Marion Clark Interview

Marion Clark Interview

Marion Clark grew up in Lincolnshire and served as driver at RAF Hemswell and RAF Ingham. She discusses her role as a driver and life on a bomber station.
She describes how painfully cold it was in their accommodation but how the atmosphere of the stations was generally happy with lots of parties and practical jokes. The contrast of course was when crews did not return from operations. One of those was her own boyfriend who in turn had lost his two brothers in the RAF. Marion witnessed a collision of two aircraft. She envied a beautiful ATA who ferried an aircraft to her station and she wished she could also fly but the pilot was killed shortly after take-off.

2013

00:15:12 audio recording

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AClarkM[Date]-01

MC: I was living in Lincolnshire. My home was in Lincolnshire, yes and I joined up at Grantham and, on the 3rd [pause] 3rd of September I think it was and I was, went for training in Wales and then I came, was posted to Hemswell where I stayed most of my time. It was a Wellington, two Polish squadrons. Wellington bombers, 130 and 301 I think it was and we had a lot of Poles there and we had Prince [Radziwill] one of the Polish princes there. And, and also I must say that a Polish officer came up from London and organised General Sikorski’s funeral and I used to take him to, for almost a week I took him to Newark while he was making the arrangements for this funeral because Winston Churchill and he was attending so I suppose they wanted to organise everything to go smoothly. And when the Wellingtons went of course we had the Lancasters and everyone was absolutely thrilled. They thought they were the newest and the fastest bombers . And, you know we had a mixed squadron. The Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and it was sort of a happy, very happy atmosphere apart from the occasional disaster when everyone was sort of very sad and we were sort of missing everyone so much and it was the crews when they were going to operate you knew because there was such a buzz about the stations. Everyone was going at twice the pace and of course they had a lot of things to do like bombing up, wireless van making sure the wirelesses were operating, bomb loads were on trolleys going out around the perimeter and everyone was working at a different pace. You just knew and of course the, everyone sort of, was so with it and so anxious to help and so sort of looking forward to everything going smoothly. Everyone worked jolly hard and the work seemed to go on for several hours of course and also the Met office were concerned, the radios were concerned and apart from the bombing up which was a serious business the bombs had to come from the bomb dump and be hoisted underneath up. Underneath the Lancasters and it was really a tremendous effort and of course all going to take off time and they had to go and be briefed and the weather, and the wind, and what to expect over enemy territory and danger points along the route and things like that. And I don’t know we were so anxious we drivers. I was a driver and so anxious outside the control tower when it was time for all the aircraft to come back. Listening to them calling up on their radios as they were doing the circuit around prior to landing and you know it was a very tense time and a very sad time really on many occasions and we, you didn’t get to know whether they’d been crashed, taken prisoner. We never got to know and I suppose the hierarchy did know but certainly we humble drivers didn’t and it was a very sad occasion. And we were so happy to be doing a small part in this. But the thing sometimes I think about I really never thought much about what was happening at the other end and the devastation which I suppose I was so young and so anxious about the British people that they were all being bombed and I suppose that’s the attitude I took at that time. But yes it was a trying time and we had no heat. Well, little black stoves in our accommodation. We were two in a room just two beds and the [laughs] when I first joined the pillows seemed to be made of straw so I had to take my own feather pillow and I cried when my hot water bottle burst because it was so awful. There was no heating and it was so cold.
Interviewer: What was life like in Lincolnshire because obviously as a Lincolnshire girl you’d have seen all the planes coming in. Moving in as the war started, started going and I think by the end of the war there was fifty thousand RAF personnel in Lincolnshire.
MC: Yes.
Interviewer: It must have been a very blue county with the uniforms.
MC: Oh yes, it was and we took great care with our uniform. We had a best uniform and a not so good one for working in and battle dress of course driving and yes but they were very good actually at organising the RAF and they organised buses down to Lincoln for us and picking us up late at night from Lincoln. We had lots of dances and shows and there was a very nominal charge and my, I say at that time as an LACW I got ten shillings a week working all the hours that God sends and as you can imagine in transport working through the night many a time and we had a night of duty every sort of second week when we had to be busy.
Interviewer: Hemswell was the first airfield, airfield you worked at. Just tell us a bit about what it was like because I think it was, it was pretty much a field wasn’t it? Not much more.
MC: Well, we had these long wooden huts with a sort of walkway down the centre and the sort of bathroom and toilet and we had two WAAFs to each room but there was no room to swing a cat really. The, your bed fitted in and then I think there was a chair at the side of the bed and this big black stove thing but the thing is if you weren’t on site when the coal was delivered everyone was grasping boxes full and everything and you went and there was hardly anything left for you to put on your, in your big black stove. But yes and they had inspections you know. Kit inspections. You had to polish all the buttons and everything else and lay it on the bed and they came around and looked at it and whether you passed you know inspection or not.
Interviewer: So what did your job entail? Were you largely taking the crews out to their planes and that type of thing?
