Michael Peel interview. Two

Michael Peel interview. Two

Michael Peel was posted to 44 Squadron based at RAF Dunholme Lodge. On one operation at midnight his crew wished him a happy birthday. It was his twenty first birthday. On another occasion they found they still had a bomb in the bomb bay and the Flying Control did not inform the ground crew that they were diverted and so they found that they were reported missing. When their aircraft was attacked by the JU88 smoke filled the aircraft but then seemed to dissipate and he cancelled the call to bale out. However, when they reopened their bomb doors the fire started again and they had to abandon the aircraft. One of the crew’s parachute failed to open and he was killed. The bomb aimer was shot as a prisoner. M Peel spent the rest of the war at Stalag Luft 1.

1990-04-16

01:17:34 audio recording

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APeelMG[Date]-01

MP: ‘43. By the 19th of March I’d finished my course. There we are [pause] A night in Charlottetown. Then when I finished that [pause] Oh, we were just here and —
Interviewer: Because you went to the Bahamas and it was just at the point there was that sort of murder thing because you told me about being in Canada and training and meeting up with Ruth I think it was and and wasn’t it that you went to the sort of training in Canada and you had some wonderful I had a vague feeling that when she invited you out you had a great time because of —
MP: Well yes. I oh, [pause] I left. I don’t know. I finished at Charlottetown and I was going to stay with Wilfred.
Interviewer: Yeah.
MP: Who was my uncle who lived in Montreal. The course finished according to this one. I last flew on May the 25th so, the end of May beginning of June and so I went off to stay with Wilfred and he had just been or was just going into hospital to have an operation. Throat or something. I don’t know what it was. And so he wasn’t going to be around at all so what was I going to do for my two or three weeks leave. And so I maybe rang, got in touch with Ruth [Fernanda] Then, maybe I’d written to her. I just don’t know what happened by letter or how. And then I remember being told that in order to go in to the States I had to have fifty American dollars. And I had to send her a wire saying, “Cannot come unless you wire me fifty dollars,” [laughs] Fifty US dollars.
Interviewer: That was quite a lot of money.
MP: And of course, that came straight back. The Wilfred’s host he had a room in the house you see. I think he was a bank manager so he was and he knew all about what the requirements were and of course that was wired back immediately and I went off. I probably flew down there. I can’t remember how I went. I might have gone by train. I probably flew to New York and stayed for a week or so. A week. Two weeks. I don’t know. Unfortunately, I haven’t got it down in here. I tried to get all my dates of these. Oh, wait a minute maybe I’ve got it. Oh, [pause] the 5th of June I left Charlottetown. That was this course. Now, I’ve got North American Base Office [pause] This is where I put it. Down here [pause] North American Base Pay Office, Lachine. Because I was RAF and I’d been at a Canadian school and so they didn’t quite know what to do with me. And from there then I went on to number 111 OTU in Nassau. I was there for a week and they measured us when we got there. My legs were a half an inch too short. They’d just had a ruling change. Legs had to be at least thirty and a half or thirty inches long. Mine were twenty nine and a half or whatever.
Interviewer: This was for flying on Liberators.
MP: Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
MP: That would have been. Because I’d done a general reconnaissance course and the idea of that was for Coastal Command. And then from there I came back and this is where they really didn’t know what to do with me. To the re-pat pool at Rockcliffe. Lachine was Montreal. Rockcliffe was Ottawa I think. And then from there back to Moncton and all that took from the 1st of July to the 31st of August so just two months completely for going to Nassau and back.
Interviewer: And what, what year was that?
MP: Oh, ’43.
Interviewer: ’43.
MP: Yeah. ’43. So probably from the 5th of June to the 1st of July which is a good three weeks over. I was probably on leave which would have been with Wilfred and then I spent it with Ruth Fernanda. Yeah. Then back the 31st of August. I arrived at Harrogate I think.
Interviewer: So how had, how did you get back from Canada?
MP: Queen Mary.
Interviewer: Right.
MP: The same thing went both ways. Went out on the Queen Mary, came back on the Queen Mary and that was this extraordinary business. Coming back. Yeah. Where have we got to now? ’43. September ’43. August ’43. Thereabouts. August. September. Oh, September. There had been an Ottawa conference. Of course, it was Ottawa I believe and yet I’d been at Ottawa. Churchill had been over and they’d had [unclear] Roosevelt and [pause] a big conference and then coming back from that. Churchill was probably taken in a warship I think but a lot of the people from that were travelling on the Queen Mary coming back home again and a friend of mine on my training course, Pete Potter his father was a steward on the Queen Mary and he had written to say that he had a friend whose uncle had been captain of the Queen Mary you see. So —
Interviewer: That was Reg.
MP: Yes, I think Commodore Peel. And so Pete Potter’s father knew and sailed with him and that was something new. So when I arrived on the Queen Mary I asked for the chief steward or whatever he was and met him and he knew my uncle had been there. He said, ‘Oh, I must introduce you to the staff captain.’ He took me along. The staff captain said, you know, ‘Make yourself at home. Anytime —' The ship was dry by then because the Americans were in charge of troops and they don’t allow drink on board ship. Not like the Royal Navy.
Interviewer: [laughs] Yes.
MP: And he said, ‘Plenty of drink in the cupboard here. Anytime you like come on, make yourself at home. That’s alright. Come along this evening. Have a party, you know. Come along at 6 o’clock.’ So I went in with a brand new pilot officer’s uniform and the most junior rank other than me was air commodore and a couple of brigadiers. A major general, generals.
Interviewer: What was your, you were what? A flight lieutenant.
MP: No, I was a pilot officer.
Interviewer: Oh, pilot officer yes.
MP: The very bottom.
Interviewer: The very bottom. Yes.
MP: The tiny little thing so thin you can’t see it you know.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes. Yes.
MP: And then of course these were people from the Ottawa Conference.
Interviewer: Right.
MP: They’d been over for that. I remember meeting one. I think he was an air commodore, yeah and he, he said he wanted, you know, ‘Keep in touch. Let me know how you get on. I’d like to know how you young men, what happens to you young fellas when you get back again.’ Of course, I never did but the captain came in to this party. I don’t know that my name had been mentioned to him by then but he just looked and he said, came up, he said, ‘You just look like a fellow I was in with in the First World War. A fellow called Bush.’ And I said, ‘Bush?’ ‘Could be.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
MP: And it was my mother’s brother.
