Interview with Geoffrey Conacher
Title
Interview with Geoffrey Conacher
Description
Geoffrey Conacher grew up in Australia and after a few months in the army he joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1942. After training he flew 14 operations as a pilot with 622 Squadron. His aircraft was shot down and he bailed out over liberated France.
Creator
Date
2017-04-11
Language
Type
Format
00:41:18 audio recording
Publisher
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.
Contributor
Identifier
AConacherG170411
PConacherG1701
Transcription
DM: Ok. We’re off. So the microphone is just up there.
GC: Right.
DM: So, I don’t know exactly how you want to do this.
GC: No. I don’t know what, what you want really.
DM: I just want a story from where to go. So starting on maybe why you joined up and when you joined up and so the reasoning behind it. And then what happened to you.
GC: Oh, I see. I see.
DM: Maybe that’s a good start.
GC: Yeah. Well I could talk for a while on that I guess. Well, I joined up mainly because — well the war was on and if you didn’t join up the army called you up and that was it. So I had a [pause] I always wanted to join the air force. I thought I’d join the air force. I knew that eighteen was coming up and I’d be called up so and I told my mother and father that, ‘If you don’t sign these papers I’ll finish up in the army.’ But they wouldn’t sign the papers. They didn’t want me to go overseas so they didn’t want me to fly. So, I did finish up in the army for about, oh it must have been about eight months I think before I could get out and get into the air force which I went in to in November 1942. Went down to Somers where the ITS was. Number 1, I think it was. Number 1 ITS. And did the three months course down there and was fortunate enough to be categorised as suitable for pilot training. And then I went to Western Junction in Tasmania and learned to fly Tiger Moths there.
DM: Ok.
GC: I was just, I was just turned nineteen then ‘cause I was in the army for most of my eighteenth year. Yeah, and so that all sort of went ok. Went well and I managed a solo and then the required seven hours I think it was. Or seven and a half hours tuition. And then when we graduated from SFTS as they called it — no. Not SFTS. EFTS. Elementary Flying Training School I was posted to Point Cook here in Victoria. Where it was number 1 SFTS and we flew multi engine, two-engined Oxfords down there and learned to fly those and graduated in July, I think it was, of 1943. And was fortunate enough to be posted to embarkation depot which meant you were going overseas and we went to [pause] went to England and went across. Went across to America actually by ship. American ship. USS Mount Vernon I think it was. And that took about two or three weeks. And then we went by train across to the east coast of America in, to Massachusetts. A place called Camp Myles Standish. Unfortunately on the train journey across I contracted scarlet fever and when I lobbed there I was put straight into hospital. I was the first or second of what was an epidemic that went right through the, through the camp and which upset everybody who was looking forward to going on leave to New York which didn’t, didn’t happen for most of them. But for those that did get scarlet fever we served our three weeks in hospital. Then we came out and went on leave to New York so —
DM: Right.
GC: It worked all right for us. We were, we were the main cause of other people missing out. But anyway, then we went by, by ship across the Atlantic on the Aquitania. USS Aquitania. No. Not USS — SS Aquitania and landed at Greenock in Scotland. And from there we travelled down to Brighton on the south coast where we were domiciled. All Australians when they arrived, initially they were, they were going to Bournemouth but then they changed it. Due to some enemy action they changed it to Brighton and so we all went to Brighton and stayed in either the Grand or the Metropole Hotel.
DM: Very flash hotels.
GC: Which were lovely hotels.
DM: Nice.
GC: Right on the, right on the waterfront. And we were there for oh [pause] see the trouble was when you went to England the weather got crook. At that time in the year — November, December, January. And of course all the training starts to bank up because they can’t fly. But anyway we eventually got back in to the air. It was about three months afterwards though since we arrived. After we arrived. And we did our training there which was mainly on [pause] we went on Oxfords again and did a course there. And then we went to OTU which was Operational Training Unit on to, on to Wellington bombers. And did our training there. It was whilst I was there my navigator who — we selected our own crews. They put you in, in a big hangar with umpteen aircrew and said, ‘Well now find yourselves a crew.’ So that went on and anyway it turns out that the little navigator that I got was English. They were all Englishmen. He, he obviously well didn’t make the grade. I didn’t have anything to do with it but the leaders, the navigation leader said, ‘He’s just not up to scratch so we’re going to remove him. So they took him away and I had to wait about six weeks before I got another navigator. And that put me all back right through the [pause] all the fellas I’d trained with, they all went ahead.
DM: Right.
GC: And so it was upsetting at the time. But anyway, to offset that I managed to meet a girl who made some sort of an impression on me and I must have done the same to her because we married within six months.
DM: Crikey. Yeah.
GC: And in ’44 that was. Late ’44. And so when I did get training again, when I did get a new navigator we got through there went on to our next training school which was over in Yorkshire. Which was, they called it a Heavy Conversion Unit. We went on to Halifaxes. Learned to fly Halifaxes. They were four-engined aircraft and from there we were posted to a squadron. Or they did another little course in between called Lancaster Finishing School but that was only about ten hours of flying and then I went to the squadron and it wasn’t until January 1945 that I got to the squadron whereas most of the fellows that I trained with they were, they were operational in November.
DM: Ok.
GC: But because of my holdup — but anyway that’s beside the point I suppose. But so I got, I was operational. I had a bit of bad luck on my first trip which — it was the custom to do what they used to call a second dickie. When a new pilot went [pause] and somehow or other I didn’t do one. I just went straight on to operations and had a bit of bad luck. Not through enemy action but just through mechanical problems and the aircraft finished up catching fire and we had to bale out.
DM: Crikey.
GC: So that was [pause] that caused a bit of an upheaval of course and we got back to the squadron about. We were posted missing but that was only because we didn’t get back in time. And we got back about two or three days later and flew the same. We baled out in liberated France.
DM: Ok.
GC: So we flew back to, we knew we were across the border and then we got out there so that was alright.
DM: So what sort of aircraft was that?
GC: Lancasters.
DM: Lancaster. Right.
GC: Yes. So that was a Lancaster squadron. 622 Squadron. And so then I just kept on. Well that was [unclear] they sent us on survivors leave which was the general practice. And that was a few days leave and we came back and we went operational again of course. I finished up doing another — I think I did fourteen. Fourteen or fifteen trips. And war finished for which we were all truly thankful.