MC: Taking the crews out to their plane. Going down to Gainsborough in the morning to get the post, bring it back to camp and well anything really. I mean we used to drive tractors and when I was at Ingham we used to have a caravan on the edge of the runway. It wasn’t a concrete runway. There was no pressing a button and it lit up. You had to put goosenecks out and they were like great big watering cans with a long neck and full of paraffin and the sergeant in charge at the caravan used to have to go and light them and then the aircraft could land. How about that?
Interviewer: And what was it like about getting on with the crews because I’ve heard some WAAFs say they decided pretty quickly they couldn’t get too close to crew because they took off and you wouldn’t know if they would come back.
MC: I never felt that about it really. I just hoped they’d come back. I mean you did get more fond of some crews than you did of others yes but, but always you wanted them all to come back. Yes. And it was very sad when they didn’t. It was horrible hours of waiting sometimes if they’d landed down south or in a, or couldn’t. There was a case when they had to have FIDO which was sort of paraffin lamps dispersing the fog for landing. And a lot, a lot of planes crashed when they were coming in to land and when I was at Hemswell one of them crashed actually in the centre where there was a big green patch between two blocks of houses and they’d landed. Landed in this green patch but in such a bad fashion the rear gunner was in the turret at the end all smashed up and, you know several people killed.
Interviewer: And you were saying how multinational it was. I mean there was obviously —
MC: Oh yes. Yes.
Interviewer: I guess the WAAFs were largely British weren’t they but the aircrews —
MC: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Were all over the place.
MC: Yes. There was Canadians, Australians and you know New Zealanders and they all seemed to fit in well and they were a jolly crowd. Life was fun when they weren’t operating you know. There was a great sense of fun. Like let’s enjoy ourselves for tomorrow we might not be here and there were lots of parties and lots of fun and really you know if it hadn’t have been for the loss of life it would have been a most wonderful time.
Interviewer: Yeah. I sort of sense it was make the most of every moment.
MC: Oh yes.
Interviewer: For everyone.
MC: Yes. I can remember there was, I think there was an occasion when someone tried to get a car, a small car, I think an Austin 7 it was up the steps into the Officer’s Mess [laughs] which caused a bit of consternation. There were always up to all sorts of tricks. Blacking the headband. You know, when the officer’s hat had a headband and they used to play cards and get drunk and black the headband and someone would go to put it on and they’d have a black rim around. Oh yes. Full of fun they were. Yes.
Interviewer: And, and how would you compare, you said you were based at Ingham afterwards. Was Ingham a different sort of airfield? Was it smaller?
MC: Well, it seemed to me to be such an emergency place you know. 199 Squadron came there and they were mixed, you know. Mixed crew but they were always organising dances and parties and you know live for today.
Interviewer: And there was a lot of Polish aircrew particularly at Ingham wasn’t there?
MC: Well, Polish aircraft were there at first and then towards the end they had 199 Squadron which was a mixed squadron.
Interviewer: When you talked about when they’d go off on a raid —
MC: Yes.
Interviewer: Just talk a little bit more about that because I guess for everyone waiting at home it was a pretty nervous time wasn’t it?
MC: Well, before they left the station the medical officer used to go around delivering caffeine tablets because if it was a long raid, I think was it Berlin was I think about eight hours I think. And another little thing that some of them had mascots and they wouldn’t go without their little lucky things. And another thing they had a superstition I’m told that they used to take a flask with them because it’s a long time without a drink and they wouldn’t start their drink until they were on their homeward, homeward leg.
Interviewer: You were talking a little bit about an incident whereby two planes from different airfields where they were taking off, I think collided.
MC: Oh yes. At Scampton and Ingham. Yes. They had a collision on the circuit when they were sort of coming in to land. It was an awful event really and such a waste. They’d done their mission and come home safely and you know almost on the doorstep and it was a serious thing.
Interviewer: And if you had one abiding memory from all your time I mean there’s a lot to go through I know but if there was one thing that really stuck in your mind as a memory from your times at Hemswell and at Ingham what would that be? Would you have one?
MC: I’ll tell you what it was. There was an ATA pilot that used to deliver the new aircraft from the factory to the airfield and she came in and she was beautiful. Blonde hair and looked lovely and I thought oh dear I wish I could fly an aircraft. And do you know I was around the control tower and about twenty minutes it came in that they’d taken this aircraft up she had done with one of the squadron leaders, giving it a circuit around and they’d crashed and they were all killed. And I thought oh dear you know how dreadful for her and her family because they didn’t have a lot of training those pilots bringing the new aircraft in. It was such a short period. I think that was, that sort of really upset me, you know. And they were volunteers weren’t they?
Interviewer: And you must look back at it all with a lot of pride and when you see the Memorial finally getting unveiled in London last year and you hear that people are perhaps making more of an effort to remember the crews. That must give you some pleasure after so many years when it perhaps hasn’t happened.
MC: Yes. I was thrilled. I thought it should be. The memorial should be in Lincolnshire and I thought of all the people that had gone. Such young lives. The cream of British manhood you know those. So well, so well trained. A lot of them pilots from universities and they gave their young lives you know for this dreadful man. Hitler. Yes, it was very upsetting that was and of course I lost a boyfriend and his, he lost first of all he lost his elder brother who was flying on the same raid and then he lost his youngest brother who was on a night flying exercise because he’d just joined and then my boyfriend Peter he, he was killed. So there was three boys from one family. How about that?