2 25 44 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/610/8879/AMillerP150601.mp3 520ae851d62c7ebbaff997e1fd396243 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/610/8879/PMillerP1501.jpg f56dac581f8541f60a8ad337a85c6fce https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/610/8879/PMillerP1502.jpg 3c813b020292a9e12b3c53fd1df379ed 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 Miller, Peter P Miller Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Miller, P Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Peter Miller (3008496 Royal Air Force). He served as an air gunner and gunnery leader with 12 Squadron. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-06-06 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document MM: I’m recording this for Peter Miller, who is my husband, for the International Bomber Command Centre on the 1st June 20 - MJ: ‘15. MM: ‘15. We’re at Wragby in Lincolnshire. PM: When I was called up. Is that alright? MM: Hmm mm. PM: 25th of the 11th ‘43. Went to Cardington. I was only there for a week getting kitted out and such. Was sent to Skegness, my home town, to do a couple of months foot drill. I was billeted about half a mile from home. So, when in the town, I was the person sent by cycle on errands. Afterwards was posted to Halton on a flight mechanics course, on which I was made AC1. Leaving Halton on the 29th of the 5th ’44, I went to Digby, Lincolnshire, 527 Squadron. Enjoyed time off, such, it was a Canadian station at the time. Then being posted to Bircham Newton, Norfolk, 695 Squadron who were drogue towing. After a short while there I was sent to Blackpool in November, classed as a PDC from which we went to Liverpool to get a boat. A Dutch ship called the Oanvan Oldabarnevoort, which after, after a late start, we caught the convoy and going down the Med at Christmas Eve, sailing past Gib onto Aden, then to Ceylon to drop some, some, some people off and then back up to Bombay to a transit camp. From Bombay, we went to a place called Cawnpore [Kanpur]. That was our destination - 322 MU. Spending two and a half years in Cawnpore [Kanpur], returning from Bombay on the SS Somalia, landing in Liverpool for being demobbed at a transit camp just outside Blackpool, early July ’47. That’s, that’s my service career. MM: What did you think to India? PM: It was air, do you want the aircraft I worked on? MJ: Oh yeah. I mean, well, that’s a, that’s a nice round off way of putting things how they are, but yeah where, what, what, what did you do in Bombay because it seems a long way to be having an aircraft. I mean, if you - PM: It seems like a long way to what? MJ: It seems to be a long way to go and play with aircraft so I just wondered what you had to do there. PM: We were servicing them. MJ: Yeah. PM: Um Liberators. MM: It was a big camp wasn’t it, Peter? PM: A very big camp. Worked on Liberators to start with. About - MM: Did you enjoy India? PM: About five months. MM: Did you enjoy India? PM: Well yes, it was alright. MJ: I suppose it was a good place to get a suntan. PM: Yeah. Yeah, but mainly. I had almost two and a half years on Dakotas. MJ: So, you mainly worked on Dakotas. PM: Yeah, air frames. MJ: Air frame. PM: Air frame fitter. MJ: Was it, was it very busy being in India, fitting, or was it - PM: We were busy. MJ: Quiet? PM: Of course, we used to service them from all-over South-East Asia Command. MJ: So, so when people think that you were um in India, probably having a quieter time than most, you probably, you weren’t were you? You, ‘cause PM: Oh no, we weren’t living it up. MJ: No. I mean that’s what people would think. I mean - PM: Yeah. MJ: That’s what I’m saying. A lot of people don’t associate India with the RAF do they? PM: Yeah. We weren’t living it up. MJ: No. So, so how did you, I imagine it was quite hot over there was it? Or - PM: Very hot. MJ: So - MM: And you went up in the hills didn’t you, on your leave - PM: Pardon? MM: You enjoyed going up into the hills didn’t you? On leave. PM: We used to get on, we used to get our normal leave but also, we had a, we used to go on hill parties, a month, probably fifty or sixty used to go by train to the foothills and then up by wagons to the place we spent the, spent the leave, the holiday. I had my twenty first birthday in Darjeeling. MJ: That must have been interesting. PM: Yeah. It was alright [laughs]. But the other places were, were very fair. They used to take us as far as they could by train, then we had to go on, on wagons further up. MJ: Did - PM: We used to go by train to Darjeeling. Pre, pre, pre-war I think. The moneyed folks had taken Darjeeling over and they weren’t all that keen on us blokes out there going to Darjeeling, but er we made them happy. MJ: Did um - PM: But that’s a lovely spot that. MJ: So even though the work was hard it was quite a nice place to be. PM: Yeah. But, but regarding, regarding the weather it, it was very hot. During the hot season, we used to go to work in the morning. There for seven and we used to work while one and after 1 o’clock the time was our own. MJ: It was too hot to work? PM: Yeah. MJ: So, so, so in a way you were working nights really? PM: [laughs] But we were we’ve had everything done I think. There was, it was a very big camp. There was three villages on the camp. MJ: Was, was it more than just RAF then? PM: Pardon? MJ: Was it more than just RAF? PM: Just RAF. MJ: So - PM: Yeah. MM: There were locals. The villagers were locals. PM: Local villagers. They were on, on the side - MJ: Side. MM: Doing your washing for you. PM: Well, they used to, they were our bearers and things were alright until the war finished. MJ: What happened then? PM: Until the Jap war finished. And then Pakistan and India were having a go at one another. MJ: So, you got stuck in the middle. PM: Well more or less. We wanted to get home. They held, well, we believed they held our demob up for a while. MJ: Why? Because of the conflict between the two - PM: Well, in case there was going to be. Nothing happened. We got on the boat and came home. MJ: So that, that was a better deal than you thought. PM: Yeah. One of the biggest laughs we got was when we got to Liverpool on the way home. We were getting off the boat and a jet went over. Never seen a jet. MJ: No. PM: Only heard about them. You should have heard the cheer that went up. MJ: That must have been, so you were probably one of the first people to see a jet flying. PM: Yeah. In Liverpool. MJ: You don’t - PM: Vampire. MM: Yeah. [Tape paused]. PM: The cold season out there - MJ: Yeah. PM: Is about like this. MJ: So, it’s like having summer in the winter, is it? PM: Yeah. MJ: So did you, you got warm - PM: The, the snag is um, these blokes that’s been in, in the desert and that, they reckon it goes stone cold at night. Not India. The sun, the sun sets and that’s it. Nothing else. Then the sun comes up and its daylight again and you’re getting warmer. MJ: Yeah. So did you find you had to do more work in the winter per se or, or is it ‘cause, ‘cause the engine, or did you have to sort of - PM: Yeah, in the, in the cold season we’d probably work another hour a day. MJ: That, that doesn’t sound a lot but I imagine in those sorts of heats everything buckles including yourself does it? PM: Yeah. MJ: I mean, did, did you have to bring in, how did you get everything to where you were? ‘Cause you were saying you didn’t have any transport as such. PM: When, when the war finished, we, we were, they were sending um Liberators to our place for scrap. We had a colossal scrapheap there. They were sending these Liberators there because - I don’t want it recorded because - MJ: No, it’s alright. PM: Yeah, well what we heard was that the Yanks wouldn’t take them back as returned lease-lend. MJ: Well, I mean that - PM: And we just had to get rid of them but we weren’t allowed to sell them. That’s, that’s all we heard. They were wheeling them down to salvage and there was about seventy or eighty Libs there when I got posted home, but on other places there was more Libs. MJ: So, I mean - PM: And they just started destroying them. Took anything that, everything that was any use off the Libs and then, I can’t remember which station it was, but there was one station in India was, had started to destroy the Libs. I, I don’t know what, well anybody that was in the RAF on aircraft would say it’s easier to build one then take one to bits. They um they took all instruments that were of any use out. MJ: Right. PM: Dinghies, first aid, everything like that. Armoury. All that out and then they took them onto the scrap, down to the scrapyard and drained all the oil out, out the engines and started the engines up and ran them flat out until they went bang. MJ: So that they couldn’t be used again. PM: No use whatsoever. MJ: You know if - PM: And then they recommended that what you did was have a, have a wagon or tractor fastened to the front of them and drive the tail unit up against a wall or something like that to break them up. Anything that’s riveted you see, you can’t get it to bits by, by just undoing it. MJ: It was built to last so - PM: But that’s, that’s how it was but there was, there was about seventy at Cawnpore [Kanpur] when I came home that, that hadn’t been touched. Well, I say hadn’t been touched, they’d been stripped but hadn’t been damaged. MJ: I don’t think that was just yourself. I’ve heard things go, you know, because it’s hard to trans. Do you think it was hard to transport the stuff back? I - MM: Distance. MJ: You think - PM: But the – MJ: I would have thought it would be the pure economics of getting something, it was more expensive to - PM: If the Yanks had taken them back, they could have flown them back. MJ: Do you think so? PM: Yeah. I’m sure. They flew them there, they could have flown them back. MJ: Did, did any of the, anything else get left behind? Was it just the planes? Just, everyone leaves everything behind or did you bring most of it back? PM: Well, I don’t know what happened to them at Cawnpore [Kanpur] because they were still there when I left, but there was a reunion at Cawnpore [Kanpur]. I was going on it but I got a new motor and I couldn’t go, and er the chaps said that the Indian Air Force wouldn’t let them anywhere near the salvage. MJ: They wouldn’t let them anywhere near salvage. Well, I’m surprised it’s still there. PM: Yeah. They wouldn’t let them anywhere near salvage. MM: But you used to go swimming, didn’t you? You had a pool. PM: Oh, we’d go swimming. There was a swimming pool on the camp. MM: A swimming pool and that. You enjoyed that. MJ: More than I can do. MM: I can’t swim. MJ: Yeah. MM: So, I mean there was some good times wasn’t there? PM: Oh yes, we had some good times. MM: Nice times. Friends. Lots of laughs. PM: Off the camp mainly, the good times. MM: Used to go down to one of the places nearby, didn’t you? Villages, towns whatever you called it. PM: Oh, we used to go in to, in to Cawnpore [Kanpur] itself. MM: Yeah. PM: The city MJ: Well, you say it’s a city. Was it sort of like - MM: How big? MJ: Was it a big place or – PM: Oh, it was a big place - MJ: ‘Cause I mean - PM: The city was. Yeah. The actual RAF camp was called, oh God - Chakeri. MJ: Oh right. I thought - PM: It was about four mile out of Cawnpore [Kanpur], but Cawnpore [Kanpur] was a city and we used to call the camp Cawnpore [Kanpur]. It was always Cawnpore [Kanpur]. MJ: Um maybe - PM: Where were you stationed? Cawnpore? [Kanpur] MM: But you used to have meals didn’t you, in the city, when you went out? PM: You what? MM: You used to go for meals, didn’t you? In the city, went out - PM: Oh, could do. Yeah. Go in to the city. But we were only allowed in one part of the city. They um it was out of bounds to us. MJ: It’s er so - PM: It was, it was our military that put it out of bounds to us. They wouldn’t, wouldn’t let us in the - MJ: So, it wasn’t inflicted. It wasn’t, you weren’t put out of bounds by the city itself. It was the hierarchy of the military itself. PM: Yeah. Yeah. MJ: Saying you couldn’t go to certain parts. PM: That’s it. Yeah. MJ: Ah and did you, could you go out of uniform or did you have to be in uniform? PM: We was, we were out of uniform most of the time. I mean when we used to go to work in a morning, 7 o’clock in the morning, you’d have a, a pair of shorts on, socks and shoes, bush hat and sunglasses and we used to go to work like that and at 1 o’clock when we, when we finished work, we used to walk, we didn’t march back or anything. We used to walk back in groups, probably call at the swimming pool on the way back, used to go back and have lunch and then just loaf about. MJ: Well, I imagine it’s, it’s too hot to do anything else at that time. I mean - PM: It was a funny old time. MJ: Yeah, I can agree with you there. You – [Tape paused] MM: Yeah. PM: About the same height as I am now. MM: Six foot. PM: Weighed seven and a half stone. MM: Rather slim. PM: I got a demob suit and I kept my best blue. And I came home. The demob suit was slightly too big for me. ‘You’ll grow out of it’, that was that you see, which I did. Within, within a month, my blue didn’t fit me. I didn’t care ‘cause I chucked it away and my demob suit was dead tight. I had to collect all the, all the family clothing coupons together and go and get measured for a suit, ‘Make it plenty big enough’, and I stopped growing then [laughs]. So, I got one suit big and the other, other two too small. MJ: So, most people stopped growing and you took that many years to grow- MM: His mother’s cooking that was. Put the weight on you [laughs]. Didn’t it? PM: Yeah. MM: Your mum’s cooking - PM: Yeah. MM: Yeah. Built you up again. PM: My mother was in the First War. MM: First World War. PM: In the RAF. In Germany. MJ: That’s what? PM: Yeah. In the Royal Flying Corp. MM: As it was then. Yeah. MJ: So, you inherited the job, did you? MM: Must have done. PM: Yeah. PM: When, when you were on about servicing, servicing aircraft, we had to be there, we were in the hangars for 7 o’clock in the morning, but if there were any aircraft either stuck outside or in the hangar that were going out, you checked the tyre pressures before the sun got on them because you never know what the tire pressure would be after about an hour in the sun out there. MM: And of course, they couldn’t fly them till they’d got your little signature could they? PM: Hmmn? MM: You couldn’t fly them till they got your little signature. PM: Oh no, couldn’t. Well, I was one of a team. I was the air frame rigger um on a Liberator, four engines, so there’d be four engine fitters, instruments, wires um guns and turrets all had to be checked and signed for before the pilot could have it. MJ: How long did that take? PM: Hmmn? MJ: How long did that take? PM: Well, I mean if the aircraft was, was, was alright, if it had come out of the hangar after, after a major service, it would be taken out on a test flight. One of each trade would go up with him if it was a bomber. Go up with him and you’d fly around and everything was alright. Come back. You’d check up again. Then before it flew again tomorrow, it had to be serviced because between flights inspections on RAF aircraft if it, if an aircraft came, came up from London and landed on your airport, there would be a between flights inspection before it could go again. MJ: Oh, I didn’t know that. PM: Yeah. MJ: How often did that happen? PM: Hmmn? MJ: Did that happen regularly? PM: That was it. Between flights inspection. And being, being a rigger, that’s what I was, they were the last to sign the 700. The 700 was the aircraft manual and every, everybody that was concerned with anything on the aircraft had to sign, and the rigger was the last one to sign because he was responsible for um the petrol cap being loose. Nothing, nothing to do with him normally. The um the blokes driving the petrol bowsers used to tighten them up, but it was, it was his aircraft and he had to do something about it. So, he used to tighten, tighten it up and any, any little panel that was loose, he’d secure the panels and that before he signs and until he signed, they couldn’t go anywhere. MJ: Did you have a team of riggers or was it just you per plane? PM: What? MJ: Was it just you on one plane or did you have a few? PM: Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah. MJ: So - PM: Didn’t, didn’t do a half a dozen planes. Just, just the one plane. MJ: Yeah, but did you work as a rigger on your own or did you have someone helping you? PM: Was, was? MM: Was there more than one rigger on each plane? PM: No. Only one rigger. MM: Hm mm. PM: Yeah. MJ: So that’s a lot of rivets. MM: Hm mm, check them [laughs]. PM: Yeah well, the aircraft, the framework of the aircraft and everything in general was alright. It was day to day um events, um tyres and things like that. Brakes slipping. All those sort of things. MJ: Do you think you had more trouble because it was hotter there than most would have? PM: Of course, being a rigger, brakes were my job as well [laughs]. MM: You said when you went to Halton it was a case of half of them for engines, half of them for airframes wasn’t it? PM: Yeah. MM: So, it just depends which side of the room you were on [laughs], you were telling me. PM: [laughs] Yeah. MM: You had some fun down there at Halton, didn’t you? PM: You what? MM: Had some fun at Halton. PM: Halton. Yeah. It was um water shortage. Halton camp is on a hill. The hill, the hill is that far and high, that there’s two parade grounds on the hill. MJ: Two? PM: Two parade grounds on the hill. You go through the gates, you go up and, oh from here to the bridge, there’s the bottom end of the parade ground and it goes back into the hills and you carry, you carry on up the hill there and about another twenty, thirty foot up, there’s another parade ground. It was a hell of a camp, Halton was. It was a, um what’s it - MM: Training? PM: Oh God. MM: Officer’s training do you say? PM: No. MM: No. PM: Weren’t officers. They - MM: Cadets. PM: When you join, you join the RAF you - MM: Cadets? PM: You was a member. I was a member of the Air Force but I was only a sort of a temporary member, but I, I, I didn’t sign on for ten years or owt like that, but all the regulars they, they were right under the thumb. By hell they were. MJ: So, you think it was different for you. Was it ‘cause you - PM: Yeah. MJ: Because you were sort of part time if you like. PM: Yeah. MJ: For a better word. PM: I liked Halton. It was a nice camp. MM: Taught you how to shoot there didn’t there? PM: Hmmn? MM: Taught you how to shoot there didn’t they? PM: Yeah. MJ: This is um - MM: One poor chap. Everybody dashed because - PM: We had two, we had two Jewish lads - MJ: Yeah. PM: By God they were dim [laughs], and er they, they, they were on a, on a rigger’s course but everything, everything went wrong with them. On one day, we had um rifle training so went up on the, up on the bus up the hill and there was um the targets. Perhaps six or seven targets. MJ: Right. PM: And a wall, a wall just below them and behind, behind the wall there was a trench, so the blokes, blokes up there looking after, looking after the targets they were, they were safe and you had ten rounds and you just, you had your ten rounds and you got in front of one of, one of the targets and that, and you’d been told how to fire them and everything. The corporal would shout, ‘Fire’, and then down there, on the range, there used to be a flag on a pole come out and he used to stick on to the target where, where the bullet had gone through, if it had gone through. Well, these two Jewish lads, they couldn’t even hit the target, never mind [laughs], and there was everybody else had to get off and let them pick their own target and everything. Our corporal was on the phone to them down there and, ‘Right. Fire. Take your time’. Bang. Flag went like that. Bang. Next time it went [beuuuu]. Phone rang. Corporal said, ‘What’s the matter?’ He said, ‘He hit my mate’. He’d, he’d hit his tin hat. Hit his tin hat. This bullet and had gone off his tin hat. MJ: So, he was safe though? PM: Yeah. MM: Most of them. PM: And then we had hand grenades. There was, there was this wall, all sandbanks and that, and over the other side of the wall about there, there was a, there was a hole and behind, behind this wall there was another wall and everybody used to get behind that wall, and the corporal used to bring one bloke around and show him, show him everything, make sure he, he was holding the grenade right, then he used to toss it over to go in the hole. Everybody else was doing alright and this one, he dropped the grenade the other side just on the top and it rolled down, so the corporal grabbed hold of this bloke, pushed him down and more or less sat on him. Bang. ‘That was close wasn’t it?’ the corporal said. And, and, we, we went up into the, up the hills. Sten guns. They were deadly you know. If you dropped a sten gun, it’d bounce about all over the place till it emptied and [laughs] there was two corporals that had never, never met these two. ‘Watch them. We know what we’re doing’. Corporals, ‘Alright’. Showed them how to go on and everything. Give these two a sten gun each, got them to load them, ‘Don’t do anything. We’ll have you one at a time so you come with me’. So he fired. Nowhere near the target or anything like that, but he got shot of the, the ammo. The second one went, spun around, he says to the corporal, ‘It won’t fire’ pointing it at the corporal [laughs]. God. He said, ‘Stand still. Let go of the trigger. Put it down’. If there hadn’t been anybody else around, he would have clouted him around the side of the earhole with the sten. Anyway, they got rid of them. I don’t know where they went to but they were no good as, no good on engines or airframes or anything like that. They were completely useless, the pair of them. MM: They were only young though you see, weren’t they? Eighteen and a half. PM: Yeah, they’d only be just over eighteen. MM: That’s what I mean. Today – PM: Yeah. MM: They’re at school, aren’t they? MJ: Yeah. So, it’s surprising you’re here. MM: Yeah. PM: Yeah. MM: Then he come back to Digby, Lincolnshire. PM: Eh? MM: You enjoyed Digby in Lincolnshire, didn’t you? PM: Yeah. MM: No calamities there? PM: No. Come back to Digby. MM: You used to go in to Lincoln, didn’t you? PM: Yeah. Used to go in to Lincoln. MM: On time off. PM: It was a Canadian station. Everything underground. MJ: Underground? PM: Eh? MM: Underground. MJ: Everything underground? PM: Everything was built underground. It was a radio and radar station. We didn’t, we didn’t know that when we were stationed there but, but they used to work underground. MJ: That’s - PM: At Digby. It was good station. It was a Canadian station. MJ: Was that better than the RAF ones? PM: Well, they were better supplied than what we were. MM: Food was good [laughs] Yeah. PM: Yeah, a lot better supplied. [Tape paused] PM: We were all, all air frame fitters and one of the station aircraft, we got two Dakotas belonging to the station. One had gone to Lahore. MJ: Right. PM: From our place and um next morning they were refuelling it, and the chap drove the petrol bowser with the dipstick sticking out and tore the underside of the wing. Well, that was it you see. He didn’t just tear the surface of the wing, he, he buckled the main spar. So, we, we had several Dakotas there that would probably never fly again and using them as spares, and got hold of, got hold of my mate we did and get a, get a mainplane from, from salvage. Give him, give him all the gen on this one aircraft, ‘Go and, go and check, see if it’s alright’. So, he come back, he said, ‘Yeah it’s alright’. He said ‘Right. The three of you’, he says, ‘You, Miller and what his name, go and fetch it off’. And we took, we took the crane down with us and we got the, got the trestles and everything and the jacks underneath it’s wing and we disconnected the wing and took it away completely from the engines you see. You’ve got the two engines there and a centre section between them and the fuselage, but beyond the engines, that’s the outer, so we got that and we got a Queen Mary. You know the Queen Mary’s, we used? The um - MJ: Hmm? PM: The long, the long low loaders. Very wide, ten foot wide, that the RAF used to drive around, you’ve seen them there, their low loaders haven’t you? They’re called the Queen Mary’s. They’re ten, ten foot wide and during the war if, if you had to take anything with, with a Queen Mary through, through a town, you had a police escort and they’d take you the best way through the town because of, because of the width of the vehicle. And we loaded this, loaded this mainplane and all the gear we wanted and everything and we cleared off to Lahore. The three of us. It took us three days to get there. Close on four hundred mile. MJ: What were the - PM: Well, the roads in India were just like the roads down to the villages here, and we got there and this Warrant Officer [unclear] said, ‘Goodness I’m pleased to see you lot’, he said, ‘Get on with it’. So, we took, took this mainplane off and they carted it off to salvage there and um they got all the gear there, got all the gear and everything but they wouldn’t let them touch it. MJ: Why was that? PM: So, we, we had to do it you see. The plane belonged to us so we, we, we got the mainplane off and everything, put the other one up got it all, all bolted in. Everything. Control cables, electrics, everything and got hold of Taf Bevan, ‘Right. Fly it’. MJ: How long did that take you? PM: Hmmn? MJ: How long did that take you? PM: Well three days overall. ‘Fly it’. He says, ‘Alright. Sign’. So, we signed for it and everything. The warrant officer, the engineering officer at whatsit, he said, ‘You’ve done a very good job you blokes have’. The CO was there as well. At Lahore. He was, he was there as well. He said, ‘It looks very, very nice’, he says. He said, ‘I’ll get on to,’ Oh I can’t remember the name of our CO, he said, ‘I’ll get on to him and tell him what a good job you’ve done’. And we went up with Taf and he, he said, ‘Nothing wrong with this. It’s alright.’ Taf Bevan, he was a bloody Welshman. We never did find out his name. His first name. Never. And he was a warrant officer. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t take a commission. He just wanted to stay non-commissioned. MJ: Did he say why? PM: Warrant officer. MJ: Yeah. Did he say why he didn’t want to take a commission? PM: He said, ‘I don’t want to be with that crowd stuck in the officer’s mess and that. Better off in the sergeant’s mess’. He said, ‘I’m away next morning’. We said, ‘You’re bloody well not without us mate’ and we transferred the um the Queen Mary to Lahore and climbed in the Dak with him and flew home. Thirty minutes [laughs]. [Tape paused] PM: Now, can’t you? Between you? MJ: I think so. You should be able to. PM: You just, you know, well why not do that? MJ: Did you - PM: What about that? [Oh bought] MJ: Yeah. People don’t think that so that’s why your lifestyle is different to todays because people don’t realise what you did. I mean so - MM: Things have changed so much, haven’t they? So much. PM: I know we were on a test flight one day with Taf and, um Taf used to let us take control for a while. He used to sit there but he knew what was happening and everything, and one of the blokes he said, ‘Do you want it Taf?’ Taf says, ‘No’, he says, ‘Just carry on’. He got it lined up. It was about three mile out from the end of the runway. ‘Go on. You’re alright’. He said, ‘Shall I land it?’ ‘No, you bloody well won’t land it’ [laughs] He said, ‘I’d be the laughing stock of the bloody sergeant’s mess. Come out’. MJ: Yeah. PM: We used to, on a Dakota there’s a cockpit and there’s a cabin and it’s the full length of the aircraft near enough. You go in, you go in the double doors. MJ: Right. PM: And you go up to the, to another door and that that’s the control. There’s navigator, radio operator, two pilots and we used to, about three, four of us used to get up near the door and Taf would be sat there you know, nodding away there to himself and that. ‘Right. Now’, and we’d run to the other end to the tail end [laughs]. ‘Come up here you lot’. MM: He knew what you was doing? PM: We, we’d run to the tail end. MM: Yeah, and made it, realised. PM: Climb MM: Yeah. MM: Realised what you were. You had a laugh at East Kirkby, didn’t you? PM: Yeah. MM: They were doing a Dakota up at East Kirkby. PM: Yeah. They were. MM: You went out to, to have look and you said to the lads there, ‘Can I have a look inside it’. I think you managed to get in it didn’t you? PM: Yeah. MM: And anyway, you said to them. PM: ‘Do you know anything about them?’ I said, ‘Yeah, a little bit. I used to be on them in the Air Force way back’. ‘Bloody hell. When?’ I said, ‘Oh I came out in ‘47’. ‘God, I weren’t even bloody well born then’. MM: Made you feel very, very old didn’t it, duck [laughs], yeah. PM: They were a lovely aircraft to work on. Dakota is. No trouble whatsoever. MJ: Didn’t bite back. PM: Hmmn? MJ: Didn’t bite back. MM: No [laughs]. PM: They were no trouble at all. Used to fly around with the doors off. MJ: Why? PM: You see there’s, there was a passenger door and a cargo door on them. MJ: Yeah. PM: Take one or the other or both doors off. It didn’t half whistle and that inside the aircraft. MM: Was there any reason to take the doors off though? PM: No. No. MM: No. PM: You either take it off before you fly or when you land. You don’t take it off while you’re flying. MM: No, presume not. MJ: Was there any reason why you took them off when you flew? Or was it just because they were in the way? PM: The doors come inwards. Not outwards. MJ: So - MM: What reasons did you take them off for? PM: Eh? MM: What reason did you take them off for? PM: Well. MM: Can you remember? PM: No particular reason. MM: Oh. Good job it wasn’t raining. PM: During the war, on the Dakotas, along the top of the fuselage there was little windows about that size, along. So that when they were carrying troops, they could open one of those windows and fire at any aircraft that was attacking them. MM: Hmmm. PM: If they were carrying troops. MJ: Really? PM: Yeah. Yeah, I’m not kidding. MM: Never heard of it. MJ: I wouldn’t have thought of that one. PM: I’m not kidding. Liberators, you know, you used to get in and out through the bomb, bomb bay. Get in and out through the bomb bay. The bomb doors, the bottom of the Lib is only about that far off the ground and the bomb doors go up like that, and there’s a catwalk right through. The catwalk goes to, to the rear where there’s a mid-upper gunner and two, two waist gunners. One each side. And a rear gunner. MJ: So, you always had - PM: And if, if you go forward up a couple of steps, you get on to the flight deck where the crew, the aircrew go. You, if they’re flying around and they opened the bomb doors, there isn’t a bloody soul would dare go across that catwalk. From the back to the front or the front to the back. There’s not a soul would dare go. It’s, it’s perfectly safe, there’s no, no danger whatsoever and there’s plenty to hold on to. Hold on to all the bomb racks. MJ: But no one would do it. PM: Nobody would go in, do it. [Tape paused] MJ: So, what was this about Fred then? PM: He, he used to go out first thing in the morning, he’d go to bed at night about nine, but first thing in the morning, probably 5 o’clock, he’d cross to the cookhouse to get his porridge before they put sugar in it. Yeah. He wanted salt in his you see. Yeah. Well, he was always messing about with, with animals and that and he went out one morning for a walk and there was a narrow path, trees each side and that. He was approaching this corner and around this corner, come this panther. He says, ‘It stopped and I stopped, of course’, he said, ‘and its tail was going like that’. He said, ‘And we stood there for about three quarters of an hour. Seemed like it’, he said, ‘And I thought if that bloody thing comes at me, there’s a tree just behind me. I can leap behind, hopefully’. He said, ‘I daren’t look around’, he said, ‘I was weighing all this up’, he said, ‘and all of a sudden, the panther put the foot down on the ground, spun around and shot off back the way it came’, he said, ‘ And I shot off back the way I came’. He said, ‘We were about twenty-five miles apart in ten minutes’. He, he was, he was always doing something like that. Always messing about with, with animals. There was an empty cookhouse and he went and there was a wild cat in the bloody cookhouse. ‘I’ll have that’. He went in there, this wildcat was flying around the walls. He said it was going that fast, it was on the walls. He said, ‘I didn’t know what to do with it’, he said, ‘but the windows, the windows were all shut except one’. He said, ‘it took a flying leap at that and crashed straight through the glass and everything and away it went’. He said, ‘it went out, missed, missed the veranda and everything and landed out in the middle of the road’ [laughs]. He said, ‘I wasn’t frightened of it’ [laughs]. MM: And who slept on a snake? One of you lads found a snake under his mattress. PM: Yeah. Yeah. Rum lad that. MM: Who was that? Who found a snake under his mattress? PM: Oh er, who was it? One of the other lads. Fred said, ‘I’ll get that for you’. He outed it. ‘Cause you see, if you found a snake out there, you had to find the other bugger. Nearly always travelled in pairs. MJ: Do they? PM: Hmm mm. We had a, we had a snake in our billet one night. We got it and finished it off and we were looking around for its mate. Couldn’t find its mate anywhere so that was it. Wasn’t going under the mossie nets. Next morning, this bloke got up and er there was this snake laid, laid in there. It had been crushed. He’d crushed it. You see, the beds out there were wood. They were just a wooden frame and then there was like string across and then what they called a dhurry. It was like, just like an asbestos sheet the size of your bed. When you went anywhere, you know on guard at night or something like that, you took whatever you wanted in your dhurry. Got it all wrapped up in the dhurry. Then you had your mossie net and your mossie net was, you had four, four bamboo canes that used to go inside the legs, across the back of the bed like that, and your mossie net went on the top and your mossie net was shaped, was shaped just like, just like a box. The box was down, the box was that way up and the things, the sides of the net came down you see, and these, these four bamboo canes, they went up behind, behind the leg and up the inside of the nets, so it was all sprung out. That was how your mossie nets went. There’s when we’ve taken the mossie nets down and inverted them and then put the bed inside, inside it. MM: But this snake that you was talking about. PM: It was an open top. MM: This snake you was talking about was underneath this here mattress thing, wasn’t it? PM: Underneath the dhurry. MM: Yeah. PM: Yeah. MM: I didn’t realise he’d been sleeping on it all night. PM: No. No. MM: No. Oh horrible things. PM: Well it was dead anyway. Fred says, ‘Poor little bugger. You’ve been laid on it all night’. MJ: I’d like to thank Mr Miller on behalf of the International Bomber Command project on the 1st of January no, oh June 2015 for his interview and, and for myself I’d like to thank him. My name’s Michael Jeffery and this is the end of the interview. MM: My name is Mavis Miller, recording this for the International Bomber Command Centre on the 1st of June 2015. We live at Horncastle Road, Wragby, Lincolnshire. Yeah. I was at Minting, school at Minting, during the war. We lived about four miles from Bardney aerodrome so we saw a lot of the RAF lads and the WAAFs who used to come to the Sebastopol at Minting. My father also worked at the Bardney aerodrome so we were involved quite a bit. He always used to come home very distressed when, at times, the bombers would come back with the Air Force lads’ uniforms having to be burned because they were blood stained. Another small happening during the war was I was with my friends down Hungerham Lane, about a half a mile from my home, when we saw two of our fighters firing at this German fighter and it was brought down at Baumber, again only about three or four fields away from where we were. Unfortunately, no one got out the plane. We were told that it went up in flames. The farm workers couldn’t get anywhere near it but I was pleased to get home that night safe and sound. I think that’s about the end of my experiences. MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command Historical Unit I’d like to thank Mrs Miller for her stories of when she was a child and on the June the 1st 2015, I’d like to end the interview. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Peter Miller Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mick Jeffery Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-06-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AMillerP150601 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Language A language of the resource eng Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:02:55 audio recording Description An account of the resource Peter was called up in November 1943 and, after basic training, was sent to RAF Halton to train as a flight mechanic. Whilst there he had several dangerous incidents during small arms training. He was, initially, posted to 527 Squadron, which was Canadian, at RAF Digby and then to 695 Squadron at RAF Bircham Newton, working on drogue towing aircraft. Posted overseas, he arrived at RAF Chakeri near Kampur where he worked on servicing B-24 and C-47 aircraft for South East Asia Command. He recalls that, as an airframe mechanic, he had to sign the Form 700 certifying that all the other trades had carried out their servicing correctly. The local town was largely off-limits and only certain parts were allowed to be visited. The weather was very hot and, in the summer, hill parties were sent to the hills to escape the heat. Peter spent his 21st birthday at Darjeeling. When hostilities ceased he spent his time dismantling and scrapping B-24 aircraft. Whilst India was partitioned, Peter's demobilisation was postponed in case of tensions between India and Pakistan. After two and a half years he was sent home via Liverpool, where he saw his first jet, and was demobilised in July 1947. Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1947-07 1943-11 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Buckinghamshire England--Lincolnshire England--Norfolk India India--Kānpur India--Darjeeling Pakistan Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Terry Holmes Maureen Clarke Vivienne Tincombe B-24 C-47 fitter airframe flight mechanic fuelling ground crew petrol bowser RAF Bircham Newton RAF Chakeri RAF Digby RAF Halton service vehicle https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/755/10753/ACourtPR171211.1.mp3 f5adb26711d51c0b4874459a61b47524 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 Court, Percival Robert P R Court Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Robert Court (b. 1924, 1728924 Royal Air Force). He served as a rigger and airframe fitter. 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 2017-12-11 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Court, PR Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the, Monday the 11th of December 2017 and I am in Reading with Bob Court to talk about his life and times and starting with what are your earliest recollections of life, Bob? PC: I don’t know. Being [pause] at a place called Organford where there were floods. My mother was sat with her feet in the water and nursing me. Then the old chap was going off to work and he left his Hunter watch on the bed head so I could hear it ticking. That’s my earliest memory. CB: What did your father do? PC: He was a post office engineer. Linesman. CB: Whereabouts? PC: Dorset. CB: And what did that involve? PC: Well, in those days the, during the winter months the snow would bring the lines down and they had to go and put them back up. So it meant travelling about all over the place. CB: Right. And where did you go to school? PC: Poole. National school. National Boy School, Poole. CB: Any exciting times there? PC: Oh yeah. I thought they were all exciting [laughs] Yeah. It was ok. I managed to keep to the top of the heap all the time so life was pretty, pretty easy. CB: Did you develop a main interest? PC: Woodwork, I suppose. I don’t know. My mother wouldn’t let me go to the Grammar School. They wanted me to go and take the exam. But my mother wouldn’t let me go. CB: Why was that? PC: Probably she couldn’t afford it. But in, in retrospect I say she probably saved my life. CB: Because? PC: If you’d have gone to the Grammar School you’d have been aircrew. CB: Right. PC: Not many of them survived. CB: Right. Right. And what age did you leave school? PC: Fourteen. CB: Then what? PC: Then what? Well, I worked for this furniture company. And then when I was old enough volunteered for the Air Force. CB: Yeah. But first of all what did you do? PC: What do you mean what did I do? CB: Well, immediately after you left school what did you do? Before you went to the furniture company. PC: I worked for a friend of a member of the family who had a radio business. And I suppose, I don’t know when I turned up, when they packed up. And I went to the Labour Exchange because I had a suit on I suppose they thought here’s a chap for the shop, for this furniture store. CB: So what did you do in the furniture business? PC: Well, repairing, French polishing. All sorts of things really. Selling it. Delivering it. CB: You said you were interested in carpentry at school. So did that put you in good stead for what you were doing for the furniture company? PC: I suppose it did in a way. Yes. I suppose it did. CB: So were you an apprentice there or — PC: Yeah. CB: Right. And how long were apprenticeships in those days? PC: This one was three years I think it was. Yeah. Three years, I think. Three years, I think. Three or four years. CB: So, you were born in 1924. PC: Yeah. CB: And that meant that when the war started what age were you? PC: Fifteen. CB: And what reaction did you feel with the start of the war? PC: Pretty good [laughs] I didn’t think we were going to lose. Never entered my head that we might lose. I didn’t realise how close it was but at the time no you wouldn’t. Never thought of it. CB: So, this is when you’re working for the furniture company. PC: Yeah. CB: What did you do that was related to the war at that stage because you were too young to sign up. PC: I did a bit of firewatching. We had to do that every night. Well, not one night a week at least. Then they started introducing payment so I did two nights. Sometimes three. It wasn’t very onerous. CB: What did you have to do? PC: Well, just keep a watch out for incendiary bombs because they were using a lot of those at the time. And put out any fires they might cause. Fortunately, in my area they didn’t cause any. So I was alright. Not bad at all. CB: So what did they, what title did you have for that task? Fire watching. Was that ARP or what was it? PC: No. It wasn’t ARP. Just fire watchers or something. CB: Right. PC: I don’t know. Who was it introduced it? [pause] I think it was Morrison, wasn’t it? Morrison. CB: Herbert Morrison [pause] But what did you actually have to do in fire watching? PC: Well, keep, keep an, keep your eyes open for any incendiaries that might land near you. CB: I was thinking did you have a base to work from or did you walk the streets or what did you do? PC: No. We had a room over a shop that we used to sleep in. And any air raids we’d go out and wander around the streets. CB: Right. And you had a supervisor or who controlled what you were doing? PC: Yeah. We had a chap who owned one of the shops. Well, he owned a chemist shop and he was the chap in charge. Yeah. CB: So what did you find in there? PC: Hmmn? CB: You’re looking in your book. What have you got in there? PC: Oh, I’m just trying to remember what was going on. The Dunkirk business. CB: Well, we can come back. Let’s talk about Dunkirk then. So you remember Dunkirk in 1940. PC: Yeah. CB: What do you remember particularly about that? PC: Well, when was it? CB: Because you’re in Weymouth. PC: Germany attacked Poland. No. I was in Poole then. CB: Oh, in Poole were you? PC: The Phoney War. Holland. The occupation of Denmark and Norway. The evacuation of Dunkirk. I remember watching soldiers coming in to Poole Quay on any craft that could make the journey. CB: Right. When they landed then what happened to them? PC: Tea, cigarettes, beer and food being given to the bemused troops. Pitiful to see them. Did not appreciate — CB: What sort of state were they in? PC: Not very happy. Glad to be out of where they were though. CB: Were they upright, bedraggled or what were they? PC: Well, they were a bit bedraggled but apart from that they were ok. Glad to be out of there. That was all. CB: Yes. PC: Yeah. CB: So after that you continued with your fire watching. PC: Yes. CB: Did you join the ATC or — PC: Yeah. Yeah. I joined the Air Training Corps. CB: Right. And when was that? That was when you were what age? Was it at the time of fire watching? PC: Yeah. Obviously [pause] when were the ATC formed? When was that? [pause] PC: Yeah. Herbert Morrison was the one who said all persons between sixteen and sixty register for fire watching duties. CB: Right. PC: So, I, they used to pay four and sixpence. Twenty two and a half pence per night. I didn’t earn much so I volunteered to do two and sometimes three nights a week. CB: Yeah. PC: Which helped my salary immensely. CB: Can you remember what you earned when you were working for the furniture company? PC: Yeah. Twelve [pause] twelve and sixpence. CB: Did you? PC: Or sixty two and a half pence. CB: Yeah. PC: Per week. The Air Training Corps was in 1941. And I joined in March 1941. CB: The ATC. PC: Yeah. CB: Yeah. So, now you’re coming up to be old enough to join the forces. What made you join the RAF rather than the Army or the Navy? PC: As I said, I couldn’t swim. And I didn’t like the brown jobs. They got too close. So, I thought the Air Force might be a bit safer. CB: Right. PC: Which it proved to be. CB: So, what, what was the process then of joining up? PC: I went to [pause] where did I go? I went up to Southampton I think. Volunteered. CB: Did you go to Cardington as a start? PC: Yeah. CB: What happened at Cardington? PC: I went to [pause] joined [pause — pages turning] Yeah. Cardington. Somewhere. I volunteered. It was possible to volunteer at seventeen and a half. CB: Yeah. PC: I did that in February ‘42. Volunteered for service as a flight mechanic. CB: Right. PC: Report to the centre of Southampton for a medical and attestation. Bear true allegiance to His Majesty King George the Sixth, his heirs and successors blah blah blah. Got the King’s Shilling in the form of a postal order. CB: Oh, you did. Right. PC: I was hoping to be given a shilling but they didn’t. They give me a bloody postal order. I should have saved it but I didn’t. So, I went to, and I was with the ATC at their Fleet Air Arm place at Sandbanks and I had to report to Cardington. CB: Right. PC: Yeah. Never been outside the county ‘til then. CB: So, what did you do at Cardington? PC: Got kitted out. Did some tests. We had to fill out, yeah fill out all these books. Tests. I was about to decide what we would do. Test booklets. Fill in name and number. Answer all the questions you could. Such things as mathematics, simple science, English diagrams to determine which way cogs might revolve around levers and pulleys operated. Seemed to go on for hours and days by the end of it. Afterwards when discussing with others how they thought they had fared I began to realise that not all of us were as well equipped as others. In fact, the lad I travelled with from Poole had found the exercise very daunting. Then we were interviewed by, about technical matters school, blah blah blah. Issued with uniforms and equipment. Everything. Dog tags and whatever. When all this was going on the, an airman came and called out your name. Gather up your kit and follow him. My friend from Poole was amongst us. ‘Where are you going?’ I asked. ‘I’ve been selected for the RAF regiment.’ Soon our numbers were quite depleted. We slept soundly that night. CB: So, are you saying not everybody was accepted in to the RAF? PC: They were accepted into the RAF but not in what they wanted to do. CB: Right. PC: Like this chap that came with me was put in the RAF regiment. CB: Yes. So, what other jobs would they have put them into? PC: Well, there was cooks. CB: Yeah. PC: All sorts of things I think. Different. Different. I’m trying to think really. CB: But you’d been identified as somebody to work, you said earlier as a rigger. PC: Yeah. CB: Is that because you asked for that or they suggested that’s what you should do? PC: Well, no. What happens, you were sort of all lined up and said, I would say about sixty or so of us and those who wished to be air frame mechanics to cross to the other side of the room. Not a soul moved. Didn’t know what he was bloody talking about. CB: No. PC: ‘Right,’ he said, said to the group, he said, ‘All those on the left engines. Those on the right airframe.’ That’s how I became a flight mechanic air frame. CB: Right. PC: That’s it. CB: Was this chap a corporal or — PC: It was better actually than the engines. I thought so anyway. And we went from Cardington to Skegness for square bashing. CB: What else did you do at Skegness? PC: Just the initial training. Marching up and down. CB: Yeah. PC: Cracking the paving stones. CB: Yeah. PC: Then we were — CB: Was there any classroom work? It wasn’t square bashing all the time was it? PC: Square. Well, most of the times. Yeah. CB: And from there? PC: Didn’t have any rifles so we had wooden replica rifles. Bayonet practice with pikes. Scaffold tubing with the bayonets welded on. Bayonet practice we charged at straw filled sacks on wooden frames and around again. We were encouraged to scream and shout the meanest of obscenities as we charged forward. Urged on by the instructors. In, out, Oh God, out the ground, left, right, right, oh dear. Oh dear. Unarmed combat was taught. Be invited to charge the instructor with a rifle and bayonet, and we’d be tipped ass over head in no uncertain manner. How we would fare in real combat was never really put to the test. The assault courses, climb wire, barbed wire, rope netting. Crossing streams and, oh dear. Did guard duty. We’d sit on the seafront with a machine gun on the beach. Wend our way through the mines laid on the beach, ropes and tape. The odd mine was clearly visible in the sand so one was apprehensive when going backwards and forwards. The Butlins Holiday Camp was used by the Navy as a training establishment. Given the name HMS Arthur. The camp was full of Naval though we never seen any in the town. They must have kept them away. Perhaps the authorities in their infinite wisdom kept us apart. Many lectures on various aspects of service life. We had medical officer of the dangers of venereal diseases. This was my first introduction to sex education. For me it was a rude awakening. The MO marched on the stage in the lecture room and held up an unrolled French letter which he announced was a condom. In my ignorance I only knew it as the more familiar name. They were sold sureptisously in barber’s shops where male customers would be discreetly asked if they needed such things for the weekend. He ran to great length about syphilis, gonorrhoea, associated with women of a dubious character. If we did succumb to these wiles we’d be marching with a standing penis and no conscience. Returned to a room behind the guard room where prophylactic treatment was available. This lecture was reinforced by an American film of soldiers frequenting a brothel and the resulting liaison in full colour. Various venereal diseases in all its ghastly forms. Pretty shocking to my young senses. What kept most men on the straight and narrow was the exception that women were to be respected. The ultimate way was that the man would marry a virgin and young women accordingly kept themselves chaste. At home sex was never discussed. It was taboo. But nevertheless there were plenty of innuendoes bandied about between Babe, Benny and some of the lodgers. I was a little naive to appreciate what was going on. Films and books were played down as part of any stories so as not to offend the sensors. Songs adhered to a strict code of practice. Some comedians like Max Miller sailed pretty close to the wind. A popular song of the day was, “Doing What Comes Naturally.” And that was how people were introduced to sex. To suppress our sexual drive a cup of tea or cocoa we drank was laced with copious amounts of Bromide. Also we were kept so busy with square bashing and PT at the end of the day we were too exhausted for such dalliances. That coupled with our meagre pay did not leave us much for entertaining the opposite sex. As the course progressed so did our fitness. Jack London was training for his fight would delight in picking out likely lads to spar with him in the boxing ring. Fortunately, for me being I was slight build I was not selected for this ordeal. We could not avoid the forced marches that were his pet items. Be paraded in marching order with small pack. Gas mask we had to march at a fast pace for about ten miles or so. Periodically we’d be halted for a short rest but Jack would prance about shadow boxing while we looked on in awe. And off we’d go again at almost a gallop. After six weeks or so of this intensive square bashing we were deemed to be sufficiently proficient in parade ground techniques and arms drill, armed and unarmed bayonet, to be referred to the next place of our training. Come of some use in the overall strategy of the Air Force. And then off we went. Went to — CB: Where did you go next? PC: Went to a place called Brindley Heath near Birmingham. Just outside Birmingham. And we marched up to the camp known as Kit Bag Hill surrounded by an eight to ten foot high wire chain link. This was number school, number 6 School of Technical Training. It would be our home for the next five or six months. So that’s where I went. CB: So, at the Technical School this was specifically was it for the trade you were put into? PC: Yeah. Yeah. Number 6 School of Technical Training. CB: Yeah. PC: Very desolate. Looked rather gloomy after Skegness. I was accommodated in one of many of the wooden huts. In the centre was a coal burning stove. Iron beds that telescoped to give a spacious look to the room. On each bed was three square shaped mattresses called biscuits. Pillow. Three blankets all arranged in a precise manner which we would get accustomed to making before going on parade in the mornings. A corporal was in charge of the hut and the weekly inspections of the hut ensured was spotless before he allowed us to go to breakfast. Woe betide anyone who entered the hut after he’d pronounced it satisfactory. Not only were the trainees RAF personnel but there were the Fleet Air Arm, Polish and WAAFs which added a degree of rivalry to us all. Each morning we’d parade outside the hut at 7.30 am. Headed by the station band we would march to the workshop to the strains of, “Sussex by the Sea.” We would mutter as we marched along in the darkness, “Good old Sussex by the sea. You can tell them all we know sod all of Sussex by the sea.” How’s that? [laughs] CB: We’ll pause there for a mo. [recording paused] CB: So, the RAF called this site you’re talking about RAF Hednesford. PC: Yeah. CB: What did you actually do there? PC: That was the — CB: Brindley Heath. PC: Yeah. First two weeks dealt with basic engineering practice. I did on occasion metal, metals used in aircraft production. Types of drills, screws, tools, heat treatment, corrosion. Main practical work involved filing a piece of mild steel about three or four inches square, a quarter of an inch thick. Dead flat and square. Both faces and all surfaces. At the end marks were attained in the practical theory and oral examination we continued with the course. Otherwise we were re-mustered into probably the RAF regiment. Perish the thought. Anyone with ninety percent could go on to the fitter’s course. Those with marks forty or less would be re-mustered. Only one of our entry was. Which was a hundred and fifty eight passed with high enough marks and one failed. And he had the, as he had had office experience in Civvy Street he was posted to the admin section as a Clerk GD. We were rather derisory towards him but he had the last laugh because by the time we had completed the course he had been promoted to corporal. So he did well. None of us were concerned about going on the fitter’s course which meant another ten weeks of training and many were anxious to join a squadron and actually service aircraft. Once the basic training was over we got down to the serious business of the flight mechanic’s course. Sixteen weeks of instruction, preliminary rigging, knots, lacing of wire and rope. Fabrication, application, doping and painting, carpentry, hydraulics, pneumatic, wheels and tyre maintenance, marshalling of aircraft. Procedures for the daily inspection. At first I’d been disappointed in not being successful in being selected as an engine mechanic but once on the course I found it so varied and covered such a variety of activities I was glad. Later in life it stood me in good stead. Once we were, similar routine with our spare time spent in the NAAFI. Occasional visits to the camp cinema. One film I recall was the story of that guy who sold his soul to the devil. Was it a warning? Also got initiated in playing cards. Not Whist, Rummy and Cribbage that I was reasonable in but Brag, Pontoon and Solo. We did not have a lot of money to indulge in these games and after being relieved of my meagre pay by the card sharks among us I became more cautious about getting too involved. The only game officially sanctioned by the powers that be was Tombola or Housey Housey. Less stressful and you were unlikely to lose too much of your money. Weekends we’d venture in to town with Walsall being one of the favourite places. Many thought I came from Canada. Due to my West Country accent no doubt. So I would say I came from London, Ontario. I was intrigued by the accents of these Black Country people as they were known here. Hednesford itself was a mining village. We’d often visit the snooker hall and local pub. The younger miners a little hostile to us as many would have liked to have joined the Services from what was a Reserved Occupation from which there was no escape. Hence their frustrations. Shall I go on? CB: Yeah. PC: My best friend, Bob Matthews, a Londoner and I was a bit in awe of him because he was very streetwise while I was just a country boy who knew nothing of the big wide world. As I lived in Poole it was much too far for me to go home on a forty eight hour pass and I stayed with him with his parents in London. Fabulous. They lived in Woolwich and his father was security officer at the Royal Arsenal. They had a small cottage inside the Arsenal as part of the job. You would say that this was the safest place in London. Bob had a regular girlfriend. Sylvia, I believe. And he introduced me to her sister Vera. This made a convenient foursome for us. Also, Vera was my first really serious girl. We used to write copious letters to each other even when I was posted overseas. However, when I was abroad for a long separation of course there was a cool off a bit and she met up with another lad. When I came home in 1947 we did try to get together but I was very unsettled and did not know what I wanted to do so we drifted apart. Compared with Poole, Woolwich and London in general was a wonderland to me [pause] Pubs such as Dirty Dick’s were so different from those in Poole. We would meet Bob’s mother in one and she would proudly show off her pride and joy to her friends. Christmas I spent at the camp not wishing to go home as I wanted to enjoy service life to the full. I withdrew my name from the list of those wishing to go home to allow the married ones a better chance of selection. Periodically we used to do guard duty. This involved being on duty from 6pm until 8am the next day. One did stints of two hours on and four hours off and we usually slept in the guard room cells. Some did duty on the main gate and others patrolled the perimeter fence. The shifts 12 to 2am and 2 to 4am were in my opinion the worst. I remember on one occasion falling asleep in the sentry box and nearly falling over as I slept. God knows what would have happened if the orderly officer had come around. Tell that the circulated camp was that Naval Fleet Air Arm types who assisted their mates to enter the camp after the magic hour of 23.59 by fixing their bayonets to the rifles. Pushing them through the chain link fence to form a sort of ladder. Coming up this way one of the bayonets snapped off. What was the outcome I never did know or whether it was true. Completion of the course in February ’43 we attended a passing our parade, informed of our postings, given a travel warrant and sent home on a weeks’ well-earned leave. We had previously been asked where we’d like to be posted and I opted for Ibsley near Ringwood. A Spitfire fighter station. Whether they did this deliberately to post you as far from the location desired I don’t know but I was posted to 1651 Heavy Conversion Unit, Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire. CB: Right. We’ll stop this for a mo. [recording paused] CB: You mentioned the passing out parade from the end of your training. So how did that go? PC: Well, the square bashing do you mean? After doing the foot drill. CB: Yeah. PC: Yeah. What did that involve? CB: Yeah. When you’d finished your technical training you had your passing out parade. PC: Technical training. CB: Yeah. Before you were posted elsewhere. So what, what was the passing out parade? PC: I can’t remember really. I think we just had to march past the CO and eyes right and off you go. CB: Yes. And did they give you something in terms of certificate. Or — PC: No. No. CB: Families invited or anything like that? PC: No. No. No. No. CB: Right. And did you get a bean feast afterwards? PC: A bean feast? CB: A pub. Food. PC: No. No. You were sent home on leave. CB: Right. That was the reward [laughs] PC: Yeah. Yeah. CB: Yeah. PC: Yeah. CB: Ok. [recording paused] CB: So when you joined the RAF you were an AC2. How did the promotion go from there? PC: Well, the next stage was AC1. And then LAC. Leading Aircraftmen. I think nowadays they follow the Army and they call them corporals. CB: Well, I think they’ve still got LAC and SAC. PC: Yeah. Have they? CB: Senior Aircraftsman. So at what stage were you, did you become a Leading Aircraftsman? At the end of your technical training was it? PC: After I’d been on the Heavy Conversion Unit for a bit. CB: When you got on with it. Right. Ok. So you were posted to the Heavy Conversion Unit. That was at Waterbeach. So, what was your role there? PC: Just — CB: Because you are now technically what’s your description of your trade at that stage? PC: I’m a flight mechanic. CB: Right. PC: Flight mechanic air frame. Yeah. Arrived at the camp at about [pause] it was quite dark. Reported to the guard room. Soon allocated a billet. Guided to the dining for a much needed meal. Quite bewildered. At the same time thrilled to hear the roar of aircraft engines as the planes were taking off from the airfield. CB: What were the aircraft? PC: Stirlings. CB: Right. PC: The airfield was about four miles from Cambridge. Only built during the general rearmament programme of the late 1930s. Officially opened in 1941. Earmarked to be a heavy bomber station. When I arrived it was equipped with the Short Stirling four engine bomber. I was a little disappointed to find that the unit was not on operational one but involved with the final training of aircrews before going on to an operational squadron. Stirlings were given this role because the Lancaster and Halifax heavy bombers coming on stream were far superior in Bomber Command in bomb carrying capacity and ability to fly at high altitudes. Stirlings had been designed in 1936 but its projected wing span of a hundred and twelve feet had to be reduced to less than a hundred to be accommodated in the hangars. This would seriously affect its ability to fly any higher than about eighteen thousand feet and was therefore more vulnerable to anti-aircraft and fighter attack. Its robust construction based on the Sunderland ensured that it would withstand serious battle damage. It was used successfully as the main bomber along with the Wellington. But as night fighter operations improved these losses were unsustainable. Stirlings last big operational roles was when it was used as a paratroop carrier. And the towing of gliders during D-Day and at Arnhem. It was at Arnhem that my brother Jim was captured and spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp. My first day on the flights when I was introduced to these huge monsters towering above me left me a little awestruck by its sheer size. This was certainly a big aeroplane standing about twenty feet high. Twenty eight feet high on its huge ungainly undercarriage. My job as a flight mechanic was to carry out daily inspections. Checking the tyres, tyre creep, leaks from the oleo struts, free working of the ailerons, rudders and elevators and inspect for damage generally. Checking the cockpit. The operational controls. The most frightening task for me was the cleaning of the cockpit windscreen and windows. This necessitated climbing out of an escape hatch midway along the fuselage, walking along to the cockpit and then lying down to clean the Perspex windows. At first I would crawl on my hands and knees up the fuselage much to the amusement of the old hands. After a few days I became as blasé about it as they were and would quickly clamber along the fuselage ignoring the height above the ground. Refuelling held its dangers too. The training of pilot and co-pilot to successfully take off and land at night and to get the rest of the crew to operate as an efficient unit. Night flying was the norm for this work and on its completion usually about two or three in the morning one of the jobs was to refuel the aircraft so that it was ready for immediate take off. The Stirling had fourteen tanks in the wings holding over two thousand two hundred gallons of fuel. On a cold winter’s night this was a gruelling task. To hold open the nozzle to allow the petrol to flow in to the tanks hands and fingers soon became numb with cold. Accentuated by the high octane fuel. I’d not been there long when my turn for night flying duties. This meant being, among other things being on standby on the flight hut to answer requests from the pilot for a supply of compressed air. In night flying operation the aircraft would be doing circuits and bumps continued throughout the night. The small engine driven pumps which fitted to the aircraft could not maintain enough compressed air in the [floor cylinder] to cope with the continual application of the aircraft air brakes. After a number of landings and take off a cylinder would need replenishing. My job was to meet the aircraft on the perimeter, top up as necessary. Rather than wait in the cold flight for a call out many of us would join the aircrews with a fully charged air cylinder and enjoy the thrills of night flying. Sans parachute I might add. When the top up cylinder was empty we would leave the aircraft. Turn to the flight and have to wait for the next call. At the end of the night flying the next task would be to meet the aircraft on the perimeter. Guide it to its dispersal point on the flight. On my first occasion the duty corporal took pity on me and told me he would delay my introduction to this task as long as possible. Whether he doubted my competence I know not. There was suddenly a flurry of activity and with the phone ringing continuously, airmen gathering up torches and disappearing into the night I found I was the only one apart from the corporal left in the hut. The phone rang and he reluctantly handed me two small torches and told me to guide G-George to its dispersal point with some brief warnings of the possible dangers. Out I ventured in the total darkness to meet this huge monster towering above me on the perimeter track. Along with my two torches waving them in the prescribed manner I gradually brought the aircraft with its roaring engines and red hot exhaust to its dispersal point. Now came the tricky bit where it was necessary to turn the aircraft in a complete circle on the frying pan to be ready for refuelling. One had to be careful to keep in full view of the pilot. Not to stumble or trip otherwise one might be run over by the tail wheels as the aircraft turned around in the tight space. With heart thumping and nerves frayed I managed this without a mishap. I’ve often wondered if the pilot ever thought how vulnerable the poor ground crews were when carrying out this type, this operation. Back in the flight hut I don’t know to this day who was more relieved. Me or the corporal. Periodically, as well as doing a guard duty on the main gate on the perimeter of the station we also had to do a kite guard. Kite being slang for an aeroplane. For this duty one would have a couple of blankets, go to a designated aircraft and spend a night guarding the aircraft. I cannot recall whether we were armed or not or how effective the guard was is debatable. Whenever I did this duty I would spend the time exploring the aircraft, playing the various roles of bomber crews. I imagined I would assume the duty of the pilot, co-pilot, flying over Germany and the North Sea to the target. When tiring of this I would then take on the role of the bomb aimer. Lie down in his position in the front at the front and guide the plane and drop the bombs. Other roles would be front, rear and mid-upper gunners. Sitting in their turrets and shooting down enemy fighters. Although I fantasised playing these roles I never felt I would be suitable as an aircraft member. Aircrew member. Partly as I did not consider my education, background good enough at the time. Aircrews were recruited from the universities and Grammar Schools and my basic elementary schooling was not good enough. As war progressed and a shortage of suitable candidates became apparent particularly for the flight engineers. I would probably have been acceptable. By this time I’d retrained as a fitter and was quite happy in that role. For sleeping there was a foldaway stretcher located in the fuselage but sleep was an uncomfortable experience, climbs in the aircraft on a cold winter’s night. And equally so on a hot summer’s night. At 6am in the morning loud banging on this aircraft would awaken one and you would stagger off to the dining hall for a cup of tea and an early breakfast. But the ordinary perk was the cooks were generally sympathetic and generous at that hour. I had not been at Waterbeach long when it came apparent getting around a camp site, a bicycle was required so I wrote home and asked my mother to send my bicycle to me. She did. Registered. And I was mobile. A cycle was as essential in those days as a car is today. Visits to Cambridge and the local villages was easily accomplished with the minimum of effort. This being the fen country it was very flat. Very few hills to negotiate. This part of the country was ideal for the location of bomber stations so that although heavy laden to take off safely. Cambridge was a beautiful city with its many fine buildings, colleges and the River Cam running through it and I spent much of my free time exploring its many features. Cambridge being a university with its teaming population of undergraduates I found it difficult in coming to terms with. I was brought up to the idea that one had to get out to work and earn a living as soon as possible. My mother did not encourage one in the value of education. In fact, by her intransigence she discouraged me from taking the entrance to the local Grammar School. At the time, 1943 Cambridge was full of American servicemen and I’m afraid us poor erks could not compete either financially for the favours of the local girls. We had to be content with the NAAFI, Toc H, Sally Ann, for entertainment. Plus the cinemas. I remember there was some trouble when some time expired servicemen returned from their tour of duty in North Africa and many confrontations occurred between the two factions. I found it more expedient to stick to the village and Waterbeach itself than get involved in any trouble. My father died in November ’43. Flight Sergeant Mills took me under his wing and helped me through the trauma and he often took me to the British Legion club in the village where he was a much respected and popular friend. As spring arrived the hours of daylight increased. The trainee aircrews were required to wear goggles with dark lenses in order that flying hours were maintained. The runways were illuminated with sodium lights to complete the illusion of night flying. This almost around the clock flying put quite a strain on the servicing ground crews. But with the increasing aircraft production losses of aircrews by enemy action it was necessary to maintain a flow. One day while working on the flights [unclear] came and said anyone would like to retrain as a fitter 2. This was an upgraded group 1 in trade structure in the RAF was highly regarded as it opened up the route to promotion. I asked when mine would be likely to be selected, know if to be selected and how that might be. He told me it would be several months before it would come about. Thinking to myself it would get me off the flights for the winter months I put my name forward. Rather than months, a couple of weeks later given a weeks’ leave and told to report to Number 1 School Of Technical Training at Halton to begin a fitter’s conversion course [pause] on the 2nd of July 1943. Number 1 School of Technical Training, RAF Station Halton. Halton was the home of the boy entrants in the RAF and affectionately known as Trenchard’s Brats. The terms of service was to fulfil twelve years of service from the age of eighteen when the option to sign on for a period if they so desired. The apprenticeship was four to five years duration and they seemed to be the cream of the tradesmen and indeed they were. The war was a Godsend to that force with the rapid expansion of the Air Force. Many were promoted to high ranking position both as officers and senior NCOs. So they did well. Volunteers and conscripts like myself after completing a flight mechanic’s course the period on the squadron required to do a conversion course of fourteen weeks to be brought up to the required standard. I think I was the youngest and certainly the lowest in rank at AC2, Aircraftman Second Class. Many were LACs, Leading Aircraftsmen with several years service to their credit. RAF Halton near Wendover in Buckinghamshire was situated uphill from the town. Every day we would form up on the square, march to the training workshops. The Brats would lead the parade with the mascot of a goat, a goat and the station band at the head. The Brats were distinguished by wearing cheese cutters. Peak cap, with a chequered brim on the edge whilst we wore the Glengarry type of head gear. One of our entry also wore a cheese cutter as he had had the devil’s own job to convince the RAF police that he was not a Brat. One night on the town he had been an aircrew member and lost all his hair as result of some trauma and had permission to wear the cap to avoid embarrassment. The course, like the flight mechanic’s was fairly intensive dealing with basic engineering, metal repairs, hydraulics, minor and major inspections. A lot of instruction involved American aircraft such as the Kitty Hawk, Tomahawk and the methods used in the servicing of these aircraft. Weekends we could not obtain a pass we were expected to take part in some sporting activity. The skivers among us would often choose the cross country run over the hills and through the woods down to Tring. At some convenient spot we would hide, enjoy a crafty smoke and wait for the main pack and rejoin them for the return to the camp. Those who declined to take part in any of these activities would find themselves detailed for spud bashing which involved the peeling and removing the eyes from the potatoes. Halton was conveniently placed near London. And weekends we could spend in the city. We used to stay in the YMCA hospital, hostel at Westminster. Therefore we’d be taken by bus to a section of the underground not used by the railway. Here three tiered bunks were provided at a shilling. 5p per night. You took pot luck as to who your fellow borders might be and hoped they would not be too drunk or awkward. Other times when I stayed in camp I would explore the local towns of Aylesbury, Rickmansworth, Tring etcetera. During wartime these were pretty boring places to be for a serviceman as with beer in short supply unless you were a regular you could not hope to get served in any pub. Whilst at Halton the forty third intake of Brats came to the end of their course. We were all given a forty eight pass and told to leave the camp or stay at our peril. When we returned to the camp we’d seen why we had been told to get out. The place was in a shambles. Beds and mattresses hanging from windows, forty free entry signs daubed on walls and general mayhem everywhere. Apparently it was a tradition that on the completion of a course the Brats were given a free hand to celebrate their final days at Halton. The new entry would have the job of cleaning up the ensuing mess. Which gave them the incentive that they could do better when they completed their course. However, when we finished the privilege [pause] however when we finished the privilege was not granted to us. I completed the conversion course and now fitter 2A still with the rank of AC2. This gave me an increase in pay and I was now in group one of the trade hierarchy of the Air Force. Sent home and then posted back to 1651 at Waterbeach. Other: A rest. CB: I think we’d better stop there. Thank you very much. [recording paused] CB: We’re taking a pause now because Bob’s getting a bit tired. We’ve got to the stage where he’s returned to Stradishall and there’s a lot more to be covered in the later part of the war and afterwards in the Far East. So we’re going to reconvene. Much of what he’s been speaking about he’s got directly from his own book, “Stirlings, Sentinels and Dakotas.” So, more later. 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 Percival Robert Court 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 2017-12-11 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ACourtPR171211 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:57:38 audio recording Language A language of the resource eng Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force British Army Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Bedfordshire England--Cambridgeshire England--Buckinghamshire England--Staffordshire England--Lincolnshire England--Skegness England--London Netherlands Netherlands--Arnhem Description An account of the resource Percival Robert Court joined the Air Training Corps in March 1941, volunteering for the Royal Air Force at the earliest age of 17 and a half. Training at RAF Cardington, he became a flight mechanic. He then moved to RAF Skegness to continue formal training, including lectures on sex education and venereal disease. He states that sex was never discussed and that it was taboo and recalls rumours they were putting bromide in the water. Alongside this, he outlines several examples of social meetings within the base staff, including shared songs and daily prayers at RAF Hednesford, including the support of his wing commander when his father died in 1943 and how he helped him through the tough ordeal. He then recounts his training and experiences at RAF Hednesford, explaining the very high marks that were required to continue on his mechanic course, alongside having to take regular guard shifts and night operations. Percival was posted to Heavy Conversion Unit 1651 at RAF Waterbeach, and describes his daily required workings and several experiences with Stirlings and Lancasters. He also sets aside time to remember his brother, who was captured at Arnhem, being imprisoned for the remainder of the war. Based at RAF Halton, Percival took a course that allowed him to be promoted, with the addition of&nbsp;higher pay, learning information about American aircraft and spending his weekends in wartime London. When the war came to an end, he was given 48 hours to leave the base and no celebration. Percival Robert Court believes his mother saved his life by not letting him go to a grammar school, explaining that if she had, he would have died in an aircrew. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sam Harper-Coulson Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941-03 1943 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending revision of OH transcription 1651 HCU civil defence dispersal faith fitter airframe flight mechanic ground crew ground personnel Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster mechanics airframe perimeter track prisoner of war RAF Cardington RAF Halton RAF Hednesford RAF Waterbeach Stirling training https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/512/8743/AFranklinJB160331.1.mp3 f6e3050fce261c63a251a84f549d2b34 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/512/8743/PFranklinJB1616.2.jpg 795421ad1dfce4657298441a0a2fd3a6 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 Franklin, John Brown Jack Brown Franklin John B Franklin John Franklin J B Franklin Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Franklin, JB Description An account of the resource 15 items. An oral history interview with John "Jack" Brown Franklin (1921 - 2018 1484256 Royal Air Force)and fourteen photographs of people and aircraft. He served in the Liverpool Home Guard before enlisting in the Air Force. He served as ground crew with 109 Squadron between late 1942 and 1944 before being posted to Burma with 28 Squadron in 1945. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by XXX and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. 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. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing mechanic John Brown Franklin of 109 and 28 squadrons RAF at his home in Walton, Liverpool on Thursday 31st March 2016 and the time is 1.45. Also, with me is his nephew Neil Hayes and if you would like to start us off please Jack. You’ve asked me to call you Jack as - JBF: Yes that’s right. Yeah. BW: That’s how you’re referred to. JBF: Yeah. BW: Would you give us your service number and date of birth please? JBF: Yes. Ok. Service number is 1484256. Date of birth 28 6 1921. BW: And have you always lived in Liverpool? JBF: Yes. BW: And do you, you mentioned you had, I think, a brother. Do you have brothers and sisters or did you have brothers and sisters? JBF: I’ve got a brother and sister. My brother was world famous as a ballet dancer. BW: What was his name? JBF: Frederick Franklin. And if you want to get his history I believe it’s all on the – NH: All over the web. JBF: In the computer. And here’s Neil with his CBE presented by the queen to him at Buckingham palace. BW: Right. JBF: And unfortunately - BW: Wow. JBF: He died just a couple of years ago aged ninety eight. BW: And whereabouts in Liverpool were you living at the time? JBF: Oh at birth. Over a café on the corner of Wavertree Road and Durning Road. We were all three born over the café and my father ran it with his mother and it lasted ‘til about 1923 and then we went to live higher up Wavertree Road in Janet Street and then about ten years after that, it would be about 1933 we moved to Gordon Drive, Pilch Lane, Huyton and that’s where I married from and lived here. I’ve lived here since 1957. BW: Wow. JBF: We bought the house then with my wife Dorothea. BW: And so what was your home life like? Was it - JBF: Well it was great. We were, they were musical people. My mother was very musical and my sister and they were in to all sorts of shows like the Maid of the Mountains and The Chocolate Soldier and Rosemarie. That kind of show. They loved it. And when my brother decided he wanted to be on the stage they were over the moon simply because he wanted to be on stage and so - BW: And did he get a scholarship for his dancing or anything like that? JBF: Oh no what he did was he went with the Jackson Boys to, his first job was he joined the Jackson Boys, a troupe of people dancing and they finished up in Paris at the, I think it was the Casino de Paris and he was there ‘til the Germans, the war started in ‘39 and they were either threatening to overrun France or they had actually started but my mother lost touch and was worried stiff and then the next thing we heard about him was that he was in Holland with the company, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo run by a fellow called Leonide Massine. He’s also a world famous performer if you care to go through the, and the next minute we heard he was in America so of course he was delighted that he’d got out of it ‘cause there was no way he would ever have made a servicemen of any kind. He was just, he was a piano player, played the piano, singing and dancing you know. One of the times he was playing the piano and Miss [Stangette?] whom you no doubt have never heard of, she used to sit on the piano and she was the toast of Paris and she used to come out in this café, Casino de Paris or whatever it was, a nightclub and do the singing while Fred played. My sister was also a pianist so we – BW: And were you musical yourself? JBF: Oh yes. I, I was the only one that didn’t get the lessons because the money ran out. My father had a stroke. My father was a veteran of the Boer war complete with medal. BW: And you’ve got his medal here. JBF: And - BW: Which has got to be a rare item in itself. JBF: Yes well its solid silver, unlike the tin ones we got from the last war. BW: Yeah. JBF: With bars and - BW: Yeah. JBF: And he was shot off his horse somewhere in South Africa and he said the worst thing about it was the two hundred mile trip in a cart, [bullock?] cart to get to the boat to come home. Well he came home and survived and they invalided him out of the army in 1900 and he was never called up for the ‘14 war. He was unfit for further service and that’s, and he had a stroke about, what, 1931 sometime in the early 30s. I never knew him as a man really. He was, like all Victorians he was here and you were over there, you know. That’s just how it was. He was a nice guy you know, it just - BW: Yeah. More of a father figure. JBF: A father figure. BW: A strict father figure in a sense. JBF: Exactly. Yeah. Mother did all the slogging, you know. Kept us all together. BW: And what was school like for you? JBF: Oh a bit disastrous because I just didn’t get on somehow or other. I just didn’t get on. I left at sixteen and a half and I was really contemplating. I thought well I’d better do something about it so I just started to do the school certificate rerun at night school and the war started. BW: And what subjects were you studying in your certificate at night school? JBF: I got credits in history, English, and geography and I failed in chemistry and math er French and chemistry. That was it. And as a matter of interest I had my French book stolen for the last nine months before the exam and so there was no way I was going to pass it anyway you know. I just. Anyway I got out of school. Got this job with paper merchants LS Dixon and Co Limited. Very old fashioned, very conservative Liverpool Company. BW: And what were you doing in the paper merchants? JBF: Clerking. Booking orders, arranging for the orders to get out to the warehouse, seeing that they were all packed up properly and delivered to whoever, you know. BW: And so presumably you had this job for about year eighteen months. JBF: That’s right. BW: Until war broke out. JBF: Well, the story about the war thing is sitting opposite us was a veteran of the war. He said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘It’ll be over by Christmas,’ you know. It was exactly the same as the pre-war people. It will be over by Christmas and ‘course it wasn’t and then it got around to Dunkirk you know when the three hundred and thirty three thousand were being picked up in France and Eric, sitting opposite me, Eric [McKim?] he said, ‘You know, Jack. We should do something about it really. I know we’re underage.’ We was, I was eighteen I think or something like that and we went to the police station in Derby Lane and signed on and then from Derby Lane I got the call to report to the abattoir in Prescot Road and I was given that. BW: And this is a card that says you’re joining the Local Defence Volunteers. JBF: That’s right, yes. BW: G division. JBF: Yeah BW: Dated 13th of June 1940. So this is right after the evacuation of Dunkirk. Right at the height of - JBF: Well it was Dunkirk that, Dunkirk was the end of May. BW: Yeah. JBF: 1940 and we finished up in this abattoir with that and we had instructions when the church bells landed er sounded you know we were told to destroy our identity you know, and so we joined the Home Guard and, or the LDV as it was. We had neither uniforms nor rifles or anything you know and we used to do marching about and guard and such like and the one terrifying moment in the, as an LDV was that the church bells had rung. A corporal came around, 2 o’clock in the morning, ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘It’s on,’ so we get up to the orphanage and we’re stood in two lines at the back of the orphanage facing Speke in front of trenches full of water that we’d dug, you know in the 1914 style. BW: Yeah. Zigzag. JBF: And everybody was mystified but we were all looking from Speke for the parachutists you know and we were there for a couple of hours and then suddenly, you know, we, it all vanished. The whole thing fell apart. There was nothing. Nobody landed. And we, we’d been given twenty four hours rations which was hard tack and corned beef. Well we ate those in about half an hour. Just sat around and ate it all. By 3 o’clock we’d eaten the day’s rations you know and that’s how the, it’s perfectly right, I’m Pike in the Dad’s Army because I was that age and everybody else who carefully avoided guard duties and all the nasty bits were bank managers or foremen and something else or assistant managers in bread shops or whatever it was, you know and Mr Mainwaring is a dead ringer for the CO you know. BW: Of your unit. JBF: Ex, in the, ex in, he was a bank manager you know and he got the atmosphere you know. It was typical and that went on for fifteen months until I was called up and then finally I got the call up papers and joined the RAF on the 15th of September 1941. BW: And did you see, during your time as an LDV volunteer did you see any raids over Liverpool because - JBF: Oh yes. BW: There were quite a few raids by the Luftwaffe on the - JBF: That’s a separate chapter. We were formed by the company which was in town, Cable Street, into parties of three and we did night duty on the premises during the blitz and the most graphic one of the blitz was we were playing table tennis as something to do while it was all going crash bang wallop ‘cause we were near the docks and they were really and then this hell of an explosion. It shook the place absolutely, we thought and we were in the cellar so we managed, we decided we’d better go around and see everything was intact. Nothing. So we went outside. Went up Thomas Street into South John Street and at the junction of North John Street and Lord Street was a huge pile of debris, masonry and out of it was sticking arms and legs and so we went up like this, you know the real - BW: Yeah. Sort of - JBF: John Wayne, sort, you know. BW: Covering your eyes. Yeah. JBF: And on the, on the traffic light was a sailor trying to knock out the lights with a brick so we get up there looking and thinking oh my God what are we going to see and they were all tailors dummies. There wasn’t a person in it. The shops around that area were tailors shops and the bomb had hit Church House, blown that to pieces and the blast had blown all these dummies out of the shop windows and somehow or other they all arrived together in the middle. So we got over that. That was the most graphic of the, and then the next one was during the May we had, I don’t know if you know about the blitz but Liverpool, before Hitler invaded Russia he blitzed Liverpool as a good start to stopping the shipping in the May. The May blitz it’s called and that week we had a floating land mine drift over the house and blew up on the Swanside estate. Blew all those houses up and the blast took the windows out of the back of our house and holes in the roof, hole in the roof and all the celings had holes in where the draft had came down but the most awful thing was the soot because we all had chimneys and everywhere was covered in soot you know so on the Sunday my mother and I we started clearing up and I said, ‘I’ve got to go to work,’ you know so I got the bike out and we started down for the, for the town and I got to [Clatton] Street and the place was covered in glass. I thought well this is the end of the bike if I ride so I picked the bike up, put it on my shoulder and walked down to Lewis’ which was just a hollow wreck. There was nothing visible at all. It had been on fire and they’d put it out and there was just and they ground that down to Boots on the corner, round the corner and I got as far as the bottom of Lord Street, Whitechapel and Paradise Street and there was a tape across so I got to there and the strange thing was where what we could see of Cable Street which was right at the back of Lord Street you could see daylight you know. I thought well that’s funny, it doesn’t look too good so I said to the man, ‘My job’s around the corner.’ He said, ‘No it isn’t,’ he said, ‘It’s finished. You can’t go around there.’ And two four storey buildings that was the office, the warehouse, the factory and the second warehouse were about this high. It had just burned. The whole thing had gone because it was a paper warehouse. Couldn’t be better, you know, once, and it was fire that, on that particular blitz. BW: Raised the building to about two foot high. JBF: It was just about two foot high and I was standing there dumb. I thought, ‘Well ok the house has gone up now the jobs gone up. What do we do now for an encore?’ Sort of thing. And I got a tap on the shoulder. I looked around and it was the manager Mr Lloyd. He said, ‘John,’ he said, ‘We’re all around at the Allied Paper.’ So I hot footed it around to the Allied Paper in Hood Street and the entire office collection was sitting there looking at each other you know. So they didn’t know what to, ‘cause there was not even a place to go to. The place had vanished. Literally. Four storey buildings just vanished and Mr Packer was the export manager, he said, ‘Well John, if you need something to do come with me and we’ll see what’s happened to the shipping.’ So I was delighted, so, ‘Certainly Mr Packer.’ So off we set down to the pier head and we went around people like James Dowie, Gracie Beasley the whole line, that kind of thing, JT Fletcher’s and made enquiries to find out what was missing and what wasn’t you know and we made a list of everything because he had cargo on boats you know. He used to do business with the West Indies and the unfortunate thing for him was that Mr Woodley who was about, there was no pension scheme in this particular company and Mr Woodley the export manager was about seventy three and he was still coming to work because there was no pension and he got knocked down and killed in the blackout so that was the end of the, of the export information so they just had to start from scratch you know ‘cause even Sid Woodley had disappeared, you know, and then there was, I can’t really remember because it was the in-between but we ended up in the banana rooms in Fitzpatrick’s in Queens Square. That’s where I left to join the air force. The Banana Rooms, of course there were no bananas coming in during the war and there were just these big spaces and they started the firm from that that the lucky thing was they had a government quota for paper and that didn’t alter despite all that had gone on so they started with the quota that they had and they stocked these Banana Rooms with paper and started to carry on the business and the other intriguing thing was the books had been in the cellar in Cable Street and they were in fireproof safes which was great except they were cooked. They weren’t burned. They were just cooked. So the senior members of the accounts department were transported every day to Mr Dixon’s house on the Wirral and they each had an egg, an egg slice you know and they would lift each page up and turn it over and find out how much ‘cause the books were handwritten. It was just antediluvian but it was part of the course. NH: The time. Yeah. JBF: Antediluvian, you know, everything was by hand. We wrote orders in books by hand. The books were sent to the forwarding man and he’d organise the stuff you know and finally I got my call up papers and Mr Cook said, ‘Ok,’ he says, ‘Well as things stand, Jack,’ he said, ‘Your job will be open when you come back,’ and that’s exactly how it was. The job was open when I came back five years later. BW: And during the time and this was all through 1940. The bombing raids and things. JBF: Up to September the 15th 1941. BW: Did you happen to see anything of the Battle of Britain? I know that was concentrated over the south east but there were raids and intercepts from squadrons up here. Did you see anything of that? JBF: In Liverpool during the lunch hour when we were out there was a couple of times when German aircraft were over and everybody was out looking at them you know and there was a bit of fighting as far as I can remember but I don’t think there was too much this end. BW: No. JBF: It was the blitz for Liverpool. That was the thing. BW: And were you on duty during the night time and sort of working during the day? JBF: Oh yes. BW: Did you alternate your civilian job with your LDV duties? JBF: The big plus factor was that after your night’s duty you went in to Brown’s, the café in Cable Street, and had a bacon and egg breakfast and then you went home you know from the day ‘cause there, there wasn’t really that much happening at that stage of the war. Everybody was non-plussed. Nobody knew whatever was happening. You know. It hadn’t settled down to anything. And - BW: And what drew you to join the RAF? Did you apply to join or JBF: Well – BW: Were you offered a choice of which service? JBF: When I went for the call up interview I said, ‘Well I’d like to join the RAF.’ They said, ‘What would you like to be?’ So I quickly said, ‘Oh I’d like to be a mechanic,’ you know. They said, ‘’Ok.’ Then the next minute I was sent to, what’s the local RAF place there? BW: Woodvale. NH: Woodvale. JBF: No. Not Woodvale. Closer. NH: Closer? JBF: Yeah. Where, where were the Yanks locally? NH: Oh Burton Wood. BW: Yeah. JBF: Burton Wood. It was in that area as far as I can remember and sat an exam. BW: There was a recruiting centre or an RAF station at Padgate. Does that, that was near Warrington. JBF: Well it might have been. BW: Sort of Burton Wood area. NH: Yeah. BW: Ok. JBF: I went in the Warrington area. BW: Yeah. JBF: And took, and sat an exam and I passed that and so I was down to be a mechanic. BW: And when you say mechanic were there different types of mechanic that you could apply to be? Did you have a choice in that or were you directed simply as - JBF: I’ve no idea. I didn’t even know what a mechanic was - BW: Right. JBF: I just said I’d like to be a mechanic because if I played with anything it was with Meccano before the war and I think I had some sort of mechanical ability you know and so I thought well I’m going to be an office for the rest of my life. I’d just like to do something different never realising I’d be doing it for the next five years but there you are. BW: Did, did the thought of being aircrew ever appeal to you at all? JBF: Yeah. I volunteered for aircrew and got halfway through the medical until the eyesight test and that was the end of that. BW: What would you have liked to have done as a member of aircrew? What do you - JBF: Well - BW: Think your preference would have been? JBF: In the talk I was at Wyton at the time and the flight engineers were in vogue at the time. I thought well with the basic knowledge I’ve already got I think I could have passed the rest of it to become a flight engineer so when they asked me at the medical lark I said, ‘Flight engineer.’ BW: Ok. And instead once, once they’d done the assessment and found your eyesight wasn’t up to scratch you were then posted to another base for - JBF: No. BW: Mechanical training. JBF: I just went back to being where I was in Wyton. BW: I see. So while you were still working as a mechanic you then volunteered for aircrew. JBF: That’s right. For aircrew yes. BW: They said you couldn’t be selected for aircrew and you returned to your trade. JBF: I went back to the trades and being a mechanic. Yeah. BW: And what squadron were you at there? JBF: At Wyton it was 109. BW: And you say this was a Pathfinder squadron. JBF: Yeah. This was a Pathfinder squadron, yeah. The sister squadron was 83 squadron. They were Lancasters. BW: And they were on the same base were they? JBF: Same base yeah. BW: And – JBF: We were there for about nine months at Wyton and it was at Wyton that the first Oboe raid by Mosquitoes took place which was my squadron and my aircraft was the first aircraft to do something with the Oboe. The pilot was Squadron Leader Bufton and the navigator was, I think it was a Flight Lieutenant Ifould, an Australian. BW: So this was Squadron Leader Buckton. Is that - JBF: Bufton. B U F yeah. BW: B U F T O N. JBF: They’re famous in the air force because he had a brother also in the air force and he had a son er another brother rather, a sergeant in the mechanical line. BW: And his navigator was a flight lieutenant. JBF: Ifould. I F O U L D. BW: And so servicing this particular aircraft do you remember anything specific about it? Possibly even the registration or the - JBF: Well it was - BW: Code. JBF: DK33, I think it’s four. The three three’s right but the fours and it was - BW: Ok. JBF: D-Donald. BW: D-Donald. JBF: Yeah it was D Donald. It was changed to L-Leather later on but it was D-Donald when it was flying when it flew to this, I found out later it was a power station in Holland right on the edge of the German border and that was the first time, I can confirm all this, these books, I’m in these books and pictures you know. This is Tim, you know, he just, ‘Look dad,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen this,’ so - BW: And did you know Squadron Leader Bufton and Flight Lieutenant Ifould very well? Did they stay with that aircraft for - JBF: Oh yeah they stayed for - BW: For a period? JBF: Quite some time. I mean Bufton became a group captain. I’m sure Ifould did because they were, they were dyed in the wool, I think, pre-war airmen if you know what I mean. They were really the real McCoy you know. This is how the air force won the Battle of Britain. With people like them really because they knew what they were doing. BW: And I’m assuming that they had already done a tour on bombers prior to becoming - JBF: They must. BW: A Pathfinder. JBF: I should say so. The squadron from Wyton came from Boscombe Down were all the experiments were done. BW: And what kind of guys were they. These, these two? JBF: Very nice. Very nice men. Excellent blokes. BW: Did you have a good rapport with them? JBF: All the time yes. BW: And so this remained your aircraft, D Donald for – JBF: If you want - BW: Some months. JBF: If you want a little anecdote with it being the very first raid with Oboe it was the very first Oboe raid for 109 Mosquitos and they decided that nothing should happen to the aircraft so we, they did the MFTs, they did the flying and then they carried the tractors, you know, hooked up the tractors and put the three of them in a hangar. This is, it’s dark at this stage and they’re busy doing and I’m on one wing and I’m bawling, ‘You’re too close. You’re too close,’ and the next minute we’d cracked the [?] on this wing. Pandemonium and, ‘Who’s,’ I said, ‘Look I’ve been bawling my head off.’ And the corporal who was doing the manoeuvring were all too excited to listen, you know. Anyway, it was superficial and in no time they’d got it put right but the interesting thing about this particular time was that the squadron was paraded in a hangar and addressed by the CO and he just simply said, ‘You are engaged in a very special operation and if I hear the word Oboe mentioned in any pub around this district,’ he said, ‘Your feet won’t touch the ground.’ And out of nowhere we were surrounded by plain clothes which I suppose were detectives and everybody was suitably terrified of course and I didn’t mention Oboe till about 1960 [laughs]. There was three types of bomb aiming equipment. There was Oboe, Gee and H2S and they were, they followed on, you know and I think by the time we got too Little Staughton we were in to the H2S or Gee. BW: And did you work on these bits of kit or were you - JBF: No. All the - BW: You still on the airframe? JBF: All the, the advanced kit, it was Canadians, they all, it was a Canadian unit. They were all Canadians. They all got drunk together, they went out together. It was just like that you know. They were told not to speak to anybody and they were all nice guys it’s just they’d been frightened like us, you know. BW: So you never worked on these sets but you knew they were on the aircraft. JBF: Oh yes. We, what we used to do, they did the NFT. BW: What’s the NFT? JBF: Night Flying Test. The - BW: Right. JBF: In the afternoon. We’d fill them up with oil, petrol and coolant and look at the engines. The big problem with the mark 4 Mosquito was because they were flying a lot higher than the bombers, thirty, twenty eight, thirty thousand feet they were prone to oil leaks so we got quite adept. What we used to do was they’d say that, a bit of a mess coming down and you’d see it everywhere and so they used to take the cowlings off and start the engine up and we’d all, before they started the engines up we’d crawl up the back of the aircraft and hang on and look in to the engine and see if we could spot the oil leaks because there was a million nuts there you know and quite, we did spot - BW: And so were you, were you on top of the wing at this point? JBF: You were on top of the wing with about, what, a foot off, well three foot off the propeller. BW: I was going to say ‘cause you’re having to look over in to the cowling and the blade is spinning. JBF: The blades are going around full pelt ‘cause they went up high they were at full throttle you know but it worked. It was primitive but there was no other way. The thing was leaking but when they got up that high and with the thing going and we just thought we used to see dribbles coming down. The carburettor was on the back and we used to see dribbles coming down and then we’d work it back. Well it was those nuts and Stan, the corporal, Corporal Wright when it stopped he’d, I said, ‘We’ll check this section,’ and he did do and they were loose you know. We got quite good at that really. BW: And these, this is clearly in the days before any sort of protective safety equipment and goggles. JBF: Oh no there’s - BW: Ear defenders and things. JBF: Well to give you an idea, when they, have you ever been close to a Mosquito? It’s quite tall you know. BW: I’ve been to one in a museum, yes, but - JBF: It’s quite, the end - NH: Not with engines running [laughs] JBF: The, we had ladders to get on the back, you know. Well of course within no time the ladders had disappeared because we’d no fuel in the huts so everybody chopped up the ladders and we used to use, when they, as you know you get in a Mosquito in the centre underneath and there’s a metal stair thing. BW: Yeah. JBF: Well we used to use those to get on the back and my souvenir was this finger. BW: And this is on your left hand. JBF: Yeah. There’s a stich here and a stich there, a stich there and a stich there because - BW: On your little finger. JBF: It was wet and being tall you know I was able to go it. I mean Handley, he was about five foot three, couldn’t even get near the thing you know ‘cause I could reach and put the ladder on and it was wet and the ladder slipped and my hand went around the engine nacelle and there’s, I went to the Chiefy, you know, Lendrum and he said, ‘You’d better go and get that fixed,’ so I went to the sick bay and they said, ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘Yes.’ They cleaned it up and I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was that, you know. And they said, ‘Oh yes. We need a few stitches. Right. Stand by.’ So when I’d got over that he said, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Two hours excused duties for bawling. BW: And so they’d done the stitching in your hands without anaesthetic. JBF: Well I did two hours excused duties. Well I didn’t do. BW: That was it. JBF: I went back to the unit and said to the chief, I said, ‘Sorry I’m on excused duties.’ ‘Oh, well, just before you go have a look at this’ [laughs]. So - NH: Oh dear. Yeah JBF: That was that. BW: And the Mosquito clearly used Merlin engines. Do you know what - JBF: That’s right. Merlin 20s. BW: And how did you rate those? JBF: Oh they were smashing. I never worked on anything else other than the, in Burma we had Hurricane, Hurricane 2Cs cannon and they were Merlin engines and then when they converted after the war to Spit 9s they were a very posh but we had to have training for these they were so posh. You know the latest Merlin engine that was in the Spitfire 9 which was of course was five years after the original Spitfires and we just, we knew how to fill them up with the oil and coolant and so on - BW: And did you specialise in engine maintenance or were you working on the airframe of the Mosquito as well? JBF: Oh no the air frame was a rigger called Alan Fraser, the rigger. Each aircraft had a fitter and a rigger as we were called. The airframe was a man who’d been trained as an air frame mechanic and I was on the engines as the engine mechanic. BW: And so who was the air frame mechanic? JBF: Alan. Alan Fraser. BW: He was the rigger. JBF: The rigger. That’s right. BW: And is that the same. JBF: That’s right. BW: Same name as an air frame engineer. JBF: Air frame mechanic, it was the rigger. BW: Ok. JBF: Yeah. BW: And you had a corporal in charge of the team. JBF: Yeah. BW: Stan Wright. JBF: Stan Wright was the corporal. BW: And did you mention an LAC Handley? JBF: Oh he was my pal in Burma. BW: Ok so he was - JBF: LAC Handley. BW: Not part of this particular - JBF: Yeah. BW: Team. JBF: He wasn’t part of this set up. BW: And your chief tech, is that right, was, who was your chief tech - JBF: Oh Chiefy Lendrum. BW: Lendrum. JBF: Yeah. Lendrum was the - BW: Is that one, one word L E N D R U M. JBF: I think so yeah. NH: It wasn’t Len Drum. JBF: He was the flight sergeant, you know. He was in charge. In fact I think without, off the record as you might say he was responsible for the ladders. [laughs] BW: He was the one, he was the one who took them away to use as firewood. JBF: And they were all, we’d burned them all. I mean there was quite, it wasn’t hilarious, you were working until you, you know feel asleep sort of thing and it was a real band of blokes you know. It was, I think that’s really what won the war was the fact that everybody just got stuck in. Churchill was marvellous. And everybody got stuck in, you know. I don’t think Hitler could have realised what he’d awakened in the British when he was busy refusing Chamberlain’s piece of paper, you know. He didn’t realise exactly because Goering said, ‘Oh you know we’ll subjugate the British. The air force will do this,’ that and the other you know and of course he didn’t. Battle of Britain. And they turned to Russia. BW: And so just thinking about the maintenance unit or the mechanics involved on the base here. JBF: Yeah. BW: So there’s, there’s the two guys there’s yourself and the rigger responsible for the aircraft and a corporal. Was he over more than one aircraft or just - JBF: No. Just the one. BW: Ok. So there was the three of you assigned to the one aircraft. JBF: That’s right. BW: And the chief tech presumably looked after - JBF: He was over the flight. BW: The whole lot. JBF: A flight yeah. BW: Ok. JBF: Yeah. The six aircraft. BW: Did you know the other crews at all? The other flying - JBF: Well we knew them but – BW: Crews on the Mossies? JBF: We stuck together really, you know. Yes we knew all of them really, by name but - BW: And you you didn’t have cause to work on any of the other aircraft. Say if one riggers went down. JBF: Oh sometimes. It depends. One of the features of the Rolls Royce engine was I think it was to do with the carburettor and there was this cup and it used to accumulate water so what we had to do was we had to take off the locking wire, unscrew the cup, drain the water out, put the cup back and put the locking wire on and the finished article had to be supervised by the corporal, you know, that you’d actually done what you were supposed to do and - BW: And the paperwork that they use nowadays certainly was a form 700. Was that still in place then? JBF: Yes. Form 700. Yeah. BW: So that’s been right the way through the service. JBF: That you signed to say that, yes, you’d done the - BW: And you obviously knew the crew well in terms of the ground crew who you worked with. Did you socialise together and live together in the barracks? JBF: We lived together in the barracks. The ground crew. Yes. We didn’t socialise, and it was discouraged, any of the air crew. The air crew were under strict instructions to say nothing when they got out of the aeroplane and in the five years the only time two aircrew ever got out and said something was when they were steaming along at three or four hundred miles an hour in a Mosquito and an aircraft went around them like this. BW: In a circular motion. JBF: And they got out of the Mosquito, ‘We’ve seen it. We’ve seen it.’ We said, ‘What?’ And it was the first type of German jet fighter. NH: Yeah. JBF: And it was doing five hundred miles an hour or something and it just went around them while they were busy coming home or whatever they were doing, you know. BW: And so the aircrew never talked to the ground crew. JBF: Never. BW: About the mission that they’d done. JBF: Oh no. No. You didn’t get anything off them. No. BW: But they must presumably have told you about anything to you like oil problems in the engine. JBF: Oh yes. BW: Or anything they’d seen. JBF: There was a report you see. What used to happen was the air crew would come in and they’d get out the aircraft. Then they’d go and see the adjutant or whoever was in charge. They had to write a report on the raid and a report on the kite and that was relayed through Chiefy Lendrum to Stan Wright and Stan Wright would get it and say, ‘There appears to be a leak on this,’ and, ‘That’s not happening,’ or, you know. They were very reliable aircraft I must say. The only fault with them when the first Mosquitos came the cowling section of the construction hadn’t been talking to the body and so the cowling went up past the intake on the front so when you were getting, you could get it off but you couldn’t get it back in, you know so they very quickly instead of having the cowling to go that way they just had it below the intake because the two intakes are either side of the cockpit and the problem with that was they were having birds in them as they were flying. They used to get birds wedged in these. BW: So they had regular bird strikes. Is what you’re saying? JBF: Oh regular, bird strikes were fairly common. BW: And did that happen during the raid or normal flying testing or was it mainly around the airfield? JBF: Oh it was around the airfield. I don’t think it was in - BW: No. JBF: While they were bombing, you know. BW: Yeah. JBF: ‘Cause they went up at least, I think it was, twenty eight thousand feet and the Lancasters were all getting shot down and they were about what about, what, twenty six, twenty four thousand feet. What happened to the Mosquitoes was they’d come back with tiny little holes in and it was the, where the anti-aircraft shell had exploded as they were wooden they took everything. Nothing bounced off and when the chippies came, if there were holes they used to get to this and look through and see the other hole where it had gone straight through, you know. The marvellous thing about the Mossie was despite it being wood it was almost indestructible. It was marvellous, you know. Just a marvellous aircraft. BW: Because it could take so much battle damage - JBF: Yeah. BW: Without being lost if you like. It wasn’t going to - JBF: That’s right, without it being. What, the chippies had this technique if it was a biggish hole they’d cut a kind of the top layer of the plywood or whatever it was off and fit. BW: Yes. JBF: A new piece of plywood in and put the tape, you know, around and that would and do it all up with the dope and it would, you wouldn’t know it was there, you know. BW: So they’d sort of cut a square patch out around the - JBF: Cut a square patch out around the hole, yeah. BW: Around the hole and - JBF: Yeah. BW: Replace that. JBF: And if it was small enough they’d just cover it over and do the same thing. They wouldn’t take any wood out. They’d just cover it over. BW: And the air crew found that quite satisfactory. JBF: Oh yes. BW: There were no difference in handling or anything like that? JBF: It didn’t detract from the performances. BW: So, I guess the most complex part of the Mosquito for you was actually the engine that you were working on. JBF: That’s right. Yeah. BW: You found them pretty reliable. JBF: Oh yes. Yeah. BW: Did you find them easy to work on or were they particularly complex in their own right? JBF: Oh no once we’d learned the basics, funnily, the lucky thing for me was at Cosford we trained on Merlin engines and so when I was posted to a Merlin, I was first of all posted to an air gunners school with Blenheims and I’d never seen a radial engine because there were no radial engines in, we’d worked on Merlins you know. So I got out of there, I didn’t like it. I put in for a posting which is how I got to Wyton and the big thing about South Wales was the rugby. I was playing rugby for the station because it’s, you know it’s a, you know a big rugby area you know, miles away from the war. It was an air gunners school and the air gunners were carefully separated from the crew, the ground crew, and they were trained and passed out with all the pomp and ceremony and they went on to whichever squadron the were allocated to and lasted about ten minutes, you know, because the technique of downing a Lancaster was to get after the guns to start with so there was the one sticking out of the front, nothing underneath and the upper. The - BW: Mid upper gunner. JBF: W/Op AG you know, so the Germans shot underneath behind the tail so that the fellow, nobody could get at them, straight into the cockpit. I mean people go on about the Lancaster. How marvellous it was. It was a death trap and these books will illustrate how because the number, you know they lost fifty or sixty thousand men and they were sitting ducks once a night fighter, and they would never dream of, where you see on all the films where they’re all coming down this way they just went underneath and it was the same with the Flying Fortress. They had to stop flying daylight raids despite all the under guns. They had, they had a fella sitting in a thing with guns underneath. It didn’t matter. The first one that lost his lives was the gunner and then it was a sitting duck. They could do what they liked. I believe one German ace shot a hundred and seventy three Flying Fortresses down. Just one bloke. BW: The sister squadron on the base you mentioned was 83 squadron. JBF: That’s right, yeah. BW: So did you hear back from ground crews and, and talk in the barracks let’s say or the mess about what was happening on their side. JBF: No. Nothing. They was billeted in separate, 109 was billeted here, say. The other side of the aerodrome was 83. BW: So completely separate squadrons JBF: Completely. BW: With own messes. JBF: Yes. Well, with us being, they were Pathfinder bombers and it was secret at that stage, this Oboe thing so they wanted the least person that knew you know and they had you suitably terrified. You felt you had private men, you know under the bed sort of thing. As kids, we were only kids. I mean I was about twenty two or something, Twenty three. BW: Thinking back then to repairing a Merlin what would you say was the most complex thing to repair? What was the most difficult - JBF: Well - BW: Sort of repair or work you had to do on it? JBF: We didn’t do repairs. What happened was they went in after a number of hours for scheduled maintenance and they got the plugs changed and the oil completely changed and the coolant and they did tests on the engine itself to see that it was still workable because they were work horses you know, they was. I mean we never ever had an engine change in the Mosquito. I don’t ever remember one having to go in for an engine change. They all went in for repairs because of damage or wear or whatever. But just a marvellous piece of equipment, you know. BW: And when they were brought back or once you’d finished the repair did you have to do engine run ups to verify that it was working alright? JBF: Oh every day, part of the night, you had to run, you had to DI the engine to see it was, you know, add the coolant in and the oil and all the rest of it. Then it had a test run on the ground. The engines were test run on the ground and to start off only the corporal did the testing and then finally we did that, I did, you know I’d been there a couple of years finally and we did the test runs if they were on leave or anything. So you get to, you’ve got to run, a Mosquito is quite, you know, terrifying to start with. The corporal had someone sitting with you and that. BW: And so this was done on, on a test bed presumably on - JBF: No. No. Just where it was in the grass. BW: Ok. JBF: They didn’t go anywhere. BW: Ok. And - JBF: It was part of the night flying test to run the aircraft before it went up. BW: And although you mentioned previously that when you were looking for a leak you got on the top of the wing to look in. JBF: On top of the wing, yeah. BW: Did you have to do the same once you’d repaired, once you’d serviced the engine? JBF: It was only for oil leaks. BW: Ok. JBF: If they came back and mentioned any kind of leak we used to do this on the back of the aircraft and look in just to see if we could see, you know. BW: Did you ever get to go in the cockpit to start the engines? JBF: Yes. I’ve actually flown in a Mosquito. Wing Commander Green was going up for an NFT and Stan Wright fixed it for me to go with him and the problem was at twenty thousand feet there was a juddering. It was very slight, he said, but at twenty thousand feet down and it started to do this you know and it turned out a mixture problem. Something was going wrong at that particular height with the mixture and they fixed it up and it was ok. I only did the, I had one trip in a Mosquito. BW: How long was that? How long did it last? JBF: Well, basically the NFT about half an hour, three quarters of an hour. BW: And what, what did you experience during a flight? What was it like? JBF: Well I was just gobsmacked. I was absolutely, you know, like this, sort of thing. BW: And he didn’t, did he let you have a go at the controls or not? JBF: Oh no. No. They wouldn’t let you do anything. God. Strewth. That would have been it. BW: But you got to sit next to the pilot while he’s – JBF: You’ve got to, well the - BW: Was doing the test. JBF: The navigator’s here and the pilot’s here you know and – BW: Yeah. JBF: The throttles were in between. BW: It was exhilarating I’m assuming. JBF: Oh absolutely. Yeah. I was, I felt, you know, Group Captain Franklin, here we go, you know. Real Mr Mainwaring job you know. There’s one, I don’t know whether you want any story out of it but there was one graphic story that, that happened. I think it was at Marham and I was on the main plane waiting for the bowser to fill up and suddenly there were screams underneath the aircraft, ‘Help. Help.’ So I got off the main plane and got down and the armourer had primed a five hundred pound bomb and then he couldn’t hook it in so he was standing there so I got the bomb on my back and slowly, I was, you know strong in those days and I lifted it up. BW: So you crouched underneath it, took the weight on your back. JBF: I took the weight on my back and while he hooked it in. He said, ‘We’re alright now.’ I said, ‘Well we’re not being blown up at least,’ and the aftermath was I think the op was over because they were filling, we used to have to fill them up immediately they came back you know in case and Stan Wright came to me. He said, ‘You know, Jack,’ he said ‘Were you on the starboard wing?’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I got this scream from underneath and I went down and helped the armourer. We managed to get over the problem.’ When I came out everybody had vanished and the aircraft as far as we could make out had been to France or Germany and back with no petrol caps on the right side. So, he said, ‘You know,’ he said, ‘This is a court martial offence.’ I said, ‘Hang on.’ So I thought about it. So I got on the bike, went, cycled around into the hangar, all the lights were on and there were Mossies being maintained you know so I couldn’t see anybody so I climbed up on the back of this Mosquito, took off the two petrol caps, and the tops, put them in my jacket and got down. Nobody, didn’t see me so I, so I went to Stan. I said, ‘You’re alright, Stan. You won’t be court martialled.’ I said, ‘Here they are.’ [laughs] Gave him the two tops and the petrol. He was absolutely, you know, he was gobsmacked [caught the phrase locally?] and so hurriedly because the people that would have been up for the trouble were the mechanic that was on the other side of the Mosquito ‘cause he’d signed the 700 to say it was full and how the aircraft got to Germany and back with no petrol caps on we never knew and nobody else did because they didn’t know they were off. BW: And the air crew normally do checks before they - JBF: Oh yes. BW: Take off as well. JBF: Well they start the engines up and all that you know you had to. The method of starting was you had the trolley acc and you primed the engine. There was a little flap on the side and you primed the engine and then you give the signal up to the bloke on the trolley acc, he presses the - BW: Thumbs up. JBF: Electrics and it starts up, you know and he, if there was any worry it was when we hadn’t enough ground crew to go around. You had to do the two engines so you had to prime the one on the port side shall we say and then you had to come and prime the one on the starboard side and then you give the, and fortunately despite you know, I think it’s the quality of the workmanship really because we never ever had a failure. You know. Overheating. They both started each time even when there was only one man doing it because we’d no people to do it. BW: And in all weathers too. JBF: Oh well it was, you know, Norfolk in the winter is quite something else. The thing they used to do when it was a long raid we knew it was a long raid because they’d come out with urns of cocoa and corned beef sandwiches about that thick. BW: About two inch thick. JBF: And you could get, there was an unlimited supply. You could do, if you felt like running around a lot as we were during the night and so we got stuck into these. You know it was fine. Didn’t mind. The, really you have to be the age we were at. Anybody else, it must have been, you know if you were thirty five or forty or whatever it was it must have been awful, just, and with a family you know. Well one corporal developed shingles and it was the family. He was on the phone to the wife and the kid had measles or whatever it was you know and he was beside himself. I was exactly - BW: And yet - JBF: The right age for the war. It couldn’t have been better. NH: Yeah. BW: And as a single man you were quite happily sharing a barracks with your mates. JBF: Oh yes. I hadn’t got a girlfriend. I was just a single man, you know. In fact, one Christmas I gave up my leave for one of the married men who had kids you know. Which was nothing heroic. It was just common, you know. BW: Did, did you feel that your efforts were appreciated by the crews and the - JBF: Oh yeah. BW: Officers on the base? JBF: Oh everybody. It was a together thing. I mean working that close and their lives were involved. It was a very close knit, all the squadrons were the same. A very close knit unit. There was no Captain Mainwaring standing around, you know. I mean there was no saluting. BW: Really. JBF: You just got on with it and first names, you know they called you. BW: So - JBF: You always called them whatever they were like squadron leader, you know, Bufton and you gave them their rank but we were just Jack and Alan and Stan. BW: Were there any, you mentioned an error in someone leaving petrol caps off? Were there any incidents that you knew of elsewhere in the squadron perhaps? JBF: Well - BW: Where there was something that had been missed that resulted, for example, in an accident or the loss of an aircraft. JBF: Oh the only thing that we watched from start to finish was U-Uncle and two lads, they could have been more than twenty five, navigator and the pilot, you know and they were very excited. It was their first trip and we got them in and watched them and they took off and went straight, straight in. BW: So the nose pitched up and they went straight down. JBF: They went straight down and burned to death, the two of them. Big explosion. Bang. And I said that, there was this old sergeant and I said, he said they probably didn’t lock the throttles. They were that excited about getting up because they had to do a lot of homework in while they were in the aircraft to find out what they were going to do, you know. They just went straight in. BW: And that was close to or over the base. JBF: Well we just watched the whole thing. Yeah. And the ,our aircraft finally, when I say our aircraft this DK number 334 I think it was or 335 it crash landed and it was that old the aircrew hated it because it was absolutely on its tips you know. Did a hundred and eleven ops and it landed and the undercarriage went up into the - NH: The wing. JBF: Into the engine nacelle and just they weren’t hurt and that was it. They took us around and we were photographed, the three of us Alan, Stan and myself in front of this wreck. BW: So moving on from Wyton and Marham. JBF: Yes. BW: You mentioned that later in your service you transferred to 28 squadron. JBF: Yeah. BW: So what happened in the period between - JBF: Little Staughton - BW: This would be - JBF: Was the next thing after Marham. BW: And did you request a transfer to another squadron? JBF: What happened was I put in for overseas and said I’d serve anywhere because I I thought, well, realised, that we would never go anywhere else. We were, the war was well on from D Day. They were going into Germany, the armies, France and there was less, and it was rather backing up troops rather than bombing anywhere so I put in for overseas and said I’d serve anywhere and that’s how I came to go to 28 squadron. Next minute I was on a troop ship and then I was in North Western India at a place called Ranchi. BW: How do you spell that? JBF: I joined 28 squadron. BW: How do you spell Ranchi? JBF: R A N C H I. BW: And this was in North West India. JBF: North West India. Yeah. BW: And so the attraction of going was really because you felt there wasn’t going to be that much more - JBF: I was - BW: To do on the squadron. JBF: The age I was. Twenty four you know. BW: And you fancied the opportunity of going abroad. JBF: At least, I thought, yeah. The next minute the CO said, ‘Don’t unpack your kit you’re going to Burma.’ So I thought well this will be a change. So we gave in our blue, all the winter clothing and put in a kit bag and the marvellous thing was when it came back to us in Malaya it was intact for those two years. So with 28 squadron they were on rest and then they suddenly said, ‘We’re off. We’re starting off,’ and we went to Burma by road and rail and we got on the train. It went right up into the North West provinces of India you know, up to, by rail a change to the narrow gauge railway, Assam. That’s it. All that through I think it’s around the top of what is now Bangladesh you know and you go well India’s what you might call semi-primitive to absolutely basics. When you get up there the Naga tribesmen are still in the outfits, you know. I thought gee whiz if these fellas were in the Olympics they’d win everything. Their leg muscles were like this because they were hill men. Apparently, the English had civilised them and they were no longer head hunters. But they chased the Japanese. But what used to happen was you’d be standing there and they’d come down from the mountain and do what we called the shopping which was trying to get food, I think was the main thing. Then on the way back they had conical baskets which they put their provisions in and they each held the bottom of the conical basket and then they started a rhythm of steps and they went straight up the mountain like that. None of this we’ll climb here and all the movement was about fifteen of them all holding on. Nothing was out of place. Nothing. Must have been doing it all their lives. It was great. BW: Just out of interest how did you get shipped out to India? Did you fly out there or were you - JBF: No. It was the Cameronia. BW: Troop shipped. NH: Tell them about your Suez Canal. BW: Well the Suez Canal was - NH: I’ll make some tea while you - JBF: The reason I’ve told it is on the boxes of dates before the war you always had an Arab pulling two camels and I’m just lounging on the side of the Cameronia and suddenly an Arab pulling two camels appeared on the side of the Suez Canal. So I’ve seen it. You know. Right off the box. So, we, we finally landed in Bombay. Worli was the transit camp and then we were on the trains going to our different placements. BW: And this is Worli. JBF: Worli that’s the transit camp outside Bombay. BW: How do you spell Worli? JBF: I should imagine it’s something like W R O R L and L I somewhere on the end of it. And the thing to watch out for on the Indian trains are the hookers because they are going that slow when they go up hill the hookers jump on to the train with hooks and hook all the equipment out of the windows which are always open and Handley, my pal gets out in his underwear with just shorts and he gets out with an officer in a dressing gown. NH: All the gear had gone. JBF: We’d lost it all with the hookers. And well a real introduction to India, on the floor on the station was this old man covered in flies. He was just covered in flies and I said to one of the Anglos, I said, ‘Well what’s that?’ He said, ‘He’s just dying.’ And that, that sums India up for me you know. That was it. Another time I saw a man, he was quite a big man, he was on a piece of corrugated and four men were holding him you know and I said, ‘He looks dead.’ ‘He is dead. They’re just carting him off. He’s just died.’ It was just like Fu Manchu you know. Flares and this one had been. And we finally we were taken by truck to Burma and it was along the Manipur Road and then it’s, it’s a flat road in between mountains where Kohima and Imphal where they did the fighting and then the road goes like this and suddenly it turns right and starts to go up called The Chocolate Staircase when the monsoon was on because it was, and we were in these trucks, you know, and just went up one side and the other side and these trucks were just and Tamu, that was the first airstrip. Jungle. It was thick jungle you know. Thick jungle airstrip and the first casualty of 28 squadron happened at Tamu. One of the, flight lieutenant [Hewlis?] an Australian, he’d forgotten, they said, to lock, you had to, because the trees, it didn’t taper off the airstrip it came straight up so you had to bounce along the runway and suddenly do this. BW: Lurch in to the air. JBF: Well his undercarriage caught on the trees, tipped him over and he was hanging upside down burned to death. You know. And we just, that was the first introduction. Watching him burn to death in Tamu. BW: And 28 squadron, what did they fly? Were they [?] JBF: Hurricane 2Cs they were. Clapped out Hurricanes that, I mean, by that stage of the war the government, I should imagine was penniless and you name it and they hadn’t the wherewithal to replace them and it was a reconnaissance unit and the issue, the side sort of activity, shall we say, was shooting up the Japanese on the ground and that’s where we lost most of the aircraft because they were, the Japanese were very good shots and they used to shoot them down when they were doing the ground strafing and we were in the jungle from January, February and we went down the Kobor Valley in a truck which was thick jungle full of malaria and you name it and one thing we learned at that particular, you can’t pee out of a moving truck. It was in a convoy so he couldn’t stop so we each went to the back of the, we had a competition, we each went to the, got off our toolbox, went to the back, hanged up, everything organised and nothing came out and everybody was the same. You can’t pee out of a moving truck. BW: And what time of the war was this? This was after - JBF: This was - BW: D Day wasn’t it so was it late ‘44 when you transferred out there? JBF: This was ’44. Yeah. BW: Going in to early ‘45 JBF: Well forty, it was the end of ‘44 ’45. BW: So this was after the Battle of Kohima when you’d gone through the - JBF: Oh that was all. BW: Towns yeah, yeah. JBF: Oh all that would have been the ‘43 yes. All those, oh yes that was absolutely, the people that did that they should have been, what was left of them, they should be pensioned for life. They were fighting, they were fighting over a tennis court in one of the places. BW: And so you say 28 squadron was a reconnaissance squadron. JBF: That’s it. Reconnaissance and two cannon. BW: Yeah. JBF: That why they’re called 2Cs, two cannon, heavy, heavy machine gun, you know. What is it? Five? BW: Twenty millimetre. JBF: That’s it. Yeah. Twenty five millimetre. Quite heavy shells you know and when we got down to this Kalaymyo and it was just bush and we didn’t see an aircraft because the war was moving that quick. The next thing we were, by truck to a place called [Yau] which was an airstrip in the paddy fields. NH: Do you want another cup Brian? BW: Yes please. Thank you, Neil. And this is further into Burma. JBF: This is further into Northern Burma. Tamu’s up here and you come across like this to Mandalay. Well we went down the Kobor Valley and across to [Yau?] and [Yau?] we went to Sadong. BW: Thank you. JBF: Sadong was the airstrip outside Mandalay. The Japanese were still in Mandalay and this is where we lost the aircraft. The aircrew. We lost two or three aircrew here because the Japanese could shoot them as they come over the fort. They were in the fort, you know. They lost them there. BW: And even that was just down to small arms fire. JBF: I think it was small arms, I never saw ackack guns or even, we heard all the row that was going on but I don’t ever recollect, I think it was small arms fire. The Japanese rifle is 256 the, the calibre. You know, ours are 303. Their rifles were 256. Smaller bullets but just as lethal but of course they’re all five foot three so carrying something lighter was part of the course for them. So we were in Sadong and we were there quite some time and they used to have the mule trains going up to supply the troops. Like Sadong’s here and Mandalay is there and thirteen miles I think was the difference and they came one day and said, ‘You’re not going to bed. You’re going to fly down to Meiktila.’ And so we didn’t go to bed that particular night, struck the tents, got in the Dakotas. All the Dakotas had no doors on. If you want to be frightened go on a Dakota with no doors. And we landed in Meiktila and they hadn’t cleaned up the airstrip. All the Japanese they’d killed were everywhere which was the first time really I’d seen what you might call a battlefield and well we just got stuck in from there with the aeroplanes. BW: You mentioned that you’d struck tents. JBF: Oh yes. BW: Were all your accommodation presumably out in the Far East was in tents was it? JBF: While the campaigning was on it was tents. You had a piece of coconut matting with two sort of slide holes and through that went two pieces of bamboo. Now I pinched two full sets of runway grating. I’d call them nails. They were pieces of metal and they were driven into the ground so that when it was the monsoon they had the metal over and the aircraft didn’t sink so I got hold of four - BW: Pierced steel planking. JBF: Of these and I drove those in the ground put the bamboo on, tied on and my bed was off ‘cause you couldn’t, they wouldn’t let you sleep on the ground because there were scorpions, you know. All the stuff that’s there. Scorpion. If you left your tent flap open you couldn’t get in because of the bugs. Somebody did to see what would happen and it was an absolute carpet of every conceivable type of flying bug you’ve ever heard of. So we never did that again. NH: No. JBF: We got down to Meiktila. It all went very well and we knew the war was going well because the Arakan forces who had taken Meiktila our, our army was General Slim coming this way. The Yanks were on the outside coming that way and the Indian army was coming this way along the Arakan and it was the – BW: The opposite end. JBF: Arakan that had captured Meiktila and so we got on to Meiktila and, you know, set up and they were doing everything as usual. It was exactly the same. Seven hundred. Oil, so on and then see them off, bring them in and run them and so on. Keep them - BW: So even though you were working on different aircraft you were still working on the same engine to all - JBF: That’s right. BW: Intents and purposes. JBF: Merlin 20s. That’s why I was posted to the Hurricane squadron, because it was home from home. We knew what to do and could do it right away. BW: Even in those adverse conditions and presumably not as well supplied. JBF: Well - BW: Did you, did you have trouble with supplies? JBF: Well we had nothing to eat. That was the trouble with supplies. But I mean hens eggs in Burmese is [ju ug?] [koplar?] is cloths. So you had a pair of underpants and you’d go [ju ug] like that [koplar] and so you’d get the hens egg and they’d get the underpants. So the net result it - BW: So you’d trade. JBF: We had nothing to wear either. [laughs] BW: So you traded your under - JBF: Not that it mattered ‘cause you never had a shirt on anyway. It was just a pair of shorts, socks and boots you know that’s the and with your boots you had to knock your boots out every day because the scorpions loved, it must have been the smell of your feet, they loved getting in the boots so we had to be, and tool boxes. If you, when you opened your toolbox the first thing to do is wait and see if anything moves. Then you’d know there was something in there that shouldn’t be in there you know. So we’re getting on with it and I think the most distressing part of Meiktila was a trench full of Japanese who’d been, they’d used the flame thrower on them. There was about anywhere between fifty and a hundred Japanese who’d been fried. BW: All in a trench. JBF: All in the trench. ‘Cause they, they were facing either this way or that way and the flame thrower had come this way and just fried the lot. BW: And was this at the edge of an airstrip or near the airstrip - JBF: Yeah. It was Meiktila airstrip. BW: Where you were working. JBF: There were shell holes with Japanese in. The first time we saw, there was one Japanese well over six feet. He was dead of course, in the shell hole. It was the first time I’d seen a big, they were all about this big but, anyway - BW: And this, this was obviously all after the battle but you never came into a closer contact with the Japanese at any time. JBF: No. Only as prisoners, not as - the next thing that happened with Meiktila he said, ‘Nine of you are being flown into the [Tongu] Box.’ Well I was picked as one of the nine so we were flown into the [Tongu] Box and I know when it was simply because we, over the radio that we heard that the Germans had packed up so it’s got to be the 8th of May. And we were in the [Tongu] Box and the laugh about that was we’d got two tents, we only had two tents. There was nine of us and suddenly the ants started, up and they had a procession going in no time. There was millions you know. Ants, you name it. They’ve got it. They were going up the guide ropes up to the top right up to the fourteen foot EPI down the other side so we thought we’ll have a bit of fun here so we got the lighted taper thing and we started chasing the ants off the, the next minute they was, your feet, being bitten and the fighter ants were biting, they were all over us, on the feet, biting. Some bad. So we’re in this in this Box thing and I could see the sergeant was getting a bit frustrated you know. The aeroplanes didn’t appear by the way. It was monsoon so they couldn’t land and take off anyway. The Dakotas had a job doing it and he said, ‘Right. We’re going to make a dash for Rangoon.’ So we thought ok, you know, ‘Rangoon. Great.’ So, so he got two West African trucks and we started off and it got to about 11 o’clock in the morning and we stopped and made a brew up. Put it on the tree and we got the fire going and the stuff out, the tea out and everything and as we were doing all this and thoroughly enjoying it out of the jungle came a patrol of British. So we just sort of, ‘Hello.’ He said, ‘What the f’ing are you,’ you know, he said, ‘Don’t you know where you are?’ We said, ‘Yes. We’re on route to Rangoon.’ He said, ‘Of course you are.’ The place was full of Japanese. He said, ‘Get the hell out of it now.’ So we never even got a cup of tea. It was like the keystone cops. The two trucks and drove off and we kept driving and it got, you know it goes dark at 6 o’clock at night there so we’d got to half past five, quarter to six and even the sergeant was getting a bit worried you know. Finally we hit an army emplacement. I don’t know how we managed to do it but they must, the sergeant must have known and he said, ‘Thank God for that,’ so we drove and he asked the officer could we bunk in for the night so we got on the floor there and at least we were surrounded by the military, you know. And so we started off the next morning and finally around about midday, 2 o’clock or something we arrived in Rangoon and they were living in a bombed out hospital at the time. The squadron. There were no buildings. Everywhere was flat, you know and the only question that was asked was, ‘Where the ‘FH’ have you been?’ They thought we’d already died. And so we arrived there and I think the most graphic thing that happened to me then, we still had Hurricanes and they used to do the cooking fires in front of this building that had no roof, no windows, no doors, nothing but at least it was, you were on the flat and it was not, it wasn’t raining you know. Marvellous and a jeep, a jeep drew up. The adjutant and two sergeants, ‘Who’s Franklin?’ So I said, ‘I am.’ ‘Get in.’ So no breakfast. Get in with the cup and the plate, you know. Driven to the flight and there’s a Hurricane standing there and the CO said, ‘Right,’ he said, ‘Start that machine.’ So I knew it was tricky because the, it wasn’t one where you just, they press the trolley acc and you had to do clever stuff with the accelerator. You know. NH: Throttle. Yeah. JBF: And so I got in and just eased it and it was making funny [ch ch ch], the engine you know and then I just eased it on ‘cause I’d done it before, it wasn’t and it started and I did the, you had to go up to two thousand seven hundred revs to test the engine and then you test the magnetos. You switch one off and it works and you switch the other off and it works so I went through the procedures, came down and got out. So I was utterly relieved. You know, at least the thing had worked and this, Blackie his name was, he was the sergeant. He said, ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘You’ve just made me look the biggest f’ing fool in Burma.’ I said, ‘How’s that?’ He said. ‘I’ve been half an hour trying to get this thing started. You come down and it starts first time.’ First time. So I was driven back. They said, ‘Get out.’ Back to the squadron. No breakfast. That’s the only thing that happened to me out of that lot. BW: So much for their thanks. And within a few weeks or months the squadron transferred to Spitfire 9s you said. JBF: That’s right. What happened was from Rangoon we were suddenly changed over to Spit 9s it was. The Hurricanes, by the way the aircraft were just thrown in the bushes. Hurricane aircraft I mean. You know. When you went to dig a hole for the lavatory you went behind one of these because at least you had some sort of privacy. They were just there upended and that’s the other joke about Burma is that there were no toilets of course and when you had to go you had to go so the first, to start with you think oh that’s a nice piece of grass, at least it looked like and everybody in the Japanese army had already been there before. It was black. You were waist deep in it you know. That was one of the Burma experiences that you can forget about. That and the bread full of ants. I thought they were currants to start with. I thought that’s unusual, you know currant bread for breakfast and you handled, it was all ants, dead bodies of ants, they couldn’t get them out of the flour so they cooked them. NH: Oh right. JBF: And finally we went, the most graphic thing that happened in Rangoon was we were sitting there and the adjutant came through and he just looked at the four of us and he said, ‘The war’s over.’ [long pause] Seventy years late. [machine pause] JBF: And I said, ‘Where are we going?’ He said, ‘You’re going to Malaya,’ So, it was a terrible camp. It was a transit camp and we got in these kites and suddenly the kite I was in developed engine trouble and so we locked in to Siam and we spent oh at least three weeks, four weeks in Siam, at the, waiting for replacements or whatever it was you know and then we were flown in and became garrison squadron on Penang island. That was the next RAF station. BW: So this is obviously - JBF: This is after the war now. BW: August. August ’45, September ’45. JBF: This is ‘45, yeah - BW: Were you getting news of being demobbed at anytime? JBF: Oh nothing. What happened was we were, we were supposed to be, it was an army pre-war barracks beautifully built. Nothing, nothing there. The Malayans had pinched everything you know which was what happened to the cockpit covers. They came down with the new aircraft and all the cockpit covers disappeared overnight. So these Chinese detectives appeared out the woodwork you know and all the kids in the surrounding villages had got new clothes which was our cockpits covers [laughs]. And so we were there six months on rest and then we were transported by train along with thirty million cockroaches. The cockroaches are everywhere on the trains and the way to get them out is not to have a light so there’s no lights and you hear this [tapping noise] and the place is covered in cockroaches about so big. Cockroaches. So once they got the petrol mix and the lights they all went back and hung underneath. Fantastic. Even the loo which was a hole in the ground you know, shoulder to shoulder around the hole where you’re supposed to form are cockroaches waiting. BW: Strange. JBF: And we went down to Kuala Lumpur and we were in tents and it was, the thing was there was no aeroplanes and then some aeroplanes arrived and then they started educational vocational courses. We thought we’ve got to be on one of these, you know, sort of thing. BW: This was preparing you for civilian life presumably. JBF: This was, yeah. I had, I had an interview and I said, ‘Well I left a job and the man promised me I’d have it when I came back,’ So I didn’t need, really need the interview I felt. And there was a football team and I played in that. And things went on and suddenly the demob, the demob numbers started appearing. Well I was number forty and just one day right out of the blue six years, five years later you know they said, ‘Your number’s up.’ Forty. So within a week I was on the train going to Singapore and stayed at that, what is it, Changi is it? NH: Changi. The airport. Yeah. Well and the Japanese camp of course. BW: [I was there?] last year. NH: Yeah. JBF: And we handed the weapons in to the armoury. All Japanese. Japanese took the weapons. BW: That must have felt quite strange. JBF: Well it was ridiculous you know. Well it was ordered but what I’ve forgotten, I’ve just remember was the armistice in Rangoon. The rumour went around that the Japanese were coming for the armistice for Southern Asia. That bit. So they, a Japanese, they got a Japanese bunker and whereas when they captured Singapore they had all the military, the troops lined the Streets and the Japanese commander standing up in a motor car commanding, you know. All the poor squaddies were just stood there you know. We did, they had officers on the runway but everybody, it was like a football crowd so we all crowded around. I tell you what it’s like. General MacArthur on the boat where he accepts the surrender of Japan. It was like that, like a football. Well I sidled around the side and they had a desk a bit bigger than this and two of our generals were standing there and the aircraft, they were like Dakotas only much smaller pulled up and into this compound thing and this general said, ‘Do we salute?’ He said, ‘We don’t f’ing well salute them.’ So they pulled the, and there was the Japanese generals, the Japanese in full evening dress. They climbed out, marched over to the table and they just nodded and pointed to the trucks and they were put in trucks for Rangoon for the surrender and that was the surrender in Rangoon. It was just like a football match. NH: Yeah. JBF: There was no ceremony at all. It just - BW: And that was it. JBF: As it was, you know. NH: Yeah. JBF: Then finally the final news was the boats arrived so of course we couldn’t wait so that’s the only time I saw Raffles Hotel was in the truck going past to the troop ship. BW: I was there myself in November. JBF: And came home to Liverpool. NH: What? You docked in Liverpool. JBF: Docked in Liverpool. NH: Marvellous. Yeah. JBF: Then we got on the train and went to [Worley?]. NH: Back to the beginning. JBF: Just outside Blackpool and were demobbed from there and so we had the kitbag with your uniform in and bits and pieces. You were in your RAF and your, the bag was your civilian, you know. They kitted me out with a suit, a shirt, a tie, socks, underpants, vest and shoes and it came in a series of boxes it seemed to me, just holding. We were all the same, holding up these boxes and then they just said, ‘Ok, your train’s arrived,’ and we got on the train to Liverpool and I caught the tram home. NH: They found shoes to fit you did they? JBF: Yeah. Got, got to Gordon Drive. Nobody’s in. Nobody in the house so [Winn Roth?] called over, ‘Jack,’ she said, ‘Come in for a cup of tea.’ So I sat in there until my sister came back from work and when I got in the house was full of mice because nobody had lived in it you see and all the scratches were on the sideboard and the various places. The meat safe thing. So I started and I caught mice every night for seven days and the technique was we, we, we had a ewbank cleaner and we chased them out of the dining room and I realised they all went in this ewbank cleaner. Every time. No change. So I said to my sister, ‘Fill up the sink.’ So she fills the sink up and takes the bowl out. I lift up the ewbank cleaner and depress and of course the doors open and out drop the mice. I killed eight in one night. The final night. So that was the trick. You know you see these pictures where there’s a party and - NH: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. JBF: All the relatives. I never even got a party. My mother was in America seeing my brother. BW: Who must have been in a show in America presumably. JBF: Oh well he was – NH: He was touring with his - JBF: At that stage - BW: Right. JBF: He was with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and they, Agnes de Mille, you know the, what is she? A sister of de Mille himself you know. BW: Cecil B. JBF: You know. NH: Yeah. JBF: She was a choreographer and she choreographed Rodeo, was the name of the ballet and my brother was the champion roper in Rodeo and that was, and it was, well it was you know he was famous and it wasn’t in England. NH: He was famous over there. BW: Quite a showman. JBF: Yeah. NH: Never over here but he was in America, you know. Well known in the ballet world. JBF: Yes. So basically I think and oh just one nice touch. I hadn’t been paid. Nobody had been paid you know all the way through from India I can’t remember. We got nothing in India. NH: I suppose you couldn’t do anything with it anyway. JBF: And these cheques started to appear. I thought, the five years I’ve worked so I didn’t go to work. I didn’t tell them. So the cheque came through and I said to my pal Tom, who was also demobbed, I said, ‘What do you think?’ He said, ‘Let’s go to London. Just to see what it’s like.’ So we get the cheque and off we go to London. He was the same. And it went on ‘til the week before Christmas when the cheques stopped. I said, ‘I’ve got to go to work Tom,’ I said. ‘There’s no more cheques.’ So I started work about the 15th of December that year having had off September, October, November and part of December. I thought well that’s all the leave. NH: Yeah. That’s it. Well you’d earned it hadn’t you by that stage? BW: And were you able to go back to the job that you’d been - JBF: Oh yes I went back. BW: Left. JBF: I was the last in ‘cause I was, I was the last out the youngest and I was the last in and they’d taken, I went back to the Banana Rooms but they’d already taken a building in Sir Thomas Street and built and extension to it so we went back to reasonable offices and started to build up the business from that moment and that’s how it was. I finally retired forty seven years from Dixons. BW: So you stayed at the same firm - JBF: Yeah. BW: For forty seven years. JBF: Yeah. Well what did I know? I was twenty six you know. I had to learn to play tennis and badminton and in fact be normal. It was something I’d never experienced you know actually coming home at night and sitting down to a meal. We thought it was wonderful, Tom and I, you know. Marvellous. BW: And subsequent to that there have been in recent years a bit more prominence and commemoration given to Bomber Command. JBF: There has been hasn’t there? Yes. BW: How do you feel about that? JBF: ‘Cause they, well you’ve only got to read those books to know the price paid by the people who actually did it. When they say there’s fifty five, fifty seven thousand aircrew killed in those books that I’ve got. NH: They’re on the chair there. JBF: They’re talking about. There they are. Seven or eight Lancasters disappearing in the night. That was fifty six blokes. And it was every night. It wasn’t just [next?] and then there’s a month’s delay. I mean the Mosquitos, we lost about three. One received a direct hit of an anti-aircraft shell and blew up and the others were just shot down. But the rest of them, I mean, our kite did a hundred and eleven ops – NH: Yeah good. BW: Not with the same crew though presumably - JBF: Oh no we had all kinds of crews. BW: Just thinking back to your time in the Far East did you get to know the pilots on the squadron, 28 squadron at all well? JBF: Oh yes very much so. They were very, one pilot wouldn’t let you touch his aircraft. He used to, Eddie Hunter was a Canadian. He said, it was my turn to DI his kite he said, ‘Look Lofty,’ he says, ‘I know about aircraft.’ he says, ‘I’ll do the necessary,’ and he filled up the, I filled up the juice and he checked the engine and did the oil and the coolant and that and he got shot down that day. What happened was he, from his, they used to go in twos you know. The second man, the report was, Eddie went down strafing the Japanese and as he was coming up he hit a tree, just caught the tree coming up and he crashed and killed him. BW: Just clarify a couple of expressions if you don’t mind. DI what does that stand for? JBF: Daily inspection. BW: Daily inspection. JBF: Each aircraft has a daily inspection and it was very important because it’s always after a raid, you know or a flying test or whatever and you have to sign the form 700 to say it’s, your bit’s ok. BW: And trolley acc. That’s a trolley accumulator is that right? JBF: Accumulator. There’s twenty four volt is it? NH: Yeah. It’s like a – BW: Yeah. JBF: And they’re on two wheels. NH: Generator thing isn’t it that they charge the engine with instead of having a starter motor. JBF: Plug it into the aeroplane. BW: Yeah. JBF: You’ve primed with the pump, there’s a little hatch and you open that. Prime and screw up and then press the trolley acc. It starts. And the Merlin 20 was like that all the time. BW: How did you rate the Spit 9s that you worked on? JBF: Sorry? BW: How did you rate the Spitfire 9s that you worked on? JBF: Well they were very interesting. Not that we knew anything about them but there was nobody to tell you anything. They were just dumped on us you know and we just sort of – BW: Were they Merlins 66s in the 9 mark 9. JBF: They were much, they were engines we’d never seen or we knew where the oil was and we knew where the coolant was but the rest of it was just totally different. BW: Did you feel that they were more reliable then the Mark 20 engines? JBF: Oh yes. Well it was the, what you might call the essence of all the experience because the Lancasters had, you know, starting with Spitfires, Lancasters, Mosquitos all had Merlins in. NH: So yeah. JBF: I mean they were all, the Merlins underpinned the whole shooting match you know. NH: Right. Yeah. BW: And you still found the 66s to be pretty reliable. JBF: Oh yes. Yeah. BW: And they had a supercharger on them. JBF: Yeah. BW: Didn’t they? JBF: That’s right yeah. BW: Did you know much about those or work on those? JBF: Oh no. They were just stood there you know. One thing I haven’t mention was watching a B17 fly into the ground if that’s of any interest. Is it? At Little Staughton which was very close to a lot of American bases I was DI’ing this kite and I looked up and I saw this aircraft low flying. I thought God strewth and they did a lot of low flying and it kept on flying and then it dipped and I just watched it coming towards me and it dipped into the ground and suddenly everything started to fly off it and it finished about eighty yards from me. It finally disintegrated and blew up and I’m mesmerised. You can’t, I don’t know what it is, you can’t run away and then I heard a voice, ‘Lofty’ he said, ‘Come here,’ he said, ‘Get under this,’ and so we hid under a Mosquito with six hundred and forty gallons of petrol [laughs] and we’re under the engine, you know, because it was the most protection but what I remember of the, of that was one of the cylinders complete, when the explosion of the engine it blew the cylinders out and you recognise it mid-air, ‘Oh yes there’s the’, and it just came out and dropped just short of where the Mosquito we were under you know. BW: And so you watched this bomber coming towards you - JBF: Yeah just watched it and - BW: Disintegrate as it hit the ground. JBF: Into the ground. Nothing. Not one of those. BW: Yeah not going straight in. Going in at a sharp angle. JBF: There was nobody in it. It was on glide, you know. It was on pilot. The Yanks came around, ‘Oh is this where it fell?’ You know. NH: Autopilot. JBF: All our aircraft were full of holes but -. BW: So they must presumably have baled out. JBF: They’d baled out. Yeah. BW: And left it to fly on. JBF: Well I wouldn’t say it was common baling out but we could look in, we watched the Liberator on fire in the air and suddenly five or six of the crew jumped out in parachutes and you know it was all part of the course if you know what I mean. It wasn’t, and the flying bomb was the same, we were walking into, at Staughton walking into the cookhouse, 4 o’clock in the morning. We’d done the op. It was all buttoned up and ready and there was an erk leaning on the side of the door smoking a cigarette. He said, ‘Do you want to see a flying bomb?’ So we said, ‘Ok,’ you know so he said, ‘Just turn around and watch that,’ and there was a light and a putt putt putt putt putt putt putt and then suddenly it stopped. The only flying bomb I saw was just that one. BW: So thinking back to your experience of Bomber Command and looking back at it how do you feel the service has been commemorated? Is it, it is getting better or - JBF: I was disappointed to start with because I did hear that somehow or other Bomber Command was pegged out, you know. Pushed around the back because it wasn’t right bombing Germans you know. Bombing civilians and all that. And I was delighted to see that they’d got this commemoration up to the air crew in London and of course Eric Brown, my cousin, he was killed and my friend Eric [McKim?], he was killed. Both aircrew. Both on these. NH: Missions. BW: And so from the Green Park Memorial to the Centre that’s going to be at Canwick Hill did you get to the unveiling of the Memorial - JBF: Oh no. BW: Last year. JBF: I’ve never been in any kind of Association like, you know, old comrades and all that. I’ve been to two or three reunions but you were only friends in that, once you’ve, you were all looking at each other. Perfect strangers. NH: Yeah. JBF: You know, solicitors were looking at accountants and accountants were looking at clerks and clerks were looking at petrol attendants or – NH: Yeah. JBF: Garages. NH: Had nothing in common by then did you? JBF: I remember two. NH: Who was the guy that you, there was the fella with a ‘tache wasn’t there that sort of set himself up as a, as a leading light in that thing and you said he was, you knew him anyway, there was a guy that sort of ran it or tried to get - JBF: Oh yes. Yeah. Well - NH: That organised the reunions. JBF: Organised the reunions. Yeah, well. NH: Who was that fella? JBF: To be honest except for Handley and Dom and Clive and Bill Gill, that was our little gang, and we all went to the reunions, we went to two reunions but there was nothing in common. BW: Right. JBF: We had nothing in common. Pat Handley was a big lorry driver on the motorways. Dom worked in a garage. I don’t know what Clive did. And I went back to office work. BW: Yeah. JBF: And the friendship was just at the time you know. In Meiktila for instance Handley had the brilliant idea. Japanese built the bunkers for their aircraft and of course there’s a trench around where they got the air to make the bunker so Handley has this brilliant idea he won’t bother with pegs and that he’ll just put the tent over one of these bunkers which is great except for the monsoon started. He’s standing in two foot of water and instead of rushing to help him we all died laughing, you know. NH: Yeah. BW: And so you’ve yet to see the memorial spire to Bomber Command crew at Canwick Hill at Lincoln where - JBF: Is it really? BW: So you’ve yet to go and see that. JBF: Do I? NH: Well he can’t get around much these days. BW: Yeah. NH: That’s the problem. BW: Yeah. NH: He’s not very mobile. BW: Yeah. NH: Are you? So you - JBF: Oh no. I’m housebound you know. BW: Yeah. JBF: I can’t go out. NH: Yeah. BW: Yeah. NH: He gets to his art. BW: That’s a shame. NH: He painted all these. BW: These pictures on the wall. NH: Yeah. JBF: There’s, there’s - BW: [?] JBF: The one that’s see the latest underneath that see that one. BW: Yeah. JBF: Of the skyscrapers, right at the bottom, beside the little girl. BW: Yes. This one. JBF: That’s, Tim’s got that one. That was the last one I painted. NH: So that’s, that’s as far as he gets these days. JBF: You know they’re sort of this size. BW: They’re wonderful paintings. NH: Yeah. BW: Ok. NH: They’re his. BW: Ok. I think that is all the questions that I have for you Jack unless there is anything else that you want to add. NH: The only other thing is you mentioned my mum. Didn’t you used to meet up? She was at Bletchley and you used to meet up. JBF: She was at Bletchley Park and I was at Little Staughton and we arranged to meet and I used to go to Bedford I think it was, catch the train and we’d meet. She’d bring a WAAF friend and invariably we went to the pictures and I never ever saw the film. I fell asleep immediately because I’d come off duty to get there so I’d got myself washed and dressed and in my best blue and out and we used to go to the pictures and I never saw a film because I just fell asleep. NH: Did you ever know what she was doing at Bletchley? I mean. JBF: No. I only knew what she was doing about 1960. NH: You knew she was there though. JBF: Yeah. NH: Yeah. JBF: It was very very - NH: Oh absolutely. JBF: Yeah. NH: That’s right. JBF: It was like the Oboe. The start was very, you know. BW: And they were told not to speak about it and many of them didn’t for you know sixty years - JBF: Well 1960. BW: Let alone thirty. JBF: The first time I even mentioned the word you know. I don’t even like to say it now to be honest. BW: Different times. NH: Absolutely. BW: Right. Ok. I think that is everything for the interview so on behalf of the Bomber Command Centre thank you very much your time Jack. It’s been a pleasure. JBF: Here’s the, do you want to have a look at some of the pictures? BW: I’ll have a look at some of the - JBF: Let’s see what’s in here. BW: Items. NH: So what is this centre? BW: It’s going to be a digital archive for the audio and any documents that - NH: Yeah. BW: People hand over. JBF: That’s the kind of terrain in Burma. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Jack Brown Franklin 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 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:51:22 Audio recording Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AFranklinJB160331 PFranklinJB1616 Description An account of the resource Jack grew up in Liverpool. His brother was the famous ballet dancer, Frederick Franklin CBE. He describes the Liverpool May Blitz and the paper merchants’ firm, where he worked, being bombed. He returned to his job after the war. After the Local Defence Volunteers, Jack joined the RAF in September 1941. He trained at RAF Cosford on Merlin engines, followed by an air gunnery school with Blenheims. He preferred Merlins and was posted to 109 Squadron at RAF Wyton, a Pathfinder squadron, as an engine mechanic. His Mosquito was the first to do an operation with Oboe, over which they were sworn to secrecy. He describes his role and his admiration for the Mosquito. Jack details the maintenance and checks they would do. His aircraft carried out 111 operations. Jack then went to RAF Marham and RAF Little Staughton. Jack wanted to go overseas and was posted to 28 Squadron, a reconnaissance unit, flying Hurricane IICs. From Rachi in India, he went to Burma, passing through Worli transit camp. He went to Tamu, Kalaymyo, Ye-U, and Sadaung, near Mandalay. The Japanese shot down some aircraft. They went on to RAF Meiktila and he describes his accommodation, insects and scorpions and a distressing encounter with some Japanese corpses. Jack went on to Rangoon where they changed over to Spitfire IXs and were there when war ended. He describes the Rangoon armistice and surrender of the Japanese. They went to the Malaya transit camp, Siam, and Penang Island. After six months’ rest, they went to Kuala Lumpur and started educational vocational courses. He received his demobilisation number and went to RAF Changi in Singapore, returning to Liverpool. Jack outlines the heavy price paid by Bomber Command. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Sally Coulter 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. 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 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire England--Norfolk England--Lancashire England--Merseyside England--Liverpool Burma Burma--Meiktila Burma--Mandalay Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1941 1941-09 1942 1943 1944 1945 109 Squadron bombing civil defence crash demobilisation fitter engine flight mechanic ground crew ground personnel home front Home Guard Hurricane Lancaster military living conditions military service conditions Mosquito Oboe Pathfinders perception of bombing war RAF Little Staughton RAF Marham RAF Wyton Spitfire training https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/286/8788/AKirbyH150710.mp3 415d0a343bc572167309ea13248509d0 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/286/8788/PKirbyH1511.jpg f2f26de792cac70f6b6c69e353b3a563 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 Kirby, Harold Harold V A Kirby H V A Kirby Harold Kirby H Kirby Description An account of the resource Nine items. Two oral history interviews with Warrant Officer Harold Kirby (1923 - 2022, 1637087 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs and documents. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 467, 97 and 156 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 2015-07-10 2015-09-21 2016-06-11 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Kirby, H Requires A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence. Warrant Officer Harold Kirby 1637087 was born in Kilbourne, Loncon in 1923, his job after leaving school was in the accounting department at London Electric Supplies. He initially tried to volunteer for the RAF but failed the medical, at that time. He was subsequently drafted in 1942. Skill training started with training as a Flight Mechanic, but during this was asked to volunteer to rain as a Flight Engineer. His first posting was as an Aircraft Fitter at No.460 Squadron, RAF Binbrook, although only for 6 months. After Flight Engineer training at St Athan and then training on the Short Stirling and then the Lancaster with 1661 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Winthorpe, the first solo flight for the crew, the port landing gear would not lock, during the landing the gear collapsed, although there were no injuries. First operational unit was No.467 Squadron at RAF Waddington a mainly Australian Squadron, the crew were here for July and August 1944, One operation 3/4th August 1944, to the V1 storage site at Trossy Saint Maximin had another bomber flying above their aircraft and dropping their bombs, one going through the wing, narrowly missing vital structures, this resulted in a gear up landing, due to hydraulic loss, but again there were no injuries resulting. He was then posted along with the crew to No 97 Squadron, based at RAF Coningsby a pathfinder squadron, tasked to mark the targets for other aircraft, In total two tours were completed before the end of the European war, after finishing as a Flight Engineer, Harold trained as a RADAR mechanic, before leaving the RAF. Andy St.Denis Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document NM: So, this is a recording from Harold Kirby in Pinner, my name is Nigel Moore doing the interview, and this interview is taking place on July the 10th at Mr Kirby’s home in Pinner. So, Mr Kirby, thanks for doing this, and can you tell me something about your life growing up and life before the RAF? HK: Yes, I’m, I was born in Kilburn, and my parents moved out to Kingsbury when I was eight years old, and I went to Kingsbury County School there. At the time we moved, 1931, it was all countrified there and we had to walk across fields to Burnt Oak to, for shopping, but soon got built up. So that was my early days, and then I got married after the war and lived in Kingsbury for a while until we moved out to Pinner in 1960, that’s right. NM: So, what about your upbringing and childhood and pre-service life as a youth? HK: I was not very outgoing at the time, but I had a special friend, Tony, who was more outgoing and he involved me in lots of activities, but I can’t say that I did very much exciting at those days, although we did used to cycle ‘round quite a lot, both of us. So, that was, up to the war, really. [Pause] and, certainly – NM: Okay. How did you come to join the RAF? HK: Ah, well, I, my two school friends and myself wanted to fly with the RAF, they were accepted but I was turned down on medical grounds, they became navigators and went off, and then I was called up in, ah, August 1942, and was first, after the initial square-bashing, went to, was posted to Halton, to train as a flight mechanic, one of the first inputs of conscripts to be trained at Halton, yeah. Well, after I’d passed out as a flight mechanic, I had sufficient marks to go straight on to do a fitter’s airframe course, also at Halton, and during the time there, I, we were asked if we would volunteer to become flight engineers, they were getting a bit short, which I did, passed the medical that time, and, but initially, I was posted as a fitter to 460 Squadron, which was at Binbrook, although initially, we and three others went to place called Brayton and found that the 460 Squadron had moved to Binbrook two weeks earlier [slight laugh] but eventually, we were taken there over, stayed there overnight and then taken to Binbrook, and I was there for a bit, six months, mainly repairing aircraft, until I got a call to go to the Saint Athan to train as a flight engineer. I, after I’d passed out from there, I was posted to heavy conversion unit at [pause] Winthorpe and I was, I crewed up with an otherwise all-Australian crew, and one thing that happened there was – this was on Stirlings – on the first pilot’s [pause] flight by himself without an instructor, we couldn’t get the wheels down, and it was my job to wind them down, which I did successfully, but the port undercarriage wouldn’t lock, so we were asked to fly to Woodbridge, you heard of it? It was placed where they had especially long, long runways and also facilities for dealing with crashed aircraft. Well, we duly got, would crashed, Woodbridge, crashed, ah, landed, but the port undercarriage gave way and we spun ‘round, no-one was hurt, and the instructor came down immediately and made my pilot fly back. Other than that, that, everything was okay, and we went to the Lancaster flying school, and eventually landed up at 467 Squadron, which was then at Wadd – Waddington. The, ah, yes, on the first operation, we were coming back, and the rear gunner suddenly shouted ‘Corkscrew!’, and the pilot immediately took action, dived, and a twin-engined aircraft overtook us and flew off in the distance, we didn’t see it again, but he initially, he shot at us, and a bullet went through the rear gunner’s turret and his clothing and cut off his heating supply and he was very aggrieved about that because it got a bit cold! [slight laugh] Anyway, we got back safely. Then, on the [pause] yes, the eleventh operation, it was a daylight one at Trossy Saint Maximin, the, it was a storage site for V1s, and we had done the bombing round and the mid upper shouted, ‘There’s a Lanc above us just opened his bomb doors!’ Before we could do anything, we heard two thumps, one was louder than the other, and a bomb went through the port wing, took away the undercarriage and the – shut off the engine, so I, well, I, I had to keep a look-out because the, I’m sure the wing was mov – waving more than it should do, anyway, we, with three engines, we got left behind. At one stage, this was over France, the rear gunner said ‘There’s two single-engined aircraft approaching from the starboard quarter,’ he said to the upper gunner, ‘I’ll take the first, you take the second,’ but seconds later, which seemed hours, he said, ‘It’s alright, they’re Spitfires,’ [slight laugh] and one of them escorted us back to the coast and we decided, or at least the pilot decided, to land at Wittering, which, at that time, had a grass runway, and we’d landed there and he got told off for making a big groove in their run – runway. So, but that was the, really, the main thing that happened there. Then, on the sixteenth operation, or after the sixteenth operation, we were posted to 97 Squadron, the Pathfinder Squadron. After the war, I had some correspondence from a pilot’s son, this was well after the war, and in it was a cutting from a newspaper which a pilot had a long [?] talk with a reporter, and he said then, whether it was true or not, that he actually volunteered to become Pathfinders because of the increase in pay, but I don’t know if that’s true or not, but all the crew joined him and we went on to the 97 Squadron, but nothing really much happened there, we were quite successful in getting back what with [?] the time, and in the end we managed forty-four operations altogether. [Pause] Well, after the war finished, we were sent on end-of-tour leave because we’d practically finished the second tour, and, but the rest of the crew were all recalled before I was, to go off back to Australia, so I never really had a chance to say a proper goodbye, but after that [unclear], they were, we were given opportunities to choose what we wanted to do; I chose a radar mechanic’s course because it was a nice long one and sounded interesting, that was at Yatesbury, and I eventually completed the course, was posted to West Ruislip, where I was put in an office and didn’t any, do any radar mechanicking! [laughs] And, but I was fortunate that I was able to live out, live at home, ‘cause my parents at Kingsbury, and commuted until I got my demob, which was six weeks or so later, I’m not sure of the actual date, and so, that is my war service. NM: Okay, can I take you back to your days in Halton? HK: Yes. NM: Tell me a little bit about your days training as a fitter. HK: Well, we were lost in [?], up the hill on one side of the main road, and every morning, we walked down, or marched down, to the, the workshops on the other side of the main road. That, that was about all, except that there was one amusing instance; because there, there were no youngsters there at the time, they had some drums which they thought could be used, and they asked for volunteers to train as, as drummers to help us down the march. It, they got instructions, that went off quite reasonably until the instructor thought, the, the bandmaster or whoever it was, thought we could practise by ourselves. Now, one of the chaps was actually a drummer in a small group, and he decided to invent a, a rhythm, which wasn’t the one that we were taught, and it went – oh, how did it go? Anyway, it was the first time that we did it, we, it was a conga rhythm [laughs], I think it’s the first and only time that a squad’s been conga’d down to the workshops! [laughs] But, apart from that, Halton was quite reasonably enjoyable. NM: And was it while you were at Halton, or was it while you were at Binbrook on 460 Squadron, that you volunteered to become a flight engineer? HK: It was while we were at Halton we were asked if we would volunteer, yes. NM: So you first of all went off to Binbrook on 460 Squadron? HK: Hmm? NM: You first of all went to 460 Squadron? HK: 460 Squadron, yeah. NM: At Binbrook. Tell me a little bit about, about Binbrook. HK: Well, then again, it was for, fortunately a, a peacetime station, so we were quite comfortably billeted. Well, that, that, of course, was an Australian squadron as well, so I, I did quite well in knowing the Australians. Each morning, went to the hangars and carried out any repairs and inspections that were necessary, quite enjoyed that, really. Yes, there was a sergeant there, Australian sergeant, apparently he was colour blind, and he, he was telling me that initially, he, he was asked to put camouflage on an aircraft, and when his instructor saw it, he said ‘If you could see that as I could see it, you’d have a fit!’ [Laughs] Yeah, but that, that, sorry, he was quite, quite a good chap [unclear], but – NM: So, you went from Binbrook to Saint Athans to train - HK: That’s right, yes. NM: As a flight engineer. HK: That’s right. NM: Describe your training. HK: I, actually, initially, there are few of us, instead of given instructions on a Lancaster, we were started to give us instructions on a York aircraft, but I think it was decided that that sort of job would be given to people who’d already been flying, so we then transferred and did the rest of the course on, on Lancasters. It was [pause] well, was quite enjoyable, I can’t say that there were any real troubles there. [Pause] I’m sorry, I – NM: That’s fine, that’s okay. HK: Unless there’s something specific, it’s difficult to remember. NM: Right, okay, no, that’s absolutely fine, that’s fine. And you, how long did you spend in Saint Athan training, and what type of year was it, and time of year? HK: It was in December, it would have been ’43, and we were there ‘til about May, I think, in ’44, and then we went to, as I said, to train, initially on Stirlings, before going onto Lancasters and then the squadron. NM: So you crewed up at the OCU at Winthorpe, did you say? HK: Yes. NM: How did the crewing up process go? How did you end up with the crew that you ended up with? HK: Well, it was just the usual way, and, in the RAF, from, we were in a large hall, and Bill Ryan, the, came up to me and said, would I like to join his crew? And he came, well, then, he introduced, introduced me to the rest, and we got on quite well. NM: So you were the last to join the crew, were you? HK: Yes. NM: And were they an all-Australian crew? HK: All-Australian, yeah. NM: And you were the only Englishman there? HK: That’s right, yes. NM: So, why do you think he asked you? Why do you think he asked you? HK: I have no idea! [laughs] Perhaps I was the last one, I don’t know, but we got on quite well, actually. I was the youngest, Bill Ryan was twenty-eight, I think. [Pause] The [pause] bomb aimer came from Queensland, he was about thirty-three, wireless operator was not much older than I was, I, I did have pictures of them [sound of leafing through pages]. NM: We can come onto that afterwards, if you want. HK: Afterwards, yeah. [leafing sounds continue] Give some names. NM: Let’s go through their names on the record and we can look at the photographs after the interview. HK: Yeah, right. NM: So, you go through the names. HK: Hmm, yes. NM: Talk, go through the names and describe the names. HK: Yes, well, there was Bill Ryan, Les Sabine, the navigator, he came from New South Wales, as did Johnny Nichols, the wireless operator, and Jim McPhee was bomb aimer, Norm Johnstone, the mid upper gunner, and myself, and then there was Jim Newing, but we always called him Bert so we didn’t get mixed up with Jim McPhee, the bomb aimer, he was the rear gunner, he came from Perth in western Australia, and, although I lost touch with the crew after the war, some fifty years later, I and my wife went to Perth, and I looked up the telephone directory, there was H.W. Newing, which was his name, and the telephone, and I rang up on the off chance and said ‘Have you ever been to England?’ and he said ‘Yes, who’s speaking?’ I said ‘Harold Kirby’ and he immediately said ‘Oh, our flight engineer!’ [Slight laugh] And he was able to come to the hotel and we had quite a long chat, unfortunately, we had to go off the following day, but by then, I had his address and telephone number, and we went back to Perth all summer, few years later, and he came and took us to meet his wife and have lunch, and so, that, that was very nice. Unfortunately, he’s passed away. NM: Okay, sad to hear that. So, you went to Lancaster flying school, you say, after you, your? HK: Yes, at Syerston, that was. NM: That was, okay, at Syerston. And how long were you there for? HK: Oh, just a matter of a week or so, I think. I don’t, I can’t remember that. NM: So, you then joined 467 Squadron at Waddington? HK: That’s right. NM: Tell me about squadron life in 467, what was that like? HK: What was that like? I think I was glad I’d been to 460 Squadron and got used to a lot of the Australians, so it didn’t come as a bit of a shock, but [pause] apart from those two instances that I mentioned, I think we were quite fortunate, getting away unscathed. NM: So, can you describe general operations, then, on 467 at Waddington? HK: Well, I, the pilot and navigator, this before an operation, they had a, an initial briefing, and then after that, the rest of the crew joined them to have a general briefing. We were – then we all had to get ready for going off, we had a, a meal beforehand. Coming back, we were debriefed, and contrary to, contrary to what other, I’ve read about other squadrons, we never got rum or anything like that, we just got coffee, and then we went to bed and waited for the next operation. I do remember that, on one occasion, I slept for about eighteen hours non-stop, virtually, that was after two or three night operations on the trot. NM: So, when you found you were being posted to Pathfinders at – HK: Yes. NM: - Coningsby, at 97 Squadron, what was your feeling? HK: Really, nothing much, we, I didn’t know much about them, and I just wanted to keep with the rest of the crew, suppose. NM: So, was – how did Coningsby and the Pathfinders differ from a main force station at Waddington and 467? HK: I can’t say that it was terribly different, different. We were quite fortunate in, again, that, as Waddington was, and Binbrook beforehand and then Coningsby, they were all peacetime stations and we were very comfortably housed, not like some squadrons who had to cope with a lot of mud [slight laugh]! Oh, yes, at Coningsby, we had to be capable of taking over some of the other tasks, such as, I was asked to keep the aircraft on the straight and level for a while, presumably in case the pilot couldn’t hold it, which, that was what I did, although the rear gunner said it was more like a switchback than straight and level [slight laugh]! Then I had to learn the Morse code and do some gunnery practice, and also bomb aiming, so that, that was quite a change. In fact, towards the end of the war, the normal bomb aimer went and helped the navigator with the screens that they had then, and I did the bomb aiming, so it, that was a change. [Pause] Can’t say that there’s much more to add. NM: So the extra training that you had, then, for, for flying training for straight and level flying and for gunnery and Morse code and bomb aiming, what, how did those extra training comes about? HK: I remember the bomb, bomb aiming, there was a sort of a, a map that sort of moved on the floor and we were practising sort of with the bomb sights, and then also, in, there was a bombing range at Wainfleet in the Wash, I think I did a, a few goes at that, and then as far as gunnery, we dropped a flare in the water and I was in the nose turret and had a go and see if I could shoot that, and so [pause] I do remember once, I think this was at, at Waddington, for some reason, the brakes failed as we were taxiing ‘round, and the pilot was able to steer by controlling the engines. The normal practice when you start off is to keep the brakes on and push the throttle forward to get maximum speed, power, and then suddenly take the brakes off and shoot off. Well, this time, we had no time to do that, we got slowly to the take-off point and got the green lights and pushed the throttles forward and, fortunately [laughs], took off okay! And then, again, we thought we’d go back to Woodbridge, which we did, and I repaired the brakes and we got back to base. [Pause] NM: What did you feel about the different roles that you were asked to play, then, between flight engineer and gunnery and bomb aiming? HK: Well, I quite enjoyed it, the change, yes. NM: So your crew, altogether, did forty-four operations? HK: Yes. NM: And you all stayed together for the whole time? HK: No, all except the mid upper gunner and the wireless operator, they decided they wouldn’t go on to the second tour, and so we had spare chaps to do that, but I can’t really remember much about them. NM: How did the crew feel about losing two stalwarts and getting two replacements? HK: Well, don’t think we were terribly happy, but that was, you know, if they didn’t want to go on, well, that was it. I preferred to carry on rather than go to a training squadron because that could be a bit dicey sometimes. NM: What would you say about life in Bomber Command overall? HK: Overall, I had quite a good time, really. [Pause] No, I don’t think I would have chosen anything else, I was quite happy with what I was doing. Bit dicey at times, but that was it. NM: Do you keep, keep in touch at all with, or – you’ve spoken about the rear gunner you’ve met in Australia, do you keep in touch with squadron associations, reunions? HK: Oh, I, I kept up with the squadron association, and Path – not, yes, Pathfinder Association, while it was still in force, and then I belonged to the Aircrew Association, we had monthly meetings, and – NM: Were they locally here? HK: That was at, that’s at Hemel Hempstead, but there’s another ex-Pathfinder who flew in Mosquitos who lived in Hatch End, and we take it in turns to drive to Hemel, but we were quite fortunate, really, because a lot of the branches had to close because lack of members, but as it’s open to post-war fliers as well, we’ve got quite a few in, in our association, and they help to keep the thing going, in fact, I think all the, apart from one, are post-war fliers, or the, I’m trying to say, the people that control, the – sorry, I, I get mixed up with words sometimes [laughs]! Yeah, but anyway, we keep going. NM: Okay, that’s fair [?]. How do you think Bomber Command has been treated since the war? HK: Not very well; in fact, I think in the end, we were quite happy to get the memorial. [Pause] Lot of work has been done to get it organised. NM: Okay, shall we call it a day there? HK: Hmm? NM: Shall we finish the interview there? Are you happy with that, or was there anything else you’d like to talk about with your time in Bomber Command? HK: I think I’ve covered most things. [Pause] I was telling you about my two friends that joined up before I did, both got shot down, one unfortunately on the Nuremburg raid, and the other one, who was on Stirlings, got shot down over France but parachuted to safety and was looked after by the French until he was – the Americans came. But, so, I was quite fortunate, really. NM: So, did you find out about your friend’s loss during the war, or was it after the, only after the war, did you find? HK: It was during the war, yes, I kept in touch with my particular school friend’s mother or parents and heard when he’d got shot down; they didn’t know what had happened to him at the time, of course, yes. [Pause] So I did keep up with that school friend after he’d come back from – to England. One peculiar thing happened was, at the time before he got shot down, he, he’d sent me a picture of him and a bomb aimer, his bomb aimer, and I was showing this to my crew, and my bomb aimer said ‘I know that chap, we’ve been doing training together in Canada!’ But he stayed on to do some training others and so he, he didn’t come, get to this country until well after my school friend’s bomb aimer had come here, but both the bomb aimer and my friend were the only two that managed to get out of the aircraft when it was shot. NM: And you finished up doing a radar mechanic’s course? HK: Yes. NM: After the war. HK: Ah, yes. NM: Tell me a little bit about that. HK: Well, that was quite enjoyable, learning how the radar worked, and after the war, instead of going back – well, I did go back for a while to my original job, which was in an accounts department, in an accounts department in an electric supplier, I decided I wanted to do something a bit more technical, and the GEC at the time were advertising for people for their laboratories, and I went along and got a job in their patents department, and trained – well, I did evening classes, got BSc, then went on to do the patent agent’s exams and stayed there until I retired, retired in ’83 but went on and did five more years part-time, until they moved the whole place to Chelmsford, I decided that was enough [slight laugh]. NM: And you’ve been retired ever since? HK: Hmm? NM: You’ve been retired ever since? HK: Yes. NM: Okay, I think that’s probably a very good note to finish on. HK: [Laughs] Yes! [Recording beeps: interview paused and restarted] NM: Just continuing the interview with Mr Kirby. HK: Yes, there were a couple of instances which I remember now, not actually connected with the enemy, but we were due to fly to Munich to bomb something at Munich, and we had to, we were rooted over the Alps in moonlight, which was a beautiful sight to see, and then another occasion, we flew to one of the eastern countries, oh, I could tell you exactly where it is [sound of leafing through pages], and we had to fly over Sweden at the time, and, yes. No, I can’t [pause as HK continues leafing through pages] Ah, Politz. Yes, I had to fly over Sweden, which was quite exciting ‘cause it was all lit up, they did shoot, but we were told that not to worry, they weren’t going to shoot at us. [Laughs] But those are just two instances I happen to remember. 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 Kirby. One 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 2015-07-10 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:42:44 audio recording Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AKirbyH150710, PKirbyH1511 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. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Royal Australian Air Force Description An account of the resource Harold Kirby joined the Royal Air Force, encouraged by two friends, but ended up training as a flight mechanic at RAF Halton on medical grounds. Harold became an airframe fitter, volunteered as a flight engineer, passed the physical but was then posted, as a fitter, to RAF Binbrook for six months with 460 Squadron. Following this he went to RAF Saint Athan to train as a flight engineer, then to RAF Winthorpe - Heavy Conversion Unit with an all-Australian aircrew. This was followed by attending Lancaster Finishing School at RAF Syerston. He was then posted to 467 Squadron at RAF Waddington. He talks of bombing operations over France V-1 weapons sites, a bomb falling through a wing, and crash landing at RAF Wittering. Harold was eventually posted to 97 Pathfinder Squadron at RAF Coningsby, owing to his array of skills and multiple qualifications. He tells of post war training as radar mechanic, employment at the General Electric Company and reunions with his Australian aircrew. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. France Germany Great Britain England--Cambridgeshire England--Lincolnshire Wales--Vale of Glamorgan Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942 Language A language of the resource eng Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Maureen Clarke 460 Squadron 467 Squadron 8 Group 97 Squadron aircrew bomb struck bombing crash crewing up fitter airframe flight engineer flight mechanic forced landing ground crew Heavy Conversion Unit Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School mechanics airframe military ethos military living conditions military service conditions Pathfinders pilot RAF Binbrook RAF Coningsby RAF Halton RAF St Athan RAF Syerston RAF Waddington RAF Wainfleet RAF Winthorpe RAF Wittering RAF Woodbridge recruitment Stirling training V-1 V-weapon York https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/870/11111/AHextellGJE160104.1.mp3 37d80c475d2be9fba2485ea100ad6789 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 Hextell, George George Joseph Edwin Hextell G J E Hextell Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Warrant Officer George Hextell (1141319 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 51 Squadron and became a prisoner of war. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-01-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Hextell, GJE Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document GH: Yes well, I’m [unclear] Hextell, Hextell, I was a WO, my number 1141319. MJ: So, how did you manage to get into the RAF then? GH: How did I manage to get into this? Well, as I say, I was conscription, in 1940, all called up, all the people, the young people, and then I was [unclear] going to be dragged into the army, I thought when I got into the RAF I couldn’t be a pilot, cause I thought, I haven’t got the education for that, I going underground staff cause I worked in a factory, Morris motors, in Birmingham and I went into Birmingham and signed up one Saturday lunchtime, I hadn’t finished my job, and I wanted to know what happened to me cause I was called up after two or three days and posted to Warrington Padgate RAF training station where I did my square bashing and all that stuff and as I say, I hadn’t packed my job and eventually my mother had to get into the factory and tell the bastards I had joined, what did he do that for? They said, you know, there was a job here for him, if he wants it, I thought, no, so I trained as a flight mechanic, cause I was interested in wheels [unclear] and cars and engines and I went to after about three or four months at Padgate I was posted to number 5 school of technical training at Locking in Somerset and I went on a course on engines and aircraft there, you know, and I was there till end of 1941 and I passed out after that was posted to Scotland, Castletown, right up in the north of Scotland, you could almost see Norway, from where we were but we were only there about two or three weeks and [unclear] library, not doing much, any odd jobs and then we were eventually posted, as I say, to number 5 school of technical training Somerset, big long train ride down from up in Scotland and, I was there till the end of 1941 as I say when I got posted to Scotland and all I did, I worked and see all these different engines and aircraft, you know, worked on the Merlin engine, you know, and when I’d finished that they sent me to a maintenance echelon in Kent, [unclear] End, I worked on the maintenance echelon, squadrons came and went but I, we’re always permanent there like, you know, and Spitfires and all I could remember during there the Battle of Dieppe, when they landed in Dieppe in 1942, that was in September, that was disastrous, I remember that morning and I got up early, about five o’clock as something was on but nobody, oh, the second front started but that’s what it was, it turned out to be, Dieppe and they after the German [unclear] headquarters at Lorient and of course a lot of casualties, a lot of Canadian soldiers took part, a lot got killed, lot got captured and [unclear] after that we went to, so Dieppe, we just servicing the Spitfires that’s all, I was an engineman and we just served the Merlin engine up you know and it was good but, stop there for [unclear]. Well it was [unclear] at Gravesend but one day the engineer officer called us all in and wanted to know who wanted volunteer as flight engineers on the four engine aircraft that were coming into service, the Lanc, Halifax and the Stirling and of course there was three of us there, I put me name down for it, and I said, oh I can’t do any [unclear] but I was the only one who passed the medical, we had to go up to Euston House in London, aircrew candidate selection board and they explained to us all about how to fly, you know, [unclear] up and dark nights and flying over the oceans and that, you know and [unclear] and all this kind of thing you know but I went through with it and I was sent to St Athans in South Wales near [unclear], Cardiff and I did a course there and these four engine bombers would come in and they what they wanted to know was, there was a great big crowd of us volunteered and all the chaps going in for the Lancaster, you know, cause it got a famous name but and the squadron leader, I remember, he got us all lined up in the hangar, a big long queue of us and he said to stop any argument about who wants to go on, which was the best aircraft. He divided us up into three and he said that’s it, Stirlings, Halifaxes, Lancasters. Well, I got the Halifax, I went into the Halifax, and that’s how I came to be trained, trained at St Athans. And that’s a while I was posted to Marston Moor into Yorkshire and that was a conversion unit, number ten conversion unit and where pilots and aircrew met up and cause you see the crew I got in eventually had been flying on Whitleys then at St Eval in Cornwall on Coastal Command but they all stuck together and of course I was coming up [unclear] a conversion unit so it was there I turned up with them and became the flight engineer and of course there was seven of us in the crew, pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, rear gunner, mid upper gunner and all like that and that’s how I came to be with 51 Squadron. But it was only [unclear] I don’t know what they’d done before but, quite a bit before we went on our operations but the first operation we went on was mine laying off the Dutch coast, dropping mines in the sea and we used to have a naval officer explaining how important it was just [unclear] dropping it in the right place and the right height and all this kind of thing, that was the first flight I flew but of course I did many, we did many hours [unclear] circuit and bombs training, I mean the pilot was, all the crew was getting trained and I was getting trained as well in [unclear] that’s how I came to be with them but as I say the 51 squadron was only like just four men, and there was not many before, you see, you know a lot of names but I didn’t know many because I wasn’t there that long and I went there in the end of January ’43 and we went on, I went on two bombing raids with a crew, with our crew to Lorient in France and one night I went with my own crew and another time I stood in for somebody who was absent for another crew, they’re all officers, pilots, navigators, they was all officers, and I flew with them and I remember the first night we went on, we got back at about three o’clock in the morning and we couldn’t get back to our [unclear] I was stationed at Snaith in Yorkshire, East Yorkshire and couldn’t get back on our own drome so we had to land at Stowe-in-the-Wold in Gloucestershire and everybody, I think it was the first time I’ve seen these giant four engine bombers, you know, and all the people came out and looked at it, they were a big aircraft it was and after that I came to be [unclear] but as I say we did two operations in Lorient but that’s all I did and I just saw the operation mine laying, two to Lorient and on the fourth operation we did on Dusseldorf on the 27th of January ‘43 and I thought, oh, blimey, that’s done it, cause the briefing officer told us it was a heavily defended area, well we knew that because of all the Ruhr and all the places around there, Essen and all those places, I mean, it’s taken a heavy toll of our aircraft but of course it, well, it didn’t bother me and you know, but I thought we’ll get through it alright. But we were shot down over Holland, got over the North Sea alright into Holland, never heard a word, everything quiet and then next thing, I was sitting, I was standing in the middle of the fuselage, putting a flare in a flare shoot for taking photos with the cameras, you know, when the bombs dropped and whilst I stood there all of a sudden on the starboard side, right that at [unclear] machine gun bullets you know [mimics machine gun fire] couldn’t believe it, you know, couldn’t understand it, [unclear] one side or the other, he caught the port engine which controls all the hydraulics and pumps and that and the aircraft and I thought, oh, that was, looking into the astrodome it caught fire, the wing caught fire and I was horrified and the pilot was trying to save it but the aircraft you know dodged about and that but we were going down and we were all rushing, putting our parachutes on and the next thing I knew was I was flying through the air and the second pilot was a New Zealander, he explained it he could he’s written a little book about from where he came from in New Zealand who landed off, and as we were blown out, I was blown out, there was three of us out of the seven and three escaped, the New Zealander, our wireless operator and myself, the other four chaps got killed, pilot, navigator, the bomb aimer and rear gunner. I’ve never heard a word from them at all. And it was in Mill in Holland, place called Mill and it was five past six took off and from up in Yorkshire, ten past eight I was in a prison cell in Holland. Germans wanted to know, you know, why come bombing our women and children, and all I said, well, for the simple reason that you are coming and bombing our women and children and then of course they [unclear] interrogated me and I was there about a week I think and we went to the Dulag Luft interrogation centre and were there a while. Then they sent us to Amsterdam in a big prison, a big prison or whatever it was, big [unclear] and we were locked up in solitary confinement and had a lot of questions asked, you know, and were there about a week and one Sunday they transferred us from Amsterdam onto a train to take us to in [unclear] was Stalag VIII-B but they renamed it later Stalag 344 because Sagan, the Stalag Luft 3 where the air, the air people, where the aircrew prisoners went, they were full, the two, to many, so I had to go to a Stalag but this was at Lamsdorf in Upper Silesia near the Polish border, what’s the name? [unclear] I think or something like that and that was where I ended up but I know the night we flew, we had a brand new aircraft, it had only come from the manufacturers the day before but it hadn’t got a mid-upper turret [unclear] you got [unclear] hadn’t got a mid-upper turret on this particular one, the wing commander said it will give you more speed and all the rest of it you know and [unclear] he didn’t need a mid-upper gunner, so Taffy Jones, our mid-upper gunner he didn’t fly with us that night, he got away with it but as I say, I mentioned a second pilot, but I forgot to mention that before we took off at six o’clock at night from Snaith and staff come up and the group captain came up with this chap and he was a New Zealander, Jack Cardey and he said, I want this chap to fly with you tonight, he said, it’ll give him a bit of experience and that was the first time we met him and he got on board and that was his experience, he became a POW, and I’ve heard from him once or twice but not lately but yes, that’s how I came to be in Poland. Yes, capacity of the Halifax I think it was eleven hundred and ninty gallons but the first flight engineer, the idea was to run the engines as quickly as possible, to have the throttles open all the time, you know, to give, put [unclear] and get the engines to performing properly and another thing before take-off you were testing your engines before one by one and ramp them up to about three thousand ribs [unclear] a minute and then switch one of the magnetos off, there’d be a drop of one of the rears, I think, what was it so many percent, five percent was it, you were allowed if you that went below that [unclear] was faulty, yes, all the four engines [unclear] two magneto on each side of the Merlin was a marvellous engine [unclear] this is a backdrop somewhere ok, ok for take-off. Yes, it was quite an experience but we got through it alright and as I say with Jack Cardey, second pilot who flew with us, he didn’t act as a pilot, as I say, he was only a passenger, he was more than a passenger than I was. But he was in the Royal New Zealand Air Force and I think he’d come from Wellingtons and flown Wellingtons before. And of course at Snaith where I was stationed, 51 Squadron, they’d done all our operations from there and we hadn’t been there for long, as I say, there was only like just four men squadron up and I didn’t know any of the people that went before, you know, I mean, you just mentioned I knew a lot of people who [unclear], well I wouldn’t know, I think I knew about two, a Canadian, [unclear] Stewart or somebody like that and I know I went to Berlin one night and back or something, Slim Stewart, he was a Canadian, but no, as I say, I didn’t have enough time there to get to know anybody, I knew the group captain Grey, he was a station commander, I was in b flights squadron leader Moore, [unclear] Moore, h flights was name Russell, squadron leader Russell, and quite alright, yes I was, but as I say, we didn’t do many operations but [unclear] good the Germans were, night fighters, defences and that and as I say, we didn’t know this fighter was creeping up on us, never heard a word, never heard a word from the rear gunnery and I was horrified as I stood there and saw the tracer coming through the fuselage, you know, it caught fire, but as I say, we were blown out, that how [unclear] Netherland the cottage to walk up to the door and by [unclear] you do see these [unclear] but I was found myself floating through the air, and I saw lights going out in front of me going round and round a big roulette wheel, always remember it, and I was [unclear] I better pull this, the ripcord and I landed as I thought was a field but it was a bit of a built up area than that and I laid there for a bit I thought [unclear] a fine death or [unclear] something like that you know people come running up the Dutch farmer and he came up to me and I said, where am I? Where am I? And he said, Nederland, Nederland, I thought, where the hell is that, suddenly dropped the Netherlands, you know, and up to his house, he’s got two young daughters, they’re all clever [unclear] they brought [unclear] and money and souvenirs and [unclear] but they said that there was a couple of priests there who [unclear] quickly, they said, we’ll hide this, you know, that [unclear] a parachute and I said, we’ll have to notify the Dutch police, I presume they had to do it with any prisoners, there was a Lancaster shot down in the same area at the same time cause they picked the crew up with us and we were in this Dutch policeman’s house, he’s a Dutch police and I said notify them and he said, well, we’ll have to notify the Germans and they sent a minibus and when they opened up the doors, there was George Farmer, our wireless operator, he was a member of our crew and he’s a New Zealander and also a Lancaster crew as well, I think they were all intact, they picked them up in the same area and next thing I say I was being interrogated at a local station wanted to know where I’d come from, what the squadron was, bomb load was carrying, what [unclear] was and everything else, where you’re stationed, you know, and all that kind of business and yeah and as I say, I spent the night [unclear] and fetched up in front of this chap of the Luftwaffe, he wanted to know every day where we come from and what we were doing and all the rest of it, next thing we went to Dulag Luft [unclear] interrogation the treating of all the and then Dulag Luft, went to Amsterdam and I saw the big army place there, our second pilot, he’s been since the end of the war [unclear] travel I don’t know but I mean [unclear] we’ve been to Holland and we’ve sorted the place out with the war graves commission, we’ve been to the scene where our four chaps were buried because we had to identify them, cause the Germans said, you have to come and identify your crew and that got to [unclear] a church or somewhere and they took us down and there was four wooden coffins and there were the bodies lying in there and I said early, most of identify to let the people know, you know, but I couldn’t look at them because it upset me but [unclear] Farmer, our wireless op, he was thirteen years older than me, a bit more mature and he identified them, apparently they are buried in an air force base but after a while we in Holland that they buried them in this place where we went on a weekend in May and May is a big [unclear] first two or three days in May there were all flags flying out in Holland and, you know, as I know you come from England they will treat you well and really good. [unclear] Well, what I would like to do is to, you mentioned one chap [unclear] where he went to, I want to know how many miles we did from when we came after the camp in 1945 on that march, I mean, the names of the first, we went to Lamsdorf on the 22nd of January 1945, we could hear the Russian gunfire on the Eastern Front [unclear] and an Anson came over the Channel to evacuate the camp and we got ready to move out, we got nothing, bits of food stored up, which we took with us and out to the dark then they found us a barn, they herded us all in this barn, that’s where we slept and that’s we did, [unclear] months and months and as I say, it was the 22nd of January and [unclear] about April time before we never knew where we were like you know, I didn’t know then, I should have loved to know, I know the name of some of the important towns as Gorlitz, went from Lamsdorf to Gorlitz, oh, that was a terrible place, [unclear] Russian prisoners there, they treated them like, well, dogs, [unclear], never forget, filthy place [unclear] about a week and then moved us on the road, we never went to another camp, we went to, I can remember Jena, you know where, there are the famous optical lense [unclear] and what is the other place, where they did the porcelain? In German, Meissen [unclear], Meissen, heard about Meissen ceramic wares, marvellous, innit? [unclear] To plot the route we took and what we covered many miles [unclear] I said, end of January in April ’45 and the Germans got to be [unclear] you know and they used to catch you every morning, every night but I was with three of the [unclear] family wireless operator and we met up with another chap who was a [unclear] bloke some kind of destroyer in the Mediterranean and he decided to leave the company [unclear] like you know and we stayed, they put us in a barn one night and we stayed up there all the next day until it got dark, then we headed across the fields cause one got a compass, we could hear the Russian gunfire on our right in the East we could hear the Allied gunfire, the Americans and British on the left and we headed towards them and I know it was a terrible cold [unclear] in the [unclear] it was one of the coldest winters that I experienced. MJ: Did you have a coat this time? GH: Pardon? MJ: Were you lucky enough to have a coat? GH: A coat? MJ: Yeah. GH: Yes, I had a grey coat, yes, had a grey coat and one of us got a [unclear], a little [unclear] or a little saucepan. And I remember, the next morning when we woke, we [unclear] in this forest, we woke up, decided to have a cup of tea, [unclear] now we had a cup of tea, we lit a fire, made this tea and after a bit we sent a German, young German officer coming across, we thought, [unclear], this is the end, you know, [unclear] come around and put you hands up but all he said, he knew we were British and all he said was, don’t forget to put the fire out when you’re finished cause the smoke will attract aircraft in [unclear] always remembered saying that and we thought, oh, we got away with it, he got his Luger on the side, you know, he could have shot us easy, there’s four of us and the next day we saw a bloke, we were near a village, we saw a bloke with a big loaf of bread, a big cart with a loaf of bread, and we wondered where this bread had come from and we stopped him and asked him and he says, American tanks and troops so many kilometres down there, is the Third American army, the sixth army division, the Third American Army, General Patton and it was they who took care of us, they wanted us to go with them, they got a spearhead going through towards [unclear], come with us, they said, I said, no, we want to go home, we want to get back to England and they took us day by day, with these big six wheeler transport used to bring the supplies in, they took us back a few miles each day towards Paris and that, that’s where we finished up in Paris, one [unclear] did the time, that flew us from Paris to, forget the place now, I remember we had lunch [unclear] fish our fish is the best of all the Sunday lunch I’ve ever known, interrogated as quarter [unclear] as regards the performance of the aircraft, any spies, any stool pigeons, anybody like that, it was a bloke, forget his name, dammit, he was notorious but then I knew all about him and I don’t know what happened to him. But yes that was Lamsdorf for [unclear] yes. As I say, German officers sent for us, sent for me one day and in the main office and there was a German guard behind me walking with his rifle always walking behind you [unclear] shoot me but he wanted to know what my attitude was to the Russians, what my attitude was to the Russians, now they were dead scared of the Russians, yes, dead scared of the Russians, what do you think? I said, [unclear] if they attacked England, you know, I joined up and attacked them like to defend the country [unclear] saying that you know, wanted to know what my attitude was [unclear], I don’t know If I was the only one but they sent me two or three times and I, he was American cause he said to me, he said I’m a goddam American in the German, the German army, you know, and I could say, what are you doing in the German army [unclear] and things like that [unclear] I don’t know but that did happen, yes, want to know what your attitude was, what the British attitude to the Russians were, was alright, the Russians were alright, yes [coughs]. [unclear] to the camp, the barb wire, look out through the barb wire, see the typical German trees and the greenery enough in the spring and summer was nice, in the winter was bloody awful, I mean, there’s a [unclear] and you could hear the dogs patrolling the outside of the guard [unclear] you know, and there are all lights [unclear] and you went in the door of the hut, was a great big bulk kind of thing that they used in the night in case you had to [unclear] you know you couldn’t [unclear] the compound the [unclear] conditions were bloody helpless, just a [unclear] shed with a lot of wooden seats with [unclear], no cover, it’s not awful in the summer, terrible at [unclear] you know and it was whilst speaking earlier about the Dieppe prisoners, the Canadians, a lot of French Canadians killed and I reckoned, the Germans reckoned that our people took the German prisoners and chained them up with the result that we finished up in chains, you could just get under your pocket, handcuff [unclear] and you walk about like that, you sat, you sat [unclear] every morning, detail two or three blokes [unclear] big [unclear] all the chain across and bring them up from the office and then put them on you know, you walk about like that all day and if you wanted to tend to the nightshift, you get somebody of the German to unlock them, [unclear], we did all that, did all that and the parcels, [unclear] they were coming through but of course had always blame the RAF for bombing the railways or the Russians, was always blaming them, [unclear] the parcels, what you expect, we can’t get the transport, you’re bombing the railways and all that business but when we did get them, I mean, used to go down and I mean, I forget what country [unclear] parcel [unclear] us but perhaps put a pair of socks inside, just a pair of socks and [unclear] chocolate and cigarettes and of course the Germans all that when they used to go in the office and collect the parcels, this is a private parcel [unclear] that I [unclear] and cigarettes had stuck in [unclear] any messages inside and things like that you know and yeah and oh there’s a lot of chocolate, well of course that was the currency, soap and chocolate, you could get away with it, if you could bribe the Germans with that definitely and one of the blokes did and then another thing, you could go out on a working party if you wanted, if you felt that way inclined, go out on a working party, you’d pick somebody who looked you like [unclear] same way [unclear] and all this stuff and [unclear] identity, I’d go and [unclear] you [unclear] on a German farm, you know, work on a farm, get food and all that, get as much food as I wanted, you know, [unclear] like that, yeah, but we had the chance to do all that but [unclear] what you do to your [unclear] and I [unclear] by going, you know, to work you’re helping them, if you’re not, you’re not helping them and that was the idea but the parcels obviously they [unclear] parcel pretty good and milk and all that kind of stuff and there used to be one [unclear] every week was the M & V meat and veg bourse, they decided the cook house, the British blokes working in the cook house [unclear] German, they take a tin of meat and vegetable out to you parcel every week and cook it up for you kind of business that used to be great but of course there was a lot of racket going down there with blokes pinching more than one tin and all that, you say lot of that going on meat and veg always [unclear] and but we still lived alright work in twos parcel you get a parcel two a week [unclear] Tuesday or Thursday I think he does and collect the parcel and two of us living on the one parcel for two or three days and they try and get another one [unclear] part of our beds, there’s a little, have a little cupboard and a shelf and tins of this and tins of that and tins the other and cause I remember when [laughs] we had, came over the tannoy that we got load the camp at two o’clock in the afternoon the German commandant came over and he said that, you know, you gotta be ready for two o’clock, it was all queuing [unclear] all blankets and all that, you know, and we got tins of condense milk and all that kind of stuff [unclear] you know I remember I was sick of the bloody[unclear] wouldn’t let it fall under the Germans or under the Russians and, yeah, we took all this food and when they threw us, the first night when they threw us into this barn, great big barn, with straw on the floor and no lights and anything, no [unclear] and nothing like that and I felt sick and I wanted to be sick and I remember I got some new handkerchiefs had been more than seven days before and I was sitting all these handkerchiefs and that, you know, I’ll always remember that, sick as an [unclear], get up the next morning, you don’t know where you are going, what you were doing, I asked for a drink of water, no one would give you one, someone would give you drink of water, others wouldn’t, had promised you some [unclear] potatoes, cooked potatoes in big wicker baskets at the end of the day but you never got at the end of the day, you never got them, cause I [unclear] one or two of the German officers I reported it [unclear] one of them books down there I mentioned his name [unclear] what his name was but what happened I don’t know but they weren’t very, as I say, they never treated us, they never treated us too bad, anybody getting beat up or anything, cause lots of people, as you say, [unclear] to us, French Canadians captured at Dieppe, there were Sikhs and Indians and all kinds of, Palestinians [unclear] a year, the interrogator, he was a Palestinian, [unclear] Zelba, I don’t remember his name, and he used to do all our deals for [unclear], he used to get us a bit more coal to put [unclear] brickets to put on the stove, in the [unclear], you know to keep warm and we used to give him cigarettes and [unclear] and he used to bribe the German guard, he could speak German, he was born in Hamburg, as I say, he joined, he was with the RAF in Cyprus, and when Cyprus fell of course he was captured [unclear] Germany [unclear] collect cigarettes and all that, that’s how we used to get our stuff, listen to the radio every night [unclear] the bulletin come round, anybody caught with radios [unclear] every so often they would come and have a search they turn you all outside on a day like this, they turn outside early in the morning and they’d be out there all the bloody day, turning all your bed was ripped out, all that, you know [unclear] and put in detention, you know, and he ran away and the Jerry guard on a, it was on a Sunday and we was all lined up outside we saw all this going on and he ran away the chap did and the German guard got down on his knees and shot this bloke you know, he told him to halt and all that but he wouldn’t and that was going out on working party, yeah, but of course we gotta a senior British medical officer in the camp and he used to look after and he complained [unclear] and the leader of the camp was a regimental sergeant major [unclear] during some [unclear] and he had the badge at the back of the camp because [unclear] artillery [unclear] once and they always wore the at the back [unclear] he’s a camp leader but, you see, he outer perimeter [unclear] look at the people strolling and on a Sunday afternoon in the summer, I was looking and also he was looking [unclear] and former [unclear] and they had a dance round there and you could study, got to night school and [unclear] did a bit of that but [unclear] a bit smoking and could have a bit of walk now and again, you know, yeah, waiting for the news every night how far the Russians had got, how far, yeah, it was an experience, but as I say, really [unclear] one thing trying to get [unclear] more to do a book on the great escape or something but it was written by the one of them Tornado pilots or navigator who got shot down and of course [unclear] the forty’s war was lighter and he [unclear] but [unclear] I can’t read properly although I do a lot of reading. I met a German air force officer and he stopped and talked to us, spoke perfectly English and he said he was sorry for what we’ve been treated and he got us for that night, he got us in his barracks kind of place, like a German naffy, we [unclear], we could eat a German eat [unclear] in their naffy and he got us some brickets to put on the stove and there was straw on the floor, pallet on the floor, and pack of ten or twenty Polish cigarettes [unclear] concession [unclear] for what we’ve been through and we’ve be going through cause that was a [unclear] German, I remember I loved to know where we went and how many miles w covered, I never got to know that [unclear] laughing but I was a bit more serious on that and of course I combed me hair and do myself up but when our working party went out that was the main gates past the office where all the girls worked, checking identities and that cause look at your photo and, you know, oh that’s not you, you’re somebody else and used to be play the band and then march out and I knew a couple of guards, officers, forget what I was in, was in the cavalry, I was six foot, very look smart when I went out and that was to intimidate the Germans cause I looked a real scruffy lad. I think it was on the route to, perhaps on the route to Lamsdorf and they put us in a waiting room and there was all German soldiers in their uniform sitting, all [unclear] drinking and eating but we had to head up the corner, was about half a dozen or more of us and I remember the pipes was on, was warm in there, I mentioned it was warm and this one German, he says, we’ll make you sweat before long, you know, make it hot for you, always remember that, we were there cornered up in the corner, no sitting at the tables, long long waiting [unclear] the station in the waiting room, no, they wouldn’t let us sit at the table, on the chairs [unclear] on the floor and when they took us to one Sunday lunch on they took us to get on the train to go to across to this camp, all the Dutch people was crowding round us cause we stood there in a circle, was guards there with the rifles just waiting for the train to come and the Dutch people would inquisitive, you know, and I was given just a [unclear] and laughing at the Germans backs, you know, [unclear] that them kind of things, you could see [unclear] definitely. MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command I’d like to thank George Hextell, Warrant Officer, from Squadron 51 for his recording on the 4th of January 2016 at one thirty. Once again, thank you again. GH: Right. MJ: And that was one hour and Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with George Hextell Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mick Jeffery Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-01-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AHextellGJE160104 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 00:55:04 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 George Hextell joined the RAF as a flight engineer and flew operations with 51 Squadron on Halifaxes. After being shot down over Holland, he became a prisoner of war. He gives a detailed account of his capture, imprisonment and liberation. He also describes various episodes from the POW camp Stalag VIIIB: living conditions; food barter; witnessing an attempted escape. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Peter Schulze Maureen Clarke Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. France Great Britain Poland Netherlands France--Dieppe Poland--Łambinowice Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1940 1941 1942 1945 51 Squadron aircrew Dulag Luft final resting place flight engineer flight mechanic ground crew Halifax mechanics engine mine laying prisoner of war RAF Marston Moor RAF Padgate RAF Snaith RAF St Athan recruitment shot down Spitfire Stalag 8B https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1222/12028/PSpencerGC1901.1.jpg 8083fea68b27ab2d47336859883af7a0 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1222/12028/ASpencerGC190123.1.mp3 836491e6db78df25fa3408cce2d0955e 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 Spencer, Geoffrey Charles G C Spencer Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Leading aircraftsman Geoffrey Spencer (b.1925, 1735606 Royal Air Force). He served as a flight mechanic and fitter with 49 Squadron at RAF Fiskerton and 189 Squadron at RAF Fulbeck. 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 2019-01-23 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 Spencer, GC Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document HB: This is an interview for International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive between Harry Bartlett and Geoffrey Charles, GS: Spencer. HB: Spencer. We’re at Sutton Coldfield. It’s the 23rd of January 2019. Right Geoff, the floor’s yours, so I understand you come from this sort of area anyway, before the war. GB: Well I were born in Birmingham and I lived in Erdington before I moved to Sutton Coalfield. HB: Right. GS: But I joined the RAF from when I lived in Erdington and the first place I went to was Cardington for eight weeks’ square bashing and then they moved me to Cosford, RAF Cosford and I did a flight mechanic’s course. HB: You know before you joined, did you actually go to school in Erdington? GS: Oh yeah, when I was in Erdington, from when I was fifteen, I joined the Air Training Corps and I did three years with the Air Training Corp prior to going in to the RAF. HB: So did you get called up or did you volunteer? GS: I volunteered. HB: Why did you volunteer? GS: I don’t know, because they called me, one day after me eighteenth birthday, which I thought was a bit naughty! But that’s it, they sent me there. But anyway - HB: Sorry, where was your ATC unit? GS: At Dunlop, Erdington, Dunlop, the big Dunlop factory there, which is still there, part of it and we did all our Air Training Corp training which was a Sunday parade and whatever we did in the week, taking exams and things to get what they call PNB status which was pilot, bomb aimer and bomb aimer and you had to take various exams to pass that exam and you were given a proficiency badge then, when you’ve acquired that, and then you had to wait around and we went to various squadrons, RAF squadrons, Swinderby was one, you know Swinderby, don’t you. HB: I do, I do. GS: And we also, oh where else, oh, Fradley, RAF Fradley. HB: Don’t know Fradley, no. GS: Litchfield. HB: Oh right! GS: 27 OTU that was. I went to that one. HB: Ah, right! So when you did the ATC training, did you get to fly? GS: Yes, we did fly. Actually we flew from, in Wellington Bombers when we were at Fradley, time expired Wellington bombers, the wings flapped, they were terrible things, and we went up without chutes. we used to just go down to the airfield at night and cadge flights. And then after that I flew a lot when I was on the squadron at Fiskerton, and I also flew in York aircraft. When, when we flew out to, to Singapore, we flew out by York aircraft from Lyneham, which is still going apparently, but it took five days. HB: Yeah, I can imagine. So you did your ATC training, you got called up, what were mum and dad doing at the time? GS: My father was a toolmaker and I worked for him as an apprentice. HB: Ah right. Had he got his own business? GS: He’d got his own business, yeah. Not a very big business, but it was a business, then in 1950 he sold it all and moved down to Cornwall, farming. HB: So your mum and dad are there, you’ve been called up a day after your eighteenth birthday. Nicola: He’d volunteered to go. Wasn’t called up. GS: I volunteered for the RAF, yes. I’ve got a sister but she was in the ATS. HB: Right. Is she older than you, is she older than you? GS: Yes, three years older than me. HB: That would explain it. So you go and report, and they say here’s your travel warrant. GS: Yep, I volunteered at Dale End in Birmingham, right in the centre, that’s it. Then, I say, went to Cardington, eight weeks square bashing and then I went to Cosford and did a flight mechanics course. I don’t know whether you know, but in the RAF there were five trades starting with Group One which was the expert and Group Two which my lot, flight mechanics. Three, four and five you finished up with the bog cleaners, you know, yeah, that was group five, they didn’t do anything. Well from Cosford I went to Fiskerton, 49 Squadron. And I was put into the hangars there servicing the Lancasters, I did a fifty hour service. And from there I was sent out on the flights, B Flight I was on, servicing the Lancasters before they flew on ops. You’re okay, getting all this down are you? HB: Yep, it’s, I just have to keep an eye on the batteries, that’s all, Geoff. GS: At Fiskerton. And I used to fly there, used to fly at night time. You had to sign a form, Form 700, to say that you’d serviced the aircraft and you were satisfied. And the pilots invariably said have you signed the 700, yes I have to, said right go and get a parachute, you’re flying with me, if you’ve serviced the aircraft, I want to make quite sure. HB: His guarantee then! GS: That was the guarantee. I used to fly that was it. Anyway I used to watch them go out every night. Count how many came back and there was always a few missing. HB: How did you feel about that? GS: Not very happy. And then, from Fiskerton, they had FIDO. Do you remember that? You remember FIDO? HB: Well, I remember it, but some people don’t, what was FIDO. GS: FIDO was two pipelines joining along the runway which they set alight, which cleared the fog. Nicola: With fuel dad, was it? Did it, was it fuel? GS: Hundred octane fuel they used, I don’t know how many thousand gallons every time. One time we went to nearby Waddington, you know that don’t you, doing engine change on a Lancaster and then the pilot said well I’m on ops tomorrow so I’ll fly you back, and during the time from Waddington to Fiskerton, which was only about ten mile, the fog came down and the pilot said - he phoned down the ops tower - and they said well we’ll light FIDO for you, which they did. But the thing is when the fog clears it creates a heat haze, and the pilot said it’s gonna be a bumpy landing. HB: Oh no! GS: So we made the approach and he said the alternative, he said, I shall have to crash land it. And the sergeant that was with me at the time, he said, if you do that, we’ve just done an engine change, he said you’ll have to change the bloody lot! [Laughter] Which was quite true. Anyway, he made a very bumpy landing, the brakes failed, so we turned off the runway at about fifty mile an hour and he says hold on we might not be able to stop, but he stopped right in front of the watch tower. And at that time, back at Fiskerton the squadron split up. 49 Squadron went to Syerston, you know Syerston, and 189 Squadron which I was seconded to went to Fulbeck, which was south of Waddington. That’s where you’ve got that bit mixed up I think. [Sounds of paper rustling] HB: And that was with 189 Squadron. GS: Yeah. Who were also at Bardney. HB: Yeah, that’s sort of, answered that sort of little hiccup there. GS: Well from there they sent me on a Fitter One course at Henlow, which puts it in the right order. HB: I’m just interested in that Geoff. When you went to RAF Cosford, they would train you as a flight mechanic on all the various engines, the Merlins, the Hercules, you know, all those engines. So when you actually got posted out, you were working on, what sort of engines were you working on then, with the Lancs? GS: Merlins. HB: You were working on the Merlins. GS: Merlin 20s. HB: So what was the difference between doing your training as a flight mechanic and your training as a fitter? GS: I don’t know, it was just more sophisticated, more intricate details on the Merlin engine. For instance, I can remember doing a block change on the Merlin engine, which if you’d been a flight mechanic was unheard of. We were in, one of the aircraft came into the main hangar and we did a, and a V12, and we did a block change, which is quite intricate. HB: So the block is the bit where the pistons go up and down. GS: That’s right, that’s it, six on each, which was quite a big job doing that. Which we managed okay and that’s when after Fulbeck they sent me to Henlow on that Fitter One’s course. Where did I go from there? HB: Did you have, obviously you passed the course. GS: Yeah, I did, I passed with honours on that actually, I did quite well. HB: Did you get promoted and more money? GS: I got promoted; I got my props. I was an LAC, so I was quite chuffed with that. And then I went to Holmsley South, now that’s a place in the New Forest, right down the south. I was only there a month, then I went to Duxford for about a month, which was on Spitfires. HB: Was this all the while working on the engines? GS: Yes. HB: For just like a month. GS: I was a Group one Tradesman then see, I was more useful to them. And then, now where did I go, oh, I went to a place called Hinton in the Hedges which is in Oxfordshire. And when I go there - no aircraft - and the whole airfield was full of airc – of lorries and all the maintenance stuff and what they were doing, they were, all the airfield’s completely covered in all sorts of lorries and all sorts, aircraft carriers and all this sort of business and they’d bring them round into the main hangar, which was still there, service them and put them out back into the airfield and eventually they were dispersed to the place that they wanted them. But, I was wasting my time there, of course. HB: I was going to say what were they using you for then Geoff? GS: Well they were using me for, to going out on my bicycle to any of the lorries that were, various types of lorries, bring them into hangars, spray them, blokes spraying, and going out again. HB: Group One tradesman doing that. GS: I was a Group One tradesman. HB: Just slightly moving that cause it’s just making a bit of a noise. GS: That’s better. Absolutely fine. Yes. HB: I’m just. So you’re only there a short time then, I presume. GS: Yep, and then from there, I went to Lyneham and they posted me out to Singapore. HB: How much, how much notice did you get of that? GS: Well I don’t know really, I never took time of notice. HB: So what year do you think that was about? GS: That was late ’44, because, or late, that’s right, because at that time I as posted out there, went to Lyneham, they dropped the bomb; the atomic bomb. HB: So that would be ‘45 then. GS:’ 45. That’s it, that’s it. They dropped the bomb and I flew out to Singapore. HB: Just take you back to you know, Cosford, Fiskerton and all them. What sort of leave did you get? GS: Well the usual leave thirty six hour pass, forty eight hour leave. I think I had exp, expo leave before I flew out to Singapore. I think I had fourteen days. HB: Expo? GS: Yeah. What do they call it? HB: Debark? De, Debarkation? GS: Embarkation! HB: Embarkation leave. Oh right. So what did you do with your leave, did you come home? GS: Oh yeah. HB: Came home. You go to the local dance hall. GS: Local dance hall and all that. HB: In your uniform. GS: I met my wife there, at the local masonic, you know. I had an incident when I were flying out to Singapore. There were two York aircraft went out and there were twenty blokes in each aircraft and we knew each other, forty odd blokes, and we tossed up which aircraft we’d go in. We went to Malta, Habbaniya, what’s, I forget the one in northern India, and then Calcutta. Dumdum, Dumdum airfield, and I elected to go on the first aircraft, on the York that was going to Singapore and the second aircraft didn’t get there: it flew into the Indian Ocean. So that was why, sheer luck, is why I’m still here. And then I did twelve months in Singapore. I had to remuster again then because they didn’t want aircraft fitters then, so I had to remuster as a Fitter Marine and I was on high speed launches wandering around the East Indies, which was quite a good time. HB: So you went from Lyneham, you flew down through Malta, Middle East, into, GS: Singapore. HB: The northern India one and then Singapore. You’re based at Singapore. So you were in what, were you in tents or in quarters? GS: In quarters, I’ve got some pictures of them actually. We were initially sent out, when we’d gone from Lyneham they told me I was on what they called Tiger Force, which was going to Okinawa which was the nearest point for bombing Tokyo, but because I was in Singapore I didn’t want that because the war had finished with Japan then. HB: So they just literally took you off aircraft fitting and said - GS: Fitter marine! HB: Fitter marine. That’s, what was the big difference with the engines then? GS: Phew, terrible. There were three Peregrine engines inside the high speed launches, one either side and one at the back of you and it was a hundred and forty degrees in there, so you could only spend ten minutes at a time. When they were going at full throttle, which was thirty knots, you hadn’t got much chance, so you had to come up after ten minutes. It was horrible. Nicola: What about it, do you remember when you fell in the water dad. HB: You went overboard did you? Nicola: You were on, someone backed in to you. Go on. GS: Well what happened, I was on the quayside, there was a drop in the water of about thirty foot. Some western oriental gentleman I called them, didn’t call them that, backing a lorry up to me he must have seen me, I was looking out to sea and the next minute [slap sound] it hit me and I was in the sea and fortunately there was an officer standing there and he galloped down into the water and dragged me out. Cause it was only about eighteen inches of water. HB: You were lucky. GS: It knocked me out virtually. I came round and he said you had a bit of luck there, didn’t you airman. I said yeah, did, I’m glad you got me out. He said look down there, you see all those snakes, he said, they’re all bloody poisonous. [Chuckle] So, sick quarters, and I was okay. Nicola: You never saw the guy, did you from the truck. GS: No, the bloke took off, never saw him again. Nicola: He knew he was in trouble, didn’t he. HB: So you’re working round, all round Singapore, so you must have had a few trips out to the islands. GS: Oh yes. Up into Malaya, Penang and Java, Sumatra of course they’ve all changed their names now, haven’t they. So I had twelve months. When I was demobbed, they, I came back by sea. I had to go to a transit camp in Malaya and then came back by sea and it took a month! [Paper shuffling] Nicola: A month’s cruise then. GS: I came back on that! HB: So that’s the, I’ve done it again, I’ve take them off. GS: Can you spell that? HB: The Johan van Barneveld. GS: That’s it. HB: Looks like bit like an ocean going cruise ship, doesn’t it! GS: It was only about sixteen thousand ton! HB: Oh, small! Nicola: Dad, didn’t you see one of the little boats that you’d serviced, didn’t you see somewhere recently. GS: Oh yes, I went to Henlow, you know, to the museum there. As you went in, to go in to the museum, on the front was an air sea rescue and the actual [emphasis] one that I sailed in when I was at Singapore. HB: The same boat? GS: The same boat, same number: 2528. Nicola: You didn’t tell them though did you. GS: No. I knew. HB: Wow! That’s, so there was a group of you there, you obviously got on well, you know, and so you’d have had to take your leave while you were in Singapore, if you had leave. GS: I don’t think we did. I was at Seletar, in Singapore. There’s the - HB: Of course it’s got the flying boats, hasn’t it. GS: Oh yes. There was a Sunderland. That’s a high speed launch, those sort of things. HB: So these, this photograph album, we’re going to need to copy all this. GS: Are you? HB: There’s one you’d broken. GS: Yeah, that’s a spit that crash landed. There I am again. HB: Yes. We’re going to need to copy these I think, Geoff. GS: These are the - HB: They are the quarters. GS: They are the quarters. The Japs had them before we, after, before we got there, first thing they do took all the doors off the bogs so you had no privacy at all. [Laugh] HB: Ah, right. So, we’ve got you to Singapore, you’ve been on your high speed launches, I think what we’ll do, we’ll just have two minutes pause, right, in the interview, just while get our breath back and then we’ll come back to them. Right, we’ve switched back on, we’ve had a little bit of a break and Nicola, Geoff’s daughter’s just gone off to work, so we’ll just recommence the interview and so we’ve got to the demob in Singapore and all that business, but can we just take you back, back to your airfields, because at one point you did something a bit. GS: When I was at Fulbeck, we moved from Fiskerton to Fulbeck and I was on duty crew and we had a Stirling bomber come in to be refuelled, and me, being completely new to Stirling bombers, went up in the cockpit, turned the fuel line which I thought was the one, an elephant’s trunk came down and deposit about a hundred gallon of fuel on to the tarmac. [Sigh] And we had a bomb happy, as we used to call them, flak happy, sergeant flight engineer, saw what I’d done, he came up, he said don’t worry about it, so I shoved this fuel line back up into the aircraft and screwed the cock on. I said what about all the fuel on the deck and he said don’t worry about it, so he started the engine up, which in itself was bad enough, it blew the fuel away cause we were way [emphasis] out on dispersal, miles from anywhere you could say, but when Stirling bombers with Hercules engines start up, flames come out, and if it, that bloody aircraft had gone up in bloody flames, so would I! HB: Blimey! You’d have still been paying for it! Good grief Geoff! GS: We were on dispersal which was about as far side of the airfield from the Headquarters from about a mile and a half away, this was near Newark, Fulbeck is quite near Newark, and that’s what happened and that was an incident. I told my daughter about it and she was amazed, and I got away with it. HB: You must have had a few close shaves though. GS: Oh yeah, I did. Flying the aircraft, we did land with one Lancaster, when we were, where were we? I think it was at Fiskerton, and the undercart folded up and it broke the Lanc up actually, broke the imagine what it did to the props and that. HB: Was that landing on the main runway or did you get on the grass? GS: On the main runway, we were going along the runway and the undercart, hydraulics, it just collapsed, and that was dead dodgy. I remember that., but apart from that. HB: So where would you have been, when that happened, in the Lanc, where would you have been sat? GS: Usually on the flight engineer’s place because, usually, the flight engineer nearly always went with the pilot on, what do they call it? Air test or fighter affiliation and [cough] that’s when that happened, the undercart folded up, just the one wheel. It did a lot of damage. Props of course went on the port side and that was it. HB: You got away with that one as well. GS: I got away with that one as well. But then, from that one as well. And then from then on I made sure I picked the time I went, flew, went on the air test. [Chuckle] HB: Why was that? GS: I was getting scared to be quite honest. Yeah. There was another incident we had, I’ve forgotten what it was now. Something to do with Lancasters, but normally was a wonderful aircraft, you know. We had several crews that did a full tour of ops at Fiskerton. HB: Yeah. Did you, when you were at Fiskerton, did you always maintain the same aircraft or was it just parade in the morning and get one allocated? GS: When I was servicing them in the hangar, which was called the maintenance hangar. Different aircraft came in to be serviced. Fifty hour service, hundred hour service, hundred and fifty and then a major, major, but when I was on the flight, when you’re on the B Flight, which I went out on, I had to do the flight and, and sign the Form 700 which was meant that you, they didn’t all [emphasis] say you come, you can come fly with me, that was preservation by the pilot, if I’m going to die you’re going to die with me sort of business! HB: Good incentive to keep you up to speed. GS: Up to scratch. Cause I can remember quite well, I serviced one Lancaster, I remember it even now, I was on the port engine which you had to get a, you had a big service ladder to get up to it, and I had to fill it, the Lancaster engine got an oil at the back, thirty six gallon, and I went up to check the height of it, put the cap on as I thought and came down, thought nothing of it. And then the regular B Flight mechanic, he said, “everything all right?” I said yeah, he said, “I put that filler cap on properly for you.” HB: Ooh. GS: And there’s another incident. I thanked him profusely, I obviously hadn’t locked it properly. HB: Oh wow! GS: That could have been trouble. If he’d gone up, flight, and the filler cap had come off - HB: Difficult. GS: And I didn’t go on flight affiliation as they called it. They’d have a Lanc going up on air test and they’d have a Spitfire or Hurricane doing aerobatics, simulating getting at the rear gunner. Well I went, I only went up once on that because for the only time, I was sick, sick as a dog and I thought bugger flight affiliation from now on! HB: So fighter affiliation wasn’t one of your favourites! GS: No it wasn’t! HB: So this is when they practiced doing, did they call it corkscrew? GS: That’s right. HB: And you were in there when they did that. GS: I was in the back, I was in the rear turret at the time. It was horrible. HB: Right, so we’ve gone through, we’ve gone through the squadrons and you’ve gone to Singapore and you’re going to be demobbed and they’ve put you on the troop ship, in Malaya, how long did it take you to get home? GS: One month. I can remember it ever so well. We went from Singapore to Ceylon as it was then, I’ve forgotten the name of the town, and from then on we flew, we sailed from Ceylon up the Red Sea to Port Said and then across the Med and it was four weeks, and of course all the, everybody’s being demobbed on board that ship, so I can’t remember any details. HB: Was it, so it wasn’t like one big long, month long party then? GS: Oh no, oh no. I slept on deck, everybody else was, well most of them, slept in hammocks. And I couldn’t get on in a hammock, so I slept on deck and that was it and I went to East Kirkby and was demobbed. HB: So you landed back in England. GS: Southampton. HB: At Southampton, bunged you on a train. GS: Train. Up to East Kirkby. Demobbed and I was a civilian. HB: Did you get your suit? GS: Yes. Got me suit, and a yellow tie. [Laugh] I remember that ever so well. HB: Were you still a single man at this time, Geoff? GS: Yes, oh yes. I was twenty one going on twenty two. HB: But you’d met your wife before you went out to Singapore. Sorry, what was your wife called? GS: Hazel. HB: Hazel, right. So you met Hazel when you were in your uniform looking smart in the dance hall. So you’d obviously been writing, in the force. GS: Yes. I was running two women at the time! [Laugh] HB: Were you! Were you now! GS: I got rid of the one. HB: Ah right. Was that, that was another one back here was it? GS: Yeah. They were both back here. I remember I had the two photographs on the side of me bed, on the side of me billet in Singapore, and I used to say to the bloke which do you think’s the best out of those two and they always pointed to Hazel, she’s the homely type they used to say. HB: Oooh! GS: And that was it, I married her. We were married sixty three years. HB: That’s good. GS: Good going isn’t it. HB: It is, it is. So you came back to East Kirkby, you’ve been demobbed, back home to? GS: Back with my father in engineering. HB: Yep. That’s still in Erdington. GS: Yeah, and then, that’s right, my dad sold his business moved down to Falmouth as a farmer which didn’t work out: you’ve got to be born into farming and he did ten years before he came back north again. HB: So what did you do. I mean he went down there in 1950 did he, did you say? GS: Yes. HB: You’d stayed in till 47, hadn’t you? GS: Yes. HB: So, once he went down there what did you do, did you? GS: I went. We’d got another, one of dad’s younger [emphasis] brothers, he was in the shoe trade, and I had the option then and I went into the shoe trade for three years. It wasn’t very pleasant because he wasn’t a very pleasant man to work for, so I stayed with him for three years then I went back into toolmaking. I worked for Cincinnati, the big American company, making milling machines and all that. HB: You obviously enjoyed that. GS: Yeah. Better it was, yeah. HB: And that was you till, what, through to retirement I suppose. GS: Yes, I suppose it was. No! I stayed in the tool making trade, I worked for a company just down there on the estate for twenty seven years. HB: Wow! GS: Tool making. HB: So out of your, you know, I mean it was a difficult time, I mean the war had been running for three, nearly four years when you went in, when you actually got called up, and you’re living in Birmingham which was a big target. GS: Oh, it was! HB: So what was it, what, before you joined the RAF what it like living under this threat, really? GS: Before I went into the RAF, well Birmingham was bombed quite badly, like Coventry. If they missed Coventry it was Birmingham, because all the car industry as you know, is in this area and we were a real target because at that time dad worked for Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory, which is just down there, making Spitfires, building Spitfires and he worked in the tool room there before he started on his own. That was quite a job. HB: So where you were living at Erdington, I mean they had bombing in that area, didn’t they. GS: Oh yes, quite a bit of bombing yeah. We were actually, there was only bombs locally, but none actually where I lived in Hollandy Road, there wan’t much. You’re going back seventy years now you know. HB: That’s right. GS: Trying to remember all these things. HB: Yeah, I mean mum and dad obviously, you know, you’ve got your sister, yourself, you know, there’d be that worry wouldn’t there. What did you do in the evening? Did you ever do fire watching or anything like that? GS: Yeah. When I was fourteen, when I left school, I was fire watching in the centre of Birmingham. I’d got a job, just a normal job in the, in tool making, er in the shoe industry and they got me fire watching. They gave me a stirrup pump and a bucket of water and go up on the top floor of this building and if they drop incendiaries: put ‘em out. Fourteen years old. HB: Good grief! GS: I remember that quite clearly. HB: Did you leave school, cause obviously you’re at work then, at fourteen, did you leave school with any certificates? GS: No, I didn’t get School Certificate. I left, I elected not to go to secondary school, which was from fourteen to sixteen, so I left at fourteen from the ordinary council school. I lived at Yardley then, on the south side of Birmingham. HB: Right, right. Of all your time in the RAF, in Bomber Command Geoff, what do you think was your best time, what was your best bit of being in the RAF? GS: Well, the activity when I was at Fiskerton. Oh yes, definitely. The fitter’s courses and flight mechanics courses was a chore. Just hard work it was really, but when I get, when I was at Fiskerton and also Fulbeck, and Waddington, which I was there. Waddington was the place to get to because it was an peace, it was an established squadron none of this nissen hut business or anything of that, and that was the place to go. But I wasn’t there long enough to appreciate it. It’s still there, isn’t it. I noticed that when I went to – yeah. HB: So what, we’ve said that was something you enjoyed, was being busy, and you’ve got all your mates and whatnot, so what did you do, when you weren’t on leave, what did you do for entertainment when you were on the squadron? GS: We used to go to the camp cinema and, thing I noticed mostly [emphasis] about the camp cinema, you went in there and you couldn’t see the screen for the smoke, cause everybody smoked at that time and I didn’t smoke and me eyes come out and they were watering permanently after that. HB: Oh right. So that moves us on. What was, what do you think was the worst bit of your service? GS: When I was at Holmesly South in the New Forest it was my twenty first birthday and I wanted a forty eight hour pass because me wife, me mother had got a big party organised for me. So I went to the SWO, Station Warrant Officer, and asked for a forty hour pass and he refused it. And I remember then I thought, when I get back into civvie street I’ll have you. [Laugh] Never did of course, but I remember it ever so well. He refused me a forty eight hour pass. He knew what it was for but didn’t show any compassion whatsoever. HB: And what did you think after the war, when the war ended, what did you think the sort of feeling was about Bomber Command? GS: [Sigh] Well, they lost so many men, in ’42 onwards to the, till D-Day, fifty five thousand men were killed, weren’t they. I, I thought that was absolutely terrible. All the aircrew, I got to knew them, when I was at Fiskerton, by name and they’d go on ops and didn’t come back. It was a horrible feeling all the while. Because at the time, when I was, now where was I, oh yes, at the end of my fitter’s course, yeah, you fixed for time, at, on the fitter’s course at Hen, Hendon, that’s right, near Bedford it is. HB: Halford? GS: Henlow, not Hendon, Henlow, near Bedford. I applied to go on a flight engineer’s course, which was accepted, at St Athan. I was posted and I got there: what have you come for? I said I’ve come to do an FE’s course. They said we don’t want any more, so they sent me back. Which was just as well because if I’d have done a flight engineer’s course, I’d have been there and gone on ops, I wouldn’t be here now, would I? There were so many casualties. I can remember one time we lost ninety eight aircraft one night, on ops. Lancasters, mostly. HB: Hmm. That’s a lot of men. GS: Well Lancaster aircraft, they’d only got, they’d got four guns in the rear turret, two on the upper turret and two in the front, but they were pathetic compared with German aircraft which had got canons. Twice the fire power. So that was the thing about Lancasters. But apart from that they had the biggest bombload, they could fly at twenty two thousand feet and none of the others couldn’t. If you had a relative that was on Halifaxes, they weren’t a patch on Lancasters, during the war. And Stirlings, they were a joke they were. The rear gunner in a Stirling his expectation of life was about a fortnight. [Whistle] It was awful, wasn’t it. HB: Hmm. Yeah. So the, when, did you ever do any sort of like Cook’s Tours when you came back? You did? GS: Yes, I did the one, over Germany. It was a revelation that was. When you flew at about ten thousand feet, something like that, and the debris, there was nothing left, of any of the towns. We didn’t fly over Berlin, but we did all the other ones. HB: How did you feel about that? GS: Terrible. You know, you thought why was this, all this necessary? That’s the way you looked at it, you know, because Nazis were the pigs, but an ordinary German, he was just another bloke to me. And that’s the way I feel about that. HB: Difficult. GS: Was difficult wan’t there. Is there anything I’ve missed on this? HB: I was going to say do you want to have a look at your list Geoff, is there, see if we’ve covered what you want to talk about. GS: [Pause] Karachi was the place I went to in India, on the west coast and then Calcutta on the east coast. Yes. I enjoyed me time when I was in the Air Training Corps 1940 to ’43. Fradley, Cosford. I did a week at Cosford in the Air Training Corps. Swinderby and Bovington. Bovington were, I’ve forgotten what aircraft they were. Twin engined, and I know that you had to wind the undercart up, ninety eight turns, I remember that because they hadn’t got hydraulic, retracting. Hinton in the Hedges was the place that really was a waste of time, with all those aircraft, all those, all those lorries and things. I can remember once, I had to go out on dispersal to bring, bring a lorry in for servicing and I got in it and started it up. I noticed it was in front wheel drive, so I moved out and it dropped on the deck – there was no back wheels on it! [laughter] I just got out and left it. So that’s another place I’d have, could have been a naughty boy! [cough] HB: Perhaps you were as well you didn’t stay there that long! GS: It was. Only there about a month. I got promotion while I was there. I remember ever so well. The sergeant, I was after me props, I’d got me one and I was after me LAC, and he asked a question. He said, “What do you know about errors of articulation?” Tell you, I remember this, and I said yes it was there, the Hercules, aircraft where the con rods were in a different position every stroke of the engine. “Good,” he said,” you’ve got that.” And that got me me props. HB: Did it? GS: Yes! HB: So that made you a Leading Aircraftsman. GS: Group One Leading Aircraftsman, which was quite good. But I should have got me tapes when I was doing the flight engineer’s course. But that was it. HB: Well I think, it’s quarter past twelve, and I think we’ve sort of come to bit of a natural conclusion Geoff. GS: Yes. HB: So, I’m going to terminate the interview now while we just sort your photographs out and how we’re gonna handle them. I want to thank you, honestly, it’s been a really [emphasis] enjoyable interview. You said to me in the break, oh we’ve been all over the place. It doesn’t matter. GS: It’s very disjointed. HB: What you’ve told us is important, and it’s also interesting. And we’ll forget quietly about pushing the wrong button for the fuel for the Stirling! So thank you very much. GS: Well, I wonder about that flight engineer, he was flak happy as they called it during the war. And the fact that we got away with it, I said to him afterwards, I said, what about if, we’d have had flames out the Hercules, we must have had some, but didn’t see them, well that would have been curtains, I said bloody will and I’ll have been with you! HB: Oh dear! Right, well thanks ever so much Geoff. 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 Geoffrey Charles Spencer 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 2019-01-23 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 ASpencerGC190123, PSpencerGC1901 Description An account of the resource Geoffrey Spencer grew up in Birmingham and worked with his father in tool making, carrying out fire watching as a youngster. He joined the Air Force in August 1943, aged 18. After training, he served as a flight mechanic and fitter with 49 Squadron at RAF Fiskerton and 189 Squadron at RAF Fulbeck. He worked in the maintenance hangar and on the flights, and describes a crash landing in a Lancaster after an air test, as well as an accident while refuelling a Stirling. He was posted to Singapore in 1945, where he serviced engines on high-speed launches. He was de-mobbed in July 1947 and, after the war, worked in the tool making industry in the UK until he retired. 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 Singapore England--Bedfordshire England--Birmingham England--Lincolnshire England--Shropshire England--Warwickshire Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1944 1945 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:53:04 audio recording Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Anne-Marie Watson Maureen Clarke 189 Squadron 49 Squadron bombing civil defence Cook’s tour crash demobilisation entertainment FIDO fitter engine flight mechanic fuelling ground crew ground personnel home front Lancaster love and romance RAF Cardington RAF Cosford RAF East Kirkby RAF Fiskerton RAF Fulbeck RAF Henlow RAF Swinderby Spitfire Stirling training York https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/476/8358/ABrettD150522.mp3 81384cf913618625f74e822cf9a8f9c1 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/476/8358/PBrettDT1501.jpg 118e663bc5324bf07e5a67487e6467b1 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 Brett, Dennis Dennis T Brett D T Brett Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Brett, DT Description An account of the resource Five items. An oral history interview with Dennis Brett (b. 1924) and four photographs. He served as an air frame mechanic at RAF Carnaby. The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Dennis Brett and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-05-22 2015-07-20 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. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document MJ: It’s on. DTB: Dennis T Brett. Born 4 9 24. RAF service 12 11 42 to 5 3 47. Tested and found to have mechanical ability and so trained as a flight mechanic airframe at RAF Locking. Served mainly in Yorkshire at Driffield on Martinets. Leconfield, Lissett, Holme-on-Spalding-Moor and Carnaby. Carnaby - [machine pause] MJ: Go on. DTB: Carnaby was used for emergency landings along with two others, Woodbridge and Manston. They were known colloquially as crash ‘dromes. A wide variety of English and American aircraft was seen at Carnaby and on very foggy nights FIDO was in operation. Soon after the war ended I was taken on a low level flight in a Halifax to see the extent of damage inflicted on German cities by aircraft of Bomber Command. My last six months of service was spent in Italy, Egypt and Palestine with a Dakota squadron of Transport Command. Right. In wartime Britain there were three emergency landing grounds a little inland from the east coast. They were Manson, Woodbridge and, in the north, Carnaby, about three miles from Bridlington in Yorkshire. Their purpose was to allow damaged aircraft, sometimes with injured crew, to land if necessary without warning. To facilitate this the runways were large. Carnaby’s being three miles long and three runways wide. The soft bituminous surface was to minimise friction caused by a rough landing. When I arrived [pause] we saw and serviced a variety of aircraft. English and American. Can you put that off? [machine pause] We saw and serviced a variety of aircraft. English and American. The US crews were not noted for their navigational skills. I recall seeing the three twin-engined Whirlwinds the crew of which seemed to be lost. One pilot remarked, ‘We thought we were in North Devon.’ When a damaged aircraft landed our fire crews rushed to extinguish any flames. The armourers checked for bombs and guns. And the riggers took, looked for any physical damage to the aircraft and then towed the aircraft away to dispersal. We were puzzled one night when after landing safely the crew got out of the aircraft and ran. They soon told us that there was a long delay fused bomb on board likely to explode at any moment. It was the armourers of course who had to be there to defuse the bomb before other workers were allowed near the aircraft. Can we? [machine paused] Sometimes I was on special night duty all alone in a small hut at one end of the runway. This was more than a mile away from the control tower. My bed was two or three feet away from an electrical installation which bore the warning, “Danger 11000 volts.” We were always ready to receive aircraft but on bombing nights we were especially alert. I’m sorry. [machine paused] My job was then to operate the lighting system. On receiving an order from the control tower I would pull a switch to turn on the sodium funnel lights. These were spaced in a narrowing V shape embedded near the foot of the runway and were a guide for aircraft approaching to land. The lights were arranged in the shape of a funnel. In bad weather and when many aircraft were expected the order would be given to ‘strike arc’ and I then had to pull a switch to activate the searchlight system. Searchlights were positioned, one each side of the runway, at its entrance. They were angled towards each other to form a cross so that incoming aircraft could enter through the triangular shape below the cross. Bad weather was a great danger to airmen returning tired and cold from a raid lasting eight or more hours. Fog was a major problem. As a counter measure a system of pipework called FIDO, Fog Instantaneous Dispersal Operation had been installed along each side of the runway. In operation, petrol was pumped through the holes in the pipework, then ignited to produce flames several feet high. This was meant to clear the fog and it probably did so but at the time I thought its great value was that the flames could be seen by pilots trying to land. In such circumstances a successful landing was a tremendous relief for the aircrew. This might seem far-fetched but I was a personal witness to a memorable incident when a Lancaster had come in to a halt the crew got out and some of them actually kissed the ground. Reminders of the darker side of war were frequent. Crash landings were a common sight. A faulty undercarriage was usually the cause and the result was what we called a belly landing. Some aircraft burst into flames when landing. Others were already on fire as they approached. The sight of a red gun turret is one that I cannot forget. Even our medical officer was seen to turn pale sometimes. But there was also a lighter side to life at Carnaby. Sometimes a bad landing would cause an aircraft to bounce not just once but in a continuing series from which the pilot could not escape until the laws of physics allowed. We called this a kangaroo landing. The Yorkshire winter was harsh. One night the wind caused my eyes to water and the intense cold froze my tears so that I could not open my eyes. This was only momentary and a good rub was all that was needed to solve the problem. The snow lay thick everywhere and this emboldened the local rats to come rather too close to our hut. We shot at them with our sten guns but I doubt whether we hit any. [machine paused] Our commanding officer was a very experienced pilot who was known to have seen much action in the war. His free and easy manner was in direct contrast to the usual strictly authoritarian attitude of the administrators. He would sometimes sit outside the control tower with his legs dangling through the railings swinging them to and fro. In this way he was exhibiting his persona for all to see. I happened to be on duty when he decided to take a Sunday afternoon trip with his young son. After I’d pulled away the chocks and motioned him out he asked me if I would like to come too and I gladly agreed. One fine day I noticed a large number of, to me, unidentified aircraft all flying eastwards. They were not in any kind of formation. They were towing gliders. These gliders were at a certain angle to my vision so that only one wing was visible. A strange sight. It soon became obvious to us that the invasion of Normandy had begun. The gliders were, I believe, Horsas and the planes were DC3, better known as Dakotas. I was soon to become much more familiar with them when I was transferred to a Dakota squadron. At the end of the war I was invited to go up in a Halifax to retrace some of the routes our bombers had taken and to witness the devastation. We flew low over a number of cities including Rotterdam which had been bombed by the Germans and battle areas such as Arnhem and Aachen. Our pilot was on a high, in high spirits after the ending of hostilities. He would approach a city from a certain height and dive bomb it at an angle of about forty five degrees. Then over the city he would pull up sharply out of the dive. This continuing sensation was too much for me and I was physically sick for most of the flight home and my muscles ached for a week afterwards. I still have a reluctance to fly though I had to do so in 1981 when I was seconded to the City University of New York. To my regret the airline did not provide a parachute. Large four-engined, large four-engined aircraft such as the Stirling, Halifax, Lancaster and Fortress were designed for level flight not aerobatics and for a Halifax to be flown in such a vigorous way says much for the strength and construction of this, this aircraft. My experience at Carnaby remained long in my memory. Forty years later I would sometimes wake up in the night. In my dream a large four-engined bomber coming in towards me to crash land. [machine paused] Well my elder brother was in Coastal Command and he used to fly as the wireless operator rear gunner in a Beaufort and I think it was in 1942 when the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau German battleships made a dash through the Channel. He was engaged in torpedoing the Scharnhorst but in the process he was badly wounded and received shrapnel in various parts of the body and face and managed to survive. The gun turret was badly damaged and for this service he was awarded the mention in dispatches. I think that’s all that can be said there. MJ: What was your actual job in the RAF? DTB: Well I was what was known as a flight mechanic airframe otherwise known as a rigger and we were responsible for the whole of the aircraft physically other than the engine and the guns. And we had daily inspections for which we had to sign from the safety point of view. We had to check brakes, hydraulics, the movement of the flaps, rudder, elevators and of course petrol filling and so on and we had to make body work repairs where necessary. MJ: How did you do that? DTB: Whether it, well on early aircraft it would be on [pause] covered in, the early aircraft, I think a Wimpy as well was covered in cloth. Muslin or, not muslin, no. Irish linen and we learned how to make a repair for that. On most of the aircraft they were metal and we had to make a hole and rivets all around it and patch them in that way but that was it. The whole of the aircraft had to be inspected and many points inspected and then signed for for the safety of the pilot. The Lancaster which was the best. It was the fastest and could carry the heaviest bomb load. The Halifax was next and then the other one. I can’t remember the name of it you know. MJ: Yeah. I can’t remember exactly what one it is but I know which one you mean so, yeah. DTB: But of course, you know there are other aircraft as well. The Mosquito was the fastest aircraft in that war and it was a bomber and it was a fighter bomber. MJ: Yeah. Didn’t they take off from the airports with the flame? DTB: No. It wasn’t a biplane. No. MJ: No. No. They used to take off in the fog didn’t they? DTB: There were Swordfish in the early days, I think the Swordfish was in that battle with the Scharnhorst as well as the Beauforts. MJ: Yeah. DTB: Well there we are. MJ: Here’s the end of the interview with Dennis Brett at Ruskington. The International Bomber Command would like to thank him for his recording on the date of the 22nd of May 2015. 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 Dennis Brett Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mick Jeffery Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-05-22 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ABrettD150522, PBrettDT1501 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Language A language of the resource eng Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Royal Air Force. Transport Command Description An account of the resource Dennis was born in 1924 and joined the Royal Air Force in November 1942. He trained as a flight mechanic, airframe, at RAF Locking and was responsible for the whole of the aircraft, apart from the engines and the guns. Dennis explained the emergency landing grounds at RAF Manston, RAF Woodbridge and RAF Carnaby, which were wider to allow damaged aircraft to land safely. His last six months of service were spent in Italy, Egypt and Palestine with a C-47 squadron of Transport Command. Sometimes he carried out special night duty alone in a hut a mile away from the control tower. His job was to operate the lighting system, on receiving an order from the control tower. He referred to a memorable incident when a Lancaster landed safely and some of the crew kissed the ground. When the invasion of Normandy began Dennis was transferred to a C-47 squadron. At the end of the war he went up in a Halifax to retrace some of the routes the bombers had taken and to witness the devastation. He left the RAF in 1947. In 1981 Dennis was seconded to the City University of New York. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sue Smith Maureen Clarke Carolyn Emery Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain United States Egypt Italy Middle East England--Kent England--Suffolk England--Yorkshire England--Somerset New York (State)--New York New York (State) North Africa Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:18:19 audio recording Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942 1945 bombing C-47 control tower Cook’s tour FIDO fitter airframe flight mechanic ground crew Halifax Lancaster Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944) RAF Carnaby RAF Locking RAF Manston RAF Woodbridge runway training https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/359/5527/PFraserDW1504.1.jpg e83b7596b2100cb8c2b204db7e6daf7f https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/359/5527/AFraserD150713.1.mp3 8a9fa28cd8459c111675c687c272ffe4 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 Fraser, David D Fraser 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. Description An account of the resource One oral history interview with Warrant Officer David Fraser. 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 2015-07-27 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Fraser, DW 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 myself Annie Moody and the interviewee is David Fraser. The interview is taking place at David’s home in Winchelsea in Kent. No. DF: Sussex. AM: Sussex. DF: East Sussex. AM: In East Sussex. DF: Yeah. AM: On the 13th of July 2015. So if you can just tell me just a little bit about your, your family background, schooling and childhood? DF: Yeah. AM: Schooling and what have you. DF: I was born in Northumberland. And I was there until I was seven. Then we moved to Wales and that’s where I was educated, in Wales. But, but education was nil. Just the three Rs and I didn’t get to grammar school or, I sat the scholarship but failed [laughs]. Then pressed on and left school at fourteen. And I was too young to join the RAF even as an apprentice but I was determined to join the RAF from an early age. From the time I was a toddler I was always interested in aircraft. And so I had to wait till I was seventeen and a half, which I did. AM: So what did you do in between? DF: Oh. AM: Between fourteen and seventeen? DF: I had various, I had a great time ‘cause there was plenty of jobs about and I just went - I had a factory job in a radio factory. I had one in a motorcycle factory. And I just bided my time until I was seventeen and a half and then I joined the RAF. AM: So when you say I joined the RAF. Just talk me through that. How? What did you do first? How did it work? DF: Oh I just made an application and they gave me an appointment up in London – Kingsway and I had this exam to be done which was easy and wrote an essay about my experiences in London and I joined as a flight mechanic. I thought, I was under the impression that a flight mechanic would be associated with flying and, but I wasn’t. I was a humble mechanic. AM: Did they give you a choice or did they say that - DF: I could have had any choice really. When the flight sergeant read this essay he said are you sure you want to be a flight mechanic? I said yes. So I enlisted as a flight mechanic. AM: And this was in? 19 - DF: 1939. AM: ’39. DF: February ‘39. AM: So before the war had started. DF: Yeah and - AM: So then what happened? DF: And then I went on a flight mechanic course which involved a lot of filing metal and God knows what and I, I tried to fail the course. I just wasn’t interested in flight mechanicing and at the end of the course I saw the CO and I explained that I was not interested in the thing and they passed me with forty percent, the lowest possible pass mark. He said when you get to your squadron when you’re posted you’ll [remaster?]. So that’s what I did and what they wanted pilots, navigators and gunners and I volunteered for the pilot’s course but the waiting list was three or four months and I was afraid I might miss the war so I got the gunners course. AM: Where, where, where were you living at this point? DF: Cranwell. I was at Cranwell then. AM: Ok. DF: Which is not far from Lincoln. And - AM: So you went, you went on the - DF: Went on the gunnery course in Scotland. AM: In Scotland? DF: Evanton Gunnery School. AM: And this is still just pre-war or? DF: No the war was on then. That was 1940. AM: Was on. Oh right. Ok, so what was that like? DF: Great fun. Flying about. We had lumbering pre-war aircraft and in a high wind they’d fly backwards. AM: What, what aircraft were they? DF: They were Harrows, Handley Page Harrows. They were so slow that coming back one day I was in the rear turret and we were trying to fly over the High Street parallel with the high street and which was rather, which was forbidden and I saw the local copper get his book out and take our number [laughs]. He took our number. When we got back we got reported and hauled up before the CO for low flying. AM: And this was still, so this is while you were in training DF: 1940. AM: And this is while you were training? DF: Yes. While training, yes. AM: Ok, so what, what was the training actually like? What did that consist of? DF: Oh. Firing. Air to air firing from air to air firing and air to ground firing. Stripping guns and learning all about the mechanism of them and how they worked and we had a month. That took a month and then after that we went to operational training unit which is another three months. AM: So where was OT? DF: That was in Scotland. AM: That was in Scotland as well? DF: Yeah. Yeah. Lossiemouth, Scotland. AM: So what did you do there? What did that consist of? DF: We got there and one morning we were told to report to the hangar and the hangar was full of bods just milling around. The idea was to just mill around and find people you had something in common with and that’s how you crewed up. It was a marvellous system. And you, you found chaps you took a liking to and they reciprocated and that was the way a crews was formed. There were six of us in the crew. AM: Who chose who? DF: Hmmn? AM: Who actually chose who? Who took the lead in it? DF: Oh pilot, one of the Australian pilots. We had two Australian pilots. They’d been around the offices and seen who got the best marks. And that was what happened. I had good marks at gunnery so they, ‘well he’s a good bloke’ and picked me and that was it. AM: Were you with anyone else that you’d done the gunnery training with? Oh no you would all have been together wouldn’t you and milling around as you put it. DF: Oh yes we were all there and we just formed up crews at that, on that morning. AM: So you’ve got your crew. Then what? DF: Then we started training as a crew. AM: As a crew. DF: Yeah. AM: In what kind of aircraft? DF: Wellingtons. AM: In Wellingtons. DF: Yeah and - AM: So how did that go? What was that like? DF: Well it was a bit dicey because we used to lose on average one crew per course. There were six crews per course and we used to lose one, an average one, one every course. Weather conditions primarily, hitting mountains or getting lost, snowstorms and God knows what, not and aircraft maintenance wasn’t the best ‘cause they were rushing things through and I think things got missed and - AM: So as a rear gunner training? DF: Ahum. AM: What were you shooting at? DF: Oh whatever they – sometimes they’d send a spitfire up and we’d have cameras, and have camera gunnery and they would develop later on, see how we’d got on. And and other aircraft again drogue, with a drogue towing - you’d fire at that and it was good fun really. We were there for about three months – November, December, January, February, March – yes just over three months. Then we went to the squadron. AM: And at - DF: At Marham. AM: At Marham so - DF: Norfolk. AM: Which squadron? DF: 115 squadron. AM: 115. DF: Yeah and we were only there just over a month, then we were shot down. [laughs] AM: So how many operations did you actually do? DF: Four. AM: Four. DF: Yeah. AM: Where did you go on operation? DF: Emden was the first one. Then Brest after the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau battle ships and the last one was Hamburg when we were shot down. AM: And this was in, still 1940? DF: ‘41. AM: We’ve moved to ‘41 now. DF: ’41. May 10th ‘41 we were shot down. AM: So describe that to me. The shooting down, and what happened. DF: Well we were, went up and approached the target and just before we got there we were knocked off course by a, with a blast of blasts so we went around again and that was our undoing. If we’d just got out, got out of it we’d have been ok but went around again doing the job properly and then caught in a cone of searchlights. There was one pilot beam which, and that latches on to you and the rest follow and you’re caught in this cone of lights like a sort of gnat [laughs] and they shot the hell out of us and hit, hit the hydraulics so I couldn’t operate any guns. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t operate, I had no gunsights which was electrical had been knocked out so I was useless. Nothing. I couldn’t manipulate anything. The gun, nothing would move ‘cause we rely upon hydraulic pressure for movement. And there I was. And then there was a silence. That meant a fighter was coming in and come in he did and he proceeded to sort of knock the hell out of us, set fire to the flares in the flare rack and she started blazing and that was the start of the, the whole thing. AM: So then what happened? Describe it to me if you can. DF: Of course, normally as a rear gunner you could just turn, turn the turret around, jetison the doors and just drop out but of course I couldn’t do that because the damned thing was jammed up so I squeezed back in, went up the fuselage towards the nose and there I saw Alex the second pilot, Aussie, he was lying bleeding profusely. He was bleeding in the arm and chest and I got him, stuffed him through the hatch, put my hand through to the rip cord. I said, ‘pull for God’s sake’ and anyhow I pushed him out and I looked out and saw him. His parachute opened so that was ok [laughs] and he recovered later on but he was badly wounded. And then I bailed out and the country I landed in was very much like Romney Marsh. All level and no cover at all, there were no trees [laughs] or anything. I really felt exposed but I hit the ground and as I hit the ground I was swinging. I swung forward and landed on the base of my spine and I thought I’d broken my back. So I just lay there manipulating toes and hands to see if I was ok. Everything moved, worked. And a great herd of cows gathered around me. Friesian cattle. They all came out sniffing around the parachute so I just lay there for about half an hour ‘cause they were good cover and they just, they were nice and warm too these cattle, and I just laid there. And then when I came to my senses I got the parachute and stuffed it into a dyke and sank it by putting a great, a bit of rock on top of it and I thought now where I shall go. The obvious thing was Denmark and that was occupied by Germans so anyhow I made, I was making for the Danish border. I thought I might have a bit of luck, get over it, get picked up by Danish patriots. I hadn’t gone more than about a quarter of a mile and as dawn was breaking I came to a hut. It was a hut occupied by searchlight crews and there was a sentry outside and he saw me. He said, ‘ach Englander flieger for you the war is over. Come’. And that was it. I was hauled in to this hut and there I saw Alex lying on this table. AM: Alex was the Aussie? DF: Who was wounded, yeah AM: Ahum. DF: I thought he was dying. But he was breathing, shallow breathing and he said to me, “Look what they’ve done to my best shirt.” His shirt was all mangled and bleeding and then I was whipped away and put on to a lorry and taken away. And I I didn’t know what had happened to Alex. I thought, honestly thought he’d died until nine months later he turned up in the camp. He’d recovered. AM: What happened to the rest of the crew? DF: Well Bill the navigator, when I bailed out I put Alex through the hatch I looked across at Bill who was bent over the main hatch and I yelled, “Come this way.” But he made a gesture like that - so I left, at him waving, went out assuming he’d got out from the main hatch. But what had happened, I didn’t realise, what what had happened, when my turret caught fire Bill came down to give me a hand with the fire extinguisher by which time I’d got the fire out so on returning, he was returning to position and he got the second burst of machine gun fire, was hit in the intestines, went right through the back and right through the front and I didn’t realise he’d been wounded. Yeah. Then the skipper called out and got no reply so he assumed we were all out and he bailed out and Bill was left in the machine on his own. He was a navigator, he wasn’t a pilot and he thought, ‘well I think I may as well, I’m wounded I may as well dive into the, dive into the deck and get it over with’ and he suddenly thought no he’d carry on. He took over and brought the aircraft down, the wheels, brought the aircraft down and he just came below some high tension cables, past a row of cottages in front of a hospital [laughs] and again they came and cut him out of the aircraft and whipped him into the hospital and this eminent French surgeon who was there, one of the the leading surgeons in France performed an operation on him and that saved his life. But later on he got dysentery and the stitches all broke and that was it. He never ever recovered properly. He always had this open wound and, but the skipper, Andy he bailed out and drowned in the river. He just didn’t release his chute obviously and there was - so one killed and two wounded and three whole. AM: Three in one piece. So you’re on the lorry. You’re being taken away somewhere. DF: Yes. AM: Then what? DF: And went, went to the officer’s mess, of the - AM: The mess in? DF: The squadron who’d shot us down. German officer’s mess but first of all we were interviewed by the couple of bods there and they were trying to get information out of us there and I just gave my name, rank and number. And they said, “Hang ‘em. Hang ‘em.” Anyhow I didn’t say anything at all and they let me go into another room. Then they took us, a car came and took us to the mess and then we met the guy who shot us down. And he gave us Cognac and coffee and had a general chin wag with them and they said don’t worry the war won’t last long about another six months and the Fuehrer will be riding on a white horse down Whitehall and we said, “Wait and see” and this amused them this ‘wait and see’. And we finally left and they all came on to the front steps to see us off and they all said, “Wait and see” ha ha ha and we said, “Yes wait and see.” And I often wonder how many of them remained alive to wait and see. AM: And you say us. So how many of you were there? DF: There were two, there were two of us there. AM: So, you because - DF: Two of us and one was a bit further afield and he joined us later on. So there were three of us at [unclear] we were picked up and eventually made our way – or were taken to Hamburg station, put on a train and taken to Dulag Luft which was a reception depot. AM: Ahum. DF: And again we were interrogated by, by a guy speaking flawless English. He was, he could have been English and we gave our name, rank and number and he wanted to know what squadron we were from and they were interested in the Stirling. The Stirling at that time had just come operational and they had no information on it and they wanted to know about it. Anyhow, I didn’t give them any information and he pushed a packet of cigarettes and he said, “Didn’t I compete against you at the University Games in London?” I said, “No. No.” And he gave me these cigarettes which I politely refused. I was a non-smoker. After about an hour he, they let me into the compound with the rest, the rest of the bods and we met up in the, in the main sort of main hall. And there were about thirty aircrew there who had been shot down in the last few days. And they had permanent staff there who had been shot down way back. And we then went, the RAF camp wasn’t ready, hadn’t been built so we went around various other camps, army camps and we went to Austria, Poland a sort of cooks tour of Germany and we finally settled up and we ended up in Lamsdorf which an army camp near Breslau and there we remained until the RAF camp was ready which was Stalag Luft III. AM: So how long were you at the one before Stalag Luft III? How long were you there for? DF: Oh about, our wanderings, we were wandering about almost a year. AM: On trains or - DF: On trains yeah. We’d go, they’d take us to a camp. We might be there two months. Another camp we might be there for three months. AM: And who was in, you said they were army camps. DF: They were army camps yeah. AM: So who else was in them? DF: Well the last one, in Austria in a place called Wolfsburg, was a French army camp. There were about eighteen thousand Frenchmen. And - AM: What did you do? DF: We just - AM: When you were in there? DF: We just lived. Existed really. We commandeered the ablutions there and made them fit for use, our own use after the French had made a terrible sort of mess of them. The odd French peasant he doesn’t mind where he, where he sort of goes does he? AM: But you were a bit more discerning. DF: And we cleaned it up and it became our own, our own ablutions and everything. AM: So then Stalag Luft III. Tell me about that. DF: Oh that 1942 we got there. End of ’42. And that was where we really organised there. An organised camp. There were libraries there and skilled teachers. That’s where a lot of guys started their university experience. Qualified in the intermediate. AM: Amongst the POWs? DF: Yes. AM: So they, who ran the - DF: Ran the, ran the camp, yeah. Now my pilot, the one who was wounded, he took his intermediate economics exams on [?] university and he ended up being the deputy vice chancellor of the University at Perth. AM: What did you do? DF: What did I do? I did, I learned German. I read a lot and increased my knowledge generally and of course mixing with all different types of people what they knew rubbed off on you and I just gleaned information that way. AM: And you were there for how long? DF: All told four years. AM: Four years. DF: Ahum. AM: I can’t imagine it. DF: And we dug tunn, I was involved in five tunnels. AM: Oh tell me a bit more about that. DF: Well the first one we dug was what we called a moler and it was just, the actual tunnel was about the same size as your body, your shoulders and it was a question of knees and elbows and digging with a implement and the earth was shoved back like a mole does and after about a half an hour you had to give up and signal you were passing out. Of course you had a rope around your ankle and when you gave a signal they pulled you, hauled you back. Next man in and so it went on. There was a brand new washhouse there the Germans had built, they weren’t using it, between us and the fence and we thought if we could get to that washhouse and crack a pipe and get some fresh air and I happened to have been digging with the pipe and there it was, this lovely salt glaze pipe and I had a bit of a rock with me and I gave it a couple of bangs and it broke and the fresh air came and, oh marvellous. And then the winter came along and the position we were in it was visible. We had dug during the summer by putting up two sticks with a blanket and just were sunbathing ostensibly but it was just that it was just the cover and there was just the blanket was just high enough so that the guard couldn’t see over it. And we dug this and yes carried on for some weeks and then we had to give up because winter started you couldn’t sunbathe. AM: Don’t sunbathe in winter. So that was one tunnel. DF: That was the first one. AM: And what happened to it? Where did it, did it actually get to the outside? DF: Oh yes it got about forty yards and we had to give it, had to leave it so I don’t know what happened to it. It probably caved in in the end. AM: So that was the first one? DF: The first one. AM: And then? DF: The second one was one from the one that had been discontinued, again in a washhouse and that was, that was quite a big one and I started on that and that’s when the Americans came into the camp then. American officers and I’ll never forget this ‘cause I was familiar with Roger and Wilko they were the sort of references to Roger and out or Wilco - will cooperate and this guy was a captain. I was handing up sand and he kept saying Roger. And I honestly thought he had two blokes up there - one called Wilkins and the other called Roger. [Laughs] You simply say passing the bucket to one guy Roger, Roger, AM: And that was sand? DF: That was compact sand really. AM: So how did you stop the tunnel collapsing? DF: Well we dug with, I had a big tablespoon just with the handle off and dug like that ‘cause it was easy digging. Too easy actually. Got some collapses and so had to retain a dome shape. So it kept its own shape and that damp got in to that and we gave it up. And the big tunnel, the best tunnel was the biggest one and that was again near a wash house, near a soakaway. We started on that. Dug down about ten feet down for the shaft and then along towards the wire and it hadn’t rained, we got about fifty yards, it hadn’t rained for about, nearly a month and suddenly it belted it down and it didn’t stop for about five days and we were digging near the soakaway so there was a subsidence in the soil and we saw a German ferret, we called them ferrets, snooping around and we saw him probing cause he saw the ground subsiding and so we went, we went to the barrack hut and the next thing we knew there was a hell of a commotion and there was German fire engine came dashing in and this guy had fallen in through into the soakaway and this fire engine came in and they got a special harness and put it around him and hauled him out and everyone cheered and they got their pistols out and started firing. I’ve never seen blokes move so quickly. AM: Firing in what direction? At you? DF: Oh in the direction of us, yes. So I saw blokes making for the huts, diving through windows and [laughs] AM: Was anybody killed? DF: No. AM: Was anybody shot? DF: No. AM: No. DF: No and then, it was then that they started issuing notices saying that all materials because you had we had to used beds and bed boards which in the German eyes was sabotage and they just said that anyone caught tunnelling in future and misusing German material would be guilty of sabotage and would spend a long time in prison or might, could even be shot. That didn’t dissuade us. We just carried on. And then we went up to Barth a place called Barth on the Baltic coast and started a tunnel there cos the Yanks were there and we. AM: So you moved up. DF: Yes. AM: From where you were. DF: Yes. AM: To a different camp. And what camp was that? DF: Barth B A R T H AM: It was actually called, right ok. DF: And we started a tunnel there with the Americans and we were sent back to our own camp again then we started another one from a barrack, from a barrack hut which meant moving a big stove each time, each time and that got us, it was arduous so we gave it up and that was the end of the tunnelling really. AM: So you never actually got any of them out? DF: We didn’t no. AM: Were you aware of what was happening with the ‘great escape’ tunnel? DF: No we, we knew the Germans were getting trigger happy. They were very concerned about people using materials, sabotage and God knows what and they issued notices in the camp - escape is no longer a sport, it could result in death. And the first information we had was when we got – where were we then – up near Konigsburg. We’d all had to go, move camp and in through the gates came a convoy of motorcycles and vehicles all armed with heavy machine guns and they proceeded to cordon around us. We were out in the open some sort of roll surrounded us and this German, CO, German CO read out what had happened. He said that fifty, fifty officers had been shot and we all booed and then they clicked their safety catches and started getting - so our senior man said, “Cool it blokes, cool it blokes” don’t want any disasters but we knew. They said they were shot while trying to escape but they they’d been recaptured and then shot. We found - AM: Did you know that or found out later on? DF: Later on yes yeah. Marvellous, good men lost their, the whole secret organisation leaders were shot and there were several Germans hanged for it after the war. AM: So what, going back to you and where you were then. So we’re getting towards the end of the war. What things started happening? DF: Yeah. AM: What? DF: Well we ended up at a place called [Fallingbostel?] it wasn’t far from the main autobahn between Hanover and Hamburg and things were getting a bit tight and all of a sudden one day you’re going to march, got to get out and march. So everyone packed up their belongings and gathered, and carried what they could and assembled outside the gates. We thought to hell with this. This could lead to hostage taking so we said no we’re not marching so there were five of us avoided the Germans. They were searching the whole camp get people out of it. We hid up in various places and when the coast was clear we went out through the wire and made contact with our own army. AM: How? How? DF: We just went out into the open and we passed through the German lines and saw Germans laying mines in culverts and we met up with - we saw a tank coming towards us over the brow of a hill and the gun swung around and the gun, comms tower was opened and a black bereted head popped out. We said, “Don’t fire. We’re English.” So they drew up about twenty yards from us, the crew got out and gave us cigarettes and there we were smoking and - AM: You were a non-smoker. DF: No. No. I tell you what, when I was twenty one, on my twenty first birthday there was a consignment of Red Cross parcels. So everyone – ‘oh food, marvellous’ but it wasn’t food it was tobacco. Cigarettes. The issue was thirteen per man so I had my thirteen cigarettes. I thought well I can’t eat I might as well bloody smoke. That’s when I started smoking. Twenty one. AM: So here’s the tank. DF: And, and they drew up and we sat there chatting on a grassy bank and we’d earlier, before we’d met the tank, we’d come to a farm. Went into the farmhouse and there at a long farm table were the farmer’s wife and about six Germans – troops. So we questioned them and obviously they were no longer interested in fighting, they just more or less deserted, or given themselves up. And when we, when we spoke to the tank commander and told them about the guys in the farmhouse his eyes lit up so he sent a guy, one man up to the farm about a mile back and he came back not with six blokes but about thirty. They were all skulking in the cowsheds. And this guy he’d sent up there was an Austrian and who’d been in England since 1936 and he joined the British army, marvellous bloke. And I always remember this squadron, this tank commander was called Major Hepburn and everyone called him Kathy [laughs] and when these, these Germans came down, he lined them all up and they put their packs in front of them and he said, “Right open them up” and they opened them up. There were tins of beef and pork and eau de cologne and cigarettes, cigars so he said, “There you are blokes take what you want” so we took, there were tins of meat and God knows what and put them in our packs. And then he said you’re running, you’re running a bit of a risk he said ‘cause there are still troops hiding up in woods. This was the SS. And so they armed us with rifles and ammunition and gave us a driver and a jeep and we went back about ten miles up to divisional headquarters and dropped us off there. So we were free once again. We just we went back through the lines again everywhere like a lot of bandits with rifles and and yards of ammo wound around us and if we felt hungry we just caught up with the nearest army thing and they fed us and gave us a bed for the night and it was a marvellous week really. It was, was blazing hot sun. Marvellous. AM: And you just worked your way. DF: Yeah worked our way across the - AM: Where did you end up? DF: Well we saw six RAF blokes coming down the road so we said, “Where are you from?” And they said, “Oh we’re from a transport squadron he said but a bit further back, about a mile along there’s a fighter squadron flying Tempests,” and we thought they’re the boys so we walked up there and the sentry said, “Halt” and brought the guard out and took our weapons away and we made statements they gave us pieces of paper saying the bearer is an escaped prisoner of war. And then we had a marvellous shower and then were, we were guests of the officer’s mess where we drank and oh I’ve never drunk before in my life and funnily enough it must have been because we hadn’t drunk for ages but we couldn’t get drunk. We just, it was a marvellous sense. But the CO, the group captain he went slowly under the table, just collapsed really under the table. And then there was another guy who saw us - he turned around and embraced one of our mates. He was, Gerry Clark who was with us, he was bilingual French and this guy saw him who was a French, French ace and he turned around and he saw him and, “Oh Gerry” and they were from Biggin Hill. That’s where they’d last met. And Gerry had collided with a German in a dog fight and he and the German were in the same hospital. But Pierre Clostermann was the name of this, this French ace. He wrote two books Flames in the Sky is one and Big Show is the other one. AM: Ahum. DF: And he always wore, always wore a pair of guns like he was some old cowboy. He was quite a flamboyant creature and after the war he became an MP. AM: Ahum. DF: Alsace yeah from Alsace. AM: So how did you actually get back to England? DF: Oh then they thought there’s an Anson going back to Dunsfold tomorrow and oh lovely we can go back just as we are and just as we are dressed in scruff order but they had to, they had to inform Movement Control and we had to go through channels and they gave us army uniforms, all brand new and we had to go through, go through with the rest of the guys and we ended up at Brussels and they were flying in petrol in jerry cans and flying out prisoners of war. So we flew back in a Stirling and I flew back in the rear turret. And then we, we had, after that we went, we had, to Cosford to be debriefed at Cosford and given RAF stuff. RAF uniforms. AM: Proper uniforms. DF: That’s it. And then given pay, indefinite leave and that was it. Anti-climax. AM: So what did you do? DF: I went back. I went home and that was it. Show over. AM: When you said they gave you your pay so that’s for all the time that you’d been gone. DF: Oh they didn’t give us the lot. They gave us an instalment. AM: Right. So what did you do afterwards then? DF: What? AM: You’ve had the anti-climax. You’re back. You’re home. DF: Yes. AM: Then what? DF: I just remained in the RAF till my demob number came up and meanwhile I met my wife. Met her in June and we were married in October. And it worked out marvellously well and she was demobbed first and then I was demobbed and then I thought well what do we do now? So I got a government grant and trained as a chartered surveyor but I failed the ex, again my mind wasn’t a hundred percent. I just went through the motions and I just failed the exam in one subject and then I gave it up. And I’m glad I did because the idea, in retrospect the idea of being in a routine job never appealed to me so what I did I joined, later on I joined a company selling farm buildings and it was marvellous. I was a freelance representative out every day, living in a place I wanted to live in – Cornwall. It was marvellous. That’s where the family were brought up. We were twenty years down there. AM: Right. And here you are. DF: Here we are. AM: In Winchelsea. DF: Yeah. In our second love, Romney Marsh. AM: Ahum. Any other stories for me or shall we switch off? DF: Hmmn? AM: Any other stories for me or shall I switch off? DF: I could go on forever I think but - AM: Do feel free. DF: No, then we were in Cornwall and the company, the company I was with, I was a freelance agent and the company I was with thought it was too far too come to erect buildings in Cornwall. They were, they were in Herefordshire so they just withdrew the labour from Cornwall and left me high and dry. So I thought to hell with it I’ve just about had enough of this bloody rat race so I gave it up and I started gardening and I’ve never had a more pleasant time in my life. Self-employed gardening. Marvellous. I used to do a bit of building. AM: Out in the weather. DF: Marvellous yeah. AM: Wonderful so you had a good life. DF: I had a good life. Very fortunate, very lucky. I had sixty nine years of married life. Marvellous. Got two nice daughters and a son in Australia. Good family. AM: And you go swimming DF: Yeah. AM: When you can. In the sea. DF: Yeah. AM: At 94. DF: Yeah. AM: I think on that note. DF: Yes. AM: I’ll switch the recorder off. DF: Ok Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with David Fraser Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-07-13 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AFraserD150713 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 Description An account of the resource David Fraser enlisted in the Royal Air Force in 1939 and trained as a mechanic. He re-mustered as soon as he was able and flew four operations as an air gunner with 115 Squadron, before his aircraft was shot down over Hamburg, in May 1941. He spent the next four years as a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft 3. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Annie Moody Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams Maureen Clarke Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:45:54 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. Germany Great Britain Poland England--Norfolk Poland--Żagań Germany--Hamburg Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1940 1941-05-10 1942 115 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew bale out bombing crewing up Dulag Luft flight mechanic Gneisenau ground crew Harrow Operational Training Unit prisoner of war RAF Evanton RAF Lossiemouth RAF Marham Scharnhorst searchlight shot down Spitfire Stalag 357 Stalag 8B Stalag Luft 1 Stalag Luft 3 Stalag Luft 6 Stirling training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/521/8754/PMabeyBC1605.2.jpg f01941cf3417c6042787116b14d105cc https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/521/8754/AMabeyBC161128.1.mp3 30e7facd2dcd1fe4a70a1e84b92b8a42 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 Mabey, Bernard Charles B C Mabey Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Mabey, BC Description An account of the resource Nine items. An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftsman Bernard Mabey (b. 1925, 3008464 Royal Air Force), his dog tags, some service material, and two photographs. He served as an air frame mechanic at the Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Marston Moor. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bernard Charles Mabey and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-11-28 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. 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 Monday the 28th of November 2016 and we’re in Southend talking to Bernard Mabey and he operated in the engineering activities in the RAF. What are your earliest recollections of life Bernard? BM: I was born in Canning Town in a small terraced house. My father was an electrician and I went to primary school in Canning Town until the age of, from the age of five until eleven and then I won a scholarship to a Central School in Forest Gate at the age of eleven and then that was 1936. And of course when war was declared my school, that Central School had been evacuated to Ipswich, just outside Ipswich. I went with them for, I was only with them a couple of months at Ipswich. In fact I was at Ipswich when war was declared so obviously we were evacuated before war started. And I had a sister who was also evacuated to Oxford so, and I had a brother. I was in a family of three. My brother who was working in London. The government decided that then all the evacuees our parents had to pay a contribution towards their keep. So my father, and all I was doing, I wasn’t being educated all I was doing was digging up the grass areas around this primary school in Nacton which is just outside Ipswich and my father said, ‘You’re no point in digging, or staying up there digging. You can come home and get a job.’ So on my fourteenth birthday I went up to London [coughs] up to London, to Snow Hill at Holborn which was a big like unemployment centre and I got a job in a small commercial artists’ as an office boy. I didn’t like it so then I got the job myself with a firm of estate agents and surveyors in Plaistow. This would be in the new year. That would be 1940, early 1940 at, I think, fifteen shillings a week and I stayed with them ‘til I got called up at the age of eighteen. The firm already had one person called up and what they were doing they were paying all the time they were in the forces, half wage. Well my salary when I got called up was about two pounds a week. So I was on a pound a week from the firm. It was a guarantee that you had a job to come back to. I went to Cardington to get uniform and that photograph up there of all the crowd is when we were got our uniform. And from there after about what four or five days we were shipped up to Skegness to do our square bashing for eight weeks and we were parked in all the empty hotels along the seafront and we used to use the old canteen that was at Butlins empire down the far corner for our food. And that was not a very pleasant time. It was in the winter. There was no heating on in these hotels. There was nothing on the floor. It was just bare floorboards and you used to wake up in the morning, my bed was along the bay window and you wake up in the morning your blankets were damp from the dew coming off from the sea ‘cause, you know, you could see it just out the window. And, but after eight weeks I was extremely fit because I used to, when I was at school, going back to that time I did box for the school. I became a member of West Ham Boxing Club and I boxed in the Great Britain Schoolboy Championships. Other: Oh. BM: But I was only what, about, oh under six stone. I was a very small lad. But apparently they thought I was good because I was fast and West Ham were a very good boxing club. One of the best in the country. Anyway, after passing out at Skegness I had, I was posted then to training down at Locking for air frame mechanic. If you were going on engines you would go to Cosford. If you were going on air frames you would go to Locking and that’s where we went and that was, but going back to what you were saying earlier the reason I chose to go in to the air force was because A) I had joined the Air Training Corps in 1941 because we’d moved out of London then down to Laindon because of the bombing. I mean people don’t realised I don’t think that when they started the Blitz it went on for about, oh, certainly longer than a month. Every night. You used to come home from work and my mother would have tea ready. We would eat that and by eight o’clock we were down in the shelter because by five past eight the sirens would certainly go and it was, you could more or less bank on it coming like that and it wouldn’t go all clear ‘til 3 o’clock in the morning. CB: Fifty seven days continuous. BM: Oh yes. And that went on, as I say, for well over a month. I think it went on for more like two months. And I was reading in an article since then that West Ham which, that was in the borough of West Ham lost twenty five percent of their housing stock during the blitz and when you consider that most of their housing stock were terraced houses, and small terraced houses it was quite a lot of damage done and, well during my time working there before I got called up. I worked for this firm of estate agents and there were people getting called up as well and so the rent collectors was not a reserved occupation and so they said, ‘Right. As part of your training Mabey you will do two days a week rent collecting. Which you look after the property and you collect the rents.’ So consequently you’re cycling around on a push bike around the East End of London and, with a satchel and you finish a day with about a hundred pounds in rents but all that few years up to the age of eighteen I never got troubled once, you know. Honesty then was quite prominent. But you saw the tragedy of a lot of women that were left alone with kids ‘cause their husbands had been called up and it was pretty gruesome because a lot of them couldn’t pay their rent and they just vanished overnight. And some of the properties vanished overnight as well because you would go around there the next morning you’d find a big hole. That was just part of my education I suppose because my schooling had finished at the age of fourteen and so when I go into the air force my brother already was in the air force. He was nearly, what, two years older than me. He wanted to be air crew but he was turned down because he was colour blind but I still followed him and I also went for air crew but I was similarly colour blind as well [laughs]. So he finished up a flight mechanic on engines and I finished up, it was not my choice, they just tell you, I finished up flight mechanic on air frames and that was it. And they taught me that down at Locking as I say. I think it was about an eighteen week course. It was after that you’d, then you could look upon the possibility of getting seven days leave. So you’d gone six months plus with no leave at all. And my posting was to Marston Moor, Yorkshire which was very enlightening because bearing in mind that at Skegness discipline was very very strict. To stand in front of a corporal you had to stand to attention. You didn’t speak until you were spoken to. And if you stood in front of a sergeant you felt you were seeing God and that carried on to some degree when you were doing your training at Locking because they were all corporals and sergeants, the instructors. So then you get your kit bag and all your gear and you go up to a squadron in, on Marston Moor which was a wartime ‘drome constructed with nothing of the niceties that you saw at say, ultimately I saw at Waddington anyway. But I remember there you got up to York Station and on York Station there was a shed that you report to and they would say, ‘Where are you were posted to?’ And they would have transport available for you to ship you up to Marston Moor. Go to Marston Moor, go in to the orderly room, hand over the papers, ‘Oh yes, you’ll be, you want to see Sergeant Edie.’ Oh yeah. So I walked over to the hangar and I see a chap there and I say, ‘Can you tell me where Sergeant Edie is?’ ‘Yeah he’s up there on the trestle working on that Halifax.’ So he then just turned around to him, ‘Harry. Someone to see you.’ So he got down from the trestle and I walked up to him. Of course immediately stood to attention and, ‘Sergeant. My name is Mabey.’ And he looked at me. He said, ‘What are you standing like that for? Cut that out.’ He said. ‘That doesn’t happen,’ he said, ‘And my name is not sergeant. It’s Harry.’ And that was suddenly from as I say living in a disciplined atmosphere to get to that and of course when you go to work they give you a bike in, at Marston Moor because the runway was built, a few office buildings, a control tower and things around it and a couple of hangars but accommodation was in nissen huts scattered around and I was in one of four nissen huts on the Wetherby to York Road. Side of the road. Public road. People going by. And there was, you were all and that was accommodated something over a hundred people and no toilets. No washing facilities. You got a stand by tap outside if you wanted water and you’ve got a bike. So you worked out that if you want to go to the toilet there’s the block over there but if you also want to go and have breakfast there’s a block over there and if you’ve got to go to the hangar there’s a block over there so you’ve got the bike and if you got up a bit late in the morning you’d got a choice. What do you want to do most of all? Then you finished up you wouldn’t have breakfast because you knew the NAAFI van would come around about half past nine, 10 o’clock and you’d get a cup of tea and a cake. And that’s what it was like. But you’re going to the canteen of a night time and you’d pull out a couple of slices of bread and a mug of tea which you would put on the stove and toast the bread and warm the tea. So you would ‘cause there were no other comforts. I mean I can say that I never ever had sheets until the last three months of my four years in the air force. All we had was blankets. No pillow cases. Just a bare straw field biscuit. You had three of those and three blankets and you’d sleep on one blanket and have two wrapped around you together with your great coat when it got cold. And on top of that clothes rationing had been going on in the country for a couple of years so pyjamas were a no-no. You couldn’t afford to use clothing coupons to buy pyjamas when you were at home and so consequently when you get in to the air force you ain’t got pyjamas so you just go to bed in your pants and freeze and it was, but the question of wearing a collar and tie never existed. You wore your battle dress with a sweater which you got from the Red Cross. A white sweater and you got white socks from the Red Cross. You know, thick socks which you wore with your wellington boots with the tops turned down and this is where you worked with overalls because the aircraft were always parked out on the dispersal points which were like circles of concrete sprung off the perimeter track. The only time they were in the hangars was when they were going through a minor inspection or a major inspection. Daily inspections, they would be done out in the open. And the daily inspections were the chap on the engines would just run the engines. If the crew had made any complaints about that was not right, that was not right all you did was a daily inspection on the air frame which consist of you’d check the tyres and there used to be a few splits in the tyres. You’d go and get a gun with a rubber handle you know to insert a patch into the tyre but then the next day you’d look at that. It’s been up and it’s landed and that’s gone, come out again. It was very, I wouldn’t say it was poor but the patches didn’t work and it was just like a liquid rubber that you pressed into it. And of course all the controls on those aircraft are in cables. They’re not like electronics now. And all along the fuselage inside you’d got all the cables. Like cables going from the cockpit to the rudder or the elevators and you’d just get hold of the turn buckles and you’d just have to check all those and tighten them all up and then it was ready to go again as far as the, as far as the air frame was concerned unless there was any dents or holes in them. Then you’d have to put a patch on them and that was it. And I lasted there right through ‘til D-Day. VE day because I remember on VE day we had some new chaps had come in from Chittagong. India. They’d been out there servicing aircraft that were dealing with Burma and places like that and they’d been out in the sun too long because they were potty. They’d just announced, you know, VE day. We weren’t allowed to come home and these were just running around the huts banging out the windows with a broom and things like that you know. But there was no celebration on camp really. We just carried on. Some of them said, ‘We’re going home,’ but we weren’t really allowed to. Whether they ever did I don’t know, but and then after that I was sent to, on a fitter’s course, a short fitter’s course to turn me into what they called a Group 1 Trade, Mechanics Group 2. You can get to LAC and you get no higher. That’s you finished. But if you go on to a fitter’s course that’s a higher grade, more money and you can go up to, oh, warrant officer if necessary. And the reason being that when they assembled the Tiger Force in Waddington, this is where they were going to be based, they wanted highly trained mechanics and fitters. They had more training and more competence so, and that’s when I was shipped after that down to Waddington and the Yellow Fever inoculation. But we didn’t have much work to do because it was the people who was doing all the work were the pilots doing training, landing, cross country runs you know and that sort of thing and so we got, I think oh, seven days embarkation leave. I got that about three times. In fact people at home were saying, ‘What the hell are you doing home again?’ And we were there as I say right until VJ Day and so they then asked for volunteers and they didn’t get any to take part in a Victory Parade so the group captain said, ‘Well just take two hundred men out of that lot.’ They had nothing else for us to do and so we were shipped down to Kensington Gardens. And then after that, yes they, my posting came through and I went to [Witney] which was just outside Cambridge and it was Group Headquarters. Lovely ‘drome, you know. Very modern like Waddington was but I was posted to work in the station workshop standing at a bench making modifications for Lancasters and so on. You know, small brackets that had to be modified and so on. Doing that from nine ‘til five with collar and tie on, looking very smart. I remember one day I came out of there and I started walking and someone then shouted at me and I stopped. He said, ‘Airman, you didn’t salute me.’ I said, ‘No. I didn’t see you Sir.’ ‘Oh. He said, ‘What are you doing here?’ I said, ‘I work in the station workshop.’ ‘I see. Well you get a haircut. You need, badly need a haircut. You get a haircut and report to my office tomorrow morning.’ And I thought to myself well if that’s the sort of life so I put in a request and I think they thought they were doing me a favour because living in Laindon a posting to Cambridge is, you know, fairly easy. You could hitch hike home. So they said right if he doesn’t like it there we’ll send him somewhere and they sent me down to Somerset. And I was then servicing, it was a servicing echelon that I was on repairing or servicing Avro Yorks because after the war Avro Yorks were used by Montgomery, Field Marshal Smuts, his was there and they come in for a service and they were lovely aircraft to work on because you would walk all over them. Outside and inside. No problem. Very big. And there I was being a fitter on air frames and I was in charge of a small group of chaps. So one day a new Avro York arrived from the makers, Lancasters and so we had to do what they called an acceptance inspection and, ok. I looked over it inside and outside and the only thing I could find wrong with it was the fact that the undercarriage when it was parked you had what they called a jury strut. That is a metal pole that is framed between the spar of the main plane and also the leg of the undercart and there wasn’t one there. So, so I put it on my report and then the chap who was responsible for the engines he started running them up and well the chocks were there. Everything was all alright. He was running the engines over well they’d also done another modification inside the cockpit. There’s a blower switch. Don’t ask me what. It’s really hot air and cold blower for the engines. Now what that does I do not know but it was not my, more or less part of my employment so that was the engine bloke and there was the undercarriage lever. They’d switched them around for some unknown reason. So this bloke was running the engines and when he thought to select the hot and cold air he pulled the lever but unfortunately that was the undercarriage and so consequently you’ve got a lovely new Avro York. No camouflage on it, you know. It had come straight from out of the manufacturers. It slowly as we stood and watched it slowly go forward. The chocks held it back, the undercart had folded and then the props were going around. They started churning up the tarmac and then it stopped. Well you know where you get, I think the best way to describe it is a cottage loaf which has a bit with the crease in the middle like that whereas the fuselage was like that. Like that. That’s just simply how it went. Collapsed through the middle from the weight and then the circus began. The sergeant came out of the shed, did his nut, went running off to someone. And then a warrant officer came out. He did his nut. Went off to someone. Engineering officer, the flight lieutenant, ‘Oh that was terrible.’ And then the squadron leader came and of course then it finished up with the group captain came out and the person responsible for the engines who was, he was put under close arrest poor so and so. And we had very little work to do then so that’s when I got posted down to Membury which had a lodging, to join a lodging squadron. Still a squadron of Bomber Command but they were lodging on Transport Command territory and that was at Membury which is just outside Newbury. Now that was a terrible hole. In fact after a few weeks it was examined by the Air Ministry and they condemned it. Unfit. And so we were then transferred away from Membury which was a good thing because on the last couple of nights we were at Membury, I remember this quite clearly there were a few what I call rebels in the, in the camp as it were and we went in to Lambourn. The racing area you know to see what was in the nightlife. Having a night of drinks before we moved off. There wasn’t much doing except we came across a hall where they had a do going on and a couple of them went up to the door, knocked on the, ‘Could we come in?’ It was the local hunt ball. Now, you know [laughs] they don’t look kindly on yobs and they still, these ones persisted. I wasn’t looking for trouble so I came away but apparently, and I only learned this the next morning when we were getting ready to go off to our new station, they were allowed in but they were whisked straight through the hall into the back room where they were calmly knocked about in no uncertain way and they looked rough the next day. Bruised and cut because they had dared to, you know more or less visit the local hunt ball. But and then we went up to Netheravon and Netheravon that was a squadron there of Dakotas. The same squadron we had from Membury. We moved them across. And that was rather amusing. I mean bearing in mind I’d got back in to the squadron habit of being, not wearing a collar and tie, just wearing your sweater again and battle dress. So we flew in our aircraft, air crew were, carried us obviously you know. We went as passengers with our personal belongings and all our equipment went by road on truck and that’s how we moved out of Membury and arrived at Netheravon. Now, Netheravon had a complete boundary to it so in other words you had a gate, had a sentry and what have you but when we got there bearing in mind it was also headquarters for Transport Command. One of the units there. So we went straight in to the NAAFI to have a drink and you could see all the way around the NAAFI that the office staff there, the WAAFs all looking smart and elegant and drinking their nice cups of tea and suddenly about thirty or forty yobs come in looking not very smart, not very tidy and all they did was go to the beer tent and start supping beer. Then we had someone who could play the piano and that was it. We transformed the place but, and I was there for what, about nine months, twelve months, and I finished up there. I got demobbed from there. They sent me up but it was the best years of my life in the air force because I was an LAC then, fitter trade and I used to play a bit of cricket and I played for the local, our own squadron and ok they could do with more members so the station picked me to play as well and then part of the Group they picked me to play so I used to go in to the hangar on a Monday morning during the cricket season and the flight lieutenant engineering officer turned around to me and he said, ‘We’ll do the jobs rota. Well now, maybe. How many days cricket are you playing this week?’ I said, ‘Well sir, I’ve got a match on Wednesday, another one on Friday and I’m playing on Sunday.’ ‘Oh. So do you mind if we can fit you into work in between those days?’ [laughs] But that was the only time when I really enjoyed the company because you know the captain of the cricket team in most stations is invariably one squadron leader or a wing commander. Someone you never, you’d rarely get a chance to speak to and all the other are flight lieutenants, flying officers, several sergeants and that’s it. If you get a couple of airmen in it you’re lucky and so they make a lot of fuss of you and I got on extremely well with them, you know. We got to the Group final at cricket and we played at Abingdon in the Group final and it was drizzling with rain and we went out to field in the first innings and we had a, in our team we had a fast bowler who was a Middlesex colt. So a pretty good player and he started bowling with a new ball on a wet wicket, a damp wicket and it finished and I was filled in the slips. And of course this, this batsman he just clipped it slightly, came straight at me. Went right through my hands and hit me there, split it open. I went down on a bit of a muddy, you know, damp pitch in my whites, blood all over the place and then the rain came and so the match was abandoned. But we finished up, we re-played it at Kodak. You know Kodak the camera ground? They had a factory at Harrow just outside London and a big sports ground which large companies did and we played on that, the replay. I know it must have been around about the August time because that was the last match I played and they looked upon it as my demobilisation party. We stopped off in a pub just outside Harrow from the coach. All of us went in there and got really sloshed [laughs]. Now, I think most probably that is my, well the only other thing I can remember then is going up to Preston to get my demobilisation pack. And what I remember clearly then is getting on a bus outside the depot at Preston to go to the station wearing my uniform as usual but with a Trilby hat [laughs]. And that’s where, and of course I got eight weeks demobilisation which meant I was being paid up till almost the end of October which rounded off just about the four years. But my firm had been paying me a pound a week so I then went back to them and renewed my working life with them. But I was fortunate in some respects because at Netheravon they had a forces preliminary exam and I took, well I attended to classes of an evening and I passed it and in fact it’s on the book there. I passed that which enabled me to bypass my professional examination which I later took after I went back into civilian life. The preliminary examination. It was like the equivalent to what you used to call matriculation. So when I later started studying after I got back in to civilian life as a surveyor I didn’t have to go through the preliminary exam. I went straight in for my intermediate exam and then final. So I put it to good use and of course I was lucky enough to qualify and that would be in ’48/49. ’49. And I wanted to earn more money ‘cause there was the only way I got to qualify really was by working, oh what, four nights a week. Evening classes every night and then I got qualified. Bearing in mind my education had finished at the age of fourteen you know that was an achievement to get something but I couldn’t have got anything else otherwise and so, but the firm was still old fashioned and I said, ‘Well I was thinking about getting married,’ you know and he said, ‘Well maybe, you know when you’re married come and see me and we’ll increase your wage.’ I said, ‘Well I’ll never get married on that basis.’ So I joined, I did the horrendous thing, I joined a Ford Motor Company in their property department. In other words I broke out from being in practice but I became their property manager after a few years and from there my career rocketed, you know. I became in demand. I was head hunted twice and I finished up as a managing director of, well the share capital of the company was a million pounds fully paid up share capital and we were making, and I started that company for them. That’s what I was head hunted for. So I had a very very good life then but of course my wife became rather ill and so in the, what, in the early eighties I had a decision to make. Should I give up my job and take care of my wife or just carry on and let me wife, no. So I gave up my job and I was very gratified because my wife then lived for another twenty years. So, you know, that was the right thing to do. That’s, I never regretted it. It would most probably have killed me if I’d have carried on myself. So, you know, it was a very fast life ‘cause I was building, I became a specialist in development of industrial estates. Because, when you bear in mind that before the war factories were put up where the families of the owners decided it would be convenient. The planning laws were very limited. So consequently then war came and every factory in this country was expanded but in a what, a ship shape ad hoc situation and they were not very well designed and a lot of them got knocked out and consequently when war finished this country needed a base to prosper and that base was the development of industrial estates where you’d got a large industrial area where you put factories on it. They did it out to a little point where you could build warehouses on industrial estates but you could not put factories without permission from the Board of Trade and the Board of Trade wanted you to go where they thought unemployment was. In other word up north, Scotland, Liverpool, those sorts of places. So consequently we started persevering with buying large existing factories and modifying them to units. We worked on this principal that if you’d gone with a large factory, I mean I’m talking about factories of three hundred, four hundred thousand square feet and there were factories of that kind scattered around the country. If you’d have gone to the planners with a scheme to, you know, segregate them all in to smaller units say ten thousand feet, something like that, you’d never have got permission. They would never have granted it. So what we did, in other words we designed how we were going to cut that large building up into units and show what modifications had to be done to the elevations but not disclose the fact that the internal layout was going to be reduced to many units. So consequently then we could offer factories to people where they wanted them and that’s where, because you know in those days you couldn’t finance. Most factories that were built before the war they were built out of a loan from the bank and things like that. Whereas really they finished up under the scheme I had going with institutions, hedging funds and insurance groups and it worked very profitably. In fact I would say that I’ve been involved in building factories in most of the major towns in this country. I mean I’ve travelled a lot around this country. But it was a good life. You know. Anyway, I may have left out a lot. CB: Where, where did you meet your wife? BM: I met my wife in, very simply, my mum bless her. She used to be a dress maker and when we moved down to Laindon, when we came out of London and moved down to Laindon because our house had been in London had got badly damaged she used to make dresses and my late wife came to her through a friend of hers and my mum used to make dresses for her. Then when I got demobbed she was very friendly with my mother and she often used to come around there and I’d be sent out the room while these ladies started measuring herself and so on and so forth. I said I wanted to stay but they wouldn’t let me [laughs] and we got friendly and that was it. CB: She was from, she was from the local area. BM: Oh yes. She lived in Laindon. She’d lived in Laindon since before the war. CB: What did she know about the RAF? BM: She wouldn’t know. In fact she felt rather bitter about the RAF because she’d lost her husband and it took me quite a time, I mean we got married in ‘52 and if I tell you that the, although we went abroad on holidays we didn’t go by plane until the 70s. She didn’t like, didn’t want to fly. She had an aversion against flying and the way I got around it was we went for a weekend over to the Channel Islands. I said we’d do a short trip like that. We flew from Southend to Jersey and gradually weened her off it. But she wasn’t, she wasn’t very keen on the air force because she wasn’t treated very badly but she wasn’t treated very well I don’t think. CB: So what happened to her husband? BM: Well, he, he was buried in Belgium and – CB: What was he flying? BM: A Lanc. He was coming back from a trip, an operation over the Ruhr Valley and he was flying over Belgium back and they got shot down and all the crew were destroyed. But other than just the odd letter, the initial letter of, from the commanding officer she never had any conversation with RAF after that. You know, she went out there once I think before, this would be the ‘40s and saw the grave but she was, I suppose, in some respects, to put it very crudely she was almost abandoned you know, because in those times, I don’t know whether you’ve heard this before, it’s quite possible that there were squadrons that were used to take the brunt. Do what you’d call the bread and butter jobs and you know all the new, new boys coming out of qualifying as pilots would most probably be shipped down to those stations. They become almost like cannon fodder and if they were any good they would be shipped then across to 9 squadron or 617 squadron or a couple of other top squadrons. CB: So what squadron was he? BM: He was in 100 squadron. CB: And how many operations had he done? BM: Ten. He was on his tenth one when he got shot down. CB: And when was that? BM: That would be 1943. CB: What was your wife’s name? BM: His name? CB: Your wife’s name. BM: Armon. Her maiden name was Jee. J double E. But her married was Armon. A R M O N. CB: Now you were in London during the war when the bombing was taking place. BM: Yes. CB: So, what was your first experience of bombing? BM: First experience. It was on the Saturday that the Blitz really started and that Saturday I was going from, I’d taken a bus from Canning Town up to Stepney going to a cinema. I think it’s still up there on Commercial Road at Stepney, the Roxy, to see a film. I got as far as Poplar and the bus stopped because the siren had gone up and we were all offloaded off the bus and this was by a pub at Bedet Road in Bow and they had a surface air shelter there and we all herded in to that and first time then you looked up and the sky was full of black spots which were the aircraft all flying in formation and then they started dropping their bombs. There were a bit of hysterics coming from some of the females in this shelter and we were stuck there I know until about oh five, five, 6 o’clock. Eventually the all clear was given and we were allowed back out and I can remember walking down because the main road through Canning Town, we lived in a road that was right off the main road and I remember walking down that road about oh 6 o’clock and I could see my mother stood at the gate looking to see whether I was coming or not. And that’s what I, that’s the first memory I have of – CB: And how close were the bombs dropping to where you were? BM: Well they were dropping all around the place, you know. Not, not close enough to cause any damage to anyone around them but Stepney was just around the back of Limehouse where all the East India Docks were which is where they were attacking all the time. And it was quite, I suppose, continuous was about the best way to describe it. There was, you know, quite a lot of noise and so on and so forth. CB: So the raids started at what sort of time? BM: That would have been round about oh 2 o’clock I would think. CB: In the, in the daytime. BM: In the afternoon. Yeah. CB: In the afternoon. Right. Ok. BM: Yeah. CB: And then on future days? BM: On what? CB: On the days after that? BM: On the days after that never, not much during the day. It was always then around about 8 o’clock at night till 3 o’clock in the morning and that was continuous and of course then and when I moved to Laindon I still had to stay on duty because even, although I was only in my teens we were all on the rota to do fire watching. Although there was an air raid warden in that area our offices were in a parade of shops either side the road and so consequently we, they all had to provide two or three people every night to do fire watching. CB: So would you explain what is fire watching and how did that work? BM: Well fire watching was merely that you would, if they were dropping any incendiary bombs. CB: Where would you be situated? BM: You’d be situated in the office but when the warning went up you would then go to the front door and you would stand in the front porch and if there was any incidents take place then you would be, have to deal with them and get the fire brigade if necessary if it became too big or deal with it yourself. CB: So your job was partly to summon help. BM: Yeah. CB: To deal with the fires. BM: Yes. You were only there to be the eyes. To bring in the air raid wardens ‘cause there was always wardens about. CB: So in the raids then, how much damage did you see and – BM: You wouldn’t see, see much in the area I was at to be honest. I saw more of it when I went out during the day working. CB: Yeah. BM: But fortunately the parade of shops either side the road didn’t get damaged at all. CB: So when you were out working your job was to collect the rents. BM: Yeah. CB: And just how did you do that and what were the reactions of the people? BM: Well, when you say how did you do it? You’re just knocking on doors and each house knew which day they would be paying the rent. Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, something like that and they knew the time you were going to be there and consequently if you were going down one particular road you would hit the first door. Knock that and they would come to the door and within a few minutes you would see them all appearing all the way along and you just go through them, you know. But I never ever came up against people that were afraid of the future. They were quite, you know, loyal and quite brilliant in their attitude you know. They didn’t fear the bombing. They just thought it part of life. It’s quite amazing really. CB: Families were quite close to each other in those day so – [Phone ringing] CB: Oh we’ll just stop for a mo. [Recording paused] BM: Yeah. Well their reaction was quite superb. You didn’t, they didn’t walk around in fear. They didn’t. They felt that as far as they were concerned you know, they, they couldn’t lose. It was quite amazing their attitude and these were all in poor, what you would call poor living accommodation. They were terraced houses. I think the rents used to be something like around about eight, nine shillings a week. So no cheap money. And they led a poor life. Most of their husbands were all called up. CB: So the fact that husbands had been called up and were in the forces had what sort of effect on their ability to pay? BM: It had a tremendous effect because a lot of them were really on the bone of their whatsits, you know. They just couldn’t afford to pay and some didn’t pay. CB: What did you do when they didn’t pay? BM: Well if you could find them. We always used to say they’d emigrated to Canvey Island. That’s where. Because they used to. I mean I can recall many cases that people who were owing the landlord. Some of them about thirty or forty pounds which in those days was a lot of money. CB: Huge. BM: And they just couldn’t afford to pay it and so what they did they just vanished overnight and you could never find them. It gets wroted off. Because I think they used to get an allowance from the military but that was poor compared to what they really needed. They had hard times and that was why, what used to amaze me, they were having a hard time but they still had a smile on their face. You know they were quite jolly. CB: So you were living in Laindon which was slightly out of town but in their situation a number of them were finding that their houses had been demolished. BM: Yeah. Yeah. CB: What was happening then? BM: Well they, [pause] I suppose, I don’t know, they really, they could always get repairs because during the war there was a government department, War Damage Commission which we used to have to apply to for repairing costs and ok you would get an immediate payment to cover for tarpaulins to go over the roof and also to put up windows. Cover windows. And then you would have to put forward a request for further monies when you had to do the permanent repairs which you didn’t rush to do because no sooner you’d done any further repairs they’d all be damaged again. So you know it was, in fact, that was there was more work. The collecting of the rents was limited to, say, what three hours a week. The work was getting the temporary repairs done to the property in that week. You’d have to sit down and work out with a contractor. You had a local builder that you’d employ to do these temporary repairs and so in other words you know it was all part of one’s training that you were looking after not only the collection of the rents but the management of the actual property. Because all those properties were most probably privately owned by family trusts and people like that or local businessmen. CB: Now when you joined the RAF you came across a number of people from completely different parts of the country. How did your relationships develop? BM: In Yorkshire, I found the people around Yorkshire were wonderful people. You know you would go out of a night time to a pub in a little village, villages like Spofforth. Used to go to Harrogate, Spofforth, Knaresborough and Boroughbridge and they would make a fuss of you. ‘You don’t want to go back to camp yet. Come back with us and ham and eggs. Have supper.’ Now, I’m saying this, I don’t want to upset you but you never had the same conviviality in Lincolnshire. You used to walk into a pub in Lincoln, they wouldn’t take no notice of you. You know. Used to call them a miserable lot of so and so’s. [laughs]. Now don’t get upset. CB: I’m devastated. BM: Are you from Lincolnshire? CB: Rutland. BM: Pardon? CB: Rutland. BM: Rutland. Oh well. CB: Better place. BM: Better. Yes. No Lincolnshire was recognised. We all used to say this and yet it’s strange because last year my eldest son on his computer he saw that a large hotel in Lincoln was offering a good deal. Luxurious hotel. Took up his lady friend. They went up there for three or four days and he said they had a wonderful time. I said, ‘Well that’s not my experience of Lincolnshire. Of Lincoln.’ CB: Lincoln town or other places? BM: Lincoln town. CB: Why did you think that was? BM: I don’t know. I don’t know. I didn’t go into Lincoln town very much because Waddington was such a well built and organised station as it were and you know you could get all the comforts you want in their NAAFI and so on and so forth and rarely did we go out. CB: No. BM: And certainly when I was at Skegness we never did go out. Well I say we never. I did on one occasion because on the seafront in Skegness there was a little sort of Esplanade café come dance floor and we were allowed out ‘til about 9 o’clock at night so I thought well I’d go over there. I used to do a lot of dancing before I got called up so, but I didn’t realise that there you had hobnailed boots didn’t you? During your training. CB: Sure. BM: And of course I went in to that place and asked a young lady to dance in hobnailed boots and I was very popular. CB: Particularly when you trod on her toe. BM: Precisely. So that was the only time I went out in Skegness. Yeah. CB: And did you ever, did you get relationships with people that lasted throughout the war? BM: No. No. CB: You didn’t have a best friend of any kind who started with you? BM: No. No. CB: You played the, played the market. BM: No, I didn’t, [pause] I got friendly with some of the females during my stint in Yorkshire but it didn’t develop into anything that really, no. Not of any consequence. CB: Right. BM: Never continued writing to them after I left or anything like that. When I left I left. You know. CB: All the stations had WAAFs. BM: Yeah. CB: In their own area so how did the, how did you link together there in the NAAFI and – BM: Well. CB: In the messes? BM: In the NAAFI they used to, you know we used to be friendly but if you had a dance they always used to go to the air crew. They were the air crew following you know. They wouldn’t dance with the likes of an LAC. CB: Of the erks. Yes. BM: I’m afraid to say that was a fact. CB: Yeah. BM: But no. The air crew used to come in. I was at a dance, on New Year’s Eve we’d have a dance and they’d take up all the birds. But er – CB: Quite upsetting really. BM: Yeah. [Laughs] although some of them used to work with me. CB: Yes. BM: You know they were – CB: Did they? BM: Some of them used to be flight mechanics. Certainly a lot of them on the electrical side of the trade. Wireless and so on. The cleaner jobs. But not on the dirty jobs. CB: So out on the flight line what were you doing there? BM: Pardon? CB: Out on the flight line on dispersal what was your task and how did the, a day go? BM: Well. The day. You used to [pause] you’d be always doing, check your aircraft and when it was all very clear, ok. You would be just tidying around your dispersal point. Make sure that the concrete area was clearly defined so that when they, they would go and fly into it, not fly but they would motor into it. CB: Taxi into it. BM: Yeah. Taxi into it. And then they would of course turn. CB: Yeah. BM: And you would guide them on that turn and so you would make sure that area was clear and ok. You would then go up to the dispersal hut and stay in there until they came back. CB: So how many planes did you have a responsibility for? BM: Well you’d only have responsibility for about two. CB: Right. BM: There was enough to go around from that point where we were. CB: And you were in a section responsible for the two aircraft so what were the component parts of the people? You were dealing with what aspect specifically? BM: What? Of the aircraft? CB: Yes. BM: Well I’d be responsible for the hydraulics like on the undercarriage. The oleo legs that used to, well the ones that go up and down inside the casing. The tyres. The wheels and the tail plane mechanics and also the ailerons and all the controls and that would be it. CB: And the hydraulics were fed from one of the engines. Which was that? BM: Well the brakes were operated pneumatically but the hydraulics were operated as you say from the engines. CB: So there was a power take off from one of the engines on the starboard side was it? The starboard inner. BM: I can’t remember. I can’t remember on that one. CB: What other trades were there operating at the dispersal? BM: There would be engines. And there would be wireless and there would be electrics but the, the munitions people they always used to load up. They’d come out with their trolley and put what armaments they had to put on in the guns and so on and the bombs. And that was it. That’s [pause] there was nothing else from that point of view and then as I say you would just sit and wait. CB: So the aircraft would be prepared for use. Who was the senior person in your section? BM: It would be a corporal. He would be, he would be the one that would sign up the air worthiness and so on. CB: And he would provide that documentation to whom? BM: He would see, he would show that to the pilot when he came out. In other words the pilots used to. People used to say did you have much contact? As an AC2, AC1 no. No contact at all. Even as a LAC no contact because the aircrew used to get there, go to their briefing. CB: Yeah. BM: And they’d come out to the dispersal point in their car, in their coach and they would just get out. You’d be standing there not far away but as far as they was concerned the coach would come up close to the entrance of the aircraft. They’d get out, into the aircraft and off. And ok the only people they would see would be the corporal or the sergeant. Whoever it was responsible that everything was all alright. CB: Yeah. Did the flight engineer get involved in the signing off of the aircraft? BM: The flight engineers I don’t believe really started operating until about 1945. CB: No. They were there with the big aircraft. So there was a flight engineer in all the four engined aircraft. So your Lancaster, Lancasters had flight engineers and I was just curious to know whether they liaised with the ground crew. BM: Well I was on Halifaxes. CB: Halifaxes first. BM: And I can’t remember ever seeing a flight engineer on a Halifax. CB: They were always there. Yeah. BM: In what year? CB: Well from ’43. So the twin engined planes didn’t have flight engineers but – BM: No. I accept that. CB: Every four engine aircraft had a flight engineer. BM: No but it was a concept that didn’t come out to till later. CB: Yeah. So when – BM: I’ve got a feeling they didn’t come out ‘til about ’44. CB: When the, when the aircraft landed – BM: Yeah. CB: Then what happened? Were you all there to receive it as soon as it arrived? BM: Well we we were in the flight hut. CB: Flight office. Yeah. BM: Which was up by the, and we would just go over to the dispersal point and then we would soon pick it up on the perimeter track and flag it in. CB: Right. BM: And that was it. CB: Yeah. BM: The crew would get out in to the coach and off and we would just then close it all up. Put the chocks down and so on and so forth. CB: So the aircraft would always have the potential for developing faults. BM: Oh yeah. CB: So who would do the communication of that and to whom? BM: Well the pilot used to if there was any faults on it the pilot would give that in his report. CB: Right. BM: To the sergeant. CB: Ok. BM: And ok they would decide whether then it was a major or a minor. CB: Yeah. BM: If it was a minor ok we would deal with it around on the dispersal point. CB: Sure. BM: If it was a major one it could go in to the hangar. CB: Yeah. And what about damage? How often were your aircraft damaged? BM: They got damaged but not very much. Not to that degree. CB: What sort of damage did they come back with? BM: Some of them came back with ammunition holes in it which you would do a little patch on it and things like that. CB: How was the patch administered? Was it a fabric or was it a metal? BM: No. Metal. CB: So how was it attached? BM: Attached with rivets. Used to use the pop rivet gun. Cut a piece of metal. It was very, I wouldn’t say shambolic but it was just to do it very quickly. You would cut a piece of metal to cover the area and then you would drill the four corners, pop rivet it and then go around later all the way through. You know, get rivets. CB: Yeah. BM: Quite. CB: So you’d secure it first. BM: Oh yeah. CB: And then you put the extra rivets. BM: Extra rivets in in between. CB: Now what about painting afterwards? How did you do that? BM: Well be able to just put a bit of a drop of paint on it but they didn’t worry too much about that. Some of those aircraft they looked horrible with the, with the paint job. I mean, you know, you just had some paint and you just brushed it, brushed it on. CB: But it always had paint would it? BM: Oh yeah. CB: Because aluminium’s shiny. BM: Yeah. Yeah. CB: What would you say was your most abiding memory of your time in the RAF? BM: I suppose that when I was at Netheravon the aircraft then had to be, they were all camouflaged, had to be stripped back to their bare metal again. What you would call peacetime and that was a so and so of a job because you had to put paint stripper. And getting it all off by hand it was not very pleasant. CB: How long did that take? BM: Pardon? CB: How long did that take? BM: Oh we had, what, a squadron of about twelve aircraft and it took quite a time. CB: What were the planes? BM: Dakotas. CB: Right. So this is at the end of the war. BM: Yeah. CB: So they were taking the, because they war had ended they were taking the camouflage off were they? BM: Yeah. Yeah. CB: And then what were they applying? BM: Nothing. CB: Right. So just aluminium. BM: Just the bare aluminium and also at the same time we were fitting seats in to them. Like tubular seats. There was one other job that when I was at Marston Moor I had a petrol leak on one of the Halifaxes and I had to take out the petrol tank which was located in the wings and you’ve got to get up on a trestle to more or less get them and they are all, they were not rivets. There’s a sort of a square panel that is screwed into the main plane, main wing and they’re like cheese headed screws and then every, about oh half an inch apart all the way around and in those days you didn’t have [rapid?] screwdrivers and so me being an AC2 at the bottom of the ladder that was your job Mabey. Get that all off. So you’d spend ages getting every screw off, dropped the flap and then disconnect the tank and before you completely disconnected there was always some aircraft fuel still inside. You’d have to load that into a fifty gallon drum, the surplus and then you could drop the tank and when you dropped the tank you put a new one in and then go back again all good. The only advantage was that you knew then you had some cleaning material to clean your uniform because we used to clean our uniforms in aircraft fuel and then lay them out in the wings to dry and – Other: Goodness. CB: So you had a particular aroma that not everybody appreciated. BM: I agree. Yes. That was most probably. CB: They smelled you coming, BM: [Laughs] That was most probably one of the worst periods of my life. Yeah. CB: Now the fuel tank. That’s because it had had battle damage in it was it? BM: Some were. Some were not but it was for one I particularly remember. It had, it hadn’t had battle damage it was just, it had become worn. CB: Oh. BM: And it had to be replaced. CB: Now dealing with that was very dangerous so how, because of the potential for a spark so how was that handled with the screwdrivers and everything? BM: Well it was, you just didn’t, you know I agree on reflection most probably it was a fire hazard but you didn’t consider it. You know, you just had to get that tank out because it needed, it needed to be replaced. CB: I wondered if there were special procedures. BM: No. CB: For safety. Because the plane could be lost. BM: Yeah. CB: Never mind the AC plonk. BM: Yeah. I don’t think there, most probably could have been but I can’t recall them quite frankly. CB: Oh. After the war did you consider joining any associations? Squadron or RAFA. British Legion. BM: Well. I joined RAFA when I was still in the air force at Netheravon. They came to you and this would be in 1947 because I used to wear the RAFA badge on my battle dress although that was not legal but I did join them. But when I ultimately got demobbed belonging to an Association regarding the air force was not foremost in my mind you know. I mean the point is that I had other things to think about then. In fact the strange thing is I only started, I had to go into hospital about, oh this would be about four years ago and in the next bed next to me was the chairman of the local branch of the RAFA Southend. And we started talking and spoke about the air force and he said to me, you know, ‘Why aren’t you a member?’ I said, ‘Haven’t had time. I’ve been busy.’ You know. I had a hectic life. ‘Well,’ he said, you know, ‘You should join. We could do with more members.’ And I did join and then my wife passed away and I became rather active but then the committee decided rather, in my book, foolishly that some of them were going to resign and meant that then the branch had to be closed. And the branch was closed. CB: What sort of people were there? What backgrounds in the RAF were the people who were -? BM: I could never find out. I could never find out because they were rather stand-offish a little. I could never really get to know them quite well. Not to that degree in those few years and they were, I don’t know. Most of them came from what we called Leigh area and they, I always talk about them that they were people who have curtains around their dustbins. You most probably get them in many towns and they and so consequently they seemed to prefer abandoning the concept of an RAF association and turning it in to a luncheon club and I didn’t. I said no. And I’ve been proved right because the silly fools, my membership was transferred to Basildon, right. Basildon now I know are doing exactly what Southend have done. They’ve got about five members that are active. That’s all. So really what should have happened is that, and there’s another branch that’s going to go exactly the same at Thurrock so you’ve got three branches there because the membership is falling, you know, we’re getting older. And so consequently what they should have done is said well look we’ve got when we still had about twenty five members attending meetings on a monthly basis. Keep Southend. Transfer Thurrock and Basildon into Southend. You’ve got your younger committee members and you’ll keep going and now they are going to finish off without any branch in this area at all. Rather foolish. But because some of them felt that well they didn’t want to carry on in their capacity as chairman because their wives were not in good health or something like that. I can understand it up to a point but don’t take the drastic action. CB: No. BM: And they did and so now they’ve got nothing. CB: Did you get the impression that some of, that more of them were air crew or ground crew or what? BM: Oh well with the RAF Association especially in Southend there was an aircrew branch of it. CB: Oh. BM: And they, they used to have their own little meetings. CB: Oh [laughs]. Right. BM: And you know, one particular chap I used to talk to who was in the Aircrew Association and the strange thing is, of my age, when he finished his training as a pilot they liked him as an instructor so they sent him out to Canada to finish his career in Canada teaching. So as far as he was concerned he’d been across the pond. He hadn’t seen any of the war at all. CB: No. BM: And to me it seemed a tragedy that they even split them because the aircrew in total should have still mixed with the others and that was confirmed at where we went the other day. I can’t think of its name now. CB: What? At Aces High in Wendover. BM: Yeah. At Wendover. I mean on that table there were two squadron leaders, one wing commander and a warrant officer. CB: Yes. BM: And also me. CB: Yeah. BM: A leading aircraft man. And they just treated me handsomely. CB: They did. BM: Oh yes. They had no side of it at all and this is the way it should have been. CB: Yes. BM: Ok. When you get in front of them in uniform you stand to attention. CB: Of course. BM: You recog, but you’re not doing that for the individual. You are doing that for the uniform and that was a little thing but they shouldn’t, they shouldn’t cause any segregation at all because – CB: Right. BM: It’s strange because I went to one particular meeting and there was a chap there. He came up to me and he started talking. He was an ex-major in the army and he said this, it was the, oh [pause] it was a special club that they’d formed that did the Normandy landings and he said, ‘You should join.’ I said, ‘Join? I didn’t take part in the Normandy landings.’ ‘What do you mean you didn’t take part? You said you were in uniform didn’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I had a couple of cookhouse blokes working for me. You could say they didn’t take part in the Normandy landings. No. I know they didn’t but we couldn’t have done it without their, them cooking our meals and we wouldn’t have done the Normandy landings without the air force as a back-up. Everyone in the forces at that particular time must have made some form of contribution towards that Normandy invasion.’ And this is was it’s all about isn’t it? They try and segregate it and well they always looked upon you, some of those air crew, a few in civilian life look upon you with an air of superior quality which is wrong. But – CB: Hurtful. BM: Well in business ok. As far as I was concerned you know I was top of the list so they, they didn’t worry me. CB: No. BM: Simple as that. CB: I think we’d better take a pause. Thank you. [Recording paused] CB: So after the war you returned to civilian life in 1947. BM: Yeah. CB: From then onwards what was your perception of the general public’s attitude towards people who’d been in the RAF? BM: They didn’t, on reflection of what I’ve seen lately I realise now that their reception was not as good as it should have been. We all just carried on and as far as I was concerned I don’t think I ever was approached from the time I got demobbed at ’47 you know because there was still a certain creeping in, an air of resentment that there had been a few people that had dodged their responsibilities either through religious grounds or other things and, or reserved occupation and I saw that particularly when I went to Ford Motor Company because I used to be in a specialised department so consequently I had access to a lot of places because I used to have to go to them. And I can remember on occasions when you would meet superintendents who were responsible for the production of cars in quite a large area and they would be an ignorant pig. And you’d think to yourself, well mister, I’m sorry I wouldn’t even employ you to stick stamps on an envelope but because they’d been in a reserved occupation they had a clear field to be promoted. Not because they’d earned it but there was no one else to fill the position and so consequently you had a a backlog like that there and they didn’t want to talk to you about what you’d done in the air force because they hadn’t done it themselves. So they didn’t. They had nothing to discuss. And that was the same in a lot of cases so I mean I can remember in fact the first when I got back the couple of conscientious objectors they’d risen within that small private company quite well because they used to read the bible every lunchtime. They’ sit in the office reading the bible whereas you would go and eat a sandwich they would read the bible but they couldn’t be touched. But they certainly took promotion when it was offered to them and I know, I know of one particular case where people when they went for their medical they pleaded on certain occasions. They got away with it. One particular prominent chap who lives in Southend he did anyway. He was in the medical when I went for the medical because I came to Southend to get my medical and he told me, he said, ‘I had a motor bike accident six months ago. I’m going to tell them I keep on getting headaches,’ and this is what he did and he was classified grade 3. Yeah. And so all the time I used to see him in Laindon when I used to come home on leave there was he you know running around in a flash car and everything else. I know. So the air force and the same with the army, same with the navy those who served they didn’t get the treatment that they should have got I don’t think. CB: The recognition. BM: Yeah. And [pause] but now and the strange thing is the recognition you get now is overwhelming. I mean, you know, I’ve only done two book signings and it’s opened my eyes. I didn’t realise the sincerity that goes in it. I mean people just don’t want you to sign their book. All they want to do is say hello, thank you and shake your hand. That’s more important to them than your signature which astonishes me. I didn’t, because that sort of feeling didn’t exist when you first got demobbed. Anyway. [laughs]. CB: Thanks. [Recording paused] CB: Victory Parade. BM: Pardon? CB: For the Victory Parade. BM: Yeah. CB: Yeah. BM: And we had Lee Enfield 303 you know. We were carrying that around. And it’s a twenty mile area, route that we’d taken. We’d got up to Tottenham Court Road and we’d just turned into Oxford Street and we had the air force band in front of us and they played the Dambusters March and that was set alight all the people almost and the cheers and the applause was absolutely overwhelming. I’ll remember that till I pop off you know. It was really, it put a lump in your throat and especially in Oxford Street. It’s all these buildings with windows above them and there were people at the windows and they were throwing coins. CB: Were they? BM: And bars and chocolate. The bloke next to me got hit by a bar of chocolate of all things you know. And this, this was happening there. You couldn’t stop to pick the stuff up. CB: No. BM: You had to just had to carry on walking. CB: Amazing. BM: And then of course with all processions they do stop for a little while to more or less they get a bit of a backlog don’t they? CB: Yeah. Yeah. BM: And then you’re amongst it all and you’re more or less really – CB: Yeah. BM: Visibly making a fuss of you. CB: Yes. The unleashed appreciation. BM: Yeah. But – CB: Extraordinary. Very touching actually. BM: That was touching and but that is soon forgotten you know. CB: Right. We’re stopping now. [Recording paused] CB: Raids. We’ve talked about civilians Bernard but what about RAF and military people’s reactions to the raids? [Pause] Other: Do you mean the raids that took place over Germany? CB: No. The British. The German raids on Britain I meant to say. So where you were stationed. BM: Well er as I say some of them it was – CB: So at Locking for instance. At Locking. BM: At Locking it was a novelty to them. Others who had experienced it in their own town I mean like they’d had, you’d had Coventry, you had Liverpool, you had Southampton and Plymouth. They’d all had a going over. Other: The Midlands. The Black Country. BM: Yeah. Other: Where I came from. BM: Yeah. They had some. Well they were attacking there. In some respects they were attacking the, I mean in the Midlands it was where a lot of the machinery. Other: Where all the manufacturing took place. BM: All the manufacturers. So therefore it was in some respects a legitimate target. Other: Yes. BM: But London wasn’t. Other: No. That was aimed at the population. BM: Yeah. Other: To break the will of the population. BM: So, and Plymouth I suppose it had naval history but not to that degree. And Southampton also but they were really docks areas. That’s what they seemed to want to go for. CB: Yeah. BM: And it didn’t – CB: But particularly in your experience actually in the RAF you mentioned Locking so – BM: Yeah. CB: What? When there were raids in in the Bristol area. BM: Well they, yeah. Well they didn’t – CB: What was the reaction of the people in Locking? BM: Well they were a bit afraid that the war was coming too close to them to some degree whereas others just seemed to think well it was a novelty idea because it wasn’t a consistent attack. It was just a spasmodic attack here and there. I mean the major towns where they hit in this, like you say, Liverpool, Coventry, the Midlands area, London they were continuous attacks for a period of time and they were solely, I don’t think they were other than to destroy the population. CB: The will of the people. BM: Yeah. They weren’t after the, ok that was their excuse they were going for targets but it didn’t bother them you know but – CB: You mentioned other some of your fellow RAF people’s reaction at Locking. BM: Yeah. Well they just became hysterical because it was something they’d never experienced and they were frightened and they were spoken very sharply by some of the non-commissioned officers in the, in the whats-the-name. In the shelters. As they said you know, ‘You’re a disgrace. Control yourself.’ CB: Oh you’re talking about actually in the shelter? BM: Oh yes. Yes. CB: The air raid shelter. BM: Some of them like I say were hysterical and in tears. They were frightened. Simple as that. Because they had not experienced it but others you know who had experienced it it didn’t bother them. In fact they looked at it logically and said you know they’re not going to attack us they’re attacking over there. But this is life isn’t it? CB: Yeah. Now you got leave every six months but you would get forty eight hour passes. BM: Yeah. CB: How far were you able to go and what happened to you then? BM: Well in forty eight hour passes I came home. Mainly because I knew I would get warmly welcomed by my parents because my brother was overseas. I think he was over there for about oh three or four years. CB: Where was he stationed? BM: He was stationed in Egypt then Sicily, Italy, Yugoslavia, Palestine. You know, he had a pretty rough time of it but of course he was on Fighter Command so therefore that was where the fighters were operating. CB: Yeah. BM: I mean bombers could operate from this country to go places. CB: So you were shift work effectively. Was, did you work on a seven day or a five day week? BM: We worked normally on a five day week but there was an occasion when they suddenly decided that they would work on a shift principal. In other words you worked something like around about ten days on right the way through and this was some clown from the air ministry had come down and set this up when I was at Marston Moor. And so in other words we then, you worked say for about ten days and you would have about three days off. And ok some of those time is spent catching up on the sleep you’ve lost and I’ll always remember on this particular occasion when this system was brought in I had not slept during the period I should have been off. So I went on duty and we were sat in the dispersal hut. The aircraft had gone off. This was about oh about 9 o’clock at night and I was tired. It was a cold night and there was a nice big fire in the centre of this you know and I just nodded off to sleep didn’t I? And they tried to wake me when the aircraft came back and I wasn’t having any [laughs] and the sergeant was not very pleased. Yeah. By the time I did eventually come round the aircraft had landed, been parked up and that was it and I’d done nothing. But the only good thing about that scheme it was, it was a way to keep the aircraft, giving them more flying time but it didn’t work and really the only good thing about it was that you could in other words once you’d seen the aircraft off say at about 8 o’clock at night 12 o’clock you’d go into the canteen and you could get your meal. CB: Yeah. BM: And invariably it used to be steak and chips. CB: Did it? BM: Yeah. Oh they’d give you a good meal for that. That time in the morning. And that was the only good thing about it but on that particular occasion I even missed my meal as well. Yeah. But it wasn’t very successful because during the day you were expected to catch up sleep. Well in a nissen hut with about thirty blokes a few of you still trying to get some sleep was hopeless. CB: Now technically you were part of a squadron were you? BM: Yeah. CB: What was that squadron number? BM: It was a conversion unit, Heavy Conversion Unit. CB: Ok. Sixteen – BM: 1652 HCU CB: Right. Heavy Conversion Unit. BM: Yeah. CB: Yeah. BM: And they used to do, during the day, cross country, circuits and bumps, circuits and landings and then when they were needed they used to go on operations as well to make up the numbers. That’s the way it worked. This was just their training with heavy aircraft. In other words they’d done all their, they’d got their pilot’s licence wings working on twin engined aircraft but before they let them loose on a Lanc or a Halifaxe they had to do a couple of weeks. CB: Yeah. So these were all Halifaxes. BM: Yeah. Yeah. ‘Cause the Halifaxes were not looked upon as superior as the Lanc because the Lanc could fly faster. The Lanc could fly higher. Halifaxes used to fly at around about a hundred and eighty at around about oh ten thousand feet whereas a Lanc would go a bit faster than that and they could fly at twelve, fifteen thousand feet. Higher if necessary. CB: How reliable were the aircraft? BM: I would say I never had much experience, if any at all, where the aircraft reliability was put to question. You know, they say that the Stirling was crap. That was a bad aircraft. But I didn’t work on a Stirling. I nearly did. I got posted down to Stoney Cross at Southampton when I was, when I finished at Waddington. And I went all the way down there, kit bag all my gear and they said, ‘Well you’re about three weeks too late. Your squadron moved out to Italy three weeks ago.’ And that was a squadron of Stirlings. And so I was stuck at Stoney Cross in the middle of the New Forest whilst the Air Ministry sorted out where they would then put me. [laughs]. But that was – CB: When did you go to Waddington and how long were you there? BM: I went to Waddington it was most probably, VE day. A couple of weeks after VE day I should imagine. And Waddington I left soon after the Victory Parade in London. CB: Because you were part of the Tiger Force. BM: Yeah. CB: Yeah. Good. Thank you. [Recording paused] CB: So at the end of the war Ron, you’d think, a number of people thought that at the end of hostilities then everybody could leave. BM: Yeah. CB: But actually it was spread out. Why was that? BM: It was spread out I think for economic reasons because they didn’t want to flood the market with labour so much and secondly they devised a scheme which gave you a demob number which was calculated on the age, your age and your years of service. So if like me you were called up at the age of eighteen and you’d only done, what, about four years my demob number was 57. I always remember that as Heinz [laughs]. CB: Yeah. BM: And that was, and when 57, in other words you were all given a number, what your demob number and that would then give an indication when you were going to be demobbed and you used to watch. Ok they’re working on 45 at the moment so it’s weeks before you got yours and I think it was just a question off pushing too many people on to the job market too soon. That’s the only reason I could see for it. Other: But weren’t people tempted to desert when the war ended and just get home as quickly as they could? CB: Good point. BM: It’s strange you should say that because it never occurred to me. In fact when I was at Waddington we were under instructions that when VJ day was declared, you know, you do not go out of camp and we were still on duty but some of the chaps and I can recall at least three or four possibly said, ‘To hell with them’. You know. The war’s over now. And they simply went home that weekend. Other: Yeah. BM: Now whether they ever got caught at it I don’t know but they certainly went off and they hitchhiked because I remember one particular chap, he wanted to get to London. You know, ‘I’m getting there. That’s it.’ So there was that attitude among some but to me it never occurred because as far as I was concerned you know it was the wrong thing to do. You’re still under orders. You know. CB: Yeah. BM: It’s the same after the war was finished you would wonder why anyone would still, especially I had a job ready to go back to. Why can’t you let me go? Well I’m going to go myself then. What are you going to do? Well they had the power to court martial you and they had the power to punish you. So it never really entered my head you know. Other: I suppose you’d got in to a frame of mind. BM: Yeah. Other: Where you accepted orders. BM: Yeah. Other: You know, you’d been in the forces for four years. BM: This is it. Other: And what you do is accept orders. BM: That’s right. Yeah. Others: Yeah. It’s interesting isn’t it? BM: It is. Because the way, the way especially nowadays I mean the younger element today are much more belligerent and I can imagine them saying, ‘Well, you know, I’m off. That’s me. The war’s finished. I’m done. I’ve done my bit.’ But it’s not like that is it? Really. Other: No. BM: It er – Other: But these days’ people don’t have a sense of duty like they used to. The population at large seventy year ago, eighty years ago. BM: Yeah. Other: Generally people had a sense of duty and a sense of public responsibility. BM: Yeah. Other: These days’ people don’t have that. BM: No. No. Other: They don’t have a sense of duty. It’s, it’s an old fashioned concept unfortunately. BM: Well I was brought up by a rather Victorian father. You know. He was strict. It didn’t do me any harm though. But er – CB: But that was only thirty years after the end of the Victorian era. BM: Yeah. CB: So it’s not surprising that that was the attitude is it? BM: Yeah. CB: Right. [Recording paused] BM: The night before there was a dance on again tonight and – CB: This is the Knaresborough Caravan Park. BM: A few birds around. CB: Yeah. BM: Yeah. CB: Keep going. BM: And anyway we went around on our bikes and we picked up these birds in this dance and of course two of us took these two birds back. They’d come from Leeds. Their parents owned a caravan and that was there and we went back to the caravan with these girls. Left our bikes parked outside, inside the caravan. I was a bit backward in those sort of activities because I’d led rather a sheltered life in London with Victorian parents so I didn’t really do anything I should be ashamed of. I put it to you as carefully as that but anyway we fell asleep. Woke up around about 5 o’clock and of course we were on duty at 8 o’clock. At Marston Moor. And so we just said, ‘We’re off,’ you know and we got out this caravan to walk across the fields with these [unclear] there was a bloody farmer who owned the caravan park. ‘Hey,’ he said, [unclear?]. ‘Cheerio.’ On the bike, down the hill out of Knaresborough fast got back to camp in time. Yeah. Quite a narrow squeak that was but – CB: If he’d have had a pitchfork it would have been uncomfortable. BM: But then the other thing is that I got friendly with a family in Spofforth in Yorkshire and the daughter’s twenty first birthday. So of course in the village of Spofforth they had the village hall for this twenty first birthday party and we went over there and we knew the parents but I’d been, you know, going casually around with the daughter, the other daughter who happened to be a married woman incidentally but it was all good and clean. So anyway they said, ‘Well, will you look after the bar in the hall? Would you do that?’ ‘Yes. That’s alright.’ So I got behind this bar in this village hall and there were people coming in and, ‘Yes. I’ll have one with you.’ And of course as they had a drink I was having one was well. So by midnight we were well and truly sloshed and of course the villagers use the hall with their own accoutrements as it were so therefore they had to clear the village hall after all the festivities had taken place and I can remember pushing a wheelbarrow up the main street in Spofforth with all these glasses and food and leftovers on and it was as we were pushing it along well and well and truly sloshed it was dropping off as we went. Tinkling away there. Yeah. They were happy days though really. Other: Well you remember the good bits. BM: Oh yeah. Yeah we were. Other: You remember the good bits. BM: As I say we had some. When I finished in the air force and I started having to come down to reality that you know I had had very little education. I had to think about what I was going to do with my life and I started studying and I started working. As I say evening classes four nights a week. I could still find time to play cricket and play football in the season and I used to think, I don’t know, we moaned all the time. I was four years in the air force but on reflection I’d had four good years and you miss it. In other words, you know, it occurred to me why didn’t I sign on? I would have been immediately made a corporal and a corporal fitter then you’re on the ranks of promotion and what have you so you do reflect. I mean people moan about it but you do reflect. When you look at it in reality you didn’t do so bad. Other: Well the thing that you did was you went in and you made the most of it and ended up with a proper trade. BM: Yeah. Other: A lot of people did National Service and did nothing. BM: Yeah. Other: They wasted two years of their lives. BM: Yeah. Other: Did nothing at all but at least you actually learned a trade and got a lot of valuable knowledge and experience and enjoyed yourself more as a consequence really. BM: Yeah. CB: The, you mentioned married women. BM: Yeah. CB: Now the reality of course is that there were plenty of people who were married whose husband, the women’s husbands were at the war. BM: Yeah. CB: So how did this work? It was quite innocuous sort of thing but were they at the dances? And how did this work? BM: Oh it used to. I’m talking about this lady at Spofforth. Her husband was in the Middle East and as far as I was concerned we used to go dancing. We used to drink and we used to play, they had that, in this pub where we used to go to they had the, the skittles. Other: Oh I know. BM: In other words, you know, ok, as far as I was concerned the only intimacy, if you like that took place was I kissed her and that was it. Didn’t go any further. And that’s that may have been I don’t know a bit naïve of me but I was most probably a bit naïve at that sort of thing and you know I was never a womaniser to that degree. In fact to be very, extremely personal is the fact that my late wife was the only woman I’ve ever slept with. So it’s as simple as that. I used to have a fling with these ladies but it only was kissing and that was it. So I didn’t do any harm. CB: All honour was satisfied. BM: Pardon? CB: All honour was satisfied. BM: Yeah. Yeah. CB: Yeah. BM: I mean I remember going, and this would be at, at Locking, there was a corporal WAAF there and went to a dance and she was a good dancer and I danced with her. So therefore all the time I was there when there was a dance on she was there. She was available to be a partner on the dance floor but directly I got her outside, ‘Hey. I’m a married woman. Off you go.’ It was as simple as that. And ok nowadays this attitude is completely different but in those days it wasn’t. Other: Yeah the worlds a changed place. BM: Well, you know, you could, ok you were told even by your chief medical officer when you were first called up they showed you various pictures of the problems if you get any sort of disease and so on through sexual activity and so therefore you just kept clear of it and in those days you didn’t have the protection that these youngsters have today and that is a problem. CB: 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 Bernard Charles Mabey Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chris Brockbank Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-11-28 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AMabeyBC161128 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 Bernard Mabey was born in London and experienced the Blitz at first hand. He was a member of the Air Training Corps in 1941, before volunteering for the RAF. He trained as an air frame mechanic at RAF Locking. His first posting was RAF Marston Moor which was a Heavy Conversion Unit. He was surprised by the change in approach to discipline between training and his first posting. He describes aspects of repairing aircraft. He enjoyed playing cricket for the station. After the war he became an industrial property developer. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Julie Williams 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--Yorkshire England--Wiltshire England--London Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1940 1941 1943 1945 1947 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 02:05:19 audio recording bombing C-47 civil defence demobilisation dispersal entertainment faith firefighting fitter airframe flight mechanic ground crew ground personnel Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit military discipline military living conditions military service conditions Navy, Army and Air Force Institute perimeter track RAF Locking RAF Marston Moor RAF Netheravon RAF Waddington sanitation sport Tiger force training York https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/513/8744/AGoldstrawBJ160827.1.mp3 8eaf418c74d7ce5c9c773b6e4cd64067 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 Goldstraw, John Basil John B Goldstraw J B Goldstraw Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Goldstraw, BJ Description An account of the resource Two oral history interviews with Basil Goldstraw (1925 - 2023). He served as a fitter with 75 Squadron at RAF Mepal, before being posted to Singapore. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-08-27 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document DB. I am interviewing Basil John Goldstraw at his home a Haywards Heath on the 27th of August 2016 at 1600. Em Basil I would like you to tell me a little about your experiences before, during and after the war. BG. Can I just say, you got, when you said legally you have got to use your first, John, legally everything comes to me either JB, sometimes it comes Basil, the people who know, sometimes it comes Mr John. I got one this morning Mr John Goldstraw, which I don’t like. I have always known, everybody knows me as Basil, they cut it short Bas you see and that’s how I sign myself to my friends and Glen and everybody like that you see or sometimes I just say Basil. So it is just that it doesn’t sound right to say it the wrong way round. I am being picky on the one thing that. DG. Talking today to John Basil known as Bas or Basil Goldstraw at his home in Haywards Heath on the 27th of August 2016 at 1600. Basil as you like to be know best, would you like to tell me about your experiences during the war, before, during and after? BG. Yep; I was put out leaving me finger on it won’t I. DB. Here you go. BG. So that is working now? Right, em having always had an interest in the Air Force eh when war broke out I decided that A I didn’t want to be a Sailor, I didn’t want to be a foot slogger. So I thought the best thing I could do was follow partly an ambition and I went to Dover Street in Manchester at the age of seventeen and volunteered and was accepted for the RAF. My call up papers, my first place of residence was George Street in Edinburgh, rather remember this well because a lad from my home town was due to join up the day after me and his Mum came round to see me and said could he join, could he come along as company? I remember, we got into Edinburgh, we caught a tram, he was a bit slow and I remember him chasing down eh the street, following the tram until we managed to scramble him back on board.[laugh] From George Street the following morning we were trained to Arbroath and our residence was the Old Jute Mills in Arbroath. This is where the basic training took place eh and well remembered because it was an enormous building. Eh a bit like one of the Cotton Mills with everything moved out and there were probably a hundred, a hundred and twenty people living in there. Just as an aside I remember my Mum saying to me, make sure your clothes are aired and anybody who was at the Jute Mills at Arbroath will remember the difficulty we had getting our clothes dry. Every morning we had to put our, fold our blankets, fold our biscuits, put the blankets round the biscuits and do like everybody else had to do, towel and irons for inspection, hiding our laundry out of the sight of the NCO. In the evening we could hang the clothes out and the only way you could really get them dry and this applied to everybody not just me, was to fold your laundry between the sheets and sleep on it overnight and they got reasonably dry, eh it was quite cold but we survived and I can’t remember how long we stayed there but the next port of call for me was Blackpool and 3 S of TT at Squires Gate. Being in Blackpool we were stationed in Civvy Billets and I well remember the lady we stayed with, her name was Bardsley, Mrs Bardsley and a very nice person. There were three of us shared the one bedroom eh, the chap who joined with me from my home town he was one of the inmates, and another chap was Len Kennedy who we became great friends. He actually when the course finished he was posted to a Halifax Squadron in eh Pocklington. The lad from Loxton his name was Perkins eh he became ill so we parted company there from the eh, [unclear] training eh. I am a little bit, can’t remember actually to what happened but I done the Fitters Course and from there I was eh posted to Mepal, 75 NZ Squadron. Eh whilst I had been on the Fitters Course or after the Fitters Course I did volunteer for Aircrew and was accepted. Whilst at Meeple I had to go into sick quarters and then was transferred to the RAF Hospital in Ely from which they done a good job. When I came out the Surgeon said young man you are not going to fly anywhere. Always puzzled me why they didn’t regrade me medically and they I never did, they never did find out really what was the matter. It was only until after the war I think about 1953 or 56 this was diagnosed at St Marys Hospital in Manchester. The time spent at Mepal, I suppose was like anywhere else there were good days and bad days. Eh I was attached all the time there to the RNI Section eh, where we were doing engine, prop changes, modifications, servicing or whatever was required. I always remember two of us had done some work, I think it was on one of the outer engines and, and the rule of thumb was if there was four groups, if there was eh four; what should I say. Remembering that there used to be two groups, eh two people on each engine, I remember that we had finished and the rule of thumb was the last Crew to finish had to see to the engine test run up. See it off on its Air Test and sign the form 700 or 701 I can’t remember which it was before they could go. We were allowed because we were finished we were allowed the rest of the day of which was late afternoon and two of us went for a swim in the Old Bedford Canal at Mepal. As we were swimming the old plane that we had worked on flew over and we had no qualms at all. When we got back into the Mess in the evening, one of them said “eh I think you are in trouble,” so we said “why” they said “well as she came into land eh, the engine went wild, one engine went wild” I think it was the starboard outer “she was too late to do anything so she swerved off the runway, ripped, ripped the undercarriage off and was a mess.” Just on the side it wasn’t our engine for which we were pleased. The outcome was a clevis pin had fallen out of the throttle control and eh left it so they couldn’t control coming in, in the last minute. Poor old bloke, normally controls are examined or they like you, they like a Senior NCO to do that work or check it. People were allowed to do it, the poor old bloke who had eh, done the work ended up on a Court Marshall and I think he disappeared for a fortnight. We used to get the eh Fortresses and Liberators and that flying fairly low over and coming, they used to come back. When our lads were on daylights they used to come back in what we describe as a gaggle whereas the Forts would come back, what was left of them in a Formation. On one of these occasions eh our Squadron was about to land in circuit and the Fortress came in. Eh the Control Box virtually through everything at this Fortress to stop him landing but he seen Mother Earth and he wanted to get down to it and he crash landed luckily without any explosions or fire on the grass on runway near the top towards Sutton. Yeah eh a story that illuminated, if that is the right word from that, we had an MU on the, the airfield and they used to do Majors and Category work. The story is eh, the Americans were still, they were entertained, I don’t know if it was the following morning by the Officers Mess and I think probably a discussion regarding low flying had taken. The story is that morning one of the eh Pilots of 75 eh, was taking a plane up on air test and from what the story goes the American Pilot and his Observer and perhaps others went with them to see how the Lanc flied and everything else. Eh and out over the Wash, the Bedford Canals he came back with a bit of tree branches hanging from one of the engines, I think it was starboard inner and of course it had landed, he had been flying low and it went straight back into the MU for repairs. I don’t know the validity of that but it was a story that went around for quite a while. Again memories coming back, we had, had an intruder come in one night eh, and drop Butterfly Bombs, anti-personnel bombs all over the place we were out of action the following day until the Bomb Disposal people had been and we had no air defence at that time but eh twin browning mounted on a stalk were obtained from somewhere and quite a number of Ground Crew had to go down to Waterbeach for training eh, on these, on this equipment for future Air Defence. Luckily for everybody Gerry never came back again. The next instance that comes to mind is that the Ops, at the latter end of the war Ops were delayed then eventually I think they were cancelled. And eh some of the bomb load were delayed actions. And in the night, I think the idea was to get an early morning start and in the night a terrific explosion occurred somewhere up on A or B Flights one of the Lancaster’s, one of the delayed action must have gone off and we lost quite a few eh planes either through shrapnel damage and one or two just disappeared. Again we were out of action until some more arrived. We have on the, on the Squadron, on the Airfield we had a eh group of Instrumentalists, they were known as the “75’ers.” I don’t remember them playing on actually the Airfield but they used to play at Chatteris if they were not on duty Em, on, I don’t know Fridays, Saturdays night. It was always difficult knowing how to get there because there was no bus service, you had to cadge a lift or cycle. Em, sometimes, sometimes if you got a lift you couldn’t get one back because the chap giving you the lift had got other interests at that time of night. It may sound silly but we had a good relationship with the Police, so you could go into the Station on arriving in Chatteris and say to the Sergeant in the Police Station, little Police Station there, “have you got a bed for the night Sarge.?” And if he was not busy he would say “right ho lads.” And you would stay there overnight, catch the workman’s bus in the morning, eh put two bob in the box, in the box for the eh, Police. Catch the bus, the bus that dropped you of somewhere where you could get into the Airfield without the eh SPs noticing you. As long as you were there for eight o’clock in the morning nobody seemed to worry too much. But it was quite regular that one could do that, it sounds silly you couldn’t do it now. Eh but eh we were friendly and of course the band the billet that I was in we used to play a lot of eh cards, some people gambled, I didn’t but we used to play, can’t remember the card game, it was fifteen two, fifteen four so you could perhaps remember that. Eh we had the eh Officer of the day came down to inspect and there was no list, official list on the back of the door for who were inhabited the bill, the eh hut but there was a list there with our, Crib that was the name of it, I have just remembered our crib tournaments that we used to run in the billet. The NCO in charge said “well Sir the, the crib notices is on and everybody of note is on the crib notice, so we got away with that one. Eh I remember with the Seventy Fivers Band, Arthur Swift he used to play fiddle, Johnnie Kimber he used to play sax, Len Mitchell use to play drums and there was one other that I can’t remember. When maximum effort was on em and I am not sure wither we had twenty four or twenty six planes eh we had long hours at times, I remember working all day and then in the evening we worked through the night, I remember that well because I changed a prop. And when we rung it up it had, had battle damage on it an had been repaired eh and when we rung it up the thing vibrated. This was the latter end of the night we were working, so that was a big panic on to get the trestles on again and change the prop, we had to do it to make sure it was balanced. Eh but some days were long and some days as I said extended through to the following morning. When at the latter end of the war eh the Squadron was moved to Spilsby, if I remember right 424 Squadron came in to eh Mepal and 75 were I think preparing for Tiger Force and then going home, they were going to be equipped with Lincolns. Em; we then some personnel were moved, I was one of them to Upwood and then from Upwood there was then one or two people, I was one of them selected for Overseas again for Tiger Force. We were flown out in an old York via Malta, Albania, Karachi and for a while at Calcutta at Ballygunge for about for about six weeks and then from there eh a Dakota down to Mingaladong, Butterworth, eh and eventually into Singapore from where I was demobbed. We came home by a Dutch liner as they called it the Umbernauld and Barnabelt[?] if anybody came home on that they were lucky to get home and the boat itself became the Moortown[?] and burnt out in the Med in, in fifties or sixties so it should have been burnt out before we got on it. These days one listens to our lack of equipment and poor equipment. Eh, nothing seems to have changed since I was in the Services eh my tool kit eh that I was issued with and other people consisted of a few assorted spanners, a hard faced hammer and screwdriver and pair of pliers. Eh so as I say as regards equipment I don’t think much has changed today. After the war when I was demobbed, I am trying to think, just going back to tools, one of the items that I always seemed to get to on a maintenance was a, because we was handed strips of hard paper with the tasks we had to perform on an engine. And one had to sign for everything that one did so that, that piece, that slip of paper went into the log book which carried your name. Eh there was a small boost aneroid on the port side of the Lanc. Eh and a little dome on there was held on by three ba screws and nuts. I always remember nobody had a three bar spanner so one had to manipulate a pair of pliers and hope it worked because one had to take the aneroid out and clean the eh the slide valve. Em I was in March one day an there was an iron mongers in there, I slipped in and said “have you got a three ba spanner by any chance?” They are the sort of things, mag spanners and that was very useful, in actual fact I have still got it in my tool box. Memories, good Lord, thus saying I got demobbed I think it was near Preston I can’t remember the name of it but that doesn’t matter eh, and of course went back to work for the local authority which we were a borough with our own gas, sewage works and eventually I became in charge of all the maintenance not only on the eh plant, on the vehicles but also on the sewage works equipment and the water works. Having; I had special and separate overalls at the time and separate wellingtons dependant on wither it was a sewage works or the water works that I was attending. Rather laughable but really Health and Safety hadn’t really got in properly then. Eh I quite, it was interesting, I quite interesting and I stayed there until 1968 when I moved down into the Sussex Area again with an other author, authority and in the meantime I,I had become a Member of the Road Transport Engineers, Institute of Road Transport Engineers and one or two other things. So I retired I think in 1980,83 or 86 that, beyond me to remember so I have had quite a good wholesome retirement for which I am very grateful. I suppose one interesting point would be that I was always in R and I, chap named Flight Sergeant Sadler we had always been, he was an Australian he had an MID up and we always referred to him as Bondy Sadler very rarely did you say Flight to him. He was that type of bloke that eh accepted the fact that he was like everybody else, that he were human. Eh with the Flight people we had A, B and C Flight we never really encountered them. It was not an anti-social thing it was just the way that they were on the Flights, they would, they would probably have eh a Rigger, an Engine Fitter and possibly and Electrician and Armourer to each, to each Lanc eh and eh they spent their life generally eh maintaining, repairing the same plane until unfortunately that plane perhaps became lost in action and eh they knew the Aircrew much more than we in, well we didn’t actually in RNI we didn’t actually get in contact with the Aircrew. Our, our, ours was a Lancaster repaired if it went out on air test, came back, the next one was virtually waiting to be attended to so em, eh we were not anti-social say. Luckily a lot of people who were on R and I eh we, we, we sort of associated with particularly in our hut. Just memory that. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Basil Goldstraw Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Denise Boneham 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 2016-08-27 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AGoldstrawBJ160827 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 Basil Goldstraw was classed as medically unfit for aircrew and, following training as a fitter, he was posted to 75 Squadron at RAF Mepal. He discusses aspects of his work as a fitter, being bombed, and life on and off the station. He was posted to Singapore as part of Tiger Force and worked as an Engineer with local authorities after the war. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hugh Donnelly Maureen Clarke 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 Singapore England--Cambridgeshire England--Chatteris Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1945 Language A language of the resource eng Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 00:28:39 audio recording 75 Squadron B-17 bombing crash entertainment fitter engine flight mechanic ground crew ground personnel Lancaster military living conditions military service conditions RAF Mepal Tiger force training https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/540/8780/AGilbertAC161013.mp3 d34798a44bdedb497b506541d0fc1232 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 Gilbert, Alexander Charles A C Gilbert Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Gilbert, AC Description An account of the resource 21 items. An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Alexander Charles Gilbert DFC (b. 1921, 1336682, 186764 Royal Air Force) his log book, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 9, 514 and 159 Squadrons. He was Awarded the Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in 2020. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Alexander Gilbert and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-01-13 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Transcribed audio recording A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 13th of October 2016 and we’re with Squadron Leader Alexander Gilbert DFC at Cheddington near Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, and we’re going to talk about his career in the RAF, which was a long one. What do you remember in the earliest recollections then Alex? AG: What do you mean? Going way, right back? CB: Right from when you were really young. AG: Ah, well, my father was a Hansom cab driver in London. CB: Oh right. AG: He joined the Army at the outbreak of World War One and served right through. And because he’d been a Hansom cab driver and knew all about horses they, he was assigned to what they called the Rough Riders, looking after horses, taking them across the Channel to France, and training horses and occasionally going down to Spain to purchase more horses and mules that were brought back for service in France. And at the end of the war, he was at this, this re-mount depot as it was called, at Swaythling in Southampton and he stayed there, and of course, he was married at the time. And from there, what could we say? I started school aged five, and I went to an elementary school and I left at fourteen, and then I was training or trying to become something in the art world, and I attended art school in Southampton. And then in November 1940, I volunteered to join the RAF and was called forward for service on the 7th of April 1941 and despatched to Uxbridge, where I spent three or four days being interviewed and processed, sworn in, all that sort of thing, and then assigned to a trade, and I was told I was to be trained as a Flight Mechanic Air Frames. From there, along with others, I proceeded to Blackpool where I carried out my recruit training on Blackpool sands, accommodated in one of the well-known Blackpool boarding houses. The training, as I remember it, lasted about four, four or five weeks. Recruit training and then we were moved to nearby Kirkham to, to carry out the trade training. The flight mechanics course lasted, as I remember, about eight, eight to ten weeks. At the end of the course, we had a final examination and the top third who passed out were retained to carry on to do a fitter’s course. I was in the top third so I stayed behind and completed the two courses, and at the end of it, I was a Group One Tradesman, Fitter 2A as they called them. I then had my, my first posting which was to what had been Exeter Airport, which was now a station that was occupied by a Spitfire squadron. I was only there about four weeks when the squadron was moved to an airfield near London. The air, the air, the ground crew were not required because the airfield that they’d gone to, already had ground crew, so we were dispersed and posted to various stations and I was posted to Calshot. Calshot was a very dreary place, it hadn’t changed, I don’t think, since World War One. The accommodation was pretty grim, I always remember the beds we had were iron plated, sort of, you know bedsteads. Very, very uncomfortable. The working hours, we worked, weekdays, every day, eight hours a day. We also worked weekends, Saturday mornings and Sunday mornings. We had the afternoons off at weekends, but because Calshot was rather isolated, there wasn’t anywhere to go anyway. So altogether it was a place that I, I really did not like at all. Anyway, apart from the work that we had to do, we also did guard duty at night along the Calshot foreshore, because there was the talk at the time about invasion and all this business, so we, we did these guard duties as well as our normal work. A very cold and uncomfortable place in winter time I can assure you, on the Calshot foreshore, very uncomfortable indeed. In early 1942, it was about March I suppose, a letter was pinned on the notice board. It said that the aircraft industry was expanding and there was a shortage of skilled tradesmen. RAF fitters were invited to volunteer for a short secondment to the aircraft industry. I thought to myself this is a way of getting away from Calshot so I volunteered. I didn’t really know what I was getting into actually. They told me I, yeah, I was to report to an office in Oxford, which I did. When I arrived there they said you will be working at the Cowley Motor Works. It was no longer a motor works of course, they were turning out parts for Lancaster aircraft, and they said, ‘You will work on permanent nightshift’. You start at 8 o’clock in the evening and you worked until 6 o’clock the next morning, with an hour’s break at night, and that was the routine. They gave me an address to go to where I would be accommodated. It was a house in the backstreets of Oxford that was owned by a young couple in their early thirties I suppose, and it was obvious from the start that they resented having a lodger, so there was no welcome at all. The woman took me up to what was to be my room, which had a bed, a table and a chair and that was it. It was a very depressing place altogether. I spent the night there, and the next morning, I had the same reception from this couple, not a friendly attitude at all, so I waited till they’d gone to work, packed my small bag and went back to the office I’d first reported to. The woman I saw, I explained to her about this place and I said, ‘I’m not going to stay there’, I said, ‘I am not going to stay in that place. Can you give me a new address? Another address to go to?’ So she said, ‘Yes, I’ll do that’. She said, ‘Here’s an address in Cowley’. I went there, a very nice street, the house very nice. Nice, nice couple, middle aged couple. The husband worked as a chef at the Randolph Hotel in Oxford. She showed me to my room, very pleasant and comfortable, so that’s where I was whilst I worked at Cowley. The next day I reported to the Cowley Works to start work. The chap I saw said, ‘You will be working with a team of four’, there was already four there, ‘You’ll be, you’ll be number five, working with this team producing spars for the fuselage of Lancaster aircraft’. The four chaps turned out all to be Welshmen, they all came from the same place. They all knew one another well and I was taken into the team and we all got on quite well. That was it for the next five months or so. Then in early September, I received a letter to say that I was to be recalled and to report to Scampton, RAF Scampton, which I duly did, and on arrival at Scampton, I was told I was posted to 49 Bomber Squadron to work on Lancaster aircraft. I worked, I was on, on 49 Squadron through the winter of ’42/43, then in early ’43, I suppose it was about March time, a further letter appeared on a noticeboard to say that more and more four engine bomber squadrons were being formed, and there was a requirement for flight engineers, so I volunteered. At the time, there was no flight engineer training course and they said you would receive your training at the Rolls Royce works at Derby, and you would do a two week course on the Merlin engine and that would be it, which I did. After that, I was promoted to the rank of sergeant, given my flight engineer brevet, and then moved to Morton Hall where I would be crewed up. I got to Morton Hall and found that there were crews already there. There was the pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator and the two air gunners and now they wanted a flight engineer. The way we were crewed up was the other engineers and myself were put in to a hut and told to line up along one wall. The pilots then came in and lined themselves up on the opposite wall, and the procedure was that the pilot would look across at the engineers, look at one that he thought would, would be ok and ask him, and I was approached by a chap called Colin Payne who said to me, ‘How would you like to join my crew?’ And I said, ‘Yes please. I would’, because I liked the look of him, and then he took me outside to introduce me to the other crew members and that was it. We were then moved to Winthorpe to do our conversion course on the Lancaster, which we did, and from there, we had our first operational posting and we were posted to 9 Squadron at Bardney. While we were there, we did ten operations, including the three to Hamburg [pause]. At the time the squadrons, the Stirling squadrons in 3 Group were being converted to Lancasters, and new squadrons were starting to be formed. We were told that a new squadron was being formed at Foulsham, and was to be called 514 Squadron. It appears that they wanted two or three experienced crews to start the squadron off and then new crews would be added. So we duly reported to Foulsham where we did four operations with the newly formed 514 Squadron. The last of the four operations was to Berlin and when we were briefed, we were told that when we completed the operation, ‘You will not be returning to Foulsham. You will fly straight to Waterbeach’, which was to be the home of 514 Squadron, which was a rather odd thing to do because we had our belongings and all that sort of thing, and in, somebody wrote up afterwards what this was all about and there’s the letter there. Is that the one? The top one. “Get on your bike” or something, it says. CB: “Posted via Berlin. Take [take] your bike”. AG: That’s it. “Take your bike”, yeah. Yeah. I mean, this was the thing which you normally, they would never allow you to take anything. CB: No. AG: But we took all our stuff with us to Berlin and then to Waterbeach. CB: Because you were moving airfield. AG: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that was that. So we arrived at Waterbeach, whilst we were at Waterbeach, we did another ten operations. So, so far we’d done ten at Bardney, ten at Waterbeach and I had done, and the four at Foulsham, a total of twenty four. The crew actually had done twenty five, there was one operation that I couldn’t go on because I had developed a nasty quinsy in my throat, and I couldn’t fly for three or four days, so I did one less operation than the rest of the crew. However, when they’d done twenty five and I’d done twenty four, we were then told that you had completed your first tour. Now this was five short of the normal thirty operations. The reason for this, I don’t know, whether it was because of the fourteen operations we’d done with 514 Squadron, ten of them had been to Berlin. Ten. Whether it was because of that, I don’t know but they said, ‘You have completed your first tour’ [pause]. The crew were then dispersed, of course, and posted to various training units. I stayed with Colin and we were posted as instructors to Number 3 LFS at Feltwell [pause], where we were until the, towards the end of the year. Well, we were, this was 1944, Colin said to me, ‘How would you like to go back on operations?’ I said, ‘Well I don’t mind’, so he said, ‘We will be posted to 149 Squadron at Methwold’, he said, ‘And I’ll try and contact some of the old crew members and ask them to join us’. He managed to contact the wireless operator and the rear gunner, and they duly arrived to join us at Methwold. We then picked up a new navigator, a new bomb aimer and a new gunner to replace the Australian. The Australian, by the way, was given a choice, having completed a tour of operations, either to stay in England or to go home to Australia, and he elected to go home. Now, among the operations we did with 149, we did the Dresden operation. We went to Dresden and we also did two Manna operations, dropping food. In our case, we dropped food to people in Rotterdam and The Hague [pause], and that was shortly before the war ended. At the end of the war, we started to get demobbed. I had been offered a four year extension, I didn’t know what I was going to do, by the way. I was married by that time, and my wife Dorothy had been a WAAF MT driver at Waterbeach. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, and as I was offered this four year extension of service, I thought, I’ll take it and then make up my mind later about my future career or whatever. Anyway, I took the four year extension of service, stayed with the squadron until it was disbanded in January 1948, but during that time we did various exercises. We had a three, three, three or four day detachment to Trondheim in Norway, we did a trip to Juvincourt to bring back these chaps who’d been in the Army and been prisoners of war. We had an attachment to Gatow in Berlin, we did a tour of Germany by air, looking at some of the stations that we had bombed, some of the towns that we had bombed to see what it all looked like, and we had this trip to Pomigliano in Italy, and we had this two week detachment in the Canal Zone [pause]. And then, when the squadron was finally disbanded, there was no requirement, of course, for flight engineers, bomb aimers, air gunners or anything like that. The only aircrew they wanted to retain, were pilots and navigators, so I was transferred from the GD branch to the secretarial branch [pause]. I had two short, short postings, one to Watton and one to Bletchley Park which, at that time was the headquarters of Central Signals Area. You weren’t allowed in the house at that time, everything was all locked up and no one ever spoke about what, what was done at Bletchley during the war. No one ever said a word about it. One of the jobs I had to do whilst I was at Bletchley was opening the mail that came in, and one morning I opened the mail, opened this post gram, and found that I was posted to Hong Kong and I was posted to 367 Signals Unit, which was a Y station on Hong Kong Island. I travelled to Hong Kong by way of Singapore, on the troop ship Orbita, which took some five weeks to get to Singapore. I spent three of four days in Singapore and then boarded a Dakota aircraft to get to Hong Kong. We stopped on the way at Saigon to refuel and have something to eat, and the whole trip took eight and a half hours in this Dakota, and then arrived in Hong Kong. At the time, it was at the time that Chairman Mao was winning the war in China and people were flooding in to Hong Kong. Rich Chinese people who could afford anything, and any spare accommodation in Hong Kong was taken up by these people. So in our case, we were, I was occupied in the mess at Kai Tak, and it was a question of applying to get my wife to come and join me, which would take some time, and you just went on the married quarters waiting list, and again there were very few married quarters in Hong Kong, so you just had to wait a long time to get one. Anyway, my wife arrived in September with our newly born young girl, Janet, my daughter, and we were accommodated, like a lot of others, in one room in a hotel. Not, again, not very comfortable, waiting to be allocated a married quarter, but anyway, things in this hotel, it was hot, humid, again terribly uncomfortable, and every day I used to buy the China News, news, newspaper and see if there was any sort of accommodation being advertised. One day I bought the paper, and there was an advert in there which said there was an English family who worked in Hong Kong going home on leave, and their flat would be available. Offers were asked for, so I wrote, I sat down and wrote a letter which brought tears to the eyes of anyone who read it, and posted it off to this man called Alex MacLeod, who owned this flat. A couple of days later, he rang me up at the hotel and he said could I come over and have a chat with him and his wife, so Dorothy and I went across to the island, because our hotel was located in Kowloon on the mainland, and he took me up to the flat, introduced me to Joan, his wife, and after a short conversation they said, ‘We’re going to offer you the flat’. So we moved out of the hotel and into this flat, which we occupied for about two months whilst they were away in England. When they were due back, strangely enough, I rose to the top of the married quarters list and was offered a married quarter, so we moved in to the quarter and there we stayed until I completed my tour in Hong Kong in September 1953 [pause]. CB: We’ll just pause there for a mo. AG: Do you want to go on there because we were now –? CB: Yeah. Give you a – [Recording paused] CB: Ok. AG: Right. CB: So you’re in Hong Kong. AG: In Hong Kong, completed nearly three years in Hong Kong, and when I came home, I was posted to 3513 FCU, Fighter Control Unit in Devonport as adjutant of the unit. We had an operational outstation at Hope Cove with a small staff at Hope Cove and [pause], I’m trying to get my thoughts right here. I completed a tour at 3513 and was then posted to 24 Group on the P staff. This was in Lincolnshire and – CB: So what was P staff? AG: P staff. P2 was Postings – CB: Right. AG: Postings of officers [pause]. I’d been there a short time and it was decided that the P staffs at Groups headquarters would be, would be closed down and they were no longer required, and so I was then posted to our headquarters, Technical Training Command at Brampton, again on the P staff [pause]. And whilst I was there my, I was then granted a permanent commission on the general list [pause]. From then I had various postings, I had two and a half years at SHAEF headquarters in Fontainebleau in France. CB: What did you do there? AG: I was the adjutant of the RAF support unit. Each of the nationalities at Fontainebleau, there were the British, the Americans, Canadians, French of course, they each had their own support staff and I was the adjutant of the RAF support staff [pause]. After that, my next posting was as recruiting officer at Brighton [pause], from there, I was posted to Headquarters Transport Command at Upavon, where I was the P1 staff officer responsible for courts martial boards of enquiry and all that sort of thing. I was there for only a few months when I was promoted to Squadron Leader and posted to the record office at Barnwood in Gloucester, where I was on the staff of the air commodore, the AOC [pause]. I did just over two years there and then I was posted to Aden on a twelve month unaccompanied tour of Aden. Whilst I was in Aden, they had a peculiar arrangement in Aden at the time. It was nearing the time when we were planning to get out of Aden anyway, to leave it and they had what they called continuity posts, which was a posting of two and a half years where you could be accompanied by your wife and family. A non-continuity post was a twelve month unaccompanied tour post which I, which I was in. Again, Aden, a dreadful place, we should have got out of Aden years ago but it wasn’t until 1967 that we finally left. I completed the twelve month unaccompanied tour, and on arrival back at the UK, was posted to Headquarters Strike Command at High Wycombe where I was on the aug staff [pause]. From there, I was posted to the Air Ministry on the staff of the director of manning. I did three and a half years at Adastral House in Holborn, which was part of the Air Ministry at the time. Nearing the end of my service, I had a final posting to Stanmore Park, where I was the deputy CO of Stanmore Park and that was my final posting, having then completed thirty five years in the service [pause]. Knowing that I was to be, leave the service in the October 1976, I had already started to formulate what I was going to do when I left the service, and I had applied for a job with the University of Buckingham, which I got. They had an offshoot of the University at Chalfont St Giles. By this time, of course, we’d bought this house in Cheddington, and the journey between here and Chalfont St Giles was twenty two miles. Anyway, which I had to do every day but I thought, well I’d got the job, and it seemed quite a good job looking after the admin side of the University of Buckingham at Chalfont. I had been interviewed for the job along with three others. They’d had a large number of applications to get this job, but anyway, there was three others and myself who were interviewed for this job. We spent a day at Chalfont, the morning we spent touring the place, and in the afternoon, the interviews were carried out, and the interview for each one of us lasted about three quarters of an hour or so, and we sat there then waiting to see who’d got the job, and at the end of the afternoon, the Vice Chancellor came in and said, ‘We’ve decided to give the job to Squadron Leader Gilbert’. So I thought, right. That was it. Now, this was before I had left the service. He said, ‘We will keep the job open for you until you leave the service in October’ [pause]. Shortly before I retired, I was in my office at, at Stanmore Park and I had a phone call from the Air Ministry, and they said, ‘We notice that you live near Halton’, they said, ‘Would you be interested in a retired officer job at Halton? The job would be for ten years after you leave the service and’, they said, ‘You’ll have to be interviewed of course, at Headquarters Air Cadets’. And I said, ‘Well, I’ll go there. I’m quite interested to find out what it’s all about’. So I, I went to Headquarters Air Cadets for this interview along, along with a number of others, and again at the end of the afternoon, the group captain, who was in charge of the interview board, came and said, ‘We’ve decided to offer the job to Squadron Leader Gilbert’. So I thought, right, I’ve got two jobs now. I’ve got the offer of a job at Halton and the job at Chalfont St Giles, and I thought, well to be very honest, Halton is quite close here, I would know all the routine of the service. I would still be in uniform as a squadron leader at Halton for ten years secure, secure employment, so I thought, well I will have to try, try and take this job. So I rang the Vice Chancellor at Chalfont and said, ‘Could I come down and see you?’ Which I did. I went down to him and explained what it was all about and I said, ‘To be quite honest, this job at Halton, I really know all about it. I know the routine of the service, it’s quite near my home and I feel that really, I ought to take this job’. He said, ‘I quite understand’, he said, ‘We will find somebody else’, and he said, ‘I wish you the best of luck’. So I started at Halton. I was the wing admin officer of Herts and Bucks Wing, Air Training Corps, and my job was taking care of all the ATC squadrons in Hertfordshire and in Bucks, and I completed that job for ten years. And that, I think, is the end of it. CB: You decided to retire completely at age sixty five. AG: At sixty five, I thought I have done enough. I have never been unemployed and I thought I’d, I’d done quite enough and that’s it. CB: Very good. Let’s have a break. [Recording paused] CB: Geoff, thanks, sorry Alex. Thanks very much for all that stuff. What I want to do is run through some individual items. One of the things we touched on was Manna. AG: Yeah. CB: Now, this is quite important in a lot of ways, so could you just tell us how did you get involved in that and what, what happened and how did you feel? AG: Well on the, towards the end of the war, we were told that the people in Holland were starving and a lot were dying. In fact, I was told eventually that twenty thousand Dutch people died of starvation, so we were told that we were to take part in what we was called Operation Manna. The word comes, you probably know – CB: From heaven. AG: The word comes from the bible, and when the Israelites and Moses were driven out of Egypt, they were starving and Moses prayed for them to get food, and it appears that a heavy dew descended on the land. This dew was sweet tasting and the Israelites were able to eat this stuff and so survive. And that is where, and Moses said, ‘This is Manna from heaven’, and that’s the way it came about. We did two food drops, one to Rotterdam, one to the Hague, flew to Holland with bomb bay laden with food and as we came in, in to the park at low level and dropped the food the people who’d gathered there all started shouting and cheering and all the rest of it. It was a sight that I will always remember, and it made us feel that we’d done something that was really worthwhile and that is the Manna story as far as I’m concerned. CB: Then when you got back? So, you then got back and then what? AG: Well got back and as I say, we did the two, two trips and then we just carried on with normal squadron duties. CB: Right. AG: But this happened, people don’t seem to realise that these drops took place while the war was still on. The Germans had agreed that they would not interfere with the Operation Manna. CB: And what height and speed did you do this? AG: We came in about five hundred feet, and the food was all in sacks on a wooden sort of arrangement. A pallet as they called it, a wooden pallet, and the food was all in sacks and the pallet was just dropped on to the park. CB: A moving experience. AG: Yeah. Very much so. Very much so. Never forget these people. CB: No. AG: Who were all so pleased to see us. CB: And after the war did you ever go to Holland? AG: No. No. No. Oh I went, when I was at Fontainebleau. CB: Oh you did? AG: I used to go, go up there occasionally. Oh yes. Yeah. CB: Right. AG: Yeah. CB: Thank you. [Recording paused] CB: Now we’re just going on to your role as a flight engineer, because the flight engineer’s activities were actually quite busy. If we start with take-off, could you describe the take-off process and how the flight engineer gets involved in that, and what he does? AG: Well at take-off, we go down the runway, the pilot takes the aircraft in to the air, and as he does so, the flight engineer gets the undercarriage up and adjusts the flaps, and that’s, that’s about it until you’re up. And er – CB: But in fact, you take over the throttles at an early stage, so can you just describe that? AG: And, and, yes, once you’re airborne at flying height, then you adjust the throttles to whatever speed, you know, the pilot wants, and the bombing height of course was between eighteen and twenty thousand feet each time. And that was it. Most of the trips took about four and a half to five hours, but of course, a trip like Dresden, we were airborne for eight and a half hours, and we went in across Germany but when we came out, we went north and flew over Denmark and came home, home that way. CB: Right. So when you’re flying as an engineer, what do you do? AG: Well, you’re doing really the log more than anything and anything else the pilots wants you to do, but normally, I mean, the whole crew would settle down really, and you were just airborne hoping you wouldn’t be attacked by a night fighter. CB: Yeah. So when you fill in the log, what are you filling in and with what frequency? AG: The frequency was about every half hour or so and you would put in what you thought was the fuel consumption at the time. CB: So how – AG: That sort of thing. Yes. CB: How do you work out the transfer of fuel and what do you do? AG: Yes. Well, you know that you’re on, say, a particular tank for a certain time and that it was time to transfer or refill that tank or whatever and you would do. It didn’t happen all that often of course, I forget now how many, how many petrol tanks there were on the Lancaster, I think it was two to three at each wing, something like that. I forget those details now, it’s too long ago and regrettably, all the booklets I had on the Lancaster I kept for many years, but with all my travels, eventually they were all discarded. CB: I’ve got a pilot – AG: Regrettably. CB: I’ve got a – AG: My daughter always swears at me, she says, ‘you should have kept all that stuff, Dad’. CB: Yeah. AG: You should have kept it all. Well I know that is true now but hindsight is all very well, isn’t it? CB: Well perhaps it wasn’t so important then. I’ve got a – AG: That’s right. Yeah. CB: I’ve got a pilot’s notes, I’ll lend it to you. AG: That’s right. Yeah. Well I had all the notes on the Lancaster, I could tell you all about it. CB: Yeah. AG: Yes. Yeah. CB: Now, why are you moving fuel? AG: Because of weight, weight really, to get an evenly balanced aircraft. CB: So you – AG: That’s the only, only reason I can recall. CB: So you’re moving it from the outer tanks to the inner ones, are you? AG: That’s right, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. CB: So we finish the sortie and you’re coming in to land. What does the, what’s the tasks, the role of the flight engineer? AG: Well once we’re on the circuit and we were called in, then it was undercarriage down and just standing by the pilot, and that was it really, making any engine adjustment as we came in. That was all. Yeah. CB: So back on the stage of taking off, at what point and how do you balance the engines? Synchronise the engines. AG: Once you’d got to a certain height. CB: Right. AG: Once you’d got to a certain height, yeah. Yeah. CB: And the purpose of that is? AG: Well you stayed on that, on that engine arrangement whilst, you know, whilst you were in flight. You could have been on that for some time. CB: But – AG: Some time without any change. You weren’t constantly changing. I mean, let’s be honest about it, with these operations, a lot of the time, a lot of the crew were doing nothing. Nothing. I mean the bomb aimer, he was doing nothing down in the front. The ones who were working the hardest were the pilot and the navigator. The wireless operator wasn’t allowed to transmit whilst you were over Germany, and the two gunners were just sat there, hoping that the aircraft wouldn’t be attacked. So there were long periods of inactivity let’s say, on the part of a lot of the crew. CB: So you did a complete tour and other sorties as well. AG: Yeah. CB: How reliable was the aircraft and what sort of snags did you come up against? AG: The aircraft was very reliable because your ground crew were the same people. You had the same engine fitter, the same air frame chap and the same armourer who looked after your aircraft. So after an operation, normally, you would go down to the flight lines, and they would say, ‘We’ve checked everything over. Will you give it an air test?’ So just Colin and I would clamber aboard the aircraft, go up for about twenty minutes, make sure that everything was working all right and land, and that was the air test after they’d serviced the aircraft, and that used to happen practically every time. Yeah. CB: Now going back to the beginning of your career, in volunteering to join the forces, there was basically an option between the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. What prompted you to make the decision you did? AG: I just didn’t want to join the Army or the Navy, and I thought I want to join, join the Air Force and that was it. CB: To what extent did the Air Forces activities in the early part of the war, inspire people of your age? So, Battle of Britain, that sort of thing? AG: Oh well, yes. You see our home was in Southampton, and out of interest, while I was training on that flight mechanics course at Kirkham, I had a phone call from my sister who said, ‘Last night, our house was destroyed’. It was bombed. She said, ‘We’re all alright, Dad and Mum because we were in an air raid shelter nearby, a service shelter and so we’re all alright’. And when I was in, told my flight commander, he said, ‘So you’re family are ok, are they? Nobody’s injured. No?’ I said, ‘No’. He said, ‘Then we can’t spare you any time off to go home’, so that was that. But in Southampton, before I joined the Air Force of course, the Battle of Britain was going on. The first RAF fighter pilot to get the VC got it over Southampton. CB: Nicholson. AG: Nicholson. And he was the first one and I saw him come down. CB: Did you really? AG: And he landed near where I lived, yeah, and it was all that sort of thing that inspired one. Oh yes, you know, join the RAF. That’s, that’s, that’s the place to join. CB: Exciting. AG: Exciting. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, just across the water, the Itchen, was the Supermarine Works. CB: In the Isle of Wight. AG: Was the first place to build the Spitfire aircraft, because the Spitfire, when the trials took place before the war, took place at Eastleigh Airport near Southampton. CB: Yeah. AG: Yeah. So, and of course, the man who invented the Spitfire, RJ Mitchell, lived in Southampton at the time. In fact, there’s the plaque on the house now where he lived. CB: What was the reaction of your parents to the destruction of their home? AG: Ahh well, they, it was just one of the, I mean, this was happening all the time during the war and they rapidly found a place nearby. A house that they rented for the rest of the war. CB: But they’d owned their own home before. AG: No, it was a council house. CB: Oh, was it? Right. AG: It was a council, yes, it was a council house, and so that was that. So they rented this place whilst the war was on, and after the war, they rebuilt the council house where they’d lived and they went back to the same spot in a new house. CB: Did they really? AG: Yeah. CB: And what about your sister’s reaction? AG: [laughs] Well, well, you know it was all sorts of things. Strange things happening during the war and you just accepted it and, you see, you know in Southampton, I forget how many people were killed, between four and five hundred in air raids, and well this was what was going on. People, you know, in those days really didn’t complain as much as they complain today. CB: Your sister is older than you or younger? AG: Older. CB: Older. AG: Older. Yes. CB: So did she have -? AG: She, she, she, she, she was married and they lived in rooms in Southampton, because again, this question of accommodation, you know, wasn’t easy. Yes. And they lived in two rooms in Southampton. CB: Was there a requirement by the government that people should give up space for people to live with them, because of the shortage of housing, or how did it work? AG: I didn’t ever hear that was actually pressed all that much. No, no I didn’t, I didn’t. The only other thing I, I remember about the house being destroyed, was some of my belongings in it of course, and there was a compensation scheme and I got sixteen pounds compensation for the loss of my belongings in that. CB: Right. AG: When, when that happened. CB: How did you feel about that? AG: Sixteen. Well I thought, this isn’t much but in those days, again, sixteen pounds wasn’t bad. CB: No. AG: Wasn’t bad, no, so that was it. CB: Changing now to when you joined the RAF and started your technical training. AG: Yeah. CB: How did that go? How was it set out, mapped out as a course and what did you do in the course? AG: Well it, for each subject that you were taught, they had corporals as instructors, and you just attended this classroom and on a particular day or week they, you were, well they would talk about air frames or, or whatever. Yeah. I can’t, to be honest, I can’t remember a great deal about that. CB: No. AG: It was just that you attended class every day and that was it. Yes. Yeah. CB: And then you went on to the more advanced operate, as a mechanics course. AG: Yes. The – CB: So how different was that? AG: The fitter’s course was more advanced. CB: Right. AG: Yes, and again the detail, after seventy five years, I cannot remember. CB: No. AG: But we did this advanced fitter’s course and that lasted another six weeks or so, so altogether I was at Kirkham – CB: Yeah. AG: You know, for quite some time, doing the two courses. CB: Yeah. Now when you were at Calshot then, on the board, a notice appeared saying they were looking for aircrew, what prompted you to –? AG: No. At Calshot, they were looking for people to volunteer to work in the aircraft industry. CB: Ah, that was the aircraft industry. AG: That was the aircraft industry. CB: Right. Ok. AG: That’s right. Yes. CB: So what prompted you to do that? AG: Well I saw it as a way of getting out of Calshot. CB: Yes. AG: To be quite honest, I thought I’ll get away from this dreary place but I didn’t realise what I was getting in to, because the work in the aircraft industry was jolly hard. And long hours, long hours. I mean, 8 o’clock in the evening till 6 o’clock the next morning with an hour’s break in the middle of the night, and that was – [phone ringing] AG: Ah – CB: Stop for a mo. [Recording paused] AG: Is that yours? CB: No, it’s yours. AG: That was, that was, that was as I said, I didn’t – CB: This was at Cowley. AG: I didn’t know what I‘d let myself in for. CB: No. AG: But if I’d, if I’d have known, I probably wouldn’t have volunteered. CB: Yes. AG: But however yeah, well it was because it was long hours. CB: Yeah. AG: And it was every night of the week except one. We had one night off at the end of the week. CB: So, so what exactly were you making that was part of the Lancaster? AG: These spars for the fuselage. CB: Right. AG: Yeah. CB: So they’re effectively the circles of structure that hold the – AG: That’s right. CB: Skin together. AG: Yeah. That hold the skin together. That’s it. CB: Right. AG: That was, yeah, yeah, along with these four Welshmen. CB: But you got on well together so that was good. AG: Oh we got along well together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. CB: So then you mentioned that you were recalled by the RAF to go back to a, to the front line as it were. AG: Yeah. CB: And you went to 49 Squadron. What did you do? AG: Well I went to Scampton first. CB: Scampton. What did you do there? AG: Which was the base station. CB: Yeah. AG: As they called it. CB: Ok. AG: Yeah. CB: Scampton so – AG: One of the satellites was 49 Bomber Squadron. CB: Right. AG: And that’s where I went and – CB: Doing what? AG: Working on Lancasters. CB: Right. What sort of things were you doing on the Lancaster? AG: Well anything that needed doing to the fuselage or whatever, yeah, anything. CB: How did the ground crews on the front line squadrons react to damage to the aircraft from flak and so on? AG: Well, again, people just got on with it, you know. If there was damage, you just repaired it and that was it. Yeah. CB: How did, how did you put patches on? AG: Oh well with, with rivets or whatever, but again, getting into the detail of all this now, Chris, I’m afraid I can’t – CB: That’s ok. AG: I can’t remember it all. CB: It’s ok. It’s simply that on some planes that had fabric. AG: Oh yes, yeah, but certainly – CB: So that I’m drawing a – AG: But certainly not the – CB: Differentiation. AG: Lancaster. CB: No. AG: No. CB: No. AG: No. CB: Ok. So there you are, working on the ground as a rigger. AG: As a fitter. CB: Fitter – AG: Fitter. CB: I should say. AG: Fitter. Fitter Group 1 tradesman. Yes. CB: Group 1 tradesman, and at that point, another letter appears inviting you to – AG: At that point, another letter appears calling for volunteers. CB: Yeah. AG: To become flight engineers. CB: What attracted you to that prospect? AG: Well, I thought, well that sounds alright. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll give that a go. So I volunteered and as I say, after a very short interview, they said, ‘Right. There is no training course at the moment, at the present time for flight engineers, but you will do a two week training course at the Rolls Royce Works at Derby’, and that’s where I went. CB: And that’s where you did your engine training. AG: And I did on the Merlin engine. Price. Predominantly they talked about the Merlin engine. CB: Yeah. AG: And the engine handling characteristics and all this sort of thing. Yeah. That was quite good there, Derby, I mean two weeks wasn’t a long time really. It wasn’t a long training course, was it? CB: No. AG: But at the end of it, they said, ‘You’re now a sergeant, here’s your brevet’, and that’s it and, ‘You will be assigned to a crew’. CB: So this officer selects you at the Heavy Conversion Unit did he? AG: At, at the squadron. CB: Yeah. AG: At the squadron. CB: At the squadron. AG: You were just, you had this short interview. CB: Straight to the squadron. AG: A very short interview. CB: ‘Cause they didn’t have a – AG: Yes. CB: Heavy Conversion Unit then. AG: No. No. CB: No. AG: A short interview. CB: Right. AG: Whilst you were on the squadron CB: Yeah. AG: And then they said, ‘Right. You’re, yeah, we’ll take you as a flight engineer, and you’ll do your training at Derby’. CB: Yeah. AG: And that was it. CB: So you join the squadron, you get in the aircraft. Now how do you feel about your situation? AG: Once we’d started operations you mean? CB: Yes. AG: Ah. I think if you speak to anyone who’s done operations during the war, the first operation, you weren’t worried at all about it because you didn’t know anything about it, and off you went and you quickly, you quickly found out what it was all about, and it was thereafter that you felt a bit twingy at times. Yes. But not on the first operation because you didn’t know anything about it, about operations but thereafter, well. And of course, the whole thing about operations was luck. It was nothing to do with skill or anything else, it was pure luck if you got through a tour of operations. On 514, we were the first crew to complete a tour of operations. The first one. CB: Right. Thank you. [Recording paused] AG: We were very lucky as I say. CB: So, on, on operations then, these can last anything up to eight hours. AG: Yeah. CB: You did a whole tour and more. AG: Yeah. CB: So how would you describe the sort, the operations you went on? Were they eventful or quiet or what were they? AG: No. The, to start with, the operations on Hamburg if you remember, there were three operations over a period of four days and we did three of the, we did all three of the four. CB: Right. AG: And after the first one, then a couple of days later, or perhaps it was the next night we went out again, but according to the logbook, you can see by the logbook, when you were a hundred miles away, you saw the light in the air, and that was Hamburg burning, and then you got near and you did your sortie and you did it. And then, as I say, we did three to Hamburg, three, three trips to Hamburg. Certainly you remember that well enough and – CB: What was the reaction of the crew to that? AG: Well, you know, they [laughs], we just thought, well there you are. In fact, in the logbook too, there’s the piece of paper which is a “News of the World” report who interviewed us. In the logbook. CB: Yes. AG: In the back there. CB: Yeah. AG: Somewhere. And that was after one of the Berlin trips, and I said to them, I said to this reporter at the time, ‘After the war, I’d like to go to Berlin and tour around to see what it looks like’, and it’s in the newspaper report. CB: Right. So was it just a curiosity or –? AG: Curiosity. CB: Yeah. CB: Yes. Yeah. CB: To know how it had worked. AG: That’s right. CB: This, this article says, “Blood red pall – AG: Yeah. CB: Over the heart of Nazi Germany”. Right. AG: Yeah. CB: Ok. AG: Yeah. CB: And did you get attacked on any occasions or how did that work? AG: No. No. Never, never got attacked. Never. No. CB: So the gunners were keeping an eye out. AG: The gunner was keeping an eye out, yeah, poor old Twinny in the, in the, the rear gunner, he often used to get off the aircraft with frost on his moustache. He was the only one who had a moustache and he had the frost on the moustache. It must have been pretty, pretty grim for him. CB: Yeah. AG: Yeah. Especially when the flight was eight, eight, we, as I say, the longest flight was the Dresden one. That was eight and a half hours, but then there was the Nuremberg one which was quite a long flight, and the Munich one was a very long flight. So there were quite, quite a few long flights where poor old Twinny was freezing in the back. CB: The Nurem – AG: There was supposed to be some sort of heating but it’s quite often it wasn’t working. It didn’t work anyway. There you are. CB: The Nuremberg one was clear weather and the loss rate was very high. What do you remember particularly about that? AG: I remember that very, a great deal, the loss rate of aircraft was nearly a hundred. Nearly a hundred aircraft and so you’ll, you know, well there again, I thought, good God, you know. What are we doing, doing this? But there you are, but that was, that was the worst night of the war for the, for Bomber Command. Yeah. CB: In what way did you feel –? AG: Well because of the, the loss rate. CB: Did you see bombers go down? Other bombers. AG: At times, at times, at times you did, ‘cause over the target, you were sort of going in there about eighteen, eighteen to twenty thousand feet, but the German night fighters would fly above you and drop what they called candle flares, and these things slowly floated down and lit up the whole area. CB: With a view to enabling them to see. AG: With a view, with a view to them picking out the aircraft to attack. CB: Right. AG: And you were lucky that you weren’t attacked. Yeah. And again, the bombing run was the hair raising bit, because you came in and you had to go straight and level over the target so the bomb aimer could put his sights right and drop the bombs, but that again, was the hair raising bit, that bit where you had to go the same height for about three or four minutes. CB: And then – AG: Over the target. CB: After the bomb release you still had to go straight and level. AG: After the – CB: To take the picture. AG: Yeah. That’s right and then of course you got out as quickly as you could. Yeah. CB: Yeah. Always one way? Predictably always left or always right or what was it? AG: Not always one way. Normally straight out and away, but I know the thought at the time was let’s get the hell out of here but again, you had to do your job. CB: Yeah. AG: And do that bombing run correctly. CB: Yes. So you talked about Munich, what was partic, apart from the distance, what was particularly memorable about that. AG: Again, I can’t, well, well no, I don’t. We just went to Munich, did the operation and that was it. Yeah. CB: And then you mentioned Dresden. What’s memorable about Dresden? AG: Dresden, I remember Dresden quite well because there was a lot of cloud over Dresden. A lot of cloud. CB: At your height. AG: At, at, at yes, well and below us, cloud below us. Yes, cloud below us. I do remember that quite, quite well, but again, we did the bombing run and of course, as you say, as you know with the bombing run, you were aiming your bombs at the Pathfinder markers. CB: Yes. AG: Yes. You know. CB: Were they clearly visible? AG: Yes. The red or the green markers and you were told at the briefing which ones to go for. CB: Ah, right. AG: To aim the bombs at. CB: And on occasions did the, depending on where you were in the bombing stream, did the markers become obliterated by the fires and the smoke? AG: Oh yes, yes, well they, yeah, that could happen quite easily. Yes, oh yes. The Pathfinders could drop the markers but then the fires would overcome them. Yes. That – CB: And did they re-mark? AG: No. Well, you heard of tales that they remarked, you know. You heard of Guy Gibson and how brave he was at doing this, and they used to hover around the target for some time but there you are. Yeah. CB: So thinking of the war in total, what was the most memorable point in your perspective? AG: Memorable points about the war. To start with getting away from Calshot was quite memorable I must say, working at the Cowley works was quite memorable. The Manna operation was, I suppose, one of the most memorable because to see the way that those people reacted when you dropped the food. I guess that was one of the most memorable. CB: Their appreciation. AG: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the way, the way they all responded when the thing hit the ground, you could tell. There was cheering and shouting and all waving their arms and all this business. Yeah. CB: And – AG: I remember that very well. CB: Yes. AG: Yeah. CB: So when you got back from a sortie, there was always a de-brief. What was the de-brief after Manna flights? AG: Well nothing very much, they just wanted to know whether the thing had gone, you know, because there wasn’t any hindrance as there would have been on an operation, a proper bombing operation. I mean, everything was there, quiet and you just came in to the park quietly and you did your drop. There was no interference from anybody. As I say the Germans had agreed that they would not interfere with Manna. CB: And did you make the drop of the food at a reduced speed or the normal speed? AG: No. At reduced speed, reduced speed. Yeah. CB: To what? AG: Yeah. Well I forget, but we reduced it so we were above stalling height, you know. To make the drop. If you were flying in too fast, you might, you might not drop it on the park, you might drop it on somebody’s house, so you reduced the speed coming in. Definitely, yes. Above stalling height. CB: Good. Thank you. [Recording paused] AG: I forget where we’d been. CB: Now one of the challenges in the bombing war was getting back to the airfield. AG: That’s it. CB: And the British weather with fog. AG: Yeah. CB: Was a pain. AG: Yeah. CB: So how did you deal with that? AG: Yeah. Yeah. Well as I say, we were, we were, we were quite fortunate really but there was one time when we came back and there was this fog, and it was a question of, this fog was going to hang around for some time so FIDO came into operation each side of the runway, you know, these flames and things, so we landed that way. It only happened once. CB: So it was a popular airfield that day. AG: Yes [laughs]. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. CB: Because not many airfields had Fido, did they? AG: No. No. No. No. FIDO. CB: Right. AG: Yeah. [Recording paused] CB: I forgot to ask you Alex, whether you had any links and what they were with the American Air Force or Army Air Force as it was. AG: No. CB: In those days. AG: Nothing. Never. No. CB: But their aircraft – AG: No links whatsoever. CB: No. AG: No. CB: But their aircraft, the Flying Fortress. What did you do there? AG: What? Well he just took us up. CB: So, so you went somewhere where you, what did you do? You flew somewhere. AG: We flew to this base. CB: Yeah. AG: This American Flying Fortress base, met Colonel Jumper, the commanding officer and he, he gave us a flight in the Flying Fortress. CB: So what was that like? AG: Oh that, that was alright. Of course, he didn’t do anything drastic, we just went up and just flew, flew around for a while. CB: Yes. AG: Yeah. But we walked through, through the aircraft. Examined it, you know. Those, at the rear of the flying fortress each side, they had these machine guns, didn’t they? CB: Yeah. AG: Yes. Looked at all that and it was just a day out really. CB: In terms of its sophistication and crew comfort compared with the RAF aircraft, what was that like? AG: Oh I think that, I think we were slightly more comfortable than the flying fortress and the flying fortress crew, I forget how many there were, but I think – CB: Eleven. AG: There were about eight or nine of them. CB: Yeah. AG: Yeah. In this what was regarded, compared to a Lancaster, was a smallish aircraft. CB: Yeah. AG: Yeah but they had all these gunners on – CB: Yeah. AG: On the Fortress didn’t they? CB: Yeah. AG: Yeah. CB: That’s why the bomb load wasn’t very big. AG: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As I say, there we are. CB: Right. AG: I’m trying to think of any other highlights. CB: Well. [Recording paused] CB: That’s it. AG: In about April 1945, the rear gunner and I were called in and we were told that we had also been awarded the DFC because of the number of operations. The ten trips to Berlin and all this business. CB: Yeah. AG: So that’s the way we got it. It was regrettable I thought, that the wireless operator didn’t get it for some reason. I don’t know why. CB: No. AG: But it was just the rear gunner and myself. CB: So the pilot and the navigator already had – AG: The pilot – CB: The DFC. AG: They already had it, yeah. At the end of the tour. CB: Yeah. AG: They had got the DFC. CB: Right. AG: The pilot and the navigator only. But in the April ’45, the rear gunner and myself also got it. CB: Right. Ok. And bomb aimer, nothing either. AG: The bomb aimer. Well, the bomb aimer, at the end of the first tour, as I say, was regarded as the old man of the tour. CB: Yeah. AG: He was aged thirty two. Once he went off to this training unit, having completed the tour, we never heard of him again. CB: No. AG: Stan Young, his name was. CB: Right. AG: Stan Young. The pilot was called Colin Payne. CB: Yeah. AG: The navigator was Ken Armstrong. Now that’s another strange story about Ken Armstrong. At the end of our first tour of operations, Ken went off to a training unit, but then I don’t know if you know this, they started training people to work on British Airways after the war, but they already started recruiting them whilst the war was still on. And he, he applied for this and was recruited to go on the staff of British Airways before the war ended, and after the war, he ended up at Hurn Airport near Bournemouth where he operated from with British Airways. Ken then rose up in British Airways, and British Airways eventually did away with navigators and just kept pilots and, strangely enough, flight engineers. They were the only two crew members. And Ken, they kept two navigators back at British Airways headquarters at Heathrow, and he became quite a star navigator with British Airways, and whenever there was a royal flight, even though they had all the navigation aids, they always took a navigator with them, and he went on a number of royal flights and he ended up with the MVO, Member of the Victorian Order. And he became quite well known in British, they all knew Ken Armstrong because he was one of the two navigators left in British Airways, because they didn’t want navigators anymore with all, with all the navigation aids on board. But he, he did become quite well known. Yes. I mean my wife’s husband, Clive, ‘Oh yes’, he said, ‘Ken Armstrong. We all knew Ken Armstrong’. CB: Your daughter’s husband. AG: Yes. CB: Ok. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Alexander Charles Gilbert Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chris Brockbank Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-10-13 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context AGilbertAC161013 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Language A language of the resource eng Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 01:22:03 audio recording Description An account of the resource Alexander Gilbert, DFC, joined the Royal Air Force in November 1940, and started service on the 7 April 1941. He had a long and varied career in the RAF, rising to the rank of squadron leader. On call up, he was trained as a flight engineer, air frames, passing in the top third of his class. He became a Group One tradesman, Fitter 2A, and was posted to RAF Calshot, before spending time working at Cowley Motor Works, manufacturing spars for the fuselage of Lancasters. Alex was recalled and sent to RAF Scampton, where he served with 49 Bomber Squadron, before taking a flight engineers' course and working on Merlin engines at Rolls Royce Works in Derby. Having subsequently been transferred to 9 Squadron at Bardney where he completed 10 operations, he helped form 514 Squadron, flying operations to Berlin, and completing 14 operations. He became an instructor at No. 31 Lancaster Finishing School at Feltwell, before returning to operations at 149 Squadron in Methwold. 149 Squadron were involved in the Dresden operation and carried out two trips on Operation Manna, dropping supplies to Rotterdam and The Hague. Alex had various other postings and completed 35 years’ service in the Royal Air Force, retiring at the age of 65. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Vivienne Tincombe Maureen Clarke Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending revision of OH transcription 149 Squadron 49 Squadron 514 Squadron 9 Squadron aircrew B-17 bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945) bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944) Cook’s tour crewing up Distinguished Flying Cross fitter airframe flight engineer flight mechanic ground crew Lancaster military living conditions military service conditions Operation Dodge (1945) Operation Exodus (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) RAF Bardney RAF Calshot RAF Feltwell RAF Foulsham RAF Halton RAF Kirkham RAF Methwold RAF Morton Hall RAF Scampton RAF Waterbeach RAF Winthorpe https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/340/11808/BThomasWKThomasWKv1.pdf e5b0b8afc7063253cd39405680e94d56 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 Thomas, Ken William Kenneth Thomas William K Thomas William Thomas W K Thomas W Thomas Description An account of the resource Four items. An oral history interview with William Kenneth 'Ken' Thomas DFC (1022415 and 186493 Royal Air Force), two photographs and a memoir. Flight Lieutenant Ken Thomas flew operations as a pilot with 622 Squadron. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ken Thomas and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle. 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 2016-04-01 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 Thomas, WK Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document If you can't take a joke ........ by William Kenneth Thomas DFC I was born in Liverpool on 19th December 1921. I have a sister namely Evelyn Gwyneth born 15th October 1920. My father and mother moved from Liverpool to Beaumaris in 1924 approximately and purchased a well established chemist business in 40 Castle Street. At that time the population of the town was approximately 3000 and there were two chemist shops. I attended the Beaumaris Council School, both infants and seniors. Whilst at Primary School in Beaumaris, I spent quite a lot of time in the summer months on the boats and the sea shore. I also did a fair amount of swimming, and although there was a public swimming baths in Beaumaris, I preferred the end of the pier. I often swam across the Menai Straits which was very dangerous particularly at low tide when the current was flowing at some 12 14 knots. I was on occasions carried under the pier and was badly cut on the barnacles. I also did rowing, sailing and fishing, and used to know the Straits fairly well. The end of the pier was also one of my favourite places for catching crabs and prawns. I got into a terrible state with mud and grime. I remember on one occasion being there when my mother and a very posh friend of hers, namely, Mrs Sircus waiting at the pier wall, dressed up and ready to take the small ferry boat, which in those days plied from Beaumaris to Bangor. Of course, I wanted to go with them, although I was filthy dirty with mud and had no shoes. Exactly what happened next, I do not remember, although I do recall the incident very well, and no doubt caused my mother some considerable embarrassment. I was a poor scholar and frequently in trouble as I got in with a bad crowd, who were generally very poor and appeared jealous of my living conditions in comparison with their own. I was therefore involved in numerous affrays and mischievous pranks. I only just managed to pass the required standards for entry into the Beaumaris Grammar School as a fee paying pupil, and continued to be in trouble as I seldom did my homework, and spent many long hours playing football and cricket. The headmaster of the Beaumaris Grammar School was a man called Frank Jones. He was a real tyrant, and was most unpopular and hated by both staff and pupils because of his general attitude. He walked in a very stupid manner, and I called him "Here's my head, my arse is 1 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] coming!" I was always in his black books, and whenever anything went wrong, I was usually there. I disobeyed many of his rules, such as not kicking or playing football in the school yard, not wearing school uniform cap and blazer etc., throwing fireworks, snowballs, and so on. I smashed one window in the memorial hall as there was a stone in the snowball I played a lot of football and cricket and was in the school's first eleven. I was also a strong swimmer. I carried off many prizes at local and school swimming galas. I must just mention that in the early days all the rubbish in Beaumaris was tipped in a place called the Point. This is now a boat builders' yard, but it used to be infested with rats. Anyone could go there and catch and kill as many rats as possible and obtain a shilling a tail at Beaumaris Town Hall. Since I had a good dog, a Springer spaniel called Glen; I often went there and made a few bob. Sometimes my friend and I would take a few rats home and let them go in the yard and let the dogs chase them. Most of the money we got was spent in the liberal club on billiards and snooker. Having failed at school in Beaumaris, my father made arrangements for my education to be continued at Friars School in Bangor, and this was where I met my first girlfriend namely Eve Bock. I used to see her every day, as we were both catching the same bus to school in Bangor each morning…More about this will be mentioned later. I once again failed to pass the matriculation examination, and by this time, it was plain to see that the Second World War was fast approaching. Since I was 17 plus, I would be obliged to register for military service. I was completely undecided what I was going to do and finally decided to go into the Merchant Navy as a cadet. This all came about after a long discussion with a friend of my father's Captain Morris Jones who was a member of the Beaumaris Lodge of Freemasons. He was incidentally later killed in action out in the Middle East. I was measured up for my Cadet uniform and had passed all the necessary medical and educational standards required. However, by this time, the war had started, and numerous ships were being sunk by submarines. My mother decided that this was not a good idea and stopped me going. I then informed her of the seriousness of the situation, which she didn't seem to quite understand, and I finally persuaded her to let me go into the RAF on the Ground Staff, with the condition that I was not to fly! I duly passed the medical and educational standards required in Caernarvon, and since I was still under `calling up' age, was able to choose the ground course I required, that was, Flight Mechanic. I was finally called up just after the evacuation on Dunkirk, and had to report to Padgate in Lancashire, where I spent three weeks 2 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] confined to camp until I was conversant with RAF Regulations, and able to conduct myself as an airman. l was then transferred to Blackpool south Shore, where I was in private billets for two weeks and we were thinking we were going to have a very nice war! I was then posted to Bridgnorth Shropshire for further training i.e. square bashing, rifle drill, inoculations, guard duties etc. I was there for approximately 3 months during which time Coventry had received its heaviest raid of the war. We could see exactly what was going on and hear and visualise all that was happening over the skyline, because Bridgnorth Camp was situated some distance from the town on the top of a very steep hill. I also remember carrying our kitbags all the way from the station to the camp, and when we got there, the billets had not been prepared for us. Therefore, we had to set to preparing and cleaning the huts, cleaning the floor and stove, and setting up our beds for the night. We were all by this time muttering a few hash words, but we had to take it, and as we went on, we found that the discipline in this camp was very strict by comparison with what we had experienced previously. The instructors and the people in charge of the various intakes were extremely crude and corrupt. One sergeant instructor immediately informed us that they called him `Slim the Bastard', and that if we crossed him, he would show us `what a real bastard was like.' For instance, on one particular day, we had three inoculations one after the other followed by rifle drill on the square. Several of the people on parade either fainted or fell down, and were merely carried away to sick quarters to recover. From Bridgnorth, I went to No7 S of TT (No 7 School of Technical Training) at Hednesford which was situated on Cannock Chase and very high up in the hills. Consequently, it was a very cold camp. My course here lasted about three to four months. Again, there was very strict discipline and since the school had some four brass and silver bands, we had to form up and march back and forth to and from our work and technical school daily. Apart from the school we had to do guard duties, fire and air raid drills, and also gas precautions and action to be taken in the event of an attack. These duties were all done in the evening after school hours. As you can see, there was very little time for recreation and we didn't manage to get out very much. During my stay, an epidemic of scarlet fever broke out on the camp, and this further complicated matters. However, I finally passed out as a Flight Mechanic – AC1 (Aircraftsman First class) but knew comparatively little about my trade. I was immediately posted to Penrhos Bombing School near Pwlleli in North Wales along with a number of other people on my course. Penrhos was a small grass airfield and was really too small for the types of aircraft operating there i.e. Whitleys, Blenheims, Fairey Battles and Ansons. These aircraft were used for the training of navigators and straight air 3 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] gunners and were kept pretty busy. I was looking after the only Whitley fitted with radial `Tiger' engines and experienced considerable trouble keeping it airworthy. There were constant problems with the engine ignition systems mainly due to the exposure of the plug leads which allowed a certain amount of moisture to seep in, causing engines to cut out or lose power. This, on such a small grass airfield, described in many instances by pilots as `like landing on a saucer' proved to be very dangerous and there were numerous accidents. It was quite common to see five or six accidents daily, due to aircraft either overshooting or undershooting the airfield. Some of these were, of course, fatal and aircraft could be seen burnt out around the airfield perimeter. I [inserted] t [/inserted] eventually became apparent that this airfield was unfit for the purpose for which it was being used, and much of the flying was eventually transferred to a new aerodrome that had just been opened near Caernarvon, namely Llandurog. Here there were proper runways and hard standing, and we finally did all our night flying from here. This meant frequent travelling in open wagons and of course it was very cold and uncomfortable in wintertime. We were obliged to exist on such occasions on pilchards, sandwiches and cocoa for many of our meals, and were glad of these. There was only one really bad accident in the whole time I can remember flying from Llandurog. It involved a couple of Whitleys which were both trying to land at the same time. One landed on top of the other causing the deaths of about sixteen personnel on board. It was, of course caused by carelessness on the parts of the pilots of the aircraft and also the people controlling the aircraft from the control tower. I used to get very depressed with life at Penrhos, although I did do some [deleted] night [/deleted] flying on flight tests, and often flew to our maintenance depot at Hell's Mouth . [deleted] This again [/deleted] [inserted] Hells Mouth [/inserted] , was [inserted] also [/inserted] very precariously positioned, which [inserted] & also on cross country frlights with training navigator & gunners [/inserted] accounted for many accidents during landings. [inserted] & take offs [/inserted] In view of the situation, I was frequently at home [inserted] in Beaumaris [/inserted] at weekends, and [deleted]of course [/deleted] [inserted] was often [/inserted] missing from my flight duties [deleted] and [/deleted] [inserted] I [/inserted] [deleted] i [/deleted] t was [inserted] therefore [/inserted] only a matter of time before I would have been caught. I used to break out of the camp at the back of my billet, and climb over the barbed wire entanglements in order to catch the local bus to Caernarvon and Bangor. Of course, this meant I had to get back [inserted] again [/inserted] very early on the following Monday morning and my father had to drive me to Menai Bridge, where I caught a [deleted] small [/deleted] [inserted] local [/inserted] train on a single track line to a place called Avonwen and then on to Pwlleli. The problem then was getting back into the camp without being seen and before roll call. Fortunately, for me, we had a good sergeant in charge of our flight, Sgt. Hudson, and I [deleted] got [/deleted] [inserted] managed to get [/inserted] away with it on all occasions. In order to prevent trouble in the future, I decided to attend night school. I had a very good education officer, and managed to achieve the required standard of education very quickly. I finally had an interview 4 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] with the camp commanding officer Group captain Williamson, and after an aircrew medical examination, was recommended for a Pilot/Navigator [inserted] /Air Gunner [/inserted] course. I was then posted to London ACRC (Air Crew Receiving Centre) where I was given a white flash for display in my forage cap. I stayed in flats in London in a place called Avenue close, St John's Wood, and had to attend various centres for tests in maths and Signals particularly Morse Code. The Morse test was carried out at Lord's Cricket Ground. We had to pass out at 12 words per minute. Fortunately, sitting close at hand were a couple of wireless operator air gunners who were in the course of remustering to Pilot/Navigators. We, naturally, got all our information from them, and so passed the course comfortably. From London ACRC, I was posted to No 4 ITW (Initial training Wing) at Paignton for 14 weeks. Here we had more instruction on mathematics, signals, meteorology, navigation, airmanship, air force law, armaments, aircraft and ship recognition, and of course square bashing and drill. All the hotels in Paignton had by this time been taken over by the RAF, and I was billeted in the Ramleh hotel right on the sea front. The Palace hotel was close by and this was our mess. All lectures and instruction were arranged daily at a very smart country house outside Paignton off the main Torquay Road. No transport was laid on, and we therefore had to fall in and march to attention at 140 paces to the minute, which was quite a fast pace, for quite a long distance. I had to work very hard to keep up with this course as the pass marks on each subject were very high. In subjects such as Morse Code and Aircraft Recognition it was 100%. I was very lucky to get some help at weekends with my studies from a Beaumaris acquaintance, namely Hugh Williams, who happened to have been a headmaster in Manchester prior to the war and had been called up and commissioned in the RAF. He was instructing on Maths and Navigation at an ITW in Torquay where he lived with his family. Our final test in Signals was unique in many respects as [inserted] we [/inserted] were all assembled on the Paignton seafront and had to read an Aldis lamp signal flashed to us from Torbay (Hope's Nose peninsula) a distance of some six to seven miles. During our time in Paignton and Torquay, we had frequent visits from the Luftwaffe fighters, mainly Messerschmidt 109, and Fokkerwolf 190 fighter aircraft, which roared in from the sea on many occasions and dropped their bombs and strafed the sea front and retired. However, all in all, we had a fairly pleasant time in Paignton. I missed the athletic display put on in Torquay for the visit of King George V1 by Air Commodore Critchley. The reason for this was that I got very badly sunburnt, and managed to get out of this very well. Everybody thought it was a waste of time anyway, and we were browned off in more ways than one, for having to go and prepare for this event. 5 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] On completion of the course, I was made up to Leading Aircraftsman, and had the coveted propeller badge on my uniform sleeve. From Paignton, I was posted to Desford near Leicester to do my [inserted] Flying [/inserted] Grading School. This was to see if I was suitable for Pilot/ Navigator/Bomb Aimer. In order to pass as a pilot, I had to go solo by day and also solol by night. [inserted] T [/inserted] His course was completed in the allotted 12 hours and again, I had no real problems, but many [deleted] people [/deleted] [inserted] students [/inserted] were then sorted out. [inserted] as they failed to achieve the required standard. [/inserted] [inserted] All details of my flying at Desford were lost as I had no log book at that time. This was unfortunate as I particularly wanted to know the exact times I required to be “solo” day & night. [/inserted] I then went to Heaton Park, Manchester [inserted] & slept [/inserted] under canvas to await my posting as trainee pilot to Canada. This was also the time of Gwyneth and John's wedding. John was heading for the Middle East, and they decided on the spur of the moment to marry. Under the circumstances, I was unable to attend the wedding. I only stayed in Manchester for some three or four weeks, during which time, I got engaged to Eve Bock. She was also living in the [inserted] symbol [/inserted] Manchester area, as she had not at that time been called up for the WAAF. During my stay at Heaton Park, the Station Warrant Officer who was a bit of a bully , was thrown into the lake and almost drowned. Nobody had much sympathy for him, and I believe he was later removed from office and absolved of all responsibility for airmen, as clearly we were on the verge of rioting. I finally left Manchester late at night by train for Greenock, Clyde Scotland and was taken out to a liner, namely the Thomas H Barrie, by a steamer known to me from my days on the Menai Straits as the St Seriol, which pre war, was a pleasure steamer plying from Liverpool to Menai Bridge during the summer season. I sailed in a large American convoy, which zig zagged its way across the Atlantic in August 1942, and after fourteen days at sea during which one boat was sunk and another set on [deleted] fore [/deleted] [inserted] fire [/inserted] , the convoy arrived in New York. The journey had been fairly unpleasant as we had very little to do and my bunk was situated near to one of the vents from the engine room and it was very hot and uncomfortable. However the food was good and there was plenty of it. Most of the lads had stomach trouble due to the richness of the food which we were not used to. I had severe diarrhoea but I didn't stop eating. There was a large 14 inch gun at the back of the boat on a special platform and this was firing from time to time. It was manned by naval personnel who were also dropping depth charges because of the submarine menace. I can well remember going through the Newfoundland fog bank off the coast of the USA and waking up in the morning on the outside deck soaking wet and very cold. I had little choice but to sleep [inserted] outside [/inserted] most of the time on deck due to the heat from the engine room. On arrival in New York, we saw the liner Queen Mary which was used at that time as a troop ship. She was speeding back to the United Kingdom full of troops and without a convoy. 6 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] We entrained for Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, and stopped at a place called Bangor Maine on the way north. We were allowed to get off the train, and this was the first experience I had of spending American dollars. The journey took about 24 hours to complete and was reasonably comfortable. We had plenty to eat and the seats were large and roomy. Moncton was a very large holding unit, and all RAF aircrew personnel going in and out of Canada had to pass through there. I was only in Moncton for about four weeks and was then posted to Stanley, Nova Scotia No 17 elementary Flying training School ( Royal Canadian Air Force) where all instructors were civilian bush pilots. Here we flew Fleet Finch bi planes which were fitted with a Kinner 5 R radial engine. The machine was roughly twice the size of a Tiger Moth and used for initial training purposes. It was, I think, a very good aircraft on which to commence flying. The instructors were also very good at their jobs. They were conversant with the aircraft and knew the territory over which we were flying. Seldom did they have to refer to any maps, although these were always taken on our flights. Apart from day and night flying, and aerobatics, we had to attend Ground School, and covered Navigation, airmanship, Aircraft Recognition, Meteorology, and Armaments. [inserted] & Signals [/inserted] Altogether, I did some 76.55 hours flying at this station. There were no serious accidents, apart from the occasional ground loop to which these machines were subject in [deleted] the [/deleted] [inserted] a [/inserted] cross wind. [inserted] The remedy to counteract this was a very quick & positive pressure on the rudder bar – to stop the swing to the right - which was a characteristic of this aircraft. My next posting was to No 8 Service Flying Training School at Lakeburn, New Brunswick, another Royal Canadian Air Force station. This was a fairly large aerodrome, and in those days used by civilian aircraft on regular routes throughout Canada. All Staff in our area were Royal Canadian Air Force, and our unit was separate from the civilian sector. Incidentally, our training was carried out under the Empire [inserted] Air [/inserted] Training Scheme. (Later the name was changed to Commonwealth Air Training Scheme) and there was a large notice board to this effect at the camp entrance. I started my training here on Harvard 2 aircraft, but only did some [symbol ] 2hrs 30 [deleted] m [/deleted] [inserted] hrs [/inserted] on these before changing over to the Anson twin engmed aircraft. I flew some 270 hours in total before getting my wings, instrument rating etc. Again it was , hard work, and I had to attend some of the extra instruction [deleted] exercises [/deleted] [inserted] classes [/inserted] in the evening [inserted] s [/inserted]when I wasn't flying. We had no flying accidents during my time here, although the winter was very harsh and the aircraft difficult to control when landing on ice and snow, particularly in any cross winds. Naturally, we had a `Wings Parade' at the 7 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] end of the course. My `wings' were presented by the C.O., namely, Group Captain Hubbard, and I was promoted to Sergeant Pilot. The `wings' presentation was the subject of a telegram home, as I felt I had achieved a positive result of which I was duly proud. Many of my school friends had failed the pilot's course in the early stages, and I don't believe they expected me to pass, in view of the results I had obtained at school. I returned to 31 PD Moncton to await my posting back to the UK, and was fortunate to meet two old school friends from Beaumaris Grammar School, namely David Prewer and Clifford Roberts. David Prewer was a sergeant bomb aimer, and Clifford Roberts was commissioned as a wireless operator/air gunner. Both were on operations late in 1944 and David Prewer was killed in action. Clifford Roberts bailed out over France and was taken prisoner of war. I returned to the United Kingdom on a very fast liner called the Louis Pasteur. We had no escort and were not troubled by submarine activity en [inserted] – [/inserted] route. However, again it was a very uncomfortable few days at sea, and during this time we had to sleep in hammocks and were squashed into one of the lower deck compartments. Had anything happened while we were in transit, we would not have got out. We had no fresh water on board for washing etc. and sanitary arrangements were very primitive. Going to the latrines was a dangerous business since these were merely long troughs with the sea water rushing through, and any careless movement would have been disastrous. We duly arrived in Liverpool after about seven days out of Halifax which was really good going. The customs people checked all our kit and [deleted] other [/deleted] baggage for cameras and other contraband, and several airmen had to pay up or get their goods confiscated. There were no concessions made even in those days. From Liverpool, we went on to Harrogate by train, and were billeted in the town centre in the Majestic Hotel. My intake was settled mostly on the top floor, and we were a mixed batch of pilots, navigators and bomb aimers. There were no lifts in operation and the main staircase had been boarded up to prevent wear and tear and other damages. We were given further tests, and one which I particularly remember was to check on our night vision capacity. Mine was assessed as being above average and this was noted in my log book. We were also given further inoculations and vaccinations, and after one particular dose, I was taken ill and removed to the sick bay. There I remained for two or three days recovering. Upon discharge, I had noticed some suppurating sores occurring on my nose and mouth area. Nevertheless, the M.O. still discharged me, but by evening time, I was re admitted with impetigo. 8 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] This meant isolation for some three weeks, and then of course a period of sick leave. On returning home, I contacted Eve Bock who was by this time a WAAF sergeant, and based in Lewes in the south of England. I went down to see her, but obviously she had found another boyfriend. I decided almost immediately to retrieve my engagement ring. [inserted] & [/inserted] I finally returned home to Beaumaris really sad and fed up. After this, I had several more girlfriends but nothing serious until I arrived at Shepherd's Grove on a Heavy Conversion course on Stirlings. I was home on leave when I met Mary. More will be said about this at a later stage. My first posting in the United Kingdom was to South Cerney near Cirencester, Gloucestershire to an A.F.U (Advanced Flying Unit). Since South Cerney was the `parent' unit, we were almost immediately transferred to satellite units namely Tetbury and Southrop, to do our day flying and night flying respectively. Owing to the blackouts, night flying was very difficult, and we depended on occults and pundits for determining our position when on navigational exercises. ‘Occults’ were green lights flashing a single Morse [delete] character [/deleted] [inserted] characteric and denoted an aerodrome [/inserted] , and ‘pundits' were red lights flashing a two letter character [inserted] [ indecipherable word ] [/inserted] These were changed periodically to confuse the enemy, and all details of these were given [inserted] to us [/inserted] during pre flight briefings. In the event of any air raids in our vicinity, all aerodrome lights were switched off, and when flying we had to stop all transmissions, and fly from pundit to pundit until the raid was over and the all clear given. In the event of any emergency when flying in Training command, the code word [inserted] for aircraft in difficulties [/inserted] was "Darky” as opposed to the international "Mayday" code used by operational squadrons. All these things had to be fully explained to [deleted] all [/deleted] aircrew taking part in such exercises, and this information was given usually in pre flight briefings. The next stage of my training took me to Cranage in Cheshire where I completed a [inserted ' [/inserted]Beam Approach [inserted] ' [/inserted] course which we had to use in extremely bad visibility, conditions where we could not see the surrounding territory [inserted] or airfield [/inserted] . This was quite a difficult procedure, and we found it almost impossible to follow when flying heavy four engined aircraft because of the frequent large course changes which were necessary to carry out the landing procedures. We therefore used a different, system namely QGH, which was a `talk you down' control through [deleted] the [/deleted] cloud, and your aircraft headings [inserted] & height [/inserted] were all given by the ground controller. A similar system is still in use today. [inserted] Another procedure in foggy conditions was called “Fido” comparatively few airfields were equipped with this system. [/inserted] Upon finishing at AFU, I went to Upper Heyford near Banbury - No 16 OTU (Operational Training Unit) on Wellingtons. Here we had to pick a crew of five people out of numerous aircrew milling around. This 9 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] included a navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator, air gunner, mid upper gunner, and rear gunner. [inserted] My flight engineer was chosen at Heavy Conversion Unit they were only employed on 4 engined A/C. [/inserted] Flying the Wellington, which was classed as a twin engined medium sized bomber, was very different from what I had been used to. [inserted] As it looked very big and of course far more sophisticated from previous aircraft flown to date. [/inserted] Fortunately most of the people I chose as my crew proved reliable and [deleted] very big and of course far more sophisticated [/deleted] efficient, or at least they did at this stage. Further on, in [inserted] training on [/inserted] the different courses, some weaknesses did develop, and more will be said about this later. First of all, Upper Heyford closed down as a Bomber command [inserted] OTU [/inserted] [deleted] OUT [/deleted] and we were all transferred or posted to No 84 OTU at Desborough, Northants again on Wellingtons. This aircraft, [deleted] as already stated [/deleted] was far more complicated to fly because of [deleted] the [/deleted] [inserted] its [/inserted] size and extra instrumentation. We did many cross country flights particularly at night, some lasting six hours or more, and under some terrible weather conditions. Consequently, there were many accidents occurring in OTUs throughout the country. Many of these flights consisted of [deleted] a [/deleted] simulated attack [inserted] s [/inserted] on various towns and [inserted] chosen [/inserted] targets throughout the country, and usually fighter affiliation and [inserted] machine [/inserted] gun firing exercises were included in these flights. Firing the guns at night particularly, is quite an experience at first as we had tracer bullets mixed in with ordinary rounds of ammunition and the idea of this is self explanatory as it enables the gunners to [deleted] fix [/deleted] [insert] set [/insert] their sights on a particular [symbol] target. [insert] and see exactly where their bullets were going [/inserted] However, when first experienced one got the distinct impression that the aircraft's bullets [inserted] when fire in the [indecipherable word] areas [/inserted] were coming straight in at us, in our aircraft [inserted] which was extremely frightening [/inserted] . However, we all completed this course satisfactorily and went on to fly Stirlings Mark I and Mark III at Stradishall in Suffolk, and; [inserted] then [/inserted] on to its satellite at Shepherd's Grove, near Bury St Edmunds. This aircraft was [inserted] again [/inserted] huge by comparison with the Wellington and was classed as a heavy 4 engined bomber, with a particularly bad reputation: Numerous aircrews were killed flying the Stirling which suffered from all sorts of problems. Operationally they were almost useless because of their limited height approximately 12 14,000 maximum with a full bomb [inserted] if you were lucky [/inserted] . The undercarriage and flaps were operated electrically, and the undercarriage particularly [inserted , [/inserted] was in two tiers making the pilot's cockpit position [inserted] when on the ground [/inserted] some 2 [deleted] 6 [/deleted] [inserted] 0 [/inserted] ft above ground level [inserted] . [/inserted] Added to this, the braking system was inefficient and during circuits and bumps many aircraft ran off the runway due to lack of brake pressure. The undercarriage was weak, as already stated, because it was in two tiers, and in a cross wind, it was easily damaged and I [deleted] f [/deleted] [inserted] t [/inserted] often collapsed. [inserted] with catastrophic results. [/inserted] Towards the end of the Stirling course, I was obliged to take a full medical examination. This happened [inserted] to all aircrew [/inserted] every six months to ensure that [deleted] aircrew [/deleted] we [deleted] e [/deleted] [inserted] were [/inserted] in good physical condition. [deleted] On this occasion [/deleted] , [deleted] I [/deleted] [inserted] I [/inserted] t was [deleted] found [/deleted] [inserted] discovered [/inserted] that my blood pressure was. too high [inserted] & [/inserted] I was immediately sent to hospital in Ely. I was kept under observation [inserted] there [/inserted] for some two to three weeks during which time several tests were carried out, as they thought I might have a 10 WKT Memoirs Raised Feb 2005 [page break] [inserted] ** [/inserted] kidney problem. However, nothing was discovered and I was then sent down to London to No 1 Central Medical Board where I was seen by about eight doctors. Once again nothing could be found, and I was posted [inserted] on completion of the course [/inserted] [deleted] back [/deleted] to No 3 LFS (Lancaster Finishing School) at Feltwell in Norfolk. During this time, my crew had all been on leave and had been enjoying themselves. We were lucky in one way, as we missed [inserted] our previous [/inserted] [deleted] a [/deleted] posting on Stirlings to Algiers, and were really quite pleased about this. [inserted] We were not keen on the Stirling because of its operational performance & other major problems taking off & landing due to weak undercarriage & poor brakes etc. [/inserted] However, I still had to complete [deleted] my [/deleted] [inserted] the [/inserted] Heavy Conversion Course on the Stirling and was obliged to do a night exercise which was a simulated night attack on Bristol. This was called a `Bulls Eye' and during the exercise, it was customary to have on board a screen navigator and also a screen pilot. It was [inserted] therefore [/inserted] very important we all pulled together as an efficient crew. Unfortunately, due to a navigational error, our navigator, by the [deleted] m [/deleted] =name of Jack O' Toole, got us to the target too early, [inserted] and In stead of getting me to do a dog leg in order to waste some time, he took us straight to the target, which was enough to fail him on this particular [deleted] course [/deleted] [inserted] exercise. [/inserted] While stationed at Shepherd's Grave, Jack Gambell and I decided to purchase an old Morris 8 Saloon for £50 at a garage in Bury St Edmunds. The car really was `clapped ' and [deleted] s [/deleted] had a hole in the roof [deleted] of [/deleted] [inserted] on [/inserted] the right hand front corner, and when it rained your legs got wet. It also consumed a large amount of engine oil. [inserted] and this was an indication of pending expensive repairs [/inserted] I taught Jack to drive on this car; and he took it home on his first leave from HC unit. Really speaking, the car served its purpose very well as Shepherd's Grove was way out in the sticks. [inserted] and we needed some transport. [/inserted] The next car I bought was a Triumph Dolomite [inserted] ( [/inserted] Open Tourer [inserted] ) [/inserted]. This was in Littleport. I paid £50 for it from the next door neighbour of Mrs Leicester where we went quite regularly for a slap up meal. She always had plenty of eggs on the menu and made good Yorkshire puddings. Many of our Australian and New Zealand crews [inserted] also [/inserted] met here. The first time I took the Dolomite out, it caught fire [deleted] . [/deleted] I got the wiring behind the dash panel renewed on the camp [inserted] at Mildenhall [/inserted] by a corporal from the MT section. I took this car back to Coventry several times, [inserted] and [/inserted] On one particularly cold winter's day, I was just outside Daventry on my way to [inserted] Coventry [/inserted] to see Mary, when coming towards me on the wrong side of the road was a huge Scammell truck. Apparently, the driver was having difficulty getting up the hill [inserted] in the slippery conditions [/inserted] and had [deleted] chosen [/deleted] [inserted] decided [/inserted] to to try the right hand side [inserted] of the road [/inserted] . I couldn't stop because of the ice and snow on the road, and didn't want to hit the lorry, so chose to turn into the left hand hedge and a deep ditch! The car turned over and I was left upside down in the ditch. Fortunately, I was unhurt and my car was pulled out and put back on its wheels and I drove on my way. I didn't even take the offending vehicle's registration number. However, I found 11 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] that the steering was damaged, due to bent track rods and had difficulty getting to Coventry where it was easily repaired. I took this car with me to Feltwell and Mildenhall, but in the meantime, I had acquired a Hillman Minx, which was being sold cheap on the squadron by a F/Lt Parker. I must mention that second hand cars on the squadron were plentiful, and it was customary when crews were shot down and killed, for these vehicles to be auctioned off on the station. The Hillman saloon proved to be the best car I had purchased to date, and in it I covered a few thousand miles. I remember deciding to paint it blue while on leave in Coventry, but after hand painting it, it started to rain. What a mess! Mary's father finally got it resprayed for £20 in grey and it looked quite presentable. I kept it until the end of the war. The Triumph Dolomite was not used much in Mildenhall as I had two cars, and one night my two gunners stole it. They drove to Littleport where the steering broke and it was finally left on the side of the road for several weeks. I finally arranged for it to be towed back by the army. The towing vehicle was a Matilda tank, and by the time it reached our base, it was a complete wreck and ready for the scrap heap. I duly finished my heavy bomber conversion Stirling course at 1657 Shepherd's Grove on Ist September 1944. We all went through to a Lanc finishing School at Feltwell on 14th September 1944 and I did some 12 hours 50 minutes Conversion Course on Lancasters. We found the Lancaster comparatively easy after the Stirling. On completion of the Lancaster course, I was posted to No 622 Squadron at Mildenhall, where I completed further exercises in fighter affiliation, air firing and bombing before going on to actual operations. I started full operations on 23rd September 1944. The first trip I made was a flight with F/Lt Orton to Duisburg in the Ruhr. This procedure was followed on all operational squadrons as it was felt that the pilot required some actual operational experience before taking a complete crew over Germany. It must be mentioned that F/Lt Orton did not do many more sorties after this, and was shot down and killed along with his crew. I did several more flying exercises in Mildenhall consisting of cross country flights, loaded climbs with full bomb load, fighter affiliation etc., before taking my complete crew over Germany. It was during these exercises that my navigator Sergeant Jack O'Toole was assessed to be incapable of navigating with the accuracy required for operations, and was `washed out.' I was therefore without a navigator for some time. I was very lucky in Mildenhall to quickly find another suitable navigator, namely Sam Berry, as most of the spare people were doubtful 12 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] characters, who had either come off operations because of illness, or because of other navigational discrepancies. Sam Berry was a Flight/Lieutenant and was of Indian descent. He had been taken off operations because of being ill, and had at one time been suspected of having tuberculosis. During the time he was in hospital, his original crew who were Canadian, had been shot down and killed. He was a Fl/Lt when I met him and I was a Fl/ Sergeant, but I was in charge of my aircraft, so he was obliged to carry out my orders. Sam flew eleven operations with me before being seriously wounded on a trip to Homberg in the Ruhr on the 8th November 1944. we were flying in aircraft `L' Love. This was the nearest I got to being shot down, although we had various damage [inserted] s [/inserted] on all flights over Germany, mainly due to the accuracy of their anti aircraft fire. The Germans knew that we would normally be flying in at heights between 18 20,000 feet, and they would put up what we would call a `box barrage' between these heights , and obviously they had to hit something or somebody. As a matter of interest, I will describe what really happened on this particular visit to Homberg. I remember remarking to Jack Gambell, my bomb aimer, that there was a very dark cloud over to our starboard side, and of course, he immediately replied that this was our target and that we would be turning right into it in exactly one minute. He was, of course, right, because the next thing I knew was a big bang and we were on fire caused by a direct hit on the starboard inner engine and aircraft fuselage. Sammy, who was sitting directly behind me at his navigating table, was of course hit in the back by shrapnel. By the time Bill Ralph had got to him, it was after we had cleared the target and he was bleeding [inserted] and [/inserted] in a bad way. My starboard inner engine [inserted] had been [/inserted] [deleted] was [/deleted] on fire. [inserted] And in [/inserted] [deleted] In [/deleted] addition, my windscreen in front of me was smashed, and in the panic, I gave instructions to my engineer to feather the starboard inner engine and stand by. Bill Ralph, my flight engineer, feathered the wrong engine, and consequently we were obliged to fly as accurately as possible over the target area on the remaining good engines, and this proved to be very difficult with an aircraft that was fully loaded with bombs and flight crew. However, we managed after losing about 2000 feet in height, and began to assess the damage. As already mentioned, my windscreen had been completely shattered, and the glass had fallen down and cut my face a little bit, but it was not serious. My mid upper gunner had suffered similar injuries in his turret. Fortunately, we all played our part in getting out of this serious situation, and Bill Ralph who had experience in first aid, managed to get Sammy to the bed which was available a mid ships. Sam was awarded an immediate D.F.C. and I was assured that mine would come later. 13 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] My first priority was to keep the aircraft flying and try to get Sammy comfortable. It was not possible, however, to stop his bleeding, and my next consideration had to be to get down as quickly as possible on to an aerodrome on the English coast. I chose Woodbridge emergency aerodrome situated on the east coast, and [deleted] o [/deleted] after considerable difficulty [inserted] in [/inserted] getting the undercarriage down and locked, I made a reasonably good landing, despite having a further two engines pack up on the approach. Fire engines and ambulances were awaiting our arrival as we had called the station up in advance and Sammy was rushed to hospital for emergency treatment. We were all examined by the station medical officer and were all back in Mildenhall soon afterwards. My aircraft was written off, and I was obliged to fly the Lancaster that picked us up, back to base. This procedure was always adopted on our squadron whenever air crews had been involved in such actions or flying accidents, in order to restore their confidence. I was later informed that I could not have reached my home base, had I decided to remain with my original aircraft. I didn't get my DFC until after I had left the Squadron in Mildenhall, although I had been told unofficially that I was to get the award [inserted] . [/inserted] [deleted] and could wear the ribband [sic] [/deleted] . This information was given to me by the Squadron adjutant, who contacted me at Chipping Warden, and was also confirmed by Sammy my old navigator, who had by this time returned to Mildenhall after his hospitalisation, and was working at the base headquarters. [deleted] Also n [/deleted] [inserted] N [/inserted] ormally, it would have been presented by the King, but at this time he was very ill and the medal was sent by registered post with a personal letter with his signature. I also received a letter of congratulation from the Beaumaris Town Clerk and Town Council. I went on with my crew to complete our tour of 33 operations, which finished on 22nd February 1945. I did not fly with Sammy again after the eleventh operation and had to fly with many spare navigators who were floating around the squadron, and this was not very easy as some of them were pretty awful. One in particular Fl/Sgt McKay got me lost over Germany on a trip to Leipzig and we got back very late and had been given up as `missing' on operations. [deleted] Fl/ [/deleted] McKay proved to be a complete nervous wreck and mentally unstable. Whatever happened to him afterwards, I could not say, but I believe he was assessed as LMF (Lack of moral fibre) I must say at that time, I had no regrets about bombing Germany, as they were bombing us and I just wanted to return the compliment. Flying conditions over the continent, particularly during the winter, were the cause of many flying accidents and frequently many crews did not find their target. They were initially obliged to depend on D.R. Navigation (dead reckoning). The inaccuracy of aircraft instruments and in many instances lack of flying experience….. [inserted] also took their toll. [/inserted] 14 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] [arrow headed line down left hand side of page] Finding the target depended on evading the enemy fighter [inserted] s [/inserted], and ack ack anti aircraft barrages and searchlights which were particularly fierce in the Ruhr and around all the main towns and cities. As mentioned, navigation depended on D.R navigation initially, and later on new equipment such as radar [inserted] – [/inserted] GEE, G.H and [deleted] H25 and also [/deleted] [inserted] H2S increased accuracy [/inserted] …… Target marking was also important as Jerry often jammed radar and radio equipment. Added to this when flying through a cold frontsome [sic] of the flying instruments ie pilot head, although electronically heated, froze solid and this meant that we had no airspeed indicator or altimeter, and the ice that built up on the leading edges of the wings and on the [inserted] airscrews [/inserted] ………..used to come adrift and crash against the fuselage, which was very disconcerting, and when experienced for the first time, the noise was frightening. [inserted] T [/inserted] [deleted] t [/deleted] owards the end of the war, the main bombing force was assisted by Pathfinders, a specially trained force who marked the target in various ways, again depending on the prevailing weather as sometimes we bombed through cloud and with the GH equipment, we …:[inserted] were able [/inserted] [deleted] with this equipment [/deleted] to bomb to within 50 yards which was considered to be a direct hit. There were occasions when bombs got iced up on the bomb racks due to the cold, and these dropped into the bomb bay when we descended to a lower altitude, usually after leaving th target. The ruling was that in an emergency bombs would be dropped "safe" in certain areas ie the Wash and the Channel but we had to drop all our load in or on enemy territory. We would not land with a bomb rolling about in the bomb bay, and in such cases where we were concerned, a secondary target was chosen on the return route. Prior to any raid, day or night, there were many regulations and procedures to be followed. First of all security on the bomber stations was strict, but even so, it often happened that the people ` [deleted] dwn [/deleted] [inserted] down in [/inserted] the village' knew what was going on. Battle orders were drawn up usually each morning upon receipt of instructions from Bmber [sic] Command Headquarters. These indicated the names of crews affected, the target to be attacked numbers of aircraft taking part. All arrangements for bomb load, rations, fuelling aircraft and briefings of aircrew members, were given to the various sections pilots, navigators bomb aimers, gunners were briefed by their section leaders, and a general final briefing was given by the squadron C.O. and senior staff. A little later, after this general briefing, we were taken out with all our kit to our individual aircraft to carry' out further checks and await take off time. Radio silence was strictly adhered to, and orders to take off were given by means of Aldis lamp or signal cartridge from the control tower. A limited amount of time was taken for take off and taxiing and all aircraft were checked 15 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] and lined up ready for departure. Timing was , of course, all important as all aircraft had t [sic] bomb and clear the target spot on time and on the appointed compass heading to avoid collisions. We usually bombed from 18000 to 20000feet and reduced height by 8000 immediately after releasing our bombs. I would mention that to ensure we all bombed our target, every aircraft carried a camera in the nose, and a photo flash in the tail portion. When the bomb doors were opened over the target area and the bombs released, the photo flash would be released at the same time, and a photograph taken of the target area. The photographs were scrutinised by our Intelligence Department on our return to base and if anyone had not been to the target, they wanted to know why! This was really a .......method to ensure that we all did our job. On completion of my operational tour (33 operations), all of my crew were posted as screen instructors to various OTUs in 3 Group. My wireless operator, Fred Charlesworth and myself were posted to Chipping Warden, and I was awarded my DFC on leaving the station. Prior to going there, I did an instructors' course at Silverstone to get me acquaint [inserted] again [/inserted] with [deleted] t [/deleted] Wellington aircraft on which we were instructing. My time in chipping Warden was very restricted and I did very few trips. The war in Europe ended, and many aircrew were then made redundant. I was not asked, but was posted on a Tiger Moth course at Birmingham Airport. I was not very pleased about this. However, whilst on holiday in Beaumaris, I met Lady Megan Lloyd George at a garden party and would mention here, that my father knew her pretty well. When I explained my situation, she promised to do her best to get me into Transport Command. Shortly afterwards, I had a posting, not to Transport command, but to Ferry Command, which was the next best thing, and I did a short course on airspeed Oxfords at [deleted] Boscombe [/deleted] [inserted] Aston [/inserted] Down. I was then posted to No 5 Ferry pool at Silloth. I flew many different types of aircraft, most of them twin engined and four engined types. On the twin engined aircraft, we carried no crew, but on the four-engined aircraft, we always carried a flight engineer. We were supplied with crystal [inserted] s [/inserted] for the radio transmitter unit and had to tune this equipment ourselves.This was quite an interesting job as we flew all the different types of aircraft arriving on our station. Most of these were taken to the north of Scotland or to Ireland to be put in storage. We were given no instruction on the aircraft we flew. [deleted] We [/deleted] [inserted] But [/inserted] were given a little blue book containing details of all types of aircraft and were obliged to study the respective performance figures prior to take off. Surprisingly, we had only one fatal accident the whole time I was with this unit. 16 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] I was demobbed in August 1946, and completed a course for a `B' flying licence, as I intended to do some civilian flying. However, pilots were very plentiful in those days after the war, and there were problems finding a suitable job. Also, there was my high blood pressure which always came to the fore during the regular six monthly medical examinations, so I decided to seek work elsewhere. First of all, I made a bad mistake and joined the Coventry Police force, serving as a police constable for some twelve months. During this time, I got married, and found the money in those days very tight. I earned £5.00 per week plus a boot allowance, and had to work on shifts. I finally handed in my resignation after twelve months. Again, I experienced considerable difficulty in finding suitable work, as I had no real qualifications apart from flying aircraft. I finally got work in the Standard Motor Company in Canley. I had no wages for the first year as I was a student. I then went on to Service Reception, and was eventually allocated a territory as a service representative. This territory included the whole of the Midlands, South Wales as afar as Aberystwyth and right across to the Wash and East Anglia. This job entailed being away from home quite a lot. However, there were other advantages, such as having a car which was change [inserted] d [/inserted]. frequently every 10,000 miles, and of course, all the maintenance, insurance and running costs were paid for by the company. Eventually, I had the opportunity of going abroad, which was a step forward, and an increase in status and salary, so I jumped at this. My first trip abroad was for three months, and included most countries in Europe and North Africa plus a visit to the oil wells of the Middle East which were at that time operating the Standard Vanguard. On my return,a great deal of service reorganisation and company changes were taking place, and I was posted on a permanent basis with my family to Brussels in the 1950s. This again, meant a great deal of time being spent away from home, and although Brussels was a very good centre, the job, to say the least was a little bit inconvenient, and threw a lot of extra work on my wife Mary. After three years, I was again recalled to the United Kingdom [inserted] because of reorganisation [/inserted] and given the territory comprising Spain, Portugal, all of North Africa, as far as Angola and the Belgian Congo, and the Mediterranean countries as far south as Egypt. These changes of territory were taking place the whole time I was with British Leyland, and I finally ended up with a territory comprising the whole of Asia, Australasia, south America, central America and the Caribbean. This meant going round the world practically every time I did a trip. For this, I was promoted to Service Executive, and awarded an increase in salary for the extra responsibility and inconvenience involved. However, it meant a lot more work for Mary and 17 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break the children. With all the problems it caused at home, the move was not really worth it, but work was difficult in those days. I finally finished up at Land Rover at Solihull. I had by that time completed 33 years service with the company which was then known as British Leyland. The final crunch came when I had reported sick with prostate gland trouble. I was instructed by the company to get the operation completed quickly and they would pay all my expenses. This I did, but the company did not want to pay, and I finally had to foot the costs myself. I was in BUPA, but because I had previously had similar problems, they refused to accept the expenses involved. I felt that the company had let me down, and even the trade union to which I belonged was useless. I felt that nobody had appreciated my effort s over the past years and I got out as quickly as I could. I did manage to buy my company car - a Dolomite Sprint at a special price. Apart from that the company paid nothing and the pension in those days was extremely poor by today's standards. I would also mention that life during my working days in the motor trade was extremely precarious, as the unions were always going on strike and fighting for better conditions and better wages, but the quality of the final product was poor, and often disgusting. As a consequence, our sales, in overseas markets in particular, suffered. This deterioration became more noticeable in later years. The people in top management were most incompetent, and got their jobs not because of what they knew, but because of who they knew. During my whole service with Standard Motor Company, Land Rover, and British Leyland, I can only remember going on strike once, and I vowed I would not do it again regardless of the consequences. It was a waste of time and money. On retirement, Mary and I went to live in Portugal. We had a nice little two bedroomed villa situated some 3 km from Tavira, in a kind of cul de sac. We had all facilities including a swimming pool measuring some 8 x 4 metres. Most of the neighbours were English, and we got on with them all very well. We carried out various modifications during our time there including converting the top floor into a self contained flat with full facilities and capable of accommodating 3 4 people. This flatlet opened on to a flat tiled roof and overlooked the swimming pool. We were very happy living there although we did find the medical expenses there. high, and had always feared the day when we might need to pay for expensive medical treatment and hospitalisation. We were very happy, until Mary became very ill with lung cancer and on her return to the UK, died after only two weeks in Walsgrave Hospital where she was receiving treatment. Unfortunately, she had a bad fall in the hospital ward just prior to her death and smashed all her front 18 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 [page break] teeth, and was badly bruised. I often wonder how much this fall affected her life span, and sometimes wish that I had complained more to the hospital authorities. However, Mary had been a heavy smoker all her life. She would not go to see the doctor because I do believe she knew what he was going to say. Being sick in Portugal was very costly, and I am sure she was avoiding medical attention over there because of the conditions and expenses involved. Being back in the UK would have improved her chances of survival, but I feel that she had left it too late to do anything about her problem. When Mary died, my real life seemed to end and can never be the same again. She was wonderful, always so kind and considerate, not only to me but to everybody she met. Everybody I have spoken to held her in very high esteem. I feel that my life is over now and if it wasn't for my children and grandchildren, I don't think my life would be worth living. They have all been truly wonderful. 19 WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005 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 If you can't take a joke... Description An account of the resource A detailed account of Ken Thomas's life from his early years at school, through his ground crew technical training and his aircrew training, operational tour, short post war service and his civilian career. He revised the account in 2005. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ken Thomas Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2005-02 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 19 typewritten pages Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Memoir Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BThomasWKthomasWKv10001 to 10019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending review Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Peter Bradbury David Bloomfield Maureen Clarke 16 OTU 1657 HCU 622 Squadron 84 OTU Advanced Flying Unit Anson Battle Blenheim briefing Distinguished Flying Cross flight mechanic Flying Training School Fw 190 Gee ground crew H2S Harvard Heavy Conversion Unit Initial Training Wing lack of moral fibre Lancaster Lancaster Finishing School Me 109 mechanics engine military service conditions Operational Training Unit Oxford perception of bombing war RAF Bridgnorth RAF Cranage RAF Desborough RAF Desford RAF Feltwell RAF Heaton Park RAF Hednesford RAF Llandwrog RAF Mildenhall RAF Paignton RAF Penrhos RAF Shepherds Grove RAF Silloth RAF Silverstone RAF South Cerney RAF Stradishall RAF Torquay RAF Upper Heyford RCAF Moncton sanitation Stirling strafing training Wellington Whitley https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1963/41315/BLazenbyHJLazenbyHJv1.pdf 35022f62bb4527b9a7da34bd424ec42f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lazenby, Harold Jack H J Lazenby Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-10-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Lazenby, HJ Description An account of the resource 11 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Harold Jack Lazenby DFC (b. 1917, 652033 Royal Air Force) and contains his memoir, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 57, 97 and 7 Squadrons. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Daniel, H Jack Lazenby and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource H Jack Lazenby DFC Description An account of the resource Harold Jack Lazenby's autobiography. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Warrington England--Wolverhampton England--Shifnal (Shropshire) England--London England--Bampton (Oxfordshire) England--Witney England--Oxford England--Cambridge France--Paris England--Portsmouth England--Oxfordshire England--Southrop (Oxfordshire) England--Cirencester England--Skegness England--Worcestershire England--Birmingham England--Kidderminster England--Gosport England--Fareham England--Southsea Wales--Port Talbot Wales--Port Talbot Wales--Bridgend Wales--Porthcawl England--Urmston England--Stockport Wales--Cardiff Wales--Barry United States New York (State)--Long Island Illinois--Chicago England--Gloucester Scotland--Kilmarnock England--Surrey England--Liverpool England--Lincolnshire England--Lincoln Denmark--Anholt Poland--Gdańsk Germany--Berlin Germany--Essen Germany--Kiel Europe--Mont Blanc Denmark England--Hull Czech Republic--Plzeň Germany--Ruhr (Region) England--Mablethorpe Germany--Cologne Italy--Turin France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine) England--Land's End Peninsula Italy--San Polo d'Enza Italy--Genoa Italy--Milan Algeria Algeria--Blida Atlas Mountains England--Cambridge England--Surrey England--Ramsey (Cambridgeshire) Germany--Mannheim Germany--Munich France--Montluçon Germany--Darmstadt Scotland--Elgin England--York Scotland--Aberdeen England--Grimsby Germany--Saarbrücken Germany--Zeitz Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein Germany--Wanne-Eickel Germany--Gelsenkirchen Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany--Chemnitz Germany--Heide (Schleswig-Holstein) Germany--Wuppertal Germany--Homberg (Kassel) Europe--Scheldt River Estuary Germany--Rheine Germany--Hamburg Germany--Helgoland Germany--Bremen Netherlands--Rotterdam Belgium England--Southend-on-Sea England--Morecambe England--Kineton England--Worcester Germany--Duisburg Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Mülheim an der Ruhr England--London Italy--La Spezia France--Dunkerque Poland--Szczecin Poland Germany--Hannover Germany--Recklinghausen (Münster) Netherlands England--Sheringham England--Redbridge France--Saint-Nazaire Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea) Germany France North Africa Illinois Italy New York (State) Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Royal Canadian Air Force United States Army Air Force Royal Air Force. Transport Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Memoir Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 99 printed sheets Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BLazenbyHJLazenbyHJv1 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lazenby, Harold Jack Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending text-based transcription Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Maureen Clarke 1654 HCU 20 OTU 207 Squadron 4 Group 5 Group 57 Squadron 617 Squadron 7 Squadron 97 Squadron air gunner Air Gunnery School aircrew anti-aircraft fire B-17 B-24 Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986) bomb aimer bombing bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945) briefing Catalina Chamberlain, Neville (1869-1940) crewing up debriefing demobilisation Distinguished Flying Cross Distinguished Flying Medal Distinguished Service Order Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943) entertainment flight engineer flight mechanic Flying Training School George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952) Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944) ground crew ground personnel H2S Halifax Hampden hangar Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984) Harvard Heavy Conversion Unit Hudson Hurricane Ju 88 killed in action Lancaster love and romance Manchester master bomber Me 110 Me 262 mechanics engine mess military living conditions military service conditions mine laying Mosquito navigator Navy, Army and Air Force Institute Nissen hut Oboe Operation Exodus (1945) Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945) Operational Training Unit Oxford Pathfinders pilot radar RAF Barkstone Heath RAF Bassingbourn RAF Benson RAF Blida RAF Bourn RAF Brize Norton RAF Colerne RAF Cosford RAF Cranwell RAF Dunkeswell RAF East Kirkby RAF Elvington RAF Fairford RAF Halton RAF Lossiemouth RAF Melton Mowbray RAF Mepal RAF Oakington RAF Padgate RAF Pershore RAF Scampton RAF Silverstone RAF St Athan RAF Stormy Down RAF Swinderby RAF Talbenny RAF Tangmere RAF Upper Heyford RAF Upwood RAF Uxbridge RAF Valley RAF Warboys RAF Wigsley RAF Wing recruitment Resistance Spitfire sport Stirling target indicator training V-1 V-2 V-weapon Victoria Cross Wellington Whitley Window wireless operator Women’s Auxiliary Air Force https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/2468/47443/MWhymarkJP53481-230816-08.1.jpg b9058dc9d5930a3fcf586facec114b05 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Whymark, Jack John Percy Whymark Description An account of the resource 56 items. <br /><br />The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Jack Whymark DSO DFC (1920 -1945, 616289, 53481 Royal Air Force) and contains a<span>n oral history with his son, Robert Whymark.&nbsp;</span><br /><br />He joined 17 Squadron in 1939 and took part in Operation Aerial in 1940.&nbsp;<br /><br />He flew operations as an air gunner in Europe and North Africa with 101, 103, 106, 148 and 149 Squadrons and was killed 04 October 1945 during Operation Dodge. <br /><br />The collection was donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Graham Thurlow and Robert Whymark and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan. <br /><br /><span>Additional information on Jack Whymark is available via the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/230288/">IBCC Losses Database.</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-11-03 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Whymark, JP Requires A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence. [his log book, correspondence, documents, objects and photographs]. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flt Lt John Whymark DSO DFC Description An account of the resource Listing Jack's service and the decorations awarded to him. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robert Whymark Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-10-15 Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1945-10-04 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Poland Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Channel Islands Germany Germany--Berlin Germany--Leipzig Germany--Nuremberg Italy Italy--Naples Malta Great Britain England--Essex England--Lincolnshire England--London England--Nottinghamshire England--Suffolk England--Wiltshire England--Yorkshire France France--Aulnoye-Aymeries France--Corsica France--Cape Corse Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway Scotland--Highlands Wales--Glamorgan North Africa Egypt Egypt--Kibrit Poland--Gdańsk France--Pas-de-Calais Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Personal research Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One typed sheet Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context MWhymarkJP53481-230816-08 Conforms To An established standard to which the described resource conforms. Pending text-based 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. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive 101 Squadron 103 Squadron 106 Squadron 148 Squadron air gunner aircrew Distinguished Flying Cross Distinguished Service Order flight mechanic ground crew Hurricane killed in action Lancaster Operation Dodge (1945) RAF Debden RAF Elsham Wolds RAF Evanton RAF Kabrit RAF Ludford Magna RAF Martlesham Heath RAF Mildenhall RAF North Weald RAF Old Sarum RAF St Athan RAF Syerston RAF Uxbridge RAF West Freugh searchlight training Wellington https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/530/26012/PShawSR1636.2.jpg 3b4bdde27d07bec9711f4f136addf1e4 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/530/26012/PShawSR1637.2.jpg d1fd61c0741963274be0cc43785d4282 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 Shaw, Stanley R S R Shaw Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Shaw, SR Description An account of the resource 37 items. An oral history interview with Stanley Shaw (3002545 Royal Air Force) Photographs, documents and his log book. He served with a Repair and Salvage Unit and attended many crashes. He later served in North Africa and the Middle East. The collection also contains two photograph albums; one of his RAF service and one of his time in a cycle club. The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Stanley Shaw 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. 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 2016-01-14 2016-02-11 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flight Mechanic. Airframe (Flight Crew) Description An account of the resource An airman in tropical khaki and shorts with parachute, standing by a stone wall. On the reverse 'Flight Mech. Airframe (Flight Crew)'. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource One b/w photograph Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PShawSR1636, PShawSR1637 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive aircrew flight engineer flight mechanic ground crew mechanics airframe https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/571/10320/BFraserDKFraserDKv1.pdf 7f9c985222c9f4a3d6bbf63c19e5c8d7 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 Fraser, Donald Keith D K Fraser Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Fraser, DK Description An account of the resource 12 items. Two oral history interviews with Warrant Officer Donald Keith Fraser DFM (1924 - 2022, 1566621 Royal Air Force), a memoir, his log book, photographs and service material. The collection also contains an interview with Sylvia Fraser, his wife. He flew a tour of operations as a flight engineer with 101 Squadron. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Donald Keith Fraser and catalogued by Barry Hunter. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-11-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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 document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document WO DONALD KEITH FRASER DFM 1566621 101 SQUADRON JULY 1943 – MARCH 1944 CREW NAME: WL EVANS [photograph of Donald Fraser] [page break] [photograph of Bomber Command Memorial] [page break] Contents Page Chapter A Introduction. 1 Chapter B Prior to World War II. 3 Chapter C Joined RAF 23rd July 1942. 7 Chapter D 101 Squadron Base Ludford Magna. 11 Chapter E 101 Squadron Operation Dates and Targets. 15 Chapter F 101 Squadron Notes on Various Operations. 17 Log Book and Battle Orders. 34 Chapter G Christmas 1943 and Christmas Dinner Menu. 41 Chapter H After Operations posted to Heavy Conversion Units. 45 Lindholme. 45 Bottesford. 47 Cottesmore. 51 North Luffenham. 52 Chapter I Advances in Technology. 55 What if? . 57 Chapter J Aircrew Bomber Command. 59 Wartime Bomber Squadrons. 60 Bombing of Berlin. 60 A Day in the Life of a Squadron. 61 Clothing Worn on Operations by our Crew. 62 Contact made with Two Crew Members plus information on others. 63 Chapter K The Lancaster Story. 67 Further notes relating to Black Thursday including information given by Len Brooks our Rear Gunner. 73 [page break] [four photographs of author and Avro Lancaster] [page break] INTRODUCTION Over the past 50 to 60 years I have enjoyed reading many books about bomber crews who flew with Bomber Command during World War II especially during the period from mid July 1943 until the end of the war. These books contained many accounts of true grit and heroism carried out by crew members. There are, however, a few experiences recalled which appear doubtful, a number of reported instances which are far-fetched or quite ridiculous to have suggested could have occurred. Crews of the heavy bombers normally consisted of seven crew members all of whom were well trained to carry out specific tasks and as a team made up a competent crew capable of carrying out the various operations asked of them. Operations were normally carried out over Europe (mainly to Germany) targets being the main industrial areas, factories, railway junctions and yards and eventually towns and cities, such as Berlin, Hanover, Hamburg, Leipzig, Frankfurt to name a few, all of which by 1943 the inhabitants were heavily involved in production for the German war effort. The Bomber crews objectives were to carry out the operations they flew on to reach the target, drop their bombs and return home safely with their aircraft undamaged. Remember all these young men were volunteers, highly trained with the Pilot usually the “Skipper” and Captain, this was not to say that he gave all the orders and that no crew member acted until he gave that order. The Flight Engineer and Wireless Operator were the most mobile within the aircraft, therefore, if a situation occurred within the fuselage either or both could intervene by giving a quick call to the “Skipper”, or should a fault occur with the engine, the Flight Engineer would usually be the first to notice and carry out the essential remedy while informing the Pilot of the situation with procedure carried out. For a crew to be efficient and confident they had to be alert at all times, watching, listening and acting immediately. Survival required a highly trained crew team with loads of confidence in one’s self and in the other crew members and in the aircraft, so giving them a very strong attitude to press on. A dedicated, loyal and skilful ground crew, a strong reliance in the Almighty (or what faith one had) and with very importantly more than normal, good luck, having lady luck on your side. I have therefore put on paper a few experiences which happened to our crew while flying over Germany during mid 1943 to mid 1944. The following are not from diaries – they are what I recall after a long time. The experiences are genuine, the timing may be a little out, but to the reader it will still show the excitement, the pressure, sometimes fear, but above all the confidence and determination the crew had to carry out the task involved and return back to base with a full crew still intact. A question I have been asked many times “why did you enjoy flying and with such odds against staying alive?” My answer, I loved flying, I enjoyed the excitement and I volunteered. I also liked the thought of coming back to base to a good meal and I felt safe and secure in my sometimes cold bed with its nice white sheets, compared to the Army personnel who 1 [page break] worked under much more difficult conditions not knowing when they would eat or sleep and under conditions just as dangerous as ours, in fact, in many, more so. By the end of writing I hope that I provide you with some idea of what these then young crew members of Bomber Command endured when flying over Germany for 6 to 7 1/2 hours at a time in a Lancaster bomber with around 2,000 gallons of fuel stored in tanks in the wings and with up to five tons of bombs slung under their feet along the fuselage, travelling at 250 miles an hour in the dark at 20-21,000 feet in height with temperatures of from -10 to 20oC below zero and with German fighters trying to shoot them down and with anti-aircraft guns (which could be very accurate) also trying to blow them up, just to make our journey a little more scary at times to find that on returning when we reached the English coastline that it was covered in thick cloud and dense fog making it almost impossible to find somewhere to land. Some of the words most suited to express the emotions of the crew in certain situations could be excited, interesting, scary, fear, relief, apprehensive and difficult. I think, however, that the Brylcream boys done a very good job all these years ago. Happy days! 2 [page break] CHAPTER B PRIOR TO WORLD WAR II 1919-1939 The First World War ended in 1919 after four years of fighting and with a very heavy loss of life on both sides. Those who were lucky enough to survive and return home found it extremely difficult to find employment. The Government had created some opportunities by forming the Forestry Commission with the role to establish over the coming fifty years a supply of timber sufficient to make the UK self sufficient in wood requirements. This was to be created by the purchase of large areas of land, mainly in Scotland and North England (cheap less productive land) then cultivating and planting this land with conifer species. To achieve this management had to be trained and forestry workers had to be recruited. Forestry schools were established throughout England and Scotland to educate and train management staff. One such school was opened at Dunkeld in Central Scotland where a Mr Simpson received his training and he afterwards took up the post of Nursery Manager at Tulliallan Nursery, Kincardine on the Forth. During the war the larger estates had suffered from the lack of gamekeepers and staff to carry out the maintenance and control of vermin etc, therefore there were many vacancies for people interested to fill these posts. My father and two of his brothers did just that, they became keepers on some of the very large estates in Scotland. My father and mother were married shortly after the war and he took up an appointment as a game keeper on a large estate near Stirling, where my sister Jean and elder brother Sandy were born. In 1923 he moved to take up Keepering on Tulliallan Estate near Kincardine. The family lived in the East Lodge which was situated adjacent to the main road from Kincardine to Dunfermline and next to the land belonging to the Forestry Commission nursery. This is where I was born on 24th August 1923. Two years later the family again moved, this time to take on the position of head keeper on Donibristle Estate and lived in the small village of Auchtertool, Fifeshire where my two younger sisters, Betty and Mary were born. These were from what little I can recall, were happy times, the family did not have much spare cash but had sufficient to satisfy the family needs. Mr Simpson lost part of his right arm during the first War and had an artificial part fitted. In 1949 I joined the Forestry Commission Research Branch and guess where I was stationed, at Tulliallan Nursery and Mr Simpson was still there. He told me that when my father left the East Lodge in 1925 he bought his hens and chickens from him. In 1950 the Forestry Commission built around 20 houses for its staff some 400 yards west of the East Lodge and Sylvia and myself were lucky enough to have one of them. Mr Simpson played an important role in our lives over the next 30 years, however this is another story. 