Interview with Alastair Price
Title
Interview with Alastair Price
Description
Interview with Alistair Price about his father, Kenneth George Price. He was the station navigation officer on 35 Squadron at RAF Wyton. He flew 58 operations before he was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
Alistair Price is the son of Squadron Leader Kenneth George Price. Kenneth joined the RAF Reserve in 1937. Previously he had worked as journalist and knew that war was coming. He flew initially in Fairey Battles. In all he flew as a navigator in fourteen different types of aeroplane for fifty eight operations. In 1940 he was with 142 Squadron. He joined a Pathfinder squadron. On the day of his final operation a navigator asked to not fly that night. Kenneth went in his place. He was shot down over Holland and although he initially received help from the Resistance he was betrayed to the Gestapo by a Catholic priest. He was beaten and interrogated before being transported to Stalag Luft 3 where he took part in the preparation for the Great Escape and underwent the Long March.
Ken enlisted in the RAFVR on the first day of the Second World War. He chosen to be a navigator because he enjoyed maps. Ken flew a wide variety of aircraft. Alistair tells how Ken was involved in taking an American General with them on a night operation. The General was extremely sceptical them the RAF were facing dangers at night that the USAAF were facing during the day. Alistair describes the life Ken endured in Stalag Luft 3 as part of the North Officers Compound. Ken was part of the Long March. His final stop was at Trondheim from where he was rescued. He retired from RAF in 1946.
Alistair Price is the son of Squadron Leader Kenneth George Price. Kenneth joined the RAF Reserve in 1937. Previously he had worked as journalist and knew that war was coming. He flew initially in Fairey Battles. In all he flew as a navigator in fourteen different types of aeroplane for fifty eight operations. In 1940 he was with 142 Squadron. He joined a Pathfinder squadron. On the day of his final operation a navigator asked to not fly that night. Kenneth went in his place. He was shot down over Holland and although he initially received help from the Resistance he was betrayed to the Gestapo by a Catholic priest. He was beaten and interrogated before being transported to Stalag Luft 3 where he took part in the preparation for the Great Escape and underwent the Long March.
Ken enlisted in the RAFVR on the first day of the Second World War. He chosen to be a navigator because he enjoyed maps. Ken flew a wide variety of aircraft. Alistair tells how Ken was involved in taking an American General with them on a night operation. The General was extremely sceptical them the RAF were facing dangers at night that the USAAF were facing during the day. Alistair describes the life Ken endured in Stalag Luft 3 as part of the North Officers Compound. Ken was part of the Long March. His final stop was at Trondheim from where he was rescued. He retired from RAF in 1946.
Creator
Date
2024-03-27
Temporal Coverage
Spatial Coverage
Language
Type
Format
00:58:11 Audio recording
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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.
Identifier
APriceA240327
Transcription
HB: It’s 10:42 the 26th, 7th of March.
AP: The 27th of March.
HB: The 27th of March and I’m here in Henley in Arden, a lovely village to interview Alistair Price. Alistair is the son of Squadron Leader Kenneth George Price who was a navigator and became and was awarded the DFC and bar.
AP: Didn’t get the bar, Harry. We’ve checked now. I could not —
HB: Oh sorry. He didn’t get the bar.
AP: He didn’t get the bar. I went, he always said he’d got a bar but everywhere I’ve checked I cannot find a bar. I cannot find any record of a bar. He did fifty eight trips so my, my story now is Kenneth George Price. Squadron Leader Kenneth George Price DFC.
HB: Right. I’m corrected on that. That’s great. That’s fine. And as far as my minor bit of research goes Squadron Leader Price served in 139 Jamaica Squadron. Mosquitoes. He was taken prisoner of war and was involved at Stalag Luft 3, Sagan. He was, he was involved in the Great Escape and was actually in line to actually escape from the tunnels. So, what I’d like to do Alistair if I may is to just start with a bit of background of your father. The usual things. Where he was born and where he went to school and what he did before he joined the RAF.
AP: Right. This is great because it’s all part of the presentation I do.
HB: Right.
AP: My father was born on the 4th of October 1919.
HB: Yeah.
AP: And he was an identical twin with his brother Douglas. He went, he was obviously from a relatively poor background in Coventry. He went to school and he matriculated in history and English and he was awarded a scholarship at King Henry the VIII’s School in Coventry which was, which was a great accolade for him.
HB: Sorry. Can I just interrupt Alistair. Where was he living at this time?
AP: He was living in Coventry. He was born in White Street in Coventry. 2a White Street in Coventry.
HB: Oh right. Yes.
AP: Ok. So, the King Edward the VIII School. He then, he and his twin, identical twin brother you couldn’t tell them apart and this is that fraternal link was very significant when dad was shot down. But they were under eighteen table tennis champions in Warwickshire. Both very very good. They joined the, both joined the Coventry Evening Telegraph as reporters in 1937 and my father could see the war was coming and didn’t want to be posted into Army or Navy. He wanted the RAF. Everybody, all his mates wanted to be pilots and so he, he decided to go the navigation route because he was interested in maps and meteorology which is the study of weather. He, he joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve at Ansty which is just northwest of Coventry which was a long runway, a bomber runway. So he joined the Volunteer Reserve in 1937/38 and he was called up to join the RAF on the 1st of September 1939 at the tender age of twenty. His, going back to his father his father ran a market stall in Coventry. He had a sister who died only in 1989. Very fond of, fond of him. So shall I carry on just —
HB: If you just, yeah. The only question I would ask was did he ever tell you of a very specific reason for joining the RAF? Or was it just this you know all his friends wanted to be pilots and –
AP: No. He never. To be frank like a lot of people he didn’t talk about his experience during the Second World War. It was only subsequently particularly before he died in 1980 that he talked and everything I’ve got is from records, papers, photographs which enabled me to write a book on my father. But yeah, so he was called up to the RAF in, on the 1st of September 1939. This is a brief summary. He was in between February and September 1940 he was based at Catterick flying Fairey Battles which were useless aircraft. Very slow. Blenheims in the Battle of Britain. They could do about a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty miles an hour. So if they were taken by an ME109 from the Luftwaffe they’d got no chance. In fact, this chap I met called Flight Lieutenant Colin Bell, who’s still alive now said that the aircrew called the Fairey Battle the flying coffin. So the chances of survival were very small if they were engaged by an ME109. Father was then posted to Bomber Command in 1941 where he flew fourteen different types of aircraft. Fairey Battles, Hampdens, Manchester and the fantastic Lancaster. He actually flew in a Mosquito only once and that was on the 27th of July 1943 when he was shot down and he was taking the place of a chap who had met a lady who said, ‘I’d like to, any chance you could let me off?’ Father, who was then the station navigation officer for Wyton, squadron leader said, ‘Well, I can’t find anybody but I’ll take the trip myself.’ Because the Mosquito at the time was the fastest aircraft of either the axis, the Germans or the allied aircraft and he was pretty confident he’d get back. Made of wood. Very fast. Could do three hundred and seventy eight miles an hour.
HB: Yeah.
AP: But unfortunately, he, he was hit by flak on his return from Duisburg over, hit by flak over Holland. He was, he joined Pathfinders which were the elite –
HB: Sorry Alistair, could I just stop you there. When, when he was at Catterick did he do his navigator’s training at Catterick?
AP: Yes.
HB: So he never, he wasn’t one of these that went out on the Commonwealth Training Scheme.
AP: No. No. No. No. All his training was done in the UK.
HB: Right. So he trained up right up to the level of navigator ready to go to Bomber Command.
AP: Correct.
HB: Brilliant. Right. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt. Yes. So he, so he’s done his training. He’s joined Bomber Command. I presume he’s gone to an Operational Training Unit.
AP: Yeah. I don’t know where that would be.
HB: Right.
AP: It would be in his logbook but I would have to –
HB: Yeah.
AP: Track that down.
HB: But that, but that would then get him into a crew for eventually being posted to –
AP: Pathfinders.
HB: 139 Squadron.
AP: I haven’t got 129 Squadron.
HB: 139 I think.
AP: What the squadron I’ve got in his logbook here is 83 Squadron.
HB: Right. That’s quite, that’s quite possible. I mean, I’m not –
AP: So most of the aircraft he flew latterly were Lancasters.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. So he went, he went from the Operational Training Unit to a squadron in Pathfinders.
AP: He went, he was spotted by Air Vice Marshall Don Bennett who up to the middle of 1942 bombing over Germany was very haphazard. They, they had, they were given targets but bombing at night over Germany was just a nightmare. So what they did they set up Pathfinders and Pathfinders took the quality crew whether they be pilots, navigators, wireless operators, bomb aimers from all the bomber squadrons and stuck them at Wyton. And what happened was that the Pathfinders would go in before the main, main bomber forces and lay flares. So they had three sets of flares. Small ones which were dropped first of all followed by larger ones and then big phosphorous ones. So when the bomber formations came in after the Pathfinders they were the formations were much better able to target, hit the targets prior than they were prior to mid-1942.
HB: Right. So, yeah. Now, I’m presuming and this is a big presumption now that you’ve just mentioned about him you haven’t got 139 Squadron. I’m just wondering if while we’re talking if I could have a quick look at your dad’s logbook. That would probably help me a little bit. He did fifty, fifty four operations. Something like that.
AP: Fifty eight trips.
HB: Fifty eight trips.
AP: Life expectancy was –
HB: So –
AP: Five trips.
HB: Yeah. I’m assuming that he was in a squadron and then went from that squadron to Pathfinders which was how as you say that’s how the Pathfinders were set up.