DM: Very happy.
GC: Yeah. And so and then of course we, when the war finished we flew for a few days we were flying across to Europe and flying back POWs from, from France. The Americans were flying them out to France and then we were flying them from a place called Juvincourt in France back to aerodromes in Kent mainly where we unloaded them. And we did, I did about eight of those I think. Which was, you know was very rewarding.
DM: It would be. Those guys.
GC: To see those guys who had been POWs for up to five years. Some of the English army fellas had. And they just couldn’t believe it, you know. I don’t think they were all that impressed with all these young looking kids that were flying them [laughs] that were flying them over there. Because we were all about, you know, twenty one.
DM: That’s right.
GC: Twenty two. That sort of age. But they — to see the smiles on their faces when they got to England was just incredible yeah.
DM: [unclear]
GC: Yeah. And then, you know, we went on leave of course. That was one long leave for months until we got ships to bring us home. I came home. I think the war finished in May and we, we all left for Australia in the October I think. We got back in November.
DM: Quite a long time.
GC: Yeah. We got back in November. But of course those of us that were married it didn’t matter whether we were, but anyway the wives were not allowed to travel with you. We had to leave them behind and it was six months after that before they came out.
DM: Right. They came separately. Yeah.
GC: And so then when that happened of course we were getting back to Civvy Street. Back to living life as whichever way we found it. Yeah.
DM: To normality.
GC: Yeah.
DM: So what the base that you flew from?
GC: Mildenhall.
DM: Mildenhall. Whereabouts is that?
GC: Mildenhall’s near Cambridge. Newmarket. Closer to Newmarket. Yeah. Suffolk.
DM: There’s a flat bit there of course.
GC: Yes. It’s all very flat. Yeah. Yeah. I think they, what do they call it? The Fens, don’t they?
DM: Yeah, I think so.
GC: Yeah.
DM: So was that a proper RAF base? Or was it —
GC: Yeah.
DM: It was.
GC: It was a permanent RAF base.
DM: Yeah.
GC: It was built it was quite interesting really. It was built in about 1935 and was, and was opened by the [pause] the, well it was Goering anyway that opened it. And he was, he was chief of the German air force.
DM: Oh right.
GC: Luftwaffe. So and —
DM: That’s a claim to fame.
GC: Yes. Yes. And it was also the start of the Melbourne Centenary Air Race which was a race from England to Australia in 1934 or ’35 to celebrate the [pause] the — Melbourne was a hundred years old so it was the hundredth anniversary of Melbourne.
DM: Right.
GC: They flew from London to Australia. The race was won by a couple of Englishmen. Black and Scott. And they flew in a — it was like an early [pause] early Mosquito type of aircraft. A Comet.
DM: Oh yes. I know the Comet.
GC: Yeah. The Comet. And I think it was about two days and twenty hours it took them to and they won the race.
DM: Right.
GC: Of course a bit slow compared to what they do now.
DM: So there would have been a fair few squadrons at Mildenhall together would there not?
GC: Only two.
DM: Only two.
GC: Only two at Mildenhall. There was 15 Squadron and 622 Squadron.
DM: So you never flew the Stirling because that was what they originally had.
GC: No. I didn’t fly the Stirling. Yeah. That’s right. They did at Mildenhall.
DM: Yeah.
GC: They were, they did have Stirlings and then they converted to Lancasters I think in about ‘43 I think it was.
DM: Ok.
GC: They all, they all converted from Stirlings. So they all had —
DM: Yeah. They gave them away.
GC: They flew throughout the war but Stirlings didn’t have, they had a bit of a height problem. They couldn’t get up. Beautiful aircraft. People who flew them said they were just a lovely aircraft to fly. But I can’t imagine it being better than a Lancaster.
DM: No. Certainly the Lancaster has the reputation as the best. So when you found a crew what sort of a process was it that you — I mean how did you get on? How did you connect with people?
GC: Well we were — course you stood around with other pilots, we were. Because they were pilots and, ‘Who are we going to get? Do you know anybody?’ ‘No I don’t know anybody.’ So you’re just sort of standing there and looking around didnt quite knowing how to go about it.
DM: Like a dance almost.
GC: Yeah. And then these, these couple of young blokes came up to me and they said, ‘Have you got a crew skip?’ So I said, ‘No. I haven’t got a crew. I haven’t got anybody.’ They said, ‘Well we’re a couple of gunners. We’d come with you,’ you know. Or, ‘We’ll go with you.’ And I said, ‘ Oh well we’ll see about that,’ but we’ll, you know. I met them and so and then they said, ‘Well we know a bloke who’s a navigator,’ or a bloke who’s a bomb aimer. I forget which. Anyway they rustled around and found these fellows and brought them up and we finished up getting, getting a crew and apart from the navigator that I said we lost, unfortunately the wireless operator when we got to a squadron or just before we got to the squadron actually and we were using oxygen, oxygen masks, he had a problem with a rash. He used to get a rash all around his mouth.
DM: Oh so he was allergic to the rubber.
GC: Allergic to it.
DM: Right. Yeah.
GC: So they, you know they had to scrub him which was very sad. He was an officer too. A young officer. He’d been commissioned of course and so he had to go but anyway we got another one and away we went. Yeah.
DM: Ok. So I guess the training you did together was fairly limited then, so you’d done virtually all your training as individuals and then you gather at the end.
GC: Well, yes you do. You, you, we formed up as a crew in [pause] I think it would have been May. May I think it would have been in 1943 and we flew together in training until the January before we went to a squadron?
DM: Right. Ok.
GC: Yeah. So, and so and you probably did a fair bit of flying in those.
DM: So a lot of training flights.
GC: A lot of training flights. Yeah.
DM: So by the time you got on operations you knew each other pretty well.
GC: Oh yeah. Yes. We did. Yeah. And I’ve got, there’s only one of them left. The flight engineer who came to us. Flight engineers joined the crew only when you got into four-engined aircraft. And he was only a young bloke and he’s still alive. He’s —
DM: Ok.
GC: He’s ninety, ninety one I think he must be. Yeah. Ninety one. Lives in Manchester and we still are in contact with one another.
DM: Ok. So you kept in contact with all of them over that.
GC: Well I tried to. Yes. I tried to. I went across. We went back to England in 1956. We had a couple of children then and my wife’s parents hadn’t seen them of course. So we took them back to England and we were going to stay for, oh you know, a while. Twelve months or a couple of years or whatever. It didn’t work out anyway. My English wife — all she wanted to do was get back to Australia.
