Interview with John Elliot

Interview with John Elliot

John describes an operation where all crew of his aircraft had to bale out, after all airfields in England were fog bound they were running out of fuel. He goes on to describe an incident on an operation when he looked up out of astrodome to see a Halifax directly above them, dropping bombs which narrowly missed them. He describes wireless ops duty with "Monica" equipment. John goes on to relate fighter affiliation sorties with a Ju 88 which had landed by mistake in England,where they discovered the German aircraft could home in on "Monica" transmissions. Monica discontinued for "Fish Pond". He discusses at length operations between July and September, comparing log books to squadron operation record documents. He recalls where aircraft name "Wee Dood It" came from and which aircraft was actually painted with 30 operation symbols. John talks about his feelings about losses and describes some of their activities, daily life, on and off operations. He recalls that two of his crew were commissioned and the others in Sergeants mess. He describes his feelings on completion of tour and the dispersal of crew afterwards, and describes his attempt to re-contact many years after the war. John describes, initially, having to train as ground radio operator due to an eyesight issue and, subsequently,being re-mustered as aircrew wireless, and then describes the period from training up to operations. He concludes with description of visit to the Battle of Britain memorial flight at RAF Coningsby to get in the Lancaster again.
Includes document with transcript of the conversation between John Elliot and Steve Bond in 2011 and also has contemporary colour photograph of John Elliot. The section describing his non-RAF service as a steward with BOAC, up to Christmas Day 1951 and material relating to training cabin crews etc. for civilian airlines were not included in the provided transcript. Includes contemporary colour photograph.

2011-09-07

13 page printed document

01:23:59 audio recording

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SBondS-ElliottJv10020, SBondS-ElliottJv10035