AP: But if you look at the last signing off when he was shot down it’s signed as 83 Squadron right at the back.
HB: Yeah. Sorry. Just, I’m just having a quick look. So how many, how many operations did he fly? Do you know how he flew with the Pathfinders?
AP: No.
HB: Right.
AP: I will know.
HB: This is unusual.
AP: Funnily enough Harry because next Tuesday, next Wednesday after going to the Bomber Command Museum I’m going to Wyton as a guest to look at where dad was based. So, I will learn.
HB: Oh right.
AP: Next Wednesday, this time next week how many trips he did with Pathfinders because he was –
HB: I think, yeah just, sorry to interrupt again. It’s just I found in here he was in unit 219 Squadron, sorry his unit was 219 Squadron, A flight at Catterick. So that presumes that was his training, training squadron and he went to [pause] blimey he did spend some time at Catterick didn’t he. Yeah. That’s [pause] yeah. He went to 12 Operational Training Unit at RAF Benson in there. I think you’ll probably find if you just, if you just go through page by page you’ll find [pause] yeah. There’s the Fairey Battles [laughs] yeah.
AP: No. When I went through his logbook to prepare my own book on him I was looking at the aircraft he flew. I wasn’t focussing on –
HB: No. Exact. No. No. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Yes. He was in 142 Squadron in 1940 flying operations. Obviously that [Stuka time] over Boulogne.
AP: Well, he, I know that he was involved in bombing the barges.
HB: Yes. He also according to this they had to make a forced landing near Hatfield. Sorry, Hatcliffe on the way back from an operation to Boulogne. So yeah. So he’d been through, he’d been through it in 1940 which is a good long service then for the start of the war. I’ll just quickly, it’s really more, I’m trying to do this more for yourself. I’m looking for a particular thing and I can’t see it.
AP: No. It’s interesting Harry. I haven’t done the squadrons which you are looking for.
HB: Yeah.
AP: All I’ve done –
HB: I was interested in his first squadron because some guys did twenty operations, were identified as above average navigator, wireless operator or whatever and they were gradually hived off in to forming the initial formation of Pathfinder. And then later on in the war as I understand it and I stand to be fully knocked back is that later in the war they formed Pathfinder squadrons from scratch but from the recommendations from Occupational Training Units. So as opposed to them going to a squadron flying a few operations and then getting assessed they were assessed at the Operational Training Unit. So, but that, I mean that that might just be apocryphal. Yes. It’s slightly unusual because your father doesn’t, everybody else writes their squadron number down on the top of the page and he hasn’t. But that doesn’t matter. Right. So he's obviously —
AP: You, you’ve highlighted to me that I need to have another look at a different angle because if I did a talk to the Women’s Institute and talked about his operational squadrons they’d be falling asleep.
HB: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. I think, yeah I mean he’s obviously gone through a squadron, been identified, and he’s ended up in Pathfinders and that was in Lancasters I believe.
AP: Mostly Lancasters. Yeah.
HB: Yeah. So –
AP: I think the other very significant thing for me Harry was that the Lancaster that’s at Hendon Air Museum father flew in on the 25th of July 1943.
HB: Right.
AP: To Essen. And the reason that it’s significant is because they had a General Anderson from the United States Air Force on board because the US Air Force did not believe that the RAF who were flying at night were taking the same risks as the Flying Fortresses who were flying during the day. And so father was the senior officer but he wasn’t in charge of the aircraft. The, the pilot was in charge. He was a flight lieutenant. And when they came back I’ve seen records that General Anderson said, ‘I take it back.’ You know, you see your mates who have been flying ahead of you blown to pieces, you see flak coming up, you see spotlights homing in on an aircraft and you’ve got no chance because the Luftwaffe would take them out. Horrendous, you know. You did. And the fact with the Lancaster didn’t have ventral guns in the fuselage so the first they knew that a night fighter was at them was the cannon coming up through the bottom of the aircraft.
HB: Yeah.
AP: Absolutely horrendous. And this US Air Force general said, you know, ‘I take, I rescind what we said about the RAF.’
HB: Yeah.
AP: And you obviously take the same risks. It was two days later that dad was shot down and the significance of that was that the aircraft that’s at Hendon Air Museum father flew in on the 25th of July 1943.
HB: Right. Yeah.
AP: And a month before he died we got a photograph. We got special permission for father to go in to the navigator, the navigator’s seat in that aircraft at Hendon Air Museum. So we’ve got him thirty seven years later sitting in the same navigator’s seat. Unbelievable.
HB: Yeah. So, he was, just before he was shot down then he had obviously progressed up to being squadron navigating officer.
AP: He was. He was the station navigation officer at Wyton.
HB: At Wyton.
AP: Yeah.
HB: And that was in ’43.
AP: Yeah.
HB: Right. Yeah. I’ve just got, I’ve got a query for something in ’43 for that. [coughs] excuse me, so he’s flown in Lancasters. He’s flown fifty eight.
AP: Well, it was fifty eight but —
HB: Or fifty. He flew fifty seven in Lancasters.
AP: Well, no. They were, they were in Hampdens, Blenheims.
HB: Oh right. Right. Right. Ok.
AP: But –
HB: Yeah.
AP: The majority of his time in Pathfinders was on Lancs. The first time and only time he flew in a Mosquito was when he was shot down.
HB: Right.
AP: And he shouldn’t have done it really. He should have, they should have because he’d have been grounded at sixty trips anyway.
HB: Yeah.
AP: And they used him for training purposes.
HB: Yeah. So we get to July 1943 and we get to his flight where he’s covering for somebody else. Can you just from, from what you know about your dad what was his sort of personality that, you know was he introvert, extrovert?
AP: Oh, I’m like him. Confident, charming, extrovert. Confident but a people person as well.
HB: Yeah.
AP: And so when this Canadian navigator came to him and said, ‘Squadron leader, I need, any chance you could let me off.’ Dad said, obviously said yes because he felt confident about getting back because the Mosquito was so superior in terms of height, in terms of speed. He was pretty confident but it was just chance flak over, over Holland that he was shot down.
HB: Right. So he takes off from RAF Wyton and they’re going to Duisburg.
AP: Yeah. On a reconnaissance trip.
HB: [unclear] Do you know anything about that trip or what the purpose for the reccy was or was it after the night raid?
AP: The only records I’ve got are in his logbook.
HB: Yeah.
AP: And it doesn’t give me very much.
HB: I just wondered, I wondered if he was shot down in daylight or at night.
AP: At night.
HB: Right.
AP: Definitely at night. Night flying. There you go. Duisburg. Operations. Missing.
HB: Yeah.
AP: But what happened was they, coming back over Holland, fortunately it was Holland, it wasn’t Germany because if it was Germany Goebbels who was the propaganda minister had said, ‘If you find RAF flyers,’ the civilian population, ‘You can do what you like with them.’ Fortunately, he was shot down over Holland. He was on the run for seven days. He was picked up by the Dutch Resistance who stupidly got rid of his dog tag. Two dog tags. So all personnel you probably know better than I had two dog tags. They got, he got rid of them. They got rid of both of them. They got rid of his RAF uniform, put him in a peasant’s uniform and what happened then was that he was put in a Catholic church. The Catholic priest got scared and shopped him to the Gestapo. The Gestapo believed him to be a spy because prior to the Second World War youngsters at school were taught to speak German. We were taught, I was always taught French or Spanish but not German. But so dad could speak reasonable German which was a negative really because the Gestapo said, ‘Look, you know there’s no proof at all that as you say you are an RAF flyer.’ So, fact, they beat him up and broke his ribs. Fact they took him out three times to be shot. Blanks in guns. Bastards. And I know that because in the last ten days I’ve seen a document that dad had to fill in at the end of the war which said, ‘When you were picked up by the Gestapo what did they say or do to you?’ And he said they were taken out, ‘I was taken out to be shot three times.’ I thought it was only once but it was actually three times. What happened then was that a so-called Luftwaffe officer came and interviewed him. I say so called because at the end of the story this so-called Luftwaffe officer was a Romanian SS. Fact. And I know this because in November 1947 this so-called Luftwaffe officer who rescued my father to put him at his ease, to find out where he was based wrote to dad and said, “Dear Squadron Leader Price, you may recall that I helped rescue you. I’m being held by the Canadians for war crimes.” And it just correlated completely with what my dad had said. So my father wasn’t taken in. He said, ‘Name, rank and number is all I’m required to give.’ And he was taken to a Dulag Luft which was a transit camp where he spent two weeks in hospital recovering from his broken ribs. At the camp he was interviewed by a so-called medical officer who came along with an enormous great clip board and questioned saying, asking him where he was, where he was, what he was flying, where he was based all that sort of stuff and father thought this was odd because beneath the white coat were jackboots, and dad said, ‘No. Name, rank and number is all I’m required to give.’ So, as it turned out he wasn’t. He was, he was a fraud. And he was then transferred at the end, on the 26th of August 1943 to Stalag Luft 3 which was the camp based near Sagan. Twenty miles from the Russian border in Poland. A hundred miles from Berlin. And father was there from the 26th of August 1943 until the end of January 1945. The camp contained four compounds. Father was in North Compound which contained all RAF officers. They weren’t required to work whereas a non-commissioned officer was required to work. And there were no Americans in the North Compound. Fact. So the reason Steve McQueen in, “The Great Escape,” film was in it was to sell it to the Americans and the Great Escape did not take place on a nice bright spring summer day. It took place in snow, minus twenty on the ground and so, but interestingly I talked about my uncle. My uncle was based at RAF Coastal Command in Reykjavik in Iceland. Dad always thought it was a cushy number because they were never bombed by the Germans. And his, the significant thing about this was that he went to see his commanding officer and this was the middle of August 1943. Didn’t know what had happened to dad and said, ‘Look, I’d like to be, get permission for me to fly from Iceland to Wyton to meet— ’ my father’s, ‘Commanding officer.’ And for some reason he got permission and he saw my father’s commanding officer, Captain Graham, Group Captain Graham and Group Captain Graham said, ‘Ken, what are you doing here?’ And he said, ‘Well, actually I’m my brother’s identical twin.’ And he said, ‘I’ve come to see you because of the fraternal link between identical twins means that I know my brother is safe.’ Which was, in fact was the actual case. So that was really fantastic.