DM: [laughs] right.
GC: As quick as she could. And that particular year, in the December I think it was or the November, the Suez Crisis came up and she couldn’t get out of there quick enough because she thought there’d be another war.
DM: Yes. That’s right.
GC: So anyway —
DM: So have you don’t any flying since those days?
GC: No.
DM: No.
GC: No. I didn’t do any flying. I just went back. I worked in the bank. In a savings bank in Victoria before the war or early in the war. When I turned sixteen I suppose it was. Yeah. And I went back to the bank. Stayed there for four or five years and so and then I resigned. I thought, you know, I can do better than this. I can make more money doing something else.
DM: Right.
GC: But I fiddled around and went into retail. General stores in the country. [unclear] Port Welshpool down here. Victoria. But I didn’t, didn’t make any fortunes.
DM: Right.
GC: I went to work for a living and sold, sold biscuits with Arnotts Biscuit Company for about nine years. And then I switched over to wine. And we sold wine in Victoria for Seppelts.
DM: Ok. And is that why you live in Wine View Street or is [laughs] that accidental?
GC: No. It’s just sheer coincidence. Yeah.
DM: Right.
GC: And I’m still very interested in wine.
DM: Right. Ok. So when you joined the air force and you said you would prefer that to the army. Was that the principal reason? That you just didn’t want to be in the army or was there something else that attracted you to the air force?
GC: Well it wasn’t, I wasn’t sort of, you know, very keen to be a flyer.
DM: Right.
GC: It wasn’t that. It was just that I thought that, I thought the army was a pretty uncouth sort of outfit.
DM: You’re quite correct, I think [laughs]
GC: And that being, being in the air force, you know, you wore shoes and wore respectable clothing. So I guess it was that that influenced most of us to join the air force. There were some that were, you know, really wanted to fly.
DM: Yeah.
GC: But as far as I was concerned you had to do something in the war and I thought well you might as well choose what you like. You think you’d like.
DM: That’s right.
GC: And that was the air force. Which, I was very happy in the air force — it was. The whole, the whole period, you know for nearly four years I suppose it was. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I know we, you know, and of course I enjoyed all the more because the war finished early and I didn’t have to complete a tour or try and complete a tour. So it was, it was a very happy part of my life. Yeah.
DM: Which parts of Europe did you fly to on the operations you did?
GC: Mainly, mainly Germany.
DM: Right.
GC: Pretty well. I didn’t do many into France because that was, that was sort of after D-Day which was June the 6th ’44 and I didn’t get to the squadron until the end of the year. And so it was mainly the Ruhr.
DM: Right.
GC: And places further east.
DM: Ok.
GC: I didn’t do the infamous Dresden raid because I was on leave.
DM: Right.
GC: That particular time. We used to get, you’d fly, you’d be operational for six weeks and then you would get six days leave.
DM: Ok.
GC: So it happened that my six days leave was up and I went. When I came back I heard all about, about Dresden.
DM: Yeah. So even at that point people talked about it a bit.
GC: There was a bit of talk about it. Yeah. There was a bit of talk about it and you know I feel that at that part of the, that time in the war there was a quite a lot of feeling amongst some pilots anyway that they [pause] it was becoming almost abhorrent to them, you know. To go over and drop all these bombs on and there was no, there was no, well there may have been an attempt to say this is the aiming point and what it is but it was just an exercise in, as far as we were concerned in obliteration.
DM: Pure destruction. Yeah.
GC: Yeah. And that, that got to a lot of the fellows you know. They –
DM: Yeah.
GC: I know I had quite good friends that, after the war it played on their minds and to the extent that they eventually they didn’t deny it because it happened but they, they never talked about the war. They didn’t, you know, so —
DM: Right.
GC: And a couple of them had DFCs but they wouldn’t, wouldn’t face them. Wouldn’t acknowledge them even.
DM; Right
GC: So it was, it did [pause] but you know. It was still the air force and you were, you were, you did what you were told.
DM: Yeah. That’s right.
GC: Yeah.
DM: The rules of the game.
GC: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah.
DM: Right. So mostly over Germany. Ok. I guess that last few months of the war they were concentrating back on the German cities.
GC: Yes, they were. They were. Especially in the Ruhr, you know. Oil plants. Synthetic oil plants in, in the Ruhr. Gelsenkirchen. Oh I forget the name of them all. And occasionally there would be something else. You know. We did a raid. A night raid I remember on Potsdam.
DM: Ok. Yeah.
GC: And I don’t know what that was for. Why they picked Potsdam but anyway they did.
DM: There were no raids down into Italy by that time were there? Or —
GC: No. No. They’d all finished. Yeah. They’d all finished. That would have been in ’43 I think they were going down there.
DM: Right.
GC: Yeah. I think ’43.
DM: And I guess when you went on leave because you were married at that stage you went to your wife.
GC: Yes.
DM: While these other guys –
GC: Oh they all went home to their –
DM: Because they were all English I guess –
GC: Yeah and they would, they had their homes.
DM: Yeah.
GC: A couple of them were married fellows, but four of them weren’t. Three or four of them I suppose. And they used to go home. Have their leave at home and then come back.
DM: Yeah.
GC: We didn’t go off on leave together.
DM: Right.
GC: Because it was circumstances. Yeah. I was married and that’s where I went on leave. To Wolverhampton where I was married and where Alice lived. And I was there for [pause] ‘cause we got weeks and weeks and weeks of leave, you know while we were waiting for ships.
DM: Yeah.
GC: And I spent a lot of time in Wolverhampton. Yeah.
DM: Ok. So where was your favourite place in England apart from –? Would Brighton be a sort of highlight?
GC: Well, you know, Brighton always, always had an attraction for me yeah. But certainly, you know, down, down the south of England but of course you got, you know we were posted to Operational Training Unit was a place in, in [pause] called Hixon which was in Staffordshire.
DM: Ok.
GC: Not far out of Stafford and it was from there that I got to Wolverhampton and met my first wife. Yeah.
DM: Ok. So —
GC: They used to have, they used to have a dance at the Civic Hall in Wolverhampton every Thursday night and aircrew came from far and wide to this, to this dance which was, had a reputation and was one to be looked forward to so —
DM: Ok. Was there much competition between army and air force?