Interviewer: Gosh.
MP: My uncle on that side. I mean just imagine. No name. Nothing been mentioned. He just remembered that. And I forget which Bush it was. Miles it might have been [pause] which was extraordinary because on photographs well about that age photographs of my father, it’s me and vice versa. And yet how can I look so like my mother’s brother. Amazing isn’t it the way it works? But anyway, that was back again to this country and that was when I phoned my father from Harrogate and I said, Yeah, I’d been fine you know. ‘Hello.’ I said, ‘It’s Joe’s.’ ‘Oh yes.’ ‘Well, I’m back again.’ ‘Oh yes.’ ‘Well, I’ll be on leave. I’m having a forty eight hour pass. I hope to get home tomorrow.’ ‘Oh yes.’ ‘Well, any chance of meeting me?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, I should get in about 4 o’clock. Woodside.’ ‘Right you are. See you then. Goodbye.’
Interviewer: How long had you been away?
Other: He was a gentle fellow.
MP: Well, fourteen months about I think.
Other: It seemed lighter then.
MP: So, then you see, which was really rather extraordinary. I was expecting to get something in Coastal Command maybe but of course I had done the GR work but I hadn’t done OTU. But by then they were short of bomber pilots so it was just to go to an AFU which was an Advanced Flying Unit at South Cerney.
Interviewer: Oh right. Yes.
MP: And that was the base and I was out at Bibury. So that was flying Oxfords from Bibury. That was supposed to be an accelerated six weeks course and the weather was bad. This was from, when was it from? [pause] Yes the 21st of September to the 8th of March. That’s ’44. It was an accelerated six week course which took five months to complete because the airfield was so wet. It was a grass airfield you see.
Interviewer: Right. Right.
MP: And you couldn’t take off because it was flooded and that and is that, well it is just over five months isn’t it? And that was at Bibury.
Interviewer: So, so a lot of the time you just, what could you do if you couldn’t fly?
MP: Well, yeah I mean you got in a bit but it took a great deal of time to do it. You always had Ground School on these courses if I remember rightly. It was usually a morning Ground School and afternoon flying. The following day would be morning flying and Ground School in. You didn’t get to fly and you still had your Ground School. Oh, we were out on the airfield sometimes digging ditches trying to drain it and you know and I remember that. So, this is now coming up for February March ’44 and there’s an American hospital towards outside the other side of Swindon. Where’s your house at the [Bridgway] darling?
Interviewer: Broughton.
MP: Broughton. It’s out at Broughton. Yes. It was there. But this was a big country house. An American hospital in the grounds you know and our Doc at Bibury who had no chance of getting away, getting around anywhere, he said, well it’s up to him to look after the health of troops you see. So he arranged for a party to go over to the masseur. So he used the ambulance and stacked everybody in the back of the ambulance and about twenty of us went over. He said, ‘If the CO objects I’m just looking after their health,’ and preventing them from [laughs] must have some relaxation. And then they sent staff people back to a party we had and I remember there was an American nurse who, there was a great big Scotsman Jock somebody no doubt. Was it Grant? It might have been. Jimmy Grant I think who had his nineteenth birthday when we were there. It was amazing. He was a full blown pilot and he had his nineteenth birthday. She had her eye on him. Chased him all around the mess wanting to find whether the old story was true [laughs] what the Scotsman wore under his kilt and I can’t remember whether she ever found out. That was Jimmy Grant. Oh, I don’t know what happened after that. Bibury then. Oh, then I, and all that was for was to get you used to flying in this country again.
Interviewer: Oh really.
MP: Where, you know navigation was different from in the Prairies where you got you know five hundred miles of nothing and just maybe the Rockies after thirty or forty miles but nothing else you know and well there we are. Taxed reserved flights South Cerney. March the 3rd. Then from there I went up to OTU at Market Harborough.
Interviewer: Operational Training Unit.
MP: Yeah. Number 14 OTU Market Harborough and was from there attached to RAF Husbands Bosworth. Never managed to stay at the parent station. I mean South Cerney to Bibury. Market Harborough to Husbands Bosworth.
Interviewer: Leicestershire.
MP: Husbands Bosworth. Yeah. And I don’t know how long that takes. March. March to April 20. Oh, back to Market Harborough again. That takes up to May the 10th. Something like that.
Interviewer: So, what sort of things would you have done at Market Harborough.
MP: No, May the 21st. Well, I mean it was just flying. Operational training.
Interviewer: On what? Oxfords?
MP: Oh ah, Wellingtons.
Interviewer: Wellingtons.
MP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Oh right. The wooden plane.
MP: The what?
Interviewer: Weren’t they wooden?
MP: Geodetic construction.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes.
MP: No. No. It was the Mosquito.
Interviewer: Oh, that’s right. Yes. Yes.
MP: The Wellington is geodetic construction.
Interviewer: Yeah. It’s across [unclear]
Other: Geodetic.
MP: Well, I don’t know what geodetic means.
Other: I don’t know either.
MP: That was all. I mean, this just did night, high level bombing and what have I got there? I’ve got high level bombing. Something about close loop about two and half yards average from the, I think it was done for twenty thousand. You know the computer. You did it maybe from two thousand, the computer for twenty thousand or something then another vector loop of a hundred and ninety three yards and another group of a hundred and seventeen yards. Well, that’s all. That’s a good one. A hundred and ninety nine. It’s not so good on this. Anyway, that was on Wellingtons and having finished there by May the 21st —
Other: [unclear]
MP: Oh, maximum height. Oh. Let’s see. “151605 Flying Officer Peel has taken an altitude test in the decompression tank at this unit. Maximum height twenty six thousand feet.” Signed by Corporal Reid. That was quite interesting because you are on the thing. They had the crew the whole of the crew in and the pilot on oxygen you see. And then there would then be somebody controlling it all and they would switch off the pilot’s oxygen supply and wanted you to say count. Count down odd numbers down from forty nine. You know forty nine, forty seven, forty five, forty three, forty one and then having cut off your oxygen supply you would start floundering. They did, I think they recorded. Gosh, did they? Because I [pause] I suppose they might have done. That’s a bit surprising. I didn’t know they had recordings at that time.
Interviewer: Yeah.