HB: So, here’s the old CO thought it was Ken appeared from –
AP: Yes. Yeah.
HB: Wow.
AP: He thought, he thought this was Ken because he said, ‘Ken, you’ve been shot down over Europe. What are you doing here?’ he said, ‘No. I’m Douglas. His identical twin.’
HB: Yeah.
AP: So Douglas then after that flew back. Flew back to Iceland and the first they knew that dad was safe was a telegram from the Red Cross on the 3rd of September 1943 saying, “We have reports that Squadron Leader Kenneth Price was shot down and is a prisoner of war.” That’s all they knew.
HB: Right.
AP: And then subsequently they they learned that my father was a prisoner. So they were allowed to send four cards home and three letters and all the cards were intercepted by English speaking female censors. So we’ve got cards that have been, got blank ink through. And father operated, he didn’t take part in the digging. A bit like me a bit claustrophobic I think. But he did because he perfected his German and what he did he engaged Germans, German guards in getting contraband so they’d get maps, silk maps. They’d get, sorry they’d compasses, they’d get radio parts and if a German guard said, ‘Well, I can’t do that for you.’ They, this was in exchange for chocolate which they didn’t have, the Germans or cigarettes which they didn’t have much of either and the POWs had got them from the Red Cross parcels. And if the guard said, ‘I can’t get that for you.’ Father would say, ‘Well, actually you’ve been getting this for me and that for me. I’m sure your commandant would be interested to hear that you’ve been helping me already.’ So father was engaged in in contraband for a period of time. He was also a penguin and a penguin was somebody who had to get rid of sand and you’d shuffle around the camp and you’d have bags in your trousers to get rid of the sand and he, so he was involved in in quite a lot of things. He was also involved in producing plays along with Roy Dotrice, Peter Butterworth who was there. There were actually four tunnels. Everybody says there were the three tunnels. There were actually four. There was Tom, Dick and Harry which were the famous ones and there was George which was underneath the stage in the camp theatre and they used that for storing sand. So Tom was, Tom was found by the Germans and blown up. Dick was not found but they, because the Germans for whatever reason decided to clear a whole stack of trees from the side of the camp it was just not practical or possible to focus on that particular tunnel. But they used that tunnel to store sand and they concentrated on Harry out of Hut 104. To create the three tunnels they had to get rid of two hundred tons of sand. A phenomenal amount of sand and they had to use four thousand bed boards. So each bed had when you got there had ten boards. At the end of it you had just five and they used the boards because digging in sand the Germans weren’t stupid they built the camp on stilts. Ok. And the, and also sand so digging in sand as you and I know from being a youngster trying to dig sand on the beach it’s impossible. They used bed boards and they used rails which were bed boards to prop up, prop up the tunnels and, and the sand had to be disposed of in bags and they shuffled it around and they put it in in gardens. And they very cunningly all three tunnels were built under the stove in each hut. So, in hut 104 where Harry, the Great Escape took place from they’d, they’d taken the stove off and they had, the stove had to be supported by concrete. So they took the stove away and drilled through the concrete underneath and they did that in all three places which is why the Germans could not find where the tunnel entrance was placed. Very cunning. The tunnel itself was twenty five, Harry was twenty five feet deep because the Germans had microphones in the ground up to about ten, twelve foot. Harry was three hundred and thirty six foot long. And the Germans on the night of the 24th of March 1944 got suspicious. They, they knew something was going on. They knew by the fact that prisoners of war were moving between different huts. So Roger Bushell who led the Great Escape he was called the Big X decided that they would go and the reason they had to go then because all the identification certificates all dated the 24th of March 1944 all the, all the rail tickets all dated then so they decided to go. And at 8:30 that night a hundred, two hundred personnel, prisoners of war were in Hut 104. So, father was in Hut 112 and he swapped with somebody else. He was in, he got rid of his RAF uniform or he was in Hut 104 and put on a peasant’s uniform ready to go. Fortunately for him he was one eight two to come out the tunnel. The first twenty five were people who were major players in terms of organizing it. So Roger Bushell who’d been a prisoner of war since 1940 was one of the key, key people out. And so they started at 8:30 and they had planned to get somebody out every three minutes. Unfortunately, they took an hour to drill up to get out the tunnel and the reason it took so long was because the ground was frozen, minus twenty, snow on the ground. Disaster because the tunnel exit was ten, fifteen feet from the trees so you could see the tunnel exit. So what they decided to do, and it was snow so what they had to do there was a guard marching up and down outside the perimeter fence every ninety seconds. So what they did they got a pulley with rope and so when the guard was furthest away somebody got out the tunnel with the rope. And when the guard was furthest away again they pulled the rope and the next person would come out. So gradually, but it was taking eight to ten minutes for this process to happen. Unfortunately, the prisoners of war had not properly notified the UK RAF through the radios. Normally they had good communication but the RAF decided for whatever reason to bomb Sagan, the marshalling yard which was near them near the camp that night. So at 2:30 in the morning there were nine people in the tunnel. They bombed the marshalling yard and all the lights went out. They’d stolen some wire so they could have lights in the three hundred and thirty six foot long tunnel. And so that was the night. That must have been horrendous. Fortunately, dad wasn’t in it and they then had, they anticipated this and they got candles but you can imagine if you’re twenty, twenty five foot down and you’re in a tunnel, a dark tunnel with candles. The smell must have been horrendous. The lights didn’t come back on for two hours. So at that time they decided they weren’t going to get out two hundred. They decided on a hundred. Father was stood down because he was number 182. And so they carried on but at about 6:30, 6 o’clock in the morning number seventy seven was due to come out the tunnel and was spotted by a guard. And I met him actually, Jack Lyons who’s now no longer with us. I interviewed him in October 2017. Flight Lieutenant Jack Lyons. Fantastic. And they took a shot at him but missed him and then all hell was let loose. Seventy six got out and the rest made their way back into the hut, changed back into their RAF uniforms. The guard, the Germans couldn’t find where the tunnel entrance was so they sent one of their guards from the exit right the way along the tunnel and they could hear him shouting so eventually they let him out. What the Germans did because they wanted to find out how many had got out, who they were they made them stand in the snow in their underpants for a couple of hours in minus twenty.
HB: Bastards.
AP: That included my father I might add. And the subsequent thing of that was that seventy six got out. Three made it back to the UK via Sweden. Two Norwegians because the Norwegian, Norwegians could mix well because there were a lot of labourers from Norway in, in Europe made for them by the Germans. One was Danish but they made their way up. And Hitler was absolutely furious and he said, ‘Right, I want all, I want every one we catch shot.’ Including all those still in the hut. Including the camp Commandant Von Lindeiner. Including the guards who were on duty that night. Interestingly Goering who was head of the Luftwaffe and Himmler who was the head of SS and Gestapo said, ‘Well, if you do that bear in mind the UK have got a lot of our flyers in prisoner of war camps in England, you know. We do run a risk if we shoot everybody they will shoot some of our people.’ But Hitler didn’t, well he did relent a little bit but randomly. They shot fifty just randomly including the leaders. So Roger Bushell was shot. Unlike the film they weren’t taken back in lorries or coaches. They were interviewed by the Gestapo. The Gestapo said, ‘Right. We’re taking you back to camp.’ And on the way back to camp they were given a comfort break and whilst they were having a comfort break they were shot in the back of the head. So all fifty were shot in the back of the head. The senior British officer interviewed after all this happened and said, ‘You know, I know you can shoot people trying to escape but surely some were injured. Surely.’ You know, not all fifty could have been shot. And because the Germans wanted to disguise what they’d done they actually cremated all fifty of them. So all that they had back at the camp were remains of rings, watches, all that sort of stuff. And the people who were left, twenty three got back to camp and the people who were left including my father were very resentful, sad that you know that their mates had been shot and they’d survived. And all were recaptured by the 31st of March. So, less than a week. They did tie, according to German guards they tied up about five million Germans searching for them but for a week fifty had been shot, three got back home. Was it worth it? Retrospect. There’s a big debate as to whether it was worth it. Squadron Leader Bushell said, ‘Our objective is to take the war, to continue the war, take it to the Germans.’ But for a week? It’s a big debate and after that, after that Sir Anthony Eden who was the foreign secretary said, ‘Put a ban on any more big escapes.’ There were small ones but no more big escapes. So, father spent –
HB: What was your father’s? What was your father’s view in that aspect of was it worth it?
AP: I don’t know. I’ve got no record.
HB: It’s not something he would talk about.
AP: We didn’t talk about it.
HB: Right.