GC: Not a lot.
DM: No.
GC: Not a lot. I didn’t strike it anyway. The army was evident but not [pause] and Americans of course. They were [pause] they could be dominant in an area. But no, I never really, we certainly didn’t, never got into fisticuffs or anything like that.
DM: Not like that.
GC: It was like a reputedly did here in Melbourne between the Americans and the —
DM: Yeah.
GC: And the Australians.
DM: There was a little bit of history there.
GC: Yeah. But no, nothing like that.
DM: Ok. So generally everybody got on fairly well under wartime conditions.
GC: Yes. I think so. Yeah. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience, you know. From mainly because I was fortunate in that I met this girl and got to live with an English family.
DM: Yeah. You got to know people.
GC: And spent time with them and you just got such an understanding of the nature and the calibre of the English person. They were just incredible. Just accepted everything that was dished out to them without [pause] well that’s the way it is, you know. That’s the war. It was, it was a great experience. Yes. So, that’s, you know.
DM: I think I’ve run out of questions.
GC: You’ve run out of questions. Oh well. Yeah, well that’s alright.
DM: I don’t know enough about it though. I see you’ve got a model up on the [unclear]
GC: I had, it’s been for years. Yeah. There’s a couple up there I think. But isn’t that a nice painting?
DM: Yes. My dad had that one.
GC: Did he?
DM: Yeah.
GC: Yeah. That’s Cheshire.
DM: Yeah.
GC: Signed. Autographed. Signed. Signed by Cheshire.
DM: I’m not sure if his was signed.
GC: Yeah.
DM: But it had the same colour.
GC: Had the same. Yeah. Yeah. Was your dad in the air force?
DM: Yeah he was on Lancasters as well.
GC: Oh was he?
DM: He was a gunner.
GC: Maybe I’ll just —
DM: Oh right.
GC: Stop the recording.
[recording paused]
GC: We had to take some of these aircraft, not very many but we had one on the squadron I think where they had a hole cut in the floor and a .5 machine gun used to be mounted on this.
DM: Yeah.
GC: And we, you had to take a spare gunner if you happened to be allotted that aircraft. And this particular trip, which was our furthest, we got that aircraft. Q-Queenie. And the, the gunner was a fellow named Edwards. Flight Sergeant Edwards. Didn’t know him really at all, you know. We just, we were allotted him and he turned up at briefing and that was our first trip and it was his last trip.
DM: Oh right.
GC: Which I thought was most unfair. The flying commander to sort of work it that way that surely [pause] but anyway he came with us and we ran in to trouble with an oil leak which we didn’t know where it was coming from. It was coming from an engine. From the port inner engine. But I kept saying to the flight, the flight engineer, you know, ‘Is everything alright?’ He said, well the revs are this, this and that and the other. He said, ‘I don’t know where the oil is leaking from.’ And because we didn’t have the experience, you know. Perhaps I should have known but I didn’t and it turned out that it was coming from the constant speed unit which is a motor type arrangement which governs the pitch on your propeller.
DM: Oh yeah.
GC: But I didn’t know that at that time. I couldn’t work out where the oil was coming from. And it got to such a state that we had to turn back. We were only, we weren’t that far from the target but the outside of the aircraft where the turrets were covered in oil. So we decided we’d have to turn back and we’d feather, we’d feather the engine. As soon as we touched the feathering button the engine just was, you know, the propelling part of it just ran up to four thousand revs a minute and we couldn’t control it in any way.
DM: Right.
GC: So and obviously there was, we thought it was going to overheat. It was going to get hot and with all this oil around. So — and it became uncontrollable, it was – the vibration was so bad that I couldn’t control it. Couldn’t do anything about it. Anyway, we got back to, as I said over liberated territory and we got out. But the Flight Sergeant Edwards wouldn’t jump. This is what the crew tell me.
DM: Right.
GC: Because he was lined up with them to go but he kept stepping back and saying, ‘No, you go.’ Because they were going out the back door and I must admit when you stand at the back door of a Lancaster in flight you’d swear that if you jump out you’ll smash into the tail plane.
DM: Right.
GC: And he must have had that in his head plus the fact that the recommended drill was to – if you had one of these .5 machine guns that you released the gun and went out the bottom.
DM: Right.
GC: They couldn’t release it for some reason or other. I don’t know what the problem was but they couldn’t. He couldn’t release the guns so of course he kept going back to the door. And he wouldn’t jump. I didn’t know anything about this until [pause] well until we got down to the ground. The drill is of course that you, you keep in communication with the pilot.
DM: Yeah.
GC: You plug in to, and he must have not done that. He must have come back to the .5 machine gun again to try and of course from, when you turn around in your seat and look down the back of the aircraft you couldn’t see down there because it was down the step that the main spar ran across and you couldn’t see. And I didn’t know he was there. When I got out I called up, you know, ‘Anybody here?’ ‘Anybody here?’ And I knew there was nobody there because I knew the others had gone. I’d seen them go. So I got out and he was still in there.
DM: Right.
GC: And but he hadn’t plugged in. I didn’t know he was there. Nor could I see him. And he did jump eventually but his parachute was on fire.
DM: Oh dear.
GC: When he jumped. Yeah. So that was a really sad occasion.
DM: Yeah. On his last trip
GC: On his last trip. Yeah. His last trip. He’d just got married. And only a young bloke like we were all young.
DM: Yeah. That’s right.
GC: He was, he was only in his early twenties I think. And we were over, went over to England again in 2012 and we were touring around through France and the area that we baled out in. He’s in [pause] buried in a cemetery in Belgium. Cemetery, [unclear] Mille, Mille, M I L L E.
DM: Yeah. It could be. Yeah.
GC: So anyway we went to the cemetery and found it. Found it. I had the engineer was with me and we found his grave in the War Cemetery there. So, you know it was all sad. That was sixty years ago. You know, not sixty but fifty years after it happened.
DM: Yeah.
GC: Anyway that’s war.
DM: That’s right. So the reason for that machine gun was because of the night fighters that had the cannon that fired up.
GC: That’s right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
DM: To combat that.
GC: It was supposed to help combat that.
DM: Yeah.
GC: Not that we saw any of those up-firing machine gun cannons that they were using but that was the idea.
DM: Yeah.