MP: Or maybe they told me after. The crew told me afterwards what happened. You find yourself getting into a bit of difficulty you know and then suddenly oh it all comes again. You’ve got it. Thirty nine, thirty seven, thirty five.’ You think, brilliant. I’ve beaten them you see. And then you find your oxygen is back on again. What’s actually happened is you’ve passed out completely.
Interviewer: Right.
MP: But, you know and you’ll go to something like we’ll say forty five, forty three, forty one, thirty nine, forty one, thirty three, forty nine, forty seven, thirty one, you know. It would suddenly go haywire and then going on doing that for a time I don’t know whether they actually left it on for long enough. I think they probably did. So it maybe, I don’t know whether you passed out or not but anyway and then they switched it on again and you just carried on exactly where you went wrong from forty three, forty one, thirty nine you know and you’ve no idea that it’s happened at all and the idea of this was to let the crew know what does happen if people are not on oxygen.
Interviewer: So they can tell if something had gone wrong. Yes.
MP: Yeah. And oh, tea. Oh sorry. Now that we have some tea are you going to switch if off for a moment. Is this on? Switched on all the time? I’ll sit down.
Interviewer: We can sit down there.
[recording paused]
MP: So, then you finish OTU which was [pause] which was in March or thereabouts. When did we go on? Here we are and this is ’44. So, then I was on leave. I’ve got a feeling I had mumps. Something like that. No. Chicken pox. Chicken pox. On holiday, on leave the 21st my last flight there. This is dated I don’t know what. I went, my parents were then on Anglesey. Rhosneigr. They’d moved out of Birkenhead. They’d left their house to Eric [Mackiplin]. 22nd of May that seems to, 22nd of May I finished flying there and this is dated the 23rd of May. May, June, July. On holiday in Rhosneigr Stephanie came. She was staying with Aunt May in West Kirby or something. Working in a bank. No. Working somewhere or other. A food office I think in Birkenhead. She came. We stayed for two or three days or something. She went back again. I went back and rejoined my, no what unit? I don’t know what unit I was going to grom there. Still [pause] So what happens? I feel pretty awful. The 23rd of May. D-Day has happened now by the way.
Interviewer: Oh right.
MP: 6th of June.
Interviewer: No. Yes. It must have been around then. Yes.
MP: I finished the 23rd of May. The next date I’ve got here is the 19th of July and that’s because of this business. I mean they opened up an isolation hospital for me. I was the only patient. Which was, had been prepared for, they were expecting there might be all sorts of diseases coming back from the continent.
Interviewer: Right.
MP: And they had all these places ready for them. And I remember the doc saying he called up his, they called up a medical orderly, you know, down my throat, he said, ‘Have a look at that? What do you reckon that is?’ ‘Smallpox, sir?’ Says the orderly. ‘Close. Chicken pox.’ Stephanie then admitted she had remembered feeling just a little bit off colour for one evening after being on holiday but I mean it never affected her at all. That was all. Just felt a little, and she’d had a funny spot.
Interviewer: Yes.
MP: I go and get it and I’m going into hospital for I don’t know a week, a fortnight. It might have been a fortnight. I don’t know how long it was. I can’t remember. But they just don’t have it down here. So then I got the next one from there is Scampton. Aircrew something or other centre. Aircrew. I don’t know. And then went off to RAF Winthorpe. A Heavy Conversion Unit. That was to fly Stirlings.
Interviewer: Right.
MP: For converting to four engines. And that took me from July ’44 to September. 1st of September ’44. So it’s only a month and a half. Six weeks or something. Then from there that was on the 1st September. On the 1st of September I then went to Number 5 LFS. Lanc Finishing School at Syerston in Notts. That took fourteen, thirteen days. A couple of weeks. Then having done that you converted on to Lancasters. You just flew a Lanc. You sat on a Lancaster for a bit. How long? How long did you fly on that? I’m going on to Lancs. I have it somewhere here. Heavy Conversion Unit. Lancasters. I mean there’s very little. Lancasters. There we have it. Four hours. Five hours. Five hours dual. Two hours solo. Another two hours dual at night and five hours solo as first pilot at night. I’d say, say ten hours. Twelve hours. Something like that. And then on to oh then on leave again and I was then posted to 44 Rhodesia Squadron which was at Dunholme Lodge and went on leave. Dunholme Lodge. Yes. A friend of Stephanie’s, her sister here I think worked in the Income Tax office with her whose name [pause] had married a Greenwood. Somebody Greenwood. Flying Officer Greenwood who had been missing. Went missing about two or three months before. She wanted to get over to, from Dunholme, she had been stationed there and she wanted to get over there and so I had, oh I bought an MG out at Rhosneigr. Took it to the local bicycle shop for them to work on it and all seemed well but there was some trouble with it. I’m not sure if it was the alternator went wrong so you had no power. You’d just get up to about thirty miles an hour and we finally came to rest somewhere up in the Moors you know. I don’t know. Fifty miles still away. Somewhere in the Pennines or somewhere but maybe after resting it for a bit it managed to start again. We got it going. We got there. Arrived at Dunholme Lodge, Rhodesia squadron. Had a month there. The 14th of September I arrived there. On the 15th of September, oh must have gone over with somebody else to collect a plane or somebody else flew me there to Wyton and I flew back Wyton to Dunholme. I flew it. I must have gone to collect a plane. That was the day after I arrived there.
Interviewer: Right. Yeah.
MP: And 15, 16, 17, 18 three days later was my first operation as second pilot with an experienced pilot. You know, he’d probably survived five operations or something. I don’t know what but it was a five hour trip against Bremerhaven. From then, that’s the 18th. What else? I did a bit of training. Fighter affiliation. High level bombing. Practiced cross country high level bombing. Then started operating really on my own. Well, as first pilot the 26th of September. Operation is Karlsruhe. 27th of September operation against Kaiserslautern and at midnight on that one that was my second sort of first pilot. As first pilot. And then the one the night before at midnight the crew said, ‘Happy birthday, skip.’ [laughs] Twenty first birthday.
[recording paused]
MP: Take off probably at when was this? September. At dusk. Yes, dusk. Getting probably 7 o’clock or something and you’d get back at 3 in the morning. You know that sort of thing. Somewhere around about that. Now, the squadron was moving and they had laid on a party for the night of the 26th but they couldn’t have it because operations were on. Crews would be away. There were two squadrons based there I think and so they postponed it to the following night and the following night the operations were on again and this would have been my 21st birthday would have been coming in to the party for that you know. Instead of which they held the party and when we got back the party was all over and there was a sign in the mess saying, ‘Free beer for you.’ [laughs] You know, it’s three or four in the morning but after debrief you’d get to bed maybe four in, four or five in the morning or so and then let’s see, that’s 27, that would be the 28th and the next one I have here is the 29th which was a two and a half hour cross country.