AP: It was something that didn’t, I know people used to say to him, ‘How did you feel about bombing civilians?’ You know, I remember him chatting to a chap in a pub who was a machine gunner in the First World War and the machine gunner said, ‘Look, you know that’s what we did. You know we mowed people down. How did you feel about bombing civilians?’ And my father used to say, and this is all I remember, it’s what, ‘It’s what we were ordered to do.’ And even that in retrospect having done quite a lot of research on it the Mayor of Hamburg said, ‘Strategically you made a mistake in bombing civilians because like the UK it didn’t, it was horrendous but it didn’t affect morale. What you should have done —’ the Mayor of Hamburg said, ‘Was bomb munitions factories, bomb rail places, bomb aircraft factories and not, not major conurbations.’ And he said, ‘You’d have shortened the war had you done that instead of bombing civilian targets.’ But I know dad didn’t like it.
HB: Yeah.
AP: But he said it was what we were told to do.’
HB: Can I just take you back just to a couple of things bearing in mind people from anywhere in the world can access these sort of, these interview in the Digital Archive you said your dad was a penguin. Right, what how did the penguin operate? Physically operate.
AP: A penguin physically operated by, he had baggy trousers and inside the trousers were bags and in their pockets they had string. So they’d shuffle around with two kilos, about four kilos of sand and they shuffled around and opened their bags and shuffled the sand into the ground so it would be disguised. So the Germans would not be able to identify sand because the sand which I’ve got sand upstairs which I got from Harry is very very light and you could see it. That was one of the things that they were able to do. So that was, that was what a penguin did.
HB: So your father obviously the instructions had gone out and towards ’45 they know the end is coming. So what was your father’s experience then of moving on from Stalag Luft 3?
AP: Well, what happened was the Russians were about twenty kilometres away from the camp and what the prisoners of war, there were ten thousand prisoners of war in four different compounds including Americans by the end of, by the end of December 1944 and what they didn’t know was whether they were going to be used as human shields. Whether they were going to be murdered by the SS. They had, whether they were going to be exchanged for for German prisoners of war. And so what happened was on at the end of January 1945 they took, they started on what was known as the Long March. Father took part in the Long March and what they did they walked west away from the Russians and they walked back east. So from the end of January 1945 until the beginning of May 1945 they walked about five hundred miles. The food was virtually non-existent because Red Cross parcels had virtually dried up because there was no, the Germans didn’t have any means of getting the food to the prisoners of war. So they had to scavenge. Out of ten thousand at least four thousand had dysentery, illness. Absolutely horrendous because they initially they drank snow but the problem was that people in front of them had used them as gent’s urinals. So, it was horrendous. Incredible cold. I’ve seen things from dad say it was one of the coldest winters on record. Minus twenty. Minus twenty five. Snow on the ground. Horrendous. And then they were, fifty were taken out on dad’s column by RAF typhoons who thought they were German prisoners and so the Long March is a story in itself but I know he took part in it.
HB: So where, where did your father end up at the end of the Long March?
AP: A place called Trondheim.
HB: Yeah.
AP: And he what happened was they heard a battle going on nearby and some tanks came along and they were Canadian tanks. And that’s when father was rescued.
HB: Right.
AP: And so they were rescued. He spent another month there in Trondheim or in Northern Germany stroke Holland. And he, he accepted the surrender of a Luftwaffe officer who gave him his luger and a hundred rounds of ammunition which we had at home until father died. I wish I’d kept it. I know as a policeman you probably disapprove of that but wish we kept it and I had it demobilised. But mum and I because at the time there was a big hoo hah about keeping weapons of war and so I flew it, I threw it into a local canal with the hundred rounds of ammunition. But because it’s part of the story I have obtained a replica. A legal replica from Spain which is upstairs. I only use it and they send you a list of how to display. I can’t show it. I couldn’t show it to you like that. But I can hold it against my chest. So that, that was one of the things that was interesting to me.
HB: So that so your dad’s there. He’s been or is about to be repatriated. Do you know how he was repatriated? There were two or three different ways they could get back.
AP: Well, he came back in a Lancaster.
HB: Right. Right.
AP: Definitely came back in a Lancaster.
HB: Yeah.
AP: He had to wait because obviously there were a lot of people, a lot of prisoners of war wanting to get home. And yeah he came. He came back in in a Lancaster.
HB: Whereabouts would that have been in 1945?
AP: 3rd of June 1945.
HB: Right. And obviously he came back to an RAF station in this country.
AP: I don’t know where it was.
HB: Yeah.
AP: I don’t know where it was. He was given a booklet called, “Going on Leave.” And he was given a tax demand for his time as a prisoner of war for year ending April 1944 for the underpayment of forty three pounds and fifteen shillings when he was a prisoner of war between 1943 and ’45. Father was absolutely livid about that. My parents got married 21st of June 1946 and father died in April 1980 to a large degree because of his ill health, diet in the latter part of his time as a prisoner of war because when he joined the camp the Germans allocated each prisoner a thousand calories which was nowhere near enough. And it was, it was uplifted by Red Cross parcels so including Red Cross parcels and German they had about two thousand calories a day which is probably about right for the average prisoner but as I said to you earlier on as the war went on the, the Red Cross parcels began to dry up so, but father had colitis and diarrhoea. Oh horrible.
HB: So we came, he came back and he went on leave, met your mum I presume.
AP: He met my mum at, she was a WAAF at Wyton.
HB: Right. So had he met your mum before he before he was taken prisoner of war?
AP: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
HB: Oh.
AP: He met my mother who was a corporal and you probably know better than I but officers and non-commisioned officers were not allowed to mix and there’s a true story. Mum was very neat and proper and shy and she went to see him one day in his office and one of his subordinates knocked on the door and, ‘Squadron leader I need to see you urgently.’ And mum had to hide in a cupboard for about forty five minutes. She was so embarrassed. But –
HB: So they had an understanding that you know their relationship would progress.
AP: Yeah. Yeah.
HB: When he came back. Yeah.
AP: He wanted to marry her. I’ve seen documents of wanting to marry her so –
HB: Have you got some of your dad’s letters between your dad and your mum?
AP: I’ve got loads and loads and loads of cards which I used in my presentations.
HB: Oh right.
AP: So things like you’ve [pause] so this, this was taken by, this here is a picture. This here is a picture of my [pause] so the cards were like, the cards were like that.
HB: Oh yes. Yes. So says there [unclear] four. It was, yeah like a postcard thing. Wow. That’s a great thing to have.
AP: Yeah. There’s a picture here of, that’s Bushell.
HB: Yeah.
AP: And that’s my father in Hut 112 and that’s dad on the left hand side there with an RAF uniform and that was taken by [Halman Pieber?] who was a Germany officer who was keen on photography.
HB: Right.
AP: But I’ve got cards here.
HB: Yeah, probably at the end of the interview. We just need to go through one or two of those bits and pieces there to clarify. So your dad’s come back, been repatriated he’s checked in. He’s gone on leave. How long was he, how long did he stay in the RAF after the war?
AP: Only about a year because he joined the Civil Aviation Authority.
HB: Right.
AP: And he was one of five thousand people who was destined to go into an underground bunker had we, had we had nuclear war.
HB: Right. So he, so he took a role in this. In the Civil Aviation Authority.
AP: Correct.
HB: And was that, was that his career progressed?
AP: Correct. Yeah.
HB: To retirement.
AP: Yeah. Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
AP: Well, he actually wrote what I find a really really interesting article on National Air Traffic Control.
HB: Right.
AP: And I’ve still got a copy upstairs and he wanted to get it published and it was all about air traffic control from 1945 until 1955 but he sent it to a publisher and it was all about how it developed and how important it was and flying at different levels and all that sort of stuff. And he sent it to a publisher who said it’s not, it’s not of common interest so we won’t publish it. I have got, I had two copies. One the original, and one copies of the originals and I tracked down because I thought well who’s, who’s interested? I’ve still got all the information and I tracked down National Air Traffic Control in Fareham in Hampshire and they said they’d be very interested for their museum. So a chap came here. He signed for it. I made sure I’ve got copies but they, they use it. And so that was one thing that dad did.
HB: Yeah. That’s an important thing.
AP: Pardon?
HB: That’s an important thing. Yes.
AP: Well, I thought so but I didn’t I’ve still got identical copies so I was happy for it to go to that home.
HB: Yeah.
AP: What I wasn’t happy about was when Nicky or somebody at Bomber Command Museum said, ‘Could you send me all your papers?’ I was very reticent about that.
HB: Well, we’ll come on to that probably after the interview. I’ve got some advice for you. I’ve had a quick look into things and I’ve got some advice for you on that. Right. So we’ve brought your dad right up to date. Right. And it was interesting really early on when we started talking that you said about it wasn’t until much later in his life that your dad actually spoke to you about what had happened or bits and pieces. What was your sort of, what’s your sort of abiding sort of memory about how your dad felt about serving in Bomber Command?
AP: He was categoric and livid that Churchill had not given them any accolade after the Second World War. So the, the monument that’s down at Hyde Park was only, it’s only been there twelve years and the Bomber Command clasp I only got in 2013. I had to write for it. But after the Second World War Churchill did not give any accolade to Bomber Command and it was because of the bombing. Father thought it was because of the bombing of civilian populations — Cologne, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin that they didn’t get the accolade they deserved. But the point was that the Germans bombed civilian populations before we did. The first blitz was in November 1940 in Coventry. Fact. Which is where my parents, my grandparents were living at the time. Well, they continued to live there.
HB: Yeah. What —
AP: So he, yeah he, he was kind of resentful that they didn’t get the accolade they deserved and even now when I was, when I talk to people at the RAF Club or people who’d been in Bomber Command so Flight Lieutenant Colin Bell, he said, ‘Do you know one of our things —’ And this chap I interviewed Flight Lieutenant Clifford Storr at his nursing home in Banbury in October last year he said, ‘Do you know I did fifty trips as a navigator.’ And the reason I got the interview because he was, he flew Lancaster fifty trips and navigated. What was dad? Navigator. And he said, ‘We all resented the fact that Churchill didn’t give us the plaudits we felt we deserved.’
