Interview with Andrew Barron. Three

Interview with Andrew Barron. Three

Andrew said that during leisure time the crew drank, sang silly songs but didn’t really socialize much. He recalled an occasion when the Germans sent in about 200 night fighters infiltrating the main force on its ways home. They shot down a B-17 as it came into land and all crew were killed. The German aircraft had passed Andrew’s one as it was waiting to land. He mentions four daylight operations: over a fairly short period the squadron did 38 operations. Andrew remembered on 1 January 1945 he was on operations and made some gross navigational error – he had been up late on New Years’ Eve and had drunk quite a bit. May 1945 ended operational flights: on the 26th Andrew did a trip with 223 Squadron from RAF Swannington, in a B-17.
When the war ended, they were allowed to go on one of the Cooks tours around the Ruhr to see what damage had been done. Andrew was then posted to 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington doing local flying with circuits and bumps. They did three flights in a Halifax picking up bombs which they dropped into the sea. Following various postings, he was demobbed and trained for a civil license.

IBCC Digital Archive

2019-05-10

Sue Smith

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01:565:35 audio recording

ABarronAJK190510, PBarronAJK1901