[recording paused]
MP: Usually ‘til mid-day, ‘til lunch. You’d be out for lunch usually. And if you were operating again well you’d have briefing probably about 4 o’clock. Starting about four. Each squadron would have roundabout twenty aircraft, you know. Can’t have more than twenty six. Theres not enough letters in the alphabet. Yes, well you, I mean you can feel cold. I always felt hot because cabin heating was I mean the rest of the crew would be cold and then you see I mean I just used to fly with I might wear a sweater under my battledress but flying kit was much too hot. Well, I mean the gunners they had heated suits yes, but you know they might not work or something. That takes me to September the 30th. Then September the 30th we flew from Dunholme to Spilsby. A bit nearer the coast. Daylight one. Night one over Bremen. What’s this? Over Wilhelmshaven. This was the Walcheren. This was the dykes on Walcheren Island and trying to break the dykes to flood the —
Interviewer: Right.
MP: Ruhr area and that sort of thing and some of those were done by day. Well, the one on October the 5th was a daylight one. It was how long? Six and a half hours. Then against Bremen on the 6th. It was a night one. Five hour. Just over five hours. Hit by flak. Fired on JU88. Whether we hit it I don’t know. Then the following day the 7th was a daylight one against Walcheren. That was only a three hour one. Wilhelmshaven. Maybe that was [pause] Wilhelmshaven. Wasn’t that up in the Baltic?
Interviewer: I don’t know.
MP: It might have been flying bomb manufacturing sights.
Interviewer: Oh right.
MP: Or something like that. Might have been. I don’t know. So that takes me to October the 7th and then on leave and then having left that reported to 227 Squadron at Balderton in Notts You get moved around don’t you? Oh, here’s another. Oh Bergen. I remember that one. Bergen. That was a seven, seven hour trip. Bergen is north, oh west Norway you know. Operation Bergen. No bombs dropped. Cloud over target. This was one where the minimum safe height was say five thousand feet because the mountains were up to four thousand feet.
Interviewer: Right. Right.
MP: Something like that. And you had a master bomber who would be the flare force would go in and then the master bomber would go and mark the target and the Lancaster, maybe a Mosquito, maybe a Lightning. It might have been Cheshire. He was 5 Group you see. It was ones like that that did this sort of thing. I don’t know who it was on that particular occasion but there was too much cloud. You just couldn’t see. I mean we flew and couldn’t see and then suddenly we had, we were too too close. Then of course this was in occupied territory so you had to be dead accurate and then sort of around again and land. Oh, before we came in on the target though the master bomber brought everybody down to the safe height. Five thousand feet which meant you had all these aircraft all stacked at different heights.
Interviewer: Yes.
MP: Coming in at different times possibly at slightly different headings. You had them all trying to get onto the same. Maybe a hundred and twenty aircraft or something I don’t know. And yet you were all trying to get into the exactly the same spot for your run in to bomb which sounds a bit dangerous doesn’t it? Yeah. And the crew were getting a bit [pause] Now, as we came around you’d suddenly see the target indicator off to the left or something. You couldn’t just, couldn’t make it in time and that we’d gone around the second time. We went around a third time and they were so bolshy by then that there didn’t seem much chance of getting over the target properly so we went off home. And somewhere over the North Sea I was dozing away and waking up and you’ve got George flying the aircraft. Auto pilot.
Interviewer: The auto pilot. Yeah.
MP: Sort of waking up and, ‘Hello bomb aimer.’ No answer. ‘Hello navigator.’ No answer. Called up each member of the crew in turn. There wasn’t an answer from any of them. All gone to sleep. I think it’s the reaction after trying to get down.
Interviewer: Yeah.
MP: This business of, you know flying around and I mean every now and then you’d see another one moving in the cloud and everything you know. So then when we got back from that I don’t know whether other people dropped their bombs or what happened but when we got back from that [pause] it might have been that one. I know what. We had a hang up which means a bomb which hasn’t dropped. Hasn’t fallen you see and you try and you get rid of it. I think somebody, the wireless operator or something had to go down and possibly shine a torch down the bomb bay to have a look and see if it was clear. ‘Oh, we’ve got a hang up.’ You see. You try and get rid of it but no you just had a hang up. As we were coming in to land, turning into the land or something suddenly the aircraft went [shuddering] ‘Cor, what’s that?’ The wireless operator, ‘It’s dropped into the bomb bay. It’s held by the bomb doors.’
Interviewer: God.
MP: A thousand pounder probably and I just called Control to say, ‘I’ve got a bomb in the bomb bay.’ Whether I’d said something proposed going out to the jettison area. I heard another voice come up saying plaintively, ‘I’ve got two bombs in my bomb bay.’ [laughs] And Control called, they said, ‘What is your position?’ He said, ‘I’m on the perimeter track.’ So he had landed.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yes.
MP: And of course they shouldn’t be primed. I mean they shouldn’t go off on there.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
MP: But you know. And so off we went and somewhere way out in the North Sea, and you get to the jettison area, jettison and then you fly back again. I’ve got a feeling you probably, you wouldn’t be signalling because you didn’t. I mean you didn’t want to give your position away. That’s not until you came back over base and you were then just on VHF whereas on WT they could pick you up. You know, they [pause] when we got back after that we found that the crew had been rubbed out from the board. The crew, I don’t know about mine but the crew that the SP, Special Police, Service Police had been around and collected all their kit from their quarters [unclear] because the Control hadn’t told anybody what had happened you know. We’d called up and we’d gone off to jettison. They just because we hadn’t got back half an hour off cross them off you know. We wouldn’t lose many. Might lose one.
Interviewer: One at a —
MP: Or something like that. Maybe. I mean you can, I can tell you that too very soon. Well, then it goes on and well flying from then on. There was not much other than that. It was day operation. A night operation. November the 1st, November the 2nd, November the 4th, November the 6th. Dortmund Ems Canal, they were rather fun those. The canals. Because you could really bomb the canal.