HB: Yeah. Yeah. That’s probably the note to terminate the interview.
AP: Ok.
HB: Thanks ever so much Alistair that that really has been interesting. Obviously very proud of your dad and rightly so. And rightly so.
AP: Well, it’s very interesting you should say that because when I I did the interview at the RAF Club on Thursday last week the, 38, 11:38 the chap who interviewed me was a chap called Air Commodore Dai Whittingham and he wrote to me saying he thought it was a really really passionate interview, talk. And he said, “It comes across loud and clear how proud you are of your father.” Which I am. And every time I talk about it and particularly poignant things like you know sitting in the navigator’s seat of the plane that he flew in thirty seven years previously is, is oh there you go there’s the Long March. Lindeiner. [pause – pages turning] That’s the guy who tricked my dad. He was —
HB: Oh right. Yes, the Romanian.
AP: Romanian. Yeah. That’s, that’s the tax demand.
HB: Well, we’ll go through these afterwards because as I say I’ve got some some bits and bobs to go through with you on that. Right —
AP: Anyway —
HB: So we’re terminating the interview at 11:40 and we’ll stop that now.
AP: The 27th of March.
HB: The 27th of March and I’m here in Henley in Arden, a lovely village to interview Alistair Price. Alistair is the son of Squadron Leader Kenneth George Price who was a navigator and became and was awarded the DFC and bar.
AP: Didn’t get the bar, Harry. We’ve checked now. I could not —
HB: Oh sorry. He didn’t get the bar.
AP: He didn’t get the bar. I went, he always said he’d got a bar but everywhere I’ve checked I cannot find a bar. I cannot find any record of a bar. He did fifty eight trips so my, my story now is Kenneth George Price. Squadron Leader Kenneth George Price DFC.
HB: Right. I’m corrected on that. That’s great. That’s fine. And as far as my minor bit of research goes Squadron Leader Price served in 139 Jamaica Squadron. Mosquitoes. He was taken prisoner of war and was involved at Stalag Luft 3, Sagan. He was, he was involved in the Great Escape and was actually in line to actually escape from the tunnels. So, what I’d like to do Alistair if I may is to just start with a bit of background of your father. The usual things. Where he was born and where he went to school and what he did before he joined the RAF.
AP: Right. This is great because it’s all part of the presentation I do.
HB: Right.
AP: My father was born on the 4th of October 1919.
HB: Yeah.
AP: And he was an identical twin with his brother Douglas. He went, he was obviously from a relatively poor background in Coventry. He went to school and he matriculated in history and English and he was awarded a scholarship at King Henry the VIII’s School in Coventry which was, which was a great accolade for him.
HB: Sorry. Can I just interrupt Alistair. Where was he living at this time?
AP: He was living in Coventry. He was born in White Street in Coventry. 2a White Street in Coventry.
HB: Oh right. Yes.
AP: Ok. So, the King Edward the VIII School. He then, he and his twin, identical twin brother you couldn’t tell them apart and this is that fraternal link was very significant when dad was shot down. But they were under eighteen table tennis champions in Warwickshire. Both very very good. They joined the, both joined the Coventry Evening Telegraph as reporters in 1937 and my father could see the war was coming and didn’t want to be posted into Army or Navy. He wanted the RAF. Everybody, all his mates wanted to be pilots and so he, he decided to go the navigation route because he was interested in maps and meteorology which is the study of weather. He, he joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve at Ansty which is just northwest of Coventry which was a long runway, a bomber runway. So he joined the Volunteer Reserve in 1937/38 and he was called up to join the RAF on the 1st of September 1939 at the tender age of twenty. His, going back to his father his father ran a market stall in Coventry. He had a sister who died only in 1989. Very fond of, fond of him. So shall I carry on just —
HB: If you just, yeah. The only question I would ask was did he ever tell you of a very specific reason for joining the RAF? Or was it just this you know all his friends wanted to be pilots and –
AP: No. He never. To be frank like a lot of people he didn’t talk about his experience during the Second World War. It was only subsequently particularly before he died in 1980 that he talked and everything I’ve got is from records, papers, photographs which enabled me to write a book on my father. But yeah, so he was called up to the RAF in, on the 1st of September 1939. This is a brief summary. He was in between February and September 1940 he was based at Catterick flying Fairey Battles which were useless aircraft. Very slow. Blenheims in the Battle of Britain. They could do about a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty miles an hour. So if they were taken by an ME109 from the Luftwaffe they’d got no chance. In fact, this chap I met called Flight Lieutenant Colin Bell, who’s still alive now said that the aircrew called the Fairey Battle the flying coffin. So the chances of survival were very small if they were engaged by an ME109. Father was then posted to Bomber Command in 1941 where he flew fourteen different types of aircraft. Fairey Battles, Hampdens, Manchester and the fantastic Lancaster. He actually flew in a Mosquito only once and that was on the 27th of July 1943 when he was shot down and he was taking the place of a chap who had met a lady who said, ‘I’d like to, any chance you could let me off?’ Father, who was then the station navigation officer for Wyton, squadron leader said, ‘Well, I can’t find anybody but I’ll take the trip myself.’ Because the Mosquito at the time was the fastest aircraft of either the axis, the Germans or the allied aircraft and he was pretty confident he’d get back. Made of wood. Very fast. Could do three hundred and seventy eight miles an hour.
HB: Yeah.
AP: But unfortunately, he, he was hit by flak on his return from Duisburg over, hit by flak over Holland. He was, he joined Pathfinders which were the elite –
HB: Sorry Alistair, could I just stop you there. When, when he was at Catterick did he do his navigator’s training at Catterick?
AP: Yes.
HB: So he never, he wasn’t one of these that went out on the Commonwealth Training Scheme.
AP: No. No. No. No. All his training was done in the UK.
HB: Right. So he trained up right up to the level of navigator ready to go to Bomber Command.
AP: Correct.
HB: Brilliant. Right. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt. Yes. So he, so he’s done his training. He’s joined Bomber Command. I presume he’s gone to an Operational Training Unit.
AP: Yeah. I don’t know where that would be.
HB: Right.
AP: It would be in his logbook but I would have to –
HB: Yeah.
AP: Track that down.
HB: But that, but that would then get him into a crew for eventually being posted to –
AP: Pathfinders.
HB: 139 Squadron.
AP: I haven’t got 129 Squadron.
HB: 139 I think.
AP: What the squadron I’ve got in his logbook here is 83 Squadron.
HB: Right. That’s quite, that’s quite possible. I mean, I’m not –
AP: So most of the aircraft he flew latterly were Lancasters.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. So he went, he went from the Operational Training Unit to a squadron in Pathfinders.
AP: He went, he was spotted by Air Vice Marshall Don Bennett who up to the middle of 1942 bombing over Germany was very haphazard. They, they had, they were given targets but bombing at night over Germany was just a nightmare. So what they did they set up Pathfinders and Pathfinders took the quality crew whether they be pilots, navigators, wireless operators, bomb aimers from all the bomber squadrons and stuck them at Wyton. And what happened was that the Pathfinders would go in before the main, main bomber forces and lay flares. So they had three sets of flares. Small ones which were dropped first of all followed by larger ones and then big phosphorous ones. So when the bomber formations came in after the Pathfinders they were the formations were much better able to target, hit the targets prior than they were prior to mid-1942.
HB: Right. So, yeah. Now, I’m presuming and this is a big presumption now that you’ve just mentioned about him you haven’t got 139 Squadron. I’m just wondering if while we’re talking if I could have a quick look at your dad’s logbook. That would probably help me a little bit. He did fifty, fifty four operations. Something like that.
AP: Fifty eight trips.
HB: Fifty eight trips.
AP: Life expectancy was –
HB: So –
AP: Five trips.
HB: Yeah. I’m assuming that he was in a squadron and then went from that squadron to Pathfinders which was how as you say that’s how the Pathfinders were set up.
AP: But if you look at the last signing off when he was shot down it’s signed as 83 Squadron right at the back.
HB: Yeah. Sorry. Just, I’m just having a quick look. So how many, how many operations did he fly? Do you know how he flew with the Pathfinders?
AP: No.
HB: Right.
AP: I will know.
HB: This is unusual.
AP: Funnily enough Harry because next Tuesday, next Wednesday after going to the Bomber Command Museum I’m going to Wyton as a guest to look at where dad was based. So, I will learn.
HB: Oh right.
AP: Next Wednesday, this time next week how many trips he did with Pathfinders because he was –
HB: I think, yeah just, sorry to interrupt again. It’s just I found in here he was in unit 219 Squadron, sorry his unit was 219 Squadron, A flight at Catterick. So that presumes that was his training, training squadron and he went to [pause] blimey he did spend some time at Catterick didn’t he. Yeah. That’s [pause] yeah. He went to 12 Operational Training Unit at RAF Benson in there. I think you’ll probably find if you just, if you just go through page by page you’ll find [pause] yeah. There’s the Fairey Battles [laughs] yeah.
AP: No. When I went through his logbook to prepare my own book on him I was looking at the aircraft he flew. I wasn’t focussing on –
HB: No. Exact. No. No. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Yes. He was in 142 Squadron in 1940 flying operations. Obviously that [Stuka time] over Boulogne.
AP: Well, he, I know that he was involved in bombing the barges.
