A conversation with Guy Sharp

A conversation with Guy Sharp

Starts with short service history, pilot with IX and 70 Squadron and 29 OTU Wellington. Covers training the going to 9 Squadron at Honington in November 1940. Mentions messing up on first operation to Mannheim. make some comment on this tour including squadrons bombing of Venice when on squadron aircraft ran out of fuel and glided to land in a field at Pevensey. Mentions losing other crews and simulated use of mustard gas to train troops. Tells of trip out to Egypt via Malta losing one aircraft on the way with an army general VC as a passenger and all were taken prisoner. Says he did not do a full tour on 9 Squadron as they were then sent to 70 Squadron in Egypt. Comments that he did 54 operations without a holiday, 20 with 9 Squadron and the rest with 70 Squadron. Answers whether he had damage on any operations and relates one to Derna (Libya) when they were hit by machine gun bullets in the bomb bay leading to other damage. Also tells of flying low to machine gun convoys. Mentions doing two thousand bomber raids when he came back to England. Continues with chat about his tour as instructor on Wellingtons with 29 OTU. Carries on with chat about the different marks of Wellington. Concludes with detail of 9 Squadron operation to Venice where sortie was 11.20 hours and they ran out of fuel. Glided to landing but did b=not see ditch across field and wrote off undercarriage - no crew injured.

2013-02-12

Five page printed document

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.

SBondS-SharpGv10015