3 [page break] Moray estate during the winter months arranged a number of pheasant shoots to which a number of friends and associates of the Lairds (The Earl of Moray) were invited to attend. The 29th January 1929 was one of those days and the shoot covered the area which my father was responsible for. The morning started with rain, however the shoot commenced and the guns and beaters started with good success. A good number of birds were raised and shot, as the day continued the weather became worse and by lunchtime, thunder and lightning had started so it was decided to call the shoot off. During the morning a few birds had been shot, but had not been collected by the dogs so my father with his two spaniels decided he would retrace the morning route and see if he could collect lost birds. The weather continued to deteriorate, while he was crossing a fence he was hit by lightning. As the day went on and he had not returned the other two keepers decided they would go and look for him. They found him where he lay by the fence with his two dogs nearby. This was a terrible and tragic day for all concerned, my mother with five children all under the age of 11, no house and little money coming in to support the family. My mother did have two sisters who stayed in Edinburgh and who visited fairly regularly and helped all they could with the family. The estate owner, the Earl of Moray and the Estate Factor were very helpful and within a week or two, arranged for the family to move to Aberdour where they gave us a house with a fairly large garden (this became quite a good asset especially when the War came). I was told when I was much older that at the time there was much talk about what should happen to the family the suggestion being that the family should be split up with the three girls staying with mum and the two boys (Sandy and myself) being placed with other people possibly with a relative or with other people. Our mother strongly disagreed and said none of the family would leave they would stay together. I believe that my mother made the right decision, had the family been split up, our lives would have been totally different and not for the better in my opinion. These were hard times for our mother (in those days there was not the same support or financial assistance available to call on as there is today) however somehow our mum managed to sort things out and keep all the family together. Unfortunately we as children were too young to contribute in the way of bringing in money to the home, our mum was a very likeable person and soon made friends and was extremely capable of working to earn money, she turned her hand to doing housework and helping people in their homes and for two days each week helping in Donibristle Estate house, which meant a fairly long walk to get there (one mile each way). She and her sisters were always very happy smiling people always ready for a joke, this helped to make life much better for everyone. She still had friends on the estate and the whole family occasionally in an evening would take a walk of around three miles to visit Mr and Mrs Linton, he also was a gamekeeper on the estate. Our mum was also a good Christian and attended church fairly regularly and also enjoyed attending some of the concerts and meetings held in the village hall, she also was a member of the WI. The estate was very good to the family we received twice a year a load of fire wood, which myself and Sandy would chop up into suitable sizes to use on the fire. In the Spring the estate workers would come to dig over the garden and planted potatoes which helped greatly, this meant that all we (Sandy and I) had to do was keep the garden free from weeds and hill up the potatoes and plant some vegetables. 4 [page break] As time moved on and we the children grew older all by the age of eight or nine years managed to find jobs. Sandy and myself delivering milk before going to school and then delivering groceries after school and at weekends Jean our oldest sister assisted in the Cooperative grocery shop. This of course all helped to bring in some money. The school leaving age at that time was 15. We all attended Aberdour school initially. At the age of 11 the choice was either moving to Burtisland school which was a technical college or go to Dunfermline high school, both schools were a distance away from Aberdour and required travelling by bus. All the girls, Jean, Betty and Mary enjoyed Dunfermline High, while Sandy and myself went to the technical school. We all got excellent grades in the exams. I left school in 1938 at a time when the job situation was very limited with little choice. I had two interests, first to be a forester, my dream being to see all the high elevation land covered with trees as it was during much earlier times and take part in that operation. Secondly to become an Engineer. I applied for two jobs, one on the Moray Estates to become a trainee forester, the other to become an apprentice mechanic with a garage company in Kirkcaldy. Both replied and I decided to take up the forestry appointment. This proved very enjoyable and I loved the variety of jobs and gained volumes of experience working with two brothers, Bob and Will Ewan. Will Ewan was foreman and took a liking to me and gave me all the encouragement and opportunities to carry out everything which was available. The Second World War commenced on the 3rd September 1939 and when I was 17 1/2 years old I volunteered to join the RAF on flying duties and became a flight engineer. So in the end I got both my dreams to come true. After the war being demobbed in 1946, I took up an appointment to become a probationer at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh. In 1948 I joined the Forestry Commission Research Branch. 5 [page break] 6 [page break] CHAPTER C JOINED RAF 23RD JULY 1942 The Second World War started on 3rd September 1939. I’m not going into details regarding the reasons why Britain thought it necessary to do so as I believe most people know the reasons. Prior to the war during the summers of 1937 and 1938 the Territorial Army held their camps on the outskirts of Aberdour on grass fields owned by Mill Farm, which was situated adjacent to the Sheriff Road. To us as youngsters it was exciting and interesting to see double rows of horses tethered along a single rope and the troops living under canvas in large tents. To see the different tartans depending on which regiment was resident in camp at the time, such as The Black Watch, The Camerons or The Gordons. They were the first troops to be called up for service followed by people from certain professions and the general public of different age classes, one had to be 18 years old before being recruited. All three services required recruits and there was a certain agreement of allowing people to join the service of their choice, however, if one service was short of personnel then recruits had no choice but to go where sent. I was sixteen years old when the war started and when my time came to be called up I wished to join the RAF and, if possible, to fly on reaching my 17th birthday. I decided I would volunteer for the RAF on flying duties. Volunteers usually were given the opportunity to serve in the service of their choice. I recall discussing the war with a few of my colleagues and suggesting that this war would change the face of Europe, and would also change all our lives completely if we survived. I was called up on 23rd July 1942; my orders were to report to Warrington Recruitment Centre. My stay there was for two days where I, along with many more of my own age were fitted out with uniform and all other necessities. We then travelled to Blackpool to commence our training and embark on a flight mechanics course. Blackpool like many other seaside resorts had many private residences available (usually used as holiday accommodation or bed and breakfast), these were now being used to accommodate RAF recruits. I with others was billeted in Montague Street, South Shore near to the South Shore beach. This turned out to be excellent, the landlady treated us extremely well, and we each had our own bedroom and facilities. She had to supply us with breakfast and evening meal, and normal washing facilities. In fact for all the time I was in Blackpool, which was just under a year I stayed there, the RAF supplied our towels etc. In fact two evenings a week we had what was called ‘shower parades’. In total there was near 10,000 RAF personnel billeted in 7 [page break] the town, so through the town certain buildings such as baths or swimming pool areas were converted into showers, rows and rows of showers with dressing accommodation alongside. The recruits such as ourselves were divided into groups of between 40 and 50 and each group had a corporal in charge, he was in charge of all our activities such as the shower parade. We had to assemble at a point near to our billet on certain evenings each week. The corporal would march us to the showers then afterwards march us back, he was also responsible for us on all other activities. The course of flight mechanic was a very intensive course covering both theory and practical work. This was carried out at Squires Gate near St Anne’s, three miles east of Blackpool and was originally a small airport. The hangers were converted to workshops for training purposes. We were transported in bus convoys daily, morning and evening to and from the base with our same corporal, Lofty Clark, in charge. We also carried out the usual training and skills necessary to be a good soldier including physical training, assault course, rifle drill and route marches. Most of these were carried out on the area around the South Shore pleasure ground. The mechanics course lasted for five months. At the end of each fortnight we had verbal exams and after six weeks written exams, each exam had to be passed before one could move on. If I remember all our group passed their exams. After the mechanics course we were given two weeks leave and on return commenced on a fitters course, which lasted a further five months, the same routine as previously. What I forgot to say, we had a break in the morning and afternoon when the NAAFI vans arrived serving a bun and a cup of tea. By the end of the further course we were capable of dismantling an aircraft engine and reassembling it with success. We also had a basic knowledge of the aircraft workings at this stage before moving onto the next stage of our training, the flight engineer course. We were divided into those who would be flying on Halifaxs [sic] and those who would fly on Lancasters, fortunately I was selected to fly on Lancasters. Blackpool was a fairly good place to be stationed at, as with its many parks there was always plenty of opportunity to play sport, which was very much encouraged by the RAF. I spent most weekends playing either football or rugby; in fact for the 1942‑3 season I played rugby for Blackpool’s third team. There was little time in evenings for anything, as I said two nights were taken up with shower parade, then most weeks a further two nights for other activities. Every Sunday there was a church parade, one had to attend the parade but not the service if it was not your religion. Most places in Blackpool were closed, however, the lower levels of the tower were still open and I remember the organ was still being played and the ballroom was open at certain times. For the flight engineers course those of us that were to fly on Lancasters were transferred to St Athans, South Wales. The course was originally intended to last eight weeks however, on arrival we were told that flight engineers were in such short supply that the course was being crammed into two weeks. To enable this to happen we worked a 12‑hour day, seven days each week, however, the course was a success and we all knew the basics about the Lancaster workings, although we still had not flown in a Lancaster. At the end of the course we were split up into groups of six and told to report to a certain Air Training Unit. I had to report to Lindholme near Doncaster, where other members of crew which included pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, mid upper gunner and rear gunner were already 8 [page break] at Lindholme operating as a crew for a period of four weeks awaiting for flight engineers to become available. On arrival we were introduced to our crews and the following day we were flying as a complete crew, however, not on Lancasters (Lancasters were too scarce to be used on training duties). We flew on Halifax, this was a heavy bomber and gave the pilot the opportunity and experience of flying heavy aircraft. We continued training and flying at Lindholme for a further week. As a complete crew and along with one other crew from the same course at Lindholme we were posted to 101 Squadron which was based at Ludford Magna seven miles west of Louth Lincolnshire. This was a recently built airfield; the runways and perimeter roads were complete along with the aircraft stand pods. Accommodation was nissen huts as were the messes. Roads and paths around the areas were still not laid; Wellington boots were the order of the day. 9 [page break] 10 [page break] CHAPTER D LUDFORD 101 SQUADRON Ludford Magna Ludford Magna, a small village situated on the main road between Louth and Market Rasen, was to change dramatically as the area was chosen to be the site for one of the new warfare RAF bomber airfields. Work commenced in spring 1943 and by May the airfield was ready for occupation however, as with many other war built sites, many buildings were far from being useable. The airfield had three runways with the main runway, which was two thousand yards long from north to south. The other two runways were 14 hundred yards, one of which ran east to west. They were all connected by a narrow perimeter track of which there were 36 standing pods. All personnel accommodation was nissen hut type buildings and erected on the north side of the main road running through the village, some distance from the main airfield. 101 Squadron took over occupation of the airfield in late June but even then there were no hardcore paths leading to the billets or the ablution blocks. This meant that travelling to and from billets or airfield, the only serviceable footwear was rubber boots. We as a crew arrived in late July and I remember squelching in the mud around the base and when it rained circumstances were even worse, and it did rain quite a bit during the autumn and winter hence the airfield got the nickname of Mudford (instead of Ludford) and was well deserved. On days when operations were planned the routine was briefing which was held at a certain time when all crew members met in the briefing room where the CO (Comanding [sic] Officer) addressed the crews stating which crews were flying and which if any were on standby in case any crew members were unable to fly. The CO would then open the curtains on the wall covering the maps and the target, after which the various heads of section gave details of weather expected on route over target and on return, also bomb load, fuel load and any other relative information such as height levels expected to be flown at by the different aircraft. Lancasters usually flew at one or two thousand feet higher than the Halifax, which would be flying at around 19,000 feet. It was most important for 101 Squadron to keep strictly to the timing and height levels as with ABC (Airborne Cigar equipment) on board, 101 Squadron crews task was to cover the rest of the bombers flying on the operation, along the route to the target, through the target and on the return route. Example, if the target time was 20 minutes for all aircraft to pass through the target and if 101 Squadron had 22 aircraft flying, each aircraft would be allocated a time through the target of one minute apart. This put considerable pressure on the navigator and pilot, the route was always discussed among the crew members such as pilot, bomb aimer and engineer in order to help and assist the navigator to stay on course such as any landmarks, heavy barrage of ack ack or search 11 [page break] lights, as these would usually mean certain industrial areas, towns or cities. Also if weather conditions were good possibly a certain bend on a river or railway, or road crosses, these markers were always very helpful to the navigator to keep him on course and on time. All crew members had different personalities we all, however, accepted that we were professionals and some of the best in our trades, and that belief and the fact that we worked extremely well as a crew. We trusted each other’s judgement and carried out the requirements without question. The crew (our crew) was organised similar to a football team we had a captain in our pilot Wally and with a few key team players who had the ability to carry out other members’ duties. They were Navigator, Jimmy, could act as bomb aimer, Eric our bomb aimer had sufficient knowledge of navigation to bring the aircraft home, and myself as engineer could in an emergency takeover and fly and land the aircraft. The gunners were the crewmembers most out of touch with the others. In my position I could watch their turrets for movement and could keep in touch with them, and if for any reason their turrets were not moving I could give them a call. I could easily see the mid upper gunner Bill and see the rear gunner guns Len when they turned to port. Eric our bomb aimer lounged in the front compartment of the aircraft on lookout for other aircraft and to aid the navigator, his map reading was spot on, and he liked to give a commentary of what was happening leading up to the target – such sayings as men it’s bloody marvellous, we are bang on time over the target, then this was his time he was in control, he was very precise with his left slightly, right a little, hold it there, left a little. I would be watching for other aircraft and for fighters, and as he said on this occasion that it was over Berlin I said hold it Eric another Lanc is just passing immediately beneath us. He said: “I have missed the target we will have to go round again”. In this situation Eric was in control and Wally our pilot even with a few strong words said to Jimmy our navigator “give us a new course to bring us round again”. There were the occasional shouts from the gunners such as “fighter on port, eleven o’clock” or “watch that searchlight” or “collision between Lanc and Halifax – no parachutes, poor bastards”. The wireless operator Norman (Nobby) was good at his job he never panicked. Nobby could obtain bearings when others couldn’t. I think he did naughty things on the frequencies to get priority. He had the warmest place on the aircraft. Jimmy our navigator was superb, conscientious, every course had to be accurate and everything he did he gave a reason for his decision. Wally our pilot would discuss with him the situation for the change of course and automatically changed course. Wally was an excellent pilot, steady and a good captain and we worked well together, we the crew called him our taxi driver. Taking off with a full bomb load and possibly two thousand gallons of fuel was the most nervous part of the trip, after receiving the green light he would taxi onto the runway, line up, test the engines remembering we had probably some waiting for five to ten minutes, with slow engine revolutions which could overheat the engines. We together would open up the four throttles when the engines were screaming he would release the brakes and the aircraft would start rolling along the runway. When we reached the 90+ speed he would require both his hands on the controls and I would push the throttle controls fully forward, keeping the port engines throttles slightly ahead of the starboard engines throttles, as I found that the Lancaster tended to veer to the port on take off or nearing the end of the runway. If we were still on the ground I would push all four throttles through the barrier, this gave the extra power we only used this in extreme cases, as it was hard on the engines and used extra fuel. Once in the air Wally would say “undercarriage up” then “flaps up” and we would start climbing on a spiral course until we reached the height of around ten thousand 12 [page break] feet before setting course on our operation. I would adjust engines to obtain speed required with minimum revs. As I previously said 101 Squadron operated ABC, which meant we carried an eighth member of crew. A specialist, his job was to jam German radio transmissions to the night fighters’ ground based controllers, his operating place was just behind the main part of the port side about 6 ft square with no external vision. It was said that these members had no one crew to fly with and were allocated a crew on an operation base, this maybe true however we were a very organised crew and this arrangement did not apply. We therefore were allocated Ken as a crewmember and he flew with us during the remainder of our tour. 101 Squadron radio call was for aircraft ‘Bookworm’, control tower ‘Bookshop’. Returning to after briefing was completed we returned to the mess where a meal was always arranged which consisted of a main course of egg, bacon and chips. We then dressed into our flying kit, collected our parachute and made our way to the crew room where we collected our flying rations, these consisted of sandwiches, Horlicks tablets chewing gum and a flask of coffee or tea. If you wished wakey wakey pills to help keep you awake while flying (none of our crew ever indulged in these) we also collected a package containing money and maps of the countries over which we would be flying on the chance that we may be shot down. After a few operations, the crew was allocated our own aircraft, for us X² the dispersal point was quite a way round the perimeter track and close to the road. The aircraft was parked facing away from the road and perimeter fence so when Mac our ground crew sergeant in charge of X² and his colleagues required to clean their dirty, oily boilersuits they would wash them in a can of fuel and hang them on the fence behind the aircraft, then when the engines were tested the slipstream would blow dry their clothes. There was usually four or five technicians allocated to each aircraft with either a corporal or sergeant in charge. They were a grand bunch of lads, dedicated and had to work in the open under all various weather conditions from high summer temperatures to severe cold and winter weather conditions. They also had a remarkable collection of spare parts hidden away in their crew hut, which they built up over time from broken Lancasters. This enabled them to carry out repairs and patch up any enemy damage that had been inflicted on the aircraft. This meant that the aircraft could be kept serviceable and ready for action without delay and not having to ground the aircraft while waiting for spares from the stores. 13 [page break] 14 [page break] CHAPTER E OPERATION DATES AND TARGETS [photograph of author] 15 [page break] Operations 101 Squadron 1943-44 Operation – Date - Place 1 - 20th August 1943 - Leverkusen. 2 - 30th-31st August 1943 - Munchen Gladbach. 0 - 31st Aug-1st Sept 1943 - (Abortive) Berlin. Starboard outer feathered, landed on three engines. 3 - 3rd-4th September 1943 - Berlin. Held in searchlights for five minutes. 4 - 23rd-24th September 1943 - Mannheim. 5 - 29th-30th September 1943 - Bochum. 6 - 2nd-3rd October 1943 - Munich. Shot up over Amiens landed Tangmere. 7 - 5th-6th October 1943 - Hanover. 8 - 20th-21st October 1943 - Leipzig. Electrical problems. 9 - 3rd-4th November 1943 - Düsseldorf. 10 - 10th-11th November 1943 - Modane. Fuel shortage, landed Tangmere. 11 - 18th-19th November 1943 - Berlin. 12 - 22nd-23rd November 1943 - Berlin. Rear turret frozen up. 13 - 26th-27th November 1943 - Berlin. 14 - 16th-17th December 1943 - Berlin. Heavy losses fog on return. Many fighter flares around target area. 15 - 20th-21st December 1943 - Frankfurt. 16 - 24-25th December 1943 - Berlin. Rear turret u/s starboard outer feathered. 17 - 29th-30th December 1943 - Berlin. 18 - 1st-2nd January 1944 - Berlin. 19 - 2nd-3rd January 1944 - Berlin. Mug passed out through lack of oxygen. 20 - 5th-6th January 1944 - Stettin. Best photo in bomber command. 21 - 15th-16th January 1944 - Brunswick. 22 - 27th-28th January 1944 - Berlin. 23 - 28th-29th January 1944 - Berlin. 24 - 15th-16th February 1944 - Berlin. 25 - 19th-20th February 1944 - Leipzig. Heaviest losses in group. 26 - 20th-21st February 1944 - Stuttgart. 27 - 24th-25th February 1944 - Schweinfurt. Best photo in group. 28 - 25th-26th February 1944 - Augsburg. 29 - 1st-2nd March 1944 - Stuttgart. 16 [page break] CHAPTER F 101 SQUADRON NOTES ON VARIOUS OPERATIONS In late July 1943 after completing my flight engineer course and joining the other crew members at conversion unit Lindholme near Doncaster, with two other crews we arrived at 101 Squadron based at Ludford Magna. The crews were always known by the name of the pilot and out of the three crews that arrived, two crews had the name of Evans; W L Evans and A H Evans. I was the flight engineer assigned to W L Evans’s crew and had flown with them at conversion unit, however, the records had been mixed up and showed me as flight engineer to A H Evans’s crew. The simplest method of resolving the problem would have been for me to join A H Evans’s crew and the other flight engineer to join W L Evans’s crew. W L Evans, however, said definitely not, I was his engineer and in no way was I not flying in his crew, the records were therefore corrected. For the next three weeks we worked as a crew getting to know each other and familiarising ourselves with the aircraft. When we were told that we were to be on operations we had flown 33 hours in total, 12 of which was night flying. Both crews flew, our first operation was on 22nd-23rd August 1943, the target was Leverkusen. There was of course much excitement among us and especially when at briefing the curtains covering the maps on the wall were opened and we saw the target, we were the new bods not knowing what to expect. We listened carefully to what was being said by the various Heads of Section regarding the weather, hot spots to miss along the route, where fighters could be expected and where flak would be very heavy. Leverkusen was a German town situated in the near proximity of the Ruhr Germany’s main industrial centre, where a high percentage of their heavy equipment was made. The Ruhr had been visited many times and considerable damage carried out which helped delay their war equipment this was an operation to attack specific targets, which would further upset and delay their war effort. After briefing we returned to the mess for a meal, which usually consisted of egg, bacon and chips. Takeoff was scheduled for around 21:30 hours so before that we had to collect our parachutes rations and packet containing money, maps etc to cover the countries over which we would be flying in case we had to bail out. We then changed into flying kit before catching the crew bus out to our aircraft. The next task was to carry out the pre-flying checks on the aircraft, then start the engines. Wally then taxied the aircraft along the perimeter track towards the takeoff runway, waiting in the queue for the aircraft in front to obtain the green light to takeoff. Then our turn, green light given, we turn onto the runway, line up at the end, carry out the formal checks between pilot and engineer. Wally our pilot and skipper then holds on the brake as I open up the four 17 [page break] throttles, pushing the port two slightly ahead of the starboard two, let brake off and feel the aircraft rush along the runway increasing speed rapidly (this was the most exciting part of the operation as far as I was concerned). As the throttles are fully opened and as the end of the runway is nearing, the heavy aircraft laden with fuel and bombs leaves the tarmac behind. Relief. Pilot: “undercarriage up” engineer “undercarriage up, brakes on off”. Pilot “flaps up”, engineer “flaps up”. As the undercarriage and flaps are raised you could feel the plane sink a little before starting to climb. Pilot to navigator: “course and speed, and height”. I would then reduce throttle to minimum revs to produce power sufficient to keep climbing at the speed asked for, then as far as possible synchronise the four engines to cut out unnecessary noise. The noise from four Merlin engines was a noise that you never forget. Taking off and managing to get this large aircraft off the ground safely while possibly carrying two thousand gallons of fuel stored in the wings and a full bomb load under your feet, as I said previous, was always the most exciting part of the operation as far as I was concerned and I always marvelled at Wally’s skills in achieving this without any mishaps. I was always relieved, happy and knew that everything would be all right until we had to do it all again on the next operation. We had no troubles with our landing at base on return from Leverkusen, taxied to our parking space, caught a crew bus which took us to the debriefing room where we received a nice hot cup of tea or coffee with a spot of rum in if wanted. The debriefing consisted of an Intelligence Officer asking a number of questions about what we saw on route, anything unusual, searchlight positions around built up areas, flak, fighter activity. Did we see any planes being shot down and did we see any parachutes appearing and anything else, which may be of interest. We were then able to return to the mess for breakfast. While having breakfast, A H Evans and crew arrived, we had a few words regarding the operation and made our way back to our billet for a few hours sleep, luckily it was coming up to high moon period so for the next ten days there were no operations. The second operation, which both crews were on, was to Munchen Gladbach on 30th and 31st August, we had another fairly quiet trip without any problems and landed safely on time at Base. We heard that two planes were late, one of which was A H Evans, we held on at breakfast hoping to hear some news. News came through that a SR Lancaster had landed further south due to fuel shortage, it turned out not to be A H Evans and crew. The following day we heard the dreaded news that A H Evans’s crew was reported missing and presumably shot down. This was later confirmed. This was a new experience for us to know that seven young men who we had been friendly with, even for a short time, were no longer around. The engineer had come through the same training as myself – mechanic course fitters course at Blackpool – followed by flight engineers course at St Athans, then crewing up at Lindholme. He was slightly older than myself therefore not in my squad although I did know him on the course to say hello, and as you know both crews joined 101 Squadron on the same day and I almost changed places with him. The same routine was followed each time we took off and continued to be the most anxious time and possibly the most scary and nervous moments of each operation. We soon realised that each operation was different with its own hazards and that flying over Europe for however short or long a period, it was a very dangerous and frightening place to be. 18 [page break] The normal procedure for all aircraft after takeoff was to start to gain height, circling the area until reaching a height of around 10,000 ft before setting course for the target. Around the Lincoln area there were at least 20 airfields, each with at least 20 aircraft flying on each operation, that was why the residents living in the area knew when operations were on by the noise of 400 planes all circling to gain height. Once a course was set we tried to reach a height of at least 15,000 ft before crossing the enemy coast. There were certain things that we had no control over such as the weather, the conditions on route could be quite different from that forecasted. Increased wind speeds, a tail wind instead of a nose wind, these affected the navigator greatly who was trying to stay on route and be at a certain point within the time space of the operation. More so with 101 Squadron, responsible to give protection by using ABC over the full length of the operation. Thunderstorms and heavy clouds could also cause icing up of the engine air intakes and front edge of the wings (remember temperatures could be as low as -20°) and if not dealt with could cause engine failure. Fog, however, was the most serious problem, thick fog in the UK on return. Blanket fog so thick it was impossible to see anything from the air or the ground, this caused heavy losses of aircraft as returning from flying with low fuel levels, trying to find a landing ground was impossible, for many resulting in heavy losses in aircraft and crews. Conditions improved slightly when FIDO was installed on some runways. There were hazards from conditions which crews did not expect as the Met weather forecasts had given much more favourable conditions, otherwise we should not have been flying. As soon as we flew over the Dutch coastline we expected to be greeted by flak and if ground conditions were good by enemy fighters, depending on the operations route, flak could be very heavy and accurate especially round the towns and cities. Searchlights then also came into play especially those with the strong blue coloured lights. If caught by one of these it was almost impossible to lose them they were also radar controlled by anti-aircraft guns, which were especially accurate and many aircraft became casualties. There was also a fair risk of collision bearing in mind that on the route to the target there were possibly between 400 and 600 large aircraft (100 ft wingspan) all travelling in the same direction at the same time, making for the same point and expected to be over the target all within the space of 20 minutes or less (granted there would be a range of heights between some, possibly within a band of 2,000 ft). Think of it as 600 cars travelling along a motorway all doing 70 miles per hour, all expecting to pass point ‘A’ at between 01:00 and 01:20 hours. If congestion occurred the car driver would see and would slow down, there was no way of changing lane or slowing in an aircraft. It was therefore very clear to us as a crew early on that flying over Europe was a very dangerous and frightening place to be and if we were to succeed we had to work as a team, be alert all the time whether for two hours or eight hours. This we managed fairly well, we recognised that the safest place to be was in the middle of the concentration along the route. It was usually those who had strayed off course that were picked off by fighters or became casualties by flak. Our navigator Jimmy was therefore a very important member of the crew (he was an exceptionally good navigator) the rest of the crew could also help him which we did if conditions were clear telling him of certain markers, such as there is heavy flak ahead to 11 o’clock, or we are just passing over a river with a railway line and road alongside or such like information. He could then take action if necessary and give a change of course to Wally our pilot, or if we had a strong tail wind ask me to reduce speed slightly. So we had two-way conversation 19 [page break] between key members such as navigator, bomb aimer, pilot and engineer but only with reference to the operation in hand. The rear and mid upper gunners role was to continually scour the sky by rotating from side to side in their turrets, with one turning to starboard the other turning to port, the bomb aimer controlled the front myself had the only view to watch the gunners and watch ahead and to the sides, while the bomb aimer carried out his other work such as dropping window or preparing for his bombing run, therefore we were fairly well covered. If another aircraft came close or overhead, or below us on our bombing run a crewmember could give the alarm. If a fighter was seen and showing interest then mostly the gunners gave the alarm “fighter starboard, 2 o’clock, dive now!”. Wally would dive immediately and carry out a corkscrew manoeuvre then return on to normal course, this usually worked. If for any reason I could see the gunner’s turrets not moving I would give them a call, only once was it necessary to take further action (this is recorded later) usually they were just having a short rest or such like. Fuel was also a concern, petrol was rationed throughout the UK as most of the supplies had to be imported, therefore fuel for aircraft was also closely regulated on Lancasters to 200 gallons per hour flying time. Therefore if the estimated time for an operation was seven hours, fuel allocated was 1,400 gallons plus 200 extra, a total of 1,600 gallons. The flight engineer therefore did have some control; it was dependent on how efficient he was in regulating the engines (similar to driving, there are good drivers and not so good drivers). The Lancaster had six fuel tanks, three in each wing with the small tank on the outside of the wing which could only be pumped into the middle tank, the other two on each wing could be used in tandem or individually to feed the engines. It was the engineer’s responsibility to use the fuel distribution the most successful way so that whatever happened the maximum fuel was available to keep the engines running. To such ends I fully used the centre tanks each fuelling the two engines on port and starboard when sufficient was used pump tank fuel into tank two, then using fuel evenly from the other two tanks to supply the port and starboard engines. If anything unforeseen happened such as a tank being damaged from enemy flak or fighter guns, the minimum fuel loss would occur and I could re-adjust my method of usage by opening and closing valves. All engines could be run from one of the four tanks, this meant keeping a log and recording every ten or fifteen minutes. It was also necessary to record engine temperatures and oil pressure and with experience listening to the noise of the engines could give a good indication of how efficient they were running. Fuel could be saved by making sure that, when possible, the engine revs could be reduced and that other control on the aircraft such as flaps, etc were being used at optimum levels. This saving in fuel could be the difference between touching down safely or not, on the odd occasion when fuel loss occurred from a leaking tank or when on reaching the base area it was under thick fog and extra flying was necessary to find a suitable landing site. Life on the base was very mixed, flying on operations was usually carried out during the dark nights of the moon and these two weeks could be hectic, operations could be on two consecutive nights resulting in our crew getting to bed at around 05:00 hours and then having to be ready for pre-briefing and head of section meetings, followed by main briefing at 15:00 to 16:00 hours and once again ready for takeoff by 21:30 hours. Other times operations could be scheduled and then cancelled because of possibly extreme weather 20 [page break] conditions over the UK or over the target area. The dark nights were therefore a continual case of being ready to fly when called upon. The period of high moon was more relaxing. Training and practice still had to be carried out such as bombing practice for Eric; this was carried out on targets set in the North Sea a few miles off shore. Gun practice for Len and Bill carried out on a moving target towed behind a small plane off the coastline. The station had an excellent gym where one could keep fit which was essential and a very good library of general reading material and technical information. I also spent a considerable amount of time on the simulator improving my flying skills and landing procedures, also the period when crews could have some leave. I always travelled home on these occasions. We were on base during the autumn (harvest time) as a crew we decided to help the local farmer with stocking and collecting his grain crops as our accommodation Nissen huts were situated near to the farmstead, in return he offered us a pile of fire wood to keep our stove lit during the colder nights as the coke ration was rather limited. Ludford Magna was a small village supporting two pubs, a post office and a small but very nice church during the 11 months, which I spent at the base. I had never been in either of the pubs. I had attended the church service on a number of occasions. The Women’s Institute also ran a small unit situated on the main street where one could obtain a nice cup of tea and a cake, also within a mile radius there were two small cafes which crew members frequently visited during the day for a tea and a bun. During off flying periods we as a crew fairly regularly visited the Kings Head Hotel in Louth where we had a meal. Crewmembers also received generous leave, seven days approximately every 6‑8 weeks depending on weather and operation timing. We had extra rations of chocolate, vitamin tablets and cigarettes. On leave from Ludford I always travelled home to Aberdour in Fife, Scotland. It was a long, slow journey, going on leave we usually managed to go by transport from the base then catch a train at Louth to Grantham where we could catch the train on the main line travelling between London and Edinburgh. This was usually an overnight train and usually very packed by other military personnel doing the same. The train usually reached Edinburgh during the night or very early morning then another wait to catch a train to Aberdour. The conditions occurred on the return journey unfortunately the train reached Louth early in the morning when no such transport was available; it was then a seven mile walk back to base. Leave was a time to catch up with family and friends and especially to catch up with sleep and to chill out and rest. I said earlier that we did have good rations of sweets, chocolates and cigarettes which I usually was able to take some home. During the winter 1943/44 we had several days of heavy snow and naturally this added to the mud when it melted, it also meant that to keep operational the runways and perimeter tracks had to be cleared of snow, every available person, air crews and ground crews, armed with spades and shovels turned out to clear the snow. We were treated with the odd drop of rum to keep the cold out and our spirits up, and to keep us digging. Our billet nissen huts had snowdrifts around them, these Nissen huts were unlined and in bad weather there was considerable condensation inside and this used to run in the corrugations of the sheeting and if the temperature was cold enough, it would freeze. We did have heating in the form of a round pot stove with chimney from top of the stove up through 21 [page break] the roof. Coal or anthracite was the main fuel, it was of course rationed and in short supply. There were raids between huts to obtain extra supplies. The odd chair went missing along with any spare pieces of wood to help out. If you were lucky and had sufficient supply to completely fill up the stove and get it and part of the chimney extremely hot then it would keep the hut warm until the next morning. During the summer the problems were different, it was earwigs that would climb up the inside of the huts and occasionally drop into beds. I remember one of our crew members, I can’t remember who, while sleeping an earwig crawled into his ear and he had to pay a visit to the MO to have it removed. Field mice could also cause annoyance. 22 [page break] NOTES ON VARIOUS OPERATIONS Operation 3 3rd/4th September 1943 Target: Berlin We had a reasonably quiet trip keeping clear of the various hot spots on route and staying well on course, searchlights were many on the approach to the target with some very powerful blue lights. As we prepared for our bombing run we got caught by one of these powerful lights and no matter what we did we could not lose it, and if we did a further light caught on to us. We were flying at 22,000 ft; Wally decided the best manoeuvre was to put the aircraft into a power dive and loose [sic] height quickly. After four minutes we were down to 18,000 ft and still dazzled by its glare just then a Halifax, which was flying at a much lower altitude, drifted across under us and the light caught on to it, then the Halifax completely exploded. It had received the full blast possibly intended for us. These blue searchlights and guns were radar controlled and worked together. We reached the target and bombed at the lower level then set for home and had a quiet trip back to base. We were a bit shaken up by what had happened to the Halifax and in future made a mental note to keep well clear of blue searchlights. The navigator noted in his log the position of this light so if possible it could be targeted for special attention. Operation 6 (705 hours) 2nd-3rd October 1943 Target: Munich Takeoff time for the operation was 18:45 hours. For us as a crew this was a quiet trip, we had no problems with enemy fighters, searchlights were few and by keeping strictly on course found no problems with ack-ack. We reached the target on time, bombed and started on our way home still without any troubles, then as we thought we were doing well without warning we were shot up by anti aircraft guns near the town of Amiens which caught the underside of the body of the aircraft and along the wings. From this we developed a fuel leak. In trying to evade further damage from the anti aircraft guns Wally put the aircraft into a power dive at around 21,000 ft, trying to pull it out took Wally and myself great strength pulling on the control column, we were down to 5,000 ft when we finally levelled out. On inspecting the aircraft at Tangmere we found that many of the rivets on the lower side of the wings had been stripped open owing to the strain on the wings caused by the speed in diving, and counted over 80 holes of various sizes along the body and wings however after refuelling the following day we decided the aircraft was airworthy and safe enough to fly back to base where we could have repairs carried out quickly. Mac was not amused when he saw the Lanc X not X² but was pleased that we had brought it back safely for his team to repair it. 23 [page break] Operation 8 19th/20th October Target: Berlin During the week previously I had been told that more new Lancasters would be arriving at base and the one with X² as its recognition number would be allocated to our crew and from then on for our use on operations. Up until that date we operated on whichever aircraft was available. Mac, a ground engineer (Sergeant) had arrived on the station in July, until now he was a spare engineer, X² became his charge for all servicing and repairs. We struck up a great relationship between us and after each operation, as soon as possible I would contact Mac and tell him of any problems which we had experienced during the flight. I was thrilled to think I would be the only person operating these engines and I could nurse then [sic] whenever possible and be reasonably sure that they had not been misused for no good reason. Mac had warned me that because of the lack of time, the aircraft had been checked and was serviceable, however, he and his team had not yet had the time to check all electrical and hydraulic circuits. Takeoff was 17:30 hours and all went well until I retracted the undercarriage, it appeared to lift ok but the warning lights indicated that it had not fully locked. We proceeded to circle and climb and as we reached the Dutch coastline Nobby, our wireless operator, was having problems with his equipment, I then had a temperature gauge on one of the engines reading an excessively high temperature. The engine appeared to be working satisfactorily, however, we were still only a short time into our operation. I was concerned what may continue to happen and without radio contact we could have a problem. We still had a full bomb load on board and high levels of fuel, under these conditions we could not return to base and land without losing our bombs. Wally was in agreement with Jimmy our navigator, they decided that they would set course for Texel and drop our bombs on the installation there. This we did then returned to base. As we had no contact with ground control we landed without permission. On return before landing, however, we dropped our undercarriage and as the lights were not showing we did do a shallow dive with a quick pull up, this jerked the undercarriage down and all was well. The problems were resolved, the pressure gauge was faulty, meaning the undercarriage was not fully engaging because of limited pressure on the hydraulics. Operation 10 11th/12th November 1943 Target: Modane Normally as we have said previously operations were usually carried out during the nights when there was no moon. This was full moon; a beautiful bright night with clear skies which meant that aircraft flying could be seen for great distances. We had no trouble in reaching the target with little or no opposition from enemy fighters, searchlights or flak. Even on the way home it was trouble free and we could see and watch the marvellous sights of the high mountains as we passed over them and then without notice flying over Amiens a blue searchlight ‘coned’ us, immediately followed by heavy and accurate ack-ack fire which burst very close to us, causing some damage to the underside of the aircraft and to one of the fuel tanks, luckily no crew member was injured. 24 [page break] This was not a great problem it only meant isolating the tank involved, eventually causing a fuel shortage. I said we would not have sufficient fuel to reach base, so Jimmy (our navigator) gave Wally a course for Tangmere in South England where we landed. On checking we found that the aircraft was not too badly damaged around 50 holes of various sizes along the underside of the fuselage and two holes in the side and front window where a piece of shrapnel entered in and out again, as well as cutting a hole in the sleeve of my flying jacket. This I did not know until I was removing my jacket. The following morning we refuelled and returned to base. Operation 14 (Black Thursday) 16th-17th December 1943 Target: Berlin This was supposed to be a very quiet trip as reported at briefing in the late afternoon. The weather was so bad over Europe that no fighters would be able to fly therefore the route would be straight to the capital Berlin, and straight back out – should be a very easy journey, unfortunately things did not turn out this way. As we crossed over the Dutch coast the weather took a dramatic change and instead of cloud and thick fog, conditions were good for flying and the fighters which were supposed to be sitting on the ground were flying on strength and interrupting the bomber stream, and we noted a few running battles and a number of aircraft being shot down. Within a short time it was clear that this was going to be a night to remember. The attacks continued all the way to the target, fortunately we remained clear of any trouble except for seeing the odd fighter going in the opposite direction. There was the usual heavy concentration of searchlights and heavy activity of ack ack over the target creating a heavy barrage. We bombed on target and set on our route for home, this proved uneventful for us although we did see a few fighter battles being continued. The weather by this time was beginning to close in with much more low cloud as a result Wally decided to carry out a gentle decent, reaching the coastline at around 2,000 ft and by this time we knew that there would be trouble with low cloud and fog. We were alerted by base that Ludford was fog-bound and that we should proceed to Driffield, this was when it became very difficult. By now all the crewmembers were active in trying to find any ground markers all with little success, Eric who was still in his front position shouted “pull up Wally – I’ve just seen a barrage balloon”. Jimmy quietly informed us we must be over Hull, I’ll use this as a reference check. By now we had been in the air for 7 1/2 hours and from my calculations our fuel was becoming in short supply. Nobby (wireless operator): “I’m picking up a signal” RT messages from Dishforth and Catfoss but they could see no lights through the fog. Then Catfoss offered to put a light on for us, they, however, realised that we were very low and put the beam aimed parallel to the ground. Presumably, because of the light what Wally and I saw was a farmhouse and buildings, we both acted simultaneously, Wally pulled the control unit full back, I slammed the throttle fully open, luckily I had been flying with the engine booster pumps on so there was no delay in the engines producing full power. As the power emerged we somehow managed to lift the aircraft over the buildings we must have been only feet away from the ground because as the 25 [page break] aircraft pulled up the tail wheel clipped the farm entrance gate, I think that it must be true to say that the beam of light from Catfoss saved our lives. Wally: “How much fuel have we left?” My reply, ”Very little, what should we do?” Jimmy: “Take course for base and try to land there”. We decided to return to base and as luck would have it Eric caught a brief glimpse of something he recognised followed by a few sodium lights of the outer ring lights and as we circled round Wally said “I think I will go round again as I will then have a better chance of landing”. “No” I said, “we do not have the fuel for that”. So with some quick manoeuvring he managed to bring the aircraft back on course. Unfortunately, as I have said previously there are so many airfields in Lincolnshire that the outer perimeter lights cross over each other and this is what happened to us because we were flying so low we managed to pick up the occasional light expecting it still to be the lights for Ludford. Unfortunately we had crossed over and unbeknown to us were travelling on the lights for Wickenby. On having a glimpse of the runway lights Wally turned in and asked for permission to land thinking it was Ludford, Ludford control said yes but we can’t see you. We landed safely part way down the runway the fog was still very thick. Wally to control: “We have landed but fog too thick to see”. Control: “You have not landed where are you?”. Wally and I looked at each other “Wally we have haven’t we?” Then a further voice came on, this is control Wickenby we think you have landed here “who are you?” Wally told them and asked them to give directions. Leave the aircraft where it is, we think it is still on the runway, we will send transport to collect you when we find you. After 20 minutes a crew bus collected us and eventually dropped us off at the mess where we had a meal and it was Wickenby. Wickenby was a wartime base similar to Ludford and with similar living accommodation. We were given a nissen hut where we had a cold bed. As we were extremely tired after our ordeal we had a good sleep. We woke up to a much better day and there on the runway was Lancaster X² just where we abandoned it. I arranged for fuel and a starter trolley to be delivered, prior to refuelling Wally and I started the engines, carried out the pre-flying checks. The engines fired up and ran for 2 to 3 minutes then began spluttering and then stopped. We had run out of fuel, the decision not to go round again was the correct decision. Mac our ground engineer and his staff were there to meet us on our return and gave hand signals in order to park up on our parking point. Mac said: “where have you been” and gave me a big hug. “I think I heard the old girl last night and we came running out hoping to see her, I’m sure it was her she has a noise all of her own, a sweeter, quieter noise”. However, when we checked the time we thought that we must have been mistaken because we were sure that she did not have the fuel to last that time. Then we heard that a Lancaster had crashed on the rising ground hear [sic] Louth so we then went to bed – none of our aircraft landed last night, apparently they are scattered across the east side of England as they are from all the other bases round about. “Is she ok?” Mac asked. “Yes” I say. “You might however check over the engine booster pumps as they were used a lot last night”. Mac: “What’s happened to the cowlings around the tail wheel?” Me: “Oh, give the tail wheel mounting a good inspection Mac”. Mac “Why, what happened, surely Wally didn’t do this on landing, he usually lands on the main wheel first”. Me “No, we hit a gate”. Mac “You what? You hit a gate, why didn’t you open it first!” Mac: “Yes, will check her over and make her ready for tonight if required”. Fortunately the fog again returned with poor visibility, it was 4 days before we flew again and then the operation was Frankfurt. 26 [page break] We found out later that out of the 483 Lancasters that flew that night 25 were lost over Europe from a combination of attack from night fighters, flak and collisions. Another 29 Lancasters from crashes, which occurred due to the thick fog conditions experienced around the airfield on returning home and trying to land. Mac also confessed that he and his engineers were completely fed up with the time they had spent working on the carburetting on the engines, ensuring that the fuel taken up by the engines was the least possible and me insisting that they check the volume over and over again until no more could be done. He now agreed that all the effort made now paid off as if not there was no way that she could have kept flying for that period of time (8 hours 30 minutes) and he said thank you. Each aircraft carried seven crewmembers, 101 Squadron aircraft carried eight crewmembers. On the attached page there is a paragraph which Len Brooks, our rear gunner told his recollection of the night’s events due to the fog. Considering the events of that night in a rational way it is difficult to believe what happened could have happened with a satisfactory ending. We had travelled across Europe direct to Berlin and back escaping enemy fighters, flash lights and enemy ack ack fire without mishaps, only to arrive back in Lincolnshire to find all the eastern side of the UK that the cloud base had almost reached ground level. Base diverted us to Driffield and we found ourselves over Hull and among barrage balloons. We were flying low to try to find some marker which we could relate to such as outer ring lighting or runway lighting, as there were a number of airfields in that area. Nobby our wireless operator said I’m picking up RT messages from Driffield, Dishforth and Catfoss but they could not see us because of the fog. Catfoss offered to put a light up for us realising we were so low, their beam was almost parallel to the ground. How was it that the beam came on at that precise moment? How was it that we acted so quickly with the control column and obtained such a quick response from the engines? The aircraft must have climbed at 40‑45% because as the power took over the tail wheel caught the gate leading into the farmhouse, meaning that the aircraft was at most four feet from ground (travelling at 150 miles per hour), this meant covering the ground at 88 ft per second. The time we had to clear the farmhouse and building was less than one second, how could that happen? We know what Len Brooks said, he felt the power from the engines and looked down and saw the chickens in the farmyard scampering away from their coupes denoting that the aircraft had climbed exceptionally quickly. How did the aircraft pull itself up and over a two storey building in such a short distance? What would the consequences of been had the aircraft not made it? How many people were in the house; farmer’s wife and family? How many children? In fact what was their experience of it, did they sleep through it or were they very scared? We don’t know. How many animals were in the steading, was there a milking herd of 20 to 30 cows? The destruction could have been tremendous, as it was no one was injured as far as we know. We gained some height; Jimmy gave Wally a course back to base. Why was it just at that precise moment that the fog thinned to allow Eric to recognise an object followed by the sodium lights of the base outer circle? Wally saying that he thought he should go round again, I say no we haven’t the fuel, Wally doing an unconventional manoeuvre to bring the aircraft back on course and immediately picking out further lights of the outer ring. However, by this time we had left Ludford outer ring and crossed over onto Wickenby outer ring. We kept on circling round very low to keep lights in sight and luckily spotted the runway lights 27 [page break] and landing part way along the runway thinking we had landed at base surprised to find it was Wickenby we had landed at, then being told to abandon the plane where it was on the runway. Had we been directed to taxi off the runway and round the perimeter track to a conventional parking area I think the engines would have cut out on the way giving all the crew a complete shock. As it was it was only myself and Wally who realised the seriousness of the situation when we started the engines the following morning. As I said earlier this was supposed to be a very uneventful operation, in and out of Europe. The average trip to Berlin was around 7 1/2 hours flying time, fuel 1,750 gallons, this I consider could have been estimated at around 7 hours maximum flying time, 1,700 gallons. I realise that I was always considered better at conserving fuel than most engineers however, how did our aircraft manage to stay airborne for 8 1/2 hours and give out as soon as we touched down. This turned out to be a very exciting but frightening night, how was it that we managed to avoid the various objects we encountered and still managed to bring X² back safely. This was an episode that as a crew we never talked about. Operation 16 24th/25th December Target: Berlin Takeoff time if I remember correctly was early evening in order that we should reach the target before midnight. On board each aircraft was a mix of various bombs, high explosive, incendiaries and delayed timed bombs triggered to explode on Christmas Day. It was an uneventful night for us, keeping our place on route, seeing some ack-ack activity aimed at those aircraft, which strayed off route and seeing the occasional night fighter gun tracers streak across the dark sky. We reached the target on time and Eric was preparing for his bombing run when I noticed that the oil temperature gauge on the outer starboard engine was reading very high. I had to decide the best action, normally on the bombing run I would be on lookout watching for other aircraft approaching us from above or below us and was all the other spare members of crew, it was critical to have maximum look out because of the concentration of aircraft all making for the same point. Many collisions occurred in these situations; damage could also take place by aircraft flying above by dropping their bombs without watching what was below. I said “Wally, feathering starboard outer”. Wally to Eric: “Cancel bombing run, engine feathered, have adjusted revs on other engine”. Jimmy: “Wally take course so-and-so and go round again”. This was a very difficult and dangerous decision to take as our aircraft would be on an entirely different direction from all other aircraft and exposed to enemy fighters. We as a crew had previously discussed what we should do in the event of something like this happening, the conclusion was that after flying all this way to the target our first priority was to put our bombs on the target, so any distraction must be remedied first before the bombing run was made. Hitting the target was the only reason for being there. Eric carried out his bombing and the result was that the bombs scored a direct hit, this was confirmed from a self-operating camera situated in the bomb bay and rolled when the bomb doors were opened. 28 [page break] Afterwards we set off on our return run on three engines but because of limited power instead of holding our 20,000 ft altitude Wally and I decided to make a gradual descent, passing over the enemy coast at 5,000 ft and making our way direct to base on the instruction given by Jimmy our navigator. The engine proved to be suffering from a faulty gauge, this, however, we had no way of knowing and had it been an engine seize up and possibly resulted in an engine fire, we could have been in serious problems being an easy target for enemy fighters. Wally made a very professional landing on three engines, of course he always did make a good landing in the dark, it was during daylight that he always had a few Kangaroo jumps before rolling along the runway. Operation 19 2nd/3rd January 1944 Target: Berlin I would expect that everyone would experience fear on a number of times during their lifetime being frightened is nothing to be ashamed of. Fear can be brought on instantly by such things as an explosion, a fire or such like, then fear can turn to panic. Controlled fear can be felt when one expects that they are likely to die, on the motorway getting caught up in an accident when cars are travelling at speed. Our crew experienced such emotions once when on operations over Berlin when our Lancaster was hit by ack-ack fire, which exploded very close to us and caused severe damage to the fuselage from shrapnel, also causing loss of all communication. After checking all engines and fuel supplies, and assessing for any further damage I realised that Bill’s (our mid-upper gunner) turret was stationary with no signs of movement from him. I knew that something must be wrong so I touched Wally gave the thumbs up and pointed towards the rear. I collected a portable oxygen bottle and on the way through the aircraft I touched Nobby on the arm and signalled him to follow me. True enough Bill was not in his turret, with the light from my torch we found him trying to open the fuselage rear door and in his panic he had no parachute with him. He seemed very strong and determined to leave the aircraft. The only way to prevent this happening was to hit him with the oxygen bottle. We were able to man handle him back to the rest bed. When giving him the oxygen bottle he began sucking it like a baby, we made him comfortable with a blanket then returned to our positions. This episode had taken over 30 minutes at probably the most dangerous period of any operation over the target with lights being shone from the torch and loss of lookout crewmembers (mid-gunner and myself). Luckily the aircraft was not too badly damaged between 40 to 50 holes along the fuselage. In early January Bill reported sick, which meant that we required a mid upper gunner, Dave who had lost his crew was looking to join a new crew, so he joined our crew and flew with us until we completed our tour of operations. 29 [page break] Operation 28 25th-26th February 1944 Target: Augsburg I have little recognition of what happened on this trip, it however was of great importance because this was the first time on any operation that Lancasters had been fitted with 2 x 0.5 guns in the rear turret instead of the 4 x 0.303 guns. Furthermore it was only 101 Squadron who had them. These turrets were made by a small local company from Gainsborough and designed in conjunction with 101 Squadron’s technicians; this gave the Lancaster a much greater firepower. At briefing it was announced that six aircraft, which included our X², were fitted with 0.5 guns and that crews should take the initiative and attack fighters rather than take evasive action. All I remember of what must have been relatively quiet was that the 101 Lancasters that were carrying the new turrets and firing at the fighters, it was the fighters that were taking evasive action and as the fighters were unaware that only a few aircraft were fitted with these much more effective guns. Over the next few operations there was much less fighter activity which was much less effective. On a number of operations as well as dropping window we also dropped leaflets, the leaflets were typed in German and gave information as to how the war was progressing (propaganda information). All operations were usually carried out at twenty thousand feet plus for Lancasters, other types of aircraft would bomb at slightly lower heights because of the thin air at above 10,000 ft. Oxygen had to be taken through masks and also because of the altitude temperatures could drop to as low as -20o, so much so if you touched any metal part of the fuselage with your bare hand it could stick to the metal and because of condensation one had to free the ice from your mask frequently. Operation 29 1st-2nd March 1944 Target: Stuttgart (8 hours 10 minutes) During the 1930s and 40s the winters could be very severe with long periods of frost and snow. March 1944 commenced with heavy and prolonged snowfall resulting in Ludford runway being covered in over 8 ft of snow which had to be cleared before flying could continue. At that time there was no heavy snow clearing equipment available, only the normal tractors that were on site, therefore to move the snow every person on the station not on duty was put on snow clearing. The aircraft standing points were cleared first so that ground crews could operate then the task of clearing the main runway commenced spades and shovels were the tools of the day. Generally I think everyone enjoyed it with plenty of high jinks and laughing, many snowmen being made along the runway edges. Operations were ordered for that night 1st March therefore the runway had to be ready for takeoff by 16:00 hours. It was crucial that 101 Squadron was available because we were the only Squadron operating CIGAR a jamming device which prevented German radar from 30 [page break] contacting their fighters to give them instructions. Bomber Command refused to fly without 101 Squadron’s aircraft. It was determined that the runway would not be fully cleared, however, if four hundred yards were ready aircraft could take off with a light fuel load, fly to the neighbouring airfield Wickenby, fully fuel and bomb up there. Briefing took place mid afternoon; flying was laid on for 16:00 hours. We were the first plane off without trouble, a further two followed, the fourth didn’t make it on the cleared runway part, ploughed into the snow and skidded off the runway closing it. This meant that four of 101 Squadron’s aircraft carrying CIGAR were available. On the operation the aircraft were spread out along the route covering the period of the raid. (ie approximately five minutes apart) Our aircraft was fuelled and bombed-up at Wickenby and took off among the planes from Wickenby. The operation as far as we were concerned was quiet, with few fighters, no troubles. We bombed on time and returned for home crossing the Dutch coast at around 10,000 ft, then continued to base Wickenby, then de-briefed, had breakfast and then to bed. We stayed at Wickenby for two more days before we could return to Ludford. On our return our Squadron Commander told us that we had completed our tour of operations and since the squadron moved to Ludford we were the only crew that had achieved that, so he didn’t want to test our luck any further. The following two days were spent testing the new rear turret with the 2 x .5 guns under various flying conditions, including high level flying at 25,000+ ft and it proved to be equally good under all conditions. Five days later we all went on leave, this was the break up of the crew after which none of us met again, during the war that’s how things happened. Before going on leave I went to see Mac to tell him the situation. “Can’t you stay?” he asked “where are you being posted to?”. “I think I may be posted to Lindholme as an instructor”. “Why can’t you stay here then and instruct here? I will miss you, you’ve taught me more about carburettors and how they work. I know I told you you were a pain in the neck to my chaps, you demanding that they check and monitor the engines performance to obtain maximum fuel savings. I will continue to carry out your instructions and to see if I can help save other crew’s lives as we have just recently experienced on X²”. “If you do a further operation tour, come back here and I will try to look after your aircraft again for you, all the best, good flying”. Operation Highlights I have highlighted only a few of our more exciting operations, many of which have been written about and described by other aircrew presumably because these were the operations which for some reason caught the headlines and probably they were the crew members which survived. It must be remembered, however, that every operation had its dangers. The fact that the aircraft flew over enemy territory was a dangerous place to be, with it being usually in darkness and with anywhere up to 600 aircraft plus on many occasions, all making for the 31 [page break] same target within a time limit of between 30 to 60 minutes alone had its dangers and problems. When I say that we had a quiet trip this usually meant that our crew had no major problems and every member carried out his duties as an individual and as a team member. This did not mean that minor problems did not occur such as the rear turret freezing up causing problems for Len (rear gunner) from severe cold and lack of visibility or wireless operator loosing [sic] contact with base or even Wally and myself with ice forming on the wing edges from travelling through cloud. On one occasion the whole crew suffering because of being caught up in a thunderstorm, the aircraft being thrown about like a toy, falling immediately to 1,000 ft and back up again, something that no one had any control over. Cold was a further concern; the temperature could fall as low as -20 to 30oC below zero. The metal of the aircraft if you touched it with your bare hand, the skin could stick to it therefore gloves had always to be worn. There was warm air circulated throughout the aircraft this was controlled from a duct situated near to the wireless operator’s station and at times should he become very warm would turn it down. Oxygen masks were also worn as above ten thousand feet oxygen was necessary and it was a continual task to have to remove the ice from your mask, as it built up due to the moisture created from breathing. As you can imagine the gunner being isolated from the main cabin area suffered even more. The enemy could also cause a few problems on route. Fighters had an advantage over the heavier, slower bombers and the fact that bombers had four engines creating a fair amount of exhaust flame and light made it easy for the fighters to see us. Generally if a fighter was spotted by the gunners in time it was safest to take evasive action. The action would come say from the rear gunner ‘fighter 3 o’clock approaching’ following ‘dive, dive to port’. The skipper would immediately throw the aircraft into a dive and do a corkscrew manoeuvre, regaining back on his normal course. This generally worked; it was the fighter which was not spotted by the lookouts which caused the problem as they would normally attack from below the rear of the aircraft strafing the fuselage with bullets. Search lights. The normal searchlight could be a problem for aircraft at lower levels and were situated around most towns, cities and industrial sites, however, there was another much more dangerous blue searchlight, much brighter which could penetrate to much higher altitudes and operated in conjunction with anti aircraft guns. Being caught by one of these was an unfortunate experience and usually resulted in severe damage or the loss of the aircraft. We on one occasion suffered this experience, the blue light locked on to us and no matter whatever we did it was impossible, after about three minutes Wally decided to put the aircraft into a controlled dive to loose [sic] height, as we did so a Halifax aircraft which was operating at a much lower height came across our track. The anti aircraft guns operating in conjunction with the searchlight opened up and the Halifax just blew up. We had a lucky escape. As I said some anti aircraft guns operated in conjunction with searchlights, however, the bulk of them were situated around towns and cities and created a heavy barrack in order to keep the bombers from bombing at low levels, the result could be seen and occasionally heard, and on one occasion over Amiens felt. Returning from Modane on a bright moonlit night without warning this small unit of guns opened up and a shell exploded very close to us, fortunately not causing any injuries to the crew. Shrapnel caused damage to the fuel lines causing a leak in the pipe and holes appeared 32 [page break] in the fuselage, and along the wings and side windscreen of the aircraft. We made an emergency landing at Tangmere in South England and on inspection found over 100 various size holes along the length of the fuselage and wings. The piece of shrapnel that hit the windscreen had entered through the starboard side unbeknown to me had ripped through my flying jacket sleeve and gone out through the front window, again, lady luck was with us. 33 [page break] Log Book and Operations Record Book (Battle Orders) Every crew member kept a log book showing every date, time and flying details carried out. I have copied some pages which correspond to copies of the Squadron’s battle orders, referring to operations 14, 15, 16 and 17 as detailed in my log book. 34 [page break] [page from authors logbook] [underlined] TOTAL FLYING HOURS NOVEMBER 101 SDN [/underlined] [underlined] DAY [/underlined] 3 hrs 30 mins [underlined] NIGHT [/underlined] 39 hrs 45 mins [underlined] TOTAL 43 hrs 15 mins [/underlined] DECEMBER 16 – Lanc III X2 – WO EVANS – FE – 14 OPS – [underlined] BERLIN [/underlined] QUIET TRIP – HEAVY LOSSES – FOG ON RETURN LANDED AT WICKENBY – 8 hrs 30 mins. 20 – Lanc III X2 – WO EVANS – FE– 15 OPS – [underlined] FRANKFURT [/underlined] MANY FIGHTER FLARES AROUND TARGET AREA – 5 hrs 50 mins. 24 – Lanc III X2 – WO EVANS – FE– 16 OPS – [underlined] BERLIN [/underlined] REAR TURRET U/S STRB OUTER FEATHERED – 7 hrs 10 mins. 28 – Lanc III X2 – WO EVANS – FE– 17 OPS – [underlined] BERLIN [/underlined] 6 hrs 40 mins. [underlined] TOTAL FLYING HOURS [/underlined] [underlined] DAY [/underlined] 0 hrs 0 mins [underlined] NIGHT [/underlined] 28 hrs 10 mins [underlined] TOTAL 28 hrs 10 mins [/underlined] [underlined] DECEMBER 101 SDN [/underlined] [signature] OC ‘C’ FLT. 35 [page break] [indecipherable page] 36 [page break] [indecipherable page] 37 [page break] [indecipherable page] 38 [page break] [indecipherable page] 39 [page break] 40 [page break] CHAPTER G CHRISTMAS 1943 I always thought of Christmas as a time for giving and receiving, a time of joy and happiness, a time for families to come and meet and join in the happiness of the event. It was of course a time to remember, to consider ones relationship with family, friends and others and how relationships could be improved. Christmas 1943 was different; it was a time of anxiety and many other emotions, anxiety not only for the crewmembers but more so for the folks at home. Before joining the RAF we lived in a small village where everyone knew each other. There was three of us in the forces, my older sister Jean, my brother Sandy and myself, living at home with my mother our two younger sisters Betty and Mary. So quite often my mother would be stopped in the street and asked how one of us was getting along, furthermore she had received a telegram stating that I had not returned from an operation and that further information would be forwarded when received (one must remember that at that time (1943) telephones were a luxury so the only method of communication was by the Post Office. Christmas 1943 was also the first Christmas that we had not all been at home). The ground crews also had similar feelings when waiting for their aircraft to return from an operation and then the relief when they saw the aircraft landing and taxiing in. There was also a period of what today would be known as pressure, then it was just part of the job although some individuals did suffer from depression and for some this ended their flying career. All crew members had to be physically and mentally fit to survive. It was early morning on Christmas Day 1943, we as a crew had just returned from an operation, the target Berlin. After debriefing we arrived for breakfast at around 6:30 hours, the atmosphere in the dining room was best described as noisy as you would expect from 150 young men aged between 19 and 23 years old, until you really looked around and saw one, two even three empty tables then the atmosphere changed to a more sober one. Christmas dinner was being served at 13:00 hours, this gave us time for a few hours sleep before arriving back at the mess around 12:50 hours. The meal was good and all seemed in high spirits. We finished eating and were enjoying a cigarette when the duty officer arrived, he slowly walked up to the bar and turned the Toby Jug sitting there towards the wall, this was our first indication that operations may be on, slowly the mess began to empty as the air crew members began to leave. It was a cold but pleasant afternoon as I hurried along the perimeter road thinking of past Christmases and remembering the simple things, the pink or white sugar mice, an apple and orange possibly a few sweets, we never had many presents, hand knitted socks or gloves, then my thoughts were interrupted by seeing coming towards me a tractor pulling a bomb trolley with a mixed load of bombs on board, and further to my left I could see a fuel bowser topping up a Lancaster. Normally the aircraft were filled with 1,200 to 1,400 gallons of fuel 41 [page break] sufficient for a five or six hour trip, if the trip was going to be longer then the aircraft were topped up. On arrival at our Lancaster X² Mac, our ground engineer, was there standing in front looking at the aircraft, I said ‘”what are you doing?” Thinking he answered “isn’t she beautiful, I don’t want her to fly tonight. I am the happiest sergeant on the Squadron. Before I arrived at Ludford I had been with 101 Squadron for 18 months and during that time I had lost seven aircraft under my control. Since being here and in charge of X² and you as the flight engineer after five months I still have the same aircraft. Do you know how many operations you have flown in X²?” “No I don’t “, I replied. “Eleven and six of which was to the big city Berlin and we are still going strong.” “Let’s go and carry out ourground checks”, I said. We had just finished when Wally our pilot arrived. “I thought I would find you here” he said. “I thought we could carry out a test flight and check out the hydraulics on the undercarriage?” “Yes I have fixed them” said Mac. “Let’s go” said Wally, “coming” I said to Mac. He hesitated then said “I haven’t got a parachute”. “Neither have we” I said. We fired up the engines, taxied out, got the green light from control and were airborne. I then vacated my seat and let Mac have it. As I checked all the fuel and engine gauges etc we climbed to around 300 hundred feet, flew in a south west direction and as we banked to starboard there standing on the ridge was the magnificent building Lincoln Cathedral with the city spread out below it. We were privileged to see it yet also very humbled and it seemed than that what we were doing was right and that this was a ‘just war’ and had to be won. I touched Mac on the shoulder and pointed down. I’m sure he was brushing a tear away. Ten minutes later we had landed with everything ok including the hydraulics as we closed the rear door of the Lancaster X² we hugged each other and I’m sure we all said a short prayer, at least I did. [inserted] [Christmas dinner menu RAF Ludford Magna Sergeants Mess 1943 [/inserted] 42 [page break] Briefing was scheduled for 19:00 hours. All two hundred of us where [sic] there on time and the Group Captain arrived and slipped up onto the platform, the wing commander brought us all to attention. I noticed that the curtains covering the map on the wall stayed closed “I’ll be brief” said the Group Captain, “all flying has been cancelled for tonight because of severe weather conditions over Europe. I also wish to thank you all for the maximum effort and success, which has been put in during the past five months. Good show and good flying from now on. I will let you go to continue your Christmas celebrations, have a good time, good night and god bless”. Mac got his way and X² did not fly on Christmas night. Briefing was scheduled for 19.00 hours and as I said all flying was cancelled, this only lasted for 15 minutes, after which all the members of the 25 crews that would have flown, along with all the other necessary ground staff support teams necessary to service such an operation (all in 350‑400 young people) were now free to do as they wished, however as by now it was around 19.30 the choice was limited, retire to the mess or the local pubs. As we the crew were now making our way back from the briefing room, Norman (our wireless operator) announced that he was visiting the pub to see if they had any beer “Are you coming?” “No” I said “I’ll make my way back to the mess”. Bill (our mid upper gunner) said “I’ll join you for a beer”. The technical section of the squadron was situated on the south side of the main road which ran from west to east through the village from Market Rasen to Louth. The living accommodation and messes were located on the north of the road. On reaching the main road instead of crossing and carrying on up the lane to the mess for some reason I turned right and continued along the main road, as it was extremely dark walking in the centre of the road as this was the safest place. As I continued I heard music and singing coming from the pub on the right everyone seemed to be happy and enjoying themselves, further on and on the left was the other pub ‘The Black Bull’. I could hear footsteps coming and going, but could not recognise the people, here also was the sounds of people enjoying themselves. A little further along the road on the left stood the small church, as I approached I could hear the organ music and the congregation singing carols. I remember thinking if I was thinking of attending church I should have dressed. I was in battle dress and should be in uniform, however to return to the billet and change it would make me too late for the service. I found myself at the church entrance I looked through the entrance hall, I could see a chink of light coming from under the heavy door. I pushed the door open and heard the creaking noise, on entering I stood for a few seconds to allow my eyes to become accustomed to the light, a few members of the congregation hearing the door turned to see who entered, as I moved across to take a place in the pews an elderly gentlemen from the other side came across squeezed me on the shoulder gave me his hymn book “we are on verse three god bless” and returned to his place. The church was fairly full mostly of elderly people man and female with a few children, all were singing and appeared to be enjoying it, the service was not a format which I knew, however I felt good to be involved and somehow very pleased to be there. All those in church appeared to believe in what they were singing and doing and further more believed that all the service people on the base were doing what was right and that they all had their full support that the war was a righteous war and a war that had to be won. At the end of the service I quickly left the church and made my way back along the main road. I was somehow excited so much so that I remember running all the way and turning 43 [page break] right until I reached the mess. There were a number of people sitting around having a drink and/or reading. A colleague was reading the picture post magazine which had an article covering 101 Squadron. When I asked him if I could have a look, he said “I’ll keep it for you”. On the centre two pages was a photo of a Lancaster with staff standing around and on the wings etc, inspecting the photo closely I noticed that it was not a 101 Squadron Lancaster as it did not show the special aerials to work ABC. (The programme had been arranged unfortunately while we (our crew) were on leave and a Lancaster from Wickenby had been used). I checked to see if the rations had come in and found a good selection of cigarettes were available Woodbine, Captain, Players and Gold Flake and there was also some chocolate. The dining room was closed, on a trestle table at the end was a collection of bread, cheese and butter. I took a few rounds of bread and a chunk of cheese and made my way back to the billet, on arrival I found Wally, Eric, and Jimmy were there and they had a good fire going, making the chimney almost red hot. They were sitting reading and asked “where did you get to?” “Church” I said “you should have said I would have come with you” said Eric, “I didn’t know, I brought some bread and cheese for toast if you want it”. “Thank you” said Wally “have a mug of tea, the teapot will still be hot on the stove”. “I called in at the mess they have cigarettes and chocolate in. Only a letter for Bill which I have brought back. He and Norman were going to the pub. Where is Len (our rear gunner)?” “Oh, he has gone to try to hitch a lift home to Grimsby, remember if opps are on tomorrow give him a ring to let him know so that he can return, I have his telephone number” said Wally. “Do you want something to read?” asked Eric. “No” I said, “I think I will turn in and catch up with some sleep”. This 1943 Christmas was at least different from all previous ones and part of my life which I will never forget. The next time we flew was on 30th December and then again the following night on 31st December both operations were to Berlin. Mac continued to service X² and over the next 3 1/2 months we completed a further 13 operations to complete our first tour. We didn’t always bring the aircraft home in the same condition as we started, however, we always brought it back and Mac and his crew always managed to repair it and have it serviced ready for the next trip. We completed our tour in late April 1944 and the crew were all split up and we went our separate ways all as instructors. I joined the staff at Lindholme as a flight engineer instructor. In June D‑Day arrived, we were again temporarily called up as reserved in case the invasion went wrong, fortunately all went well. I was later transferred to Bottesford then Cottesmore and ended up at North Luffenham where by now VE Day had arrived in June 1945. We were again crewed up to join the Tiger Force to operate against Japan. Luckily for us VJ Day came much sooner than expected with the use of the hydrogen bomb being used on Japan, which stopped us from being posted to the Far East. I stayed at North Luffenham until demobbed. Lincoln Cathedral played an important role in our lives as we used to use it as a landmark when returning early in the morning from operations and provided weather conditions were good, when we saw the cathedral we knew we were safely home again. Sadly Lancaster X² only flew two more operations after we finished and was lost over Mailly le Camp, France on the 3rd/4th May 1944. 