[recording interrupted]
MP: Fifteen. On the 16th when I was shot down. So, you’re thirty to a tour. So we were just starting. We were just on a home run. You see what used to happen sometimes and operation Harburg the 11th. Two days later Catfoss so we probably landed at Catfoss somewhere way up in the north because of the weather and then got back then. I remember being, all the briefing people coming over to brief us from the place we’d landed at, we’d been diverted to the night before because there was another operation on. They would come there so the other crews would have to bomb up. I mean the ground crews had to bomb up our aircraft and we’d take off from there.
Interviewer: Right. I see.
MP: Because of weather and [pause] Well, again there. Düren. The 17th to Düren. Landed at Bardney. Bardney to base. But the one particular one and then at the very last minute it was cancelled. This was the other ground crews.
Interviewer: Yeah.
MP: Different station. Bombed all the aircraft up and everything and the operation was cancelled. Because of the weather? I don’t know. So this other poor bloody ground aircrew had to go and de-bomb them all. Take all the bombs off. You won’t get a flight back to base and land with full bomb load.
Interviewer: No. Of course. Yes. Yes.
MP: Takes me to December the 6th.
[recording paused]
MP: That was on geese. What have I got here. [unclear] One in the aircraft destroyed and one damaged. This is D-Dog. Only had it on those two nights. Brand new aircraft. D set on fire, abandoned and crashed. I couldn’t spell abandoned. I’ve got two Ns in it. Crashed. Captured December 9th. Returned May the 15th 1945. May the 13th I think. What happened? What happened? On our bombing run a fighter came in. Oh, that was it and of course you’d got to hold your course for the bombing run until the bombs had gone and then the rear gunner or somebody saying, ‘Fighter coming in,’ you see. Once they’d, as soon as they’d gone then corkscrew away. Well, they might corkscrew sooner and come back again and have another try. But anyway, he reckoned he shot one down. It was as I say yes he really reckoned he’d shot it down. And then the, I think the mid-upper another one came in or something and the mid-upper fired at that and he thought that was damaged and sheared off. He thought he’d damaged it you see and then we were getting pretty comfortable by then you know. Starting the home run. Possibly shot one down. Another one came in. Scared him off. The bomb aimer then said, ‘I can see there’s a —’ I forget what. A JU88 or something, whatever they were and [unclear] I didn’t know what they were down ahead of us. I said, ‘Ok bomb aimer. Have a go.’ And we were going to come in and there he was. We were going to come in there you see so the bomb aimer could have a go. I discovered a lot later I’m not quite sure who from whether it was the interrogating officer or you know the Germans or where but I did discover or read that they had fitted the backward firing guns on this. They’d fitted a cannon firing up at about thirty degrees. Because this had been on as on the bombing run I never got around to closing the bomb doors. They were still open you see. And so there we are coming down here. I don’t know. The bomb aimer probably saw. I don’t know if there was tracer amongst it as well or what but sort of boom boom boom just along our bomb bay. These were cannon shells which started to set it on fire. It seemed clear. I don’t know. The navigator, or the wireless operator I forget who was manning the fire extinguishers used the fires, I don’t know how they got into the bomb bay to use the fire extinguisher. I just can’t remember now. Anyway, they used up the fire extinguisher. They probably only had one.
Interviewer: Right.
MP: And then the smoke. The cockpit began to fill again with smoke and it began to feel hot. It was probably wasn’t hot. It was probably just the impression that it was getting though which you thought well maybe. You didn’t know how serious the fire was. So then I ordered them to abandon aircraft. The rear gunner then just oh he was there for the first time. That night he had he had a seat type parachute. Normally he would keep his chest tuck parachute down the fuselage. He’d get up, rotate his turret so that his guns were facing aft. He’d get out of the turret, into the aircraft, pick up the seat type thing and jump out of the main door of the aircraft but he had a seat type parachute for the first time. So all he had to do was rotate his turret the other way and roll out backwards. His ‘chute never opened. I can’t remember whether they told me whether that he had never actually operated, pulled the, the chest type parachute goes on there and the handle is there. The seat type parachute goes on there and the handle is down here. I often wonder whether he was trying hard, you know to find it and never thought of going down there. Who else? The mid-upper. He got down all right. I know. The bomb aimer. He was, he was shot after capture. He’d been, he’d been in the Spanish civil war fighting on the communist side with the Germans against, you know against the Germans. His name was Martinez. His father was up on the staff. I mean the domestic staff of the, I think the Mexican Embassy and whether the Germans knew this or what or whether [pause] he’d always said that he couldn’t afford to be captured. Why they should have known, why they should have got on to him I just don’t know but it’s odd that he, well he’d been shot and I gather there was a sort of war crimes case about it after the war. You know, because he was shot as a prisoner.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes.
MP: Ah, I heard, I met up with some of them afterwards and when [pause] after this, after I’d ordered them to abandon the aircraft the smoke seemed to clear and it seemed to cool down again and it was alright. I could see that the, somebody, what is it? The bomb aimer jumps and the flight engineer jumps and I think the navigator. I’m not, whether he goes. No. He doesn’t. I managed to tap the flight engineer. ‘Hang on.’ You know. It seems to be alright. You know, the smoke was clearing. They told me afterwards when the navigator got to the exit, the mid-upper was still there. But what it was the smoke seemed to clear. It seemed to be alright so I said, ‘Well, hang on.’ And we tried to go on for a bit you see.
[recording paused]
MP: Both of them by then. We came down to a couple of thousand feet or something. It’s better because you know fighters they might not be after you so much and I don’t know how long later thought there was still a lot of smoke in the bomb bay. ‘Well, let’s open the bomb doors again and clear the smoke out.’ Opened the bomb doors and started the fire again, you know. It was lacking oxygen clearly.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes.
MP: And so then it, then it began to feel the smoke and began to feel hot again so I decided well that’s the time to get out. I think when the flight engineer then got to the front turret the bomb aimer was still sitting there. Scared to jump or something. The bomb aimer being this Mexican Spaniard. Whether he had to push him out or something I don’t know. When the navigator got to the main exit he found the mid-upper gunner was still sitting there. They went out together but also he told me that underneath us was a German fighter. Now, oddly enough a book I was reading but he is writing about a German pilot who when he sees that an aircraft, he’s seen some of the crew jump I think and he knows that they’re in terrible trouble. He’s counting them but some still haven’t jumped. He doesn’t fire on it. He does this [pause] and as he flies away he says, ‘Well, good luck.’ You know. They were short of ammunition possibly. That other fighter would have seen the aircraft was on fire.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes.