HB: Yes. He also according to this they had to make a forced landing near Hatfield. Sorry, Hatcliffe on the way back from an operation to Boulogne. So yeah. So he’d been through, he’d been through it in 1940 which is a good long service then for the start of the war. I’ll just quickly, it’s really more, I’m trying to do this more for yourself. I’m looking for a particular thing and I can’t see it.
AP: No. It’s interesting Harry. I haven’t done the squadrons which you are looking for.
HB: Yeah.
AP: All I’ve done –
HB: I was interested in his first squadron because some guys did twenty operations, were identified as above average navigator, wireless operator or whatever and they were gradually hived off in to forming the initial formation of Pathfinder. And then later on in the war as I understand it and I stand to be fully knocked back is that later in the war they formed Pathfinder squadrons from scratch but from the recommendations from Occupational Training Units. So as opposed to them going to a squadron flying a few operations and then getting assessed they were assessed at the Operational Training Unit. So, but that, I mean that that might just be apocryphal. Yes. It’s slightly unusual because your father doesn’t, everybody else writes their squadron number down on the top of the page and he hasn’t. But that doesn’t matter. Right. So he's obviously —
AP: You, you’ve highlighted to me that I need to have another look at a different angle because if I did a talk to the Women’s Institute and talked about his operational squadrons they’d be falling asleep.
HB: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. I think, yeah I mean he’s obviously gone through a squadron, been identified, and he’s ended up in Pathfinders and that was in Lancasters I believe.
AP: Mostly Lancasters. Yeah.
HB: Yeah. So –
AP: I think the other very significant thing for me Harry was that the Lancaster that’s at Hendon Air Museum father flew in on the 25th of July 1943.
HB: Right.
AP: To Essen. And the reason that it’s significant is because they had a General Anderson from the United States Air Force on board because the US Air Force did not believe that the RAF who were flying at night were taking the same risks as the Flying Fortresses who were flying during the day. And so father was the senior officer but he wasn’t in charge of the aircraft. The, the pilot was in charge. He was a flight lieutenant. And when they came back I’ve seen records that General Anderson said, ‘I take it back.’ You know, you see your mates who have been flying ahead of you blown to pieces, you see flak coming up, you see spotlights homing in on an aircraft and you’ve got no chance because the Luftwaffe would take them out. Horrendous, you know. You did. And the fact with the Lancaster didn’t have ventral guns in the fuselage so the first they knew that a night fighter was at them was the cannon coming up through the bottom of the aircraft.
HB: Yeah.
AP: Absolutely horrendous. And this US Air Force general said, you know, ‘I take, I rescind what we said about the RAF.’
HB: Yeah.
AP: And you obviously take the same risks. It was two days later that dad was shot down and the significance of that was that the aircraft that’s at Hendon Air Museum father flew in on the 25th of July 1943.
HB: Right. Yeah.
AP: And a month before he died we got a photograph. We got special permission for father to go in to the navigator, the navigator’s seat in that aircraft at Hendon Air Museum. So we’ve got him thirty seven years later sitting in the same navigator’s seat. Unbelievable.
HB: Yeah. So, he was, just before he was shot down then he had obviously progressed up to being squadron navigating officer.
AP: He was. He was the station navigation officer at Wyton.
HB: At Wyton.
AP: Yeah.
HB: And that was in ’43.
AP: Yeah.
HB: Right. Yeah. I’ve just got, I’ve got a query for something in ’43 for that. [coughs] excuse me, so he’s flown in Lancasters. He’s flown fifty eight.
AP: Well, it was fifty eight but —
HB: Or fifty. He flew fifty seven in Lancasters.
AP: Well, no. They were, they were in Hampdens, Blenheims.
HB: Oh right. Right. Right. Ok.
AP: But –
HB: Yeah.
AP: The majority of his time in Pathfinders was on Lancs. The first time and only time he flew in a Mosquito was when he was shot down.
HB: Right.
AP: And he shouldn’t have done it really. He should have, they should have because he’d have been grounded at sixty trips anyway.
HB: Yeah.
AP: And they used him for training purposes.
HB: Yeah. So we get to July 1943 and we get to his flight where he’s covering for somebody else. Can you just from, from what you know about your dad what was his sort of personality that, you know was he introvert, extrovert?
AP: Oh, I’m like him. Confident, charming, extrovert. Confident but a people person as well.
HB: Yeah.
AP: And so when this Canadian navigator came to him and said, ‘Squadron leader, I need, any chance you could let me off.’ Dad said, obviously said yes because he felt confident about getting back because the Mosquito was so superior in terms of height, in terms of speed. He was pretty confident but it was just chance flak over, over Holland that he was shot down.
HB: Right. So he takes off from RAF Wyton and they’re going to Duisburg.
AP: Yeah. On a reconnaissance trip.
HB: [unclear] Do you know anything about that trip or what the purpose for the reccy was or was it after the night raid?
AP: The only records I’ve got are in his logbook.
HB: Yeah.
AP: And it doesn’t give me very much.
HB: I just wondered, I wondered if he was shot down in daylight or at night.
AP: At night.
HB: Right.
AP: Definitely at night. Night flying. There you go. Duisburg. Operations. Missing.
HB: Yeah.
AP: But what happened was they, coming back over Holland, fortunately it was Holland, it wasn’t Germany because if it was Germany Goebbels who was the propaganda minister had said, ‘If you find RAF flyers,’ the civilian population, ‘You can do what you like with them.’ Fortunately, he was shot down over Holland. He was on the run for seven days. He was picked up by the Dutch Resistance who stupidly got rid of his dog tag. Two dog tags. So all personnel you probably know better than I had two dog tags. They got, he got rid of them. They got rid of both of them. They got rid of his RAF uniform, put him in a peasant’s uniform and what happened then was that he was put in a Catholic church. The Catholic priest got scared and shopped him to the Gestapo. The Gestapo believed him to be a spy because prior to the Second World War youngsters at school were taught to speak German. We were taught, I was always taught French or Spanish but not German. But so dad could speak reasonable German which was a negative really because the Gestapo said, ‘Look, you know there’s no proof at all that as you say you are an RAF flyer.’ So, fact, they beat him up and broke his ribs. Fact they took him out three times to be shot. Blanks in guns. Bastards. And I know that because in the last ten days I’ve seen a document that dad had to fill in at the end of the war which said, ‘When you were picked up by the Gestapo what did they say or do to you?’ And he said they were taken out, ‘I was taken out to be shot three times.’ I thought it was only once but it was actually three times. What happened then was that a so-called Luftwaffe officer came and interviewed him. I say so called because at the end of the story this so-called Luftwaffe officer was a Romanian SS. Fact. And I know this because in November 1947 this so-called Luftwaffe officer who rescued my father to put him at his ease, to find out where he was based wrote to dad and said, “Dear Squadron Leader Price, you may recall that I helped rescue you. I’m being held by the Canadians for war crimes.” And it just correlated completely with what my dad had said. So my father wasn’t taken in. He said, ‘Name, rank and number is all I’m required to give.’ And he was taken to a Dulag Luft which was a transit camp where he spent two weeks in hospital recovering from his broken ribs. At the camp he was interviewed by a so-called medical officer who came along with an enormous great clip board and questioned saying, asking him where he was, where he was, what he was flying, where he was based all that sort of stuff and father thought this was odd because beneath the white coat were jackboots, and dad said, ‘No. Name, rank and number is all I’m required to give.’ So, as it turned out he wasn’t. He was, he was a fraud. And he was then transferred at the end, on the 26th of August 1943 to Stalag Luft 3 which was the camp based near Sagan. Twenty miles from the Russian border in Poland. A hundred miles from Berlin. And father was there from the 26th of August 1943 until the end of January 1945. The camp contained four compounds. Father was in North Compound which contained all RAF officers. They weren’t required to work whereas a non-commissioned officer was required to work. And there were no Americans in the North Compound. Fact. So the reason Steve McQueen in, “The Great Escape,” film was in it was to sell it to the Americans and the Great Escape did not take place on a nice bright spring summer day. It took place in snow, minus twenty on the ground and so, but interestingly I talked about my uncle. My uncle was based at RAF Coastal Command in Reykjavik in Iceland. Dad always thought it was a cushy number because they were never bombed by the Germans. And his, the significant thing about this was that he went to see his commanding officer and this was the middle of August 1943. Didn’t know what had happened to dad and said, ‘Look, I’d like to be, get permission for me to fly from Iceland to Wyton to meet— ’ my father’s, ‘Commanding officer.’ And for some reason he got permission and he saw my father’s commanding officer, Captain Graham, Group Captain Graham and Group Captain Graham said, ‘Ken, what are you doing here?’ And he said, ‘Well, actually I’m my brother’s identical twin.’ And he said, ‘I’ve come to see you because of the fraternal link between identical twins means that I know my brother is safe.’ Which was, in fact was the actual case. So that was really fantastic.
HB: So, here’s the old CO thought it was Ken appeared from –
AP: Yes. Yeah.
HB: Wow.
AP: He thought, he thought this was Ken because he said, ‘Ken, you’ve been shot down over Europe. What are you doing here?’ he said, ‘No. I’m Douglas. His identical twin.’
HB: Yeah.
AP: So Douglas then after that flew back. Flew back to Iceland and the first they knew that dad was safe was a telegram from the Red Cross on the 3rd of September 1943 saying, “We have reports that Squadron Leader Kenneth Price was shot down and is a prisoner of war.” That’s all they knew.
HB: Right.