GC: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: Yeah. I hadn’t recognised that somehow. I’ll have to look up again to see what his extra trips were.
GC: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: I did record that.
GC: Oh did you. Yeah.
DM: So you’re happy with that?
GC: Yes. That’s alright. Yeah.
GC: Right.
DM: So, I don’t know exactly how you want to do this.
GC: No. I don’t know what, what you want really.
DM: I just want a story from where to go. So starting on maybe why you joined up and when you joined up and so the reasoning behind it. And then what happened to you.
GC: Oh, I see. I see.
DM: Maybe that’s a good start.
GC: Yeah. Well I could talk for a while on that I guess. Well, I joined up mainly because — well the war was on and if you didn’t join up the army called you up and that was it. So I had a [pause] I always wanted to join the air force. I thought I’d join the air force. I knew that eighteen was coming up and I’d be called up so and I told my mother and father that, ‘If you don’t sign these papers I’ll finish up in the army.’ But they wouldn’t sign the papers. They didn’t want me to go overseas so they didn’t want me to fly. So, I did finish up in the army for about, oh it must have been about eight months I think before I could get out and get into the air force which I went in to in November 1942. Went down to Somers where the ITS was. Number 1, I think it was. Number 1 ITS. And did the three months course down there and was fortunate enough to be categorised as suitable for pilot training. And then I went to Western Junction in Tasmania and learned to fly Tiger Moths there.
DM: Ok.
GC: I was just, I was just turned nineteen then ‘cause I was in the army for most of my eighteenth year. Yeah, and so that all sort of went ok. Went well and I managed a solo and then the required seven hours I think it was. Or seven and a half hours tuition. And then when we graduated from SFTS as they called it — no. Not SFTS. EFTS. Elementary Flying Training School I was posted to Point Cook here in Victoria. Where it was number 1 SFTS and we flew multi engine, two-engined Oxfords down there and learned to fly those and graduated in July, I think it was, of 1943. And was fortunate enough to be posted to embarkation depot which meant you were going overseas and we went to [pause] went to England and went across. Went across to America actually by ship. American ship. USS Mount Vernon I think it was. And that took about two or three weeks. And then we went by train across to the east coast of America in, to Massachusetts. A place called Camp Myles Standish. Unfortunately on the train journey across I contracted scarlet fever and when I lobbed there I was put straight into hospital. I was the first or second of what was an epidemic that went right through the, through the camp and which upset everybody who was looking forward to going on leave to New York which didn’t, didn’t happen for most of them. But for those that did get scarlet fever we served our three weeks in hospital. Then we came out and went on leave to New York so —
DM: Right.
GC: It worked all right for us. We were, we were the main cause of other people missing out. But anyway, then we went by, by ship across the Atlantic on the Aquitania. USS Aquitania. No. Not USS — SS Aquitania and landed at Greenock in Scotland. And from there we travelled down to Brighton on the south coast where we were domiciled. All Australians when they arrived, initially they were, they were going to Bournemouth but then they changed it. Due to some enemy action they changed it to Brighton and so we all went to Brighton and stayed in either the Grand or the Metropole Hotel.
DM: Very flash hotels.
GC: Which were lovely hotels.
DM: Nice.
GC: Right on the, right on the waterfront. And we were there for oh [pause] see the trouble was when you went to England the weather got crook. At that time in the year — November, December, January. And of course all the training starts to bank up because they can’t fly. But anyway we eventually got back in to the air. It was about three months afterwards though since we arrived. After we arrived. And we did our training there which was mainly on [pause] we went on Oxfords again and did a course there. And then we went to OTU which was Operational Training Unit on to, on to Wellington bombers. And did our training there. It was whilst I was there my navigator who — we selected our own crews. They put you in, in a big hangar with umpteen aircrew and said, ‘Well now find yourselves a crew.’ So that went on and anyway it turns out that the little navigator that I got was English. They were all Englishmen. He, he obviously well didn’t make the grade. I didn’t have anything to do with it but the leaders, the navigation leader said, ‘He’s just not up to scratch so we’re going to remove him. So they took him away and I had to wait about six weeks before I got another navigator. And that put me all back right through the [pause] all the fellas I’d trained with, they all went ahead.
DM: Right.
GC: And so it was upsetting at the time. But anyway, to offset that I managed to meet a girl who made some sort of an impression on me and I must have done the same to her because we married within six months.
DM: Crikey. Yeah.
GC: And in ’44 that was. Late ’44. And so when I did get training again, when I did get a new navigator we got through there went on to our next training school which was over in Yorkshire. Which was, they called it a Heavy Conversion Unit. We went on to Halifaxes. Learned to fly Halifaxes. They were four-engined aircraft and from there we were posted to a squadron. Or they did another little course in between called Lancaster Finishing School but that was only about ten hours of flying and then I went to the squadron and it wasn’t until January 1945 that I got to the squadron whereas most of the fellows that I trained with they were, they were operational in November.
DM: Ok.
GC: But because of my holdup — but anyway that’s beside the point I suppose. But so I got, I was operational. I had a bit of bad luck on my first trip which — it was the custom to do what they used to call a second dickie. When a new pilot went [pause] and somehow or other I didn’t do one. I just went straight on to operations and had a bit of bad luck. Not through enemy action but just through mechanical problems and the aircraft finished up catching fire and we had to bale out.
DM: Crikey.
GC: So that was [pause] that caused a bit of an upheaval of course and we got back to the squadron about. We were posted missing but that was only because we didn’t get back in time. And we got back about two or three days later and flew the same. We baled out in liberated France.
DM: Ok.
GC: So we flew back to, we knew we were across the border and then we got out there so that was alright.
DM: So what sort of aircraft was that?
GC: Lancasters.
DM: Lancaster. Right.
GC: Yes. So that was a Lancaster squadron. 622 Squadron. And so then I just kept on. Well that was [unclear] they sent us on survivors leave which was the general practice. And that was a few days leave and we came back and we went operational again of course. I finished up doing another — I think I did fourteen. Fourteen or fifteen trips. And war finished for which we were all truly thankful.
DM: Very happy.
GC: Yeah. And so and then of course we, when the war finished we flew for a few days we were flying across to Europe and flying back POWs from, from France. The Americans were flying them out to France and then we were flying them from a place called Juvincourt in France back to aerodromes in Kent mainly where we unloaded them. And we did, I did about eight of those I think. Which was, you know was very rewarding.