MP: Would have seen some jumping out of it and everything.
Interviewer: Yeah.
MP: But in fact, I think when he jumped he was a bit scared he was going to —
Interviewer: Hit it.
MP: Hit the, hit the other aircraft you see. And well, that’s about it. Everybody else was out. Yeah. But then if you jumped headfirst. Well, when an aircraft is on fire and you’re smoking and coughing and that sort of thing you think it’s getting hot from behind you that it’s much more comfortable to be out there than it is to stay here. So I mean you just dive. Count to three and pull the cord. One, two, three. Probably about a couple of thousand feet and then you would find yourself coming down. I could see everything was [pause] was it a dark colour with occasional light? Bits of light patches and I thought that the, I thought that the light patches were water and the dark patches were forest.
Interviewer: Forest.
MP: You see. With legs. Anyway, I was trying hard. No, I wouldn’t think it as being forest. I would just think of it as being land. As being ground as opposed to a lake. I didn’t want to land in the middle of [unclear] one of these ponds or something like that. I didn’t want to land in the middle of a pond in December and I was frantically trying to pull the thing to get to the large area instead of which I landed slap in the middle of a light area which was a clearing in the forest.
Interviewer: Right. Very lucky. Yes.
MP: I mean one of them landed in a tree. You know, his parachute was caught in the tree and there he was dangling from whatever height and he just did his parachute, come down, and fell and broke his arm on falling. I think it was an arm not a, not a leg. So I think he was very lucky. Then you sort of try and hide your parachute and you know dig a hole in the ground so they don’t find it. Start walking to try and make Luxemburg.
Interviewer: Yes.
MP: You’ve got your sort of escape map thing which I, well it’s like a scarf. You know, silk. Printed on silk. I would have loved to have had one, kept one of those. And I was somewhere near Bitburg. You know, that’s the Ruhr. In the Moselle valley. Somewhere near there. Oh, I remember. Well, of course oh well probably the first thing I mean having possibly buried the thing you’re trying to just give a little bit away in case there’s anybody sees you come down. And if I remember correctly just finding a hole or finding somewhere and lying down and going to sleep because you were so, you know tense and everything from it that you feel so tired and so yeah. I don’t know which two but one was sort of in a ditch or something and there was a sort of rustling from the other side. You look very carefully through a gap in the hedge and there was the other crew member looking back the other way.
[recording paused]
MP: I mean you, after capture went to oh I had it in jail in Trier. Spent two or three nights there with a couple of Americans in the same cell I think. The cell was nine feet by six feet when you had these sort of biscuit things, you know. It was a 246. So you’d have one would be down there, one would be down here. One, a door opened there. One would be down to where the door opened because the bucket was in the corner. And it was a bit chilly for the next few days trying to, oh I was trying to lay up by day and walk by night. It was open. It was farmland. I seem to remember walking over open farmland. I mean I remember coming and finding whether there was a road or railway. How the devil did I know where I was? I didn’t know. I found out. I knew exactly where I was. Not when I landed but I mean from the [unclear] probably. I was trying to go west making possibly for Luxemburg thinking they might be more friendly in Luxemburg then in Germany itself and sort of getting towards it. Now, remember this was also the time, I think it was just before but the Ardennes Push. I thought the push was taking place then but it probably wasn’t but they might have been a little bit more touchy about people who looked a bit odd who might be sending back information or anything, you know because of this push. Yes, I was hiding in this place by day was it or dusk? I don’t know. I’ve got a feeling it was a sort of store shed on a, maybe on a farm. But no there was a road nearby and there was a sort of a balcony with hay stored in it and I think I climbed up into that and then thinking it was getting dusk and I’d get out soon and start walking. Whether it was a sentry —
[recording paused]
MP: Or whether it was a German soldier I don’t know but I thought it was, came and used, this shed was his shelter. He came in and there he was.
[recording paused]
MP: I don’t know whether it probably wasn’t raining but it didn’t snow then but a bit chilly you know. It would give him shelter from —
[recording paused]
MP: And then you feel a sneeze coming on.
Interviewer: Yes.
MP: Yeah [laughs] I mean, I remember sleeping somewhere two in a shed on a farm and a farmer came out and he found me there and in effect it was something about oh well, you know. He wasn’t going to, you know he wasn’t going to. He was just going to keep quiet about it. ‘I won’t say anything,’ or something like that. This was getting close to Luxemburg. I mean there might have been I don’t know what nationality they were just there but they might, did he bring some food or [pause] I don’t know. I just can’t remember now and there was a river and this is December remember. I didn’t really like the idea of trying to swim a river in December you know. It would be chilly afterwards when you got out. And there was something going across. A horse drawn vehicle or what I don’t know but I thought well I’d try walking behind this one you know as if I’d something to do with it or something.
[recording paused]
MP: I mean you’re taking your epaulettes off.
Interviewer: Yes.
MP: You’re in a battle, RAF blue battle dress and battle dress trousers which looked just like German Army stuff, you know.
Interviewer: Right. Yes. Yes.
MP: German sort of grey. I don’t think that would be obvious.
Interviewer: Right.
MP: I’d taken my flying boots off. They were proper shoes.
Interviewer: Right.
MP: This was the whole idea.
Interviewer: Right.
MP: Because they did have these floppy flying boots. Awful for walking in. Quite useless. Then they did proper shoes and you know, you could cut it off and so on but I kept my things because they were, you know sheep’s wool, lambswool or something with leather and I used this for hip and shoulder. For sleeping on the ground.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes.
MP: Because I was never very good at sleeping on the ground. So I still had these tucked under my arm and however oh I know what I’d also got. You had a light. A battery operated powered light in your Mae West so if you came down in the sea whether they came on automatically or we had to switch it on I don’t know but that was to give a light and so before I discarded my Mae West I had taken the battery and the thing out because it was a little, it was like a torch. You know, you could use it as a torch. And I got that. I’d got that in my pocket with the wires coming up maybe from a hip pocket coming up to the other pocket you see and suddenly they saw these wires you see. But you know up with their guns and thinking this was explosives no doubt and I thought well, you know I managed. I put my hand in quickly, pulled it out, switched it on. There was the light.
Interviewer: Yes.
