Interview with Louis Makens
Title
Interview with Louis Makens
Description
Louis Makens worked as a farm worker before the war but volunteered for aircrew. He discusses his training on Wellingtons and operations flying Stirlings with 196 Squadron including a crash landing, and glider towing. His Halifax was shot down 18/19 March 1944 on the way to Frankfurt. It was his seventh operation, but his first as a mid under gunner with 76 Squadron from RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor. He became a prisoner of war and discusses that as an extra gunner with a new crew, he only got to know his pilot David Joseph during captivity. He describes his capture and treatment and the conditions at Stalag Luft 6, the contents of Red Cross parcels, and the prisoners' attitude to the guards. Hedescribes the conditions on the long march through Germany away from the advancing Russians. Eventually he found the advancing Allied army. After the war, he was remustered as a driver and was demobbed in 1946. He found employment with Stramit manufacturing strawboard building material.
Creator
Date
2017-01-17
Spatial Coverage
Language
Type
Format
01:42:22 audio recording
Publisher
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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
AMakensL170117, PMakensL1701
Collection
Citation
David Kavanagh, “Interview with Louis Makens,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed May 16, 2022, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/11387.
Item Relations
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