AP: And then subsequently they they learned that my father was a prisoner. So they were allowed to send four cards home and three letters and all the cards were intercepted by English speaking female censors. So we’ve got cards that have been, got blank ink through. And father operated, he didn’t take part in the digging. A bit like me a bit claustrophobic I think. But he did because he perfected his German and what he did he engaged Germans, German guards in getting contraband so they’d get maps, silk maps. They’d get, sorry they’d compasses, they’d get radio parts and if a German guard said, ‘Well, I can’t do that for you.’ They, this was in exchange for chocolate which they didn’t have, the Germans or cigarettes which they didn’t have much of either and the POWs had got them from the Red Cross parcels. And if the guard said, ‘I can’t get that for you.’ Father would say, ‘Well, actually you’ve been getting this for me and that for me. I’m sure your commandant would be interested to hear that you’ve been helping me already.’ So father was engaged in in contraband for a period of time. He was also a penguin and a penguin was somebody who had to get rid of sand and you’d shuffle around the camp and you’d have bags in your trousers to get rid of the sand and he, so he was involved in in quite a lot of things. He was also involved in producing plays along with Roy Dotrice, Peter Butterworth who was there. There were actually four tunnels. Everybody says there were the three tunnels. There were actually four. There was Tom, Dick and Harry which were the famous ones and there was George which was underneath the stage in the camp theatre and they used that for storing sand. So Tom was, Tom was found by the Germans and blown up. Dick was not found but they, because the Germans for whatever reason decided to clear a whole stack of trees from the side of the camp it was just not practical or possible to focus on that particular tunnel. But they used that tunnel to store sand and they concentrated on Harry out of Hut 104. To create the three tunnels they had to get rid of two hundred tons of sand. A phenomenal amount of sand and they had to use four thousand bed boards. So each bed had when you got there had ten boards. At the end of it you had just five and they used the boards because digging in sand the Germans weren’t stupid they built the camp on stilts. Ok. And the, and also sand so digging in sand as you and I know from being a youngster trying to dig sand on the beach it’s impossible. They used bed boards and they used rails which were bed boards to prop up, prop up the tunnels and, and the sand had to be disposed of in bags and they shuffled it around and they put it in in gardens. And they very cunningly all three tunnels were built under the stove in each hut. So, in hut 104 where Harry, the Great Escape took place from they’d, they’d taken the stove off and they had, the stove had to be supported by concrete. So they took the stove away and drilled through the concrete underneath and they did that in all three places which is why the Germans could not find where the tunnel entrance was placed. Very cunning. The tunnel itself was twenty five, Harry was twenty five feet deep because the Germans had microphones in the ground up to about ten, twelve foot. Harry was three hundred and thirty six foot long. And the Germans on the night of the 24th of March 1944 got suspicious. They, they knew something was going on. They knew by the fact that prisoners of war were moving between different huts. So Roger Bushell who led the Great Escape he was called the Big X decided that they would go and the reason they had to go then because all the identification certificates all dated the 24th of March 1944 all the, all the rail tickets all dated then so they decided to go. And at 8:30 that night a hundred, two hundred personnel, prisoners of war were in Hut 104. So, father was in Hut 112 and he swapped with somebody else. He was in, he got rid of his RAF uniform or he was in Hut 104 and put on a peasant’s uniform ready to go. Fortunately for him he was one eight two to come out the tunnel. The first twenty five were people who were major players in terms of organizing it. So Roger Bushell who’d been a prisoner of war since 1940 was one of the key, key people out. And so they started at 8:30 and they had planned to get somebody out every three minutes. Unfortunately, they took an hour to drill up to get out the tunnel and the reason it took so long was because the ground was frozen, minus twenty, snow on the ground. Disaster because the tunnel exit was ten, fifteen feet from the trees so you could see the tunnel exit. So what they decided to do, and it was snow so what they had to do there was a guard marching up and down outside the perimeter fence every ninety seconds. So what they did they got a pulley with rope and so when the guard was furthest away somebody got out the tunnel with the rope. And when the guard was furthest away again they pulled the rope and the next person would come out. So gradually, but it was taking eight to ten minutes for this process to happen. Unfortunately, the prisoners of war had not properly notified the UK RAF through the radios. Normally they had good communication but the RAF decided for whatever reason to bomb Sagan, the marshalling yard which was near them near the camp that night. So at 2:30 in the morning there were nine people in the tunnel. They bombed the marshalling yard and all the lights went out. They’d stolen some wire so they could have lights in the three hundred and thirty six foot long tunnel. And so that was the night. That must have been horrendous. Fortunately, dad wasn’t in it and they then had, they anticipated this and they got candles but you can imagine if you’re twenty, twenty five foot down and you’re in a tunnel, a dark tunnel with candles. The smell must have been horrendous. The lights didn’t come back on for two hours. So at that time they decided they weren’t going to get out two hundred. They decided on a hundred. Father was stood down because he was number 182. And so they carried on but at about 6:30, 6 o’clock in the morning number seventy seven was due to come out the tunnel and was spotted by a guard. And I met him actually, Jack Lyons who’s now no longer with us. I interviewed him in October 2017. Flight Lieutenant Jack Lyons. Fantastic. And they took a shot at him but missed him and then all hell was let loose. Seventy six got out and the rest made their way back into the hut, changed back into their RAF uniforms. The guard, the Germans couldn’t find where the tunnel entrance was so they sent one of their guards from the exit right the way along the tunnel and they could hear him shouting so eventually they let him out. What the Germans did because they wanted to find out how many had got out, who they were they made them stand in the snow in their underpants for a couple of hours in minus twenty.
HB: Bastards.
AP: That included my father I might add. And the subsequent thing of that was that seventy six got out. Three made it back to the UK via Sweden. Two Norwegians because the Norwegian, Norwegians could mix well because there were a lot of labourers from Norway in, in Europe made for them by the Germans. One was Danish but they made their way up. And Hitler was absolutely furious and he said, ‘Right, I want all, I want every one we catch shot.’ Including all those still in the hut. Including the camp Commandant Von Lindeiner. Including the guards who were on duty that night. Interestingly Goering who was head of the Luftwaffe and Himmler who was the head of SS and Gestapo said, ‘Well, if you do that bear in mind the UK have got a lot of our flyers in prisoner of war camps in England, you know. We do run a risk if we shoot everybody they will shoot some of our people.’ But Hitler didn’t, well he did relent a little bit but randomly. They shot fifty just randomly including the leaders. So Roger Bushell was shot. Unlike the film they weren’t taken back in lorries or coaches. They were interviewed by the Gestapo. The Gestapo said, ‘Right. We’re taking you back to camp.’ And on the way back to camp they were given a comfort break and whilst they were having a comfort break they were shot in the back of the head. So all fifty were shot in the back of the head. The senior British officer interviewed after all this happened and said, ‘You know, I know you can shoot people trying to escape but surely some were injured. Surely.’ You know, not all fifty could have been shot. And because the Germans wanted to disguise what they’d done they actually cremated all fifty of them. So all that they had back at the camp were remains of rings, watches, all that sort of stuff. And the people who were left, twenty three got back to camp and the people who were left including my father were very resentful, sad that you know that their mates had been shot and they’d survived. And all were recaptured by the 31st of March. So, less than a week. They did tie, according to German guards they tied up about five million Germans searching for them but for a week fifty had been shot, three got back home. Was it worth it? Retrospect. There’s a big debate as to whether it was worth it. Squadron Leader Bushell said, ‘Our objective is to take the war, to continue the war, take it to the Germans.’ But for a week? It’s a big debate and after that, after that Sir Anthony Eden who was the foreign secretary said, ‘Put a ban on any more big escapes.’ There were small ones but no more big escapes. So, father spent –
HB: What was your father’s? What was your father’s view in that aspect of was it worth it?
AP: I don’t know. I’ve got no record.
HB: It’s not something he would talk about.
AP: We didn’t talk about it.
HB: Right.
AP: It was something that didn’t, I know people used to say to him, ‘How did you feel about bombing civilians?’ You know, I remember him chatting to a chap in a pub who was a machine gunner in the First World War and the machine gunner said, ‘Look, you know that’s what we did. You know we mowed people down. How did you feel about bombing civilians?’ And my father used to say, and this is all I remember, it’s what, ‘It’s what we were ordered to do.’ And even that in retrospect having done quite a lot of research on it the Mayor of Hamburg said, ‘Strategically you made a mistake in bombing civilians because like the UK it didn’t, it was horrendous but it didn’t affect morale. What you should have done —’ the Mayor of Hamburg said, ‘Was bomb munitions factories, bomb rail places, bomb aircraft factories and not, not major conurbations.’ And he said, ‘You’d have shortened the war had you done that instead of bombing civilian targets.’ But I know dad didn’t like it.
HB: Yeah.
AP: But he said it was what we were told to do.’
HB: Can I just take you back just to a couple of things bearing in mind people from anywhere in the world can access these sort of, these interview in the Digital Archive you said your dad was a penguin. Right, what how did the penguin operate? Physically operate.
AP: A penguin physically operated by, he had baggy trousers and inside the trousers were bags and in their pockets they had string. So they’d shuffle around with two kilos, about four kilos of sand and they shuffled around and opened their bags and shuffled the sand into the ground so it would be disguised. So the Germans would not be able to identify sand because the sand which I’ve got sand upstairs which I got from Harry is very very light and you could see it. That was one of the things that they were able to do. So that was, that was what a penguin did.
HB: So your father obviously the instructions had gone out and towards ’45 they know the end is coming. So what was your father’s experience then of moving on from Stalag Luft 3?