MP: And so that was alright. I couldn’t speak German. They wanted to know you know and I should have been able to [unclear] one language for a couple of years or something. So was basically that. Yes, couldn’t speak German. They, they ran I mean obviously the uniform too was fairly obvious and so that’s why. So then must have been sent in to Trier Interrogation Centre. I think my crew must have been there. Yes. I must have met them at about that time. My crew had been picked up at any rate. I mean those who survived. I mean that’s what they do. They would interrogate different crew members to get, try and get information. It was the one main Interrogation Centre I think.
Interviewer: Oh right.
MP: For all air crew probably. I think it was called [unclear] near Frankfurt. They always claimed that is now you’ve been picked up. You’re not in uniform. Well, you know not in badges of rank and things. You’re a, you might be a fifth columnist. You know —
Interviewer: A spy.
MP: You’re a spy. Yes. You’ve got to prove to us that you’re not, you know. Right. Well, what squadron are you from? You know.
Interviewer: Right.
MP: I can’t tell you that and they’d come back and say, ‘227 Squadron wasn’t it?’ And they thought why would we —? ‘We’ve got all your crew.’ I mean, you know why they didn’t say that at that point. ‘And where were you stationed?’ ‘I can’t tell you that.’ ‘Well, you were at Balderton. You moved from Bardney to Balderton, hadn’t you? What other aircraft were stationed in Bardney when you were there?’ And you know all this sort of things. They’d pick up bits of information and feed it back to you. You’d think they know everything what does it matter what I do? In fact, they might be querying, you know. If you would say that well that would confirm. Up ‘til then it was only vague suspicion. I don’t know. I shouldn’t think it did them much good. It would confirm that you were who you were you know. I can’t remember whether they asked the crew. The crew, the names of the crew or whether they told me the names of the crew or what it was.
[recording paused]
MP: I remember they’d interrogate us and I tried asking him something. You know, ‘What’s the point of going on?’ What do you think Germany can do now?’ You know. I mean as I say this was December ’44 after the landings and everything and I said, ‘Why do you go on?’ And he said, ‘I’m interrogating you. Not you me.’ [laughs] Then jail in Trier. To Frankfurt by train. And two of these Americans were also going as well. They were. They were probably aircrew and we were trying to decide, trying to think. I mean your training is try and escape as soon as possible while before you’re really in a permanent camp. It’s much easier to get out and get away.
Interviewer: Yeah.
MP: Before that. And so there was a German soldier with us with his gun. It was just an ordinary passenger train and there were three of us in the compartment of this one and we’d whisper to each other. And I think what it was one was to, was it one was to grab his gun or something or open the bolt so he couldn’t use it while the others made for the door and jumped out so, so that he couldn’t then, you know fire from the train. Or whether it was to grab his gun and throw it away I don’t know. But each time we were just about getting to it trying to see a convenient place where we could jump out of the train and then God we’re going over a river now, you know [laughs] That wouldn’t be much good. And it just didn’t work. We never got to a time when we pulled into a station or something and the moment was passed. Whether it would have worked I don’t know but yes that was on the way to [unclear] for sorting out which permanent POW camp people would go to or something like that and I had chilblains. Not very bad ones but I always used to take stuff called Kalzana and I thought that it had calcium in it. I’d seen the doc and asked about this. He said, well I said, ‘Well, I normally take calcium for it.’ ‘Calcium for chilblains? Does it do any good?’ I said, ‘It’s fine. It does me a lot of good.’ ‘Well, I’ve got some calcium pills. You can have those.’ He gave them to me and my chilblains went [laughs] But he’d never heard of calcium for chilblains. I think the medical staff stayed. They weren’t in transit. They were there permanently but they were POWs as well you see. Oh yeah. I don’t know. There was probably a padre too. And I can remember meeting quite a bunch of them. Oh yes. Having a Christmas drink with them and that sort of thing. It was very close to Christmas here. It might actually have been over Christmas time.
Other: No. I think they had a big barrel. They’d been preparing I don’t know —
MP: Potato wine.
Other: Yes.
MP: Or whatever it was for celebrations. You know for Christmas and I think they scooped it out and down at the bottom they came to a dead rat.
[recording paused]
MP: I think it was on leaving that camp I had [pause] my brother Lionel had given me a pipe which he had bought in either Antwerp or Brussels and it was a very nice pipe. A certain amount of tobacco as well so I’d been smoking this but I wanted to keep this pipe you see so I had it in my pocket you see and why I’d put it there I don’t know but I put it under my pillow. No, because it was too painful. I mean I had it in my pocket and lying on it and I put it under my pillow and we were called out rather hurriedly to form up because we were being marched off somewhere or other and I got out there, got out of the hut. ‘My pipe. I’ve left it behind under my pillow.’ And there was no way I could go back and to get it and I thought oh my lovely pipe because it was one when the first smoke with it goes down very well. You usually have to smoke a pipe two or three times before you get to like it but that one I liked immediately. So I lost that one. And then from there a trip across Germany from this is somewhere near Frankfurt by train. Sort of cattle, well not quite cattle. No, they weren’t cattle trucks. They were not very comfortable at any rate. Yeah, I think it was two or three days to get from Frankfurt up to Barth, up at the Baltic coast. I had no idea it was as long as that but it was quite, it was a pretty slow journey. Oh yes. Oh gosh. The mess. There must have been a lot of clearing ups on that train. Really it was a special POW train. I think it probably was. Yes. Because the loo was just a bucket. I mean an open bucket. Open to the track.
Interviewer: Right.
MP: And when you stopped at the station I mean everybody would use it and the pile underneath would actually be sort of touching the bottom of the train. God. Eugh. How they’d had enough to eat to produce that I don’t know but I have no recollection of eating on that train. I don’t know whether we did. How did we get from the station? I don’t know. It was trucks into the POW camp. Stalag Luft 1 in Barth. Barth, Pomerania. Oh, it might be nine thousand five hundred but it was about fifteen hundred British. Mainly Americans. There was a British compound. You could go around your compound but not normally between compounds. I don’t remember meeting Americans. I was in a room with fourteen of us in it, I think so it was seven double bunks. Well, you had a stove in each hut and little briquettes about that big. Coal briquettes and have an issue of a half a dozen or something of those. You know, you’d have a hot meal of sorts. I mean a bit of gruel. I mean I didn’t personally but I had a fellow in the hut who took over that job usually. You were provided with a sort of, a sort of a pot, a large pot for each hut it might have been. Which was more or less cabbage water, you know. That sort of thing. Nothing much good in it at all. I don’t remember ever getting, oh and bread. You had I think two or maybe four slices of bread which I got to like and you got this soupy thing maybe twice a day and the bread was issued so you could have that whenever you wanted to. Other than that there were Red Cross parcels you see which were issued to the hut which might have butter or margarine or tins of corned beef, tins of spam. All these sorts of things and so whoever was doing the cooking would probably, you know he’d have a bit of your German soup.