DM: It would be. Those guys.
GC: To see those guys who had been POWs for up to five years. Some of the English army fellas had. And they just couldn’t believe it, you know. I don’t think they were all that impressed with all these young looking kids that were flying them [laughs] that were flying them over there. Because we were all about, you know, twenty one.
DM: That’s right.
GC: Twenty two. That sort of age. But they — to see the smiles on their faces when they got to England was just incredible yeah.
DM: [unclear]
GC: Yeah. And then, you know, we went on leave of course. That was one long leave for months until we got ships to bring us home. I came home. I think the war finished in May and we, we all left for Australia in the October I think. We got back in November.
DM: Quite a long time.
GC: Yeah. We got back in November. But of course those of us that were married it didn’t matter whether we were, but anyway the wives were not allowed to travel with you. We had to leave them behind and it was six months after that before they came out.
DM: Right. They came separately. Yeah.
GC: And so then when that happened of course we were getting back to Civvy Street. Back to living life as whichever way we found it. Yeah.
DM: To normality.
GC: Yeah.
DM: So what the base that you flew from?
GC: Mildenhall.
DM: Mildenhall. Whereabouts is that?
GC: Mildenhall’s near Cambridge. Newmarket. Closer to Newmarket. Yeah. Suffolk.
DM: There’s a flat bit there of course.
GC: Yes. It’s all very flat. Yeah. Yeah. I think they, what do they call it? The Fens, don’t they?
DM: Yeah, I think so.
GC: Yeah.
DM: So was that a proper RAF base? Or was it —
GC: Yeah.
DM: It was.
GC: It was a permanent RAF base.
DM: Yeah.
GC: It was built it was quite interesting really. It was built in about 1935 and was, and was opened by the [pause] the, well it was Goering anyway that opened it. And he was, he was chief of the German air force.
DM: Oh right.
GC: Luftwaffe. So and —
DM: That’s a claim to fame.
GC: Yes. Yes. And it was also the start of the Melbourne Centenary Air Race which was a race from England to Australia in 1934 or ’35 to celebrate the [pause] the — Melbourne was a hundred years old so it was the hundredth anniversary of Melbourne.
DM: Right.
GC: They flew from London to Australia. The race was won by a couple of Englishmen. Black and Scott. And they flew in a — it was like an early [pause] early Mosquito type of aircraft. A Comet.
DM: Oh yes. I know the Comet.
GC: Yeah. The Comet. And I think it was about two days and twenty hours it took them to and they won the race.
DM: Right.
GC: Of course a bit slow compared to what they do now.
DM: So there would have been a fair few squadrons at Mildenhall together would there not?
GC: Only two.
DM: Only two.
GC: Only two at Mildenhall. There was 15 Squadron and 622 Squadron.
DM: So you never flew the Stirling because that was what they originally had.
GC: No. I didn’t fly the Stirling. Yeah. That’s right. They did at Mildenhall.
DM: Yeah.
GC: They were, they did have Stirlings and then they converted to Lancasters I think in about ‘43 I think it was.
DM: Ok.
GC: They all, they all converted from Stirlings. So they all had —
DM: Yeah. They gave them away.
GC: They flew throughout the war but Stirlings didn’t have, they had a bit of a height problem. They couldn’t get up. Beautiful aircraft. People who flew them said they were just a lovely aircraft to fly. But I can’t imagine it being better than a Lancaster.
DM: No. Certainly the Lancaster has the reputation as the best. So when you found a crew what sort of a process was it that you — I mean how did you get on? How did you connect with people?
GC: Well we were — course you stood around with other pilots, we were. Because they were pilots and, ‘Who are we going to get? Do you know anybody?’ ‘No I don’t know anybody.’ So you’re just sort of standing there and looking around didnt quite knowing how to go about it.
DM: Like a dance almost.
GC: Yeah. And then these, these couple of young blokes came up to me and they said, ‘Have you got a crew skip?’ So I said, ‘No. I haven’t got a crew. I haven’t got anybody.’ They said, ‘Well we’re a couple of gunners. We’d come with you,’ you know. Or, ‘We’ll go with you.’ And I said, ‘ Oh well we’ll see about that,’ but we’ll, you know. I met them and so and then they said, ‘Well we know a bloke who’s a navigator,’ or a bloke who’s a bomb aimer. I forget which. Anyway they rustled around and found these fellows and brought them up and we finished up getting, getting a crew and apart from the navigator that I said we lost, unfortunately the wireless operator when we got to a squadron or just before we got to the squadron actually and we were using oxygen, oxygen masks, he had a problem with a rash. He used to get a rash all around his mouth.
DM: Oh so he was allergic to the rubber.
GC: Allergic to it.
DM: Right. Yeah.
GC: So they, you know they had to scrub him which was very sad. He was an officer too. A young officer. He’d been commissioned of course and so he had to go but anyway we got another one and away we went. Yeah.
DM: Ok. So I guess the training you did together was fairly limited then, so you’d done virtually all your training as individuals and then you gather at the end.
GC: Well, yes you do. You, you, we formed up as a crew in [pause] I think it would have been May. May I think it would have been in 1943 and we flew together in training until the January before we went to a squadron?
DM: Right. Ok.
GC: Yeah. So, and so and you probably did a fair bit of flying in those.
DM: So a lot of training flights.
GC: A lot of training flights. Yeah.
DM: So by the time you got on operations you knew each other pretty well.
GC: Oh yeah. Yes. We did. Yeah. And I’ve got, there’s only one of them left. The flight engineer who came to us. Flight engineers joined the crew only when you got into four-engined aircraft. And he was only a young bloke and he’s still alive. He’s —
DM: Ok.
GC: He’s ninety, ninety one I think he must be. Yeah. Ninety one. Lives in Manchester and we still are in contact with one another.
DM: Ok. So you kept in contact with all of them over that.
GC: Well I tried to. Yes. I tried to. I went across. We went back to England in 1956. We had a couple of children then and my wife’s parents hadn’t seen them of course. So we took them back to England and we were going to stay for, oh you know, a while. Twelve months or a couple of years or whatever. It didn’t work out anyway. My English wife — all she wanted to do was get back to Australia.
DM: [laughs] right.
GC: As quick as she could. And that particular year, in the December I think it was or the November, the Suez Crisis came up and she couldn’t get out of there quick enough because she thought there’d be another war.
