. Twenty below and we were living out. They were rushing to get us over the Oder before they blew the bridges. We were the last people over the Oder, they blew the bridges after we got over. BW: And you joined a long line of columns, you mentioned people fleeing the Russians. EE: They didn’t get over the Oder. They were turned left, just turned the off and then blew the bridges. We were the last people over the Oder. BW: So you were given preference over the civilians to cross the river. EE: Well, they wanted to get us away from the Russians. Civilians, they didn’t give a damn about them. BW: And you pitched up at a brick works and it seems like a bit of black humour here, where there was German aircraft attacking and — EE: Yeah. We saw the columns, and we used to look up and [laughs] there were black crosses on them and they were one of ours. BW: By this stage you were saying, ‘it’s one of ours’, and on the 8th of Feb you arrived at StalagLuft 3-A Luckenwalde near Potsdam, and the Germans were looking for volunteers, is that right, to join their forces? EE: No, that was previous, that was at the first camp. BW: Oh, I see. EE: Oh, at Luckenwalde, that’s right, they were. They were, that’s right yes [unclear]. I’d forgotten. BW: And there were Russian prisoners there too, but they were badly treated. EE: Yeah, different compound. There were thirty thousand when we camped. BW: And again, harsh conditions in that there was no bunk or beds to sleep on, just straw, and no food as such, no medicine. EE: And they brought the prisoners in from the Ardennes, the Americans came in and they had new accommodation for them, put them under canvas. There’s a picture of them in here [taps]. BW: Let’s have look. There’s a picture in the scrap book that you’ve got [pause]. EE: They’re there. BW: I see, so these are large, I suppose, marquee style tents — EE: Yeah. BW: There would be several dozen to a tent. And the pictures show prisoners just sat around on the ground around fires, trying to keep warm and cook food. There looks to be clothes hung on the fence as well on the — EE: Yeah. BW: Where did you get the photograph from? EE: A bloke took them, and he, I gave him my address and he sent them to me after the war. BW: There’s a photograph of a football match going on too. EE: Yeah [laughs]. BW: And a picture of Russian soldiers. And I think you describe, when the Russians turned up, that Zhukov’s forces were pretty professional and disciplined. EE: Oh, they were, it was all the ‘rag, tag and bobtail’ that came in afterwards. They wanted to jump on the tanks and go to Berlin with them. We were the last camp to be liberated and we were passaged to Berlin, about twenty miles away. We just had to ‘bugger off’. BW: And so they left you for their err, second line, or reserve forces to pick up. EE: Yeah. BW: But you felt they were much more poorly disciplined. EE: They were just ‘rag, tag and bobtail’. No rations. No official rations. BW: And then there’s a letter here, ‘senior British officer communicating the following in writing to the Russian authorities today the 7th of May’ — EE: We were held hostage for a month by the Russians, that’s why I escaped. BW: And so, the Russians took over the camp, and, and this is at the point that Zhukov had arrived and you stood right beside —. EE: Marshall Zhukov. BW: What, what, did he look like, can you describe him? EE: Not really, one of the guys had trouble firing his gun, so he jumped down and fired it for him. BW: So, the firing of the gun was presumably to, was it to keep people back or was it just a celebration? EE: No, it was a firing of the salute to the [unclear]. BW: I see. Were you able to communicate in any way, with the Russians at all? EE: No. they were savages. BW: And was that through their temperaments or their — EE: They were peasants. BW: So, these weren’t the professional soldiers that you’d seen, these were the ‘rag, tag’ ones you mentioned. EE: Yeah, millions of them. BW: And, on the 21sth of April 1945, there was a battle nearby, and you were watching dog fights between American Air Cobras, Russian Yaks, and Stormaviks, a German fighter. That sounds quite a melee, completely disorganised. EE: [laughs] Yeah. BW: And you were lucky not to be hit by the shell fire and tanks, and fighters strafing the camp. EE: Well, the bombers were coming over at night as well. They were dropping on Berlin. There was a short fall of twenty mile [unclear], so we used to dig in. I was a month late getting home from Germany, I was held by the Russians. BW: And what was, what was happening during that time? EE: Well, they were just ignoring the fact that we were prisoners of war. BW: And the point you mentioned, the Russian troops were trying to persuade you to join them, you refused and they fired over your head. EE: Well, that was when we were, the Americans sent the trucks to enter the camp. BW: And it was at this point or thereabouts, that you, and a Canadian and two other Brits decided to make a run for it. EE: We did. Let ourselves out of the camp, and took off. The most dangerous thing I ever did. Stupid really. We just got fed up being amongst the, we thought we were going back home through Russia, God knows what would have happened then, I would never have been seen again. BW: So, it was a real fear that you were going to be held properly captive by the Russians — EE: Oh yeah. BW: Not just temporarily. EE: Yeah. BW: And you picked up err, or rather, you describe a man coming towards you on a bike, it turns out he was a British soldier. EE: Yeah. He’s still in Germany, took over a farm [laughs]. BW: And he met a girl and was quite keen on living in Germany still. EE: Yeah. There were a few of them. BW: And then, trying to cross the river Mulde, you were at a ferry point and a sort of KGB type officer appeared and persuaded the ferryman to take you across. EE: Yeah [unclear] we were just wondering whether to throw him in the water, the German, we had no need to. BW: You ended up in an abandoned inn and met some Russians there, who insisted on feeding you, and, plying you with beer. EE: Schnapps, schnapps, there was no beer. BW: Just schnapps. The atmosphere seems to have changed a lot. EE: Well, they were just Russian troops, they were quite friendly [laughs]. Told them we were American. BW: And, so, these must have been the regular professional soldiers perhaps? EE: Well, I don’t know [unclear]. BW: And what was the town major like that you met? EE: Well, she was ok, a woman, a middle aged, sort of, no, late thirties I would say. BW: And she had a few grenades with her, didn’t she? EE: A belt full of ammunition. A belt with grenades, very fearsome looking. BW: A fearsome looking woman with a belt full of grenades. EE: Yeah. BW: And this is pretty close to the full end of the war now and you are um, moved on, and given bicycles, and you met a young German girl. What happened there? EE: Yeah. Well, she was obviously going to be raped by the Russians, so we took her with us, took her to the Russian, err, American lines. Got her through in the American sector. Very lucky, you couldn’t get, once you got to the Americans, the Russian wouldn’t let anybody across, people, one fella swam and got drowned, trying to get across. We just walked across with our bicycle. BW: There was no bridge at this point I think you said, because— EE: The bridge was down. BW: And so, when you say “walk across”, what — EE: We climbed up, rope ladder — BW: And were there remnants of the bridge, perhaps rails or whatever — EE: It was just collapsed. Huge iron bridge, huge metal bridge. BW: And so, you clambered across the steel structure across the river, is that right? EE: Yeah. BW: And, even though you had to push through the, or pass, the guards at this point, from your description, is that right? EE: Yeah. BW: And you weren’t stopped. So, you managed to get this girl across — EE: They didn’t stop us, threw her bike in the air and we were on our way. Someone took a film of it, an American took a film of it so somewhere there’s a film of it. BW: And what sort of welcome did you get on the other side? EE: Oh, wonderful. Food and drink and cigarettes, as much as you want. BW: And how did the girl feel when she got across? EE: Well, we handed her over to the Americans, they took her to a DP Camp. BW: A displaced person’s camp, a DP camp. EE: Yeah, and she was safe. BW: And so, you, you were obviously well treated by the Americans — EE: Oh, very well. BW: Well stocked, and then you flew out of Germany on Dakotas, landed in Brussels you say, and you were talking with an old soldier, but what was your view? EE: I want to get home, as quick as possible. He was left for weeks, you’d get ten pounds a day. BW: And you just wanted to get home. EE: Wanted to get home. BW: How did you manage that? EE: Well, just queued up the next morning, shouted my name, and away I went. BW: And you, you arrived back by Dakota into the UK. EE: Yeah. BW: How did that feel after all that you had been through? EE: Can’t remember now, felt good obviously. BW: And, so, you’re, you’re back in the UK, what, what happened from that point up to being demobbed? EE: I wasn’t demobbed then. BW: Not at that point, but between arriving back in the UK — EE: I took over prison camps. I ran prison camps. BW: And, so, you had a long leave and returned to run two camps for German POW’s, one at Woodvale which is not that far from here, near Southport and the second one was a maintenance unit at Bramcote in Warwickshire. EE: That’s right. BW: You mentioned before, and it says here that you joined afterwards the 40th Kings Royal Tank Regiment and served for six years as a troop commander. EE: Yeah. BW: What, what led you to join the Army at that point? EE: Because of the rotten treatment I had from the RAF. BW: And — EE: All my thanks were, a couple of weeks before I left the RAF, I was stripped down to a sergeant. BW: Really? EE: Yeah, and that was my thanks. BW: And what was that for? EE: Oh, God knows. BW: So, you’d been through all that, and been a, I think you were a flight sergeant, you weren’t commissioned during your service, were you? EE: No. BW: So, you had been a senior NCO and promoted up to warrant officer, and then the thanks you got from the RAF, as you put it, was to be then stripped down to sergeant. EE: That was it, no thanks. BW: And they didn’t give you a reason for that? EE: No. BW: Understandably, that must have been pretty galling. EE: It was. Of course, it was only a couple of weeks before I left the service, so I was a warrant officer for about a year. Best rank in the service. BW: And what, what gives you the view of it being the best rank do you have? EE: Well, you’re neither “fish nor fowl”. BW: [Laughs]. EE: All aircrew should have been commissioned. It would have given us better rights under the Geneva Convention and a decent pension in the very likely event of your demise on ops. We were all doing the same job. Do you know seventy five percent, twenty five percent of air crew were commissioned, seventy five percent weren’t? Of the gallantry medals, seventy five percent went to the commissioned, twenty five percent went to us. Seventy five percent. That’s how fair it was. BW: And in general, the rule was that, the reason airmen were given the rank of sergeant when the joined aircrew, was to at least guarantee them better treatment as prisoners. EE: Yeah, but we were all doing the same job. Why commissioned? BW: Yeah, and there were even, on your crew, there was a mix, one of them, I think the pilot, was a flying officer, and the rest were all NCO’s weren’t they? EE: Yeah. BW: And the rule has changed in the post war years, that all aircrew now have to be — EE: That’s not the rule. BW: Have to be officers. EE: I have something else to write. BW: So, you decided to join the Army. EE: Yeah. BW: Did you experience a better appreciation of you as an individual in the Army? EE: Yeah, yeah. The Army was an established service with proper ranks. Proper rules and regulations, good background. BW: And you didn’t have to go through any other training, did you? Apart from trade training as a tank commander. EE: I went to the War Office Selection Board to enlist. BW: And they put you forward and you became — EE: To be a lieutenant, and then a captain, a substantive captain. BW: And where were you based during that time? EE: Bootle, near here, it was a TA regiment. BW: At Bootle? EE: Yeah. BW: And how did you find the um, your colleagues, your Army mates, how were they? Officers’ final dinner. This is a — EE: Well, we were disbanded. BW: Right. Monty’s Foxhounds, your troops called. What sort of tanks did you use? Lieutenant E Evans yeah? Presentation of the colour on the 11th of April 1954, this is a sort of service, an order of parade document. Did Montgomery, as Commandant of the regiment, did he attend this parade at all? EE: No. Err, Err, Lord Whatsername did it. Can’t think of his name, a Liverpool man. BW: Just pause the recording there for the background noise. I say, I’m looking here for the official who attended the parade when you were at Bootle. Presentation of the colours. EE: We had to learn sword drill for this. BW: You had to learn how to salute with a sword, there’s a way of doing it isn’t there? EE: Yeah, the new colours. BW: Uh- huh. EE: Can’t think who it was. BW: And what do you recall of your time with the troop? Was it all home service? You weren’t sent abroad anywhere? EE: No, we used to go to camps every year, firing camps and tactical camps. It was good, Comets and Centurions. BW: Comets and Centurions. EE: Yeah. BW: And did you enjoy that? EE: Great, yeah, I would still have been there but they disbanded that regiment. That was the final dinner. BW: Hmmm. And what happened after you then left the Army in 1956? EE: I was working for my father, in his business. I was a sales manager. BW: You were working for your father, and what was his business? EE: A motor business. BW: I see, selling motor cars? EE: Yes, and a workshop. Quite a big business actually. BW: And how long did you stick at that? EE: About ten years. Then we fell out and I started my own company. Had four businesses, I finished up with four. BW: Right. And what were they? EE: [Unclear], ship repair business, hydraulic business and workshop, machine shop. BW: Right, that’s quite a broad base of business to have. Four business in com, in pretty different sectors, so, and you had all those four companies, for twenty, thirty years maybe? EE: Yeah. BW: And through all that time, you were presumably married, there’s a lot of family photos in your house. EE: Yeah, three girls. BW: Three girls? EE: My wife died about ten years ago. BW: Uh-huh. EE: All three daughters are still alive. I’ve got nine great grandchildren now. BW: (laughs) And do you see them regularly? EE: Oh yes, my daughter will be here very shortly. BW: So, how have you err, heard about the commemorations of Bomber Command, and what do you think of the activities to now try and restore a bit of err, pride or honour to Bomber Command? EE: Well, the RAF ignored them after the war. Totally. He and Churchill, they turned their backs on us. No doubt about that, everybody said ‘shouldn’t you mention Bomber Command’ and they all came up with the bloody target in Germany. I was very sick of it. BW: How do you feel about the recent recognition in — EE: Well, it’s about time, fifty-five thousand of us died. Biggest loss of the war. BW: Mm. EE: Much bigger than the first world war even. BW: And its err, at least commemorating you and your comrades and what, what you did. Have you seen, you went to the unveiling last year. How was that? EE: Yes. BW: How did you feel about that? EE: It was okay. BW: Yeah, it doesn’t seem fair does it, that there’s, there was only a clasp awarded for it? EE: It was ridiculous, a bloody insult. BW: Well, I think Eric, that is all the questions I have for you. EE: Do you want to look through there? BW: I will have a look through your, your scrap book, I will just pause the recording. Now this is an interesting telegram, it’s, is that from Liverpool to British Army staff at Washington DC, or is it that other way around? EE: Not it’s from my mother — BW: From your mum? EE: In Liverpool, to tell my father. BW: And your mum was Madge? EE: That’s it. BW: And you father was abroad at the time, was he? EE: He was on the British Army staff in Washington [unclear]. BW: So, you mentioned he’d been a major in the Army, was he still in the Army all the way through the war. EE: Yes. You can see a photograph of him later on. BW: There’s a photograph of him? EE: My mother and my eldest brother. BW: That’s it, mother and eldest brother, who was in the Navy. Now this is a, this is quite a service family photograph, there’s five of you, including, your, well there’s three sons in the family and your father and mother. EE: Yeah. BW: Your father’s in his Army uniform, there’s you and your middle brother in your RAF uniform and your older brother in the middle of both of you, stood in the middle of both of you, in his Navy uniform. What rank was he in the Navy? EE: Lieutenant. BW: And your other brother is wearing an observers brevet. EE: That’s right. BW: What did he get up to in the — EE: Navigator. BW: Navigator. EE: On the squadron at Waterbeach. That’s the guy that saved his life. BW: Yourself and the wireless operator, taken, taken on D Day. EE: Yeah. BW: And that looks like he’s wearing the Australian uniform. EE: It’s a bit dark. BW: It’s a bit darker than the RAF one, EE: Better quality. BW: And did you keep in touch with him after the war? EE: No. BW: Do you know what’s happened to him since, not heard a thing or anything through associations or — EE: No. That was a TA, he became a general. General Sir Richard Lawson. BW: Sir Richard Lawson! And he sat across a table from you? EE: Yeah, he was my adjutant, Dicky Lawson. BW: [Laughs]. EE: He did very well. BW: So, he must have transferred regiment then, presumably, if your unit had been — EE: He was a regular adjutant. BW: He was a regular adjutant, I see, so you were in the TA branch. EE: [Unclear] BW: Then there’s pictures here of a V1, EE: Yeah, a piloted one. BW: A piloted one. EE: Yeah. I saw a V2 launch. BW: Where did you see that? EE: In Poland BW: In Poland? EE: Yeah. BW: So, was this — EE: On the march. BW: Actually during the march? EE: Yeah. We got to Sargan and we saw it launch. It went crazy. BW: So, when we see the archive footage of these rockets going off, and there’s a few that do spin off and crash into the ground, and this was one that did, was it? It was lucky it didn’t come over your way and — EE: We were a few miles away. BW: I bet you could hear the bang from where you were. EE: Yeah. BW: And this photo is of May Schmeling. EE: That’s Max Schmeling. BW: Max Schmeling. EE: He was a world championship boxer. BW: Who visited at Stalag 3-A Luckenwalde in the uniform of a paratrooper, 3rd March 1945. Did you get to speak to him? EE: Yeah, he gave me his autograph. BW: What was your impression of him? EE: He was all right, very broad. BW: That must be your wife. EE: Yes [laughs]. BW: I’m just going to pause the recording. I was just going to say, this is a — EE: An AVM BW: An Air Vice Marshall who has his own sort of service medals, stood with you, and where was the unveiling? EE: At Green Park. BW: At Green Park, so this would be in 2012 in London. EE: Yeah. BW: There are, it looks like, these, these must be the, the Germans there are some names here — EE: I took a trip back. Went to the Dortmund Ems canal. BW: I’ll just pause that again. May I just briefly ask you, the scrap book contains details of your visit to Germany. How did it feel, going back, and re-tracing your route? EE: Very interesting actually, because there was. This is a telegram. BW: Yeah. And you actually met the pilot of the— EE: No, I didn’t meet him, I didn’t want to. BW: I see, I was just seeing a photo of a German pilot there. EE: I didn’t meet him. BW: You didn’t. I see. Was it, did he happen to be at an event that you were also at EE: This is an escape photograph. BW: I see. EE: Have you seen those? BW: These are your escape photos. ‘Escape photos, issued to air crew, and the only personal things taken on ops’, it says here under description, ‘the photographs were to be used on forged identity documents etc, in the event of an escape or invasion. It was always difficult to obtain photos for this purpose, there were extra copies left at base, usually only two were carried. Note: unshaven appearance to add authenticity to photos’. EE: [unclear] typical. BW: And so, these were actually taken in civilian clothes because of course, then they can be used on forged documents, but it never came to that though, did it? EE: No. BW: And you went back and visited the graves of Sandy who’s your navigator, and Stan, the mid upper gunner, in Germany, seems you’ve been back a couple of times, is that right? EE: I only went back once. BW: You only went back once? And the barn demolished, it shows here, by the impact of the Lancaster when it came down. And they’ve managed to recover a prop, or a prop blade. EE: Yeah. And a wheel. BW: And a wheel. Wonderful, well, as I say, thank you very much for your time, Eric. If there is anything else you would like to add, by all means, but I shall end the recording there if its ok with you. There’s a picture of, there’s a coloured drawing of a camp. 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 Eric Evans Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brian Wright Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-03-31 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AEvansE160331, PEvansE1602 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 British Army Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:53:53 audio recording Description An account of the resource Eric Evans was born in 1923 in Liverpool and was 16 years old when war broke out. He served in the Royal Air Force, serving with 463 RAAF Squadron, starting from the rank of sergeant and rising to a warrant officer on leaving the service, before joining the Royal Tank Regiment, rising to the rank of captain. At the age of 16, Eric had an apprenticeship as an indentured apprentice marine engineer at Liverpool docks, however he wanted to serve. He was classed as being in a reserved occupation so, therefore, could only volunteer as aircrew. Eric flew Avro Ansons, Vickers Wellingtons, before moving on to Short Stirlings with 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Wigsley, where he trained as a rear gunner. He then flew Avro Lancasters with 463 RAAF Squadron at RAF Waddington. He flew missions to France, Nuremburg, Dortmund-Ems canal, Brunswick and targets in the Ruhr. Eric was shot down on 6 November 1944 and was taken prisoner of war, and he tells of his escape from the camp when it was liberated by the Russian forces. After returning to the United Kingdom, Eric ran the Prisoner of War Camps, before leaving the Royal Air Force and joining the 40th Kings Royal Tank Regiment, where he served six years as a Troop Commander. Eric left the Army in 1956 and worked for his father as a salesman in the motor car industry. He started his own business and built up another 3 which he ran for approximately 30 years until he retired. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Vivienne Tincombe Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Merseyside England--Cheshire England--Gloucestershire England--Leicestershire England--Lincolnshire England--Nottinghamshire England--Shropshire England--Yorkshire Northern Ireland--Down (County) England--Liverpool France Germany Germany--Nuremberg Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal Germany--Braunschweig Germany--Ruhr (Region) 14 OTU 1654 HCU 463 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson bale out Caterpillar Club Dulag Luft Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Me 110 military service conditions Operational Training Unit prisoner of war RAF Bishops Court RAF Bridgnorth RAF Bridlington RAF Market Harborough RAF Padgate RAF Syerston RAF Waddington RAF Wigsley Stalag 3A Stalag Luft 7 Stirling the long march training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/343/3510/PVarneyE1501.2.jpg 2004f976156c1d3b87093033ead86f89 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/343/3510/AVarneyE150629.1.mp3 e637761d9a1110a451a0ad8d9c4cc084 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 Varney, Eric E Varney Description An account of the resource Four items. One oral history interview with Eric Varney (1925 - 2015) and three photographs. 28 operations as a mid upper gunner with 207 Squadron from RAF Spilsby. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Eric Varney and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-06-29 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Varney, E Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document AM. Ok then Eric, this interview is being conducted by the International Bomber Command Centre and the interviewer is me Annie Moody, obviously you are Eric Varley and this interview is taking place at MrVarneys’ home at Wath Upon Dearne on the 28th no, the 29th of June 2015. So if we start can you just confirm your date and place of birth? EV. My date of birth was February 25. AM. And where were you born Eric? EV. West Maldon in fact about three or four hundred yards from where I am living now. AM. And what sort of thing, what did your Mum and Dad, what was your family background? EV. Well, my Dad was a miner all his life, he lived to about seventy one. My Mum lived to about the same time, she died of pneumonia and that’s it, well I had three brothers, there were four of us, all lads. AM. Were you youngest, oldest? EV I was the second oldest, the older one he later joined the army. I served with the RAF, my next younger brother served with the RAF and the youngest brother served with the RAF. AM. All four of you? EV. All four of us passed for Grammar School as well, broke a record. AM. Excellent, so how did you come to be in Bomber Command then? EV. I just decided I wanted to fly. So I went to Sheffield and joined up, well asked to join the RAF. Every day for to months I came home from work and said to my mum, have they come? Eventually my papers came and I went for an interview at Birmingham, near Birmingham, yes Birmingham. AM. What was that like, the interview? EV. I have never been to, apart from Huddersfield and Cleethorpes this was the only place I had been to before that. So it was a bit of an adventure but I enjoyed it, went down all right. Then later I got the papers to join the RAF and then I had to go, I’m sure it was to St Johns Wood, London where we were in flats,accommodation flats that the RAF had taken over from the public I should imagine. Then we went through all the necessary medicals and injections and whatever. Went to Lords cricket ground for exercise and to the Zoo I think it was, to the Zoo where we had our meals, carrying the cups and knifes and forks. [pause] AM. How long were you there for? EV. We were there about four or five weeks, I forget, maybe six weeks. We went on guard at the gates of the flat complex, you could hear the ack ack guns going and whatever when the raiders were coming over London. Then we got posted from there, I’m sure I went to Bridgenorth in Shropshire, we had to white wash the pebbles outside the huts, it was very strict, very, very strict indeed. There we done basic training marching, gun shooting on the range and just basics, yes that’s right, went there. Our Sergeant, Sergeant Leech he was about the smartest Sergeant there, he was brilliant I’ll never forget his name, Sergeant Leech. AM. What was brilliant about him? EV. He was smart and he was good, there were maybe four or five could I say platoons of men, each with about thirty or so in and each had, each Sergeant in charge had to go and report all present and correct when we were on parade each morning. Sergeant Leech he were good, yeah, he were good. Anyway after that we got posted then to Walney Island that’s near Barrow on Furness to number ten Air Gunnery School there we did flying on Ansons piloted by Polish pilots mainly. They were good they used to chase sheep over the hills. AM. In the planes? EV. They were good lads and we used to extend drones of course out of the back, and we used to fire guns at them. There used to be two people beside the pilot on each take off, so then one used to wind out the drogue and the other used to shoot at it with the guns. AM. How did they decide you were going to be an Air Gunner? EV. I asked you know, if I could be an Air Gunner. After seeing one or two films on local television before I joined up. Yeah I wanted to be an Air Gunner. When at AGS Air Gunnery School at Walney Island we did photo recognition, aircraft, all aircraft English and German on slides. So we did dismantling breech blocks from guns blind folded because we wouldn’t be able to see what we were doing, and with gloves on, so we could take them apart and reassemble them in the dark. So we would have to do that before flying but I never had to do that. We used to have to practice it, we used to have a kitty, six pence each into the kitty, “should I say that?” AM. Yes carry on. EV. The quickest person to do it, won the kitty. That’s where I met my other Air Gunner, David, Gwyn David Morgan Watkins, Welshman by the way. I expect you got that from the name. We stayed together all the way through the rest of our RAF career, yeah we did virtually, yeah. Yes so after that we got postings to different squadrons well his initial being W.Watkins and mine being V.Varney next to each other in the alphabet really. So we got posted together which was good and we went from there and went for training, “where did we go? I just forget where we went.” Anyway we went to RAF Station and there, what they did they posted maybe forty Air Gunners, twenty Pilots, twenty Navs, twenty [pause] Bomber Aimers, twenty Wireless Ops so that, and eventually you just crewed up by having a meal together or sitting next together in the Mess whatever. Gunners usually stayed in pairs. AM. Why? EV. Well you come through your training together so you stayed together. So me and Taffy started so we more or less picked a bloke and said Bomb Aimer, you got your brevet and your sergeant tapes.You got your brevet so you got talking to a chap and you thought he seems ok, “are you crewed up?” “No.” “Ok would you like to join with us?” From that I think it was mostly Gunners I think what did the crewing up first and then you looked round for a Pilot eventually, you have got to have a chauffeur, So yeah and that’s how you crewed up. All but the Engineer, you didn’t have an Engineer at that stage because we were only going to go on Wimpies which don’t have an Engineer. Because it is only a two engine job, your Pilot has already flown two engine jobs. After that when we did our basic training on Wimpies we moved onto Stirlings, there we picked up an Engineer, so there was a total crew of seven then. Stirling, not a very good aircraft but we managed. Then after that we moved onto Lancasters at another Lancaster Finishing School, I just forget where that was, somewhere near Nottingham but I can’t say for sure. After the Lancaster Finishing School then you were posted to a Squadron.We got posted to 207 Squadron at Spilsby and from there we started on Operations. AM. What year was that, when would that be Eric? EV. That would be around Christmas time, er, Christmas time forty four. AM. Christmas time forty four. EV. Cause I was only nineteen then, anyway after that we just carried on doing ops until the end of the war. AM. When you say we just carried on doing ops, can you remember your first one, what was that like. EV. I can remember the first one yeah, because I didn’t go with my own crew. They were a Gunner short on a crew, can’t just think of the name now. I went as a spare bod on that crew and they frightened me to death[laugh]. They had a rubbish Nav to be honest and he never kept in line. They were first fifteen degrees to port and twenty degrees to starboard then fifteen degrees to port. He could never keep on line in the stream, you know in the stream we should be in. Anyway having got back I went, I was on for the second night, so I objected and I said I would prefer not to go, I didn’t go. Anyway I carried on with my own crew and I put our survival down to one person, the Nav. We had a brilliant Navigator, he was brilliant. Never off the track, always cool although he was Scot, but he was good and that is what I put our survival down to. Always in the bomber stream always there, its only the stragglers I reckon that got picked up mainly. AM. What was it like being in the bomber stream? EV. When we were flying out,we normally when we were going over France and that way across to Germany. We used to fly down, I think, down towards Reading. The first guy used to fly out over the sea and next one a bit less until all the squadron were airborne then we would fly down and you would see thirty or forty aircraft. It were daylight maybe at that time or just getting dusk and em you used to think, what will it be like when it gets dark, and there is another ten, fifteen squadrons joining us to make a total of five hundred. At times you could look up from the turret and see aircraft above, you could nearly count the rivets, used to be, when you were over the target because it was so light from below. So you used to ask the Skipper to turn either to port or starboard just a little bit, to avoid him dropping any bombs on you. It were pretty crowded over the target at times, but er, fortunately we, we got away with it. Only once did we go over the target several times and that were at Dresden. The Bomber Aimer did not put the heater switch on for the bombs so we couldn’t release them. When he released the bombs, nothing happened, well when he tried to release the bombs, nothing happened. We made two or three approaches before, and that made us behind the total. The skipper was thinking about fuel so he could not push on too fast because we would not have had enough fuel maybe to get back, because they did not allow you too much fuel, you just took enough for the journey at normal speeds. Anyway we did make it back ok safe and sound, a bit late but safe and sound. AM. What happened to the bombs? EV. Eventually he got them off, yeah when, after he put the switch on, oh yeah they did, he took, but they had frozen up with moisture and freezing temperatures. AM. So the heat switch was to stop that happening,that he should have put on? EV. He should have put that on but he didn’t and once coming back over the Channel another slight incident, we were only maybe two and a half thousand feet and the engines cut. The Engineer had switched to the wrong tanks and that was only on the quick thinking of the Pilot who said tanks, switch back and managed to start the engines. After that Rem advised or made the Engineer go on a three day refresher course. He was very strict our Skipper, if we had smoked he would have shopped us, no doubt. He said I am going to get you there and get you back in one piece, he was a New Zealander by the way, “What else?” AM. No,no it is quite interesting just knowing the detail that you can remember, It’s fascinating. You showed me a photo earlier that we had taken a picture of. Was that the same crew that you were with all the way through? EV. Yes, yes AM. I will get the names of you afterwards then I’ll get the names of all the crew to go with the photograph. EV. We stayed together as a crew all the way through. After the war when we finished flying the Bomb Aimer did tell me that he trained as a Navigator, fell out with his crew and retrained as a Bomb Aimer. So in actual fact we had a partly trained Navigator on board as well as a Bomb Aimer, as well as another Nav which were good. That’s what he did, he fell out with his crew and he retrained, he went to Canada and retrained as an er,Bomb Aimer. Yes so. AM. How many operations did you do? EV. Twenty eight. AM. That was a full tour, just under? EV. Yes, yes the war finished then. AM. You said you have been to Dresden, where else did you fly, can you remember? EV. Leipzig, Cologne, er [Pause], Dortmund Ems Canals, Frankfurt, Leipzig that was a bad one, we lost quite a few on Leipzig. Eh. AM. From your squadron or from other squadrons? EV. I’m sorry, ten hours twenty was the longest and that was to a place in front of Russian advance, what do they call it now, some petrol, oil refinery place eh, I can’t just think what they call it now. Ten hours twenty that was the longest trip. AM. What was it like being in the plane for ten hours twenty? EV. Well we had heated suits and heated gloves,well gloves that pressed onto your shirt, or onto the cuffs of your flying suit with press studs and on your shoes you had slippers insoles that went onto clips on the bottom of your trousers and you plugged the whole lot into the aircraft. So you got heated suits, so, the only thing that wasn’t, that was open to air was your eyes. You know we had helmets on, oxygen masks and clothes of course, so your eyes, but you used to get icicles on your eye lashes from the moisture from your eyes. You used to also get icicles on the bottom of your oxygen mask because I think the coldest temperature we recorded was minus sixty three which is cold. Its not sixty three that is fahrenheit which is not as cold as sixty three centigrade, but it were cold and so we had about four pair of gloves on starting with the, I think the chamois leather, silk, a pair of ordinary gloves then a pair of leather gauntlet type gloves, so plenty of clothing. AM. So how did you manage to operate you guns with all that lot on? EV. Well you got to use them, yeah you had four pair of gloves on. You needed your gloves and everything and your feet sometimes your feet, you finished up with one foot frozen the other one on fire ‘cause suits were not all good eh. We had chocolate, they gave us chocolate to take to eat but before we set off there was a little tray in the turret and you had to break it up first because if you didn’t it would have been frozen up solid. You get a chocolate bar with maybe a dozen pieces, you had to break it up and put it in your tray so you could get with it your gloves and get a piece and pull your oxygen mask of, put it in. It used to be in your mouth for about ten minutes before it started thawing[laugh] it was so cold. Yeh, on the way back the Wireless Op used to come down with a flask or cup of coffee so we could have that coming back. We used to put our hand like that from turret, he used to pass, I used to put my thumb into cup, into coffee[laugh] and then used to have a drink, yeah. AM. So where were you, were you Mid Upper? EV. Yes, because our Skipper would not let us out of the turrets at all, no. AM. Why not. EV. Well that was our place to be and nobody moved, [laugh] yeah. You had to go to the toilet before you went and whatever, so. Nobody roamed about, only the Wireless Op on the way back he used to bring me and Taffy a drink. AM. Where was Taffy then? EV. He was in the rear turret, well Joe used to go along onto, you’ve seen them inside have you? Down that front toilet, he used to stand on toilet, what do they call toilet Els? I just forgot what they call it, but it was. Used to stand on that and then had to slide down to the rear turret and Taffy used to open his rear turret you know put it central and open his doors. He would pass him a drink through, yeah. AM. How did you, where did the coffee come from, a flask? EV. Flask! oh yeah flask. We had nothing to drink going until we was on our way back and Joe used to do that, Rem would let him come down and bring us all a drink. AM. Then what would happen when you landed after having been on a plane for that long? EV. When we landed, transport used to pick us up and take us in for briefing, de briefing and eh, get coffee, cigarettes whatever you know and then after that it were bacon and egg and bed [laugh]. Yeah after briefing, used to have a briefing as to what you had seen, what you hadn’t seen, tell them how things had gone, everything. You all used to say you know, there used to be an Officer there interviewing everybody, asking questions and then off you went to bed. AM. Ready for next day? EV. Or same night. ‘cause it were morning then weren’t it? As we were coming back you could see the American Air Force going out if it were daylight. Yeah they were going out as we were coming back. Could see all the vapour trails from them, but they were very high, they used to get height in England I think before they left, cause there were all vapour trails behind them and when there were three or four hundred of them. You see them now, see odd ones, see half a dozen, you see a lot [unreadable] you see three or four hundred maybe, all going in the same direction, because they used to fly more in a formation because it was daylight. They used to keep together because they used to fly in daylight. Then they had an aircraft, what do you call it on patrol, fighter. We went on a few daylights but er, there weren’t a lot, Cologne, Dortmund Ems Canal, on daylight, well we did I don’t know three of four, half a dozen. AM. How different was that, to going at night? EV. Not a lot because you didn’t, in fact they were better really, because you could see other aircraft that were round you which you couldn’t at night, it were all. My eyes used to stand out like chapel hat pegs when you were at night, staring just staring. Looking all the time, you know looking, looking, looking. Our instructions from the Pilot was Rear Gunner and myself we had to er, speak to each other every about five minutes unless he was in conversation with Navigator or anything else. We had to keep talking to each other to make sure we were not asleep. From my position I could see Taffies guns when they were pointing high. I could see his guns if he was scanning that way, rather than that way I could see his guns moving but eh yeah, we, we had to keep in touch with each other all the time. That was Pilots instructions and what Rem said went.[Laugh] AM. How often did you actually use your guns, shoot your use your guns? EV. We didn’t while we were on operations, we never had to, we never had to. We got flack through the aircraft, we never got a fighter in touch that we had to fire at, never, either of us, we were always in middle of airstream thanks to Navigator, that were the main thing I reckon and we didn’t wander of. They picked the ones from the outside with the fighters. I mean I have talked to German Pilots during the war er, what do they call him and his Navigator, they had the Shoory Musik (HD.Shrage Music) type aircraft with the guns upward firing. They put six Lancasters down in half an hour, yeah. AM. When you say you talked to him, you mean after the war? EV. Oh yes, in recent years while we have been going on these German trips. We must have been ten times, we’ve done several places in Germany. Last time we went, we went, they even took us to the place where they made the eh,[pause] you know the rocket fuel, “I forgot name of the place now” North east Germany, very east, it were in eastern Germany after division after the war and it were “began with S.” They made the rockets there as well, the ones that were flying over London, you know the Doodlebugs. AM. Was this, who did you go to Germany with then after the war? EV. After the war we went to Germany as a group for Doncaster Air Gunners, we formed a group there were maybe, originally there were about twenty seven, eight of us. We got in touch with the Germans and for twenty years we, alternate years we went to Germany and the other year we hosted them. We went to several German Night Fighter places and met some guys just like ourselves, maybe older because as a hole because they were Pilots and took, they had been training two or three years before they went into action. We only did about four and a half months before I was sergeant or so, that were difference. Yes we went to Silverheim that was one place, one near Rostok that near Baltic and they hosted us on their camps. The one near Rostok had been under the Russians until Germany were reinstated as a full country, I mean East Germany and West Germany it goes under East German rule. There you could still see the bullet holes on houses and damage that had been done during the war and that were thirty years after the war. AM. How did you get on with the Germans and what sort of things did you talk about? EV. They were fantastic, yeah, I have still got three people that I send cards to yeah. One in Bremen, one in Hamburg and one who were a POW here and married an English girl and lived here for thirty five years and then went back to Germany. He was good for translation having spoken English for thirty odd years. They treated us, we always stayed in Officers Mess quarters on the German camps. Sometimes they put us up in hotels, same as we did. Sometimes we had them at Finningley, early on but later on we had to find accommodation, we took them to different hotels and hosted them for three or four days, hired coaches and took them round to see the sights of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, whatever. There were one German Pilot, he got shot down and landed in the North Sea, Herbert Thomas was his name. I will never forget Herbert, although he was a German his name was Herbert Thomas. He was shot down in the Chanel or North Sea, he got rescued and in appreciation for the chap in the boat that rescued him and giving him a cigarette, he gave him a watch. He gave him his watch did Herbert he gave him his watch. Now I should say maybe ten or twelve years ago from now that watch was given back to Herbert Thomas by the fellow who had it all those years. Yeah we arranged that, that were arranged by[pause] part of the Doncaster Air Gunners Group and gave him back the watch that he had given. That were done at Bridlington, when we had the Germans over at Bridlington. AM. What made you in the first place go and meet the Germans? EV. Well, ok how it started really was there was an aircraft shot down, a British Lancaster shot down and “I am just trying to think hard.” Oh yeah, there was only one survivor in this aircraft. I’ve got photos of this, I were looking at them yesterday. This airman, I have just forgot his name now, he was caught up, the local people caught him. There was a chap, a German army guy, he took him because they wanted to do our airman harm, you know the people of Germany. He took charge of him, handed him to the proper authorities so that he would be a POW and no harm would come to him. Well in later years this German person, I can’t remember his name now, can’t just think of his name, he built a Memorial in the wood where this aircraft came down. Every year he used to put flowers and whatever on this memorial. Well what, we got in touch with him, I just forgot how it happened. We got in touch with him and he invited us over to go to see this Memorial, which we did and from there on it developed into us being a bi annual event. We kept going over to Germany and that’s how it started the first thing did. We contacted the German Luftwaffe and it just escalated from there. With their ex flyers and us we got together, but that’s how it did started. An aircraft got shot down and they wanted to lynch this airman who got caught. AM The Bomber? AV Yeah, oh you can understand to a certain extent, the army guy, “I forgot his name” he took charge and handed him into proper authorities so that he were a POW. Yeah he was the only survivor from that aircraft and that were it. Yeah that’s how it started with that. AM. You still keep in touch with some of them now? AV Yeah, yeah, yeah, so AM What happened to your brothers I think you said one was RAF, the other two were Army. AV. My older brother Army, he’s still around but at the moment he is more or less bed fast, he is two years older than me. My next younger brother, Raymond, he was in the air force, he went for his two years, military, training after the war and he stayed in for twenty four years. Unfortunately he died about ten years ago and my younger brother he went for his two years but only stayed in for two years in the RAF. He came out, he’s still around, I was on the phone to him this morning [laugh] So that’s all of us. AM. You all survived the war? AV. Yeah but other two were younger they didn’t go in war. They just went up you know when they used to call people up for two years. They went for that two years but Raymond stopped in for twenty four. AM. What did you do after the war Eric? AV. After the war I went bus driving, yeah, bus driving for four years, ten years down the mine, worked at the coal face. But I promised my Dad who was a miner all his live that I was just going down for ten years. I went down for ten years and three months and came out, got a nice home together and that was it. After that I went on long distance haulage which I loved yeah, after that twenty years, twenty five years hard work as a coal merchant, that were me finished. Retired when I was sixty two and carried on part time until I was eighty nine[laugh]. AM. Doing what? AV. Working at race course. AM. At Doncaster? AV. Doncaster, Wetherby,Ripon,Thirsk,Wetherby,Newmarket,Haydock Park,Market Rasen I worked them all[laugh] AM. What did you do? EV. On security, on some security I were working with Judge, Stewards and photo people, you know camera people. Also worked on car parks, that was since I retired, when I was sixty two, but I have finished work now. AM. How old are you know? EV. I’m. eighty nine, ninety in five weeks AM. Off course, fifth of August. EV. Yes AM. And what about Bomber Command now then, what about the way people view Bomber Command? EV. Well, they always, a lot of people did not like the Dresden trip. Not the RAF people but other people said that Dresden should never have been bombed, but eh I think it were a legitimate target, same as all the others. I mean they didn’t think that when they were bombing London, Hull, Coventry and our cities, so yeah, I mean yeah I still think the RAF do a good job, I do really. We’ll not get on to deal with politics [Laugh] AM. Maybe not, maybe not. Anything else you can think of? EV. I have enjoyed my life, enjoyed my life. AM. Good, and still do, you are coming out with us in October to see the Spire? EV. Yeah, after the war I visited my other Gunner in South Africa, Taffy, went and visited him for three weeks. The Pilots been over to England from New Zealand, he has been over about four times since the war, so you know, yeah. I still phone the Pilots wife in New Zealand, the other Gunner Taffys’ wife in South Africa, the Bomber Aimers wife in Warrington, the Wireless Ops wife in Cottingham, Hull. So I keep in touch with them as much as I can. Yeah, I do phone them, I were talking to err, Sheena at Hull only a couple of days ago and Chrissie at Warrington I talked to her a week ago yeah. AM. So although it was only a couple of years of your life its lasted right through to now. You noted that you still keep in touch with people right through to now. EV. Oh yeah, yeah. Rems wife came over with him a couple of times not every time but a couple of times, he also brought Betty with him a couple or three times. We have had reunions in Hull, reunions in Edinburgh with the Nav and whatever, so. AM. And we have the photograph with them all on, I’m going to switch off now Eric but if we get that photograph will switch back on while you tell me who they all are. EV. Yeah. AM. Ok so we have a photograph of Eric and his crew which we have taken a copy of and Eric is going to talk through who they all are. EV. Top left Ronnie Moor, Bomb Aimer, next Jim Henderson, Engineer, next one is Ren Waters, New Zealand, Pilot, Malcolm Staithes is next on the top Malcolm Staithes, Wireless Op, Taffy Watkins, Gwyn Davies Watkins Morgan, Navigator Ian Stewart next then myself Eric Varney bottom right. AM With a big grin on your face. EV. Yes. AM. Wonderful thank you Eric. 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 AVarneyE150629 Title A name given to the resource Interview with Eric Varney Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Language A language of the resource eng Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:51:39 audio recording Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Annie Moody Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-06-29 Description An account of the resource Eric Varney completed 28 operations as a mid upper gunner with 207 Squadron from RAF Spilsby. After the war Eric worked as a bus driver, coal miner, long distance lorry driver and coal merchant. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain England--Lincolnshire Germany--Cologne Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal Germany--Dresden Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Leipzig Germany--Ruhr (Region) Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hugh Donnelly Maureen Clarke 207 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson bombing bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945) Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School memorial military service conditions RAF Barrow in Furness RAF Bridgnorth RAF Spilsby Stirling training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/544/8785/AHookerFJ160525.mp3 03e38dd3495780227f67637e5adb86f4 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 Hooker, Fred Fred J Hooker F J Hooker Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Hooker, FJ Description An account of the resource 31 items. Two oral history interviews with Sergeant Fred Hooker (b. 1924, 1850487 Royal Air Force) and his scrapbook containing photographs and documents. He flew operations as a mid-upper gunner with 102 Squadron and became a prisoner of war on 12 September 1944. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-05-25 2017-08-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document DM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is David Meanwell. The interviewee is Fred Hooker. The interview is taking place at Mr Hooker’s home in - FH: Church Crookham. DM: And the date today is the twenty - FH: 25th DM: Fifth of May 2016. Ok Fred. Well if you could perhaps start off by telling me a little bit about your childhood, growing up and your family. FH: I was born in a little hamlet called Dipley under the control of Hartley Wintney Rural District Council in 1924 which makes me ninety two now and I’m one of nine children born to my parents Minnie and William Hooker. I’m the last one living now. The rest have all passed on. My elder brother was a prisoner in Japan when Hong, captured when Hong Kong fell in 1941. Unfortunately, he died on the same day as I was released from the German prisoner of war camp. I done all my schooling in Hartley Wintney walking about three and a half mile each day to school. I only had a secondary education and joined the Boy Scouts at the age of eleven and then in 1941 when the Air Training Corps was first formed we heard, a friend of mine and myself heard of a squadron being formed in Basingstoke which we made, we found out where the squadron was meeting and we visited each week to their meetings until the flight of the same squadron four four, 444 squadron was developed in Hartley Wintney. FH: So, when, when were, when were you old enough to be called up? I mean did you get called up or did you volunteer first? DM: Yeah. I was just coming to that one. FH: Right. DM: In 1941 I made an application to the air ministry to volunteer for air crew duties in which I went to Oxford for an assessment test which unfortunately I failed on the first attempt but the following December, 1942 I once again applied and was successful in passing out and was put on the waiting list to be called up to train as a wireless operator/air gunner. In March 1943 I received my calling up papers and I had to report to Lord’s Cricket Ground in London along with a load of other chaps the same day and there we were, had our usual injections, issued with our full RAF uniform which I was very proud to, to receive and from there I was in London about a fortnight and then posted to Shropshire. A place called Bridgnorth where I done my ITW training which consisted of a lot of square bashing as we called it and school classroom work. From there we were sent on leave and had instructions while on leave to report to Yatesbury in Wiltshire for the wireless training which was all new to me although I had done Morse, a certain amount of Morse sending and receiving while in the Air Training Corps. Unfortunately, when we got on to technical side of the wireless I’m afraid I come unstuck and I had to leave the course and then sent to Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey, re-mustered and became, was put on the list to train as a straight air gunner. Once again I had to go through the, an ITW which was at Bridlington and we done all our square bashing and PT exercises along the front on the promenade which was rather draughty being that it was in the January February time. Having passed out there we were sent on leave once again and on the 28th of December 1943 I left home and travelled overnight to [Carn?] in, sorry it wasn’t [Carn?]. It was Stormy Down in South Wales. Number 7 AGS. Air Gunner School. From there, very disappointingly we’d done nothing for three days until the 1st of January when we was all called on parade and was instructed that we would be training as straight gunners. I was in a section of chaps who was posted to the satellite station at Rhoose which is now Cardiff Airport. Greatly changed these days. There we was in, put in classes of about ten or twelve chaps. My instructor was a Sergeant Walmsley who I, we had a photograph taken of the group in our little classroom. When we finally passed out as air gunners which was somewhere about April the same year, 1944. [Recording paused] I passed out as a sergeant air gunner in April if I remember right and from there we were sent on leave not knowing what initial training wing we were going to which turned out to be Moreton in the Marsh, Gloucestershire where we met up, or where I met up with some old pals I had been training with right throughout the, my service life and while waiting on Reading Station to travel to Moreton in the Marsh I spoke with a warrant officer who was going to the same station and apparently he was a pilot who had been flying high service ranking officer’s about the country and wanted a change and fly something much larger. So when we were at Moreton in the Marsh we were instructed to mix amongst all the other lads that had arrived there at the same time. Navigators, bomb aimers, wireless operators, pilots and Phil, this chap from Devonshire, the warrant officer, we palled up together straight away and I introduced Leslie, a lad I’d been with since leaving Sheerness to go, to start my training as a straight air gunner and introduced him to Phillip who eventually introduced us to a bomb aimer by the name of Yon Davies from Wales and Jock Munroe from Aberdeen who was a navigator. We had a nice long chat together and decided that we would form a crew together but we was minus a wireless operator which on the following day we had to parade again and while we was in the assembly hall Phillip notified the officer in charge that we, he was short of a wireless operator who then introduced us to Dougie, a chap from Yorkshire who was looking for a crew and we all shook hands and we were then classed as a crew which was the only all British crew on the course at the time. The remainders had New Zealand, Australian and South African pilots. From there we done a lot of landing, circuits and bumps. That’s the word. Circuits and bumps. Giving the pilot a chance to get used to the twin engine aircraft which was a Wellington and we done quite a lot of cross country running while we was there to keep fit and of course cross country flying where we done our, the gunners done their firing, air to air firing over the Irish Sea. We, we then moved on, having passed out as a crew from the Moreton in the Marsh we were posted to a place called Dishforth in Yorkshire near the city of Ripon. There we converted to four engine Halifax bombers which was rather exciting in a way because there was the first time I had my own turret. During our training at Stormy Down Les and myself used to take it in turns firing from the tail turret as there was only the one turret on the Wellington air craft. The turret was a Boulton Paul manufactured and being in the mid-upper I could see all the way around which was a marvellous experience for the first few times seeing that I could look in all directions, scanning the skies for other aircraft that were sent up for training purposes to help us identify various aircraft which was, we’d done a lot of of course at Stormy Down but it increased as we got into Moreton in the Marsh where we crewed. From there we finally passed out but not before we lost our wireless operator. Unfortunately, Dougie got into trouble while visiting Harrogate one night and we, before we left we contacted or we was introduced to a Canadian wireless operator/air gunner and we all agreed that we’d welcome him in to the crew which we did but in the conversation that took place while we was being introduced he told us that he’d operated on Marauders from Blackbushe Airport and I looked, I said nothing and after a while he enquired where we’d all come from so when he got around to me asking where I lived I asked him if he knew much about the area that he’d been stationed at at Blackpool er Blackbushe Airport and he mentioned that he’d used to go to the village of Hartley Wintney and drink in the Lamb Hotel and the Swan Hotel which made me smile and from then on he realised that I knew something about Hartley Wintney. [Recording paused] Our new member. His name, we called him Pacqi, Pacqie Pacquette but he was known as Pacqi. I can’t pronounce his proper name but not to worry. He turned out a good pal of all of us and he was very good at his job. And at times we, during training we changed positions and done each other’s jobs just for a few short while, time. Sometimes you’d, I’d go in the bomb aimer’s position just to get used to using the sight just in case of an accident while we was on operations and at one stage I actually took the controls of the Halifax which was a dual aircraft at the time and of course the skipper was there in readiness in case of rather sharp dives or anything but we, as a crew we melled together and it was quite a, good companions. Les, the gunner that I trained with right throughout and myself were, became very good pals and one weekend when we had a weekend pass we travelled down to Hartley Wintney together and Les met my parents and the family that was home at the time and we had quite a nice weekend together there but finally of course we was posted, had a posting come through for South Africa after we passed out as a full crew on conversion unit which was a Canadian unit at Dishforth. We were in, actually in line at the headquarters to get our passes to go to South, leave in Africa and we heard the voice on the tannoy to say that Pilot Officer Groves’ crew and two others that were there. I can’t remember the pilot’s names, to report back to the flight office as leave had been cancelled. Very disappointingly we walked back to the flight office and we were informed that we, that our posting had been changed and we were going to 102 squadron at a place called Pocklington, twelve miles from York, that same day. We would be replacing three crews that had experience that were being posted to South Africa where we were originally going to be posted to. Well, no leave so off we went. We got everything packed ready to go and the three crews were instructed to be ready to leave the squadron at 2 o’clock, if I remember right, on that same afternoon which was the 18th of August 1944 and on our journey by coach to Pocklington we arrived along the road, I can’t tell you the actual number of the road but as we were about to turn into the ‘drome we saw a Halifax bomber that had crashed in the field right opposite the ‘drome and we learned later that it had failed to take off but they were lucky nothing exploded and the bombs were still in the aircraft as we landed on, arrived at the aerodrome which wasn’t a very good sight for us. We weren’t very pleased about it. But I did fail to say that when we got to the, when we first got to the squadron my pilot, Warrant Officer Groves was, got his commission, was then Pilot Officer Groves who, for the first time had to go to his quarters and the, us NCOs to our quarters and the first time we’d been parted from that angle but everything turned out right and we settled into out billets taking over the beds of a crew that had failed to return the previous day. [Recording paused] DM: Ok. FH: On the, as I said we arrived at the squadron on the 18th of August. Unfortunately our stay wasn’t too long but we’d done a few flights from there. I think we started on the 16th of August, just local flights landing and taking off and we done, was called, or we noticed our name on standing orders on the 3rd of September to go on our first bombing operation which turned out to be an airfield in Holland named Venlo. Venlo Airfield. Of course everything was new to us with regards the information we gained from the camp commander, the bomber, bomb aimer officer, navigation officer, the gunnery officer giving us instructions where the different gun emplacements were on our route but fortunately for us they were few and far between and our flight was quite straightforward although there was just a few puffs of flak exploding as we got near to the airfield but the bombing went straight and good. The pilot, not the pilot, the bomb aimer I should say, took photographs of the bombs exploding and on our return journey our wireless operator called up to get permission to land and we were diverted to an aerodrome in the Midlands, just close to Cambridge if I remember right. The name I’m afraid I forgot there, the actual aerodrome but it turned out to be an American ‘drome and when we arrived there the weather was as bad as it was at Pocklington but after three attempts the pilot said, ‘Well I must go in this time,’ he says, ‘We’re very short of fuel,’ and the Americans switched on the ground lights to give us assistance but unfortunately the weather was so bad we only got glimpses of the flare path and as the pilot went in so we realised there was a hangar coming towards us. I was sitting in the top turret and I could see this hangar coming towards us but fortunately the engines were cut and the aircraft came to a standstill rather abruptly but lucky enough everybody was safe and wasn’t hurt in anyway but once we got out of the aircraft and taken to the debriefing room of the American forces that were stationed there we were swore at by the Americans for making such a bad landing but it turned out they hadn’t given us any warning of the ground wind and as Phil went in so he was blown off the runway on to the grass and the Americans weren’t very happy and neither were we actually. Anyhow, we had a debrief, a short debriefing and then shown to our billets and from there we were taken to the dining room. We were all starving hungry by this time. Unfortunately for myself I didn’t enjoy the meal so much as the others. It was a whole partridge and vegetables. Having been instructed not to fly with dentures by the medical officer at 102 squadron I’d taken my dentures out and which gummed me and of course where the other lads were gnawing the bones I had a job to gnaw them. I cut some of the meat off and was able to eat that but with regards gnawing the bones which I could see my pals really enjoying I was absent from that part. But our stay there was, lasted a week which we were rather surprised about but one of the reasons why we weren’t allowed to land at Pocklington there was a hill, I understand, about eight hundred feet high, where we had to fly in over to make our approach and it just wasn’t safe to do so and apparently the weather was bad for a whole week there. We finally got back and again we had a severe debriefing, wanting to know exactly everything that happened from the time we took off ‘til we landed. We mentioned at the time during the debriefing of witnessing an American aircraft while we was at the American unit being flown by an officer, a Lightning aircraft, a twin boom one and he was doing a shoot up of the ‘drome as he’d finished his tour of duties apparently and was going to be posted home the following day but unfortunately he went too low, hit some cables and shot up in the air, ejected his seat and out he come but the plane crashed and we understand that he would have been promoted to a major on his return and would have to pay for the aircraft. How true that was we don’t know but knowing the Americans we took it along with us like you know. Anyhow, the following day, the, that was the 10th of September we returned to Pocklington. On the 11th of September our names were again on the list to go on the bombing trip that was scheduled to take place the following evening. When we arrived at the briefing rooms we sat down waiting for the senior officers to arrive and of course with one movement everybody stood up as the CO come in and we were told of our target and shown it on the map which had been covered by a sheet until the officers arrived, turned about, turned out to be Gelsenkirchen in the Ruhr and there was a load of, ‘Ahh’ because a number of the lads apparently had been there before and were very lucky to return. Anyhow, we each had our listen to the briefing and then we had our own section officer, like with Leslie and myself we had the chief gunnery officer of the squadron talking and warning us to be on lookout from the time we took off until we returned to the aerodrome as a lot of fighters used to return following the aircraft back to the stations especially if there was one crippled and as it goes in to land so they would attack and fly off again. Well the experience I had on that 11th of, on the 12th I should say, no, I beg your pardon, on the 11th of September was one I shall never never forget. We was miles away from the target and we could see this smoke in the, in the distance and as we got closer so the shells were bursting all around us and of course we was in formation going in to the target and it was just, the sky was full of black specks where the shells were exploding. The way I often explain it to people the sight was, visualising the modern day fireworks that’s, explodes with coloured lights and flares imagine that as being shells exploding all around you and that’s exactly how it was and while we was on the bombing run, the actual bombing run in the Pathfinders were telling, or giving instructions what to bomb. The red targets or the red flares and then a voice came over. ‘Number two take over. Number two take over. I’m going in. I’m going in.’ And everything went silent on the wireless and at the same time there’s planes at the side of us exploding, mass of flames. Oh it was horrible. We eventually got on course to come home which was a very pleasing one and the journey home was reasonable. We got rid of the flak and on our landing we taxied around to where our parking area was. The ground staff was there waiting for us and as we climbed out the aircraft they greeted us and we, as a crew, wandered around the aircraft and was amazed at the amount of holes we had in our fuselage. We, we wondered how lucky we’d been and as we got, looked up under the nose of the aircraft right where Taffy had been laying, his legs spread out, there was a hole in the bottom of the, where he’d been laying right up through the top and had gone right through between his two legs and out the top and he fell to the ground, Taffy did, and hands together and we all did the same and it was very quiet for a few minutes. We was all in prayer I assumed and we continued with looking around the aircraft with the ground staff and saying how lucky we’d been to return. And - [Recording paused] DM: Ok. FH: We finally arrived at the tail of the aircraft and the transport was waiting for us to take us back for debriefing which, as a crew as we arrived we received our little tot of rum which went down really well. Apparently it’s a thing that happened each time a crew came back from a bombing raid, was given a tot of rum and debriefed which lasted quite a while and we explained to them as a, as a crew that we’d inspected our aircraft and it had quite a few holes and that in it and thought we were very lucky to arrive back on English soil. Anyhow, after that we had a nice evening meal and went to bed. I think we slept but it was a while before we went off if I remember right. Now, the next morning arrived and had our breakfast, had a look at the standing orders and there we were again down for the next bombing raid, which was our third. Two within two days and we all prayed, hoped and prayed that we wouldn’t be going back to the Ruhr which it turned out our target was a town called Munster in Germany and we were due to bomb the marshalling yards and if my memory is correct there was two hundred aircraft every half hour on the target, on numerous targets as well throughout Germany that day. Well our flight over Germany, the North Sea and Germany was quite usual with aircraft either side of us and we flew on and got close to the target when we got a few shells exploding quite close but, all these raids incidentally were done in daylight which I hadn’t mentioned before. So we could see what was happening in the skies to other aircraft but this particular day we didn’t see any damage to any aircraft. This was the 12th of September when all of a sudden I realised I was sitting in mid-air. There was no Perspex around me and I could just see my guns hanging over the tail turret and the ammunition across the, from the turret across to the tail of the aircraft. I guess I shook my head. I don’t know. And I realised that I was sitting in fresh air and had no guns to fire if I had to so I decided best to go up to, along with the pilot and sit with him which I got out of the aircraft seeing a big hole on the port side of the aircraft and the whole plane was full of flames and I saw one chap diving through the hole in the front so I picked up my ‘chute which was burning all across one corner of it. So by this time I guess I was losing oxygen and didn’t realise what I was doing and I can remember throwing it back on the floor, just standing there wondering what to do. With that, my saviour, Charlie the engineer, flight engineer saw me. He came running back, pulled me forward, picked up my ‘chute, I remember seeing his arm going across the ‘chute like this. He clipped it on and pushed me out but as I was going out I could see the pilot, white, his face was absolutely white and he was holding the stick back into his stomach trying to keep the plane on course I guess but that was the last I saw of him. As I went down in the parachute I don’t remember pulling the cord and I guess it was because the parachute was blown, blown to bits, or blown, the small auxiliary ‘chute was blown out and pulled out the main ‘chute which I think I went down rather quickly. I can’t honestly say how long it took me to come down but it didn’t appear to be in the air long but I do remember seeing a Spitfire circling around us who had been escorting, we had the Spitfire escort that day and that was the first I’d seen of them in actual fact but it must have come down within three hundred feet of the ground, flipped his wings and flew off again and I guess he was, he’d been circling to see how many parachutes had jumped out. I also witnessed this aircraft which I assume was ours make a belly landing in just one mass of flames. Make a belly, belly landing on the ground as though he was, he was just making a normal landing but it was just one mass of flames. With that I hit the ground and witnessed that there was a whole load of civilians and troops emerging on the area where I was about to land which turned out to be a field of sugar beet and away from buildings it was but there was a load of civilians but seeing a couple of soldiers I had no chance of escape I merely put up my hands and just stood there. With, with that they came and stripped off my parachute harness and was searched. Can you - [Recording paused] These Germans brushed their arms all over me. Made sure I didn’t have a pistol or anything with me and indicated that I had to pick up my parachute and being the size it was it was rather a armful to carry and I indicated to walk across the field and these two chaps was following me. Well we come to a barbed wire fence so one of the Germans put his foot on the barbed wire and held it down, indicated for me to crawl under and believe me that was quite a task with the silk parachute all rolled up and trying to get through which actually brought a smile to my face for just a moment. Being an English gentleman as I thought I stopped the other side to give them a chance to get through but that was the last time I stopped until I had to climb aboard a coach out on the road because one of the guards put his jackboot right where it hurts and believe me that did hurt and it lasted for several days. I just kept walking. Put into this coach which was parked alongside the side of the road and there I had a strip search, naked, everything, put on and then I was told to dress or indicated to put my clothes back on but of course my flying suit and all that kind of thing was pushed to the back of the coach somewhere. I didn’t see that again. It was only a few minutes before I saw Charlie, the one that had pushed me out the aircraft coming towards us and he was come in to the coach and we went, went - [Phone ringing. Recording paused] Yeah Charlie went to get on the coach we went to shake hands with each other but that didn’t last and we didn’t really shake hands because my guard, one of my guards hit me across the wrist with his, with the butt of his rifle and Charlie just looked at me. He had scratches on his face which were bleeding a bit. Nothing too severe and he had the same treatment as I did. A strip search and we weren’t allowed to talk to each other. He sat in the middle of the bus and we was about to move off when Taffy turned up, the bomb aimer, with his two, couple of guards. We didn’t shake hands knowing that we’d get another hit across the wrist and he was searched and put in the back of the bus and we were then driven to some army quarters which we assumed was a local barracks. There we were put into a big dining hall or assembly hall and facing a door. Charlie was on the left hand side of Taffy, Taffy in the middle and I was on his right and we stood there for a number of minutes. We couldn’t talk because being warned that microphones or things might have ears, and they’d listen to what we were saying. All of a sudden the door opened and a big tall German officer stood in the doorway. Taffy started falling, falling forwards and we grabbed him, both of us so that he wouldn’t fall and the voice said, ‘It’s alright Taffy,’ and he raised his hand. He said, ‘It’s alright Taffy. The war for you is over.’ And nobody said anything and Taffy was by this time standing upright again and the chap disappeared and we never saw him again. We were eventually marched out from the building all along the canal bank or at least it was a towpath. I assumed it was the canal or a river and to our left the houses were all burning and people shouting and screaming. We were being hit with pitchforks and broom handles all across the backs and the two guards were trying to protect us from them which they did and we were very grateful actually to them for that and we finally got to these, some more barracks. We assumed they were barracks and - [Phone ringing. Recording paused] FH: Yeah. We eventually arrived in some army barracks and were put in to a cell, the three of us together and there was only one bench along one wall which we sat on looking at each other and not saying anything, the fear of perhaps a microphone being placed and we just sat there. We eventually had a cup of very black coffee brought in to us and the following morning, oh we spent the night sitting on this bench trying to sleep but I don’t think we got much. Anyhow, the following morning we were brought in a slice of black bread which was horrible but later on we got used to eating it and it wasn’t bad but the first bite was ugh we didn’t like it at all. DM: I have to just ask did you have your teeth with you? Did you have your -? FH: No. DM: You didn’t. No. FH: No. No teeth and during that day or later in the day we had another cup of coffee brought in and one of the guards, the chap that came in spoke English and we had a conversation and he said, ‘We, we shouldn’t be fighting each other. We should be fighting the Russians together.’ Anyhow, we didn’t see any more of him and the following day, the following morning we were, we started our journey to Dulag Luft which is the main interrogation centre for air crew. It was quite a long train journey. I can’t remember the exact days it took us but it was, as we got on the way one guard that Taffy was sitting with went to sleep and the other one soon nodded off and Charlie was close to the guard, saying nothing to anybody just fiddled about and took the revolver or Luger out from the holster of the German’s strap he had around his waist, looked at the Luger and there was no bullets in it. A little relief but nothing, no words were spoken and we, I don’t know to this day what made Charlie do it or why. He, nothing was ever said about it afterwards. Anyhow, we arrived at Dulag Luft and that was the first time that we’d been separated and we were actually on our own. How close we were to each other in the cells I don’t know but it was a very strange feeling being alone in a foreign country not knowing anybody or be able to speak to anybody. After a while a Yankee voice was, I heard as though he was coming from the next building, next room and he said he had a gangrene foot and was calling the Germans all names but I didn’t answer because it could have been a stooge you know. We’d been warned so many times about these things that took place but anyhow finally after, I don’t know, I think I was in Dulag Luft about a fortnight but most of the time spent on my own in this cell being tortured as I put it because right next door was the loos and if one wanted to use them they had to drop an arm, pull a little cord and the arm would drop down outside and warn the guards that was up and down the passageway that they, they were needed. Now arriving in the loo the tap was dripping and I went to get a drink and wash my hands, sent away. You weren’t allowed to wash your hands after using the toilets or have a drink and believe me that was real torture that tap dripping day and night, day and night. It was horrible. Anyhow, eventually I was called out and taken outside of the building along what I call a, it was a pathway along the edge of a parade ground and then they took me down, down some stairs and in this room which was quite a large one underground and it had doors all the way along which I assumed was individual cells and I had to stand in the doorway of one of these that was open and in front of me there was a clock and two German officers come through, stood in front of me, one with a Luger and the other started asking questions and asking where, what happened on the squadron before I left and about the briefing and how many aircraft was taking off. All that kind of thing. I didn’t answer. Just my rank and name which annoyed them and they kept pressing this lever on the Luger, the chap did, which I assumed was the safety, safety lever and I was three quarters of an hour I was standing there thinking, ‘Well, why don’t you pull it?’ At the same time thinking in my own mind nobody knows whether you’re alive or dead. So what. And I remember that even now I can see, see myself in that room. But eventually they said, ‘You’re too young to die now Sergeant Hooker. Go back to your cell.’ And it was quite a relief actually to walk back in to a cell and be on my own. Funny thing to say and think no doubt but that’s what it was. Anyhow, the following morning the door opened and I was marched out again. This time to an office a few doors along. ‘Oh good morning Sergeant Hooker. Have a cigarette.’ ‘No thank you.’ ‘Take a seat.’ ‘No thank you. I’ll stand.’ ‘Please yourself.’ We had been warned that this kind of thing again took place and he started asking questions again eventually ringing a bell and another chap came in with a book and he started flicking through the pages of this book and in the end he’d flicked through the pages and named every place I’d been to from the squadron backwards to when I joined up. Even naming Dipley as the place I was born which I was absolutely flabbergasted with and I thought well none of my crew knew I was born in Dipley. They knew I’d lived in Hartley Wintney but didn’t actually know I was born in the hamlet of Dipley so I thought well they can’t have spoken and told the Germans. Anyhow, he said, ‘You see sergeant we know all about you so what’s the point in killing you? You’d better go back to your cell and we’ll send you with others to a main prison camp.’ Can you for a minute. [Recording paused] FH: Yeah. We was, I was sent back to my cell a little relieved. Still not knowing how long I was going to be in this cell on my own. Was brought in some food. Another slice of this dark bread and coffee. The following morning the door opened, ‘Come out. You’re moving.’ And as I walked down the passageway so I could see the rest of my crew and several other chaps. DM: When you say the rest of your crew - FH: Well when I, yeah - DM: How many survived? How many? FH: I say and the rest of my crew that survived the aircraft. Unfortunately my pilot and my very good friend Leslie, the tail gunner didn’t survive the aircraft when it crashed but it was a pleasure to see then the rest of the crew and these two strangers who seemed to be on their own. They palled up together and stood together and Charlie and myself spoke with them. One was a flight engineer and the other one was a sergeant and we was all put on a train to go to a camp called Bankau in Poland which at the time we didn’t realise was in Poland. We was told we was going to Luft 7 and, which took several days train journey with no food but Charlie and myself spoke with Frank Meade the engineer and the tail gunner Tommy Beech and we stayed pals right throughout our prison life actually and when we finally arrived at Bankau we were walked from the station to the camp and there was this barbed wire fence right the way around. We could see, it seemed to be for miles but inside all we could see at first was a load of garden sheds. Rows and rows of them. And after being photographed and I think we had a couple of photographs taken which was, turned out to be for identity cards we were informed afterwards and then waiting outside for I’d say about a half hour we were eventually allowed into these, amongst these huts which held about six or eight people and no, no windows in the huts if I remember right but we was, had to sleep on the floor in these huts or sheds as we called them, garden sheds but fortunately Charlie and myself managed to stay together and Frank and Tommy they were in the same shed which, we didn’t get much sleep at night because first one wanted to use the loo which was the old drop of the arm again. Sometimes the guards would take notice of it and sometimes they’d make you wait and anyhow eventually a number of weeks after we were put in to proper billets as we called them. They were huts similar to the English military huts with, divided in to rooms and each room catered for eight, eight chaps. We lost touch, Charlie and I lost touch with our bomb aimer, navigator and wireless operator in this time and, but Frank and Tommy stayed with us and we had two tiered bunks so Charlie and I was on one bunk and the rest of them, there was a New Zealand pilot, two Canadians. What was the other one? Two Canadians, a New Zealand pilot, I forget who the, what the other one was and the four of us but anyway we, we got on very very well together and after a day or so we decided to, that whatever rations we got from the Germans we’d put, would pool into one bowl ‘cause we each had a, been given a small bowl and a knife and fork, or fork and spoon I think it was so that we could eat our soup which was rather a mixture. Sometimes it would be what we called whispering grass. It looked like grass been boiled up. Another time it was cheese which tasted of fish and as you bit it it was like chewing gum as you pulled it out your mouth to break it along with a slice of their dark bread but anyway we decided share it and the Red Cross parcels which we had very few of but sometimes we had a whole parcel for oneself which was very rare. Normally one parcel between four and it was all pooled and shared out evenly and we made quite decent little meals from the tins of meat and mashed potato but had we had our own parcel we felt that we’d open a tin of meat, everybody would open a tin of meat and just eat that whereas if we shared it we’d have a slice or two of meat, a bit of potato or dried egg mixed up. We thought it would work out better, the rations. Which in our opinion it did and we was quite pleased and we, the eight of us got on very well together. The times, day time there was a mass of people marching or walking all the way around the perimeter track for exercise. It was quite a sight. Some in clothing that had been issued, I forgot to say that we went to a transit camp first before going on to the main camp where we were, had a good shower and a good meal and issue of a Red Cross case which contained clothes. Fresh new underwear, pullovers, socks etcetera cigarettes and we shared this food all together when we was in Bankau but the, pardon me. During the daytime we used to walk all the way around the perimeter track for exercise and perhaps meet up with strangers and have a chat and because we were free to speak there although there were guards patrolling around the inside of the camp but you kept your eye open you could talk freely and it was during this time that we discovered from Charlie, no, not Charlie, from Taffy our bomb aimer how he knew this chap that stood in the doorway and spoke and apparently in 1938 he was working with, in a factory in South Wales with Taffy and they got on well together apparently and not knowing that he was a German, in early part of ‘39 he left to take up a job in Cambridge which they thought nothing more about you know. One moved on in their life. He had no idea he was a German until he saw him standing in that doorway which you know absolutely shocked him and he couldn’t explain any more about it, you know. But that was one big shock to all three of us actually that day. Walking around as I say for entertainment and exercise was something we done each day besides perhaps playing a game of cards which we did manage to get hold of a packet of cards, playing cards, when we was in the room but failing that life was quite boring until in the early part of, well until the Christmas time, I suppose, 1944 being our first Christmas in the camp we all thought of Christmas at home, Christmas puddings etcetera so we decided to have our own Christmas pudding which what we done we saved the crusts off the bread each day for several days so we just ate the bread. We saved the stones from the prunes that was in the Red Cross parcels. We cracked them open and cut up the kernels, we cut up the dried fruit that was in the parcel as well and the prunes, a few prunes, mixed it with the dried milk powder and margarine. A little bit of cheese was put in to it and margarine and it was all mixed up together and we had a what we called a blower stove which was made up out of empty tins and another tin with a little bit of fuel in which, wood shavings or whatever we could find and we turned the handle and turned a fan, make a fan, blow the flames and we cooked this concoction up for quite a while and it turned out to be very solid so when it was emptied out the tin it was just a solid lump of mixture but the taste was beautiful. We each had a couple of slices, each of the eight of us and we had a cream which we made out of the klim, klim milk, dried milk, mixed it all up and it was delicious and we celebrated our first Christmas away from home as you might say, with this pudding. It was delicious. It really was. [Recording paused] FH: After that of course or during that time we could hear gunfire in the distance which we assumed was the Russians advancing on the German line because we, there was a radio in the camp unbeknown to Germans of course and we were kept up to date with what was going on with the war and a chap used to come around and everybody was on guard, you know, different schemes each day to, so the Germans didn’t know anything about it you know and little messages were read out to groups of people of what was happening in the war but eventually we were informed that we were being moved out from the camp so the Russians wouldn’t, wouldn’t kills us and the Germans would look after us, with a smile from everybody. But the first time we was ordered out on parade I think it was, I’m not sure if it was the 17th or 18th of January but we stood on the parade from 3 o’clock in the morning for several hours in the snow and blizzard just with the, we had two blankets which we had in the hut which were wrapped around us trying to keep us warm and we had our little Red Cross cases with a little bit of food in that we’d shared out when we knew we were on the move and the clothing we, we had on, you know. A couple of pullovers and a couple of pairs of socks and that kind of thing. But anyhow on the 19th of January we were called out again early in the morning and I think it was about 8 o’clock, I’m not too sure, we were started out on this forced march. The Germans not even knowing where they were taking us. Just told to march in a certain direction. Then of course the march didn’t last long. It was just an amble of walking both by the German guards and ourselves and we was put in to an old brickyard to have a rest later in the day and we managed to find somewhere to sleep, the four of us, that’s Charlie, myself, Frank and Tommy and we covered ourselves with the blankets to keep warm. 8 o’clock in the evening we were ordered to get up, go on a night march which wasn’t very pleasing and we sort of hung about in the brickyard and most of the chaps had gone by this time out on the road and something made one of us move some pallets that were stacked up. We don’t know why. Nobody said anything but we all crept in behind these pallets and pulled them back in position thinking we wouldn’t be found but unfortunately a sniffer dog with a guard just saw the pallets move, apparently. We learned this afterwards and so the guard pulled them out and out we had to go. Fortunately the dog was kept away from us and we were just ordered out whereas he could have shot us there and then but at that time the hundred and, what was there, twelve hundred chaps that had left the previous camp were out, all lined up and we were marched to the front of the queue or almost to the front of the queue where the leaders of the Germans and the leaders of the camp were all standing ready to move off which was, turned out to be a very terrible night for us. We marched and marched and the snow seemed to get deeper and deeper. Eventually we were actually up to our waist in snow trying to get through it and of course the marching had ceased by that time, we, it was just an amble and people was passing and others were trying to get in, you know in to the walkway that the leaders were making. Had a photograph been taken I would have loved to have had one of it but no and during the night we were informed through the, and seemed to go right through the whole column of men that if we didn’t get over the river Oder by 8 o’clock in the morning we’d be left to the mercy of the Russians and how this came about I don’t know but we, we got the message and by this time loads of people were in front of us and we, all of a sudden the four of us woke up sitting on our cases. Nobody else in sight. What happened I don’t know but we must have sat down for a rest and everybody else had passed by and of course by this time the snow was flat as a pancake where twelve hundred people had gone over it, you know and who came around first or who moved first I don’t know. I don’t think either of us did but we eventually I remember all four of us standing there. I can see them now or see us now there. Standing. Looking. And we just took over, we, while we was in the brickyard we’d broken up a ladder and made a little sledge several, which several other chaps had a part of and put our cases on and we was pulling it along which helped us as we all linked arms, the four of us walking along you might say like kids linking arms and we had this sledge pulling our four cases on. Anyway, eventually, how many hours after I don’t know but eventually we caught up with the tail end of the - 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 Fred Hooker. One Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource David Meanwell 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 2016-05-25 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AHookerFJ160525 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. 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 02:18:06 audio recording Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain South Africa England--Yorkshire Germany--Oberursel Poland Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941 1942 1943 1944-09-11 1944-09-12 1945-01-19 Description An account of the resource Fred Hooker talks about life before being called up for service, including his brother being captured in Hong Kong and becoming a prisoner of the Japanese. Fred joined the Boy Scouts, aged 11, and then the Air Training Corp when it was formed in 1941. In 1941, he volunteered as aircrew but failed the assessment test on his first attempt. Having passed on his second try, he went to RAF Bridgnorth for his Initial Wing Training. After progressing through RAF Yatesbury, RAF Sheerness, and RAF Bridlington, he was posted to No. 7 Air Gunnery School and became an air gunner. Fred talks about operations he and his crew took part in including: bombing Holland; being diverted to an American airbase due to extreme weather conditions and bombing the Ruhr Valley. He tells of being hit by flak on 11 September 1944 and having to bale out of his aircraft. He was picked up by the Germans and was taken to a prisoner of war camp in Poland. Fred describes life there together with the value of Red Cross food and clothing parcels. The Germans moved the prisoners of war out of the camp before the Russians could advance, marching them through heavy snow and, sometimes, at night. Fred’s small group of friends tried to escape but were caught and made to continue the march. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Claire Campbell Maureen Clarke 102 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew animal anti-aircraft fire bale out briefing crewing up debriefing Dulag Luft faith Halifax Initial Training Wing perimeter track prisoner of war RAF Bridgnorth RAF Bridlington RAF Dishforth RAF Moreton in the Marsh RAF Pocklington RAF Stormy Down Red Cross shot down Stalag Luft 7 the long march training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/544/11121/AHookerFJ170826.1.mp3 34e7b8ab3c905449d0e448d8867cb8ed 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 Hooker, Fred Fred J Hooker F J Hooker Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Hooker, FJ Description An account of the resource 31 items. Two oral history interviews with Sergeant Fred Hooker (b. 1924, 1850487 Royal Air Force) and his scrapbook containing photographs and documents. He flew operations as a mid-upper gunner with 102 Squadron and became a prisoner of war on 12 September 1944. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-05-25 2017-08-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document TO: Okay. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, whatever the case may be. This interview is being recorded for the International Bomber Command Centre. The gentleman I’m speaking to is Mr Fred Hooker and my name is Thomas Ozel and we are recording this interview on the 26th of August 2017. FH: Yeah. TO: Can you tell me a bit about where you grew up and where you were born? FH: Yes. That’s about four miles away from where we are now in a village called Hartley Wintney back in 1924. Did all my schooling in the same village and I joined the Service from the actual village which I [pause] getting stuck now. I joined the Air Training Corps when that was first formed in 1941 and that was the, really the start of my liking to, in wanting to join the RAF and join the bomber crews because we used to go to RAF Odiham for different lectures and that in the Air Training Corps. And while we were there we were often had flights in various aircraft having the written permission from the parents to fly and my first aircraft was a Tiger Moth that I flew in. And on another occasion I went up in a Blenheim aircraft sitting in a gun turret. Of course, the gun turret was made safe, or the guns were made safe and from there it got me bugged and I wanted to join the Air Force. Not only that around the same time one afternoon in the garden I was actually digging a shelter for the bombers and there was a whole load of aircraft coming down across the sky from the Reading area and it turned out to be the first attack, thousand, thousand aircraft raid on Cologne. They come over the village and I stood there along with other neighbours watching these aircraft. I could see the gun turrets moving, the guns moving, the chaps waving to us as they were flying over and that really gave me the bug to join the RAF and hopefully become a member of a bomber crew which eventually I did and joining up in the actual Air Force on the 29th of March 1943. And I had to report to Lord‘s Cricket Ground for my, well I joined the Service and where I had all the inoculations et cetera. I think it was about a fortnight I was in London after which I was posted to a place called Bridgnorth in Shropshire as I was going to train as a wireless operator/air gunner at the time and unfortunately during the training⸻ I enjoyed it at Bridgnorth. All the old square bashing, PTs, never so fit in my life as I was then. And as I say I was posted to Bridgnorth. Done that and then from there I went to RAF Yatesbury for wireless training in Wiltshire which I thoroughly enjoyed. With regards the Morse Code I’d done some in the Air Training Corps and I improved my reading and sending of the messages but unfortunately when it got around to technical details I’m afraid Freddie came unstuck ‘cause we used to have tests every so often to make sure that we could carry on in the course. But as I say I failed one of the tests and I remustered to a straight air gunner. That was, I had to go to Sheerness for the remustering and there I met some other chaps that had been on a pilot’s course and a bomb aimer’s course and become very friendly with them. In actual fact the Les, Les Duncan from Sunderland, we palled up very well very quickly and in actual fact in the end he became our tail gunner on the crew that I was flying with. Which was quite exciting because we were inseparable in those days. We’d both done another course of physical training et cetera in Bridlington, Yorkshire along the sea front. There was no, no parade grounds or anything so it was all done along on the promenade which was a bit drafty at times as we was there in the winter months. But anyhow we, from there we were posted to Number 7 AGS in Stormy Down, South Wales. And of course, we didn’t know until we both arrived there that we was going to meet again because the various chaps went to various units of the gunnery. Different Gunnery Schools. But fortunate for me Harry and Les came to the same Gunnery School and we got on marvellous and although we weren’t actually in the same classrooms for our lectures et cetera we became good friends. And when it come around to we had to start using guns to fire which was quite exciting really thinking we was going to go straight into the aircraft and use Browning. 303 Browning guns. Instead of that we went on twelve bore shooting at clay pigeons as the start of our firing which, that led to flying in an Anson after that with camera guns which to me was quite exciting. I always fancied cameras but never really got around to studying photography to that extent. But we had taken the photographs of the, no, what was it, the Fairey Battle, sorry. The Fairey Battle aircraft used to attack us and we used to, that was drawing a drogue which we used to have to fire at. And from there from the films taken they could estimate whether we hit the target or not which was pretty good at times. I must say it myself I was, quite enjoyed that. And then we moved on to firing 303 guns which was mounted into, this was on the Avro Anson we were flying in those days which had a turret fitted not normally used on an Anson. Just for training purposes and we finally passed out at, well I say Stormy Down actually we’d been diverted or posted to a satellite of Stormy Down. A place called Rhoose which now I understand is Cardiff airport. Some difference. But from there we was transferred or posted I should say to Moreton in the Marsh, Gloucestershire. Of course, we went from home to Reading Station on old the local bus and sitting on the station I met another chap who was. We had our greatcoats on because it was pretty fresh and talking to this gentleman there, he was a warrant officer, I discovered that he was going to Moreton in the Marsh as a pilot to crew up the same as I was. So we had a nice long chat on the platform and we sat together in the, going down in the train, got to know each other, about each other’s family et cetera and I eventually crewed up with him as his mid-upper gunner. Of course in Moreton in the Marsh we were trained on, no, crewed up on a Wellington bomber but once again we were put to a satellite station called Enstone which, which was quite enjoyable. And Les and Harry they both in the same group we all went to Enstone which was just what we wanted because Les and I had made up our minds that if possible we’d fly together. And while we were there we had do dinghy training and believe it or not that was in Blenheim Palace grounds. The grounds of Blenheim Palace. There was an Avro Anson parked in the middle of the lake which was great fun because some of us, although fortunately I could swim but some of the crew couldn’t swim at the time. But we had a row out in a little boat to the aircraft and sit in the positions you would do as though we were doing a crash landing in the sea and had the instructions. And as we hit the water we heard a noise in the aircraft. That was the time we were sitting in the aircraft and of course we had to, that was the time we had to open the dinghy, get the dinghy out, open it up, blow it up and sit in the dinghy. That went on for a couple of days but after that we passed out as a full crew. We had Phil the bomb, sorry Phil the pilot came from the Salisbury area. Jock the navigator he was from Aberdeen, Taffy the bomb aimer from Wales and Les, my old mate he came from Sunderland and of course, myself from Hartley Wintney. And we got on quite well together as a crew and eventually we passed out having done various cross-country flights firing at different targets in selected areas in the North Sea and I suppose it would be the Irish Sea as well. But from there we went on to Halifax bombers in 6 Group which, transferred to 6 Group thinking we was going to remain in 4 Group but no. It was a Canadian unit we went to at Dishforth and there a flight engineer joined the crew which, he was a chap from Romford in Essex. Old Charlie. Charlie [Warderman.] He was about the oldest member of the crew in actual fact. He was an old London bus driver. From there we, we became good friends and made up the crew but unfortunately, we lost our wireless operator while we was in Dishforth. He got in to trouble with the police. Never heard proper details about that but anyhow we were joined by a French Canadian chap from Montreal as a wireless operator and of course as we introduced ourselves all the way around to him and he told us about his Service life which apparently he’d been, already been on operations flying as a wireless operator air gunner on Marauders from Blackbushe. So I kept quiet and let him carry on talking about Blackbushe and that. I asked him about different pubs in Hartley Wintney and he discovered that I’d come from Hartley Wintney and we had a quite nice old chat from that. But we’d done all the similar things that we’d done at the OTU when we were at Dishforth and we finally got transferred or posted should I say to 102 Squadron. But prior to that we were actually told we was going on leave for a fortnight and being, joining a squadron in South Africa [knocking noise in background] But that all fell by the wayside, what that noise was I don’t know but here we go. We eventually got to RAF Pocklington, Yorkshire, 102 Squadron and the sight that greeted us as we turned in to the entrance of the aerodrome was a Halifax bomber sitting in the field where it had failed to take off which rather, you know put funny feelings in our stomachs seeing a crashed aircraft, you know. But we got over that and we finally started our bombing and that was 18th of August 1944. And we’d done our first bombing raid on the 3rd of September and the target was Venlo Airfield in Holland which was all new to us. The actual being informed of what they expected of the crews and telling us, warning the gunners to keep a good eye open the whole time from the time when we took off ‘til we came back but we didn’t encounter any aircraft, or any enemy aircraft at the time and the bombing trip went well. We had a small amount of flak but we didn’t take a lot of notice of it. But unfortunately, when we came back, flying over the North Sea we were diverted and we had to land at a ‘drome in Cambridgeshire which I never really knew the name of strange as it may seem. But we were there, we had to stay there for a week before the weather was changed and we could land back at Pocklington and while we were there I witnessed an American pilot shooting the ‘drome up because he had finished his tour of ops in a Lightning aircraft and he’d shot the place up twice and on the third trip he was flying over and he went under some cables and caught the fins of the aircraft and he shot up in the air, baled out and the aircraft crashed. But we did, as I say finally get back to Pocklington but prior to that while we were there the night we landed we were interrogated. After two unsuccessful attempts at landing and the third one the pilot took, took a chance and went in because low of petrol. Short of petrol. And we had a nice meal but I didn’t enjoy mine so much as the others because on medical instructions I had I was flying without dentures and we had a nice partridge and I couldn’t gnaw the bones like the other lads. It was quite a laugh really. Anyway, finally we got back to our own ‘drome and that was on the 11th of September. On the 12th, the morning of the 12th we were on orders to, for a briefing, I think it was about 10.30 in the morning and to go on another bombing raid. This was quite an extensive [pause] what’s the word? Briefing. That’s the word. Briefing on the target and the amount of aircraft that was going to be flying that day I think was about two hundred every so, every half hour on to the target. And it turned out to be the Ruhr. Gelsenkirchen. And of course, from the old memories of the crews that were on the squadron a big ‘Aaaargh,’ went up and we realised that they’d been there before and it wasn’t a very happy place to be. So of course, warned again by the gunnery officer after the briefing what he expected of all the gunners, you know to keep a sharp lookout. Watching out also, not just for the enemy aircraft that may attack but making sure there was nothing above us or that the other aircraft weren’t getting too close which we’d got used to doing. Anyhow, the, as we was going over the North Sea near the, getting near the border of Germany we, I could see smoke in the distance as we got closer and closer and realised it was the target area that we was approaching. And flying in formation we were the, one began to feel, you know wondered what was happening. I know I did. And still keeping an eye open watching what we had to look out for and the ack ack was firing away and the only way I can really describe it myself the firing of the German guns was in the modern day fireworks. You know the, with modern day fireworks they explode in the air all different colours. Varying coloured lights and that. Masses of them and imagine that was the shells bursting around us and believe me it was, well put it bluntly hell. And we, we carried on. We dropped our bombs and after there was the Pathfinders on the, guiding the bomb, the bomb aimers in and we saw two aircraft go down while we was on the bombing run and one, the Pathfinder we heard him say, ‘Take over number 2. Take over number 2. I’m going in. I’m going in.’ That’s the last we heard of that. But the, to see these other planes at the side of us going down it was a bit unnerving but you just got on with your job and it seemed to disappear from your mind you know because you’re thinking about yourself and guarding yourself. But anyhow we eventually got through the target and the navigator gave, flew on the new course to fly to come home which we did and we gradually got away from the flak and eventually landed back at Pocklington. [banging noises] It may be the workmen outside. I don’t know. TO: It might be some drilling, I don’t know. FH: Anyhow, we got out the aircraft. The ground crew were waiting for us. Welcoming us back. Of course, we looked around the aircraft and it was just covered in holes and we thought we were rather lucky getting back. When Taffy got right under the nose of the aircraft, looked up there was shells gone up right through where he had been laying with his legs open. Straight up through the centre, between his legs and out the top and he just more or less fell to the ground with his hands closed and I think he said a prayer same as we all did thinking that we were damned lucky to be back home. And the old aircraft had a load of holes in. Wonder. Since then we’ve wondered how we did manage to get back. But anyhow the following day oh we had a nice time. We had rum when we got in for debriefing and we all debriefed as a crew, then individually by the, like with our case Les and I, had the gunnery officer. We went to bed that night and the next morning looking on orders we was on orders again for another raid. Of course, we’d been trained for this so we, we knew what to expect, you know. That’s why we were sent to a squadron. To do these bombing raids. Anyhow, same procedure as normal and after the briefing of course you weren’t, you made no contact with anybody outside on the ‘drome. You was kept to yourselves so that no, anybody around the place to get the information to send off to the enemy, you know. Everything was all secret which we got used to after a couple of trips or a couple of briefings. This time the target was Munster in Germany. Crossing across the North Sea was okay. Normal flying except that when the navigator asked the pilot to climb to nineteen thousand feet which was the bombing height that day we found he couldn’t get the height. Only eighteen five hundred feet high. A discussion took place between the crew and we decided that you know we could carry on without. Didn’t want to turn back so we carried on to the bombing site and as we approached we had a bit of flak. And on the bombing run Taffy was giving an order to Phil to, you know, ‘Steady. Steady. Left. Left. Right. Right.’ Anyway, all of a sudden I discovered I was sitting in fresh air. It made me smile a bit at the time but I thought how has this come about? And as I had come to my guns were trailing over the tail turret and the ammunition was being pulled out all along the fuselage. Thinking to myself well it’s no good sitting here. Can’t. No good without guns. I’ll go up front with the pilot which I did or attempted to do. Disconnected oxygen et cetera to go up the front and the aircraft was one mass of flames. So at the same time I saw somebody disappear through the hatch, front hatch so I picked up my parachute. It was burning and I guess through the lack of oxygen I mean these things were happening but I just dropped the parachute back down thinking well that’s no use to me. And all this happened in a matter of seconds I guess but it seemed ages but I saw Charlie at the front, he was the flight engineer he come, seemed to be running back to me over the spar. He picked up the ‘chute. I can remember him doing it. I can see him now as I’m talking putting his arm across the flames on the ‘chute, clipping it on and somehow he got me over the spar in to the front of the aircraft into the cockpit where the exit was and the last thing I saw before he pushed me out was my pilot Phil sitting there with the stick back into his stomach. Very white. I can remember that and I can see him now. And Charlie pushed me out and I came to proper then coming down in the fresh air and while I was coming down I could hear psst psst psst and I assumed it was bullets being fired from the ground by the troops that I could see as I was coming down, surrounding me. And a Spitfire circled around as well while I was coming down. Didn’t see any other ‘chutes and I just hoped and prayed that everybody was out but I did see the plane which I assumed was our plane making a perfect belly landing away in the distance just one mass of flames. Of course, that disappeared out of sight and this Spitfire was circling and he must have been within five hundred feet of the ground and he dipped his wings and then shot away up in the air enough to say, ‘I’m on the way home.’ And that’s when I really first felt lonely. Just for a split second and then I was on the ground. And of course, I could see as I was landing that there was civilians and troops running in to this field that I was about to land in which I discovered, well in my opinion was a field of sugar beet and of course landed a bit heavy not having a full ‘chute. Anyway, I disconnected it and I had no chance of escape. It was 6.30 in the evening. I stood doing the hands up and a couple of German soldiers was within what fifty yards of me by that time and they gave me a search all over, make sure I’d got no firearms et cetera. And from there we marched across a field which was as I say was a bit of rough walking because it was some kind of root crop. I said it was sugar beet but anyway I’m carrying my open parachute and the guard put his foot on some barbed wire at the end of the field and I had to crawl underneath this wire which was not the easiest of tasks being opened a big parachute carrying. They put me in to a coach there where I was strip searched and the parachute and flying jacket suit were taken from me and thrown into the back of the coach. While that was going on Charlie arrived with his. He’d been picked up, and also Taffy and they went through the same treatment as I did. But shaking hand with Charlie as he got in and you know didn’t speak at all. Just shaking hands we got hit across the wrist with the butt of a rifle which was a little bit painful. Same as the kick I had as we got through the barbed wire. I stopped like an English gentleman as I say to allow them to get through because I didn’t know where I had to go and he, the jackboot went right in my rear which I felt for several days afterwards. So anyhow finally we got put into some Army barracks where we were [paused] we’d been walking along this canal bank and were being beaten up by the civilians with broom handles and forks and if it hadn’t been for the guards protecting us and tempting to fire at the civilians I don’t think I’d would be here now. But anyhow, we finally arrived in this Army barracks where we stood in a big hall. A kind of a dining hall place or assembly hall and after we were standing there I was on the right, Taffy in the middle and Charlie was on the left and we, all of a sudden a door opened directly in front of us. Taffy started falling so we instantly grabbed him to stop him falling on the ground and the chap in the doorway says, ‘It’s alright Taffy. The war’s over for you.’ And he disappeared. Of course, we couldn’t talk to each other and we didn’t find out until we got into the actual camp, Luft 7 in Poland what it was all about. And it turned out that in 1938 this chap was working with Taffy in South Wales and he’d left there to go to Cambridge to improve himself and I guess he went back to Germany. But from that there we were put into a cell for in Munster for three nights. Three of us in one cell. And from there we had to go to Dulag Luft, the Interrogation Centre which was a bit [pause] a bit much at times but anyway we was in separate cells there for the first time and that was quite a lonely spot then. But anyhow as soon as I, we’d been warned at briefing not to take notice of any voices or anything we heard when we were in the cells and I hadn’t been in there five minutes before a Yankee voice come I could hear. He says, ‘Are you a limey?’ I didn’t answer. He says, ‘Where did you catch it?’ I kept quiet. Didn’t answer at all and apparently, he said he had a gangrenous foot but I just didn’t answer and I just sat on the old bench that was there. But eventually after about a week I was called for and was taken, marched out from the cell along the corridor down to the flight of steps, outside in to a, well, we were passing a parade ground. Then I had to go down some old steps in the building and this had doors all the way along either side of the building and the doors was open. I was told to stand there or indicated to stand there where I stood for forty five minutes actually with a pistol in front of me. There was two officers, I assumed they were officers of the German force and one, one was asking questions. Where we come from, what my trade was and all the rest of it. Still just answered number, rank and name and he kept fiddling with his pistol. The safety catch going on and off and I got like that I remember saying to myself, ‘Why don’t you pull the trigger? Get me out of it.’ I said, ‘Nobody knows whether I’m alive or dead so why don’t you do it?’ Anyhow, after forty five minutes he says, ‘I can let you go back to your cell now, Sergeant Hooker.’ He says, ‘You’re too young to die yet.’ Went back and I sat, I remember sitting on that bench, wooden bench, collapsed out to be honest. And anyhow the following morning I was called again. I thought oh no. Not again. This time went the other way. Went into an office. ‘Sit down, sergeant.’ ‘No. I prefer to stand.’ ‘Oh, have a cigarette.’ ‘No. I don’t smoke.’ Although I could have done at the time you know. I did used to smoke a bit but we never, we was warned against it. Not to smoke, you know or to take a cigarette but I could have given anything to have one. But anyhow after a while he started asking questions again and then he went on the phone. I remember this clearly. Went on the phone and presently a chap came through the door with a book. Put it on the desk in front of the officer and there he started turning these pages over and every page he turned over he mentioned a name of the RAF stations that I’d been at. Right from the time I joined up in the Lord‘s Cricket Ground back to where I was born. It was amazing. Whether it told on my face or not I don’t know but once again he said, ‘You see Sergeant Hooker,’ he says, ‘We know all about you so what’s the point in shooting you.’ Still didn’t say anything. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘By the way Wing Commander Wilson is on our list. He’ll be the next one. We’ll get him. We knew he was supposed to lead the attack today,’ he said. ‘When you attacked.’ He said, ‘But he was standing at the end of the runway when you took off wasn’t he? Saluting the aircraft.’ It shook me something shocking that did. Knowing that. And that is actually what happened. Wing Commander Wilson’s plane went u/s on the way around to take off. And he said, ‘So, there we are.’ He said, ‘You go back to your cell.’ He says, ‘And in a few days’ time you’ll be sent to the prison camp.’ And I went back to my cell and sat there on this old wooden bench which we used to sleep on as well and I couldn’t take it in. That he knew all about us because my own crew didn’t even know where I was born apart from the fact that they knew I lived in Hartley Wintney. But I was actually born in a little hamlet a few miles away from there and he actually knew this. Anyhow, a couple or three days after we was called out again and there was Charlie and the bomb aimer over there and the navigator and the Canadian W/Op. They were there as well so we hadn’t been in touch with them at all. And there were several other men, two chaps we started talking to or Charlie and I did. A flight engineer Sergeant [Mead] and a Sergeant [Beech] from Kent. Anyway, we became very good pals then once we got into the prison camp which was in a place called Bankau in Poland. Took several days I believe if I remember right getting there but once we was there we, we was put in to what we called dog kennels. These garden sheds. And there were seven in the one I arrived in. We was only there for a short while. I can’t remember exact dates but from there we was put into proper huts and there was, that was divided off into small rooms and there was eight of us in a room in four double bunks. We became very friendly altogether and for exercise like all the rest of the lads we used to walk around the perimeter track day after day just to keep a bit of fitness together. The food was a bit rough and in very short supply as it had been during the whole time I’d been in the Interrogation Centre. But there we are. We got through. We had a bit of German cheese and their soup which was, well we called it whispering grass. That’s what it looked like. Bits of grass boiled up. Sometimes there was skinned potatoes boiled up. But the bread I got used to in the end. Eating their dark bread which was horrible to start with. The one thing in passing towards the end of the time we was in Luft 7 we were issued with bread that had been baked in 1937 for the Spanish Civil War. It was on the wrappers of the bread. Like we get our bread nowadays in wrappers. It was just like that. It was some of the finest bread I’ve ever eaten. It really was. Of course, during that time in Luft 7, through the Red Cross I had a set of dentures made because I was flying without mine. And there again they didn’t cost me anything apart from we was allowed to give the dentist a tablet of soap for hygiene purposes which I did and they was a lovely set of teeth. I had them on for a number of years after. After the war. Anyhow, from there of course, the Christmas ’45, sorry ’44 we heard that we was about to be moved from one camp to another. And over the Christmas period there the Yankee aircraft we could hear up in the sky we actually could see them. They was flying quite regular. But on the 17th of January we were informed because we used to have a parade every twice a day for number count, make sure nobody had escaped, et cetera. We were informed that we’d be leaving the camp later that day to a destination which the Germans couldn’t tell us. Anyhow, we stood out in the snow and cold with what little personal items we had in a Red Cross case which we’d been given in [pause] not in the Interrogation Centre, a transit camp which we went to after we’d been interrogated and that had new clothing, underwear, pullovers, towels, shaving gear which was very acceptable because I hadn’t had a shave or wash for over two weeks. And but from there as I say we was on the parade ground for a number of hours on the 17th then sent back to our billets. On the 19th we was called again 3 o’clock in the morning on parade. Everybody woke up. Snowing. Breathing very cold. We eventually moved off. I think it was somewhere about 8 o’clock if I remember right. Over twelve hundred of us. There were sixteen hundred of us in the camp. Anyhow, there was way over twelve hundred and we, the marching didn’t last much. It got into a walk and we stopped a few hours afterwards and put up into a farm building for the night. Then we walked again the following morning for a short while. And then we stopped outside a brick yard, a disused brick yard and we spent the day there. Some were lucky enough to be under cover. Others were in the open. Resting. We was told we was staying there for the day or for the night I should say and early evening we was called out again. We were on the move. The word went around. So we hesitated as to whether we’d get out or whether we’d stay there hoping we could get away with staying there and perhaps make contact with the Russians as they were making their push. As we were about to move we saw a pile of pallets. The four of us. There was Charlie, myself and Frank and Tommy. So nobody spoke. We all seemed to go to these pallets and start moving them, a big pile of them and we laid behind. Thought now we’re safe. Nobody will see us here. And we just moved them back in position properly and we were spotted, it turned out by a dog seen the pallets move. A dog. A German guard was checking everybody was out. Anyhow, he controlled the dog. It didn’t attack anybody and we, he ordered us out and in that time he pushed us up near the front of the queue that was forming to make the night march as it turned out. Well, that night it was really snowing and being in front of the queue, or almost in the front we was in sight of the German guards and the chief officer of the camp and the interrogator, not the interrogator, interpreter I should say of the camp and we was walking through snow up to our waists. So we were literally sort of digging ourselves through. And this went on all night. We left there at 8 o’clock at night. The march started and during the night we were informed that if we didn’t get across the River Oder by 8 o’clock in the morning we’d be left to the mercy of the Russians because they was getting so close. For some unknown reason we got over the river, over the bridge which had big holes drilled in them ready for being exploded. You know, exploding. And during the night, I can’t quite remember whether it was before that incident or after we found ourselves, the four of us sitting on our cases. We had these Red Cross cases which we had fixed on to a piece of an old broken ladder we found in the brickyard and used it as a sled to pull these cases along, you know. We had our towels and a little bit of personal stuff, clothing left. Most of it we was wearing to keep us warm. But we suddenly discovered we was all four of us sitting on this case. Nobody else in sight. I can’t remember who spoke, or if anybody spoke first but we eventually got up and we linked arms as we had been before helping each other along trying to keep each other up. Standing up. And of course the snow was flat and icy where all the lads had gone before us but we eventually did catch up with the group, on the tail end of it but after we’d got over the river, when did I say when it was? About 8 o’clock in the morning. Tired out of course but a short while afterwards we heard the explosions of the bridge being blown up. And that night or that morning we waited outside a farmhouse for like about an hour while the farmer finished milking his cows. You could see them in the stalls. And they turned them out into the snowy field and all of a sudden there was a mad rush and everybody was rushing inside so they could lay down and have a rest. Well, the four of us we spotted the old cow pen where they used to milk the cows. The stalls. The cow stalls. Just room for four of us to lay down. Well, there was, the cows had been in there all night and we had a good old job trying to clean them out using our boots to move the droppings. We got a bit of straw or hay and managed to lay down on it but it wasn’t very thick. It was very hard and cold but that’s how we spent our night or the rest of the day I should say. But again, we’d no food and this went on for a number of days. I can’t quite remember how many it was. The old memory is going a bit. But we were sleeping in cow farms, cow stalls, open barns. Sometimes the barns had hay in. I know in one instance we were sleeping on some hay that was in a barn down the bottom. Others had climbed up on the top of the rick. But in the morning we couldn’t find our shoes and where the hay had moved, people moving about at night going to loo et cetera but we did finally find them. But another instance we got to a, we was about to move again from the farm and had a short march that day and got to another farmhouse. And this was in the evening time and I could see, or four of us could see shadows moving about in the distance in this farmyard and I went to investigate because we had a feeling. We could see the shadow of a house in the darkness. I went a line, I took a couple of mugs with me to get a drink of water for the four of us and when I got there I was ushered inside and told, you know, told not to speak. It was in broken English. It was some Polish people and there was two of the lads, Polish lads who were on march they’d come up and found out there were Polish people in the house and two of them were going to stop there and hide and they had the floorboards up and they were going to hide in to, underneath the floorboards when the whole lot moved off. And I was warned you know not to say anything other otherwise you know, you’d be finished. I eventually got back with this water and they wanted to know where I had been and all the rest of it but thankfully we were eventually told we were going on a, the end of the march was over and we were being transported by train. TO: Sorry. Can I just ask what is that noise? Other: That’s the fridge. TO: Okay. I just wondered. FH: Are you alright? TO: I was just wondering what the noise was that was all. FH: Hmmn? TO: Just wondering what the noise was. That was all. Sorry. Carry on. FH: Yeah. We, we was informed we were going to be travelling by train for a while but we had another small march. But once we got on the train or on the train there was trucks, goods trucks and there was sixty five of us in one truck which in normal circumstances would have been a bit crowded to say the least. But it wasn’t long before people wanted to relieve themselves. Of course, we couldn’t open the door. That was locked from the outside. There was a crack in the door and various chaps stood at the door trying to relieve themselves but in the end a corner was used to, they wanted to do number twos as they call it. You know. And eventually no. It was, I don’t know how to describe it. The stench was terrific. Everybody was wanting to relieve themselves and using the corner and of course that meant chaps were getting closer and closer together because during the, a couple of days before we got on the train we’d been at a farmhouse and somebody found a tub of what they said was molasses. Of course, everyone being hungry and thirsty put their mugs in and had some of this molasses but it was what they called farm molasses and of course Canadians used to love molasses. Similar to treacle in our case, you know. But this turned out to be farm molasses which they used to use to make sileage for the cattle. Dysentery set in with nearly everyone on the train and believe me it was no, no holiday sitting in that train. We did finally stop and then we were allowed out of the trucks and some of us got out. I think most people got out but a lot of us couldn’t get back in on our own. It was on a slope and it wasn’t on the, it was out in the country so there was no platform and we went down the slope and done what we had to and got back up the slope to get in and the Germans were actually helping us into the trucks. The guards. And some of our own chaps who were a bit fitter helped each other up. Anyhow, we finally got to the destination which was Luckenwalde and there we had a short walk to the camp and crowds of people were, or a crowd of chaps were getting near the gate anxious to see who we were and what. What we were. And it turned out it was an Army camp that we were arriving at. Stalag 3A. And again, we had to stand outside, be photographed again for identity cards. We eventually got into this camp. Into huts. There were no bunks and just the open hut and I think it was just over two hundred to a hut. And we were fortunate. Fortunate to find a place near the side of the hut where we could lean against. There was no, you couldn’t really lay down there was so many. The crowd was so, you know intense and so close together. But anyway, that went on for a while and it was there that I discovered two lads. One from Aldershot, and one from Blackwater and a third one from Basingstoke. And the lad from Basingstoke unfortunately was taken to hospital one night and he passed away with a gangrene stomach. And the following morning or the morning after the padre come around asking if anybody knew him that was in the area where he was resting and sleeping, this chap. He’d been taken out of the room. But I imagine that he was in the same Air Training Corps as I was in Basingstoke and so I was allowed to join the party for the funeral which part of the way I carried a imitation or homemade paper wreath with paper flowers on. And halfway along outside the camp, it was quite a walk we changed over bearers and I helped carry the lad to the cemetery which all were under oath not try to escape, you know on that particular occasion which we all agreed to, you know the padre and everything. Anyhow, finally on the 22nd of April [pause] Yes, the 23rd of April we woke up and then, no. That must have been about the 22nd we discovered that the German guards had gone and a senior, I think it was a Norwegian officer had been put in charge of the camp and he gave the instruction ‘No one to leave’ as the Russians were very close. And on the 23rd these Russian tanks arrived and it was a sight I’ll never forget. They, these tanks went straight down the main road I suppose you’d call it of the camp, the barbed wire either side knocking it down. Everybody was cheering I remember and they turned around, the tanks did and come back up and with the tanks, on some of the tanks were Russian prisoners. There was, been a compound further down, sitting on the tanks and some were walking and it was said that they were continuing with the troops to Berlin. They were in a sad state I must admit. And the next thing another follow up troops as they moved off further on the second wave of Russian troops come which had women in them, amongst them as well and we were treated just like prisoners as well by them. Short of food. Not allowed out. But some did venture out I agree. On one occasion, one day there we were, several of us walked down to the Russian compound where they’d killed a cow. We tried to get some of this meat to cook up but didn’t get much luck. They gave us a bit of a tripe which we couldn’t do anything with. It was horrible really. But anyhow, eventually word went around that American trucks were arriving. Everybody was quite pleased and excited looking for them. When they did arrive we rushed to them. I know I did to get on one of the trucks. They was going to take us back to the American lines which turned out to be about eighteen kilometres away. But waiting there in the trucks then some of the guards got very close and ordered everybody off the trucks. ‘You’re our prisoners. You’re going home. We’ll send you home through Odessa,’ they were saying. Anyhow, we got turned off the trucks, put back in the camp and the word went around they’d come again in the morning, the Americans because they didn’t want to make bad friends or cause trouble with the Russians. So they said they’d return again in the morning which they did and again I was one of the lucky ones to get on the trucks. This time I’d somehow or other, I don’t know how I’d lost, lost contact with Charlie and the two new mates, Frank and Tommy. But anyhow again we got turned off the trucks with the Russians firing at us. So the message went around anybody fit enough to walk eighteen kilometres the Yanks would wait there for twenty four hours waiting for us. I joined up with a couple, three other chaps who was in the, got off the same lorry. We went into the woods that was close by heading in the direction that we was informed that, we were being fired on then by the Russians as we was trying to escape I suppose you’d call it. But we weren’t the only ones. There was a load of others as well but we was dodging in between the trees. But eventually the firing stopped and we carried on and met up with four or five others. And in the end there was a group of ten of us that after chatter amongst ourselves five of them decided to return to camp but we decided, you know we started and we’d finish. And that night, well during the day I don’t know how far we’d covered I’m sure but we were very tired and hungry we come across this little village and we could smell new bread being baked and of course that made us worse. Made us feel hungry and we sorted out some and spoke to some Russian guards and took a chance that we’d speak with them and they indicated, or we made them understand who we were after a while. Ex-prisoners of war, English and they cottoned on to who we were. They took us into a house and ordered us to sit down and they disappeared. Well, it was only a matter of ten minutes I guess and they come back with four or five jars of bottled meat and a big bucket of milk and indicated to us to eat and drink and then to lay down and sleep. So we really got tucked in to this bottled meat. It was good. And the milk. So we finally said well we’ll stop there and we slept through the night. And then the following morning we thought well we’d better say thank you to these Russians but we didn’t know where they were but we went outside and eventually we saw these chaps coming back to us pushing bicycles. We thought are they the same men or aren’t they and it turned out they were and they’d got bicycles for us to ride instead of having to walk because we were informed we was going to America. And there was four bicycles so we shared one. Gave one a lift so far and then changed over you know. Five of us on four bikes. Then eventually we got to [unclear] where the German, a load of German civilians and we was trying to get through to the bridge and couldn’t get through. But eventually we made contact with the Russians that were guarding the bridge which was the entrance for the Germans to get across into the Yankee zone but they weren’t allowing that. They was going to keep them on their side. But eventually we got in contact with them and told them we wanted to get over and, ‘No. No. No.’ Then they indicated they realised who we were and I pointed to my bike, flat tyre, no good. So they took this bike away from me and more or less snatching it away from me give it to a German lady and snatched her bike away from her and told us, indicated for us to go across the bridge. Which we did and it was long, not long after we got over the bridge we turned. I remember turning left and going along this road. We heard grenades going off. We thought have we done right? They’re still fighting. Anyhow, suddenly three or four Yanks came out from the woods a way in front of us, a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards in front of us. They looked and we put our hands up and we called out, ‘English. English.’ Anyhow, we gradually met up and from there they, we threw our bikes on the grass and they got transport for us and took us to their headquarters where we was given some food and drink, cigarettes. And then we was moved on from there to a place called [Halle]. I think it is. Anyhow, there again we was given some more cigarettes, more food and it was there that there were some other lads, some Army lads who had been prisoners and had got that far and of course my feet was terrible with blisters. So one of these lads seen me hobbling. He asked what was wrong and I said, ‘Oh, blisters.’ He said, ‘I’m a medical man,’ he says, ‘From the Medical Corps.’ He says, ‘I’ll have a look at them.’ Anyhow, he looked and he disappeared somewhere. He’d been there several days apparently but he came back and I think he must have pricked one of the blisters and it was all running out you know. And then he put a padding on it which was a little bit uncomfortable to start with but after a while it made it easier for me to walk. So I thanked him and then we didn’t see him again. We got, I got moved on to Belgium to an Army, a British Army camp where we had a good shower and a wash, a shave, tidied up again. And from there they gave us some what they called [Banff] money. It was money that was issued to the occupying forces during the war and we bought a couple of little gifts in the evening. The following day we were told, we had breakfast there of course amongst the troops and we were told that our names would be called out and we’d have to go to a certain point they indicated to us. An assembly area where we’d be flown back to England. Well, waited all the morning. Nothing happened. And we had lunch or I had lunch and I realised I was the only RAF chap there. So waited and waited and mid-afternoon I heard the name, ‘Sergeant Hooker, RAF.’ So I hurried to the assembly point and met up with a crew of a Dakota and they said, ‘Well, you’re on our flight,’ and there was a load of Army chaps there as well so we all got aboard and I discovered sitting in the aircraft I couldn’t see any other RAF chaps. Anyway, we took off. I was very pleased you know to be taken flying again and I just got settled in my seat you know and thinking that, well the White Cliffs are over there and I see a chap coming down from the cockpit, one of the crew members. And he’d been sent down by the pilot asking if I would like to go and fly home in the cockpit along with them which I grabbed the opportunity and I sat up there along the line coming over the English Channel could gradually see the White Cliffs getting nearer and nearer. And the pilot was asking where I lived and said that he was landing at Dunsfold near Guildford. I said, ‘Oh well, that’s not too far from home.’ I said, ‘In fact, I’ve got relations in Guildford.’ Anyhow we got there and we landed and the first chap oh I sat back in the fuselage of course for landing and the first chap I met when the door opened being the first one off the aircraft was a Salvation Army officer who welcomed me home. Shook hands. Then the next chap in the line was a senior RAF officer who, you know shook hands. Again, welcoming me home. Then there was the Army chap. Anyway, we finally got into the hangar in Dunsfold. We had a short interrogation there. Wanted to know when I was shot down and about the crew and if they was all alive. Eventually we were transported that night into Guildford Railway Station and going on the platform thinking it was more or less empty there was a load of women and of course there were a lot of other RAF chaps with me this time. You know they’d landed earlier and that. I forget how many there was but anyhow we were sent there or driven there by transport to go catch a train to Cosford, near Wolverhampton. So, I said, ‘Well, why can’t I go home?’ I said, ‘I’ can be home in a short while.’ ‘No. You’ve got to go to Cosford and get re-kitted and that.’ Well, these woman as we, the group walked on the platform a woman grabbed us and this particular woman had grabbed me or took hold of my arm and we walked away from the others. She says, ‘We’re all here to take information from you.’ She says, ‘So we can contact your parents or relatives to let them know that you’re home and safe.’ I said, ‘Well, I had sent a telegram to them.’ ‘Yes, but we’ll, we’ll let them know exactly what’s happening and how you are.’ So I told them everything. I said, ‘Well, I’m not on the phone at home,’ I says. ‘My parents haven’t got a telephone.’ ‘Don’t worry. We’ll ring the local police station.’ Which she said they would do and get the police to go to the house and tell mum that we was on the way home, or on the way to Cosford like, you know. Which apparently happened it turned out. After I’d got home they told me all about it. But while we was there there was a big shout. One of the girls quite close to us yelled out loud and disappeared. And it went quiet, everybody went quiet, saw this girl running and she’d spotted her brother entering the platform and after a while everybody cheered and that kind of thing, you know but it was a very moving moment actually. Anyhow, he was allowed to go straight home. We went up to Cosford on the train. Got there in RAF Cosford and could have a wash and shower and all that kind of thing and laid out on the bed was the old RAF blue uniform. Hospital uniforms. Clean pyjamas. Nice white sheets in the bed and we enjoyed our nice night’s sleep. Then and during the day we, the following morning we had breakfast and had a proper interrogation of what had taken place from the time we’d left the ‘drome until we got back to where we were then and asking about the deaths of the different ones you know, the pilot and the tail gunner. Anyway, we finally got rekitted, smartened up and I travelled down to Reading by train with a lot of London boys and we was allowed to travel that night providing we could get home. Well, I’d looked at the timetables and things and thought well I can get to Reading and catch the last bus as I thought but anyway it was, unfortunately the last bus had gone when I got there. Very quiet of course. This was midnight and I eventually plucked up courage and rang a farmer that I knew in the village not knowing whether they had petrol for cars or anything like that. Anyway, the son answered the phone and I was a bit choked up and he couldn’t understand what I was saying for a while and he said, ‘Did you say Freddie?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And he, I can remember him saying, ‘Calm down, Fred. Calm down.’ He said, ‘Wait a minute.’ And then he said, ‘Are you alright?’ and I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘What are you doing? Where are you?’ And I explained I was just coming home from a POW camp and this was my first visit home and I was stuck in Reading. And he said, ‘Well, alright.’ He says, ‘You stay where you are,’ he says. I remember this as plain as life. ‘You stay where you are.’ He says, ‘I’ll have a word with dad. Wake him up.’ Anyhow, it turned out that they had petrol enough and David was allowed to, excuse me come in to Reading and pick me up which was quite a moving, a moving moment when he did arrive and we drove back across what we call Hazeley Heath and made me think of the times when I used to go on leave and walk from Reading to Hartley Wintney but this time it was, I felt I wasn’t fit enough and I’d a full pack and everything. But anyhow, as we turned in our local road and thinking it was all going to be in darkness I could see lights in our living room and in the kitchen and as David pulled up outside the house there was mother and father at the gate waiting for me. And I was at last home and met up with the family who was there. There is only one thing I regret because when I, while I was in the camp I cut the tops of my flying boots off so they was ordinary shoes and I used the silk to make a silk scarf but while doing, one of the flying boots, the leg part of them was covered in shrapnel. Bits of metal and I had filled a matchbox full of these and had carried them all the way through and everything and they was in my hand while I was waiting at Reading Station. I found them in the matchbox but I never saw them again because when we’d been hit I mean I wasn’t injured in any way but my left toecap of this shoe, flying boot had a split from one side to the other and it didn’t even touch my sock. Just the shoe and I’d saved them. Saved them. When I got new kit in Cosford I put them in my kitbag and brought them with me. But that I’m afraid was my life in the Service. Apart from the fact that I did stay on for a while and joined the Motor Transport Department. Done my training up at [Wittering] just outside Blackpool. And eventually I went back to France to a Repair and Salvage Unit travelling over France recovering broken down vehicles. That I say is my memories of service life but I often regret not staying in. There we are. That’s another tale. Thanks. TO: Thank you so much. [recording paused] FH: Right. TO: So when you were growing up were you interested in aircraft? FH: Not until I got involved with the Air Training Corps when that first came about in 1941. Yeah. That’s the only interest I had before. When I was a young lad at [pause] what age would I have been? I’d have been about eight years of age my sister worked as a housemaid in a private house and an aircraft, a private aircraft used to land there. A chap by the name of Fielding and it was in the field next door actually to where Lord Alanbrooke finally arrived at and lived. A house called Ferney Close. And I always remember it was a red aircraft and my sister used to come home on her day off she used to tell us about this. Usually flying around the area then it would disappear for parts of sight and it would land in this field and they were allowed out to see it after it landed. Otherwise, no. It was the joining the Air Training Corps and seeing these aircraft we mentioned earlier coming over on the first, what turned out to be the first thousand aircraft raid on Cologne that got me really in to flying. Yeah. TO: And when you, in the 1930s do you remember anyone being afraid of Hitler? FH: Being afraid of Hitler? TO: Yes. FH: Let me think [pause] Not until, well ’38 I suppose, ’39 time. I can’t remember anything before that. Not really. No. No. I don’t think so. Can’t give much of an answer there. TO: And do you remember the day the war started? FH: Yes. I was standing in our living room in what is now Priory Lane, Phoenix Green and I was standing near, between the window and the living room door and father had ordered us to keep quiet. There was three or four of us children there at the time and he put the, had the wireless on and he says, ‘This means we will have to go without things for a while.’ I remember him saying that. But I can remember the Prime Minister saying, ‘We are now at war with Germany.’ Now, was he, what was his name? TO: Chamberlain. FH: Sorry? TO: Chamberlain. FH: Chamberlain. Because he lived quite local over at Heckfield, a few miles from home and his sisters lived in Odiham if I remember right but not that I ever knew him or met him you know. But I hear his voice now in my head saying, ‘We are now at war with Germany.’ Yeah. TO: And what do you think of his policy of appeasing Hitler? FH: Come again? TO: What do you think of Chamberlain making the agreement with Hitler in 1938? FH: I don’t know. I’ve never really dwelt on that really. But thinking back I don’t think it should have taken place. No. But I can’t really give much of an answer to that one. TO: And do you — sorry, were you going to say something? FH: No. TO: Do you remember the preparations people were making for war? FH: Oh yes. Digging. Digging big holes in the garden. Filling it with corrugated iron walls on the inside of the big hole with steps leading down to it. That’s what I was doing myself in our own garden on the day the thousand pound, [laughs] thousand pound [laughs] the thousand plane bomber raid was to take place. Some people had done it much earlier of course. And then there was you could purchase the let me think Anderson shelters and there was another one. TO: Morrison. FH: Morrison. That’s right. Yeah. I know while I was on leave once I went down to my sister in Folkestone and we had to get in this, this shelter that was in her living room in the corner under the table. The table was over the top of it. And because there was a bombing raid on I’ve never been so scared in my life sitting in there because if a bomb had come down I think you would have just been buried, you know. I could never quite work out the reason for such places like that. I can understand the huge, larger underground shelters that they had but for the individual having one in the house I couldn’t quite see that but there we go. That was about it I think. TO: Were there any air raids where you lived? FH: Yes. There was one. Now, this would have been when? They weren’t that, it wasn’t an actual raid on the village or area but a bomb was dropped and landed in a field right on the outskirts of the village which I actually saw leave the Dornier aircraft while I was working as a gardening boy. This would have been in what? 1942, I guess. I was working at Winchfield House owned by a Colonel Cherington and this lone aircraft which kept flying over in daylight one afternoon and we saw the actual bomb doors open and see the bomb leave the aircraft and it landed in a field close to what we called Mount Pleasant in Hartley Wintney. And no one was injured or anything but we did, I did view the crater later in the evening and there was a few windows, I believe broken but no, no casualties and that’s about the only one I can remember local. Although when I was at home at the time I don’t know but I understand there was a few found or that had been dropped along the, near the railway line at a place we called Elvetham. A couple or three miles from here but I don’t know any details on that one. TO: And once you’d joined the Air Force what kind of rations did you have? FH: Rations? While in the Service do you mean? TO: Yes. In the Service in general. FH: Well, I think we used to have a sweet ration. I don’t think cigarettes were rationed. I can’t remember that. But food of course. I mean, we had supplied to us. You know, from the mess. Although in civvy street there was the usual rationing going on but once I was in the Service that didn’t affect us except that when we went on leave we were given a ration card with little coupons on that the shopkeeper used to have to tear off. Was it two ounces of tea a week? An ounce of cheese or a couple of ounces of butter. I forget the exact amount. A very small amount but of course that helped, assisted mother with feeding me when I was on leave. That kind of thing. Yeah. That’s about it I think. Yeah. TO: And when you were volunteered for the Air Force what was the process for becoming air crew? FH: Well, first of all I applied I don’t know whether it was to Oxford or where it was but I had to go, travel to Oxford. I had the reply after writing and I had to travel to Oxford for an interview and an assessment test. And that was, I’d done my first one in 1941 but unfortunately I failed that and very disappointed. I came home again but in 1942 [pause] yeah late ‘42 I reapplied and got through it okay. I was quite chuffed. Most of the local people I spoke to said, ‘You haven’t got a chance on earth. You’ve got to have a proper education. College and university education.’ I said, ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘But I’m going to have a damned good try.’ Which I did and I studied hard in the Air Training Corps. We had various lectures from people from the RAF Odiham and we used to visit, excuse me, visit RAF Odiham for lectures as a group in the ATC. And that is where I gained a lot of information that was needed with regards discipline. We were shown all a number of different forms which we learned numbers of because the Service life was all numbers on forms and as I say that’s where I really got the liking to and wanting to join the Air Force. Yeah. TO: And what medical tests did you have to do? FH: Well, we had the general medicals and well they checked you for everything in those days, you know, wanting to know what illnesses one had had but, and a load of injections of course. Things I’d never had before apart from having been vaccinated as a kiddie but they just took, took it in your stride you know. They asked questions and you answered them as best they could regarding your medical health which in those days I was quite fit and able, you know. Just have the normal sort of measles and mumps when I was a kiddie. That’s all. Nothing serious. Yeah. TO: And did you hear about events in the war like America becoming involved? FH: Yeah. We heard this on the radio, you know. And all the time he was at home dad always had the 6 o’clock and 9 o’clock news on the radio and nobody dare speak in those days while the news was on. If you did you got a clip around the ear because he was interested in what was going on, you know. He himself had only been in the Army a short while during the previous war, the First World War. Because he was just a short chappie. He was refused on height for a long time but he was for a few, a couple of years I think it was in what they called the Remount Depot down near Southampton but regards news it was quiet 6 o’clock and 9 o’clock at night and he mentioned about the Yanks being late coming in to the war I remember. ‘Just like they were last time,’ he said. But otherwise, no. And of course, we heard on of the so many aircraft didn’t return from a raid. That kind of thing on the news and it didn’t cross my mind when I got interested in planes that it might happen to me. Just one of those things. Yeah. TO: And what did you do for entertainment in the RAF? FH: Oh, that would be telling wouldn’t it? The [pause] well I don’t know. Just carried on normally. We used to go out for a drink sometimes or spend the evenings in the NAAFI along with friends and I’ve known when we’ve gone out for a stroll around the camp you know in the local villages. But otherwise, we spent a lot of time doing the old, [unclear] we called it in those days. Cleaning the brass and the webbing and actually we didn’t get a lot of spare time. Not in our case. No. We was always studying in the evenings. Checking up what we’d been through during the daytime you know. Sometimes you’d get assistance from a mate. Another time he wouldn’t speak to you. But normally the friendship in the Services was terrific. Something I did miss when I finally left. Yeah. The comradeship. Yeah. TO: How would you describe morale in the Air Force? FH: Good. Very good. Yes. I think so. From my experience it was very good and there’s no other word for it. The comradeship and the morale was good. You missed that kind of thing when you come into civvy street. TO: Were there ever any problems with teasing or bullying? FH: With bullying? TO: In the Air Force. FH: Never come across it myself. No. I must admit it was if one was in trouble or say in trouble perhaps couldn’t afford to, had spent the money and couldn’t afford to have a cup of tea or a pint of beer in the NAAFI one of your mates would always buy you one you know. It was the same when we was on the Conversion Unit. It was a Canadian unit as I mentioned earlier. We used to join them in the gambling sessions sometimes. I think they called it Sevens. Throwing the old dice. Well, many a time I’ve been broke from about an hour, an hour and a half after being paid same as Les and we always found somebody to give you a drink or a cup of coffee and loan you a quid if you wanted one. You’d always be paid back. The comradeship was terrific. Yeah. TO: Did you ever visit the cinemas together? FH: I think we used to go to a cinema occasionally. Yeah. I can’t say what. We used to have one on a camp, on most camps where you could go you know but what the films were now I don’t know. No. TO: And what did you think of Churchill? FH: It’s a job for me to describe that. At times he was, I mean he got us through the war from that angle but I don’t know. I daren’t say what I really think I don’t think. Not towards the end. I mean he didn’t have much, didn’t have much to say about Bomber Command boys after the orders to really as far as I’m concerned came from him in the first place for these bombing raids et cetera. Red Arrows going over. TO: Oh yeah. There we go. There we are. FH: Sorry about that. TO: No. No. FH: A perfect time to do a fly past. TO: They’re doing a fly past for Odiham Aerodrome. Other: No. That was Thursday. TO: Oh, was that Thursday. FH: Oh, there they go. There there go. TO: Yes. [pause] marvellous. FH: Couldn’t ask for any better interruption. TO: There they go again. FH: There they go. Other: [unclear] FH: Wonderful. TO: Wonderful. FH: That reminds me seeing those go by the window now the last day or supposed to have been the last day of the Vulcan flying. That comes just a few feet, well a few hundred feet I suppose it was above our road and come straight down the road. It was a beautiful sight. But anyhow that’s beside the point. TO: Okay. So would it be okay if we put [unclear] for us so they don’t crease. Sorry. Just that is creased. And what did you think of Arthur Harris? FH: Bomber. Yes. Well, he carried out instructions didn’t he from the higher ups and like the rest of us in the Service he was carrying out orders as far as I’m concerned. And that’s, that’s it. He was a good leader as far as I’m concerned. Yeah. But otherwise, never met him of course. No. I can’t say much more. TO: And what was your opinion of Halifaxes? FH: To me they were the finest aircraft ever made. I enjoyed every trip I took in them and to compare it with the Lancaster well it’s a job to because I only went into a Lancaster aircraft once and that was only about eighteen months ago when I visited the flight station at Coningsby. We were allowed, I was allowed to climb in there and go over the Halifax, the Lancaster and I still think the Halifax was a nicer aircraft. Yeah. It’s one of those things. They’d both done a good job. One may have carried a heavier bomber load, bomb loads but in the war effort I think they was both the same. Yeah. TO: Were you aboard a Mark 3 Halifax? FH: Yeah. We operated on the Mark 3 from the squadron. Yeah. It’s [pause], I’m not sure what Mark it was. Whether it was a Mark 3 at Conversion Unit or not I wouldn’t be too sure on that one. The old memory fades sometimes. TO: And what were conditions like in the mid-upper turret? FH: Very cramped as far as that goes but then you didn’t want to move about. You were sitting there and your turret moved with you and you looked, gazed and looked all around. Up, down all around. It was, it was a lovely flying position I think for seeing things as well, you know. Yeah. Beautiful. Boulton Paul turret. Yes. Many days ago now but I did manage to get into a Halifax. It would have been last year I think it was. We went up to RAF Elvington in Yorkshire and I was allowed to climb aboard there which I had to have a little assistance getting in but it was, well it brought back a load of memories to me. Good and bad. And I was only disappointed that Elizabeth couldn’t, wasn’t allowed into the aircraft there although she didn’t climb aboard the Lancaster as did our friends. But my friend, Chris, from Worksop, he helped me in and out of the aircraft same as he did the Dakota but the Halifax it’s, it’s a shame they didn’t save one so it could have joined the what was the Memorial Flight. Why that never come about I don’t know. Except they are rebuilding one in Canada which I sometimes get little whippets of news from but I haven’t had one lately. No. Lovely aircraft. TO: And did you ever know of any cases of people who refused to go on bombing raids? FH: No. I heard that some people did and then they were classed as LMF I think in initials. Lack of moral fibre. And I think it was disgusting for those chaps to be labelled with such a thing because believe me I’d only done three trips and as I mentioned earlier the one in the Ruhr it was hell let loose. So, I can’t, I don’t wonder some chaps not having the nerve to go again but being labelled LMF I think was wrong. Yeah. But I knew, never knew of anyone. TO: When you were aboard the Halifax how did it compare to being aboard the Wellington? FH: Well, quite a different experience in a way because with the [pause] when I was flying in the Wellington on training when we were crewing up mainly my position was looking out of the astrodome unless it was my turn to do the firing exercise. Then Les and I would change over and I’d sit in the tail turret to do the, carry out the firing exercise. But the experience of looking around and searching the sky which I practiced in the astrodome was about the same except it was a much smaller area to look around. The Wellington I think could take a lot more punishment than the Halifax I think in as much that, how it was constructed. The framework being criss-crossed or whatever the wording is because while flying in the Wellington once I was in the astrodome and actually saw the wings literally flap up and down which any other aircraft I think they’d have snapped off at the time. There was a, we had a Polish screened pilot instructing our pilot on the Wellington and he told him to dive down over base. We was over Reading at the time and he said, ‘When I say dive I mean dive.’ ‘Cause Phil just did a gentle dive and he just took over the dual aircraft control and whoof. I was just stood in the astrodome dumbfounded. Mouth wide open. But we didn’t see him afterwards after the pilot reported in while we was debriefed. Yeah. Because that is one thing the pilot if possible excepting emergencies of course has to warn to the crew, or had to warn the crew on if he’s going in to a steep dive. Yeah. That’s about it I think. TO: What was the process for moving the turret about? FH: What was? TO: The process for rotating the turret? FH: The purpose? TO: The process. FH: Process. Oh, you’ve got me beat now you know. Nearly forget it’s so long ago since I’d done it. It was a, we had a handle there, you know and port to starboard. Dip or raise on the handle. I’m trying to I remember if it was just a single. I can’t remember now. It was a single handle I think. You’d go port to starboard. The normal position for take-off and that kind of thing would be facing tailwards. The turret would be, you know. Yeah. TO: And what was the process for take-off? FH: Well, everybody would be checking before we took off and check all their particular instruments you know. The positions. We’d ensure the guns were loaded and the safety catch was on and that it worked of course but you always would be in a safe position on take-off. And at times I believe we used to, I used to have to sit in the fuselage for take-off. I can’t quite remember whether that was the actual rule. I’ve got a feeling it was during the training and once we was airborne you’d climb aboard and when you was on ops of course as soon as you got airborne you put your safety catch off and start the business of rotating. Searching the sky. TO: And when you were on a raid could you see anything beneath you? FH: Oh yes. For instance, our first raid was the airfield, an airfield in Holland and actually saw the bombs dropping. You know, landing on the airfield, yes. But when we was at Gelsenkirchen of course it was so, the area was full of smoke from the fires and the exploding of the bombs. We were actually bombing, in our case a red target which the Pathfinders indicated to the bomb aimer to bomb on and so we didn’t really see the bombs landing there except that some times you’d be next to, pardon me, next to a puff of smoke. But it was so dense you just, your bombs exploding joining all the rest of the chaos that was going on. Yeah, then we were going to the Munster raid. Well, I don’t know because we were hit. I say we were hit. I don’t know even to this day whether we were hit from a bomb above us, whether it was ack ack or what the reason was but we were hit, you know. And whether the bombs had been gone I don’t know. So it was all, all very blank that side of things was. How long as I said before I was knocked out I don’t know. I shouldn’t think not long. Being in fresh air. I don’t know. Yeah. That’s about it I think. TO: Could you actually hear the explosions of the flak? FH: I can’t recall that one. No. No. I saw plenty of it. Yeah. Yes, it’s saw one got hit and he started diving in flames but no I can’t recall whether I heard them or not. Saw the puffs of smoke all around us. Oh. Yeah. Glad to get out of that anyway. But hearing them I don’t know. I can’t, can’t say. TO: Could you ever see fires beneath you? Could you ever see fires on the ground? FH: On the ground? [pause] No. Well, when we went to the Ruhr our second trip I mean there was a mass of smoke. The whole area was. So we didn’t actually see the flames there. I don’t [pause] On the first one I don’t don’t remember seeing fires at the airfield no. We saw the explosions but no we didn’t actually see a fire start. No. Definitely not and probably did because we were carrying incendiary bombs. Yeah. TO: And what about searchlights? FH: No. We did all daylight raids ours was so they didn’t — TO: Okay. FH: They didn’t play havoc with us but I believe they did with some chaps. Yeah. TO: And did you ever see enemy fighters? FH: Didn’t see one enemy fighter. Not on, not while we was on bomber trips. No. No. The first one I saw was in Farnham funnily enough before I joined the Air Force. One that had been shot down or something and was on show in Farnham but otherwise, no. TO: And did you hear about the bombing of Hamburg in 1943? FH: Well, yes, we heard of the different raids taking place but I couldn’t, couldn’t relate any actual details. No. No. It’s you used to listen to the news you know about so many of our aircraft missing. The target was Hamburg or wherever it was we’d hear on the news you know. But you know you didn’t feel as though you was taking a risk. You didn’t think of that happening to you and being shot down until it happened. TO: When you saw the planes for the Cologne raid were you aware, did you learn later on it was the first thousand bomb raid? FH: Yeah. Yeah. We learned later on it was. Yeah. Yeah. But it was a sight which stays with me. Where I was in our back garden with a spade in my hand digging and the neighbours was in their gardens and all of sudden this noise approached from what we called the Reading area over to us and they seemed to be turned right above our heads and heading towards Southampton. And plane after plane after plane. I can’t tell you how long it took for them to all go by but there were the boys with their waving their guns and looking because they weren’t very high. I couldn’t tell you the exact height but they could certainly know and undoubtedly see people on the ground and waving and they were waving. Moving the guns up and down to the people below. It was a wonderful sight but I can’t remember how many returned the following day. I don’t know. But it was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful sight. Yeah. There we go. TO: When you were in the POW camps did you ever hear about the raid on Dresden? FH: We had, someone had a wireless in the camp and we used to get snippets of news sent around to us by a group of chaps who was, nobody, well we didn’t, nobody in our hut knew where the wireless came from except I was told once a chap had a crystal set made into a set of false teeth. How true that was I do not know. But we used to get the little newsflashes most days. And someone would stand just casually at the door of the hut when the man came. A different one each day bringing around the news, you know that he’d heard on the wireless because the guard used to walk around the camp as well so if anybody was about nothing was spoken of, you know. Just casual everyday conversations like, you know. And on several occasions heard little bits of news while we was on the march. So whoever he was, whatever he was he did deserve something in recognition of what he’d done and kept the morale up of, of the lads in the camp. Yeah. TO: And what was your opinion of the Browning guns you were using? FH: Of course, I didn’t fire them in anger but they were, the four were synchronised together to fire together. Of course they were so synchronised if I was facing tailwards or frontwards over the wings the bullets wouldn’t hit them. They were so synchronised that you missed your tail turret or your tailplane, you know. Good thing. But no I think they were good. In fact, I think towards the end of the war they went to a .5 millimetre but ours were only 303s. Four of them. Yeah. TO: And what’s your best memory from your time in the RAF? FH: The best memory? Now, that makes me think doesn’t it? Best memory. I suppose was when I flew back in to Dunsfold. Yeah. And the worst memory was there at the same time when they told me I had to go to Cosford instead of going straight home. So, it all turned out right, okay. Yeah. TO: Do you think there is anything Bomber Command could have done to reduce its losses? FH: Well, I don’t know. I mean to send a thousand I know it only, I think it only happened about twice, a thousand planes raid but I mean averages. Some men had to be shot down or failed to return for some unknown reason but I mean, I think it was in our case I think there was about two hundred planes on the target every half hour, you know. Which I would have thought was sufficient because the more there are there the more chance you’ve got, or the more the Germans had I think of hitting us and of course another thing with regards ourselves we were informed that if an aircraft, which in our case we were lower than we should have been when we were dropping our bombs the gunners on the ground picked out single aircraft out and put a box barrage up so, all around us so whichever way you turned up, down, sideways you were bound to get something. And it’s possible that’s what happened with us. TO: Were you ever, when you were a prisoner were you ever worried that the, that the Germans might start killing captured airmen? FH: Killing? TO: Captured airmen. FH: Well, we did hear of a case actually in our camp. I can’t say that I witnessed it but I have got a photograph of where it was taking place in my collection of photographs that was actually when the chap found this camera in the offices after the Germans left and the offices were ransacked for different ones to see what they could find as souvenirs. This one chap from London found a camera and he notified us that the, one of the films had been taken and he was going to include it on there whatever it was and it turned out to be where these two chaps were being shot. Yeah. Attempting to break out. TO: Had you been taught the procedure for baling out during training? FH: As far as I’m concerned the only training I had was in the Air Training Corps. We was over at Odiham and we was in a hangar one day. We’d been, been to a classroom and we’d been taught about parachuting. How they were folded and all the rest of it. And we were taken to one of the hangars and in one corner of the hangar there was one a platform right up in the ceiling and there was a rope hanging down and a ladder going up the side of the wall and we used to, they instructed us to, the corporal there, we climbed up the ladder. They’d feed a harness on us and explained that we’d be dropping at the same rate as though we were coming down in an actual parachute. It was geared towards a certain speed and we were told we’d got to hit the ground, to be in a ball and to roll over on our shoulder as we hit the ground. They had a mattress down for us to land on, you know. Not the concrete. And we’d done the rolls in PT and that kind of thing but the actual training from an aircraft? No. I can’t remember anything taking place. No. Except being told not to pull the ripcord while you were still in the aircraft which happened sometimes. TO: What do you think was the most important battle of the war? FH: I’ve no idea. I wouldn’t like to comment on that. No. They say the Battle of Britain some people but I don’t know. Without the help of the other Services no one Service could have won the war on its own. It was a joint effort as far as I’m concerned. TO: When you began operations and were in 102 Squadron did people ever talk about comrades they’d lost? FH: About? TO: About people friends they’d lost on raids. FH: No. The simple reason we weren’t on the squadron long enough. We arrived there on the 18th of August ’44 and as we moved into our billets there was several airmen picking up the uniforms and belongings of another crew that had failed to return the previous night. And we thought that was quite a good omen. Or a bad one. Yeah. We just settled into the billet and we were there from the 18th to the 3rd of September which isn’t long really. And then as I said before on the 3rd of September we had to land away from base and when we come back we was on ops the next day to Gelsenkirchen and the next day on the fatal op so we didn’t really know anybody else on the squadron. Which is a shame really because we, we spoke to our own gunnery officer, I forget his name now but no, we didn’t know anything about other chaps. TO: And did you remember hearing about the Dambuster raid? FH: Yes. Vaguely. We heard about it but I can’t tell you quite where or when it was off hand. No. No, I can’t give you a date or where it was I heard it. TO: What did you think? FH: I’m bad on dates. TO: Okay. FH: Remembering dates. TO: Do you remember what you thought when you heard it though? FH: Oh, we thought it was quite a unique invention really because it was something entirely new as far as we was concerned and it had done its job. And we were rather surprised it was never used again but there you go. Yeah. Seen various parts of it are supposed to have been part of a bouncing bomb in different places I’ve visited since the war but that’s about all. TO: And what was everyday life like in Luft 7? FH: In the camp? Well, it was just the same old routine. Up in the morning. Make a hot drink whenever possible. We used to make these home made what we called blowers with a bit of metal, with a tin with water in and turn and make a fan underneath the flames of odd bits of wood or cardboard. Then we used to go for, oh in the, pardon me the usual parade which was messed about with sometimes. They used to be counting the prisoners every day or twice a day and we’d line up on the parade ground and often somebody would decide to play up and move about in the parade while they was being counted and then they’d have the wrong number. Spent hours sometimes on the parade ground waiting for the Germans to say, ‘Well alright you can go back to your billets.’ Which we used to do to play cards. Sometimes there was somebody would give a lecture or a talk on what their job was pre-war. And there would be the vicar, he was an Army chap funnily enough gave a, always took a church service on a Sunday. And one there warrant officer he was second in command to [pause] the pilot officer, an Australian chap, of the camp, he was a Methodist minister and he used to give a church service on a Sunday which I used to go to very often. And strange as it may seem I met up with his navigator back in 2015 at my first reunion and I met again where are we now? Last year. ’16. No. This year, sorry in Gloucestershire. I met with him again down there. Not that I knew him then but we got to know each other through the man that organised the reunions. Yeah. TO: And can you remember what your room was like? FH: What? In the prison camp you mean? TO: Yeah. FH: Yeah, it was a normal size. Well, like the English military huts divided in small rooms. It had one, what type of stove they called it? The round stove with the chimney going out through the roof which was never used because you couldn’t get the fuel for it. But there was four double bunks so each room after we left the garden sheds or dog kennels as we called them was eight. Eight to a room. Yeah. And we, you know sort of palled up in there and become good friends but unfortunately the only one I kept, could make contact with after the war was Charlie but he passed away in ’68. But the rooms were quite nice from that angle. Had a small table in and a bench seat to sit on. Yeah. Yeah. TO: And what did you do to pass the time? FH: Play cards. Chat about home life. Different places we, you know different ones come from. That kind of thing. Though we used to do quite a bit of walking around the perimeter track when the weather was suitable to keep exercising. Try to keep fit. Yeah. TO: And what rations did the Germans give you? FH: Very very little but I don’t think I can actually quote the one you, sometimes we’d get a slice of bread or a bowl of so-called soup which as I mentioned earlier I believe sometimes consisted of what looked like grass boiled up. Sometimes it would be potato skins where they’d been scraped and boiled up. Occasionally we’d get a jacket potato or a whole potato. I wouldn’t say a jacket potato. Oh, sometimes you’d get cheese or so-called cheese. It was about the size of a fishcake and you’d bite into it. It was like chewing gum and you could pull it out. Right out. It was horrible stuff. I don’t think everyone ate those. No. That was terrible stuff that was. But no, the rationing, the food could have been a lot lot better. No. that was one thing we did suffer. TO: And did you ever get letters from Britain? FH: I didn’t receive one. I sent several. The first one was at the transit camp after we’d been there and had a wash and a meal which was a good one we were given a Red Cross letter and a Red Cross Card and it’s a period that said you would send one to your parents or wife whichever the case may be. And the other one you would send to the Irvin Parachute Company and notify them that you’d saved your life with one of their ‘chutes which I’d done. I sent one to mother and father of course but I never had a reply whatsoever. No. We sent several others but after the war they were a number of them were returned that mother and the girlfriend had sent. They were returned to me at home but not while we was a prisoner of war. TO: Could you tell me that story again please of the, your friend on the train who managed to get hold of the Luger? FH: Oh yeah. We was travelling from Munster to the interrogation centre with the two guards. There were only the three of us. We hadn’t met up with the other two of our crew that survived but Taffy, the bomb aimer Charlie, myself was on the move. Charlie sat by the side of the, one of the guards. I sat next to him. Taf was on the other side of the carriage along with another guard and we’d been travelling for quite a while and they seemed to doze off. Of course, we didn’t speak because having been warned to be wary of such things you know in case something was said they picked up on. I saw Charlie who was looking sideways at the side of his, I saw Charlie, with his hands down near the guard and the next I knew he had his Luger in his hand and he opened it up. Just shook his head. And there was no bullets in it. I was shaking. I don’t mind admitting it. I was absolutely shaking because I was only a young kiddie I was. Charlie was about eleven years older. And eventually he got it back in the holster. Just carried on. The train journey went on. Of course, we couldn’t say anything to each other about it. And unfortunately, Charlie never mentioned a word about it afterwards. What his intentions were if there had been bullets in there whether [pause] I don’t know. But later on on that journey we were stopped at a station and we were on the one line and on the line to the left of us a train pulled in and there was all the German personnel covered in blood and bandages all over undoubtedly one of their hospital trains. So one of the guards pulled the blind down in our carriage and the door was locked and they indicated to us that if they didn’t, if they hadn’t rolled the blinds down they would attack us and they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. I realised, I did at the time well they had no bullets in their guns. But anyhow in the end there was quite a noise on the platforms and in the end it seemed to quieten down with the civilians and we was let out and we had to run across the platform into a, well a kind of a waiting room and we were shoved into this room. The door slammed shut on us the three of us and I don’t know how long we was in there but quite a while and then the train, we heard the train start up and we were then, the door was opened. They looked around the door backwards and forwards and one guard had gone out and opened the carriage door and we were rushed in there. The door was shut shut and off the train went but there were a few people still on the platform but of course the train was on the move. They couldn’t do anything about it. We were safe for a bit longer. Yeah. Funny experience it was. TO: Did you, well you already knew that Normandy had happened by the time you were captured but did you think the war would soon be over when you were captured? FH: Yeah. I think we, if we speak the truth we had a feeling you know we was getting to the end of it. Yeah, because the bombing was what’s the word? Quite, well the trips were quite regular and in numbers. Quite a high number of bombers going out every day and the casualties that you’d hear on the wireless we didn’t think we’d be there too long but we had no idea really. Wondering at the same time whether it was going to be years or months you know. Yeah. TO: Did the mood of the German guards change as the war turned against Germany? FH: Hmmn? TO: As the war, as it became, as the war went on did the mood of the guards change in how they treated you? FH: To a certain extent yes because the very first night we was put in the cells at Munster and we was there for three, three days and on the day before we were sent to the Interrogation Centre one of the guards came in with our coffee so called and he stood chatting. He spoke English. He said we, ‘We should not be fighting each other. We should be fighting the Russians together.’ And we didn’t make much comment because I mean we still didn’t know whether it was a put up job you know being weary or for our own sakes. But no, in the actual camp there was an Irish, well we called him Paddy, he was a German guard but when we was on the march he actually had civilian clothes underneath his Army uniform so that if they dispersed because he could get rid of his uniform and become a civilian or a prisoner of war, you know. Or, you know join our ranks. But what, what happened to him in the end I don’t know but, yeah because he was alongside us for quite a while but of course in different speeds, you know walking, ambling along you know. They were as bad as us. This time, because they had to keep going you know and they didn’t really want to. No. [pause] Yeah. That’s about it. TO: How did the guards behave in Luft 7? FH: Well, they was reasonable really. I mean they were doing a job that they were paid for the same as we had been. But no, the higher ups they were a bit more severe you know. The old sergeant, and I forget his name but they was very firm. They wouldn’t stand any nonsense you know. But the ones who was patrolling the camp, okay you didn’t tell them anything and, but they were quite friendly in a sense. Inclined to speak to you or, in their broken English, you know. But they were doing a job they had to do. Yeah. TO: And did you ever get Red Cross parcels? FH: Yeah. We had a few. More Americans than English which I think once we had one each. They weren’t very regular the whole time I was a prisoner of war. Often one partial where they would be shared between perhaps four or six chaps and then at one stage it was one box per room which was eight men. And it would consist of what do you call it? Chocolate. Very hard thick chocolate. Some butter or margarine stuff. Tinned milk. A bit of tinned meat. What else was in them? Oh, prunes and sultanas. That type of thing boxed up. And cigarettes. There was always about two hundred cigarettes in each parcel which to some people you know was food to them you know. In fact, I, I used to have the odd occasional cigarette but it was while I was a POW that I started smoking in earnest if you’d like to put it that way because there was always plenty of cigarettes. Some chaps used to trade their food for cigarettes but I didn’t get to that. I often bought food, bartered food you know for cigarettes you know but unfortunately, I didn’t give up smoking when I come home. I carried on until 1995. But yes the food parcel was good. It was good food. But the English parcels were slightly different but unfortunately, we didn’t get many of them. Either of them. And didn’t get any at all after we left Luft 7. No. TO: And what were the weather conditions like during the Long March? FH: Weather. Way below twenty degrees. And as I mentioned a number of night marches you could call them and the snow and blizzards we apparently marched around so they tell us Breslau, Breslau a couple of times around the autobahn and it was just a complete blizzard the whole time. They had no idea where they were taking us to. The Germans hadn’t. And well now when I see a little bit of snow I shiver. I really hate the stuff. I’ve seen enough of it in my life. Yeah. But of course, we was walking in our boots. Well, shoes. These fine shoes we had on. Yeah. We used to have a, we took them off at night but in the morning they were still frozen. Just walked in frozen shoes and that. But I went to the Medical Centre on one occasion with my toes and they said oh, it’s a touch of frost bite but whether it was I don’t know but I’m still to this day suffering with my toes at night. They seem to get warm and sometimes go numb my two big toes. But there we are. We’re still here. Still telling the tale. TO: Did anyone get, did anyone get hyperthermia? FH: Well, I can’t honestly say about that, no. No. I can’t really answer that one. TO: And were there any prisoners who were unable to go on when they got ill? FH: Oh yeah. During the march, well those that were sick when the march started they were left behind or taken to a Medical Centre. But on the march they had a horse and waggon where they, anybody took queer was put into this horse and waggon you know and carried on on the march but what happened to them in the end I don’t know because there were so many that didn’t arrive in the camp at the end. Luckenwalde. Either gave themselves up or jumped in the river as we crossed over. Through the holes. Things like that. It happened I’m afraid. Yeah. TO: Were you ever worried that Allied bombers would attack you? FH: Well, we were concerned put it that way but I don’t think we ever encountered any. TO: And did you ever wish that the Germans had left you in Luft 7 for the Russians to take away? FH: Well, we did actually. Our little group. Because it really took it out of us on the march. We lost a lot of weight. And of course, the only snag was the Russians, our RAF uniforms was very similar to some of the Germans uniforms in colour and the fear was that they would shoot on sight. Ask questions after, you know. So that was one of the reasons that it was nice to go on the march but I think perhaps we might have been better off if we had stayed where we were. But on the other hand those that were like myself I said earlier we’d been after the Germans moved out and the Yanks arrived with their vehicles and they stopped us the Yanks taking us out. They said they were evacuating us via Odessa. And the things I heard afterwards a lot of those chaps did go that way and were never heard of since. But how true we don’t know but it was a long way around or would have been, you know. Yeah. TO: What else can you say about the morning that you were liberated? FH: Well, I mean it was all hand waving and trying to contact, get in touch with the Russians because they were on the move with the tanks, you know and there was the troops following by foot you know. But word was going around stay where you were you know because the Russians weren’t going to stop with their tanks. They was on the move you know. But yeah, it was joyous I suppose for a while. But when we realised that they was basically holding us as prisoners it changed. The mood changed completely because we was a number of days with them when the food was worse than what it was with the Germans, you know. So that was one of the reasons why we had the chance or I had the chance with the others with me to leave the camp and get near the Yanks if we could you know. To get food and help because we, when I come home I was just under seven stone and in fact I was putting weight on so much I went to the doctor and queried, you know. But they sort of explained that it would be a thing to do but not to overdo the eating but it all worked out in the end you know. TO: And how did you feel when you heard that Germany had surrendered? FH: Well, we was quite pleased naturally and of course that’s when we thought we were on our way home but that was on the, was it the 8th of May wasn’t it? Yeah. I’d just had my twenty first birthday on the 3rd of May and that is when some of the chaps well we were actually, no I beg your pardon we were actually on the trying to contact the Yanks because they’d arrived in our camp on the 23rd and the war was still on when we, when we heard [pause] Sorry while we was on the march, on the move to get in touch with the Yanks is when we heard that the war was over. Yeah. And because when we heard these hand grenades going off in the lake after we got over the bridge, the River Elbe we thought there was some in-fighting going on you know. But it turned out that these Yanks were passing time away because they were bored and they was killing, blowing up all the fish in the lake. Yeah. TO: And when did you get your first proper meal after leaving the POW camp? FH: Well, we had food from the Yanks but I suppose if I remember right the first real meal was in the Army camp in Brussels right before I was flown back home. I was there basically a couple of days. Yeah. We had plenty of cigarettes given to us on the route but you know we weren’t really interested in those not in a way we had so many of them. Yeah. I know we sat down to the meal in the Army barracks. Yeah. Amazing. TO: This is just going back slightly but can you tell me how you actually felt during the bombing raids? FH: What? TO: Just — FH: Us bombing them do you mean? TO: No. When you, when you were above in the turrets. FH: Yeah. TO: You were on the raid. FH: Yeah. TO: What were your general feelings? FH: Well, I must admit I didn’t think about getting shot down. It’s a, it was a strange feeling. Yet you knew that chaps were being shot down. The planes not returning. Every day you heard it on the news you know but when you was actually doing it you at least I didn’t think of being shot down. Not until I was sitting in the turret without any guns. Well, the first day I mean it was nearly a normal run. There was a few ack acks but over the Ruhr that was a different kettle of fish altogether. That was, well hell let loose is my opinion. As I said the only way, the best way I can describe it is today’s fireworks when they’re all in full swing and a load of them going off in the sky all different colours and that. Imagine that those were shells exploding and an aeroplane flying in between them and that’s as near as I can get for that. They weren’t coloured of course. They were just puffs of smoke you could see you know exploding all around you. Yeah. TO: And how did you feel about the bombing campaign itself? FH: Well, I suppose we thought it had to go ahead to win the war, you know. I mean I joined up to fly and that meant you’d be on bombing raids, you know. But you didn’t think, or I didn’t think personally that I was bombing people. I was bombing targets. I mean until we were walking along this canal in Munster after being shot down and we had these two guards with us and on our left was a row of houses all burning. It would be about a hundred yards from where we were on the canal bank and they were running towards us when they realised there was English people being walked along this towpath. I mean that is when I realised or I realised I don’t know about the others that we may have killed people. When we saw the row of houses being burned and you know and they was running after us with pitch forks and broom handles which some of them got through and hit us across the back which well we’ll say no more. And we was pleased to get off that canal that night. Off that tow path. Yeah. That’s it. TO: And how do you feel about the way Bomber Command was treated after the war? FH: Terrible. They weren’t recognised at all for the work they’d done in my opinion and it took, took the authorities in my opinion a long time to realise that, this is why I didn’t speak much about Churchill and I think we’ll leave it at that because he was the one who was leading the war. He was the one that followed instructions or made and gave instructions to the powers that be to do this and do that but he didn’t speak of us after the war when so many people was talking about Dresden. But what about Coventry and places like ours. Southampton and London. Yeah. There we go. But as far as I was concerned we were bombing military targets you know and it never entered our heads that we was killing people. No. TO: Why do you think Bomber Command was treated that way? FH: I’ve no idea except that [pause] I suppose they spoke about [unclear] so much that well they gathered it was wrong to do it. I think so but I don’t know. I think Bomber Command was treated very badly or the personnel were. That so many thousands gave their lives for and then not being recognised for what they’d done. Terrible. So that’s only one individual’s opinion. Yeah. TO: And how do you feel about the Memorial in Green Park and Lincoln? FH: I like that. I think it’s something well worth supporting and I admire the people that thought of it and that were running the whole scheme. And I hope and pray that I can get back there again and just place a poppy against my good friend Les and Phil’s name on the monument one day. Whether that would be possible I don’t know but what we saw of it on that opening day it’s a terrific place. Well worth the money being spent. Yeah. TO: How did you feel when you heard about the Holocaust? FH: Well, how can I word it? The shock to think anybody could literally do it. I mean okay soldiers were being killed in battle and that kind of thing on both sides but their whole lot of them just simply being put in a chamber. Oh. It don’t bear thinking about. And on our march we passed very close not knowing it at the time to Auschwitz. Of course, we knew nothing of it until after the war. You know, it made us, well made me think, well, you know we was so close to where it happened you know. But there we go. TO: How do you feel about Germany today? FH: Germany? TO: Today. How do you feel? FH: Well, I think Mrs Merkel or whatever her name is is a funny woman but on the whole the Germans and I mean we’re doing the right thing to get together. In fact when we first moved over here in this area from Hartley Wintney to Church Crookham in the bungalow just a few doors away from here our neighbour was a German POW over here and we used to have chats about it. We got on well together and I mean that is the only thing that’s going to stop another war I think. I mean we’re so intermixed now I think they were after the last war as far as the First World War but they’ve intermixed other countries have. More now over the last decade or so that I mean it nearly goes against the war. If it didn’t, well it would be a different kind of war and your air gunners wouldn’t be needed for one thing. But no I think it’s a good thing that we are getting together. Yeah. No, I mean we carried out our instructions. The Germans carried out their instructions. The troops. Airmen. So there we are. TO: Did you, I probably should have asked this one before but did you feel any animosity towards Germany during the war? FH: Well, I don’t know. I mean, we realised that the authorities had declared war against each other and that we had to do our bit as members of England to bring an end to it in some form or other. And that’s, I chose to join the Air Force. Yeah. But I really think so many of us were so young we didn’t realise what we were letting ourselves in for, you know. But no regrets. No. We helped to bring peace to the world again. Although it makes you wonder whether if it was ever worth it with all the loss of life. There we go. TO: And what do you think of films that have been made about the war? FH: I’ve watched one or two but you cannot in my opinion [pause] now, what’s the word? TO: Recapture? FH: Yeah, the actual fighting and bombing I mean. You can’t recall in actual words. Now some of them have been sort of highlighting the humour and that put in them but no. I don’t. I don’t think, well they can’t capture the actual meaning of the battle. No. TO: And what have you done since the war then? FH: Not a lot. No. I’ve had numerous jobs but mainly shop work and selling which I enjoyed which I was doing before the war. I had one spell of lorry driving which I’d done for a mate of mine in Hartney Wintney. And from there I travelled all over Scotland, Wales and England of course delivering shrubs. We worked for a wholesale. It was a Dutch firm actually operating out of Bagshot, just outside of Bagshot. He used to grow all types of shrubs and trees and we used to transform to various nurseries. Yeah. Quite interesting. He got me about a third of the country. But I was a member of Toc H which was formed after the First World War. And what else? Oh, when I retired yeah, sorry about that. TO: That’s alright. FH: When I retired and moved over here I joined the, I worked voluntary for a Day Centre for eleven years. Yeah. But otherwise just normal. I didn’t really have a trade. That’s why it is I’m not rich but I’m happy and I always have been and will remain so I hope. We moved into this flat what almost eighteen months ago now. Yeah. A brand new flat and we’re happy and cosy. Contented. Yeah. TO: Have you ever been back to Germany at all? FH: Unfortunately, no. I would love even to this day to be able to go back to Germany and visit the graves of my two friends. Yeah. But as I say not being a millionaire it’s always been against me but never mind. I always think of them. And although I do attend the local Memorial Service in the village where I was born and joined the Air Force throng on the 11th of November but if I can’t get there through bad weather I mean I don’t have to go there to remember them. It’s the same with my brother that I lost. They’re in there all the time. Yeah. Never mind. Who knows what will happen in the future? Nobody does. No. TO: Anything else you want to add at all about your experiences at all? Any stories that you didn’t mention before? FH: No. Where are we? No. I don’t think so. I think it’s really pretty well covered. I shall probably dream away tonight although I didn’t last time. Other: No, it’s — FH: But often when I’ve been to [unclear] not exactly nightmares but I kick my feet about and but I think I got over that one. We’ll let you know in the morning. No. TO: Just one last question now to finish off there. What’s your thoughts on Britain’s involvement in events in the Middle East? FH: What? The present day like you mean? Yeah. Well, personally I mean we do poke our noses in things quite a bit but on the other hand I feel that perhaps we missed out when the trouble in Syria started. We should have gone there and sorted them out there and then and prevented a lot of this that’s going on today. That’s my opinion for what it’s worth. But no, it’s [pause] I don’t know, the world’s got to get together somehow but how it’s going to happen I don’t know. If ever it will. There has always been wars. There’s always a weaker member. We learned that at school didn’t we? But I’m quite pleased that a lot of the schools I believe in England now are talking about the Second World War and what went on and that kind of thing. I mean for instance my granddaughter she’s a schoolteacher at Lee on Solent. No. Other: Bexhill. Bexhill. FH: Bexhill in Sussex and she’s got one of my books. Oh, she’s got this one. I think she’s got the one I showed you earlier, the first one. And on Armistice Days she brings that out and puts it on her desk. She talks to the class about it and tells them that what her grandfather had done and she’s done that now for, well ever since 2009/10. But now she’s just given birth to her first child, my great grandchild. The photo is behind you. And so whether she’ll be back there in time for this year or not I don’t know. But she has done her part as a teacher to inform. And a number of the local schools have had photographs of my war years but that’s about all I think. Yeah. Thanks. TO: Thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure. FH: Thank you. Thank you for coming so far to speak to me and hopefully it’s not been a waste of time. TO: It’s been an amazing way to spend my time. Thank you. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Fred Hooker. Two Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tom Ozel 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 2017-08-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AHookerFJ170826 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 03:02:20 audio recording Description An account of the resource Fred Hooker was a mid-upper gunner on 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington, where he flew three operations before being shot down. Born in Hartley Wintney in 1924, Fred’s first experience of the RAF was visiting RAF Odiham as a member of the Air Training Corps where he flew in a Tiger Moth and Blenheim. Enlisting in March 1943, Fred‘s initial training was at Lord’s Cricket Ground. Gunnery training was undertaken at RAF Stormy Down where he was introduced to clay pigeon shooting before being flown in Anson aircraft and firing at drones with a camera gun and, eventually, using ammunition. After qualification, he crewed up at RAF Moreton-in-Marsh before converting to Halifaxes at RAF Dishforth. In August 1944, his crew was posted to 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington where Fred recalls witnessing a Halifax fail to take off as they arrived. Upon return from their first operation, they were diverted due to bad weather and remained at the diversion airfield for several days. Fred was relieved when they returned as he had left his dentures at Pocklington. During their third operation, the aircraft failed to reach the briefed height but the crew decided to continue and were hit by either enemy anti-aircraft fire or a bomb dropped from above. Fred was in his position in the rear turret when he suddenly found himself sitting in open air as his turret had been blown away. When he reached for his parachute it was on fire and the rest of the plane was just a mass of flames. He saw the engineer rush towards him and put out the flames on the parachute before guiding him to the escape hatch and pushing him out. As he descended a Spitfire was circling and the pilot dipped the wings before departing. Fred describes being captured immediately after abandoning the aircraft and the interrogation that followed. He was transferred to Stalag Luft 7, and the Red Cross supplied him with another set of dentures. Fred provides a graphic account of the conditions during the long march and the overcrowding in Stalag 3A. Upon waking up on the 23 April 1945, they discovered the German guards had disappeared. Russian troops arrived later and continued to treat them like prisoners but Fred's group managed to escape and join the nearby Americans. After being transported to Belgium, he was flown home and landed near Guilford. Despite being frustratingly close to home, Fred was taken to RAF Cosford for debriefing. After the war, Fred retrained and spent time travelling across France salvaging abandoned vehicles. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ian Whapplington Julie Williams Carolyn Emery Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain Poland England--Gloucestershire England--Yorkshire Germany--Luckenwalde Poland--Tychowo Wales--Bridgend Germany--Oberursel Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942 1943-03-29 1944-08-18 1945 102 Squadron 6 Group air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson bale out Caterpillar Club Dulag Luft Halifax Halifax Mk 3 Initial Training Wing lack of moral fibre perception of bombing war prisoner of war RAF Bridgnorth RAF Dishforth RAF Moreton in the Marsh RAF Pocklington RAF Stormy Down recruitment Red Cross shot down Spitfire Stalag 3A Stalag Luft 7 the long march training https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1160/11719/ATillerF180716.mp3 1667a269199ffe3a900d4247189b5461 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 Tiller, Fred F Tiller Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Fred Tiller (1925 - 2018 1853810 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as air gunner with 10 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 2018-07-16 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 Tiller, F Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document SP: So this is Suzanne Pescott and I am interviewing Fred Tiller, who was an air gunner with 10 Squadron. Today, for the International Bomber Command Digital Archive we are at Fred’s sister’s home and it’s the 16th of July, 2018. Also present at the interview is Fred’s son. So thank you Fred for agreeing to talk to me today. So, do you want to tell us a little bit about the time before you joined the air force? FT: I worked in engineering and from there, I was in the ATC and of course they were keen to get you in, and that’s how it sort of followed on. I don’t remember the exact details but there was one or two fellows there, in charge of us, quite keen to get a story, and we, that’s how we got on to it. SP: So what made you want join the ATC? FT: ‘Cause it was the nearest thing to the air force! [Chuckle] I was too young to get in the air force, but I could get in the ATC. SP: And what sort of things did you do in the ATC? FT: We did aircraft recognition and go round various camps, to get you used to service life, I think was the idea of that. SP: So what area did you say, you were round Crawley was it, you went? FT: What age was I? SP: What age were you when you were in the ATC, yeah? FT: I was sixteen, seventeen, something like that, you know. SP: That was based around Crawley was it? FT: No, that was, I was in, living in Bexhill then. And you’d put your name up and you’d go on tours, that sort of thing, you know. Anything to do with the air force they’d take you on. SP: So from the ATC you then decided to join up? FT: Say again. SP: You then joined up. FT: Oh no I’d been in then. SP: Yeah, and in the air force? FT: That’s it, I was out of the air force when all this went on. SP: So you actually signed to up to go in the air force in what year? About. FT: [Sigh] I’ve got to think about this as I had to get my parents’ consent, I was too young. SP: Right. FT: Oh god, Dad was awful, mum, I had to get mum to sign up. When did I go in Fred? Which year? [Other] I think it might have been late ’43, somewhere in ’44 you managed to get far enough on. SP: So it was about ’43, ’44, yeah. Where did you go to first of all? FT: Where did I go first? SP: Yup. FT: Went to Lords cricket ground. That’s right. SP: And what happened at Lords cricket ground? FT: Oh, they evaluated you and took all the information they could, and then we’ll be in touch and off we went. Got a rail pass to go home, you know, that was all right. And then they got in touch with us, wanted us in. At the time, aircrew ACRC was up in Lancashire. We went there. What was the nearest railway station? Preston, Preston Northend. We got there, got out, looked like fish out of water, you know. And they took us in and fed us, and talked to us and they just went on from there. SP: What did you do up at Preston? FT: Pardon? SP: What did you do up there, near Preston? FT: Only went for interviews, that’s all. Oh, and they had, they had the Dance Hall in Blackpool. We were all for that, weren’t we, young fellers. That’s what we mainly did. We did a lot of chat and we all wanted a piece of the action, you see, right enough. And then we went. Where did we go for goodness’ sake? [Sigh] I can see the place. [Chuckle] Along the front, where did I say I was? Preston? [Other]: Were you at Kirkham. FT: Were we at Kirkham, that’s right, Kirkham. [Other]: That’s right. SP: So Fred, we were talking about Blackpool and then after Blackpool you went to Bridgenorth. What happened at Bridgenorth? FT: Further indoctrination. There were some radio schools there for morse code and all this, and RAF law we had to know. Then, then we were given a pass to get home, and then we were give a pass to come back, to the Isle of Man. So that was quite a little journey for us to come up from the south coast. Up to London and out to Preston, and then worked our way across, yeah, the Isle of Man. SP: So what were you doing on the Isle of Man? What? FT: That was gunnery school, the Isle of Man was. Most of it was written work, you know. There was some outside work. SP: What was the Isle of Man like then, at that time? FT: Lovely! Absolutely beautiful [emphasis] for us. ‘Cause we come from where we were at home, everything was rationed. We get to the Isle of Man and you could go out and have a feed, you know, a blow out, when you liked. It was very, very nice and I’d never been before. Andreus, that was it, the Isle of Man. It was lovely. You could go out in the evening, and the pubs and all, they all did food, you know, to get business, obviously. But we enjoyed ourself there. Then we went it on. We were sent home and then recalled back to, where? Kirkham. SP: Did you say you went to Bridlington as well? FT: Yes. SP: What did you do at Bridlington? FT: Marched up and down! Did dome morse code, you know, sort of things like that, you know. SP: So that was all your training. So where did you crew up, where did you meet the rest of your crew? FT: Somewhere before we went to the Isle of Man, on the coast somewhere, must have been Preston. SP: Right. FT: I would think so. SP: Who else was in your crew? FT: Pardon? SP: Who else was in your crew? Can you remember all the names of your crew? FT: Yeah, I know the names. Nugget Werkham was the pilot, New Zealand, nice feller. Wireless operator was a New Zealander. Flight engineer was a Canadian. I thought that was Ken. He was the navigator what did he, what function did he play when we crewed up? I don’t know. Ken was from London and he was the navigator. Cookie was the flight engineer. He had the gift of the gab, from North America to take us all along. We didn’t have to speak at all, he nabbed it all. Oh dear, you look back on it now and think it’s a laugh, serious at the time. ‘Cause we were asked questions on it and I didn’t know where we’d been or what we’d done. Got a head like a sieve in one ear and out the other, straight through – what was that draught! [Laugh] That’s how it usually was. [Chuckle] Yes, we formed good friendships there. Oh well, you know I got on well, he was the wireless op. Ken Stewart we got on all right with, he was the navigator, Nugget was very good, he’s the pilot, New Zealander, yeah, he had us all buttoned up, no two ways about that. Couldn’t step out of line with Nugget, no way. He was good. It was all new to us. [chuckle] Starry eyed we were. SP: How old were you then? FT: Seventeen and a quarter I think I was. Only a nipper. SP: So where did you get based as a crew? FT: Melbourne believe it or not. Yeah, we got Melbourne, which was very good, so we knew it, you know. Up and down on the train, that was quite a journey. Get on the train at, where was that? Preston. Get on the train at Preston. Go down to Euston. Going across to Waterloo on the underground. [chuckle] Can you imagine it, hanging on! [Laugh] Gawd, we were daft as brushes. Wet behind the ears. Didn’t know from nothin’. SP: So what were some of the things you got up to then, in London? FT: We were in and through in no time. No time for anything, you know. We had a receiving centre there, we went to that and then we were whisked away to Waterloo to get on a train. You, you walked round and you liked the look of a bloke, you say, ‘Have you got gunners with you?’ ‘No’ he said, I said, ‘well, can we join your group?’ ‘Oh, all right’ he said, ‘over there.’ It was just like that, so you could bond together without, you, you’re with him. Shut up. We’re with the bloke we’ve chosen. Nugget was a short stocky New Zealander; he was a good pilot. SP: So you were saying that you think that the crewing up was somewhere near Abingdon rather than Preston, so you crewed up down there, met all of your crew there, or was it your flight engineer joined you later? FT: Cookie was the last one in; he was the flight engineer. He was a Canadian, Malcolm was, I shouldn’t say that, he was a good fellow, but, he wasn’t like Nugget and them, was he? [Other]: I wouldn’t have known. FT: No he wasn’t. SP: So Fred, the crewing up was near Abingdon and you did some flights from Stanton Hardcourt. FT: Got it. SP: Which was just outside of Abingdon. FT: Yeah. SP: So what sort of planes did you fly from there? FT: Whitleys and Wimpys. Glad to get in a Wimpy. Go like that, and you, Whitley we had to get it up and then keep going, out over the ocean, turn back over the land, to start getting it to get out there! Wasn’t great power there, they were in line engines. Whereas the Wimpy had radials, good strong stuff. As you, you know, remember it now, thinking back. SP: Did you have any, you know were the flights good flights from there, or did you have any challenges going from there? FT: No, no we were lucky. Well, I say we were lucky but we had a good pilot and a good navigator, that’s what you really wanted. Ken was from London, north London, he was a good navigator, he was, was good. But old Nugget was the key to it, wasn’t he, he was old enough to put a bit of authority on it all. At seventeen, terrified of Nugget. [Laugh] Oh dear. SP: So did that help when you were on operations? FT: Say again. SP: Did that help when you were on operations then, knowing, that authority from Nugget? FT: Yeah. Yeah. We only did some training ops from there, and then we went on up north to get the real crew. Where were we, up North? [Other]: You went to Topcliffe, didn’t you, for - FT: Heavy Con Unit, Heavy Conversion Unit, yep. SP: So there you first met up with your Halifax? FT: Yes, I think so, yeah. Then we went out to Melbourne which was gonna to be the base and we were introduced to the aircraft we were going to fly in, which is the Halifax, and that was good. [Sneeze] SP: Can you remember which, which plane it was, can you remember what the letter was of the plane you flew? FT: No! I had to have to, when I wrote to get my air gunner’s badge, and you say you trained on so-and-so, you know, and you fired so many rounds, because the target plane used to tow a drogue which was out on a string so you that didn’t shoot the aeroplane, you shoot at this drogue and the bullets were all painted. So when it come down with the drogue, they counted the holes and what colour was on the holes, and that’s how many shots you used to hit it, and that’s how it went, you know. And it punctured it, so it left a trace of paint. I’d forgotten these little details, but it all comes out now, don’t we, when we talk about it. Oh, we were young and had no idea what it was about really, I think. SP: What was like, life like on the base at Melbourne? FT: Well I found it excellent. SP: What was a typical day for you there? FT: Pardon? SP: What was a typical day for you there, when you weren’t on ops? FT: Well, you had to go to school. [Laugh] You had to learn morse code or use semaphore flags and all this sort of nonsense. It was a lot of ground work. My old noddle wasn’t good enough for it, I don’t think, but I got through. No, I enjoyed time there. It was the first time that we got in to touch with the reality of it without any bull, without anybody saying how, you know, good it was. Don’t you tell me, we’ll tell you [emphasis] how good it is! We’re the blokes at the sharp end. No, I enjoyed the, Melbourne. SP: So what was life like in the sergeants mess? FT: Good, all good, very good food. We were always [emphasis] hungry, always hungry! Couldn’t wait to get in, in the mess and feed. Food was good, they fed us well, they really did. I mean young men you need some feeding. And in the midst of all this we are learning morse code, aircraft recognition and all sorts of things, yep. So, trying to memorise things, I couldn’t remember me name never mind anything else! Oh I laugh now, but we got through somehow. SP: So obviously, this was training for operations. This was training you for operations. So how many operations did you do? FT: About thirty, which was a tour. SP: Yup. And do you want to tell me about an operation? Are there any that particular? FT: It was all very exciting at the time. [Laugh] We weren’t exposed to it. What was that! And we’d go on fighter affiliation. You were supposed to spot this plane coming at you, course he would come along underneath you, came up over the top, shoot across the top. If you didn’t get a film of it, you were in trouble. ‘Cause when you pulled the trigger on the gun, it worked the camera, not the bullets. SP: So that was in fighter affiliation, yeah? FT: Pardon. SP: That was when you were doing fighter affiliation. FT: Fighter affiliation, yes. SP: Did you have to, you know, use the gun much when you were on operations? FT: No, no, no, there was no time for it. Everything happened so quick, and we weren’t geared up to be quick, you know. ‘What happened?’ ‘Never heard’ ‘Never saw it, Nugget’. ‘It flew right by us!’ ‘It may well of done, but I never saw it!’ ‘It wasn’t fair, he didn’t wave to me!’ [chuckle] Oh dear. But it was serious at the time, dead serious. And our ability to get on and pass, reflected on the crew, because we were part of the crew, and if we failed they’d have to get somebody else, you know, and we didn’t want that, so we really tried. But they kept us separated so you couldn’t sort of, use the pilot’s knowledge of us to say well I want to keep him on as a gunner, you’d have to prove yourself. It was all very good. And then when we got to a station on operations that, that was fun! [chuckle] Go in the mess, not the mess, in the hall and on the end wall was a great big map of Europe and here was a little projector, putting a sign up where we were and all that, and where we were going. We had to pick off what the direction was, how many miles it was, all this, we had to write all this down, all be checked to see what our memory was like. Four guns, eleven fifty rounds a minute for each gun. So that’s four thousand six hundred rounds a minute you were popping out some lead in that. Everyone pumping out that at that rate. SP: So Fred you were talking about your operations, and you did thirty plus of those. What sort of places did you go to on your operations? FT: Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, one up in Norway. Och, can’t remember now. Where’s my log book, Fred? Not in the bag? [Other]: No. FT: Did I give it to you put it in the bag? SP: It doesn’t matter. You did one to Chemnitz. FT: Yes. SP: And that was a very long trip, wasn’t it. Was that the longest trip? FT: At that time I think it was. It was a long way down that was. We went right down, down the Ruhr, down almost into Switzerland, you could see the lights and everything and then we turned to port. Yeah, then we got there, then when we’d done that we come back. Once we’d dumped everything, bombs and that, we could head for home, quick as we can. Hurry up Nugget: we shall miss the tea! SP: And did you have to wear something special on that trip because of the distance? FT: No. Did we wear anything? SP: Did you say you had to put something round you on that trip in case you were shot down because it was so far over? FT: Oh, so the people on the ground would know we were ex aircrew. SP: And what was it you had? FT: We had a scarf round our neck and armbands that identified us. SP: Was that quite unusual, was that the only trip you did that on? FT: No, that was a regular thing. SP: Right. FT: After x, x number of these sort of things you are then qualified to go on. Right. 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 Fred Tiller Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Susanne Pescott Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-07-16 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. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ATillerF180716 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:23:42 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 Fred was too young to get in the Royal Air Force, so he joined the Air Training Corps where they did aircraft recognition and visited various camps. He joined in 1943/44 and went to Lord’s Cricket Ground where he was evaluated to become an air gunner. He was called up to Preston for interviews and crewed up at RAF Abingdon. The crew worked on Wellington and Whitley aircraft at RAF Stanton Harcourt. Fred went to RAF Kirkham and then to RAF Bridgnorth to learn Morse code and to RAF Bridlington for further training. After a few days at home he was posted to the gunnery school on the Isle of Man and later to RAF Hardwick Heavy Conversion Unit to work on Halifax. Fred carried out about 30 operations, including ones to Stuttgart and Chemnitz. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sue Smith Anne-Marie Watson Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lancashire England--Oxfordshire England--Shropshire England--Yorkshire England--Norfolk Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Isle of Man Germany Germany--Stuttgart Germany--Chemnitz Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Pending revision of OH transcription 10 Squadron air gunner aircrew bombing crewing up Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy RAF Abingdon RAF Bridgnorth RAF Bridlington RAF Hardwick RAF Kirkham RAF Melbourne RAF Stanton Harcourt RAF Topcliffe training Wellington Whitley https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1021/11392/AMartinFJK180309.mp3 a7c8b2de21c5a8f6d71d637fd2e397d1 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 Martin, Frederick Joseph Keith F J K Martin Description An account of the resource An oral history interview Warrant Officer Keith Martin (b.1921, 1580351 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator with 626 and 300 Squadrons. 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 2018-03-09 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. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Martin, FJK Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document DH: Right. Ok. Right. Let’s start off with a serious thing to start off with. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Dawn Hughes. The Interviewee is Mr Keith Martin and you like to be known as Keith, don’t you? Yeah. The interview is taking place at Mr Martin’s home in Wem, Shropshire on the 9th of March 2018, and thank you Keith for agreeing to talk to me today. So, the first thing I wanted to ask was thinking about the lead up to joining the RAF how did it come about that you joined the RAF? FM: Right. DH: And what influenced you? FM: I can go back to living and working in Shrewsbury. I was working for quite a big countrywide firm of agricultural machinery merchants with a branch in Shrewsbury. Hence that’s where I was working. My calling up papers came quite quickly. I was eighteen and my boss said to me, ‘You won’t need to go,’ he said, ‘Because you are on a Reserved Occupation.’ Well, I was very immature. Honestly. No, I was very immature and so that suited me. And it happened again a year later when I was nineteen. But when I was approaching twenty and I knew it would happen again I was reaching the stage where you felt guilty really if you were comfortably sitting at home, when even your own friends were going off and so I said to my father, ‘I’m going to volunteer.’ He said, ‘Volunteer for the, for the Royal Army Pay Corps,’ he said, ‘Because they get you, you’re excellent at figures,’ he said, ‘To get you well behind a desk.’ And, I, I thought about that and decided no. I liked the RAF uniform. It’s quite true. I don’t want to go in to the Army in case I land up with a bayonet. And I can’t stand the thought of the water but I can’t swim anyway. And so I went and volunteered for the Air Force which I was accepted straight away, and on the 20th of April 1942 I arrived at Padgate which is North Lancashire for my indoctrination. That’s the right word. I was there for five days only during which time there was a group of about thirty. This squadron leader addressed us and he said, ‘Would any of you like to take an aircrew medical?’ And so, well a damned good idea having a medical so I put my hand up didn’t I? And of course I passed the medical, which mainly funnily enough was, and several other failed through vision. Vision. What I didn’t know, I was innocent at the time, that I had already volunteered for aircrew and about four days, be about the 24th of the month, April I was interviewed by the same squadron leader and he said, ‘Martin, your legs are too short for us to train you to be a pilot.’ And he said, ‘Your educational standard is too poor for us to educate you to, to train you as a navigator.’ I accepted that, because I only went to the Catholic, Catholic ordinary school. So, he said, ‘We’ll train you as a wireless op air gunner.’ ‘Alright, sir.’ The following day I was posted to Blackpool, and I found that Blackpool was the school that taught you two things. One was, the important thing was how to learn the Morse Code and how to handle sending and receiving, and the other thing that was important to them but not to us was how to learn how to march up and down Blackpool streets. Behave ourselves because we were not in billets we were out to houses. Took us in, you know. So they took me. Was it how many? The school for wireless operators was I think three months. May. June. July. That’s right. And I left Blackpool having passed out at the required eighteen words a minute on the 4th of August. Went home for a, once you got a break you know. And then nine days later I received a posting to a place called Yatesbury in Wiltshire, which was the flying part of the learning to be a wireless operator. Doing it in the air. So, in effect that was the first, my first meeting with an aircraft. So, from August to November I was training as a wireless operator air, from which you got your sergeant’s stripes if you passed out. And I passed out, and got my sergeant’s stripes and was then sent for a short, what I call waiting to be properly dispersed. A small, well yeah it was a waiting station and that of all places was Ternhill. And I was at Ternhill for [pause] three weeks from the middle of November to the middle of December, and then I was posted to Calverley in Nantwich. Near Nantwich. And that really was further progress, and I have an idea of what we were flying then. Memory you know. Very good but — [pause] FM: I think. ’43. No. That’s right. Calverley as I was saying was again just further progress on generally learning how to fly in the air, you know. Nothing particular. And then I was sent to Aircrew Recruitment Centre in London, and I didn’t really know why but it, it did, how can I put it? It was, in fact to tell me or to tell the person that they had been selected for A — wireless operator, and B — air gunner. And I’d been selected for wireless operator. And then, so then I was sent to 18 ITW, Initial Training Wing, Brignorth for just a month. Initial Training Wing speaks for itself. And from there, from that very station I got married. [pause] FM: Then I was posted of all places to a place called West Freugh in Scotland which was Advanced Flying Unit, which you have to be in an aircraft flying over the sea, and you had to go through certain rules and regulations to do what you had to do. Having passed out there in May 1943 [pause] No. No. Sorry, no. No. That’s before, having passed out in August 1943. That’s right, when I finished at Yatesbury, and then to West Freugh. I passed out there in October ’43. Sorry. I was only there about six weeks and I was posted to Hixon, Stafford, which is an Operational Training Unit and we were, I was introduced to Wellingtons, Wimpies. I was also within the first week [pause] I was introduced if I can describe it as the crew. The crewing up procedure need, needs talking about because it’s something that outsiders wouldn’t know. How do you get crewed up? Who does it? The answer is the pilot chooses his own crew. The end of the week that you’re there being introduced as I said to Wellingtons, you’re told to report to the, what was the big room that was used generally for dances and things, and there was thirty wireless operators, thirty navigators, thirty engineers, thirty rear gunners, and thirty pilots. Now, that was a crew of a Wellington. Did not include a mid-upper gunner because a Wellington does not have a mid-upper gunner turret. So the skipper chose his own crew, and I was there in the room and this, seemed to be elderly gentleman he turned out to be six years older than me [laughs] came along to me and he said, ‘You’re Sergeant Martin.’ ‘Yes.’ He was only a sergeant, so I didn’t have to say sir. ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘You’re from Shropshire.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘So am I, would you like to fly with me?’ I said, ‘Thank you very much.’ And that in effect, I say to this day saved my life because he was a superb pilot, and he got the crew together and instead of us being half a dozen individuals we became a crew. Right. So we then flew Wellingtons as a crew in training from a place called Seighford, which was a depot of Hixon’s’ and we were, I was there from November ’43 to January ’44. I think it was possibly at that time that we flew our first not exactly operation but our first trip over a foreign country [pages turning] Yeah. It was on the 30th of the December during that period that we were sent to do a leaflet raid over Belgium. This was one of the Royal Air Force’s ideas that every crew should taste flying over the sea and flying over what was still dangerous territory, and so that we got back and we hadn’t lost our nerve and we didn’t report anything silly. You know what I mean, and so that was the important thing and that was in a Wellington on the 30th of December. Having [pause] passed that, we then immediately got transferred to a four engine Conversion Unit. Immediately after that. We were not going to fly in Wellingtons in operations. We were going to fly in the new four engine bombers that were coming on line. And the first thing we did when we got there was pick up a mid-upper gunner. The mid-upper gunners had been trained ready, but had been sent straight to Conversion Units as they’re called because it was there that the, the skipper would pick one up and so that’s where we got hold of Jock. And now we were a crew of seven which you need. And so we did Conversion Unit at Sandtoft, and during that time had a crash. We crashed a Halifax [pages turning] We crashed a Halifax on the 6th of April 1944. We had a 5 o’clock take off. Evening take-off. It was only what we called circuits and bumps learning, for the skipper to learn how to take off and land and he had an engine failure on take-off. And because we hadn’t really got any height the skipper, the skipper decided to crash land. The decision he made we just accepted it, and in the subsequent report which I’ve got a copy of it says, “No pilot error. No disciplinary action to be taken.” But we were a bit, we were sent straight to the medical to be checked over, and we were a bit cheeky so in their wisdom they sent us straight up again. Well, in a few hours, 9.15 that night we went up again but this time we were also accompanied by a senior pilot as well as our own to see that there was nothing wrong, and that went on all right. And the amazing thing is we saw that Halifax the other, the next day or the following day and it was, it was a ruin. We’d hit a tree in a forest or in a field, and it had torn the wing off. But how we all got out alive I don’t know but we did. The aircraft was a write off. So, we — DH: Can I ask what plane that was— FM: That was a Halifax. DH: A Halifax, yeah. FM: An old Halifax. They only sent the old ones to training places. So we had a couple of little trips before we, whilst we were there when we had to go to learn what they called ditching practice and this was up in Lincolnshire. Just a day out. You had to go. They had a big pool with a half a Lancaster in the middle and you were taken out but you had to get the dinghy out and on and get yourself home. You see what I mean. DH: Yeah. FM: Right. We were posted from Sandtoft to Hemswell for the month of April to transfer from Halifaxes to Lancasters. A small transfer. Just the difference for the pilot really and on the 1st of May 1944 we were posted to Wickenby. DH: So can I ask with your job as a wireless operator what was different going from the Halifax in to the Lancaster for you? Was there any difference? FM: Nothing on those two. Different coming from the Wellington because it was a different radio. But no my job was basically the same. Very little radio, and mainly standing in the astrodome as an extra set of eyes but I’ll come to that when it comes to operational flying. Right. On the 10th of May, on the 11th of May we were on just Lancasters locally. Further training. But on the 19th of May we had our first operation but to the marshalling yards at Orleans. Orleans south of Paris. Total time there and back five hours and fifteen minutes. Right. We then had to prepare for the next one by an air test. The next operation which was on the 24th of May which was the marshalling yards at Aachen right on the border. Five hours and five minutes. Now, I don’t want to go through these individually. I shall want to just pick out those that matter. We went to Aachen again. We went to marshalling yards. These marshalling yards were so important because it was coming up to D-Day. We didn’t know that. But the Germans were, their marshalling yards were bombed ruthlessly. The next one is a marshalling yard as well. DH: Can you explain what a marshalling yard is please? FM: Well [laughs] I thought you’d know that. DH: No. No. FM: A railway. Well, they’ve got a big railway. When you marshall all your equipment it’s a marshalling yard. DH: Right. FM: You know. It’s the same in this country. We got in to early June and we were on such things as heavy gun batteries on the coast. Railway junction again, and marshalling yards again. You can see the picture. We’re averaging the 5th of June, 7th of June, 10th of June, 12th of June. We were averaging one almost every other day and then [pause] that’s right. I’d passed it over without thinking how I got the Legion of Honour because on the 5th of June and the 6th of June was D-Day and in those twenty four hours we did two operations which was a thing unknown. To do two in twenty four hours. One was to the north of the coast, and one was to the south. And I’m talking about the German coastal batteries and we bombed them north and south. The south one we did first. You’ve heard a lot lately of these emigrant towns called, one was called Sangatte. Well, that’s where we, that was a bombing because Sangatte then was a big German coastal battery. So we did Sangatte and within a matter of no time at all we were off again, and this time we did the bottom ones near [pause] near, well I can’t think what the big town is on the corner. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. It was one of the southern ones, and doing those two on D-Day was the reason for the French had fixed that anybody operating on D-Day would get this medal. So, came to the last trip that I did was on the 12th of June. Again, marshalling yards and then I was transferred to the Polish squadron with a week’s leave in between. Got back. Got to the Polish squadron 17th of June. We, they didn’t waste any time. We air tested on the 17th of June morning and went on operations in the evening on the 17th of June. So we then go to several operations with 300 Squadron in June. I’ve got 24th, 25th, 29th and 30th. On the 30th, the last one was a daylight. Marshalling yards in the daylight God knows why. I can’t think of why but in fact the next one, the 12th of July, by now I must have gone on leave then. You had a leave generally every so many months because I have a blank space between the 30th of June and the 12th of July. On the 12th of July we started operations. Now were on longer distance ones. This one is nine hours and eight months. This one which I just wanted to describe is the most dangerous one we did. It was to a marshalling yard in the south of France, almost on the Swiss border at a place called Revigny, and when we got there it was ten tenths cloud. You were flying at about ten thousand feet in beautiful sunshine with a blanket of cloud right over the target. Couldn’t see anything. The Master Bomber, I don’t know whether you understand Master Bombers, the person who is there controlling. The master bomber said, ‘I can’t mark the target.’ And he recommends go home. You know, abandon. Abandon the exercise. And I can remember my skipper saying, only to us, ‘Look lads. We didn’t fly all this way to take our bombs home.’ He said, ‘I’m going to try to go through the clouds and see what happens.’ So then came the most scary time of slowly, slowly descending through cloud, and could see nothing. The navigator had taken the distance. No. Yeah. No, the direction that we were travelling so that we could reverse and go back and kept on going through this cloud to Revigny. Anyway, we came out into sunshine. Or night. It wasn’t sunshine. It was moonlight really. At four thousand feet. The skipper said, ‘Right lads. Now, we can reverse along so that we go back the way we come until we find these marshalling yards.’ And so the bomb aimer was the important one because he was lying in his turret in the bottom and he could see, and he right up, ‘Coming up marshalling yards.’ Right. So skipper said, ‘Right. Prepare for bombing run.’ And we had a very quick bombing run. Not the usual four minutes because he wanted to get the bombs away whilst we were over the marshalling yards, and so we bombed. We luckily we had time to close the bomb doors when a four engined plane which we could only describe as a four engine plane, couldn’t say it was a Lancaster or a Halifax came right underneath the clouds straight down underneath us, all four engines ablaze. An absolute, you know, a roman candle and either it exploded or it crash landed and exploded but it blew us up on our backsides. And I can remember skipper who never swore saying, ‘Oh Christ.’ And we seemed to be all over the place, and he was desperately trying to correct. Anyway, at two thousand feet he corrected, and we were back on an even keel so he said, ‘Lads, I’m going to stick these throttles right through, and we’re going to get home quickly.’ Now, when we got home we had to report to the intelligence. Why? Two things. A — the skipper had disobeyed an order to abandon to go home. B — he pressed on and bombed the target. A — he was going to be court martialled. B — he was going to get a medal. He got the medal. So he got the DFC, quite rightly. Then we carried on several quite long trips. Stuttgart. We went twice to Stuttgart and that wasn’t very nice. DH: Can you explain why it wasn’t very nice? What mainly — FM: Because you’re going to go through the Ruhr first of all. You’re on the chance of night fighters for such a long distance before you even get to the target because it’s an eight hour trip. Four hours each way. Do you see what I mean? You’re under, you’re in a, their well armed area, and to do it twice in oh hell, twice in four days. Yes. 24th and 28th. I can remember one little thing. On the way home on the second trip I said to the, through the, ‘Skipper, permission to speak.’ You weren’t allowed to talk, you know. ‘Permission to speak.’ ‘Yes, wireless operator.’ ‘Will you all wish me a happy birthday? It’s my birthday today.’ Because it was now, we took off on the 28th of July and on the way home it was the 29th of July. DH: And did they? FM: We did that night. Then there were several trips, and then came the period at the end of August. We had already now done [pause] we’d now done twenty six. And the skipper, and now the bomb aimer had also been made a [pause] a what do you call it? You know, we were still sergeants and he, yeah. You know what I mean. Anyway, the skipper called us together and he said, ‘I’ve had,’ because he said, ‘I’m a senior crew,’ he said, ‘I’ve got the ears of Bill Misselbrook — ’ our squadron commander that at the end of August the wing is being disbanded because the Poles have now got sufficient trained people to take over the wing completely. Now — ’ he said, ‘We’ve got four trips to do.’ And he said, ‘I would like to think that we could get them done without us being posted again to some other squadron, you know and have to start all over again.’ So, he said, ‘I’ve got to get your agreement that if you agree I’ll see Bill Misselbrook and say, ‘We volunteer for every trip that’s going.’ And he said, he must have agreed and from the 25th of August to the 31st of August we did four operations, and one of those was the biggest we’d ever done and it was at, it was up to a place in the Baltic called Stettin. Or it was called Stettin then and there was a Nazi naval base there and somehow Stalin had asked for us to bomb it. I don’t know how. You can get these funny things that go on. So we did Stettin as our twenty ninth trip and again on the way home he said, break the rules, he said, ‘I’m not going to stooge back under the rules of the speed that you can do safeguarding the engines,’ he said. ‘They can only shoot me.’ So it was boof, and we came home and the funny words, we landed and I can remember the words coming over the, over from the ground radio lady. She said, ‘U-Uncle. U-Uncle have you completed your mission?’ Because we were fifteen minutes before time getting home. Whereas the others took fifteen minutes longer obeying we’d, anyway that was another story. And then we did a daylight raid on the 31st of August and at the end of that I have a note signed by the station commander, and the squadron commander, “You’re tour is completed.” And so that in affect ends the chapter of my time doing bombing raids. Can you — DH: Do you want to pause? FM: Well, do you want any further more? DH: I’ve got some questions if that’s ok. FM: Because I mean going on, you can go on forever. I’ve got — DH: Yeah, no, I’ve got some questions if that’s ok. FM: Otherwise, I can go on so long with — DH: No. That’s fine. On an op what would your job entail because it took you five hours, eight hours? So what would you do during your time? FM: Your main job that you are trained to do for the, for the crew is that you take a message in code from Bomber Command Headquarters at oh, they’re active then. Not the headquarters now. They’re active headquarters every fifteen minutes. Every fifteen minutes they send out a message. It may be status quo. It may be they’d got a change of wind direction, change of wind speed, a change of anything, but every fifteen minutes the wireless operator takes a message and passes it on to the navigator. DH: Right. FM: In between, each skipper may want to use him in a different way but most want to use him as a lookout, standing up under the astrodome and helping to spy night fighters. DH: Right. FM: And the bit, the important thing he does on a bombing run, when you can imagine there’s a mass of aircraft coming through to bomb on the same you suddenly see one appearing above you and immediately you tell the skipper. Because what you don’t want to do is be bombed by one above. So you’re first of all a wireless operator and second of all you’re a lookout. DH: So you kept busy. FM: Yes. DH: You mentioned before we started the interview, you talked about the Polish squadron. You talked about the make up of the Commonwealth crew. FM: Yes. DH: Can you explain that please? FM: No, when a Commonwealth was pure luck and they had to use the name Commonwealth because they didn’t want to insult like for instance our navigator was a Canadian. My friend that I had there who’d trained could still be alive. The last time I heard of him he was in a wheelchair but his navigator was the most unusual thing. He was a Yank. But he was a Yank who had wanted to get into the war, and so he volunteered from America to join the Canadian Air Force, and from the Canadian Air Force he got, so there’s another one. So if you said it’s an English crew, or a British crew you could be offending, so it was called a Commonwealth. DH: Right near the start of the interview you talked about your training and everything and you were saying that you got married. FM: Yeah. DH: Before we started the interview you said briefly about your feelings about getting married and did you do the right thing at the right age and that. Can you, can you talk about that again please? FM: That came after though, dear. I don’t know whether it’s worth talking about. I mean, I didn’t [pause] how, how can you say that in effect during your period of the war until, until the later time that when she was allowed to come and live close to because I was no longer on operations but in those early days every leave was like a honeymoon. You got, you know you and to be honest with you we, we reached demob without ever realising what married life was, and then by then we got a baby on the way, very difficult to put it in to words. I just felt that she was too young. She never complained, but at eighteen. DH: Yeah. FM: But as I said marriage went on for sixty one years and we got a letter from the Queen here so that couldn’t have been too bad. DH: Oh no. FM: It was only in my own mind that. Yeah. Yes. DH: Right at the start you were saying that you got the call up papers but you were in a Reserved Occupation. FM: That’s right. DH: So were you allowed to ignore those call up papers if you were in a Reserved Occupation? FM: Oh yeah. Only, only as a volunteer. DH: Right. FM: Only, and if you were accepted you could have been a volunteer in a far more important Reserved Occupation for some reason and be turned down. You could have been in a, some kind of laboratory somewhere and what have you. But the rule was you, if you, if you, you had to volunteer and you had to be accepted. DH: Right. FM: And my Reserved Occupation was really only agricultural machinery. I know it was helping to keep the farmers going but it wasn’t of grade one importance. DH: You said at the, near the start again that you went for your initial training. You said you went for training and the indoctrination. What did you mean by indoctrination? FM: I think I can explain that. A big word for a little thing. DH: Yeah. FM: 16th of June 1943 [pause] That’s right. I hadn’t started. I hadn’t got to the [pause] Yeah. The first introduction to an aeroplane we [pause] now, can you edit this if you — DH: Yes. Yes. It can be edited. FM: The important thing was to try and make you sick on the basis that once you’d been sick you were never likely to be sick again. But if you persisted in being sick you would get discharged from aircrew because you couldn’t be sick. DH: Right. FM: You just couldn’t be. Now, that was the indoctrination that I, and it, on the 16th of June ’43, I went twice in one hour on a Dominie with seven, six others and we marched to the aircraft and as we marched they gave us each a bucket. Now, that was before we got to the aircraft they gave us a bucket. When we got inside they had purposely not cleaned it up and I think half of them were sick before we got off the ground. But then he was an experienced pilot and he could hedgehop. You were only up and hour but believe me we were all terribly sick. Is that sufficient indoctrination? DH: Yeah. FM: If you see what I mean. DH: Yeah. Yeah. FM: If you followed on, and I had four but the first two were only experience. The second two I had to do two message taking. That was my initial contact with the wireless. DH: So I take it you stopped being sick. FM: I stopped being, I was only sick once. It’s a terrible feeling and you walk out, stagger out of this aircraft and they say, they march you out, two march. ‘You now go and clean your bucket in the toilets.’ It’s not a nice story, but that was the indoctrination. It had, they could not have people who were going to be sick passed as aircrew. It could not be allowed, and so they had that method to making you sick and giving you four chances really. DH: Yeah. FM: I can only, I can’t honestly tell you if they all failed. All four. All I know is I was only sick once [pause] The crew, or most of them. DH: Which one are you? FM: None, I took it, I took the photograph as it happened. I didn’t know at the time, you know. DH: Yeah. FM: That I was going to take a photograph of the others. The skipper of course is in the middle. The one who looks a little bit elderly. DH: All so young. FM: Yes, all so young. DH: So young. Can you tell me when you were actually on an op did you get a chance to get scared? Were you so busy that you couldn’t get scared? FM: You were scared all the while. But you were a part of a crew and you got your courage from them, and they in turn got their courage from you. You were a crew. To say you weren’t scared would be a lie. Many’s the time I hung tight to the [pause] especially on, when you get a bad take off and you don’t get off the ground at all due to weather conditions but that’s another story. You can’t. You can’t. Some get all the stories you need to get your memory, you know. But scared, yes. We were scared. We were scared. Especially when you were flying over the Ruhr and the ack ack was almost bouncing off the bottom of your aircraft. You could hear the crackle of it. Yes. Yes. Anything else? DH: I don’t think so. FM: I think I’ve been pretty thorough. DH: You have. You have. FM: I, as I said I had two further RAF lives after that but I don’t want to go into them all. DH: No. No. After, so after VJ Day how, how did, what affect did the war have on you do you think? FM: None at all. DH: No. FM: We were still going on targets. The fact that they were targets of a different lot, because the one lot was being prepared for VE day and the second lot afterwards. No. The only thing, you know, how can I put it? When we finished we didn’t know that we weren’t going to be called up for a second tour and would have done if it hadn’t been for the Americans dropping the atom bomb. If that hadn’t have happened after six months or more of it we would have been called back again. DH: So, after you finished your tour how did the RAF occupy you? FM: Well, that’s another life. I could go on then about a whole year flying down near here, and then a third tour. A third life when I managed to get appointed to the Test Pilot’s School and that’s where I finished. DH: Are you able to tell me about the Test Pilot’s School? FM: Yes. It’s very interesting. We’ll forget the next bit. That was a year literally at South Cerney just outside Gloucester where I was flying with advanced, advanced trainee pilots when they sent, and it was a two engined aircraft, an Oxford when they sent them out to do night trips. They were not allowed to go without a wireless operator because the wireless operator could get them home by getting directions. So that was literally a year. And then there was a message on the notice board, “Volunteers wanted for the Number 4 Empire Test Pilot’s School,” which was being transferred from Farnborough to [pause] I can’t think of the name now. Anyway, I’ve got it in here. It begins with a C. Yeah, that appears, Neville Duke. I flew with him once. Empire Test Pilot’s School. What am I trying to tell you? DH: You transferred from Farnborough to — FM: Right. No. They were transferred. I was still at the Advanced Flying Unit until the end of October ’45. DH: Right. FM: So, I’d been there a little over a year and they wanted volunteers. Wireless operators who would go to just a quick training school to teach them how to help a pilot flying on his own on a four engine aircraft. You’ll appreciate that if being able to handle all the throttles, being able to close down one or more engines, jobs like that we were taught and then we were sent off to this school. And when we got there, there was nothing there and the station commander called. He said, ‘Your warrant officer has just come through Martin so you’re going to be in charge.’ So, he said, ‘You set up this unit. There will be five others,’ he said, ‘We tried to get youngsters who haven’t had the — ’ he called it luck, ‘The luck to have a bombing life because they came in too late.’ So he said, ‘They’re raw youngsters most of them but,’ he said, ‘There is one senior man as well as you.’ And so we set up this. They gave us an office. Oh anyway, we set it up and eventually it was got going but it was months. A long, I don’t, I can’t remember why but anyway it was January’46 before we actually flew when they were ready as well. And we flew from this Empire Test Pilots School. From Cranfield. Couldn’t remember it. Cranfield, which is north of, north of Bedford. Anyway, we started flying there in January ’46 and we did very little flying because they didn’t, they weren’t always flying four engines. They only needed you when they were. But, you know you did some interesting small jobs with them. And then came my moment of, there came a time in May ’46 when I think we’d had a couple of these six taken ill with something, flu or something and suddenly we, we had to do a lot more because I got a book here when I’d flew four times on the 6th of May, five times on the 7th May, twice on the 8th of May, five times on the 9th of May. I don’t want to go on but you can see I was doing a lot then and during that time, you’ve never heard of Duke have you? DH: No. FM: Neville Duke. DH: No. I haven’t. FM: Well, he became, later on he became a test pilot and he became holder of the speed record and I, and I just flew with him once for forty five minutes. N. Fifty minutes. So that’s my fifty minutes of fame, and carried on there still flying and the last trip I did before I was demobbed, 8th of July ’46. Without this I couldn’t remember all those things. DH: No. FM: That was the best and the luckiest posting I ever had. Suddenly going from training pilots in night cross countries often being more scared than I ever was bombing, and suddenly getting pilots good enough to be test pilots, you know. It was an entirely different experience. And the fact that I’d became a warrant officer which helped a lot. Financially it helped a great deal. DH: Yeah. FM: Right. Any more questions? DH: So after, after you were demobbed what were you going to do? FM: Well, I was lucky you see. One of the reasons that I could safely volunteer was the company, and I’ve got a letter from the boss, what would I call him? Anyway, he was the boss, guaranteeing any member of the staff anywhere in all of the branches around the, that volunteered for the Services, whichever Service and came back were guaranteed a job. And I’ve got the letter from Hubert Burgess himself and he thanked me very much for my service, services, and understood my feeling of, of volunteering. And so when I got back I went down to the branch in Shrewsbury, had an appointment with a man named Richards who I worked for. He’d, he’d been too old, you know to go in. Anyway, he’d be too important to have to go in the Services and he said, ‘Yeah. When do you want to start?’ And I said, ‘Well, can you give me a week? I’ve got to find, I’ve got to find lodgings for the wife and, and my daughter.’ And so I think I started work, I think I started work on the 1st of September. DH: Wow, that’s, that’s quite good, isn’t it? That’s very good. FM: It was good. DH: For them to say that. FM: Because, because this man Richards and I had a very long working relationship and he, he pushed me up until I was eventually, you know in a very good job. So that’s really the story of how lucky we were that we came back. I mean, I can remember one very good high rating head office boy who went, and he went in the Air Force and he came back and he went back to a job and it happened. He kept his promise. Your job was there, and that was a marvellous thing, you know. You didn’t have to worry about your week’s wages did you? DH: No. That’s quite something. FM: Another thing he did. This is, this is only for your information because you had to recognise what money was worth. He instructed the wages people to put ten shillings a week in an envelope in the safe in my name. DH: What? During the war? FM: All the way, whole time I was through. DH: No. FM: For the whole of the time I was through he paid me ten shillings a week for fighting for me country. DH: Wow. FM: Believe me when we came out that money set up the furniture for our first place. Now, how many bosses would do that? DH: Not many. FM: But that’s actually absolutely true. They say, ‘Oh, ten shillings a week,’ but ten shillings a week then. DH: Was a lot. FM: Was a different kettle of fish. And anyway, he didn’t need to give me anything, did he? Guaranteeing me a job was sufficient without paying me ten shillings a week for five years. DH: Wow, that’s quite — FM: So you do get good bosses. You do get good bosses. Yes. DH: Well, can I say thank you. You’ve been absolutely fascinating to listen to. FM: No. I, I didn’t want to overdo it as I said. There’s the three lives. The second one I told you about flying trainee pilots around the skies over Gloucestershire were not a happy experience and then the Test Pilot’s School which was quite marvellous. Quite marvellous. Although to get in [laughs] this is not for you, I’m just talking to you, you get in, and this test pilot he says, ‘Well, Martin —’ or, yes. Well, yes. Sometimes they know your Christian name but you know there was, you weren’t together long enough. He’d say, ‘Well, I’m doing single engine flying today.’ So he said, ‘You know how to feather.’ That was what I was taught of course. I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Be careful to feather in the order that I tell you because —’ he said, ‘I’ll have to adjust the balance of the aircraft.’ So you get quite happily tootling along and he says, ‘Feather outboard.’ So you press the button for stop the outboard and the engine dies and it’s just running in in the wind and he’s adjusting. And a little later he says, ‘Feather inboard.’ So you press the inboard button and that so he says, ‘We are now flying on two engines.’ That’s alright. And then he said, ‘Feather inboard,’ or whatever. The one he prefers. He may say that he prefers to feather inboard, or feather outboard of the other two and you do it and suddenly you’re flying or trying to fly a four engine bomber on one engine. It has its own moments. It has its moments. Oh yes. But you trusted them you see. They were skilled, and they had to be able to fly this bomber on one engine without losing height. Just keep it and they would, they passed. Anyway, enough about that. DH: Which aircraft were they? FM: Lancasters. DH: They were Lancasters. FM: Yes. And the latest model too. The latest Rolls twenty two engines I think. They had all the best to train on they did. Yeah. Anyway, thank you for coming. I don’t want to bore you to tears. DH: You’re not boring me whatsoever. FM: I mean, I was one of the lucky ones to have lived through it and to some extent to still have an active memory. I do need this because the dates sometimes run into one. DH: It would be very difficult to remember all those dates. FM: Oh yeah. Yes. DH: Very difficult, one last question. FM: Yeah. DH: Have you got any you know, lighter moments. Any funny things that you can remember from your time on operations? FM: You know, it’s hard to remember a funny thing. I think the funniest thing was not what happened on the day but what happened on the day had a remarkable [pause] how can I put it? Resurgence of life many years later. And I’ll tell you this, I can’t remember which daylight raid it was but the Polish squadron, Polish aircraft my pilot had got friendly with their pilot was in, landed in the next bay, and they were getting out and we were getting out and they had, one of the ground crew was a bit snap happy taking pictures and he came along and we grinned at him and he took the picture and that was it. Never thought anything about it. Now, this is one daylight raid towards the end of the, with my life at Faldingworth with the Poles. Now, how many years later? I would be [pause] Phyl had died so it was one of their anniversaries at Faldingworth and I got an invitation and I had a friend, a golfing friend who was very keen on anything to do with, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you. I’d love to.’ He said, ‘I’ll take you willingly.’ I said, ‘Ok.’’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about driving,’ he said. I was still able to drive. I hadn’t reached this stage but it must have been ’87 ’97. Fifteen. It must have been fifteen years ago. An anniversary they had and that we went up and we went first thing and we went in to the village hall which was also now laid out with old photographs and everything to do with the Poles. And the Polish people, or the remnants were there and a lot of them had got tales to tell. And I was walking along here, this lady had got a book and she spoke English. She said, ‘Have a look at my records.’ She said, ‘Do you happen to know my father? He was a Polish pilot in this.’ And I said to her, ‘Apologies,’ I said, ‘We were only there three months. We never got really to know our own lot properly let alone — ’ ‘Oh, I understand.’ She said, ‘Have a look at my pictures.’ And she turned over a page and there was the photograph there that he’d taken what would be the best part of, if he’d taken it in ’44 and this would be in, in ’84. The best part of forty years later. And I squealed. I said, ‘You won’t believe it,’ I said. ‘That’s me.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, reading it. This was the pilot who was a friend. And this ground crew had taken, and it had got to her and she got it and there it was. A photograph of myself and oh, I remember the bomb aimer was there and the rear gunner. Unfortunately, the skipper hadn’t got out of the aircraft because we were only disembarking, you know. DH: Yeah. FM: But I can remember squealing. Then I called my friend, ‘Brian. Brian come and have a look at this.’ So he came along and I said, ‘Look at that.’ ‘Bloody hell,’ he said. I said would you believe that you could come to a place and see yourself forty years ago. And that was in effect, you could call that the most happy and unexpected — DH: Yeah. FM: Thing to happen. To find that you, your photograph had been taken and been kept in this, her father’s album. DH: Yeah. FM: And had got to her. Anyway, yes so that was I think that was a jolly tale. You know what I mean. It was a happy one. DH: Yeah. FM: Not a miserable one. A happy one. DH: Well, thank you so much for talking to me, Keith. FM: I could tell you one which is dead funny. Unbelievable but still it happened. You wouldn’t know, couldn’t know but during the war only bottled beer was available. There may have been draft beer in small quantities round about Burton on Trent and places like that but I mean normally bottled was the only beer. And the day we finished operations was a daylight raid so like it wasn’t like coming back in the middle of the night and so we all, we were all going to go down to Market Rasen which was only three and a half miles away. The skipper had arranged transport. He’s the boss now. He’s well thought of on the squadron and he arranged transport so we can drink as much as we like. So we go in to this hotel in Market Rasen. I wish I could remember its name but it’s there. We go in to the bar. It’s quite early. Not in to the bar. Went in, oh no we went in to the smoke room. Didn’t mix. We wanted a big room of our own and there’s seven of us sat around this table and the, and the navigator, Frank who came to see me from Canada who, thirty five years later, but he said, ‘The first round’s on me.’ We didn’t argue about a round. But he walked up to the bar and we could hear him. This young girl came and he said, he said, ‘I want fifty six pint bottles of beer please.’ She said [pause], ‘I’m not joking,’ he said, ‘I want fifty six pint bottles of beer.’ And they were all brought around our table. Eight of us, seven of us, supposed to drink eight each. The skipper could drink one. The navigator could manage twelve. I may have managed my eight at a push, but I think that particular order was the biggest individual order for beer I’ve ever heard placed. DH: Yeah. FM: Yeah. That was Frank. He was going to buy the first round so he did but there was never a second [laughs] Yes. DH: Could you tell me the names of the people on that crew? FM: I can. Very well. Pilot George Davies from Oswestry. Navigator Frank Yate from North Hamilton in, in Ontario. Bomb aimer Freddie [Pittey] from Newbury, trainee, a trainee teacher and went back to become a school teacher. Jock Gilchrist. Jock, obviously mid-upper gunner, Scottish from Ayr. The one, the one we found difficulty keeping in touch with and I don’t know why maybe he got married and moved around was the engineer. I’ll think of his name in a minute. And then the rear gunner was the oldest. Harry [Fay], a cockney from East, East Ham. Harry was the first to die. He had a heart attack and one by one they all dropped off leaving me, yeah. I even kept in touch with the wives. With the widows. The two widows that I mainly, because it was rather amazing when you think of I went to the wedding of the bomb aimer and I went to his silver [pause] Oh, let me think. If he was married in ’46, and I went to his golden wedding, that’s right. That’s right. He was married in ’46. Ninety. Yeah, that’s right. And Phyl was alive of course and at his golden wedding of course we were guests of honour fifty years later. That was one amazing thing. The skipper of course married a New Zealand nurse who then wanted to go home and he didn’t have no interest in his father’s business which was a business that I was in. And when he’d gone and I was living in Oswestry and his mum and dad were still alive in Oswestry, I used to visit them didn’t I? And his dad who used to run this big agricultural, owned it, that George wasn’t interested in because he was a Batchelor of Science in his own right on metallurgy. Anyway, that’s another story. Anyway, his father said to me, ‘Get in touch with your boss and tell him that when I’m ready to retire I want you to buy the business.’ Now, geographically it was perfect. We’d already moved from Oswestry when we bought out a company in Welshpool so one more step to new town was perfect. And it happened. He called me, ‘Come and see me. I want to retire,’ he said, I want to safeguard my staff,’ he said. ‘You get hold of your boss.’ Well I did and of course my boss, the big boss then contacted my boss Ben Richards who’d been with me all the lifetime and we went down and we looked and eventually we bought it. And because of that I was made what you’d call area supervisor, having already taken over Welshpool as well from Oswestry, and the funny thing to think that from that day when George Davis says, ‘You’re from Shropshire.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I’m a Salopian too. Would you fly with me?’ Comes years later his dad. It’s, you know — DH: It’s amazing, isn’t it? FM: It is. You can’t really believe these things happen. Yes. Yes. I’m glad I’ve got a pretty active memory because sometimes I can enjoy going back on a given period. I don’t have to go back on the lot. I can remember doing something that I never thought you’d do in the wartime. Have you heard of mayday? DH: Of? FM: Mayday. The word mayday. DH: I know what the word mayday means. Yeah. FM: What does it mean? DH: It’s a call for help. FM: Right. It’s also something you don’t use unless you’re in — DH: Trouble. FM: In trouble. And so I called mayday and I had to explain when we got down why, and this was with these trainee pilots. We were out one night in January and we were in a horrendous snowstorm. He quite rightly had lost his way. I could understand that. We got down to, over a big town at about four thousand feet or was it, sorry four hundred feet, and we could recognise it was Cheltenham. I also knew that we were, had a safe flying height over the Cotswolds of fourteen hundred feet, and we were flying at four hundred feet. So I tapped him on the shoulder and I [pause] ‘Oh yes,’ he said. We climbed up, and then we were lost, you know. We were close to home and yet lost so I called, ‘Mayday. Mayday.’ The answer, ‘Your requirements?’ And I just said, ‘Searchlights.’ And within no time the beams came up. We could see them and we came home. Got home. I got away with them. My reasons for mayday. They accepted it. I don’t know whether he got away with having lost, you know. I don’t know. I can’t remember, but I do remember that. Possibly being the most scary night of the, you don’t call mayday once in a lifetime. Yeah. And then have to say, go in front of the intelligence and tell them why you called mayday. A thing unknown. Mayday. Yes. Yes. A bad thunderstorm in an old fashioned aircraft is pretty terrible you know. I mean you can’t see anything. Not like these modern things where you’re, yes, enough of me. You’ll never get home ‘til tomorrow. You get me on my memories and I’ve got so many. So many. DH: Well — FM: I don’t know. DH: If you wanted to chat another time and give me memories that would be wonderful. FM: [unclear] Right. My legs get, slowly but surely they’re deteriorating. You’ve seen that medal haven’t you? That’s the — DH: Let’s have a look. FM: That’s the Legion d’Honneur. DH: Oh yes. That’s beautiful isn’t it? FM: It is. DH: Beautiful. FM: Put that there. DH: Yes. FM: It’s just something. I don’t know if I’ve got it. It won’t take a second to look. I’ll finish my coffee. So many documents that I’ve got which [pause] Different crew members but I don’t want to show you bits and pieces. I thought I’d got a [pause] There’s the skipper. What you can see of him. Only his head. DH: Oh, inside the plane. FM: No. I can’t see there’s anything particular. It’s hard to remember [laughs] I told you we were in civvy billets in Blackpool. DH: Yes [pause] Ah, which one are you? FM: Right in the middle, at the back. DH: Oh right. Oh yes, nuisance. FM: I’ll get it. I’ll get it. DH: All right, love. I did get a little one of the two gunners. The rear and the mid-upper together. FM: Yeah. DH: I’ve got other photographs somewhere dear but I don’t know where they are. FM: Ok. What I’ll do is, if we finish — DH: Yes. FM: If I finish of the interview now. DH: Yeah. FM: And then I’ll explain a few things. Ok. So, 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 Frederick Joseph Keith Martin Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dawn Hughes 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 2018-03-09 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. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AMartinFJK180309 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:41:51 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 Keith Martin was working for an agricultural machinery merchants in Shrewsbury when the war started. This was classed as a reserved occupation but when he was nearly 20, he decided to volunteer for the Royal Air Force in April 1942 and was selected to be a wireless operator/air gunner. Initial training took place in RAF Blackpool, followed by further training at RAF Yatesbury, RAF Ternhill and RAF Calveley. Having been promoted to sergeant he was then posted to 18 Initial Training Wing at RAF Bridgnorth to complete his wireless operator training. Flying training took place at RAF West Freugh and, in October 1943, he was posted to an Operational Training Unit at RAF Hixon flying Wellingtons. It was there that Keith was assigned to an aircrew. As part of their training, in December 1943 Keith’s crew flew their first operation, which was leaflet dropping over Belgium. January 1944 saw a posting to a Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Sandtoft to fly Halifaxes. In April their aircraft had an engine failure on take-off, resulting in a crash landing which wrote it off but injured no-one. He transferred to Lancasters at RAF Hemswell and was then posted to RAF Wickenby. From May he was in an operational squadron. Keith describes the many operations that he carried out, including an operation during which an aircraft below his exploded, and caused his aircraft to go out of control until the pilot recovered control at 2000 feet. In June 1944 he was posted to 300 Squadron. By August his crew had flown 26 operations. On completing his tour, Keith went on to spend a year at the Advanced Flying Unit at RAF South Cerney before volunteering for the Empire Test Pilots’ School at RAF Cranfield. He was finally demobbed in 1946 returning to his pre-war employer, who had kept his job available. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nick Cornwell-Smith Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Belgium France Great Britain England--Bedfordshire England--Cheshire England--Gloucestershire England--Lancashire England--Shropshire England--Staffordshire England--Yorkshire England--Wiltshire Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway England--Blackpool France--Paris France--Sangatte France--Pas-de-Calais Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942-04-20 1943-05 1943-10 1943-12-30 1944-01 1944-04-06 1944-05-01 1944-06 1944-08-31 1946 1944-07 1944-06-05 1944-06-06 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending revision of OH transcription 300 Squadron 626 Squadron Advanced Flying Unit aircrew bombing bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944) crash crewing up Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit Initial Training Wing Lancaster Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Operational Training Unit propaganda RAF Bridgnorth RAF Calveley RAF Cranfield RAF Hemswell RAF Hixon RAF Sandtoft RAF South Cerney RAF Ternhill RAF West Freugh RAF Wickenby RAF Yatesbury take-off crash training Wellington wireless operator / air gunner https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2103/34735/PMercierCG2101.jpg c2cff2ce423cc0e51f1583845e734850 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2103/34735/PMercierCG2102.jpg b622b7155acd89d066aa0e556c65e3d1 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2103/34735/AMercierCG211021.mp3 dc7381a51cc49e7f7356f9dc4718b402 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 Mercier, Gordon Cyril Gordon Mercier C G Mercier Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Gordon Mercier (1924 -2024). He flew operations as a mid-upper gunner with 171 Squadron. The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021-10-21 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 Mercier, CG Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document HB: It’s Harry Bartlett interviewing Gordon Cyril Mercier on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre at Lincoln. It’s the 21st of October 2021. Gordon is ninety six and three quarters old, and he served from 1943 through to 1947 in Bomber Command and Gordon was a mid-upper gunner. Now, Gordon, now we can make a start? Can you, can you tell me a little bit about your early life please? GM: Yeah. I was born in Jersey in 1925 and I had a very bad childhood. I was always ill. Always ill. I spent so much time in hospital it was unbelievable. My mother used to say when I was born, the doctor said, ‘You won’t have him long mother but he, but treasure him while you’ve got him.’ And here I am [laughs] ninety six. I came, I went to school in Birmingham, High Street Harborne in Birmingham and I was fourteen at the start of the war. And the moment the war started I helped the ARP people. I used to carry the stirrup pumps for them when I was fourteen. When Mr Churchill came on the phone, on the radio in 1940 to ask for volunteers to join the LDV which was the Local Defence Volunteers sixteen and over. I was fifteen and I went and joined the Home Guard. And I was in the Home Guard until I joined the RAF in 1943. My nickname in the Home Guard was Sealevel, and I spent all those years, and I was a very very good shot. It was amazing. I just, it didn’t matter. I could hit anything. Not with a revolver but with a rifle I could hit anything. HB: I think just, just to explain your nickname. Do you want, do you want to tell us how tall you are? GM: [laughs] I’m only about [laughs] I’ve shrunk. I was only about five foot two. HB: Right. GM: And I was — HB: That explains Sealevel. GM: I was eight stone. I used to, I was eight stone. I boxed at eight stone in the RAF. Anyway, I joined the Home Guard. And then I was in a Protected Occupation so I couldn’t join the forces. The only forces you could join in those days was the submarines or aircrew. HB: What was your Protected Occupation, Gordon? GM: I was, I worked in a factory making munitions. HB: Was that, was that in Birmingham? GM: In Birmingham. Yes. I worked in factory. From fourteen, I worked in, I was a fitter in the factory. HB: Do you know the name of the factory? GM: Belliss and Morcom. HB: Ah right. Yeah. GM: Belliss and Morcom. The factory. And I, I decided that I wanted to join the Air Force. I’d always been interested in the Air Force from the very, I’d always had the comics and everything all about the Air Force. I had, “Flight,” every week and all this sort of thing but, so I went to Cardington in March 1943 to take the exam to join the Air Force. I believe there was two hundred of us who came through and fifty two of us finished. And, and as we’d gone, as we’d gone through all the exams, exams, medicals and psychology and you had written exams, and all this sort of thing and you passed at the end. You passed and there was fifty two of us. We took the King’s Shilling on that day, and on that day I joined the Air Force in 1943 at seventeen and a quarter. I was called up very shortly afterwards and I started in the RAF in London. We, it was my first posting to London where we got kitted out and all this sort of thing. Three weeks in London. I did some boxing, got knocked out and decided I didn’t want to do any more boxing after that [laughs] So, and then I was posted to 14 OTU at Bridlington which was the Operational Training Unit at Bridlington, as an aircrew cadet. I believe we had about sixteen weeks there and you passed out [pause] You passed out and I was posted to Bridgnorth for a fortnight. Because it was Bridgnorth I used to come home at nights, at the weekends, and I got seven days jankers for being back late. But I never did the seven days jankers because I was posted the next day to Stormy Down in South Wales. And I’d been there a fortnight when they called me in to the adjutant’s office and said, ‘You were on jankers and you never did it. You start now.’ [laughs] HB: Oh no. HB: So, I had — HB: A long memory. GM: Yes. I did that, and I don’t know how many trips we did but we flew in Ansons and there were three of us in training. One sat in with the pilot and winded the undercarriage up, one sat in the rest position, and one sat in the turret and you fired two hundred shots. You had collected your two hundred bullets and you painted the bullets a colour. Red, blue and green. And you put your bullets in, and the plane would fly out and you’d shoot the drogue. And you all had a go and you swapped over until you all three had fired and then they dropped the drogue and you had to collect it on the, on the airfield and count your shots, because the, how many red bullets holes, and blue bullet holes, and green bullet holes there were. HB: Right. GM: And you got a, you got a score from those bullet holes and we did a lot of flights. They didn’t stint of the training. We did an awful lot of flights. I don’t know. It’s in my logbook but I did an awful lot of flights. HB: Yeah. Your logbook does list a lot of training flights. GM: Yeah. HB: Right, right through. GM: Right through. HB: All through the — GM: Yeah. And after training you passed out as a sergeant, and I passed out and I had passed out at Christmas. Christmas ’43. I came home on leave as a sergeant. HB: Right. GM: And then I had a week, a fortnights’ leave, and I was posted to 14 OTU, Bridlington. No. Not Bridlington. Abingdon. 14 Operational Training Unit where you got crewed up. The system for crewing up was very strange. All the officers and men shared the same dining room. You were given a fortnight to form a crew. It was the pilot’s job to find a crew, and I met a fellow called Ken Adams who said, ‘Shall we go and find a pilot?’ And we walked round, and we met Warrant Officer Digby. He was the pilot, and said to Mr Digby, ‘Would you like a pair of gunners?’ He said, ‘Certainly.’ And when you’d finished, after the three weeks they had a crewing up meeting in the hangar. Seven seats. Rows of seven seats all the way along. All the way through the hangar. Pilot, bomb aimer, navigator, wireless operator, flight engineer, mid-upper gunner, rear gunner, and those were the, and you sat in those seats as a crew. But not all the seats were full. All the people who were standing at the back that hadn’t crewed up had to fill in the places. HB: Right. Yeah. GM: To fill in the places. But we were. We had formed a crew. HB: So, you’d got the full seven. GM: We’d got the full seven. Yes. My skipper’s name was Warrant Officer Digby, the bomb aimer was named [Wamm] and he was a southern Rhodesian, white. The navigator was Johnny Dibbs. The wireless operator was Brown. I can’t remember his first name. The flight engineer was [pause] oh dear. HB: Robertson? GM: Robertson. Yes. Robertson, and he was quite, he was forty so he was quite old. The rear gunner was Ken Adams and, have I missed anybody out? HB: Well, there’s one missing. Yeah. GM: The bomb aimer. HB: He’s a bloke who used to stay in the middle of the aircraft and man a gun there. GM: No. The mid-upper. Me. HB: Exactly [laughs] GM: Yes. And then there was me. HB: You remembered everybody bar yourself. GM: That was me. HB: [unclear] GB: Yeah. HB: Yeah. GM: Then we started flying in Ansons, in err Whitleys, and on our second trip in the Whitley, I think it was our second trip we went, we bombed the, the hill in the middle of the Irish Sea. What’s that mountain called? Rockall. HB: Rockall. Yeah. GM: We bombed it with, with nine pound bombs, and on the way back an engine packed up so we landed in the Isle of Man. HB: Oh right. GM: At Jurby. HB: Yeah. GM: We landed in Jurby. So that was the first time that we didn’t get back to camp. This happened a lot of times, and we were known as, ‘Land away Digby and his crew.’ We finished our training at 14 OTU, and we were posted to Riccall for conversion to Halifaxes. And, so you went from two engines to four engines and you all flew together. And we weren’t at Riccall very long, and we passed out at Riccall, and we were sent to 51 Squadron, Snaith, and we started our bombing career on the 9th of June. And our first trip was Amiens. Is it there? HB: Yes. Yes, it’s there. GM: And our second trip was a disaster. HB: Oh, no. Sorry. You’ve, on your logbook you’ve got Massy Palaiseau. GM: Massy Palaiseau, oh that’s, sorry. HB: That was your first one. Yeah. GM: That’s right. That was Paris. HB: And it was Amiens. GM: Paris. HB: Amiens. That was your second. GB: Paris. HB: Yeah. GM: Amiens was the second. HB: Yeah. GM: And on my second trip, Amiens, we were flying over, towards the target and I said to the skipper, ‘There’s a plane being attacked below us,’ because I could see tracer, and that plane that was attacking the plane below us, as he broke away, he must have seen us and he managed to get one shot in to our nose. The bomb aimer was sitting in the nose, and it blew his behind off. And the plane was flying like this [pause] because it was gulping air in. HB: Yeah. GM: Due to its form. HB: So, the nose. GM: Yeah. HB: The nose having disappeared. GM: Yeah. Yeah. HB: It was sucking air in. GM: Yeah. HB: Yeah. GM: We got back to England and that was the first time I’d ever heard of Darkie. The pilot used Darkie. ‘Hello Darkie. Hello Darkie.’ And all the amateur radio operators in the country was, were called Darkie, and they had to listen out every night, and if you got a bomber you were fifteen miles away from him. HB: Right. GM: Because he couldn’t hear more than fifteen miles. And he had all the aerodromes in his book. ‘Hello Darkie. Hello Darkie. Can you find us an aerodrome please?’ And an aerodrome lit up over there, and it was called Dunsfold, and we landed at Dunsfold. They didn’t bother about us. I had to run to the control tower to ask for a doctor and an ambulance and the bomb aimer was very badly injured and the navigator had got a bit of shrapnel. A bit of stuff, metal in his leg but he, no not the bomb aimer. The navigator had got a bit of stuff in his leg. They were seen to. So, we had to go back by train. HB: Right. GM: Which was quite an experience in those days. HB: Yeah. GM: We got to London and we got in the Tube with all our gear, and they had a collection for us on the train and they gave us about a hundred fags. They’d been all the way down the train collecting for a crew that had crashed and they gave us the hundred fags we got. Packets of fags. HB: Blimey. GM: And then we got back to Snaith. HB: Yeah, that was in [pause] that was C6 E-Easy. Yeah. What happened to the, what happened to the aircraft? GM: Oh, I don’t know what happened to the aircraft. HB: So, you never, that never — GM: No. No. HB: You never saw that back again. GM: No. HB: No. GM: He put the wheel in, he put the wheel in a trench so, but the plane was fine. HB: Yeah. GM: Except for this one hole. HB: Yeah. GM: You know. HB: Yeah. GM: And the bomb aimer went to McIndoe’s hospital. HB: Right. Yeah. GM: Had sixty skin graft operations and he lived. He came back to visit us. We went for a drink in the pub. Put him on a, put him on a bike. Took the pedals off, put him on a bike, his crutch went through the wheel and he fell off and broke his arm. His name was [Wamm]. HB: Yeah. GM: And he was the bomb aimer. We had a new bomb aimer. Eventually we got a new bomb aimer called Smith. Ted Smith. Oh no, I can’t remember his first name. Smith he was, and he flew all the rest of the trips with us. I flew spare. That’s why I did more than the rest of the crew. HB: Right. Yeah. GM: I flew with a Flight Lieutenant Gilchrist, I think. HB: Yeah. GM: Like that. Yeah. I flew a couple of spare trips because we hadn’t got a crew and then when we got a crew we, because in those days you get a weeks’ leave every month you know because there was, two crews to every plane. HB: Oh, right. Yeah. GM: But only if you lost a crew. You didn’t get your leave. If you lost a crew, you didn’t get your leave. HB: Yes. So that’s, that’s around June. You’ve got Gilchrist as your pilot. GM: Yeah. HB: That’s, that’s towards the end of June. GM: Yeah. HB: That one. But, blimey. Yeah. Right. GM: What? What happened? HB: It’s alright. You just have that and then at the end of June you fly a daylight operation to the Maquis at Mimoyecques. GM: Mimoyecques. Mimoyecques. HB: Yeah. And you’re hit by flak again. GM: Yes. We got hit by flak but only hit. Nobody was hurt. Just holes. There was, always holes in our plane. And then we came to the fateful day of our last trip. No. Something nasty happened. We were due to fly to Kiel. We were due to fly to Kiel and there was something wrong with the plane and we turned back. The CO was very, very angry about us turning back and we went to bed and they woke us up at half past six in the morning. We’d only just, we didn’t get to bed ‘til about two. They woke us up at half past six and said, ‘You’re flying.’ And we were briefed to go and attack the Gneisenau ship in Brest Harbour. As we took off, we hit the bump on the end of the runway. The plane wouldn’t come off the runway, we went through the trees. An engine, engine went rogue. It wouldn’t stop. Got faster and faster. The plane was shaking to bits. We asked for an emergency landing. We dropped the bombs in a reservoir and we came down to land on the runway. Because we were, the plane slewed off the runway and we were heading for the petrol dump and so the skipper opened up another engine and turned the, slewed the plane around and we hit the bomb dump, the side of the bomb dump. Right there. The big, they’d got a big [pause] We hit the side of the bomb dump. The CO came out in his, in his [pause] ‘You’re all posted. Get off my ‘drome.’ That was his exact words, and there were three people injured. Only slightly. Only slightly. They all went to the, they were taken to the, but they all came back with no problem. The only time a clearance chit got signed in one hour. It used to take two days to get a clearance chit signed because you had to sign. It had to be signed. HB: Yeah. GM: You had to hand your bike in. You had to do this and do that and you had to find everything and our, our clearance was and we were at, by 2 o’clock in the afternoon we were at the bus stop waiting for a bus to take us somewhere. HB: And the whole crew. GM: The whole crew. Yes. Because the ones that were, they were only slightly injured. We were all in the rest position when we crashed. We were all in the rest position, you know. Ruined the aeroplane anyway. HB: Do you know that in your logbook? GM: Yeah. HB: This is purely for the purposes of the tape. GM: Yeah. HB: For people listening to this. In your logbook on the 17th of August 1944. GM: Yeah. HB: You did an operation to Brest. DNCO. GM: Not carried out. HB: And it says, “One engine u/s [pranged].” GM: That’s all. HB: That’s all it says in your logbook. GM: Yeah. HB: And that is the story you just told me. GM: Yeah. Anyway, he sent us back to Riccall again. HB: Right. GM: To the Conversion Unit, and the skipper said, the CO said, ‘Oh, it’s nice to have a crew that have got experience. Do a couple of trips for us.’ And we, we flew a couple of trips, I think it was, at Riccall. I don’t know. They were only training trips. HB: Yeah. GM: And the pilot, the CO said, ‘You’re fully trained. There’s nothing wrong with you. You can go back on ops. Where do you want to go to?’ ‘51 Squadron,’ we all said because we’d got friends. He picks the phone up [laughs] speaks to the wing commander. No. Group captain he was. Speaks to the group captain, ‘I’ve got a fully trained crew that want to come back to you.’ ‘What’s the pilot’s name?’ ‘Digby.’ ‘Don’t send him here. Send him somewhere else.’ HB: No. GM: He said, ‘You can’t go there.’ So, he sent us to Breighton. 78 Squadron, Breighton. HB: Yeah. GM: And our first trip at Breighton, believe it or not was Kiel. It’s almost, it’s almost poetic. HB: Yeah. GM: And I can remember the skipper saying, ‘We’re going. We’re not turning back.’ And we went to Kiel, and we were the last wave and you could see the, you could see the fires for miles. You could see the fires from two hundred miles back, on the way back, because the whole place was, the whole of Kiel was ablaze. We got, we, the Master Bomber told us to bomb on the edges. ‘Bomb on the edges. Bomb on the edges. Don’t bomb in the middle. Bomb on the edges.’ And we went to Kiel. We did five trips at Snaith. I think it was five, and the CO called us in the office and sat us down and said, ‘You’re posted.’ And the skip, I can remember the skipper saying, ‘What have we done wrong?’ He said, ‘You’ve done nothing wrong but you’re the, you’re the, most experienced crew and we’ve been told to choose the most experienced crew to send them to a new squadron being formed called 171 Squadron in Norfolk. HB: Can I just ask you — GM: Special duties. HB: Can I just ask you something Gordon? GM: Yes. HB: In your logbook. GM: Yeah. HB: I’m, I’m just curious really. You’ve done the Kiel operation on the 15th of September. GM: Yeah. HB: Which was a night op. GM: Yeah. HB: And then on the 17th of September you do a daytime op to Boulogne. GM: Yeah. HB: And you’ve got a little note in your book saying — GM: We saw a dinghy. HB: Gun positions which are obviously Boulogne. GM: Yeah. HB: And then you’ve got dinghy sighted and reported. GM: That’s right. We found, we sighted a dinghy. We went around and around it. Got it and sent a message back. HB: And did you know, did you ever find out what happened? GM: No. No. We never found out. HB: No. GM: But we did report it. We found a dinghy. HB: Right. GM: You know. HB: Yeah, you, yeah you were at, you were at Breighton ‘til the end of September. You’re right, you only flew — GM: Yeah. HB: Five ops. GM: Can I tell, tell you a very special story now? HB: Of course, you can. Yeah. GM: This is absolutely, I used to live with my aunt. I did not live with my father. I used to live with my aunt and she had a brother. His name was Jack [Elson], and he flew in Lancasters as a gunner and I had a weeks’ leave while we were at Breighton, and he had a weeks’ leave, and he came to his aunt’s and I went to my aunt’s and we had a weeks’ leave together. On the first day we went to the pictures and the girl that took us to the seat, her name was Mona, he chatted her up and they were friends. And by the end of the week, they were in love. We both went back to camp on the Friday. Both. He left on that platform and I left on that platform. We were both flying on Tuesday and he was killed. He was killed on the Tuesday and he’s buried in Lyons, in France. HB: Oh, sad. GM: Yeah. But that’s just by the by. HB: Yeah. GM: Yeah. HB: But that’s there, you know. GM: There but by the Grace of God go me, you know. Yeah. Anyway, then we were sent to special duties, 171 Squadron and all brand new aircraft. Never been flown other than their delivery with this very special wireless equipment in the, in the, in the middle. Two great big things, and we had a new wireless operator. A special wireless operator and his name was [pause] HB: A Scottish name. GM: A Scottish name. Yes. Yes. He lived in — HB: MacDonald. GM: MacDonald. That’s right. HB: Can I just say for the purposes of this interview — GM: Yeah. HB: You have written some brilliant notes and I’ve abandoned doing notes. I’m following yours because they are far better than mine. Yes. Sergeant Macdonald who operated the — GM: Well, I did that a long time ago. HB: Yeah. GM: Because I thought I might forget. HB: Yeah. Well, you’ve got him down as he operated the secret wireless jamming equipment. GM: That’s right. And the operations we did were the strangest operations you ever flew because you flew out in to the North Sea and you flew around an oblong course for two hours. And there would be two planes, two planes, two planes, two planes, two planes, two planes, and we always flew at eighteen thousand feet and the other plane flew at eighteen thousand five hundred feet so that you didn’t, and you were both in the same place going up and down while he operated the Mandrel. I know the name of the one equipment was called Mandrel, and he operated these jamming, and while these formed on the screen that the Germans could not see the planes lifting off from England. The first time they’d see them was when they went through the screen. So, all, all the people were told not to fly at eighteen thousand or eighteen thousand five hundred feet. And then when our stint was finished, we used to go and bomb a place. We had a, we had a small bombing. Some, a few bombs to take and we used to go and bomb. I think a lot of them were holiday places on the coast although we went to Monchengladbach once I think. And the, we did thirteen trips and our last trip, which was our worst trip was Leipzig. Why we were sent to Leipzig I do not know. HB: It’s alright. I’m just having a quick look to see if I can find that [pause] Leipzig. Leipzig. Oh sorry. Was that your last trip with 171? GM: That was my last trip altogether. As we approached the target at Leipzig, we were coned by about fifty searchlights and all hell broke loose. The skipper chose one searchlight and we went straight down it. Straight down the searchlight. When we were at about three thousand feet from the ground I started firing my guns at the searchlight, and believe it or not it went out. There was no side of the plane left. All the side, the whole side of, the whole side of the plane was missing. It was draughty and the skipper said to the navigator, ‘Give us a trip home, and we don’t want to go near any mountains.’ He said, ‘I don’t even know where we are.’ And we got back. Got back to camp and we landed and the CO came out and he looked at the plane. He said, ‘You’ve ruined another one.’ He said, ‘Digby, you’ve finished.’ He said, ‘You’re finished. Don’t do any more.’ And so that was — HB: That was your stand down. GM: That was our stand down and we finished. HB: And that was, sorry that was the whole crew stood down then. GM: Yes. No. Except for, except for the flight, the special wireless operator. HB: Yeah. Yeah. GM: Because he had to carry on. HB: MacDonald. Yeah. Yeah. GM: He got another crew. He died. He died at Christmas. HB: Oh. GM: This Christmas just gone. Last Christmas. Yeah. HB: And did you, did you keep in touch with him? GM: No. No. But my flight engineer’s son did. HB: Oh right. Yeah. Yeah. GM: Kept in touch with him. I kept in touch with my skipper’s daughter, and I know his granddaughter and his grandson. They kept in touch with me. HB: Did the whole crew survive the war? GM: Oh yes. We all survived. HB: Right. GB: We all finished. I got a cracking job. I was posted to Number 1 Squadron. Spitfire squadron at Hutton Cranswick as a flying controller assistant. HB: Well. GM: I did that for about a year and then one day, I became a flight sergeant and one day they called me in to the office. They said, ‘You’re posted.’ And I said, ‘I’m posted?’ He said, ‘Yes. To Llanbedr.’ I said, ‘Where’s Llanbedr?’ He said, ‘In North Wales. They have, they want a controller.’ I said, ‘I can’t be a controller. I’m a near beginner.’ He said, ‘They’ve got nobody else to send.’ So, I went home for the weekend and got arrested when I got there because I should have been there two days earlier. And the CO, the CO he was only a, he was only a wing commander and you won’t believe this [pause] he’d, he’d been, he’d disgraced himself fighting or something and he’d been brought down from group captain to wing commander and he was in charge at Llanbedr. And it was being closed. And they used to fly Martinets. HB: Oh yeah. Yeah. GM: And they used to fly Martinets. They used to have a drogue a mile away. A mile away. And these drogues used to fly over to a place called Tonfanau in Wales where there was an Anti-Aircraft Gun School and the anti-aircraft used to fire at the drogues. I flew a couple of times. I had a couple of rides just for fun and that. Martinets they were. HB: Oh no. GM: Yeah. Anyway, there is one or two little, little stories in between that I’ve missed out. When I was stationed at Snaith one of the officers came from Birmingham and he said to me one day, ‘Gordon, do you want to go to Birmingham?’ ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘We can go for the weekend, you know.’ I said, ‘Can we?’ He said, ‘Yes. I’ll fly you there and I’ll fly myself there.’ So, he flew us to Castle Bromwich. HB: Right. Yeah. Yeah. GM: He flew us in a, in a Tiger Moth. I was supposed to be the navigator [laughs] HB: Yeah. GM: We got lost the one day. In the end he said, ‘I’ll fly down and see if you can see the name of the station.’ [laughs] So I looked at it, and they’d started putting the station names back because they were all obliterated in the war but they started putting them back and I said, ‘Oh yes.’ I gave him the name of the station. He said, ‘Ok. We’re going this way,’ and we got, we got to Castle Bromwich. HB: No. Yeah. Because, yeah Castle Bromwich there was a factory there wasn’t there? GM: Yeah. There was a factory at Castle Bromwich. HB: That made the, made aircraft, didn’t they? They constructed them. GM: Yeah. Did parts of them. HB: Yeah. Well — GM: My mother, my mother made Spitfire parts at Fisher and Ludlow at Castle Bromwich. HB: Right. GM: And she was a lathe operator. HB: Oh right. GM: In the war. HB: Yeah. That’s good. So, just, just going back because, because we’ve got you, you know getting in trouble. GM: Yeah. HB: When, you said to me before we started the interview about you somewhere down the line you went from flight sergeant to sergeant. GM: No. I went from sergeant to flight sergeant, and then I became a warrant officer. HB: Oh. GM: Yeah. HB: I wondered if you’d got busted down you see. GM: No. No. No. HB: Ah, no. I misunderstood what you said. GM: No. No. I made a mistake there. HB: No. I was going to say. No. That’s fine. That’s fine. GM: Yes. HB: Yeah. GM: No. I got to warrant officer. HB: Oh great. Yeah. GM: I was the actual controller at Llanbedr and — HB: When would that have been Gordon? That was — GM: After I’d left Hutton Cranswick but of course I’d got, I’d got no dates for those. HB: Yeah. So that, so that, we’re now in to late ’45. GM: ’45. HB: Yeah. Late ’45. GM: About ’46. Probably ’46. HB: Yeah. So, so how long, so you, you said to me earlier that you stayed in ‘til ’47. GM: That’s right. HB: So, what, so did you just carry on as a controller? GM: Yeah. At Llanbedr. HB: All the way through. GM: All the way through. Yes. HB: Til ’47. GM: Yeah. And it was being closed. I can remember the, I walked in to the office and the CO said to me, threw me a folder, ‘Mr Mercier, here’s your first job.’ I said, ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘I want an inventory of the WAAFs quarters. Everything in the WAAFs quarters. I want to know exactly what’s there in the WAAFs quarters because it’s all being shipped away and we want to know what we’re going to ship. So, here’s all the, you go around. Five hairdryers. There was a half a one. Eighteen barrels. None. HB: Barrels? GM: Barrels. Yes. Eighteen barrels. None. I don’t know what the barrels were for or where they came about but there were all these sort of things on the list. Sort of bedding for, I think the bedding was about thirty three sets of bedding and thirty three beds. Those were all there, you know. Pillow cases. None [laughs] Because the WAAFs had gone and they left shortly after. They all left after I got there, and I gave him the list back. He said, ‘We can put it in a van.’ He could practically, he said, ‘I thought we’d have to hire a pantechnicon to take it all away.’ HB: Good grief. GM: Anyway — HB: Good grief. GM: He was, he was a smashing bloke. He used to say, ‘Don’t forget to come on my parade on Sunday unless you’ve got something better to do.’ HB: It sounds as if it was starting to get a little bit relaxed in 1947. GM: Oh, it was more than relaxed. HB: Yeah. GM: And he was, he was, he’d been brought down in rank. HB: Yeah. Yeah. GM: Because he’d disgraced himself. When I came back to work I worked at Triplex. When I came back to work. HB: Yeah. GM: I worked at Triplex making aircraft windows and the first, my first boss, no, my second boss was Wing Commander Duncan Smith. He was a Spitfire pilot in the Battle of Britain. HB: Was he? GM: And his son is the MP. His son’s the MP. Duncan Smith. And when he was sixteen, he had a mini on our car park when he was sixteen, and he used to drive it around like a mad thing. Around and around the car park at night. HB: Yeah. GM: That was Duncan Smith. HB: Wow. GM: And his dad was a wing commander. Duncan Smith. HB: Can I, can I just you know if you’re happy to carry on for a while. GM: No, it’s alright. HB: Can I just take you back to, you did your training. GM: Yeah. HB: And your OTU, your Operational Training Unit. GM: Yeah. HB: And you get posted to your first squadron. 51 Squadron. GM: Yeah. HB: And it’s a question I always like to ask. What was the social life like? GM: Oh, it was great. Marvellous. We used to have a dance every week and the girls used to come from factories all around and they’d bus the girls in. The girls used to come from factories all round. There would be about six or seven buses full of girls coming from factories and you used to have a great big dance in the big hangar. We used to have great, absolutely great time, and you made friends with the ground crew and all that sort of thing. HB: Yeah. GM: It was, it was a grand time. I’ve got to admit that on my second trip I was terrified. I really was. I was really, really terrified. But I must say that I was never frightened again. Never. It didn’t frighten me at all, and I don’t know why that was but it didn’t because I gave, got to the point where if it happens it happens. HB: Yeah. I can understand that. So is, you’re lucky enough to do all of your ops — GM: Yes. HB: As one crew apart from losing Sergeant [Wamm]. GM: That’s right. HB: You’re lucky enough to do all your ops with the same guys all the way through. GM: Yeah. HB: And you come, you come to the stage when you’re flying your last few operations and you’re going to end up at Llanbedr. How, how did, how did you cope? Well, not cope that’s not the right word. How did you see the crew reacting as you come off to finish? GM: You didn’t. You didn’t because we finished. We finished on that day. The next day we were posted to Kirby and at Kirby we were reassigned our posts. The next day we were reassigned our posts and we were given a weeks’ leave. We were given a weeks’ leave and a chit, and then you’d be told where you were going. They’d send you a message. Send you a letter. HB: So, literally within three days the guys — GM: Within three days we were split up. HB: The guys you had spent — GM: All that time with. HB: Two years with. GM: Were gone. All different places. HB: All gone to different places. GM: Yes. HB: Right. GM: I don’t know where any of them went. HB: Yeah. GM: Not one. HB: That’s, yeah. Did you, did you meet your wife while you were still in the services? GM: No. HB: Or was that when you came out to work? GM: We met after that. HB: Right. So, what, so you’ve, you’ve been told you’re finished. You’ve gone to Llanbedr. GM: Yeah. HB: You’ve tried to resolve where all the stuff from the WAAFs quarters have gone, and the place is closing and you’re going to be demobbed. What, was what was your feeling at that time? GM: Well, you didn’t. You were given a number right at the beginning, and all the people that were in the Air Force before the war were number one. They were released. All the people. The ones that had been in the Air Force longer were number one. The ones that were, and number two and number three and I was about number 178. And your number, your number came up. You heard what number it was each, sometimes it says number 111. Oh. I’ve only got another sixty eight. HB: Yeah. GM: Until your number came up and the CO had got a big parade, and he called me into the office and he gave me this slip of paper. He said, ‘Are you coming to my parade on Sunday?’ I said, ‘Yes. Yes, of course I am.’ He said, ‘No, you’re not. Read your piece of paper. You’ve been posted to demob.’ HB: Wow, where did you actually demob? Do you remember? GM: I think it was West Kirby. HB: Right. And what, what was that process like? GM: Very strange. You handed your uniform in. I wish I’d, you could have kept it and I wish I’d have kept it but it was a lot of stuff and I didn’t want to carry it but I’ve regretted it ever since that I didn’t bring some of it back with me. And you were given a suit. You were given shirts, underpants and a suit. Shoes. Socks. Everything. And it was all in a, it was all put in the box, and you were given a ticket home. And you went through the gate with your box in your arm and there was about fifty spivs outside the, outside the airfield. ‘Buy your box.’ ‘Buy your box.’ ‘I’ll buy your box for you.’ ‘I’ll buy your box off you.’ ‘I’ll buy your box off you.’ And they were sending, I think they were getting five pound for a box. And some of them, you know, ‘Here you are. Here you are. I don’t want it. I don’t want it.’ I said, ‘No. I’ve got nothing else.’ But a lot of them sold them to these spivs. HB: Oh right. GM: I think it was a fiver they were getting for them. And they were white fivers in those days. HB: Yeah. Yeah. GM: And on D-Day we were all given a white fiver, a fiver and sent home. Only kept a, kept a skeleton staff on the aerodromes on D-Day. On VE Day. HB: VE day. Yeah. Right. GM: VE Day. HB: Yeah. GM: I got home just in time for the evening festivities. HB: And what was that like? GM: Well, the whole, the whole country was mad. HB: Where were you living then? Had you gone back to your — GM: In Harborne. I was living in Harborne and I was on my way to my auntie’s but I got dragged into a party on the way. HB: Dragged in. GM: Yes. I, I was never a drinker. HB: No. GM: But I used to drink but I was, I couldn’t hold my liquor very well but there was a lot of booze that night. And they kept stuff. They’d taken food out that they’d been saving for years. You know, tins of these, tins of that. I went into this one house in Harborne. I knew the people and they said, ‘Come in, Gordon. Come in Gordon. Lovely to see you.’ Put my box down. And then when I went I took my box with me to my auntie’s. HB: Yeah. GM: Just up the road. HB: Yeah. GM: Yeah. HB: And how, how long did it take you to sort of come to, because it’s obviously we all know that was, that two years or so was very very intense. GM: Yeah. HB: You know, and you know like you say you, you just reached the stage where you thought, well if it happens it happens. GM: Yeah. HB: But how sort of long or what sort of, what sort of period of time do you think it took — GM: Well — HB: To get yourself back to Civvy Street. GM: Well, you went back to Civvy Street straight away because your firm was obliged by law to take you back. HB: Right. GM: They made a law that every firm had to take back for six months. They had to guarantee you six months work or six months wages and I went back to Belliss and Morcom’s. But I didn’t like it in the factory and I, I left to be, I became a milkman. I became a milkman with a horse and cart delivering milk. HB: Did you enjoy that? GM: Well, I’ve got a story. I don’t know whether you, are you still taping this? HB: Absolutely. Yes. This is, it’s important we know. GM: Well — HB: How your feet came back down to earth basically. GM: I got, I got a job at [pause] that’s Alexa telling me to take my tablets. HB: Do you want to have a break to take your tablets? GM: No. HB: No. Crack on then. Crack on. GM: Yes. I I got a job as a milkman and had a horse called Ginger, and Ginger didn’t like nuns, GPO huts in the road, shadows. He didn’t like them. He used to shy at shadows. I’d been delivering. I’d been working for them about three months and we’d, he knew the round better than me. He used to stop at everywhere and we used to do, we used to do Knowle, and then Dorridge and then back to Knowle which is near Solihull. And we used to have to go, after we’d finished Knowle we’d turn around the corner from the pub and we’d go up a hill. Up a great big hill to the other half of the route and this one day [laughs], one day we turned the corner there was an elephant [pause] The horse took one look at this elephant and he went berserk. I had a girl with me because she used to deliver. There was two of us delivering milk. He, he galloped and I got the reins and I got my feet and I said to her, ‘Jump off. Save yourself. Save yourself.’ And the crates of milk were falling off the back all the way down, up this hill and of course by the time he got to the top he was absolutely shattered and I managed to stop him and I tied him to a tree and I lit a fag. I can remember lighting a fag. And the woman came out. ‘Shall I ring the Dairy for you.’ ‘Yes, please.’ I’m smoking this fag and the Dairy bloke, and he looked at all the milk in the road and he kicked the horse. HB: Oh no. GM: So, so sorry. He really, he kicked the horse and he shouldn’t. He was the, he was the, the boss of the Dairy and the farm and all the horses and everything. It was most unkind. HB: You’ve got a visitor. GM: Oh, it’s my paper coming. Other: Paper boy. GM: Come in John. I’ve got the interviewer here. Other: Oh, sorry. HB: Do you want me to, do you want me to, no it’s alright. I’ll just pause the interview. Bear with me. [recording paused] HB: Resuming the interview that was paused so that Gordon could take his tablets and speak to his, his visitor. Right. So, we’ve got the elephant frightening a horse. Frightened horse. Blimey. So, you went to work as a milkman, and then obviously you started to get right back into civilian life. GM: Yeah. Yeah. HB: And what not. GM: Then I went to work. Decided I wanted to go to work, and I went to, I applied for, my uncle worked at Triplex and he said, ‘There’s some jobs going at Triplex. Do you fancy doing that?’ And so, he got me an interview. HB: Right. GM: And they took me on at Triplex. HB: You know, when we go right back to the beginning. GM: Yeah. HB: I’m just a little bit intrigued. You were born in Jersey. GM: Yeah. HB: And obviously your mum and dad were in Jersey. Did they [pause] Oh right. Obviously. GM: There’s a very strange thing I’ve got to tell you. My father was a Francophile. He loved France. And when he was a lad in Jersey, when they were eighteen, they had to join the Jersey militia. It was an army. Because of the unruly going on with the eighteen year olds. But he and his friends decided to join the French Foreign Legion. He was stationed in Aleppo in the French Foreign Legion, and he went, and when war was declared on the Monday morning, he had a letter from the French Foreign Legion calling him back to France and he went. HB: Right. So, when did you leave Jersey to come to England? GM: I was about three, I think. They brought me back here. HB: So that would be like the ‘30s. GM: Yes. It was the ‘30s. HB: Mid ‘30s. GM: Early ‘30s. Yeah. HB: Right. So, so your mum and dad were separated then. GM: No. No. No. HB: Sorry. GM: Then he went. When he went on the 3rd of January err the 3rd of September he went back into the French Army. HB: Right. GM: Yeah. HB: But by that time, you were obviously living over here. GM: Yes. HB: Yeah. GM: We didn’t hear from him at all for, ‘til 1942. And in 1942 a man came to the door. He said, ‘I’m from Special Branch. You’ve got a husband named Jack Mercier.’ She said, ‘Yes. He’s dead.’ He said, ‘No. He’s not dead. He’s alive and he wants to come back to England.’ She said, ‘Well, I hadn’t heard anything so I assumed he was dead.’ In 1942, by then you see. And he said, ‘No. He’s alive and he wants to come back to England.’ We had a lot of interviews. Wanted to know all about him and everything, and then we had to give him forty five pounds which was a lot of money in those days for his fare back from Spain. And he’d got to get to Spain on his own so he walked about six hundred miles from France down to Spain and then he got a ship from Spain to England. And they came from Special Branch again and said, ‘We want seven pounds please.’ ‘What do you want seven pounds for?’ ‘For his fare.’ ‘His fare from where?’ She said, ‘Oh, he’s been in Scotland six weeks. He’s been interrogated as a spy.’ HB: Right. GB: But they decided that he’s not a spy and he can come home.’ So, we had to give the seven pounds for his fare to bring him home. I never got on with my father. The moment he came home I left. My auntie took me straight away and she said, ‘Come and live with us.’ Never got on with him. HB: That’s a shame. Yeah. GM: He was quite brutal. HB: So, he’d been, so he’d obviously been a prisoner of war. GM: No, he got, he was in unoccupied France. HB: Oh, he was in Vichy. Right. GM: He was in Vichy France. HB: Yeah. Right. GM: Yeah. HB: Oh yeah. Of course. ’42. GM: Yeah. HB: Yeah. That explains it. GM: Yeah. I think he was somewhere, somewhere in the middle of France somewhere. HB: What, just going back to your time, you know. GM: Yeah. HB: If you could just put your mind back to when you did your training and what not. GM: Yeah. HB: And you became part of Bomber Command. What do you think? It’s quite, it’s almost a bit too specific but what do you think was the best part? If there was a best part of your time. GM: Well, you felt as though you were hitting Germany. And because I came from Jersey which was occupied by the Germans and badly treated by the Germans and, and I wanted to, I wanted to fight, and we really did. I mean we, Bomber Command, Hitler should have packed it in. I mean we just kept on destroying. I mean all these cities were destroyed totally. In this country we lost six hundred and fifty thousand houses to the bombing. In this country. They must have lost six million. HB: Yeah. Yeah. And how, when you look back now do you, do you have any strong feelings about when you look back? Or — GM: No. No. It had got to be done. It had got to be stopped. HB: Yeah. GM: And you, you really felt as though you were really taking the war to them because we were, I mean London was bombed sixty seven nights in a row. So, you, you really felt as though you were doing your bit. HB: Yeah. It’s, it’s something that a lot of people are interested in because, you know in some cases a lot of people think it’s so long ago. GM: Yeah. HB: But all of the people who were involved they, they do have very different views when they look back as, as to what they contributed. How they, how they, how they — GM: Well, of course. HB: Were involved. GM: Dunkirk. Dunkirk was the pivotal point. We were beaten. There’s no doubt about it. If he’d, if he’d have attacked then we couldn’t have defended ourselves at all. But as I say when I joined the Home Guard I had a, we had a stick. A broomstick and a knife on the end. That was our first weapon. We used to practice arms drill with the stick until we got, finally we got one rifle, and we all were allowed to touch it [laughs] And then we got we all had a rifle and every night we went out we took our rifle out with us every night. HB: And then you then went back to work the following day. GM: Went to work the following day. Yes. HB: Yeah. GM: I was on, I was on duty, Home Guard duty when Coventry was bombed and we were taken by, by a lorry that would be shovels to, to Coventry and our job was to clear the roads. Make the roads passable. And we spent three days in Coventry where we had, we had tents. We were just tidying up. That was the first time I’d ever seen a dead body. The very first time. Probably the only time I’d ever seen a dead body. HB: Yeah. Yeah that’s, yeah — GM: That was Coventry. HB: Yeah. GM: And we all our job was to make the roads passable for transport. Shifting great big pieces of, you know six of us moving great big pieces of concrete out of the way. HB: Yeah. GM: Yeah. HB: What [pause] what we’ve talked about that side of it. What, what do you think was your, your sort of happiest memories of, of that time? If, you know, I mean because there must have been some fun. GM: Yes. HB: You must have had fun. GM: I was always happy in the Air Force. I loved it. Couldn’t cope with it sometimes. They made me take a parade once which was [laughs] which was horrible because my voice isn’t that loud. I could shout a bit but because you’re a sergeant you had to take a parade, and I got them marching up against the wall of the hangar and that. Hit the wall of the hangar in front of them. I couldn’t say turn around or anything. That, that was one moment that I remember where I regretted being a sergeant. I also made the cook do another dinner because the dinner they’d put out that day was vile and I was on what do you call it? Mess duty. HB: Yeah. GM: And my job to go around the mess for any remarks about the food and anything. The whole place was, ‘This food’s rubbish.’ ‘It’s rubbish.’ ‘It’s rubbish.’ I made the chef prepare something else. HB: I bet you checked your food after that for a while, didn’t you? GM: I had to be careful where I went, I must admit. I didn’t go anywhere near the cookhouse I’ll tell you. But that was when I was flying control at Llanbedr. HB: Yeah. Yeah. GM: But with 21 Squadron they flew Spitfire 21s at Fifty, at One Squadron. There was one squadron and there was another squadron called the Baroda Squadron. All Spitfire 21s, contra rotating props and they used to take off like that. Go straight up. They were a fantastic plane. HB: Did you ever get to go in one? GM: Four hundred and fifty mile an hour. HB: Did you ever get to sit in one? GM: No. No. No. I don’t think. Never sat in one. But I was there a sizeable length of time. HB: Yeah. Yeah. It was — GM: I was there a long time. HB: Well, well ’45 through to ’47. GM: I’d never done any office work and I walked in to the office and they said, ‘Your first job is to do the Wilmotts.’ I said, ‘What on earth is a Wilmott?’ ‘A Wilmott is the station, the readiness of all the aircraft stations in the country,’ he said,’ And if there’s anything wrong with the aircraft, with the aerodrome, they issue a Wilmott and that Wilmott has to be plotted so that every station knows if there is anything wrong with any other station.’ So, I’d got this pile of, little pile of Wilmotts they’re called and I’d had to look and find the aircraft and put number one runway is out of action because they’re resurfacing the [unclear]. Put it back and then take the next one. Leuchars. Leuchars. Flying control is not operating today so no planes in or out of Leuchars, and write it down so that if anybody was sent to that they’d put out a Wilmott to see — HB: Right. GM: What the status of the station was. HB: Status was. GM: And I remember it took me all day. The whole day, I think. Morning, sort of morning, dinnertime, afternoon and evening you know, I was still doing these Wilmotts. Putting it in. HB: I’ve never heard of a Wilmott. GM: No. Wilmott it was called and, and then a job I did like doing was on the waggon at the end of the runway. HB: Oh yes. Yes. I’m with you. Yeah. GM: Yeah. And you used to have two aldis lamps, and two verey pistols. A green and a red. A green and a red. And you had to, and I can remember watching the planes landing and watching them and then all of a sudden, this Spitfire came and he’d got his wheels up. He hadn’t got his wheels down. Prang, I fired off, moved and it went off. HB: Blimey. GM: And he was only a few feet from the ground by the time I’d fired it. I thought to myself I’d nearly blotted my copybook there. HB: Yeah. GM: He hadn’t put his wheels down. HB: That, that would have been expensive. GM: Yeah. Another thing that happened which was most amazing was I was on the waggon this one day and it had been raining very heavy and the sun came out and a flock of swans, about six swans flew over and they thought it was water and they all flew down to land on the runway and of course they crashed. Every one of these swans. Because they thought it was water and I’m watching these swans and all of a sudden, they crashed. All these swans rolling around. They got up and they waddled around and then they started running and took off again. HB: Blimey. GM: A load of swans. HB: Yeah. GM: Yeah. About five or six swans crashed on the runway. HB: You know if, if you go back to 171 Squadron. GM: Yes. HB: And you were, you were flying these special operations. GM: Yes. HB: With this special jamming thing did they, did they use the aluminium strips? GM: Yes. HB: At the time. GM: Yes. HB: Was your aircraft doing that as well? GM: We, we had special ones. When we’d finished our flight we didn’t put any of the aluminium strips out until we’d finished our flights, and then we’d go, some of the targets. I can’t remember the targets. We did go to Monchengladbach once I think while we were at [pause] I don’t know, give me a target from 50, 171 squadron. Give me. HB: Right. That would be [pause] Liege. GM: Liege. Yes. So, so, we were not far from France that day. Going round and round. Then as soon as your stint had finished we bombed Liege. HB: Right. GM: And as we went out we had very special strips of foil. Ours were fifteen feet long. The ones that the bomber, the main force took were, were only strips like that. HB: What was that? GM: Ours were fifteen feet long. HB: What’s that? About three feet long. GM: Something like that. HB: Yeah. GM: And they stayed in the air longer. HB: Right. GM: They didn’t fall so flat. They stayed in the air longer so, so our, our two planes would look like thirty planes heading for Liege. HB: Right. Right. Yeah, that, that sort of makes sense now to me. Yeah. It’s alright. I was just looking back because you were on 51 Squadron when it was D-Day weren’t you? GM: Yeah. We just arrived at 51 Squadron just before D-Day. HB: Yeah. Yeah. [coughs] excuse me. Oh yeah, because that’s when, that’s when Sergeant [Wamm] got injured, weren’t it? GM: On our second trip he got wounded. HB: Yeah. Yeah. Gordon, I can only thank you really. It’s, it’s, you know, I’m not just saying this it really is interesting. It’s really interesting you know and to know that it wasn’t all deadly serious all the time. GM: No. Oh no. HB: That’s — GB: No. I can, I’ll tell you something. You’re not recording this now? HB: Yeah. Yeah, we are recording you. Yeah. Yeah. GM: Oh right. Well, when I was stationed at Stormy Down as a cadet with a white flag in my hat, we had a visit from Anna Neagle, a film star. HB: Oh right. Yeah. GM: And she did a show for us. It was a show and she came in to the airmen’s mess and she said, ‘I will dance around with the youngest airman in the room.’ And it was me. HB: Oh lovely. GM: So, I [laughs] danced with Anna Neagle. I don’t know whether, she was in, who wants to sing in Barclay Square film. HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. GM: Yeah. And that — HB: Oh yeah. She was a big star. GM: Yeah. HB: She was a big star. GM: Anna Neagle. Yeah. So, I danced with Anna Neagle. HB: Ooh, now, there’s a memory for you. GM: Yes. Yes, it is. HB: Yeah. GM: Funny things happen. HB: Yeah. Oh, that’s great. Right. So obviously you got your job at Triplex. GM: Yeah. HB: And life moved on and you got married. GM: Yeah. HB: And you got your family. GM: Yeah. HB: And eventually you ended up here in Alvechurch. GM: Yes. It was all fields. This was all fields. HB: Yeah. GM: And there was a hut at the end of the road and we were given a number. We got there at 7 o’clock and were given a number. The hut opened at ten, and I think we got in for an interview at about 12 o’clock and as we walked through the door he said, ‘There’s only one property left. It’s a bungalow, a two bedroom bungalow at the beginning of the site. Do you want it?’ And my wife said, ‘Yes, please.’ HB: Wow. GM: And that was number 2, Rise Way. HB: Brilliant. Right. Well, I think we’ve sort of come to a bit of a conclusion for the interview Gordon. GM: Yes. Thank you. HB: And I really do appreciate, and thank you very much on behalf of the IBCC. GM: I hope it — HB: But more on behalf of myself. GM: [Unclear} HB: Oh, yes. I think it’s great for you to do this. I’m going to end the interview bit now. GM: Yeah. HB: Because obviously we need to have a break and get something to eat, but as I say I do thank you for that. GM: Do you want to come down the pub for a pint? HB: The time is now coming up to half past twelve. [recording paused] HB: This is recommencing the interview at twenty to two in the afternoon, having had our lunch, a very nice lunch and still interviewing Gordon Mercier. In a chat over lunch, we’ve had two or three things, little things have cropped up, but I think Gordon it would be nice to tell us about it, Gordon. GM: Yes. HB: You were telling me about a training flight where you shouldn’t have been over the sea but — GM: That’s right. We, we were doing, we were going a compass swing and — HB: Who’s, oh that’s right because you had somebody in the aircraft with you, didn’t you? GM: We had a WAAF. We didn’t have a WAAF this time. We had one of the air, one of the ground crew. HB: Right. GM: But we were out for a compass swing and an engine, engine test but my skipper decided to do some low flying and we went over a field full of German prisoners of war putting hay, taking hay, and they made a lot of rude signs at us and so the skipper turned the plane around. We flew towards the prisoners of war again and as we got there we went straight up in the air and blew them all over. But by then we were facing out to sea and there was a ship, a ship down and we hit a flock of birds and one engine went out. Immediately went back to base and asked permission to land, emergency landing, three engines. We landed and we were called in to the office to explain ourselves and the skipper said, well, we were doing this, ‘We went out for an engine test and a compass swing and we hit a flock of, a flock of starlings,’ he said, and just a flock of starlings. And the CO said, ‘Why is my engineering officer holding two, two seagulls?’ And another story, we were going to bomb Dunkirk Castle, and there were about two hundred planes and we took off as normal but the wheels wouldn’t come up and the skipper asked the flight engineer if we’d have enough petrol to go and get back. He said, well we could get back but we couldn’t get back to camp. We’d have to land somewhere in the south of England. So, we, we went on but we were very slow so that by the time we got to the target all the other planes had finished bombing and we crossed the target on our own and the German, Germans occupying the Castle were firing rifles and pistols at us. But our bombs went straight through the middle of the courtyard and broke down one of the walls. And then we got back and we had to land at Manston because we hadn’t got, and Manston was the most amazing sight. It was the first time I saw a jet plane take off. They’d got them at Manston. I’d never seen, didn’t know we’d got any jet planes. That was at Manston. HB: Were you on the ground or in the air at this time? GM: We were on the ground. HB: Yeah. GM: And we, we heard this noise and we saw this Gloster Meteor take off. We didn’t know what it was. It was a jet plane. HB: That’s just [pause] I don’t know. GM: They used to use them for catching the flying bombs. HB: Yeah. Yeah. GM: Because they were faster. HB: Yeah. And was it, was it, was it Manston you were telling me about where you had FIDO? GM: No. HB: Or was that — GM: That was at Carnaby. HB: Right. GM: There was a very severe fog one night when we were coming back, and all the, all the ‘dromes were fogged out and so we had to land with FIDO at Carnaby. Carnaby aerodrome. And I believe they landed ninety six planes at that aerodrome using FIDO. HB: And what was it like coming in to land then with FIDO? GM: It was like going into hell because all you could see was flames. HB: Yeah. GM: Flames. Just, it was just flames. You couldn’t see the ground until you were about twenty feet from the ground. HB: Well, yeah. GM: But you could land the plane. HB: Just, just mentioning jet aircraft towards the end of your operations in ’45. GM: Yeah. HB: Did you ever come across German jet fighters? GM: No. HB: Didn’t. You never saw them. GM: Never saw them. No. Never saw any. HB: Because you did quite a few daylight operations, didn’t you? GM: Yeah. HB: Before, you know by then. No. I was just curious because obviously at that time they were flying the Messerschmitt jets, weren’t they? GM: I will mention one other target we attacked. We attacked an airfield called [unclear]. But on that day, it was a Sunday morning and on that day, there were four thousand five hundred allied planes over Germany. All bombing and fighters. Fighters and bombers. There were four thousand five hundred planes in the air over Germany. HB: That’s the allies. Yeah. GM: Yeah. HB: Yeah. GM: We saw two lots of Boeings in, in convoy, you know. HB: Wow. GM: And we, we bombed [unclear] airport and our bombs went straight down the runway. You couldn’t miss. HB: Yeah. GB: It was one of those. HB: Yeah. That’s, yeah that’s interesting. When we were chatting over lunch you were saying about the jobs the WAAFs used to do. GM: Oh yes. They used to do. We used to have a WAAF come with us sometimes when we did a compass swing. HB: Could you, can you explain what a compass swing is please Gordon? GM: Well, the compass had to be checked that it was doing its job properly, and there were compass operators and they were nearly all WAAFs and they used to come with us when you’d fly straight line, straight line, straight line, straight line and she would make sure that the compass was working properly. HB: Right. Right. GM: It was called a compass swing. HB: Yeah. So, you obviously that was something you really did appreciate once you were in the air. GM: Oh yes. Got the compass for just in front of the pilot, wasn’t it? HB: Yeah. GM: She was fiddling with the — HB: Yeah. GM: Set, set, calibrate it I think it was called. They used to calibrate the compass. HB: Yeah. Yeah. GM: And the WAAFs did that job. One of the jobs that they did. HB: Yeah. Well, that’s, that’s lovely. That’s lovely. Well, Gordon thanks. Thanks for that extra bit. I’m pleased we had lunch and we had a chat. GM: Yes. Thank you. HB: That was really nice and I’ll, I’ll finish the interview now because I just need to work through some of the paperwork. GM: Yeah. HB: So, the time is coming up to ten to two. So, we’ll terminate the interview now. [recording paused] HB: This is a further interview with Gordon Mercier. It’s Tuesday the 23rd of November. GM: Yes. HB: And we’re at Gordon’s house near Birmingham and we just wanted to go back over a few things, Gordon. We’ve just been chatting because obviously as an air gunner you were in that small group of people who, an awful lot of air gunners were lost and you survived. So, we thought we’d like to know what the life of an air gunner was like from, you did your training and that was fairly arduous but, but you know we just wondered what it was like day by day to be an air gunner on a, on a Halifax. GM: I found it very satisfying. I, I had the best view of anybody in the aircraft. I was sitting on the top. I never flew, I only flew once as rear gunner and I hated it and all the other times I flew mid-upper gunner. The only trouble with being a mid-upper gunner was when you were facing forward the wind came through the holes where the guns are and you absolutely froze. So, if you turned forward it was uncomfortable. Other than that, it was a very comfortable seat and it was easy to get in. Up a little ladder and hung your parachute on the hook just by the seat where you get in and it was very comfortable and the view was fantastic because in daylight you could see for miles and miles and miles. HB: Did you, did you have any extra duties when you were in there? To, to tell the pilot about things. GM: No. But I, I told, you had to keep your eyes open. Especially for other aircraft in the, in the stream. That was the most important job actually because all of a sudden you’d realise there was a bomber sitting just on top of you and you’d got to get out of that without hitting him. And we had that several times, and that was the important job that you did that wasn’t written in to the contract [laughs] HB: Yeah. GM: And also, when we went, we went to Villers Bocage we’d been told to bomb at ten thousand feet and if you couldn’t see the target you were to come down to five thousand feet. Some went down. We went down. And some didn’t go down. So, the bombs were coming down from above us which was a very, very tricky moment and I can remember one bomb being very close to us as it went past. A stream of bombs. And that was when we bombed the panzer division in Villers Bocage and — HB: It’s nice you used to word tricky. GM: Pardon? HB: It’s nice you used the word tricky. GM: Oh yes. HB: For that situation. GM: Yes. Yes. HB: I can think of other words. GM: Yeah. I must, I’ve got to admit very humbly that I was terrified on our second trip. I was really, really terrified. The bang when they hit the nose of the plane, and the getting the bomb aimer out. I heard all about it and I was terrified but I’ve got to admit that I was never frightened again ever and we had some very tricky situations. HB: Yeah. GM: But it was very satisfying being a gunner. You felt as though you were doing a good job. HB: Yeah. GM: You just had to keep awake and keep warm. HB: How did you keep warm, Gordon? GM: The Halifax had a good heating system in the fuselage. It was, it was quite good and we had electric boots which you plugged in. You plugged into the aircraft and it warmed your feet. And you had fleecy boots of course and you were as warm as toast except when you went forward. And I can remember my eyebrows froze. Eyelids froze because of the cold when it was minus fifty, and that was the coldest day I flew in and the engines, the oil went into lumps and you could hear the engine rumbling. HB: Oh. GM: With these lumps of oil. HB: Blimey. GM: It was, it was minus fifty degrees it was. HB: So, what height would you be when that was happening? GM: Twenty two thousand feet. HB: Yeah. GM: At twenty two thousand feet we could get to twenty two easily but the Lancaster could get further. HB: Yeah. GM: It was lighter than us but it could carry more. We, we carried a lot of bombs. I think twelve five hundreds’ we could get in. Or two four thousand and some smaller bombs and mines. They were, they were big. The mines were big. HB: Yeah. GM: I hadn’t, I had to, on two occasions I had to get out of my turret and close the door which had come open. HB: The side door. GM: The door you went in to the aircraft. And it was up in the air and me being small I could hardly reach and the skipper said, ‘Don’t forget to put your parachute on in case you fall out.’ [laughs] The wind coming through from that door. And I closed the door for him. And twice that happened. HB: How had it come open? GM: Well, just vibration, I think. HB: Oh yeah. Yeah. I suppose. GM: Just vibration. Yeah. HB: So, what, what sort of clothing did you used to have to put on, Gordon? GM: Well, we had fleecy boots, four pairs of gloves, a gauntlet, a mitten, a woollen mitten. No. A gauntlet, a glove, a woolly mitten and next to your skin surgical, like a surgical glove. Silk. Silk glove. So that if you had to do anything with the guns you took the three pair off and just left the silk glove. HB: Right. GM: Because if you touched the guns your fingers stuck to the guns. HB: Right. GM: Because it was so cold it would fetch your fingers, the skin off your fingers. HB: So when, so after you’d, after you’d taken off for an operation obviously everybody talks about as you’re flying towards. GM: Where ever. HB: Perhaps the Dutch coast. GM: Yes. HB: Or whatever, you used to test fire your guns. GM: Yes. We used to test. HB: How did everyone look on that? How did they do it safely when you were taking off in a bunch. GM: Well, we used to fire down. Fire down at the sea. And the rear gunner used to fire down at the sea. We [laughs] went on a, we went on a trip when we were converting into Halifaxes, and we had to go and bomb Rockall. That little mountain in the middle and we had to go and bomb Rockall and on the way we’d to test our guns. That was in the exercise. The skipper said, ‘Are we ok navigator to test the guns?’ And the navigator said, ‘Yes.’ And I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘What do you mean, Titch?’ I said, ‘I can see land in front of me. Down there. I can see land.’ He said, ‘No. The navigator said we’re over the sea.’ I said, ‘We’re not over the sea. It’s land.’ And he’d missed a leg out on his plan [laughs] He’d missed a leg out on his plan, so his plan showed us over the sea and we were still over the land. HB: Oh dear. GM: And Liverpool. Nearly fired my guns at Liverpool. HB: Blimey. GM: Yeah. HB: I suppose he got in trouble for that did he? GM: Who? HB: No? GB: No. No. No. No. The only time we got in trouble was when we went to North Creake. Our first trip at North Creake. Familiarisation they called it. New planes, and we flew, flew anywhere. We just flew round swinging the compass and one thing and another. We went out to sea to fire my guns and there was a trawler and there was a crowd of birds around it and I was firing my guns and we hit this crowd of birds. One engine packed up so we asked permission to land immediately and we landed and we went in front of the CO. ‘What happened? How did you come to hit a flight of birds?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We were flying over the coast and we just hit this flight of birds.’ He said, ‘Oh yes. Really birds.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ The skipper said, ‘Yes. Just birds. Just a flight of ordinary birds’ He said, ‘How come [laughs] the engineering officer has got five seagulls in his office.’ How come he’d got five seagulls in his office. HB: You shouldn’t have been there. GM: No. We shouldn’t have been there. HB: I don’t know. GM: Yeah. HB: I don’t know. GM: But they used to, the clothing was adequate. Really good clothing we had. HB: Yeah. GM: We had a bomber jacket and extra long johns. HB: Yeah. GM: And very modern vests. Very warm. HB: Yeah. GM: They came up to your neck and everything. But you used to get cold here and here, under your chin and your eyes used to get cold. Especially if you were looking forward, which you had to rotate the turret. HB: Yeah. GM: And — HB: So, so on a normal, so how would it work then? How would you be told as an air gunner that you’re going to be flying on operations? GM: Oh, we, in the morning the skipper would tell us, ‘We’re flying tonight, lads.’ HB: Right. GM: And he, they used to go to the, the navigator and the flight engineer and the pilot used to go to a briefing. And then before the op the whole crew went to a briefing and the chair, there were seven, seven seats and seven seats and everybody and then there was a big map of Europe on the wall and the CO would come out with a big stick and say, ‘Your target for tonight is Monchengladbach, and your route is this way — ‘’ This way. ‘Be careful of this area here because there’s a lot of flak there. Do a dog leg here.’ The navigator had got all the details and they told us, and then the weapons officer used to come in and say you’re carrying so many bombs, and so many of this, and we used to carry Window which was strips of silver paper and the strips of silver paper were about a foot and a half long. But when we were flying with 100 Group our, our silver paper was fifteen feet long. We didn’t have so many of them. HB: Yeah. GM: And you used to, before you hit the coast the [pause] I’m sure. I think the wireless operator had to put the, the silver paper in in through the — HB: And that went down a chute. GM: A chute. Yeah. It went down a chute and, so that fifty planes would look like five hundred planes on the radar. HB: Yeah. GM: Because each piece of silver paper would have been lit as a blip. HB: Yeah. GM: And, and when, when we used to fly with 100 Group our fifteen feet long stayed in the air longer, but it didn’t say there was that many. HB: Yeah. GM: But and they were all a distraction. Used to usually drop the silver paper just before you changed course. HB: What was it? As a sort of a deception sort of thing? GM: Well, yes. That’s right. HB: Yeah. Yeah. So, you’ve been in. You’ve had your briefing. GM: Yeah. HB: Did you have, did you do anything separate as an air gunner? GM: No. HB: Or was that it? GM: No. No. HB: That was just it. GM: You were altogether. HB: Yeah. GM: And then after briefing you used to go for a flying meal. HB: Yes. GM: Bacon. Eggs. Bacon and eggs. Sometimes there was chips but we always had bacon and eggs. And big portions as well. HB: Right. GM: We used to collect our escape kit and our parachute and an orange and a block of chocolate which you distributed in your pockets. HB: Yeah. GM: And you’d wait for the, the bus, the waggon to take you out to the aeroplane about an hour before you took off. You used to go the, and sit on the grass or play football or something like that altogether. HB: Yeah. GM: And the ground crew were just finishing off. HB: What was, can you remember what you had in your escape kit, Gordon? GM: Oh yes. There was a map. It was only a small box. There was a map. There was a compass. There was some nutritious bar of stuff. I don’t know what it was but they invented this bar of stuff to eat. And there was a whistle, I think. No. We used to carry the whistle. We used to have the whistle always with us. We always had the whistle in case you fell in the sea. [unclear] a compass. Pipe smokers had a pipe and the pipe converted to a compass. Just broke it open and the compass was inside the barrel of the pipe. But the main thing was the map. It was a big map of Europe and all on silk. A silk map. Very posh. HB: Yeah. GM: We, it was just a small box which you just slipped in to your pocket. Into your breast pocket as it were. HB: Did you, did you carry, did you carry photographs of yourself with you? GM: No. No. Oh, that was one thing you did before you took off and before you collected your parachute. You collected your parachute. You had to empty your pockets so that you’d got nothing to identify yourself with at all. HB: The reason I ask was I did interview somebody once who showed me some photographs they took. They had. And they took them with them in case they were shot down so they could be used on false papers. GM: Oh. Well, I hadn’t heard of that. HB: No. GM: We, we were, we were told to clear everything out. Especially bus tickets. HB: Yeah. GM: And all that sort of stuff. Anything that could identify you or your squadron. HB: Yeah. GM: You know, like postcards from the family with your address on. You don’t. All that had to be taken out and put on the — HB: So, you’ve had your briefing. You’ve been to dispersal. GM: No. We’ve had our briefing. We’ve had our dinner. HB: You’ve had your dinner. GM: We go and collect the parachutes HB: Yeah. And then you’re waiting at dispersal and the truck comes. GM: The truck comes, and they’ve usually got two or three crews, and it takes you all the way around the perimeter and drops them off at each plane. HB: Yeah. GM: And usually the CO comes around. Just a little chat. And then at a certain time the skipper says, ‘Time to get aboard lads.’ And you just get in and of course I, I only sat in the rest position. I didn’t get in to my turret until we’d taken off. HB: So that was sort of in the middle of the aircraft. GM: Yes. HB: Yeah. GM: And there was a lot of room in the Halifax. HB: Yeah. GM: There was room for eight of us to sit in. Or seven of us to sit in. HB: Yeah. Yeah, so you, you’ve gone into the plane. You’ve gone to the rest position. GM: Yeah. HB: Did you have, did you have any duties at all for take - off? Or was it just — GM: Just I’d cock my guns HB: Yeah. GM: No. I couldn’t cock my guns until we were over the sea in case there was a mistake. We used to cock the guns. We were soon over the sea anyway. HB: Yeah. GM: So, that’s the only thing I had to do was make sure that my gunsight was working. Cocked the guns. Make sure that all four were all cocked. HB: Yeah. GM: And ready to fire. HB: Did you, did you always have the same turret? I think you said to me in the last interview that you were comfortable in the Boulton Paul turret. GM: Yes. HB: Because it was big and you, you know you fitted in. You had plenty of room. GM: Yeah. HB: But did, did you always have the same turret or did you have to change? GM: It was all, I only flew in the Boulton Paul turret. HB: Right. GM: When I did the one in the rear it was a Frazer Nash turret. HB: Yeah. GM: The rear gun had a Frazer Nash turret. HB: So how, so when you were in that turret, what, what guns had you got? GM: Four. Four 303 Browning machine guns. HB: Right. And I presume they were calibrated to, to converge, were they? GM: It was one of our jobs on the ground to calibrate the guns so that it didn’t hit any part of the aircraft. HB: Right. GM: That was one of our jobs. We had to calibrate the guns. HB: Because that’s one of the questions a lot of people ask is how did you manage to not shoot your own tail off? GM: No. They’d been calibrated so that you used to turn your gun round at the plane and press the, I think we used to press a button. I think it was a button, and so that when, when it was revolving, and when you’re firing, when it hit the, looked at that, the bullets didn’t fire. It stopped the guns from firing. HB: Right. Right. Yeah. Ah that, that’s, that explains it then. GM: Yeah. Because you could hit the front of the aircraft quite easily. HB: Yeah. GM: And you could hit the tail quite easily as well. HB: Yeah. I can believe it. Yeah. GM: But you, you calibrated. That was one of your jobs. To calibrate it. When you did a, if you did a pre-flight flight, used to do that. HB: So, when obviously, when you’re flying at night your vision is, is, is absolutely essential. Your, you know, your skills at looking out into the night. How did you protect your eyes when you were flying at night? GM: One thing we used to do was we used to have a pair of goggles which we used to put on while we were waiting if it was daylights or, and we were going to be flying at night we used to wear these goggles. A pair of like sunglasses. HB: Yeah. GM: So that when you, you took them off and put them in the plane you’d stopped your eyes from going. HB: Yeah. GM: Suddenly in to dark when you wouldn’t be able to see anything. HB: Yeah. GM: But wearing these glasses, which you were given they, they were very useful. HB: Yeah. So once you, once you were up and you’re flying. You were flying towards the target. GM: Yeah. HB: Would you get much of, much information from the pilot or the navigator or anybody else to tell you what was happening? Where you were going or — GM: There was always conversation going on. The skipper was asking the flight engineer if all the engines were ok. He was asking the wireless operator if he still had contact with his wireless. And the bomb aimer used to sit next to him and he only used to go in to his position when we were getting, getting close to the target. HB: Yeah. GM: And the navigator had his little, he had a curtain all round him and he was, he was giving the skipper instructions of a course to fly. Every, all, every, all the time he was chatting. HB: Yeah. GM: The flight engineer and the navigator were doing most of the talking and the skipper was asking questions and everybody else was in their own thoughts as it were. HB: Yes. Yeah. So as, as you come in you’re coming in towards the target. Obviously, we know the risks were flak and night fighters. GM: Yeah. HB: And that sort of thing. GM: And other planes. HB: Yeah. And the other planes are all around you. Your own side. GM: Yeah. HB: What, can you, is it possible to describe or to tell me what it was like to fly towards a target through the flak? GM: Well, one of our trips we went was Hazebrouck it was called, and it was a railway. A railway marshalling yard in France. And that was the worse flak I ever saw and the flak was just coming up before. The flak was firing when the planes weren’t there and we were flying along this flak and then we had to go in to it and that was a bit scary, you know. You couldn’t help it. Suddenly you had to go through it because the target was there and if you didn’t turn in to the target you wouldn’t. The flak was, was enormous, the amount of flak there was. Hundreds of flak bursts. HB: So, sitting in your position in the, you know. GM: You could see it all. HB: Yeah. GM: Yeah. HB: Yeah. So, and, and so that that would be like I suppose flying through a giant firework display. GM: Yeah. HB: Almost. But with quite nastier consequences. GM: Well, you could smell the smoke from the, as you flew through it. The ones that exploded you didn’t worry about because they missed you. It was the one that you didn’t see that hit you. HB: Yeah. GM: But it was the amount of flak they threw up, the Germans was enormous. Absolutely hundreds, hundreds of bursts of flak. HB: Yes. GM: And nearly always at the right height as well. They’d, they’d got good range finders. HB: Yeah. What, what were the, what were the searchlights like? GM: Well, on our last trip we were coned. HB: Yeah. GM: By searchlights. About fifty on us. This last trip was our worst trip ever and we were coned and the only thing you could do was to dive down one of the, one of the searchlights which is what the skipper did because they couldn’t change the, where the shells were bursting quick enough because we were going down. And in actual fact I fired my guns at a searchlight. The one we were flying down. It went out. HB: Oh right. GM: And that saved us. HB: Yeah. Was the — GM: The moment it went out the skipper said to navigator, ‘Which way?’ He said, ‘How the hell do I know?’ HB: So, was that what, was that something you trained for or just something you did? GM: Something happened. It was — HB: Yeah. GM: It had never happened before. HB: Yeah. GM: We’d never been hit by searchlights before. HB: Yeah, because when I’ve talked to others they always talk about the corkscrew. GM: Yeah. The corkscrew is for fighter. HB: Yeah. What was, what was the corkscrew manoeuvre then? GM: It was depending which, where the plane was. You, I, the gunner or the rear gunner had to tell the skipper, ‘Corkscrew right.’ ‘Corkscrew left.’ And if you said, ‘Corkscrew right,’ he turned the plane that way, that way, that way, and that way, and raised, went up and down while he was corkscrewing. HB: So, he was constantly changing left to right. GM: Left to right. HB: Yeah. Yeah. GM: So that the pilot, if the plane was behind you he’d have to readjust every time. HB: Yeah. What was that like to experience? GM: Ah, it was like being in a merry go round. You were thrown this way and that way but it only happened to us twice and I don’t think it was necessary actually but the rear gunner called it the two times we did it. And corkscrew right or corkscrew left. Down. Right. Down. Right. Up. Down. Right. HB: So, so this was — GM: With, with the Halifax you could do it like. It would behave like, like a merry go round. HB: Yeah. GM: It was a marvellous plane for that. HB: So, so the tail gunner had called it. Were you ever actually attacked by night fighters? GM: No. The only time we were attacked was on our second trip and that’s when we lost our bomb aimer. I’d, I reported to the skipper there was a plane below us being attacked. He said, ‘Keep your eyes open.’ And I could see the tracer going and I couldn’t see the other plane that he was firing at. And then the tracer stopped and at that moment the one shell hit us right in the nose. Blew the nose off. HB: Right. GM: And the bomb aimer was sitting with his legs like that and it exploded under his bum. And the plane was, was doing this all the time then because it was filling with air and then it couldn’t take any more air, so the plane was going like that all the time. It was really uncomfortable. That’s was the only time I was really terrified. HB: Yeah. Did, I don’t suppose you ever saw the aircraft that — GM: No. HB: That did the attack. GM: No. Never saw the aircraft. HB: No. GM: I thought it was a Fokke Wulf 190 that I saw a shape going away but I reported it as a Fokke Wulf 190. HB: Did you lose, did the other plane, did we lose the other plane? The other aircraft. The first one that was attacked. Did we lose that one? GM: I don’t know. HB: Oh right. GM: I mean he was way below us. HB: Oh right. GM: He was way below us. HB: Right. Right. Yeah. GM: And I saw the tracer but it didn’t see the plane he was firing at. HB: Yeah. So, so you’ve been out there and you’ve gone through the flak and the searchlights. GM: Yeah. HB: You’ve done, or you’re doing your run to the target. GM: The bomb run. It was called the bomb run at that time. HB: What, did you have a job to do while that was going on? While the bomb run was going on? GM: No. The only job we had to do was keep our eyes open. HB: Yeah. GM: For everything. At that moment the bomb aimer, the bomb aimer took over the plane. HB: Right. GM: ’Steady. Steady. Steady. Left. Steady. Right. Steady. Steady. Left. Right. Bombs gone,’ and the plane would go wumph. HB: Yeah. It would jump up in the air. GM: It would be up in the air. HB: Yeah. And what would, because obviously you used to take photographs as well. Was that done automatically? GM: It was done automatically. HB: Yeah. Yeah. GM: When the bombs were released, it was done automatically. We had some very good photographs of our bombs. HB: Yeah. GM: Especially in the daylight ones. HB: Yeah. So, you’ve, you’ve dropped your bombs. You’ve turned away. You’re heading back. GM: Yeah. HB: You’re heading back home. So, what, what are you, what are you sort of experiencing now? What are you feeling now? GM: Elated actually. HB: Yeah. GM: To think you’ve gone over the target, and you’re on the way home but you’ve still got to keep your eyes open. HB: Yeah. Was that a bit, a bit risky? GM: Well, believe it or not I think it was when we went to Monchengladbach, we [pause] we went over the coast and there was a flak ship firing at us. All of a sudden, the flak started out of nowhere. Flak in the night, and of course they were a burst of colours. They were sort of glowing, and this flak ship was firing at us, and you didn’t know that it was there until it happened. HB: Right. GM: So — HB: And obviously they moved them about. GM: Yeah. HB: So, yeah you could never really predict where they were. GM: No. No. HB: Yeah. So then — GM: Then — HB: Yes. So, so you’re on the way back. GM: Yeah. HB: You’re feeling elated and you come in. You know you’re coming back to your airfield. GM: Yeah. HB: What was, what was your procedures for landing then as, as an air gunner? GM: No procedure for me other than to keep, keep my eyes open because there were intruders at that time. There were intruders. You could be fired on as you were landing by the German, especially they used these JU88s as intruder aircraft and you had to keep your eye open right until, right until the moment you landed. But we didn’t. We were fortunate. We didn’t have it. HB: Yeah. GM: We did land on the FIDO twice which was a very, very strange and frightening procedure. I think Carnaby took in ninety six planes in about half an hour. HB: Blimey. GM: Because everybody was running out of petrol. HB: Yeah. And of course, Carnaby was FIDO fitted, wasn’t it? GM: Yeah. HB: Yeah. GM: There was three. HB: Yeah. GM: Woodbridge, Carnaby and Manston were the three aerodromes that were fitted with FIDO. HB: Yeah. Blimey. Yeah. GM: It was like diving into hell. HB: Yeah. GM: Because you couldn’t see a thing because of the fog. You couldn’t. Until you were fifteen feet from the ground you couldn’t see anything. The pilot just dived in to the, you could see the lights under the fog. And then when you got to fifteen feet you could see the ground. HB: That’s low, isn’t it? GM: It is low. Especially if the ground’s not your runway. HB: Yeah. GM: Yeah, but — HB: So, just going back a little bit when, when you did all your training and, and all that sort of thing one of the things you would have probably have been trained to do was the procedure for ditching. GM: Oh yes that was, we did that. HB: Ditching over water and that sort of thing. GM: We did that at 14 OTU which was at Bridlington. HB: Yeah. GM: And it was November. It was cold. It was snowing. And we went, got in the bus for dinghy training. We were taken to the harbour and there was a pile of Mae Wests on the floor. They said, ‘Right. Put your Mae Wests on. What we want you to do is to jump into the sea. Swim to the dinghy. Get in the dinghy. Turn it. Get out of the dinghy and turn it over.’ The next crew was, next ones would jump in to the sea. Turn the dinghy right way up. Get into the dinghy. Turn it over and come back. And I’m sitting there. I’m standing there thinking I’m going to be first. So, I grabbed the Mae West and I put it on. He said, ‘Who’s first?’ I said, ‘I am.’ And I realised that they’d got to put the wet, wet Mae Wests on when they came out. The people after us had to put the wet Mae Wests on and it was freezing cold. Of course, the Mae West was dry and I was a good swimmer, so jumping in and swimming out to the dinghy was no problem. One of the fellas with me doing it wasn’t a very good swimmer but he managed it, you know. HB: Yes. GM: He, he couldn’t help turn the dinghy over. Tricky to turn the dinghy over in the water, and it was cold. HB: So, at what, if you were in an operations or doing this training. GM: Yeah. HB: At what stage would you actually inflate your Mae West? How would you do that? Or when? GM: Oh, not until you were out of the plane. HB: Right. GM: You couldn’t, if you inflated your Mae West I wouldn’t have been able to get out of your turret. HB: Yeah. GM: No. HB: So how would you inflate it? GM: Pull a toggle. It had got a little lever. A little button like a, like a Boy Scout’s toggle. HB: Yeah. GM: It was on the Mae West and you just pulled it, whoosh. HB: So, was it gas filled then? GM: Gas filled. Yes. HB: Yeah. Because so the Mae West must have changed because I think early on they must have blown them up didn’t they? With a tube. GM: Well, you could blow it up yourself. It had got a tube on it so that if you were in the water any length of time you could top up the air in the Mae West. It was sticking out on the side. HB: Yeah. GM: You just grabbed it and blew in to it. HB: Right. GM: It was — HB: So, I mean I mean you’ve got a crew of seven. Did, could everybody swim? GM: I don’t know whether everybody could swim. Everybody was taken for swimming lessons to make sure. HB: Oh right. GM: One of the things we did at OTU we did was the swimming baths. We had, but I think most people in our days in school you all went to swimming every week at school. HB: Yeah. GM: You know, when you were nine, ten you all went swimming. HB: Oh right. GM: I was a good swimmer. HB: Right. Ah. So on, so on operations on the Halifax. GM: Yeah. HB: I presume the pilot, the skipper would actually call for, you know warn you that you were going to ditch. GM: That’s right. HB: What would, what would then follow? Who would do what? Do you know? GM: We would, everybody would, I would get into the rest position and the rear gunner used to get in the rest position and we used to brace ourselves. You had to put your arms, your arms, your head used to close your fingers and put it behind your head and sit like this in the rest position. HB: You were crouched over. Yeah. GM: Crouched. Well, sitting down. HB: Yeah. GM: And you would tightly hold your head. I can’t put my arm up there now. HB: Yeah [laughs] GM: Used to put my head down and hold it. When we, when we pranged, that’s one thing we had to do, because you was careering across the runway and then you stopped dead. HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. GM: You know. HB: So that, so if you were going to ditch then you would be in the rest area. GM: That’s right. HB: I presume the bomb aimer and navigator would then obviously have to come back away from the nose. GM: Yes. Everybody would come back away from the nose or as many, and I think there was about six of us [pause] No. Five because I think the bomb aimer used to stay with the pilot to help the pilot on the crash landing. HB: Yeah. GM: But everybody else came to the rest position in the middle of the aircraft. HB: Yeah. And you would have come out obviously if everything went right. You’d try and come out the door I presume. GM: Yes. The door and then you’d have to swim. HB: Yeah. GM: Because the door was away. Was the nearest the tail. HB: Yeah. Yeah. GM: And the idea is you got on to the wing and the [pause] the dinghy used to throw itself out. HB: Oh right. Yeah. GM: The dinghy used to self-eject with the smash and the dinghy would, and it was tied and it was, we’d all got knives, and you had to, you had to make sure you’d got the dinghy tight, but you had to free it from the aircraft in case the aircraft went down. HB: Yeah. Yeah. GM: And then you’d pile into the dinghy. All of you. HB: Is that something you wanted to avoid? GM: Definitely. We, we never got, we never, never, never got near to ditching in the sea at all. Never. HB: Yeah. So, yeah, I was, I was interested in that because a lot of people have talked about ditching, but how you actually got to that level of training and expertise is of interest. GM: Yeah. HB: Because some guys I’ve spoken to have talked about doing what they called dry dinghy training. GM: That’s right. Dry. HB: On the airfield. GM: Dry dinghy training. We did that. That was at Conversion Unit. HB: Right GM: You did. It was one of the things you did when you converted from, we flew in Whitleys believe it or not. Whitleys [laughs] and changed to Halifax. HB: Yeah. So, as, as the war, you know you came into the war sort of ’44/45. That time. GM: Yeah. HB: What, what changes, what were the biggest changes you saw, Gordon happen, happen? GM: Master bomber. HB: Yeah. GB: That was the biggest change. The master bomber orchestrating the raid. He would bomb to the left of the green indicators. Bomb to the right. Take the bombs forward. And he did the instructions. ‘Don’t bomb in the middle two. Waste of bombs. Bomb on the edges. Bomb on the edges.’ HB: Yeah. GM: Which spread the target area. HB: Yeah. GM: They used to put target indicators down as well which was marvellous. They would tell you what the target indicator colour was every day. Every time you went, ‘The colour of the day is green,’ so that the Germans would light up fake targets. HB: Oh right. Yeah. Yeah. GB: But if the, they used to change the colour of the target indicator. Sometimes green, sometimes red, sometimes yellow. GM: And — HB: And they were and the master bomber would call the height as well I presume. GM: No. No. We were all the height we were given. We were told to fly at such and such a height which was between eighteen and twenty two thousand feet usually, at night. The master bomber, if the target indicator wasn’t on target he’d called up the backers up would obliterate that target indicator and they’d put another target indicator down and he’d say, ‘The new colour is — ’ HB: Right. GM: Made up a different colour for the next target. HB: Yeah. Yeah. That’s, yeah. Yeah that’s — GM: The whole time you were on the bombing run the master bomber was talking to you. HB: Right. GM: Every minute. HB: Yeah. Yeah. GM: ‘Bomb to the left of indicator.’ ‘Bomb to the right of indicator.’ ‘Bomb forward.’ ‘Bomb forward.’ ‘Take it more forward.’ HB: Yeah. GB: In fact, on one of our trips we had to go round again because he moved the target and we’d already passed it. HB: Oh right. Right. GM: So, the skipper said, ‘We’re going around again.’ We only did it once, and that was a bit hairy because you had to go around and join the bomber stream again and come back in again. HB: Yeah. Yeah. That’s doesn’t sound nice. GM: No. It wasn’t. HB: No. So, so obviously the majority of the bombing that you did was at night but on daylight you must have done some daylight operations, well I know you have because there’s a couple in your logbook. GM: Yeah. I did a lot of daylights. HB: Yeah. What, what was your feeling? This might sound a bit strange, but what was your feeling about being able to see clearly what you were bombing? GM: Well, there was, you could see the target. Especially if it was marshalling yards like Hazebrouck. It was, the target was very plain, you could see it entirely but the master bomber was there as well. He’d say, ‘Bomb to the right. Bomb to the left again.’ HB: Yeah. GM: But — HB: And what did, what was you, what was your overall feeling then as you’re seeing this target clear as day and the bombs are going down? What, what was your overall feeling on that? GM: Well, the minute the bombs were going down you felt as though you had done your job. HB: Yeah. GM: You’d actually done your job so it was all you had to worry about was getting home. From the moment you dropped your bombs you already knew your course you had to take. The skipper and the navigator had all, had got that, were told that so that you immediately went on to that course, and then did a couple of dog legs before you crossed the coast again. HB: And when you got, when you got, you obviously you, you end up with your end of tour, you know. You’re told that you’ve, you’ve come to the end of your tour. GM: Yes. That was our last trip. HB: Yeah. GM: That was the worst trip we ever did. There was no side left of the plane, on the one side. All gone. I was just looking at looking at, just looking at metal. Bits of metal, and — HB: So, so you had a bit of an escape there then. GM: Well, yes because my, I hadn’t fired my guns so that the bullets saved me from damaging. It saved me from my leg getting damaged without a doubt because there was damage to the bullets itself because it took the whole, took the whole lot of the left-hand side of the plane out, from the front nose and there was a great big hole all the way to the tail and they, they hit us a lot of times. But the searchlight went out. We were still flying. I think if a Lancaster had had what we’d had it wouldn’t have made it, but the Halifax was, was so rugged, and it really was. HB: Yeah. GM: A very strong aircraft. HB: Yeah. So how, when you say the ammunition saved you. GM: Well — HB: I hadn’t thought of this. GM: Ammunition. HB: How did, how did the ammunition get to the gun? GM: The ammunition was here and here. HB: Either side of your legs. GM: Like four. And you used to feed the ammunition into the four guns. There were four panniers of bullets. You feed it into the guns, cock it and so you’ve got the first gun done. Then do the second gun, do the third gun, do the fourth gun. And these, these troughs as it were where the bullets were coiled up, and they were all here. Right here. And all the damage was there and the — HB: So, yeah. So, from your thigh down you’ve got the bullet panniers. GM: Yes. When, when we got home it was obvious that the bullets had saved my legs because I never had a scratch. Never had a scratch. HB: So, the shrapnel obviously that ripped through the side of the aircraft was bouncing off the, it’s amazing they didn’t go off. GM: Yes. Well, no because they were facing that way. HB: Oh, of course. GM: So yeah. HB: Yeah. GM: They were facing the point. HB: Yeah. Yeah. GM: They then made, the bullets were facing outwards. HB: I see what you mean. So, that the angle of the bullet — GM: Yeah. HB: The shrapnel didn’t hit the explosive bit. It hit the nose. GM: It hit the nose. HB: Wow. GM: Yeah. HB: Well, that was a lucky escape surely. GM: Yes. It was. HB: Yeah. GM: The CO came. Came out in his car. He took one look at the plane and he said, he said to [unclear] and Digby, ‘Well, Digby you’ve had enough. Call it a day. You’ve finished your tour.’ HB: Just like that. GM: He said, ‘Because you’ve ruined another plane.’ [laughs] He said, I can remember him saying that. HB: Yeah. GM: And the next day we were, we were posted. HB: But did you, did you actually get to go out for a last end of tour drink? GM: No. Not really because we went to briefing and next morning we handed our, all our stuff in. The bicycles had to be handed in and everything. I think it took two days to get to, you had a, a leaving chit to fill in. HB: Yeah. GM: And you had to go to the MO. You had to go to the, all sorts. You had to go to all of these actions handing in this, that and the other thing. HB: Yeah. Yeah. And that was it. GM: That was it. HB: That was it. Finished. GM: We went to Kirby. HB: Yeah. GM: Never saw each other again. HB: Yeah. GM: We just, ‘Cheerio chaps. Have a good — ’and I was very lucky. I was posted to 1 Squadron. Spitfires. HB: Yeah. GM: Flying control. HB: Yeah. Well, Gordon, I’ve got to say I could sit here all day. You know. GM: Yeah. HB: We’ve had a, we’ve had, you know well over an hour. GM: We haven’t. HB: And I really do thank you for that, because — GM: I haven’t bored you to tears. HB: No. You could never bore me, Gordon. But I’ve really appreciated it. It’s been a really good interview. I mean we’re coming, we’re coming up towards quarter to twelve so I think we’ll perhaps finish the interview there. GM: Ok. One thing I would say to you, on our training there was one part of our training that we did when we were posted to Driffield and we were taught how to escape. HB: Oh right. GM: We were arrested at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. We were searched. We were given dungarees. Only dungarees. We were given a meal, and at 8 o’clock at night when it was dark, we were taken out in a truck and we were dropped two at a time in the countryside. This was on the Thursday and we’d got to get back to camp on Friday on Saturday. Get back to camp and Sunday was the day we should have been back by. And we were in Yorkshire. In the Dales. And you had to get, you had to fend yourself. You’d got no money. You’d got nothing to eat. Get back to camp. Teach you how to escape. We got on the bus and said to the bus driver, ‘I’m ever so sorry. We’ve got no money. Can we have a lift?’ He said, ‘Of course you can, lads.’ He took us. He took us to Scarborough. Took us to Scarborough. We slept under the, slept under the, slept on the beach. It was warm. It was summer. HB: Yeah. GM: We slept on the beach. We went to a, we went to a café and said, ‘Have you got any scraps that you want to throw away because we’ve got, we’re in the Air Force and we’re, we’re trying to escape and they’ve given us no money. And have you got any — ’ ‘Of course, you can. Come in’ We had a meal. A proper meal. We did that twice. Did that twice, and we got back on the Saturday. So, we got back. We had a, got on the bus again. HB: You must have had some very caring bus drivers. GM: We went to the bus driver and said, ‘Look, I’m ever so sorry. We’re in the RAF and we’ve been told that we’ve got to, got to get back to camp without any money. Is there any chance you can let us on the bus?’ He said, ‘Course, you can.’ And he dropped us at the gate. HB: Oh no. GM: And that was our experience of learning how to escape. HB: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder how many buses there were in Germany and Belgium. Yeah. Yeah. GM: Oh, well, you couldn’t ask for a ticket [laughs] HB: No. GM: Yeah. The only, only German I knew at that time was, ‘Hände hoch.’ ‘Put your hands up.’ HB: Yeah. That would come in handy I suppose. Yeah. GM: That was the only German I knew. HB: Yeah. I tell you that’s lovely. A lovely bit to finish on that Gordon. GM: Yeah. HB: Thanks ever so much. I really do appreciate it. GM: Now, are we going to the pub? HB: Well, the tape’s still running. Do I have to admit I’m taking you to the pub? [laughs] GM: No. No. HB: On the tape [laughs] GM: We can close the interview if you like. HB: I’m closing the interview now. GM: Yeah. HB: It’s a quarter to twelve. GM: I wouldn’t mind — 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 Gordon Mercier Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harry Bartlett Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021-10-21 2021-11-23 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 02:15:42 Audio Recording Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review 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 AMercierCG211021 PMercierCG2101 PMercierCG2102 Description An account of the resource Cyril Mercier was born in Jersey in 1925. He joined the Home Guard in 1940 and the RAF in 1943. After initial training, and training on gunnery at RAF Bridgnorth he joined 14 Operational Training Unit at RAF Abingdon, where he crewed up. He trained on Halifax, eventually joining 51 Squadron at RAF Snaith. On his second operation to Amiens his aircraft was damaged and the bomb aimer was injured. The pilot made a Darkie call and landed the damaged aircraft at RAF Dunsfold. On their journey across London on the Underground dressed in their flying gear, the passengers had a collection for them of 100 cigarettes. He and his crew joined 171 Special Duties Squadron which operated Lancasters using Mandrel jamming equipment. His last operation was to Leipzig. Their aircraft was coned by searchlights and badly damaged. He was posted to RAF Hutton Cranswick as a controller’s assistant with 1 Spitfire Squadron. After being posted to RAF Llanbedr he was demobbed from the RAF. Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944-08-17 1945 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. France Germany Great Britain England--Surrey England--Norfolk England--Yorkshire Germany--Leipzig 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 Civilian Language A language of the resource eng Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Maureen Clarke 100 Group 14 OTU 171 Squadron 51 Squadron 78 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew animal Anson anti-aircraft fire bombing civil defence crash crewing up demobilisation FIDO Halifax Home Guard Lancaster master bomber military discipline Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Operational Training Unit RAF Abingdon RAF Breighton RAF Bridgnorth RAF Bridlington RAF Dunsfold RAF North Creake RAF Riccall RAF Snaith RAF Stormy Down searchlight tactical support for Normandy troops take-off crash training Whitley https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1031/11403/AMercerH170519.mp3 550b969b4cd74761e6a94a8e44b23fde https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1031/11403/PMercerH1701.jpg ca1e16ce2e7f535857111b45957c7c12 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 Mercer, Harold H Mercer Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Harold Mercer (1922 - 2020). He served as a driver before remustering as an air gunner. He flew operations as an air gunner with 77 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 2017-05-19 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Mercer, H Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document DK: This is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Harold Mercer at his home on the 19th of May 2017. Get going. Alright, I’ll just make sure that’s working. So, just start, if I could just ask you, what were you doing immediately before the war? HM: I was working for North Shields corporated society as a milk man, driving horse and cart round the streets, delivering milk DK: So, what years would that be? HM: That was 1942 DK: 1942. So, what made you then want to join the RAF? Was that your decision or? HM: Well, it was, yes, it was my decision, I had volunteered at the beginning of the year 1942, and I have gone up to Edinburgh for an interview, I wanted to be in aircrew then but over to you I wasn’t contemplated for at the time and they sent me on the reserve list so I was called up in April 1942 DK: 1942, yeah HM: On call up, I suppose you want me to continue, DK: Yes, please, yeah HM: On call up, I was posted to Weston-super-Mare for what was generally called square-bashing, so I did two months in Weston-super-Mare, while I was there, I did the usual things, marching up and down the promenade, learning how to the march, how to do the drills and everything DK: How did you feel about all that, was that something you liked or? HM: To be quite honest, I quite enjoyed it for one reason, I had a little corporal [unclear] who was determined to be a Sir, so I had to call him sir anyway, but being sort of raw recruits and not used to Air Force or Army life or anything really like that, we just generally called him Sir, behind his back I think he was called other things, but that was the Air Force lads, but we got on very well together, there was, the squadron was about thirty, I would imagine? I’ve got a photograph there actually, about thirty of us in a squad and while I was there, I did the usual square-bashing and the odd sentry duty and only one wood march I ever did anyway, the reason for that was I was a musician and I played the euphonium in a brass band, so once the corporal got to know that, he said, oh, I got a job for you, I went to see the sergeant in charge of the band at the time and he said, welcome, he says, it’s just what we need, so I joined the band. Doing that meant that we didn’t do so many parades or anything other than practice in the Weston-super-Mare pavilion there, so we did a lot of practice and of course the drill sergeant said, you know, he was quite upset because we were missing a lot of parades but on the other hand, we had to give concerts every night in the pavilion, so we did a lot of rehearsals during the day so we couldn’t be drilling and rehearsing as musicians, the musicians apparently had the first choice of our time, so I spent two months [unclear] at Weston-super-Mare and we were billeting in private houses in those days, about three to, three to a room, you know, use your little beds that you have, but I quite enjoyed the time there and then when it came to leaving super-Mare, I was destined to be a [unclear], transport driver, so I eventually arrived up, lasted up in the Blackpool School of Motoring, learning all about the cars and lorries, buses, the whole works and DK: Had you actually driven before then HM. Yes, I DK: Or did they teach you to drive? HM: I happened, actually I happened to be a driver because my brother had a car DK: Right HM: And he taught me to drive and I’ve driven ever since I was seventeen. But anyway, I still had to go through the usual school, learning about the combustion engines, and touring around Blackpool area, learning how to drive these cars, busses, lorries, whatever the corporal wanted that day DK: So you were taught not only how to drive these vehicles, also how to maintain them, and the engines, and HM: Yeah, we had to be, I rather was, were mechanics, we had to learn all about the combustion engine and be able to trace faults on the car, on the motor, on the whatever, the transport was the intention, so we had to learn all about that, I think that, I’m not sure if [unclear] but, yes, we had to learn both sides, both driving and positive the engine world, you know, so, I say I was there about two months, as actually there was the British School of Motoring that we were under and I had a lady instructor and she says, oh, you are fine enough, no problem with you, but when it came to passing the test, I couldn’t pass the test first time, you know, and I said to this lady, I’ll never pass the test because I’m far too nervous when it comes to anybody sitting beside me, but I know I can drive perfectly and I won’t hurt anybody, so anyway, after the second test, this lady instructor told the examiner exactly what I was done, he says, this airman is perfectly capable of driving anything you care to put on any he’ll drive properly, so the examiner took notice of this, so I passed. DK: Right HM: And that was the end of my time in Blackpool, we had off duty time so we passed most of our time at the YM I think, at the YMCA, playing billiards or whatever, snooker, well, you know anything that was coming up. One thing I do remember, going back to Weston-super-Mare, is every Sunday the Air Force had to attend morning service at the church and of course the job of the band was to lead them to the church so they led us to the church, we led them to the church, but the church wouldn’t let us in with our instruments so the corporal says, come back in an hour’s time, I want you here back in an hour’s time, so what we did, popped down the end of the road, went in a café, had a cup of tea so we missed the church service, so that was, I suppose, that’s one of the advantages of being in the brass, being a musician and then we just marched them back to the quarters again and dismissed for the day, had a day off, you know, that was just a little thing [unclear] DK: Have you been in the band then? HM: It was, yeah, if you were a musician, it was pretty good because you, various times you were called away to do a concert for somebody and we did, we did concerts, I would say every night, somewhere in the area, so, DK: Was it something that you stuck to afterwards? Is it something that you’ve done all your life? Continued to play? HM: Oh yes, I’d been a musician from eight years old I was taught, all my family are salvationers and I was naturally, we were all brought up to be salvationists of as I moved up in airs I was transferred from a junior band to the senior band and then from there I went to the Air Force, so I had a good solid grounding for playing in the band DK: So just going back to when you passed your test for the motor transport HM: Yeah DK: What could you drive after passing that test? Was it the big trucks or? HM: Yes, thirty hundred weight trucks DK: You could drive thirty hundred weight trucks HM: Yeah DK: And coaches or anything like that? HM: Yes, we had coaches as well, you had to be able to drive practically anything really, [unclear], yes, you had to be able to drive any vehicle that was to hand and what job was wanted to be done, so it was very interesting and [unclear] if I would say those two months I had DK: So after those two months, were you posted to a squadron then or to an airfield? HM: No, from there I went to Bridgnorth for general training, that was like building all of the Air Force discipline and duties and ranks and you know, the whole works of the Air Force you had to go through the, through a whole book as well as doing various drills, nothing like Weston-super-Mare, just ordinary drills, learning how to behave in public, behave at a table, sort of, was like officer training, you had to be able to do, holding a knife and fork and all the various equipment, depending what meal you were at, so it started from breakfast right away through to being at a dinner, black tie and everything sort of thing DK: And how did you find all of that, was it interesting or? HM: Well, it was very, I think, I mean, I wasn’t used to that sort of life, for the low station time was hard before that so I was used to very hard life, bringing up my mother had to go to work at four o’clock in the morning, to make enough money to feed us, perhaps people these days don’t understand what the Twenties and Thirties were like, you see, I’m going back a long way and then of course I was brought up by very disciplined parents, very loving but you did nothing on a Sunday except having your food, you couldn’t read anything, you couldn’t buy anything, you know, days were hard in those, today people haven’t got any idea what those days were like, the Thirties especially were, men were short of money, in fact it was the war that made a big change, a very big change in life, in my life anyway, I got sort of out into the world, I’d never been away from home, till I joined the Air Force, you know, I travelled up to Edinburgh, well, Edinburgh as far as I was concerned was Australia, could’ve been, because of us [unclear] altogether, I was born up in North Shields and I lived there, never went out at all, you know people cannot believe, these days they accept travelling all over the world, DK: It’s normal, isn’t it, all just popping up all over Europe HM: Oh, I’m gonna have a holiday, oh, where are we going this year? Oh, we’re going to Spain, we’re going all over, well, at my time you were lucky if you got as far as your own town really, that was as far as you got, anyway, back to Blackpool, and had a load of work [unclear] there, we’re billeted again in private houses, about, usually about three in a room depending from the size of the building and off duty we were going to [unclear] and just to, you know, spare time and of course we went to the Tower Ballroom I’ll come to that part later on but we went to the Tower Ballroom but we couldn’t dance just for the music and get together with the boys, get a little bit chatty, I thoroughly enjoyed learning all about motors and that came in handy in life later on as I advanced over the Air Force actually so from actually I think it was about two months approximately I haven’t got the exact date, well, I have the exact date somewhere, but I would say about two months and then we were posted again now I went to Bridgnorth which I was telling I was saying learning all about the Air Force discipline and ranks and how to behave in public and how to dine out and all this sort of thing as well as, pigeon, clay pigeon shooting, DK: Oh right. HM: We did a bit of clay pigeon shooting at Bridgnorth so there again, I think was, I think we were there three months, were quite a long time training at Bridgnorth, from Bridgnorth I was posted to Kidbrooke in London and a balloon barrage squadron where I was DK: Whereabouts in London, sorry? Kilbourn? HM: It was Kidbrooke DK: Kidbrooke, right, Kidbrooke. HM: Kidbrooke, 901 Squadron DK: Right HM: It was Kidbrooke, I was posted there as qualified motor driver and from Kidbrooke, Kidbrooke was the headquarters of the London Balloon Command DK: Right, ok. HM: And I was posted to Plumstead, which was a satellite of that squadron and from that site we supplied DK: So the balloons, this is the barrage balloons, HM: The big barrage balloons DK: Yeah, right. HM: The barrage balloons, with oxygen, you know, hydrogen, and from Plumstead we supplied the balloon sites with food every day and with any equipment we were transported over to they were only on WAAF sites, mostly WAAF sites, around my area anyway, I think I had three sites to go to every day, keep them topped up and most of the sites were WAAF, under the WAAF command, so I was there quite a long time then, while I was there off-duty times, I was stationed at the headquarters at Plumstead, when we were off-duty we used to pop out to Eltham Palace dancing, we couldn’t dance, I couldn’t dance, that’s for sure, we weren’t allowed to do things like that, anyway, funnily enough, we happened to have a corporal instructor, he said, I can dance in Civvy Street, I’ve danced in Civvy Street, I teach dancing, so we said, well, come on, you’ll have to show us what to do, you know, to go to the girls, when were nights off, so he taught us all about dancing, DK: Oh, right [laughs] HM: You can imagine, twenty airmen in a barrack room learning how to dance, was a bit of a laugh, but we learned the basics anyway, and then when we went out with the WAAFs, we’d get the tram out to Eltham and go to Eltham Palace to dance and when we were dancing, well, you could call it dancing [laughs], because the WAAFs, you know, and the locals would pick the WAAFs up, and I didn’t, I couldn’t get away with dancing, but never mind, the WAAFs used to come up, he said, Harry, if I don’t like the man I am dancing with, we just buzz him off, cause in those days we had what we called the excuse me dances, the chap and told him he had to move on, so that was my job when I went to the dances with the girls, they was coming on and you know, the girls winked as they went past so I would just get up and tap them on the shoulder away would go and so I had a good job dancing with the WAAFs, I went round once stopped and sat and it would happen again, you know, but it was like entertainment as far as we were concerned, and it got you again from the hard fact that there was the war [unclear] all the time I mean, many a time would have an air raid but would have shut down and such, you know [unclear] we could get but we got plenty of time off there, the only thing that they didn’t have was any place where we could get a shower or a bath or whatever you needed, so we had tickets to go into Woolwich and took the baths in Woolwich, we’d go and have a bath there and we’re taken in and then from there we would go to the pictures and put the night in, so that’s how we did a lot of entertainment down in London apart from the air raid traffic [unclear]. Mind you, the air raids, the weather on London and [unclear] was very foggy, smog DK: Smog HM: Absolutely thick, you could hardly see your hand in front of you, and in fact one day I was driving a just this light weight van and I got lost, I couldn’t see where I was going, I ended up on a greens somewhere and had to go in the van, just walk where I though the edge might be, I found the edge and then sort of well [unclear] somewhere I know but I no idea DK: But the headlights were covered up as well, weren’t they? HM: The headlights were, yeah, the headlights, you might as well not have them on, because they were shaded with little slots in the front and the light they gave off was minimal, no good enough, and you had, it was all in your head, you knew the route, so DK: I imagine there must have been a few accidents HM: Oh, there was a few accidents, but you couldn’t avoid it because you couldn’t see where you were going, cause so thick, mind you, we never moved any heavy equipment through the night DK: Right HM: Such as the hydrogen bottles, you know, they had, what you called, Scammells, American things, huge motors, but the length of the [unclear] really, and you had all your bottles on the back and then a trailer behind that, so, you know, you got a good length DK: Did you drive any of those, the Scammells? HM: I drove the Scammells, excuse me DK: I’ll just pause that. HM: So DK: So, you actually drove the Scammells, then, did you? HM: I drove, yeah, I drove the Scammells and with the trailer to the WAAF site DK: And what would be your loads then, what normally were your loads then that you were carrying? HM: Well, that I remember, that’d probably be about, about fifteen to twenty hydrogen bottles on the Scammell itself, with the same number on the trailer, and you took those to the site, drop them off as you are going round, I can’t exactly remember how many we dropped off at the time, anyway we would obviously drop them off for the [unclear] and pick up others to take back DK: The empty ones you’d take back HM: The empty ones we’d take back and then they would be collected by the foreman who provided them in the first place DK: And refilled HM: Refilled and then we would do that every day, really, that was something that we did every day and besides the odd little jobs around the site and we had one motorcyclist at place, like a sort of dispatch, dispatch right I would say, and of course there was DK: So, did he escort you sometimes then? HM: Yes, he would try and sort of lead the way but you know, you had to use a lot of your own instinct as well, you know, to keep on top of things, we had one or two WAAF drivers, not so many, had one or two of them, it was mostly men at that time, DK: And were the women driving the big trucks as well? HM: They never drove the big trucks, no, that was left to the men, the big trucks and busses, that was for the men there, so anyway I finished my time in Bridgnorth, at Plumstead, I went to Bridgnorth, I told you about Bridgnorth, and from Bridgnorth I was posted to Blackpool DK: Right, yeah. HM: I went to Blackpool, and I was only there about a fortnight and I was moved up to Northern Ireland, from there I went to Northern Ireland, to Eglinton DK: Eglinton HM: In Northern Ireland, well, actually the headquarters, I was at the headquarters first, actually to be honest, I worked from headquarters all the time, which was 5019 Squadron DK: 5019 HM: 5019 DK: Alright HM: Funnily enough, I can’t find it in the books anywhere, but I’ve got a photograph with the, of the group, you know DK: Oh, right, ok. HM: With the, with the whole squadron DK: Right HM: And we were the ones with peaky cups. You know, everybody else had foddered caps, we had a proper peaky cap. Fortunately when I was at Belfast, I got the one job that was going as driver to the officer in charge of the engineering and electrical works all over Ireland, so my job was to drive him to whatever airfield or maintenance area that needed his attention DK: And what sort of vehicle were you driving him in then? HM: A Hillman car DK: Right HM: One was one in a Hillman car to wherever was necessary, if so, to be honest I’ve been all over Northern Ireland, DK: So, was he an officer then? HM: Flight lieutenant DK: Flight lieutenant, right HM: Yes, he was Flight Lieutenant and he was in charge of electrical and mechanical vehicles and sites all over Northern Ireland DK: Right HM: So I have been nearly in every town in Northern Ireland you can think of, I spent some time in Ballykelly, the thing was, when I was with him, going around all these places, we’d call it aerodrome and he would say, I’m gonna be here three days, driver, just please yourself of what you do, I’m here and if anybody stops you, just refer them to me, DK: Right HM: So, every time I went anywhere, I was just on me own, wandering about, going for a coffee or whatever, for a cup of tea, you know DK: So you got to know Northern Ireland quite well, then HM: I got to know Northern Ireland upside down, yeah, went to Belfast, way along the top, Ballykelly was a big aerodrome and further along was Coleraine River Valley and Eglinton, which was also a naval station, they didn’t have any planes of course, it was just the station, but he had to look after the maintenance of the works on every station, you see, so, Eglinton came under his edict [unclear] as well, and I went into Londonderry quite a bit when I was off duty, and we used to go to a Roman Catholic tearoom which they had, you know, for Air Force, well, for forces members, so I often went there and had a cup of tea and a wad as they called it and the made us very welcome, at night [unclear] went to the cinema which was only a tin hut, so you can imagine what it was like when I rained, you couldn’t hear anything on because of the thundering and the rain but it was light entertainment I quite enjoyed it because I was more or less free-lance for nine months in Northern Ireland, the one thing that comes to mind, one night the chef put something on whatever it was, I think it was, I don’t know if it was [unclear] or whatever it was, anyway it was quite hot, and through the night, oh, everybody was ill, everybody on the camp was ill, you just had to go outside, you know, there was nothing else to do for it, you know, everybody was in the same boat, so, but it was a really desperate situation, I can tell you, caused many a laughing once we got over the problem, you know, the whole site, the whole camp, upside down, you know, with people dashing outside, DK: Did the chef get into trouble over that? HM: [laughs] I would imagine he did, I’ve never heard the end of the story of that but I imagine he would get a severe tipping off from the officer in charge [laughs], of the camp, you know, but it was just one of those things that all, it’s all in life, isn’t it? You know, so, that was it, Northern Ireland, anyway while I was at Northern Ireland after about nine months, a memo came round to anyone resting becoming an air gunner, you know, so I thought, oh damn, I’d done nine months here, I said, we’d be doing nothing really, you know, I always part of the war, and haven’t had me done, somebody had to do it, so anyway, I volunteered and I was accepted for aircrew DK: Can you remember which year this would have been or HM: That would have been 194 DK: 3? HM: No, no, it was much later than that, was it ’43? That would be ’43, end of ‘43 DK: So, end of ’43, ‘44 HM: Yeah, [unclear] the end of ’43 or begin of ’44, was round that period, yes, we’re in 1944 DK: Right HM: 1944, I definitely went and as you went on to London in those days and in Lord’s Cricket Ground was the DK: The aircrew HM: The aircrew selection so I went to the selection there, passed that, no [unclear] I was accepted to become an air gunner, of course you had a severe medical to become an aircrew, you had to be perfect, you know, eyesight, hearing, you know, there was no, if you had the slightest thing wrong with you, you didn’t pass, so anyway I passed all the tests, then we got about seven jabs for various things in case we were sent abroad, all at once you know [unclear] and the lads were going bang! Bang! [mimics a banging noise] so the tallest fellows it seemed to affect them more than us little fellows, you know, and they, they were going down, flat all with all these jabs, I mean, obviously they came round after a few minutes but they knocked them all out [unclear] so they took them a day so for everybody to get settled in so when I went there we just did the usual sports activities and training you know, what you call it? Physics, physical fitness DK: Yep, yeah, [unclear] HM: We did a lot of that, so we were perfectly fit when we left there, funnily enough I was just, I was there three months and I can’t remember, I can’t imagine where, how I was there three months, took my time I suppose DK: And this was at Lord’s HM: And this was at Lord’s Cricket Ground DK: Yeah HM: At the Long Room, so I can always say I’ve been at Lord’s Cricket Ground and the Long Room as well. Of course, I know it’s this sort of side effect, but you met a lot of ladies or young girls and you had a good time with them, I mean, I reckon all the airmen would tell you that, DK: Yeah HM: We’ve all had flings with somebody, you know, I mean, [laughs] I don’t know if this is [unclear], I had a, I met a lovely young lady, and she wanted me, I found out that she was a Jewess, you know, well, I did, that part didn’t bother me at all, you know, I said, I’m only here for a couple of months I said whatever, we’ll have a nice time, take her to the pictures, dances, and what that, which I did and [unclear], me mom and dad would like to see ye, oh no, no, I’m not, no, I’m not, so I said, yeah, well, it’s very kind of them but I’d rather think I’m not ready for that yet, so that passed, that was a little bit of history, some of my family don’t know that, but she was a lovely girl and we got on well together, you know, was just DK: Well, it wasn’t the time to get serious then, was it? HM: It wasn’t the time to get serious anyway with anybody, I mean, you could’ve been here one day and [unclear] the next, but it’s not fair to anybody [unclear], anyway that’s fine so I passed all the examinations and then I went to training school, to train as air gunner, but this, sorry, I’ve got mixed up, I put Bridgnorth before, it should be after DK: Right, ok HM: Right? DK: Right, ok HM: [unclear] by Bridgnorth, kind of when we learned about air gunnery DK: Right, that was at Bridgnorth HM: That was at Bridgnorth Dk: Right, ok HM: We learned all about Bridgnorth, we didn’t do route marches there, was all air gunnery training DK: So, what, at Bridgnorth then, what sort of training as a gunner did you do then, was it all on the ground or? HM: Yes, just to refresh me memory, I went to Pembury for air gunnery training, DK: Right HM: First DK: Right HM: I’m trying to get where this is in, I should have me book out, then I go to Bridgnorth first, or did I go to Pembrey first? DK: That doesn’t matter, I mean, you obviously went to both, so, HM: I went, yes, I went to Pembrey, yes, I think that, I think Pembrey was the first thing DK: Right HM: Before that DK: So, it’s Pembrey then Bridgnorth HM: Yeah DK: Yeah HM: Eh. DK: So what was HM: This, when he came flying Bridgnorth, Pembrey could’ve been after Bridgnorth, that’s right, ah, that’s right, I learned all about air gunnery, on the ground DK: On the ground, so what did the training involve then? Did you have to get to know the wetland and [unclear] HM: You had to learn all about the Browning 303 guns and you didn’t have to bother about rifles but we did do rifling on a course, firing at targets, you know, our legs spread out and DK: Lying down HM: Lying down, yeah, everybody lying down and instructors behind you telling you what to do, so, that was part of the training, firing rifles, we also did clay pigeon DK: Right HM: Clay pigeon shooting as well DK: Is it something you took to? Were you quite? HM: Yeah, quite happy with, I quite enjoyed clay pigeon shooting but because I mostly hit them, I must have been ok for that, yeah, I quite enjoyed that training DK: So, was it deflection shooting then? HM: Yes, deflection, oh no, deflection came at Pembrey DK: Ah, right, ok. HM: So, Bridgnorth comes before Pembrey DK: Yeah HM: We went to Pembrey, that’s the thing DK: And that’s where you learned pigeon shooting HM: That’s where I learned all the, that’s where we were up in Ansons and that’s where we did our air gunnery training, and hit a towing target, you know, a plane would drag a tow and we would have to fire at the tow, which had sunny camera as well, as well as live shooting we did DK: So you had a trip in the Avro Anson then, would that’d been the first time you’ve flown? DK: That was the first I’d ever been in the air HM: Yes, this is the Anson one, this is, that’s, oh no, that’s Lossiemouth, that’s further on now, anyway, I did the, I did Pembrey training on Ansons, and that’s the first time I’ve been flying, DK: So, was the turret in the Anson HM: No, I can’t remember, there must have been a turret, DK: Right HM: There must have been a turret because we had been to fly, we had to fire at the drove DK: Right HM: And according to that, I had four percent so, that’s supposed to be good, DK: Four percent? HM: Supposed to be good, DK: Right HM: Out of a hundred rounds, yes, [unclear] DK: A hundred rounds, four hit and that was quite good HM: Yeah, pretty good, must have been, I passed. So, I did me Anson training down there and air gunnery and learning all about deflection DK: Yeah HM: Find the speed of your aircraft, find the speed of their aircraft, you find the width, the length and the distance between and fire a head of it, so many yards ahead so that the bullet was collided at the same time with the aircraft, hopefully, anyway I must admit when I hit, well, I did hit it a few times, so that’s gone down there so, so I passed out as an air gunner down in Anson, down in Pembrey on Ansons. From there I went to Lossiemouth DK: Right, so [unclear] the logbook HM: That’s where the logbook comes in DK: Can I have a look? HM: Yeah, have a look at there first. DK: So, it’s, I’ve got here, just for this, it’s number 1 AGS, is that HM: Yeah, 1 AGS DK: It’s that Air Gunnery School? HM: That’s Air Gunnery School DK: And that’s at Pembrey HM: Yeah, at Pembrey at that time DK: So, that’s on the Avro Ansons HM: Yeah. That’s on the Ansons. DK: That tells you here how many rounds you fired. Say, three hundred rounds? HM: Yeah DK: So, three hundred rounds score, for example thirty-one? HM: Thirty-one, yeah DK: Three hundred rounds splashed, so you were [unclear] into the sea HM: Yeah DK: Yeah HM: We had tiny cameras as well DK: The steady cameras, yeah. Oh I see, it actually says sindy cameras, isn’t it? HM: It says sindy camera, yeah DK: So, total flying then was twenty-four hours, fifteen minutes HM: Of training DK: Yeah, HM: Yeah DK: Training at Pembrey, so, HM: At Pembrey DK: So, the flights itself weren’t very long, were they? HM: Oh no DK: About thirty minutes, thirty, forty minutes HM: Yeah. No, the flights themselves weren’t very long, you were up DK: Can you remember how many of you were in the Anson? HM: There’d be about five of us, ex air gunners DK: And you’d all take it in turns HM: We’d all take it in turns DK: To shoot HM: Yeah DK: So, then it tells you how many rounds you fired HM: It tells how many rounds you fired there and if you were DK: How many hits? HM: There is one thing about all this training. If you failed on one subject, you were out DK: You were out, yeah HM: You didn’t get a second chance you know DK: So, it says here beam HM: Beams DK: Beam, 7.83 percent. And then Beam RS HM: Don’t remember what RS stands for DK: That’s 5.66 percent hits. And then quarter HM: Oh, that’s, ah, that’s if you draw [unclear], yeah, beam is stale across DK: Beam across, yeah and quarter is 3.24 percent HM: Yeah, it would be probably diving, and you’d have to follow it down DK: So the quarter then, total was four thousand eight hundred rounds so you [unclear] corner HM: In total DK: In total, in total HM: Oh yes, you done a lot of firing altogether but DK: And they were all with the Browning 303s HM: All with 303s DK: Yeah HM: Yeah DK: So, after Pembrey then, you’ve gone to Lossiemouth HM: I went to Lossiemouth DK: And that’s with 20 OTU, 20 Operational Training Unit HM: Yeah, Operational Training Unit DK: So, I’m just reading your logbook here, it’s just for the benefit of the recording, HM: Yeah DK: So, you went to Lossiemouth in September 1944 HM: Yeah DK: And you were training on Wellingtons HM: Wellingtons, yeah, lovely aircraft DK: So, what do you, you liked the Wellingtons HM: Lovely aircraft DK: Yeah HM: Yes, I liked the Wellington, was a really good, it seemed to be, what shall we say DK: Stable? HM: Very stable and, you know, it seemed you could do anything with it, and it would answer the call, whatever you wanted to do with it. You know, if you would tell the skipper to corkscrew, you know, DK: Yeah. So, they were very agile HM: Yeah, very agile aircraft, very manoeuvrable DK: Very manoeuvrable. HM: Manoeuvrable DK: So, when you were training on the Wellingtons then, did you go? You were training in the turrets, HM: Oh yes, we in the turrets, yeah DK: So, you were in the rear turret HM: Rear turret DK: The front turret? Or the rear turret? HM: I was never in the mid upper gunner DK: Right HM: I was always in the rear turret and I followed, you’re sort of on your own at the back, yeah, everybody else is in the front, and you are the full length of the aircraft at the other end, you felt on your own but you didn’t feel lonely, shall I say, you felt on your own but not lonely DK: So, by the time you got to 20 OTU, have you met up with your crew now then or kind of [unclear]? HM: That’s where you meet your crew DK: Right HM: All except the engineer DK: Right. HM: Yeah DK: And how did your crew come together then? HM: Well, you’re all sort of, shall I say, in a big room, and air gunners, you know, you’re only a little groups of navigators, air gunners and what, and then you sort of just wander about and you find this, well, you usually find the skipper and then sort of go round with him, having a chat with everybody and then see who liked to join us and you know, was, it wasn’t sort of you go there and you go there, you know, you had one and talked to everybody DK: Did you think that was a good idea that you kind of found your own crews, you weren’t ordered to? HM: Well, I think so because you thought, well, I could get on with that chap, and you know, if he’s willing to join us, well, what do you say? Well, they told their friend, so what do you think? DK: Cause it’s quite HM: [unclear] quite like him DK: It’s quite unusual, isn’t it, because normally in the military, in the RAF, you’re told where to go and do this, do this HM: [unclear] DK: But the crewing up was very much HM: Very much a disorganised organised DK: Yeah HM: You know, organised disorder, so they say DK: And can you remember the name of the pilot that you ended up with? HM: Oh yes, W. B. Holmes DK: W. B. Holmes HM: Yeah. Don’t ask me the names, I can tell you the, probably tell you the first name, the, he was called, W. B. Holmes, Basil, we called him Basil, anyway and we had a navigator who was called Jock, he was the bomb aimer, he was a Scot, he came from Scotland. Navigator, we had, he was from London, Ken, Ken, had another air gunner called, the mid upper gunner was called Colman, I forgot his name there, what was his name again? Oh! It’s gone, it’s gone over the head, he was one, he was the grandson of the mustard people, you know, Colman’s mustard DK: Oh, right, oh right, yeah HM: Was the grandson of the custard, people, the navigator was called Ken, he came from London. I’ve already given you the bomb aimer. Well, the flight DK: Flight engineer HM: Flight engineer, I don’t know if his name’s in the book DK: We’ll have a look in a minute HM: It might be DK: So you were always the rear gunner then HM: I was always the rear gunner, I operated in that position all the time, all the time I was at Lossiemouth DK: Cause I noticed towards the end of the time at Lossiemouth, your pilot all the time was Holmes, HM: Yeah, yeah DK: So, you’ve crewed up by this point. HM: Yeah, he’s DK: So, you had another, other pilots then by HM: We had another pilots but he was still with us on the pilot, the pilot was still with us every time, DK: Oh, ok. HM: The instructor would be with him DK: Oh, ok, so, you’ve crewed up and where it mentions another pilot, your pilot’s there but he is the instructor, HM: Yeah DK: Yes, I’ve [unclear] with you HM: He’s the instructor as well, you see. It was a nice aircraft, the Wellington, mine was very cold, and we had, fortunately we had heat suits, you know, but once I climbed from the rear turret into the middle over the spire and of course I didn’t have me, me heat on then, I mean, me feet were absolutely frozen, I couldn’t feel them, couldn’t move them, so the lads had to drag us over the top and to plug in to bring the circulus back and DK: So, did you have a heated suit then? HM: Oh yeah, I had a heated suit which just [unclear] various points of the aircraft because at fifteen thousand feet, you know, it’s very cold and you could feel it, I mean, as you know, we had silk, wool and silk underwear, as well as ordinary suit, the flying suit on top of that, we had plenty of [unclear], plenty of [unclear], as far as the heat was concerned, the temperature at fifteen is pretty low and I lost the use of my legs cause so cold, as soon as I plugged in warm, DK: Warmed up again HM: So, ok, no problem at all. So that was Lossiemouth, I spent quite, I think I told you DK: Yeah, you, it says here you were at Lossiemouth until the end of November 1944 HM: Yeah, about three months I think there DK: Yeah. And then, going on for the benefit of the recording here, you then gone to 1663 Heavy Conversion Unit HM: Heavy Conversion Unit, Rufforth DK: Rufforth HM: Just outside York DK: Right. So then, that’s March 1945, HM: Yeah DK: So that’s in Halifax IIIs? HM: Halifax IIIs. Yeah, that was a different one to that one there, that’s the two, DK: Yeah HM: Yeah, Halifax Mark IIIs. DK: So, what did you think of the Halifaxes then? HM: Well, I find them fine, they seemed to me to be a solid aircraft, you know, was heavily, was, apparently it was, the engine was underpowered, should’ve had stronger engines, they had the Merlins, Merlin engines but apparently was underpowered, the Halifaxes but also workhorse of the Air Force, no doubt about it DK: Cause the Halifax III had the Bristol Her, Bristol engines, didn’t they? HM: The DK: Bristol [unclear] HM: They had, they changed to Bristol engines, but the first ones, the Merlins were underpowered, DK: Underpowered, yeah HM: But I found it, the skipper seemed to like it, he, there is one thing about him he would let us have a go at flying it as well DK: Oh, right HM: Of course, I mean, he was here all the time, so he said, well, if anything happens to me, at least somebody will do, sort of take over and manage to get home sort of thing DK: So, how often did you take control then? HM: More or less every time we were up, just for a five minutes maybe, just get a go at it and feel DK: Really? HM: Feel it, you know, but nearly every time up, without the instructor DK: Yeah, without the instructor looking [laughs] HM: He wouldn’t let, but the skipper did, especially if we were on a long flight, DK: Yeah. Do you HM: Three hours up, three hours up to five I was DK: Do you think that might have given your pilot a bit of confidence, knowing that if something happened to him, somebody would step in? HM: Yeah. Well, I think that’s what he wanted us to do, I think that it gave him, as he was saying, probably gave him confidence if anything happened to him we could, at least one of us could probably manage to get us home sort of thing. But that’s where I finished, that’s where I finished me time, Rufforth. [unclear] I got to a squadron first, I got to a squadron after that but you [unclear] any about the squadron DK: Alright, ok, so at the Heavy Conversion Unit, that’s where the flight engineer would have joined you, wouldn’t HM: That’s where he joined, at [unclear], that’s the first time we’d met him DK: So you are now a crew of seven at that point HM: We’re a crew of seven at that point DK: Yeah HM: Yeah DK: Right, so that’s it for the logbook then HM: That’s it for the logbook, yeah. The reason for that was the war ended DK: Alright HM: We just got into Full Sutton, 77 Squadron, got booked in and had a chat there, got me leader, met everybody we had to meet and of course the war finished DK: Yeah HM: So, I never got on operations DK: Never got on operations HM: So, and then DK: So, after all that training HM: [laughs] after years training, DK: Yeah HM: You know, DK: So it says here, the last flight here is 4th of May 1945 HM: That’s it DK: As a rear gunner HM: And I trained, I started DK: Holmes’s again the pilot HM: Yeah DK: In the Halifax III HM: Yeah DK: So that’s just before you went to 77 Squadron at Full Sutton HM: Yeah, went to Full Sutton and they had Halifaxes of course, booked in and did everything we had to do, we stayed about a month I think, DK: Yeah, so HM: And then I got DK: The war’s ended HM: The war ended, so there was no use for air gunners DK: Yeah HM: So, then I got posted down to RAF Beaulieu. From Beaulieu, cause if you knew you moved through the rank of sergeant by then DK: Yeah HM: You know, when I was sergeant at Rufforth, well, I was sergeant at Lossiemouth. Then I transferred from there down to Beaulieu, A-F-E-E Squadron, which was Air Force Experimental Establishment, so they were expecting on, they were practicing jeeps, and dropping jeeps DK: Oh, right, ok, from HM: Parachuting jeeps DK: From Halifaxes again HM: No, no, from, what aircraft did they get there? I can’t remember what aircraft we had, was it the Dakota? Could’ve been a Dakota. DK: Yeah HM: But I, you see, I wasn’t flying then DK: Alright HM: I’ve been moved back to my MT, I was NCO in charge of the MT at Beaulieu, cause I was gone up the rank again, I was Flight Sergeant by then, DK: Looking back now, how do you feel that, after all that training, you didn’t do any operations? Do you feel that’s a good thing or? HM: Well DK: Relieved? HM: Oh, I didn’t, to be honest, I didn’t feel, I didn’t feel anything DK: No HM: I just felt I’d done all that work for nothing. I mean, of course they didn’t know when the war was going to end, DK: No HM: You know, they got no idea so I could well have been in operations DK: Was there any suggestion about you going to the Far East? HM: Never any [unclear], just, no, I was never at any time moved out of the UK, the only time I went was Northern Ireland, it’s as far as I got across the water, but, no, I never, they didn’t, I don’t know, it just didn’t seem to bother me at the time, I mean, you’re young, you know, you’re twenty years old so, and you don’t sort of care what happens, you just get on with life as it comes, DK: So how did you, after all these years, how do you look back at your time in the RAF then? Was it? HM: I enjoyed my time in the RAF DK: Yeah HM: In fact so much so I wanted to stay on DK: Right, so HM: I wanted it to become a career DK: Right HM: But DK: So you left in ’47. HM: So I left in ’47. I did five full years in the RAF, I went in April and I think I came out in April approximately anyway DK: And what was your career after that? HM: Well, I had to go back to civvy life and I mean, already most of the jobs had been taken up because I’d been out for two years, most of them had been out for forty five, you know, out of forty five alot, I still [unclear] went after that but for two years the jobs were getting filled up DK: Yeah HM: So DK: So, there’s few opportunities for you by now HM: There was fewer opportunities really, there was very little to pick on, so I had to go sort of, I did, I joined, a [unclear] worked as a [unclear] so he got me a job at the, [unclear] shop, was a big concern, [unclear] called it, he had about six shops spread over here and there and I used to drive the van there delivering the goods round the shop for customers you know and then from there, I didn’t like that job at all, well, I had, it was just to get money, really, you had to have something to live on, so from there I went to insurance, I did two years in insurance and then a job came up at Hoover Limited were applying for a man so I applied there and I got a job there and that was the best thing that I’ve done in my life, working for Hoover DK: So you were there a number of years then HM: I was there for, oh, ten years, something like that DK: You say you wanted to stay on in the Air Force. Did, was there a reason why? HM: The reason was why, my wife DK: Ah, ok [laughs] HM: She wanted a home DK: Right, ok HM: Cause I said, you know, I’m, I’d like to stay on but she said, well, I’m not very happy about that, so I said, well, fair right enough, fair enough, I’ll, I could have made a lovely career cause I’d been put forward to become an officer, you know and the squadron leader, I can see him now, engineering officer, I wonder whether actually he’d come and think of it because I was in the charge of the MT section and I had WAAFs as well and the young, the young WAAFs were devils, they’re always late in turning up for work, you know, [unclear] started at eight o’clock, there’s one in particular, [unclear], nice girl, always a half an hour late, you know, and I used to warn her, [unclear] if you keep going on like this, so I did fancy but I got kind of fed up, so I said, look, I’m going to show my authority in here instead of being nice to you all, I’m gonna be a sergeant, so I put her on a fizzer and I’ll tell you another one, I went, [unclear], report order and all so I saw the WAAF, Flight Lieutenant she was, had a word with her, you know, she was a nice girl, I said, you know, a WAAF, you see, putting on a WAAF in charge is different than putting a man in charge, when you want a man in charge, you stand beside him, DK: Right HM: If you put a WAAF on charge, you stand beside the officer, DK: Right HM: And she asks the other questions, you know, and the reason why I brought her [unclear] and of course there’s a WAAF sergeant with the girl so anyway she got seven days [unclear], I said, there you are, that’ll have to keep you, she said, well, I wasn’t going to go out anyway [laughs], oh well, that’s a good excuse, but I wasn’t that type of NCO, you know, I was very lenient with them, as long as they did their job I was quite happy, there’s only I got tired of them, not turn up with the others, which was like school, and that was another [unclear], the squadron leader and engineering officer who M T [unclear], he, I put one of the lads on a fizzer, he’d been abroad and he only had shoes, well he [unclear] so he had to wear boots you know, well, aircrew always wore shoes but ordinary airmen wore boots DK: Yeah HM: And he was an ordinary airman and he just had shoes on this day, officer happened to come along, Squadron Leader [unclear], can picture him, and he says, he came into the office and he says, Mercer, says, I saw an airman over there and he’s got shoes on, he’s not allowed to wear shoes, so I said, well, I’m sorry sir but that airman has just come from abroad and he hasn’t been issued with shoes, boots, never mind that, you’ve got to put him on a charge, so I put him on a charge, and then a flight lieutenant took the [unclear] that day to say I got this lad, this airman, what you’re here for, you know, oh, you’ve been wearing shoes, you’re not allowed to wear shoes. So he said he hadn’t any boots, he said, I haven’t any boots, he says, well, the [unclear] chaps in charge of the distribution of clothing DK: Yeah, HM: Yeah DK: The quartermaster HM: Well, sort of a quartermaster, yeah, airman in the forces DK: Yeah, yeah HM: Clothing whatever, anyway, he hadn’t boots to fit in so well, he said, that’s tough, he says, you should be wearing boots, he said, I had them before now, so I said, I’m sorry sir, you can’t charge him because this airman has just come from abroad and there’s no way if the stores, the main stores haven’t got boots in, there’s some over there the equipment, I’ll talk to the equipment officers DK: The equipment officer, yeah HM: So, he was just a flight lieutenant, so he said, righto, I’ll take you [unclear], discharged, so obviously phoned squadron leader [unclear] here, is Mercer there? oh yes, speaking sir, I want to see you, ok, so I went to see him, he said, you did the wrong thing, you know, I said, why, sir? He said, well, you got this airman off his charge, I said, well, I believe in equality as well and I’m right, right decisions to be made, sir, well, I says, this airman had no chance to get shoes, the boots, I said, all he could bare were shoes, at least he turned up properly DK: Yeah, yeah HM: Did his duties properly. Oh right, well, I’ll let you off this time, I says, ok, sir. Anyway, the next [unclear] rings me up again, I want a word with you, so I said, yeah, that’s fine. He said, let’s forget about that situation, he said, would you not like to join full time, and be make of your career, I said, to be quite honest, sir, I would love to, but you’d have to have two words with my wife if you wanted to get me here. So, you know, there’s a camaraderie in the Air Force as well, you can talk, at one I suppose I can talk [unclear] me, but I think the discipline is not quite so strict as the other forces, there’s a little bit of leniency, in my opinion, because it was the same on nearly every camp I went to, I used to get on well with all the officers and all the fellows around about, [unclear] a different atmosphere amongst the DK: Is it something you missed then over the years? HM: Yeah, I miss, I do, I miss the camaraderie as I would call it, the get togetherness, you know DK: Did you manage to stay in touch with any of your crew at all? HM: No, unfortunately we only had one get together, down in London in the Cumberland Hotel, and I never couldn’t get in touch with anybody anymore after that, nobody seemed to bother, you know, but we’d be together quite long to nearly a year nearly from the think of it, when you think of it DK: There’s a lot of training you went through together, wasn’t it? HM: A lot of training we went through together, many good nights we had together, and that, the last one the squadron leader I was talking about, the last engineering officer, one night I was finishing the last week actually and it was a terrific storm that night, he says, come on, we’ll have to go out and check all the aircraft, so I went round with him and all the time he says, [unclear] you could make a lovely career, he says, there’s good things ahead for you if you want to stay in, he says, I’ll speak for you, so, but he tried all that, all that night and it was a really horrible night, wind howling and we just checked the aircraft and then that was it but he was, he’d been in the Air Force a long time, he was engineer, squadron leader and he was engineering officer, and I got on very well with him and wanted him just things going through my head sometimes, we had to lift a huge pile about the height of this room round, out of a Nissen hut, you know, was the height of the Nissen hut, I think it was the dining section so it might have been a bigger hut, anyway it had to be lifted this boiler had to be lifted out DK: So it was a boiler you were lifting out HM: It was a boiler I was lifting out, one of these huge things and so I said, one of the drivers, he says, look, will you take the trawls crane, to lift this boiler up, for we want to get to disposal, oh, I can’t, I can’t do that, I say, yes, pushed an empty [unclear], yeah but, he said, but I have never lifted a boiler and I have never driven a trawls crane, says, some driver you are, so anyway, I couldn’t get any of them, anyone, I said, it’s slightly the worst thing, do it yourself if you want to do it, if you want don’t, do it yourself, so I had to, I had never drove a [unclear] crane to be quite truthful, so anyway I had a run, just did what I had to do and give it a few works to see how it lifted and dropped and I lifted it up, put it up, and the lad said, gave us a clap [laughs] after at first, I said, you lot should have been doing this, not me DK: So, can I just go back to something, I just noticed on here, 1663 Heavy Conversion Unit HM: Yeah DK: It says, you did twenty-eight hours twenty-four minutes daily and seven hours five minutes flying at night, so that was all training HM: That’s all training, yeah DK: So, what was the night-time flying like, was that hazardous or? HM: Well, it was hazardous in a way, because although the war had finished, you never knew if there was gonna be a stray around so you had to still keep on your guard, you know, I’d rather think you were so tensed really but you had to still keep your way as you were flying and we were flying right down to the coast, you know, the full length of England and just to the coast and back and [unclear] and the skipper says, we better turn back or they think we are going to drop a bomb on them and we were going over Bristol Channel, just around about that area, he says, the rear gunner, you can have test your guns here if you wish, I said, ok, so I prepared everything and had a few bursts, he said, I think, I think that’s enough, they might think we are firing at them and they will be firing back at us, yeah, these are just little things that, you know, people think, well you wouldn’t do, but you do DK: Cause some of these training flights they are quite long, are they? There is one here is three hours and three minutes HM: Three hours, yeah DK: And others are quite short, aren’t they? About forty minutes, fifteen minutes HM: Yeah, you’ll find the one, three hours and I think there’s one a bit longer than that DK: I got three twenty-five and three fifteen HM: Yeah DK: It looks like that HM: That’s when we went down the coast, right to the bottom and back DK: Ok then, I’ll probably stop you there, I think, that’s marvellous that is HM: Yeah DK: Thanks very much for your time HM: Yeah, well DK: I’ll stop that now HM: We did our work and I never used it DK: Yeah HM: You know, we put a lot of time and thought into it, sort of thing DK: So, you put a lot of time and effort into the training and then never did any operations HM: No, we never did the finishing work, but I enjoyed me time in the Air Force anyway, you know, the five years that I had, I’ve got, you know, some nice memories DK: Memories, yeah HM: Memories of it DK: Yeah HM: And that’s as you say, the only thing that I didn’t do an operation [unclear] after training, you know, but DK: [unclear] HM: That’s a luck of the draw, DK: Yeah 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 Harold Mercer 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 2017-05-19 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AMercerH170519, PMercerH1701 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 01:14:52 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Royal Air Force. Balloon Command Description An account of the resource Harold Mercer worked as a milkman before being called up in April 1942. He served in the RAF, initially as a transport driver and then trained to become an air gunner. He was sent to RAF Weston-super-Mare, where he played in the military band, before being sent to RAF Blackpool to train as a transport driver. From there he was sent to RAF Bridgnorth for general training. Harold was then posted to 901 Squadron on barrage balloons at RAF Kidbrooke, London where, as a transport driver, he supplied balloon sites with food and equipment. He was then posted to RAF Eglinton, Northern Ireland at 5019 Squadron, where he drove a flight lieutenant to various airfields and maintenance sites. Subsequently, he was sent to train as an air gunner and flew on Ansons at RAF Pembrey and on Wellingtons at RAF Lossiemouth. Harold was then posted to 1663 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Rufforth on Halifax Mark IIIs and from there to 77 Squadron at RAF Full Sutton. By that time, war had ended and so he went on operations. He was then posted to RAF Beaulieu to the Air Force Experimental Establishment. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Peter Schulze Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--London England--Shropshire England--Yorkshire Northern Ireland Scotland--Moray Wales--Carmarthenshire Great Britain Great Britain Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942 1944 1945 1663 HCU 20 OTU 77 Squadron air gunner aircrew Anson entertainment ground personnel Halifax Halifax Mk 3 Heavy Conversion Unit Operational Training Unit RAF Bridgnorth RAF Full Sutton RAF Lossiemouth RAF Pembrey RAF Rufforth RAF Weston-super-Mare service vehicle training Wellington Women’s Auxiliary Air Force https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/277/7906/AIronsH150723.1.mp3 113b2cff64ef934152b89828f1ea404f https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/277/7906/PIronsH1501.2.jpg 62e8999adc6227a8e1dcf9d08e401fbc 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 Irons, Harry Harry Irons H Irons Description An account of the resource Two oral history interviews with Harry Irons (1924 - 2018). He was an apprentice tailor in London, but lied about his age and joined the RAF aged 16. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 158, 462 and 9 Squadrons. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-07-23 2016-07-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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 Irons, H Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document AM: Okay so, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Annie Moodie and the interviewee is Harry Irons. The interview’s taking place at a hotel near Kings Lynn and we’re here for the 9 Squadron Association hundred year dinner. HI: Yeah that’s right, yeah. AM: And it’s the 23rd of July 2015. So, off you go Harry. Tell us – HI: Er, actually I won a scholarship to go to a grammar school, but my father insisted that I left school at fourteen so I could go to work and earn a wage. So, being in the east end the only jobs you could get was either tailoring or cabinet making. There was a whole area that’s – it was a big Jewish area and the, most of the people were either tailors or cabinet makers, and they were good, very good, brilliant craftsmen. So I took a job on as a trainee tailor and I was doing that for two years until I was sixteen, nearly sixteen, and we lived in an area of London called Stamford Hill and one evening we, me and a few other chaps were on the hill, and we see the huge blitz on London, and we actually see the whole of the City of London literally ablaze. Enormous, as far as your eye could see was buildings all, all ablaze, that was the City of London. Actually, they weren’t after the City of London, what they was after was the Docks, and they just, their bombing, what we used to call creeping, crept back from the Docks into the City of London and once it hit the City of London course everything went up in flames so, two or three friends said ‘we’ll, we’re gonna join up.’ I was sixteen at the time, so we went up the recruiting office in Kings Cross, London, and I told ‘em I was seventeen and a quarter, how they believed me I don’t know but they said ‘alright you’re in,’ and that was at the end of 1941, and I was called up in January 1941 [unclear]. The blaze was – the bombing was in 1940 and we joined, we joined up at the end of 1940, and 1941 they called me up and I went to a place near where it was called Bridgnorth then six weeks square bashing [?] there and they said ‘you’ll have to wait to sele’ – they asked me what I wanted to be in the air force, I said ‘I wanna fly,’ they said ‘alright, we’ll put you down for either a pilot, navigator or an air gunner and we’ll sort that out later on.’ Anyway, I went to Bridgnorth, done my six weeks training, and they sent me to a RAF station, Wisbech in Cambridge and I had to do menial jobs there, in the cook house, in the stores, waiting for, to go on a course. In the mean while they told me I was gonna become a wireless operator air gunner, and I’ve got to wait for a course to come up, a vacancy for the course to come up, so I stayed at Wisbech ‘til August ’41, and then they posted me to Blackpool on a wireless course and everybody in the RAF went to Blackpool to do their wireless course, and you had to stay in a, all the border houses were commandeered, and all the aircrew used to live in these border houses and the thing was when you’re at Blackpool you got up to twelve words a minute which we all did, and then from there you’re posted to another sta, er, air force station to continue your study ‘til you become up to eighteen words a minute – AM: When you say eighteen words a minute, doing what? HI: Morse code. AM: Morse code right, okay. HI: Yeah, dit dah dit dah dit dah dit. Anyway, we was all queuing up to wait for postings and the sergeant came out just like that he said ‘you lot, over that side. You lot, that side,’ and fortunately or unfortunately I was in that lot on that side and we become airgunners. Not wireless operators, airgunners. Just airgunners. And the reason for that, I didn’t know at the time, was the heavy bombers, the Lancasters, were going on production, and there was, they were short of airgunners, because they had to carry another air gunner so they said ‘you lot over there, you become airgunners,’ and I went back to Wisbech – I was a bit cheesed off about it all anyway, couldn’t do much about it, and I waited another couple of months and then they sent me on a gunnery course, a place called Manby [emphasis] in Lincoln, it’s a big air force gunnery school there, and we done six weeks training there as gunners, gunnery, and I got the huge total flying hours of nineteen hours, that’s all I got, and they said – and from there you’re supposed to do a four month, five month operational training course, that’s getting accustomed to actually doing bombing raids on enemy territory. But then whatever happened they said to me ‘you’re being posted straight on a squadron’ and I tell you what, I was a greener than this. AM: [Laughs] we’re sat on a green settee, for the record. HI: Yeah, yeah. It was as green, I was as green as anything then. ‘Cause I got nineteen hours and I didn’t know what to expect. Anyway, I was posted to Waddington [emphasis] to Number 9 Squadron. And when I arrived there, as it was luck [exhale of breath] was in my favour because a flight lieutenant named Stubbs came up to me and said ‘you’re gonna fly with me as a mid-upper’ and I said ‘fair enough.’ They’d already, he was already on his second tour, he’d already done thirteen trips on Wellingtons [emphasis]. AM: So you didn’t do the usual crewing up thing? HI: Never done anything like that, no. AM: You just – HI: No, no they just sent about ten of us to 9 Squadron, ‘cause I was just converting from Wellingtons onto Lancasters, and consequently they was one gunner short because the Lancaster carried a mid-upper. So he said to me, anyhow I didn’t know what it was all about actually, he said to me ‘the rear gunner I’ve got at the moment is a big Australian,’ he was about six foot three [unclear] ‘and he’s too tall for the turret’ he said ‘what we’re gonna do is you’re gonna do your first trip in the mid-upper and after that you’ll go in the rear turret, and the Australian will go’ –‘cause in the mid-upper you can pull your legs down, straighten you know, you’ve got plenty of room, so what we done then, we done – as time’s gone on, this was 1942, round about June 1942 and we started getting to used, well the crew getting used to flying a Wellington twin engine bomber onto a four engine bomber. And that, you use what they call conversion, and that’s pretty difficult ‘cause you learn how to fly an entirely different aircraft, land it, you got to find out all the different things, the different systems and the turrets, anyway we done about six weeks training, well not, training it was, well converting from the one engine to the Lancaster, and then September ’42 we was in a crew, we had a big crew and we used to lay and loll about smoking, swearing everything else [laughs] anyway, they said ‘ops tonight.’ So, before you went on operations you done what they call a night flying test [emphasis], you took the aircraft up, you tested the bomb site, you tested the, the bomb bays open and closing, you tested the turrets and you give a, you went outta sea and give the guns a little squirt, see everything was alright, the compass [emphasis], check the compass and the, the under carriage we’d dropped up and down a couple of time to make sure it was alright, and we landed, and as we landed, the bomb aimer had already done thirteen trips on Wellingtons, and this is vivid, and as we’d come out of the steps of the Lancaster, the bomb aimer’s behind me, and coming along the road was tractor carrying a four thousand pound bomb, and fourteen hundred incendiaries, and the bomb aimer said to me ‘oh, we’re going to Happy Valley tonight.’ He said ‘by that bomb load, we’re definitely going to Happy Valley,’ and I thought ‘well that don’t sound too bad, Happy Valley,’ I thought ‘well Happy Valley, that can’t be too bad,’ I didn’t know that that was a nickname for the Ruhr Valley. The whole of the Ruhr Valley was called Happy Valley, and I didn’t realise at the time but the Happy Valley, the Ruhr Valley, as you went in you got a brilliant [emphasis] reception and a better, a, what you say, a bye-bye on the way out, and I tell you what, right I’ll go on, anyway we – it was always ritual, always [emphasis] for bomber crews to have bacon and eggs before they went on ops, always. Didn’t matter where you were, all the time I was in the air force, I done sixty bombing trips, and every time we went on a bombing trip we got bacon and eggs [emphasis] and if we come back we got bacon and eggs. And that was a luxury in those, in wartime, and then of course the joke was, always the joke ‘if you don’t come back, can I have your bacon and eggs?’ you know. Anyway, we went to the, we got – there was a bit of a rigmarole getting ready, you had to, you had to have your bacon and eggs and you go down to – most, most aircrew wrote a last letter, most of ‘em. I think the majority of aircrew wrote a last letter home to their wives, and they used to put them on the bed, and I’m afraid to say, I seen many, many, many letters being collected by the padre, many, that’s why I never wrote one myself. Anyway, we had our food, our bacon and eggs, we were all laughing and joking, you know we were young blokes, and we went to the crew, to the briefing room and we all sat down to see who would come in, and the map [emphasis] had a huge sheet over it, and the CO always, always done it, come in, whipped the sheet off and there was the target. So the bomb aimer said to me ‘I told you.’ It was Dusseldorf, he said ‘there you are,’ he said ‘I knew we were going there’ he said, ‘we’re going to Happy Valley,’ and I still didn’t twig on, ‘oh well, that don’t sound too bad,’ thinking of German girls tryna start [?] kisses you know what I mean. Anyway, we went down to the crew room and the atmosphere changed completely [emphasis]. We went in the crew room and the whole squadron was in the crew room ‘cause we had cabinets for all our flying gear and used to get dressed in there, and as I walked in, all the crews were there, it was dead silence, and everybody was looking at each other, there was no jokes, no laughing, nothing. And there was simply a – the atmosphere was incredible [emphasis] to what it was in the mess having our egg and bacon. Anyway, we got dressed and it was – airgunners dressing was long underpants, pure silk, and a vest that was silk and then your shirt and then your pullover, and then a, over the shirt you put a, I think it was, no, before you put the shirt on, as we put the shirt on we put an electrical heated suit with gloves and electrical heated gloves and body and feet, which was really, really important. And over that we put our uniform ‘cause you had to wear a uniform, if you never wore a uniform, I never realised but at night if you’ve was parachuted out in civilian clothes you was likely to get executed, which many, quite a few boys did get executed, especially by the civilians. And over that we used to put a huge [emphasis] fur jacket and fur trousers, fur lined boots, and there we were – AM: Fur trousers? HI: Fur trousers, yeah [murmur from AM]. You know, thick, made of the same material as your jacket. Irvin jacket, you had Irvin trousers, thick Irvin trousers and they used to tuck them inside your boot, zip your boots up and there, you could hardly move by then, but – and I’ll tell you what, on a warm day you was walking out you was absolutely sweating [emphasis, laughs]. Anyway, we went out to the aircraft and everybody smoked, everybody smoked [emphasis] except the skipper, the skipper didn’t smoke, he never drunk, never went out with women, he was absolutely – they said in the officers mess that they couldn’t understand the man, he wouldn’t, he never swore, he never smoked. Anyway, he – a good pilot mind you. Anyway, we got in the aircraft and I was in the mid-upper, first time. And in the mid-upper turret of the Lancaster, I’ve got a picture of it, you had a fantastic [emphasis] view – AM: Hmm, all round. HI: All three hundred and eighty degree. You could see everything [emphasis]and I got in the mid-upper, and I never got, I was still raw, we done, only done six weeks training, and I plugged in the electricity for the heater ‘cause if we, even in the mid-upper the temperature was about forty-five, fifty below zero. Worse still in the turret, rear turret. Anyway, we got ready and then the crew room, nobody was talking, it was like that, nobody spoke, and off we went. We took off at Waddington, and the thing was at Waddington they had no runways at that time. There were two squadrons of Lancasters there and no runway. All we had was grass, and in the winter it was very, very difficult with full bomb loads to takeoff. Before that, when we arrived at Waddington there was a squadron there, 44 Squadron, a Rhodesian squadron, and apparently they was the first squadron in the RAF to be equipped with the Lancaster, in March, April, round about April. And what they’d done, they’d decided to do a daylight raid, a low level daylight raid on a town called Augsburg in Germany. They sent six Lancasters flying at zero feet right across France, right into Germany – AM: At zero [emphasis] feet? HI: Zero feet, I mean zero – well when I say zero feet, about half of these buildings. AM: Right okay. HI: Can you imagine six Lancasters – AM: No [laughs] – HI: At that height over, just ducking over the trees, going as low as low as they could, else they would have invade [?] the radar. AM: Right. HI: Anyway, what happened – unfortunately there was squadron of Messerschmitts flying, I don’t know if it was practicing or flying, and of course they see these six Lancasters, and they immediately they shot down five [noise of shock from AM]. So outta the six they sent, one come back badly, badly damaged, and his name was Nevillson [name unclear] and he got the VC. The other five that was shot down got nothing [emphasis] so, he was fortunate, he was leading the squadron from the front and they gradually cut the other five down and he managed to avoid and managed to get back badly damaged. So, I’m just telling you that because it deal with another operation I went on. Anyway, we all got ready to takeoff, and everything was quiet in the – nobody spoke, when we was on ops, very rarely we spoke. The only time we spoke is when we was being attacked, when the navigator was giving instructions to the pilot, or the bomb aimer or me or the mid-upper or the rear gunner could see something downstairs they could identify and then inform the navigator what we see, and that helped him to crack the course. ‘Cause in those days, 1942, we had no radar. We had what they called Gee-box up to the coast and once we hit the coast the Germans blocked it, so it was from then onwards it was the navigator used to have to go from one spot to another spot, estimate the time of arrival at the other spot before he made a correction to the course, and of course things improved later on in ’43, and the gunners helped a lot because they could, especially the rear gunner could see, or the mid-upper could see different – AM: Rivers, train lines and stuff like that. HI: -- objects, yeah. And sometimes that wasn’t possible, there’d be ten-Thames [?] cloud. And then navigation become very, very difficult. And don’t forget we didn’t have no radar help whatsoever, but we managed and we flew over, as we took off we flew over the Dutch coast and the bomb aimer, he used to lay pronged in the nose [very unsure about what was said here], he said ‘skipper, enemy air coast [?] ahead, flak, flak.’ Always gunfire was called flak [emphasis]. So I looked down and I see all these beautiful, indescribable [?] lights, every colour, reds, blues, greens, there all tracers [?] from what they call night flak. They went up to about eight or nine thousand feet and then it dropped down again. And that’s when flak – AM: And how high were you at that point? HI: We was about twelve thousand feet. So when I looked down from mid-upper and I see that flak below us and I thought to myself ‘if that’s flak, we’ve got nothing at all to worry about.’ So we flew over Holland, don’t forget this was the early phase of bombing. Before that the bombing was nothing ‘cause they had obsolete bombing, bombing aircraft and no idea whether they reached the target. It was only in beginning, half way through 1942 they was giving the apparatus so they didn’t really find the target. Anyway, you crossed the Dutch coast and I’m in the mid-upper, spinning it round, and for about, I should imagine it was about hour, hour and a quarter, then the bomb aimer said ‘target ahead skipper.’ So then I thought to myself ‘well I’ll have a look to see what this target is all about,’ and I swung the turret around and I had really [emphasis], really the shock of my life. In front of us, with no exaggeration, was one solid massive explosion of shells. Absolute whole area was full up of high explosive shell fire, and we gotta fly through that. And searchlights were creeping about, and they had one searchlight which was radar operated and it was a different colour, it was blue, very light blue. And that was a searchlight, never missed. It went up bang, like that, straight onto an aircraft. It was radar controlled [coughs] excuse me [pause to drink] so when I see this huge massive explosion ‘cause I had a beautiful view, so I thought to myself ‘cor blimey, surely we haven’t gotta go through all this.’ And I could hear it, and the plane was bumping up and down from the force of the explosions and the skipper said to me ‘mid-upper, keep an eye above you, because bombers above you will drop their bombs on you’ which happened many times. So I said ‘okay skipper,’ and – we called the pilot skipper, always called him a skipper. Doesn’t matter what rank he was, always a skipper. Anyway, we, I started looking up and there right above us was a Lanc, bomb bay open, ‘cause you know the bomb bays were enormous, I says ‘there’s a bomber above us skipper with his bomb bay open, dive port.’ We dived port, good job we did because he was ready to drop his load, so we slammed our bomb bay shut, because we was on a run as well and, and the bomb aimer said ‘we’ll have to make a correction on our way into the target.’ You must realise that all around us these huge [emphasis] explosions of shells, I’m telling you not few, hundreds [emphasis] of ‘em exploding into the sky. Anyway, as we were flying in, the skipper said ‘skipper, I’ve lost the target point,’ he said ‘we’ll have to round again.’ And I just told you, the skipper never swore. I’ll tell you what [laughs] he said to the bomb aimer ‘you are a silly chap’ [laughs]. There was a few more words. So we slammed the bomb bay shut, went right through that target, went all through that explosions and the plane was rocking about, could hear shrapnel hitting the bloody machine, in our machine, and we went round and we do a dogleg. We approached the target like that, and then we go like that, like that, in again. But you had to be very, very careful ‘cause when you left the target and you was gonna come in again, you was coming across the last of the bombers that was going in. And it was very, very, very dangerous. Anyway, when we went round, and by that time the German radar was on us and it was giving us a real, real shellacking [?] I’ll tell you. Anyway, we made our run round, opened the bomb bay, dropped our bombs, slammed the door, slammed the door shut and what we usually do then, you couldn’t – slammed the doors shut but you couldn’t get away, you had to stay straight and level for another forty seconds because the camera was turning around and at the same time you was dropping what they called a photo-flash [?]. That was in the fuselage. And as the photo-flash dropped down, the cameras turning over, and they took a picture, an actual picture, of you bombing the target, which was very, very important because if you didn’t bring back a picture the intelligence officers said to you ‘well it’s your word against mine that you went there,’ even if the aircraft was full of bloody holes, they still say ‘we don’t believe you,’ well, ‘not saying we don’t believe you but you’ve got no proof that you went to the target so it don’t count, so you can go all that way there and back for nothing,’ which happened several times. Anyway, we slammed the bomb bay down, we made a dived [emphasis] to the port, turned round and come back and that’s when your trouble started, the fighters. But that time they wasn’t so dangerous as what they were to be. They, we used to see the fighters flying about and straight away, I don’t know if it was instinct or not, when I see a fighter, I wouldn’t fire on him unless he was interfering with us, I let him go, because generally you’d find on a fighter he had huge [emphasis] canons and you had no chance, I tell you, you had no chance whatsoever. AM: So you’re just causing trouble for yourself really – HI: Yeah because they could stand off from two, three hundred yards and you couldn’t do nothing about it, ‘cause your 303 went about a hundred yards and started dropping what they called a gravity drop. They had canons and he could rake you [?] which happened a couple of times. Anyway, we slammed the bomb bay shut, and we started coming back, and the bomb aimer said to the skipper and the navigator, ‘skipper, we can’t breathe. We’ve got no oxygen.’ And what had happened, the shrapnel had cut through the oxygen lines, so the skipper said ‘alright, so what we have to do is dive down below ten thousand feet,’ which we did do, and coming home in the mid-upper I thought to myself, ‘if this is bloody Happy Valley, I hope we don’t go anywhere that’s miserable’[laughs]. And I’ll tell you what, it’s a terrible, terrible place. Anyway we got down to – we crossed the Dutch coast at about four thousand feet, and these beautiful lights we see were flashing past us like that, all over, and lucky enough we managed to get through a few bangs and we were damaged but not that bad. And we dropped down about two thousand feet and we headed home, and I thought to myself ‘dear oh dear, I got thirty of these, thirty trips to do like that before we get a rest.’ And we landed, and I was exhausted. Even at that age, at seventeen, I was exhausted. And we went into the briefing room and I stood there and we was asked a load of questions, and they said to me, it was only my first trip, they said to me ‘what do you think?’ And I said ‘I see four or five bombers exploding in the sky,’ I said ‘apart from that everything was alright.’ He said ‘you never seen no bombers’ – this was the officer, the briefing officer telling me that, he wasn’t even a flyer. He’s saying ‘you didn’t see no bombers blowing up, that was scarecrows.’ What the Germans were firing up shells to mimic a bomber exploding, and they kept this up right the way through the war. AM: So it was true, you hadn’t, you’d seen the scarecrows, not a bomber blowing up. HI: No, no they were actually aircraft blowing up in the sky. They did admit after the war there was no such thing as a scarecrow. AM: Ah right. HI: They admitted it, the Air Ministry, but they kept it a – AM: So why did they say that? HI: Well they – one of the reasons was they didn’t want us to duck and dive about. They wanted us to fly straight and level, ‘cause it was dangerous anyway, ducking and diving. But every time we went back we say we seen three or four, sometimes more than that, explosions, literally exploding in the sky. They said ‘no, that’s German scarecrows to demoralise you.’ Anyway, we got back and in the briefing room he said, he told me about the scarecrows so I thought ‘oh well, that’s it.’ Anyway, I didn’t know how exhausted I was, it was only a four and three-quarter hour trip. I went to bed and I felt absolutely exhausted. And I think the mental strain of the first trip. Anyway, we went back to the mess, we went to bed, and I think next morning we had a day off. The following day I think we went to Bremen, and the reason why went to Bremen, or Bremen [different pronunciation, shorter vowel sound] as they called it, they was building the submarines, the U-Boats there. AM: Right. HI: And we went across the Baltic that time. We didn’t see no flak until we hit Bremen, and the flak was unbelievable. It was worse than Dusseldorf. AM: Were you in the rear gunner at this – HI: I was in the rear turret, yeah. AM: So you’d moved to the rear turret by this time? HI: Yeah. And different position and the different visibility of the – when you’re in the rear turret you can see that way, see the bits you couldn’t see really above you or at the side of you – AM: Or behind you. HI: And at that time, the Germans were only attacking from dead astern, port over or starboard over . That was the method of attacking at that time [emphasis], things were getting much, much worse, but they had a little bit of a chance because if they come in close you had four guns here and you could – you had a bit of a chance, not a lot, but you had a bit of a chance. Anyway, I think it was after that trip, couple of trips, I complained to the engineering officer that the rear turret, that the oil for the Merlin engines was coating the Perspex in the rear turret, which obviously, the exhaust was coming out. So we was sitting in the crew room, the officer come in, he said ‘we solved the problem of the oil on the turrets,’ and I thought ‘well that’s good’ ‘cause after about two hours this oil used to go onto the Perspex, it was starting to be difficult to see outta it, and when we went out there [chuckles] what they had done, they had taken the whole Perspex out [chuckles]. So there we were in a rear turret with no bloody Perspex, and I tell you what, it was cold [emphasis]. AM: How did that – what so nothing between you – HI: No, just – they took the whole of the front of the Perspex out. We used to look through, they took out because the oil. AM: So it was just you [emphasis] and sky – HI: Yeah, yeah. AM: Nothing between you? HI: No, no. Well the Perspex only stopped the slipstream but they took the Perspex out. Yeah, on all the Lancs, but they solved the problem [laughs]. Anyway, we – AM: But the oil would just hit you in the face instead. HI: Yeah, but it was, it wasn’t so bad because you could just wipe it with your glove with it [AM laughs]. But, we got rid of the – it wasn’t such a huge amount but it was enough oil to stop, to obscure your sight a bit, you know. And you had to be really, really on your toes all that time you was in that turret. It was bitterly cold in there, forty-five, fifty below zero, was nothing. AM: Did you ever have an occasion when your suit didn’t work, or? HI: Yes sometimes it, it didn’t work a couple of times. I burnt me foot ‘cause it was a new, new idea you know, they’d, after the war they made electric blankets [AM laughs] that was only through the electrical heated suits and it’s the short shirts – it’s like everything in the war, everything was crash, bang, wallop, get ready , but every gunner was issued with an electrical heated suit, and they were good when they worked. So I’d done my first op, and I thought I was proud of myself, but I had other twenty-nine to do. I mean, twenty-nine successful [emphasis] ones, so you can, you can go all the way there, and you get, you get engine trouble and you gotta come back, that don’t count. Even in respect of what you’ve gone through, it didn’t count. AM: You had to drop your bombs on the target for it to count. HI: Yeah, the gunner target, yeah. You see, what actually happened, I think at the beginning of the war, the few of them used to go to North Sea, drop their bombs and come back and say yeah they’ve, they’ve, and they – ‘cause they realised Germany wasn’t being bombed really, it was a, the most that we got to was five miles from the towns [?] so what they decide to put the camera in, and the photo-flash. And that stopped it all, ‘cause you had to bring back a picture. The first thing they asked for when you walked in, ‘have you got your picture?’ It was the first thing – [unclear] you’d land on the aircraft, there was a [unclear] photography unit come out and take the film out, and there’d be developed or they used to take it back to the crew, the, where we was being briefed, and they could see if we bombed the target or not. Anyway, so we went to Bremen, we gained a good shellacking [?] and we done a bit of damage there, and we come back, and I was blowing my chest out, I’d done two trips [laughs]. The following, following day, er day after that, we went to Wilhelmshaven, and that was worse. That’s where I was really in full, full strength of building submarines there, and we did – it was devastating the bombing we done there, it was very successful, they held up the submarine building for a long while, and then I’d done, I’d done three trips, and I was, you know, thinking to myself, well – AM: Were you scared? HI: Frightened outta my bloody life. The first one, I told you, that first one, Dusseldorf, I could not believe, I could not [emphasis] but everyone was the same – AM: Did you talk about it? HI: No, no we never talked about it, no. I’ll tell you one thing, we used to get crews coming straight from OTU into the squadron, ‘cause their losses were horrendous you know, we was losing so many aircraft, and they’d say ‘what’s the ops like?’ and we’d always used to say ‘you find out, you find out yourself.’ We never said ‘oh it’s terrible over there’ or nothing, never. And I don’t know if that helped them or not, but a lot of the crews only done one trip before they got shot down, hell of a lot of ‘em. Just one – in fact, what they used to do when a crew come from OTU, they used to let the pilot fly with an experienced crew on his first trip, so he’d understand what an actual raid was. Very often he never come back off his first trip, it happened time and time again. The crew used to be walking about the station with no, waiting for a new pilot. Yeah, happened many times. Anyway, after Wilhelmshaven we went back to Happy Valley again, and this time, I tell you what, I thought Dusseldorf was bad, we went to Essen [emphasis] and Essen was something out of this [noise of disbelief] something outta, I tell you what, it was absolutely ferocious. The flak was enormous, everywhere you look there was shells bursting, aircraft blowing up in the sky, aircraft going down in flames, and I had something with me because we just went through – we always got hit, always got hit with flak, big holes in the aircraft, but when we got back they used to bang ‘em and tap ‘em back and – AM: Bodge [?] ‘em up. HI: Yeah, that’s it [chuckles]. Anyway, we went to Essen, then we went to Munich, and I’ll tell you how my luck is, what happened, losses at Waddington on 9 Squadron, even those few weeks I was there, was horrendous. So they sent two scientists down from Cambridge with a new device to put into the rear turret so that when a fighter was five or six hundred yards away, which we couldn’t see, they could see us on their radar, this instrument was radar. It could pick up the fighter and warn us with a red light that there was a fighter in the close vicinity. Unfortunately the first time the squadron was equipped with them, we lost two aircraft and the Germans must have sorted the, must have examined the wreckage and seen this device in the rear turret and copied [unclear] a wavelength or whatever it was, anyway we went to Munich and that was a long trip, that was about eight and a half hours and we went over, and how the navigator found Munich I’ll never know ‘cause we went over in ten-tenths cloud, that means to say underneath you was solid cloud, but he found Munich as – before we reached Munich the cloud broke and there was Munich and we did, we did give it real good hiding. AM: Is this day time or night? HI: It’s night time – AM: It’s night time isn’t it? HI: Never, never done daylight. AM: But you could still see it, so how come you could see it at night time? HI: We could see it yeah because the – a couple of people had been bombing it and the searchlights – AM: Right. HI: And you could see the town anyway. You – but that’s why bombing – they, they said ‘well why did you bomb areas’ – the only way you can do night bombing was to, at that time was area bombing and in that area you probably got a load of factories you could destroy, but you couldn’t pick out – it was very, very difficult to pick out an individual target so you had to bomb an area, they used to pick an area out. This was before pathfinding [murmured agreement from AM] so we used to drop flares ourselves, we dropped a few flares as we was going in, or people before us would drop a few flares, and you’d sit and the bomb aimer would see the target. AM: Who dropped the flares, the bomb aimer? HI: The bomb aimer, yeah. Someone on the squadron [very unclear what was said here] would drop a few flares and then down they went, but that was the beginning, when we really first started bombing Germany, before that it was a joke. Anyway, we bombed Munich and we made a good frame [?] on it actually, and coming back the skipper said ‘I think we’ll fly through cloud’ because the fighter activity, we could see the fighter flares, and so he said ‘if we go through cloud we won’t meet any fighters,’ which we did do, so we was flying for about an hour in the cloud and all of a sudden the cloud broke clear, and believe it or not, right by my rear turret, as I looked outta my rear turret was a Ju-88. I tell you what he was no more than thirty yards [emphasis] behind us. And he opened fire with his cannons and the tracer went just above the aircraft, just missed us. The reason was that he was so close and we was up and down like that and I suppose as we went down he fired and he missed us. Anyway, we opened fire, me in the rear turret and the mid-upper ‘cause he was right close to us, and down he went, he spun over and down he went. AM: So you got him? HI: Yeah we got him, yeah. AM: Which one of you got him, do you know? HI: We don’t know, I think – AM: Both of you? HI: We both opened fire on him, and he was more surprised than what we were, he never expected it, and down he went. Lucky enough because usually once the night fighter got on your tail, it was very, very difficult. Anyway we, when we got back we told the intelligence officer that this night fighter had followed us through ten-tenths cloud for an hour ‘till the cloud broke. So they put two and two together and realised the apparatus they’d put in the turret was sending out a ray for the Germans to pick up and that’s what he was following us on. So what – immediately they took the radar thing out of the turret and I don’t know if it made any difference or not. After that we were talking and laughing about it and they said ‘you gonna do some low level formation flying in daylight,’ so we thought ‘well surely we’re not gonna have another daylight raid after the huge loss to 44 Squadron,’ and I mean we never even considered [emphasis] that they would do anymore daylight raids. So anyway, we done this practice formation, well it’s not formation flying – at that time there was over ninety Lancs in 5 Group, and there was ninety of us flying over Lincoln, around this area, right on the ground, well I don’t mean on the ground, as high as these buildings. Everyone was moaning down below because can you imagine ninety Lancasters flying about thirty or forty feet and they said ‘you’re gonna have to cut the squadron of Spitfires doing damning runs [?] on you.’ So I’m sitting in my turret, and the Spitfires come straight for me, and he was so close our slipstream hit his, hit his wings, and he turned like that, and being so low, he couldn’t, he couldn’t get outta the dive and he went straight in the deck. And I was ‘that don’t sound too bad, that’s gonna happen.’ Anyway – AM: What happened to him? Crashed? Killed? HI: Crashed, just crashed yeah. And when I looked along the road there was about three or four Spits on the deck, burning [emphasis] doing the same thing, come straight in – AM: So they were killed? HI: And the slipstream, they had no chance of correcting, correcting, ‘cause it’s too low on the ground. Anyway, on the Saturday they said ‘there’s gonna – report to your flights ‘cause there’s gonna be a daylight raid.’ So we went out to do the what they call a night flighting test, and when we landed there was the trailer, but all it had on it was six [emphasis] one thousand pounders. So we knew it was gonna be a long, long journey. We were – a bomb load like that was only a third of the weight of what we’d usually take to the Ruhr, so we were, obviously it was gonna be a long journey. We went to the briefing – AM: Can I just ask, so why obviously, ‘cause that would conserve the fuel because you had a lighter load? HI: Yeah we had to take more fuel and less bombs, so – AM: Yep, okay. HI: So actually we knew the distance when we see a big petrol load [emphasis] going in we knew we were on for a – we see a small bomb load we knew, the petrol, it was being loaded up for all the tanks and we knew we was on for a long trip. Anyway, we went and had our – even at that time, we’d already had breakfast, but they sent us out and said ‘we’re gonna have bleeding bacon and eggs’ [laughs]. That was always done, it don’t matter what time of the day it was bacon – AM: Well what would happen if you didn’t like bacon? HI: Well – AM: What did they get, sausage? HI: There were a few Jewish people who, they had to eat the bleeding bacon [laughs]. AM: Did they, they ate it? HI: Yeah, well, by then I’d done five or six trips, and I thought ‘so I better eat the food, you never know what’s gonna happen.’ Anyway, we went to the briefing at about ten o’clock, Saturday morning, it was, in October, round about, I forget the date, about the tenth of October, and we went to the briefing, and the officer come in, pulled the blind down, and there it was. Place called Le Creusot. It was right on the other side of France, nearly on the Swiss border. It was a nearly ten and a half hour trip and we were looking at each other, and they said ‘you’re to fly as low as possible, even lower than that if you can,’ and they said ‘there’ll be two hundred Spitfires,’ or hundred, two or three hundred Spitfires ‘escorting you to the coast,’ but the trouble was the Spitfires went to the wrong bleeding place, we never see ‘em. So we crossed the French coast at about the height of these buildings, and then you imagine what a sight that must have been , ninety-two Lancasters flying – AM: What a noise [emphasis] never mind a sight. HI: Yeah, there was loads and loads of ‘em. And all we got was the French girls waving at us and I thought ‘that’s handy,’ and everybody was coming out and waving, it was a beautiful day, and we went right across France. I mean right across France, looking, wondering where the fighters was ‘cause there was thousands of by that time, ’42, there was hundreds and hundreds of fighters in France – AM: German fighters? HI: Yeah, German fighters in France. Anyway, we went right across France, there was no incidents, everybody was waving, and we approached the target [coughs] excuse me, and six of us had to break off and bomb the power station that was supplying the electricity to this huge armament factory in Le Creusot. It was a huge armament factory, nearly as big as what the Germans had, and they was producing armaments for the German army. So we broke off, telling you now there was six of us who broke off, Guy Gibson was with us, he was on our port side, and he was on 106 Squadron, Guy Gibson was on, and his second in command was flying the other Lanc, and on our starboard side was two Lancasters from 50 Squadron on the other side, we was in the centre and there was six of us. We broke off and went straight to this power station. Oh, and as we approached the power station, one of the Lancasters on our starboard side just went straight in the deck and exploded. We were – he had six one thousand pound bombs on it, and it literally went straight in the deck and exploded. What happened we don’t know. AM: Don’t know. HI: Anyway, the five of us carried on, Gibson was on our portside with his second in command and we was in the centre, and the last one of 50 Squadron was, was on our starboard side. Anyway, we bombed the power station and we absolutely flattened [emphasis] it. We was carrying six one thousand pounders, and we went and we climbed up a little bit and dropped ‘em, and we could see that the whole place was flattened. In fact, the factory was – actually I went back there last year, to the factory and it’s bombed, still bleeding bombed [unclear, laughs]. Anyway – AM: Did you get your photo? HI: Pardon? AM: Did you get – not last year, I mean in 1942. HI: No we didn’t, I don’t think we took a photo because it was daylight and everything – AM: So they knew – HI: Everyone was bombing the same target. Anyway, the ninety Lancs turned round, it was ninety-two ‘cause when we turned around there was only ninety-one, one had blown up in the sky, and we came back over the – by the time we’d got to the French coast it was getting dark – AM: Still flying really low level? HI: Yeah, and we started climbing when we got to the French coast, and as we passed the French coast it was getting dark, and we was flying for about another thirty or forty minutes, and all of a sudden the sky was smothered in bloody high explosive shells again. So the pilot said ‘where the bloody hell are we,’ so the skipper said ‘ I think we’ve, I’ve miscalculated and we’re flying over Jersey,’ and we were over Jersey with these huge explosions coming up, anyway the pilot called him a nice fella again, he said ‘stupid chap you are’ like that, and we branched out and come back, but that was a catch that, Jersey was very, very heavily armed, and anybody strayed off the course they wait for you. Shot down quite a few bombers over there. Anyway, we got back and went to the briefing, we were told exactly what had happened, and they confirmed that we done a good job there – AM: Good. HI: And I thought ‘there won’t be no more daylight raids after that.’ And we went to, in a week, we had a couple of days off and we went to Genoa [emphasis], and we couldn’t make out why we was going all the way to Italy, it was eleven hour trip to bomb Genoa, but we soon found out because on the Thursday [emphasis] they said, a briefing for Saturday, a daylight raid. So we said ‘surely we’re not having another daylight raid, we was lucky we got away with Le Creusot’ Anyway, believe it or not, the target was Milan, and we was gonna bomb it, in daylight, taking it from a very, very low level ‘till we got to the Alps, we couldn’t go low level so we had to wander through the Alps, and there was ninety- two Lancasters, darting and diving through the Alps. AM: Had the Spitfires turned up this time? HI: No we never see no bloody Spitfires at all this time, and same again, we went right across France, no opposition whatsoever. We went through the Alps, and this is what I call a terror raid. We went across Lake Como about hundred feet then, we climbed to three hundred feet, and there was Milan waiting for us. No air raid shelter, no flak, they never expected British bombers to come all the way from England in daylight, never expected. AM: Could you, were you low enough to actually see people in the – HI: Pardon? AM: Were you low enough to actually see people? HI: It was, we was that low, we dropped down to about a hundred feet, hundred and fifty feet over Milan, we could see everybody in the streets, in the restaurants, we could see ‘em all. And we see ‘em started running about, there was no alarm given, and the city was completely open, and imagine ninety-two Lancs with six one thousand pounders on. We caused absolute havoc there, and a few of the boys I know were machine gunning, which I thought was wrong. Anyway, we climbed up again, came back, slid our way through the Alps, dropped down again to nought feet and came right across France again. AM: You missed Jersey that time. HI: Yeah, we missed Jersey that time. We had our pullovers on [laughs]. AM: What did you feel about that then? The fact that you could actually see people? HI: Oh we could see ‘em yeah, yeah because we – AM: What did you, did you talk about it afterwards? HI: No, we never talked about air raids, never mentioned it. Once you got back it was finished. No body, and same as the logbook, all we used to put in the logbook was the raid, the time, we never, what we should have done was put a little, exactly what happened, but when you put your books into the commanding officer to be signed once a month, [unclear] shooting, just put down what the raid was and that was it, that was what we used to do. But we should have done, we should have put the whole story of what exactly went on. And after that raid believe it or not the Eyetie didn’t want to know anything more about the war, and there was huge – we had a big publicity the next day in the Daily Express, had a huge photo of Number 9 Squadron, coming back off the raid, and they reproduced it in Italy with, English Gangsters they called us, and there we are. I think we lost four aircraft that night, I don’t know where we lost them, might have been technical trouble, I don’t know, but, to go all that way in daylight and not see a German fighter was incredible. And after that we felt ourselves very, very, very lucky. It was about my ninth trip then, I was one of the top, experienced men then – AM: And you’d shot somebody down by then. HI: Yeah, yeah. But we’d, we were the top men in the squadron, we’d done about nine or ten trips. AM: And you were seventeen. HI: Yeah, yeah. And from then things got worse. Worse and worse and worse. The – AM: In what way worse, Harry? HI: The fighters got much more efficient, and their radar got much more efficient. Their guns got more efficient. Search lights got better, and more, and they had guns that fired with radar and they never missed. I remember later on in the year on my second tour we was bombing a place in the Ruhr Valley, and we was going in, our squadron, and as we was going in, there was people in front of us bombing, and they’d already turned starboard and coming out again, and for some reason, I don’t know, a Halifax [emphasis] I don’t know if it was in our squadron or the squadron beforehand, instead of going hitting the target, I don’t know what happened, he turned and joined the aircraft that was coming out of the, from the bombing run, which was in daylight, and there was a big gap between us going in and those coming out, and then he flew across, and as he flew across the flak went bang, bang, and the third shell hit him right underneath, and just exploded, yeah. Why he done that I don’t know, ‘cause we was all in the shadow of the silver paper we was dropping, and that helps with the – this one had got outta range with it going across and they shot him down straight away, yeah. And as it went on, we used to get leave every six weeks, and Lord [pause] what his name, Rank, Rank, wasn’t Rank, it was the er, the bloke that owned Morris, BMC, owned BMC, and he said, and he gave every aircrew bloke that was on ops, when he went on leave he doubled their pay, for a weeks leave yeah, he done that right through the war. Must have cost him a fortune. AM: Every airman? HI: Yeah, well it was in Bomber Command. AM: In Bomber Command. HI: Who was flying. He used to give ‘em – he used to, he used to double our pay, yeah. AM: You know what, just going back to operations, you know the gaps between them, as in a day, a couple of days? HI: All depending upon the weather. It was entirely dependent upon the weather. If the weather was, it was a bright – I’ll tell you one we went one, we went on one and I still think about it, it was a full light night, getting onto Christmas I think it was, and they said ‘there’ll be no ops tonight because there’s bright moonlight and no cloud,’ and it was suicide to go over there. Anyway, they said they’d picked out sixteen Lancasters, they’d picked out about eight from our squadron, four from 44 and I think four from another squadron, they said ‘we want you to do a low level night time raid on small towns just outside the Ruhr Valley.’ And the excuse they gave us was that the civilian population wasn’t getting any rest from the bombing raids on the Ruhr Valley and they was letting them come to these small towns to get rest. That’s why they wanted to go over there and liven ‘em up. So, it really was a terror raid and we carried sixteen one thousand pounders with a delayed charged of about half an hour, and we found this small town, we was after, just outside the Ruhr Valley, and we went right down, it was brilliant [emphasis] moonlight we were in, we went right down this village or small town and dropped the sixteen one thousand pounders right down the centre of the town. And I often wonder what happened about that, but I don’t, there was no need really to do that bombing really, but there you go, that was war. AM: Well you called it a terror raid. HI: Pardon? AM: You called it a terror raid? HI: Yeah, yeah, and that was Christmas, went home and had some leave, came back and we started again. And by that time, all the crews that I knew when I joined the squadron in June had all gone, they’d all gone. All been shot down. AM: Every single one. HI: Yeah, and they was all new recruits except us, and we was all NCOs. AM: What do you think kept your plane – why your crew when all the rest of them got shot down? What can you say? HI: I don’t know, I don’t know. I’ll tell you, shall I tell you? AM: Go on. HI: Well, what they used to do, before you went on a raid they used to give us a bag of sweets – AM: Go on, keep going. I know the story, but keep going. HI: Oh you know the story do you? AM: You told me earlier on, but tell me again. HI: And, we couldn’t undo the sweets with the cellophane, so we used to throw them out of the rear turret, and the Germans knew that and that’s why they never shot us down. ‘Cause they wanted the sweets [laughs]. That’s only a joke [both laugh]. I don’t know, I got no idea. Well, what actually happened, the crew I was with, I said they’d already done fourteen trips on Wellingtons when I joined them, they finished, and they finished, we finished our tour, was up to about sixteen, fifteen or sixteen trips, and I was left with no crew, and I was sitting in the mess, and a bloke walked in, I knew him as Sergeant Doolan, pilot, and he said ‘my rear gunner Robbie has just been killed, would you take his place?’ That was, that was luck really, so I said ‘alright, I’ll become your new rear gunner’ which I did do, and we was an NCO crew, and we was the only crew to, that I know of, all the time I was there, that finished the tour. And how many crews we lost, Lord knows. AM: But you were the common denominator. HI: Yeah, yeah – AM: From the first sixteen and then fourteen and then the – HI: Yeah, and then, we was all NCOs and we finished the tour, yeah. And I think the pilot got the DFM, and none of us got even a mention of a medal. And there was – but the thing was, what was happening by then was the Germans had come up with a new technique called Schräge Musik, that was what they’d come up with, they’d put two cannons at eighty degree, put the two cannons behind the cockpit at eight degrees so there was the aircraft, and these two guns stuck up like that – AM: Okay. HI: And all they had to do, they had radar, and all they had to do was coast [?] yourself underneath a bomber and just fly underneath him. You didn’t have to have no sight, no tracer, it just went underneath the aircraft, up to the petrol tanks, quick squirt, and we used to see ‘em blowing up but we couldn’t make out, we used to come back and tell ‘em that we seen aircraft blowing up in the sky, there was no flak and no fighters we could see, and the, and they literally shot down thousands [emphasis] of bombers, and not once did they ever mention what was going on at the briefing, not once. Never. AM: Would there have been any way to avoid them if you’d have known about them? HI: Well, if we knew and known about it, which they knew what we’d be doing, we’d start jiggling up and down, so they wouldn’t get a clean shot at us, but then when you think about it, you get five or six hundred bombers doing that in pitch darkness, you’re gonna get, gonna get a lot of problems. And that was it, but they were shooting them down, ah, unbelievable. Yeah, you had to be lucky really, because if you bowed out you had to be lucky, because if the civilians, you come out near a target and the civilians get hold of you they’d rip you to pieces. Yeah, and the Gestapo shot a few as well. If you was lucky the Luftwaffe got hold of you, was alright, but, or the army got you – AM: But you never got shot down? HI: No, I never got shot down, no. AM: What happened at the end of your first tour, then? HI: What happened then, finished my tour, didn’t get no bloody medal, don’t know why not – AM: Even though you shot one down, ‘cause people got medals for that didn’t they? HI: Yeah I know. Anyway, I went as an instructor, and then I realised how risky this business was, because all [emphasis] that was coming from OTUs were crews being trained in Canada. And when you think they were being trained on single engine aircraft in beautiful weather, all they had to do was follow the railway line from one point to another, everything was easy. Of course when they come to London, especially, and England, especially where, with the weather, and was OTU we had to train ‘em for three or four months before they went on operations, and hell of a lot of ‘em got killed on accidents, but they were very raw, they should have had much, much more training, but then again – AM: And how old were you at this point? Eighteen? HI: Yeah, eighteen, about eighteen and a half yeah. And I was an instructor, and apparently, I carried on for a little while and the, we had a bit of a go – oh they sent me up to a place up in Scotland to a gunnery school to do some – the instructors up there wanted to get on ops, don’t know why, but they said ‘you go up there and relieve them,’ about ten of us went up there, and we were in the mess one night, and we all got drunk and caused a bit of a havoc and we went in front of the CO next day, he said ‘I’ve had enough of you blokes, I’m posting you.’ So I thought ‘oh go on, I’ll be posted somewhere out in the Middle East’ or somewhere like that, and anyway I got posted to South End, about fifteen miles from where I lived, and I was thinking ‘be at home every night’ and while I was there, what we was doing there was flying drogues [?], the flak along the south coast, we had a big drogue pulled behind, and I tell you what, when I see that I knew we had no chance at all. They had these, we had to use a toeless drogue, and they used to fight, not at the drogue, a couple of degrees past the drogue, because they kept hitting the drogues and it was becoming expensive. So, but the flak [emphasis] to follow you, right, same height, would follow the drogue all the way along. Anyway, after a while they said ‘you’re posted,’ and this I knew was why the government knew what was going on in Germany with the fighters. They said ‘you’ve been posted to the 77 Squadron, Halifaxes.’ So I thought ‘alright,’ so and when I got up there – AM: Where was that? Where was it? HI: Er, Full Sutton I think, yeah Full Sutton. And when I got up there, the CO said he wanted to see me when I got up there, so I thought ‘that’s handy, the bloody warrant officer and the CO wants to see me, I must be important’ and he took me out to the, where the arment [?] officer, out to a Halifax, and what they had done they’d cut a big hole in the bottom of the Halifax and placed a point manual point five over the hole – AM: Point five – HI: Yeah, point five, point five machine gun. AM: Okay. HI: A much bigger shell than the 303. And they said ‘have you seen any German fighters coming, coming at you, you’ll be able to handle ‘em.’ So they knew what was going on. Anyway, we took off for Duisburg and I was sitting there – I was bleeding freezing, can you imagine there’s a big hole like that, about twenty thousand feet and – AM: Hang on where’s this, is this in the middle of the plane? HI: In the middle of the plane. AM: Right, okay. HI: A big hole. AM: Where the bomb doors would have been? HI: Er, it was different in the Halifax. AM: Okay. HI: It was different from the Lancaster. Most the bombs – up, further up and underneath the wings as well. AM: Right. HI: Anyway, they dug this hole, cut this hole in the Halifax and they had a point five there, and I sat there, and can you imagine it was about forty-five below, and it seemed the whole world was coming through that bloody hole. The pilot was moaning, the bomb aimer was moaning, and the – anyway, we’d done the bombing raid, come back and they complained bitterly about it, and that was the last that – and they said to me ‘we’re posting you to Driffield, to an Australian squadron’ and that’s where I went then, as a rear gunner at 462 Australian Squadron. I stayed there for a couple of months and I don’t know what happened there, I don’t know if I’d lost my logbook or – anyway, I done about eight or nine trips here and never even registered, and then they posted from there, from 64, er, 462 Squadron on Driffield to its other squadron which was at Driffield – AM: Why did you keep, why did you keep getting posted to different ones? HI: Well the pilot I went with in 462, bloke, Australian called Heurigen [unsure of spelling] – 462 they posted away completely [emphasis] but he, he stayed, he said ‘no I wanna stay here at Driffield’ and he went onto 466, and he took me with him. And when he finished, I was in, I didn’t know what to do, and they said ‘we want you to go to 158 Squadron at Lissett’ and that’s where I finished. I don about another ten trips there, and they said to me ‘you done enough, that’s it.’ AM: What was Lissett like? HI: Nissan huts, terrible. Baking hot in the summer, freezing [emphasis] in the winter. And you come back off an op and you had to go in one of them bloody tin huts. The bedding was wet, yeah. But I survived. AM: You did. HI: Yeah, I really survived, yeah. All, most of them, all my friends went there, yeah, a lot. AM: Was the DFC then for the number of operations you went on? HI: Number of trips I done, sixty trips, yeah. Yeah, I done more now actually, but – AM: Well the ones that didn’t yeah, didn’t get counted. HI: Yeah. AM: And then so from that point, when you did your last tour, sorry your last operation, then what happened, were you sent to demob? HI: No, they said to me ‘what was your trade?’ The war had finished, and they said to me ‘what was your trade before the war? What did you do?’ and I said ‘I was an apprentice tailor,’ they said ‘we’ve got the job for you’ I thought – they sent me down to Newmarket on the racecourse, in charge of about eight or nine WAFs on sewing machines. I don’t know why they thought I was – they were making lorry covers on these machines, and they put me in charge of ‘em. Oh, when I was there. AM: What was that like Harry? HI: [Laughs] had a little giggle [laughter]. AM: So what, how old are you at this point you’re about twenty – HI: About twenty, yes. Yeah, about, getting on for twenty. AM: So go on, you had a little giggle [HI laughs], tell me [HI laughs] go on, tell me some stories. HI: Yeah I was charge of them, that’s it [laughs]. AM: Right, alright then. HI: Yeah and then I stayed in Newmarket – oh blimey, it’s, oh it’s only twenty past. AM: No, we’re alright. HI: Newmarket was a bombing station if you believe it or not. The Rowley Mile was a runway for 75 Squadron, a New Zealand squadron, and after the war they turned it into a Prussian [?] depot. They was dropping all the aircraft into Newmarket and crushing ‘em. AM: Crushing them? HI: Crushing ‘em. Hundreds of ‘em. Into this big machine they just went pfft like, just crushed ‘em up, piled ‘em up. As far as we could see was one huge pile of aluminium. AM: Going back to you though, so you’ve had your giggle with your WAFs – HI: Yeah. AM: Then what? Did you get – HI: I had a couple of giggles [laughter from both] but it was handy there because we could get up to London from Newmarket, they had a railway station – AM: How long was it before you were demobbed then? HI: Er, got demobbed in forty, 1946, August ’46. AM: So quite early, a lot earlier than a lot of ‘em then? ‘Cause you’d been in the whole – HI: I’d been in the whole, since [unclear] yeah. I come out, about to find a job, I couldn’t go back to tailoring, I’d missed it you know. Anyway, I tried, went back to tailoring and learnt a little bit. Things were very difficult when we come out, we had no houses, you can imagine London, there was all bloody roofs off the buildings, and then we had to wait for a house. I was married then. AM: I was gonna say, where did, where did you meet your wife? HI: I knew her from the, from the blackout. I was sitting on a seat in the blackout and she came along with her friend and we started talking and that’s how it started, and I, it was only when I [unclear] and we got married in forty, 1945, Christmas 1945, and I remember we, we done a couple of trips, and I remember I bombed Dresden, we bombed Dresden just after Christmas, February, but we got married on the Christmas, and I shouldn’t have got married ‘cause we had nowhere to bloody live, better than living with the mother-in-law for a little while, got fed up with that. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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 2015-07-23 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:15:35 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AIronsH150723 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Germany Great Britain Italy England--Lincolnshire Title A name given to the resource Interview with Harry Irons. One Description An account of the resource Harry Irons left a tailoring apprenticeship to join the Royal Air Force and trained as a wireless operator but became an air-gunner. He describes the uniform he wore and the unreliability of heated suits. He tells of the invention of scarecrows which crews believed were sent up by the Germans to distract and demoralise them. He also describes a few operations, including to the Ruhr Valley, and a number of daylight operations, including Le Creusot (17 October 1942) and Milan (24 October 1942). Harry discusses the removal of Perspex from Lancasters to prevent oil from exhausts affecting visibility, the introduction of radar into the rear turret and its quick removal, after it was found it was used by Germany and Schrage Musik. He returned to tailoring following his retirement from the Royal Air Force. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Katie Gilbert 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. 1942-10-24 1942-10-17 158 Squadron 462 Squadron 5 Group 50 Squadron 77 Squadron 9 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew anti-aircraft fire bombing bombing of Augsburg (17 April 1942) bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945) briefing Distinguished Flying Cross fear Gee Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) ground personnel Halifax In the event of my death letter intelligence officer Ju 88 Lancaster military living conditions military service conditions Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy Nissen hut radar RAF Bridgnorth RAF Driffield RAF Full Sutton RAF Lissett RAF Manby Scarecrow Schräge Musik Spitfire training https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/804/10785/ADoneI170710.mp3 a679c46d2ab8e21a7291e79ecf95f1f5 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 Done, Iris I Done Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Iris Done (b. 1920). She served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-07-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Done, I Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document GC: Thank you very much for letting me do this. Tell me a bit about your life before the war. ID: Um, well my life before the war I was working for the London County Council in County Hall, which of course doesn’t exist anymore as a, and eh I was I wasn’t reserved because my age didn’t reserve me, so that’s why I married in eh 14th of February 1942 and I had applied for call up because I thought that it was better, that having got married, to leave home in that way rather than go into a factory. I would have had to have done something you see. I couldn’t have stayed at County Hall, so that’s why I chose the WAAF and em I was, I was very pleased I did because I had some very happy times. It’s amazing the comradeship in the services. GC: Yeah. ID: Anyway, I, as I say, I married in forty, forty one, forty two, eh February forty two, and I was, I was called up in June forty two. I had to eh report to Bridgenorth, which seemed a long way to me but eh we moved around so much in those days. Anyway I arrived at, I think it was Euston Station and em wondering what the dickens I was going into really. Got on the train, of course, and it seemed such a long journey and interesting in a way because it was the first time I’d actually seen coal and coal mining equipment. Em, I’d seen it on the eh on the films and things like that but I’d never actually been anywhere where they’d had coal mines. Anyway, we arrived in Bridgenorth and eh it was better then because there was a lorry waiting to take us to the camp and consequently the people that had been on the train, who obviously didn’t know each other, so had had quite a lonely journey, we all met up and we started nattering wondering what the dickens we had let ourselves in for and eh we went to this, it was a large camp, I remember, and we were only there for, we were only due to stay there four days, which was to be sworn in and get our uniforms and various, you know, just get us used to the Services to some extent. So anyway we, we arrived there in, at supper time, and, and had the food was very good, very nice, I still remember. We had a very nice eh stew, but huh the jam, because we could have as much bread and marg as we liked, it was still on the plate, on the side of the plate which seemed rather strange. [chuckles] Anyway, after that we said, we were given our, what we called our irons, knife, fork and spoon and eh well when we came to wash it, we had to put the knife in the ground to clean it up, and there was this huge trough of ooh, quite brown looking water to wash the other things so it, it was all, all a little bit of a sham if you can imagine it. And anyway we, we, I think we were about eight to a hut and, and of course, it, it, life was so different and when we washed we had to wash in a public, another hut, which was sort of very public. But it’s like everything you soon get used to it because everybody’s in the same boat really. And um the four days went quite quickly, and then we were off to Morecambe. So that, that was another fortnight. You see I didn’t have to do any special training because I was a shorthand typist and anybody who had that, that kind of skill, they obviously didn’t want to train, it was expensive to train people, and we were already trained, so, and so, all, in the end we all more or le, similar people really on the whole. And em, anyway, we got to Morecambe and of course they have these em, what d’you call them, houses there, you know, boarding houses and, I don’t know if you know anything about the North, I didn’t know anything particularly, but the lady in the house is always the [emphasis] one, which leaves a poor little husband trotting along beside doing as he’s told. Anyway they made us quite comfortable but eh it was all very bit primitive then of course, but em and eh then we had drill. We had to do that on the front. By this time we, we had a, I think they called them passion killers [mumbles] [chuckles] whatever they are. They, they, just you know, ordinary, ordinary pants, that eh they were sort of Airforce colour and of course, because we, we didn’t have any special equipment, we did our drill on the front in these. Which of course the locals liked [chuckles] [unclear]. Anyway at eh every, every sort of coffee time, we went round and we stopped at various em hall, church halls mainly and there was normally a piano. Now if you had anybody who could play anything they, they really were the cats whiskers because we had a girl who could play “She’ll be coming round the mountains”, and [chuckles] and she played every time, she played the tune and we did the singing and I shall always remember that song. Anyway, we also of course had a lot of injections in case we went abroad or anything like that. So one weekend, we were feeling very sorry for ourselves, when we need injections, but other than that, we couldn’t move around, we weren’t allowed, we, we could look, look at you know, across at Sunderland, but we weren’t allowed to go there and, as I say, we only, we only stayed there a fortnight. And then we moved on and, and of course we were saying “I wonder where we’ll get posted?” And by this time we, we’d made friends and “Oh, I hope we go together,” and all this business. Anyway, I, I was told that I was going to Fighter Command and eh my friend Betty who, who I’d made friends with, she was also going to Fighter Command so that was rather nice. And em where is this Fighter Command? It’s in Stanmore in Middlesex. Which of course was quite good because I, we only lived in South London, so we knew that if we had a weekend or forty eight hours, as they say, we could get home. And so, we did this long, long, it did seem a long journey. We had to go to London and then from London down to Stanmore, which is the end of the Bakerloo line. So, so it’s em, it was quite convenient for travelling really. And eh and then we were taken to Fighter Command which actually is a beautiful house. It, it belonged, it belonged to the Hamiltons. Now, he, Lord Hamilton was em, oh I can never think of her name, Nelson’s girlfriend, I can never think of her name. GC: Emma. ID: Emma. GC: I think it was Emma. ID: [mumbles] So, it was, it was Lord Hamilton’s estate really of course, and we didn’t actually live in the big house, it was the Air Officer Commanding, and various officers, but there were some very high officers there, obviously, being in Command. And, but we were all in sheds in the grounds. Em, which is, is quite interesting. When I told the people at Stanmore, they said “Well I’m very glad. We wondered what those sheds were.” So, so [chuckles] that was quite, quite good. So, anyway, em we were, we were shown these sheds and really, I must say, it was only really like a civil service job. But, of course, with all the restrictions obviously of a, of being in the Services. And we still had to do drill and stuff, but em we were then taken to our billets. But of course, it’s a very nice residential district round there and we were, Betty and I were still together, which we were very pleased about, and then we came to this very lovely place, it was really a nice, lovely house, which was called Green Lane Cottage, in Green Lane, and, of course, they weren’t people who wanted to have people billeted with them, but they were made to take however many they thought they could. But eh, they were two very elderly gentlemen. I believe they’d been West End solicitors and eh and, and their sister, and two maids, so you can tell we didn’t have any cleaning to do [chuckles] so we were very lucky actually. Em anyway, that, that seemed very nice and it was very cosy, and it, it was a charming house, you know, and, and the old, old people, although they really didn’t want us, they were quite kind. Every so often they’d leave a basket of apples in the, in our room. Or, or if Mr Churchill was speaking, and I think he did once or twice while we were there, they’d knock on the door and say, “Mr. Churchill’s speaking. Would you like to hear him?” [chuckles] Which was nice of them. Anyway [chuckles] so, we sort of settled in to just ordinary office work really. Um, there was, now, it was Command, I was in Command Accounts and my friend was in Medical, but our, our two em huts were together, not working together but placed together. And so in the, in the office there were, I worked mainly for a Flight Lieutenant, em but we all had to do [unclear] the head of the department was an Air Commodore, then a Wing Commander, then a Squadron Leader, who was a regular. My, my officer who, who was only, who had joined up for the war, and eh and then the officer was in charge of civilians, so he was a civil servant. So em, that was, and we, you know it was a very nice atmosphere and he was a very nice officer I worked for. And of course in those, at that time everybody was referred to by their name, I mean, I was Mrs. Done, not Done. So it was, it was quite a, and eh as I say, the, I remember I used to get a newspaper in the morning and so did he and we used to exchange newspapers before we started, so it was quite, it was quite an easy thing in, in one way. The worst part of course, is in war you never know how long it’s going to last and your life’s come to a fully stop really, you know until war ends. But em you know, it was, we, we didn’t feel that Command Accounts was very glamorous, but eh, obviously it’s essential for people to have their money [chuckles] but em, of course, the glamour girls in eh, on the camp, which we didn’t have anything to do with were, of course, the plotters. The plotters were, were right down in the, I don’t know, tremendously deep into the ground. They’d made these, these offices and eh, and eh, you know, they, they always looked very glamorous and seemed to be very glamorous but eh, as I say, we, we, we were very lucky really to have such a, such a, a nice billet really, because obviously, being a Command, we had very good entertainment. We had em, often had West End shows, not really for us, but mainly for the bigger boys and we, we also once I suppose this was really em was really amazing em [telephone ringing in background] the red letter day was when Glenn Miller and his band came to play in the grounds. That was, that was really quite exciting as you can imagine. But he was, well he’s always had, he always had a very good band and, so of course that was, we were always out and listened or very sure about it, but of course it wasn’t very long after that that he had a plane, took a plane to Paris and got killed. So em we had actually heard him, just before, you know just before he died really. But [coughs] because there weren’t many celebs in those days but there was one he, he was actually a newsreader called Alvar Lidell and of course, everybody was very thrilled because he was, he was called up was eh “Do you know who is here? Alvar Lidell.” [laughs] I don’t suppose he’d have made any, much of a hit these days, but anyway. So [pause] so I was, I was there for three and a half years, which sometimes seemed a very long time. You wondered if eh, you know, you really wondered if the war was ever going to end to be honest. And eh, and of course, very often you would see pilots who possibly had to come to report. Who obviously had been in a dog fight or something and terrible burns and things like that. But strangely enough we had no bombing there while I was there, but if you went out, South London and all round you know, there was the doodle bugs, but I don’t think I was ever in any of those but you, you could have been and the people were there. But why they missed Stanmore I never can understand, but anyway that was lucky that they did. And eh so really life, as I say, it was, you know, it was, quite, quite pleasant in a way because comradeship is very, very strong in the Services and there was Betty and I and she was, as I say, in Medical where, and I was in a little office and the other girl in the office we made friends with um she, we all used to go round together. They used to call us the three musketeers. But eh because you see all, most of the officers, I think all of the officers, without exception, they all lived out in houses, they, they didn’t, nobody lived on the camp. We had, we had army practicing and eh we would perhaps meet them for a, a, what I say a drink. We didn’t even get much drink in the NAAFI, you know, coffee really and because they, they were obviously practicing em for D-Day you see, everything was working up to D-Day when, because I wasn’t there for the Battle of Britain which of course was forty one. I came along after forty two, but of course there was an awful lot to prepare and one day walking in the grounds there was Tedder and Montgomery and Eisenhower, who’d obviously come down to talk about the eh, you know, the, the landings. So [chuckles] because they didn’t know we existed but [chuckles] that was quite a, that was quite exciting really. Em but eh other than that, as I say, we were near Watford, so we were able to go to the theatre there if we wanted to. Em it, it was, it was really quite a good life. I can’t really complain about it. It would have been worse I think before I joined up because, of course, being in South London and working in County Hall that was quite a journey and eh there was bombing. It could be at times when there was bombing, or, or the night before there had been bombing. I remember once going through Kensington and somebody saying, “Oh, yes, that shelter. Five hundred was killed last night.” You, you know, because all those places were very, very badly hit. And so really it was much, much more dangerous before I was in the Service and [mumbles] I wanted to go to India. But unfortunately, I was married and I had to get my husband’s permission [chuckles] and he wouldn’t give it [chuckles]. I’ve always wanted to go to India [chuckles] but eh I never got there. I only got as far as Stanmore [chuckles]. But em, but as I say, it [pauses] we had, we had good food. We, we were, no well we had to, you know, work reasonably hard em and eh I, I don’t know if Ken might have mentioned he, [chuckles] of course we being at Command we knew exactly where all the units would go, all the Fighter Command and one day he phoned from London all very secret and said, “I can’t tell you where I’m going, but I’m going abroad.” Huh, so I said, “Yes, I know you are.” Because we’d sent [chuckles] we’d sent papers for the, for the unit. But em, so I suppose I worked, we often said “Oh, I wish we were doing something more,” you know, “more glamorous.” I suppose really, but I, I mean presumably, as I say, people do need their money don’t they? And, and, and eh, you, you know, it was certainly, it was quite, quite a busy office and eh and eh how much [unclear] [pause] Yes, we, we, we had one Squadron Leader who was a regular and he was very kind. He had his family living somewhere near and occasionally he’d say to Pat and I, “My wife’s invited you to a meal.” Which was very nice and it did mean a lot, I must admit, to, to go to a family again. So that, that was very nice and eh but otherwise, as I say, the, the officers were very nice as bosses but we didn’t have much contact really with them after that. Except once we did have, we had a lovely em party, um I think it was, oh I can’t, I can’t remember, a fancy dress party actually. We, we, we had on the camp a chappie called Carpenter. I remember his name he eh, he, he was entertainments officer and he managed to get all these costumes from one, one of the musicals, so we, you could either be an Austrian boy or an Austrian girl. [chuckles] Part of it and eh we eh, that was a, that was a, really a lovely, that was really a lovely do because, I suppose it was so unexpected, you know, and, and eh as I say, we, we certainly didn’t, didn’t have many drinks because the NAAFI I don’t think, I don’t know if they had beer, I suppose they did. But em mainly coffees, but em I know we had a very good time on, on eh, coffee and whatnot. But it was sort of quite memorable, you know. It was really quite good fun and eh and then of course I remember, I do remember once, we, everybody accepted lifts in those days and I remember once waiting at a bus stop and an officer drew up and it wasn’t that far to eh to the station, but he said [unclear] I think I was the only one and I got in. And he said, “I’ve just come back from Belsen.” He said, “It, I can’t describe it.” So he’d been in Belsen the day before. He said it was really, really terrible. So you did get pictures of the war like that, you know, it uh, but other than that we, we were very lucky really. But em, but, but it’s a wonderful experience to be, there’s so many different types that you’d never meet in the, well maybe more now, but certainly then you wouldn’t. It eh, you’d get, as I say, you’d get the Ops girl who were very Ops, if you know what I mean. And I remember one of them, not, not, nobody we really knew, just sort of the rumour went round. Obviously if you were, spent the night you, you had to get a pass, and apparently she hadn’t come back. And eh, I suppose she was hauled over the coals, obviously, and she said, “Well, I’m very sorry, but we were dining with the Halifaxes.” But that was Lord Halifax, I think he was the Foreign Minister or something. [chuckles] So they were that type if you know what I mean and eh, and, and then they would perhaps get cooks who did a marvellous job. They had to get up about three in the morning I think to light the fires in those days, but we, we were, had to spend a week in their hut at one time, for to do fire drill I think, and eh they, I think they rather resent, you see there was so much more class distinction in that, those days and I think they rather resented us and perhaps we resented them. Anyway, we were in their hut and one girl came in and said, “Oh, what a nice hut.” Or something to that effect and they didn’t actually [unclear] our huts [chuckles] We were scared stiff. [unclear] So you’ve got to, you see, you did mix with so many different types that eh. As I say, it doesn’t apply so much today but then it, there were divisions really and eh it was, it was so good to meet people from, not only different types, but different countries and, and eh, and of course, that was life you know, regulars generally rather, they, they, they like everything just so, where of course the volunteers were much easier. I must admit the boss I had was a much easier man than the Squadron Leader. But em they were all very, very nice to work for. I can’t eh, I, I can’t complain at all really. And eh so I was there for three and a half years. I think I was only at the billet for two, if I remember rightly because my, my friend, I think, I was, I think she was married at this time. Her husband, he’d been in Malta, during the, [mumbles] and he caught amoebic dysentery and he was really a very, very sick man and I think they sent him home and because he lived somewhere not too far away, I think she went to be with he and his mother. And fortunately I had a cousin, a well Ken’s cousin actually, who lived in Wembley. So after two years I went to em to stay with them and em they, they were quite an interesting family because Ken’s cousin was a really good ballet dancer. He worked for the Festival Ballet in the end. He was one of, one of the principals. But he was a trainee, he was a boy when I lived with them. So he would, he was quite an interesting person to be with, so even that last year I suppose it was, was quite interesting. I met a Canadian. I don’t know how or why, I can’t think. But we used to go to the pub once or twice. Well I’ve often, I’ve often wondered and thought, you know, the Dieppe raid, I wonder if he was in that because these were all ships that pass in the night really. And you often wonder, especially now, now I’m old, and can sit here, I often think “I wonder what happened to them?” And we, I knew a Sergeant in, you know, when we were on, in, in the camp and eh they used to say “Oh, I don’t know that they, they don’t seem to be doing much.” But of course, they were training them up for D-Day and you think “I wonder if he ever, if he ever got out of the war,” you know, which, possibly didn’t, if we, because it was so, so much, you know, it was so awful when it, when it, once it started. But, but as I say, I wouldn’t have missed the experience because it’s very good to meet all kinds of people isn’t it? And to, and to try to understand each other. I think this is the, this is an important thing, really. Because em we, I suppose we lived quite, you know, individual sort of lives at one time. But em, as I say, we often said, “Oh I wish we had a more glamorous job.” [background laughter] But eh, perhaps people received their weekly pay, which wasn’t very much [chuckles] were perhaps pleased we didn’t. Now I can’t think of anything else, dear to GC: Can you remember D-Day? ID: Sorry? GC: Can you remember D-Day? What happened. Can you remember what happened on D-Day? Where you were? ID: Oh. Not really, not really to make it clear. No I can’t. But I can only, I can remember all these planes going over. I can remember that. But of course, it wouldn’t have actually affected us because anybody that was on the camp, we, we were sort of stationary there, and anybody like the soldiers who, who were training on, they would have gone, I think, before. So, but I, that’s the only thing I can remember and I can’t remember em [pause] what was the, what was the first one? Em, we got em, [pause] we em. You know when the war over, the war in Europe was over I can’t, I think I was still working there then, but I can’t, I can’t remember anything clearly about that either. GC: So you can’t remember VE day? ID: Not, only, only as much as, of course, reading it in the paper and eh, as I say, I can, I can still hear these, all these planes going over. So that must have been the beginning of it all. I think I, I think I can remember us looking forward say “Thank God it’s started,” because we would say, every day, “When’s it going to begin?” Because it can’t stop until it begins. And so I do remember that, but I don’t remember any, anything else, not, not clearly. But I presume we would have just carried on doing our work in the office. And eh I can’t think we would have got, we wouldn’t have got any spare em any time off or anything like that. And we wouldn’t, of course, it was a very secret thing so you wouldn’t really know too much about it, you know, even, even in the Command you, they, they liked to keep their secrets obviously. But em, but as I say, it eh, it wasn’t a very exciting life really I led in the Services, but em I certainly, well enjoyed it, as much as you can enjoy anything in war time, you know, because you’ve always got that at the back of your mind. You pick up the paper and one day perhaps a battle ship has gone down or, or there’s been fighting and thousands of people have gone, so obviously you, you’ve got all that and you eh you know, it did affect you. There wasn’t so much emotion as there is now. There’s an awful lot of emotion these days, isn’t there, about everything? There wasn’t. Because I think eh if there had been all that emotion, I don’t think we could’ve coped, to be honest. You had to, well, you know, keep, keep calm and carry on sort of thing. Which is always said to us. But of course then you’ve obviously got people who, friends, we, I mean, I had a friend and her husband was a pilot and we heard that he was killed and eh, as I say, my cousin’s husband was killed. You know, all those things were, they, they did affect you very much. But I got just a nice little, little, well it was nice for me, to show how friendship really means something. I, as I tell you, I was billeted with Betty and we, we used to just catch the bus in the morning to go to the camp and there was a little shop there. I suppose it, I don’t know whether it sold antiques or, funny little shop it was really. And in the front of this shop, there was this little corkscrew. I think it was possibly Cornish, you know, you get the Cornish pixie, and it was lying there, and of course this shop was always closed and why I took such a fancy to it, I don’t know because I hadn’t got any bottles to open. But every morning I’d look at it and say, “Oh, I do like that. Oh, oh, it’s still there.” And one day I said, “Oh Betty, somebody’s bought it,” so she, so she said, you know, I think a few days after, it was my birthday and when, on my birthday, she said, “Here’s a little present for you.” And I’ve still got it. It’s a corkscrew with a little pixie. But as I say, why I took such a fancy to it, I can’t think. [chuckles] But it, you know, every day I checked it and, of course, I could never get in and buy it, you see, cos it was always closed and so she must have put in a lot of effort, she must have gone one lunchtime to buy it when the shop was open. But I’ve always thought about that every time I, I see it, I think of Betty. Because we were very, very good friends and then, of course, you drift away eventually, don’t you? But em, two or three friends I kept for many years, really, until, you know, until they died actually. But em, but I always think of that little incident, and it meant so much to me. [chuckles] Strange, isn’t it? [chuckles] But em other than that I, I’m really, as I say, I didn’t have a very exciting time. GC: Did you go home a lot? ID: Em quite, quite a bit. Yes, we used to have forty eight hours, I think. We, I suppose, I suppose about once a month, really, possibly. And eh, we lived, I don’t know if you know the Crystal Palace area, do you know Buelah Hill? You might not know Buelah Hill. It, it sort of goes em, it goes from, well from Knights Hill it comes up to Buelah Hill. It’s a long, long road actually. And we didn’t have so much bombing there but, while I was, while I was there one, one night em well we thought the house was coming down it shook. I can’t explain how it shook. And we had quite a longish garden, I suppose, to that tree there, you know, and then there was another road, and there was, about there was a house. And I think it was only a five hundred pounder fortunately, but it fell on that house and killed two people. So that’s the nearest, nearest I’ve, well the nearest I’ve been to a bomb so I, I mean, it’s very lucky really isn’t it? But, but I remember another occasion. I used to sometimes go, when I worked at County Hall, go to Ken up at Chelsea, he worked at Chelsea in those days, and one evening the siren had obviously gone and the, I couldn’t get in the front of the Town Hall because it was closed and I had to go round the back because there was this bomb warning and just as I got to the door I looked up and I could see this face on the roundel on his, on the plane and that’s the nearest I’ve been to a German plane. By the time I’d got in he’d dropped his bombs. Well I mean you know they can travel quite a way. [chuckles] That’s the nearest I’ve been. [chuckles] GC: I mean, were you aware of what was happening in London with the bombing and like Coventry and Liverpool? ID: Oh, very much so because, very much in London, because, you see, working at County Hall em what happened in County Hall was when it first, you know, when the war first started, it was all very quiet for a few months, and so they sent everybody to different places em because our nearest one was Tooting. We went to a fire station in Tooting and, of course, that was, that was quite, there was no work to do. It was terribly, terribly boring. But of course you would watch the firemen practicing and things like that. And we must have stayed there for, I can’t remember how long, but quite a time. But then everybody said, “Oh, what’s the point?, so everybody came back and did their normal job, in the normal places. Well, of course, being in County Hall which is just opposite Saint Thomas’s as you know, well of course, it’s a hotel now, it’s not open. But em consequently, of course, every night, and because Mother and I were the only ones, there wasn’t a man in the house, we had to take our, I think a man came with us, but we did have to do fire watching. So we, you know, we did take them two till, two till four or one till three or something. Anyway we had to take it, obviously cos everybody was expected to take their part and that wasn’t very pleasant really [unclear] you knew it was shell cases or something falling and of course when, when, where you lived, as you say, all them fires, we could see them from, from where we lived. Well, well, when I say see them, we could see that glow in the sky and and, as I say, we travelled, you see, to London every, every day and eh I, I can, as I say, I can remember passing through Pennington, Brixton which got an awful lot and em and of course eh all round there really it was eh and, and you know, some of the girls would come in who lived in different parts and say “Oh, it’s been terrible tonight.” I didn’t know the girl very well, but she was a lovely girl, I remember that worked in County Hall and one lady in Fern Hill and I remember one night her whole family went. [pause] Anyway this bomb just hit their house. So, as I say, even though some people were, well I consider we were very lucky, but even so, you never knew what was going to happen to you, you know, but em, that’s why I’m so sorry for these people now, you know, in that burnt out building, but I do think their milking it a lot, you know. Because, when, when you think of it during the war you might get, I don’t, ten incidents like that in a night. GC: Was it easy to keep in touch with Ken while he was away and you was in Middlesex? Did you write a lot? ID: Oh, well, well, he’d got, he’d got leave and I think we went away once to somebody, who knew somebody who was in Weymouth or somewhere like that. And em and we had one or two weekends, but it wasn’t very easy when once, of course, when once he went abroad. He was there for a fair time I suppose really. I’m sure he was. And of course I got, I, I didn’t have a, I suppose I got out of the Services three or four months or perhaps more before he did because you, you know, I don’t think it took all that long after the war for, for people like, you know, doing our job particularly and I know Ken had to go to, I think he went somewhere near Bournemouth for a time. They, they just sort of sent you to different places, you know, whereas, whereas, em with us they just, you know, said em “That’s it. Thank you very much.” But now of course the em it’s a museum now, Fighter Command. Yes, as I understand it, Barratts bought it. I don’t know how to, I, I did read that there were very expensive houses put on it. And Barratts also used the top of the house, you know, the big house. But I haven’t been myself so I don’t know. But I do know the big house is used now and they’ve got it, they’ve got a plotters’ room and I think it’s quite interesting em and various things. And of course the Air Officer Commanding’s office, you know. While I was there that was Leigh-Mallory. He, he was, he’d been very well known in twelve group. He was a Wing Commander then I think. Then he came to Stanmore and he, he was posted abroad somewhere and he, he bought it, as they used to say, and em and then we had another one called Park, I remember. I remember that. But of course Leigh-Mallory was quite well known, you know, anybody who was more or less [unclear] would know because, as I say, I think he planned a lot of wings, you know, he was very good at that kind of thing. But I’m not sure because obviously we didn’t see much of any of those people at all. But em, I know, another interesting thing I suppose is, my other friend, who I worked in the office with, was, had a billet on Stanmore Hill, and that was David em Selznick, [?] you know, the, well you see in the war we were very near the Elstree and all those. So she was there and she, she was so miserable. She would buy herself one thing. Then she said “I’ve got a little cell-like place . Nobody ever speaks to me.” [chuckles] And eh, and so eventually she said “I can’t stand this anymore,“ she said, “I’m going to desert.” [chuckles] I remember she got her big case and we said “Oh, we’ll come down to the station with you,” and of course we were walking through the grounds of the em Fighter Command and of course we felt so, we thought we were doing something so very dreadful and were worried in case somebody would discover us sort of helping Pat to desert. [chuckles] I don’t believe anybody, well she, she did get a doctor’s certificate. She really, she, some people aren’t suited to that kind of life, I think, and to be fair, I mean, Betty and I were together which makes so much difference, doesn’t it? And, and of course, in our billet, as I say, the only people that really didn’t care for us very much were the two servants. They got called up and we had a, such a lovely lady, who, because the old lady I think had dementia, they got her this lady as a housekeeper and she, she really sort of, well mothered us more or less in a way. And the em she, she had a daughter and a son, who was a pilot and after a while she came one day and she’d lost him. You know, that kind of thing you never forget. I can see her now, you know, it must have been so dreadful for her. But em, so there were those sad, very sad, really bad, you know, awful things happening. But em, but personally, you know, it’s like everything, it’s the luck of the draw, isn’t it, really. And all our family were lucky, in that, that respect apart from my cousin, who lost her husband, but she was the only one I think. But, you know, everybody, I mean, I had another cousin who was in the Merchant Navy and that, that was dreadful. They really did suffer in the Merchant. But he, I don’t know, he must have had a charmed time. He was, he really was a funny chap. He, he tickled, he always tickled me, cos he was always seemed to be [unclear] He was going to get married. So his mother said, “Well, you must get yourself a new suit.” So he went to Burtons or somebody, you see. So he said, “I want, I want a suit.” You know. “Well sir, what can I do?” “I want a suit,” he said. Em “Oh yes sir,” he said. “I know. We’ve got a fine Director’s suit.” [chuckles] So he said, “Why? Doesn’t it fit him?” [chuckles] I can always, I can just see him saying it. I don’t think he was, he was so harmless, you know, he didn’t [chuckles] [unclear] poor man, cos he was actually shaking when he, when he said that. But em, no it, I think now when I’m very old and can’t move very much, I do think quite a lot about the war years, really. GC: Do you remember after the war? Coming back into civilian life? ID: Yes. That wasn’t easy. GC: No? ID: No. Not easy because in some ways, it certainly wasn’t easy for the men either, because although, unless you’d had a terrible injury or something, em you had a certain freedom I mean, you see, we were married, but when I say freedom, we didn’t go mad, but I mean we, if we, if we met somebody as a friend, you know, and went dancing, you, you can’t sort of say, “Oh no, you don’t want to do that,” because you’ve got to live you life, haven’t you, when you’re there. But afterwards, of course, em money was very tight for most people. You see, Ken had only been, he’d be only about twenty when, you see, he didn’t, although he worked for the Town Hall, he was only on the bottom rung, so there wasn’t much climbing up really. And then after, you see, I was twenty seven when I came out, no twenty two, no about twenty six, I suppose. Well then you want to start a family, so we had Sue and of course, you know, with money being tight and having had quite an easy, you didn’t have to, you didn’t have to think about whether you, where the food came from. It was all, you know, it was easy in some ways and no I don’t think it was too easy for people at the beginning until, and of course housing was very difficult. We were lucky to get a little house in Putney, because our friends, he, he was a pacifist actually, but he did work for the Forestry Commission, and after, after the war he got a job teaching in the Sudan, so we bought their little house in Putney and of course, there was a lot to do. It hadn’t been, it hadn’t been decorated for years and what I did do, was eh, because she’d done it, because Ron had been a university student, she’d taken university people, you know, to help with the money, and so when we, she said, “Well you’ll find I’ve got Lucy who’s an Indian. She’s got another three months.” She was doing her PhD. She said, “Would you consider taking her?” Said, “Oh, yes. Fine.” So we had that, that was an experience too. Because she was a lovely woman and we got on so well and she was a Christian Indian, and it was just the end of her, you know, she’d done all her exams. Just waiting to go back to India really. And she met a Hindu, and they, I don’t know, they went for six weeks on the Continent. Anyway, when she came back, I don’t, I don’t know anything what actually happened. She’d got this message once that he’d, he’d, I don’t know where he’d gone, or he was married or something. And because, being an Indian, you know how they, they sort of [unclear] you know. I mean she was terrible really, she was terribly upset. But of course Sue was a little girl of about eighteen months. And she thought this was great fun, so, poor old Lucy was going [unclear] and [chuckles] Sue was, Sue was doing the same thing. But I often wonder, well we got on so well, and I, she said, you know, she promised to write. I didn’t know her address in India, so I couldn’t write to her. And after a while cos her PhD degree came through and somebody phoned and said “We’d like”, “Would you please bring her degree to,” em, oh it was a long way, London University, which is a long way. Cos I had Sue as a little tiny girl. Well I, I said yes, so I, anyway, got on the bus and these two men. So I, you know, as soon as I, “Ooh, how’s Lucy?” Really we had, really got on well. She was a lovely person. She was about forty, she wasn’t a young girl. And they hardly answered me and I never heard from Lucy again and I often wonder what happened to her. I mean, it’s quite a sad thing really because she, she was so clever, obviously, to get a PhD and I, I don’t know. So, so in that res, that was another way of life, it was quite interesting really, but you know, because, then we had a medical student who was at Saint Thomas’s and after that we had a girl who was doing Geography and [chuckles] I can well imagine she was a teacher because I can remember once going into her room and she had a go at me, “This is dusty.” [chuckles] And, and the houses, because it was [mumbles] Victorian houses, you see, and you had to go in the back, you had to walk through the kitchen and eh, or you could just go round because it was the last one and there was a space between and she had a friend, and I remember, she did, I suppose she knocked on the door and she said em, “Yes, come through. It’s quite alright. Come through.” [chuckles] So you, it’s amazing the difference in people that um, you know, that’s interesting really. I wouldn’t have missed that really because it was very, very interesting to meet different eh types. And we had two Polish fellows next door, who, who’d, well I’d say, you know, of course, Poland’s had a dreadful time, but em, and of course, we were all decorate. This old place and the wallpaper had been on for ages and ages. And of course, we were all young, you see, we were twenty sevenish and so you know they would come in, “Can we help you?” So we’d have, you know, that was really quite fun and I’ve em I’ve [unclear] the other day at least. I like these little Victorian houses. They’re now selling for eight hundred thousand [chuckles] Of course, it was just round the corner from the, from the river. GC: Yeah. ID: They’re only, you know, they were very old, well they were Victorian. But, yes, you know, it, everything, everything is an experience isn’t it? GC: Mmm. ID: [unclear] Mustn’t make you. I can make him [unclear] because I find now Ken can’t hear very well. Consequently, you know you’re watching something, you know, you make a little casual remark which it doesn’t really matter if it’s answered or not and Ken just maybe, as I get, “Now, what is it now?” [chuckles] And the time, then I repeat some silly thing, “I don’t like the look of her hair,” or something, but I now have said it four times, but it really doesn’t matter. So I really, I know I natter an awful lot. GC: I was, I was actually going to ask, is there anything else you can remember, from the war, that stands out in your memory? ID: Well, well, as I say, only that bombing was eh I can remember. I can remember that. I don’t think, you see, we weren’t evacuated or anything like that. We were, well we were evacuated as I tell you with the em, I’m just trying to think really. Em [pause] of course, I mean, we moved house, my mother moved house . Everything was very, you know, a lot of the things that you treasured. I remember mother had a lovely lot of letters from her father, who used to write to the family every week. And, of course, you’d put those, and then perhaps you moved and they’re gone and you don’t, you don’t eh, you know, you don’t see them anymore, those kind of things. But, you see, we weren’t bombed out fortunately. And eh, and as I say, travelling wasn’t funny at all. It was very difficult and you had to wait a long time, but em, I can’t, I know one night we were very worried. Ken went to meet his cousin. His cousin would insist on going to a party and I think that was when the bomb, the eh, the docks were bomb, well not bombed, well they were bombed, but, you know, they had the fire things first didn’t they and eh you could see all this red in the sky and obviously she was, I think, she was in Dulwich, which was another place that had a lot of bombing and obviously, you know, we worried about things like that. And, as I say, fire watching wasn’t particularly pleasant really you know getting up in the middle of the night and, but I can’t say, you know, I, I [unclear] fortunately I never had many real, real experiences in anything. GC: Well, well, in that case, I am going to say thank you very much. ID: Well I hope it, you see, I knew, I don’t know anything about Bomber Command unfortunately. So and as I say em my em my WAAF days weren’t, weren’t, were not terribly interesting to anybody else I don’t think. You know, not as, because they weren’t, weren’t too much different from my ordinary life, if you know what I mean. You see, that’s the thing but em that’s, I think that’s all I can remember. GC: Well, as I said, I will say thank you very much on behalf of the Archive. I’m gonna apologise for the background noise. There is a main road and a fair [?] next door to us. But thank you very much, it’s been a pleasure to spend the afternoon. ID: Oh, that’s alright dear. You know, I don’t know if you can use it. It seems not that all that interesting to me, but em that’s as much, well, as I say, I think I can remember pretty clearly, you know, I think I’m lucky in that respect because some people are, well I think you do remember when you’re old don’t you. Well they say that you, you know, your long memory is better than your short memory. So I possibly couldn’t remember what I said two minutes ago. [chuckles] 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 Iris Done Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gemma Clapton 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 2017-07-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ADoneI170710 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:11:24 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. Fighter Command Description An account of the resource Between leaving school and getting married, Iris worked for London County Council. After her marriage she joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. She reported to RAF Bridgnorth in June 1942 to be sworn in. After that, she went to RAF Morecambe where she learned to drill and also had various injections. As she was already a shorthand typist, she didn’t have to complete any trade training and therefore, upon completion of initial training, she was posted to Fighter Command at RAF Bentley Priory, Stanmore, where she stayed for the duration of the war. She worked in the Command Accounts Department. She was envious of the plotters, but accepted her job as a necessity. Iris describes her experiences working in central London before enlistment, and afterwards when she visited her home in the south of the capital. With so many senior officers on site, entertainment at RAF Bentley Priory was first class, such as an open air concert by Glenn Miller. On the lead up to D-Day, she witnessed Field Marshall Montgomery, General Eisenhower and Arthur Tedder walking around the grounds in private discussions. Iris was billeted with civilians. She looks back with fondness and enjoyed the comradeship the forces provided. Demob came shortly after the end of the war, and with it the realities of financial hardship. This made Iris aware that she had been very lucky to serve in relative comfort. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ian Whapplington Tricia Marshall Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Middlesex England--London England--Shropshire Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942 1944 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending revision of OH transcription demobilisation Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1890 - 1969) entertainment ground personnel military living conditions Montgomery, Bernard (1887 - 1976) Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) RAF Bentley Priory RAF Bridgnorth Women’s Auxiliary Air Force https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/129/40/PFlowersJ1501.jpg c8c6c363f3571803b163c63628f7293d https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/129/40/PFlowersJ1502.jpg 13dff83dcc74f0fe413ea7eb4a08fccc https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/129/40/AFlowersHJ150602.mp3 f58403692c6da41dbb74bf1dcbd8b1fe Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flowers, James H J Flowers Horrace James Flowers Harry James Flowers Description An account of the resource 15 items. The collection concerns the wartime experiences of Flight Sergeant Horace James Flowers ( - 2025), a rear gunner with 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe. The collection consists of one oral history interview, a propaganda leaflet and nine photographs. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by James Flowers and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Flowers, HJ Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document HJF: My name is Horace James Flowers. I’m known as James. I am recording my, I served in the RAF for four and a half years from 1944 until 1947. I attained the rank of flight sergeant and flew, and served with 50 squadron and 44 squadron, 50 squadron at Skellingthorpe and 40 squadron, 44 squadron in Tiger Force at a number of squads, at a number centres, stations. I’m recording this for the International Bomber Command Centre on the 2nd of June, er, 2nd of June 2015 in, at xxxxx Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire. Yeah. I was born on the 9th of 10th, 9th of the 10th 1924 in a small village called Huthwaite in Nottinghamshire. I remained in Huthwaite, remained in Huthwaite during my education which was only secondary modern. Secondary modern. I then left school at fourteen, 1939. That sounds bad doesn’t it? MJ: That’s alright. HJF: I left school, I left school when I was fourteen. That was 1939. I became an apprentice butcher and loved the job. I absolutely loved it and if it hadn’t have been, hadn’t have been for the war, I’m certain I would have remained in that trade for the rest of my working life. However, Sutton in Ashfield area, Huthwaite and Sutton in Ashfield area rapidly became an area, a training area for a battalion of troops. And also there were Yanks at er, at Kingsmill Hospital and there were the paratroopers at Hardwick Hall five miles away. They was the elite and they used to come in at night time and the village had, all the village halls had been turned into dance halls so the town was thriving at night time, with hundreds probably thousands of, of soldiers coming in to be entertained for the night. It was so exciting. Now, the paratroopers were special. They were elite and when they used to come in they used to create skirmishes in the, you know, to a teenager it was so exciting and at the same time my brother had joined the navy and he was he was in, in, he was stationed at Brightlingsea at what they called [unclear] sorry [unclear] [pause]. Yes. HJF: German U-boats used to, used to speed in and torpedo any, any ship that was in the area. At the same time, at this particular time I had a girlfriend whose brother was in aircrew and he was a wireless operator and he used to come home at the weekends and I used to listen to his stories about his fly, what was happening while he was flying. This really stimulated my interest so I just had to get to it, get involved. Now, on the 18th of February 1943 I attended the, enlistment section- [pause] On the 18th of February 1943 I attended the recruitment section, recruitment place at Mansfield to be given a medical for aircrew which I passed A1. How excited I was when the medical officer told me that I’d passed A1. Not that my excitement was allowed to last long because shortly after the recruiting officer called me in to his office to give me the bad news. Now then, this is, ‘I’m very sorry to tell you, you can’t be accepted. We can’t accept anyone who is in a reserved occupation.’ I was completely devastated because I’d took a year to get in. I pleaded for them to change their mind, ‘Sorry you can only be accepted if the authorities release you from your reserved occupation.’ To a teenager desperate to volunteer this was terrible news. It felt as if a bomb had been dropped on me by the recruiting officer. My factory manager showed no sympathy at all. He firmly informed me that unless I was medically released I would have to remain with them until the end of the war. The problem was that I needed to be A1 to be accepted for air crew and unfit to be released from the reserved occupation. How do I get around that? Continuously I racked my brain to try and think of a way that I could overcome this problem. Months went by and I began to despair. It seemed as if my chance of joining the RAF had gone forever. At last I had an idea. I wondered, will it work? No matter whether it did or not I just had to try something. So with my heart in my mouth I arranged an appointment with my factory doctor. Attending the appointment I showed the doctor all the spots on my face, and telling him that I considered that the heavy fumes of the machine grinder on which, on which I was working was giving me dermatitis. I then requested that I should be released from this work. My case was so thin and I knew it but I had to try something. I then had to listen to the doctor giving me a real dressing down. How awful he made me feel. He ended his lecture by saying, ‘You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. Men are dying for the likes of you.’ Feeling very subdued I then quietly said, ‘But doctor, I only want releasing from munitions because I volunteered and been accepted for air crew. The RAF won’t take me if you don’t release me.’ With my heart in my mouth I waited as he fixed his gaze on me for what seemed an eternity. He looked me straight in the eye. Then without another word he reached for his pen and signed my release. As I got up to leave the surgery he leaned forward and shook my hand and wished me luck. All these problems had taken a year to resolve. Is that? MJ: Yes HJF: Now, having reached my ninetieth year I can’t help thinking how much slimmer my chances of surviving this terrible war would have been if I’d been allowed to leave my reserved occupation in 1943. Although I knew that being a rear gunner was a very dangerous job with a very high casualty rate, so much so that rear gunners were named Charlies and that’s another name for stupid fool, it didn’t matter to me what others thought. This was the way I wished to serve my country. Yeah, so that goes on to my “Tail End Charlie’s Story”. MJ: Ahum HJF: This was the title I gave to my book which I’ve, which I’ve had produced, “A Tail End Charlie’s Story” ‘cause I think that fits the bill. Right, on the 6th of March 1944 I reported to the induction centre at Lords Cricket Ground, London along with hundreds more recruits for entry to the RAF. Lords Cricket Ground was used during the 1939 ‘45 war as an induction centre for air crew. A roll call, a roll call was made during which, to my astonishment, a second HJ Flowers’ name was called out. It was then that I first met Henry James Flowers. Henry told me that he came from a village called Bargoed in South Wales. From then onwards we became constant companions. We remained together during basic training at RAF Bridgnorth after which we were posted to RAF Stormy Down for air gunnery training. Fortunately, we were kept together during flying training and in actual fact ended up serving on both 50 and 44 squadron, squadrons. Now, ok, recruitment before I get on to? MJ: You can put it whatever way you like. HJF: Does that sound alright? MJ: Yes it’s fine. It’s superb. I mean I know exactly what you mean when you said that London had had a right bash of it. HJF: Yeah. MJ: I mean, my nan got bombed out twice. You know, nothing left. HJF: We got friends, we’ve got a friend that lost everything twice. Absolutely everything. MJ: Yeah, yeah. HJF: She lived near where I was stationed yeah. MJ: ‘Cause the road that they lived in doesn’t exist. HJF: Yeah. MJ: And so on. You know people don’t- HJF: Yeah. MJ: Realise this sort of thing. Are you ready? HJF: Yeah ok. After disembarking from the troop train at Bridgnorth railway station we formed up in threes. Shouldering our heavy kit bags we began the long march to camp. The last mile was up a steep hill. As new recruits, unfit, with no marching experience at all, all carrying a heavy kit bag the formation rapidly turned into a gaggle. By the time we reached the camp everyone was on the point of collapse. Next morning, after the recruits had been formed up on the parade ground the NCO in charge of the parade informed us that we’d be confined to barracks for the entire six weeks - square bashing, ‘You will not be allowed in public until you can be a credit to your uniform.’ From that moment on we spent every minute of every day drilling and exercising. My muscles screamed out from the strains. The course seemed never ending. Much to my surprise the strain became less. I was obviously getting fitter. Not content with keeping us hard all day we were also given guard duty at night. On Saturday and Sunday a percentage of recruits were picked out to stand guard throughout the weekend. It was just the luck of the draw as to whether your name would come out. By the end of the fourth week I was badly missing my girlfriend Eunice so despite the ban on boots, new boots, new recruits leaving camp I began to make plans. Now, having been on guard duty at a sentry box on the edge of the wood at the rear of the camp I knew there was a way in and out. Those on guard duty were given instructions to arrest anyone there but be that it may I let loads of them through expecting them to make the, make the favour, if I, if I needed it. I noticed. Now desperate to return home I was willing to risk anything. So after duty on the fourth Friday I slipped out of camp by the back way and began thumbing lifts. In uniform they came very easily and with a matter of hours I was back home again. Early next day I walked the two miles to my girlfriend’s house. This was the first time that Eunice had seen me in uniform and I knew that I’d created a good impression. We had a lovely day and a half together. I can still remember going for a walk that Sunday morning along a very attractive country walk known locally as Skegby Bottoms. The sun shone brightly as we sat there. I was at peace with the world. I wanted it to go on and on and on. Late Sunday night I successfully re-entered the camp through the back. Through the woods. In no time I was back in my billet. The moment Taffy saw me he exclaimed, ‘Your name was called out several times for guard duty over the weekend.’ ‘Oh dear,’ I thought, ‘Blimey I shall be on a charge on Monday morning’. Sure enough I was called off the parade ground and told to report to the commanding officer. Shaking like a leaf I stood to attention in front of him. ‘Sorry. I didn’t hear my name called out.’ Not impressed, he said ‘Fourteen days jankers and do it again and I’ll throw the book at you.’ Next day I reported to the cookhouse in full pike. Just my luck to be the only one on jankers, jankers at the time to peel the thousands and thousands of potatoes needed to feed a camp full of hungry airmen and then to wash the pots that had to be used for meals. Gosh it was hard work. You may have thought that all this effort made my weekend worthwhile. I’m in no doubt at all. It was. Now then, what did I get to? 3rd of, 3rd of June 1944 see us arrive at Bridgnorth for flying training. Now this training was on Avro Ansons. It had one mid upper turret and we used to fire at drogues that used to come by with a, with a Spitfire travelling a drogue alongside us. And quite honestly, quite honestly it was I think, I think the pilot was, of the Spitfire, was in more danger of us hitting him than us hitting the drogue. Anyway, when, when we finished this course, at the end of this course I managed to get a day’s, a weekend off so I travelled home to see Eunice. She was in the Land Army near Grimley and I remember as I arrived at the, at the hostel, at the hostel Eunice was telling me about the, about someone who was getting married. One of the Land Army girls getting married. And I could feel that this was the, that there seemed to be a longing in her voice which suggested to me that this was the right time to once again, for the hundredth time ask her if she’d marry me. And so as she turned to me I said, ‘Well shall we get married then?’ and she said, ‘Yes, let’s.’ I’m not joking with you I could have fallen through the floor. Anyway, we decided there and then. She said, ‘What are you doing now?’ I said well I’m going now to Husbands Bosworth for a ten week course on OTU training and she says, ‘Ok when will that finish?’ Well we calculated it out that it would finish about October the 14th. She says, ‘Ok we’ll add a week to that. We’ll add a week to that. We’ll get married on the 21st of October.’ Not for one minute did we think the things that could happen in a flying training. So naïve we were. Anyway, a week before, two weeks before the October the 21st flying training, all flying training was cancelled through bad weather. We didn’t fly for nearly eight days. Comes the 20th, comes the 20th of, of October and I’m getting married the next day. I’d still got four hours flying to do that morning. Anyway, by sheer luck we got the flying training finished, finished by dinnertime. We then needed to, to get cleared from the station, and of course collect all our gear because we’re moving to another, another station. And, and we’d got, in those days, today if you wanted to get cleared from a section they do it on computer, can do it in five minutes. In our day we used to have to go to every section to get our chitty signed, mainly on foot. Fortunately, Taffy managed to borrow a couple, a couple of bikes. He was going to be my best man so he’s coming with me. We circulated and of course there’s a tremendous area in, in, on an RAF aerodrome and we circulated the area on these cycles and I’m certain that everybody, every section knew we were getting married because as we were, the next day every section and as we, the next day, and as we came in they immediately signed my chit. Bless them all. Anyway the admin section was closing at 5 o’clock. We arrived there at five minutes to five. The admin, the officer then cleared us from the section and, and he says, ‘Ok, right, you can go now. Report to RAF Wigsley on Monday the 23rd.’ I thought, bloody hell, two days. We then had to start [laughs] we then had to start our journey. Now in those days, in those days there was very little transport. We had to, we had to cadge lifts we had to catch buses, local buses, train journeys, local train journeys. It took us all night. We didn’t arrive in Sutton in Ashfield until half past eight on the Saturday the 21st. Having been awake all night I was absolutely shattered. Anyway we walked out of Sutton in Ashfield railway station and Eunice lived a mile to the right and I, and I lived two miles to the left. Taffy walked to tell Eunice we’d arrived. I walked the two miles to Huthwaite to, to my parent’s home. Now there was so much happening. The wedding was planned for 2.30. There was so much happening I never got any rest. I was absolutely cream crackered. By, I remember, I remember we were in, as we got in, as we got in to the taxi turned up to St Mary’s Church at Sutton in Ashfield and I says to my mum ‘Oh I can’t.’ ‘Go on, go on, ‘she said, ‘Oh no. You’re here now. Go on. Get going.’ Anyway we got into the church and I’m not joking I stood at the altar and I was absolutely asleep on my feet. I can’t explain how tired I was. Anyway, after a while suddenly there was a thump in my ribs and I opened my eyes and said. ‘I will’ and it was back to sleep again and quite honestly that’s all I remember of my, of my, of my wedding. And then photographs. The photographer wouldn’t take any photographs at the church. He insisted that we went down to his studio which was a couple of miles away and then he only took, would agree to take two photographs. One of Eunice and I and the wedding group. How different it is these days. Wedding photographers dominate the wedding and take millions of photographs and charge a tremendous amount of money. They do, don’t they? Anyway, Eunice was late when she arrived at the, at the church. She told me later, she said as the taxi drew away from her house a funeral appeared. Now it’s bad luck for you to go past a funeral. That’s what they said. So, quickly the taxi driver changed direction, changed direction to, to avoid it. Lo and behold they were just about to turn up the drive to the, to the church it was quite a long drive two or three hundred yards long and another, another funeral appeared so quickly he turns around and went back again and made another deviation. Well, she says she thought this a sign our wedding wouldn’t last. Well sixty nine years, seventy years later I think probably her premonition was a little bit wrong. [laughs]. Fortunately, the Sunday, Sunday, a telegram arrived at my home to tell me that I’d been given eight days leave. So, so we didn’t have to report to Wigsley until eight days later but I want to go back a little bit now to my flying training because quite honestly flying training on Wellington bombers, it was a marvellous experience. Dangerous. Always exciting. Mostly enjoyable but quite honestly we were like kids playing with big new toys and we couldn’t get enough of it. Now, many things happened, happened, that quite honestly, that could, we could have bought it there and then. I remember one instant. One instant comes to, comes to mind. This was a training flight up to the north of Scotland and, and this was one for the first night trips that we had. Now, navigation in those days was very, very difficult because they didn’t have radar, the navigator didn’t have radar. He had to use his maps and they used to even use the stars and, and even used to ask us, ask us for things on the ground so that was how primitive it was. Anyway, we flew up to the north of Scotland. It was six and half hour trip and when we got to the north of Scotland we were due to turn, to turn starboard to come down the North Sea but instead of telling us to turn starboard the navigator told Skip to turn port so instead of travelling down the North Sea we were travelling down the Irish Sea. In fact we were rapidly going towards bloody America [laughs] and extended the flight trip quite a long way. He said the reason why this happened was because he accidently pulled his, we were flying above twelve thousand feet and he accidently pulled his, his oxygen cylinder thing out, connection out so he, but that was his story. Anyway, we goes down the North Sea. I remember we got back to, we got back to the Husbands Bosworth area and I remember looking down. It was absolutely, early hours of the morning, it was absolutely pitch dark. You could not see a thing on the ground and Jack the navigator says, ‘Ok Skip. We’re over base.’ Skip says, ‘Can’t see anything.’ So he says, ‘Ok, dog leg.’ so he does a five minute dog leg, comes back again and he says, ‘Right Skip. We’re over base.’ And when he says that there’s a chorus of voices says, ‘You’re up the spout, you’re bloody up the spout we can’t see anything.’ Ok, another dog leg. We did another dog leg and another dog leg and then when we gets to the fourth one there’s a voice, the flight engineer butts in and says, ‘Hey. Hey, we’ve only got, you’d better pull your fingers out, we’ve only got four minutes of fuel left.’ I was sitting, I was in the rear turret listening to all this going and quite honestly my ring was beginning to twitch. I thought to myself, ‘bloody hell if they don’t do something about it we’re going to crash’. So I switched it on. I say, ‘Skip why don’t you call somebody up?’ He says, ‘Oh yes.’ He then calls out the base. The base called in the, the aircraft codes, signs and immediately lights, the aerodrome lights flicked on straight beneath us. Navigator, nav, had been right all the time. We made an emergency landing. We taxied around this, we taxied round, around the perimeter. We turns in to, turns into our bay and as we turned into the bay, before we were in, the engines stopped. That’s how close we were. Ok now then. I’ll go forward now to after my wedding ok. MJ: Yeah. HJF: Are we still going? MJ: Yeah. HJF: After, after the wedding I reported to, to Wiglsey. Now, once again we, one, one time comes to mind we had a complete and utter cock up on Stirlings. I remember we were corkscrewing, corkscrew starboard, corkscrew port and the Skipper was saying to me diving starboard, diving starboard, climbing port, climbing starboard, rolling port, so on. The corkscrew. And in the middle of this cork, and this Spitfire was attacking us, was attacking us from behind and I was giving a running commentary on, on him coming in and all of a sudden the aircraft levelled out and a panicked voice came over the, came over the intercom, ‘Put on parachutes, jump, jump, jump.’ And I thought, ‘bloody hell, I can’t believe this’. The next second, ‘Put on parachute. Jump, jump, jump. I can’t hold it, I can’t hold it, I can’t hold it.’ I thought to myself ‘bloody hell there’s something happening I can’t see’ and I thought to myself, I thought ‘I’ll have a go’. So I drags the turret around to the beam, pulls on my slider, green as grass I was at the time. Now with experience I’d have opened the door and just flopped back outwards but green as grass I dragged myself out of the turret outside and I was standing outside and the wind was terrible. You can imagine. We were twelve thousand feet, travelling two hundred miles an hour and I’m looking down. I remember standing there with one, with my feet on the edge of the turret, one arm’s holding the top of the turret and I looked down and cows in fields looked, looked like flies. I thought, ‘Bloody hell I wonder if my parachute will open.’ Anyway, I thought to myself I’ll have a go. So therefore, I thought, I started, I released one hand and took, took, began to take my helmet off and quite honestly it was, there was so much noise outside I could hardly hear anything. All of a sudden I heard a faint voice and I didn’t care what it was it I thought, that’s somebody shouting something. It took me twenty minutes to get out but five seconds to get back in. I was back in like a bloody flash and I held my hands to my ears and it was the flight engineer. We’d got a, we’d got a extra member of the crew that time, he was a tour expired extra flight engineer and he was shouting, ‘Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go.’ So, right, well what happened? When we got down as we came down to land I was so stressed up with this thing as I climbed, as I came out of the turret into the fuselage I just asked myself, I just had to know whether my chute would have opened. So I immediately, I pulled the rip cord and my parachute spilled out into the fuselage. It cost me two and six pence to have it, now that’s a lot of money. When you think it’s only two pounds a week for me and I was giving a pound to my Mrs that was a lot of money to me but I didn’t care. It gave me the confidence that at least, at least it opened. Now, when we got out, when we got out I say, I says, I says to Skip, ‘What happened?’ He says, ‘Well’ he says, ‘We were diving,’ he says, ‘We were diving and climbing and rolling in the what do you call it,’ he says, ‘And all of a sudden a window just at the back of my head, unbeknown to me, flew out.’ The window had got, on the inside, had got a lead weighted curtain and as it, as the window blew out it sucked this lead weighted curtain out and he says it just started banging on the side of the fuselage bang, bang, bang, bang he says, ‘I suddenly heard this bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang tremendous noise’ he says, and at that precise moment by sheer coincidence the instructor, flight engineer, the bloody fool, sitting at the side of me, the starboard outer oversped. Now, the standard procedure is to pull the nose of the aircraft like climbing a hill to steady it down. Now, instead of just poking the Skipper or, or switching his intercom on which was at his mouth and saying what was happening he immediately dragged on, dragged as hard as he could on the controls to lift. Now, the Skipper at the time because he was hearing this banging noise was trying to keep the aircraft straight and level and at the same time the flight engineer, and they were pulling against each other and I’m not joking it was a complete and utter cock up but I’ve often thought to myself what did that bloody Spitfire driver think of me when he saw me standing outside, climbing out, he must have thought I were doolally. [laughs] Another thing happened whilst we were in flying training. We were doing the corkscrewing. All of a sudden all four engines cut out. Quick as a flash Skipper slammed the aircraft in to a vertical dive and kick-started the engine. Fortunately got them going, fortunately we got plenty of height, kick-started them. By golly that did make your heart flutter [laughs] and then our final training, training trip with, on Stirlings we had an emergency landing and we had, we had to make an emergency landing at Woodhall Spa, the home of 617 of all places, and as we, as we touched down all of a sudden the Stirling swung off, swung off the runway and headed straight for flying control. Now the Stirling was a massive aircraft and, and the cockpit, when the cockpit, when it was stopped, when it was stationery the cockpit was level with the windows in flying control and we, we careered across the, across the, the grass and stopped about a couple of foot from the, from the flying control windows and Skip said he could see flying control people running away from the windows in panic and when we stopped he says, he switches on, he says, ‘Flying control, ‘he says, ‘Can you see where we are?’ and a droll voice, a dry voice came over, ‘Yes’.[laughs] Anyway, the bonus for this was we spent the night at Woodhall Spa and we were, we were able to spend the night in the mess and we were able to mix with those elite airmen, the 617 people. It was absolutely wonderful. Anyway, the next morning we flew the thirty five minutes back, back, back to base at Wigsley and that was our last training trip, flying training trip. The next day we went to, we transferred to RAF Syerston for Lanc finish school which we spent two weeks there. At the end of the two weeks we were being moved to squadron. We were now fully trained. Now, for some reason we, on the 24th of January 1945 we, we boarded a RAF transport to take us from there to squadron. For some reason and I don’t know why we were taken to RAF Balderton for the night. Now, we were absolutely dead beat when we got there. It’s a bit sexy. [laughs] Absolutely dead beat so we went to bed very early. Now, we were in a Nissen hut with about twenty beds and there was entrances both sides. Now, fast asleep, late on, I don’t know, about midnight, all of a sudden there was a door opened the other end and a couple, excited couple came in and they obviously didn’t know there was anybody there. Short time later the excited talk, sexual. [laughs] and this went on and on and on and on. Anyway satisfaction came in time and they crept out laughingly and after they’d gone a quiet voice says, ‘Did you hear all that?’ [laughs] It goes without saying that fit aircrew fully trained wouldn’t miss a thing like that. It certainly brightened my night up. The next day we were a, to 50 squadron Skellingthorpe. We arrived at RAF Skellingthorpe on the 25th of January 1945. Now, the atmosphere, there was quite an atmosphere on training, training, on training stations but it was nothing like this. There was that feeling like an electric feeling. There was so much bustle and things going off, watching, actually we were nearly month before we did our first operation but we, all right? Seeing aircraft take off, disappearing, new aircraft coming in, the wild, wild parties that were in the mess. The atmosphere was absolutely wonderful. Now as I said we were a month, we were doing training during the time and I remember wonder, wonder if, if I’m going to be up to it because you never know do you? Anyway, it was the 5th of March, the 5th of March by the time we, we did our first operation and what an operation. What an eye opener. Now, I remember we walked into the, we walked into the briefing room, and The excited chatter and then all of a sudden the briefing officer came in quite pleased and deathly silence instantly. Your target for tonight will be Bohlen. Bohlen. Apparently, I found out, it was going to be a ten hour trip. Your, your route will be passing the Ruhr, in the Ruhr, in the Ruhr 3 Group will be attacking the Ruhr. In that area expect to see enemy fighters attacking in pairs. One from above and one below. If one gets above, if one gets beneath you they will shoot you to pieces. So be careful. Beware. Anyway, briefing finished and we’re standing outside. They’re all chatting all excitedly together and I’m talking to Flight Lieutenant Ling’s rear gunner and I can’t remember his name but I knew that he’d been, he was getting towards the end of his tour. I says to him how are things going, what was the flight like? Obviously, obviously I was quite uptight and he said, ‘Oh don’t worry, there’s nothing to it. Nothing to it. And I said something to him which I’m not going to tell you about which made me think, made me think ‘You’re not taking it seriously enough.’ He said, ‘Oh’ he says, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve never seen, I’ve never seen a fighter at all.’ Unbelievably, we came, we came across our first Messerschmitt less than four hours later. He say, ‘Don’t worry. There’s nothing to it’ and I thought, anyway they got the chop on the next trip, the next what do you call it, you see. Anyway, I remember going out to the aircraft at Skellingthorpe and the tension in me was absolutely sky high and I remember it didn’t seem to take us long, didn’t seem to take us long before we were taxiing out and as we were taxiing out I was looking around and there was all, I’m certain as I remember 61 squadron were also going that night and there were all these aircraft taxiing around the perimeter. The atmosphere was absolutely electric and all above, above, above all above us we could see the Lincoln cathedral in front of us and all above we could see heavily laden bombers gradually circling up, circling around. The tension inside me just went just like that. I was ready for it. Anyway, we turns on to the peri track, taxies up to the runway, waits our turn, turns on to, turns on to the, turns on to the, on to the runway. Skip calls, ‘Brakes on. Full power.’ And then, ‘Right, brakes off’ and, and we began to surge forward and alongside the, alongside the runway was a line of ground staff waving us off. What a wonderful take off. What a wonderful send off. Anyway, this was the first time that we’d been in a, in a Lancaster with a full bomb load. We’d got fourteen thousand pounds of bombs on and two thousand two hundred gallons of fuel. It was as much as any aircraft, Lancaster aircraft could carry in those days. I remember we were surging along, we were surging along, the vibration, this was the first time I’d heard the engines on full throttle right through the gate. The aircraft was absolutely, all the fuselage was vibrating with the tension of it. Anyway, as I, as I remember one two five was the one, was about the speed that you used to take off. I remember engineers started to call out one twenty, one twenty one, one twenty two, one twenty four, one twenty five and then Skip dragged the aircraft and you could feel the fuselage vibrating as he was fighting to get the aircraft into the air and then we had another problem. The Skellingthorpe runway was aimed straight at Lincoln Cathedral on top of that hill. Now that’s like a pimple today but to us in, in 1945 it was a terrible object to get over and we used to have to be banking while still at stalling speed. We used to be banking to miss that, well, I say ‘bloody cathedral, oh God’ and then when we got to a thousand feet it was such a relief. Anyway, I remember, I remember gradually climbed up. Our operation height was twelve thousand feet. I remember circling around. There were hundreds of aircraft. I think there were about two hundred and fifty aircraft involved in that operation. They were oh wonderful sight, wonderful sight gradually, circling around getting up to height and then a green light, Very light came from came out of one of the, the leading aircraft and we immediately began into a bomb, into a stream and we started to head out for Germany over the North Sea. Now, gradually, we’d set off at half past five at night, March and it was getting dark, getting quite dusk and as we set out, as we set out over the, over the North Sea gradually the light disappeared and so the aircraft, the aircraft, gradually, my night vision was developed. It used to take you twenty minutes for your night vision to develop and, and gradually all you could see was just, you could see Lancasters when they were the image of them when they were very close and you could see the sparks of the engine and we used to, we used to, we’d been told, warned about these twin fighters so we were swaying from side to side so we could look straight beneath us so we wouldn’t be caught out and I remember we’d been flying over the North Sea and were now entering, entering, enemy territory for the first time. The tension built up in, the adrenalin. I should say adrenalin building up inside me and I remember I was looking, it was now almost pitch dark, although it was a moonlit night it was still dark and I remember watching this, watching this Lancaster drift slowly underneath us, about twenty or thirty feet beneath us and it had just drifted underneath us. I could just see the sparks from its engines and just as he drifted there was a tremendous explosion just a short distance behind us and the explosion, the light split in half, then the next second, two, two seconds later there were two tremendous explosions. Two Lancasters rammed each other and both exploded in mid-air and then it was back to complete darkness. It hadn’t, the shock, the shock it hadn’t taken me long to realise the difficulties of being on operational active service but you know sadly fourteen air crew, airmen had lost their lives in that second but the shockwave was, it was so close to us the shockwave came right through our aircraft, violently vibrated us and quite honestly I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had blown us down. Anyway, we carried on. We climbed up to twelve thousand feet. Now, it was a moonlit night, a moonlit night and the clouds, the clouds looked like a rolling sea. It was so picturesque. The clouds were up to ten thousand feet, we were two thousand feet above and it looked so picturesque. It was lovely and I remember my concentration was absolutely sky high and all of a sudden I saw something which could have been a fly on a window, it was just a slight movement right down deep, deep on, on the starboard side and I thought to myself, bloody hell a fighter. Can’t be. Who said he’d never seen a fighter? Yeah, I thought, anyway it was at that moment that I made, through inexperience, something which could have been, could have been fatal to us because I should, all my, all my training, I should have in actual fact immediately called and, and warned the crew what was happening. Nevertheless, despite this mistake I automatically aimed my guns at it. Gradually this object moved gradually astern and when it was dead astern at ten thousand feet gradually it started coming up. Now when it got to, when it got level with us the image of the aircraft filled my, filled the ring on my gun sight and it was at that moment that the hundreds of hours that I’d spent viewing, viewing pictures, silhouettes of, of fighter, of enemy fighters, fighters on screens in training paid off because I recognised it a Messerschmitt 109. Immediately, without, without a second thought I pressed my, pressed my button and gave it a prolonged burst straight at the fighter and I watched my, I watched my tracers go straight in it. At this fraction of a second I immediately switched on and shouted, ‘Fighter. Fighter. Dive, dive, dive.’ And the Skipper slammed the aircraft straight into a, into a vertical dive and he’s shouting me, ‘You mean corkscrew. You mean corkscrew.’ But I didn’t. I meant dive because there was no deflection required because he was absolutely dead astern. Anyway, I watched my tracers go straight into it, straight into it and the fighter immediately went straight down as if out of control straight into the cloud. I’m convinced now that I shot it down but of course rules do not allow you to claim anything when you don’t see the ground and we were at ten thousand, the clouds at ten thousand feet so therefore that’s but I’m convinced that I got him. Anyway, we carried on to the target, this was another couple of hours RT silence and all of a sudden, all of a sudden a voice, RT silence was broken. Now, a voice came over as calm as I’m talking to you, ‘Control to Link One how do you read me?’ And it was the, it was the voice of the controller who I feel certain was Wing Commander Stubbs, a man I had a great respect for. ‘Link One to control. Loud and clear. Control to Link One go in and mark the target.’ Ok. Right, carry,’ I listened to this conversation. We’re gradually, now we’re quite some distance from the target but gradually now the pathfinders are now beginning to drop their flares so the sky’s beginning to light up so I’m beginning to see lights in, lights in the sky and gradually as we are approaching as we are getting nearer and nearer the target. I’m listening to the conversation of the controller and the Link One now when everything was done and everything had been marked with satisfaction controller says, ‘Ok. Ok Link One, go home, go home.’ Then he called out which I’m certain was Bandwagon. They called the bomber stream Bandwagon, ‘Hello Bandwagon,’ and that was our call sign, ‘Hello Bandwagon. Come in and bomb the target. Bomb red flares,’ and he was giving instruction to which flares to bomb and when he’d finished all that he says, he says, now, ‘No flak. Watch out for fighters.’ So, anyway, we approach the target and just before the target, just before we reach the target all of a sudden a single engine fighter which I’m certain was a Messerschmitt 109 suddenly made a run at us. I immediately, now I was listening to the bomb aimer and Skipper beginning to give instructions for our bombing run and our instructions was that you should not corkscrew during that time. We were taught to be quiet so immediately I aimed and fired. Calamity. The back of my gun sight dropped out and a white light there, I’d been five hours in pitch darkness, and this white light bomb sight bulb was right in front of me. Now, it only took me seconds to put it together but twenty minutes for my, for my night vision to come back and during that time anything could have happened. I couldn’t have done a thing. I could hear what was happening and all the talk and I couldn’t see a thing. What happened to that fighter I will never know. Anyway, we went on our bomber run and, and I could hear the bomb aimer saying, ‘Left, left, steady, steady, steady. Ok bombs gone.’ Now, the bombs used to drop at about a thousand feet per second. We were twelve thousand feet so twelve seconds later he says, ‘Photograph taken.’ Now, immediately Skipper slammed the nose of the aircraft right down. We went straight down a couple of thousand feet straight into the cloud and we stayed in those clouds for hours. Anyway, we came out of the clouds eventually and then lo and behold as we came out of the cloud over to our, over to our side I can’t remember if it was port or starboard there was a bloody Lancaster flying on with all its lights on. The stupid buggers. With all his lights on. We scooted away from it as quick as we could. So anyway we got back to our area where the cathedral, over the cathedral. Now, Skellingthorpe, Scampton and Waddingon, their circuits almost intertwined around the cathedral, more or less. Now, when we used to come over the cathedral you can- now you can imagine everything was visual so therefore there were loyal scores of very, very tired, tired aircrew so all, all desperate to get home, desperate to get home so there was a tremendous danger of collision and another thing, another thing, the night before this, the night of the 4th , 4th of March, three intruders had shot three Lancasters down in the circuit at Waddington and one at Fulbeck so this had immediately filtered through us so instead of relaxing as one do after, after being in the turret for nigh on ten, eleven hours my concentration as we switched our landing lights on, we just used to have landing lights while we were in the circuit, and I remember as we switched our landing lights on about, about twenty aircraft close by and they must have been in different circuits switched their lights on. Now, I remember I was, my concentration was sky high and I remember thinking Skip calls twenty degrees of flap, a hundred degree of flap and I was all the time searching all the way around thinking to myself I’m not going to be caught out by an intruder because this was the dangerous, you’re like a sitting duck then. We came in to land we stopped in dispersal all the twelve hours of tension drained out of me. I thought to myself ‘bloody hell and this is only the first one’. And that was my first operation. Yeah. Another interesting operation was the one to Lutzkendorf which was on the 14th of March 1945. There were two hundred and forty five Lancasters involved and eleven Mosquitos. Eighteen aircraft failed to return. Never even reported in the paper and that’s nearly two hundred people it’s just, yeah, anyway. Anyway, took off about ten minutes to five. I remember we, we flew past the Ruhr and once again rear group, 3 Group were attacking the Ruhr and I remember as we passed by I could see the fight that was going on. I could see flak shells bursting in the air. Tremendous. I could see air to air tracer bullets from, from bomber to fighter. I could see bombs dropping and I thought bloody hell we’ve got another, we’ve got another two hours to go yet and then we continued a short distance away and now there was another problem. We’d been warned that there was a fighter, a fighter aerodrome, a night fighter ‘drome in this area which had a light shining from its roof, from the top of flying control so that, so that we knew from one that there would be, there would be fighters, night fighters in strength in this area and this light was on specifically so they could stay in the air until the last minute, down, refuel and be up again. Now, I remember I suddenly saw this and the adrenalin was such, I thought to myself God the night fighter are bound. All of a sudden I saw the airfield had been strafed. The light disappeared. Obviously, it must have been one of our aircraft. One of our aircraft. I know full well that putting the light out didn’t, didn’t make much difference to the fact that fighters were around but boy it did relieve me. Anyway, we carried on to the, we carried on to the target and once again, once again, I can’t remember the controller it might have been Wing Commander Stubbs but he went through the same procedure, went through the same procedure. I remember him saying at the end, ‘No flak. Look out for fighters. Watch out for fighters’. This was our fourth trip and the tension was beginning to build up in me as we were going through the target and I remember without me intercom switched on I was listening to the, I was listening to the bomb aimer saying, ‘Left, left, left, steady’ and I was shouting, I was shouting in a loud voice, ‘Drop the bloody thing. Drop the bloody thing and let’s get out of here.’ Anyway, after what seemed an interminable length of time he said ‘Bombs gone.’ Skip immediately slammed the aircraft down into a dive and disappeared from the, and as we as we left the target I thought to myself, ‘thank God, we got away with it’. Little did I know. Now, I remember we’d left the target, we’d been gone probably ten and fifteen minutes and I could still hear that controller over the target. ‘Bomb green, the green flare,’ do this, undershoot it, do this, do that. It was absolutely inspirational. He must have been, he seemed to have been over the target hours. Anyway as I’m listening to this left from the target about approximately fifteen minutes when all of a sudden a fighter flare burst straight above us. From complete darkness it was like switching the light on, an electric light on in a pitch dark room. The shock of it made me sink deep in, deep in to my, in to my turret. My seat. Mind you, immediately my mind started working like lightning and I, looking out of the, looking out of, I searched the area. I searched the area all the way, all the way. I searched the area all over and sure enough high on the starboard side I could my left I could see an FW190 coming in fast dragging all I’d been looking I hadn’t been turning my turret around so as quick as I can I’m dragging my turret around. I didn’t have time to aim. So, immediately I got anywhere near I pressed my, I starts firing, my gun starts rattling away I’m dragging, trying to drag my tracer, tracer bullets into it and I’m watching it. Then all of a sudden with this, this aircraft coming in fast I felt rather than saw something on my, deep on the starboard side and forcing myself to take my eyes off this aircraft I had a quick glance to the right, to the right, and there deep down, deep down on the port side. It’s my right but it’s the port side of the aircraft, deep down on the port side was a JU88 almost underneath us and I thought, bloody hell. Immediately I realised that if he could get underneath us he was going to shoot us to pieces so I stopped firing at him, drags my turret around and as soon as I can, as soon as I can I began firing at this JU88 and immediately, immediately they both of them broke away. Now, they played cat and mouse with us for twenty six minutes. Now, that might not seem a long, a long time but as each, each attack only lasted about ten seconds. How many times they came in I don’t know but anyway Lancasters, Lancasters didn’t have any power assisted controls. The Skipper was corkscrewing continuously for forty minutes. The physical effort on him must have been absolutely terrific. Anyway, the tension inside me remained after. I didn’t realise they were twenty six minutes. After a time, after a long time with my tension, with my concentration, still sky high they disappeared. They must have decided that, that, you know, either run out of fuel or they realised they might as well go for an easier target. Anyway, the navigator, I only know it was twenty six minutes because the navigator told me later but when we got back I remember the relief as we passed over the English coast. It was absolutely fantastic. I know we weren’t safe but the relief to be over. It seemed so much comfort to be coming over, over this country. Now, when we, when we, after we came in to land I found out that all ten thousand rounds that I’d supplied to my rear turret - I’d fired every one. There wasn’t one left. So if we’d have had another attack by one of those fighters I couldn’t have done anything about it. That was as close we were to disaster. Phew. And sadly, sadly Flight Lieutenant Ling and crew did not return from this, from this operation and I’m not surprised. Well I shouldn’t say this but, no I won’t say any further. I did think that the rear gunner was getting a bit blasé and probably he wasn’t doing what he should have been doing but I don’t know. I can’t say anything more about that. But that was my fourth operation. Another interesting operation was a daylight operation to Nordhausen. There were two hundred and forty Lancasters involved. Now during briefing we’d been told that the SS troops had been transferred to Nordhausen to protect Hitler. Now, this was what made it interesting with thoughts that we might be bombing Hitler. Now, we didn’t have any flak or fighters to contend with but all we had was problems. Now, I remember we took off. Generally speaking most of my operations in fact all of the other operations we used to take off from, from Skellingthorpe and go straight out to the North Sea. On this occasion we were going to travel south, south and meet up with 3 group aircraft and, and, and travel to Nordhausen with them, you see, which, which meant we were going to drive past the London area. Now, we’d been warned at briefing be careful near the London area. Their ack ack gunners don’t like strangers, unidentified aircraft flying over. They will fire first and ask second so beware. Anyway, having taken off in the early hours of the morning it was still absolutely pitch. 2.30 we took off. It was still pitch dark as we went by, went by the London area and I remember as we arrived there, there were absolutely hundreds and hundreds of searchlights shining up and quite honestly we were so close to them I thought, I was really on tenterhooks, because I thought bloody hell, thinking about the fourteen thousand pound of bombs underneath us and those, those twitchy ack ack gunners. Anyway, I was looking down, all of a sudden Skip slammed the aircraft in to a vertical drive. Now the g-force on me was tremendous. It drew me, stretched my body up and my body, my head hit the top of the fuselage with a bang, the top of the turret rather with a bang and just at that precise second, now you’ve got to remember that I had no perspex at all in front of me, so, therefore, therefore the open air was just there and just as that happened a Lancaster aircraft flew just over and I swear to this day that if I’d have put my hand out I could have touched that aircraft. Another one of our nine lives. Anyway we carried on. We met with up 3 Group, over Reading it was, and we drifted out over the, over the, on to enemy territory. I remember we were so widely spaced out well, we were used to flying at night-time, we didn’t need to be in a gaggle when all of a sudden there was a voice came up, RT silence broken and it was obviously the fighter leader controller, fighter leader and he shouts up ‘Close up. Close up. How do you expect me to bloody protect you?’ Anyway, we got to Nordhausen and boy did we close up. Our operational height was about twelve thousand feet as far as I could remember. I can’t remember. Somewhere in that region. But two hundred and fifty aircraft then from being miles apart suddenly homed in together in to a thin line and I remember there was aircraft all the way around us, almost touching us. Now, I didn’t mind the ones at the side or the ones below or the ones straight above us but I was leaning forward in my turret and looking up. The ones I was concerned of one above in front that I couldn’t see because I thought to myself they’ll be dropping bloody bombs on us and I’m looking at them when all of a sudden, all of a sudden a full load of bombs missed the back of my turret with this, with a fraction. Almost touching us. Ten, ten one thousand pound bombs and a cookie. Now, they go down like lightning. Fifty foot beneath us was a Lancaster. The first, the first thousand pounder hit this fuselage right in the middle, right, just at the back of the mid upper turret. I cringed, expecting it to explode but lo and behold the bomb went straight through the fuselage and disappeared, continued down. The next, the next thousand pounder hit the middle of the wing and I still couldn’t believe it. I’m still cringing again and it bounced back and bounced off. Now the cookie, which was a contact bomb, they must have had err, you know biometric things that didn’t explode above five hundred feet or something but the cookie was a contact bomb. It missed the side of the fuselage by a skin of paint. Anyway, I remember the, the aircraft disappeared and there was a lot, there was a lot happening. I forgot about it. Anyway, by sheer chance at the end of the war I was listening to Canadian troops embarking on to the ship to go home and, and the person being interviewed was a pilot and it was an interesting story and do you know he went through what I’ve just told you. It was the, it was the pilot of this aircraft and he said, he said, and it was so pleasing to know, that they’d staggered back to the North Sea and dropped their bombs and got, and they survived the war. Anyway, anyway we were coming over the North Sea about, about ten thousand feet and all of a sudden I saw two Lancasters drop right down to zero feet and I thought bloody hell they’re going in. They’re going in. And all of a sudden from the back of one of them I suddenly saw foam appear and it was like watching a motorboat swing, speeding along and this foam behind, I can’t remember, two engines, two of the engines, this foam was behind it for about four hundred yards when gradually it picked up, climbed up and I thought to myself, ‘oh they’re ok. They’re alright’. Anyway, by sheer coincidence four days later when we returned from an operation we were diverted to Spilsby of all places, 44 squadron which I eventually finished up on and we were able to get out of the aircraft to have a walk you know and have a stretch and I was walking by this aircraft which had got props bent and all the props on one side. I think it was just on one side [laughs] I think it was just on one side. They were bent almost double and I, and there was a ground staff working on it and I said, ‘God, what happened to that aircraft?’ He said, ‘The silly buggers,’ he says, ‘This bloke and another bloke coming from an operation a few days ago, they were playing about to find which one could get closer to the sea. This silly bugger dragged his props in the water. Nearly drowned his rear gunner.’ I thought to myself, ‘God, how did they manage to keep the aircraft flying with damage like that?’ Anyway, he said they were being court martialled. I don’t know. Anyway, and that was that. [laughs] Another very interesting operation was a daylight operation to Hamburg oil installations, Germany on the 9th of April 1945. During this operation twenty five jet fighters ME262s attacked the bomber force. This was, I believe, the first time that any fighters were ever used during any war, first attack. Anyway, there were, there were, there were fifty seven bombers involved. 50 squadron, 61 squadron I think we got twelve and something like that, 61 squadron and 617 and 9 squadron. We were to, we were to drop, we were to drop thousand pounders on the oil installations and 617 and 9 squadron were to drop a tall boy. I can’t remember if eight thousand or twelve thousand pound bombs on the, on the submarine pens. Now, the thing was that because of the weight of the Tall Boy they’d taken out of the Lancasters, 617 and 9 squadrons they’d taken away the bomb doors and had actually taken off the mid upper turret to lighten the aircraft so to be able to carry it ready to take off and because of this we were, we were instructed that we were to fly in a gaggle and fly as quick, as close as possible to support them. Now another thing the apparently 309 squadron, a Polish squadron flying mustangs, would escort us and 65 squadron were also taking part. Now, we took off at about well 14.48 I believe it was. The weather was perfect and I remember our operational height was twelve thousand feet. Now, I remember we were passing over, we were passed quickly, over, over the, over the North Sea and I’m thinking to myself now Hamburg was a very, very dangerous place. A very important place to Germany. Still is. Still is. But because of this over the war, during the war they’d built up a tremendous defence and if you had any aircraft attacking there we could have heavy losses so we knew that we were in for a difficult time when we got there. I remember passing over, over Germany and all of a sudden every so often the flak was bursting, shells were bursting shells were bursting around us but quite honestly I never gave them a thought. You know I was used to night, night bombing where the flak was a bright light but I never gave as I say, probably I should have done. Anyway we got to, got to Hamburg, near to Hamburg and I rotated my turret. I can’t remember port or starboard side but we were coming up and turned square to the right over Hamburg. Other: Can somebody come in here? Going back a little bit I remember as we were going over the, going over the North Sea it was a completely cloudless sky, brilliant sun and I remember thinking to myself where are those bloody fighters supposed to be, that are supposed to be protecting us? Three squadrons were supposed to be protecting us but every so often, every so often we saw right in the distance swirling around oh I thought, ‘Oh lovely. There they are.’ Anyway we carried on. I remember as we, as we, as we entered, got over mainland Europe gradually every so often we’d hear the phuf phuf of flak shells at the side of us which I just ignored. I don’t know a bit complacent probably but I just didn’t care about them. Didn’t take any, anyway we gets to Hamburg and Hamburg, I’m just, I’m repeating myself now. Hamburg was a very special place. Was then. Is now. And during the war years they’d built up a tremendous, tremendous defensive force. They, they could send up a box barrage of flak in an instant and I remember we were approaching, approaching Hamburg and I can’t remember which side we were. Left or right. But I leaned forward, leaned forward and I looked and turned my turret to the beam and leaned forward to look forward and I could almost see in front of us and I could see the target as we were approaching her and I’m not joking I have never seen flak like it. We were, we were, I think we, I think we were, our height was we bombed from about sixteen thousand feet but up to around our bombing height there was a complete black cloud of flak shells bursting out and I remember thinking to myself, bloody hell we’re never going to get through that. Now I’m just going to divert a little bit because we were at the back of the fifty seven aircraft and a friend of mine on 61 squadron, Ted Beswick, he was in the front aircraft and he was telling me later he says they were watching this predict, this flak. I forget what you call it. Predicted flak. It gradually approaching him and he said until one burst right in front of the nose and he says and, and, and parts flew through the front through the bomb aimers position and, and, and badly injured the engine, the bomb aimer. Anyway, we carried on to the target. We turned on to the target and we, I’m not joking with you, I can’t describe what it was like going through the flak. It was absolutely frightening you. I was thinking, I say, frightening. Anyway, believe it or not we went, we got through the target unscathed. We dropped our bombs and I understand it was a successful bombing. Anyway, we left the target and I could see aircraft. I feel certain I could see aircraft around, some damaged but nobody shot down. Anyway we’d left the target and we’d been left a few minutes. I then turned my turret around and I thought to myself, bloody hell, we’re back marker. Sitting duck for any fighters. So immediately I switched on. I said, ‘Skip, Skip we’re back marker. Sitting duck for any fighters.’ He says, ‘Ok. Ok.’ So he immediately shoves full throttle on and gradually, gradually we moved forward so we could see aircraft behind me. That made me feel a bit better. Now, a short time later and I can’t remember how long, all of a sudden twenty five ME262s attacked the formation. I only saw five but I know from later reports it was twenty five but I saw five aircraft coming along the, coming along the ground level and I, I called, ‘Skip Skip I can see, I can see five small aircraft on almost at ground level.’ God, I’ve never seen aircraft travelling so fast. They, they, they began to climb. I says, ‘God they’re climbing faster than I’ve ever seen any aircraft dive.’ Within seconds they were up to our operational height. They levelled out and came straight at us canons blazing. Canons blazing’s straight through us like a dose of salts. Now, one of them come straight at us and I’m firing as hard trying, trying as hard as I could ‘cause it’s like lightning is happening, trying to drag my tracer bullets into it and it came so close I thought to myself it’s going to ram us and I’m not joking he then swung in between us and another Lancaster by my side, by our side and, and I could see the, I could see fighter, I could see the fighter pilot as close as I can see you now. Anyway, I’m swinging and firing my turret and all of a sudden I realised that I’m firin my, still firing my bullets straight through this Lancaster at the side of me. I lifted my arms like lightning off, off my, off my off my controls and, and, and I thought to myself bloody hell, I thought to myself might have shot down my, the aircraft but of course you can’t shoot an aircraft down by firing straight at it you have to fire in front of them but that was fortunate because it was a 617 aircraft. I don’t know what would have been said. Anyway, we, we’d left the target, we left the target and only a few seconds later after they’d attacked us all of a sudden by the side of us the aircraft, the back marker aircraft exploded, broke in half and began to drop straight down. Now, when it had dropped about a thousand feet I saw although the rear turret would immediately lose, as it broke in half, lose, lose any control we had we had a handle which we could turn and swing the turret around. Anyway, after about a thousand feet I saw the, this is another story I’ll tell you in a bit which I’d forgotten to tell you. Forgotten to tell you. I watched this rear gunner drag himself out of the, out of the turret and fall away and I thought to myself oh thank God, he’s, thank God he’s, going to get away with it. He was a friend of mine. Anyway, the parachute opened and a few seconds puff it exploded in flames and then I had to watch this friend of mine, friend of mine struggling, drop away, gradually drop away to his death. Now, I’ll tell you a little, I’d forgotten to tell you but when we went out to the aircraft, when we went out to the aircraft after we’d had the briefing you all race out and you all try to get on to the buses as there were buses and lorries. Now, the buses were a lot of comfort so therefore you raced to get in those. Now we raced in and I sat in the front seat and, and sitting at the side of me was Norman, Norman Garfield Fenton. Friend of mine. I say he’s a friend, he was a squadron friend not that I knew much about his private life other than that he was from Kettering. But I says to him, ‘What aircraft are you in? He says, ‘Fred. F Freddy.’ Now F Freddy, we did four ops in there so it gave us, gave us chat, you know, something to talk about. Anyway we got to the dispersal area and, and climbs out. All of us rush to our aircraft and climbed aboard and did our pre-start checks and afterwards there was still an hour or so to go. We climb out of the fuselage and, and, and went Taffy and I went, went and sat down, sat down on the grass and a few seconds later Norman walks across and we sat down and there we are. I think we took off at 2.30 so it was quite warm and where we sat there chatting away talking about what we were going to do. I remember I do believe he said he’d got a little child. I can’t remember but I think he said he had a young family but we were chatting about what we were doing and four hours later I watched him die. You know, it really did affect me. I mean, at night time you just disappeared, didn’t have the same effect on you but knowing, I recognised the aircraft as it dropped away as V and F. I could see it clearly so I knew this was Dennis, Dennis struggling and nearly got out and I had to watch him fall and it did affect me for quite a long time and poor Dennis and Flying Officer [Berryman] who was his Skipper and, and one of the other crew are buried in, in Hamburg but oh dear it did affect me for quite a long time that. Ok. Now one thing I’ve got when we got back to briefing. When we got back to briefing we turned around and told the briefing officers we’d been attacked by jets and they says not possible. Not possible. Not possible. There’s no, there’s no airfields around Hamburg for jets but little did we know, little did we know that jets, the Germans were taking off from motorways. Ten out of ten for them for innovation. But apparently the, the powers that be killed the story because they were so fearful of the effect it might on morale, of morale of our aircrew. But then I want to go back a little bit now to Ted Beswick. He saw all, I only saw five but he saw all twenty five. Now, one of them came at us came at them and he shouts port corkscrew, corkscrew, go, go but of course they couldn’t because they were in gaggle. Anyway when the, when the ME262s had attacked they began to swung around and began to go around to reposition they could only do one or two attacks because of limited fuel but one drew up by accident right on, right on their starboard side I can’t remember starboard or port side. Anyway he immediately fired and saw his tracer bullets go straight into it, straight into it and immediately, immediately the aircraft went straight down as if out of control and he watched it spiral down. Ted is convinced that he made a kill, he made a kill. Of course he couldn’t claim it because once again he didn’t see the ground. But they had another incident they did. They had a hang-up bomb. They couldn’t get rid of it and try as they might they couldn’t get rid of it so they started to go back and try to get rid of it in the, in the North Sea. They still couldn’t get rid of it so they decided to bring it back, bring it back to Skelly. Now as they came in, in to land there was a bang as they touched down and the bomb dropped on to the bomb doors. Now, they pulled up immediately at the end of runway, got out of the aircraft, scooted away from the aircraft called up and a short time later, a short time later well some time later along comes the ground staff, gingerly opens up the, opens up the, winds open the, the bomb doors, bomb doors. Two of them stands there, catches a thousand pounder and then, you know, we have got a lot to thank those air crew people, ground staff people for. Wonderful, wonderful unsung heroes. One, one interesting operation was to [?] in Norway. I remember there was, I can’t remember how many aircraft, several hundred aircraft involved. But we’d been in we’d been told that we were to fly at zero level up the North Sea and I remember in the half-light seeing probably a couple of hundred Lancasters flying, almost touching, almost touching the waves. It was so exciting. I loved it I did. And I’m certain Skip enjoyed it just as a much as I did. Anyway, we got to the, we got to the, got to Norway and, I can’t remember how long it took us. Anyway, we climbed up to bombing height which would be, it would have been about ten to twelve thousand feet. Now, I seemed to remember one gun, one heavy gun but if I’m to believe records, records say there was no, no flak but I seem to remember one gun as we approached. One heavy gun. Anyway, we came in, we came in to bomb and, and we’re virtually on our bombing run and I’m listening to the Skip and the bomb aimer conversing when all of a sudden, now, always before when the Skip had had to dive the aircraft had to change direction of the aircraft it had always been a dive. On this occasion it was different all together. All of a sudden the aircraft reared straight up. Now, I remember I’m clinging on to my controls and I was transfixed. I was transfixed and even though my head still thumped the top of the turret because of the reaction of the aircraft swinging and at the same time we used to carry our flasks and sweets and chocolates given to people, aircrew and I remember them coming straight up in the air, straight up in the air and as the aircraft, aircraft levelled they all went straight out of the window and I said oh sod it. I was saving those for the return. But another thing happened. Ass this was happening. I’m hearing a swirl, a swirling noise of machine gun noise coming into my turret. Thousands of bullets was coming along the ducts into the aircraft. Now, I didn’t realise this was what happened but they came in and completely jammed the turret. Anyway, we levelled out. We crept back over the sea and got back home but if anything had happened we couldn’t have done a thing about that. Now, the thing is when I was on that operation, in our billet, in our billet was another crew err if you just give me a second I’ll remember his name. I’ll just get, now this operation was on the 25th, 26th of April 1945. Now, in my billet, in my billet was another crew. Now this crew, they disappeared and I didn’t know what happened so I just, this is when people got the chop things, just used to take there was usually two crews to a Nissan but when they got the chop they used to take, just take their things out. They disappeared. Never heard anything about them. Anyway, last year, last year at our reunion, our reunion a fellow approaches near our memorial. He says, ‘Hello James. Do you remember me? And I says to him, ‘I don’t think so. I can’t remember.’ Well, he says ‘You were in the next bed to me on 1945. January 1945.’ I says, ‘Oh yes.’ I said ‘What happened to you then?’ I said, ‘You disappeared didn’t you?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ He says, he said, ‘When you were going on [?] we were on Exodus.’ Exodus operation. Fetching prisoners back from, from Europe, probably Brussels. Anyway, he says, ‘We dropped the prisoners, the POWs, ex-POWs down he said and headed for home and on the way back we crashed.’ He said, the, the ‘We had problems, engine problems and in trying to avoid these houses the wing tip hit the ground and, he says, ‘And it slewed into the ground. My turret was thrown off into, into a field.’ He said, ‘My guns were buried in the ground.’ He said, ‘I was in hospital for a week.’ He said the mid upper turret, the mid upper gunner got away with it he got a broken leg but the rest of the crew were all killed. I said, ‘Oh good God.’ I says, ‘I wondered what happened.’ They just disappeared. So there you are. Made contact all those years later but how did he finally manage? Probably he managed to find me because with me doing so much on our website. I’m better known. More people know me then I remember them. That’s probably it isn’t it. Could be couldn’t it? But an interesting story that isn’t it? There you are. MJ: Ahum HJF: Now then. I want to carry on. On the 1st of June, is it on? Switch her on. MJ: It is on. HJF: Yeah. On the 1st of June ‘45 we were transferred from 50 squadron to 44 squadron to be part of, to be part of Tiger Force. The intention was to, to, to fly us straight out, quickly out to the Far East. As a matter of fact Okinawa was going to be our base. So we, we went, we transferred to Spilsby. Now, from day one we started doing high level training. Anyway, I can’t remember but it was a few days after we got, one of our trips, it was only one and three quarter hour trips I think it was just about the worst one of all. I remember we’d got fourteen thousand pounds of bombs we were going to drop into dispersal area in the North Sea and as we taxied around all of a sudden, the port, the port inner set on fire. Now, the smoke was coming and filling my turret and I thought to myself silly bugger put your oxygen mask on, puthering in to me. Anyway, rapidly the, the engine was feathered and after a few minutes the Skip calls up flying control and tells them, ‘Engine fire. Waiting for instructions.’ We waited for instructions and a few minutes later the flying control calls, ‘Right, start the engine up. Give it a run up. Take off when you’re ready.’ When he switched off there was a chorus of voices, ‘We’re not bloody going, the stupid buggers, that engine wants checking. We’re not bloody going.’ MJ: Ahum HJF: ‘We’re not bloody going.’ Anyway, Skipper in the meantime started the engine up. He revs it up, he says, ‘It seems ok to me. We’ve got to go.’ And we kept saying, ‘We’re not bloody going.’ Anyway, we turns on to the, and eventually gets and I’m not joking I was full of trepidation. I could feel in my water that something else was going to happen. Now, anyway we’d just got our wheels off the deck and the starboard outer seized. Now, let’s just think about it. We’ve got a dicky port inner and we got a, a seized starboard outer and we’ve got fourteen thousand pound of bomb. I’m not, that’s as much as an aircraft immediately started to vibrate telling me, telling me she’s going to stall. She’s going to stall. Now, quick as that I thought, my apprehension just disappeared. I thought to myself I’m going to, I’m going to jump no matter what the height. So, quick as lightning I swings my turret to beams, pulls open the doors. like a flash I was sitting outside and there I sat outside listening to, feeling the violent vibrations of the, of the aircraft as it gradually gained speed and height. It took us about thirty minutes to get up to about two thousand feet and while I’m sitting there just thinking about myself there our poor old Skipper was at the front fighting to keep this aircraft in the air. What a brilliant, brilliant Skipper. Anyway, we eventually get, gradually the vibration stopped. We got to the dispersal area, drops the bombs as near, as near as we could and returned. That, that trip took an hour and a quarter and it seemed the longest one of all. Good God we were so close and then what turned out to be our final trip, final flight actually for seventy, nearly seventy years as far as I was concerned. We were taking part in a dodge operation. Which, Dodge Operations were returning, returning British soldiers, taking, taking Italian troops back to Italy, to Bari in Italy and bringing British soldiers home. Now, we’d been so many times we used to fly visual. We used to go down to Marseilles, turn left over Marseilles, out over, out over the North Sea to the tip of Corsica and, and, and then make for Rome and over Rome straight for Bari. Now we were so casual about this we used to fly you know, anyway as it turns out the engineer, the engineer used to do a bit of piloting every so often. They used to keep their hand in. Anyway, fortunately the engineer had strapped himself in. Now we were carrying twenty one, twenty one Italians and I was sitting in the fuselage, in the fuselage. I was more or less a steward. Now, we were climbing, we were climbing up to ten tenths cloud. Now it was a very, very stormy day. Very, very hot day. Tropical storms everywhere and as it turned out we were the only aircraft only two of us arrived at Bari. Aircraft were diverted all different places. Anyway, we were climbing up through ten tenths cloud at ten thousand feet when all of a sudden cause safety height over, to cross the tip of Corsica, safety height being eleven thousand feet when all of a sudden the aircraft veered straight up, straight up and we flew slap bang into the centre of cunim, Now the tremendous upward force hit the belly of the, hit the aircraft and flung it straight up in the air. She stalled, dropped on her back and started to vertically drop down. Now, the Skipper standing by the side of the engineer as I say he was, he was, he was piloting was thrown up to the roof and he dragged himself around the, and for a time he thought to himself bloody hell we’re going. I’m going to drag myself back. Then he realised that the flight engineer was beginning to get a bit of joy so he drags himself around the fuselage, the side of the fuselage to a standing position alongside him and there was only single controls in a Lancaster. He then grabs hold of the controls and the two of them used all their strength to pull the aircraft out, out of its vertical dive. Now, as I told you I was in the back of the aircraft looking after these, looking after the Italians. I was thrown up to the ceiling and a water tank that was there for them floated up in the air, floated up in the air and were virtually trapped beyond the fuselage and as I looked, I could look at the back and there was, we’d got a Lancaster wheel in in the back, in the back which we were taking. Probably somebody had a burst tire. They’d left it loose. The silly buggers had left it loose. I watched this, watched this Lancaster wheel do a full circle of the fuselage. It smashed the auto gyro and it went around and it hit the machine gun ducts and right to the side of the ducts were the, were the rudder bar controls and I thought to myself, I was praying that it wouldn’t come rolling towards us when the next second, the next second with a slam I was banged down, banged down on to the floor, banged down on to the floor and I dragged myself up. All the Italians were in a complete panic and without thinking I just slotted the bloke at the side of me, slotted him, knocked him down and said, ‘Lie down.’ I made him lie down. Anyway, then I thought to myself, I thought as I’m standing there I thought to myself, actually I called Skip up. I said oh I think one of these, one of these Italians had pulled the [aerial] controls and we knew we’d lost an aircraft through somebody pulled themselves, their all external inside the aircraft and pulled them up and it had caused the aircraft to crash because it was almost you know in a position where they couldn’t change so I thought that’s what had happened, Anyway, as I’m standing looking all of a sudden the aircraft reared up again but not quite as bad. So I thought sod it I’ll have a look at this. Now our mid upper gunner had been transferred because of the end of the war you see, had transferred so I climbed into his turret and I was amazed. We should have been at eleven thousand feet to cross over safely over the tip of Corsica. We were then travelling along the coastline on the edge of the mountains, parallel. Somehow or other in the process of diving vertically we’d changed direction. Now, I don’t know whether it were luck or whether it was the skill of our pilot but anyway we turned, we were flying along the coast of, coast, coastline. Now then we came into land. Now at Bari, at Bari there was only one single runway. One single runway. And, and aircraft were, aircraft were positioned, were parked either side of the runway. Yanks on the left, yanks on one side and all Lancasters on the other. Now, as we came in to land, another thing, just at the end of the runway was a, was a large quarry and on very hot days, on very hot days used to cause an air pocket above the, right above the end of the runway. Now Skipper might have forgotten that or it might have been just because let’s face it I was stressed up and I was only looking after them, so God only knows how he was feeling but anyway as we came in to land we dropped from about sixty foot straight down. We hit the ground, we hit the tarmac with such a bang and the aircraft reared off, reared off, slewed to, slewed to port and, and coming, taxiing right down, right down just in front of us was a, was a flying fortress. We were heading straight for it. Skip immediately slams port throttle, full port throttle on, slews the aircraft and I could feel the undercarriage bending. Why it didn’t break I don’t know and there we are slewing across to the other side and going straight for the Lancs and he shoved full throttle on the other side and we straightened out and that was it and we levelled out. Now, you might have thought that was enough trouble for one thing but when we were coming up, we stayed there four days and I remember I was standing, we were waiting to return and we were standing about halfway along the runway and there were thousands of troops, thousands. There were hundreds of aircraft and thousands of troops, American and British, and we were watching the first Lancaster to take off and it came by us and it was almost as it came flashing by us it was almost at take-off speed when all of a sudden it turned completely ninety degrees. Now there were four line I think, I can’t remember whether it was three line or four lines but it went through the first ones, first ones, missed all the aircraft but hit another one in the line absolutely broadside and just as it hit its undercarriage collapsed but when it hit it’s props were churning into the side of the aircraft churning, churning. Now, thousands of us ran across thinking to ourself, expecting that there would be many many fatalities, many many fatalities but when we got to the aircraft, when we got to the aircraft there was a great big hole in the nose of the aircraft. Three, three, three soldiers climbed out of the front of the nose and do you know and people were pouring out of all sides of the engine. All sides of the aircraft. Do you know there were thousands of people out but do you know to my knowledge there was only one person, there were nobody killed and one person injured and that was he was injured through flying glass. Absolutely fantastic. I thought to myself this is a bloody mugs game. It’s time I pack this game up. Well I’ll tell you now it was an uneventful trip back to the, back to the, back to England but that was the last time I flew in any aircraft until about 2012. [laughs] 1.38.08 Now, at the, I now over the years, over the years over the last, nearly twenty years I’ve been involved with the 50 and 61 Squadron Association website. Now, quite honestly I never, until, until I was in my seventies I’d never used a computer. But anyway, anyway I was instrumental in helping, helping, eventually, not for a start in helping to start up our website 50 and 61 Squadron Association websites. Now, I have a veteran’s album. I don’t do hardly anything these days Mike [Connock] does it but until, at our reunion 209 Air Vice Marshall Nigel Baldwin came up to me and says, ‘James, I’ve got a story here, an interesting story which would be good for your veterans album.’ Now, it was then I was interested to, I was then introduced to a person called Chris Keltie. Now - Other: I don’t want to hear your secrets. HJF: Yeah Chris Keltie. He then, Chris told me a story which at the time - Other: Make him at least give you a drink. HJF: No. No. You’re alright. Other: At least make him. Now I’m telling you. Go on. HJF: Oh did, did we bring that cup of coffee in? Did we leave that coffee in there? I don’t think we did did we? MJ: No. HJF: Oh bloody hell we forgot. Oh sorry. HJF: As I say. Chris Keltie. Chris Keltie. He told me a story which at the time I just didn’t believe. I couldn’t believe that anybody, because of my experiences, I couldn’t believe that anybody could do what I was being told but he was telling me that a pilot whilst severely injured and weakened by loss of blood had regained control of an earthbound Lancaster and, and in pitch darkness brought the thing in to land and thereby saved the lives of, as it turned out, three of his crew members. For this he got nothing. Not even get, now I’ll tell you the full story. On the, it’s Victoria stuff. Victoria Cross stuff. I’m not joking with you. It was in July 1944 I can’t quite remember exact date. It might have been the 4th or 5th. Anyway, they successfully, they were bombing a V1 bomb site. It was 61 squadron aircraft. QR D Dog was the aircraft. Bill North was, Bill North, flight lieutenant. He was the flying officer at the time but it was Bill North, Bill North was the pilot and his aircraft was QR Dog. Now they were to, from thirteen thousand feet they were going to bomb the V1 sites. Now, which they were the first aircraft to bomb it and after, as they left the target an FW190 sprayed their aircraft. It blew away the fin, the port fin. It blew away the port fin. Blew away the port outer engine and fuel tank and it also it splattered the middle of the turret. Now, the mid upper gunner, now I used to say it was either between six and eight bullets, non life saving bullets in his body. Unbelievable. Splattered the turret. Anyway, it splattered all the Perspex, the cockpit Perspex and, and the pilot screamed out in agony as four bullets hit him. Two in his thigh and two in his left arm. Now, his left arm one of them hit the nerve and it paralysed his arm so his arm was flailing there. Now, immediately and the aircraft immediately begins, it’s earthbound screaming towards the earth. He immediately gives instructions to bail out and begins to drag himself out to go to the escape hatch. Now, as he drags himself out of the seat the flight engineer who is sitting by his side reaches back. Now, as the pilot had sat on his parachute. Now, but the, but the flight engineer and the rest most of the crew, the rear turret and rear gunner all had clip on chutes now his was clipped on the fuselage. Now, he reaches back to unclip his, his ‘chute off the fuselage, the side of the fuselage and as he pulls it off it’s been shot to pieces by bullets. It’s just at that point Bill was about to drop out of the escape hatch. Quickly he grabs hold of his shoulder and shouts my parachutes gone, my parachutes gone. Now, nobody would have blamed Bill North If he’d have thought to himself nothing I can do. I’m badly injured myself and just to have gone just to continue to drop out but without one second thought he made a conscious decision to drag himself back into his to his controls. Now, the, the landing an aircraft, a Lancaster is a two man job. You need, you need the help of the flight engineer. The flight engineer was frozen with fear. Couldn’t do anything. Now, Bill North, with one hand, his adrenalin must have been five hundred percent I have no idea how he did it but unbelievably with the aircraft screaming earthbound he regains control and in pitch darkness not only did he regain control but in this very heavily wooded area he found, he found a clearing, brought the aircraft in to land from an impossible height at an impossible speed. No, no flaps involved because the bloke couldn’t, the flight engineer couldn’t do anything. Had the presence of mind as he brought the aircraft in to land it tail down so there would be less danger of fuel tank, of fuel explosion and landed and when it became stationery he was so weak from the loss of blood that he slipped into unconsciousness. Now then, as it turned out not only had he saved the life of the flight engineer alongside him but apparently the mid upper gunner and another person, I think wireless operator, were both trapped in the fuselage because their turret ‘chutes had been shot to pieces, so they, as I say he slipped into unconsciousness so they had to carry, carry him, they had to carry him out of the aircraft and as they laid him on the grass at the side of the plane he slipped into unconsciousness and they thought he was dying. Anyway, time went by. The French were involved but I can’t remember who else was involved but in time the Germans came, whisked him into a hospital and he remained in hospital for several months after which he was, he was transferred to a concentration camp and he finished the war, and finished the war in a concentration camp. For this he didn’t get any mention in despatches. Not even a mention in despatches. Absolutely disgraceful. This is, this is, this is VC stuff. Now when Mr Ball when, when Nigel Ball contacted me I, I wrote this story, this was several years before, I wrote his story on my website. Now last year, October during last year the, the sons of, of Bill North, he’d passed away the year before, wrote to David Cameron to thank him for what he’d to done to get the air crew their memorial in London and thanked him for getting the clasp. Bloody clasp. Ridiculous. Anyway, anyway out of the blue, credit to David Cameron. David Cameron phoned them personally. No wrote to them personally and invited to them to come and see him at the, at the House of Commons. Now, they decided that what a golden opportunity this to try and get a posthumous award for their father. So they put together a delegation of about ten people and they wanted a representative of the squadron association to be, to be, to be with them. Now, as to whether I was the only one or not I’ve no idea but I was the person that was invited to go. Now, I travelled down to London and I remember, I remember we, we, David Cameron was wonderful actually. I remember he took us and we were chatting to him in his office and he was chatting to all the party and I couldn’t hear him he was right at the far end of the room and I says, ‘I can’t hear.’ And he says, ‘ok’ and got, upped sticks and came and sat right to the side of me and I’m listening to them talking. Now, quite honestly as I was listening to him you know how people are when they’re talking to someone of higher authority? They, they become meek and mild don’t they? And I’m listening and I don’t hear very well. After they’d been going on for quite some time I thought to myself they’re missing the point so in actual fact I had spoken to him and told him that why I was there to represent the association and I, I interceded. I said, ‘But sir, we’re missing the point of our visit.’ and I says and I then went into detail of this, of what Bill North had done and I says to him this is bloody Victoria Cross stuff and for this he gets nothing. Not even a mention in despatches. This is a complete disgrace and I remember, I remember David Cameron looked set aback and he looks at me and says, ‘Well I don’t know. All the hassle I’m getting here.’ He said in a friendly way. It wasn’t nasty. ‘All the hassle I’m getting here and he says the hassle I’ve had in question time today and he says and it’s my birthday today.’ And I said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ He said, ‘It’s my birthday today.’ I says, ‘It’s mine as well’ and he reached over and he said, ‘Birthday boys.’ [laughs] [laugh] There you are but do you know something we had, we had a celebration last year for my ninetieth birthday and, and, and seventieth wedding anniversary and last year. It was in October. October. And last year, about three weeks before our, before our party a friend of ours and I don’t know how he got this phone number my friend answers the phone and this voice says, ‘Hello, this is David Cameron here’ and she says, ‘Oh don’t – tell me another one.’ And he said, ‘No. This is David Cameron ringing from the House of Commons. Can you give me the details of Mr and Mrs Flowers celebrations’ on the, and you know he said, ‘Because I want to send them a letter’ and lo and behold lo and behold on the, on the, my birthday arrives a letter comes, ‘Dear Mr Flowers,’ from the House of Commons ‘I’m writing to you wish you a very happy ninetieth birthday. This is a marvellous occasion and I’m sure you will use this opportunity to celebrate all your many achievements and all you have seen and experienced. I would like to send you, Samantha and my best wishes for a wonderful birthday.’ That was on the 9th of October. On the 21st of October we gets another one. ‘Dear Mr and Mrs Flowers I am delighted to send my congratulations to you both on your seventieth wedding anniversary. It’s a huge achievement to celebrate such a long and happy marriage. A great example to family and friends and your local community. Samantha and I would like to wish you all the best on your anniversary. We very much hope you enjoy your celebrations. Have a lovely day. David Cameron.’ We of course did have the letter from the queen we all know the queen the queen had millions. She can’t do it personally do it you know that’s a secretary but to think that David Cameron made the effort during such political time to ring my friend up to find out details of our celebrations and then to ring us up and send this. As a matter of fact I sent him a Christmas card and he sent me a Christmas card back. [laughs] There you are, now, that’s different isn’t it? In conclusion I would like to go back to the time in 1941/2, I can’t remember the exact date, my first sighting of my dear wife. Of my Eunice. I remember at the time I was working on munitions twelve hour shifts a day, week about and I was on daylight day shifts this time and I’d finished at 7 o’clock, cycled home and, and home and quick change and cycled back two miles to Sutton in Ashfield baths which had been converted to a dance hall and as I went in it had a balcony. I went in about 9 o’clock. I climbed the stairs to the balcony and I remember looking down and it was a teeming mass of dancing local people, RAF, navy all having an absolute, and a wonderful band with all the top, all having, and the RAC band was there. It had top musicians in it and I remember I was looking down and I saw right beneath me I saw this beautiful young lady in a yellow and white check dress. I’m not saying anything wrong but she was flitting from one male to, from one friend to another. She was obviously the life and soul of the party and I thought to myself God what a cracker. So, quick as lightning I rushed downstairs and I stood in the background until the opportunity came and I tapped her on the shoulder and I said to her, ‘Can I have a dance please?’ and ‘ Yes.’ And the first time I held her in my arms oh she didn’t have make me quiver and it was the first time that I met my dear wife. [laughs] How I ended up with her I will never know. She was so beautiful and so energetic. She was out every night dancing. There were thousands of soldiers all around training all on the lookout, all on the lookout for, for, for as beautiful women and here I was just working on munitions. Nothing going for me. My chances of making a go with her were very very slim. Anyway, gradually I became a friends. It was two years before she’d call me a friend. But there you are. That’s how I met my dear wife and there we are seventy years later. Love of my life. Still feel as we did as all those years ago. Beautiful woman. Still beautiful woman still beautiful in my eyes. How’s that. As I say I’m in my ninetieth year and I can’t help thinking of my family. Thinking of the time on the 25th October when our first son Ian was born and when he was accidently deaf when he was only thirteen and a half you never get over it, time never heals it. The birth of my second son Richard and when he was accidentally shot in the head by his wife. He was so lucky to have survived. Then my third Phillip born ‘68, ‘58 and to his lovely daughter. She was absolutely beautiful. Passed away when she was two years and nine months. Then there was my fourth son was a whopper when he was born and the, and the midwife says to my he’s the biggest baby I’ve ever had and she said ironically he’s the biggest baby I’ve had as well. Then I think to the stresses and strains and excitement I felt during my aircrew years and the thirty two years as a driving examiner and to the pleasure we felt on the birth of two granddaughters, eight grandsons, fourteen great grandchildren and finally I recall the seventy years that I’ve been married to my dear wife Eunice. I can’t help thinking of all the times I felt like throwing her in the bloody river or burying her with the plants in the garden yet despite all this she still remains the love of my life. Such wonderful memories. I would like to end by saying that during the time that we, as a crew, were involved in bomber operations we were attacked by ME109s, JU88s, FW190s, ME262s jet fighters, passed through flak you could have walked on, almost touched passing aircraft, almost crashed through fuel shortage and fell vertically from eleven thousand to five hundred feet. Nothing special. Just the normal sort of thing that most Bomber Command aircrew had to put up with during World War 2. Happy days. MJ: On behalf of the Bomber Command I’d like to thank James Flowers for his interview on the 2nd of June 2015. This is Michael Jeffries, recordist. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with James Flowers Subject The topic of the resource World War (1939-1945) Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Description An account of the resource Horace James Flowers was born and grew up in Huthwaite, Nottinghamshire. He became an apprentice butcher before being released to volunteer for the Royal Air Force in 1944. He trained as an air gunner at RAF Bridgnorth, RAF Wigsley and RAF Syerston and attained the rank of flight sergeant, serving largely with 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe. He recounts his experiences on several operations, including Bohlen, Nordhausen, Lutzendorf and Hamburg. He was transferred to 44 Squadron in June 1945, as part of the intended Tiger Force and also took part in Operation Dodge. He also discusses how he met his wife, Eunice, and their marriage in 1944; his role with the 50/61 Squadron Association after the war; authorship of a memoir "A Tail End Charlie’s Story"; and the occasion of his 90th birthday when he received a call from the Prime Minister, David Cameron. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Michael Jeffries Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-06-02 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Heather Hughes Maureen Clarke Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:58:11 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AFlowersHJ150602, PFlowersHJ1501, PFlowersHJ1502 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire England--Nottinghamshire Germany--Böhlen Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia) Germany--Lutzendorf Germany--Hamburg Germany Germany--Leipzig Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944 1945 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review 44 Squadron 50 Squadron 617 Squadron air gunner aircrew Anson anti-aircraft fire bomb struck bombing fear final resting place Fw 190 Ju 88 love and romance master bomber Me 109 Me 262 military discipline military ethos military service conditions Operation Dodge (1945) P-51 Pathfinders RAF Bridgnorth RAF Skellingthorpe RAF Stormy Down RAF Syerston RAF Wigsley recruitment Spitfire Stirling Tallboy target indicator Tiger force Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/572/8840/AFroudJ160509.1.mp3 652f8a9f36625bbc3294d28ca088a96e 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 Froud, James J Froud Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Froud, J Description An account of the resource Two oral history interviews with James Froud (1922 - 2019, 1801660 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an air gunner with 44 and 83 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 2016-05-09 2016-05-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document DP: This interview is being conducted for the Bomber Command centre, the interviewer is Dave Pilsworth, the interviewee is James Froud [Other] Froud DP: Froud, the interview is taking place at Mr Froud’s home, in xxxxxxxxxxxx, Bury St Edmunds on the ninth November, two thousand and fourteen, time [pause] is eleven twenty-five JF: I was in Kent, erm, I was, about twenty, I suppose, nineteen or twenty. I hadn’t been called up because I was in a reserved occupation, anyway, I went to, the erm, the RAF was very busy with, German invaders, fighters and bombers, and er, I thought I would go in and become a pilot, a spitfire pilot of course, and er, [pause] that was all very well, anyway I went [pause] to, London, for an interview, and I can’t remember quite where it was, but it’s a well-known centre, for the RAF. I had an interview, had a medical and then was put on the reserve list, and, I was reserved for a year, one thing that annoys me about it is that I was issued with a little silver badge, which goes in your lapel, and, I very quickly lost that [laughs], which was unfortunate, so everybody thought I was skiving, anyway, not everybody, perhaps. I finished up going into the service, and I was called up to, Lords cricket ground for [unclear] and then we were put in some billets, which were fairly new flats, opposite Regents Park [pause]. One thing I had to have done when I was in, very quickly because I wasn’t very well, but I had to have a tooth out, having that out, must have upset me because I was then very quickly put into, a, sick bay which, was a house within Regents Park, whether that house is still there I don’t know, and that of course, I missed the squadron that I was with, anyway, I was put in another squadron eventually, erm [pause], [unclear]. DP: Interview paused JF: Torquay, and er, eventually, failed the navigation exams, so I then went to Paignton, and repeated them, and failed them again, so I was then sent to Eastchurch, and er, remustered to [unclear] course, from there to Bridlington, Bridgenorth, and finally Stormy Down, which was a, flying airfield just perched on the coast, in the south of Wales. Erm, from there, I think we met up, a number of members of air crew, bombers, bomb aimers, gunners, wireless ops, navigators and pilots and gunners, I said gunners, and we just made a crew up. You weren’t allocated a crew, you just sorted yourselves out, we then, I imagine, we went to Market Harborough, where we flew in, [unclear] what did we fly in, Wellingtons [laughs], and from there, we apparently went to Husbands Bosworth, which again was one of the operational, er, no, what where they called, the place, yes, it’s O.T.U, Operational Training Unit. And from there, we went to Swinderby, and flew in Stirlings, which we didn’t like a lot, well I didn’t [laughs], and the next move was Syerston, for, changeover to, Lancasters. How long I stayed there? About two months roughly, this was in May, nineteen forty four. From Syerston, can’t remember the antics we got up to there, but I do remember going to Nottingham, to a dance, just before we started flying, and er, came back, it must have been early afternoon, since it’s May, June, area, and er, we were on top of a bus, saw a Lancaster circle round and then it suddenly, nosed dived straight into the deck. Not funny, what a first experience, we must have been absolutely stupid, because we didn’t take any notice, we carried on, and [pause] were then, er, finished some training there, which was mainly for pilots and I did a little bit. We went to Warboys, ah, no we didn’t, sorry, we went to Dunholme Lodge, from Syerston, and we were there apparently two months, er, let’s have a quick look through the book, switch it off for a minute. DP: Interview paused JF: And this, [pause] in forty-four, so I was twenty-two wasn’t I, we finished on Stirlings, on the fifth of the fifth, forty-four, and my next reference is, for Lancasters, and that must have been at [pause] Syerston, and that was on the, tenth of the fifth, forty-four. My record keeping may not be all that good actually. DP: Interview paused JF: Circuit and landing, erm, Mitchell, was our pilots name, and the instructor was Flight Lieutenant Singer, and then, having done dual circuits and landings, we did solo circuit and landings, and we did that at twelve thirty five so, ten fifteen we were doing the first circuit and landings, at twelve thirty five, we were doing solos. That’s the part of pilot, of course, to fly, and I just sat there in the turret and looked out for enemy aircraft, over England, not a lot, I mean, so, most of, there was circuits and landings, circuits and landings, circuits and landings, all pilot practise. Oh, there’s something I did, but erm, fighter affiliation, gyro, corkscrew, that was for my benefit [unclear] half an hour, no sorry, fifty minutes, that’s not half an hour, fifty minutes, and then [pause] it’s obviously moved, to Dunholme Lodge, [pause] it doesn’t tell you were it is. DP: Interview paused JF: And there’s a town in France, Aunay-sur-Odon, I remember the Wing Co saying, ‘down the bloody drain’, you don’t have to put that in, [laughs] the next one was Gavourres, and the third one wasn’t so funny, they were two fairly easy ones, the third one was to Wessling, Germany, where we were hit by flak. We got seventy holes in the aircraft, erm [pause], we’d got back, we’d lost an engine, this is from memory, and er, the skip, control, the skipper did three over shoots, on the good three engines. It’s not quite so easy to fly an aircraft, is it, and erm, control called up and said, ‘you are number twenty on the circuit, you’ve got the circuit to yourselves, take your time’, more or less, erm [pause]. We actually lost twelve aircraft, from the airfield [coughs], now, I’ve forgotten the number of the other squadron, both squadrons had lost six. Now that’s a heck of a lot of people to be missing, but we didn’t really know any of those people, we’d only been on this squadron a short while. We’d done three trips and we were billeted in Nissan huts, although we’d got a mess, to go to, we didn’t really know any, or very few of the other crews. We’d got another crew in the hut with us, two crews to a hut, they had survived that episode, and er, we can’t continue flying with 44 Squadron, which incidentally, was a Rhodesian Squadron, er, flying Lancs one and er, and Lancs threes, so we continued [pause]. I don’t know whether I read [unclear]. AP: Interview paused JF: I can now, France and Germany, we went through Wessling, so once we went through, I ducked down, so they didn’t spot me [laughs], they didn’t know we’d dropped the bombs on them [unclear] and then, forty-four, Creil, Creil, wherever that is, France apparently. Oh, then we had a little go at Stuttgart, eh, the second one to Stuttgart, DNCO, that was duty not carried out, starboard outer US, return to base. Oh, this wasn’t nice, by the look of that, erm, where did we go then. Gavourres, France, Lyon, Lyon, is that correct? Which is right the other end of France, erm, and I’ve got port engine, badly damaged, petrol tank holed, and, as far as I remember, that was a Lancaster below us, had, raked a hole in the aircraft. I remember, it actually hit the tramways that my ammunition went up, you know, they went a bunch of mates to the rear turret, filled up from the bottom and stopped those working. It upset the navigator, the wireless op, the way through that fortunately, nobody was hit, er, but er, I’ve got, port engine badly damaged, petrol tank holed, Gavourres, Lyon, [unclear], where’s that, I don’t know, Gavourres, Lyon. Now we then, the powers that be had obviously wired up what, the bomb aimer, who acted as a second instrument operator, erm, I can’t think of the name of the set, [unclear] there was H2S and there was another one, and they, were good at operating them, so, they sent us to Warboys. There’s an NTU, I can’t recall what a NTU meant, it’s a training unit, and we just did er, five hours, thirty five with them, and that was a swap over to Pathfinder Force. Now my first operation, first two operations with them, were to Danzig and Stuttgart with Warrant Officer Price, so I was obviously a spare gunner. I remember the chap whose place I took, mind you, he was killed later on or lost, but that’s life, here we go. AP: Interview paused JF: [unclear], like that, like that, like that, then came up like that, so, so, you changed, er, if a fighter was coming in from here, you went like that, he missed you, and all the object of that corkscrew was, so that he couldn’t get a bead on you, he couldn’t, another set they operated was a LORAN, L-O-R-A-N [spelled out], and it’s still being used that type of radar now, in today’s aircraft, LORAN. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with James Froud. One Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dave Pilsworth 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 2016-05-09 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AFroudJ160509 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Language A language of the resource eng Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:20:37 audio recording Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Huntingdonshire England--Leicestershire England--Lincolnshire England--Shropshire Wales--Bridgend England--Yorkshire Germany France France--Aunay-sur-Odon Description An account of the resource James Froud wanted to be a pilot. He was interviewed in London and called up to Lord’s Cricket Ground. Having twice failed navigation examinations, he was re-mustered and sent to RAF Eastchurch for a gunnery course. From there, he went to RAF Bridlington, RAF Bridgnorth and RAF Stormy Down, where he crewed up. Jimmy went on to RAF Market Harborough where he flew in Wellingtons and RAF Husbands Bosworth, which was an Operational Training Unit. He flew in Stirlings at RAF Swinderby and Lancasters at RAF Syerston, before joining 44 Squadron at RAF Dunholme Lodge. Jimmy refers to some of his operations in France and Germany. He was sent to RAF Warboys, a Navigation Training Unit, and swapped over to the Pathfinder Force. Jimmy refers to the corkscrew manoeuvre and LORAN navigation system. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sally Coulter Vivienne Tincombe Maureen Clarke 44 Squadron air gunner bombing crewing up Lancaster Operational Training Unit Pathfinders RAF Bridgnorth RAF Bridlington RAF Husbands Bosworth RAF Market Harborough RAF Stormy Down RAF Swinderby RAF Warboys Stirling training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/502/8396/ACuthbertJ160507.mp3 85f4b9114692e4eb7f754f12301f44e0 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 Cuthbert, John J Cuthbert Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Cuthbert, J Description An account of the resource Three items. An oral history interview with John Cuthbert (3006396 Royal Air Force) and two photographs. He flew operations as a mid-upper gunner with 189 Squadron from RAF Fulbeck. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-05-07 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. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document GC: This interview is being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archives. My name’s Gemma Clapton. The interviewee today is John Cuthbert and the interview is taking place at Ramsey in Harwich on the 7th May 2016. Also present is Sandra. I’d like to say thank you very much for talking to me today and could we start. Just tell me a little bit about life before the war and how you joined up JC: Before the war. Yes. Well, I, I’d left school for some time and in fact had had a couple of jobs when I went with a friend of mine to Chelmsford, joined a radio course, a government sponsored radio course at the Chelmsford Technical College which I found a bit difficult at times although the radio side was ok. The idea was to train people up to take the place of technicians who had gone into the air force so it was a crammed four month course. In fact I came eleventh out of forty so I was quite pleased with that and some stayed on at Marconi’s at Chelmsford and others went on to Murphy Radio at Welwyn Garden City which I did. I went on to Welwyn Garden City where there was a very large ATC squadron. I was going to join the navy because it’s a naval port here and my friends were in the navy but I joined the ATC and we heard there was some flying going on at a little airfield called Panshanger, about five miles away and we used to hurtle off on our bikes and get a flight in a Tiger Moth. So that was the very first bit of flying I did in a Tiger Moth but I got ticked off for moving the wrong bit because you were sitting behind the pilot and he was a bit grumpy that day I think and subsequently I attended a summer camp with the ATC at RAF Westcott which was an Operational Training Unit with Wellingtons and we had the chance of flying on a cross country in one of those so I flew a four hour cross country in a, in a Wellington, which was great. Shared the crews flying rations. Chewing gum and barley sugar which we never had of course and I thoroughly enjoyed it and I volunteered for air crew at that time and you could go up for Cardington. You know it was RAF Cardington you attended for two or three days for medicals and all sorts of things and I didn’t think I’d pass to be honest. I didn’t think I’d pass the medical. On the train going to Cardington there were chaps sitting opposite me, rugby players and all this sort of thing and I felt about that size and I thought hmmn but in the event I did get accepted and some of the big chaps didn’t. Strange isn’t it? Yes, I got, I saw later on a document later on which said PNB material which is pilot/navigator/bomb aimer but I wanted to go in as a wireless operator because it was my trade and it was my hobby and so I duly got called up for training as a wireless operator/air gunner and completed all the initial training which incidentally didn’t get off to a very good start because the first Monday of the new course you were put on fatigues. Not a very good start for the course but, and there were various jobs from sweeping the NAAFI. The worst one was delivering coke to all the huts because there was hundreds of huts. Guess which one I got? I got the coke delivery with some other lads so we had to load up this flat truck lorry with sacks of coke and deliver them to the huts around the camp and half way through the afternoon it started to rain so you can imagine what state we were in and part of the route took us past station sick quarters and at the end, it was a lot of huts put together and at the end of one of the huts was a conservatory type affair and inside were two or three chaps in beds, white sheets, sitting up, reading books. I was wet, dirty and I said, ‘You lucky blighters.’ The next minute a lorry went around a corner, a sharpish corner and a load of sacks came over and propelled me on to the road and the medico came dashing out from sick quarters ‘cause they saw it happen and I wanted to get back on the lorry but they wouldn’t let me do that. They dragged me into sick quarters and laid me out on one of their nice clean beds, examined me, couldn’t find anything broken. They said, ‘Well you’ve got to be kept in in case you’ve got concussion,’ so I finished up in sick quarters, in a bed, in a room on my own feeling rather sorry for myself but I thought never wish anything on yourself. [laughs]. I thought that was very funny afterwards but of course I had to start a new course then because I’d missed, I was in there a week. Nothing wrong with me and they let me go. No, I didn’t get any sick leave. I was just discharged into the, into the course. So, anyway the rest of it went all ok. I got fatigues again of course the next Monday and I thought this is like Groundhog Day you know but it wasn’t. It was, I did some sweeping somewhere or other which was quite mild. I enjoyed the course though. We had to work hard. At the end of it we were to go on leave and then return or be posted to a radio school which was the bit I was looking forward to but instead of that we were called to the NAAFI for a meeting with a lot of top brass who came down and said, ‘Well, you chaps, you’ve finished this course,’ he said, ‘But I’m afraid that the radio schools are pretty full and you’ll be kicking about for some while,’ he said, ‘But what we do want is some air gunners. They’re fitting new turrets to the underside of the aircraft.’ This, well they did experiment with this but it wasn’t continued with. That was a lot of eyewash. There were no such thing during the war of mid under turrets. Not on British aircraft. They were just short of air gunners and they wanted the whole course to remuster. We would have been sent on leave, returned to Bridgenorth where we’d done our training. There was an elementary air gunner school there and on completion of that we would go to air gunners school and if we passed we’d be sergeant air gunners and the next move would be Operational Training Unit and then a squadron and this appealed to most of them. I didn’t particularly want to be an air gunner. I was good on the old keys you see and a friend of mine, I’d better not give his name but came from Brightlingsea said, ‘You’ll be the only one left here, John if you don’t remuster. You’ll be all on your tod,’ he said. So, in the end I agreed and remustered with the rest of the course and my friend Jack he later came in to the hut where we were getting ready to go on leave and he was a big chap, rugby player and he was crying. His eyes weren’t good enough for straight air gunner so he had to stay. Isn’t that strange? I met him after the war when I was on Transport Command down at Holmsley South. I met him in the sergeant’s mess and he’d got his signals brevvy up. I said, ‘Oh you made your signals course then Jack.’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘What did you do? Did you get on ops?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I was instructor on the Isle of Man.’ I said, ‘You got me flying over hunland,’ I said, ‘Getting shot at left, right and centre and you’re enjoying the fleshpots of Douglas.’ ‘That’s right, John,’ he said. [laughs]. I said, ‘Well if I’d got the chop I’d have come back and haunted you.’ [laughs] But anyway he did, he did do the course and, but he never got on a squadron. So there we are but the rest of it was quite exactly as the top brass said. We went on leave, we came back and did Elementary Air Gunner School at Bridgenorth. Went on leave, came back and we were posted, I was posted to number 3 Air Gunner’s School at Castle Kennedy near Stranraer in Scotland. We used to fly up and down Luce Bay shooting at a drogue towed by a Martinet with a very frightened pilot, [laughs] I imagine he was anyway. Although there was a long, a long cable between the towing aircraft and the drogue that we fired at but that was all good fun. The only trouble was that we that were on Ansons, flew Ansons there. There was the pilot, the instructor and three UT air gunners so you each took it in turn to go in to the turret and fire and the ammunition was tipped with different coloured paint so that you knew which gunner had made which holes in it or none whatever the case may be and it was a strange little, it was a Bristol turret. As you elevated the guns up you went down and vice versa so it wasn’t, it wasn’t a lot of room in it so if you did anything wrong you got, it wasn’t easy. There would be the instructor yelling at you from the astrodome further up telling you to get the seagull out of your turret and all this sort of thing but it was very enjoyable and I passed out third in the course which I was quite pleased with at that considering I didn’t want to be an air gunner to start with. There was one unfortunate, well one unfortunate incident while we were there. The pilots were all Polish and they all wanted to be Spitfire pilots so when we’d finished the exercise, whatever it was, it was a lot of very low flying which was all great fun but this particular day this one went into a farmhouse and they were all killed and the three UT gunners in it were the only Scottish lads on the course and they were the ones in Scotland. They were the ones that were killed. I had to attend the boarding ceremony on the station. So, so that was that. We duly went on leave as sergeant air gunners or most of us did anyway and I think we went, we went, yes we went to Operational Training Unit then at Upper Heyford but that was where the ground schooling was done there which was quite a lot of that as you can imagine. Then we went over to the satellite airfield at Barford St John near Banbury of Banbury Cross fame, for the flying in Wellingtons so I was back in the Wellingtons. That was good fun. We crewed up there of course. That was quite remarkable, the crewing up. It’s, I think we were the only country who did it. You were just all put in to a hangar and said get on with it. Gunners, pilots, navigators. Well, I was in, I had an air gunner mate so we were together so there were two air gunners and the skipper was looking for two air gunners and we sort of collided with him and that was that. He was a big tall chap. I’ll have to show you a photograph. Wore a moustache. In fact he was known as The Count on the squadron because he could have been a Count. He was a public schoolboy but he was one of the lads, you know. He wasn’t, he wasn’t at all snooty with it and we found a bomb aimer and a wireless operator, Bill. And we hadn’t got a navigator. There was one who we eventually had but he’d been on a previous course and the aircraft had crashed and he’d walked out of it. We thought that might have been a bit of an omen [laughs]. Some funny things you think of. Anyway, Frank Johnson was the navigator and he was a damned good navigator. Anyway, we were crewed up and the first flying was circuits and bumps, of course with an instructor. First time we’d all flown together and I always remember the first, after the first hour of circuits and bumps the instructor got up to get out down the old ladder and we all pretended to follow him [laughs] because the skipper would be taking us but he turned out to be a very very good pilot of course and we did our day circuits and bumps and then our night circuits and bumps which was a bit more difficult ‘cause you got in to a Wellington in the front, under the nose and the propellers were very close to the fuselage and you had to go dead straight to the aeroplane otherwise you’d rather lose your head. In more ways than one. But that was fun and then we went back to Upper Heyford for ground school. It had a very complicated fuel system the Wellington and more than one crew were lost because they’d thought to have run out of petrol and in fact there was another tankful somewhere but they’d opened the wrong cocks, you know. So this, I forget, I think his name was Fry, Flight Lieutenant Fry, he was a genius. He’d fixed up a ground replica of this petrol system with pipes and levers and everything and fans and we all had to learn it. We all had to learn the fuel system by doing this, you know, this model. If you did anything wrong the fans would stop. So we got quite good at that but we didn’t have any trouble with the Wellington. The only thing that concerned me a little bit about them was at night when you did a night cross country or any night flying. They’ve got fabric covered wings, the Wellingtons. They were made of a geodetic construction but it was all fabric covered and they filled the tanks up in the wing and invariably some got spilled all over this fabric and as you took off sparks would be flying past from the engine and if you were in the astrodome looking out you wondered why you didn’t catch fire but they never did of course. It was flitting past too quickly but that was, that was an interesting point about the Wellington but we used to have some good cross countries in those. Four hours as a rule and a nice meal when you, before you took off and another one when you got back so that was good. From there, we all passed out there with flying colours and the next thing, I think we went to a, kicked our heals for a week or two at a, some place waiting for, but the next move was to a Heavy Bomber Conversion Unit on Stirlings, big four engine things but we couldn’t go directly. We had to wait out turn and eventually we were posted to RAF Swinderby on these confounded Stirlings which were very, very fine aircraft but the ones we had were well past their sell by date and I don’t think we ever flew without something going wrong and we were jolly glad to see the back of Swinderby I can tell you. All sorts of things happened. I mean, one of the worst ones I was in the rear turret, we were doing night circuits and bumps, two hour detail and we’d done about half of it and we were doing a landing and I thought, hello the old runway is still whizzing past fast. The brakes had failed. There was a yell from the skipper, ‘Brace, brace.’ Well, I was in the rear turret. I couldn’t do much but just hang on. The runway finished, the grass started, we went through a hedge, across a field and finished up with the bombing hatch over the Newark Lincoln Road so we were out of there a bit smartish because they had a habit of catching fire, these Stirlings. We plodded back to the peritrack and the transport came around to pick us up and we thought we were back to the mess for a meal now. No. No. Around the peritrack to another Stirling to finish the detail so we did another hour of night circuits and bumps so that didn’t, didn’t encourage me at all with those things. On another occasion the, it had an electric undercarriage, not an hydraulic one and if there was any failure at all with it you had to wind it up by hand or the flight engineer did. Well, no we hadn’t got a flight engineer there. Or did we? Yes, we picked him up, that’s right, we picked a flight engineer up at Con Unit. We didn’t, we didn’t have a flight engineer at the Operational Training Unit. They were still learning about engines somewhere. But yeah this damned thing wouldn’t wind down so we were pealing around for half an hour trying to get the undercarriage down so that was interesting. But the worst things that happened to us in a Stirling was on a cross country. This was October, November time and it was over Scotland and we were on our way home, on the homeward leg and the starboard outer engine overheated. Apparently they get, the oil gets super cool and thick and doesn’t circulate so the engine gets, and it’s called coring apparently. Anyway, they had to switch the engine down but that was alright but what wasn’t right was the propellers wouldn’t feather. It wouldn’t feather and stop so it was windmilling so not only had we lost an engine it was still being driven by windmilling causing a terrific lot of drag. Fortunately, we’d got the screen flight engineer with us instructing our flight engineer and he assisted on the way back. We called up. It was a system during the war called Darkie. They wouldn’t allow it now but the posters was of a little black boy. ‘If you’re in trouble call Darkie.’ Well we called Darkie but he wasn’t in unfortunately so we called Group or got on the radio and called Group and they said that we should try and zigzag home going near airfields which we did. We eventually got back to Swinderby and came in to land and the skipper, he’d learned or heard in the mess that you took the trim off if you lost, you know, were in really serious trouble with an engine and it would, it would straighten, help to straighten it up but it didn’t. It had the opposite effect and we swung towards a group of trees and there was a, ‘Brace. Brace,’ from the skipper again and the navigator, one of his jobs when you were landing and taking off was give the airspeed and a Stirling stalled at ninety miles an hour and I can hear Frank’s voice now saying, ‘Ninety. Ninety. Ninety,’ and I was just waiting to crash and then suddenly it was, ‘ninety five,’ and apparently the screen engineer and the skipper were pushing on the rudder to keep it straight and we overshot, went around again and came in safely and landed and when we got back to the control room they said, ‘We didn’t expect to see you lot again.’ So, [laughs] so that was the dark humour I’m afraid but that put me right off Stirlings that did. We were very glad to see the back of them. We did finish the course and I think we lost about five crews while we were there. All crashing. Not altogether the crew’s faults. You know, just and that invariably happened on a Saturday night and that was a Saturday night when we did our little performance so perhaps we were intended to go in. I don’t know. But the next posting was to RAF Syerston. Number 5 Lancaster Finishing School and it was like going from a clapped out old banger to a Rolls Royce, flying Lancasters. Yeah, that was really good. We had some very enjoyable times there. We had to do quite a lot of flying. Practice high level bombing and fighter affiliation where you have a camera instead of a gun and a Spitfire makes attacks on you and that’s all good fun. It is for the gunners and the pilot but not for the rest of the crew. They’re being chucked about all over the place. There was one amusing little incident while we were at Lancaster Finishing School. We came across, one afternoon coming back from somewhere or other, we came across a Flying Fortress flying back to its base somewhere I suppose and we came up to it and we had to slow down to keep, not keep up with it but to keep station with it and to exaggerate this and to show off a bit we dropped the undercarriage and put some flap down to slow the Lancaster down and we did the usual thumbs up and all this sort of thing and then up with the wheels, in with the flaps and zoomed off. I reckon they thought, ‘Show offs,’ but there we are. I’m afraid the skipper did do that a bit. The one I didn’t like him doing though was, which he did quite a bit on the squadron if we had to do any air sea firing we used to chuck a flame float in the water and then we’d fire at it as we went around but if he spotted any ships he generally introduced himself, you know, by going very low but what I didn’t, what I was scared of, he was going to do this with Royal Naval ships ‘cause I know from my experience at home that anything that flew was fired at. I don’t think they’d heard of aircraft recognition. They just fired at everything that flew. In fact they did bring a Fortress down in the river here during the war. It was out, stuck in the mud for ages wasn’t it? So, I had visions of the skipper doing a show off beat up on a destroyer or something and getting a few rounds up our backsides but on one occasion there was a whole line of, it was a very nice sight, of destroyers in line of stern and we got down the same level as level as them and flew along and so I think they flashed good luck to him on the aldis lamp but I had visions of them opening fire on us. I thought, I hope they know what a Lancaster looks like but there we are. So we passed out there ok and then, yes the skipper was anxious to get on a Pathfinder squadron. They did one tour of forty ops if they survived that long and you had to learn each other’s jobs and all about marking and all that sort of thing which we did. We swotted it all up and we duly went for our interview. It was a wing commander, I think, took it and we were all gathered in front of him answering questions and the skipper, his name was Clem Atting, by the way, his name. He had a scarf on. Weren’t supposed to wear scarves like that and the wing commander said, ‘Are you warm enough, Atting?’ ‘Yes, thank you sir. Yes. Very well.’ ‘Well take that bloody scarf off,’ he said [laughs]. So our interview went downhill from then on and needless to say we did not get to a Pathfinder squadron. We were posted to 189 at Fulbeck-in-the-mud we called it. Well when we got there we were issued with gumboots and I’d never, never heard of that before. We were issued with gumboots. So there we were and we were in wooden huts there though. They weren’t nissen huts. They were wooden huts and I remember, you know, that’s right we went there with four other crews because we went in convoy with another truck. There were four crews ‘cause they’d lost four aircraft and when we piled out of the aircraft er out of the trucks waiting to go to some billet somewhere I was hailed by a resident air gunner from the other side of the road, ‘Hello John.’ He said, ‘You’re a chop replacement.’ [laughs] I thought, ‘Good afternoon to you too.’ Well, we know we were obviously or else we wouldn’t have been sent there but I thought what a greeting, you know. We eventually got in our huts and I can very clearly see it now. The beds weren’t made up obviously, it was just, I just laid the biscuits out, flopped on it ‘cause we were a bit weary by that time and I looked back and on the wall there were twenty eight ticks. Was it thirty or, thirty well I think I’ve got in my notes somewhere that it was reduced to thirty three but I don’t think it was thirty three when we were there. I think it was thirty. Anyway, I thought crikey if this crew who were in this hut had done twenty eight, they were on their twenty ninth and they were shot down what hope have we got, you know? We don’t know anything ‘cause it is, it’s luck though really. Its luck. Absolute luck. I know you’ve got to know all your stuff but it is really luck whether you go down on your first or your last. I mean there were very experienced crews who were shot down when we were on the squadron. On one, on our first raid to Horten Fjord in Norway the master bomber was shot down who was in charge of the raid but there we are. Yes, there was another crew in the hut and they were just finishing theirs. They were just finishing. In fact they did finish their tour while we were there but they left behind their flight engineer who was slightly bad I think. Leo Doyle, I think his name was. He had a revolver in his flying boot and he didn’t want to go on leave and have a rest like you did after a tour. He wanted to join 617 squadron, you know and carry on which he eventually did and I met him after he’d been on it for a while and he said, ‘They’re mad,’ he said, ‘They’re quite mad.’ He said, I think he said they were doing a raid on Flushing and they were in line of stern in daylight and they were just getting shot up as they went in, you know. They didn’t take any evasive action. They were just making sure they hit the target so I mean he was, he was a bit flak happy but that was almost too much for him I think [laughs]. Dear of dear. I always remember him. But yeah, we, we’d, as I say our first, first raid was to Horten Fjord. It was a U-Boat base for the North Atlantic and we duly did our stuff there. It was a long sea trip and the Pathfinders marked the coast where we crossed, where we should cross in case you got off course over the sea, made sure you crossed at the right place but we avoided that like the plague because there was a night fighter station just around the corner at Kristiansand and we thought they could well be buzzing around there so we crossed a bit further east but I think we sighted a ME109. I think that was the occasion I sighted an ME109 astern of us but it didn’t attack us and we kept quiet as well. The second one was not quite so clever. That was at Ladburgen on the Dortmund Ems canal. It was at a place where the water was higher than the surrounding countryside and so the banks were very important and 5 Group’s job was to go there periodically and knock them down and we were, fortunately or unfortunately, that was our second raid. That wasn’t the first time they’d been there but obviously that was our first one there and there was a terrific lot of flak. Naturally they wanted to stop us. They got a bit grumpy about us knocking all this stuff down but we got, we got back ok. I can’t remember. I’ve got some notes here about them but the next one was to Bohlen and that was an oil refinery. Most of our raids were on oil refineries because at that time the Germans were very short of oil towards the end of the war and no we didn’t do much of this flattening of cities and things. We only did a couple of those I suppose. But Bohlen, that was a long trip but uneventful. The next one was to Harburg which was eventful. It was a great big oil refinery on the River Ems. It was both sides. it was a huge, huge place and we were routed in past the Frisian Islands who all had a go at us as we went past which I thought it was a bit uncharitable and then we turned right smartly, right over the middle of Hamburg which again, I thought was a bit silly because they all thought we were going to bomb Hamburg and of course everything went off there and I could see from the turret that the whole place was well alight. It was like day. Flames and flares and everything. It was, it was like hell. You know. Like flying into hell and as we came in I noticed that there was a JU88 poking about. It was so bright I could see the markings on the wings. I warned the skipper. I said, ‘A JU88 starboard quarter up. Prepare to corkscrew starboard,’ and at the same time Eddie Jordan the bomb aimer was giving his, ‘Left. Left. Steady. Right a bit’ and at the same time as he said, ‘Bombs gone.’ I said, ‘Corkscrew starboard. Go,’ as this blooming thing came in and I opened fire and it broke away. I don’t know whether I, I think I must have hit it but he didn’t hit us. That was the main thing. The purpose was to evade it, avoid it. Not to shoot down German aeroplanes but to not get shot down yourself but obviously if you could hit him you would. But we dived out of there at a terrific speed and into the darkness and comparative quiet and the skipper got his, got the heading for home, you know, or first leg of going home and off we went . I think the rest of the, when we got back to Fulbeck we found that there were four, there were four missing. Four of our lads were shot down including some very good friends of ours who arrived on the squadron with us you know, when we arrived. Flying Officer Smith. I can’t remember his Christian name. It was D. It might have been David but I’m not sure now but he did a remarkable thing. He, whilst doing this fighter affiliation at Lancaster, at er when we first got to the squadron you think you’re all ready to go into ops but you don’t. You do quite a lot of training and the drill was when you’d finished the exercise was to take the Spitfire back to Metheringham where it came from because he wouldn’t know where he was and then you know, a guy would go down and well on this occasion a Spitfire formated a bit too close and took about seven foot off the wing off the Lanc and Smithy baled the crew out, one of whom always said he’d have time to do his bottom straps up on his parachute. Well he didn’t. He went straight through his parachute harness and was killed when he hit the ground of course and the Spitfire wasn’t damaged and followed the parachute out to see but there was nothing on the end of it. And Smithy landed the Lancaster safely and it had, you know he was on the Harburg raid with us and he got shot down. GC: You talk about your crew. Tell us a bit about what they were like. What kind of characters they were. JC: Well, the other gunner, he was a good friend of mine. Much the same sort of type. Bit shorter than me. The flight engineer was quite old. Bert Shaw. He, he must have been nearly thirty. We were, I mean, I was nineteen, eighteen or nineteen. Skipper was twenty two. The others were about that age. I think I was the youngest but Bert, he was very nice. He was married and he was, he drove a fire engine in civvy life but he was very domesticated and he ironed our collars and things for us. He loved doing them. It was just as well because we couldn’t do it and the bomb aimer, he was Eddie Jordan. He was a nice chap. Very well spoken and educated. Like the skipper. Not that we weren’t but you know, he, they were a little bit, I think, better than ourselves. The wireless op Bill Mobley he was a good mate of mine. Got into a few scrapes. They borrowed the, him and a mate of his borrowed the flight commander’s motorbike one night and pranged it. Finished up in Wroughton Hospital and the next day the skipper said, ‘I think we aught to give Bill a look,’ and I said, ‘Well are we going over in the car?’ ‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘We’ll fly over and so we did a low level attack on Wroughton Hospital. How we didn’t get, well he did get caught eventually. He, he, when you take off in a Lancaster you climb steadily until you get a good height before you bank. The skipper thought he was in a Spitfire and used to go off like, unfortunately one day the station commander was in the control tower when this Lancaster flew just overhead and he said, ‘Who’s that?’ ‘Flying officer Atting, sir.’ So Flying Officer Atting was sent to the naughty aircrew school at Sheffield for a week or was it a fort, a week I think. Flight lieutenants and above, flying officers and above went there to the naughty boys school and they had great fun there apparently. The first night he was there they, it was in a famous old hall and they took the fish down from the cabinets, set fire to some furniture and were toasting them apparently [laughs] But we went on leave so we thought it was a jolly good idea this Sheffield business but when we got back off leave and Clem came back and he said, ‘I’ll show you where we were.’ So we hopped aboard our aeroplane and duly went over to Sheffield and he showed us at very close quarters [laughs] the school.[laughs] It’s funny we didn’t all finish up there to be honest but you know, we should get into bits of bother but some things we got away with and it will probably catch up with me when they hear all this but some of it, when we were on ops we dropped stuff called Window. You’ve probably heard all about it. Strips, well it was in packs, packages and they were put down the flare chutes, down the chutes and when they got in the slipstream they burst open and scattered. Well, the skipper and the bomb aimer had girlfriends in this village not too far from Fulbeck and one afternoon we were stooging around flying and they thought they’d give them a look and I mean a look. Dear oh dear. We, I remember looking up at the church tower as we came past and we Windowed the village and they must have known who it was because at that time, or hitherto the markings, we were CA 189 squadron, our squadron letters were CA in big red letters on the aircraft followed by the letter L or E or whatever and they decided to outline it in orange which I thought was a bit unfair really but anyway they were done and of course they stuck out like a sore thumb. I don’t know which raid it was. [pause] Ah yes I think it was a place called Lutzkendorf, another oil refinery job and we were diverted to Manston because of fog everywhere and the next morning we took off to go fly back to Fulbeck and again this Window stuff, dropped by somebody else before it had burst open hit all our aerials and took them away so we couldn’t contact anyone on RT and another one of the other squadrons said, ‘Well follow us, you know. We’ll take you back.’ So we did. What we did we didn’t know was that this other character was going to visit his auntie on the way back [laughs] which was down in a valley so we duly followed him down and saw his auntie and flew back to Fulbeck and later on in the day there was a complaint. The adjutant received a complaint from a wing commander who was having his breakfast looking down on two, two Lancasters. Reported us. And the adjutant thought it was great fun and tore the complaint up into the wpb. So that was that. He was really good at that. He looked after us very well, did our adj. I got caught at home on leave cycling without my hat by a snotty provo flight lieutenant who didn’t know the front, the back of an aeroplane and I had to show him my pass of course, 189 Squadron, Fulbeck. The next day when I got back from leave the skipper said, ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘The adj has had a complaint from the provo marshall about you.’ I said, ‘Oh?’ ‘Cycling without a hat.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘It was duly filed.’ Considering most, a lot of his time was taken up writing letters to the families you know so to get one about someone not wearing a hat I can only just imagine what he thought. Well there we are. GC: Sounds like you had more fun than serious stuff. JC: Well we did have a lot of fun. We, the skipper was always, I mean you’d be wondering what to do one afternoon and the door would burst open. ‘Let us leap into the air,’ he would say. I don’t know what sort of excuse he gave to anybody to get and so off we’d go. Mind you there were official high level bombing practices and fighter affiliation with a Spitfire. One afternoon we were coming back from a high level bombing exercise which we couldn’t do because there was cloud everywhere and this Spitfire came up, went like that. And I went like that. And I said to the skipper, ‘I think he wants to play games,’ so we sort of meant to play around a bit and he went off and started making attacks on us and for half an hour we chucked that Lanc around the fire, around the sky and it was great fun. Well, it was for the gunners as I say and for the pilot. The rest of the crew were groaning and moaning. Hanging on tight. And I think Eddie Jordan had a bit of tooth trouble so that as we dived down that started making his tooth ache. So they didn’t think it was very funny but at the end of it he got in right close and went like that as much to say, you did alright. So that was good fun. But it wasn’t all like that you know. There was some dodgy bits. Really dodgy bits. Yeah. One of the other daylights we did was to Essen. That was a thousand bomber raid and that was quite a sight and we never did see the ground. It was covered in cloud and we had to bomb on a sky marker. Can’t remember the name of it. Wanganui flare I think they called them but you had to bomb on a certain heading otherwise you’d be all over the place and when we left, I always remember this, when we left the cloud which had been all flat there was a big bump in, over Essen and we never even saw the ground. So that was one occasion where we did what you might call open bombing, didn’t have a specific thing to hit. After that came Wurzburg. Now this was the, we didn’t, we didn’t go to Dresden. I’ve got a note in my diary that the boys have gone to Dresden. We didn’t. We were obviously stood down for some reason. Probably been the night before because you didn’t get to do two consecutive nights ‘cause you couldn’t really ‘cause you didn’t get up till lunchtime. You’d have to get up, have lunch and go straight into briefing so there was generally a night free but we went to Wurzburg which was a big open city and I don’t know why we went there but after the war I read it was troop concentrations. The Russians wanted us to sort it out and that was the only time we carried incendiaries, carried a cookie which was a four thousand pounder like a huge big dustbin and incendiaries and when we left the place the place was alight but on the way back we got into a bit of a spot of bother we were diverted, well we were routed home between Karlsruhe and Stuttgart. Two places to avoid like the plague. And we were poodling along in the dark minding our own business, halfway home and suddenly bump, the radar searchlight went straight onto us. The blue one. So I thought, ‘Hello. We’re in trouble here.’ That’s hastily followed by five ordinary ones so we are immediately floodlit and that was smartly followed by all the ackack guns in what we found out later was Karlsruhe. We’d gone right slam bang over Karlsruhe. We’d been flying straight and level for ages so they must have had us tuned up a treat so how they didn’t knock us out of the sky I’ll never know. It felt as though someone was banging the aircraft with a fourteen pound sledgehammer all over it. You couldn’t hear the engines, you know. I thought they’d all stopped you know one of those funny sort of things that happen you see and the skipper did everything with that Lancaster that, things you would do in a Spitfire short of rolling it and eventually we emerged into the darkness. The lights went out, the guns stopped and it felt awfully silent and the skipper called us all up in turn to see if we were alright and then he sent the flight engineer around with a torch to see if there was anything, damage anywhere. He couldn’t see anything obviously bad and we continued home rather silently but at lunchtime the next day we went down to the aeroplane to do our daily inspections and things and it was like a pepper pot. It had got shiny new squares of aluminium all over it where the lads had filled up, covered the holes up and I thought, ‘Blimey,’ I looked up at the mid upper turret and there were two or three right, right under that. They went in one side, straight across the aircraft and out the other side. It’s only aluminium and these were red hot bits of steel and they were, well why we weren’t seriously hit, or the engines, none of the engines were damaged. GC: Was there a, or what was the main difference between day and night? Was there, was there did you prefer to do day or do night? Was one more dangerous than the other? JC: Well, daylight was dangerous in that you could be seen. On the other hand you could see. You could see fighters but the daylight, I don’t think we had a fighter escort over Essen because there was too many of us. There was another one over Nordhausen which I’ll mention next but on that we had a fighter escorts, Typhoons, and they went in front of us strafing all the airfields, keeping them on the ground and then escorting us but we didn’t have [pause], later on we went to Flensburg. We didn’t have a fighter escorts then so I don’t know. Sometimes we did. But it could be very dodgy. A friend of mine, Basil Martin, unfortunately he’s dead now but he was on a squadron in 3 Group and they did a lot of daylights over France leading up to D-Day and after D-Day and they had quite a lot of fighter trouble. In fact, they had, I remember him telling me once there were three of them flying to the target in broad daylight and an ME109 came after them and shot the back one down, then the next one down and his gunner shot that one, shot the ME109 down. They didn’t get a medal for it though. They just got to the target and back again but there were a lot of very short, obviously into France, so very short operations and at one time they, you had to do, or so I heard after the war, that you had to do two of those to count as one ‘cause most of our trips were pretty long you know, sort of ten hours, ten and a half hours. Quite a long while. Yes. Yeah, that was the incident at Karlsruhe. Strangely, the earlier time that 189 lost four aeroplanes was when they went to Karlsruhe. Lost four. We were replacements for the ones that were shot down over Karlsruhe so they were trying to have a go at us as well you see. It’s strange isn’t it? GC: Did you get superstitious about things like that? JC: Well, I don’t know. You do get a bit that way. I always put my right flying boot on first and if I didn’t I took them both off and put them on again and people had lots of silly things that you did [pause]. But then nobody queried it. GC: You also, you also talked about quote ‘hijinks’ in this Lancaster. What was it really like because a Lancaster is a big plane to be throwing around quite so willy nilly. JC: Yes. Indeed. Well, I’ll tell you something we did one day which, nobody believed us anyway, so I might as well tell you and I couldn’t put it in my logbook otherwise we would have all been court martialled but it’s in my diary. We’d been up for some high level bombing practice over Wainfleet range which is in the Wash. There was an area there where you dropped [prunes?] as we called them. They were smoke ones in the day and at night they were flash and a chap, or I think there were two of them, sat in concrete bunkers taking a bearing on your hits so they could tell you what you’d missed or hit. Well, we got over Wainfleet range and you couldn’t see a thing. We were up at about eighteen thousand feet so the skipper said, ‘Well we’ll do a bit of three engine flying,’ so feathered the starboard outer and that meant, I was in the rear turret that meant I couldn’t use my turret. Then he did the port outer which, I mean the Lancaster will fly quite happily on two engines and then he did the starboard inner and I thought, ‘Oh hang on.’ I wound my turret by hand on the beam so that if necessary I could open the back doors and go out because we had, we had a pilot type chute then for the rear turret. You didn’t have to get out the turret but in the mid upper turret you had to get out, go a few of yards down the fuselage, get your parachute out of a housing, clip it on and then go to the door and, you know it was a bit of a palaver which a lot of people never made of course but anyway we’re flying on one engine. That was the port inner left. And he said, ‘Feather port inner.’ And the poor old Bert Shaw, his voice was getting drier and drier you know, he said, ‘Feathering port inner, skipper,’ faithfully doing as he was told and that meant shutting the engine down and then feathering it so they wouldn’t windmill. So there were four fans stopped. Poor old Bill Mobley, the wireless op, he’d got all this gear on. He thought, ‘That’s gone a bit quiet.’ He looked out the astrodome and saw four propellers stopped. He said, ‘You bloody fool,’ he said, ‘I’ve got all my electric gear on here.’ Well they wouldn’t have had enough on the batteries to unfeather so he shut everything off in a hurry and then came the dramatic words, ‘Unfeather starboard outer,’ and fortunately there was enough power to turn the props and it windmilled and fired. There was a puff of smoke came past the turret and I thought, ‘We’re alright now,’ and all four were running but we weren’t diving down very fast but apparently the skipper had seen a photograph of a Lancaster with all four engines feathered allegedly beating up the control tower but of course that was a trick photograph but the engines were all feathered. They were all stopped and feathered so it must have been done. So he, being a very, if someone could do it he’ll do it, you know. He’ll have a go. GC: I must admit I’d heard that and you’ve just confirmed ‘cause everybody went, ‘No it can’t be done.’ I had heard it so. You just, you just proved it. JC: Oh yes. We didn’t have, we weren’t engineless for very long because as I say the wireless op exploded. He should have told him what he was going to go ‘cause he’d got his radio gear on and all the nav equipment and everything. GC: Yeah. JC: All draining from the batteries which we wanted for that initial restart but I did quietly tell the fitter engines once ‘cause we used to have a beer with them, you know and he didn’t believe us and I thought, well that’s fair enough. I know it was true, the rest of the crew knew it was true but no one dare breathe a word officially about it or we would all have been, well the skipper would have been court martialled. That’s for sure. So that was, I suppose, the silliest thing we did. Although, I did something very silly once. In the mid upper turret there was, they were electrically fired and there was cut out gear so that you couldn’t’ shoot your fins off or kill the rear gunner or people up in the front you know and there was taboogie which lifted them clear as you went around. Well, we were up one day. We put a, put a smoke float out to shoot at and the blooming things wouldn’t work and I thought, ‘Oh hell.’ So I thought, well I can still fire them ‘cause I can fire them manually by pushing the [sear in] underneath the screw with my toggle and I waited until we were clear and did it and I thought, ‘What the hell am I doing?’ And your mind plays tricks then. Everything went silent and I thought, ‘I’ve shot the blooming aeroplane down,’ and I hastily looked around at all the wing tips and everything and everything was all quiet and I never said a word. I reported that the guns wouldn’t fire and they were all put right but a few rounds had been fired and they would know that but nothing ever happened. I was lucky there. I could have done some damage to the aeroplane just because I wanted to fire the guns. Well, you know all the trouble you go to go out there and do everything and then you can’t do it but the bomb aimer had a slight accident once too because he, he was in charge of the front turret although I don’t think he ever went in it but you had to go out and do a DI on your guns every day and I was in the mid upper turret and I heard a single shot and that was from the front turret and that was Eddie had done it. He’d, because you cock and fire but you have to have the the fire on safety not on safe of course but to get around that you’ve got fire to put a breechblock forward and pull it back and take a round out. Anyway, this single shot went across the airfield, I don’t know where it finished up. We looked anxiously ahead of the aeroplane because out in dispersal but it must have passed over the airfield somewhere but we never heard of anyone being shot so we, we didn’t say too much about that. GC: There was probably a cow lying in a field somewhere shot by a Lancaster. JC: That was a bit funny that but there we are. GC: What was it, I mean you, you’re a upper gunner which was quite a unique place? What was that like? JC: Well it was, you were very exposed of course. You got a very good view of everything. I mean you could look all around three hundred and sixty degrees whereas in the rear turret your vision was limited to dead astern and each side although there was bits of equipment and stuff in the way. You couldn’t really see properly. The only proper way to see was straight ahead and there the, it was a clear vision channel, clear vision panel where the Perspex had been removed so you could see out better but your visibility wasn’t as good as in the mid upper which was just all Perspex so you had to make sure that was really clean. It was, it was quite a good, quite a good position I suppose but as I say very exposed I suppose but you could see what was going on. Wasn’t altogether a good idea. One of the scariest things was, that I found and no doubt other people thought so too was they never seemed to notice them but you could be flying along at night, pitch dark and suddenly on the beam there’d be a sudden big flare like a full moon, a new moon hanging in the sky. It was a German night fighter. You knew it was, you knew it was a fighter there, it was a great temptation to stare at the damned thing but you didn’t know because he was going to fly across and see who was silhouetted against these flares so you had to look into the dark part of the sky to see what he was up to and in the meantime your aeroplane seemed to be illuminated. Although it was all matt paint it used to shine and I thought you know he must see us and you’d stare and stare and look around and try and, but that was the scariest thing because you knew that a German night fighter had just done that and just dropped that flare with the very intention of seeing who he could see silhouetted against the light because it was a brilliant like a new full moon and it seemed to hang there for hours but in fact it was only a few minutes but it seemed ages before it fizzled out and then you’d get back to darkness. [pause] Yes, Nordhausen, that was another daylight. That was, in actual fact it was the place where they were making these rockets underground so we weren’t, obviously couldn’t do anything about that but there was lots of barracks there. A lot of troops and we, apparently the SS was supposed to have moved in and had made their headquarters there and so it was decided to give them a visit for breakfast and there was about two hundred and fifty of us from 5 Group with fighter escort who’d gone in front, spraying the airfield and when we left the whole place was alight. Blew the whole place up, the railway system you know which blew it up but there was an unfortunate incident. This is something you’d see from an upper turret. I was watching an aircraft from 49 squadron who were with us at Bardney. There were always two squadrons on RAF stations. We were with 49 squadron and their letters were EA and I was watching this. It was EA F-Freddie and I saw its bomb doors open. It was behind us and down like that, saw its bomb doors open and the cookie just came out and then the whole lot blew up. It had been hit by, hit by flak and it just, I could feel the heat from it. Or I fancied I could. You know, it was, it just fell away you know. No one got out of it of course. They would have all been killed instantly and I looked it up, I’ve got a book showing all the losses, 5 Group, Bomber Command losses and that was set in there of course, Nordhausen EA F. All black cross against all of them. I looked up the one of Smithy’s crew that was shot down at Harburg and I think, I can’t remember exactly, some of them were killed. Smithy and another one of the crew were very badly injured and they were taken to a prisoner of war camp. Why they weren’t taken to hospital I don’t know. Perhaps it was easier to take them to a prisoner of war camp where they died a few hours later. So they must have been in a bad way. So they, they were killed. But I was really sad about that because they, we knew them so well. You know they’d been with us. They’d joined the squadron with us and he’d done that jolly good landing with a damaged Lancaster and then well I imagine that was their fourth trip. That was our fourth but but that was the only one I actually saw blow up in daylight but at night you see rumours abounded that the Germans were firing up a shell called a scarecrow which burst with a lot of flame and smoke. The idea being to put the wind up the aircrew that it was an aircraft going down but after the war the Germans said, ‘We never had any such thing.’ GC: You didn’t see one. JC: So what we thought, what we thought was a scarecrow was an aircraft. They said, ‘We never had any such thing.’ It was a rumour that was very strong. Oh that’s a scarecrow gone off. Look. But it was, in a way I suppose it was a bit of comfort because you’d think that wasn’t an aeroplane that was a scarecrow but I’m afraid it wasn’t. We had to mark, I had to tell the navigator of any aircraft going down because he marked them on his chart for use after the war to track down the, which they did, of course, they tracked down all these people. And they even tracked down some aircrew who were unfortunately handed over to the gestapo and the SS and some of them were shot and I mean that’s completely against the Geneva Convention but wherever they knew who it was who did it they caught them and they were brought to trial at Nuremberg. GC: What else can you remember about serving during World War 2? What was life like on and off the base as well? JC: Oh, well it was strange really because on the squadron you were living a perfectly normal, peaceful life. You’d go to the pictures, go to the mess, have a few beers or if you were stood down you could go in to Nottingham or somewhere, stay the night, have a few beers and it was a perfectly normal life and then someone would stick their head around the door and say there’s a war and you’d have to go down to the mess or somewhere to have a look at the battle order to see if you were on and if you were well that’s, you went to briefing and had your flying meal. The last supper as it was irreverently referred to and away you went and so suddenly you were transported from a peaceful English village to the middle of a war and back again. If you were lucky. GC: How did you, when, when you came back like from an op what was the plane like? Was it quiet? Were people chatting or - JC: We didn’t chat. That’s the remarkable thing when you see these films of, especially American ones they’re all yacketing away. There wasn’t a word over the intercom unless it was necessary. There were certain navigation beacons and things during the war which flashed letters and I’d report those to the nav to help his navigation and in the rear turret you could take a drift so he could check the wind. That was a big trouble, not knowing the direction of the wind because Group would give you a wind but it wasn’t always, it wasn’t always terribly accurate and you only wanted to be a few degrees off and you’d be miles out. So that was the navigation was, I think we did remarkably well but you could see, I could see the target from miles away. You know, there was a glow in the sky for a start because everyone’s been there before you. The Pathfinders have been there, been down and had a look, dropped what they called primary blind markers, there’d would be flares dropped all over the place. Light the whole place up. There’d be searchlights on looking for the aeroplanes and the whole place would be full of activity so a good quarter of an hour before you got there you’d hear all this chatter over the VHF about putting the target indicators down and the master bomber would be controlling all this as though it was a picnic you know. It was quite remarkable and you were still a quarter of an hour away. So by the time you got there you knew everybody [laughs] everyone would be well awake but you could see it quite clearly and you’d think to yourself you’ve got to go through all that lot and hopefully out the other side and if you were early you had to drop your bombs between two very specified times and if you were early you had to do an orbit and come in again which was not a terribly good idea but you had to do it. We did that once. We did that over Komotau. We got there a bit early and I remember thinking I’ll have to have a, keep a sharp look out here going around for a meander around first but of course in daylight it’s nothing like that. There’s just smoke and fire. That’s all you see. There’s not the, I don’t know it’s not the darkness there. Strange. But, as I say, life on the, you know, it’s strange, you just carried on normally. You’d go down to the section in the morning see if any, see what was doing. Do the aircraft, do your DI on the aircraft and have your meals in the mess. You wouldn’t know where the boys were going if you weren’t on, you know. You wouldn’t know that till they got back. You’d say, I remember watching when I got, first got on the squadron I wanted to see. I stood down by the flights one evening as they took off and two squadrons of Lancasters so that was about what thirty odd aircraft all in line around the peritrack going slowly past, then turning onto the runway where there was a black and white chequered caravan and there would be a group of people there waving goodbye to their friends or whatever and you’d get a green from the caravan and the brakes would be on, the engines would be revved up and then the brakes would come off and you’d surge forward to give you an initial kick down the runway. There would be a wave from these people. I don’t know whether they were pleased to see us go or what I don’t know but there was always a crowd there. WAAFs and all sorts giving you a wave and away you’d go down the runway hoping you get off ‘cause they were heavy. You’d got ten tonnes of petrol and six tons of high explosive and if there wasn’t much wind and you were on a short runway it was a bit iffy. It was a bit iffy. You wouldn’t miss the village by much. GC: Do you remember anything else from serving? JC: About life on the - GC: Just life or ops or the crew. JC: Well, there was another. The next raid we went to was Komotau in Czechoslovakia. That was an awfully long way to go. That was another oil refinery and when we got back over the coast there was thick fog everywhere and we were diverted to Gaydon. We’d never heard of it and the nav said to the wireless op, ‘Are you sure it’s Gaydon?’ [laughs]. And we were getting a bit short of petrol and everywhere over the countryside was just grey and another advantage of being in the mid upper turret I saw in the distance on the port side they looked like bees around a honey pot. I said, ‘There’s some aircraft over on the port side, skipper,’ and we flew over and there they were. There was our squadron and another one all milling around. That was still thick fog and it was a Canadian Operational Training Unit with Wellingtons and the poor chap on the caravan at the end all he could do was fire white very lights to show where the runway started and you knew the heading ‘cause you could see that from your paperwork and we came in, descended through this murk and fortunately there was a runway at the other end of it and we landed safely but we left two or three of the squadron in the fields around. We brought the crew back. We were stuck there for ages and didn’t even get a cup of tea. We were just stuck with our aeroplanes and I thought I don’t think much of this and eventually we, the fog cleared and we took off and got back to, got back to base but that was a bit, a bit naughty that. There were no facilities there at all for a safe landing. It was a case of dropping down through the fog and hoping you were over the runway and in, pointing in the right direction and as I say a lot of them didn’t. The other daylight we did was a place called Flensburg which was on the Danish German border on the bit of land that sticks up and I think we were after some shipping there in the harbour. When we got there there was a hospital ship in the harbour too and when we got there it was ten tenths of cloud so we had to bring them back or we should have brought them back. There was an area in the North Sea for dropping bombs safe you know which shipping were advised of and kept clear of but unfortunately some of the idiots with us were just dropping them as soon as they got over the sea and our aircraft, I mean I looked up and said, ‘Starboard skipper,’ and he was on the, and there were these blooming bombs dropping down. We could have easily been hit, hit with a bomb and shot, you know, knocked from the sky. We religiously went to this area in the North Sea where you should jettison your bombs and even then that was ten tenths of cloud and skipper went down through the cloud in case there were some ships there, there wasn’t and there was splashes going on all over the place from people dropping bombs through the cloud but that was, it’s disappointing when that happened. You go there, done everything and then you bring them back or come back. Quite often, well reading my diary it happened three or four times, we got out to dispersal and the raid would be cancelled for some reason and you’d be all psyched up for it and it was disappointing not to go, you know. You had to unwind then and go back to being in a village again. I mean it was strange. It was, being out at dispersal was the worst time, I think. You didn’t know what to say, what to do and then a verey cartridge would go off. In we go. As soon as you got on board the engine started. You were alright. You were, you were there and you knew what you were going, you knew where you were going and you knew what you had to do and you’re perfectly, perfectly happy. GC: Can you remember the moment you found out the war was over? Can you remember what that felt like? JC: Yes. I could remember that fairly well because we went out to a pub and there was no beer and we cycled around for all afternoon and there was no beer anywhere. It was an anti-climax really. You were so used to doing that, that way of life that when it stopped you felt you’d missed it in some ghoulish sort of way. I can’t quite explain it but, I don’t know, it’s like anything that you’re doing regularly and then it suddenly stops. However horrible it was you still miss it and I did miss it, I must say but we were kept busy. We had to, well one of the nicest jobs we did was bringing back prisoners of war. We flew in a field near Brussels and twenty [emotional]. Excuse me. GC: Do you want to stop? JC: There was twenty four of them at a time with their little bags of stuff and one of them crashed unfortunately. I don’t know why. Whether they got, ‘cause you had to be careful where they, where they were put because of the balance of the aircraft and one of them took off and crashed almost immediately and killed everybody on board. There was twenty four POW’s and the crew which wasn’t a good sign. But that was the only action that I know of. We brought them back. I can’t remember where we brought them back to. [pause] It was a little airfield. Dunsfold. Dunsfold. And there were ladies there to see to, you know I thought there would be flags flying and all this but there was a tent and some ladies, you know Women’s Voluntary Services or something making them some tea and supposedly dishing out railway warrants and one thing and another. I thought what a homecoming. I thought they’d be all, it was strange really I, ‘cause the ones we had were all ex-aircrew, well air crew. I mean, I don’t know what they’d been through of course individually but they didn’t look at all happy about going into an aeroplane. Perhaps their memories of the last time they were in it weren’t very good and they’d left on fire or something. They didn’t look at all happy really. Tried to chat to them and then as I say when we landed they all trooped out into this tent. All very well, you know, I know I didn’t expect the band to be playing but you know, I thought there’d be - GC: Yeah. JC: Some officers there or something to welcome them back. Perhaps that had already been done at Brussels. I don’t know. I don’t think they’d been hanging about long. I think they, you know as soon as they were released I think they were sent to this airfield. There were a lot of them. I mean there were eighteen thousand aircrew injured or POW’s. There was about ten thousand prisoners. We were told that they had a file on us all over there. Well, a lot of us you know. We weren’t allowed to take, we had to empty our pockets completely. Not a bus ticket or a cinema ticket or anything and we had emergency pack with barley sugar and chewing gum and fishing gear. I don’t know if anyone ever did catch anything with that. Silk maps of the countryside you were going to try and get out of. A whole load of stuff in a plastic case and that’s all you had. You had to hand everything else in. That was put in a bag and you collected it when you got back. Well, people were, I mean we had lectures on all this and when you were interrogated they’d say, ‘What’s on at,’ and they’d mention your local cinema, you know, ‘What’s on at the Regal this week,’ and all this sort of thing and you’d think well if he knows that he must know this you know and it was just a way of getting information out of you but as I say we weren’t allowed to have a bus ticket or a cinema ticket or anything in your pocket. There was money in this thing as well by the way and a compass of course so you could attempt to evade. Oh that’s another thing we did on the squadron. There was escape and evasion exercises. You’d be taken out, this happened two or three times, we were taken out in lorries, there were no signposts anywhere, taken out in lorries and dropped and you had to make your way back to camp. Unfortunately, we were dropped quite close to Newark and Nottingham and places like that and a lot of people bombed off into the town [laughs] so they weren’t a hundred percent successful but I did my own evasion, escape and evasion one night. I was on the old pits not thinking of anything in particular and the skipper put his head around the door and said, ‘Anyone want to go into Newark for a pint? He said, ‘I’ve got to go in on the motorbike. I’ll bring you back.’ So no one else said, I said, ‘Yeah. Ok,’ ‘cause they had lovely fish and chips in Newark and the beer wasn’t bad either so I went on the back of the motorbike with the skipper into Newark. We arranged a rendezvous for the return, 11 o’clock I think it was or half eleven which I attended but no one else did unfortunately. He didn’t turn up. So, I’ve got a heck of a walk here, back to Fulbeck. About twelve miles I think from Newark and I didn’t know the way either. It was a network of little roads all around that part of Lincoln you know. There’s no big main road as such. Anyway, I struck off due east I think and I thought well I must eventually come across it and walked and walked and walked and eventually saw a familiar looking nissen hut and, which was the washrooms and things on the outskirts of the airfield so I knew that I was, I was home. So, I went and had a drink. I remember putting my, cupping my hands under the tap and I had a go at him the next day. He apologised. He said, ‘I’m sorry, John,’ he said, ‘Things got a bit out of hand,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t get back until later,’ So whether he did ever turned up at the rendezvous I don’t know but I walked home back to Fulbeck. That wasn’t our only walk. We walked from Nottingham to Syerston Lancaster Finishing School. That was a whole crew of us. We’d overstayed our leave a bit at, in Nottingham, missed the last train, ‘cause we used to cycled into a place, leave your bike against the wall, get on the train and I mean your bike was there the next day. Nobody pinched bikes in those days but on this occasion we had to walk all the way back to Syerston and when we got back to camp we were on the early morning flying detail. Couldn’t have been worse really. We got some breakfast and then got into the air and that was that. Oh dear oh dear. So that was, life had its ups and downs you see, Gemma. It had its up and downs. In more ways than one of course. The last raid, believe it or not, was the same place we went on the first one. We went to Norway again to a place called Tonsberg but this was another oil refinery and as we got closer, I mean we’d normally bomb at about eighteen thousand feet. Something like that. The master bomber told the force to reduce height to, I think it was fifteen and then down to ten and I thought this is silly this is and then to eight. Eight thousand feet which put you in range of all the light flak that they hose up at you and I thought, and I mean it was like, literally flying into a, you think well we’ll never get out the other side without being hit by something and as we went in a searchlight came on us and the skipper said, ‘Shoot that out, John,’ because we were so low, you see and he banked the aircraft and I fired and it went out so that was that. One searchlight less. But we went in and bombed and we came out alright but I don’t think we lost any but there were aircraft lost due to this flak but during briefing the thing came up about this searchlight and the interrogating officer said, ‘Fired at, what eight thousand feet?’ And I said, ‘Well it went out.’ I didn’t say well the skipper instructed me to fire at it but he didn’t say anything, the skipper. He should have said, ‘Well I instructed him to fire,’ but he didn’t and I thought oh well. It did go out. I thought to myself the range of these bullets is quite, quite a long way and there’s no, gravity’s going to help them on their way and if they just hear a few bullets scattering around they’ll probably put it out and they did you see. I don’t suppose I hit the light. I probably scared the living daylights out of the crew. GC: I was going to say how aware of other squadrons were you or what else was going on in the war? JC: Well of course you’d read the papers. You see, we were in 5 Group and people said there’s 5 Group and there’s Bomber Command and it’s true we did have our own sort of little things. We had our own corkscrew procedure which was different to Bomber Command and a lot of the raids were 5 Group squadrons like the one at Nordhausen. That was just 5 Group squadrons. But having said that I mean a lot of the raids were from everybody, you know and we all used 100 Group. They had Lancasters and Flying Fortresses and all sorts and they did all these trick things with radio to fool the Germans, you know. For two or three weeks the German night fighter force was controlled by a flying officer in Uxbridge. German speaking flying officer in Uxbridge before they twigged that, you know, they knew it was being done. There were all sorts of tricks there was, with strange names, strange code names and some aircraft had different equipment to others. 49 squadron who we were, we were with at Fulbeck had Village Inn which was a radar equipment fixed to the rear turret which showed when a fighter was coming after you which was quite handy but we never had it. But they didn’t lose any aircraft well apart from the one that I saw blow up. That was from flak. That wasn’t from fighters. They didn’t lose aircraft like we did. I saw the flight engineer from one of the crews who was shot down over Harburg and he met the German night fighter pilot who shot them down and he’d made, it was a head on attack and that’s something you don’t read in the books because you’d never get a head on attack at night cause you’d never see them quickly enough but there was so much, it was so light from all the fires and flares they were doing head on attacks. That’s remarkable isn’t it? Well the one that came after us wasn’t. It was a normal sort of attack but the sneaky thing they did they was they had a gun, an upward firing gun the JU88s musicschragge or something they called it and they used to creep under the, under you and then just fire a few rounds into your wing where your petrol tanks were. So we used to do banking searches quite frequently so you could look down and see if there was anything going on but even that they knew about of course and they’d follow you around so that wasn’t foolproof but at least they knew you were alert and you know we were having a go. Having a look. I think that helps. If there’s one that’s going straight and level and not doing anything he’d going to be an easier target than the one who’s manoeuvring about the sky. There was one, well it wasn’t amusing for the poor WAAF but we got back. I don’t know which, I can’t remember what raid it was but anyway we got back to dispersal, we’d got out of the aeroplane and we were waiting for the truck to turn up and pick us up and it duly arrived and just as she got out a JU88 came over the airfield strafing the runway and everybody and everything and we just sort of looked lazily, you know. It was just part of the night for us but she dashed in to the arms of the skipper and we gave him a cheer of course. Poor girl. She was scared out of her wits. Well it was a bit scary I suppose for her. It’s not something that usually happens and this chap was firing and doing all sorts of things and they used to drop these anti-personnel butterfly bombs all over the place which was a bit, a bit naughty I thought because they used to come in and shoot aircraft down when they were coming in to land which I thought was very uncharitable. On the coast at night there were two searchlights like that that guided you back in over Lincolnshire and we avoided them like the plague and you were supposed to put your nav lights on to avoid collisions which we never did. Never put our nav lights on so perhaps that’s the sort of reason you get away with it, you know. But collisions, there were a lot of aircraft lost through collisions. When you think of it, in the night, no lights. I remember in the mid upper turret, well I don’t know whether if we were going out or coming home but I think we were coming home and I looked up and there was another Lancaster just slowly crossing us, ever so close, I reckon if I could put our hand out I could have touched his blister, you know his H2S blister and I daren’t say anything to the skipper ‘cause if he’d have dived his tail would have come up and hit him and I thought if we just keep going we’re going to miss and so we went like that and I, just afterwards, when it had cleared, I said, ‘We just had a near miss skipper.’ Nobody else saw it. It was really really close. We were just on a slightly different course and nearly at the same height within a foot or two. So that’s another you know a bit near. If he’d been a bit lower or we’d have been a bit higher we’d have collided. Surprising how many there were when you read of the crews that were lost due to accident. A lot of them over this country. Not over there. Over this country which is a bit remarkable. You said what did we do? One thing I did do after the war we did this Exodus, Operation Exodus, bringing prisoners of war back and on another occasion the crew had to go to Italy, to Bari to bring people back from there but the gunners, for some reason, didn’t go because they wanted to get more people on board I suppose but they brought us back some cherry brandy and stuff so we didn’t mind but what I did while I got the hut free was something I wanted to do. I’d got, in the Mae West’s, you know the inflatable thing the thing that inflated them was a little CO2 bottle. It was a cast iron bottle with a little neck on and when you pulled a lever down it broke the neck off and filled the thing up with air or carbon dioxide or something. Anyway, I thought if I filled the thing up with cordite that would be an ideal jet. So I wanted to make a jet propelled glider you see because the Australians were letting stuff off. They’d got hold of something, fireworks and things and I got a, got a cartridge and emptied it and carefully fed the, because the cordite was a little, little tiny rods, put it through the hole until it filled up and then left a little trail to a safe distance of the hut, the nissen hut and this was on the concrete step aimed out into space you see. I’d made a glider out of a cornflake packet that I’d scrounged and I got this all fixed up, lit it and it sort of worked. It fizzed across the floor, lit the thing, zoomed off, the glider fluttered down a few yards away and the CO2 thing headed off towards the officers mess the other side of the airfield and so I thought it was time to pack up and go. I got on my bike and went down to the mess and read the paper. GC: Has he always been this much of a rogue? SP: Yes. Yes. JC: And that was a bit of fun. SP: Yes. You used to wave your handkerchiefs at the air you told me. JC: The other thing we did what we found out was to if you want to evacuate a nissen hut is to get a verey cartridge and take one of the shells out of the stars and drop it down the chimney when their bogie stove was alight and that shoots the bottom out, most of the contents of the bogie stove and everybody goes flying out. It was great fun. Oh dear of dear. GC: It’s nice to know you was taking yourselves so seriously. JC: Pardon? GC: It’s nice to know you was taking it all so seriously. [laughs] JC: Well, you know you’ve got too really. Frank Johnson, we had some reunion, crew reunions after. Three or four. And Frank, the navigator said to me that he’d been approached by from some quite high authority in government with a big questionnaire about morale of air crew during the war and I and I thought about that I thought well no one was sad or anything like that. In fact we were generally up to hijinks and then Frank said, ‘I put down that, practical jokes mainly from air gunners,’ he said. [laughs]. I think we kept ourselves alive really by laughing down and of course we had quite a, beer was quite plentiful then. Not very strong unfortunately but that was a favourite pastime either in the mess or down at the local, you know the local pub in the village and we didn’t have a cinema at Fulbeck. We didn’t have very much there at all. That was a bit dead really apart from the odd pub but Bardney did. They had a cinema there and we used to see things, films there. I went back to, well a summer camp with the ATC and of course visited some of the old airfields and we were at Binbrook one year and one of the other officers wanted to go to a place that he was in during the war. Forget the name of it now. He said, ‘You were up this way John, weren’t you? I said, ‘Yeah. Bardney.’ He said, ‘That’s not all that far away.’ So we duly went to Bardney. There wasn’t much left of it then. There was the old hangars were still there and a control tower and a sad looking windsock and I said, ‘Well the pub down the hill,’ I said, ‘Was called the Jolly Sailor,’ which was known as the Hilarious Matlow when we were there and we went down and went in for a pint and it was, instead of being little rooms as it was it was one big bar which killed it really but anyway, I ordered a couple of pints up and an old boy sidled up and he said, ‘You’ve just been up at the airfield haven’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Do you want,’ I thought he was on the [earhole] for a pint you see so, ‘No. No. No,’ he said, ‘I don’t want a drink.’ He said, ‘I can always tell,’ he said, ‘When you come [that thing there?] he said. So I said, he said, ‘What flight were you in?’ I said, ‘A flight. Squadron Leader Stevens. Yes that’s right,’ he said, ‘I knew him,’ and he knew the wing commander. He knew. We used to rattle the stuff off his mantelpiece apparently when we took off. But he was, you know, he was a nice old boy. He was obviously one of the locals who was there during the war. He must have put up with us when we went in the pub. But it was different and I don’t even know if it’s still there now because I’ve had it up on google and I can’t even see the pub anymore. I think it’s been knocked down or something. Isn’t that dreadful? GC: Dreadful. JC: I don’t know. All the memories of these places. If they could tell a story. GC: Ah but that’s what you’re doing at the moment. JC: Yes. We, after the war we had to start on Tiger Force training for the Far East which I wasn’t looking forward to to be honest. Fighting the Japanese. They didn’t play fair did they? And it consisted of long cross countries as a squadron in a gaggle. We didn’t fly in formation. We flew in a gaggle right over France and Germany and around and home and to do that, to prepare for long flights we shared our poor old flight engineer Bert Shaw. He was due for retirement anyway I think and we got a pilot flight engineer. There were lots of spare pilots about at the time. Young lad. Never done much. They put them through a quick flight engineer’s course at St Athan and sent them to the squadrons and we had one. He was such a nice chap. I can’t think of his name. Isn’t that awful? I have a photograph of him in one of the books, war books I’ve got. Anyway, he flew with us as a flight engineer. Well on one occasion and I was now the official rear gunner by the way. I was in the rear turret. We were coming back over France and I was awake because I noticed smoke whizzing past the turret you see. So I thought, hello, something’s going wrong up front you see so I called up the skipper and said, ‘One of your engines is on fire, skipper,’ and he relayed the message to the flight engineer who was down in the bombing hatch cooking his logbook for four engine flying so when the skipper said, ‘One of your engine’s is on fire,’ he thought he was pulling his leg. He said, ‘Well you’d better put the kettle on.’ [laughs] I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘It’s getting thick here.’ And anyway he came up and shut it down and feathered the propeller and the smoke abated. Bits and pieces came past and that was that. Went home the rest of the way on three engines but that, that was funny that was. Very funny. GC: I’m just going to stop it for a moment because I’ve just spotted - [machine pause] GC: Just looking at the battery. But go on. JC: Right [pause] ok. Yes. Well we eventually poor old squadron was sent to RAF Metheringham to disband which was all very sad. We had to take our aeroplanes with us. The ground staff got there in about a quarter of an hour I suppose. We got over Metheringham and there was ten tenths of fog. Absolute thick fog and we poodled around for about half an hour. We got all our stuff on board. Bikes and things in the bomb bay and they eventually decided to light up half the Fido for us. You know the old fog intensive dispersal or something. They lit up one side and it really did work. It just burnt the fog off. We came in, landed and we were there till November kicking our heels. I only flew, I was the only one of the crew who flew again, who flew from Metheringham and I was the Squadron Leader Stevens’s rear gunner when he wanted to go somewhere and my services were called upon but that was the only time I flew from Metheringham and the crew dispersed. The skipper went flying somewhere, the bomb aimer was commissioned and went off somewhere in charge of a radar unit and we were sent to a place ‘cause I wanted to go on to Transport Command and we were sent to the MT section of a little OTU at Whitchurch. I forget the name of the RAF station but I couldn’t drive. I had to drive, I suddenly had to learn to drive because I was, I was up at the station and the billets were about a mile down the road in a disperse place and it was bitterly cold and I wanted to get some blankets for the bed so I took, I pinched a [fifteen underweight?] truck, went down to the domestic site, picked up my blankets and as I did some of the other lads came out and said, ‘Are you going back to the station?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ I said, I said, ‘I haven’t driven before.’ He said, ‘Oh it doesn’t matter.’ He said and they all piled in and I got in the front bit and drove them back. That was quite, quite a bit of a laugh there. Anyway, eventually I got on to Transport Command. I was posted to Holmsley. RAF Holmsley South, near Bournemouth. Had some fun down there. Some friends of mine took a boat out at night off the beach and got out quite a way and they realised that the people had taken the plugs out so people wouldn’t pinch the boats and they just [laughs] they had to dry out in the boiler room when they got back. And then I got posted to, we flew to Lyneham. You’ve all heard of Lyneham. That was the big transport place. We were there about a week and then I was posted to Waterbeach. RAF Waterbeach which was the nearest I ever got to home, as an air quartermaster flying with different crews. There were two flights we did there. There was United Kingdom - Changi in a York. That was in Singapore. And to Delhi with the freight. Freight run. And that, that was great fun. I did quite a few trips. It took five days to get to Singapore and a days there and five days back but we never did it in eleven days. There was always something went wrong. We had more trouble with Yorks than we ever had on Lancasters. I mean we only had that just one engine fire but with the Yorks we had to fly from the passenger run was from Lyneham because we’d go, we went from Waterbeach to Lyneham, picked up the passengers and went through customs and everything and the first leg was down to Luqa, RAF Luqa in Malta and from there to Habbaniya in Iraq and then to Maripur in India, down to Ceylon as it was and then across to Changi in Singapore. That was five legs. Getting up earlier and earlier every morning because you were losing time you see and then you had a day off and then you reversed it coming back but as I say we never did it. We had various problems. One of the engines seized up over the Med coming across to Malta. So we stuck at Malta for a week which was great fun of course. The only thing else, oh I was often the only NCO in the crew. The rest were all commissioned you know and they’d be in the mess and I’d be in the sergeant’s mess but apart from that it was alright. We all used to meet up during the day. The first trip I ever did we went, we got to Malta and they said, ‘You’re coming with us, John.’ So changed in to civvies. They took me down to Valetta, sat me outside a café place, table and chairs and they brought out something I hadn’t seen, of course, since the beginning of the war which was a plate of fancy cakes, ‘There you are, John,’ they said, ‘Tuck in.’ So it was all things like that. Things we hadn’t seen let alone eaten. That was good fun though flying like that but they, it was a bit dodgy especially the last leg from Ceylon to Changi. It was around Malaya there was terrific cumulous clouds. I mean these days they just fly over the top but we couldn’t get up there so you had, you couldn’t go through it because they was too dangerous. They could just pick you up and chuck you all over the place and so you had to go underneath and that wasn’t always very practical so there were some dodgy bits. The other time we had a bit of trouble it was a freighting run and we were coming back across the Mediterranean to Lyneham from where was it? Castel Benito. That’s right, in Libya and I noticed, just freighting run this was and I noticed the port inner engine, the exhaust which I could see very plainly from the window didn’t look right to me. It was, it was the wrong sort of colour you know and as the flight progressed so it got brighter and brighter and I got the skipper to come down and have a look. Ivor Lupton. I’ll always remember his name and he had a look. He said, ‘Keep an eye on it, John and if it gets any worse tell me.’ Well it did get worse. Flames started coming out of it so the flight engineer shut it down, feathered it and we made an emergency landing at an airfield called Estree in France where they hadn’t got any Merlin engines and we were stuck there for a week and had great fun there. We were in the transit mess but it wasn’t too bad. The food was alright and I paid a flying visit to Marseilles with, I can’t remember, was it the navigator or the wireless op? Anyway, he’d obviously got some business going on in, where’s the name of the place. Oh dear isn’t that awful? I’ve forgotten the name of the place on the coast of France further east. I said, ‘How are we going to get there?’ He said, ‘We’ll hitch.’ So we got on the road and we hitched and an old French car stopped, got in the back and the driver complete with, he hadn’t got any onions but that was the only thing he hadn’t got. And we went hurtling off in this old car through little villages, chickens scattering, you know. It was like something out of a film and, Marseilles that’s where we went and we eventually got there and he did his, what he had to do, got some nefarious thing going on. I had a wander around just and then we came back by the same method, getting a hitch. The French were delighted to give us a lift but they were very old cars and very dangerous and they’d be talking to you with their head, and we thought yeah, have an occasional look [laughs]. So that was a very adventurous time we had on the, on the Yorks. There was one or two incidents where we had a bit of bother but you know it was exciting part. Nice. I was rather sad to leave it all really but I thought well they won’t want air quartermasters forever. They’re called dolly birds now aren’t they but I had to work out, even on the passenger run, I had to work out the weight and balance clearance and all that sort of stuff so that the centre of gravity of the aircraft fell between two points so I had to find the water, weight of water, petrol and everything and passengers and you know it was quite an important job but I enjoyed it so I was rather sad when the last, the last thing came which involved, not for me personally but involved a rather dramatic encounter with HM customs but I can’t go in to that now. We haven’t got enough battery left [laughs] GC: [?] JC: So there we are. My RAF career in a nutshell. GC: Well can I just say it has been an absolute pleasure and a great honour. That has been beautiful. Thank you very much. JC: Pleasure. GC: Thank you. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Cuthbert Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gemma Clapton 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 2016-05-07 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ACuthbertJ160507 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Description An account of the resource John wanted to be a wireless operator/air gunner, having both air and radio knowledge, so volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He went to RAF Cardington and completed initial training but re-mustered as an air gunner as the radio schools were full. After Elementary Air Gunners' School at RAF Bridgnorth, he moved on to Number Three Air Gunners’ School at RAF Castle Kennedy on Ansons, and eventually to an Operational Training Unit at RAF Upper Heyford. Following this they crewed up on Wellingtons. John then went to the Heavy Bomber Conversion Unit at RAF Swinderby on Stirlings followed by Number Five Lancaster Finishing School at RAF Syerston before joining 189 Squadron at RAF Fulbeck as a replacement crew. John talks about some of his operations, including the U-boat base at Horten Fjord and several oil refineries. On his last operation to Tønsberg, he shot at a searchlight which went out. John compares night and daytime flying, discusses superstitions and rumours about 'scarecrow' shells. He describes life in the turret, particularly hiding from German night fighters. He recounts life on the base and describes his escape and evasion exercises. He enjoyed bringing back prisoners of war from Brussels as part of Operation Exodus. They started Tiger Force training for the Far East, obtaining a flight engineer. They were then sent to RAF Metheringham to disband. After the Motor Transport Section of the Operational Training Unit at RAF Whitchurch, John joined Transport Command at RAF Homsley South. He was posted to RAF Waterbeach as air quartermaster. John describes his role and the places he visited in Yorks en route to Changi and Delhi. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Sally Coulter Maureen Clarke Language A language of the resource eng Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire England--Nottinghamshire England--Oxfordshire England--Shropshire Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway Belgium Belgium--Brussels Germany Germany--Karlsruhe Norway Norway--Horten Norway--Tønsberg Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1944 1945 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 02:06:23 audio recording 189 Squadron 49 Squadron air gunner aircrew Anson bombing coping mechanism crewing up escaping evading fear Heavy Conversion Unit Ju 88 Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School military living conditions military service conditions Operation Exodus (1945) Operational Training Unit radar RAF Bardney RAF Bridgnorth RAF Castle Kennedy RAF Fulbeck RAF Metheringham RAF Swinderby RAF Syerston RAF Tilstock RAF Upper Heyford RAF Wainfleet Scarecrow Schräge Musik searchlight Stirling superstition Tiger force Tiger Moth training Wellington wireless operator / air gunner York https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/751/10750/PCookJH1701.jpg 81323cdafc31bb66e836e5b0ba2201ff https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/751/10750/ACookJH170118.mp3 85280a29406287aa006ef455c66449b1 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 Cook, Joseph Henry J H Cook Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Warrant Officer (1925 - 2018, 1894875 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a n air gunner with 630 Squadron. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Joseph Cook 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 2017-01-18 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 Cook, JH Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document CJ: We’re on. Ok. This is Chris Johnson and I’m interviewing Joe Cook today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We’re at Joe’s home in Kent and it’s Wednesday 18th of January 2017. Thank you, Joe for agreeing to talk to me today. Also present at the interview are Vi Jarmin, Joe’s partner. Joe’s daughter Beverley Maltby and her husband Michael. So Joe, thanks very much for talking to us today. Perhaps you could start by telling us about your early life and where and when you were born and your family background. JC: Very, very simple. I was born in Sidcup in Kent on the 2nd of June 1925. I’m, I’m living with my grandparents for a little while and my mother and father and then we moved. And we moved to Brockley and more or less orientated around Brockley. My early life. I went to school at Blackfen. And then of course I went to the, what do they call it? Basic school. Elementary school. And, and then I got a scholarship for going to Brockley Central School. Brockley Central School was a marvellous school because we took the Oxford General School Certificate and we took the London Chamber of Commerce Certificate of which I’m proud to say I got the Oxford Certificate and I got the forces of it with the London Chamber of Commerce with a Book Keeping Distinction. That was my basic education. Because of the background I was able to go straight into a job. And I went to, oh [pause] I went in to a solicitors I think it was. Something like that. I was only there a couple of days and it fizzled out. Something went wrong. I then ended up in Twentieth Century Fox Films. I found my own job because it paid twice the money that the others did. So, at Twentieth Century Fox Films I was working in the assistant, whatever, I forget what they call it now. Anyway, it was logging films and how much they would produce and etcetera. I was there until I went in the services. I met my first wife, my wife there and we were married obviously in 1945. I wouldn’t marry her until I finished flying because I said, ‘You can’t get married to a cinder.’ Because all aircrew got terribly burned. So therefore I married in 1945. 20th of October. And I produced eventually [laughs] a long time my daughter who is over there. And that is all I’ve produced because my wife had trouble with TB etcetera. So I wouldn’t let her have another child. My fault. I wouldn’t let her have another child. And I was married for forty six years. My partner over there God bless her heart. I’ve been with her for twenty five years. I’m sorry. And I’m still with her. [recording paused] CJ: So, Joe. You were working at Twentieth Century Fox after leaving school. So how did you come to join the RAF and when was that? JC: Well, after leaving school I was conned into the war because I was a fire watcher etcetera. And every night I had to sit up all night fire watching. And then, and what did I do then? How did I, you said how did I come to get in the Air Force? Well, it’s quite simple really. I didn’t want to go in the Army. Quite simple. But I always fancied flying. I wanted to fly. But I, at that time there was no vehicle to take me flying so I joined the RAF. Now, I had to volunteer for aircrew. As you know they were all volunteers. I volunteered and they accepted me straightaway because of my education. And I had no problem with that. My three days medical at Euston House went through ok. Fine. No problem. So there I am. I am sent to St John’s Wood, in the recently completed flats as, as a base. And I did my three weeks square bashing and knocking me into making me. They knocked you down so that you [pause] sort of thing was you’d clean your shoes. By the way aircrew always wore shoes. You’d clean your shoes and they were, oh you know you’d bone them and all the rest of it. And then the corporal would come in in the morning and inspect. ‘They’re bloody filthy your shoes. Get them cleaned.’ They, it was there to break you. Right. Then you want me to carry on now? From St John’s Wood I went up to Bridgnorth. Initial training. Which was square bashing and all sorts of funny things. From Bridgnorth I went to Bridlington where I did such things as Morse Code. I had to send and receive Morse Code at ten words a minute. Then Bridlington was a learning base for the, as I said Morse Code and other attributes for the Air Force. I then went from Bridlington. Remember that? Where did I go from Bridlington? Oh, I know. Bridgnorth. Not Bridgnorth. I can’t quite get it. CJ: Was it Evanton? JC: Huh? CJ: Evanton in Scotland. Was that it? JC: No. No. I went to Scotland for my AGS. I’m just trying to think where I went. [recording paused] CJ: So you did your basic training in Bridgnorth, Joe. JC: Yeah. CJ: And then Bridlington. JC: Yes. CJ: So, how did the training go from there and how were you picked for a particular role? JC: Well, I wasn’t, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But what I wanted to do was kick Jerry up the rear. And the only way to do it was get in the Air Force and get flying. Well, as I say I went to 8 AGS near Evanton. I was trained as an AG. I was flying in Ansons and then, I always remember flying in the Anson. The first flight I ever made they lined us up. Sprogs. Right. There’s a few of us. Eight of us, I think. We were going to fly that morning. ‘Right. You. You. You and you,’ and then it came, ‘You.’ Me. They gave me a handle. And I looked at it and I said, ‘What’s it?’ He said, ‘Up on the wing.’ I had to get up on the wing. Put this handle in the socket and turn it around to start the engine [laughs] Oh dear. And of course once you got one going on an Anson you can get the other one going. But I was sliding about on the wing because it was frosty that morning. You know what Scotland’s like early morning. CJ: So how did you come to be selected as an air gunner rather than any other role? JC: Ah. That was at Euston House. CJ: Ok. JC: You were in front of a load of gold braid and he, he said to me, ‘Right. We’ve assessed you. You’ve got everything. We have decided that you will be pilot, navigator or bomb aimer.’ And I said to him, ‘I don’t want it.’ He looked at me. He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I don’t want it. I want to kick Jerry up the rear,’ as I said. So, he said, ‘Well, we’re losing so many AGs.’ I said, ‘I’ll have it.’ So that’s how I became an air gunner. I had all the qualifications to be a pilot but I didn’t want it. And I said, ‘It will take at least nearly a year to train me as a pilot. It’s too late. The war will be over.’ That was the reason. And he looked at me, the groupie and he said, ‘You silly little sod,’ because at that rate they were losing them, losing them so rapid. Anyway, I decided that I would do that. CJ: So you were training on Ansons in Scotland. And how long was the training for? JC: Oh. I got up there in [pause] oh around about Christmas time. And then I was trained at D-Day. Now, I’ve got a little story I can tell you about that. I got my AG brevet. Very proud of it. Parade. Get your brevet. And then we were posted to Operational Training Unit, Silverstone. We got on the train but we didn’t go to Silverstone. The bloody thing kept, sorry it kept going and going and we ended up at Tarrant Rushton in Devon. When we got there they said, ‘You are not allowed to go outside the camp. You are confined to camp. You cannot write any letters. You cannot use the telephone. You cannot do anything.’ Everything hush hush. Of course, we didn’t know. We didn’t realise what was going on. They didn’t tell you, did they? They didn’t tell you anything. Why I was sitting on the train suddenly, oh stay on the train because you’re carrying on. And so therefore what we didn’t know was this, that it was about oh a few days, quite a few days before D-Day. Why were we sent to Tarrant Rushton? It was quite simple. This. They gathered together all the people who had just been, got their wings. Pilots and all the rest of it and they’d sent us to Tarrant Rushton and they sent us to fly clapped out bloody Stirlings. And they were clapped. And when we got there we said, ‘What’s all this? Why are we doing this?’ They said, ‘You’ll find out.’ Wouldn’t say a thing. They found, we found out alright because we had to load these Stirlings up with leaflets. Fly over to Calais. Drop them on Calais and Boulogne etcetera and we were chucking these bales of leaflets out and one bloke said to me, ‘What’s all this about? What are these leaflets saying?’ He said, ‘It’s in French.’ I said, ‘That’s alright. I’ll read it to you.’ And what it was saying, “Get out of Calais. Get out of Boulogne because we are invading and we are going to bomb like hell.” So please, Froggies get out. ‘Get out of Calais,’ etcetera. That’s what it was all about because you know as well as I do it was a spoof. Well, we were chucking these leaflets out and it counted as an op because we were going over, over enemy territory really. That was the first four. And chucking these leaflets out and on the way back of course this bloody old Stirling packed up. One engine packed up. And then we thought well blow this. Nursed it back over the peninsula. The Devon Peninsula. And then another one went. And on a Stirling no chance. Got to get out of it. Got to jump. Which I had to do. So I jumped out of it and come down on a tree. With a Land Girl with a pitch fork at the base of the tree to ram it in me. Wouldn’t believe that I was English. Got the, they sent, a lorry came around and there was the rest of the bods in it. And they took us to the farmhouse and obviously then to the station. But that, that was my initiation. That’s what D-Day was to me. Dropping leaflets for four days on Calais, Boulogne, Liege etcetera. So I had only just been trained. And it was so daft that when D-Day had been going for about a week or two we were posted and we were posted to the Operational Training Unit to be trained [laughs] You know. And went there and went on to Wellingtons. The old Wimpy. God bless her. And I did my training on that. We did cross countries. We did ten hour trips. Not ten hour trips. Eight hour trips etcetera. And I finished my OTU and how did we get crewed up? Easy. Big hangar. Type 2 hangar. Right. A hundred engineers. A hundred AGs, a hundred pilots all in this hangar and then the group captain gets up, gives a little speech and then says, ‘Right. Form yourselves into crews.’ He said, ‘Mingle amongst each other, walk around, pick who you think would be a good one.’ So I, I had a friend with me and I said to him, ‘It seems to me that the tall ones, the pilots, are bloody good. They seem to survive.’ So we looked for a tall pilot. And it happened to be a Canadian. And Mac, so we looked up at him and said, ‘Oi. You got two gunners?’ So he said, ‘No.’ ‘Do you want two?’ He said, ‘How good are you?’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I got eighty four percent on my passing out.’ He said, ‘Oh. I’ll have you.’ So, that’s how it was done. In this big hangar. Then you walked out of there and you were a crew and you were brothers together and just went through it all. You were so close. I can’t explain it. Closer than brothers. The sort of thing was we were booked for ops and then all of a sudden our engineer went sick and he went, turned around to the flight commander and said, ‘I’m not flying.’ He said, ‘No?’ ‘No. Mitch has gone sick. Won’t fly without him.’ ‘Oh. Alright,’ He said, ‘We’ll put a spare crew on.’ That’s how it was. [recording paused] CJ: So Joe, you tell me how you were all in a hangar together and sorted yourselves out as a six man crew. So where did you go from there? JC: Well, this was done at Silverstone. Silverstone in [pause] where was it? I’ve forgotten the name of the county. Anyway, it was at Silverstone. The race track then as it was. And we were flying Wellingtons. As I said a six man crew because it didn’t have a mid-upper turret so you just, you carried the other bloke but you were the one in the turret. Then we, we did all the usual things. Training. Long trips. High level bombing. Gunnery. Etcetera etcetera. And finally you were posted to a squadron and — no. Sorry. Missed a bit. From Silverstone you went to Wigsley. Wigsley was a Conversion Unit. You went from two engines to four. To Wigsley, flying Stirlings. I hate the things. And then from Wigsley you went to a Lancaster Finishing School. And then and at that point we knew we were going on Lancasters. We dreaded the thought of going on Stirlings or Halifax. Halifaxes. So we went to Number 5 Lancaster Finishing School at Syerston. All around Lincolnshire. And then from there we were posted to the squadron. And that’s when I went to East Kirkby. I did all my operations, well twenty six of them. I think, I don’t know. I think it was twenty six from East Kirkby. But I’d already done four from Tarrant Rushton so I’d done my thirty. We were now a fully-fledged crew on a squadron. And on my first trip we’re getting on to this are we? My first trip was the Dortmund Ems Canal. The dear old Dortmund Ems Canal. We used to come up time and time. As fast as they built it up we knocked it down. That was my first trip. You’ll find it in my diary that I wrote. Every time I came back from a trip I sat with pen and ink. Where is it? I sat with pen and ink and wrote down how I felt and all the rest of it. I can’t see it. Oh. [pause] JC: There it is. One diary. Now, there’s I’ve lost the other book so there’s only twenty trips in here. I don’t know where it went to. It’s the last one. Last twenty. As I said, Dortmund Ems Canal was five and a half hours. “I felt nervous but got on ok. Saw a Lanc go down and burst into flames in the ground. We did not get coned by tracer or searchlights. I felt pretty fatigued when we got back.” Now, I won’t go right through this because there is too much of it. Now, people say to me, ‘What were the fascinating ones that I did?’ Well, there weren’t really. There was only one target that I personally thought I’d got my lot and that was Politz. Now, Politz is an oil manufacturing conversion place near the Russian border. I went to Politz twice. The second time, and it was a long trip. Ten hours. The second time on the run up to bomb we were running up, steady, steady and all the rest of it and all of a sudden out, a bloody ME Messerschmitt 262 jet came for us and he was putting shells through the top of my turret. He didn’t, he missed us because I had already given Mac evasive action. And as you probably know once you’re attacked the tail gunner takes control of the aircraft and he has to do what he was told. And I gave him a corkscrew and we were lucky there. He went over the top. I’m watching this bloke and it was fifty nine degrees below zero that night. So I’m watching him and let him come in and then I went to open fire and all my four guns were frozen. The oil on the breech blocks, very thin bit of oil had frozen and not one breech block went forward so the guns didn’t fire. And I yelled out to Mac, I said, ‘I can’t fire. I can’t fire. The gun’s useless.’ And he said, ‘Oh. Oh. What’s he doing?’ I said, ‘He’s wheeling around. Wheeling around. He’s coming in for the kill now because he knows that we’re defenceless. My turret has no defensive fire.’ So, I said, ‘That’s it.’ And Mac said, ‘Right. Prepare to abandon aircraft.’ I can remember his words today. So I went to open my turret doors and they’d jammed. I thought. That’s it. This is it. I’m stuck in here. I’ve got an ME262 wheeling around, coming in for the kill. It’s my lot. This is death. This is what death is all about. And then all of a sudden there was a bloody great explosion. We were splattered with bits. What had happened the rear gunner and I didn’t even know the Lanc was there. He got him in his fuel tanks and up he went. And we were splattered with debris. And I yelled out to Mac, ‘Enemy aircraft destroyed. Enemy aircraft destroyed.’ These are my actual words because I can remember them as if it was yesterday. And he said. ‘Right. Resume stations.’ Thank Christ for that otherwise I’d still be up there. And that’s my worst trip. Politz. I had others. Now, in, in here you will see that Heimbach Dam. Even, we went to a dam to blow it up which we were a success at blowing up. In my diary I say, “ME109 sighted just before target. Focke Wulf 190 passed underneath at two hundred feet. Attacked another aircraft to starboard.” Then as we, once again we used bombs on this. Not the bouncing bomb. Heimbach Dam. We ran up to the dam and there was a bloke, well a kite further down. We were on the run up. And they’d got two blooming great guns on the ramparts and they were pointing at a set point of our, where would go in for a run up. So that bloke I said was ahead of us. They got him. Blew him to bits. I thought ooh. But they couldn’t reload the guns quick enough because they were a heavy gun. We went over the top. We dropped our bombs and I saw the dam go. I saw it break and go. We, we got a direct hit fortunately and it was well worth it to see that dam go. But then people would say, ‘Oh, you were a Dambuster.’ No. I was not. I was not a Dambuster. Yes, I went and blew a dam up yeah but that doesn’t make me a Dambuster. When you think of a Dambuster you think of 617 squadron and nothing else. CJ: So what was it like on the station for — perhaps you can take us through when you knew when you were going on ops. What was the atmosphere like? And what sort of preparation did you do before you went out on a trip? JC: Before you went out on a trip if you were billed for ops that night then you went to the crew room and your flight commander of each section like gunnery, like engineering, like w/ops etcetera. You were all [pause] what’s the word? You were, you were given all the, all the gen and all the griff and the big map on the wall and that was the first time that you knew where you were going. There’s a sequel to that because we never knew where we were going. Blooming ground staff did. Because we used to go up to the ground staff and say, ‘Oi. What’s the petrol load?’ And he’d turn around and he’d say, ‘Sixteen eighty.’ Oh, got a short trip tonight. Oh, lovely. But if he turned around and he said, ‘Twenty one fifty four.’ That’s two thousand one hundred and fifty four gallons of fuel. That is a long trip. You’re going to be up there just over ten hours. And in the cold, I mean I below zero all the time virtually. Thirty below zero. But you wore an electrically heated suit. The trouble was typical of a lot of equipment your right hand would burn, your left hand would freeze. Your right foot would be [laughs] the same conditions sort of thing. And in the end you used to switch if off. But you had another suit under it. And under that you had silk underwear etcetera. And a naval white sweater. So it was just about tolerable. I never got frostbite fortunately but I had five pairs of gloves on. You’d wonder how I pulled the triggers but I did. It was the cold that used to get you. Now, when you look at the turret the one I used to fly in anyway, you will see that all the Perspex has been taken out. There’s nothing there. It’s to open air. Completely. Now, why did we do that? Simple. If you got a tiny mark on that Perspex, just a little mark or whatever you’d be there. So took all the Perspex out for clear vision and you were to open air. CJ: And this was the mid-upper turret you were in. JC: No. The rear gunner. CJ: The rear. I beg your pardon. JC: I had four Browning machine guns. Just to sequel that I had four Browning machine guns. I had five thousand rounds per gun. I had twenty thousand rounds of ammunition and I could only fire a few seconds. Otherwise they get red hot. CJ: So you were saying about the briefings and when the curtain was pulled back — JC: Yeah. CJ: You knew where you were going. JC: Yeah. CJ: Do I assume that some places were considered easier targets than others? JC: Oh yes. Yeah. Because you sort of think the tape, the red tape would be going across the map and it would end at Chemnitz. And you’d hear the blokes go ahh. Or Berlin again. Because this friend of mine, Johnny Chatterton, he went to Berlin so many times that they gave him a season ticket. Oh dear. CJ: So that, are there any other notable raids that you remember? Any notable trips? JC: Any notable trips? CJ: Trips that you went on that stood out there. JC: Yes. There’s another one in here. I went to Rositz. Synthetic oil. I went to Politz. I went to a lot of them. Now, at Politz where I nearly copped my lot and I really did. Now, I’m saying there if I may just briefly read this, “Target Politz oil installation. Flak fairly heavy. Red cannon fire continuous over Sweden. Searchlights. Some in target area and over Denmark. Fighters. Two JU88s seen over target. JU88 shot down and destroyed by us.” What really happened was that the JU88, he came up and I said to the skipper, ‘Whatever he does, you do.’ And if he, in other words if he dives you dive with him and keep him in the sights all the time. So mid-upper gunner and myself I raked the canopy. Killed the crew instantly. And that was it. Down she went. CJ: Ok. JC: That was a JU88, and that was at Politz. CJ: So then you, you said you finished your thirtieth op with that squadron because you’d already done four before. JC: Yeah. CJ: So, how did it feel when you’d all done your thirtieth? JC: Well, I can’t explain it because you see we were so used to expecting to die. You didn’t expect to come back. You didn’t expect to do thirty. You were elated. Yeah. Obviously you went in the mess and got a few sherbets down [laughs] Oh, what was I going to say? [pause] There’s little incidents that happened all the time. Such as crew bus. Two crews in the bus. The old crew bus. And it just started going around the perimeter track and one crew their bomb aimer more or less, I don’t know what he was doing. Ah. So he ran after the bus and tried to jump on it. He didn’t. He missed. Cracked his skull. That was it. And of course you’d the sequel of the egg. You know about the egg. Of course you do. When you came back from an op you got an egg. You didn’t get bacon. You got an egg. And it was looked forward to. ‘Cor, crikey I’ve got an egg tonight [laughs] you know, when you got back. But the jokey, jokey thing is that this actually happened. The bloke next to you and he says, ‘Eh mate,’ he said, ‘If you don’t get back tonight can I have your egg?’ And then another thing that happened which aircrew were very boisterous. One bloke went round the back of the servery and he pulled the string of the WAAF’s overall. Well, it was so hot in the mess the overall opened, didn’t it? And she’s leaning forward putting an egg with a slice. You can imagine can’t you. Plop. Now, the other thing concerning WAAFs was we were always playing tricks. One bloke had the brilliant idea he got a bit of wood square and in every hut there was an iron, oh what do you call it? Fire. CJ: Stove. JC: Stove. Yeah. So what does he do? He climbs up on to the roof. It was a flat roof for the WAAF quarters. He climbs up on the roof. He gets this bit of wood and puts it on the chimney and holds it down. Then he [laughs] after a few minutes the doors fly open and all the WAAFs come charging out in their underwear. And it was, it was funny you know because they’d got their civvy underwear on. CJ: How did you feel Joe when you had, when you came back and there were empty tables? JC: Well — BM: He didn’t think about it. JC: I didn’t think about it. I’ll give you an instance of it. Two crews to a hut virtually. Then two crews to a hut. You come back after an op. You’re dead tired. You’d had your egg. You’d gone up the road to the hut, get in the hut, get in the pit as we used to call bed and put your head down and you’d sleep. And then all of a sudden there’s a noise. Clank bang bang bong. You put your head up and there’s a whole bunch of SPs. You could always tell because of the arm bands. You’d look up and you’d say, ‘What the bloody hell are you doing?’ ‘Oh, won’t be long. Won’t be long, chiefy.’ That’s what a flight sergeant was called. ‘Won’t be long chiefy. Just taking the other crew’s gear out.’ This is 3 o’clock in the morning. ‘Well, what’s happened?’ ‘Oh. Well, they got the chop last night.’ Put your head down and go to sleep again. CJ: So, you finished your thirty ops. And what did you do after that? After you’d over your sherbets. JC: Well, I wanted a job obviously. I applied to Cossor to Lissen, all, all the old radio manufacturers because of, that’s another thing you didn’t know. I was a radio amateur as well and I had a radio amateur’s licence. So I applied and I thought I’d be in there. Didn’t want to know. ‘Sorry. Can’t give you the job.’ Well, what’s wrong?’ You know, ‘I’ve got City and Guilds in radio.’ ‘What’s — ’ ‘Sorry can’t give you. The reason being. You’re ex-aircrew.’ That was the reason. You were a bloody pariah. You’d been killing people sort of thing. Of course, they’d been over here killing us. I mean I used to say to them, ‘Exeter, Plymouth, Hull,’ etcetera. Shall I go on?’ But of course that [pause] funny us English. CJ: So after your thirty ops you were demobbed then, were you? JC: Yeah. Yeah. CJ: Ok. And then you were looking for a job. JC: Yeah. And I couldn’t get one. So there was, friends of mine had come out of the Army. A couple of them. They were in to radio and whatnot and we discovered that radiograms as we used to call them or if you could get a radiogram so we said there’s a market here. We’re in. What we did we got hold of all the old turntables. Plenty of them about. And then we built the radio part and the amplifier and we had, knew a bloke who made cabinets. So wooden cabinets to house the radiogram and we were making a damned good business out of it. And then what happened then? Oh yeah. [pause] Because of the radio business a firm down in Barking, Essex they’d heard of me because a, once again a friend of a friend and they said, ‘Well, would you come and set up our radio equipment?’ Which I did. Then I thought to myself well I don’t know. I can do better than this really. Because I’d got the, what do you call it the [pause] the knowledge as well as being able to make the radios and all the rest of it. I got all that so we, I decided I could do better. And I just put a word around and before I knew it Vidor at Vidor at Erith came after me and said, we want you sort of thing. And I went to Erith, Vidor as a buyer. Because of my knowledge and because of my mechanical aptitude I became a technical buyer at Vidor when they were making the little portables. And then while I was there I was head hunted by Decca. And Decca came after me and said, ‘We’ve heard all about you. We know what you do and you know, makes you tick,’ and I became the, in the Decca radio and television side I became the chief buyer for the bits and pieces. And then to finish the story I, I was there, oh quite got a long time. And then once again a friend of mine I worked with at Vidor he wanted to come and see me. He did and he stayed until about midnight and I wondered what the hell was going on. And then I said, ‘Hey Jim, what are you up to?’ So he said, ‘I’m offering you a job ain’t I?’ And I said, ‘But you can’t match what Decca’s giving me at the moment.’ He said, ‘Try me.’ And I did. And he said, ‘Right. I want you. I want you to set up a company with departments and all the rest of it because we have a device which we — ’ A device which they’d patented. How to measure or weigh by means of air pressure. Not electric but air pressure. Now, this was a good thing. I saw the potential because all the big manufacturers of, that were using, making things which were explosive. That was the answer. So we got going into a very good business and it, it really went well until, until twenty years later. The electronic boys found out how to do it. Make it spark. Spark positive. Whatever you’d like to call it. In other words if there was a spark there wouldn’t be an explosion. So they were beating us then at our own game and unfortunately we went down this pan. Or the company did. By that time I was a director of that company. I was also a director of five others. So I took their little engraving, well part it we owned was an engraving company. So I took that and I went up to Leicester. That’s where it was based. There was only two people. I made the third. And I worked away and I got contracts for BBC. People like that. Big contracts. And once again I was doing all right. So I worked away there and sort of set myself up for a pension by an annuity which I’ve still got today. And then of course time to retire. There you have it. CJ: There you go. And I think you said earlier that you, you didn’t marry until the war was over. Was that right? JC: That’s right. I said to my late wife, ‘I will not marry you. Not until I finish flying because I don’t want you to be left with a cinder.’ Because aircrew used to get horribly burned and I wasn’t going to have that. That’s why I didn’t. So October ’45 we were married. And that’s the bit. Married. The vicar was available. Just got hold of him. It was the big church in Brixton. Acre Lane where the big church was and we were married in that church. Now, we managed to get the vicar but we didn’t have a choir, we didn’t have anything like that. We didn’t, we didn’t even have a car to take us. We had a car but halfway there because of the war and bald tyres it got a puncture and we had to walk the rest of the way to the church. And we got married the 20th of October 1945. And I was married for forty six years. Forty seven years. Then you know this. I’ve told you the story about Vi and I and the motorbikes. CJ: So I think you said you had a common love of motorbikes. JC: Yeah. CJ: And Vi lost her husband as well. JC: Yeah. What I did, when we said oh well we’ll get together we did. But to get married was such a mishmash I can’t, I don’t, I won’t explain it now but it caused a lot of problems or would have done. So we became partners. And I said to Vi, ‘We’re going to have a look at the world.’ And she’d not, so she’d been to Israel. Where else did you go love? You went to Israel. Where else? VJ: Everywhere that we could. JC: Eh? VJ: Everywhere that we possibly could get. JC: Well, yeah that’s when I said to her, ‘Right. Well, we’re going to see as much of the world as we can,’ and we did. And we went, that’s why we’ve been to Canada, the states. You name it. CJ: And did you carry on biking on after the war? JC: Oh yeah, yeah. Carried on biking. After the war. You see because my friend Stanley was Vi’s husband. CJ: So what was your favourite bike? JC: Hmmn? CJ: What was your favourite bike? JC: Well, my favourite bike was a Vinny. A Vincent. But my wife wouldn’t let me. They had them. They had one. They had a Vincent. Look. There’s one on the wall up there. They had them. But my wife said, ‘No. No. It’s too fast. No. No,’ she said, ‘I’ll leave you if you get one of those.’ No. I didn’t have one. I had a Triumph. A Triumph 650. Which wasn’t bad. I used to get a fair old speed out of it. CJ: And coming back to the RAF did you keep in touch with the rest of the crew after the war? JC: Oh yeah. Yes. I did. But gradually, unfortunately the engineer died of [pause] Oh dear. Cancer. It was cancer, wasn’t it? VJ: Yeah. JC: He died. And then I lost touch because well a lot of them disappeared. I’ve since discovered that I’m the only one alive. The rest have gone. MM: When did Mac die? JC: Eh? MM: When did Mac die? JC: I can’t remember. VJ: About three or four years. JC: When was it? VJ: About four years ago. JC: Eh? VJ: Four. Four years. CJ: Four years ago. JC: Four years ago. Yeah. CJ: So I gather you went up to East Kirkby for Mac. Is that correct? CJ: Yes. CJ: What was that all about? JC: Well, his daughter was scattering his ashes in the little field of Remembrance up there. That’s why I went up there. We all went up there. There was a gang of us. Of course, scattered his ashes. I simply broke down. CJ: And were you in a Squadron Association? JC: Oh yes. It’s in this. Plenty of them. I’m in the Squadron Association and I still get a newsletter every year. I used to go up to the dinner and dance and whatnot. I used to. Now, I couldn’t. So — MM: You tell him about Johnny Chatterton and Mike Chatterton. JC: Well, Johnny Chatterton was the test pilot 630 Squadron. He’d just finished his second tour. He was looking for a crew. We’d finished ours and he said, ‘I’m going to take you over pro tem.’ And he did. He took us over for [pause] oh, I don’t know. About a year. Something like that. And finished our time at 630. Disbanded in July. July ’45. So when we disbanded that was it. Johnny tried to get the rest of the crew to go with him but they wouldn’t have it. They wouldn’t have it. MM: But his son flew the Memorial Flight, didn’t he? JC: Oh yeah. Mike Chatterton was, was also in the flying game if you like and he, he used to fly the Lanc. Not fly it. Well, he did but — CJ: This was the BBMF Lancaster. JC: Yeah. He flew that but the one at East Kirkby when they first got it running, the four engines and he did the first taxi run. When he finished the taxi run he said, ‘I had a bloody hard job to hold it down,’ he said, ‘It wanted to get in the air. Wanted to take off. I had to hold it down.’ Now, Mike Chatterton, he became a wing commander I think. He’s retired now, of course. The Chattertons own the farm which is near East Kirkby actually. Now, that’s a funny thing you see because Johnny Chatterton was born in a little house which is in, was in the middle of East Kirkby. CJ: What a coincidence. JC: Yeah. CJ: Now, have you anything else you’d like to tell us, Joe? JC: I’m just having a think. What I’m me and my, my beloved partner are carrying on. We’re still together and we don’t know how long because she’s eighty seven. Aren’t you? VJ: Six. JC: Eighty six. MM: She’ll kill you if you don’t know. JC: And of course I’m ninety one. You had to be that age to do what we’d done because it was at the end of the war. I can add, people say, ‘Well, were you frightened?’ Etcetera. No. Not a bit. MM: Would you do it again, Joe? JC: Oh, of course not. I’ve got more sense. CJ: Well, thanks very much for talking to us today, Joe. That was brilliant. Thank you very much indeed. JC: Yeah. Right. [recording paused] CJ: So, tell me Joe did you ever get wounded when you were flying on ops? JC: Very slightly. I wouldn’t say I really got wounded. What happened was that the flak that came up, came through the turret and caught my right outer gun. In doing so it knocked the back plate off which has the return spring etcetera. And it’s the buffer plate for the [pause] oh dear. I’ve forgotten the name of the — CJ: The breech. JC: Eh? CJ: The breech. JC: No. It goes backwards and forwards. CJ: The bolt. JC: At a fast rate. CJ: Ok. The firing pin. JC: Eh? CJ: The firing pin. JC: No. No. No. It’s the breech block. CJ: Ok. JC: And the breach block came back and came straight out and landed in my lap actually after it had hit the side of my head. Taken my helmet. It took, you know the helmet round bit. The telephones, if you like. Took that off and creased the side of my head and when we went to get debriefed chappy there said, ‘Oh, come on,’ he said, ‘Debrief quick,’ he said, ‘You’ve got to, better go up sick quarters because you’re bleeding.’ I went up sick quarters and the, I don’t know who it was in charge. I can’t remember. But they cleaned up the, where the wound if you like. Cleaned it up and then looked at it and he put an adhesive plaster or a tape on it. Took one step back and said, ‘Yeah. Yeah. Fit for flying tomorrow.’ CJ: Well, thank you for that Joe. [recording paused] CJ: So, Joe would you like to tell us about any incident when you actually shot an aircraft down? JC: Yes. I can because I have my diary which I wrote in. Every time I came back I wrote what it was like. So I can tell you that on the 8th and 9th of February ’45 the target was Politz which was an oil installation north of Stettin. And I go on to say, “The flak was fairly heavy. Red cannon fire continuous over Sweden. Searchlights, some in target area and over Denmark. Two Junkers 88s seen over target. Then Junkers 88 shot down and destroyed by the mid-upper gunner and myself and the bomb aimer two minutes before bombs gone. This was a very tiring trip being airborne for nine hours forty five minutes. Flown over for, eighteen hundred miles. Crossing Sweden and Denmark and the Baltic. The Swedish AA fire was very accurate and a lot of ‘dive ports’ had to be given to avoid it. That was two minutes from the run up to the bombing run. Then the mid-upper sighted a Junkers 88 on port beam level. The mid-upper and bomb aimer opened fire. The 88 tried to drop behind. I yelled out to the skipper, ‘Throttle back. Whatever he does you do. Don’t let don’t let him go up or down or sideways or anything.’ And then at approximately range is seventy five yards I fired in to the canopy and killed the crew. Both the gunners, the other two other than myself kept firing and strikes observed on both engines and it eventually broke away and the bomb aimer saw it crash in the target area. And it was reported also by other crews. Numerous explosions and thick black smoke with flames intermingled came up from the target. Visibility was very good. No cloud. And marking was bang on. No doubt Politz was well and truly pranged this time. It seemed ages in the air. Especially on the return across the North Sea. There was not much AA fire over Denmark but Swedish gunners were very active. No fighters were, were observed after the 88. This provided enjoyment of aerial warfare.” Well, thanks very much Joe. 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 Joseph Henry Cook Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chris Johnson 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 2017-01-18 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 ACookJH170118, PCookJH1701 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 01:04:02 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 Having completed school and moved on to work at 20th Century Fox Films, Joe worked as a fire watcher at the beginning of the war, before joining the Royal Air Force. He states that he did so because he always wanted to fly and did not want to join the Army. He was sent to St. John’s Wood for square bashing, which he thought was to ‘break’ the aircrews, before completing his initial training at RAF Bridgnorth and then onto RAF Bridlington to learn Morse code. He turned down being a bomb aimer in Anson and trained as an air gunner instead, after learning that they had the highest loss rate. He eventually travelled to RAF Tarrant Rushton just before the D-Day landings, being sent to drop leaflets over France in old Stirlings. Upon completing one of his first four operations, he baled out and landed in a tree. Joe was transferred to Wellingtons, flying training eight-hour trips. Joe also recounts several experiences on operations, including two near misses and flying at low temperatures. He didn’t think about losses, purely as they were so tired. Decommissioned in July 1945, Joe struggled to find work following the war, thinking that no-one was keen to hire him as they believed he had killed people. He remained in touch with his crew and he also joined the squadron association. He states that he was never frightened throughout the war, but that he would not do it again, as he has more sense now. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sam Harper-Coulson Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. France Great Britain Germany Poland England--Shropshire England--Yorkshire Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal Germany--Urft Dam Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie) Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1945-07 630 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew bale out bombing crewing up fear Fw 190 Initial Training Wing Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Me 109 Me 262 military ethos military service conditions Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Operational Training Unit perception of bombing war propaganda RAF Bridgnorth RAF Bridlington RAF East Kirkby RAF Silverstone RAF Syerston RAF Tarrant Rushton RAF Wigsley Stirling training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/817/10800/PFawcettK1701.jpg 687b0968eb23c82bd9e8d7d593d8a53b https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/817/10800/AFawcettK170926.mp3 0e974eecf09d6a19823e3903c4fcb309 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 Fawcett, Ken K Fawcett Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Ken Fawcett (- 2024). He flew operations as an air gunner with 617 and 227 Squadrons. 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 2017-09-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Fawcett, K Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document DK: This is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Mr Kenneth Fawcett at his home on the 26th of September 2017. I’ll just put that there. What I’ll do is if I — KF: Switch it on and off. DK: Yeah. I can switch it on and off. KF: Yeah. DK: And if I’m looking down I’m just making sure it’s still working. Ok. Ok, what [pause] just having a look at the, at your bits here I’m just wondering if we could go back a bit and just ask you what were you doing immediately before the war? KF: I was working with the Post Office. DK: Right. So what made you then want to join the RAF? KF: Because I didn’t want to be called up to the Army or the Navy. Is this on? DK: Yes. Yeah. KF: Sorry. DK: No. That’s ok. That’s ok. KF: During the wartime you were called up at eighteen. If you didn’t make any preference beforehand you were posted to either, you could go in the Bevan boys which were the miners. DK: The miners. Yeah. KF: You could go in the Army, the Navy or the Air Force. If you volunteered for any particular job then you could take that as, in your choice. So a number of us, six of us went off to the Recruiting Centre and made our choices. Three of us joined the RAF as aircrew. Two joined the Navy. And one joined the Army. DK: And were these six, were they your friends then were they? KF: They were all my working colleagues. DK: Working colleagues from, from the Post Office. KF: From the Post Office. DK: Right. KF: And we were then, having made our choices we were left to be called up eventually as we got nearer to eighteen. DK: And then what happened then? Did you have to go off for your initial training somewhere? Or — KF: Well, you were called up eventually. DK: Yeah. KF: And then you were posted to, I joined up at the Lords Cricket Ground in London. DK: Yes. Yeah. I know it well. KF: Do you? DK: Yeah. KF: That was an ACRC Recruiting Centre. DK: Alright. KF: And you went down there and you were billeted in the empty luxury flats in the area. DK: Right. KF: And we dined at the zoo restaurant. DK: Right. Yes. Yeah. KF: In Regent’s Park. DK: Yeah. KF: And then from there you went on through the courses. DK: So what was it like then? Was this, would this have been the first time you’d left home or — KF: Yes. Yeah. DK: So after your initial at Lords Cricket Ground where did you go on to after that? KF: You were then sent to 17 ITW at Bridlington. DK: Right. KF: Which was like a, an introduction to the, you did the square bashing. DK: Square bashing. KF: And kitting out and one thing and another. DK: What did you think of the square bashing? KF: Came naturally because I’d already done two and a half years in the Home Guard. DK: Oh right. Ok. KF: So that was, I joined the Home Guard when I was sixteen. And at seventeen, eighteen and, seventeen, eighteen and a half you were called up. DK: Right. And what year would that have been? KF: ’43. DK: ’43. Yeah. KF: September ’43. DK: So, after Bridlington where did you go on to then? KF: After Bridlington went to Northern Ireland. DK: Oh right. KF: Which was the Air Gunnery School. DK: Right. KF: And — DK: So, by this time they’d already decided what trade you were going to be in. KF: No. That was decided for you at, at the Doncaster Recruiting Centre. DK: Right. KF: I had to go for PNB. Pilot, navigator, bomb aimer. DK: Right. KF: And then while I was waiting for call up I realised or I found out that to become a pilot was a two year course and being ’43 and being eighteen and naive I wrote to them and asked them for to reassign me to the shortest course which was air gunnery. DK: Right. KF: Because at that time I had ambition to get in the war. DK: Yeah. KF: Stupidly. But so they did and of course I got called up to go to a Gunnery School. DK: Right. KF: So Northern Ireland. Bishop’s Court — DK: Right. KF: Was an Air Gunnery School with Ansons. DK: Right. So, when you got to the Ansons then would that have been the first time you’d actually — KF: Flown. DK: Actually flown. KF: Fascinating really. Because what they did was they took seven pupils up in an Anson and I was fortunate to get the co-pilot’s seat. DK: Right. KF: And in the Anson the pilot said, ‘There’s a handle down by the side of your seat.’ You know it do you? And he said, ‘You wind it up and you watch the lights and when they turn green we’ve got them locked.’ DK: Can you remember how many times you had to turn the — KF: About a hundred. And of course I’m down here winding this and looking at the lights and by the time we I looked up we were about a thousand feet up in the air. So I never saw my first — DK: Take-off. KF: Take-off. DK: Oh no. KF: But it was interesting. DK: So, what did you think of the Anson then? Was that [unclear] KF: It was, it was interesting because it was my first flying and funnily enough I, we used to get kitted out with a flying suit and parachute and I said to the instructor one day, ‘You never bring a parachute. Why is that?’ He said, ‘I’ll tell you, son,’ he said, ‘If you jumped out at this height you’d never survive.’ So we were always down time taking parachutes. But that was only an aside, you know. DK: So what would you, at the Gunnery School then were you introduced to the gun? The guns you were going to be using before the first flight. KF: Yeah. You had to learn all the parts of the gun. DK: Yeah. KF: And you had to be able to strip a gun down and reassemble it. DK: So, can you remember what type of weapons they were? KF: It was a Browning 303. DK: Yeah. KF: Air cooled. And the Anson had a gun turret on. DK: Right. KF: And you took your turn in the gun turret and the ammunition belt had been tipped. The bullets had been tipped with paint of different colours. DK: Right. KF: So that you may be designated the blue tips. And when you fired at a drogue that was being flown by another aircraft, when the drogue was taken to the ground and counting the holes in the drogue the blue paints would show up and you’d be credited with those hits. DK: Yeah. Was it something that came naturally to you? KF: Well, being in the Home Guard for two years I’d been firing Bren guns and Thompson sub-machine guns and throwing grenades and, and anti-tank mortars. So, you know at sixteen and seventeen we were playing soldiers anyway. DK: Yeah. KF: So with ammunition and firing it became second nature. DK: So, after the Gunnery School then where did you go on to next? KF: That’s what I got this for. DK: Ah. Say for the tape that’s your force’s logbook — KF: Sorry. DK: That’s ok. KF: Bridlington. Oh yes. Bridgnorth. 1650 Conversion. No. Number 1, Elementary Air Gunnery School at Bridgnorth in Shropshire. DK: Right. So that was more advanced. KF: That was more advanced training. More square bashing. More fatigues and what have you. DK: Right. And what aircraft were based there? Was that — KF: No. There was no flying there. DK: Oh right. Ok. So it was purely just gunnery training. KF: In fact, I think I’ve got these the wrong way around. It was London, Bridlington, Bridgnorth and then [pause] yeah. I haven’t got them in order. 12 Air Gunnery School. 17 OTU. That was at Silverstone. So, yeah. We did Bridgnorth and then [pause] That’s right. Bridgnorth and then Silverstone. DK: Right. KF: 17 OTU. DK: Right. So, Bridgnorth first. Then Silverstone. KF: Yeah. DK: And that was 17 Operational Training Unit. KF: Right. DK: Right. And, and is that where you would have met your crew then? All the rest of your crew. KF: We were taken to a station in the Midlands. I forget the name of the one. And you were taken into an assembly room and there were twenty pilots, twenty navigators, forty gunners because there are two gunners to a crew. DK: Yeah. KF: And twenty wireless operators. And the pilots were told to wander around and go to each trade and select a member of a crew. If a pilot approached you and asked you and you didn’t like the look of him you could say no. If you liked him you’d say yes and then he would go on to find a wireless operator or the, whatever crew he hadn’t yet selected. DK: And this was all mixed together regardless of rank. KF: Yeah. Completely. DK: And just by trade. KF: And you were entirely free to say yes or no to the guy. DK: How did you think that worked? Because it’s quite unusual in the military. It seems a very relaxed way of — KF: Oh, it was. It was unique to the military. Instead of being told you would do this or that you were given the choice because I think in the sense that if your life was on the line and you didn’t like the guy you were going to have to live with you were given the option of declining. Although face to face it’s a first instinct. If you sort of, it’s an attitude when you first meet somebody. DK: Yes. KF: You have a feeling. DK: Yeah. KF: And this fella came along in dark blue because the Australians were, were in dark blue uniform whereas we were in light blue. And he came along and asked if I cared to join his crew. I looked at him and he had his Australian colleague with him who was the wireless operator and I just thought oh it’s different. ‘Yeah. Ok.’ DK: Ok. Just for the tape can you remember their names? KF: Yeah. Ken Allen. DK: Ken Allen was the pilot. KF: Was the pilot. DK: Yeah. And — KF: And he was from Melbourne in Australia. DK: And the wireless operator? KF: And the wireless operator was a Bill Eudey. DK: Right. KF: He was Australian. He was from Melbourne. DK: Right. KF: And the pilot at that time was a flight sergeant. DK: Right. KF: He subsequently got promoted to commissioned rank. DK: Right. And can you remember the name of the second gunner that joined your crew? KF: Yeah. Mike Clegg. Mike Clegg from [pause] Rotherham. DK: Right. KF: In Yorkshire. DK: We’re missing one. Is the other one the navigator? KF: The navigator was a guy from London. But subsequently we lost him because he couldn’t keep up with the training. DK: Oh. Ok. KF: So we had a different navigator when we eventually went on to ops. DK: And can you remember his name? KF: His name was — DK: We can come back to it. It’s alright. KF: Yeah. I’m looking. Where’s the photograph? DK: Is he there? KF: No. That’s, that’s have you got this to switch off or not? DK: Yeah. I can pause it. It’s ok. [recording paused] DK: Right. So looking at the photograph here from right to left. KF: Mike Clegg. DK: Mike Clegg. Yeah. KF: That was the navigator. DK: Yeah. KF: He was from Preston. That was the flight engineer. Ken Mepham from Manchester. DK: Ken. KF: Mepham. DK: Mepham. Yeah. KF: That was the second bomb aimer because that first bomb aimer Kirk Kent. DK: Right. KF: Had a nervous breakdown during the course of the ops. DK: Oh. Ok. KF: So he came back with the photograph. DK: Right. KF: But he was on our twenty seventh op. DK: Right. KF: So he did twenty six and then he did twenty seven to thirty six. That was Bill Eudey, the Australian wireless operator. DK: Right. KF: Ground crew. Ground crew. Ground crew. And myself. DK: And who’s that down there? KF: That’s the pilot. DK: That’s the pilot. And the pilot’s name? KF: Ken Allen. DK: Ken Allen. So these are two bomb aimers then. That one and that one KF: Yeah. Yeah. DK: And he had a nervous breakdown. KF: That’s right. DK: Right. KF: He was on the train going home on leave. He was on the train and had a collapse on the train. So he was off then for several weeks. DK: Yeah. KF: And then we finished our tour while he was having hospital treatment. DK: Right. With, with the replacement bomb aimer. KF: With, yeah. DK: Right. Ok. So if I could just take you back to the Operational Training Unit then. Number 17. KF: 17 OTU. DK: 17 OTU. KF: Silverstone. DK: So what type of aircraft were you training on then? KF: Wellingtons. Twin engine Wellingtons. DK: And what did you think of the Wellington as a, as an aircraft? KF: We went from Silverstone. We were there for a week and then we were sent to Turweston, which was the satellite airfield where there were also Wellingtons. On the morning we arrived, about 11 o’clock we went to the mess. We had lunch. We came out and we were going up to the flights and it was in a lane and we heard a Wellington landing. So we went to a gap in the hedge, watched the Wellington land and take off again on circuits and bumps. DK: Yeah. KF: And sadly the pilot pulled the plane up too steeply, stalled and crashed. So our first sight of a Wellington was one coming down on its tail and all eleven onboard were killed. DK: That was — KF: So we, we looked at the pilot and thought how clever is he? DK: That must have made you all a bit nervous about what was to come. KF: Well, you didn’t get nervous really. You just simply thought well, but that was the first we’d saw of the Wellington. You know. DK: Yeah. KF: Anyway, we, we eventually did some of the training there. Then we were sent back to Silverstone to complete the training. DK: Right. KF: So each trade was working with the pilot as a student pilot. DK: Right. KF: With a trainee, with a instructor alongside. DK: So you’d have the instructor pilot, your pilot as trainee and the rest of the crew there. KF: That’s right. DK: So had you decided which gun position you were going to take? KF: Well, on the, on the Wellington there was only a rear turret. DK: Right. KF: There was no mid-upper turret. And we weren’t particularly designated to any particular one. So throughout the tour we used to switch. DK: Right. KF: Sometimes I’d go in the mid upper turret. Sometimes I’d go in the rear turret. DK: So this training then at the OTU that was mostly circuit and bumps. KF: That’s right. DK: Cross country. KF: Yeah. Yeah. It was mostly really for bomb aiming when the Wellington would fly over the predetermined bombing range on the, on the coast. Used to fly out to the coast at Lincoln. DK: Yeah. KF: And near the Wash somewhere. And the bomb aimer would then drop the practice bombs and he would get a qualification depending how good he was. DK: And at this point can you remember were you beginning to feel confident with your crew? Or were you beginning to gel and — KF: Oh yes. You got on very well. If you hadn’t got on well you would apply for a move. DK: Right. KF: But no. We all got on fine and eventually you did everything as a crew. When you went to the pub you all went together. And when you went for a meal you all went together. Basically. DK: Yeah. KF: But your crew because your lives depended on each other you became quite associated with one another. DK: So after the OTU then where did you go on to then? KF: Lanc Finishing School. DK: Right. KF: Where the pilot was particularly trained to switch from twin engine to four engine. DK: And would that be the point when your flight engineer joined you? KF: That’s right. DK: Yeah. KF: No. Sorry. There was, before the Lanc Finishing School there was an OT. DK: It was at the Heavy Conversion Unit. KF: That’s right. Yeah. Convert. Conversion Unit. DK: Can you remember which Heavy Conversion Unit it was? KF: Wigsley, Wigsley. DK: Wigsley. Yeah. KF: Yeah. And — DK: And was that — KF: That was the conversion from twin engine to four engine. DK: Right. KF: And then from there we went to the Lanc Finishing School to give the pilot training from radial engine to Lancaster. DK: So, at the Heavy Conversion Unit what four engine bombers — KF: Stirling. DK: Stirlings. Right. Ok. And what did you think of the Stirling? KF: Well, not being the pilot particularly, we were passengers. DK: Yeah. KF: So each aircraft didn’t matter to us particularly. DK: Yeah. KF: As gunners. DK: And on the Stirling did you train in the mid-upper and the rear turret? KF: Yeah. There was the mid upper and rear. DK: Yeah. So after the Heavy Conversion Unit on Stirlings you then went to the Lancaster Finishing School. KF: The Lanc Finishing School. DK: For the pilot. For the Lancaster. KF: That’s right. For the pilot to convert. DK: Yeah. KF: And I’m not sure what stage, before Lanc Finishing School or after you were posted to a particular group. DK: Right. KF: And we were fortunate in the sense that we were posted 5 Group which was considered the elite group of the Bomber Command. DK: Yeah. Yeah. KF: Because 5 Group was at Grantham. DK: Yeah. KF: With — DK: Ralph Cochrane. KF: That’s right. Yeah. DK: Yeah KF: Yeah. DK: So you were quite pleased about that then, were you? Did they — KF: Oh yes. Yeah. KF: Yeah. DK: Because to be sent on the Lancaster as opposed to the Halifax. DK: Yeah. KF: Because you know the Halifax was slower and it was more vulnerable. So to get on to Lancasters we were quite happy. DK: And then your first squadron was? KF: First? DK: Your first squadron. KF: 619 Squadron. DK: Yeah. KF: At Dunholme Lodge. DK: Dunholme Lodge. KF: Just outside Lincoln. DK: Yeah. KF: It’s now a school. I think. DK: Yeah. I actually drove through there quite recently. KF: Did you? DK: it’s all farms now. KF: Is it? DK: The airfield’s long gone. Right. So this was your first operational squadron then? KF: 619 was. Yes. DK: 619, at Dunholme Lodge. And did you like the squadron as you joined? Was it — KF: It was very basic. DK: Yeah. KF: And you were in Nissen huts, and there was sufficient beds in one Nissen hut for two crews. And one crew would have one end of the room. DK: Yeah. KF: And the other crew would have the other end of the room and you just simply got on with each other. But sadly, very often the crew in the other end of the hut would go missing so another crew would come in. And that was the [pause] you just shrugged and — DK: Yeah. KF: Tough. Sort of thing. DK: So on your first operational squadron then can you remember much about your first operation? KF: My first operation I was called to operate with another crew. DK: Right. KF: Yeah. One of their gunners had gone sick so I was called up to make up their crew. DK: Yeah. Would you mind if I close the door? There’s a bit of drilling going on outside. KF: Is there? Yeah. DK: Yeah. It’s picking up on the [unclear] is that alright? [pause] DK: That’s it. Somebody had a, somebody had a drill going. KF: Did they? DK: Yeah. Sorry. So your first operation then you flew with another crew. KF: Yeah. DK: Yeah. KF: It was a daylight op to Le Havre submarine pens. DK: Right. And at, so as an extra gunner then where did you actually sit because you couldn’t obviously both get in the turret. Did you just sort of swap places with him? KF: At what stage? DK: Well, you’re with another crew at this point. KF: Yeah, but their gunner had gone sick so I was sitting in his turret. DK: Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry. I thought you meant — KF: He wasn’t flying. He wasn’t flying so I took his place. DK: You were a replacement gunner. KF: I was a replacement gunner. DK: So how did that make you feel then? Flying out with a different crew then on your first operation? KF: You just got on with them. You just simply fitted in and they accepted you and you accepted them. There was no, no embarrassment at all. DK: Yeah. So when was your first operation then with your actual crew? Was that the next one? KF: The next one was a daylight to Brest. That was a, so throughout the whole tour I had always done one more than they had — DK: Right. KF: You know, I was one ahead of them. It was interesting because when I came back, ‘What was it like? What was it like?’ And of course when you flew from Lincoln to Le Havre this was in September and of course D-Day was in June. DK: Yeah. KF: So you flew over the Channel and saw the battleships shelling the French coast. DK: Right. KF: It was quite spectacular because it was daylight. DK: Yeah. KF: And of course Le Havre was a short hop over France so you weren’t in too much of a, you got the odd ack ack but nothing special. DK: So as your operations have progressed then can you remember the different targets you were sent too? KF: Oh yeah. Yeah. I remember them all really. DK: Yeah. KF: Not necessarily in order but the first, the third operation was a night one to Munchen Gladbach. DK: Right. So that would have been your first time over Germany then. KF: This was the first time over Germany and of course it was spectacular because it was night time and you saw all the fires and the explosions and it was all like a bit of a firework display. In fact, I called the navigator and I said, ‘Terry,’ Terry Fellowes, that was the navigator — DK: Terry Fellowes. Right. KF: Terry Fellowes. DK: Terry Fellowes. The navigator, yeah. KF: And he was always in, the navigator worked in a curtained off area. DK: Yeah. KF: With lights on. DK: Yeah. KF: And the lights had to be shielded from outside to save giving your position away. So he looked out and he blamed me after that. He said, ‘I wish I’d never looked out,’ he said. And he said throughout the rest of the tour he never did look out. DK: Look out. KF: But of course as gunners we were seeing everything, you see. DK: Yeah. So, as a, as a gunner then this might sound a silly question but what was your actual role as part of that crew? What was your job? KF: Your main basic job was a lookout. Particularly in the dark because you’d have seven or eight hundred aircraft all flying along in the dark with no lights on and you particularly had to have good night vision. DK: Yeah. KF: Because you could see, you might be flying along for a while and suddenly see some sparks and when you looked up you discerned another aircraft only fifty, sixty feet away. So you’d then call the pilot up. Warn him that there was another aircraft to the port or starboard. Wherever. And he would veer away slightly and you would sit, then you would tell him yes ok you were out of range. And of course you were looking out for enemy aircraft. The difference in the dark sky is very minimal between seeing something and not seeing something. DK: Yeah. KF: So you had to have good night vision to see a black shadow against a slightly less black background. And then you had to recognise the shape. And if the shape was an enemy aircraft you’d got to decide whether to move away or attack or whatever. If he was doing no harm you left him alone because he had a bigger gun than you did. DK: Right. So the intention would be you wouldn’t want to draw attention to yourself if you saw an enemy aircraft and he wasn’t behind you. KF: If he wasn’t, if he wasn’t aware of your presence you kept schtum because if you fired your gun every fifth round of the belt was an incendiary. And it was an incendiary to aid you to know why you were firing. But at the same time it gave your position away. DK: Yeah. KF: So that if you fired when you didn’t need to and then the enemy aircraft could say, ‘Hello. I didn’t know you were there. I’ll go for you.’ So you kept quiet. If he saw you and you attacked, he attacked then you’d call the pilot up and call him to veer and corkscrew port or starboard. If the aircraft was coming in from the starboard you dived in to him. DK: Right. KF: If he was diving from the port you dived in to him. And the pilot, you’d call the pilot up and just simply shout quickly, ‘Corkscrew. Starboard. Go.’ And the pilot never stopped to ask. He just went. DK: Right. KF: And then he did a corkscrew. You know what a corkscrew is? DK: Yeah. I do. KF: And he’d do the corkscrew until you felt you’d got rid of him and then he would get back on to course. And the navigator then would curse and swear at you because everything had gone up in the air. His plan, maps and pencils and everything else shot up in the air. DK: Yeah. So, you were actually attacked by German aircraft. KF: Oh, you could. Yeah. On several occasions. DK: Yeah. Yeah. KF: So you, you simply got out of the way because they had cannons which had a six hundred yard range. DK: Yeah. KF: We had 303s which had a three hundred yard range. So if you fired at him he could stay further away and hit you and you couldn’t reach him. DK: Did any of these German attacks ever damage the aircraft or did you always always manage to — KF: Not, not to, well I say not to our knowledge. We sometimes came back and there was holes in the aircraft. Whether they were shrapnel or bullet holes you never really discerned. DK: Yeah. KF: The ground staff would have known because they were having to repair them. But when you got out of after coming back from a raid there were very often holes in the aircraft from either bullets or shrapnel. DK: Right. But you never came back severely damaged though. KF: Not severely damaged. DK: No. KF: But the amazing thing to me was that seven of us in an aircraft. We came back with holes in the aircraft but none of them ever hit anybody. Not one of the aircraft, not one of the crew was hit with any bit or injured. DK: Right. So how many operations did you do with 619? KF: We did nine with 619. DK: Right. KF: And then they wanted to form a new squadron so they took the best or the experienced crews from 619 and they also took the experienced half the crew, half the squadron and the other half was taken from a squadron at Bardney and they were sent to Strubby. And then from Strubby we went down to Balderton where we formed 227 Squadron. And then from ten ‘til thirty six we did at Balderton. DK: Right. So you did thirty six operations altogether. KF: Well, a tour was thirty. DK: Right. KF: And every four weeks of flying you were sent on ten days leave. So we thought right if we do twenty eight we’ll go on leave for ten days, come back, do two and we’ll get to our next leave. So we were being clever to get two lots of leave in quick succession. DK: Yeah. KF: When we came back from the twenty eight ops thinking we’d two to do and we arrived back on station and we were told that they had increased the tour from thirty to thirty five because of the bad weather down the training line was stopping new crews coming up the line. So we had seven to do. DK: Yeah. KF: And sadly when you went to the flight and looked at the casualty board while we’d been away somebody had done thirty one and shot down. Thirty two, shot down. If they had finished their tour at thirty they would have survived. DK: They’d have survived. KF: So there was a bit of an ironic situation. DK: How did that, can you remember how that made you feel at the time? KF: Well, you’re invincible at eighteen. Anybody else was going to. DK: Yeah. KF: When you saw an aircraft being shot down over target you just simply said, ‘Well not me. Tough mate.’ You know. DK: So you did, so the rest of your crew did thirty five but you did the — KF: I did the odd one. DK: Extra one at thirty six, yeah. KF: What I didn’t realise until much later was that I could have called off at thirty five but I carried on with my crew without question. DK: So, could, could you talk through sort of what an operation would be like. A night time one. Presumably they got you up quite late during the day and then you’d, would you do a sort of training mission during the day with the aircraft? Or — KF: Yes. You did what they called the pre-flight test. DK: Right. KF: You would, the morning would [pause] in the morning the pilot would go to the flights and look at the Battle Order. If he was on and the aircraft he was designated to then we would go out to that aircraft and make sure everything was in working order and then he would do a pre-flight test of about ten minutes, fifteen minutes. Check that it was, sounded all right. The radio operator would contact base and make sure — DK: Yeah. KF: The radio was working. And we would just make sure the guns were, were working. We didn’t actually fire them but you made sure that the mechanism was working. And then you landed. Then you went to a meal. Then you would come back and get briefed. And then you would go to the aircraft and wait for take-off and then when the green light went up you took off. DK: What was it like at the briefings though when you saw what your target was going to be? Was it — KF: Well, you went in to, all the buildings were Nissen huts. DK: Yeah. KF: And this was the biggest style of Nissen hut. And you went in and it was seated. Benches and chairs. And you were looking at the stage and the whole of the back of the stage was covered with a big curtain. And when the CO and the briefing crew came along you stood up to attention. The guy, the CO told you, ‘Sit down.’ And then the curtains were drawn back. And then you would see the whole map of Europe and a tape would be from base to the target. DK: Right. KF: During the course of the day you established from the ground crew how much petrol they were putting in. If it was a little, a small amount they could put more bombs. If it was a long target, a long range target it reduced the amount of bombs you could take because there was more petrol. DK: Petrol. KF: So if the petrol load was high you knew it was a long way. DK: Yeah. KF: If the petrol load was low you knew it was a shorter one. DK: Yeah. KF: So when you looked at the map you have a preconceived idea that it was going to be a long one or a short one. DK: Yeah. KF: If it was long one it was obviously going to be in to, in to Germany. One particular one was Gdynia. Which was in Poland. DK: And that was your longest. KF: Ten and a half hours that one. DK: Ten and a half hours. KF: Five hours out and five hours back. And but if it was a short one it would be something like Le Havre or Brest or — DK: Yeah. KF: Any of the occupied countries. You know. DK: So before, you had a pre-flight meal presumably before you went. KF: Well, you just had a normal meal. DK: Yeah. KF: But as aircrew you were privileged in that you could have as much milk as you liked. DK: Right. KF: Where, I’m talking, that’s surprising but milk was in short supply at the time. So being privileged you could drink as much milk as you liked. You could eat, you could ask for anything you wanted from catering. DK: Yeah. KF: That was available. DK: So basically you get the green light and off you go. For take-off then where were you? Were you in the turret or were you in the — KF: You were in the turret. DK: Right. KF: But you had to centralise them and, and not swivel them because that would unbalance the aircraft. DK: Yeah. KF: When you were taking off. The pilot could feel you if you were swinging the guns about. So you sat with your guns centralised. DK: Yeah. KF: And you just took off down the runway and got airborne. Once you were airborne then you could swivel your turrets. DK: Yeah. And what was that like though? Being sort of dragged backwards as it were. KF: Didn’t really, didn’t I don’t think there was anything. It’s just like sitting on the train backwards. DK: So you would be in the turret for the entire time. KF: Oh yeah. You never. It wasn’t wise to leave the turret. DK: Yeah. KF: So you stayed in it. But if you were over friendly territory there was in the aircraft there was what they called an elsan which was a chemical toilet. And if needed to go to the loo you could go. DK: Yeah. KF: But being in a flying suit as the gunner you had four layers of clothing on. DK: Yeah. KF: So you would, you made sure you didn’t need to go to the loo. DK: Yeah. KF: You made sure before you put your suit on. DK: Yeah. KF: That you’d drained yourself. DK: Did you have electrical heated suits? KF: Yeah. DK: You did. Yeah. And were they any good because I’ve heard different stories. KF: Oh yes. They were good. No. They were good. DK: Yeah. KF: In fact, sometimes they would, I remember once getting my foot slipper was getting too hot and there were studs at the back of the heel fitting on to the suit, and I just disconnected it. DK: Yeah. What was it like being in the rear turret then? Was it, because you are cut off from the rest of the crew. Was it a little, a little lonely there? Or were you — KF: Well, you could always call up on, on the intercom. You never felt. I mean the rear turret was behind the tail so you were hanging over the back and you could see the tail struts were out here somewhere. DK: Yeah. KF: You’re out in space really. You’re in a, in a Perspex dome. DK: And do you remember much about as you reached the target and the bombs dropping and what happened to the aircraft then? KF: Oh yeah. I mean the pilot, the navigator in particular, to get seven hundred aircraft over the target they were all give a different direction to come in so that they weren’t all falling over one another. So every aircraft would come in at a certain time at a certain angle to make sure that they all dropped over the target but they were all zigzagging about. So you would be [pause] the navigator would tell the pilot what course to fly. He would fly the course. Then eventually he would see the target because it had already been marked by the Pathfinders. DK: Yeah. KF: Or it was already in flames anyway. So as you approached the target on the heading that you had already been given, no, the navigator had been given. At the height the bomb aimer would be laying on the front nose looking through the bombsight and as he got closer to the target he would direct the pilot. The navigator would fall out of the equation and the bomb aimer would take over and tell the pilot, ‘Left. Left. Steady. Right. Steady.’ Got him on. And then when the pilot, when the bomb aimer was over the target he would press the tit, shout, ‘Bombs gone,’ and the aircraft would lift up. You could feel it. But what you had to do as gunners you had to make sure that the guy above you wasn’t directly above you dropping on — several aircraft got lost on targets by other aircrew dropping their bombs on the aircraft below. DK: So, as, as the bomb run was happening you were looking up there and there and there right up to — KF: Well, you were looking left, right and centre. And if you, two aircraft on the route from base to the target some aircraft would be two minutes later than they should have been or two minutes earlier. So there would always be a little bit of congestion over the target. DK: Yeah. KF: The worst thing that could happen when you were over the target was not being able to drop the bombs and then you were shouted, ‘Bomb bays closed. Go around again.’ So you had to go around again whilst everybody is shooting at you. Because the guy above you was going to drop his bombs on you. DK: Yeah. KF: And so you would tell the pilot and he would drop back a bit and then the guy above you would drop his bombs past you. But sometimes because the guy above didn’t want to go around again he wouldn’t care that you were underneath him. DK: Yeah. KF: He would drop them and hope they didn’t hit you. But that was one of the hard facts of life. DK: So you dropped your bombs on target. You were heading for home now. KF: After you’ve dropped your bombs the bomb aimer and the pilot had to continue for another thirty seconds on a straight and level course to allow the flash, photo flash to trigger over the target and it took a photograph of where the bomb aimer had dropped his bombs. DK: Yeah. KF: And then after thirty seconds of level you could fall off and then the navigator would give the pilot a course to set for home. DK: Yeah. So you’re setting back for home then. How, how are you feeling as you approached the airfield? Was it a sense of — ? KF: Well, you left the target but you still had to be alert. DK: Yeah. KF: Because when if an enemy aircraft was above you he could see you silhouetted against the flames below. DK: Right. KF: So he could come down on you when he, and what he would often do was go under you. There was a bit of a fallacy that the rear gunner is in the most endangered position. DK: Right. KF: Not necessarily so because an enemy aircraft depending on which angle he’s coming at you isn’t necessarily going to kill the rear gunner first. DK: Right. KF: He could come in from the side and as you possibly well know there was what they called schrage musik. And the enemy aircraft had a gun — DK: Yeah. KF: At an angle. And he would come underneath you and fire into the wing. DK: Yeah. KF: Where the petrol tanks were. And the first you knew of it was where the wing took off. You know. And so periodically you would get the pilot to tilt over so you could look underneath and then look underneath again. DK: You never saw anybody coming up to shoot you from below then when you [unclear] KF: No. No. No DK: No. I guess, yeah, so when you got back home then what was the feeling as you got back off an operation? KF: You were only relieved when the wheels touched down. You were always looking out for, at one time, particularly during the end of the war a lot of the German aircraft used to follow the bomber crews in when their airfield was lit up and they were landing on the runway. When they were wheels down and flaps down. DK: Yeah. KF: They were at their most vulnerable because they couldn’t manoeuvre and the enemy pilot who’d followed him in would then shoot him down and several aircraft sadly were lost — DK: Right. KF: On the approach to the runway. So you never gave up until you actually wheeled down. DK: Yeah. KF: And hit the runway. DK: Yeah. Is it ok if I have a look at the old logbook? [pause] I just wondered if I have a look at the various operations there. KF: Red were night ops. DK: Red for night ops. Yeah. KF: Green were daylights. DK: So that — KF: And black was flying. DK: This is just for the recording. So that’s the Lancaster Finishing School. KF: That’s right. DK: Syerston. So then 619 squadron. So that’s Allen. Your — KF: Flight Sergeant Allen. DK: Your pilot. So, that’s the first operation was to Brest. Wasn’t it? KF: Yeah DK: So with a different pilot. Franks. KF: That’s right. DK: Yeah. [unclear] KF: And then the next one was Le Havre. Was it Le Havre? [pause] DK: I’ve got Darmstadt. KF: Sorry? DK: Darmstadt. KF: No, that’s, there’s another one. DK: Oh, here we go. Le Havre. KF: Later on. That’s it. DK: Gun positions. KF: That’s right. DK: Yeah. So the Brest operation was on the 2nd of September. KF: That’s right. DK: Then Le Havre. KF: That was the first one with my crew. DK: The first one with your crew. 10th of September. And then the 11th of September your first night operation to Darmstadt. KF: Darmstadt. That’s right. DK: So there’s Darmstadt. Munchen Gladbach. KF: And then Munchen Gladbach. DK: So most, most of the German cities here aren’t there? Ops to Bergen. Was that — KF: Norway. DK: Norway. Right. KF: Norway. DK: So that’s with, that was Balderton. So you joined Balderton with 227 Squadron in October ’44. [pause] So there’s a Dortmund Ems canal. KF: Yeah. DK: So that was two operations there then. KF: Oh, we went there several times. DK: Several times. Right. KF: The idea was you, there was a high point between Dortmund and Ems. DK: Right. KF: And the idea was to break the banks, drain the canal and none of the barges could travel from Dortmund to Ems. DK: Right. KF: With material for the war production. So they kept going back and of course when they built the, when they repaired the dam and the water went back in again you went back again and burst it again. DK: Right. KF: So that’s why we kept going back to the Dortmund Ems Canal. DK: You went there on the 4th of November. Then again the 6th of November. KF: Went back three or four times I think. DK: Yeah. Then Munich, 27th of November. KF: Three times to Munich. DK: Three times Munich. There’s a recall there I see. The Urft Dam. KF: Urft Dam. Yeah. DK: U R F T Dam. Yeah. KF: Gdynia. DK: Gdynia. KF: That was Poland. DK: Yeah. So Gdynia was on the 18th of December. Oh. So you did Munich on the 17th of December. And then Gdynia the next day. The 18th of December. KF: Yeah. Two long ones. Because Munich was right down in the far end of Germany. DK: Then the 30th of December there’s ops to I’ll spell this out for the recording H O U F F. KF: Houffalize. DK: ALIZE. Houffalize. The Dortmund Ems Canal again on January the 1st. KF: Yeah. DK: So, Houffalize again. KF: You see, Royan. That one is a coastal town in France. DK: Right. KF: And when the D-Day landing took place they went down. The Americans went down the peninsula and Royan was in a German garrison but because the Americans went down so fast they were — DK: Cut off. KF: Cut off. DK: Yeah. KF: And the French were complaining that the Germans were going out in to the countryside and rustling for food and one thing and another so they asked for, and the garrison was too big for the French Resistance to take on so they asked us to go down and — DK: Bomb them. KF: Bomb them. But the point I’m getting around to is that the briefing by the meteorological officer was completely wrong, and when. Because it was only a pocket in France and the country around about was already occupied by us — DK: Yeah. KF: We didn’t do a deviation. We went straight to the target. The wind speed given by the meteorological officer was wrong and there was a huge tailwind which got us there early. And we flew over Royan about six or seven minutes early for the bomb aiming, for the bombing and there were no markers down so we didn’t know where we were. So when we’d over shot the target we had to turn around and come back because it was fatal because every other aircraft was still coming. DK: Yeah. KF: So there was and we lost several aircraft in crashes. DK: Collisions. KF: Albeit there was very little anti- aircraft. DK: So that was Royan. R O Y A N. And that’s January the 4th. KF: Yeah. DK: Yeah. In France. KF: Well, if we’re going back one if you look back at December [pause] December we were out on New Year’s Eve. December 31st. 30th. DK: No. That’s the 18th there. KF: Sorry? DK: 30th. Yeah. KF: That was the, that was— DK: Houffalize. KF: The [pause] when the Germans broke through. You know the Battle of the Bulge. DK: Oh, the Battle of the Bulge. Oh right. Ok. KF: That was the Battle of the Bulge. DK: Right. So that’s — KF: And what date was that? DK: 30th of December. KF: That’s right. DK: Houffalize. KF: The night before the New Year. Night before New Year. DK: Yeah. Yeah. So Politz. KF: Politz. DK: Politz on — KF: That was in Czechoslovakia. DK: Yeah. So Politz again there. Dresden on the 13th of February. KF: Yeah. DK: Do you remember, do you remember much about that? KF: The famous Dresden raid. DK: Do you remember much about that operation? KF: Nothing special. Just another one. It was only afterwards that we, I mean that was this is what really appalled me. If you remember Harris. Bomber Harris, you know. DK: Yeah. Yeah. KF: You know. He got no credit for doing what he did because after the war everybody was saying, ‘Look at the damage you’ve done. Oh terrible.’ So even right up until when was the Battle of Britain, not the Battle — the Bomber Command Memorial. DK: Yeah. KF: Seventy odd years later. DK: Yeah. 2012 that was. Yeah. KF: And what I’m saying is really nobody gave you credit for what you did. DK: No. KF: And in fact, I’ve an opinion. I’ve a theory that we did Germany a favour in a, in a odd way. When we knocked everything out of Germany I mean we flew over Germany after the war to look at the damage and it was, you might have seen photographs yourself. DK: Yeah. Yeah. KF: They had nothing. So they had to renew everything with new equipment to get back on their feet. And we gave them thousands. And America did. To save them going over to the Russian sphere. DK: Yeah. Yeah. KF: We pumped millions of pounds into Germany. They got all completely new equipment. DK: Yeah. KF: New factories. New houses. New, new buildings. DK: That’s it. KF: We’re coming back to all our old clapped out aeroplanes and trains. DK: Yeah. KF: And infrastructure. And Germany then went to be a very renowned engineering country. DK: Yeah. It was the West German economic miracle wasn’t it? KF: That’s right. DK: But of course it was financed by the Americans and Volkswagen. Yeah. KF: Volkswagen. Volkswagen was saved by the British Army. DK: That’s right. Yeah. KF: They ran it for several years after the war. DK: Yeah. True. So then — KF: But people forget that. DK: Yeah. KF: I mean Germany today in my opinion is ruling Europe. DK: Yeah. KF: By economic means. Whereas it tried to do it — DK: Militarily. KF: By military means. DK: Yeah. So just going on then into March ’45. So you’d then got, I see the Dortmund Ems again. March the 3rd. Harburg on the 7th of March. And a place near Leipzig on the 20th of March. So, would that have been your last operation then? KF: What was that one. DK: Leipzig, Poland. KF: No. That was — DK: Bohlen. KF: What date was that? DK: March the 20th. KF: No. Bohlen was the last one. DK: Yeah. Bohlen. Yeah. KF: Oh. Near Leipzig. DK: Yeah. KF: Bohlen. That was the last one. DK: So your last operation then March the 20th. KF: Yeah. DK: Bohlen near Leipzig. KF: That was their thirty fifth. My thirty sixth. DK: Right. So that’s B O H L E N. KF: That’s right. DK: Yeah. So the war’s come to the end then and did, did you [pause] what happened to your crew then? Did they all split up? KF: When we finished operations. The two gunners. Myself and my other mate we were sent back to Silverstone as instructors. What you [pause] if the war had lasted longer if you did thirty ops then you did six months rest. And at that six months you were sent to a training base to train up the crews coming up the line. And then you went back for another thirty. And then you could opt out altogether or volunteer for more. DK: Yeah. KF: But being, being the end of the war we were at Silverstone as instructors when VE day came up. DK: Was there any plans that you might go out to the Pacific afterwards? KF: We were then sent to Cranwell with a view to training for Tiger Force. DK: Yeah. KF: But fortunately while we were at Cranwell VJ day came up. DK: Were the atomic bombs a bit of a relief? KF: So, oh yeah. Funnily enough there was always a fear that dropping in, dropping over Europe if you were shot down. DK: Yes. KF: And you could get out if you could out. Dropping out over Germany and either trying to get back through the escape channels or getting captured didn’t bear the same risks or fears that if you dropped over Borneo. DK: Yeah. KF: And going, thinking of going out to Japan. DK: Get caught by the Japanese. KF: Or the Japanese theatre you kept thinking of the bloody jungles and dropping in the trees and God knows what, you know. DK: So did you manage to keep in touch with your crew after the war? KF: Sadly no. It’s always with hindsight. DK: Yeah. KF: I suppose some crews did keep in touch but life was so quick and so you moved so quickly that we, we dispersed. DK: Right. KF: And didn’t keep in touch. But years later I got in on my computer and I found what they were called in Australia the Odd Bods Organisation. Have you heard of it? DK: No. I haven’t. No. No. KF: The odd bods. There was a lot of Australian crews, members and they flew from RAF stations. Some of them went to an Australian, purely Australian squadron. DK: Yeah. KF: So when they went back to Australia after the war those who weren’t in the Australian squadron formed a group called the Odd Bods. DK: Right. Right. KF: They were the odd crew members — DK: Yeah. KF: In the British. And I got through to them and I found in their website a Roll of Honour and saw Flying Officer Allen. DK: Oh right. KF: Who had died. As a civilian of course. DK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. KF: Years after this is. So I got in touch with the secretary on the computer and asked him if I could get in touch with his widow. DK: Yeah. KF: And I said I also knew Bill Eudey who was the wireless operator. DK: Yeah. Yeah. KF: So he said, ‘Oh, he’s also died.’ So he said, ‘Yes, I’ll get in touch with the widows to see whether they’re happy for you to communicate with you. And they came back and said yes. DK: Oh good. KF: So I got in touch with them both. One was on the computer. DK: Yeah. KF: One wasn’t. DK: Yeah. KF: The pilot’s wife wasn’t computer literate so I kept in touch with her by correspondence. DK: Yeah. KF: But sadly since she’s died. DK: Right. KF: The wireless operator’s widow I speak to every morning on, every Saturday morning on Skype. DK: Oh excellent. That’s — KF: We have a chat you know. DK: Yeah. There’s some good aspects to new technology isn’t there? KF: That’s right. Yeah. The flight engineer when you got to the OC, OC [pause] whatever. Conversion Unit. DK: Yeah. KF: That’s when you picked up the engineer. DK: Right. KF: So we picked up an engineer. A flight engineer from Manchester. DK: At the Heavy Conversion Unit. KF: At the Heavy Conversion Unit. DK: Yeah. KF: And he eventually moved to Australia. DK: Right. KF: So I tried to get in touch with him. But he had died. DK: Right. KF: And these are all about ten years ago. DK: Yeah. Oh, that’s a shame. KF: So I’ve got in touch with his widow. But then she’s since died. You know. DK: Yeah. KF: This is what time does. We all go off the end at the end. DK: Eventually. So all these years later looking back at your time in RAF Bomber Command how do you feel about that period of your life now? Looking back on it. KF: How do I feel? DK: [unclear] KF: I suppose really being one of the fifty percent that lived you know you feel relieved that you, as I said earlier none of us got wounded at all. DK: Yeah. KF: So we were lucky in that sense and to survive as well was also another bonus, you know. But you see people began to get this attitude of we were cruel. We were [pause] so they didn’t want to know you. They don’t say directly but there was that undercurrent. DK: Yeah. KF: That you did. I mean the RAF Bomber Command was the only arm of the services that fought throughout the whole of the war. DK: Yeah. KF: The Navy never went out of bay, err out of port unless they had to. DK: Yeah. KF: The Army got defeated at Dunkirk and had two years where they were completely reforming. DK: Yeah. KF: So the RAF Bomber Command were the only group that kept the war going. DK: Yeah. KF: When everybody else was marking time. DK: Yeah. That’s very true. Ok. I’ve just got one final question. I know I asked you this before but for the recording could we, could we just go through the crew again. Is that alright? KF: Sorry. There’s one. DK: Have you got one with the names? KF: I’ve got one with all the names on. Let me go upstairs again. DK: Are you ok doing? Are you sure? Is that alright? KF: I’m trying to think where I put it. DK: It might still be on the table. Put that on there again. So left, so left to right that’s Charlie Clegg. KF: Yeah. DK: Terry. KF: Terry. DK: Fellowes. KF: Fellowes. DK: Then it’s the rigger there presumably. KF: That’s right. DK: Harry Reeves. The rigger. KF: Yeah. Harry Reeves. DK: Then Charlie Tudor, flight mechanic. KF: That’s right. DK: Then Sergeant Ken — KF: Mepham. DK: Mepham. That’s M E P H A M. KF: That’s right. DK: He was the flight engineer. KF: Yeah. DK: Then Jack Barton. KF: Yeah. DK: The second bomb aimer. KF: That’s right. DK: Yeah. Then Pilot Officer Bill — KF: Eudey. DK: Eudey. KF: E U D E Y. DK: E U D E Y. Then Corporal Scotty Scott. KF: Yeah. DK: Who was a fitter. Flight Sergeant Ken Fawcett. KF: Yeah. DK: Which is your good self. KF: That’s right. DK: You’re listed there as the mid-upper gunner. Yeah. KF: That’s right. Well, the gunner. We used to do both. DK: Yeah. And then Flight Sergeant Kirk Kent. KF: That’s right. DK: And then kneeling is — KF: Flying Officer Allen. DK: Flying Officer Ken Allen. KF: Ken Allen. DK: The pilot. So just going back to Kirk Kent did you ever find out anything more about him as his, when he was ill or — KF: No. No. Things are [pause] wartime you didn’t take the same personal interest in, you simply they were there or they weren’t there. DK: Yeah. KF: Whilst he was in hospital we were flying operationally so we didn’t have time to bother. DK: Right. KF: How he was or who he was or where he was. DK: Right. Ok. And — KF: Movements were so fleeting. DK: Yeah. KF: You just came and went. People. You didn’t, you didn’t get — DK: On that point, just one final thing as a crew did you all used to socialise outside? KF: Oh yeah. DK: What did you do then? Do you go to the pubs and — KF: Yeah. You go down the pub together. DK: Yeah. KF: You wouldn’t necessarily all go together. DK: No. KF: At Balderton the air, the air [pause] the station. DK: Yeah. KF: The runways and all that were over the A1. DK: Right. KF: The living quarters were about a half a mile away down a country lane. What they used to do was to disperse everything so that if there was an attack on it everything wouldn’t go together. DK: Yeah. KF: So that if the living quarters was always away and the mess and everything else was away. DK: Yeah. KF: So you would get from the, you would simply walk or sometimes you could get a station bicycle. DK: Yeah. KF: And you’d cycle from one place to another. The living quarters were down a country lane which if you went down about a mile down the road was in to Balderton village. DK: Right. KF: Where the pub was. DK: Right. KF: And that was either you went to the mess or you went to the pub. [recording paused] DK: Well, thanks very much for that. That’s been absolutely marvellous. It’s been just over an hour. KF: I don’t know whether it’s me or what but when I did the Duxford one they said it would only take about a quarter of an hour. DK: Yeah. KF: And when we ended up it was about an hour and a bit. DK: An hour and a bit, yeah. Well, this one’s an hour and a bit so that sounds about right. Ok. Well, thanks very much for that. I’ll switch off now. [recording paused] KF: Flying fortresses were coming back from the daylight. DK: Yeah. KF: And the air was full of Maydays. They didn’t have separate navigators on every aircraft. They had a lead navigator and a back-up navigator and when they turned everybody turned. DK: Yeah. KF: But when they came back in dusk and it was getting dark they were panicking because they couldn’t, they didn’t have navigators to get them home. DK: They hadn’t navigated in the dark. KF: That’s right. DK: What did you feel about the Americans then? Were you sort of in awe of them? Of what they were doing. Or think they were daft. KF: Only in awe in the sense that going out one night when they were coming back they were flying a slightly, you could see them in the dark and dusk you know. DK: Yeah. KF: And there was holes, and the tails were flying off, wings were hanging off, engines were hanging off. And I mean they took an awful lot of hammering but that was partly their own fault because they simply wouldn’t. They didn’t. You see we were individual and we could fly. We could turn off target. Off course. DK: Yeah. KF: And get back on course because the navigator knew what he was doing. DK: Yeah. KF: But when they came off course very often they were isolated and they were picked off. DK: Yeah. Yeah. So you preferred the way the British did it then. At, at night. KF: And when you see most of the documentaries they were always showing daylight raids by American Fortresses. DK: Yeah. KF: As if the Bomber Command didn’t exist. DK: Yeah. KF: Because everything that the bombers, the did the Americans did was in daylight. DK: And they could film it. KF: So the cameras could film it. DK: Yeah. KF: But at night time there wasn’t a lot of material. DK: No. Did you, did you ever meet any of the American aircrew at all? KF: No. But mind you I will admit that when some of our aircrew parachuted over an American airfield or crash landed on an American airfield in an emergency — DK: Yeah. KF: They usually come back loaded with, they were taken to the PX store. DK: Yeah. KF: And they were give free hand to take what they wanted. DK: Oh right. KF: So the guys used to come back with a load of goodies that we’d never seen for years. DK: They were very generous then, were they? KF: Oh yeah. Yeah. [recording paused] KF: But they were funny because they couldn’t discern very often when an aircrew crashed anywhere near the American field. They were apprehended. DK: Oh right. KF: And treated as if they were Germans. DK: Right. KF: Because the Americans didn’t always recognise an RAF. They had to convince them. And then they would allow them to ring the squadron. DK: Yeah. KF: And call for the transport to come and bring them. Once they realised they were British then they treated them. DK: Yeah. KF: With generosity. But they very often used to because the German Air Force blue was similar to ours. DK: Right. Right. So they had to be wary to start with. KF: But the Americans were quite naive you know. DK: Well, you’d think they wouldn’t make that mistake wouldn’t you? Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ken Fawcett 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 2017-09-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AFawcettK170926, PFawcettK1701 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:06:22 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 Civilian Description An account of the resource Ken Fawcett worked for the Post Office and served in the Home Guard for two and a half years, having signed up at 16. He joined the Royal Air Force at Lord's Cricket Ground in September 1943. He initially requested pilot training but, realising the duration of training, transferred to air gunner enabling him to join a squadron much sooner. Ken trained at No1 Elementary Air Gunnery School at RAF Bridgenorth and No 12 Air Gunnery School at RAF Bishops Court in Northern Ireland. He recalled gun turret training in Anson aircraft, using ammunition tipped with coloured paint so that his accuracy could be assessed. Following gunnery training, Ken transferred to No 17 Operational Training Unit at RAF Syerston flying Wellingtons. He recalled his first sight of a Wellington was a training flight stalling on takeoff and crashing with the loss of all crew members. No. 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Wigsley brought four-engine training in Stirling and Lancaster aircraft in preparation for joining 619 Squadron in 5 Group. Ken’s crew included: pilot Ken Alan and wireless operator Bill Eudey from Australia, bomb aimers Kirk Kent and Jack Barton, gunner Charlie Clegg, flight engineer Ken Mepham and navigator Terry Fellows. Having completed nine operations with 619 Squadron at RAF Dunholme Lodge his crew were transferred to 227 Squadron at RAF Balderton. They completed both daylight and night operations and Ken recalled seeing battleships shelling the French coast during the D-Day invasion. He described a typical operation from pre-flight test to returning to base and how they would discuss details with ground crew regarding how much fuel was loaded, which gave them an indication of the duration of the operation that evening, prior to the official crew briefing. Ken gives a vivid insight into the role of the rear gunner as a lookout scanning the darkness for both friendly and enemy aircraft, trying to discern dark shadows against a dark sky or sparks from an aircraft’s exhaust. The danger from collisions or another aircraft dropping its bombs from above was ever present. He recalls that opening fire was a last resort, given that the range of the enemy fighter’s cannons were twice that of his .303 machine guns, so stealth, he stated was the best policy. Having completed 36 operations Ken was transferred to No 17 Operational Training Unit at RAF Syerston, as an instructor, and then to RAF Cranwell in preparation to join Tiger Force in the Far East. VJ Day led to the cancellation of Tiger Force before he completed his training. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jim Sheach Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. France Germany Great Britain England--Lincolnshire England--Nottinghamshire England--Shropshire France--Le Havre Germany--Darmstadt Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal Northern Ireland--Down (County) Great Britain Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943-09 1944 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending revision of OH transcription 1654 HCU 17 OTU 227 Squadron 619 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew Anson bomb struck bombing bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945) civil defence Cook’s tour crash ground personnel Heavy Conversion Unit Home Guard Lancaster military service conditions Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) Operational Training Unit RAF Balderton RAF Bishops Court RAF Bridgnorth RAF Cranwell RAF Dunholme Lodge RAF Silverstone RAF Syerston RAF Wigsley Schräge Musik Stirling take-off crash training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/979/11390/AMarshallKW160208.2.mp3 b4c875c317b085602882d78793863efa 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 Marshall, Ken Kenneth Wilfred Marshall K W Marshall Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Ken Marshall (3041150, Royal Air Force). He flew operations with 103 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 2016-02-08 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 Marshall, KW Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document IL: It’s the 8th of, 8th of February 2016. Ian Locker. And I’m interviewing Ken Marshall in his home in Hornsea. So, Ken tell us about your early life and how you developed a love of flying. KM: In 1937 I was already at the grammar school and I went with one of the thousand — IL: So whereabouts were you born Ken? KM: Barton on Humber. IL: You were born in Barton. KM: My grandfather was the vicar of Barton on Humber. IL: Right. KM: Reverend HGC North-Cox. And I also knew the man that started the Samaritans. Chad Varah. Reverend. I knew him as a boy. And I kept in touch with him all my life because I was connected with aspects of family law and about suicides etcetera. In 1937 I went to what they called the Empire Air Display at Hemswell. And it’s very important in my thinking because the planes there were called Hampdens and Heyfords and Blenheims. The interesting thing about the Heyfords and the Hampdens they had an under gun turret. They could look downwards. And the Lancaster never, afterwards never had one. But pre-war they designed the planes to have a gunner looking downwards. Which could have saved a great lots of lives if they’d had one connected to the Lancaster. So that was the Empire Air Display and of course by 1938 across the river at Hull, at Brough they were making aeroplanes and fantastic numbers of trainer planes, were being trained as pilots there. So I saw a lot of aircraft. Then there was a special plane or two came to Barton with a man called Sir Alan Cobham. He was a famous flyer pre-war and when they would hire a field bring their planes and people could, could fly to — have flips for the first time. And I didn’t go. I asked my father but never mind. But that was that. IL: It’s recording. It’s recording, Ken. Don’t worry. KM: I went to grammar school and the grammar school headmaster was an ex-wartime stretcher bearer. Great. Great man was this headmaster. We loved him. Oh by the way in 1938 at the grammar school we all turned out because the Germans, the Nazis got permission to fly the Hindenburg up the River Humber. And we all turned out to watch this huge cigar thing fly across the river. Come across England. Of course it was the Hindenburg and of course it was a disastrous end for it because it caught fire when it was there in America. But we all saw that. That was 1938. IL: Gosh. KM: A year before the job started in that sense. But then September the 3rd was, was in 1939 the war started and, and we were all amongst filling sandbags and digging trenches and hearing air raid sirens. IL: So how old were you when the war started? KM: Pardon? IL: How old were you when the war started? KM: Well. I was born 1926. IL: Right. KM: So, that gives you some indication. And my brother was a naval officer and he went right through the war. He was torpedoed mid-Atlantic and saved by a Canadian Corvette. He was a Marconi man. Chief radio officer. Always going from ship to ship. Interesting that my brother was away. I always wanted to fly Catalinas if I got trained on those because my brother would be below on the sea and I could look after him from up in the air. That was the feeling. That was the feeling. But anyway the headmaster one morning he said that there was a concern called the Air Training Corps started. And I would be fourteen or fifteen at the time. And dad and I went down to Cobb Hall and there was a man there with his wings. Looked about three feet across them. He was the manager, RAF VR, of Eastwood Cement Works in South Ferriby. But he was the CO and it was there that I got my first introduction to any flying at all. In the Air Training Corps apart from doing all these studies to get to university and the war time, all that sort of thing nevertheless we had trips to, to camps. Air Training Corps camps. There was, Digby was one in Lincolnshire. Kirton Lindsey was another one. And an organised one that took us up to Elsham. I flew in a Wellington bomber there. And I’ve never forgotten the pilot. He was called Sergeant Spooner. He was an Australian. He did twelve trips. A marvellous chap. He really was. That was the first time I’d ever left the ground in anything at all. And his name, he was lost and his name is recorded in the Memorial Book in the RAF 103 Squadron, Elsham. Whatever. In that sense. So the grammar school was another thing that introduced me. A great day when I — I never got a scholarship. I was paid for. Four guineas a term to go and followed my brother. And anyway I joined the Air Training Corps and I passed all the, very quickly passed all the proficiency badges and was chosen to go down to Lincoln to stay with a family on a Friday night and a Saturday night and where we assembled gliders on, on Lincoln Common. And I was being taught to fly gliders at the age of sixteen, seventeen. Interesting isn’t it? How exciting it was. IL: So how did they get the — KM: I went down by bus. IL: Were they, were they towed gliders then? KM: No. No. IL: They weren’t winched. KM: They had a balloon winch. IL: Right. KM: They had been altered so they could do ground slides and then six feet up and so forth. IL: Ok. KM: Until finally if you were, they cast off. But it was only a short, short flight. That was all. But to be doing that. It was exciting as a boy wasn’t it? IL: Absolutely. KM: It wasn’t the, and for — so there we are. So that was my introduction to flying in one way or another. Going to ATC and I would frequently go on my bicycle up to Elsham. I’d pass the guardroom. They waved me in. I’d go to the crew room and say, ‘Sir, are you flying today? Is there anybody?’ And I frequently flew in Lancasters thereafter. And I must tell you about one of the trips. We were out on the North Sea at about ten thousand feet coming in. It wasn’t operational. Air test. And I said to the gunner, the rear gunner, ‘May I sit in the rear?’ And he said yes. Which I did. And then suddenly somebody said, ‘Ah there’s Treetops Bathing Pool down there. That’s where we do our dinghy drill,’ If they got ditched in the sea. And the skipper put it into a nose dive and that, that Lancaster shook from side to side as we went down. I was going down backwards of course. And I never forgot that. But two weeks later I was at a local dance, this is before I went away. I saw this rear gunner and he recognised me. I was in Air Training Corps uniform still. Not having yet gone to the University Air Squadron. And he was, he was a sergeant once but he didn’t have any sergeant’s stripes but he had his air brevet and he used to tell me he was stood down with flu and he didn’t fly because they didn’t and he lost his crew that night. And he refused to fly with anybody else. So he was on the ground and he was kept where he was. And I don’t want to talk any more about that. He was kept there. They took his sergeant’s stripes but they couldn’t take his air brevet from him but he didn’t I think he said he’d done ten or twelve trips. Whatever. And as I say it’s not easy. You see, I can’t [pause] First flight in a Wellington bomber, yes. What’s the next one? The Air Training Corps. What? What? Can you switch it on and off? IL: Oh yes. KM: [unclear] [recording paused] KM: In a similar way I went to Kirmington and rode in there. And I managed to get a flight in an Airspeed Oxford which I was later to learn to fly on. Stop. [recording paused] KM: Start it again. IL: Ok. KM: At Elsham there was, there was originally a Halifax flight there. And I once saw a Halifax coming in on fire on one of my trips. Wheels up. And the fire tender was alongside it by the time it skidded to a stop. Covered it with foam and they all got out. But it’s a dodgy job even to see that. IL: Oh absolutely. [recording paused] KM: I was junior champ. IL: Two seconds. Go on. Sorry Ken. KM: I was junior champ and then later I was [victor] of Durham twice as senior in the sports. I was always in to everything active like that. But at the grammar school a group captain came down from Elsham called Constantine. And I received books because I’d matriculated to go to Cambridge University at the age of sixteen and eight months. And I’m very proud of that because of what kids don’t do today. But, but it was that qualification that I chose to use to go to Durham because I already had two friends. One older than I in my own class who eventually became a wing commander. Wing commander John Cannon flying jets and things later on in life. But, but and later in life Constantine became an air vice marshal and I have pictures of him with what was to be another university man later in my life of course from Manchester University. So, so at seventeen and a quarter I volunteered to be RAF VR. Three days at Doncaster doing all the exams and etcetera. And so that was the idea. And then eventually came a letter telling me, as I say I was still doing these gliders at weekends but eventually I got the call to arms. I called it that because that was, ‘”Dear sir,” from the Air Ministry. “Report to Durham University Air Squadron. Your obedient servant, sir.” Its rather a laugh really when you — IL: So — KM: That was 1943. IL: Did they — were you, was — did you actually get paid at university then? KM: No. IL: Or was it — KM: No. IL: It was just — KM: Pocket money came from my parents. IL: Right. It wasn’t, it wasn’t like the sort of scholarships that you get now at university. KM: Are you still —? Oh. Yeah. No. And I’ll talk about that. Whilst I was at, on a half term out of the university I was invited to go to Goxhill which was the United States Air Force to fly in a Lightning but, a two seater but it was unserviceable. So they said, ‘There’s a new pilot here. Could you, could you navigate him. Map read him to Burtonwood in Lancashire.’ Or Cheshire. I said, ‘Certainly.’ So I did the trip in the front of a Boston bomber with a pilot and the crew chief. Just the three of us. And I was eighteen and a half then. When I look at boys today of eighteen and a half and what we were doing or could do or willing to do in those days. So, so University Air Squadron was marvellous. Marvellous. I lived in the castle. I was at University College. My two friends who were lifelong friends. One was from Spain. He’d come from Spain. His mother was Spanish and he went to Barnard Castle Public School, public school and then came and Durham, and then came on to the university. That’s where I met him. And his roommate was George Malcolm Brown who eventually was classified to be a navigator and trained as a navigator in Canada and who later in life became the vice chancellor back at Durham. In the time I recall I lost them both. But marvellous to think of those friends. I kept them all my life. And when I got my, a degree and would go back to university in ’75 to ’78 and got my law degree Johnnie came all the way from Scotland. I’ve got photographs of us all together, staying at Durham with the vice chancellor. Fantastic story isn’t it? The things that have gone on. But it was a wonderful time. There was sixty of us from all, all backgrounds and throughout the country and half were arts and half were science. I did science, physics and maths and got in to BSc. I got my first recommendation for a commission at the end of the course and which would have then taken me I don’t doubt into Cranwell because I was offered it. But the first, the next move was into the Royal Air Force proper. And that was down at, down at Torquay. IL: So in the, in the University Air Squadron did you actually fly? Or was — were you still doing navigating? KM: No. No. No. We took, the whole ITW they called it when it wasn’t at the university. It was all the same subject. The armaments, the signals, some flying we did we did because we had, we wore battle dress and we were being taught to fly Airspeed Oxfords. IL: Right. KM: Those twin engine jobs. So we did some flying as well. And my pilot was a Sikh. A flight lieutenant. Very unusual. I’ve got photographs of him with his Sikh whatever on. He used to get in the plane first because you never saw him without his [ pause ] and the reverse thing when he landed. I would have to get out first and by the time he reappeared then he would have his whatever. But there were people from all over. And we used to go down to the swimming baths at 7 o’clock in the morning for an hour. Everybody had to learn to swim and there were only two out the sixty that couldn’t which gave an indication of the sort of young fellows we were that we all made big efforts in all because the numbers of swimming pools there were in the country were very — but we were all very active in that sense. [recording paused] IL: Go on again. KM: We left Durham and we all had to report down at Torquay. The Germans got to know we were there because the Torquay people had never had a bomb. Americans had been there in the hotels before. And destroyed the hotel next to where we were. Fortunately there was nobody in it. But the Germans certainly knew. They were trying to kill aircrew. There’s no question about it because that’s where everybody went at that particular time. Of our ilk anyway. [recording paused] KM: Torquay was an ACRC. Air Crew Reception Centre. We did three months there. Discipline. Marching backwards and forwards. Learning other subjects. Getting medical tests as well to see we hadn’t been naughty with girls and things like that which [laughs] we never knew anything about them anyway. And we were, so three months there discip and learning air ministry, learning the air force law. Air force law. What’s it called? Anyway there were two books that we had to get to know about air force law. So, well if you’re going to be an officer and you had to hand out law and a time for misdemeanours whatever they might be they were still all part of it. From there I went to Bridgnorth and that was just another holding place. And from Bridgnorth we went to, some of us were distributed to RAF stations to pass the time. I went up to Full Sutton. I was there in that bad winter at the beginning of ’45 and it was a Halifax station. And I do recall loading. I worked in the bomb dump preparing five hundred pound bombs and putting them on trolleys. And the armourers, they, they armed them. But I do recall that one, one particular day it was nothing but incendiaries and the incendiaries went, went to Dresden. And I don’t give a damn about that because they weren’t making cuckoo clocks. They were making bits for Heinkels and Messerschmitts. So no matter what the historians try and say, oh we should never have done this but against the background of what the Nazis were doing that we learned later they got their whatever we called it. But I remember because one of the containers broke open and Peter Greenwood who I remained with, he was at Oxford and I was with him then. He remembered an armourer knocking one a brick. They were only about eighteen inches long. We just stood in the snow. Eighteen inches of snow on that particular time. But that was RAF Full Sutton. Interestingly, my doctor friend had a plane in Full Sutton in September of 2015. I went flying with him there at Full Sutton. After all those years. At Full Sutton. There’s a, there’s a prison there now with the most heinous criminals left in there. But to go back after all those years and start flying again. But I’d flown at other places in between. But anyway, on return away from Full Sutton went to flying school which was up at Carlisle. On Tiger Moths. And I, and I went solo at eight and a half hours in Tiger Moths. The instructor said I’d done two perfect circuits and he said, ‘Righto. She’s yours. Just go.’ And you had, you had to do well. I wanted to do. But there was a very good initiation thing going on there. When we arrived in our billets that first night there were some guys being tossed in blankets. And that was an initiation. Get on the blanket and three times because they’d soloed that day. But what I didn’t know at the time there was one of, one of our chaps. He went at six hours. I was to find out that the instructors there both commissioned and non-commissioned they were like bookies. They were acting like bookies with horses. The odds on horses. And they were having bets on us as to who could go first. They were risking our necks to make money out of us. We didn’t know that actually happened. We did learn that. It was fourteen hours whether you went solo or not. It didn’t make any difference if you, if you graduated out of there to be further trained that was where it happened. And that was at Carlisle. Kingstown Carlisle. But then where I actually did my flying was from a place in Scotland called Patrick, Kirkpatrick Fleming. It’s just over the border from Gretna Green. I always remember this place. And when I landed the first thing I did, I didn’t kiss the instructor I kissed the ground of Scotland naturally. [recording paused] KM: We were in and out of this place called Heaton Park at Manchester and I loved being at Manchester because it was always between being sent somewhere or other. You were always on your way. And it was at Heaton Park that I and Johnnie and several of us were offered a place at Cranwell. But we decided no we’ll hang on and go abroad. We didn’t. I don’t, we weren’t thinking about getting the chop but we thought if we can fit it in and go travelling so we will. That was the thoughts of boys of, us at nineteen. IL: It doesn’t seem unreasonable. KM: But the next posting was to RAF Driffield. We were there for a month. We’d do any job at all. And then one morning called up on seven of us and they called upon several of us and we found ourselves carrying seven coffins. Canadians. All under twenty two. Little brass plates. They’d returned with a bomb on board and they’d been told to fly the plane out to the North Sea and let it go and bale out. But they decided as a little family because that’s how they chose themselves when they assembled a crew in hangars, they decided to land. And as soon as they touched down at Driffield that was it. It’s a terrible thought. And we took them down and put them in railway trucks and I don’t know where they went then. But it was, it was a thought at the time. We didn’t really express it but we did later. Were we reinforcements or were we replacements? But they were a long way from home those lads. But that was the point. The thing about Driffield. And another thing about this we went down into Driffield one night and the only whatever they called the pub but nearby was the town hall. There was a dance going on there. And it was announced during this dance, night time of course that there was going to be some ballroom exhibition dancing. And everybody kept to the walls and this couple came on. Him in coat tails and the girl, woman in a dancing dress and the music struck up and immediately ha’pennies and pennies started flying through the air to shove them off. Life was too short. We didn’t want to know about ballroom dancing. And so that was an illustration of how the minds — the mindset of people. Let’s see where I’ve got to. Solo at eight and a half hours. I’ve done that. Because that was — so what’s happening next? One month at Driffield look. I’ve got them in chronological order. But anyway, we [pause] we can talk about this now. Ok? IL: Ok. KM: Switched on? IL: It is. KM: The next thing was back to Heaton Park. And we were getting kitted out by — for all our own flying clothing. We were given a whistle to put on by the neck. That was in case you were shot down. You could communicate with one another. And I remember we were on a, on a draft in that sense and somebody blew a whistle and the sergeant discip and he said, ‘I’ll take, I’ll take a number of you off draft.’ And we, and four hundred, four hundred whistles blew back at him. That was the sort of spirit there was. But this was following the fact that, that VE day had come up. And we didn’t know what was going to happen but we were, we were tipped, we never knew where we were going to go. So we were put on a train, found ourselves up on the Clyde to board a ship called the Aquitania which was a sister ship of the Titanic. I never want to see that Titanic film ever because we went across dodging U-boats even then then. Even though it was war — [pause] But I was home during this period. Just before that my eldest brother was back on the convoys and I celebrated VE day with my brother, with Bert Cowton who’d been at Durham with me and he’d come back with his wings from Canada err from America and his brother who was a flight lieutenant bomb aimer who had been on the Peenemunde raid. The Peenemunde raid was where they went after the rockets and these flying bombs and that sort of — but there were two brothers with two brothers celebrating and I never knew much about that night. I do remember that we were going to the local dance after I’d climbed out through a window in the pub and going to this place and they wouldn’t let us in because it was a floor upstairs and they shouted through the door, ‘There’s too many people in here.’ And I remember the two elder brothers saying, ‘We won the bloody war for you lot. Let us in.’ And I don’t remember anything after that except waking up on the carpet just down the street at my parent’s home with a bucket beside me and a woman who I didn’t know holding a cup of coffee handy for me. Yeah. IL: Great. KM: Yeah. [recording paused] IL: Back on again. KM: So I went across dodging. The ship was changing course every twenty minutes. We slept on the outer deck and I was going down the main staircase and I saw three ladies in uniform. And I didn’t know the uniform so I said, ‘Are you, are you ladies British?’ One said, ‘Yes, we are. And you’re from Barton on Humber.’ I couldn’t believe it. Somebody from Barton on Humber in the middle of the Atlantic. She said, ‘I’m a stewardess.’ She said, ‘I’m a career girl with Cunard.’ She said, ‘I want you to come to my cabin now every afternoon at 4 o’clock.’ So, I told the lads, the other lads she was a Miss. And I said, ‘Look, gee, I’ve got a woman on board.’ So I used to go along there for cakes and tea etcetera and she was forty two. I didn’t tell these lads, my own colleagues that she was forty two. But there was nothing like that. But it was just a joke. Yeah, ‘I’ve got a woman on board.’ But and I remember on board was the royal family, the Dutch royal family. Princess Julianna and all their children. What was happening they were going to America because she used to take me walking. Not the princess. Up on the decks and introduce me to certain people. You know. Everybody was always pleased to shake hands. Whatever. [recording paused] IL: Ok. KM: So we arrived in New York in a fog. We ran aground on Staten Island. Or Coney Island rather. I was later to visit that with my brother and did a parachute jump in a restrained parachute. But eventually the fog cleared. We went up river and alongside of us came all these, these boats. The fire, the fire boats with all their hoses going. And boats with bands on playing the American music. And American girls because there were a lot of wounded coming. Coming back on the Aquitania. And we were met there by a lot of volunteers on the dock side. We were given chocolates and goodness knows what else. And, and then went to a camp called Camp Kilmer. Camp Kilmer held thirty, it could accommodate thirty thousand. It was the main exit point for the, for the army people coming over into Europe. And we were given a weeks’, weeks’ leave. Go and please yourselves in New York. And that was when I went to meet my brother’s wife. She was American. And, and because it was very exciting to be in New York and we were invited to all sort of places on Park Avenue and Park Lane. Millionaire’s places. All these invitations and free tickets to go in to theatres and cinemas. And I remember going to one place called the Diamond Club. We were told not to take our hats off if we wanted anything. And this is where some, two American officers came in and recognised us as British and said, ‘You guys don’t have to pay for anything. We’ve got loads of dough. We’re going to treat you.’ So I never forgot that in the sense of the generosity of all the Americans. It was there all the time. The way they looked after the service people and whatever. And there’s a bit of a story to come about that later. But eventually now we were put on a train. On a steam train. An enormous locomotive. We were put in Pullman coaches that turned into beds at night. With little electric fans on them. And we were three days going down to, we didn’t know where we were going but we were told it was Florida and we were turned out at a place called Clewiston. Well, as we arrived there the guys that were already down there they came low flying over the aircraft err over the train to let us know. Zoom, zoom, zoom. You know, it excited us. So then we started training there and in the huts there with a swimming pool. There were invitations to go down in to Miami and stay with whatever. They organised that. But the planes in there were Boeings PT-17 days trainers. Radial engine job. Much more advanced then the Tiger Moth. And the other plane was the AT6. Well, of course the planes were flying day and night. It was happening all the time. There was a dread. We used to practice on a Saturday morning. There was no flying Saturday morning. It was practice Wings Parade. It was the practice Wings Parade presentation. But that was putting up the RAF flag on the yardarm of the station and then everybody paraded and we were wet through. Absolutely wet through. The heat and the moisture there. Brand new uniform always for that. And then, then the weekend was ours free. And I used to go, take a boat onto Lake Okeechobee. The place was full of crocodiles and snakes and of course we saw the Seminole Indians there. These are the indigenous people who lived in the Florida swamps and things. They hunted. They hunted with bows and arrows. And if you were caught low flying over there and came back with an arrow in your aeroplane you were dismissed. That’s well understood isn’t it? So, and so the days went by but eventually of course the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima. We always said that saved our lives and we know it saved a lot of other lives as well. And, and the next thing within a week we were on the, we were on the train back up to New York and then sent across back to, to England. IL: So, in America were your, were your instructors RAF instructors or were they American instructors? KM: No. There was a minimum staff of, who lived the life of Riley we believe. Mainly off camp. Well, it’s an obvious thing for them but the instructors were civilians. They were all civilians. IL: Oh right. So they were American civilians. KM: They were American civilians. IL: Ok. KM: And mine was number 5 British Flying Training School. So BFTS. There were six altogether. The original scheme was called the Arnold Scheme but then it was really when, when that was before the Americans came into the war because the guys went over to America as civilians with America being neutral. IL: Yeah. Yeah. KM: But when, when the Americans came in after Pearl Harbour they formed this and they had, they had six places. Six places. They were always separating us. Whenever there was a move in the training we were split up because they didn’t want us to form any emotional contact between us. And Johnnie, who was from the, who was Spanish, I met him at Durham he went to Miami in Oklahoma state. You know. IL: Right. KM: He did his training there. But there were six of them. Arizona was another one. But there were six. So that explains that about the instructors. IL: Right. So there were just, so but, and was it just RAF people who were being trained there? KM: Yeah. Yeah. Just RAF. They weren’t training American ones. No. There were thousands of guys that were trained. When we were in Florida nobody knew the war was going to finish like it was and there was rumours that we would go on to other types of American aircraft out there and then finally go out to the Pacific. But I’m glad it never happened. It’s an obvious one, isn’t it? But on returning to England there was loads of operational people. They didn’t want people. But some of, some of our guys they were connected with military families and wanted to make a career. And I remember one of them was called Neame. He was at Durham. I knew him at Durham. And his father was a general. His father was the only general ever to be captured by the Germans in North Africa. So he went on. He would go to Cranwell then because of being a military aspect. I remember Neame in particular. And later in life, many years afterwards, twenty or thirty years afterwards there was some pictures of Mount Everest in the Daily Express. And he’d been out in India with his Spitfire and he’d flown over Mount Everest and just to prove it because you weren’t supposed to do it. Just a story. And it was a question of waiting to be demobbed and I I decided that when I went that I would make a life in Civilian Street which I did of course. But in between times I got shunted from one station to another and the last one which I was at and I worked in headquarters at RAF Binbrook. They had 9. Four squadrons there 9, 12, 101 and that very famous 617 Squadron. But I didn’t do any flying there. They had Lincoln bombers and it was from there I was demobbed. [recording paused] KM: Ok. One, one of the things that I was in charge of I had two German prisoners of war. One was, one was fifty two. All he could think of was getting back to Germany and being a farm labourer. The other one was sixteen and every morning when he reported to me at 9 o’clock in the morning he saluted me in the proper sense of de da de da but he spoke American. He’d been captured when he was fifteen, taken to America and picked up the Americanisms. But every morning he shook his fist at them, ‘We’ll be back. We’re going to be back.’ There was a hundred army guys on RAF Binbrook in that sense. But working in the headquarters I would eventually be in charge of air publications and diagrams and all the stationery and all the forms. A lot of forms. And it was all to do with the squadrons and that. The engines. All aspects. But of course there was a lot of information that would come through which was connected with intelligence. Material that was being distributed into the squadrons to let them know this and that. And eventually I I was to read quite a lot of stuff that I never, never repeated. Of course, you never did. But from an intelligence point of view you just saw stuff but it didn’t mean anything. It was all gone. You weren’t going to keep it or photograph it. We weren’t, we were never allowed to have cameras in any case. So that’s that. [recording paused] IL: We’re back on. KM: In post war then 5 BFTS used to have reunions and I would go away to those. And it was always to take over a hotel so that, at a weekend a Friday, Saturday and Sunday so that all the men that were there were nothing but RAF pilots of once upon a time. There was no people that hadn’t gone there. They were excited to go and there was a book where all the courses were numbered. We were on the very last course out of, the very last course to take was because, as I say the war had finished in Europe but nevertheless we were sent. They always said they’d spent a lot of money on us. And that was because we were University Air Squadron people. Actually I think they got us cheap. But in that sense. And there was a directory with the names of people in that were known of. And the last one that was printed was in 2005. It’s been disbanded since along the way. But then, but my name and there’s only nine of us on that one that were still around and known about. That doesn’t mean to say everybody did get killed. Whatever happened. And Peter Greenwood is one of those who was at Oxford where he used to know this Welsh chap who eventually became Richard Burton. And he said, ‘Richard Burton,’ he said, ‘He only did three things.’ He said, ‘He drank, read poetry,’ because he was doing arts, ‘And he chased skirts.’ Girls. And eventually of course he went to Canada to train as a navigator did this Welsh chap. But later in life he changed his name to Richard Burton and he married Elizabeth Taylor and became very famous. And if ever I got the opportunity to see him in uniform in a film he’d always taken the part of an officer because he was always dressed an officer and he’d been trained as an officer and it was just natural to see him as Richard Burton. But, and I met him once or twice at Heaton Park because he was always retained there to play, play rugby. But that’s Richard Burton. Whatever. But Peter Greenwood, we’ve kept in touch all these years. And we talk to, normally every week, every week we talk for half an hour or an hour. We’re always reminiscing. We’ve always got things to talk about. He lives in Halifax. And of course we have met occasionally as well. So, it’s marvellous in fact to have such a friend. And his birthday is on the 2nd of February. Mine is on the 1st which is very recent. According to this it’s now the 8th of February. And I always pull his leg and say we’re the senior man. [recording paused] KM: We were really, it was snowed in. It was a terrible wet winter. IL: Was this at Full Sutton? KM: Full Sutton. Up there near York. East of York. And we were told the whole place was frozen up. There was no running water except at the camp cookhouse. And we enjoyed going in there to keep warm occasionally. But the WAAFs, they were putting on more cream and powder because they weren’t allowed to wash either. We were told not to, not to melt ice or snow because they said you could get possibly meningitis through this. So I remember going into York and going to the public baths there. I’d never heard of public baths at that point in time. But, but the Nissen huts were very cold. They were cold. Nobody complained but one has to imagine twenty beds in there. And one night one of the chaps started coughing and sneezing and nineteen other voices said, ‘Die, you bugger’ [laughs] [recording paused] KM: And then at lunchtime we were only too pleased to have food, I remember we could buy newspapers. Well, some of us would buy The Express. The Express Record and The Express crossword but some of the guys they used to buy The Times. And they could do them in half an hour. That was the sort of standard. That was the standard of education and culturalisation that we’d all been through. At that time they were chosen to do this particular job and be selected to go into University Air Squadrons. Yeah. [recording paused] IL: So after the war. KM: Well, father was in horticulture and agriculture and for a short time I helped him but eventually I decided that I didn’t want to be connected with the land in that sense at all. I always felt academic. And so I applied to go back to university and I was accepted. And what’s interesting about this as I say I got in to BSc when I was there and, but I’d actually left. Left and I’d achieved all I wanted and went to help my father in his business in whatever before going on to the, to the university. I was still not quite at the age of, to go in. I’d been accepted of course and got, seventeen I’ve mentioned that. And then when I, when I applied I was accepted straight away I’ve still got the letters. Professor Wager and the master. Lieutenant Colonel MacFarland Greave was the master of University College at the time. And they said, ‘Yeah, start in October.’ Now this is addressed to me in the air force by which time I was a corporal. And isn’t it bloody marvellous? To be, to take the rank of corporal. Anyway, and when I applied for the grant because people got grants. My other two pals had. Johnnie who became a doctor later and Malcolm who became vice chancellor they’d stayed on. They’d stayed on at school and left, left grammar school to go straight to Durham. I hadn’t done. And I still have the letter. I still have the letter to say I didn’t qualify because it said my education had not been interrupted by the war. Well, that, that just about killed me. To say I couldn’t get a grant. And I asked my father. I said they want me and when I think about them I would be there with Malcolm doing exactly what I wanted because I wanted to do geology. And I said, to think I had done all of that. I qualified to go to Cambridge. They said my education hadn’t been interrupted by the war and I couldn’t have a grant. And I tried through my MP to try to get this alteration changed and I still retain that letter to me and I’ll show the interviewer that to show the, to prove that point. So I didn’t go back there. So what I decided to do was to join the [pause] I saw the most successful local man I knew. He was in all sorts of businesses. And he said other than three daughters if he’d had a son he would have put him in the petroleum world. The oil world. We’re going back quite a long time now. So he said, ‘I suggest that.’ He said, ‘There’s a company starting up called Petrofina. They’re a Belgian company because,’ he said, ‘I’m taking all my money out of coal and other things and,’ he said, ‘I’m putting it into oil.’ He said, he left it up to me to get in touch with Petrofina. I rang Petrofina in London. I said, ‘I’d like to come and work for you. Join you. You’re starting up,’ because at that time there were no brands. There was no brands of Shell, Esso, Mobil gas — any of them. It was still all pooled petrol. The government was still running the job etcetera. So I, and they said, ‘When can you come to see us?’ I said, ‘Well. Tomorrow.’ So the next day I was down in London and within an hour they said, ‘Right. You can be with us. Six months’ probation. You’ll be up north. And your place will be at a place called Gunness. That’s the regional office that’s been chosen. And you join them up there.’ Which I did. Bought a brand new car to travel from Barton on Humber to travel the twenty miles to work every day. And within, I did my six month probation and I was to be in marketing etcetera and learning all about transport. All aspects of at that level. And by the time I was thirty four I was a senior staff manager in the company and even today, even today — I left them. I stayed with them until my daughter was going of age to go to university. She went to a place in Leeds for a start. She was doing a pre, a pre-university thing and then she went and did three years down at Cheltenham. And she got a degree in fashion design and art. And that’s what my Sue did. I used to go and see her programmes of the materials that she made on the catwalks in London. Doing all of this. Susan was eventually to marry. Her father in law was a wing commander and a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain. A sergeant. But any way that’s by the way and then went to live in a Cayman Islands. But when my Sue decided to go I thought I’ll go back to university. So I asked the company could I take a three year sabbatical? They agreed. They said, ‘Good idea. Do a law degree and it’ll help us as well.’ But when I’d done the law degree and it was the easiest thing I ever did, at Hull and in fact I did two degrees at once. I did, I did anthropology and law. I did two and I got a 2:2 in both. And, and that’s what, and my daughter and I passed out at the same time. Her elsewhere of course and whatever. So I didn’t go back there. I got in touch with the Law Society and what with my experience of life I said could I, could I practice as a consultant in family law because that’s what I wanted to particularly major in. And they said yes, carry on which is what I’ve always done ever since. And today they’re even they’re still paying me at Petrofina because I was a superannuated person. I made them a great deal of money. I made them millions. I built up a chain of service stations. Buying land and choosing managers and tenants for them. Oh yes I was right there. I was right there with them and so they’re still paying me. [recording paused] IL: I can turn it back on. KM: It was whilst I must pay tribute to all the men that I ever met in the Royal Air Force. Whether they were ground staff or aircrew. And all, all the guys my colleague with which I flew and I was so proud to be with them. So I I I can pay great tribute to them. But I do wish to mention about my two friends. Johnnie Boyd who came from Spain and Barnard Castle and then came on and eventually became a doctor in psychology. A marvellous man out there. Starting something out there for them. And in particular Malcolm Brown who came from Redcar Grammar. I met him at Durham and eventually he became the number one geologist really of this country. And he was knighted so that his full title was Professor Sir George Malcolm Brown. Right from being, knowing him at eighteen and he was employed well not employed but when, when Buzz Aldrin and Armstrong were going to go to the moon NASA was [pause] had Malcolm to lecture them on what they were to look for in moon rocks. And he was the only one, considering that Malcolm went from being eighteen and knowing him he was the one, the only scientist, British scientist given moondust or moon rocks. And of course he distributed them amongst other places to examine. But he found amongst his own materials a mineral that was not known on earth. And it could have been called Brownite because that was after his name but he didn’t. He called it Tranquilite because that was where these guys landed. And they called it Tranquilite. That’s how modest he was. But, but to look him up on the computers and look him up to see all about him there’s pages and pages and pages. He’s a fellow of everything throughout the world. Marvellous to have known him. And he was such a modest man. Always was. They said he was a bit diffident but I understand that because I knew him. We used to go drinking in The Three Tuns at Durham. My goodness on a Saturday night it was the only time after dinner at night that we ever got out really. Well, we used, and it had seven bars down there in The Three Tuns and we went through all seven having a half or whatever it was. And the dance hall at the end of it by which time I was useless for anything. But that was Malcolm who became Professor Sir George Malcolm Brown. IL: And he became Chancellor of Durham University. KM: Chancellor of Durham University. IL: Vice Chancellor sorry. KM: Yeah. Vice Chancellor. IL: Vice Chancellor of Durham. That’s fantastic. KM: And another thing, may I have this? IL: It’s still going. KM: One of the things that we did at Durham. They were full days. Completely full days. We thoroughly enjoyed it. The guy that used to take us for parades and was a DLI man. Durham Light Infantry. A warrant officer. We never forgot Gray. And he prepared us for these rough guys that we, the [unclear] guys eventually down at Torquay. But one of the things that would happen we were allocated that when the air raid sirens went I was one of those that went to do fire watching on the cathedral in the dark. I mean the buzzers gone and no matter what time of day it was up there in the north transept amongst the pigeons trying to save my country’s cathedrals. So we did all sorts of things apart from that. The day, and the night before we left Durham, this is very interesting, Durham, Durham Council invited us to the little town hall in the centre of Durham which is like a museum in itself because the Durham Light Infantry in its army days went back years and years. With all sorts of uniforms. And they gave us a party. They invited all the local belles, all the belles, all the belles of Durham to be there. It was, it was like, it was like a party. A going away party for us to join the air force. You know. Seeing us off to war literally. We felt like it. But never mind. I could talk. I love Durham and I’ve often been back there. And more recently I went with my, a girl friend and we stayed in the castle. It was all arranged and I slept in the Bishop’s Suite which, which in fact was an old fashioned, fashioned four poster and it was that four poster where, it was an original one where all the judges of England used to sleep in that one because they went there for safety when they were visiting the assizes. But then later after I was at top table at Durham with all the other students and whatever. I went top table with all the profs and that and then later I went into the senior common room where after in the ordinary way when we were there I used to dash in there to play classical records for half an hour. If you could get there first you could have their own choice. [recording paused] KM: When I, when I was married and went to Scarborough on holiday being married it was then that I discovered that north of Bridlington there was a plane there flying people for passenger. Little trips around the lighthouse at Flamborough. So I went and I took my wife Phyllis and we went flying. And I remember I took over as well. I remember the pilot. He’d escaped from the Nazis. He was a Norwegian and he’d trained as a navy pilot but here he was staying in England. I never forgot him. When my Sue fourteen years later, fourteen years later I decided that my Susan should fly for the very first time. I drove down to Skegness and, and the office said, it was opposite Butlins and they said, ‘There are three Auster planes out there. Just pick the one you want and one of the pilots will come out to you.’ And when he came it was the same man from fourteen years previous. What a fantastic coincidence because, I said, ‘I know you.’ He said, ‘Where do you know me from?’ I said, ‘I flew with you at Speeton, north of Bridlington.’ He said, ‘I was only there a week.’ It’s absolutely fantastic. Fourteen years between the two. And once again we flew and I was up front and I flew that Auster as well. But from a flying point of view when I went to the university they had in that first week a new intake. People joining all sorts of societies. Whatever they called it. And I found there was a stall there that they were connected with a gliding club at Pocklington on the way to York. So I joined that immediately and eventually was taken because that enabled me to fly again and I’ve been, and I’ve been a member of that gliding club and I still am. From 1975 to now. But whilst I was there at weekends I would take six in the car. With no safety belts I could cram two in the front and two in the back. So I did help out with these kids. I was like a dad to some of them. But along the way we had a flying club at, on, on Humberside and, but they had to close it down because Bristows, the helicopter people they wanted the property. But that was a very interesting time flying Cessnas and goodness knows what there as a member of a private flying club there. I also used to fly with a man called Croskill and pre-war he’d trained as a pilot. Got his wings in 1935. His father was a wing commander. When the war started he was made a captain in the army. An army captain. And he, and he joined the secret service. And what he did was fly Lysanders into France during the, to take people to the Resistance backwards and forwards. But afterwards Roy and I became, that’s how I came to know him. I often used to fly with him because he was a chief flying instructor at Paull which gave me an opportunity once again when I was at the university. This is how I met him. And again at Humberside. So I’ve always had a big connection with, with Humberside. There was also at Humberside an ex-Wellington bomber pilot who I came to know and he passed on but I’d done, over the years I just paid to take a plane up. Always with one of their people because I’d not passed out on some of those planes. But that, but what that has led to is that I was invited on to be, I was collected by taxi from Hornsea to to spend the day when the Canadian Lancaster came. It had flown into Coningsby from Canada. That’s an RAF station. But on this day it was coming into Kirmington. Or Humberside Airport. And I met the crew. I didn’t fly in it but I had lunch with the crew and it was just marvellous to climb back inside that Lancaster. And of recent times I’ve had sent to me a CVD, it’s a record. IL: Yeah. KM: That can be put on a piece of equipment and I only received it and I’m on it. It’s showing various things from the start in Canada and then back in Humberside and elsewhere. And Coningsby. And it’s just marvellous. And it lasts eighty minutes and I’ve only seen it this last fortnight. It was sent to me. And very kind of them. I think it was sent because of my birthday. Whatever. By the way on the 18th at Humberside there was a girl, a lady from the Royal Mint and she was interviewing other veterans down there to what they would like to see on the back of a new 50p coin. And eventually I was sent one from the Mint. That came from wherever it came. Wales I think. And it shows on the reverse side what looked like what represents German aeroplanes coming. Spitfires on the ground waiting and the backs of three fighter pilots dashing off. And that’s a, that’s a memorial of the seventy fifth, seventy fifth anniversary of the Battle of Britain. When I was invited once again to go to Humberside on the 13th of August in 2015. The year following the Canadian one to meet up with the pilots and sit in on the briefing. I just felt like nineteen and twenty and twenty one again. It was so wonderful and marvellous. And I’ve got quite a number of momentoes from that. So and that, then on my birthday recently I had two cards from there. One from the lady, the personal assistant who I only saw twice. On the first occasion, second occasion when she sent me a card with love and kisses on the bottom. But the other one, was another card was “From all your friends at Humberside International Airport.” And I met, and I met on both occasions they called him Richard. Richard Lake. He’s the boss down there of Eastern Airways and he saw me on every occasion etcetera and he owns two Spitfires and they’re worth a couple of million quid. Very interesting. I do know a few people in the flying world. As far as flying’s concerned and before the terrorist position came in whenever I flew abroad I’d always hand the letter in which would have to be handed to the captain. And they would always send for me to sit up at the front with them because of them being, they could be RAF themselves as well. IL: Yeah. KM: And on one occasion, here’s an interesting thing I went to Rome and on a, on a flip flight just to transfer an aircraft I can make another trip to Sardinia, which was my destination. I was going there on business and I sat up there with the Italian pilots. What’s interesting about that I speak Italian so I was able to talk. It was marvellous really. To be able to get up to the front of aircraft. That was out of, out of Heathrow. A letter went in there and I sat at the rear. An American sat next to me. Got flying. And at the appointed time on the threshold the chief steward came and said, ‘You’re wanted on the flight deck, sir’ and so I went up the front, and the American and I was up there for four hours. At that time there were two pilots, a flight engineer and I sat behind and did all the take off with them and they said they would send for me when they were going to do, land in Seattle. But before that I got back this American had been drinking. He said, ‘That was a rotten take off.’ I said, ‘I’ve got news for you. I’m going to do the landing.’ Because I knew I was going to be, I was going to be up the front. And it came to that point in time we’d flown over Greenland and Northern Canada and the captain came on, ‘Everybody fasten their safety belts,’ and at the same moment in time as I say I was at the rear the chief steward, the man came and said, ‘There’s an emergency, sir. You’re wanted on the flight deck.’ I couldn’t believe this. So I went up the front, ‘Where the hell’s he going?’ Everybody fastened all their seatbelts. To find out they were running short of fuel. At that time they were only buying enough fuel with a margin but they’d met a, met this S shaped sign shaped current of air and what — it has a name. At such a speed that it reduced the speed over the ground so they were using more fuel than necessary. So they decided to land in Calgary. And so that’s what happened. And I went through all the methods of what they were doing up the front and finally landed. And I remember this big circle and as we came in on the threshold the second said to the captain who was an ex-squadron leader, originally from the air force, he said, ‘I bet there’s a change of wind direction on the threshold.’ He said, ‘I’m ready for it.’ And at two hundred feet the plane crabbed because the change in wind direction. And he just, he just moved it over to the port side and we were down. And that was after what? Five or six hours flying. They’re right on the ball these guys. But when I wanted to continue to Seattle they had a new crew in but, because the hours had been taken up. So, but the new crew they were youngish. They didn’t want to know me. So I went back to this American and he still believes I did the bloody landing. [recording paused] IL: Interview with Ken Marshall. Just a little bit of extra. KM: Talk now? IL: Yeah. KM: Yeah. Before I went away from home there was a Canadian pilot called Screwball Beurling who learned to fly in Canada when he was very young and the Canadian Air Force wouldn’t have him. So he came to England on a convoy. Got trained. Sent back to Canada to train as a pilot. Returned to England and became a Spitfire pilot. And he was my hero. I have a photograph of him. But later in life I was flying Alitalia to Rome and there was a woman next to me. She was a lady jeweless and when we were circling over Rome she said did I know Screwball Beurling? I said, ‘Screwball Beurling,’ I said, ‘He was my hero.’ ‘Not bloody likely with me,’ she said, ‘He killed my husband.’ I said, ‘How do you mean?’ Well, she said, ‘Well down there at Rome,’ she said, ‘He was, he was flying planes to Israel and he crashed on the take off.’ And I couldn’t believe it. That up there at fifteen thousand feet she should bring up this name of a person that I’d known about. But in actual fact it was always said that his plane was sabotaged. This was after the war of course. But quite an interesting little story. IL: Absolutely. KM: But he was the highest scoring. He wouldn’t obey orders back in England so they sent him to Malta to fly and he was in the fiercest battles in Malta and he shot down almost more planes than anybody else. But that was Screwball Beurling and he was my hero. IL: Absolutely. KM: Flying over and she said did I know and I said, ‘Yes, he’s my —' 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 Ken Marshall Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ian Locker Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-02-08 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 AMarshallKW160208 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 00:57:42 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 Ken Marshall, grew up in Barton on Humber and enrolled with the ATC before joining the University Air Squadron at Durham University. On one occasion he saw an aircraft on fire at RAF Elsham Wolds and, although the crew was rescued, it was a reminder of the risks involved in operational flying. He completed his flying training at 5 BFTS in Florida. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain United States England--Lincolnshire England--Yorkshire Florida Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1939 1943 5 BFTS bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945) bombing up British Flying Training School Program crash Halifax memorial RAF Bridgnorth RAF Elsham Wolds RAF Full Sutton RAF Heaton Park RAF Torquay training