[recording paused]
I can’t remember what happened in the first hut with fourteen in it because fourteen and you knew there. I just don’t know. All I remember was that the, what was it. Just the bunk, yeah he was Bob Cowell. He was a Flight Lieutenant Bob Cowell. His father was chief legal officer in the RAF. I think RAF. Might have been Army. His mother was Lady Cowell and he was the one who changed sex. He became Roberta Cowell.
Interviewer: Right.
MP: After the war.
Interviewer: Right.
MP: I don’t know. One of the early change sex operations. I mean he’d been a test pilot, he’d been a racing motorist.
Interviewer: Yes.
MP: Anyway, having left that I left. They had to because other camps were coming in. They wanted to make more space for them so they were trying to double people up and there was a hut which had had six in. Been there for maybe six months or so. Had six in and they had to take two extra and they took me and somebody else from hut fourteen. Hut fourteen. I said there were fourteen in it. It might have been hut fourteen.
Interviewer: Oh right. Yes.
MP: I don’t know. And that meant that we had there were a couple of double bunks and then there were two single beds. Mine was across the window so I had a thing just in the front of the window which was the best spot. The other fellow his bed had to be moved out by day into the corridor.
Interviewer: Right.
MP: And then at night it was brought in and laid down [laughs] you know, beside the table because we had a little table down there and that was Jones. He was a Welshman. Yes. And one of the ones was a professional footballer. Wolverhampton Wanderers he played for. Oh, from then on I was in the same hut in that one yes.
Interviewer: [unclear]
MP: Probably about four months or something. Something like that. That was much better. You had a loo, a urinal thing at the end of the hut. In a room at the end of the hut. The previous one you had to go right across. I think you had to sort of cross the open and I mean again it was this business of sort of a bucket thing with a thing. They were emptied by Polish POWs who had horses and carts and they’d come and they’d have to shovel all the muck out.
[recording paused]
MP: Lectures were organised. I mean Peter Graham. [unclear] and he was lecturing on German so I went to his lectures. And Bob Cowell was lecturing on car, on maintenance. Car maintenance. I got that.
Interviewer: Yes. I’ve seen that. Yes.
MP: Yes. I don’t know what else. You had the stage shows. They were very good. I saw a Noel Coward one. Bliss.
Interviewer: Blythe Spirit.
MP: Blythe Spirit was it? There’s another one which is about bliss or [pause] It might have been Blythe Spirit I think. I think I saw that there.
Interviewer: So did, so whatever skills or knowledge people had they used to —
MP: Oh yes. I mean I turned up, my watch had been going. I’d been having trouble with my watch. It was an American one. I bought it in New York, I think and I was troubled because one of the cogs inside had lost several teeth so when you tried to wind it up we couldn’t do it. I tried to have it repaired in this country before I was shot down and nobody could do it at all and I got hold and I was told something. There was a watchman and he might be able to help. I found him and he had new cogs fitted, new things fitted in a couple of days [laughs] He was getting stuff from home I think or something as a watchmaker, you know, to keep. I just don’t know. Maybe he made them. I don’t know how he did it. He was probably doing other stuff but there wasn’t much in the way of, nothing seemed to happen in the way of escape organisation there. They didn’t have the same drive. Sagen was the one, Stalag Luft 3. Sagan. Yeah. Yeah, you’d better be going.
Interviewer: This was so right near the end of the war.
[voices off]
MP: I mean one thing that I will just tell you. This was, I remember that towards the end the guards were mainly pretty ancient. I mean they might have been in their sixties or something you know and they had great long great coats on right down to their feet.
Other: Called them the goons.
MP: They were all called goons, yes. They were a bit trigger happy too and there was an occasion where a fellow, somebody had been in the library. Oh yes. They had a library as well you see. You go and read in the library or something but when the siren went you had to get back immediately back to your own huts. Somebody had been reading in the library just hadn’t noticed the siren you know he came, walked out, you know was walking back to his hut or so and one of these ancient goons up, probably whether he was in watchtower or not shot him. Which probably he had every right to do because after the air raid siren warning went you were a certain length of time. After that you weren’t allowed out. And so that was things were liable to happen. Nasty things. And whether he was killed I just don’t recall now. I don’t know. Then the mass more came in from another camp. Probably marched further from Poland or somewhere because the camps were tending to be marched west.
Interviewer: Was it all officers in the camp or what?
MP: Oh this. Yes. The one I was in. Yeah. I was Stalag Luft 1 at Barth. Stalag Luft 3 was the one with the tunnel.
Interviewer: Right. Yes.
MP: I can’t remember the name of it. What’s the name of that one they tunnelled out of? I can’t remember now. And they had been marched west. That was quite a time for them when they were marching. At some stage our, because the commandant had been ordered to march us west and he told, we had an American colonel, a senior Allied officer. British Canadian group captain, senior British officer and whether the colonel, the group captain said, ‘Well, we’re not going. You can go if you like. We’re not going. There are ten thousand of us. There are only five hundred of you.’ So, ‘We’ve got guns.’ ‘Well, maybe yes. Are you going to use them on us.’ And anyway, the Germans left. I think they did discover afterwards that Himmler had given orders that we were to march. Maybe this was what the commandant refused to do, march to Sweden. Told that we were going to be taken across to Sweden and this was on barges and when the barges went out then to sink them by gunfire. That’s what I’d been told was Himmler’s plan for our camp. Odd isn’t it that they should? I don’t know. Very odd.
Interviewer: Anyway, how, so when did you actually arrive there?
MP: Where? In Barth? Well, probably early in —
Interviewer: It must have been January I would have thought.
MP: January.
Interviewer: Yeah.
MP: I should think. I don’t think I’ve got —
Interviewer: And you were there for about six months or so.
MP: Oh yes. I was a POW from the 9th to the 13th of May I’ve got down here. From the 9th of December to the 13th of May. So it was five months. Yeah.