AP: Well, what happened was the Russians were about twenty kilometres away from the camp and what the prisoners of war, there were ten thousand prisoners of war in four different compounds including Americans by the end of, by the end of December 1944 and what they didn’t know was whether they were going to be used as human shields. Whether they were going to be murdered by the SS. They had, whether they were going to be exchanged for for German prisoners of war. And so what happened was on at the end of January 1945 they took, they started on what was known as the Long March. Father took part in the Long March and what they did they walked west away from the Russians and they walked back east. So from the end of January 1945 until the beginning of May 1945 they walked about five hundred miles. The food was virtually non-existent because Red Cross parcels had virtually dried up because there was no, the Germans didn’t have any means of getting the food to the prisoners of war. So they had to scavenge. Out of ten thousand at least four thousand had dysentery, illness. Absolutely horrendous because they initially they drank snow but the problem was that people in front of them had used them as gent’s urinals. So, it was horrendous. Incredible cold. I’ve seen things from dad say it was one of the coldest winters on record. Minus twenty. Minus twenty five. Snow on the ground. Horrendous. And then they were, fifty were taken out on dad’s column by RAF typhoons who thought they were German prisoners and so the Long March is a story in itself but I know he took part in it.
HB: So where, where did your father end up at the end of the Long March?
AP: A place called Trondheim.
HB: Yeah.
AP: And he what happened was they heard a battle going on nearby and some tanks came along and they were Canadian tanks. And that’s when father was rescued.
HB: Right.
AP: And so they were rescued. He spent another month there in Trondheim or in Northern Germany stroke Holland. And he, he accepted the surrender of a Luftwaffe officer who gave him his luger and a hundred rounds of ammunition which we had at home until father died. I wish I’d kept it. I know as a policeman you probably disapprove of that but wish we kept it and I had it demobilised. But mum and I because at the time there was a big hoo hah about keeping weapons of war and so I flew it, I threw it into a local canal with the hundred rounds of ammunition. But because it’s part of the story I have obtained a replica. A legal replica from Spain which is upstairs. I only use it and they send you a list of how to display. I can’t show it. I couldn’t show it to you like that. But I can hold it against my chest. So that, that was one of the things that was interesting to me.
HB: So that so your dad’s there. He’s been or is about to be repatriated. Do you know how he was repatriated? There were two or three different ways they could get back.
AP: Well, he came back in a Lancaster.
HB: Right. Right.
AP: Definitely came back in a Lancaster.
HB: Yeah.
AP: He had to wait because obviously there were a lot of people, a lot of prisoners of war wanting to get home. And yeah he came. He came back in in a Lancaster.
HB: Whereabouts would that have been in 1945?
AP: 3rd of June 1945.
HB: Right. And obviously he came back to an RAF station in this country.
AP: I don’t know where it was.
HB: Yeah.
AP: I don’t know where it was. He was given a booklet called, “Going on Leave.” And he was given a tax demand for his time as a prisoner of war for year ending April 1944 for the underpayment of forty three pounds and fifteen shillings when he was a prisoner of war between 1943 and ’45. Father was absolutely livid about that. My parents got married 21st of June 1946 and father died in April 1980 to a large degree because of his ill health, diet in the latter part of his time as a prisoner of war because when he joined the camp the Germans allocated each prisoner a thousand calories which was nowhere near enough. And it was, it was uplifted by Red Cross parcels so including Red Cross parcels and German they had about two thousand calories a day which is probably about right for the average prisoner but as I said to you earlier on as the war went on the, the Red Cross parcels began to dry up so, but father had colitis and diarrhoea. Oh horrible.
HB: So we came, he came back and he went on leave, met your mum I presume.
AP: He met my mum at, she was a WAAF at Wyton.
HB: Right. So had he met your mum before he before he was taken prisoner of war?
AP: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
HB: Oh.
AP: He met my mother who was a corporal and you probably know better than I but officers and non-commisioned officers were not allowed to mix and there’s a true story. Mum was very neat and proper and shy and she went to see him one day in his office and one of his subordinates knocked on the door and, ‘Squadron leader I need to see you urgently.’ And mum had to hide in a cupboard for about forty five minutes. She was so embarrassed. But –
HB: So they had an understanding that you know their relationship would progress.
AP: Yeah. Yeah.
HB: When he came back. Yeah.
AP: He wanted to marry her. I’ve seen documents of wanting to marry her so –
HB: Have you got some of your dad’s letters between your dad and your mum?
AP: I’ve got loads and loads and loads of cards which I used in my presentations.
HB: Oh right.
AP: So things like you’ve [pause] so this, this was taken by, this here is a picture. This here is a picture of my [pause] so the cards were like, the cards were like that.
HB: Oh yes. Yes. So says there [unclear] four. It was, yeah like a postcard thing. Wow. That’s a great thing to have.
AP: Yeah. There’s a picture here of, that’s Bushell.
HB: Yeah.
AP: And that’s my father in Hut 112 and that’s dad on the left hand side there with an RAF uniform and that was taken by [Halman Pieber?] who was a Germany officer who was keen on photography.
HB: Right.
AP: But I’ve got cards here.
HB: Yeah, probably at the end of the interview. We just need to go through one or two of those bits and pieces there to clarify. So your dad’s come back, been repatriated he’s checked in. He’s gone on leave. How long was he, how long did he stay in the RAF after the war?
AP: Only about a year because he joined the Civil Aviation Authority.
HB: Right.
AP: And he was one of five thousand people who was destined to go into an underground bunker had we, had we had nuclear war.
HB: Right. So he, so he took a role in this. In the Civil Aviation Authority.
AP: Correct.
HB: And was that, was that his career progressed?
AP: Correct. Yeah.
HB: To retirement.
AP: Yeah. Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
AP: Well, he actually wrote what I find a really really interesting article on National Air Traffic Control.
HB: Right.
AP: And I’ve still got a copy upstairs and he wanted to get it published and it was all about air traffic control from 1945 until 1955 but he sent it to a publisher and it was all about how it developed and how important it was and flying at different levels and all that sort of stuff. And he sent it to a publisher who said it’s not, it’s not of common interest so we won’t publish it. I have got, I had two copies. One the original, and one copies of the originals and I tracked down because I thought well who’s, who’s interested? I’ve still got all the information and I tracked down National Air Traffic Control in Fareham in Hampshire and they said they’d be very interested for their museum. So a chap came here. He signed for it. I made sure I’ve got copies but they, they use it. And so that was one thing that dad did.
HB: Yeah. That’s an important thing.
AP: Pardon?
HB: That’s an important thing. Yes.
AP: Well, I thought so but I didn’t I’ve still got identical copies so I was happy for it to go to that home.
HB: Yeah.
AP: What I wasn’t happy about was when Nicky or somebody at Bomber Command Museum said, ‘Could you send me all your papers?’ I was very reticent about that.
HB: Well, we’ll come on to that probably after the interview. I’ve got some advice for you. I’ve had a quick look into things and I’ve got some advice for you on that. Right. So we’ve brought your dad right up to date. Right. And it was interesting really early on when we started talking that you said about it wasn’t until much later in his life that your dad actually spoke to you about what had happened or bits and pieces. What was your sort of, what’s your sort of abiding sort of memory about how your dad felt about serving in Bomber Command?
AP: He was categoric and livid that Churchill had not given them any accolade after the Second World War. So the, the monument that’s down at Hyde Park was only, it’s only been there twelve years and the Bomber Command clasp I only got in 2013. I had to write for it. But after the Second World War Churchill did not give any accolade to Bomber Command and it was because of the bombing. Father thought it was because of the bombing of civilian populations — Cologne, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin that they didn’t get the accolade they deserved. But the point was that the Germans bombed civilian populations before we did. The first blitz was in November 1940 in Coventry. Fact. Which is where my parents, my grandparents were living at the time. Well, they continued to live there.
HB: Yeah. What —
AP: So he, yeah he, he was kind of resentful that they didn’t get the accolade they deserved and even now when I was, when I talk to people at the RAF Club or people who’d been in Bomber Command so Flight Lieutenant Colin Bell, he said, ‘Do you know one of our things —’ And this chap I interviewed Flight Lieutenant Clifford Storr at his nursing home in Banbury in October last year he said, ‘Do you know I did fifty trips as a navigator.’ And the reason I got the interview because he was, he flew Lancaster fifty trips and navigated. What was dad? Navigator. And he said, ‘We all resented the fact that Churchill didn’t give us the plaudits we felt we deserved.’
HB: Yeah. Yeah. That’s probably the note to terminate the interview.
AP: Ok.
HB: Thanks ever so much Alistair that that really has been interesting. Obviously very proud of your dad and rightly so. And rightly so.
AP: Well, it’s very interesting you should say that because when I I did the interview at the RAF Club on Thursday last week the, 38, 11:38 the chap who interviewed me was a chap called Air Commodore Dai Whittingham and he wrote to me saying he thought it was a really really passionate interview, talk. And he said, “It comes across loud and clear how proud you are of your father.” Which I am. And every time I talk about it and particularly poignant things like you know sitting in the navigator’s seat of the plane that he flew in thirty seven years previously is, is oh there you go there’s the Long March. Lindeiner. [pause – pages turning] That’s the guy who tricked my dad. He was —
HB: Oh right. Yes, the Romanian.
AP: Romanian. Yeah. That’s, that’s the tax demand.
HB: Well, we’ll go through these afterwards because as I say I’ve got some some bits and bobs to go through with you on that. Right —
AP: Anyway —
HB: So we’re terminating the interview at 11:40 and we’ll stop that now.
Collection
Citation
Harry Bartlett, “Interview with Alastair Price,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed May 16, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/49886.
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