DM: Yes. That’s right.
GC: So anyway —
DM: So have you don’t any flying since those days?
GC: No.
DM: No.
GC: No. I didn’t do any flying. I just went back. I worked in the bank. In a savings bank in Victoria before the war or early in the war. When I turned sixteen I suppose it was. Yeah. And I went back to the bank. Stayed there for four or five years and so and then I resigned. I thought, you know, I can do better than this. I can make more money doing something else.
DM: Right.
GC: But I fiddled around and went into retail. General stores in the country. [unclear] Port Welshpool down here. Victoria. But I didn’t, didn’t make any fortunes.
DM: Right.
GC: I went to work for a living and sold, sold biscuits with Arnotts Biscuit Company for about nine years. And then I switched over to wine. And we sold wine in Victoria for Seppelts.
DM: Ok. And is that why you live in Wine View Street or is [laughs] that accidental?
GC: No. It’s just sheer coincidence. Yeah.
DM: Right.
GC: And I’m still very interested in wine.
DM: Right. Ok. So when you joined the air force and you said you would prefer that to the army. Was that the principal reason? That you just didn’t want to be in the army or was there something else that attracted you to the air force?
GC: Well it wasn’t, I wasn’t sort of, you know, very keen to be a flyer.
DM: Right.
GC: It wasn’t that. It was just that I thought that, I thought the army was a pretty uncouth sort of outfit.
DM: You’re quite correct, I think [laughs]
GC: And that being, being in the air force, you know, you wore shoes and wore respectable clothing. So I guess it was that that influenced most of us to join the air force. There were some that were, you know, really wanted to fly.
DM: Yeah.
GC: But as far as I was concerned you had to do something in the war and I thought well you might as well choose what you like. You think you’d like.
DM: That’s right.
GC: And that was the air force. Which, I was very happy in the air force — it was. The whole, the whole period, you know for nearly four years I suppose it was. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I know we, you know, and of course I enjoyed all the more because the war finished early and I didn’t have to complete a tour or try and complete a tour. So it was, it was a very happy part of my life. Yeah.
DM: Which parts of Europe did you fly to on the operations you did?
GC: Mainly, mainly Germany.
DM: Right.
GC: Pretty well. I didn’t do many into France because that was, that was sort of after D-Day which was June the 6th ’44 and I didn’t get to the squadron until the end of the year. And so it was mainly the Ruhr.
DM: Right.
GC: And places further east.
DM: Ok.
GC: I didn’t do the infamous Dresden raid because I was on leave.
DM: Right.
GC: That particular time. We used to get, you’d fly, you’d be operational for six weeks and then you would get six days leave.
DM: Ok.
GC: So it happened that my six days leave was up and I went. When I came back I heard all about, about Dresden.
DM: Yeah. So even at that point people talked about it a bit.
GC: There was a bit of talk about it. Yeah. There was a bit of talk about it and you know I feel that at that part of the, that time in the war there was a quite a lot of feeling amongst some pilots anyway that they [pause] it was becoming almost abhorrent to them, you know. To go over and drop all these bombs on and there was no, there was no, well there may have been an attempt to say this is the aiming point and what it is but it was just an exercise in, as far as we were concerned in obliteration.
DM: Pure destruction. Yeah.
GC: Yeah. And that, that got to a lot of the fellows you know. They –
DM: Yeah.
GC: I know I had quite good friends that, after the war it played on their minds and to the extent that they eventually they didn’t deny it because it happened but they, they never talked about the war. They didn’t, you know, so —
DM: Right.
GC: And a couple of them had DFCs but they wouldn’t, wouldn’t face them. Wouldn’t acknowledge them even.
DM; Right
GC: So it was, it did [pause] but you know. It was still the air force and you were, you were, you did what you were told.
DM: Yeah. That’s right.
GC: Yeah.
DM: The rules of the game.
GC: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah.
DM: Right. So mostly over Germany. Ok. I guess that last few months of the war they were concentrating back on the German cities.
GC: Yes, they were. They were. Especially in the Ruhr, you know. Oil plants. Synthetic oil plants in, in the Ruhr. Gelsenkirchen. Oh I forget the name of them all. And occasionally there would be something else. You know. We did a raid. A night raid I remember on Potsdam.
DM: Ok. Yeah.
GC: And I don’t know what that was for. Why they picked Potsdam but anyway they did.
DM: There were no raids down into Italy by that time were there? Or —
GC: No. No. They’d all finished. Yeah. They’d all finished. That would have been in ’43 I think they were going down there.
DM: Right.
GC: Yeah. I think ’43.
DM: And I guess when you went on leave because you were married at that stage you went to your wife.
GC: Yes.
DM: While these other guys –
GC: Oh they all went home to their –
DM: Because they were all English I guess –
GC: Yeah and they would, they had their homes.
DM: Yeah.
GC: A couple of them were married fellows, but four of them weren’t. Three or four of them I suppose. And they used to go home. Have their leave at home and then come back.
DM: Yeah.
GC: We didn’t go off on leave together.
DM: Right.
GC: Because it was circumstances. Yeah. I was married and that’s where I went on leave. To Wolverhampton where I was married and where Alice lived. And I was there for [pause] ‘cause we got weeks and weeks and weeks of leave, you know while we were waiting for ships.
DM: Yeah.
GC: And I spent a lot of time in Wolverhampton. Yeah.
DM: Ok. So where was your favourite place in England apart from –? Would Brighton be a sort of highlight?
GC: Well, you know, Brighton always, always had an attraction for me yeah. But certainly, you know, down, down the south of England but of course you got, you know we were posted to Operational Training Unit was a place in, in [pause] called Hixon which was in Staffordshire.
DM: Ok.
GC: Not far out of Stafford and it was from there that I got to Wolverhampton and met my first wife. Yeah.
DM: Ok. So —
GC: They used to have, they used to have a dance at the Civic Hall in Wolverhampton every Thursday night and aircrew came from far and wide to this, to this dance which was, had a reputation and was one to be looked forward to so —
DM: Ok. Was there much competition between army and air force?
GC: Not a lot.
DM: No.
GC: Not a lot. I didn’t strike it anyway. The army was evident but not [pause] and Americans of course. They were [pause] they could be dominant in an area. But no, I never really, we certainly didn’t, never got into fisticuffs or anything like that.