44 [page break] CHAPTER H HEAVY CONVERSION UNITS INSTRUCTOR LINDHOLME BOTTESFORD COTTESMORE NORTH LUFFENHAM After Operations After completing our tour of operations with 101 Squadron in April 1944 the crew went on leave for around ten days and while on leave I received information informing me to report to Lindholme on such a date. Lindholme was 1656HCU the conversion unit, which I had reported to prior to being crewed up and joining 101 Squadron. Ludford Magna as I had said previously was an airfield specially constructed as a utility base to carry on the war against Germany. All buildings, temporary constructions accommodation nissen huts were situated in small groups situated around the unit site. Nissen hut accommodation for up to eight persons situated in the wilds half a mile from mess, flight units ablution block 20 yards away with washing and shower facilities, no heating (as you can imagine it was very cold in winter). The accommodation had a stove in the centre of the hut with a chimney, which went up through the roof, used coal or anthracite as fuel and required lighting daily. These huts were extremely hot in summer with regular visitors such as field mice, ants and earwigs. In winter they were extremely cold and damp with condensation running down interior sides and dripping on beds etc. Lindholme was a peacetime permanent station which had all the niceties available, good roads comfortable, centrally heated one-person accommodation with all mod cons including dining room with waitress service. This to me was the biggest difference between Ludford and Lindholme. Lindholme then was a conversion unit where pilots and crews had completed their initial training on smaller aircraft then upgraded to the heavy, four engine bombers such as Halifax and Lancaster. Lindholme trained Lancaster crews; it was here where additional crewmembers such as gunners and flight engineers joined in. Having completed a successful tour of operations my role now was to introduce flight engineers who had completed their year long course, at possibly Blackpool and St Annes’s as up to this time these trainees had only briefly seen the interior of a Lancaster, far less done any flying. 45 [page break] Unfortunately because of the shortage of Lancaster bombers arriving to the squadron, the conversion units such as Lindholme were still using Halifaxs [sic], this did not cause too much of a problem for the other six members of the crew (except the engineers) as it was a heavy bomber and the handling regarding flying and landing was similar to the Lancaster giving the pilot the experience of flying a large, heavy plane. The engineer’s role was the same on all heavy bombers so the experience gained was still valid and it still gave him the necessary confidence. The difference being some of the instruments and dials on the Halifax were in different positions to that of a Lancaster. The crews would have a period of familiarisation on reaching the squadron before finally carrying out operations. Life was so much more comfortable working on a base with all mod cons as expected for the 1940s. My role along with others was to aid the trainee engineers to familiarise themselves with the aircraft inside and out, and when flying with their new crew, introduce the engineer to his role such as to the large number of switches and dials on the main panel and also the instruments on the engineer’s panel. One of the main tasks was how to change flying on the various fuel tanks safely, the other how to feather an engine if required without causing any problems, how they as a person fitted in with the other crew members. Therefore while the pilot was under instruction with a pilot instructor mainly on what we called circuits and bumps, which was taking off, flying around and landing again. I would also fly and show the engineer and make sure he was confident and safe in his execution of his duties. The time varied depending on how quickly the pilot took to prove himself capable and the instructor pilot was satisfied that he could safely fly and land such a plane, this could take anything from a few hours to many hours. I used the experience, which I had gained over the past year of flying many hours in different conditions to make sure that these young operators had a better chance of completing a successful tour than I had. I tried to emphasise on them the need to be fully committed to their job of making sure they knew their role and capable of carrying out all the safety checks which should be carried out by themselves even although someone has said that they have done so, that they used the engines efficiently and monitored the fuel available as economically as possible. I had prepared a schedule, which if used in conjunction with the gauges and filled in every fifteen minutes in flight or so gave instant information if any problem had or were occurring to the fuel position, when action could be taken. Lindholme being a permanent station was well equipped and had space available for each crew members to have their own section huts which proved most usual [sic] and I spent a good part of my time being available to talk with these trainee engineers, discussing any problems or whatever. In any month I spent on average around 50 hours in actual flying time either day or night flying. This was made up of flying with possibly 10 different pilots on 26 to 30 different flights. The flights were generally around the airfield at fairly low altitude, up to two hundred feet carrying out circuits and landings with pilot, instructor and conversion crews. We therefore did not carry parachutes; this also gave the trainee crews a little more confidence to think that we had confidence in them. 46 [page break] In June 1944 two days after D-Day I attended an instructors course at St Albans, South Wales lasting for four weeks, which proved most instructive, enjoyable and created confidence with ample time for self expression. After that I took the opportunity to attend any other courses, which became available such as a course on jet engines – something for the future, update course on the improved Merlin engines coming into service and a short course on Stromberg carburettors. The RAF at this time was looking to the future and on the levels and quality of staff they were likely to require once the war ended, but with the peace still to be kept for years on. At present most if not all of their engineers and a station or base engineer were all from senior ground staff, so when I was asked if I would wish to embark on such a course (the course was quite complex covering all aspects of engineering ground and in flight) I said I would. After quite a lot of time on reading (time which I had) I eventually sat the paper and was very happy with the results 89% success, this was of course only part of the paper an oral examination was also required which up until I was released from the RAF I had not taken, however, these showed on my records. 1668 Heavy Conversion Unit, Bottesford After leaving 101 Squadron I spent a short period at Lindholme as a Flight Engineer Instructor before moving to Bottesford. Bottesford was another war time base similar to Ludford Magna and from where Lancasters also flew, however, in early 1944 it had become surplus to requirements. The living accommodation instead of being Nissen huts were constructed of fabricated wooden framed units. Being available it was used as a holding base for American troops waiting for D Day resulting in the accommodation being left in a dreadful state. During August 1944 1668 Heavy Conversion Unit took the base over and myself and few others were in the advance party. On arrival we found it difficult to find accommodation suitable to live in however, after a few days of hard work managed to make progress with repairs. Among the early arrivals were two air gunners both of whom had completed their tour of operations. Jock on Wellingtons and Jack on Lancasters. The three of us became really good friends for all the time we were on the base. In fact, Jack is still a good friend, he now lives in North Cirney Nr Cirencester and we have a card from him each Christmas. The base was situated midway between Newark and Grantham on the left, half a mile off the main A1 road, walking or cycling were the only methods of transport for getting around the base or for travelling further afield. We had been at Bottesford for just over a week when this night the three of us decided to have a ride around, on reaching the main road instead of turning left for Long Bennington and Newark we turned right towards Grantham. After cycling along the A1 road for about three miles we came across a signpost, which read Marston and Dry Doddington so we decided to go left and see where the lane would take us. After a mile we came upon a nice looking pub on the corner of the crossroads called the Thorold Arms where we decided to call and have a beer this being Friday evening. The pub was open, furthermore this was the first time that I had entered a pub since I joined 101 Squadron, as I had promised myself that so long as I was flying on operations I would not have a drink. 47 [page break] Training at Bottesford got under way relatively soon and by early September crews for conversion to Lancasters were arriving in number. The routine was very similar to that at Lindholme. Crews arrived without any experience of the Lancaster and it was our role as instructors to train the flight engineers to a standard where he was competent and safe to act on his own, and to pass on my experience which would make him feel more confident, while other staff members were doing the same for the pilots and the other members of the crew. Bottesford as I said previously was a base built around 1942 to a standard sufficient to allow Bomber Command to carry the war to the enemy, where heavy bombers such as the Lancaster could operate from. Carrying a bomb load to most destinations necessary and to cause severe damage to their war effort. From the staff viewpoint it was a complete change from the comfort offered by a peacetime base with all the mod cons, even including waitress service in the dining halls. Bottesford was however a very happy unit where, so long as the training and flying was carried out on time to a very high standard, all was well. It was becoming clear that with D Day over with the Allied Troops now moving across Europe as expected and on course, that victory in Europe was only a matter of time with the need for heavy bomber operations becoming limited. This meant that the training for crews could be relaxed and extended, therefore to ensure the trainee flight engineers interest and enthusiasm was kept alive. Two other instructors and myself introduced a short course on engine maintenance, this course lasted three weeks, the purpose of which was to strip down an engine completely, then reassemble it so that it would fire up and run. We had available to us a Lancaster, which had recently run off the runway on landing and was declared not airworthy. The four Merlin engines were still in good condition; this meant that with four engines and four trainees working on each we could entertain sixteen students. The course proved a great success and it was felt that all those involved had afterwards a better understanding of the engines, which could possibly save their lives in the future. As the weeks passed three of us, Jock, Jack and myself, had more free time and when on an evening we decided to leave camp we usually ended up at the Thorold Arms. By now we knew many of the locals as well as the family and were being brought into the evening events, such as playing darts. There were a number of really good dart players and eventually we, along with Sylvia, also became an excellent partnership. Five months on. Christmas 1944 was a completely different Christmas to that of 1943, by now Sylvia and myself were seeing quite a lot of each other and I was still on duty over Christmas, I was asked to spend Christmas day with the family, we had a lovely time. A few days later I was on leave and travelled north to spend New Year with my family in Aberdour. Our friendship blossomed and we were spending more and more time together and with Sylvia’s family and friends. Sylvia had a brother and three sisters; Roy was the oldest followed by Eileen then Sylvia, with Gert and Brenda the two younger sisters. Roy was also in the RAF on air-sea rescue and spent most of his time overseas. Eileen was on munitions working in Grantham; Sylvia also worked in Grantham in ladies hosiery. Gert worked in a bakery with Brenda still at school. In the evenings when the pub was open Sylvia helped serve in the bar with her father and mother Gert usually at weekends. During early 1945 flying at the base continued smoothly 48 [page break] and generally without incident. We had one scary incident during night flying practise, an enemy light bomber managed to evade the radar controls and came in along the runway following one of the Lancasters and dropped cluster bombs along the length of the runway. This did cause some excitement as these bombs could explode from the vibration of the landing aircraft. Fortunately the runway was cleared without any injuries. The other excitement was when one of the Lancasters, which we had just received from squadron required an air test to check its airworthiness before being put to use as a training aircraft. One of the staff pilots and myself as engineer was asked to carry out the test which we did, doing all the usual flying and checking the various instruments and controls. We decided to put it in a downward power dive, at first all was fine and the controls responded perfectly then it happened the port outer propeller began speeding up. No matter what we tried it continued to increase then it disappeared, the two on the inner engines seemed all right, the propeller in the starboard reached well above the normal speed but stayed in place. We quickly reduced our speed and dive, and made a quick return to base and landed on two engines, the aircraft did not pass its airworthy test. We found out later that it was a fault with the balance plates on the, then, new four paddle bladed propellers. I, by now, had spent eight months as an instructor resting from the pressures of flying on operations and I knew that in the near future it may be necessary to do a further thirty operations, either across Europe or possibly against Japan. A few of us were thinking along the same lines and discussing the possibilities with others of forming crews. There were two staff pilots on the base who were seriously thinking to the future, with whom I would have been happy to fly with and to this end we took every opportunity of carrying out test flights and then engaging in some low flying, which we expected would be necessary for the future especially if the enemy were the Japanese. I increased my link training and spent considerable amounts of time keeping fit and up-to-date on all aspects of flying which could be beneficial to our survival. There was suggestion floating around that a new Tiger Force was being formed, which was likely to operate against Japan. The river Trent gave an excellent corridor to practise low flying as there was at that time no obstacles such as power lines, telephone lines or high buildings to restrict flying. The river banks were relatively high with a river width in excess of 130 ft where the Lancaster wingspan was 101 ft and could easily be tucked in below the level of the banks, great flying, great excitement and very satisfying. The war in Europe was progressing well, the need for heavy bombers was becoming less and with now limited targets. In mid April a few of us were informed that it was almost 12 months since we last flew on operations and it would now be necessary to do a further tour, more information would be available shortly. On 8th May 1945 the Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, announced the termination of the war in Europe to the whole country and his speech was broadcast over the station Tannoy system at 3pm. The afternoon was then devoted to sports activities and there were parties in all messes during the evening. I was not on base, this was the date selected on which I was to be presented with my DFM at Buckingham Palace by King George VI. My mum and Aunty Kate travelled down from Edinburgh on the overnight train in the early hours of the morning; I joined the train at Grantham. As usual it was standing room only so I met up with my mum and Aunty on the platform at Kings Cross station. If I remember correctly the investitures commenced at 49 [page break] 11am so we had time for breakfast then made our way to the palace. There were many RAF personnel there as well as family members to watch the ceremony and see their relatives presented with their medals. We were all greeted on arrival and then informed of the procedure. The King seemed very thin and poorly, dressed in an Admiral’s Naval uniform. After shaking hands with him and him pinning the medal on my uniform he asked me which squadron I flew with. I told him 101 Squadron, he replied “One of the elite I believe, good flying”. We were out of the palace by 1:30pm, by this time the news that the war in Europe was over was known and London was beginning to fill up with people. Everyone was in party mood, singing and dancing or just walking around. London had been under blackout conditions since the start of the war in September 1939. Today things were different all the dark days were over; the people of London were showing their joy. Every light possible, which could be lit, was lit and the streets looked most inviting, it was an amazing sight. My mother and Aunt Kate were booked to stay the night in London so I saw them to their hotel then I made my way back through the crowds to Kings Cross and caught the train back to Grantham. What a day to be in London, VE Day the 8th May 1945 celebrating the end of the war in Europe. There was a real sense of relief and everyone was there to have a good time and to party. The train was again packed, mainly with service personnel making their way home on leave. I arrived at Grantham around 5pm and from the station phoned the Thorold Arms expecting to speak to Sylvia. She and Eileen had gone to the church service and not yet returned so it was Sylvia’s dad that answered, he said he would tell Sylvia on their return that I had arrived in Grantham. It was agreed that Sylvia would come and meet me cycling on one bicycle and pushing the second for me to ride back to Marston, however, on her travelling along the A1 road towards Grantham she met a person she knew cycling from Grantham. She stopped and asked him if he had seen an airman walking and he said no. Previously to this an RAF vehicle had passed Sylvia with RAF personnel on board, thinking that I had thumbed a lift and that I would be dropped off at the road end leading to Marston she decided to turn back. As I was not waiting at the road end she then thought that I must have decided to go back to Bottesford, collect my own bicycle and return to Marston later. Sometime later Gert happened to look out of the window at the Thorold Arms and shouted to Sylvia “Jock is coming down the road”. Sylvia, thinking she was having her on didn’t believe her until she herself looked out the window. My other pals Jock and Jack had already arrived and all including the locals were having a great time. As the evening progressed and the drink continued to flow a game started where the aim was to collect as many possible pieces of other peoples [sic] ties by cutting off the ends, this was all taken in good fun until one person who had just been given a new tie for his birthday, that day, by his wife and she was not amused at seeing it being cut to pieces. The end of the war in Europe sealed the fate of most of the war time built heavy bomber bases, they had completed their usefulness for which they were built, that in giving Bomber Command the opportunity required to take the war to the enemy, which they had accomplished very successfully. Food on the stations was very good with a real selection most of the time. Sundays was the time when the menu suffered as most of the catering staff had time off and tea was usually laid out to help yourself, mostly cheese, bread and butter, and possibly a few cakes. This possibly was the reason why on Mondays the sweet was often bread and butter pudding, something I didn’t like then and even now when on a menu I still shy away from. 50 [page break] This was the time that Petula Clarke was often on the radio, in fact every lunch time she recorded a song especially for RAF Conversion Unit 1668. Bottesford was no exception for within six weeks the complete Conversion Unit was closed down and I, along with others, moved to new surroundings to the peacetime base of Cottesmore where all the staff enjoyed the luxuries of a permanent built unit. Working conditions within the base were very relaxed, with all enjoying a five day week when most weekends were free unless on duty. Flying hours, however, as far as I was concerned still reached between 33 to 44 hours each month. During June onwards, now that the war was over in Europe, it was still most important that the peoples of Europe, friends as well as enemy, that Britain controlled the airspace and continued to show this by having continued aircraft flying in the skies around. Certain trips were carried out in order to show ground staff, who had carried out such an excellent job in sometimes terrible conditions to keep the bases and aircraft serviceable along the last five years the opportunity to see for themselves what conditions across Europe looked like now. These trips were given various names: the Ruhr Express, Cooks Tour, Happy Valley Express, each lasted five to six hours flying time where up to 12 to 15 personnel were on board plus the crew of four. I, as Flight Engineer, was on a good number of such trips. They were enjoyed by most and showed the devastation which had occurred to many of the towns and cities across Europe, in vast areas which had received attention from bombing by the RAF followed by the destruction caused by the Armies fighting their way to Berlin since D Day. The destruction was terrible with many large areas just a pile of rubble or shells of buildings still standing. The thing which impressed me most was the number of churches and round towers such as commercial chimneys which still stood. Such a trip would cover from a base to Ijmunden, Amsterdam, Arnhem, Nijmegen, Wesell Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg, Düsseldorf then back to base. Or base to Cologne, Bonn, Aachem Rotterdam then home. Cottesmore Cottesmore was situated between Grantham and Stamford, four miles west of the A1 road near the village of Ashwell and six miles north west of Oakham, so our move was only a few minutes flying time. There was much movement between stations, which gave the opportunity of visiting different locations which we heard about but not visited, such as Drem in East Lothian, Ternhill and Shawbury in Shropshire, and many others which helped to make life more enjoyable. Being stationed close to Stamford and the main road north it wasn’t difficult to hitch a ride or at worst catch a bus or train to Grantham. Our stay at Cottesmore was fairly short lived; we then moved on to North Luffenham another of the pre war built stations with all the usual mod cons. North Luffenham is situated south west of Stamford, one mile off the A6121 road. Before leaving Cottesmore I had confirmation that we were crewed up and to expect instructions shortly regarding a further tour of operations in the Far East but before that certain procedures would have to be carried out, such as doctors reports and certain jabs given. However, six weeks on and we were still waiting. 51 [page break] The war against Japan was expected to last for some considerable time, however, the introduction of the Atom Bomb by the Americans and the use of them by the American Air Force brought the Japanese war to a very quick end. We had at the time just received our preliminary dates and instructions for flying out to the Far East. This announcement that the Japanese had surrendered cancelled this and we missed the opportunity of joining the Tiger Force. The use of the Atomic Bomb on two Japanese cities seemed, and was, a terrible thing to do and caused terrible casualties among the Japanese citizens in these two cities. However, if it had been necessary for US troops to land and fight their way through all the various islands the casualty list was estimated that it could have been one million plus service people. North Luffenham The war in both Europe and Japan was over which meant that working conditions at North Luffenham changed as from now. There was less requirement for further training of Lancaster crews. There were a large number of service men and women in all three services hoping and wanting to get back to Civvie Street as soon as possible. The government also had a problem in that across the country there were not the organisations or jobs available to employ all those excess to requirements service personnel. Therefore a delaying action was in place to slow down the release. Lancasters were of course used for various operations such as dropping food supplies to the people of Belgium and Germany and for bringing home prisoners of war from Germany and elsewhere and from bringing to the UK survivors from the torture camps. The top chiefs of all three services were of course now considering the future of the armed forces. The Air Force was no different, we had won the war but not the peace, the peace may be a lot more difficult and to that end the Air Force was trying to assess and ensure whatever happened they had sufficient of high quality personnel to carry out this purpose. Therefore as personnel were being demobbed, if they should have certain qualities they were being given the opportunity to stay on by being offered certain incentives. While at Luffenham I took the opportunity of attending as many courses as possible, improving my knowledge and information regarding the services and of course continuing to add to my flying hours, something I enjoyed doing. Our job on the unit was similar to any other staff member, flying still took priority, other duties such as Duty Officer and such like was also now part of our programme. I recall an interview which I had with the Group Captain Section Leader arrived at the flight office and said “Jock, the Wing Commander wants to see you”. “What have I done?” “Nothing, it’s good news, make your way to his office for 11am.” “I’m flying at 10 o’clock”. “Ok, after that will do”. I arrived at his office next day around 9.55 am, his secretary showed me into his office. I saluted, he said “Good, come and sit down” then the interview went something like this: “I have been looking over your record and I see that you have carried out a lot of flying, almost 2000 hours. There are not many people who can live up to that, you must enjoy flying?” “Yes I do”. “I also see that you have attained a pass, in fact an extremely high pass on the Chief Ground Engineer course, unusual for aircrew even although you are a Flight Engineer”. 52 [page break] “Your flight commander also told me you were highly respected and thought of at Cottesmore because of your work with Engine Service course. You would seem to be going back to Civvie Street?” “Yes sir”. “Do you want that?” “Possibly”. “Even with all your exceptional work the war is over so I can’t recommend you for a medal however, what I can offer you – you know that the Air Force is looking for people like yourself for its future success – therefore the offer I am prepared to put to you is stay on in the Air Force as a Chief Ground Engineer with Flying Officer on entry (permanent) with good promotional opportunities to at least Flight Lieutenant or even Squadron Leader. Think carefully about it, don’t make your mind up now, come and see me in one week’s time.” The unit continued flying and with training. The war being over the RAF was keen to show off their aircraft such as the Spitfire and the Lancaster, which had been so brilliant during the war, to the general public so a number of open days throughout the UK were arranged whereby the public could come along and see over all these war time aircraft. These days proved very popular. To show off the Lancaster we landed at the base involved, stayed for four to five hours opening the Lancasters up and allowing people to enter by the rear door, make their way up through the fuselage past the pilots positions and exit through the flaps in the bomb aimers compartment, at the front of the aircraft reaching the ground by ladder. Two of the open days I remember going to were Finningly [sic] and Haverford West. During my time in the RAF I only met up with my sister Jean on one occasion and that was when I was at St Athans in South Wales, she was stationed at Bridge End and we managed to meet for an hour or two, where we met I cannot recall. My brother Sandy was stationed at Swinderby for most of his time in the RAF as a fitter servicing Lancasters, and even although we were relatively closely stationed to each other we never once met up and even when I occasionally landed at Swinderby we never managed to get together. Of course these plans were always last minute arrangements and we might only be there for an hour or so before taking off again. After two weeks I made a further appointment to meet the Group Captain and told him that after serious consideration that I had decided to leave the RAF and return to Civvie Street. I believe that he was disappointed, he wished me success in whatever I decided to do, we shook hands and I left his office. I was demobbed on 10th September 1946 at Uxbridge then travelled north to Stamford, Sylvia had earlier moved to Stamford to further her career as a shop buyer, by working in a much larger ladies fashion store, travelling to Stamford on a Sunday evening, returning home in the Saturday evening. This meant that we saw more of each other on my time off. The other opportunity that was open to me on my demob, as I had over a 1000 flying hours, was to join BOAC. Unfortunately the base was Australia and the airline travelled between Australia and Ceylon. Also available because I had A‑level passes on RAF teaching courses gave me the opportunity to train as a technical course teacher. Both of which I declined and decided to return to Civvie Street and continue in forestry, which was always my first choice and as my future notes will show. 53 [page break] 54 [page break] CHAPTER I ADVANCES IN TECHNOLOGY WHAT IF? Advances in Technology Most of the technology was designed to combat the increasingly efficient enemy night fighter’s control system, in July 1943 window was used for the first time. Window was made up of thin strips of aluminium foil (approximately 9" long) packed in bundles of approx 100. It was the bomb aimer’s responsibility to drop these down a small chute filled in the front compartment every 15 minutes along route. With all other aircraft doing the same, the concentration played havoc with the enemy’s ground and air radar sets, however, it could not deter the enemy fighter threat for a long period of time, as the Germans managed to overcome this problem. During D-Day window was used with great success in fooling the Germans that a second landing area further east along the coast was to happen. 101 Squadron completely serviced this operation by dropping window, continually moving across the channel for 48 hours, which meant that German defence forces were stretched along the French coastline rather than being able to concentrate on the D-Day landing site. By the time they realised their mistake the landing had a strong hold. Other new aids such as RDF (Radar Direction Finding) known as Monica was trialled by 101 Squadron, but was short lived simply because the enemy night fighter crews became efficient at tuning into the signals omitted by Monica. In July 1943 another new system known as Ground Cigar was operating twenty-four hours a day from a site on the Suffolk coast, jamming the whole of the 38‑42 MHZ band known to be used by the German fighters. It became obvious to the boffins that to be really efficient the system needed to be airborne, it was envisaged that a single Bomber Command squadron should be allocated the new RLM role and would operate within the main part of the bomber stream. This highly responsible task was given to 101 Squadron, the new system was known as ABC or Airborne Cigar. The ABC required an additional crewmember known as a Special Duties Operator; the area behind the main spar normally occupied by the aircraft emergency couch was converted to accommodate the new equipment. Externally, 7 ft long aerials were fitted to the aircraft, two along the spine and the third under the forward fuselage. The special duty operators were German speaking and became the eighth crewmember in 101 Squadron crews. The role was to jam the radio transmissions made by the German night fighters ground based controllers. ABC equipment consisted of a panoramic receiver and three transmitters; the receiver could pick up all 24 different frequencies being used by the crystal controlled VHF sets. Its eight crystals each covered three wavebands used by the Germans’ night fighter 55 [page break] crews to receive the necessary information about the bomber stream location. Once the operators were able to use their German language skills to find the active controller frequency he put down a key connected to one of his transmitters, which broadcast engine noise on that frequency effectively jamming it over a range of around 50 miles. He repeated the process until he had his three transmitters effectively jamming three German frequencies. In theory, eight of the 101 Squadron Lancasters could cover all 24 frequencies in use during the night. This equipment was quite weighty therefore so-called unnecessary equipment such as the steel plates behind the pilot’s head and the steel door behind the front compartment were removed to counter the weight increase. ABC was very effective in jamming the German night fighter’s ability to connect quickly with the main bomber stream. The other downside was when the 101 Lancasters specials were operating their equipment these aircraft could be readily picked up by German night fighters and searchlights. With the squadron suffering much heavier losses than any other squadron in Bomber Command. There was a plaque in the middle of Ludford Magna remembering the 101 sacrifice, it read: [border] 101 Squadron Lancasters based at Ludford Magna from June 1943 with highly secret ABC radio and 8 man crews flew on every major Bomber Command mission suffering the highest losses of any squadron in World War II [/border] Ludford Magna was also selected as one of the first airfields in the group to have FIDO fitted. FIDO (Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation) this was justified because of 101 Squadron’s key role within Bomber Command. The equipment consisted of two pipelines running along the edge of each side of the main runway with perforated holes in the pipes. In extremely foggy conditions when aircraft were due to land petrol was forced along the pipes which was then set alight, this helped clear the fog sufficiently to allow aircraft to land safely. One of the disadvantages being should an aircraft with fuel leaking or swerving off the runway an explosion could occur causing loss of aircraft. This equipment came into us in January 1944. The standard rear turret fitted to the Lancaster was the Fraser Nash with four 0.303" (rifle calibre) machine guns, which were always thought to be of poor quality in terms of armament. A new turret was built by Rose Brothers of Gainsborough after much discussion with personnel from 101 Squadron. The new turret was easy to control, had more room for the gunner and better vision. Six aircraft from 101 Squadron were the first to receive the new turret. Our aircraft X² was one of the six (2 x 0.5 calibre). 56 [page break] On 25th/26th February 1944 when we visited Augsburg, operation 28, Len our rear gunner was excited about the possibility of using them against a German fighter and witnessing what effect it would have. 1943‑44 was an excellent period to join 101 Squadron. The squadron had just moved to a new base at Ludford Magna near Louth, Lincolnshire and was well placed to carry the war to the enemy. A highly rated squadron within 1 group, a squadron which was given every opportunity to prove itself as one of the best and we were so lucky to be part of it. The squadron was involved in all that was happening. New equipment was becoming on stream such as ‘Window’, ABC, upgraded Lancasters, FIDO and the introduction of the more superior rear turret. As days and weeks passed our crew was becoming the most experienced so as a crew were very much involved, we flew on the operation when Window was first used. We were also on the operation ABC was first introduced into Bomber Command and our aircraft X² was one of the six aircraft fitted with the new turrets. These were exciting times, sometimes frightening, anxious and tiring, however, as a crew we worked as a team. We were loyal to each other, dedicated in what we were doing and hence very satisfied with the results we achieved. On completing our tour of operations we were the only crew that had completed a tour of operations since the squadron moved to Ludford Magna. Statistics showed that if Lancasters lasted more than five operations they were exceptional. All who served in the forces have memories, some good, some not so good. My memories of being in the RAF are of being good and exciting times not to be missed. My memories of being part of 101 Squadron are also of exciting times, with plenty of different experiences, most when flying. Some exciting, some frightening, one or two horrific, others best forgotten, however, a part of life which I am proud to have been part of and on the whole really enjoyed. On 12th June 1944 I received confirmation that I had been awarded the DFM. What if? The situation seemed very strange, here was seven or eight young men from various backgrounds and from different areas of the United Kingdom, who had for the best part of a year lived and dined together. Worked as a close team under very difficult and dangerous conditions and after completing a tour of operations went on leave a few days later, moved from base on to other jobs and from then until the end of the war had no further contact with each other. In fact until recent years I still had no contact. It was 2001 when I met up with Norman our wireless operator and then years after that out special operator Ken. What if when I joined 101 Squadron Wally Evans, our pilot, had not insisted that I was his engineer and I had joined A H Evans’ crew as their engineer? A H Evans’ crew were lost on their third operation. What if when our Lancaster was caught by the blue searchlights over Germany, if the Halifax which drifted a few thousand feet below us into the path of the searchlight at that split second and received the full impact of the guns had not done so? We would be just another statistic. 57 [page break] What if when over Amiens we received only comparatively slight damage from exploding shrapnel which passed through the window, just caught my flying jacket sleeve and then went out through the windscreen? Had I been standing three inches to the right the result could have been very different. What if on returning to base from operations over Berlin on 16th December 1943, when caught up in thick fog and was diverted, if the beam light put up by Catfoss had not been at that precise moment when we were flying at zero feet from the ground we would have ploughed into the farm house. Another aircraft lost on operations. Or when on reaching base Wally had not accepted my advice and decided to go round again on another circuit before landing, we would have crashed due to shortage of fuel. What if I had decided to accept my commission and stay in the RAF as a Station Engineer probably reaching rank of Squadron Leader or had joined BOAC as a flight engineer possibly based in Sidney Australia, or had taken up the opportunity to become a teacher teaching technical subjects? Life would have been so different, however, I believe I made the correct decision, in fact I know I did. This however is for another time to discuss. 58 [page break] CHAPTER J AIRCREW BOMBER COMMAND WARTIME BOMBER SQUADRONS BOMBING OF BERLIN A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A SQUADRON CLOTHING WORN ON OPERATIONS BY OUR CREW CONTACT MADE WITH TWO CREW MEMBERS PLUS INFORMATION ON OTHERS Aircrew Bomber Command A typical description of a bomber crew at the time was provided by the ministry publication entitled Bomber Command. The men of Bomber Command are appointed to fulfil a special mission. Their life is not that of other men, not even those in the other branches of the service. It’s very physical conditions are different for them now; a day is much of the night, as much of the day is a time for sleep and repose. Discipline is constant yet flexible. Triumph and disaster are met with and vanquished together. Air Marshall Arthur Harris, Air Officer Commanding in Chief Bomber Command 20th February 1992. He was known as Butch, the opinion of him varied in accordance with our losses, if they were heavy then his popularity (if that was the right word) suffered. You must remember that most aircrews never saw him when he visited Ludford, I thought he was stone faced, severe and even cynical over our effort. I disagree with those who dubbed him arrogant – he certainly was not. Nevertheless, if his crews did not see enough of him to love him they certainly appreciated what he was doing for them, he gave his command a much-needed sense of purpose. Up to the end of 1941 many people tended to regard strategic bombing as little more than a wasteful sideshow. It was Harris who proclaimed loud and long 59 [page break] that Bomber Command was vital to the war effort and that his crews should be given the best of everything, because their efforts would be decisive in the final outcome. After a successful raid the C‑in‑C would send a signal to the squadron saying good show keep it up this meant a great deal to men who knew that they stood a less than even chance of surviving a tour of operations. Harris was also a great innovator, he called for better navigation and bombing aids, better lit flare paths and increased safety conditions on take offs and landings. GEC was one of the aids which he had pressured for which enabled the navigator to plot his position relative to a ground station, this turned navigator from an art into a science. Wartime Bomber Squadrons People of the younger generation can get the impression that Bomber Command was one big, happy family. This was not so, squadrons were very much individual entities, we didn’t mix much with other squadrons and they assumed the character and charisma of the people who were on the squadron at the time. As a result, few outsiders will ever appreciate what it was really like to serve on a bomber squadron unit. Not wishing to dwell on the dark side of squadron life I was twenty years old at the time, life was for living, we got on with the job. The higher direction of the war was for the older types – 25 years old and above. They were enjoyable days and of course we always expected to come back, suffice to say therefore that at least 277 aircraft were lost or went missing from 101 Squadron between July 1943 and 1945 and that the squadron lost 1094 crew members killed in action and 178 taken prisoner of war. This was the highest casualty rate of any RAF squadron in World War 2. Bombing of Berlin It is difficult for ordinary citizens to visualise the effect of concentrated aerial bombardment. Un Sangro front in Italy, often spoken of as the biggest land bombardment of the war, 1400 tons of shells came down in eight hours. Remember the front was many miles in length and mostly open country yet they smashed the German defence and prisoners spoke of the astounding paralysing effect of these heavy bombardments. Now compare the figures of the air assault, take as an instance only one raid in January 1944, 7300 tons of bombs went down on Berlin in 30 minutes. Remember too that the bombs fell into built up areas on a shorter front than a land attack. Remember too that tonnage for tonnage a bomb contains a much higher explosive charge than a shell. No city, no defence system could stand up to such attack for long delivered as Bomber Command was doing. 60 [page break] War time Bomber Station – a normal day’s work load The total number of personnel on the stations was around 2,500 including officers, male and female personnel. The station was equipped to perform as an individual unit like a small town with runways of sufficient length so that the aircraft could take off and land from where to attack the enemy. It carried sufficient supplies of food, stocks of all the necessary maintenance supplies such as aircraft parts, tyres, turrets, engines and down to all the other small items like rivets screws everything necessary to keep the aircraft flying. In every hour of the day people were working and with 2,500 staff on board the station could exist from the rest of the country for weeks. Time meant very little to staff and many would not know which day in the week it was or which date in the month it was. Sundays were just another working day. The work was continuous, outside interests were possibly intentionally forgotten, all friends and family had to remain outside the airfield boundaries. The best way of describing a normal working day is by eight am the bomb handling crews would already be hard at work sorting out the various bombs, such as the 4,000 lb (cookies) mounting them onto low engine driven trolleys, others would be packing the incendiaries into special cases, similarly all the other bombs likely to be used on operations. All these would be loaded onto special transports and dispatched around the airfield to the Lancasters which would be flying later that day if operations were on. This operation would carry on well into the afternoon. Other staff would be doing the same with cartridges, feeding thousands of them into their ammunition belts and distributing them to the guns in the aircraft. Other airfield staff would be filling the fuel bowsers which held 2,500 gallons of petrol and filling up the Lancaster fuel tanks which held 2,140 gallons. The fill up amount would depend on the time of the operation (Lancaster used an average of 200 gallons per hour). At the dispersal points ground crews would be carrying out their inspections on the aircraft under their control, engine fitters would be carrying checks on engine’s plugs and instruments, turrets and undercarriages and tyres, while others would be doing other pre-checks on the airframe wings, intercom and oxygen bottles etc., should any faults be found then an air test would be necessary to be carried out by the Pilot and Flight Engineer to make sure all was well. If a fault was still found and was connected with the flying ability of the aircraft further work would have to be carried out, a further air test would be required. Occasionally a complete engine may have to be replaced putting great strain on the ground crews. While all this was happening other special staff would be working against time. The Intelligent Officer checking maps and up to date information regarding the target and route. The weather people checking the last minute weather conditions. In messes the kitchen staff would have to prepare breakfast, lunch, tea and supper for around 200 people on top of that when operations were on a meal consisting of chips and egg had to be prepared and served approximately two hours before take-off time for the aircrews. In the locker rooms each flying crew had to have a parachute, flying helmet, safety aids, maps and money of the countries over which they would be flying, in case of being 61 [page break] shot down. Sandwiches, extra rations prepared by the WAAFS and parcelled up to include chocolate, fruit, chewing gum and other items of refreshment. The Station Officer and Flight Commander would be selecting the crew and working out the technical data for the journey. Up until now the aircrews who may have been flying the evening before would be, during the morning, catching up on sleep (having got to bed around 4 to 5am), and in the early afternoon catching up with information etc. from their own Flight Officer or be visiting the aircraft to discuss with the ground crew, Sergeant-in-charge, any problems from the previous operation. Then probably the Pilot and Flight Engineer would have to carry out a test flight. Once it was announced that operations were on, the aircrews had to attend briefing, have their meal then collect all necessary equipment from the locker room ready for being transported to the aircraft, to carry out the pre-flight checks ready for take-off. Only then after this could the ground crew relax, have a meal, a wash and have some time to themselves, if there was any time left, then be ready for the aircraft returning home anytime from five to eight hours later depending on the distance of the target. Crews on return were interviewed by the Interrogation Officer, then have their meal and then to bed for hopefully a good sleep, to be ready for what were to happen the next day. The Clothes Normally Worn on Operations by our Crew In Bomber Command there was no laid down dress code for air crew to wear when flying on operations, every Squadron in fact every person had his own preference, all had to wear the RAF uniform, however what they wore under or over was entirely up to individuals (the RAF uniform had to be worn for safety reasons in case they landed in enemy territory, in uniform they became prisoners of war, in ‘civies’ they were most likely to be called spies and possibly shot). Most of the operations carried out on Lancasters (in fact from all heavy bombers) were from heights of 20,000 ft or over where temperatures could drop to as low as -35 or -40oC below zero. There was a certain amount of heating within the aircraft, this was heat which originated from the engines through ducts and entered the fuselage in the wireless operators compartment, therefore while the wireless operator and the navigator were roasting a little of the heat could be felt by the pilot and engineer, the bomb aimer who was in the front and the gunners in their turrets received no benefit, they had to source heat from other means. As I indicated earlier it was an individual choice what clothing they wore, however I can tell you what our crew would normally wear, starting with the most comfortable. Wireless operator: Normal RAF battle dress, heavy white jersey up to the neck, Mae West, parachute harness, flying boots and silk gloves. Navigator: Normal RAF battle dress over silk underwear, heavy jersey, Mae West, parachute harness, flying boots, leather shoe foot with lamb’s wool tops (easily cut off), silk gloves plus leather gloves. 62 [page break] Pilot and Flight engineer: There was much less heat reached the front of the aircraft therefore we wore silk underwear, long johns under RAF battle dress, heavy white woollen jersey up to neck, leather gloves over silk gloves. No Mae West, parachute harness, flying boots leather shoe base and leather flying jacket. Bomb aimer: He usually flew in the nose of the aircraft which could be very cold, he wore silk underwear, long johns, RAF battle dress usually two heavy woollen jerseys and heavy over suit, Mae West, parachute harness, silk gloves, woollen gloves and a pair of leather gloves on top plus the normal flying boots. The two crew members who suffered most from the cold were the gunners. Mid upper gunner: he was still within the aircraft which gave some comfort. He wore two complete suits of silk underwear, two woollen jerseys, RAF battle dress, unheated over suit, heated over suit, Mae West, parachute harness, woollen scarf, woollen head cover under his helmet, three pairs of gloves, silk, woollen and leather, heated flying boots. Rear gunner: This was the coldest place in the aircraft in fact he was actually outside the rear of the plane, so if it was expected that the temperatures would be around -20oC he would wear that similar to the mid upper gunner however if the temperatures were expected to drop to say -40oC he would add on extra layers of clothing and wear five pairs of gloves. The gunners flying suits were electrically heated from a plug-in switch as were their helmet and gloves, their flying boots were also electrically heated, therefore if everything worked properly they were reasonably comfortable, this was however not always the case, a fault in the electrical system, possibly caused by enemy action, then they had problems and could receive severe frost bite, resulting in loss of fingers, toes or even more. When the gunners were dressed up to ready to fly, it was difficult for them to walk and reach their position in the aircraft. The rear gunners especially looked like the advert for Dunlop tyres! One of the main reasons for all crew members wearing silk gloves was if you caught the metal part of the aircraft with your bare hand it was so cold that the moisture from your skin would stick to the metal and leave you with severe injuries. In the aircraft flying at over 10,000 ft oxygen had to be used which meant using masks attached to the helmets, which every few minutes you had to break the ice which had formed around the mask from just breathing. The oxygen was also distributed through the aircraft from a single supply at each crew position there was a supply tap, there was also emergency bottles at each position, these would last for around 10 minutes. We all also carried a whistle which was attached to the top left hand buttonhole of our tunic. The sound from a whistle carries much further than the human voice. It could be used to attract attention to one’s self in a dangerous situation or for making contact with others. 63 [page break] Contact made with Two Crew Members after 60 Years plus information on others Living in Scotland during the 1950’s and 60’s we had little choice of attending any of the activities which took place such as Airfield Open Days, Squadron reunions, or fly pasts, and it wasn’t until the early 1970s when we moved down to Shropshire that we began attending the occasional ‘open days’ (by this time Brian was old enough to be interested), Sylvia’s mum and sister’s home was in North Hykeham, Lincoln, only a short drive from Waddington RAF station, so this was our first visit of many which proved interesting and a good days entertainment. We then in 1998 decided to revisit Ludford Magna (101 Squadron airfield) and the small church in the village where a Book of Remembrance was, the Book of Remembrance was of interest to me as it contained all the names of the aircrew that had been lost during the period which 101 Squadron had been there, as I said in my earlier notes that when we arrived at Ludford in July 1943 there was four crews two of which had the name of Evans, WL Evans and AH Evans, at Lindholme Heavy Conversion Unit. I was crewed up with WL Evans’ crew, and carried out my training with them, however when we arrived at Ludford somehow the paperwork was wrong and I was crewed up with AH Evans’ crew. It was suggested that as neither crews had been on operations the obvious thing was just to leave the paperwork as it was and for me to change over to the AH Evans crew, and the other Flight Engineer to take my place, Wally Evans would not agree, I was his Flight Engineer and that was how it had to be. All four crews flew on the same operations, on our first two, all returned, on our third AH Evans crew did not return, and by our fifth operation only our crew WL Evans were still operating. Checking in the Remembrance book sadly, I was able to read and realise how lucky I was that Wally had faith in me all those years ago. While in the church we met a lady who looked after the church and was in fact decorating it with flowers, as she said this weekend coming was the 101 Squadron Association Reunion, when a service was held in the church followed by the laying of wreaths at the small memorial and afterwards the Women’s Institute laid on in the village hall tea and cakes for all, and if the weather was kind the Lancaster bomber would give a flying display. In the year 2000 I joined the 101 Squadron Association and have attended the reunion every year since in early September, and in recent years Brian and Pauline have also joined us, joining the Association has proved very good as we have met many veterans who were flying during our time in the Squadron and other very interested people. It was through the Association Newsletter that I made contact with some of our crew members whom I had not heard from for nearly 70 years. They are Norman Ellison, our Wireless Operator and Len Brooks, our rear gunner. In the summer of 2002 after writing a short article for the 101 Squadron Association Newsletter I was contacted by Chris, the son of our Wireless Operator (Norman Ellison) asking if I was the Donald Fraser who flew with his dad in 1943‑44 with 101 Squadron. After the telephone call Chris arranged for Sylvia and I to go to his home to meet his wife Christine and James his son, he lives in Exeter, his dad’s home was in Dawlish only a few miles apart. Chris then took us to meet his mum and dad, it was great to see him after 63 years and as such was quite emotional for both of us. It was so good to meet his wife Pauline. We stayed for around two hours before travelling on our way to Woolacombe. We met up again over the next two years, unfortunately Norman’s health deteriorated and he passed away on 13th February 2005. We attended his funeral, since then we exchange Christmas cards and the odd telephone call each year with his wife and Chris and his family. 64 [page break] Norman also kept in touch with Wally Evans (our Pilot). After the war he emigrated to Australia where he lived for a number of years before returning to the UK in the mid eighties when he again contacted Norman, they then tried to contact all the other crew members, unfortunately the only member that made contact was Len Brooks, our rear gunner, Norman understood that Wally died in the late eighties. Len Brooks, our rear gunner, we all knew that he lived in Grimsby for most of his life. During our time at Ludford whenever there was no flying on, he would take the opportunity to visit home which only took him over an hour to hitch a lift. If there was any change on flying one member of the crew would give him a telephone call and he would return to the Squadron very quickly. During the 1980s and 90s there was a large number of books written covering the war and Bomber Command, I enjoyed reading many of them, even although as you know I did not believe all that was written, many of the books covered the time we were flying, as a result many of the operations we flew on were mentioned in them. There was a series of books written by Patrick M Otter on Bomber Command One Group, the group which 101 Squadron was in and operated throughout Lincolnshire. On reading one of Otter’s books called “Maximum Effort” I came across a picture of a number of air gunners while they were stationed at Lindholme as Instructors during their rest period. On a closer look I recognised one as Len our rear gunner. On contacting Mr Patrick Otter in 2004, he said it was 16 years since he spoke with Len at his home in Cleethorpes. However he could find no trace of him in the local telephone directories, he said he had left a message at the RAFA club in Cleethorpes to see if anyone knew what became of him, and if he had any response he would drop me a line. We thought that he had passed away around 2001‑2002. I also made contact with Ken Lewis our Special Operator through the Newsletter, Ken also wasn’t in the best of health, however he arranged for his son in law to drive him from Reading (his home) to Lincoln. We had a great time at the Reunion lunch catching up with the past in September 2006, Ken’s profession was in Insurance which he spent all his working life in. Unfortunately he was unable to attend any more reunion meetings. At the end of the war Norman had been in touch with Bill Blaynay, our Midupper gunner, who part way through our tour of operations after an unfortunate incident was released from flying. He told Norman that he had been reassessed and had his Sargents [sic] rank reinstated, other than that we have no other information about him. There was still two more crew members still unaccounted for, Jimmy, our Navigator and Eric, our Bomb Aimer. Shropshire during the war had a number of Heavy Bomber Airfields, Ternhill, Shawbury and Cosford which are still in service today. Prees, and Sleap, were both wartime bases flying Lancasters, at Prees the hangers are being used as storage units for commercial companies. Sleap is now the home of Shropshire Flying Club using part of the runway, a few buildings and the Control Tower. It is open to the public, where you watch the small aircraft flying and one can enjoy and a good cup of tea and a cake and have a good chat with people who are still interested in flying. There is also a small Museum covering plane parts from World War II. In the last three years Sylvia, myself and friends occasionally drop in for a cup of tea, by now we know a few of the staff who are all Volunteers and very interested people. 65 [page break] Jimmy Grant, Navigator On one of our visits in 2012 I had taken with me the 1943 Christmas Dinner menu for 101 Squadron, all the crew members had signed it in the inside, most people looking at the menu thought that we had had an excellent meal considering there was a war on. Mike Grant one of the longer serving volunteers at Sleap Museum, who aids in researching the items that are given to the Museum before they go on display to the public. Meantime he is also tracing the history of the oil pipeline which carried the millions of gallons of oil from the ports, across the UK down to the Channel ports and on to the D Day landing sites and beyond. This will be a very interesting book to read when it is published, soon. On seeing the menu Mike said “I know this signature, he is one of my family, see how he writes the ‘G’ and the ‘r’ in Grant, we all write our signature the same way, and we were all told off at school for not writing properly”. We worked out that Jimmy our Navigator was his uncle. After the war he said the family had gone their separate ways, as many families did, so he had no idea where Jimmy would be now – it’s a small world. We still have no idea of what happened to Eric our Bomb aimer. 66 [page break] CHAPTER K THE LANCASTER STORY It became clear reasonably early in the Second World War that if Britain had any chance of winning, Bomber Command had to take the war to Germany, deep into its industrial heart, which was not possible with the short range light Bombers. It was decided by the War Council that a much larger aircraft which could travel further, with a much heavier bomb load into Germany was needed, hence the introduction of the four engined heavy bomber, the Halifax and the Lancaster. 1942 marked the turning point for Bomber Command, Marshal Travis Harris (later known as Bomber Harris) was appointed Leader of Bomber Command. He believed that Bomber Command given the necessary aircraft and equipment, could play an important role in winning the war by strategic bombing of Germany’s industrial towns and cities. Harris ordered a 1000 aircraft raid on Cologne be carried out. Fortunately the operation was credited as a success, this persuaded the Government to allocate Bomber Command high priority for aircraft and more importantly navigation aids and radar which were vital for accurate delivery of bombs on targets. The development of the Lancaster continued with a few prototypes being produced, the production of Lancasters increased slowly at first and gradually stepped up reaching their peak by the end of 1944. The earlier two engine bomber had a second pilot to aid the captain with a crew number of five, however on the four engined heavies where crew members could move around the fuselage, a change was necessary. The heavies had a mid upper gun fitted requiring a mid upper gunner; because of pilot shortages owing to the increase in numbers of new squadrons coming on stream and the increased complexity of the four engine bomber, this called for a specialist engineer to replace the second pilot, so the flight engineer was created, the standard crew of the Lancaster comprised of seven specialists, Pilot, Navigator, Flight Engineer, Wireless operator, Bomb Aimer, Mid Upper Gunner and Rear Gunner. Each was an expert in his own field and each a vital cog in the overall crew, rank played no part in the airborne life of the crew. The Lancaster was involved on most of the important operations, such as the Dambuster Raid on 16/17th May 1943, The Battle of the Ruhr, Battle of Berlin, (Overlord, the name given to the Invasion of Europe 6th May 1944) and Operation Thunder Clap, mass raids against supply and communication targets such as road and railyards continued, and against German naval shipping at Le Havre. In late July a bombing campaign against the V-weapon sites commenced as there was fear that Germany had a new secret weapon, raids were carried out on launching and storage sites, these operations took much of Bomber Commands efforts throughout the autumn of 1944 as did the attacks against the French railway in support of Overland. In September the 67 [page break] Navy believed that Tirpitz (the German Battleship) which was anchored in the Kaa Fjord in Norway was about to put to sea. Bomber Command was again given the task of destroying her. On the third attempt on 12th November 31 Lancasters attacked the Battleship. This time on arrival the weather was clear over the ship, no smokescreen obscured the target, during the attack several hits were seen by the Lancaster crews, followed by a heavy explosion, one of its magazines blew up, then the mighty Battleship rolled over and capsized. By the end of 1944 the Allied Armies were approaching the Rhine, come the end of March 1945, they had crossed the river in strength and were advancing on Berlin. Bomber Command’s role assisted by the United States Eighth Airforce was to support the Allies by bombing Military targets, and in supporting the Russian Army on their advance from the east on Berlin. The last major attack of the war took place on 25th April 1945 by the bombing of the Bergholf (Hitler’s Eagles nest) and the SS barracks nearby. The war in Europe ended on 8th May 1945 (VE Day), however just previous to that operation Manna was put into action, which was dropping vital food supplies to the starving civilian population of the Netherlands (the Germans agreed to the dropping areas) a similar operation dropped food parcels to the Dutch population. A large number of Lancasters were involved, these operations stopped on VE Day. With the war in Europe over, plans were made for the repatriation of British and Commonwealth prisoners of war under the code name Operation Exodus, many Lancasters were converted to carry 25 passengers for this purpose. Flights continued bringing prisoners home from across France and Germany. Receiving camps were set up in the United Kingdom for the thousands of men returning home from Europe. Although the war was over in Europe, many Lancasters were preparing for war in the Far East, known as the Tiger Force, it was agreed that 10 Squadrons of Lancasters would be used until the New Lincoln Bomber came on stream which had much longer fuel ranges. Fortunately the Japanese war ended sooner than expected (because of the use of the Atom bomb) resulting in Tiger Force not being required. Myself along with many other crew members were very relieved, because flying over Japan would have been very difficult and dangerous. After the war the Lancaster continued flying carrying out various roles until the new aircraft came into service, of the approximately eight thousand Lancasters that were built only a few are left with only two airworthy aircraft, one in Britain and the other in Canada. During World War II Lincolnshire was known as Lancaster County, because of the large number of squadrons scattered across the County (28 in total). Today most of the land then used is now returned to agriculture. It is still difficult to travel around without driving past the site of a famous airfield. The airworthy Lancaster belongs to the Lincolnshire’s Lancaster Association, based at RAF Coningsby and is part of the Battle of Britain memorial Flight. Each year this flight performs at many air-displays entertaining thousands of people and serves as a living memorial to those air crew who gave their lives in the defence of their Country. There is a second Lancaster which has its home also in Lincolnshire at East Kirby and belongs to two brothers, Fred and Harold Panton, the aircraft is maintained to a very high standard, 68 [page break] where the public can have a taxi ride in the Lancaster, and enjoy the sound of the four Merlin engines. The people of Lincolnshire were the first to know when the RAF were on operations, as with 28 squadrons based throughout the county and each squadron with at least 20 aircraft serviceable, the sound made from over 2000 Merlin engines, as they circled and climbed to reach a height of 10,000 ft before setting out across Europe was tremendous. People from the Netherlands told me (after the war) that during the war they lay in bed at night hoping to hear the special sound made by the British bombers, and as they passed over, they wished them success in their operation and prayed that the young men who flew in them returned home safely. During operations I listened to the four Merlin engines purring away for five or six hours, the sound was magic and something I will never forget. I am one of the thousands who have been entertained over the years by attending many of the fly pasts and open days, where the Lancaster has been carrying out the flypast, firstly to hear the sound of the Merlin engines which is music to my ears, then to see this superb aircraft flying towards you at around 200 feet nearly always brings a tear to my eyes for memories past. Date: 30 Aug 1943 This picture was taken from the camera operated in conjunction with the opening of the bomb doors and Bomb Aimer releasing his bombs on our 2nd Operation to Munchen Gladbach. The picture plotted the bombs hitting the target. [photograph of bombs hitting target] 69 [page break] Lancaster Bomber Specification Length: 69ft 4ins (21.08m) Wingspan: 102ft 6ins (31.00m) Height: 20ft 6ins (6.23m) Maximum Speed: 300+ mph Range loaded: 2,600 miles app Ceiling loaded: 24,000 ft Internal payload: up to 7 tons Full fuel load: 2,140 gallon 4 Merlin engines 1390 hp (The latest Lancasters could be better in all specifications) 70 [page break] [photograph of Avro Lancaster bomber] [photograph of Avro Lancaster cockpit] 72 [page break] [inserted] 16th December 1943 14th op. [deleted] Page 3 [/deleted] [/inserted] Black Thursday [inserted] Further notes on our 14th operation on 16th December 1943 [/inserted] [crest] AT A minute before midnight on the night of December 16. 1943 Lancaster LM395 emerged briefly from low cloud just north of Caistor. There was barely time for the pilot, Sgt Stan Miller of Scarborough to register what was happening before the Lancaster struck high ground near the town. When rescuers arrived they found no survivors among the crew of seven. Crashes amongst Lancasters returning from ops or on night exercises had become an almost regular occurrence in Lincolnshire by the winter of 1943. But that night something awful was happening as the 1 Group aircraft returned from a round trip of eight hours to Berlin. The raid that night had been specifically planned to catch the defenders fog bound on their nightfighter bases across Northern Europe. Instead, the mist came down and shrouded many of the airfields in Eastern England as the bombers were returning. That night 483 Lancasters and 15 Mosquitos raided Berlin. Twenty-five aircraft were lost to a combination of night-fighters, flak and collisions over the German capital. At least another 29 Lancasters were lost in crashes when the bombers returned to airfields blanketed in fog. 1 Group suffered more than most with 13 aircraft being lost and 56 men killed in crashes on or around their bases. 100 Squadron was hit hardest of all, losing four aircraft, including two which collided right over the airfield at Waltham. 460 at Binbrook lost two as did 166 at Kirmington. And single aircraft were lost from 625 Squadron at Kelstern, 101 at Ludford and 12 and 626 lost a Lancaster each at Wickenby. During briefings that afternoon, crews had been told that Bomber Command had been waiting to mount a raid on Berlin when the weather was so bad that the fighters would be grounded and they would have an easy trip. This was to be it. The planned route was straight in and out again over Denmark. But the fighters, which were supposed to be sitting on fog-shrouded airfields across Holland, Belgium, Northern France and Germany, were airborne, and the first intercepted the stream of Lancasters over the Dutch coast and there were running battles, until the bomber stream turned for home across Denmark. Twenty one aircraft were shot down and four lost in collisions over Berlin itself. The weather became progressively worse as the aircraft returned and by the time the 1 Group Lancasters began arriving they found the cloud base had almost reached ground level. Crashes began to be reported from almost every airfield. Tired crews were unable to pick up the circle of lights which by then had been fitted around most of the dromes. Some came down in open fields, some, like LM395, simply flew into the Wolds. At Waltham, two Lancasters from 100 Squadron, O-Oboe and F-Freddie, collided as they circled looking for the funnel of lights that could guide them to safety. One man who remembers that night vividly is Wing Commander Jimmy Bennett, who had arrived at Waltham three weeks earlier to form the new 550 Squadron which was due to move to North Killingholme in the new year. Bennett. with two tours behind him already, chose to fly that with 'Bluey’ Graham and his crew. "Our take-off was early, about 4.30 in the afternoon, and even then visibility wasn't very good and it was plain we were not going to be in for a very pleasant journey,” he said. The bombers emerged from the cloud cover which was supposed to protect them over the North Sea. “There was no high cloud and at times we could see dozens of aircraft around us," Bennett recalled. "The clouds below cleared slightly over the city, we dropped our bombs and got away again. There was some fighter activity but we were not bothered. "Coming back the cloud started to increase again and it was clear that by the time we reached England it would be almost right down to the deck. Bluey decided to come down through the cloud over the North Sea. In conditions like that it was always wise practice. Lincolnshire may have been fairly flat, but other places weren’t and there were always a few of what we called "stuffed clouds" around, clouds which contained something hard, like a hill. "We dropped down into the mist but Bluey picked up the outer circle of sodium lights at Waltham, stuck his port wing on them and followed them round until he found the funnel and put her down. “We rolled along the runway to the far hedge and we were already aware that planes were coming down all around us, landing at the first opportunity, so we decided it would be a lot safer to leave the aircraft where it was and walk the rest of the way.” 73 [page break] Black Thursday [picture of aircraft] 100 Squadron had suffered terribly that night. So had 97 Squadron at Bourn in Cambridgeshire. It lost no fewer than seven aircraft in crashes. The 1 Group Summary, which was circulated to all squadrons at the end of December, recorded: “No opportunity for striking at our objectives must be lost. This being the case, it is obvious that, in addition to the enemy on the far side, the elements of this side still have to be mastered. “As an illustration, after the raid on Berlin on December 16/17, a widespread and unpredicted deterioration in the weather at our home bases occurred. "No diversion areas were available and many deplorable accidents resulted while our aircraft were endeavouring to break cloud and land." The Summary continued: "An investigation has now been completed which shows the accidents cannot be attributed to a common factor. Some aircraft broke cloud too quickly, some broke cloud too slowly and continued to sink, whilst others ''slipped in” on a turn while endeavouring to keep the airfield lights in view." It added: "Conditions were vile and unexpected yet 136 aircraft landed safely. We must continue to strive for better airmanship and more effective ground control. But no number of investigations and changes to procedure could erase the memory of that wooden hut near Louth for Wing Commander Bennett. One crew which narrowly escaped joining the casualties that night was one from 101 Squadron at Ludford. [inserted] X2 [/inserted] Len Brooks, who was the rear gunner in a Lancaster flown by Sgt Walter Evans, remembers that they were diverted to Driffield because of the bad weather. Over East Yorkshire they were picking up RT messages from Driffield, Dishforth and Catfoss but could see no lights through the murk. Then Catfoss offered to put a light up for them. " They realised we were very low and put the beam almost parallel to the ground right on us. I remember feeling the power go on. the nose lift and suddenly I saw under the turret chicken huts, a garden shed and finally chimney pots flashing by. That Iight had saved us.” [inserted] This refers to the aircraft being suddenly given full power to lift itself over the farm buildings [/inserted] Mr Brooks also remembers the first time Ludford's new FIDO fog dispersal system came into use. This consisted of a system of petrol burners the length of the runway, the theory being that the heat generated would drive the fog away. It worked, too, the only problem being that the hot air caused a great deal of turbulence over the runway. He recalls that two aircraft ahead of them declined to land, despite the exhortations of the station commander, Group Captain Bobby Blucke. When it came to their turn they were so low on fuel they had no option and Evans virtually forced the Lancaster down onto the runway. [inserted] [symbol] Len Brooks our Rear Gunner He was looking backwards from the aircraft therefore had a completely different view from the others of the crew [/inserted] [photograph of the rear gunner, Len Brooks] 102. An unknown gunner standing by his turret. 12 Squadron, Wickenby, May 1944. 74 [page break] Training the Crews [crest] BEFORE BOMBER Command could launch its projected expansion in late 1943 and 1944 it had to have a ready supply of crews. And that meant an increase in training establishments. Changes in the training system meant that each Group became responsible for turning out its own heavy bomber crews. With Lindholme in South Yorkshire as the Base station, Heavy Conversion Units were set up at Faldingworth, Blyton and Sandtoft with other training units being based at various times at Hemswell, Ingham and Sturgate. Most of the1I Group crews were to go through these training bases and many felt that flying with operation squadrons was considerably safer than in the HCUs. Until more Lancasters became available, their conversion to four-engined heavies was largely on Halifaxes, and in particular on the early Mark I and lls. They were underpowered aircraft which had already been discarded by operational squadrons in favour of either Lancasters or the much superior later marques of the Halifax. They also had some nasty habits, particularly when inexperienced crews tried one particular manoeuvre which effectively blocked the airflow over the tail and was responsible for the destruction of a number of these aircraft. One ex-12 Squadron crew remember starting six cross-country exercises from Sandtoft and failing to complete one of them. There was little wonder that Sandtoft became known throughout 1 Group as Prangtoft. Sandtoft itself was, like the other training airfields, originally intended as an operational station. The site. which is alongside what is now the M180 between Scunthorpe and Thorne, was selected by Air Ministry surveyors in January 1942 as suitable for use by heavy aircraft and work started that October on the construction of the airfield. It was intended that it would come into use as a bomber airfield in January 1944 but in the meantime, it was decided to earmark the new station for a Heavy Conversion Unit. It officially opened in December 1943 (although it was by no means complete, not unusual with newly-opened airfields in 1 Group at the time). The first unit to operate from there was A Flight of 1667 HCU which moved in from Faldingworth, followed by its other two flights. Later in the year a fourth Flight was formed and this became the Flying Instructors’ Flight which in turn provided the training for instructors within 11 Base which also included Lindholme and Blyton. [photograph of gunnery instructors] 133. Gunnery instructor at Lindholme in 1944. On the extreme left is Bob Dunston, an Australian who had lost a leg while serving with the 8th Army at Tobruk and later volunteered for the RAF as an air gunner. The picture comes from Len Brooks of Cleethorpes, pictured second from the left. [inserted] Second from left is Len Brooks our Rear Gunner [/inserted] 75 [page break] [blank page] 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 WO Donald Keith Fraser Donald Keith Fraser's memoir Description An account of the resource Memoir describing his life and service career in the RAF, listing 29 operations in which he participated, along with notes on specific operations, and recounting a brief history of the Lancaster. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Donald Fraser Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 80 typewritten pages Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Text. Memoir Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BFraserDKFraserDKv1 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Royal Air Force. Bomber Command Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. France Germany Great Britain Poland England--Lincolnshire France--Modane Germany--Augsburg Germany--Berlin Germany--Bochum Germany--Düsseldorf Germany--Frankfurt am Main Germany--Hannover Germany--Leipzig Germany--Leverkusen Germany--Mannheim Germany--Mönchengladbach Germany--Munich Germany--Schweinfurt Germany--Stuttgart Poland--Szczecin Germany--Braunschweig Germany--Ruhr (Region) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Tricia Marshall David Bloomfield Maureen Clarke Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1942 1943 1944 1 Group 101 Squadron 1667 HCU 1668 HCU aircrew Berlin Campaign (23 August 1943 – 25 March 1944) bomb trolley bombing bombing up briefing Churchill, Winston (1874-1965) Cook’s tour dispersal Distinguished Flying Medal fear FIDO fitter engine flight engineer flight mechanic fuelling Gee George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952) ground crew ground personnel Halifax Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984) Heavy Conversion Unit intelligence officer Lancaster memorial military ethos military living conditions military service conditions navigator Nissen hut Operational Training Unit perception of bombing war perimeter track petrol bowser radar RAF Bottesford RAF Catfoss RAF Coningsby RAF Cottesmore RAF East Kirkby RAF Lindholme RAF Ludford Magna RAF North Luffenham RAF Sandtoft RAF St Athan RAF Waddington RAF Wickenby runway searchlight service vehicle Tiger force Tirpitz tractor training Window wireless operator https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1402/57732/PMunneryC1902.jpg fd28df33648b0615643cf81a9a048c12 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1402/57732/PMunneryC1606.jpg b9fbdda2fc0c47d6ed00590ad0218463 https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1402/57732/PMunneryC1607.jpg 0a9b77cd5a1942675da1a21751812fe5 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 Munnery, Charlie C Munnery Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-01-26 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 Munnery, C Description An account of the resource Ten items. The collection concerns Leading aircraftman Charlie Munnery (b. 1913, 1861258 Royal Air Force) and contains identity card, document, newspaper cuttings and photographs. He served as a flight mechanic and survived a bullet wound to the head. The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Maureen Ann Aldington and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Charlie Munnery Description An account of the resource Three versions of same photograph of an airmen wearing tunic and side cap sitting on a chair. Second is captioned 'Charlie Munnery'. 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 Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Three b/w photographs Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PMunneryC1606, PMunneryC1607, PMunneryC1902 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. flight mechanic ground crew ground personnel https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/1402/57725/MMunneryC1861258-160203-01.pdf 751fee88a73b6076ed20a6d6a2e27439 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 Munnery, Charlie C Munnery Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-01-26 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 Munnery, C Description An account of the resource Ten items. The collection concerns Leading aircraftman Charlie Munnery (b. 1913, 1861258 Royal Air Force) and contains identity card, document, newspaper cuttings and photographs. He served as a flight mechanic and survived a bullet wound to the head. The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Maureen Ann Aldington and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Transcribed document A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Transcription Text transcribed from audio recording or document Charles Munnery Rank Leading Aircraftman R A F Trade Flight Mechanic Oct 1942/ Oct 1945 ------------------------ "Million to one chance". My farther -in-law Charlie was stationed in Lincoln maintaining Lanchester Bomber's. He was born 13/07/1913 and volunteered to join up in 1942, but as he was a active farmer in Wiston West Sussex he had to agree to return back to the farm for collection of the harvest each year. It was on one of these vists in 1945 whilst driving a Ferguson open tractor across a field that he WAS HIT BY A RICOCHETED BULLET fired by a Canadian soldier based at Wiston House who was shooting rabbits ! He fell off the tractor and crawled nearly a mile back to his mother's Tied Cottage where he told his Mother that he had been shot but she did not believe him as she could not see a entry wound or any sign of blood, it was only when he was X Rayed that they discovered a LIVE BULLET HEAD BEHIND HIS LEFT EYE which had entered though his EAR. We have all original newspaper cutting regarding his time in hospital while awaiting for a surgeon in London to remove the "" LIVE BULLETT FROM AIRMANS BRAIN Sunday Chronically Dec 30 1945. Due to this incident Charlie always worn a Patch over his left eye as it would give him blurred vision. Although he was a good dart's player, even qualified for News of the World Championship's Charlie died from a unrelated illness 06/03/1996 age 82 He was discharged from the R A F on 18/10/1945 due to this incident ( have original discharge certificate No 1861258) Also have photo of total maintenance Crew and Charlie in uniform. He told me stories of taxiing Lancaster's after mission still with body parts in them. Changing 96 spark plugs from stepladder 's etc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Charles Munnery biography Description An account of the resource Recounts Charlie's service in the Royal Air Force as a flight mechanic. Provides account of accident when he was hit by ricocheted bullet and its lifelong effect. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mrs M Aldington Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1943-10 1945-10-18 1945-12-30 1996-03/06 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Lincolnshire Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Royal Air Force Civilian Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Printed document Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context MMunneryC1861258-160203-01 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. flight mechanic ground crew ground personnel https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/files/original/812/23579/PEllamsG16030002.2.jpg 37c915a306322e67896a6786488f76d5 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 Ellams, George G Ellams Description An account of the resource 60 items. An oral history interview with George Ellams the son of Wing Commander George Ellams OBE (b. 1921), and documents and photographs concerning his fathers service. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 223 and 199 Squadrons. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Stephen Ellams and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle. 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 2016-10-06 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Ellams, G Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bomber Command No 223 Squadron, RAF Oulton, No 199 Squadron, RAF North Creake Description An account of the resource First is of a crew of eight, standing by left mainwheel of a Stirling captioned 'The crew'. ' The crew of aircraft 'N' for Nan. no 199 Squadron from Nov 1944 till April 1945'. Second is of ten individuals standing and kneeling in front of a Stirling, captioned "The Mechanics". Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Two b/w photographs on two album pages Language A language of the resource eng Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PEllamsG16030002 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. Bomber Command Royal Air Force Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Great Britain England--Norfolk Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available IBCC Digital Archive Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal. Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1944-11 1944-12 1945-01 1945-02 1945-03 1945-04 Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph 199 Squadron 223 Squadron air gunner aircrew bomb aimer flight engineer flight mechanic ground crew ground personnel navigator pilot RAF North Creake RAF Oulton Stirling wireless operator