DM: Not like that.
GC: It was like a reputedly did here in Melbourne between the Americans and the —
DM: Yeah.
GC: And the Australians.
DM: There was a little bit of history there.
GC: Yeah. But no, nothing like that.
DM: Ok. So generally everybody got on fairly well under wartime conditions.
GC: Yes. I think so. Yeah. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience, you know. From mainly because I was fortunate in that I met this girl and got to live with an English family.
DM: Yeah. You got to know people.
GC: And spent time with them and you just got such an understanding of the nature and the calibre of the English person. They were just incredible. Just accepted everything that was dished out to them without [pause] well that’s the way it is, you know. That’s the war. It was, it was a great experience. Yes. So, that’s, you know.
DM: I think I’ve run out of questions.
GC: You’ve run out of questions. Oh well. Yeah, well that’s alright.
DM: I don’t know enough about it though. I see you’ve got a model up on the [unclear]
GC: I had, it’s been for years. Yeah. There’s a couple up there I think. But isn’t that a nice painting?
DM: Yes. My dad had that one.
GC: Did he?
DM: Yeah.
GC: Yeah. That’s Cheshire.
DM: Yeah.
GC: Signed. Autographed. Signed. Signed by Cheshire.
DM: I’m not sure if his was signed.
GC: Yeah.
DM: But it had the same colour.
GC: Had the same. Yeah. Yeah. Was your dad in the air force?
DM: Yeah he was on Lancasters as well.
GC: Oh was he?
DM: He was a gunner.
GC: Maybe I’ll just —
DM: Oh right.
GC: Stop the recording.
[recording paused]
GC: We had to take some of these aircraft, not very many but we had one on the squadron I think where they had a hole cut in the floor and a .5 machine gun used to be mounted on this.
DM: Yeah.
GC: And we, you had to take a spare gunner if you happened to be allotted that aircraft. And this particular trip, which was our furthest, we got that aircraft. Q-Queenie. And the, the gunner was a fellow named Edwards. Flight Sergeant Edwards. Didn’t know him really at all, you know. We just, we were allotted him and he turned up at briefing and that was our first trip and it was his last trip.
DM: Oh right.
GC: Which I thought was most unfair. The flying commander to sort of work it that way that surely [pause] but anyway he came with us and we ran in to trouble with an oil leak which we didn’t know where it was coming from. It was coming from an engine. From the port inner engine. But I kept saying to the flight, the flight engineer, you know, ‘Is everything alright?’ He said, well the revs are this, this and that and the other. He said, ‘I don’t know where the oil is leaking from.’ And because we didn’t have the experience, you know. Perhaps I should have known but I didn’t and it turned out that it was coming from the constant speed unit which is a motor type arrangement which governs the pitch on your propeller.
DM: Oh yeah.
GC: But I didn’t know that at that time. I couldn’t work out where the oil was coming from. And it got to such a state that we had to turn back. We were only, we weren’t that far from the target but the outside of the aircraft where the turrets were covered in oil. So we decided we’d have to turn back and we’d feather, we’d feather the engine. As soon as we touched the feathering button the engine just was, you know, the propelling part of it just ran up to four thousand revs a minute and we couldn’t control it in any way.
DM: Right.
GC: So and obviously there was, we thought it was going to overheat. It was going to get hot and with all this oil around. So — and it became uncontrollable, it was – the vibration was so bad that I couldn’t control it. Couldn’t do anything about it. Anyway, we got back to, as I said over liberated territory and we got out. But the Flight Sergeant Edwards wouldn’t jump. This is what the crew tell me.
DM: Right.
GC: Because he was lined up with them to go but he kept stepping back and saying, ‘No, you go.’ Because they were going out the back door and I must admit when you stand at the back door of a Lancaster in flight you’d swear that if you jump out you’ll smash into the tail plane.
DM: Right.
GC: And he must have had that in his head plus the fact that the recommended drill was to – if you had one of these .5 machine guns that you released the gun and went out the bottom.
DM: Right.
GC: They couldn’t release it for some reason or other. I don’t know what the problem was but they couldn’t. He couldn’t release the guns so of course he kept going back to the door. And he wouldn’t jump. I didn’t know anything about this until [pause] well until we got down to the ground. The drill is of course that you, you keep in communication with the pilot.
DM: Yeah.
GC: You plug in to, and he must have not done that. He must have come back to the .5 machine gun again to try and of course from, when you turn around in your seat and look down the back of the aircraft you couldn’t see down there because it was down the step that the main spar ran across and you couldn’t see. And I didn’t know he was there. When I got out I called up, you know, ‘Anybody here?’ ‘Anybody here?’ And I knew there was nobody there because I knew the others had gone. I’d seen them go. So I got out and he was still in there.
DM: Right.
GC: And but he hadn’t plugged in. I didn’t know he was there. Nor could I see him. And he did jump eventually but his parachute was on fire.
DM: Oh dear.
GC: When he jumped. Yeah. So that was a really sad occasion.
DM: Yeah. On his last trip
GC: On his last trip. Yeah. His last trip. He’d just got married. And only a young bloke like we were all young.
DM: Yeah. That’s right.
GC: He was, he was only in his early twenties I think. And we were over, went over to England again in 2012 and we were touring around through France and the area that we baled out in. He’s in [pause] buried in a cemetery in Belgium. Cemetery, [unclear] Mille, Mille, M I L L E.
DM: Yeah. It could be. Yeah.
GC: So anyway we went to the cemetery and found it. Found it. I had the engineer was with me and we found his grave in the War Cemetery there. So, you know it was all sad. That was sixty years ago. You know, not sixty but fifty years after it happened.
DM: Yeah.
GC: Anyway that’s war.
DM: That’s right. So the reason for that machine gun was because of the night fighters that had the cannon that fired up.
GC: That’s right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
DM: To combat that.
GC: It was supposed to help combat that.
DM: Yeah.
GC: Not that we saw any of those up-firing machine gun cannons that they were using but that was the idea.
DM: Yeah.
GC: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: Yeah. I hadn’t recognised that somehow. I’ll have to look up again to see what his extra trips were.
GC: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: I did record that.
GC: Oh did you. Yeah.
DM: So you’re happy with that?
GC: Yes. That’s alright. Yeah.
Collection
Citation
Donald McNaughton, “Interview with Geoffrey Conacher,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 27, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/3378.
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